Peter Simpson

Veatch's theme in this book is natural law as a basis for rights. He wishes to defend the classical notion that the good and the right, in ethics, politics and the law, can be found by some appeal to nature. In the first chapter of the book he directs arguments against the standard anti-natural law positions in philosophy, and against particular philosophers, like Hobbes and Kant. This is the least effective chapter in the book. The criticisms are not so much wrong as a bit weak and lacking in penetration. Some of the characterizations of philosophical positions are also in parts too simple.

MORAL PHILOSOPHY HAS LONG BEEN DOMINATED by two basic theories, Kantianism or deontology on the one hand, and utilitarianism or consequentialism on the other. Increasing dissatisfaction with these theories and their variants has led in recent years to the emergence of a different theory, the theory of virtue ethics. According to virtue ethics, what is primary for ethics is not, as deontologists and utilitarians hold, the judgment of acts or their consequences, but the judgment of agents. The good person is the fundamental category for moral philosophy, and the good person is the person of good character, the person who possesses moral virtue.

ABSTRACT The Irish Republican Army (IRA) sometimes claim that their violent actions are sanctioned by traditional just war doctrine. To what extent is this true? To answer this question it is necessary to have a clear grasp of the principles of just war and of the situation in Northern Ireland to which they are to be applied. This is done in the first sections, and it is then argued that just war sanctions some kinds of violence in Northern Ireland but only those of direct self‐defence. Violence outside the borders of Northern Ireland or for the sake of Irish Unity is not justifiable. Consequently the IRA must be viewed, in terms of just war theory at any rate, as in principle illegitimate, even though some of their actions are defensible. Finally it is suggested that non‐violence, after the pattern of Gandhi, while not required by justice might nevertheless be preferable.

As its title implies, this book is meant to give a new foundation to moral philosophy. In the sense meant, a foundation is a cognitive grounding. Lee is opposing the various non-naturalist 'volitionalisms' that have proved so influential in recent moral philosophy. The burden of her book is to show that the non-naturalist claim that there is no grounding for values in facts is unwarranted. This claim is due, she says, to positivism and empiricism and the associated contention that knowledge is only possible on the basis of strict deductions or strict implications from evidence. If evidence E does not strictly imply assertion A, then A is irrational and unjustified. But to maintain this, says Lee, is to condemn oneself to absurdity. Strict implication does not in fact obtain in any sphere of cognitive discourse, so if moral claims are irrational because they lack strict implication from evidence, then claims in many other spheres are irrational, and this consequence is absurd. Therefore, she says, people should cease finding fault with moral claims as if they were somehow uniquely deficient in this respect.

O tratado de Górgias sobre o nada é dividido por meio da prova de três teses diferentes: 1) que o nada é ou existe; 2) que mesmo que haja algo, não pode ser conhecido; 3) que mesmo que pudesse ser conhecido, não poderia ser comunicado a outrem. Estas teses são tão opostas a Parmênides quanto qualquer tese poderia sê-lo. O tratado de Górgias é uma proeza da polêmica antiparmenidiana. Sua dialética também é uma façanha ao reduzir algo ao absurdo, porque as premissas de que Górgias se utiliza para derrubar Parmênides são tomadas do próprio Parmênides ou da escola parmenidiana. Ademais, e pela mesma razão, os argumentos de Górgias não podem ser derrubados sem abrir mão da tese de Parmênides, de que o ser é uno. Que o ser não é uno é a própria condição de uma metafísica sadia. Por esta razão, que não por outra qualquer, Górgias, e não Parmênides, merece ser lembrado como o primeiro metafísico