Michael Pakaluk

It can be shown that, if we assume 'substance dualism', or the real distinctness of the soul from the body, then the standard objections to the Cyclical Argument in the "Phaedo" fail. So charity would presumably require that we take substance dualism to be presupposed by that argument. To do so would not beg any question, since substance dualism is a significantly weaker thesis than the immortality of the soul. Moreover, there is good textual evidence in favor of this presumption. A closer look at the immediately preceding passage, viz. "Socrates' Defense", reveals an argument for a real distinction between soul and body, not unlike Descartes' famous argument, based on the identification of an activity in which the soul can in principle engage on its own, without assistance from the body. The argumentative project of the "Phaedo," on this reading, becomes: given that the soul is really distinct, show that it is immortal. And Plato aims to do this in two stages. The three initial arguments are meant to establish merely the minimal claim that the continued existence of the soul across cycles of reincarnation is the most plausible view to take, given substance dualism; and it is left to the Final Argument to argue for something that we might regard as immortality, that is, the imperishability of the soul, come what may

I provide a reading of Reid as an 'encyclopaedist', in Alasdair MacIntyre's sense, that is, as a scientist who conceives of himself as part of a broader scientific community, and who aims to make a contribution through work in a particular field. Reid's field is pneumatology. On this conception, Reid's recourse to 'common sense' is of a piece with the postulation, by any scientist, of a natural endowment for members of the same ostensible kind. Reid should therefore be understood as rejecting the classical tradition of epistemology and any conception of epistemology as first philosophy. His view resembles, rather, the modern position of 'natural epistemology', though admittedly, on account of his doctrine of active power, he is not committed to 'naturalism' in the contemporary sense

Whether the new natural law theory counts as a plausible interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas is not a mere antiquarian question in the history of philosophy but is itself a philosophical question, which bears on how we should interpret and assess the NNLT. Through an examination of problems in Germain Grisez’ influential paper “The First Principle of Practical Reason,” which proposed an interpretation of Summa theologiae I–II, q. 94, a. 2, it is argued that the NNLT is on every major point at odds with Aquinas, such that the NNLT involves a rejection of the classical and Catholic traditions of natural law and not a reformulation, revival, or saving of that tradition. The NNLT gives a flawed account of individual morality, not a Thomistic account of law as binding a community. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.1 (Spring 2013): 57–67.

This is an engaging and accessible introduction to the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's great masterpiece of moral philosophy. Michael Pakaluk offers a thorough and lucid examination of the entire work, uncovering Aristotle's motivations and basic views while paying careful attention to his arguments. The chapter on friendship captures Aristotle's doctrine with clarity and insight, and Pakaluk gives original and compelling interpretations of the Function Argument, the Doctrine of the Mean, courage and other character virtues, Akrasia, and the two treatments of pleasure. There is also a useful section on how to read an Aristotelian text. This book will be invaluable for all student readers encountering one of the most important and influential works of Western philosophy.

There are various features of the language and exposition of the Eudemian Ethics that allow us to impute what might be called an ‘egalitarian’ outlook to its author. Each of these features, on its own, might be dismissed as of little significance, or as significant yet anomalous; but taken together, they constitute a body of evidence that cannot easily be put aside. The term ‘egalitarianism’ is of course imprecise, yet it serves its function well enough. I shall take it to signify a certain cast of mind which consists of at least the following cluster of dispositions: being unwilling to view society as divided into ranks or classes or even to use language suggestive of such a division; but rather having a tendency to see the similarity of everyone with everyone else, by finding some good even among those reputed to be bad, and some bad among those reputed good; furthermore wishing to identify with the general run of humanity, or at least not being averse to doing so; and insisting on the fundamental equality and likeness of human beings, so that their inequalities and differences are regarded as secondary

This is intended to be a foundational study in what the author claims is a new branch of ethics, "genethics," which has as its distinctive subject matter three sorts of questions: Should some human being or group of human beings come into existence? If so, how many? Of these, what should they be like? Heyd maintains that these questions are posed for the first time, or in a distinctive way, because of developments in biotechnology, and that they cannot be resolved within any of the major types of ethical theory. Contractarian theory is useless, for either we include future generations as parties to the contract or not: if we do, we suppose their existence and beg the question; if we do not, then we are bound to appeal to noncontractarian considerations. Kantian theory obliges us to treat persons as ends, but genethics is concerned with the prior question of whether there should be persons to treat thus. Moreover, principles of respect and autonomy, as well as the categorical imperative, seem to have no natural application to genethic cases. Utilitarianism both in its total- and average-welfare maximizing forms is beset with familiar difficulties. Heyd mentions Aristotelian virtue ethics only to dismiss it as a viewpoint "which cannot be of much help in the direct analysis of procreation". This is odd, however, since Aristotle gives ample attention to issues of justice and friendship across generations.

In Books VIII and IX of his masterpiece of moral philosophy, the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives perhaps the most famous of all philosophical discussions of friendship. Michael Pakaluk presents the first systematic study in English of these books, showing how important Aristotle's treatment of friendship is to his ethics as a whole. Pakaluk's fresh and scrupulously accurate translation is accompanied by a detailed philosophical commentary which reveals the remarkably coherent structure of the books and unfolds with lucidity the various arguments contained within Aristotle's terse and compressed text. Pakaluk looks at the logical form of Aristotle's analysis of friendship, at his subtle view of the relationship between friendship and justice, at the role of reciprocity in friendship, at civic friendship and its relation to the family, and at the development of friendship out of self-love and reflexive consciousness. This volume will be a valuable tool for anyone studying Aristotle's ethics, especially readers with no Greek.

The author aims to write intellectual history in a traditional cast of a particular idea, the idea of progress, among a particular elite, the educated class of Britain roughly between 1730 and 1789. He describes the idea of progress as "belief in the movement over time of some aspect or aspects of human existence, within a social setting, toward a better condition". This admittedly broad definition is adopted in order to encompass belief in various sorts of progress. One might wonder why every variety of belief in progress ought to be studied as expressions of a single idea of progress, for what sort of unity would one's subject matter have? In fact Spadafora effectively resolves this problem in an Aristotelian manner by implicitly adopting something like a focal-meaning approach to the subject: he identifies two central conceptions of progress and relates other notions of progress to these. The central conceptions are: the Christian understanding of history as eschatological, and Baconian confidence in the advancement of learning. Although these two conceptions are frequently unified in English Puritanism between the accession of Charles I and the Restoration, Spadafora describes how they were largely independent and even at odds in the eighteenth century.