ABSTRACT: Since Goodman’s classic monograph (1954), it has been known that any reasonable theory of induction must involve non formal elements. However, the right to make theoretical use of such an element comes with responsibilities. This article argues for an apparently new desideratum for a theory of induction: namely, that it accounts for the dynamics of the non formal element used. None of the main existing theories of induction satisfies this desideratum. The recognition of the importance of dynamics does however have the advantage of suggesting where to look for a more acceptable and complete theory of induction.

ABSTRACT: Recent evolutionary thinking suggests that morality may have three distinct roots, corresponding to the three “master concepts” in the history of philosophical ethics: sympathy, virtue, and duty. Evolutionary biologists are nearly unanimous in the view that there are two distinct mechanisms that can generate altruism in other animal species, and there is increasing recognition that there must be a third mechanism at work among humans. Altruism in the biological sense is not the same thing as morality, but it is a precursor to morality. An examination of such precursors can help us gain a deeper understanding of morality proper.

ABSTRACT: Individual rational judgment, of the kind required for justification in cognition or morals, is fundamentally socially and historically conditioned. I argue for this by defending key themes from Kant’s and Hegel’s accounts of rational judgment and justification, including the “autonomy” of rational judgment and one key point of Hegel’s account of “mutual recognition.” These themes are rooted in Kant’s and Hegel’s transformation of the modern natural law tradition, which originates the properly pragmatic account of rationality, which affords genuine rational justification, and which provides for realism about the objects of empirical knowledge and strict objectivity about moral norms.

ABSTRACT: In the logical tradition of analytical philosophy, to understand the meaning of an utterance is to understand its truth conditions. In the tradition of natural language analysis, meaning is related to language use. Since Grice, meaning is linked to speakers’ attitudes and actions. Following Austin, Searle, and Vanderveken, to mean is to use words with the intention of performing illocutionary acts. Such acts have felicity conditions instead of truth conditions. The aim of my work is to clarify the nature of meaning in the second tradition. In my view, to mean something is mainly to attempt to perform illocutionary acts. Any attempt is an intentional action rather than an attitude.

ABSTRACT: Are individual citizens of imperfect democracies morally responsible for unjust wars waged by their state? Moral responsibility for unjust wars involves both retrospective and social responsibility. Citizens of imperfect democracies are retrospectively responsible when they choose to vote for a leader they know will wage an unjust war. This situation may occur very rarely. For example, US citizens did not have this political option at the outset of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. However, even when citizens are not retrospectively responsible they have the social responsibility to engage in collective action to address the harms unjust war causes.

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: 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.