It is sometimes said that certain hard moral choices constitute tragic moral dilemmas in which no available course of action is justifiable, and so the agent is blameworthy whatever she chooses. This paper criticizes a certain approach to the debate about moral dilemmas and considers the metaethical implications of the criticisms. The approach in question has been taken by many advocates as well as opponents of moral dilemmas who believe that analysing the emotional response of the agent is the key (...) to the debate about moral dilemmas. The metaethical position this approach is most naturally associated with is sentimentalism. Sentimentalists claim that evaluation, and in particular moral evaluation, crucially depends on human sentiment. This paper is not concerned with the question whether moral dilemmas exist, but rather with emotion-based arguments used on both sides of the debate. The first aim of the paper is to show that emotion-based arguments by friends or foes of moral dilemmas cannot garner support from sentimentalism. The second aim is to show that this constitutes a serious problem for sentimentalism. (shrink)

If the task of constitutional theory is to set out a language in which the discourse of constitutional law may be grounded, a question of the utmost importance is how this terminology is created, defined and interpreted. In this groundbreaking new work, András Jakab maps out and analyses the grammar and vocabulary on which the core European traditions of constitutional theory are based. He suggests understanding key constitutional concepts as responses to historical and present day challenges experienced by European (...) societies. Drawing together a great and diverse range of literature, much of which has never before been touched upon by scholarship in the English language, Jakab reconceptualises and argues for a new understanding of European constitutional law discourse. In so doing he shines new light on what constitutes its distinctively European nature. This remarkable book is essential reading for all scholars and students of constitutional theory in Europe and beyond. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of how economic and political institutions can limit the applicability of principles of justice even in non-relational cosmopolitan conceptions. It shows that fundamental principles of justice underdetermine fair distributive shares as well as justice -based requirements. It argues that institutions partially constitute the content of justice by determining distributive shares and by resolving indeterminacies about justice -based requirements resulting from strategic interaction and disagreement. In the absence of existing institutions principles of justice might not be (...) applicable for assessing distributions or guiding individual action and institutional design. Hence, accepting a specific cosmopolitan conception of justice is insufficient to settle global distributive questions. (shrink)

A simple inductive argument shows natural languages to have infinitly many sentences, but workers in the field have uncovered clear evidence of a diverse group of ‘exceptional’ languages from Proto-Uralic to Dyirbal and most recently, Pirahã, that appear to lack recursive devices entirely. We argue that in an information-theoretic setting non-recursive natural languages appear neither exceptional nor functionally inferior to the recursive majority.

An aesthetic sense—a taste for the creation and/or appreciation of that which strikes one as, e.g., attractive or awesome—is often assumed to be a distinctively H. sapiens phenomenon. However, recent paleoanthropological research is revealing its archaeologically visible, deeper roots. The sensorimotor/perceptual and cognitive capacities underpinning aesthetic activities are a major focus of evolutionary aesthetics. Here we take a diachronic, evolutionary perspective and assess ongoing scepticism regarding whether, and to what extent, aesthetic capacity extends to our evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals. The (...) goal of this article is twofold. First, it serves as a defence of the attribution of Neanderthal aesthetic capacity by marshalling archaeological data best explained by positing a Neanderthal aesthetic sense. Second, it offers an opportunity to make progress on understanding some epistemically relevant features of the wider debate in evolutionary aesthetics. First, we outline and analyse a range of distinct ‘sceptical arguments’ derived from attitudes and claims found in the literature and broader debate that aim to dial down the case for Neanderthal aesthetic capacity. We show that these arguments not only miss their target, they divert the debate away from more compelling questions. We then consider the case for protoaesthetic capacities and sensitivities in the Acheulean stone tool industry and argue that Neanderthals likely inherited the protoaesthetic package from ancient ancestors that they shared with H. sapiens. Finally, we sketch and defend a research agenda for framing Neanderthal aesthetic niche(s) beyond H. sapiens-derived standards, which we see as a priority for future archaeological, cognitive, and philosophical research. While we resist sceptical arguments and the often-implied inferiority of Neanderthals to humans, we also deny that Neanderthals and ancient humans were indistinguishable. Understanding the differences is an important goal of interpretation, and we apply this line of reasoning to the case of aesthetics. (shrink)

Individualists hold that moral responsibility can be ascribed to single human beings only. An important collectivist objection is that individualism is morally deficient because it leaves a normative residue. Without attributing responsibility to collectives there remains a “deficit in the accounting books” (Pettit). This collectivist strategy often uses judgment aggregation paradoxes to show that the collective can be responsible when no individual is. I argue that we do not need collectivism to handle such cases because the individualist analysis leaves no (...) responsibility-deficit. Harm suffered in such situations can have only two sources. Harm is either due to culpable wrongdoing by individuals. Harm is then redressed by holding these individuals responsible. Or harm does not result from culpable wrongdoing. Such harm may have to be redressed too, but not because anyone is responsible for it. Therefore, the charge of moral insensitivity against individualist accounts can be rejected. Furthermore, in the last section of the chapter I will show that collectivist talk about moral responsibility can be used for ethically questionable purposes as well. Collectivists cannot claim the moral high ground. (shrink)

Many believe that values are crucially dependent on emotions. This paper focuses on epistemic aspects of the putative link between emotions and value by asking two related questions. First, how exactly are emotions supposed to latch onto or track values? And second, how well suited are emotions to detecting or learning about values? To answer the first question, the paper develops the heuristics-model of emotions. This approach models emotions as sui generis heuristics of value. The empirical plausibility of the heuristics-model (...) is demonstrated using evidence from experimental psychology, evolutionary anthropology and neuroscience. The model is used then to answer the second question. If emotions are indeed heuristics of value, then it follows that emotions can be an important and useful source of information about value. However, emotions will not be epistemically superior in the sense of being the highest court of appeal for the justification of axiological beliefs (the latter view is referred to as the Epistemic Dependence Thesis, or EDT for short). The paper applies the heuristics-model to celebrated cases from the philosophy of emotions literature arguing that while the heuristics-model offers a good explanation of typical patterns of emotional reactions in such cases, advocates of EDT will have a hard time accounting for these patterns. The paper also shows that the conclusions drawn from special cases generalize. The paper ends by arguing that skepticism about the metaethical significance of emotions is compatible with a commitment to the importance of emotions in first-order normative ethics. (shrink)

The idea that language is metaphoric in nature has often been suggested or stated since Vico and Rousseau. Derrida, too, often writes about metaphor and the impression he gives is that he is arguing for the metaphoric nature of both thought, whether philosophic or not, and language. Interpreters like de Man or Culler have helped to spread this impression. If it is correct, Derrida shares a pan-metaphoric view of language and whatever can be made with it. It is useful to (...) refer to Derrida's view because in my opinion he has been very good at saying what language is, even if he has been very much in the wrong in seeing no distinction between language and language use. Let us consider first what he has been good at. (shrink)

Women as individuals experience subtle discrimination regarding career development opportunities as evidenced by research on the Glass Ceiling. This paper looks at the ramifications of technology, specifically the Internet, and how it affects women’s career opportunities.

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

This paper asks whether an individual or a political community (henceforth: 'constitutional community') ever incurs moral responsibility for the requirements made by the norms of their constitution. We argue, first, that any constitutional community bears collective moral responsibility for those requirements. We reach this thesis by showing that (i) a constitutional community is a group which can take collective actions attributable to the group as a whole, and (ii) any given set of constitutional norms is the outcome of such collective (...) action. We argue, second, that ordinary citizens of constitutional communities can, in normal circumstances, bear individual moral responsibility for such norms. We reach this second thesis by showing that an average citizen bears individual responsibility for the direct outcome of her polity's collective action whenever she both (1) contributes to the collective action where she need not fear serious reprisals for not contributing, and (2) supports and reflectively endorses the outcome. (shrink)

People seem to differ in their visual search performance involving emotionally expressive faces when these expressions are seen on faces of others close to their age compared to faces of non-peers, known as the own-age bias. This study sought to compare search advantages in angry and happy faces detected on faces of adults and children on a pool of children and adults. The goals of this study were to examine the developmental trajectory of expression recognition and examine the development of (...) an OAB. Participants were asked to find a target face displaying an emotional expression among eight neutral faces. Results showed that children and adults found happy faces significantly faster than angry and fearful faces regardless of it being present on the faces of peers or non-peers. Adults responded faster to the faces of peers regardless of the expression. Furthermore, while children detected angry faces significantly faster compared to fearful ones, we found no such difference in adults. In contrast, adults detected all expressions significantly faster when they appeared on the faces of other adults compared to the faces of children. In sum, we found evidence for development in detecting facial expressions and also an age-dependent increase in OAB. We suggest that the happy face could have an advantage in visual processing due to its importance in social situations and its overall higher frequency compared to other emotional expressions. Although we only found some evidence on the OAB, using peer or non-peer faces should be a theoretical consideration of future research because the same emotion displayed on non-peers’ compared to peers’ faces may have different implications and meanings to the perceiver. (shrink)

The theory and practice of constitutionalism is tightly interwoven with references and appeals to values. However, these references and appeals frequently remain undertheorized and are seldom connected directly to philosophical theories of value. This chapter outlines some ways in which such connections might be established.

This paper argues that emotions can play an epistemic role as justifiers of evaluative beliefs. It also presents the heuristics theory of emotion as an empirically informed explanation of how emotions can play such a role and why they in practice usefully complement non-affective evaluative judgments. As such, the heuristics theory represents a form of moderate rationalism: it acknowledges that emotions can be epistemically valuable, even privileged in some sense, but denies that they would be uniquely privileged. I argue that (...) judgments and emotional responses pick out different but correlated kinds of evaluative properties and therefore emotional responses and non-affective evaluative judgments play mutually complementary rather than mutually exclusive roles. It follows that emotional responses can be legitimately drawn upon to support evaluative beliefs, but they lack supreme epistemic authority. (shrink)

Climate change has historically been an evolutionary determinant for our species, affecting both hominin evolutionary innovations and extinction rates, and the early waves of migration and expansion outside Africa. Today Homo sapiens has turned itself into a major geological force, able to cause a biodiversity crisis comparable to previous mass extinction events, shaping the Earth surface and impacting biogeochemical cycles and the climate at a global level. We argue that anthropogenically-driven climate change must be understood in terms of a monumental (...) niche construction process, generating long-term ecological inheritance and eco-evolutionary feedbacks that are putting our health and well-being and those of future generations at risk. We then list five major sources of climate change counter-intuitiveness, highlighting how evolved cognitive biases and heuristics may stand in the way of providing effective responses within tight deadlines. Drawing on our framing of the climate breakdown, we finally call for an evolutionary perspective in approaching the adaptive challenge posed by climate change: we argue that putting the brakes on a genuine self-endangering evolutionary trap ultimately depends on our counteractive niche constructing abilities, played at the level of our institutional and innovation capacity. (shrink)

Three distinct turning points (“bottleneck breakings”) in universal evolution are discussed at some length in terms of “self-reference” and (corresponding) “Reality Principles.” The first (origin and evolution of animate Nature) and second (human consciousness) are shown to necessarily precede a third one, that of Marxist philosophy. It is pointed out that while the previous two could occupy a natural (so in a sense neutral) place as parts of human science, the self-reference of Marxism, as a _social_ human phenomenon, through its (...) direct bearings on the _practice_ of society, did have a stormy history. I conclude that the fall of Bolshevism was unavoidable, and still, we might uphold our hope for a truly free society of humankind, just on the very basis of what we have learned of the fate of Marxist philosophy as such, as a _recursively evolving_ social _practice_: the freedom of humankind of its own ideological burdens (constraints). (shrink)

This paper argues that group attitudes can be assessed in terms of standards of rationality and that group-level rationality need not be due to individual-level rationality. But it also argues that groups cannot be collective epistemic agents and are not collectively responsible for collective irrationality. I show that we do not need the concept of collective epistemic agency to explain how group-level irrationality can arise. Group-level irrationality arises because even rational individuals can fail to reason about how their attitudes will (...) combine with those of others. In some cases they are morally responsible for this failure, in others they are not. Moreover, the argument for collective epistemic agency is incoherent because reasons-for-groups are ipso facto reasons-for-individual. Instead of talking about reasons-for-groups, we should therefore distinguish between self-regarding reasons and group-regarding reasons. Both kinds of reasons are reasons-for-individuals. These conceptual considerations in favour of moderate individualism are strengthened by an analysis of our moral practice of responding to collective shortfalls of rationality and by the unpalatable moral implications of collectivism about epistemic agency. There is no need to change the subject. Groups can be rational or irrational, but they do not reason. (shrink)

Though the last decade has seen a growing interest in pragmatic approaches to scientific explanation, the question as to the real nature of these attempts has not been answered as yet. Three possibilities are investigated: 1. the pragmatic turn is a kind of linguistic turn where "pragmatic" refers to linguistic pragmatics; 2. the pragmatic turn is a semiotic turn in that the term "pragmatic" should be understood in the sense of semiotic pragmatics; 3. the pragmatic turn is in fact a (...) methodological turn and thus does not consist in relativizing explanations to linguistic situations or interpreters, but it manifests itself in applying a well known but in the theory of science unusual way of model-formation. Assumption is argued for by contrasting two possible senses of the concept "model". As a result, the dividing line must not be drawn between "pragmatic" and "non-pragmatic" accounts of scientific explanation, but between models which constitute necessary and sufficient conditions for correct explanations, and abstract analogical models which use knowledge about a certain fragment of natural language to infer new information about the structure of explanations. The role of pragmatics in the latter type of models is characterized by referring to recent results concerning the question-answer relationship. Finally, the properties of abstract analogical models seem to suggest that the methodological-pragmatic turn is possibly progressive with respect to the special theory of science. (shrink)

Using an asymptotic characterization of probabilistic finite state languages over a one-letter alphabet we construct a probabilistic language with regular support that cannot be generated by probabilistic CFGs. Since all probability values used in the example are rational, our work is immune to the criticism leveled by Suppes (Synthese 22:95–116, 1970 ) against the work of Ellis ( 1969 ) who first constructed probabilistic FSLs that admit no probabilistic FSGs. Some implications for probabilistic language modeling by HMMs are discussed.