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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Reflections In A Mirror, Damian Cox Aug 2015

Reflections In A Mirror, Damian Cox

Damian Cox

In this paper, I develop a solution to the puzzle of mirror perception: why do mirrors appear to reverse the image of an object along a left/right axis and not around other axes, such as the top/bottom axis? I set out the different forms the puzzle takes and argue that one form of it – arguably the key form – has not been satisfactorily solved. I offer a solution in three parts: setting out the conditions in which an apparent left/right reversal of mirror images is generated; explaining why these conditions are so often met; explaining why we are cognitively …


Overcoming Victimhood: Stoicism, Anti-Stoicism And Le Fils, Damian Cox Aug 2015

Overcoming Victimhood: Stoicism, Anti-Stoicism And Le Fils, Damian Cox

Damian Cox

In this chapter I use a film by the Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Le Fils (2002), to explore the difference between Stoic and Anti-Stoic approaches to overcoming victimhood. The Stoic approach to overcoming victimhood emphasizes the inner-strength and resourcefulness of victims. It sets up an ideal of Stoic independence in which a person responds to becoming a victim by marshalling inner resources to overcome destructive and painful emotions. An Anti-Stoic approach to overcoming victimhood rejects such an appeal to independence and acknowledges that victims do not generally possess the inner resources needed to eliminate destructive and painful emotions. …


Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies, Damian Cox, Michael Levine Jul 2014

Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies, Damian Cox, Michael Levine

Damian Cox

An introduction to philosophy through film, Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies combines the exploration of fundamental philosophical issues with the experience of viewing films, and provides an engaging reading experience for undergraduate students, philosophy enthusiasts and film buffs alike.


Damned Lying Politicians: Integrity And Truth In Politics, Damian Cox, Michael Levine Jul 2014

Damned Lying Politicians: Integrity And Truth In Politics, Damian Cox, Michael Levine

Damian Cox

Professional roles are often thought to bring role-specific permissions and obligation, which may allow or require role-occupants to do things they would not be permitted or required to do outside their roles, and which as individuals they would rather not do. This feature of professional roles appears to bring them into conflict both with ‘ordinary’ or non-role morality, and with personal integrity which is often thought to demand some form of personal endorsement of one’s conduct. How are we to reconcile the demands of roles with ordinary morality and with personal integrity? This collection draws together a set of papers …


Judgment, Deliberation, And The Self-Effacement Of Moral Theory, Damian Cox Jul 2014

Judgment, Deliberation, And The Self-Effacement Of Moral Theory, Damian Cox

Damian Cox

ExtractIn developing moral theories, philosophers seek to fulfill at least two tasks: to guide moral judgment and to guide moral deliberation. In moral judgment, moral agents assess moral status. In moral deliberation, moral agents decide how to act. It is important to work out how these two things are related. One suggestion is to posit a direct connection between them according to which moral agents are required to deliberate in terms of correct moral judgment. There are various ways of spelling out this requirement. For example, moral agents might be required to rank prospective actions according to a correct moral …


Modelling The Moral Dimension Of Decisions, Mark Colyvan, Damian Cox, Katie Steele Aug 2010

Modelling The Moral Dimension Of Decisions, Mark Colyvan, Damian Cox, Katie Steele

Damian Cox

In this paper we explore the connections between ethics and decision theory. In particular, we consider the question of whether decision theory carries with it a bias towards consequentialist ethical theories. We argue that there are plausible versions of the other ethical theories that can be accommodated by "standard" decision theory, but there are also variations of these ethical theories that are less easily accommodated. So while "standard" decision theory is not exclusively consequentialist, it is not necessarily ethically neutral. Moreover, even if our decision-theoretic models get the right answers vis-à-vis morally correct action, the question remains as to whether …


Integrity, Damian Cox, Marguerite La Caze, Michael Levine Aug 2008

Integrity, Damian Cox, Marguerite La Caze, Michael Levine

Damian Cox

Extract:

Integrity is one of the most important and oft-cited of virtue terms. It is also perhaps the most puzzling. For example, while it is sometimes used virtually synonymously with ‘moral,’ we also at times distinguish acting morally from acting with integrity. Persons of integrity may in fact act immorally—though they would usually not know they are acting immorally. Thus one may acknowledge a person to have integrity even though that person may hold importantly mistaken moral views.


Realizm I Wytwarzanie Świata, Damian Cox Dec 2000

Realizm I Wytwarzanie Świata, Damian Cox

Damian Cox

No abstract provided.


Integrity And Politics, Damian Cox Dec 1999

Integrity And Politics, Damian Cox

Damian Cox

Extract:

Integrity is the virtue par excellence of the professional politician. It is the virtue a politician is apt to hold most precious; a virtue they are likely to defend above all others. To cast doubt upon the courage, foresight, knowledge, wisdom, compassion or good-sense of a contemporary politician is one thing, to cast doubt upon their integrity is quite another. Indeed, it seems that no professional politician working in a contemporary liberal democracy can afford to allow a credible slur on their integrity to go unanswered.

The concept of integrity is obviously central to our conception of a properly …


Scepticism And The Interpreter, Damian Cox Dec 1999

Scepticism And The Interpreter, Damian Cox

Damian Cox

This paper defends an argument from interpretation against the possibility of massive error. The argument shares many important features with Donald Davidson’s famous argument, but also key differences. I defend the argument against claims that it begs the question against scepticism and that it leaves the sceptic with an obvious means of escape.

© Copyright Philosophical Papers, 2000.


Should We Strive For Integrity?, Damian Cox, Marguerite La Caze, Michael Levine Dec 1998

Should We Strive For Integrity?, Damian Cox, Marguerite La Caze, Michael Levine

Damian Cox

Even by people whose moral views diverge widely, integrity is commonly thought of as something worthwhile, a valuable personal characteristic. It is, consequently, something we commonly suppose worth striving to cultivate both in ourselves and in those under our care. Nancy Schauber (1996) offers a provocative challenge to this conventional wisdom - arguing (in all seriousness) that integrity is either something we possess simply in virtue of being persons or else it is not something worth having. An analysis of her truncated accounts of integrity and commitment will show why her argument fails. That is does fail is a victory …


Metaphysical Realism And Idealisation, Damian Cox Dec 1997

Metaphysical Realism And Idealisation, Damian Cox

Damian Cox

In this paper I propose a version of metaphysical realism which I believe to be resistent to a number of antirealist attacks - in particular the attacks of Hilary Putnam. In the first part of the paper I outline the position and describe a number of responses to obvious objections. In the second part I demonstrate how this version avoids the charges of incoherence laid against the realist by Putnam.


On The Value Of Natural Relations, Damian Cox Dec 1996

On The Value Of Natural Relations, Damian Cox

Damian Cox

In "A Refutation of Environmental Ethics" Janna Thompson argues that by assigning intrinsic value to nonhuman elements of nature either our evaluations become (1) arbitrary, and therefore unjustified, or (2) impractical, or (3) justified and practical, but only by reflecting human interest, thus failing to be truly intrinsic to nonhuman nature. There are a number of possible responses to her argument, some of which have been made explicitly in reply to Thompson and others which are implicit in the literature. In this discussion I describe still another response, one which takes Thompson's concerns about value seriously, but does not assign …


The Trouble With Truthmakers, Damian Cox Dec 1996

The Trouble With Truthmakers, Damian Cox

Damian Cox

This paper argues that theories of truth which seek to specify the ontological ground of true statements by appealing to an ontology of truth-makers face a severe and possibly insurmountable obstacle in the form of logically complex statements. I argue that there is no apparent way to develop an account of logically complex truth within the confines of a modest and plausible ontology of truth-makers and to this end criticize independent attempts by Armstrong and Pendlebury to develop such an account.