In this article, I give an account of the religious problem in Montesquieu’s Considerations. The question is interesting because Montesquieu pays almost no attention to pagan religion in his text. I explain that his silence is only relative, and that his thought can be explained by his argumentative strategy: Montesquieu is very prudent when speaking of religion. In this article, I also explain his silence on Christianity, a religion of which he is known to be very critical.

Is time flowing? A-theorists say ‘yes’, B-theorists say ‘no’. But both take time to be real, which means that B-theorists accept that time is real, even if lacking a property usually ascribed to it. In this paper, I ask what the different properties usually ascribed to time there are in order to draw the list of different possible kinds of realism and anti-realism about time. As we will see, there are three main kinds of anti-realism. I will argue that if time is defined as the universe's fourth dimension, there is no way time could be unreal.

In light of recent legal decisions affording more than two parents to Canadian children, we consider whether there is any moral reason for limiting the number of parents a child can have to two. We look at several traditional arguments for this position and find that they fail to justify it. We also consider an argument inspired by Brighouse and Swift’s work on the goods of parenting and find that while it brings up important points, it is not strong enough to support a limit of just two parents. We conclude with some thoughts about how else the notion of parenthood could be helpfully separated from traditional notions.

Chase Wrenn argues that there are no epistemic duties. When it appears that we have an epistemic duty to believe, disbelieve or suspend judgement about some proposition P, we are really under a moral obligation to adopt the attitude towards P that our evidence favours. The argument appeals to theoretical parsimony: our conceptual scheme will be simpler without epistemic duties and we should therefore drop them. I argue that Wrenn’s strategy is flawed. There may well be things that we ought to do on epistemic grounds alone.

Anthony Collins’ Discourse on Freethinking (1713) claims an equal right of examining freely any proposition for each human being. However, the right he claims isn’t always clear, and a close reading shows that, in fact, he successively defends three versions of this right, each weighing the role of equality differently. In the first section, where both values appear consistent with one another, claimed freedom and equality of rights are, in fact, in tension with one another and Collins hesitates too much to solve anything. Beyond the Discourse, this exemplifies the early development of a problem that will become increasingly important in the Late Enlightenment.

In this paper, I argue that viewing Frege’s puzzle through a semantic lens results in the rejection of solutions to it on irrelevant grounds. As a result, I develop a solution to it that rests on a non-semantic sense of context-sensitivity. And I apply this picture to Frege’s puzzle when it arises through the use of identity statements designed to establish that distinct speakers are talking about the same thing.

According to ‘strong cognitivism’, all reasons for action are rooted in normative features that the motivated subject (explicitly or implicitly) takes objects to have (or lack) independently of her attitudes towards these objects. My main concern in this paper is to argue against strong cognitivism, that is, to establish the view that conative attitudes do provide subjects with reasons for action. My central argument to this effect is a top-down one that proceeds by an analysis of the complex phenomenon of caring and derives a conclusion regarding the (motivational and normative) nature of more basic mental phenomena—particular desires.

Annas’ virtue ethics faces the Circularity Objection. She claims that a just soul is disposed to doing just acts. If a just soul is defined neither in terms of right acts nor rules, then the Circularity Objection is circumvented. Drawing upon Korsgaard’s recent work, it is shown that Annas’ argument faces anew the Circularity Objection. Then, I examine Annas’ fresh attempts to avert the Circularity Objection by appealing to the community of the virtuous. I argue that this move does not save her theory from either relativism or the Circularity Objection.