Relational quantum mechanics (RQM) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics based on the idea that quantum states do not describe an absolute property of a system but rather a relationship between systems. There have recently been some criticisms of RQM pertaining to issues around intersubjectivity. In this article, we show how RQM can address these criticisms by adding a new postulate which requires that all of the information possessed by a certain observer is stored in physical variables of that observer (...) and thus is accessible by measurement to other observers. This makes it possible for observers to reach intersubjective agreement about quantum events that have occurred in the past. We suggest a possible ontology for a version of RQM employing this postulate; this ontology upholds the principle that quantum states are always relational, but it also postulates a set of quantum events that are not strictly relational. We show that the new postulate helps address the preferred basis problem in RQM. (shrink)

The laws of nature have come a long way since the time of Newton: quantum mechanics and relativity have given us good reasons to take seriously the possibility of laws which may be non-local, atemporal, ‘all-at-once,’ retrocausal, or in some other way not well-suited to the standard dynamical time evolution paradigm. Laws of this kind can be accommodated within a Humean approach to lawhood, but many extant non-Humean approaches face significant challenges when we try to apply them to laws outside (...) the time evolution picture. Thus for proponents of non-Humean approaches to lawhood there is a clear need for a novel non-Humean account which is capable of accommodating these sorts of laws. In this paper we propose such an account, characterizing lawhood in terms of constraints, which are understood as a form of modal structure. We demonstrate that our proposed realist account can indeed accommodate a large variety of laws outside the time evolution paradigm, and describe some possible applications to important philosophical problems. (shrink)

Abstract‘The Future of Legal Gender’ project has assessed the potential implications for feminist legal scholarship and activism of decertifying sex/gender. Decertification refers to the state moving away from officially determining or registering sex/gender. This article explores the potential impact of such moves on equal pay law and gender pay gap reporting. Equal pay and gender pay gap reporting laws provide an important focus for the project because they aim to address structural dynamics associated with persistent pay inequality that women experience (...) across occupations in the United Kingdom. These legal measures illuminate gendering as a large-scale social problem widely understood to operate structurally and systemically. What effect, then, could decertifying sex/gender have on the law and conceptual power of equal pay? Might decertification undermine the structure of equal pay law, with all hard-won gains it has brought for women? Or is it possible to imagine that decertification could accompany a more inclusive and effective legal architecture for equal pay? (shrink)

Growing interest in embedded research approaches—where research is incorporated into clinical care—has spurred numerous studies to generate knowledge relevant to the real-world needs of patients and other stakeholders. However, it also has presented ethical challenges. An emerging challenge is how to understand the nature and extent of investigators’ obligations to patient-subjects. Prior scholarship on investigator duties has generally been grounded upon the premise that research and clinical care are distinct activities, bearing distinct duties. Yet this premise—and its corresponding implications—are challenged (...) when research and clinical care are deliberately integrated. After presenting three case studies from recent pragmatic clinical trials, we identify six differences between explanatory trials and embedded research that limit the application of existing scholarship for ascertaining investigator duties. We suggest that these limitations indicate a need to account for the implications of usual care and to move beyond a narrow focus on the investigator-subject dyad, one that better reflects the team- and institution-based nature of contemporary health systems. (shrink)

Are there epistemic duties to inquire? The idea enjoys intuitive support. However, prominent evidentialists argue that our only epistemic duty is to believe well (i.e., to have doxastically justified beliefs), and doing so does not require inquiry. Against this, I argue that evidentialists are plausibly committed to the idea that if we have epistemic duties to believe well, then we have epistemic duties to inquire. This is because on plausible evidentialist views of evidence possession (i.e., views that result in plausible (...) theories of evidentialist justification), inquiry is sometimes a necessary constitutive means of forming doxastically justified beliefs—beliefs that are proportioned to and based on one's evidence. So, either evidentialist views of evidence possession commit them to epistemic duties to inquire or they lead to independently implausible theories of evidentialist justification. My discussion also has important implications for the zetetic turn in epistemology, since I argue that evidentialists who are staunchly opposed to epistemic norms on inquiry have reason to reconsider. (shrink)

I assess various proposals for the source of the intuition that there is something problematic about contextuality, ultimately concluding that contextuality is best thought of in terms of fine-tuning. I then argue that as with other fine-tuning problems in quantum mechanics, this behaviour can be understood as a manifestation of teleological features of physics. Finally I discuss several formal mathematical frameworks that have been used to analyse contextuality and consider how their results should be interpreted by scientific realists. In the (...) course of this discussion I obtain several new mathematical results—I demonstrate that preparation contextuality is a form of fine-tuning, I show that measurement contextuality can be explained by appeal to a global constraint forbidding closed causal loops, and I demonstrate how negative probabilities can arise from a classical ontological model together with an epistemic restriction. (shrink)

Companion Animal Ethics explores the important ethical questions and problems that arise as a result of humans keeping animals as companions. The first comprehensive book dedicated to ethical and welfare concerns surrounding companion animals Scholarly but still written in an accessible and engaging style Considers the idea of animal companionship and why it should matter ethically Explores problems associated with animals sharing human lifestyles and homes, such as obesity, behavior issues, selective breeding, over-treatment, abandonment, euthanasia and environmental impacts Offers insights (...) into practical ways of improving ethical standards relating to animal companions. (shrink)

In 2015, the major critical care societies issued guidelines outlining a procedural approach to resolving intractable conflict between healthcare professionals and surrogates over life-sustaining treatments (LST). We report our experience with a resolving conflict procedure. This was a retrospective, single-centre cohort study of ethics consultations involving intractable conflict over LST. The resolving conflict process was initiated eleven times for ten patients over 2,015 ethics consultations from 2000 to 2020. In all cases, the ethics committee recommended withdrawal of the contested LST. (...) In seven cases, the patient died or was transferred or a legal injunction was obtained before completion of the process. In the four cases in which LST was withdrawn, the time from ethics consultation to withdrawal of LST was 24.8 ± 12.2 days. Healthcare provider and surrogate were often distressed during the process, sometimes resulting in escalation of conflict and legal action. In some cases, however, surrogates appeared relieved that they did not have to make the final decision regarding LST. Challenges regarding implementation included the time needed for process completion and limited usefulness in emergent situations. Although it is feasible to implement a due process approach to conflict over LST, there are factors that limit the procedure’s usefulness. (shrink)

Medical ethics assumes a clear boundary between clinical research and clinical medicine: one produces knowledge for the benefit of future patients, while the other provides optimal care to individuals right now. It also assumes that the two cannot be integrated without sacrificing the needs of the current patient to those of future patients. But integration could allow us to provide better care to everyone, now and in the future.

Aristotle claims that in making an animal, nature acts like a “good housekeeper” who “is accustomed to throw out nothing from which it is possible to make something useful” (744b16–17). How does nature act when it “make[s] something useful” in these cases – and does it differ from other ways it acts? I defend two main claims. The first is that Meteor. 4.2’s distinction between two sorts of ‘concoction’ processes offers an underappreciated source of evidence for answering this question. My (...) second claim concerns the nature of those processes and the ends they realize. While they are both the ends of their respective types of concoction, they differ in that some essential (process-defining) features of the second end – but not the first – are supplied by what the capacities of the “underlying” patient (on which the agent acts) are for. The result is a distinction between two kinds of end-directed efficient causation. (shrink)

Offered here is an interpretation of the ancient Confucian philosopher Mengzi's (372–289 B.C.E.) method of cultivating moral feelings, which he calls "extension." It is argued that this method is both psychologically plausible and an important, but often overlooked, part of moral life. In this interpretation, extending our moral feelings is not a project in logical consistency, analogical reasoning, or emotional intuition. Rather, Mengzi's method of extension is a project in realigning the human heart that harnesses our rational, reflective, and emotional (...) capacities in order to extend the feelings we already have to the appropriate objects for these feelings. It is argued that there are three main features of Mengzi's account that make it an attractive explanation of the cultivation of moral feelings. The first is the way Mengzi sees reasoning and philosophical reflection as an aid to, rather than the foundation for, moral development. The second is Mengzi's precision regarding the relationship between the basic moral feelings we start with (the "sprouts") and their corresponding virtues. The method of extension acts as a well-designed bridge between feelings and virtues. Third, Mengzi's account, unlike that of the Mohist Yi Zhi, whom he criticizes, pays special attention to the complexities and limitations of human psychology. In conclusion it is shown how a Mengzian understanding of the relationship between feelings and morality can answer some traditional challenges, especially Kantian ones, regarding the proper role of emotion in moral life. (shrink)

There are two types ofaisthēsisin theTimaeus, which involve distinct physiological processes and different kinds of soul, appetite and reason respectively. This distinction explains Timaeus’ ambivalent attitude towardsaisthēsis: on the one hand, it is one of the main causes of the disruption of the orbits of the immortal soul upon embodiment; on the other hand, it plays a central role in restoring the immortal soul to its original, god-like condition.

Payment to recruit research subjects is a common practice but raises ethical concerns relating to the potential for coercion or undue influence. We conducted the first national study of IRB members and human subjects protection professionals to explore attitudes as to whether and why payment of research participants constitutes coercion or undue influence. Upon critical evaluation of the cogency of ethical concerns regarding payment, as reflected in our survey results, we found expansive or inconsistent views about coercion and undue influence (...) that may interfere with valuable research. In particular, respondents appear to believe that coercion and undue influence lie on a continuum; by contrast, we argue that they are wholly distinct: whereas undue influence is a cognitive distortion relating to assessment of risks and benefits, coercion is a threat of harm. Because payment is an offer, rather than a threat, payment is never coercive. (shrink)

_Philosophers consider race and racism from the perspective of lived, bodily experience._.

Research that is integrated into ongoing clinical activities holds the potential to accelerate the generation of knowledge to improve the health of individuals and populations. Yet integrating research into clinical care presents difficult ethical and regulatory challenges, including how or whether to obtain informed consent. Multiple empirical studies have explored patients' and the public's attitudes toward approaches to consent for pragmatic research. Questions remain, however, about how to use the resulting empirical data in resolving normative and policy debates and what (...) kind of data warrants the most consideration. We recommend prioritizing data about what people consider acceptable with respect to consent for pragmatic research and data about people's informed, rather than initial, preferences on this subject. In addition, we advise caution regarding the weight given to majority viewpoints and identify circumstances when empirical data can be overridden. We argue that empirical data bolster normative arguments that alterations of consent should be the default in pragmatic research; waivers are appropriate only when the pragmatic research would otherwise be impracticable and has sufficiently high social value. (shrink)

In The Case for Rage, Myisha Cherry makes the case for a specific kind of rage, a qualified anger at racial injustice that she calls Lordean rage. Drawing on Audre Lorde's classic essay ‘The Uses of Anger’, Cherry develops the concept of Lordean rage as a productive, liberatory anger and defends it from a variety of objections, ranging from neo-Stoic concerns about anger's capacity for destruction to contemporary worries about the misuse of anger by white allies. The brilliance of the (...) book, I think, lies in its capacity to integrate a wide range of philosophical perspectives and arguments, including those from feminist and critical race theory and analytic philosophy of emotion, and present them in a way that speaks directly to our political and historical moment. The audience for this book is broad: anyone who has ever felt anger at racial injustice will have a stake in this book.Cherry begins with some philosophical distinctions to help delineate the contours of this kind of anger. Lordean rage has a particular object—racial injustice—and a specific motivational stance: ‘It aims at nothing less than transforming our world’ (p. 40). (She leaves it as an open, and interesting, question whether a variation of Lordean rage occurs in other cases of oppression.) For these reasons, Lordean rage demands a non-trivial degree of optimism and hope. It also requires a basic respect for both the victim and the perpetrator of racial injustice (p. 37). This last criterion distinguishes it from other motivating kinds of rage, such as ‘wipe rage’, which seeks to eliminate the object of the rage and ‘narcissistic rage’, which is only concerned with injustices that immediately effect oneself. These distinctions, and other helpful ones, are the subject of Chapter 1, which argues against the tendency to understand anger as a homogeneous or uniform phenomenon. We can’t, Cherry argues, paint anger in such ‘broad strokes’ but need a more nuanced account of how different kinds of angers are operative in different kinds of contexts. (shrink)

The ongoing generation of expectations is fundamental to listeners’ experience of music, but research into types of statistical information that listeners extract from musical melodies has tended to emphasize transition probabilities and n‐grams, with limited consideration given to other types of statistical learning that may be relevant. Temporal associations between scale degrees represent a different type of information present in musical melodies that can be learned from musical corpora using expectation networks, a computationally simple method based on activation and decay. (...) Expectation networks infer the expectation of encountering one scale degree followed in the near (but not necessarily immediate) future by another given scale degree, with previous work suggesting that scale degree associations learned by expectation networks better predict listener ratings of pitch similarity than transition probabilities. The current work outlines how these learned scale degree associations can be combined to predict melodic continuations and tests the resulting predictions on a dataset of listener responses to a musical cloze task previously used to compare two other models of melodic expectation, a variable‐order Markov model (IDyOM) and Temperley's music‐theoretically motivated model. Under multinomial logistic regression, all three models explain significant unique variance in human melodic expectations, with coefficient estimates highest for expectation networks. These results suggest that generalized scale degree associations informed by both adjacent and nonadjacent relationships between melodic notes influence listeners’ melodic predictions above and beyond n‐gram context, highlighting the need to consider a broader range of statistical learning processes that may underlie listeners’ expectations for upcoming musical events. (shrink)

Research on the specific features of daydreaming compared with mind-wandering and night dreaming is a neglected topic in the philosophy of mind and the cognitive neuroscience of spontaneous thought. The extant research either conflates daydreaming with mind-wandering (whether understood as task-unrelated thought, unguided attention, or disunified thought), characterizes daydreaming as opposed to mind-wandering (Dorsch, 2015), or takes daydreaming to encompass any and all “imagined events” (Newby-Clark & Thavendran, 2018). These dueling definitions obstruct future research on spontaneous thought, and are insufficiently (...) precise to guide empirical studies. They also fail to illuminate the phenomenal core of daydreaming, namely, its dreamlike qualities. Although daydreaming is related to both mind-wandering and narrative imagination, it is not reducible to either. We argue that daydreams are experiences of spontaneous, immersive imagination in the waking state. The main task of our investigation is to distinguish daydreaming, conceptually and phenomenologically, from mind-wandering, on the one hand, and night dreaming, on the other. Although daydream experiences can vary widely, we distinguish prototypical experiences of daydreaming from adjacent imaginative activity, including fleeting imagery and “focused daydreaming,” or crafted visualization. We consider our phenomenological analysis as preparatory work for conceptually distinguishing different spontaneous and imaginative states so that they can be investigated accordingly with questionnaires and qualitative methods. We argue that precision about the phenomenal character of daydreaming can guide neurophenomenological investigations, help delimit studies on individual variance in daydreaming features, and identify differences among daydreaming, mind-wandering, and night dreaming conceptually and phenomenologically, and possibly eventually in terms of neural correlates. (shrink)

Explainable AI (xAI) methods are important for establishing trust in using black-box models. However, recent criticism has mounted against current xAI methods that they disagree, are necessarily false, and can be manipulated, which has started to undermine the deployment of black-box models. Rudin (2019) goes so far as to say that we should stop using black-box models altogether in high-stakes cases because xAI explanations ‘must be wrong’. However, strict fidelity to the truth is historically not a desideratum in science. Idealizations (...) – the intentional distortions introduced to scientific theories and models – are commonplace in the natural sciences and are seen as a successful scientific tool. Thus, it is not falsehood qua falsehood that is the issue. In this paper, I outline the need for xAI research to engage in idealization evaluation. Drawing on the use of idealizations in the natural sciences and philosophy of science, I introduce a novel framework for evaluating whether xAI methods engage in successful idealizations or deceptive explanations (SIDEs). SIDEs evaluates whether the limitations of xAI methods, and the distortions that they introduce, can be part of a successful idealization or are indeed deceptive distortions as critics suggest. I discuss the role that existing research can play in idealization evaluation and where innovation is necessary. Through a qualitative analysis we find that leading feature importance methods and counterfactual explanations are subject to idealization failure and suggest remedies for ameliorating idealization failure. (shrink)

Listening appears as elusive as it is crucial to democratic life, particularly in conditions of structural injustice. Dominant groups benefit from histories and habits of inattention and, when enlisted, common responses of denial, defensiveness, and resentment. What lies behind this pervasive and persistent failure to listen to claims of structural injustice by more advantaged groups, and what does this mean for democratic engagement? This paper addresses this question via three interventions: first, it develops a novel account of listening that reveals (...) why listening to claims of structural injustice often proves difficult. Second, it examines how inhabiting positions of relative advantage shapes whether and how people listen to such claims. Finally, it explores the implications these challenges have for the design of democratic processes that seek to engage advantaged groups regarding structural injustice. To develop this account, I draw together current scholarship regarding listening and structural injustice with original fieldwork of recent and current efforts to engage more advantaged communities regarding a specific form of structural injustice: specifically, interviews and observation of the ten organizations across Aotearoa New Zealand most active in efforts to engage communities regarding socio-economic inequality in the country. (shrink)

Decolonization requires critical attention to settler logics that reinforce settler-colonialism, yet settler communities, as a rule, operate without a collective sense of identity and history. This article, provoked by Māori protocols of encounter, explores the necessity of developing a sense of collective identity as precursor to meeting in settler-Indigenous politics. It argues that the ability, desire, and experience of being unmarked as a social group—apparent in paradigmatic approaches to engaging social difference in settler communities—is at the heart of the particularity (...) of settler group identity and also stands at the heart of countless failures to meet in settler-Indigenous politics. This essay thus seeks to mark the particular ground of this unmarkedness of settler identity in Western philosophies that set being unmarked as both ontology and ideal; the dominance of settler communities in places of settlement; and the willful forgetting of the colonial histories brought about by such dominance. (shrink)

Gain or omission/termination of loss produces approach; while loss or omission/termination of gain produces withdrawal. Control of approach/withdrawal motivation is distinct from valuation of gain/loss and does not entail learning – making “reward” and “punishment” ambiguous. Approach-withdrawal goal conflict engages a neurally distinct Behavioural Inhibition System, which controls “anxiety” but not “fear”.

Aesthetic value, often viewed as subjective and even trivial compared to other environmental values, is commonly given low priority in policy debates. In this paper I argue that the seriousness and importance of aesthetic value cannot be denied when we recognise the ways that aesthetic experience is already embedded in a range of human practices. The first area of human practice considered involves the complex relationship between aesthetic experience and the development of an ethical attitude towards the environment. I then (...) discuss how aesthetics has played a role in scientific study and the use of evaluative aesthetic concepts in science, such as variety and diversity. The final section shows the connection between the beneficial effects of aesthetic engagement with nature and the restorative value of nature for human well-being. (shrink)

Christians have traditionally conceived of the moral life as an imitation of Christ, whereby followers enter into fellowship with God. The American Transcendentalists can be understood as extending rather than dispensing with this legacy. For Emerson, a person cultivates virtues by imitating those she loves and admires. Ultimately, however, the virtues enable her to innovate on received models, to excel by pressing beyond exemplars. Emerson's famous line, “imitation is suicide,” is not a contradiction but a fulfillment of the imitation of (...) Christ, understood in his terms. In his own time, John Brown was the public figure who, for Emerson, most nearly exemplified this innovative imitation of Christ. An examination of exemplarity, of this artful union of imitation and innovation in moral and spiritual formation, sheds light on how modern agents can cultivate the virtues needed to be at home in the modern world. (shrink)

Long histories and entrenched habits of inattention among advantaged groups mean that even minor challenge and concession can provoke subjective perceptions of victimization. How, in such conditions, might claims of structural injustice break through? Drawing on field work with practitioners across conflict mediation, therapy, education, and performance – four sectors that facilitate listening in fraught contexts yet are undertheorized in politics – this article makes the case that among the most overlooked and powerful resources for cultivating receptivity and responsiveness among (...) advantaged groups are the arts of listening. Practices of engagement across these sectors establish listening as potent rather than passive, given the extent to which it constitutes the field of encounter and shapes what emerges within it, both in terms of expression and, more significantly in this context, receptivity of those to whom one listens. Yet this also means that how one listens is a pivotal consideration – particularly when listening might serve to reinforce and normalize unjustly dominant positions. In contrast to progressive politics’ emphasis on finding more forceful forms of voice and conventional reliance on direct communicative practices, this article explores how specific comedic, theatrical, and embodied tactics can generate ‘oblique forms of listening’ potentially useful to social justice struggles. (shrink)

Neuroscientists are increasingly put into situations which demand critical reflection about the ethical and appropriate use of research tools and scientific knowledge. Students or trainees also have to know how to navigate the ethical domains of this context. At a time when neuroscience is expected to advance policy and practice outcomes, in the face of academic pressures and complex environments, the importance of scientific integrity comes into focus and with it the need for training at the graduate level in the (...) responsible conduct of research . I describe my experience teaching RCR in a graduate neuroscience program and identify three personal reflections where further dialogue could be warranted: mobilizing a common set of competencies and virtues standing for professionalism in the neurosciences; tailoring RCR for the neurosciences and empowering students through the active engagement of mentors; soliciting shared responsibility for RCR training between disciplines, institutions and governmental or funding agencies. (shrink)

We argue that the temporal asymmetry of influence is not merely the result of thermodynamics: it is a consequence of the fact that modal structure of the universe must admit only processes which cannot give rise to contradictions. We appeal to the process matrix formalism developed in the field of quantum foundations to characterise processes which are compatible with local free will whilst ruling out contradictions, and argue that this gives rise to ‘consistent chaining’ requirements that explain the temporal asymmetry (...) of influence. We compare this view to the perspectival account of causation advocated by Price and Ramsey. (shrink)

Music as Agency: Diversities of Perspectives on Artistic Citizenship focuses on the concept, application, interpretation and manifestation of Artistic Citizenship in diverse contexts. The key concepts that the book tackles are: Cultural experience, artistic practice, musical identities, equity, democracy, community, activism, resistance and empathy. In giving an overview of aspects of the compound concept of artistic citizenship, Akuno and Westvall present the outcome of research and interrogation of practice by a global network of educator-researchers from Africa, the Americas, Asia and (...) Europe. The book articulates notions of artistic citizenship, coming up with the term artizenship as a derivative of the composite term. It further explains and analyses practical ways of perceiving and relating to art spaces, art practices and arts objects towards belonging, being and becoming in a global space that is disparate, polarised and often alienating, and thus responding to issues such as social justice, identity, participation and inclusion. With a focus on music, the book targets musicians, scholars, educators and enthusiasts keen on gaining a deeper understanding of how music and musicking can influence human interactions towards social integration, trust, cultural awareness and intercultural understanding. (shrink)

Only somewhat recently has a specific literature emerged focused on the ethics of engaging patient and community stakeholders in health research. This literature is informed by a broad range of disciplinary frameworks and norms. It also overlaps with – and diverges from – traditional research ethics scholarship in interesting and important ways. This volume is an effort to bring together, in one place, important perspectives on the ethics of stakeholder engagement in health research. Here, ethics, patient and community stakeholders, and (...) health-related research are all conceptualized broadly. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 98 Heft: 8 Seiten: 1-20.

In Physics 2.4–6, Aristotle offers an account of things that happen “by luck” and “spontaneously”. Many of these things are what we might think of as “lucky breaks”: cases where things go well for us, even though we don’t expect them to. In Physics 2.5, Aristotle illustrates this idea with the case of a man who goes to the market for some reason unrelated to collecting a debt he is owed. While he is there, this man just so happens to (...) run into his debtor and get his money back—which is what he “wanted” all along. This case has a number of features that have proved puzzling. Most notably, Aristotle seems to think that while “it happened accidentally to him to come and to do this for the sake of getting the money”, nevertheless the man “did not come for the sake of this”—though he “would have”. What must such a proceeding be like to be described in these ways? Physics 2.4–6 makes several important moves towards answering this question. One of them—among the earliest and seemingly a foundational one—is the claim that “for the sake of something are as many things as could be done by thought and by nature”. The aim of this paper is to identify the role that this claim plays in Aristotle’s account of spontaneous proceedings. It defends two main claims. First, Aristotle’s suggestion that spontaneous proceedings could be done by nature and by thought is the product of a more general strategy. His approach is to sketch an intuitive pattern of explanation for proceedings that happen for the sake of something in the ordinary—non-spontaneous—way, and then to try to extend that model to the case of things that do so spontaneously, preserving as much of it as possible. Applying this strategy reveals that whereas nature and thought in fact function as efficient causes of ordinary proceedings that are for the sake of something, this cannot be the case in spontaneous ones. Instead, nature and thought could function as their causes. Second, I argue that Aristotle’s implementation of this strategy is rooted in his account of causation and especially Physics 2.3’s list of “modes” of causes. When he claims that spontaneous proceedings “could” be done by nature and by thought, he is saying that nature and thought are their efficient causes in capacity. In the practical case, spontaneous proceedings are caused by agents who have certain capacities, connected with their desires and abilities. In the right circumstances, these agents would actively exercise those capacities in acting for the sake of a given end. (shrink)

This paper explores the significance of Adam Smith's ideas for defending non-cognitivist theories of aesthetic appreciation of nature. Objections to non-cognitivism argue that the exercise of emotion and imagination in aesthetic judgement potentially sentimentalizes and trivializes nature. I argue that although directed at moral judgement, Smith's views also find a place in addressing this problem. First, sympathetic imagination may afford a deeper and more sensitive type of aesthetic engagement. Second, in taking up the position of the impartial spectator, aesthetic judgements (...) may originate in a type of self-regulated response where we stand outside ourselves to check those overly humanizing tendencies which might lead to a failure in appreciating nature as nature. (shrink)