In her 2007 paper, “Argument Has No Function” Jean Goodwin takes exception with what she calls the “explicit function claims”, arguing that not only are function-based accounts of argumentation insufficiently motivated, but they fail to ground claims to normativity. In this paper I stake out the beginnings of a functionalist answer to Goodwin.

This dissertation is about the relationship between Epistemology and other domains. In it I want to show that in an important sense, Epistemology is an autonomous domain. That is, epistemic vocabulary (e.g., “knowledge”, “justification”, “rationality”, “epistemic reason”, etc.) cannot be analyzed without remainder into non-epistemic vocabulary. Epistemic phenomena must be explained in terms of epistemic reasons and the form of assessment proprietary to them. Although epistemic vocabulary cannot be reduced to the vocabulary of other domains, Epistemology is nonetheless connected with (...) other domains in an important way. In this dissertation I focus on the connection between Epistemology and the Philosophy of Mind. I distinguish different forms cognitive self-monitoring can take and corresponding forms of cognitive autonomy. The kind of self-monitoring that receives the most attention involves simulating interpersonal argumentation. I argue that the capacity to self-monitor in this way grounds familiar epistemic standards (e.g., knowledge and justification) and explains how reasons get their grip on us. On the picture that emerges, Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind need to be done in tandem. Epistemology gives us the normative framework that is modeled by the self-monitoring system. The self-monitoring system, conversely, explains the kind of activity we engage in that makes that normative framework applicable to us. Epistemic reasons themselves are just episodes of this kind of activity. In Chapter 1 I argue that epistemic luck cannot be analyzed in non-epistemic terms. Here I generalize Jennifer Lackey’s criticism of Duncan Pritchard’s safety-based account of epistemic luck to all reductive theories. I argue that they will either be extensionally inadequate, or they will illicitly presuppose the vocabulary they are trying to reduce. The upshot is that epistemic luck can only be understood in terms of the epistemic assessment of reasons. By extension, we can’t give a reductive analysis of knowledge. This is not to say we cannot analyze knowledge, just that we can’t analyze away the epistemic vocabulary without remainder. In chapter 2 I explain the relation between epistemic luck, epistemic justification, and knowledge. I argue that previous work in the defeasible reasoning tradition, despite being on the right track, fell short of realizing its full potential. This is because the account of how these three things relate given by its proponents was insufficiently unified, which encouraged many epistemologists to abandon the defeasible reasoning tradition entirely. I argue that a unified and principled account of their relation is possible, and it allows for an elegant analysis of knowledge. In slogan form: good reasons are apparent to the knowing subject. In chapter 3 I extend the defeasible reasoning tradition to explain how knowledge is gradable. I show that this enables us to bring the debates about fake barns and knowledge from falsehoods to ecumenical resolutions, while also shedding light on a new kind of case. Furthermore, I explain how background assumptions are themselves defeasible and some of the epistemic significance of this fact. In chapter 4 I make the connection between Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind. I argue that the self-monitoring system of cognitively mature humans uses a model of the normative framework described in the previous chapters to regulate its own cognition. Here I build on that claim to develop an account of the role played by knowledge and justification in doxastic social coordination. I build on the claim that background assumptions are themselves defeasible to develop an account of the foundations of knowledge according to which they are social but not brutely sociological. In chapter 5 I discuss the relation between the epistemic states of cognitively mature humans, children, and non-human animals. I do this in a way meant to integrate an insight from virtue epistemology into the reasons-first picture developed here: positive epistemic standing is a state attributable to the subject. In chapter 6 I discuss the metaphysics of epistemic reasons. I claim that they are episodes of the activity of reasoning. In the preceding chapters, we get a sense of what that activity involves. Here I argue that the materials developed there put us in a position to understand what epistemic reasons are. This account incorporates the insights of rival positions while sidestepping familiar objections to them. The resulting picture is in line with the non-reductive approach to the epistemic developed so far. In fact, it goes further than other “reasons-first” approaches to Epistemology by claiming that reasons are not only basic within Epistemology, but they are also basic full-stop. One key consideration for my argument here is that reasons are, by their very nature, competitors. Although this point is generally acknowledged in the literature on reasons, its consequences for the metaphysics of reasons hasn’t been. Participants in the debate about the metaphysics of reasons typically try to identify reasons with something (e.g., facts or mental states) that are either not competitors, or only competitors insofar as they constitute, or bear on the epistemic assessment of, episodes of reasoning. (shrink)

Stephen Turner claims that social science can explain away normativity. By exploiting a non-normative view of rationality and a causal view of belief, he claimed that normativist views are akin to what he calls Good Bad Theories (GBT). GBT are false accounts that play a role of social coordination like primitive rituals (Taboo and the like). Hence, “norms”, “commitments”, and “obligations” are just like Taboo and can be explained away as GBT. Normativism, as a consequence, is doomed to (...) disappear in a disenchanted world. Turner focuses on the normativist idea that the normative does not reduce to the causal: he claims that social science succeeds in the reduction. This claim is presented as a major challenge to philosophical normativism. In what follows, I try to discuss some aspects of Turner’s challenge by focusing on certain features of belief and belief-change that prima facie promote a normativist view: this is the basis to focus on some problems concerning the scope of Turner’s argument. (shrink)

The aesthetic domain is a social one. We coordinate our individual acts of creation, appreciation, and performance with those of others in the context of social aesthetic practices. More strongly, many of the richest goods of our aesthetic lives are constitutively social; their value lies in the fact that individuals are engaged in joint aesthetic agency, participating in cooperative and collaborative project that outstrips what can be realized alone. I provide an account of nature and value of (...) two such social aesthetic goods—aesthetic communities and aesthetic traditions—and further argue that such goods are a core constituent of an aesthetically good life. At the same time, I argue that the ideals of the dominant theory of aesthetic value, aesthetic value hedonism, are incompatible with a full commitment to these social aesthetic goods; the hedonist is thereby alienated from the other participants within aesthetic communities and traditions. This sets up a dilemma for the hedonist: either the hedonist must bite the bullet, accepting that the theory leads to a problematic form of aesthetic alienation; or, we must reject aesthetic value hedonism and adopt a different theory of aesthetic value which accommodates the value of social aesthetic goods. I argue that we should take the second horn of the dilemma. (shrink)

This chapter distinguishes between several senses of “normativity”. For example, that we ought to abstain from causing unnecessary suffering is a normative, not descriptive, claim. And so is the claim that we have good reason, and ought to drive on the right, or left, side of the road because the law requires us to do that. Reasons and oughts are normative, by definition. Indeed, it may be that “[t]he normativity of all that is normative consists in the way it is, (...) or provides, or is otherwise related to reasons” (Raz 1999, 67) . That is what the “reasons-first” view holds, but there are also other views, and what is by definition a normative statement, or a normative fact if you like, depends on how we define normativity. -/- It may seem that requirements are also by definition normative. But it seems that there can also be requirements that one has no reason to meet: it is less clear whether such requirements are normative in the same sense that reasons and oughts are normative. This paper will go through various further phenomena, which are candidates for being normative in some other sense than normative reasons and oughts, defending however the view that not all of them are. But arguably four or so different senses of normativity can be distinguished. -/- The paper will accept the view that the normativity of reasons and oughts, which is here called normativity1, is central. It is an open question whether all requirements or expectations or socially constructed norms are normative in that sense. Arguably it depends on the contents and content-independent authority of the legislators, whether we have good reasons, or ought, to meet the requirements, obey the law, or to follow the etiquette, or to conform to others’ interpersonal expectations, requests, demands or prescriptions. Whether and when we do have such reasons is a difficult and important substantive question, which concerns the normativity1 of requirements of law. -/- In another sense, norms (intended to guide behavior) are trivially or by definition normative, and constitute normativity: some forms of behavior are ruled as acceptable (e.g. driving on the right) and others as unacceptable (e.g. driving on the left) in light of the norm. Even in the case of a bad norm (that we have no reason to follow, and which ought to be changed, and ought not prevail) classifies behaviours as acceptable or unacceptable in light of the norm. Surely norms are by definition normative? Call this conformity to social norms and actual expectations normativity2. It is not an open question whether social norms are normative in that sense – they are by definition normative2. But importantly, it is an open question whether one has good reasons, or sufficient reason, or ought, to follow any social norm – that is, whether the norm in question is normative1. -/- The first section of the article characterizes further the difference between these two senses of normativity, and additionally introduces various other candidate senses of “normativity”. These possible senses of “normativity” may be at stake in the debates about normative requirements of rationality , about so called ought-to-be -rules , about normativity of linguistic meaning , about “directions of fit” of beliefs and desires , about subjective authority of intentions and decisions and interpersonal authority or co-authority of concrete others. -/- In later sections these cases are discussed. Do they constitute separate senses of normativity? And are the later phenomena such that they give agents good reasons: do they include normativity1 – the core sense? A “normative power -model” is suggested as a framework for examining whether actual social norms, laws, expectations provide good reasons and oughts or not. Once we understand the relation between the first two senses of normativity, do the later phenomena follow the same pattern – is the “normative powers – model” relevant for them as well? (shrink)

Many authors have argued that epistemic rationality sometimes comes into conflict with our relationships. Although Sarah Stroud and Simon Keller argue that friendships sometimes require bad epistemic agency, their proposals do not go far enough. I argue here for a more radical claim—romantic love sometimes requires we form beliefs that are false. Lovers stand in a special position with one another; they owe things to one another that they do not owe to others. Such demands hold for beliefs as well. (...) Two facets of love ground what I call the false belief requirement , or the demand to form false beliefs when it is for the good of the beloved: the demand to love for the right reasons and the demand to refrain from doxastic wronging. Since truth is indispensable to epistemic rationality, the requirement to believe falsely, consequently, undermines truth norms. I demonstrate that, when the false belief requirement obtains, there is an irreconcilable conflict between love and truth norms of epistemic rationality: we must forsake one, at least at the time, for the other. (shrink)

Traditional normative theories of belief in epistemology presume that belief-forming includes a reflective component and a mental agency component. Beliefs are regarded as conscious doxastic attitudes with propositional contents. Let’s call this view the Transcendental View about Belief (TVB). First, I argue that reputed norms of belief as the truth norm, the knowledge norm and the rationality norm all incorporate TVB. Further, I argue that the empirical evidence concerning belief-forming collected in the last two decades by Rüdiger Seitz, Hans-Ferdinant (...) Angel, Raymond Paloutzian and their colleagues suggests that primal beliefs do not correspond to the description provided by TVB. Primal beliefs are byproducts of perceptive and affective type 1 processing. As such, they are non-propositional multilayer relational states of a cognitive system S that do not presuppose conscious awareness. Thus, I maintain that TVB is normatively inadequate, because it is descriptively false. I presume that a good normative account of beliefs should be able to accommodate primal beliefs and provide a norm of primal belief. I conclude by attempting to outline such a positive account. (shrink)

This chapter defends the thesis that feeling conviction is sufficient for belief: if you feel conviction that p, then you believe that p. I begin with a neutral characterization of belief in terms of its normative profile: belief is a state that is subject to certain distinctive norms of rationality. The main argument of the chapter is that feelings of conviction are beliefs because they are subject to the same norms of rationality that govern our beliefs. Functionalists often deny that (...) feelings of conviction constitute beliefs when they play dysfunctional causal roles, as in cases of mad belief or delusion or implicit bias, but this only serves to obscure the kind of irrationality involved in such cases. These are dysfunctional beliefs, rather than non-doxastic states, or "in-between" cases. (shrink)

I intend to: a) clarify the origins and de facto meanings of the term relativism; b) reconstruct the reasons for the birth of the thesis named “cultural relativism”; d) reconstruct ethical implications of the above thesis; c) revisit the recent discussion between universalists and particularists in the light of the idea of cultural relativism.. -/- 1.Prescriptive Moral Relativism: “everybody is justified in acting in the way imposed by criteria accepted by the group he belongs to”. Universalism: there are at least (...) some judgments which are valid inter-culturally Absolutism: there are at least some particular prescriptions which are valid without exception everywhere and always -/- 2. The traditional proof of prescriptive moral relativism: the argument from variability: Judgments, rules, and shared values are de facto variable in time and space. The traditional counter-proof: examples of variability do not prove what skeptics contend. -/- 3. Pre-history of the doctrine -Ancient sophists: either immoralist or contractualist -Modern moral scepticism (xvii c.): variability as an historical and ethnographic fact supports a sceptical conclusion more moderate than sheer immoralism. - Voltaire, Kant, Reid counter-attack pointing at a universally shared moral sense - Romantics and idealists stage an even more moderate reformulation: instead of universally shared moral sense they point at the Spirit of a People which is: a)alternative to abstract and universal philosophical systems as far as it is lived ‘culture’; b) indivisible unity with an inner harmony and a source of normative standards; c) dynamic, in so far as it is a manifestation of the Spirit through the becoming of National cultures. -/- 4. The birth of Cultural Relativism and its ethical implications 4.1. The 18th c. doctrine was the noble savage (a non-historical doctrine: state of nature vs. social state) 4.2 Edward Tylor (1832-1817) and ethnocentric historicism Savage moral standards are real enough, but they are far and weaker than ours. 4.3 Boas and Malinowski and an holistic reaction to ethnocentric historicism -/- Franz Boas (1858-1942): a) Development of civilizations is not ruled by technical progress nor does it follow a one-way path; instead there are parallel developments (for ex. Agriculture does not follow stock-raising); b) racial characters have no relevance in development of civilization; c) we are not yet in a position to compare externally identical kinds of behaviour till we have not yet understood beliefs and intentions laying at their roots (for ex.: “From an ethnological point of view murder cannot be considered as a single phenomenon”; d) we should distinguish among different practices which are only superficially similar (fro ex. practices traditionally classified under the label “tabù”); e) there is as a fact just one normative ethic, constant in its contents but varying in its extension; f) the implication is not that we cannot judge behavior by members of other groups; it is only a recommendation of caution. -/- Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942): a) against Tylor’s and Frazer’s “magpie” methodology, field-work is required, a culture as a whole should be observed from inside; individual elements are incomprehensible; b) a culture is an organic whole; c) its elements are accounted for by their function (economy), avoiding non-observables (empio-criticism). -/- Ruth Benedict and Melville Herskovitz identify Boas’s approach with “cultural relativism”. Benedict: what is normal and abnormal is to be judged on a culture’s own standards, not on our own (“Anthropology and the Abnormal”). Herskovits: “Boas adumbrates what we have come to call cultural relativism” (The Mind, p. 10); “Judgements are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation” (Man and his Works). -/- 4. How analytic philosophy understood and misunderstood the discussion 4.1. At the beginning of the 20th c., the new view in ethics was non-cognitivism (emotivist and subjectivist). Eric Westermark combines this view with an old-style ethnographic approach in support of relativity of moralities. Moralities are codes, or systems of emotive ‘disinterested’ reactions selected by evolution on their usefulness in terms of survival value for the society that is the carrier of such systems or codes. The moral relativity thesis: there are cases of disagreement that cannot be settled even after agreement about facts. 4.2 Anti-realists Brandt, Mackie, Gilbert, Harman adopt Westermark’s approach in a more sophisticated version: a) moralities are codes with an overall function and may be appraised only as wholes; b) variability is an argument for moral subjectivism; c) apparent legitimacy of deriving shift from ought is legitimized only within one institution d) morality should not be described but instead made, and existing moralities may be improved. Is it ‘real’ relativism? It is clearly subjectivism (a metaethical thesis). The normative thesis is that there better and worse codes, and survival values is the normative standard. -/- 4.3 Particularists MacIntyre, Sandel, Taylor, Wiggins, McDowell ‘Wittgensteinian’ prospectivist arguments bent to support weak-relativist claims MacIntyre: there is ‘incommensurability’ between different theoretical systems in both science and ethics. No argument is possible through different systems Different traditions may coexist for a long time without being able to bring their conflicts to a rational solution. -/- 4.4 Kantian universalists Baier, Gewirth, Rawls, Apel, Habermas Shared claim: justice concerns the right and is universal in so far as it may be based on minimal assumptions Other virtues are relative to context in so far as they are related to comprehensive views of the good - O’Neill criticism: a) it is an assumption shared by both alignments; b) after an alleged crisis brought about by alleged loss of metaphysical certainties, theories of justice have dropped demanding assumptions and kept universalism, virtue theories have kept demanding assumptions and dropped universalism; c) the opposition of virtue and justice has arisen in an unjustified way. O’Neill’s positive proposal: ‘constructive’ procedures may be adopted both (i) concerning all the range of virtues and (ii) across cultures once we abandon idealization and confine ourselves to abstraction from real-world cases. -/- 4.5 A metaethical relativist and anti-relativist normative ethicists: Bernard Williams Williams: vulgar relativism may be assumed to claim that: a) 'just' means 'just in a given society'; b) 'just in a given society' is to be understood in functionalist sense; c) it is wrong for one society’s members to condemn another society’s values. It is inconsistent since in (c) uses ‘just’ in a non-relative way that has been excluded in (a). William’s positive proposal: i) keep a number of substantive or thick ethical concepts that will be different in space and time; ii) admit that public choices are to be legitimized through recourse to more abstract procedures and relying on more thin ethical concepts. -/- 5. Critical remarks 5.1 The only real relativism available is ‘vulgar’ relativism (Westermark?) 5.2. Descriptive universalism (or absolutism) has a long pedigree, from Cicero on, reaching Boas himself but it is useless as an answer to normative questions 5.3. Twentieth-century philosophical discussion seems to discuss an ad hoc doctrine reconstructed by assembling obsolete philosophical ideas but ignoring the real theory of cultural relativism as formulated by anthropologists. -/- 6. A distinction between ethoi and ethical theories as a way out of confusions a)There are systems of conventions de facto existing. These may be studies from outside as phenomena or facts. b)There is moral argument and this, when studies from outside, is a fact, but this does not influence in any degree the possible validity of claims advanced. c) the difference between the above claims and Mackie’s criticism to Searle’s argument of the promising game is that promises, arguments etc. are also phenomena, but they are also communicative phenomena with a logical and pragmatic structure. -/- 7.Conclusions: a) cultural relativism, as a name for Boas’s methodology is a valuable discovery, and in this sense we are all relativists; b) ethical relativism, as an alleged implication of cultural relativism, has been argued in a philosophically quite unsophisticated way by Benedict and Herskovits; philosophers apparently discussed ethical relativism in the basis of a rather faint impression of what cultural relativism had been. c) a full-fledged ethical relativism has hardly been defended by anybody among philosophers; virtually no modern philosopher really argued a prescriptive version of the thesis; d) we may accept the grain of truth in ethical relativism by including relativist critique to ethical absolutism into a universalist normative doctrine that be careful in separating open-textured formulations of universal claims from culturally conditioned particular prescriptions. -/- . 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In the text it will be attempted to prove the existence of a tradition of expressivism in the form of normative social functionalism as the common denominator for the position or positions taken by the later Wittgenstein and Wilfrid Sellars in regards to questions of objectivity and normativity of lingustic meaning, presented as answers to the problem of rule following. Sellars formulates the problem of rule following at approximately the same time as does Wittgenstein. Also, Sellars’ answer to this (...) problem, as does Wittgenstein’s will call upon meaning as determined by the practices of use of lingustic expressions. It is claimed that the tradition that clusters the authors culminates in inferential pragmatism of Robert Brandom. Apart from the above, the paper also discusses the differences between the positions of the said authors, the most prominent of which is manifested in the different consequences of their contrary metaphilosophical attitudes. (shrink)

Charlotte Witt's finely crafted book offers an original and powerful account of social role normativity––the normativity of norms associated with social ro.

Charlotte Witt covers a remarkable amount of ground in this concise and elegantly written book. Coming in at under 150 pages, she artfully weaves together Aristotle’s theory of functions with contemporary work on cultural transmission and apprenticeship, ideas about self-creation with theories of aspiration and transformative experience, and reflections on the relationships among social norms and games with thoughts about social roles and the nature of hierarchy. At the heart of it is an elaboration and defense of a (...) thoroughly externalist account of social normativity. Witt takes skilled experts, especially artisans like chefs and carpenters, as paradigm cases for theorizing about social normativity. She uses them to argue that the ultimate source of many normative obligations is found not in the acquiescence, attitudes, or any other features internal to those on whom those obligations fall. Rather, the demands are rooted in the world itself, and flow from specific circumstances, especially from the constraints those circumstances impose on different actors in virtue of the tasks they need to perform. The result is a view that depicts social normativity not just as external to individuals but also unavoidably role specific; what is right for a chef is not necessarily right for a carpenter, and what makes for a good nurse might make for a poor drill sergeant. Witt’s presentation of this package of ideas is both careful and austere, and it makes for a wonderfully thought provoking read. Social Goodness: On the Ontology of Social Norms will reward the careful attention of anyone interested in social ontology, especially the metaphysical foundations of normativity, the nature of social norms, and the relationship between social roles and the self. (shrink)

Why comply with epistemic norms? In this paper, I argue that complying with epistemic norms, engaging in epistemically responsible conduct, and being epistemically trustworthy are constitutive elements of maintaining good epistemic relations with oneself and others. Good epistemic relations are in turn both instrumentally and finally valuable: they enable the kind of coordination and knowledge acquisition underpinning much of what we tend to associate with a flourishing human life; and just as good interpersonal relations with others can be good for (...) their own sake, standing in good epistemic relations is good for its own sake. On my account, we have reason to comply with epistemic norms because it is a way of respecting the final value of something that also tends to be an instrumentally valuable thing: good epistemic relations. Situating the account within the recent social turn in debates about epistemic instrumentalism, I argue that the dual‐value aspect of good epistemic relations can explain important anti‐instrumentalist intuitions, in a well‐motivated way, within a broadly instrumentalist framework. (shrink)

In this paper, following Rahel Jaeggi’s critique of forms of life, I contend that to identify genuine critical thinking we should start from an analysis of the normative nature of forms of life as the basic constituents of the social world. In this view, critical thinking can be seen as a critical behaviour. While genuine forms of life can recognize and consider the variety of concrete and diverse situations, on the contrary non-functioning forms of life’s critical rationality understands the (...) norm as applied from outside of the form of life. In this case the norm, erroneously understood as a neutral and universally applicable principle, such as economic rationality, is not able to consider the particularity of forms of life as goods in themselves. I defend the meaning that an education in critical thinking must have, as a genuine and functional rationality characterising human beings in a social world. -/- . (shrink)

Being adorned with virtues is one of the most important fundamental issues in the field of Farabi's philosophy, especially in his civil and political thought. The most important of these virtues is the virtue of political socialization. Sociability or socialization means the conformity of a person with group and social values, norms and attitudes, in this way a person first gets to know the ways of collective life and acceptance of others. One of the sub-branches of socialization is its (...) political type, i.e. political socialization, which deals with the relationship between the government and the people for the transfer of political culture from one generation to another in the form of political standards and norms to direct the intellectual path of the individual and the society under the government. In Farabi's philosophy, socialization is a virtue in which a person is educated for his duties, rights and roles, including his political role in society. In this essay, an attempt has been made to describe the purpose of political socialization and political socialization education in Farabi's philosophy with a descriptive-analytical method. The purpose of teaching political socialization; To make people aware of politics and the importance of its vital role in the world and in their country, in such a way that they pay attention to it, and by gaining insight into the proper political way, they strive to elevate their thoughts and in their political actions as well. He should behave in a way that brings the greatest good to himself and the people of the country, this method creates conditions for the continuation of political life and value system, creating justice, forming a utopia, teaching rational principles, actions and moral properties in the direction of progress towards perfection in relation to It becomes happiness. As a result, it should be said that; One of the prerequisites for motivating the members of Madinah Fahleh to move towards happiness is to encourage them to learn their civic duties. (shrink)

Initiatives relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver socially beneficial outcomes—AI for social good (AI4SG)—are on the rise. However, existing attempts to understand and foster AI4SG initiatives have so far been limited by the lack of normative analyses and a shortage of empirical evidence. In this Perspective, we address these limitations by providing a definition of AI4SG and by advocating the use of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a benchmark for tracing the scope and spread of (...) AI4SG. We introduce a database of AI4SG projects gathered using this benchmark, and discuss several key insights, including the extent to which different SDGs are being addressed. This analysis makes possible the identification of pressing problems that, if left unaddressed, risk hampering the effectiveness of AI4SG initiatives. (shrink)

This paper investigates the differences between ancient Greek and modern ethical naturalism, through the account of the whole classical tradition provided by Cicero in De finibus bonorum et malorum. Ever since Hume’s remarks on the topic, it is usually held that derivations of normative claims from factual claims require some kind of proper justification. It ́s a the presence of such justifications in the Epicurean, Stoic, and Academic-Peripatetic ethical theories (as portrayed in De finibus), and, after a negative conclusion, I (...) argue that we should conceive of this issue within a social-historical perspective: The radical difference between ancient and modern naturalistic ethics is due (in Weber’s terms) to the rationalization processes that generated the modern outlook on nature. (shrink)

Traditional medical practices and relationships are changing given the widespread adoption of AI-driven technologies across the various domains of health and healthcare. In many cases, these new technologies are not specific to the field of healthcare. Still, they are existent, ubiquitous, and commercially available systems upskilled to integrate these novel care practices. Given the widespread adoption, coupled with the dramatic changes in practices, new ethical and social issues emerge due to how these systems nudge users into making decisions and (...) changing behaviours. This article discusses how these AI-driven systems pose particular ethical challenges with regards to nudging. To confront these issues, the value sensitive design approach is adopted as a principled methodology that designers can adopt to design these systems to avoid harming and contribute to the social good. The AI for Social Good factors are adopted as the norms constraining maleficence. In contrast, higher-order values specific to AI, such as those from the EU High-Level Expert Group on AI and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, are adopted as the values to be promoted as much as possible in design. The use case of Amazon Alexa's Healthcare Skills is used to illustrate this design approach. It provides an exemplar of how designers and engineers can begin to orientate their design programs of these technologies towards the social good. (shrink)

We need to understand, and on a philosophical level, our consumer mentality. For ours is a consumer society. Yet (pace environmental philosophers) philosophers have had almost nothing to say. This paper is a start toward a normative philosophy of consumption. It explores a distinction which, if viable, has far-reaching implications — the distinction between ownership and what I call “possession.” This distinction marks two different senses in which a good or service can be mine. I argue that an approach to (...) consumption oriented around possession rather than ownership would support the conclusion that there are prudential or self-interested, not only moral or environmental, limits to rational consumption. That would be a very desirable conclusion given that we often exceed these other limits of rational consumption. (shrink)

A shared narrative in the literature on the evolution of cooperation maintains that social _learning_ evolves early to allow for the transmission of cumulative culture. Social _norms_, whilst present at the outset, only rise to prominence later on, mainly to stabilise cooperation against the threat of defection. In contrast, I argue that once we consider insights from social epistemology, an expansion of this narrative presents itself: An interesting kind of social norm — an epistemic coordination norm (...) — was operative in early and important instances of specialised social learning. I show how there’s a need for such norms in two key social learning strategies and explain how this need is constituted. In assessor-teaching (e.g. Castro et al., 2019b, 2021), epistemic coordination norms allow agents to coordinate around the _content_ of social learning, i.e., what is to be known and how this is to be done. These norms also allow agents to coordinate around the form of cultural learning in what’s sometimes called strategic social learning (Laland, 2004; Hoppitt & Laland, 2013; Heyes, 2018, Chap. 5) and elsewhere. Broadly speaking, this concerns how cultural learning is organised within the social group. The upshot is that the evolution of social learning and social norms are intertwined in important and underappreciated ways from early on. The above matters as it informs our views about the evolution of social norms more generally. Truly _social_ norms emerged to coordinate a plurality of complex behaviours and interactions, amongst them specialised social learning. I substantiate this view by contrasting it with Jonathan Birch’s views on the evolution of norms. What results is a general but cohesive narrative on the early evolution of social norms. (shrink)

I argue that some of the most prominent interpretations of Reid's response to skepticism marginalize a crucial aspect of his thought: namely, that our common sense beliefs meet whatever normative standards of rationality the skeptic might fairly demand of them. This should be seen as supplementary to reliabilist or proper functionalist interpretations of Reid, which often ignore this half of the story. I also show how Reid defends the rationality of believing first principles by appealing to their naturalness and irresistibility. (...) The resulting interpretation supplies Reid with a more satisfying and formidable response to the skeptic than interpretations currently offer. (shrink)

A view inherited from Max Weber states that purposive rational action, value rational action and affective action are three distinct types of social action that can compete, oppose, complement or substitute each other in social explanations. Contrary to this statement, I will defend the view that these do not constitute three different types of social actions, but that social actions always seem to concurrently involve rationality, normativity and affectivity. I show this by discussing the (...) links between rational actions and consequentialism and non-consequentialism, and by elaborating on certain major relationships between rationality, normativity and emotions. (shrink)

Current responses to the question of how one should adjust one’s beliefs in response to peer disagreement have, in general, formed a spectrum at one end of which sit the so-called ‘conciliatory’ views and whose other end is occupied by the ‘steadfast’ views. While the conciliatory views of disagreement maintain that one is required to make doxastic conciliation when faced with an epistemic peer who holds a different stance on a particular subject, the steadfast views allow us to maintain (...) our confidence in our relevant beliefs. My aim in this paper is not to adjudicate between these views. Rather, I shall focus on a particular strategy, namely, denying the appearance of epistemic symmetry between peers, that the steadfast views standardly invoke in support of their position. Having closely examined certain representative examples of the steadfast approach, I will argue that this strategy is fundamentally flawed. (shrink)

Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is an established method for integrating values into technical design. It has been applied to different technologies and, more recently, to artificial intelligence (AI). We argue that AI poses a number of challenges specific to VSD that require a somewhat modified VSD approach. Machine learning (ML), in particular, poses two challenges. First, humans may not understand how an AI system learns certain things. This requires paying attention to values such as transparency, explicability, and accountability. Second, ML (...) may lead to AI systems adapting in ways that ‘disembody’ the values embedded in them. To address this, we propose a threefold modified VSD approach: 1) integrating a known set of VSD principles (AI4SG) as design norms from which more specific design requirements can be derived; 2) distinguishing between values that are promoted and respected by the design to ensure outcomes that not only do no harm but also contribute to good; and 3) extending the VSD process to encompass the whole life cycle of an AI technology in order to monitor unintended value consequences and redesign as needed. We illustrate our VSD for AI approach with an example use case of a SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing app. (shrink)

Legal norms are an invention. This paper advances a proposal about what kind of invention they are. The proposal is that legal norms derive from rules which specify role functions in a legal system. Legal rules attach to agents in virtue of their status within the system in which the rules operate. The point of legal rules or a legal system is to solve to large scale coordination problems, specifically the problem of organizing social and economic life among a (...) group of people and their successors, though not every legal rule pertains to a coordination problem. The framework for thinking about legal norms that I describe is a framework for thinking about institutions and policies more generally. The idea is to show that legal norms are a species of institutional norm. There are two central ideas. The first is the idea of a role in an institution. The second is the idea of proxy agency. Proxy agency involves one agent or group acting under the authorization of another agent or group (perhaps subsuming it) in a way that makes the actions of the proxy count as actions (under a description) of the individual or group for which it is a proxy. We get the characteristic structure of a legal system by conceiving of an institutional group, itself conceived of as a set of interlocking roles realized in individuals, as having one or more roles for proxy agents who are authorized by the group to make policy for the group. The set of rules governing the basic constitution of the group and spelling out the powers of the policy proxies determine fundamental norms for the group with specific role responsibilities attaching to particular positions in institutional arrangements. The policies determine further norms whose force derives from the fundamental norms. We must then say some further things to distinguish institutions and policies which we wish to designate as legal. (shrink)

This chapter examines how epistemic norms could be social norms, with a reliance on work on the philosophy and social science of social norms from Bicchieri (on the one hand) and Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin and Southwood (on the other hand). We explain how the social ontology of social norms can help explain the rationality of epistemic cooperation, and how one might begin to model epistemic games.

What I call the Doxastic Puzzle, is the impression that while each of these claims seems true, at least one of them must be false: (a) Claims of the form ‘S ought to have doxastic attitude D towards p at t’ are sometimes true at t, (b) If Φ-ing at t is not within S’s effective control at t, then it is false, at t, that ‘S ought to Φ at t’, (c) For all S, p, and t, (...) having doxastic attitude D towards p at t is not within S’s effective control at t. All three natural replies to the puzzle have been pursued. Some have claimed that doxastic attitudes like believing that p are, in fact, within our effective control, or sufficiently so. Others have claimed that doxastic ought-claims, strictly speaking, are always false. And some have denied that effective control is required for the adequacy of doxastic ought-claims in general. I here pursue and examine a different strategy. In the first part of this paper, I argue that these claims are not only each true but actually not in tension with each other in the first place. Instead of attempting to dispel the puzzle, this solution proposes to evade it instead: to solve it by properly understanding, and by thereby accepting without contradiction, all of its constitutive claims. In the second part of the paper, I argue that the evasive strategy forces us to re-think our understanding of the place of normative reasons in epistemology. More exactly, it seems to come at the cost of one central way of thinking about our reasons for having doxastic attitudes, one where such reasons are good-standing exemplars of normative reasons in general. The evasive strategy, that is, threatens to lead us very quickly to a deflationary picture of epistemic normativity: it rescues normative talk, but sacrifices normative substance. I conclude by explaining why I think this is more consequential than some have made it out to be, and by suggesting that these consequences are welcome nonetheless. (shrink)

This entry considers the question of whether rationality is normative; that is, the question of whether one always ought (or, more weakly, has a reason) to be rational. It first distinguishes substantive from structural rationality, noting how structural rationality presents a more serious challenge to the thesis that rationality is normative. It then considers the plausibility of skepticism about structural rationality, and notes some problems facing such skepticism. However, if we are not skeptics about structural requirements, we face the (...) task of formulating those requirements. But both narrow-scope and wide-scope formulations seem incompatible with the idea that we always ought to be rational. This suggests that we have good reason to think that rationality is not strongly normative. (shrink)

In virtue of what are we responsible for our beliefs? I argue that doxastic responsibility has a crucial social component: part of being responsible for our beliefs is being responsible to others. I suggest that this responsibility is a form of answerability with two distinct dimensions: an individual and an interpersonal dimension. While most views hold that the individual dimension is grounded in some form of control that we can exercise over our beliefs, I contend that we are (...) answerable for our beliefs as long as they reflect our evaluative commitments and dispositions, or are products of our reasoning, where this does not amount to a form of control. I next argue that answerability has a second, largely neglected dimension: the interpersonal dimension, which is grounded in what I call our relations of doxastic dependence. As social creatures, we depend on one another in our capacity as believers. We depend on one another as believers not only in epistemic ways, but also in practical ways, because our beliefs inform and motivate our actions, and allow us to participate in shared practical goals. Depending on one another in these ways is an unavoidable part of cooperating in the shared project of pursuing epistemic and practical success, and it makes us vulnerable to both epistemic and moral harm. It is because of this, I argue, that answerability has interpersonal normative force upon us: we are subject to legitimate expectations associated with participating in relations of doxastic dependence. (shrink)

Principles of procreative beneficence (PPBs) hold that parents have good reasons to select the child with the best life prospects. Sparrow (2010) claims that PPBs imply that we should select only female children, unlesswe attach normative significance to “normal” human capacities. We argue that this claim fails on both empirical and logical grounds. Empirically, Sparrow’s argument for greater female wellbeing rests on a selective reading of the evidence and the incorrect assumption that an advantage for females would persist even when (...) a serious gender imbalance is obtained. Logically, PPBs cite only pro tanto reasons and allow that the good of an individual child could be outweighed by other morally relevant considerations, such as those which take collectively suboptimal outcomes into account. There is thus no need to attach value to the “normal.”. (shrink)

In this paper I try to clarify and systematize some contributions with regard to (a) the main aspects of crisis situations that impose the management of emotions, (b) the correlation of certain social emotions with the factors that trigger them and their related tendencies to act, (c) the essential elements of emotional experience, (d) the differentiation of appropriate emotional reactions to a crisis situation from the inappropriate ones; (e) the in-stances in which emotions can be managed, and (f) the (...) balance between rationality and affectivity in the organization’s response to the risks or crises which it faces. By means of logical correlations I arrived at the following conclusions. Regardless of the social sphere in which the crisis makes itself felt, regardless of its type, phase or damage control strategies, the rational control of emotions contributes significantly to overcoming the crisis situation. Beyond the specificities, crises involve digressions form the norms of rightful conduct, breaches of the social norms that support institutions (as spontaneous order structures) and maladaptive reactions to reality. They can be corrected through a good management of emotions, with the caveat that we are not dealing with a problem of knowledge, but rather with one of will and character. All people can identify the adaptive emotional responses to a crisis situation, but only a few prefer them and train assiduously to use them. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that beliefs are constitutively normative from two kinds of objection. After clarifying what a “blindspot” proposition is and the different types of blindspots there can be, I show that the existence of such propositions does not undermine the thesis that beliefs are essentially governed by a negative truth norm. I argue that the “normative variance” exhibited by this norm is not a defect. I also argue that if we accept a distinction between subjective and objective norms (...) there need be no worrying tension between doxastic norms of truth and doxastic norms of evidence. I show how a similar approach applies to the attitude of guessing. I then suggest that if we distinguish between practical and theoretical rationality, we will prefer a negative form of norm that does not positively oblige us to form beliefs. I finish by considering an alternative possible subjunctive form of norm that would also avoid problems with blindspots but suggest this has a non-intuitive consequence. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Decision-theoretic approach and a nonlinguistic theory of norms are applied in the paper in an attempt to explain the nature of scientific rationality. It is considered as a normative system accepted by scientific community. When we say that a certain action is rational, we express a speaker’s acceptance of some norms concerning a definite action. Scientists can choose according to epistemic utility or other rules and values, which themselves have a variable nature. Rationality can be identified with a (...) decision to accept a norm. This type of decision cannot be reduced only to its linguistic formulation; it is an act of evolvement of the normative regulation of human behavior. Norms are treated as decisions of a normative authority: a specific scientific community is the normative authority in science. These norms form a system and they are absolutely objective in the context of individual scientists. There exists an invariant core in all the norms of rationality, accounting for their not being liable to change, as compared with the flexibility of legal norms. The acceptance of and abidance by these norms is of social importance – it affects the aims of the community. A norm only defines the common framework and principles of scientific problem-solving; its application is a matter of professional skills and creative approach to a particular problem. It is of no importance at all, if an agent’s cognitive abilities do not live up to the requirements of a norm. Such discrepancy can be compensated for by the fact that a scientist carries out work in a conceptual and normative framework established by a respective scientific community. (shrink)

One of the central tasks of a theory of argumentation is to supply a theory of appraisal: a set of standards and norms according to which argumentation, and the reasoning involved in it, is properly evaluated. In their most general form, these can be understood as rational norms, where the core idea of rationality is that we rightly respond to reasons by according the credence we attach to our doxastic and conversational commitments with the probative strength of the (...) reasons we have for them. Certain kinds of rational failings are so because they are manifestly illogical – for example, maintaining overtly contradictory commitments, violating deductive closure by refusing to accept the logical consequences of one’s present commitments, or failing to track basing relations by not updating one’s commitments in view of new, defeating information. Yet, according to the internal and empirical critiques, logic and probability theory fail to supply a fit set of norms for human reasoning and argument. Particularly, theories of bounded rationality have put pressure on argumentation theory to lower the normative standards of rationality for reasoners and arguers on the grounds that we are bounded, finite, and fallible agents incapable of meeting idealized standards. This paper explores the idea that argumentation, as a set of practices, together with the procedures and technologies of argumentation theory, is able to extend cognition such that we are better able to meet these idealized logical standards, thereby extending our responsibilities to adhere to idealized rational norms. (shrink)

The normative phenomenon is ubiquitous in human interactions, emerging in a wide range of fields studied by social science and considered as one of the essential traits of human’s way of life. The modern subjectivist tradition of social science has been based on a model in which elements like self, freedom and reason play the most relevant roles in explaining normativity by connecting beliefs to behaviors by means of motives that are non-reducible to preferences, desires or impulses. In (...) this paper I will discuss normativity in general in order to turn into normativity as it is conceived in social science and then with a focus on normativity based on reasons. I will argue in favor of a naturalistic approach to normativity by means of a defense of a concept of will, which can provide a bridge between social and natural science, rather than giving further reason to sustain a dualistic approach to them. Moreover, I will claim that mental qualities usually alleged to be essential for assigning personality, agency, and moral responsibility, such as rationality, self-consciousness, and freedom, are neither sufficient nor necessary for a naturalistic characterization of moral agents, or for explaining normativity in human evaluative practices. (shrink)

If we are going to understand morality, it is important to understand the nature of societies. What is fundamental to them? What is the glue that holds them together? What is the role of shared norm acceptance in constituting a society? Michael Bratman’s account of modest sociality in his book, Shared Agency, casts significant light on these issues. Bratman’s account focuses on small-scale interactions, but it is instructive of the kinds of factors that can enter into explaining sociality more generally. (...) Norms of “social rationality” play an important role in Bratman’s account. I agree with his idea that these norms have normative force. I contend that these norms actually are morally significant. On the resulting view, social glue consists of actual and intended meshing of intentions and shared knowledge combined with a kind of normative pressure that has normative authority—along with other more familiar factors such as familial connections, cooperative arrangements, and affective states such as loyalties. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Foucault’s conception of agency by reconstructing two complementary approaches he takes: the ‘analytics of power’, which examines the relation between norms and practice by charting the institutional development within which a set of norms emerge, and the concept of ‘problematization’, which examines reason-giving practices, or varieties of normative justification that legitimize rational institutions and agents’ participation in them. Contrary to the standard caricature, Foucault’s analysis of the relation between norms and institutions does not merely (...) reduce the former to relations of ‘power’. In short, he also thinks standards of justification are just as revisable as social practices themselves, and the focus here will be on the relation and importance of these two complementary approaches to his critique of normativity. Key Words: agency • critique • Foucault • normativity • social practice. (shrink)

The use of deception and dishonesty is widely accepted as a fact of life in policing. This paper thus defends a counterintuitive claim: Good faith is a normative foundation for the police as a political institution. Good faith is a core value of contracts, and policing is contractual in nature both broadly (as a matter of social contract theory) and narrowly (in regard to concrete encounters between law enforcement officers and the public). Given the centrality of good faith to (...) policing, dishonesty and deception on par with fraud are justified only as a narrowly circumscribed investigative tool that is constrained by institutional commitments to the fair distribution of security and the rule of law. The practical upshot is the preclusion of most dishonest and deceptive police tactics on par with fraud, leading to an institution that is less proactive and more reactive. (shrink)

What should we do when faced with powerful theoretical arguments that support a severe change in our personal beliefs and commitments? For example, what should new parents do when confronted by unanswered anti-natalist arguments, or two lovers vexed by social theory that apparently undermines love? On the one hand, it would be irrational to ignore theory just because it’s theory; good theory is evidence, after all. On the other hand, factoring in theory can be objectifying, or risks unraveling one's (...) life, fracturing one's identity or social relations. Sometimes, then, following the evidence where it apparently leads would mean not merely changing what we think but who we are. Some might say that there’s something right about the thought that theory can bear on what we ought to believe, it’s just that when we work with full beliefs, only then do we seriously risk having to substantially alter our doxastic economy when pressed by exceptional theoretical arguments. When we work with partial beliefs, however, this risk is greatly diminished. Others will say that we can advocate or champion revisionary positions whilst rationally retaining our pre-theoretical personal convictions. Still others will argue that we should adopt a Moorean posture towards the revisionary arguments. I argue that each response is inadequate, and argue instead that we are permitted to bracket certain kinds of theoretical evidence against our beliefs because of the personal and ethical risks born out of giving them serious consideration. In turn, some of philosophy's doxastic influence is constrained by its attendant ethical risks: the personal enjoys a partial insulation from the theoretical. I close by addressing what this means for practicing philosophers. (shrink)

To speak of being religious lucky certainly sounds odd. But then, so does “My faith holds value in God’s plan, while yours does not.” This book argues that these two concerns — with the concept of religious luck and with asymmetric or sharply differential ascriptions of religious value — are inextricably connected. It argues that religious luck attributions can profitably be studied from a number of directions, not just theological, but also social scientific and philosophical. There is a strong (...) tendency among adherents of different faith traditions to invoke asymmetric explanations of the religious value or salvific status of the home religion vis-à-vis all others. Attributions of good/bad religious luck and exclusivist dismissal of the significance of religious disagreement are the central phenomena that the book studies. Part I lays out a taxonomy of kinds of religious luck, a taxonomy that draws upon but extends work on moral and epistemic luck. It asks: What is going on when persons, theologies, or purported revelations ascribe various kinds of religiously-relevant traits to insiders and outsiders of a faith tradition in sharply asymmetric fashion? “I am saved but you are lost”; “My religion is holy but yours is idolatrous”; “My faith tradition is true, and valued by God, but yours is false and valueless.” Part II further develops the theory introduced in Part I, pushing forward both the descriptive/explanatory and normative sides of what the author terms his inductive risk account. Firstly, the concept of inductive risk is shown to contribute to the needed field of comparative fundamentalism by suggesting new psychological markers of fundamentalist orientation. The second side of what is termed an inductive risk account is concerned with the epistemology of religious belief, but more especially with an account of the limits of reasonable religious disagreement. Problems of inductively risky modes of belief-formation problematize claims to religion-specific knowledge. But the inductive risk account does not aim to set religion apart, or to challenge the reasonableness of religious belief tout court. Rather the burden of the argument is to challenge the reasonableness of attitudes of religious exclusivism, and to demotivate the “polemical apologetics” that exclusivists practice and hope to normalize. Lexington Books Pages: 290 978-1-4985-5017-8 • Hardback • December 2018 • $95.00 • (£65.00) 978-1-4985-5018-5 • eBook • December 2018 • $90.00 • (£60.00) ISBN 978-1-4985-5018-5 (pbk: alk. paper) (coming 2020) [Download the 30% personal use Discount Order Form I uploaded for hardcover or e-book, and please ask your library to purchase a copy for their collection.]. (shrink)

The market failures approach to business ethics has recently garnered substantial critical attention (see, e.g., Cohen and Peterson 2019; Moriarty 2020; Steinberg 2017; Hsieh 2017; von Kriegstein 2016; Smith 2018; Endorfer and Larue 2022; Singer 2018). Though precursors of this view can be found in the literature (e.g., McMahon 1981; Friedman 1970), it was Joseph Heath (2004, 2006, 2014, 2023) who developed the approach and gave it its name. The market failures approach (henceforth: MFA) is concerned with the ethical obligations (...) of managers of firms (Heath 2014, 69). Roughly, it holds that managers ought not to conduct their businesses in a way that exploits market failures. “Market failure” is a technical term, meaning any failure of the conditions of the first fundamental welfare theorem, sometimes called the “Pareto conditions” (see Arrow 1951). The theorem states that if the Pareto conditions hold, then the market equilibrium will use society’s scarce resources efficiently, meaning that no one could be made better-off without making anyone else worse off. Efficiency, according to Heath (2014, chapter 7), is the implicit morality of the market. We coordinate much of our shared activity using markets, Heath claims, because of their ability to produce efficient results. Markets are good forms of social organization, according to Heath, because they are the best way to promote our values given empirical facts about the frailties of human psychology and the informational constraints that we face. As such, managers ought not compromise the very conditions that justify a market economy by profiting from breakdowns in the market’s efficiency. Managers are permitted to maximize profits, so long as they do not violate the market’s norm of efficiency in so doing. This is because the fundamental justification for the profit motive is that it is necessary for the operation of the price system which is essential to the efficiency properties of markets. In this paper, I will argue that the MFA is more general than even Heath himself claims. The MFA describes the professional obligations of managers, but the view I develop, the generalized market failures approach, describes the obligations of all market participants. Since efficiency is the implicit morality of the market, it binds not just managers, but all market participants, including consumers, investors and workers. Market participants are permitted to maximize the benefit they gain from market interactions, as long as they do so in a way that does not take advantage of any market failures. Generalizing the MFA in this way has three benefits: first, we gain a unified understanding of the ethics of non-managerial market roles; second, we will develop an even better understanding of the duties of managers; finally, it gives us the resources to respond to some familiar objections to the MFA found in the literature. In the next section, I will further motivate the MFA and explain how this motivation can be easily generalized to other market roles. Importantly, one can avoid benefiting from a market failure in two distinct ways: by avoiding transactions that exploit market failures or by transacting in such markets and then remediating the harm done, by compensating those negatively affected by the market failure. This section concludes by discussing how the remediation duties are to be split between the transacting parties and how to identify the parties to whom compensation is owed. In section 3, I use the tools of the generalized MFA to develop a unified ethics of consumption, investment and labor, respectively. This is the basis of a grand abductive argument for the generalized MFA. The view is strongly supported by the fact that it provides attractive and unifying explanations of our obligations in domains as variegated as carbon offsetting, CEO compensation, the reparations white Americans owe to black Americans and occupational licensure. Section 4 briefly concludes. (shrink)

Being adorned with virtues is one of the most important fundamental issues in the field of Farabi's philosophy, especially in his civil and political thought. The most important of these virtues is the virtue of political socialization. Sociability or socialization means the conformity of a person with group and social values, norms and attitudes, in this way a person first gets to know the ways of collective life and acceptance of others. One of the sub-branches of socialization is its (...) political type, i.e. political socialization, which deals with the relationship between the government and the people for the transfer of political culture from one generation to another in the form of political standards and norms to direct the intellectual path of the individual and the society under the government. In Farabi's philosophy, socialization is a virtue in which a person is educated for his duties, rights and roles, including his political role in society. In this essay, an attempt has been made to describe the purpose of political socialization and political socialization education in Farabi's philosophy with a descriptive-analytical method. The purpose of teaching political socialization; To make people aware of politics and the importance of its vital role in the world and in their country, in such a way that they pay attention to it, and by gaining insight into the proper political way, they strive to elevate their thoughts and in their political actions as well. He should behave in a way that brings the greatest good to himself and the people of the country, this method creates conditions for the continuation of political life and value system, creating justice, forming a utopia, teaching rational principles, actions and moral properties in the direction of progress towards perfection in relation to It becomes happiness. As a result, it should be said that; One of the prerequisites for motivating the members of Madinah Fahleh to move towards happiness is to encourage them to learn their civic duties. (shrink)

In my dissertation, I derive a set of systematic principles and a conception of the political subject from Spinoza’s metaphysics and political writings and then bring these tools to bear on contemporary questions in democratic theory. I argue that Spinoza’s conception of the political subject answers feminist critiques of the liberal subject, while retaining an understanding of the need for empowered citizens in strong democracies. Spinoza’s normative political theory shows how political communities become stronger through the empowerment and participation of (...) their citizens. I argue that Spinoza’s naturalistic method provides a promising path for both ethics and political theory. In the first chapter of my dissertation, I sketch the history of the development and critiques of the ‘liberal’ conception of human nature. I argue that rather than a substantial conception of human nature, the liberal subject is a skeptical compromise developed for a very specific purpose following the post-Reformation Wars of Religion in Europe in the 16th century. I then take on a variety of critiques of the notion of human nature in general and of the liberal conception of human nature in particular. I argue that political theory requires a positive conception of human beings. Spinoza’s conception of the human individual, created in order to replace what Spinoza thought were problematic aspects of the theories of individuals proposed by Hobbes and Descartes, does not suffer from the problems of the liberal subject and is a good candidate for a positive conception of human nature. In Chapter Two, I set out the main components of Spinoza’s naturalistic conception of the human individual. Spinoza understands human beings as primarily affective, or emotional creatures, whose feelings mediate their conceptions of the world. For Spinoza, each individual can be understood to have an index of power, which can increase or decrease depending on the degree to which individuals understand and are able to control the forces that affect them. In Chapter Three, I show that Spinoza’s theory of the political state is parallel to his theory of the individual. For Spinoza, just as individual humans have an index of power that can increase or decrease depending on how their emotions are organized, so too states have different degrees of power depending on how the emotions and power of the human beings within them are organized. The challenge for a Spinozan state is to understand how to create social and political institutions to organize the emotions of the ‘multitude’ of individuals in the state in the best way to yield the strongest state. For Spinoza, the strongest, or most absolute state, is a democracy, which is also the freest kind of state. I set out Spinoza’s theory of democracy and show how it builds upon his notion of individual and collective power. In Chapter Four, I take up the potential objections of Iris Marion Young to Spinoza’s conception of democratic agreement. I say these objections are ‘potential’ because, although Young critiques Rousseau’s conception of the general will, she does not directly object to Spinoza’s view of ‘agreement’ as a necessary element in democratic deliberation. However, many of Young’s writings touch on this worry, particularly in her critiques of Rousseau, civic republicanism and contemporary deliberative democracy theory. I argue that Spinoza’s notion of agreement employs a different conception of reason than that found in Rousseau, or in the tradition of deliberative democratic theory. Reason, for Spinoza, is a collective achievement rather than a precondition for deliberation. Spinoza argues that agreements reached through large-scale discussion in a democracy are likely to be more ‘reasonable’ than those reached by few or by one. Spinoza and Young share, I argue, a similar conception of the role of affect in deliberation, and both recognize the importance of affects and imagination in social and political life. In Chapter Five, I contrast a Spinozan theory of empowerment to Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach. Nussbaum’s approach and that of Spinoza are consonant in many of their major aspects; however, I argue that in practice, Spinoza’s theory is better able to account for the contextual nature of empowerment and of the necessity to reform harmful social, moral and cultural norms through affective mechanisms. In the conclusion, I consider the larger implications for a Spinozan naturalist approach to political philosophy, and for the role that theories of human nature and metaphysics can play in political theory. I argue that by avoiding metaphysics and by avoiding conceptions of human nature, those interested in projects of emancipation can have no criteria for determining whether or not individuals have become emancipated or whether their power has in fact increased. The model I derive from Spinoza’s conception of individual power and his view of the power of political states as a function of the power of the coordination of individuals provides a promising alternative to liberal theories of the subject and to extant feminist theories of the human individual, which ignore the psychological and metaphysical aspects of human individual and collective power. (shrink)

It is often assumed that the chief responsibility medical professionals bear is patient care and advocacy. The meeting of other duties, such as ensuring a more just distribution of medical resources and promoting the public good, is not considered a legitimate basis for curtailing or slackening beneficial patient services. It is argued that this assumption is often made without sufficient attention to foundational principles of professional ethics; that once core principles are laid bare this assumption is revealed as largely unwarranted; (...) and, finally, that these observations at the level of moral theory should be reflected, in various ways, in medical practice. Specifically, this essay clarifies a tension that exists between different kinds of moral principles and explores the possibility of dissipating that tension by shoring up foundational principles. The paper begins by setting out three alternative models of how best to balance patient advocacy responsibilities with broader social responsibilities. It then turns to critically assess these models and argue that one has several advantages over the others. (shrink)

One question that leads us into aesthetics is: why does beauty matter? Or, what do aesthetic goods bring to my life, to make it a life that goes well? Or, how does beauty deserve the place we have evidently made for it in our lives? A theory of aesthetic value states what beauty is so as to equip us to answer this question. According to aesthetic hedonism, aesthetic values are properties of items that stand in constitutive relation to pleasure. Contemporary (...) versions of aesthetic hedonism don’t explain what makes aesthetic values aesthetic, but they do explain what makes them normative, stating what makes it the case that aesthetic value facts lend weight to what an agent should do, for the fact that acting yields pleasure is always a reason to act. This book introduces and defends an alternative to aesthetic hedonism. According to the network theory, aesthetic value facts lend weight to its being an achievement for an agent to act. Since agents achieve by acting in coordination with one another, the theory takes seriously the sociality of aesthetic activity. The main argument for the network theory is that it better explains six facts about aesthetic activity than does aesthetic hedonism. The book also discusses the relationship between aesthetic value and pleasure, the point and distinctive character of aesthetic discourse, and the metaphysics of aesthetic value. Two final chapters use the network theory to shed light on how aesthetic value matters to us as individuals and as members of collectives. (shrink)

My starting point is what I call the Normative Authority Conception of justification, where S is justified in their belief that p at t (to some degree n) if and only if their believing that p at t is not ruled out by epistemic norms that have normative authority over S at t. With this in mind, this paper develops an account of doxastic justification by first developing an account of the normative authority of epistemic norms. Drawing from work (...) in political philosophy, I argue that (a) the cognitive and evaluative commitments and concerns behind our actual practices of holding each other and ourselves accountable for our beliefs reveal which epistemic norms we have consented to be under, and that (b) it is because we have consented to be under the authority of these norms – by actually holding ourselves and others accountable to them – that they in turn have normative authority over us. By connecting the authority of epistemic norms to the authority we have over ourselves in this way, the resulting account of doxastic justification (i) explains why it can be appropriate to criticize, resent, or sanction someone for having unjustified beliefs, (ii) avoids the phenomena of normative alienation and normative parochialism, and (iii) respects the social and collective nature of epistemic justification. (shrink)

Inferentialism, especially Brandom’s theory, is the project aimed at understanding meaning as determined by inferences, and language as a social practice governed by rational discursive norms. Discursive practice is thus understood as the basic rational practice, where commitments undertaken by participants are evaluated in terms of their being correct/incorrect. This model of explanation is also intended to rescue, by means of reasons, the commitments we undertake ourselves and assess the commitments we attribute to others, in an objective (...) sense: starting from our subjective normative and doxastic attitudes we should be able to use the normative discursive resources apt to assess our commitments, not only referring to what we take to be correct, but also referring to how things actually are.My hypothesis is that this objectivity is not achieved only on the basis of the rational structure of discursive practice. The main worry concerns the fact that material inferences, those responsible for the content of our concepts (and commitments), are in general non-monotonic. These inferences put experts in an advantageous position,namely as those capable of defeasible reasoning. I propose a view by which this asymmetry among language users is the crucial factor in assessing the objectivity of claims within discursive practice. (shrink)

This thesis is an experimental study to investigate the operationalisability of the theory of social norms provided by Cristina Bicchieri. In Chapter 1 I critically summarise a main theme from recent literature and distinguish the accounts of norms based on social preferences from accounts based on social structure. I also summarise different theorists’ accounts of social norms as a social construct, in addition to surveying some issues scholars have raised empirically. Chapter 2 reviews the conceptual (...) analysis of social norms by Bicchieri as a social structure based account. Bicchieri’s conceptual analysis introduces three kinds of condition for norm identification. I review these in detail, and suggest hypothesis testing corresponding to each kind of condition. Chapter 2 briefly analyses a critical problem for Bicchieri’s theory. Chapter 3 provides philosophical background that supports the intentional concepts applied in Bicchieri’s analysis of social norms. I suggest that the Dennettian account of Intentional Stance is the best philosophical framework for Bicchieri’s account of social norms. I also argue that Revealed Preference Theory from economics is an application of the Intentional Stance. I conjecture that adopting the Intentional Stance and applying Revealed Preference Theory to empirical data can allow for improved operationalisation of Bicchieri’s conceptual analysis. In Chapter 4 I provide critical review of some key experimental work by Bicchieri and co-authors applying her conceptual analysis of social norms. I then provide a critical review of a widely used toolbox from the current economic literature for norm elicitation. Then I introduce a more rigorous experimental protocol for investigating social norms understood following Bicchieri’s analysis. The toolbox suggested in my thesis addresses limitations identified in Bicchieri’s empirical work. Chapter 5 presents design of the experiment administered as the core element of the thesis. Chapter 6 shows and analyses the results from the experiments described in Chapter 5. It also introduces the statistical models used in my thesis to assess the extent to which Bicchieri’s analyses successfully guides experimental identification of social norms. Chapter 7 offers concluding theoretical reflections, and discusses possible extensions of the research presented in this thesis. (shrink)

The programmatic statement put forward in von Wright's last works on deontic logic introduces the perspective of logical pragmatics, which has been formally explicated here and extended so to include the role of norm-recipient as well as the role of norm-giver. Using the translation function from the language of deontic logic to the language of set-theoretical approach, the connection has been established between the deontic postulates, on one side, and the perfection properties of the norm-set and the counter-set, on the (...) other side. In the study of conditions of rational norm-related activities it has been shown that diverse dynamic second-order norms related to the concept of the consistency norm-system hold: -- the norm-giver ought to restore ``classical'' consistency by revising an inconsistent system, -- the norm-recipient ought to preserve an inconsistent system by revision of its logic so that inconsistency does not imply destruction of the system. Dialetheic deontic logic of Priest is a suitable logic for the purpose since it preserves other perfection properties of the system. (shrink)