Começo por distinguir entre proibição em abstrato (tipicidade) e proibição em concreto (ilicitude), situando o estado de necessidade justificante ao nível das causas de exclusão da ilicitude. Relaciono a exclusão da ilicitude resultante do estado de necessidade com a noção de ‘bem’ em sentido integral ou agregado. Depois, passo ao ponto principal deste ensaio, aplicando a teoria da diferença, usada no cálculo da indemnização em sede de responsabilidade civil, para aferir se há ou não superioridade do interesse salvaguardado face ao (...) interesse sacrificado. Por fim, defendo essa aplicação de algumas objeções que podem ser levantadas. (shrink)

Moral language displays a characteristic duality. On the one hand, moral claims seem to be similar to descriptive claims: To say that an act is right seems to be a matter of making an assertion, thus indicating that the speaker has a moral belief about which she can be correct or mistaken. On the other hand, moral claims seem to be different from descriptive claims: There is a sense in which, by claiming that an act is right, a speaker indicates (...) that she is inclined to perform the act, to want others to perform it, and to react with praise towards those who do it. Hybrid theories maintain that utterances of moral sentences have both a descriptive and a practical linguistic function. In this thesis, I investigate how a hybrid theory can best accommodate the descriptive and the practical aspects of moral language. I evaluate and criticize the way that existing hybrid theories have proposed to explain the duality of moral language. The main arguments against these views are that they either: fail to accommodate the way that the practical or attitudinal import of moral claims vary across different contexts and linguistic environments; or that they fail to show how the practical or attitudinal import is reliably inferred by interlocutors in virtue of general communicative principles. I develop and defend a new hybrid theory called ‘dynamic descriptivism’. This theory accommodates the duality of moral language by appeal to the way that moral utterances affect a dimension of communication which consists of the shared assumptions that interlocutors mutually assume to mutually accept. Moreover, I discuss a problem which has affected a wide range of theories of moral language – including existing hybrid theories – which is the problem of explaining what it is that interlocutors disagree about when they disagree about matters of morality. I argue that that dynamic descriptivism offers new resources for solving this problem. (shrink)

Intentional actions are those which are performed because the subject sees something to be said for performing them; the subject sees performing the action “in a positive light”. Intentional actions are therefore susceptible to a distinctive kind of explanation, which explains them as intentional; that is, which accounts for them in terms of their unique property, of being performed because the subject sees that there is something to be said for doing so. Practical reasoning is the process of figuring out (...) what there is reason to do; that is, what actions are best supported by the considerations available to the subject. To put it another way, practical reasoning is the process of figuring out which actions there is the most to be said for; so practical reasoning explains intentional action “properly”, i.e., in terms of its special properties. Many philosophers, loosely following the lead of David Hume, have argued for a close connection between desire and intentional action. If desires explain intentional actions properly, then they must do so through practical reasoning; that being the case, how do they do it? Another sizeable group of philosophers, the anti-Humeans, have argued that desires cannot explain intentional actions properly; they claim that desires are not the right sorts of things to appear in the premises of arguments, do not count in favour of any action, do not constitute evaluations of any action, and are in any case too fickle and lawless to take part in distinctively normative forms of explanation. The central question in this thesis is, what is the role of desire in practical reasoning? I put forward a characterisation of desire which explains how some desires can explain intentional actions properly, and leaves the question open whether all intentional actions are properly explained by desires. (shrink)

ENGLISH. From statements about what is the case we cannot derive statements about what ought to be. This is only one way in which we can describe the dichotomy between Is and Ought that has preoccupied philosophers since Hume to the present day. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the question of whether statements about what ought to be may commit us to, or even imply, statements about what is. This paper aims to address this shortcoming. It pursues (...) two goals. First, it tries to show that rationality requires empirical evidence about what is if we have normative beliefs about what we ought to do. Second, it tries to draw two further conclusions for (academic) philosophers. On the one hand, in our research on normative statements, we are rationally required to consider relevant empirical findings. On the other hand, as individuals we are rationally required to intend to act in accordance with our normative beliefs. -/- DEUTSCH. Aus Aussagen darüber, was der Fall ist, lassen sich keine Aussagen darüber ableiten, was sein sollte. Dies ist nur eine Beschreibung der Dichotomie von Sein und Sollen, die Philosophen seit Hume bis heute beschäftigt. Umgekehrt hat die Frage relativ wenig Beachtung gefunden, ob Aussagen darüber, was sein sollte, zu Aussagen darüber, was ist, führen können oder sie gar implizieren. Der vorliegende Beitrag möchte diesem Manko entgegentreten. Er verfolgt zwei Ziele: Erstens versucht er im Allgemeinen zu zeigen, dass normative Überzeugungen darüber, was man tun sollte, unter rationalem Gesichtspunkt empirischer Evidenz bedürfen. Zweitens versucht er, spezifisch für uns (akademisch) Philosophierende zwei weitere Folgerungen zu ziehen. Einerseits sind wir in unserer Forschung über normative Aussagen rational verpflichtet, relevante empirische Befunde zu beachten. Andererseits sind wir als Individuen rational verpflichtet zu beabsichtigen, selbst unseren normativen Überzeugungen entsprechend zu handeln. (shrink)

Are moral terms semantically plastic—that is, would very slight changes in our patterns of use have shifted their meanings? This is a delicate question for moral realists. A 'yes' answer seems to conflict with the sorts of intuitions that support realism; but a 'no' answer seems to require a semantics that involves hefty metaphysical commitments. This tension can be illustrated by thinking about how standard accounts of vagueness can be applied to the case of moral terms, and also by considering (...) how realists should respond to the Moral Twin Earth problem. After presenting the puzzle, I will argue that moral realists can accept the semantic plasticity of moral expressions while accounting for contrary intuitions in a way that is nearly cost-free. (shrink)

Various criteria for the natural/non-natural distinction have been suggested in metaethics. Shafer-Landau first claimed that natural properties are properties that are used in scientific disciplines. But firstly, this definition is not comprehensive, and secondly it is ambiguous; according to the second criterion, two lists must be prepared; the first list includes terms that most people consider to be natural. The terms that are not included in the first list, are transferred to the list of non-natural terms. I argue, however, that (...) this criterion also does not help in distinguishing natural properties from non-natural ones. If we wish to maintain Shafer-Landau’s view, we can find a criterion for natural properties using normative ethics. For example, by accepting Kant’s principle of humanity as a non-natural reality, those descriptive properties that follow from this principle can be the foundational properties for moral properties. But by presenting a serious criticism on Shafer-Landau’s metaethics and accepting views that are invulnerable to this critique, a criterion for the distinction of natural/non-natural in meta-ethics can be found. One of these views is Fitzpatrick’s view, according to which many of the aspects of the world that are empirically investigable are also inherently value-laden. Therefore, the world of human experience is a dual-aspect world. One of these aspects is natural and the other is non-natural. (shrink)

The study’s main thesis is that respect for some moral values is a condition for methodologically rational decisions, namely, decisions which do not satisfy the condition are either not methodologically rational at all, or not fully rational. The paper shows supporting arguments for the thesis in terms of the philosophical theories by Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Max Weber, Jean-Paul Sartre and some other thinkers. Their presentation undergoes phenomenological analysis of the phenomenon of decision making.

Ordinary Language Philosophy has largely fallen out of favour, and with it the belief in the primary importance of analyses of ordinary language for philosophical purposes. Still, in their various endeavours, philosophers not only from analytic but also from other backgrounds refer to the use and meaning of terms of interest in ordinary parlance. In doing so, they most commonly appeal to their own linguistic intuitions. Often, the appeal to individual intuitions is supplemented by reference to dictionaries. In recent times, (...) Internet search engine queries for expressions of interest have become quite popular. Apparently, philosophers attempt to surpass the limits of their own linguistic intuitions by appealing to experts or to factual uses of language. I argue that this attempt is commendable but that its execution is wanting. Instead of appealing to dictionaries or Internet queries, philosophers should employ computer-based linguistic corpora in order to confirm or falsify hypotheses about the factual use of language. This approach also has some advantages over methods employed by experimental philosophers. If the importance of ordinary language is stressed, the use of linguistic corpora is hardly avoidable. (shrink)

This dissertation is a contribution to the field of empirically informed metaethics, which combines the rigorous conceptual clarity of traditional metaethics with a careful review of empirical evidence. More specifically, this work stands at the intersection of moral psychology, moral epistemology, and philosophy of action. The study comprises six chapters on three distinct (although related) topics. Each chapter is structured as an independent paper and addresses a specific open question in the literature. The first part concerns the psychological features and (...) cognitive function of moral intuition. Chapter 1 (“Moral intuition, strength, and metacognition”) is focused on the concept of intuitive strength, which is one of the defining features of moral intuition. I provide a metacognitive account of intuitive strength and show why such a view is preferable to emotional or quasi-perceptual accounts. Then, in Chapter 2 (“Dual process reflective equilibrium”), I will discuss the interplay between intuition and reflection in moral reasoning. I will contend that the influential “default-interventionist” model of reasoning, theorized by Greene, is insufficiently supported by the evidence. In light of some recent studies, I outline an account of moral reasoning in which intuition and reflection are not in conflict but cooperate to reach a reflective goal. I call this model dual process reflective equilibrium. The aim of the first part is descriptive, i.e., it argues for an accurate understanding of moral intuition and reasoning in light of the available empirical evidence. In contrast, the second part addresses a normative question: is a subject epistemically justified in forming a belief on the basis of a moral intuition? Skeptics of moral intuition argue that accepting moral intuitions should be the exception rather than the rule to the extent that epistemically defective processes determine the content of moral intuitions. Chapter 3 (“Moral intuitionism and the reliability challenge”) introduces the recent empirical challenges to the reliability of moral intuitions and elaborates a promising strategy for defending intuitionism. In short, I consider whether subjects can track the reliability of their intuitions with their confidence. In Chapter 4 (“The argument from limited cognitive resources”), I evaluate a different strategy to defend moral intuitionism. Specifically, I develop an argument according to which accepting moral intuitions is legitimate because it is the most rational option that a subject has, given her limited resources. The third and final part of the dissertation concerns the role of moral intuitions in action. The influence of automatic processes on moral conduct raises different challenges to moral philosophy. The first challenge is to explain how a subject can be motivated by certain values without the mental effort of deliberation. Chapter 5 (“Caring, moral motivation, and automatic conduct”) tackles this issue. Chapter 6 (“Moral sensitivity as skillful automaticity”) aims to explain how moral agents can be sensitive to good reasons through automatic mental processes. (shrink)

Many contemporary authors argue that since certain Hindu texts and traditions claim that all living beings are fundamentally the same as Brahman (God), these texts and traditions provide the basis for an environmental ethic. I outline three common versions of this argument, and argue that each fails to meet at least one criterion for an environmental ethic. This doesn’t mean, however, that certain Hindu texts and traditions do not provide the basis for an environmental ethic. In the last section of (...) the paper I briefly outline and defend an alternative, according to which all plants and animals have intrinsic value and direct moral standing in virtue of having a good. (shrink)

In recent years, discussions of Buddhist ethics have increasingly drawn upon the concepts and tools of modern ethical theory, not only to compare Buddhist perspectives with Western moral theories, but also to assess the meta-ethical implications of Buddhist texts and their philosophical context. Philosophers aiming to defend the Madhyamaka framework in particular – its ethics and soteriology along with its logic and epistemology – have recently attempted to explain its combination of moral commitment and philosophical scepticism by appealing to various (...) forms of meta-ethical anti-realism. This paper argues that those attempts do not succeed, even in their own terms. Their emphasis on universal compassion, among other features of their approaches, is difficult to explain normatively so long as it is embedded within an anti-realist framework. Soteriological values – such as enlightenment and liberation – also seem to require a realist account of their normativity. Though many Buddhist philosophers disagree, there is at least one form of Buddhist philosophy, that of the Yogācāra school, that can be interpreted as articulating a meta-ethical realism of the kind that the broader Mahāyāna tradition (if not other Buddhist traditions as well) seems to require. To a greater extent than stressing common anti-realist themes would allow, the paper argues that finding common ground, where Western moral realism and Buddhist moral realism can coalesce and jointly vindicate a repertoire of shared ethical concepts, may also facilitate the efforts of those engaged in comparative ethical theory. (shrink)

Readers of Stoic ethics may find ‘benefit’ (ōpheleia) an essential but enigmatic concept. It directly connects to some critical terms of Stoic ethics, such as ‘good’ and ‘virtue,’ but there is no extant discussion of a definition. Beyond the superficial connections, what makes ‘benefit’ beneficial? Why is benefit a good thing? I argue that these essential questions remain unanswerable for a good reason: Stobaeus committed to a specious claim about benefit in his Anthology, which has misguided later commentaries. Either the (...) Stoics themselves made a stronger contrast between sages and inferior people at the cost of coherence, or Stobaeus simply mischaracterized the Stoics’ ideas in his descriptions. This paper aims to clarify Stobaeus’s inaccurate description and reconstruct a coherent and comprehensible interpretation of benefit in the Stoic spirit, with the help of Stoic cosmology. To benefit is to further nature’s agreement. Given the available evidence, I argue that Stoics seem to, or should, be committed to my interpretation. This paper is structured as follows. Section 1 offers a quick background of Stoic ethics. Section 2 discusses two important characteristics of benefit. Section 3 discusses Stobaeus’s description of benefit and inferior people. Section 4 attempts an interpretation of benefit. Finally, Section 5 discusses Inwood and Gerson’s interpretation and argues that it is inadequate. (shrink)

Environmentalists care about nature. Often, they reason and act as if they consider nature to be valuable for its own sake, i.e., to have non-instrumental value. Yet, there is a rather widespread reluctance, even among environmentalists, to explicitly ascribe such value to nature. One important explanation of this is probably the thought that it would be mysterious in one way or another if nature possessed such value. In addition, Bryan Norton’s influential convergence hypothesis states that, from a practical point of (...) view, it makes no or little difference whether we ascribe non-instrumental value to nature, given the depth and variety of instrumental value that it possesses. In this paper we provide a counterfactual argument, applying to anyone who genuinely cares about nature, for endorsing non-instrumental value in it. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, something like the convergence hypothesis, relying on nature’s instrumental value for preservational purposes is risky business for environmentalists. We also briefly consider the mysteriousness-objection to non-instrumental value in nature. We show that with respect to most accounts of non-instrumental value, there is nothing particularly mysterious about nature possessing such value. (shrink)

Normative naturalism is primarily a metaphysical doctrine: there are normative facts and properties, and these fall into the class of natural facts and properties. Many objections to naturalism rely on additional assumptions about language or thought, but often without adequate consideration of just how normative properties would have to figure in our thought and talk if naturalism were true. In the first part of the paper, I explain why naturalists needn’t think that normative properties can be represented or ascribed in (...) wholly non-normative terms. If so, certain prominent objections to normative naturalism fail. In the second part, I consider the objection that normative properties are “just too different” from (other) natural properties to themselves be natural properties. I argue that naturalists have no distinctive trouble making sense of thought and talk involving forms of “genuine” or “authoritative” normativity which can drive a non-question-begging form of the objection. (shrink)

The concept of “the body without organs” takes up a great part of the oeuvre of Deleuze and Guattari. Yet, it is difficult to answer their question–“How do you make yourself a body without organs?”–or to understand their answer. In this paper I propose that the body without organs is an ethical concept. To support this assertion, I relate, especially, Deleuze’s thought on the Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård’s auto-fictive project, My Struggle, suggesting that My Struggle can be read as (...) a body without organs. By doing so, I aim at two things: first, to illustrate a possible application of Deleuze’s ethic, and second, to show how such an ethic may guide us regarding what we ought to do. (shrink)

Recent neuroscience studies have reported that neurofeedback training with the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging enables the regulation of an individual’s cognitive, emotion-related, and behavioral states through a real-time representation of her brain activities. Since this technique has been applied not only to clinical research to, for example, mitigate mental or psychiatric symptoms but also to non-clinical research to, for example, change the cognition or preferences of a so-called healthy participant, neurofeedback-based cognitive and/or moral enhancements may be realized in (...) the future. However, neurofeedback-based human enhancement is not the only issue that requires neuroethical consideration. I examine why and to what extent the dual application of neurofeedback technique will blur the lines between the mental, the social, and the moral, threatening some social norms, such as individual freedom and diversity. First, I consider the link between the mental and the social in psychiatry. Examining the definition of “mental disorder” provided by the American Psychiatric Association, I show that the mental is partly defined through social performance. Second, I make explicit the link between the social and the moral and argue that moral evaluation of an activity is gently but positively correlated with its social evaluation. Third, I demonstrate the links between the mental, the social, and the moral. In spite of a great deal of effort to distinguish these notions, the possibility of the dual application of this technique blurs the lines between them. Fourth, I examine whether such blurred lines signal sociocultural evolution or dystopia and argue that it can be understood as a beginning of the second advent of ethical virtue. I conclude that further cautious consideration of neuroethics is required because the establishment of this technique may have unique influences on our society. (shrink)

English: In this paper I indicate why I consider 'experimental philosophy' to be good news, though not as good as it could be, and not as all that new. I'll argue that there is no need to restrict experimental philosophy to eliciting intuitions through questionnaires. I'll indicate that good examples of experimental philosophy already exist in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Neuroscience. Dutch: Hieronder wil ik proberen aan te geven waarom ik de experimentele filosofie weliswaar als goed nieuws beschouw, maar niet (...) half zo goed als zou kunnen, en ook niet als echt nieuw. Qua filosofische experimenten beperkt de XF-beweging zich vooralsnog onnodig door haar focus op het eliciteren van intuïties, terwijl er reeds lang diverse goede voorbeelden van XF bestaan op het gebied van de kunstmatige intelligentie en de cognitieve neurowetenschap. (shrink)

In normative ethics there has been a long-standing debate between consequentialists and deontologists. To settle this dispute moral theorists have often used a selective approach. They have focused on particular aspects of our moral practice and have teased out what consequentialists and deontologists have to say about it. One of the focal points of this debate has been the morality of promising. In this paper I review arguments on both sides and examine whether consequentialists or deontologists offer us a more (...) plausible account of promissory obligation. My conclusion is negative. Given the arguments on the table, I argue, we should conclude that the debate is in a stalemate. It is, therefore, hard to see how the issue of promissory obligation could help us choose between consequentialism and deontology. (shrink)

This chapter offers a concise discussion of classic utilitarianism which is the prototypical moral doctrine of the utilitarian family. It starts with an analysis of the classic utilitarian criterion of rightness, gives an overview over its virtues and vices, and suggests an overall assessment of its adequacy as a theory of morality. Furthermore, it briefly discusses whether classic utilitarianism holds promise as a philosophy for doing business.

An overview of the hedonistic theory of wellbeing.

Resource rationality may explain suboptimal patterns of reasoning; but what of “anti-Bayesian” effects where the mind updates in a direction opposite the one it should? We present two phenomena — belief polarization and the size-weight illusion — that are not obviously explained by performance- or resource-based constraints, nor by the authors’ brief discussion of reference repulsion. Can resource rationality accommodate them?

According to ethical neo-expressivism, all declarative sentences, including those used to make ethical claims, have propositions as their semantic contents, and acts of making an ethical claim are properly said to express mental states, which (if motivational internalism is correct) are intimately connected to motivation. This raises two important questions: (i) The traditional reason for denying that ethical sentences express propositions is that these were thought to determine ways the world could be, so unless we provide an analysis of ethical (...) terms in terms of natural properties, are we not committed to the Moorean conclusion that ethical sentences describe sui generis “nonnatural” ways the world could be? (ii) If we reject the claim that motivational attitudes constitute any part of the semantics of ethical sentences, are we not committed to denying the intuition behind motivational internalism after all? This chapter argues for negative answers to both of these questions. (shrink)

Few views are as widely held as the Standard View of Identity. Here I am concerned with minority views that depart from the standard account. First, I attempt to illuminate such views and the debates concerning them by identifying the principles of identity at issue, articulating some of the assumptions underlying the debates, and presenting some of the evidence used against the Standard View of Identity. Second, I enter two of these debates myself. I first defend two Non-Standard Views of (...) Identity from the charge that they violate a principle of identity, namely the Transitivity of Identity. I then present an overlooked consequence of another Non-Standard View of Identity that challenges the view on one of its own methodological principles. Third, I draw on recent work in ontological and parthood pluralism to show how one might be led to think that there is more than one way of being identical. That is, I show how one might be an identity pluralist. (shrink)

This monograph discusses the question of what it is to be a reason – mainly in practical ethics – and proposes an original contribution to metaethics.It critically examines theories of metaethical realism, constructivism and error theory and identifies several misunderstandings or unclarities in contemporary debates. Based on this examination, the book suggests a distinction between a conceptual question, that can be answered by pure first-personal thinking, and a material question, that targets responses to reasons as a natural phenomenon in space (...) and time and that can be answered by help of the sciences. While this book defends a sharp distinction between these approaches, it also argues that the insights gained by the distinct approaches can be fruitfully integrated into a comprehensive picture.The comprehensive picture promoted in this book, based on both philosophical analysis and resources from psychology and cognitive science, is a picture of reasons as items in a collective archive of mind – reconfiguring the “domain of reasons” as a collectively established and socially cultivated fund of considerations with normative weight. The developed Collective Archive View combines Reasons Fundamentalism as an answer to the conceptual question, with a social ontological proposal, similar to Haslanger’s critical realism, as an answer to the material question.Thereby, it introduces central ideas from the field of social metaphysics into metaethics. At the same time, it offers a way of settling some controversies within metaethics, going on between proponents of Reasons Fundamentalism and Constitutivism, realism and constructivism, as well as proponents of mind-dependence and mind-independence of normative facts. Finally, the proposal enables us to envision and conceptualize genuine normative change within a metaethical theory. (shrink)

Derek Parfit's monumental 1984 book Reasons and Persons contains a little appendix called "What Makes Someone's Life Go Best," a mini-essay on well-being that has taken on a life of its own apart from the body to which it is attached. This paper serves as a critical guide to that appendix. Topics include: the nature of pleasure and pain and its relation to theories of well-being; the unrestricted desire-fulfillment theory and the problem of remote desires; whether a person's actual preferences (...) should determine their counterfactual well-being; summative vs. global desire-fulfillment theories; the single-life repugnant conclusion; and objective vs. subjective vs. hybrid theories of well-being. Opinions being defended include: that Parfit's solution to the problem of remote desires fails; that his view on actual preferences and counterfactual well-being is right; that his arguments for global over summative desire-fulfilment theories fail; and that the single-life repugnant conclusion should be accepted. (shrink)

Clinton is certainly correct that there can be serious ethical problems with mental health professionals referring clients with substance dependence and other addictionrelated problems to 12-step programs. But the philosophical doctrine of representationalism he proposes is not a helpful way to address those issues. It seems more like red herring that only serves to detract attention from the real problem. This is the coercive nature of referrals to 12-step programs in many treatment and rehabilitation centres. Clinton’s discussion is helpful because (...) it invites us to consider this important ethical issue. But unfortunately his analysis fails to address the issue satisfactorily. At the same time, it seriously misconstrues the nature of 12- step programs, obscuring their own ethical stance on consent, eligibility and membership... (shrink)

Healthcare professionals face dilemmas regarding maintaining and breaching confidentiality while dealing with victims of sexual violence. The sensitivity of the cases of violence and the aim to prevent harm generates ambiguity for sound ethical and legal decision making. In Pakistan, maintaining silence is often preferred over breaking the silence. Thus, it is essential to view the risks and benefits of the conflicting positions keeping in mind the diverse perspectives and the bigger picture. Organizations, community and government can plan different strategies (...) to put an end to this obscene game of “silence in violence”. (shrink)

A posição filosófica chamada de externismo semântico caracteriza-se pela tese segundo a qual a individuação do conteúdo de estados mentais deve recorrer a fatores que não podem ser localizados na região geralmente circunscrita pela noção mesma de mente. Tal tese implica, em todo caso, que a suposta interioridade da vida psicológica não se basta para tornar inteligível as condições de possibilidade que o pensamento conceitual requer. Assim, se fatores externos aos indivíduos são vistos como desempenhando uma contribuição decisiva na própria (...) determinação de seu conteúdo mental, isto é algo que torna necessário compreender em que sentido mente e mundo podem ser tomados como intrinsecamente relacionados. A aposta teórica do presente trabalho é a de que apenas uma concepção da individuação liberada dos grilhões substancialistas permite fornecer um solo ontológico fértil para uma teoria externista do conceito. Daí que a noção de triangulação, que Donald Davidson forjou para dar conta de alguns fatores cruciais na gênese da conceitualidade, seja lida a partir de filosofias que ressaltam o caráter decisivo da vida como referencialidade fundamental do conceito. Logo, é na ordem vital que se busca dissolver os impasses ligados à origem da normatividade e à dualidade entre interno e externo, oposição a partir da qual a subjetividade desde muito tempo tem sido pensada. (shrink)

According to the Ought-Implies-Can principle (OIC), an agent ought to perform a certain action only if the agent can perform that action. Proponents of OIC interpret this supposed implication in several ways. Some argue that the implication in question is a logical one, namely, entailment. Some think that the relation between ‘ought’ and ‘can’ is a relation of presupposition. Still others argue that ‘ought’ conversationally implicates ‘can’. Opponents of OIC offer a variety of counterexamples in an attempt to show that (...) there are cases in which an agent ought to perform a certain action even though she cannot perform that action. Such counterexamples often involve either culpable or nonculpable inability. In cases of culpable inability, the agent renders herself unable to fulfill an obligation. For example, a student is unable to submit a paper on the due date because she procrastinated until it became too late to write a paper by the assigned deadline. In cases of non-culpable inability, the agent somehow becomes unable to fulfill an obligation, through no fault of her own. For example, an agent becomes unable to pay back a loan to a bank because she was robbed on her way to the bank. This paper attempts to offer counterexamples to OIC of a sort different from the one discussed by opponents of OIC so far. If these counterexamples are correct, then they seem to suggest that there are cases in which an agent has an obligation to perform an action even though she may not be able to perform that action, and thus OIC is false. In other words, ‘ought’ does not imply ‘can’. (shrink)

This work is an investigation into philosophical method and rational argument in moral philosophy. It makes an original contribution to human understanding, by taking some of the tools and techniques that Gordon Baker identifies in the later work of Wittgenstein, and using them as a way of fending for oneself in an area of philosophy that neither Baker, nor Wittgenstein, wrote on. More specifically, a discussion of some different aspects of the contemporary literature on Dancy’s moral particularism is used as (...) a vehicle for illustrating how Baker’s therapeutic conception of philosophy offers alternative possibilities for how we can do philosophy, and what counts as rational argument in moral philosophy. I maintain that, by considering some indicative ways in which Baker’s therapeutic approach to philosophy can dissolve, rather than solve, the kinds of perplexities found in the existing literature on Dancy’s moral particularism, we can liberate ourselves from the traditional/theoretical view of how we ought to do philosophy, and an understanding of rational argument in moral philosophy, to which we need not be committed. (shrink)

Over the last fifty years, traditional farming has been replaced by industrial farming. Unlike traditional farming, industrial farming is abhorrently cruel to animals, environmentally destructive, awful for rural America, and wretched for human health. In this essay, I document those facts, explain why the industrial system has become dominant, and argue that we should boycott industrially produced meat. Also, I argue that we should not even kill animals humanely for food, given our uncertainty about which creatures possess a right to (...) life. In practice, then, we should be vegetarians. To underscore the importance of these issues, I use statistics to show that industrial farming has caused more pain and suffering than the Holocaust. (shrink)

One of the distinctive features of Gerald Gaus’s public justification theory is his extensive use of the empirical data from the social sciences to support his normative claims. One such claim which stands out for its importance, within the context of Gaus’s theory, is the evolution of strong reciprocity: over time, members of large societies develop a tendency to follow social rules and punish defectors. This claim, in turn, is supported by several studies in experimental economics involving mixed motive games, (...) which show how subjects are inclined to punish, even at a net cost for themselves, any perceived violation of social norms such as fairness. While critics of Gaus’s theory focused mainly on whether the use of empirical evidence in a normative theory is prima facie admissible, in this paper I address two different issues. The first concerns the accuracy of the empirical evidence used by Gaus’s theory, and whether the conclusions advanced by the social scientists on the grounds of this evidence are actually sound. The second issue, on the other hand, concerns the consistency between the empirical assumptions underlying these experiments and the claims of Gaus’s theory. I argue that both concerns are warranted. On the one hand, there is empirical evidence that the rule-following behavior observed in experiments involving mixed motive games is context dependent: the tendency of subjects to follow rules and punish defectors is strongly correlated to the epistemic constraints, such as anonymity, commonly imposed during the experiments. On the other hand, these constraints hardly reflect the circumstances of life in modern societies, which is the context assumed by Gaus’s justificatory theory. I conclude that Gaus’s account of rule-following punishers is not altogether invalidated, but the empirical evidence from experimental economics is insufficient to support it. (shrink)

This paper traces missing links in the history of economic thought. In outlining Hume's concept of 'the reflexive mind' it shows that this opened frontiers between philosophy and psychology which Bertrand Russell denied and which logical positivism in philosophy and positive economics displaced. It relates this to Hume's influence not only on Smith, but also on Schopenhauer and the later Wittgenstein, with parallels in Gestalt psychology and recent findings from neural research and cognitive psychology. It critiques Kant's reaction to Hume's (...) claim that one may assume but cannot prove cause and effect and how Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis has been Kantian but wrong in claims for axioms that are universal truths. It illustrates how Samuelson's presumption that language and mathematics are 'identical' was as mistaken as the logical atomism of Russell and the early Wittgenstein, relates this to Kleinian splitting, denial and projective identification and suggests that recovery of greater realism in economics needs to regain links with such philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

Moral reductionist believes that the reality of moral qualities are the same qualities which can be expressed with immoral words. Such an ontological view has an epistemological aspect which states our understanding of moral facts is either our understanding of immoral facts or our deductions of immoral understanding. From moral reductionists and especially the naturalists’ point of view, the ability to explain moral knowledge without resorting to some theories such as moral intuition is considered to be an important advantage and (...) even a strong reason for their view. Therefore, the present paper is going to study the reductionistic explanations about moral knowledge and justifications of moral believes. We have come to the conclusion that among the explanations presented by the naturalists, analytic knowledge has the same problems which have discredited the theory of analytic reductionism. Also, deducing value from non-value is either facing the logical gap of is-must; or if there is a meaningful descriptive-valuable link, we can’t finally come to unconditional moral results. (shrink)

The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle. I contend that the distinction has never been properly drawn. My main task is to formulate the distinction in a way that avoids the problems of the traditional formulations. ;After defending the traditional Moorean conception of intrinsic value against John Mackie's arguments from relativity and "queerness," and against recent attacks by Elizabeth Anderson and Shelly Kagan, I attempt to define two important types of extrinsic value (...) in terms of intrinsic value. First, I define instrumental value. The main problem with traditional definitions of instrumental value is that they fail to account for the fact that preventing something intrinsically evil from occurring seems to be just as worthwhile as bringing about something intrinsically good. I attempt to account for this fact by introducing a "contextualist" analysis of instrumental value. Next, I present and defend an analysis of contributory value. I compare contributory value with conditional intrinsic value, and present an argument to show that the notion of conditional intrinsic value faces problems that can be avoided by admitting the existence of contributory value. I then expand on the contextualist analysis of instrumental value, and provide an analysis of extrinsic value that explains what is common to instrumental and contributory value. I contend that my analysis can also account for other types of extrinsic value---for example, signatory value---and I defend my analysis against recent objections by Alastair Norcross involving the extrinsic values of actions. ;Finally, I argue that contributory value can help to solve a current problem in environmental ethics. The problem is this: how can it be that the last member of a species is more valuable than a similar member of a flourishing species ? I argue that diversity of goods increases the value of a whole; therefore, the last member of an endangered species has contributory value in virtue of its contribution to the world's biological diversity. (shrink)

Normative concepts have a special taste, which many consider to be proof that they cannot be reductively analyzed into entirely nonnormative components. This paper demonstrates that at least some intuitively normative concepts can be reductively analyzed. I focus on so-called ‘hypothetical imperatives’ or ‘anankastic conditionals’, and show that the availability of normative readings of conditionals is determined by features of grammar, specifically features of tense. Properly interpreted, these grammatical features suggest that these deontic modals are analyzable in terms of conditional (...) necessity with a certain temporal structure. (shrink)

The thesis contains my early work arguing against evidentialism for reasons for belief (chapter 1), my early argument that rationality is not normative (chapter 2), an argument that rationality is not responding reasons, at least understood in one way (chapter 2), a general discussion of how normative conflicts might (appear to) arise in many different ways (chapter 3), a discussion of how to weigh pragmatic and evidential reasons for belief (chapter 4), and a discussion of the general structure of normativity (...) and its ramifications for understanding putative normative conflicts (chapter 4). At a more general level, the thesis aims to explore how putative normative conflicts might arise and whether they are genuine conflicts or only apparent. It also offers a defence of the view that there are genuine state-given reasons for propositional attitudes, including pragmatic reasons for belief. (shrink)

A venerable idea in the history of moral philosophy is that central among the normative notions is the notion of goodness or value. This idea, which can be found at least as early as 1903 in G.E. Moore’s Principia Ethica, claims that goodness is central in that all other normative notions can be explained in terms of it. Moore’s approach and the dominant approach to the project of explaining the normative notions of rightness and what we have reason to do (...) is the consequentialist program. While the most famous element of this program is the consequentialist moral theory that says an act is right just in case the outcome of that act is at least as good as the outcome of any alternative act, the consequentialist program in general hopes to similarly explain the notion of a reason in terms of goodness. So the consequentialist theory of practical reason says that an agent has more reason to do some act a than to do some act b just in case the outcome of doing a is better than the outcome of doing b. (shrink)

This paper examines how three central aspects of personhood — the capacities of individuals, their normative status, and the social aspect of being recognized — are related, and how personhood depends on them. The paper defends first of all a ‘basic view’that while actual recognition is among the constitutive elements of full personhood, it is the individual capacities (and not full personhood) which ground the basic moral and normative demands concerning treatment of persons. Actual recognition depends analyti- cally on such (...) pre-existing normative requirements: it is a matter of responsiveness to them. The paper then discusses four challenges. The challenges claim that pace the basic view, the relevant capacities depend on recognition, that recognition seems to have normative rele- vance, and that the basic view cannot as such explain the equality either of persons, or of humans. Responding to these challenges amounts to refining the basic view accordingly. (shrink)

Empirical arguments for materialism are highly circumstantial—based, as they are, upon inductions from our knowledge of the physical and upon the fact that mental phenomena have physical correlates, causes and effects. However, the qualitative characteristics of first-person conscious experience are empirically distinct from uncontroversially physical phenomena in being—at least on our present knowledge—thoroughly resistant to the kind of abstract, formal description to which the latter are always, to some degree, readily amenable. The prima facie inference that phenomenal qualities are, most (...) probably, non-physical may be resisted either by denying their existence altogether or by proposing that they are properties of some peculiar sort of mysterious physical complexity, located, for example, within the functioning of the brain. It is argued here, however, that the first, eliminative hypothesis is empirically absurd—while the second is extravagant, vague, ad hoc and (for various additional reasons) profoundly implausible. Taken together, these considerations provide a compelling empirical case against materialism—yet its converse, mentalism, is usually regarded as subject to serious difficulties of its own. I conclude by suggesting empirical and theoretical desiderata, respectively, for the vindication of materialism and alternatively, for the development and defense of a potentially robust and viable mentalist theory of consciousness. (shrink)

L’un des défis liés la globalisation, vue comme un phénomène multidimensionnel, est la possibilité d’une intégration morale du monde, ou du moins de l’invention d’un fondement commun plausible pour un dialogue éthique crédible. Surmonter la fragmentation morale du monde moderne est d’autant plus difficile si l’on tient compte de la diversité des points de vue dans la théorie morale. Une éthique globale est-elle possible compte tenu de nombreuses divergences en matière de questions métaéthiques et normatives ? La théorie morale fait (...) face au défi de fournir un cadre utile au débat moral, condition préalable d’une intégration morale. Dans son dernier livre, Robert Audi propose un modèle d’universalisme pluraliste en tant que combinaison de la plupart des théories morales dominantes, plus précisément de l’éthique de la vertu, de l’éthique kantienne et de l’utilitarisme. Trois valeurs centrales sont défendues : liberté, justice et bonheur. Dans ce travail, j’examine cette proposition et je souligne le rôle qu’y occupe l’intuitionnisme pluraliste. (shrink)

Este trabajo busca reflexionar en torno al siguiente problema: ¿cuál es la mejor forma de concebir la felicidad en la filosofía contemporánea? Para ello, dividiremos esta interrogante en dos. En primer lugar, indagaremos si acaso la felicidad es algo similar a lo que los griegos entendían por “eudaimonia”, i.e., una vida buena o digna de ser vivida; o si, en cambio, la felicidad es mejor entendida como un estado de la mente, postura que comienza a recibir mayor aceptación desde los (...) inicios de la modernidad. Nuestra opinión es que actualmente la felicidad se debería concebir de la segunda forma: en primer lugar, “eudaimonia” es un término que está revestido de un innegable componente evaluativo. Esto, sumado al “criterio de pertinencia descriptiva” —según el cual, la definición técnica de un concepto no debería alejarse demasiado de la concepción cotidiana del mismo— y al hecho de que en el lenguaje vernáculo “felicidad” es de naturaleza eminentemente descriptiva y no evaluativa, nos lleva a concluir que el uso técnico de este término debe ser también descriptivo, coincidiendo así con un estado mental más que con una vida buena. Una vez resuelta esta dimensión del problema, procedemos a abordar la segunda cara del mismo: si la felicidad es un estado mental, ¿cómo debe describirse ese estado? Las teorías más aceptadas al respecto son el hedonismo con respecto a la felicidad, la satisfacción con la vida como un todo, y la condición emocional positiva. Ninguna de estas propuestas está libre de dificultades; sin embargo, concluimos que la teoría más prometedora es la de la condición emocional positiva, puesto que las incongruencias internas y los inconvenientes que debe resolver son de menor gravedad. De esta manera proponemos que actualmente la mejor manera de concebir la felicidad es como un estado mental que se puede describir como una condición emocional positiva, la cual consistiría, grosso modo, en la posesión de emociones positivas y/o placenteras, así como también en propensiones o disposiciones de ánimo positivos. (shrink)

No evangelistic erroneous network of ideas can guarantee the satisfaction of these two demands : (1) propagate the network without revision and (2) completely insulate itself against losses in credibility and adherents through criticism. If a network of ideas is false, or inconsistent or fails to solve its intended problem, or unfeasible, or is too costly in terms of necessarily forsaken goals, its acceptability may be undermined given only true assumptions and valid arguments. People prefer to adopt ideologies that (i) (...) are logically consistent, (ii) are more truth-like and of higher information content than their rivals, (iii) are systematically organised, (iv) solve their problems better than their rivals, (v) do not contain unfeasible demands, and (vi) do not contain uneconomic demands. Truth and validity therefore act as Darwinian-like filters on ideologies. Using Popper's notion of situational analysis and with reference to Darwinian evolution, considered as a special case of the former, and Bartley's theory of comprehensively critical rationalism I argue that a propagandist cannot guarantee his message or his movement from sound criticism. All positions are in a methodological sense open to argument. Moreover, the logic of a propagandist's situation constrains him into making his message and himself open to criticism in order to maximize its chances of being propagated through the population. But he then loses control of the message in two respects. Firstly, his audience are disposed to select from the competing ideas they encounter those that satisfy (i) to (vi) because of man's evolutionary history. Secondly, he cannot guarantee protection from criticism even a privileged section of his message because he cannot predict in a systematic way what logical repercussions each protective reformulation of the ideology will have on other sections of the ideology and what criticism the ideology will encounter. He cannot do the latter because of certain logical properties of theories that endow them with unfathomable depths. Marxism and Freudianism serve as case studies, especially for the analysis of Popper's notion of the immunizing stratagem, a methodological/logical device that is supposed to save theories from criticism. "Immunizing stratagems" either abandon the ideology they are meant to protect or seriously lower its chances of being reproduced. (shrink)

Evolutionary, ecological and ethical studies are, at the same time, specific scientific disciplines and, from an historical point of view, structurally linked domains of research. In a context of environmental crisis, the need is increasingly emerging for a connecting epistemological framework able to express a common or convergent tendency of thought and practice aimed at building, among other things, an environmental policy management respectful of the planet’s biodiversity and its evolutionary potential.

Existe una aparente incongruencia entre, por una parte, la gran distancia que Ludwig Wittgenstein detectaba entre sus objetivos filosóficos y los de los pragmatistas y, por otra, el acercamiento que posteriormente se ha producido en la historia de la recepción de la filosofía wittgensteiniana entre esta y el (neo)pragmatismo. Con afán de tratar de arrojar algo de luz sobre tal discordancia, nos ocuparemos aquí de modo privilegiado en las reflexiones de Wittgenstein en torno al cumplimiento de reglas (es decir, sobre (...) el fenómeno de la normatividad), y la solución que a este respecto dan diversos autores pragmatistas, para comprobar si efectivamente es similitud o más bien radical disparidad (o tal vez, si se nos permite la manida referencia, simplemente un «parecido de familia») la que se da entre el proyecto filosófico wittgensteiniano y el pragmatista. Pero el objetivo fundamental de este escrito no es, con todo, una simple determinación exegética de cuáles son las verdaderas intenciones de unos y otros (esfuerzo intencionalista que combinaría bastante mal, por lo demás, con las nociones tanto wittgensteinianas como pragmatistas acerca de la normatividad); sino que de lo que se tratará será principalmente de ver qué tesis resultan, a la postre, más plausibles si queremos hacernos con una idea filosóficamente coherente del fenómeno de lo normativo: si las de un pragmatismo estereotipado (que Wittgenstein repudia ferviente), o bien las de un pensamiento que se quiere no filosófico (como el del propio vienés), o bien las mucho más matizadas consideraciones procedentes del neopragmatismo. (shrink)

Any philosophical method that treats the analysis of the meaning of a sentence or expression in terms of a decomposition into a set of conceptually basic constituent parts must do some theoretical work to explain the puzzles of intensionality. This is because intensional phenomena appear to violate the principle of compositionality, and the assumption of compositionality is the principal justification for thinking that an analysis will reveal the real semantical import of a sentence or expression through a method of decomposition. (...) Accordingly, a natural strategy for dealing with intensionality is to argue that it is really just an isolable, aberrant class of linguistic phenomena that poses no general threat to the thesis that meaning is basically compositional. On the other hand, the later Mohists give us good reason to reject this view. What we learn from them is that there may be basic limitations in any analytical technique that presupposes that meaning is perspicuously represented only when it has been fully decomposed into its constituent parts. The purpose of this paper is to (a) explain why the Mohists found the issue of intensionality to be so important in their investigations of language, and (b) defend the view that Mohist insights reveal basic limitations in any technique of analysis that is uncritically applied with a decompositional approach in mind, as are those that are often pursued in the West in the context of more general epistemological and metaphysical programs. (shrink)

What is the role of pleasure in determining a person’s well-being? I start by considering the nature of pleasure (i.e., what pleasure is). I then consider what factors, if any, can affect how much a given pleasure adds to a person’s lifetime well-being other than its degree of pleasurableness (i.e., how pleasurable it is). Finally, I consider whether it is plausible that there is any other way to add to somebody’s lifetime well-being than by giving him some pleasure or helping (...) him to avoid some pain. (shrink)

Synthesis of different models about the origin of morality with a discussion about possible normative consequences.