Material objections

Objections to hospital philosophers.

Like morally sensitive hospital staff, philosophers resist routine simplification of morally complex cases. Like hospital clergy, they favour reflective and principled decision-making. Like hospital lawyers, they refine and extend the language we use to formulate and defend our complex decisions. But hospital philosophers are not redundant: they have a wider range of principles and categories a...

Conscientious objections to reform.

Objections, Rebuttals and Refutations

This paper considers how the terms ‘objection,’ ‘rebuttal,’ ‘attack,’ ‘refutation,’ ‘rebutting defeater’ and ‘undercutting defeater’ (often referred to as rebutters versus undercutters) are used in writings on argumentation and artificial intelligence. The central focus is on the term ‘rebuttal.’ A provisional classification system is proposed that provides a normative structure within which th...

Evolutionary Psychology: Objections and Replies

Evolutionary psychology is the study of human cognitive structures and the resultant behaviors in the light of evolutionary theory. The methodology, results and very existence of evolutionary psychology have been objected to on both ethical and scientific grounds. This essay attempts to address some of the most important objections to evolutionary psychology and show them to be either of legiti...

Dutch Objections to Evolutionary Ethics

While strolling the streets of Amsterdam, Sidney Smith, the renowned editor of the Edinburgh Review, called the attention of his companion to two Dutch housewives who were leaning out of their windows and arguing with one another across the narrow alley that separated their houses. Smith remarked to his companion that the two women would never agree. His friend thought the seasoned editor had i...