Pub Date : 1987-04-01DOI: 10.5840/PRA1987/19881333
E. Walter
I propose a broad concept of happiness as an ultimate moral goal that is consistent with what reflective people desire and what people generally approve. Broad happiness includes many and various pleasures, a minimum of pain, a predominately active life and awareness of what can be attained. Besides these characteristics, which are found in Mill, I add that mental and physical faculties must be developed in accord with biological potential, people must be able to choose activities that exercise their developed faculties and must be able to achieve many of the goals toward which their activities aim. This claim can be established by considering scientific data and analyzing what moralists usually approve. According to it, intellectual activities will be found to be the most important aspects of happiness. My concept will differ from Mill's in that I reject the notion that happiness is synonymous with pleasure and the absence of pain, although both are part of happiness. Because Mill adopted this definition, his theory produced many anomalies. For example, in order to maintain that intellectual activities are morally superior, Mill was led to introduce qualities of pleasure. This maneuver is inconsistent with his empiricism. Moreover, the activities that are most approved from a moral point of view cannot be explained by the pleasure principle. The broad concept of happiness can account for the primacy of intellectual activities and those activities that are most often morally approved. MILL AND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE Utilitarians would have little difficulty in convincing their peers that pleasure is a good; the difficulty lies in convincing moralists that pleasure is the good. On the surface at least, people seek goals not involving pleasure, approve the lives of non-pleasure seekers, and often treat such lives as models. Great moral systems generally approve striving, hard work, and altruism, while disapproving of pleasure for its own sake. Specifically, seeking artistic perfection, intellectual development, and scientific knowledge are looked on as worthwhile goals. Altruism, when it is not fanatically expressed, is treated as desirable. These goals are usually approved for their own sake.
{"title":"A Concept of Happiness","authors":"E. Walter","doi":"10.5840/PRA1987/19881333","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/PRA1987/19881333","url":null,"abstract":"I propose a broad concept of happiness as an ultimate moral goal that is consistent with what reflective people desire and what people generally approve. Broad happiness includes many and various pleasures, a minimum of pain, a predominately active life and awareness of what can be attained. Besides these characteristics, which are found in Mill, I add that mental and physical faculties must be developed in accord with biological potential, people must be able to choose activities that exercise their developed faculties and must be able to achieve many of the goals toward which their activities aim. This claim can be established by considering scientific data and analyzing what moralists usually approve. According to it, intellectual activities will be found to be the most important aspects of happiness. My concept will differ from Mill's in that I reject the notion that happiness is synonymous with pleasure and the absence of pain, although both are part of happiness. Because Mill adopted this definition, his theory produced many anomalies. For example, in order to maintain that intellectual activities are morally superior, Mill was led to introduce qualities of pleasure. This maneuver is inconsistent with his empiricism. Moreover, the activities that are most approved from a moral point of view cannot be explained by the pleasure principle. The broad concept of happiness can account for the primacy of intellectual activities and those activities that are most often morally approved. MILL AND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE Utilitarians would have little difficulty in convincing their peers that pleasure is a good; the difficulty lies in convincing moralists that pleasure is the good. On the surface at least, people seek goals not involving pleasure, approve the lives of non-pleasure seekers, and often treat such lives as models. Great moral systems generally approve striving, hard work, and altruism, while disapproving of pleasure for its own sake. Specifically, seeking artistic perfection, intellectual development, and scientific knowledge are looked on as worthwhile goals. Altruism, when it is not fanatically expressed, is treated as desirable. These goals are usually approved for their own sake.","PeriodicalId":82315,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy research archives (Bowling Green, Ohio : 1982)","volume":"40 1","pages":"137-150"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1987-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.5840/PRA1987/19881333","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71230392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Berkeleian Reading of Hume’s Treatise, Book I","authors":"J. O. Nelson","doi":"10.5840/PRA1987/1988135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/PRA1987/1988135","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":82315,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy research archives (Bowling Green, Ohio : 1982)","volume":"13 1","pages":"245-269"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1987-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.5840/PRA1987/1988135","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71230476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1987-04-01DOI: 10.5840/PRA1987/19881316
T. W. Satre
{"title":"Contracting for Punishment","authors":"T. W. Satre","doi":"10.5840/PRA1987/19881316","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/PRA1987/19881316","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":82315,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy research archives (Bowling Green, Ohio : 1982)","volume":"13 1","pages":"431-438"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1987-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.5840/PRA1987/19881316","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71230145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1987-04-01DOI: 10.5840/PRA1987/19881330
Kenneth R. Westphal
{"title":"Sextus Empiricus Contra René Descartes","authors":"Kenneth R. Westphal","doi":"10.5840/PRA1987/19881330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/PRA1987/19881330","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":82315,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy research archives (Bowling Green, Ohio : 1982)","volume":"13 1","pages":"91-128"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1987-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.5840/PRA1987/19881330","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71230834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1987-04-01DOI: 10.5840/PRA1987/19881319
J. Geller
{"title":"Introspection in Psychology and Philosophy","authors":"J. Geller","doi":"10.5840/PRA1987/19881319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/PRA1987/19881319","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":82315,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy research archives (Bowling Green, Ohio : 1982)","volume":"13 1","pages":"471-480"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1987-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.5840/PRA1987/19881319","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71230292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1987-04-01DOI: 10.5840/PRA1987/19881328
John B. Meixner
{"title":"Frequencies and Possibility","authors":"John B. Meixner","doi":"10.5840/PRA1987/19881328","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/PRA1987/19881328","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":82315,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy research archives (Bowling Green, Ohio : 1982)","volume":"13 1","pages":"73-77"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1987-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.5840/PRA1987/19881328","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71230384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1987-04-01DOI: 10.5840/PRA1987/19881323
G. Percesepe
{"title":"Aspects of Community in Descartes’ Meditationes de Prima Philosophia: With Reference to the First and Second Set of Objections and Replies","authors":"G. Percesepe","doi":"10.5840/PRA1987/19881323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/PRA1987/19881323","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":82315,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy research archives (Bowling Green, Ohio : 1982)","volume":"13 1","pages":"557-586"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1987-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.5840/PRA1987/19881323","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71230488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1987-04-01DOI: 10.5840/PRA1987/19881324
Alicia Roqué
The overwhelming majority of action theories have relied on a Humean model of causality and of explanation; even those theories that explicitly reject aspects of that model uncritically adopt others. The atomistic presuppositions embodied in the model are unable to account for either the dynamic and fabric-like nature of action or the features of control and meaning present therein. It is these atomistic presuppositions that give rise to the "Gettier-like vexations" that are common counterexamples in action theory. The Humean requirement that cause and effect be only contingently connected and generalizable into a covering law is also discussed with respect to the explanation of action. Representatives of the three major approaches to the problem of action: causal (including intentional, volitional, as well as agent causation and reasons-as-causes theories), behaviorist, so-called "contextual", and teleological theories are examined. Awareness of the distinction between human action proper and "mere behavior" so-called can be traced at least as far back as Aristotle, but it has been only about thirty years or so that the study of action became a specialized area of investigation in its own right. At least three major types of theories have been offered of the nature of human action: (1) Causal Theories; (2) Behaviorist-contextual theories, and (3) Teleological theories. The inadequacy of each of these, however, has convinced students of the subject that they are in for a long siege. When encountering what purports to be a novel approach, the distinct and disturbing impression is that the modified version is in fact an old and frayed theory in merely patched-up clothing. Like the various attempts a few years ago to mend the justified true belief analysis of knowledge in the face of ever-recurring Gettier-like objections, the inability of e.g., causal theories of action, despite periodic modifications, to counteract objections such as Chisholm's well known "murder of the rich uncle" example, suggests the possibility that these deficiencies may be due to uncritically accepted presuppositions _common to alL If so, continual patchings-up of the difficulties provide only temporary, superficial relief.
{"title":"Does Action Theory Rest on a Mistake","authors":"Alicia Roqué","doi":"10.5840/PRA1987/19881324","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/PRA1987/19881324","url":null,"abstract":"The overwhelming majority of action theories have relied on a Humean model of causality and of explanation; even those theories that explicitly reject aspects of that model uncritically adopt others. The atomistic presuppositions embodied in the model are unable to account for either the dynamic and fabric-like nature of action or the features of control and meaning present therein. It is these atomistic presuppositions that give rise to the \"Gettier-like vexations\" that are common counterexamples in action theory. The Humean requirement that cause and effect be only contingently connected and generalizable into a covering law is also discussed with respect to the explanation of action. Representatives of the three major approaches to the problem of action: causal (including intentional, volitional, as well as agent causation and reasons-as-causes theories), behaviorist, so-called \"contextual\", and teleological theories are examined. Awareness of the distinction between human action proper and \"mere behavior\" so-called can be traced at least as far back as Aristotle, but it has been only about thirty years or so that the study of action became a specialized area of investigation in its own right. At least three major types of theories have been offered of the nature of human action: (1) Causal Theories; (2) Behaviorist-contextual theories, and (3) Teleological theories. The inadequacy of each of these, however, has convinced students of the subject that they are in for a long siege. When encountering what purports to be a novel approach, the distinct and disturbing impression is that the modified version is in fact an old and frayed theory in merely patched-up clothing. Like the various attempts a few years ago to mend the justified true belief analysis of knowledge in the face of ever-recurring Gettier-like objections, the inability of e.g., causal theories of action, despite periodic modifications, to counteract objections such as Chisholm's well known \"murder of the rich uncle\" example, suggests the possibility that these deficiencies may be due to uncritically accepted presuppositions _common to alL If so, continual patchings-up of the difficulties provide only temporary, superficial relief.","PeriodicalId":82315,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy research archives (Bowling Green, Ohio : 1982)","volume":"13 1","pages":"587-612"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1987-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.5840/PRA1987/19881324","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71230630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1987-04-01DOI: 10.5840/PRA1987/19881331
George Heffernan
In key numbers of The Federalist Publius argues that the only good form of popular government is republican popular government and that the only good form of republican popular government is federal republican popular government. Essential to both arguments is the distinction between "democracy" and "republic"; By the former Publius means a form of popular government in which the citizens assemble in person and administer the affairs of government directly, so that such a society must be confined to a small number of citizens and a little spot; by the latter he means a form of popular government in which the administration of the affairs of government is delegated to a certain number of citizens elected by the rest, that is, in which the scheme of representation takes place, so that such a society can be extended over a large number of citizens and a big country. Despite the great quantity of material which has been written on The Federalist, no one has ever doubted the validity of this distinction. But the present study shows, first, that-contrary to that which one universally supposes to be the case--the distinction which Publius tries to make is not a logically valid one; then, it proves that--again, contrary to that which one universally believes to be so--the really decisive distinction is not the one between "democracy" and "republic", but rather the one between 'bad republics' and 'good republics'; next, it demonstrates that--once again, contrary to that which one universally presupposes to be-it is Publius himself in The Federalist itself who says that that is how it is; and finally, it shows what consequences this original and therefore unique, but nonetheless correct understanding of The Federalist entails for Publius' teaching on republicanism and, by implication, on federalism. Therefore, 'the standard interpretation' of The Federalist will never be the same again.
{"title":"From “Pure Democracy” to ‘Pure Republic’: Publius on the Unique Character of the American Polity","authors":"George Heffernan","doi":"10.5840/PRA1987/19881331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/PRA1987/19881331","url":null,"abstract":"In key numbers of The Federalist Publius argues that the only good form of popular government is republican popular government and that the only good form of republican popular government is federal republican popular government. Essential to both arguments is the distinction between \"democracy\" and \"republic\"; By the former Publius means a form of popular government in which the citizens assemble in person and administer the affairs of government directly, so that such a society must be confined to a small number of citizens and a little spot; by the latter he means a form of popular government in which the administration of the affairs of government is delegated to a certain number of citizens elected by the rest, that is, in which the scheme of representation takes place, so that such a society can be extended over a large number of citizens and a big country. Despite the great quantity of material which has been written on The Federalist, no one has ever doubted the validity of this distinction. But the present study shows, first, that-contrary to that which one universally supposes to be the case--the distinction which Publius tries to make is not a logically valid one; then, it proves that--again, contrary to that which one universally believes to be so--the really decisive distinction is not the one between \"democracy\" and \"republic\", but rather the one between 'bad republics' and 'good republics'; next, it demonstrates that--once again, contrary to that which one universally presupposes to be-it is Publius himself in The Federalist itself who says that that is how it is; and finally, it shows what consequences this original and therefore unique, but nonetheless correct understanding of The Federalist entails for Publius' teaching on republicanism and, by implication, on federalism. Therefore, 'the standard interpretation' of The Federalist will never be the same again.","PeriodicalId":82315,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy research archives (Bowling Green, Ohio : 1982)","volume":"13 1","pages":"1-62"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1987-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.5840/PRA1987/19881331","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71230776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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