He has been involved in controversy for his moral defence of Palestinian political violence, despite his justification of the founding and maintaining of Israel in its original 1948 borders.
His papers in philosophical journals have been published in three volumes by Edinburgh University Press. He has appeared on radio and television, is the editor of The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, has written a philosophical autobiography, is chairman of the Royal Institute of Philosophy where he inaugurated the annual lectures subsequently published as Philosophers of Our Times, and he is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.[3] He is married to Ingrid Coggin Honderich.
Consciousness
Honderich's theory of consciousness in the long book Actual Consciousness and the precis-book Your Being Conscious is What? Where? replaces entirely his philosophy of mind in A Theory of Determinism: The Mind, Neuroscience and Life-Hopes and the precis-book How Free Are You?. The new theory derives from a database to the effect that being conscious, figuratively speaking, is something's being actual. This issues, by way of (a) speculation that disagreement about consciousness is significantly owed to no adequate initial clarification of the subject matter, and (b) examination of five leading ideas of consciousness and existing theories of consciousness, and (c) a specification of the objective physical world, into the wholly literal theory or analysis of the nature of consciousness called Actualism. It distinguishes three sides of consciousness: (1) perceptual consciousness—consciousness in perception, (2) cognitive consciousness, and (3) affective consciousness. In each case the theory satisfies the two primary criteria of explaining what is actual, and what its being actual consists in. In the case of perceptual consciousness what is actual is only a subjective physical world out there. I.e. being perceptually conscious is essentially or primarily a state of affairs external to the perceiver. Its being actual is its being subjectively physical, which is specified. In the case of cognitive and affective consciousness, what is actual is representations, internal to the conscious thing, and their being actual is their being subjectively physical, differently so from subjective physical worlds. Actualism argues, further, that it satisfies further criteria better than other existing theories of consciousness including one of subjectivity, individuality or personal identity, and that it is relevant to desires for human standing that are the motivation of beliefs in free will as against determinism. Actualism has been received as a new and arguable theory by philosophers who have previously declared the urgent need for one. A predecessor of the theory is discussed by 11 other philosophers in Radical Externalism: Honderich's Theory of Consciousness Discussed, ed. Anthony Freeman, Imprint Academic.
Determinism and freedom
In A Theory of Determinism: The Mind, Neuroscience and Life-Hopes and in the precis-book How Free Are You?, Honderich expounds a theory of causation as well as other lawlike connections. This he uses to formulate three hypotheses of a deterministic philosophy of mind. They are argued to be true, mainly on the basis of neuroscience. The clarity of determinism is contrasted with the obscurity of the doctrines of free will or origination.
The centuries-dominant philosophical traditions of determinism and freedom, Compatibilism and Incompatibilism, are examined. According to the first, determinism is consistent with our freedom and moral responsibility; according to the second, it is inconsistent with them. Honderich considers Compatibilism's argument that our freedom consists in voluntariness, doing what we desire and not being coerced; hence its conclusion that determinism and freedom can go together. He also examines Incompatibilism's argument that our freedom consists in origination or free will, our choosing without our choosing's being caused; hence the conclusion that determinism and freedom are inconsistent.
Honderich argues that both views are mistaken, since freedom as voluntariness and freedom as origination are each as fundamental to our lives. The real problem of the consequences of determinism is not choosing between the two traditional doctrines, but a more practical one: trying to give up what must be given up, since we do not have the power of origination. Honderich's rejection of both traditions has been taken up by other philosophers, many of whom find his criticisms decisive.
Mind and brain
Honderich's Union Theory of mind and brain is defended in A Theory of Determinism. The Union Theory takes it as possible that conscious events like our choices and decisions are in a way subjective but are nevertheless physical rather than near-physical events. They stand in a kind of lawlike connection with neural events, sometimes called the supervenience of mental events on neural events. These psychoneural pairs, as Honderich calls them, are just effects of certain causal sequences, and are causes of our actions. This sort of physicalism, a predecessor to the notion of supervenience, has since been succeeded in Honderich's writings by the near-physicalism of Radical Externalism. Radical Externalism holds that perceptual consciousness does not have a nomic sufficient condition in a head but only a necessary one. Honderich argues that reflective and affective consciousness are different again. He also argues that this is consistent with contemporary neuroscience, rescues us from the argument from illusion or brain in a vat, and also from the dubious conclusions of sense-data theory and phenomenalism.
The Principle of Humanity
Honderich argues that the Principle of Humanity is that what is right always consists in what, according to the best available knowledge and judgement, are actually rational steps, effective and not self-defeating ones rather than pretences, to the end of getting and keeping people out of bad lives. Bad lives are defined as those deprived of six fundamental human goods: a decent length of life, bodily well-being, freedom and power in various settings, respect and self-respect, the goods of relationship, and the goods of culture. It is a consequentialist principle, but not the principle of utility, nor of course the claim that the ends justify the means. Honderich argues that the principle is fundamental to but not the whole of a morality of humanity. This, he claims, includes certain policies of equality and inequality and certain practices, one being a better democracy than we have. Honderich concludes that the Principle of Humanity is better supported than any other sort of moral principle, on the basis of both consistency and certain facts. He takes it that non-consequentialist reasons are not really reasons at all, nor, he says, does the Principle grant any distinction between acts and omissions.
International right and wrong, democracy, terrorism
Following 9/11, Honderich published After the Terror. The author first lays out premises for what he terms the "bad lives" and "good lives", of those living in Africa and in rich countries respectively. With respect to bad lives, Honderich argues that our omissions have resulted in 20 million years of possible living-time lost by a certain sample of Africans. He also considers the creation of Israel in 1948 and records what he describes as the bad lives of Palestinians as a result of what is called the neo-Zionist expansion of Israel since the 1967 war. Honderich asks whether those in the rich societies do wrong in doing nothing about bad lives. He considers natural morality as well as our worked-out or philosophical moralities. Such outlooks as political realism and such ideologies as liberalism and libertarianism are also considered, as is what Honderich calls 'hierarchic democracy'. The Principle of Humanity is used to judge our moral responsibility for the many bad lives, which Honderich tells us is great. The Principle also condemns the terrorist killings of 11 September as hideous. The killings were not rational means to an end that was partly defensible. The West's subsequent attack on Afghanistan is excused. But the taking from Palestinians of at least their freedom in the last fifth of their homeland, historic Palestine, is condemned. Honderich writes: '...the Palestinians have had a moral right to their terrorism as certain as was the moral right, say, of the African people of South Africa against their white captors and the apartheid state'.
Honderich claims that we need to see the power of our societies as deadly. Americans, first of all, because of their unique power, need to think more carefully about their actions. He also argues that we should supplement our democracies with the transformations of the civil disobedience of Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King Jr., Bertrand Russell, and those in Eastern Europe who brought down the wall.
His later book, Humanity, Terrorism, Terrorist War: Palestine, 9/11, Iraq, 7/7... begins by asking if analytic philosophy in considering large questions of right and wrong should proceed by embracing international law, human rights, just war theory or the like. Honderich, finding these means of judgement wanting, again takes up the Principle of Humanity. The book justifies and defends Zionism, defined as the creation of Israel in its original borders, but also reaffirms that Palestinians have had a moral right to their liberation—to terrorism within historic Palestine against what Honderich calls the ethnic cleansing of Neo-Zionism, the expansion of Israel beyond its original borders. After a further consideration of 9/11, there is an analysis of 10 reasons for what he calls 'our terrorist war' in Iraq. Honderich condemns the war as morally barbaric, given the foreseen and thus intentional killing of many innocents. In condemning the 7/7 terrorist attack on London, Honderich considers the importance of horror to morality. He also argues that Tony Blair and George W. Bush are friends rather than enemies of terrorism. The book ends with a postscript on the charge of anti-semitism against critics of neo-Zionism– a charge Honderich says is principally a part of Neo-Zionism or at least something insufficiently detached from it.
In January 2011, Honderich wrote a letter to the Guardian on terrorism, in response to details released about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process:
[T]he Palestinians have a moral right to their terrorism within historic Palestine against neo-Zionism. The latter, neither Zionism nor of course Jewishness, is the taking from the Palestinians of at least their autonomy in the last one-fifth of their historic homeland. Terrorism, as in this case, can as exactly be self-defence, a freedom struggle, martyrdom, the conclusion of an argument based on true humanity.[4]
Punishment
In Punishment: The Supposed Justifications, Honderich surveys and analyses 14 traditional, backward-looking reasons for the justification of punishment by the state. Most have to do with desert or retribution, others with annulment or consent. All are found to be weak or worse. Honderich then argues that the strong tradition of punishment must have in it some real content or argument. This is found to be that punishment is justified by giving satisfaction to grievance-desires—doing no more than satisfying them. This, Honderich concludes, is the reality of retributivism, but it cannot be an effective justification of punishment. The Utilitarian prevention theory of punishment is also rejected, because it justifies certain victimisations. Mixed theories of punishment, drawing on backward-looking considerations as well as the notion of prevention, sometimes in terms of the reform of offenders, are also found to be untenable. Robert Nozick's theory in particular is examined. Honderich's conclusion is that the long-running problem of the justification of punishment is now dead. Its justification must be in terms of its consequences—in discouraging and licensing certain kinds of behaviour. The live issue is determining what these are. Honderich's answer has to do with the Principle of Humanity. Punishment is or would be justified when it rationally takes forward the humanisation of our societies. He argues, on the basis of this, that most punishments are in fact wrong.
Conservatism
Honderich's book Conservatism begins with a general inquiry into the distinctions between British and American conservatism. He argues that one [British conservatism?] has to do with eternal values and therefore with reform rather than change, a view underpinning Edmund Burke's condemnation of the French Revolution and all conservatives since. Other distinctions have to do with the right kind of political thinking and with human nature, with particular doctrines of incentive and reward, and with certain freedoms, including those of private property. Given these distinctions which set conservatism apart from other views, Honderich asks what underlies and brings these distinctions together. What is the rationale or underlying principle of conservatism? The answer he gives is not just that the conservative tradition is selfish. Its self-interest, he argues, does not distinguish it from other political traditions. What does distinguish it, Honderich concludes, is that it lacks a moral principle to defend its self-interest. It is unique in its amorality. Conservatism was enlarged as Conservatism: Burke, Nozick, Bush, Blair? in 2005, and includes Honderich's consideration of whether Britain's New Labour is truly in the conservative political tradition.
Controversy
Honderich has been involved in controversy since the publication of his book After the Terror in 2002. Honderich arranged with Oxfam in Britain and the publisher of After the Terror, Edinburgh University Press, to have the £5,000 advance on royalties go to the charity, along with more money from the publishers. The Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail suggested that Oxfam was taking money from a terrorist sympathiser, and it then declined the contributions, for which it was judged adversely in the British media. The book was published in a German translation. Micha Brumlik, director of a Holocaust centre and Professor of Pedagogy at Frankfurt University, demanded publicly that the book be withdrawn from sale by the publisher, Suhrkamp Verlag. Despite the declaration by the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who had recommended the translation, that the book was not anti-semitic, it was withdrawn from sale. Honderich demanded the dismissal of Brumlik from his professorship, for violation of academic principle. There was a media furore in Germany. The book was retranslated and republished by an antizionist Jewish publishing house, Melzer Verlag.[5] Lesser controversies have included an imputation of anti-semitism by a student newspaper in London, against which Honderich took successful legal action. There have been attacks by Palestinians on Honderich's justification of Zionism too, including disruptions at meetings.[6]
Other writings
Honderich wrote a number of papers in criticism of Donald Davidson's Anomalous Monism, and in particular made the objection that on certain assumptions the view is epiphenomenalist. The papers are reprinted in Mental Causation and the Metaphysics of Mind, edited by Neil Campbell. Earlier journal papers are about Austin's correspondence theory of truth, causation, time, Russell's theory of descriptions, and John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty. Honderich's philosophical autobiography, Philosopher: A Kind of Life, is a personal and general picture of English academic life over several decades. An encyclopaedia edited by him, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, is in its second edition.
On Consciousness, Edinburgh University Press, 2004. Collected papers. ISBN0-7486-1842-2.
Terrorism for Humanity: Inquiries in Political Philosophy, Pluto Press, 2004. Revised and retitled edition. ISBN0-7453-2133-X.
On Political Means and Social Ends, Edinburgh University Press, 2003. Collected papers. ISBN0-7486-1840-6
After the terror. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003. ISBN0-7735-2734-6. Revised and expanded edition.
How free are you? The Determinism Problem. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN0-19-925197-5.
Philosopher: a kind of life. London: Routledge, 2001. ISBN0-415-23697-5.
A Theory of Determinism: The Mind, Neuroscience and Life-Hopes, Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN0-19-824469-X. Republished in two paperbacks: Mind and Brain and The Consequences of Determinism
Three Essays on Political Violence, Blackwells, Political Violence, Cornell University Press, 1976. ISBN0631170405. Original terrorism book, later revised in several editions.
Punishment, the Supposed Justifications, Hutchinson, Harcourt Brace, 1969, ISBN0-09-096900-6, various later editions.
Edited books
Philosophers of Our Times, ed., Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual Lectures, 2015. ISBN978-0-19-871250-3.
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1995. New Edition 2005. ISBN0-19-926479-1.
The Philosophers: Introducing Great Western Thinkers, excerpts from The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN0-19-823861-4
A. J. Ayer: Writings on Philosophy, 6 volumes, Palgrave Macmillan Archive Press, 2005. ISBN1-4039-1744-2.
Morality and Objectivity: A Tribute to J. L. Mackie, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985. ISBN0-7100-9991-6.
Harold Brown, Tim Crane, James Garvey, Ted Honderich, Stephen Law, E. J. Lowe, Derek Matravers, Paul Noordhof, Ingmar Persson, Stephen Priest, Barry C. Smith, Paul Snowdon, Excerpts from articles by 12 philosophers in Radical Externalism, edited by Anthony Freeman, 2006.
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the concept that individuals are to be treated in a manner that is equitable and fair.
Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute".
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.
Free will is the notional capacity or ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Determinism is the philosophical view that events are completely determined by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and considerations. Like eternalism, determinism focuses on particular events rather than the future as a concept. The opposite of determinism is indeterminism, or the view that events are not deterministically caused but rather occur due to chance. Determinism is often contrasted with free will, although some philosophers claim that the two are compatible.
John Leslie Mackie was an Australian philosopher. He made significant contributions to the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language.
The term 'incompatibilism' was coined in the 1960s by philosopher Keith Lehrer to name the view that the thesis of determinism is logically incompatible with the classical free will thesis, namely the thesis that some ordinary human exercises free will. The term 'compatibilism' was coined to name the view that the classical free will thesis is logically compatible with determinism, i.e. it is possible for an ordinary human to exercise free will even in a universe at which determinism is true. These terms were originally coined for use within a research paradigm that was dominant among academics during the so-called "classical period" from the 1960s to 1980s, or what has been called the "classical analytic paradigm". Within the classical analytic paradigm, the problem of free will and determinism was understood as a Compatibility Question: "Is it possible for an ordinary human to exercise free will when determinism is true?" Those working in the classical analytic paradigm who answered "no" were incompatibilists in the original, classical-analytic sense of the term, now commonly called classical incompatibilists; they proposed that determinism precludes free will because it precludes our ability to do otherwise. Those who answered "yes" were compatibilists in the original sense of the term, now commonly called classical compatibilists. Given that classical free will theorists agreed that it is at least metaphysically possible for an ordinary human to exercise free will, all classical compatibilists accepted a compossibilist account of free will and all classical incompatibilists accepted a libertarian account of free will.
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent.
Indeterminism is the idea that events are not caused, or are not caused deterministically.
Libertarianism is one of the main philosophical positions related to the problems of free will and determinism which are part of the larger domain of metaphysics. In particular, libertarianism is an incompatibilist position which argues that free will is logically incompatible with a deterministic universe. Libertarianism states that since agents have free will, determinism must be false and vice versa.
Harry Gordon Frankfurt was an American philosopher. He was a professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University, where he taught from 1990 until 2002. Frankfurt also taught at Yale University, Rockefeller University, and Ohio State University.
In philosophy, moral responsibility is the status of morally deserving praise, blame, reward, or punishment for an act or omission in accordance with one's moral obligations. Deciding what counts as "morally obligatory" is a principal concern of ethics.
Kantian ethics refers to a deontological ethical theory developed by German philosopher Immanuel Kant that is based on the notion that: "It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will." The theory was developed in the context of Enlightenment rationalism. It states that an action can only be moral if (i) it is motivated by a sense of duty and (ii) its maxim may be rationally willed a universal, objective law.
The sociology of punishment seeks to understand why and how we punish; the general justifying aim of punishment and the principle of distribution. Punishment involves the intentional infliction of pain and/or the deprivation of rights and liberties. Sociologists of punishment usually examine state-sanctioned acts in relation to law-breaking; why, for instance, citizens give consent to the legitimation of acts of violence.
For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto is a book by American economist and historian Murray Rothbard, in which the author promotes anarcho-capitalism. The work has been credited as an influence on modern libertarian thought and on part of the New Right.
Quietism in philosophy sees the role of philosophy as broadly therapeutic or remedial. Quietist philosophers believe that philosophy has no positive thesis to contribute, but rather that its value is in defusing confusions in the linguistic and conceptual frameworks of other subjects, including non-quietist philosophy. For quietists, advancing knowledge or settling debates is not the job of philosophy, rather philosophy should liberate the mind by diagnosing confusing concepts.
Articles in social and political philosophy include:
The Methods of Ethics is a book on ethics first published in 1874 by the English philosopher Henry Sidgwick. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy indicates that The Methods of Ethics "in many ways marked the culmination of the classical utilitarian tradition." Noted moral and political philosopher John Rawls, writing in the Forward to the Hackett reprint of the 7th edition, says Methods of Ethics "is the clearest and most accessible formulation of ... 'the classical utilitarian doctrine'". Contemporary utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer has said that the Methods "is simply the best book on ethics ever written."
History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics is a 1923 book by the Hungarian philosopher György Lukács, in which the author re-emphasizes the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's influence on the philosopher Karl Marx, analyzes the concept of "class consciousness," and attempts a philosophical justification of Bolshevism.
Bruce Waller was a contemporary American philosopher notable for his theories about the nature of free will and its implications for human society. He was a philosophy professor at Youngstown State University from 1990 until he retired in 2019. Waller died on February 8, 2023, at the age of 76.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
