One seldom-noted consequence of most recent arguments for “animal rights” or against “speciesism” is their inability to provide a justification for differential treatment on the basis of species membership, even in cases of rare or endangered species. I defend the claim that arguments about the moral status of individual animals inadequately deal with this issue, and go on, with the help of several test cases, to reject three traditional analyses of our alleged obligation to protect endangered species. I conclude (a) (...) that these traditional analyses fail, (b) that there is an important conceptual confusion in any attempt to ascribe value to a species, and (c) that our obligation must ultimately rest on the value---often aesthetic-of individual members of certain species. (shrink)

One seldom-noted consequence of most recent arguments for “animal rights” or against “speciesism” is their inability to provide a justification for differential treatment on the basis of species membership, even in cases of rare or endangered species. I defend the claim that arguments about the moral status of individual animals inadequately deal with this issue, and go on, with the help of several test cases, to reject three traditional analyses of our alleged obligation to protect endangered species. I conclude that (...) these traditional analyses fail, that there is an important conceptual confusion in any attempt to ascribe value to a species, and that our obligation must ultimately rest on the value---often aesthetic-of individual members of certain species. (shrink)

Some ecologists and philosophers have tried to develop a concept of ecosystem health that would support a more 'objective' means of evaluating an ecosystem. I argue (following Dale Jamieson) that the concept of health is itself too subjective to justify such an attempt, and then suggest that part of the problem is that the goal of achieving greater objectivity is itself unclear. I analyse and evaluate three different ways of drawing the distinction between subjective and objective evaluations as a first (...) step towards clarifying that goal. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: The Code of Codes: Scientific and Social Issues in the Human Genome Project. Edited by Daniel J. Kevles and LeRoy Hood. Wonderwoman and Superman: The Ethics of Human Biotechnology. By John Harris.

Book reviewed in this article: The Code of Codes: Scientific and Social Issues in the Human Genome Project. Edited by Daniel J. Kevles and LeRoy Hood. Wonderwoman and Superman: The Ethics of Human Biotechnology. By John Harris.

This article tries to provide an overview of work on imagination in the last twenty years. The discussion section examines such areas as arguments for and against mental images, The problem of reference in imagination, And theories of imagination such as those formulated by dennett, Hannay, Scruton, And others; I also outline some related questions (e.G., Imaginability) which seem closely tied to questions about imagination itself. There is also an extensive bibliography concentrating on works which appeared between 1957 and 1977.

In an article entitled ?The Ontological Status of Mental Images?, Robert Audi rejects the view presented in Hannay's Mental Images: A Defence, and proposes ?the property account of imaging? as an alternative. Some of the strengths and weaknesses of Audi's proposal are discussed, and a more detailed and specific version of the property account offered; it is suggested that imaging ? should be described as entertaining the thought that if one were looking at (or smelling, touching, hearing, etc.) x, things (...) would appear ? (shrink)

In an article entitled ?The Ontological Status of Mental Images?, Robert Audi rejects the view presented in Hannay's Mental Images: A Defence, and proposes ?the property account of imaging? as an alternative. Some of the strengths and weaknesses of Audi's proposal are discussed, and a more detailed and specific version of the property account offered; it is suggested that imaging ? should be described as entertaining the thought that if one were looking at (or smelling, touching, hearing, etc.) x, things (...) would appear ? (shrink)

I argue that, while merleau-ponty succeeds in justifying the claim that certain human intentional states essentially involve an embodied subject, one cannot justifiably assert the further claim that this sort of bodily intentionality involves a radically different account of what makes the state intentional. contrary to some currently popular interpretations, i argue that merleau-ponty's account of bodily intentionality requires the use of concepts and representations.

The quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC) is important for children’s development. One instrument that was developed to assess an aspect of ECEC quality is the Classroom Assessment Scoring System for pre-kindergarten children (CLASS Pre-K). We examined the factorial validity of the instrument using data from 177 German preschool classrooms. The three-factor teaching through interaction model (Hamre et al., 2013) was contrasted to a one-factor, a two-factor, and a bifactor model as proposed by Hamre et al. (2014). Our (...) results indicated that the three-factor structure with the domains of emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support fit the data best. The fit of the teaching through interaction model was satisfying after adding a cross-loading of the dimension language modeling on emotional support, and two correlated residuals. Evidence of convergent and discriminant validity are provided. In terms of factor structure and pattern score comparisons, the results were similar to previous U.S. and German studies. The discussion concerns the justifiability of the factor model revisions and draws directions for further research. We concluded that our study offers further evidence of the applicability of the CLASS Pre-K for the assessment of teacher-child interaction quality in the German context. (shrink)

This paper is a reply to Lilly-Marlene Russow's paper "What do animals care about?" It articulates several skeptical concerns about how even someone with over a decade of experience closely observing the behavior of cats can ascertain with confidence what specific cats in specific circumstances care about and desire.

In this article I consider six definitions of deceiving (that is, other-deceiving, as opposed to self-deceiving) from Lily-Marlene Russow, Sissela Bok, OED/Webster's dictionary, Leonard Linsky, Roderick Chisholm and Thomas Feehan, and Gary Fuller, and reject them all, in favor of a modified version of a rejected definition (Fuller). I also defend this definition from a possible objection from Annette Barnes. According to this new definition, deceiving is necessarily intentional, requires that the deceived person acquires or continues to have (...) a false belief, and must involve the agency of the deceived person; furthermore, the deceiver must know or truly believe that the false belief that the deceived person acquires or continues to have is false. (shrink)

William Lillie. G.'E. Moore: Principia Ethica. Sir David Ross: The Right and the Good. The Foundations of Ethics. C. L. Stevenson: Ethics and Language. R. M. Hare: The Language of Morals In the following list, which makes no claim to ...

Bergson définit le temps par la succession, qui est création de nouveauté. Mais il prend des exemples qui relèvent non de la succession mais de la simultanéité, garante d’une autre différence, entre deux choses qui coexistent en même temps, c’est-à-dire l’individualité. Dans Le Rire, on trouve en outre un type de comique qui joue sur la duplication simultanée du même. Ces cas de comique engagent la différence entre la simultanéité naturelle d’individus différents et la simultanéité artificielle d’êtres identiques. Si la (...) simultanéité mécanique du même fait rire, c’est bien que la simultanéité naturelle fonde les différences. Cet oubli de Bergson est d’autant plus surprenant que sa conception du temps repose sur une critique de celle de Kant, lequel avait précisément inclus la simultanéité dans le temps comme un de ses modes ; garant du « divers simultané ». Finalement, Bergson est contraint par sa controverse avec Einstein à réintégrer la simultanéité dans le temps. (shrink)