A former Prime Minister of Israel is alleged to have said that her country would never ascend to the status of authentic statehood until it possessed certain well-known social attributes — organized crime, prostitution, and corruption. These features, while obviously undesirable, were she felt, reliable indices of societal maturation. This anecdote is suggestive in understanding current events pertaining to the field of applied ethics.

Philosophers have produced a massive body of opinion and argument on a diverse range of subjects under the rubric of applied (or practical) ethics. Moreover, they have assumed positions on various panels, commissions, governmental bodies and committees in the hope of making an informed contribution to the formulation of institutional and public policy. These accomplishments have begun to elicit the kinds of attributes commonly associated with philosophical maturation — exposées, debunkings, refutations, and ideologically informed critiques.

In this paper, we outline a theory of the nature of self-directed agents. What is distinctive about self-directed agents is their ability to anticipate interaction processes and to evaluate their performance, and thus their sensitivity to context. They can improve performance relative to goals, and can, in certain instances, construct new goals. We contrast self-directedness with reactive action processes that are not modifiable by the agent, though they may be modified by supra-agent processes such as populational adaptation or external design.

Self-directedness lies at the nexus of issues concerning the evolution and nature of intentionality, intelligence, and agency. It provides some insight into the evolution of intelligence because it helps explain how organisms are able to manage variable interaction processes, e.g., a hunting strategy that varies with prey type, ground condition, and hunger level. Simple self-directed organisms like bumblebees manage variability in one or a few dimensions.

Cosmopolitanism, as a moral idea, holds that individuals are the ultimate units of moral worth and are entitled to equal consideration, regardless of contingencies such as citizenship or nationality. In one common interpretation, cosmopolitan justice not only regards individuals as the basic subjects of moral concern, but it also requires distributive principles to transcend national affiliations and to apply equally to all persons of the world. As Simon Caney puts it, “persons’ entitlements should not be determined by factors such as their nationality or citizenship.“

Now, we stand outcast and starving,

Mid the wonders we have made… .

(From ‘Solidarity Forever,’ by Ralph Chaplin)

I belong to a school of thought which has been called analytical Marxism. Some of the partisans of this position, and that includes me, are deeply engaged by questions in moral and political philosophy which have not, in the past, attracted the attention of Marxists. We are concerned with exactly what a commitment to equality requires, and with exactly what sort of obligations productive and talented people have to people who are relatively unproductive, or handicapped, or in special need. We seek a precise definition of what exploitation is, and we want to know exactly why it is wrong.

Within both philosophy and psychology, a new pro-emotion consensus is replacing the old dogmas that emotions disrupt practical rationality, that they are at best arational, if not outright irrational, and that we can understand what is really central to human cognition without studying them. Emotions are now commonly viewed as evolved capacities that are integral to our practical rationality. An infinite mind, unencumbered by a body, might get along just fine without emotions; but we finite embodied creatures need them if we are to be capable of responding appropriately to our reasons and navigating in a risky world with poor information, limited attention, and restricted computational power. Emotions are clever design solutions to the problem of making fast decisions in response to significant practical problems posed by the natural and social worlds: we perceive a danger and fear immediately primes us to take protective action. On this view, the theory of emotions is an essential part of a theory of ecologically situated and constrained rationality - that is to say, of human rationality (Samuels et al. 1999; Gigerenzer 2000).

Philosophy begins in wonder, or astonishment. We start out by wondering about problems that are ‘there,’ ready at hand for us as human beings (ta procheira). The natural response is flight from ignorance. Ignorance is simply the privation of knowledge, or understanding, and we have knowledge most of all when we understand first causes and principles. Hence it is part of our nature as human beings to desire to know the causes and principles of things.

The first causes and principles are the most knowable, and the other (knowable) things are known through these causes. Our knowledge is systematic, and we are systematic understanders. Some things we understand through themselves. The rest we understand by systematically relating it to what is known through itself. Since by nature we desire to know, and since we do succeed in knowing, it follows that we are by nature systematic understanders.

Jane is calmly strolling through the forest one lovely day. Suddenly, a large spider drops in front of her face. She immediately freezes; her heart races; her hands tremble; her face broadcasts “fear.” She screams and runs away. Both before and after, she concedes that spiders in this forest are harmless.

Jane's reaction to the spider contrasts greatly with the way she normally reacts to events. Normally, or so the story goes, Jane weighs her options thoughtfully, choosing a course of action consistent with her beliefs and with the greatest benefit. Indeed, her reaction to the spider contrasts so greatly with calm, rational, deliberate, belief-consistent action that traditional folk psychology supposed two different kinds of mechanism are at work: animal-like emotion (located in the heart and gut) versus human reason (located in the mind). Her emotion explains her reaction to the spider. Her emotion made her do it.

Kathryn Morgan has introduced us to a typology of ‘the ways in which women’s moral voice and her sense of moral integrity are twisted and destroyed by patriarchal ideology and lived experience.’ She claims that this experience can induce in women ‘a sense of confusion and genuine moral madness.’

I am in agreement with much of what Morgan says. However, I suspect that some others might find her case less convincing than I for the reason that she supports her claims by an appeal to classical philosophical literature and what we might loosely call ‘sociological observations.’ One can imagine the easy retort—‘Yes, well, it’s true that Aristotle, Aquinas, Rousseau and Kant did say those silly things about women, but their remarks were mere asides and no one takes them seriously in this matter any more anyway.

Foundationalism in epistemology imposes two demands on the beliefs of intelligent inquirers: (1) that current beliefs be justified, and (2) that there be foundational premisses and principles of reasoning that are self-certifying on the basis of which the merits of other current beliefs and principles may be derived. Many anti-foundationalists give up (2) but not (1). They demand that current beliefs be justified by showing these beliefs to be integrated into a systematically satisfactory network of beliefs. Pragmatists belong among those who give up both (2) and (1).

Pragmatists do not think that the project of justifying current beliefs is implementable. In this respect, they are sceptics. Such scepticism does not imply that because agent X at time t cannot justify his current beliefs, he should cease having them. Scepticism about reasons does not imply scepticism with respect to belief. In “The Fixation of Belief” Peirce explicitly dismissed doxastic scepticism when he observed that merely writing down a question challenging some current assumption is not sufficient to create the sort of doubt that should occasion an inquiry.

Theorizing is a distinctive activity. Within almost any discipline, for example, one finds a recognized distinction between theorists and nontheorists, theoretical work and non-theoretical work. To be sure, the distinction is often a matter of degree. Typically, theorists are identified by their commitment to developing an understanding of their subject matter that possesses certain characteristic features- they aim for generality, comprehensiveness, coherence, well-foundedness, and explanatoriness. They aim to formulate and justify systematic representational systems.

Theorizing is not to be confused with reflection, which can be more or less lacking in theoretical ambition. Nor is theorizing to be confused with criticism, which can be piecemeal. Theorizing is a form of reflection, and it can be critical, but theories can be vindicatory, even apologetic.

Recent work in cognitive science highlights the importance of exemplar- based know-how in supporting human expertise. Influenced by this model, certain accounts of moral knowledge now stress exemplarbased, non-sentential know-how at the expense of rule-and-principle based accounts. I shall argue, however, that moral thought and reason cannot be understood by reference to either of these roles alone. Moral cognition — like other forms of ‘advanced’ cognition — depends crucially on the subtle interplay and interaction of multiple factors and forces and especially (or so I argue) between the use of linguistic tools and formulations and more biologically basic forms of thought and reason.

One of the roles of matter in Aristotle's philosophy, according to well-established historical tradition, is to provide a principle of individuation. This tradition has been challenged from time to time. Some historians, noting that it is form rather than matter that wears the metaphysical trousers for Aristotle, have tried to give form the role of providing a principle of individuation. Others have suggested that there is no such principle at all to be found in Aristotle's works. This ongoing dispute has been frequently flawed by a failure to be sufficiently clear precisely what problem a principle of individuation is supposed to provide an answer to.

A designator a of an object x is rigid in Kripke's sense if and only if (i) for every possible world w, if x exists in w, then a designates x with respect to w and (ii) there is no possible world with respect to which a designates something other than x. Alternatively, but to the same effect, a is rigid just in case neither the sentence:

nor the sentence:

has an interpretation on which it is true. This alternative seems to me preferable: the concept of designation with respect to a world is difficult and occasions certain problems (about which something will be said later), but these problems do not arise on this explanation.

Most contemporary action theorists accept – or at least find plausible – a belief condition on intention (especially on intention in action) and a knowledge condition on intentional action. The belief condition says that I can only intend to ɸ if I believe that I will ɸ or am ɸ-ing, and the knowledge condition says that I am only intentionally ɸ-ing if I know that I am ɸ-ing. The belief condition in intention and the knowledge condition in action go hand in hand. After all, if intending implies belief, and if ɸ-ing intentionally implies intending to ɸ, then in ɸ-ing, I intend to be ɸ-ing, and, by the belief condition, I believe that I am ɸ-ing, and if this belief is justified, and we are not in a Gettier situation, etc., then, I will also satisfy the knowledge condition. Moreover, the claim that when intentions properly result in action, the corresponding belief constitutes knowledge is a relatively safe assumption, at least as an assumption about what it is generally the case.

Today there appears to be a widespread impression that W. V. Quine's notorious critique of modal logic, based on certain ideas about reference, has been successfully answered. As one writer put it some years ago: “His objections have been dead for a while, even though they have not yet been completely buried.” What is supposed to have killed off the critique? Some would cite the development of a new ‘possible-worlds’ model theory for modal logics in the 1960s; others, the development of new ‘direct’ theories of reference for names in the 1970s.

These developments do suggest that Quine's unfriendliness towards any formal logics but the classical and indifference towards theories of reference for any singular terms but variables were unfortunate.

We would not be far wide of the mark if we suggested that the prevailing social ideology is structured round the presumption that interpersonal and political relationships ought to be, and for the most part are, based on the mutual consent of the parties involved. Liberal democratic theory has secured for consent a crucial role in the justification of political obligation and authority. In law, the maxim volenti non fit injuria, to the one who consents no wrong is done, constitutes a defence in cases where one person invades the interests of another. In the bioethical field, there is a preoccupation with the formulation of a standard of ‘informed consent’ in patient-doctor and subject-researcher relationships. And in the broader domain of ethical theory there is an influential view that consensual acts do not differ in moral quality from selfregarding behaviour.

'Internalism’ in ethics is a cluster of views according to which there is an ‘internal’ connection between moral obligations and either motivations or reasons to act morally; ‘externalism’ says that such connections are contingent. So described, the dispute between internalism and externalism may seem a technical debate of minor interest. However, the issues that motivate it include deep problems about moral truth, realism, normativity, and objectivity. Indeed, I think that some philosophers view externalism as undermining the ‘dignity’ of morality. They might say that if morality needs an ‘external sanction’ - if the belief that one has an obligation is not sufficient motive or reason to do the right thing- then morality is debased in status. Even an arbitrary system of etiquette could attract an external sanction under appropriate conditions.

Although I believe that the more interesting internalist theses are false, there are important truths that internalism is attempting to capture. The most important of these is the fact that moral judgments are intrinsically ‘normative’ or ‘choice-guiding,’ that they are, very roughly, relevant to action or choice because of their content.

Given conditions of oppression presupposed by a feminist understanding of social structures, feminist agency is paradoxical. I am going to understand feminist agency as women's ability to be effective agents against their own oppression. The paradox of feminist agency arises because feminist assumptions about women's socialization seem to entail that women's agency is compromised by sexist oppression. In particular, women's agency appears to be diminished in ways that interfere with their capacity for feminist action, that is, action against sexist oppression.

Feminist philosophers have taken issue with traditional conceptions of agency, claiming that these conceptions are overly individualistic and valorize an illusory and unattractive ideal of agents and agency. If the paradox arises because women do not attain traditional ideals of independence, control, choice, and free action, then, if we reject the tradition, we may be able to articulate a preferable ideal of agency. This alternative may be one that women satisfy. Hence, a feminist reconstrual of the self could dispel the paradox.

The notion of representation figures centrally both in Descartes’ scientific theorizing about sense in humans and in his conceptual speculations about the nature of human cognition.

Descartes’ philosophical innovation in the Dioptrics is the claim that sensing in humans is a kind of representing rather than a kind of resembling. This provides the cornerstone for his attack on traditional theories of sense, and it underwrites his own position that sensing (in humans) is a kind of thinking, ascribable to the rational soul rather than to any Aristotelean sensitive soul.