In “Contractualism and Utilitarianism” Scanlon introduces what he calls “philosophical utilitarianism” (PU). PU is the view that “the only fundamental moral facts are facts about individual well-being.” PU is supposed to be answering a different question from the one answered by more familiar versions of utilitarianism. It is […] Read More
Winter is a good time for a bit of navel-gazing. Blogging is an interesting medium of philosophical discourse; its virtues and vices, it seems to me at any rate, are considerably different from those of the more standard, tenure-relevant sorts of philosophical work. Posts and […] Read More
Inspired by the Philosophy Job Market Wiki, I decided to start a wiki that will allow authors, editors, and referees to share information on philosophy journals: their editorial practices, response times, backlogs on publishing, policies on providing comments to authors, etc. There is, I think, […] Read More
Having just taught Aristotle’s ethics, I want to discuss an element of his ethical theory that I find plausible but lack a satisfactory account of why it’s plausible: In contrast to the Socratic/Platonic tradition, which held that one must know the good in order to […] Read More
As Brian Leiter reports, Robert Solomon passed away suddenly on January 2nd. Solomon’s philosophical interests were jaw-droppingly broad, even within ethics alone–virtue ethics (Aristotle’s and Nietzsche’s versions), business ethics, emotions, existentialism, happiness. But his interests were all motivated, from what I could tell, by a […] Read More
Al, Betty, Carla, Dan, and Ed accept the claim, “Utilitarianism is true.” They accept it because they have been told it by their revered professor, Dr. Black. In fact, their reverence for Dr. Black is so great that they would revise any other claim they […] Read More
We are pleased to announce that Valerie Tiberius has accepted our invitation to become the latest contributor to PEA Soup. Valerie is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. She specializes in Ethical Theory and Metaethics, especially issues involving well-being and practical reason. […] Read More
The great discussion on the previous posting got so much off the topic that I thought I’d start another threat just on the interesting issue we were discussing. This is Parfit’s account of state and object given reasons. I’m sure we’ve touched in this in […] Read More
Here’s an interesting quote from Stephen Darwall’s entry on “Normativity” in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: On one popular view, morality is normative for action by its very nature, so that to say that an action is wrong is to imply that one ought not […] Read More