This book, sure to become a standard reference work, is a comprehensive, lucid, and systematic commentary on Kant's practical philosophy. Kant is arguably the most important moral philosopher of the modern period. Using as nontechnical a language as possible, Professor Sullivan offers a detailed, authoritative account of Kant's moral philosophy - including his ethical theory, his philosophy of history, his political philosophy, his philosophy of religion, and his philosophy of education - and demonstrates the historical, Kantian origins of such important (...) notions as 'autonomy', 'respect for persons', 'rights', and 'duties'. An invaluable resource, this book will be extremely useful to advanced undergraduates, graduates, and professional philosophers alike. (shrink)

(1979). Some Observations on the Problems of Grading Examinations with Several Components: a reply to P. J. Squire. Educational Studies: Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 225-230.

This is the most up-to-date, brief and accessible introduction to Kant's ethics available. It approaches the moral theory via the political philosophy, thus allowing the reader to appreciate why Kant argued that the legal structure for any civil society must have a moral basis. This approach also explains why Kant thought that our basic moral norms should serve as laws of conduct for everyone. The volume includes a detailed commentary on Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant's most widely studied (...) work of moral philosophy. The book complements the author's much more comprehensive and systematic study Immanuel Kant's Moral Theory, a volume that has received the highest critical praise. With its briefer compass and non-technical style this new introduction should help to disseminate the key elements of one of the great modern philosophies to an even wider readership. (shrink)

Efforts to bring science into early 19th century breeding practices in Central Europe, organised from Brno, the Hapsburg city in which Mendel would later turn breeding experiments into a body of timeless theory, are here considered as a significant prelude to the great discovery. During those years prior to Mendel's arrival in Brno, enlightened breeders were seeking ways to regulate the process of heredity, which they viewed as a force to be controlled. Many were specialising in sheep breeding for the (...) benefit of the local wool industry while others were showing an interest in commercial plants, especially fruit trees and vines, and later cereals. Breeders explained their problems in regulating heredity in terms of (1) climatic influences (2) disruption due to crossing (3) sports or saltations. Practical experience led them to the concepts of 'inheritance capacity' and the 'mutual elective affinity' of parents. The former was seen to differ among individuals and also among traits; the latter was proposed as a means of adding strength to heredity. The breeders came to recognise that traits might be hidden and yet transmitted as a 'potential' to future generations. They also grew to understand that heredity would be strengthened when a quality was 'fixed' within a lineage by 'pure blood relations.' Continued selection of the desired quality might then lead to 'a higher perfection.' But the ultimate 'physiological' question about breeding, 'what is inherited and how?,' found no answer. Major figures in this development included Abbot Napp, the one who asked this question and who was due to receive Mendel into the monastery in 1843, and Professor Diebl whose lectures on agriculture and natural science at the Brno Philosophical Institute Mendel would attend in 1846. Here we analyse their progress in theorizing about breeding up until about 1840. In discussing this development, we refer to certain international contacts, especially with respect to information transfer and scientific education, within the wider context of the late Enlightenment. (shrink)

Efforts to bring science into early 19th century breeding practices in Central Europe, organised from Brno, the Hapsburg city in which Mendel would later turn breeding experiments into a body of timeless theory, are here considered as a significant prelude to the great discovery. During those years prior to Mendel's arrival in Brno, enlightened breeders were seeking ways to regulate the process of heredity, which they viewed as a force to be controlled. Many were specialising in sheep breeding for the (...) benefit of the local wool industry while others were showing an interest in commercial plants, especially fruit trees and vines, and later cereals. Breeders explained their problems in regulating heredity in terms of climatic influences disruption due to crossing sports or saltations. Practical experience led them to the concepts of 'inheritance capacity' and the 'mutual elective affinity' of parents. The former was seen to differ among individuals and also among traits; the latter was proposed as a means of adding strength to heredity. The breeders came to recognise that traits might be hidden and yet transmitted as a 'potential' to future generations. They also grew to understand that heredity would be strengthened when a quality was 'fixed' within a lineage by 'pure blood relations.' Continued selection of the desired quality might then lead to 'a higher perfection.' But the ultimate 'physiological' question about breeding, 'what is inherited and how?,' found no answer. Major figures in this development included Abbot Napp, the one who asked this question and who was due to receive Mendel into the monastery in 1843, and Professor Diebl whose lectures on agriculture and natural science at the Brno Philosophical Institute Mendel would attend in 1846. Here we analyse their progress in theorizing about breeding up until about 1840. In discussing this development, we refer to certain international contacts, especially with respect to information transfer and scientific education, within the wider context of the late Enlightenment. (shrink)

I defend the view that the design of the built environment should be a proper part of environmental ethics. An environmentally responsible culture should be one in which citizens take responsibility for the domesticated environments in which they live, as well as for their effects on wild nature. How we build our world reveals both the possibilities in nature and our own stance toward the world. Our constructions and contrivances also objectively constrain the possibilities for the development of a human (...) way of life integrated with wild nature. An environmentally responsible culture should require a built world that reflects and projects care and respect toward nature. (shrink)

Hunting is a complex phenomenon. l examine it from four different perspectives-animal liberation, the land ethic, primitivism, and ecofeminism-and find no moral justification for sport hunting in any of them. At the same time, however, I argue that there are theoretical flaws in each of these approaches. Animal liberationists focus too much on the individual animal and ignore the difference between domestic and wild animals. Leopold’s land ethic fails to come to terms with the self-domestication of humans. I argue that (...) the holism of the land ethic does not in itself justify hunting as a human act of predation appropriate to the demands of wild biotic communities. Primitivists, such as Paul Shepard and Ortega y Gasset, mistakenly argue that hunting is an essential part of human nature and hence part of a healthy return to a natural way of life. Their argument marginalizes women’s relations to nature. Finally, I take seriously the ecofeminist claim that sport hunting is a symptom ofpatriarchy’s fixation on death and violence, although I criticize the more radical claim that women are closer to nature than men. Hunting should be investigated within the broader context of patriarchal social relations between men and women. As an act of violence it constitutes one element of a cultural matrix which is destructive to hoth women and nature. (shrink)

I will conclude that the Kantian analyses of Aristotle’s moral theory are historically inaccurate and the criticisms invalid. Further, those criticisms are focused in such a way that they tend to distract us from more fundamental issues, especially the different ontologies presupposed in each theory. If my arguments are sound, they show that much of Kant’s moral philosophy is not as novel as he believed it to be nor as it generally has been taken to be.

ONE Wholes and Parts: Introductory Survey COMMON WISDOM ABOUT THE WORLD GUIDES us WELL in daily living, but getting along practically is not enough; ...

This essay articulates the importance of the domesticated landscape for a mature environmental ethics. Human beings are spatial beings, deeply implicated in their relationships to places, both wild and domesticated. Human identity evolves contextually through interaction with a "world." If this world obscures our perception of wild nature, it will be difficult to motivate the social and psychological will to imagine, let alone participate in, a culture that values environmentally responsible conduct. My argument is informed by a pragmatist suspicion of (...) fixed dualisms separating humans from nature, the wild from the domesticated, and the natural from the artificial. Drawing on a variety of sources, the essay calls for greater attention to the ways in which the making of our domesticated worlds can contribute to or undermine our ability to take the intrinsic value of nature seriously. (shrink)

One of the more striking developments in contemporary philosophic discussions about morality has been the rise of anti-theory — the rejection of moral theories as ‘unnecessary, undesirable, and/or impossible’. Among those associated with this view have been Bernard Williams, John McDowell, Edmund Pincoffs and James Wallace.

The growth in international trade in recent years necessitates a better understanding of customs and expectations in cross-cultural negotiations. While several researchers have sought to examine and detail the similarities and differences between select countries, their data have generally been obtained under neutral or unspecified negotiating conditions. However, issue importance, opponent (prowess, ethical reputation), and context (location, confederate awareness, urgency) can play a significant role in the use of negotiating tactics. This paper describes a study comparing the perceptions of one (...) hundred and forty-two current and future business professionals from two emerging trade partners, Brazil and the United States, regarding the appropriateness and likely use of five categories of negotiation tactics under seven challenging or unfavorable negotiating conditions commonly faced by negotiators. The results indicate an overall conditional effect for both attitudes (perceived appropriateness) and intentions (likelihood of use). In addition, while no significant difference in perceived appropriateness was found due to country, there were differences in likely use due to country for six conditions-behaviors. (shrink)

In this essay I examine the relevance of the vocabulary of an ethics of care to ecofeminism. While this vocabulary appears to offer a promising alternative to moral extensionism and deep ecology, there are problems with the use of this vocabulary by both essentialists and conceptualists. I argue that too great a reliance is placed on personal lived experience as a basis for ecofeminist ethics and that the concept of care is insufficiently determinate to explicate the meaning of care for (...) nature. (shrink)

1. The Modern Context for a Healing Profession Roger J. Bulger The future of the profession of medicine in America is, at the very least, under serious ...

Evolutionary theories of schizophrenia must account for the maintenance of putative alleles in past and present populations despite reduced fitness among the affected. Such models must also account for extant intersex and population-level variability in the expression of schizophrenia. We argue that genetic balanced-polymorphism hypotheses remain the most robust in terms of modeling and testing these processes in populations.

In this essay I will examine several features of the dominant contemporary view about the nature and functions of practical reason, a view finding its most natural home in deontological theories within the Kantian tradition.

Some twenty years ago, W. F. R. Hardie focused his attention on an issue which has since become a programmatic theme for Aristotelian scholars. He wrote: "In speaking of the good for man Aristotle hesitates between an inclusive and an exclusive formulation. [He further fails] to make explicit the distinction between the comprehensive plan and the paramount end". Since that time, virtually everyone writing on Aristotle's ethics has essayed a view about what Aristotle said or should have said about the (...) best human life. (shrink)

The title of this book indicates its main theme, that "the most central concept" in an analysis of intelligent activity is that of making. The author begins by asking, "what in general we might mean by the 'process' of making if we consider it as a form of intelligible activity," and proceeds both by analyzing the grammar of claims about making things and by inviting us to look more closely at the activity of making.

Environmental ethics has traditionally focused on a defense of the intrinsic value of animals and wild habitats. However, this ethical project needs to be supplemented by a consideration of the kind of culture that can take such an ethical point of view seriously. This essay argues that one component of an environmentally responsible culture is its domesticated environment. How we construct the domesticated environment has an impact on our perception of our own identities and our relations to wild nature. If (...) we care about wild nature, we must also care about the domesticated environment in which we live our lives. This essay contributes to an ethical reflection on the need to overcome the traditional dualism between domesticated and wild, built and natural that permeates environmental ethical thinking. (shrink)

We applaud Müller & Schumann (M&S) for bringing needed attention to the problem of motivation for common non-addictive drug use, as opposed to the usual focus on exotic drugs and addiction. Unfortunately, their target article has many underdeveloped and sometimes contradictory ideas. Here, we will focus on three key issues.

This essay reflects on three strategic visions of how society might develop in the direction of a more environmentally responsible culture. These strategies - green technology, ecocentrism, and civic environmentalism - offer promising elements of what we need. However, each fails in different ways to successfully explain how citizens, caught up in consumerist practices and their supporting belief systems, can be led to take the transformative steps needed to build a culture that engages responsibly and respectfully with the natural environment. (...) This essay aims to acknowledge the contributions of these three approaches, while also critically reflecting on their limitations. The core limitation is the unresolved clash between ecocentrism's focus on the vulnerability of nature's intrinsic value to any anthropogenic intervention and civic environmentalism's focus on the revival of strong civic democracy as a gateway to environmental health. (shrink)