Ignorance is trending. Politicians boast, "I'm not a scientist." Angry citizens object to a proposed state motto because it is in Latin, and "This is America, not Mexico or Latin America." Lack of experience, not expertise, becomes a credential. Fake news and repeated falsehoods are accepted and shape firm belief. Ignorance about American government and history is so alarming that the ideal of an informed citizenry now seems quaint. Conspiracy theories and false knowledge thrive. This may be the Information Age, (...) but we do not seem to be well informed. In this book, philosopher Daniel DeNicola explores ignorance -- its abundance, its endurance, and its consequences. (shrink)

_Moral Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction_ is a compact yet comprehensive book offering an explication and critique of the major theories that have shaped philosophical ethics. Engaging with both historical and contemporary figures, this book explores the scope, limits, and requirements of morality. DeNicola traces our various attempts to ground morality: in nature, in religion, in culture, in social contracts, and in aspects of the human person such as reason, emotions, caring, and intuition.

This lively anthology provides classic and contemporary defenses and critiques of the central ethical theories, along with readings on a selection of moral issues such as freedom of expression, immigration, and the treatment of non-human animals. Generous excerpts of canonical texts are included alongside contemporary works, all carefully selected and thoughtfully edited for student use. Readings on the ethical theories are organized intuitively, by implicit source of value: god, human nature, culture, reason, consent, character, emotion, care, particulars, and intuitions. The (...) interconnections among readings amplify teaching possibilities and create a vigorous conversation about morality. (shrink)

This commentary on Martin Eger's “A Tale of Two Controversies” focuses on three criticisms: first, the shifting status of the claims of creationism in the article; second, new developments in moral philosophy which run counter to Eger's discussion; and third, the inadequate treatment of pedagogical and curricular principles.

pt. 1. Toward a theory of liberal education. Mixed messages and false starts -- Liberal education and human flourishing -- pt. 2. Paradigms of liberal education. Transmission of culture -- Self-actualization -- Understanding the world -- Engagement with the world -- The skills of learning -- pt. 3. The values and moral aims of liberal education. Core values of liberal education -- Intrinsic value -- Educating a good person -- pt. 4. Obstacles, threats and prospects. Persistent concerns -- Newfound threats (...) -- Promise and prospects. (shrink)

George Herbert Mead has long been known for his social theory of meaning and the 'self' - an approach which becomes all the more relevant in light of the ways we develop and represent ourselves online. But recent scholarship has shown that Mead's pragmatic philosophy can help us understand a much wider range of contemporary issues including how humans and natural environments mutually influence one another, how deliberative democracy can and should work, how thinking is dependent upon the body and (...) on others, and how social changes in the present affect our understandings of the past. Historical scholarship has also changed what we know of Mead's life, including new emphasis on his social reform efforts, his engagement with colonization and war, and critical reinterpretation of the works published after his death. This book provides an approachable introduction to Mead's contemporary relevance in the social sciences, showing how a pragmatic view of social action serves as the core of Mead's theory, offering striking insights into human agency, symbolism, politics, social change, temporality, and materiality. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and the social sciences more broadly, with interests in social theory and the enduring importance of the sociological classics. (shrink)

Abstract Though it has been claimed that Frege's commitment to expressions in indirect contexts not having their customary senses commits him to an infinite number of semantic primitives, Terrence Parsons has argued that Frege's explicit commitments are compatible with a two-level theory of senses. In this paper, we argue Frege is committed to some principles Parsons has overlooked, and, from these and other principles to which Frege is committed, give a proof that he is indeed committed to an infinite number (...) of semantic primitives?an intolerable result. (shrink)

Public philosophy distinguishes itself from other philosophical undertakings by either addressing public problems, i.e. those with broad social consequence, or doing the work of philosophy in a public setting beyond the confines of a purely academic environment. The ironic and darkly absurd character of the defining features of civilization and progress – realities Indigenous Peoples have confronted with devastating consequences for centuries – is the way in which both generate tremendous unhappiness and destruction. The living historical character of our cultures (...) is captured in the power plus place equals personality axiom that Deloria formulated. The modus operandi of Indigenous solutions not only addresses the “know‐how” but the moral “should we” dimensions of proposed solutions. Most of humankind talks about resources because the worldview guiding the powerful economic and political interests thinks in those terms about our relatives. (shrink)

How important is atheism for Jewish history and Jews for the history of atheism? Modern Jewish histories have tended to focus on Jewish secularization rather than atheism, and historical surveys of atheism in the West have tended to neglect the Jewish experience which is subsumed in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is possible to make the case that the secularization narrative privileges social change over Jewish intellectual engagement with non-belief, and that just as Jewish and Christian conceptions of theism differ, so (...) do their atheisms. Jewish historical attitudes towards atheism are complicated and have shifted over time. Here, skeptical tendencies, that is, attitudes and ideas that would be associated later with atheism, will be considered alongside claims about atheism per se. (shrink)

The fundamental postulate of sociobiology is that individuals exploit favorable environments to increase their genetic representation in the next generation. The data on fertility differentials among contemporary humans are not cotvietent with this postulate. Given the importance ofHomo sapiensas an animal species in the natural world today, these data constitute particularly challenging and interesting problem for both human sociobiology and sociobiology as a whole.The first part of this paper reviews the evidence showing an inverse relationship between reproductive fitness and “endowment” (...) in contemporary, urbanized societies. It is shown that a positive relationship is observed only for those cohorts who bore their children during a unique period of rising fertility, 1935–1960, and that these cohorts are most often cited by sociobiologists as supporting the central postulate of sociobiology. Cohorts preceding and following these show the characteristic inverse relationship between endowment and fertility. The second section reviews the existing so-ciobiological models of this inverse relationship, namely, those of Barkow, Burley, and Irons, as well as more informal responses among sociobiologists to the persistent violation of sociobiology's central postulate, such as those of Alexander and Dawkins. The third section asks whether the goals of sociobiology, given the violation of its fundamental postulate by contemporary human societies, might not be better thought of as applied rather than descriptive, with respect to these societies. A proper answer to this question begins with the measurement of the pace and direction of natural selection within modern human populations, as compared to other sources of change. The vast preponderance of the shifts in human trait distributions, including the IQ distribution, appears to be due to environmental rather than genetic change. However, there remains the question of just how elastic these distributions are in the absence of reinforcing genetic change. (shrink)

Whether Nietzsche’s genealogical critique of morality is best understood as an internal or as an external critique remains a matter of controversy. On the internalist interpretation (Ridley, Owen, Merrick ), the genealogical enterprise takes as its starting point the perspective being criticized, gradually revealing it to be untenable ‘from within.’ On the externalist interpretation (Leiter, and arguably Geuss, Williams, and Janaway ), this constraint is lifted; the starting point of the critique need not be the perspective being criticized, but may (...) be that of someone who already suspects the latter to be untenable. According to a common objection to ‘external critique’ interpretations, the limited-scope objection, since an external critique to a value-system could only work on an audience whose members were predisposed to abandon that system of values, ‘external critique’ interpretations impose a severe limitation on the transformative potential of Nietzsche’s project. ‘Internal critique’ interpretations, by contrast, can seem hard to reconcile with the polemical character of On the Genealogy of Morality (which lends the book its subtitle, Eine Streitschrift) and with Nietzsche’s frequent remarks to the effect his works were addressing a particular, ‘higher,’ kind of individual. -/- The overarching goal in this paper is to call into question the usefulness of the ‘internal-external’ or ‘immanent-transcendent’ dichotomy for understanding Nietzsche’s genealogical critique. I argue that the apparent usefulness of the distinction between external and internal critiques when approaching Nietzsche’s works rests on the assumption that any critique of values must itself be grounded on values that function as evaluative-critical standards. If the assumption is right, then one of two things, either the values that are deployed as standards coincide with those that are the target of critique, in which case the critique is internal, or they are not (etc.). Thus the assumption is liable to render us forgetful of a third possibility, that of a critical strategy that does not work by deploying (internal or external) values as standards of critical assessment, but by revealing something about the nature of value, and more precisely about the origin of any individual’s commitments to their values. -/- On the view that I defend, one of the crucial steps of Nietzsche’s genealogical method is to bring his reader to realize that any individual’s commitment to their values is expressive of and rooted in their commitment to preserve their way of life. Realizing this does not require that the reader abandon their own values. But it does require that they acknowledge that were they committed to a relevantly different way of life, they would subscribe to different values. And this, in turn, suffices to bring about a transformation in their understanding of and relationship to those commitments through the further realization that it is ultimately always up to them to undertake the project of taking distance from and ‘re-evaluating’ those values. (shrink)

Hybrid metaethical theories attempt to incorporate essential elements of expressivism and cognitivism, and thereby to accrue the benefits of both. Hybrid theories are often defended in part by appeals to slurs and other pejoratives, which have both expressive and cognitivist features. This paper takes far more seriously the analogy between pejoratives and moral predicates. It explains how pejoratives work, identifies the features that allow pejoratives to do that work, and models a theory of moral predicates on those features. The result (...) is an expressivist theory that, among other advantages, is immune to embedding difficulties and avoids an overlooked difficulty concerning attitude ascriptions that is lethal to most other hybrid theories. (shrink)

Hybrid metaethical theories attempt to incorporate essential elements of expressivism and cognitivism, and thereby to accrue the benefits of both. Hybrid theories are often defended in part by appeals to slurs and other pejoratives, which have both expressive and cognitivist features. This paper takes far more seriously the analogy between pejoratives and moral predicates. It explains how pejoratives work, identifies the features that allow pejoratives to do that work, and models a theory of moral predicates on those features. The result (...) is an expressivist theory that, among other advantages, is immune to embedding difficulties and avoids an overlooked difficulty concerning attitude ascriptions that is lethal to most other hybrid theories. (shrink)

I offer a close reading of the first part of Sartre's The Transcendence of the Ego, arguing that contrary to widely held interpretation, one of Sartre's main goals in that text is to defend the view that consciousness does not necessitate self-awareness, that not all conscious states need be, ipso facto, states of self-awareness. In addition, I explain that this view about the conceptual relationship between consciousness and self-awareness has important methodological implications. One of the standard strategies for accounting for (...) the possibility of the type of capacity to have I* thoughts and attitudes is based on the assumption that being conscious necessarily entails being self-aware in at least a minimal sense, and then proceeds to explain how it I*-thoughts and attitudes are possible on the basis of those minimal states of self-awareness. Yet if Sartre's account of self-awareness is so much as plausible, this kind of strategy is bound to be incomplete. By helping itself to a notion of minimal self-awareness that is purportedly constitutive of consciousness, it fails to account for what is, by its own lights, the most fundamental form of self-awareness. (shrink)

In short, he is known in a discipline in which he did not teach for a book he did not write. In Becoming Mead, Daniel R. Huebner traces the ways in which knowledge has been produced by and about the famed American philosopher.

This article introduces the perspectivist interpretation of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality, characterized by two core theses. According to the results thesis, the three treatises of GM introduce three types of critical results, respectively: psychological claims about the value of morality for the interests of various character types; physiological claims about its value for the ‘progress of the species’; and medical claims about its value for health. According to the distinction thesis, the critical results of GM are descriptive, while (...) their reader-specific implications are normative. This interpretation illuminates the genealogical method of GM by answering four fundamental questions about its historical method, the history of morality that it reveals, the critical results of GM, and their intended therapeutic effects. Challenging the widespread assumption that the critical results of GM are evaluative claims, the perspectivist interpretation reveals the novelty of Nietzsche’s “new demand” for a critique of values not only relative to his predecessors’ approach to critique, but also to his own previous works. GM offers a critique that is grounded on factual claims, at once extramoral and external to morality, and internal to its readers’ evaluative perspectives, even those who remain beholden to moral values. Consequently, its authority and therapeutic efficacy are not threatened by discrepancies between it and its readers’ affective-evaluative preferences. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I. II. III. IV. V. VI.

In all facets of our lives, humans construct meaning to understand their place in the world and their relationships to one another and to broader environments. Within this semantic web, words, stor...

From Nietzsche's early writings to those marking the end of his intellectual life, the dynamics of what he called "physiology" permeate virtually every facet of his philosophical enterprise. In the following investigation, these dynamics are explored as an interpretive key to not only the dominant themes but also the philosophical motive underlying Nietzsche's philosophy. This motive is described in terms of his diagnosis and attempted cure for the disease of nihilism. In this we maintain that Nietzsche's foremost philosophical task is (...) that of a cultural physician. ;In pursuit of this theme, Nietzsche's "clinical standpoint" is explored and applied with regard to Socrates and Jesus Christ as two case studies in decadence. These two "cases" are a simultaneous physiological investigation into both the ancient Greek and Hebrew cultures. ;This investigation concludes with a detailed analysis of the physiological significance of the Revaluation of all Values, Eternal Recurrence, the Overman and Dionysus as integral to curing the sickness of nihilism. (shrink)

Distinguished contributors take up eminent scholar Daniel R. Schwarz’s reading of modern fiction and poetry as mediating between human desire and human action. The essayists follow Schwarz’s advice, “always the text, always historicize,” thus making this book relevant to current debates about the relationships between literature, ethics, aesthetics, and historical contexts.

Deaths of Despair (DoD), or mortality resulting from suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol-related liver disease, have been rising steadily in the United States over the last several decades. In 2020, a record 186,763 annual despair-related deaths were documented, contributing to the longest sustained decline in US life expectancy since 1915–1918. This forum feature considers how health humanities disciplines might fruitfully engage with this era-defining public health catastrophe and help society better understand and respond to the crisis.

A new proof of the impossibility of a universal quantum-classical dynamics is given. It has at least two consequences. The standard paradigm “quantum system is measured by a classical apparatus” is untenable, while a quantum matter can be consistently coupled only with a quantum gravity.

Corporate Strategy has emerged as a central metaphor for private-sector enterprise. Given inherent imperfections in markets, one important question to consider is how well the practice of Corporate Strategy contributes to social welfare. An account of the implicit morality of free markets is developed as a standard against which two particular, second best solutions to market imperfections — namely, American federal antitrust policy and Corporate Strategy — are compared. Corporate Strategy is subsequently evaluated in terms of the fundamental principles of (...) Rawls' theory of justice. In both analyses, Corporate Strategy is found to depart significantly and systematically from the standards of social justice. An alternative principle, grounded in the concept of duty, is introduced as a means for reconceptualizing Corporate Strategy. (shrink)

This is the first modern book to describe Francis Bacon's jurisprudence. He has long been famous as a scientist, philosopher, politician and literary giant, but his career as one of England's greatest lawyers and jurists has been largely overlooked. Bacon's major contribution to Anglo-American jurisprudence is presented in such a way as to be suitable to specialists and non-specialists alike. The purpose is to restore Bacon to his rightful place as England's first true critical and analytical jurist, and to describe (...) how his legal thought related to his other great intellectual achievements. (shrink)

Limited strikes are arguably different from war insofar as they are more circumscribed, less destructive, and cost less in blood and treasure to employ. However, what they can achieve is also considerably more circumscribed than what is set out by the goals of war. How do we morally evaluate limited strikes? As part of the roundtable, “The Ethics of Limited Strikes,” this essay argues that we need to turn to the ethics of limited of force, orjus ad vim, to do (...) so. Two moral assumptions that are the keystone tojus ad vimcan shed light on the moral imperatives and ethical dilemmas of undertaking limited strikes. First, such strikes should be seen as an alternative to war, and not part of thejus ad bellumlast resort process. What I call the “Rubicon assessment” determines at what level force should be used: at the level of war, with all its costs and unpredictability, or at that of the more predictable and less costly limited force. Second, limited strikes should adhere to a “presumption against escalation”; that is, a moral commitment not to escalate to war. This essay highlights these moral principles in five different limited strike scenarios: “hot pursuit,” “red line,” “the last straw,” “the point of no return,” and “the right of retaliation.” The conclusion explores the notion of justice after limited strikes, or what I calljus post vim, to show that while what can be accomplished by limited strikes is inherently constrained, they can, if used morally and in tune with diplomacy, be of service in the quest for peace. (shrink)

Why has comedy become one of our most abiding ethical preoccupations as well as a dominant mode of political critique? It is suggested that comedy appeals to contemporary persons because it provides an apt social-aesthetic form through which to face up to living with others at a time when it is hard to bear others or otherness. The article outlines an ethics of modern individuality by developing a theory of comedy as more about building social bonds and finding out what (...) could be shared knowledge and experience than the toppling of dominant modes of thought or repudiating our mutuality with others. Drawing on Georg Simmel’s ‘The Law of the Individual’, the article develops a Simmelian reading of Freud’s Jokes to argue that comedy is one solution to resolving our mutual un-alikeness by way of forging knotted paths toward recognising how we could be alike. (shrink)

Given the difficulty of characterizing the quandary introduced in Hume’s Appendix to the Treatise, coupled with the alleged “underdetermination” of the text, it is striking how few commentators have considered whether Hume addresses and/or redresses the problem after 1740—in the first Enquiry, for example. This is not only unfortunate, but ironic; for, in the Appendix, Hume mentions that more mature reasonings may reconcile whatever contradiction(s) he has in mind. I argue that Hume’s 1746 letter to Lord Kames foreshadows a subtle, (...) but significant, shift in Hume’s reasonings regarding the relevance of “real connexions”; that the Enquiry of 1748 provides evidence for this shift; and that this shift obviates Hume’s second thoughts by reconciling the contradiction that he had in mind. In short, Hume’s letter to Kames and Enquiry supply the retrodictive keys to a systematically satisfactory account. (shrink)

Epidemiology is a science of disease which specifies rates (illness prevalences, incidences, distributions, etc.). Evolution is a science of life which specifies changes (gene frequencies, generations, forms, function, etc.). Evolutionary Epidemiology is a synthesis of these two sciences which combines the empirical power of classical methods in genetical epidemiology with the interpretive capacities of neo-darwinian evolutionary genetics. In particular, prevalence rates of genetical diseases are important data points when reformulated for the purpose of analysis in terms of their evolutionary frequencies. (...) Traits which exceedprevalences beyond the rates of mutation (in Hardy-Weinberg calculations) or evidence unusualrange of phenotypic reaction are of special interest. This is because traits which did not confer advantages in the environment of evolutionary adaptation cannot accede, through natural selection, to anything but low rates of genomic prevalence.Evolutionary epidemiology is, in all of medicine, of particular promise in ongoing efforts to better understand psychopathology. Many complexities of phenotypic adjustment arise when new developmental demands are placed on an old genome. The new and complex biosocial ecology of human mass society now evokes different phenotypes than those in the prehistorical ecology to which the genome is structurally and functionally better adapted. Some of these new phenotypes are darwinian failures. In this paper, the theoretical implications of evolutionary epidemiology are extended and some tentative points of clinical application (particularly to psychiatry) are offered. (shrink)