Although convinced by Frankfurt-style cases that moral responsibility does not require the ability to do otherwise, semicompatibilists have not wanted to accept a parallel claim about moral responsibility for omissions, and so they have accepted asymmetrical requirements on moral responsibility for actions and omissions. In previous work, I have presented a challenge to various attempts at defending this asymmetry. My view is that semicompatibilists should give up these defenses and instead adopt symmetrical requirements on moral responsibility for actions and omissions, (...) and in this paper I highlight three advantages of doing so: first, it avoids a strange implication of the truth of determinism; second, it allows for a principled reply to Philip Swenson’s recent ‘No Principled Difference Argument’; third, it provides a reason to reject a crucial inference rule invoked by Peter van Inwagen’s ‘Direct Argument’ for the incompatibility of moral responsibility and determinism. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to revive wave theory in the philosophy of sound. Wave theory identifies sounds with compression waves. Despite its wide acceptance in the scientific community as the default position, many philosophers have rejected wave theory and opted for different versions of distal theory instead. According to this current majority view, a sound has its stationary location at its source. I argue against this and other alternative philosophical theories of sound and develop wave theory into a more defensible form. (...) Philosophers of sound tend to emphasise how sounds are experienced to be in their arguments. Most often, it is assumed that that which appears to be a distally located bearer of auditory properties in an auditory experience is a sound. Chapter 1 argues that if this distal entity is the sound source instead, many of the existing theories of sound will be severely affected. Chapter 2 discusses auditory perception and criticises the common assumption that we hear non-sound entities in virtue of hearing sounds. I show that this assumption begs the question against certain theories of sound and that the contrary view that sound sources can be directly heard is more plausible. If sound sources can be directly heard, then features commonly attributed to sounds based on auditory experiences might rather be features of sound sources. I examine eight of such features in Chapter 3. Only four of them survive. Chapters 4 and 5 review the existing theories of sound. After a taxonomy of existing theories of sound, each theory is criticised one-by-one. Some of them are problematic precisely because they rely on the implausible assumption that that which appears to be distally located in an auditory experience is a sound rather than a sound source. Lastly, Chapter 6 focuses on wave theory. It begins with two positive arguments for wave theory in general, followed by my replies to two common objections in the literature. I then move on to develop my version of wave theory. There are two core aspects of my view. The first one is a metaphysics of compression waves; the second is an account of what it is to hear compression waves. After comparing my view with a similar theory, I demonstrate the explanatory power of my view in two steps. First, the eight commonly accepted features of sounds examined in Chapter 3 are revisited. It turns out that my view can accommodate all of them. Second, explanations for four special sound-related phenomena are offered at the end of the chapter. I conclude in the last chapter with the suggestion that, as a philosopher, the best way to defend wave theory is to offer a better understanding of auditory perception which explains how compression waves are experienced. (shrink)

I argue that any account attempting to do away with resultant or circumstantial moral luck is inconsistent with a natural response to the problem of constitutive moral luck. It is plausible to think that we sometimes contribute to the formation of our characters in such a way as to mitigate our constitutive moral luck at later times. But, as I argue here, whether or not we succeed in bringing about changes to our characters is itself a matter of resultant and (...) circumstantial moral luck. I conclude with a dilemma, both horns of which require accepting some form of moral luck. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that it is open to semicompatibilists to maintain that no ability to do otherwise is required for moral responsibility. This is significant for two reasons. First, it undermines Christopher Evan Franklin’s recent claim that everyone thinks that an ability to do otherwise is necessary for free will and moral responsibility. Second, it reveals an important difference between John Martin Fischer’s semicompatibilism and Kadri Vihvelin’s version of classical compatibilism, which shows that the dispute between them is (...) not merely a verbal dispute. Along the way, I give special attention to the notion of general abilities, and, though I defend the distinctiveness of Fischer’s semicompatibilism against the verbal dispute charge, I also use the discussion of the nature of general abilities to argue for the falsity of a certain claim that Fischer and coauthor Mark Ravizza have made about their account. (shrink)

Is moral responsibility essentially historical, or does an agent's moral responsibility for an action depend only on their psychological structure at that time? In previous work, I have argued that the two main (non‐skeptical) views on moral responsibility and agents’ histories—historicism and standard structuralism—are vulnerable to objections that are avoided by a third option, namely history‐sensitive structuralism. In this paper, I develop this view in greater detail and evaluate the view by comparing it with its three dialectical rivals: skepticism about (...) moral responsibility, historicism, and standard structuralism. Each comparison includes discussion of new work on moral responsibility and agents’ histories, and along the way I offer new arguments for preferring history‐sensitive structuralism, paying special attention to the view's explanatory power. (shrink)

Hobart’s classic 1934 paper “Free Will as Involving Determination and Inconceivable Without It” has been widely cited as an example of an argument for the view that free will requires the truth of determinism. In this paper, I argue that this reading of Hobart’s paper is mistaken and that we should instead read Hobart as arguing that an agent exercises their free will only if the proximate causes of the agent’s action deterministically cause their action. After arguing that Hobart’s view, (...) rightly understood, escapes the problems typically raised for Hobart’s compatibilism, I also argue that Hobart’s view is problematic for different reasons. Nevertheless, I argue that there is a crucial insight to be gleaned from Hobart’s paper—one that provides compatibilists with a new recipe for challenging libertarian accounts of free will. (shrink)

I argue that considerations pertaining to constitutive luck undermine historicism—the view that an agent’s history can determine whether or not she is morally responsible. The main way that historicists have motivated their view is by appealing to certain cases of manipulation. I argue, however, that since agents can be morally responsible for performing some actions from characters with respect to which they are entirely constitutively lucky, and since there is no relevant difference between these agents and agents who have been (...) manipulated into acting from a character bestowed upon them by their manipulators, we should give up historicism. After presenting this argument and defending it against some potential objections, I briefly criticize the standard structuralist alternative and propose a new structuralist position that is shaped by reflection on constitutive luck. (shrink)

In a series of recent papers, Justin Capes and Philip Swenson and Michael Robinson have proposed new versions of the flickers of freedom reply to Frankfurt-style cases. Both proposals claim, first, that what agents in FSCs are morally responsible for is performing a certain action on their own, and, second, that agents in FSCs retain robust alternative possibilities—alternatives in which the agent freely omits to perform the pertinent action on their own. In this paper, I argue that, by attending to (...) the details of the omissions in question, it becomes clear that agents in FSCs lack robust alternatives of this sort, for in the alternative sequences such agents do not freely omit. Since the problem for these recent proposals arises from their attempt to show that agents in FSCs retain robust alternatives, I go on to consider whether the flicker theorist might be better off either revising or rejecting the robustness requirement on alternative possibilities. I argue that neither alternative is available to the flicker theorist, and yet I also point out that the reasons why these alternatives are unavailable serve to highlight what exactly is at issue in the debate between leeway and sourcehood theorists, namely the grounds of our freedom. (shrink)

Many find it intuitive that having been manipulated undermines a person's free will. Some have objected to accounts of free will like Harry Frankfurt's (according to which free will depends only on an agent's psychological structure at the time of action) by arguing that it is possible for manipulated agents, who are intuitively unfree, to satisfy Frankfurt's allegedly sufficient conditions for freedom. Drawing resources from Greg Egan's "Reasons to Be Cheerful" as well as from stories of psychologically sophisticated artificial intelligence (...) (such as Isaac Asimov's "The Bicentennial Man"), I rebut this objection to "structuralist" accounts of free will, arguing that the very possibility of free will for persons like us requires that we admit that a person can be free even when lacking control over the character from which she acts. I conclude with some implications for the freedom and personhood of artificial intelligences. (shrink)

Some compatibilists are internalists. On their view, whether an agent is morally responsible for an action depends only on her psychological structure at that time. Other compatibilists are externalists. On their view, an agent’s history can make a difference as to whether or not she is morally responsible. In response to worries about manipulation, some internalists have claimed that compatibilism requires internalism. Recently, Alfred Mele has argued that this internalist response is untenable. The aim of this paper is to vindicate (...) the claim that compatibilism requires internalism, showing where Mele’s argument goes wrong along the way. (shrink)

Recently, several authors have utilized the notion of dependence to respond to the traditional argument for the incompatibility of freedom and divine foreknowledge. However, proponents of this response have not always been so clear in specifying where the incompatibility argument goes wrong, which has led to some unfounded objections to the response. We remedy this dialectical confusion by clarifying both the dependence response itself and its interaction with the standard incompatibility argument. Once these clarifications are made, it becomes clear both (...) (1.) that the dependence response does not beg the question against the proponent of the incompatibility argument and (2.) that the dependence response advances the dialectic whether it is developed as a version of Ockhamism or as a version of multiple-pasts compatibilism. (shrink)

It is widely thought that, to be morally responsible for some action or omission, an agent must have had, at the very least, the general ability to do otherwise. As we argue, however, there are counterexamples to the claim that moral responsibility requires the general ability to do otherwise. We present several cases in which agents lack the general ability to do otherwise and yet are intuitively morally responsible for what they do, and we argue that such cases raise problems (...) for various kinds of accounts of moral responsibility. We suggest two alternative approaches to thinking about the connection between moral responsibility and abilities to do otherwise, one of which denies that there is any ability-to-do-otherwise requirement on moral responsibility and the other of which requires only an opportunity to do otherwise. We also argue that a general-ability-to-do-otherwise requirement not only faces counterexamples but also lacks positive motivation. (shrink)

In response to the increasingly popular manipulation argument against compatibilism, some have argued that libertarian accounts of free will are vulnerable to parallel manipulation arguments, and thus manipulation is not uniquely problematic for compatibilists. The main aim of this article is to give this point a more detailed development than it has previously received. Prior attempts to make this point have targeted particular libertarian accounts but cannot be generalized. By contrast, I provide an appropriately modified manipulation that targets all libertarian (...) accounts of freedom and responsibility—an especially tricky task given that libertarian accounts are a motley set. I conclude that if manipulation arguments reveal any theoretical cost then it is one borne by all accounts according to which we are free and responsible, not by compatibilism in particular. (shrink)

It is widely thought that Atemporalism—the view that, because God is “outside” of time, he does not foreknow anything —constitutes a unique solution to the problem of freedom and foreknowledge. However, as I argue here, in order for Atemporalism to escape certain worries, the view must appeal to the dependence of God’s timeless knowledge on our actions. I then argue that, because it must appeal to such dependence, Atemporalism is crucially similar to the recent sempiternalist accounts proposed by Trenton Merricks, (...) Philip Swenson, and Jonathan Westphal, and I conclude by briefly sketching some implications of this result. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a version of compatibilism against luck-related objections. After introducing the types of luck that some take to be problematic for moral responsibility, I consider and respond to two recent attempts to show that compatibilism faces the same problem of luck that libertarianism faces—present luck. I then consider a different type of luck—constitutive luck—and provide a new solution to this problem. One upshot of the present discussion is a reason to prefer a history-sensitive compatibilist account over (...) a purely nonhistorical structuralist account. (shrink)

Death can be bad for an individual who has died, according to the “deprivation approach,” by depriving that individual of goods. One worry for this account of death’s badness is the Lucretian symmetry argument: since we do not regret having been born later than we could have been born, and since posthumous nonexistence is the mirror image of prenatal nonexistence, we should not regret dying earlier than we could have died. Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer have developed a response (...) to the Lucretian challenge by arguing that it is rational to have asymmetric attitudes toward posthumous and prenatal nonexistence. Recently, Jens Johansson has criticized the Brueckner/Fischer position, claiming that it is irrelevant whether it is actually rational to care about future pleasures but not past pleasures. What matters, according to Johansson, is whether it would be rational for us to care about past pleasures had we come into existence earlier. In this paper, I add to the conversation between Johansson and Brueckner/Fischer by suggesting a way to defend the latter side’s position in a way that has not yet been suggested. I do this by considering a suggestion of Johansson’s for interpreting the Brueckner/Fischer position and by arguing that Johansson’s worry for the position I consider is actually incoherent. (shrink)

This paper presents a new challenge to the thesis that moral responsibility for an omission requires the ability to do the omitted action, whereas moral responsibility for an action does not require the ability to do otherwise than that action. Call this the asymmetry thesis. The challenge arises from the possibility of cases in which an omission is identical to an action. In certain of such cases, the asymmetry thesis leads to a contradiction. The challenge is then extended to recent (...) variations of the asymmetry thesis defended by John Martin Fischer and Carolina Sartorio. Finally, a possible objection to the challenge is addressed. (shrink)

Critics of synergism often complain that the view entails Pelagianism, and so, critics think, monergism looks like the only live option. Critics of monergism often claim that the view entails that the blame for human sin ultimately traces to God. Recently, several philosophers have attempted to chart a middle path by offering soteriological accounts which are monergistic but maintain the resistibility of God’s grace. In this paper, we present a challenge to such accounts of the resistibility of grace, namely that (...) they imply that human beings are praiseworthy for omitting to resist God’s grace. Even if such views escape Pelagianism as it is typically defined, they fail to avoid the worry at the heart of prominent criticisms of Pelagianism concerning the praise for a human being’s salvation. At the end of the paper, we suggest three possible solutions to this problem. (shrink)

One way that philosophers have attempted to defend free will against the threat of fatalism and against the threat from divine beliefs has been to endorse timelessness views. In this paper, I argue that, in order to respond to general worries about fatalism and divine beliefs, timelessness views must appeal to the notion of dependence. Once they do this, however, their distinctive position as timelessness views becomes otiose, for the appeal to dependence, if it helps at all, would itself be (...) sufficient to block worries about fatalism and divine beliefs. I conclude by discussing some implications for dialectical progress. (shrink)

The most popular philosophical account of how death can harm (or be bad for) the deceased is the deprivation account, according to which death is bad insofar as it deprives the deceased of goods that would have been enjoyed by that person had the person not died. In this paper, the author surveys four main challenges to the deprivation account: the No-Harm-Done Argument, the No-Subject Argument, the Timing Argument, and the Symmetry Argument. These challenges are often raised by Epicureans, who (...) (following Epicurus) claim that death cannot harm the deceased, and each challenge is addressed in Thomas Nagel’s classic essay, “Death,” which has been very influential on recent developments in the literature on the philosophy of death. The author of this paper summarizes some of these recent developments as the challenges are considered. (shrink)

Recently, John Maier has developed a unified account of various agentive modalities. According to him, however, adopting the account provides an alternative framework for thinking about free will and moral responsibility, one that reveals an unacceptable instability in semicompatibilism. In this paper, I argue that Maier is mistaken about the implications of his account and sketch a semicompatibilist proposal that can, without countenancing any instability, accept Maier’s unified account of the agentive modalities.

Matt King has recently argued that the manipulation argument against compatibilism does not succeed by employing a dilemma: either the argument infelicitously relies on incompatibilist sourcehood conditions, or the proponent of the argument leaves a premise of the argument undefended. This article develops a reply to King’s dilemma by showing that incompatibilists can accept its second horn. Key to King’s argument for the second horn’s being problematic is “the parallel manipulation argument.” I argue that King’s use of this argument is (...) problematic, but I suggest that a (modified) parallel manipulation argument is effective for a different, though more restricted, purpose. (shrink)

According to John Martin Fischer and Anthony Brueckner’s unique version of the deprivation approach to accounting for death’s badness, it is rational for us to have asymmetric attitudes toward prenatal and posthumous nonexistence. In previous work, I have defended this approach against a criticism raised by Jens Johansson by attempting to show that Johansson’s criticism relies on an example that is incoherent. Recently, Duncan Purves has argued that my defense reveals an incoherence not only in Johansson’s example but also in (...) Fischer and Brueckner’s approach itself. Here I argue that by paying special attention to a certain feature of Fischer and Brueckner’s approach, we can dispense of not only Johansson’s criticism but also of Purves’s objection to Fischer and Brueckner’s approach. (shrink)

Since at least the time of Epicurus, philosophers have debated whether death could be bad for the one who has died, since death is a permanent experiential blank. But a different puzzle about death’s badness arises when we consider the death of a person who is paradise-bound. The first purpose of this paper is to develop this puzzle. The second purpose of this paper is to suggest and evaluate several potential attempts to solve the puzzle. After rejecting two seemingly attractive (...) suggestions, I argue that there are two types of solution to the puzzle that can succeed. The first type of solution simply denies that death can be bad for the paradise-bound. I argue that the main worry for this type of solution, namely that it gives up the common-sense view about death’s badness, is only a prima facie worry. The second type of solution maintains that death can be bad for the paradise-bound because it can deprive her of certain goods, which allows those who are attracted to this type of solution to adopt the deprivation account of death’s badness. I consider three views of the relation between the paradise-bound and paradise that are consistent with the deprivation account, connecting my discussion of paradise with the extant literature on death’s badness. (shrink)

Manipulated Agents: A Window to Moral Responsibility. By Mele Alfred R..).

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Cohen (2023) takes a fair and measured approach to the question of what ChatGPT means for bioethics. The hype cycles around AI often obscure the fact that ethicists have developed robust frameworks...

While evil has always fascinated philosophers, it is only in modern times that the existence of evil has been seen as a serious challenge to belief in the existence of a powerful and benevolent God. In order to demonstrate this, the following chapter traces the historical emergence of what philosophers today call “the problem of evil” through an analysis of the writings of Plato, Epicurus, Sextus Empiricus, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Descartes, Bayle, and Hume.

Cele niniejszej pracy są następujące: analiza komparatystyczna problemu równości płci w feministycznych pracach J. S. Milla i H. Taylor w kontekście wiktoriańskiego systemu aksjo-normatywnego, w tym: 1) charakterystyka sytuacji kobiet w XIX wieku w kontekście systemu aksjo-normatywnego epoki wiktoriańskiej 2) analiza problemu równości w feminizmie liberalnym J. S. Milla i H. Taylor 3) analiza krytyczna J. S. Milla i H. Taylor jako teorii feminizmu liberalnego oraz 4) dyskusja nad rozdźwiękiem między ujęciem teoretycznym obojga filozofów a realnymi problemami (...) w realizacji ich normatywnych i praktycznych postulatów w epoce wiktoriańskiej. (shrink)

Niettegenstaande de tendens van het failliet van het multiculturalisme is multiculturele dialoog niet weg te denken in een zich globaliserende wereld. Taylor, Gadamer, Honneth en Kymlicka hebben een bijdrage geleverd op het vlak van de erkenning van identiteit, respect en waardering van verschil. Wij voeren het argument aan dat bovenstaande auteurs niet ontsnappen aan het postmodernistisch dilemma van zelfautonomie en slachtofferschap. Dit komt doordat zij in hun rationale vertrekken van het afzonderlijke subject en deze situeren in een ruimte-tijd waarin (...) de tijd slechts een historische rol heeft en de ruimte geen actieve rol speelt. Tegenover deze uitvloeisels van het postmodern denken stellen wij het eco-communau-tarisme. Vanuit de vaststelling dat het individu denkt, spreek en handelt in de context van zijn taal en cultuur en dus vanuit zijn gemeenschap, situeren wij dit subject en de gemeenschap tevens in een particulier territorium of het ecotoop. Door middel van Hacking’s sociaal constructivisme, het Leibniziaanse meerwereldenbeeld en het biologische paradigma als nieuw denkkader, structureren wij de gemeenschap volgens een cyclisch en een lineair tijdverloop. Het cyclische waarborgt de traditie van een gemeenschap, het lineaire doet de gemeenschap evolueren naar een moreel betere toekomst en heeft een transcendent statuut. Het eco-communautarisme biedt het kader voor een kwalitatieve evolutie van individuen en gemeenschappen. Het normerend aspect hiervan is de pluriforme en multiculturele dialoog. (shrink)

Fideism, as a philosophical and theological view, is defined in various manners. Sometimes it is defined as the priority of faith over accounts of all kinds of cognition based on human reason. The Geneva reformer John Calvin (1509–1564) was a fideist, and he simultaneously admired Saint Augustine — traces of that admiration can be found very easy in the chief Calvin’s work Institutio christianae religionis. However, this does not mean that he shared Augustinian views on faith‑reason relations. John (...) Calvin adopted late‑Augustinian interests, and was especially concerned with the issue of predestination. The Geneva reformer was the author of the double predestination doctrine. The chief claim of this doctrine is that: God intended one part of humanity for salvation; and the other one for damnation. This conclusion was supported with numerous quotations from the Old and the New Testament, and followed from the accepted exegetic principle that all words of the Holy Scripture are to be understood literally. Calvin also acted selectively and did not take into account other passages of the Bible contrary to them in sense. These different, even contradictory words and quotations create an incoherent image of God, which Calvin left unexplained as one of God’s mysteries. According to this image, God is a petulant despot, who by his irrational will treats people with unequal measure. God has settled a priori who would be saved and who would be damned, so the will of concrete man to act well or badly is without importance. In consequence, God is responsible for the evil and sins committed by people. Calvin’s God is unfair because he is merciful for one man, but not for other one. In approving a voluntaristic image of God, Calvin started becoming, particularly in the doctrine of double predestination, an extreme fideist, much more than his master Augustine. However, in later decades (especially in the seventeenth century), Calvin’s version of Christianity gaverise a rebellion against the double predestination doctrine, first in the ranks of the Dutch Calvinistic theologians (Armenians), and later in the circles of the English philosophers (Cambridge Platonics). In the end, Calvinism became a compromised Christianity and essentially contributed to the development of deism and atheism in Western European Countries in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

In the Laws, Plato argues that the legislator should attempt to persuade people to voluntarily obey the laws. This persuasion is accomplished through use of legislative preludes. Preludes (also called preambles) are short arguments written into the legal code, which precede laws and give reasons to follow them. In this paper, I argue that Plato’s use of persuasive preludes shows that he endorses the core features of a public reason theory of political justification. Many philosophers argue that Plato’s political philosophy (...) is deeply at odds with contemporary liberal political philosophy. While Plato certainly does not affirm (and even rejects) some of the main features of liberalism, if it could be shown that he endorses some account of public reason (which is a liberal idea to its core), this would suggest that there is more in common between Plato and liberalism than many philosophers think. Furthermore, if combined with the work of philosophers, like C.C.W. Taylor, this could form a cumulative case against those who argue that there is little in common between Plato’s political philosophy and liberalism. In short, by showing that Plato endorses the core features of public reason, I endeavor to show that there is more in common between Plato and liberalism than is often thought. (shrink)

This book presents Robert S. Hartman’s formal theory of value and critically examines many other twentieth century value theorists in its light, including A.J. Ayer, Kurt Baier, Brand Blanshard, Paul Edwards, Albert Einstein, William K. Frankena, R.M. Hare, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, G.E. Moore, P.H. Nowell-Smith, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Charles Stevenson, Paul W. Taylor, Stephen E. Toulmin, and J.O. Urmson.

Beauty has captured human interest since before Plato, but how, why, and to whom does beauty matter in today's world? Whose standard of beauty motivates African Americans to straighten their hair? What inspires beauty queens to measure up as flawless objects for the male gaze? Why does a French performance artist use cosmetic surgery to remake her face into a composite of the master painters' version of beauty? How does beauty culture perceive the disabled body? Is the constant effort to (...) remain young and thin, often at considerable economic and emotional expense, ethically justifiable? Provocative essays by an international group of scholars discuss beauty in aesthetics, the arts, the tools of fashion, the materials of decoration, and the big business of beautification—beauty matters—to reveal the ways gender, race, and sexual orientation have informed the concept of beauty and driven us to become more beautiful. Here, Kant rubs shoulders with Calvin Klein. Beauty Matters draws from visual art, dance, cultural history, and literary and feminist theory to explore the values and politics of beauty. Various philosophical perspectives on ethics and aesthetics emerge from this penetrating book to determine and reveal that beauty is never disinterested. Foreward by Eleanor Heartney; "Introduction" by Peg Brand [Weiser] included here. Authors include Marcia M. Eaton, Noel Carroll, Paul C. Taylor, Arthur C. Danto, Kathleen M. Higgins, Susan Bordo, Dawn Perlmutter, Eva Kit Wah Man, Anita Silvers, Hilary Robinson, Kaori Chino, Sally Banes, and Peg Brand's essay "Bound to Beauty: An Interview with Orlan." (available on PhilPapers). (shrink)

This article discusses anglophone readings of G. W. F. Hegel against the backdrop of German-language scholarship. The article starts by differentiating types of metaphysics (I). Following a taxonomy introduced by Paul Redding, I then discuss Charles Taylor’s Christian-mystical (II), the so-called »non-metaphysical« (III) and the »revised metaphysical« reading (IV). Terry Pinkard’s work serves as an example of (III) and Stephen Houlgate’s as an example of (IV). I highlight problematic aspects of each reading that concern: the meaning of »reason in (...) the world« (II), the anti-relativist clout of Hegel’s philosophy (III) and the difference between the development of logical concepts and the empirical origin of the world and human thinking (IV). The text ends (V) by pointing to the social implications of each type of reading. (shrink)

This paper tries to summarize the main lines of discussion at the conference "Compatibilist Libertarianism: Advantages and Challenges" (October 29, 2021). This conference, organised by Alexander Gebharter and Maria Sekatskaya, served the discussion of Christian List's account of compatibilist libertarianism. Speakers were Taylor W. Cyr, Nadine Elzein, Alexander Gebharter, Christian List, Alfred R. Mele, Leonhard Menges, Tuomas K. Pernu, and Maria Sekatskaya.

Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory is a vast labyrinth that anyone interested in modern aesthetic theory must at some time enter. Because of his immense difficulty of the same order as Derrida - Adorno's reception has been slowed by the lack of a comprehensive and comprehensible account of the intentions of his aesthetics. This is the first book to put Aesthetic Theory into context and outline the main ideas and relevant debates, offering readers a valuable guide through this huge, difficult, but (...) revelatory work. Its extended argument is that, despite Adorno's assumptions of autonomism, cognitivism, and aesthetic modernism, his idea of artistic truth content offers crucial insights for contemporary philosophical aesthetics.The eleven chapters are divided into three parts: Context, Content, and Critique. The first part offers a brief biography, describes Adorno's debates with Benjamin, Brecht, and Lukács, and outlines his philosophical program. The second part is an interpretation of Adorno's aesthetics, examining how he situates art in society, production, politics, and history and uncovering the social, political, and historical dimensions of his idea of artistic truth. The third part evaluates Adorno's contribution by confronting it with the critiques of Peter Bürger, Frederic Jameson, and Albrecht Wellmer.Lambert Zuidervaart is Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College. (shrink)

Antes de entrar cuidadosamente no estudo de cada filósofo, em suas respectivas ordens cronológicas, é necessário dar um panorama geral sobre eles, permitindo, de relance, a localização deles em tempos históricos e a associação de seus nomes com sua teoria ou tema central. l. OS FILÓSOFOS PRÉ-SOCRÁTICOS - No sétimo século antes de Jesus Cristo, nasce o primeiro filósofo grego: Tales de Mileto2 . Ele e os seguintes filósofos jônicos (Anaximandro: Ἀναξίμανδρος: 3 610-546 a.C.) e Anaxímenes: (Άναξιμένης: 586-524 a.C.) tentaram (...) expressar/elucidar o que é a arché, ou constitutivo fundamental do Universo. 4 Também sobressaem as teorias de Pitágoras (Ὁ Πυθαγόρας: 570 a.C.- 495 a.C.), completas de misticismo e Matemática; a de Heráclito (Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος: 540-470 a.C.), o filósofo do devir e o de seu oponente, Parmênides (Παρμενίδης: 530-460 a.C.), que elucida a primeira teoria do ser, e para qual é alcunhado como o iniciador da Metafísica. Anaxágoras (Ἀναξαγόρας: 500 a.C.- 428 a.C.) esboça uma teoria sobre o Nous, o espírito divino. Por outro lado, Demócrito (Δημόκριτος: Grécia: 460-370 a.C.) e Empédocles (Ἐμπεδοκλῆς: 490 a.C.-430 a.C.) insistem no materialismo. Em contrapartida, os sofistas (Parmênides, Cálicles (Καλλικλῆς: personagem platônico cuja existência é duvidosa) e Górgias (Γοργίας: 485 a.C.-380 a.C.)) gozam das suas aptidões à dialética, e colocam o relativismo como uma posição filosófica. Sócrates será o inimigo mais temível dessa posição. Este é o começo do movimento filosófico de Atenas, que culmina nos séculos quinto e quarto, tal qual, posteriormente, veremos. 2. O APOGEU GREGO – Sócrates (Σωκράτης: 469 a.C.-399 a.C.), Platão (Πλάτων: 428/427- 348/347 a.C.) e Aristóteles (Ἀριστοτέλης: 384 a.C.-322 a.C.) formam o triunvirato dos grandes filósofos gregos. O primeiro (Sócrates), com seu método "maiêutico" e sua teoria do conceito; o segundo (Platão), com sua teoria das ideias e seu estilo literário (dialogista); e o terceiro (Aristóteles), com a estruturação dos principais ramos filosóficos, como a Lógica, a Metafísica, a Ética, a Psicologia racional e a Política; todos eles elevaram a Filosofia para um posto de primeira ordem. Doravante, todos os filósofos tornam-se credores das contribuições desses gênios. Em certos autores, é clara a influência de Platão ou de Aristóteles. Sendo que, ambos os filósofos, tiveram influência absoluta de Sócrates, uma vez que Platão fora seu discípulo, e Aristóteles discípulo de Platão. A Idade Média, por exemplo, foi toda ela, em sua gênese e desenvolvimento, alicerçada no pensamento e nas ideias platônicas; tal era histórica é caracterizada pela luta em favor de um ou de outro autor; o platonismo tomou precedência nos primeiros séculos do cristianismo; somente após o décimo século Aristóteles foi redescoberto. 3. A FILOSOFIA CRISTÃ MEDIEVAL - Santo Agostinho (354 a.C.-430 a.C.) se destaca, no quinto século, com sua teoria da iluminação e a aplicação da teoria platônica ao Cristianismo. No século XIII, São Tomás de Aquino (1225-1274), sintetiza Aristóteles com o Cristianismo. Os dois autores formam o núcleo da filosofia cristã em seus respectivos séculos. A escolástica teve seu tempo de decadência. Se mencionam, principalmente, dois autores: João Duns Escoto (1266-1308) e Guilherme de Ockham (1285-1347). O primeiro é o "Doutor Sutil ", e o segundo cai em um fideísmo e um nominalismo, para todos os conceitos criticáveis. Em uma segunda parte, tentaremos explicar os respectivos pensamentos dos autores mencionados, e outros que pertencem ao mesmo tempo, antigos e medievais. Naquela época, a Filosofia era puramente realista, aplicada ao mundo e ao homem. Somente na Idade Moderna, a Filosofia assumirá o problema do conhecimento como a base e o começo de todo filosofar. 4. A FILOSOFIA RACIONALISTA (MODERNA) - Na Idade Moderna, sobressai o racionalismo de Descartes (1596-1650) prolongado, então, com Malebranche (1638-1715) (ocasionalismo), Espinosa (1632 -1677) (panteísmo) e Leibniz (1646-1716) (teoria das mônadas). Estamos nos séculos XVII e XVIII. A atenção será focada nas disputas filosóficas da corrente empirista contra a racionalista. 5. A FILOSOFIA EMPIRISTA – O empirismo é florescido, principalmente, na Inglaterra. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), primeiro, e depois Locke (1632-1704) com sua rejeição de ideias inatas, Berkeley (1685-1753) com postura e ideias paradoxais, também idealistas e Hume (1711-1776), com suas famosas críticas contra o princípio da causalidade e o conceito de substância, são os principais autores. 6. KANT E OS IDEALISTAS ALEMÃES - Como a tentativa de sintetizar o racionalismo e empirismo, está a teoria de Kant (1724-1804), no século XVIII. Para o seu gênio seguido pelos três idealistas alemães mais importantes: Fichte (1762-1814) (idealismo subjetivo), Schelling (1775-1854) (idealismo objetivo) e Hegel (1770-1831) (idealismo absoluto). Esses Autores representam o ápice da especulação filosófica. A análise, a profundidade, a complexidade da expressão e o espírito sistemático são as características do gênio alemão idealista. 7. OS FILÓSOFOS DO SÉCULO XIX - Antes de tudo, é necessário mencionar, no século dezenove, aos dois grandes críticos de Hegel, que são Kierkegaard (1813-1855) (precursor do existencialismo) e Marx (1818-1883) (com seu materialismo dialético). O próximo é outro casal: Nietzsche (1844-1900) (teoria do Super-homem) e Schopenhauer (1788-1860) (com seu absoluto pessimismo). Comte (1798-1857) com sua doutrina positivista, completará o quadro desses filósofos. Numa outra oportunidade, vamos desmembrar sobre o pensamento e principais ideias acerca desses autores. 8. OS FILÓSOFOS DO SÉCULO XX - Antes de tudo, há um autor que iluminou a filosofia do século XX: Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), fundador do método fenomenológico. Em seguida, existem dois fluxos que são derivados diretamente de Husserl, a saber, o existencialismo e a axiologia. Dentro da corrente axiológica, estudaremos Scheler (1874-2928). Por outro lado, o existencialismo tem quatro autores principais; dois são alemães: Heidegger (1889-1976) e Jaspers (1883-1969); e os demais são franceses: Sartre (1905-1980) e Marcel (1889-1973). Heidegger insiste em que seu tema tratado em sua filosofia não é a unicidade do homem, mas o ser em geral. Jaspers é famoso por seu conceito de transcendência (Deus). Sartre é um antiteísta sincero, e seu existencialismo é definido como um pensamento que assume todas as consequências da negação de Deus. Em contraste, Gabriel Marcel é um filósofo Católico, que conseguiu uma análise profunda das situações humanas, que aparecem em íntima concordância com as verdades cristãs. Vamos terminar com Russell (1872-1970), autor básico do positivismo lógico. Cronologia de filósofos e suas escolas até nossos dias ➢ Filosofia Antiga - Escola naturalista da Jônia: Tales, Anaximandro e Anaxímenes; - Escola matemática da Itália: Pitágoras e os pitagóricos; - Escola idealista de Eléia: Xenófanes (570-475 a.C.), Parmênides, Zenão (490/85-420 a.C.) e Meliso (h.443); - Escola empirista: Heráclito, Empédocles e Anaxágoras; - Escola atomista de Abdera: Leucipo (h.437) e Demócrito; - Escolas de Atenas: - Sofistas: Protágoras (480-410), Górgias (484-375?); Sócrates, Platão e Aristóteles; - Pirronismo: Pirro (h.365-h.275); - Estoicismo: Zenão de Cítio (359/33-262) e Crisipo (281/77-208); - Epicurismo: Epicuro (341-270); - Nova Academia: Arcesilau (315-241) e Carnéades (214-129); Romanos: Sêneca (4 a.C.-65 d.C.), Marco Aurélio (121-180) e Cícero (106-43). - Escola greco-judia: Fílon de Alexandria (25 a.C.-50 d.C.); - Neoplatonismo: Plotino (204/5-270), Porfirio (h.233-304), Jâmblico (h.250-330) e Proclo (h.411-485). ➢ Filosofia patrística - Apologistas: São Justino (100/10-165), Ireneu de Lyon (h.140-h.l 77) e Atenágoras (fines s. II); - Alexandrinos: São Clemente (h.145/50-215) e Orígenes (h.185-255); - Africanos: Tertuliano (h.160-230), Arnóbio (h.260-h.327) e Lactâncio (nascido h. 250); - Gregos: São Basílio (h.330-379), São Gregório de Nazianzo (330-390), São Gregório de Níssa (330-390) e Pseudo-Dionísio (h.500); - Latinos: São Hilário (h.315-367), Santo Ambrósio (333-397) e Santo Agostinho; - Outros: Claudiano (+h.473), Boécio (480-524), São Isidoro (h.560-633) e Beda (672/3-735). ➢ Filosofia Medieval/Escolástica - Judeus: Isaac Israeli (+h.940), Salomão Ibn Gabirol (h.l020-p.l058) e Maimônides (1135- 1204); - Árabes: Alquindi (h. 796-874), Al-Farabi (870-950), Avicena (980-1037), Algazali (1058- 1111) e Averróis (1126-1198); - Escola palatina: Alcuíno de Iorque (730/5-804), Rábano Mauro (h.784-856), Escoto Erígena (h.810-h.870) e Papa Silvestre II (+1003); - Dialéticos: Santo Anselmo (1033/4-1109) e Pedro Abelardo (1079-1142); - Tradutores: Domingo Gundisalvo (meados s. XII), Gerardo de Cremona (h. 1114-1187); - Enciclopedistas: Teodorico de Chartres (+1155), Hugo de São Vitor (+1141) e Vicente de Beauvais (+1264); - Universidades: Guilherme de Auvergne (1180- 1249) e Sigerio de Brabante (+h.l284); - Dominicanos: São Alberto Magno (1206-1280) e Santo Tomás de Aquino; - Franciscanos: Alexandre de Hales (1170/80-1245), São Boaventura (1217-1274), Roger Bacon (h.1210/14-1292), João Duns Escoto, Raimundo Lulio (1235-1315) e Guilherme de Ockham (h.1285-1349). ➢ Filosofia Moderna - Humanistas Renascentistas: Ficino (1433-1499), Erasmo (1467-1536), Maquiavel (1469- 1527), Thomas More (1480-1535), Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) e Giordano Bruno (1548- 1600); - Racionalismo: Descartes, Malebranche, Espinosa e Leibniz; - Empiristas: Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Locke, Berkeley e Hume; - Escola escocesa: Thomas Reid (1710-1796); Iluministas: Voltaire (1694-1778), Condillac (1715-1757), Diderot (1713-1784) e J. J. Rousseau (1712-1778). - Idealismo transcendental: Kant; - Idealismo subjetivo: Fichte; - Idealismo objetivo: Schelling; - Idealismo absoluto: Hegel; - Pessimismo: Schopenhauer; - Ecletismo: Cousin (1792-1867); - Positivismo: A. Comte, J. S. Mill (1806-1873) e H. Spencer (1820-1900); - Socialismo: H. Saint-Simon (1760-1825), Ch. Fourier (1772-1837) e K. Marx; - Vitalismo: Nietzsche e W. Dilthey (1833-1912). ➢ Filosofia Contemporânea - Intucionismo: H. Bergson (1859-1941); - Pragmatismo: Ch. S. Peirce (1839-1914), W. James (1842-1910) e J. Dewey (1859-1952); - Fenomenologia: Husserl, Scheler, N. Hartmann (1882-1950) e M. Merleau-Ponty (1908- 1961); - Existencialismo: Jaspers, Heidegger, Marcel e Sartre; - Atomismo lógico: B. Russell (1872-1970) e L. Wittgenstein (1889-1951); - Positivismo lógico: M. Schlick (1882-1936), R. Carnap (1891-1970 ) e A. J. Ayer (1910- 1990). - Filosofia analítica: J. L. Austin (1911-1960), G. Ryle (1900-1976), W.V.O. Quine (1908- 2000), P. F. Strawson (1919-2003) e H. Putnam (1926-); - Hermenêutica: H. G. Gadamer (1900-2002), P. Ricoeur (1913-2007) e J. Habermas (1929-). - Estruturalismo e pós-estruturalismo: F. de Saussure (1857-1913), C. Lévi-Strauss (1908- 2009) e M. Foucault (1926-1984). - Filosofia pós-moderna: J. F. Lyotard (1924-1999), G. Deleuze (1925-1995), J. Derrida (1930- 2004), R. Rorty (1931-2007) e G. Vattimo (1936-). - Comunitaristas: A. Maclntyre (1929-), Ch. Taylor (1931-). REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS CHAUÍ, M. Iniciação à Filosofia. Vol. Único. 2ª ed. São Paulo: Ática, 2013. 460 p. SANTOS, R. dos. Filosofia: Uma breve introdução. 1ª ed. Pelotas: Dissertativo Incipiens, 2014. 108 p. . Rua do Riachuelo, 303, Centro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ Casa Histórica de Osório CEP: 20230-011 E-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

I argue against pessimistic readings of the Buddhist tradition on which unawakened beings invariably have lives not worth living due to a preponderance of suffering (duḥkha) over well-being.

Non-Archimedean population axiologies – also known as lexical views – claim (i) that a sufficient number of lives at a very high positive welfare level would be better than any number of lives at a very low positive welfare level and/or (ii) that a sufficient number of lives at a very low negative welfare level would be worse than any number of lives at a very high negative welfare level. Such axiologies are popular because they can avoid the (Negative) Repugnant (...) Conclusion and satisfy the adequacy conditions given in the central impossibility result in population axiology due to Gustaf Arrhenius. I provide a novel argument against them which appeals to the way that good and bad lives can intuitively outweigh one another. (shrink)

Maximize Expected Choiceworthiness (MEC) is a theory of decision-making under moral uncertainty. It says that we ought to handle moral uncertainty in the way that Expected Value Theory (EVT) handles descriptive uncertainty. MEC inherits from EVT the problem of fanaticism. Roughly, a decision theory is fanatical when it requires our decision-making to be dominated by low-probability, high-payoff options. Proponents of MEC have offered two main lines of response. The first is that MEC should simply import whatever are the best solutions (...) to fanaticism on offer in decision theory. The second is to propose statistical normalization as a novel solution on behalf of MEC. This paper argues that the first response is open to serious doubt and that the second response fails. As a result, MEC appears significantly less plausible when compared to competing accounts of decision-making under moral uncertainty, which are not fanatical. (shrink)

Longstanding philosophical debate over the semantics of proper names has yet to examine the distinctive behavior of deadnames, names that have been rejected by their former bearers. The use of these names to deadname individuals is derogatory, but deadnaming derogates differently than other kinds of derogatory speech. This paper examines different accounts of this behavior, illustrates what going views of names will have to say to account for it, and articulates a novel version of predicativism that can give a semantic (...) explanation for this derogation. (shrink)

This article considers the contemporary effective altruism (EA) movement from a classical Indian Buddhist perspective. Following barebones introductions to EA and to Buddhism (sections one and two, respectively), section three argues that core EA efforts, such as those to improve global health, end factory farming, and safeguard the long-term future of humanity, are futile on the Buddhist worldview. For regardless of the short-term welfare improvements that effective altruists impart, Buddhism teaches that all unenlightened beings will simply be reborn upon their (...) deaths back into the round of rebirth (samsāra), which is held to be undesirable due to the preponderance of duhkha (unsatisfactoriness, dis-ease, suffering) over well-being that characterizes unenlightened existence. This is the samsāric futility problem. Although Buddhists and effective altruists disagree about what ultimately helps sentient beings, section four suggests that Buddhist-EA dialogue nonetheless generates mutually-instructive insights. Buddhists – including contemporaries, such as those involved in Socially Engaged Buddhism – might take from EA a greater focus on explicit prioritization research, which seeks knowledge of how to do the most good we can, given our finite resources. EA, for its part, has at least two lessons to learn. First, effective altruists have tended to assume that the competing accounts of welfare converge in their practical implications. The Buddhist conception of the pinnacle of welfare as a state free from duhkha and, correspondingly, the Buddhist account of the path that leads to this state weigh against this assumption. Second, contrasting Buddhist with effective altruist priorities shows that descriptive matters of cosmology, ontology, and metaphysics can have decisive practical implications. If EA wants to give a comprehensive answer to its guiding question – “how can we do the most good?” – it must argue for, rather than merely assume, the truth of secular naturalism. (shrink)

The vast literature on negative treatment of outgroups and favoritism toward ingroups provides many local insights but is largely fragmented, lacking an overarching framework that might provide a unified overview and guide conceptual integration. As a result, it remains unclear where different local perspectives conflict, how they may reinforce one another, and where they leave gaps in our knowledge of the phenomena. Our aim is to start constructing a framework to help remedy this situation. We first identify a few key (...) ideas for creating a theoretical roadmap for this complex territory, namely the principles of etiological functionalism and the dual inheritance theory of human evolution. We show how a “molecular” approach to emotions fits into this picture, and use it to illuminate emotions that shape intergroup relations. Finally, we weave the pieces together into the beginnings of a systematic taxonomy of the emotions involved in social interactions, both hostile and friendly. While it is but a start, we have developed the argument in a way that illustrates how the foundational principles of our proposed framework can be extended to accommodate further cases. (shrink)

It is unlikely that when my the grandfather of Cometan, Derrick Taylor, sat down to participate in an interview with his good friend Judith Shean now almost thirty years ago that all those years later his grandson would have written a book analysing that very interview. On 22nd February 1995, Derrick Taylor agreed to participate in an interview at his home 222 Longmeanygate to reveal his experience as a Protestant turned Catholic. During the interview, Derrick Taylor provided (...) a realistic view of what his life had been like detailing loss, tragedy and suffering. By contrast, he also detailed his predisposition for experiencing interior locutions – divine communications to the ear – which filled him with great elation in times of spiritual crisis. This interview was titled Light a Candle for Me as based on Derrick Taylor's very first interaction with the Sacred Heart of Jesus when he was just seven years old in which he asked his friend's mother to light a candle for him as a metaphor for his journey to Catholicism. What we ultimately learn of Derrick Taylor's character in this 1995 interview is that he held such a dedication to the Catholic faith that he found it difficult to reconcile the fact that the world and the Church were changing. In this interview, which is now often titled the Sceptre Bulletin Interview, Derrick Taylor tells us in his own words what he thought of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. This book, the Catholic Conversion, is an exegetical work written by Derrick's grandson Cometan some 27 years later that develops his grandfather's words into a set of theological concepts that come to form Derrick Taylor's definitive approach to Catholicism. (shrink)

What is the relationship between perception and mental imagery? I aim to eliminate an answer that I call perceptualism about mental imagery. Strong perceptualism, defended by Bence Nanay, predictive processing theorists, and several others, claims that imagery is a kind of perceptual state. Weak perceptualism, defended by M. G. F. Martin and Matthew Soteriou, claims that mental imagery is a representation of a perceptual state, a view sometimes called The Dependency Thesis. Strong perceptualism is to be rejected since it misclassifies (...) imagery disorders and abnormalities as perceptual disorders and abnormalities. Weak Perceptualism is to be rejected since it gets wrong the aim and accuracy conditions of a whole class of mental imagery–projected mental imagery–and relies on an impoverished concept of perceptual states, ignoring certain of their structural features. Whatever the relationship between perception and imagery, the perceptualist has it wrong. (shrink)

Recent develops in AI technology have led to increasingly sophisticated forms of video manipulation. One such form has been the advent of deepfakes. Deepfakes are AI-generated videos that typically depict people doing and saying things they never did. In this paper, I demonstrate that there is a close structural relationship between deepfakes and more traditional fake barn cases in epistemology. Specifically, I argue that deepfakes generate an analogous degree of epistemic risk to that which is found in traditional cases. Given (...) that barn cases have posed a long-standing challenge for virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge, I consider whether a similar challenge extends to deepfakes. In doing so, I consider how Duncan Pritchard’s recent anti-risk virtue epistemology meets the challenge. While Pritchard’s account avoids problems in traditional barn cases, I claim that it leads to local scepticism about knowledge from online videos in the case of deepfakes. I end by considering how two alternative virtue-theoretic approaches might vindicate our epistemic dependence on videos in an increasingly digital world. (shrink)