My goal in this essay is to say something helpful about the philosophical foundations of deontic restraints, i.e., moral restraints on actions that are, roughly speaking, grounded in the wrongful character of the actions themselves and not merely in the disvalue of their results. An account of deontic restraints will be formulated and offered against the backdrop of three related, but broader, contrasts or puzzles within moral theory. The plausibility of this account of deontic restraints rests in part on how (...) well this account resolves the puzzles or illuminates the contrasts which make up this theoretical backdrop. (shrink)

Over time, Mark Blaug became increasingly sceptical of the merits of the approach to the history of economics that we find in his magnum opus, Economic theory in retrospect, first published in 1962, and increasingly leaned to favour 'historical' over 'rational' reconstructions. In this essay, I discuss Blaug's shifting historiographical position, and the changing terms of historiographical debate. I do so against the background of Blaug's personal life history and the increasingly beleaguered position the history of economic thought found itself (...) in after the Second World War. I argue that Blaug never resolved the tensions between historical and rational reconstructions, partly because he never fleshed out a viable notion of historical reconstruction. I trace Blaug's difficulty in doing so to his firm conviction that the history of economics should speak to economists, a conviction clearly present in his 2001 essay: "No history of ideas, please, we're economists". (shrink)

When Andromache emerges from the inner chamber in Book 22, ascends the walls of Troy and looks out over the plain, she beholds a spectacle of ruthless brutality. She who has not been aware of the final combat, nor of the slaying of her husband, is suddenly confronted by the receding trail of utter defeat. Swift horses drag her husband's corpse into the distance, the cherished head disfigured as it is dragged, raking the dust of what was once their homeland. (...) The violence of the scene is forcefully conveyed by one word in particular. The swift horses drag Hektor κηδστως —without κδος without care, ‘sans soucier de, brutalement’. In itself the word κηδστως provides a definition of violence, one captured in Shakespeare's phrase ‘careless force’. Violence is, in its harsh brutality, specifically heedlessness, an absence of any form of care. When Achilles hurls the slain suppliant Lykaon into the river he utters the taunt, ‘the fish, κηδες, will lick clean your wound's blood’ . The discarded corpse is denied funeral rites: in place of the care that the relations of the dead traditionally bestow in tending, washing, enshrouding, lamenting, and burying the dead, here the heedless creatures of nature, fleeting visitors, will attend to the corpse, ‘clean’ it, but utterly without care, completely oblivious to the oblivion they create by destroying. In Book 24 Achilles will describe the gods themselves as κηδες. (shrink)

Many philosophers of action, including Bratman and Mele, conceive intentions functionally, as executive states: intentions are mental states that represent an action and tend to cause this action. In the philosophical tradition (e.g. for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Leibniz, Kant) another function of intentions, which may be called “volitive”, played a much more prominent role: intentions are mental states that represent what kind of actions we want and prefer to be realised and thus, in a possibly rational way, synthesise our motivational, (...) desiderative, and perhaps affective as well as cognitive attitudes towards this action. This paper argues that intentions must fulfil both functions and then develops a concept of ‘intention’ that integrates both functions. One reason for including the volitive function in the definition of ‘intention’ is that only via this function the value of actions as such is realised, namely to enable the person, the kernel of the self to express herself and to control the world. Various forms of dissociation of the two functions are discussed and a proposal how to deal with such cases in the definition of ‘intention’ is developed. (shrink)

A promising strategy to make progress in the debate between consequentialist and non-consequentialist moral theories is to unravel the background assumptions of the respective views and discuss their plausibility. This paper discusses a background assumption of consequentialism that has not been noticed so far. Consequentialists claim that morality is about maximizing the impersonal good, and the background assumption is that an appropriate response to the impersonal good is necessarily a response to the impersonal good as a whole. In this paper, (...) I argue that we should understand the impersonal good as a complex good, and that an appropriate responses to a complex good need not be a response to that good as whole. This constitutes a novel objection against consequentialism. (shrink)

Agent-relative reasons are an important feature of any nonconsequentialist moral theory. Many authors think that they cannot be accommodated within a value-first theory that understands all value as agent-neutral. In this paper, I offer a novel explanation of agent-relative reasons that accommodates them fully within an agent-neutral value-first view. I argue that agent-relative reasons are to be understood in terms of second-order value responses: when an agent acts on an agent-relative reason, she responds appropriately to the agent-neutral value of her (...) own appropriate response to some agent-neutral value. This view helps reconcile important elements of deontology and consequentialism. (shrink)

The distinction between agent-relative reasons and agent-neutral reasons is philosophically important, but there is no consensus on how to understand the distinction exactly. In this paper, I discuss several interpretations of the distinction that can be found in the literature: the Motivational Interpretation, the Scope Interpretation, and the Goal Interpretation, and argue that none of these interpretations is entirely convincing. I propose a novel interpretation of the distinction, which I call the Normative Force Interpretation, according to which the distinction between (...) agent-relative reasons and agent-neutral reasons concerns the normative force that these reasons can have for agents. (shrink)

Two intuitions are important to commonsense morality: the claim that all persons have equal moral worth and the claim that persons have associative duties. These intuitions seem to contradict each other, and there has been extensive discussion concerning their reconciliation. The most widely held view claims that associative duties arise because relationships generate moral reasons to benefit our loved ones. However, such a view cannot account for the phenomenon that some acts are supererogatory when performed on behalf of a stranger (...) but obligatory when performed on behalf of a loved one. This paper offers a novel view of associative duties, according to which such duties arise because relationships serve as indirect intensifiers of moral reasons: they decrease the cost to the agent that certain acts imply, and this increases the relative weight of the reasons that speak in favour of the act in an all-things-considered judgement. This reconciles moral egalitarianism and associative duties in a promising way: the moral worth of a person always generates the same moral reasons, but due to differences in the cost to the agent, these reasons sometimes amount to obligations and sometimes do not. (shrink)

Scientism is a philosophy which purports to define what the world ‘really is’. It adopts what the philosopher Thomas Nagel called ‘an epistemological criterion of reality’, defining what is real as that which can be discovered by certain quite specific methods of investigation. As a consequence all features of experience not revealed by those methods are deemed ‘subjective’ in a way that suggests they are either not real, or lie beyond the scope of meaningful rational inquiry. This devalues capacities that (...) (we argue) are in fact essential components of good reasoning and virtuous practice. Ultimately, the implications of scientism for statements of value undermine value-judgements essential for science itself to have a sound basis. Scientism has implications, therefore, for ontology, epistemology and also for which claims we can assert as objective truths about the world. Adopting scientism as a world view will have consequences for reasoning and decision-making in clinical and other contexts. We analyse the implications of this approach and conclude that we need to reject scientism if we are to avoid stifling virtuous practice and to develop richer conceptions of human reasoning. (shrink)

This paper sketches a new and somewhat heterodox metaphysical theory of consciousness: the “many-worlds theory”. It drops the assumption that all conscious subjects’ experiences are features of one and the same world and instead associates different subjects with different “first-personally centred worlds”. We can think of these as distinct “first-personal realizers” of a shared “third-personal world”, where the latter is supervenient, in a sense to be explained. This is combined with a form of modal realism, according to which different subjects’ (...) first-personally centred worlds are all real, though only one of them is present for each subject. The theory offers a novel way of capturing the irreducibly subjective nature of conscious experience without lapsing into solipsism. The paper also looks at some scientific theories of consciousness, such as integrated information theory, through the proposed lens and reconsiders the hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

While the idea of art as self-expression can sound old-fashioned, it remains widespread—especially if the relevant ‘selves’ can be social collectives, not just individual artists. But self-expression can collapse into individualistic or anthropocentric self-involvement. And compelling successor ideals for artists are not obvious. In this light, I develop a counter-ideal of creative receptivity to basic features of the external world, or artistic objectivity. Objective artists are not trying to express themselves or reach collective self-knowledge. However, they are also not disinterested (...) or emotionless. They can be unmoved by personal feelings and human concerns, but they are still receptive—just attuned to the more elemental forces that creatively inspire them. I elaborate this ideal in dialogue with John Ruskin’s influential critique of the pathetic fallacy. By contextualizing Ruskin’s view vis-à-vis Romantic and Modernist poetics, post-Kantian aesthetics, modern environmental art, and contemporary theories of expressiveness, I show how it indirectly motivates my account. (shrink)

Normative links have been considered a problem for reductionist theories of mind, primarily because of lack of isomorphism between intentional and non-intentional conceptual schemes. The paper suggests a more radical tension between normative rationality and scientific naturalism. Normative explanations involve the recognition that agents are also subjects of experience. The distinctive form of intelligibility they bestow requires engagement with such subjectivity.

This paper poses a challenge to theories of joint action. In addition to the typical requirement of explaining how agents count as acting together as opposed to acting in parallel or independently—the togetherness requirement—it is argued that theories must explain how agents can be spontaneously joined such that they can act together spontaneously—the spontaneity requirement. To be spontaneously joined is to be immediately joined. The challenge arises because the typical means of satisfying the togetherness requirement, for example, planning, expressing willingness, (...) and so forth, are forms of mediating, binding interaction and so seem to eliminate the possibility of spontaneity. Likewise, taking spontaneity seriously makes it difficult to see how the togetherness requirement can be simultaneously met. The challenge threatens the very idea of joint agency. (shrink)

Much recent feminist theory tacitly subscribes to some version of what cognitive and evolutionary scientists are successfully undermining as untenably Cartesian, namely, the view that moral agency is achieved through the transcendence of physical causality guaranteed by self -consciousness. Appealing to Wittgenstein's insights concerning self - reference, I argue that abandoning Cartesian dualism implies abandoning neither subject nor moral agency but rather opens up nonandrocentric possibilities unavailable to the traditional model of mind.

Much recent feminist theory tacitly subscribes to some version of what cognitive and evolutionary scientists are successfully undermining as untenably Cartesian, namely, the view that moral agency is achieved through the transcendence of physical causality guaranteed by self-consciousness. Appealing to Wittgenstein's insights concerning self-reference, I argue that abandoning Cartesian dualism implies abandoning neither subject nor moral agency but rather opens up nonandrocentric possibilities unavailable to the traditional model of mind.

Benatar argues that the absence of cosmic meaning is part of the reason why our lives are so bad that we had better not procreate. The goal of this paper is to argue against this claim from a Kantian point of view. For this goal, I argue first that the fact that human life is a product of blind evolution is not a reason for justifying that our lives are overall bad, mainly on the grounds that the concepts of good (...) and bad make sense only within the logical space of reasons. I also argue that the fact that we can hardly make a significant difference to the universe is not a reason for justifying that our lives are overall bad, either, mainly on the grounds that whether one's life is good or bad can be evaluated primarily in terms of whether one's permissible ends are achieved to a satisfactory extent, and so one's good life does not depend on making a significant difference to the universe. (shrink)

We propose a methodology for normative evaluation when preferences are context-dependent. We offer a precise definition of context-dependence and formulate a normative criterion of self-determination, according to which one situation is better than another if individuals are aware of more potential contexts of a choice problem. We provide two interpretations of our normative approach: an extension of Sugden’s opportunity criterion and an application of Sen’s positional views in his theory of justice. Our proposition is consistent with Muldoon’s and Gaus’ approaches (...) of public reason in social contract theory, which account for the diversity of perspectives in non-ideal worlds. (shrink)

In his warranted christian belief, Alvin Plantinga launches a forceful attack on apophaticism, the view that God is in some sense or other beyond description. This paper explores his attack before searching for a Plantinga-proof formulation of apophaticism.

Utilitarianism has been able to respond to many of the objections raised against it by undertaking a major revision of its theory. Basically, this consisted of recognising that its early normative propositions were only viable for agents very different from flesh-and-blood humans. They then deduced that, given human limitations, it was most useful for everyone if moral agents did not behave as utilitarians and habitually followed certain rules. Important recent advances in neurotechnology suggest that some of these human limitations can (...) be overcome. In this article, after presenting some possible neuro-enhancements, we seek to answer the questions, first, of whether they should be accepted by a utilitarian ethic and, second, if accepted, to what extent they would invalidate the revision that allowed them to escape the objections. (shrink)

En este trabajo defiendo una concepción de la filosofía práctica como disciplina impura y normativa. La impureza exige una mirada más sensible a elementos aportados por disciplinas empíricas y a revalorizar la importancia de la historia para el análisis conceptual. La normatividad requiere abandonar la pretensión de neutralidad de la filosofía práctica. Sostengo que la impureza y la normatividad hacen de la filosofía práctica una disciplina intelectualmente próspera. Para defender esta concepción, explicito una crítica a un modo erróneo de caracterizar (...) la filosofía analítica. Además, distingo la filosofía teórica respecto de la filosofía práctica y explicito con qué rasgos de la filosofía analítica me comprometo. (shrink)

Several philosophers have argued that if we examine our lives in context of the cosmos at large, sub specie aeternitatis, we cannot escape life's meaninglessness. To see our lives as meaningful, we have to shun the point of view of the cosmos and consider our lives only in the narrower context of the here and now. I argue that this view is incorrect: life can be seen as meaningful also sub specie aeternitatis. While criticizing arguments by, among others, Simon Blackburn, (...) Nicholas Rescher, and Thomas Nagel, I show that what determines assessments of the meaning of a life are the standards of meaningfulness one endorses rather than the size of the context in which that life is assessed. Employing non-demanding standards of meaningfulness to assess a life is compatible with examining it in the context of the cosmos at large. That is also the case if we accept Nagel's claim that to examine a life sub specie aeternitatis is to examine it externally, impersonally and objectively: life can be evaluated as meaningful also when under these perspectives if the standards of meaningfulness we adopt are not overly challenging. Nor does the contingency of our existence, realized sub specie aeternitatis, render our life meaningless. Contrary to a commonly accepted view, then, examining our lives sub specie aeternitatis does not necessitate that we see them as meaningless. (shrink)

Some philosophers have claimed that pleasures and pains are characterized by their particular or . Most contemporary writers reject this view: they hold that hedonic states have nothing in common except being liked or disliked (alternatively: pursued or avoided) for their own sake. In this article, I argue that the hedonic tone view has been dismissed too quickly: there is no clear introspective or scientific evidence that pleasures do not share a phenomenal quality. I also argue that analysing hedonic states (...) in terms of liking or wanting is implausible. If it is correct that pleasures and pains are not united by any particular hedonic tone, we should instead simply conclude that there are several different hedonic tones. This pluralistic understanding of the hedonic tone view has generally been overlooked in the literature, but appears to be fairly plausible as a philosophical account of pleasure and pain. (shrink)

Normative philosophy believes that argumentation concerning values is rational because there is a deeper value to which all are committed. Citing Ronald Dworkin’s 1977’s Taking Rights Seriously, Will Kymlicka suggests that this “ultimate value” is equality. Having a standard enables rationality because it enables competing theories to show “that one of the theories does a better job living up to the standard that they all recognize”. The measure for whether an argument weighs as much as it claims is how well (...) it accounts for treating people equally and fairly. Fair and equal treatment is measurable enough, and for the same reason values generally are: it helps form the reality of... (shrink)

Ex-ante deontology is an attempt to combine deontological constraints on doing or intending harm with the idea that one should act in everyone’s interest if possible. I argue that ex-ante deontology has serious problems in cases where multiple decisions are to be made over time. I then argue that these problems force us to choose between commonsense deontological morality and a more consequentialist morality. I suggest that we should choose the latter.

In this paper I discuss and develop the risk account of scientific objectivity, which I have recently introduced, contrasting it to some alternatives. I then use the account in order to analyse a practice that is relatively common in anthropology, in the history of science, and in the sociology of scientific knowledge: withholding epistemic judgement. I argue that withholding epistemic judgement on the beliefs one is studying can be a relatively efficient strategy against collective bias in these fields. However, taking (...) into account the criticisms presented against the strategy, I also argue that it is a usable strategy only when the distance between the researchers and their ideas, and the people and ideas being studied, is significant enough. (shrink)

What is objectivity? What would it take to have objective representations and do we have what it takes? This paper aims to contribute to answering these questions. To this end, it isolates one relevant sense of objectivity and proposes a generalization of standard frameworks of representational content in order to engage with the question in a way that is rhetorically fair. Armed with a general conception of perspectival content, taken from the literature on centred or de se content, the paper (...) articulates one necessary condition for objective representation: the possession of objective concepts and therefore objective contents. Two ways of meeting this condition are discussed in an exploratory way. (shrink)

In this article, following an indication of Meijer C. Smit, I make a basic distinction between the first and the second history. By the first history I mean history as we experience it from within on the basis of personal interest and active involvement in our historical past. The second history is history as academics construct it on the basis of critical research into historical facts. The central question that arises is that of how these two paradigms of history are (...) related. I discuss commemoration as one of the most telling expressions of our involvement in the first history. I analyze it as a hermeneutic, dialogical, and anamnetic experience contrasting anamnetic and academic history as experienced versus constructed history: is the latter value-free? I conclude with the question whether we must regard commemoration as serviceable to the project of academic history or the latter as serviceable to commemoration. (shrink)

The third formulation of the Categorical Imperative rarely receives the attention devoted to its predecessors. This paper aims to develop a naturalistic approach to morality inspired by Kant’s conception of moral agents as legislating in a Kingdom of Ends. Positions derived from the third formulation, John Rawls’s Kantian Constructivism and T. M. Scanlon’s Contractualism, cleave closely to Kant in idealising the process of legislation. For Rawls, the citizens of the Kantian Reich can be reduced to one, a representative of all, (...) who deliberates behind the veil of ignorance using minimax reasoning. Scanlon includes other lawmakers, but any potential diversity among them is overridden by trans­historical canons of reason. By contrast, I view morality as developing historically through the interactions among people with different views and conflicting aims. The task of moral theory is to construct an appropriate methodology to govern their deliberations. My naturalised Kant takes the first steps. Morality arises from the recognition of problematic situations, identified first by listening to the complaints of actual people, by judging whether they are warranted, and by seeking to amend them when the warrant is confirmed. Societies (and individuals) make moral progress when they deliberate (or simulate deliberations) in accordance with three norms. All those potentially affected should be included; the best available information should be used; and participants should aim for an outcome all can accept. How far is naturalised Kant from the great philosopher? I leave the answer to the scholars. (shrink)

“Arguments from nature” are used, and have historically been used, in popular responses to advances in technology and to environmental issues—there is a widely shared body of ethical intuitions that nature, or perhaps human nature, sets some limits on the kinds of ends that we should seek, the kinds of things that we should do, or the kinds of lives that we should lead. Virtue ethics can provide the context for a defensible form of the argument from nature, and one (...) that makes proper sense of its enduring role in debates concerning our relationship to technology and the environment. However, the notion of an ethics founded upon an account of the essential features of human nature is controversial. On the one hand, contemporary biological science no longer defines species by their essential characteristics, so from a biological point of view there just are no essential characteristics of human beings. On the other hand, it might be argued that humans have, in some sense, “transcended our biology,” so an understanding of humans as a biological species is extraneous to ethical questions. In this article, I examine and defend the argument from nature, as a way to ground an ethic of virtue, from some of the more common criticisms that are made against it. I argue that, properly interpreted as an appeal to an evaluative account of human nature, the argument from nature is defensible with the context of virtue ethics and, in this light, I show how arguments from nature made in popular responses to technological and environmental issues are best understood. (shrink)

According to T.M. Scanlon, the core idea of contractualism consists in the claim that what we are morally required to do is conceptually grounded in the value of living in “relations of mutual recognition” with others. Specifically, Scanlon's contractualist idea of “living in relations of mutual recognition with others” requires that one act only in ways that cannot be reasonably rejected by all of those affected, according to the results of a hypothetical reflection conducted within one's own mind. I claim, (...) however, that Scanlon is mistaken to rely on a single individual's hypothetical reflection (monological reflection) to determine what no one affected could reasonably reject. Instead, following Jürgen Habermas, I claim that we must engage in actual dialogue with all who stand to be affected, in order to live in relations of mutual recognition with others. (shrink)

The permissibility of nudging in public policy is often assessed in terms of the conditions of transparency, rationality, and easy resistibility. This debate has produced important resources for any ethical inquiry into nudging, but it has also failed to focus sufficiently on a different yet very important question, namely: when do nudges undermine a patient’s voluntary consent to a medical procedure? In this paper, I take on this further question and, more precisely, I ask to which extent the three conditions (...) of transparency, rationality, and easy resistibility can be applied to the assessment of voluntary consent too. After presenting two examples, designed to put pressure on these three conditions, I show that, suitably modified, the three conditions can remain significant in the assessment of voluntary consent as well. However, the needed modifications are very substantial and result in a rather complicated view. To propose a tidier solution, I argue that nudging undermines voluntary consent if and only if it cannot be ‘interpersonally justified’ to the patient. I use the three modified conditions to motivate the idea of interpersonal justification and also to further specify the principles it involves. My resulting view is especially attractive because it builds on already existing insights from the debate on nudging, updates those insights with an eye to medical consent, and finally unites them in an elegant and simple framework. (shrink)

This paper focuses on consent and third-party coercion, viz. cases in which a person consents to another person performing a certain act because a third party coerced her into doing so. I argue that, in these cases, the validity of consent depends on the behavior of the recipient of consent rather than the third party’s coercion taken separately, and I will specify the conditions under which consent is invalid. My view, which is a novel version of what I call a (...) Recipient-Focus-View, holds that coercion invalidates consent only if consent was ‘obtained by’ coercion, but not if consent was ‘merely motivated by’ coercion. I explain and support my view on the basis that it best reconciles an unnoticed tension between two fundamental principles in the debate on consent and that it can deal with cases that undermine other Recipient-Focus-Views. (shrink)

Quasi-realism prominently figures in the expressivist research program. However, many complain that it has become increasingly unclear what exactly quasi-realism involves. This paper offers clarification. It argues that we need to distinguish two distinctive views that might be and have been pursued under the label “quasi-realism”: conciliatory expressivism and quasi-realism properly so-called. Of these, only conciliatory expressivism is a genuinely meta-ethical project, while quasi-realism is a first-order normative view. This paper demonstrates the fruitfulness of these clarifications by using them to (...) address Terence Cuneo’s recent challenge that quasi-realist expressivists lack the resources to plausibly accommodate certain sorts of data points. (shrink)

While feminist critiques of AI are increasingly common in the scholarly literature, they are by no means new. Alison Adam’s Artificial Knowing (1998) brought a feminist social and epistemological stance to the analysis of AI, critiquing the symbolic AI systems of her day and proposing constructive alternatives. In this paper, we seek to revisit and renew Adam’s arguments and methodology, exploring their resonances with current feminist concerns and their relevance to contemporary machine learning. Like Adam, we ask how new AI (...) methods could be adapted for feminist purposes and what role new technologies might play in addressing concerns raised by feminist epistemologists and theorists about algorithmic systems. In particular, we highlight distributed and federated learning as providing partial solutions to the power-oriented concerns that have stymied efforts to make machine learning systems more representative and pluralist. (shrink)

In cinematic experience, a view from nowhere appears in an instituting moment – neither in time nor out of time, but part of time itself – when a camera reflex lifts the viewer’s perception out of somewhere and into the infinite time of the film. We argue that the view from nowhere found in Birt Acres’s film Rough Sea at Dover – a fifteen-second shot of waves breaking against a sea wall in Dover, England in 1895 – transcends all attempts (...) to turn it into a view from somewhere, as an empty space that carries the auratic trace of the past into the present through phase shifts of technical mediation. In Simondon’s terms, the view from nowhere opens up possibilities of becoming all ways at once in the reflexive capacity of the human organon. Following Stiegler’s organological technics, we identify the capture of perception by the apparatus of recording and playback in the digitally automated algorithm as a threat to the reflexive capability of the organon to see otherwise in the creative individuation opened up in the phase-shifting process. Our analysis triggers a switch from an anthropocentric to a neganthropic-ecological mode of seeing in which the auratic trace of the event of waves crashing against the pier is seen in an inhuman view from nowhere that carries the threat of automatized systems in which human noesis – self-reflexive capacity – is eclipsed by machines. By seeing otherwise, the eclipse by machines is reversed to reveal the complex becoming of the film in its materiality as a work of creative individuation. (shrink)

Recent moral philosophy has been characterized by some serious attempts to show that both Kantian and utilitarian moralities leave us with insufficient room to pursue our personal projects and relationships. These moralities have been charged with demanding a kind of impartiality that leaves us with too little space for developing ourselves and our friendships, family relations, communities, and nations in the ways best suited for us. Critics claim these theories implausibly maintain that if our personal relationships and affinities do not (...) further the ends of moral duty or maximum utility, they are of no value and hence we lack reason to devote ourselves to them. In what follows, I will assume that a conception of morality would indeed be implausible if it were to demand impartiality in the strong sense that it would be impermissible to favor our own projects and ambitions, to care especially about the welfare of certain persons rather than others, and sometimes to give preference to those we care most about, even when we could benefit strangers more. (shrink)

Das Buch verschafft einen Überblick über die neuere Willensfreiheitsdebatte, wobei es auch die Konsequenzen der Hirnforschung für das Freiheitsproblem erörtert. Ferner entwickelt der Autor eine eigene Position, die er 'fähigkeitsbasierten Libertarismus' nennt. Er widerspricht dem breiten philosophischen Konsens, dass jedenfalls eine Art von Freiheit mit einem naturwissenschaftlichen Weltbild unverträglich sei, nämlich die Fähigkeit, sich unter gegebenen Bedingungen so oder anders zu entscheiden. Im Buch wird argumentiert, dass der libertarischen Freiheitsauffassung, die wir im Alltag alle teilen, bei näherer Betrachtung keine Tatschen (...) entgegenstehen, sondern nur philosophische Doktrinen. Zwar können wir durch unser Handeln keine Naturgesetze abändern und sind auch keine ersten Beweger, aber für ein So-oder-Anderskönnen bedarf es dessen nicht. (shrink)

On their alethic reading, formulas,, and codify three of the most basic principles of possibility and its dual. This paper discusses these formulas on a broadly epistemic reading, and in particular as candidate principles about conceivability and its dual. As will be shown, the question whether and its classical dual equivalent, as well as and hold on this reading is not only a logical one but involves a distinctively metaphysical controversy between realist and antirealist views on the relation between truth (...) on the one hand and various cognitive conditions such as knowability, conceivability, and thinkability on the other. It will be argued that the stance we take with regard to the metaphysical dispute has consequences for our assessment of the plausibility not only of and its classical equivalent, but also of and—when that stance is combined with a structural account of propositions—potentially of as well; with all four taken in the above epistemic sense. A second upshot will be that the same sensitivity to metaphysical background commitment also applies to our view as to whether or not inconceivability of the opposite coincides with, or even entails, apriority. (shrink)

The present study attempts to provide a consistent and coherent account of what the world could be like, given the conceptual framework and results of contemporary quantum theory. It is suggested that standard quantum mechanics can, and indeed should, be understood as a realist theory within its domain of application. It is pointed out, however, that a viable realist interpretation of quantum theory requires the abandonment or radical revision of the classical conception of physical reality and its traditional philosophical presuppositions. (...) It is argued, in this direction, that the conceptualization of the nature of reality, as arising out of our most basic physical theory, calls for a kind of contextual realism. Within the domain of quantum mechanics, knowledge of 'reality in itself', 'the real such as it truly is' independent of the way it is contextualized, is impossible in principle. In this connection, the meaning of objectivity in quantum mechanics is analyzed, whilst the important question concerning the nature of quantum objects is explored. (shrink)

In his influential paper, “Freedom and Resentment,” P. F. Strawson argued that our ordinary practices of holding persons morally responsible and related reactive attitudes were wholly “internal” to the practices themselves and could be insulated from traditional philosophical and metaphysical concerns, including concerns about free will and determinism. This “insulation thesis” is a controversial feature of Strawson’s influential paper; and it has had numerous critics. The first purpose of this paper is to explain my own reasons for thinking that our (...) practices of holding responsible cannot be entirely insulated from incompatibilist concerns about freedom and determinism. The second purpose is to argue that these incompatibilist concerns are in fact legitimate concerns: There are sound reasons to believe that our ordinary practices of holding persons morally responsible do require at least sometimes in our lives that we must be capable of acting freely in a manner that is not determined. I defend this thesis by spelling out why I believe various compatibilist strategies attempting to show that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism fail to show this. In the course of this critique, a general theme will emerge: In order to do full justice to our ordinary practices of holding persons responsible and the freedoms thus involved, one must distinguish between different types of freedom, and in particular, between freedom of action and freedom of will. (shrink)

The existence of fundamental moral disagreements is a central problem for moral realism and has often been contrasted with an alleged absence of disagreement in mathematics. However, mathematicians do in fact disagree on fundamental questions, for example on which set-theoretic axioms are true, and some philosophers have argued that this increases the plausibility of moral vis-à-vis mathematical realism. I argue that the analogy between mathematical and moral disagreement is not as straightforward as those arguments present it. In particular, I argue (...) that pluralist accounts of mathematics render fundamental mathematical disagreements compatible with mathematical realism in a way in which moral disagreements and moral realism are not. 11. (shrink)

The debate surrounding eliminative materialism, and the role of empiricism more broadly, has been one of the more prominent philosophical debates of the last half-century. But too often what is at stake in this debate has been left implicit. This essay surveys the rhetoric of two participants in this debate, Paul Churchland and Thomas Nagel, on the question of whether or not scientific explanations will do away with the need for nonscientific descriptions. Both philosophers talk about this possibility in language (...) reminiscent of revolutionary politics. These authors do not see eliminative materialism merely as an idea to be evaluated, but a revolution to be welcomed or quashed. After surveying their rhetoric, the paper turns to the work of four philosophers—G.E.M. Anscombe, Peter Winch, Paul Holmer, and G.H. von Wright—to suggest that there is within Wittgensteinian tradition a ‘nonrevolutionary’ approach to the question of eliminative materialism. (shrink)

Commonsense morality seems to feature both agent-neutral and agent-relative elements. For a long time, the core debate between consequentialists and deontologists was which of these features should take centerstage. With the introduction of the consequentializing project and agent-relative value, however, agent-neutrality has been left behind. While I likewise favor an agent-relative view, agent-neutral views capture important features of commonsense morality.This article investigates whether an agent-relative view can maintain what is attractive about typical agent-neutral views. In particular, I argue that the (...) agent-relative reasons-wielding deontologist is ultimately able to capture those features ordinarily associated with agent-neutral views, while the agent-relative value wielding consequentialist is left with a dilemma. The consequentializer either succumbs to the concerns of her agent-neutral opponents or else abandons the distinctive and attractive features of her view. Either way, I conclude that agent-relative value is best left behind. (shrink)

In The Moral Dimension, Amitai Etzioni claims, as did Albert Hirschman in Morality and the Social Sciences, that people often act from moral motives, that economics needs to recognize this, and that it will be significantly changed by doing so. I agree, though I think the changes may be smaller than Etzioni believes – I shall be explaining why. But Etzioni goes further. He makes a specific claim about the sort of morality that motivates people: it is deontological. In this (...) paper, I shall examine what this means, how far it is true, and what difference it makes. (shrink)