This book is conceived as part of a systematic philosophy of values. Neither philosophies of value nor systematic philosophies are in fashion. It is hoped that this work will make a contribution toward their reappraisal. Classically, political philosophy was considered a part of philosophic systems, as the basic ideas of the philosophy applied to politics. Its relative neglect by the predominant school of philosophy in America and Britain has meant that certain ideas and issues in philosophy are in danger of (...) erasure by default. The neglect of political philosophy has meant, however, that ideologies dominate political discussion. The field of political discourse has, in effect, been yielded or ceded to the ideologues. Their views, concepts, statements of the issues, and solutions—in a word, the ultimate legitimacy of their approach—have been tacitly accepted. Many philosophers have never discussed ideology in relation to, and in the context of political philosophy in our time. More importantly, the connection between ideology and contemporary events has not received serious philosophic examination. One basis for this attitude may be the ideal of a "value free" social science. The well known thesis of Daniel Bell's book, "the end of ideology," has diverted attention from its study. Yet ideological politics is still with us in the form of ideologically defined political parties and political conflicts in which the ideology of the conflicting groups define the issues. Part I examines the link between ideology, totalitarianism and Plato’s ideal of the “philosopher-king.” Ideology is articulated by intellectuals seeking power, or attached to a party or faction seeking power. It is applied totalistically through bureaucracy and technology. We will go on in Part II to a critique of political essentialism. Essential models, combined with political motives and ideological formulas are the basis for total politicization. Thus totalitarianism will have been analyzed into root essential models, articulated into totalistic ideologies, by politically minded intellectuals, using a formula which politicizes all categories. Chapter five contrasts the moral values of political philosophy with the politicized standards of ideology. Chapter six contrasts the privacy and freedom requisite to evaluation of personal values, and to genuine happiness, with the total publicity of ideology. An entirely new grounding relation for politics is explicated in this book. (shrink)

This book evaluates competing theories on speculative topics, such as nature, technology, space, time, and the relation of mind and matter. The general thesis is the actuality of principles in the form of laws, norms and other general principles in a plastic world, tying together the actualization of “oughts” and other principles. The result is a pluralistic universe, endorsing the pragmatic view of the world. The book examines nature, being, reality and other traditional issues in this light, critically evaluating many (...) historical approaches. (shrink)

A comprehensive look at how John Dewey's ethics can inform environmental issues.

This book treats values as the basis for all of philosophy, an approach distinct from critiquing theories of value and far rarer. "First Philosophy," the effort to justify the foundations for a system of philosophy, is one of the main issues that divide philosophers today. McDonald's philosophy of values is a comprehensive attempt to replace philosophies of "existence," "being," "experience," the "subject," or "language," with a philosophy that locates value as most basic. This transformation is a radical move within (...) Western philosophy as a whole, since it has never been done in such a thoroughgoing way. Hugh P. McDonald makes a comprehensive case against first philosophy as metaphysical, by mounting a case against all metaphysical systems of philosophy. Radical Axiology: A First Philosophy of Values is a fresh start for a rebirth of philosophy. While other movements debate the "death of philosophy," this book radically re-evaluates the direction of philosophy by discovering values at the basis of all philosophy. This reorientation addresses the question of what the love of wisdom can mean for us today. (shrink)

This issue of Contemporary Pragmatism is devoted to pragmatism and environmental ethics. My introduction surveys the current situation at the intersection of these two fields, and the contributions of this issue's eleven articles.

The growing literature on Environmental Ethics has ballooned into a separate sub-field within philosophy, involving ethical studies concerning the value of other species, of ecosystems, and of the environment of all living things as a whole. Some consider Environmental Ethics to be a revolution in ethics which will completely change the human-centered orientation of morals and reorient it to include all species, ecosystems or the larger biosphere. This volume explores pragmatist approaches to ethics that can be used for environmental issues. (...) Pragmatism may provide both a more defensible theory of non-anthropomorphic and intrinsic value than other ethical schools, and, more generally, supply an alternative model of what environmental philosophy could be. The holism of pragmatists constitutes a challenge to value and ethics centered in the individual, and a useful ground for more holistic theories of value which, some have argued, is more suitable to an environmental, as opposed to a humane, ethic. The authors of this bookOCOs chapters defend their understandings of pragmatism in the course of explaining contemporary ways to reconstruct central foundations to environmental ethics.". (shrink)

Introduction -- Creative actualization -- Modes of value -- Moral justification -- Creative actualization and the world -- Critical evaluation of metaphysical value theories -- Critical evaluation of subjective value theories -- Critical evaluation of relational value theories -- Conclusion : value hierarchies and value autonomy.

This paper presents a basically new theory of values. Potential goods such as flying machines have been creatively actualized and thus value is creative actualization. Norms, ideals, standards, and theories also require creative actualization. As actions melioristically transform the world for the better, the goals of action provide purpose and meaning, as well as the ground of change, a superior goal providing the end for which agents undertake action. The kinds of value represent irreducibly plural categories of good: beauty, knowledge, (...) prosperity, intimacy, and so on. (shrink)

Environmental Philosophy: A Revaluation of Cosmopolitan Ethics from an Ecocentric Standpoint calls for a new approach to ethics. Starting from the necessity for all life of air, water, and food, the book revalues the relation of ethics and environmentalism. Using insights of the environmental ethicists, environmental ethics becomes the model for ethics as a whole. Humans are part of a larger environment. Cosmopolitanism should be revised in accord with environmental ethics. The book applies a new theory of values to the (...) relation of value and obligation, and of duty, rights and virtue, to accord with ecocentrism. The book also critically evaluates Utilitarianism and the self interest theory. Other chapters address population, species preservation and a practical program for environmental policy. (shrink)

The renaissance of pragmatism in recent decades has stimulated renewed study of the classical pragmatists. Until this volume, F. C. S. Schiller was the only major pragmatist from the classical era whose significant writings remained uncollected for renewed scholarly study. The forty-two pieces in this collection represent Schiller's finest writings. They range across a broad spectrum of specific topics: logic and scientific method, meaning and truth, pluralism and monism, personalism and idealism, metaphysics and values, evolution and religion, and ethics and (...) politics. An introduction to Schiller's life and career, introductory essays to the volume's seven parts, and a bibliography of Schiller's books and essays are also included. (shrink)

In this essay, I will argue for the actuality of principles. Principles are normative in that they regulate the relation of actuality and potentiality as well as operate across time, from the past and present to the future. They may also apply across space, that is, that the same principle operates in different places in the same way, for example the laws of motion. Principles mean that change follows certain regularities. I will examine the modality of principles, the relation to (...) pluralism. I will argue negatively for the principle of principles, that is, that the world actually exhibits or contains principles. I will then argue that principles as origins cannot be accounted for by ontology. Principles are neither material nor substantial beings but both of the latter presume, as generals or “universals,” the actuality of principles. Thus principles could be considered in the category of “thirds” in Peirce. I will argue that principles also support James’s model of a “pluralistic universe” of change. (shrink)

To bring our topic within manageable limits, the attempt will be made to approach the philosophy of nature in a systematic manner. Borrowing the quantitative categories of one, some and all, nature will be treated as first as singular, then a whole or totality and finally discussed in terms of various distinctions which set nature apart as a part. Past philosophic treatments will be discussed when germane to this treatment, as an example of a particular view of nature. I will (...) argue that nature is not a per se being, cannot be singular or the whole and that the various distinctions that separate the natural from other—the artificial, theconventional, etc.—are inadequate. (shrink)

Mind cannot be reduced to "brain states" since "brain" is a reconstruction from experience. I begin with the "identity" view and then consider less reductive physicalist views. I criticize the dualistic view, and argue for unique features of mind that separate it from anything physical, particularly perspective. I then argue for Mead's view of the formation and development of mind in a social context. The plasticity of minds, along with privacy of experience argue against identification with any physical correlate. I (...) conclude with a plea for pragmatic pluralism, supported by modern science, as superior to reductionisms. (shrink)

In the recent literature of environmental ethics, certain criticisms of pragmatism in general and Dewey in particular have been made, specifically, that certain features of pragmatism make it unsuitable as an environmental ethic. Eric Katz asserts that pragmatism is an inherently anthropocentric and subjective philosophy. Bob Pepperman Taylor argues that Dewey’s naturalism in particular is anthropocentric in that it concentrates on human nature. I challenge both of these views in the context of Dewey’s naturalism. I discuss his naturalism, his critique (...) of subjectivity, his naturalization of intrinsic value, and his holistic treatment of justification. (shrink)

In this paper, I outline both a nonanthropocentric and non-subjective theory of intrinsic value which incorporates pragmatism in environmental ethics in a novel way. The theory, which I call creative actualization, is a non-hierarchical, nonsubjective theory of value which includes the value of nonhuman species and the biosphere. I argue that there are conditions to such values. These limitations include evaluations of actual improvement (meliorism) and reciprocity as conditions. These conditions are necessary limitations upon actions, i.e., duties. I incorporate a (...) deontological ethic thereby as an alternative to utilitarian and other ethical theories in environmental ethics. Duties are to species and to habitats, not to individuals. I conclude that the distinction between ethics and ecological ethics is no longer tenable, given a theory of obligation which is truly universal rather than speciesist. Ecological ethics is the ethics of the future, embracing a way of life, duty, and questions of ultimate worth. (shrink)

I briefly discuss first philosophy (metaphysics), including different “paradigms’ of first philosophy in the history of Western philosophy. I then discuss the rise of environmental ethics as a new field of philosophy and the debate over anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric values. I suggest that ecocentric value theories could constitute a new first philosophy using the “paradigm” of value in first philosophy and why they should constitute a first philosophy.

Topics include sources of schematic effects on memory; the M. Ross and M. Conway model; E. R. Hirt's model of reconstructive memory; and moderators of the relative weighting of expectancy vs memory trace.

Uptake is typically understood as the hearer’s recognition of the speaker’s communicative intention. According to one theory of uptake, the hearer’s role is merely as a ratifier. The speaker, by expressing a particular communicative intention, predetermines what kind of illocutionary act she might perform. Her hearer can then render this act a success or a failure. Thus the hearer has no power over which act could be performed, but she does have some power over whether it is performed. Call this (...) the ratification theory of uptake. Several philosophers have recently endorsed an alternative theory of uptake, according to which the hearer can determine the nature of the act the speaker performs. According to this theory, if the hearer regards an utterance as illocutionary act y, then it is act y, even if the speaker intended to perform act x. Call this the constitution theory of uptake. The purported advantage of this theory is that it identifies a common but underanalysed way in which speakers can be silenced. I argue that despite its initial intuitive pull, the constitution theory of uptake should be rejected. It is incompatible with ordinary intuitions about speech, it entails a conceptual impossibility, and it has unsavoury political implications, entailing that marginalised speakers barely qualify as agents. (shrink)

As we approach the end of the twentieth century, humanity is facing a crisis in definition and ways of thinking across the boundaries of identity, politics, and culture. This paper briefly addresses unusual forums and forms for expressing the anxiety surrounding change and the ability to analyze it, forms linked to the media and its intensive focus on particular “human interest” stories, but also to the uncertainty that a lack of precedent for thinking creates. One of the questions that most (...) interests me is how the malaise of society and the malaise of political change is expressed through the debates around maternity, birth, and the custody of children, how socio-political problems are made intelligible through dramatization of individual struggle involving family relations. What is compelling is the way in which certain stories followed by the media gravitate around facts that speak of what we do not know. Recent advances in reproductive technologies have put into question the belief (whether implicit or explicit) that biology, as a teleological process, can hold cultural chaos in abeyance. The doors have been opened wide as the definition and status of mother, father, and child have all been deeply questioned. Yet at the very moment when the so-called nuclear family is endangered, it is the extraordinarily powerful metaphor of the family that rings insistently in social and political discourse. There is a sense that the threat to the family signals a disintegration of order, leaving the contemporary sense of self bereft of a discourse that can represent universal order. (shrink)

A limiting factor in ethics education in medical training has been difficulty in assessing competence in ethics. This study was conducted to test the concept that content analysis of pediatric residents’ personal reflections about ethics experiences can identify changes in ethical sensitivity and reasoning over time. Analysis of written narratives focused on two of our ethics curriculum’s goals: 1) To raise sensitivity to ethical issues in everyday clinical practice and 2) to enhance critical reflection on personal and professional values as (...) they affect patient care. Content analysis of written reflections was guided by a tool developed to identify and assess the level of ethical reasoning in eight domains determined to be important aspects of ethical competence. Based on the assessment of narratives written at two times (12 to 16 months/apart) during their training, residents showed significant progress in two specific domains: use of professional values, and use of personal values. Residents did not show decline in ethical reasoning in any domain. This study demonstrates that content analysis of personal narratives may provide a useful method for assessment of developing ethical sensitivity and reasoning. (shrink)

. Power Games and Moral Territories: Ethical Dilemmas when Working with Children and Young People. Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 117-118.

There is a familiar argument based on the principle that the past is fixed that, if God foreknows what I will do, I do not have the power to act otherwise. So, there is a problem about reconciling divine omniscience with the power to do otherwise. However the problem posed by the argument does not provide a good reason for adopting the view that God is outside time. In particular, arguments for the fixity of the past, if successful, either establish (...) His timelessness independently of the problem, or mean that the problem could not be solved by adopting the view that He is timeless. (Published Online April 7 2006). (shrink)

The perception of behavior as a moral or conventional concern can be influenced by contextual variables, including status and power differences. We propose that social processes and in particular social role enactment through the exercise of power will psychologically motivate moralization. Punishing or rewarding others creates a moral dilemma that can be resolved by externalizing causation to incontrovertible moral rules. Legitimate power related to structure and position can carry moral weight but may not influence the power holder’s perceptions of rules (...) and general norms of behavior. Social identity theory suggests moralization could be promoted by a concern for shared, defining values. However, the tendency to moralize another’s behavior can be injurious to shared identity. We explored white-collar employees’ perceptions of several categories of noxious or deviant workplace behaviors and regressed these perceptions on the tendency to use legitimate, referent, or reward and punish power; social identity; and the interaction of social identity and power, in particular legitimate power. Only the tendency to influence others through punishment or reward predicted moralization. Alternative causal explanations for the findings were addressed through the absence of any relationships between punishment and reward power and perceptions of deviant behaviors as wrong, upsetting, or requiring punishment. We discuss these results in the context of self and social processes, the social construction of morals and power, and the impact of managers’ behavior on group or organizational ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 373-376 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Why Literature Matters: Permanence and the Politics of Reputation Why Literature Matters: Permanence and the Politics of Reputation, by Glenn C. Arbery; 255 pp. Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2001, $24.95. Over the last decade or so, there has appeared an increasing number of books critical of the profession of literary studies. Such criticism has typically been directed (...) at literary theory and its preoccupation with the politics of race, class, and gender. To a limited extent, Glenn Arbery's Why Literature Matters: Permanence and the Politics of Reputation can be classified as belonging to such a "genre." Early in the book, for example, Arbery argues in favor of the "old-fashioned" idea, as he calls it, that literature is a "mode of knowledge" with the potential to open up transcendent modes of experience. Yet Why Literature Matters is so short on polemics and so long on incisive, sometimes brilliant readings of works ranging from the poetry and fiction of Seamus Heaney, Tom Wolfe, Toni Morrison, and Emily Dickinson to Shakespeare's Othello and Homer's Iliad, that such a characterization is insufficient at best and distorting at worst. Notwithstanding its title, this book is devoted less to advancing a polemic about "why literature matters" than to dramatizing, with performative power and grace, why most of us, politically oriented or not, are already quite sure that it does.Such performative power can be felt throughout Why Literature Matters, but [End Page 373] its presence is especially strong in the final, lengthy chapter on the Iliad, "The Sacrifice of Achilles." Bringing to bear his training as a classical scholar, Arbery contends that the Iliad is "about" a single event: the death or "sacrifice" of Achilles. Achilles, Arbery notes, was not just the greatest hero of the Iliad. He was also the greatest hero of the entire classical world: "Achilles has no rival in glory, either in the generation of heroes before him (not even Herakles), or in the ages after him. According to Plutarch, Julius Caesar wept because he had not accomplished as much as Alexander at the same age, but Alexander the Great envied Achilles."Why, then, does Arbery refer to Achilles' death as "sacrificial"? Drawing on a version of the Greek myth whose source is Pindar rather than the more commonly cited Hesiod, Arbery observes that Achilles' sacrificial death, which is not in fact narrated in the Iliad but is everywhere taken for granted, was necessitated by Zeus' successful plan to forestall a prophecy. That prophecy said that a son would be born to Zeus and the goddess Thetis, who would overthrow the Olympian god as Zeus had overthrown the Titans. Such a son, prophesized to be not the greatest of mortals but, much more, the greatest of gods, would have been--should have been, from Achilles's justly embittered standpoint--Achilles. But in fact Zeus foiled the prophecy by marrying Thetis off to a mere mortal, Peleus, thereby ensuring his own continued reign and Achilles' eventual death.It is the burden of Arbery's discussion to show not just that Achilles comes to accept and even "will" his own death, but that the meaning of such sacrificial death is embodied and given "presence" in the poetic form and language of the Iliad, including especially the descriptions of Patrocles and Hector, each of whom "inhabits the meaning of Achilles" by dying, successively, in Achilles' armor. Arbery goes so far as to compare Achilles' sacrifice with Christ's, asserting that reading the Iliad "in ignorance of the central importance of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis [is comparable] to reading [Dante's] Inferno (where references to holy things are scarce) in ignorance of the existence of Christ."Arbery makes clear, however, that it is the differences, rather than the similarities, that are most important in such a comparison. Those differences revolve around three issues. First, whereas Christ is a deity who sacrifices himself for humanity, Achilles is a mortal who sacrifices himself for the gods. Second, whereas humanity gains ultimate... (shrink)

A controversy in political philosophy and applied ethics concerns the validity of duty‐imposing powers, that is, rights entitling one person to impose new duties on others without their consent. Many philosophers have criticized as unplausible any such moral right, in particular that of appropriating private property unilaterally. Some, finding duty‐imposing powers weird, unfamiliar or baseless, have argued that principles of justified acquisition should be rejected; others have required them to satisfy exacting criteria. I investigate the many ways in (...) which we regularly impose duties on one another without prior consent. I show that doing so is not weird, and I offer criteria which demarcate the reasonable from the worrisome aspects of duty‐imposing powers. (shrink)

This theological treatise was condemned on March 20, 1985 by The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as The Holy Office). The statement of public notification approved by Pope John Paul II, declared that “the options of Leonardo Boff… endanger the sound doctrine of the faith which this congregation must promote and protect.” The central theme in the book is that today the practice and structure of the Catholic Church is an obstacle to the pursuit of (...) the Christian task in Latin America. A 35 year old Franciscan Friar, Boff is a renowned Catholic theologian in Brazil. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation, had already launched an investigation of Boff's opinions and called him to Rome for questioning. (shrink)

The challenge this book addresses is to demonstrate how, in teaching content knowledge, the development of intellectual and moral dispositions as virtues is not merely a good idea, or peripheral to that content, but deeply embedded in the logic of searching for knowledge and truth. It offers a powerful example of how philosophy of education can be brought to bear on real problems of educational research and practice – pointing the reader to re-envision what it means to educate children by (...) developing the person, instead of simply knowledge and skills. Connected intimately to the practice of teaching and teacher education, the book sets forth an alternative theory of education where the developing person is at the center of education set in a moral space and a political order. To this end, a framework of public and personal knowledge forms the content, to which personal dispositions are integral, not peripheral. The book’s pedagogy is invitational, welcoming its readers as companions in inquiry and thought about the moral aspects of what we teach as knowledge. (shrink)

We show how to construct certain " $[Unrepresented Character]_{M,T}$ -type" interpreted languages, with each such language containing meaningfulness and truth predicates which apply to itself. These languages are comparable in expressive power to the $[Unrepresented Character]_{T}$ -type, truth-theoretic languages first considered by. Kripke, yet each of our $[Unrepresented Character]_{M,T}$ -type languages possesses the additional advantage that, within it, the meaninglessness of any given meaningless expression can itself be meaningfully expressed. One therefore has, for example, the object level truth (and meaningfulness) (...) of the claim that the strengthened Liar is meaningless. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a philosophical analysis of the act of ‘liking’ a post on social media. First, I consider what it means to ‘like’ something. I argue that ‘liking’ is best understood as a phatic gesture; it signals uptake and anoints the poster’s positive face. Next, I consider how best to theorise the power that comes with amassing many ‘likes’. I suggest that ‘like’ tallies alongside posts institute and record a form of digital social capital. Finally, I consider (...) whether ‘likes’ have ultimately improved online discourse. I argue that while the ‘liking’ function itself is relatively innocuous, public ‘like’ tallies introduce a corrosive motivation to online communication. By making the prospect of increased social capital perpetually salient to us, they encourage us to prioritise high levels of engagement over meaningful engagement. (shrink)

This essay examines the songwriting art of Bob Dylan as a vehicle for exploring and clarifying elements in Bernard Lonergan’s analysis of art. The elements focused upon include Lonergan’s treatment of symbols and symbolic meaning as the communicative medium of art, and, at greater length, Lonergan’s account of art’s capacity for what he calls “ulterior significance,” its ability to suggest depths of meaning—including divine or ultimate meaning—that we surmise to lie beyond our comprehension. Examining songs from the full range of (...) Dylan’s fifty-year career, the essay shows that from his early songwriting in the “folk” tradition and his breakthrough achievements of the mid-1960s, Dylan’s best art has been characterized by an unusual concision and power in its use of symbolic imagery, as well as by a recurrent ability to evoke, with artistic originality and effectiveness, mysteries of “ulterior significance.” These analyses are then brought together in a discussion of the religious, often eschatological, character of some of Dylan’s most significant work. (shrink)

Ethical perspectives on regional, rural, and remote healthcare often, understandably and importantly, focus on inequities in access to services. In this commentary, we take the opportunity to examine the implications of normalizing metrocentric views, values, knowledge, and orientations, evidenced by the recent (2022) New South Wales inquiry into health outcomes and access to hospital and health services in regional, rural and remote New South Wales, for contemporary rural governance and justice debates. To do this, we draw on the feminist inspired (...) approach to rural health ethics involving analysis of power relationships developed by Simpson and McDonald and related ideas from critical health sociology. In presenting this analysis, we extend contemporary thought about spatial health inequities and structural violence. (shrink)