: This essay introduces a way of reading the Mengzi (Mencius) that complicates how we understand what Mengzi is recorded as saying. A pragmatic-strategic reading of the Mengzi is developed here, according to which Mengzi attends to and operates under important pragmatic constraints on speech. Based on a close reading of key passages, it is argued that truth-telling and descriptive accuracy are less important to Mengzi than guiding people along the Confucian path. This reading has implications for our understanding of (...) Mengzi’s philosophical positions and his methods of argumentation, as well as for our understanding of philosophical activity in general. (shrink)

Liberal democracy aims to treat all adult citizens as politically equal, at least in ideal cases: Once a citizen is over the age of majority, she is deemed a full-fledged member of the community and in theory has equal standing with all other adult citizens when it comes to making policy and participating in the political realm in general. I consider three questions: (1) Is there any plausible alternative to a standard "all adult citizens have equal political standing" model of (...) democracy that could be drawn from a specifically Confucian valuing of elder members of the community? (2) Insofar as there is a plausible alternative, what might it reveal about differences between how liberalism and Confucianism think of human selves as located in time? (3) What sort of difference would it make if the Confucian valuing of age were implemented via informal social norms, on the one hand, or via explicit institutional mechanisms and procedures, on the other? (shrink)

abstract A common bit of public political wisdom advises that in certain three‐way elections, one should cast a strategic vote for one of the top two candidates rather than a conscience‐driven vote for a third candidate, since doing otherwise amounts to ‘throwing one's vote away’. In this paper, I examine the possible justifications for this pragmatic advice to vote strategically. I argue that the most direct argument behind such advice fails to motivate strategic voting in large‐scale elections, since there is (...) no significant chance that one's own vote will alter the outcome of the election, even in plausible close‐call cases. In short, the lack of probable pragmatic effect undermines the pragmatic motivation for altering one's baseline voting behavior. However, an indirect argument succeeds in motivating strategic voting in some scenarios. Such an indirect argument relies on the possibility of one acquiring an obligation to engage in public strategic campaigning for one of the top two candidates. In many cases in which one strategically campaigns, one will, indirectly, acquire an obligation to vote strategically in accord with one's prior public campaign activities. Thus, the common bit of political wisdom about strategic voting can be justified, though only indirectly. (shrink)

abstract A common bit of public political wisdom advises that in certain three‐way elections, one should cast a strategic vote for one of the top two candidates rather than a conscience‐driven vote for a third candidate, since doing otherwise amounts to ‘throwing one's vote away’. In this paper, I examine the possible justifications for this pragmatic advice to vote strategically. I argue that the most direct argument behind such advice fails to motivate strategic voting in large‐scale elections, since there is (...) no significant chance that one's own vote will alter the outcome of the election, even in plausible close‐call cases. In short, the lack of probable pragmatic effect undermines the pragmatic motivation for altering one's baseline voting behavior. However, an indirect argument succeeds in motivating strategic voting in some scenarios. Such an indirect argument relies on the possibility of one acquiring an obligation to engage in public strategic campaigning for one of the top two candidates. In many cases in which one strategically campaigns, one will, indirectly, acquire an obligation to vote strategically in accord with one's prior public campaign activities. Thus, the common bit of political wisdom about strategic voting can be justified, though only indirectly. (shrink)

What challenges arise when attempting to incorporate body practice and meditation into undergraduate philosophy courses? In recent years, a number of philosophers have begun teaching such practices in academic classrooms, and at my university I have experimented specifically with teaching qigong, taijiquan (i.e., t’ai chi), hatha yoga, and meditation techniques in a variety of courses on East Asian and Indian philosophy. Teaching body practices and meditations poses potential problems about exclusion and advocacy in the classroom: exclusion, in the sense that (...) the practices might improperly marginalize certain students from full participation, and advocacy, in the sense that including these practices in a class might amount to problematic advocacy of a particular substantive set of religious values. This paper explores ways I have addressed these problems through a variety of pragmatic, situation-specific approaches and by encouraging students to have a sense of ownership about the practices and the learning environment itself. (shrink)

What challenges arise when attempting to incorporate body practice and meditation into undergraduate philosophy courses? In recent years, a number of philosophers have begun teaching such practices in academic classrooms, and at my university I have experimented specifically with teaching qigong, taijiquan (i.e., t’ai chi), hatha yoga, and meditation techniques in a variety of courses on East Asian and Indian philosophy. Teaching body practices and meditations poses potential problems about exclusion and advocacy in the classroom: exclusion, in the sense that (...) the practices might improperly marginalize certain students from full participation, and advocacy, in the sense that including these practices in a class might amount to problematic advocacy of a particular substantive set of religious values. This paper explores ways I have addressed these problems through a variety of pragmatic, situation-specific approaches and by encouraging students to have a sense of ownership about the practices and the learning environment itself. (shrink)

Qigong practices are contemplative body practices and meditation techniques that emerge from Chinese philosophical, medical, and martial traditions. This paper argues that qigong is a kind of embod...

Qigong practices are contemplative body practices and meditation techniques that emerge from Chinese philosophical, medical, and martial traditions. This paper argues that qigong is a kind of embod...

This chapter contains sections titled: Buddhist Backgrounds Brewing Up a Self Just a Cup of Coffee – or a Karma Macchiato?

In order to resolve problems about the normative aspects of representation without having to (1) provide a naturalized theory of intentional/semantic properties, (2) accept non-natural intentional/semantic properties into our worldview, or (3) eliminate intentionality, this article questions a basic assumption about the metaphysics of representation: that representation involves representation-objects. An alternative, nonreifying approach to the metaphysics of representation is introduced and developed in detail. The argumentative strategy is as follows. First, an adverbial view of linguistic representation is introduced. Two potential (...) objections are identified and considered. To respond to these objections, relationships between physical form and linguistic/representational form are examined. In the process, two ways of idealizing away from the heterogeneous details of actual language use are introduced: idealization toward homogeneity and idealization toward complete heterogeneity. I argue that an adverbial view of linguistic representation both allows for and requires that we idealize toward complete heterogeneity and that doing so has important implications for (1) our understanding of the relationship between physical form and representational form and (2) property attribution in general. These implications provide further indirect support for the alternative metaphysics of representation developed here. (shrink)

The Nèiyè 內業 talks of “a heart-mind within a heart-mind” that is somehow connected to or prior to language. In the context of the overall advice on looking “inward” or “internally” as part of the meditation and mysticism practice that the Nèiyè introduces, this talk of a heart-mind within a heart-mind arguably invites comparisons with a Cartesian “inner theater” conception of mentality. In this paper, I examine the “inner” talk of the Nèiyè in order to tease out its identifiable commitments (...) in philosophical psychology. I consider the ways in which the “inner” talk of the text might be read as marking out one or more of three different inner/outer distinctions, and I argue that we can consistently read the Nèiyè without seeing it as marking any inner/outer distinction that is related to what is often referred to in English as “inner experience.”. (shrink)

Weinberg's 1972 work, in his description, had two purposes. The first was practical to bring together and assess the wealth of data provided over the previous decade while realizing that newer data would come in even as the book was being printed. He hoped the comprehensive picture would prepare the reader and himself to that new data as it emerged. The second was to produce a textbook about general relativity in which geometric ideas were not given a starring role for (...) (in his words) too great an emphasis on geometry can only obscure the deep connections between gravitation and the rest of physics. (shrink)

This paper presents a way of thinking about how to respond to the pluralism of modern societies that avoids any commitment to contractualist norms of political justification. The argument developed appeals to the notion of a constitutional settlement. Constitutional settlements are complex on-going social practices that both express certain values to which political societies are committed and establish procedures for resolving disputes among members of these societies. As such, they are a product of both moral commitment and the balance of (...) power. The paper shows how constitutional settlements relate to issues of stability and non-subjugation in politics, and explains how they can ground a distinction between justice and legitimacy. (shrink)

In the only two articles on the topic of which I am aware, Chad Carlson and Scott Aikin have leveled three objections against fantasy sports—namely, that participation in fantasy sports elicits...

In this paper, I build on Wittgenstein’s metaphor of a toolbox to introduce the metaphor of ‘tool confusion’ – how differing conceptual constructs may be applied, or misapplied, to one another and the effect that such applications have on the advancement of management theory. Moving beyond metaphor, I investigate a theory of management through two specific philosophical lenses (Popper and Lyotard). This analysis tests both the theory and the philosophies with regard to how each philosophy may be applied as a (...) tool to advance theory towards more effective application. Preliminary conclusions confirm that the application of partial philosophies is not as useful as the application of complete philosophies. Deeper contemplation, however, suggests that there is no upper limit to the completeness of philosophies. Thus, the problem of completeness is inescapable. In place of completeness, I explore the use of perceptual tools that are more specific, foundational and concise. Engaging in a second investigation, I use structures of logic (circular, linear, branching and co-causal) to investigate the subject theory. This investigation suggests at least two important insights relating to the structure of theory and the fuzziness of theory. Combined, these investigations and related conversations suggest rigorous methods for advancing theories and a more normative role for the philosophy of management that will support the accelerated advancement of management theory and practice. (shrink)

Are liberalism and perfectionism compatible? In this study Steven Wall presents and defends a perfectionist account of political morality that takes issue with many currently fashionable liberal ideas but retains the strong liberal commitment to the ideal of personal autonomy. He begins by critically discussing the most influential version of anti-perfectionist liberalism, examining the main arguments that have been offered in its defence. He then clarifies the ideal of personal autonomy, presents an account of its value and shows that (...) a strong commitment to personal autonomy is fully compatible with an endorsement of perfectionist political action designed to promote valuable pursuits and discourage base ones. (shrink)

In a number of publications, Gerald Gaus has presented an ambitious account of political morality that gives the ideal of public justification pride of place. This article critically discusses Gaus’s characterization and defense of the ideal of public justification in politics. It also presents an account and an argument in support of first-person political justification.

While examining the important role of imagination in making moral judgments, John Dewey and Moral Imagination focuses new attention on the relationship between American pragmatism and ethics. Steven Fesmire takes up threads of Dewey's thought that have been largely unexplored and elaborates pragmatism's distinctive contribution to understandings of moral experience, inquiry, and judgment. Building on two Deweyan notions—that moral character, belief, and reasoning are part of a social and historical context and that moral deliberation is an imaginative, dramatic rehearsal (...) of possibilities—Fesmire shows that moral imagination can be conceived as a process of aesthetic perception and artistic creativity. Fesmire's original readings of Dewey shed new light on the imaginative process, human emotional make-up and expression, and the nature of moral judgment. This original book presents a robust and distinctly pragmatic approach to ethics, politics, moral education, and moral conduct. [The downloadable sample is Chapter Seven, "The Moral Artist."]. (shrink)

In ancient times, when persuasion played the role of public force, eloquence was necessary. Of what use would it be today, when public force has replaced persuasion. One needs neither art nor metaphor to say such is my pleasure. Jean Jacques Rousseau.

Robotization is an increasingly pervasive feature of our lives. Robots with high degrees of autonomy may cause harm, yet in sufciently complex systems neither the robots nor the human developers may be candidates for moral blame. John Danaher has recently argued that this may lead to a retribution gap, where the human desire for retribution faces a lack of appropriate subjects for retributive blame. The potential social and moral implications of a retribution gap are considerable. I argue that the retributive (...) intuitions that feed into retribution gaps are best understood as deontological intuitions. I apply a debunking argument for deontological intuitions in order to show that retributive intuitions cannot be used to justify retributive punishment in cases of robot harm without clear candidates for blame. The fundamental moral question thus becomes what we ought to do with these retributive intuitions, given that they do not justify retribution. I draw a parallel from recent work on implicit biases to make a case for taking moral responsibility for retributive intuitions. In the same way that we can exert some form of control over our unwanted implicit biases, we can and should do so for unjustifed retributive intuitions in cases of robot harm. (shrink)

Governments around the world have faced the challenge of how to respond to the recent outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease. Some have reacted by greatly restricting the freedom of citizens, while others have opted for less drastic policies. In this paper, I draw a parallel with vaccination ethics to conceptualize two distinct approaches to COVID-19 that I call altruistic and lockdown. Given that the individual measures necessary to limit the spread of the virus can in principle be achieved voluntarily (...) as well as through enforcement, the question arises of how much freedom governments ought to give citizens to adopt the required measures. I argue that an altruistic approach is preferable on moral grounds: it preserves important citizen freedoms, avoids a number of potential injustices, and gives people a much-needed sense of meaning in precarious times. (shrink)

`Fluid, readable and accessible ... I found the overall quality of the book to be excellent. It provides an overview of major (and preceding) developments in the field of science studies. It examines landmark works, authors, concepts and approaches ... I will certainly use this book as one of the course texts' Eileen Crist, Associate Professor, Science & Technology in Society, Virginia Tech Science is at the heart of contemporary society and is therefore central to the social sciences. Yet science (...) studies has often encountered resistance from social scientists. This book attempts to remedy this by giving the most extensive, thorough and best argued account of the field and explaining to social scientists why science matters to them. This is a landmark book that demystifies science studies and successfully bridges the divide between social theory and the sociology of science. Illustrated with relevant, illuminating examples, it provides the ideal guide to science studies and social theory. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 6, Page 687-698, July 2022.

In an unusual instance of lay participation in biomedical research, U.S. AIDS treatment activists have constituted themselves as credible participants in the process of knowledge construction, thereby bringing about changes in the epistemic practices of biomedical research. This article examines the mechanisms or tactics by which these lay activists have constructed their credibility in the eyes of AIDS researchers and government officials. It considers the inwlications of such interventions for the conduct of medical research; examines some of the ironies, tensions, (...) and limitations in the process; and argues for the importance of studying social movements that engage with expert knowledge. (shrink)

Moralization is a social-psychological process through which morally neutral issues take on moral significance. Often linked to health and disease, moralization may sometimes lead to good outcomes; yet moralization is often detrimental to individuals and to society as a whole. It is therefore important to be able to identify when moralization is inappropriate. In this paper, we offer a systematic normative approach to the evaluation of moralization. We introduce and develop the concept of ‘mismoralization’, which is when moralization is metaethically (...) unjustified. In order to identify mismoralization, we argue that one must engage in metaethical analysis of moralization processes while paying close attention to the relevant facts. We briefly discuss one historical example and two contemporary cases related to COVID-19 that we contend to have been mismoralized in public health. We propose a remedy of de-moralization that begins by identifying mismoralization and that proceeds by neutralizing inapt moral content. De-moralization calls for epistemic and moral humility. It should lead us to pull away from our tendency to moralize—as individuals and as social groups—whenever and wherever moralization is unjustified. (shrink)

An introduction to and critique of the latest trends in critical theory.

This paper articulates and defends a novel hybrid account of well-being. We will call our view a Robust Hybrid. We call it robust because it grants a broad and not subservient role to both objective and subjective values. In this paper we assume, we think plausibly but without argument, that there is a significant objective component to well-being. Here we clarify what it takes for an account of well-being to have a subjective component. Roughly, we argue, it must allow that (...) favoring attitudes that are not warranted by the lights of objective values can ground benefits. Given this understanding, we show that there is an important and unrecognized expansion in the resources available to fully objectivist views: namely that such views can help themselves to the value of warranted love of objective goods. Such a move by the objectivist can help them respond to concerns that, on their view, a person’s well-being can be too alien to them. We next argue that, nonetheless, such objectivist views are still unconvincing due to their lack of a subjective component. This motivates a move from fully objective accounts to hybrid accounts. We show that many prominent hybrid theories in the literature are inadequate because they implausibly minimize the subjective component. This motivates a move to a robust hybrid view that has an expanded subjectivist component. We conclude with some remarks about the interrelation between the subjective and objective components in the hybrid account that we favor and a role for resonance in a theory of well-being other than serving as a hard constraint on any benefit. (shrink)

Editors provide a substantive introduction to the history and theories of perfectionism and neutrality, expertly contextualizing the essays and making the collection accessible.

The distinction between presentism and eternalism is usually sought in some formula like ‘Only presently existing things exist’ or ‘Past, present, and future events are equally real’. I argue that ambiguities in the copula prevent these slogans from distinguishing significant opposed positions. I suggest in addition that one can find a series of significant distinctions if one takes spacetime structure into account. These presentisms and eternalisms are not contradictory. They are complementary elements of a complete naturalistic philosophy of time.

:The ideal of public justification holds, at a minimum, that the most fundamental political and legal institutions of a society must be publicly justified to each of its members. This essay proposes and defends a new account of this ideal. The account defended construes public justification as an ideal of rational justification, one that is grounded in the moral requirement to respect the rational agency of persons. The essay distinguishes two kinds of justifying reasons that bear on politics and shows (...) how they inform the ideal of public justification. It also decouples public justification from contractualist political morality. The result is a novel account of public justification that departs markedly from how the ideal is commonly characterized, but shows how it retains its distinctiveness as an ideal of politics. 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 PURE THEORY OF PUBLIC JUSTIFICATIONVolume 32, Issue 2Steven Wall DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000170Your 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 PURE THEORY OF PUBLIC JUSTIFICATIONVolume 32, Issue 2Steven Wall DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000170Available 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 PURE THEORY OF PUBLIC JUSTIFICATIONVolume 32, Issue 2Steven Wall DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000170Available 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)

Preventive vaccination can protect not just vaccinated individuals, but also others, which is often a central point in discussions about vaccination. To date, there has been no systematic study of self- and other-directed motives behind vaccination. This article has two major goals: first, to examine and distinguish between self- and other-directed motives behind vaccination, especially with regard to vaccinating for the sake of third parties, and second, to explore some ways in which this approach can help to clarify and guide (...) vaccination debates and policy. I propose conceiving of vaccination in terms of three basic elements: the vaccination decision-maker, the vaccine recipient and the primary beneficiary. I develop a taxonomy based on the relations between these elements to distinguish four kinds of vaccination: self-protective, paternalistic, altruistic and indirect. I finally discuss the case of human papillomavirus vaccine regulation for men and women to show how each kind of vaccination is associated with and raises specific ethical questions. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy is a relatively recent discipline that employs experimental methods to investigate the intuitions, concepts, and assumptions behind traditional philosophical arguments, problems, and theories. While experimental philosophy initially served to interrogate the role that intuitions play in philosophy, it has since branched out to bring empirical methods to bear on problems within a variety of traditional areas of philosophy—including metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. To date, no connection has been made between developments in experimental philosophy (...) and philosophy of technology. In this paper, I develop and defend a research program for an experimental philosophy of technology. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the field of metatheory with two goals. My first goal is to present a clear understanding of what metatheory “is” based on a collection of over twenty definitions of the term. My second goal is to present a preliminary investigation into how metatheory might be understood as a science. From that perspective, I present some strengths and weaknesses of our field and suggest steps to make metatheory more rigorous, more scientific, and so make more of (...) a contribution to the larger community of the social sciences. (shrink)

Among the many peculiarities of schizophrenics perhaps the most obvious is their tendency to say odd things. Indeed, for most clinicians, the hallmark of schizophrenia is “thought disorder”. Decades of clinical observations, experimental research, and linguistic analyses have produced many hypotheses about what, precisely, is wrong with schizophrenic speech and language. These hypotheses range from assertions that schizophrenics have peculiar word association hierarchies to the notion that schizophrenics are suffering from an intermittent form of aphasia. In this article, several popular (...) hypotheses are critically assessed. Work in the area turns out to be flawed by errors in experimental method, faulty observations, tautological reasoning, and theoretical models that ignore the complexities of both speech and language. This does not mean that schizophrenics are indistinguishable from nonschizophrenics. They are clearly deviant in many situations. Their problem, however, appears to be in processing information and in selective attention, not in language itself. (shrink)

Many writers claim that democratic government rests on a principled commitment to the ideal of political equality. The ideal of political equality holds that political institutions ought to be arranged so that they distribute political standing equally to all citizens. I reject this common view. I argue that the ideal of political equality, under its most plausible characterizations, lacks independent justificatory force. By casting doubt on the ideal of political equality, I provide indirect support for the claim that democratic government (...) is only instrumentally justified. (shrink)

The potential for vaccines to prevent the spread of infectious diseases is crucial for vaccination policy and ethics. In this paper, I discuss recent evidence that the current COVID-19 vaccines have only a modest and short-lived effect on reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission and argue that this has at least four important ethical implications. First, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 should be seen primarily as a self-protective choice for individuals. Second, moral condemnation of unvaccinated people for causing direct harm to others is unjustified. (...) Third, the case for a harm-based moral obligation to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is weak. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, coercive COVID-19 vaccination policies (e.g., measures that exclude unvaccinated people from society) cannot be directly justified by the harm principle. (shrink)