The starting point regarding consent has to be that it is both extremely important, and that it is often suspicious. In this article, the author tries to make sense of both of these claims, from a largely liberal perspective, tying consent, predictably, to the value of autonomy and distinguishing between autonomy as sovereignty and autonomy as nonalienation. The author then discusses adaptive preferences, claiming that they suffer from a rationality flaw but that it's not clear that this flaw matters morally (...) or politically. What matters is whether they suffer from an autonomy flaw. To answer this question, the author develops an account of autonomy failure, according to which a preference is nonautonomous if an injustice played an appropriate role in its causal history. The author then discusses the moral implications—and in an initial way, the political ones as well—of proclaiming a preference, or consent based on it, nonautonomous in this way. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that widespread, serious errors in the self-assessment of affect are a genuine possibility-one worth taking very seriously. For we are subject to a variety of errors concerning the character of our present and past affective states, or "affective ignorance." For example, some affects, particularly moods, can greatly affect the quality of our experience even when we are unable to discern them. I note several implications of these arguments. First, we may be less competent pursuers of (...) happiness than is commonly believed, raising difficult questions for political thought. Second, some of the errors discussed ramify for our understanding of consciousness, including Ned Block's controversial distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. Third, empirical results based on self-reports about affect may be systematically misleading in certain ways. (shrink)

The psychological condition of being happy is best understood as a matter of a person’s emotional condition. I elucidate the notion of an emotional condition by introducing two distinctions concerning affect, and argue that this “emotional state” view is probably superior on intuitive and substantive grounds to theories that identify happiness with pleasure or life satisfaction. Life satisfaction views, for example, appear to have deflationary consequences for happiness’ value. This would make happiness an unpromising candidate for the central element in (...) a theory of well-being, as it is in L. W. Sumner’s work. Yet on an emotional state conception, happiness may prove to be a key constituent of well-being. The emotional state view also makes happiness less vulnerable to common doubts about the importance of happiness, and indicates that mood states are more important for well-being than is generally recognized. (shrink)

This essay outlines an account of virtue ethics applied to the profession of journalism. Virtue ethics emphasizes character before consequences, requires the "good" prior to the "right," and allows for agent-relative as well as agent-neutral values. This essay offers an exploration of the internal characteristics of a good journalist by focusing on moral virtues crucial to journalism. First, the essay outlines the general tenets of Aristotelian virtue ethics. Second, it offers arguments touting virtue ethics in comparison with other popular normative (...) theories such as Mill's utilitarianism and Kant's deontology. Finally, an original account of journalistic virtue ethics is offered, with an emphasis on the virtues of justice and integrity. (shrink)

Recent philosophical literature has turned its attention towards assessments of how to judge scientific proposals as worthy of further inquiry. Previous work, as well as papers contained within this special issue, propose criteria for pursuitworthiness (Achinstein, 1993; Whitt, 1992; DiMarco & Khalifa, 2019; Laudan, 1977; Shan, 2020; Šešelja et al., 2012). The purpose of this paper is to assess the grounds on which pursuitworthiness demands can be legitimately made. To do this, I propose a challenge to the possibility of even (...) minimal criteria of pursuitworthiness, inspired by Paul Feyerabend. I go on to provide a framework for identifying the contexts in which pursuitworthiness criteria may promote the efficiency of scientific inquiry. I then spell out some implications this framework has for values and pursuit. (shrink)

Happiness is currently the topic of a wide range of empirical research, and is increasingly becoming the focus of public policy. The interest in happiness largely stems from its connection with well-being. We care about well-being – how well our lives are going for us. If we are happy it seems that, to some extent, we must be doing well. This suggests that we may be able to successfully measure well-being through measuring happiness. The problem is that both happiness and (...) well-being are elusive and their measurement is far from uncontroversial. What exactly does information about happiness tell us about well-being? Is there more to well-being than happiness? If so, to what extent is happiness connected to well-being? These are controversial questions, but answers to them must be given if we are to make progress in the measurement of well-being. I argue that we should view happiness as an indicator of changes in well-being. I call this the Indicator View. According to this view, someone can be doing badly yet be happy insofar as their well-being is improving (and vice versa). More precisely, the Indicator View is the view that happiness is a defeasible indicator of local changes in well-being. Thus, we can successfully measure an important aspect of well-being through measuring happiness. I argue in favour of this view on the basis of an understanding of well-being that is widely acceptable. The Indicator View, therefore, has the potential to unite divided opinion over what happiness research can tell us about well-being. (shrink)