Over the last decades, educational programs involving age simulation suits emerged with the ambition to further the understanding of age-related loss experiences, enhance empathy and reduce negative attitudes toward older adults in healthcare settings and in younger age groups at large. However, the impact of such “instant aging” interventions on individuals’ personal views on aging have not been studied yet. The aim of the current study is to address possible effects of ASS interventions on multiple outcomes related to views on (...) aging, i.e., aging-related cognitions, awareness of age-related change and age stereotypes. Moreover, we explore effects on broader constructs with relevance to aging, i.e., perceived obsolescence, risk perceptions, as well as desired support through technology. In a within-subjects design, N = 40 participants went through a series of established geriatric assessments with and without an ASS. Views on aging constructs were assessed in standardized questionnaires before and after the ASS intervention. Changes in aging-related cognitions were observed, with more negative expectations regarding social integration and continuous development after wearing the ASS. AARC and age stereotypes did not change from pre- to post-assessment, but participants reported an increased susceptibility to age-associated impairments and stronger feelings of obsolescence. Those participants who exhibited higher difficulties in geriatric assessments while wearing the suit reported higher openness to be supported by intelligent assistive devices or robots afterwards. We conclude that ASS interventions should only be combined with education on losses and gains during the aging process to prevent negative effects on individual views on aging. On the other hand, potentials regarding technology acceptance and formation of intentions to engage in prevention and health behaviors among middle-aged to young-old adults are discussed. (shrink)

The aim of the present investigation was to describe and to classify significant ethical problems encountered by the members of the staff during the daily clinical work at a hospital medical department. A set of definitions was prepared for the purpose, including the definition of a 'significant ethical problem'. During a three month period 426 inpatients and 173 outpatients were admitted. Significant ethical problems were encountered during the management of 106 in-patients (25 per cent) and 9 out-patients (5 per cent). (...) No significant difference was found between the frequency of ethical problems in female and male patients, but a positive correlation was noted between the number of problems and the patients' age. The problem types were classified according to a problem list. The results of this investigation suggest that greater attention must be paid to discussions about ethical problems among doctors and other categories of health personnel and that, among others, medical students ought to be taught the analysis of ethical problems. (shrink)

In these replies, I react to comments on my paper “Facts about Incoherence as Non-Evidential Epistemic Reasons”, provided by Aleks Knoks, Sebastian Schmidt, Keshav Singh, and Conor McHugh. I discuss potential counterexamples to my claim that the fact that the subject’s doxastic attitudes are incoherent is an epistemic reason for her to suspend; whether such incoherence-based reasons bear on individual attitudes or only on combinations of attitudes; the prospects of restricting evidentialism about epistemic reasons to reasons to believe; whether (...) incoherence-based reasons are truly epistemic; the alleged normative and motivational expendability of incoherence-based reasons; the possibility of incoherence-based reasons to suspend without actual belief in the incoherent propositions; the relationship between suspension, inquiry, and incoherence; and the nature of suspension of judgment. (shrink)

In this paper it will be argued that Beauchamp and Childress' principle-based approach to bioethics has strongly pragmatic features. Drawing on the writings of William James, I first develop an understanding of methodological pragmatism as a method of justification. On the basis of Beauchamp's and Childress' most recent proposals concerning moral justification in the fifth edition of their Principles of Biomedical Ethics (2001), I then discuss different aspects that the principle-based approach and methodological pragmatism have in common.

This paper presents a counterexample to the principle that all epistemic reasons for doxastic attitudes towards p are provided by evidence concerning p. I begin by motivating and clarifying the principle and the associated picture of epistemic reasons, including the notion of evidence concerning a proposition, which comprises both first- and second-order evidence. I then introduce the counterexample from incoherent doxastic attitudes by presenting three example cases. In each case, the fact that the subject’s doxastic attitudes are incoherent is an (...) epistemic reason to suspend, which is not provided by evidence. I argue that this incoherence fact is a reason for the subject to take a step back and reassess her evidence for her conflicting attitudes, and thus a reason to suspend all of them. Suspending judgment enables the subject to revise attitudes where appropriate and thus (typically) to arrive at a set of coherent and well-supported attitudes. I then address a dilemma for my proposal and, in conclusion, briefly suggest a picture of epistemic reasons on which they are to be understood against the background of the subject’s virtuous intellectual conduct. (shrink)

Incentive programs have been criticized due to concerns that extrinsic rewards can ‘crowd out’ intrinsic motivation, and also that such programs might exert a corrupting influence on those receiving the incentive. Jonathan Wolff has argued that while these worries are in some instances well grounded, incentives can also operate by liberating people from social pressures that stand in the way of their intrinsic motivations. We further develop Wolff's insight by articulating a framework for assessing such incentives and discussing several areas (...) of public health where incentives may play a positive role. In so doing, we describe the limitations of Wolff's thesis as well as the opportunities it presents. Finally, we suggest that there is an additional attractive feature of incentives that has been overlooked, which is their capacity to serve as ‘conversation makers’. By providing people an occasion to discuss reasons for and against various health behaviors, incentives have the potential not only to impact the health behavior of individuals but to affect cultural change at the population level. (shrink)

In this paper, I explicate pragmatic encroachment by appealing to pragmatic considerations attenuating, or weakening, epistemic reasons to believe. I call this the ‘Attenuators View’. I will show that this proposal is better than spelling out pragmatic encroachment in terms of reasons against believing – what I call the ‘Reasons View’. While both views do equally well when it comes to providing a plausible mechanism of how pragmatic encroachment works, the Attenuators View does a better job distinguishing practical and epistemic (...) reasons to believe. First, this view does not appeal to the costs of believing falsely as reasons against believing; second, because of this, it does not run the risk of tearing down the wall between practical and epistemic reasons bearing on belief. I underpin the Attenuators View with a virtue-theoretic account of how pragmatic encroachment attenuates epistemic reasons and close my discussion by considering some objections against such a view. (shrink)

Eva Schmidt argues that facts about incoherent beliefs can be non-evidential epistemic reasons to suspend judgment. In this commentary, I argue that incoherence-based reasons to suspend are epistemically superfluous: if the subjects in Schmidt’s cases ought to suspend judgment, then they should do so merely on the basis of their evidential reasons. This suggests a more general strategy to reduce the apparent normativity of coherence to the normativity of evidence. I conclude with some remarks on the independent interest (...) that reasons-first epistemology might have within an evidentialist framework. (shrink)

What should we believe when epistemic and practical reasons pull in opposite directions? The traditional view states that there is something that we ought epistemically to believe and something that we ought practically to (cause ourselves to) believe, period. More recent accounts challenge this view, either by arguing that there is something that we ought simpliciter to believe, all epistemic and practical reasons considered (the weighing view), or by denying the normativity of epistemic reasons altogether (epistemic anti‐normativism). I argue against (...) both accounts and defend the traditional view. An agent can be blameworthy in doxastic dilemmas for complying with their practical but not their epistemic reasons. This reveals how epistemic reasons are normative: the concept of epistemic blame helps us track epistemic normativity. (shrink)

The objective of this thesis – Reflective Equilibrium as a Form of Life – is to contribute to the deepening of understanding of the method of reflective equilibrium – a method of internal epistemic justification. In the first part of the study, four paradigmatic conceptions of the method will be analyzed in order to carve out a conceptual core: The ones by John Rawls – who coined the name of the method – Norman Daniels, Michael DePaul and Catherine Elgin. I (...) will argue that the conceptual core of the method contains four elementary rules: 1) A minimalistic fallibilism, 2) a moderate holism, 3) a minimalistic rationality, and 4) a weak foundationalism. Compliance with these rules is necessary and jointly sufficient for any epistemic procedure of justification to be in accordance with the method of reflective equilibrium. The second part of the study is intended to answer some of the open questions concerning this definition of the conceptual core of the method. It will be argued that the a minimalistic fallibilism, as a very central element of the method, is justified since there is no belief whose truth is transparent to an epistemic agent. Even if it were the case that such beliefs exist, there would be attractive options of retreat which provide a quasi-universal justification of minimalistic fallibilism. It will also be argued that all alternative methods of justification are either compatible with the method of reflective equilibrium or are not justified. While a metajustification of the method – understood as a justification of the method employing the method itself – is on the one hand not completely satisfactory, as it presupposes the acceptance of the method before it is justified, it is epistemically acceptable on the other hand, since it allows for a critical inquiry and is open-ended. It will be pointed out that a moderate foundationalism can be justified by the method for some specific area of inquiry insofar as basic beliefs can be identified. Yet, the default-position of the method is only a weak foundationalism (often also termed “coherentism”). With regard to the possibility of a formal interpretation of the method with which one could specify key terms used in the definition of the conceptual core, I will sketch general ways such a formalization might take. However, I will argue that the informal interpretation of the method has priority over any formal interpretation. In the third and concluding part of the study, I will present the claim that one should interpret the method of reflective equilibrium as a form of life. This means that the method is at least implicitly accepted by some epistemic agents: they have developed a disposition and ability to act according to the method. This interpretation of the method can be related to the notion of critical thinking, which, as a civic virtue and educational ideal, is subject of empirical research and practical application. A possible misunderstanding with respect to the method of reflective equilibrium as a form of life should be avoided: To interpret the method as a form of life does not indicate that it must be a comprehensive form of life. Acknowledging it in private life is optional. According to the proposed understanding of the method it is primarily a public and political form of life. (shrink)

Many of our attitudes are non-culpable: there was nothing that we should have done to avoid holding them. I argue that we can still be blameworthy for non-culpable attitudes: they can impair our relationships in ways that make our full practice of apology and forgiveness intelligible. My argument poses a new challenge to indirect voluntarists, who attempt to reduce all responsibility for attitudes to responsibility for prior actions and omissions. Rationalists, who instead explain attitudinal responsibility by appeal to reasons-responsiveness, can (...) make sense of blameworthiness for non-culpable attitudes. In response, voluntarists could propose a revision of our actual practices. This would lead us into a quite different debate. (shrink)

This volume provides a framework for approaching and understanding mental normativity. It presents cutting-edge research on the ethics of belief as well as innovative research beyond the normativity of belief—and towards an ethics of mind. By moving beyond traditional issues of epistemology the contributors discuss the most current ideas revolving around rationality, responsibility, and normativity. -/- The book’s chapters are divided into two main parts. Part I discusses contemporary issues surrounding the normativity of belief. The essays here cover topics such (...) as control over belief and its implication for the ethics of belief, the role of the epistemic community for the possibility of epistemic normativity, responsibility for believing, doxastic partiality in friendship, the structure and content of epistemic norms, and the norms for suspension of judgment. In Part II the focus shifts from the practical dimensions of belief to the normativity and rationality of other mental states—especially blame, passing thoughts, fantasies, decisions, and emotions. These essays illustrate how we might approach an ethics of mind by focusing not only on belief, but also on debates about responsibility, rationality, These essays illustrate how we might approach an ethics of mind by focusing not only on belief, but also more generally on debates about responsibility and rationality, as well as on normative questions concerning other mental states or attitudes. -/- The Ethics of Belief and Beyond paves the way towards an ethics of mind by building on and contributing to recent philosophical discussions in the ethics of belief and the normativity of other mental phenomena. It will be of interest to upper-level students and researchers working in epistemology, ethics, philosophy of action, philosophy of mind, and moral psychology. (shrink)

I defend a novel way of working out the Balancing View of Ought, that is, the view that whether one ought to take some action depends on nothing but the balance of the reasons for the action and those against it or for its alternatives. I show that the Balancing View needs to be complemented by certain principles of reason transmission, at least one of which might seem rather surprising. The result is an attractive theoretical package that allows for compelling (...) explanations of noteworthy normative phenomena, including ones that the Balancing View has been claimed to be at odds with. (shrink)

Current analytical philosophies of romantic love tend to identify the essence of such love with one specific element, such as concern for the beloved person, valuing the beloved person or the union between the lovers. This paper will deal with different forms of the union theory of love which takes love to be the physical, psychic or ontological union of two persons. Prima facie, this theory might appear to be implausible because it has several contra-intuitive implications, and yet, I submit, (...) it is more coherent and attractive than it seems to be. I shall distinguish three specific models and thereby offer a differentiated account of the union theory which has not previously been provided in the literature. I will claim that two of these models should be rejected. I shall then defend the third model against certain possible objections ; but nevertheless, I shall conclude by showing how this model, too, faces further significant objections which ultimately expose the limits of the union theory of love. In conclusion, I will sketch the outlines of a non-reductive cluster theory of love. (shrink)

Freedom is one of the central values in political and moral philosophy. A number of theorists hold that freedom should either be the only or at least one of the central distribuenda in our theories of distributive justice. Moreover, many follow Mill and hold that a concern for personal freedom should guide, and limit, how paternalist public policy can be. For the most part, theorists have focussed on a person’s freedom at one specific point in time but have failed to (...) give proper attention to freedom across time. Given that we care about personal freedom now, we have reason to care about future freedom too. But what kind of distribution of freedom across a person’s lifetime should we promote as a matter of legislation and public policy? I argue that none of the candidate principles for the distribution of freedom across time is plausible. Neither a starting gate view, nor a maximisation nor a sufficientarian view is satisfactory, because none adequately reflects our various reasons to value freedom. I show that this result presents a tough challenge for theories of distributive justice and paternalism that set great store by personal freedom. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview of the structure and purpose of the book. It introduces the philosophical context and motivations of the debate between conceptualism and nonconceptualism. The book is a defense of the nonconceptualist claim that experience is nonconceptual and has nonconceptual content. In particular, it defends what I call ‘Modest Nonconceptualism,’ which is briefly introduced in this chapter. On this view, all perceptual experiences are at least partly nonconceptual, i.e., involve the exercise of at least some concepts. It (...) involves an argument that enables the Modest Nonconceptualist to bridge the gap between the state view and the content view of nonconceptualism. ‘Concept’ talk is taken to be anchored in conceptual abilities that the subject possesses and exercises. Nonconceptual perceptual content is taken to consist in scenario content (see Peacocke, A study of concepts. MIT, Cambridge, 1992), which is both nonconceptual and non-propositional; externally conceived, the content of an experience consists in the worldly states of affairs it represents. The latter content is needed for the Modest Nonconceptualist’s account of perceptual justification. The view claims that the Autonomy Thesis is correct: A perceiver’s experiences may have nonconceptual content even if she possesses no concepts whatsoever. The Modest Nonconceptualist account of the representational content of perceptual experience is based on the subpersonal-level organization of the underlying representational states. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to the attempts to clarify and classify the vague notion of “technosciences” from a historical perspective. A key question that is raised is as follows: Does Francis Bacon, one of the founding fathers of the modern age, provide a hitherto largely undiscovered programmatic position, which might facilitate a more profound understanding of technosciences ? The paper argues that nearly everything we need today for an ontologically well-informed epistemology of technoscience can be found in the works (...) of Bacon—this position will be called epistemological real - constructivism. Rather than realist or constructivist, empiricist or rationalist, Bacon’s position can best be understood as real-constructivist since it challenges modern dichotomies. Reflection upon the contemporary relevance of Bacon could contribute to the expanding and critical discussion on technoscience. In the following I will reconstruct the term “technoscience”. My finding is that at least four different understandings or types of the term “technoscience” co-exist. In a second step, I will analyze and elaborate on Bacon’s epistemological position. I will identify central elements of the four different understandings in Bacon’s work. Finally, I will conclude that the epistemology of technoscience is, indeed, very old—it is the epistemological position put forward by Bacon. (shrink)

What distinguishes constraints on our actions that make us unfree (in the sociopolitical sense) from those that make us merely unable? I provide a new account: roughly, a constraint makes a person unfree, if and only if, first, someone else was morally responsible for the constraint and, second, it impedes an ability the person would have in the best available distribution of abilities. This new account is shown to overcome shortcomings of existing proposals. Moreover, by linking its account of unfreedom (...) to distributions of abilities, it offers an attractive combination of so-called positive and negative views of freedom. (shrink)

The nudge approach seeks to improve people’s decisions through small changes in their choice environments. Nudge policies often work through psychological mechanisms that deviate from traditional notions of rationality. Because of that, some critics object that nudging treats people as irrational. Such treatment might be disrespectful in itself and might crowd out more empowering policies. I defend nudging against these objections. By defending a nonstandard, ecological model of rationality, I argue that nudging not only is compatible with rational agency but (...) can even support it. Accordingly, a concern with rationality speaks for more rather than less public policy nudging. (shrink)

In the past decade, the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) have seen unprecedented developments that raise human-machine interactions (HMI) to the next level.Smart machines, i.e., machines endowed with artificially intelligent systems, have lost their character as mere instruments. This, at least, seems to be the case if one considers how humans experience their interactions with them. Smart machines are construed to serve complex functions involving increasing degrees of freedom, and they generate solutions not fully anticipated by humans. (...) Consequently, their performances show a touch of action and even autonomy. HMI is therefore often described as a sort of “cooperation” rather than as a mere application of a tool. Some authors even go as far as subsuming cooperation with smart machines under the label ofpartnership, akin to cooperation between human agents sharing a common goal. In this paper, we explore how far the notion of shared agency and partnership can take us in our understanding of human interaction with smart machines. Discussing different topoi related to partnerships in general, we suggest that different kinds of “partnership” depending on the form of interaction between agents need to be kept apart. Building upon these discussions, we propose a tentative taxonomy of different kinds of HMI distinguishing coordination, collaboration, cooperation, and social partnership. (shrink)

I argue that the problem of responsibility for attitudes is best understood as a puzzle about how we are responsible for responding to our object-given reasons for attitudes – i.e., how we are responsible for being (ir)rational. The problem can be solved, I propose, by understanding the normative force of reasons for attitudes in terms of blameworthiness. I present a puzzle about the existence of epistemic and mental blame which poses a challenge for the very idea of reasons for attitudes. (...) We are left with three options: denying that there are any reasons for attitudes, opting for pragmatism about reasons for attitudes, or arguing that the challenge rests on a misunderstanding of the normative force of reasons for attitudes. I finally suggest a version of the last strategy. We can understand the normative force of reasons for attitudes, and thereby solve the problem of mental responsibility, by acknowledging that the way we blame each other for failing to respond correctly to our reasons for attitudes is different from the way we blame each other when one failed to respond correctly to reasons for action. (shrink)

I suggest a unified account of conditional oughts and of contrastive reasons. The core of the account is an explanation of facts about conditional oughts in terms of facts about contrastive reasons, and a reduction of contrastive reasons to non-contrastive reasons. In rejecting contrastivism about reasons, the account is consistent with orthodoxy about reasons. Moreover, it extends a standard view of how oughts and reasons are related to one another, and it makes sense of important and explanatorily recalcitrant phenomena. To (...) the extent to which the account involves an explanation of facts about conditional oughts, it does not directly compete with semantic analyses of statements about conditional oughts. However, as I indicate in passing, the account coheres well with an important type of such analyses, while it is inconsistent with others. (shrink)

This paper deals primarily with theDoctrine of Method(DM) of Kant’sDoctrine of Virtue. First, I present an overview of theDM(1.1) and an explanation of how it is possible to teach virtue (1.2). Second, I address the following issues: Why is aDMnecessary at all (2.1)? How does theDMrelate to what Kant calls casuistry (2.2)? I will argue that wide duties have two essential characteristics: They command the right kind of moral motivation in terms of a moral maxim, and they allow for latitude. (...) The fact that wide duties command the right kind of motivation leads to theDM; the latitude of wide duties, however, leads to casuistry. To unfold this interpretation, it must also be shown that both imperfect and perfect duties are wide duties. (shrink)

In institutional design, public policy and for society as a whole, securing freedom of choice for individuals is important. But how much choice should we aim for? Various theorists argue that above some level more choice improves neither wellbeing nor autonomy. Worse still, psychology research seems to suggest that too much choice even makes us worse off. Such reasons suggest the Sufficiency View: increasing choice is only important up to some sufficiency level, a level that is not too far from (...) the level enjoyed by well-off citizens in rich liberal countries today. I argue that we should reject the Sufficiency View and accept Liberal Optimism instead: expanding freedom of choice should remain an important priority even far beyond levels enjoyed in rich liberal countries today. I argue that none of the arguments given for the Sufficiency View work. Neither psychological evidence nor any broader social trends support it. If anything, they support Liberal Optimism instead. I also show why further increases are possible and desirable, and sketch some implications for debates around immigration, economic growth, markets and the value of community. (shrink)

Broome takes the debate on rationality to be concerned with the ordinary use of 'rational'. I argue that this is at best misleading. For the object of current theories of rationality is determined by a specific use of 'rational' that is intimately connected to blame and praise. I call the property it refers to 'rationalityRESP'. This focus on rationalityRESP, I argue, has two significant implications for Broome's critique of theories of rationality as reasons-responsiveness. First, rationalityRESP is plausibly conceived of as (...) a kind of reasons-responsiveness. Secondly, Broome's dispute with internalists about normativity as well as his dispute with externalists about rationality both hinge on questions regarding the concept of responsibility. I conclude that philosophers should integrate discussions about responsibility in their debates about rationality. (shrink)

The method of reflective equilibrium (MRE) is a method of justification popularized by John Rawls and further developed by Norman Daniels, Michael DePaul, Folke Tersman, and Catherine Z. Elgin, among others. The basic idea is that epistemic agents have justified beliefs if they have succeeded in forming their beliefs into a harmonious system of beliefs which they reflectively judge to be the most plausible. Despite the common reference to MRE as a method, its mechanisms or rules are typically expressed in (...) a metaphorical or simplified manner and are therefore criticized as too vague. Recent efforts to counter this criticism have been directed towards the attempt to provide formal explications of MRE. This paper aims to supplement these efforts by providing an informal working definition of MRE. This approach challenges the view that MRE can adequately be characterized only in the negative as a set of anti-essentialisms. I argue that epistemic agents follow MRE iff they follow four interconnected rules, which are concerned with a minimalistic form of foundationalism, a minimalistic form of fallibilism, a moderate form of holism, and a minimalistic form of rationality. In the critical spirit of MRE, the corresponding working definition is, of course, provisional and revisable. In general, the aim is to contribute to a reflective equilibrium (RE) concerning MRE. If it is successful, this working definition provides a better grasp of the most basic elements of the method and thereby enhances our understanding of it. (shrink)

I present an explanatory argument for the reasons-first view: It is superior to knowledge-first views in particular in that it can both explain the specific epistemic role of perception and account for the shape and extent of epistemic justification.

_ Source: _Page Count 26 Is freedom a plausible political value for animals? If so, does this imply that animals are owed legal personhood rights or can animals be free but remain human property? Drawing on different conceptions of freedom, I will argue that while positive freedom, libertarian self-ownership, and republican freedom are not plausible political values for animals, liberal ‘option-freedom’ is. However, because such option-freedom is in principle compatible with different legal statuses, animal freedom does not conceptually imply a (...) right to legal self-ownership. Nonetheless, a concern for animal option-freedom means that humans do have a _pro tanto_ duty of non-interference. Arguments familiar from the liberal tradition moreover imply that such a duty speaks for drastic reforms of existing animal law. But it does not imply wholesale abolitionism: it neither rules out positive duties towards animals nor means that we should abandon all interactions with animals. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a reasons-first view of epistemic justification, according to which the justification of our beliefs arises entirely in virtue of the epistemic reasons we possess. I remove three obstacles for this view, which result from its presupposition that epistemic reasons have to be possessed by the subject: the problem that reasons-first accounts of justification are necessarily circular; the problem that they cannot give special epistemic significance to perceptual experience; the problem that they have to say that (...) implicit biases provide epistemic. The first problem will be overcome by introducing presentational attitudes that are not in need of justification as basic ways of possessing epistemic reasons. The latter two problems will be solved by introducing epistemic rational capacities of two different kinds, which are exercised in mental states that are ways of possessing epistemic reasons, and by distinguishing these from mental states that are not exercises of epistemic rational capacities. (shrink)

In March 1986, a public symposium took place in Heidelberg about the “unresolved potential dangers of genetic engineering”. The event was organized by institutions affiliated with the environmental movement. Choosing this symposium as an example, the article shows how the public appearance of scientists can be understood as a form of political activism. The article shows how specialists from fields as diverse as biology, chemistry, physics, law and political sciences tried to place political messages by putting themselves in the limelight (...) as independent scientists. I argue that the symposium was both: a place of science communication intertwined with political agitation that, as should be noted, happened in a time when the West German government was working on the legislation of genetic engineering, legitimated by relying on independent expertise. It can be concluded that the discourse of scientific independence became a strategic tool in the controversial debate about the uses and dangers of genetic engineering. Thus, it draws attention to a dimension of political-scientific activity which cannot be fully grasped by the concept of ‘the expert’ that is established in the history of science. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the conceptualist claim that we cannot speak of perceptual content unless we assume it is objective content. The conceptualist argues that only conceptual content can meet the requirement of being objective, so that the view that perceptual experience has nonconceptual content is not tenable. I start out by presenting the argument from objectivity as it can be found in McDowell. I then present the following objections: First, perceptual objectivity cannot be due to the perceiver’s conception (...) of objectivity; and second, even nonconceptual capacities of the individual cannot and need not be appealed to in order to account for objective perceptual content. (shrink)

Nudging policies rely on behavioral science to improve people's decisions through small changes in the environments within which people make choices. This article first seeks to rebut a prominent objection to this approach: furnishing governments with the power to nudge leads to relations of alien control, that is, relations in which some people can impose their will on others—a concern which resonates with republican, Kantian, and Rousseauvian theories of freedom and relational theories of autonomy. I respond that alien control can (...) be avoided, if nudging is suitably transparent and democratically controlled. Moreover, such transparency and democratic control are institutionally feasible. Building on this response, I then provide a novel and surprising argument for more nudging: democratically controlled public policy nudging can often contain the power of private companies to nudge in uncontrolled and opaque ways. Therefore, reducing alien control often requires more rather than less nudging in public policy. (shrink)

The normative force of evidence can seem puzzling. It seems that having conclusive evidence for a proposition does not, by itself, make it true that one ought to believe the proposition. But spelling out the condition that evidence must meet in order to provide us with genuine normative reasons for belief seems to lead us into a dilemma: the condition either fails to explain the normative significance of epistemic reasons or it renders the content of epistemic norms practical. The first (...) aim of this paper is to spell out this challenge for the normativity of evidence. I argue that the challenge rests on a plausible assumption about the conceptual connection between normative reasons and blameworthiness. The second aim of the paper is to show how we can meet the challenge by spelling out a concept of epistemic blameworthiness. Drawing on recent accounts of doxastic responsibility and epistemic blame, I suggest that the normativity of evidence is revealed in our practice of suspending epistemic trust in response to impaired epistemic relationships. Recognizing suspension of trust as a form of epistemic blame allows us to make sense of a purely epistemic kind of normativity the existence of which has recently been called into doubt by certain versions of pragmatism and instrumentalism. (shrink)

Endgame proposals strive for a tobacco‐free (or at least cigarette‐free) society. Some endgame proposals are radical and include, for example, a complete ban on cigarettes. Setting aside empirical worries, one worry is ethical: would such proposals not go too far in interfering with individual freedom? I argue that concerns around freedom do not speak against endgame proposals, including strong proposals such as a ban on cigarettes. I first argue that when balancing freedom with public health goals in tobacco control, the (...) latter win out. But I also argue that, in principle, a concern with freedom itself already justifies endgame measures. First, such measures can increase people's lifetime freedom, that is, the freedom they have across their entire lives. Second, such measures can facilitate a better interpersonal distribution of freedom by increasing aggregate societal freedom and by reducing inequalities. Overall, freedom does not preclude strict tobacco control but supports it. (shrink)

It is often argued that there are no practical reasons for belief because we could not believe for such reasons. A recent reply by pragmatists is that we can often believe for practical reasons because we can often cause our beliefs for practical reasons. This paper reveals the limits of this recently popular strategy for defending pragmatism, and thereby reshapes the dialectical options for pragmatism. I argue that the strategy presupposes that reasons for being in non-intentional states are not reducible (...) to reasons to act. Pragmatists who want to preserve a motivational constraint on reasons therefore have exactly two options: either arguing that there are irreducible reasons for being in non-intentional states ; or arguing that we can believe directly for practical reasons. I argue that the prospects for the former option are dim because irreducible reasons to be in states are hard to square with the motivational constraint on reasons. Returning to the more traditional route of arguing for pragmatism by defending a version of doxastic voluntarism therefore seems to be the more promising way for pragmatists to go. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 432-442 [Access article in PDF] The Legacy of the Enlightenment James Schmidt What's Left of Enlightenment? A Postmodern Question, edited by Keith Michael Baker and Peter Hanns Reill; ix & 203 pp. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, $45.00 cloth, $19.95 paper. Postmodernism and the Enlightenment: New Perspectives in Eighteenth-Century French Intellectual History, edited by Daniel Gordon; vi & 227 pp. New York: Routledge, (...) 2001, $80.00 cloth, $22.95 paper. IF THE ENLIGHTENMENT did not exist, postmodernists would have had to invent it. It performs the same function, Daniel Gordon argues in his introduction to Postmodernism and the Enlightenment, that the Ancien Regime did for the French revolutionaries: as the "other of postmodernism," it represents "the modern that postmodernism revolts against" (P&E, p. 1). Indeed, the image of the Enlightenment that emerges from the postmodern critique does seem, in large part, to be an invention. As Keith Michael Baker and Peter Hanns Reill suggest in the introduction to their collection What's Left of Enlightenment? the various strands of thought commonly grouped under the label postmodernism "have at least one thing in common": "they all depend upon a stereotyped, even caricatural, account of the Enlightenment" which sees the Enlightenment as the point of origin for the "rationalism, instrumentalism, scientism, logocentrism, universalism, abstract rights, eurocentrism, individualism, humanism, masculinism, etc." that [End Page 432] defines the modernity which postmodernity hopes to supersede (WLE? p. 1).One consequence of the inclination to trace the origin of the various failings of modernity to the Enlightenment is that arguments about the "legacy of the Enlightenment" tend to get out of hand. In a particularly sharp-sighted contribution to the Baker and Reill collection David Hollinger notes that it is all too easy for a critic of Enlightenment to argue that "I'm hot stuff because I'm not only refuting you, my puny opponent, but... every great thinker from Descartes to Popper," and, conversely, all too enticing for those who have been criticized to counter, "watch out, you think you are arguing only against me, but the implications of your reasoning are to deny the common sense of every humane and rational mind since the seventeenth century" (WLE? p. 9). Historians of the eighteenth century have been curiously reluctant to join this battle and have, for the most part, left the field to philosophers, literary scholars, and political theorists (WLE? pp. 17-18; P&E, p. 3). The intent of the two collections reviewed here is to remedy this situation by setting a group of historians to work scrutinizing differing aspects of the postmodernist critique of the Enlightenment. More often than not, the results are quite rewarding, though the question of the relationship between postmodernism and the Enlightenment remains, in the end, somewhat ambiguous.The scope of these two volumes is quite impressive. Baker and Reill's collection opens with essays by David Hollinger and Richard Rorty (one of the two nonhistorians invited to the festivities) offering contrasting characterizations of the relationship of postmodernism and the Enlightenment. It continues with a discussion of a few important interpretations of the Enlightenment (including articles by Jonathan Knudsen on German historicism, Hans Sluga on Heidegger, Johnson Kent Wright on Cassirer, and Michael Meranze on Foucault) and concludes with essays by Lorraine Daston ("Enlightenment Fears, Fears of Enlightenment"), Dena Goodman (on gender difference in the Enlightenment), and Lawrence Klein (on the idea of "conversation" in the Enlightenment) that seek, in differing ways, to reveal "the existence within the Enlightenment of elements frequently seen as characteristic of Postmodernity itself" (WLE? p. 3).Gordon's volume offers a counterpoint to the final part of Baker and Reill's collection: each of its nine essays is intended as confrontation between a postmodernist characterization of a particular aspect of the Enlightenment and an account of "how the theme really operates in [End Page 433] Enlightenment thought" (P&E, p. 5). Thus Malick W. Ghachem examines how Montesquieu's account of law was applied to French colonies in the Caribbean, Arthur Goldhammer discusses Diderot's view of language, Daniel Rosenberg... (shrink)

The article presents some additional biographical online sources to Ludwig Wittgenstein in the years 1913-1918.

When assessing institutions and social outcomes, it matters how free society is within them (‘societal freedom’). For example, does capitalism come with greater societal freedom than socialism? For such judgements, freedom theorists typically assume Individualism: societal freedom is simply the aggregate of individual freedom. However, G.A. Cohen’s well-known case provides a challenge: imagine ten prisoners are individually free to leave their prison but doing so would incarcerate the remaining nine. Assume further that no one actually leaves. If we adopt Individualism (...) plus the standard liberal view of freedom, such incarceration seems to leave societal freedom unaffected. This is an important theoretical challenge: it seems we must either reject Individualism or reject, or at least amend, the liberal view. Cohen also suggests his case, and the collective unfreedom therein, helps us capture how proletarians are unfree under capitalism. In this article, I argue that we can solve Cohen’s puzzle, if we focus on how power can reduce freedom. If we adopt the republican view of freedom, we can say that prisoners are unfree in Cohen’s case because they are dominated by the other prisoners. This solution keeps Individualism but moves beyond liberal freedom. I then also show how this individualistic framework captures proletarian unfreedom. (shrink)

The argument from contradictory contents presented here is based directly on observations about the content of experience. It claims that experience content, if conceptual, allows for contradictions within one and the same content. There are at least two examples of this, the waterfall illusion and the visual experiences of some grapheme-color synesthetes. However, due to a Fregean principle of content individuation, no conceptual contents are contradictory. So experience content is nonconceptual. I motivate a particular version of the argument and defend (...) it against two central objections: First, the objection that there is more than one content involved in apparently self-contradictory experiences and second, the claim that conceptual contents are sometimes contradictory, as is true of some desires. In reaction to the second objection, I argue that we need an explanation of why subjects are not irrational if they do not revise their self-contradictory perceptual experiences, and that the conceptualist has no good account of this. For on his view, just as in thought, conceptual abilities are involved in experience and we are dealing with the same Fregean propositional contents. By contrast, nonconceptualism provides such an explanation, for no conceptual abilities are involved in experience itself, and scenario content is not the kind of content that can be revised under rational pressure. (shrink)

Several important questions in applied ethics – like whether to switch to a plant-based diet, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or vote in elections – seem to share the following structure: if enough people ‘cooperate’ and become vegan for example, we bring about a better outcome; but what you do as an individual seems to make no difference whatsoever. Such collective action problems are often thought to pose a serious challenge to consequentialism. In response, I defend the Reactive Attitude Approach: rather (...) than focus only on the deontic status of (non-)cooperative acts – as existing consequentialist responses mostly do – consequentialists should also focus on when to praise or blame individuals. For example, even if your veganism does not change the overall outcome, consequentialists might still recommend praising you for your cooperative behavior. I make a consequentialist case for including praise and blame in our ethical practices around collective action and argue that doing so helps us capture important intuitions. I develop and defend these arguments by drawing on recent instrumentalist theories of blame and responsibility. (shrink)