Existing explanations of political intolerance and partisanship highlight how individuals’ ideological commitments and the homogeneity of their political environments foster intolerance toward other political groups. This article argues that cultural, interactional conditions play a crucial role in how personal and environmental factors work – or do not work – in local groups. Based on a four-year ethnographic study and 12 focus group discussions with two culturally distinct civic associations of American libertarians, I show how groups’ varying patterns of interaction, or (...) “styles,” establish distinct cultural settings, in which different attitudes and behaviors seem sensible and appropriate, particularly regarding other political groups. Thus, when libertarian groups established a “community style” of interaction, viewing the relationship among members in terms of friendship and community bonds, they also opened their social activities to non-libertarians, collaborated with them in political projects, and viewed politics as a matter of advancing shared interests with people from other political groups. Comparisons across and within field sites show how this relationship between style and political tolerance works in different libertarian groups and different social environments. These findings highlight the role of local factors in explaining variations in groups’ levels of political tolerance and present a key mechanism—centered on interaction patterns—to supplement existing analyses of the relationship between political intolerance and changing forms of civic organizing in the US. (shrink)

How can we explain the rational diminution of backward-looking emotions without resorting to pragmatic or wrong kind of reason explanations? That is to say, how can the diminution of these emotions not only be rational but fitting? In this paper, I offer an answer to this question by considering the case of anger. In Sect. 1, I examine Pamela Hieronymi’s account of forgiveness as the rational resolution of resentment. I argue that Hieronymi’s account rests on an assumption about the rationality (...) of emotions —namely, that a rational change in emotion entails a change in the fact that constitutes the reason for the emotion. Then, in Sect. 2, I consider Agnes Callard’s recent criticism of accounts like Hieronymi’s as well as Callard’s alternative account of the rational resolution of anger. I argue that Callard offers a promising account but fails to explain how it avoids the criticism she levels against Hieronymi and others. Finally, in Sect. 3, I reject Hieronymi’s assumption and argue that an emotion can cease to be fitting without any change in the fact that constitutes the reason for it. I also explain how my proposal can complement Callard’s account of the rational dissipation of anger. My discussion of anger leads to a solution to the general problem about backward-looking emotions: a fitting backward-looking emotion can fittingly diminish when it is part of a process that is itself a fitting response to the past occurrence. (shrink)

A joke is amusing if and only if it’s fitting to be amused by it; an act is regrettable if and only if it’s fitting to regret it. Many philosophers accept these biconditionals and hold that analogous ones obtain between a wide range of additional evaluative properties and the fittingness of corresponding responses. Call these the _fit–value biconditionals_. The biconditionals give us a systematic way of recognizing the role of fit in our ethical practices; they also serve as the bedrock (...) of various metaethical projects, such as fitting-attitude analysis of value and the ‘fittingness first’ approach. Yet despite the importance of the biconditionals, there is very little discussion of their proper interpretation. This paper argues that any plausible interpretation of the fit_–_value biconditionals must disarm several kinds of apparent counterexample. For instance, that an achievement is pride-worthy doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to take pride in it because the achievement might not be mine or that of anyone close to me; that a joke is amusing doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to be amused by it for six straight months; and that a person is loveable doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to love him romantically because that person might be my sibling. We consider possible responses to such counterexamples and develop what we consider the most promising interpretation of the biconditionals. The upshot is that certain widespread assumptions about fit and its relation to value and reasons should be reconsidered. (shrink)

D’Arms and Jacobson’s _Rational Sentimentalism_ promises an alchemy: a view that grounds certain values and reasons in facts about human sentiments but also treats the very same facts about values and reasons as fundamental. I examine how they attempt to deliver on the promise, doubt that they succeed, consider their motivations, and offer an alternative interpretation of what they might be doing.

I propose that shock can be morally significant independently of its consequences but only as part of an ongoing commitment to certain norms, in particular norms that constitute recognizing another as a person. When we witness others in agony, or being severely wronged, or when we ourselves severely wrong or mistreat others, our shock can reflect our recognition of them as persons, a recognition constituted by our commitment to certain moral norms. However, if we do not in fact respond to (...) the suffering or wrong in accordance with these norms—if, for example, we do not act to relieve their suffering or to properly address the wrong done, and do not avoid or prevent its recurrence—then our commitment to the relevant norms is undermined. When we consistently violate the norms whose violation initially shocked us, our lingering shock upon repeated violations gradually loses its significance and becomes a mere impulse—a fossil of a past commitment, so to speak—before it disappears completely. The failure to be shocked in such instances marks the failure of our moral commitments, which is the failure to recognize others as persons. (shrink)

We discuss Aristotle's "Categories" as an answer to Plato's One-over-Many argument. For Plato, F-ness is something "over against" particular F things; to predicate "F" of these things is to assert that they all stand in a certain relation to F-ness. Aristotle answers that predication is classification; and there being a classification of a certain sort is a fact correlative with there being things classifiable in the way the classification in question would classify them.

Jean-François Lyotard's intellectual evolution in the late 1970s and 1980s is well known in continental philosophy. In 1979, with the publication of The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard became famous for his report on "the obsolescence of the metanarrative apparatus of legitimation". Later, in his magnum opus Le diférend he expanded on this, claiming that "a universal rule of judgment between heterogeneous genres is lacking in general". Yet, this creative moment in Lyotard's career, responsible for shaping the philosophical concept of the postmodern (...) condition, is rarely connected to his book La guerre des Algériens (1989). This work was supposed to implement his new postmodern concepts in relation to the war in Algeria. The present article looks at La guerre des Algériens, within its broader historical and philosophical context, as a unique opportunity to evaluate the validity of Lyotard's philosophical shift, especially his new concept of radical heterogeneity at work in history. (shrink)

Objective: To analyse the time variation of topics in bioethical publications as a proxy of the relative importance.Methods: We searched the Medline database for bioethics publications using the words “ethics or bioethics”, and for 360 specific topics publications, associating Medical Subject Heading topic descriptors to those words. We calculated the ratio of bioethics publications to the total publications of Medline, and the ratio of each topic publications to the total bioethics publications, for five-year intervals, from 1970 to 2004. We calculated (...) the time variation of ratios, dividing the difference between the highest and lowest ratio of each topic by its highest ratio. Four topics were described, selected to illustrate different patterns of variation: “Induced Abortion”, “Conflict of Interest”, “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome”, “Medical Education.”Results: The ratio of bioethics publications to total Medline publications increased from 0.003 to 0.012. The variation of the topic’s ratios was higher than 0.7 for 68% of the topics. The Induced Abortion ratios decreased from 0.12 to 0.02. Conflict of Interest ratios increased from zero to 0.07. The Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome ratios were nearly zero in the first three intervals, had a peak of 0.06 during 1985–9, followed by a decrease to 0.01. Medical Education ratios varied few, from 0.04 to 0.03.Conclusions: There was an increase of bioethical publications in the Medline database. The topics in bioethics literature have an important time variation. Some factors were suggested to explain this variation: current legal cases, resolution of the issue, saturation of a discussion and epidemiologic importance. (shrink)

You might think that, if you make a law, then that law binds you, because you made it. For, if you will the law, then how can you deny that it binds you, without contradicting your own will? But you might also think the opposite. You might think that, if you are the author of the law, then it cannot bind you. For how can it have authority over you when you have authority over it? How can it bind you (...) when you, the lawmaker, can change it, at will, whenever you like?Now, in that pair of arguments mutually contradictory conclusions are drawn from the selfsame premiss: the premiss that you make the law. So at least one of the arguments is invalid. But, even if they are both invalid, they might still be unignorable, because they might have elements of truth in them. They might be healthy argument–embryos out of which sound arguments could develop. And, whatever else is true, each of the arguments is sufficiently persuasive that, mutually contradictory though they are, each was affirmed in Hobbes’s Leviathan, in much the form in which I just stated them.There are, by my count, four arguments in Hobbes for the conclusion that the citizen is obliged to obey the law. Three of the arguments don’t matter here. (shrink)

The present study was motivated by the hypothesis that inputs from internal states in obsessive–compulsive individuals are attenuated, which could be one source of the pervasive doubting and checking in OCD. Participants who were high or low in OC tendencies were asked to produce specific levels of muscle tension with and without biofeedback, and their accuracy in producing the required muscle tension levels was assessed. As predicted, high OC participants performed more poorly than low OC participants on this task when (...) biofeedback was not available. When biofeedback was provided, the difference between the groups was eliminated, and withdrawing the monitor again reversed this effect. Finally, when given the opportunity, high OC participants were more likely than low OC participants to request biofeedback. These results suggest that doubt in OCD may be grounded in a real and general deficiency in accessing internal states. (shrink)

Attempts by 20th century philosophers of science to define inductive concepts and methods concerning the support provided to scientific theories by empirical data have been unsuccessful. Although 20th century philosophers of science largely ignored statistical methods for testing theories, when they did address them they argued against rather than for their use. In contrast, this study demonstrates that traditional statistical methods used for validating computer simulation models provide tests of the scientific theories that those models may embody. This study shows (...) that these statistical methods are applicable regardless of whether the scientific theory or model is deterministic, stochastic, or chaos-based in nature. Traditional statistical methods, such as hypothesis testing, test theories by providing measures of their goodness-of-fit with the portion of the world the theories describe. Nothing more is needed to portray the agreement between theory and the world. Furthermore, the statistical measures of goodness-of-fit are not ampliative inductive measures. Therefore, the ultimate value and direction of the 20 th century ampliative inductive program within philosophy of science is thrown into question. This study also suggests that advanced statistical, visualization, and hybrid quantitative qualitative methods hold promise for offering scientists additional methods for testing scientific theories through validating their computer model representations. As a prerequisite to the above discussions, this study proves that scientific theories, when applied to concrete physical systems, can indeed be represented by computer models. (shrink)

Psycho-physical origins.-- Spatial nothingness.-- The origin of space.-- Moral facts and origins.-- Psycho-physical relationship.-- Morality and moral ideals.-- The economic solution.-- Principles of psychotherapy.

This course is an introduction to the philosophy of language. Philosophy of language concerns quite a large number of topics, including meaning, truth, content, reference, the syntax and semantics of various linguistic constructions, the nature and role of presupposition in communicative interchange, speech acts, figurative uses of language, questions about the ontology of languages, the epistemology of language understanding and language learning, the mental/psychologial basis of linguistic understanding and use, and so on. Since we can't possibly study all of these (...) topics, we'll focus our energy on topics that are most central in recent philosophical work on language, and that have far-reaching consequences for other topics in philosophy of language and other areas of philosophy. (shrink)

LOCKE IS FREQUENTLY CALLED AN EMPIRICIST. HOWEVER, THE\nROLES OF REASON AND EXPERIENCE IN LOCKE'S EPISTEMOLOGY\nHAVE, THEREBY, BEEN OBSCURED. IN THIS PAPER, DIFFERENT\nSENSES OF "EMPIRICISM" AND "RATIONALISM" ARE DISTINGUISHED,\nAND RELEVANT PASSAGES FROM LOCKE'S WRITINGS ARE SCRUTINIZED\nFOR PURPOSES OF EXPLICATING HIS EPISTEMOLOGY. THROUGH THIS\nEXAMINATION, IT IS SEEN THAT LOCKE, LIKE KANT, SEEKS A\n"REASON-EXPERIENCE SYNTHESIS" AND THAT THE BLANKET LABEL\n"EMPIRICIST," AS APPLIED TO LOCKE, IS MOST UNFORTUNATE.

This appendix contains sections titled: Ancient Women Renaissance Women.