The main goal of this study is to develop a conceptual framework meant (a) to present the essential traits of persuasion, (b) to explain resistance to persuasion (mainly when the persuader tries to shape, reinforce, or change an attitudinal response), and (c) to provide a feasible strategy to overcome the coping behaviors associated with resistance to persuasion. Defined as the communication process in which “someone makes other people believe or decide to do something, especially by (...) giving them reasons why they should do it, or asking them many times to do it”, persuasion ensures a noncoercive social control by shaping, reinforcing, or changing target audience’s cognitions, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Persuasion involves volitional behaviors (that are inextricably intertwined with spontaneous, impulsive, mindless, or compulsive behaviors) and a significant cognitive load. Even if persuasion does not elicit negative feelings like various shortcuts to compliance (coercion, bribery, deception, manipulation of the dominant instincts, etc.), it generates ipso facto resistance to persuasion. Public relations specialists and other communication professionals can reduce or cope with resistance to persuasion by creating a low-pressure persuasion context, using evidential reasons, and following evidential rules. (shrink)

Constitutional democracies unilaterally enact the laws that regulate immigration to their territories. When are would-be migrants to a constitutional democracy morally justified in breaching such laws? Receiving states also typically enact laws that require their existing citizens to participate in the implementation of immigration restrictions. When are the individual citizens of a constitutional democracy morally justified in breaching such laws? In this article, I take up these questions concerning the justifiability of noncompliance with immigration law, focusing on the case of (...) nonviolent – or mere – noncompliance. Dissenting from Javier Hidalgo’s view, I argue that the injustice of an immigration law is insufficient to make mere noncompliance justified. Instead, I contend that only if an immigration law lacks legitimate authority are individuals justified in breaching it, since the subjects of an institution with legitimate authority are under a content-independent moral duty to comply with its rules. I further argue that a constitutional democracy’s regimes of law regulating immigration and requiring its citizens’ participation in implementing these regulations have legitimate authority. Nevertheless, when a particular immigration law is egregiously unjust, its legitimacy is defeated. (shrink)

People seem more divided than ever before over social and political issues, entrenched in their existing beliefs and unwilling to change them. Empirical research on mechanisms driving this resistance to belief change has focused on a limited set of well-known, charged, contentious issues and has not accounted for deliberation over reasons and arguments in belief formation prior to experimental sessions. With a large, heterogeneous sample (N = 3,001), we attempt to overcome these existing problems, and we investigate the causes (...) and consequences of resistance to belief change for five diverse and less contentious socio-political issues. After participants chose initially to support or oppose a given socio-political position, they were provided with reasons favoring their chosen position (affirming reasons), reasons favoring the other, unchosen position (conflicting reasons), or all reasons for both positions (reasons for both sides). Our results indicate that participants are more likely to stick with their initial decisions than to change them no matter which reasons are considered, and that this resistance to belief change is likely due to a motivated, biased evaluation of the reasons to support their initial beliefs (prior-belief bias). More specifically, they rated affirming reasons more favorably than conflicting reasons—even after accounting for reported prior knowledge about the issue, the novelty of the reasons presented, and the reported strategy used to make the initial decision. In many cases, participants who did not change their positions tended to become more confident in the superiority of their positions after considering many reasons for both sides. (shrink)

I attempt to adjudicate the disagreement between those who seek to reconceptualize disability as mere difference and their opponents. I do so by reviewing a central conviction motivating the resistance, concerning the relationship between disability and well-being. I argue that the conviction depends on further considerations about the costs and extent of change involved in accommodating individuals with a particular disability trait. I conclude by considering three pay-offs of this clarification.

This paper rehabilitates the Stoic conception of blending from the ground up, by freeing the Stoic conception of body from three interpretive presuppositions. First, the twin hylomorphic presuppositions that where there is body there is matter, and that where there is reason or quality there is an incorporeal. Then, the atomistic presupposition that body is absolutely full and rigid, and the attendant notion that resistance (antitupia) must be ricochet. I argue that once we clear away these presuppositions about body, (...) the foundations of Stoic corporealism fall into place. Body is fundamental (not hylomorphic). The two fundamental principles (archai) are bodies: divine active reason (logos) and passive matter (hulē); and these two bodies are two, not matter and form all over again, nor actual and potential, but agent and patient. The independence of the two archai is no threat to the unity of the cosmos, however, because the Stoic theory of body allows for the complete coextension of the archai. The hylomorphic thinker rightly asks, what relation could be tighter than that of the wax and its shape? The Stoic replies: a causal relation, the interaction of agent and patient completely coextended in a through and through blend. (shrink)

Today the relationship between food and cities is revitalizing urban areas, as food production practices transform locales one block and one neighborhood at a time. The key catalysts of this transformation include the commitment to address the root causes of inequalities within food systems and the desire to increase local control over food systems that have been increasingly industrialized and globalized. These goals, encapsulated by the terms “food justice” and “food sovereignty,” play major roles in guiding local food initiatives in (...) cities today. This study explores how justice-oriented urban agriculture projects transform city contexts in ways that reduce regulatory barriers – barriers that, when left in place, could perpetuate systems of oppression. The study ends with the argument that, by removing regulatory barriers, urban agriculture projects are transforming cityscapes in ways that cultivate justice at the system level. (shrink)

The list of the seven capital vices include sloth, envy, avarice, vainglory, gluttony, lust, and anger. While many of the seven vices are more complex than they appear at first glance, one stands out as more obscure and out of place than all the others, at least for a contemporary audience: the vice of sloth. Our puzzlement over sloth is heightened by sloth's inclusion on the traditional lists of the seven capital vices and the seven deadly sins from the fourth (...) century onward. For hundreds of years, these seven vices were distinguished as moral and spiritual failings of serious and perennial importance. By contrast, recent studies, as well as the popular imagination, typically associate sloth with, or even define it as, laziness. But is laziness in fact a moral failing? (shrink)

In his book, "Prejudice", Endre Begby offers a novel and engaging account of the epistemology of prejudice which challenges some of the standard assumptions that have so far guided the recent discussion on the topic. One of Begby's central arguments against the standard view of prejudice, according to which a prejudiced person necessarily displays an epistemically culpable resistance to counterevidence, is that, qua stereotype judgments, prejudices can be flexible and rationally maintained upon encountering many disconfirming instances. By expanding on (...) Begby's analysis, I argue that, given the variety of truth conditions for true generic statements, the generic form of stereotype judgements can sometimes make prejudice extremely resistant to encounters with statistical facts about the distribution of the property among members of a certain group. At the same time, I argue that a more careful consideration of the generic form of stereotypes also allows us to recognize that evidence about how many members of the kind instantiate a property is not the only type of evidence which could disconfirm a prejudice. Evidence of no explanatory relation between a kind and a property should also have a direct effect on a prejudicial belief. For this reason, things may not look as dim for the standard view of prejudice in assessing paradigmatic instances of prejudicial beliefs as irrationally resistant to evidence. (shrink)

The majority of philosophers of religion, at least since Plantinga’s reply to Mackie’s logical problem of evil, agree that it is logically possible for an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God to exist who permits some of the evils we see in the actual world. This is conceivable essentially because of the possible world known as heaven. That is, heaven is an imaginable world in a similar way that logically possible scenarios in any fiction are imaginable. However, like some of the (...) imaginable stories in fiction where we are asked to envision an immoral act as a moral one, we resist. I will employ the works of Tamar Gendler on imaginative resistance and Keith Buhler’s Virtue Ethics approach to moral imaginative resistance and apply them to the conception of heaven and the problem of evil. While we can imagine God as an omnibenevolent parent permitting evil to allow for morally significant freedom and the rewards in heaven or punishments in hell (both possible worlds), we should not. This paper is not intended to be a refutation of particular theodicies; rather it provides a very general groundwork connecting issues of horrendous suffering and imaginative resistance to heaven as a possible world. (shrink)

A combined psychological-epistemological study of the blocks that stand in the way of the human recognition of the sentience and legal rights of non-human animals. Originally published in the Lewis and Clark law journal, Animal Law, and subsequently translated into German and into Portuguese.

Rorty finds that my own appropriation of Spinoza toward a re-conception of ideology critique falls short, however, by (a) failing to “take Spinoza’s mind-body identity seriously” and by (b) advocating a “battle of ideas” rather than an enlargement of perspective. She presents an illuminating analysis of how, according to Spinoza, dichotomies serve as blunt provisional tools that become counterproductive once understanding is reached. She suggests that I preserve certain distinctions to the detriment of my own liberation project, such as the (...) distinction between the truth of an idea and its persuasive force. As part of criticism (a), she admonishes me for neglecting the importance of material conditions, and with criticism (b) she suggests that the imagery of battle misconstrues the project of becoming rational and the power of truth. Below I will try to show that we do not disagree about either the importance of material conditions for a project of political transformation or the identity of mind and body in substance. We do disagree, however, about the character of ideology critique. I will offer an example, in an attempt to demonstrate why it is neither a distortion of Spinoza nor strategically counterproductive to understand the project of thinking as an effort of what I call “resistant reconstruction” within the attribute of thought. (shrink)

In this paper, we tackle the widely held view that practice-oriented approaches to ethics are conservative, preserving the moral status quo, and, in particular, that they do not promote any change in our dealings with animals or formulate clear principles that help us to achieve such change. We shall challenge this view with reference to Wittgensteinian ethics. As a first step, we show that moral thought and action rest on basic moral certainties like: equals are to be treated equally and (...) unequals unequally. We then explore the relations between this insight and the notion of the difficulty of reality elaborated by Cora Diamond. Our goal is to show that a Wittgensteinian-Diamondian approach to animal ethics is not necessarily morally conservative. Indeed, it offers a profound practice-oriented approach to animal ethics that is capable of promoting change in human dealings with animals because it is compatible with radical critique. (shrink)

Can one refute Berkeleyan phenomenalism by arguing that sensory objects seem mind-independent, and that, according to Berkeley, experience is to be taken at face value? Relying on Mackie’s recent discussion of the issue, I argue, first, that phenomenalism cannot be straightforwardly refuted by relying on perceptual or bodily experience of mind-independence together with the truthfulness of experience. However, I maintain, second that phenomenalism can be indirectly refuted by appealing to the bodily experience of resistance. Such experience presents us with (...) the causal activity of the resisting physical object. If experience is truthful, as the phenomenalist has it, physical objects are causally active. But then their effects no longer depend on our perceiving them, on pain of overdetermination. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s theory of justifiable resistance to authority is complex and, at times, appears to conflict with his own practice, if not with itself. He distinguishes between the role of authority in “public” and “private” contexts. In private—e.g., when a person is under contract to do a specific job or accepts a social contract with one’s government—resistance is forbidden; external behavior must be governed by policy or law. In contexts involving the public use of reason, on the other (...) hand—e.g., when a person is faced with a moral decision or is engaged in a philosophical dispute—the freedom of conscience sometimes requires resistance, especially in cases where other persons inappropriately attempt to usurp authority over matters that are rightfully up to the individual to decide. In texts such as Perpetual Peace, Kant looks forward to a political situation wherein no political resistance (e.g., in the form of war) would be necessary. Yet in Metaphysics of Morals, he argues that a citizen never has the right to revolt against one’s government, suggesting we must cooperate even with war. On a personal level, Kant openly praised both the American and the French revolutions; yet when his own writings on religion were deemed by the censor to have come into conflict with the king’s edict, Kant failed to resist the (arguably unjust) authority; instead, he gave up his (apparently public) right to free philosophical expression, promising never to write or speak on religion again during the king’s reign. I shall argue that a key to resolving these tensions lies in the principle that universities must promote a healthy, public “conflict” between philosophers and all “private” employments of reason. The only ground for disallowing private resistance, therefore, is the underlying presence of genuine philosophical resistance. (shrink)

In this chapter, DeYoung explores the vice of sloth and how its traditional conception differs from popular thought. Pulling from the tradition of the Desert Fathers, Augustine, and Aquinas, DeYoung reconnects sloth to its spiritual roots to see how this vice detracts from love.

This article discusses twelve reasons that we must teach about the 1945 American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As with Holocaust studies, we must teach this material even though it is both emotionally and intellectually difficult—in spite of our feelings of repugnance and/or grief, and our concerns regarding students’ potential distress (“tertiary trauma”). To handle such material effectively, we should keep in mind ten objectives: 1) to expand students' knowledge about the subject along with the victims’ experience of it; (...) 2) to develop teachers’ awareness of and comfort with it; 3) to help students cope with this knowledge so they are not traumatized themselves; 4) to make sure students don't take refuge in callousness, inappropriate humor, blaming the victim, or despair; 5) to enable students to teach others about the event(s); 6) to enable students to use their increased knowledge and self-reflection individually and as part of the national dialogue; 7) to deepen and “complexify” the conversation on the bombings; 8) to develop supports for teachers and students throughout this process;” 9) to reintegrate the objective with the subjective, recognizing that emotion may be appropriate to some learning; 10) to instigate a dialogue allowing teachers and students to continue to investigate this and related topics. (shrink)

Background: Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a hematopoietic stem cell disease, associated with a reciprocal translocation between chromosomes 9 and chromosome 22, lead to the formation of the BCRABL fusion gene (Philadelphia chromosome). This fusion gene is believed to play golden role in the initial development of CML with constitutive tyrosine kinase activation. Successful use of tyrosine kinase inhibiters (TKIs) play a role in improve survival and increase prevalence of CML, but un fortunately mutations in the BCR-ABL kinase domain may (...) cause, or contribute to increase, resistance to TKIs in CML patients. . Objective: This study was designed to assess the association of five most common BCR-ABL kinase domain mutations (T315I, M351T, E255K, M244V and E255V) with resistance state of CML patients on TKIs in Iraqi Middle Euphrates region. Patients and methods: A retrospective case-control study in which 85 patients with chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase (45 patients as cases group and 40 patient as control group) were selected from three hemato-oncology centers in middle Euphrates in Iraq during the period from January 2016 till October 2016 out of a total of 240 CML patients (108 male and 132 female) who were registered during this period in these three centers and all patients on TKI (Imatinib and Nilotinib). Venous blood sampling done for BCRABL kinase domain mutations screening. Results: four patients from cases group (4/45) were carriers of one of five selected ABL kinase domain mutations and no one of control group. T315I mutation was detected in 3/45 (6.6 %) of resistant patients, with a significant risk association to develop resistance to TKI therapy (odd ratio and C. I.) (6.67, 0.3340 - 133.2255). E255V was detected in 1/45 (2.2 %) and also had significant risk association to develop resistance to TKIs (odd ratio, C.I.) (2.73, 0.1081 -68.9424). No one of these mutations had significance correlation with demographic or hematological features. M351T, E255K and M244V were not detected in any one of our study groups CML patients. Conclusions: T315I and E255V among five ABL kinas domain mutations were detected in our CML patients with resistance to TKIs. All of them may play a role in development variable degree of resistance to first and second generation TKIs weather primary or secondary.T315I mutation is most common mutation within BCR-ABL domain kinase gene. (shrink)

Beliefs can be resistant to evidence. Nonetheless, the orthodox view in epistemology analyzes beliefs as evidence-responsive attitudes. I address this tension by deploying analytical tools on capacities and masking to show that the cognitive science of evidence-resistance supports rather than undermines the orthodox view. In doing so, I argue for the claim that belief requires the capacity for evidence-responsiveness. More precisely, if a subject believes that p, then they have the capacity to rationally respond to evidence bearing on p. (...) Because capacities for evidence-responsiveness are fallible and may be masked, beliefs can be held in the face of counter-evidence. Indeed, I will argue that our best science of belief supports the claim that evidence-resistant beliefs result from masks on evidence-responsiveness capacities. This account of belief not only allows for resistance to evidence, but provides us with a framework for describing and explaining actual cases of evidence-resistance. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that Socrates is a cognitivist about emotions, but then ask how the beliefs that constitute emotions can come into being, and why those beliefs seem more resistant to change through rational persuasion than other beliefs.

Imagine that you are a farmer living in Kenya. Though you work hard to sell your produce to foreign markets you find yourself unable to do so because affluent countries subsidize their own farmers and erect barriers to trade, like tariffs, thereby undercutting you in the marketplace. As a consequence of their actions you languish in poverty despite your very best efforts. Or, imagine that you are a peasant whose livelihood depends on working in the fields in Indonesia and you (...) are forcibly displaced from your land by a biofuels company because corrupt government officials have stolen the land and sold it to the company. Or, suppose that you work on the coast of Bangladesh but find that increasingly you are unable to cope with salination resulting from sealevel rise – a product of anthropogenic climate change. These, I believe, are cases of global injustice. My question is: What are those who bear the brunt of global injustice entitled to do to secure their, and other people’s, entitlements? Often people focus on the duties of the affluent to respect and uphold the rights of the disadvantaged. This is understandable. But there is a striking omission. Rarely do people analyze, or even mention, what those who lack their entitlements are entitled to do to secure their own rights. This is my focus in this paper. More specifically, I examine what agents are entitled to do to change the underlying social, economic and political practices and structures in a more just direction. (shrink)

The very existence of society depends on the ability of its members to influence formatively the beliefs, desires, and actions of their fellows. In every sphere of social life, powerful human agents (whether individuals or institutions) tend to use coercion as a favorite shortcut to achieving their aims without taking into consideration the non-violent alternatives or the negative (unintended) consequences of their actions. This propensity for coercion is manifested in the doxastic sphere by attempts to shape people’s beliefs (and doubts) (...) while ignoring the essential characteristics of these doxastic states. I argue that evidential persuasion is a better route to influence people’s beliefs than doxastic coercion. Doxastic coercion perverts the belief-forming mechanism and undermines the epistemic and moral faculties both of coercers and coercees. It succeeds sporadically and on short-term. Moreover, its pseudo doxastic effects tend to disappear once the use of force ceases. In contrast to doxastic coercion, evidential persuasion produces lasting correct beliefs in accordance with proper standards of evidence. It helps people to reach the highest possible standards of rationality and morality. Evidential persuasion is based on the principles of symmetry and reciprocity in that it asks all persuaders to use for changing the beliefs of others only those means they used in forming their own beliefs respecting the freedom of will and assuming the standard of rationality. The arguments in favor of evidential persuasion have a firm theoretical basis that includes a conceptual clarification of the essential traits of beliefs. Belief is treated as a hypercomplex system governed by Leibniz’s law of continuity and the principle of self-organization. It appears to be a mixture consisting of a personal propositional attitude and physical objects and processes. The conceptual framework also includes a typology of believers according to the standards of evidence they assume. In this context, I present a weak version of Clifford’ ethical imperative. In the section dedicated to the prerequisites for changing beliefs, I show how doxastic agents can infuse premeditated or planned changes in the flow of endogenous changes in order to shape certain beliefs in certain desired forms. The possibility of changing some beliefs in a planned manner is correlated with a feedback doxastic (macro-mechanism) that produces a reaction when it is triggered by a stimulus. In relation with the two routes to influence beliefs, a response mechanism is worth taking into consideration – a mechanism governed to a significant extent by human conscience and human will, that appears to be complex, acquired, relatively detached from visceral or autonomic information processing, and highly variable in reactions. Knowing increasingly better this doxastic mechanism, we increase our chances to use evidential persuasion as an effective (although not time-efficient) method to mold people’s beliefs. (shrink)

Every day, millions of people use mobile phones, play video games and surf the Internet. It is thus important to determine how technologies like these change what people think and how they behave. This is a central issue in the study of persuasive technologies. ‘Persuasive technologies’—henceforth ‘PTs’—are digital technologies, such as mobile apps, video games and virtual reality systems, that are deployed for the explicit purpose of changing attitudes and/or behaviours, without using coercion, deception or extreme forms of psychological manipulation (...) (such as hypnosis or indoctrination), and without exerting a direct (not psychologically mediated) physical effect on the brain. Typically PTs employ strategies such as prompting, information provision and encouragement... (shrink)

An important recent distinction in the empirical literature about self-control is between resisting and avoiding temptations. While we have evidence that avoiding temptations is the more efficient method of the two, philosophers have focused almost exclusively on resisting temptations. The aim of this paper is to examine what the ability to avoid temptations depends on and argue that it depends primarily on how fragmented one’s mind is: on the inconsistencies in one’s mental setup. The fragmentation of mind requires a significant (...) amount of mental effort to conceal from oneself and this leads to a weakened ability to resist temptations. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, in addition to having an obligation to resist the oppression of others, people have an obligation to themselves to resist their own oppression. This obligation to oneself, I argue, is grounded in a Kantian duty of self-respect.

Through enacting what she refers to as “a postmodernism of resistance,” bell hooks works out and works through a methodology of transgressive thought, through a radical rhetoric of feminist ideology. When mouthed, this radical rhetoric is significantly inaugurated in part by the well-known text, Ain’t I A Woman, but is also launched in particular ways by hooks’ lesser-known 1983 dissertation on Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Sula. What becomes integral to hooks’ transgressive thought is a critique of how (...) black womanhood attends to keeping a hold on life, transgressively confronting the interdisciplinarity of white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy. (shrink)

Linda Martín Alcoff and others have emphasised that the discipline of philosophy suffers from a ‘demographic problem’. The persistence of this problem is partly the consequence of various forms of resistance to efforts to address the demographic problem. Such resistance is complex and takes many forms and could be responded to in different ways. In this paper, I argue that our attempts to explain and understand the phenomenon of resistance should use a kind of explanatory pluralism that, (...) following Quassim Cassam, I call multidimensionalism. I describe four general kinds of resistance and consider varying explanations, focusing on those focused on vices and social structures. I argue that vice-explanations and structural- explanations are both mutually consistent and mutually entailing. If so, there is no need to choose between vice explanations and structural explanations or any other kinds of explanation. We can and should be multidimensionalists: using many together is better. (shrink)

According to a prominent argument, citizens in unjust societies have a duty to resist injustice. The moral and political principles that ground the duty to obey the law in just or nearly just conditions, also ground the duty to resist in unjust conditions. This argument is often applied to a variety of unjust conditions. In this essay, I critically examine this argument, focusing on conditions involving institutionally entrenched and socially normalised injustice. In such conditions, the issue of citizens’ duties to (...) resist is complicated. I conclude by considering how my discussions may clarify a contemporary problem about engaging in resistance to aid potential migrants who have been turned away by states in accordance with widely accepted rules. (shrink)

: In this essay, I consider the question of whether women have an obligation to confront men who sexually harass them. A reluctance to be guilty of blaming the victims of harassment, coupled with other normative considerations that tell in favor of the unfairness of this sort of obligation, might make us think that women never have an obligation to confront their harassers. But I argue that women do have this obligation, and it is not overridden by many of the (...) considerations that can override other obligations to confront wrongdoers. (shrink)

The irony of the rejection of the sex/gender distinction is that it renders sociology per se an impossible enterprise. For it is my submission that, contra Hood-Williams (1996) and others, the biological and the social constitute distinct, irreducible levels of reality: to conflate (in a ‘downwards’ or ‘upwards’ direction) the two levels is immediately to render analysis of their relative interplay at best intractable. It is indeed arguable that Hood-Williams is not so much concerned with (rightly) rejecting the so-called ‘additive’ (...) approach to the biological and the social where the biological base is seen a priori as immutable, but more fundamentally with rejecting the necessary dualism of nature and culture (ie the biological and the social). In contradistinction, a realist defence of the sex/gender distinction will be made, involving critical reference to various major writers in the field and offering a brief but tentative discussion of the provenance of gender. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Prudence or Oneiromancy? A Parody of Didacticism Preaching to the Converted The Asymmetry of “Imaginative Resistance” Virtue Ethics and Gossip Qualifications Positive Views.

Many of us hold false beliefs about matters that are relevant to public policy such as climate change and the safety of vaccines. What can be done to rectify this situation? This question can be read in two ways. According to the descriptive reading, it concerns which methods will be effective in persuading people that their beliefs are false. According to the normative reading, it concerns which methods we are permitted to use in the service of persuading people. Some effective (...) methods—a programme of brainwashing, say—would not be permissible. In this paper I compare “methods of rational persuasion” with what you might call “marketing methods” such as how one frames the problem of climate change. My aim is to show that “marketing methods” are preferable to “methods of rational persuasion”. My argument has two parts. First, I argue that the evidence suggests that “marketing methods” are more effective in persuading people to change their minds. Second, I argue that “marketing methods” are an acceptable response to the normative question. (shrink)

There are many cries to resist particular objects (e.g. inequality in the workplace) but very little is said concerning the nature of resistance. As such, this project begins by mapping the concept of resistance. Next, I develop several tools that allow us to distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable instances of resistance. I then argue that many versions of “the problem of evil” are actually instances of resistance. As such, these versions of the problem of evil are (...) subject to the tools of evaluation developed here. And, as it turns out, many instances of the problem of evil are instances of unreasonable resistance. I end the project by discussing the intersection between resistance and faith, arguing that faith (and the resistance it generates) can be perfectly rational while also providing a kind of response to the relevant problems of evil. (shrink)

This article argues that the aesthetics of the oppressed—a series of artistic practices elaborated by Augusto Boal (1931-2009) that comprises the theatre of the oppressed, the rainbow of desire technique, and legislative theatre—utilizes art in order to resist epistemic injustice and promote democratic freedom.

The problem of imaginative resistance holds interest for aestheticians, literary theorists, ethicists, philosophers of mind, and epistemologists. We present a somewhat opinionated overview of the philosophical discussion to date. We begin by introducing the phenomenon of imaginative resistance. We then review existing responses to the problem, giving special attention to recent research directions. Finally, we consider the philosophical significance that imaginative resistance has—or, at least, is alleged to have—for issues in moral psychology, theories of cognitive architecture, and (...) modal epistemology. (shrink)

Neoliberalism has installed an unending competitive struggle in the economy. Within this context activists have pushed for a reappraisal of laziness and inactivity as forms of resistance. This idea has been picked up by Maurizio Lazzarato and Giorgio Agamben in different ways. I start with explaining the former’s appraisal of laziness as a release of potentialities unrealizable under financial capitalism. Lazzarato’s appraisal of laziness however resembles neoliberal theories of innovation, because both share the conceptual persona of a subject whose (...) potentialities exceed the current status quo. Potentiality is thus not an unambiguous antagonist of capitalism, as Lazzarato suggests. In order to adequately oppose neoliberalism, Lazzarato should question the role of potentiality in capitalism. Agamben has undertaken such a project. In the second part of the essay I consequently argue that Agamben’s philosophy of inactivity as impotentiality is able to circumvent neoliberalism and the society of the spectacle. (shrink)

In this chapter, we evaluate the politically generative dynamic of urban space. Notably, we put forward the notion of the ‘multiplier effect’ of the urban, referring to its ingrained tendency to multiply resistance to oppression and violence being exerted against subaltern groups and minorities and, in doing so, to turn this multiplied resistance into an active force of social change. We, therefore, look at the twofold valence of ‘resistance’: negative and affirmative. Resistance initially takes form as (...) a defensive response to oppression and violence. When this happens, the urban becomes the living platform for a multiplying dynamic of encounter and, potentially, of inter-group solidarity, thus laying the foundations for a cooperative – rather than competitive, as in neoliberal rationality, or inimical, as in national-populist reason – way of ‘being together’. After having developed this argument against the backdrop of the women’s movement in Tehran and the urban disobedience to anti-immigration policies in Italy, our chapter concludes by reflecting on the multiplier effect of urban resistance within the current context of national revanchism. (shrink)

Readers of fictions sometimes resist taking certain kinds of claims to be true according to those fictions, even when they appear explicitly or follow from applying ordinary principles of interpretation. This "imaginative resistance" is often taken to be significant for a range of philosophical projects outside aesthetics, including giving us evidence about what is possible and what is impossible, as well as the limits of conceivability, or readers' normative commitments. I will argue that this phenomenon cannot do the theoretical (...) work that has been asked of it. Resistance to taking things to be fictional is often best explained by unfamiliarity with kinds of fictions than any representational, normative, or cognitive limits. With training and experience, any understandable proposition can be made fictional and be taken to be fictional by readers. This requires a new understanding both of imaginative resistance, and what it might be able to tell us about topics like conceivability or the bounds of possibility. (shrink)

The present paper has two, interrelated objectives. The first is to analyze the different senses in which arguments are characterized as persuasive in the extant writings of Sextus Empiricus. The second is to examine the Pyrrhonist’s therapeutic use of arguments in the discussion with his Dogmatic rivals – more precisely, to determine the sense and basis of Sextus’ distinction between therapeutic arguments that appear weighty and therapeutic arguments that appear weak in their persuasiveness.

Narrative representations can change our moral actions and thoughts, for better or for worse. In this article, I develop a theory of fictions' capacity for moral education and moral corruption that is fully sensitive to the diversity of fictions. Specifically, I argue that the way a fiction influences our moral actions and thoughts importantly depends on its genre. This theory promises new insights into practical ethical debates over pornography and media violence.

Imaginative resistance refers to a phenomenon in which people resist engaging in particular prompted imaginative activities. On one influential diagnosis of imaginative resistance, the systematic difficulties are due to these particular propositions’ discordance with real-world norms. This essay argues that this influential diagnosis is too simple. While imagination is indeed by default constrained by real-world norms during narrative engagement, it can be freed with the power of genre conventions and expectations.

What reasons stand in favor of (or against) violent resistance to oppression? I distinguish two kinds of normative reasons that bear relevantly in such a practical deliberation. I argue that in addition to reasons of impartial morality, victims’ personal projects and relationships may also provide reasons for (or against) violent resistance. Moreover, there is no guarantee that conflicts will not occur between such reasons. Thus, some acts of violent resistance may arise from situations of radical choice in (...) which impartial moral reasons and personal reasons pull the agent in opposite directions. Regardless of what we ultimately think agents facing such decisions ought to do all things considered, recognizing such conflicts is crucial for understanding the circumstances that give rise to violence and for better sympathizing with victims who are pushed to such extreme modes of resistance. (shrink)

We experience resistance when we are engaging with fictional works which present certain (for example, morally objectionable) claims. But in virtue of what properties do sentences trigger this ‘imaginative resistance’? I argue that while most accounts of imaginative resistance have looked for semantic properties in virtue of which sentences trigger it, this is unlikely to give us a coherent account, because imaginative resistance is a pragmatic phenomenon. It works in a way very similar to Paul Grice's (...) widely analysed ‘conversational implicature’. (shrink)

This paper aims at resolving a puzzle about the persuasiveness of bootstrapping. On the one hand, bootstrapping is not a persuasive method of settling questions about the reliability of a source. On the other hand, our beliefs that our sense apparatus is reliable is based on other empirically formed beliefs, that is, they are acquired via a presumably complex bootstrapping process. I will argue that when we doubt the reliability of a source, bootstrapping is not a persuasive method for coming (...) to believe that the source is reliable. However, when being initially unaware of a source and its reliability, as in the case of forming beliefs about our sense apparatus, bootstrapping can be eventually persuasive. (shrink)

Delmas successfully guides us to reconsider the traditional “wisdom” of civil disobedience. She also makes a strong case for expanding the notion of political obligation, which has been narrowly construed as mere obedience, to encompass a duty to resist. Principled disobedience, either civil or uncivil, includes a wide range of tools to tackle different forms of injustice, such as education campaigns, peaceful protests, graffiti street art, whistleblowing, vigilante self-defense, and political riots. We may question to what extent the violent disobedience (...) can be justified, as it is always good to be careful about violence that risks harming the innocent, but other forms of civil or uncivil disobedience may rightly be demanded in realistic circumstances. As I see it, these, along with the general warning to not unwittingly serve the status quo by dismissing social movements merely because of “incivility” and the proposal of the civic virtues of vigilance and open-mindedness, are significant contributions to the literature and could also benefit a politically interested general audience greatly. (shrink)

In contemporary paternalism literature, persuasion is commonly not considered paternalistic. Moreover, paternalism is typically understood to be problematic either because it is seen as coercive, or because of the insult of the paternalist considering herself superior. In this paper, I argue that doctors who persuade patients act paternalistically. Specifically, I argue that trying to persuade a patient (here understood as aiming for the patient to consent to a certain treatment, although he prefers not to) should be differentiated from trying (...) to convince him (here understood as aiming for the patient to want the treatment) and recommending (the doctor merely providing her professional opinion). These three forms of influence are illustrated by summaries of video-recorded hospital encounters. While convincing and recommending are generally not paternalistic, I argue that persuasion is what I call communicative paternalism and that it is problematic for two reasons. First, the patient’s preferences are dismissed as unimportant. Second, the patient might wind up undergoing treatment against his preferences. This does not mean that persuasion always should be avoided, but it should not be undertaken lightly, and doctors should be aware of the fine line between non-paternalism and paternalism. The fact that my analysis of paternalism differs from traditional accounts does not imply that I deem these to be wrong, but rather that paternalism should be considered as a more multi-faceted concept than previous accounts allow for. (shrink)

Psychological studies on fictional persuasion demonstrate that being engaged with fiction systematically affects our beliefs about the real world, in ways that seem insensitive to the truth. This threatens to undermine the widely accepted view that beliefs are essentially regulated in ways that tend to ensure their truth, and may tempt various non-doxastic interpretations of the belief-seeming attitudes we form as a result of engaging with fiction. I evaluate this threat, and argue that it is benign. Even if the (...) relevant attitudes are best seen as genuine beliefs, as I think they often are, their lack of appropriate sensitivity to the truth does not undermine the essential tie between belief and truth. To this end, I shall consider what I take to be the three most plausible models of the cognitive mechanisms underlying fictional persuasion, and argue that on none of these models does fictional persuasion undermine the essential truth-tie. (shrink)

In Plato’s Laws, the Athenian Stranger maintains that law should consist of both persuasion (πειθώ) and compulsion (βία) (IV.711c, IV.718b-d, and IV.722b). Persuasion can be achieved by prefacing the laws with preludes (προοίμια), which make the citizens more eager to obey the laws. Although scholars disagree on how to interpret the preludes’ persuasion, they agree that the preludes instill true beliefs and give citizens good reasons for obeying the laws. In this paper I refine this account of (...) the preludes by arguing that the primary purpose of the preludes is to motivate correct action, and that for citizens who lack rational-governance this is achieved via useful false beliefs. That is to say, in many cases, the prelude functions as a “noble lie” (γενναῖον ψεῦδος). (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to inquire into the relationship between persuasive definition and common knowledge (propositions generally accepted and not subject to dispute in a discussion). We interpret the gap between common knowledge and persuasive definition (PD) in terms of potential disagreements: PDs are conceived as implicit arguments to win a potential conflict. Persuasive definitions are analyzed as arguments instantiating two argumentation schemes, argument from classification and argument from values, and presupposing a potential disagreement. The argumentative structure of (...) PDs reveals different levels of disagreement, and different pos-sibilities of resolving the conflict or causing dialogical deadlock. (shrink)