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William A. Rottschaefer [58]William Andrew Rottschaefer [3]
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William A. Rottschaefer
Boston University (PhD)
  1. Really taking Darwin seriously: An alternative to Michael Ruse's Darwinian metaethics. [REVIEW]William A. Rottschaefer & David Martinsen - 1990 - Biology and Philosophy 5 (2):149-173.
    Michael Ruse has proposed in his recent book Taking Darwin Seriously and elsewhere a new Darwinian ethics distinct from traditional evolutionary ethics, one that avoids the latter's inadequate accounts of the nature of morality and its failed attempts to provide a naturalistic justification of morality. Ruse argues for a sociobiologically based account of moral sentiments, and an evolutionary based casual explanation of their function, rejecting the possibility of ultimate ethical justification. We find that Ruse's proposal distorts, overextends and weakens both (...)
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  2.  27
    The Biology and Psychology of Moral Agency.William Andrew Rottschaefer - 1997 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    This important book brings findings and theories in biology and psychology to bear on the fundamental question in ethics of what it means to behave morally. It explains how we acquire and put to work our capacities to act morally and how these capacities are reliable means to achieving true moral beliefs, proper moral motivations, and successful moral actions. By presenting a complete model of moral agency based on contemporary evolutionary theory, developmental biology and psychology, and social cognitive theory, the (...)
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  3.  30
    Affording Affordance Moral Realism.William A. Rottschaefer - 2020 - Biological Theory 16 (1):30-48.
    In this article I elaborate a scientifically based moral realism that I call affordance moral realism, and I offer a promissory note that affordance moral realism is the best current explanation of morality. Affordance moral realism maintains that morality is constituted by the interaction of moral agents and moral affordances. The latter are the natural and social environments in which moral agents’ activities take place and contain the objects of moral agents’ activities whose actualizations are the manifestation of substantive moral (...)
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  4.  83
    Why Wilfrid Sellars Is Right (and Right-Wing).William A. Rottschaefer - 2011 - Journal of Philosophical Research 36:291-325.
    Scholars of Wilfrid Sellars’s thought split into Right- and Left-wing Sellarsians. Right-wing Sellarsians urge Sellars’s scientific realism and the prominence of the scientific image of man in the synoptic vision. Left-wing Sellarsians emphasize the prominence of the logical space of reasons over that of causes, rejecting Sellars’s scientism. In his recent book James O’Shea attempts to reconcile these Sellarsian images, arguing that one best understands the Sellarsian synoptic image in terms of a norm/nature meta-principle that endorses the conceptual irreducibility and (...)
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  5.  59
    Naturalizing Ethics: the Biology and Psychology of Moral Agency.William A. Rottschaefer - 2000 - Zygon 35 (2):253-286.
    Moral agency is a central feature of both religious and secular conceptions of human beings. In this paper I outline a scientific naturalistic model of moral agency making use of current findings and theories in sociobiology,developmental psychology, and social cognitive theory. The model provides answers to four central questions about moral agency: what it is, how it is acquired, how it is put to work, and how it is justified. I suggest that this model can provide religious and secular moral (...)
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  6.  24
    Evolutionary naturalistic justifications of morality: A matter of faith and works. [REVIEW]William A. Rottschaefer - 1991 - Biology and Philosophy 6 (3):341-349.
    Robert Richards has presented a detailed defense of evolutionary ethics, a revised version of Darwin's views and a major modification of E. O. Wilson's. He contends that humans have evolved to seek the community welfare by acting altruistically. And since the community welfare is the highest moral good, humans ought to act altruistically. Richards asks us to take his empirical premises on faith and aims to show how they can justify an ethical conclusion. He identifies two necessary conditions for a (...)
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  7.  41
    Moral Learning and Moral Realism: How Empirical Psychology Illuminates Issues in Moral Ontology.William A. Rottschaefer - 1999 - Behavior and Philosophy 27 (1):19 - 49.
    Although scientific naturalistic philosophers have been concerned with the role of scientific psychology in illuminating problems in moral psychology, they have paid less attention to the contributions that it might make to issues of moral ontology. In this paper, I illustrate how findings in moral developmental psychology illuminate and advance the discussion of a long-standing issue in moral ontology, that of moral realism. To do this, I examine Gilbert Harman and Nicholas Sturgeon's discussion of that issue. I contend that their (...)
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  8. Observation.William A. Rottschaefer - 1976 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 14 (4):499-509.
  9.  31
    Social Learning Theories of Moral Agency.William A. Rottschaefer - 1991 - Behavior and Philosophy 19 (1):61 - 76.
    An important question for a naturalized philosophical psychology is what constitutes moral agency (MA). The two prominent scientific theories to which such a philosophical approach might appeal, those of cognitive developmental theory (CDT) and social learning theory (SLT), currently face an investigative dilemma: The better theories of the acquisition of beliefs and the performance of action based on them, the SLTs, seem to be irrelevant to the phenomenon of MA and the theories that seem to be relevant, the CDTs, are (...)
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  10.  56
    Verbal behaviorism and theoretical mentalism: An assessment of Marras-Sellars dialogue.William A. Rottschaefer - 1983 - Philosophy Research Archives 9:511-534.
    Sellars’ verbal behaviorism demands that linguistic episodes be conceptual in an underivative sense and his theoretical mentalism that thoughts as postulated theoretical entities be modelled on linguistic behaviors. Marras has contended that Sellars’ own methodology requires that semantic categories be theoretical. Thus linguistic behaviors can be conceptual in only a derivative sense. Further he claims that overt linguistic behaviors cannot serve as a model for all thought because thought is primarily symbolic. I support verbal behaviorism by showing that semantic categories (...)
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  11.  48
    Assessing the Role of Non-Epistemic Feminist Values in Scientific Inquiry.William A. Rottschaefer - 2003 - Behavior and Philosophy 31:225 - 249.
    In this paper I examine the feminist claim that non-epistemic values ought to play a role in scientific inquiry. I examine four holist arguments that non-epistemic values ought to play a role not only in the external aspects of scientific inquiry such as problem selection and the ethics of experimentation but also in its internal aspects, those that have to do with epistemic justification. In supporting their conclusion, I argue that they establish that the traditional external/internal distinction has served as (...)
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  12.  46
    Psychological foundations of value theory: B. F. skinners science of values.William A. Rottschaefer - 1982 - Zygon 17 (3):293-301.
  13.  32
    Ordinary Knowledge and Scientific Realism.William A. Rottschaefer - 1978 - In Joseph Pitt (ed.), The Philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars: Queries and Extensions. D. Reidel. pp. 135--161.
  14.  48
    Evolutionary Ethics: An Irresistible Temptation: Some Reflections on Paul Farber‘s The Temptation of Evolutionary Ethics. [REVIEW]William A. Rottschaefer - 1997 - Biology and Philosophy 12 (3):369-384.
    In his recent The Temptation of Evolutionary Ethics, Paul Farber has given a negative assessment of the last one hundred years of attempts in Anglo-American philosophy, beginning with Darwin, to develop an evolutionary ethics. Farber identifies some version of the naturalistic fallacy as one of the central sources for the failures of evolutionary ethics. For this reason, and others, Farber urges that though it has its attraction, evolutionary ethics is a temptation to be resisted. In this discussion I identify three (...)
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  15. John Leslie, Universes Reviewed by.William A. Rottschaefer - 1991 - Philosophy in Review 11 (3):204-207.
     
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  16.  44
    Is the science of positive intentional change a science of objective moral values?William Andrew Rottschaefer - 2014 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (4):435-436.
    I examine whether Wilson et al.'s argument for a science of positive intentional change constitutes an argument for a science of objective moral values. Drawing from their discussion, I present four reasons for thinking that it may be and some considerations on why it may not be. Concluding, I seek help from the authors. [Open Peer Commentary on a BBS article.].
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  17.  99
    Robert Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior Reviewed by.William A. Rottschaefer - 1988 - Philosophy in Review 8 (7):285-287.
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  18. David L. Hull, The Metaphysics of Evolution Reviewed by.William A. Rottschaefer - 1990 - Philosophy in Review 10 (8):319-321.
     
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  19. How to Make Naturalism Safe for Supernaturalism: An Evaluation of Willem Drees's Supernaturalistic Naturalism.William A. Rottschaefer - 2001 - Zygon 36 (3):407-453.
  20.  76
    Willard A. Young, Fallacies of Creationism Reviewed by.William A. Rottschaefer - 1986 - Philosophy in Review 6 (8):411-412.
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  21. Skinner's science of value.William A. Rottschaefer - 1980 - Behaviorism 8 (2):99-112.
     
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  22. Biology and philosophy in fruitful.William A. Rottschaefer - 1985 - Behaviorism 13 (2):187-190.
  23.  57
    The insufficience of supervenient explanations of moral actions: Really taking Darwin and the naturalistic fallacy seriously. [REVIEW]William A. Rottschaefer & David Martinsen - 1991 - Biology and Philosophy 6 (4):439-445.
    In a recent paper in this journal (Rottschaefer and Martinsen 1990) we have proposed a view of Darwinian evolutionary metaethics that we believe improves upon Michael Ruse's (e.g., Ruse 1986) proposals by claiming that there are evolutionary based objective moral values and that a Darwinian naturalistic account of the moral good in terms of human fitness can be given that avoids the naturalistic fallacy in both its definitional and derivational forms while providing genuine, even if limited, justifications for substantive ethical (...)
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  24. Operant Learning and the Scientific and Philosophical Foundations of Behavior Therapy.William A. Rottschaefer - 1983 - Behaviorism 11 (2):155-161.
    The continuing and expanding successes of behavior therapy in the treatment of psychological problems raise important questions about their scientific and philosophical bases. In this paper I examine the claims of Edward Erwin that behaviorism cannot provide an adequate philosophical basis for behavior therapy, contemporary learning theories which exclude cognitive factors as causes of behavior cannot provide an adequate empirical basis for behavior therapy; and learning theories have played only a heuristic role in the development of behavior therapy. And I (...)
     
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  25. What can history tell us about founding ethics on biology?William A. Rottschaefer - 2001 - Biology and Philosophy 16 (1):131-144.
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  26.  85
    Wilfrid Sellars. [REVIEW]William A. Rottschaefer - 2009 - Teaching Philosophy 32 (1):96-102.
  27. Biology and Philosophy in Fruitful Interchange , "Evolution at the Crossroads: Biology and the New Philosophy of Science"). [REVIEW]William A. Rottschaefer - 1985 - Behavior and Philosophy 13 (2):187.
  28. Book reviews-the biology and psychology of moral agency.William A. Rottschaefer & Stefano Poggi - 2000 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 22 (3):445-445.
  29. Skinner's Science of Value.William A. Rottschaefer - 1980 - Behavior and Philosophy 8 (2):99.
     
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  30. The ghost of the given: A case for epistemological ghostbusters or ghostlovers.William A. Rottschaefer - 1989 - Bridges 1:59-81.
     
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  31.  43
    Singer, sociobiology, and values: Pure reason versus empirical reason.William A. Rottschaefer & David L. Martinsen - 1984 - Zygon 19 (2):159-170.
  32.  36
    Gustafson's theocentrism and scientific naturalistic philosophy: A marriage made in heaven?William A. Rottschaefer - 1995 - Zygon 30 (2):211-220.
  33.  51
    The Middle Does Not Hold.William A. Rottschaefer - 2011 - Journal of Philosophical Research 36:361-369.
    This paper continues the dialogue between my right-wing-Sellars and James O’Shea’s middle-Sellars. In it, I reply to O’Shea’s middle-Sellars critique of my right-wing-Sellarsian criticism of his recent attempt (Wilfrid Sellars: Wilfrid Sellars: Naturalism with a Normative Turn) to develop an understanding of Sellars’s overall view that avoids the problems of both right and left-wing-Sellarsians. In his contribution to this issue O’Shea argues that Sellars follows a middle way between left and right-wing-Sellarsians by advocating a refined Kantian naturalist account of human (...)
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  34.  14
    Adaptational functional ascriptions in evolutionary biology: A critique of Schaffner's views.William A. Rottschaefer - 1997 - Philosophy of Science 64 (4):698-713.
    Kenneth Schaffner has argued that evolutionary theory, strictly understood, cannot support the functional ascriptions used in adaptational functional explanations. Although the causal ascription clause in these ascriptions is supported, the goal-ascription clause cannot be, since it imports anthropocentric features deriving from a vulgar understanding of evolutionary theory. I argue that an etiological interpretation of selectional explanations sanctions both the causal and goal-ascription clauses of functional ascriptions and provides a way to understand teleological explanation within evolutionary biology.
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  35.  33
    The limitations of ethical theory.William A. Rottschaefer - 1983 - Zygon 18 (2):185-187.
  36.  50
    B.f. Skinner and the grand inquisitor.William A. Rottschaefer - 1995 - Zygon 30 (3):407-433.
  37.  40
    A Course in the History and Philosophy of Mathematics from a Naturalistic Perspective.William A. Rottschaefer - 1991 - Teaching Philosophy 14 (4):375-388.
    This article describes .a course in the philosophy of mathematics that compares various metaphysical and epistemological theories of mathematics with portions of the history of the development of mathematics, in particular, the history of calculus.
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  38.  43
    Discerning the Limits of Religious Naturalism.William A. Rottschaefer - 2001 - Zygon 36 (3):467-475.
  39.  29
    Skinner’s Philosophy. [REVIEW]William A. Rottschaefer - 1982 - Teaching Philosophy 5 (4):338-342.
  40.  23
    Why Wilfrid Sellars Is Right (and Right-Wing).William A. Rottschaefer - 2011 - Journal of Philosophical Research 36:291-325.
    Scholars of Wilfrid Sellars’s thought split into Right- and Left-wing Sellarsians. Right-wing Sellarsians urge Sellars’s scientific realism and the prominence of the scientific image of man in the synoptic vision. Left-wing Sellarsians emphasize the prominence of the logical space of reasons over that of causes, rejecting Sellars’s scientism. In his recent book James O’Shea attempts to reconcile these Sellarsian images, arguing that one best understands the Sellarsian synoptic image in terms of a norm/nature meta-principle that endorses the conceptual irreducibility and (...)
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  41.  11
    Moral Learning and Moral Realism.William A. Rottschaefer - 1998 - The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 12:37-43.
    Although scientific naturalistic philosophers have been concerned with the role of scientific psychology in illuminating problems in moral psychology, they have paid less attention to the contributions that it might make to issues of moral ontology. In this paper, I illustrate how findings in moral developmental psychology illuminate and advance the discussion of a long-standing issue in moral ontology, that of moral realism. To do this, I examine Gilbert Harman and Nicholas Sturgeon's discussion of that issue. I contend that their (...)
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  42.  18
    Wilfrid Sellars and the Foundations of Normativity by Peter Ole.William A. Rottschaefer - 2017 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 55 (4):745-746.
    In this very informative volume, Peter Olen addresses questions that are of interest both to philosophers generally and to students of Sellars's thought in particular. Do philosophers have a job that is distinct from the scientists'? Yes. What is the nature of normativity and how is it discerned? Roughly, normativity is connected with the extra-conceptual content that normative language adds to factual content. Do Wilfrid Sellars's career-long efforts to account for the nature of both philosophy and normativity present itself as (...)
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  43.  26
    Wilfred Sellars and the Demise of the Manifest Image.William A. Rottschaefer - 1976 - Modern Schoolman 53 (4):398-404.
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  44.  18
    No Messages Without a Sender.William A. Rottschaefer - 2001 - Philo 4 (1):38-53.
    In his recent Gifford Lectures, Holmes Rolston argues that the informational character of biological phenomena is better explained by a theistic God of the process variety than by appealing to naturalistic biological explanations. In this paper, I assess Rolston’s argument by examining current biological and philosophical interpretations of the role of the theoretical concept of information in the description and explanation of biological phenomena. I find that none of these understandings of the concept allow Rolston’s conclusion. Natural selection explanations are (...)
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  45.  33
    Moral Agency and Moral Learning: Transforming Metaethics from a First to a Second Philosophy Enterprise.William A. Rottschaefer - 2009 - Behavior and Philosophy 37:195 - 216.
    Arguably, one of the most exciting recent advances in moral philosophy is the ongoing scientific naturalization of normative ethics and metaethics, in particular moral psychology. A relatively neglected area in these improvements that is centrally important for developing a scientifically based naturalistic metaethics concerns the nature and acquisition of successful moral agency. In this paper I lay out two examples of how empirically based findings help us to understand and explain some cases of successful moral agency. These are research in (...)
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  46.  30
    Biological and Physicochemical Explanations in Experimental Biology.William A. Rottschaefer - 2008 - Biological Theory 3 (4):380-390.
  47.  15
    Why Wilfrid Sellars Is Right (and Right-Wing).William A. Rottschaefer - 2011 - Journal of Philosophical Research 36:291-325.
    Scholars of Wilfrid Sellars’s thought split into Right- and Left-wing Sellarsians. Right-wing Sellarsians urge Sellars’s scientific realism and the prominence of the scientific image of man in the synoptic vision. Left-wing Sellarsians emphasize the prominence of the logical space of reasons over that of causes, rejecting Sellars’s scientism. In his recent book James O’Shea attempts to reconcile these Sellarsian images, arguing that one best understands the Sellarsian synoptic image in terms of a norm/nature meta-principle that endorses the conceptual irreducibility and (...)
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  48.  33
    Mythic religious naturalism.William A. Rottschaefer - 2007 - Zygon 42 (2):369-408.
  49.  9
    Wilfrid Sellars. [REVIEW]William A. Rottschaefer - 2009 - Teaching Philosophy 32 (1):96-102.
  50.  12
    Existence, Knowing and Philosophical Systems. [REVIEW]William A. Rottschaefer - 1985 - Idealistic Studies 15 (2):166-167.
    Is metaphysics possible? If so, what would it be like? And what would make it possible? David Harbert offers a positive answer to the first question and an existential phenomenological characterization of metaphysics as a reply to the second. What makes such a metaphysics possible are, according to Harbert, the personal, interpersonal, and person-related structures of being which reveal themselves in the peak moments of ordinary experience and in similar moments of aesthetic and religious experience.
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