A philosopher’s case for the importance of good—if ethically questionable—humor. A good sense of humor is key to the good life, but a joke taken too far can get anyone into trouble. Where to draw the line is not as simple as it may seem. After all, even the most innocent quips between friends rely on deception, sarcasm, and stereotypes and often run the risk of disrespect, meanness, and harm. How do we face this dilemma without taking ourselves too seriously? (...) In Wisecracks, philosopher David Shoemaker examines this interplay between humor and morality and ultimately argues that even morally suspect humor is an essential part of ethical life. Shoemaker shows how improvised “wisecracks” between family and friends—unlike scripted stand-up, sketches, or serials—help us develop a critical human skill: the ability to carry on and find the funny in tragedy. In developing a new ethics of humor in defense of questionable gibes, Wisecracks offers a powerful case for humor as a healing presence in human life. (shrink)

_An exploration of philosophical and religious ideas about humor in modern philosophy and their secular implications._.

This paper argues that McDowell wrongly assumes that “terror”, Cavell’s reaction to the radical contingency of our shared modes of knowing or our “attunement”, expresses a skepticism that is antinomically bound to an equally unacceptable dogmatism because Cavell rather regards terror as a mood that reveals the “truth of skepticism”, namely, that there is no conclusive evidence for necessary attunement on pain of a category error, and that a precedent for McDowell’s misunderstanding is Hegel’s argument for necessary attunement in a (...) system of knowing, whose refutation Schelling holds it is the “merit of skepticism” to provide. (shrink)

Obwohl es "die Zeit" nicht gibt, ordnet sich doch alles, was wir erleben, zeitlich. Auch die großen Schlagworte unserer Tage betreffen allesamt von zeitlichen Herausforderungen: Nachhaltigkeit, Resilienz, Transformation, Zeitenwende. Dieses Buch handelt davon, was Zeitliches ausmacht, warum sich die Wirklichkeit zeitlich ordnet und was das mit der wechselseitigen Taktung von Ereignissen und Autonomieerfahrungen zu tun hat. Es werden Missverständnisse aufgelöst, indem aufgezeigt wird, inwiefern es "die Zeit" nicht gibt, es oftmals sogar leidvolle bis hin zu pathologischen Konsequenzen mit sich bringt, (...) wenn Zeit als Gegenstand oder Ressource betrachtet wird. Es ist ein Buch über den Vergleich von Abläufen und darüber, was es bedeutet, wenn Ereignisse miteinander im Takt sind, und wie sie durch Wiederholung und Variation Bedeutung gewinnen und damit "intakt" wirken. Musik und vor allem das Hören dienen als Modelle, um diese allgemeinen zeitlichen Struktureigenschaften der Wirklichkeit begrifflich anklingen zu lassen. Darüber hinaus regen Hyperlinks zu konkreten Hörbeispielen dazu an, sich direkt auch auf besondere Erfahrungen von Zeit einzulassen. - Ein Buch für all diejenigen, die Grundlegendes über Zeit nicht nur lesen wollen, sondern sich im Idealfall auch für einen taktvollen Umgang mit Zeit motivieren lassen möchten. (shrink)

This book is a collection of all the papers published in the special issue "Philosophy and Meaning in Life Vol. 5: Selected Papers from the Tohoku Conference," Journal of Philosophy of Life Vol. 14 , No.1, 2024 , 1-53 . -/- Perfectionism and Vulgarianism About a Meaningful Life David Matheson -/- What’s the Point If We’re All Going to Die?: Pessimism, Moderation, and the Reality of the Past Matthew Pianalto -/- Meaning in Life in the Context of Psychopathology and Personal (...) Recovery Bernice Brijan. (shrink)

Can a person suffer radical change and still be the same person? Are there human beings who are not persons at all? Western philosophers, from the ancient Greeks to contemporary thinkers, gave the concept of “person” great importance in their discussions. They saw it as crucial to our understanding of our world and our place in it. Prompted by tragedy — a loved one’s descent into dementia — Warren Bourgeois explored Western philosophical ideas to discover what constitutes a “person.” The (...) first edition of Persons — What Philosophers Say About You was the result of his search. This new second edition focuses on making this material easily available and accessible to students, and has been redesigned as an introduction to the philosophy of mind and its history, concentrating on the central concept of “person” in contemporary controversies concerning abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering, and human rights. Bourgeois has mined Western philosophy for ideas students can apply today as technology challenges their beliefs about what we are. He then uses the concept of person to unite the various subdivisions of philosophy, applying theories of knowledge, reality and value to help students understand what we believe about ourselves. The result is a living philosophy and an “introductory text with a difference.” While the ideas of the great philosophers cannot be meaningfully summarized in one introductory text, this book provides a comparison of what many of them say about the concept of person, and will encourage students to read further. (shrink)

This study intends to show that the question whether faith can be justified without proofs can be resolved by importing ideas from Kierkegaard’s and Plantinga’s affirmative take on the matter. There is a deep similarity between the way they understand belief in God and belief in Christianity: for both the first is considered universal human knowledge and the second seen as a gift from God. Against the charge that such an understanding is irrational Plantinga offers an externalist epistemological model which (...) allows those beliefs to be warranted. The authors also share the modern idea that there is an objective truth, combining it with the postmodern stance that no method exists which would guarantee access to it. A specific contribution on Kierkegaard’s part to the understanding of the rationality of transitions toward a Christian stage of existence is to show in detail the way in which such transitions are mediated through inwardnes - a perspective akin to Michael Polanyi’s scientific epistemology. One can see in both authors not only a deep commonality of ideas, but also a remarkable way in which their understandings augment each other. Whereas Plantinga’s inquiry contributes to the rational plausibility of a “Justified Faith without Reasons” project, Kierkegaard’s venture balances such a logical-analytic effort with a deep existential inquiry. (shrink)

Animal welfare has a long history of disregard. While in recent decades the study of animal welfare has become a scientific discipline of its own, the difficulty of measuring animal welfare can still be vastly underestimated. There are three primary theories, or perspectives, on animal welfare - biological functioning, natural living and affective state. These come with their own diverse methods of measurement, each providing a limited perspective on an aspect of welfare. This paper describes a perspectival pluralist account of (...) animal welfare, in which all three theoretical perspectives and their multiple measures are necessary to understand this complex phenomenon and provide a full picture of animal welfare. This in turn will offer us a better understanding of perspectivism and pluralism itself. (shrink)

معنویت دینی در جهان جدید با چالش‌های مختلفی مواجه است. یکی از این چالش‌ها مسئلۀ معناداری یا پوچی زندگی است. در حالی که در جهان سنتی کمتر متفکری پیدا می‌شد که زندگی را تهی و پوچ بداند، امروزه شاهد نگاه‌های پوچ‌گرایانۀ مختلف به زندگی هستیم. این نگاه‌ها در تقابل با نگاه معنوی به زندگی هستند. در مقالۀ حاضر به چالشی می‌پردازیم که نگاه پوچ‌گرایانه به زندگی برای معنویت دینی و نگاه معنوی به زندگی ایجاد می‌کند. ابتدا رویکردهای مختلف به معنای (...) زندگی -طبیعت‌گرایی، فراطبیعت‌گرایی، ناطبیعت‌گرایی و پوچی- را مرور می‌کنیم. سپس سه خوانش گوناگون از پوچی را مورد بررسی قرار می‌دهیم. این خوانش‌ها بر اساس فقدان هدف، فقدان ارزش و آرزوهای دست‌نیافتنی صورت‌بندی شده است. راهکارهای مختلفی برای مقابله با پوچی ارائه می‌شود، از قبیل طغیان، ترک خواستن، بازسازی ارزش‌ها و مواجهۀ طنازانه با هستی. پیشنهاد مقالۀ حاضر در چند محور مطرح می‌شود: نخست آن که معنای زندگی را باید از جنس «روایت زندگی» بدانیم، و چنین رویکردی به معنای زندگی با رویکردهای صرفاً استدلالی به معنای زندگی تفاوت دارد. دوم این که داوری میان روایت‌های مختلف بر اساس عقلانیت نظری و عقلانیت عملی امکان‌پذیر است. سوم این که معنویت دینی با افزودن عناصری به نظام باورهای ما می‌تواند روایت ما از زندگی را معنادار سازد و ما را از چالش پوچی رها کند. (shrink)

In a 2022 critique of the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies essay competition on the “best” evidence for life after death (“the survival of human consciousness”) and in replies to two commentaries on it, I made passing reference to the parallels between the arguments provided by survival researchers—psychical researchers ostensibly investigating evidence for an afterlife using scientific best practices—and the well-worn fallacies repeatedly committed by creationists and other Christian apologists. In this essay, I highlight several parallel fallacious arguments found among (...) both those at the forefront of “scientific” research into an afterlife and those engaged in Christian apologetics. (shrink)

In his recent book The Human Predicament, David Benatar describes the human condition as a tragic predicament, and the upshot is that we ought to refrain from having children and adopt an attitude...

Several authors have recently argued that intelligibility, rather than value, constitutes life’s meaning. In this paper I criticize the intelligibility view by offering examples of cases in which i...

Part of the Elements Philosophy of Religion series, this short book focuses on the spiritual dimensions of life’s meaning as they have been discussed in the recent English and mainly analytic philosophical literature. The overarching philosophical question that this literature has addressed is about the extent to which, and respects in which, spiritual realities such as God or a soul would confer meaning on our lives. There have been four broad answers to the question, namely: God or a soul is (...) necessary for meaning in our lives; they are not necessary for it; one or both would enhance the meaning in our lives; and they would detract from it. These views have been largely advanced in chronological order through the history of Western philosophy, with the view that life would be meaningless without God and a soul having been most prominent in the medieval period, the rejection of this claim having arisen in the modern era, and then sophisticated positions about enhancement or reduction having appeared in earnest only in the past 20 years. This book addresses all four positions, paying particular attention to the more recent views. Beyond familiarizing readers with these positions, it presents prima facie objections to them, points out gaps in research agendas, and suggests argumentative strategies that merit development. (shrink)

The standard argument for longtermism assumes that we should care as much about far future people as about our contemporaries. I challenge this assumption. I first consider existing interpretations of ‘temporal discounting’, and argue that such discounting seems either unwarranted or insufficient to block the argument. I then offer two alternative reasons to care less about far future people: caring as much about them as about our contemporaries would make our lives less authentic and less meaningful. If I’m right, this (...) undermines at least the strongest versions of longtermism. Plausibly, we should do much more for the far future than we’re currently doing. Still, we often ought to act for contemporaries’ sakes, even if longtermist actions would expectably do more good. (shrink)

Some people are deeply dissatisfied by the universe that modern science reveals to us. They long for the world described by traditional religion. They do not believe in God, but they wish He had existed. I argue that this is a mistake. The naturalist world we inhabit is admittedly rather bleak. It is very far from being the best of all possible worlds. But an alternative governed by God is also unwelcome, and the things that might make God’s existence attractive—cosmic (...) justice or the afterlife—could also be had without God. The most desirable of all possible worlds are therefore godless. (shrink)

We find meaning and value in our lives by engaging in everyday projects. But, according to a recent argument by Samuel Scheffler, this value doesn’t depend merely on what the projects are about. In many cases, it depends also on the future generations that will replace us. By imagining the imminent extinction of humanity soon after our own deaths, we can recognize both that much of our current valuing depends on a background confidence in the ongoing survival of humanity and (...) that the survival and flourishing of those future generations matters to us. After presenting Scheffler’s argument, I will explore two twentieth century precursors—Hans Morgenthau and Simone de Beauvoir—before returning to Scheffler to see that his argument can not only show us why future generations matter, but it can also give us hope for immortality and a blueprint for embracing a changing future. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s “drive theory”, as it is referred to in the secondary literature, is a rich, unique and fascinating articulation of the human condition. In broad brushstrokes, Nietzsche appears to contend that all human psychology is either directly reducible to animal drives (e.g. sex, aggression) or indirectly explicable to the historical transformations thereof (e.g. ressentiment). Moreover, Nietzsche’s initial elucidation of drive theory in On the Genealogy of Morals (and elsewhere) is well-complemented with a fecund, profound, and clear elucidation of the concept (...) in the secondary literature. -/- Yet, there remains a glaring lacuna for all the discussion of drive theory in the scholarship. The secondary literature is delinquent in explaining how animal drives became incorporated to form the human psyche. Nietzsche’s account to elucidate how drives became “digested” or in his words “inpsychated” is called the Internalization Hypothesis. However, as it appears in GM: II, 16, the hypothesis is grossly inchoate. The result of this undertheorization is manifold; its deleterious effects resonate along many axes of Nietzsche’s philosophy. -/- The present book, Internalized Valuation: A Genealogical Analysis of Nietzschean Drive Theory, offers an original and fruitful interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophical psychology. First, it clarifies what drives are. Second, it provides a new way of thinking about Nietzsche’s genealogical methods and then applies these insights to The Genealogy itself. What follows is a work that not only sheds much-needed light on Nietzsche’s philosophy of mind in general and his theory of emotions in particular, but also informs and illuminates problematic passages of Nietzsche’s Genealogy. (shrink)

In slogan form, the thesis of this dissertation is that shaping the far future is overwhelmingly important. More precisely, I argue that: Main Thesis: From a global perspective, what matters most is that we do what is best for the general trajectory along which our descendants develop over the coming millions, billions, and trillions of years. The first chapter introduces some key concepts, clarifies the main thesis, and outlines what follows in later chapters. Some of the key concepts include: existential (...) risk, the world's development trajectory, proximate benefits and ripple effects, speeding up development, trajectory changes, and the distinction between broad and targeted attempts to shape the far future. The second chapter is a defense of some methodological assumptions for developing normative theories which makes my thesis more plausible. In the third chapter, I introduce and begin to defend some key empirical and normative assumptions which, if true, strongly support my main thesis. In the fourth and fifth chapters, I argue against two of the strongest objections to my arguments. These objections come from population ethics, and are based on Person-Affecting Views and views according to which additional lives have diminishing marginal value. I argue that these views face extreme difficulties and cannot plausibly be used to rebut my arguments. In the sixth and seventh chapters, I discuss a decision-theoretic paradox which is relevant to my arguments. The simplest plausible theoretical assumptions which support my main thesis imply a view I call fanaticism, according to which any non-zero probability of an infinitely good outcome, no matter how small, is better than any probability of a finitely good outcome. I argue that denying fanaticism is inconsistent with other normative principles that seem very obvious, so that we are faced with a paradox. I have no solution to the paradox; I instead argue that we should continue to use our inconsistent principles, but we should use them tastefully. We should do this because, currently, we know of no consistent set of principles which does better. (shrink)

To what extent can humorism be a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd? The Absurd is born from the insurmountable contradiction between one’s ceaseless striving and the absence of an ultimate resolution – or, as I prefer to call it, the ‘dissolution of resolution’. Humoristic Absurdism is the commitment to a pattern of humorous responses to the Absurd, which regard this absurd condition, as well as its manifestation in absurd situations, as a comical phenomenon. Although the humoristic disposition seems promising, by (...) virtue of humor’s recognition of incongruity and its denial of an ultimate resolution, and succeeds in countering three major objections, it falls prey to the claim that comprehensive humorism portrays as frivolous what is earnest, thereby renouncing the gravity of the desire for ultimate resolution, which is fundamental to the notion of the Absurd. In an attempt to explore alternative roles for humor in a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd, Metamodern Absurdism is suggested, which revolves around a post-ironic oscillation between humor and earnestness. In short, only in a role limited to one pole of an oscillatory pattern of responses can humor be integrated in a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd. (shrink)

I argue that it’s quite comprehensible to get upset about metaethical nihilism, to indulge what I call nihilistic despair. When we lose the objective moral or normative point of view, we lose the promise of luck-immune guidance and categorical importance, things many of us hope for. This is all quite Williams-friendly, but I reject his puzzling but suggestive remarks that nihilistic despair must be a self-pitying muddle. Finally, I argue that internalism about reasons is even more depressing than outright nihilism, (...) in one way at least. (shrink)

In liberal political theory, meaningful work is conceptualised as a preference in the market. Although this strategy avoids transgressing liberal neutrality, the subsequent constraint upon state intervention aimed at promoting the social and economic conditions for widespread meaningful work is normatively unsatisfactory. Instead, meaningful work can be understood to be a fundamental human need, which all persons require in order to satisfy their inescapable interests in freedom, autonomy, and dignity. To overcome the inadequate treatment of meaningful work by liberal political (...) theory, I situate the good of meaningful work within a liberal perfectionist framework, from which standpoint I develop a normative justification for making meaningful work the object of political action. To understand the content of meaningful work, I make use of Susan Wolf’s distinct value of meaningfulness, in which she brings together the dimensions of objectivity and subjectivity into the ‘bipartite value’ of meaningfulness (BVM) (Wolf, Meaning in life and why it matters, 2010). However, in order to be able to incorporate the BVM into our lives, we must become valuers, that is, co-creators of values and meanings. This demands that we acquire the relevant capabilities and status as co-authorities in the realm of value. I conclude that meaningful work is of first importance because it is a fundamental human need, and that society ought to be arranged to allow as many people as possible to experience their work as meaningful through the development of the relevant capabilities. (shrink)

Camus published an essay entitled ‘Nietzsche and Nihilism,’ which was later incorporated into The Rebel . Camus' aim was to assess Nietzsche's response to the problem of nihilism. My aim is to do the same with Camus. The paper explores Camus' engagement with nihilism through its two major modalities: with respect to the individual and the question of suicide in The Myth of Sisyphus , and with respect to the collective and the question of murder in The Rebel . While (...) a Nietzschean influence thoroughly suffuses both books, it is in the second that Camus' most explicit, and most critical, engagement with the German philosopher takes place. The crux of Camus' critique of Nietzsche is that the absolute affirmation of existence he proposes as a response to nihilism cannot say ‘no’ to murder. In the terms of Camus' discussion in The Rebel , Nietzsche's philosophy is thus culpable in the straying of rebellion from its own foundations and its slide into bloody revolution. First, the paper argues that Camus' criticisms of Nietzsche are misplaced. Camus focuses his analysis on sections of the problematic text The Will to Power and misses important sections of Nietzsche's published texts which in fact support the condemnation of revolution which is the project of The Rebel . However, the paper argues that Camus moves beyond Nietzsche in radically democratizing the response to nihilism. While Nietzsche's hopes for the creation of meaning are focused on exceptional individuals, Camus insists that any response to nihilism needs to be accessible to the average person. Such a move is laudable, but it raises a number of questions and challenges regarding the type of problem nihilism is, and how these might be addressed. (shrink)

Three distinct but related questions can be asked about the meaningfulness of one's life. The first is 'What is the meaning of life?', which can be called 'the cosmic question about meaningfulness'; the second is 'What is a meaningful life?', which can be called 'the general question about meaningfulness'; and the third is 'What is the meaning of my life?', which can be called 'the personal question about meaningfulness'. I argue that in order to deal with all three questions we (...) should start with the personal question. There is a way of understanding the personal question which allows us to answer it independently of any consideration of the cosmic question, but which nonetheless helps us see why the cosmic question should be dismissed as a bad question. Besides, a recommendable answer to the general question can be derived from my understanding of how the personal question should be answered. Two notions are essential to my account, namely, the notion of identities and the notion of a biographical life. And the account can be epitomized in this enticing way: a person's life is meaningful if it contains material for an autobiography that she thinks is worth writing and others think is worth reading. (shrink)

Moore’s paradox in belief is the fact that beliefs of the form ‘ p and I do not believe that p ’ are ‘absurd’ yet possibly true. Writers on the paradox have nearly all taken the absurdity to be a form of irrationality. These include those who give what Timothy Chan calls the ‘pragmatic solution’ to the paradox. This solution turns on the fact that having the Moorean belief falsifies its content. Chan, who also takes the absurdity to be a (...) form of irrationality, objects to this solution by arguing that it is circular and thus incomplete. This is because it must explain why Moorean beliefs are irrational yet, according to Chan, their grammatical third-person transpositions are not, even though the same proposition is believed. But the solution can only explain this asymmetry by relying on a formulation of the ground of the irrationality of Moorean beliefs that presupposes precisely such asymmetry. I reply that it is neither necessary nor sufficient for the irrationality that the contents of Moorean beliefs be restricted to the grammatical first-person. What has to be explained is rather that such grammatical non-first-person transpositions sometimes, but not always, result in the disappearance of irrationality. Describing this phenomenon requires the grammatical first-person/non-first person distinction. The pragmatic solution explains the phenomenon once it is formulated in de se terms. But the grammatical first-person/non-first-person distinction is independent of, and a fortiori, different from, the de se /non- de se distinction presupposed by pragmatic solution, although both involve the first person broadly construed. Therefore the pragmatic solution is not circular. Building on the work of Green and Williams I also distinguish between the irrationality of Moorean beliefs and their absurdity. I argue that while all irrational Moorean beliefs are absurd, some Moorean beliefs are absurd but not irrational. I explain this absurdity in a way that is not circular either. (shrink)

G. E. Moore famously observed that to assert ‘I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I do not believe that I did’ would be ‘absurd’. Moore calls it a ‘paradox’ that this absurdity persists despite the fact that what I say about myself might be true. Krista Lawlor and John Perry have proposed an explanation of the absurdity that confines itself to semantic notions while eschewing pragmatic ones. We argue that this explanation faces four objections. We give a better (...) explanation of the absurdity both in assertion and in belief that avoids our four objections. (shrink)

Moore’s paradox is the fact that assertions or beliefs such asBangkok is the capital of Thailand but I do not believe that Bangkok is the capital of Thailand or Bangkok is the capital of Thailand but I believe that Bangkok is not the capital of Thailand are ‘absurd’ yet possibly true. The current orthodoxy is that an explanation of the absurdity should first start with belief, on the assumption that once the absurdity in belief has been explained then this will (...) translate into an explanation of the absurdity in assertion. This assumption gives explanatory priority to belief over assertion. I show that the translation involved is much trickier than might at first appear. It is simplistic to think that Moorean absurdity in assertion is always a subsidiary product of the absurdity in belief, even when the absurdity is conceived as irrationality. Instead we should aim for explanations of Moorean absurdity in assertion and in belief that are independent even if related, while bearing in mind that some forms of irrationality may be forms of absurdity even if not conversely. (shrink)

Is there a Moore ’s paradox in desire? I give a normative explanation of the epistemic irrationality, and hence absurdity, of Moorean belief that builds on Green and Williams’ normative account of absurdity. This explains why Moorean beliefs are normally irrational and thus absurd, while some Moorean beliefs are absurd without being irrational. Then I defend constructing a Moorean desire as the syntactic counterpart of a Moorean belief and distinguish it from a ‘Frankfurt’ conjunction of desires. Next I discuss putative (...) examples of rational and irrational desires, suggesting that there are norms of rational desire. Then I examine David Wall’s groundbreaking argument that Moorean desires are always unreasonable. Next I show against this that there are rational as well as irrational Moorean desires. Those that are irrational are also absurd, although there seem to be absurd desires that are not irrational. I conclude that certain norms of rational desire should be rejected. (shrink)

John Turri gives an example that he thinks refutes what he takes to be “G. E. Moore's view” that omissive assertions such as “It is raining but I do not believe that it is raining” are “inherently ‘absurd'”. This is that of Ellie, an eliminativist who makes such assertions. Turri thinks that these are perfectly reasonable and not even absurd. Nor does she seem irrational if the sincerity of her assertion requires her to believe its content. A commissive counterpart of (...) Ellie is Di, a dialetheist who asserts or believes that The Russell set includes itself but I believe that it is not the case that the Russell set includes itself. Since any adequate explanation of Moore's paradox must handle commissive assertions and beliefs as well as omissive ones, it must deal with Di as well as engage Ellie. I give such an explanation. I argue that neither Ellie's assertion nor her belief is irrational yet both are absurd. Likewise neither Di's assertion nor her belief is irrational yet in contrast neither is absurd. I conclude that not all Moore-paradoxical assertions or beliefs are irrational and that the syntax of Moore's examples is not sufficient for the absurdity found in them. (shrink)

Even if you were the last person on Earth, you should not cut down all the trees—or so goes the Last Man thought experiment, which has been taken to show that nature has intrinsic value. But ‘Last Man’ is caught on a dilemma. If Last Man is too far inside the anthropocentric circle, so to speak, his actions cannot be indicative of intrinsic value. If Last Man is cast too far outside the anthropocentric circle, though, then value terms lose their (...) cogency. The experiment must satisfy conditions in a seemingly impossible ‘goldilocks’ zone. To this end I propose a new version, the Ultramodal Last Man, which appeals to Routley's work in metaphysics and non-classical logic. With this ‘Last Last Man’, I argue that the Local/Global dilemma is resolved: impossible equations balance in ultramodal space. For defenders and critics alike, this helps to clarify the demands of intrinsic value, and renews a role for non-standard logics in value theory. (shrink)

Utilitarianism is the view that as far as morality goes, one ought to choose the option which will result in the most overall well-being—that is, that maximises the sum of whatever makes life worth living, with each person’s life equally weighted. The promise of utilitarianism is to reduce morality to one simple principle, easily incorporated into policy analysis, economics and decision theory. However, utilitarianism is not popular amongst moral philosophers today. This is in large part due to the influence of (...) Williams’s ‘Integrity Objection’ (1973). Though the Integrity Objection has been influential in turning philosophers against utilitarianism, it is also difficult to make precise, evidenced by the myriad interpretations in the literature. In this paper I interpret the objection as holding that agents who accept utilitarianism cannot, as a matter of psychology, be committed to their projects. I explore other interpretations, finding some to be inconsistent with Williams’s approach, and others to be relatively easily answerable by the utilitarian. The psychological problem I identify is harder for utilitarians to avoid, though I have begun to offer a response in other work. (shrink)

In his famous ‘Integrity Objection’, Bernard Williams condemns utilitarianism for requiring us to regard our projects as dispensable, and thus precluding us from being properly committed to them. In this paper, I argue against commitment as Williams defines it, drawing upon insights from the socialist tradition as well as mainstream analytic moral philosophy. I show that given the mutual interdependence of individuals (a phenomenon emphasised by socialists) several appealing non-utilitarian moral principles also require us to regard our projects as dispensable. (...) This means that those who endorse those principles cannot appeal to Williams’s argument against utilitarianism. It also puts pressure on his thought that moral theories ought to permit commitment – in fact, it suggests that they ought not. Regarding one’s projects as dispensable may be alienating, and this may motivate us to hang onto commitment and reject these non-utilitarian principles along with utilitarianism. However, commitment also threatens a kind of alienation – from other people. Drawing upon the socialist tradition again, I argue that avoiding this form of alienation is necessary for proper engagement with our projects, and thereby with ourselves. (shrink)

“How can I, who am thinking about the entire, centerless universe, be anything so specific as this: this measly creature existing in a tiny morsel of space and time?” This metaphysically self-deprecating question, posed by Thomas Nagel, holds an insight into the nature of personhood and the ordinary ways we value it, in others and in ourselves. I articulate that insight and apply it to the phenomena of friendship, companionship, sexuality, solitude, and love. Although love comes in many forms, I (...) say, it always involves a sense of wonder at a finite creature thinking infinite thoughts. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper compares Spinoza with Daniel Dennett and uncovers a number of striking parallels. Genevieve Lloyd’s recent work on Spinoza reveals a picture of a philosopher that anticipated many of Dennett’s later ideas. Both share a fervent opposition to Descartes’ conception of mind and body and endorse a strikingly similar naturalist philosophy. It is the goal of this paper to tease out these connections and once again highlight the richness of a Spinozist lens of the world.

Some people feel distressed reflecting on human extinction. Some people even claim that our efforts and lives would be empty and pointless if humanity becomes extinct, even if this will not occur for millions of years. In this essay, I will attempt to demonstrate that this claim is false. The desire for long-lastingness or quasi-immortality is often unwittingly adopted as a standard for judging whether our efforts are significant. If we accomplish our goals and then later in life conclude that (...) these accomplishments were of no significance, then this is a sign that the desire for long-lastingness has crept into our standards. By recognizing this, and refraining from adopting an unreasonable standard to judge whether our efforts are significant, it will be to our advantage. Then, when we look back on life from an external perspective that encompasses times after humanity has become extinct, we will not conclude that our efforts amounted to nothing. Rather, we will conclude that many people made significant accomplishments that made their lives and the lives of other people better than they would have been if their goals had never been pursued. (shrink)

It is only in the last few decades that analytic philosophers in particular have begun to pay any serious attention to the topic of life’s meaning. Such philosophers, however, do not usually attempt to answer or analyse the traditional question ‘What is the meaning of life?’, but rather the subtly different question ‘What makes a life meaningful?’ and it is generally assumed that the latter can be discussed independently of the former. Nevertheless, this paper will argue that the two questions (...) are indeed connected, and that identifying and expanding upon the most plausible analysis of the former will provide the resources necessary to determine the most plausible answer to the latter. Specifically, this paper will argue that the traditional question is simply a request for the information which constitutes a coherent answer to one or more of a certain set of questions regarding human existence that were salient to the asker. In simpler language, the meaning of life itself is the information a person needs to make sense of it. This analysis can then also be applied to individual lives, such that asking for the meaning of X’s life is an analogous request for the information necessary to make sense of that life in particular. Running with this concept of the ‘meaning’ of something as its ‘sense’, the paper then outlines an accompanying theory of ‘meaningfulness’ as ‘sensefulness’: a measure of the richness of certain aspects of the life, multiplied by their intelligibility. (shrink)

I argue that Kant is a key figure in understanding Rorty’s work, by drawing attention to the fact that although he is ostensibly the principal villain of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, at the end of that book Kant provides the basis of Rorty's positive proposal that we view the world “bifocally”. I show how this idea was re-worked as “irony” in Continency, Irony, and Solidarity, and became central to Rorty’s outlook. However, by allowing this Kantian influence into his (...) thinking, Rorty made his position untenable. For Rortyan pragmatism undercuts the higher stance required by the concept of irony; and yet without this Kantian influence, Rorty would have been unable to justify his pluralism. Rorty could not live with Kant but could not live without him either. (shrink)

The outcomes of sports and competitive games excite intense emotions in many people, even when those same people acknowledge that those outcomes are of trifling importance. I call this incongruity between the judged importance of the outcome and the intense reactions it provokes the Puzzle of Sport. The puzzle can be usefully compared to another puzzle in aesthetics: the Paradox of Fiction, which asks how it is we become emotionally caught up with events and characters we know to be unreal. (...) In this article, I examine the prospects of understanding our engagement with competitive games on the model of our engagement with works of fiction, thus enabling analogous explanations for both puzzles. I show that there are significant problems with such an approach and offer an alternative, mobilizing ideas from David Velleman and Thomas Nagel, that appeals to the volatility of our motivational attitudes. (shrink)

Commanders gain authority from obedience and lose authority from disobedience. We should expect commanders to therefore devise commands that reduce the probability of disobedience. To aid recognition of these techniques for reducing the risk of disobedience, I focus on the extreme of case of commands that reduce the probability to zero. Each of my ten commandments illustrates a logical technique for engineering out disobedience. Once you master these safety measures, you can confidently legislate your own universal maxims. Your innovations will (...) be good news for Immanuel Kant’s characterization of morality in terms of categorical imperatives. The commandments also raise interesting questions about responsibility for necessities and the nature of rule following. (shrink)

David Benatar argues that being brought into existence is always a net harm and never a benefit. I disagree. I argue that if you bring someone into existence who lives a life worth living, then you have not all things considered wronged her. Lives are worth living if they are high in various objective goods and low in objective bads. These lives constitute a net benefit. In contrast, lives worth avoiding constitute a net harm. Lives worth avoiding are net high (...) in objective bads and low in objective goods. It is the prospect of a LWA that gives us good reason to not bring someone into existence. Happily, many lives are not worth avoiding. Contra Benatar, many are indeed worth living. Even if we grant Benatar his controversial asymmetry thesis, we have no reason to think that coming into existence is always a net harm. (shrink)

I defend the theory that one's life is meaningful to the extent that one promotes the good. Call this the good cause account (GCA) of the meaning of life. It holds that the good effects that count towards the meaning of one's life need not be intentional. Nor must one be aware of the effects. Nor does it matter whether the same good would have resulted if one had not existed. What matters is that one is causally responsible for the (...) good. I argue that the best theory of the meaning of life should clearly distinguish between subjective fulfillment and objective meaningfulness. The GCA respects the distinction. And it is superior to its leading rivals in the recent literature, most notably those of Erik Wielenberg and Susan Wolf. (shrink)

It is a common pessimistic worry among both philosophers and non-philosophers that our lives, viewed sub specie aeternitatis, are meaningless given that they make neither a noticeable nor lasting impact from this vast, cosmic perspective. The preferred solution for escaping this kind of pessimism is to adopt a different measure by which to evaluate life’s meaningfulness. One of two primary routes is often taken here. First, one can retreat back to the sub specie humanitatis perspective, and argue that life is (...) meaningful only when viewed within the local context of human values, cares, and concerns. Or, second, one can distinguish between perspectives and standards for meaningfulness, arguing that the latter are independent of the former and are the most appropriate means by which evaluations of life’s meaningfulness are made. Importantly, none of these issues can be sufficiently addressed without first answering a prior question, and one that is surprisingly under-addressed in the literature: What is the sub specie aeternitatis perspective? Unfortunately, many philosophers who employ this perspective do so without carefully defining or clarifying it, or, if they do clarify what it means, they only note its time and spatial components. I will argue that, in addition to these components, this perspective includes something like a modal component (following Thomas Nagel), and an ontological Normative component. I will then apply this more nuanced understanding of the sub specie aeternitatis perspective to the question of whether perspectives can be distinguished from standards for meaningfulness. (shrink)

In this paper I’ll suggest that a certain challenge facing defeatist views about higher-order evidence cannot be met, namely, motivating principles that recommend abandoning belief in cases of higher order defeat, but do not recommend global scepticism. I’ll propose that, ultimately, the question of whether to abandon belief in response to the realization that our belief can’t be recovered from what I’ll call ‘a perspective of doubt’ can’t be answered through rational deliberation aimed at truth or accuracy.

This paper explores the nature and value of melancholy and the rationality of being in such a state. I defend a view of melancholy as a highly complex mood-like state. This complexity shows itself...

Through the examination of the lives of several immortal beings, this paper defends a version of Moritz Schlick’s claim that the meaning of life is play. More precisely: a person’s life has meaning to the extent it there are things in it that the person values intrinsically rather than merely instrumentally and above a certain threshold of intensity. This is a subjectivist account of meaning in life. I defend subjectivism about meaning in life from common objections by understanding statements about (...) life’s meaning in quasi-realist terms. (shrink)

The epistemological debate about radical skepticism has focused on whether our beliefs in apparently obvious claims, such as the claim that we have hands, amount to knowledge. Arguably, however, our concept of knowledge is only one of many knowledge-like concepts that there are. If this is correct, it follows that even if our beliefs satisfy our concept of knowledge, there are many other relevantly similar concepts that they fail to satisfy. And this might give us pause. After all, we might (...) wonder: What is so great about the concept of knowledge that we happen to have? Might it be more important, epistemically speaking, to investigate whether our beliefs satisfy some other relevantly similar concept instead? And how should questions such as these even be understood? This paper discusses the epistemological significance of these issues. In particular, a novel skeptical stance called ‘meta-skepticism’ is introduced, which is a kind of skepticism about the idea that some knowledge-like concepts are epistemically more important than others. It suggested that it is unclear whether this form of skepticism can be avoided. (shrink)

In A Confession, a memoir of his philosophical midlife crisis, Tolstoy recounts falling into despair after coming to believe that his life, and for that matter all human life, is meaningless and absurd. Although Tolstoy's account of the origin and phenomenology of his crisis is widely regarded as illuminating, his response to the crisis, namely, embracing a religious tradition that he had previously dismissed as “irrational,” “incomprehensible,” and “mingled with falsehood” seems unpromising, at best. Nevertheless, I argue, Tolstoy's account of (...) his response makes a valuable contribution to contemporary thought about the meaning and absurdity of life. I begin by drawing on classic discussions in the philosophical literature, and on Tolstoy's memoir, in order to characterize the problem of meaning and the problem of the absurd, and to clarify the relation between these problems. I then draw on Tolstoy's account of his response to his crisis in order to characterize a form of faith in our deepest values. I argue that such faith supplies one important part of the story concerning how we might respond to the problem of the absurd — a part that has been overlooked by more recent discussions of these issues. (shrink)

Im Roman „Der Fremde“, dem Drama „Caligula“ und insbesondere dem Essay „Der Mythos des Sisyphos“ entwickelt Albert Camus eine erste Fassung einer „Logik des Absurden“. Die menschliche Existenz sei geprägt durch ein Spannungsverhältnis zwischen unserem Streben nach Sinn und einer dieses Streben fortwährend enttäuschenden Welt. Auf die Erkenntnis dieser Tatsache darf man Camus zufolge weder mit Selbstmord noch mit dem Aufgeben des Strebens nach Sinn reagieren. Vielmehr fordert er eine Haltung der beständigen Auflehnung. In meinem Artikel gehe ich der Frage (...) nach, wie schlüssig diese frühe „Logik des Absurden“ ist. Es wird sich zeigen, dass Camus’ Thesen in dem von ihm intendierten für alle Menschen gültigen und objektiven Sinn kaum haltbar sind. Ihr großes Potential entfalten sie erst, wenn man sie psychologisch wendet. Camus skizziert einen plausiblen Weg, wie wir trotz der beständigen Unerfülltheit unseres Strebens nach Sinn ein Leben in Glück und Würde führen können. (shrink)

The psychotherapeutic theories of Descartes and Spinoza are heavily influenced by Stoicism. Stoic psychotherapy has two central features. First, we have a remarkable degree of voluntary control over our passions, and we can and should exercise this control to keep ourselves from having any irrational passions at all. Second, the universe is determined by the providential divine will, and in any situation we can and should align ourselves with this divine will in order to achieve equanimity. Whereas Descartes largely endorses (...) the Stoic picture, Spinoza develops a distinctive, intellectualized version of this view. (shrink)