The gendered assumptions embedded in the construction of the rational individual are well established in Western feminist thought but inapplicable to describe societies operating on different principles, such as East European state socialism. This article identifies the communist subject as the building block of communist political ideology and argues that this formulation was no less male biased than its counterpart, the rational individual under liberal capitalism. In state socialist Hungary this male bias came to be expressed differently: Women were integrated (...) into society through membership in a social group perceived as relatively homogeneous regarding interests and obligations and with gender-specific qualities and privileges. These qualities were considered inferior to men's since women—because of household responsibilities—were not capable of total devotion to the communist party. The author explores this construction of the female communist subject through a content analysis of classified materials from the archives of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. (shrink)

Under what conditions do motherhood penalties emerge in countries undergoing transition from state socialism to capitalism? This analysis identifies the ways managers in global financial firms employ gendered assumptions in constructing and implementing labor practices among highly skilled professional workers in Hungary. Relying on 33 in-depth interviews with employers as well as interviews with headhunting firms, labor and employment lawyers, and analysis of antidiscrimination cases brought before Hungary’s Equal Treatment Authority between 2004 and 2008, we identify several strategies global employers (...) use to shed, demote, and marginalize professional mothers. By demonstrating the salience of motherhood as a status characteristic in the postsocialist labor market, our work contributes to existing scholarship on motherhood penalties. Our work also extends this scholarship by showing how the salience of motherhood is strongly conditioned by state-level arrangements that shape the opportunity context in which employers design and carry out employment practices. (shrink)

Generous parental leave policies are popular in a number of countries around the world and are usually seen as a sign of the ‘family friendliness’ of the state. Relying on in-depth interviews with mothers on parental leave in Hungary, the authors argue that the context in which the policies are implemented should be examined when evaluating their consequences. In semi-peripheral, resource-poor Hungary lengthy parental leave policies turn women into an invisible ‘reserve army of labourers’. While their employment is mostly unaccounted (...) for in aggregate statistics, and political discourse suggests that their ‘job’ is to look after children, nevertheless many women do end up doing some work for wages during the almost five years they spend on parental leave. However, given the rigidity of the labour market and rampant discrimination against mothers with small children, their chances of obtaining formal employment are small. They therefore resort to doing ad hoc, temporary, informal work, which is often underpaid and well below their qualifications. Thus generous family policies do not necessarily indicate the ‘women friendliness’ of the state and may not lead to the relatively favourable trade-off between stable public sector work and lower wages suggested recently by comparative researchers. Instead, in this specific context, which combines legacies of state socialism, a backlash against women’s emancipation before 1990 and a peripheral, vulnerable labour market, familialist policies are associated with a high degree of marginalisation for women with small children in which the state is at best complicit, at worst, an active agent. (shrink)

Emotionen sind als erlebte Bewertungen eine Form von Normativität, die intrinsisch im Spüren enthalten ist, also weder explizit gefolgert noch propositional gefasst ist. Geprüft wird in diesem Kapitel, ob Emotionen dadurch als natürliche Grundlage selbst für moralische oder genuine Normativität gelten können und sich diese letztere Form der Normativität daher auf biologisch angelegte Formen von Normativität reduzieren lässt. Diese Diskussion weist insofern Überschneidungen mit den in den vorangegangenen Kapiteln erörterten Fragen auf, als die verschiedenen Formen der Bewertung mit verschiedenen Bewusstseinsstufen (...) in Verbindung gebracht werden und verschiedene Formen des Selbstverhältnisses erfordern. Zudem lässt sich die Diskussion um die natürliche Normativität von Emotionen mit ausgearbeiteten Versuchen verbinden, semantischen Gehalt mentaler Zustände wie zum Beispiel Emotionen auf natürliche Grundlagen zu reduzieren. Bekannt geworden sind diese Ansätze unter dem Stichwort „Teleosemantik“. Ob die Teleosemantik eine tragfähige Theorie ist, um den semantischen Gehalt mentaler Zustände zu naturalisieren, wird in Auseinandersetzung mit an ihr formulierter Kritik und deren Stichhaltigkeit erörtert, insbesondere mit der von Jerry Fodor, Wolfgang Detel, und Daniel Dennett. Der Schluss, welcher aus diesen Diskussionen gezogen wird, lautet dann, dass man sich an lebensweltlichen Praktiken der wechselseitigen Zuschreibung von Bedeutungen und Gedanken orientieren muss, um die normativen Eigenschaften des Geistigen richtig zu verstehen, weil die Normativität mentaler Gehalte relativ zu einer intersubjektiven, sprachlich verfassten Zuschreibungspraxis zu verstehen ist, die historisch gewachsen ist. Dennoch wird im Anschluss daran noch ein der Versuch der Naturalisierung von Geistigem, nämlich von Bewusstsein durch Peter McLaughlin untersucht. Dort wird der Frage nachgegangen, ob Lebewesen einen bestimmten Zweck beziehungsweise Telos haben, und damit Interessen und ein Wohl haben, dem förderlich zu sein, die Funktion phänomenalen Bewusstseins sein könnte, also etwa auch die Funktion von Emotionen. Dabei stoßen wir ein weiteres Mal im Verlauf dieses Buches auf die Renaissance aristotelischer Theorie, denn die Frage, was es heißt, dass ein Lebewesen ein Wohl hat, wird mit Verweis auf den aristotelischen Begriff des ergons versucht zu beantworten. Wie steht es mit dem ergon als dem Wohl eines Lebewesens und damit als Naturalisierungsgrundlage, wenn als charakteristische Tätigkeit des Organismus seine Selbsterhaltung oder Selbstproduktion angesehen wird? Und wie mit naturgegebenen Notwendigkeiten als Naturalisierungsgrundlage? Zum einen wird gezeigt, dass die meisten dieser Versuche im Bemühen um eine Reduktion wiederum normative Begriffe wie Wohl oder Interesse verwenden müssen. Zum anderen wird darauf verwiesen, dass der Mensch sich auf Grund selbst anerkannter genuiner Normen und Werte gegen natürliche Normen wie die der Selbsterhaltung entscheiden kann. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 6, June 2022.

It is a consequence of the theory of imprecise credences that there exist situations in which rational agents inevitably become less opinionated toward some propositions as they gather more evidence. The fact that an agent's imprecise credal state can dilate in this way is often treated as a strike against the imprecise approach to inductive inference. Here, we show that dilation is not a mere artifact of this approach by demonstrating that opinion loss is countenanced as rational by a substantially (...) broader class of normative theories than has been previously recognised. Specifically, we show that dilation-like phenomena arise even when one abandons the basic assumption that agents have (precise or imprecise) credences of any kind, and follows directly from bedrock norms for rational comparative confidence judgements of the form `I am at least as confident in p as I am in q'. We then use the comparative confidence framework to develop a novel understanding of what exactly gives rise to dilation-like phenomena. By considering opinion loss in this more general setting, we are able to provide a novel assessment of the prospects for an account of inductive inference that is not saddled with the inevitability of rational opinion loss. (shrink)

Philosophy & Public Affairs, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 239-266, Spring 2022.

Current knowledge of the genetic, epigenetic, behavioural and symbolic systems of inheritance requires a revision and extension of the mid-twentieth-century, gene-based, 'Modern Synthesis' version of Darwinian evolutionary theory. We present the case for this by first outlining the history that led to the neo-Darwinian view of evolution. In the second section we describe and compare different types of inheritance, and in the third discuss the implications of a broad view of heredity for various aspects of evolutionary theory. We end with (...) an examination of the philosophical and conceptual ramifications of evolutionary thinking that incorporates multiple inheritance systems. (shrink)

Among the various human forms alluded to in the Hebrew prayer, mental retardation appears to be one of the most difficult to celebrate. It is the disability that other disabled persons do not want attributed to them. It is the disability for which prospective parents are most likely to use selective abortion (Wertz 2000). And it is the disability that prompted one of the most illustrious United States Supreme Court Justices to endorse forced sterilization, because "three generations of imbeciles are (...) enough." The mentally retarded have at times been objects of pity, compassion, or abuse by their caretakers and society at large. But they have rarely been seen as subjects, as citizens, as persons with equal entitlement to fulfillment. (shrink)

In response to the democratic boundary problem, two principles have been seen as competitors: the all-affected interests principle and the all-subjected principle. This article claims that these principles are in fact compatible, being justified vis-à-vis different functions, accommodating different values and drawing on different sources of normativity. I call this a ‘function-sensitive’ view. More specifically, I argue that the boundary problem draws attention to the decision functions of democracy and that two values are indispensable when theorizing how to regulate these (...) functions: procedural fairness and political autonomy. While the value of procedural fairness is best promoted through a version of the all-affected interests principle, applied to decision making generally, it is argued that political autonomy is best promoted through a version of the all-subjected principle, applied to coercive decision making specifically. The article concludes by drawing out some practical implications of the function-sensitive view for the case of immigration and border controls. (shrink)

A caring approach to knowledge production has been portrayed as epistemologically radical, ethically vital and as fostering continuous responsibility between researchers and research-subjects. This article examines these arguments through focusing on the ambivalent role of care within the first large-scale experimental beagle colony, a self-professed ‘beagle utopia’ at the University of California, Davis. We argue that care was at the core of the beagle colony; the lived environment was re-shaped in response to animals ‘speaking back’ to researchers, and ‘love’ and (...) ‘kindness’ were important considerations during staff recruitment. Ultimately, however, we show that care relations were used to manufacture compliancy, preventing the predetermined ends of the experiment from being troubled. Rather than suggesting Davis would have been less ethically troubling, or more epistemologically radical, with ‘better’ care, however, we suggest the case troubles existing care theory and argue that greater attention needs to be paid to histories, contexts, and exclusions. (shrink)

The creation of increasingly complex artificial intelligence (AI) systems raises urgent questions about their ethical and social impact on society. Since this impact ultimately depends on political decisions about normative issues, political philosophers can make valuable contributions by addressing such questions. Currently, AI development and application are to a large extent regulated through non-binding ethics guidelines penned by transnational entities. Assuming that the global governance of AI should be at least minimally democratic and fair, this paper sets out three desiderata (...) that an account should satisfy when theorizing about what this means. We argue, first, that an analysis of democratic values, political entities and decision-making should be done in a holistic way; second, that fairness is not only about how AI systems treat individuals, but also about how the benefits and burdens of transformative AI are distributed; and finally, that justice requires that governance mechanisms are not limited to AI technology, but are incorporated into a range of basic institutions. Thus, rather than offering a substantive theory of democratic and fair AI governance, our contribution is metatheoretical: we propose a theoretical framework that sets up certain normative boundary conditions for a satisfactory account. (shrink)

An intensified discussion on the role of normative ideals has re-emerged in several debates in political philosophy. What is often referred to as “ideal theory,” represented by liberal egalitarians such as John Rawls, is under attack from those that stress that political philosophy at large should take much more seriously the nonideal circumstances consisting of relations of domination and power under which normative ideals, principles, and ideas are supposed to be applied. While the debate so far has mainly been preoccupied (...) with defending or rejecting ideal theory through a defense or rejection of a specific ideal theory, this paper instead focuses on a number of general philosophical concerns on which the critique relies. More specifically, it brings up for scrutiny, and ultimately rejects, three charges against ideal theory: the charge that ideal theory is not action-guiding, that ideal theory is impossible, and that ideal theory is distorting. By investigatingthese charges in tandem, the paper shows that the criticism against ideal theory is premised on assumptions about the relationships between thought and action and between concepts and the world for which there is little or no support. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction What Is the Problem? Why Try to Change the Profession? The Challenges Epistemic Responsibility and Credibility Why the Personal Is Philosophical Is Political References.

The question of what role social and political practices should play in the justification of normative principles has received renewed attention in post-millennium political philosophy. Several current debates express dissatisfaction with the methodology adopted in mainstream political theory, taking the form of a criticism of so-called ‘ideal theory’ from ‘non-ideal’ theory, of ‘practice-independent’ theory from ‘practice-dependent’ theory, and of ‘political moralism’ from ‘political realism’. While the problem of action-guidance lies at the heart of these concerns, the critics also share a (...) number of methodological assumptions. Above all, their methodology is practice-dependent in the sense that an existing practice is assumed to put substantial limitations on the appropriate normative principles for regulating it. In other words, we cannot formulate and justify an appropriate principle without first understanding the practice this principle is supposed to govern. The aim of this paper is to map out and analyze the common denominators of these debates with regard to methodological commitments. We will investigate how this practice-dependent method may be understood and motivated. In particular, we point to challenges that must be met in order for the position to remain both distinct and attractive. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Any scholar undertaking to add yet another book title to the already virtually uncontrollable bibliography on Plato needs justification. ...

In this commentary I expand on the first of Noble’s illusions, the selection metaphor. Building on my work with Simona Ginsburg on the evolution of minimal consciousness, I argue that the existence of some complex sensory and motor patterns in the living world can be accounted for only through the evolution of conscious choice.

In recent years, a number of authors have defended the coherence and philosophical utility of the notion of metaphysical indeterminacy. Concurrently, the idea that reality can be stratified into more or less fundamental ‘levels’ has gained significant traction in the literature. Here, I examine the relationship between these two notions. Specifically, I consider the question of what metaphysical determinacy at one level of reality tells us about the possibility of metaphysical determinacy at other more or less fundamental levels. Towards this (...) end, I propose a novel conception of the way in which fundamental states of affairs determine derivative states of affairs in the presence of indeterminacy and construct a corresponding formal model of multilevel systems that demonstrates the compatibility of determinacy at the fundamental level with indeterminacy at higher levels, thereby rebutting Barnes' suggestion that indeterminacy at any level of reality implies indeterminacy at the fundamental level. (shrink)

Schupbach and Sprenger introduce a novel probabilistic approach to measuring the explanatory power that a given explanans exerts over a corresponding explanandum. Though we are sympathetic to their general approach, we argue that it does not adequately capture the way in which the causal explanatory power that c exerts on e varies with background knowledge. We then amend their approach so that it does capture this variance. Though our account of explanatory power is less ambitious than Schupbach and Sprenger’s in (...) the sense that it is limited to causal explanatory power, it is also more ambitious because we do not limit its domain to cases where c genuinely explains e. Instead, we claim that c causally explains e if and only if our account says that c explains e with some positive amount of causal explanatory power. 1Introduction 2The Logic of Explanatory Power 3Subjective and Nomic Distributions 3.1Actual degrees of belief 3.2The causal distribution 4Background Knowledge 4.1Conditionalization and colliders 4.2A helpful intervention 5Causal Explanatory Power 5.1The applicability of explanatory power 5.2Statistical relevance ≠ causal explanatory power 5.3Interventionist explanatory power 5.4E illustrated 6Conclusion. (shrink)

Current knowledge of the genetic, epigenetic, behavioural and symbolic systems of inheritance requires a revision and extension of the mid-twentieth-century, gene-based, 'Modern Synthesis' version of Darwinian evolutionary theory. We present the case for this by first outlining the history that led to the neo-Darwinian view of evolution. In the second section we describe and compare different types of inheritance, and in the third discuss the implications of a broad view of heredity for various aspects of evolutionary theory. We end with (...) an examination of the philosophical and conceptual ramifications of evolutionary thinking that incorporates multiple inheritance systems. (shrink)

In this essay, I recount and examine my response to a genetic diagnosis of my disabled daughter. My daughter was forty‐nine before the diagnosis came. All her disabilities were traceable to a de novo single gene variant on the PURA gene that was discovered only in 2014. I speak of the jolt and the recalibration that this discovery engendered, concluding that, while it seemed that everything had changed, nothing had changed. But my family did discover a community in which Sesha (...) joins other PURA‐perfect sons and daughters and where we as a family acquire a “horizontal identity” marked by a genetic variant. (shrink)

A growing number of medical professionals claim a right of conscience, a right to refuse to perform any professional duty they deem immoral—and to do so with impunity. We argue that professionals do not have the unqualified right of conscience. At most they have a highly qualified right. We focus on the claims of pharmacists, since they are the professionals most commonly claiming this right.

Metaphors are central in communication and sense-making processes in health-related contexts. Yet how the metaphors used by health-care-professionals to make sense of their patients and their relations to them are associated to the perceived valence of their clinical encounters is underexplored. Drawing-upon the ABC Model of Dehumanization, this study investigated how the humanizing or dehumanizing metaphors nurses’ use for making sense of their pain patients are associated with how they perceived their relationships with them. Fifty female nurses undertook individual narrative-episodic (...) interviews about easy/difficult cases in pain care. A content analysis classified the metaphors, identifying eight classes reflecting different types of patients (de)humanization. A multiple correspondence analysis extracted patterns of metaphors and their association with the perceived characteristics of the patient-nurse relationship. It showed how these patterns were not associated with patient sex or socioeconomic status (SES) but were related to the perceived valence of the clinical relationship. By uncovering how patient metaphors guide nurses’ sense-making and potentially modulate interactions in clinical encounters, these findings may contribute to improve quality of pain care. (shrink)

The Hungarian Nominal Functional Sequence combines the methods of syntactic cartography with evidence from compositional semantics in a comprehensive exploration of the structure of Noun Phrases. Proceeding from the lexical core to the top of DP, it uses Hungarian as a window on the underlying universal functional hierarchy of Noun Phrases, but it also regularly complements and supports the analysis with cross-linguistic evidence. The book works out a minimal map of the extended NP in the sense that the proposed hierarchy (...) only has projections which host overt material and it does not draw on semantically empty word order projections. Topics which receive special attention include the syntax of classifiers, demonstratives, proper names, possessive NPs and plural pronouns. (shrink)

This paper outlines Jesse Prinz’s theory that emotions represent values by registering bodily changes, discusses two objections, and concludes that Prinz’s theory stands in need of modification: while emotions do represent values, they do not do so in the first place by registering bodily changes, but by processing information about how things we care about fare in the world. The function of bodily changes is primarily to motivate and prepare us for action.

The paper deals with the position of a scholar in the society, as articulated in the philosophy of J. G. Fichte. It also offers a brief outline of the philosophies of education of the 18th and 19th centuries and their differences. It shows different interpretations of the concept of Bildung in German philosophy, which in that time became almost a “fashion”. The spirit of that time is reflected also in the idealist views of J. G. Fichte, especially those concerning education, (...) upbringing and personality development. (shrink)

The word 'bisexuality', unknown to the ancients, is used here in two senses to indicate an individual with male and female sex organs or who copulates with people of both sexes. The phenomenon of bisexuality is then analysed with reference to the Greek myth of Hermaphrodite, a 'bisexual' being, born of a nymph's love for a young man of divine descent: in the guise of a fable, the myth recounts the birth of a 'monster', who raises a question-mark over the (...) fundamental rule of the division between the sexes. As regards behaviour, the paper then shows that in both Greece and Rome bisexual behaviour was the rule for men. The concept of 'homosexuality', in contrast to heterosexuality, was not introduced till the Christian era, and then not without difficulty. Condemnation of the practice as 'against nature' began with the emperor Justinian in the 6th century. (shrink)

Cursory review of the reception of Adorno's unfinished Aesthetic Theory up to the present suggests that an introduction to the book's major concerns, its structure (or lack thereof), and its concepts is missing to this date. Going back to Fredric Jameson's watershed contribution Late Marxism: Adorno, Or, the Persistence of the Dialectic (1990), the article attempts to provide the introduction missing to date. It is organized around key concepts of Adorno's Aesthetic Theory, beginning with the guiding juxtaposition of Kant's formalist (...) aesthetics vs. Hegel's content aesthetics and the various notions of the End of Art, followed by two sections on art and its respective others (from the culture industry and art appreciation to nature and natural beauty), and concluding with the axiom of suffering and its impact on the key notions of semblance, expression, and mimesis. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is currently changing many areas of society. Especially in health, where critical decisions are made, questions of control must be renegotiated: who is in control when an automated system makes clinically relevant decisions? Increasingly, the concept of meaningful human control (MHC) is being invoked for this purpose. However, it is unclear exactly how this concept is to be understood in health. Through a systematic review, we present the current state of the concept of MHC in health. The results (...) show that there is not yet a robust MHC concept for health. We propose a broader understanding of MHC along three strands of action: enabling, exercising and evaluating control. Taking into account these strands of action and the established rules and processes in the different health sectors, the MHC concept needs to be further developed to avoid falling into two gaps, which we have described as theoretical and labelling gaps. (shrink)

With its provocative title, Blumenthal-Barby’s (2024) Target Article is an important addition to the critical work on using ‘personhood’ in bioethics. I suggest it bears on any philosophical discus...

Empathy as “Feelingly Grasping” Perhaps the central question concerning empathy is if and if so how it combines aspects of thinking and feeling. Indeed, the intellectual tradition of the past centuries has been marked by a dualism. Roughly speaking, there have been two pathways when it comes to understanding each other: 1) thinking or mind reading and 2) feeling or empathy. Nonetheless, one of the ongoing debates in psychology and philosophy concerns the question whether these two abilities, namely, understanding what (...) the other is thinking and “understanding” what the other is feeling, are separate or not. Most of the authors in this volume consider the cognitive and affective dimensions at work within empathy. Each author does this within and beyond their own field. Coming from the humanities, we propose the following definition for empathy: Empathy is a social feeling that consists in feelingly grasping or retracing the present, future, or past emotional state of the other; thus empathy is also called a vicarious emotion. We would like to highlight two aspects of this definition in particular: 1.) the peculiar position of “grasping” which involves a cognitive dimension and 2.) the social dimensions of relating to the emotions of another human being. (shrink)

6 and 14 recently proposed taxonomies that distinguish between four processing states, based on bottom-up stimulus strength and top-down attentional amplification. The aim of the present study was to empirically test these processing states using the priming paradigm. Our results showed that attention and stimulus strength significantly modulated priming effects: either receiving top-down attention or possessing sufficient bottom-up strength was a prerequisite for a stimulus to elicit priming. When both top-down attention and sufficient bottom-up strength were present, the priming effect (...) was boosted. The origins of the observed priming effects also varied between different processing states. We can conclude that our empirical study using the priming paradigm confirmed the presence of four processing states, which displayed a differential pattern of response priming effects and differential origins of the response priming effects. (shrink)

The late antique rabbis of Roman Palestine were seasoned jurists, experts on exegesis and legal interpretation. Yet rabbinic literature does not theorize. A positive account of rabbinic conceptions of language therefore remains a desideratum. I choose an alternative approach. Legal reasoning relies on language to ground the determinacy of the law. Jurists must thus confront language when it threatens to undermine the latter. Conversely, they may hold language to safeguard legal determinacy. Drawing on insights from legal theory, I turn to (...) an unusual rabbinic rule of inference. Its earliest attested version suggests a universal possibility of inference “from the category of yes that of no, from the category of no that of yes.” I show that the ever-evolving uses of this rule allow us to observe a shift in linguistic attitude, increasingly acknowledging linguistic uncertainty. My findings tie in with recent advances in the study of rabbinic exegesis. (shrink)

The first systematic analysis of current debates surrounding the role of practice in political theory Should social and political practices should play a role in the justification of normative political principles? In several sub-domains of political theory, theorists have suggested that practices constrain principles in various ways. This book joins five key debates in the current theoretical literature that have been largely taking place in isolation and identifies common strands of argument and their shared problems. By illuminating these connections and (...) cross-fertilising key debates in the current theoretical literature, it develops a unified way forward for practice-based political theory. (shrink)