https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

Frances Mei Hardin, MD, MSMA member since 2017, is in the Department of Otolaryngology, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri. Above, she is shown as MSMA Physician of the Day at the Missouri Capitol in 2018.

Contact: ude.iruossim.htlaeh@fnidrah






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Disclaimer

This article was not sponsored by Easton bats, Headspace, Calm, Sycamore Creek Farms, Pilot, or Casamigos, but if any of these institutions would like to reach out, I’ll be available.

What We Owe To Each Other.

From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis

Some arguments for the subjectivity of value are premised on the absence of any reference to values in the objective world as described by the natural sciences. According to these arguments, it is a necessary condition for the existence of objective values that values form part of what John Mackie called ‘the fabric of the world’ (Mackie 1977, 15). On this view, objectivity entails mind independence: the domain of objectivity is a domain of existence independent of all thought and experience of it. It is a domain that could form the content of a representation that presupposes no particular perspective on the world — what has variously been called ‘the absolute conception’, or a View from nowhere’ (c.f. Williams 1985; Nagel 1986). Given these assumptions, the subjectivity of value follows from the further claim that values are not mind independent entities with a non-eliminable place in an absolute conception of reality.1 Given that we can only make sense of values with reference to a perspective on the world of beings disposed to value some things over others, there are no objective values, and some form of subjectivism about value must be true.2

Values and Secondary Qualities

INTRODUCTION 1. When We Are Ourselves 2. Agency, Reason and the Good 3. Incommensurability and Agency 4. Explaining Normativity: On Rationality and the Justification of Reason 5. Explaining Normativity: Reason and the Will 6. 6. Notes on Objectivity and Value 7. Moral Change and Social Relativism 8. Mixing Values 9. The Value of Practice 10. The Truth in Particularism 11. The Moral Point of View 12. The Amoralist 13. The Central Conflict: Morality and Self-Interest Index

Engaging Reason@@@Engaging Reason: On the Theory of Value and Action

The relationship between sustainable development's prime goal, human wellbeing, and the natural environment has been narrowly conceived. This paper focuses on the possibility and the implications of treating the natural environment as a ‘constituent’, or internal element, of the concepts of wellbeing and poverty, as opposed to a ‘determinant’, or instrumental, external factor. Our review of philosophical accounts and conceptual frameworks of wellbeing and poverty suggests that treating the environment as a constituent element is philosophically sound, conceptually robust and empirically grounded. We argue that failing to consider these missing environmental aspects can result in an incomplete capturing of the multiple dimensions of wellbeing and poverty, and their underlying drivers. This broader framing of the environment–wellbeing relationship has the potential to inform a new generation of individual level wellbeing and poverty indicators, creating measures of multidimensional poverty that reflect the broadened scope ambitiously articulated in the Sustainable Development Goals. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Sustainable Development published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/sd.1692

Poorer without It? The Neglected Role of the Natural Environment in Poverty and Wellbeing

According to epistemic instrumentalists the normativity of evidence for belief is best explained in terms of the practical utility of forming evidentially supported beliefs. Traditional arguments for instrumentalism—arguments based on naturalism and motivation—lack suasive force against opponents. A new argument for the view—the Argument from Coincidence—is presented. The argument shows that only instrumentalists can avoid positing an embarrassing coincidence between the practical value of believing in accordance with one’s evidence, and the existence of reasons so to believe. Responses are considered and shown to be inadequate.

In defence of instrumentalism about epistemic normativity

Moral error theories are often rejected by appeal to ‘companions in guilt’ arguments. The most popular form of companions in guilt argument takes epistemic reasons for belief as a ‘companion’ and proceeds by analogy. I show that this strategy fails. I claim that the companions in guilt theorist must understand epistemic reasons as evidential support relations if her argument is to be dialectically effective. I then present a dilemma. Either epistemic reasons are evidential support relations or they are not. If they are not, then the companions in guilt argument fails. If they are, then a reduction of epistemic reasons to evidential support relations becomes available and, consequently, epistemic reasons cease to be a viable ‘companion’ for moral reasons. I recommend this structure of argument over existing strategies within the literature and defend my claims against recent objections from companions in guilt theorists.

/pdf/good-news-for-moral-error-theorists-a-master-argument-1mlznr7ggw.pdf

Good News for Moral Error Theorists: A Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies

Why Companions in Guilt Arguments Won't Work

In engaging with the repugnant conclusion many contemporary philosophers, economists and social scientists make claims about what a minimally good life is like. For example, some claim that such a life is quite good by contemporary standards, and use this to defend classical utilitarianism, whereas others claim that it is not, and use this to uphold the challenge that the repugnant conclusion poses to classical utilitarianism. I argue that many of these claims—by both sides—are not well-founded. We have no sufficiently clear sense of what a minimally good life is like. It is a result of this that the repugnant conclusion doesn’t license us in drawing any interesting conclusions.

/pdf/does-the-repugnant-conclusion-have-any-probative-force-1axbqbhr1d.pdf

Christopher Cowie

Papers

Poorer without It? The Neglected Role of the Natural Environment in Poverty and Wellbeing

In defence of instrumentalism about epistemic normativity

Good News for Moral Error Theorists: A Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies

Why Companions in Guilt Arguments Won't Work

Does the repugnant conclusion have any probative force