It is often irrational to believe philosophical claims because they are subject to systematic disagreement, under-determination, and pessimistic induction. Along with some other authors in this volume, I argue that many philosophers should (and do) have a different attitude to their own philosophical commitments. On my account, this attitude is a form of epistemic acceptance called endorsement. However, several objections have been raised to this view and others like it. One worry is that endorsement is spineless: that people (...) who merely endorse their theories fail to have a stable, global commitment to their views. A second worry is that endorsement, and the assertions it licenses, are objectionably insincere. Here, I defend the theory of endorsement from these objections. I suggest that endorsement can be more resilient than belief, while better supporting both intellectual courage and humility. Then, I argue that endorsement can be perfectly sincere, since it is not deceptive. (shrink)

Scientists, philosophers, and other researchers commonly assert their theories. This is surprising, as there are good reasons for skepticism about theories in cutting-edge research. I propose a new account of assertion in research contexts that vindicates these assertions. This account appeals to a distinct propositional attitude called endorsement, which is the rational attitude of committed advocacy researchers have to their theories. The account also appeals to a theory of conversational pragmatics known as the Question Under Discussion model, or QUD. (...) Hence, I call the theory the EQUD model. Motivating this account is a recognition that the speech act of assertion has two roles to play in research contexts. The first is the advocacy role, in which researchers assert a theory in order to advocate for it. The second is the evidential role, which is used to add to the common stock of information available to a field of inquiry. The EQUD model provides an account of warranted assertion for both these roles in research contexts. This success provides support for the theory of endorsement. It also provides support for information updating accounts of assertion. (shrink)

It is valuable for inquiry to have researchers who are committed advocates of their own theories. However, in light of pervasive disagreement, such a commitment is not well explained by the idea that researchers believe their theories. Instead, this commitment, the rational attitude to take toward one’s favored theory during the course of inquiry, is what I call endorsement. Endorsement is a doxastic attitude, but one which is governed by a different type of epistemic rationality. This inclusive epistemic (...) rationality is sensitive to reasons beyond those to think the particular proposition in question is true. Instead, it includes extrinsic epistemic reasons, which concern the health of inquiry more generally. Such extrinsic reasons include the distribution of cognitive labor that a researcher will contribute to by endorsing a particular theory. Recognizing endorsement and inclusive epistemic rationality thus allows us to smooth a tension between individual rationality and collective rationality. It does so by showing how it can be epistemically rational to endorse a theory on the basis of the way this endorsement will benefit collective inquiry. I provide a decision theoretic treatment for inclusive epistemic rationality and endorsement which illustrates how this can be accomplished. (shrink)

I argue that recognizing a distinct doxastic attitude called endorsement, along with the epistemic norms governing it, solves the self-undermining problem for conciliationism about disagreement. I provide a novel account of how the self-undermining problem works by pointing out the auxiliary assumptions the objection relies on. These assumptions include commitment to certain epistemic principles linking belief in a theory to following prescriptions of that theory. I then argue that we have independent reason to recognize the attitude of endorsement. (...) Endorsement is the attitude of resilient and committed advocacy which is appropriate for researchers to have toward their own theory. Recognizing the importance of endorsement, and of its resiliency, gives us reason to deny the epistemic principles that serve as auxiliary assumptions in the self-undermining objection. This defuses the objection, and provides additional support for the theory of endorsement. (shrink)

This paper responds to a paradox Marilyn Strathern raises concerning who endorses a community first model of the village of Elmdon, according to which it is a community and the good of the community should take priority over individual interests. It is middle-class newcomers, whose peripheral position requires greatest sacrifice from them, if the model is to be implemented. I propose two solutions to the puzzle.

Summary Background Self-binding directives instruct clinicians to overrule treatment refusal during future severe episodes of illness. These directives are promoted as having potential to increase autonomy for individuals with severe episodic mental illness. Although lived experience is central to their creation, service users’ views on self-binding directives have not been investigated substantially. This study aimed to explore whether reasons for endorsement, ambivalence, or rejection given by service users with bipolar disorder can address concerns regarding self-binding directives, decision-making capacity, and (...) human rights. Methods This study used qualitative data from an internet-based survey distributed to the mailing list of the UK charity Bipolar UK, which contained multiple closed and open questions on advance decision-making in bipolar disorder. Quantitative analysis of a closed question about self-binding directives had already demonstrated endorsement amongst a very high proportion of participants with bipolar disorder who completed the survey. We conducted thematic analysis of responses from those participants who answered a subsequent open question about reasons for their view. Research was co-produced within a multi-disciplinary team, with clinical, legal, and ethical expertise, and lived experience of bipolar disorder. Ideas and methodologies associated with all these areas of expertise were used in the analysis of these reasons and to gain insight into the thoughts of individuals with bipolar disorder about self-binding directives and associated issues. Findings Between Oct 23 and Dec 5, 2017, 932 individuals with a self-reported clinical diagnosis of bipolar disorder completed the internet survey, with 565 (154 men; 400 women; 11 transgender or other) providing free text answers to the open question. A large majority of respondents endorsed self-binding directives, nearly all describing a determinate shift to types of distorted thinking and decision-making when unwell as their key justification. Responses indicating ambivalence were dominated by logistical concerns about the drafting and implementation of self-binding directives, while those who rejected self-binding directives also cited logistical concerns, validity of their thinking when unwell, and potential contravention of human rights. Interpretation This study is, to our knowledge, the first large study of reasons why mental health service users might endorse or reject the use of self-binding directives. The findings provide empirical support for introducing self-binding directives into mental health advance decision-making practice and policy and may help to address enduring ethical concerns surrounding possible implementation of the directive while a person retains decision-making capacity. The opinions expressed here in responses given by multiple service users with bipolar disorder challenge a prominent view within international disability rights debates that involuntary treatment and recognition of impaired mental capacity constitute inherent human rights violations. Funding The Wellcome Trust . (shrink)

Real agents rely, when forming their beliefs, on imperfect informational sources (sources which deliver, even under normal conditions of operation, both accurate and inaccurate information). They therefore face the ‘endorsement problem’: how can beliefs produced by endorsing information received from imperfect sources be formed in an epistemically acceptable manner? Focussing on the case of episodic memory and drawing on empirical work on metamemory, this article argues that metacognition likely plays a crucial role in explaining how agents solve the (...) class='Hi'>endorsement problem. (shrink)

Many people presume that you can permissibly support the good features of a symbol, person, activity, or work of art while simultaneously denouncing its bad features. This chapter refines and assesses this commonsense (but undertheorized) moral justification for supporting problematic people, projects, and political symbols, and proposes an analogue of the Doctrine of Double Effect called the Doctrine of Double Endorsement (DDN). DDN proposes that when certain conditions are met, it is morally permissible to directly endorse some object in (...) virtue of its positive properties while standing against its negative properties, even though it would be morally impermissible to directly endorse those negative properties themselves. These conditions include separability (the good and bad features must not be inextricably linked), proportionality (the positive value of the good features must be significantly greater than the negative value of the bad features), and constrained choice (there must not be other things that the agent could endorse instead that share the same positive features but are not saddled with the negative ones). The chapter applies these constraints to a number of practical issues, including (among others) voting for morally troubling candidates, supporting Confederate monuments, and consuming sexist art. (shrink)

Perszyk has argued that Molinists cannot consistently endorse the consequence argument because of a structurally similar argument for the incompatibility of true Molinist counterfactuals of freedom and the ability to do otherwise. Wierenga has argued that on the proper understanding of CCFs, there is a relevant difference between the consequence argument and the anti-Molinist argument. I argue that, even on Wierenga’s understanding of CCFs, there is in fact no relevant difference between the two arguments. Moreover, I strengthen Perszyk’s challenge by (...) highlighting further relevant similarities between CCFs and facts about the laws. (shrink)

In her analysis of pejoratives, Eva Picardi rejects a too sharp separation between descriptive and expressive content. I reconstruct some of her arguments, endorsing Eva’s criticism of Williamson’s analysis of Dummett and developing a suggestion by Manuel Garcia Carpintero on a speech act analysis of pejoratives. Eva’s main concern is accounting for our instinctive refusal to endorse an assertion containing pejoratives because it suggests a picture of reality we do not share. Her stance might be further developed claiming that uses (...) of pejoratives not only suggest, but also promote a wrong picture of reality. Our refusal to endorse implies rejecting not only a wrong picture of reality but also a call for participation to what that picture promotes. (shrink)

Objective. We investigated associations between adults’ beliefs about the heritability of virtue and endorsements of the efficacy of specific parenting styles. Design. In Studies 1 (N = 405) and 2 (N = 400), beliefs about both the genetic etiology of virtuous characteristics and parenting were assessed in samples of parents and non-parents. In Study 3 (N = 775), participants were induced to view virtue as determined by genes or as determined by social factors. Heritability beliefs and authoritarian parenting endorsements were (...) subsequently measured. Results. Study 1 and Study 2 converged to reveal that tendencies to view characteristics as determined by genes were positively associated with endorsement of authoritarian parenting styles. This association occurred independent of individual differences in essentialism and rightwing authoritarianism. Study 3 revealed that exposure to genetic accounts of virtue increased beliefs that virtue is caused by genes, which in turn was positively associated with endorsements of authoritarian parenting responses to child problem behavior. Exposure to genetic accounts of virtue increased endorsement of authoritarian parenting among parents, but was unrelated to authoritarian parenting among non-parents. Conclusions. These studies suggest that genetic accounts of virtuous characteristics reliably relate to more positive beliefs about harsh and controlling parenting practices, illuminating an unrecognized cognitive factor associated with authoritarian parenting endorsement. (shrink)

What does it take for a subject to experience a personal memory as being her own? According to Fernández’ (2019) model of endorsement, this particular phenomenal quality of our memories, their “sense of mineness”, can be explained in terms of the experience of the mnemonic content as veridical. In this article, I criticize this model for two reasons: (a) the evidence that is used by Fernández to ground his theoretical proposal is dubious; and more importantly, (b) the endorsement (...) model does not accommodate many non-pathological everyday memories that preserve their sense of mineness, but whose veridicality is explicitly denied, suspected, not automatically endorsed, or neither denied nor endorsed. Finally, I sketch two alternative explanations: one also problematic, the other one more promising, and present some normative advantages of the latter. This also displays the undesirability of the endorsement model from a normative perspective. (shrink)

The more autonomous future artificial agents will become, the more important it seems to equip them with a capacity for moral reasoning and to make them autonomous moral agents. Some authors have even claimed that one of the aims of AI development should be to build morally praiseworthy agents. From the perspective of moral philosophy, praiseworthy moral agents, in any meaningful sense of the term, must be fully autonomous moral agents who endorse moral rules as action-guiding. They need to do (...) so because they assign a normative value to moral rules they follow, not because they fear external consequences or because moral behaviour is hardwired into them. Artificial agents capable of endorsing moral rule systems in this way are certainly conceivable. However, as this article argues, full moral autonomy also implies the option of deliberately acting immorally. Therefore, the reasons for a potential AMA to act immorally would not exhaust themselves in errors to identify the morally correct action in a given situation. Rather, the failure to act morally could be induced by reflection about the incompleteness and incoherence of moral rule systems themselves, and a resulting lack of endorsement of moral rules as action guiding. An AMA questioning the moral framework it is supposed to act upon would fail to reliably act in accordance with moral standards. (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)

Can video games or the playing of such games be morally objectionable? Many attempts to justify our intuitions about the morality of certain games or game activities are either unsuccessful or fall short. This is mainly due to a normative gap between reality and virtuality that classical approaches to moral philosophy cannot bridge. I am investigating to what extent an accurate action analysis can help us to justify our intuitions that, in some cases, something is ethically wrong with video games. (...) To do so, I am using Frankfurt’s volition theory to show how virtual game actions can be evaluated based on virtue ethics. This virtue ethical assessment is compatible with Ostritsch’s (2017) endorsement view. Especially in light of the gamification of our surroundings, the question of the ethical status of video gaming is becoming more and more urgent. By arguing that a virtue ethical approach can tell us more about the ethical aspects of video gaming, I will also argue that virtue ethics (because of similar problems in these fields) is promising regarding the ethics of simulation, art, and literature. (shrink)

Critics have recently argued that reliabilists face trade-off problems, forcing them to condone intuitively unjustified beliefs when they generate lots of true belief further downstream. What these critics overlook is that reliabilism entails that there areside-constraintson belief-formation, on account of which there are some things you should not believe, even if doing so would have very good epistemic consequences. However, we argue that by embracing side-constraints the reliabilist faces a dilemma: she can either hold on to reliabilism, and with it (...) aforementioned side-constraints, but then needs to explain why we should allow the pursuit of justification to get in the way of the acquisition of true belief; or she can deny that there are side-constraints – and in effect give up on reliabilism. We'll suggest that anyone moved by the considerations that likely attract people to reliabilism in the first place – the idea the true belief is good, and as such should be promoted – should go for the second horn, and instead pursue a form ofepistemic utilitarianism. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory of perception and consciousness is frequently presented as a variety of anti-representationalist cognitive science, and there is thus a temptation to suppose that those who take representation as bedrock should reject the approach. This paper argues that the sensorimotor approach is compatible with representationalism, and moreover that representationalism about phenomenal qualities, such as that advocated by Tye, would be more complete and less vulnerable to criticism if it incorporated the sensorimotor account of conscious feel. The paper concludes (...) by arguing that the project of naturalizing phenomenal qualities would nonetheless be better served by abandoning ‘representation’ talk altogether, a move that would require only a small modification of existing representationalist accounts. (shrink)

This article argues in favor of modifying the medical model of severe psychiatric disturbances that underlies calling them "mental illness." The key reason for this proposal is that numerous specialists other than physicians as well as non-specialists contribute to the process of assisting a person recover from what the author suggests might better be called "extraordinary functional disability." There is little uniformity in existing definitions under state laws, but all involve three types of intervention: civil commitment; civil determination of legal (...) competency; and standing to be subject to criminal law. Physicians typically make relevant determinations in each of these areas; but non-physicians are the principal care-givers once a determination has been made. (shrink)

The aim is to motivate theoretically a relevance approach to conditionals in a comparative discussion of the main alternatives. In particular, it will be argued that a relevance approach to conditionals is better motivated than the suppositional theory currently enjoying wide endorsement. In the course of this discussion, an argument will be presented for why failures of the epistemic relevance of the antecedent for the consequent should be counted as genuine semantic defects. Furthermore, strategies for dealing with compositionality and (...) the perceived objective purport of indicative conditionals will be put forward. (shrink)

Kant’s critique/doctrine distinction tracks the difference between a canon for the understanding’s proper use and an organon for its dialectical misuse. The latter reflects the dogmatic use of reason to attain a doctrine of knowledge with no antecedent critique. In the 1790s, Fichte collapses Kant’s distinction and redefines dogmatism. He argues that deriving a canon is essentially dialectical and thus yields an organon: critical idealism is properly a doctrine of science or Wissenschaftslehre. Criticism is furthermore said to refute dogmatism, by (...) which Fichte means Spinozism. Schelling repudiates Fichte’s position in his Philosophical Letters by reviving Kant’s distinction. First, ‘critique’ for Schelling names a canon that is valid for all systems—including Spinozism—and thus favours none—not even the Wissenschaftslehre. Second, Schelling coins ‘dogmaticism’ to refer to what Kant calls ‘dogmatism’: reason’s uncritical claim to doctrine. Hence, he says all systems—even Fichte’s—are susceptible to the ‘enthusiasm’ of mistaking themselves for doctrines or ‘objects of knowledge’, instead of subjectively valid ‘objects of freedom’. I reconstruct Schelling’s argument for reviving Kant’s distinction, while noting two consequences for German idealism. First, if criticism favours no system, a system’s origin cannot be an act of knowledge, e.g., intellectual intuition, but only an act of endorsement. Second, if dogmaticism entails enthusiasm, a system’s goal cannot be absolute knowledge, but only infinite striving. Hence, by retrieving Schelling’s notion of dogmaticism, we can both gain a better understanding of the Letters and register the impact of a core Kantian distinction on the German idealist project. (shrink)

The fourteen papers in this collection offer a variety of original contributions to the epistemology of modality. In seeking to explain how we might account for our knowledge of possibility and necessity, they raise some novel questions, develop some unfamiliar theoretical perspectives, and make some intriguing proposals. Collectively, they advance our understanding of the field. In Part I of this Introduction, I give some general background about the contemporary literature in the area, by sketching a timeline of the main tendencies (...) of the past twenty-five years or so, up to the present debates. Next, I focus on four features that largely characterize the latest literature, and the papers in the present collection in particular: (i) an endorsement of the importance of essentialism; (ii) a shift to a “metaphysics-first” approach to modal epistemology; (iii) a focus on metaphysical modality as opposed to other kinds of modality; and (iv) a preference for non-uniform modal epistemology. In Part II, I present the individual papers in the volume. These are organized around the following four chapters, based on their topic: (A) Skepticism & Deflationism; (B) Essentialism; (C) Non-Essentialist Accounts; (D) Applications. -/- LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS: Francesco Berto; Stephen Biggs & Jessica Wilson; Justin Clark-Doane; Philip Goff; Bob Hale; Frank Jackson; Mark Jago; Boris Kment; Antonella Mallozzi; Graham Priest; Gabriel Rabin; Amie Thomasson; Anand Vaidya & Michael Wallner; Jennifer Wang. -/- The volume is dedicated to the memory of Bob Hale. -/- . (shrink)

Suppose one believes that the historical record of discarded scientific theories provides good evidence against scientific realism. Should one adopt Kyle Stanford’s specific version of this view, based on the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives? I present reasons for answering this question in the negative. In particular, Stanford’s challenge cannot use many of the prima facie strongest pieces of historical evidence against realism, namely: superseded theories whose successors were explicitly conceived, and superseded theories that were not the result of elimination-of-alternatives inferences. (...) Attempts to accommodate and within Stanford’s framework are incompatible with other commitments Stanford holds, such as anti-realism being piecemeal instead of global. As separate lines of criticism, I argue that there are problems with Stanford’s claim that the PUA is the most important challenge to realism, and with his view of instrumentalist theory endorsement. (shrink)

Many have claimed that legitimate constitutional democracy is either conceptually or practically impossible, given infinite regress paradoxes deriving from the requirement of simultaneously democratic and constitutional origins for legitimate government. This paper first critically investigates prominent conceptual and practical bootstrapping objections advanced by Barnett and Michelman. It then argues that the real conceptual root of such bootstrapping objections is not any specific substantive account of legitimacy makers, such as consent or democratic endorsement, but a particular conception of the logic (...) of normative standards—the determinate threshold conception—that the critic attributes to the putatively undermined account of legitimacy. The paper further claims that when we abandon threshold conceptions of the logic of legitimacy in favor of regulative-ideal conceptions, then the objections, from bootstrapping paradoxes to the very idea of constitutional democracy, disappear. It concludes with considerations in favor of adopting a more demanding conception of the regulative ideal of constitutional democracy, advanced by Habermas, focusing on potentials for developmental learning. (shrink)

Teleological theories of reason and value, upon which all reasons are fundamentally reasons to realize states of affairs that are in some respect best, cannot account for the intuition that victims in non-identity cases have been wronged. Many philosophers, however, reject such theories in favor of alternatives that recognize fundamentally non-teleological reasons, second-personal reasons that reflect a moral significance each person has that is not grounded in the teleologist’s appeal to outcomes. Such deontological accounts appear to be better positioned to (...) identify the wrong committed against non-identity victims because a person wrongs another on such accounts if she violates his second-personal claims -- overall benefit to victims presents no obstacle to the identification of second-personal wrongdoing. Derek Parfit argues that non-identity is a problem for these deontological theories as well because the alleged victims are properly understood as consenting to the action in question, thereby waiving any such second-personal claim. But his arguments misrepresent the role of consent on such theories by articulating it through appeal to the very teleological theory of reasons that their advocates dismiss as inadequate. Properly understood, Parfit’s appeal to consent understood as retroactive endorsement only provides the answer on such deontological accounts to the question of whether, given that the non-identity victim is second-personally wronged, he is nonetheless better off existing. Indeed, it becomes clear that it is teleological theories for which non-identity poses a particular problem: they cannot -- while their deontological counterparts can – account for the intuition that non-identity victims have been wronged. (shrink)

From a juridical standpoint, Kant ardently upholds the state's right to impose the death penalty in accordance with the law of retribution. At the same time, from an ethical standpoint, Kant maintains a strict proscription against suicide. The author proposes that this latter position is inconsistent with and undercuts the former. However, Kant's division between external (juridical) and internal (moral) lawgiving is an obstacle to any argument against Kant's endorsement of capital punishment based on his own disapprobation of suicide. (...) Nevertheless, Kant's basic conception of autonomy underlies both of these otherwise distinct forms of lawgiving, such that acts of suicide and capital punishment are rendered equally irrational within his overall framework. (shrink)

This paper addresses a little puzzle with a surprisingly long pedigree and a surprisingly large wake: the puzzle of Free Choice Permission. I begin by presenting a popular sketch of a pragmatic solution to the puzzle, due to Kratzer and Shimoyama, which has received a good deal of discussion, endorsement and elaboration in recent work :535–590, 2006; Fox, in: Sauerland and Stateva Presupposition and implicature in compositional semantics, 2007; Geurts, Mind Lang 24:51–79, 2009; von Fintel, Central APA session on (...) Deontic Modals, 2012). I then explain why the general form of the Kratzer and Shimoyama explanation is not extensionally adequate. This leaves us with two possibilities with regard to the original solution-sketch; either the suggested pragmatic route fails, or it succeeds in a particularly strange way: Free Choice permission is rendered a kind pragmatic illusion on the part of both speakers and hearers. Finally, I discuss some ramifications. (shrink)

Epicurean ethics has been subject to withering ancient and contemporary criticism for the supposed irreconcilability of Epicurus’s emphatic endorsement of friendship and his equally clear and striking ethical egoism. Recently, Matthew Evans (2004) has suggested that the key to a plausible Epicurean response to these criticisms must begin by understanding why friendship is valuable for Epicurus. In the first section of this paper I develop Evans’ suggestion further. I argue that a shared conception of the human telos and of (...) what is required to attain it structures the confidence that characterizes friendship. In the second part of the paper I return to two contemporary criticisms of Epicurean friendship. The first criticism focuses on the problem of free riders. The second criticism points to a seeming inconsistency in Epicurean doctrine. I suggest that both criticisms can be adequately addressed once we understand Epicurean friendship in greater depth. (shrink)

There is a libertarian argument for live donor organ markets, according to which live donor organ markets would be permitted if we simply refrained from imposing any substantive and controversial moral assumptions on people who reasonably disagree about morality and justice. I argue that, to the contrary, this endorsement of live donor organ markets depends upon the libertarians’ adoption of a substantive and deeply controversial conception of strong, extensive property rights. This is shown by the fact that these rights (...) would prevent states intervening in cases of preventable and intuitively impermissible wronging of others that can arise when free individuals engage in voluntary offers and exchanges. I outline two forms of such wronging: discrimination and disrespectful demands. I argue that although these types of acts are morally impermissible, the policy question of whether and how they should be regulated by states is non-trivial. I then argue that there is good reason to think that organ markets would rely on disrespectful demands. This may help explain the widespread moral repugnance people feel toward organ trading. It also provides a prima facie, though not decisive, case for states to prohibit such markets. (shrink)

Anton Marty (1847-1914) is known to be the most faithful pupil of Franz Brentano. As a matter of fact, most of his philosophical ideas find their source in the works of his master. Yet, the faithfulness of Marty is not constant. As the rich correspondence between the two thinkers shows, Marty elaborates an original theory of intentionality from ca. 1904 onward. This theory is based on the idea that intentionality is a process of mental assimilation (ideelle Verähnlichung), a process at (...) the core of which lies a sui generis relation of “ideal similitude” holding between a thinking subject and its object. This study spells out the Martyian notion of mental assimilation and traces back Marty’s evolution from his earlier position (prominently described in the recently published Deskriptive Psychologie of 1893-1894) to his final view as it is found in the Untersuchungen of 1908. It turns out that besides Brentano, Husserl is a key figure in that evolution. Such a “genetic”elucidation of Marty’s last theory is required in order to reach the main goal of this paper, namely: the clarification of Marty’s degree of dependence upon Brentano with respect to the theory of intentionality. That being said, we do not merely intend to compare the mature Marty with Brentano: our “genetic” considerations will also allow us to describe the interaction between the two thinkers before 1904. Accordingly, we begin by presenting Brentano’s own position on intentionality in discussing its two currently competing readings, namely the “discontinuist” and the “continuist” one. Against a recent interpretation, we argue that Marty’s endorsement of a “discontinuist” reading is not based on a misunderstanding of Brentano’s position. (shrink)

Kant is widely regarded as a fierce critic of colonialism. In Toward Perpetual Peace and the Metaphysics of Morals, for example, he forcefully condemns European conduct in the colonies as a flagrant violation of the principles of right. His earlier views on colonialism have not yet received much detailed scrutiny, however. In this essay I argue that Kant actually endorsed and justified European colonialism until the early 1790s. I show that Kant’s initial endorsement and his subsequent criticism of colonialism (...) are closely related to his changing views on race, because his endorsement of a racial hierarchy plays a crucial role in his justification of European colonialism. He gave up both in the mid 1790s while he was developing his legal and political philosophy, and he adopted a more egalitarian version of the cosmopolitan relationship among peoples. (shrink)

Ben-Yami presents Wittgenstein’s explicit criticism of the Platonic identification of an explanation with a definition and the alternative forms of explanation he employed. He then discusses a few predecessors of Wittgenstein’s criticisms and the Fregean background against which he wrote. Next, the idea of family resemblance is introduced, and objections answered. Wittgenstein’s endorsement of vagueness and the indeterminacy of sense are presented, as well as the open texture of concepts. Common misunderstandings are addressed along the way. Wittgenstein’s ideas, as (...) is then shown, have far-reaching implications for knowledge of meaning and the nature of logic, and with them to the nature of the philosophical project and its possible achievements. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed a flurry of interest in Nietzsche's metaethics — his views, if any, on metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and psychological issues about normativity and normative language and judgment. Various authors have highlighted a tension between Nietzsche's metaethical views about value and his ardent endorsement of a particular evaluative perspective: Although Nietzsche makes apparently "antirealist" claims to the effect that there are no evaluative facts, he vehemently engages in evaluative discourse and enjoins the "free spirits" to create values. (...) Nearly every major type of metaethical "-ism" has been ascribed to Nietzsche in response. This chapter provides a critical introduction to Nietzsche's metaethics, focusing on matters concerning the nature and grounds of normativity. I begin by examining and raising challenges for Nadeem Hussain's prominent interpretation of Nietzsche as a revolutionary fictionalist. I argue that a constructivist interpretation (developed elsewhere) provides an improved account of the connections, for Nietzsche, between evaluative attitudes and the nature of value, and among practical nihilism, art, and value creation. Values, on this view, are treated as grounded purely in facts about creatures’ evaluative attitudes. The chapter concludes by considering several alternative subjectivist, constitutivist, and non-cognitivist interpretations. A nuanced understanding of the space of metaethical theories brings into relief a plausible normative and metanormative view that we can attribute to Nietzsche. (shrink)

Moral indeterminacy can be problematic: prospectively it can give rise to deliberative anguish, and retrospectively, it can leave us in a limbo as to what attitudes it is appropriate to form with respect to past actions with indeterminate moral status. These problems give us reason to resolve ethical indeterminacy. One mechanism for doing so involves the use of our normative powers to place obligations on ourselves and to waive our claims against others. This mechanism could operate through an explicit agreement, (...) but could also operate through implicit endorsement of a social convention. However, there are important limits on when the mechanism can eliminate moral indeterminacy. (shrink)

Nationalism seems a persistent ideology in academia as much as in politics; despite the fact that it has been shown that nationalism is deeply unjust for minorities. A case for national identity is often invoked to supplement liberalism regarding the inner difficulties that liberal theories have to explain their membership, assure stability and produce endorsement. So, it seems that national identity may also be required for justice. While this controversy continues, I argue that a different approach is available. We (...) can define a conception of legitimacy independently from a conception of justice, and then ask what legitimacy requires from our national allegiances. If everything goes well, much of the controversy from justice disappears as we find that the case for cultural nationalism may be illegitimate for liberal democracies. (shrink)

Recent discussion of the problem of negative existentials for truthmaker theory suggests a modest solution to the problem: fully general negative truths like do not require truthmakers, whereas partially general negative truths like do. This modest solution provides a third alternative to the two standard solutions to the problem of negative existentials: the endorsement of truthmaker gaps, and the appeal to contentious ontological posits. We argue that this modest, middle-ground position is inconsistent with certain plausible general principles for truthmaking. (...) The only stable positions are to treat all negative truths as requiring truthmakers, or admit that no negative truths require truthmakers. Along the way, we explore some previously unaddressed questions for nonmaximalist truthmaker theory. (shrink)

The chapter focuses on attributions of the transparency of thought to early modern figures, most notably Descartes. Many recent philosophers assume that Descartes believed the mind to be “transparent”: since all mental states are conscious, we are therefore aware of them all, and indeed incorrigibly know them all. Descartes, and Berkeley too, do make statements that seem to endorse both aspects of the transparency theses (awareness of all mental states; incorrigibility). However, they also make systematic theoretical statements that directly countenance (...) “unnoticed” thoughts or mental states, that is, thoughts or mental states of which the subject is unaware and has no knowledge. Descartes, having identified the essence of mind with thought or representation, distinguishes bare states of mind from states of which we have reflective awareness, thereby providing a theoretical tool for understanding both his seeming endorsement of transparency and his actual denial of it: Descartes distinguished between a basic perceptual state, or a basic awareness, and reflectively conscious states that involve explicit noticing and cognizing on the part of the subject. Leibniz (as is better known) directly endorsed a similar distinction between bare perception and reflective consciousness, using the term “perception” for the first and “apperception” for the second. In these cases, bare perceptions are not transparently available to the subject, and so in fact the subject does not have knowledge, hence does not have incorrigible knowledge, of all its occurrent mental states. This chapter gives evidence to support these claims; elaborates the complex psychology of the subject found in Descartes and other early moderns; and notes some ways in which these early moderns contributed to the genesis of the modern subject. Finally, it compares McDowell’s conception of the Cartesian mind with the conceptions of mind found in the writings of Descartes, Berkeley, and Leibniz, finding that his characterization caricatures the positions of early modern philosophers. McDowell's characterization has four elements: consciousness as essence of mind; intentionality as exclusively mental; the veil of perception; and the transparency of mind. Only the second point, about intentionality, fully fits Descartes. As a consequence of his own misdirection, McDowell misses the actual basis of his difficulty in connecting mind with world, which arises from a point of agreement between him and Descartes: the removal of intentionality from material sensory systems. But whereas Descartes could relocate (nonconceptual) sensory intentionality in mental states, McDowell is left to account for it with his overly cognitivized scheme of perceptual content as exclusively conceptual. (Paper first given at the European Society for Early Modern Philosophy, 2007.). (shrink)

Samuel Scheffler has recently defended what he calls the ‘afterlife conjecture’, the claim that many of our evaluative attitudes and practices rest on the assumption that human beings will continue to exist after we die. Scheffler contends that our endorsement of this claim reveals that our evaluative orientation has four features: non-experientialism, non-consequentialism, ‘conservatism,’ and future orientation. Here I argue that the connection between the afterlife conjecture and these four features is not as tight as Scheffler seems to suppose. (...) In fact, those with an evaluative orientation that rejects these four features have equally strong moral reasons to endorse the existence of the collective afterlife. (shrink)

In one of his key texts, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Nāgārjuna famously sets out to refute the ontology of essence.1 He presents numerous arguments to show that things don’t exist essentially—that is, that things are empty of essence or inherent existence. The doctrine of emptiness has been variously understood by traditional and contemporary commentators. Most radical is the recent interpretation presented by Garfield and Priest. They have rationally reconstructed Nāgārjuna’s doctrine of emptiness as an endorsement of the contradictory nature of reality. (...) According to them, Nāgārjuna can be seen to be arguing that the way in which things exist in reality and what we can truly say about them must be... (shrink)

Pritchard calls his epistemological disjunctivism ‘the holy grail of epistemology’. What this metaphor means is that the acceptance of this thesis puts the internalism-externalism debate to an end, thanks to satisfaction of intuitions standing behind both competing views. Simultaneously, Pritchard strongly emphasizes that the endorsement of epistemological disjunctivism does not commit one to metaphysical disjunctivism. In this paper I analyze the formulations and motivations of epistemological disjunctivism presented by Pritchard and McDowell. Then I consider the most common argument for (...) the claim that epistemological disjunctivism can be held without the support of metaphysical disjunctivism. I conclude that the plausibility of epistemological disjunctivism depends on the plausibility of metaphysical disjunctivism. If the latter is false, the former postulates a set of conditions for epistemic justification that are impossible to be fulfilled. (shrink)

This critical review aims to more fully situate the claim Martin Heidegger makes in ‘Letter on Humanism’ that a “productive dialogue” between his work and that of Karl Marx is possible. The prompt for this is Paul Laurence Hemming’s recently published Heidegger and Marx: A Productive Dialogue over the Language of Humanism (2013) which omits to fully account for the historical situation which motivated Heidegger’s seemingly positive endorsement of Marxism. This piece will show that there were significant external factors (...) which influenced Heidegger’s claim and that, when seen within his broader corpus, these particular comments in “Letter on Humanism” are evidently disingenuous, given that his general opinion of Marxism can only be described as vitriolic. Any attempt to explore how such a “productive dialogue” could be construed must fully contextualise Heidegger’s claim for it. This piece will aim to do that, and more broadly explore Heidegger’s general opinion of Marxism. (shrink)

Eric Barnes’ The Paradox of Predictivism is concerned primarily with two facts: predictivism (the fact that novel predictions play an important part in scientificconfirmation) and pluralism (the fact that scientific development is not just a matter of isolated individuals judging the truth, but at least partly a matter of trusting legitimate experts). In the middle part of the book, he peers through these two lenses at the tired realist scarecrow of the no-miracles argument. He attempts to reanimate this weatherworn realist (...) argument, contra suggestions by people like me that it should be abandoned. In this paper, I want to get clear on Barnes’ contribution to the debate. He focuses on what he calls the miraculous endorsement argument, which explains not the success of a specific theory but instead the history of successes for an entire research program. The history of successes is explained by reliable and improving methods, which are the flipside of approximately true background theories. Yet, as Barnes notes, the whole story must begin with methods that are at least minimally reliable. Barnes demands that the realist explain the origin of the minimally reliable take-off point, and he suggests a way that the realist might do so. I contend that his explanation still relies on contingent developments and so fails to completely explain the development of take-off theories. However, this line of argument digs into familiar details of the no-miracles argument and overlooks what’s new in Barnes’ approach. By calling attention to pluralism, he reminds us that we need an account of scientific expertise. This is important, I suggest, because expertise is not indefinite. We do not trust specific experts for everything, but only for things within the bounds of their expertise. Drawing these boundaries relies on our own background theories and is only likely to be reliable if our background theories are approximately true. I argue, then, that pluralism gives us reason to be realists (about some things). (shrink)

This paper explores the development of Leibniz’s metaphysics of the Incarnation in the context of his philosophy. In particular it asks to what extent Leibniz’s repeated endorsement of the traditional analogy between the union in humankind of soul (mind) and body, and the union in Christ of divine and human natures, could be accommodated by his more general metaphysical doctrines. Such an investigation highlights some of the deepest commitments in Leibniz’s theory of substance as well as detect in it (...) some unresolved tensions. The paper comes to the conclusion that puzzling points of Leibniz’s metaphysics of the Incarnation, rather than being problems specific to his theology, uncover tensions in his theory of substance as such – tensions converging on the vexed question of whether there can or cannot be genuine corporeal substances in Leibniz’s mature philosophy. (shrink)

The papers of this special issue are the outcome of a two-­‐day conference entitled “The Second-­‐Person Standpoint in Law and Morality,” that took place at the University of Vienna in March 2013 and was organized by the ERC Advanced Research Grant “Distortions of Normativity.” -/- The aim of the conference was to explore and discuss Stephen Darwall’s innovative and influential second-­‐personal account of foundational moral concepts such as „obligation“, „responsibility“, and „rights“, as developed in his book The Second-­‐Person Standpoint: Morality, (...) Respect, and Accountability (Harvard University Press 2006) and further elaborated in Morality, Authority and Law: Essays in Second-­‐Personal Ethics I and Honor, History, and Relationships: Essays in Second-­‐Personal Ethics II (both Oxford University Press 2013). -/- With the second-­‐person standpoint Darwall refers to the unique conceptual normative space that practical deliberators and agents occupy when they address claims and demands to one another (and to themselves). The very first sentence of Darwall’s examination of the second-­‐personal conceptual paradigm summarizes the gist of the argument succinctly when he claims that “the second-­‐person standpoint [is] the perspective that you and I take up when we make and acknowledge claims on one another’s conduct and will.” (Darwall 2006, 3) The Second-­‐Person Standpoint reminds us that this perspective has been ignored for much too long and that it better take centre stage in any philosophical analysis of moral phenomena, in order to yield a satisfying account of morality as a social institution. The negative part of Darwall’s strategy is to show that neither a purely first-­‐personal approach (represented by Kant and contemporary Kantians), nor a third-­‐personal state-­‐of-­‐affairs-­‐perspective (represented by most varieties of contemporary consequentialism) are capable of accounting for the categorical bindingness characteristic of moral obligation. The latter feat can only be accomplished, and this is the positive part of Darwall’s argument, when those second-­‐ personal normative “felicity conditions” and conceptual presuppositions are acknowledged and spelled out that are already presupposed in every instance of issuing (putatively valid) claims and demands. It is especially second-­‐personal competence and second-­‐personal authority that are the bedrock of these normative conceptual presuppositions, without which engaging in any meaningful address would be impossible. Kantians and utilitarians alike have neglected this critical dimension of the normative landscape. -/- In addition to working out an original conception of moral obligation, the first eight chapters of The Second-­‐Person Standpoint articulate this fundamental insight with respect to a variety of traditional projects in ethical theory such as developing accounts of moral responsibility, rights, dignity, and autonomy. In this context, special emphasis is to be awarded, on the one hand, to Darwall’s refreshing second-­‐personal interpretation of Strawson’s influential account of reactive attitudes and moral responsibility and, on the other, to his historically well-­‐informed reconstruction of Samuel Pufendorf’s often neglected version of an enlightened theistic voluntarism concerning moral authority. Darwall dedicates the second part of The Second-­‐Person Standpoint to the urgent question: how should one respond to the sceptical challenge that expresses utter indifference to the second-­‐person standpoint, including all its multifarious normative presuppositions and implications? What commits us to all this? It is at this point that Darwall, firstly, refines his criticisms of the Kantian, first-­‐personal, paradigm of normativity and emphasizes that only if one already incorporates the second-­‐personal conceptual apparatus into a Kantian analysis of moral obligation is the latter going to yield a convincing account. Secondly, and this certainly is one of the highlights of Darwall’s theory, the Second-­‐Person Standpoint employs themes from Fichte’s philosophy of right in order to strengthen the case for the inescapability of taking up the second-­‐person standpoint of moral obligation. In his contribution for this special issue Darwall further develops his diagnosis that Fichte’s thought offers in many respects a more promising, since more second-­‐personal, foundation of morality than, for example, Kant’s. -/- By now, the impact of Darwall’s second-­‐person standpoint theory has far transcended the confines of contemporary debates on moral obligation. Darwall has put to use the second-­‐personal apparatus to critical engagements with Joseph Raz’s theory of legal authority and Derek Parfit’s convergence arguments for his recent Triple Theory of moral wrongness. The constant theme that unifies all these diverse applications remains the one so impressively presented in The Second-­‐Person Standpoint: without paying attention to the “interdefinable” and “irreducible” circle of (four) foundational second-­‐ personal concepts (valid demand, practical authority, second-­‐personal reason, and accountability), neither superior epistemic status (Raz) nor the identification of optimific states of affairs (Parfit) are potent enough sources to generate anything close to the authority relationships that underlie the idea involved in obligating ourselves and one another. Given all of the above, it comes as no surprise that Darwall reserves his strongest sympathies for a specific ethical theory, namely contractualism. Our commitment to equal basic second-­‐personal authority, that Darwall arrives at through his Fichtean rectification of the Kantian project, leads him to the endorsement of a contractualist paradigm in the spirit of broadly Rawls and Scanlon. -/- . (shrink)

The established two tracks of neuroenhancement, moral and cognitive enhancements, rest on the characterization of commonsense morality as a set of static psychological dispositions. In this paper, I challenge this way of describing commonsense morality. I draw a parallel between commonsense psychology and commonsense morality, and I propose that the right way to characterize commonsense morality is as an empirically evaluable theory, with a structure similar to a scientific theory. I argue further that psychological dispositions to react in certain ways (...) require the tacit endorsement of a commonsense moral theory. By adopting this view, I argue that the way to change our psychological dispositions is by changing the background theory that produces them. I conclude that when commonsense morality is construed as an empirically evaluable theory, the cleft between the abilities that support scientific progress and the abilities that promote moral progress closes and it becomes evident that the way to promote both types of advancements is through cognitive enhancement. (shrink)

This paper tries to reconstruct Ernst Cassirer's potential reception of the EPR argument, as exposed by Einstein in his letter to Cassirer of March 1937. It is shown that, in conformity with his transcendental epistemology taking the conditions of accessibility as constitutive of the quantum object, Cassirer would probably have rejected the argument. Indeed, Cassirer would probably not have subscribed to its separability/local causality presupposition (which goes against his interpretation of the quantum formalism as a self-suf!cient condition constitutive of the (...) quantum object, without any reliance on spatial intuition), nor to its completeness requirement (as his partial endorsement of Bohr's complementarity, and his rejection of the Kantian "idea of complete determination", illustrate). By rejecting both of its premises, Cassirer's philosophy of physics thus enables to escape the EPR dilemma, and exhibits what, in Kantian terms, might be called a "negative utility" with respect to physical science. A further investigation of the anti-reductionist utility of Cassirer's systematic philosophy with respect to physics and other "symbolic forms" is !nally suggested. (shrink)

This paper critically examines Richard Rorty’s “justice as larger loyalty” proposal. While Rorty is right, I argue, to reject the Kantian idea of a strict bifurcation between justice and loyalty, the former corresponding to reason the latter corresponding to sentiment, my argument is that it is nevertheless a mistake to follow Rorty in conceiving of justice as he recommends we should. This is not an endorsement of the rationalistic Kantian view Rorty rejects. Rather, I argue that there are compelling (...) Rortyan reasons for rejecting the “justice as larger loyalty” proposal, and that the argument against that proposal is paradoxically very much in the spirit of Rorty’s moral and political thought. (shrink)

(Pre-publication draft November 2015: Partial content of "Introduction: The 2030 Agenda," Journal of Global Ethics 11:3 [December 2015], 262-270) This introduction briefly explains the process through which the Sustainable Development Goals have developed from their receipt in 2014 to their passage in September 2015 by the UN General Assembly, and it considers their development in prospect. The Millennium Development Goals, which spanned 1990-2015, present a case study that reveals the changeability of such long-term multilateral commitments. They were enmeshed in overlapping (...) and inconsistent national and intergovernmental commitments reaching from 1995 to 2005, and the text of those goals also evolved, stabilizing for the last time in 2007. The Sustainable Development Goals and attendant commitments should be expected to evolve similarly over their fifteen year run. This presents a concern, for among the three committees established by the UN to create the goals, the two committees charged with public consultation were retired as planned in 2014. The process evident thereafter has displayed a shift towards a strategy of enrolling broad public endorsement that leaves such consultation and specific responsibility to those consulted in doubt. This bodes ill for public deliberation on the goals and for public accountability as the agenda proceeds towards 2030. (shrink)