When knowledge is being doubted one way to express this doubt is by a counterfactual. Typically this counterfactual quotes some elements of the actual case or a case considered as actual and dodges the connection between proposition believed and what makes that proposition true. For example, when Descartes states his dreaming skepticism case, he gives us instances where he has previously been lying in his bed fast asleep while dreaming that he is awake. What triggers the loss of knowledge in (...) Descartes’ case is that if he were asleep, he would still believe that he is sitting by the fire, holding a paper in his hand etc. The fact that he cannot distinguish between his dream-state and awake-state entails that he doesn’t know in the awake-state, considered as actual, either. So, a description of counterfactual possibilities that can be used to doubt knowledge in a possibility considered as actual has to make the truth of p indistinguishable from the falsity of p. Any possibility that falls under this description will be called transparent. Here is a definition: For any possibility W and any proposition believed p, W is transparent iff, in W the truth of p is indistinguishable from the falsity of p. (shrink)

Is it good for us if the different parts of our lives are connected to each other like the parts of a good story? Some philosophers have thought so, while others have firmly rejected it. In this paper, I focus on the state-of-the-art anti-narrativist arguments Amy Berg has recently presented in this journal. I argue that while she makes a good case that the best kind of lives for us do not revolve around a single project or theme, the best (...) kind of narrativist views actually encourage us to pursue a variety of different projects, as long as they are mutually supportive. I claim that when interpreted in the most plausible way, prudentially good-making narrative coherence arises precisely out of this kind of unity in diversity. Well-roundedness and narrative coherence are thus not inherently in tension, but are both good-making holistic features of our lives. (shrink)

Malcolm-Smith, Solms, Turnbull and Tredoux [Malcolm-Smith, S., Solms, M.,Turnbull, O., & Tredoux, C. . Threat in dreams: An adaptation? Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 1281–1291.] have made an attempt to test the Threat-Simulation Theory , a theory offering an evolutionary psychological explanation for the function of dreaming [Revonsuo, A. . The reinterpretation of dreams: An evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 877–901]. Malcolm-Smith et al. argue that empirical evidence from their own study as well as (...) from some other studies in the literature does not support the main predictions of the TST: that threatening events are frequent and overrepresented in dreams, that exposure to real threats activates the threat-simulation system, and that dream threats contain realistic rehearsals of threat avoidance responses. Other studies, including our own, have come up with results and conclusions that are in conflict with those of Malcolm-Smith et al. In this commentary, we provide an analysis of the sources of these disagreements, and their implications to the TST. Much of the disagreement seems to stem from differing interpretations of the theory and, consequently, of differing methods to test it. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide an account of failed athletic contests which consists of two ideals, the Athletic Superiority Ideal and the Just Results Ideal. Related to this, I argue that a sports contest can fail in terms of the Athletic Superiority Ideal without failing in terms of the Just Results Ideal and vice versa. In the process of doing the former, I argue that besides adjudicating errors, cheating, gamesmanship and luck, there are two other types of reasons because of (...) which a sports contest can fail in terms of the Athletic Superiority Ideal. Finally, I argue that my account of failed athletic contests is more plausible than Mika Hämäläinen’s three-standard model of athletic superiority. (shrink)

In this article Antti Moilanen assesses criticisms of Wolfgang Klafki's model of exemplary teaching made by Meinert Meyer and Hilbert Meyer and by Chi-Hua Chu. “Exemplary teaching” is a style of discovery-based teaching in which students study concrete examples of general principles in such a way that they acquire transferable knowledge and skills. Put differently, the aim of exemplary teaching is to foster categorical Bildung. Klafki's model of exemplary teaching is based on Martin Wagenschein's didactics and his own theory (...) of the categorical Bildung. Here, Moilanen explicates and analyzes Klafki's theory of categorical Bildung, Wagenschein's concepts related to exemplary teaching, Klafki's conception of the conditions and principles of exemplary teaching, and criticisms of Klafki's didactics set out by Meyer and Meyer and by Chu. He then examines whether Meyer and Meyer as well as Chu have adequately understood Klafki's model of exemplary teaching and whether their criticisms are justified, concluding that their criticisms do not credibly question the validity of exemplary teaching. (shrink)

In considering the lodestars of American neoconservative thought-among them Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb, James Q. Wilson, and Francis Fukuyama-Antti Lepistö makes a compelling case for the centrality of their conception of "the common man" in accounting for the enduring power and influence of their thought. Lepistö locates the roots of this conception in the eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment. Subsequently, the neoconservatives weaponized the ideas of Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, and David Hume to denounce postwar liberal elites, educational authorities, and social (...) reformers-ultimately giving rise to a defining force in American politics: the "common sense" of "the common man.". (shrink)

In this paper, I criticize Mika Hämäläinen’s recent argument for compensated sex-integrated individual competitions in ski jumping. I argue that Hämäläinen’s argument is problematic at least in four different ways. Two of my criticisms are intended to show that Hämäläinen ignores some important considerations which he should have discussed. On the other hand, I also argue that Hämäläinen’s argument is inherently flawed in two respects.

What is the relationship between meaning in life and happiness? In psychological research, subjective meaning and happiness are often contrasted with each other. I argue that while the objective meaningfulness of a life is distinct from happiness, subjective or felt meaning is a key constituent of happiness, which is best understood as a multidimensional affective condition. Measures of felt meaning should consequently be included in empirical studies of the causes and correlates of happiness.

What should we believe if epistemic and practical reasons for belief point in different directions? I argue that there’s no single answer, but rather a Dualism of Theoretical and Practical Reason is true: what we epistemically ought to believe and what we practically ought to believe may come apart, and both are independently authoritative. I argue in particular against recently popular views that subordinate the epistemic to the practical: it’s not the case that epistemic reasons bear on what we ‘just (...) plain ought’ to believe just to the extent we have practical reason to believe epistemically correctly. Why? Because epistemic reasons give rise to authoritative demands independently of the practical pay-off of believing accordingly. This is shown in particular by the fact that it can be fitting to epistemically ‘blame’ us just because we fail to believe as we epistemically ought, even if we don’t have sufficient practical reason to believe so. I also argue that we don’t need to come up with what we ‘just plain ought’ to believe, because contrary epistemic and practical responsibility responses can be simultaneously fitting in conflict cases, and because epistemic and practical ought judgments give rise to different enkrasia requirements, among other things. (shrink)

Everyone agrees that not all norms that govern belief and assertion are epistemic. But not enough attention has been paid to distinguishing epistemic norms from others. Norms in general differ from merely evaluative standards in virtue of the fact that it is fitting to hold subjects accountable for violating them, provided they lack an excuse. Different kinds of norm are most readily distinguished by their distinctive mode of accountability. My thesis is roughly that a norm is epistemic if and only (...) if its violation makes it fitting to reduce epistemic trust in the subject, even if there is no doubt about their sincerity, honesty, or other moral virtues. That is, violations of epistemic norms don’t merit resentment or other forms of blame, but rather deduction of credibility points in internal scorekeeping and related attitudinal and behavioral changes. As Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice shows, such distrust is undesirable from the point of view of an epistemic agent. Consequently, when one manifests epistemic distrust towards a subject in suitable circumstances, it amounts a way of holding her accountable. Since this form of accountability involves no opprobrium, there is good reason to think it is not linked to voluntary control in the same way as moral accountability. Finally, I make use of this account of what makes epistemic norms distinctive to point out some faulty diagnostics in debates about norms of assertion. My aim is not to defend any substantive view, however, but only to offer tools for identifying the right kind of evidence for epistemic norms. (shrink)

This paper examines systematically which features of a life story (or history) make it good for the subject herself - not aesthetically or morally good, but prudentially good. The tentative narrative calculus presented claims that the prudential narrative value of an event is a function of the extent to which it contributes to her concurrent and non-concurrent goals, the value of those goals, and the degree to which success in reaching the goals is deserved in virtue of exercising agency. The (...) narrative value of a life is a simple sum of the values of individual events that comprise it. I claim that this view best explains and support common intuitions about the significance of the shape of a life. (shrink)

Recent empirical studies of philosophers by Eric Schwitzgebel and others have seriously called into question whether professional ethicists have any useful expertise with thought experiments, given that their intuitions appear to be no more reliable than those of lay subjects. Drawing on such results, sceptics like Edouard Machery argue that normative ethics as it is currently practiced is deeply problematic. In this paper, I present two main arguments in defense of the standard methodology of normative ethics. First, there is strong (...) reason to believe that expertise with thought experiments requires considering scenarios in their proper theoretical context and in parallel with other pertinent situations, so that we should not expect philosophers to be better than lay folk at responding to decontextualized cases. Second, skeptical views underestimate the epistemic benefits of the actual practices of post-processing initial verdicts both at individual and social levels. Contrary to a mythical conception of ‘the method of cases’, philosophers are frequently sensitive to the quality of intuitive evidence, reject and revise their verdicts on the basis of independently supported principles or interpersonal criticism, and defer to recognized specialists. (shrink)

Consciousness seems to be an enigmatic phenomenon: it is difficult to imagine how our perceptions of the world and our inner thoughts, sensations and feelings could be related to the immensely complicated biological organ we call the brain. This volume presents the thoughts of some of the leading philosophers and cognitive scientists who have recently participated in the discussion of the status of consciousness in science. The focus of inquiry is the question: "Is it possible to incorporate consciousness into science?" (...) Philosophers have suggested different alternatives -- some think that consciousness should be altogether eliminated from science because it is not a real phenomenon, others that consciousness is a real, higher-level physical or neurobiological phenomenon, and still others that consciousness is fundamentally mysterious and beyond the reach of science. At the same time, however, several models or theories of the role of conscious processing in the brain have been developed in the more empirical cognitive sciences. It has been suggested that non-conscious processes must be sharply separated from conscious ones, and that the necessity of this distinction is manifested in the curious behavior of certain brain-damaged patients. This book demonstrates the dialogue between philosophical and empirical points of view. The writers present alternative solutions to the brain-consciousness problem and they discuss how the unification of biological and psychological sciences could thus become feasible. Covering a large ground, this book shows how the philosophical and empirical problems are closely interconnected. From this interdisciplinary exploration emerges the conviction that consciousness can and should be a natural part of our scientific world view. (shrink)

The article discusses the allegedly decontextualized and ahistorical traits in positivist educational research and curriculum by examining its emergence in early twentieth-century empirical education. Edward Lee Thorndike’s educational psychology is analyzed as a case in point. It will be shown that Thorndike’s positivist educational psychology stressed the need to account for the reality of schooling and to produce knowledge of the actual contexts of education. Furthermore, a historical analysis informed by Michel Foucault’s history of the human sciences reveals that there (...) are multiple historical temporalities involved in Thorndike’s educational psychology. This allows a new critical angle to be taken on positivist educational research. The question concerning the contexts of empirical education turns to examining the way the conditions of possibility for scientific knowledge in education involve practices of contextualization as well as paradoxical and self-defeating elements. (shrink)

Bruno Latour (2004) claims that modernist critique, the kind that removes the false veils of ideology, ‘has run out of steam’. Despite its theoretical variety, it often consists in pointing out how...

According to the quasi-perceptualist account of philosophical intuitions, they are intellectual appearances that are psychologically and epistemically analogous to perceptual appearances. Moral intuitions share the key characteristics of other intuitions, but can also have a distinctive phenomenology and motivational role. This paper develops the Humean claim that the shared and distinctive features of substantive moral intuitions are best explained by their being constituted by moral emotions. This is supported by an independently plausible non-Humean, quasi-perceptualist theory of emotion, according to which (...) the phenomenal feel of emotions is crucial for their intentional content. (shrink)

The question what ultimately determines the real winner of a sports contest (or whether a sports contest was really a draw) has been little discussed in the philosophy of sport literature. In this article, I discuss in detail and reject three views about what ultimately determines the real winner of a sports contest, which I call ‘the Official Result View’, ‘the Adjudicator View’ and ‘the Rules View’. I also present a variation of the Rules View, which may be a promising (...) view about what ultimately determines the real winner of a sports contest. I call this view ‘the Desert-adjusted Rules View’. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 96 Heft: 1 Seiten: 349-351.

This paper discusses the zombie argument and other antiphysicalist arguments presented by David Chalmers in his book, The Conscious Mind . It is argued that both premises of the zombie argument -- the conceivability of zombies and the conceivabilitypossibility thesis --cannot be made simultaneously plausible without additional argument in support of one of the premises. The best strategy for the proponent of the zombie argument is identified as limiting the conceivability-possibility thesis to an idealized notion of conceivability, and arguing separately (...) for the conceivability of zombies in this idealized sense. Out of Chalmers' main arguments, the argument from epistemic asymmetry and the argument from absence of analysis are considered in this role. It is argued that, while either of the arguments would, if sound, be appropriate for the role, the first is subject to decisive counter-arguments. The second, on the other hand, is found not only suitable to support the zombie argument, but also more convincing in that its premises are less controversial. Since the argument from absence of analysis also establishes the falsity of physicalism directly by itself, if sound, it can be seen to render the zombie argument redundant. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: An Authentic Self College, the Place to Feel Inadequate about Sex The Look The Nature of College Sex Bad Faith or True Desire.

ABSTRACTHead-to-head records are often used in round-robin contests for breaking ties between athletes or teams that are equal on points or wins. In this paper, I argue, on the one hand, that tie-b...

Sowohl bei dem Paul- als auch dem Hiob-Dilemma ist der Anteil der zweiten Entwicklungsstufe erstaunlich hoch. Es wurde ja bereits auf das Verantwortungsgefühl der Finnen auch in bezug auf die Religion hingewiesen. Vielleicht spiegelt sich dadurch einiges von dem im Volke lebendigen Protestantismus wider. Ende 2000 zählten 85% der Gesamtbevölkerung von Finnland zur evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche . Nach Schätzungen von Heino wird die Kirche immer noch für einen Moralisten gehalten, der die Menschen daran erinnert, was angemessen ist und was nicht. Vermutlich (...) liegt er dabei nicht falsch, wenn man das von den Vertretern der zweiten Stufe vermittelte Gottesbild betrachtet. Die auffällig großen Anzahlen der dritten Stufe bei den Ergebnissen dieser Untersuchung, die auf Interviews von aktiven Kirchenmitgliedern beruht, liegen noch höher als erwartet. Dies kann durch die Vielzahl der Formen von Religiosität auf der dritten Stufe erklärt werden, vom Atheismus bis zum Fundamentalismus, wie auch Oser und Gmünder feststellen . Aufgrund dieser vorliegenden Ergebnisse läßt sich leicht der zweifachen Auslegung der dritten Stufe durch Schweitzer und Bucher zustimmen. Danach stellt die religiös ausgerichtete dritte Stufe eine natürliche Phase der Entwicklungs des Individuums auf dem Weg zur nächsten Stufe dar. Die nicht-religiös ausgerichtete dritte Stufe ist der Endpunkt einer Entwicklung. Bei meiner Untersuchung würde die dritte Stufe eben ausdrücklich die ausreligiös gerichtete Entwicklungsstufe ausmachen, wobei es sich sehr wohl z. B. um das Auseinandergehen von kirchlicher und persönlicher Religiosität handeln könnte. Dies unterstützt meine These von der Privatisierung der Religiosität, insbesondere bei Männern. Der Gesamtanteil der dritten Stufe läßt sich auch von der lutherischen Zwei-Regimentlehre her erklären. Die Einteilung in ein irdisches und geistiges Regiment, in diesseitige und jenseitige Angelegenheiten, wird den auffällig großen Anteil der dritten Stufe zumindest nicht senken. Bei ihren Überlegungen über den Unterschied zwischen der Transzendenz und der Immanenz betonen Oser und Gmünder die Verbindung der religiösen Reife mit der religiösen Weltanschauung. Je höher die religiöse Entwicklung ist, umso dringender benötigt man eine Auslegung der jeweiligen Situation nach den Kriterien des religiös-metaphysischen Weltbildes, die auf die Betrachtung der Welt als einer Ganzheit in unterschiedlichen neuartigen Situationen beruhen. In Finnland läßt sich allem An-schein nach die Integration der religiösen Dimensionen hinsichtlich der lutherischen Regimentlehre nur schwer auffassen. Hinzu kommt die Frage nach der Universalität der Entwicklung der religiösen Struktur und nach deren unveränderlicher, die Kulturgrenzen überschreitender Entwicklungslinie. Die Resultate dieser Untersuchung unterstützen mit gewissem Vorbehalt die Auffassung, nach der die Entwicklung der religiösen Struktur in verschiedenen Kulturen gleichartigen Gesetzmäßigkeiten unterliegen würde. Die Hinweise auf die Kulturverbundenheit religiöser Äußerungen werden gleichfalls zu einem gewissen Punkt durch das finnische Material bekräftigt. Die Kulturverbundenheit kann im Hintergrund geschichtlicher Ereignisse betrachtet werden. Die finnische Gesellschaft und damit verbunden auch das Weltbild und die Religiosität der Finnen gerieten gegen Mitte der 60er Jahre in eine Übergangsphase. Die Urbanisierung beschleunigte sich, und die traditionelle Agrarkultur begann sich aufzulösen. Mit der Zunahme der Arbeitstellen in der Industrie entstanden immer dichter bewohnte Siedlungen. Im Zusammenhang mit dieser Entwicklung änderte sich auch das religiöse Weltbild allmählich. Die Veränderungen in bezug auf die Religiosität geschahen zumindest anfangs langsam, denn z. B. noch in der Mitte der 70er Jahre erwähnte Pentikäinen , folgende Termini als allgemein gebräuchlich für die finnische Lebensart: "The Finnish way of life and Finnish world view." Laut Heino bezeichnen die Wörter Unverbundenheit, Privatisierung und Synkretismus die Veränderung in der Religiosität der Finnen in den letzten Jahren. Den Statistiken zufolge zeigt sich auch im religiösen Leben das Streben nach Individualität und Unabhängigkeit. Das Nebeneinander vieler Religionen verblüfft ebenso. Diese von Heino beschriebene Lage der letzten Jahre kann als der Endpunkt des in den 60er Jahren begonnenen Entwicklungsprozesses angesehen werden. Aus der Perspektive der religiösen Entwicklung stimuliert die Umwelt nicht gerade die Entstehung eines reifen religiösen Denkens. Im Jahre 1967 waren die Befragten meiner Untersuchung im Alter von 23-37 Jahren. Daß man sich an das Weltbild der Jugend festklammert, kann sehr wohl eine Erklärung für den Stillstand der religiösen Entwicklung auf der zweiten oder dritten Stufe sein. Holm schrieb, wie unsere Kultur dazu neigt, religiöse Auffassungen als recht kindlich hinzustellen. Manch einer mag glauben, daß es bei religiösen Fragen nicht wie üblich erlaubt ist, seinen Überlegungen freien Lauf zu lassen. Es gilt, entweder den naiven Kindesglauben aufrechtzuerhalten oder seinen Glauben ganz aufzugeben. Holm betont, daß eine starke bewußte Arbeit nötig ist, um früh erlernte Überzeugungen verarbeiten, sich neu zu orientieren und sich weiter zuentwickeln. Steht solch ein Prozeß erst an den Anfängen oder ist er vielleicht noch nicht abgeschlossen? Zu Beginn meiner Untersuchung wurde die Hypothese aufgestellt, daß die eigenen Erfahrungen eventuell in einer Verbindung mit der Entwicklungsstufe des religiösen Urteils stehen. Die Hypothese erwies sich als falsch. Die Ergebnisse meiner Untersuchung sind eigentlich recht logisch. Diesen Resultaten zufolge besteht kein Zusammenhang zwischen einem religiösen Dilemma im eigenen Leben und einer hohen religiösen Entwicklungsstufe. Eigene Erfahrungen über religiöse Dilemmata oder Leiden fördern den Entwicklungsprozeß keineswegs. Diese Ergebnisse können als Stütze grundsätzliche Annahme strukturalistischer Theorien angesehen werden, d.h. die Annahme einer invarianten Sequenz. Die Stufen können nicht überschritten werden, sondern man unterliegt der immanenten Logik der Transformationen der Strukturen. Sie bekräftigen auch die von Kohlberg erwähnte grundsätzliche Vermutung der kognitiven Theorie, wonach die Entwicklung kognitiver Strukturen das Resultat des Interaktionprozesses zwischen der Struktur des Organismus und der Struktur der Umwelt ist und nicht so sehr das Ergebnis von Lernen und Reifung. Welche Rolle die Umwelt und das Lernen bei der religiösen Entwicklung spielen, bleibt noch bei umfangreicheren Projekten in der Zukunft zu untersuchen. (shrink)

It’s plausible that we only fully appreciate the value of something, say a painting or a blameworthy action, when we have a fitting emotional response to it, such as admiration or guilt. But exactly how and why do we grasp value through emotion? I propose, first, that a subject S phenomenally grasps property P only if what it is to be P is manifest in the phenomenal character of S’s experience. Second, following clues from the Stoics, I argue that the (...) phenomenal character of emotional experience is constitutively linked with its having directive content. More precisely, emotional experience directs us both to adopt a maxim for action – take certain characteristic kinds of action for an emotion-specific end – and to treat something about the object as a presumptively decisive reason to take such action for such end. If we assent to what the experience proposes (or rational control gets bypassed), we are motivated to take the relevant action and have a corresponding evaluative belief. This picture of emotional cognition yields a natural conception of the evaluative fittingness conditions of emotions without the problematic assumption that they have a presentational phenomenology. Instead, it is precisely in virtue of the directive and valenced phenomenology of emotion that values are only fully manifest in emotional experience, since values are essentially action- and attitude-guiding properties. (shrink)

Grandparental presence is known to correlate with the number of grandchildren born, and this effect may vary according to grandparental sex and lineage. However, existing studies of grandparental effects on fertility mostly concern traditional subsistence societies, while evidence from contemporary developed societies is both scarce and mixed. Here, we explore how grandparents affect the transition to second and subsequent children in the contemporary United Kingdom. The longitudinal Millennium Cohort Study (n = 10,295 families) was used to study the association between (...) grandparental investment and parents’ probability of having a new child within 4.5 years. Results show that contact with paternal grandparents is associated with higher probability of parents having a second child. In contrast, contact with maternal grandparents is associated with lower probability of having a third or subsequent child. Kin may have opposite effects on fertility even in contemporary societies, which may explain the lack of consistent effects of grandparental investment on fertility in previous studies. (shrink)

Sentimentalism comes in many varieties: explanatory sentimentalism, judgment sentimentalism, metaphysical sentimentalism, and epistemic sentimentalism. This encyclopedia entry gives an overview of the positions and main arguments pro and con.

The demands of rationality are linked both to our subjective normative perspective (given that rationality is a person-level concept) and to objective reasons or favoring relations (given that rationality is non-contingently authoritative for us). In this paper, I propose a new way of reconciling the tension between these two aspects: roughly, what rationality requires of us is having the attitudes that correspond to our take on reasons in the light of our evidence, but only if it is competent. I show (...) how this view can account for structural rationality on the assumption that intentions and beliefs as such involve competent perceptions of downstream reasons, and explore various implications of the account. (shrink)

It would be terrible for us if humanity ceased to exist after we all die. But of course, eventually humanity will go out of existence. Does this result in a vicious regress if our flourishing hangs on what happens after us? Mark Johnston thinks so. In this note, I explain how Johnston's objection can be avoided. Briefly, our activities have a meaning horizon that extends for some generations after us. What matters is that we make a positive difference to the (...) lives of those generations, not that they themselves necessarily flourish. (shrink)

We investigate extensions of dependence logic with generalized quantifiers. We also introduce and investigate the notion of a generalized atom. We define a system of semantics that can accommodate variants of dependence logic, possibly extended with generalized quantifiers and generalized atoms, under the same umbrella framework. The semantics is based on pairs of teams, or double teams. We also devise a game-theoretic semantics equivalent to the double team semantics. We make use of the double team semantics by defining a logic (...) $$\hbox {DC}^2$$ DC 2 which canonically fuses together two-variable dependence logic $$\hbox {D}^2$$ D 2 and two-variable logic with counting quantifiers $$\hbox {FOC}^2$$ FOC 2 . We establish that the satisfiability and finite satisfiability problems of $$\hbox {DC}^2$$ DC 2 are complete for $$\hbox {NEXPTIME}$$ NEXPTIME. (shrink)

When we admire a person, we don’t just have a wow-response towards them, as we might towards a painting or a sunset. Rather, we construe them as realizing an ideal of the person in their lives to a conspicuous degree. To merit admiration, it is not enough simply to do something valuable or to possess desirable character traits. Rather, one’s achievements must manifest commitments and character traits that define a worthwhile ideal. Agential admiration, I argue, is a person-focused attitude like (...) shame, contempt, and hubristic pride, not an act-focused one like gratitude or guilt, not to mention mere evaluation as excellent. Given its holistic focus, its motivational effects permeate our interactions with its target, who is construed as an exemplar. Consequently, even if someone is admirable in some way, admiring them may be all-things-considered inappropriate, if they fall short of other ideals that we ought to care about. (shrink)

Most of us are hedonically future-biased: other things being equal, we prefer pains to be in the past and pleasures to be in the future. Recently, various authors have argued that future bias is irrational, and that we should be temporally neutral instead. I argue that instead of temporal neutrality, the putative counterexamples and the rationales offered for them only motivate a more narrow principle I call Only Action Fixes Utility: it is only when you act on the basis of (...) assigning a utility to an outcome that rationality requires you to give it the same value retrospectively and prospectively, other things being equal. When hedonic experiences are untethered from action, hedonic future bias is rationally permissible. I support this principle by appeal to additional scenarios and more general asymmetries between agential and experiential goods. (shrink)

Very plausibly, there is something important missing in our lives if we are thoroughly ignorant or misled about reality – even if, as in a kind of Truman Show scenario, intervention or fantastic luck prevents unhappiness and practical failure. But why? I argue that perfectionism about well-being offers the most promising explanation. My version says, roughly, that we flourish when we exercise our self-defining capacities successfully according to their constitutive standards. One of these self-defining capacities, or capacities whose exercise reveals (...) who we are, is Reason, our capacity for normative self-governance. I argue that in its practical use, Reason formally aims at competently realizing self-chosen valuable ends that are in harmony with each other, or valuable achievements. In its theoretical use, it formally aims at competently grasping fundamental enough subject matters, or a kind of understanding. Because success by reason’s own standards requires many things to go right, there are many different ways in which we can fall short. Some of them amount to partial success. But some, like incompetent inquiry that fails to yield understanding of its target, or taking inefficient means to a worthless end, are robust failures that amount to epistemic or agential unflourishing, and thus to a form of ill-being. (shrink)

(Pdf updated to final, slightly revised version of November 2010) -/- Almost everyone would prefer to lead a meaningful life. But what is meaning in life and what makes a life meaningful? I argue, first, for a new analysis of the concept of meaningfulness in terms of the appropriateness of feelings of fulfilment and admiration. Second, I argue that while the best current conceptions of meaningfulness, such as Susan Wolf’s view that in a meaningful life ‘subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness’, (...) do a fairly good job capturing meaningfulness at a time, we need an account that makes sense of the intimate connection between meaningfulness and having a direction in one’s life. According to the Teleological View I propose, what makes a single chapter of a life most meaningful is success in reaching central, objectively valuable goals as a result of exercising essential human capacities. Life as a whole is most meaningful when past efforts increase the success of future goal-setting, goal-seeking, and goal-reaching, so that the life forms a coherent whole without being dedicated to a single aim. Since coherence in this sense is a holistic property of a life, global prudential value is not a function of local prudential values. I suggest that just as pleasure is the final good of human beings as subjects of experience, meaningfulness is the final good of human beings as active agents. (shrink)

How can we figure out what’s right or wrong, if moral truths are neither self-evident nor something we can perceive? Very roughly, the method of reflective equilibrium (RE) says that we should begin moral inquiry from what we already confidently think, seeking to find a a match between our initial convictions and general principles that are well-supported by background theories, mutually adjusting both until we reach a coherent outlook in which our beliefs are in harmony (the equilibrium part) and we (...) know why and how they support each other (the reflective part). It has been central to the self-understanding of normative ethics and other branches of philosophy in the last half a century. In this chapter, we examine the history of the idea of RE and introduce a schema for generating 256 variants. We explain why RE is subject to serious objections insofar as it purports to yield epistemic justification in virtue of achieving coherence. However, we also develop a new argument to the effect that RE is the best feasible method for us to achieve moral understanding and the ability to justify our judgments to others. It may thus be crucial for responsible moral inquiry, even if coherence among considered judgments and principles is neither sufficient nor necessary for justified moral belief. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that susceptibility to suitable emotional responses is part of what it is to value something. Indeed, the value of at least some things calls for such emotional responses – if we lack them, we don’t respond appropriately to their value. In this paper, I argue that susceptibility to anger is an essential component of valuing other people, ourselves, and our relationships. The main reason is that various modes of valuing, such as respect, self-respect, and love, ground (...) normative expectations towards others and ourselves. And holding someone accountable for violating legitimate normative expectations involves emotions from the anger family, such as resentment and indignation. I hold that such forms of anger, which aim at getting the target to conform to expectations or lower their unduly elevated status, are neither inherently problematic or dispensable parts of the package of attitudes involved in valuing. Finally, thinking about anger’s role in valuing also helps see when it is out of place or immature – roughly, it is often excessive, because we easily exaggerate the magnitude of the value involved, the harm or threat to it, or the degree of the target’s moral responsibility. (shrink)

In this paper, my aim is to bring together contemporary psychological literature on emotion regulation and the classical sentimentalism of David Hume and Adam Smith to arrive at a plausible account of empathy's role in explaining patterns of moral judgment. Along the way, I criticize related arguments by Michael Slote, Jesse Prinz, and others.

This note explores how ideal subjectivism in metanormative theory can help solve two important problems for Fitting Attitude analyses of value. The wrong-kind-of-reason problem is that there may be sufficient reason for attitude Y even if the object is not Y-able. The many-kinds-of-fittingness problem is that the same attitude can be fitting in many ways. Ideal subjectivism addresses both by maintaining that an attitude is W-ly fitting if and only if endorsed by any W-ly ideal subject. A subject is W-ly (...) ideal when the most robust way of avoiding W-type practical problems is deferring to her endorsement. (shrink)

On a widely accepted view, what gives meaning to our lives is success in valuable ground projects. However, philosophers like Kieran Setiya have recently challenged the value of such orientation towards the future, and argued that meaningful living is instead a matter of engaging in atelic activities that are complete in themselves at each moment. This chapter argues that insofar as what is at issue is meaningfulness in its primary existential sense, strongly atelic activities do not suffice for meaning. Instead, (...) finding one’s life meaningful is warranted both by sustainable success in valuable prospective (future-oriented) projects, and by success in reflexive projects that aim to promote or realize a practice-dependent value that can be realized at each moment, but never for good. The latter kind of activities are only weakly atelic, since their aim remains distinct from the activity, and individual actions gain significance from serving a long-term commitment. Thus, whether our ground projects are prospective or reflexive, what we do at each moment contributes to leading a meaningful life only when it’s connected in the right way to what we do at other moments. (shrink)