Immanuel Kant is known for his ideas about duty and morally worthy acts, but his conception of virtue is less familiar. Nevertheless Kant’s understanding of virtue is quite distinctive and has considerable merit compared to the most familiar conceptions. Kant also took moral education seriously, writing extensively on both the duty of adults to cultivate virtue and the empirical conditions to prepare children for this life-long responsibility. Our aim is, first, to explain Kant’s conception of virtue, second, to highlight some (...) distinctive and potentially appealing features of the Kantian account of virtue, third, to summarize and explain Kant’s prescriptions for educating young children and youth as well as the duty of moral self-improvement that he attributes to all adults, and, fourth, to respond to some common objections that we regard as misguided or insubstantial. (shrink)

I defend a new version of the non-identity theodicy. After presenting the theodicy, I reply to a series of objections. I then argue that my approach improves upon similar approaches in the literature.

I intend to dismantle a piece of historiographic mythology created by self-styled ‘Revisionists’ (Hill, Alvey, Oslington, etc.). According to the myth, Adam Smith endorsed several of the traditional proofs of God’s existence; he believed that the order existing in the world is a morally good order implemented by Divine Providence; he believed that evil in the world is part of an all-encompassing Divine Plan; and that the ‘invisible hand’ is the hand of the Christian God who leads the (...) rich to employ their wealth for the greater benefit of the greatest number. I argue instead that there is a remarkable analogy between Smith’s and Kant’s theory of religion. Smith’s philosophy is a third way between Rationalism and Phyrronism, arguing that doctrines confirmed by reason in every field, from natural science to theology, are nothing more than combinations of ideas agreeable to the imagination; if we try, on the basis of both Smithian texts and their context and co-text, to reconstruct his lectures on natural theology, all kind of evidence converge in indicating that he reduced proofs of God´s existence to ‘inventions of the imagination’ and argued that philosophical theism is not different in status from primitive belief in invisible beings, or that it is as unwarranted as any system is, and besides that it generates a moral conundrum; he argued also that teleological explanations are no more and no less imaginary than those based on efficient causes, that the teleological order we may imagine in the world is not too bad from a ‘consequentialist’ point of view, and yet it is far below any moral standard; I argued that this is by no means a proof of Smith’s ‘irreligion’ and also that no convincing proof of any turn from religion to irreligion on his part has been provided so far, and finally that the two viable options he left open were either dismal unbelief or Theism on a moral basis. I defend this third way by proving that what Smith’s lost lectures on natural religion said can be reconstruct with some plausibility and what they did not say with absolute certainty; I argue that he developed a sharp criticism of natural theology, that he argued that at the root of religion there are a number of principles of the mind that make religious belief a ‘natural belief’; I do so by reconstructing, first, the context of the missing lectures (sect. 2); then the contents of their first part, considering the proofs of God’s existence and his attributes (sects 3-4); the ‘principles of the mind’ lying at the root of polytheism (sect. 5), of philosophical monotheism (par. 6), and of pure and rational religion (par.7); I contend, then, that his vindication of toleration is consistent with ‘pure and rational religion’ (par. 8) and that attempts to prove a phantom conversion to ‘natural religion’ or ‘irreligion’ result from misreading (par.9). My conclusions are the following: i) Adam Smith claimed that any natural theology is impossible; ii) There is in fact some kind of order in the world, and it proves useful to a point in allowing for humankind’s survival, but it doesn’t meet any minimal moral criterion; iii) the world is not teleologically ordered; we may indeed imagine such order for mental economy, but the world abounds in misery and depravity; iv) consequences of human wickedness and insanity do, happily enough, deviate from intended outcomes; we may feign invisible mechanisms at work behind, but to mistake them for a hidden mechanism is as childish as the primitive’s belief in ‘invisible beings’. v) there are indeed themes from theological doctrines in Smithian economic theory, but they not the kind of rational theology ‘discovered’ by the ‘New View’; they are instead Augustinian and Jansenist themes. vi) Smith’s theological doctrines did – as suggested by Waterman – have a bearing on his economic theory not by ‘doctrinal dependence’ but – as suggested by Harrison – in the more modest role of source of blueprints for economic explanation. (shrink)

This is a reply to de Sousa's 'Emotional Truth', in which he argues that emotions can be objective, as propositional truths are. I say that it is better to distinguish between truth and accuracy, and agree with de Sousa to the extent of arguing that emotions can be more or less accurate, that is, based on the facts as they are.

In the first chapter of his Knowledge and Lotteries, John Hawthorne argues that thinkers do not ordinarily know lottery propositions. His arguments depend on claims about the intimate connections between knowledge and assertion, epistemic possibility, practical reasoning, and theoretical reasoning. In this paper, we cast doubt on the proposed connections. We also put forward an alternative picture of belief and reasoning. In particular, we argue that assertion is governed by a Gricean constraint that makes no reference to knowledge, and that (...) practical reasoning has more to do with rational degrees of belief than with states of knowledge. (shrink)

We address the ethics of scenarios in which one party entraps, intentionally tempts or intentionally tests the virtue of another. We classify, in a new manner, three distinct types of acts that are of concern, namely acts of entrapment, of intentional temptation and of virtue testing. Our classification is, for each kind of scenario, of itself neutral concerning the question whether the agent acts permissibly. We explain why acts of entrapment are more ethically objectionable than like acts of intentional temptation (...) and why these, in turn, are more ethically objectionable than like acts of virtue testing. Along the way, we scrutinize, and eventually reject, the view that acts of entrapment are ethically unacceptable because intentional temptation is involved in entrapment. (shrink)

The modal account of luck is the predominant account of luck in epistemology and ethics. In the first half of this paper, I discuss three possible interpretations of the modal account and raise objections to each. I then raise an objection to all plausible versions of the modal account, that is, that whether an event is lucky or the extent to which it is a matter of luck will depend on what initial conditions or features of the event one holds (...) constant across nearby possible worlds. However, there is often reasonable disagreement about what the relevant initial conditions of an event are, and the modal account of luck has no means of determining which description of the event is correct. As such, the modal account is subject to a kind of reference class problem, and the view cannot actually tell us the extent to which certain events are a matter of luck. (shrink)

Kopeikin (forthcoming a, forthcoming b) and Rachels’ (1975) bare-difference cases elicit the intuition that killing is no different than letting die. Hill’s (2018) bare-difference cases elicit the intuition that killing is worse than letting die. At least one of the intuitions must be mistaken. This calls for an error theory. Hill has an error theory for the intuition elicited by the Kopeikin/Rachels’ cases. Kopeikin and Rachels have an error theory for the intuition elicited by Hill’s cases. A (...) natural thought is that we are at an impasse. There is no plausible basis for preferring one error theory to the other. I argue that this natural thought is mistaken. Not all error theories are equal. Preliminary considerations favor Hill’s error theory and disfavor the Kopeikin/Rachels error theory. But preliminary considerations are not decisive. The way forward in the bare-difference debate is not to evaluate intuitions. The intuitions are in. What is left to do now is evaluate the comparative status of the Hill and the Kopeikin/Rachels error theories. (shrink)

I present a counterexample to Kirk-Giannini’s Dilemmatic Theory of gaslighting.

It is often assumed that all lucky events are significant. The thought is that a chancy event such as winning the lottery is lucky for you in part because it affects your interests or well-being. But whether you win an Absurdist Raffle in which there are no prizes, is, intuitively, not a matter of luck. This is because this event—even if chancy—is not significant for any subject. However, a few philosophers have recently claimed not only that luck does not necessarily (...) involve a significance condition but that we should not view luck involving claims in terms of significance. After reviewing the literature on this topic, I argue that lucky events are significant. A significance condition is necessary to distinguish between different kinds of luck: practical, epistemic, and moral. All lucky events are significant and chancy, but they can be significant for subjects in different ways. For example, an event is epistemically lucky for you if it is epistemically significant and chancy, but such events need not affect your practical interests or moral standing. Furthermore, I argue that events that are chancy but not significant should be thought of in terms of chance and not luck. (shrink)

Many philosophers, psychologists, and medical practitioners believe that killing is no worse than letting die on the basis of James Rachels's Bare-Difference Argument. I show that his argument is unsound. In particular, a premise of the argument is that his examples are as similar as is consistent with one being a case of killing and the other being a case of letting die. However, the subject who lets die has both the ability to kill and the ability to let die (...) while the subject who kills lacks the ability to let die. Modifying the latter example so that the killer has both abilities yields a pair of cases with morally different acts. The hypothesis that killing is worse than letting die is the best explanation of this difference. (shrink)

Many philosophers and members of the public think it is wrong to procreate. If one wants children, it is permissible to adopt. But procreation is allegedly impermissible because there is some respect in which adoption is better than procreation. I show that such objections are unsound.

In “The Meta-Problem of Consciousness”, David Chalmers briefly raises a problem about how the connection between consciousness and our verbal and other behavior appears “lucky”. I raise a counterexample to Chalmers’s formulation of the problem. Then I develop an alternative formulation. Finally, I consider some responses, including illusionism about consciousness.

Timothy Hsiao asks a good question: Why believe animals deserve moral consideration? His answer is that we should not. He considers various other answers and finds them wanting. In this paper I consider an answer Hsiao has not yet discussed: We should accept a conservative view about how to form beliefs. And such a view will instruct us to believe that animals deserve moral consideration. I think conservatives like Hsiao do best to answer his question in a way that upholds (...) the moral status of animals. Since my answer is one Hsiao has not yet addressed, it is compatible with the main points he makes against various other motivations in his many papers on this topic. So my paper should be understood as an invitation to Hsiao to consider another answer. (shrink)

Epistemic accounts of luck define luck’s chanciness condition relative to a subject’s epistemic position. This could be put in terms of a subject’s evidence or knowledge about whether the event will occur. I argue that both versions of the epistemic account fail. In §2, I give two types of counterexamples to the evidence-based approach. In §3, I argue—contrary to the knowledge-based view—that an event can be a matter of good or bad luck for a subject even if she knows that (...) it will occur. In §4, I argue that epistemic accounts cannot explain some instances of constitutive luck. Because of these problems, luck’s chanciness condition cannot be adequately defined in epistemic terms. (shrink)

I discuss ways in which the linguistic form of mathimatics helps us think mathematically.

In an important and widely cited paper, Zerilli, Knott, Maclaurin, and Gavaghan (2019) argue that opaque AI decision makers are at least as transparent as human decision makers and therefore the concern that opaque AI is not sufficiently transparent is mistaken. I argue that the concern about opaque AI should not be understood as the concern that such AI fails to be transparent in a way that humans are transparent. Rather, the concern is that the way in which opaque AI (...) is opaque is very different than the way in which humans are opaque. What matters is the degree to which the opaque processes of a class of decision makers are stable, uniform, and safe. The degree to which such processes have these features in humans is higher than the degree to which such processes have these features in opaque AI. And therefore we should require AI to be more transparent than humans. (shrink)

Strawsonian accounts of moral responsibility are widely associated with opposition to hard determinism. However, it is only an historical accident that these views are bundled together. I show that Strawson’s deepest commitments are perfectly consistent with, and even support, a new and improved form of hard determinism. The resulting view is not revisionist about our practices in the way that extant versions of hard determinism are. After setting out my view, I then turn to Latham and Tierney’s (2022) objection to (...) manipulation arguments. I make two points about their objection. First, while extant versions of hard determinism are vulnerable to Latham and Tierney’s objection, my version of hard determinism is not. Second, I argue that their objection raises important questions about what it is for two cases to be morally equivalent. I defend a principle about when cases are morally equivalent. My principle suggests a way to improve Latham and Tierny’s objection to manipulation arguments that are paired with extant variants of hard determinism. However, when paired with my version of hard determinism, manipulation arguments may accommodate Latham and Tierney’s objection. (shrink)

This paper takes under consideration a piece by Roger Crisp in which he questions what the problem of moral luck can teach us about COVID-19 lockdown rule-breakers. Taking the position that although such rule-breakers might seem to be new examples of moral luck, Crisp ends up denying the existence of moral luck and argues that moral luck is an outdated notion in so far as it relies on other questionable aspects of morality, that is, retributivist punishment and blame. Although the (...) author agrees with Crisp that pandemic rule-breaker cases are putative examples of resultant moral luck, he proposes that Crisp has misconstrued what moral luck is and the paper examines in detail what he sees as the numerous problems with Crisp’s claims. The author concludes that Crisp’s analysis of pandemic rule-breaking does not shed any new light on the moral luck debate, and the difficult questions of luck, moral responsibility, and desert are not so easily resolved. -/- . (shrink)

Some legal theorists say that legal entrapment to commit a crime is incoherent. So far, there is no satisfactorily precise statement of this objection in the literature: it is obscure even as to the type of incoherence that is purportedly involved. (Perhaps consequently, substantial assessment of the objection is also absent.) We aim to provide a new statement of the objection that is more precise and more rigorous than its predecessors. We argue that the best form of the objection asserts (...) that, in attempting to entrap, law-enforcement agents lapse into a form of practical incoherence that involves the attempt simultaneously to pursue contrary ends. We then argue that the objection, in this form, encompasses all cases of legal entrapment only if it is supplemented by appeal to the premise that law-enforcement agents have an absolute duty never to create crimes. (shrink)

Our question is this: What makes an act one of entrapment? We make a standard distinction between legal entrapment, which is carried out by parties acting in their capacities as (or as deputies of) law- enforcement agents, and civil entrapment, which is not. We aim to provide a definition of entrapment that covers both and which, for reasons we explain, does not settle questions of permissibility and culpability. We explain, compare, and contrast two existing definitions of legal entrapment to commit (...) a crime that possess this neutrality. We point out some problems with the extensional correctness of these definitions and propose a new definition that resolves these problems. We then extend our definition to provide a more general definition of entrapment, encompassing both civil and legal cases. Our definition is, we believe, closer to being extensionally correct and will, we hope, provide a clearer basis for future discussions about the ethics of entrapment than do the definitions upon which it improves. (shrink)

Mental fictionalism is the view that, even if mental states do not exist, it is useful to talk as if they do. Mental states are useful fictions. Recent philosophy of mind has seen a growing interest in mental fictionalism. To date, much of the discussion has concerned the general features of the approach. In this paper, I develop a specific form of mental fictionalism by drawing on Kendall Walton’s work on make-believe. According to the approach I propose, talk of mental (...) states is a useful pretence for describing people and their behaviour. I try to clarify and motivate this approach by comparing it to well-known alternatives, including behaviourism, instrumentalism and eliminativism. I also consider some of the challenges that it faces. (shrink)

Some feminists hold that surrogacy contracts should be unenforceable or illegal because they contribute to and perpetuate unjust gender inequalities. I argue that in developed countries, surrogacy contracts either wouldn't have these negative effects or that these effects could be mitigated via regulation. Furthermore, the existence of a regulated surrogacy market is preferable on consequentialist grounds.

This is the first English translation of Leon Chwistek’s “Tragedia werbalnej metafizyki,” Kwartalnik Filozoficzny, Vol. X, 1932, 46–76. Chwistek offers a scathing critique of Roman Ingarden’s Das literarische Kunstwerk and of the entire Phenomenology movement. The text also contains many hints at Chwistek’s own philosophical and formal ideas. The book that Chwistek reviews attracted wide attention and was instrumental in winning Ingarden a position as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Lwów in 1933. Chwistek’s alienation from his fellow logicians (...) of the Lvov-Warsaw school is clear from his ridicule of Leśniewski’s project. (shrink)

The computational genomics community has come increasingly to rely on the methodology of creating annotations of scientific literature using terms from controlled structured vocabularies such as the Gene Ontology (GO). We here address the question of what such annotations signify and of how they are created by working biologists. Our goal is to promote a better understanding of how the results of experiments are captured in annotations in the hope that this will lead to better representations of biological reality through (...) both the annotation process and ontology development, and in more informed use of the GO resources by experimental scientists. (shrink)

The descriptions and theoretical laws scientists write down when they model a system are often false of any real system. And yet we commonly talk as if there were objects that satisfy the scientists’ assumptions and as if we may learn about their properties. Many attempt to make sense of this by taking the scientists’ descriptions and theoretical laws to define abstract or fictional entities. In this paper, I propose an alternative account of theoretical modelling that draws upon Kendall Walton’s (...) ‘make-believe’ theory of representation in art. I argue that this account allows us to understand theoretical modelling without positing any object of which scientists’ modelling assumptions are true. (shrink)

People who report believing in God fear death. They also experience grief when someone they love dies. Philosophers and social scientists sometimes claim that this can only be plausibly explained by the hypothesis that people who claim to believe in God do not really believe in God. I show that this is mistaken. I identify three independently plausible explanations of why people who genuinely believe in God would have these behaviors and attitudes. First, there is an evolutionary explanation of why (...) the fear of death would be resilient even if one genuinely believes God has good things in store for us after death. Second, people often fear low probability outcomes. It may be that religious people are afraid of hell or the cessation of existence even if they judge those outcomes to have a low probability. Third, belief in God is typically combined with views according to which death is accompanied by the permanent loss and radical transformation of important relationships. (shrink)

Why does God allow evil? One hypothesis is that God desires the existence and activity of free creatures but He was unable to create a world with such creatures and such activity without also allowing evil. If Molinism is true, what probability should be assigned to this hypothesis? Some philosophers claim that a low probability should be assigned because there are an infinite number of possible people and because we have no reason to suppose that such creatures will choose one (...) way rather than another. Arguments like this depend on the principle of indifference. But that principle is rejected by most philosophers of probability. Some philosophers claim that a low probability should be assigned because doing otherwise violates intuitions about freewill. But such arguments can be addressed through strategies commonly employed to defend theories with counterintuitive results across ethics and metaphysics. (shrink)

In The Future of Human Nature, Jürgen Habermas raises the question of whether the embryonic genetic diagnosis and genetic modification threatens the foundations of the species ethics that underlies current understandings of morality. While morality, in the normative sense, is based on moral interactions enabling communicative action, justification, and reciprocal respect, the reification involved in the new technologies may preclude individuals to uphold a sense of the undisposability of human life and the inviolability of human beings that is necessary for (...) their own identity as well as for reciprocal relations. Engaging with liberal bioethics and Catholic approaches to bioethics, the article clarifies how Habermas’ position offers a radical critique of liberal autonomy while maintaining its postmetaphysical stance. The essay argues that Habermas’ approach may guide the question of rights of future generations regarding germline gene editing. But it calls for a different turn in the conversation between philosophy and theology, namely one that emphasizes the necessary attention to rights violations and injustices as a common, postmetaphysical starting point for critical theory and critical theology alike. In 2001, Jürgen Habermas published a short book on questions of biomedicine that took many by surprise.[1] To some of his students, the turn to a substantive position invoking the need to comment on a species ethics rather than outlining a public moral framework was seen as the departure from the “path of deontological virtue,”[2] and at the same time a departure from postmetaphysical reason. Habermas’ motivation to address the developments in biomedicine had certainly been sparked by the intense debate in Germany, the European Union, and internationally on human cloning, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, embryonic stem cell research, and human enhancement. He turned to a strand of critical theory that had been pushed to the background by the younger Frankfurt School in favor of cultural theory and social critique, even though it had been an important element of its initial working programs. The relationship of instrumental reason and critical theory, examined, among others, by Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse and taken up in Habermas’ own Knowledge and Interest and Theory of Communicative Action became ever-more actual with the development of the life sciences, human genome analysis, and genetic engineering of human offspring. Today, some of the fictional scenarios discussed at the end of the last century as “science fiction” have become reality: in 2018, the first “germline gene-edited” children were born in China.[3] Furthermore, the UK’s permission to create so-called “three-parent” children may create a legal and political pathway to hereditary germline interventions summarized under the name of “gene editing.”In this article, I want to explore Habermas’ “substantial” argument in the hope that philosophy and theology become allies in their struggle against an ever-more reifying lifeworld, which may create a “moral void” that would, at least from today’s perspective, be “unbearable”, and for upholding the conditions of human dignity, freedom, and justice. I will contextualize Habermas’ concerns in the broader discourse of bioethics, because only by doing this, his concerns are rescued from some misinterpretations.[1] Jürgen Habermas, The Future of Human Nature.[2] Ibid., 125, fn. 58. 8[3] Up to the present, no scientific publication of the exact procedure exists, but it is known that the scientist, Jiankui He, circumvented the existing national regulatory framework and may have misled the prospective parents about existing alternatives and the unprecedented nature of his conduct. Yuanwu Ma, Lianfeng Zhang, and Chuan Qin, "The First Genetically Gene‐Edited Babies: It's “Irresponsible and Too Early”," Animal Models and Experimental Medicine ; Matthias Braun, Meacham, Darian, "The Trust Game: Crispr for Human Germline Editing Unsettles Scientists and Society," EMBO reports 20, no. 2. (shrink)

One might think that if the majority of virtue signallers judge that a proposition is true, then there is significant evidence for the truth of that proposition. Given the Condorcet Jury Theorem, individual virtue signallers need not be very reliable for the majority judgment to be very likely to be correct. Thus, even people who are skeptical of the judgments of individual virtue signallers should think that if a majority of them judge that a proposition is true, then that provides (...) significant evidence that the proposition is true. We argue that this is mistaken. Various empirical studies converge on the following point: humans are very conformist in the contexts in which virtue signalling occurs. And stereotypical virtue signallers are even more conformist in such contexts. So we should be skeptical of the claim that virtue signallers are sufficiently independent for the Condorcet Jury Theorem to apply. We do not seek to decisively rule out the relevant application of the Condorcet Jury Theorem. But we do show that careful consideration of the available evidence should make us very skeptical of that application. Consequently, a defense of virtue signalling would need to engage with these findings and show that despite our strong tendencies for conformism, our judgements are sufficiently independent for the Condorcet Jury Theorem to apply. This suggests new directions for the debate about the epistemology of virtue signalling. (shrink)

There is a wealth of evidence which indicates that arguments are not very efficient tools for changing minds. Against this scepticism, Dutilh Novaes (2023) presents evidence that, given the right social context, arguments sometimes play a significant role in belief revision. However, drawing on Levy (2021), I argue that the evidence Dutilh Novaes cites is compatible with the view that it is not arguments that change individual minds but instead belief outsourcing that occurs alongside the consideration of arguments.

I criticize some armchair arguments against phenomenal externalism due to Block, Hawthorne, Kriegel, Levine, Shoemaker and others. I conclude by discussing an overlooked armchair argument: the argument from phenomenal localism.

Concerned about the harmful effects of pervasive political ignorance, epistocrats argue that we should amplify the political power of politically knowledgeable citizens. But their proposals have been widely criticized on the grounds that they are susceptible to manipulation and abuse. Instead of empowering the knowledgeable, incumbents who control epistocratic institutions are likely to selectively empower their supporters, thereby increasing their share of power. Call this the problem of political capture. In this paper I argue for two claims. First, I claim (...) that the problem of political capture for epistocracy has been overstated. Incumbents who want to increase their share of power will encounter certain obstacles that complicate the task of capturing the system. Second, however, I claim that if the problem is nevertheless sufficiently serious, it militates against not just epistocracy, but also many other institutions. The problem of political capture is thus far wider than typically recognized. (shrink)

I assess Churchland's views on folk psychology and conceptual thinking, with particular emphasis on the connection between these topics.

Scale matters in morality, so that different factors occupy us at high and low scales. Different people are needed to be good neighbours in everyday life and moral heroes in crises. There is no reason to believe that the same traits are required for both. So there is no such thing as the all-round good person.

In “The Semantics of Racial Slurs,” an article recently published in Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations, Hedger draws upon Kaplan’s distinction between descriptive and expressive content to argue that slurs are expressions with purely expressive content. Here I review the key considerations presented by Hedger in support of his purely expressive account of slurs and provide clear reasons for why it must ultimately be rejected. After reviewing the key cases Hedger offers for consideration in support of his view that slurs are (...) expressions with purely expressive content, this article provides a critical evaluation of these cases, pointing out at least 13 ways in which his purely expressive analysis of slurs fails. In considering the 13 ways in which the purely expressive analysis of slurs remains inadequate, this article concludes with the suggestion that an adequate account of slurs will ultimately involve not only an expressive aspect but a descriptive aspect also. (shrink)

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn attention to the technology’s transformative potential, including what some see as its prospects for causing large-scale harm. We review two influential arguments purporting to show how AI could pose catastrophic risks. The first argument — the Problem of Power-Seeking — claims that, under certain assumptions, advanced AI systems are likely to engage in dangerous power-seeking behavior in pursuit of their goals. We review reasons for thinking that AI systems might seek power, that (...) they might obtain it, that this could lead to catastrophe, and that we might build and deploy such systems anyway. The second argument claims that the development of human-level AI will unlock rapid further progress, culminating in AI systems far more capable than any human — this is the Singularity Hypothesis. Power-seeking behavior on the part of such systems might be particularly dangerous. We discuss a variety of objections to both arguments and conclude by assessing the state of the debate. (shrink)

In January 1975, Michel Foucault contemplated the nature and formation of what in subsequent years he would come to know as governmentality. For Foucault, plague marks the rise of the invention of positive technologies of power, where these relations center around inclusion, multiplication, and security, rather than exclusion, negation, and rejection. In a point that might at first seem ancillary to his central argument, Foucault comments on stylized works about plague, such as those, according to the lecture series’ editors, exemplified (...) by Albert Camus. In footnote fifteen of the January 15, 1975 lecture, in reference to what Foucault deemed the “literary dream of” plagues, the editors list Camus’ 1947 novel La Peste, among other works, as representative of what Foucault described as “a kind of orgiastic dream in which plague is the moment when individuals come apart and when the law is forgotten.”. This article places Camus’ novel and other works in conversation with Foucault on governmentality, subjectivation, and truth to demonstrate the ways in which individualism itself can be viewed biopolitically. In so doing, it offers an urgent intervention that speaks powerfully to and is exemplified by the current global pandemic. Plague serves both as this literary dream and as a discursive mechanism engaged simultaneously with regimes of truth and the individuals constructing them. By pairing Foucault’s historical understanding of the invention of positive technologies of power with Camus’ treatment of “the absurd” in and out of the plague context, one uncovers the interrelation of governmentality, subjectivation, and truth. (shrink)

In Flourish, the positive psychologist Martin Seligman (2011) identifies five commonly recognized factors that are characteristic of human flourishing or wellbeing: (1) “positive emotion,” (2) “relationships,” (3) “engagement,” (4) “achievement,” and (5) “meaning” (p. 24). Although there is no settled set of necessary and sufficient conditions neatly circumscribing the bounds of human flourishing (Seligman, 2011), we would mostly likely consider a person that possessed high levels of these five factors as paradigmatic or prototypical of human flourishing. Accordingly, if we wanted (...) to go about the practical task of actually increasing our level of wellbeing, we ought to do so by focusing on practically increasing the levels of the five factors that are characteristic of wellbeing. If, for instance, an activity such as musical engagement can be shown to positively influence each or all of these five factors, this would be compelling evidence that an activity such as musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. I’m of the belief that psychological research can and should be used, not only to identify and diagnose maladaptive psychological states, but identify and promote adaptive psychological states as well. In this article I advance the hypothesis and provide supporting evidence for the claim that musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. Since there has not yet been a substantive and up-to-date investigation of the possible role of music in contributing to one’s living a flourishing life, the purpose of this article is to conduct this investigation, thereby bridging the gap and stimulating discussion between the psychology of music and the psychology of wellbeing. (shrink)

Recent work in epistemology and philosophy of science has argued that understanding is an important cognitive state that philosophers should seek to analyse. This paper offers a new perspective on understanding by looking to work in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Understanding is normally taken to be inside the head. I argue that this view is mistaken. Often, understanding is a state that criss-crosses brain, body and world. To support this claim, I draw on extended cognition, a burgeoning framework (...) in cognitive science that stresses the crucial role played by tools, material representations and the wider environment in our cognitive processes. I defend an extended view of understanding against likely objections and argue that it has important consequences for questions concerning the nature of understanding and its relationship to explanation. (shrink)

I argue that there are slurs that are distinctly derogatory insofar as they only derogate their target’s epistemic faculties or capacities qua group member. I call these slurs epistemic slurs. Given that slur theories should explain the derogatory nature of all slurs, any comprehensive slur theory should be able to explain the derogatory nature of the epistemic slurs. I argue, however, that two particular expressivist theories of slurs cannot explain their distinctive derogatory nature. The epistemic slurs thus constitute a novel (...) explanatory problem for these expressivist slur theories. Yet I argue that a semantic theory of slurs, combinatorial externalism, can explain the distinctive derogatory nature of the epistemic slurs in which case these slurs constitute a novel explanatory advantage for combinatorial externalism. Whether the epistemic slurs constitute a novel explanatory problem or advantage for any other slur theories remains to be seen. (shrink)

Under a ‘dirty hands’ model of undercover policing, it inevitably involves situations where whatever the state agent does is morally problematic. Christopher Nathan argues against this model. Nathan’s criticism of the model is predicated on the contention that it entails the view, which he considers objectionable, that morally wrongful acts are central to undercover policing. We address this criticism, and some other aspects of Nathan’s discussion of the ‘dirty hands’ model, specifically in relation to state entrapment to commit a crime. (...) Using János Kis’s work on political morality, we explain three dilemmatic versions of the ‘dirty hands’ model. We show that, while two of these are inapplicable to state entrapment, the third has better prospects. We then pursue our main aim, which is to argue that, since the third model precludes Nathan’s criticism, a viable ‘dirty hands’ model of state entrapment remains an open possibility. Finally, we generalize this result, showing that the case of state entrapment is not special: the result holds good for policing practices more generally, including such routine practices as arrest, detention, and restraint. (shrink)

A widely held picture in political science emphasizes the cognitive shortcomings of us citizens. We’re ignorant. We don’t know much about politics. We’re irrational. We bend the evidence to show our side in the best possible light. And we’re malleable. We let political elites determine our political opinions. This paper is about why these shortcomings matter to democratic values. Some think that democracy’s value consists entirely in its connection to equality. But the import of these shortcomings, I argue, cannot be (...) explained in purely egalitarian terms. To explain it, we must instead think of democracy’s value partly in terms of collective autonomy. Our ignorance and irrationality undermine the epistemic conditions for realizing this kind of autonomy. They stop us knowing the outcomes of our political choices. Our irrationality and malleability undermine the independence conditions for realizing such autonomy. They mean our political choices are subject to problematic kinds of interpersonal influence. Thus, at root, the import of the widely held picture is that, if accurate, it closes off this critical aspect of democracy’s value. (shrink)

I defend a solution to the puzzle of petitionary prayer based on some ideas of Aquinas, Gregory the Great, and contemporary desert theorists. I then address a series of objections. Along the way broader issues about the nature of desert, what is required for an action to have a point, and what is required for a puzzle to have a solution are discussed.

Models as Make-Believe offers a new approach to scientific modelling by looking to an unlikely source of inspiration: the dolls and toy trucks of children's games of make-believe.

Some recent psychological studies suggest that the belief that humans matter more than other animals can be strengthened by cognitive dissonance. Jaquet (forthcom- ing) argues that some of these studies also show that the relevant belief is primar- ily caused by cognitive dissonance and is therefore subject to a debunking argument. We offer an alternative hypothesis according to which we are already speciesist but cognitive dissonance merely enhances our speciesism. We argue that our hypothesis explains the results of the studies (...) at least as well as Jaquet’s. We then respond to a series of objections. Along the way, we highlight various respects in which further stud- ies are needed to decide between Jaquet’s hypothesis and ours. (shrink)