Intuitively, there is a close link between moral status and phenomenal consciousness. Taking the link seriously can serve as the basis of a proposal that appears to have a surprising number of theoretical benefits. This proposal is the moral option, according to which moral status is partly determinative of phenomenal consciousness, and phenomenal consciousness is sufficient for possession of a moral property I refer to as “moral status.” I argue for this view on the basis of its ability to shed (...) light on the distribution problem of determining which systems are phenomenally conscious. I explicate it by drawing on a theory of attributions of phenomenal consciousness, and considering its relationship to positions on the metaphysics of consciousness. I defend it against a series of objections, including three based on previous theories of the link between phenomenal consciousness and moral status. The moral option should, in my view, be a serious contender among theories of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

The nominal ground that entwines human beings and animal behaviours is unwilling to admit moral valuing as a non-human act. Just to nail it down explicitly, two clauses ramify the moral conscience of human beings as follows: a) Can non-humans be moral beings?, b) Unconscious animal behaviours go beyond any moral judgments. My approach aims to rebuff these anthropomorphic clauses by justifying animals’ moral beings and animals’ moral behaviours from a meta-ethical stance. A meta-ethical outlook may enable an analysis of (...) ethical and normative views through the limit of moral motives and reasoning. Animals’ sense of moral motives and their apparatus of getting involved in moral acts cannot be compared with human actions. In human moral engagement, we abide by moral paradigmatic theories and their diversified attitudes that could have conceptual and linguistic use in our societal discourses. However, animals’ intentional apparatus may have the propensity to choose an act following the moral consequences (care, utility, responsibility, etc.) in their life-forms. (shrink)

One of standpoint theory’s main claims is the thesis of epistemic advantage, which holds that marginalized agents have epistemic advantages due to their social disadvantage as marginalized. The epistemic advantage thesis has been argued to be true with respect to knowledge about particular dominant ideologies like classism and sexism, as well as knowledge within fields as diverse as sociology and economics. However, it has yet to be analyzed with respect to ethics. This paper sets out to complete this task. Here, (...) I argue that we have good reason to believe that the marginalized are epistemically advantaged with respect to moral knowledge overall, including moral facts other than those about the morally problematic features of systems of domination. To do so, I first articulate the connection between marginalization and the moral domain, drawing on the rich history of feminist and non-ideal ethics. Then, I argue that marginalized agents are more likely to have several particular epistemic skills that are necessary to come to have moral knowledge. Utilizing real-world cases where moral knowledge is at stake, I show how marginalized agents have better access to evidence (broadly), as well as advantages distinguishing between considerations that are morally relevant and those that aren’t (sorting), determining the weight a certain piece of evidence has with respect to determining a moral matter (significance), and using concepts which bear on moral questions (conceptual competency). I close by considering the upshots my analysis here has for other areas of moral epistemology like moral testimony and moral expertise. (shrink)

Dieser Artikel stellt Cora Diamonds Begriff des Mitgeschöpfs dar und untersucht dessen Relevanz für tierethische und tierpolitische Diskurse. Die traditionelle Tierethik hat eine rationalistische, naturalistische und reduktionistische Tendenz. Diamonds Moralphilosophie stellt dem einen praxissensitiven Ansatz gegenüber, der Emotionen und die moralische Imagination umfasst, wobei Diamond die Bedeutung des Menschseins betont. Letztere entspringt zwar einem epistemischen Anthropozentrismus, jedoch folgt aus diesem keine Mensch-Tier-Hierarchie: Diamond plädiert dafür, andere Tiere als Mitgeschöpfe, als Gefährten auf sterblichen Pfaden, zu begreifen. Dabei zeigt Diamond an ihrer (...) Interpretation von J.M. Coetzees The Lives of Animals, wie Konzepte von anderen Tieren auf das eigene Selbstverständnis rückwirken. Abschließend erörtert der Artikel den Vorwurf des Quietismus und die Schwierigkeit der politischen Umsetzbarkeit in Diamonds Philosophie. -/- [This article outlines Cora Diamond’s concept of the fellow creature and examines its relevance for animal ethics and animal politics. Diamond’s moral philosophy contrasts the rationalistic, naturalistic, and reductionistic tendency of traditional animal ethics with a practice-oriented approach that encompasses emotions and the moral imagination. Diamond emphasizes the importance of being human, which emanates from an epistemic anthropocentrism, but from which no human-animal hierarchy follows: She pleads for recognizing other animals as fellow creatures, as companions on mortal paths. In her interpretation of J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals, Diamond shows how conceptualizing other animals influences one’s own self-understanding. Finally, the article discusses the reproach of quietism and the difficulty of political feasibility in Diamond’s philosophy.]. (shrink)

This article engages with two fundamental attitudes toward animals who are used for human consumption: attention and ironic detachment. Taken as polarities linked with animal consumption and the refusal thereof, I discuss how these two attitudes are shaped and manifested during moments of encounter with the animals in question. Starting from a striking photograph from the Lychee and Dog Meat Festival in China, I explore the embodiment of these attitudes in the “gaze” of human participants during the encounter with animals (...) who are going to be killed for food. (shrink)

The social intuitionist approach to moral judgments advanced by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt presupposes that it is possible to provide an explanation of the human moral sense without normative implications. By contrast, Iris Murdoch’s philosophical work on moral psychology suggests that every description of morality necessarily involves evaluative features that reveal the thinker’s own moral attitudes and implicit philosophical pictures. In the light of this, we contend that Haidt’s treatment of the story about Julie and Mark, two siblings who decide (...) to have casual, protected, and in his view harmless sex, provides a too simplistic picture of what is involved in understanding human morality. Despite his aim to explain the roots of moral judgments, he fails to provide a deeper understanding of morality in two different respects. First, he does so by suggesting that his story contains all the relevant information needed to take a moral stand on it, and by rejecting as irrelevant the wider human context in which questions about sexual and family relations arise. Second, he simplifies the responses of the people who are subject to his experiment by disregarding their various reasons for disapproving and by equating understanding human morality with explaining an impersonal psychological process. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to reconstruct and discuss Stanley Cavell’s interpretation and critique of analytic philosophy. Cavell objects to the tradition of analytic philosophy that, in its eagerness to provide abstract, theoretical reconstructions, it has failed to understand the importance of “the human voice” for philosophy. First, I outline Cavell’s retelling of the history of analytic philosophy from Frege and Russell to ordinary language philosophy. Second, I turn to Cavell’s reading of Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein in order to show what (...) the suppression of the human voice is supposed to mean and entail. Central to Cavell’s account is a particular view of language according to which no structure can explain our capacity for sense-making. Third, I exemplify Cavell’s approach by analyzing his debate with Kripke. Kripke sees the absence of “rails” determining meaning as a skeptical problem and calls for a communal solution. Cavell, by contrast, accepts the absence of rails while highlighting the need for individual responsiveness. In the conclusion I contrast the analytic interest in theory, structure, and abstraction with what I see as Cavell’s humanism. While respectful of key aspects of the analytic tradition such as its commitment to rigor and transparency, Cavell wished to bring the human subject back into philosophy. (shrink)

A prominent trend in moral philosophy today is the interest in the rich textures of actual human practices and lives. This has prompted engagements with other disciplines, such as anthropology, history, literature, law and empirical science, which have produced various forms of contextual ethics. These engagements motivate reflections on why and how context is important ethically, and such metaethical reflection is what this article undertakes. Inspired by the work of the later Wittgenstein and the Danish theologian K.E. Løgstrup, I first (...) describe one of the ways in which context plays a central role with regard to ethical meaning and normativity. I then examine how ‘context’ is to be defined, and finally I discuss some of the questions which arise when giving context prominence in ethics – namely, how to delimit the scope of relevant context, the relevant traits of a particular context and what ‘the ethical’ is. (shrink)

Maria Kronfeldner’s Preface and Introduction to the Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization maps the landscape of dehumanization studies. She starts with a brief portrayal of the history of the field. The systematically minded sections that follow guide the reader through the resulting rugged landscape represented in the Handbook’s contributions. Different realizations, levels, forms, and ontological contrasts of dehumanization are distinguished, followed by remarks on the variety of targets of dehumanization. A discussion on valence and emotional aspects is added. Causes, functions, and (...) consequences of dehumanization, and the prospects for reducing or undoing it, are introduced. The systematic overview closes with a discussion of some important theoretical complexities that arise in studying dehumanization. After these systematic sections, the scholarly work on dehumanization gets situated in the broader intellectual landscape of debates about the ‘human’ in the humanities and social sciences. The Introduction ends with some notes on scope, limitations, and intended readership of the Handbook. (shrink)

In order for the concept, 'recognition', to play a critical role in social theory, it must be possible to draw a distinction between due recognition and failures of recognition. Some recognition theorists, including Axel Honneth, argue that this distinction can be preserved only if we presuppose that due recognition involves a rational response to "evaluative qualities" that can be rightly perceived in the context of social interaction. This paper points out a problem facing recent defenses of this "perception model" and (...) proposes a solution. I begin by making explicit three criteria broadly shared by recognition theorists: an adequate theory of recognition must be (a) critical, capable of drawing a distinction between due recognition and recognitive failure; (b) minimally idealist, able to accommodate the mediating role of subjectivity in human receptivity to value; and (c) historicist, should not rule out a priori that the values involved in recognitive practice are historically emergent. I then argue that Honneth's version of the perception model cannot fulfill these criteria simultaneously. Drawing upon an Aristotelian notion of evaluative perception and working through an example from Zadie Smith's On Beauty, I defend an alternative view that is, I argue, better equipped to meet these three criteria. (shrink)

Is there something distinctive about humanity that justifies the idea that humans have moral status while non-humans do not? Providing an answer to this question has become increasingly important among philosophers as well as those outside of philosophy who are interested in our treatment of non-human animals. For some, answering this question will enable us to better understand the nature of human beings and the proper scope of our moral obligations. Some argue that there is an answer that can distinguish (...) humans from the rest of the natural world. Many of those who accept this answer are interested in justifying certain human practices towards non-humans—practices that cause pain, discomfort, suffering, and death. This latter group expects that in answering the question in a particular way, humans will be justified in granting moral consideration to other humans that is neither required nor justified when considering non-human animals. In contrast to this view, an increasing number of philosophers have argued that while humans are different in a variety of ways from each other and other animals, these differences do not provide a philosophical defense for denying non-human animals moral consideration. What the basis of moral consideration is and what it amounts to has been the source of much disagreement. (shrink)

Religious ethics, like its sibling, religious studies, emerged out of the divinity schools and theological seminaries in the mid‐20th century. Many years have now passed since these academic disciplines have secured independent standing in universities and colleges, independent from their theological beginnings. The time seems right, then, to ask what theological inquiry might gain from religious ethics and what religious ethics might look like when done in a theological mode. Reflection on the manumission scene in the 15th chapter of John's (...) gospel, on the exegetical puzzles it poses, offers one possible example of these gains and this mode. (shrink)

Anchored in the diverse ecological practices of communities in southern Italy and Aotearoa/New Zealand, this book devises a unique and considered theoretical response to the shortcomings of global politics in the Ecocene—a new temporal epoch characterised by the increasingly frequent intrusion of ecological processes into political life. -/- Dismantling the use of the term ‘Anthropocene’ as a descriptor for our current ecological and political paradigm, this bold and resolutely original contribution proposes a restorative ethics of mutualism. An emancipatory theory intended (...) to re-invigorate human agency in the face of contemporary ecological challenges, it posits an effective means to combat the environmental destruction engendered by modernity. -/- Using ecology alongside European moral and Māori philosophies to re-conceptualise the ecological remit of politics, this book’s granular approach questions the role played by contemporary political ontologies in the separation of humans and environments, offering an in-depth view of their renewed interrelation under mutualism. -/- Ecocene Politics will be essential to researchers and students in the fields of politics, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and geography. It will be of further interest to those working in the fields of political ecology, environmental humanities, and Anthropocene studies, as well as to general readers seeking a theoretical approach to the political issues posed by current ecological crises. (shrink)

This article engages critically with the theory of expression proposed by Mitchell Green in his Self-Expression (2007). In this book, Green argues that expressions are signals designed to convey information about mental states. By putting pressure on one of the examples Green uses in his book, I will challenge this thesis. I will then deepen this challenge by developing a contrast between two philosophical perspectives on expression, which I name the 'instrumental' and the `descriptive'. I take Green's theory of expression (...) to be an exemplar of the instrumental perspective. Expression, in the instrumental perspective, is a means for transmitting information about mental states from organism to organism. The descriptive perspective I articulate with the help of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Ludwig Wittgenstein. On the descriptive view, expression is (at least a part of) an answer to the question what it is so much as to have mental states and a living body. I suggest at the end of the article that if we remain within the instrumental perspective, we will not be able to use expression to satisfactorily answer this question. (shrink)

Those of us who are captivated by new television, often find ourselves rewatching episodes or whole series. Why? What is the philosophical significance of the phenomenon of rewatching? In what follows, I engage with the ontology of television series in order to think about these questions around rewatching. I conclude by reflecting on what the entire discussion might suggest about the medium of new television, about ourselves, and also about our world and the possibilities of art in it.

In this article, I investigate how we may include investigations of actual context in the investigation of moral problems in philosophy. The article has three main parts. The focus of the first is a survey of the dominant view of how to incorporate context into moral philosophy and to exemplify this view, I investigate examples from influential introductions to moral philosophy, identifying what I call the assumption of abstraction. In the second part I present three traditions which attribute a more (...) prominent place to context in philosophical work and which therefore offer resources for thinking about context: moral contextualism, particularism and contextualism in political philosophy. Unconvinced that these resources are sufficient for an understanding of how actual context may be of importance in philosophy, I in the third part turn to a systematic investigation of three suggestions for how to incorporate actual context onto philosophy: the application approach, the bottom-up approach and the contextual approach. Furthermore, I argue that the third and most radical approach develops a superior understanding of how to include context in moral philosophy, reflecting the impossibility of making normatively neutral investigations of context in moral philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to support contextual ethics as a broad and open understanding of ethics and the ethical by commenting on the origin of the words ‘ethics’ and ‘ethical’ in Greek philosophy and on the ambiguities built into them from the beginning. I further list some complexities that arose when the Latinate words ‘morals’ and ‘moral’ began to be used in Roman, medieval and modern philosophy, sometimes as synonyms of and sometimes in contrast to ‘ethics’ and ‘ethical’. Finally, (...) I return to discuss the prospects of contextual ethics in the context of developments in moral philosophy in the twentieth century, adding some pragmatist arguments in its favour. (shrink)

This article critiques Stephen Mulhall's reading of Cavell's response to skepticism. In the first half of the article, I argue that Mulhall is mistaken in two respects: he elides differences Cavell notes between external world and other minds skepticism as well as conflates empathetic projection and acknowledgment. In the second half of the article, I argue for a novel reading of Cavell's account of acknowledgment, which addresses the concerns I raise for Mulhall. The paper closes by considering and responding to (...) a worry that one's efforts at acknowledgment are more complicated projections of one's self onto the other. (shrink)

This paper introduces the special section on Cora Diamond’s significance for education and educators. The introduction is meant to be the beginning of a conversation, and—to that end—the special section editors suggest lines of connections that philosophers of education might draw between their work and the work of Cora Diamond. Their list is not meant to be exhaustive, but it is meant to suggest Diamond’s far-reaching significance for education and educators.

Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.

This paper illuminates the explanatory role of vagueness und species membership against the background of scientific developments in recent stem cell research. With the help of the Neo-Aristotelian concept of “life form naturalism” ontologically vague entities such as stem cells, all above induced pluripotent stem cells, could be described as necessary constituents for the correct sorting and naming of natural processes and its bearers. Furthermore this specific assessment allows drawing some important ontological and ethical consequences.

This article explores the philosopher Alice Crary’s ideas about ethics, literature, and nonhuman animals. Through studying certain works of literature, Crary writes, readers can see aspects of animals’ moral characteristics that are difficult to perceive outside of literary study. To illustrate and extend Crary’s argument, the article presents a reading of John Steinbeck’s (1937/1993) Of Mice and Men, a novella that is taught frequently in secondary schools and that has been re-evaluated by critics as offering insights into social inequality and (...) animal welfare. Drawing upon and adapting Crary’s work, which does not address questions of pedagogy, the article describes forms of instruction that enable students reading Of Mice and Men and other works of literature to explore the moral lives of animals. Thus, a key contribution of this project is its explanation of how educators can use philosophy to open pedagogy to new ways of seeing and assessing animals’ moral characteristics. (shrink)

Book review of Crary, Alice, Inside Ethics: On the Demands of Moral Thought, Harvard University Press 2016.

The idea that human beings have a distinct moral worth—a moral significance over and above any moral worth, such as that may be, possessed by other animals—has a long history and has traditionally been taken for granted by philosophers and theologians. However, in a variety of quarters in recent philosophy, this idea has come into disrepute, seeming to indicate a mere prejudice in favour of our own species. For example, Peter Singer has argued that such a position is mere speciesism, (...) a prejudice of a kind with racism and sexism in that it involves making moral distinctions between our own and other species that cannot be morally justified. What on such views is needed to justify any such distinction is a difference in terms of the morally relevant properties possessed by our own species as compared with other species. I will call this view the moral property view. Insofar as other species share with us morally relevant properties, for example the capacity to suffer cognitive ability and so on, it is mere prejudice not to accept moral requirements with respect to them as we do with respect to our own species. While on the surface such a view may seem morally enlightened, it indicates what will seem to many problematic moral judgments with respect to severely disabled human beings. In this paper, I will respond to these concerns by suggesting a different basis for the idea of human moral distinctiveness, one that draws on recent work by Wittgensteinian moral philosophers and which denies what I called above the property view. According to this view, while our shared life with other animals involves the recognition of their moral significance, our shared life with other human beings involves recognising that human beings as human beings have a distinctive moral value. (shrink)

The phenomenon and ethics of “voting” will be explored in the context of human enhancements. “Voting” will be examined for enhanced humans with moderate and extreme enhancements. Existing patterns of discrimination in voting around the globe could continue substantially “as is” for those with moderate enhancements. For extreme enhancements, voting rights could be challenged if the very humanity of the enhanced was in doubt. Humans who were not enhanced could also be disenfranchised if certain enhancements become prevalent. Voting will be (...) examined using a theory of engagement articulated by Professor Sophie Loidolt that emphasizes the importance of legitimization and justification by “facing the appeal of the other” to determine what is “right” from a phenomenological first-person perspective. Seeking inspiration from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948, voting rights and responsibilities will be re-framed from a foundational working hypothesis that all enhanced and non-enhanced humans should have a right to vote directly. Representative voting will be considered as an admittedly imperfect alternative or additional option. The framework in which voting occurs, as well as the processes, temporal cadence, and role of voting, requires the participation from as diverse a group of humans as possible. Voting rights delivered by fiat to enhanced or non-enhanced humans who were excluded from participation in the design and ratification of the governance structure is not legitimate. Applying and extending Loidolt’s framework, we must recognize the urgency that demands the impossible, with openness to that universality in progress (or universality to come) that keeps being constituted from the outside. (shrink)

Die Abschaffung der Sklaverei, die Einführung sozialer Sicherungssysteme, die Sanktionierung von Vergewaltigung in der Ehe gelten gemeinhin als gesellschaftlicher Fortschritt – als ein Wandel zum Besseren. Dennoch hat die Idee einer generellen Fortschrittsbewegung ihren alten Glanz verloren, ja, sie ruft sogar Skepsis hervor. In aller Munde ist hingegen die Diagnose der Regression. Sie wird diversen Zeiterscheinungen gestellt, vom rechtsautoritären Populismus bis zur Demokratiemüdigkeit. -/- Rahel Jaeggi verteidigt in ihrem Buch das Begriffspaar Fortschritt und Regression als unverzichtbares sozialphilosophisches Werkzeug für die (...) Kritik unserer Zeit. Als fortschrittlich oder regressiv versteht sie nicht nur das Resultat, sondern vor allem die Gestalt gesellschaftlicher Transformationen selbst. Indem sie nach den Erfahrungsblockaden fragt, die regressiven Tendenzen Vorschub leisten, entwickelt sie einen Begriff des Fortschritts, der eurozentrische Verzerrungen ebenso vermeidet wie die Vorstellung einer zwangsläufigen Entwicklungstendenz. Fortschritt, so zeigt sie, ist nicht der Vorlauf zu einem bereits bekannten Ziel, sondern der nie abgeschlossene Prozess der Emanzipation. (shrink)

Recent discussions in critical social epistemology have raised the idea that the concept 'knower' is not only an epistemological concept, but an ethical concept as well. Though this idea plays a central role in these discussions, the theoretical underpinnings of the claim have not received extended scrutiny. This paper explores the idea that 'knower' is an irreducibly ethical concept in an effort to defend its use as a critical concept. In Section 1, I begin with the claim that 'knower' is (...) an irreducibly normative and social concept, drawing from some ideas in Wilfrid Sellars. In Section 2, I argue that one's being a knower involves demands for various sorts of ethically-laden recognition. I develop this thought by arguing that Axel Honneth's threefold typology of recognition—love, respect, and esteem—finds clear expression within the context of socio-epistemic practice. I conclude in Section 3 by arguing that Miranda Fricker's proposed " analogy " between epistemic and moral perception should be modified to indicate a closer relationship than mere analogy. (shrink)

Arguments for veganism don’t make many vegans, or even many who think they ought to be vegans, at least when they’re written by philosophers. Others — such as the one by Jonathan Safran Foer — seem to do a bit better. Why? To answer this question, I sketch a theory of ordinary moral argumentation that highlights the importance of meaning-based considerations in arguing that people ought to act in ways that deviate from normal expectations for behaviour. In particular, I outline (...) an eclectic theory, where we draw on a variety of moral frameworks and don’t assume that morality is generally overriding. I suggest that meaning-based considerations help us sort through the array of reasons available to us, as well as explain why, in a particular case, what we ought to do morally is what we ought to do all things considered. (shrink)

This essay has several related goals. The first is to contribute to the philosophy of education literature on Cora Diamond while introducing the work of her sister, Julie Diamond, to the field. I introduce Julie Diamond’s work by connecting it to the work of John Dewey, and a secondary goal of the paper is to test lines of connection between Dewey and Cora Diamond. Finally, by developing Cora and Julie Diamond’s thinking on teaching and the moral life, I hope to (...) contribute to conversations in teacher education, especially ongoing conversations about the meaning of responsive teaching. The first half of the paper discusses and engages Cora Diamond’s thinking on the moral life drawing on a range of her published work, the middle of the paper builds a bridge from Cora Diamond to Dewey as a way of introducing Julie Diamond, and the final part of the paper offers an engagement with Julie Diamond’s work. I discuss teaching throughout the paper, and my hope is that a vision of responsive teaching, one grounded in the work of Julie and Cora Diamond, emerges that allows teachers to come alive to aspects of their work that can disappear in the rush and whirl of classroom life. The paper begins with a personal story as a way of connecting with the style of Cora and Julie Diamond’s approach to teaching and the moral life. (shrink)

How should a philosophical inquiry into the moral status of (nonhuman) animals proceed? Many philosophers maintain that by examining the “morally relevant” psychological or physiological capacities possessed by the members of different species, and comparing them with similar capacities possessed by human beings, the moral status of the animals in question can be established. Others contend that such an approach runs into serious moral and conceptual problems, a crucial one being that of how to give a coherent account of the (...) natural sense of concern for profoundly cognitively impaired human beings if moral status is assumed to depend on features that centrally include cognitive capacities. The present article discusses this debate with reference to Wittgenstein-influenced philosophers whose respective approaches, on the face of it, diverge dramatically. With a primary focus on Hans-Johann Glock and Cora Diamond, and a secondary focus on recent work by Alice Crary, I argue that, despite an overt disavowal of the kind of approach favoured by Diamond and Crary, Glock’s affirmation that we simply do “value human life” brings him closer to that approach than he acknowledges. (shrink)

In his 1786 essay, What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?, Kant characterizes the business of reasoning by referring to the use of the spatial orientations ‘right’ and ‘left’; he, then, extents his analysis to mathematical and logical ways of orientation. The following paper will start off by analyzing the Kantian standard account of orientation to, eventually, amend that account by deepening and correcting it in three respects: the indexical character of orientation that is due to the particular (...) standpoint of the subject who is oriented by a particular cluster of available reference points; the twofold comparative procedure of orientation in which a situation is assessed by virtue of a practically justified and indexically structured net of orientation; and the receptive modes of orientation, mirroring the ‘existential’ fact that the subject is already oriented to a situation by established institutions. The paper ends in briefly considering the pitfalls and benefits of being disoriented. (shrink)

Can a good man do evil things? This paper offers a moral philosophical reading of Hilary Mantel’s novels Wolf Hall and Bring up the bodies, focusing on Mantel’s fictional portrayal of Thomas Cromwell as a good person, in spite of his growing involvement in the dirty work of Henry VIII. The narrative resists interpretations of Cromwell as someone corrupted by power. It also thwarts attempts to read his deeds as results of a deficient capacity for sympathetic imagination, which has been (...) a focalized moral flaw in contemporary moral philosophical discussions of literature. By thus resisting moralized readings of his character, the novels invite intensified attention to the complex dynamics of character and circumstance. (shrink)

According to one prominent form of moral individualism, how an individual is to be treated is determined, not by considering her group membership, but by considering her own particular characteristics. On this view, so this paper argues, it is not possible to provide an account of why people with profound cognitive disabilities are owed respect. This conclusion is not new, but it has been challenged by writers who are sympathetic to the recommended emphasis. The paper aims to show that the (...) conclusion cannot be avoided, and to look at what is to be learned from an approach that leads us to this point. It suggests that any account of why profoundly disabled people are owed respect will have to supplement discussion of their particular capacities with a normative account of their humanity. (shrink)

This article aims to shed light on some core challenges of liberating social criticism. Its centerpiece is an intuitively attractive account of the nature and difficulty of critical social thought that nevertheless goes missing in many philosophical conversations about critique. This omission at bottom reflects the fact that the account presupposes a philosophically contentious conception of rationality. Yet the relevant conception of rationality does in fact inform influential philosophical treatments of social criticism, including, very prominently, a left Hegelian strand of (...) thinking within contemporary Critical Theory. Moreover, it is possible to mount a defense of the conception by reconstructing, if with various qualifications and additions, an argument from classic—i.e., mid twentieth-century—Anglo-American philosophy of the social sciences, in particular, the argument that forms the backbone of Peter Winch’s _The Idea of a Social Science_. Winch draws his guiding insights from the later philosophy of Wittgenstein, and one of the payoffs of considering Winch’s Wittgenstein-inspired work against the backdrop of Hegel-inspired work in Critical Theory is to contest the artificial professional strictures that are sometimes taken to speak against reaching across the so-called ‘Continental Divide’ in philosophy. The larger payoff is advancing, by means of this philosophically ecumenical approach, the enterprise of liberating social thought. (shrink)

Widely chosen by students of society as an approach under which to labour, emancipatory, liberatory or, otherwise put, critical social thought occupies a position between knowledge and practical action whose coherence is taken for granted on account of the pressing nature of the issues it attempts to deal with. As such it is rarely subjected to scrutiny and the methodological, conceptual and moral challenges it faces are not properly identified. The contribution of this article is to raise these problems into (...) view clearly and unambiguously. This is undertaken via a careful examination of Alice Crary’s recent work, in which she attempts, firstly, to defend a left-Hegelian version of Critical Theory by relating it to the work of Peter Winch and, second, to issue a set of methodologically radical recommendations on employing the sensibility-shaping powers of the literary form. The article aims to deepen our understanding of the fundamental tensions between the Critical Theory and Wittgensteinian traditions, which Crary attempts to bring together and, ultimately, of those crucial features of our moral practices that frustrate the enterprise of critical social thought. (shrink)