Hard Cases (hard + case)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Sadat Peace Lecture: Negotiating Hard Cases

MIDDLE EAST POLICY, Issue 3 2001
George J. Mitchell
Senator Mitchell is a former member (D-ME) and majority leader of the U.S. Senate. The following is the text of his lecture sponsored by the Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland on June 13, 2001. (The text of the "Mitchell Report" is reprinted in this journal.) [source]


PAPINEAU ON ETIOLOGICAL TELEOSEMANTICS FOR BELIEFS

RATIO, Issue 3 2006
Joseph Mendola
Teleosemantics holds that the contents of psychological states depend crucially on the functions of such states. Etiological accounts of function hold that the functions of things depend on their histories, especially their evolutionary or learning histories. Etiological teleosemantics combines these two features. Consider the case of beliefs. Since selection rests on the stable effects of things, since beliefs have no obvious effects independent of unstable desires, and since desires themselves have mental content, beliefs may seem a hard case for etiological teleosemantics. But David Papineau deploys the effects of beliefs mediated by conation in an artful way to evade these difficulties. I argue that accounts with such an architecture are false. [source]


Spinoza on the Problem of Akrasia

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2010
Eugene Marshall
Though each is intuitive in a certain way, they both fail as explanations of the most interesting cases of akrasia. Spinoza's own thoughts on bondage and the affects follow, from which a Spinozist explanation of akrasia is constructed. This account is based in Spinoza's mechanistic psychology of cognitive affects. Because Spinoza's account explains action asissuing from modes of mind that are both cognitive and affective, it captures the intuitions that motivate the two traditional views while avoiding the pitfalls that result from their one-sided approaches. This project will allow us a fuller understanding of Spinozist moral psychology. In addition to this historical value, the Spinozist theory may offer a satisfactory explanation of certain hard cases of akrasia while avoiding the problems be set by other theories. For this reason, the Spinozist account could also be seen as a useful contribution to our philosophical understanding of the phenomenon of akrasia. [source]


Principle, Proceduralism, and Precaution in a Community of Rights

RATIO JURIS, Issue 2 2006
DERYCK BEYLEVELD
Notwithstanding the deep moral consensus in Gewirthia, where citizens are fully committed to the Principle of Generic Consistency (requiring that agents respect one another's freedom and basic well-being), Gewirthians make no claim to "know all the answers." In consequence, public governance in Gewirthia needs a strategy for dealing with the many kinds of disputes,disputes that relate to matters of both principle and practice,that require authoritative settlement. In this context, having outlined the nature of (and justification for) the procedural strategy that Gewirthia adopts in order to resolve such disputes, we discuss the range of regulatory questions that are potentially moot in Gewirthia, and focus on three hard cases in which the State might argue for a precautionary licence,namely, where there is a dispute about indirect and speculative harm to rights-holders, about harm to arguable rights-holders, and about the possible corrosion of the conditions that are essential for the sustainability of a moral community. [source]