Pedro Galvão

Education plays a very special role in Dewey’s System of thought. And according to Dewey, science, being knowledge at its best, has an unsurpassable educational value which every genuine democracy must take seriously. Here I try to show how and why Dewey developed this point of view. I start by considering how, in Dewey’s System, education is seen as a form of experience deeply significant to philosophy. Then I try to stress the most inte resting points concerning Dewey’s view of education as a social process. This leds me to explain why Dewey thought that the best kind of education should occur in a democratic environment and what does he mean by that. At this point it becomes possible to effectively understand where Dewey saw the educational value of scientific knowledge and how, according to him, should that value be promoted. Since the superiority of scientific knowledge lies in its method, Dewey argued, science becomes deprived of all its educational value whenever is taught, as ususal, as a mere ready-made subject-matter.

Relying mostly on his Agony Argument, Derek Parfit argued against all the theories that take reasons for acting as based on the agent’s attitudes. I use R. M. Hare’s so-called “Conditional Reflection Principle” –here relabeled as “Mirror Principle” – to challenge Parfit’s contention that subjectivists about reasons cannot consistently endorse the view that “we all have a reason to want to avoid, and to try to avoid, all future agony.” Several objections to the Mirror Principle are examined and shown to result from incorrect interpretations of its content.

The main aim of this essay is to defend Don Marquis’s “future-like-ours“ argument against abortion from David Boonin’s recent critique to it. In the first two sections I show that Marquis’s FLO argument is much more plausible than the traditional argument against abortion, grounded on an appeal to the humanity of the fetus. The third section explains Boonin’s critique to the FLO argument. In the last section I show that: Boonin’s critique rests on a misunderstanding conceming the content of Marquis’s moral principle; We can restate Boonin’s position in order to avoid that misunderstanding, but such restatement leads to the conclusion that infanticide, and not only abortion, is morally permissible.

AUTORES Agnaldo Cuoco Portugal | Aires Almeida | António Zilhão | Célia Teixeira | Desidério Murcho | Iñigo González Ricoy | João Cardoso Rosas | Manuel García-Carpintero | Mathias Thaler | Pedro Galvão | Ricardo Santos | Sara Bizarro | Sofia Miguens | Susana Cadilha | Teresa Marques Sobre os autores Os autores deste livro partilharam o objetivo de conceber um guia de estudo para a Filosofia estruturado tematicamente – i.e. em função de questões, perspectivas e argumentos, sem qualquer preocupação primariamente histórica. Nos onze capítulos que compõem o presente volume, encontramos assim um mapa conceptual da Filosofia que cobre não só as suas disciplinas principais, mas também muitas das suas áreas mais especializadas. Cada capítulo é autónomo, pode ser compreendido sem se recorrer a outros capítulos. O desafio que todos os autores enfrentaram foi o de apresentar uma determinada disciplina filosófica com clareza, rigor e concisão – três características difíceis de conciliar, sobretudo quando se aspira ainda a uma grande abrangência temática. No final de cada capítulo, o leitor poderá encontrar informação bibliográfica actualizada e apropriada para aprofundar o seu estudo.

I argue that David Boonin has failed in his attempt to undermine Donald Marquis's future-like-ours argument against abortion. I show that the ethical principle advanced by Boonin in his critique to that argument is unable, contrary to what he claims, to account for the wrongness of infanticide. Then I argue that Boonin's critique misrepresents Marquis's argument. Although there is a way to restate his critique in order to avoid the misrepresentation, the success of such restatement is precluded by the wrongness of infanticide