Philosophy Journal

My new blog

2010-03-18T14:32:00.002+01:00

Since September 2008 my blog has moved to the following address:http://philosophicaljournal.wordpress.com/

Personal webpage

2009-02-11T17:47:00.002+01:00

http://micheleloi.wiki.zoho.com/HomePage.html

Thinking goes on here....

2009-01-11T18:51:00.001+01:00

This blog has moved tohttp://philosophicaljournal.wordpress.com/

Gianfranco Pellegrino's personal page.

2008-06-23T18:56:00.002+02:00

I will break my promise not add new posts in this blog, for a good reason.I want to signal the new personal site of one young and very interesting researcher who works in Italy. You can find some very interesting papers (some of which unpublished, some of which in English, some of which are both). I recommend it especially if you are interested in utilitarianism. http://yorick612.googlepages.com/

socially constructed vs natural disadvantages

2008-05-08T14:20:00.007+02:00

Most analytic philosophers are not sympathetic to the "social model of disability" that is often ascribed to "extremist disability advocates", namely the idea that disabilities should be conceived as the result of a social construction and should be understood in analogy to being the member of a discriminated minority. They tend to agree on a moderate position according to which disability

priority of fair equality of opportunity over the difference principle

2008-05-08T10:37:00.009+02:00

Someone may object:"What you say here is absurd! It makes no sense to say "A society that does not violate the principle of fair equality of opportunity can hardly manage to discriminate people in relation to their skin color (that is, treat skin color as a relevant qualification for a social position) if it is also, at the same time, a society that satisfies the difference principle", as you do.

Rawls and talents: third reflection

2008-05-07T01:54:00.010+02:00

The third reflection concerns whether a just society (just, that is, according to Justice as Fairness) can be a society in which disabled people, or better people with certain deviations from standard human functioning can all be among the worst off (in terms of expectations of primary goods).Consider deviations from standard human functioning such as deafness or a particularly short height (

Rawls and talents: first reflection

2008-05-07T01:43:00.002+02:00

1. It is highly unlikely that the color of the skin could be treated as a talent in a society governed by just institutions. For our knowledge of production and exchange tells us that it is highly unlikely that a society where the color of a person's skin is treated as a relevant qualification for a social position could be governed by non-improvable institutions - meaning, institutions that

Rawls and talents: second reflection

2008-05-07T01:42:00.005+02:00

2. There is no necessary guarantee that qualities that are found to be talents in a certain culture will be Rawlsian talents. Rawlsian talents are incompatible with Walzer's idea that the movement of social goods must be determined by their meaning (as found within a culture). For the conjunction of the following two propositions violates the idea that social goods are moved according to their

Rawls and talents

2008-05-07T00:39:00.010+02:00

What does it mean to be "more talented" in the context of Rawls's theory? As Nozick remarks (in a footnote of his discussion of Rawls' Theory - in Anarchy State and Utopia), "most talented" individuals just means, in the contexts of Rawls theory, those who are able to produce a larger economic output or who happen to be able to trade their work more favorably or to obtain social positions

Well-being vs. flourishing 2

2007-09-03T15:34:00.000+02:00

In this previous post I asked whether we could make something out of the distinction between well-being and human flourishing. Here I have a different suggestion of a way in which we could define this distinction.Well-being and flourishing both concern events that it makes sense to hope for or fear. However,flourishing = can be used to refer to what sis good for a human being qua human being,

equal opportunity for goods and equality of goods for which people are not responsible

2007-08-28T19:36:00.000+02:00

Susan Hurley has pointed out that the following two notions are equivalent:equal opportunity for goods = equality of goods for which people are not responsible". Perhaps the end of luck egalitarianism is not equality of goods for which people are not responsible, but rather equality of opportunity for goods. However, if these are equivalent, the above argument from ends to means still holds. Are

the dilemma of political philosophy

2007-08-28T18:49:00.000+02:00

It just occurred to me by reading discussions regarding distributive justice and luck-egalitarianism, that a big source of problems for political philosophy is that devising rules for the organization of political societies requires to regard human beings in two different perspectives.Think about Rawls' argument against equality and for the difference principle (which has been famously attacked

Playing God with human nature.

2007-08-26T18:10:00.000+02:00

Rebecca Roache on Ethics etc discusses arguments in favor and against that sort of bio-engeneering that she calls "human enhancement" ("that is, the use of medicine and technology to raise human capacities above what we might consider to be normal", as she writes) based on the notion of "human nature". I posted a reply there, saying that intuitively the strongest objection against the

Identity Politics?

2007-08-24T13:11:00.000+02:00

This guy here, called "the stranger" argues that in the U.S., democrats win in the cities and republican win in the countryside. I have no opinions about the accuracy of the analysis. What I want to comment upon is the prescriptive conclusion of the author, namely:"If Democrats and urban residents want to combat the rising tide of red that threatens to swamp and ruin this country, we need a new

Google Custom Search

2007-08-24T12:44:00.000+02:00

I've finally discovered how to add a search engine for my blog in my blog. (I know there is a "search this blog" function in the navbar. but I do not find it very visible.)For people who do not know about it, there is a service (free, as usual. But we know Google expands its empire this way), called "Google Custom Search" http://www.google.com/coop/cse/, which allows you to create a search engine

well-being vs. flourishing

2007-08-23T17:03:00.000+02:00

Is there anything more than a verbal difference between the notion of “well-being” and the notion of “flourishing”?I think there is. But it makes only sense to analyze the nature of this distinction by looking at theconceptual connection between well-being/flourishing and other elements of the philosophical theories to which they belong. It is not enough to question our common-sense intuitions

New revision: stoicism and hedonism

2007-08-23T01:06:00.000+02:00

I have revised the following log, which also badly needed it:http://michele-journal.blogspot.com/2007/05/hedonism-and-stoicism-comparison.htmlHedonism and Stoicism: a comparison

New revisions

2007-08-21T12:43:00.000+02:00

I finally found the time to revise two posts that needed it badly, namely:"Why Dworkin thinks there must be volitional well-being?"(http://michele-journal.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-thinking-there-must-be-volitional.html)and"Dworkin: challenge and impact"(http://michele-journal.blogspot.com/2007/03/dworkin-challenge-and-impact.html)I have revised the latter substantially. In this post I wanted to

could anybody be of help

2007-08-20T14:24:00.000+02:00

I know this is desperate....This event is taking place in BerkeleyTue Oct 9, 2007Howison Library — 4:10 pm Townsend VisitorHilary Putnam (Harvard University)Gödel, Chomsky and Human Naturewere anybody to make a recording or take notes for her own use could she make it public or send it to me? I'm too curious....(and too distant to attend. I wish I could pay prof. Putnam a flight to Italy)

Human essence, human flourishing and liberal rights.

2007-08-19T17:16:00.000+02:00

The most important questions of ethics are, arguably, what is a virtuous behavior, and what counts as a good life.According to a philosophy inspired by Aristotle, the answer to this question depends largely from our answer to another question, namely: what is human nature? This is because in order to live well or flourish one must exercise those activities that are characteristic of human nature

The partiality of truth and philosophical methodology.

2007-08-18T11:42:00.001+02:00

Hegel's idea of dialectics is no longer fashionable: we no longer think of different philosophical theories or viewpoints as rational stages in a progress which leads unavoidably to the absolutely true theory of everything.However, I tend to agree with Hegel, and disagree with current analytical philosophy on a fundamental idea. Let me explain. Whenever I consider a philosophical theory or

What is the relation between virtue and human flourishing?

2007-08-02T01:45:00.000+02:00

In a previous post I laid forwards the basic idea of Aristotelian Constructivism. Aristotelian Constructivism proposes itself as a method of/guide to moral reasoning, and claims itself to be better in this role than alternative methods (such as contractarian reasoning, as explained by T.M. Scanlon in “what we owe to each other”). Aristotelian constructivism holds that there is at least a

Was Popper an emotivist/radical existentialist?

2007-07-25T18:41:00.000+02:00

I am trying to assess to what extent were Popper is committed to a sort of “emotivism” or non-cognitivism, the view according to which calling a moral norm or standard “good” or “just” does not amount to a statement of fact, but to expressing some emotion or inclination of the will. Or, alternatively, to some form of “radical existentialism”, the view according to which all ultimate normative

Weitermachen!: cooked up thought experiments and the viciousness of ethics

2007-07-16T16:57:00.000+02:00

Some comments on this postWeitermachen!: cooked up thought experiments and the viciousness of ethicshere.

Ethics in the vacuum?

2007-07-16T16:46:00.000+02:00

In his post "cooked up thought experiments and the viciousness of ethics" Matt Brown throws doubts one the usefulness of "schematic" examples or "intuition pumps" of the sort which are popular in many articles on analytic philosophy. He thinks this method is not only useless, but may even have pernicious consequences on the moral sensibility and capacities of the people who practice it.I am

Aristotelian constructivism in moral theory: THE MANIFESTO.

2007-07-13T16:46:00.001+02:00

I finally graduated (Ph.D.) with my thesis on the distinction between well-being and other modes of value. Now I am cultivating a new project, which I hope I will have the chance to develop. This new idea I am going to call "Aristotelian Constructivism in Moral Theory".THE ARISTOTELIAN CONSTRUCTIVIST MANIFESTO1. Intro to Aristotelian Constructivism Aristotelian Constructivism in Moral Theory,

A problem with an argument by Hume.

2007-05-16T16:13:00.000+02:00

I started to re-read part 2 of Book 3 of Hume's “Treatise”, the beginning of the section entitled “of justice and injustice”. The first argument on Sect 1 (477-480 of the Selby-Bigge (SBN) edition, p. 307-308 of the Norton and Norton Edition (NN)) strikes me as wrong, in so far as it is based on a conflation of two senses in which moral actions could be said to be morally "good". Hume argument

Seneca's version of the "philosophy of swine" objection.

2007-05-10T19:10:00.000+02:00

The following is one of Seneca's argument for the Stoic thesis that the human good consists in virtue- Seneca actually uses the expression "honestum" "Quicumque beatus esse constituet, unum esse bonum putet quod honestum est".This argument has some resemblance to what Crisp calls the argument "of the philosophy of swine", but it is, I believe, more elegant and effective.Seneca first of all

Hedonism and Stoicism: a comparison

2007-05-10T18:47:00.000+02:00

One of the latest defenders of hedonism (thousands of years after Epicurus) is Roger Crisp. In his article (Well-being) on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Crisp provides the following defence of hedonism from the “philosophy of swine” objection (basically the same argument can be found in his most recent book “Reasons and the Good”: Bentham tended to think of pleasure and pain as a kind

Humeans, Kantians and Aristotelians as parents.

2007-05-05T17:00:00.000+02:00

What would be the characteristics of a Humean, a Kantian or an Aristotelian parent? The Humean mother would give a lot to her child, moved by the sentiment rather than by an abstract sense of duty. She would support the son in everything he does and see his satisfaction as hers. She would be moved by sympathy. But the human mother may not be the best type of mother when she has more than one

Non-transitivity with no irrationality.

2007-05-02T17:09:00.000+02:00

Can there be cases of non-transitivity in choice with no irrationality? Michael Mandler (A difficulty choice in Preference Theory) argues that it is possible. First of all let us define non transitivity. If x, y, and z are three goods, we have a failure of transitivity if y ≥ z x ≥ y and z > x what is the interpretation of the symbols ≥ (weakly preferred to) and > (preferred to)?

Should the state found art ?: Tyler Cowen's view.

2007-04-17T18:29:00.000+02:00

After so much time “wasted” on criticizing welfarist values and the way welfarists sees facts about values, I found myself having little time to add in my dissertation some analysis of perfectionist values, their role in shaping institutions, and their power of justification. Anyway, as you may have noticed, I am finally starting to put the issue of perfectionist values on the table at least in

The necessary-condition interpretation of the subjectivity of welfare: a counterargument.

2007-04-12T17:56:00.000+02:00

Wayne Sumner believes thatwell-being evaluations as opposed to other value judgments are subject-relative: well-being states are good for the individual whose well-being is in question. He argues that a theory of well-being can account for the fact that well-being sources are good for the person whose well-being is in question, only if it is subjective. A theory is subjective, according to

On perfectionist ideals, markets, recognition, and self-knowledge

2007-04-10T16:24:00.000+02:00

Let us try to put together these four ideas. First of all, perfectionist values. There are different conceptions of perfectionist values. The most "conservative" conception, we may say, considers perfectionist values as values connected with realizing an entity's true nature, where the true nature of the entity is already given in virtue of some deep metaphysical or supernatural fact (i.e.

Dworkin: challenge and impact

2007-03-23T16:20:00.000+01:00

In "Sovreign Virtue", Dworkin distinguishes two kinds of "metric" or "model" of ethical value, which he calls the impact model and the challenge model. The two models are so defined"The model of impact [...] holds that the value of a good life consists in its product, that is, in its consequences for the rest of the word [...]The model of challenge [...] argues that the goodness of a good life

Why Dworkin thinks there must be volitional well-being?

2007-03-23T13:05:00.000+01:00

As we have seen in my previous post, Dworkin distinguishes critical and volitional well-being. But volitional well-being does not seem to be well-being at all. Volitional well-being is the satisfaction of desires, but the fact that something affects our well-being always gives us reasons, other things equal, to take it into account, while the fact that we have a desire for something does not (

The distinction between volitional and critical well-being

2007-03-21T19:53:00.000+01:00

In his "Sovreign Virtue" Ronald Dworking distinguishes two fundamental species or senses of well-beingVolitional well-being:“Someone's volitional well-being is improved, and just for that reason, when hehas or achieves what in fact he wants.” (242)Example:“Sailing well and freedom from dentistry are part of my own volitionalwell-being: I want them both, and my life therefore goes better, in

A short question about reasons

2007-02-21T18:00:00.000+01:00

Actually, two questions:A. Is the following inference valid, according to your view on reasons?B. Is the following inference valid, according to Scanlon's view on reasons?Does:1. X= Yeg. talking to Maffettone = talking to the biggest expert on J. Rawls in Italy)+2. I have a reason to Xe.g I have a reason to talk to the biggest expert on J. Rawls in Italy. (Suppose I am writing a thesis on

Do people value their own well-being? 2

2007-02-21T16:46:00.000+01:00

Some updates. I talked this morning with my friend Francesco Orsi about Scanlon's view about well-being and about whether he provides a buck-passing account of the value of well-being. Here is a brief summary of the discussion.1.Francesco: First of all, it would be odd (prima facie) to buck-pass the concept of well-being. Well-being is "a" good, while the buck-passing account should be used for

Do people value their own well-being?

2007-02-19T18:24:00.000+01:00

Scanlon never explicitly explains how the buck-passing account of value he develops in ch.2 of "what we owe to each other" applies to the value of well-being. Yet, it is almost irresistible to use the buck-passing view to understand his symultaneous defence of the claim that it would sound absurd to say that people are NOT concerned with their own well-being AND of the claim that well-being is a

Scanlon: Well-being as an inclusive and transparent good.

2007-02-08T19:13:00.000+01:00

Scanlon argues the concept of well-being is that of a transparent and inclusive good. Well-being is an inclusive good because it“is made up of other things that are good in their own right, not made good by their contribution to it” (1998: 127),Well-being is made up, for example, by things that can be abstractly described as forms of enjoyments and accomplishments. Such things are valuable in

Scanlon: desires and reasons/ Justification.

2007-02-08T13:28:00.000+01:00

Scanlon's discussion of the relation between desires and practical reason (in "What We Owe...) is complex and nuanced.Here I will sum up what I take to be its most important elements. Scanlon argues that our reasons derive, at the most fundamental level, from facts about the objects of our desires.(Which facts? Typically, facts including some kind of evaluation of the desired object as, for

Scanlon: why well-being evaluations do not matter /1

2007-02-06T19:09:00.000+01:00

In this and the following posts, I will reconstruct Scanlon's argument (in "What We Owe To Each Other, Harvard University Press, 1998) about why well-being evaluations do not matter. Scanlon addresses this issue in Ch.3 of the aforementioned book. I believe his reflections in this book are extremely profound, as they call into questions the main presuppositions of those philosophers that work

The state, no-smoking policies, obesity, and the control of the body.

2007-02-06T16:30:00.000+01:00

Apparently Blair "wants Britons off the sofa", as the news reported.The author of this blog is quite near to positions of ethical perfectionism, and to the centrality of the idea of the good life for ethics. Still, the emerging "perfectionist" tendencies in society and politics, for example in its dealing with issues such as smoking and obesity worries me a bit. What one notices is first of all

A dialogue between a philosopher and a unfaithful wife.

2007-01-12T12:09:00.000+01:00

A dialogue between a philosopher and an unfaithful wife. Philosopher: P Wife: W. W: Hi P, I’d like to talk with you about an ethical issue. P: What do you want to talk about? W: Do you remember the last discussion we had, on whether it could be ever morally justified to fake an orgasm? P: Yes. W: Do you still

Scanlon: the idea of moral self-sacrifice and its justification

2007-01-11T20:15:00.000+01:00

The possibility of distinguishing moral worth from well-being, as I have argued in the previous post, presupposes that the following principle or something like it is true:M1: there can be cases in which morality requires from person p that she Fs, even when F-ing decreases p’s well-being or fail to maximize it, p desires to F (despite her awareness of well-being cost) and she is committed to

Scanlon and well-being - 2. Moral worth and self-sacrifice

2007-01-11T20:04:00.000+01:00

Can we characterize more formally the idea Scanlon's distinction is meant to capture?Certainly, Scanlon's idea presupposes two ideas:1. the moral worth of a life (or of the choices that the agent makes when he lives) is one of the aspect of a life's "total" worth, or its "choiceworthiness all-things-considered"2. the moral worth of a life can be augmented by a sacrifice of well-being.Claim 1

The axioms of "well-being" usage.

2007-01-11T20:02:00.001+01:00

The axioms of "well-being" usage:Griffin's point, Mill's clause and Scanlon's definition of the distinction between well-being and choiceworthiness are based upon the same - very un-Aristotelian - insight: the idea that acting morality can require a sacrifice of the well-being of the agent, even if acting morally is, and is recognized by the agent as being, the most rational thing to do

A strategy for denying the existence of the concept of well-being

2007-01-11T18:30:00.000+01:00

How can we argue that the concept of well-being most philosophers talk about does not exist?First of all: does such a project make sense? Consider Quine's argument in "two dogmas". He tried to show that the alleged distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments is untenable. How does he do it? he shows that every attempt to explicate what the supposed distinction means turns out to be

GRIFFIN: 3 well-being and morality/4 Ethical push and pull

2006-12-28T16:57:00.000+01:00

Ethical push and pull do not meet necessarily: further arguments:“Though living a life of point and weight and of conformity to values generally may be seen as prudential values, it is hard to see how their value, purely prudentially, could be greater than a good life itself – if it came to the terribly hard choice between morality and survival. Moral reasons and practical reasons overall might

GRIFFIN: 3 well-being and morality/3

2006-12-28T16:42:00.000+01:00

Griffin's idea of the relation between morality and prudence is complicated. He wants to allow both the existence of a sense in which lives can be said to be good which is prior to the moral sense and the "penetration of the prudential by the moral", namely the fact that being virtous or acting morally can be intrinsically prudentially valuable; in addition to this a deflationist view about "

GRIFFIN: 3 well-being and morality/2

2006-12-28T16:22:00.000+01:00

The question is: “do ethical push and ethical pull eventually meet?” this “meeting” is interpreted in terms of “moral reasons [being] generated out of prudential ones” ("if you behave well - morally speaking - is always going to be good for you”) Griffin allows that: Moral reasons do trump purely prudential reasons. But:16“that does not mean [...] that moral reasons are generated out of

GRIFFIN: 3 well-being and morality/1

2006-12-28T16:20:00.000+01:00

When Griffin wants to show the difference between the concept of well-being and other senses in which a life can be said to become good or go well, he often talks about the peculiar type of independence that obtains between well-being evaluations and moral evaluations.This is note 38 at p. 38 of ch. II. In this note, Griffin is explaining why he can endorse a restricted version of the interest

Griffin: TASTE

2006-12-28T16:00:00.000+01:00

14“I have tasted both apples and pears. I like both but prefer pears. How do we expalin my attaching more value to having a pear? The only relevant desirability feature is that they taste good. [“tasting good” is invoked still as a value in the objective sense.] However, it is not a plausible explanation of tasting better that I perceive that pears possess this desirability features to a greater

Griffin: The distinction between subjective and and objective elements of well-being

2006-12-28T15:53:00.000+01:00

13 “Some philosophers treat the distinction between objective and subjective as if it marked a crucial distinction between accounts of well-being. They do, because they attach great importance to whether or not well-being is made to depend upon an individual's desires, tastes, feelings, or attitudes. But, as we just saw in the last section, the dependence of prudential value on desires is much

Griffin: 2. Distinction between prudential value and perfectionist values

2006-12-28T15:41:00.000+01:00

10“The good, almost unavoidable, point in perfectionism is this. There are prudential values that are valuable in any life. There are not enough of them, nor is a specific balance between nthem prescribable universally enough, to constitute a form of life. They are the values on the list of the ends of life.” (70) [but]11 “Persons differ not so much in basic values as in their capacity to

Griffin. How the concept of well-being is introduced: value and interest

2006-12-28T12:38:00.001+01:00

Griffin is trying to show that there is a close connection between the concept of prudential value and the concept of interest. He shows that his theory is compatible with a weakened form of the Interest Theory of value.9“… the only form of the Interest Theory [of value] [i.e. ‘for a thing to be of value is for it to be the object of, or the satisfaction of, desire or interest.’ This is Perry.]

Griffin. How the concept of well-being is introduced. 3: Interest

2006-12-28T12:30:00.000+01:00

The concept of well-being is sometimes considered to be analytically connected to the concept of what is in a person's interest. Griffin claims that his analysis of the meaning of well-being preserves this connection to a sufficient degree: 7“The desire account has all along been designed to keep ‘utility’’ close to ‘ what is in a person’s interest’. It is not that the expression ‘fulfilling ones

Griffin. How the concept of well-being is introduced. 2. well-being and "valuable"

2006-12-28T12:25:00.000+01:00

GRIFFIN: well-being and valuable lives.There are many places in which Griffin talks as if statements about what is valuable to a person and the concept of well-being could be used interchangeably:5“If a father wants his children to be happy, what he wants, what is valuable to him, is a state of the world, not a state of his mind; merely to delude him into thinking that his children flourish,

Griffin. How the concept of well-being is introduced.

2006-12-27T19:50:00.000+01:00

A. There must be a connection between well-being evaluations and deliberation:1“our job is not to describe an idea already in existence independently of our search. Before we properly explain well-being, we have to know the context in which it is to appear and and the work it needs to do there. [...] One proper ground for choosing between conceptions of well-being would be that one lends itself

James Griffin's "Well-Being"

2006-12-27T19:48:00.000+01:00

From now on, and for a while, I shall be discussing James Griffin's theory about well-being, as exposed in his "Well-Being" (Oxford University Press, 1986.)The leading question is about well-being's meaning: what does Griffin takes well-being to be? How does he characterize the notion? What common-sense ideas does he appeal to?

On an apparently coherent view and how to interpret it maliciously.

2006-12-11T13:10:00.000+01:00

Premise:Academic philosophy is wonderwul. The most coherent worldview is probably going to win the competition for truth in the long run. For this, we have to thank our (philosopher's) current methodology: reflective equilibrium or something like that. (Maybe, more a sort of intuitionism, than reflective equilibrium.)I shall now expose a very coherent view of the world which will not appear

2006-11-10T15:48:00.000+01:00

Hot not to be a consequentialist/2 ...If my picture of the difference between consequentialist and non-consequentialist forms of reasonings is right, the real difference between the two relies in judgments about the scope of the variables that should enter into “moral calculation”.According to certain forms of act-consequentialism, (taken both as an agent theory and as an act theory) all

2006-11-08T17:41:00.000+01:00

How to be a non-consequentialist.Context of the discussion: what Dancy ('Moral reasons') believes a fully fledged non-consequentialist theory must account for:In the context of this discussion, Dancy considers the sort of defence of a non-consequentialist theory that implies explaining the existence of deontological constraints. There can be theories that are not consequentialist but neither

2006-10-26T18:19:00.000+02:00

Can the worst life be the one I have most reasons to desire?The good life is different from the life X has most reasons to desire. A general argument. If Bernard Williams's “internal reasons” claim is right, and if the good life is the life that virtuous people typically desire, then a life can be the life that X has most reason to desire, and yet not be a good life, because X's reasons depend

2006-10-26T18:16:00.000+02:00

Virtue EthicsVirtue ethics is a very weird thing and difficult to define. [If you want to read a good introduction of virtue ethics, I suggest you "virtue ethics" by Rosalind Horsthouse. I'm giving my own thoughts about it.]In its most extreme form it would be the thesis that every moral and evaluative concept can be reduced to the concept of a good human being, or a good character. I think no

2006-10-19T16:54:00.000+02:00

Can one have no reason to choose to live a better life?(The strike of Dostoevskiy)Some preliminary points:Geach and Foot: good is only descriptive. A good life is like a good knife.All others: there is another sense of good. Some things can be simply good (Moore: books are good.)Buck-passers: x is good = "X has the properties that make it reasonable to have a certain (pro)attitude towards it" (

2006-07-26T12:52:00.000+02:00

good for/for the sake ofWhat is the relationship between the two expressions?When a welfarist talks about welfare he talks about things that are good "for" a person or a certain kind of creature, as opposed to good sempliciter or from the point of view of the universe:"In the case of human beings the idea that we should promote their good surely owes at least part of its appeal to the fact that

2006-07-03T17:53:00.000+02:00

Welfare, the only ethical value?/3The value of mountains, artworks, and plants.For what regards the intrinsic value of non-sentient organisms, welfarism denies it exists or is part of the ethical realm. The only ethical reason one has for protecting and preserving non-sentient organisms (or things), are welfarist reasons, that is to say, reasons that derive from the impact of such organisms and

2006-06-27T17:32:00.000+02:00

Welfare: the only ethical value?/2There is a curious, but I think ultimately unsuccessful, strategy for defending welfarism, a strategy certain philosophers seems to be committed to in order to defend their views from some very intuitive objections. (An example is Sumner, in his lenghty defence of a welfarist theory of the good in Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics.) The strategy consists in the

2006-06-27T16:11:00.000+02:00

Is welfare the only ethical value?/1.Sumner's co-opting strategyA clever and stenuous defensor of Welfarism, Sumner, argues against value pluralism in the following way:"I will divide rival goods into two categories. The first consists of personal goods: valuable states of activities realized within the lives of individual persons. ... The second category consists, naturally enough, of impersonal

2006-06-16T19:54:00.000+02:00

WELL-BEING AND PERFECTION, a meaningful dychotomy?/2This post is just an addition to my previous post.NOTICE that at the end of his example quoted in this post Sumner writes:"What you are now doing may develop your capacities less, but it leads to a more satisfying and fulfilling life for you."Should we take this as an possible interpretation of the story Sumner tolds us earlier or as a summary

2006-06-16T17:35:00.000+02:00

WELL-BEING AND PERFECTION, a meaningful dychotomy?/1This is my first post on an issue that will make me busy for a long time. I will begin with criticism of what other people have said, before advancing my own view. My intuition is that it is more difficult that it seems to distinguish these two aspects of a good life (or maybe we should say these two criteria to evaluate it?)In this post, I only

2006-06-16T10:12:00.000+02:00

REPLY to REPLY by GIANFRANCO/3In this reply, I shall write the last and I think final objection to the idea that we can make a valuable use of theories thatdiffer from Mental Statism, butaccept some form of the Experience Requirement( as I call them, G-theories.) Here I claim G-theories do not offer a solution to Kagan's challenge.Kagan's challenge:Kagan claims ("The Limits of Well-Being", p

2006-06-16T09:44:00.000+02:00

The Attention Diversion Machine.Consider the following EXAMPLE: George suffers from great anxiety. One day he sees the advertisement of the the "Experience Machine" program, by the M.A.T.R.I.X corporation. He understand that they may offer him an alternative to his painful life, namely a life connected to a virtual reality lacking situations that could unleash his anxiety. He finds himself

2006-06-15T10:53:00.000+02:00

Experience Requirement and accomplishments are incompatible. Short version.(Click here for the long version of the argument.)The Experience Requirement says that the impact of our well-being of some state of the world is entirely determined by features of the world the subject is conscious of, more formally:if X is a state of the world, and X is good/bad for A, and the (dis)value of X for A

2006-06-14T20:43:00.000+02:00

Can we adopt the Experience Requirement and take accomplishments seriously? (For a more succint version of this argument, click here.)I will argue that any theory with the Experience Requirement cannot acknowledge the prudential value (or value for the subject or intrinsic contribution to a subject's well-being) of accomplishments. The Experience Requirement says that something (some state of

2006-06-14T13:23:00.000+02:00

A slippery slope argument against G theories. A theory is a G-theory iff:states of the world outside the subject's mind make a subject's life better, in the sense that the fact that they obtain explains why it is that one is better off. They can be the ground of prudential value. (More formally, if X is a state of the world = [the obtaining of P which is not a mental state of A; A's experience of

2006-06-12T14:45:00.000+02:00

REPLY to REPLY BY GIANFRANCO/2: the Experience Requirement, G-theories and value dyslexia.To sum up a bit, I shall call a "G-theory" of welfare any theory 1. according to which what makes a state (of the world) good for the subject A is something different from its implying the occurrence of (certain sorts of) mental states in A; and 2. accepts the experience requirement.There are at least two

2006-06-09T12:19:00.000+02:00

Why the experience requirement is wrong.Endorsing the experience requirement creates a problem with the common sense notion that we value the success of our actions, that we want to achieve something, and not merely to think we do.The problem with achievements is a member of a wider family. Most people prefer their desire to be realized in facts than to believe they are desire. Consider the

2006-06-09T12:09:00.000+02:00

REPLY to REPLY BY GIANFRANCO/1: on the language used to express the thesisGianfranco's criticism is correct. It is true that X being a necessary condition for Y to be a value does not imply that X is what it is in virtue of which that Y has value, etc. It is also true that certain views that adopt the Experience Requirement do not reduce to Experientialism, because the Experience Machine

2006-06-08T18:58:00.002+02:00

Is a theory of welfare that includes the experience requirement different from Mental Statism?1. Experience requirement: something (some state of affairs) can be good for the subject only if it enters the subject’s experience.2. Mental Statism: the only things that can be good are experiences, or the subject's (conscious) mental states.Take a theory that purports to be different from “Mental

2006-06-08T18:58:00.001+02:00

REPLY by Gianfranco to: is a theory with the experience requirement different from Experientialism: Gianfranco sent me the following comment (in Italian, I translate):Dancy's idea of an enabling condition is useful to avoid the step 1. Dancy explains that an enabling condition enables, but is not a ground of value in itself. An example with regard to causal explanation goes as follows: if I have

2006-06-08T18:58:00.000+02:00

Accomplishments, posthumous harm, and the experience requirement.It seems that a theory that says that accomplishing something is good for the accomplisher, must admit the possibility of posthumous harm and benefit. Why?Consider the following example:Bernard Russell is said to have spent his last years trying to make the prospects of a nuclear war less likely. Most people would think that the

2006-06-08T15:43:00.000+02:00

The perfect theory of individual welfareI think that the perfect theory of welfare must satisfy the following two desiderata:1. it must deny that future facts can make a person better off retroactively. That is: what happens after my death cannot make me no harm, no good.2. it must avoid the Experience Machine objection.I take the denial of 1 to go against common sense. In the philosophical

2006-06-08T12:58:00.000+02:00

Esteem and pleasure.What do you think about this?it gives us a bit of pleasure to think of ourselves as esteemed, even when we entertain this thought as a fantasy.

2006-06-07T18:11:00.000+02:00

Value of future esteem.What is the value of future esteem? I tend to deny that esteem has any intrinsic value for the esteemed. Thus I've got to explain why we can be rational and care about our future esteem. But I also think that it is impossible to have "posthumos harm" as it is sometimes called. There is a theory that produces an explanation of why we care about posthumous esteem that does