My purpose in this article is to raise the problem of meaning in sport. The problem has two aspects. One is whether sport has any meaning in itself. The other is about how sport can be a part of a...

According to a view defended by Hubert Dreyfus and others, elite athletes are totally absorbed while they are performing, and they act non-deliberately without any representational or conceptual thinking. By using both conceptual clarification and phenomenological description the article criticizes this view and maintains that various forms of conscious thinking and acting plays an important role before, during and after competitive events. The article describes in phenomenological detail how elite athletes use consciousness in their actions in sport; as planning, attention, (...) thinking, decision, and monitoring of performance. Elite athletes do not act as zombies. It is concluded that qualia and phenomenal consciousness are important phenomena in elite sport. (shrink)

In the Concept of Mind from 1949 Gilbert Ryle distinguished between knowing how and knowing that. What was Ryle’s basic idea and how is the discussion going on in philosophy today? How can sport philosophy use the idea of knowing how? My goal in this paper is first to bring Ryle and the post-Rylean discussion to light and then show how phenomenology can give some input to the discussion. The article focuses especially on the two main interpretations of knowing how, (...) intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. In the second part of the article I discuss how views from phenomenology and philosophy of mind can enrich and widen our understanding of what knowing how means in relation to sport practices. It is argued that knowing how is not limited to athletic abilities but includes knowledge of how the environing world operates in relation to athletic action. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present a phenomenological description of how athletes in specific risk sports explore human interaction with natural elements. Skydivers play with, and surf on, the encountering air while falling towards the ground. Kayakers play on the waves and with the stoppers and currents in the rivers. Climbers are ballerinas of the vertical, using cracks and holds in the cliffs to pull upwards against gravity forces. The theoretical background for the description is found in the (...) phenomenology of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. The phenomenology of Husserl focused on the theoretical intentionality of the transcendental ego. With Heidegger the human being's concrete and practical interaction with the environing world moved to the foreground. Heidegger's analyses of ?equipmentality? also throw important light on equipmentality in sports and how we deal with tools and equipment in sports. However, in Heidegger's analyses the body resides in the background both as subject and object. The importance of the active body-subject is well documented in the work of Merleau-Ponty, and also Todes. The human being is a bodily ?being-in-the-world? and the body is the active medium through which the world is grasped. The body is however also situated and aligned with the fundamental dimensions of the world, with vertical gravity and with horizontal action space. In this article I show in a concrete way how in some sports we use fundamental characteristics of the environing world in a mode of playfulness. In these sports human beings play in an extreme way with fundamental elements of nature. The article thus puts phenomenology to a test. It should be able to move from general characteristics to specific features of our bodily human involvement with the environing world. (shrink)

Bodily movement has become an interesting topic in recent philosophy, both in analytic and phenomenological versions. Philosophy from Descartes to Kant defined the human being as a mental subject in a material body. This mechanistic attitude toward the body still lingers on in many studies of motor learning and control. The article shows how alternative philosophical views can give a better understanding of bodily movement. The article starts with Heidegger's contribution to overcoming the subject-object dichotomy and his new understanding of (...) the primacy of the practical involvement with the surrounding world. Heidegger, however, in many ways neglected the role of the human body. Merleau-Ponty took a huge step forward when he focused on the bodily intentionality of our interaction with the world. The next step was taken by Samuel Todes who presented a better understanding of how we are bodily oriented in space. After having seen how the body is oriented outward towards the environment it is proper that the final part of this article goes inward toward the role of bodily awareness and the role of proprioception in human movement. The goal of the presentation is to contribute to a better understanding of what goes on in sport. The article therefore uses examples from sport, especially football, to show the relevance of the new insights for sport studies. (shrink)

My perspective in this paper is to look at sport and other physical activities as a way of exploring and experimenting with the environing world. The human being is basically the homo movens – born...

ABSTRACTSince the 1960s environmental problems have increasingly been on the agenda in Western countries. Global warming and climate change have increased concerns among scientists, politicians and the general population. While both elite sport and mass sport are part of the consumer culture that leads to ecological problems, sport philosophers, with few exceptions, have not discussed what an ecologically acceptable sport would look like. My goal in this article is to present a radical model of ecological sport based on Arne Naess’s (...) version of deep ecology called ecosophyT. After outlining the Naessian ecocentric view of biospheric egalitarianism I present the consequences for sport and physical activities. I also give examples from Arne Naess’s own practice of sport which was guided by the principle ‘Richness in ends, simplicity in means!’ I discuss whether Naessian deep ecological sport is what we will all end up with after the ecocatastrophe or whether it can be an inspiring ideal for many of us right now. (shrink)

Actions in sport are intentional in character. They are directed at and are about something. This understanding of intentional action is common in continental as well as analytic philosophy. In sport philosophy, intentionality has received relatively little attention, but has more recently come on the agenda. In addition to what we can call ‘action intentionality,’ studied by philosophers like Searle, the phenomenological approach forwarded by Merleau-Ponty has opened up for a concept of ‘motor intentionality,’ which means a basic bodily attention (...) and relatedness to the surrounding world. This conception is very relevant for the study of bodily actions as we find them in sports. However, there may be even deeper layers. The identification of mirror neurons in the brain has opened up for a type of almost ‘muscular intentionality’ whereby a simple bodily movement like grasping a cup to drink seems to be intentionally controlled and orchestrated. My goal in this paper is to discuss the relation between different levels of intentionality, such as a) ‘action intentionality’ operating at a conscious cognitive level, as for instance, when a player shoots a goal in football, b) the ‘motor intentionality’ directing the bodily movements when kicking the ball, and c) the muscular ‘mirror neuron intentionality’ of the goal keeper which is in operation when the keeper is seeing how the kicker’s foot hits the ball. How are these different layers of intentionality related and how can they give a more nuanced and integrated picture of the body–mind in action in sports? (shrink)

ABSTRACTMy goal in this article is to give a portrait of how modern sport philosophy, which started in 1972, developed from relatively narrow paradigmatic borders to become a diverse and multi-para...

Ethical theories in sport philosophy tend to focus on interpersonal relations. Little has been said about sport as part of the good life and as experienced from within. This article tries to remedy this by discussing a theory that is fitting for sport, especially elite sport. The idea of perfection has a long tradition in Western philosophy. Aristotle maintains that the good life consists in developing specific human faculties to their fullest. The article discusses Hurka's recent version of Aristotelian perfectionism (...) and relates it to various aspects of, and the good life in, sport. How much time should be spent on sport in relation to other activities, how much should one concentrate on one sport to reach one's best and how should one's efforts be spent over a season? Well-roundedness and concentration are central alternatives for theories of perfection. Similarly some activities are simple whereas other are complex and thIs poses problems for persons that want to maximise their achievements. Whereas Hurka thinks one has obligations to perfect oneself, the author of this article thinks perfection is an attractive choice but no obligation. (shrink)

Skill is obviously a central part of sports and should therefore be central in sport philosophic studies. My aim in this paper is to try to place skill in a wider context and thus give skill the place it deserves. I will do this by taking up four points. I first try to place the concept of skill in relation to concepts like ability and know how. I argue that ability is something one has as part of a natural endowment, (...) but skill is something one must acquire. ‘Knowing how’ seems to a greater extent to demand a cognitive grasp and is thus more than a skill. My second point is about development of skills toward expertise and the role of thinking and consciousness. When one is exercising a skill does one need to be conscious of what one is doing or can one act like a zombie and perform non-consciously? I argue that expertise demands know how and conscious thinking. My third point is about the role of skills in sport competitions. What we measure in sports are different sporting skills as they are disp... (shrink)

The article looks at sport as a form of human action where the participants display various forms of Intentionality. Intentionality may be defined as ‘that property of many mental states and events by which they are directed at or about or of objects and states of affairs in the world.’ Sporting actions are about human intentions, beliefs, desires, perceptions and not to forget, movements. This means that sports typically display what we call ‘Intentionality.’ The study of Intentionality and intentional actions (...) has previously received relatively little attention among sport philosophers, but deserves more attention. Even though there is a tension and several differences between continental and analytical approaches to philosophical problems, there is a common understanding of the phenomenon we call ‘Intentionality.’ The debate between John Searle, representing the analytical camp, and Hubert Dreyfus, representing the phenomenological camp, is instructive to see the differences, and also the commonalities between the two approaches. The article starts with a clarification of the concept of Intentionality and sketches some of the history and background of the concept. It then presents the main conceptual framework that Searle uses to distinguish the different types and forms of Intentionality and his views on sporting actions. This is followed by a presentation of the phenomenological approach of Dreyfus and the response by Searle. The article ends by discussing the possibility of a combined and enriched view where a clarification of the logic as well as the phenomenology of sporting actions is needed. It may thus be possible to bridge the gap between the two approaches. (shrink)

In this article, I will examine the role of risk in the risky nature sports. Risky nature sports are identified as nature sports where participants may reckon with the possibility of severe injury or death if things go wrong. The first part of the article identifies some evolutionary, historical, and conceptual characteristics of nature sports and risk. In the second part of the article, I discuss the concept of risk and its meaning in risky nature sports. Additionally, I address questions (...) concerning the moral tone and context of risk-taking. In most academic disciplines, risk is typically understood as something negative that should always be avoided. But risk also includes positive possibilities, which may, such as in risk sports, outweigh the negative or can even be inherently positive and a value in itself. In the third part, I discuss how important risk is in nature sports. Is it a defining core or more peripheral? This leads to the question of the value. Does the risk element add to the value of the sport? I finally discuss how risk sports can be meaningful parts of the participants’ lives. (shrink)

The increasing global warming and the loss of biodiversity should concern us all. Some feel that outdoor activities, which take place in natural surroundings, should have a special obligation to ch...

Artikkelen tar utgangspunkt i den norske idrettsmodellen der topp og bredde hører sammen, og der toppidrettsutøvere uvegerlig blir rollemodeller for barn og unge. Den moderne toppidretten er i økende grad preget av egoistiske holdninger der det dreier seg hele tiden om å skaffe seg fordeler. I denne artikkelen tar jeg opp egoisme, rettferdighet og sjenerøsitet som tre grunnleggende holdninger i idrettskonkurranser og drøfter hvorvidt man med inspirasjon fra sjenerøsitetsidealer og praktiske eksempler kan tenke seg en toppidrett som i større grad (...) bygger på sjenerøsitet. Artikkelen starter med en kort presentasjon av den norske idrettsmodellen og jeg skisserer deretter tre kriterier som alle idrettskonkurranser må oppfylle: 1) spille for å vinne, 2) klare regler som følges, og 3) respekt for konkurrenter. Deretter presenterer jeg egoisme, fairness og sjenerøsitet som tre mulige grunnholdninger, og de implikasjonene de har i en idrettslig sammenheng. Etter en gjennomgang av den grunnleggende egoismen i dagens toppidrett, som infiserer ikke bare utøveren, men også hele systemet rundt utøveren, diskuteres muligheten for å utvikle holdninger basert på sjenerøsitet. Det nevnes tre kilder til inspirasjon; engelsk overklassesport, Nietzsches tanker om den overlegne mester, og Arne Næss' sportspraksis og hans saklighetslære for gode diskusjoner. Deretter presenteres empiriske eksempler på sjenerøsitet og hva en spillteoretisk analyse av ulike holdninger gir som resultat. Jeg konkluderer med at en endring i retning av sjenerøsitet vil gi en rikere toppidrett og et bedre grunnlag for en helhetlig idrettsmodell.Nøkkelord: etikk, idrett, egoisme, rettferdighet, sjenerøsitetEnglish summary: From egoism to generosity – can elite sport be reformed?The Norwegian sport model can be visualized as a pyramid with mass sport at the base and elite sport at the top. This means that elite athletes become role models for children and young athletes. However, modern elite sport is increasingly characterized by egoistic attitudes where the goal is to acquire advantages that the other athletes do not have. The article discusses egoism, fairness and generosity as three fundamental attitudes in sporting competitions and discusses whether it is possible to develop an elite sport that is based on generosity to a greater extent than now. The article starts with a presentation of the Norwegian sport model and then sketches three criteria that every sporting competition must fulfill, 1) play to win, 2) clear rules that must be complied with, 3) respect for fellow competitors and opponents. Then there is a delineation of egoism, fairness and generosity as three possible attitudes and the implications they have in the context of sport. Egoism seems to be the basic attitude in elite sport today and it infuses not only the athletes but the whole system around them. The article then looks into the possibilities for generosity in elite sport and draws inspiration from three quite different sources; 1) British upper-class sport in the 19th century, 2) Nietzsche's views of the superior and brilliant masters, and 3) the philosopher Arne Næss' sport philosophy and his rules for good academic debates. This is followed by empirical examples of generosity and a game theoretical illustration of the consequences of egoism and generosity. The conclusion is that a change in the direction of generosity will lead to a richer and more meaningful elite sport and provide a better basis for an organic sport model. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the ethical implications and problems in elite sport as it gets closer to the human performance limit. Modern elite sport must be viewed on the background of the idea of systematic progress. The Olympic motto, 'citius, altius, fortius'- faster, higher, stronger-gives a precise concentration of this idea. Modern sport is also influenced by the liberal idea of a free market where actors can perform, compete and be rewarded according to performance. (...) However, one may ask why and how athletes are willing to risk their health and even their life on the free market of sport when they do the extreme: push limits, break records, set new standards, develop new events. This paper discusses what may be the result as sport moves toward the limits of human performance. The ethical focus on the development of the elite sport should not be restricted to the individual athlete, but should also include the various systems that make up elite sport. Other actors, like coaches, leaders, sponsors, medical personnel, service people, etc., are taking part in the same development. One problem in the modern context is that society is divided into different moral sectors. What is accepted in entertainment or art may not be accepted in sport. It is suggested that we should develop a common ethic for all performance-centered activities like music, painting, science and research, acrobatics and stunts, acting, top politics and business. Or one could include all situations and events where people are put under extreme stress and have to perform well, like during expeditions, in idealistic humanitarian work, during hazards, and catastrophes. At the same time, one should not develop a sort of elite ethic. We need a new ethic that defines the ethical tolerance level in elite sport and that also points to some of the possibilities for development of both character and virtues under extreme pressure. (shrink)

In 1972 I attended the Pre-Olympic Scientific Congress in Munich. For the first time science and sport were brought together in connection with the Olympic Games. The organizers presented a book Sport in Blickpunkt der Wissenschaften (Sport from a Scientific Point of View) that summarized history and state of the art of the main sport scientific approaches (41). The German philosopher Hans Lenk gave a presentation of a broad array of past and present interpretations of sport from a philosophic viewpoint (...) (49). The congress in Munch and Hans Lenk's presentation of sport as a suitable philosophic topic became decisive for my own lifelong interest in philosophy of sport. Soon after the Munich conference some American philosophers convened to launch the Philosophic Society for the Study of Sport. In 1973 the first issue of Journal of Philosophy of Sport was published (35). In several ways 1972 was a turning point for philosophy of sport as a serious academic discipline and for my own interest in sport philosophy. From here sport philosophy found its way to Norway and through this and along several other roads to other Nordic countries. (shrink)

This is a book symposium on Kevin Krein’s Philosophy and Nature Sports. Gunnar Breivik, Jim Parry and Irena Martínková, and Rebekah Humphreys provide critical commentary on the text. The critical comments are followed by a response from Krein. The discussion covers a broad range of topics. These include the definition of “sport,” comparisons between nature sports and friluftsliv, the role of risk in nature sports, the experience of flow and the sublime in nature sports, and the understanding of (...) nature. Krein argues, as he does in the book and elsewhere, that nature sports provide a framework that facilitates intimate and meaningful interactions with nature. He argues further that the discussion included here shows how deeply our understanding of nature, and our understanding of nature sports, influence both our experiences within those sports and our broader experience of the world. (shrink)

Det er en utbredt oppfatning at det økende prestasjonskravet i toppfotball fører til en svekkelse av moral og fair play-holdninger. Men hvordan tenker toppfotballspillere i forhold til ulike dilemmaer som oppstår på banen, og er det forskjeller mellom toppfotballspillere og spillere på lavere nivå? For å avklare dette gjennomførte vi en empirisk undersøkelse der vi intervjuet spillere og trener i én toppklubb og én breddeklubb. Vi var interessert i to hovedproblemstillinger: 1) Hva tenker fotballspillere på ulike prestasjonsnivå om etikk og (...) moralske dilemmaer i fotball? 2) Hvilke faktorer påvirker spillerne, direkte og indirekte, i deres vurderinger og handlinger? Resultatene fra undersøkelsen viser at det er store forskjeller mellom de to prestasjonsnivåene. Spillerne på breddenivået føler generelt et større ansvar for å opptre ærlig på banen enn hva som er tilfelle på toppnivået. Vi fant 4 spesifikke faktorer i toppfotballen som bidrar til umoralsk opptreden. For det første opplever spillerne en forventning om at de prioriterer resultat foran fair play. For det andre bidrar tilstedeværelsen av supportere på kamper til en slik prioritering. For det tredje vil handlinger som er i strid med fair play signaliseres som akseptable internt i miljøet, selv om de ofte signaliseres som uakseptable overfor media og omverdenen. For det fjerde kan spillere oppleve det som vanskelig å gå i mot trenerens oppfordringer til en pragmatisk og resultatfokusert opptreden.Nøkkelord: moral, etikk, fair play, footballEnglish summary: How morally do football players think? – an empirical study of moral dilemmas in elite footballIt is a common view that the increasing focus on achievement and success in elite football leads to a weakening of moral and fair play attitudes. But how do elite players think and what do they think about different dilemmas that appear on the field, and is there a difference between elite players and lower division players? To answer these questions we conducted an empirical investigation in which we interviewed the players and manager in an elite club and in a lower division club. We were interested in two main problems: 1) How do football players at different performance levels think about ethics and moral dilemmas in football? 2) Which factors influence the players, directly and indirectly, in their evaluations and actions? The results from the investigation show that there are important differences between the players at the two performance levels. The lower division players felt in general a higher responsibility to behave honestly on the field than the elite players. We identified four specific factors in elite football that contribute to unsportsmanlike behavior. First, elite players feel more pressure to prioritize results more than fair play. Second, the presence of the supporters contributes to the priority of results. Third, unsportsmanlike behavior is often signaled as unacceptable to the media and the surroundings. Internally, however, such behavior is considered acceptable among the manager and the players. Fourth, the players may find it hard to go against the manager’s insistence on a pragmatic and result-oriented focus.Keywords: morals, ethics, fair play, football. (shrink)

Review of Breivik (ed) "Skills, knowledge and expertise in sport".

It is commonplace to attribute obligations to φ or blameworthiness for φ-ing to groups even when no member has an obligation to φ or is individually blameworthy for not φ-ing. Such non-distributive attributions can seem problematic in cases where the group is not a moral agent in its own right. In response, it has been argued both that non-agential groups can have the capabilities requisite to have obligations of their own, and that group obligations can be understood in terms of (...) moral demands on individual group members. It has also been suggested that members of groups can share responsibility for an outcome in virtue of being causally or socially connected to that outcome. This paper discusses the agency problem and argues that the most promising attempts at solutions understand group obligations and blameworthiness as grounded in demands on individual agents. (shrink)

Recently, a number of authors have suggested that the epistemic condition on moral responsibility makes blameworthiness much less common than we ordinarily suppose, and much harder to identify. This paper argues that such epistemically based responsibility skepticism is mistaken. Section 2 sketches a general account of moral responsibility, building on the Strawsonian idea that blame and credit relates to the agent’s quality of will. Section 3 explains how this account deals with central cases that motivate epistemic skepticism and how it (...) avoids some objections to quality of will accounts recently raised by Gideon Rosen. But an intuitive worry brought out by these objections remains. Section 4 spells out this remaining worry and argues that, like traditional metaphysical responsibility skepticism, it has its source in a non-standard explanatory perspective on action, suggesting that strategies for explaining away the intuitive pull of traditional skepticism are applicable in this case too. (shrink)

There’s a general assumption that teleology and function do not exist in inanimate nature. Throughout biology, it is generally taken as granted that teleology (or teleonomy) and functions are not only unique to life, but perhaps even a defining quality of life. For many, it’s obvious that rocks, water, and the like, are not teleological, nor could they possibly have stand-alone functions. This idea - that teleology and function are unique to life - is the target of this paper. I (...) begin with an overview of McShea’s field theoretic account of teleology. I start with the field theoretic account because it presents a promising analysis of teleological systems. It is promising because, in not making any assumptions about life’s special status in teleological systems, it avoids counterexamples that have problematized other accounts. I then consider some of the prominent efforts that have been made to attempt to avoid ascribing functions or teleology to some form of inanimate nature. In my assessment, none of the efforts are successful. I conclude by offering mineral evolution as a case study to show how inanimate nature can be both teleological and functional. The evolution of mineral species reveals that teleology and function extend to inanimate nature, and that teleology and function come in degrees. (shrink)

Teleology has a complicated history in the biological sciences. Some have argued that Darwin’s theory has allowed biology to purge itself of teleological explanations. Others have been content to retain teleology and to treat it as metaphorical, or have sought to replace it with less problematic notions like teleonomy. And still others have tried to naturalize it in a way that distances it from the vitalism of the nineteenth century, focusing on the role that function plays in teleological explanation. No (...) consensus has seemed possible in this debate. This paper takes a different approach. It argues that teleology is a perfectly acceptable scientific notion, but that the debate took an unfortunate misstep some 2300 years ago, one that has confused things ever since. The misstep comes in the beginning of Aristotle’s Physics when a distinction is made between two types of teleological explanation. One type pertains to artifacts while the other pertains to entities in nature. For Aristotle, artifacts are guided by something external to themselves, human intentions, while natural entities are guided by an internal nature. We aim to show that there is, in fact, only one type of legitimate teleological explanation, what Aristotle would have considered a variant of an artifact model, where entities are guided by external fields. We begin with an analysis of the differences between the two types of explanation. We then examine some evidence in Aristotle’s biological works suggesting that on account of his natural-artifactual distinction, he encountered difficulties in trying to provide teleological accounts of spontaneous generation. And we show that it is possible to resolve these difficulties with a more robust version of an artifact model of teleology, in other words, with an externalist teleology. This is McShea’s model, in which goal-directed entities are guided by a nested series of upper-level fields. To explain teleological behavior, this account invokes only external physical forces rather than mysterious internal natures. We then consider how field theory differs from other efforts to naturalize teleology in biology. And finally, we show how the account enables us to grapple with certain difficult cases – genes and intentions – where, even in biology today, the temptation to posit internal natures remains strong. (shrink)

We defend a contextualist account of deontic judgments as relativized both to (i) information and to (ii) standards or ends, against recent objections that turn on practices of moral disagreement. Kolodny & MacFarlane argue that information-relative contextualism cannot accommodate the connection between deliberation and advice; we suggest in response that they misidentify the basic concerns of deliberating agents. For pragmatic reasons, semantic assessments of normative claims sometimes are evaluations of propositions other than those asserted. Weatherson, Schroeder and others have raised (...) parallel objections to standard-relative contextualism; we argue for a parallel solution. (shrink)

Biologists are nearing the creation of the first fully synthetic eukaryotic genome. Does this mean that we still soon be able to create genomes that are parts of an existing genetic lineage? If so, it might be possible to bring back extinct species. But do genomes that are synthetically assembled, no matter how similar they are to native genomes, really belong to the genetic lineage on which they were modelled? This article will argue that they are situated within the same (...) genetic lineage. To see why requires closely examining whether material overlap between parents and offspring is a necessary feature of biological reproduction. The processes used to create synthetic genomes shows that these processes are a form of scaffolded reproduction because they use external machinery and take ownership of the material parts used to create synthetic genomes. Closely examining these processes also reveals, surprisingly, that ‘synthetic reproduction’ can take place between entities that don’t participate in the same biological lineages. 1Introduction2The Argument for Lineage-less Genomes3Synthetic Eukaryotic Chromosomes and Material Overlap4Biological Reproduction, Material, and Information5Synthetic Reproductive Processes and Their Implications. (shrink)

Recently, contextualism about epistemic modals and predicates of taste have come under fire from advocates of assessment relativistic analyses. Contextualism, they have argued, fails to account for what we call "felicitous insensitive assessments". In this paper, we provide one hitherto overlooked way in which contextualists can embrace the phenomenon by slightly modifying an assumption that has remained in the background in most of the debate over contextualism and relativism. Finally, we briefly argue that the resulting contextualist account is at least (...) as plausible as the relativist alternative and should be carefully considered before contextualism is abandoned for relativism. (shrink)

This paper poses a problem for traditional phylogenetics: The identity of organisms that reproduce through fission can be understood in several different ways. This prompts questions about how to differentiate parent organisms from their offspring, making vertical gene transfer unclear. Differentiating between parents and offspring stems from what I call the identity problem. How the problem is resolved has implications for phylogenetic groupings. If the identity of a particular asexual organism persists through fission, the vertical lineage on a phylogenetic tree (...) will split differently than if the identity of an organism does not survive the fission process. (shrink)

Recently, a number of people have argued that certain entities embodied by groups of agents themselves qualify as agents, with their own beliefs, desires, and intentions; even, some claim, as moral agents. However, others have independently argued that fully-fledged moral agency involves a capacity for reactive attitudes such as guilt and indignation, and these capacities might seem beyond the ken of “collective” or “ corporate ” agents. Individuals embodying such agents can of course be ashamed, proud, or indignant about what (...) the agent has done. But just as an entity needs to have its own beliefs, desires, and intentions to qualify as a bona fide agent, the required capacity for reactive attitudes is a capacity to have one’s own reactive attitudes. If fully-fledged moral agency requires reactive attitudes, the corporate agent must itself be capable of guilt and indignation. In this paper, we argue that at least certain corporate agents are. Or, more precisely, we argue that if there are bona fide corporate agents, these agents can have the capacities that are both associated with guilt and indignation and plausibly required for moral agency; in particular certain epistemic and motivational capacities. (shrink)

Condorcets historiefilosofi.--Samuel Pufendorf.--Den osynliga handen.--John Locke och hans samtid.--Polemiken i första boken av Lockes "Essay."--Politikern Kallikles.--Idéhistorien som vetenskap.--Om tolkningen av filosofiska texter.--Johannes av Salisbury.--Filosofiens tillämpning.--Ett motiv i Hans Larssons författerskap.--Filosofi och idéhistoria.--Vetenskapsmannen och samhällslivet.--Vetenskapens nytta.--"Förnuftets list."--Demokrati, socialism, kommunism.

This paper argues that the account of teleology previously proposed by the authors is consistent with the physical determinism that is implicit across many of the sciences. We suggest that much of the current aversion to teleological thinking found in the sciences is rooted in debates that can be traced back to ancient natural science, which pitted mechanistic and deterministic theories against teleological ones. These debates saw a deterministic world as one where freedom and agency is impossible. And, because teleological (...) entities seem to be free to either reach their ends or not, it was assumed that they could not be deterministic. Mayr’s modern account of teleonomy adheres to this basic assumption. Yet, the seeming tension between teleology and determinism is illusory because freedom and agency do not, in fact, conflict with a deterministic world. To show this, we present a taxonomy of different types of freedom that we see as inherent in teleological systems. Then we show that our taxonomy of freedom, which is crucial to understanding teleology, shares many of the features of a philosophical position regarding free will that is known in the contemporary literature as ‘compatibilism’. This position maintains that an agent is free when the sources of its actions are internal, when the agent itself is the deterministic cause of those actions. Our view shows that freedom is not only indispensable to teleology, but also that, contrary to common intuitions, there is no conflict between teleology and causal determinism. (shrink)