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Intergenerational Equity

Wilfred Beckerman and Joanna Pasek

in Justice, Posterity, and the Environment

Discusses one principle that has been suggested as a guide to the way we ought to take account of the interests of future generations, namely the principle of intergenerational ‘equity’ and its ... More

Discusses one principle that has been suggested as a guide to the way we ought to take account of the interests of future generations, namely the principle of intergenerational ‘equity’ and its related claim of intergenerational equality, particularly in spheres such as the way we should share out ‘finite’ resources among generations. This chapter examines the possible arguments in favour of intergenerational egalitarianism and concludes that they are difficult to defend. It is proposed that egalitarianism should be replaced by the principle of ‘threshold prioritarianism’, so that our moral obligation to future generations should be based on a humanitarian concern to avoid policies that may impoverish them.Less

Scanlon versus Moore on Goodness

Philip Stratton-Lake and Brad Hooker

in Metaethics after Moore

This chapter offers a partial defence of Scanlon's buck-passing account of the relation between base properties, goodness, and practical reasons. Jonathan Dancy and Roger Crisp have both argued that ... More

This chapter offers a partial defence of Scanlon's buck-passing account of the relation between base properties, goodness, and practical reasons. Jonathan Dancy and Roger Crisp have both argued that even if Scanlon's buck-passing account is superior to the Moorean account, there are other contending accounts that Scanlon does not consider. Against Dancy and Crisp, Stratton–Lake and Hooker argue that these proposed accounts, although genuine alternatives to the Moorean and buck-passing accounts, are nevertheless deeply problematic and do nothing to harm the case for Scanlon's account. Regarding Scanlon's two arguments, the authors find that the parsimony argument, once clarified, does offer some support for the buck-passing view, but that the appeal to value pluralism does not. Finally, they defend Scanlon's account against an ‘open question’ worry about the relation between the fact that something has reason-giving properties and its goodness.Less

Interlude: Queer Talk, 1979–2010

Christopher Grobe

in Art of Confession: The Performance of Self from Robert Lowell to Reality TV

This essay centers around two queer British men who came to New York to perform the story of their lives in a confessional mode: Quentin Crisp in 1979 with his show An Evening with Quentin Crisp, and ... More

This essay centers around two queer British men who came to New York to perform the story of their lives in a confessional mode: Quentin Crisp in 1979 with his show An Evening with Quentin Crisp, and Bette Bourne in 2010 with his performance A Life in Three Acts. Both shows posed as evenings of plain, immediate chat, but both, in fact, were complex, remediated things. This essay argues that such complex media schemes are, in fact, a crucial characteristic of confessional monologue, which has pervaded American theater since the 1980s.Less

Why Take Morality to be Objective?

Angus Ritchie

in From Morality to Metaphysics: The Theistic Implications of our Ethical Commitments

This chapter defends our pre-philosophical commitment to moral objectivism. It is an essential prelude to the main argument, for it establishes the standard which the rest of the book will use to ... More

This chapter defends our pre-philosophical commitment to moral objectivism. It is an essential prelude to the main argument, for it establishes the standard which the rest of the book will use to determine which secular accounts are ‘sufficiently’ objective. The chapter defends two distinct claims. The first is that in their practical deliberation, all human beings seek to approximate a truth which goes beyond their sentiments or the conventions of their culture. The second is that this quest is not in vain: which is to say, that humans have some capacity to attune their beliefs more closely to that moral truth, when they honestly and carefully seek it out. It draws on arguments made by David Enoch, Ronald Dworkin and Roger Crisp, and considers the case against moral realism presented by John Mackie.Less

Competing Pictures

Jonathan Dancy

in Ethics Without Principles

Argues against views alternative to particularism in detail, including the views of McNaughton and Rawling, Crisp, Raz, Scanlon, Hooker, Parfit, and also appeals to Aristotelian philosophy of science.

Interpretations I: edwards and modern philosophy

Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott

in The Theology of Jonathan Edwards

This chapter explores some of the intellectual trajectories of Edwards both in the United States and abroad. Although Edwards never produced a distinct philosophical school of thought, continuity can ... More

This chapter explores some of the intellectual trajectories of Edwards both in the United States and abroad. Although Edwards never produced a distinct philosophical school of thought, continuity can nevertheless be identified. On the American scene, common themes can be found in William Ellery Channing (unitarianism), Ralph Waldo Emerson (transcendentalism), Josiah Royce and William James (Harvard school, pragmatism), and even John Dewey (instrumentalism). More recently, the same can be said for William Harder Squires (German-trained American), Stephen H. Daniel (American), Miklos Vetö (Hungarian-French), and Oliver Crisp (British). As such, it is clear that Edwards's thought continues to be of interest to philosophers and has evoked complex, divergent, and even antithetical interpretations and responses.Less

Henry Sidgwick and Beyond

Bart Schultz

in The Happiness Philosophers: The Lives and Works of the Great Utilitarians

This chapter examines Henry Sidgwick's utilitarianism. It first considers Sidgwick's agnosticism before discussing his views on subjects ranging from hedonism and colonialism to poverty, common-sense ... More

This chapter examines Henry Sidgwick's utilitarianism. It first considers Sidgwick's agnosticism before discussing his views on subjects ranging from hedonism and colonialism to poverty, common-sense morality, and politics and political economy. It then looks at some of Sidgwick's writings, such as The Development of European Polity, The Elements of Politics, Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant, and The Methods of Ethics. It also explores the current reconstructions and appropriations of many of Sidgwick's positions in the works of philosophers like Roger Crisp, Rob Shaver, Peter Singer, Derek Parft, and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, and argues that they have contributed to a true renaissance of hedonistic and rational intuition-based utilitarianism (or at least rationalistic consequentialism) that few saw coming even in the late twentieth century.Less

The Intentionality of Enjoyment

Mark Textor

in Brentano's Mind

Brentano sees a very close relation between enjoyment and perceptual consciousness. Enjoying an activity is, Brentano proposed, an intuitive model of awareness of an activity. The chapter outlines ... More

Brentano sees a very close relation between enjoyment and perceptual consciousness. Enjoying an activity is, Brentano proposed, an intuitive model of awareness of an activity. The chapter outlines the Aristotelian background of Brentano’s view of enjoyment, highlighting four suggestions Aristotle made about pleasure. I will assess Brentano’s arguments for the view that the proper objects of enjoyment are only activities (Hedonic Energism), and defend this view against the claims of the Hedonic Objectivists and Subjectivists. In order to understand Brentano’s development of Hedonic Energism, as well as the range of alternatives, we need to take into account that ‘enjoy’ is a polysemous word. Since there is a basic sense of ‘enjoy’ in which we can truly say that we enjoy activities, I conclude that Hedonic Energism is defensible.Less

Queens and queenliness: Quentin Crisp as Orlando’s Elizabeth I

Glyn Davis

in The British monarchy on screen

In 1992, Quentin Crisp appeared on cinema screens as Elizabeth I in Sally Potter’s Orlando; the following year, he provided the “Alternative Queen’s Message” on Channel 4 television on Christmas Day, ... More

In 1992, Quentin Crisp appeared on cinema screens as Elizabeth I in Sally Potter’s Orlando; the following year, he provided the “Alternative Queen’s Message” on Channel 4 television on Christmas Day, going head-to-head with Elizabeth II. This chapter will revisit this cultural moment, examining the significance of Crisp’s perfonnances of “queenliness”. The late 1980s/early 1990s heralded a shift away from the lesbian and gay politics of the 1970s and “80s towards a more confrontational queer activism. Orlando can be seen as an example of early queer cinema, given its play with gender and sexuality, and Potter’s casting of Tilda Swinton (a regular collaborator of Derek Jannan). Other queer films of the time also unsettle and complicate particular moments in history, and equally employ a pointedly artificial mise-en-scene (Jannan’s Edward II, Julien’s Looking for Langston, Kalin’s Swoon). How does Crisp’s appearance–as an embodiment of the flaming, camp homosexual–complicate the film’s politics of sexuality? Does it articulate a political “clearing of the ground”, with an older gay culture (Elizabeth) giving way to a fresh queer one (Orlando)? This chapter will consider the film as a provocative transition between particular forms of cultural production–bound up with changing attitudes towards the monarchy itself.Less

Australia’s ‘Talent for Bureaucracy’ and the Atrophy of Federalism

J. R. Nethercote

in Only in Australia: The History, Politics, and Economics of Australian Exceptionalism

The chapter deals with the apparent impossibility of an informed discussion and appreciation of federalism in Australia, despite the fact that federalism is pervasive in the ordinary working of ... More

The chapter deals with the apparent impossibility of an informed discussion and appreciation of federalism in Australia, despite the fact that federalism is pervasive in the ordinary working of Australian life. It argues that this is because the intellectual fabric of the country in all its strands is deaf to the federal character of Australia’s character. Additionally, the force of bureaucratic mind set in Australia’s governance distorts genuine federalism—the coexistence of sovereign powers in one territory—into a bureaucratic administration tree; where a ‘head office’ enforces uniformity over ‘regional branches’. These contentions are explored by drawing on works of Crisp, Greenwood, and Weber.Less

We’re Number One

George Sher

in Me, You, Us: Essays

When a person must choose among actions that will affect both him and other people, he generally takes the others’ interests to have some rational weight, but not as much as his own. This familiar ... More

When a person must choose among actions that will affect both him and other people, he generally takes the others’ interests to have some rational weight, but not as much as his own. This familiar view is intermediate between two others: first, that only the individual’s own interests give him reason to act, and, second, that everyone else’s interests count just as much as his own. Of these two polar views, each has had forceful proponents and each can be traced to a compelling starting point. By contrast, the intermediate view that actually informs most practice seems much harder to defend. The question in this paper is whether that view is simply an unprincipled compromise between two powerful but irreconcilable intellectual pressures or whether, instead, there is some positive reason to accept itLess

Dispositions, Character, and the Value of Acts

Bradford Cokelet

in Character: New Directions from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology

Chapter 10 focuses on virtue ethics, specifically the central virtue ethical thesis that the ethical quality of an agent’s actions is a function of her dispositional character. Skeptics of this view ... More

Chapter 10 focuses on virtue ethics, specifically the central virtue ethical thesis that the ethical quality of an agent’s actions is a function of her dispositional character. Skeptics of this view quite often distinguish between an agent’s particular intentions or occurrent motives and dispositional facts about her character, contending that if we are attentive to this distinction, we will see that the virtue ethical thesis is false. While acknowledging the legitimacy of this distinction, chapter 10 presents a new interpretation and defense of the virtue ethical thesis and thus attempts to rebuff the skeptical attacks advanced by Thomas Hurka, Julia Markovits, and Roger Crisp. The key is for virtue ethicists to adopt a personal values conception of character instead of a reliable trait conception.Less

Other Evaluative Concepts and Properties

Richard Rowland

in The Normative and the Evaluative: The Buck-Passing Account of Value

A final type of objection to the buck-passing account of value (BPA) argues that it encounters problems with evaluative properties beyond goodness simpliciter and final value. Roger Crisp and Pekka ... More

A final type of objection to the buck-passing account of value (BPA) argues that it encounters problems with evaluative properties beyond goodness simpliciter and final value. Roger Crisp and Pekka Väyrynen have argued that BPA must extend to provide an account of certain thick concepts, namely thick evaluative concepts, but provides an implausible account of the thick evaluative. This chapter argues that if BPA must extend to the thick evaluative, it provides a plausible account of the thick evaluative. W. D. Ross argued that to have certain pro-attitudes towards an object, such as to be in a state of admiration towards something, is partially to think of the object of these pro-attitudes as good. So accounts of goodness like BPA are circular. However, this chapter argues that BPA can accommodate Ross’s view of pro-attitudes without circularity and that alternatives to BPA cannot provide a more informative account of what it is to have a pro-attitude than BPA.Less