What explains people's propensity to ask existential questions that they have little hope of resolving, such as: Why are we here? What, if any, is our purpose? What is the structure of the universe? That humans engage in these endeavors has long puzzled evolutionary theorists, as they go beyond the immediate demands of fending for ourselves, seeking safety, finding food, and reproducing, which occupy the daily lives of other animals. In this book, philosopher Helen De Cruz draws on a wide (...) range of disciplines and thinkers, from Aristotle and 12th-century Muslim philosopher Ibn Tufayl to Jewish thinker Abraham Heschel and science writer Rachel Carson, showing how awe and wonder lie at the heart of such existential questions. She argues that there is an emotional basis to this drive for inquiry, as wonder and awe are epistemic emotions that help us think about big-picture questions and that motivate the answers we provide to those questions. (shrink)

Previously proposed strategies for tackling hermeneutical injustices take for granted the interests people have in certain things about them being intelligible to them and/or to others, and seek to enable them to satisfy these interests. Strategies of this sort I call interests-as-given strategies. I propose that some hermeneutical injustices can instead be tackled by doing away with certain of these interests, and so with the possibility of their unfair non-satisfaction. Strategies of this sort I call interests-in-question strategies. As a case (...) study in when such an interests-in-question strategy ought to be pursued, I look at how to tackle hermeneutical injustices arising in the context of gender-affirming healthcare as provided to adults by the National Health Service in the UK. I argue that considerations of trust, privacy, and respect all support pursuing such a strategy. One way to do so, I suggest, would be by replacing the existing gatekeeping model with an informed consent model for the provision of gender-affirming healthcare. Considerations of hermeneutical justice can hence be added to the already-impressive case for undertaking this shift. (shrink)

Hot-cold empathy gaps are a pervasive phenomena wherein one’s predictions about others tend to skew ‘in the direction’ of one’s own current visceral states. For instance, when one predicts how hungry someone else is, one’s prediction will tend to reflect one’s own current hunger state. These gaps also obtain intrapersonally, when one attempts to predict what one oneself would do at a different time. In this paper, we do three things: We draw on empirical evidence to argue that so-called hot-cold (...) empathy gaps arise when one projects one’s own current state into a simulation about another. Second, we argue that this process does not typically confer knowledge, even when the predictions it produces happen to be accurate. Third, we suggest that these results can be used to develop a challenge for L.A. Paul's view that authentic action sometimes requires subjective knowledge of one’s own values and how these values relate to relevant outcomes. We then sketch an alternative view of the epistemic grounds of authenticity, one on which authenticity requires a kind of understanding. The relevant form of understanding can be achieved by subjective knowledge but can also be achieved elsewise, such as through testimony from a close friend about what one values. (shrink)

When people are making certain medical decisions – especially potentially transformative ones – the specter of regret may color their choices. In this paper, I ask: can predicting that we will regret a decision in the future serve any justificatory role in our present decision-making? And if so, what role? While there are many pitfalls to such reasoning, I ultimately conclude that considering future retrospective emotions like regret in our decisionmaking can be both rational and authentic. Rather than indicating that (...) one is about to make a mistake or that there is some underlying value that one already cares about but is overlooking, the prediction that one will regret a decision in the future makes one confront how her present values and priorities may change as a result of her choice in ways she cannot presently anticipate. (shrink)

Why do some people become WNBA champions or Olympic gold medalists and others do not? What is ‘special’ about those very few incredibly skilled athletes, and why do they, in particular, get to be special? In this paper, I attempt to make sense of the relationship that there is, in the case of sports champions, between so-called ‘talent’, i.e. natural predisposition for particular physical activities and high-pressure competition, and practice/training. I will articulate what I take to be the ‘mechanism’ that (...) allows certain people to rise to the Olympus of athletic excellence, and what being part of this elite club ‘feels like’. My proposal is based on the idea that so-called talent and practice interact in complex and unsystematic ways. I will also argue that becoming a top athlete involves undergoing a special kind of transformation, which makes such people qualitatively different from any ‘normal’ sport amateur, even when the difference might not be immediately visible to the ‘untrained’ eye. (shrink)

I argue that we do not intentionally and rationally shape our character and values in major ways. I base this argument on the nature of transformative experiences, that is, those experiences which are transformative from personal and epistemological points of view. The argument is roughly this. First, someone who undergoes major changes in her character or values thereby undergoes a transformative experience. Second, if she undergoes such an experience, her reasons for changing in a major way are inaccessible to her (...) beforehand. Third, if such reasons are inaccessible beforehand, she cannot act on them and thus cannot rationally and intentionally shape her character or values. I also explore some consequences of my argument, especially those related to control and responsibility. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIs the question ‘will you regret it if you do this?’ helpful when people face difficult life decisions, such as terminating a pregnancy if a disability is detected or deciding to become a parent? Despite the commonness of the question in daily life, several philosophers have argued lately against its usefulness. We reconstruct four arguments from recent literature on regret, transformative experience and the use of imagination in deliberation. After analysis of these arguments we conclude that the prospect of regret (...) remains a useful deliberative heuristic, provided four conditions are fulfilled. If the prospect of regret is arrived at via reflection on one’s values, in a non-coercive context, when well-informed about factual circumstances, and in a process of self-commitment, the question of what one will regret is a helpful device to get in touch with one’s deepest concerns that give reasons to act in a particular way. (shrink)

Commentary on Walsh, E. 2020. Cognitive transformation, dementia, and the moral weight of advance directives. The American Journal of Bioethics. 20(8): 54–64.

Disease radically changes the life of many people and satisfies formal criteria for being a transformative experience. According to the influential philosophy of Paul, transformative experiences undermine traditional criteria for rational decision-making. Thus, the transformative experience of disease can challenge basic principles and rules in medical ethics, such as patient autonomy and informed consent. This article applies Paul’s theory of transformative experience and its expansion by Carel and Kidd to investigate the implications for medical ethics. It leads to the very (...) uncomfortable conclusion that disease involves transformative experiences in ways that can reduce people’s rational decision-making ability and undermine the basic principle of respect for autonomy and the moral rule of informed consent. While such cases are limited, they are crucial for medical ethics and health policy and deserve more attention and further scrutiny. (shrink)

Midwest Studies In Philosophy, EarlyView.

A long‐standing aim of cinema – in particular of ‘extreme’, ‘unwatchable’ or ‘feel‐ bad’ cinema – has been to acquaint viewers with extreme suffering. In this article I first offer an explication of that aim in terms of recent work in philosophy of mind, then exploit the resulting framework to examine claims to the effect that a new technological development, Virtual Reality, provides cinema's best shot at achieving that aim.