bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Chastity
Authors: Halwani Raja 
Published: January 2013

Abstract
Chastity is the virtue that moderates our sexual desires. Being chaste is not the same as successfully resisting the urges of improper sexual desires (that would be continence); it is instead to not feel these desires to begin with. Thus, a chaste person does not sexually desire what is wrong. If having the virtues is necessary or needed for human beings to lead good, flourishing lives, having chastity is part of leading a good life. Assuming that we all want to lead good lives, then we all have good reason to be chaste.
Reason and Passion
Authors: Blackburn Simon 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

There is a familiar view, which was also dominant in the classical world, that when we exercise self‐control we use our reason to moderate or direct or resist our passions. In the famous Platonic image from the dialogue the
Phaedrus
, the charioteer, who is an emblem of reason, controls the unruly horses of spirit and desire, that might otherwise pull his vehicle in random, foolish, or wicked directions, possibly dashing its driver and others to destruction (
see
Plato). In Aristotle, human beings alone possess rationality, and the best kind of life consists in acting in accordance with reason, which is equivalent to living virtuously (
see
Aristotle). Ethical thought is then a matter of discovering what reason requires in any particular situation. In both pictures the passions are disruptive and unruly, and right living consists in subordinating them to reason. Later than Plato and Aristotle, both the Stoics and Epicurus urged a more extreme view parallel to that of Buddhism, that the best life was to be approached largely by divesting oneself altogether of desire and passion, aiming at a benign or self‐satisfied serenity that is blissfully insensitive to everything that upsets lesser souls (
see
Stoicism; Buddhist Ethics).
Equality of Opportunity
Authors: Temkin Larry S. 
Published: January 2013

AbstractThe ideal of equality of opportunity (equal opportunity) plays an important role in contemporary discourse. A continually evolving notion, it is invoked in political, social, and moral contexts. It is often identified with the view that positions should be distributed according to merit, but also with calls to end discrimination or level the playing field amongst different people (seeAffirmative Action;Compensatory Justice;Egalitarianism;Equality). Originally applied to a narrow range of group categories like race, religion, ethnicity, and gender, its scope has been extended in recent years to include other categories like age, handicap, or sexual orientation (seeAge Discrimination;Sexual Equality). Moreover, in principle, the notion has unlimited scope, extending to any people against whom there is discrimination or between whom there is significant variation in undeserved advantages, including, for example, intelligence, beauty, height, or even voice quality. Accordingly, the ideal of equal opportunity means different things to different people, and many who favor equal opportunity on one construal oppose it on others.
Satisficing
Authors: Weber Michael E. 
Published: January 2013

AbstractThe Nobel Prize‐winning economist Herbert Simon introduced the term “satisficing” into the contemporary lexicon (Simon 1955). It was used previously as an alteration of “satisfy” (Oxford English Dictionary1989). Simon, however, gave the term a specific new meaning. For Simon, satisficing is a strategy for decision‐making in which an individual or firm seeks an option the outcome of which is satisfactory or “good enough” rather than best or optimal. Satisficing, then, stands in contrast to the maximizing models dominant in rational choice theory, economics, and philosophy (seeGame Theory and Rational Choice; Rationality).
Husserl, Edmund
Authors: Nenon Thomas 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

The most important texts on ethics from Edmund Husserl (1864–1938) are two large volumes based on his lecture courses on ethics – one on the courses he presented in 1908/09, 1911, and 1914 (1988), and one on the courses of 1920 and 1924 (2004) – along with several programmatic essays on individual and social ethics, which were originally composed for the Japanese journal
Kaizo
in the early 1920s (1989). These texts, which remained unpublished until five decades after Husserl's death, confirm the general view expressed in his published works that transcendental phenomenology as he developed it, as a general method for philosophy and philosophical issues, was also the key to reasonable and rigorous philosophical discussions in practical philosophy.
Sympathy
Authors: Snow Nancy E. 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

The term “sympathy” has two meanings in philosophical literature. According to one conception, “sympathy” commonly means having care and concern for another whose well‐being is under threat or is encountering some obstacle (Darwall 1998: 261). When I feel sympathy, I feel for the other (Darwall 1998: 261). The Confucian philosopher Mengzi (also known as Mencius), for example, writes that a person seeing a small child on the verge of falling into a well would be moved by alarm and compassion (Darwall 1998: 261; Van Norden 2008: 46;
see
Confucian Ethics; Mencius). Here “compassion” seems to be used interchangeably with “sympathy.” When I feel sympathy or compassion, I show care and concern for another in her plight.
Prioritarianism
Authors: Persson Ingmar 
Published: January 2013

AbstractPrioritarianism, or the priority view, is the view that benefits to those who are worse off, absolutely speaking, have a greater moral weight or value than benefits to those who are better off. It could be seen as a view that aims to rectify the distributive insensitivity of utilitarianism (seeUtilitarianism). Many find it implausible that utilitarianism implies that a benefit, or a unit of welfare or well‐being (seeWell‐being), has the same moral value, or makes the outcome as much morally better, if it is received by somebody who is better off as by somebody who is worse off. To be sure, utilitarians could mitigate the counterintuitiveness of this implication by maintaining that what we usually are in a position to distribute directly areresourceswhichproducebenefits (understood in terms of pleasure, happiness, desire‐fulfillment, etc. [seePleasure; Happiness]) rather than benefits and that, according to diminishing marginal utility, resources as a rule produce fewer benefits in the hands of the better off than the worse off. So, in practice, utilitarianism generally implies that resources should go to the worse off. But this clarification is not enough to appease many critics of the distributive shortcomings of utilitarianism: they will insist that it is morally better if a resource goes to someone worse off even if it does not then generate a greater benefit than it would were it to go to someone better off. Such critics might turn to prioritarianism.
Casuistry
Authors: Strong Carson 
Published: January 2013

AbstractCasuistry is a method of reasoning for identifying justifiable courses of action in situations involving moral conflict. The term “casuistry” is derived from “case” (in Latin,casus) and refers to reasoning in which a case, the moral resolution of which is in dispute, is compared to one or more paradigm cases in which the justifiable resolution is relatively clear. This case‐based reasoning flourished during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries but fell into disrepute and was abandoned as a method of reasoning. In moral philosophy from the modern era until the 1980s, there is little reference to casuistry except as a term of disparagement. The emergence of bioethics (seeBIOETHICS) in the twentieth century laid the groundwork for the rediscovery of casuistry. Traditional ethical theories were found to provide little help in resolving clinical ethics cases, and case‐based reasoning began to receive increased attention. Several versions of casuistry have been put forward as useful ways to analyze difficult bioethics cases. In bioethics today, there is debate over the strengths and weaknesses of casuistry as a method of moral reasoning.
Proudhon, Pierre‐Joseph
Authors: Schröder Peter 
Published: January 2013

AbstractPierre‐Joseph Proudhon (1809–65) is best known for his polemical textWhat is Property?, which he published in 1840. He was an ardent critic of French society and politics of the first half of the nineteenth century. His uncompromising stance assured him a certain notoriety, but it also meant that he was rather isolated in his views of politics and society. His rigorous criticism attacked institutions such as the church, as well as the postrevolutionary bourgeoisie in France. His positions seem ambiguous and contradictory, but his fundamental attack on the property relations of nineteenth‐century France is the bedrock of his vision of progress and emancipation of the people. Consciously very similarly framed like Sieyès' polemical question just before the French Revolution of 1789 (“What is the third estate?”), Proudhon asked “what is property?” He argued that the institution of property was “the last obstacle … to consummate the revolution” (1994: 32). Indeed, he infamously had claimed that property was theft and that it was impossible to justify property. He thus linked the material condition of man with the notion of liberty and claimed that “liberty is an absolute right …a sine qua nonof existence” which was “completely irreconcilable” with property (1994: 42f).
Holocaust
Authors: Brecher Bob 
Published: January 2013

AbstractMinimally, the term “Holocaust” – from the ancient Greek participleholokaustos, “burnt in entirety,” which is in turn a compound ofholōs, “entirely,” andkaiein, “to burn” – refers to the actions of the Nazis and their sympathizers in killing some 6 million European Jews – two‐thirds of the Jews in Europe (Gilbert 1988) – during the course of World War II. The victims were killed in death camps, in work camps, and across Central and Eastern Europe, by death squads of ordinary soldiers (seeKilling). As a proper name,Holocaustis, however, doubly controversial. First, in its range of applicability: some writers include in its sphere the Roma and Sinti genocide and the systematic murder of Slavs, gays, disabled people, and other groups; others reserve it for the Jews alone. Hence the namePorrajmos– which, in some Roma dialects, means “devouring” – is preferred to Holocaust by most Roma and Sinti. Second, notwithstanding the differences above, arguments from etymology prompt some writers to prefer the nameShoah(which is the Hebrew for “calamity”) in reference to the Jewish Holocaust. On the wider view, at least 11 million people were killed (Niewyk and Nicosia 2000). Many were subjected to horrific medical experiments (Müller‐Hill 1998).
Reasons, Motivating and Normative
Authors: Feldman Simon 
Published: January 2013

AbstractSamantha has a Philosophy 101 paper due in the morning, but her new, somewhat rebellious friends are pressuring her to come out with them and have fun. Thinking (as it turns out, wrongly) that her friends will think she's cool if she downloads a paper from the web and goes partying with them instead of doing her work, she does exactly that. Given what Samantha believes (that her friends will think well of her if she cheats) and what she desires (to ingratiate herself with these friends), what she does is perfectly intelligible. But at the same time what she does seems imprudent and wrong. She shouldn't want to impress these people and in fact her actions are ill‐suited to achieving this goal (it turns out they are so blasé about cheating that Samantha's minor infraction doesn't register with them as cool). Samantha has reasons to do what she does even if we agree that her reasons are really very bad. The basic distinction between motivating reasons and normative reasons is the distinction between the reasons for which a person in fact does (or is disposed to do) something and the reasons that count in favor of, or against, her doing it. Put differently, motivating reasons are the considerations wetaketo justify what we do and in virtue of which our behavior is explicable as intentional action (Davidson 1980).Normative reasonsare the considerations weoughtto be guided by when we are deciding what to do or when we are evaluating the justification of an action. When we are fully rational, our motivating reasons, the reasons for which we act, correspond to, or accommodate, the normative reasons that govern the situation (Heuer 2004).
Infanticide
Authors: Tooley Michael 
Published: January 2013

AbstractThe question of the moral status of infanticide in the case of normal human infants is very important, both theoretically and practically. Its theoretical importance lies in the fact that intuitions differ very greatly on this question, so that the ability to set out an answer that is solidly grounded in fundamental moral principles is a crucial task for any comprehensive account of the morality of killing (seeKilling). Its practical significance, on the other hand, lies in its connection with the closely related – and very important – ethical question of whether it is morally permissible to kill severely defective infants (Kuhse and Singer 1985).
Diderot, Denis
Authors: Look Brandon C. 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

Denis Diderot (1713–84) was one of the most important thinkers in Enlightenment and pre‐revolutionary France. The author of philosophical, literary, and critical works, he was also (with Jean Le Rond D'Alembert) the cofounder and coeditor of and a major contributor to the
Encyclopédie
, one of the great cultural and scientific documents of the eighteenth century.
Fetuses
Authors: Sherwin Susan 
Published: January 2013

AbstractHuman fetuses play a prominent role in various ethics debates, primarily those concerned with activities within clinical medicine and scientific research. The principal controversies involve the sort of moral consideration that is owed to human fetuses with respect to obligations of care and permission for use. These questions are complicated by an inconsistency in terminology between ethicists and scientists. Scientists distinguish among zygotes (fertilized eggs in the earliest stages of division), blastocysts (organisms beginning cell differentiation, in the period from five days after fertilization until about three weeks), embryos (organisms in which the process of organ formation has started, in the period of three weeks to nine weeks), and fetuses (entities with recognizable features, covering all stages of development, from nine weeks until birth) (MedlinePlus). Most ethicists ignore these distinctions and deploy the term “fetus” to characterize all human life from the time an egg is fertilized until birth. Ethicists are primarily concerned with the question of whether fetuses should be regarded as persons – and thereby fully entitled to the moral consideration associated with that status – or merely as potential persons (seePersonhood, Criteria of; Potential Persons). Although this question seems to be one of ontology, many theorists appeal to moral arguments to support their ontological positions regarding prenatal human organisms.
Truth Commissions
Authors: Murphy Colleen 
Published: January 2013

AbstractA truth commission is a temporary institution established by a government and charged with investigating and producing a report on patterns of human rights abuses committed over a specified time period (seeInternational Bill of Rights). Reports from truth commissions often include recommendations on how to prevent such abuses in the future. Commissions differ in the specific abuses and time period covered, the extent to which hearings and final reports are made public, and the investigative powers enjoyed. Since the 1970s, more than two dozen commissions have been established globally. Truth commissions represent one way that a community may deal with its legacy of human rights abuses. Unlike criminal trials, however, truth commissions do not convict or punish perpetrators of human rights abuses (seePunishment). In addition, truth commissions may have the power to grant amnesty to perpetrators of human rights abuses or be established in a context where an amnesty already exists (seeAmnesty). For these reasons, some people contend, they ignore and/or leave unfulfilled the demands of justice (seeJustice).
Wollstonecraft, Mary
Authors: Tong Rosemarie 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) was a British philosopher, writer, and feminist. Her writings are a challenge to interpret because they are both personal and practical. Wollstonecraft lived during a time of great sociopolitical upheaval, highlighted by the French Revolution. In fact, Wollstonecraft spent time in France just before Louis XVI was guillotined. Like many British expatriates, she was forced to flee France after Britain declared war on it. In addition to living through the exciting days of the French Revolution, Wollstonecraft was part of a movement that in Western Europe gave rise to a new middle class built on fundamental liberal values: rationality, independence, free speech, free enterprise, hard work, and meritoriousness (
see
Liberalism). This rising middle class was bolstered by a family structure in which men and women played clearly defined and supposedly equally important roles (
see
Family). Among the important philosophical issues that this new middle class had to address was the relationship between reason and feeling (sensibility) in both the private and public domains.
Repugnant Conclusion
Authors: Arrhenius Gustaf 
Published: January 2013

Abstract
Derek Parfit originally formulated the Repugnant Conclusion as follows: “For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its members have lives that are barely worth living” (1984: 388).
Self‐Deception
Authors: Van Leeuwen Neil 
Published: January 2013

AbstractWhat's the point of calling someone “self‐deceived”? It's to say that someone has a false belief (or other cognitive attitude) that is not just from stupidity or lack of information. Rather, the self‐deceiver is at some level aware of information that would lead her to form the correct belief, but some motivational bias leads her to hold the opposite.
Responsibility
Authors: Tognazzini Neal A. 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

The notion of responsibility is vexed, both conceptually and metaphysically. It is invoked in a bewildering variety of contexts, and in many of those contexts its very possibility is questioned. Ordinary language is not of much help: people can
be
responsible,
become
responsible, and be
held
responsible; they can
have
responsibilities,
claim
responsibility,
take
responsibility – and the list of verbs goes on. Our “modern scientific worldview” is often thought to undermine responsibility, yet we regret that politicians and teenagers don't take it more seriously. It is, like most philosophically interesting concepts, remarkably easy to use but dreadfully difficult to understand. In this essay, I offer what little help I can.
Self‐Defense
Authors: Uniacke Suzanne 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

The use of force in self‐defense is widely regarded as morally justified. Perhaps for this reason self‐defense received only sporadic attention in Western philosophy until relatively recently. In the thirteenth century St. Thomas Aquinas (
see
Aquinas, Saint Thomas) needed to reconcile permissible self‐defense with his view that a private person must not kill intentionally; he sought to do this by distinguishing between intended, as opposed to (merely) foreseen, effects of an action and thus laid the basis of the doctrine of double effect (
see
Doctrine Of Double Effect). Several sixteenth‐ and seventeenth‐century philosophers discussed self‐defense. Thomas Hobbes regarded self‐defense as a fundamental and inalienable right (
see
Hobbes, Thomas). Others addressed self‐defense within civil society and in relation to just war (
see
Natural Law; Just War Theory, History of; Locke, John; Grotius, Hugo; Pufendorf, Samuel Von).
Just Price
Authors: Sandberg Joakim 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

The just price tradition has roots in Ancient philosophy but is most straightforwardly associated with a line of medieval philosophers and theologians, such as John Duns Scotus (
see
Duns Scotus), St. Thomas Aquinas (
see
Aquinas, Saint Thomas) and others. What generally characterizes the tradition is an interest in matters of ethics and justice concerning the pricing of goods and services on commercial markets. Medieval philosophers were often critical of commerce in general – and commerce with
money
in particular (
see
Usury) – viewing it as an (at best) unfortunate practical necessity dominated by (at least strong tendencies towards) the sins of greed and deceit. The just price tradition can be seen as a part of this moral critique of commerce and profiteering in general (
see
Profit Motive). At the same time, however, perhaps it can also be seen as staking out a way for commercial agents to ethically redeem themselves.
Genocide
Authors: Lee Steven P. 
Published: January 2013

AbstractGenocide, meaning literally the killing of a kind, is a monstrous crime, a crime against humanity, involving the murder of individuals because of the group to which they belong (seeCrimes Against Humanity). Though the crime is an old one, it was not named until 1944, when the term was introduced by the Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin to refer to the systematic killings perpetrated by the Nazis during World War II against Jews and other groups, a historical event that came to be known as the Holocaust (seeHolocaust). Crimes against humanity were legally recognized by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, established to try Nazis responsible for war‐time crimes (seeWar Crimes).
Jaspers, Karl
Authors: Langley Raymond J. 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) was the first twentieth‐century thinker to describe his work as a philosophy of existence (
see
Existentialism). Existential philosophers shift the emphasis from objective truth to focus on human beings, who struggle for recognition and freedom in a world of moral and political conflicts (
see
Heidegger, Martin; Sartre, Jean‐Paul). At age 18 Jaspers contracted a heart–lung disease that forced him to alternate short periods of work and recuperation. In 1908 Jaspers graduated with a medical degree but could not practice medicine because of physical limitations of illness. He began doing psychiatric research at Heidelberg University. In 1913 Jaspers published
General Psychopathology
. Psychopathology studies the origins and behaviors of mental illness but general psychopathology examines all empirical experience. Jaspers' rigorous methodology combined physical and causal explanations with a descriptive method analyzing subjective experiences and a new model of empathetic understanding between patient and doctor. He borrowed these methodological innovations from the new field of phenomenological philosophy (
see
Phenomenology, Moral; Husserl, Edmund). Jaspers' groundbreaking approach, now called philosophical psychiatry, focused on the relation of body and mind as a synthesis of both objective and subjective evidence. But psychopathology was subordinated to his humanism. In a proposition reiterated throughout all his writings, “man is always more that he can know of himself,” for the complexity of experience transcends all external or internal views.