Business ethics

By Sorell, Tom

Business ethics is the application of theories of right and wrong to activity within and between commercial enterprises, and between commercial enterprises and their broader environment. It is ...

Business ethics

Business ethics is the application of ethical theories to activity within and between commercial enterprises, and between commercial enterprises and their broader environment. It is a wide range ...

Moral enhancement

By Forsberg, Lisa; Douglas, Thomas

Moral enhancements aim to morally improve a person, for example by increasing the frequency with which an individual does the right thing or acts from the right motives. ...

Models in physics

By Frigg, Roman

In its most common use, the term ‘model’ refers to a simplified and stylised version of the so-called target system, the part or aspect of the world that ...

Idolatry

By Fowl, Stephen

The use of material images of various gods (idols) in religious worship has a long history and a central place in the polytheistic religions of the ancient world. ...

Imagination

By O'Leary-Hawthorne, J.

‘Imagination’ and ‘imagine’ enjoy a family of meanings, only some of which imply the use of mental imagery. If I ask you to imagine a red flower, I ...

Metaethics

By Finlay, Stephen

A tripartite distinction is often drawn in moral philosophy between (i) applied ethics, (ii) normative ethical theory, and (iii) metaethics. Applied ethics seeks answers to moral questions about ...

Fiction, semantics of

By Howell, Robert

Taken at face value, ‘Anna Karenina is a woman’ seems true. By using Tolstoi’s name ‘Anna Karenina’ and the predicate ‘is a woman’ we appear to refer to ...

Ordinary language philosophy, school of

By Warnock, Geoffrey

The label ‘ordinary language philosophy’ was more often used by the enemies than by the alleged practitioners of what it was intended to designate. It was supposed to ...

Thought experiments

By Gooding, David C.

Thought experiments are strange: they have the power to present surprising results and can profoundly change the way we view the world, all without requiring us to examine ...

Rhetoric

By Garver, Eugene

Rhetoric is the power to persuade, especially about political or public affairs. Sometimes philosophy has defined itself in opposition to rhetoric – Plato invented the term ‘rhetoric’ so ...

Art and truth

By Taylor, Paul

Some things are true within the world of a literary work. It is true, in the world evoked by Madame Bovary, that Emma Roualt married Charles Bovary. In ...

Incommensurability in ethics

By Carlson, Erik

In ethics and neighbouring subjects, incommensurability has been attributed to at least three different kinds of entities, namely moral theories or traditions, abstract values, and particular bearers of ...

Intuitionistic logic and antirealism

By Pagin, Peter

The law of excluded middle (LEM) says that every sentence of the form A∨¬A (‘A or not A’) is logically true. This law is accepted in classical logic, ...

Reasons for action

By Wiland, Eric

There are many reasons for wanting to understand what reasons for action are. Moral philosophers, for instance, consider the question of whether everyone has a reason to comply ...

Berdiaev, Nikolai Aleksandrovich (1874–1948)

By Scanlan, James P.

Nikolai Berdiaev, Russian religious idealist, was one of many non-Marxist thinkers expelled from Russia by communist authorities in 1922. Although attracted to Marxism in his youth, even then ...

Glanvill, Joseph (1636–80)

By Rogers, G.A.J.

Joseph Glanvill was an opponent of the scholastic philosophy which he had been taught in England, supporting instead the new learning associated with Francis Bacon and the Royal ...

Power

By Green, Leslie

The general notion of power involves the capacity to produce or prevent change. In social and political philosophy, narrower conceptions of power specify the nature of these changes. ...

Testimony

By Coady, C.A.J.

Philosophical treatment of the problems posed by the concept of knowledge has been curiously blind to the role played by testimony in the accumulation and validation of knowledge ...

The ethics of parenting

By Gheaus, Anca

To be a parent comprises two different functions, procreating and childrearing. In practice, they are usually bundled: most procreators also rear their offspring, and hence are their parents ...

Vagueness

By Mahtani, Anna

In ordinary conversation, we describe all sorts of different things as vague: you can have vague plans, vague ideas and vague aches and pains. In philosophy of language, ...

Proper names

By Forbes, Graeme

The Roman general Julius Caesar was assassinated on 14 March 44 bc by conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius. It is a remarkable fact that, in so ...

Causation, further themes

By Fernandes, Alison

Recent work in the philosophy of causation has explored a number of issues relating to the objectivity of causation, including the place of causation in metaphysics and science, ...

Consent

Permissive consent releases people from duties. As well as playing a role in a theory of right action, this type of consent is at the centre of sexual ...

Creation and conservation, religious doctrine of

By Hasker, William

The doctrine of the creation of the universe by God is common to the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; reflection on creation has been most extensively ...