Experimental research shows that human sentence processing uses information from different levels of linguistic analysis, for example, lexical and syntactic preferences as well as semantic plausibility. Existing computational models of human sentence processing, however, have focused primarily on lexico‐syntactic factors. Those models that do account for semantic plausibility effects lack a general model of human plausibility intuitions at the sentence level. Within a probabilistic framework, we propose a wide‐coverage model that both assigns thematic roles to verb–argument pairs and determines a (...) preferred interpretation by evaluating the plausibility of the resulting (verb, role, argument) triples. The model is trained on a corpus of role‐annotated language data. We also present a transparent integration of the semantic model with an incremental probabilistic parser. We demonstrate that both the semantic plausibility model and the combined syntax/semantics model predict judgment and reading time data from the experimental literature. (shrink)

Wang (_Philosophy & Technology_ 35, 2022) introduces a Foucauldian power account of algorithmic transparency. This short commentary explores when this power account is appropriate. It is first observed that the power account is a constructionist one, and that such accounts often come with both factual and evaluative claims. In an instance of Hume’s law, the evaluative claims do not follow from the factual claims, leaving open the question of how much constructionist commitment (Hacking, 1999) one should have. The concept of (...) acts in equilibrium (Nozick, 1981) is then used to explain how different individuals reading Wang can end up with different evaluative attitudes towards algorithmic transparency, despite factual agreement. The commentary concludes by situating constructionist commitment inside a larger question of how much to think of our actions, identifying conflicting arguments. (shrink)

As more decisions are made by automated algorithmic systems, the transparency of these systems has come under scrutiny. While such transparency is typically seen as beneficial, there is a also a critical, Foucauldian account of it. From this perspective, worries have recently been articulated that algorithmic transparency can be used for manipulation, as part of a disciplinary power structure. Klenk (Philosophy & Technology 36, 79, 2023) recently argued that such manipulation should not be understood as exploitation of vulnerable victims, but (...) rather as indifference to whether the information provided enhances decision-making by revealing reasons. This short commentary on Klenk uses Berlin’s (1958) two concepts of liberty to further illuminate the concept of transparency as manipulation, finding alignment between positive liberty and the critical account. (shrink)

Recent advances in artificial intelligence offer many beneficial prospects. However, concerns have been raised about the opacity of decisions made by these systems, some of which have turned out to be biased in various ways. This article makes a contribution to a growing body of literature on how to make systems for automated decision-making more transparent, explainable, and fair by drawing attention to and further elaborating a distinction first made by Nozick between first-level bias in the application of standards and (...) second-level bias in the choice of standards, as well as a second distinction between discrimination and arbitrariness. Applying the typology developed, a number of illuminating observations are made. First, it is observed that some reported bias in automated decision-making is first-level arbitrariness, which can be alleviated by explainability techniques. However, such techniques have only a limited potential to alleviate first-level discrimination. Second, it is argued that second-level arbitrariness is probably quite common in automated decision-making. In contrast to first-level arbitrariness, however, second-level arbitrariness is not straightforward to detect automatically. Third, the prospects for alleviating arbitrariness are discussed. It is argued that detecting and alleviating second-level arbitrariness is a profound problem because there are many contrasting and sometimes conflicting standards from which to choose, and even when we make intentional efforts to choose standards for good reasons, some second-level arbitrariness remains. (shrink)

Modern society makes extensive use of automated algorithmic decisions, fueled by advances in artificial intelligence. However, since these systems are not perfect, questions about fairness are increasingly investigated in the literature. In particular, many authors take a Rawlsian approach to algorithmic fairness. This article aims to identify some complications with this approach: Under which circumstances can Rawls’s original position reasonably be applied to algorithmic fairness decisions? First, it is argued that there are important differences between Rawls’s original position and a (...) parallel algorithmic fairness original position with respect to risk attitudes. Second, it is argued that the application of Rawls’s original position to algorithmic fairness faces a boundary problem in defining relevant stakeholders. Third, it is observed that the definition of the least advantaged, necessary for applying the difference principle, requires some attention in the context of algorithmic fairness. Finally, it is argued that appropriate deliberation in algorithmic fairness contexts often require more knowledge about probabilities than the Rawlsian original position allows. Provided that these complications are duly considered, the thought-experiment of the Rawlsian original position can be useful in algorithmic fairness decisions. (shrink)

In this chapter, we outline the range of argument forms involving causation that can be found in everyday discourse. We also survey empirical work concerned with the generation and evaluation of such arguments. This survey makes clear that there is presently no unified body of research concerned with causal argument. We highlight the benefits of a unified treatment both for those interested in causal cognition and those interested in argumentation, and identify the key challenges that must be met for a (...) full understanding of causal argumentation. (shrink)

This short commentary on Peters identifies the entrenchment of political positions as one additional concern related to algorithmic political bias, beyond those identified by Peters. First, it is observed that the political positions detected and predicted by algorithms are typically contingent and largely explained by “political tribalism”, as argued by Brennan. Second, following Hacking, the social construction of political identities is analyzed and it is concluded that algorithmic political bias can contribute to such identities. Third, following Nozick, it is argued (...) that purist political positions may stand in the way of the pursuit of all worthy values and goals to be pursued in the political realm and that to the extent that algorithmic political bias entrenches political positions, it also hinders this healthy “zigzag of politics”. (shrink)

In recent years, the metaverse—some form of immersive digital extension of the physical world—has received much attention. As tech companies present their bold visions, scientists and scholars have also turned to metaverse issues, from technological challenges via societal implications to profound philosophical questions. This article contributes to this growing literature by identifying the possibilities of two dystopian metaverse scenarios, namely one based on the _experience machine_ and one based on _demoktesis_—two concepts from Nozick (_Anarchy_, _State_, _and Utopia_, Basic Books, 1974). (...) These dystopian scenarios are introduced, and the potential for a metaverse to evolve into either of them is explained. The article is concluded with an argument for why the two dystopian scenarios are not strongly wedded to any particular theory of ethics or political philosophy, but constitute a more general contribution. (shrink)

With increasing use of automated algorithmic decision-making, issues of algorithmic fairness have attracted much attention lately. In this growing literature, existing concepts from ethics and political philosophy are often applied to new contexts. The reverse—that novel insights from the algorithmic fairness literature are fed back into ethics and political philosophy—is far less established. However, this short commentary on Baumann and Loi (Philosophy & Technology, 36(3), 45 2023) aims to do precisely this. Baumann and Loi argue that among algorithmic group fairness (...) measures proposed, one—sufficiency (well-calibration) is morally defensible for insurers to use, whereas independence (statistical parity or demographic parity) and separation (equalized odds) are not normatively appropriate in the insurance context. Such a result may seem to be of relatively narrow interest to insurers and insurance scholars only. We argue, however, that arguments such as that offered by Baumann and Loi have an important but so far overlooked connection to the derivation of the minimal state offered by Nozick (1974) and thus to political philosophy at large. (shrink)

It appears to be a feature of our ordinary understanding of morality that we ought not to act in certain ways at all. We ought not to kill, torture, deceive, break our promises (say)—exceptional circumstances apart. Many moral duties are thought of in this way. Killing another person would be wrong even if it achieved a great good, and even if it led to preventing the deaths of several others. This feature of moral thinking is at the core of deontological (...) ethics. But while it is also part and parcel of ordinary moral thought, it seems puzzling, because it requires an agent to act (or to abstain from acting) in certain ways, even if by violating the duty she could achieve a better outcome in terms of the very restriction that she is required to heed. If the explanation of the duty not to kill were that it preserves human life it would be hard to understand why killing is not morally permitted when it leads to preserving a greater number of lives. Moreover, why should we not violate a restriction if doing so leads to fewer violations of that very restriction? There are two questions here. (1) Why not violate a restriction whose point it is to preserve lives, if doing so leads to preserving a greater number of lives? (2) Why not violate a restriction if doing so minimizes the violation of that very restriction? The latter question concerns what is sometimes called ‘the paradox of deontology’ or the problem of ‘minimizing violations’. The former may concern the so-called trolley cases, for instance. After all, a trolley hurtling towards a number of innocent people is not about to violate the moral restriction on killing innocent people, as it is not the kind of thing that can be subject to such a restriction. In this paper I am concerned only with (2): the paradox of deontology. To put it in Nozick’s terms: ‘How can a concern for the nonviolation of C [i.e. some deontological constraint] lead to refusal to violate C even when this would prevent other more extensive violations of C? -/- Samuel Scheffler, puzzled by the same idea, put it in terms of ‘agent-centred restrictions’ (ACR), because the restriction requires an agent (not) to act in certain ways, contrasting thereby with a requirement that certain actions not be done. The restriction is thus an agent-relative rather than an agent-neutral one. Scheffler ended up rejecting the idea of agent-centred restrictions, as even on close investigation the puzzle would not dissolve. Scheffler maintains that ACRs have ‘an air of paradox’ to them, as they violate what he calls maximizing rationality. ACRs appear to clash with the idea of maximizing rationality, because they require an agent to choose the option that worse achieves her goal of not harming people. I call this, following common parlance, the paradox of deontology, even though it is not strictly speaking a paradox. Exploring whether there is really a problem here, and how it might be solved, is the main objective of this paper. I begin by explaining the puzzlement about agent-centred restrictions in more detail. I then discuss promising as an example of a kind of action which is thought to be subject to agent-centred restrictions. It turns out that they are surprisingly easy to explain. The difficult case is killing—and that should put us on guard. I argue that the problem is not with the very idea of deontological restrictions, but with puzzling aspects of the ethics of killing. (shrink)

If you injure me, it matters morally whether it was an accident or you did it intentionally, and whether you did it because you thought it would be fun. I take it that any ethical theory will have to include some explanation of why this is. There are two dominant views in the current debate about the moral significance of an agent’s intentions: The one is that the intention with which someone acts at least sometimes determines whether what she does (...) is right or wrong (permissible or impermissible). Proponents of the so-called doctrine of double-effect (DDE) hold that an action which has certain bad outcomes may be permissible if the bad consequences are only foreseen, even if the same action would be morally wrong if they were intended as a means. This is not the only way in which intentions could make a difference to an action’s permissibility, but it is the best-known defense that they do. According to the second view, intentions don’t matter in this way: they do not determine the permissibility of an action. They do matter, but in a different dimension of normative assessment: They determine whether the agent is a good or a bad person; or alternatively: they determine the “moral worth” of an action or its “meaning”, including its praiseworthiness or blameworthiness , or the severity of a wrong-doing. The main thesis is what Thomson called “The Irrelevance-of-Intentions-to-Permissibility Thesis” (for short: IIP) -/- [IIP] “It is irrelevant to the question whether X may do alpha what intention X would do alpha with if he or she did it.” -/- IIP is driven in part by skepticism about DDE: since – according to proponents of IIP - DDE is false, we must explain the relevance of intentions and reasons in a different way. Proponents of IIP tend not to consider the possibility that intentions might matter to permissibility in ways that are different from DDE. In this paper I do not focus on the arguments for or against DDE, but investigate IIP itself more closely, and look at some of the arguments for and against it. (shrink)

The buck-passing account of value (BPA) is very fertile ground that has given rise to a number of interpretations and controversies. It has originally been proposed by T.M. Scanlon as an analysis of value: according to it, being good ‘is not a property that itself provides a reason to respond to a thing in certain ways. Rather, to be good or valuable is to have other properties that constitute such reasons’. Buck-passing stands in a complicated relation to the fitting-attitude analysis (...) of normativity that reaches back to the work of Brentano and Ewing. Proponents of FA-analysis hold that, as a matter of the conceptual analysis of ‘good’, something is good if it is fitting to have pro-attitudes of a certain kind towards it. The ambition of FA-analysis is to explain all practical normativity in terms of the fittingness of attitudes, which – while being itself a normative concept – is the only normative concept which grounds all others. Wlodek Rabinowicz and Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen welcomed BPA as a contemporary version of FA-analysis, and others have followed this suggestion. But whether BPA should be regarded as a version of FA-analysis is a moot point. In section I, I show that BPA is not as obviously a successor of the fitting-attitude analysis of value as some have thought. The much discussed wrong-kind-of-reasons (for short: WKR) problem afflicts buck-passing only in so far as it incorporates a version of FA analysis, or at any rate is expressed in terms of reasons for attitudes. There can be a buck-passing account of value which is not affected by the problem: one that limits the account to reasons for actions (rather than attitudes). However, insofar as BPA does inherit elements of FA analysis, it also has a WKR problem. In section II, I discuss this problem and its solution. I show that it has been misidentified in the current literature, and that – once we understand the problem correctly – its solution is likely to be unavailable to the buck-passer. Hence we should reject any account of BPA that incorporates FA analysis. That leaves us with versions which do not: versions that formulate BPA in terms of reasons for actions only, rather than reasons for attitudes. Finally, in section III, I discuss why buck-passing seemed to be appealing to begin with, and whether a version of BPA that does not incorporate FA analysis is a viable contender of the account – beyond the WKR problem. (shrink)

Contemporary health care often lacks generosity of spirit, even when treatment is most efficient. Too many patients are left unhappy with how they are treated, and too many medical professionals feel estranged from the calling that drew them to medicine. Arthur W. Frank tells the stories of ill people, doctors, and nurses who are restoring generosity to medicine--generosity toward others and to themselves. The Renewal of Generosity evokes medicine as the face-to-face encounter that comes before and after diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, and (...) surgeries. Frank calls upon the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin to reflect on stories of ill people, doctors, and nurses who transform demoralized medicine into caring relationships. He presents their stories as a source of consolation for both ill and professional alike and as an impetus to changing medical systems. Frank shows how generosity is being renewed through dialogue that is more than the exchange of information. Dialogue is an ethic and an ideal for people on both sides of the medical encounter who want to offer more to those they meet and who want their own lives enriched in the process. The Renewal of Generosity views illness and medical work with grace and compassion, making an invaluable contribution to expanding our vision of suffering and healing. (shrink)

Die Idee zu der in diesem Band dokumentierten Tagung ist im Rahmen des disziplinübergreifenden Nachwuchswissenschaftsnetzwerkes THESIS entstanden. Der Dialog über die fachlichen und disziplinären Grenzen hinweg hat bei THESIS seit dessen Gründung im Jahre 1990 stets einen großen Raum eingenommen. Anderen Fächern Respekt und Interesse entgegenzubringen und sich nicht von stereotypen Vorurteilen leiten zu lassen, ist konstitutiver Bestandteil im Selbstverständnis des Netzwerkes. Selbstverständlich gibt es in einem solchen Verbund eine Reihe von Gelegenheiten (darunter auch den einen oder anderen entwicklungsfördernden Konflikt), (...) das eigene Bild vom Anderen und das andere Bild vom Eigenen zur Sprache zu bringen und zu hinterfragen. Auf der Basis dieser bestehenden Kommunikationsstrukturen trafen sich am 11. Oktober 2003 in Göttingen 12 junge Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler zwischen, über und auch auf den Grenzen ihrer eigenen Herkunftsdisziplinen, um den Trendbegriff [alpha]Transdisziplinarität" auf seine Substanz zu prüfen. (shrink)

It has become common to distinguish between two kinds of ethical concepts: thick and thin ones. Bernard Williams, who coined the terms, explains that thick concepts such as “coward, lie, brutality, gratitude and so forth” are marked by having greater empirical content than thin ones. They are both action-guiding and world-guided: -/- If a concept of this kind applies, this often provides someone with a reason for action… At the same time, their application is guided by the world. A concept (...) of this sort may be rightly or wrongly applied, and people who have acquired it can agree that it applies or fails to apply to some new situation. -/- Thin concepts are concepts such as good and bad, right and wrong, obligation and duty. Judgments applying thick concepts have been seen as lending support to the possibility of explaining moral knowledge, and objectivity in ethics. It appears that due to their empirical content – their world-guidedness – judgments employing thick concepts can be true or false, depending on whether they get the worldly facts right. In addition they provide reasons for action – they are action-guiding – and thus may provide the starting point of a realist account of practical reasons: the view that reasons are facts and whether or not a person has a reason to act does not (normally) depend on her attitudes. The cruelty of an action is a reason not to perform it or to prevent it; that an action is kind is a reason in its favour. Of course these remarks aren’t conclusive – far from it. But even so, some non-cognitivists may regard them as completely wrongheaded, and so does Bernard Williams even though he is not a non-cognitivist. However, he believes that having a practical reason does depend on a person’s attitudes and motives. A certain worry about thick concepts will make clear what the problem is. It has most expressly been raised by Simon Blackburn, who sees it as undermining even the most superficial plausibility of moral cognitivism, as well as the claim that the properties picked out by thick concepts provide reasons. While we may readily accept that the kindness of an action or the fact that it is required by justice is a reason to perform it, there are many thick concepts whose action-guiding role we would reject. Some derogatory – e.g., racist or sexist - words express thick concepts too, Blackburn notes. And surely there are no racist or sexist truths. Furthermore there are concepts that some people use evaluatively (like chaste or obscene), but many of us do not regard the propositions in which those concepts feature as even prima facie reason giving. In raising these points, Blackburn claims that it is morally objectionable to regard the facts asserted in propositions which employ thick concepts as action-guiding because it leads to “a conservative and ultimately self-serving complacency.” As he sees it, the problem is that if we believe that the correct application of thick concepts yields evaluative truths and that evaluative truths state reasons for actions, we seem to be committed to accepting that some people are, say, fat, derog., and therefore to be ridiculed, and that there is at least a pro tanto reason to lead a chaste life, or feel affection towards cute women. Therefore, the view that all evaluative properties provide reasons for action or for attitudes such as admiration, affection or (dis)approval must be rejected. I will call this worry henceforth Blackburn’s challenge. The challenge is that understanding judgments employing thick concepts as expressing evaluative truths and providing reasons for actions or for attitudes leads to a morally unacceptable view. Blackburn suggests instead that we should separate the conditions for applying thick concepts and the reasons that we have in virtue of the concept applying. She may be cute, yes, but that is not a reason for “admiration and arousal.” -/- …it is morally vital that we proceed by splitting the input from the output in such a case. By refusing to split we fail to open an essential specifically normative dimension of criticism. -/- According to Blackburn, the meaning of thick concepts is made up of two distinct and in principle separable components: a descriptive one and the expression of an attitude. The truth-aptness and cognitive appearance of judgments employing thick concepts is explained by the descriptive component alone. Blackburn writes “[w]e get nothing but detachable and flexible attitudes, coupled with delineations of traits of character or action”. I will call this reply to Blackburn’s challenge the separability thesis. I agree with Blackburn that any account of thick concepts has to face and answer the challenge that he poses. In this paper, I will focus on one reply to the challenge which denies separability, namely Bernard Williams’s. Williams answers Blackburn’s challenge, while holding on to a cognitivist understanding of thick concepts. But his particular brand of cognitivism is peculiar: Williams rejects the separability thesis, and claims that correct applications of thick concepts yield evaluative (and not just descriptive) knowledge. But this is a special kind of knowledge. It is confined to a local community. The members of a community which uses certain thick concepts may have reasons to act accordingly, but the non-members do not. And even the reasons of members remain a little fragile: they may not want to continue using their concepts upon thorough reflection. The local knowledge view allows Williams to answer Blackburn’s challenge, because even though thick concepts are evaluative concepts and their application can yield evaluative knowledge, no one who isn’t a member of the relevant community has reason to be guided by the concept. Complementing a cognitivist view of thick concepts with reasons internalism allows Williams to answer the challenge. My aim in this paper is to show that Williams’s position is, despite its initial attraction, untenable. In particular, I am going to show why the internal reasons view is incompatible with Williams’s own understanding of thick concepts. My modest result is that the internalist view of reasons does not help to answer Blackburn’s challenge. My aim in this paper is not to answer the challenge but, rather, to explore the possibility of developing Williams’s attenuated version of cognitivism, and the possibility of combining it with reasons internalism. (shrink)

In At the Will of the Body , Arthur Frank told the story of his own illnesses, heart attack and cancer. That book ended by describing the existence of a "remission society," whose members all live with some form of illness or disability. The Wounded Storyteller is their collective portrait. Ill people are more than victims of disease or patients of medicine they are wounded storytellers. People tell stories to make sense of their suffering when they turn their diseases into (...) stories, they find healing. Drawing on the work of authors such as Oliver Sacks, Anatole Broyard, Norman Cousins, and Audre Lorde, as well as from people he met during the years he spent among different illness groups, Frank recounts a stirring collection of illness stories, ranging from the well-known--Gilda Radner's battle with ovarian cancer--to the private testimonials of people with cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, and disabilties. Their stories are more than accounts of personal suffering: they abound with moral choices and point to a social ethic. Frank identifies three basic narratives of illness in restitution, chaos, and quest. Restitution narratives anticipate getting well again and give prominence to the technology of cure. In chaos narratives, illness seems to stretch on forever, with no respite or redeeming insights. Quest narratives are about finding that insight as illness is transformed into a means for the ill person to become someone new. (shrink)

In his seminal paper, “Moral Luck,” Bernard Williams begins to develop an account of responsibility for unintentional aspects of our agency. It rests on a crucial distinction of success and failure, internal or external to an agent’s project. I argue that a success which results from conditions that are internal to a project is not a lucky success, nor is a failure which results from something that is internal to the project just unlucky. There is no internal luck. Responsibility-defying luck (...) is always external. An important result of this exploration is that Williams’s view opens a path for understanding responsibility neither as being concerned with reactive attitudes such as indignation or blame, nor in a common rationalist way as being based on an agent’s reason-responsiveness. Instead, responsibility depends on how a person’s actions relate to the exercise of her abilities in the pursuit of her projects and how they are integrated into her life. (shrink)

In this paper, I comment on Waismann’s view of ‘motivational explanations’ as he develops it in his unfinished, posthumously published essay ‘Will and Motive’. According to a traditional view, when we act, the motive is an internal psychological state of which we can know through introspection, and it triggers or causes the action. Thus the motive causally explains an independent event which is the action. As Waismann sees it, everything here is false. The motive is (1) not an internal psychological (...) state. (2) We do not know it through introspection. (3) It does not trigger an action, and (4) there is no causal explanation in which the motive is the cause and the action the effect. I analyze Waismann’s arguments for these claims and work out his positive view. Waismann draws our attention to two features: the uncertainty and instability of motives, and the fact that they are often ascribed on the basis of the action even when the agent wasn’t aware of them prior to acting. Might this hold only for certain motives: viz. ‘Triebfedern’ (drives), in particular those that are unconscious, but not for motives in the sense of ‘Beweggrund’ (reason, purpose)? If action explanations in the light of an agent’s purposes or reasons are unaffected by Waismann’s arguments for the instability and uncertainty of motives, then perhaps the traditional view would not be false for this kind of explanation: it is not uncertain, or unstable. However, I understand Waismann as trying to show (in particular through his interpretation of Dostojevki’s Raskolnikov) that even if a reason for which a person acts or a purpose is something that the agent is aware of prior to action, we get the same kind of instability and uncertainty that occurs with unconscious motives. Here is why: agents are normally aware of quite a number of reasons for and against acting in a certain way. But for any one of those reasons, they may deny – as Raskolnikov does – that that is the reason for which they did it. It was a reason, all right, and even one that they considered, but not the one for which they acted. Thus the problems of instability and uncertainty that Waismann points out affects motives not only insofar as they are unconscious and mere drives. They affect motives in the sense of ‘Beweggrund’ as well. (shrink)

The growing field of evo-devo is increasingly demonstrating the complexity of steps involved in genetic, intracellular regulatory, and extracellular environmental control of the development of phenotypes. A key result of such work is an account for the remarkable plasticity of organismal form in many species based on relatively minor changes in regulation of highly conserved genes and genetic processes. Accounting for behavioral plasticity is of similar potential interest but has received far less attention. Of particular interest is plasticity in communication (...) systems, where human language represents an ultimate target for research. The present paper considers plasticity of language capabilities in a comparative framework, focusing attention on examples of a remarkable fact: Whereas there exist design features of mature human language that have never been observed to occur in non-humans in the wild, many of these features can be developed to notable extents when non-humans are enculturated through human training. These examples of enculturated developmental plasticity across extremely diverse taxa suggest, consistent with the evo-devo theme of highly conserved processes in evolution, that human language is founded in part on cognitive capabilities that are indeed ancient and that even modern humans show self-organized emergence of many language capabilities in the context of rich enculturation, built on the special social/ecological history of the hominin line. Human culture can thus be seen as a regulatory system encouraging language development in the context of a cognitive background with many highly conserved features. (shrink)

Explaining the relation of values and reasons is a major focus of Joseph Raz’s work. I examine his account of the relation of values and reasons, focusing in particular on practical reasons. As a preliminary way of delineating two basic alternatives for mapping the relation of values and reasons, let me pose the Euthyphro-style question: (1) Is something valuable because we have reasons to behave in some way with respect to it? Or: (2) Do we have reasons to behave in (...) some way with respect to it because it is valuable? Though helpful for contrasting different approaches, this question is still multiply ambiguous. It may be interpreted as a question concerning the metaphysical primacy of values and reasons respectively - that is, whether there have to be things of value for there to be reasons, or vice versa. There is also a question of conceptual primacy: Can ‘value’ be defined in terms of reasons, or can ‘reason’ be defined in terms of value? A related, but different question is epistemological: Does a person have to be able to master the concept of value in order to understand the concept of a reason (or, again, vice versa)? I use these three questions as guidelines for investigating Raz’s view of the relation of values and reasons. Are values (1) metaphysically, (2) conceptually, and/or (3) epistemologically prior to reasons? Or are reasons in all or any of these respects prior to value? My strategy in the paper is as follows: In section 1, I locate Raz’s position with respect to these three questions by contrasting his views with those of Thomas Scanlon. In section 2, I work out Raz’s account of reasons and values in some greater detail. And then, in section 3, I discuss what I take to be the remaining major problem with Raz’s approach. (shrink)

Rooted in Assyriology with a strong interdisciplinary outlook, this book offers the first comprehensive study of ancient Mesopotamian notions of the human person, including semantic analyses of Akkadian terms for body parts and multiple ...

In this book, Frank Griffel presents the most comprehensive examination to date of the life and thought of this important figure.

English summary: Contrary to the prevailing view that the 'Encheiridion' is a second rate summary of the 'Diatribai', this commentary makes clear the unique significance of this so-called handbook on stoic morality, which must rank as one of the first philosophical handbooks ever to be published. The commentary places the most popular work of this Stoic of the Roman Empire in the overall context of Epictetus's thought and discusses its significance in Stoic schools as well as with regard to both (...) precursory and contemporary followers from competing schools of philosophy. Taking into account the most important debates on terminology and the history of philosophy, the author describes the unique synthesis of rhetoric and debate, which reveal the 'Encheiridion' as being a workbook for character based self-education. German description: Entgegen der vorherrschenden Einschatzung, das 'Encheiridion' sei eine zweitrangige Zusammenfassung der 'Diatribai', begrundet der vorliegende Kommentar die eigenstandige Bedeutung des 'Handbuchleins zur stoischen Moral', das als eines der ersten philosophischen Handbucher uberhaupt gelten darf. In 53 Abschnitten bietet das 'Encheiridion' zahlreiche charakterliche und seelische Ubungen, um die stoische 'ars vitae' zu vervollkommnen. Mit ausdrucklichem Verweis auf die sokratische Tradition der epimeleia heautou stellt Epiktet den richtigen Gebrauch der Vorstellungen und fortwahrende Selbstuberprufung in den Mittelpunkt seines psychagogischen Programms. Der Kommentar ordnet das popularste Werk des kaiserzeitlichen Stoikers in den Gesamtzusammenhang des Denkens Epiktets ein und diskutiert dessen Positionen innerhalb des stoischen Schulsystems sowie in Hinsicht auf Vorlaufer und zeitgenossische Anhanger konkurrierender Philosophenschulen. Unter Berucksichtigung der wichtigsten terminologischen und philosophiegeschichtlichen Debatten wird die eigentumliche Synthese von rhetorischer und argumentativer Darstellung erlautert, anhand deren das 'Encheiridion' seine Wirkung als Ubungsbuch zur charakterlichen Selbstbildung entfaltet. (shrink)

In this book, Frank Griffel presents the most comprehensive examination to date of the life and thought of this important figure.

This paper investigates the dynamic and performative construction of publics in public engagement exercises. In this investigation, we, on the one hand, analyse how public engagement settings as political machineries frame particular kinds of roles and identities for the participating publics in relation to ‘the public at large’. On the other hand, we study how the participating citizens appropriate, resist and transform these roles and identities, and how they construct themselves and the participating group in relation to wider publics. The (...) empirical basis of our argument is a discussion of four different kinds of participation events in Austria. Building on these observations we develop conclusions about the public up-take of public participation in technoscience and the role of public engagement in current techno-political cultures. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungProduktion und Verbrauch von Nahrungsmitteln sind traditionell mit weit reichenden Ängsten verknüpft. Bezogen diese sich in vormodernen Gesellschaften vorrangig auf eine ausreichende Versorgung, sind sie in der modernen Industriegesellschaft eher auf die Qualität der Nahrungsmittel gerichtet. In diesem Zusammenhang spielten in der Nachkriegszeit Antibiotika eine zentrale Rolle. Der Aufsatz stellt die Einführung der Antibiotika in die westdeutsche Veterinärmedizin, ihre frühe Diskussion als Konservierungsmittel und ihre wachsende Rolle als Wachstumsförderer dar. Vor dem Hintergrund einer zunehmend industrialisierten, auf Maximierung ausgerichteten Produktionspolitik werden (...) die Rolle der Veterinäre, der Forschung und der wissenschaftlichen Experten sowie die Probleme der Regulierung des Antibiotikaeinsatzes in der Landwirtschaft diskutiert, die in die Entstehung eines unübersichtlichen grauen Marktes für Antibiotika und die Verlagerung ihres Einsatzes in die Therapie mündete. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit wird der Frage zugewandt, welche Rolle das Vertrauen und die Ängste der Verbraucher in diesem Prozess spielten. (shrink)

The problem of moral luck arises from the apparent conflict of two commonly accepted claims: it seems, on the one hand, that we are responsible only for those actions that are under our control; on the other hand, we seem to be responsible for the results of our actions, even if those depend on the cooperation of factors that we do not control directly. The opponents of moral luck side with the so-called control principle. In this paper, I argue, first, (...) that their understanding of control leads into absurdities, and is in many ways inadequate. It makes it near impossible to explain responsibility for failed or negligent actions, for instance. Secondly, I develop a different understanding of control – control through skills - , and show that having control in this sense is compatible with moral luck, and also allows us to explain when and why we are responsible for failed and negligent actions. -/- Das Problem des moralischen Zufalls ergibt sich aus dem vermeintlich Konflikt zweier tief in unserem Alltagsverständnis von Verantwortung verankerter Annahmen: einerseits scheint es, dass wir nur für das verantwortlich sind, was unter unserer Kontrolle ist; andererseits sind wir aber verantwortlich für das, wir tun – für die Ergebnisse unseres Handeln - und die sind gewöhnlich nicht unter unserer Kontrolle, sondern hängen von vielen Umständen ab, auf die wir als Handelnde keinen direkten Einfluss haben. Die Gegner des moralischen Zufalls verteidigen das sogenannte Kontrollprinzip. In diesem Aufsatz argumentiere ich zum einen dafür, dass der Kontrollbegriff, der diesem Ansatzes unterliegt, zu Absurditäten führt und in verschiedenen Hinsichten unzureichend ist. Insbesondere gelingt es seinen Vertretern nicht, zu erklären, wann und warum wir für verfehlte und nachlässige Handlungen verantwortlich sind. Zum anderen entwickele ich einen anderen Kontrollbegriff – Kontrolle durch Fertigkeiten – und zeige, dass die Kontrolle über unser Handeln in diesem Sinn mit moralischem Zufall vereinbar ist. Darüberhinaus erlaubt uns dieser Kontrollbegriff zu erklären, wann und in welchem Umfang wir für missglückte und nachlässige Handlungen verantwortlich sind. (shrink)

Donald Davidson writes that “[r]easons for intending to do something are very much like reasons for action, indeed one might hold that they are exactly the same except for time.” That the reasons for forming an intention and the reasons for acting as intended are in some way related is a widely accepted claim. But it can take different forms: (1) the reasons may mirror each other so that there is a (derivative) reason to intend whenever there is a reason (...) to act; or (2) they may reduce to just one kind: perhaps all reasons for action are really reasons for forming intentions.3 Or the other way around: (3) all reasons for intentions are really reasons to act. The three versions are not equally strong contenders though. The third - that reasons to intend could reduce to reasons to act - seems unlikely. After all, there may be reasons to form future-directed intentions, in particular, independently of the reason to act as intended. The second suggestion falls prey to different considerations: reasons to act can, at least sometimes, be reasons to produce a certain outcome, quite independently of the intention with which the action is done, or whether it is done intentionally at all. In these cases, the reason to act is not (or not obviously) a reason to intend. Therefore, I don’t pursue the possibility of a reduction in this paper. My focus is on the first, non-reductive proposal. I will discuss various versions of it in some detail, but ultimately reject it. (shrink)

In this essay I examine the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor on the post-secular state. I argue that, although their views on the relation of religion and politics converge in certain respects, a profound difference remains between their overall approaches. Their disagreement on the epistemic status of religious as opposed to secular moral reasons, and on the role religious arguments can play in the public sphere testify to a deeper schism. Thus what might at first seem like a (...) quarrel about details proves to be a fundamental philosophical divide on the issue of modernity. I conclude that Taylor’s model of post-secularism is more promising as an approach to the challenge posed by growing religious and cultural diversity, for, if understood as a version of “reiterative universalism,” it avoids both moral relativism and Eurocentrism. (shrink)

That the extraordinary narrative experiment known as theSatyriconhas regularly stimulated scholarly investigation into the relationship between status and freedom is not surprising for a work, the longest surviving section of which features an excessive dinner party at the house of alibertus. Much of the discussion has concentrated on the depiction of the dinner's host and his freedmen friends. Following the lead of F. Zeitlin and others in seeing the depiction of a ‘freedmen's milieu’ in theCena, J. Bodel argued in a (...) seminal paper published twenty years ago that theCenaopens a window onto the ‘freedman's mentality’. The last ten years or so have seen a revival of the theme, with much emphasis on the display of an open society in theCena, even a Saturnalian world-view, based on a suspension or reversal of the traditional social hierarchies, all framed by a general air of excessive liberality: whatever satirical lens theSatyricon’s author is seen to have projected onto Trimalchio and his freedmen friends,theyare understood as celebrating ‘freedom's defining difference’. In the light of such a unifying conceptualization of theCena’s motley crew, it is not surprising that scholars have come to understand the libertine assemblage as a reflection of ‘the social class of the “freedmen” in first-centurya.d.Italy’. After all, ‘class’ can be defined as ‘a number of individuals possessing common attributes’, and, with specific regard to human society, as ‘a division of society according to status’. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore some of the possibilities, advantages and difficulties of corpus-based analyses of semantic and pragmatic aspects of language in one particular field, namely the linguistic expression of emotion concepts. For this purpose, a methodological procedure is proposed and an exemplary analysis of the emotion concept “fear” in English is performed. The procedure combines Kövecses' lexical approach and Stefanowitsch's metaphorical pattern analysis with additional concepts from corpus linguistics such as semantic preference and semantic prosody. (...) The results of the study show that such a corpus-based analysis of emotion words offers several advantages. Firstly, by exploring the surroundings of the search word in a vast amount of text, we are not only able to find evidence of conceptual metaphor and metonymy that structure the emotion concept and of related emotion concepts, but also we can enrich the description of the emotion concept with information from a series of dimensions and add a pragmatic viewpoint by revealing an explicit or implicit evaluation of the emotion. The second advantage offered by a corpus-based approach lies in the possibility of quantifying results, i.e., comparing the frequency, productivity and creative use of individual metaphors and metonymies, which is especially interesting in view of contrastive studies. (shrink)

This article rebuts Ramsey's earlier theory, in 'Universals of Law and of Fact', of how laws of nature differ from other true generalisations. It argues that our laws are rules we use in judging 'if I meet an F I shall regard it as a G'. This temporal asymmetry is derived from that of cause and effect and used to distinguish what's past as what we can know about without knowing our present intentions.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Bei Kant tauchen viele antike Autoren und Theorien auf. In dieser ersten Gesamtbearbeitung zum Thema wird gegen eine langjährige Forschungsmeinung gezeigt, dass nicht so sehr Platon und Aristoteles als vielmehr der hellenistischen Philosophie die entscheidende Rolle für sein Denken zukommt. Anhand der drei Kritiken werden Konstanzen und Umbrüche seines Antikeverständnisses herausgearbeitet und in ihren Konsequenzen für die Kantdeutung beleuchtet.

A complete collection of Frank Sibley's articles on philosophical aesthetics, this volume includes five, remarkable, hitherto unpublished papers written in Sibley's later years. It addresses many topics, among them the nature of aesthetic qualities versus non-aesthetic qualities, the relation of aesthetic description to aesthetic evaluation, the different levels of evaluation, and the objectivity of aesthetic judgement. The later papers constitute both a significant development of Sibley's individual approach to aesthetics, such as his discussion of the distinction between attributive and predicative (...) uses of adjectives and of the aesthetic significance of tastes and smells, a topic Sibley considered to be much neglected. (shrink)

Among various changing views on sex and gender, transsexualism, theoretically as well as clinically, raises a paradoxical issue: transsexual subjects seem to confirm something that they simultaneously disclaim or, at least, destabilize with their transition. These days psychoanalysis remains rather critical towards transsexualism. Jacques Lacan has developed several theories on sex and gender, reworking them during the course of his lifetime. That is why his work includes possibilities of understanding transsexual phenomena at the level of singular solutions that he himself, (...) especially with respect to some of his earlier cases, has not been able to formulate. (shrink)

This article sheds light on the ‘European citizenship paradox’, which emerges as a result of the tensions between EU citizenship norms and member‐state practices in the context of regional disparities and social inequalities that market integration arguably deepens. I claim that a transnational, politically inclusive European citizenship would provide for public spaces where unjust practices can be submitted to a respectful but no less ruthless critical analysis, where violent impositions and infringements can be disqualified by insisting on human and European (...) citizenship rights and norms. Assessing alternative citizenship models, I argue that a purely liberal‐market, a republican or a cosmopolitan citizenship model all appear to fail to resolve this paradox, unless they include deliberative procedures based on the recognition of different collective identities. (shrink)

Zwischen 1920 und 1925 kam es nach Vorarbeiten von Jones, Abraham, Stärcke, van Ophuijsen und Alexander sowie in Abrahams Hauptwerk, dem Versuch einer Entwicklungsgeschichte der Libido, zu einer Veränderung der psychoanalytischen Theorie, die sich vor allem auf die Stellung der Aggression bezog. Die stärkere Gewichtung der präödipalen Aggression wurde in London in erster Linie von Abrahams Analysanden James und Edward Glover durchgeführt. Ihre Arbeiten bereiteten den Boden für die Rezeption von Melanie Klein, einer weiteren Abraham-Analysandin, die ihrerseits von Alix Strachey, (...) auch sie eine Analysandin Abrahams, sowie von Ernest Jones unterstützt wurde. Klein entwickelte in der Analyse mit Kindern eine Technik, die sich bevorzugt auf die Wahrnehmung und Deutung der Aggression in der Stunde bezog. All dies, ohne dass Freud die neue Linie begrüßt hätte, was aber seit dem Erstarken der lokalen Gruppen in Berlin und London nicht mehr so stark ins Gewicht fiel. Gleichwohl blieb die Frage nach der Stellung der Aggression in der Schwebe, während sich Freud bis zuletzt für das Primat des Sexuellen aussprach und sich von den Positionen der hier erwähnten Schüler zwischen 1920 und 1925 mehrere Male ausdrücklich distanzierte. (shrink)

In the article, we propose to frame organizational learning as inquiry into and resolving tensions arising from the performance of different commitments to work and its organizing. We expand learning as participation with its focus upon identity and membership to the development of work and the experiences and knowledge of its participants. The proposal is inspired by pragmatist philosophy both through its emphasis on learning as ascribing meaning to experience and its sociological version, symbolic interactionism with its emphasis on work (...) and its organizing in social arenas/worlds. We show that a pragmatist learning theory, founded on principles of non-dualistic, non-hierarchy, and a non-linear view on relations, thinking and practice aligns well with the proposed refurbished learning approach via complexity theory in this special issue. Further, we propose that Dewey’s pragmatism adds an important feature to a refurbished theory of learning in organizations by emphasizing the tensional and uncertain aspects of situations as contextual wholes that for a pragmatist learning theory constitute the analytical point of departure. (shrink)

Freuds Entwurf von »Trauer und Melancholie« vom Februar 1915, der 1996 publiziert wurde, steht im Zentrum der Untersuchung. Nach einer Zusammenfassung der Thesen des Entwurfs werden Ferenczis und Abrahams Reaktionen auf den Text sowie Freuds Kommentar zu ihren Stellungnahmen dargestellt. Freuds partielle Übernahme von Ferenczis Introjektion und seine Zurückhaltung gegenüber Abrahams »Munderotik und Sadismus« werden erörtert sowie die Frage, ob und inwiefern die Einwürfe der Schüler in die Endfassung von »Trauer und Melancholie« einflossen, insbesondere Abrahams theoretischer Ansatz. Abschließend wird der (...) Begriff der narzisstischen Identifizierung, der den Kern von Freuds Verständnis der Depression bildet, mit seinen aus der gleichen Zeit stammenden Ausführungen über die »Vorstufen der Liebe« zu einem Bild der narzisstischen Beziehung zwischen Subjekt und Objekt zusammengefügt, unter Betonung der klinischen Relevanz der von Freud entwickelten Differenz zwischen der narzisstischen und libidinösen Besetzung des Objekts. (shrink)