Alan Soble

This essay is a case study of the self-destruction that occurs in the work of a social-constructionist historian of science who embraces a radical philosophy of science. It focuses on Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud in arguing that a history of science committed to the social construction of science and to the central theses of Kuhnian, Duhemian, and Quinean philosophy of science is incoherent through self-reference. Laqueur's text is examined in detail in order to make the main point; a similar phenomenon in the work of the feminist historian of science Evelyn Fox Keller is then briefly discussed.

A principle of paternalism must be able to answer three questions. Who are the persons who are the proper object of paternalism? Which actions should we prevent persons from doing or induce them to perform? What should our goals be when acting paternalistically toward these persons? A satisfactory principle will also be reasonably precise in distinguishing appropriate from inappropriate instances of paternalism, and it will be comprehensive, speaking to most potential cases, including suicide. My purpose is not to reach a conclusion about the acceptability of paternalistic restrictions on suicide. Rather, because such a conclusion will follow from the way in which a principle of paternalism is formulated, I want to examine several liberal attempts at formulation and the theoretical background underlying these attempts.

In The Reasons of Love, Harry Frankfurt proposes a philosophical account of love according to which there are four necessary conditions for the occurrence of love. We may ask reasonable questions about these four conditions: (1) Is each condition adequately analytically defined? (2) Is each condition plausibly a necessary condition for love, and has Frankfurt defended their necessity with good arguments? (3) Are all four conditions consistent with each other? And (4) if the four conditions are only necessary, and hence tell us only when love is absent, what must be added to Frankfurt’s account which would tell us, just as importantly, when love is present? In this essay I address these questions, although some more than others, especially in trying to understand Frankfurt’s claims about “self-love.” It emerges from this investigation that Frankfurt’s central metaethical thesis, which he has been advancing for three decades—that caring about or loving something logically precedes valuing it, and hence that we cannot have value-mentioning reasons for loving something or someone—starts to fall apart.

I begin by describing the hideous nature of sexuality, that which makes sexual desire and activity morally suspicious, or at least what we have been told about the moral foulness of sex by, in particular, Immanuel Kant, but also by some of his predecessors (e.g., Augustine) and by some contemporary philosophers. A problem arises because acting on sexual desire, given this Kantian account of sex, apparently conflicts with the Categorical Imperative. I then propose a typology of possible solutions to this sex problem and critically discuss recent philosophical ethics of sex that fall into the typology's various categories.

The philosophy of loveFor centuries, popular writers and respected scholars have written about and analyzed the phenomenon of love without exhausting its potential for contemporary debate. By representing the three major traditions in the philosophy of love--Platonic eros, Christian agape, and Aristotelian philia--editor Alan Soble has not only examined the intellectual problem of what "love" is, but has designed a dialogue among the three traditions in genuine philosophical style. "Eros is acquisitive, egocentric or even selfish; agape is a giving love. Eros is an unconstant, unfaithful love, while agape is unwavering and continues to give despite ingratitude. Eros is a love that responds to the merit or value of its object; while agape creates value in its object as a result of loving it... Finally, eros is an ascending love, the human's route to God; agape is a descending love, GodÆs route to humans... Philia is caught between eros and agape."--From the Introduction to Eros, Agape and Philia ISSUES EXPLORED: --What is the state of love today as seen through the eyes of Plato, Aristotle, and Paul? --How do relations between the sexes illustrate the difficulties of love? --What are the nature and effects of exclusivity, reciprocity, and constancy? --What are the conceptual and psychological ties between sex and love? --Does it make any sense to think of love in moral terms?