March 3, 2008

Appiah’s Experiments in Ethics: Chapter 1
By Neil Levy

Chapter One is essentially a ground clearing exercise. Appiah’s aim is to argue that experimental philosophy is not the innovative and threatening enterprise that it might seem: instead, it is a return to philosophy’s roots. Philosophy has traditionally been closely informed by scientific work, and the best philosophers have often engaged in science themselves. It is the era of conceptual analysis divorced from mere empirical engagement that is the aberration, not the turn to the empirical.

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Posted on March 3, 2008 at 7:52 pm in Neil Levy's Posts, Appiah Reading Group, Experimental Ethics | 12 Comments

September 7, 2007

Kamm’s Intricate Ethics: Chapter 10 (a combative summary)
By Neil Levy

The purpose of this chapter is to show that concerns focused on the agent can supplement concerns focused on victims in bolstering the conclusion that agents ought not to infringe negative rights, even when the consequences of doing so are clearly better than the consequences of not infringing negative rights. That is, agent-focused considerations can bolster the case against consequentialism.

The chapter focuses on examples originally due to Bernard Williams; Williams himself advanced them to a similar end. The first is the well-known case of Jim and the Indians:

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Posted on September 7, 2007 at 6:19 am in Normative Ethics, Kamm Reading Group, Neil Levy's Posts | 6 Comments