In Nicomachean Ethics X.5, Aristotle gives a series of arguments for the claim that pleasures differ from one another in kind in accordance with the differences in kind among the activities they arise in connection with. I develop an interpretation of these arguments based on an interpretation of his theory of pleasure (which I have defended elsewhere) according to which pleasure is the perfection of perfect activity. In the course of developing this interpretation, I reconstruct Aristotle’s phenomenology of (...) pleasure, arguing that while he denies that all pleasures share any given phenomenal element, he does think that all pleasures have a common phenomenal structure. Finally, I argue that Aristotle’s view that pleasures differ in kind does not imply that they cannot be compared in pleasantness. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to answer two interrelated questions about pleasures and pains: (i) The question of unity: Do all pleasures share a single quality that accounts for why these, and only these, are pleasures, and do all pains share a single quality that accounts for why these, and only these, are pains? (ii) The question of commensurability: Are all pleasures and pains rankable on a single, quantitative hedonic scale? I argue that our intuitions draw us in opposing directions: (...) On the one hand, pleasures and pains seem unified and commensurable; on the other hand, they do not. I further argue that neither intuition can be abandoned, and examine three different paths to reconciliation. The first two are response theory and split experience theory. Both of these, I argue, are unsuccessful. A third path, however—which I label “dimensionalism” —succeeds. Dimensionalism is the theory that pleasure and pain have the ontological status as opposite sides of a hedonic dimension along which experiences vary. This view has earlier been suggested by C. D. Broad, Karl Duncker, Shelly Kagan, and John Searle, but it has not been worked out in detail. In this paper I work out the dimensionalist view in some detail, defend it, and explain how it solves the problem of the unity and commensurability of pleasures and pains. (shrink)

나는 『맹자』 「양혜왕」편 전반에 걸쳐 개진되는 ‘여민동락’ 논의를 ‘행복’의 관점에서 비판적으로 논의하고자 한다. 내가 행복하다고 여기는지의 여부와 실제의 삶이 일치하지 않는다는 점에서 주관적인 심적 상태로서의 행복은 좋은 삶과 갈등을 낳을 수 있다. 따라서 우리가 진정한 행복을 추구하는 것은 이미 주관적인 심리상태를 극복하고 어떻게 살아야 좋은 삶인가라는 고전적인 질문으로 회귀하게 된다. 이를 위한 논의의 배경으로 제선왕과의 대화에 등장하는 독락과 여민동락의 내용을 설명하려고 한다. 제선왕의 경우 그에게서 발견되는 욕구의 위계를 통해 독락으로 표현되는 주관적인 행복감이 자신이 지향하는 좋은 삶과 어긋나 있음을 밝힐 것이다. (...) 맹자가 제시하는 여민동락이 즐거운 삶과 좋은 삶을 일치시키는 논리를 설명하고 ‘연대’의 이면에 작동하는 상호이해와 공감의 역동성을 고찰할 계획이다. 측은지심으로 포착할 수 있는 이런 공감의 힘이 어떻게 여민동락과도 이어질 수 있는지 논증하려고 한다. 恕의 황금률로 포착해낼 수 있는 측은지심과 여민동락의 同異를 검토하고 ‘여민동락’이라는 유가적 행복론을 좋은 삶에 관한 이론적 틀로 요약, 정리할 계획이다. 이를 통해 주관적인 행복감이 우리의 삶을 좋게 만드는데 어떻게 기여하는가를 간략하게 설명하려 한다. (shrink)

Some philosophers have claimed that pleasures and pains are characterized by their particular or . Most contemporary writers reject this view: they hold that hedonic states have nothing in common except being liked or disliked (alternatively: pursued or avoided) for their own sake. In this article, I argue that the hedonic tone view has been dismissed too quickly: there is no clear introspective or scientific evidence that pleasures do not share a phenomenal quality. I also argue that analysing hedonic states (...) in terms of liking or wanting is implausible. If it is correct that pleasures and pains are not united by any particular hedonic tone, we should instead simply conclude that there are several different hedonic tones. This pluralistic understanding of the hedonic tone view has generally been overlooked in the literature, but appears to be fairly plausible as a philosophical account of pleasure and pain. (shrink)

Empathy is the combined ability to interpret the emotional states of others and experience resultant, related emotions. The relation between prefrontal electroencephalographic asymmetry and emotion in children is well known. The association between positive emotion (assessed via parent report), empathy (measured via observation), and second-by-second brain electrical activity (recorded during a pleasurable task) was investigated using a sample of one hundred twenty-eight 6- to 10-year-old children. Contentment related to increasing left frontopolar activation (p < .05). Empathic concern and positive empathy (...) related to increasing right frontopolar activation (ps < .05). A second form of positive empathy related to increasing left dorsolateral activation (p < .05). This suggests that positive affect and (negative and positive) empathy both relate to changes in prefrontal activity during a pleasurable task. (shrink)

This paper presents a new account of aesthetic pleasure, according to which it is a distinct psychological structure marked by a characteristic self-reinforcing motivation. Pleasure figures in the appreciation of an object in two ways: In the short run, when we are in contact with particular artefacts on particular occasions, aesthetic pleasure motivates engagement and keeps it running smoothly—it may do this despite the fact that the object we engagement is aversive in some ways. Over longer periods, (...) it plays a critical role in shaping how we engage with objects to get this kind of pleasure from them. This account is yoked to a broadly functional understanding of art: it is not the nature of the object that makes it art, but the nature of the response that it is designed to elicit. The view does not, however, rest on individual psychology alone, as some other functional accounts do. Crucially, it is argued that shared cultural context is a key determinant of the pleasure we derive from aesthetic artefacts. The pleasure of art is always communal and communicative. (shrink)

While Henry and Levinas are often juxtaposed, little attention has been given to their shared views on pain and pleasure. Both phenomenologists converge on the argument that an adequate account of pain and pleasure requires a critical confrontation with the theory of intentionality. This raises further questions. What roles do interiority and exteriority play in pain and pleasure? Should they be conceived as different tonalities of one essence or as heterogenous phenomena? Despite their shared critique of intentionality, (...) Henry and Levinas respond differently to these questions. We argue that Henry’s account suffers from an imprisonment in immanence, leading to a homogenous account of pain and pleasure as derivatives of one essence. In our view, Levinas points toward a more fruitful phenomenological account, both in so far as he does not divorce pain and pleasure from exteriority, and also in the way his phenomenology preserves the heterogeneity of pleasure and pain. (shrink)

Utility- and pleasure-Friendship in the "nicomachean ethics" have commonly been held to be wholly self-Seeking relationships and of no great interest as forms of "friendship". Recently, John cooper has argued that these relationships essentially involve disinterested concern in a subtle blending of self- and other-Regarding purposes and causes. The article argues against cooper that disinterestedness has no part in these relationships but that they can nonetheless be seen as exhibiting trust, Sharing, Interdependence, And other virtues of interpersonal relationships.

BackgroundEnhancement involves the use of biomedical technologies to improve human capacities beyond therapeutic purposes. It has been well documented that enhancement is sometimes difficult to distinguish from treatment. As a subtype of enhancement, neuroenhancement aims to improve one’s cognitive or emotional capacities.Main bodyThis article proposes that the notion of neuroenhancement deserves special attention among enhancements in general, because apart from the notion of treatment, it also overlaps with other concepts such as prevention, pain relief, and pleasure seeking. Regarding prevention, (...) patients’ mental endurance can be enhanced when a patient is prescribed a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor for the purpose of preventing the relapse of depression following a stressful situation. As for pain relief, psychiatrists use medication to alleviate distress in patients who experience various types of anxiety; the alleviation of distress is equal to psychological pain relief, but is also an enhancement of the patient’s temperamental traits. Regarding pleasure seeking, insidious transition exists between neuroenhancement and pleasure seeking when using psychotropic drugs. It is well known that people use psychostimulants for recreational purposes and to induce overconfidence in one’s performance. The polysemy of psychotropics derives from their effects on human sensibility. Therefore, when using psychotropic agents, psychiatrists should pay close attention to what the agent is used for on each patient in each situation, and explicitly share the continuity and overlap in the purpose of prescribing a medication with the patients to make a better clinical decision.ConclusionsThe notion of neuroenhancement overlaps not only with the notion of treatment, but also with other concepts of prevention, pain relief, and pleasure seeking. The continuity between those concepts makes the issues concerning the prescription of psychotropic drugs subtler. Psychiatrists should explicitly share the continuity with the patients to make a better clinical decision. (shrink)

Nietzsche seems to hold that ‘higher types’, or examples of great power, are the only things good as an end. I consider and reject three reconstructions of Nietzsche’s argument for this: that it follows from understanding evolution, or from the will to power understood as a descriptive thesis, or from our admiration for such types. I suggest that Nietzsche’s strategy is to take for granted our shared admiration for higher types and then attack our admiration for other goods such as (...) virtue, knowledge, and pleasure. I argue that his arguments against pleasure fail. (shrink)

As topics in the philosophy of emotion, pleasure and displeasure get less than their fair share of attention. On the one hand, there is the fact that pleasure and displeasure are given no role at all in many theories of the emotions, and secondary roles in many others.1 On the other, there is the centrality of pleasure and displeasure to being emotional. A woman who tears up because of a blustery wind, while an ill-advised burrito weighs heavily (...) upon her digestive tract, feels an impressive number of the sensations felt by someone who is gut-wrenchingly sad. Yet, unless she feels bad, the way she feels is only a pale echo of the feeling of sadness. If she feels good in spite of the burrito and the wind, then she does not feel at all the way she would if she were sad. Likewise, a man falling asleep can hardly fail to feel his muscles relax, his heart rate fall, and so on, but unless he feels good his state is only a shadow of feeling content. This paper will begin with a sketch of the nature of pleasure and displeasure, and the relation between them and the feelings that are characteristic of emotions. It will then argue that the capacity to feel pleased and displeased is, quite literally, a sense modality: one allowing us to perceive net change in the satisfaction of our intrinsic desires. As with any sense modality, the capacity to feel pleased and displeased displays substantial modularity. The paper concludes by considering the ways in which the modularity of pleasure and displeasure contributes to effects that might reasonably be called “the modularity of the emotions.”. (shrink)

In this essay, I’ll argue, first, that an art object's aesthetic value (or merit) depends not just on its intrinsic properties, but on the response it evokes from a consumer who shares the producer's cultural background. My question is: what is the role of culture in relation to this response? I offer a new account of aesthetic pleasure that answers this question. On this account, aesthetic pleasure is not just a “feeling” or “sensation” that results from engaging with (...) a work of art. It is rather a mental state that facilitates engagement with an artwork, and (in the long run) enables a consumer to learn how to maximize this kind of pleasure. This is where culture comes in. If you belong to a culture, you know how to engage pleasurably with an artwork that is produced so you can engage with it in just this way. The aesthetic value of an artwork is that it plays into such a culture-pleasure nexus. -/- . (shrink)

Some philosophers and psychologists share an assumption that pleasure is by nature such that when an experience is pleasurable, an agent is motivated to continue having that experience. In this paper, I dispute this assumption. First, I point out how it does not make sense of the wanting-liking distinction in motivational neuroscience. Second, I present as a counterexample what I call’dynamic pleasure’ which does not motivate retaining one’s focus on the object of original experience but motivates an exploration (...) of other options instead. Third, as another counterexample, I bring out pleasures of relief which are bound to pass when one’s discomfort is removed and in which case it is reasonable to assume that there is no motivation to maintain them. Fourth, I appeal to phenomenology of pleasure and argue that many experiences have a temporal shape which is in conflict with the self-maintenance assumption. As an example, I use the pleasure in listening to a song. The conclusion of the paper is that we should reject the self-maintenance assumption and consider seriously pluralism about the motivational structure of pleasure. (shrink)

As topics in the philosophy of emotion, pleasure and displeasure get less than their fair share of attention. On the one hand, there is the fact that pleasure and displeasure are given no role at all in many theories of the emotions, and secondary roles in many others.1 On the other, there is the centrality of pleasure and displeasure to being emotional. A woman who tears up because of a blustery wind, while an ill-advised burrito weighs heavily (...) upon her digestive tract, feels an impressive number of the sensations felt by someone who is gut-wrenchingly sad. Yet, unless she feels bad, the way she feels is only a pale echo of the feeling of sadness. If she feels good in spite of the burrito and the wind, then she does not feel at all the way she would if she were sad. Likewise, a man falling asleep can hardly fail to feel his muscles relax, his heart rate fall, and so on, but unless he feels good his state is only a shadow of feeling content. This paper will begin with a sketch of the nature of pleasure and displeasure, and the relation between them and the feelings that are characteristic of emotions. It will then argue that the capacity to feel pleased and displeased is, quite literally, a sense modality: one allowing us to perceive net change in the satisfaction of our intrinsic desires. As with any sense modality, the capacity to feel pleased and displeased displays substantial modularity. The paper concludes by considering the ways in which the modularity of pleasure and displeasure contributes to effects that might reasonably be called “the modularity of the emotions.”. (shrink)

This book takes up one of the most important themes in Chinese thought: the relation of pleasurable activities to bodily health and to the health of the body politic. Unlike Western theories of pleasure, early Chinese writings contrast pleasure not with pain but with insecurity, assuming that it is right and proper to seek and take pleasure, as well as experience short-term delight. Equally important is the belief that certain long-term relational pleasures are more easily sustained, as (...) well as potentially more satisfying and less damaging. The pleasures that become deeper and more ingrained as the person invests time and effort to their cultivation include friendship and music, sharing with others, developing integrity and greater clarity, reading and classical learning, and going home. Each of these activities is explored through the early sources (mainly fourth century BC to the eleventh century AD), with new translations of both well-known and seldom-cited texts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aristotle on the Concept of Shared Life by Sara BrillZoli FilotasSara Brill. Aristotle on the Concept of Shared Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 304. Hardback, $100.00.This book is a sweeping survey of Aristotle's approach to human life. It covers what might seem to be an idiosyncratic set of topics: friendship, animal behavior, commerce, tyranny, and motherhood are among the more prominent. But Sara Brill pulls them (...) together into a cohesive and illuminating picture, showing how each reflects Aristotle's conception of the concept "life" and the two Greek words, zôê and bios, that he uses to discuss it.The book rebukes thinkers who draw too sharp a contrast between animal life, on the one hand, and human politics, on the other. Until recently, Brill writes, that has been the dominant trend, uniting thinkers otherwise as different as Giorgio Agamben and David Keyt. For writers like them, human beings must overcome and sublimate their base, animal instincts (zôê, "mere life") in order to develop rational, uniquely human "ways of life" (bioi) like the lives of the citizen and the philosopher.For Brill, by contrast, the relationship between a person and the polis in Aristotle is "an intensified form of the relations between any animal and its proper habitat" (29). Indeed, every animal species has a distinctive way of life, a bios. The lavish discussion of animal "personality" or "character" (ethos) in the History of Animals suggests their range: lions are brave, cattle are stupid, dolphins are gentle, and so on. A personality not only helps an animal flourish in some habitat (topos) but also defines its relationships with other members of its species. So although Aristotle only classifies a few animal species as "political," Brill reminds us that there is a clear sense in which all are social.Aristotle famously claims that we humans are the "most political" of all animals, but Brill shows that this claim is both incomplete and misleading. For although Aristotle thinks that we outdo even bees in organized cooperation, he also stresses that we outdo even "warlike" eagles in our capacity for violence and solitude. Confronted with the opposition between solitary and gregarious ways of life, human beings "dualize" or "play a double game" (epamphoterizei) (HA I.1, 488a7). That is, much as frogs have water-dwelling and land-dwelling inclinations, humans are socially amphibious. Indeed, every human behavior—communal, solitary, and contentious alike—turns out to be an expression of animal nature. Brill points out that much of the Politics emphasizes the negative, the way that human beings make their own and each other's lives unlivable. Thus, although Aristotle embraces the sweetness of life, which has a distinct and intrinsic pleasure, his political project anticipates Nietzsche in squarely and unflinchingly studying its "horrors" (254).For Brill, the apex of human sociality in Aristotle is not politics but the so-called "perfect" friendship that Aristotle describes in Nicomachean Ethics VIII–IX and Eudemian Ethics VII. Perfect friends, Aristotle says repeatedly, "share a life" (suzên, cognate with zôê rather than bios). Friends grieve and rejoice together, perceive together, and philosophize together too. Brill emphasizes that this list includes the full range of psychic functions, from appetite all the way up to the highest forms of abstract thought. As they live together, friends build up a "nexus of meaning and value," a "world as it is created through the sharing of pleasure, judgment, and action" in which there "emerges a subjectivity which cannot be easily or simply conceived as 'mine'" (43, emphasis in original). In the best kinds of friendship, we realize that human life is lived by the partnership itself, not just the friends individually. [End Page 149]But Brill stresses that Aristotle thinks few people will ever find "perfect friendship." It is completely out of reach for most citizens of any real-world city. Yet for Aristotle, the flawed and diverse citizens of every polis nevertheless engage in a form of shared life: shared perception of the just and unjust. How is that possible? Through fragile institutions and customs, what Aristotle calls an "adornment of habits and an arrangement of correct laws" (Politics II.5... (shrink)

This paper examines Mencius’ view on compassion in the political realm by proposing that Mencius defends compassionate governance by reconciling the two extremes of Yangist self-love and Mohist universal love. This paper proposes a reading of two famous stories, namely, the story of a young child on the verge of falling into a well, and the story of King Xuan of Qi sparing an ox as paradigmatic cases for understanding Mencius’ account of compassion in the political realm. This paper argues (...) that Mencius succeeds in his defense of governance with compassion against the other two extremes of self-love and altruism. To provide an argument for compatibility with egoism or self-love, this paper offers an analysis of Mencius’ idea of the ruler sharing pleasure with his people instead of denying pleasure for himself. In this sense, a good ruler does not need to sacrifice his self-interest. To counter the demand of universal love of the Mohists, Mencius develops a position that the Confucian ideal ruler, while not sacrificing his self-interests, those interests need to be guided and directed by a proper process of moral cultivation of his compassionate heart so that he can readily share his pleasures with all the peoples in his kingdom. These readings indicate Mencius’ expanded argument for political implications of compassion in the moral universe of the Confucian school. (shrink)

Assuming live music can foster belonging in the workplace, this study linked companies in the secondary and tertiary sectors with the world of music performance. Specifically, students from a Swiss music university offered live mini-concerts on the premises of three companies over a period of 3 months. To analyze the impact of these brief musical interventions on the sense of belonging of staff in these companies, a mixed methods approach was adopted using a standardized questionnaire. The short concerts were much (...) appreciated. On the individual level, they led to a greater sense of pleasure and were perceived as a break, a possibility to connect to one’s emotions and above all, as a “moment for oneself.” On the group level, the short concerts allowed the members of teams to meet, prompted conversations and new ways of sharing, created links, and offered opportunities to get to know work colleagues differently and to discover them on a more personal level. (shrink)

This study tested a conceptual model in which photo-sharing behavior during travel elicits tourists’ emotional state, and in turn improves evaluation of the tourism product. The research results in the context of tourist attractions and restaurants provide support for the proposed model. Specifically, tourists’ photo-sharing behavior was significantly associated with more positive product evaluation, both directly and indirectly via the emotion of pleasure. These associations were stronger when the interdependent self-construers had good social experience. The results provide (...) practical guidance for marketers to developing marketing strategy. (shrink)

Bodily (dis)pleasures and emotions share the striking property of being valenced, i.e. they are positive or negative. What is valence? How do bodily (dis)pleasures and emotions relate to one another? This chapter assesses the prospects of two popular theses regarding the relation between bodily (dis)pleasures and emotions in light of what we can reasonably think about valence. According to the first thesis, the valence of bodily (dis)pleasures is explanatory prior vis-à-vis the valence of emotions. According to the second, emotions contain (...) bodily (dis)pleasures. I argue that bodily (dis)pleasures are intentional states whose valence is to be understood in terms of evaluative experience, and bring to light the similarities and dissimilarities between their intentional structure and that of emotions. On this backdrop, I offer reasons to conclude that we should adopt neither of the two theses. (shrink)

Many feminist philosophers of education have argued that the teacher's pleasure plays an important role in the classroom. However, accessing such pleasure is often easier said than done. Given our current academic climate, how might teachers develop pedagogical practices that cultivate these delights? This article investigates the (rather surprising) response to this question offered in Augustine's De catechizandis rudibus. Despite his reputation as a pleasure-hater, Augustine spends the majority of his text defending the delights of teaching. In (...) particular, Augustine argues that if teachers wish to find pleasure in teaching, they would do well to study the pleasures of mothers. To this end, I analyse the nature of Augustine's maternal appeal. What insight does Augustine find in the experiences of mothers? In what way does he hope his colleagues will allow these experiences to shape their pedagogies? I conclude by exploring the benefits and the risks of Augustine's claim for those who teach in the contemporary feminist classroom. Augustine's defence of pedagogical pleasure suggests that he shares a common interest with feminist philosophers. But, the social/political limits of his account highlight the value of submitting such pleasures to the terms of feminist critique. (shrink)

In 2007, Song-Ming Ang initiated Guilty Pleasures, a series of listening parties dedicated to sharing beloved “bad songs” and facilitating critical discussions about complex desires and hierarchies of taste. In this article, I extend on these discussions and offer a theory of guilty pleasures. Informed by queer and critical approaches to affect and minor aesthetic categories, I argue that guilty pleasures are characterized not by a specific medium or style, but rather by their ability to evoke pleasure interrupted (...) by a meta-response of guilt. This experience is activated by the outmoded, saccharine, or naff qualities of an object. I contrast guilty pleasures with good-bad art, painful art, and objects that foster akrasia, and provide an extended examination of naff, another minor aesthetic category with roots in Polari that intersects aspects of camp, heteronormativity, and Lauren Berlant’s notion of “cruel optimism.” I ultimately argue that guilty pleasures are far from a simplistic category of low art enjoyed with indifference. Instead, I perceive guilty pleasures as always enjoyed with a degree of criticality or skepticism that is tethered to the beholder’s taste, life experiences, and values. (shrink)

This article seeks to open up a new avenue for feminist technology studies—gender-aware research on engineers and engineering practice—on the grounds that engineers are powerful symbols of the equation between masculinity and technology and occupy significant roles in shaping new technologies. Drawing on the disparate evidence available, the author explores four themes. The first asks why the equation between masculinity and technology is so durable when there are such huge mismatches between image and practice. The second examines this mismatch in (...) the detail of engineering knowledge and practice to reveal that fractured and contradictory constructions of masculinity frequently coexist. The third theme addresses the suggestion that women and men might bring different styles to engineering. Finally, the author explores subjective experiences of engineering to argue that engineers’ shared pleasures in and identification with technology both define what it means to be an engineer and provide appealing symbols of power that act to compensate for a perceived lack of power or competence in other arenas. (shrink)

This piece, which was revised greatly subsequent to the publication of the Methods of Ethics, appears in this collection in its original form. In it, Sidgwick distinguishes between Universal Hedonism and Egoistic Hedonism, the former espoused by Bentham, who nonetheless approves of individual self‐interest, which he regards as inevitable. Mill attempts to forge a connection between the psychological and ethical principles that he and Bentham share, maintaining that, since each person seeks her own happiness, she ought to seek the happiness (...) of others. Sidgwick endeavours to dissociate universal hedonism from the egoistic notions that appear in both Bentham and Mill's positions. (shrink)

I defend Hume's account of tragic pleasure against various objections. I examine his account of the emotions in order to clarify his "conversion theory". I also argue that Hume does not give us a theory of tragedy as an aesthetic genre, but rather elucidates the felt experience of a particular work of tragedy. I offer a partial reading of King Lear by way of illustration. Finally, I suggest that the experiences of aesthetic pleasure, and aesthetic sadness, share certain (...) qualities. "Tragic pleasure" is possible, in part, because the pity of tragedy is realised through the pleasure of the aesthetic. (shrink)

This edited collection sets forth a new understanding of aesthetic-moral judgment organised around three key concepts: pleasure, reflection, and accountability. The overarching theme is that art is not merely a representation or expression like any other, but that it promotes shared moral understanding and helps us engage in meaning-making. This volume offers an alternative to brain-centric and realist approaches to aesthetics. It features original essays from a number of leading philosophers of art, aesthetics, ethics, and perception, including Elizabeth Burns (...) Coleman, Garrett Cullity, Cynthia A. Freeland, Ivan Gaskell, Paul Guyer, Jane Kneller, Keith Lehrer, Mohan Matthen, Jennifer A. McMahon, Bence Nanay, Nancy Sherman, and Robert Sinnerbrink. Part I of the book analyses the elements of aesthetic experience— pleasure, preference, and imagination—with the individual conceived as part of a particular cultural context and network of other minds. The chapters in Part II explain how it is possible for cultural learning to impact these elements through consensus building, an impulse to objectivity, emotional expression, and reflection. Finally, the chapters in Part III converge on the role of dissonance, difference, and diversity in promoting cultural understanding and advancement. Social Aesthetics and Moral Judgment will appeal to philosophers of art and aesthetics, as well as to scholars in other disciplines interested in issues related to art and cultural exchange. (shrink)

At Republic 462a-e, Plato provides an account of political unity summarized in the following claims: PU1 — Political unity is the sharing of pleasures and pains in common; PU2 — The unity of a polis resembles the unity of an individual; PU3 — Political unity is the greatest good for a polis. Aristotle criticizes the coherence of these claims arguing that if anything becomes completely unified it becomes an individual and ceases to be a state. Since the greatest good (...) for a city preserves it, a city cannot be unified as an individual is unified. Robert Mayhew has recently defended the philosophical significance of Aristotle’s objections. Mayhew is right. Aristotle’s objections are significant, but this is because they require a more thorough explication of the Platonic view. This paper reconstructs the Platonic view, shows that a more careful reading avoids the Aristotelian criticisms, and then shows that Aristotle endorses the reconstructed view. (shrink)

When we are touched by the beauty of something, we cannot help judging that the experienced feeling of pleasure ought to be shared by others. In Kantian terms, a pure judgement of taste requires or demands everyone else's assent. I examine some of the major intricacies of Kant's account and aim to correct some distorted views of it. I argue that the autonomy (or ‘heautonomy’) of the judgement of taste is not presupposed but made possible by the modal requirement (...) as such, i.e. by the ‘subjective necessity’ to be universally shared—a necessity that is not moral, as several commentators hold, but strictly epistemological. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Aesthetic hedonism is the default theory of aesthetic value. Some of its critics share with it a pair of unquestioned assumptions, namely, that any theory of aesthetic value should make special appeal to its being the case that the canonical form of aesthetic evaluation is a state of pleasure and to its being the case that the canonical purpose of aesthetic acts is to access pleasure. This paper argues that there is reason to doubt both assumptions. Doubting both (...) assumptions suggests a wider range of alternatives to aesthetic hedonism and primitivist inversions of aesthetic hedonism. (shrink)

This article deploys Spinoza’s ethic of joy alongside Deleuze and Guattari’s exposition of micropolitics to expose how fascist desires and affects bloom and circulate through digital communications ecosystems that generally promote a diffusion or decentralisation of power. Beyond the steady barrage of alt-right content conscientiously documented by liberal journalists and progressive watchdogs, a more persistent and widespread fascist impulse permeates the very forms of some of our most banal digitally mediated acts and encounters. Rather than a sole looming authoritarian figurehead, (...) the network itself – particularly with the new image paradigms propelled by apps such as Instagram and TikTok – has become the rallying point for the circulation of fascistic affects, burnished through the art and ethos of following: of rules, routines, protocols, accounts. I contend that a joyful passion accompanies much of this everyday experience of keeping up with one’s feeds, engaging the platforms, participating in the spectacles. This is what Sontag, interrogating the appeal of the Third Reich, calls the ‘joy of followers’, a joy in fascist belonging, which is to suggest that fascist movements thrive not only on the circulation of negative affects like hatred and fear, but also on the profusion of pleasure and affiliation. Deleuze’s Spinoza, resolutely anti-fascist, helps us parse this situation as it plays out in the social media sphere. Spinoza offers a bipartite conceptualisation of joy that allows us to diagnose the pleasures particular to fascist belonging and network belonging alike as passive, partial and indirect. Ultimately, what we today share with historical fascisms is a ubiquitous aesthetic that merges art with life and bodies with information, and a corresponding ethos that cultivates conformism, barbarises critical thought and redirects joyful impulses into reactionary social forms. As fascistic power relations spread anew through digital cultures’ newly evolving modes of visuality, hapticity, vibration and expression, one can observe something of what Deleuze calls ‘sad joy’, a sort of joy rooted in conquest and domination. The aim of this article is to root out such sad joys, to appreciate their appeal, and ultimately to reject them in all their various forms. (shrink)

Central to the debate on the moral relevance of shame is whether we take others’ assessments of our moral shortcomings seriously. Some argue that viewing shame as a social emotion undermines the moral standing of shame; for a moral agent, what is authoritative are his own moral values, not the mere disapproval of others. Adam Smith's framework sheds some light on the contemporary debates in philosophy on the moral value of shame. Shame is mostly a social emotion but has moral (...) value for Smith. This is because we desire sympathy and share an ongoing social practice of morality with others. Smith developed the underpinnings of an account for a sympathetic basis of shame. An agent is evaluated through the sympathetic process to determine whether he/she has lived up to shared norms and morality. Shame emerges from the understanding that we ought not to be favorably thought of by others, the impartial spectator, or by our own conscience. We want to avoid shame for two reasons: first, we want to receive praise which gives pleasure, blame and blameworthiness operate by giving pain. Secondly, we are pleased with the sympathy of others. According to Smith, shame is a very painful emotion. Given our dread of pain and love of pleasure, we are motivated to be not blamed or blameworthy. We want to be favorably thought of so as not to be, or feel, shamed. Our dread of blameworthiness and our desire for sympathy motivates us to be a person who acts according to the norms and morality of society. Shame has a moral value both as a social emotion and when it arises from our conscience; however, Smith was also aware that there are limits to shame as a moral value, which arises from misjudgments of spectators. (shrink)

Recent work on Statius’s Silvae has emphasized the poet’s efforts to create “intimacy” with his private patrons through espousing a value system based on friendship, connoisseurship, and shared literary interests, a system opposed to the public values of political ambition and the blunt glorification of military power in imperial expansion. This essay, however, argues that we have yet to comprehend the extent to which the dynamics of empire itself inform the creation of such intimacy in the Silvae. Specifically, what Sara (...) Ahmed has described as empire’s “queering” effect on the subject’s relation to objects of desire has a formative role in Statian intimacy. I focus on one of the Silvae that has been central to the formation of the current view of Statius outlined above: Silvae 4.6, on a Hercules statuette owned by Novius Vindex but previously the possession of three empire-builders, Alexander, Hannibal, and Sulla. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Power of “Pliant Stuff”: Fables and Frankness in Seventeenth-Century Dutch RepublicanismArthur WeststeijnIn the preface to his 1609 collection of classical fables entitled De sapientia veterum (On the Wisdom of the Ancients), Francis Bacon vindicated his choice for such a playful genre. Although the writing of fables might seem just an “exercise of pleasure for my own or my reader’s recreation,” Bacon stressed that that was not the (...) case. On the contrary, he argued that “beneath no small number of the fables of the ancient poets there lay from the very beginning a mystery and an allegory.” Therefore, he continued, through such fables, “as sacred relics and light airs breathing out of better times,” hidden meanings can be exposed and made understood to unskilled ears and eyes. Indeed, “the employment of parables as a method of teaching, whereby inventions that are new and abstruse and remote from vulgar opinions may find an easier passage to the understanding,” shows that the fable serves as a very appropriate expedient for instruction and persuasion, the higher goals of rhetoric beyond simple entertainment and delight.1 [End Page 1]Yet, for all these noble purposes, Bacon could not hide his unease with those aspects of the fable which seemed to escape his pen’s command. Embarrassed by the “levity and looseness with which people indulge their fancy in the matter of allegories,” he acknowledged himself to have trod slippery ground. As he asserted: “I know very well what pliant stuff fable is made of, how freely it will follow any way you please to draw it, and how easily with a little dexterity and discourse of wit meanings which it was never meant to bear may be plausibly put upon it.” For Bacon, this intrinsic ambivalence of the fable gave rise to discomfort, and from the start he sought to remove any potential misunderstandings about his intentions. However, not all seventeenth-century writers of fables shared his concerns. Instead, the very nature of the fable as “pliant stuff,” as a genre which necessarily conveys meanings in an ambiguous, suggestive, and indirect manner, made it a particularly useful rhetorical device for those who would not or could not articulate their opinions openly.This article shows that a number of seventeenth-century authors deliberately employed the fable for its political expediency as an opaque prism to diffuse unconventional ideas that could undermine authority. Central in this overview are the Dutch merchants and fervent republican theorists Johan and Pieter de la Court, the main representatives of the radicalization of Dutch republicanism in the decades following the Peace of Westphalia. While most mainstream republicans in the Netherlands emphasized the need of a monarchical figure, a Stadholder, in the ideally balanced republican regime, the brothers De la Court claimed that such a monarchical element would necessarily entail tyranny.2 Their writings employed two different types of fables to substantiate this fundamental claim: the first based on the political allegories of the Italian satirist Traiano Boccalini, the second following the Aesopian tradition as exemplified by the famous [End Page 2] Dutch poet and playwright Joost van den Vondel. Through an analysis of the rhetorical role of these fables, this article attempts to shed more light on the reasons why fables were used in seventeenth-century republican thought. It will argue that the literary aspects of the fable cannot be separated from its political function, a function that eventually can be characterized as highly paradoxical: not in spite but because of its openness to different readings, the fable involved a disguised rhetorical plea for frankness and liberty of speech.Rhetoric and Fables: The Standing of an Emblematic GenreIn classical antiquity, when authors such as Aesop and Phaedrus had created a distinct genre of allegorical tales, the use of such fables had been as much reproved as their particular rhetorical force had been recognized. According to Quintilian, fables should not be a part of the linguistic armory of the truly decent orator, for fables “are specially attractive to rude and uneducated minds, which are less suspicious than others in their receptions of fictions and, when pleased, readily agree with the arguments from which their pleasure is derived... (shrink)

Individuals who share friendships for utility or pleasure, Aristotle says, do not love each other in themselves, but in so far as some benefit accrues to them from each other. Friendships for utility aren't limited to business transactions, though. It's possible for Data to form relationships in order to achieve some other goal. An android without emotions is incapable of caring for another. Friendships can also be formed for the sake of pleasure and mutual enjoyment during communal activities. (...) Friendship and consequentialism are psychologically incompatible, for the only states of mind relevant to assessing the value of an act's consequences are states like purposes, goals, and desires. There are multiple forms of friendship, which require emotion. There's a difference between acting out of friendship and acting for the sake of the friendship or some other goal, which suggests that genuine friendships can't be accommodated by consequentialist ways of thinking. (shrink)

This time, McGirr shares his love of philosophy, looking at the works of twenty eminent thinkers across history. The book goes back to Pythagoras and comes forward to the contemporary Australian Frank Jackson; back to Mungo Woman and forward to Martha Nussbaum, by way of Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch. It is animated by two related questions: from where do we draw a sense of life's purpose, and how can philosophy make life better? It ranges widely across subjects: from solitude (...) to community, language to order, experience to ecstasy, the idea of good to that of a good idea. McGirr's approach is warm and inviting. Drawing on many years' experience teaching philosophy to teenagers, he shares stories from his life and discusses how philosophers have shed light on them. Ideas to Save Your Life is often funny, but it is serious about philosophy. It makes the impenetrable accessible, the indescribable palpable, and invites you to change the way you see the world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Perception of the Self George S. Pappas Differences of detail aside, we may think ofboth Locke and Berkeley as accepting the same view of the mind. They agree that there are minds, and that each mind is a simple, immaterial substance. Sometimes the word 'soul' is used instead of'mind'; but in this context, the different terminology is not consequential. Moreover, Locke and Berkeley employ essentially the same argument for (...) their shared view about minds. More exactly, they use the same argument for the limited thesis that there is something distinct from perceptions and from ideas perceived, and that this somethingis aperceiver, or that which perceives. The argument, given in more detail below, claims that we are aware ofour own minds in, or while we are engaged in, perception. The kind ofawareness is said to be or to involve a reflex act, a concept we associate with Berkeley, though I think it is one he appropriated from Locke. Hume, ofcourse, rejects the view ofLocke and Berkeley. He rejects the very notion of an immaterial mind or soul, finding it to be meaningless. And he rejects as well the limited thesis that there is something which perceives and which is distinct from all perceptions. In this paper I will restrict attention to Hume's arguments for rejecting the limited thesis. 1. Rejection ofthe limited thesis Hume investigates the limited thesis of Locke and Berkeley in the well-known section ofthe Treatise which deals with personal identity (Treatise 1.4.6). Here is how he expresses the view of "some philosophers": Theke are some philosophers, who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF; that we feel its existence and continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and make us consider their influence on selfeither by their pain or pleasure.1 Thus, Hume represents the argumentofthosehe opposes as containing two premises: Volume XVIII Number 2 275 GEORGE S. PAPPAS (1)In perception, one is aware ofone's self, and aware ofthe simplicity of the self. (2)In being thus aware of the self and its simplicity one gains an idea of a simple self. These premises, in turn, support a double conclusion: (3)There are simple selves (minds). (4)We have an idea of a simple self(mind). Hume does not take the trouble to cite the second premise given here in the passage I have quoted, butitis clear that he has it in mind, since he proceeds directly to a criticism of it. The criticism is quite familiar inform, encapsulatingwhat I call aderivabilityargument. Here is what Hume says: all these positive assertions are contrary to that very experience, which is pleaded for them, nor have we any idea of self, after the manner it is here explain'd. For from what impression cou'd this idea be deriv'd?... It must be some one impression, that givesrise toeveryreal idea. But selfor person is not any one impression, but that to which our severahmpressionsandideas are suppos'd to have areference. Ifany impression gives rise to the idea ofself, that impression must continue invariably the same, thro' the whole course of our lives; since self is suppos'd to exist after that manner. (T 251) He is also sharply critical ofthe first premise. Hume says: when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particularperception orother, ofheatorcold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myselfat any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. (T 252) So, minimally, Hume's arguments amount to this: (1) is false; hence, we have nogroundforclaiming(3). Similarly, (2) is false, so that we have no ground for claiming (4). Actually, of course, Hume asserts stronger claims, maintaining that (3) and (4) arefalse, and not merely that we lack adequate support forthem. Buttoshowtheirfalsityrequires additional argumentbeyond whatis providedin the above-quoted passages. Here I will not consider those additional arguments, except to note... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Of Dialogues and SeedsKenneth SeeskinPlato’s Literary Garden: How to Read a Platonic Dialogue, by Kenneth M. Sayre; xxiii & 292 pp. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995, $34.95.One of the best known paradoxes in the Platonic corpus occurs in the Seventh Letter (341), when Plato says that he has never written about the problems which concern him and never will. His reason: “This knowledge can never be (...) put into words like other subjects; but is generated by living with the matter itself and from many conversations (ek polle\s sunousias). Then like a flashing light when a fire is kindled, it is born in the soul and nourishes itself.” Why would the most gifted philosophical writer in history say that when it comes to goodness, beauty, or justice, language is an inadequate medium in which to convey truth?One answer is that Plato had an esoteric doctrine that he divulged to a few close associates but did not express in the dialogues. 1 The crux of the esotericist position is that Plato’s objection is not to language as such but to written language in particular. A more satisfying answer is offered by Kenneth M. Sayre in this recent book. According to Sayre, Plato wrote dialogues to allow the reader to have conversation (sunousia) with the author “in an indirect manner” and to facilitate the reader’s own discovery of truth. In other words, the dialogues are surrogates for the sort of discussions Plato shared with Socrates “in hopes of producing a similar effect in the mind of the reader.” [End Page 167]If Sayre is right, the problem discussed in the Seventh Letter is not limited to written communication but involves “logoi in whatever form we might identify them today” (p. 159). Sayre enlarges on this insight by claiming (p. 18) that for Plato “philosophic knowledge is not awareness of the truth of propositions” but “discernment of some aspect of reality.” 2 Nor is this view limited to the Seventh Letter; Sayre finds it expressed in dialogues ranging from the Meno to the Statesman. Although I have problems with some of the details of this interpretation, it is noteworthy that the Seventh Letter (342a) does claim its epistemology is not new and “has been expounded many times before.” 3The title of Sayre’s book is taken from a famous passage in the Phaedrus (276), where Socrates says that while written language gives the appearance of finality and inviolability, it is an image (eido\lon) of living speech, by which he means words that can defend themselves and are accompanied by knowledge. But as Sayre points out, the passage also carves out a role for written speech by claiming that it is legitimate for the dialectician to plant seeds in “a literary garden” to assist memory in later years and to help others who “wish to walk in the same path.” In fact, the passage tells us that the dialectician will select a soul of the right type and take pleasure in watching the seeds grow and mature. In keeping with Plato’s metaphor, Sayre organizes his chapters into functions associated with gardening: some dialogues prepare the ground, others sow the seeds, train the shoots, or allow us to reap the fruit. The book ends with an appendix on how to read a specific dialogue, the Theaetetus, in a way that emphasizes indirect or imagined conversation. As one might expect, Sayre takes the Theaetetus to imply that knowledge cannot be defined as true belief with a logos.Although not a highly technical work, Plato’s Literary Garden is a thoughtful and thought-provoking one designed for someone who wants students to see that Plato is not just another philosopher with another doctrine to peddle. So the first step in reading a Platonic dialogue is to recognize with Sayre that the dialogues are not “proto-essays” and that the decision to write dialogues is tied up with important features of Plato’s epistemology. But does that mean, as Sayre claims (p. 12), that “Plato’s dialogues were not conceived by their author as contexts in which to develop and to display positive arguments for... (shrink)

This article responds to an argument from Katarzyna de Ladari-Radek and Peter Singer in their article, "The Objectivity of Ethics and the Unity of Practical Reason.".

According to commentators like Rosalind Krauss, Briony Fer, Caroline Jones, and Michael Fried, Clement Greenberg’s formalist/positivist device of “medium-specificity” debars errant affective aesthetic experiences that are embodied; despite significant differences in how these theorists arrive at this conclusion, one shared point of emphasis is Greenberg’s inheriting Kant’s disinterested conception of pleasure in reflective judgments of beauty. Offering a textualist review of Kant’s Analytic of the Beautiful, I seek to demonstrate that neither Greenberg, nor Greenberg’s critics, are correct in their (...) account of Kant’s judgments of beauty.1 Specifically, I argue that Greenberg conflates Kant’s conception of judgments of free beauty (pulchritudo vaga) with merely adherent beauty (pulchritudo adhaerens). In formulating a rejoinder to Greenberg and the misplacement of Greenberg as a Kantian, and following Diarmuid Costello, I hope to save a path for a Kantian aesthetics of the present, much in the spirit of other broadly Kantian art historians and philosophers of art/aesthetics (e.g., Thierry de Duve, Paul Guyer, Ido Geiger, etc.). (shrink)

The Handbook of the Study of Play brings together, in two volumes, thinkers whose diverse interests at the leading edge of scholarship and practice define the current field. Because play is an activity that humans have shared across time, place, and culture, and in their personal developmental timelines - and because this behavior stretches deep into the evolutionary past - no single discipline can lay claim to exclusive rights to study the subject. Thus, this handbook features the thinking of evolutionary (...) psychologists; ethologists and biologists; neuroscientists; developmental psychologists; psychotherapists and play therapists; historians; sociologists and anthropologists; cultural psychologists; philosophers; theorists of music, performance, and dance; specialists in learning and language acquisition; and playground designers. Together, but out of their varied understandings, the incisive contributions to The Handbook of the Study of Play take on vital questions of educational policy, literacy, fitness, the role of play in brain development, spotaneity and pleasure, well-being and happiness, fairness, and the fuller realization of the self. These volumes also comprise an intellectual history, offering retrospective looks at the great thinkers who have made possible the modern study of play. -- from back cover. (shrink)

Although Spinoza disagrees with Descartes's claim that animals are mindless, he holds that we may nevertheless treat them as we please because their natures are different from human nature. Margaret Wilson has questioned the validity of Spinoza's argument, since it is not clear why differences in nature should imply differences in ethical status. In this paper, I propose a new interpretation of Spinoza's argument that responds to Wilson's challenge. We have ethical commitments to other humans only because we share the (...) same nature, for this implies that in helping them become more perfect, we also make them more useful to us. However, since animals have different natures than we do, helping them perfect themselves may make them less useful to us. Reason dictates only what it can dictate unconditionally, so it does not guide us to pursue the good of lower animals. Though Spinoza's argument is valid, there is little reason to think it sound; I conclude with a brief criticism of Spinoza's doctrine of human nature, which plays a central role in the argument. (shrink)

In this paper the notion of sensus communis, as articulated by Kant in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, is discussed from the vantage point of the author's project of exporting the model of exemplary universalism underlying reflective and, specifically, aesthetic judgment beyond the realm of aesthetics. In the first section, the relevance of such a project relative to an appraisal of the new and unsuperseded philosophical context opened by the Linguistic Turn is elucidated. Then the centrality of sensus (...) communis, for making sense of the specific universalism inherent in reflective judgment, is highlighted. In the second section, the limitations inherent in two opposite strategies for conceptualizing sensus communis are discussed: namely, the hermeneutic idea of a `horizon' and the phenomenological notion of a life-world on one hand, and the Kantian minimalist, naturalized concept of sensus communis on the other. The former is argued to become entangled in relativism, the latter to run against our intuitions concerning the inter-subjective constitution of the subject. In the final section, a third notion of sensus communis is offered, still compatible with the Kantian conception, different from the Gadamerian concept of a tradition or to the phenomenological notion of Lebenswelt, yet still capable of offering a plausible ground for the exemplary universalism of aesthetic judgment. Expanding on Kant's view of aesthetic pleasure, sensus communis is understood as consisting of a universal capacity, on the part of every human being, to sense from within a plurality of coordinates the flourishing of human life and what favours it. (shrink)

This book explores three worlds shared by the humans in their collective experiences. It identifies and explores the world of commonsense, the world of religion, and the world of science as three essential dimensions of human experience. The book helps understand that humans can gain comfort and pleasure in commonsense, achieve meaning and purpose from religion, and attain truth and rationality through science. It actively applies theories to and develops theoretical explanations from different domains or situations of human existence. (...) This book is of interest to theorists, researchers, instructors, and students across major academic disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Communicative Implications of Kant’s Aesthetic TheoryThomas HoveIn recent discussions of aesthetic theory, critics who raise social, cultural, and political concerns have issued important challenges to the Kantian legacy. Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790) continues to be widely regarded as one of the founding documents of modern aesthetic theory. But the arguments he laid out in that notoriously enigmatic work remain controversial on a variety of fronts. (...) One of those arguments concerns his distinction between pleasures that are beautiful and those that are agreeable. According to Kant’s definition, what makes experiences of the beautiful special is that they have a potentially communicable universal validity. By contrast, pleasures that are merely agreeable are incommunicable and remain confined to private sensation. Philosophers have found this distinction problematic for a variety of reasons. Their detailed commentaries have examined the intricate logical and conceptual difficulties that Kant’s theory raises (see Allison 2001; Guyer 1982, 1997, 2002; Kalar 2000; Wenzel 2005). On another front, sociologists and cultural critics—whom I will broadly refer to as “social critics”—typically raise concerns about the theory’s hidden social implications (Bourdieu 1984; Eagleton 1990; Smith 1988; Shumway 2005). Specifically, they question Kant’s proposal that judgments about the beautiful ought to have universal validity. Taking an external standpoint, they tend to regard aesthetic judgments either as the peculiar habits of [End Page 103] specific social classes, or as badges of hierarchical distinction, or as weapons in symbolic struggles for cultural dominance.To suggest why Kant’s theory is worth revisiting in the wake of such critiques, the following analysis defends his theoretical effort to distinguish the experience of the beautiful from that of the agreeable. This feature of his aesthetic theory highlights an alternative to the cognitive and practical concerns that social critics emphasize. In particular, I indicate how Kant’s aesthetic theory offers directions for the effort to explain how aesthetic experience promotes communicative sociability. By emphasizing this theme, I hope to supplement the rival emphasis that social critics place on the Kantian legacy’s elitist undercurrents. Social critiques characteristically overlook the affective type of sociability to which aesthetic experience gives rise. This oversight occurs because those critiques tend to privilege the theoretical and practical dimensions of communication. In the process, they disregard the special types of validity claims that are unique to aesthetic discourse. Following the lead of his academic precursors Meier and Baumgarten, Kant tried to define a possible third mental “faculty” that differs from cognitive and practical reason (see Henrich 1992, 31–36). But the difficulty of defining this third faculty, much less determining its existence, continues to vex both philosophers and communication theorists.Kant’s Account of Aesthetic Experience and Its CriticsIn the opening sections of the Critique of Judgment, Kant attempts to establish the independence of aesthetic judgment from theoretical and practical cognition. Those faculties are concerned with cognitive and moral concepts. By contrast, the aesthetic properties that concern taste judgments have a unique ontological and epistemological status. Kant’s argument about that status is itself enormously complex, involving as it does an intricate network of idiosyncratically defined concepts (for example, the understanding, the imagination, intuition, representations, objects, etc.). But to avoid getting lost in those intricacies, we can bracket them by simply referring to aesthetic “experience.” Also, we can concentrate on the two properties that distinguish aesthetic experience from other kinds of experience. First, aesthetic properties relate to the feelings of pleasure that are aroused by certain encounters with objects. Second, aesthetic properties are “merely subjective” (Kant 2000, 75). They do not have an objective status because we cannot associate the feelings they arouse with determinate concepts and objects. [End Page 104] As Miles Rind puts it, “in making a cognitive judgment one requires everyone to conceptualize an object in a certain way, while in making a judgment of taste one requires others to share one’s liking for an object” (Rind 2000, 83). In sum, Kant differentiates aesthetic judgment from both theoretical and practical cognition because it is radically subjective and because its unique grounding lies in feelings of pleasure and displeasure.Social critics tend to downplay the idea that there... (shrink)

The theme of this issue of Ethical Perspectives is the French tradition in liberal thought, and the unique contribution that this tradition can make to debates in contemporary liberalism. It is inspired by a colloquium held at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in December of 2008 entitled “In Search of a Lost Liberalism: Constant, Tocqueville, and the singularity of French Liberalism.” This colloquium was held in conjunction with the retirement of Leuven professor and former Dean of the Institute of Philosophy, André (...) Van de Putte, who found much inspiration in this tradition. A revised version of his valedictory lecture from the conference serves as the final contribution to this issue. Much contemporary liberal political philosophy is currently done in conversation with a line of liberal thinkers starting with John Locke, running through Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill, and culminating in the work of John Rawls and his followers. The reasons for the enormous appeal of this philosophical tradition are, among other things, the combination of the central role of the intuitively appealing value of individual liberty with a strong rationalistic, universalistic, and normative character. The thread running through most of these liberal theories is a commitment to what the French liberal Benjamin Constant referred to as “the liberty of the moderns,” that is, liberty in a negative sense, as a lack of interference in one’s activity from others and from government. This focus has expanded over time to include a richer body of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights, for instance, in the work of liberal thinkers who have tried to integrate the insights of communitarian thought and discourse ethics in their work. However, the emphasis on individual liberty in the negative sense continues to be the normative and theoretical touchstone and default position for many contemporary liberal theories. The limitation of the canon of liberal thought to the aforementioned authors and themes deprives the contemporary debate of a rich source of ideas: the French liberal tradition. Montesquieu, considered to be the father of this tradition, provides a good example of how it can enrich current debates in liberal theory. Montesquieu’s work evinces a keen eye for the dynamics of power relations and the limitations of the power of the better rational argument. His insight that power can sometimes only be checked by an equal and opposing power, so that a system of separation and balance of powers is necessary in order to preserve liberty, is reflected in the foundations of most modern democracies. Montesquieu also argues that contingent environmental, historical, social and economic conditions play a dramatic role in determining what kind of government is appropriate for a particular society. On his view, ignoring these facts when framing a government can inadvertently end in despotism. Montesquieu’s observations challenge us to reexamine some of contemporary liberalism’s universalist and rationalist claims. Benjamin Constant is most famous for his distinction between two kinds of liberty: the liberty of the ancients and the liberty of the moderns. The ancient form of liberty manifested itself in the active political participation of citizens in the ancient republic. While this form of government and decision-making was suitable for small, homogeneous city-states, Constant argues that it is impracticable for large modern nation-states. Hence, the concept of modern liberty shifts to an emphasis on the rule of law and the non-interference of the state in private matters. This form of liberty is familiar to us from contemporary liberalism – and Constant cherishes this form of freedom as much as any liberal does today. However, his position is complex: he also argues that the liberty of the ancients should not be neglected. Active political participation is needed to ensure that the government is executing its duty of preserving the modern form of liberty by publicly pointing out violations. The contemporary relevance of Constant’s work is clear when we consider the alleged “democratic deficit” that plagues the EU and international institutions such as the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank. Not only does this democratic deficit threaten the modern form of liberty by placing decision-making processes out of sight of the people, it also threatens citizens’ sense of self-respect derived from self-governance. Constant’s argument for the necessity of combining the liberty of the ancients with that of the moderns provides a fruitful resource for confronting these contemporary issues. Tocqueville’s work on liberalism benefits from his opportunity to observe a society founded on liberal democratic principles – the United States of America – in action. In his Democracy in America, he examines the social consequences, both intended and unintended, of building a society on ‘the equality of conditions’, as he defines ‘democracy’. Tocqueville sees a tension between the democratic value of equality and the aristocratic value of the rule of the best. He observes that democratic societies do not necessarily choose the best leaders and instead promote mediocrity instead of virtue, talent, and excellence. Democracy also confronts citizens with the threat of ‘soft despotism’, where a government that preserves the outer signs of the liberty of the moderns nevertheless controls the behavior of its citizens in minute detail through a system of detailed rules ostensibly aimed at their welfare. This paternalism is an even more insidious threat to liberal values than the hard variety of despotism, since it is so difficult to detect and done in the name of liberal values themselves. Taking Tocqueville’s observations seriously would add complexity to attempts to theorize about the modern social-democratic welfare state. The contributions to this issue supplement and critique mainstream liberal thought and its relation to contemporary issues through a serious engagement with the French liberal tradition. Annelien De Dijn’s contribution discusses Bertrand de Jouvenel, a lesser-known 20th Century representative of the French political tradition she terms ‘aristocratic liberalism’. This tradition has its roots in the work of Montesquieu, and emphasizes the importance of intermediary bodies, most importantly the aristocracy, in providing a check to the top-down power of despotic state authorities and the bottom-up power of revolutionary leveling tendencies, both of which threaten liberty. De Dijn situates Jouvenel in this tradition, but then indicates an important difference between his thought and that of his predecessors: his most significant work, On Power, is not only on French history, but on European history. Pointing to the enthusiastic reception of this work in the Anglophone world, she suggests that the rise of totalitarianism in Europe gave the anti-totalitarian features of aristocratic liberalism a broader appeal. Valentino Lumowa’s paper concerns Constant’s classic text, The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns. Lumowa argues that in order to understand Constant’s piece, we must be aware that its two parts were written under different historical circumstances and decipher the argumentative thrust inherent in the text. Following Stephen Holmes, he argues that to understand the shift Constant made in the second part of the text, we should read it within the context of the increasing influence of the ultra-Royalists in the legislature during the Bourbon Restoration. However, in contrast to Holmes, he contends that the spirit of both civic and individual freedom, which enlivens representative system, is the backbone of the text in its unity. Demin Duan’s essay investigates an apparent ambivalence between liberal and imperialist tendencies in the work of Alexis de Tocqueville, which has already drawn some attention from Tocquevillian scholars. These interpretations of Tocqueville and his writings on empire generally agree that Tocqueville stands in a recognized tradition of liberalism, which is characterized by respect for human rights, individual freedom and a sense of universal humanism. On this standard view, Tocqueville’s support of imperialism represents nothing but an unfortunate breach of his own otherwise consistent liberal thinking. Duan’s article questions this standard position. By questioning the assumption of Tocqueville’s liberalism in the first place, he tries to gauge the influence of both the old republican tradition and the new liberal perspective on his thinking. In conclusion, he argues that Tocqueville’s overall thought, especially his notion of freedom, is very much informed by an old republican tradition. His support of French imperialism could be better understood from this perspective rather than be rendered simply as a deviation from liberal norms. Pawel Marczewski’s contribution is an attempt to show that Tocqueville’s conception of liberty transcends the divisions between negative and positive aspects of freedom. He begins by juxtaposing this conception with the opposition drawn by Constant between liberty of the ancients and liberty of the moderns. While Tocqueville and Constant shared a concern for the preservation of individual rights, Tocqueville was much more reluctant to accept the modern loss of the communal dimension of liberty. He did not accept the view that jouissances privées, private pleasures, are the main compensation that the modern world has to offer for the lost ancient treasure of political participation. The essay then looks into the relevance of Tocqueville’s standpoint for current debates between liberal defenders of negative freedom and republican advocates of freedom as non-domination. Participants on both sides of the debate seem to be so devoted to showing that their particular approach provides the best guarantees against actual and possible threats to liberty that they overlook the fact that their definitions of freedom remain significantly similar. By arguing that ‘to be free is to be guided by one’s own will’, contemporary republicans, as well as their liberal counterparts, move along the lines drawn by Constant towards private pleasures. By questioning the inevitability of this turn, Tocqueville provides us with a valuable contribution to these discussions in contemporary political philosophy. Finally, André Van de Putte’s contribution, an adaptation of his emeritus speech that closed the conference on French Liberalism, appeals to Tocqueville in order to draw attention to the importance of intermediary, dialogical bodies in mitigating the implicit despotic tendencies of the democratic drive to equality. In Tocqueville’s view, the transition from the feudal corporate inequality to democratic individual equality was not a clean break. Rather, this transition is a continual process of democratization that is driven by a desire for equality, or egalité des conditions. This dissolution of distinctions of estate, class and status has the unintended consequence of concentrating the diffuse power of these entities into a centralized state, which is responsible for ensuring the equality of all under the law. This process leaves increasingly isolated and atomized individuals to face the power of a monolithic state in defense of their freedom, and moves toward a soft, paternalistic despotism. Constant’s freedom of the moderns is not sufficient to protect individuals from this centralized power. Democracy also requires the political freedom of the ancients. Van de Putte argues for a system in which atomized individuals organize themselves into intermediary bodies that, in a Montesquieuian balance of powers, can enter into dialogue with each other and the state on more equitable terms. Van de Putte’s contribution closes with a plea for a conception of democracy as a regime of dialogue. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On the Historicity of the Archive:A Counter-Memory for Lynne Huffer's Mad for FoucaultShannon WinnubstLynne Huffer likes to laugh. I haven't known her very long and I don't even know her very well, but this much I am certain of: the woman likes to laugh. Whether at amusing intellectual witticisms or truly boisterous, gut-splitting observations of life's absurdities, Professor Huffer enjoys laughing. It comes as little surprise, then, that it (...) is the ludic aspect, which is intimately connected to the erotic aspect, of Foucault's work that she aims to rehabilitate in this remarkable, provocative, beautifully written, meticulously researched, and often funny book, Mad for Foucault: Rethinking the Foundations of Queer Theory.This book is an unusual one. Replete with the intellectual rigor of archival research, subtle, nuanced challenges to accepted translations, critical historical contextualizations, and complex theorizing at the most abstract levels, it is—despite its own anxieties—an intensely academic undertaking. But at the same time, in one of many of its own doublings (the Deleuzian trope through which Huffer initiates her discussion of Foucault), it is also an intensely personal undertaking, shaped by several interludes of appropriately ironic confessions: of Huffer's own coup de foudre in the Foucault archives of a twelfth-century premonasterian abbey in Normandy; of her politico-intellectual biography from high theory French departments to feminist love/hate relations with Foucault; and of her own struggles with various forms of so-called "madness." Giving voice to a transformative experience of encountering "a different Foucault" in that twelfth-century monastery, Huffer clearly gives an account of what Ladelle McWhorter, in her Bodies and Pleasures (McWhorter 1999), calls "undergoing" [End Page 215] Foucault. Huffer herself described it to me as "a work of passion"—and this is clear on every page.Consequently, the challenges that it brings to us as readers, thinkers, and cultural theorists are likewise intense and doubled—both academic and personal, both intellectual and politico-ethical, both theoretical and erotic, both historical and present, and both philosophical and not. She invites us, from the outset, to work through these doublings and the folding back upon themselves that become our intricate enactments and reflections upon our subjectivities. Again, her own beginning with the Deleuzian concepts of doublings, foldings, and coextensivity sets the framework for the kinds of intricate unravelings, especially of dialectical thinking, Huffer undertakes. The text consequently unfolds on multiple levels and requires a reading that is also multiply attentive and attuned. I take the heart of her project—namely, to begin the labor of articulating a desubjectivating, queer, feminist ethics of eros that will enact a more promising, less "caged" freedom in its resistance to the normalizing forces of biopolitics—to be a critical endeavor shared by many cultural theorists working in our contemporary milieu. Huffer's rejuvenation of the language of ethics in this project is most welcome and my comments today are meant to engage her in this shared labor of articulating a queer feminist ethics.The most explicit and innovative narrative of Mad for Foucault is Huffer's doubling of Foucault's 1961 History of Madness and his 1976 History of Sexuality, Volume 1. Much more than a mere tracing of Sexuality One's roots in an earlier, lesser known work, Huffer returns to Madness as a site of erotic ethical possibilities that are utterly absent in the ridiculously popular and popularized Sexuality One. Her return to Madness thereby constitutes a critical intervention in not only Foucault scholarship, but also in queer theory. As Huffer puts it, "Not only is Madness an earlier consideration of sexuality, but, historically, analytically, and stylistically, it gives a thicker, experiential texture to its subject than Sexuality One" (Huffer 2010, xiv). In skeletal terms, Huffer argues that Madness gives us the story of the great split between reason and unreason that occurred in the seventeenth century: due to bourgeois moral exclusion and the ascendancy of rationalism, this Age of Reason produces abnormality, which includes sexuality within its wide arc. Reading Foucault's writing of Madness in the late 1950s alongside his first love affair with Jean Barraqué (Huffer 2010, 13-16) and his struggles with... (shrink)

Obesity continues to be a global issue. In recent years, researchers have started to question the role of our novel yet ubiquitous use of digital media in the development of obesity. With the recent COVID-19 outbreak affecting almost all aspects of society, many people have moved their social eating activities into the digital space, making the question as relevant as ever. The bombardment of appetizing food images and photography – colloquially referred to as “food porn” – has become a significant (...) aspect of the digital food experience. This review presents an overview of whether and how the viewing, creating, and online sharing of digital food photography can influence consumer eating behavior. Moreover, this review provides an outlook of future research opportunities, both to close the gaps in our scientific understanding of the physiological and psychological interaction between digital food photography and actual eating behavior, and, from a practical viewpoint, to optimize our digital food media habits to support an obesity-preventive lifestyle. We do not want to rest on the idea that food imagery’s current prevalence is a core negative influence per se. Instead, we offer the view that active participation in food photography, in conjunction with a selective use of food-related digital media, might contribute to healthy body weight management and enhanced meal pleasure. (shrink)

Schadenfreude is the emotion we experience when we obtain pleasure from others’ misfortunes. Typically, we are not proud of it and admit experiencing it only sheepishly or apologetically. Philosophers typically view it, and the disposition to experience it, as moral failings. Two recent defenders of Schadenfreude, however, argue that it is morally permissible because it stems from judgments about the just deserts of those who suffer misfortunes. I also defend Schadenfreude, but on different grounds that overcome two deficiencies of (...) those recent defenses. First, my defense accounts for the wide range of circumstances in which we experience Schadenfreude. Those circumstances often involve feelings and judgments that are less noble and admirable than judgments regarding just deserts. Second, it accounts for the sheepish or apologetic feelings that commonly accompany Schadenfreude. The two recent defenses can account for those feelings only by holding that they are mistaken or misguided. In opposition to those who view Schadenfreude as a moral failing, I argue that it is morally permissible unless it is part of a causal chain that produces an immoral act. The moral permissibility of the emotion is necessary in order for individuals to have the emotional freedom that, in turn, is necessary for their well-being. Schadenfreude’s moral status is similar to a sexual fetish’s. Like a fetish, experiencing Schadenfreude is not immoral in itself, but sharing and discussing it with others is immoral in many contexts. (shrink)

This is a sweeping and provocative work of aesthetic theory: a trenchant critique of the philosophy of art as it developed from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, combined with a carefully reasoned plea for a new and more flexible approach to art.Jean-Marie Schaeffer, one of France's leading aestheticians, explores the writings of Kant, Schlegel, Novalis, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Heidegger to show that these diverse thinkers shared a common approach to art, which he calls the "speculative theory." (...) According to this theory, art offers a special kind of intuitive, quasi-mystical knowledge, radically different from the rational knowledge acquired by science. This view encouraged theorists to consider artistic geniuses the high-priests of humanity, creators of works that reveal the invisible essence of the world. Philosophers came to regard inexpressibility as the aim of art, refused to consider second-tier creations genuine art, and helped to create conditions in which the genius was expected to shock, puzzle, and mystify the public. Schaeffer shows that this speculative theory helped give birth to romanticism, modernism, and the avant-garde, and paved the way for an unfortunate divorce between art and enjoyment, between "high art" and popular art, and between artists and their public.Rejecting the speculative approach, Schaeffer concludes by defending a more tolerant theory of art that gives pleasure its due, includes popular art, tolerates less successful works, and accounts for personal tastes."[A] remarkable work.... [Schaeffer's] writing is governed by... the ideals of clarity and consequence, the ideas of logic, truth, and evidence.... Schaeffer is so precise and unrelenting a philosophical critic that one wonders how some of the philosophies he anatomizes here can possibly survive the operation."--From the foreword by Arthur C. Danto. (shrink)