A growing body of evidence in cognitive psychology and neuroscience suggests a deep interconnection between sensory-motor and language systems in the brain. Based on recent neurophysiological findings on the anatomo-functional organization of the fronto-parietal network, we present a computational model showing that language processing may have reused or co-developed organizing principles, functionality, and learning mechanisms typical of premotor circuit. The proposed model combines principles of Hebbian topological self-organization and prediction learning. Trained on sequences of either motor or linguistic units, the (...) network develops independent neuronal chains, formed by dedicated nodes encoding only context-specific stimuli. Moreover, neurons responding to the same stimulus or class of stimuli tend to cluster together to form topologically connected areas similar to those observed in the brain cortex. Simulations support a unitary explanatory framework reconciling neurophysiological motor data with established behavioral evidence on lexical acquisition, access, and recall. (shrink)

Deductive inference is usually regarded as being “tautological” or “analytical”: the information conveyed by the conclusion is contained in the information conveyed by the premises. This idea, however, clashes with the undecidability of first-order logic and with the (likely) intractability of Boolean logic. In this article, we address the problem both from the semantic and the proof-theoretical point of view. We propose a hierarchy of propositional logics that are all tractable (i.e. decidable in polynomial time), although by means of growing (...) computational resources, and converge towards classical propositional logic. The underlying claim is that this hierarchy can be used to represent increasing levels of “depth” or “informativeness” of Boolean reasoning. Special attention is paid to the most basic logic in this hierarchy, the pure “intelim logic”, which satisfies all the requirements of a natural deduction system (allowing both introduction and elimination rules for each logical operator) while admitting of a feasible (quadratic) decision procedure. We argue that this logic is “analytic” in a particularly strict sense, in that it rules out any use of “virtual information”, which is chiefly responsible for the combinatorial explosion of standard classical systems. As a result, analyticity and tractability are reconciled and growing degrees of computational complexity are associated with the depth at which the use of virtual information is allowed. (shrink)

In our information societies, tasks and decisions are increasingly outsourced to automated systems, machines, and artificial agents that mediate human relationships, by taking decisions and acting on the basis of algorithms. This raises a critical issue: how are algorithmic procedures and applications to be appraised and governed? This question needs to be investigated, if one wishes to avoid the traps of ICTs ending up in isolating humans behind their screens and digital delegates, or harnessing them in a passive role, by (...) curtailing their freedom and autonomy. (shrink)

The paper is a comparative study of the methodologies of Malthus and Ricardo. Its claims are: (i) economic laws almost always admit of exceptions for Malthus; for Ricardo even contingent predictions allow no exception apart from random temporary variations; (ii) both rely on the prestigious Newtonian paradigm, while interpreting it according to two distinct methodological traditions (the one deriving from MacLaurin, the other from Priestley); (iii) the choice of stressing what happens during intervals or in permanent states leads to opposing (...) definitions of the main problem of economic science in so far as equilibrium is always already given for Ricardo and is never given for Malthus; (iv) their use of the ambiguous notion of "tendency" leaves unclear for both the degree of predictive power with which theories are endowed; (v) what both share is the idea of a natural order and this idea is the source of both shortcomings and endless disagreement. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper we provide a detailed proof-theoretical analysis of a natural deduction system for classical propositional logic that (i) represents classical proofs in a more natural way than standard Gentzen-style natural deduction, (ii) admits of a simple normalization procedure such that normal proofs enjoy the Weak Subformula Property, (iii) provides the means to prove a Non-contamination Property of normal proofs that is not satisfied by normal proofs in the Gentzen tradition and is useful for applications, especially in formal argumentation, (...) (iv) naturally leads to defining a notion of depth of a proof, to the effect that, for every fixed natural k, normal k-depth deducibility is a tractable problem and converges to classical deducibility as k tends to infinity. (shrink)

We show that Smullyan's analytic tableaux cannot p-simulate the truth-tables. We identify the cause of this computational breakdown and relate it to an underlying semantic difficulty which is common to the whole tradition originating in Gentzen's sequent calculus, namely the dissonance between cut-free proofs and the Principle of Bivalence. Finally we discuss some ways in which this principle can be built into a tableau-like method without affecting its analytic nature.

This paper reconstructs the ways in which metaphors are used in the text of “The Wealth of Nations”. Its claims are: a) metaphor statements are basically similar to those in the “Theory of the Moral Sentiments”; b) the metaphors’ ‘primary subjects’ refer to mechanics, hydraulics, blood circulation, agriculture, medicine; c) metaphors may be lumped together into a couple of families, the family of mechanical analogies, and that of iatro-political analogies. Further claims are: a basic physico-moral analogy is the framework for (...) Smith’s psychological theory as well as for his overall social theory and for his theory of market mechanisms; a iatro-mechanical analogy is as pervasive as the physico-moral analogy and provides the framework for his overall evolutionary theory of society; the invisible-hand simile relies on the physico-moral analogy, and elaborates on the role of vis attractiva and vis a tergo in mechanics. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs the reception of Descartes's work by the Scottish Enlighteners, from Colin MacLaurin to Dugald Stewart. The Scots' image of Descartes was a byproduct of a scientific controversy; philosophical arguments were brought into the picture more as asides than as a primary focus of interest. As soon as the Cartesian physics withered away as a real alternative to Newtonian physics, only the philosophical arguments were left, with no memory of the context out of which they originated, and the (...) focus of the discussion shifts from physics to the philosophy of mind and the theory of knowledge. (shrink)

We investigate the semantics of the logical systems obtained by introducing the modalities and into the family of substructural implication logics (including relevant, linear and intuitionistic implication). Then, in the spirit of the LDS (Labelled Deductive Systems) methodology, we "import" this semantics into the classical proof system KE. This leads to the formulation of a uniform labelled refutation system for the new logics which is a natural extension of a system for substructural implication developed by the first two authors in (...) a previous paper. (shrink)

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic is asking health care workers to meet extraordinary challenges. In turn, HCWs were experiencing tremendous psycho-social crisis as they have had to deal with unexpected emotional requirements arising from caring for suffering and dying patients on a daily basis. In that context, recent studies have highlighted how HCWs working during the COVID-19 outbreak manifested extreme emotional and behavioral reactions that may have impacted their mental health, increasing the risk for developing post-traumatic stress symptoms.Purpose: The aim of (...) the study was to investigate post-traumatic stress symptoms, such as intrusion symptoms, as a potential mediator of the link between ERs and crying at work, and whether rumination moderates the relationship between ERs and intrusion-based PTS symptoms among HCWs who have had to deal with patients dying from COVID-19.Methods: An online cross-sectional study design was performed. A total of 543 Italian HCWs participated in the study. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. We used the SPSS version of bootstrap-based PROCESS macro for testing the moderated mediation model.Results: ERs had an indirect effect on crying at work through the mediating role of intrusion symptoms. Results from the moderated mediation model showed that rumination moderated the indirect effect of ERs on crying at work via intrusion symptoms, and this effect was significant only for high rumination. Furthermore, when we tested for an alternative model where rumination moderates the direct effect of ERs on crying at work, this moderation was not significant.Conclusions: As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing, there is an urgent need for decision-makers to rapidly implement interventions aimed at offering timely psychological support to HCWs, especially in those contexts where the risk of emotional labor associated to patients dying from COVID-19 is higher. (shrink)

We will examine the revolts, begun in October of 2019, and currently developing in Chile under three conjoined parts. First, we will not try to theoretically ‘tame’ the revolutionary creature, but rather to plug immanently into the energy of the ‘potentia’ of the revolutionary event. To this extent, we will highlight the shortcomings of a theoretical enterprise that intends to explain it in traditional terms or that thrives for a variant of simple ‘reformism’. Second, and consequently, we will describe how (...) the concept of the constitution is the perfect product of coloniality. Hence, the concept of the ‘constitutional trap’ is not something unique to the Chilean experiment, but that the constitutional idea itself is the main pipeline of coloniality and the most sophisticated product in the contention of democracy. Third, and to encompass and give a particular direction to the previous topics, we will deploy the ‘theory of encryption of power’ and the concept of the ‘hidden people’ to explicate the Chilean phenomenon under a new light, where no past is irrevocable, and no future is necessary. (shrink)

The concept of the republic is a complex meta-principle that facilitates and conceals global relations of domination. Specifically, it enables the invisibility of racism as the core of political power. From its very origins the concept of republic serves to seize constituent power or politeia. In modernity, as it merges with private property, it will serve as the launchpad of a vast colonization project that then evolves in a new form of power in coloniality. The article applies the theory of (...) the ‘encryption of power’—to decrypt the historical concept of the republic. In doing so, we will demonstrate the key antidemocratic role it has played at the heart of global coloniality. We will bear witness as to how, from within the concept of republic, a refined mechanism of domination raises and expands, conforming the most magnificent and lethal form of power of our times. We exemplify our theory showing that the concept of ‘republic’ is the common thread between the law that abolished slavery in Brazil and the 1988 constitution. Within this scope, we propose a vital space of reconsideration of political ontology through radical democracy as the only means to build the world from immanent difference. (shrink)

In this paper we explore a generalization of traditional abduction which can simultaneously perform two different tasks: given an unprovable sequent Γ ⊢ G, find a sentence H such that Γ, H ⊢ G is provable ; given a provable sequent Γ ⊢ G, find a sentence H such that Γ ⊢ H and the proof of Γ, H ⊢ G is simpler than the proof of Γ ⊢ G . We argue that the two tasks should not be distinguished, (...) and present a general procedure for finding suitable hypotheses or lemmas. When the original sequent is provable, the abduced formula can be seen as a cut formula with respect to Gentzen's sequent calculus, so the abduction method is cut-based. Our method is based on the tableau-like system KE and we argue for its advantages over existing abduction methods based on traditional Smullyan-style Tableaux. (shrink)

This is the first Italian translation of Bentham’s “Deontology”. The translation goes with a rather extended apparatus meant to provide the reader with some information on Bentham’s ethical theory's own context. Some room is made for so-called forerunners of Utilitarianism, from the consequentialist-voluntarist theology of Leibniz, Malebranche, John Gay, Thomas Brown and William Paley to Locke and Hartley's incompatible associationist theories. After the theoretical context, also the real-world context is documented, from Bentham’s campaigns against the oppression of women and cruelty (...) to animals to his projects of political reform. Another section illustrates the ideas of Bentham's followers as well as the objections raised by nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics of utilitarianism. -/- Table of contents I. BEFORE THE TEXT 1. Bentham’s legacy 2. Bentham the Reformer 3. Bentham and the enlightenment project of a reformed morality 4. The principle of utility 5. Deontology or private morality 6. Utilitarianism as «eudemonologism» -/- II. TEXT Deontology I. Deontology: theoretical II. Deontology: practical III. -/- III. CO-TEXT 1. Biography 2. The reform of legislation 3. The Philosophic Radicals between the French revolution and the Industrial revolution -/- IV. CONTEXT 1. Forerunners of Utilitarianism 2. Psychological associationism 3. The oppression of women 4. Cruelty against animals 5. Parsimony and industry in Hogarth’s prints 6. Followers 6.1. John Stuart Mill 6.2. Henry Sidgwick 7. Critics 7.1. Romantic, conservative, and Christian critics 7.2. Socialist critics 8. Consequences: neo-utilitarianism 9. Consequences: critics of utilitarianism 9.1. Deontological critics 9.2. Perfectionists critics 9.3. Sceptical critics 10. Bentham’s legacy for contemporary ethics, by Bikhu Parekh Bibliography Lexicon Index of names and concepts -/- READER'S GUIDE . (shrink)

I argue the existence of two tensions in Smith's system of ideas: the first is that between the postulate of an invisible noumenal order of the universe and the imaginary principles by means of which we connect the phenomena; the second is a tension between the noumenal order of the world where 'is' and 'ought' converge, and the various partial orders that may be reconstructed in social phenomena that leave room for irrationality and injustice. My first claim is that these (...) tensions are dialectical tensions in a unitary, albeit rhapsodically presented in writing. My second claim is that, the system’s unanswered question in the moral domain is a ‘metaphysical’ and ‘theological’ question, namely the problem of evil; by implication, I contend also that Smith was no secularist, but instead a post-skeptical fideist or agnostic, who took Bayle's question: "why are men wicked and unhappy?" quite seriously. His private ethics of prudence, justice, benevolence and his public ethics of liberty, justice, equality were modest proposals for coping with the problem of social evil in our imperfect world. (shrink)

I intend to: a) clarify the origins and de facto meanings of the term relativism; b) reconstruct the reasons for the birth of the thesis named “cultural relativism”; d) reconstruct ethical implications of the above thesis; c) revisit the recent discussion between universalists and particularists in the light of the idea of cultural relativism.. -/- 1.Prescriptive Moral Relativism: “everybody is justified in acting in the way imposed by criteria accepted by the group he belongs to”. Universalism: there are at least (...) some judgments which are valid inter-culturally Absolutism: there are at least some particular prescriptions which are valid without exception everywhere and always -/- 2. The traditional proof of prescriptive moral relativism: the argument from variability: Judgments, rules, and shared values are de facto variable in time and space. The traditional counter-proof: examples of variability do not prove what skeptics contend. -/- 3. Pre-history of the doctrine -Ancient sophists: either immoralist or contractualist -Modern moral scepticism (xvii c.): variability as an historical and ethnographic fact supports a sceptical conclusion more moderate than sheer immoralism. - Voltaire, Kant, Reid counter-attack pointing at a universally shared moral sense - Romantics and idealists stage an even more moderate reformulation: instead of universally shared moral sense they point at the Spirit of a People which is: a)alternative to abstract and universal philosophical systems as far as it is lived ‘culture’; b) indivisible unity with an inner harmony and a source of normative standards; c) dynamic, in so far as it is a manifestation of the Spirit through the becoming of National cultures. -/- 4. The birth of Cultural Relativism and its ethical implications 4.1. The 18th c. doctrine was the noble savage (a non-historical doctrine: state of nature vs. social state) 4.2 Edward Tylor (1832-1817) and ethnocentric historicism Savage moral standards are real enough, but they are far and weaker than ours. 4.3 Boas and Malinowski and an holistic reaction to ethnocentric historicism -/- Franz Boas (1858-1942): a) Development of civilizations is not ruled by technical progress nor does it follow a one-way path; instead there are parallel developments (for ex. Agriculture does not follow stock-raising); b) racial characters have no relevance in development of civilization; c) we are not yet in a position to compare externally identical kinds of behaviour till we have not yet understood beliefs and intentions laying at their roots (for ex.: “From an ethnological point of view murder cannot be considered as a single phenomenon”; d) we should distinguish among different practices which are only superficially similar (fro ex. practices traditionally classified under the label “tabù”); e) there is as a fact just one normative ethic, constant in its contents but varying in its extension; f) the implication is not that we cannot judge behavior by members of other groups; it is only a recommendation of caution. -/- Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942): a) against Tylor’s and Frazer’s “magpie” methodology, field-work is required, a culture as a whole should be observed from inside; individual elements are incomprehensible; b) a culture is an organic whole; c) its elements are accounted for by their function (economy), avoiding non-observables (empio-criticism). -/- Ruth Benedict and Melville Herskovitz identify Boas’s approach with “cultural relativism”. Benedict: what is normal and abnormal is to be judged on a culture’s own standards, not on our own (“Anthropology and the Abnormal”). Herskovits: “Boas adumbrates what we have come to call cultural relativism” (The Mind, p. 10); “Judgements are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation” (Man and his Works). -/- 4. How analytic philosophy understood and misunderstood the discussion 4.1. At the beginning of the 20th c., the new view in ethics was non-cognitivism (emotivist and subjectivist). Eric Westermark combines this view with an old-style ethnographic approach in support of relativity of moralities. Moralities are codes, or systems of emotive ‘disinterested’ reactions selected by evolution on their usefulness in terms of survival value for the society that is the carrier of such systems or codes. The moral relativity thesis: there are cases of disagreement that cannot be settled even after agreement about facts. 4.2 Anti-realists Brandt, Mackie, Gilbert, Harman adopt Westermark’s approach in a more sophisticated version: a) moralities are codes with an overall function and may be appraised only as wholes; b) variability is an argument for moral subjectivism; c) apparent legitimacy of deriving shift from ought is legitimized only within one institution d) morality should not be described but instead made, and existing moralities may be improved. Is it ‘real’ relativism? It is clearly subjectivism (a metaethical thesis). The normative thesis is that there better and worse codes, and survival values is the normative standard. -/- 4.3 Particularists MacIntyre, Sandel, Taylor, Wiggins, McDowell ‘Wittgensteinian’ prospectivist arguments bent to support weak-relativist claims MacIntyre: there is ‘incommensurability’ between different theoretical systems in both science and ethics. No argument is possible through different systems Different traditions may coexist for a long time without being able to bring their conflicts to a rational solution. -/- 4.4 Kantian universalists Baier, Gewirth, Rawls, Apel, Habermas Shared claim: justice concerns the right and is universal in so far as it may be based on minimal assumptions Other virtues are relative to context in so far as they are related to comprehensive views of the good - O’Neill criticism: a) it is an assumption shared by both alignments; b) after an alleged crisis brought about by alleged loss of metaphysical certainties, theories of justice have dropped demanding assumptions and kept universalism, virtue theories have kept demanding assumptions and dropped universalism; c) the opposition of virtue and justice has arisen in an unjustified way. O’Neill’s positive proposal: ‘constructive’ procedures may be adopted both (i) concerning all the range of virtues and (ii) across cultures once we abandon idealization and confine ourselves to abstraction from real-world cases. -/- 4.5 A metaethical relativist and anti-relativist normative ethicists: Bernard Williams Williams: vulgar relativism may be assumed to claim that: a) 'just' means 'just in a given society'; b) 'just in a given society' is to be understood in functionalist sense; c) it is wrong for one society’s members to condemn another society’s values. It is inconsistent since in (c) uses ‘just’ in a non-relative way that has been excluded in (a). William’s positive proposal: i) keep a number of substantive or thick ethical concepts that will be different in space and time; ii) admit that public choices are to be legitimized through recourse to more abstract procedures and relying on more thin ethical concepts. -/- 5. Critical remarks 5.1 The only real relativism available is ‘vulgar’ relativism (Westermark?) 5.2. Descriptive universalism (or absolutism) has a long pedigree, from Cicero on, reaching Boas himself but it is useless as an answer to normative questions 5.3. Twentieth-century philosophical discussion seems to discuss an ad hoc doctrine reconstructed by assembling obsolete philosophical ideas but ignoring the real theory of cultural relativism as formulated by anthropologists. -/- 6. A distinction between ethoi and ethical theories as a way out of confusions a)There are systems of conventions de facto existing. These may be studies from outside as phenomena or facts. b)There is moral argument and this, when studies from outside, is a fact, but this does not influence in any degree the possible validity of claims advanced. c) the difference between the above claims and Mackie’s criticism to Searle’s argument of the promising game is that promises, arguments etc. are also phenomena, but they are also communicative phenomena with a logical and pragmatic structure. -/- 7.Conclusions: a) cultural relativism, as a name for Boas’s methodology is a valuable discovery, and in this sense we are all relativists; b) ethical relativism, as an alleged implication of cultural relativism, has been argued in a philosophically quite unsophisticated way by Benedict and Herskovits; philosophers apparently discussed ethical relativism in the basis of a rather faint impression of what cultural relativism had been. c) a full-fledged ethical relativism has hardly been defended by anybody among philosophers; virtually no modern philosopher really argued a prescriptive version of the thesis; d) we may accept the grain of truth in ethical relativism by including relativist critique to ethical absolutism into a universalist normative doctrine that be careful in separating open-textured formulations of universal claims from culturally conditioned particular prescriptions. -/- . 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A partir da leitura da Fenomenologia do espírito [Phänomenologie des Geistes], de Hegel, em particular, da Introdução, busca-se elaborar os pressupostos da formação da consciência, mostrando os momentos em que essa passa pelo seu formar, diferentemente do que ocorria no período moderno. Percebe-se o surgimento de novo critério de formação, cujo fundamento é assinalado pela crítica que Hegel faz à formação representativa, que sustenta a educação mediante a interiorização do pensamento e a representa a partir de conceitos que não passaram (...) pela experiência com o objeto e nem realizaram a negação de seu saber com o intuito de formar outro. Já na formação dialética, a partir dos pressupostos hegelianos, a consciência sai do seu estado natural e percorre o movimento do círculo espiral e, em cada momento desse percurso circular, realiza a experiência entre o saber da consciência com a verdade do objeto. Nesse sentido, cada etapa dessa experiência é o aprofundar no saber da consciência e na verdade do objeto, causando dúvida e desespero em seu formar, pois vê desaparecerem o conhecer e a verdade que tinha do objeto. Com isso, têm-se os momentos de negação, de conservação e de superação tanto na consciência quanto no objeto, constituindo a suprassunção [Aufhebung] até alcançar o saber conceitual em que há a identificação entre o saber e a verdade. Com esse princípio de formação, Hegel faz a crítica da crítica e efetiva a experiência entre o saber do sujeito e a verdade do objeto. Nesse itinerário, a consciência, paulatinamente, entra no processo do trabalho de formação, cujo fundamento é o concrecere – crescer juntos; ou seja, o saber da consciência com a verdade do objeto. Isso se realiza no momento em que a consciência é tocada pelo fenômeno do objeto. Há, então, novo procedimento pedagógico que leva em consideração a negação, o ceticismo amadurecido e a experiência para alcançar o saber real de sua formação [Bildung]. Palavras-chave: Formação. Consciência. Experiência. Desespero. Ceticismo. (shrink)

The chapter reconstructs the developments of a basic idea, namely the physical-moral analogy, in the works of the Scottish Enlighteners. The opposition of a 'Newtonian' to a 'Cartesian' approach yields the program of an 'experimental' moral science. This program, in turn, was never implemented but yielded nonetheless an unintended result the shaping of political economy as an empirical science, distinguished to a point from moral philosophy and theology.

The paper describes how a simple idea, that of a new foundation of moral philosophy taking Galilean new natural philosophy as a mode , lead to unforeseen developments once the competition between a Cartesian and a Newtonian paradigm emerged. Those developments are reconstructed in Hume, Smith, Ferguson.

I argue that the idea of virtue has become central after the Fifties in both Anglo-Saxon and German moral philosophy and that this revival has come together with recognition of the legitimacy of discussion of issues in normative ethics, something that philosophers both on the Continent and in the Anglo-Saxon world used to overlook in the first half of the twentieth-century. I point at examples such as Stuart Hampshire and Elizabeth Anscombe as proof of the centrality of virtue ethics in (...) the first phase of the normative turn. I also argue that, far from being a radical alternative to ‘modern moral philosophy’ as its proponents believe, virtue ethics is precisely moral argument of the kind both Kantian ethics at its best and less dogmatic versions of utilitarianism have brought to the fore of philosophical discussion. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs Beauvoir's interpretation of the Marxist and the Freudian contributions to our understanding of the feminine condition. A number of epistemological assumptions derived from Sartre's philosophy are pointed out. Beauvoir's reading of Marx, Engels, and Freud is discussed claiming that her reading is biased by humanistic and historicist assumptions.

I reconstruct the discussion originated with publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971. I argue that criticism and counter-criticism has modified in a remarkable way the original points of view with which both alignments joined the discussion.

A reconstruction of the genesis and transformations of the idea of 'economic man'.

A short presentation of Buddhist moral doctrines according to its distinct schools.

The well-known Kantian passage on misology in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals starts making fuller sense when located within the framework of Kant writings on philosophy of history where he contrasts civilization with moralization as two different phases in the growth of humankind. In this context, the growth of commerce and manufactures plays a distinctive role, namely that of means of fostering civilization, while pursuing a deceptive goal, namely happiness. Deception plays a basic role in the growth of (...) mankind, in so far as it allows for a hidden twofold teleology in human action. Men, while following the dictates of self-love, are systematically mistaken about the results they actually contribute in bringing about. Commerce brings different peoples into mutual relationship and thus paves the way to a cosmopolitan society. The growth of the arts and sciences provides preconditions for the growth of learned institutions, a free press, and a public opinion that are the basis on which reason may start being used in its critical capacities. This, that is Enlightenment, is a preliminary step to moralization, that is the jump of individuals from a state of minority to a state where they are masters of themselves. The twofold teleology of human action makes room for a system of "pragmatic" ends, and of laws connected to the former, that may be studied rationally in themselves and yet are connected to the higher ends established by reason in its "practical" capacities. (shrink)

A short discussion of the origins and nature of the notion of metaethics.

A discussion of Ricardo's sustained relationship with James Mill as well as of hypotheses by such commentators as Halévy and Hutchison on a decisive philosophical influenco by Mill (eithr Scottish or Benthamite) on Ricardo's eocnomic methodology.

I reconstruct a plot in the twentieth-century Anglo-Saxon ethical discussion. I discuss first the reasons why in the first half of the twentieth century the claim of a neutral character of metaethics vis-a-vis normative ethics was generally accepted; then I discuss the reasons for a U-turn that took place in 1958, which brought back to the forefront two traditional schools of normative ethics, Kantian and Utilitarian, and the reasons for criticism from the new school of virtue ethics. I conclude by (...) the claim that intuitionism and Kantian ethics will still be on the agenda for some time. (shrink)

A brief reconstruction of the birth, rise and ironical destiny of an almost universal expansion to other disciplines going with a dissolution within the original birthplace of the conception of an economic man, a male-only abstraction forgetful of its own abstract character.

A discussion of the historical development of the relationship between moral philosophy and political economy and economics qua disciplines, followed by a treatment of questions of justice in the contemporary discussion and then by an overview of the subdiscipline of busness ethics.

A short reconstruction of the central doctrines in the Biblical, Talmudic and Christian moral tradition.

Galiani discusses a subject much debated in the eighteenth century, namely, the nature of the currency. He also includes considerations of economic theory and political philosophy around the main motif. He supports the following theses of monetary theory: currency has the function of a sort of register of credits that every individual can have towards the warehouses of goods of which the society is supplied, and precisely in the measure of the contribution he has given to their supply; the metallic (...) currency has the merit, with respect to a hypothetical system of artificial accounting, to be safe from frauds and not to require a bureaucratic apparatus; the value of currency depends on the value of metals, not on legislative interventions. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that applied ethics is a phenomenon spontaneously emerged between the Sixties and the Seventies and resulting from interbreeding of theoretical discussion in ethics and public discourse of liberal-democratic societies. I contend that the phenomenon’s novelty is in a peculiar relationship it has helped in establishing between ethical theories and real-world issues, and besides that the true nature of applied ethics is that of deliberation, whose tool is the faculty of judgment, or casuistry, understood the Kantian (...) way. (shrink)

A short reconstruction of the story of eighteenth-century ethical rationalism followed bu the nineteenth century controversy between utilitarianism and the 'intuitive system' reaching Sidgwick, Moore and David Ross.

A reconstruction of the discussion on issues of economic ethics in the Talmud, in Islamic religious, juridical and philosophical literalture, in Medieval literature, and in Reformed casuistry.

In the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the paradigm of a new science, political economy, was established. It was a science distinct from the Aristotelian sub-disciplines of practical philosophy named oikonomía and politiké, and emphasis on its character of science not unlike the natural sciences – still called ‘natural philosophy’ – mirrored precisely a willingness to stress its autonomy from two other sub-disciplines of practical philosophy, that is, ethics and politics. However, the new science resulted from a transformation (...) of part of traditional practical philosophy, allowing the inclusion of bodies of knowledge accumulated by experts of commerce and public finance. Such bodies of knowledge were unified by the (true or alleged) discovery of regularities, mechanisms, causal connections making for a new partial order within the overall social order. How far this paved the way to a science similar to mathematics rather left a normative discipline as alive as ever was a recurrent question for at least a century, until the marginalist revolution opened the way for a sharp division, leaving ‘economics’ as a science of causes and effects facing ‘economic policy’ as a discourse on ends. (shrink)

The discovery of the role of models in science by Granger parallels the analogous discovery made by Mary Hesse and Marx Wartofsky. The role models are granted highlights the linguistic dimension of science, resulting in a 'softening' of Bachelard's rationalistic epistemology without lapsing into relativism. A 'linguistic' theory of metaphor, as contrasted with Bachelard's 'psychological' theory, is basic to Granger's account of models. A final paragraph discusses to what extent Granger's 'mature' theory of models would imply a revision of his (...) early economic methodology. (shrink)

I argue that the difference between the 17th century new moral science and Scholastic Natural Law Theory derived primarily from the skeptical challenge the former had to face. Pufendorf's project of a 'scientia practica universalis' was the paramount expression of an anti-skeptical moral science, a «science» both explanatory and normative, but also anti-dogmatic in so far as it tried to base its laws on those basic phenomena of human life that supposedly were outside the scope of skeptical doubt. Of the (...) Scholastic legacy to the new moral science, a dichotomy between an «intellettualistic» and a «voluntaristic» view of natural law (or between lex immanens and lex imposita). Voluntarism lays at the root both of theological views such as those of Calvinism and of political views such as those of Hobbes and Locke. A need to counterbalance undesirable implications of estreme voluntarism may account for much of 17th and 18th centuries developments in ethics and politics. Scottish natural jurisprudence, an expression of such quest for a third way between scepticism and extreme voluntarism, is less secular and more empirical than received wisdom admits of. One of its side-effects, namely a systematic, self-contained, and empirical economic theory, results from the search for a normative theory of social life on an empirical basis. The main tool for building such a theory, namely a view of societal laws as embedded in trans-individual mechanisms, derives from the voluntarist view of natural law as «imposed» law. Subsequent discussions of social issues based on the opposition of economic and ethical reasons originated partly from gross misreading of the Scottish natural jurisprudential framework for economic theory. (shrink)

A short discussion of the emergence of the self-interest axiom during the classical phase of political economy, its roots in the previous discussion on self-love in early modern ethics and its development in the following formulation of the notion of 'homo economicus' and the definition of the agent's rationality.