bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Intrinsic Value
Authors: Bradley Ben 
Published: January 2013

AbstractIntrinsic value is the central concept ofaxiology, or the philosophical study of value. To say that something is intrinsically valuable is, roughly speaking, to say that it is valuable in itself, or for its own sake – as opposed to, for example, money, which is valuable only for the sake of something else (seeInstrumental Value). But what is it for something to be valuable “in itself”? Is it the same as to be valuable for its own sake? Is it possible for something to be valuable in such a way? If so, what things are intrinsically valuable? More generally, whatkindsof things (people, objects, properties, facts) are intrinsically valuable? Is the intrinsic value of something determined by the values of its parts? Why should we care about intrinsic value? These are the fundamental questions of axiology.
Surrogacy
Authors: Fabre Cécile 
Published: January 2013

AbstractSurrogacy is a practice whereby prospective (or commissioning) parents who cannot gestate children entrust another woman with that particular task. There are many reasons why those parents resort to a surrogate mother. Typically, the female partner in a heterosexual couple is unable to bear children, because (for example) she had to undergo a hysterectomy, or suffers from severe endometriosis. In other cases, gay males who do not wish to adopt a child have no choice but to use a surrogate mother.
World Hunger
Authors: Dower Nigel 
Published: January 2013

AbstractHunger is the lack of food needed to avoid malnutrition, and world hunger is the aggregated version of this, with by far the most hunger located in the Third World. Malnutrition, as the lack of some or all the nutrients necessary for health, affects approximately one billion hungry people in the world. Almost all hunger is caused by absolute poverty, defined as living on US$1.25 per day or less. This also affects approximately one billon people – many children – or nearly one‐fifth of the world's population. Even with a rising world population, the world produces enough food to meet everyone's nutritional needs. If the poor do not have enough, it is because, in the absence of external intervention, they either do not produce enough from their land or do not earn enough to buy it.
Free Will
Authors: Mele Alfred 
Published: January 2013

AbstractThe familiar claim that free will is a necessary condition for moral responsibility (seeMoral Agency; Responsibility) links free will to ethics. Whether the claim is true depends on what “free will” means. If one defines free will as the power or ability to act freely (Mele 2006: 16–17), one should ask what acting freely amounts to. There are readings of “freely” that render the following sentence true: “While Ann was traveling the world, mice ran freely about her house.” These readings hold no special interest for most philosophers who have written about free will. A major interest of such philosophers is what might be called “moral responsibility‐level free action” – roughly, free action of such a kind that, if all the freedom‐independent conditions for moral responsibility for a particular action were satisfied without that sufficing for the agent's being morally responsible for it, the addition of the action's being free to this set of conditions would entail that the agent is morally responsible for it. This essay is about free action of this kind.
Buddhist Ethics
Authors: Keown Damien 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

Buddhism is well known for its belief in karma and rebirth and its teachings on nonviolence (
ahiṃsā
) (
see
Nonviolence in Religions) and compassion (
karuṇā
). However, there has been little critical or systematic study of its ethics, and scholarship in this field is still at an early stage. A few scholars have proposed tentative theoretical models adapted from Western typologies in an attempt to classify Buddhist ethics but so far none commands universal assent. Other scholars doubt whether Western classifications are appropriate for an Asian tradition and fear that imposing them too rigidly may produce a distorted picture of Buddhist teachings. This essay has three main objectives. The first is to inform the reader about the major Buddhist moral teachings; the second is to offer some preliminary reflections in terms of ethical theory; and the third is to give a brief introduction to contemporary Buddhist activism. The first section, therefore, is mainly descriptive and summarizes the teachings found in Buddhist scriptures. It makes reference to foundational concepts such as dharma and karma, the most important precepts, and the key virtues Buddhists seek to cultivate. The second section is more analytical, and examines Buddhist moral teachings from a Western perspective drawing on the concepts, categories, and terminology familiar to students of Western ethics. The third describes the contemporary phenomenon of “engaged Buddhism” as a force for social change. It should be borne in mind that Buddhism is a diverse tradition encompassing many schools and geographical regions, and that while this essay endeavors to focus on common elements, students will almost certainly encounter variations in interpretation, belief, and practice at a local level.
Marion, Jean‐Luc
Authors: Gschwandtner Christina M. 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

Jean‐Luc Marion (born 1946) is one of France's leading Descartes scholars and phenomenologists. He teaches at the Sorbonne and the University of Chicago and is a member of the Académie française. While his early work focuses primarily on Descartes, he has also written extensively in theology and phenomenology (
see
Phenomenology, Moral). Ethics is not one of his central concerns; in fact, he thinks that ethics in the traditional sense is no longer possible today. This essay will briefly present Marion's overall philosophical work, then explicate the few explicit remarks he makes about ethics, and finally give some suggestions about what type of ethics might still be possible within the parameters of his phenomenology.
Deterrence
Authors: Ellis Anthony 
Published: January 2013

AbstractTo deter is to discourage an action, or inaction, by threatening, or warning of, retaliation in the event of noncompliance – as in, say, “Trespassers will be prosecuted.” Deterrence should be distinguished from prevention, since a deterrent threat typically does not actuallypreventthe agent from carrying out the action. (However, deterrence is often listed as one of the ways in which punishment contributes to “crime prevention.”) Deterrence is often said to work by instilling fear, but this is true in only the most general sense; one may wish to avoid a disbenefit without, in the strict sense, fearing it. It is therefore multiply inaccurate to say “Deterrence is the straightforward, commonsense notion that if you do something wrong, you will be punished, and the punishment will prevent you from doing that wrong thing again. According to this notion, fear of a future punishment dictates the actions people choose” (Levinson 2002: 512). The words “prevent,” “fear,” and “dictate” are quite misleading, as are the ideas that punishment, as opposed to the threat of punishment, can deter and that it can work only after one has first been punished.
Existentialism
Authors: McBride William L. 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

The word “existentialism” came only gradually into general usage. Gabriel Marcel (
see
MARCEL, GABRIEL
) is often identified as the first philosopher to suggest it as a name for his philosophy in the 1920s; by the late 1930s it and its German counterpart,
Existenzphilosophie
, had been deployed by such diverse writers as the Russian exile in France, Lev Shestov (1866–1938), and the German philosopher Karl Jaspers (
see
JASPERS, KARL
); and in the period immediately following World War II it became something of an intellectual household word, associated first and foremost with the Parisian Left Bank and its reigning
vedettes
, Jean‐Paul Sartre (
see
SARTRE, JEAN‐PAUL
), Simone de Beauvoir (
see
BEAUVOIR, SIMONE DE
), and Albert Camus (
see
CAMUS, ALBERT
). A kind of virtual Pantheon of existentialist philosophers was assembled, thanks in considerable measure to the scholarly efforts of Jean Wahl (1888–1974), with Søren Kierkegaard (
see
KIERKEGAARD, SøREN
) assuming the place of father of these gods and Martin Heidegger (
see
HEIDEGGER, MARTIN
) occupying a special niche among twentieth‐century figures outside of France.
Utilitarianism
Authors: West Henry R. 
Published: January 2013

AbstractUtilitarianism is a tradition in modern philosophy that an act, moral rule, public policy, law, or institution is ultimately to be evaluated by its utility and only by its utility. By utility is meant the intrinsic value (seeIntrinsic Value) of the act and its consequences. The “classical” utilitarians, Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832;seeBentham, Jeremy), John Stuart Mill (1806–1873;seeMill, John Stuart), and Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900;seeSidgwick, Henry), interpreted utility in terms of the greatest happiness principle (seeGreatest Happiness Principle). Mill (1861: 210) formulated utilitarianism as follows: “The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.”
Gender and Patriarchy in Religions
Authors: Gudorf Christine E. 
Published: January 2013

AbstractWhen living conditions change, they demand different human traits and modes of activity and organization. The messages and structures of culture and religion are then reinterpreted to meet the new conditions. Thus it should not be surprising that the treatment of gender in religions and cultures has changed throughout history. Until very recently, most religions and cultures recognized two sexes on the basis of external genitalia at birth and assigned social gender roles on the basis of those genitalia.
Love
Authors: Thomas Laurence 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

Since antiquity, there have been three primary categories of love:
agape
,
eros
, and
philia
. The basic idea behind agape love has been anchored in the Christian view of love for humanity. Eros love obviously refers to the sentiments and sensuous bond between lovers. And philia love is generally understood as referring to the love between friends (
see
Friendship). We would do well to mention a forth category of love, namely parental love (
see
Parents' Rights and Responsibilities), which is so clearly unlike any of the other three categories of love.
Harm
Authors: Hanser Matthew 
Published: January 2013

AbstractThe main philosophical questions regarding harm are, first, what exactly it is, and, second, whether it matters morally. The questions are connected: whether harm has moral significance must surely depend, at least in part, upon how it is understood. Not every moral theory assigns fundamental significance to harm. According to act utilitarianism, the right action to perform is the one that would result in the greatest sum of well‐being among sentient creatures. The theory attributes no independent significance to how actions affect particular individuals. Furthermore, even if a utilitarian were to take an interest in a particular individual's fate, he would ask only which of the available actions would be best for that individual. He would not care whether any of the actions harmed the individual. If A gives B a small benefit when he could instead have given him a larger one, he may not harm B, but he does not do what's best for him either; and, if A chooses the least harmful option when he cannot help but harm B, he harms B, yet he does do what's best for him. There is no necessary connection between doing what's best for someone and avoiding harming him. As a first approximation, let us say that A harms B if and only if one of A's acts or omissions negatively affects B's interests or well‐being. On this maximally broad understanding, an action's harming someone is much the same as its being bad for him. If a moral theory's interest in how an action affects someone is exhausted by the question whether its performance is good or bad for him, that theory has no special need for the concept harm. It need only employ the concept bad for. It is possible, however, to understand harm more narrowly than this, and to see the narrower notion as having moral significance. Our more public actions almost invariably affect other people's interests, if only indirectly; and, while we should perhaps always bear these effects in mind when deciding what to do, many think that we needn't in general give them all that much weight in our deliberations. But harming someone – say, by physically assaulting him – can seem a much more serious matter, morally speaking, than merely negatively affecting his interests. A deontological theory might well hold that we have an especially strong reason – perhaps even an obligation – not to harm people. Likewise, it might hold that we have an especially strong reason – perhaps even an obligation – to prevent people from suffering harm and to come to the aid of those who are already suffering it. On such a view, to harm someone is to inflict an especially important kind of negative effect upon him.
Human Subjects, Research Use of
Authors: Wachbroit Robert 
Published: January 2013

AbstractIt is difficult to imagine the achievements of scientific medicine in the last century without the practice and findings of human experimentation. Even with research on animals or the use of sophisticated computer models, our knowledge of human biology has been too meager to allow us to forgo examining how humans respond to experimental treatments or settings. The scientific challenge is immense, particularly regarding the design and interpretation of experiments. This is because the goal is to discover (clinically useful) generalizable knowledge from the particular responses of a limited number of people. And these people might not all respond in the same way, for reasons we might not even be able to identify, much less predict. Moreover, characterizing the response might not be at all straightforward. Is the response a reflection just of the experiment's hypothesis, or are other factors involved, including idiosyncratic ones? To rule out plausible alternative explanations of the results, we may need to expand the experimental setup so as to incorporate controls, placebos, double‐blinds, and so on, which we hope will clarify or disambiguate the data. Human experimentation can thus be a blunt tool in medical research; but we often have no better.
Sensibility Theory
Authors: Sneddon Andrew 
Published: January 2013

AbstractSensibility theories present a view of moral truths as constitutively dependent on human sensibilities. The historical roots of this sort of view are the sentimentalist theories of such British philosophers as David Hume, Francis Hutcheson, and the Third Earl of Shaftesbury (seeHume, David; Hutcheson, Francis; Sentimentalism; Shaftesbury, Third Earl of). However, sensibility theories were most distinctively developed in late twentieth‐century English‐language philosophy. All versions of sensibility theories portray moral judgment as having two features: first, it expresses beliefs and hence is fully capable of being either true or false; second, it is intrinsically connected to human motivation via such psychological capacities as our emotions. Sensibility theories are commonly represented as being committed to the reality of moral properties. However, some prominent versions do not share this commitment. Some proponents claim that the view derives some appeal from the way it portrays the experience of moral values and judgments, whereas other versions disavow any commitment to a distinctive portrayal of moral experience.
Racism
Authors: Boxill Bernard R. 
Published: January 2013

AbstractSeveral important debates dominate the study of racism. Perhaps the most important of these debates is over what racism is: a prejudice, an emotion, an attitude, a vice, an ideology, a doctrine, a theory, a belief, a kind of behavior, or the domination of one race over another? Closely related to and dependent on the results of that debate is the dispute over what exactly makes racism the very special evil it is generally supposed to be; if racism is the domination of one race by another it will be evil because it is an injustice; if it is a doctrine or a belief the exact nature of its evil will be less clear. Then there are the debates over the varieties of racism like anti‐black racism, Nazism, and anti‐Semitism, and over its relation to other similar evils like sexism, ethnocentrism, speciesism, and on some accounts nationalism (seenationalism and patriotism). And of course there are debates over the relations between the different kinds of racism like anti‐black racism, anti‐Semitism, the racism directed at Native Americans, and anti‐Asian racism. Yet other debates are over the sources or origins of racism. How did it start? Or is it an innate and perhaps ineliminable aspect of human nature? One special case of this dispute is whether anti‐black racism resulted from the enslavement of Africans in the New World or whether it preexisted and helped to cause that enslavement, and if so, what areitscauses. And finally of course there are debates over the very idea of race without which presumably there could not be racism (seerace). Some of the disputants in those debates argue that race is or can be a natural kind, others that race is a social construct and was invented to justify slavery and other systems of domination. And these debates have led to other debates, for example, over the date of the invention of race, over the identity of its inventors, and over when it first reared its ugly head. It is now widely agreed that the word “race” (if not the idea) began to be used with scientific pretensions in Europe and America in the last two decades of the eighteenth century, and that Thomas Jefferson, Georges‐Louis Buffon, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, and Immanuel Kant are among those most responsible for this development, but some philosophers have argued that Kant is the crucial figure, and that the dangerous implications of the idea it stood for affected his moral philosophy and Western moral philosophy generally (seekant, immanuel).
Paradox of Happiness
Authors: Eggleston Ben 
Published: January 2013

AbstractThe paradox of happiness is the puzzling but apparently inescapable fact that regarding happiness as the sole ultimately valuable end or objective, and acting accordingly, often results in less happiness than results from regarding other goods as ultimately valuable (and acting accordingly). That is, in many circumstances, happiness is more effectively achieved when other objectives are regarded as worth pursuing for their own sakes than when happiness alone is regarded as worth pursuing for its own sake (seeHappiness; Hedonism; Intrinsic Value). These other objectives might be regarded as ultimately valuable instead of happiness, or merely in addition to happiness; but they must be valued for their own sakes, and not merely as means to the achievement of happiness. These other objectives may include loving family relationships and friendships, meaningful professional relationships, immersion in rewarding work, the exercise of skills and abilities, accomplishments and triumphs, participation in religion or a large cause or movement, and contributions to one's culture or nation.
Happiness
Authors: Tiberius Valerie 
Published: January 2013

AbstractEveryone wants to be happy. Happiness is obviously a good thing and, if we can get it without sacrificing other important things, we would. Most people wish not just for their own happiness but also the happiness of the people they love; some compassionate souls may even wish for the happiness of all sentient creatures. What exactly is it that we all want? Is it to be pleased or satisfied? To feel tranquil or joyous? To attain certain objective goods? And what role does happiness play in morality? Is the production of happiness the goal of morally right action? Is it the organizing principle of moral theory? Or is it just one contingent value among many?
Derrida, Jacques
Authors: Russon John 
Published: January 2013

AbstractJacques Derrida (1930–2004) was born to a Jewish family and grew up in Algeria. When he was 22, he began studies at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he studied with the Hegel scholar Jean Hyppolite, earning his philosophy degree in 1956. He taught at the Sorbonne (1960–4), and then (1965–84) at the École Normale Supérieure, and subsequently became director of the École Pratique des Hautes Études en Science Sociales in Paris. In 1983 he cofounded the Collège International de Philosophie. He held many visiting and permanent positions at universities, including Visiting Professor at Yale University and Johns Hopkins University and (from 1986) Professor of Philosophy, French, and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Irvine. He was awarded many honorary degrees including, in 1992, an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University. His initial studies were in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl (seeHusserl, Edmund). In 1967 he published three books,Of Grammatology,Speech and Phenomenon, andWriting and Difference, which became the inaugural and definitive texts of the philosophical movement of “Deconstruction.” He was the author of roughly 70 books.
Hartmann, Nicolai
Authors: Jordan Robert Welsh 
Published: January 2013

AbstractNicolai Hartmann was born in Riga, Latvia on February 20, 1882. His early education occurred there and in St. Petersburg, Russia (Leningrad from 1924 to 1991). He graduated (Gymnasialabitur) in 1901 from the Gymnasium of St. Petersburg. His initial university studies were in medicine, classical philology, and philosophy at the university of Tartu (Russian: Yur'yev; German: Dorpat) in Estonia and in classical philology and philosophy in St. Petersburg. He moved to Marburg in Germany to continue studying philosophy. There he completed his doctoral studies under Hermann Cohen (seeCohen, Hermann) and Paul Natorp, leading figures in the Marburg neo‐Kantian movement. His dissertation was onThe Problem of Being in Greek Philosophy Prior to Plato(1908). Writing onThe Logic of Being in Plato(1965) under their mentorship, he qualified as a university teacher of philosophy in 1907. During World War I Hartmann served in the German army on the Eastern front from 1914 to 1918. He attained an associate professorship at Berlin in 1920 and succeeded Natorp in 1922 as professor at Marburg. He moved to a professorship at Cologne in 1925 and then at Berlin in 1931, where he spent the years of the national socialist regime and of World War II; in 1945 he moved to Göttingen, where he died on October 9, 1950 (see Hartmann 1949–50).
Harm Principle
Authors: Ten C. L. 
Published: January 2013

AbstractThe harm principle is most closely associated with John Stuart Mill's (1806–73) defense of individual liberty in his famous essayOn Liberty(1859), although he himself did not give it that name (seeHarm; Mill, John Stuart). Mill wanted to set certain limits to “social control” over the conduct of individuals, and he proposed the harm principle as the “one very simple principle” for that purpose: “That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self‐protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others” (1977: 223).