In philosophical literature, the complex emotional state of ressentiment gained popularity through the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. According to Nietzsche, ressentiment was a bad feeling that reflected the suppressed anger, the pain of impotence, and the general misery of the weak when they compared themselves to the strong and talented members of society. Max Scheler took up Nietzsche’s thesis and described ressentiment as a complex condition characterised by a thirst for revenge. Moreover, ressentiment has the annoying property of presenting itself (...) as having some merit: the modern social and political context offers more than enough examples. First, the aim of this article is to take a closer look at Nietzsche’s ‘man of ressentiment,’ an odious personality characterised by weakness, deep frustrations, and hypocrisy. It will turn out that ressentiment has many different shades that paint a somewhat different picture and raise philosophical questions about positive valuation, vulnerability, and the sense of injustice. Second, we shall be working on the link between the psychology of ressentiment and the temptation to lack integrity in writing, art, or science. The well-described and well-known fact that academic fraudsters evolve in disguise, that they first reactively endorse values very different from their own values, and that these plagiarist authors, second, embark on long-term projects repeating their misdeeds and errors, as if it were normal, are two facts worthy of our attention. (shrink)

Exploration of INTERSUBJECTIVITY is continued. Different kinds of if are differentiated and signs for its presence and effects are shown. The difference between it, subjectivity and objectivity are explored. Intersubjectivity is crucial and universal for general everyday discourse in all cultures, sub-cultures, institutions, communities and socio-cultural practices such as religion, sport, etc or the so-called Manifest Image. It is essential for specialized areas, for example religion, sport and disciplines such as the humanities, arts, sciences, philosophy and all institutions. It is (...) a necessity for both cultural, social, interpersonal as well as intra-personal existence, emotions, attitudes, values and norms. But, it is not limited to human existence, life-worlds, realities and worlds, but also required for animals and all organisms. Object Oriented Ontology would emphasize that is it not merely something anthropocentric and restricted to human existence and consciousness (and anthropocentric interpretations of and projections on other objects, non-human creatures and all organisms, as well as all objects.. In the case of the latter one would probably replace the notion of intersubjectivity with terms such as energy and other ways of action and interaction for example intra- and inter-atoms.) In the Appendix is included work related to the above by others such as Sellars, Brandom (and his two images, Manifest and Scientific), Davidson, Dennett, Habermas, Nagel, etc. (shrink)

Evaluative concepts and emotions appear closely connected. According to a prominent account, this relation can be expressed by propositions of the form ‘something is admirable if and only if feeling admiration is appropriate in response to it’. The first section discusses various interpretations of such ‘Value-Emotion Equivalences’, for example the Fitting Attitude Analysis, and it offers a plausible way to read them. The main virtue of the proposed way to read them is that it is well-supported by a promising (...) account of emotions, namely the Perceptual Theory of Emotions, which emphasises the analogies between emotions and sensory perceptual experiences. The second section considers a worry about whether concepts such as admirable are really evaluative. It is maintained that even though the arguments used to show that thick terms and concepts are not inherently evaluative can be transposed to affective concepts, these arguments can be resisted. So there is no need to abandon the intuitive claim that affective concepts are inherently evaluative. (shrink)

There are close links between emotions and values, or at least this is what our ordinary ways of talking suggest. For many, if not all, types of emotion it is thus possible to find a corresponding evaluative term, one often derived from the name of the emotion in question. These are for example evaluative terms such as ‘shameful', ‘offensive, ‘annoying', ‘dangerous', ‘contemptible', ‘admirable', ‘amusing', ‘exciting', ‘boring', and the like. Starting perhaps from these linguistic observations, the philosophical task is (...) of course to elucidate the nature of the links between emotions and values, and attempts at doing so have traditionally revolved around the following three questions: first, what is the role of emotions in elucidating the nature of value? For example, should dangerousness be understood in term of the fear response? Second, what is the role of emotions in our getting access to values? For example, what may be the role of fear in becoming aware that a given animal is dangerous? Third, what value do emotions have? For example, is fear of special value because it helps behaving appropriately towards its object? We hall take up these questions in turn and survey the most important answers they have received in the literature. As we shall discover, answering the first question amounts to surveying a variety of theories according to which there is an ontological relation between values and emotions since the former should be elucidated in terms of the latter (Sec. 1). Addressing the second question consists in reviewing theories according to which there is an intentional relation between emotions and values because the former are apprehensions of value or evaluations (Sec. 2). Grappling with the third question, we shall explore some reasons for thinking that emotions can exemplify values (Sec. 3). (shrink)

In this paper, we develop a fresh understanding of the sense in which emotions are evaluations. We argue that we should not follow mainstream accounts in locating the emotion–value connection at the level of content and that we should instead locate it at the level of attitudes or modes. We begin by explaining the contrast between content and attitude, a contrast in the light of which we review the leading contemporary accounts of the emotions. We next offer reasons (...) to think that these accounts face substantial problems since they locate the link emotions bear to values at the level of content. This provides the incentive to pursue an alternative approach according to which emotions qualify as evaluations because they are specific types of attitudes, an approach we substantiate by appealing to felt bodily stances. We conclude by considering two reasons why this approach may be resisted; they respectively pertain to the alleged impossibility of drawing the attitude–content contrast in the case of the emotions and to the suspicion that so doing raises qualia-related worries. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that emotions are evaluative. Moreover, many authors suppose that emotions are important or valuable as evaluations. According to the currently dominant version of cognitivism, emotions are evaluative insofar as they make us aware of value properties of their intentional objects. In attributing to emotions an epistemic role, this view conceives of them as epistemically valuable. In this paper, I argue that proponents of this account mischaracterize the evaluative character of emotions and, (...) a fortiori, their value. Moreover, I propose an alternative view of emotional evaluation, according to which emotions are practically rather than epistemically important. As I argue, emotions are ways of acknowledging their intentional objects as (dis)valuable. As such, they do not apprehend values but make them count. I elaborate this idea by drawing an analogy with legal and political sanctions. The resulting view has it that emotions are practically important in that they affirm the cares and concerns which serve as standards of emotional evaluation. (shrink)

Efforts to promote corporate social and environmental accountability (SEA) should be informed by an understanding of stakeholders’ attitudes toward enhanced accountability standards. However, little is known about current attitudes on this subject, or the determinants of these attitudes. To address this issue, this study examines the relationship between personal values and support for social and environmental accountability for a sample of experienced MBA students. Exploratory factor analysis of the items comprising our measure of support for SEA revealed two distinct (...) factors: (1) endorsement of the general proposition that corporations and executives should be held accountable for the social and environmental impacts of their actions; and (2) agreement that the government should adopt and enforce formal SEA standards. Our findings indicate that the universalism value type is positively associated with general support for SEA, but not with support for government enforcement of accountability standards. In addition, we found that gender has a significant impact on support for government enforcement of SEA standards. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of an observer’s value orientation and personality type on attitudes toward whistleblowing. Based on a review of the literature we generated three hypotheses to explain the relationship between these two factors and attitudes toward whistleblowing, and these were tested using data collected from 490 university students in South Korea. The survey comprises two parts, a measure of MBTI personality types, and a section assessing value orientations and attitudes toward whistleblowing. Regression analysis was conducted to (...) clarify the influence of the independent variables. The study offers two main contributions. First, it examines what role an observer’s value orientation and personality type play in determining the attitudes. Second, it provides insights into designing customized ethical training programs and developing policy aimed at changing negative attitudes toward whistleblowing. (shrink)

Protected values (PVs) are values protected from trade-offs with other values. They are absolute in this sense. People hold these values even when they do not necessarily abide by them in their behavior. I suggest that most of these values are a subset of deontological rules, defined by their absoluteness. Their origin may be understood by looking at the origin of deontological rules more generally, which includes religious (hence sacred) values among others. But PVs (...) are usually maintained by lack of reflection of the sort that would see counterexamples to their absoluteness. PVs often have other characteristics that would lead to classification into other types of values: they are often moralistic (imposed on others regardless of the willingness of others to accept them); they are about morality rather than convention and thus independent of authority or social consensus; and they often concern second-order preferences (values for values). Especially in combination with these other properties, PVs can be harmful in the domain of politics. Education in the sort of reflection that would lead people to question them could improve the political situation around the world. (shrink)

There are many types of political culture as well as many elements to be found in each type of political culture. The present study will be limited in two ways. Firstly, we shall not deal with all the elements of political culture. We shall focus on what has been called the "Affective Attitudes" element, which we take to include feelings and emotional proclivities, which to us, are inseparable from values and evaluations. Secondly, we shall not focus on all (...) types of political cultures, but rather on democratic political culture. We plan to study one particular conceptual relation between (democratic) political culture and (democratic) political system. This is the relation of congruence. This relation is less controversial than causal relation which some theorists propose as holding between political culture and political system. However, it does suggest concepts that can be used in formulating causal hypotheses that can be empirically tested. مناقشة لطبيعة الثقافة السياسية التي تتوائم مع تتوائم مع النظام السياسي الديمقراطي. سوف يجري التركيز على التوجهات الانفعالية (المشاعر العواطف والقيم) التي تشكل جزءا هاما من الثقافة السياسية -/- . (shrink)

Military service in general and combat service in particular can be physically and psychologically stressful. Previous studies have focused on risk propensity and risky behavior among soldiers. Yet knowledge is still lacking regarding the impact of type of army service on soldiers’ risk perceptions. The current study examines how type of army service and negative incidental emotions affect risk perceptions. Results of a survey conducted among 153 combat and non-combat Israeli soldiers indicate that respondents serving in combat (...) units on average have more pessimistic risk perceptions than non-combat soldiers. Yet no significant differences emerged between combat and non-combat respondents with respect to their levels of negative incidental emotions. Regression analyses suggest that higher levels of negative incidental emotions are correlated with pessimistic risk perceptions among all respondents, while higher levels of risk attitude are correlated with pessimistic risk perceptions among combat soldiers but not among non-combat soldiers. (shrink)

Many theorists have charted for some time how capital extends its lines of flight into new spaces, creating new markets by harnessing affect and intervening in intimate, emotional and domestic relationships, and into bio-politics more generally. Feminists have known for a long time that women’s ‘domestic’ labour has been central to the reproduction of capital but that it has been made invisible, surplus and naturalised and is rarely taken into account in theories of value. Yet we are now in a (...) bizarre historical moment wherein a format has emerged (reality television) in a major capitalist industry (the media) that is premised upon spectacularly visualising women’s labour in all its forms, especially through its focus on relationships, dispositions and emotional performance. Drawing on an ESRC research project, ‘Making Class and the Self through Mediated Ethical Scenarios’, this paper demonstrates how very different spheres of exchange—economy and affect—have come together, offering possibilities for fusing calculation and care. This process bears remarkable similarity to the legal adjudication of property and propriety in intimate relationships. Yet the paper shows how, as attempts are made to commodify affect, it is precisely affect that exposes and disrupts exchange and enables reality television as a technology of affect to visualise the different types of person-value that are constituted through class and gender relations. (shrink)

An influential thought-experiment by Derek Parfit sought to establish that people have a preference for unpleasant events to lie in the past rather than the future. In recent discussions of Parfit’s argument, this purported preference is modelled as a discounting phenomenon, as is the tensed emotion of relief, which Arthur Prior argued demonstrated that there is an objective metaphysical difference between the past and the future. Looking at recent work demonstrating some psychological past/future asymmetries that are more clearly instances of (...) discounting I argue that this existing philosophical literature fails to distinguish between what are clearly two quite different psychological phenomena. This affects recent attempts to respond to Prior’s metaphysical argument, because it is not clear that they have identified the right phenomenon to be explained. It also affects Parfit’s thought-experiment, because the purported unitary ‘preference’ may in fact be an amalgam of these two quite different psychological phenomena. (shrink)

This paper considers what liberal philosopher Michael Sandel coins the ‘moral limits of markets’ in relation to the idea of paying people for data about their biometrics and emotions. With Sandel arguing that certain aspects of human life (such as our bodies and body parts) should be beyond monetisation and exchange, others argue that emerging technologies such as Personal Information Management Systems can enable a fairer, paid, data exchange between the individual and the organisation, even regarding highly personal data (...) about our bodies and emotions. With the field of data ethics rarely addressing questions of payment, this paper explores normative questions about data dividends. It does so by conducting a UK-wide, demographically representative online survey to quantitatively assess adults’ views on being paid for personal data about their biometrics and emotions via a Personal Information Management System, producing a data dividend, a premise which sees personal data through the prism of markets and property. The paper finds diverse attitudes based on socio-demographic characteristics, the type of personal data sold, and the type of organisation sold to. It argues that (a) Sandel’s argument regarding the moral limits of markets has value in protecting fundamental freedoms of those in society who are arguably least able to (such as the poor); but (b) that contexts of use, in particular, blur moral limits regarding fundamental freedoms and markets. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life ed. by Daniel CameJames A. MollisonDaniel Came, ed., Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. 220 pp. isbn: 978-0-198-72889-4. Hardback, $70.00Daniel Came's most recent edited collection features original essays from leading figures in the field. As most of its chapters are well-written and well-argued, it will interest Nietzsche scholars generally. It's difficult to narrow (...) the volume's intended audience much further than this, however. The source of this difficulty is not merely titular, though one wonders what aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy could not plausibly be yoked under the dual headings of "morality" and "life affirmation." Rather, the difficulty stems from a shortcoming of Nietzsche's. As Came puts the point in his introduction, "Nietzsche is greatly more forthcoming in his diagnosis of the life-denying nature of morality than he is about what should replace morality and in particular the type of life-affirming attitude which might then ensue" (7). The underdeveloped character of Nietzsche's positive [End Page 110] pronouncements about life affirmation leaves many questions unanswered, the most basic of which might be, "What exactly is it to affirm life?" (7). This collection admirably attempts to tackle such questions head-on by foregrounding Nietzsche's "practical-existential concern with the value of existence" (4)—even if, in resisting the temptation to delve ever deeper into the complexities of Nietzsche's critical enterprise, this approach risks leaving some specialist concerns aside.In light of the inchoate nature of Nietzsche's remedy for life denial, a volume taking life affirmation as its starting point can be forgiven if its contributions are somewhat scattered. Four chapters in this collection—authored by Gemes, Hassan, Huddleston, and Janaway—identify distinct obstacles to Nietzsche's project of life affirmation and explain how Nietzsche might overcome them. Three others—written by Came, Stern, and Kanterian—overlap in arguing that Nietzsche's notion of life affirmation is deeply confused at best and fatally flawed at worst. Two remaining chapters, by Reginster and Clark, are functionally close readings of GM. Below, I discuss the standout essays by Gemes, Came, Huddleston, and Stern, which straightforwardly interact with one another. I then comment on the volume's remaining essays.In his chapter, Gemes suggests that Nietzsche's concern with nihilism emerges after HH, whereas his earlier works express a Romantic preoccupation with cultural renewal. While Reginster analyzes nihilism as a cognitive state of disorientation or despair (The Affirmation of Life [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006]) and Pippin analyzes nihilism as a waning of erotic desire (Nietzsche, Psychology, and First Philosophy [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010]), Gemes contends that these forms of nihilism are downstream from a more fundamental condition of affective nihilism that becomes fully manifest with the advent of Christian morality. (Kaitlyn Creasy's work on affective nihilism goes unmentioned.) Gemes then rightly observes that nihilism does not merely subtend overt expressions of life denial, as Nietzsche also "characterizes the need to ask reflective questions about the value of existence as a pathological symptom" of nihilism (29, emphasis added; see also GS P:2; TI "Socrates" 2; TI "Morality" 5). This presents a problem for Nietzsche's life-affirming ambitions. For, even if the ancient Greeks and GM's nobles can accomplish "naïve affirmation," which is "more an affective state than a consciously avowed cognitive belief" (28–29), it is unclear whether we late moderns can do the same. Moreover, Nietzsche's [End Page 111] challenge of affirming the eternal recurrence (GS 341) seems to require the sort of reflective, cognitive assessment of life that Nietzsche diagnoses as nihilistic. I would have liked for Gemes to have examined Nietzsche's indictment of judgments about life in more detail, as this seems crucial for delimiting Nietzsche's project of life affirmation. In any case, Gemes concludes by suggesting that Z might strive to incite "deep poetic inspiration […] among those who [can] hear rightly" (35), thereby helping these select few overcome affective nihilism. This might be Nietzsche's best strategy for facilitating life affirmation.Came is less confident... (shrink)

Do emotions represent values? The dominant view in philosophy has it that they do. There is wide disagreement over the details, but this core commitment is common. But there is a new comer on scene: the attitude view. According to it, rather than representing value properties, there is a value-relevant way you represent the targets of emotion. For example, in feeling angry with someone you stand to them in the relation of representing-as-having-wronged-you. Although a recent view, it has (...) quickly generated discussion. But the central considerations in favour of each view are left wanting and it is hard to see how to choose amongst these alternatives. I argue that there is an empirical path to a decision. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Confronted with the “wrong kind of reason problem”, several proponents of the fitting attitude analysis of emotional values have argued in favor of an epistemic approach. In such a view, an emotion fits its object because the emotion is correct. However, I argue that we should reorient our search towards a practical approach because only practical considerations can provide a satisfying explanation of the fittingness of emotional responses. This practical approach is partially revisionist, particularly because it is no (...) longer an analysis of final value and because it is relativistic. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.The FA Analysis of Emotional Values and Practical Reasons*Volume 51, Issue 1Stephane Lemaire DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000224Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. The FA Analysis of Emotional Values and Practical Reasons*Volume 51, Issue 1Stephane Lemaire DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000224Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. The FA Analysis of Emotional Values and Practical Reasons*Volume 51, Issue 1Stephane Lemaire DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000224Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

The value–attitude–behavior and the theory of planned behavior appear to provide limited explanation for consumer green purchase behavior. This study aims to examine the relationship between pro-environmental value, consumption value, and TPB toward green car purchasing intention among the young Chinese generation. A total of 541 student responses were collected, and the results showed that altruistic value positively influenced subjective norm and perceived behavioral control, but negatively influenced green purchase attitude. Biospheric value positively influenced GPA and PBC. Function value and (...) emotional value positively influenced GPA, respectively, and emotional value fully mediated the relationship between function value and GPA. Furthermore, GPA, SN, PBC positively influenced intention toward green car purchasing behavior, respectively, and SN mediated the relationship between GPA and intention. This study shows how pro-environmental value and consumption value can influence components of TPB in green car purchase intention. (shrink)

Personal AI is a new type of AI companion, distinct from the prevailing forms of AI companionship. Instead of playing a narrow and well-defined social role, like friend, lover, caretaker, or colleague, with a set of pre-determined responses and behaviors, Personal AI is engineered to tailor itself to the user, including learning to mirror the user’s unique emotional language and attitudes. This paper identifies two issues with Personal AI. First, like other AI companions, it is deceptive about the presence (...) of their emotions, which undermines the moral value of companionship. Second, Personal AI leads to a distinctly new form of deception concerning the origins of its emotions. Its emotional attitudes appear to belong to it, when in fact they are only reflections of the user. This results in what I dub “emotional bubbles”—the false impression that personal emotions are externally validated—which have at least two troubling implications. First, emotional bubbles prevent us from encountering emotional attitudes that differ from our own, which is likely to cripple emotional growth and the ability to form diverse social and emotional relationships. Second, if we assume, as some philosophers claim, that shared emotions are constitutive of shared values, it follows that Personal AI subverts joint moral deliberation. Users believe their personal values are externally validated, when they are only validated by themselves. Because of the absence of technovirtues able to handle this problem, I suggest that we proceed very cautiously with the development and marketing of Personal AI. (shrink)

People share their emotions on social media and evidence suggests that in times of crisis people are especially motivated to post emotional content. The current Coronavirus pandemic is such a crisis. The online sharing of emotional content during the Coronavirus crisis may contribute to societal value change. Emotion sharing via social media could lead to emotional contagion which in turn could facilitate an emotional climate in a society. In turn, the emotional climate of a society can influence society’s value (...) structure. The emotions that spread in the current Coronavirus crisis are predominantly negative, which could result in a negative emotional climate. Based on the dynamic relations of values to each other and the way that emotions relate to values, a negative emotional climate can contribute to societal value change towards values related to security preservation and threat avoidance. As a consequence, a negative emotional climate and the shift in values could lead to a change in political attitudes that has implications for rights, freedom, privacy and moral progress. Considering the impact of social media in terms of emotional contagion and a longer-lasting value change is an important perspective in thinking about the ethical long-term impact of social media technology. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Confronted with the “wrong kind of reason problem”, several proponents of the fitting attitude analysis of emotional values have argued in favor of an epistemic approach. In such a view, an emotion fits its object because the emotion is correct. However, I argue that we should reorient our search towards a practical approach because only practical considerations can provide a satisfying explanation of the fittingness of emotional responses. This practical approach is partially revisionist, particularly because it is no (...) longer an analysis of final value and because it is relativistic. (shrink)

According to the French philosopher Alain, art must regain its existence as a real and solid object to counteract deceitful imagination. In line with this view is Yves Michaud’s description of the “gaseous” state of contemporary art. Paradoxically, the wide circulation of many ‘artistic’ products, destined to be consumed and invoke emotions, does not indicate that we are in presence of an important affirmation of ethical and aesthetical values. As it were, the proliferation of aesthetic objects has destroyed (...) the symbolic value of art. The Italian philosopher Gianni Carchia has underlined how the disappearance of the axiological dimension has led art towards imposture and under the yoke of imagination, which both assist the strategies of the demonic. At this point a question arises: is it possible to eradicate the power of the demonic and evil from our existential condition? According to Jung it’s impossible. In Castelli’s view, the union between art, evil and the demonic has characterized the artistic panorama of the sixteenth century. In the twentieth-century, we owe to Hermann Broch – who brought the raising power of kitsch under philosophical scrutiny − the idea of a complicity between degraded art and evil. Not all scholars agreed that Kitsch represented evil. Many philosophers argued that the growing popularity of Kitsch among the masses posed a problem concerning the demand for art. For this reason, philosophical speculation had better not take a Manichean attitude and reject Kitsch outright, on the contrary, Kitsch should be studied with the aim of transforming the “hunger for art”, of which it is a manifestation, into a desire for ethical and artistic values. (shrink)

“Sentiment” is a term of art, intended to refer to object-directed, irruptive states, that occur in relatively transient bouts involving positive or negative affect, and that typically involve a distinctive motivational profile. Not all the states normally called “emotions” are sentiments in the sense just characterized. And all the terms for sentiments are sometimes used in English to refer to longer lasting attitudes. But this discussion is concerned with boutish affective states, not standing attitudes. That poses some challenges that (...) will be my focus here. Rational sentimentalism is a cousin of fitting attitude theories of value, but other fitting attitude theories appeal to attitudes that are widely assumed to be governable by certain kinds of judgments. The basic challenge is this: are these boutish sentiments the sorts of things that we can and do regulate in the ways that are required for treating ‘shameful’, ‘funny’, ‘disgusting’ and the like as values? In what follows I briefly sketch some necessary conditions on treating something as a value, from which it emerges that treating sentimental values as values requires regulating the sentiments for fittingness. The rest of the paper is devoted to two ways of understanding how such regulation might work. I argue first that sentiments are susceptible to regulation by evaluative judgment, though perhaps not in quite the same way that philosophers have thought “judgment-sensitive attitudes” are regulated by judgment. I then suggest more tentatively that sentiments are also susceptible to regulation for fittingness in a different way: by educating sensibilities. (shrink)

For the properly “cultivated,” proclaimed Oscar Wilde in 1890, “beautiful things mean only Beauty.”1 The idea that artworks possess a discrete and autonomous type of value, by virtue of their capacity to provoke a distinctively aesthetic type of response, is most often associated with artists and critics belonging to the modernist tradition of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Certainly, many influential writers of the period who expressed more instrumentalist attitudes toward the value of their own work, (...) such as Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, have also without manifest perversity been classified as modernists. But latter-day, self-described defenders of modernism (e.g., Susan Sontag, Gabriel... (shrink)

A view inherited from Max Weber states that purposive rational action, value rational action and affective action are three distinct types of social action that can compete, oppose, complement or substitute each other in social explanations. Contrary to this statement, I will defend the view that these do not constitute three different types of social actions, but that social actions always seem to concurrently involve rationality, normativity and affectivity. I show this by discussing the links between rational actions and consequentialism (...) and non-consequentialism, and by elaborating on certain major relationships between rationality, normativity and emotions. (shrink)

The review of current innovation policy in Russia represented in this work. Author makes stress on personal attitude of the national leaders to innovations: they are sure that focusing on full realization of one’s potential and on innovation inevitably would lead Russia to be one of technology leaders of the world before 2020. The basis of this belief lays in currently processing shift of social values in Russia. Author notes that there are just few works revealing connection between cultural (...) values and attitude to innovation and the question of the connection is still open. Nevertheless nowadays it has become obvious for the scientists all over the world that an indispensable condition of economic growth and prosperity of the country is transition of economy to an innovative phase of development. Ability to innovations in general and to innovations of a certain type is a property of the one’s mentality, their cultural specifics. Distinctions in abilities of the different nations to innovate depend on the nature of culture and on the cultural environment. (shrink)

Apophaticism in mainstream analytic theology and philosophy of religion has come to denote a metaphysical and semantic thesis: that, due to divine transcendence, God is ineffable, inconceivable, or incomprehensible. But this conception fails to properly take account of the central claim of apophaticism as a special type of _mystical _theology. As such, the apophatic commitments to divine ineffability are instrumental. More fundamental is the function of theological ignorance to uniquely inform the task of theology and transform the theologian in (...) union with God. Taking Jonathan Jacobs’ recent account as a test case, I argue that reconstructions of apophaticism need to be supplemented by an account of this informational and personally transformative value that apophatic mysticism places on its commitment to divine incomprehensibility. I supply the needed account of apophatic valuing in terms of wonder as the appropriate emotional attitude toward divine transcendence. (shrink)

Consumers may sense hypocrisy in corporate social responsibility if they note inconsistency in enterprises’ words and deeds related to CSR. This inconsistency originates from the intentional selfish actions and unintentional actions of enterprises. Studies have revealed that consumers’ perception of hypocrisy has a negative influence on enterprise operation. However, studies have not examined how corporate responses to consumers’ hypocrisy perception affect consumers’ attitude and behavior. Therefore, the present study attempted to determine the measures that should be undertaken by enterprises to (...) reduce consumers’ negative response to them when consumers perceive them to be hypocritical. We conducted a situational simulation experiment to explore the effect of the match between corporate hypocrisy manifestation and the corporate response strategy on consumers’ negative behaviors toward an enterprise and to test the mechanism influencing this effect. The results indicated that the interaction between the type of corporate hypocrisy and the corporate response strategy has a significant effect on consumers’ negative behaviors toward an enterprise. Consumers’ negative emotions have a mediating influence on the aforementioned effect. This study explored the response strategies of enterprises during a corporate hypocrisy crisis, classified corporate hypocrisy crises into two types according to the different manifestations of corporate hypocrisy, and introduced situational crisis communication theory into research on corporate hypocrisy. The present results help expand knowledge on corporate hypocrisy. (shrink)

Although cognitivism has lost some ground recently in the philosophical circles, it is still the favorite view of many scholars of emotions. Even though I agree with cognitivism's insight that emotions typically involve some type of evaluative intentional state, I shall argue that in some cases, less epistemically committed, non-propositional evaluative states such as mental pictures can do a better job in identifying the emotion and providing its intentional object. Mental pictures have different logical features from propositions: (...) they are representational, and some may or may not portray actual objects aptly. Yet, unlike propositional attitudes, mental pictures do not allow for objective criteria by which one can judge that a certain picture is an apt portrait of someone or something. (shrink)

The multiplicity of Islamic interpretations is reflected in the heterogeneous nature of the Romanian Muslim communities. The internal fragmentation and disunity of Muslim communities, intra-Islamic difficulties, ideological and sectarian rivalry, success of Salafism among certain groups, the absence of stronger and more visible Islamic alternative discourses and the lack of interest in finding adequate mechanisms to facilitate the integration of the new Muslims in society are some of the general problems of the Romanian Muslims. Local Islamic revival has an ethno-cultural (...) dimension, a religious and even a political one as external disputes are imported in the Romanian context and affects the way Muslims define and practice Islam. Some Rroma and indigenous Tatar-Turkish adopted the neo-traditionalism consolidated in the second half of the last century and promoted by the most active Sunni NGOs in Romania. Some converts emancipated from the ideological control by conservative and neoconservative Islamic currents and are in search of progressive or mystical interpretations; other new Muslims found safety in the Salafi’s certitudes and rigid rules. Case study findings presented in this article may suggest that the more it depends on formal rituals, external behavior and rigid canonical displays of religiosity, the more fragile the Muslim identity becomes. A vulnerable constructed Self conceives differences and alterity as an attack against personal identity, hence the increasing aggressive and intolerant, superior Salafi attitudes. The more it is built on universal values, inner experience, ethical convictions, the more open and capable of integrating alterity and fostering positive relations with people of different religions becomes Muslim identity. (shrink)

According to the fitting attitude (FA) analysis of value concepts, to conceive of an object as having a given value is to conceive of it as being such that a certain evaluative attitude taken towards it would be fitting. Among the challenges that this analysis has to face, two are especially pressing. The first is a psychological challenge: the FA analysis must call upon attitudes that shed light on our value concepts while not presupposing the mastery of these concepts. The (...) second challenge is normative: the FA analysis must account for the fittingness of the relevant attitudes in terms of a kind of normativity intimately related to these attitudes, but again without presupposing the mastery of the relevant value concepts. In this paper, we show that real progress is possible if we pay close attention to the nature of the attitudes recruited by the analysis. More specifically, we claim that an FA analysis that appeals to emotions conceived as evaluative attitudes — as opposed to, for instance, evaluative judgements or evaluative perceptions — has the best prospects of meeting the two challenges and of putting the FA analysis on a strong footing. (shrink)

What is it to "value" something, in the semi-technical sense of the term that Gary Watson establishes? I argue that valuing something consists in caring about it. Caring involves not only emotional dispositions of the sort that Agnieszka Jaworska has elaborated, but also a distinctive cognitive disposition – namely, a (defeasible) disposition to believe the object cared about to be a source of agent-relative reasons for action and for emotion. Understood in this way, an agent's carings have a stronger claim (...) to "speak for" her as her values than do other attitudes that have been proposed for this role. In particular, an agent's carings establish more robust psychological continuities and cross-temporal connections than do self-governing policies of the sort that Michael Bratman has described; and they forge diachronic coherence not just in her deliberation and action, as self-governing policies do, but also in her cognitive and emotional life. An agent's carings thus help to constitute her identity as a temporally persisting subject . Self-governing policies are at best ersatz -values, which an agent may choose to adopt when she finds that her proper values – her cares – leave her course underdetermined. (shrink)

Industrial pollution is of both national and international concern in the context where one country's emissions contribute to the problem of global warming. Existing studies have focused on government and regulations rather than on employees. The context of this study is in respect of 472 workers in seven Chinese energy companies in Shanxi province in China, one of the biggest coal mining regions and a region most responsible for environmental pollution. The key findings are two-fold: first, employees' values were (...) positively correlated with attitudes toward the environment, which also correlates with perceived corporate citizenship; second, the ownership type of the firm had a significant influence on corporate citizenship, employee values and their attitudes toward environment. Contrary to existing beliefs, Stateowned enterprises in China have much poorer ratings on all the three constructs compared to privately owned companies. The results highlight the role of the government and policy makers in shaping employees' attitudes toward the environment, and in turn the corporate citizenship of the Chinese energy industry. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between the ascription of value to an object and an assessment of conative attitudes taken towards that object. It argues that this relationship is captured by an a priori necessary truth that falls out of the mastery conditions for the concept of value: what has value is worth valuing, when valuing is understood to be a relatively stable conative attitude distinct from judging valuable. What kind of assessment of attitude is at stake? How are we (...) to understand the worth-relation that holds between an object and the attitude? It is argued that deontological, evaluative and alethic eluciations of the worth-relation are wrongheaded. We should be looking for a mind-world relation that marks a success in how the emotional and motivational energies integral to valuing are directed: a success that does not consist in meeting a deontic requirement, in exemplifying value, or in representing truly. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Merging Traditional Technique Vocabularies with Democratic Teaching Perspectives in Dance EducationA Consideration of Aesthetic Values and Their Sociopolitical ContextsBecky Dyer (bio)IntroductionConventional aesthetic values in dance traditionally have been wed to long-established authoritarian teaching approaches in American professional dance companies and university dance programs. Developed over time from a mixture of enduring cultural tastes, aesthetic ideals, and historical influences, aesthetic values play a significant role in teaching (...) and learning processes in the classroom, although the impact of their presence on learning is often indiscernible or paid little attention. As dance educators in higher education make efforts to move toward more democratic teaching perspectives, they often find themselves philosophically lodged between established approaches to teaching traditional, codified vocabularies and aesthetics and more contemporary, student-centered, and democratically oriented perspectives to teaching and learning dance. Attention to the sociopolitical contexts of dance training gives practitioners opportunities to consider aesthetic values of dance from differing cultural vantage points and the perspectives by which these values are taught and learned.Each learning circumstance in dance is a complex weaving of personal and social experience involving individuals, communities, movers, and viewers. Movement aesthetic values emerge from personal and communal morals and ideals as well as social mores of the body, which create contextual lenses for experiencing, interpreting, and making meaning of movement vocabularies created and perpetuated in dance communities. It is important that teachers who seek to incorporate more democratically oriented, student-centered teaching perspectives become mindful of ways social values and perceptual/contextual frameworks impact personal [End Page 108] and communal practices in dance. Approaches to learning technique that consider sociocultural factors of dance movement aesthetics—wherein teachers and learners are led to recognize and reflect upon personal, social, and aesthetic values embodied in movement and embedded in movement vocabularies—can lead teachers and learners to better understand the significance of learning in dance as it relates to personal and social worlds beyond the classroom.This article will suggest how movement analysis from a socially contextualized perspective can inform understanding about the significance of sociopolitical contexts and aesthetic values in Western dance training. Perspectives of movement analysis will provide groundwork for discussing perceivable ways to address discrepancies between democratic and authoritarian teaching viewpoints and to challenge the prominent linking of conventional aesthetic values and vocabularies, as well as codified techniques, to authoritarian practices. The discussion will address relationships between pedagogical perspectives and ideologies held by teachers concerning the place and worth of conventional aesthetic values and the nature of aesthetic experiences in the dance technique classroom, and the potential understandings and meanings their students construct.Foundations of Movement Analysis: The Ideas and Practices of Rudolf LabanRecognizing embedded personal and social aesthetic values in movement is an important initial stage in developing more critically reflective practices that promote meaning, agency, and student interest in learning. The task is challenging because the only values accessibly evident to the bystander, and often the mover, are visual ones. Yet, as Rudolf Laban (1879-1958) suggested, intangible values also inspire movement. Laban created a theoretical framework—referred to as Laban Movement Analysis—for movement exploration, description, and analysis to consider both noticeably apparent and less-tangible values of movement by investigating movement phenomena and factors that generate them.1 The praxis-oriented system involves reflecting on movement observations, considering emotional and mental facets of movement, and taking into account experiential bodily perspectives of the mover.2Although one of Laban's fundamental purposes for developing a descriptive vocabulary for movement was to facilitate the mastery of dance technique,3 his teaching emphasized the "harmonious expressiveness of the whole individual," as he aimed to facilitate dancers' ability to understand and use their bodies in order to discover individual ways of expressing themselves and communicating.4 Laban's attitudes toward training were in sharp contrast to approaches of the day, yet interestingly, they were not [End Page 109] opposed to them. For example, common dance gestures and postures were expanded into free exploration and studied from diverse points of view rather than a narrow range of perspectives, aesthetic values, and movement qualities.5Laban's theory of "Effort," which he linked to emotions as well as... (shrink)

It is a regrettable feature of this book symposium that it appears only after the book itself. If I could solicit from three outstanding philosophers detailed analyses of substantial portions of the book before publishing it, the book would have been far better. Below, I indicate some of the ways the book would have been better.

In the history of İslāmic thought, Māturīdī is a famous scholar both in the field of kalām and tafsir. Being approved by Māturīdī, the distinction of tafsir and ta’wīl, which makes possible to take the comments made about the verses into sistematic framework, is quite important. There is an important information both about content of the distinction approved by Māturīdī and the main reasons that necessiated this distinction in the introduction of Samarqandī’s Sharh at Ta’wīlāt. From this information, it is (...) understood that the distinction of tafsir and ta’wīl had dated back to older time than Māturīdī and previous scholars dealed with the problem that necessiated this distinction and Māturīdī inherited this distinction from his predecessors. Information in the Sharh at Ta’wīlāt reveals that according to Māturīdī the companions had made interpretation (ta’wīl) in addition to tafsir and the explanations made by certain evidences is tafsir too. Therefore this information gives us the opportunity flexing the acceptance of the idea “tafsir, is dedicated to the companions, ta'wīl is dedicated to fuqaha (jurists)” and asserting that companions and scholars made both tafsir and ta’wīl. In this paper, we will research whether the distinction tafsir and ta’wīl regarded by Māturīdī completely belonged to his or not and content of the distinction and its reasons. We will also analyze this distinction according to examples in the Ta’wîlāt. Summary: An important distinction is made between the concepts of tafsir and ta’wīl in the short preface of Māturīdī's tafsir, and this distinction is particularly prominent in contemporary tafsir studies. Because from the point of view of the value they carry, the explanations for these differences and concepts express the legitimacy of the following mufassirūn (writers of a commentary on the Qur’an) to be able to perform tafsir, as well as the value of the explanations found in tafsir literature in terms of certainty. In Ta'wīlāt, tafsir is described as the precise determination of what is intended. Determination of what is exactly intended in verse/wording is bound to certainly know the conditions under which it was revealed. Because they are the first to be addressed directly and they witnessed the context, the tafsir is only for the companions (ṣaḥābah pl. aṣḥāb). On the other hand, ta’wīl is not a definite determination of what is intended, but rather it is explained as putting the possibilities forward. In this case, ta’wīl is dedicated to the scholars after the companions. When we look at the other tafsir sources that include his views, it can be understood that this brief information in the preface of the tafsir which survived to our day is partially incomplete. Samarqandī's Sharhu’t-ta'wīlāt is the most important of these sources. According to the information here, Māturīdī states that some scholars distinguish tafsir and ta’wīl from each other. In these distinctions, tafsir is either described in relation to a definitive statement or in relation to being familiar with the conditions of revelation, while ta’wīl is described as extracting meanings from the verses and making possible meanings without claiming certainty. These explanations show that the distinction between tafsir and ta’wīl in Ta'wīlāt's preface was mainly based on the period before Māturīdī. These statements, which Māturīdī transmitted from some scholars in the beginning of Sharhu’t-ta'wīlāt, were then transmitted by Omar al-Nasafī, Mahāyimī and Molla Husrev. In some sources, it was also transmitted that similar explanations were made by scholars such as an-Nadr b. Shumayl, al-Hussein b. Fadl al-Bacelī and Ibn Durayd before Māturīdī.Some explanations of Māturīdī in Ta'wīlāt enables the theory of tafsir-ta’wīl to be understood at a wider level. When the examples are examined, it is observed that Māturīdī exhibited two types of attitude against the tafsir of the companions. He states that one of these is that if the transmission is true, what is intended is exactly what is stated in the narrated. The second is that he sometimes does not accept these explanations and suggests additional opinions. The reason he refuses is that sometimes he does not find the transmission reliable, and sometimes he thinks that companions performed ta'wīl. If this is the case, the dedication of ta’wīl to those coming later should not be absolutized. Because the companions can perform both tafsir and ta’wīl. The examples in Ta'wīlāt clearly reveal what areas tafsir, which is defined as a definite statement, covers. According to this, first, tafsir is related to the field of “invisible” about the past and the future. Secondly, its meaning and practice is only about the information of the “statement” about the issues that can be revealed by the Prophet (pbuh). In the third aspect, it is related to “revelation” information reporting the context in which the verses descended. In the beginning of Sharhu’t-ta'wīlāt, Māturīdī says that the explanations made based on the definitive evidences such as mutawātir (repetition; narration reported by large number reporters) and ijmā (consensus) also fall under the category of tafsir. However, it is also necessary to add intellectual evidence to these evidences. Because intellectual evidence is also important in the epistemology of Māturīdī. In fact, the truthfulness of nass (text) is primarily based on intellectual evidence. First, the issues of theology are proven by certain intellectual evidence, and then, on the basis of this, the meanings expressed by the nass acquire the value of certainty and truthfulness. With the definitive acceptance of reason in theology, what some nass express confirm each other and are used as evidence in the process of interpretation. Therefore, since some of the intellectual evidence, ijmā and mutawātir news provide definitive information, explanations based on them are also seen as tafsir. Considering the fact that the above-mentioned evidence was also used by those coming after the companions, it can be concluded that tafsir can be performed by not only the companions but also those coming after them. In this case, it should be accepted that tafsir is not performed only by the companions, and that the succeeding mufassirūn can also perform tafsir as well as ta’wīl. When we look at the examples based on these evidence, there are two different situations in Ta'wīlāt. The first is that Māturīdī sometimes has views on evidence based on mutawātir and ijmā and sometimes suggests different opinions from the assumptions that he said there was ijmā in particular. Because these evidences are certain, it is understandable that he remains bound to them. However, as a possible reason for his opposition to ijmā, it can be said that he thinks only the following generations enter the scope of ijmā. Because, according to Samarqandī, Māturīdī's objection to such information does not seem possible, since ijmā of the companions in a matter is accepted. Although he sometimes said that there was ijmā, the reason why no such ijmā was mentioned in other tafsir sources and sometimes, it may be considered that he did not respect other views in the face of ijmā as a reason for including different views or it may be thought that he was unaware of the different views that were transmitted. The second remarkable situation is that according to Māturīdī, intellectual evidence, in particular, can reveal only the “knowledge of existence” of the issues related to theology. Māturīdī thinks that their nature cannot be certainly known, and that the explanations made regarding their nature are only ta’wīl. For this reason, he firmly rejects the interpretation of the khabarī attributes about Allah in accordance with the idea of tashbīh and tajsīm (anthropomorphism). (shrink)

This present article takes an interest in the fairly new phenomena of social and emotional training programs in youth education. Prior research has shown that values and norms produced in these types of programs are supporting ethical systems that teachers may not always be aware of. This motivates the development of methods for analyzing these activities from an ethical point of view. An analysis model has been developed and piloted in the analyses of two different classroom activities. The model (...) is based on theories of communicative ethics and an ethics of dialogicity, drawing upon the work of Jürgen Habermas, Iris Marion Young, and Emmanuel Levinas. The analyses show that norms concerning whose perspective is prioritized and what ethical values are constituted in the classroom vary depending on how the program is organized and how the teacher chooses to use the program. The article also argues that the analytical model suggested might serve as a contribution to both teachers’ own professional,... (shrink)

Ethical reasoning of all types is anthropocentric, in that it is addressed to agents, but anthropocentric starting points vary in the preference they accord the human species. Realist claims about environmental values, utilitarian reasoning and rights-based reasoning all have difficulties in according ethical concern to certain all aspects of natural world. Obligation-based reasoning can provide quite strong if incomplete reasons to protect the natural world, including individual non-human animals. Although it cannot establish all the conclusions to which anti-speciesists aspire, (...) it may establish many of them with some clarity. (shrink)

Joshua Gert and Wlodek Rabinowicz have developed frameworks for value relations that are rich enough to allow for non-standard value relations such as parity. Yet their frameworks do not allow for any non-standard preference relations. In this paper, I shall defend a symmetry between values and preferences, namely, that for every value relation, there is a corresponding preference relation, and vice versa. I claim that if the arguments that there are non-standard value relations are cogent, these arguments, mutatis mutandis, (...) also show that there are non-standard preference relations. Hence frameworks of Gert and Rabinowicz's type are either inadequate since there are cogent arguments for both non-standard value and preference relations and these frameworks deny this, or they lack support since the arguments for non-standard value relations are unconvincing. Instead, I propose a simpler framework that allows for both non-standard value and preference relations. (shrink)

Values---the individual’s or group’s general tastes regarding results or courses of actions deemed appropriate or otherwise, have a synergetic relationship with educational growth. Ordinarily, the values espoused by individuals or groups engender specific types of attitudes that elicit precise sorts of behaviours that open the horizon for definite sorts of educational growth. Conversely, the quality and quantity of educational growth of a nation influence the behaviours of the citizens which generate attitudes that ultimately create values. This rectangular-like (...) bidirectional correlation has a very strong causational angle to it: right values lead to positive educational growth; wrong ones elicit growth deficits in education, and vice versa. This essay establishes the correlation between values and educational growth using Nigeria as a case study. Through textual criticisms, it highlights the causative influence of bad values on the poor educational outcomes in the country and recommends value reorientation to reverse the ugly tide. (shrink)

This thesis concerns the relation between aesthetically valuable objects and the agents that aesthetically value them. An investigation is undertaken into the psychology and rationality of such agents. I argue that self-related elements such as emotions and standing value commitments play an irreducible role in successful aesthetic engagement. I further demonstrate that these psychological elements of aesthetic engagement are both self-related and subject to rational constraints. In this connection, I propose a revisionary account according to which valuing agents are (...) subject to a coherence requirement pertaining to their aesthetic judgments and aesthetic likings. The first essay, “Aesthetic Autonomy: Acquaintance, Competence and Authenticity”, addresses the nature of aesthetic autonomy. What it means to be autonomous and its normative significance is generally considered to be ambiguous in the aesthetic domain. In this essay, I propose a way to disambiguate this elusive concept by distinguishing three varieties of autonomy: experiential autonomy, competency-based autonomy, and personal autonomy. Some important issues concerning the nature of aesthetic agency and appreciation are discussed in the course of this critical discussion. The second essay, “Non-Standard Emotions and Aesthetic Understanding”, discusses the role of our emotional responses in the context of aesthetic appreciation. My main argument will reveal that the non-standard or ‘intellectual’ emotions, the emotions which are in fact most important to appreciation, can play a significant epistemic role in our reason-giving aesthetic practices. The third essay, “The Aesthetic Enkratic Principe”, examines what it means to be aesthetically rational. Although some philosophers claim that aesthetics falls within the scope of rationality, a non-akrasia constraint prohibiting certain akratic combinations of attitudes is yet to be developed in this domain. This essay is concerned with the question of whether or not such a requirement is plausible and, if so, whether it is a true requirement of aesthetic rationality. The fourth essay, “Aesthetic Self-Transformation: A Guide for Aesthetic Aspirants”, investigates the nature of aesthetic self-transformation. Two problems arise in this context. First, aesthetic transformative experiences can lead to cases of local irrationality in the form of a mismatch between what is aesthetically judged and what is aesthetically liked. Second, in attempting to resolve this conflict, we encounter two opposing principles that appear to guide aesthetic appreciation with equal force: self-cultivation and aesthetic improvement. I explain the first issue by invoking a coherence requirement (as defended in the previous essay) and resolve the second by outlining a hybrid view of what constitutes good aesthetic reasoning. (shrink)

This chapter identifies two types of moral dilemma. The first type is described as ethical clash: whether affirmative action is just or unjust, for example, or whether withholding information from an inquisitive relative is honest or dishonest. In these cases the dilemma takes the form of conflict between an ethical predicate and its complement. The second type of moral dilemma is ethical overlap. Instead of a clash between a single predicate and its complement, here two or more (...) predicates apply. Dilemmas associated with white lies, for example, often depart from the recognition that such acts are both dishonest and avoid inflicting pain. Similarly, social dilemmas over progressive taxation may arise despite agreement that progressive systems both decrease liberty and increase equality. Which predicate should take precedence? Strategies for dealing with both types of dilemma are proposed. (shrink)

This book has two main aims. First, it develops and defends a constitutive account of normative reasons as premises of good reasoning. This account says, roughly, that to be a normative reason for a response (such as a belief or intention) is to be premise of good reasoning, from fitting responses, to that response. Second, building on the account of reasons, it develops and defends a fittingness-first account of the structure of the normative domain. This account says that there is (...) a single normative property, fittingness, which is normatively basic, and on which all other normative properties depend. On this view, reasons, oughts, value, and other normative phenomena all ultimately depend on fittingness. The account of normative reasons is a part of this general view of the normative domain. The book begins, in chapter 1, by motivating the account of reasons as premises of good reasoning. Chapter 2 argues that good reasoning is, roughly, reasoning that preserves fittingness. Chapter 3 addresses the question of what fittingness is. Chapter 4 defends constitutive accounts of evaluative properties, like goodness, in terms of fitting attitudes. Chapters 5 and 6 shows how the view provides an attractive account of how reasons determine the deontic status of a response – whether you ought or may so respond. Chapter 7 addresses some challenges concerning certain reasons for belief, the relationship between reasons for action and reasons for intention, and reasons for emotion. (shrink)

Neo-sentmentalism is the view that to judge that something has an evaluative property is to judge that some affective or emotional response is appropriate with respect to it. The difficulty in assessing neo-sentimentalism is that it allows for radically different versions. My aim is to spell out what I take to be its most plausible version. I distinguish between a normative version, which takes the concepts of appropriateness to be normative, and a descriptive version, which claims that appropriateness in (...) class='Hi'>emotions is a matter of correspondence to evaluative facts. I argue that the latter version can satisfy the normativity requirement that follows from Moore's Open Question Argument, that it is superior to the former with respect to the explanatory role of values, and with respect to the Wrong Kind of Reason Objection. Finally, I argue that the circularity that is involved is not vicious: understood epistemically, neo-sentimentalism remains instructive. (shrink)

This paper argues that moral distress is a distinctive category of reactive attitudes that are taken to be part and parcel of the social dynamics for recognition. While moral distress does not demonstrate evidence of wrongdoing, it does emotionally articulate a demand for normative attention that is addressed to others as moral providers. The argument for this characterization of the deontic power of moral distress builds upon two examples in which the cognitive value of the victim’s emotional experience is controversial: (...) the case of micro-aggression, and the case of misplaced distress. In contrast to appraisal and perceptual models of distress, it is argued that its epistemic and normative value is dialogical rather than evidential, in that it presses claims that engage the audience in a normative discussion about the normative standing of the claimant, the proper grounds of the attitude, and the normative standards used to assess them. (shrink)

Marine and coastal ecosystems are crucial in maintaining human livelihood, facilitating social development, and reducing climate change impacts. Studies have examined how the benefit perception of aquatic ecosystems, knowledge, and emotion about climate change affect peoples’ support for marine protection. However, their interaction effects remain understudied. The current study explores the intricate interaction effect of the benefit perception of aquatic ecosystems, knowledge, and worry about climate change on marine protection support. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed on a dataset (...) of 709 stakeholders from 42 countries generated by MaCoBioS—a research project funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020. The statistical analysis shows that the impacts of benefit perception of ocean ecosystems, knowledge, and worry about climate change on marine protection support vary due to their interactions. Specifically, when stakeholders perceive ocean ecosystems to have little utility in mitigating climate change, greater climate change knowledge and concern are associated with a higher level of marine protection support. Nevertheless, in the scenarios where stakeholders perceive the benefits of ocean ecosystems, the effect of climate change knowledge becomes conditional on the worry level. If stakeholders are concerned about climate change, those with a greater level of climate change knowledge will associate with a higher level of marine protection support. Otherwise, greater climate change knowledge will result in lower support. These findings highlight emotion’s importance in directing climate change knowledge’s effect on marine protection support. Linking people’s “objects of care” to the consequences of climate change can help improve climate change communication effectiveness. (shrink)