ABSTRACT: In the search for a more fine-grained criterion of propositional identity in order to provide an adequate analysis of sense and thought, I propose a revision of the ontology of the Frege and Church theory of types of sense and denotation, and I set up a natural predicative propositional logic that explains their logical form in terms of acts of predication. I also define a more subjective notion of truth according to an agent and a new strong propositional implication. The intensional logic thus set forth explains why human agents possess a minimal rationality. I conclude by proposing a new axiomatisation of a minimal epistemic logic.

ABSTRACT: This essay aims at clarifying the content of Jonas’s philosophy of responsibility. First, an analysis is given of the connection between nihilism and modern technology. Jonas’s contribution to the problem of ethics in this context is prepared by an interpretation of the way in which fear and the myth respectively function as motivations for his work. This paves the way to a reconsideration of the content of Jonas’s philosophy, whereby two notions of responsibility should be identified: (1) responsibility as ethicity and (2) responsibility as foundational rule. With this distinction a number of problematic issues associated with his ethics of responsibility can be clarified.

ABSTRACT: The aim of this two-part article is to develop a non-foundational re-reading of Jonas’ ethics. In Part 1 the argument is situated within Jonas’s concern with and understanding of nihilism. In order to delineate the proposed non-foundational reading, a philosophical and a theological discursive type in Jonas’s work is identified and the limits and failures thereof are discussed. In stead of the metaphysical foundation of ethicity, a re-reading of his work is developed out of his myth. This reading maintains the initial aim of defeating nihilism. The limitations and possibilities of this alternative reading of the philosophy of responsibility are explored.

ABSTRACT: When considering normative concepts, such as distributive justice, one must consider both the question how concepts can have normative force and which particular conceptions of these concepts have this normative force. In this article I consider the view that the human capacity for autonomy accounts for normativity, and argue that adopting this view commits one to a responsibility-sensitive theory of distributive justice. This conclusion puts me directly at odds with the work of John Rawls, who derives his responsibility-insensitive difference principle from a similar account of autonomy. However, I argue that such an argument would be based on a mischaracterisation of what is significant about the human capacity for autonomy.

ABSTRACT: In this paper, I raise the following question: can the ethical thought of Jurgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel provide us with a way of showing that morality is a rational requirement? The answer I give is that (unfortunately) it cannot. I argue for this claim by showing that a decisive objection to Alan Gewirth’s line of thought in Reason and Morality also applies to discourse ethical arguments that try to show an inescapable commitment to a moral principle.

ABSTRACT: The two main goals of this paper are to question the possibility of the existence of moral emotions and to decipher the notion of moral emotion. I start with a brief critical analysis of various philosophical understandings of moral emotions before setting out an evolutionary line of approach that seems promising at first glance: according to the functional evolutionary approach, moral emotions have the evolutionary function of sustaining cooperation. It turns out ultimately that this approach has its own drawbacks. I finally propose to give up the idea of moral property intrinsic to some emotions; “moral” seems instead merely to label emotions (or more precisely emotional episodes) when they occur in morally relevant contexts.

ABSTRACT: In written work and a lecture at the 2008 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences that was co-sponsored by the Canadian Philosophical Association, Margaret Somerville has claimed that allowing same-sex marriage is unethical because doing so violates the inherently procreative function of marriage and thereby undermines the rights and duties that exist between children and their biological parents. In my paper, I offer five reasons for thinking that Somerville’s argument for this conclusion is unpersuasive. In each case her argument either begs important questions about same-sex marriage or else relies on insufficient evidence to justify excluding a vulnerable minority group from participating in a state-sponsored social institution.

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the relationship between the claim that zombies are logically/metaphysically possible and the position that phenomenal consciousness is epiphenomenal. It is often taken that the former entails the latter, and that therefore any implausibility in the notion of conscious epiphenomenalism calls into question the genuine possibility of zombies. Four ways in which the zombist might respond are examined, and I argue that two—those most commonly encountered—are inadequate, but the others—one of which is rarely formulated and the other new—are more forceful. The upshot, nevertheless, is that the zombist may indeed face an unwelcome commitment to conscious epiphenomenalism.

ABSTRACT: This paper suggests that it is largely a want of notional distinctions which fosters the “explanatory gap” that has beset the study of consciousness since T. Nagel’s revival of the topic. Modifying Ned Block’s controversial claim that we should countenance a “phenomenal-consciousness” which exists in its own right, we argue that there is a way to recuperate the intuitions he appeals to without engaging in an onerous reification of the facet in question. By renewing with the full type/token/tone trichotomy developed by C. S. Peirce, we think the distinctness Block (rightly) calls attention to can be seen as stemming not from any separate module lurking within the mind, but rather from our ability to prescind qualities from occurrences.

ABSTRACT: Careful analysis of the details of the text allows us to refine Socrates’ understanding of manliness. Laches submits without a fight to Socrates’ objections to his definition of manliness as prudent perseverance. He does not appreciate that Socrates objections merely require that he make his definition more precise. Nicias refuses to consider objections to his understanding of manliness as avoiding actions that entail risk. The two sets of objections show that manliness entails first calculating that a risk is worth taking and then subsequently not rejecting that calculation without due consideration.

ABSTRACT: In a seminal article on the origin of philosophical idealism in the western philosophical tradition, Myles Burnyeat argued that idealism could not have come about prior to Descartes. According to Burnyeat, Descartes introduced a radical version of external world scepticism which made it possible for subsequent philosophers (Berkeley, e.g.) to argue that reality is composed exclusively of immaterial minds and their contents (ideas). I argue that (1) the success of Burnyeat’s argument depends upon the meaning of the term ‘idealism’ and (2) that one of Burnyeat’s definitions of the term does not rule out the possibility of Pre-Cartesian idealism.