This is probably an overly ambitious Syllabus for a ten week seminar. I regard the early part of the Syllabus (roughly, §§1-9) as pretty fixed. We may have to choose among the later topics (§§10- 12), and I welcome student input on these decisions. Required readings are preceded by `(A)`; recommended readings are preceded by `(B)`. Full references are available on the Select Bibliography. Most of the required readings come from the required texts. Required readings not found in the required (...) texts, and some recommended readings, can be found on Electronic Reserves. If you have trouble locating any of the recommended readings, let me know; I can try to help. (shrink)

De uitvoerige reactie van Sarot en Van den Brink waarin ze hun ‘Utrechtse’ positie in de wijsgerige theologie verduidelijken en verdedigen tegenover mijn vragen en scepsis, zou een uitvoerige beantwoording verdienen, uitvoeriger en grondiger dan het mij op deze plaats mogelijk is. Ik zal, ten eerste, ingaan op de kwestie van het realisme en, ten tweede, op het verwijt van ‘agnosticisme’ aan mijn adres.

De uitvoerige reactie van Sarot en Van den Brink waarin ze hun ‘Utrechtse’ positie in de wijsgerige theologie verduidelijken en verdedigen tegenover mijn vragen en scepsis, zou een uitvoerige beantwoording verdienen, uitvoeriger en grondiger dan het mij op deze plaats mogelijk is. Ik zal, ten eerste, ingaan op de kwestie van het realisme en, ten tweede, op het verwijt van ‘agnosticisme’ aan mijn adres.

Ukraine faces a threat of full-fledged default and deep financial and political crisis. The current deep recession is the country's second major economic crisis in ten years. Ukraine was severely affected by the global financial crisis in 2008, with its economy shrinking by 15% in 2009. The economy remained weak in the aftermath, as former government caused the business climate worsening. The lack of reforms limited growth of GDP to just 0.3% in 2012 and remained static in 2013. By the (...) end of 2013, Ukraine was already on the brink of collapse. The conflict in the eastern part of the country has further exacerbated the recession. Today the sources of economic growth in Ukraine have been exhausted, and the country is strongly increasing its debts trying to attract foreign investment. The government’s reform efforts have so far failed to significantly improve the country’s business climate. Ukraine is ranked 83rd out of 189 countries in the latest World Bank's ‘Doing Business’ 2016 index. This score is the second worst in Europe. Ukraine is still considered the most corrupt country in Europe as well. The persistent state of war has disrupted industrial production, which is mainly located in the eastern part. The article elucidates recent events in Ukraine as well as gives a brief historical overview. The influence of misleading governance of economic situation is revealed. The positive scenario, in which Ukraine overcomes default, is unlikely to happen unless the firm measures are to be taken. (shrink)

The Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania was enacted on 4 June 2002. However, the practice of ten years has shown that even the systematisation of this branch of law by means of codification could not help avoiding gaps in labour law. The Lithuanian labour law system balances on the brink of flexibility, liberalisation and stability. The purpose of this article is to examine the legal side of this problem and to evaluate the quality of legal regulation of (...) labour relations, also to propose instruments and means to improve them. The main aim of the article is to show the difference between gaps in labour law and some similar (contiguous) legal phenomena that will also be discussed in the article. (shrink)

Consequentialism is often criticized for failing to accommodate impersonal constraints and personal options. A common consequentialist response is to acknowledge the anticonsequentialist intuitions but to argue either that the consequentialist can, after all, accommodate the allegedly recalcitrant intuitions or that, where accommodation is impossible, the recalcitrant intuition can be dismissed for want of an adequate philosophical rationale. Whereas these consequentialist responses have some plausibility, associational duties represent a somewhat different challenge to consequentialism, inasmuch as they embody neither impersonal constraints nor (...) personal options, but rather personal constraints. Our intuitions about associational duties resist capture within the intellectual net of consequentialism, and such duties do admit of a philosophical rationale at least as plausible as anything the consequentialist has to offer. (shrink)

This book is a systematic and constructive treatment of a number of traditional issues at the foundation of ethics, the possibility and nature of moral knowledge, the relationship between the moral point of view and a scientific or naturalistic world view, the nature of moral value and obligation, and the role of morality in a person's rational life plan. In striking contrast to many traditional authors and to other recent writers in the field, David Brink offers an integrated defense (...) of the objectivity of ethics. (shrink)

It is common to regard love, friendship, and other associational ties to others as an important part of a happy or flourishing life. This would be easy enough to understand if we focused on friendships based on pleasure, or associations, such as business partnerships, predicated on mutual advantage. For then we could understand in a straightforward way how these interpersonal relationships would be valuable for someone involved in such relationships just insofar as they caused her pleasure or causally promoted her (...) own independent interests. But many who regard love, friendship, and other associational ties as an important part of a happy or flourishing life suppose that in many sorts of associations—especially intimate associations—the proper attitude among associates is concern for the other for the other's own sake, not just for the pleasure or benefits one can extract from one's associates. It is fairly clear how having friends of this sort is beneficial. What is less clear is how being a friend of this sort might contribute to one's own happiness or well-being. Even if we can explain this, it looks as if the contribution that friendship makes to one's happiness could not be the reason one has to care for friends, for that would seem to make one's concern for others instrumental, not a concern for the other for her own sake. (shrink)

David Brink presents a study of T. H. Green's classic Prolegomena to Ethics and its role in his philosophical thought. Green is one of the two most important figures in the British idealist tradition, and his political writings and activities had a profound influence on the development of Liberal politics in Britain. The Prolegomena is his major philosophical work. It begins with his idealist attack on empiricist metaphysics and epistemology and develops a perfectionist ethical theory that aims to bring (...) together the best elements in the ancient and modern traditions, and that provides the moral foundations for Green's own distinctive brand of liberalism. Brink aims to restore the Prolegomena to its rightful place in the history of philosophy by providing a prolegomenon to the Prolegomena - one that situates the work in its intellectual context, sympathetically but critically engages its main themes, and explains Green's enduring significance for the history of ethics and contemporary ethical theory. Brink examines Green's life and work, his idealist attack on empiricism, his conception of agency, his perfectionist ethics of self-realization, the connections he draws between perfectionism and the common good, his conception of the differences between perfectionism and utilitarianism, and the connections between his perfectionism and his defense of a new form of political liberalism. Because Green develops his own views out of an examination of other traditions in the history of ethics, a fair assessment of Green's own contributions must compare his claims with the traditions that he examines and sometimes criticizes. Brink's study examines Green's relation to Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Butler, Mill, Kant, Hegel, Bradley, and Sidgwick, and concludes by examining Green's legacy for ethical theory. Perfectionism and the Common Good will be of substantial interest to students and scholars of the history of ethics, ethical theory, political philosophy, and nineteenth century philosophy. (shrink)

This paper is both a survey and a review of the current state of the debate concerning verisimilitude. As a survey it is intended for the interested outsider who wants both easy access to and some comparison between the respective approaches. As a review it covers the first three books on the topic: those of Oddie. Niiniluoto and Kuipers.

One dark and rainy night, Yuso sexually assaults and tortures Zelan. In escaping from the scene of his crime, he falls heavily and becomes an impotent paraplegic. Instead of treating his fate as divine retribution for his wicked acts, Yuso sees it as sheer bad luck. He shows no remorse for what he has done, and vainly hopes that he will recover his powers, which he now treats as involuntarily hoarded resources to be used on less rainy days. In the (...) presence of others, he pretends that he has turned over a new leaf. He asks for religious and educational books, hoping to make up for his poor education and deprived social background. But he immediately discards them when he is alone in favor of the pornographic magazines which he has bribed a nurse to smuggle in for him. His deception and various obscene acts committed in the hospital are exposed; by the time he comes up for trial, everyone knows that he is still a lustful, sadistic, and unrepentant man. Most retributivists have a sufficient justification for punishing Yuso independently of the social consequences of his punishment. Two features of the case might cause some difficulties. First, Yuso has already experienced considerable suffering and deprivation both before and after his crime, and retributivists might disagree about the relevance of the suffering to his punishment. Secondly, Yuso is unrepentant, and it is unlikely that punishment will change him. This might, as we shall see, create a problem for those who think that the justifying aim of punishment is the moral reform of the offender. (shrink)

David O. Brink offers a reconstruction and assessment of John Stuart Mill's contributions to the utilitarian and liberal traditions. Brink defends interpretations of key elements in Mill's moral and political thought, and shows how a perfectionist reading of his conception of happiness has a significant impact on other aspects of his philosophy.

This essay explores a conception of responsibility at work in moral and criminal responsibility. Our conception draws on work in the compatibilist tradition that focuses on the choices of agents who are reasons-responsive and work in criminal jurisprudence that understands responsibility in terms of the choices of agents who have capacities for practical reason and whose situation affords them the fair opportunity to avoid wrongdoing. Our conception brings together the dimensions of normative competence and situational control, and we factor normative (...) competence into cognitive and volitional capacities, which we treat as equally important to normative competence and responsibility. Normative competence and situational control can and should be understood as expressing a common concern that blame and punishment presuppose that the agent had a fair opportunity to avoid wrongdoing. This fair opportunity is the umbrella concept in our understanding of responsibility, one that explains it distinctive architecture. (shrink)

Both the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 and the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 include clawback provisions that require executives to pay back incentive compensation earned on financial statements that are restated in a subsequent period. Such provisions intend to reduce unethical reporting behavior by executives who otherwise might be more inclined to misstate financial statements to boost incentive-based compensation. However, such provisions could promote rather than deter unethical behavior. In particular, Pyzoha :2515–2536, 2015) finds that, under certain conditions, executives are less (...) willing to restate financial statements in the presence of a clawback policy. Similarly, auditors might also act unethically by being less likely to propose restatements in the presence of clawbacks to avoid upsetting management. To examine this possibility, this study reports the results of three experiments that examine the effect of clawback provisions on auditor judgment. Contrary to expectations, our three experiments, along with supplemental qualitative evidence consistently indicate that clawbacks do not affect auditors’ propensity to propose restatements. These results suggest that a decrease in the number of restatements in a clawback environment will not be due to auditors acting unethically to appease management. The effects of clawbacks on auditors’ risk assessments, however, are less conclusive. As such, we offer potential post hoc explanations to guide future research. (shrink)

SOME THINK THAT MORAL REALISTS CANNOT RECOGNIZE THE PRACTICAL OR ACTION-GUIDING CHARACTER OF MORALITY AND SO REJECT MORAL REALISM. THIS FORM OF ANTI-REALISM DEPENDS UPON AN INTERNALIST MORAL PSYCHOLOGY. BUT AN EXTERNALIST MORAL PSYCHOLOGY IS MORE PLAUSIBLE AND ALLOWS THE REALIST A SENSIBLE EXPLANATION OF THE ACTION-GUIDING CHARACTER OF MORALITY. CONSIDERATION OF THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF MORALITY, THEREFORE, DOES NOT UNDERMINE AND, INDEED, SUPPORTS MORAL REALISM.

Brink analyzes responsibility and its relations to desert, culpability, excuse, blame, and punishment. He argues that an agent is responsible for misconduct if and only if it is not excused, and that responsibility consists in agents having suitable cognitive and volitional capacities, and a fair opportunity to exercise these capacities.

Evidentialism holds that the justified attitudes are determined entirely by the person's evidence. This book is a collection of essays, mostly jointly authored, that support and apply evidentialism.