Monthly Archives: June 2007

Brian Charlesworth & Deborah Charlesworth

The relentless application of the scientific method of inference from experiment and observation, without reference to religious or governmental authority, has completely transformed our view of our origins and relation to the universe, in less than 500 years. In addition to the intrinsic fascination of the view of the world opened up by science, this has had an enormous impact on philosophy and religion. The findings of science imply that human beings are the product of impersonal forces, and that the habitable world forms a minute part of a universe of immense size and duration. Whatever the religious or philosophical beliefs of individual scientists, the whole programme of scientific research is founded on the assumption that the universe can be understood on such a basis.

Few would dispute that this programme has been spectacularly successful, particularly in the 20th century, which saw such terrible events in human affairs. The influence of science may have indirectly contributed to these events, partly through the social changes triggered by the rise of industrial mass societies, and partly through the undermining of traditional belief systems. Nonetheless, it can be argued that much misery throughout human history could have been avoided by the application of reason, and that the disasters of the 20th century resulted from a failure to be rational rather than a failure of rationality. The wise application of scientific understanding of the world in which we live is the only hope for the future of mankind.

Brian Charlesworth & Deborah Charlesworth, Evolution: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, 2003, pp. 2-3

Samuel Butler

One can bring no greater reproach against a man than to say that he does not set sufficient value upon pleasure, and there is no greater sign of a fool than the thinking that he can tell at once and easily what it is that pleases him. To know this is not easy, and how to extend our knowledge of it is the highest and the most neglected of all arts and branches of education.

Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, London, 1912, ‘On Knowing what Gives us Pleasure’, sect. 1

Derek Parfit

Strawson describes two kinds of philosophy, descriptive, and revisionary. Descriptive philosophy gives reasons for what we instinctively assume, and explains and justifies the unchanging central core in our beliefs about ourselves, and the world we inhabit. I have great respect for descriptive philosophy. But, by temperament, I am a revisionist. […] Philosophers should not only interpret our beliefs; when they are false, they should change them.

Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons, Oxford, 1984, p. x

Carlos Santiago Nino

[T]he rejection of the aggregative approach which characterizes utilitarianism does not mean that it is completely displaced from the moral arena. It remains in reserve to be resorted to when arguments on the basis of rights are not sufficient to reach a conclusion: when reasons about what is correct do not indicate one course of action, because all of them are equally correct or equally incorrect, we must resort to reasons about the maximization of some social goods.

Carlos Santiago Nino, ‘Liberty, Equality and Causality’, Rechtstheorie, vol. 15, no. 1 (1984), p. 31

David Pears

Most people know their own identities. I know who I am, and I can produce enough facts to establish who I am. Anyone who wonders what these facts would be in his own case has only to imagine himself being questioned by the police.

David Pears, ‘Hume on Personal Identity’, in David Pears (ed.), David Hume: A Symposium, London, 1963, p. 43

Yew-Kwang Ng

Consider Mr. C. He believes that, in the presence of uncertainty, the appropriate thing to do is to maximize the expected welfare. (Welfare is used interchangeably with net happiness. For simplicity, consider only choices that do not affect the welfare of others.) Suppose you put C in the privacy of a hotel room with an attractive, young, and willing lady. C can choose to go to bed with her or not to. C knows that the former choice involves a small but not negligible risk of contracting AIDS. He also calculates that the expected welfare of this choice is negative. Nevertheless, he agrees that, provided the lady is beautiful enough, he will choose to go to bed with her. This choice of C, though irrational (at least from the expected welfare point of view), is far from atypical. Rather, I am confident that it applies to at least 70% of adult males (the present writer included).

Yew-Kwang Ng, ‘Happiness, Life Satisfaction, or Subjective Well Being?’

Quentin Smith

[W]e cannot concentrate only on benefactors to humans. Perhaps Peter Singer, the most influential person in promoting the welfare and rights of animals, will ultimately have contributed more to the development of the universe than benefactors merely of humans. Perhaps Singer’s book Animal Liberation will (over the centuries) have increased the happiness, health, and lives of animals to such an extent that it adds up to a greater amount of goodness than the human development that will be the total consequence of (say) Gandhi’s actions.

Quentin Smith, Ethical and Religious Thought in Analytic Philosophy of Language, New Haven, 1997, p. 217

Yew-Kwang Ng

I myself regard enjoyment and suffering (defined more broadly to include milder pain and discomfort) as not only the most important, but ultimately the only important things. Freedom, knowledge, and so on are all important but only because they ultimately promote net welfare (enjoyment minus suffering). Even if they do not completely agree with this strong view regarding enjoyment and suffering, most people will accept that enjoyment and suffering are the most important considerations. Given their importance, the amount of scientific research devoted to them is dismally inadequate. The neglect is partly due to the methodological blunder, which prevents the publication of important results on things that are difficult to measure precisely.

Yew-Kwang Ng, ‘The Case for and Difficulties in Using “Demand Areas” to Measure Changes in Well-Being’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 13, no. 1 (1991), p. 30

Gordon Gallup

I used to tell students that no one ever heard, say, tasted, or touched a mind. So while minds may exist, they fall outside the realm of science. But I have changed my mind.

Gordon Gallup, ‘Do Minds Exist in Species Other than Our Own’, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, vol. 9 (1985), p. 633

F. M. Kamm

Nonconsequentialists argue for the moral importance of many distinctions in how we bring about states of affairs. I try to present and consider the elements of some of these distinctions. A good deal of section I focuses on providing a replacement for a simple harming/not-aiding distinction and revising and even jettisoning the significance for permissibility of conduct of the intention/foresight distinction. A good deal of section III is concerned with examining the possible moral significance of other distinctions (collaboration versus independent action; near versus far). Some moral philosophers (such as Singer and Unger) think that many nonconsequentialist distinctions have no moral importance, and other philosophers (such as Gert) employ distinctions other than harming/nod-aiding and intending/foreseeing. The work of yet others (Kahneman) could be used to argue that the distinctions that some consequentialists emphasize are reducible to distinctions (loss/no-gain) that are suspect. Some of the chapters examine these alternative views. Finally, some philosophers hold foundational theories, like contractualism, that could be used to derive and justify the nonconsequentialist distinctions by an alternative method from the heavily case-based ones I employ.

F. M. Kamm, Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm, Oxford, 2007, pp. 7-8