Fred Feldman's fascinating new book sets out to defend hedonism as a theory about the Good Life. He tries to show that, when carefully and charitably interpreted, certain forms of hedonism yield plausible evaluations of human lives. Feldman begins by explaining the question about the Good Life. As he understands it, the question is not about the morally good life or about the beneficial life. Rather, the question concerns the general features of the life that is good in itself (...) for the one who lives it. Hedonism says (roughly) that the Good Life is the pleasant life. After showing that received formulations of hedonism are often confused or incoherent, Feldman presents a simple, clear, coherent form of sensory hedonism that provides a starting point for discussion. He then presents a catalogue of classic objections to hedonism, coming from sources as diverse as Plato, Aristotle, Brentano, Ross, Moore, Rawls, Kagan, Nozick, Brandt, and others. One of Feldman's central themes is that there is an important distinction between the forms of hedonism that emphasize sensory pleasure and those that emphasize attitudinal pleasure. Feldman formulates several kinds of hedonism based on the idea that attitudinal pleasure is the Good. He claims that attitudinal forms of hedonism - which have often been ignored in the literature -- are worthy of more careful attention. Another main theme of the book is the plasticity of hedonism. Hedonism comes in many forms. Attitudinal hedonism is especially receptive to variations and modifications. Feldman illustrates this plasticity by formulating several variants of attitudinal hedonism and showing how they evade some of the objections. He also shows how it is possible to develop forms of hedonism that are equivalent to the allegedly anti-hedonistic theory of G. E. Moore and the Aristotelian theory according to which the Good Life is the life of virtue, or flourishing. He also formulates hedonisms relevantly like the ones defended by Aristippus and Mill. Feldman argues that a carefully developed form of attitudinal hedonism is not refuted by objections concerning 'the shape of a life'. He also defends the claim that all of the alleged forms of hedonism discussed in the book genuinely deserve to be called 'hedonism'. Finally, after dealing with the last of the objections, he gives a sketch of his hedonistic vision of the Good Life. (shrink)

Drawing on insights from social learning and social cognitive perspectives and research on the multilevel reality of leadership influences, we developed and tested a multilevel model that examines mechanisms and conditions through which ethical leadership deters work unit- and individual-level ostracism. Based on two field studies using multiple measurement points, we found that at the work unit level of analysis, relational climate partially mediates the negative relationship between ethical leadership and work unit-level ostracism whereas state mindfulness partially mediates the cross-level (...) influence of ethical leadership on individual-level ostracism. Contrary to our hypothesis, we found that the relationship between ethical leadership and relational climate was stronger when work units had a more mechanistic structure, and not when it had an organic work unit structure. Finally, we found that relational climate not only moderates the relationship between state mindfulness and individual-level ostracism, but also moderates the indirect influence of ethical leadership on individual-level ostracism through state mindfulness such that the indirect effect is stronger when relational climate is high as opposed to low. These findings highlight the individual- and work unit-level conditions and mechanisms through which ethical leadership relates to decreased ostracism at work, and thus extends theory and research on ethical leadership and ostracism. (shrink)

Everyone agrees that justice is a profoundly important value. People march and protest to demand it; more than a few have died in its pursuit. Yet when we stop to reflect on what makes for justice, or try to state in a clear way what we mean when we speak of justice, we may be perplexed. But if you are going to die in defense of some value, it is important for you to have a fairly clear conception of what (...) that value is. This book is an attempt to explain and defend, in clear and precise terms, a novel and controversial view about what makes for distributive justice in a country. The theory is a form of desertism, according to which justice reigns in a country when the government ensures that citizens receive the benefits and burdens they deserve. (shrink)

This book provides an introduction to measurement theory for non-specialists and puts measurement in the social and behavioural sciences on a firm mathematical foundation. Results are applied to such topics as measurement of utility, psychophysical scaling and decision-making about pollution, energy, transportation and health. The results and questions presented should be of interest to both students and practising mathematicians since the author sets forth an area of mathematics unfamiliar to most mathematicians, but which has many potentially significant applications.

Death has long been a pre-occupation of philosophers, and this is especially so today. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death collects 21 newly commissioned essays that cover current philosophical thinking of death-related topics across the entire range of the discipline. These include metaphysical topics--such as the nature of death, the possibility of an afterlife, the nature of persons, and how our thinking about time affects what we think about death--as well as axiological topics, such as whether death is bad (...) for its victim, what makes it bad to die, what attitude it is fitting to take towards death, the possibility of posthumous harm, and the desirability of immortality. The contributors also explore the views of ancient philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato and Epicurus on topics related to the philosophy of death, and questions in normative ethics, such as what makes killing wrong when it is wrong, and whether it is wrong to kill fetuses, non-human animals, combatants in war, and convicted murderers. With chapters written by a wide range of experts in metaphysics, ethics, and conceptual analysis, and designed to give the reader a comprehensive view of recent developments in the philosophical study of death, this Handbook will appeal to a broad audience in philosophy, particularly in ethics and metaphysics. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Tristan Haze offers two examples that, he claims, are counterexamples to Nozick's Theory of Knowledge. Haze claims his examples work against Nozick's theory understood as relativized to belief forming methods M. We believe that they fail to be counterexamples to Nozick's theory. Since he aims the examples at tracking theories generally, we will also explain why they are not counterexamples to Dretske's Conclusive Reasons Theory of Knowledge.

Critical Theory constitutes one of the major intellectual traditions of the twentieth century, and is centrally important for philosophy, political theory, aesthetics and theory of art, the study of modern European literatures and music, the history of ideas, sociology, psychology, and cultural studies. In this volume an international team of distinguished contributors examines the major figures in Critical Theory, including Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Benjamin, and Habermas, as well as lesser known but important thinkers such as Pollock and Neumann. The volume (...) surveys the shared philosophical concerns that have given impetus to Critical Theory throughout its history, while at the same time showing the diversity among its proponents that contributes so much to its richness as a philosophical school. The result is an illuminating overview of the entire history of Critical Theory in the twentieth century, an examination of its central conceptual concerns, and an in-depth discussion of its future prospects. (shrink)

The primary task confronting an examination of the claimed connection between Kant's general theory of cognition and his account of aesthetic judgment requires clarifying perhaps the most obscure component of that account, the doctrine of the harmony of the faculties. Kant's presentation of this doctrine makes it notoriously difficult to penetrate. Much of what Kant says about the harmony of the faculties – perhaps the very phrase “the harmony of the faculties” – is rather imprecise and metaphorical. Yet, the importance (...) of a correct understanding of the harmony of the faculties to assessing both the merits of Kant's aesthetic theory and his claims for the epistemological significance of reflection is difficult to overstate, for it is precisely this state of harmony that ultimately grounds the validity of judgments of taste and does so in virtue of being a state in which the most general prerequisites to conceptual judgment are present. (shrink)

By contributing a few hundred dollars to a charity like UNICEF, a prosperous person can ensure that fewer poor children die, and that more will live reasonably long, worthwhile lives. Even when knowing this, however, most people send nothing, and almost all of the rest send little. What is the moral status of this behavior? To such common cases of letting die, our untutored response is that, while it is not very good, neither is the conduct wrong. What is the (...) source of this lenient assessment? In this contentious new book, one of our leading philosophers argues that our intuitions about ethical cases are generated not by basic moral values, but by certain distracting psychological dispositions that all too often prevent us from reacting in accord with our commitments. Through a detailed look at how these tendencies operate, Unger shows that, on the good morality that we already accept, the fatally unhelpful behavior is monstrously wrong. By uncovering the eminently sensible ethics that we've already embraced fully, and by confronting us with empirical facts and with easily followed instructions for lessening serious suffering appropriately and effectively, Unger's book points the way to a compassionate new moral philosophy. (shrink)

In “Beat the (Backward) Clock,” we argued that John Williams and Neil Sinhababu’s Backward Clock Case fails to be a counterexample to Robert Nozick’s or Fred Dretske’s Theories of Knowledge. Williams’ reply to our paper, “There’s Nothing to Beat a Backward Clock: A Rejoinder to Adams, Barker and Clarke,” is a further attempt to defend their counterexample against a range of objections. In this paper, we argue that, despite the number and length of footnotes, Williams is still wrong.

The modern theory of computability is based on the works of Church, Markov and Turing who, starting from quite different models of computation, arrived at the same class of computable functions. The purpose of this paper is the show how the main results of the Church-Markov-Turing theory of computable functions may quickly be derived and understood without recourse to the largely irrelevant theories of recursive functions, Markov algorithms, or Turing machines. We do this by ignoring the problem of what constitutes (...) a computable function and concentrating on the central feature of the Church-Markov-Turing theory: that the set of computable partial functions can be effectively enumerated. In this manner we are led directly to the heart of the theory of computability without having to fuss about what a computable function is.The spirit of this approach is similar to that of [RGRS]. A major difference is that we operate in the context of constructive mathematics in the sense of Bishop [BSH1], so all functions are computable by definition, and the phrase “you can find” implies “by a finite calculation.” In particular ifPis some property, then the statement “for eachmthere isnsuch thatP” means that we can construct a functionθsuch thatP)for allm. Church's thesis has a different flavor in an environment like this where the notion of a computable function is primitive.One point of such a treatment of Church's thesis is to make available to Bishopstyle constructivists the Markovian counterexamples of Russian constructivism and recursive function theory. The lack of serious candidates for computable functions other than recursive functions makes it quite implausible that a Bishopstyle constructivist could refute Church's thesis, or any consequence of Church's thesis. Hence counterexamples such as Specker's bounded increasing sequence of rational numbers that is eventually bounded away from any given real number [SPEC] may be used, as Brouwerian counterexamples are, as evidence of the unprovability of certain assertions. (shrink)

Gleason's theorem for ������³ says that if f is a nonnegative function on the unit sphere with the property that f(x) + f(y) + f(z) is a fixed constant for each triple x, y, z of mutually orthogonal unit vectors, then f is a quadratic form. We examine the issues raised by discussions in this journal regarding the possibility of a constructive proof of Gleason's theorem in light of the recent publication of such a proof.

We consider notions of boundedness of subsets of the natural numbers ℕ that occur when doing mathematics in the context of intuitionistic logic. We obtain a new characterization of the notion of a pseudobounded subset and we formulate the closely related notion of a detachably finite subset. We establish metric equivalents for a subset of ℕ to be detachably finite and to satisfy the ascending chain condition. Following Ishihara, we spell out the relationship between detachable finiteness and sequential continuity. Most (...) of the results do not require countable choice. (shrink)

Cet article propose une sélection de bonnes feuilles du livre de 2013 The Undercommons, actuellement en voie de traduction pour une publication française en 2021. Y sont abordés les thèmes de la politique « encerclée » ( surrounded ), de la gouvernance, du planning et de la policy, de la logistique, ainsi que de ce qui fait de l’étude consacrée aux undercommons une philosophie du toucher.

Designed for courses in environmental ethics, this reader is also an attractive supplement to contemporary moral issues or any applied ethics courses. It features readings in environmental ethics, including Paul Taylor's seminal essay The Ethics of Respect for Nature and works by Vice Preseident Al Gore, Jr. and J. Baird Callicott. Features: * Includes only readings of highest quality, chosen to be accessible to students who do not have an extensive knowledge of philosophy. * Exposes students to all major areas (...) of environmental ethics, including wilderness, pollution and animals. * Ideal length is appropriate as a core text or supplement to a variety of contemporary ethics courses. * Extensive bibliography provides a unique resource for research materials in this growing field. * Essays contain philosohical arguments as well as critique. * Presents an agenda of protection and stewardship that involves students in the management of our planets ecosystem. (shrink)

Taking up the significance of Neda Agha-Soltan’s death in an Iranian street protest and novelist Zadie Smith’s analysis of President Obama, I offer an account of society as a “multivoiced body.” This body consists of “voices” that at once separate and bind themselves together through their continuous and creative interplay. Viewing society in this manner implies the simultaneous valorization of solidarity, diversity, and the creation of new voices as well as the kind of “hearing others” that makes these three political (...) virtues possible. It also encourages resistance to the always present countertendency of raising a particular voice to the level of the “one true God,” “pure race,” “Capital,” or any other “oracle” that eliminates the dynamism of contesting voices. (shrink)

Clifford Geertz was perhaps the most influential anthropologist of our time, but his influence extended far beyond his field to encompass all facets of contemporary life. Nowhere were his gifts for directness, humor, and steady revelation more evident than in the pages of the New York Review of Books, where for nearly four decades he shared his acute vision of the world in all its peculiarity. This book brings together the finest of Geertz's review essays from the New York Review (...) along with a representative selection of later pieces written at the height of his powers, some that first appeared in periodicals such as Dissent, others never before published. This collection exemplifies Geertz's extraordinary range of concerns, beginning with his first essay for the Review in 1967, in which he reviews, with muffled hilarity, the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. This book includes Geertz's unflinching meditations on Western academia's encounters with the non-Western world, and on the shifting and clashing places of societies in the world generally. Geertz writes eloquently and arrestingly about such major figures as Gandhi, Foucault, and Genet, and on topics as varied as Islam, globalization, feminism, and the failings of nationalism. Life among the Anthros and Other Essays demonstrates Geertz's uncommon wisdom and consistently keen and hopeful humor, confirming his status as one of our most important and enduring public intellectuals. (shrink)

This article presents a case study of how one school introduced a one-credit course for philosophy majors focused on effective searching for and critical evaluation of primary and secondary sources. The course curriculum is based on departmental learning outcomes, and is also aligned with the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) standards.

This article explores issues in the evaluation of research through an examination of the situation in the field of international development. It is increasingly recognized that traditional evaluation, which served largely a policing function, is not useful in assessing the impact of the development research process. It is argued that the role and perception of evaluation must change if it is to provide a reflection of the learning which takes place in research. The field of international development research provides a (...) rich ground in which to explore the argument. The field is subject to the difficulties of evaluating research and to the difficulties of evaluating development—in both cases, we are dealing with long time frames and the influence of many factors other than the activity itself. If evaluation is to serve a learning function, then the shift must be to a purpose ofempowerment. This article explores the changes which are implicit in such a shift through an examination of three key areas: changing perspectives on evaluation; changing patterns in development; and changing patterns in research for development. (shrink)

The authors explore the heuristic implications of chaos theory for the study of the process of communicating. Chaos theory's application to the study of communication is delineated from a socio?cultural perspective. The basic tenants of chaos theory are outlined and some of the parallels between chaos theory, as developed for the physical sciences, and the process of communicating are described. Theoretical foundations for a chaos theory of communicating are laid, and suggestions are made for future evolution and testing of these (...) foundations. (shrink)