Abstract: Nietzsche’s famously wrote that “consciousness is a surface” (EH, Why I am so clever, 9: 97). The aim of this paper is to make sense of this quite puzzling contention—Superficiality, for short. In doing this, I shall focus on two further claims—both to be found in Gay Science 354—which I take to substantiate Nietzsche’s endorsement of Superficiality. The first claim is that consciousness is superfluous—which I call the “superfluousness claim” (SC). The second claim is that consciousness is the source (...) of some deep falsification—which I call the “falsification claim” (FC). I shall start by considering Nietzsche’s notion of consciousness. Here, I shall argue that the kind of consciousness he is concerned with is in fact self-consciousness and that he put forward a higher-order theory of it. Then, I shall address the two claims. Regarding (FC), my proposal will be that, according to Nietzsche, the content of (self-)conscious mental states is falsified in virtue of its being articulated propositionally. Regarding (SC), I shall claim that it is best read as a weak version of epiphenomenalism about conscious causation. In addressing both points, I shall discuss in particular the influential reading of Nietzsche’s theory of consciousness offered by Katsafanas (2005). (shrink)

The late Nietzsche defended a position which he sometimes to refers as ‘sensualism’ and which consists of two main theses: senses ‘do not lie’ (T1) and sense organs are ‘causes’ (T2). Two influential interpretations of this position have been proposed by Clark and Hussain, who also address the question whether Nietzsche's late sensualism is (Hussain) or not (Clark) compatible with the epistemological view which he held in his previous work and which has been dubbed the ‘falsification thesis’ (FT). In my (...) paper I will show that both readings raise substantial difficulties and propose an alternative account of Nietzsche's sensualism. In particular, I will argue: (a) that according to Nietzsche the representational content of sensory experience ‘does not lie’ since it is physically grounded in causal exchanges with the external world which are mediated by sense organs; (b) that Nietzsche believes that the claim that senses ‘do not lie’ is also true of the phenomenal, qualitative content of sensory experience; and (c) that FT, despite its prima facie tension with (a) and (b), fit well Nietzsche's sensualism. (shrink)

Nietzsche vs. Kant? Der siebzehnte Aphorismus aus dem ersten Teil von Menschliches, Allzumenschliches schliesst mit der korrosiven Bemerkung, das Ding an sich [sei] eines homerischen Gelachters werth. Aufgrund dieser Passage nun aber zu vermuten, Nietzsche habe diesen von Kant stammenden Terminus einfach so ad acta gelegt, ware jedoch ubereilt, denn die Auseinandersetzung mit der Unterscheidung zwischen Erscheinung und Ding an sich lasst sich als Konstante durch Nietzsches gesamtes Werk verfolgen. Mattia Riccardi widmet sich in seiner Studie den verschiedenen Positionen, die (...) Nietzsche im Zusammenhang mit dieser Problematik eingenommen hat: von der im Hintergrund der Geburt der Tragodie prasenten Artisten-Metaphysik bis zur radikalen Infragestellung des kantischen Denkmusters in den Jahren nach 1880. Riccardi beschrankt sich aber nicht auf eine historisch akkurate, direkte und indirekte Textquelle mit einbeziehender Rekonstruktion von Nietzsches kampferischer Lekturepraxis. Vielmehr stellen die wiederholt auftretenden Bezuge auf Kants Begrifflichkeit fur ihn ein geeignetes Instrument dar, um die Entfaltung von Nietzsches Denken in aller Scharfe sichtbar zu machen. Die Kritik an Kant wird auf diese Weise zum Ausgangspunkt einer differenzierten Interpretation von Nietzsches perspektivistischer Philosophie der Macht im Sinne einer relationalen Ontologie. Damit versteht sich das Buch auch als Beitrag zur - vor allem im englischsprachigen Raum sehr lebendigen - Debatte um das Verhaltnis Nietzsches zu Kant. (shrink)

This paper investigates the argument that substantiates Nietzsche's refusal of teh Kantian concept of thing in itself. As Maudmarie Clark points out, Nietzsche dismisses this notion because he views it as self-contradictory. The main concern of the paper will be to account for this position. In particular, the two main theses defended here are that the argument underlying Nietzsche's claim is that the concept of thing in itself amounts to the inconsistent idea of a propertyless thing and that this argument (...) is a sound one. Finally, I will show that the reading proposed allows a deflationary response to the objection that Nietzsche's will to power is simply a new version of the post-Kantian thing in itself.Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die Argumentation, die Nietzsches Zurückweisung des kantischen Begriffs des Dings an sich untermauert. Wie Maudmarie Clark betont, berwift Nietzsche diesen Begriff als selbstwidersprüchlich. Hauptanliegen des Aufsatzes ist, dies deutlich zu machen. Insbesondere werden folgende zwei Thesen vertrenen: dass das Nietzsches Position zugrundeliegende Argument darin besteht, der Begriff des Dings an sich sei der inkonsistente Begriff eines eigenschaftslosen Dings; dass dieses Argument stichhaltig ist. Schließlich wird gezeigt, dass diese Interpretation eine delfationäre Antwort auf den Einwand ermöglicht, Nietzsches Wille zur Macht sei einfach eine neue Variante des postkantischen Dings an sich. (shrink)

Perspectives on Social Ontology and Social Cognition brings together contributions discussing issues arising from theoretical and empirical research on social ontology and social cognition. It is the first comprehensive interdisciplinary collection in this rapidly expanding area. The contributors draw upon their diverse backgrounds in philosophy, cognitive science, behavioral economics, sociology of science and anthropology. -/- Based largely on contributions to the first Aarhus-Paris conference held at the University of Aarhus in June 2012, the book addresses such questions as: If the (...) reference of concepts like money is fixed by collective acceptance, does it depend on mechanisms that are distinct from those which contribute to understanding the reference of concepts of other kinds of entity? What psychological and neural mechanisms, if any, are involved in the constitution, persistence and recognition of social facts? -/- The editors' introduction considers strands of research that have gained increasing importance in explaining the cognitive foundations of acts of sociality, for example, the theory that humans are predisposed and motivated to engage in joint action with con-specifics thanks to mechanisms that enable them to share others' mental states. The book also presents a commentary written by John Searle for this volume and an interview in which the editors invite Searle to respond to the various questions raised in the introduction and by the other contributors. (shrink)

How can imitation lead to free musical expression? This article explores the role of auditory imitation in jazz. Even though many renowned jazz musicians have assessed the method of imitating recorded music, no systematic study has hitherto explored how the method prepares for aural jazz improvisation. The article picks up an assumption presented by Berliner (1994), suggesting that learning jazz by aural imitation is “just like” learning a mother tongue. The article studies three potential stages in the method, comparing with (...) imitative, rhythmic, multimodal, and protosymbolic behavior of infant perception (building on the works of Stern, Trevarthen, and Merleau-Ponty). The demonstrations of the aural-imitation method draw on pedagogic experiences accumulated since 1979 in the Jazz Program at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. By analyzing structures of behavior suggested by the method, the article indicates key traits that render aural jazz improvisation possible, such as a fundamental sense of rhythm, formation of symbolic behavior, joint musical attention, and the facility to “hear via the other.” In conclusion, we critically address a frequent theoretical model describing musical improvisation as a synthesis of discrete elements or building blocks. (shrink)

Do I cause global warming, climate change and their related harms when I go for a leisure drive with my gas-guzzling car? The current verdict seems to be that I do not; the emissions produced by my drive are much too insignificant to make a difference for the occurrence of global warming and its related harms. I argue that our verdict on this issue depends on what we mean by ‘causation’. If we for instance assume a simple counterfactual analysis of (...) causation according to which ‘C causes E’ means ‘if C had not occurred, E would not have occurred’, we must conclude that a single drive does not cause global warming. However, this analysis of causation is well-known for giving counterintuitive results in some important cases. If we instead adopt Lewis’s analysis of causation, it turns out that it is indeterminate whether I cause global warming when I go for a single drive. Still, in contexts where we seek to control or understand global warming, there is a pressure to adopt a more fragile view of this event. When we adopt such a view, it turns out that a single drive does cause global warming. This means that we cannot like Sinnott-Armstrong and Kingston and Sinnott-Armstrong reject the idea that I should refrain from going for a leisure drive simply because such a drive does not cause global warming. (shrink)

I argue that Nietzsche puts forward a pandispositionalist view that can be seen as the conjunction of two basic claims: that powers are the basic constituents of reality, on the one hand, and that the only properties things possess are relational qua dispositional, on the other hand. As I believe that such a view is, at least in part, motivated by his rejection of Kant’s notion of things in themselves, I start by sketching the metaphysics of Kant’s transcendental idealism and (...) by presenting Nietzsche’s critical reaction to it. After that, I start to work out Nietzsche’s pandispositionalist view by considering first the case of physical reality and second that of psychological reality. I then argue that in both cases that view does not conflict with Nietzsche’s naturalism. In the last part of the paper I explore how his notion of will to power fits into such a pandispositionalist picture. Here, I shall argue, some serious tension does arise, for the claim that Nietzsche sometimes makes to the effect that the will to power is a fundamental physical force seems to clash with central aspects of his mature thought. However, whereas he repeatedly entertains that claim in his unpublished notes, it is far from clear that he ever meant to endorse it in his published work. Thus, I conclude that the available textual evidence only justifies attributing to Nietzsche the kind of pandispositionalist view spelled out in the first sections of the present paper, and not also the further claim that the will to power is a fundamental physical force. (shrink)

This article discusses the contribution of the Capability Approach within the theoretical framework of moral philosophy, political theory and political philosophy. Starting from delineating the contours to properly interpret this contemporary political doctrine, the A. recognises its primary roots in the human emotional development, as outlined by the American political philosopher Martha Nussbaum. Then the A. offers a comparative review of the Nussbaumean conception of emotions in Upheavals of Thought as well as in the most recent contributions on the topic. (...) The concepts of fear and security prompted us to the discussion, a posteriori from the cognitive development and the ‘securisation’ of human rights as promoted by education (especially in lifelong learning of children and women). (shrink)

Self‐admission to inpatient treatment is a novel approach that aims to increase agency and autonomy for patients with severe psychiatric illness and a history of high utilization of inpatient care. By focusing on brief, preventive hospital admissions in times of increased risk of relapse, self‐admission seeks to reduce the need for prolonged episodes of inpatient treatment. Participants are generally satisfied with the model, which is not surprising given that self‐admission programs allocate a scarce resource—hospital beds—to a select group. However, the (...) patients targeted by these programs are not necessarily those in most need of hospital admission, which may compromise the commonly accepted ‘principle of need’ in allocation of public healthcare resources. In light of the current lack of consistent evidence of the usefulness and cost‐effectiveness of the model, several aspects need to be further studied in order to guide any large‐scale implementation of self‐admission in psychiatry. (shrink)

In collective harm cases, bad consequences follow if enough people act in a certain way even though no such individual act makes a difference for the worse. Global warming, overfishing and Derek Parfit’s famous case of the harmless torturers are some examples of such harm. Shelly Kagan argues that there is a threshold such that one single act might trigger harm in all collective harm cases. Julia Nefsky points to serious shortcomings in Kagan’s argument, but does not show that his (...) conclusion is incorrect. I argue that our best theories of vagueness (the epistemic view of vagueness, three-valued logic, and supervaluationism) entail that there is a threshold in all collective harm cases. However, my analysis points to another problem with Kagan’s argument: the thresholds are not necessarily perceptible. Given the assumption that only perceptible differences matter morally, passing such a threshold does not necessarily trigger morally relevant harm, pace Kagan. Last, I consider two variants of Kagan’s argument and find both problematic. One controversially assumes that observational relations like ‘cannot perceive the difference between’ are transitive. The other problematically assumes that so called triangulation always is possible. (shrink)

Many epistemologists have endorsed a version of the view that rational belief is sensitive to higher-order defeat. That is to say, even a fully rational belief state can be defeated by misleading higher-order evidence, which indicates that the belief state is irrational. In a recent paper, however, Maria Lasonen-Aarnio calls this view into doubt. Her argument proceeds in two stages. First, she argues that higher-order defeat calls for a two-tiered theory of epistemic rationality. Secondly, she argues that there seems to (...) be no satisfactory way of avoiding epistemic dilemmas within a two-tiered framework. Hence, she concludes that the prospects look dim for making sense of higher-order defeat within a broader theoretical picture of epistemic rationality. Here I aim to resist both parts of Lasonen-Aarnio’s challenge. First, I outline a way of accommodating higher-order defeat within a single-tiered framework, by amending epistemic rules with appropriate provisos for different kinds of higher-order defeat. Secondly, I argue that those who nevertheless prefer to accommodate higher-order defeat within a two-tiered framework can do so without admitting to the possibility of epistemic dilemmas, since epistemic rules are not always accompanied by ‘oughts’ in a two-tiered framework. The considerations put forth thus indirectly vindicate the view that rational belief is sensitive to higher-order defeat. (shrink)

A proof-theoretic test for paradoxicality was famously proposed by Tennant: a paradox must yield a closed derivation of absurdity with no normal form. Drawing on the remark that all derivations of a given proposition can be transformed into derivations in normal form of a logically equivalent proposition, we investigate the possibility of paradoxes in normal form. We compare paradoxes à la Tennant and paradoxes in normal form from the viewpoint of the computational interpretation of proofs and from the viewpoint of (...) proof-theoretic semantics. (shrink)

There are many ways to advance our understanding of the human mind by studying different kinds of sociality. Our aim in this introduction is to situate claims about extended cognition within a broader framework of research on human sociality. We briefly discuss the existing landscape, focusing on ways of defending socially extended cognition. We then draw on resources from the recent literature on the socially extended mind, as well as the literature on collective intentionality, to provide a framework for thinking (...) about the social dimension of individual minds. We then turn to a brief overview of the individualistic approaches advanced by Ludwig and Spaulding in this volume. And we close with a discussion of the transformative role of the social mind in individual life presented by Kern and Moll, as well as the distributed approach to interacting systems defended by Goldstone and Theiner. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic account of Nietzsche's thought on the human mind. A central theme is the nature of and relation between the unconscious and conscious mind, relating Nietzsche's work to contemporary debates about consciousness and theory of mind.

The aim of this article is to present Paul Natorp’s position in the debate over the allocation of chairs in philosophy to experimental psychology. Natorp triggered the public controversy within psychology when an experimental psychologist, Eric Jaensch, was awarded the chair of Hermann Cohen in 1912. Natorp published an editorial in the «Frankfurter Zeitung» and in the following year, 1913, submitted a petition for the establishment of new chairs for experimental psychology in Germany. In this way, Natorp hoped to prevent (...) the abolition of “pure” philosophy from German universities. When the controversy began, Natorp wrote another essay, Philosophie und Psychologie. Natorp’s article aimed to clarify the logical domains of philosophy and psychology and to present his philosophical psychology as a solution to their conceptual overlap. Natorp’s article is also important for Natorpforschung because it was the last time that Natorp discussed his psychological point of view, only to apparently abandon his project of a philosophical psychology. (shrink)

According to the prevailing paradigm in social-cognitive neuroscience, the mental states of individuals become shared when they adapt to each other in the pursuit of a shared goal. We challenge this view by proposing an alternative approach to the cognitive foundations of social interactions. The central claim of this paper is that social cognition concerns the graded and dynamic process of alignment of individual minds, even in the absence of a shared goal. When individuals reciprocally exchange information about each other's (...) minds processes of alignment unfold over time and across space, creating a social interaction. Not all cases of joint action involve such reciprocal exchange of information. To understand the nature of social interactions, then, we propose that attention should be focused on the manner in which people align words and thoughts, bodily postures and movements, in order to take one another into account and to make full use of socially relevant information. (shrink)

Nietzsche believes that we do not know our own actions, nor their real motives. This belief, however, is but a consequence of his assuming a quite general skepticism about introspection. The main aim of this paper is to offer a reading of this last view, which I shall call the Inner Opacity (IO) view. In the first part of the paper I show that a strong motivation behind IO lies in Nietzsche’s claim that self-knowledge exploits the same set of cognitive (...) capacities as well as the same folk-psychological framework involved in outward-directed mind-reading. In the second part I turn to Nietzsche’s view of agency and argue that he sees a fundamental discrepancy between the conscious attitudes we have introspective access to, on the one hand, and the subpersonal processes and states occurring at the unconscious level of the drives, on the other hand. (shrink)

The goal of the article is to investigate some aspects of the logistic European integration at its origins by looking at the contribution of Jean Monnet. Focusing on the fifty years before the Schuman declaration, the text traces the formation of the “logistics rationality” of the Frenchman, centering on two crucial aspects of his action: the commitment to build transnational infrastructures and the creation of “logistic communities” of States. Following this route, the birth of the ECSC will emerge as the (...) final step of a long path, to which Monnet contributed by theorizing the construction of the “European logistic space”. (shrink)

Iron delivered by transferrin to the interior of the cell is in part utilized in biosynthetic processes and in part incorporated into ferritin, the major iron storage protein. The intracellular ferritin concentration is directly correlated to and determined by the extent of iron supply to the cell. Intracellular partitioning of iron to ferritin is suggested as forming the basis of cellular iron homeostasis.

In this article we use proportional hazards models to examine how low-level processes affect the probability of making a saccade over time, through the period of fixation, during reading. We apply the Cox proportional hazards model to investigate how launch distance (relative to word beginning), fixation location (relative to word center), and word frequency affect the hazard of a saccadic response. This model requires that covariates have a constant impact on the hazard over time, the assumption of proportional hazards. We (...) show that this assumption is not supported. The impact of the covariates changes with the time passed since fixation onset. To account for the non-proportional hazards we fit step functions of time, resulting in a model with time-varying effects on the hazard. We evaluate the ability to predict the timing of saccades on held-out fixation data. The model with time-varying effects performs better in predicting the timing of saccades for fixations as short as 100 ms and as long as 500 ms, when compared both to a baseline model without covariates and a model which assumes constant covariate effects. This result suggests that the time-varying effects model better recovers the time course of low-level processes that influence the decision to move the eyes. (shrink)

Madhyamaka philosophers, like most Buddhist authors writing in Sanskrit and Pāli, often express their philosophical positions through the etymological expansion and interpretation of specific key terms. Their format and style reflect an attitude towards language that, while being largely shared by the entire Sanskrit tradition, is also attuned to uniquely Buddhist concerns. I shall here reconstruct and discuss some Sanskrit and Pāli etymologies, offering a possible context for the understanding of Madhyamaka thought in India. As it would be unfeasible to (...) analyze a large amount of terms, I focus on a few expressions that bear upon the question of how Mādhyamikas understand language, both as actual linguistic expression and, more broadly/figuratively, as the activity of conceptualization. I will propose a specific reading of the Sanskrit sources in terms of linguistic, lexical, and philosophical analysis. In particular, I interpret Candrakīrti as advocating a layered view of conventional truths. He restricts the perceptions and thoughts that may qualify as conventionally valid, so as to exclude impaired perception or distorting philosophical stances. These restrictions are embedded in his etymological explanation of key philosophical terms. In brief, when Candrakīrti discusses ‘worldly conventions’ or refers to ‘what is established in the world’, not everyone fits in his ‘world’. (shrink)

The financial crisis that began in the US real-estate market in 2007 and culminated in a global economic slump showed bluntly how wrong financial risk models can be. This state of affairs has triggered a number of reactions and observations at the level of the specification and use of models and at a more conceptual/fundamental level. This article focuses on the epistemic features of such models – namely the nature, source, conditions of validity, structure and limits of the knowledge that (...) ‘well-specified’ models generate – so as to assess models in a balanced way, giving due weight to the fundamental determinants of their output and warning against overestimation of their possibilities; clarify the conditions under which models can be validly applied to economic and social relationships; render intelligible why the degree of accuracy that successful models would require is intrinsically unattainable; better understand models’ failure as evidenced by the crisis; and comment on the policy steps being undertaken to prevent similar financial crisis in the future. The analysis applies the principal tenets of critical realism to the daily preoccupations of risk management professionals and financial regulators alike. It is not intended as an intervention into critical realism. It draws on the works of Tony Lawson and Roy Bhaskar, and revisits relevant aspects of John Maynard Keynes’s work, connecting dots amongst them and marrying economic and philosophical analysis with day-to-day financial risk management and regulatory issues. Content Type Journal Article Category Article Pages 462-486 DOI 10.1558/jcr.v11i4.462 Authors Mattia L. Rattaggi, UBS/Cambridge Social Ontology Group Journal Journal of Critical Realism Online ISSN 1572-5138 Print ISSN 1476-7430 Journal Volume Volume 11 Journal Issue Volume 11, Number 4 / 2012. (shrink)

The traditional possible-worlds model of belief describes agents as ‘logically omniscient’ in the sense that they believe all logical consequences of what they believe, including all logical truths. This is widely considered a problem if we want to reason about the epistemic lives of non-ideal agents who—much like ordinary human beings—are logically competent, but not logically omniscient. A popular strategy for avoiding logical omniscience centers around the use of impossible worlds: worlds that, in one way or another, violate the laws (...) of logic. In this paper, we argue that existing impossible-worlds models of belief fail to describe agents who are both logically non-omniscient and logically competent. To model such agents, we argue, we need to ‘dynamize’ the impossible-worlds framework in a way that allows us to capture not only what agents believe, but also what they are able to infer from what they believe. In light of this diagnosis, we go on to develop the formal details of a dynamic impossible-worlds framework, and show that it successfully models agents who are both logically non-omniscient and logically competent. (shrink)

The present paper investigates the seventeenth-century debate on whether the agreement of all human beings upon certain notions—designated as the “common” ones—prove these notions to be innate. It does so by focusing on Descartes’ and Locke’s rejections of the philosophy of Herbert of Cherbury, one of the most important early modern proponents of this view. The paper opens by considering the strategy used in Herbert’s arguments, as well as the difficulties involved in them. It shows that Descartes’ 1638 and 1639 (...) reading of Herbert’s On Truth—both the 1633 second Latin edition and Mersenne’s 1639 translation—was instrumental in shaping Descartes’ views on the issue. The arguments of Locke’s Essay opposing Herbert’s case for innatism are thus revealed to be ineffective against the case which Descartes makes for this same doctrine, since Descartes had in fact framed his conception of innateness in opposition to the very same theses as Locke was arguing against. The paper concludes by explaining how two thinkers as antithetical as Locke and Descartes came to agree on at least one point, and a truly crucial one: namely, that universal consent counts as a criterion neither for innatism nor for truth. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a new semantic framework designed to capture a distinctly cognitive or epistemic notion of meaning akin to Fregean senses. Traditional Carnapian intensions are too coarse-grained for this purpose: they fail to draw semantic distinctions between sentences that, from a Fregean perspective, differ in meaning. This has led some philosophers to introduce more fine-grained hyperintensions that allow us to draw semantic distinctions among co-intensional sentences. But the hyperintensional strategy has a flip-side: it risks drawing semantic distinctions (...) between sentences that, from a Fregean perspective, do not differ in meaning. This is what we call the ‘new problem’ of hyperintensionality to distinguish it from the ‘old problem’ that faced the intensional theory. We show that our semantic framework offers a joint solution to both these problems by virtue of satisfying a version of Frege’s so-called ‘equipollence principle’ for sense individuation. Frege’s principle, we argue, not only captures the semantic intuitions that give rise to the old and the new problem of hyperintensionality, but also points the way to an independently motivated solution to both problems. (shrink)

According to many philosophers and scientists, human sociality is explained by our unique capacity to “share” attitudes with others. The conditions under which mental states are shared have been widely debated in the past two decades, focusing especially on the issue of their reducibility to individual intentionality and the place of collective intentions in the natural realm. It is not clear, however, to what extent these two issues are related and what methodologies of investigation are appropriate in each case. In (...) this article, I propose a solution that distinguishes between epistemic and ontological interpretations of the demand for the conditions of reduction of collective intentionality. While the philosophical debate has contributed important insights into the former, recent advances in the cognitive sciences offer novel resources to tackle the latter. Drawing on Michael Tomasello’s research in the ontogeny of shared intentionality in early instances of interaction based on joint attention, I propose an empirically informed argument of what it would take to address the ontological question of irreducibility, thus making a step forward in the naturalization of collective intentionality. (shrink)

A major open question in the borderlands between epistemology and philosophy of science concerns whether Bayesian updating and abductive inference are compatible. Some philosophers—most influentially Bas van Fraassen—have argued that they are not. Others have disagreed, arguing that abduction, properly understood, is indeed compatible with Bayesianism. Here we present two formal results that allow us to tackle this question from a new angle. We start by formulating what we take to be a minimal version of the claim that abduction is (...) a rational pattern of reasoning. We then show that this minimal abductivist principle, when combined with Bayesian updating by conditionalization, places surprisingly strong and controversial constraints on how we must measure explanatory power. The lesson is not that Bayesianism is definitely incompatible with abduction, but that both compatibilism and incompatibilism have hitherto unrecognized consequences. We end the paper by formulating these consequences in the form of a trilemma. (shrink)

Iris Marion Young presents a social connection model on which those, and only those, who participate in structural processes that produce injustice have a forward-looking responsibility to redress the resulting injustice by challenging the structures that produce it. In Young's view, this is an all-things-considered, albeit discretionary, responsibility. I argue that participation in a structural process that produces injustice is neither necessary nor sufficient for having political responsibilities, and that therefore the social connection model must be rejected. A subtler model (...) is needed, one that depicts participation in a structural process that produces injustice as sufficient for having pro tanto forward-looking responsibilities to redress the process, unless the participating agent satisfies certain excusing conditions. I suggest the intuitive force of the thought that mere participation gives us political responsibilities can be explained by more fundamental considerations. Hastily, we might conclude that all participants have political responsibilities simply because most of them satisfy at least one of the following conditions: they cause injustice to continue, they are morally responsible for injustice, they benefit from injustice, they have communal ties with the victims of injustice, or they have the capacity to redress injustice. (shrink)

The institutionalization of a rights-based proportionality review shares a number of salient features and puzzles with the practice of contestation that the Socrates of the early Platonic dialogues became famous for. Understanding the point of Socratic contestation, and its role in a democratic polity, is also the key to understanding the point of proportionality based rights review. To begin with, when judges decide cases within the proportionality framework they do not primarily interpret authority. They assess reasons. Not surprisingly, they, like (...) Socrates, have been prone to the charge that they offend the values and traditions of the community. The article discusses four types of pathologies that occasionally infect democratic decision-making that rights-based proportionality review is particularly suited to identify. But more basic and equally important is a second kind of justification: Proportionality-based judicial review institutionalizes a right to contest the acts of public authorities and demand a public reasons-based justification. Having a legal remedy that allows for the contestation of acts by public authorities before an impartial and independent court and demanding its justification in terms of public reason is as basic a commitment of liberal democracy as the right to vote. The real question is not whether judicial review is democratically legitimate, but how judicial institutions ought to be structured to best serve their democracy-enhancing and rights protecting purpose. If Socrates was right to insist that the practice of contestation he engaged in deserves the highest praise in a democratic polity, it is equally true that a well structured and appropriately embedded court engaged in rights based proportionality review deserves to be embraced as a vital element of liberal constitutional democracy. (shrink)