Abstract: The author begins with an outline of Bernard William's moral philosophy, within which he locates William's notorious doctrine that reflection can destroy ethical knowledge. He then gives a partial defence of this doctrine, exploiting an analogy between ethical judgements and tensed judgements. The basic idea is that what the passage of time does for the latter, reflection can do for the former: namely, prevent the re-adoption of an abandoned point of view (an ethical point of view in the one case, a temporal point of view in the other). In the final section the author says a little about how reflection might do this.

Abstract: Claims that the self and experience in general are narrative in structure are increasingly common, but it is not always clear what such claims come down to. In this paper, I argue that if the view is to be distinctive, the element of narrativity must be taken as literally as possible. If we do so, and explore the consequences of thinking about our selves and our lives in this manner, we shall see that the narrative view fundamentally confusues art and life. We learn from art itself that our selves and lives transcend narratives and that thinking in a narrative manner ignores the rich complexity of individual persons.

Abstract: I argue that itches, tickles, aches and pains—sensations of all sorts—are generally in the places where we say they are. So, for example, if I say that I have an itch in the big toe on my left foot, then, by and large, that is the very place where the itch is. James denied this in the 1890s; Russell and Broad denied it in the 1920s; Wittgenstein and Ryle denied it in the 1940s; Lewis and Armstrong denied it in the 1960s; and since then various kinds of materialists have denied it. But if itches etc. are states of the sensitive parts of bodies, then it is true.

Abstract: Gilbert Harman and John Doris (among others) have maintained that experimental studies of human behaviour give good grounds for denying the very existence of moral character. This research, according to Harman and Doris, shows human behaviour to be dependent not on character but mainly on one's ‘situation.’ My paper develops a number of criticisms of this view, among them that social science experiments are ill-suited to study character, insofar as they do not estimate the role of character in continuously shaping the direction of one's life—including what situations one is apt to get into in the first place.

Abstract: This paper considers an obvious argument against marriage; (a) most of us view the prospect of being married in the absence of mutual love with great antipathy; (b) the mutual love between us and our spouse existing at the inception of our marriage may very well fail to persist; and hence (c) when we marry we are putting ourselves in the position of quite possibly ending up in a loveless marriage of the sort we acknowledge to be undesirable, and this is a mistake. I consider various ways of attacking this argument, and try to show that it may be worth taking more seriously than most people seem inclined.

Abstract: Locke notoriously included number amongst the primary qualities of bodies and was roundly criticized for doing so by Berkeley. Frege echoed some of Berkeley's criticisms in attacking the idea that ‘Number is a property of external things’, while defending his own view that number is a property of concepts. In the present paper, Locke's view is defended against the objections of Berkeley and Frege, and Frege's alternative view of number is criticized. More precisely, it is argued that numbers are assignable to pluralities of individuals. However, it is also argued that Locke went too far in asserting that ‘Number applies itself to ... everything that either doth exist, or can be imagined’.

Abstract: The present essay takes up matters discussed by Robert Pasnau in his response (published in the same issue of Philosophy) to our previous criticism of his account of Aquinas's view of when a foetus acquires a human soul. We are mainly concerned with metaphysical and biological issues and argue that the kind of organization required for ensoulment is that sufficient for the full development of a human being, and that this is present from conception. We contend that in his criticisms of our account Pasnau fails clearly to distinguish first, between a passive potentiality and an active capacity; second, between having a power intrinsically and being an instrumental agent of that which has it intrinsically; third, between per accidens and per se causal series; and fourth, between sense cognition and conceptual thought. We conclude that philosophy and embryology support the position that human beings exist from the point of conception.

Abstract: This paper is an elaboration of my previous paper published in Philosophy, ‘Making Sense of retributivism,’ which was a criticism of John Rawls' attempt in ‘Two Concepts of Rules’ to develop a rule utilitarian theory of punishment wherein utilitarianism is best construed as a justificatory basis for the institution of punishment and retributivism is best construed as serving as a justificatory basis for particular forms of punishment. I challenge this claim, arguing that retributivism must and can provide a justification both for the institution of punishment and for particular forms of punishment. In the end, I develop an analysis of the nature of desert as responsibility and proportionality. This notion of desert makes the best sense of retributivism.

Abstract: The difference between right and wrong is not something that is taught; it is, necessarily, picked up by a child in the course of learning its native language, and parents have no choice about this. In learning the meaning of ‘steal’, for example, the child learns that such actions are wrong. It also develops, through a kind of conditioning, the appropriate feelings and attitudes. The very concept of a reason has a moral content; so that, in acquiring this concept, the child learns what counts as a good reason; and this includes altruistic and other moral reasons, no less than reasons of self-interest.

Abstract: A defence of the possibility of amoralism is important to discussions about the foundations of ethics and the justification of morality. I argue against Michael Smith's attempt to show, through a defence of internalism, that amoralism is incoherent. I argue first, that a de dicto reading of the externalist's explanation of changes in motivation which are pursuant upon changes in judgement is not objectionable or implausible as Smith contends; and second, that internalism cannot account for the effort of the will required to make such changes in motivation. I also argue that the internalism/externalism debate can be diffused by considering the epistemic difficulties associated with identifying motivating states and by rejecting the notion that motivation can be understood in terms of psychlogical states.

Abstract: Timothy Williamson offers a proof of the counterintuitive claim that, if an object exists, then it exists necessarily. David Wiggins argues that this result reveals the philosophical disadvantage of a first level (or ‘ticking over’) view of the very ‘exists’ and the advantage of the second level account offered by Frege and Russell. The author seeks to show how, using an idea of G. Evans but without the use of the resources of ‘free logic’, all occurrences of ‘exist’, including its occurrence in true, negative existential, singular statements, can be accommodated to the Frege–Russell view and accorded the intuitively required modal status.

Abstract: Two well known and widely accepted arguments seem to show that evolutionary psychology is unlikely to tell us much of relevance to public policy. First, there is no good inference from the claim that X is an adaptation to the claim that X cannot be altered. So evolutionary psychology, even if it can establish that male philandering is adaptive, will not thereby tell us that male philandering is a trait that policy makers must work around rather than seek in vain to stamp out.' Second, the heuristic value of attempting to shed light on the makeup of the mind by reflection on the demands of ancestral environments is likely to be quite weak. Traits cannot be predicted from rough-grained facts about ancestral environments alone. So evolutionary psychology is also unlikely to give policy makers much of a leg-up in understanding how our minds work, even if it can explain why we have the kinds of minds we do.2 In spite of all this, a small number of biologists and philosophers continue to link the results of evolutionary psychology to matters of political concern. A few years ago, the UK policy think-tank Demos devoted its quarterly review to a series of short articles by journalists, philosophers and scientists on the input that evolutionary psychology might make to policy and economics.3 Peter Singer has urged a move towards a 'Darwinian Left' that refashions itself in response to our increasing understanding of human nature.4 Helena Cronin has written a number of pieces in collaboration with Oliver Curry arguing that the UK government's policy on the family would benefit from incorporating evolutionary psychologists Daly

Abstract: Waismann's Wittgenstein-influenced ‘How I see Philosophy’ presents a radical vision of philosophy. But its two most general themes—its stress on freedom and vision, and its emphasis on describing the grammar of our language—seem hard to reconcile. This paper elaborates four interrelated themes: 1) Waismann offers his conception of philosophy, not a delineation of the nature of philosophy. 2) His method is radically therapeutic. 3) He offers a diagnosis of the source of philosophical problems: unconscious analogies or conceptions. 4) He advocates a particular form of therapy: offering alternative analogies or conceptions to individuals. Against this background the apparent paradox can be dissolved.

Abstract: There is an argument often deployed by those who object to the rapid advances in technology, whether in agriculture and animal husbandry or in medicine, that some procedure is ‘unnatural’, and therefore should not be actually prohibited. An attempt is made to analyse and appraise the moral force, if any, of the dichotomy ‘natural’/‘unnatural’, especially in the area of assisted conception. The emotional resonances of the concept of Nature are partially explored, and found to be deep-seated and various, but not of themselves the source of moral imperatives.

Abstract: This festschrift deserves a place on the shelves of every philosopher interested in the work of David Wiggins. It displays most impressively the sheer scale of his contribution to contemporary philosophy, not just in his own writing, but in the stature and the range of interests of those he has taught and worked alongside. The papers are good and varied, and they are accompanied by sixty pages of replies which give a deeper and clearer insight into Wiggins’ current thinking than is available anywhere else. There is also a short intellectual autobiography in which the necessary play of chance and necessity in determining a philosophical career is richly evident, and a full list of publications. To give a sense of the book, I give a sentence or two to every paper. I discuss Cheryl Misak’s paper and its reply in a bit more detail. Timothy Williamson (Ch. 1) offers an original proof for the determinancy of distinctness, which Wiggins accepts. Harold Noonan (Ch. 2) presses Geach’s arguments for relative identity against Wiggins’ absolute conception, but Wiggins is unconvinced. Paul Snowdon (Ch. 3) argues that non-animal persons are conceivable, but in reply, Wiggins cautions that ‘the fact that there are words to describe a putative set-up ... creates no presumption at all that the set-up is metaphysically possible or can be coherently envisaged’ (p. 247). Stephen Williams (Ch. 4) explores semantic role and ambiguity. In reply Wiggins recommends an approach to semantics which integrates Tarski’s emphasis on semantic structure with Aristotle’s emphasis on word meaning (p. 252). Wilfrid Hodges (Ch. 8) begins with his impressions of Wiggins’ way of doing philosophy. Precepts he singles out are: be ready to revise your question as you go; approach your question indirectly; keep a store of insoluble problems; and formalise (p. 148). He considers Wiggins’ views on moral truth, drawing on Tarski, but in reply Wiggins notes that the account of truth he has in mind is not Tarski’s but Frege’s. Sabina Lovibond (Ch. 5) explores an implication of the Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge. To be the full author of moral expressions, we must master the concepts in upbringing. But the alterity of language described by Derrida persists—our language has a history independent of us, a use wider than we can grasp, and effects beyond our control. Lovibond then uses ideas of connivance and fictional reference from Gareth Evans to show how ‘internally inchoate’ agents may nevertheless participate in virtue. John McDowell (Ch. 6) argues that Aristotle took the motivational force of moral knowledge to be defensible for all but the per-

Abstract: Invisible Hand accounts of the operations of the competitive market are often thought to have two implications for morality as it confronts economic life. First, explanantions of agents economic activities eschew constitutive appeal to moral notions; and second, such moralism is pernicious insofar as it tends to undermine the operations of a socially valuable social process. This is the Mandevillean Conceit. The Conceit rests on an avarice-only reading of the profit-motive that is mistaken. The avarice-only reading is not the only way of characterising the profit-motive, and there are some positive grounds for thinking the benefits of profit pursuit are better attributed to the “lucrephile”, and not the avarice-only “lucrepath”.

Abstract: Hume is sometimes thought to provide a 'naturalistic' response to the sceptic. I consider two ways in which this response may be construed. According to the first, the fact that we are psychologically determined to hold a belief provides it with justification. According to the second, 'natural' beliefs provide limits within which reason can legitimately be employed, limits which the sceptic transgresses when he attempts to defend his position. Both versions of the naturalistic response to scepticism, I will argue, aren't plausible. And they aren't, at least not predominantly, Hume's.

Abstract: Transcendental epistemology is an inquiry into conditions of human knowledge which reflect the structure of the human cognitive apparatus. The dependence thesis is the thesis that a proper investigation of such conditions must lean in important respects on the deliverances of science. I argue that Kant is right to object to the dependence thesis, but that the best objections to this thesis lead to the conclusion that the conditions of knowledge which Kant identifies are not, in any interesting sense, a relection of the structure of the human cognitive apparatus.

Abstract: Ethical relativists and subjectivists hold that fact must be distinguished from value, ‘is’ from ‘ought’ and reason from emotion. Their distinctions have been called into question, notably by Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness 2001), also by Alasdair Macintyre (Dependent Rational Animals 1999).Reason in the form of the life sciences—ethology, biology—indicates that what is good or bad for an individual animal and its species are matters of objective fact. There is nothing relativistic about the idea that fresh meat is good for wolves and it is a fact, a paradigm fact, that polluted water is bad for dolphins. Moreover what is good for an animal is often something that is good about it. Sharp ears and great speed are good for deer and are also what makes a deer a good specimen of its kind.These general remarks apply to the human animal as well as to ‘ordinary’ animals. The good and bad discussed by moral philosophers cannot be radically different from the good and bad known through reason. But if it were it would normally be a remarkably indigent field of study.

Abstract: Gabriele de Anna' has defended John Campbell's so-called simple view of colours2 against a problem which I raised.3 I shall argue that his defence fails. Campbell's simple view of colours is that a colour, for example green, is not the response of a standard observer to whom green objects look green in standard conditions, nor is it the disposition of objects to evoke that response, and nor is it the microphysical or reflectance properties of objects which form the categorical base of such a disposition, where this categorical base is quite unlike how the object appears to a naive observer. Rather, being green is a categorical property of objects which disposes them to look green to standard observers in standard conditions, where this property is as it appears to be to a naive observer. Whatever other differences there may be between secondary and primary qualities, secondary qualities are like primary qualities in this respect: green, for example, is a categorical property of objects, where that property is as it looks to be in favourable circumstances of observation, as being square is a categorical property of shape which is as it looks to be in favourable circumstances of observation-according to the simple

Abstract: A (would-be) sophisticated answer to the question of the title might be, ‘The question is senseless. We should not conceive of time at all. We should just get on with our ordinary lives, asking and answering the usual questions, such as “What Time is it?”, “How long will it take?”, and so on, which we understand perfectly well. St. Augustine understood such questions, phrased in Latin, as well as we do. He should have been content with that, instead of bothering his head with the misbegotten metaphysical question, “What is time?”’.

Abstract: This article queries Winch's view that moral issues are particular, subjective, context-dependent and not open to generalizations. Drawing on examples from film and literature, Winch believes he can prove first, that the universalisability principle is idle and second, that morality is wrongly conceived as a guide to moral conduct. Yet, neither example proves his point. Quite the contrary, they show that we face moral dilemmas only when moral theory fails to provide an answer to moral problems. Therfore, it is not the case, as Winch suggests, that moral issues have a force independent of moral theory.The article questions a general trend in contemporary moral theory that argues that abstract principles are inconsistent with the actual way we live our lives.

Abstract: In a recent book, I attempt to use the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas to defend a moderate view regarding abortion: that an abortion at any time during a pregnancy should be considered a grave loss, but that it should be considered murder only after roughly the middle of the second trimester. John Haldane and Patrick Lee contend that I have misunderstood the implications of Aquinas's view, and that in fact his metaphysics supports the conclusion that a human being comes into existence at the moment of conception. In this paper, I make a brief reply.

Abstract: Although there is a significant number of books and essays in which Aquinas's thought is examined in some detail, there are still many aspects of his writings that remain unknown to those outside the field of Thomistic studies; or which are generally misunderstood. An example is Aquinas's account of the origins of individual human life. This is the subject of a chapter in a recent book by Robert Pasnau on Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). Since there will be readers whose only knowledge of the issues in question will come from Pasnau's account, and since that account is contentious in substance, and advanced in advocacy of a particular moral interest, it is necessary to provide another, and, we believe, more credible account of the issue of when human life begins, as this may be determined on the basis of known empirical facts and Aquinas's metaphysics, and a more accurate representation of how (and how extensively) this matter has been treated hitherto. The morality of abortion turns on two important sets of issues: the first metaphysical, concerning the beginnings of human life and the specific status of the embryo; the second, ethical, having to do with the nature and scope of value and associated moral requirements. Besides engaging in exegesis we address both issues in philosophical terms.