At the beginning of his Metaphysics, Aristotle attributed several strange-sounding theses to Plato. Generations of Plato scholars have assumed that these could not be found in the dialogues. In heated arguments, they have debated the significance of these claims, some arguing that they constituted an 'unwritten teaching' and others maintaining that Aristotle was mistaken in attributing them to Plato. In a prior book-length study on Plato's late ontology, Kenneth M. Sayre demonstrated that, despite differences in terminology, these claims correspond (...) to themes developed by Plato in the Parmenides and the Philebus. In this book, he shows how this correspondence can be extended to key, but previously obscure, passages in the Statesman. He also examines the interpretative consequences for other sections of that dialogue, particularly those concerned with the practice of dialectical inquiry. (shrink)

It is widely agreed among broadly Anselmian theists that God is in some sense the 'delimiter of possibilities.' In other words, the scope of possibility is explained by the manner in which the universe emanates from God. However, existing accounts of God's role here—in terms of freedom, choice, or power—face serious difficulties. The present paper provides a new account of God's role as the delimiter of possibilities in terms of the different manner in which the non-actuality of non-actual states of (...) affairs is explained. Intuitively and metaphorically, we can think of the menu of states of affairs being 'whittled down' in successive stages of a process of divine decision-making, with the different species of impossibility corresponding to when and how the states of affairs are ruled out. I argue that this approach provides genuine contingency while also preserving the Principle of Sufficient Reason. (shrink)

Physicians generally recommend that patients resuscitated with naloxone after opioid overdose stay in the emergency department for a period of observation in order to prevent harm from delayed sequelae of opioid toxicity. Patients frequently refuse this period of observation despiteenefit to risk. Healthcare providers are thus confronted with the challenge of how best to protect the patient’s interests while also respecting autonomy, including assessing whether the patient is making an autonomous choice to refuse care. Previous studies have shown that physicians (...) have widely divergent approaches to navigating these conflicts. This paper reviews what is known about the effects of opioid use disorder on decision-making, and argues that some subset of these refusals are non-autonomous choices, even when patients appear to have decision making capacity. This conclusion has several implications for how physicians assess and respond to patients refusing medical recommendations after naloxone resuscitation. (shrink)

Whereas many philosophers take backwards causation to be impossible, the few who maintain its possibility either take it to be absent from the actual world or else confined to theoretical physics. Here, however, I argue that backwards causation is not only actual, but common, though occurring in the context of our social institutions. After juxtaposing my cases with a few others in the literature and arguing that we should take seriously the reality of causal cases in these contexts, I consider (...) several objections. These objections involve whether the cases should be reinterpreted, whether they are properly within the institution, whether they involve necessitation or else Cambridge changes, whether and how they involve changing the past, and whether this should call us to question institutional reality. I end by suggesting that it is a virtue of our institutions that they allow backwards causation, that this is a kind of technology that they are often built to incorporate. (shrink)

This chapter develops and defends an account of reason: to reason is to scrutinize one’s attitudes by consulting the perspectives of other persons. The principal attraction of this account is its ability to vindicate the unique of authority of reason. The chapter argues that this conception entails that reasoning is a robustly social endeavor—that it is, in the first instance, something we do with other people. It is further argued that such social endeavors presuppose mutual respect on the part of (...) those participating in them. The account therefore yields a form of Kantian constructivism: we have an unconditional duty of respect for persons because such a duty is implicit in the very nature of reasoning. -/- . (shrink)

Authority is defined by the capacity to provide new reasons that apply to its subjects. There are two types of authority that differ from each other with respect to the kind of reasons their directives or opinions create. Authorityepistemic authority is distinguished from Authoritypractical authority in that the former is the source of reasons to believe and the latter is the source of reasons for action. Both kinds of authority are of considerable philosophical importance. This entry, however, is concerned with (...) the notion of practical authority and will focus on certain conceptual and normative issues arising in connection with such authority. In particular, this entry will be concerned with identifying the properties that constitute something as a practical authority and hence distinguish authorities from non-authorities; explicating the kind of reasons that bind subjects of a practical authority and give rise to a justified expectation, on the part of the authority, of subject compliance; and examining what standards a practical authority must satisfy to be morally legitimate. The reason for the emphasis is the central importance of practical authority in law. Law characteristically regulates subject behavior by issuing legal norms thought to be authoritative in the sense that they create new reasons for compliance that bind the subject. While the notion of epistemic authority figures into many issues arising in connection with law, this entry is intended to clarify the notion of practical authority that is thought to ground the binding quality of legal directives. Although there will be some discussion of epistemic authority and its relation to practical Authoritypractical, the relevant form of authority for our purposes is practical authority—again, as this is central to understanding the mechanisms by which law regulates subject behavior. (shrink)

This chapter reaches the following conclusions about laws that enhance punishment for criminal conduct prompted by group hatred or bias:Hatred should not be either a necessary or a sufficient condition for enhanced punishment.Enhanced punishment is justifiable when bias crimes display greater culpability, express disrespect for the victim’s group, or cause either greater psychic harm to the victim or group-specific outrage in the victim’s community.Properly designed bias crime laws do not improperly punish for thoughts or character.Such laws are more defensible if (...) they require that the actor’s primary motive was animus toward the disfavored group.There is no principled reason to require that such laws merely enhance punishment for an already existing parallel crime.Increasing punishment significantly because of bias may violate principles of proportionality. (shrink)

This Open Access book provides both a broad perspective and a focused examination of cow care as a subject of widespread ethical concern in India, and increasingly in other parts of the world. In the face of what has persisted as a highly charged political issue over cow protection in India, intellectual space must be made to bring the wealth of Indian traditional ethical discourse to bear on the realities of current human-animal relationships, particularly those of humans with cows. Dharma, (...) yoga, and bhakti paradigms serve as starting points for bringing Hindu--particularly Vaishnava Hindu--animal ethics into conversation with contemporary Western animal ethics. The author argues that a culture of bhakti--the inclusive, empathetic practice of spirituality centered in Krishna as the beloved cowherd of Vraja--can complement recently developed ethics-of-care thinking to create a solid basis for sustaining all kinds of cow care communities. (shrink)

There is widespread consensus that present patterns of consumption could lead to the permanent impossibility of maintaining those patterns and, perhaps, the existence of the human race. While many patterns of consumption qualify as ‘sustainable’ there is one in particular that deserves greater attention: virtual consumption. We argue that virtual consumption — the experience of authentic consumptive experiences replicated by alternative means — has the potential to reduce the deleterious consequences of real consumption by redirecting some consumptive behavior from shifting (...) material states to shifting information states. (shrink)

A radical, optimistic exploration of how humans evolved to develop reason, consciousness, and free will. Lately, the most passionate advocates of the theory of evolution seem to present it as bad news. Scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, and Sam Harris tell us that our most intimate actions, thoughts, and values are mere byproducts of thousands of generations of mindless adaptation. We are just one species among multitudes, and therefore no more significant than any other living creature. Now comes (...) Brown University biologist Kenneth R. Miller to make the case that this view betrays a gross misunderstanding of evolution. Natural selection surely explains how our bodies and brains were shaped, but Miller argues that it’s not a social or cultural theory of everything. In The Human Instinct, he rejects the idea that our biological heritage means that human thought, action, and imagination are pre-determined, describing instead the trajectory that ultimately gave us reason, consciousness and free will. A proper understanding of evolution, he says, reveals humankind in its glorious uniqueness—one foot planted firmly among all of the creatures we’ve evolved alongside, and the other in the special place of self-awareness and understanding that we alone occupy in the universe. Equal parts natural science and philosophy, The Human Instinct is a moving and powerful celebration of what it means to be human. (shrink)

Prefatory Remarks to Charles Hartshorne's Essay The leading process philosopher of out time intimately divulges his own awakening to the fundamentals of ...

BackgroundInformal mHealth is widely used by community health nurses in Ghana to extend healthcare delivery services to clients who otherwise might have been excluded from formal health systems or would experience significant barriers in their quest to access formal health services. The nurses use their private mobile phones or devices to make calls to their clients, health volunteers, colleagues or superiors. These phone calls are also reciprocal in nature. Besides, the parties exchange or share other health data and information through (...) text messages, pictures, videos or voice clips. There are some ethical dimensions that are inherent in these practices that ought to be critically scrutinised by bioethicists.ObjectiveThe author has argued in this paper that informal mHealth at large scale adoption in Ghana is associated with some bioethical challenges.MethodsThis essay was largely based on an analysis of an empirical study published by Hampshire et al in 2021 on the use of informal mHealth methods in Ghana.ResultsWidespread adoption of Informal mHealth in Ghana is associated with privacy invasion of both the nurses and their clients, breaches confidentiality of the parties, discredits the validity of informed consent processes and may predispose the nurses to some other significant aggregated harms.ConclusionThe author affirms his partial support for a formalised adoption process of informal mHealth in Ghana but has reiterated that the current ethical challenges associated with informal mHealth in Ghana cannot escape all the debilitating bioethical challenges, even if it is formalised. (shrink)

An omnipotent being would be a being whose power was unlimited. The power of human beings is limited in two distinct ways: we are limited with respect to our freedom of will, and we are limited in our ability to execute what we have willed. These two distinct sources of limitation suggest a simple definition of omnipotence: an omnipotent being is one that has both perfect freedom of will and perfect efficacy of will. In this paper we further explicate this (...) definition and show that it escapes the standard objections to divine omnipotence. (shrink)

Writings on epistemic injustice have assessed how people can be harmed in their capacity as knowers when they are a racial minority, a woman, disabled and so on. But what about when they belong to the working class? This paper is an initial attempt to understand why class has so far received limited attention within writings on epistemic injustice and to respond to these reasons. It focuses on how testimonial and hermeneutic injustices specifically harm workers in ways distinctive from the (...) harm one might suffer due to other social identities. It does this by drawing attention to the special case of industrial strike action and the play of conceptual resources and credibility assessments that influence the action’s success. Additionally, it provides a first-time exposition for social epistemologists on what I term the ‘class compositional approach’, derived from 1960-70s Italian labour struggles. This approach, I argue, succeeds in evading the criticism of class reductionism while developing recent philosophical work on class-based injustice. (shrink)

My aesthetic judgements seem to make claims on you. While some popular accounts of aesthetic normativity say that the force of these claims is third-personal, I argue that it is actually second-personal. This point may sound like a bland technicality, but it points to a novel idea about what aesthetic judgements ultimately are and what they do. It suggests, in particular, that aesthetic judgements are motions in the collective legislation of the nature of aesthetic activity. This conception is recommended by (...) its ability to explain some important but otherwise recondite features of aesthetic practice and, more importantly, by allowing us to ground the normativity of aesthetic judgement in the familiar normativity of practice. It also offers a more systematic way of understanding the rivalry between the ideals of aesthetic universality and diversity. (shrink)

In the Introduction to the Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley attacks the “received opinion that language has no other end but the communicating our ideas, and that every significant name stands for an idea” (PHK, Intro §19). How far does Berkeley go in rejecting this ‘received opinion’? Does he offer a general theory of language to replace it? If so, what is the nature of this theory? In this chapter, I consider three main interpretations of Berkeley's view: (...) the modified ideational theory, the speaker intentions theory, and the use theory. I argue that the use theory does, and its competitors do not, make sense of Berkeley's remarks on language in both the earlier and later works. (shrink)

Many environmental problems are the result of the aggregation of seemingly innocuous individual actions. As a result, recognizing the moral significance of our contributory, indirect role in the generation of collective harms is crucial in environmental contexts. This chapter argues that taking our contributory role seriously provides a means of accepting a robust form of responsibility for collective harms. Our responsibilities include not only our individual actions, what we have done directly as individuals, but also the influence we might have (...) on the wide range of institutions and practices that can generate harm and benefit. Taking seriously our contributory responsibility for collective harms not only provides an appropriate way of thinking about moral responsibility in environmental contexts but also provides a helpful response to those who reject the possibility of an individual moral obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (shrink)

The development of efficient and strategic anti-corruption measures can be better achieved if a deeper understanding and identification of the causes of corruption are established. Over the past years, many studies have been devoted to the research of corruption in construction management. This has resulted in a significant increase in the body of knowledge on the subject matter, including the causative factors triggering these corrupt practices. However, an apropos systematic assessment of both past and current studies on the subject matter (...) which is needful for the future endeavor is lacking. Moreover, there is an absence of unified view of the causative factors of corruption identified in construction project management. This paper, therefore, presents a comprehensive review of the causes of corruption from selected articles in recognized construction management journals to address the mentioned gaps. A total number of 44 causes of corruption were identified from 37 publications and analyzed in terms of existing causal factors of corruption, annual trend of publications and the thematic categorization of the identified variables. The most identifiable causes were over close relationships, poor professional ethical standards, negative industrial and working conditions, negative role models and inadequate sanctions. A conceptual framework of causes of corruption was established, after categorizing the 44 variables into five unique categories. In descending order, the five constructs are Psychosocial-Specific Causes, Organizational-Specific Causes, Regulatory-Specific Causes, Project-Specific Causes and Statutory-Specific Causes. This study extends the current literature of corruption research in construction management and contributes to a deepened understanding of the causal instigators of corruption identified in CPM. The findings from this study provide valuable information and extended knowledge to industry practitioners and policymakers as well as anti-corruption agencies in the formulation and direction of anti-corruption measures. To corruption researchers in CM, this study is vital for further research. (shrink)

This collection of essays, written between 1975 and 1987, covers topics including the doctrine of analogy, the Trinity, theological realism, the problims of evil and suffering, ecclesiology, and the so-called theistic proofs. The earlier writings relect the author's training as a philosopher in the Anglo-Aamerican analytic tradition. Later essays have a more explicitly theological focus, and they attempt to deal with and move beyond the tradition through hermeneutics, and literary and social theory. This collection thus addresses a wider list of (...) topics than is usual in works of philsophical theology, and is unique in its use of interdisciplinary methods and approaches. (shrink)

This paper examines Pierre Hadot’s philosophy as a way of life in the context of race. I argue that a “way of life” approach to philosophy renders intelligible how anti-racist confrontation of racist ideas and institutionalized white complicity is a properly philosophical way of life requiring regulated reflection on habits – particularly, habits of whiteness. I first rehearse some of Hadot’s analysis of the “way of life” orientation in philosophy, in which philosophical wisdom is understood as cultivated by actions which (...) result in the creation of wise habits. I analyze a phenomenological claim about the nature of habit implied by the “way of life” approach, namely, that habits can be both the cause and the effect of action. This point is central to the “way of life” philosophy, I claim, in that it makes possible the intelligent redirection of habits, in which wise habits are more the effect than simply the cause of action. Lastly, I illustrate the “way of life” approach in the context of anti-racism by turning to Linda Martín Alcoff’s whiteness anti-eliminativism, which outlines a morally defensible transformation of the habits of whiteness. I argue that anti-racism provides an intelligible context for modern day forms of what Hadot calls “spiritual exercises” insofar as the “way of life” philosophy is embodied in the practice of whites seeing themselves seeing as white and seeing themselves being seen as white. (shrink)

George Berkeley is one of the greatest and most influential modern philosophers. In defending the immaterialism for which he is most famous, he redirected modern thinking about the nature of objectivity and the mind's capacity to come to terms with it. Along the way, he made striking and influential proposals concerning the psychology of the senses, the workings of language, the aims of science, and the scope of mathematics. In this Companion volume a team of distinguished authors not only examines (...) Berkeley's achievements but also his neglected contributions to moral and political philosophy, his writings on economics and development, and his defense of religious commitment and religious life. The volume places Berkeley's achievements in the context of the many social and intellectual traditions - philosophical, scientific, ethical, and religious - to which he fashioned a distinctive response. (shrink)

The young Hegel was entranced by the notion of intellectual intuition, and this notion continues to entrance many of Hegel’ commentators. I argue that Kant provided three distinct conceptions of an intuitive intellect, that none of these involve aconceptual intuitionism, and that they differ markedly from Fichte’s and Schelling’s conceptions of intellectual intuition. I further argue that by 1804 Hegel recognized that appealing to an aconceptual model, or to Schelling’s model, or to his own early model of intellectual intuition generates (...) inevitable and insoluble problems of question-begging. By incorporating several important points from Kant’s Transcendental Ideal into his reinterpretation of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction and Refutation of Idealism, Hegel’s mature discursive and conceptual account of ‘absolute knowing’ performs some of the functions Kant assigned to the intuitive intellect, though without invoking any such intuitive intellect. I discuss several of these functions. (shrink)

Upon doing something generous for someone with whom you are close, some kind of reciprocity may be appropriate. But it often seems wrong to actually request reciprocity. This chapter explores the wrongness in making these requests, and why they can nevertheless appear appropriate. After considering several explanations for the wrongness at issue (involving, e.g. distinguishing oughts from obligation, the suberogatory, imperfect duties, and gift-giving norms), a novel proposal is advanced. The requests are disrespectful; they express that their agent insufficiently trusts (...) the hearer to recognize their own reasons to reciprocate, and the close relationship between them morally requires this kind of trust. This proposal is articulated and situated in the recent discussion of the normativity of requests. The chapter concludes by explaining how these requests may appear appropriate. Agents in these relationships often have standing to make requests, though the standing is lacking in these particular cases. (shrink)

Many people find comparisons of the value of persons distasteful, even immoral. But what can be said in support of the claim that persons have incomparable worth? This chapter considers an argument purporting to show that the value of persons is incomparable because it is so great—because it is infinite. The argument rests on two claims: that the value of our capacity for valuing must equal or exceed the value of things valued and that our capacity for valuing is unbounded (...) in a very strong sense. After laying out this argument, I consider its implications for how we should regard each other. In particular, I suggest that it complicates efforts to understand morality as a system of principles. Instead, I propose that an aesthetic attitude, not unlike our experience of the sublime, is an apt response to humanity’s infinite value. -/- . (shrink)

One way to determine whether a mental condition should be considered a disorder is to first give necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be a disorder and then see if it meets these conditions. But this approach has been criticized for begging normative questions. Concerning autism (and other conditions), a neurodiversity movement has arisen with essentially two aims: (1) advocate for the rights and interests of individuals with autism, and (2) de-pathologize autism. We argue that denying autism’s disorder status (...) could undermine autism’s exculpatory role in cases where individuals with autism are charged with a crime. Our argument raises a dilemma for the neurodiversity movement: advocating for the rights and interests of individuals with autism may require viewing autism as a condition that can be inherently disabling (at least for some individuals). If this is right, autism’s disorder status might be maintained (again, at least for some individuals) without deriving this result from any general account of disorder. (shrink)

This chapter notes that reduction and reductionism in the sciences and in medicine mean a number of different things, and provides a typology of those different senses, including those of the most relevance to psychiatry. Alternatives to reductionism are discussed, including antireductionism and different forms of emergence. Specific examples of reductionist and emergentist programs tied to a range of psychiatric disorders are presented, including autism, depression, and schizophrenia. These programs are also related to ongoing attempts of psychiatry to secure the (...) validity of disorders by appealing to genetics and neuroscience. (shrink)

Net paper readers have been shown to read deeper into articles than newspaper readers. It has also been claimed that newspaper readers rather scan than read newspapers. Do these findings mean that net paper readers read proportionally more than newspaper readers? This paper presents results showing that in fact net paper readers scan more and read less than newspaper readers. We furthermore investigate whether this result can be expained by the difference in layout, navigation structure and purpose of reading between (...) the two media. (shrink)

Issues like abortion, AIDS, test-tube babies, conscience, euthanasia, etc, are increasingly becoming issues of public debate, and lay person and professional alike are expected to express an opinion. This book explores these issues and others in a way which is readily understood by both professional and lay person. Technical language is avoided, and where different approaches to an issue exist, each is outlined and the reader is left to decide among them.-from back cover.

Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology draws research from psychiatry, philosophy, and psychology to explore the variety of explanatory approaches for understanding the nature of psychiatric disorders both in practice and research. The fields of psychiatry and clinical psychology incorporates many useful explanatory approaches and this book integrates this range of perspectives and makes suggestions about how to advance etiologic theories, classification, and treatment. The editors have brought together leading thinkers who have been widely published and are well-respected in their area (...) of expertise, including several developers of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and authors of the US National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria Project (RDoC). Each main chapter has a commentary provided by one of the other authors and an introduction written by one of the editors to create an accessible, interdisciplinary dialog. (shrink)

_Grounds of Pragmatic Realism_ shows Hegel is a major epistemologist, who disentangled Kant’s critique of judgment, across the Critical corpus, from transcendental idealism, and augmented its enormous evaluative and justificatory significance for commonsense knowledge, the natural sciences and freedom of action.

Respondeat superior is a legal doctrine conferring liability from one party onto another because the latter stands in some relationship of authority over the former. Though originally a doctrine of tort law, for the past century it has been used within the criminal law, especially to the end of securing criminal liability for corporations. Here, I argue that on at least one prominent conception of criminal responsibility, we are not justified in using this doctrine in this way. Firms are not (...) answerable for the crimes committed by their employees, because firms cannot answer as to why the crime was committed; they lack the authority to offer the employee’s reasons for action. Though this rules out respondeat superior as a general principle, I show contexts in which vicarious liability is still appropriate in the criminal law, and I respond to a number of other concerns raised by this picture. (shrink)

This study employs the bibliometric analysis approach to examine research on ethical decision-making (EDM) of accountants from 1987 to 2022. The study specifically examines the developments in EDM research and evaluates the intellectual structure of the research field. Employing citation, co-authorship, co-occurrence and bibliographic coupling analyses, bibliometric data on 908 publications from the Scopus database was analysed. The results indicate that there has been a significant increase in the rate of publication on EDM of accountants following the spate of ethical (...) breaches in the early 2000s. Further, we find that a large proportion of EDM in accounting research originates from developed countries like USA, Australia and UK. Our cluster analysis suggests that two main research streams have evolved over the period. Prior to 2012, researchers in this field mainly focused on individual level issues, particularly, on the determinants of the EDM process of individuals. Research, post 2012, however, has focused on firm-level EDM issues including organisational ethics, culture, and corporate governance. The study further discusses the themes in detail andproposes a future research agenda. (shrink)

Some philosophers posit a connection between normativity and agency. This connection allows us to infer propositions about what we ought to do or what reason we have to do from the conditions of action. This chapter considers arguments for this connection. In particular, the chapter argues that not only do the conditions of generic agency have important normative implications for us, but so too do the conditions of narrower, more contingent, and more local kinds of agency. Finally, objections to this (...) thesis are summarized and rejected, in part because they presuppose our having far more control over what our deliberations require in the way of agency than we actually do. -/- . (shrink)

Craik published only one complete work of any length, this essay on The Nature of Explanation.

What do we mean when we say we "know" something? What is this knowledge and how do we come by it? What exactly counts as an object of knowledge? And on what basis do we defend our claims to know against thosethe skepticswho deny that knowledge is possible or that our criteria for knowing can ever be satisfied? These questions and many others are addressed in this fascinating collection of essays by leading philosophers, who discuss the nature, meaning, and extent (...) of human knowledge. Included are works by Robert Almeder, William P. Alston, Robert P. Amico, Roderick M. Chisholm, Edmund L. Gettier, Richard Feldman, Peter D. Klein, Keith Lehrer, Kenneth G. Lucey, John Pollock, and others. Several essays are original to this collection and break new ground on such issues as the Problem of the Criterion. (shrink)

This article employs postcolonial perspectives to examine the possibilities and limitations of drawing on Pan-African ideas to establish practices and meanings for global citizenship education at an elite secondary school in Ghana. In this examination, the authors explore the ways in which the school’s interventions to reinforce sameness/unity produce different understandings of global citizenship between students from different social class backgrounds. The article addresses how the school attempts to dissociate students from their native cultures for the purpose of teaching them (...) the ways of knowing and doing necessary to live and work/study in the West. The authors illustrate the ways in which the lessons students are being taught about what it means to be a global citizen reinscribe hegemonic discourse through Pan-African rhetoric. The article concludes by calling for alternative forms of global citizenship education that emphasize critical consciousness. (shrink)