This chapter contains sections titled: The Rule of Rescue The Argument from Compassion An External Justification Notes.

We regularly wield powers that, upon close scrutiny, appear remarkably magical. By sheer exercise of will, we bring into existence things that have never existed before. With but a nod, we effect the disappearance of things that have long served as barriers to the actions of others. And, by mere resolve, we generate things that pose significant obstacles to others' exercise of liberty. What is the nature of these things that we create and destroy by our mere decision to do (...) so? The answer: the rights and obligations of others. And by what seemingly magical means do we alter these rights and obligations? By making promises and issuing or revoking consent When we make promises, we generate obligations for ourselves, and when we give consent, we create rights for others. Since the rights and obligations that are affected by means of promising and consenting largely define the boundaries of permissible action, our exercise of these seemingly magical powers can significantly affect the lives and liberties of others. (shrink)

In his account of the Persian Wars, the 5th century historian Herodotus reports an exchange between the Persian monarch Xerxes and a deposed Spartan king, Demaratus, who became what Lattimore later classified as a “tragic warner” to Xerxes. On the eve of the battle of Thermopylae, Xerxes asks how a small number of free Spartiates can stand up against the massive ranks of soldiers that Xerxes has assembled. Herodotus has Demaratus reply: So is it with the Lacedaemonians; fighting singly they (...) are as brave as any man living, and together they are the best warriors on earth. Free they are, yet not wholly free; for law is their master (ἐλεύθεροι γὰρ ἐόντες οὐ πάντα ἐλεύθεροι εἰσί· ἔπεστι γάρ σφι δεσπότης νόμος), whom they fear much more than your men fear you. This is my proof—what their law bids them, that they do; and its bidding is ever the same, that they must never flee from the battle before whatsoever odds, but abide at their post and there conquer or die. (Hdt. 7.104) As the outcome of Thermopylae makes clear, Demaratus is hardly guilty of boasting. But Greek political theorists were not only fascinated by the Spartans who fought at the battle of Thermopylae in 480; they also wondered how slightly more than a century later Sparta was ignobly defeated by Thebes at the battle of Leuctra in 371, after which Spartan hegemony collapsed. How did Sparta field citizen-soldiers in the 5th century who were without parallel in their bravery and military prowess? And why did Sparta, predominantly under the same political organization, collapse just over a century later? Such are the main questions that Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch—what Cartledge (1999, 313–14) has characterized as “political-theoretical” laconophiles—seek to answer in their writings about Sparta. (shrink)

At first glance, it looks like Aristotle can’t make up his mind about the ethical or moral status of non-human animals in his ethical treatises. Somewhat infamously, the Nicomachean Ethics claims that “there is neither friendship nor justice towards soulless things, nor is there towards an ox or a horse” (EN 8.11.1161b1–2). Since Aristotle thinks that friendship and justice are co-extensive (EN 8.9.1159b25–32), scholars have often read this passage to entail that humans have no ethical obligations to non-human animals. By (...) contrast, although the Eudemian Ethics denies that non-human animals can participate in “primary” friendships, EE 7.2 claims that “the other kinds of friendship are also found among animals; and it is evident that utility is present to some extent among them both in relation to humankind, in the case of tame animals, and in relation to each other” (EE 7.2.1236b3–11). Does the Nicomachean account of non-human animals contradict that of the Eudemian Ethics? Ultimately, I believe the Nicomachean account is consistent with the Eudemian account. Nonetheless, I argue that Aristotle’s treatment of non-human animals differs significantly in the two texts. My chapter explores this difference in greater detail and considers the ramifications of such a difference for our understanding of Aristotle’s place in the philosophical tradition concerning the ethical status of non-human animals. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Politics is a study of the political institutions of the 4th C. Mediterranean world, including both Greek communities (like Athens and Sparta) and non-Greek communities (like Persia and Carthage). The work is foundational for a number of modern scholarly disciplines such as political science, political theory, ancient history, and ancient philosophy; thus, the work annually is the subject of a robust number of scholarly studies (on average, about four monographs and 25 journal articles and book chapters per year). This (...) chapter reviews scholarship on the Politics, focusing on work produced since 2010. The chapter first reviews general introductions, editions, and interpretative strategies for understanding the Politics. It then reviews major subsections or conceptual issues within the Politics. The chapter concludes with a review of major trends in scholarship and suggestions for future scholarly directions in understanding Aristotle’s Politics. (shrink)

Empathy is one of the most talked about and widely studied concepts of recent years. Some argue it can help create a more just society, improve medical care and even avert global catastrophe. Others object that it is morally problematic. Who is right? And what is empathy anyway? Is it a way of feeling with others, or is it simply feeling sorry for them? Is it a form of knowledge? What is its evolutionary origin? In this thorough and clearly-written introduction (...) to the philosophy of empathy Heidi Maibom explores these questions and more, examining the following topics: The nature of empathy and key themes in the literature Empathy as a way of understanding others, particularly 'simulation theory' and 'perspective-taking' Empathy, emotional contagion, and sympathy Empathy's role in moral understanding or motivation Empathy and art appreciation, with examples from film, music and fiction Empathy and mental disorder, such as psychopathy and autism. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary, Empathy is an excellent resource for students of philosophy of mind and psychology, psychology, and cognitive science, as well as for those in related subjects such as art, literature and politics. (shrink)

Empathy plays a central role in the history and contemporary study of ethics, interpersonal understanding, and the emotions, yet until now has been relatively underexplored. _The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Empathy_ is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting field and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the _Handbook_ is divided into six parts: Core issues History of empathy Empathy and understanding (...) Empathy and morals Empathy in art and aesthetics Empathy and individual differences. Within these sections central topics and problems are examined, including: empathy and imagination; neuroscience; David Hume and Adam Smith; understanding; evolution; altruism; moral responsibility; art, aesthetics, and literature; gender; empathy and related disciplines such as anthropology. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, particularly ethics and philosophy of mind and psychology, the _Handbook_ will also be of interest to those in related fields, such as anthropology and social psychology. (shrink)

It is common for philosophers to argue that psychopaths are not morally responsible because they lack some of the essential capacities for morality. In legal terms, they are criminally insane. Typically, however, the insanity defense is not available to psychopaths. The primary reason is that they appear to have the knowledge and understanding required under the M’Naghten Rules. However, it has been argued that what is required for moral and legal responsibility is ‘deep’ moral understanding, something that psychopaths do not (...) have either due to their lacking empathy or practical reason. In the first part of the paper, I argue that psychopaths do not lack the abilities required for deep moral understanding, although they have deficits in those areas. According the M’Naghten Rules, therefore, psychopaths are not insane. Under a less strict formulation of the insanity plea, like the Model Penal Code, however, there is a good case to be made for their lacking substantial capacity. I argue that because psychopathy is an essentially moral disorder, and because of the nature of psychopathic violence, psychopaths should not be excused under the insanity plea. It would be tantamount to excusing someone for committing a crime because they are bad. Arguably, this contravenes the entire system of law. (shrink)

Modern physics has revealed the universe as a much stranger place than we could have imagined. The puzzle at the centre of our knowledge of the universe is time. Michael Lockwood takes the reader on a fascinating journey into the nature of things. He investigates philosophical questions about past, present, and future, our experience of time, and the possibility of time travel. We zoom in on the behaviour of molecules and atoms, and pull back to survey the expansion of (...) the universe. We learn about entropy and gravity, black holes and wormholes, about how it all began and where we are all headed. Things will never seem the same again after a voyage through The Labyrinth of Time. (shrink)

Although medical and public health practitioners aim for high rates of vaccination, parent vaccination concerns confound doctors and complicate doctor-patient interactions. Medical and public health researchers have studied and attempted to counter antivaccination sentiments, but recommended approaches to dispel vaccination concerns have failed to produce long-lasting effects. We use observations made during a small study in a rural area in a southeastern state to demonstrate how a shift away from analyzing vaccination skepticism as a national issue with a global remedy (...) reveals the nuances in vaccination sentiments based on locality. Instead of seeing antivaccinationists as a distinct public based on statistical commonalities, we argue that examining vaccination beliefs and practices at the local level offers a fuller picture of the contextualized nature of vaccination decisions within the psychosocial spaces of families. A view of vaccination that emphasizes the local public, rather than a globally conceived antivaccination public, enables medical humanists and rhetoricians to offer important considerations for improving communications about vaccinations in clinical settings. (shrink)

It used to be thought that folk psychology is the only game in town. Focusing merely on what people do will not allow you to predict what they are likely to do next. For that, you must consider their beliefs, desires, intentions, etc. Recent evidence from developmental psychology and fMRI studies indicates that this conclusion was premature. We parse motion in an environment as behavior of a particular type, and behavior thus construed can feature in systematizations that we know. Building (...) on the view that folk psychological knowledge is knowledge of theoretical models, I argue that social knowledge is best understood as lying on a continuum between behavioral and full-blown psychological models. Between the two extremes, we have what I call social models. Social models represent social structures in terms of their overall purpose and circumscribe individuals' roles within them. These models help us predict what others will do or plan what we should do without providing information about what agents think or want. Thinking about social knowledge this way gives us a more nuanced picture of what capacities are engaged in social planning and interaction, and gives us a better tool with which to think about the social knowledge of animals and young children. (shrink)

In Lockwood, I defended a conception of phenomenal qualities, according to which they can exist unsensed. Edward Feser points out that a key argument to which I appealed, in support of my claim that phenomenal qualities can ‘outrun awareness’, fails to show that there are phenomenal qualities of which we are unaware; rather, it shows only that phenomenal qualities have attributes of which we are unaware. This may be granted. But I argue that we can certainly imagine experimental data (...) which would provide support for my thesis. Moreover, the conception of unsensed phenomenal qualities is, so I claim, a perfectly meaningful one, and anyone who is prepared to entertain the idea of phenomenal qualities having attributes of which the subject is unaware, can have no principled objection to the idea of there being phenomenal qualities of which the subject is unaware. (shrink)

Among theory theorists, it is commonly thought that folk psychological theory is tacitly known. However, folk psychological knowledge has none of the central features of tacit knowledge. But if it is ordinary knowledge, why is it that we have difficulties expressing anything but a handful of folk psychological generalisations? The reason is that our knowledge is of theoretical models and hypotheses, not of universal generalisations. Adopting this alternative view of (scientific) theories, we come to see that, given time and reflection, (...) we can say what we know. (shrink)

After describing the disorder of psychopathy, I examine the theories and the evidence concerning the psychopaths’ deficient moral capacities. I first examine whether or not psychopaths can pass tests of moral knowledge. Most of the evidence suggests that they can. If there is a lack of moral understanding, then it has to be due to an incapacity that affects not their declarative knowledge of moral norms, but their deeper understanding of them. I then examine two suggestions: it is their deficient (...) practical reason or their stunted emotions that are at fault. The evidence supports both explanations. I conclude with an overview of the debate concerning whether they are morally or legally responsible for their actions. (shrink)

Although there is much scholarship on Aristotle’s account of friendship (φιλία), almost all of it has focused on inter-personal relationships between human animals. Nonetheless, in both Aristotle’s ethical and zoological writings, he documents the intra- and inter-species friendship between many kinds of animals, including between human and non-human animals. Such non-human animal friendships establish both an indirect basis for establishing moral ties between humans and non-human animals (insofar as we respect their capacity to love and befriend others) and a direct (...) basis for establishing such ties (insofar as Aristotle provides a framework for thinking about utility and pleasure friendships between human and non-human animals). My paper defends Aristotle’s limitation of inter-species friendships to only utility and pleasure friendships and responds to scholars who claim that Aristotle recognizes no moral ties between human and non-human animals. (shrink)

Shame is a painful emotion concerned with failure to live up to certain standards, norms, or ideals. The subject feels that she falls in the regard of others; she feels watched and exposed. As a result, she feels bad about the person that she is. The most popular view of shame is that someone only feels ashamed if she fails to live up to standards, norms, or ideals that she, herself, accepts. In this paper, I provide support for a different (...) view, according to which shame is about failure to live up to public expectations. Such a view of shame has difficulties explaining why an audience is central to shame, why shame concerns the self as a whole, and why the social rank of someone affects their ability to shame others. These features, I argue, are best explained by reference to the descent of shame in the emotion connected with submission in nonhuman animals. The function of submission—to appease relevant social others—also throws light on the sort of emotion that shame is. From the point of view of other people, a subject who experiences shame at her own failing is someone who is committed to living together with others in a socially sanctioned way. The argument is not that we must understand the nature of shame in terms of what it evolved for, but that its heritage is important to understanding the emotion that shame has become. (shrink)

In this piece, I argue that promises need not be kept just because they were made. This is not to say, however, that unwise, unhappy, and unfortunate promises do not generate obligations. When broken promises will result either in wrongful gains to promisors or wrongful losses to promisees, obligations of corrective justice will demand that such promises be kept if their breach cannot be fully repaired. Thus, when a broken promise will constitute a deliberate loss transfer for personal gain, the (...) duty not to exact unjust enrichment will require a promisor either to honor her promise or craft a means of ensuring that the promisee’s impoverishment is not traded for her enrichment. And when a broken promise will constitute the culpable imposition of a reliance-based injury on a nonculpable promisee, the duty to make others whole when one has purposefully, knowingly, or recklessly injured them will require one either to keep one’s promise or to fashion a remedy for its breach that ensures that the promisee is left no worse off than he would be had the promise not been made. This account explicitly parts ways with normative powers theories of promising. It places no weight at all on the raw fact that a promise has been made. Instead, it locates the gravamen of a promissory violation in the harm that is caused to a promisee who nonculpably relies upon and changes her position in anticipation of the prediction about the promisor’s future conduct that is embedded in his promise. Absent any adverse reliance on the part of a promisee, there is nothing that gives rise to an obligation of performance or repair on the part of the promisor. But this account is also to be distinguished from utilitarian theories that take promises to be instruments of wealth maximization that properly give way whenever the reason for honoring them speaks in favor of violating them. On my account, the balance of reasons for action that determines the morality of performance includes deontological rights and duties, agent-relative permissions, and Hohfeldian liberties. As I shall argue, even if one rightly concludes that one has no duty either to keep a promise or to craft a remedy for its breach, one must nevertheless remember that virtue requires one to be or become the kind of person who often goes beyond the call of duty. But the fact that virtue often requires us to do what we have no duty to do should not cause us to confuse its conditions with the conditions of right and wrong action. We have a duty to keep promises or to otherwise protect the reliance interests that they generate only when failing to do so will lead either to our own unjust enrichment or to others’ unjust injury. And this means that we have a duty to keep promises in far fewer circumstances than is commonly believed. (shrink)

Many spectacular claims about psychopaths are circulated. This contribution aims at providing the reader with the more complex reality of the phenomenon (or phenomena), and to point to issues of particular interest to philosophers working in moral psychology and moral theory. I first discuss the current evidence regarding psychopaths’ deficient empathy and decision-making skills. I then explore what difference it makes to our thinking whether we regard their deficit dimensionally (as involving abilities that are on or off) and whether we (...) focus on primary or secondary psychopathy. My conclusion is that most grand claims about psychopathy settling long-standing debates in moral philosophy and psychology are overblown, but there is much to be learnt from this disorder when it comes to formulating modern theories of moral psychology. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a version of theory theory, so-called model theory, according to which theories are families of models, which represent real-world phenomena when combined with relevant hypotheses, best interpreted in terms of know-how. This form of theory theory has a number of advantages over traditional forms, and is not subject to some recent charges coming from narrativity theory. Most importantly, practice is central to model theory. Practice matters because folk psychological knowledge is knowledge of the world only (...) if it is combined with knowledge of how to apply it. By combining the general and the particular in this way, model theory gives a deep and explanatorily satisfactory account of the centrality of practice. Model theory accounts not just as well as, but better than, narrativity theory for the fact that our folk psychological explanations appear to contain, or form part of, narratives. (shrink)

Business students early on should be offered a course presenting and analyzing ethical dilemmas they will face as human beings both in the business world and in society. However, such a course should use literature, plays, and novels to illustrate ethical norms and values in the intertwined relationships of human activities. Better than business case studies, literature offers portraits of characters as leaders, employees, consultants, and other professionals, as ordinary human beings with conflicting desires, drives, and ambitions. Literary texts offer (...) excellent descriptions of the circumstances or the organizational settings in which people find themselves. I believe this is the best way to sensitize students without business experience when they are still open to such a formative learning process. At the same time, this pedagogical method linking ethics and literature may help to critically expose some of the weak or missing aspects of various management theories students encounter in their business curriculum and make them more observant and critical. (shrink)

Some societies tolerate or encourage high levels of chickenpox infection among children to reduce rates of shingles among older adults. This tradeoff is unethical. The varicella zoster virus (VZV) causes both chickenpox and shingles. After people recover from chickenpox, VZV remains in their nerve cells. If their immune systems become unable to suppress the virus, they develop shingles. According to the Exogenous Boosting Hypothesis (EBH), a person’s ability to keep VZV suppressed can be ‘boosted’ through exposure to active chickenpox infections. (...) We argue that even if this hypothesis were true, immunization policies that discourage routine childhood varicella vaccination in order to prevent shingles for other people are unethical. Such policies harm children and treat them as mere means for the benefit of others, and are inconsistent with how parents should treat their children and physicians should treat their patients. These policies also seem incompatible with institutional transparency. (shrink)

: Feminist epistemologists have found the atomistic view of knowers provided by classical epistemology woefully inadequate. An obvious alternative for feminists is Lynn Hankinson Nelson's suggestion that it is communities that know. However, I argue that Nelson's view is problematic for feminists, and I offer instead a conception of knowers as "individuals-in-communities." This conception is preferable, given the premises and goals of feminist epistemologists, because it emphasizes the relations between knowers and their communities and the relevance of these relations for (...) epistemic assessments. Furthermore, it provides a sense of epistemic agents as active reflective inquirers, capable of transforming and improving knowledge-seeking practices. (shrink)

A new word has recently entered the British medical vocabulary. What it stands for is neither a disease nor a cure. At least, it is not a cure for a disease in the medical sense. But it could, perhaps, be thought of as an intended cure for a medicosociological disease: namely that of haphazard or otherwise ethically inappropriate allocation of scarce medical resources. What I have in mind is the term ‘QALY’, which is an acronym standing for quality adjusted life (...) year. Just what this means and what it is intended to do I shall explain in due course. Let me first, however, set the scene. (shrink)

This volume contains twelve original papers about the importance of empathy and sympathy to morality, with perspectives from philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and neuroscience.

Numerous ancient sources attest that Artemisia of Halicarnassus, a fifth-century BCE tyrant whose polis came under Persian rule in 524 BCE, figures prominently in Xerxes’ naval campaign against Greece. At least since Pompeius Trogus’ first-century BCE Philippic History, interpretations of Artemisia have juxtaposed her “virile courage” (uirilem audaciam) with Xerxes’ “womanish fear” (muliebrem timorem) primarily as a means of belittling the effeminate non-Greeks. My paper argues that although Herodotus is aware of such interpretations of Artemisia, he depicts her primarily as (...) an excellent counsel, a woman who is not only brave in battle, but who is a wonder primarily because of her intellectual excellences in deliberative rhetoric and “geo-political” strategy in the Greco-Persian world. (shrink)

In the final year of his long life, eminent Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain prepared a final book for publication: a collection of previously unpublished writings entitled Approaches san entraves, later translated into English as Untrammeled Approaches. That collection, both in its conversational yet reverent tone and in its weighty topics - faith, love, truth, beauty - gives the reader the sense that she is receiving from a great teacher and friend the most important nuggets of wisdom for the next generation. (...) Throughout the book, Maritain shares with his readers, from his heart as well as his intellect, regarding the things that really matter; that book - and those things - are the primary inspiration for the present volume. This volume, comprised of original essays by twenty English-speaking Thomists on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Untrammeled Approaches' first English appearance, explores several of Maritain's still-untrammeled (or at least less-trammeled) themes. While following his unbeaten paths, the contributing authors find and refine hidden treasures at every turn. They develop some of his more speculative ideas regarding the spiritual world - including the last things, the fate of the fallen angels, and a possible angelic role in evolution. They reflect deeply on a few of Maritain's recurring themes: for example, the nature of beauty and intuition. They analyze the implications - positive and negative - of Maritain's philosophy of love, marriage, and sexuality. And they consider and apply his arguments regarding appropriate roles and interactions of Church and state. The volume concludes with big-picture reflections on Maritain, his thought, and his enduring relevance. The contributors to this volume are: Michael Breidenbach, Romanus Cessario, OP, John Conley, SJ, Mario O. D'Souza, CSB, Travis Dumsday, Heather Erb, Lawrence Feingold, Megan Furman, Marie George, James Hanink, Gregory Kerr, William McCormick, SJ, Matthew Minerd, Mark Moes, Michael Novak, Michael Pakuluk, Alice Ramos, Walter Schultz, Michael Torre, Nikolaj Zunic. (shrink)

Arguably the foundational text of Western political theory, Aristotle's Politics has become one of the most widely and carefully studied works in ethical and political philosophy. This volume of essays offers fresh interpretations of Aristotle's key work and opens new paths for students and scholars to explore. The contributors embrace a variety of methodological approaches that range across the disciplines of classics, political science, philosophy, and ancient history. Their essays illuminate perennial questions such as the relationship between individual and community, (...) the nature of democratic deliberation, and how to improve political institutions. Offering groundbreaking studies that both set Aristotle within the context of his own time and draw on contemporary discussion of his writings, this collection will provide researchers with an understanding of many of the major scholarly debates surrounding this key text. (shrink)

In the center of the fifth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle elliptically characterizes political justice as a form of reciprocal rule that exists between free and equal persons pursuing a common life directed toward self-sufficiency under the rule of law. My dissertation analyzes Aristotle's thematic treatments of political justice in the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics in order to elucidate its meaning, clarify its relationship to the other forms of justice that he also discusses, and compare it to contemporary neo-Aristotelian (...) accounts of justice. ;The first chapter examines the unclear and disputed passages of Ethics V.6--7 and explains why Aristotle discusses political justice in his ethical treatise. The second chapter makes use of Aristotle's juxtaposition of political justice to household justice on the one hand and despotic justice on the other hand in order to explicate the necessary conditions of political justice, namely, freedom, equality, commonality, self-sufficiency, and the rule of law. To make sense of these concepts, the chapter explores such topics as Aristotle's understanding of the household, his notion of the self and his political criticisms of Socrates. The third chapter examines political justice or reciprocal rule in the Politics in order to understand how political justice can be both a human virtue and an institutional arrangement of offices. The fourth chapter offers a critique of Fred Miller's reconstruction of Aristotelian natural rights. Although Miller is correct to say that Aristotle recognized and understood "rights claims," he is mistaken in claiming that they are an integral part of Aristotle's practical philosophy. Aristotle understood the problems for political compromise posed by rights conceived as "trumps," and he rejects rights as philosophically fundamental on the grounds that they are an inadequate solution to both the political problem of justice and the stability of flourishing political institutions. (shrink)

Fictional names present unique challenges for semantic theories of proper names, challenges strong enough to warrant an account of names different from the standard treatment. The theory developed in this paper is motivated by a puzzle that depends on four assumptions: our intuitive assessment of the truth values of certain sentences, the most straightforward treatment of their syntactic structure, semantic compositionality, and metaphysical scruples strong enough to rule out fictional entities, at least. It is shown that these four assumptions, taken (...) together, are inconsistent with referentialism, the common view that names are uniformly associated with ordinary individuals as their semantic value. Instead, the view presented here interprets names as context-sensitive expressions, associated in a context of utterance with a particular act of introduction, or dubbing, which is then used to determine their semantic value. Some dubbings are referential, which associate names with ordinary individuals as their semantic values; others are fictional, which associate names, instead, with sets of properties. Since the semantic values of names can be of different sorts, the semantic rule interpreting predication must be complex as well. In the body of the paper, I show how this new treatment of names allows us to solve our original puzzle. I defend the complexity of the semantic predication rule, and address additional worries about ontological commitment. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that standard psychological continuity theory does not account for an important feature of what is important in survival—having the property of personhood. I offer a theory that can account for this, and I explain how it avoids the implausible consequences of standard psychological continuity theory, as well as having certain other advantages over that theory.

Aristotle's account of natural slavery appears to be internally inconsistent concerning whether slavery is advantageous to the natural slave. Whereas the Politics asserts that slavery is beneficial to the slave, the ethical treatises deny such a claim. Examination of Aristotle's arguments suggests a distinction which resolves the apparent contradiction. Aristotle distinguishes between the common benefit between two people who join together in an association And the same benefit which exists between a whole and its parts. Master and slave share no (...) common benefit, but instead the slave receives the same benefit a master does, albeit only through participation in the master as a part within a whole. Although Aristotle's distinction hardly justifies his doctrine of slavery, it saves Aristotle from one alleged internal inconsistency and sheds light on what Aristotle means by association and the common good. (shrink)

In Commit to Win, Heidi Reeder, PhD, unpacks over forty years of research by psychologists and economists to show that the key to reaching any goal, whether it' to hit the gym more often or to finally quit that dead-end job, isn' motivation, willpower, or determination. It' commitment. Busting the myths most of us believe about commitment, Reeder shows that it all comes down to four variables: treasures, troubles, contributions, and choices. Together, these variables make up a formula that (...) not only measures how committed we are, but also shows which factors we can change to get our commitment level in sync with what we want to do. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics V.6 Aristotle contrasts political justice with household justice, paternal justice, and despotic justice. My paper expands upon Aristotle’s sometimes enigmatic remarks about political justice through an examination of his account of justice within the oikia or ‘household’. Understanding political justice requires explicating the concepts of freedom and equality, but for Aristotle, the children and wife within the household are free people even if not citizens, and there exists proportionate equality between a husband and wife. Additionally, Aristotle’s articulation (...) and defence of political justice arises out of his examination of despotic justice in the first book of the Politics. Not only are the polis and the oikia similar insofar as they are associations, but Nicomachean Ethics VIII.9–11 suggests they are even isomorphic with respect to justice and friendship. Thus, in this paper I explore the relationships between father and son, husband and wife, master and slave, and between siblings in order to see what they tell us about Aristotle’s understanding of freedom, equality, and justice. (shrink)