In his book Mortal Questions (1979) Thomas Nagel discusses four practical moral issues: (1) fear of death, (2) the absurdity of human life, (3) sexual perversion and (4) military massacre. His primary concern is neither to justify moral opprobrium nor to find an appropriate punishment for the culprits. Instead, he wants to clarify motives of those individuals who are not afraid of death, who can deal resolutely with the pointlessness of human life, who are not deeply dismayed by the crudity of some forms of sexual behavior or who refuse to justify whatever forms of military atrocities with higher purposes. He reviews various cases of excessive or deficient moral sensitivity and offers specific, case‑oriented advice on how to deal with them. Nagel favors self‑persuasion in cases of fear of death and argues that the sense of absurd is not much different from skepticism. He proposes to draw a line between private and public aspects of sexual behavior and supports dual evaluation of military activities by distinguishing between the moral value of an act and the moral value of the motives of the actor. He condones no atrocities. These arguments do not add up to constitute a form of moral relativism but, instead, seem to restore intellectual respectability of casuistry.
The author identifies three stages in the transformation of the dominant ethos in colleges and universities over the past century. These stages were separated by rifts that looked like mild but pernicious culture wars. The first stage which impresses the author most is commonly called Modernism. The second stage is identified as Post-Modernism. The third that presumably takes form before our eyes can be called Neo-Conservatism. Modernism is described as an intellectual position skillfully characterized by Harland G. Bloland. Postmodernism is shown as an intellectual position adopted by Jacques Derrida, Michel Foulcault i Jean-François Lyotard. Copious references to Bloland are also made in this case. The positon of Neoconservatives is exemplified by the writings of Michel Houllebecq, Douglas Murray and Frank Furedi.
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Autor opisuje przemianę etosu wyższych uczelni w ciągu minionego stulecia. Wyróżnia trzy okresy tych przemian, rozdzielone swoistymi wojnami kulturowymi. Pierwszy okres to modernizm, ceniony przez autora najwyżej, drugi to postmodernizm trwający do dziś, lecz coraz silniej wystawiany na krytykę. Trzeci to dominacja neo-konserwatyzmu, która być może zaczyna się na naszych oczach. Modernizm opisano przez odwołania do artykułu Harlanda G. Blolanda. To samo źródło wykorzystano w opisie postmodernizmu; na tej podstawie omówiono filozofię Jacquesa Derridy, Michela Foulcaulta i Jean-François Lyotarda. Neokonserwatyzm przedstawiono jako stanowisko reprezentowane przez Michela Houllebecqa, Douglasa Murraya i Franka Furedi.
Bertrand Russell formulated neutral monism by default, unguided by any strong idea of a uniform, monistic world. Apparently he worked under the urge to liberate philosophy from the quarrel between physicalists and idealists. But he did not succeed in defusing the controversy, instead he fanned it with his fresh ideas. He argued that matter was indestructible, that some mental regularities occurred independently of our will, and that they unfold as if guided by natural laws. He claimed that some conscious states were to be interpreted as objective events despite the fact that they were accessible only privately. But the concurrence between physical and mental facts indicated a similarity between the principles that guided them, or pointed to their singular common nature. He did not undertake to defend his unitary theory vigorously and did not claim it was indisputable. Possibly he hoped to find an additional support for his theory some day and this paper responds to this unspoken request.
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