The idea that there is a distinctively practical use of reason, and correspondingly a distinctively practical form of knowledge, unites many otherwise diverse voices in the history of practical philosophy: from Aristotle to Kant, from Rousseau to Marx, from Hegel to G.E.M. Anscombe, and many others. This volume gathers works by scholars who take inspiration from these and many other historical figures in order to deepen our systematic understanding of questions raised by their work that still are, or ought to (...) be, at the center of contemporary philosophical debate: the form and nature of practical reasoning, agential self-consciousness or practical knowledge, how knowledge of the good relates to our motivational capacity, and the shape of philosophical thinking about sound forms of living together. Accordingly, the volume is divided into three parts: action theory, meta-ethics, and political philosophy. This fusion of perspectives delivers novel possibilities not only for answering the systematic questions outlined above, but also for understanding both what unifies and distinguishes those historical voices that have sought to articulate the concept of practical reason. “This fascinating volume brings out the richness and profundity of an oft-neglected approach to understanding human agency, one that foregrounds action as itself an exercise of reason. Essays on ethics, mind, action, and political philosophy explore the history, substance, and implications of this idea, cutting across while also revealing the unity underlying various parts of philosophy that are typically treated separately.” – Eric Marcus, Auburn University. (shrink)

This article argues—against the present compatibilist orthodoxy in the philosophy of criminal law—for the contemporary relevance of a kind of critique of criminal law known as the ‘determinist challenge’, through a reconstruction of Theodor Adorno’s thought on freedom and determinism. The article begins by considering traditional forms of the determinist challenge, which expressed a widespread intuition that it is irrational or inappropriate for the criminal law to hold people responsible for actions that are causally determined by social and psychological forces (...) in such a way that they cannot be said to have acted freely. Yet as traditionally presented it was possible for its opponents to interpret this challenge as an incompatibilist position within the traditional free will/determinism debate, and to present compatibilist arguments against it—in particular, that the determinist challenge is unmotivated and has implausible implications. It is argued that these compatibilist objections hold only on a certain interpretation of the determinist challenge, but that this interpretation is not the only one available. Adorno’s distinctive position on freedom and determinism is presented as an alternative version of the challenge, which cannot be assimilated to the terms of the traditional compatibilist/incompatibilist disputes. This novel, ‘metacritical’ version of the determinist challenge is essentially a social–historical, not metaphysical, thesis about the moral significance of the freedom-undermining effects of modern social forms. As such, it is argued, it is invulnerable to the usual compatibilist objections, and presents a serious challenge to our criminal legal institutions. (shrink)

Questions about the normative significance of ‘transparency’ do not receive much attention, even though they were central to Richard Moran’s (2001) original account. Instead, transparency is typically studied because of its epistemic and psychological peculiarities. In this paper, I consider three normative conceptions of transparency: teleological rationalism, procedural rationalism, and relational rationalism. The first is a theory about how transparency might relate to flourishing as a rational agent; the latter two are theories about how transparency relates to non-alienated self-knowledge. All (...) three conceptions, I argue, face serious problems. I end the paper by suggesting where the rationalist might go from here and by highlighting the importance of focusing not on the methods but on the broader circumstances in which self-knowledge is gained or lost. (shrink)

This article argues that alienation should be understood as a particular form of individual and social heteronomy that can only be overcome by a dialectical combination of individual and collective autonomy, recovering a deontological sense of normative authority. If we think about alienation in Kantian terms, the main source of alienation is a denial of standing or, in the extreme, losing a sense of oneself as a rational normative authority equal to all others. I call the former kind of alienation, (...) where persons deny others equal standing as a normative authority in moral or political terms, first order noumenal alienation, as there is no proper mutual cognition and recognition of each other in such a social context. I call the latter kind of alienation, where a subject does not consider themselves an equal normative authority – or an ‘end in oneself’ – second order noumenal alienation. In this sense, alienation violates the dignity of humans as moral and political lawgivers – a dignity seen by Rousseau, Kant and Marx as inalienable: It can be denied or violated, but it cannot be lost. (shrink)