Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 4, April 2022.

People disagree about the causes of social inequality and how to most effectively intervene in them. These may seem like empirical questions for social scientists, not philosophers. However, causal explanation itself depends on broadly normative commitments. From this it follows that (moral) philosophers have an important role to play in determining those causal explanations. I examine the case of causal explanations of poverty to demonstrate these claims. In short, philosophers who work to reshape our moral expectations also work, on the (...) back end, to restructure acceptable causal explanations—and hence solutions—for social inequality. Empirical and normative inquiry, then, are a two-way street. (shrink)

them. Though Aristotle does not say so, presumably the questioner who conceals in this way must be prepared, when challenged, to show that the conclusion...

This article proposes an analytical approach to algorithms that stresses operations of folding. The aim of this approach is to broaden the common analytical focus on algorithms as biased and opaque black boxes, and to instead highlight the many relations that algorithms are interwoven with. Our proposed approach thus highlights how algorithms fold heterogeneous things: data, methods and objects with multiple ethical and political effects. We exemplify the utility of our approach by proposing three specific operations of folding—proximation, universalisation and (...) normalisation. The article develops these three operations through four empirical vignettes, drawn from different settings that deal with algorithms in relation to AIDS, Zika and stock markets. In proposing this analytical approach, we wish to highlight the many different attachments and relations that algorithms enfold. The approach thus aims to produce accounts that highlight how algorithms dynamically combine and reconfigure different social and material heterogeneities as well as the ethical, normative and political consequences of these reconfigurations. (shrink)

David Lewis is widely credited with the first formulation of common knowledge and the first rigorous analysis of convention. However, common knowledge and convention entered mainstream game theory only when they were formulated, later and independently, by other theorists. As a result, some of the most distinctive and valuable features of Lewis' game theory have been overlooked. We re-examine this theory by reconstructing key parts in a more formal way, extending it, and showing how it differs from more recent game (...) theory. In contrast to current theories of common knowledge, Lewis' theory is based on an explicit analysis of the modes of reasoning that are accessible to rational individuals and so can be used to analyse the genesis of common knowledge. Lewis' analysis of convention emphasises the role of inductive reasoning and of salience in the maintenance of conventions over time. Footnotes Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 13th Amsterdam Colloquium at the University of Amsterdam, at a workshop on social norms at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and at seminars at Tilburg University and the University of Bristol. We are grateful for comments from participants at those meetings, from two anonymous referees, and from Michael Bacharach, Nick Bardsley, Cristina Bicchieri, Luc Bovens, Simon Grant, David McCarthy, Shepley Orr, Brian Skyrms, Peter Vanderschraaf, Peter Wakker and Jörgen Weibull. Robert Sugden's work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust. (shrink)

In the early 2000s, Esteban Burchard and his colleagues defended a controversial route to the view that there’s a racial classification of people that’s useful in medicine. The route, which I call ‘Burchard’s route,’ is arguing that there’s a racial classification of people that’s useful in medicine because, roughly, there’s a racial classification with medically relevant genetic differentiation :1170–1175, 2003). While almost all scholars engaged in this debate agree that there’s a racial classification of people that’s useful in medicine in (...) some way, there’s tremendous controversy over whether any racial scheme is useful in medicine because there are medically relevant genetic differences among those races : 564–565, 2016). The goal of this paper will be to show that Burchard’s route is basically correct. However, I will use a slightly different argument than Burchard et al.’s in order to provide a firmer foundation for the thesis, both metaphysically and genetically. I begin by reviewing Burchard’s route and its critics. Second, I present an original argument for establishing Burchard et al.’s conclusion using a Burchard-like route. I call it ‘Spencer’s route’. I reply to major objections along the way, and I end with a summary. (shrink)

'Transgender’ is often described either as an identity, or else as the full spectrum of gender nonconformity. In this essay, I suggest that these descriptions do not align with the conceptual labor that we often ask ‘transgender’ to do: highlighting people who engage in forms of self-directed gender nonconformity that are heavily penalized.

One of the most important students of Franz Brentano was Anton Marty, who made it his task to develop a philosophy of language on the basis of Brentano’s analysis of mind. It is most unfortunate that Marty does not receive the attention he deserves, primarily due to his detailed and distracting polemics. In the analysis presented here his philosophy of language and other aspects of his thought, such as his ontology , are examined first and foremost in their positive rather (...) than critical character. The analysis is moreover supplemented by translations of four important works by Marty, including his entire work On the Origin of Language. These are in fact the first English translations of any substantial writings by him. The resulting picture that emerges from the analysis and translations is that Marty has much to say that proves to be of enduring interest for the philosophy of language on a range of topics, especially the meanings of statements, of emotive expressions, and of names as regards both their communicative and their ontological aspects. The volume will be of interest not only to philosophers and historians of philosophy, but also to historians of linguistics and psychology. (shrink)

Arrogance is traditionally regarded as among the worst of human vices. Kant’s discussion of one kind of arrogance as a violation of the categorical moral duty to respect other persons gives familiar support for this view. However, I argue that what Kant says about the ways in which another kind of arrogance is opposed to different kinds of self-respect reveals how profoundly vicious arrogance can be. As a failure of self-respect, arrogance is the Ur-Vice that corrupts moral agency and rational (...) judgment. As its contrary, self-respect is thus morally vital: it is the first condition of the possibility of genuine moral agency and judgment. There are also important gender dimensions to arrogance: although women are called haughty, supercilious, disdainful, even imperious or presumptuous, they are rarely called arrogant, perhaps because arrogance is an exercise of power. I consider, then, whether despite the Kantian condemnation of it, something that is properly called "arrogance" might be, in contexts of oppression, a liberatory virtue of self-respect that oppressed peoples ought to cultivate. (shrink)

In many cultures arrogance is regarded as a serious vice and a cause of numerous social ills. Although its badness is typically thought to lie in its harmful consequences for other persons and things, I draw on Kant to argue that what makes it a vice is first and foremost the failure to respect oneself. But arrogance is not only a problem inside individuals. Drawing on feminist insights I argue that it is a systemic problem constructed in and reinforcing unjust (...) distributions of social power. I identify ways in which arrogance is connected with social arrangements of domination and subordination, then discuss implications of a power-focused analysis Among the implications: (1) contrary to the widely-held view, humility is not the personal virtue opposing arrogance, self-respect is; (2) arrogance is not always a vice, for in circumstances of oppression a certain kind of arrogance is a virtue of self-respecting resistance to domination. (shrink)

The first principle of chemical composition is that elements are actually present in their compounds. It is a golden thread running through the history of compositional thinking in chemistry since before the chemical revolution. Opposed to this principle, which I call Actually Present Elements (APE), is the idea that elements are merely potentially present in their compounds: although not actually present, it is possible to recover them. In this paper I follow that golden thread, and then discuss the status of (...) APE itself: is it true? What arguments were there for it, and when? I argue that APE is a metaphysical principle, albeit at a lower level of generality and abstraction than the term ‘metaphysical’ usually suggests. I critically examine a range of different views on how metaphysical principles might be involved in research programmes in empirical science, and conclude by endorsing Elie Zahar’s view that metaphysical principles such as APE are to be found at the very heart of science. Moreover, they can be recipients of empirical support just like other parts of scientific theory. (shrink)

After the first wave of writings in environmental philosophy in the early 1970s, which were mostly critical of anthropocentrism, a new trend emerged which sought to humanise this subject, and to revive or vindicate anthropocentric stances. Only in this way, it was held, could environmental values become human values, and ecological movements manage to become social ecology. Later writers have detected tacit anthropocentrism lurking even in Deep Ecology, or have defended ‘perspectival anthropocentrism’, as the inevitable methodology of any system of (...) environmental ethics devised by and for the guidance of human beings. Human good, broadly enough conceptualised, is held to be the basis of ethics. Besides, it is sometimes added, non-anthropocentric considerations in any case add nothing to anthropocentric ones, when broadly construed. (shrink)

For Kant and for feminists, self-respect is a morally central and morally powerful concern. In this paper I focus on some questions about the relation of self-respect to two other stances toward the self, humility and arrogance. Just as arrogance is usually treated as a serious vice, so humility is widely regarded as an important virtue. Indeed, it is supposed to be the virtue that opposes arrogance, keeping it in check or preventing it from developing in the first place. I’ve (...) argued elsewhere that, on Kant’s account, arrogance is a vice of disrespect for other people and for oneself. Humility is not, however, unproblematic from a Kantian perspective, and he is more concerned to identify bad forms of it than to praise it as a virtue or recommend it as a cure for arrogance. Feminist ethics draws our attention to the ways in which character traits, attitudes, beliefs, and stances take on differential moral valences in contexts of oppression, and what might be a virtue for members of dominant groups can be vices for members of subordinate groups. How, then, are we to understand and assess humility? The upshot of Kantian and feminist analyses is two-fold: First, humility is not the virtue opposing arrogance; rather, self-respect is. Second, humility is at best an ancillary, instrumental, contextual virtue and the servant of self-respect; but at worst, it is as serious a vice as arrogance, indeed, an aspect of it. (shrink)

Forty years after it first appeared, Sidney Shoemaker's much-read article, "Time without Change" , with its striking thought experiment, still dominates discussions of this intriguing topic. And rightly so: it is imaginative, subtle, and controversial. But times have changed, as they do, and in particular, the epistemological context in which Shoemaker was writing, overshadowed as it was by verificationism, no longer constrains our thinking as once it did. This is the age of bold and unashamedly realist metaphysical argument, in which (...) demands for evidential, as opposed to a priori, support for its theses are rarely made. (shrink)

John Worrall and Nancy Cartwright have both argued that randomized controlled trials are “testing the wrong theory.” They claim that RCTs are designed to test inferences about the causal relationships in the study population, but this does not guarantee a justified inference about the causal relationships in the more diverse population in clinical practice. In this article I argue that the epistemology of theory testing in trials is more complicated than either Worrall’s or Cartwright’s accounts suggest. I illustrate this more (...) complex theoretical structure with case studies in medical theory testing from Alzheimer’s research and anticancer drugs in personalized medicine. (shrink)

It is widely held that moral obligations to non-human beings do not involve considerations of justice. For such a view, nonhuman interests are always prone to be trumped by human interests. Rawlsian contractarianism comprises an example of such a view. Through analysis of such theories, this essay highlights the problem of reconciling the claim that humans have obligations to non-humans with the claim that our treatment of the latter is not a matter of justice. We argue that if it is (...) granted that the basic interests of non-human beings sometimes count for more than the peripheral interests of humans, then our understandings of obligation and of justice must be aligned, so that what we say about obligation is not countered by assumptions about the invariable priority of humans in matters of justice. We further consider whether such a conclusion can be endorsed by those who adopt certain alternative theories to contractarianism. We conclude that adherents of a range of theories including sentientism and biocentrism must accept that human interests can sometimes be superseded by animal interests, and that this applies not least in matters of justice. (shrink)

While many of Bernard Mandeville's contemporary critics read him as trying to ridicule and subvert all ideas of morality and virtue, others criticized him for insisting on too demanding a conception of virtue as self-denial. In this article, I take the latter line of criticism as my point of departure and evaluate whether Mandeville's ‘origins of virtue’ thesis can be reconciled with his claims about virtue requiring self-denial. To do so, I trace the changes to Mandeville's account of virtue between (...) the different editions of The Fable of the Bees and An Enquiry Into the Origin of Honour, placing particular emphasis on the conceptual distinctions introduced in the 1723 edition of the Fable. I show that there are important tensions in Mandeville's argument and I evaluate potential ways in which they might be resolved. The most important inconsistency, I argue, is that it is unclear whether Mandeville's speculative historical explanation of the origins of virtue can support the strongest claims he makes about virtue requiring a complete conquest of the passions, even if it can support weaker conceptualizations of virtue as self-denial. (shrink)

In seeking to move beyond causal-reductivism, this book explores a variety of perspectives on the question of finding inherent meaning in madness and extreme states.

SummaryR. G. Collingwood presented his major work of political philosophy, The New Leviathan, as an updated version of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. However, his reasons for taking Hobbes's great work as his inspiration have puzzled and eluded many Collingwood scholars, while those interested in the reception of Hobbes's ideas have largely neglected the New Leviathan. In this essay I reveal what Collingwood saw in Hobbes's political philosophy and show how his reading of Hobbes both diverges from other prominent interpretations of the (...) time and invites us to reassess Hobbes's complex association with the origins of liberalism. In doing so, I focus on Collingwood's science of mind, his ideas on society and authority, and his dialectical theory of politics, in each case showing how he engaged with Hobbes in order to elucidate his own vision of civilisation. That vision is based on the development of social consciousness, which involves people coming to understand the body politic as a joint enterprise whereby they confer authority upon those who rule. (shrink)

In this article, I review Frederick Neuhouser’s latest book, Rousseau’s Critique of Inequality, while critically assessing the legacy of Rousseau’s ideas on inequality and amour-propre for contemporary political philosophy. I challenge the widely held notion that the account of equality set out in the Social Contract should be read as a remedy to the problems generated by amour-propre, and suggest that we have to turn to Rousseau’s other writings to reconstruct his own political remedies for these problems. I then draw (...) attention to a much neglected dimension of Rousseau’s critique of inequality, which concerns the effect inequality has on our ability to identify with other humans and feel compassion for them. Taken together, these considerations highlight some of the limitations of the dominant Kantian–Rawlsian strand of Rousseau interpretation within contemporary liberal political philosophy. (shrink)

"Nietzsche in Context presents a comprehensive reinterpretation of Nietzsche's thought, placing Nietzsche in the context of the philosophers of his own time. Offering a survey of important philosophical themes, Robin Small identifies the writer or writers with whom Nietzsche most felt himself to be engaging in dialogue. This historical dimension is complemented by original analysis and interpretation of the ideas under discussion. Nietzsche in Context takes Nietzsche scholarship into new and fruitful directions. By locating his ideas within a broader (...) context, this book provides a comprehensive reinterpretation of Nietzsche's thought adding to the continuing interest of his contributions to philosophy."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

In his impressive paper, John Nolt argues that the average American is harming future people. Yet people can only be harmed if they could have been unharmed. Nolt recognises this when...

This book uncovers the roots of authentic leadership through a detailed analysis of how philosophy and psychology are relevant for understanding leadership. It reinscribes virtue and integrity into leadership studies by way of key concepts which include; identity-formation, the narrative self, the importance of decision-making, and the philosophy of creativity. In an era when leadership integrity has come under serious attack from authoritarian leadership, and left and right- wing extremism, the ‘Philosophy of Authentic Leadership’ opposes all such forms by arguing (...) for the pursuit of the common good, democratic rights, civic freedoms, and cosmopolitanism. This is a work of interest to students of leadership and political scientists alike. (shrink)

John McDowell and Wilfrid Sellars respectively intend to develop a conception of the relationship between mind and world that must subvert a fundamental dilemma between the Myth of the Given and Coherentism: both are committed to the “transcendental task” of accounting for the way in which conceptual activity is directed towards a reality that is not a mere reflection of it. This article focuses on a divergence between their respective conceptions of this transcendental task. According to McDowell, this task involves (...) accounting for the intentional properties of experience in terms of the actualization of semantic properties: a central thesis of Mind and World is that thought and reality meet in the realm of sense if we are to avoid the Myth of the Given. On the other hand, Sellars argues that in order to give an adequate account of the transcendental task, we need to leave the realm of sense. The argument defended in this article is that the central thesis of Mind and World threatens to make McDowell fall back into a (sophisticated) form of coherentism: the actualization of semantic properties has, according to Sellars, only limited explanatory scope to account for the intentionality of experience. -/- . (shrink)