[Editor’s Note: Here’s a post by Getty from our Hume/Smith on ethics episode. Incidentally, Getty will be leading a Not School Reading group on Harry Frankfurt’s The Reasons of Love. Go join.] Thomas Nagel, professor of philosophy and law at NYU, is notorious for his heterodox philosophical positions (this was discussed a bit on PEL here). He is a scientific Continue Reading …
Foucault Was No Relativist
[Editor’s Note: We’re pleased to have some more blog input here from Getty, the guest from our Hume/Smith episode, who wrote his undergrad thesis on Foucault and was in line to be a guest on this one himself. You can blame me for the image, which I found here.] Was Foucault a relativist about truth? Truth-relativism is the doctrine that Continue Reading …
David Hume and Adam Smith in the Context of Eighteenth-Century Moral Philosophy, Part 2
As mentioned in my previous entry, moral philosophy in the eighteenth century was principally concerned with three issues: “the selfish hypothesis,” the nature of moral judgment, and the character of moral virtue. This entry regards the second component: the debate between the rationalists and sentimentalists over the nature and justification of moral judgment. Moral rationalism—exemplified most clearly in modern philosophy Continue Reading …
David Hume and Adam Smith in the Context of Eighteenth-Century Moral Philosophy, Part 1
Moral philosophy in the eighteenth century was principally concerned with three issues. First, was “the selfish hypothesis,” which maintained that all declarations of public interest were ultimately expressions of private interest. Second, was the explanation and justification of moral judgment. And third, was the character of moral virtue. The selfish hypothesis, though largely a minority view, was defended equally by Continue Reading …