bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Self-interest
Authors: O’Neill John 
Published: September 2018

The concept of self-interest is used in two distinct ways. It sometimes refers to what is in a person’s interests, to well-being understood as what makes their life go well. Self-interest can also refer to a motive or disposition of character: persons are said to act from self-interest when they aim at their own good or to be self-interested when they are disposed to pursue their own good.
Are humans always really motivated by self-interest? Psychological egoists believe that all actions, including apparently other-regarding actions, spring from self-interested motivations. Some arguments for this view depend on a fallacious inference from the claim that a person gets pleasure from the satisfaction of an other-regarding desire to the claim that the agent acts in order to get pleasure. Recent appeals to the assumptions of economic theory also fail to establish the universality of self-interested motivation. The weak assumption that individuals aim to maximize preference-satisfaction does not entail that they are self-interested. Stronger assumptions about self-regarding interests used in the explanation of behaviour in markets cannot be extended to explanations of behaviour in non-market settings. Individuals’ identities are constituted by a variety of roles, relations and commitments, and in different institutional contexts under different descriptions individuals can have distinct and sometimes conflicting conceptions of their interests.
What is the relation of self-interest and morality? Classical theories of morality claim that the virtuous life is the best life for the individual. This view ties morality to what is in a person’s interests. But this does not entail that agents are necessarily motivated by self-interest. In contrast, some contractual theories tie morality to self-interested motivation: moral rules are those that agents motivated by self-interest would agree upon in order to realize their long-term good given a rough equality of power. Ethical theories in the Kantian tradition reject any justification of ethical obligations that appeals to self-interest. In claiming that commitments to others and excellences of character are part of the good life, however, classical theories can avoid the more plausible versions of Kantian objections.
Cloning
Authors: Harris John , Giordano Simona 
Published: September 2018

‘Cloning’ is the popular name given to Cell Nuclear Replacement (CNR) or Cell Nuclear Transfer (CNT) techniques. CNR involves a recipient cell, generally an egg (oocyte), and a donor cell. The nucleus of the donor cell is introduced into the oocyte. With appropriate stimulation the oocyte is induced to develop. In some cases, the created embryo may be implanted into a viable womb and developed to term. The first mammal to be born by CNR was Dolly the sheep (1996–2003).
It is thought that CNR may have various potential applications ranging from reproduction to treatment of some of the most serious and life-threatening diseases that afflict humankind (such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries). However, many technical problems must be addressed and resolved before CNR becomes viable for use in either therapy or reproduction. Although research on CNR is still at its early stages, CNR (cloning) attracts people’s attention in a way that few other advances in biomedical research do. Public debate on cloning has unfortunately been influenced more by fiction than science. The horrendous or absurd scenarios pictured in novels and films are often mistakenly believed to be possible, or even likely, outcomes of cloning. The international community, immediately after news of the birth of Dolly, imposed restrictions that may make it difficult to refine the technique used. Against ‘reproductive cloning’ a prohibition is enforced virtually everywhere. ‘Reproductive cloning’ is considered offensive to human dignity and a threat to the well-being of the child or even to the future of humankind. Most of these objections are based on either a misunderstanding of CNR or on inconsistent philosophical arguments. Against ‘therapeutic cloning’ objections are also raised. The strongest are that CNR involves the creation and destruction of embryos, and this is widely believed to be unethical. Advocates of this position contend that, although CNR may save human lives, the technique still involves the taking of an innocent life and therefore is the equivalent of killing one person to save another. The debate on the moral status of the embryo is ongoing, in bioethics, philosophy and theology. However, if the arguments against the killing of the embryo for the morally important, life-saving purposes envisaged for CNR were to be accepted, then the current legal and social context of most European countries would have to be revised, and abortion and in vitro fertilization (IVF) made criminal offences. Abortion and IVF (which involves creation of extra-embryos that may be destroyed) are in fact accepted practices in most European countries. Those who believe that abortion, even in its therapeutic form, and IVF are acceptable, admit that it may be ethical to destroy an embryo either to save a life or to treat infertility. If this is accepted, it is unclear why is it unacceptable that embryos are used to treat highly serious and lethal diseases (cancer or Parkinson’s disease for example).
Incommensurability in ethics
Authors: Carlson Erik 
Published: September 2018

In ethics and neighbouring subjects, incommensurability has been attributed to at least three different kinds of entities, namely moral theories or traditions, abstract values, and particular bearers of value. Even when confined to a given kind of entity, ‘incommensurable’ and its cognates are used in several different senses. Moral theories or traditions have been judged incommensurable in the sense that rational agreement or disagreement between their proponents is impossible. Incommensurability of abstract values may mean that any bearer of a particular value is better than any bearer of some other value, or that all or some bearers of one value are incomparable in value to all or some bearers of another value. In either case, incommensurability of abstract values reduces to incommensurability of value bearers.
Applied to value bearers, there is one usage of ‘incommensurable’ according to which items are incommensurable if they cannot be measured on a common cardinal, i.e. interval or ratio, scale. Another usage identifies incommensurability with incomparability. Since there are competing understandings of incomparability, this usage gives rise to different notions of incommensurability. Finally, incommensurability of value bearers may be understood in terms of vagueness in the betterness relation.
Many arguments for incommensurability, understood primarily as incomparability of value bearers, have been given. Often such arguments appeal to the apparent diversity of values, or to the alleged fact that value is not amenable to ‘calculation’. The latter consideration is not, however, a cogent argument for incomparability. Two further influential arguments for incomparability are the ‘minor improvement’ argument, and the argument from ‘constitutive incommensurability’.
A further question concerns the consequences of incommensurability for ethical theory and practice. Incommensurability of moral theories or traditions appears to yield far-reaching theoretical consequences. Incommensurability of value bearers may affect the cogency of certain moral theories, as well as theories of the good. Furthermore, the possibility of incommensurable value bearers is often thought to impinge on the scope of practical rationality.
Moral psychology, empirical work in
Authors: May Joshua 
Published: September 2018

How do we form our moral judgments, and how do they influence behaviour? What ultimately motivates kind versus malicious action? Moral psychology is the interdisciplinary study of such questions about the mental lives of moral agents, including moral thought, feeling, reasoning and motivation. While these questions can be studied solely from the armchair or using only empirical tools, researchers in various disciplines, from biology to neuroscience to philosophy, can address them in tandem. Some key topics in this respect revolve around moral cognition and motivation, such as moral responsibility, altruism, the structure of moral motivation, weakness of will, and moral intuitions. Of course there are other important topics as well, including emotions, character, moral development, self-deception, addiction, and the evolution of moral capacities.
Some of the primary objects of study in moral psychology are the processes driving moral action. For example, we often think of ourselves as possessing free will, which undergirds our being responsible for what we do; we often believe we can be ultimately concerned for the welfare of another; and so on. Yet these claims can be tested by empirical methods to some extent in at least two ways. First, we can determine what in fact our ordinary thinking is. While many philosophers investigate this through rigorous reflection on concepts, the empirical methods of the social sciences are at least an additional tool to bring to bear on the issue. Second, we can investigate empirically whether our ordinary thinking is correct. This typically involves checking the empirical adequacy of philosophical theories, assessing directly any claims made about moral cognition, motivation, and so forth.
Understanding the psychology of moral individuals is certainly interesting in its own right, but it also often has direct implications for other areas of ethics, such as metaethics and normative ethics. For instance, determining the role of reason versus sentiment in moral judgment and motivation can shed light on whether moral judgments are cognitive, and perhaps whether morality itself is in some sense objective. Similarly, moral theories, such as deontology and utilitarianism, often rely on intuitive judgments about what one ought to do in various hypothetical cases. Empirical research can again serve as an additional tool to determine what exactly the intuitions are and which psychological processes generate them.
Rationality, instrumental
Authors: Way Jonathan 
Published: September 2018

We are instrumentally rational when we take necessary and effective means to our ends, and instrumentally irrational when we fail to do so. For instance, if you decide to give up smoking, it would be rational to stop buying cigarettes, and to limit the time you spend around other smokers. It would be irrational not to take any means to this end.
It is not clear how to formulate the principles of instrumental rationality. It is natural to think that if you have an end, you ought to take the means to that end. But if it would be wicked or crazy to take the means to one of your ends, then you ought not to take this means. In recent years, there has been considerable discussion of what to say about this issue.
It is often suggested that instrumental rationality might be all of practical rationality – that to be rational in respect of one’s actions is just to be instrumentally rational. This view has serious implications for the normativity of morality, since it suggests that it is not always rational to be moral. Some philosophers suggest that a proper understanding of instrumental rationality shows that we should reject this view.
Deontic modals
Authors: Chrisman Matthew 
Published: September 2018

Modality, as it is usually understood in contemporary philosophy, has to do with necessities and possibilities. Deontic modality is a kind of modality which has to do with what is necessary or possible according to various rules, such as the norms of morality, the principles of practical rationality or the laws of some country. Deontic modality can be contrasted with alethic modality and epistemic modality. The former has to do with what propositions are necessarily or possibly true given various metaphysical, logical or nomological laws. The latter has to do with what propositions are necessarily or possibly true given various bodies of evidence or information.
Words commonly thought to express deontic modalities include the auxiliary verbs ‘must’, ‘have to’, ‘may’, ‘can’, ‘should’ and ‘ought to ’, but also the adjectives ‘obligatory’, ‘permissible’ and ‘impermissible’. The meanings of such deontic modals are studied by semanticists and philosophers of language interested in developing general theories of the content of modal language and concepts. The logical relations between deontic modal concepts are studied by deontic logicians interested in developing a formal language suitable for representing these relations in a logical system. The distinctive nature of deontic modals, their role in normative thought and their relations to other normative and evaluative concepts, such as reason, value, virtue and rationality, are studied by ethical theorists, especially metaethicists. All of these projects are deeply interconnected.
Ethics and action
Authors: King Matt 
Published: September 2018

Moral theories are theories of right action. Moral principles are meant to guide action. And, if moral rules exist, they apply to all agents. Theories of action and agency seek to determine what counts as an action, what distinguishes agents from nonagents and the principles that govern what happens when agents act. These joint ventures both depend on and inform one another.
When we deliberate about what to do, we often consider what moral requirements we might be under. We think about what we morally ought to do. It often seems like the answer to that question can depend on what sorts of abilities we have, what options are available. If I cannot do something, either because I lack the ability to do it or because I do not have the opportunity to act in that way, then plausibly it is not the case that I should do that thing. More importantly, perhaps, it is not the case that I failed a moral requirement. So what sorts of abilities do we have and how do they constrain what we ought to do?
Moral principles tell us what we should do. But action theory tells us that what people do is a complicated affair. Typically, agents want and believe things, form intentions to act, then act on those intentions, while producing various results or outcomes. So an important question for ethics and action theory is: What parts of my action determine whether I act wrongly? Am I morally evaluable only for those parts I intend explicitly? Or must I answer for unintended consequences? In difficult cases, which take priority?
Only moral agents need concern themselves with right action. However, we also think that morality is not optional. If some action is wrong, then no one should do it. No matter how much you want to, you still should not. And this seems like an important and necessary feature of morality. Ethicists have struggled, however, to justify why moral requirements should be universally binding. Some think that if we pay close attention to what it is to be an agent, one who performs actions for reasons, then we will find such a justification. Thus, a major foundational question of morality depends on a deeply foundational question from action theory: What does agency consist in?
Art, abstract
Authors: Brown John H. 
Published: September 2018

The use of the term ‘abstract’ as a category of visual art dates from the second decade of the twentieth century, when painters and sculptors had turned away from verisimilitude and launched such modes of abstraction as Cubism, Orphism, Futurism, Rayonism and Suprematism. Two subcategories may be distinguished: first, varieties of figurative representation that strongly schematize, and second, completely nonfigurative or nonobjective modes of design (in the widest sense of that term). Both stand opposed to classic representationalism (realism, naturalism, illusionism, mimeticism) understood as the commitment to a relatively full depiction of the subject matter and construed broadly enough to cover the traditional ‘high art’ canon through to Post-Impressionism. Analytic and Synthetic Cubism are model cases of the first subcategory while Mondrian’s neoplasticism and Pollock’s classic drip works are paradigms of the second. Though the effect was revolutionary, the positive motivations for this degree of abstraction in visual art were not wholly new. What was new was the elevation of previously subordinate aims to the front rank and the pursuit of certain principal aims in isolation from the full pictorial package. Thus abstract art variously celebrates structural and colour properties of objects, scenes and patterns; effects of motion, light and atmosphere; aspects of perceptual process, whether normal or expressively loaded; and forms expressing cosmic conceptions, visionary states or utopian ambitions. With a few exceptions (for example, the Futurists) the founders of abstract art were far from lucid or forthcoming about the significance of their work, and viewers have found successive waves of abstraction initially baffling and even offensive. But abstract art now forms a secure part of the ‘high art’ canon, though generally its appeal is less well understood than that of the classic modes of representation. Criticisms of abstract art have also become more lucid.
The chief philosophical issues affecting abstract art concern the definition of the term and the delineation of subordinate types; the relation between abstraction and other modes of avant-garde art that superficially resemble it; the magnitude of the artistic values so far achieved by the various forms; and finally the theoretical limits of significance attainable by abstraction as compared with the limits encountered in figurative art.
Art, abstract
Authors: Brown John H. 
Published: September 2018

The widespread use of the term ‘abstract’ for a category of visual art dates from the second decade of the twentieth century, when painters and sculptors had turned away from verisimilitude and launched such modes of abstraction as cubism, Orphism, futurism, Rayonism and suprematism. Two subcategories may be distinguished: first, varieties of figurative representation that strongly schematize, and second, completely nonfigurative or nonobjective modes of design (in the widest sense of that term). Both stand opposed to classic representationalism (realism, naturalism, illusionism, mimeticism) understood as the commitment to a relatively full and undistorted depiction of the subject matter and construed broadly enough to cover the traditional ‘high art’ canon through to post-Impressionism. Analytic and synthetic cubism are model cases of the first subcategory while Mondrian’s neoplasticism and Pollock’s classic drip works are paradigms of the second. Though the effect was revolutionary, the positive motivations for this degree of abstraction in visual art were not wholly new. What was new was the elevation of previously subordinate aims to the front rank and the pursuit of certain principal aims in isolation from the full pictorial package. Thus abstract art variously celebrates structural and colour properties of objects, scenes and patterns; effects of motion, light and atmosphere; aspects of perceptual process, whether normal or expressively loaded; and forms expressing cosmic conceptions, visionary states or utopian ambitions. With a few exceptions (for example, the Futurists) the founders of abstract art were far from lucid or forthcoming about the significance of their work, and viewers have found successive waves of abstraction initially baffling and even offensive. But abstract art now forms a secure part of the ‘high art’ canon, though generally its appeal is less well understood than that of the classic modes of representation. Criticisms of abstract art have also become more lucid.
Issues concerning abstract art include the definition of the concept itself and the delineation of subordinate types; the relation between abstraction and other modes of avant-garde art that superficially resemble it; the magnitude of the artistic values so far achieved by the various forms; and the theoretical limits of significance attainable by abstraction as compared with the limits encountered in nonabstract figurative art. Abstract art merits attention from philosophers more than do traditional types of figurative and decorative art for at least two reasons: philosophical theories played a significant role in engendering abstraction and subsequent art-world discourse purporting to elucidate abstractions often operates with concepts requiring philosophic analysis to clarify and assess.
Architecture, aesthetics of
Authors: Haldane John J. 
Published: September 2018

The philosophy of architecture is a branch of philosophical aesthetics concerned with various issues arising from the theory and practice of building design. The oldest writings on architecture date from antiquity and link architectural principles to more general, metaphysical elements of form and order. This tradition persisted into and beyond the Renaissance, but in the eighteenth century it began to give way to new philosophies of mind and value, according to which the determining factors of aesthetic experience are the interests and attitudes of informed subjects. Thereby architecture came within the sphere of the theory of taste.
Nineteenth-century revivals of classical and Gothic styles produced renewed interest in the nature of architecture, its place within the scheme of arts and sciences, and its role in society. Following this, twentieth-century modernism offered various accounts of the rational basis of architectural form and combined these with utopian political philosophies. As it had been in antiquity and during the Renaissance, architecture was again viewed as central to and partly definitive of a culture. More recently, however, attention has returned to analytical questions such as ‘What is the nature of the aesthetic experience of architecture?’ and, relatedly, ‘How is it possible for there to be reasoned, critical judgments about the meaning and value of buildings?’
In order to deal with such issues philosophers in different traditions have begun to develop accounts of the social aspects of architecture, recognizing that critical judgments presuppose the capacity to identify buildings as being of various types: public, domestic, formal, informal and so on. The nature of architecture is in part, therefore, a matter of social convention or more generally ‘forms of life’, and this limits the scope for abstract ahistorical theorizing. None the less, the resources of metaphysics, the theories of mind, action, meaning and value are all utilized in contemporary philosophy of architecture.