During the first quarter of the twentieth century, the French philosopher Henri Bergson became an international celebrity, profoundly influencing contemporary intellectual and artistic currents. While Bergsonism was fashionable, L. Susan Stebbing, Bertrand Russell, Moritz Schlick, and Rudolf Carnap launched different critical attacks against some of Bergson’s views. This book examines this series of critical responses to Bergsonism early in the history of analytic philosophy. Analytic criticisms of Bergsonism were influenced by William James, who saw Bergson as an ‘anti-intellectualist’ ally of (...) American Pragmatism, and Max Scheler, who saw him as a prophet of Lebensphilosophie. Some of the main analytic objections to Bergson are answered in the work of Karin Costelloe-Stephen. Analytic anti-Bergsonism accompanied the earlier refutations of idealism by Russell and Moore, and later influenced the Vienna Circle’s critique of metaphysics. It eventually contributed to the formation of the view that ‘analytic’ philosophy is divided from its ‘continental’ counterpart. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche was among the figures from the history of nineteenth century philosophy that, perhaps surprisingly, some of the Vienna Circle’s members had presented as one of their predecessors. While, primarily for political reasons, most Anglophone figures in the history of analytic philosophy had taken a dim view of Nietzsche, the Vienna Circle’s leader Moritz Schlick admired and praised Nietzsche, rejecting what he saw as a misinterpretation of Nietzsche as a militarist or proto-fascist. Schlick, Frank, Neurath, and Carnap were in (...) different ways committed to the view that Nietzsche made a significant contribution to the overcoming of metaphysics. Some of these philosophers praised the intimate connection Nietzsche drew between his philosophical outlook and empirical studies in psychology and physiology. In his 1912 lectures on Nietzsche, Schlick maintained that Nietzsche overcame an initial Schopenhauerian metaphysical-artistic phase in his thinking, and subsequently remained a positivist until his last writings. Frank and Neurath made the weaker claim that Nietzsche contributed to the development of a positivistic or scientific conception of the world. Schlick and Frank took a further step in seeing the mature Nietzsche as an Enlightenment thinker. (shrink)

Adolf Loos is one of the few figures that Wittgenstein explicitly named as an influence on his thought. Loos’s influence has been debated in the context of determining Wittgenstein’s relation to modernism, as well as in attempts to come to terms with his work as an architect. This paper looks in a different direction, examining a remark in which Wittgenstein responded to Heidegger’s notorious pronouncement that ‘the Nothing noths’ by reference to Loos’s critique of ornamentation. Wittgenstein draws a parallel between (...) the requirement to start philosophy with an inarticulate sound and the need, in certain cultural periods, to highlight the borders of tablecloths using lace. Paying heed to Wittgenstein’s remark sheds further light on a Loosian influence at work in his thinking about modern civilization, both in his well-known ‘Lectures on Aesthetics’ and in the earlier notes from his 1930 lectures at Cambridge. (shrink)

With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, there emerged two controversies related to the responsibility of philosophical ideas for the rise of German militarism. The first, mainly journalistic, controversy concerned the influence that Nietzsche’s ideas may have had on what British propagandists portrayed as the ruthlessly amoral German foreign policy. This soon gave way to a second controversy, waged primarily among academics, concerning the purportedly vicious political outcomes of German Idealism, from Kant through to Fichte, Schelling, and (...) Hegel. During the autumn of 1914, and at the cusp between the two controversies, Moritz Schlick was to deliver a lecture series on Nietzsche’s life and work at the University of Rostock. Responding to both debates, Schlick penned an introduction in which he sought to defend philosophy against all those who would embroil it in warfare. Schlick offers a series of arguments defending Nietzsche against his accusers. He also argues that, though their contributions to the History of Philosophy often amounted to no more than ‘beautiful nonsense’, the German Idealists’ philosophical views cannot be held responsible for the rise of German nationalism. Finally, Schlick mounts a general defense of the search for truth, both in philosophy and in Wissenschaft, as a type of activity which presupposes peace. Though Schlick’s metaphilosophical views change, as this paper shows, he remains constant both in his favourable appraisal of Nietzsche, as well as his separation between politics on the one hand, and both philosophy and Wissenschaft on the other hand. (shrink)

The history of early analytic philosophy, and especially the work of the logical empiricists, has often been seen as involving antagonisms with rival schools. Though recent scholarship has interrogated the Vienna Circle’s relations with e.g. phenomenology and Neo-Kantianism, important works by some of its leading members are involved in responding to the rising tide of Lebensphilosophie. This paper will explore Carnap’s configuration of the relation between Lebensphilosophie and the overcoming of metaphysics, Schlick’s responses to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and Neurath’s reaction (...) against Spengler. (shrink)

In contrast to many of his contemporaries, A. J. Ayer was an analytic philosopher who had sustained throughout his career some interest in developments in the work of his ‘continental’ peers. Ayer, who spoke French, held friendships with some important Parisian intellectuals, such as Camus, Bataille, Wahl and Merleau-Ponty. This paper examines the circumstances of a meeting between Ayer, Merleau-Ponty, Wahl, Ambrosino and Bataille, which took place in 1951 at some Parisian bar. The question under discussion during this meeting was (...) whether the sun existed before humans did, over which the various philosophers disagreed. This disagreement is tangled with a variety of issues, such as Ayer’s critique of Heidegger and Sartre, Ayer’s response to Merleau-Ponty’s critique of empiricism, and Bataille’s response to Sartre’s critique of his notion of ‘unknowing’, which uncannily resembles Ayer’s critique of Sartre. Amidst this tangle one finds Bataille’s statement that an ‘abyss’ separates English from French and German philosophy, the first recorded announcement of the analytic-continental divide in the twentieth century. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s objections against the possibility of a science of aesthetics were influential on different sides of the analytic/continental divide. Heidegger’s anti-scientism leads him to an alētheic view of artworks which precedes and exceeds any possible aesthetic reduction. Wittgenstein also rejects the relevance of causal explanations, psychological or physiological, to aesthetic questions. The main aim of this paper is to compare Heidegger with Wittgenstein, showing that: there are significant parallels to be drawn between Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s anti-scientism about aesthetics, (...) and that their anti-scientism leads both towards partly divergent criticisms of what I will call ‘aestheticism’. The divergence is mainly due to a broader metaphilosophical disagreement concerning appeals to ordinary language. Thus situating the two philosophers’ positions facilitates a possible critical dialogue between analytic and continental approaches in aesthetics. (shrink)

In 1911, Bergson visited Britain for a number of lectures which led to his increasing popularity. Russell personally encountered Bergson during his lecture at University College London on the 28th of October, and on the 30th of October Bergson attended one of Russell’s lectures. Russell went on to write a number of critical articles on Bergson, contributing to the hundreds of publications on Bergson which ensued following these lectures. Russell’s critical writings have been seen as part of a history of (...) controversies between so-called ‘Continental’ and ‘Analytic’ philosophers in the twentieth century. Yet Russell’s engagement with Bergson’s thought comes as a response to a particular British form of Bergsonism and is involved with the wider phenomenon of the British import of Bergsonism (by figures connected in different ways to Russell, such as Hulme, Wildon Carr or Eliot). Though this may challenge the view of Russell and Bergson as enacting an early version of the ‘Analytic’-‘Continental’ divide, there are however some particular characterisations of Bergson by Russell which contribute to the subsequent formation of the ‘rotten scene’ (Glendinning 2006: 69) of the divide in the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth, and Logic had been responsible for introducing the Vienna Circle’s ideas, developed within a Germanophone framework, to an Anglophone readership. Inevitably, this migration from one context to another resulted in the alteration of some of the concepts being transmitted. Such alterations have served to facilitate a number of false impressions of Logical Empiricism from which recent scholarship still tries to recover. In this paper, I will attempt to point to the ways in which LTL has (...) helped to foster the various mistaken stereotypes about Logical Empiricism which were combined into the received view. I will begin by examining Ayer’s all too brief presentation of an Anglocentric lineage for his ideas. This lineage, as we shall see, simply omits the major 19th century Germanophone influences on the rise of analytic philosophy. The Germanophone ideas he presents are selectively introduced into an Anglophone context, and directed towards various concerns that arose within that context. I will focus on the differences between Carnap’s version of the overcoming of metaphysics, and Ayer’s reconfiguration into what he calls the elimination of metaphysics. Having discussed the above, I will very briefly outline the consequences that Ayer’s radicalisation of the Vienna Circle’s doctrines had on the subsequent Anglophone reception of Logical Empiricism. (shrink)

This chapter examines Bertrand Russell’s various confrontations with Bergson’s work. Russell’s meetings with Bergson during 1911 would be followed in 1912 by the publication of Russell’s earliest polemical pieces. His 1912 review of Bergson’s Laughter ridicules the effort to develop a philosophical account of humour on the basis of some formula. In his 1912 “The Philosophy of Bergson”, Russell develops a series of objections against Bergson’s accounts of number, space, and duration. Bergson’s position is defended against Russell’s onslaught by H. (...) W. Carr (1913) and Karin Costelloe-Stephen (1914), though Russell only replies to the former. By contrast to Bergson’s silence in the face of Russell’s criticisms, Russell would continue responding to Bergson’s views in multiple works during the 1910s and 1920s. As this chapter shows, Russell not only develops further objections against specific theses upheld by Bergson, but also comments upon the political implications of Bergson’s philosophy, as well as its positioning within the history of French philosophy. (shrink)

In his recent article, titled ‘Royaumont Revisited’, Overgaard challenges Dummett's view that one needs to go as far back as the late nineteenth century in order to discover examples of genuine dialogue between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy. Instead, Overgaard argues that in the 1958 Royaumont colloquium, generally judged as a failed attempt at communication between the two camps, one can find some elements which may be utilized towards re-establishing a dialogue between these two sides. Yet, emphasising this image of Royaumont (...) as a kind of battleground between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy obscures the plurality of philosophical approaches involved. Royaumont was the meeting point of more than two philosophical traditions, as can be shown by the divergent interests of its participants. Thus, though the potential for rapprochement between Oxford ‘linguistic philosophy’ and a certain strand of phenomenological thought may indeed be found among the discussions that took place during the colloquium, one should keep in mind that such rapprochement took place in the context of a meeting between, among others: continental ‘analytics’, Anglophone non-‘analytics’, French historians of philosophy, ‘analytic’ opponents of Oxford philosophy, Franciscan phenomenologists, and Oxonians who called their work ‘phenomenology’. (shrink)

At the heart of Mizrahi’s project lies a sociological narrative concerning the recent history of philosophers’ negative attitudes towards scientism. Critics (e.g. de Ridder (2019), Wilson (2019) and Bryant (2020)), have detected various empirical inadequacies in Mizrahi’s methodology for discussing these attitudes. Bryant (2020) points out one of the main pertinent methodological deficiencies here, namely that the mere appearance of the word ‘scientism’ in a text does not suffice in determining whether the author feels threatened by it. Not all philosophers (...) use the term in ‘inherently negative’ (29) or pejorative ways. In this paper, I not only corroborate Bryant’s critical claim, but argue that Mizrahi’s response to this part of Bryant’s objection is inadequate. (shrink)

Monk’s ‘The Temptations of Phenomenology’ examines what the term ‘Phänomenologie’ meant for Wittgenstein. Contesting various other scholars, Monk claims that Wittgenstein’s relation to ‘Phänomenologie’ began and ended during 1929. Monk only partially touches on the question of Wittgenstein’s relation to the phenomenological movement during this time. Though Monk does not mention this, 1929 was also the year in which Ryle and Carnap turned their critical attention toward Heidegger. Wittgenstein also expressed his sympathy for Heidegger in 1929. Furthermore, though in 1929 (...) Wittgenstein agrees with the early Husserl on relating logic and science to phenomenology, it is not clear that they mean the same thing by either logic or phenomenology, or that they agree on what the relation between the two should be. (shrink)

Wittgenstein and Heidegger’s objections against the possibility of an aesthetic science were influential on different sides of the analytic/continental divide. Heidegger’s anti-scientism is tied up with a critique of the reduction of the work of art to an object of aesthetic experience. This leads him to an aletheic view of artworks which precedes and exceeds any possible aesthetic reduction. Wittgenstein too rejects the relevance of causal explanations, psychological or physiological, to aesthetic questions. His appeal to ordinary language provides the backdrop (...) for his critique of the philosophical tradition’s focus on a narrow range of evaluative aesthetic terms, thus excluding most of the language we ordinarily employ in the relevant cases. The main aim of this paper is to compare Heidegger with Wittgenstein, showing that: (a) there are significant parallels to be drawn between Wittgenstein and Heidegger’s anti-scientism about aesthetics, and (b) their anti-scientism leads them towards partly divergent criticisms of what I will call ‘aestheticism’. The divergence is mainly due to a disagreement concerning appeals to ordinary language. Thus situating the two philosophers’ positions facilitates a possible critical dialogue between analytic and continental approaches in aesthetics. (shrink)

During the late 1930s, the failed attempt at collaboration between the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Circle culminated in Horkheimer’s 1937 paper ‘The Latest Attack on Metaphysics’. Horkheimer ([1937] 1972), relying on a caricature of positivism as espousing an uncritical myth of the given, drew far-reaching conclusions concerning positivism’s conservative prohibition of the radical questioning of appearances. Horkheimer (1940) later applied some of these criticisms to Dilthey’s conception of Verstehen, while presenting Logical Empiricism as dismissing Dilthey’s proposals nothing more than (...) poetry. By examining Neurath’s unpublished reply to Horkheimer, and drawing on Uebel’s (2019) account of Logical Empiricism’s stance towards Verstehen, this chapter will attempt to dispel Horkheimer’s caricature. I will highlight a parallel between Neurath’s attitude towards (i) claims about Verstehen in social science and (ii) Horkheimer’s proposals for the use of Vernunft by a ‘supra-scientific’ Critical Theory. Neurath argues that once Horkheimer’s objections to ‘positivism’ are reformulated in non-metaphysical terms, they point towards a genuine problem concerning science’s relation to social praxis. For Neurath, the problem can be addressed from within (rather than, as Horkheimer would have it, from above) empirically-minded investigations in the history and sociology of science. (shrink)

The concepts of work, labour, leisure, and play have been widely debated by the social sciences. By contrast, most canonical figures in the history of analytic philosophy have written very little, if anything, on the topic. One of the few exceptional discussions of the concept of labour and its history can be found in Bertrand Russell’s popular work from the 1930s, and more specifically his well-known essay ‘In Praise of Idleness’. In the essay, Russell attempts a spirited defence of a (...) specific, qualified proposal for eventual reform: the universal limitation of the working day to four hours. Looming in the background of this proposal is a bolder thesis, namely the view that social progress involves the eventual minimisation (if not the complete elimination) of labour in the sphere of human activity. It is this bolder view that, as I shall show in what follows, Russell at least partly shares with another philosopher whose work shaped the history of analytic philosophy, Moritz Schlick. While Russell's work on the future of leisure and labour was written for a popular audience and widely read, Schlick’s early writings on work and play have not received adequate scholarly attention. Aside from some differences in their scope and details, there are some striking parallels between Russell’s and Schlick’s overall views on the future of work and play. (shrink)

Several attempts have been made to apply the choice-sensitive theory of distributive justice, luck egalitarianism, in the context of health and healthcare. This article presents a framework for this discussion by highlighting different normative decisions to be made in such an application, some of the objections to which luck egalitarians must provide answers and some of the practical implications associated with applying such an approach in the real world. It is argued that luck egalitarians should address distributions of health rather (...) than healthcare, endorse an integrationist theory that combines health concerns with general distributive concerns and be pluralist in their approach. It further suggests that choice-sensitive policies need not be the result of applying luck egalitarianism in this context. (shrink)

Research on the ethics of algorithms has grown substantially over the past decade. Alongside the exponential development and application of machine learning algorithms, new ethical problems and solutions relating to their ubiquitous use in society have been proposed. This article builds on a review of the ethics of algorithms published in 2016, 2016). The goals are to contribute to the debate on the identification and analysis of the ethical implications of algorithms, to provide an updated analysis of epistemic and normative (...) concerns, and to offer actionable guidance for the governance of the design, development and deployment of algorithms. (shrink)

While COVID-19 vaccines provide light at the end of the tunnel in a difficult time, they also bring forth the complex ethical issue of global vaccine distribution. The current unequal global distribution of vaccines is unjust towards the vulnerable living in low-income countries. A vaccine tax should be introduced to remedy this. Under such a scheme, a small fraction of the money spent by a country on vaccines for its own population would go into a fund, such as COVAX, dedicated (...) to buying vaccines and distributing them to the world’s poorest. A vaccine tax would provide a much-needed injection of funds to remedy the unequal distribution of vaccines. The tax allows for a distribution that, to a lesser degree, reflects the ability to pay and is superior to a donation-based model because it minimises the opportunity for free-riding. (shrink)

The wishes of registered organ donors are regularly set aside when family members object to donation. This genuine overruling of the wishes of the deceased raises difficult ethical questions. A successful argument for providing the family with a veto must (a) provide reason to disregard the wishes of the dead, and (b) establish why the family should be allowed to decide. One branch of justification seeks to reconcile the family veto with important ideas about respecting property rights, preserving autonomy, and (...) preventing harm. These arguments are ultimately unsuccessful. Another branch of arguments is consequentialist, pointing out the negative consequences of removing the veto. Whether construed as concerning family distress or as a potential drop in the organs available, these arguments are unsuccessful; the first fails to recognize the tremendous distress associated with waiting for an organ, while the second has little supporting evidence. A final section considers and rejects whether combining some of the arguments just examined could justify the family veto. We should thus remove the family veto in organ donation. (shrink)

L'ingegneria concettuale è una branca della filosofia caratterizzata da un approccio normativo nei confronti della rappresentazione. Assunzione fondamentale è che i nostri dispositivi rappresentazionali possano essere difettosi. Si configura dunque come l'attività che consiste nell'identificare i difetti in tali dispositivi e mettere in atto strategie di miglioramento. Verranno illustrate le questioni fondamentali a cui una teoria di ingegneria concettuale deve rispondere: in cosa consiste esattamente questa attività? Come possiamo attuarla? Quali meccanismi regolano la formazione dei dispositivi rappresentazionali? Possiamo influire su (...) tali meccanismi? Verrà inoltre presentata un'obiezione all'ingegneria concettuale e varie risposte. -/- Conceptual engineering is a branch of philosophy characterised by a normative approach towards representation. The fundamental assumption of it is that our representational devices can be defective. Conceptual engineering is then the activity consisting of identifying the defects of such devices and putting in place ameliorative strategies. This paper illustrates the fundamental issues for a theory of conceptual engineering: what does this activity consist of? How can we implement it? What mechanisms regulate the formation of representational devices? Can we have an influence over those mechanisms? Moreover, it will be presented an objection to conceptual engineering and various responses to it. (shrink)

Hassoun argues that the poor in the world have a right to health and that the Global Health Impact Index provides consumers in well-off countries with the opportunity to ensure that more people have access to essential medicines. Because of this, these consumers would be ethically obliged to purchase Global Health Impact Index-labeled products in the face of existing global inequalities. In presenting her argument, Hassoun rejects the so-called democratic account of ethical consumption in favor of the positive change account. (...) Two versions of the democratic change account are relevant. One underscores the importance of democratic procedures and institutions, while the other stresses our fundamental moral equality. While at least one prominent institutionalist account has problems, revised versions would be less vulnerable to Hassoun’s counterexamples. Furthermore, institutionalist accounts come with the epistemological gains from democratic procedures and deliberations, which may be especially important under uncertainty. Finally, and perhaps more challenging for the Global Health Impact index project, this measure may place the burden unfairly on those who need to buy medicines. This is a pivotal insight from the non-institutionalist version of the democratic account of ethical consumption. (shrink)

In December 2015, Wales became the first country in the UK to move away from an opt-in system in organ procurement. The new legislation introduces the concept of deemed consent whereby a person who neither opt in nor opt out is deemed to have consented to donation. The data released by the National Health Service in July 2017 provide an excellent opportunity to assess this legislation in light of concerns that it would decrease procurement rates for living and deceased donation, (...) as well as sparking an increase in family refusals. None of these concerns have come to pass, with Wales experiencing more registered donors, fewer family refusals and more living donations. However, as the number of actual donors has dropped slightly from a high level, the situation must be monitored closely in the years to come. (shrink)

What is professional integrity and what makes it so important? Policies are designed to promote it and decisions are justified in its name. This paper identifies two competing conceptions of professional integrity and argues that, on their own, both are deficient. In response, this paper develops a third, interpretive view, in which professional integrity is conceived as the virtue of being good on the word of the practice. Professions ask for the public’s trust and in doing so, generate a set (...) of legitimate expectations. Judgments of professional integrity are informed by an interpretation of practice that is sensitive to this normative situation. (shrink)

Eli Feiring has developed a concept of forward-looking responsibility in healthcare. On this account, what matters morally in the allocation of scarce healthcare resources is not people's past behaviours but rather their commitment to take on lifestyles that will increase the benefit acquired from received treatment. According to Feiring, this is to be preferred over the backward-looking concept of responsibility often associated with luck egalitarianism. The article critically scrutinises Feiring's position. It begins by spelling out the wider implications of Feiring's (...) view. Against this background, it shows that (i) Feiring's distinction between backward-looking and forward-looking responsibility is incompatible with the Scanlonian notion of responsibility she apparently endorses; (ii) her favoured forward-looking notion of responsibility is subject to the objections levelled against the luck egalitarian view (whatever the strength of such objections). (shrink)

The scarcity of livers available for transplants forces tough choices upon us. Lives for those not receiving a transplant are likely to be short. One large group of potential recipients needs a new liver because of alcohol consumption, while others suffer for reasons unrelated to their own behaviour. Should the former group receive lower priority when scarce livers are allocated? This discussion connects with one of the most pertinent issues in contemporary political philosophy; the role of personal responsibility in distributive (...) justice. One prominent theory of distributive justice, luck egalitarianism, assesses distributions as just if, and only if, people's relative positions reflect their exercises of responsibility. There is a principled luck egalitarian case for giving lower priority to those who are responsible for their need. Compared to the existing literature favouring such differentiation, luck egalitarianism provides a clearer rationale of fairness, acknowledges the need for individual assessments of responsibility, and requires initiatives both inside and outside of the allocation systems aimed at mitigating the influence from social circumstances. Furthermore, the concrete policies that luck egalitarians can recommend are neither too harsh on those who make imprudent choices nor excessively intrusive towards those whose exercises of responsibility are assessed. (shrink)

It is sometimes argued that certain sentences of natural language fail to express truth conditional contents. Standard examples include e.g. Tipper is ready and Steel is strong enough. In this paper, we provide a novel analysis of truth conditional meaning using the notion of a question under discussion. This account explains why these types of sentences are not, in fact, semantically underdetermined, provides a principled analysis of the process by which natural language sentences can come to have enriched meanings in (...) context, and shows why various alternative views, e.g. so-called Radical Contextualism, Moderate Contextualism, and Semantic Minimalism, are partially right in their respective analyses of the problem, but also all ultimately wrong. Our analysis achieves this result using a standard truth conditional and compositional semantics and without making any assumptions about enriched logical forms, i.e. logical forms containing phonologically null expressions. (shrink)

By presenting and synthesizing findings on the character of boredom, the article advances a theoretical account of the function of the state of boredom. The article argues that the state of boredom should be understood as a functional emotion that is both informative and regulatory of one's behavior. Boredom informs one of the presence of an unsatisfactory situation and, at the same time, it motivates one to pursue a new goal when the current goal ceases to be satisfactory, attractive or (...) meaningful. Boredom ultimately promotes both movement and the restoration of the perception that one's activities are meaningful and congruent with one's overall projects. (shrink)

I argue that the state of boredom (i.e., the transitory and non-pathological experience of boredom) should be understood to be a regulatory psychological state that has the capacity to promote our well-being by contributing to personal growth and to the construction (or reconstruction) of a meaningful life.

This paper explores an idea of Stoic descent that is largely neglected nowadays, the idea that an argument is valid when the conditional formed by the conjunction of its premises as antecedent and its conclusion as consequent is true. As it will be argued, once some basic features of our naıve understanding of validity are properly spelled out, and a suitable account of conditionals is adopted, the equivalence between valid arguments and true conditionals makes perfect sense. The account of validity (...) outlined here, which displays one coherent way to articulate the Stoic intuition, accords with standard formal treatments of deductive validity and encompasses an independently grounded characterization of inductive validity. (shrink)

This essay provides an analysis of the role of affectivity in Martin Heidegger's writings from the mid to late 1920s. We begin by situating his account of mood within the context of his project of fundamental ontology in Being and Time. We then discuss the role of Befindlichkeit and Stimmung in his account of human existence, explicate the relationship between the former and the latter, and consider the ways in which the former discloses the world. To give a more vivid (...) and comprehensive picture of Heidegger's account of mood, we focus on the experience of anxiety by articulating both its function within fundamental ontology and, relatedly, its revelatory nature. We conclude by considering the place of emotions in Heidegger's thinking from this period. In a companion essay, ‘Affectivity in Heidegger II: Temporality, Boredom, and Beyond’, we complement our present analysis by revisiting the issue of affectivity in terms of Heidegger's discussion of temporality in Division II of Being and Time. We also expand our present discussion by considering the fundamental mood of boredom and other specific moods that Heidegger considers within his later thinking. (shrink)

A long-standing puzzle for moral philosophers and psychologists alike is the concept of psychopathy, a personality disorder marked by tendencies to defy moral norms despite cognitive knowledge about right and wrong. Previously, discussions of the moral deficits of psychopathy have focused on willingness to harm and cheat others as well as reasoning about rule-based transgressions. Yet recent research in moral psychology has begun to more clearly define the domains of morality, en- compassing issues of harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and spiritual (...) purity. Clinical descriptions and theories of psychopathy suggest that deficits may exist primarily in the areas of harm and fairness, although quantitative evidence is scarce. Within a broad sample of participants, we found that scores on a measure of psychopathy predicted sharply lower scores on the harm and fairness subscales of a measure of moral concern, but showed no relationship with authority, and very small relationships with ingroup and purity. On a measure of willingness to violate moral standards for money, psychopathy scores predicted greater willingness to violate moral concerns of any type. Results are further explored via potential mediators and analyses of the two factors of psychopathy. (shrink)

Introspection presents our phenomenal states in a manner otherwise than physical. This observation is often thought to amount to an argument against physicalism: if introspection presents phenomenal states as they essentially are, then phenomenal states cannot be physical states, for we are not introspectively aware of phenomenal states as physical states. In this article, I examine whether this argument threatens a posteriori physicalism. I argue that as along as proponents of a posteriori physicalism maintain that phenomenal concepts present the nature (...) of their referents in a partial and incomplete manner, a posteriori physicalism is safe. (shrink)

This paper considers the argument according to which, because we should regard it as a priori very unlikely that we are among the most important people who will ever exist, we should increase our confidence that the human species will not persist beyond the current historical era, which seems to represent a crucial juncture in human history and perhaps even the history of life on earth. The argument is a descendant of the Carter-Leslie Doomsday Argument, but I show that it (...) does not inherit the crucial flaw in its immediate ancestor. Nonetheless, we are not forced to follow the argument where it leads if we instead significantly decrease our confidence that we can affect the long-run future of humanity. GPI Working Paper No. 1-2019. (shrink)

I argue that moral philosophers have either misunderstood the problem of moral demandingness or at least failed to recognize important dimensions of the problem that undermine many standard assumptions. It has been assumed that utilitarianism concretely directs us to maximize welfare within a generation by transferring resources to people currently living in extreme poverty. In fact, utilitarianism seems to imply that any obligation to help people who are currently badly off is trumped by obligations to undertake actions targeted at improving (...) the value of the long-term future. Reflecting on the demands of beneficence in respect of the value of the far future forces us to view key aspects of the problem of moral demandingness in a very different light. GPI Working Paper No. 1-2020. (shrink)

I argue that many of the priority rankings that have been proposed by effective altruists seem to be in tension with apparently reasonable assumptions about the rational pursuit of our aims in the face of uncertainty. The particular issue on which I focus arises from recognition of the overwhelming importance and inscrutability of the indirect effects of our actions, conjoined with the plausibility of a permissive decision principle governing cases of deep uncertainty, known as the maximality rule. I conclude that (...) we lack a compelling decision theory that is consistent with a long-termist perspective and does not downplay the depth of our uncertainty while supporting orthodox effective altruist conclusions about cause prioritization. GPI Working Paper No. 2-2019. (shrink)

In `Essence and Modality', Kit Fine proposes that for a proposition to be metaphysically necessary is for it to be true in virtue of the nature of all objects whatsoever. Call this view Fine's Thesis. This paper is a study of Fine's Thesis in the context of Fine's logic of essence (LE). Fine himself has offered his most elaborate defense of the thesis in the context of LE. His defense rests on the widely shared assumption that metaphysical necessity obeys the (...) laws of the modal logic S5. In order to get S5 for metaphysical necessity, he assumes a controversial principle about the nature of all objects. I will show that the addition of this principle to his original system E5 leads to inconsistency with an independently plausible principle about essence. In response, I develop a theory that avoids this inconsistency while allowing us to maintain S5 for meta- physical necessity. However, I conclude that our investigation of Fine's Thesis in the context of LE motivates the revisionary conclusion that metaphysical necessity obeys the principles of the modal logic S4, but not those of S5. I argue that this constitutes a distinctively essentialist challenge to the received view that the logic of metaphysical necessity is S5. (shrink)

Despite great progress in our theoretical and empirical investigations of boredom, a basic issue regarding boredom remains unresolved: it is still unclear whether the construct of boredom is a unitary one or not. By surveying the relevant literature on boredom and arousal, the paper makes a case for the unity of the construct of boredom. It argues, first, that extant empirical findings do not support the heterogeneity of boredom, and, second, that a theoretically motivated and empirically grounded model of boredom (...) (the functional account) supports the view that the construct of boredom is a unitary one. (shrink)

The exposure of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to risks in the context of epidemics is significant. While traditional medical ethics offers the thought that these dangers may limit the extent to which a duty to care is applicable in such situations, it has less to say about what we might owe to medical professionals who are disadvantaged in these contexts. Luck egalitarianism, a responsibility-sensitive theory of distributive justice, appears to fare particularly badly in that regard. If we want (...) to maintain that medical professionals are responsible for their decisions to help, cure and care for the vulnerable, luck egalitarianism seems to imply that their claim of justice to medical attention in case of infection is weak or non-existent. The article demonstrates how a recent interpretation of luck egalitarianism offers a solution to this problem. Redefining luck egalitarianism as concerned with responsibility for creating disadvantages, rather than for incurring disadvantage as such, makes it possible to maintain that medical professionals are responsible for their choices and that those infected because of their choice to help fight epidemics have a full claim of justice to medical attention. (shrink)

It is often assumed that we are only blameworthy for that over which we have control. In recent years, however, several philosophers have argued that we can be blameworthy for occurrences that appear to be outside our control, such as attitudes, beliefs and omissions. This has prompted the question of why control should be a condition on blameworthiness. This paper aims at defending the control condition by developing a new conception of blameworthiness: To be blameworthy, I argue, is most fundamentally (...) to deserve to feel guilty. Being blamed by someone else is not necessarily harmful to the wrongdoer. The blame might not be expressed, or the wrongdoer might not care. But to blame oneself necessarily involves suffering. This conception of blameworthiness explains why the control condition should obtain: We are morally blameworthy for A only if A was under our control because to be blameworthy is to deserve to feel guilty, to feel guilty is to suffer, and one deserves to suffer for A only if A was under one’s control. (shrink)

What is the relation between metaphysical necessity and essence? This paper defends the view that the relation is one of identity: metaphysical necessity is a special case of essence. My argument consists in showing that the best joint theory of essence and metaphysical necessity is one in which metaphysical necessity is just a special case of essence. The argument is made against the backdrop of a novel, higher-order logic of essence, whose core features are introduced in the first part of (...) the paper. The second part investigates the relation between metaphysical necessity and essence in the context of HLE. Reductive hypotheses are among the most natural hypotheses to be explored in the context of HLE. But they also have to be weighed against their non-reductive rivals. I investigate three different reductive hypotheses and argue that two of them fare better than their non-reductive rivals: they are simpler, more natural, and more systematic. Specifically, I argue that one candidate reduction, according to which metaphysical necessity is truth in virtue of the nature of all propositions, is superior to the others, including one proposed by Kit Fine, according to which metaphysical necessity is truth in virtue of the nature of all objects. The paper concludes by offering some reasons to think that the best joint theory of essence and metaphysical necessity is one in which the logic of metaphysical necessity includes S4, but not S5. (shrink)

The paper suggests that Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s arguments against sympathy after the French Revolution, Walter Benjamin’s claims against empathy following the traumatic shock of Modernity and the First World War, and Hannah Arendt’s critical take on compassion. after the Holocaust are similar responses to singular historical crises. Reconsidering Arendt’s On Revolution (1963) and its evocation of Hermann Melville’s novella Billy Budd (1891), I show first that the novella bears the traces of an essay by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Appeal to (...) Law” (1809). Then, drawing on Walter Benjamin’s writings on trauma in Illuminations (1968, edited by Arendt), I discuss the political importance Arendt attaches to the proper way of telling a story, at a time when “the communicability of experience is decreasing” (Benjamin, Illuminations, 86). Through the analysis of Benjamin’s “The Storyteller” and Arendt’s “heartless” report on the Eichmann trial (1963), I equally show that, according to Arendt, testimonies must be narrated, or rather performed, in a dispassionate, dry, and compact manner so that they can be historically and politically relevant. (shrink)

Some believe that the current era is uniquely important with respect to how well the rest of human history goes. Following Parfit, call this the Hinge of History Hypothesis. Recently, MacAskill has argued that our era is actually very unlikely to be especially influential in the way asserted by the Hinge of History Hypothesis. I respond to MacAskill, pointing to important unresolved ambiguities in his proposed definition of what it means for a time to be influential and criticizing the two (...) arguments used to cast doubt on the claim that the current era is a uniquely important moment in human history. GPI Working Paper No. 9 - 2022. (shrink)

Increasing evidence from psychology and neuroscience suggests that emotion plays an important and sometimes critical role in moral judgment and moral behavior. At the same time, there is increasing psychological and neuroscientific evidence that brain regions critical in emotional and moral capacity are impaired in psychopaths. We ask how the criminal law should accommodate these two streams of research, in light of a new normative and legal account of the criminal responsibility of psychopaths.

In this article a reference to Jacques Lacan’s ‘capitalist discourse’ will help highlight the bio-political workings of neo-liberalism in times of austerity, detecting the transition from so-called ‘debt economy’ to an ‘economy of anxiety.’ An ‘il-liberal’ turn at the core of neoliberal discourses will be examined in particular, which pivots on an ‘astute’ intersecting between outbursts of renunciation; irreducible circularity of guilt and satisfaction; persistent attachment to forms of dissipative enjoyment; and a pervasive blackmail under the register of all-encompassing regulations (...) and evaluations — all of which elevates the production of success up to the point of a production and consumption of failure. (shrink)

Do non-human animals have an interest in sociopolitical freedom? Cochrane has recently taken up this important yet largely neglected quest ion. He argues that animal freedom is not a relevant moral concern in itself, because animals have a merely instrumental but not an intrinsic interest in freedom (Cochrane 2009a, 2012). This paper will argue that even if animals have a merely instrumental interest in freedom, animal freedom should nonetheless be an important goal for our relationships with animals. Drawing on recent (...) work on the value of freedom, it will be argued that freedom is non-specifically instrumentally valuable. Accordingly, freedom is a means to other goods, but often it is not possible to identify those goods in advance or aim for them directly. Some of the reasons that make freedom non-specifically valuable for human relationships, it will be argued, also apply to relationships between humans and animals. Amongst other implications, it will be shown how this argument provides a response to those who fear that stricter animal protection policies might undermine people’s freedom: A concern for freedom actually requires stricter protection policies rather than speak against them. (shrink)