71 ideas
13047 | It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon] |
13065 | Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon] |
13054 | Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations [Salmon] |
13067 | For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon] |
13055 | Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence [Salmon] |
13046 | Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar [Salmon] |
13058 | Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation [Salmon] |
14366 | An explanation is a table of statistical information [Salmon, by Strevens] |
13064 | The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic [Salmon] |
13050 | The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments [Salmon] |
13059 | Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts [Salmon] |
13049 | We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things [Salmon] |
13051 | Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain [Salmon] |
13053 | A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference [Salmon] |
13061 | Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon] |
17093 | Causation produces productive mechanisms; to understand the world, understand these mechanisms [Salmon] |
17492 | Salmon's interaction mechanisms needn't be regular, or involving any systems [Glennan on Salmon] |
13045 | Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms [Salmon] |
13062 | Does an item have a function the first time it occurs? [Salmon] |
13063 | Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts [Salmon] |
16557 | Salmon's mechanisms are processes and interactions, involving marks, or conserved quantities [Salmon, by Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
13060 | Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? [Salmon] |
13056 | Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability [Salmon] |
13057 | Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies [Salmon] |
4669 | Persons are conscious, they relate, they think, they feel, and they are self-aware [Glover] |
4656 | A problem arises in any moral system that allows more than one absolute right [Glover] |
4657 | Double Effect: no bad acts with good consequences, but possibly good acts despite bad consequences [Glover] |
4658 | Acts and Omissions: bad consequences are morally better if they result from an omission rather than an act [Glover] |
4659 | It doesn't seem worse to switch off a life-support machine than to forget to switch it on [Glover] |
4660 | Harmful omissions are unavoidable, while most harmful acts can be avoided [Glover] |
4661 | What matters is not intrinsic value of life or rights, but worthwhile and desired life, and avoidance of pain [Glover] |
4648 | 'Death' is best seen as irreversible loss of consciousness, since this is why we care about brain function [Glover] |
3785 | You can't separate acts from the people performing them [Glover] |
3786 | Aggression in defence may be beneficial but morally corrupting [Glover] |
4650 | The quality of a life is not altogether independent of its length [Glover] |
3031 | The greatest good is not the achievement of desire, but to desire what is proper [Menedemus, by Diog. Laertius] |
3784 | Duty prohibits some acts, whatever their consequences [Glover] |
3782 | Satisfaction of desires is not at all the same as achieving happiness [Glover, by PG] |
3787 | Rule-utilitarianism is either act-utilitarianism, or not really utilitarian [Glover] |
3783 | How can utilitarianism decide the ideal population size? [Glover] |
4675 | The sanctity of life doctrine implies a serious increase of abnormality among the population [Glover] |
4654 | Autonomy favours present opinions over future ones, and says nothing about the interests of potential people [Glover] |
4655 | If a whole community did not mind death, respect for autonomy suggests that you could kill them all [Glover] |
4680 | Autonomy seems to acquire greater weight when the decision is more important to a person [Glover] |
4670 | Being alive is not intrinsically good, and there is no 'right to life' [Glover] |
4668 | You can't have a right to something you can't desire, so a foetus has no 'right' to life [Glover] |
4649 | If someone's life is 'worth living', that gives one direct reason not to kill him [Glover] |
4651 | Utilitarians object to killing directly (pain, and lost happiness), and to side-effects (loss to others, and precedents) [Glover] |
4671 | What is wrong with killing someone, if another equally worthwhile life is substituted? [Glover] |
4676 | The 'no trade-off' position: killing is only justified if it prevents other deaths [Glover] |
4685 | Societies spend a lot to save known persons, but very little to reduce fatal accidents [Glover] |
4683 | Involuntary euthanasia is wrong because it violates autonomy, and it has appalling side-effects [Glover] |
4682 | Euthanasia is voluntary (patient's wish), or involuntary (ignore wish), or non-voluntary (no wish possible) [Glover] |
4684 | Maybe extreme treatment is not saving life, but prolonging the act of dying [Glover] |
4681 | The Nazi mass murders seem to have originated in their euthanasia programme [Glover] |
4667 | How would we judge abortion if mothers had transparent wombs? [Glover] |
4665 | Conception isn't the fixed boundary for a person's beginning, because twins are possible within two weeks [Glover] |
4652 | If killing is wrong because it destroys future happiness, not conceiving a happy child is also wrong [Glover] |
4662 | Defenders of abortion focus on early pregnancy, while opponents focus on later stages [Glover] |
4663 | If abortion is wrong, it is because a foetus is a human being or a person (or potentially so) [Glover] |
4664 | If abortion is wrong because of the 'potential' person, that makes contraception wrong too [Glover] |
4673 | Abortion differs morally from deliberate non-conception only in its side-effects [Glover] |
4666 | If viability is a test or boundary at the beginning of life, it should also be so for frail old people [Glover] |
4672 | Apart from side effects, it seems best to replace an inadequate foetus with one which has a better chance [Glover] |
4674 | It is always right for a qualified person to perform an abortion when requested by the mother [Glover] |
4679 | One test for a worthwhile life is to assess the amount of life for which you would rather be unconscious [Glover] |
8412 | A causal interaction is when two processes intersect, and correlated modifications persist afterwards [Salmon] |
8413 | Cause must come first in propagations of causal interactions, but interactions are simultaneous [Salmon] |
8411 | Instead of localised events, I take enduring and extended processes as basic to causation [Salmon] |
4784 | Salmon says processes rather than events should be basic in a theory of physical causation [Salmon, by Psillos] |
8409 | Probabilistic causal concepts are widely used in everyday life and in science [Salmon] |