11,465 research outputs found
From meaning to morality in Kovesi and Harrison
The chapter shows that Bernard Harrison and Julius Kovesi are complementary thinkers, interested in similar questions, and arriving at closely comparable answers. It summarizes the theory of concepts and meaning that they shared and the way they have used this theory to make sense of morality
The Beginnings of Priestley's Materialism
The mature materialism of Joseph Priestley's Disquisitions relating to
Matter and Spirit of 1777 is based on three main arguments: that Newton's
widely-accepted scientific methodology requires the rejection of the
'hypothesis' of the soul; that a dynamic theory of matter breaks down the
active/passive dichotomy assumed by many dualists; and that interaction
between matter and spirit is impossible. In Matter and Spirit it is the first two
arguments which are given greatest prominence; but it is the third argument
which first brought Priestley to take materialism seriously. It was an argument
which had persistently troubled him in his dualist years, but it was not until
1774 in the Examination that he 'first entertained a serious doubt of the truth of the vulgar hypothesis'. Underlying this fact is an episode of some complexity which this article examines
Kovesi on Natural World Concepts and the Theory of Meaning
Julius Kovesi was a moral philosopher whose work rested on a theory of
concepts and concept-formation, which he outlined in his 1967 book Moral Notions. But his contribution goes further than this. In sketching a theory
of concepts and concept-formation, he was entering the philosophy of language. To make his account of moral concepts credible, he needs a broader story about how moral concepts compare with other sorts of concepts. Yet philosophy of language, once dominated by Wittgenstein and Austin, came rather suddenly in the 1960s to be dominated by metaphysicians and philosophers of science trying to give an account of natural science concepts. How then does Kovesi’s theory of concepts fare when viewed in the light of this shift of interests? Does he have a theory of natural world concepts that can stand scrutiny? I will try to show that he does. To show this, I will focus on the concept of water. However, before doing
this we need an outline of Kovesi’s account of what he called ‘notions formed about the inanimate world’
Ethics in Politics
The topic ‘ethics in politics’ might cover a multitude of sins. Here it will be restricted to the ethics of politicians in representative liberal democracies. The ethics of public servants will be left aside, as will be the ethics of politicians in other political systems. Plain criminal wrongdoing by politicians will also be outside our scope. The subject is still very large. It includes all those matters that reflect on a politician’s ethical reputation. Political wrongdoing can range in magnitude from taking a country to war on inadequate grounds to fiddling with one’s parliamentary expenses
Is There an Ethics for Historians?
How should historians treat one another? More generally, what are the ethical obligations that go with belonging to the profession of history? And more generally still, in what ways and in what sense is history a profession and how are professional ethics manifested in the profession? These are the questions I will canvass in this essay. In his introduction to The Historian’s Conscience, Stuart Macintyre observes that in the recent ‘public dispute over Australian history … there is surprisingly little attention to the ethical dimensions of historical scholarship’. I will suggest that this lack of attention is a problem, and I will try to clarify the nature of the problem
Some problems in Piketty: An internal critique
Thomas Piketty’s evidence on wealth distribution trends in Capital in the Twenty-
First Century shows that – contra his own interpretation – there has been little rise
in wealth inequality in Europe and America since the 1970s. This article relates that
finding to the other principal trends in Piketty’s analysis: the capital/national income
ratio trend, the capital-labor split of total incomes and the income inequality trend.
Given that wealth inequality is not rising markedly, what can we deduce about the
putative causes that might be operating upstream? Only the capital-labor split looks
like a plausible explanation of the wealth inequality trend
Joseph Priestley
In his day, Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) was a philosopher of some importance. He argued the case for materialism perhaps more cogently than did any British thinker before recent times. He presented determinism vigorously, with a focus on the central issue of the nature of causation. He defended scientific realism against Reid’s Common Sense realism and against Hume’s phenomenonalism. He articulated a working scientist’s account of causation, induction and scientific progress. He defended the Argument from Design against Hume’s criticisms. His attempt to combine theism, materialism and determinism is audacious and original. As a political thinker, he argued the case for extensive civil liberties. He was perhaps the most thorough British exponent of a Providentialist account of progress. His ultimate aim was to combine Enlightenment principles with a modernized Christian theism
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The effect of mindful eating on subsequent intake of a high calorie snack
This study examined the effects of applying a mindful eating strategy during lunch on subsequent intake of a palatable snack. It also looked at whether this effect occurred due to improved memory for lunch and whether effects varied with participant gender, level of interoceptive awareness or sensitivity to reward. Participants (n = 51) completed a heartbeat perception task to assess interoceptive awareness. They were then provided with a lunch of 825 calories. Participants in the experimental group ate lunch while listening to an audio clip encouraging them to focus on the sensory properties of the food (e.g. its smell, look, texture). Those in the control group ate lunch in silence. Two hours later participants were offered a snack. They then completed a questionnaire assessing sensitivity to reward as well as other measures assessing various aspects of their memory for lunch. The results showed no significant difference in lunch intake between the two groups but participants in the experimental group consumed significantly less snack than those in the control group; mean = 112.30 calories (SD = 70.24) versus mean = 203.20 calories (SD = 88.05) respectively, Cohen's d = 1.14. This effect occurred regardless of participant gender or level of interoceptive awareness. There was also no significant moderation by sensitivity to reward although one aspect, reward interest, showed a trend towards significance. There was no evidence to indicate that the mindful eating strategy enhanced participants' memory for their lunch. Further research is needed to assess the long-term effects of this strategy, as well as establish the underlying mechanisms. Future work on the relationship between sensitivity to reward and the effects of mindful eating may also benefit from larger sample sizes
Is professional ethics grounded in general ethical principles?
This article questions the commonly held view that professional ethics
is grounded in general ethical principles, in particular, respect for client (or patient) autonomy and beneficence in the treatment of clients (or patients). Although these are admirable as general ethical principles, we argue that there is considerable logical difficulty in applying them to the professional-client relationship. The transition from general principles to professional ethics cannot be made because the intended conclusion applies differently to each of the parties involved, whereas the premise is a general principle that applies equally to both parties. It is widely accepted that professionals are required to recognize that clients or patients possess rights to autonomy that are more than the general rights to personal autonomy accepted in ordinary social life, and that professionals are expected to display beneficence toward their clients that is more than the beneficence expected of anyone in ordinary social life. The comparative component of professional ethics is an intrinsic feature of the professional situation, and thus it cannot be bypassed in working out a proper professional ethics. Thus, we contend, the proper professional treatment of clients or patients has not been explained by appeal to general ethical principles
MacIntyre and Kovesi on the Nature of Moral Concepts
Julius Kovesi was a moral philosopher contemporary with Alasdair
MacIntyre, and dealing with many of the same questions as MacIntyre.
In our view, Kovesi’s moral philosophy is rich in ideas and worth revisiting.
MacIntyre agrees: Kovesi’s Moral Notions, he has said, is ‘a minor classic in
moral philosophy that has not yet received its due’. Kovesi was not a
thinker whose work fits readily into any one tradition. Unlike the later
MacIntyre, he was not a Thomistic Aristotelian, nor even an Aristotelian.
He saw his viewpoint as Platonic, or perhaps more accurately as Socratic.
His writings, unlike MacIntyre’s, have little to say about justice. However,
Kovesi did offfer a theory of practical reason. His main contention was that
all human social life embodies a set of concepts that govern and guide that
life, concepts without which that life would be impossible. These include
our moral concepts. For Kovesi, moral concepts are not external to, but
constitutive of social life in any of its possible forms. But in the course of
his argument he also developed a way of thinking about how concepts
work, which we term ‘conceptual functionalism’, and which we will
elucidate
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