摘要:

AbstractIn this paper I offer a solution to scepticism about the world which neither embraces idealism, nor ends in a stalemate, nor begs the question against the sceptic. In the first part of the paper I explicate the sceptical argument and try to show why it has real force. In the next part of the paper I propose a version of the relevant possibilities approach to scepticism. The central claim of the proposed solution is that a sceptical possibility undermines knowledge only if the possibility is true in some close possible world. But since there is no reason to believe that I am deceived by an evil demon or that I am a brain in a vat in some close possible world, there is no reason to accept an essential premise of the sceptical argument, i.e. that the sceptical scenarios are relevant possibilities. Finally, I argue that the solution proposed does not embrace idealism, end in a stalemate, or beg the question.

ISSN:0034-0006    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9329.1993.tb00048.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThe relatively new discipline of risk analysis promises to provide objective guidance in some of the most controversial issues in modern high‐technology societies. Four conditions are discussed that must be satisfied for this promise to be fulfilled. Since none of these conditions is satisfied, risk analysis does not keep its promise. In its attempts to reduce genuinely political issues to technocratic calculations, it neglects many of the factors that should influence decisions on risk acceptance. A list of tentative guidelines is given for numerical decision support that encourages democratic decision‐making instead of trying to evade

ISSN:0034-0006    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9329.1993.tb00049.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractNelson Goodman's own solution to his new riddle of induction turns on the degree to which predicates are entrenched in our use of language. However, this solution requires that judgements concerning the degree to which a predicate is entrenched can be made independently of any canon of perceptible similarity. I argue that this requirement cannot be met.The riddle itself depends upon the claim that since ‘green’ can be defined positionally in terms of ‘grue’ and ‘bleen’, ‘grue’ and ‘bleen’ are symmetrically related to ‘green’ and ‘blue’, and positionality is therefore ‘an entirely relative matter’. However, in order to establish that positionality is an entirely relative matter, we would need to provide a non‐positional definition of ‘grue’, rather than a positional definition of ‘green’.We therefore need to decide whether ‘grue’ can be defined ostensively by means of a single sample, as ‘green’ can. I argue that any attempt to provide such a definition is bound to fail, and hence the new riddle of induction does not reveal that ‘the roots of inducti

ISSN:0034-0006    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9329.1993.tb00050.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractWhy is there no sustained tradition of argument concerning the existence of a supreme (omniscient and omnipotent) being who is perfectly evil, as there is about one who is perfectly good? Arguments which are reflections of the ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments, and arguments based on personal experience or the occurrence of antimiracles (harmful events not explicable by science) could have provided at least as good grounds for belief in such a being (ie for antitheism) as their originals in fact provide for theism. An imaginary encyclopedia entry, in which fictional antitheistic arguments and thinkers are presented, illustrates this point. The reason for the nonexistence of a tradition of antitheism seems therefore to be that it is merely emotionally, not that it is rationally, less inviting than theism.

ISSN:0034-0006    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9329.1993.tb00051.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThe paper examines a single, apparently simple argument for the existence of incompatibilities between the virtues as traits of character. This argument appeals not to empirical truths about human psychology or human nature but to the possibility of conflict between the exercise of different virtues in action. There are, for example, situations in which we can exercise the virtue of truthfulness only at the expense of not exercising the virtue of tact, as when we are asked a question to which the straightforward answer will pain our questioner. The person who in these situations would give a straightforward answer possesses the virtue of truthfulness to a higher degree than the person who would respond more evasively, whereas the latter person possesses the virtue of tact to a higher degree than the former. But since the two responses are mutually exclusive, it follows that the degree to which we possess the virtue of truthfulness must, at least in some measure, correlate inversely with the degree to which we possess the virtue of tact. And similarly for many other pairs of virtues. My paper focusses on the two cardinal assumptions of this argument, viz., (i) that sometimes the exercise of one virtue can conflict with the exercise of another, and (ii) that the degree to which a person possesses a virtue correlates directly with the extent of its exercise, and defends both assumptions against a variety of objections which allege that, in different ways, they are insensitive to the complexity of the virtues.

ISSN:0034-0006    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9329.1993.tb00052.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractAn imaginary desert island scenario provides the setting for a story which is designed to expose the shortcomings of deterrence, reform and restitution theories of punishment, and to emphasize the intuitive appeal of Kant's strong retributivist insistence that there is a positive obligation to punish offenders justquaoffenders, and not merely an automatic right to do so (weak retributivism). Nevertheless, it is urged that though the fact that an offence has been committed can in itself suffice to establish that punishment is in some sense required, this requirement at most supports a position that is intermediate between Kantian retributivism and weak retributivism.

ISSN:0034-0006    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9329.1993.tb00053.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0034-0006    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9329.1993.tb00054.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Book Reveiwed in this article:Tamara Horowitz&Gerald J. Massey (eds.),Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy

ISSN:0034-0006    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9329.1993.tb00055.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0034-0006    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9329.1993.tb00056.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY