D. Robinson

The perils and sometimes macabre consequences of Aristotle-worship have been documented historically and serve as a general warning to scholars in every discipline. The necessary course—I might say the "golden mean"—is to be found between an uncritical praise and a final burial. Aristotle's record can only enjoy the lasting respect of all students, but apart from the matter of his just deserts is the enduring usefulness of his contributions. Nonetheless a certain perspective must be maintained if Psychology is to derive due measure of the benefits, while avoiding what is misleading or confused or idle in the surviving works. That this perspective is hard-won can be seen from the tendency even among seasoned Aristotle scholars to misplace it as they move from topic to topic. And so I offer what I hope is to be the somewhat clearer paths to this perspective, though very sketchily and with a modesty fully earned through years of strenuous attention to Aristotle's writings. 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Philosophers of science have devoted volumes to the question of explanation; I've devoted some pages to it myself. In this highly contracted essay I shall offer no more than a comment on the problem of explanation, some vagrant but critical assessments of the dominant approaches to it, and a caution lest we take comfort in some of the recent "success"—or alleged success—in Psychology. I begin with this question: What does it mean to explain an occurrence? And then: What is it about any explanation that makes it good or bad? 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

In the third of his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Reid devotes the fourth chapter to the concept of‘identity’, and the sixth chapter to Locke’s theory of ‘personal identity’. This latter chapter is widely regarded as a definitive refutation of the thesis that personal identity is no more than memories of a certain sort. It is interesting that the terms ‘identity’ and ‘personal identity’ do not appear as chapter or section titles elsewhere in any of Reid’s works; and Hume is neither mentioned nor his theory of personal identity discussed in the two chapters specifically addressed to the matter. Moreover, while Locke, Reid, and Hume are often anthologized in works on personal identity, Reid is always presented as replying only to Locke.

Contemporary business ethics asks the question: what moral responsibilities do actors in a market economy have? Specifically, what obligations do corporate managers have? In this paper I consider a new method for answering these questions, Joseph Heath’s market failure model of business ethics. On this view, the market is a staged competition that is normatively justifiable through its tendency to promote Pareto efficiency. Since the market is justified by Pareto efficiency, competitive behaviour in the market should be constrained by a set of rules that is consistent with the pursuit of Pareto efficiency. Treating business as a competition is philosophically justified, I argue, both in the sense that it satisfies the conditions of a game, or at least a game­like activity, and in the sense that the deontic weakening that competition brings with it is justified in the market. I consider one case in more detail, to demonstrate the value of the approach. Within the business competition, I argue, lobbying is an impermissible, though conditionally excusable strategy. This is because lobbying routinely produces market failures, and indeed is often pursued precisely with that goal