I defend an account of when and why anger is morally virtuous or vicious. Anger often manifests what we care about; a sports fan gets angry when her favorite team loses because she cares about the team doing well. Anger, I argue, is made morally virtuous or vicious by the underlying care or concern. Anger is virtuous when it manifests moral concern and vicious when it manifests moral indifference or ill will. In defending this view, I reject two common views (...) about anger and moral character. First, I respond to several arguments that attempt to show that all anger is vicious. Then I respond to the view that some anger is required to be a virtuous person. Anger, on my view, can be morally virtuous but is not a necessary condition for being a virtuous person. This best accommodates not only morally irrelevant failures to get angry but also allows for emotional variation among virtuous people. (shrink)

Propositional attitude sentences, such as (1) Pierre believes that snow is white, have proved to be formidably difficult to account for in a semantic theory. It is generally agreed that the that-clause ‘that snow is white’ purports to refer to the proposition that snow is white, but no agreement has been reached on what this proposition is. Sententialism is a semantic theory which tries to undermine the very enterprise of understanding what proposition is referred to in (1): according to sententialists, (...) in (1) reference is made to the sentence “Snow is white”. Sententialism is generally considered doomed. The two main reasons why are the famous translation argument, firstly suggested by Alonzo Church, and a problem raised by Stephen Schiffer. The purpose of this paper is to provide a unified solution to both criticisms. What I take to be the key ingredient sententialists may exploit is an observation that concerns the nature of languages and quotations: since quotation marks display the quoted material, if you are a speaker of the language the quoted material belongs to, you usually cannot but understand what is quoted. Moreover, I show that sententialists may appeal to that very observation also in order to answer another problem, pointed out by Kent Bach. I conclude that there are good reasons for resisting the temptation of introducing propositions in order to account for propositional attitude sentences. (shrink)

In today’s pluralistic society, clinical ethics consultation cannot count on a pre-given set of rules and principles to be applied to a specific situation, because such an approach would deny the existence of different and divergent backgrounds by imposing a dogmatic and transcultural morality. Clinical ethics support (CES) needs to overcome this lack of foundations and conjugate the respect for the difference at stake with the necessity to find shared and workable solutions for ethical issues encountered in clinical practice. We (...) argue that a pragmatist approach to CES, based on the philosophical theories of William James, John Dewey, and Charles Sanders Peirce, can help to achieve the goal of reaching practical solutions for moral problems in the context of today’s clinical environment, characterized by ethical pluralism. In this article, we outline a pragmatist theoretical framework for CES. Furthermore, we will show that moral case deliberation, making use of the dilemma method, can be regarded an example of a pragmatist approach to CES. (shrink)

A translation and analysis of a short ethical treatise written in Tibet in the late 18th or early 19th century. The Khache Phalu includes references to both Buddhist and Islamic thought in providing ethical and spiritual advice. The analysis gives an overview of the secondary literature in both Tibetan and English that is accessible to non-specialists and defends the claim that many passages are deliberately ambiguous. The translation was done with Tenzin Norbu Nangsal and also includes the full Tibetan text.

Teaching responsible conduct of research (RCR) to PhD students is crucial for fostering responsible research practice. In this paper, we show how the use of Moral Case Deliberation—a case reflection method used in the Amsterdam UMC RCR PhD course—is particularity valuable to address three goals of RCR education: (1) making students aware of, and internalize, RCR principles and values, (2) supporting reflection on good conduct in personal daily practice, and (3) developing students’ dialogical attitude and skills so that they can (...) deliberate on RCR issues when they arise. What makes this method relevant for RCR education is the focus on values and personal motivations, the structured reflection on real experiences and dilemmas and the cultivation of participants’ dialogical skills. During these structured conversations, students reflect on the personal motives that drive them to adhere to the principles of good science, thereby building connections between those principles and their personal values and motives. Moreover, by exploring personal questions and dilemmas related to RCR, they learn how to address these with colleagues and supervisors. The reflection on personal experiences with RCR issues and questions combined with the study of relevant normative frameworks, support students to act responsibly and to pursue RCR in their day-to-day research practice in spite of difficulties and external constraints. (shrink)

In this paper, we outline and defend a view on which in olfactory experience we can, and often do, smell ordinary things of various kinds—for instance, cookies, coffee, and cake burnings—and the olfactory properties they have. A challenge to this view are cases of smelling in the absence of the source of a smell, such as when a fishy smell lingers after the fish is gone. Such cases, many philosophers argue, show that what we perceive in olfactory experience are odour (...) objects, and not ordinary things. On behalf of our opponent, we articulate a screening-off argument based on cases of lingering smells for the thesis that we do not smell ordinary things. We then develop an alternative account of these cases that is consistent with our view. In doing so, we call into question two claims that are typically built into the notion of an odour object. (shrink)

Ce livre met le doigt sur l'un des paradoxes les plus profonds parce que les plus anciens de la culture occidentale : dans un même mouvement, les femmes se trouvent exclues de la rationalité, et l'âme n'est pensée qu'à l'aide de métaphores féminines. Cette lecture des textes classiques est un voyage au coeur de la culture occidentale où s'enracine un questionnement de la différence des sexes.

What does it mean to be a morally good person? It can be tempting to think that it is simply a matter of performing certain actions and avoiding others. And yet there is much more to moral character than our outward actions. We expect a good person to not only behave in certain ways but also to experience the world in certain ways within.

What are conspiracy theories? And what, if anything, is epistemically wrong with them? I offer an account on which conspiracy theories are a unique way of holding a belief in a conspiracy. Specifically, I take conspiracy theories to be self-insulating beliefs in conspiracies. On this view, conspiracy theorists have their conspiratorial beliefs in a way that is immune to revision by counter-evidence. I argue that conspiracy theories are always irrational. Although conspiracy theories involve an expectation to encounter some seemingly disconfirming (...) evidence (allegedly planted by the conspirators), resistance to all counter- evidence cannot be justified on these grounds. (shrink)

The contemporary discussion of modesty has focused on whether or not modest people are accurate about their own good qualities. This essay argues that this way of framing the debate is unhelpful and offers examples to show that neither ignorance nor accuracy about the good qualities related to oneself is necessary for modesty. It then offers an attention-based account, claiming that what is necessary for modesty is to direct one’s attention in certain ways. By analyzing modesty in this way, we (...) can best explain the distinct features of modesty, keep much of what is intuitive in contemporary accounts, and better understand why modesty is a virtue at all. (shrink)

A standing presumption in the literature is that devil’s advocacy is an inherently beneficial argumentative move; and that those who take on this role in conversation are paradigms of argumentative virtue. Outside academic circles, however, devil’s advocacy has acquired something of a notorious reputation: real-world conversations are rife with self-proclaimed devil’s advocates who are anything but virtuous. Motivated by this observation, in this paper we offer the first in-depth exploration of non-ideal devil’s advocacy. We draw on recent analyses of two (...) better known discursive practices—mansplaining and trolling—to illuminate some of the signature traits of vicious devil’s advocacy. Building on this comparative examination, we show that all three practices trade on a manipulation of illocutionary force; and we evaluate their respective options for securing plausible deniability. (shrink)

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic globally disrupted lives and contributed to the exacerbation of pre-existing inequalities. Women in research were also affected. The prominent role that women played in professional and personal care duties had a detrimental effect on their research outputs, potentially hindering their career progression. Moreover, the challenges faced by women academics during the pandemic, including job loss, increased mental health issues, and the intersection of gender with other socio-demographic traits exacerbated existing gender disparities within academia. By systematically (...) scoping the qualitative literature on the experiences of women researchers during the pandemic, this study sought to explore how women experienced and reacted to the challenges generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative meta synthesis of the included studies revealed three themes: gendered professional expectations, colliding identities and coping strategies. These themes show how gendered roles such as teaching and professional care work, associated with the hierarchical and gendered division of tasks both at home and in the workplace, made women feel unsupported and alienated as relevant agents in the academic context. The study reveals the importance of pastoral care, teaching and service work as the essential backbone of the academic infrastructure, especially in times of crises. It also exposes how productivity-focused researcher assessment criteria, rewarding mainly individual results and unrewarding of care and service work, can be viewed as perpetuating structural inequalities based on gender, parenting situations, contractual situations and background. In conclusion, this study exposes the need to proactively address the gendered practices and implicit biases which reproduce inequalities within academia and highlights how paying attention to the experiences and needs of women researchers is essential for improving the resilience and crises preparedness of academic the system. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to propose the notion of “affective artifact”, building on an analogy with theories of cognitive artifacts and referring to the development of a situated affective science. Affective artifacts are tentatively defined as objects that have the capacity to alter the affective condition of an agent, and that in some cases play an important role in defining that agent’s self. The notion of affective artifacts will be presented by means of examples supported by empirical findings, (...) by discussing a tentative definition and classification, and by considering several related but differing notions. Within the framework of situated affectivity, the notion of affective artifacts will represent a further step in the enterprise of understanding how the environment helps us scaffold our affective processes. I will conclude that affective artifacts play a key role in the philosophy of cognitive science, the philosophy of technology and in the debate about the self. (shrink)

Many of us, even on our happiest days, struggle to quiet the constant buzz of anxiety in the background of our minds. All kinds of worries--worries about losing people and things, worries about how we seem to others--keep us from peace of mind. Distracted or misled by our preoccupations, misconceptions, and, most of all, our obsession with ourselves, we don't see the world clearly--we don't see the world as it really is. In our search for happiness and the good life, (...) this is the main problem. But luckily there is a solution, and on the path to understanding it, we can make use of the rich and varied teachings that have developed over centuries of Buddhist thought. With clarity and compassion, Nicolas Bommarito explores the central elements of centuries of Buddhist philosophy and practice, explaining how they can improve your life and teach you to live without fear. Mining important texts and lessons for practical guidance, he provides a friendly guide to the very practical goals that underpin Buddhist philosophy. After laying out the basic ideas, Bommarito walks readers through a wide range of techniques and practices we can adopt to mend ingrained habits. Rare for its exploration of both the philosophy that motivates Buddhism and its practical applications, this is a compassionate guide to leading a good life that anyone can follow. (shrink)

This article discusses conceptions of modesty and humility and their key features. It gives a brief historical overview of debates about whether or not they’re really virtues at all. It also discusses theories of modesty and humility that root them in the presence or absence of particular beliefs, emotions, desires, and attention. it also discusses related phenomena in epistemology: rational limits on self-ascription of error, attitudes to disagreement, and openness to alternative views.

Nel Corpus Galenicum sono molte le citazioni del nome di Dioscoride e della sua opera, il De materia medica, talvolta con minime differenze nel contenuto o con commenti eruditi di Galeno. Oltre a queste riprese più esplicite, ci sono anche alcuni passaggi degli scritti galenici che potrebbero avere come fonte il De materia medica. Questo anche sulla base di alcuni n-grams che ricorrono in entrambi gli autori, l’uno source text e l’altro target text. Esaminando le citazioni più o meno esplicite (...) dell’opera dioscoridea in Galeno, questo contributo si propone di mostrare l’influenza de il buono accoglitor del quale negli scritti del medico di Pergamo e il suo rapporto con il modello dioscorideo. (shrink)

The picture of moral development defended by followers of Aristotle takes moral cultivation to be like playing a harp; one gets to be good by actually spending time playing a real instrument. On this view, we cultivate a virtue by doing the actions associated with that virtue. I argue that this picture is inadequate and must be supplemented by imaginative techniques. One can, and sometimes must, cultivate virtue without actually performing the associated actions. Drawing on strands in Buddhist philosophy, I (...) explain several methods of moral development that rely on imagination and visualization rather than overt action. These techniques are essential in cases where cultivating virtue the way one practices the harp is impossible. In particular, I focus on single-event virtues, first-time virtuous acts, and morally dangerous situations. (shrink)

The conception of responsibility for beliefs typically assumed in the literature mirrors the practices ofaccountabilityfor actions. In this paper, I argue that this trend leaves a part of what it is to be responsible unduly neglected, namely the practices ofattributability.After offering a diagnosis for this neglect, I bring these practices into focus and develop a virtue-theoretic framework to vindicate them. I then investigate the specificity of the belief case and conclude by resisting two challenges, namely that attributability cannot amount to (...) genuine responsibility and that it can be reduced to a sort of accountability. (shrink)

The lexical–semantic organization of the mental lexicon is bound to change across the lifespan. Nevertheless, the effects of lexical–semantic factors on word processing are usually based on studies enrolling young adult cohorts. The current study aims to investigate to what extent age‐specific semantic organization predicts performance in referential word production over the lifespan, from school‐age children to older adults. In Study 1, we conducted a free semantic association task with participants from six age‐groups (ranging from 10 to 80 years old) (...) to compute measures that capture age‐specific properties of the mental lexicon across the lifespan. These measures relate to lifespan changes in the Available Richness of the mental lexicon and in the lexical–semantic Network Prototypicality of concrete words. In Study 2, we used the collected data to predict performance in a picture‐naming task on a new group of participants within the same age‐groups as for Study 1. The results show that age‐specific semantic Available Richness and Network Prototypicality affect word production speed while the semantic variables collected only in young adults do not. A richer and more prototypical semantic network across subjects from a given age‐group is associated with faster word production speed. The current results indicate that age‐specific semantic organization is crucial to predict lexical–semantic behaviors across the lifespan. Similarly, these results also provide cues to the understanding of the lexical–semantic properties of the mental lexicon and to lexical selection in referential tasks. (shrink)

A natural way to think of epistemic virtue is by analogy with an archer. Just as a skilled archer is able to take aim and hit a target, a skilled epistemic agent will aim at truth and, if things go well, get things right. Here we highlight aspects of epistemic virtue that do not fit this model, particularly ways in which epistemic virtues can be non-voluntary and not goal-directed. In doing so, we draw on two important figures in the history (...) of philosophy: the 6th-century Indian Buddhist Buddhaghosa and the 20th-century French philosopher Simone Weil. Despite many differences, both thinkers emphasize the importance of attention in moral and epistemic virtue. Their work highlights ways in which attention that is neither voluntary nor goal-directed can nevertheless play an important role in moral and epistemic life. (shrink)

This article examines the role played by ‘feeling’ (Gefühl) and ‘love’ within the philosophy of German Romanticism. After an introduction (I) to the actual debate on German Romanticism, paragraph II sketches an analysis of the concept of Gefühl at the end of the eighteenth century and highlights the differences with its actual meaning. The successive three sections are dedicated to three pivotal figures of German Romanticism: F. Schlegel (III), Novalis (IV), and Baader (V). Similarities and differences between these authors will (...) be emphasized. It will be demonstrated that they deny the reason˗feeling opposition, and that ‘feeling’ and ‘love’ are at the heart of their ontology, epistemology, and conception of subjectivity, conditioning the Romantic human-nature relationship and Romantic political philosophy. In the concluding remarks (VI), this paper explains how German Romanticism can still help to better understand the role of feelings in politics. (shrink)

According to the extended cognition thesis, an agent’s cognitive system can sometimes include extracerebral components amongst its physical constituents. Here, we show that such a view of cognition has an unjustifiably anthropocentric focus, for it tends to depict cognitive extensions as a human-only affair. In contrast, we will argue that if human cognition extends, then the cognition of many non-human animals extends too, for many non-human animals rely on the same cognition-extending strategies humans rely on. To substantiate this claim, we (...) will proceed as follows. First (Sect. 1), we will introduce the extended cognition thesis, exposing its anthropocentric bias. Then, we will show that humans and many non-human animals rely on the same cognition-extending strategies. To do so, we will discuss a variety of case studies, including “intrabodily” cognitive extensions such as the spinal cord (Sect. 2), the widespread reliance on epistemic actions to solve cognitive tasks (Sect. 3) and cases of animal cognitive offloading (Sect. 4). We’ll then allay some worries our claim might raise (Sect. 5) to then conclude the paper (Sect. 6). (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that in the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle proposes a strong version of the unity of the virtues. Evidence in favor of this strong version of the unity of the virtues results from reading the common books within the EE rather than as part of the Nicomachean Ethics. The unity of the virtues as defended in the EE includes not only practical wisdom and the character virtues, but also all the virtues of practical and theoretical thinking. Closely (...) related, in the EE, Aristotle proposes a different best agent from the one of the NE. The best agent of the EE is the kalos kagathos. The person who is kalos kagathos has “all” the virtues. Kalokagathia is a whole and the virtues are its parts. I investigate how we should understand this whole and the relation between the individual virtues within this whole. (shrink)

The asymptotic safety program strives for a consistent description of gravity as a non-perturbatively renormalizable quantum field theory. In this framework the gravitational interactions are encoded in a renormalization group flow connecting the quantum gravity regime at trans-Planckian scales to observable low-energy physics. Our proceedings reviews the key elements underlying the predictive power of the construction and summarizes the state-of-the-art in determining its free parameters. The explicit construction of a realistic renormalization group trajectory describing our world shows that the flow (...) possesses two characteristic scales. The Planck scale where Newton’s coupling G becomes constant is generated dynamically. The freeze-out of the cosmological constant \ occurs at a terrestrial scale fixed by the observed value of the dimensionless product \. We also review the perspectives of determining the free parameters of the theory through cosmologicalobservations. (shrink)

It’s natural to think of acts of solidarity as being public acts that aim at good outcomes, particularly at social change. I argue that not all acts of solidarity fit this mold - acts of what I call ‘private solidarity’ are not public and do not aim at producing social change. After describing paradigmatic cases of private solidarity, I defend an account of why such acts are themselves morally virtuous and what role they can have in moral development.

For a long time, the accepted explanatory model of language acquisition was the so-called Principles and Parameters framework (P&P). P&P seemingly provides an elegant answer to the central puzzle of generative linguistics: How do children acquire their native language given the limited time and input resources available to them? Yet P&P tells a story that is evolutionarily implausible, and for this reason it has since been abandoned. I argue that this is an unwarranted move, and that it could and should (...) be avoided by reassessing the epistemic status of P&P. In particular, I argue that contrary to extant accounts, P&P ought to be retrospectively construed as a highly idealized (toy) model of language acquisition. The proposed reinterpretation is vindicated, I argue, insofar as it paves the way for a reconciliation of the two central explanatory challenges of modern generative linguistics. (shrink)

Many take the lesson of the paradoxes to be that we ought to impose some form of logical revision. It is argued here that this kind of move should not be taken lightly.

I argue that self-ascribed anti-expertise, taking our own beliefs to be false, is not always irrational.

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and exact form (...) of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

Einstein’s razor, a corollary of Ockham’s razor, is often paraphrased as follows: make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. This rule of thumb describes the challenge that designers of a legal system face—to craft simple laws that produce desired ends, but not to pursue simplicity so far as to undermine those ends. Complexity, simplicity’s inverse, taxes cognition and increases the likelihood of suboptimal decisions. In addition, unnecessary legal complexity can drive a misallocation of human capital toward comprehending and (...) complying with legal rules and away from other productive ends. While many scholars have offered descriptive accounts or theoretical models of legal complexity, most empirical research to date has been limited to simple measures of size, such as the number of pages in a bill. No extant research rigorously applies a meaningful model to real data. As a consequence, we have no reliable means to determine whether a new bill, regulation, order, or precedent substantially effects legal complexity. In this paper, we begin to address this need by developing a proposed empirical framework for measuring relative legal complexity. This framework is based on “knowledge acquisition”, an approach at the intersection of psychology and computer science, which can take into account the structure, language, and interdependence of law. We then demonstrate the descriptive value of this framework by applying it to the U.S. Code’s Titles, scoring and ranking them by their relative complexity. We measure various features of a title including its structural size, the net flow of its intra-title citations and its linguistic entropy. Our framework is flexible, intuitive, and transparent, and we offer this approach as a first step in developing a practical methodology for assessing legal complexity. (shrink)

This article highlights the importance of new research on women philosophers and addresses some methodological issues to be taken in consideration. The thesis presented here is that through this new line of research it is possible to analyse the close connection between philosophy, politics and institutions. The paper opens with a critique of the assumption that philosophy has until recently been the exclusive property of men, giving the example of some forgotten women philosophers who lived in Hegel's time. After considering (...) the risk of ghettoization inherent in Women's Studies, the author closes by showing how the reconsideration of women philosophers can help to question the methodology and the status of philosophy in general, and in particular to question the philosophical canon. The text serves as an introduction to a special issue of the Hegel Bulletin dedicated to women philosophers in Hegel's time. (shrink)

As the label suggests, according to _propositionalism_, each intentional mental state, attitude or event is or involves a relation to a proposition. In this paper, I will discuss a case that seems prima facie not to be accountable for by propositionalism. After having presented the case, I will show why it is different from others that have been discussed in the literature as able to show that propositionalism cannot be correct. I will then consider what the propositionalist can say to (...) fix the problem and I will show that no strategy that is genuinely propositionalist seems promising. I will not conclude that propositionalism is doomed. But I will show that if propositionalism can account for our case at all, it can only do so by losing its main appeal, i.e. its elegance and simplicity. But then propositionalism seems to have lost its advantage with respect to its obvious alternative, i.e. a pluralist account according to which mental states, attitudes and events are not all homogeneously relations to propositions, but rather our mental life should be accounted for in terms of a plurality of kinds of relata. (shrink)

According to Smell Objectivism, the smells we perceive in olfactory experience are objective and independent of perceivers, their experiences, and their perceptual systems. Variations in how things smell to different perceivers or in different contexts raise a challenge to this view. In this paper, I offer an objectivist account of non-illusory contextual variation: cases where the same thing smells different in different contexts of perception and there is no good reason to appeal to misperception. My central example is that of (...) dihydromyrcenol, a substance that can smell both woody and citrusy depending on what other odourants one has recently been exposed to. I first argue that the subjects’ apparently conflicting reports about the way dihydromyrcenol smells are best understood as comparative characterisations of a smell. Given this understanding, different reports can be correctly made in response to perceiving the very same smell. I then argue that the phenomenal difference between the experiences subjects have across contexts can be explained compatibly with Smell Objectivism. On the account proposed, subjects perceive the very same smell but different qualities, notes, or aspects of it are salient to them, depending on the context of perception. I then consider how the proposed defence of Smell Objectivism can be adapted to other cases where the same thing is reported as smelling different in different contexts. (shrink)