While Strawsonians have focused on the way in which our “reactive attitudes”—the emotions through which we hold one another responsible for manifestations of morally significant quality of regard—express moral demands, serious doubt has been cast on the idea that non-blaming reactive attitudes direct moral demands to their targets. Building on Gary Watson’s proposal that the reactive attitudes are ‘forms of moral address’, this paper advances a communicative view of praise according to which the form of moral address distinctive of (...) the praise-manifesting reactive attitudes (approbation, gratitude) is moral invitation. Like moral demand, moral invitation is a species of directive address presupposing its target’s possession of distinctive agential capacities and, when valid, provides its addressee with reason to give the addressor’s directive discursive uptake. While blame’s demands issue imperatival reasons for compliance (e.g. to acknowledge wrongdoing, apologize, etc.), praise’s invitations provide discretionary reasons to accept credit in jointly valuing the significance of the act for the praiser. In addition to its phenomenological plausibility and contribution to the already fecund Watsonian-cum-Strawsonian program, the invitational view helps render intelligible the power of our praise practices to facilitate the formation and enrichment of our interpersonal relationships. (shrink)

Philosophers have had a lot to say about blame, much less about praise. In this paper, I follow some recent authors in arguing that this is a mistake. However, unlike these recent authors, the reasons I identify for scrutinising praise are to do with the ways in which praise is, systematically, unjustly apportioned. Specifically, drawing on testimony and findings from social psychology, I argue that praise is often apportioned in ways that reflect and entrench existing structures (...) of oppression. Articulating what is going wrong here helps us to see what to do about it. (shrink)

In Praise of Mount Samanta by Vedeha Thera, Tr. Ann Appleby Hazlewood. Sacred Books of the Buddhists XXXVII, Pali Text Society, London 1986. xiv + 122 pp. £8.95.

What is that makes an act subject to either praise or blame? The question has often been taken to depend entirely on the free will debate for an answer, since it is widely agreed that an agent’s act is subject to praise or blame only if it was freely willed, but moral theory, action theory, and moral psychology are at least equally relevant to it. In the last quarter-century, following the lead of Harry Frankfurt’s (1971) seminal article “Freedom (...) of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” the interdisciplinary nature of the question has been emphasized by various authors. Going beyond the boundaries of the traditional free will debate, they have attempted to describe the requirements for agent accountability by appeal to theories of personality, rational agency, and ethical choice. The approach has been a breath of fresh air in the often-stagnant free will debate, bringing new considerations to bear and provoking new lines of argument, and it is an approach that we will adopt in this paper. In the following pages, we hope to show that an under-noticed phenomenon of moral psychology, inverse akrasia, exemplified by Huckleberry Finn, has something to contribute to the understanding of agency and accountability. After presenting the phenomenon in section I, we will move in section II to a quick survey of a family of Frankfurt-inspired views and a critique of them based on the phenomenon in sections III and IV. A new theory will be offered in section V, and potential objections addressed in the final section of the paper. (shrink)

Joining the debate over the roles of reason and appetite in the moral mind, In Praise of Desire takes the side of appetite. Acting for moral reasons, acting in a praiseworthy manner, and acting out of virtue are simply acting out of intrinsic desires for the right or the good.

_ Source: _Volume 38, Issue 1, pp 64 - 108 The discovery and subsequent edition of the only known sixteenth-century Spanish translation of _The Praise of Folly_ put into question the notion that Erasmus was almost exclusively received as a doctrinal author in sixteenth-century Spain. To bolster this argument, these pages examine the 1536 Spanish translation of Alberto Pio’s _Tres et viginti libri locos lucubrationum variarum D. Erasmi Roterodami_. Though this translation was not unknown to scholars, none realized that (...) book IV, part 1 included a partial translation, paraphrase, and commentary of the _Praise of Folly_. Once recognized, this translation allows us more accurately to date the _Moria de Erasmo_ and in turn demands an explanation of why Pio’s lengthy text was translated into Spanish. Moreover, this material helps to explain what texts the Spanish censors had in mind when referring to the “Moria of Erasmus in romance, Latin, and any other language.”. (shrink)

_In Praise of Theatre_ is Alain Badiou’s latest work on the ‘most complete of the arts,’ the theatrical stage. This book, certain to be of great interest to scholars and theatre practitioners alike, elaborates the theory of the theatre developed by Badiou in works such as Rhapsody for the Theatre and the ‘Theses on Theatre’ and enquires into the status of a theatre that would be adequate to our ‘contemporary, market-oriented chaos.’ In a departure from his usual emphasis upon (...) canonical figures of the stage such as Bertolt Brecht and Samuel Beckett, Badiou devotes In Praise of Theatre largely to a consideration of contemporary practitioners, including Jan Fabre, Brigitte Jacques and Romeo Castellucci. In addition, the book features an incisive analysis of the precarious status of the theatre today, in which Badiou describes not only the current threats to the theatre from the right, but the far more insidious threat from the left. (shrink)

Praise, unlike blame, is generally considered well intended and beneficial, and therefore in less need of scrutiny. In line with recent developments, we argue that praise merits more thorough philosophical analysis. We show that, just like blame, praise can be problematic by expressing a failure to respect a person’s equal value or worth as a person. Such patronizing praise, however, is often more insidious, because praise tends to be regarded as well intended and beneficial, which (...) renders it harder to recognize and object to. Among other things, a philosophical analysis of patronizing praise helps people on the receiving end articulate why they feel uncomfortable or offended by it, shows patronizing praisers how their praise is problematic, and provides input for further philosophical analysis of blame.In the first section of the paper, we discuss how hypocritical praise, just like hypocritical blame, can fail to respect the equality of persons by expressing that the praiser applies more demanding moral standards to the praisee than to themself. We further discuss obstructionist praise, which loosely corresponds to complicit blame, and can similarly express that certain moral standards apply to others but not to the praiser. In the second part of the paper, we discuss another variety of patronizing praise. Praise can be an inaccurate appraisal of a person based on irrelevant considerations – like race, gender, or class – and thereby constitute a failure to recognize their equal worth as a person. We identify three ways in which such praise can manifest. (shrink)

Those who are familiar with the development of contemporary philosophy and in particular of phenomenology, may have frowned at the prospect of having to sit through a praise of visibility. Indeed, if there is any praise to be sung, it is not the visible but the invisible that should be its subject. The realm of the visible suffers from an intrinsic defect: it lacks the depth to resist the movement of appropriation implied in seeing, or more generally in (...) perceiving. It does not dispose of whatLevinas would call the infinity that could help it withstand the gaze that catches it and helps it contest the subject of that gaze its power. There is not enough of the event in it to “summon the subject outside of its autarky.” “The flat phenomenon and the subject to which nothing ever happens form a pair,” Rudolf Bernet writes in a paper with the telling title “Le phénomène et l’invisible (le regard).” It seems indeed left to the invisible to remediate the shortcomings of the eye that sees. Its task is to divest the subject who sees of a handicap it cannot compensate for on its own, — of a kind of Midas complex: whatever it encounters in the light that it throws on things, is fatally robbed of its alterity, leaving the seeing or perceiving subject alone in a solitude that is but the reverse side of the power by which it subjects whatever crosses its way. “The exteriority of light,” Levinas writes in this vein, “does not suffice for the liberation of the I that is its own prisoner.”. (shrink)

This research aims to determine what is meant by the terms Praise and thanksgiving the difference between them, and the relationship that brings them together in the light of Arabic dictionaries and the Holy Qur’an. This research also aims to show the extent to which the relationship between praise and thanksgiving has been affected by the transition from the limited linguistic framework to the horizons of the Holy Qur’an. This research is based on a combination of induction, analysis (...) and conclusion. Among the most important findings of the research are the following: First- Praise and thanksgiving are not synonymous linguistically or idiomatically. Second- The relationship between Praise and thanksgiving in linguistic dictionaries is about generality and particularity relationship; and it is the same in the Holy Qur’an, but that relationship has revolved in linguistic dictionaries in a limited horizon. However, when I studied the difference from Quranic perspective, I found a wider range of differences, not limited by time or place and the aspects of that relationship multiplied. Third- Praise (to Allah Almighty) is for the blessings He has bestowed upon us, and for the attributes of perfection with which He has been characterized. As for thanksgiving, it is only for the blessing. (shrink)

Reasons-responsive accounts of praiseworthiness say, roughly, that an agent is praiseworthy for an action just in case the reasons that explain why they acted are also the reasons that explain why the action is right. In this paper, we argue that reasons-responsive accounts imply that some actions of non-human animals are praiseworthy. Trying to exclude non-human animals, we argue, risks neglecting cases of inadvertent virtue in human action and undermining the anti-intellectualist commitments that are typically associated with reasons-responsive accounts. Of (...) course, this could be taken as a reason to reject reasons-responsive accounts, rather than as a reason to attribute praiseworthiness to non-human animal action. We respond to two reasons that one might resist the implication that non-human animal action can be praiseworthy. The first appeals to intuition: it’s too counterintuitive to attribute praiseworthiness to non-human animal action. In response, we argue that once the factors that determine an action’s praiseworthiness are disambiguated from the factors that determine whether an agent should be praised, the intuitive objection loses much of its force. The second appeals to empirical evidence: attributing praiseworthiness to non-human animal action involves a problematic kind of anthropomorphizing. First, we point out that this objection is mostly an _a priori_ objection in _a posteriori_ clothes: whether we give anthropomorphic vs. anthropectic explanations is a methodological choice, not an empirical one. Second, we argue that considerations from the literature on rational analysis and radical interpretation actually support anthropomorphic explanations over anthropectic explanations. (shrink)

In Praise of Philosophy and Other Essays explores Lavelle, Bergson, and Socrates and provides themes from Merleau-Ponty lectures at the Collége de France including “The Problem of Speech” and “Nature and Logos: The Human Body.”.

We praise people for morally good things: giving to charity, being generous, having compassion for the needy. We blame for morally bad things: cheating on one’s spouse, being selfish, harboring ill will towards others. What are praise and blame, though? When are they appropriate? This essay reviews influential answers to these questions.

This paper argues that praise is governed by a norm of standing, namely the evaluative commitment condition. Even when the target of praise is praiseworthy and known to be so by the praiser, praise can be inappropriate owing to the praiser’s lacking the relevant evaluative commitment. I propose that uncommitted praisers lack the standing to praise in that, owing to their lack of commitment to the relevant value, they have not earned the right to host the (...) co-valuing that is the communicative aim of praise. (shrink)

What is truth in the postmodern age? The artistic generation of the twentieth century has grown up immersed in the delirious imagination of postmodern thought, which insists upon the ultimate uncertainty of meaning and that there is no self-evident truth. This title explores the possibilities and parameters of a postmodern imagination freed from the philosophical responsibilities of fiction, fact, and replication of lived experience. Mobilizing an array of scholars and contemporary artists, this study examines postmodern thinking through the lenses of (...) identity and visual culture. Speculative, critical, and always creative in its approach, "In Praise of Nonsense" focuses on theories of disappearance, irony, and nonsense, where the pleasures of the imaginary give rise to artistic inspiration. (shrink)

In recent decades, the relation between Egyptian and Greek praises of the goddess Isis has received much scholarly attention. The present study, however, focuses on six Demotic hymns and praises directed to this goddess: P. Heidelberg dem. 736 verso, O. Hor 10, Theban Graffiti 3156, 3462, 3445, and P. Tebt. Tait 14. These texts from the second century BC to the second century AD are re-edited in facsimile, transliteration and translation. A commentary to each document discusses philological matters, providing improved (...) readings in some instances. For the first time, the six texts are analyzed comparatively in regard to formal features and content. The concept of Isis that is outlined by the Demotic sources is set against Isis' role as described by other Egyptian sources and by Greek eulogies of the goddess. An appendix offers an overview of other Demotic hymns and praises addressed to various divinities. (shrink)

Consequentialism has been challenged on the grounds that it is too demanding. I will respond to the problem of demandingness differently from previous accounts. In the first part of the paper, I argue that consequentialism requires us to distinguish the justification of an act \ from the justification of an act \, where \ is an act of praise or blame. In the second part of the paper, I confront the problem of demandingness. I do not attempt to rule (...) out the objection; instead, I argue that if certain plausible empirical claims about moral motivation are true, we morally ought not to blame people for failing to meet certain very demanding obligations. With this theory, we create a space in consequentialism for intuitions questioning the plausibility of demanding obligations. I conclude the paper by showing that separate justifications for \ and \ may also give us a theoretical niche for intuitions about supererogation. (shrink)

One way of being responsible for an action is being praiseworthy for it. But what is the “praise” of which the praiseworthy agent is worthy? This paper provides a survey of answers to this question, i.e. a survey of possible accounts of praise’s nature. It then presents an overview of candidate norms governing our responses of praise. By attending to praise’s nature and appropriateness conditions, we stand to acquire a richer conception of what it is to (...) be, and to regard another as, a responsible agent. (shrink)

Continuing prior work by the author, a simple classical system for personal obligation is integrated with a fairly rich system for aretaic (agent-evaluative) appraisal. I then explore various relationships between definable aretaic statuses such as praiseworthiness and blameworthiness and deontic statuses such as obligatoriness and impermissibility. I focus on partitions of the normative statuses generated ("normative positions" but without explicit representation of agency). In addition to being able to model and explore fundamental questions in ethical theory about the connection between (...) blame, praise, permissibility and obligation, this allows me to carefully represent schemes for supererogation and kin. These controversial concepts have provided challenges to both ethical theory and deontic logic, and are among deontic logic's test cases. (shrink)

In Praise of Philosophy Mister Provost, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen: The man who witnesses his own research, that is to say his own inner disorder, ...

In The Praised and the Virgin , Rusmir Mahmutćehajić provides a theological and philosophical meditation on the relationship between the Prophet Muhammad and the Virgin Mary as complementary bearers of God’s Word, through the historical example of intermingling traditions in Bosnia.

At the heart of this book is a simple comparison: monotheistic religions are exclusive, whereas ancient polytheistic religions are inclusive. In this thought-provoking book, Maurizio Bettini, one of today's foremost classicists, uses the expansiveness of ancient polytheism to shine a bright light on a darker corner of our modern times. It can be easy to see ancient religions as inferior, less free, and remote from shared visions of a more inclusive world. But, as Bettini deftly shows, many ancient practices tended (...) to produce results aligned with contemporary progressive values, like pluralism and diversity. In Praise of Polytheism does not chastise the modern world or blame monotheism for all our woes but rather shows in clear, sharp prose how much we can learn from ancient religions, underscoring the limitations of how we view the world and ourselves today. (shrink)

In recent years there has been an explosion of philosophical work on blame. Much of this work has focused on explicating the nature of blame or on examining the norms that govern it, and the primary motivation for theorizing about blame seems to derive from blame’s tight connection to responsibility. However, very little philosophical attention has been given to praise and its attendant practices. In this paper, I identify three possible explanations for this lack of attention. My goal is (...) to show that each of these lines of thought is mistaken and to argue that praise is deserving of careful, independent analysis by philosophers interested in theorizing about responsibility. (shrink)

Unresolved questions surround Simonides fr. 531, which eulogizes the Greeks who fell at Thermopylae. To what genre do these lines belong, what were the original conditions of their performance, and does Diodorus Siculus, who preserves the fragment, transmit just an extract or the complete piece? Commentators even differ as to where Simonides’ lines began: for some the words τŵυ ༐υ Θερμοπλαιζ θαυóυτωυ form part of the original composition, for others they conclude Diodorus' prose introduction. In my reading of the fragment, (...) I aim to address some of these puzzles by focusing chiefly on issues that allow for greater certainty: the structure and sentiments of the lines, and the cohesion between the song's contents and the conventions found in near contemporary commemorations of men fallen in battle on their country or polis’ behalf. As the comparative material will suggest, Diodorus’ designation of the lines as an encomion, something ‘properly’ delivered in praise of living men, should perhaps not be dismissed out of hand. Simonides‘ words may have been embedded within a composition as much designed for the purpose of praising, exhorting and inspiring the living as for memorializing the dead. (shrink)

Philosophers analyzing standing to blame have argued that in view of a blamer’s own fault she can lack standing to blame another for an act even if the act is blameworthy and that standingless, hypocritical blame is pro tanto morally wrongful. The bearing of these conclusions on standing to praise is yet to receive the attention it deserves. I defend two claims. The first is the conditional claim that if and are true, so are and. The latter are: a (...) praiser can lack the standing to praise herself for an act even if that act is praiseworthy and standingless, hypocritical praise is pro tanto morally wrongful. So I am suggesting that facts about standing to blame reflect more general facts about standing to hold responsible. The second is the claim that and are true. (shrink)

What is praise? I argue that we can make progress by examining what praise does. Functionalist views of praise are emerging, but I here argue that by foregrounding cases in which expressions of praise are rejected by their direct target, we see that praise has a wider, and largely overlooked, social function. I introduce cases in which praise is rejected, and develop a functionalist account of praise that is well placed to make sense (...) of the contours of these cases. My claim is that praise functions to affirm and entrench values, exerting pressure in praise's audiences to affirm the values expressed. I show how my account overcomes some of the limitations of recently developed accounts of praise. (shrink)

The paper aims at reconstructing the influence of Simonides on a contiguous series of Horatian poems . The starting point is provided by the discovery of new Simonidean fragments published by Peter Parsons and by Martin West in 1992. But the research casts a wider net, including the influence of Theocritus on Horace-and of Simonides on Theoocritus-and the simultaneous and competing presence of Pindar and Simonides in late Horatian lyric. The influence of Simonides is seen in specific textual pointers-e.g., a (...) simile on the death of Achilles in 4.6, the idea of caducity in 4.7-as well as in the composite role-model of Simonides, the immortalizing poet, the flexible praise-singer. Some wider questions are put in perspective: As for Horace's approach to the poetic tradition, the Roman poet is able to glance across whole genealogies of models, without necessarily making a choice, but making the invocation of several predecessors, already linked in a tradition, relevant to his new text. "Odes" 4.7, for instance, features a dialogue of Horace, Homer, Mimnermus and Simonides. The oscillation in modern criticism between an "Alexandrian" and a "classicizing" Horace could be better explained by constructing a complex model of intertextuality: "Pindar" plus "the Pindar in Callimachus"; "Simonides" plus "the Simonides in Theocritus." The dominating influence of Pindar in Book IV could be a part of a richer picture of influence, now difficult to reconstruct since all we have is the four Pindaric books of epinicia, not necessarily the only widely read choral lyric in antiquity. The reuse of early-classical praise poetry includes references to social constructs and cultural models of patronage, gift exchange, and poetic addressee: they are important in Augustan lyric precisely because they are felt as distant and impossible to recreate, and become a part of Horace's deft and often ironical negotiations with the problem of being a lyric poet in Augustan Rome. (shrink)

Focused on Nandi Timmana’s sixteenth-century Telugu epic poem, Pārijātāpaharaṇamu, this article analyzes citrakāvya, a genre of poetry that includes various kinds of patterned verses, word puzzles, and figural poems. The seventeenth-century Telugu grammarian Appakavi outlines three genres of citrakāvya: 1) citrakavitvamu ; 2) bandhakavitvamu ; and 3) garbhakavitvamu. Timmana employs all three genres of citrakāvya in Theft of a Tree 5.92–99, which are set in the voice of Nārada praising Kṛṣṇa as god. Rather than reading citrakāvya as simply a form (...) of alaṅkāra, I argue that citrakāvya primarily functions as a form of stotra in the context of Timmana’s Theft of a Tree. Shifting the flow of his rather fast-paced narrative, Timmana intentionally uses citrakāvya to praise and even capture god through the complex figuration of syllables and sounds. Timmana’s citras are essential to scripting a new layer of the pārijāta narrative, one that highlights the voice of the poet himself speaking to his god. (shrink)

After providing a general overview and critique of some of the main problems with teacher praise, in which I basically argue that praise binds and controls the students instead of liberating them, I go on to examine whether it is possible to praise without the intention to control the students. In this way I challenge conventional and standardising ways of praising, and argue that it is possible to make room for the singularity and uniqueness of students through (...) praise. (shrink)

After providing a general overview and critique of some of the main problems with teacher praise, in which I basically argue that praise binds and controls the students instead of liberating them, I go on to examine whether it is possible to praise without the intention to control the students. In this way I challenge conventional and standardising ways of praising, and argue that it is possible to make room for the singularity and uniqueness of students through (...) praise. (shrink)

First published in Paris in 1511, _The Praise of Folly _has__enjoyed enormous and highly controversial success from the author’s lifetime down to our own day.__It has__no rival, except perhaps Thomas More’s _Utopia, _as the most intense and lively presentation of the literary, social, and theological aims and methods of Northern Humanism. Clarence H. Miller’s highly praised translation of _The Praise of Folly, _based on the definitive Latin text, echoes Erasmus’ own lively style while retaining the nuances of the (...) original text. In his introduction, Miller places the work in the context of Erasmus as humanist and theologian. In a new afterword, William H. Gass playfully considers the meaning, or meanings, of folly and offers fresh insights into one of the great books of Western literature. _Praise for the earlier edition:_ “An eminently reliable and fully annotated edition based on the Latin text.”—_Library Journal_ “Exciting and brilliant, this is likely to be the definitive translation of _The Praise of Folly _into__English.”—Richard J. Schoeck. (shrink)

Why bother to praise mathematics when you claim, as Alain Badiou does, that philosophy is first and foremost a metaphysics of happiness, or else it’s not worth an hour of trouble? What possible relationship can there be between mathematics and happiness? That is precisely the issue at stake in this dialogue, which serves as a very accessible introduction to what mathematics is and an exploration of the crucial influence it has always exerted on the greatest philosophers. Far from the (...) thankless, pointless exercises they are often thought to be, mathematics and logic are indispensable guides to ridding ourselves of dominant opinions and making possible an access to truths, or to a human experience of the utmost value. That is why mathematics may well be the shortest path to the true life, which, when it exists, is characterized by an incomparable happiness. (shrink)

First published in 1991, _In Praise of Cognitive Emotions_ comprises fourteen of Scheffler's most recent essays - all of which challenge contemporary notions of education and rationality. While defending the ideal of rationality, he insists that rationality not be identified with a mental faculty or a mechanism of inference but taken rather as the capactity to grasp principles and purposes and to evaluate them in the light of relevant reasons. Examining a broad range of issues - from computers in (...) school to math education, from metaphor to morality - these essays are unified by Scheffler's conviction of the primacy of critical thought in education. Scheffler is especially concerned to promote a broad interpretation of rationality to counteract the narrowing of vision accompanying the technological revolution now sweeping education. Addressing three specific areas of curriculum, the work offers a critique of computer applications to education, develops a notion of strategic rationality in understanding mathematical reasoning, and, contrary to prevalent notions of moral education, connects reason with care, thus emphasizing the intimate connection between emotion and reason and challenging the dominant perception of the two as oppositional. (shrink)

Unlike other creatures, humans developed the ability to cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers and a tendency to comply with social norms. However, humans deviate from social norms in various situations. This study used the modified ultimatum game to explore why humans deviate from social norms and how their prosocial behavior can be promoted. In Study 1, participants were asked to imagine working with an anonymous counterpart to complete a task and obtain a certain amount of money (e.g., ¥10). The computer (...) divided the money randomly in favor of the participant (e.g., 9:1 or 8:2). Participants should decide whether to accept or reject such a self-benefiting division. In the non-risk condition, an absolutely fair redivision of money would take place if participants reject self-benefiting division (e.g. 5:5 or 6:4). By contrast, in the risk condition, other-benefiting redivision of money (e.g., 1:9 or 2:8) would take place if participants rejected the self-benefiting division. Results involving 40 college students showed the main effect of condition. The frequency of accepting self-benefiting division in the risk condition was higher than that in the non-risk condition. As such, compliance with social norms is based on the preservation of material resources. In Study 2, we used economic or moral rewards to compensate for economic loss following compliance with the norm. Results involving 28 college students revealed a significant effect of compensation. The rewards, including moral praise, effectively decreased selfish choices. These findings extend previous studies on social norm compliance by emphasizing the importance of internal, fairness-based balance between material and moral needs, as well as the role of moral praise in promoting prosocial behavior. (shrink)

Recent writers in feminist ethics have been concerned to find ways to reclaim and augment women's moral agency. This essay considers Sarah Hoagland's intriguing suggestion that we renounce moral praise and blame and pursue what she calls an "ethic of intelligibility." I argue that the eschewal of moral blame would not help but rather hinder our efforts to increase our sense of moral agency. It would, I claim, further intensify our demoralization.

This chapter introduces readers to the view that praise is a form of address, or is communicative in the sense of seeking uptake from its target. The proposal that praise is communicative will seem counterintuitive if we take blame to be our paradigm of what it is for a responsibility-response to be communicative. This is because blame is communicative in a manner that intuitively presupposes some normative failure; it involves calling its target to account (or answer) for some (...) wrongdoing. But, the ‘rightdoer’ already properly regarded the relevant reasons in acting praiseworthily. So, there is nothing for which the praiseworthy agent must similarly account or answer for. How then could praise be communicative in sense of seeking uptake from its target? This chapter develops the view that praise is communicative in that it invites the praiseworthy agent to accept credit by co-valuing their action in the evaluative terms supplied by the praiser. This proposal is defended against three objections, namely that it is descriptively inadequate regarding our actual practices, that it is morally mistaken about when we owe others a response, and that it implies redundant communication. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to examine the thought of Hannah Arendt and the work of Osip Mandelstam from a unified conceptual stance. Arendt provides the grounds for this in her remarks about Mandelstam (alongside Rilke and Auden) in two major fragments from her final work “The Life of the Mind.” Arendt (here following on from Heidegger) speaks of the unity of poetry and praise, which, in turn, illustrates the affinity between thought and gratitude. However, the great modernist (...) poets that Arendt mentions perform their praise within an existential and historical context in which praise proves a kind of impossible, paradoxical event. We attempt to discern Mandelstam’s poetic thought through the optics proposed by Hannah Arendt and to describe several aspects of his “poetics of praise.”. (shrink)

Why does reason matter, if in the end everything comes down to blind faith or gut instinct? Why not just go with what you believe even if it contradicts the evidence? Why bother with rational explanation when name-calling, manipulation, and force are so much more effective in our current cultural and political landscape? Michael Lynch's In Praise of Reason offers a spirited defense of reason and rationality in an era of widespread skepticism--when, for example, people reject scientific evidence about (...) such matters as evolution, climate change, and vaccines when it doesn't jibe with their beliefs and opinions. In recent years, skepticism about the practical value of reason has emerged even within the scientific academy. Many philosophers and psychologists claim that the reasons we give for our most deeply held views are often little more than rationalizations of our prior convictions. _In_ _Praise of Reason_ gives us a counterargument. Although skeptical questions about reason have a deep and interesting history, they can be answered. In particular, appeals to scientific principles of rationality are part of the essential common currency of any civil democratic society. The idea that everything is arbitrary--that reason has no more weight than blind faith--undermines a key principle of a civil society: that we owe our fellow citizens explanations for what we do. Reason matters--not just for the noble ideal of truth, but for the everyday world in which we live. (shrink)

According to some, luck forms an inevitable part of admirable moral agency. According to others, it is incompatible with a basic principle of moral worth. What's the issue? Is there a ‘problem’ of moral luck; or are there many, or none? With reference to the practice of moral praise, I suggest that there is no single problem of moral luck as traditionally understood. Instead, there is a family of issues regarding the interpretation and assessment of moral performance. In the (...) background is a mixture of descriptive and normative issues, including how to understand the legitimacy of social expectations, the value of effort, and the duties of communities to enable their members to live good and virtuous lives. (shrink)

(2008). In Praise of Top-Down Decision Making in Managerial Hierarchies. World Futures: Vol. 64, Postformal Thought and Hierarchical Complexity, pp. 513-523.

Everyfan -- Definitions : praise, beauty, athletics -- Discontinuities : demigods, gladiators, knights, ruffians, sportsmen, Olympians, customers -- Fascinations : bodies, suffering, grace, tools, forms, plays, timing -- Gratitude : watching, waste.

Review of Anne Dufourmantelle's In Praise of Risk, trans. with an introduction by Steven Miller.

Praise is a common feature of interpersonal interaction. It is used to encourage, socialize, ingratiate, seduce, reward, and influence other people. These assorted usages reflect a widespread belief in the efficacy of praise for altering the behaviour and affective state of the recipient. Despite this assumed power of praise, and despite its salience and frequency in human social interaction, research interest in praise has been sporadic and intermittent, and not united within an all-embracing theoretical model.In this (...) article we will present an analysis of the effects of praise. We will begin by considering how to define praise. Next, we will examine the view of praise as social reinforcement, a conception which roots praise firmly within an empiricist framework; this appears to have been the predominant theoretical view guiding previous research on praise. We will conclude, however, that this view is conceptually inadequate to account for the empirical evidence. Because of that conclusion, our next step will be to provide a novel examination of the likely processes and consequences involved in praise. The remainder of the article will then be devoted to examining, where it is available, empirical evidence relevant to our analysis. (shrink)

Without access to Michel Foucault’s courses, it was extremely difficult to understand his reorientation from an analysis of the strategies and tactics of power immanent in the modern discourse on sexuality (1976) to an analysis of the ancient forms and modalities of relation to oneself by which one constituted oneself as a moral subject of sexual conduct (1984). In short, Foucault’s passage from the political to the ethical dimension of sexuality seemed sudden and inexplicable. Moreover, it was clear from his (...) published essays and interviews that this displacement of focus had consequences far beyond the specific domain of the history of sexuality. Security, Territory, Population (Foucault, 2007) contains a conceptual hinge, a key concept, that allows us to link together the political and ethical axes of Foucault’s thought. Indeed, it is Foucault’s analysis of the notions of conduct and counter-conduct in his lecture of 1 March 1978 that seems to me to constitute one of the richest and most brilliant moments in the entire course. It is astonishing, and of profound significance, that the autonomous sphere of conduct has been more or less invisible in the history of modern (as opposed to ancient) moral and political philosophy. This article argues that a new attention should be given to this notion, both in Foucault’s work and more generally. (shrink)

Recently David Widerker argued that from the widely accepted ought implies can principle one can deduce the controversial and much discussed principle of alternative possibilities (PAP). Actually, he argues that this result is true only of the part of PAP which deals with moral blame. Because there are acts of supererogation, he maintains that it does not apply to the part which deals with moral praise. What Widerker says about supererogation seems true, and I develop and expand upon this (...) idea in the first half of the paper. Then I argue that Widerker's argument regarding moral blame fails. (shrink)

Blame is an unpopular and neglected notion: it goes against the grain of a therapeutically-oriented culture and has been far less discussed by philosophers than such related notions as responsibility and punishment. This book seeks to show that neither the opposition nor the neglect is justified. The book's most important conclusion is that blame is inseperable from morality itself - that any considerations that justify us in accepting a set of moral principles must also call for the condemnation of those (...) who violate the principles. Properly understood, blame and morality must stand or fall together. (shrink)