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Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES IN PHILOSOPHY Editors: WILFRID S ELLARS, University o[Pittsburgh K EI T H LEHRER, University ofArizona Board of Consulting Editors: J 0 NA T HA N BENNETT, University of British Co/umbia A LA N GIB BA R D, University of Pittsburgh ROBER T ST A LN AKER, Cornell University ROBERT G. TVRNBVLL,OhioStateUniversity VOLUMEI3 VALUES AND MORALS VALDES AND MORALS Essays in Honor of Wil/iam Frankena, Char/es Stevenson, and Richard Brandt Edited by ALVIN I. GOLDMAN and JAEGWON KIM The University of Michigan SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Values and morals. (Philosophical studies series in philosophy; v. 13) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Ethics - Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Frankena, William K. - Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Stevenson, Charles Leslie, 1908- Addresses, essays, lectures. 4. Brandt, Richard B. - Addresses, essays, lectures. 1. Frankena, William K. II. Stevenson, Charles Leslie, 1908- III. Brandt, Richard B. IV. Goldman, Alvin 1.,1938- V. Kim, Jaegwon. BJlOI2.V34 170 78-16409 ISBN 978-90-481-8352-4 ISBN 978-94-015-7634-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-7634-5 Ali Rights Reserved Copyright © 1978 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Orgina1ly published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover Ist edition 1978 and copyrightholders as specified on appropriate pages within No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner T ABLE OF CONTENTS A R T H UR W. B U R KS / Preface vii DA V I D L Y 0 N S / Mill's Theory of Justice I JOEL FEINBERG I The Irrterest in Liberty on the Scales 21 W. V. QUINE/ On the Nature ofMoral Values 37 J 0 H N RA wL s I The Basic Structure as Subject 4 7 R. M. HARE / Relevance 73 ALL AN GIBBAR D I Act-Utilitarian Agreements 91 RODERICK M. CHISHOLM / lntrinsic Value 121 J. o. URMSON I The Goals of Action 131 GILBE R T HA R MAN/ What is Moral Relativism? 143 MONROE C. BEARDSLEY/Intending 163 H 0 L LY s. Go L DM AN I Doing the Best One Can 185 R 0 DER I c K F IR T H I Are Epistemic Concepts Reducible to Ethical Concepts? 215 KURT BA I ER / Moral Reasons and Reasons To Be Moral 231 WARREN S. Q U IN N / Moral and Other Realisms: Some Initial Difficulties 257 WI L LI AM P. ALSTON / Meta-Ethics and Meta-Epistemology 275 RICHARD WASSERSTROM / Some Problems in the Definition and Justification of Punishment 299 BIBLIOGRAPHIES William K. Frankena 317 Charles L. Stevensan 323 Richard B. Brandt 325 INDEX OF NAMES 329 CHARLES STEVENSO RICHARD BRANDT PREFACE This Festschrift seeks to honor three highly distinguished scholars in the Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan: William K. Frankena, Charles L. Stevenson, and Richard B. Brandt. Each has made significant con­ tributions to the philosophic literature, particularly in the field of ethics. Michigan has been fortunate in having three such original and productive moral philosophers serving ob its faculty simultaneously. Yet they stand in a long tradition of excellence, both within the Department and in the University. Let us trace that tradition briefly. The University of Michigan opened in 184l.lts Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts at first resembled a typical American college ofthat period, with religious and ethical indoctrination playing a central role in course offerings. But when Henry Tappan, a Presbyterian clergyman and Professor of philosophy, became President in 1852, he succeeded in shifting the emphasis from indoctrination to inquiry and scholarship. Though he was dismissed for his policies in 1863, Tappan's efforts to establish a broad and liberal curriculum prevailed. Michigan was to take its place among the leading educational institutions in this country, and to achieve an international reputation as a research center. Several past philosophers are worthy of mention here. George Sylvester Morris, an absolute idealist, joined the Department in 1881, having served from 1870 as Chairman of the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. He assumed the Chairmanship of Philosophy in 1884. Morris had taught the fall terms at Johns Hopkins from 1881 until1884, and there one of his students was John Dewey, who was strongly influenced by Morris' Hegelianism. When Dewey completed his doctorate in 1884, Morris brought him to Michigan, where he taught psychology before becom­ ing interested in ethics, social philosophy, and education. John Dewey became Chairman in 1889 and hired James H. Tufts and George Herbert Mead, both of whom, like Dewey, were to become prag­ matists. By 1894, all three had been attracted to the newly established University of Chicago. Upon Dewey's departure, Robert Mark Wenley, an absolute idealist trained under Edward Caird at Glasgow University, was made Chairman. He added vii viü AR THUR W. BURKS two young philosophers to the staff, both of whom were destined to dis­ tinguish themselves: Roy Wood Sellars, in 1905, and DeWitt H. Parker, in 1908. Sellars, a particularly prolific writer, was a critical realist and evolutionary naturalist. Parker was a panpsychist and voluntarist in meta-physics; in particular, he applied voluntarism to both ethics and aesthetics. DeWitt Parker became Chairman in 1929, after Wenley's death, and served until 1947. Interestingly, Parker chose C. H. Langford, coauthor of the pioneering Symbolic Logic with C. I. Lewis (1932), to replace Wenley. Thus the Department's last absolute idealist was replaced by a mathematical logician. Of the three philosophers honored in this volume, William Frankena was first to join the Department, in 1937, having taken his Ph.D. at Harvard. Earlier, DeWitt Parker, Roy Wood Sellars, and C. H. Langford had all taught him as a graduate student at Michigan. Frankena was especially interested in Parker's naturalistic ethics, in which the good was defined as that which satisfies desire. Parker worked out the implications ofthis definitioninHuman Values (1931). Much later, Frankena was to edit Parker's The Philosophy of Value for posthumaus publication (1957). William Frankena was Chairman of the Department of Philosophy from 1947 until 1961, years that saw an already distinguished department of six grow to an even more widely recognized department of twelve. In 1946, Charles Stevensou was welcomed to Michigan, having earned his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1935 and having taught both there and at Yale, his under­ graduate alma mater. Richard Brandt succeeded Frankenaas Chairman in 1964. He had received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1936, and had taught at Swarthmore College for twenty-seven years, during nineteen of which he had held the departmental chairmanship. The administrative skills he brought to his new post served the University and the Department well for thirteen years. * The biographies of William Frankena, Charles Stevenson, and Richard Brandt have much in common, including their entry into the world at roughly the same time. Frankena and Stevensan were born only six days apart, on June 21 and June 27, respectively, in 1908; Brandt wasbornon October 17, 1910. All three graduated from college in 1930, studied at Cambridge University for varying lengths of time before completing their doctorates in this country, PREFACE ix and commenced their teaching careers in the mid-thirties. The Michigan Department of Philosophy is also losing their services at about the same time: Stevenson retired in 1977; Frankena in 1978; and Brandt will retire in 1981. Needless to say, all three are still actively engaged in philosophic research at this writing. Each in his own style has excelled in teaching, at both the graduate and the undergraduate levels, bringing remarkable freshness and ingenuity to the classroom. Together, they have contributed in many and varied fashions to the intellectual, cultural, administrative, and social life of the institutions where they have taught. Frankena, Stevenson, and Brandt have also been similarly recognized for their professional accomplishments. All received Guggenheim Fellowships, were Fellows at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, received the Distinguished Achievement Award from The University of Michigan, and were elected to the Presidency of the American Philosophical Association, Western Division. Let us turn now to a more detailed sketch of each of these men, in order of age as weil as of joining the faculty of The University of Michigan. With the reader's indulgence, I shall refer to them henceforth, on occasion, as Bill, Steve, and Dick, as they are affectionately known to their colleagues and their many friends outside the Department. * * William Klaas Frankena was born in 1908 in Montana, of parents who had emigrated from the Netherlands. Soon thereafter, the family settled in Zeeland, Michigan. Bill graduated from Calvin College in 1930, majoring in English Iiterature and philosophy. He entered the Graduate School of The University of Michigan that same year, and in 1933 passed the preliminary examinations. At this juncture, he decided to transfer his doctoral studies to Harvard: the depression was in its depths, openings in philosophy were extremely scarce, and he saw an opportunity to broaden his intellectual base. Charles Stevenson also enrolled at Harvard in 19~3, and a close friendship soon developed between the two couples, Bill and Sadie Frankena and Charles and Louise Stevenson. Frankena studied at Harvard with C. I. Lewis, R. B. Perry, and A. N. Whitehead. He spent the year 1935-36 at Cambridge University, where he studied with G. E. Moore and C. D. Broad. He wrote his thesis on intuition­ ism in ethics, receiving his Ph.D.
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