This paper argues that, at least in the context of employment, we should reconsider the applicability of the dominant framework in the contemporary literature on exploitation, which views exploitation as a micro-level moral wrong. I present a novel argument showing that these micro-level theories share commitments inconsistent with taking exploitation seriously as a moral wrong. Given the difficulties these theories face, I argue that we should pursue a structural theory of exploitation, and I give a brief sketch of what such (...) a theory might look like. (shrink)

This important new book analyses these core issues and reviews the evidence from both introspection and experiment.

Proponents of the predicate view of names explain the reference of an occurrence of a name N by invoking the property of bearing N. They avoid the charge that this view involves a vicious circularity by claiming that bearing N is not itself to be understood in terms of the reference of actual or possible occurrences of N. I argue that this approach is fundamentally mistaken. The phenomenon of ‘reference transfer’ shows that an individual can come to bear a name (...) in virtue of the referential practices of a group of speakers. I develop a picture of name-bearing which captures this fact by treating the extension of name as a function of the way that extension is represented in the presuppositions of groups of speakers. I show that though there is a form of circularity inherent in this approach, it is not vicious circularity. (shrink)

Anger, disgust, elevation, sympathy, relief. If the subjective experience of each of these emotions is the same whether elicited by moral or nonmoral events, then what makes moral emotions unique? We suggest that the configuration of moral emotions is special—a configuration given by the underlying structure of morality. Research suggests that people divide the moral world along the two dimensions of valence (help/harm) and moral type (agent/patient). The intersection of these two dimensions gives four moral exemplars—heroes, villains, victims and beneficiaries—each (...) of which elicits unique emotions. For example, victims (harm/patient) elicit sympathy and sadness. Dividing moral emotions into these four quadrants provides predictions about which emotions reinforce, oppose and complement each other. (shrink)

Keeley has recently argued that the philosophical issue of how to analyse the concept of a sense can usefully be addressed by considering how scientists, and more specifically neuroethologists, classify the senses. After briefly outlining his proposal, which is based on the application of an ordered set of individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for modality differentiation, I argue, by way of two complementary counterexamples, that it fails to account fully for the way the senses are in fact individuated in (...) neuroethology and other relevant sciences. (shrink)

Fodor claims that cognitive modules can be thought of as constituting a psychological natural kind in virtue of their possession of most or all of nine specified properties. The challenge to this considered here comes from synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is a type of cross-modal association: input to one sensory modality reliably generates an additional sensory output that is usually generated by the input to a distinct sensory modality. The most common form of synaesthesia manifests Fodor's nine specified properties of modularity, and (...) hence, according to Segal (1997), it should be understood as involving an extra module. Many psychologists believe that synaesthesia involves a breakdown in modularity. After outlining how both theories can explain the manifestation of the nine alleged properties of modularity in synaesthesia, I discuss the two concepts of function which initially motivate the respective theories. I argue that only a teleological concept of function is properly able to adjudicate between the two theories. The upshot is a further application of so-called externalist considerations to mental phenomena. (shrink)

In all of its varieties, traditional liberalism is a universalist political theory. Its content is a set of principles which prescribe the best regime, the ideally best institutions, for all mankind. It may be acknowledged — as it is, by a proto-liberal such as Spinoza — that the best regime can be attained only rarely, and cannot be expected to endure for long; and that the forms its central institutions will assume in different historical and cultural milieux may vary significantly. (...) It will then be accepted that the liberal regime's role in political thought is as a regulative ideal, which political practice can hope only to approximate, subject to all the vagaries and exigencies of circumstance. Nonetheless, the content of traditional liberalism is a system of principles which function as universal norms for the critical appraisal of human institutions. In this regard, traditional liberalism — the liberalism of Locke and Kant, for example — represents a continuation of classical political rationalism, as it is found in Aristotle and Aquinas, where it also issues in principles having the attribute of universality, in that they apply ideally to all human beings. (shrink)

The first part of this paper surveys the current literature in the history of nineteenth-century mathematics in order to show that the question “Did the increasing abstraction of mathematics lead to a sense of anxiety?” is a new and valid question. I argue that the mathematics of the nineteenth century is marked by a growing appreciation of error leading to a note of anxiety, hesitant at first but persistent by 1900. This mounting disquiet about so many aspects of mathematics after (...) 1850 is seldom discussed. The second part explores the issue of anxiety in mathematical life through an interesting account of an address made by a mathematician in 1911, Oscar Perron. The third and final part ventures some conclusions about the value of anxiety as a question for historians of mathematics to pursue. (shrink)

In this chapter I shall examine some of Johann Georg Hamann’s claims about how philosophers misuse, misunderstand, and are misled by language. I will then examine how he anticipates things that Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein say on this topic.

In a series of important papers, G.A. Cohen has developed a forceful argument for the claim that workers are rendered unfree by capitalist institutions. His argument poses a powerful challenge to those who think that capitalist institutions best promote freedom. Yet, formidable as it is, Cohen's argument can be shown to be flawed at several crucial points. It is not one argument, but three at least, and one of the goals of my criticism of Cohen on this question is to (...) distinguish and assess the various separate lines of reasoning that together make up his case for the unfreedom under capitalism of workers as a class. Cohen argues of workers that they are rendered unfree by the institution of private property on which the capitalist system depends, that they suffer a form of collective unfreedom under capitalism, and that they are forced to sell their labor power under capitalism. (shrink)

The first claim in the target article was that there is as yet no transparent, causal account of the relations between consciousness and brain-and-behaviour. That claim remains firm. The second claim was that the contents of consciousness consist, psychologically, of the outputs of a comparator system; the third consisted of a description of the brain mechanisms proposed to instantiate the comparator. In order to defend these claims against criticism, it has been necessary to clarify the distinction between consciousness-as-such and the (...) contents of consciousness, to widen the description of the neural machinery instantiating the comparator system, and to clarify the relationship between the contents of consciousness in the here-and-now and episodic memory. (shrink)

Previous research in North America has supported the view that male involvement in committed, romantic relationships is associated with lower testosterone (T) levels. Here, we test the prediction that undergraduate men involved in committed, romantic relationships (paired) will have lower T levels than men not involved in such relationships (unpaired). Further, we also test whether these differences are more apparent in samples collected later, rather than earlier, in the day. For this study, 107 undergraduate men filled out a questionnaire and (...) collected one saliva sample (from which a subject’s T level was measured) at various times across the day. As in previous studies, men involved in committed, romantic relationships had lower salivary T levels, though only during later times of the day. Furthermore, additional analysis of the variation among unpaired subjects indicated that men without prior relationship experience had lower T levels than experienced men. Finally, while paired men as a group had lower T levels than unpaired men, those men at the earliest stage (less than six months) of a current relationship had higher T levels than unpaired men as well as men in longer-term relationships. These results suggest that variation in male testosterone levels may reflect differential behavioral allocation to mating effort. (shrink)

This pilot study explores four nursing leaders' experiences with the ethical dimensions of leadership in education. Gathering and interpreting such data of experience fosters greater understanding of the nature of moral leadership as it is lived in nursing education. A phenomenological approach was used to collect and analyze the data. The results revealed four major themes: integrity, justice, wrestling with decisions in the light of consequences, and the power of information. These themes clarify the values that direct these leaders' actions (...) as they mediate community needs common to educational and health care institutions. (shrink)

Why has fiction been so successful over time? We make the case that fiction may have properties that enhance both individual and group-level fitness by (a) allowing risk-free simulation of important scenarios, (b) effectively transmitting solutions to common problems, and (c) enhancing group cohesion through shared consumption of fictive worlds.

For the first time, full coverage of the intersections of philosophy and law From articles centering on the detailed and doctrinal exposition of the law to those which reside almost wholly within the realm of philosophical ethics, this volume affords comprehensive treatment to both sides of the philosophicolegal equation. Systematic and sustained coverage of the many dimensions of legal thought gives ample expression to the true breadth and depth of the philosophy of law, with coverage of: *The modes of knowing (...) and the kinds of normativity used in the law *Studies in international, constitutional, criminal, administrative, persons and property, contracts and tort law-including their historical origins and worldwide ramifications *Current legal cultures-such as common law and civilian, European, and Aboriginal *Influential jurisprudents and their biographies *All influential schools and methods Coverage of all major historical, cultural, and geographical settings for legal philosophy A thorough understanding of any legal issue necessitates an acquaintance with its antecedents and its corollaries. Thus, added to the consideration of other current legal cultures outside of North America are treatments of other periods significant to legal thinking, such as the Hellenistic, Sixteenth-century, or Federalist. Discussion of the practice of legal philosophy today In every major area where public policy gives rise to philosophical inquiry regarding the law, debates and discussions are covered in full: tort reform, protection of life and death, gay rights, objectives in punishment, non-putative detention, international deterrence, legitimacy of government. And the historical and international dimensions of these issues-how they are resolved in other times and places-are not lost. Contributions from prominent legal and philosophical scholars from around the world The international array of more than 300 contributors from over forty countries complements the volume's international scope. With many contributors being forces in the very debates they write of, some fifty percent of them work in the law-as judges, jurists or jurisprudence-and another half are philosophers in the social sciences and humanities. Their work spans the practice that is taken for philosophy of law today. Special features *Contributions of more than 300 international scholars from more than 40 countires *Extensive bibliographies at the end of each entry *Detailed subject guide for easy access to the main topics covered *Comprehensive, analytical index. (shrink)

In lecture III of Naming and Necessity, Kripke extends his claim that names are non-descriptive to natural kind terms, and in so doing includes a brief supporting discussion of terms for natural phenomena, in particular the terms ‘light’ and ‘heat’. Whilst natural kind terms continue to feature centrally in the recent literature, natural phenomenon terms have barely figured. The purpose of the present paper is to show how the apparent similarities between natural kind terms and the natural phenomenon terms on (...) which Kripke focuses are outweighed by more significant differences. Thus, rather than providing additional support for non-descriptivism, natural phenomenon terms turn out to challenge that thesis. (shrink)

In this paper we suggest an alternative approach to ethics in social work: virtue ethics. We argue that Habermas's theory of communicative action and discourse ethics needs to be supplemented with virtue ethics to provide an account useful to social work. In these times, sensitivity to others is needed for social work to succeed as a profession interested in combating the complacency, self-interest and lack of compassion evident in cutbacks to social welfare programmes and the resultant concerns with outcomes and (...) efficiencies that have all but obliterated care and compassion. We see in Habermas a furthering of Aristotelian and Thomist philosophy, most importantly with respect to his focus on emancipatory knowing?the critically reflective knower who knows self as the person doing the knowing. Habermas's distinction between values (objective), ethics (social) and morals (subjective) makes the province of emancipatory knowing (his epistemological theory) consistent with his moral theory?morality is personal. (shrink)

Berkeley held space to be relational. On the other hand, He took extension to be composed of absolute minima. This paper offers an analysis of berkeley's views on the nature of minimum visibles and space and related notions, E.G., Distance, Extension, And figure. The difficulties in his theory are clearest in the analysis of figure where it is argued that minima can have neither figure nor extension and that, Contrary to berkeley's view, Extension and figure cannot be composed of such (...) minima. The paper concludes by arguing that the "esse est percipi" doctrine is false, Since it entails that there are minimum visibles and that distances be specifiable in terms of minimum visible distances. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: Imagine you are a scientist from Mars observing Gary Kasparov playing a tournament with a chess computer. Would you have any reason to postulate consciousness in one player, but not the other? What is consciousness? How does the body produce it, and what is it for? Most people do not realize that there is a problem here because our conscious experience is the thing we know best. We are all familiar with the colours, smells and scenes around us, (...) the pains and itches we feel and the thoughts that are in our heads. Our world consists of conscious experiences. By `conscious experience' I mean anything that you have an awareness of, absolutely anything. I do not mean anything recondite like your capacity to reflect upon your own experiences, something which one might suppose that only we as human beings have and animals do not. I mean the absolute basics, like feeling pain. (shrink)

Reductive externalist versions of representationalism hold that there is an externalist theory of content which is adequate for underwriting their claim that the character of experience can be reductively explained by the external physical properties represented by experience. In this paper such theories of content are shown to be inadequate, thus undermining the reductive explanation of the character of experience by the content of experience. It is argued that the character of experience is better explained non-reductively by reference to modes (...) of presentation of the properties of things. (shrink)