Symposium on Larry Temkin’s Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry S. Temkin
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Moral Ideals ◽  
Normative Significance ◽  
Better Than

This article gives a brief overview of Rethinking the Good, whose impossibility arguments illuminate the difficulty of arriving at a coherent theory of the good. I show that an additive-aggregationistprinciple is plausible for some comparisons, while an anti- additive-aggregationistprinciple is plausible for others. Invoking SpectrumArguments, I show that these principles are incompatible with an empirical premise, and various Axioms of Transitivity. I argue that whether the “all-things-considered better than” relation is transitive is not a matter of language or logic, but the nature of moral ideals. If an Internal Aspects View holds, then many standard assumptions about rationality follow, including the Axioms of Transitivity, but not if an Essentially Comparative View holds. Yet many important ideals are essentially comparative. My results have important implications for the normative significance of economics, and require substantial revision in our understanding of the good, moral ideals, and the nature of practical reasoning.

Trade-offs, Transitivity, and Temkin

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-342
Author(s):  
Dale Dorsey
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Crucial Step ◽  
First Order ◽  
Moral Ideals ◽  
Intrinsic Values ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Personal Welfare ◽  
Better Than

In this essay I critically assess Larry S. Temkin’s new book, Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning. While I find that there is much to praise about this work, I focus on two points of critique. Generally, Temkin’s aims in this book are to expose a radical tension in our beliefs about value, and to show that one potentially palatable (if not ultimately acceptable) option is to reject the transitivity of the predicate “better than”. However, I argue that in both his motivation for claiming that such a tension exists, and one of his arguments that transitivity is a palatable option, his discussion is missing a crucial step: a first-order discussion of the relationship between intrinsic values; both personal welfare goods and impersonal goods (such as equality, overall utility, etc.).

I’ll be Glad I Did It—So, I’ll Do It

2019 ◽  
pp. 219-228
Author(s):  
Richard Pettigrew
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
The Other ◽  
Aggregate Utility ◽  
Better Than

This chapter considers a form of practical reasoning explored by Elizabeth Harman (2009, ‘I’ll be glad I did it’ reasoning and the significance of future desires, in Philosophical Perspectives, 23(1)), which she dubs ‘I’ll be glad I did it’ reasoning, and which she rejects in general. In such reasoning, when faced with a choice between two options, if I would later think that one option is better than the other were I to choose that option, that gives me reason to choose that option. This chapter distinguishes between a number of varieties of such reasoning and applies the Aggregate Utility Solution to diagnose the problem with it. The resulting diagnosis turns out to be quite different from Harman’s.

Democratic Theory and Political Science: A Pragmatic Method of Constructive Engagement

2007 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARCHON FUNG
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Constructive Engagement ◽  
Institutional Choices ◽  
Better Than

This article develops two conceptual tools to synthesize democratic theory and the empirical study of institutions. The first is a standard to assess conceptions of democracy calledpragmatic equilibrium. A conception of democracy is in pragmatic equilibrium just in case the consequences of its institutional prescriptions realize its values well and better than any other feasible institutional arrangements across a wide range of problems and contexts. Pragmatic equilibrium is a kind of Rawlsian reflective equilibrium. The second is amethod of practical reasoningabout the consequences of alternative institutional choices that brings conceptions of democracy closer to pragmatic equilibrium. These two ideas are then applied to four conceptions of democracy—minimal, aggregative, deliberative, and participatory—and to two governance problems—deciding rules of political structure and minority tyranny—to show how each conception can improve through reflection on the empirical consequences of various institutional arrangements.

Time and Latitude in South Africa

1972 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 27-38
Author(s):  
J. Hers
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Astronomical Observations ◽  
Royal Observatory ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Astronomical Determination ◽  
Limited Accuracy ◽  
Better Than

In South Africa the modern outlook towards time may be said to have started in 1948. Both the two major observatories, The Royal Observatory in Cape Town and the Union Observatory (now known as the Republic Observatory) in Johannesburg had, of course, been involved in the astronomical determination of time almost from their inception, and the Johannesburg Observatory has been responsible for the official time of South Africa since 1908. However the pendulum clocks then in use could not be relied on to provide an accuracy better than about 1/10 second, which was of the same order as that of the astronomical observations. It is doubtful if much use was made of even this limited accuracy outside the two observatories, and although there may – occasionally have been a demand for more accurate time, it was certainly not voiced.

Localization of immunolabels by electron microscopy and image averaging

1983 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 282-283
Author(s):  
J. Frank ◽  
P.-Y. Sizaret ◽  
A. Verschoor ◽  
J. Lamy
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Single Particle ◽  
Attachment Site ◽  
Uranyl Acetate ◽  
Limulus Polyphemus ◽  
Resolution Limit ◽  
Electron Microscopic ◽  
Image Averaging ◽  
Top View ◽  
Better Than

The accuracy with which the attachment site of immunolabels bound to macromolecules may be localized in electron microscopic images can be considerably improved by using single particle averaging. The example studied in this work showed that the accuracy may be better than the resolution limit imposed by negative staining (∽2nm).The structure used for this demonstration was a halfmolecule of Limulus polyphemus (LP) hemocyanin, consisting of 24 subunits grouped into four hexamers. The top view of this structure was previously studied by image averaging and correspondence analysis. It was found to vary according to the flip or flop position of the molecule, and to the stain imbalance between diagonally opposed hexamers (“rocking effect”). These findings have recently been incorporated into a model of the full 8 × 6 molecule.LP hemocyanin contains eight different polypeptides, and antibodies specific for one, LP II, were used. Uranyl acetate was used as stain. A total of 58 molecule images (29 unlabelled, 29 labelled with antl-LPII Fab) showing the top view were digitized in the microdensitometer with a sampling distance of 50μ corresponding to 6.25nm.

Closing the GAP—A 5Å Scanning Microscope

1969 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 6-7
Author(s):  
A. V. Crewe
Keyword(s):  
Normal Form ◽  
The Other ◽  
Resolving Power ◽  
Scanning Microscope ◽  
Conventional Microscope ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Closing The Gap ◽  
Thermal Sources ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Transmission Microscope

We have become accustomed to differentiating between the scanning microscope and the conventional transmission microscope according to the resolving power which the two instruments offer. The conventional microscope is capable of a point resolution of a few angstroms and line resolutions of periodic objects of about 1Å. On the other hand, the scanning microscope, in its normal form, is not ordinarily capable of a point resolution better than 100Å. Upon examining reasons for the 100Å limitation, it becomes clear that this is based more on tradition than reason, and in particular, it is a condition imposed upon the microscope by adherence to thermal sources of electrons.

Electron Microscopic Observation of the Longitudinal Organization of Poly (p-Phenylene Terephthalamide) Fibers

1982 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 680-681
Author(s):  
Li Li-Sheng ◽  
L.F. Allard ◽  
W.C. Bigelow
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Mechanical Properties ◽  
Scanning Electron Microscopy ◽  
Microscopic Observation ◽  
Electron Microscopic Observation ◽  
Electron Microscopic ◽  
Aromatic Polyamides ◽  
Radial Arrangement ◽  
Scanning Electron ◽  
Better Than

The aromatic polyamides form a class of fibers having mechanical properties which are much better than those of aliphatic polyamides. Currently, the accepted morphology of these fibers as proposed by M.G. Dobb, et al. is a radial arrangement of pleated sheets, with the plane of the pleats parallel to the axis of the fiber. We have recently obtained evidence which supports a different morphology of this type of fiber, using ultramicrotomy and ion-thinning techniques to prepare specimens for transmission and scanning electron microscopy.

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