Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Ethical theory often starts with our intuitions about particular cases and tries to uncover the principles that are implicit in them; work on the ‘trolley problem’ is a paradigmatic example of this approach. But ethicists are no longer the only ones chasing trolleys. In recent years, psychologists and neuroscientists have also turned to study our moral intuitions and what underlies them. The relation between these two inquiries, which investigate similar examples and intuitions, and sometimes produce parallel results, is puzzling. Does (...) it matter to ethics whether its armchair conclusions match the psychologists’ findings? I argue that reflection on this question exposes psychological presuppositions implicit in armchair ethical theorising. When these presuppositions are made explicit, it becomes clear that empirical evidence can (and should) play a positive role in ethical theorising. Unlike recent assaults on the armchair, the argument I develop is not driven by a naturalist agenda, or meant to cast doubt on the reliability of our moral intuitions; on the contrary, it is even compatible with non-naturalism, and takes the reliability of intuition as its premise. The argument is rather that if our moral intuitions are reliable, then psychological evidence should play a surprisingly significant role in the justification of moral principles. (shrink)

Chapter 2 primarily discusses Bernstein’s account and its differences both from Nagle’s metaphysical realism and Rorty’s postmodern pragmatism. Trying to diagnose assumptions that polarize thinkers to become objectivists and relativists, Bernstein articulates a Cartesian Anxiety he thinks they ironically both share. Descartes’ anti-skeptical wave of rigor was presented as a rationalistic project of rebuilding an unstable and dilapidated ‘house of knowledge’ on secure philosophical and scientific foundations. His overtly foundationalist metaphor of rebuilding from timbers set “in rock or hard clay” (...) shapes Descartes’ attempt to refute the skeptic and to secure the objectivity of knowledge as pursued by a more rigorous and analytical method of knowing. (shrink)

In Knowing and Seeing, Michael Ayers presents a view of what he calls primary knowledge according to which one who knows in that way both knows perspicuously and knows how they know. Here, I use some general considerations about seeing, knowing, and knowing how one knows in order to raise some questions about this view. More specifically, I consider some putative limits on one’s capacity to know how one knows. The main question I pursue concerns whether perspicuity should be thought (...) of either (i) as a condition of sensory experience, (ii) as a condition of sense-based cognition, or (iii) as an interface condition, involving interrelations between sensory experience and sense-based cognition. (shrink)

The first part of this paper asks why we need, or what would motivate, ameaningful expansion of epistemology. It answers with three critical arguments found in the recent literature, which each purport to move us some distance beyond the preoccupations of ‘post-Gettier era’ analytic epistemology. These three—the ‘epistemic luck,’ ‘epistemic value’ and ‘epistemic reconciliation’ arguments associated with D. Pritchard, J. Kvanvig, and M. Williams, respectively—each carry this implication of needed expansion by functioning as forceful ‘internal critiques’ of the tradition. The (...) second part of the paper asks what specific directions an expanded field of epistemology should take. While this is taken as an open question for debate, the expansion suggested here remains continuous with the analytic tradition, while also underlining the centrality of the acquired or ‘reflective’ intellectual virtues in meeting the burdens of the three arguments. Responsibilism, as here understood, is not a philosophical thesis so much as an orientation of commitment to clearing away philosophical assumptions that systematically obstruct recognition of the importance of empirically-informed research programs into the reflective virtues. (shrink)

A Monument to Medieval Syrian Book Culture: The Library of Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī. By Konrad Hirschler. Edinburgh: EdinBurgh University Press, 2019. Pp. x + 624, illus. $130.

Philosophers have traditionally treated physicalism as an empirically informed metaphysical thesis. This approach faces a well-known problem often referred to as Hempel’s dilemma: formulations of physicalism tend to be either false or indeterminate. The generally preferred strategy to address this problem involves an appeal to a hypothetical complete and ideal physical theory. After demonstrating that this strategy is not viable, I argue that we should redefine physicalism as an interdisciplinary research program seeking to explain the mental in terms of the (...) physical that encompasses the physical sciences, the psychological and brain sciences, and philosophy. Redefining physicalism in this way improves upon previous reconstructive accounts while avoiding the indeterminacy associated with orthodox forms of futurist physicalism. (shrink)

Debates about new technologies, such as crop and food genetic modification, raise pressing questions about the ways ‘experts’ and ‘ nonexperts’ communicate. These debates are dynamic, characterized by many voices contesting numerous storylines. The discoursal features, including language choices and communication strategies, of the GM debate are in some ways taken for granted and in others actively manipulated by participants. Although there are many voices, some have more influence than others. This study makes use of 50 hours of in-depth interviews (...) with GM scientists, nonexperts, and other stakeholders in the GM debate to examine this phenomenon. We uncover rhetorical devices used by scientists to characterize and ultimately undermine participation by non-experts in areas including rationality, knowledge, understanding and objectivity. Scientists engage with ‘the public’ from their own linguistic and social domain, without reflexive confirmation of their own status as part of the public and the citizenry. This raises a number of interesting ironies and contradictions, which are explored in the article. As such, it provides valuable insights into an increasingly important type of discourse. (shrink)

The solitary language user is again stalking the critical fields of Europe . This pre-social individual, abstracted from all social and historical context, has been seemingly revived after what many of us saw as a death-blow dealt by Wittgenstein in his analysis of the notion of following a rule , and his related discussions bringing out the impossibilities of a ‘private’ language—what has come to be known as Wittgenstein's ‘private language argument’. Just what a ‘private language’ is has become the (...) issue. Did Wittgenstein show that language-use and rule-following essentially and necessarily involved others, and were therefore necessarily social in character ? Or did his arguments bear only against the notion of a language which was essentially and necessarily private, one which could not in principle be taught to another? (shrink)

We review an argument that bipartite "PR-box" correlations, though designed to respect relativistic causality, in fact violate relativistic causality in the classical limit. As a test of this argument, we consider Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) correlations as a tripartite version of PR-box correlations, and ask whether the argument extends to GHZ correlations. If it does-i.e., if it shows that GHZ correlations violate relativistic causality in the classical limit-then the argument must be incorrect (since GHZ correlations do respect relativistic causality in the classical (...) limit.) However, we find that the argument does not extend to GHZ correlations. We also show that both PR-box correlations and GHZ correlations can be retrocausal, but the retrocausality of PR-box correlations leads to self-contradictory causal loops, while the retrocausality of GHZ correlations does not. (shrink)

Much of the research on teachers’ personal epistemology concerns their learning. Surprisingly little research has looked at how personal epistemologies are related to teachers’ teaching and other aspects of their interactions with students. In this chapter we investigate teachers’ personal epistemologies and the extent to which they predict autonomy-supporting behaviors. Such behaviors have been found to predict positive educational outcomes. 600 students in 21 grade 7 and 8 classrooms were administered surveys regarding two aspects of autonomy support: the extent to (...) which their teachers tried to take their perspective and provided them with rationales for prosocial behavior. At the same time, their teachers’ personal epistemologies were assessed. Students of teachers scored as having advanced personal epistemologies reported that their teachers were more likely to take their perspective. We conclude that teacher education in personal epistemology and autonomy supportive practices should have positive effects both for the teachers and their students. (shrink)

Ressentiment—the affectively charged desire for revenge that arises in response to a perceived injury1—is for Nietzsche a concept of central psychological explanatory significance, and thus makes up one of Nietzsche’s most important analytic tools in his attempt to delve into the human psyche and fathom its depth. As Walter Kaufmann says, it “constitutes one of [Nietzsche’s] major contributions to psychology.”2 As such, it has been justly awarded ample attention by scholars in the secondary literature. However, while Nietzsche’s employment of ressentiment (...) in the first essay of the On the Genealogy of Morals has been widely addressed and analyzed,3 Nietzsche’s discussion of this psychic force in the... (shrink)

The problem of self-deception lies at the heart of Nietzsche's account of the slave revolt in morality in the first essay of On the Genealogy of Morals. The viability of Nietzsche's genealogy of morality is thus crucially dependent on a successful explanation of the self-deception the slaves of the first essay are caught in. But the phenomenon of self-deception is notoriously puzzling. In this paper, after critically examining existing interpretations of the slaves’ self-deception, I provide, by drawing on Alfred Mele's (...) work on self-deception, a deflationary account of the slaves’ self-deception; an account which explains the slaves’ self-deceived predicament but without either the attribution of contradictory mental states or an intention to produce or to facilitate the production of the belief the self-deceived subjects end up holding. In light of my account of self-deception, I interpret Nietzsche's intriguing claim that the slaves’ revaluation of ressentiment amounts to their ‘most mendacious artistic.. (shrink)

This article explores the potential utility of the theory of Holism as developed by South African philosopher, British Commonwealth statesman and military leader, Jan Smuts, for philosophical counselling or practice. Central to the philosophical counseling process is philosophical counsellors or practitioners applying the work of philosophers to inspire, educate and guide their counselees in dealing with life problems. For example, Logic-Based Therapy, a method of philosophical counselling developed by Elliot Cohen, provides a rational framework for confronting problems of living, where (...) the counselor helps the counselee find an uplifting philosophy that promotes a guiding virtue that acts as an antidote to unrealistic and often self-defeating conclusions derived from irrational premises. We present the argument that Holism is one such uplifting philosophy which can be of utility to philosophical counselors or practitioners to help their counselees with confronting problems of living. Furthermore, we argue that Smuts’ articulation of freedom can act as a guiding virtue within this uplifting philosophy of Holism in accordance with the methodology of LBT. Smuts’ contribution to philosophy and psychology is arguably inadequately credited, and for this reason, and to the best of our knowledge, Smuts’ theory of Holism has yet to be discussed in the context of philosophical counseling or practice. Given these omissions, we begin this article with a discussion of his influence on 20th Century Anglo-American psychology. We then provide a brief historical context, and an introduction to the central argument of Smuts’ Holism, as well as a brief overview of the origins of Smut’s Holism and an introduction to his book Holism and Evolution. In the remainder of the article, we discuss several foundational concepts that underlie Smuts’ theory of Holism, as articulated and developed in his book Holism and Evolution, to substantiate our arguments. We conclude by highlighting the limitations of our article, limitations to Smuts’ model, and the challenges inherent in the use of a now largely antiquated theory, even by Smuts’ own admission nineteen years after its publication, for the purposes of contextualizing and substantiating the arguments and recommendations presented herein. (shrink)

The criteria of “forced, live, and momentous options,” as William James utilized them in his pragmatic defense of religious belief, cannot, I argue, both support religious pluralism and acknowledge lessons about failure of epistemic responsibility in Heaven’s Gate-followers. But I attempt to re-vitalize the pragmatic argument, showing it capable of walking this narrow line. I proceed (1) by developing the distinction and relationship between a commitment to a particular religious system or community, and a commitment to the generic “religious hypothesis” (...) itself; and (2) by explicating and expanding upon the “experimental” status—and associated pragmatic criteria for success or failure—that James already recognized for commitments to particular religious communities. I thus show how the “pragmatic argument” takes on heightened significance—and renewed promise—in light of problems associated with New Age and so-called “cult” religiosity. (shrink)

"J'aime ce livre" serait une proposition insignifiante. L'artiste: un prétexte. On en parle, certes, mais dans une perspective de déconstruction. L'art, donc, plutôt comme expression de la vie. Et la vie comme art de la fuite révolutionnaire. Certains auteurs sont cités à satiété, certains passages sont repris textuellement, répétion aussi des mêmes thèmes, des mêmes expressions. Et une impasse fondamentale. "J'aime ce livre est en effet une proposition insignifiante.Tout propos portant sur le passé, dire "je t'aime", c'est dire qu'en ce (...) moment je ne t'aime pas. Mais si aimer, écrire et vivre constituent "un même combat", et si dire l'amour n'est pas aimer, comment écrire la vie serait-il vivre? Et que pourrait bien signifier la proposition "Je n'aime pas ce livre"? (shrink)

Une certaine conception censément traditionnelle du signe le présente comme une entité binaire comportant un aspect sensible et un aspect intelligible. Selon Derrida, cette conception serait tributaire du logocentrisme et solidaire de la métaphysique de la présence. L'article passe en revue certaines caractérisations clefs du signe pour déconstruire l'opposition simple et simpliste entre un signifiant censément sensible et matériel, et un signifié censément intelligible et immatériel. Distinguant la conception factorielle du signe et sa conception constitutive, il conclut que "le signe (...) est peut-être moins un indice de la métaphysique occidentale que la soi-disant métaphysique occidentale ne serait l'indice d'une conception relativement rétrécie du signe". (shrink)

En insistant sur l'opposition entre signe et symbole, signification et symbolisation, Todorov propose de faire de la sémiologie une étude de la symbolique plutôt que des signes en général.Des raisons qu'il avance pour opérer cette réduction, aucune n'est probante, et l'on montre qu'elle comporte des inconvénients tant théoriques que pratiques.

Labor law was traditionally a domestic project, defined on the basis of a geographic territory or a synthetic community; its norms were determined by the state and applied to employers and workers who resided within the state. Commonly, labor law is administered on a territorial basis, applies to incoming workers, and stops at the borders in respect of other states' sovereignty when capital migrates. Globalization affects the background in which labor law operates, including the increased interdependence of markets, the constitution (...) of communities that transcend national borders, and the development of institutions outside and within the nation-state, which displace the locus of regulation from the traditional state level. De-territoriality claims that territory and sovereignty should be understated within the dominion of labor law in order to correct a deep structural imbalance in labor markets. This imbalance was not created by globalization, and as long as it appeared in a consistent yet bounded manner in each and every state, labor law's project was rendered possible by territorial arrangements. With the process of globalization, the territorial solutions previously created within labor law are no longer adequate. When territoriality is adhered to, migrating workers receive partial protection, while migrating capital can easily choose its most convenient forum as a means, inter alia, of undermining labor law's protection to workers. De-territorialization seeks to restore the original intent of labor law's project, which is to level off the distinct strategies that are available to labor and capital in a globalized labor market. (shrink)

In the 1760s, the international debate on the solution to determining longitude at sea is at its acme. Two solutions emerge, the mechanical and the astronomical ones. The Portuguese mathematician and astronomer José Monteiro da Rocha (1734–1819) is well aware of that debate. For him, Harrison’s No. 4 marine timekeeper cannot be seen as a solution. The desirable solution could only be astronomical. In a manuscript from c. 1765, which unfortunately he fails to publish, Monteiro da Rocha is very critical (...) of Lacaille's lunar-distance method (1759) and proposes another one. In this paper, we intend to analyse Monteiro da Rocha’s criticisms and proposals, trying to understand how this manuscript fits into the international longitude debate and the Portuguese scientific scenario at the time. Concurrently, we will re-examine the classical historiography around the English vs. French priority proposal of the lunar-distance method, purging it from its mythologies to shift it towards a more open, less linear history. (shrink)

Nietzsche often appears, especially in his writings from the middle period, to endorse psychological egoism, namely the claim that all actions are motivated by, and are for the sake of, the agent’s own self-interest. I argue that Nietzsche’s position in Human, All Too Human should not be so understood. Rather, he is claiming, more weakly and more plausibly, that no action is entirely unegoistic, entirely free of egoistic motivations. Thus some actions might be motivated both by egoistic and unegoistic motives, (...) on his view. Nietzsche’s argument may, in other words, be understood to be directed specifically against Schopenhauer’s portrayal of moral motivation, as pure, entirely unalloyed altruism, to show that this sort of action is impossible, not to rule out the possibility of any altruistic motive whatsoever. In light of Schopenahuer’s moral psychology, to which Nietzsche to some extent adhered at that time, I develop a concept of motivation and reconstruct Nietzsche’s argument. (shrink)

« Le moment topologique » désigne la référence commune à la topologie faite par de nombreux auteurs dans les années soixante . Dans le paradigme phénoménologique, il conditionna deux réponses antonymes : d’un côté, chez Merleau-Ponty, il ouvrit la voie vers une nouvelle réduction, d’un autre côté, chez Derrida, il permit une rupture d’avec le cadre méthodologique de la phénoménologie. C’est pourtant le dépassement de cette opposition qui est ici proposé.« The topological moment » denotes the common reference to topology (...) developed by numerous authors during the 1960’s . In the phenomenological paradigm, it created two antonymous responses : on one side, Merleau-Ponty paved the way for a new reduction, on the other side, Derrida facilitated a break from the methodical framework of phenomenology. However, this article proposes to move beyond this opposition. (shrink)

In a world in which globalisation has opened the access to Muslim countries, Muslim community having been identified as a distinctive high potential market, the question if businesses and corporations should set up a „Department of Islamic affairs" became more than pertinent.

Institutional explanations have been, and continue to be, one of the most important means of understanding the choices made by governments and other actors in society. This four volume set brings together a collection of the key readings in institutional theory and its applications to political phenomena. Although the principal focus of these readings is on institutional theory based in political science, articles from other disciplines that have been central to the development of theory in this discipline, or that have (...) substantial relevance for political phenomena, have also been included. Forming part of the SAGE Library of Political Science, this set contains a substantial overall introduction and conclusion as well as shorter introductions to each Part. It is an essential purchase for social science libraries around the world. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Nietzsche is mostly known for denying moral responsibility on account of lack of libertarian free will, thus betraying an incompatibilist approach to moral responsibility. In this paper, however, I focus on a different, less familiar argument by Nietzsche, one that I interpret as a critique of a compatibilist conception of moral responsibility. The critique shows why punishment and our moral sanctions in general are morally unjustified by the compatibilist's own lights. In addition, I articulate what I call Nietzsche's explanatory challenge, (...) which challenges the compatibilist to explain the performance of an immoral action without appealing to conditions that would exempt or excuse the wrongdoer or otherwise relieve the wrongdoer from responsibility and would thus make punishing the wrongdoer morally unjustified. By drawing on the work of R. Jay Wallace, I reconstruct Nietzsche's anticompatibilist argument and defend it against four possible objections. (shrink)