When a mother kills her child, we call her a bad mother, but, as this book shows, even mothers who intend to do their children harm are not easily categorized as "mad" or "bad." Maternal love is a complex emotion rich with contradictory impulses and desires, and motherhood is a conflicted state in which women constantly renegotiate the needs mother and child, the self and the other. Applying care ethics philosophy and the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone (...) de Beauvoir to real-world experiences of motherhood, Sarah LaChance Adams throws the inherent tensions of motherhood into sharp relief, drawing a more nuanced portrait of the mother and child relationship than previously conceived. The maternal example is particularly instructive for ethical theory, highlighting the dynamics of human interdependence while also affirming separate interests. LaChance Adams particularly focuses on maternal ambivalence and its morally productive role in reinforcing the divergence between oneself and others, helping to recognize the particularities of situation, and negotiating the difference between one's own needs and the desires of others. She ultimately argues maternal filicide is a social problem requiring a collective solution that ethical philosophy and philosophies of care can inform. (shrink)

Divine Motivation theory is a major contribution both to the philosophy of religion, particularly the philosophy of religious ethics, and to general ethical theory. It is demanding reading, because it is long and complex and about difficult issues. It is also rewarding, because it is suggestive and highly original, written and argued with philosophical intelligence and disciplined care, and rich in systematic connections and explanations of them.

Who would the Saviour have to be, what would the Saviour have to do to rescue human beings from the meaning-destroying experiences of their lives? This book offers a systematic Christology that is at once biblical and philosophical. Starting with human radical vulnerability to horrors such as permanent pain, sadistic abuse or genocide, it develops what must be true about Christ if He is the horror-defeater who ultimately resolves all the problems affecting the human condition and Divine-human relations. Distinctive elements (...) of Marilyn McCord Adams' study are her defence of the two-natures theory, of Christ as Inner Teacher and a functional partner in human flourishing, and her arguments in favour of literal bodily resurrection and of a strong doctrine of corporeal Eucharistic presence. The book concludes that Christ is the One in Whom, not only Christian doctrine, but cosmos, church, and the human psyche hold together. (shrink)

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

The idea of moral progress is a necessary presupposition of action for beings like us. We must believe that moral progress is possible and that it might have been realized in human experience, if we are to be confident that continued human action can have any morally constructive point. I discuss the implications of this truth for moral psychology. I also show that once we understand the complex nature and the complicated social sources of moral progress, we will appreciate why (...) we cannot construct a plausible comprehensive action-guiding theory of moral progress. Yet while the nature and sources of moral progress consistently thwart many theoretical hopes, the idea of moral progress is a plausible, critically important and morally constructive principle of historical interpretation. (shrink)

Deeply rooted structures of racism, ableism, misogyny, ageism, and transphobia hurt great numbers of people, exposing them to intolerance, economic exclusion, and physical harm around the globe. Billions of land animals suffer and die annually in concentrated feeding operations and slaughterhouses. Our planet and all who live here are in perilous straights as the climate changes. In the face of such grievous problems, people who want to find positive ways to respond often grapple with difficult questions about how to make (...) a difference. Effective Altruism has arisen as an attempt to help answer these questions, encouraging people to give as much money as they can in the most effective ways to address human and animal suffering. But the Effective Altruists’ answers support some of the very social structures that cause suffering, undermining its efforts to “do the most good.” The Good It Promises, The Harm It Does is the first book-length critique of Effective Altruism. It brings together a diverse group of activists and scholars to explore Effective Altruism’s failure to meaningfully address forms of human and animal suffering. (shrink)

The ideal, my friend, is the lifebuoy. Let's say one is taking a swim, floundering around, trying as hard as possible not to sink. One might try to swim in a safe direction despite contrary currents; the essential thing is to use a classic stroke according to recognized swimming principles...Some eccentrics who try to swim faster in order to get there, come what may, splash all over everybody and always end by drowning, involving I don't know how many other poor (...) souls who might have been able to continue splashing around tranquilly enough- in the soup. (Jean Anouilh). (shrink)

I Venture to take as the subject for our consideration the philosophical study of politics. However imperfect the treatment of such a subject, it seems to me opportune that attention should at this point of time be directed to the question. The study of politics is of increasing importance in the curricula of our universities and in general adult education. There is also the plain fact that we live in times when a deep unrest of spirit and a great variety (...) of experiment challenge ideas and institutions which have received wide acceptance. There has been, in short, a return to politics. It is well that we should consider afresh the value of the study and the methods by which it is studied. (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)

That about sums up what is wrong with Clark's view.

It is striking that most of the essays in this Focus do not explore the specifically religious aspects of Enlightenment ethical thought. A principled reason for this may be found in a conception of religion that makes it hard for Enlightenment thinkers to seem religious at all. Neither does this conception fit anything that is likely to be a live option for most people today, and the now prevalent unpopularity of eighteenth-century piety and religious thought may blind us to important (...) religious possibilities. (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.

This study investigated effects of codes of ethics on perceptions of ethical behavior. Respondents from companies with codes of ethics (n = 465) rated role set members (top management, supervisors, peers, subordinates, self) as more ethical and felt more encouraged and supported for ethical behavior than respondents from companies without codes (n = 301). Key aspects of the organizational climate, such as supportiveness for ethical behavior, freedom to act ethically, and satisfaction with the outcome of ethical problems were impacted by (...) the presence of an ethics code. The mere presence of a code of ethics appears to have a positive impact on perceptions of ethical behavior in organizations, even when respondents cannot recall specific content of the code. (shrink)

As long as a man's sensibility (Emilius, p. 4, vol. ii.) " is confined to himself, there is no morality in his actions. It is " only when he begins to extend his sensibility to others, that he " first conceives those sentiments, and afterwards, those notions...

This book is based on work on God and evil that Marilyn McCord Adams did over a period of more than a decade. In her acknowledgments Adams lists fourteen journal articles or book chapters, dating from 1986 to 1997, in which some of her key ideas were first introduced to readers. But the book is by no means a mere collection of previously published essays. As she observes, in the book most of these ideas “have undergone significant development, (...) transformation and recontextualization among new materials”. In addition, the book integrates them into a unified whole that highlights their coherence and displays connections among them. So even those who are very familiar with her earlier work on God and evil will profit from reading the book carefully. (shrink)

Philosophical interest in situated cognition has been focused most intensely on the claim that human cognitive processes extend from the brain into the tools humans use. As we see it, this radical hypothesis is sustained by two kinds of mistakes, confusing coupling relations with constitutive relations and an inattention to the mark of the cognitive. Here we wish to draw attention to these mistakes and show just how pervasive they are. That is, for all that the radical philosophers have said, (...) the mind is still in the head. (shrink)

In this article, we will describe higher order thought theories of consciousness. Then we will describe some examples from synesthesia. Finally, we will explain why the latter may be relevant to the former.

Among philosophers, there are at least two prevalent views about the core concept of intentional action. View I (Adams 1986, 1997; McCann 1986) holds that an agent S intentionally does an action A only if S intends to do A. View II (Bratman 1987; Harman 1976; and Mele 1992) holds that there are cases where S intentionally does A without intending to do A, as long as doing A is foreseen and S is willing to accept A as a (...) consequence of S’s action. Joshua Knobe (2003a) presents intriguing data that may be taken to support the second view.1 Knobe’s data show an asymmetry in folk judgements. People are more inclined to judge that S did A intentionally, even when not intended, if A was perceived as causing a harm (e.g. harming the environment). There is an asymmetry because people are not inclined to see S’s action as intentional, when not intended, if A is perceived as causing a benefit (e.g. helping the environment). In this paper we will discuss Knobe’s results in detail. We will raise the question of whether his ordinary language surveys of folk judgments have accessed core concepts of intentional action. We suspect that instead Knobe’s surveys are tapping into pragmatic aspects of intentional language and its role in moral praise and blame. We will suggest alternative surveys that we plan to conduct to get at this difference, and we will attempt to explain the pragmatic usage of intentional language. (shrink)

The informed-consent process should be one of meaningful information exchange between researchers and study participants. One of the responsibilities of research ethics committees is to oversee appropriate inf...

Much of contemporary epistemology proceeds on the assumption that tracking theories of knowledge, such as those of Dretske and Nozick, are dead. The word on the street is that Kripke and others killed these theories with their counterexamples, and that epistemology must move in a new direction as a result. In this paper we defend the tracking theories against purportedly deadly objections. We detect life in the tracking theories, despite what we perceive to be a premature burial.

The paper is an interpretation and defense of Kant's conception of things in themselves as noumena, along the following lines. Noumena are transempirical realities. As such they have several important roles in Kant's critical philosophy (Section 1). Our theoretical faculties cannot obtain enough content for a conception of noumena that would assure their real possibility as objects, but can establish their merely formal logical possibility (Sections 2-3). Our practical reason, however, grounds belief in the real possibility of some noumena, and (...) even knowledge of the noumenal reality of a free will (Section 4). Section 5 defends Kant's conception of noumena as a good piece of philosophy, particularly with respect to its distinction between logical and real possibility. Are noumena numerically identical with experienced (phenomenal) objects? Kantian principles yield the answers that human selves are, God isn't, and it's harder to say about bodies (Section 6). (shrink)

It may be that the overworn analogy between the history of philosophy and a river system has still a value, and if so, it is a value beyond that usually claimed for it. The grosser likenesses between the stream of history and the stream of geography have been, it is true, too often pointed out, while the subtler similarities are neglected. For instance, there are points in both kinds of stream where it runs deep, others where it is shallow; at (...) one point it may run swiftly, as through a gorge, and at another the valley may be wide and the stream broad, and sluggish. However, whereas in the stream of science the running waters often purify themselves, in that of philosophy there are many stagnant pools where the current of criticism has never set in. Further, there are discernible here and there canalizations by which arid plains are artificially irrigated. And it must be admitted that, at other points, outhouses have been built over the stream and its waters sullied. (shrink)

The time has long passed when it was necessary to explain or to justify philosophy of science to a convention of scientists. The growing intent among philosophers and scientists to clarify and perhaps to unify the programs, methods, and results of the disciplines of philosophy and science is matched by a growing determination among the special sciences to cooperate in the examination of fundamental concepts and presuppositions in the light of the positive results of science, to cooperate in the systematic (...) doubting of these positive results, and to cooperate in the thoroughgoing analysis and critique of logic and of language,—all of which are projects which can be carried out only by the joint effort of philosophers and scientists. In short, it has long since been realized that the special sciences cannot safely be abandoned to their devotees, exclusively. It was only twenty-five years ago that Santayana was able to say “I would gladly learn more of contemporary thinkers if they would only learn more of each other.” The implication that lies in that statement is hardly the case today, when the synoptic enterprise of philosophy-of-science is helping the scientific thinker to recognize the limitations of his task and the assumptions with which he starts, and to save him from being too easygoing in the criticism of his categories. (shrink)

Traces the development of recursive functions from their origins in the late nineteenth century to the mid-1930s, with particular emphasis on the work and influence of Kurt Gödel.

For at least two millennia, religious traditions, spiritual communities and secular moral thinkers have debated the nature and sources of forgiveness. But near the end of the twentieth century understanding forgiveness took on new urgency, as divided societies looked to forgiveness as a vehicle of reconciliation, governments sought forgiveness for past wrongs, and popular psychology explored the therapeutic effects of forgiveness. These developments have led to a remarkable increase in scholarship on forgiveness: philosophers examine its moral nature; psychologists seek to (...) measure it and determine its contribution to well-being; historians and political theorists consider its relevance to national projects of reconciliation.Earlier versions of this paper were delivered to audiences at Syracuse University and Seton Hall University. I am grateful to the journal editor and anonymous readers for suggesting helpful revisions.Yet forgiveness remains a complex and often perplexing phenomenon .. (shrink)