ABSTRACTThe judgment of blame was studied in a group of 28 teenagers, 14 with Asperger syndrome and 14 typically developed. Teenagers in each group were matched by age, cognitive development and academic level. They were presented with 12 short vignettes in which they had to judge an action according to the intent of the actor, the consequences of the action and the seriousness of the situation. Results showed a significant difference in the patterns of judgment of both groups. The AS (...) group judged the action according to the physical consequence of the action more than the intent of the actor; the opposite was observed with the control group. In addition, the AS teenagers were less capable than the control group of grading injury to a person when apportioning blame especially when they were not familiar with the social situations. This result suggests that the judgement of the seriousness of the outcome of the social interactio... (shrink)

This paper criticizes two accounts of the normativity of practical principles: the empiricist account and the rationalist or realist account. It argues against the empiricist view, focusing on the Humean texts that are usually taken to be its locus classicus. It then argues both against the dogmatic rationalist view, and for the Kantian view, through a discussion of Kant's own remarks about instrumental rationality in the second section of the Groundwork. It further argues that the instrumental principle cannot stand alone. (...) Unless there are normative principles directing us to the adoption of certain ends, there can be no requirement to take the means to our ends. The familiar view that the instrumental principle is the only requirement of practical reason is incoherent. (shrink)

I begin by discussing forms of cosmopolitanism that motivate challenges to distributive accounts of global justice. I then use Sen's version of the capabilities approach to show how distributive accounts fall short, why an overarching theory of justice is not needed, and that democracy understood as the exercise of public reasoning can do the work of identifying and addressing injustices. That said in favor of Sen, I argue that his account fails to attend to the kinds of injustices emerging from (...) relationships of power and the institutions and structures in which these relationships are embedded. To show this, I outline features of a feminist relational approach, which I then apply to Canada's attempt to address historic harms through the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While I agree with Sen that we do not need a theory of global justice that is universal, ideal, impartial, or abstracted from context, I aim to broaden the scope of justice beyond both distributive accounts and Sen's version of the capabilities approach. (shrink)

1. Being an Animal Human beings are animals: phylum: chordata, class: mammalia, order: primates, family: hominids, species: homo sapiens, subspecies: homo sapiens sapiens. According to current scientific opinion, we evolved approximately 200,000 years ago in Africa from ancestors whom we share with the other great apes. What does it mean that we are animals? Scientifically speaking, an animal is essentially a complex, multicellular organism that feeds on other life forms. But what we share with the other animals is not just (...) a definition: it is a history – that is, it is a story – and a resulting set of attributes and circumstances, and an ecosystem, and a planet. What is the story? Living things are homeostatic systems – they maintain themselves through a process of nutrition that enables them to work constantly at replacing the fragile materials of which they are composed. Living things also work at reproducing, or contributing to the reproduction, of other living things that maintain themselves in essentially the same way. To engage in those activities is essentially what it means to be alive. And in order to engage in those activities, a living thing must be, in some way, responsive to conditions in its environment. Plants, for instance, respond to dryness, by growing deeper roots, or to sunshine, by turning their leaves in its direction. Even a unicellular organism is drawn to some things and recoils from others. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the question of whether there exists an essential relation between emotions and wellbeing. We distinguish three ways in which emotions and wellbeing might be essentially related: constitutive, causal, and epistemic. We argue that, while there is some room for holding that emotions are constitutive ingredients of an individual’s wellbeing, all the attempts to characterise the causal and epistemic relations in an essentialist way are vulnerable to some important objections. We conclude that the causal and epistemic (...) relation between emotions and wellbeing is much less strong than is commonly thought. (shrink)

After discussing de Sousa's view of emotion in akrasia, I suggest that emotions be viewed as nonconceptual perceptions of value (see Tappolet 2000). It follows that they can render intelligible actions which are contrary to one's better judgment. An emotion can make one's action intelligible even when that action is opposed by one's all-things-considered judgment. Moreover, an akratic action prompted by an emotion may be more rational than following one's better judgement, for it may be the judgement and not the (...) perception which is in error. By contrast, "cool" akrasia is genuinely puzzling; it is not clear whether it exists. (shrink)

Christine Battersby rethinks questions of embodiment, essence, sameness and difference, self and "other", patriarchy and power. Using analyses of Kant, Adorno, Irigaray, Butler, Kierkegaard and Deleuze, she challenges those who argue that a feminist metaphysics is a a contradiction in terms. This book explores place for a metaphysics of fluidity in the current debates concerning postmodernism, feminism and identity politics.

This contribution considers whether or not it is possible to devise a coherent form of external skepticism about the normative if we ‘relax’ about normative ontology by regarding claims about the existence of normative truths and properties themselves as normative. I answer this question in the positive: A coherent form of non-normative error-theories can be developed even against a relaxed background. However, this form no longer makes any reference to the alleged falsity of normative judgments, nor the non-existence of normative (...) properties. Instead, it concerns a specifically inferentialist construal of error-theories which suggests that error-theorists should abstain from any claims about normative ontology to focus exclusively on claims about the inferential role of normative vocabulary. As I will show, this suggestion affords a number of important advantages. However, it also comes at a cost, in that it might not only change the letter, but also the spirit of traditional error-theories. (shrink)

Lorsqu’elle nous reçoit à Conakry, en république de Guinée, ce 22 janvier 2002, Mme Kadidiatou Diallo prépare la commémoration de la « journée des pendus » au cours de laquelle, le 25 janvier 1971, de nombreuses personnes furent exécutées par pendaison à travers toute la Guinée, sur ordre du président de la République Ahmed Sékou Touré. Mme Diallo Telli a déjà accordé de nombreux entretiens à des journalistes qui l’ont interrogée sur son époux, Boubacar Diallo Telli, une des plus célèbres (...) per... (shrink)

Largement déterminée par la « scène primitive » de la Révolution française, notre conception de la citoyenneté est encore souvent associée à l’exercice des droits de suffrage et d’éligibilité. Le moment révolutionnaire, en abolissant les privilèges d’Ancien Régime et en promulguant la Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, a, de fait, fondé une citoyenneté juridique définie par un ensemble de droits « naturels », civils et politiques. Or l’histoire des femmes et du genre, comme les...

In this paper, I develop a metasemantics for relaxed moral realism. More precisely, I argue that relaxed realists should be inferentialists about meaning and explain that the role of evaluative moral vocabulary is to organise and structure language exit transitions, much as the role of theoretical vocabulary is to organise and structure language entry transitions.

Quasi-realist expressivists have developed a growing liking for minimalism about truth. It has gone almost unnoticed, though, that minimalism also drives an anti-Archimedean movement which launches a direct attack on expressivists’ non-moral self-image by proclaiming that all metaethical positions are built on moral grounds. This interplay between expressivism, minimalism and anti-Archimedeanism makes for an intriguing metaethical encounter. As such, the first part of this dissertation examines expressivism’s marriage to minimalism and defends it against its critics. The second part then turns (...) to the anti-Archimedean challenge to expressivism and shows how to ward off this challenge by securing expressivism’s non-moral, metaethical status without having to abandon minimalism about truth. (shrink)

Weshalb ziehen das Komma bei Kant oder das Ausrufezeichen bei Foucault nicht dasselbe Interesse auf sich wie der Gedankenstrich bei Kleist oder die Auslassungspunkte bei Schnitzler? Entgegen der Selbstverständlichkeit literaturwissenschaftlicher Interpretation, der zufolge jedes Zeichen die Sinnkonstruktion eines Textes mitträgt, erfahren Satzzeichen in der philosophischen Auslegung wenig Aufmerksamkeit. Entlang einzelner Beispiele schärfen die Beiträge dieses Bandes den Blick für das philologische Detail und zeigen, wie Satzzeichen nicht nur an der Entfaltung des rhetorischen Repertoires philosophischer Textpraxis konstitutiv beteiligt sind. Das aufmerksame (...) Close Reading wird dabei für die philosophische Lektüre überraschend fruchtbar. (shrink)

La rentrée 2022 a vu la parution en français de deux ouvrages traitant de l’histoire du travail sur la très longue période. Mis à part ce thème commun, tout oppose les deux livres – et on comprend mieux la spécificité de chacune de leurs approches en comparant les démarches et les moyens mis en œuvre. Le livre de Paul Cockshott est la traduction d’un ouvrage paru en 2019 sous le titre How the World Works. The Story of Human Labor from (...) Prehistory to the Modern Day (New York, Monthly Review Pre... (shrink)

The concept of rationality, predominantly in the guise of rational choice theory, plays a key role in the social sciences. Yet, whilst rational choice theory is usually understood as part of positive political science, it is also widely employed within normative political theories. In this paper, we examine how allegedly positive rational choice arguments can find application within normative political theories. To this effect, we distinguish between two interpretations of rationality ascriptions, one empirical, the other normative. Since, as we demonstrate, (...) empirical readings of the rationality assumption cannot convincingly explain the role of rational choice arguments in normative theories, we argue that the rationality assumption should be given a normative interpretation. We conclude by considering what this result implies for the use of rational choice arguments in normative and positive political science. (shrink)

Retrospective and prospective data collected in Cameroon were used to reassess hypotheses about how infant and early childhood mortality is affected by birth spacing and breast-feeding. These data show that: (a) a short preceding birth interval is detrimental for child survival in the first 4 months of life; (b) full and partial breast-feeding have direct protective effects on child survival in the first 4-6 months of life, with the effects of the former stronger than those of the latter; (c) early (...) subsequent conception significantly increases mortality risks in the first 16 months of life of the index child. These findings are robust to various controls, e.g. study design, data defects, child's health conditions at/around birth, postnatal maternal and child recurrent illnesses, patterns of utilisation of health care services, and immunisation status of the child. (shrink)

What is the primary function of consciousness in the nervous system? The answer to this question remains enigmatic, not so much because of a lack of relevant data, but because of the lack of a conceptual framework with which to interpret the data. To this end, we have developed Passive Frame Theory, an internally coherent framework that, from an action-based perspective, synthesizes empirically supported hypotheses from diverse fields of investigation. The theory proposes that the primary function of consciousness is well-circumscribed, (...) serving the 'somatic nervous system[. For this system, consciousness serves as a frame that constrains and directs skeletal muscle output, thereby yielding adaptive behavior. The mechanism by which consciousness achieves this is more counterintuitive, passive, and “low level” than the kinds of functions that theorists have previously attributed to consciousness. Passive frame theory begins to illuminate (a) what consciousness contributes to nervous function, (b) how consciousness achieves this function, and (c) the neuroanatomical substrates of conscious processes. Our untraditional, action-based perspective focuses on olfaction instead of on vision and is 'descriptive' (describing the products of nature as they evolved to be) rather than 'normative' (construing processes in terms of how they should function). Passive frame theory begins to isolate the neuroanatomical, cognitive-mechanistic, and representational (e.g., conscious contents) processes associated with consciousness. (shrink)

Loin d'être une « égologie cartésienne » ou un « apriorisme kantien », la phénoménologie husserlienne se veut, d'un bout à l'autre de l'œuvre, une subversion des alternatives classiques dont relèvent selon elle Descartes et Kant et par lesquelles se définit la métaphysique au sens large. S'il est vrai que Husserl revendique un « idéalisme transcendantal », c'est en approfondissant la réfutation kantienne de l'idéalisme, et cela en un geste qui, par le biais de l'intentionnalité comme autotranscendance subvertissant l'opposition principielle (...) du sujet et de l'objet, préfigure déjà l'annulation heideggérienne du « scandale » qui préoccupait encore Kant, mais selon une voie qui n'oublie pas pour autant de rendre compte de la possibilité de la connaissance. Far from being a « Cartesian egology » or a « Kantian apriorism », phenomenology is meant, from one end to another of the Husserlian work, to overthrow the traditional alternatives, i.e. metaphysics in a wider sense, including Descartes and Kant. Though Husserl asserts to be a « transcendantal idealist », one may get over the fundamental opposition between subject and object only by looking further into the Kantian refutation of idealism by the means of a reinterpretation of intentionnality as selftranscendence. Such an approach forecasts the Heideggerian cancelling of the scandal that used to bother Kant, but according to a new way not eschewing to give an account of the possibility of knowledge. (shrink)

Akratic actions are often being thought to instantiate a paradigmatic self-control failure. . If we suppose that akrasia is opposed to self-control, the question is how akratic actions could be free and intentional. After all, it would seem that it is only if an action manifests self-control that it can count as free. My plan is to explore the relation between akrasia and self-control. The first section presents what I shall call the standard conception, according to which akrasia and self-control (...) are contraries, and introduces the puzzle that this conception raises. The second section turns to the arguments for and against the possibility of free and intentional akratic actions. The third section questions the claim that akratic actions are necessarily opposed to actions manifesting self-control. (shrink)

Feminism and Ecological Communities presents a bold and passionate rethinking of teh ecofeminist movement. It is one of the first books to acknowledge the importance of postmodern feminist arguments against ecofeminism whilst persuasively preseenting a strong new case for econolocal feminism. Chris J.Cuomo first traces the emergence of ecofeminism from the ecological and feminist movements before clearly discussing the weaknesses of some ecofeminist positions. Exploring the dualisms of nature/culture and masculing/feminine that are the bulwark of many contemporary ecofeminist positions and (...) questioning traditional traditional feminist analyses of gender and caring, Feminism and Ecological Communities asks whether women are essentially closer to nature than men and how we ought to link the oppression of women, people of colour, and other subjugated groups to the degradation of nature. Chris J.Cuomo addresses these key issues by drawing on recent work in feminist ethics as well as teh work of diverse figures such as Aristotle, John Dewey, Donna Haraway adn Maria Lugones. A fascinating feature of the book is the use of the metaphor of the cyborg to highlight the fluidity of the nature/culture distinction and how this can enrich econfeminist ethics and politics. An outstanding new argument for an ecological feminism that links both theory and practice, Feminism and Ecological Communities bravely redraws the ecofeminist map. It will be essential reading for all those interested in gender studies, environmental studies and philosophy. (shrink)

L’article se propose de confronter l’herméneutique du sujet, telle qu’elle est définie par Ricœur dans son ouvrage Soi-même comme un autre à celle qui fait l’objet du cours donné par Michel Foucault en 1981-1982 au Collège de France. Il s’agit, sous la forme d’une conversation imaginaire, de préciser le sens donné par les deux auteurs à l’herméneutique du sujet et d’en dégager les implications sur la constitution du sujet, la conception de la liberté et le statut de l’éthique. L'argumentation s'appuie (...) sur l'ouvrage majeur Soi-même comme un autre , que Ricœur a élaboré dans la période qui correspond aux dernières œuvres de Foucault. This paper intends to compare the hermeneutics of the subject by Ricœur in Oneself as Another with the lessons given by Foucault at the Collège de France in 1981-1982 about The Hermeneutics of the Subject . Presented as an invented conversation, it tries to specify the meaning of both authors’ hermeneutics and to find their implications about the subject’s constitution, the conception of freedom and the status of ethics. The argumentation is based on the essential book Oneself as Another , conceived by Ricœur at the same time Foucault was writing his last works. (shrink)