In so many of his epistemological writings, Aristotle defends a sensible flavor of gradualism about our cognitive capacities: we Start with the partial grasps afforded by what is better known to us, and if things go well, we end up with understandings of those objects better known by nature. The picture is of a step-wise process, rather than a transforming moment of illumination.

In a difficult passage in Metaphysics IX, however, Aristotle introduces a kind of cognition which admits of no more or less, no better or worse. With respect to simples (ta asuntheta), Aristotle Claims, knowing is like touching — there is contact, or there isn't. Put differently, for simple objects, what is necessary for thinking of them at all is sufficient for grasping them completely. For this reason, Aristotle sees error about simples as impossible: any successful thinking about them will be such as to preclude error. The only possible mistakes are failures even to have them in mind.

One standard objection to familiar utilitarian consequentialism queries its troubling commitment to the maximization of overall value irrespective of distribution, for instance among the well and badly off. Call this ‘the objection from distribution.'

The simplest and most obvious alternative form of consequentialism deploys some sort of maximin principle. Maximin principles maximize the well-being of the worst off. Lexical maximin rules in particular, which are perhaps the simplest and most obvious subtype, maximize first the well-being of the worst-off, and then in case of ties among the worst-off, maximize the well-being of the second worst-off, and so forth. Maximin principles provide an obvious route to the unification of plausible concerns with maximization and with distributional equity.

This paper explores the conceptual dimension in theory acceptance, throws light on the notion of coherence between theories, and emphasizes the role of coherence between theories in theory acceptance. It is important, however, to recognize that the empirical-conceptual distinction, like most other distinctions in philosophy, is only pragmatic because purely empirical or conceptual notions in science are rare. That is, the term ‘conceptual’ is actually used in the sense of ‘mostly conceptual’, and the term ‘empirical’ signifies what is predominantly empirical. Yet it is useful in many contexts to speak of conceptual and empirical merits of theories separately. Among the commonly discussed conceptual merits of a theory are internal consistency, simplicity, comprehensiveness, and coherence with existing theories. Empirical merits include accommodating known evidence and passing experimental tests. The focus of this paper is coherence between theories.

In 385B-C of the Cratylus, Plato appears to be formulating a version of the correspondence theory of truth, in such a way that it applies not only to discourse, but to individual names as well. However commentators who have remarked on this passage, either take exception to the reasoning, or find it necessary to interpret the conclusion with qualifications that Plato never could have intended. Richard Robinson, for example, on p.328 of “A Criticism of Plato’s Cratylus”, sums up the argument thus:

and criticises it for involving a fallacy of division. Lorenz and Mittelstrasse, by contrast, construe the argument as validly proceeding from the true-false distinction of sentences to a corresponding true-false distinction of their parts.

John Searle has charged R.M. Hare's prescriptivist analysis of the meaning of ‘good,’ ‘ought’ and the other evaluative words with committing what he calls the ‘speech act fallacy.’ This is a fallacy which Searle thinks is committed not only by Hare's analysis, but by any analysis which attributes to a word the function of indicating that a particular speech act is being performed, or that an utterance has a particular illocutionary force. ‘There is a condition of adequacy which any analysis of the meaning of a word must meet,’ Searle writes, ‘and which the speech act analysis fails to meet. Any analysis of the meaning of a word must be consistent with the fact that the same word (or morpheme) can mean the same thing in all the different kinds of sentences in which it can occur.' Hare maintains that the word ‘good’ is used to indicate the speech act of prescribing. He maintains that one of the principal functions of this word is to indicate that utterances of sentences containing it have prescriptive illocutionary force, and that an analysis of its meaning must make explicit and ineliminable reference to this force-indicating function. But ‘good’ regularly occurs in sentences utterances of which appear to have no prescriptive illocutionary force.

Is there something bad about being friends with seriously bad people? Intuitively, it seems so, but it is hard to see why this should be. This is especially the case since some other kinds of loving relationship with bad people look morally acceptable or even good. In this paper, I argue that friendship inherently involves taking one’s friends seriously, which involves openness to their beliefs, concerns, and subjective interests. Deeply immoral views and attitudes ought not to be taken seriously or considered as options, and I argue that this explains why being friends with bad people is itself morally problematic. I go on to contrast this with Jessica Isserow’s (2018) explanation of what’s bad about friendship with bad people, and I suggest that my account is better placed to explain why friendships with bad people are morally problematic but some other loving relationships with bad people are not.

The Megarians, as well as their Stoic heirs, are known to have been fatalists or logical determinists in the following, very broad sense of these terms: with respect to at least certain classes or kinds of nontautologous propositions, they held that the mere truth of a proposition entails its necessity. This paper explores, in a very tentative fashion, the relation between several versions of logical determinism and two passages in the Aristotelian corpus, one of which is specifically directed against Megarian doctrine and the other of which is an argument purporting to establish a thesis concerning the necessity of future events which Aristotle wished to reject but which the Megarian logician Diodorus Cronus apparently accepted.

Perhaps it is best to begin on a semi-autobiographical note. In my liberal days, Mill's arguments in On Liberty for freedom of speech struck me as a paradigm of rationality: the force and eloquence of his presentation, I then thought, could not fail to impress themselves on any mature member of our species. But I am a Marxist now, and more and more of my former political beliefs now strike me as less and less tenable. It was considerations such as the one that follows which have recently led me to modify drastically, and in some cases abandon entirely, my former political views vis à vis the question of freedom of speech.

The dispositional analysis of sentences ascribing powers and abilities to things and people runs into many difficulties. The situation is especially complex and confusing when such ascriptions are brought to bear on particular occasions, and carry some implication about the opportunities available on those occasions. Some of these difficulties are produced by superficial confusions, but I shall concentrate on those that beset any version of the dispositional analysis. Three difficulties will be examined, one presented by Lehrer, and two by Austin.

Lehrer presents his difficulty as a refutation of Moore's dispositional analysis of “X could have acted otherwise”, which was “If X had chosen, he would have acted otherwise”. I shall introduce his objection by relating it to the distinctions drawn in Part I.· Expressed in my terminology, his point is that Moore's analysis presupposes that choosing is not an S-factor, and yet it might conceivably be an S-factor.

Aristotle and others suggest that a single virtue – ‘good temper’ – pertains specifically to anger. I argue that if good temper is a single virtue, it is constituted by aspects of a combination of other virtues. I present three categories of anger-relevant virtues – those that (potentially) dispose one to anger; those that delay, mitigate, and qualify anger; and those required for effortful anger control – and show how virtues in each category make distinct contributions to good temper. In addition to clarifying the relationship between anger and the virtues, my analysis has theoretical implications for virtue individuation more generally, and practical implications for character cultivation.

I examine the significance of the Stoic theory of pathē (and related topics) for Kant’s moral psychology, arguing against the received view that systematic differences block the possibility of Kant’s drawing anything more than rhetoric from his Stoic sources. More particularly, I take on the chronically underexamined assumption that Kant is committed to a psychological dualism in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle, positing distinct rational and nonrational elements of human mentality. By contrast, Stoics take the mentality of an adult human being to be rational through and through, while recognising that this rationality is not normally in a state of health or excellence. I show how Kant’s account of affections—chiefly the “affects” and “passions” that he identifies as targets of a duty of apathy—draws substantive lessons from his Stoic sources, and how he accepts on his own terms the monistic principles of Stoic moral psychology.

It is typically assumed that actions are events, but there is a growing consensus that negative actions, like omissions and refrainments, are not events, but absences thereof. If so, then we must either deny the obvious, that we can exercise our agency by omitting and refrainment, or give up on event-based theories of agency. I trace the consensus to the assumption that negative action sentences are negative-existentials, and argue that this is false. The best analysis of negative action sentences treats them as quantifying over omissions and refrainments, conceived of as events.

Non-naturalist normative realists face an epistemological objection: They must explain how their preferred route of justification ensures a non-accidental connection between justified moral beliefs and the normative truths. One strategy for meeting this challenge begins by pointing out that we are semantically or conceptually competent in our use of the normative terms, and then argues that this competence guarantees the non-accidental truth of some of our first-order normative beliefs. In this paper, I argue against this strategy by illustrating that this competence based strategy undermines the non-naturalist's ability to capture the robustly normative content of our moral beliefs.

Feeling, for any animal, is a faculty of comparing objects or representations with regard to whether they promote its vital powers (pleasure) or hinder them (displeasure). But whereas these comparisons presuppose a species-concept in non-rational animals, nature has not equipped the human being with a universal principle or life-form that would determine what agrees or disagrees with it. As humans, we must determine our mode of life for ourselves. Contrary to other interpretations, I argue that this places the human capacity for pleasure and displeasure outside of nature and in a realm of spirit.

This article explores the concept of metaphysically opaque grounding, a largely neglected form of metaphysical grounding that challenges the commonly held assumptions that grounding is an especially intimate and powerful connection between facts and that it is necessarily connected with the essences of things. I provide a definition of opaque grounding, identify some interesting philosophical views that are committed to it, and explore some consequences for the general theory of grounding. Finally, I briefly address some natural initial doubts about opaque grounding and find them unwarranted. The upshot is that the notion deserves more attention than it has previously received.

Do persons from disadvantaged backgrounds deserve as much blame for their immoral or criminal acts as persons who have had all the advantages? Many liberals feel inclined to say ‘no.’ After all, there is a high correlation between criminal activity and a disadvantaged background; indeed, it might fairly be said that poverty breeds crime. Taken in its most obvious direction, however, this line of argument has dangerous deterministic implications. The price of diminished blame is diminished responsibility. We absolve the disadvantaged by portraying them as persons with a diminished capacity for free action. In the extreme case, we view them as victims of circumstance, utterly unable to act other than they do. Thus is born the demeaning parentalism of the worst sort of liberal social worker.

Still, there is something correct in the liberal impulse to deny or diminish blame in at least many of these cases for something like the reason that the liberal offers. The task of this paper is to explain what is right about it. More generally, I want to show how we can take a person’s background into account in judging her for her acts without falling into total or partial determinism. In other words, my task is to establish that diminished blame is compatible with full freedom and responsibility. Roughly, I shall argue that we cannot blame someone for her acts if they are permitted or required by moral conclusions that are rational for someone in her position to reach.

Some philosophers argue that Hume, given his theory of causation, is committed to an implausibly thin account of what it is like to act voluntarily. Others suggest, on the basis of his argument against free will, that Hume takes no more than an illusory feature of action to distinguish the experience of performing an act from the experience of merely observing an act. In this paper, I argue that Hume is committed to neither an unduly parsimonious nor a sceptical account of the phenomenology of agency.

In his book, A Theory of Justice, John Rawls suggests that a theory of social justice is satisfactory only if it has both of two characteristics (pp. 182, 6). First, it must be capable of serving as the “public moral basis of society” (p. 182). That is, it must be reasonable to suppose that it would be strictly complied with while serving as the public conception of justice in a society which is in favourable circumstances—a society in which the people would strictly comply with any public conception of justice if the strains of commitment to it were not too great, given the general facts of psychology and moral learning (p. 145, cf. pp. 8, 175-83, 245-6). Second, a theory of justice must characterize “ … our considered judgements in reflective equilibrium” (p. 182).