We expound an economic explanation of the nature, causes, and effects of moral conventions. We show, first, that systems of moral rules lead to Pareto-efficiency; second, that the efficiency they induce may be interpreted as the outcome of an exchange of courtesies; third, and finally, that moral exchange takes place whenever the costs of transaction are sufficiently low. We also explain various phenomena, including the diversity of moral rules in time and space. Finally, we give sufficient conditions for universal moral rules to emerge in a sequence of agreements involving two agents only at a time.

This paper deals with the distinction between factual and episodic memory (memory that p vs. memory of particular x). The following theses are defended, (i) Episodic memory is internally related to a particular past experience. (ii) Factual memory about x does not imply episodic memory ofx. (iii) Episodic and factual memory may carry the same kind of information about the past. Finally, (iv) episodic memories are reflexive factual memories. When I remember x in the episodic sense, I have a collection of factual memories not only about x, but equally and simultaneously about the fact that this same collection comes directly from my past experience.

Mon projet est de montrer qu'une meilleure compréhension de la position de Kant sur la valeur morale et sur le rôle de la compassion révèle que les objections soulevées par les théoriciens contemporains de la psychologie morale et par les féministes ne sont pas fondées, et que la position de Kant sur ces questions n'est pas du tout contre-intuitive. D'autres on dej´ soutenu que Kant accorde un rôle important á la compassion et que sa présence, pour lui, ne diminue pas la valeur morale des actions, mais je soutiens, plus positivement, que la présence de la compassion, pour Kant, est la marque d'une personne qui a progressé vers I'idéal, inaccessible et pourtant nécessaire, de la vertu morale et que la personne idéale de Kant est quelqu'un qui agit par devoir et qui a développé un sens aigu de la compassion.

It is often said that philosophy in the seventeenth century returned from a Christian otherworldliness to a pagan engagement, theoretically and practically, with material nature. This process is often described as one of secularization, and the splitting off of science from natural philosophy and metaphysics is a traditional figure in accounts of the emergence of the modern. At the same time, the historiographical assumption that early modern science had religious and philosophical foundations has informed such classics as E. A. Burtt's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1932), Gerd Buchdahl's Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science (1969), and Amos Funkenstein's Theology and the Scientific Imagination (1986). A recent collection testifies to continuing interest in the theme of a positive relationship between theology and science.

Multiculturalism is an increasingly important topic for philosophers, largely because of the practical problems posed by diversity. Traditional political philosophy had little to say about cultural difference, taking the existence of a shared language and culture pretty much for granted. The multicultural societies of the contemporary world make such assumptions untenable. Traditional questions of fairness and sovereignty find hard cases in such policy issues as immigration, education, criminal law, and freedom of expression.

Francis Sparshott has written a wonderfully wise, urbane, honest, insightful, and provocative commentary on Aristotle's chief ethical work, the Nicomachean Ethics (NE). Some commentaries on ancient philosophical texts are line-by-line struggles to nail down the meaning of the text, as if the commentator were roofing a house in a high wind, one shingle at a time. Other commentaries are collections of essays, each inspired by a passage in the text, but each growing into a relatively self-contained discussion. Sparshott's commentary is neither of these things.

Why be moral? The question is very old. It takes many forms and is subject to many interpretations. On one interpretation, the question does not make sense (failed presupposition); to ask it is evidence of misunderstanding. This view is not as popular as it once was. The more fashionable answer today is that we have reasons to be moral. These reasons may themselves be moral, or they may be non-moral. In the first case, we may not have the answer we wanted to our question. If we think of reasons as considerations favouring a course of action, decisively in the absence of other reasons, then the fact that there are moral reasons to act morally merely tells us that there are moral considerations in favour of acts required or recommended by morality. It leaves open the question of whether we act against or contrary to reason simpliciter when we fail to act as we morally should. By contrast, if there are non-moral reasons to act morally, then to refrain from doing what is morally required of us is a failure of reason; it is to act contrary to the considerations relevant to the choices one faces.