bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Speaking My Mind: Expression, Truth, and Self-Knowledge
Authors: Bar-On Dorit
Published: October 2005

Ch. 9 makes the connection between privileged self-knowledge, and the Neo-Expressivist view of the special security of avowals. First, the author considers a challenge, which suggests that Neo-Expressivism is committed to a deflationary view of self-knowledge. For the Neo-Expressivist, even though avowals are semantically continuous with other verbal reports, they do not seem to articulate things we genuinely know, since they are not made on any epistemic basis. In reply, the author sketches a variety of non-deflationary views of self-knowledge, and illustrates how these views are compatible with her account of avowals. The chapter also attempts to explain self-knowledge via the notion of first person privilege (as opposed to first-person epistemic authority).
A Case for Theism
Authors: Hebblethwaite Brian
Published: October 2005

This chapter sketches the case for supposing theistic metaphysics to offer the best explanation of a world productive of mind, freedom, morality, art, philosophy, and religion. All these features of the human world, itself undoubtedly the product of evolution, are much more intelligible when seen as proceeding ultimately from God’s creative action, than simply as emerging out of the random interaction of material energies. A nature productive of finite spirit, and of the values of goodness, beauty and truth is best understood as the creation of infinite Spirit, itself supremely good, beautiful and true.
The Rationality of Revelation
Authors: Hebblethwaite Brian
Published: October 2005

The relation between natural theology and revealed theology is explored. It is shown how appeals to revelation are perfectly rational. Such appeals can and should be included in a cumulative case that assembles a whole range of considerations — metaphysical, historical and doctrinal — that together provide support for Christian belief. The assimilation of revealed theology to natural theology involved in such a cumulative case is illustrated with reference to the writings of Joseph Butler, H. H. Farmer and James Barr. This approach is then compared and contrasted with the position known as ‘Reformed epistemology’, associated particularly with the work of Alvin Plantinga.
The Appeal to History I: The History of Religions
Authors: Hebblethwaite Brian
Published: October 2005

This chapter shows how a cumulative case for theistic belief is already moving from considerations of natural theology to considerations of revealed theology, as one attempts to do justice to a wide range of historical data on the history of religions. Sense has to made of the widespread phenomenon of religious experience. Morality, too, is found to be more intelligible in a theistic context than within a purely naturalistic worldview. Further arguments for theism from value include appeals to the objectivity of beauty and truth. But the diversity of world religions presents a problem for the rationality of any one doctrinal system. Christianity, like any other faith, has to provide a theology of religion and the religions if its particular and unique claims are to be rationally justified.
The Appeal to History II: Christ and the Church
Authors: Hebblethwaite Brian
Published: October 2005

The cumulative case for specifically Christian belief now concentrates on the history of Israel and the story of Jesus and its aftermath, including the rise of the Christian Church. Rational assessment of these historical facts depends greatly on the background beliefs already held. Theistic belief leads one to expect revelation. Sympathy towards revelation claims leads one to take seriously the historical evidence for the unique status claimed for Jesus Christ, including the evidence for his Resurrection. The work of David Brown and Richard Swinburne on evidence for the Incarnation is assessed.
A Case for Incarnational and Trinitarian Belief
Authors: Hebblethwaite Brian
Published: October 2005

This chapter argues that the doctrines developed over time, in order to make best sense of the historical phenomena considered in the last two chapters, themselves contribute to the cumulative case for Christian belief, in so far as their logic, their scope and their power provide the most theoretically and existentially convincing account of existence, predicament and its resolution, and of what one may hope for. While what the different world religions have in common needs to be borne in mind, the case for Christianity depends chiefly on the logic and power of the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity. The chapter ends with a brief exposition of the religious significance of Christian soteriology — its understanding of salvation and eschatology — its hope for the ultimate future of creation.
Chapter 3 Economic Issues in Alcohol Taxation
Authors: Smith Stephen
Published: October 2005

Alcohol taxes and revenues vary widely in the EU, ranging from over 100 euros per capita in Scandinavian countries to less than 30 euros in Mediterranean countries. It is difficult to defend the high alcohol excises on ‘inverse-elasticity’ rounds (Ramsey rule). It is also unclear whether alcohol would be a complement or a substitute for leisure. To be sure, the taxation of alcohol sales helps to reduce the external costs generated by abusive consumers, but at the cost of reducing the consumer satisfaction of non-abusive consumers. The concerns that are sometimes raised about the regressivity of tobacco taxes do not apply with anything like the same force to alcohol taxes. In the US, a very large proportion of the net external cost associated with abusive alcohol consumption is accounted for by the valuation of alcohol-related traffic fatalities, whereas in UK studies, the largest items appear under the heading ‘social cost to industry’. The average external cost of alcohol consumption in the UK might be in the order of 17 per cent of the pre-tax price of alcohol. Narrowing differences in levels of alcohol taxation in EU member states would reduce the economic and fiscal costs associated with legal cross-border shopping.
Chapter 4 Gambling Taxes
Authors: Clotfelter Charles T.
Published: October 2005

Gambling has experienced rapid growth in recent decades, marked by the legalization of heretofore forbidden games and increasing rates of participation among households. This legalization is invariably accompanied by both regulation and taxation. Governments collect excise tax revenue from gross revenue (e.g. slot machines and casino gambling tables) or gross wager (e.g. lotteries). Overall, gambling products tend to be subject to quite high implicit or explicit rates approximating those on tobacco and alcohol. While the joint legalization and taxation probably conveys net welfare gains (net gamblers are better off), the legalization nevertheless imposes some external costs (compulsive gamblers, particularly of gaming machines, are worse off). The incidence of gambling taxes is usually regressive. The taxation of gambling is bound up with other policy issues relating to society’s attitude towards gambling. A middle ground is to accommodate the existing, unstimulated demand for gambling, without doing anything to stimulate that demand. Besides limiting the availability of gambling opportunities, this approach would be consistent with differentially higher tax rates.
Chapter 5 Environmentally Related Levies
Authors: Barde Jean‐Philippe , Braathen Nils Axel
Published: October 2005

Although the need for environmentally related taxes, charges, and tradable permits is widely recognized, in practice command-and-control types of regulations still dominate the environmental landscape. Moreover, green taxes and other environmentally related levies on motor fuel, electricity, packaging, and landfill waste still exhibit a large number of shortcomings. In most cases, the externality-tax linkage is weak, the rates are low, the bases are riddled with exemptions (for example, for coal, which is often subsidized, and electricity), taxes overlap with regulations, and international coordination, required to contain border-crossing externalities, is not forthcoming. Two main fears seem to stall further progress — the perceived regressivity of environmental levies and their negative impact on sectoral competitiveness. However, the regressivity issue can be tackled by ex-post compensation measures and the loss of competitiveness by ex-ante exemptions and reduced rates. Green tax reform is unlikely to make much progress unless some minimum level playing field is agreed upon between OECD countries.
Chapter 8 Excise Taxes: Economics, Politics, and Psychology
Authors: Frey Bruno S.
Published: October 2005

Excise taxation is only one instrument in the fiscal toolbox to combat externality and immorality. Excise taxes, along with tradable permits and command-and-control measures, provide external incentives for desirable conduct, i.e. they induce extrinsic motivation. In addition, the importance of socially desirable behaviour for its own sake, i.e. intrinsic motivation, should be recognized. Specifically, a key consideration in the analysis and evaluation of external regulatory instruments is whether they undermine intrinsic behaviour (crowding-out effect) or reinforce it (crowding-in effect). Crowding-out is a ‘hidden cost’ that should be accounted for. Tax-price instruments bolster intrinsic motivation in so far as they provide regulated agents freedom of choice and thus enhance moral agency. At the same time, tax-price instruments may impair intrinsic motivation by signalling that once the price has been paid for an activity, such as pollution, there is no reason, moral or otherwise, not to engage in it. By contrast, tradable permits may have a damaging effect on intrinsic behaviour; their sale may be likened to the selling of indulgences. In short, psychological and political considerations should be taken into account in formulating excise tax policy.
The Samaritan's Dilemma
Authors: Gibson Clark C. , Andersson Krister , Ostrom Elinor , Shivakumar Sujai
Published: October 2005

What’s wrong with development aid? It is argued that much of aid’s failure is related to the institutions that structure its delivery. These institutions govern the complex relationships between the main actors in the aid delivery system, and often generate a series of perverse incentives that promote inefficient and unsustainable outcomes. The theoretical insights of the new institutional economics are applied to several settings. First, the institutions of Sida, the Swedish aid agency, is investigated to analyze how that aid agency’s institutions can produce incentives inimical to desired outcomes, contrary to the desires of its own staff. Second, cases from India, a country with low aid dependence, and Zambia, a country with high aid dependence, are used to explore how institutions on the ground in recipient countries might also mediate the effectiveness of aid. Suggestions are offered on how to improve aid’s effectiveness. These include how to structure evaluations in order to improve outcomes, how to employ agency staff to gain from their on-the-ground experience, and how to engage stakeholders as “owners” in the design, resource mobilization, learning, and evaluation process of development assistance programs.
Laying the Theoretical Foundations for the Study of Development Aid
Authors: Gibson Clark C.
Published: October 2005

This chapter focuses on the problem of collective action as it relates to development at the operational level. It first explores how individuals’ motivation may hamper their incentive to work together. Next, it looks at how missing or asymmetric information about the actions or characteristics of individuals may also inhibit their cooperation. This exploration of collective-action problems is undertaken using the Institutional Analysis and Development framework.
Better Development Through Better Policy?
Authors: Gibson Clark C.
Published: October 2005

This chapter explores the obstacles and possibilities for development at the collective-choice level, and discusses the difficulties most likely to thwart efforts to solve collective-action situations in recipient countries, including how the reality of weak, bad, or missing institutions hampers development efforts. It unpacks the challenges arising at the collective-choice level by emphasizing the problems of information and motivation. Questions are posed about development aid in an effort to improve its design and outcome.
Sorting Out the Tangle: Incentives Across Action Situations in Development Aid
Authors: Gibson Clark C.
Published: October 2005

The International Development Cooperation Octangle, or “Octangle”, demonstrates the realistic and complex tangle of relationships involved in aid. The result of this tangle of relationships facilitates a situation in which many individuals may have de jure responsibility for ensuring the effectiveness of aid, even using language in aid contracts like “ownership” and “sustainability,”, but no one is actually held accountable for its performance.
A Formal Analysis of Incentives in Strategic Interactions Involving an International Development Cooperation Agency
Authors: Gibson Clark C.
Published: October 2005

Initial conditions in the recipient almost always reflect tragedies of the commons, public good problems, and principal-agent problems. Two broad motives/mechanisms behind the decision on the part of a developed country to enter a recipient country with aid are identified. The first is altruism and warm glow. The second is increased per capita GDP via growth factors including essential capital investment, overcoming market failure in the recipient countries. Using game theory, the strategic implications of this mix of initial conditions and donor motives on donor outcomes are studied. It is shown that aid dependency is a likely outcome of this mix.
All Aid is Not the Same: The Incentives of Different Types of Aid
Authors: Gibson Clark C.
Published: October 2005

Different types of aid can generate different incentives. Aid is commonly interpreted as an incentive to spur policy change in recipient governments. This chapter looks at how the modalities, means, and conditions of aid can produce different kinds of incentives and, in this way, engender a variety of outcomes.
Applying the IAD Framework: The Incentives Inside a Development Agency
Authors: Gibson Clark C.
Published: October 2005

Incentives for an aid agency’s staff to learn about sustainability of field activities is one of the most fundamental factors in that agency’s quest for sustainable development outcomes. It is essential for agencies to base their decisions about development cooperation programs on an ongoing learning and adjustment process. Drawing from the general discussion of collective-action problems in public organizations in earlier chapters, the IAD framework is employed to identify and analyze specific collective-action problems within the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and its relationships with counterparts and contractors, both at the Stockholm headquarters and in the field.
Incentives for Contractors in Aid-Supported Activities
Authors: Gibson Clark C.
Published: October 2005

Using data on Sida’s activities in Zambia and India, it is shown that there are inherent contradictions between the incentives that consultants face in promoting ownership, and the incentives they face in retaining control of a project. Control over project decisions may produce positive short-term project results that please Sida, but contractors’ control may also compromise the prospects for sustainability. It is argued that donor agencies can improve aid sustainability by combining consultant expertise with the local knowledge of local beneficiaries — knowledge that donors frequently declare to be critical, but nevertheless, tend to neglect or underutilize. This calls for assigning a greater role to beneficiary organizations in the design, implementation, and evaluation of donor-financed field activities.
Sida Aid in Electricity and Natural Resource Projects in India
Authors: Gibson Clark C.
Published: October 2005

This chapter examines two development assistance projects undertaken by Sida in India. These case studies demonstrate the use of institutional analysis as a diagnostic tool, and illustrate how problems of motivation and asymmetric information arise within the complex mix of actors involved in a project, presenting distinct challenges for sustainable development.
Sida Aid in Electricity and Natural Resource Projects in Zambia
Authors: Gibson Clark C.
Published: October 2005

The incentive structures for several actors in the action arenas of three Sida-supported projects in Zambia are identified using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, to examine how these affect the likelihood of ownership and sustainable project outcomes. Zambia’s relative dependency on aid has a profound impact on incentive structures conducive to beneficiary ownership, and thus also to sustainable outcome. The implications of findings on the incentives found in these cases are discussed.
What Have We Learnt About Aid?
Authors: Gibson Clark C.
Published: October 2005

This chapter discusses how aid might be delivered more effectively. While referring to Sida, it provides suggestions that are general enough to be useful to any agency concerned with development assistance. It identifies six general areas that deserve the attention of all aid agencies, the recipients of international assistance, and those engaged in the analysis of this policy field. These are: an awareness of the important role of incentives; paying attention to the nature of the good involved; focusing on how ownership is related to sustainability; examining how learning is encouraged at an individual and organizational level; the role of consultants in development assistance; and the importance of putting beneficiaries first.
An Outline of the History of Economic Thought
Authors: Screpanti Ernesto , Zamagni Stefano
Published: October 2005

Provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of the development of economic theory from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary contributions. Traditional theories are presented as living matter and modern theories as part of a historical process and not as established truths. In this way, the book avoids the dangerous dichotomy between the 'pure' historians of thought, who dedicate themselves exclusively to studying 'facts', and the 'pure' theorists, who are interested only in the evolution of the logical structure of theories. An unconventionally large amount of space is reserved for the thought of the last 50 years of the twentieth century, for more than 50% of scientific knowledge has been produced in this time span. The book is not directed to a specialist public nor solely to a student audience. It aims to reach the educated person who has an interest in understanding the context in which economic ideas were formed.

The second edition contains several changes and additions. Among them: a look at the ‘civil economy’ perspective in Humanism and Renaissance; an interpretation of Adam Smith as an institutionalist; a hint at the social ontology of Karl Marx; a new treatment of post-Keynesian and new Keynesian approaches; a final chapter on contemporary institutionalist thought in the light of globalization and postmodernism.
The Birth of Political Economy
Authors: Screpanti Ernesto , Zamagni Stefano
Published: October 2005

Starts by characterizing the end of the Middle Ages and the beginnings of the modern world. Then considers mercantilism, with special emphasis on demographic and monetary theories and policies. Finally, exposes the contributions of some relevant forerunners of classical political economy (W. Petty; J. Locke; D. North; B. Mandeville; R. Cantillon).
The Laissez-Faire Revolution and Smithian Economics
Authors: Screpanti Ernesto , Zamagni Stefano
Published: October 2005

The contribution of the Physiocratic School and the Italian School (Milan and Naples) is analysed. This is followed by a thorough investigation of Smithian's theoretical system, at both the philosophical level and the economic one. The Smithian orthodoxy is compared to the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham.
From Ricardo to Mill
Authors: Screpanti Ernesto , Zamagni Stefano
Published: October 2005

Deals with the consolidation of Smithian orthodoxy in the age of Ricardo, Malthus, and J. S. Mill. The Ricardian theories of rent and of the decreasing returns are utilized to explain the contrast with Malthus on the corn laws. Some emphasis is given to the English monetary theories of H. Thorton and J. S. Mill. Finally, the rise of the German Historical School is put into perspective.
Socialist Economic Thought and Marx
Authors: Screpanti Ernesto , Zamagni Stefano
Published: October 2005

A novel interpretation of the emergence of Marxian theoretical system, starting from the forerunners of socialist thought. The problem of the transformation of values into production prices is analysed in the light of modern economic theory. The laws of movement of the capitalist economy according to Marx are critically examined.
The Triumph of Utilitarianism and the Marginalist Revolution
Authors: Screpanti Ernesto , Zamagni Stefano
Published: October 2005

Exposes the basic principles of neoclassical theoretical system and then provides an answer to the question: was the marginalist a real revolution? The specific contributions of Jevons, Menger, and Walras are considered in some detail. The reasons for success of the marginalist revolution are finally discussed.
The Construction of Neoclassical Orthodoxy
Authors: Screpanti Ernesto , Zamagni Stefano
Published: October 2005

Traces the rapid diffusion of the neoclassical paradigm in Europe and the USA. In particular, considers the birth of the 'national schools' during la belle époque: the Marshallian School in England; the Swedish; the Austrian; the American; the Italian—each characterized by some peculiar elements of specificity.
The Years of High Theory: I
Authors: Screpanti Ernesto , Zamagni Stefano
Published: October 2005

Assesses the reasons for the crisis of neoclassical theory in the inter-war period in the light of 1929 crisis and the ensuing depression. Reconstructs the emergence of the Keynesian theoretical system and evaluates the political philosophy of Keynesianism. Finally, considers the contributions of M. Kalecki and J. Schumpeter.
Neoclassical Economics from Triumph to Crisis
Authors: Screpanti Ernesto , Zamagni Stefano
Published: October 2005

Considers the neo-Walrasian approach to general economic equilibrium. The conquest of the existence theorem is compared with the defeat on the grounds of uniqueness and stability. Examines the developments in the new welfare economics in the light of Arrow's impossibility theorem and Sen's critique of utilitarianism. Concludes with the controversy on marginalism in the theory of firm.
At the Margins of Orthodoxy
Authors: Screpanti Ernesto , Zamagni Stefano
Published: October 2005

Deals with three specific areas of research developed in the last quarter of a century. The first one is game-theoretic approach to economics and endogenous growth theory. The second area covers the neo-Ricardian paradigm and Sraffa's economics. Finally, the chapter surveys the programme known as radical political economy, both in the USA and in Europe.
A Post-Smithian Revolution?
Authors: Screpanti Ernesto , Zamagni Stefano
Published: October 2005

After two brief sketches on globalization and postmodernism, this chapter presents four unconventional economists such as K. Polanyi, N. Georgescu-Roegen, A. O. Hirschman and R. M. Goodwin. Then it considers various neo-insitutionalist approaches and the neo-Austrian school. Finally it surveys present days radical political economy, from analytical Marxism to post-Marxism and feminist economics.
What Kind of Europe?
Authors: Tsoukalis Loukas
Published: October 2005

This book examines the issues associated with the future of economic and political integration in Europe. It seeks answers to the question, “What kind of Europe do we want to build?”, with emphasis on the policy choices involved. The book is divided into two parts. Part I highlights the achievements of European integration to date, and the outstanding issues inherited from the past. Part 2 provides in-depth discussions of the main challenges facing the enlarged EU.
The Gap Between Politics and Economics—Or, Perception and Reality
Authors: Tsoukalis Loukas
Published: October 2005

This chapter explores the widening gap between economics and politics in Europe. It discusses four main themes: the gradual evolution of the policy agenda at the European level, the geographical expansion of membership, the changing nature of common institutions and ‘governance’, and the changing attitudes of the citizens of the EU and member states. It argues that despite the continuous expansion of its policy agenda, the EU remains largely an economic system with an increasingly complex institutional setup with no proper political base. For years, European governments have been talking about establishing a political union as a counterpart of economic and monetary union; what they have achieved is cooperation in various policy areas, including foreign policy and internal security, and limited institutional reforms, which have little to do with political union.
Winners and Losers …
Authors: Tsoukalis Loukas
Published: October 2005

This chapter analyses the winners and losers in European integration. Integration has been perceived as a positive-sum game, involving the joint management of economic interdependence for increasing open economies, the intermeshing and interlocking of sovereign political entities as a means of consolidating peace and security on a continent with a long history of national rivalries and bloody conflict, and the strengthening of democratic institutions. However, these have gradually disappeared with the worsening economic environment, deepening integration, and increasing inability of the nation-state to redistribute internally. The division between winners and losers has become a more important issue within countries rather than between countries.
EMU: A Unifying Factor
Authors: Tsoukalis Loukas
Published: October 2005

This chapter presents a brief history of the economic and monetary union (EMU) in Europe, and examines its implications for the future of European integration. It argues that the EMU is a high-risk strategy, given the combination of fixed exchange rates and ‘one-size-fits-all’ monetary policy with very weak adjustment mechanisms and economic divergence. If managed badly, the EMU would have a negative effect on output and employment for the EU as a whole. The success of the EMU rests on a stronger and more integrated EU in both political and economic terms, as well as major structural reforms.
Extending Pax Europea
Authors: Tsoukalis Loukas
Published: October 2005

This chapter examines the prospects and implications of a common foreign policy in the EU. The EU exerts its strongest influence on other countries through the prospect of membership. This is the most effective way of extending Pax Europea, which carries with it peace, democracy, welfare, and a highly advanced form of joint management of interdependence. It is argued that the EU must define and defend its collective identity in the context of globalization, and in relation to the only remaining superpower. Its actions on the external front will have serious implications on the model of integration and the internal configuration of power.
What Is at Stake?
Authors: Tsoukalis Loukas
Published: October 2005

This chapter discusses the issues associated with the future of European integration. These include the European political system, redefinition of the European project, the Constitutional Treaty, and the elitist character of European integration. Key democratic choices must be made regarding the trade-offs between efficiency, equity, and stability; productivity and a cleaner environment; integration and diversity; rule by experts and elected representatives in managing the internal market and single currency; solidarity across boundaries; geographical limits of Europe’s fledgling common identity; the export of peace and stability to the near abroad and beyond; and defence of common values and interests. Europeans must become aware of these issues and the choices they imply. A European public space is also needed to debate what they want to do together and how.
Scepticism Comes Alive
Authors: Frances Bryan
Published: October 2005

The nagging voice of the sceptic has always been present in epistemology. Over the last thirty years or so, philosophers have thought of several promising ways to counter the radical sceptic. For instance, facts about the reliability of cognitive processes, principles determining which possibilities must be ruled out in order to have knowledge, and principles regarding the context-sensitivity of knowledge attributions. In this research monograph, Bryan Frances presents a new argument template for generating new kinds of radical scepticism, ones that hold even if all the clever anti-sceptical fixes such as contextualism, relevant alternatives theory, and reliabilism defeat the traditional sceptic. However, the new sceptical conclusions are quite different from traditional scepticism. Although the new sceptic concludes that people don’t know that fire engines are red, that people sometimes have pains in their knees, or even that people believe that fire engines are red or that knees sometimes throb, people admit that they know millions of exotic truths, such as the fact that black holes exist. One can know about the existence of black holes, but not about the colour of one’s shirt or even about what one believes regarding the colour of one’s shirt. The new sceptical arguments proceed in the usual way (here’s a sceptical hypothesis; one can’t neutralize it, one has to be able to neutralize it to know P; so one doesn’t know P), but the sceptical hypotheses plugged into it are “real, live” scientific-philosophical hypotheses often thought to be actually true, such as error theories about belief, colour, pain location, and character traits. Frances investigates the questions, ‘Under what conditions do we need to rule out these error theories in order to know things inconsistent with them?’ and ‘Can we rule them out?’
1 Introduction: When a Sceptical Hypothesis is Live
Authors: Frances Bryan
Published: October 2005

This book’s topic is introduced via a brief discussion of what is often found objectionable in traditional forms of scepticism. Some of the more interesting features of Live Scepticism, the theory presented in this book, are listed. Finally, an outline of the remainder of the book is given.
3 How Live Hypotheses Sabotage Knowledge
Authors: Frances Bryan
Published: October 2005

The argument template used to generate the new sceptical arguments is presented. In doing so, what it means for a hypothesis to be “live”, what it means for someone to be a “mere mortal” with regard to a live hypothesis, what it means to be able to “rule out” a hypothesis are explained. The key premises of the argument: the Modesty Principle, the Live Hypothesis Principle, and the Mere Mortal Premiss are formulated. Roughly put, if one is a mere mortal with regard to a live hypothesis H, then in order for one to know something P obviously inconsistent with H, one needs to be able to rule out or neutralize H. But since one is a mere mortal, one can’t neutralize H; so one does not know P.
5 Additional Sceptical Hypotheses
Authors: Frances Bryan
Published: October 2005

The argument template of chapter 3 is taken together with other live hypotheses to generate other kinds of live scepticism. For instance, one can focus on error theories with regard to colour, or pain location, or character traits. Or, oddly enough, we can plug in, as a live hypothesis, the hypothesis that no one knows any external world proposition. The upshot is that in intellectual communities, in which error theories about belief, pain locations, character traits, and colour are live, mere mortals don’t know that fire engines are red, don’t know that they sometimes have pains in their lower backs, don’t know that John Rawls was kind, and don’t even know that they believe any of those truths.
7 Universal Scepticism
Authors: Frances Bryan
Published: October 2005

Suppose the following principle P is true: in order to know X, one needs to be able to rule out scenarios that one is aware is both live and incompatible with one knowing X. If P is true, then the live sceptical argument template can be modified to generate an argument for universal scepticism: in intellectual communities in which belief eliminativism is live, mere mortals with respect to belief eliminativism know absolutely nothing. The principle P and related principles are explored.
8 The Consistency of Scepticism and Knowledge
Authors: Frances Bryan
Published: October 2005

It isn’t clear what scepticism really is. Perhaps it’s the thesis that certain knowledge attributions are false. Then again, it might be that even though knowledge attributions are true pretty much when common sense says they’re true, the facts that make them true are impoverished compared to what anyone thought. For instance, if it turned out that all true beliefs had only piddling amounts of warrant and knowledge is mere true belief, then although knowledge attributions would be true, the sceptic would still win. These matters are explored and it is argued that even if live scepticism is false, since her central thesis ‘The overall warrant possessed by the beliefs targeted by the live skeptical hypotheses is anemic compared to that had by our other beliefs that amount to knowledge and aren’t targeted by any live skeptical hypotheses’ may still be true, she may still win the battle with the critic of live skepticism.
9 Epistemic Threats, Context, and our Anti‐Sceptical Strategies
Authors: Frances Bryan
Published: October 2005

The notion of the epistemic threat to a belief that P posed by contrary hypotheses, hypotheses entailing not-P is examined. In doing so, it is shown how contextual factors affect the live sceptic’s argument. The three strategies available for constructing anti-sceptical responses to the live scepti’s argument are described. The goal here is twofold: provide a way of classifying possible anti-sceptical solutions, and more hopefully, supply materials useful for constructing an adequate anti-sceptical solution to live scepticism. Finally, the power of the live and classic hypothesis-based sceptical arguments are compared, arguing that the live ones are significantly stronger.
10 Disarming the Live Sceptical Threat
Authors: Frances Bryan
Published: October 2005

The live sceptic’s threat is disarmed by taking away their sword: making the factors that threaten one’s beliefs lose their punch without meeting them head on. In this way, the mere mortal need not have any impressive epistemic factors such as evidence that neutralize the sceptical hypotheses, as the latter never posed any threat that had not somehow been rendered truth-conditionally irrelevant to knowledge assertions. Two such strategies are presented. The first, the Set-Aside solution, claims that people explicitly or implicitly set the live sceptical hypotheses aside as truth conditionally irrelevant when they assert ‘S knows P’ and P conflicts with the hypotheses. The second, the Practicality solution, claims that in ordinary contexts practicality and other contextualist factors bracket the sceptical hypotheses so that they aren’t threatening.
11 Do Live Sceptical Hypotheses Pose Real Threats?
Authors: Frances Bryan
Published: October 2005

The so-called “No Threat” solutions claim that the epistemic factors that the live sceptic claims defeat our claims to knowledge are too feeble to mount a threat. On the face of it, the epistemic factors the live sceptic says defeat our chances at knowledge make it look like the sceptical hypotheses are about to ruin our chances at knowledge, but this is an illusion. This chapter presents and evaluates eight such strategies, four of which examine the relation of philosophy to common sense.
12 Defeating the Live Sceptic Head‐On
Authors: Frances Bryan
Published: October 2005

The anti-sceptic can try to argue that regardless of the strength of the epistemic factors that suggest live scepticism, positive epistemic factors such as evidence and reliability are sufficiently strong to defeat it head on, so to speak. This is the Defeated Threat strategy, which comes in three varieties. The Safety-Sensitivity solution is an attempt to solve the puzzle by claiming that worlds in which people falsely believe, e.g., that fire engines are red, are too metaphysically distant (in various ways) to sabotage their knowledge. The Extreme Externalism solution says, roughly, that the reliability of people’s beliefs is enough of a factor to neutralize the sceptical hypotheses. The Tenacity solution insists that knowledge is not the kind of state that can easily be unseated; thus, since people once knew that fire engines are red, that knowledge stays with them even after they become mere mortals with regard to colour error theory.
13 Concluding Reflections
Authors: Frances Bryan
Published: October 2005

The importance of what was argued in the book was evaluated, with comments on which elements are of lasting significance for epistemology as a discipline. Notions treated include epistemic deference, liveness of hypotheses, mere mortality with respect to a hypothesis, epistemic superiority, responsibility to one’s epistemic community, the epistemic significance of expert disagreement, epistemic externalism, and content externalism.
Plato on Pleasure and the Good Life
Authors: Russell Daniel
Published: October 2005

This book examines Plato's subtle and insightful analysis of pleasure and explores its intimate connections with his discussions of value and human psychology. The book offers a fresh perspective on how good things bear on happiness in Plato's ethics, and shows that for Plato, pleasure cannot determine happiness because pleasure lacks a direction of its own. Plato presents wisdom as a skill of living that determines happiness by directing one's life as a whole, bringing about goodness in all areas of one's life, as a skill brings about order in its materials. The ‘materials’ of the skill of living are, in the first instance, not things like money or health, but one's attitudes, emotions, and desires where things like money and health are concerned. Plato recognizes that these ‘materials’ of the psyche are inchoate, ethically speaking, and in need of direction from wisdom. Among them is pleasure, which Plato treats not as a sensation but as an attitude with which one ascribes value to its object. However, Plato also views pleasure, once shaped and directed by wisdom, as a crucial part of a virtuous character as a whole. Consequently, Plato rejects all forms of hedonism, which allows happiness to be determined by a part of the psyche that does not direct one's life but is among the materials to be directed. At the same time, Plato is also able to hold both that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and that pleasure is necessary for happiness, not as an addition to one's virtue, but as a constituent of one's whole virtuous character itself. Plato therefore offers an illuminating role for pleasure in ethics and psychology, one to which we may be unaccustomed: pleasure emerges not as a sensation or even a mode of activity, but as an attitude — one of the ways in which we construe our world — and as such, a central part of every character.
INTRODUCTION: PLEASURE AND THE GOOD LIFE
Authors: Russell Daniel
Published: October 2005

This introductory chapter begins by exploring the nature of pleasure at a common-sense level. It then shows what sorts of questions we need a more theoretically complete and rigorous account of pleasure to answer, and provides a brief overview of how Plato addresses them.
Goodness and the Good Life: The Euthydemus
Authors: Russell Daniel
Published: October 2005

This chapter begins with reflections on the nature of value with Plato in the Euthydemus. This provides insight into the different sorts of roles that different goods play in our life, and thus presenting a crucial choice between ways of thinking about what happiness is — a choice we may not have realized we had: in particular, a choice between the idea that happiness depends on the things in our life in regard to which we act and choose (our health, our wealth, our projects, and so on) and the idea that happiness depends on the wisdom with which we act and choose in regard to those things. It is shown that Plato defends the latter idea in the Euthydemus, as he argues that happiness depends on how we give each part of our life the right sort of place in our life considered as a whole. The idea of giving things the right place in our life is called the ‘rational incorporation’ of them. The chapter explores what it could mean for pleasure, in particular, to be rationally incorporated into a person's life on this model of practical rationality.
Pleasure, Virtue, and Happiness in the Gorgias
Authors: Russell Daniel
Published: October 2005

This chapter argues that Plato's reliance on the directive conception of happiness explains the general course that Socrates' discussion takes with his companions in the Gorgias. It then takes a closer look at Socrates' own argument that virtue determines happiness. Not only does Socrates' argument articulate the nature of virtue as a skill, and the nature of success and flourishing for human beings, but it also removes the gap between virtue and happiness which hedonism — and all forms of the additive conception of happiness — takes to be there, requiring, as it does, that the pleasure of a virtuous life, rather than virtue per se, must be what accounts for the happiness of that life. The chapter concludes by discussing some alternative accounts of goodness in the Gorgias, focusing on the possibility that hedonism need require no such gap between virtue and happiness after all, on the grounds that virtuous activity and the greatest pleasure are identical.
Pleasure as a Conditional Good in the Phaedo
Authors: Russell Daniel
Published: October 2005

This chapter begins with a discussion of the view that Plato defends asceticism in the Phaedo. It argues that this view rests on the mistaken assumption that, for Plato, pleasure is bad in its own right, and not in virtue of one's giving it the wrong place in one's life. It is also argued that in the Phaedo, Plato also rejects the hedonist view that pleasure is the good, since taking pleasure to be the good is incompatible with the sorts of priorities one needs in order to make any kind of good out of pleasure in the first place. The chapter concludes by showing how the notion of a conditional good affords a new and richer understanding of Plato's discussion of pleasure and value in the Phaedo.
The Philebus, Part 1: Virtue, Value, and ‘Likeness to God’
Authors: Russell Daniel
Published: October 2005

Unraveling likeness to God in Plato requires a fresh approach that makes the greatest sense of it within Plato's larger moral philosophy. Such an understanding of likeness to God can be found by taking a fresh look at it through the lens of Plato's Philebus, where we find the idea that virtue is part of the divine realm right alongside the down-to-earth idea that virtue is rational activity in relation to the world as we find it. This chapter argues that the same idea can be found in Stoic ethics as well, in a way that can reveal new options for understanding Plato's conception of virtue as likeness to God.
The Philebus, Part 2: Pleasure Transformed, or How the Necessity of Pleasure for Happiness is Consistent with the Sufficiency of Virtue for Happiness
Authors: Russell Daniel
Published: October 2005

In Philebus, Plato makes clear his view that pleasure is actually part of the agent's own goodness, because her goodness consists in, among other things, the sorts of attitudes she has and perspectives she adopts in the various dimensions of her life, and her pleasure is itself just such a crucial attitude and perspective. When Plato says that pleasure is necessary for happiness, he does not mean that good character could never be enough for happiness without pleasure. Rather, as the dialogue unfolds he reveals that pleasure is actually a part of good character as a whole, the product of reason's transforming all dimensions of the self. Since good character, or virtue, is this sort of whole, pleasure is necessary for happiness, because virtue is sufficient for happiness. Thus, the key to understanding Plato's position can be found in his analysis of the nature of pleasure and how it functions in a person's life. This chapter argues that in Plato's Philebus the pleasure of a virtuous character is necessary and important for happiness because it is a necessary and important part of that character, which, in turn, is what determines happiness.
Epilogue: Pleasure and Happiness in Plato's Protagoras
Authors: Russell Daniel
Published: October 2005

This chapter focuses on Plato's Protagoras. This dialogue that has received enormous attention in discussions concerning Plato on pleasure because toward the end of the Protagoras Socrates discusses a form of hedonism, on the basis of which he then bases his subsequent argument on the nature of virtue and action. Since this hedonism facilitates his argument, it is natural to conclude that Socrates must endorse it. And, of course, this would mean that Plato, at least at some point in his career, was a hedonist.
Environment and Statecraft
Authors: Barrett Scott
Published: October 2005

This book develops a theory of international cooperation on environmental issues. The theory integrates a number of disciplines, including game theory, economics, international law, and international relations. It explains why treaties are used to address these challenges, and what makes treaties succeed or fail. Treaties can only change behavior by restructuring the incentives that drive behavior. Successful treaties must therefore make it in the interests of countries to participate in and to comply with an agreement demanding substantial changes in behavior such as reductions in pollution emissions. The theory is applied to a number of environmental problems including acid rain, protection of the ozone layer, the management of international fisheries, and the regulation of oil dumping at sea. The concluding chapter, updated in the paperback edition with a new afterword, uses the theory to explain why the Kyoto Protocol will fail to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and why alternative approaches may work better.
Introduction
Authors: Barrett Scott
Published: October 2005

This chapter explains why international cooperation on environmental issues is needed but is also difficult to develop and sustain. Even when treaties are negotiated and brought into force, it is difficult to tell whether they make any real difference. These points are illustrated by reference to a game played with playing cards and a case study of European acid rain, including the Helsinki and Oslo Protocols.
The North Pacific Fur Seal Treaty and the Theory of International Cooperation
Authors: Barrett Scott
Published: October 2005

This chapter tells the story of how the northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) was nearly hunted to extinction, and how the North Pacific Fur Seal Treaty of 1911 not only reversed this situation, but probably sustained the efficient harvest of this resource. The case study illustrates that treaties can change behavior, but only by strategically manipulating the incentives that countries face in exploiting environmental resources. The text of the treaty is included in an appendix.