New Tenth Anniversary edition of this classic text with a new preface by the author, compares myths about meat-eating with myths about manliness, and seeks to ...

Ulrich Beck's best selling Risk Society established risk on the sociological agenda. It brought together a wide range of issues centering on environmental, health and personal risk, provided a rallying ground for researchers and activists in a variety of social movements and acted as a reference point for state and local policies in risk management. The Risk Society and Beyond charts the progress of Beck's ideas and traces their evolution. It demonstrates why the issues raised by Beck reverberate widely throughout (...) social theory and covers the new risks that Beck did not foresee, associated with the emergence of new technologies, genetic and cybernetic. The book is unique because it offers both an introduction to the main arguments in Risk Society and develops a range of critical discussions of aspects of this and other works of Beck. (shrink)

Fieldwork in Familiar Places challenges the misconceptions about morality, culture, and objectivity that support these skepticisms, to show that we can take ...

The much endorsed idea that reasons are facts, gives raise to several issues, not least when it is applied to the distinction between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons. The paper distinguish in broad terms between two important views on the nature of facts. Given in particular a view that conceives of facts as abstract entities, the dichotomy is not particularly problematic. We might run into problems when it comes to identifying which facts are reasons and which are not, but the very (...) dichotomy itself seems sound. On this, the so-called thin approach, it is at least a possibility that some reasons will be (in some sense of the dichotomy) agent-neutral and some will be agent-relative. The second approach, the thick account, is, much less popular. It is argued that the thin approach trivializes an interesting issue among practical philosophers. The thin account is also in one respect less appealing than its thick cousin. The thick account is not flawless, though. At the end, a couple of objections to it will be considered. (shrink)

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn attention to the technology’s transformative potential, including what some see as its prospects for causing large-scale harm. We review two influential arguments purporting to show how AI could pose catastrophic risks. The first argument — the Problem of Power-Seeking — claims that, under certain assumptions, advanced AI systems are likely to engage in dangerous power-seeking behavior in pursuit of their goals. We review reasons for thinking that AI systems might seek power, that (...) they might obtain it, that this could lead to catastrophe, and that we might build and deploy such systems anyway. The second argument claims that the development of human-level AI will unlock rapid further progress, culminating in AI systems far more capable than any human — this is the Singularity Hypothesis. Power-seeking behavior on the part of such systems might be particularly dangerous. We discuss a variety of objections to both arguments and conclude by assessing the state of the debate. (shrink)

What makes your life go well for you? In this paper, we give an account of welfare. Our core idea is simple. There are impersonally good and bad things out there: things that are good or bad period, not (or not only) good or bad for someone. The life that is good for you is the life in contact with the good. We’ll understand the relevant notion of ‘contact’ here in terms of manifestation: you’re in contact with a value either (...) when it is manifest in parts of your life or parts of your life are manifest in it. So, the more the good is manifest in your life, or your life manifest in the good, the better for you. The more the bad is manifest in your life, or your life manifest in the bad, the worse for you. We’ll argue that this account is extensionally adequate: it explains the welfare value of achievements, friendships, knowledge, pleasures and virtues. Moreover, it has a number of explanatory virtues: it’s unified, elegant and explanatorily powerful. So, we’ll suggest, it’s an excellent account of welfare, and in many ways superior to its main competitors. (shrink)

From the fundamental rights proclaimed in the American and French declarations of independence to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Hannah Arendt’s furious critiques, the definition of what it means to be human has been hotly debated. But the history of human rights—and their abuses—is also a richly illustrated one. Following this picture trail, _Human Rights In Camera_ takes an innovative approach by examining the visual images that have accompanied human rights struggles and the passionate responses people have (...) had to them. Sharon Sliwinski considers a series of historical events, including the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and the Holocaust, to illustrate that universal human rights have come to be imagined through aesthetic experience. The circulation of images of distant events, she argues, forms a virtual community between spectators and generates a sense of shared humanity. Joining a growing body of scholarship about the cultural forces at work in the construction of human rights, _Human Rights In Camera_ is a novel take on this potent political ideal. (shrink)

Toward an ontology of the social-historical -- Proto-institutions and epistemological encounters -- Anthropological aspects of subjectivity: the radical imagination -- Hermeneutical horizons of meaning -- The rediscovery of physis -- Objective knowledge in review -- Rethinking the world of the living being -- Reimaging cosmology -- Conclusion: the circle of creation.

Bringing political philosophy out of the ivory tower and within the reach of all, this book provides us with tools to cut through the complexities of modern ...

The foundation for a system of morals, this 1749 work is a landmark of moral and political thought. Its highly original theories of conscience, moral judgment, and virtue offer a reconstruction of the Enlightenment concept of social science, embracing both political economy and theories of law and government.

This chapter provides empirical evidence about everyday attitudes concerning euthanasia. These attitudes have important implications for some ethical arguments about euthanasia. Two experiments suggested that some different descriptions of euthanasia have modest effects on people’s moral permissibility judgments regarding euthanasia. Experiment 1 (N = 422) used two different types of materials (scenarios and scales) and found that describing euthanasia differently (‘euthanasia’, ‘aid in dying’, and ‘physician assisted suicide’) had modest effects (≈3 % of the total variance) on permissibility judgments. These (...) effects were largely replicated in Experiment 2 (N = 409). However, in Experiment 2, judgments about euthanasia’s moral permissibility were best predicted by the voluntariness of the treatment. Voluntariness was a stronger predictor than some demographic factors and some domain general elements of moral judgments. These results help inform some debates about the moral permissibility of euthanasia (e.g., the slippery slope argument) suggesting that some of the key premises of those arguments are unwarranted. (shrink)

A scholarly edition of a work by Adam Smith. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

In Freedom: An Impossible Reality (FAIR), Raymond Tallis finds room in a law-abiding universe for a uniquely human form of agency, capable of envisioning and pursuing genuinely open possibilities, thereby deflecting rather than merely inflecting the course of events, in accordance with self-owned intentions, reasons and goals. He argues that the genuinely free human pursuit of such propositional attitudes depends on our acting from a “virtual outside”, at an epistemic distance from the physical world that reveals not only what is (...) the case, but that it is the case. The enactive approach in cognitive science and philosophy of mind aims to supersede the cognitivist traditional that has long dominated the field, by reframing cognition as an agentʼs immediate, embodied engagement with its environment. In an appendix of FAIR, Tallis argues that this approach risks both eliminating propositional attitudes, and collapsing the epistemic distance between agent and world. He concludes that if enactive theorists are to distinguish between genuinely pursuing an intention and merely responding to a stimulus, their corrective to cognitivism is in need of a correction of its own. This paper argues that such a correction is already to be found within the enactive literature, and furthermore, that it bears striking similarities to Tallis own account of what makes human agency unique. It is therefore concluded that the case for freedom set out in FAIR is compatible with the enactive approach. (shrink)

Louis de la Forge, né le 24 ou le 26 novembre 1632 à La Flèche. Médecin, était anatomiste et physiologiste, mais aussi philosophe cartésien. Un ami des Oratoriens et des Protestants à Samour (France). Il avait été l'auteur de deux oeuvres philosophiques parmis lesquelles nous pouvons trouver Les "Remarques" sur le "Traité de l`Homme" de René Descartes, avec des illustrations, ainsi qu'un ouvrage essentiellment philosophique et autonome Le "Traité de l'Esprit de l'Homme, De ses Facultez et Fonctions, Et de son (...) union avec le Corps, Suivant les Principes de René Descartes" (1644). La matière de Remarques a été largement presentée et utilisée dans ce "Traité de l'Esprit", qui a été son ouvrage fondamental. Dans sa conception de l'âme, en tant qu'une chose qui pense, il a prouvé que les pensées de Descartes étaient entièrement conformes à la doctrine de Saint Augustin. Le corps n'était pour lui qu`une machine, et pour expliquer tout ce qui se passait dans un animal, il avait soutenu la thèse qu'il suffisait de présenter tous les divers mouvements auxquels nous sommes naturellement incités à l'occasion de l'action des objets extérieurs sur notre corps et nos sens. En somme: le phénomène qui peut nous servir pour expliquer la machine (le fonctionnement) du corps humain et animal, ce sont les lois de la Nature. Mais ce qui touche la nature de l'Âme, qui est immatérielle, qui pense, qui connaît, qui raisonne, demande d'après lui des profondes spéculations. Dans son livre ouvrage La Forge a depassé son Maitre en expliquant en détail beaucoup de choses qui contennaient le concept de l'âme, ses fonctions, ses actions intellectuelles, ses sentimens, et son union avec le corps. Il a rendu la connaissance de notre esprit beaucoup plus sensible que Descartes, qui nous a donné la sienne qui parle de de notre corps. Comme l'avait dit Descartes, l'âme est une substance pensante, tandis que le corps est une substance étendue. Toutefois, cette distinction réelle du corps et de l'âme ne s'oppose pas à leur union. Mais il n'a pas beaucoup parlé de cette union. La Forge au contraire, a expliqué ce que c`était l'esprit et le corps et quelles étaient les choses qui nous faisaient connaître leur union. De plus, il a préparé sa théorie de la relation de l’âme et du corps comme oeuvre de la volonté divine, laquelle nous appelons l'occasionalisme. (shrink)

The paper gives a brief characterization of philosophical problems; points up something of their significance for the culture, the social order, and our lives; indicates the methodology appropriate for the problems; and presents a view of the cultural mission of philosophy today. Philosophy attempts to bring under critical review and to correct errors in the cultural mind of our civilization, the prevailing assumptions and beliefs about our knowledge‐yielding powers, the various sectors of the culture, and the basic structure of the (...) world. It holds the cultural mind accountable to the unavoidable presuppositions of experience, thought, and action. Errors in the cultural mind can lead to distortions in the development of the culture and to social and personal pathologies. I contend that our modern Western cultural mind undermines the humanistic dimension of the culture, and ultimately the whole culture, by a restricted view of our knowledge‐yielding powers and the resulting impoverished view of reality. The mission of philosophy today is to point out the errors in our cultural mind and to work for a humanistic cultural reformation. (shrink)

La philosophie aussi bien que la religion sont d'accord sur la posibilité d'atteindre par l'homme la vérité en tant que domaine obscurci primitivement par la conviction familiére (et par cela meme évidente), que la vérité est simple et visible partout. Les pensées des grands de ce monde indiquent souvent la valeur illusoire que nous attribuons à cette conviction commune et irréfléchie. Que l'on soit dans l'état de rêve ou sous l'emprise d'une illusion créée celui qui tente, ils s'y opposent en (...) disant qu'il ne s'agit là que fausse foi hantée par un effort de surpasser les pensées les lus primitives et les plus simples. Tenté, l'homme engage un combat solitaire et dramatique. Il quite l'ancien univers sans atteindre le nouveau. De ce fait, il se situe dans une liberté dangereuse venant des privations – il doit tout quitter pour tout gagner. (shrink)

René Descartes comme un philosophe s'est mis en question d'instituer le système comprenant la description complèté du monde des phénomènes physiques, y compris celui des organismes vivants. Au debut de la réalisation son dessein, cette description intitulée «Le Monde» devait se composer de six parties dont deux derniéres avaient pour but de toucher le probléme qui nous interesse particuliérement. Pourtant Descartes n'a pas réussi à réaliser son dessein dans un seul ouvrage. Il a laissé deux traités rédigés indépéndamment et intitulés (...) «L'homme» et «La description du corps humain». Ses dissertations sont devenues une source inspiratice pour nos médiations. Mais ce qui nous prèoccupe particulièrement c'est la façon d'interpréter par Descartes des phénoménes de la vie, largement conçus dans la cadre de la philosophie mécanique. Cette philosophie réduit le monde des phénoménes extérieurs à une seule substance soumise aux lois du mouvement. On s'interroge egalement si l'analogie entre un mécanisme et un organisme pourtrait s'entretenir à la base de la mème pensée, réalisée par Descartes. Aussi, on réflechit à la question si l'on peut accorder au monde réduit aux lois du mouvement et à l'extension, un attribut de la vie, considéré comme le seul phénoméne de son genre. (shrink)

Le texte ci-dessus traite d'une question-clé pour le jeune philosophe Descartes. Cette dissertation aborde la problématique des fondements du savoir que le philosophe posait pour la première fois dans son traité «Le Monde» (1629-1632). C'est avec ce traite que naît, dans le système de Descartes, le besoin d'établir les bases métaphysiques des nouvelles sciences naturelles et de toute la nouvelle philosophie. En 1630, Descartez n'avait pas encore suffisamment façonné la question de dieu et de sa relation envers le monde, question (...) qui existait tout de même dans son esprit et était novatrice par rapport à ce que l'on ensejgnait à ce sujet au point de susciter la controverse voire méme la réprobation. Cette problématique touchait aux questions physicues au sens large dans le projet de travail du philosophe et établissait la possibilité d'un fonde'ent métaphysique du discours sur l'existence. Cette question, Descartes l'a résolue en embrassant la notion de vérités universalles qu'il a subordonnées au concept du dieu-créateur de l'ordre rationnel du monde. Ces vérités universalles en tant que vérités mathématiques, sont, pour le philosophe non seulement la substance (l'essence) mathétique de l'objet de la connaissance, mais aussi la condition indispensable à la connaissance. Ceci lui a permis une concordance absolue de l'ordre du savoir avec l'ordre réel, que ce savoir décrivait. Ce travail est une reconstruction basée sur la correspondance du philosophe et n'existait pas, à l'époque, comme idée indépendante dans la philosophie de Descartes. (shrink)

In this article I analyze the similarities between St. Augustine's and Descartes' philosophy. In particular I consider their spiritual conceptions of mind, God, and cognition theory. The most important similarities between both thinkers concern the dualism of substances, cogito/dubito theory, and the conception of immortal human soul, like a thinking thing (res cogitans). Other similarities concern matter conceived as a theoretical construct of extension without thinking, cognition theory and mature knowledge, problems of falsehood and truth, theory of soul and senses (...) perception, theory of mathematical eternal truths, the role of mathematics in nature description, their understanding the biological and spiritual points of view, the relation between human soul and body, limited human and unlimited intellect of God, intention and decision making, and also being and nothingness. The main feature presented in both theories is theocentrism and the role of God. Both conceptions belong to Christian Platonism, then have an anti-Aristotelian character, and can be considered as examples of the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This thoughtful new abridgment is enriched by the brilliant commentary which accompanies it. In it, Laurence Dickey argues that the _Wealth of Nations_ contains--and conceals--a great deal of how Smith actually thought a commercial society works. Guided by his conviction that the so-called Adam Smith Problem--the relationship between ethics and economics in Smith's thinking--is a core element in the argument of the work itself, Dickey's commentary focuses on the devices Smith uses to ground his economics in broadly ethical and (...) social categories. An unparalleled guide to an often difficult and perplexing work. (shrink)

With massive corruption uncovered in numerous recent corporate scandals, investigating psychological processes underlying unethical behavior among employees has become a critical area of research for organizational scientists. This article seeks to explain why people engage in deceptive and fraudulent activities by focusing on the use of moral-disengagement tactics or rationalizations to justify egregious actions at work. In addition, participation in goal-setting is argued to attenuate the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical behavior. Across two studies, a lab simulation and field (...) survey, a measure of moral disengagement was developed for use with working adults. The hypothesized main and interactive effects of moral disengagement, participation, and unethical behavior were tested and largely confirmed. (shrink)

People’s beliefs about normality play an important role in many aspects of cognition and life (e.g., causal cognition, linguistic semantics, cooperative behavior). But how do people determine what sorts of things are normal in the first place? Past research has studied both people’s representations of statistical norms (e.g., the average) and their representations of prescriptive norms (e.g., the ideal). Four studies suggest that people’s notion of normality incorporates both of these types of norms. In particular, people’s representations of what is (...) normal were found to be influenced both by what they believed to be descriptively average and by what they believed to be prescriptively ideal. This is shown across three domains: people’s use of the word ‘‘normal” (Study 1), their use of gradable adjectives (Study 2), and their judgments of concept prototypicality (Study 3). A final study investigated the learning of normality for a novel category, showing that people actively combine statistical and prescriptive information they have learned into an undifferentiated notion of what is normal (Study 4). Taken together, these findings may help to explain how moral norms impact the acquisition of normality and, conversely, how normality impacts the acquisition of moral norms. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Must even Confucian rights skeptics—those who are, on account of their Confucian beliefs, skeptical of the existence of human rights, and believe that asserting or recognizing rights is morally wrong—concede that in the workplace, they are morally obligated to recognize rights? Alan Strudler has recently argued that such is the case. In this article, I argue that because Confucian rights skeptics locate wrongness in inconsistency with the idea of “Confucian community,” Confucian community should be viewed as a moral ideal. I (...) then argue that Confucian rights skeptics ought to act in a manner that is consistent with this ideal, even when the ideal has not yet been realized, just as Kantians ought to act consistently with the Kantian kingdom of ends ideal. Accordingly, contrary to Strudler, I argue that Confucian rights skeptics need not concede that they are morally obligated to recognize rights in the workplace. This conclusion suggests the need for inquiry into the metaphysical foundations of these conflicting views. However, such inquiry is commonly thought to lie beyond the scope of philosophical business ethics proper. I conclude the article by suggesting a number of reasons for business ethicists to consider rejecting the prevalent narrow conception of the scope of the discipline.In this discussion I explore challenges to a particular Confucian system of morality that generally eschews reliance on rights. I argue that such a system may at the same time both assert that there are moral problems with rights and assert that it is acceptable to invoke rights in limited contexts. Adam Bailey has objected that the position I defend is inconsistent. I answer Bailey’s objections. (shrink)

This book offers a novel account of grace, framed in terms of Bruno Latour's "principle of irreduction.

The importance of being ambiguous -- Interlude : ambiguity, order and the deity -- Notation and its limits -- Interlude : the Israelite red heifer and the edge of power in China -- Ritual and the rhythms of ambiguity -- Interlude : crossing the boundaries of empathy -- Shared experience -- Interlude : experience and multiplicity.

A simple argument suggests that we can fruitfully model advanced AI systems using expected utility theory. According to this argument, an agent will need to act as if maximising expected utility if they’re to avoid exploitation. Insofar as we should expect advanced AI to avoid exploitation, it follows that we should expected advanced AI to act as if maximising expected utility. I spell out this argument more carefully and demonstrate that it fails, but show that the manner of its failure (...) is instructive: in exploring the argument, we gain insight into how to model advanced AI systems. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics is humanity's finest scientific achievement. It explains why the sun shines and how your eyes can see. It's the theory behind the LEDs in your phone and the nuclear hearts of space probes. Every physicist agrees quantum physics is spectacularly successful. But ask them what quantum physics means, and the result will be a brawl. At stake is the nature of the Universe itself. What does it mean for something to be real? What is the role of consciousness (...) in the Universe? And do quantum rules apply to very small objects like electrons and protons, but not us? In What is Real?, Adam Becker brings to vivid life the brave researchers whose quest for the truth led them to challenge Bohr: David Bohm, who picked up Einstein's mantle and sought to make quantum mechanics deterministic, all while being hounded by the forces of McCarthyism; Hugh Everett, who argued that everything, big and small, must be governed by the same rules; and John Bell, who went to great lengths to eradicate the power of the god-like observer from the core of quantum physics. And they paid dearly, their reputations, careers, and sometimes lives ruined completely. But history has been kinder to them than their contemporaries were. As Becker shows, the brave intellectual giants have inspired a growing army of physicists and philosophers intent both on making a philosophically more satisfying theory of the universe and a more useful one as well. A gripping story of some of humanity's greatest ideas and the high cost with which many have pursued them, What is Real? is intellectual history at its passionate best. (shrink)

Four studies explored people's judgments about whether particular types of behavior are compatible with determinism. Participants read a passage describing a deterministic universe, in which everything that happens is fully caused by whatever happened before it. They then assessed the degree to which different behaviors were possible in such a universe. Other participants evaluated the extent to which each of these behaviors had various features. We assessed the extent to which these features predicted judgments about whether the behaviors were possible (...) in a deterministic universe. Experiments 1 and 2 found that people's judgments about whether a behavior was compatible with determinism were not predicted by their judgments about whether that behavior relies on physical processes in the brain and body, is uniquely human, is unpredictable, or involves reasoning. Experiment 3, however, found that a distinction between what we call “active” and “passive” behaviors can explain people's judgments. Experiment 4 extended these findings, showing that we can measure this distinction in several ways and that it is robustly predicted by two different cues. Taken together, these results suggest that people carve up mentally guided behavior into two distinct types—understanding one type to be compatible with determinism, but another type to be fundamentally incompatible with determinism. (shrink)