Responsibility

By Duff, R.A.

To be responsible for something is to be answerable for it. We have prospective responsibilities, things it is up to us to attend to: these may attach ...

Intellectuals, responsibilities of

see Responsibilities of scientists and intellectuals.

Scientists, responsibilities of

see Responsibilities of scientists and intellectuals.

Emotion in response to art

By Levinson, Jerrold

The main philosophical questions concerning emotion in response to art are as follows. (1) What kind or type of emotions are had in response to works of art? ...

General relativity, philosophical responses to

By Ryckman, T.A.

Much of the early philosophical attention given Einstein’s theory of gravitation was not uncontaminated by a grim post-war atmosphere conducive to public diversions, hysteria and national chauvinism. Most ...

Responsibilities of scientists and intellectuals

By Montefiore, Alan

Do scientists and intellectuals bear responsibilities peculiar to them? If an ‘intellectual’ is whoever has a committed interest in the truth or validity of ideas for their own ...

East Asian philosophy

By Ames, Roger T.

Sinitic civilization, which includes the Chinese-influenced cultures of Japan and Korea, established an early lead over the rest of the world in the development of its material culture ...

Biology, philosophy of

By Lewens, Tim

Biologists sometimes look perplexed when they are told of the existence of a subject called ‘The Philosophy of Biology’. What, they ask, is there to philosophise about in ...

Buddhist philosophy, Chinese

By Lusthaus, Dan

When Buddhism first entered China from India and Central Asia two thousand years ago, Chinese favourably disposed towards it tended to view it as a part or companion ...

Mind, philosophy of

By Jackson, Frank; Rey, Georges

‘Philosophy of mind’, and ‘philosophy of psychology’ are two terms for the same general area of philosophical inquiry: the nature of mental phenomena and their connection with behaviour ...

Aesthetics

By Budd, Malcolm

Aesthetics owes its name to Alexander Baumgarten who derived it from the Greek aisthanomai, which means perception by means of the senses (see Baumgarten, A.G.). As the ...

Emotion

By Richardson, Louise

As befits the variety of roles that emotion plays in our lives, emotion is a topic of consideration in a variety of areas of philosophy and this is ...

Global Justice

By Tan, Kok-Chor

For introductions to the current debate on global justice, the obvious entries to start with are Simon Caney’s Global Justice, recent work on and Charles Beitz’s International Relations, ...

Free will

By Strawson, Galen

‘Free will’ is the conventional name of a topic that is best discussed without reference to the will. Its central questions are ’What is it to act (or ...

Free will

‘Free will’ is the conventional name of a topic that is best discussed without reference to the will. Its central questions are ‘What is it to act (or ...

Hiddenness of God

By Dougherty, Trent; Parker, Ross

The problem of divine hiddenness is that the hiddenness of God seems to supply a strong reason to think that there is no loving God, since a loving ...

Corporations and justice

By Hughes, Robert; Strudler, Alan

For the past half century, there has been a large controversy within academic business ethics, in legal scholarship, and in the larger public about the role that corporations ...

Praise and blame

By Klein, Martha

Praise and blame are philosophically interesting partly because, despite appearances, they are not simple opposites, but mainly because there are significant disagreements about whether, and when, they can ...

Information technology and ethics

By Nissenbaum, Helen

Information technology ethics is the study of the ethical issues arising out of the use and development of electronic technologies. Its goal is to identify and formulate answers ...

Desert and merit

By Miller, David

The ideas of desert and merit are fundamental to the way we normally think about our personal relationships and our social institutions. We believe that people who perform ...

Causation in the law

By Wright, Richard W.

Causal language is pervasive in the law, especially in those areas, such as contract law, tort law and criminal law, that deal with legal responsibility for the adverse ...

Ethics of health promotion

By Brown, Rebecca C.H.

Attempts by states and other organisations to promote people’s health make use of a number of different tools and target various different groups and behaviours. These activities raise ...

Climate change justice

By Boran, Idil; Katz, Corey

Climate change justice is a branch of philosophical inquiry concerned with fair terms of cooperation for addressing global climate change. Global climate change refers to the adverse effects ...

Self-deception, ethics of

By Martin, Mike W.

Self-deception is complicated and perplexing because it concerns all major aspects of human nature, including consciousness, rationality, motivation, freedom, happiness, and value commitments. In a wide sense, ‘self-deception’ ...

Experimental philosophy

By Mallon, Ron; Nichols, Shaun

Experimental philosophy is not a philosophy, it is a method that is supposed to contribute to philosophical inquiry. Characteristically, experimental philosophers use empirical techniques to investigate philosophically significant ...