Two essays on utilitarianism, written from opposite points of view, by J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams. In the first part of the book Professor Smart advocates a modern and sophisticated version of classical utilitarianism; he tries to formulate a consistent and persuasive elaboration of the doctrine that the rightness and wrongness of actions is determined solely by their consequences, and in particular their consequences for the sum total of human happiness. In Part II Bernard Williams offers a sustained (...) and vigorous critique of utilitarian assumptions, arguments and ideals. He finds inadequate the theory of action implied by utilitarianism, and he argues that utilitarianism fails to engage at a serious level with the real problems of moral and political philosophy, and fails to make sense of notions such as integrity, or even human happiness itself. This book should be of interest to welfare economists, political scientists and decision-theorists. (shrink)

The contest between “Lockeian liberalism” and “classical republicanism” as explanatory frameworks for the intellectual history of the American Revolution, and therefore of the present-day United States, has been one of the longest running and most distinguished in recent U.S. historiography. It also has major implications for the history of political thought in the North Atlantic Anglophone world more widely. Yet this debate was merely suspended when it was held to have ended in an ill-defined compromise. Although some U.S. historians expressed (...) doubts and qualifications, attention in U.S. historiography moved on to other themes while leaving the initial problem unsolved. This article reopens the question; it suggests that a historicization of both these two categories is now both possible and necessary, and that their supersession will advance understanding of the Revolution. It seeks to help solve this problem by the same means that the debate began: that is, by re-establishing a link between U.S. and U.K. historiographies. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Exploring the Depth of Dream Experience: The Enactive Framework and Methods for Neurophenomenological Research” by Elizaveta Solomonova & Xin Wei Sha. Upshot: Enaction and neurophenomenology are indeed appropriate and productive theoretical and methodological tools for studying perception. But moving from the perceptual domain to the hallucinatory and dreaming domain with these tools requires a prior careful examination of the similarities and differences across these domains. The authors point in the right direction for studying dream (...) experience, but underestimate the objective and subjective differences between domains, producing thereby both an unwarranted blurring of their boundaries and an unnecessary explanatory burden on the approach defended. (shrink)

Like the public political sphere, the world of the workplace contains literary works offering analysis, advice and philosophy to those in positions of command. In this article, I read business management advice manuals as works of political theory, focusing on their treatment of the problem of legitimacy in the relationship between employer and employee. I highlight and analyze key strategies of legitimation, draw their connections to discussions of legitimacy in the history of political thought and examine changes in workplace legitimation (...) in the context of macroeconomic transformation. (shrink)

In American jurisprudence, there can be no presumption of constitutional rights coextensive with those of adults for children in any institutional context. This includes public schools, in part because of the legal status of minors and in part because the ‘special characteristics of the school environment’ are predicated on a ‘custodial and tutelary’ relationship between teachers and pupils.

Atque illo die certe Aricia rediens devertit Clodius ad se in Albanum: quod ut sciret Milo ilium Ariciae fuisse, suspicari tamen debuit eum, etiam si Romam illo die reverti vellet, ad villam suam, quae viam tangeret, deversurum. THIS passage is interesting in that its argument runs counter to the main picture which Cicero had earlier presented of the movements of Milo and Clodius before they met on the Appian Way in January 52 B.C. In an earlier passage Cicero says: ‘Interim (...) cum sciret Clodius–neque enim difficile erat id scire–xiter sollemne, legitimum, necessarium ante diem XIII Kalendas Februarias Miloni esse Lanuvium ad flaminem prodendum, quod erat dictator Lanuvii Milo, Roma subito ipse profectus pridie est, ut ante suum fundum, quod re intellectum est, Miloni insidias conlocaret.’ Cicero remains true to this latter version in all the relevant arguments concerning the motives and movements of Clodius and Milo. Milo had legitimate business at Lanuvium, and hence a legitimate reason for being on the road at the time of the affray; Clodius′ presence is explained by Cicero as due solely to the desire to place an ambush for his enemy at a convenient spot, i.e. in front of his farm, and for this reason he had set out from Rome a day before Milo, when his presence was really required in Rome. (shrink)

The inverse of the distance between two structures $\mathscr{A} \not\equiv \mathscr{B}$ of finite type τ is naturally measured by the smallest integer q such that a sentence of quantifier rank q - 1 is satisfied by A but not by B. In this way the space $\operatorname{Str}^\tau$ of structures of type τ is equipped with a pseudometric. The induced topology coincides with the elementary topology of $\operatorname{Str}^\tau$ . Using the rudiments of the theory of uniform spaces, in this elementary note (...) we prove the convergence of every Cauchy net of structures, for any type τ. (shrink)

The inverse of the distance between two structures $\mathscr{A} \not\equiv \mathscr{B}$ of finite type $\tau$ is naturally measured by the smallest integer $q$ such that a sentence of quantifier rank $q - 1$ is satisfied by $\mathscr{A}$ but not by $\mathscr{B}$. In this way the space $\operatorname{Str}^\tau$ of structures of type $\tau$ is equipped with a pseudometric. The induced topology coincides with the elementary topology of $\operatorname{Str}^\tau$. Using the rudiments of the theory of uniform spaces, in this elementary note we (...) prove the convergence of every Cauchy net of structures, for any type $\tau$. (shrink)

Most, perhaps all, states have “myths of origin”: those semi-historical, semi-propagandistic accounts of their founding and (what are termed) essential purposes. There is nothing unusual in the Uni...