In this paper, we raise two points. First, any rights‐based theory should provide a method by which to guide reasoning in addressing conflicts of rights. The reason, we argue, is that these theories must provide guidance on what should be done. Second, this method must contain two key recommendations: (1) We should try to find a deliberative mechanism through which none of the rights is simply eliminated from the scene; (2) these rights may be balanced against each other to define (...) which right should prevail, but without considering non‐rights‐interests as if they were rights in the process. These recommendations instantiate two crucial principles that underlie our common intuitions on rights, namely, the principle that rights deserve equal respect and the principle that rights should be taken seriously. (shrink)

Helen Frowe has recently offered what she calls a “practical” account of self-defense. Her account is supposed to be practical by being subjectivist about permissibility and objectivist about liability. I shall argue here that Frowe first makes up a problem that does not exist and then fails to solve it. To wit, her claim that objectivist accounts of permissibility cannot be action-guiding is wrong; and her own account of permissibility actually retains an objectivist (in the relevant sense) element. In (...) addition, her attempt to restrict subjectivism primarily to “urgent” situations like self-defense contradicts her own point of departure and is either incoherent or futile. Finally, the only actual whole-heartedly objectivist account she criticizes is an easy target; while those objectivist accounts one finds in certain Western European jurisdictions are immune to her criticisms. Those accounts are also clearly superior to hers in terms of action-guidingness. (shrink)

For all the strengths the recent recovery of the virtues brings to moral philosophy, opponents of virtue-based theories claim that such theories cannot do the essential work of guiding action. This dissertation responds to that objection by drawing upon Thomas Aquinas's account of the four cardinal virtues in the secunda pars of the Summa Theologiae. I argue that Aquinas's moral theory has an emphasis on the virtues such that proper attention is given to the character of the agent, but (...) at the same time, it also gives sufficient evaluative importance to particular actions and enough practical advice about action to counter any worry that a virtue theory's emphasis on character precludes its ability to offer anything beyond vague and unhelpful recommendations for practice. ;Chapters one and two lay out the objection and the virtue theorist's two strategies for answering it. Those strategies include, first, making the demand for action-guidingness reasonable and appropriate to the limits of moral theory, and second, offering evidence that virtue theories can indeed meet the demand. Through a constructive account of Aquinas's thought on each of the four cardinal virtues and their complex relationships to action and practical guidance, I argue in chapters three through six that Aquinas's moral theory uses both strategies effectively to answer the action-guiding objection. From this study of Aquinas on the virtues, I conclude in chapter seven that not only does his theory successfully meet the objector's challenge, but further, by introducing at least three new ways to guide action, it does so even more successfully than the theories which were originally held up as paradigms of action-guidingness. Theories that fit the principle-application model of practical guidance thus turn out to be less well-equipped to guide action than a theory of the virtues like Aquinas's, whose more various and comprehensive methods of guiding action give us rich new resources for practical guidance and moral pedagogy. (shrink)

This paper argues that theoretical consistency and actionguidingness—as these have been formulated in the moral dilemmas debate—do not rule out interpersonal moral conflict. This leaves open the possibility that theoretical consistency and action-guidingness may demand more than what has been traditionally assumed. That question is considered here. Do these resources rule out all-things-considered interpersonal moral conflict in non-consequentialist theories? This paper argues that neither theoretical consistency nor action-guidingness can rule out such conflict, but action-guidingness (...) properly construed provides a desideratum against it. (shrink)

Demoralising ethical theory involves eschewing the deontic categories of moral obligation, moral permissibility, and moral impermissibility from our ethical thought. In this paper, I evaluate the case made in Alastair Norcross’s recent book, _Morality By Degrees_ (2020), for a consequentialist version of such demoralisation. Norcross defends scalar consequentialism, a radical variant of consequentialism which restricts fundamental normative verdicts to a scalar ranking of available actions, ordered according to the goodness of the consequences they produce. Following an introductory Sect. 1, I (...) assess the positive case for scalar consequentialism in Sect. 2, concluding that no strong case has been made for the view. In Sect. 3, I assess the case against the view, concluding that while scalar consequentialism may be able to avoid _the action-guidingness objection_, it falls foul of _the force objection_. In Sect. 4, I expand on this critique, showing that Norcross gives an unstable account of how to assess attitudes, such as desires, beliefs and emotions. In Sect. 5, I argue that appeal to a contextualist reductionism does little to make the scalar view appealing. (shrink)

Can just war theory and pacifism be substantially reconciled in theory and practice? In this paper I argue that James Sterba is mistaken in thinking that they can. There is no such thing as just war pacifism. However, this does not mean that just war theorists and pacifists cannot have a reasonable conversation about the justifiability of war. They can have such a conversation if they overcome their exclusive concern with the question of action-guidingness, that is, the binary (...) question of whether or not war can be morally justified. Justified wars are tragic. (shrink)

Many philosophers think the distinctive function of deontic evaluation is to guide action. This idea is used in arguments for a range of substantive claims. In this paper, we entirely do one completely destructive thing and partly do one not entirely constructive thing. The first thing: we argue that there is an unrecognized gap between the claim that the function of deontic evaluation is to guide action and attempts to put that claim to use. We consider and reject (...) four arguments intended to bridge this gap. The interim conclusion is thus that arguments starting with the claim that the function of deontic evaluation is to guide action have a lacuna. The second thing: we consider a different tack for making arguments of this sort work. We sketch a methodology one could accept that would do the trick. Unfortunately, as we’ll explain, although this methodology would bridge the gap in arguments that put claims about the function of deontic evaluation to work, it would do so in a way that vitiates any interest we might have in such arguments. As an aside, we’ll also point out how epistemologists, who have recently become interested in the function of epistemic evaluation, appear to already recognize this fact. The conclusion is hence a dilemma: either arguments from deontic function to substance have a lacuna or such arguments lack teeth. (shrink)

Popular discussions of faith often assume that having faith is a form of believing on insufficient evidence and that having faith is therefore in some way rationally defective. Here I offer a characterization of action-centered faith and show that action-centered faith can be both epistemically and practically rational even under a wide variety of subpar evidential circumstances.

An action-oriented perspective changes the role of an individual from a passive observer to an actively engaged agent interacting in a closed loop with the world as well as with others. Cognition exists to serve action within a landscape that contains both. This chapter surveys this landscape and addresses the status of the pragmatic turn. Its potential influence on science and the study of cognition are considered (including perception, social cognition, social interaction, sensorimotor entrainment, and language acquisition) and (...) its impact on how neuroscience is studied is also investigated (with the notion that brains do not passively build models, but instead support the guidance of action). A review of its implications in robotics and engineering includes a discussion of the application of enactive control principles to couple action and perception in robotics as well as the conceptualization of system design in a more holistic, less modular manner. Practical applications that can impact the human condition are reviewed (e.g., educational applications, treatment possibilities for developmental and psychopathological disorders, the development of neural prostheses). All of this foreshadows the potential societal implications of the pragmatic turn. The chapter concludes that an action-oriented approach emphasizes a continuum of interaction between technical aspects of cognitive systems and robotics, biology, psychology, the social sciences, and the humanities, where the individual is part of a grounded cultural system. (shrink)

Global challenge-led research seeks to contribute to solution-generation for complex problems. Multicultural, multidisciplinary, and multisectoral teams must be capable of operating in highly demanding contexts. This brings with it a swathe of ethical conflicts that require quick and effective solutions that respect both international conventions and cultural diversity. The objective of this article is to describe the process of creating a toolkit designed to support global researchers in navigating these ethical challenges. The process of creating the toolkit embodied the model (...) of ethical research practice that it advocates. Specifically, at the heart of ethical decision-making is consideration of the following: Place, solutions must be relevant to the context in which they are to be used; People, those impacted by the outcomes must be partners in co-creation; Principles, ethical projects must be guided by clear values; and Precedent, the existing evidence-base should guide the project and, in turn, the project should extend the evidence-base. It is the thesis underlying the toolkit that consideration of these 4Ps provides a strong basis for understanding ethical conflicts and allows for the generation of potential solutions. This toolkit has been designed in two phases of collaborative work. More than 200 researchers participated from more than 30 countries and more than 60 different disciplines. This allowed us to develop a model for contextual, dynamic analysis of ethical conflicts in global research that is complementary to traditional codes of ethics. It emphasizes the need to consider ethical analysis as an iterative, reflective, process relevant at all stages of the research journey, including, ultimately, in evaluating the legacy of a project. The toolkit is presented as an open access website to promote universal access. A downloadable “pocket guide” version is also now available in 11 languages. (shrink)

This is an important new book about human motivation, about the reasons people have for their actions. What is distinctively new about it is its focus on how people see or understand their situations, options, and prospects. By taking account of people's understandings, Professor Schick is able to expand the current theory of decision and action. The author provides a perspective on the topic by outlining its history. He defends his new theory against criticism, considers its formal structure, and (...) shows at length how it resolves many currently debated problems: the problems of conflict and weakness of will, Allais' problem, Kahneman and Tversky's problems, Newcomb's problem, and others. The book will be of special interest to philosophers, psychologists, and economists. (shrink)

I defend affirmative action on the ground that it increases certain people’s ability to exercise their basic liberties, rather than because it rectifies injustice in the narrow context of educational admission procedures. I present this justification using a Rawlsian contractualist framework to forge a “nonideal principle of justice.” Drawing on social science, I argue that this principle supports affirmative-action policies like those in the contemporary U.S., and blocks the objection that such policies are unfair. In closing, I show (...) how my account can be used to refine some features of contemporary affirmative-action policies, and I reflect more generally on the value of nonideal principles of justice for tackling exigent topics. (shrink)

This paper seeks to unveil and investigate the close bond existing between the critical project developed by Axel Honneth and Hans Joas in Social Action and Human Nature (1980) and John Dewey’s naturalistic humanism and social criticism. I will contend that these authors develop an original and compelling approach to the critique of the social world, which relies on a naturalistic redefinition of human beings with intersubjective premises. By reconsidering human beings in their continuity and discontinuity with nature, they (...) attempt to identify the specific quality of human action with respect to animal behavior and to employ this category as a criterion for the critique of the social world. On the other hand, the paper will underline how Dewey significantly contributes to the outlining of a contemporary critical project with naturalistic premises. Indeed, his naturalistic humanism provides a systematic metaphysics of human experience to ground social criticism, wherein the underdeveloped elements of Social Action and Human Nature’s analysis of human action are better explained and justified from a theoretical point of view. (shrink)

The transmission of form and soul -- Desire, perception, and understanding -- Theoretical wisdom -- Virtue of character -- Practical wisdom -- Immortalizing beings -- Happiness -- The happiest life.

Most theories of intentional action agree that if acting for a reason is a necessary condition for the action in question to be an intentional action, the reason need not genuinely justify it. The same should hold for shared intentional action, toward which philosophers of action have recently turned their attention. I argue that some of the necessary conditions proposed for shared intention turn out to require that we deny this claim. They entail that shared (...) intention is possible only if the participating agents form their intentions on the grounds of genuinely rational considerations. Thus, they “over-rationalize,” as I call it, shared intention. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to introduce a system of dynamic deontic logic in which the main problems related to the de finition of deontic concepts, especially those emerging from a standard analysis of permission in terms of possibility of doing an action without incurring in a violation of the law, are solved. The basic idea is to introduce two crucial distinctions allowing us to differentiate (i) what is ideal with respect to a given code, which fixes the (...) types of action that are abstractly prescribed, and what is ideal with respect to the specific situation in which the agent acts, and (ii) the transitions associated with actions and the results of actions, which can obtain even without the action being performed. (shrink)

Mind in Action challenges the dominant view in contemporary philosophy that human action is driven by thoughts and desires much as a machine is made to function by the operation of physical causes. Bede Rundle rejects the materialist view of mind and the causal theory of action; his alternative approach elucidates such key concepts as thought, belief, desire, intention, and freedom to give a fresh view of human behavior.

The aim of this paper is to present the modes of action of venom as construed by Abū 'Uthmān 'Amr ibn Ba[hdotu]r al-Jā[hdotu]i[zdotu] in his Kitāb al-[Hdotu]ayawān. The toxicological information presented by Jā[hdotu]i[zdotu] is a synthesis of data available in his time, but Jā[hdotu]i[zdotu] complemented these early conceptions by his personal theoretical views. Jā[hdotu]i[zdotu]'s fundamental idea is that venoms act through their specific natures; this idea in a way is reminiscent of present-day theory of enzymes.

Volume III of a tetralogy devoted to Divine Agency and Divine Action articulates a comprehensive vision of systematic theology focused on divine action from creation to eschatology.

Despite downsides, it must, on balance, be good to reduce prejudice. Despite upsides, collective action can also have destructive outcomes. Improving intergroup relations requires multiple levels of analysis involving a broader approach to prejudice reduction, awareness of potential conflict escalation, development of intergroup understanding, and promotion of a wider human rights perspective.

In action theory, emotional actions are standardly treated as exceptions—cases where the “normal” springs of action are not functioning properly. My aim here is to argue that this is not so. We have plenty of evidence—beautifully brought together in the present special issue—that emotions play a crucial and often constitutive role in all the important phases of action preparation and initiation. Most of our actions are less stupid than, say, Zidane’s head-butt, but all of our actions have (...) emotional components. Actions can be more or less emotional, but they are never completely nonemotional. (shrink)

The problem of agential guidance consists in explaining the possibility of guiding an action in purely reductive causal terms. After examining Harry Frankfurt’s articulation of this problem, the standard systemic reductive causal answer is explored and found wanting. Two general explanatory challenges are singled out as decisive in assessing the viability of a causal answer to the problem of agential guidance: first, the correct identification of the actual sources of action guidance in the form of guiding intentions, and, (...) second, the recognition of the limitations of a content-based strategy to identify an action under guidance. (shrink)

Action theorists and formal epistemologists often pursue parallel inquiries regarding rationality, with the former focused on practical rationality, and the latter focused on theoretical rationality. In both fields, there is currently a strong interest in exploring rationality in relation to time. This exploration raises questions about the rationality of certain patterns over time. For example, it raises questions about the rational permissibility of certain patterns of intention; similarly, it raises questions about the rational permissibility of certain patterns of belief. (...) While the action-theoretic and epistemic questions raised are closely related, advances in one field are not always processed by the other. This volume brings together contributions by scholars in action theory and formal epistemology working on questions regarding rationality and time so that researchers in these overlapping fields can profit from each other’s insights. This book was originally published as a special issue of the _Canadian Journal of Philosophy. _. (shrink)

Participation of older people in designing and improving the care and services provided in residential care settings is limited. Traditional forms of democratic representation, such as client councils, and consumer models are management-driven. An alternative way of involving older people in the decisions over their lives, grounded in notions of care ethics and deliberative democracy, was explored by action research. In line with this tradition older people engage in collective action to enhance the control over their lives and (...) those of others. In this article the theoretical background of altruistic action is presented and illustrated by a case example of a group of older women who changed the food policies within their residential home. Altruistic action is the joint and coordinated action by a group of clients based on their agenda. Such action is given in by a shared dissatisfaction and search for connections. Altruistic action may enhance the sense of self, belonging and ownership, and create a transformative movement enhancing the wellbeing and community life in residential settings. (shrink)