The first edition of Blindsight, written by Lawrence Weiskrantz was an important and highly cited account of studies of the phenomenon - Blindsight. The updated edition retains the original text of the first edition, but brings the book up to date with developments in this area in the past decade.

Critics have charged that Heidegger's account of authenticity is morally nihilistic, that his fundamental ontology is either egocentric or chauvinistic; and many see Heidegger's turn to Nazism in 1933 as following logically from an indifference, and even hostility, to "otherness" in the premises of his early philosophy. In_ The Fragile "We": Ethical Implications of Heidegger's "Being and Time,"_ Lawrence Vogel presents three interpretations of authentic existence--the existentialist, the historicist, and the cosmopolitan--each of which is a plausible version of the (...) personal ideal depicted in _Being and Time._ He then draws parallels between these interpretations and three moments in the contemporary liberal-communitarian debate over the relationship of the "I" and the "We." His book contributes both to a diagnosis of what there is about _Being and Time_ that invites moral nihilism and to a sense of how fundamental ontology might be recast so that "the other" is accorded an appropriate place in an account of human existence. (shrink)

Observers have noted a decline (in the US) in attributions of genetically-based inferiority (e.g. in intelligence) to Blacks, and a rise in attributions of culturally-based inferiority. Is this "culturalism" merely warmed-over racism ("cultural racism") or a genuinely distinct way of thinking about racial groups? The question raises a larger one about the relative place of biology and culture in racist thought. I develop a typology of culturalisms as applied to race: (1) inherentist or essentialist culturalism (inferiorizing cultural characteristics wrongly but (...) intelligibly regarded as inhering in the nature of racial groups). This view has an historical pedigree in the work of J.G. von Herder, and the tradition of "national racism." (2) non-inherentist culturalism (groups regarded as possessing changeable, malleable inferiorizing cultural characteristics). (3) colonalist culturalism (colonial subjects regarded as uncivilized but capable of becoming civilized under European tutelage). (4) neo-racism (cultures of former colonial subjects in or potentially immigrating to European countries are regarded in an inherentist manner and incompatible with but not inferior to European cultures). Non-inherentist culturalism (#2) can be put to either a racist or an anti-racist use. (shrink)

"This volume provides a long-needed anthology of major writings related to the subject of violence.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1956.

In Justice for Hedgehogs, Dworkin defends a one-system understanding of law. According to this view, law is morality…more exactly, law is a branch of political morality. I have a special interest in the claim, because Dworkin argues that one of its principal consequences is that it undermines arguments I have made about the valid legal status of precepts that are not properly enforceable by courts. In this chapter, I look critically at both Dworkin’s defense of the one system view and (...) his claim that one can embrace the idea of judicially underenforced legal norms only by rejecting any moralized view of law and embracing positivism. (shrink)

This ambitious and lively book argues for a rehabilitation of the concept of 'human needs' as central to politics and political theory. Contemporary political philosophy has focused on issues of justice and welfare to the exclusion of the important issues of political participation, democratic sovereignty, and the satisfaction of human needs, and this has had a deleterious effect on political practice. Lawrence Hamilton develops a compelling positive conception of human needs: the evaluation of needs must be located within a (...) more general analysis of institutions, but can in turn help to justify forms of coercive authority that are directed toward the transformation of political and social institutions and practices. His argument is animated throughout by provocative and original discussions of topics such as autonomy, recognition, rights, civil society, liberalism and democracy, and will interest a wide range of readers in political and social philosophy, political theory, law, development and policy. (shrink)

Neoliberalism is an approach to social policy, now globally influential, that applies market approaches to all aspects of social life, including education. Charter schools, privately operated but publicly funded, are its most prominent manifestation in the U.S. The neoliberal principles of competition, consumerism, and choice cannot serve as foundations of a sound and equitable public education system. Neoliberalism embraces socio-economic inequality overall and in doing so constricts any justice mission its adherents espouse in virtue of serving a relatively disadvantaged student (...) population, as charter schools often (by no means always) do. It constricts educational justice by (1) embracing a “human capital” approach as the primary good of education, (2) creating educational inequality through (unofficially) selecting a relatively advantaged segment of the disadvantaged demographic it serves, (3) denying the effect of poverty on educational performance, and (4) devaluing its students’ familial ethnic cultures. (shrink)

Although now replaced by more modern theories, classical mechanics remains a core foundational element of physical theory. From its inception, the theory of dynamics has been riddled with conceptual issues and differing philosophical interpretations and throughout its long historical development, it has shown subtle conceptual refinement. The interpretive program for the theory has also shown deep evolutionary change over time. Lawrence Sklar discusses crucial issues in the central theory from which contemporary foundational theories are derived and shows how some (...) core issues have nevertheless remained deep puzzles despite the increasingly sophisticated understanding of the theory which has been acquired over time. His book will be of great interest to philosophers of science, philosophers in general and physicists concerned with foundational interpretive issues in their field. (shrink)

The report of the President's Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity, addresses the central ethical, political, and policy issue in human embryonic stem cell research: the moral status of extracorporeal human embryos. The Council members were in sharp disagreement on this issue and essentially failed to adequately engage and respectfully acknowledge each others' deepest moral concerns, despite their stated commitment to do so. This essay provides a detailed critique of the two extreme views on the Council (i.e., embryos (...) have full moral status or they have none at all) and then gives theoretical grounding for our judgment about the intermediate moral status of embryos. It also supplies an account of how to address profound moral disagreements in the public arena, especially by way of constructing a middle ground that deliberately pays sincere respect to the views of those with whom it has deep disagreements. (shrink)

Philosopher Lawrence Becker applies modern knowledge and psychology to the ancient stoic ethic system. In keeping with the ancients, Becker argues that virtue, not happiness, is the proper end of all activity. Moreover, he rejects the popular caricature of the stoic as a grave and emotionally detached figure, proposing instead, that stoic discipline is the very foundation not only of strength, but also of joy.

I argue that hunting is not a sport, but a neo-traditional cultural trophic practice consistent with ecological ethics, including a meliorist concern for animal rights or welfare. Death by hunter is on average less painful than death in wild nature. Hunting achieves goods, including trophic responsibility, ecological expertise and a unique experience of animal inter-dependence. Hunting must then be not only permissible but morally good wherever: a) preservation of ecosystems or species requires hunting as a wildlife management tool; and/or b) (...) its animal deaths per unit of nutrition is lower than that caused by farming practices. Both conditions obtain at least some of the time. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article investigates a virtue-centered approach to normative legal theory in the context of legislation. The core idea of such a theory is that the fundamental aim of law should be the promotion of human flourishing, where a flourishing human life is understood as a life of rational and social activities that express the human excellences. Law can promote flourishing in several ways. Because peace and prosperity are conducive to human flourishing, legislation should aim at the establishment and maintenance of (...) these conditions. The human excellences are developed in childhood and young adulthood by stable and nurturing families and by educational institutions: therefore, the law should support and foster families and schools. Although some critics have argued that an aretaic theory of legislation must support so-called “vice laws,” this is not the case. A virtue-centered approach must take into account the effects produced by criminalization of alcohol, drugs, gambling, and prosti... (shrink)

Apart from his voluminous, immensely learned, and spectacularly successful contributions to the fields of Hermeneutics, non-dualist Metaphysics, and poetics, the sixteenth century South Indian polymath Appayyadīkṣita is famed for reviving from obscurity the moribund Śaivite Vedānta tradition represented by the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya of Śrīkaṇṭha. Appayya’s voluminous commentary on this work, his Śivārkamaṇidīpikā, not only reconstitutes Śrīkaṇṭha’s system, but radically transforms it, making it into a springboard for Appayya’s own highly original critiques of standard views of Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta. Appayya addresses long (...) sections of his commentary to matters dealt with glancingly or not at all in the root text, drawing conclusions which Śrīkaṇṭha nowhere endorses. Furthermore, the distinctive positions Appayya develops in the Śivārkamaṇidīpikā feed into Appayya’s other works in ways that have so far been largely ignored by modern scholars. For example, most or all the discussions Appayya’s Pūrvottaramīmāṃsāvādanakṣatramālā, twenty-seven essays on scattered topics in Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta, build on arguments first advanced in the Śivārkamaṇidīpikā—most notably Appayya’s totally original theory of the signification of adjectives, first developed in the Śivārkamaṇidīpikā, the full elaboration and defense of which takes up fully sixteen of the twenty-seven essays that make up the Pūrvottaramīmāṃsāvādanakṣatramālā. (shrink)

Hans Jonas accuses Heidegger of “never bring[ing] his question about Being into correlation with the testimony of our physical and biological evolution.” Neither the early nor later Heidegger has a “philosophy of nature,” Jonas charges, because Naturphilosophie demands a new concept of matter, a monistic account of cosmogony and evolution, and the grounding of ethical responsibility for future generations in an ontological “first principle.” Jonas’s ontological rethinking of Darwinism allows him to overcome the nihilism that a mechanistic interpretation of evolution (...) forces upon us: a nihilism allegedly shared by Heidegger. I imagine a Heideggerian response to Jonas, and ask whether the dream of recovering a synthesis between cosmogony and moral insight has been irrecoverably shattered by modern natural science. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 15-20, January/February 2022.

The struggle between the parties bent on inflating humanity's self-conception and those bent on deflating it continues. Mind, consciousness, soul, reason, free will, language, culture, tool-use—all have been invoked as the unique character of the human, some deriving from Judeo-Christian religion, others from classical philosophy and modern anthropology. Opponents, sometimes motivated by ethical concerns about the treatment of animals, and buoyed by scientific advances in animal and especially primate studies, have either deconstructed these traits or ascribed them to nonhumans. Seeking (...) to block human exploitation of nonhuman species, they argue that humans are not "exceptional" and possess no "cognitive module" .. (shrink)