In Mike Almeida’s recent post, this topic came up: what is it for a person to harm someone? I’m interested in a more general question: what is it for an event or state of affairs to harm someone? Here’s the view I like best: (H) […] Read More
In his seminal paper, “Death”, Nagel writes the following: Someone who holds that all goods and evils must be temporally assignable states of the person may of course try to bring more complicated cases into line by pointing to the pleasure or pain that the […] Read More
Laurie Shrage has kindly accepted our invitation to become a contributor to PEA Soup. Laurie is a Professor at California State Polytechnic University. As noted previously on this site, she has also started up the APA Governance blog, and we look forward to her contributions […] Read More
First, a sort of apology: this post is a bit lengthy, and it may be a bit more “metaphysicsy” than the usual on PEA Soup, but it’s on a topic that has an important bearing on the ongoing debates over the role metaphysics, and in […] Read More
Jimmy Lenman, President of the British Society for Ethical Theory, sends along the following reminder. It looks like a very good conference. The annual Conference of the British Society for Ethical Theory will be held on 10th-12th July 2006 at the University of Southampton. Papers […] Read More
Below the fold are most of the ethics-related sessions at the upcoming Central Division APA. If I’ve missed any session that you think should be added to the list, please feel free to add it in the comment section. Click here for a copy of […] Read More
The marginal cases argument (MCA) has been used very effectively in defense of the direct moral standing of sentient non-humans. Any being that has direct moral standing is such that our treatment of them matters directly, independently of how it affects others. Direct moral standing […] Read More
In another thread, A.N. Prior’s attempted refutation of the is/ought gap came up. Here’s one of Prior’s examples: a. Tea-drinking is common in England.b. Therefore, tea-drinking is common in England, or all New Zealanders ought to be shot. (a) entails (b), (a) is descriptive, and […] Read More
I’ve been struggling with the question, What feature must a requirement exhibit in order to qualify as a categorical imperative?