“Functional homology” appears regularly in different areas of biological research and yet it is apparently a contradiction in terms—homology concerns identity of structure regardless of form and function. I argue that despite this conceptual tension there is a legitimate conception of ‘homology of function’, which can be recovered by utilizing a distinction from pre-Darwinian physiology (use versus activity) to identify an appropriate meaning of ‘function’. This account is directly applicable to molecular developmental biology and shares a connection to the theme (...) of hierarchy in homology. I situate ‘homology of function’ within existing definitions and criteria for structural assessments of homology, and introduce a criterion of ‘organization’ for judging function homologues, which focuses on hierarchically interconnected interdependencies (similar to relative position and connection for skeletal elements in structural homology). This analysis of biological concepts has at least three broad philosophical consequences: (1) it provides the grounds for the study of behavior and psychological categories as homologues; (2) it demonstrates that philosophers who take selected effect function as primary effectively ignore large portions of comparative, structural, and experimental research, thereby misconstruing biological reasoning and knowledge; and, (3) it underwrites causal generalizations, which illuminates inferences made from model organisms in experimental biology. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to encourage a reconfiguration of the discussion about typology in biology away from the metaphysics of essentialism and toward the epistemology of classifying natural phenomena for the purposes of empirical inquiry. First, I briefly review arguments concerning ‘typological thinking’, essentialism, species, and natural kinds, highlighting their predominantly metaphysical nature. Second, I use a distinction between the aims, strategies, and tactics of science to suggest how a shift from metaphysics to epistemology might be accomplished. Typological (...) thinking can be understood as a scientific tactic that involves representing natural phenomena using idealizations and approximations, which facilitates explanation, investigation, and theorizing via abstraction and generalization. Third, a variety of typologies from different areas of biology are introduced to emphasize the diversity of this representational reasoning. One particular example is used to examine how there can be epistemological conflict between typology and evolutionary analysis. This demonstrates that alternative strategies of typological thinking arise due to the divergent explanatory goals of researchers working in different disciplines with disparate methodologies. I conclude with several research questions that emerge from an epistemological reconfiguration of typology. (shrink)

Model organisms are central to contemporary biology and studies of embryogenesis in particular. Biologists utilize only a small number of species to experimentally elucidate the phenomena and mechanisms of development. Critics have questioned whether these experimental models are good representatives of their targets because of the inherent biases involved in their selection (e.g., rapid development and short generation time). A standard response is that the manipulative molecular techniques available for experimental analysis mitigate, if not counterbalance, this concern. But the most (...) powerful investigative techniques and molecular methods are applicable to single-celled organisms (‘microbes’). Why not use unicellular rather than multicellular model organisms, which are the standard for developmental biology? To claim that microbes are not good representatives takes us back to the original criticism leveled against model organisms. Using empirical case studies of microbes modeling ontogeny, we break out of this circle of reasoning by showing: (a) that the criterion of representation is more complex than earlier discussions have emphasized; and, (b) that different aspects of manipulability are comparable in importance to representation when deciding if a model organism is a good model. These aspects of manipulability harbor the prospect of enhancing representation. The result is a better understanding of how developmental biologists conceptualize research using experimental models and suggestions for underappreciated avenues of inquiry using microbes. More generally, it demonstrates how the practical aspects of experimental biology must be scrutinized in order to understand the associated scientific reasoning. (shrink)

A central reason that undergirds the significance of evo-devo is the claim that development was left out of the Modern synthesis. This claim turns out to be quite complicated, both in terms of whether development was genuinely excluded and how to understand the different kinds of embryological research that might have contributed. The present paper reevaluates this central claim by focusing on the practice of model organism choice. Through a survey of examples utilized in the literature of the Modern synthesis, (...) I identify a previously overlooked feature: exclusion of research on marine invertebrates. Understanding the import of this pattern requires interpreting it in terms of two epistemic values operating in biological research: theoretical generality and explanatory completeness. In tandem, these values clarify and enhance the significance of this exclusion. The absence of marine invertebrates implied both a lack of generality in the resulting theory and a lack of completeness with respect to particular evolutionary problems, such as evolvability and the origin of novelty. These problems were salient to embryological researchers aware of the variation and diversity of larval forms in marine invertebrates. In closing, I apply this analysis to model organism choice in evo-devo and discuss its relevance for an extended evolutionary synthesis. (shrink)

Developmental biology is the science of explaining how a variety of interacting processes generate the heterogeneous shapes, size, and structural features of an organism as it develops rom embryo to adult, or more generally throughout its life cycle (Love, 2008b; Minelli, 2011a). Although it is commonplace in philosophy to associate sciences with theories such that the individuation of a science is dependent on a constitutive theory or group of models, it is uncommon to find presentations of developmental biology making (...) reference to a theory or theories of development. For example, in the third edition of Essential Developmental Biology (Slack, 2013), three families of approaches are described (developmental genetics, experimental embryology, and molecular and cell biology), and the appendix contains a catalogue of ‘key molecular components’ (genes, transcription factor, families, inducing factor families, cytoskeleton, cell adhesion molecules, and extracellular matrix components); however, no standard theory or group of models provides a theoretical scaffolding to the book nor is any mentioned. (shrink)

Developmental biology is the science of explaining how a variety of interacting processes generate an organism’s heterogeneous shapes, size, and structural features that arise on the trajectory from embryo to adult, or more generally throughout a life cycle. It represents an exemplary area of contemporary experimental biology that focuses on phenomena that have puzzled natural philosophers and scientists for more than two millennia.

Modern attitudes to meat in both men and women reflect a strong meat-masculinity association. Sex differences in the relationship between meat and masculinity have not been previously explored. In the current study we used two IATs (implicit association tasks), a visual search task, and a questionnaire to measure implicit and explicit attitudes towards meat in men and women. Men exhibited stronger implicit associations between meat and healthiness than did women, but both sexes associated meat more strongly with 'healthy' than 'unhealthy' (...) concepts, suggesting that the meat-masculinity association readily observed across western cultures may be mediated by a meat-strength/power association. The sex difference was not related to explicit attitudes to meat, nor was it attributable to a variety of other factors, such as a generally more positive disposition toward meat in men than women. Men also exhibited an attention bias toward meats, compared to non-meat foods, while females exhibited more caution when searching for non-meat foods, compared to meat. These biases were not related to implicit attitudes, but did tend to increase with increasing hunger levels. Potential ultimate explanations for these differences, including sex differences in bio-physiological needs and receptivity to social signals are discussed. (shrink)

This edited collection showcases some of the best recent research in the philosophy of science. It comprises of thematically arranged papers presented at the 5th conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA15), covering a broad variety of topics within general philosophy of science, and philosophical issues pertaining to specific sciences. The collection will appeal to researchers with an interest in the philosophical underpinnings of their own discipline, and to philosophers who wish to study the latest work on (...) the themes discussed. (shrink)

Socialism has long been thought by many to be the enemy of freedom. Here, I argue that in order to understand the relationship between socialism and freedom, we must have a better idea both of what socialism is and of what it is to have a right to freedom. To start, I argue that the right to freedom is best understood as a right to direct one’s own will in the world consistently with the rights of others to do the (...) same. This Kantian conception of the right to freedom is importantly different from the ubiquitous conception of freedom as negative liberty: with this Kantian conception, one’s right to freedom is limited to directing one’s own will and does not include a right to direct the wills of others. I then argue that socialism, like the right to freedom, is often misunderstood: today, socialists often argue for robustly democratic forms of socialism that are far from the autocratic so-called “socialist” regimes of the last century. With a better understanding of both socialism and the right to freedom, we can see that the right to freedom is indeed compatible with a robustly democratic form of socialism. (shrink)

John Norton’s argument that all formal theories of induction fail raises substantive questions about the philosophical analysis of scientific reasoning. What are the criteria of adequacy for philosophical theories of induction, explanation, or theory structure? Is more than one adequate theory possible? Using a generalized version of Norton’s argument, I demonstrate that the competition between formal and material theories in philosophy of science results from adhering to different criteria of adequacy. This situation encourages an interpretation of “formal” and “material” as (...) indicators of divergent criteria that accompany different philosophical methodologies. I characterize another criterion of adequacy associated with material theories, the avoidance of imported problems, and conclude that one way to negotiate between conflicting criteria is to adopt a pluralist stance toward philosophical theories of scientific reasoning. (shrink)

The prominence of Bayesian modeling of cognition has increased recently largely because of mathematical advances in specifying and deriving predictions from complex probabilistic models. Much of this research aims to demonstrate that cognitive behavior can be explained from rational principles alone, without recourse to psychological or neurological processes and representations. We note commonalities between this rational approach and other movements in psychology – namely, Behaviorism and evolutionary psychology – that set aside mechanistic explanations or make use of optimality assumptions. Through (...) these comparisons, we identify a number of challenges that limit the rational program's potential contribution to psychological theory. Specifically, rational Bayesian models are significantly unconstrained, both because they are uninformed by a wide range of process-level data and because their assumptions about the environment are generally not grounded in empirical measurement. The psychological implications of most Bayesian models are also unclear. Bayesian inference itself is conceptually trivial, but strong assumptions are often embedded in the hypothesis sets and the approximation algorithms used to derive model predictions, without a clear delineation between psychological commitments and implementational details. Comparing multiple Bayesian models of the same task is rare, as is the realization that many Bayesian models recapitulate existing (mechanistic level) theories. Despite the expressive power of current Bayesian models, we argue they must be developed in conjunction with mechanistic considerations to offer substantive explanations of cognition. We lay out several means for such an integration, which take into account the representations on which Bayesian inference operates, as well as the algorithms and heuristics that carry it out. We argue this unification will better facilitate lasting contributions to psychological theory, avoiding the pitfalls that have plagued previous theoretical movements. (shrink)

Although reducing the costs of software maintenance has long been held as an important goal, few researchers have studied software maintenance — except in the context of software design. However, thinking in software design is itself muddled by the frequent confusion over the term ‘software’ and ‘programs’. In this paper we argue for a re-examination of the underlying philosophical foundations of programs, in order to establish software as a phenomenon in its own right. Once we understand the basic structure of (...) software theories, we will be in a better position to understand how theories of software relate to theories of programs. This might finally provide the insight needed to achieve the long awaited reduction in the cost of software maintenance. (shrink)

Accounting for the evolutionary origins of morphological novelty is one of the core challenges of contemporary evolutionary biology. A successful explanatory framework requires the integration of different biological disciplines, but the relationships between developmental biology and standard evolutionary biology remain contested. There is also disagreement about how to define the concept of evolutionary novelty. These issues were the subjects of a workshop held in November 2009 at the University of Alberta. We report on the discussion and results of this workshop, (...) addressing questions about (i) how to define evolutionary novelty and understand its significance, (ii) how to interpret evolutionary developmental biology as a synthesis and its relation to neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, and (iii) how to integrate disparate biological approaches in general. (shrink)

Alexandre Kojève declared himself a Stalinist. This declaration has puzzled his own students from the inter-war period and many later commentators. The present article takes Kojève at his word; its imaginative thrust is to cast Kojève’s declaration in the context of a more comprehensive reflection on revolution and the revolutionary project undertaken by Stalinism. Kojève envisages revolution as completing history and ushering in a new era, whose exact contours appear paradoxical, since the end of history is also the end of (...) humanity. This conception of history Kojève associates with Hegel. At the same time Kojève suggests that revolution may never be complete but remains a continuous striving for an end that is always “underway.” This conception of history Kojève associates with Kant and, ultimately, with the universal and homogeneous state and, by extension, with the historical Stalinist state as well. Such a state expresses a skeptical attitude to revolution in terms of both its possibility and perhaps even its desirability. (shrink)

Developmental biology is the science that investigates how a variety of interacting processes generate an organism’s heterogeneous shapes, size, and structural features that arise on the trajectory from embryo to adult, or more generally throughout a life cycle. It represents an exemplary area of contemporary experimental biology that focuses on phenomena that have puzzled natural philosophers and scientists for more than two millennia. Philosophers of biology have shown interest in developmental biology due to the potential relevance of development for understanding (...) evolution, the theme of reductionism in genetic explanations, and via increased attention to the details of particular research programs, such as stem cell biology. Developmental biology displays a rich array of material and conceptual practices that can be analyzed to better understand the scientific reasoning exhibited in experimental life science. This entry briefly reviews some central phenomena of ontogeny and then explores four domains that represent some of the import and promise of conceptual reflection on the epistemology of developmental biology. (shrink)

John Bonner managed a long and productive career that balanced specialized inquiry into cellular slime molds with general investigations of big questions in evolutionary biology, such as the origins of multicellular development and the evolution of complexity. This commentary engages with his final paper (“The evolution of evolution”), which argues that the evolutionary process has changed through the history of life. In particular, Bonner emphasizes the possibility that natural selection plays different roles at different size scales. I identify some (...) underlying assumptions in his argument and evaluate its cogency to both foster future discussion and emulate the intellectual example set by Bonner over a lifetime. This endeavor is important beyond Bonner's own theoretical disposition because similar issues are visible in controversies about the possibility of an extended evolutionary synthesis. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that stressful conditions can facilitate evolutionary change. The mechanisms elucidated thus far accomplish this with a generic increase in heritable variation that facilitates more rapid adaptive evolution, often via plastic modifications of existing characters. Through scrutiny of different meanings of stress in biological research, and an explicit recognition that stressors must be characterized relative to their effect on capacities for maintaining functional integrity, we distinguish between: (1) previously identified stress-responsive mechanisms that facilitate evolution by maintaining an (...) adaptive fit with the environment, and (2) the co-option of stress-responsive mechanisms that are specific to stressors leading to the origin of novelties via compensation. Unlike standard accounts of gene co-option that identify component sources of evolutionary change, our model documents the cost-benefit trade-offs and thereby explains how one mechanism—an immediate response to acute stress—is transformed evolutionarily into another—routine protection from recurring stressors. We illustrate our argument with examples from cell type origination as well as processes and structures at higher levels of organization. These examples suggest a general principle of evolutionary origination based on the capacity to switch between regulatory states related to reproduction and proliferation versus survival and differentiation. (shrink)

The questions raised for the study of marine invertebrate larvae have implications for the evolution of development, the life histories of animals, and life in the sea more generally. These questions began to coalesce in the 19th century around two main factors. The first was the discovery of marine larvae. Through careful observation, investigators detected and confirmed that the development of animals exhibited stages surprisingly different from the previously known adults and adult-like juveniles. Famous examples include the demonstration that barnacles (...) were arthropods because of a shared larval form (Thompson 1830), the characterization of bilateral echinoderm larvae by Johannes Müller (summarized in Huxley 1851), and the unexpected chordate affinities of tunicates. Subsequent studies also demonstrated that adults with similar morphological features could have radically different larval forms and life histories. (shrink)

Tenenbaum and Griffiths's article continues three disturbing trends that typify category learning modeling: (1) modelers tend to focus on a single induction task; (2) the drive to create models that are formally elegant has resulted in a gross simplification of the phenomena of interest; (3) related research is generally ignored when doing so is expedient. [Tenenbaum & Griffiths].

Accounting for the evolutionary origins of morphological novelty is one of the core challenges of contemporary evolutionary biology. A successful explanatory framework requires the integration of different biological disciplines, but the relationships between developmental biology and standard evolutionary biology remain contested. There is also disagreement about how to define the concept of evolutionary novelty. These issues were the subjects of a workshop held in November 2009 at the University of Alberta. We report on the discussion and results of this workshop, (...) addressing questions about (i) how to define evolutionary novelty and understand its significance, (ii) how to interpret evolutionary developmental biology as a synthesis and its relation to neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, and (iii) how to integrate disparate biological approaches in general. (shrink)

Phillip Sloan has thoroughly documented the importance of Darwin's general invertebrate research program in the period from 1826 to 1836 and demonstrated how it had an impact on his conversion to transformism. Although Darwin later spent eight years of his life investigating barnacles, this period has received less treatment in studies of Darwin and the development of his thought. The most prominent question for the barnacle period that has been attended to is why Darwin "delayed" in publishing his theory (...) of evolution. A related but distinct question concerns the variety of earlier events and influences that led Darwin to the study of "Cirripedia" in 1846, apart from its role in the trajectory that led to "On the Origin of Species ". In this paper I focus on four specific episodes prior to 1846 that inform a picture of why Darwin had an antecedent interest in barnacles: the orientation to collecting strange and curious invertebrate organisms, as well as the strong affinities of Darwin's invertebrate collecting on the Beagle voyage with the work of John Vaughan Thompson; the critical role of marine invertebrate fossils in Darwin's geological reasoning aboard the Beagle and exemplified in his "Geological Observations of South America;" the strange absence of a "Zoology of the Beagle" volume on invertebrates and Darwin's original intent to publish some of the descriptions himself; and the noteworthy presence of barnacles in Darwin's transformation theorizing between 1837 and 1839. There is a wealth of support for the thesis that Darwin had a strong interest in cirripedes prior to the formal barnacle research, blunting arguments that it was psychological aversion or a feeling of inferiority about his taxonomic abilities that drove Darwin to the cirripedes. (shrink)

A disposition or dispositional property is a capacity, ability, or potential to display or exhibit some outcome. Evolvability refers to a disposition to evolve. This chapter discusses why the dispositional nature of evolvability matters—why philosophical distinctions about dispositions can have scientific implications. To that end, we build a conceptual toolkit with vocabulary from prior philosophical analyses using a different disposition: protein foldability. We then apply this toolkit to address several methodological questions related to evolvability. What entities are the bearers of (...) evolvability? What features causally contribute to the disposition of evolvability? How does evolvability manifest? The various possible answers to these questions available from philosophical distinctions suggest key implications for why the concept of evolvability as a disposition is useful in evolutionary research. These include (1) securing scientific virtues (e.g., explanatory depth and generalization, prediction or retrodiction, and control or manipulation) and (2) fostering interdisciplinary collaboration through the coordination of definitional diversity and different types of inquiry. Together these facilitate concentration on a variety of research questions at different levels of organization and on distinct time scales, all of which should be expected for a complex dispositional property such as evolvability. (shrink)

Hume thinks moral judgments are based on sentiments of approval and disapproval we feel when we contemplate someone from a "general point of view." We view her through the eyes of her "narrow circle" and judge her in accordance with general rules. Why do we take up the general point of view? Hume also argues that approval is a calm form of love, love of character, which sets a normative standard for other forms of (...) class='Hi'>love. In this paper I explain why, and argue that character, as a form of causality, is constructed from the point of view of one's narrow circle. We take up the general view to view people as persons, that is, as possible objects of love. (shrink)

Two experiments investigated whether 4- and 5-year-old children are sensitive to whether the content of a generalization is about a salient or noteworthy property (henceforth “striking”) and whether varying the number of exceptions has any effect on children’s willingness to extend a property after having heard a generalization. Moreover, they investigated how the content of a generalization interacts with exception tolerance. Adult data were collected for comparison. We used generalizations to describe novel kinds (e.g., “glippets”) that had either a neutral (...) (e.g., “play with toys”) or a striking property (e.g., “play with fire”) and measured how willing participants were to extend the property to a new instance of the novel kind. Experiment 1 demonstrated that both adults and children show sensitivity to strikingness in that striking properties were extended less than neutral ones, although children extended less than adults overall. The responses of both age groups were significantly different from chance. Experiment 2 introduced varying numbers of exceptions to the generalization made (minimal: 1 exception; maximal: 3 exceptions). Both adults and children extended both types of properties even in the face of exceptions, but to a lower degree than in Experiment 1. Striking properties were extended less than neutral ones, as in Experiment 1. We observed that the greater the number of exceptions, the lower the rates of extension we obtained, for both types of properties in adults, but only with striking properties in children. Children seemed to keep track of varying numbers of exceptions for striking properties, but their performance did not differ from chance. The findings underscore that 4- and 5-year-old children are sensitive to strikingness and to exception tolerance for generalizations and are developing toward an adult-like behavior with respect to the interplay between strikingness and exception tolerance when they learn about novel kinds. We discuss the implications of these results with regards to how children make generalizations. (shrink)

One variety of love is familiar in everyday life and qualifies in every reasonable sense as a reactive attitude. ‘Reactive love’ is paradigmatically (a) an affectionate attachment to another person, (b) appropriately felt as a non-self-interested response to particular kinds of morally laudable features of character expressed by the loved one in interaction with the lover, and (c) paradigmatically manifested in certain kinds of acts of goodwill and characteristic affective, desiderative and other motivational responses (including other-regarding concern and (...) a desire to be with the beloved). ‘Virtues of intimacy’ as expressed in interaction with the lover are agent-relative reasons for reactive love, and like other reactive attitudes, reactive love generates reasons in its own right. Within a broad conception of the virtues, reactive love sheds light on the reactive attitudes more generally. (shrink)

At first glance, love seems to be a psychological state for which there are normative reasons: a state that, if all goes well, is an appropriate or fitting response to something independent of itself. Love for one’s parent, child, or friend is fitting, one wants to say, if anything is. On reflection, however, it is elusive what reasons for love might be. It is natural to assume that they would be nonrelational features of the person one loves, (...) something about her in her own right. According to the “quality theory,” for example, reasons for love are the beloved’s personal attributes, such as her wit and beauty. In J. David Velleman’s provocative and ingeniously argued proposal, the reason for love is the beloved’s bare Kantian personhood, her capacity for rational choice and valuation.1 But no such nonrelational feature works. To appreciate just one difficulty, observe that whatever nonrelational feature one selects as the reason for love will be one that another person could, or actually does, possess. The claim that nonrelational features are reasons for love implies, absurdly, that insofar as one’s love for Jane is responsive to its reasons, it will accept any relevantly similar person as a replacement. (shrink)

Analyzing Love is concerned with four basic and neglected problems concerning love. The first is identifying its relevant features: distinguishing it from liking and benevolence and from sexual desire; describing the objects that can be loved and the judgements and aims required by love. The second question is how we recognize the presence of love and what grounds we may have for thinking it present in any particular case. The third is that of relating it to (...) other emotions such as anger and fear, and, more generally, deciding where love stands in the contrast between emotions and attitudes. Finally, the book examines how we justify our loves: can we have, and do we need, reasons for loving? What types of judgement are appropriate to love? Can we criticize a lover for his or her choices? (shrink)

I make a contribution to the sociology of epistemologies by examining the neuroscience literature on love from 2000 to 2016. I find that researchers make consequential assumptions concerning the production or generation of love, its temporality, its individual character, and appropriate control conditions. Next, I consider how to account for these assumptions’ being common in the literature. More generally, I’m interested in the ways in which epistemic communities construe, conceive of, and publicly represent and work with their objects (...) of inquiry—and what’s thereby assumed about them and about the world. I argue that these implicit or explicit assumptions are a distinct type of explanandum, whose distinctiveness sociology hasn’t adequately appreciated and taken advantage of. I think it should and I hope it will. (shrink)

At first glance, love seems to be a psychological state for which there are normative reasons: a state that, if all goes well, is an appropriate or fitting response to something independent of itself. Love for one’s parent, child, or friend is fitting, one wants to say, if anything is. On reflection, however, it is elusive what reasons for love might be. It is natural to assume that they would be nonrelational features of the person one loves, (...) something about her in her own right. According to the “quality theory,” for example, reasons for love are the beloved’s personal attributes, such as her wit and beauty. In J. David Velleman’s provocative and ingeniously argued proposal, the reason for love is the beloved’s bare Kantian personhood, her capacity for rational choice and valuation. But no such nonrelational feature works. To appreciate just one difficulty, observe that whatever nonrelational feature one selects as the reason for love will be one that another person could, or actually does, possess. The claim that nonrelational features are reasons for love implies, absurdly, that insofar as one’s love for Jane is responsive to its reasons, it will accept any relevantly similar person as a replacement. (shrink)

This book unpicks the conceptual, ideological, and metaphysical tangles that get in the way of understanding romantic love. -/- Written for a general audience, What Love Is And What It Could Be explores different disciplinary perspectives on love, in search of the bigger picture. It presents a "dual-nature" theory: romantic love is simultaneously both a biological phenomenon and a social construct. The key philosophical insight comes in explaining why this a coherent—and indeed a necessary—position to (...) take. -/- The deep motivation behind this work is that we have a collective responsibility to figure out romantic love. It is a formidable and potentially dangerous force, its power underwritten by its twin footholds in our biological natures and in our most treasured social practices. Often we pretend that it is incomprehensible and out of control, but this is a way of abdicating our responsibility to understand love and fix it when it's broken. -/- What Love Is And What It Could Be explains that romantic love is currently broken in multiple interlocking ways, but also that we can change this status quo. Once we understand what love is, we will be able to take control of what it could be. (shrink)

Can love be an appropriate response to a person? In this paper, I argue that it can. First, I discuss the reasons why we might think this question should be answered in the negative. This will help us clarify the question itself. Then I argue that, even though extant accounts of reasons for love are inadequate, there remains the suspicion that there must be something about people which make our love for them appropriate. Being lovable, I contend, (...) is what makes our love for them appropriate, just as being fearsome is what makes our fear of certain situations appropriate. I finally propose a general account of this property which avoids the major problems facing the extant accounts of reasons for love. (shrink)

This chapter proposes that the question “What is love?” be given an ontological treatment. Rather than asking whether love can be identified with a familiar mental phenomenon (desire, emotion, etc.), it suggests that we should first ask what kind of phenomenon love is, where a kind should here be understood as the most general category to which a given phenomenon belongs, an inquiry that is largely missing from contemporary discussions about love. After motivating this project, (...) the chapter discusses and rejects a view according to which love is a certain kind of pattern or process, and then argues that love should be conceived of as a certain kind of state, namely a dispositional state. (shrink)

One variety of love is familiar in everyday life and qualifies in every reasonable sense as a reactive attitude. ‘Reactive love’ is paradigmatically an affectionate attachment to another person, appropriately felt as a non‐self‐interested response to particular kinds of morally laudable features of character expressed by the loved one in interaction with the lover, and paradigmatically manifested in certain kinds of acts of goodwill and characteristic affective, desiderative and other motivational responses . ‘Virtues of intimacy’ as expressed in (...) interaction with the lover are agent‐relative reasons for reactive love, and like other reactive attitudes, reactive love generates reasons in its own right. Within a broad conception of the virtues, reactive love sheds light on the reactive attitudes more generally. (shrink)

Three claims about love and justice cannot be simultaneously true and therefore entail a paradox: (1) Love is a matter of justice. (2) There cannot be a duty to love. (3) All matters of justice are matters of duty. The first claim is more controversial. To defend it, I show why the extent to which we enjoy the good of love is relevant to distributive justice. To defend (2) I explain the empirical, conceptual and axiological arguments (...) in its favour. Although (3) is the most generally endorsed claim of the three, I conclude we should reject it in order to avoid the paradox. (shrink)

Consider two commonly cited requirements of love. The first is that we should love people for who they are. The second is that loving people should involve concern for their well-being. But what happens when an aspect of someone’s identity conflicts with her well-being? In examining this question, I develop an account of loving someone in spite of something. Although there are cases where loving in spite of is merited, I argue that we generally do wrong to (...) class='Hi'>love people in spite of who they are, even where it appears that some aspect of their identity is in tension with their well-being. (shrink)

What is love? Is it an uncontrollable emotion? Is it, instead, socially shaped, both an emotion and a social practice? Can the bonds of care and affection between humans and non-human animals be said to be on a par with parent-child relationships between humans? Do parents owe love to their children – and do mothers and fathers, respectively, owe it to different degrees? Do subversive weddings challenge normative ideals about love? What is the significance of love (...) for the value of close personal or family relationships? All these questions and more are discussed in the articles included in this special issue. The contributors draw from a variety of disciplines including philosophy, sociology, political science, religious studies, and history, as well as from empirical work that they have undertaken in Canada, Belgium, Portugal, or Romania. From these different perspectives and experiences, each contribution addresses important questions about love and its relation to sexuality, monogamy, friendship, the family, parenthood, or society in general. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to understand what is involved in the claim that a mental state in general and love in particular, is based on reasons. Love, like many other mental states, can be evaluated in various ways: it can be considered appropriate, deserved, enriching, perverse, destructive etc. but this does not mean that love is based on reasons. In this paper I present and defend a test that a mental state has to satisfy (...) if it is to count as based on reasons. This test will be used to construct a new argument in favour of Frankfurt's position that love is not based on reasons. (shrink)

Written with a general audience in mind, On Romantic Love offers a new theory of love as a partially unconscious, sometimes rational and always controllable emotion, while explaining some of the neuroscience underlying our wildest passions.

Love enhancement can give us as a say on whom we love and thus ‘free’ us from our brain chemistry, which is mostly out of our control. In that way, we become more autonomous in love and in our life in general, as long as love enhancement is a free, voluntary choice. So goes the argument in favour of this addition to medical interventions of relationships. In this paper, I show that proponents of love (...) enhancement have overlooked, or at least underestimated, the fact that love itself impacts people’s choices. Since this could include the choice for love or anti-love drugs, I call for a re-formulation of the underlying view on autonomy before this medical intervention is made available to the public. (shrink)

The fundamental goal of this paper is to clarify the importance of Husserl’s reflections on destiny (Schicksal) in the context of his post-WWI ethics. In the first section, I sketch Husserl’s reflections on war in his private correspondence. In the second section, I show that, in his post-WWI research manuscripts on ethics, Husserl conceptualized various forms of meaningless suffering under the heading of destiny. One of the main questions of Husserl’s post-WWI ethics can be formulated as follows: in the dark (...) horizon of senselessness, how is an ethical life possible? In the remaining sections, I show that Husserl’s reflections on this question led him to deformalize his earlier ethics and motivated him to ground his ethics of reason in an ethics of love. In the third and fourth sections, I sketch Husserl’s two fundamental answers to this question, the first of which concerns his phenomenology of love, while the second one – his phenomenological metaphysics in general, and his phenomenological teleology, in particular. While for Husserl, these answers are complementary, after clarifying Husserl’s view on the conflicts of values, I conclude with some reflections on the importance of not overlooking that these answers are analytically distinct. (shrink)

Some philosophers have argued that love has moral-psychological power, as it can motivate one to appreciate the existence of others and to offer care for them. This appears evident in the context of our relations with nonhuman animals and nature: love can motivate one to think of them as morally considerable. But what is love? The paper at hand investigates one classic philosophical definition of love and applies it to our relationship with other animals and nature. (...) This definition is the quality view of love, i.e., Platonic love, which, I argue, facilitates deeper moral concern for nonhuman animals and things. (shrink)

Soren Kierkegaard's Works of Love, a series of deliberations on the commandment to love one's neighbor, has often been condemned by critics. Here, Ferreira seeks to rehabilitate Works of Love as one of Kierkegaard's most important works. He shows that Kierkegaard's deliberations on love are highly relevant to some important themes in contemporary ethics, including impartiality, duty, equality, mutuality, reciprocity, self-love, sympathy, and sacrifice. Ferreira also argues that Works of Love bears on issues peculiar (...) to a religious ethic, such as the role of God as "middle term," and the possibility of preserving the aesthetic dimensions of love in a religious ethic of relation. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to attempt a philosophical reading of M. Karagatsis’ novel Kitrinos Fakelos (1956), focusing my analysis on the passions and the emotions of its fictional characters, aiming at demonstrating their independence as well as the presentation of their psychography in Karagatsis’ novel where the description of the emotions caused by love is a dominant feature. In particular, I will examine the expression of desire, love (erôs) and sympathy in this novel – passions and (...) emotions that play an important role to moral life and human existence in general. I will be approaching these issues from the point of view of moral philosophy, analyzing the passions and the emotions expressed by the fictional characters in Kitrinos Fakelos, and in particular of the fictional character of Manos Tasakos. At the same time, I will attempt to show the philosophical influences that M. Karagatsis has received in his literary work, and especially in his novel Kitrinos Fakelos, by the philosophical thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. In addition, I will try to demonstrate the contrast between the Nietzschean moral model and that of both ancient and contemporary virtue ethical theory, in relation to the traditional interpretation of the work of Nietzsche’s that Karagatsis adopts, along with many of his contemporaries in Greece from the beginning of the 20th century until the 70’s at least. (shrink)

In their recent contribution to this journal, Brian D. Earp, Anders Sandberg, and Julian Savulescu argue that "the 'medicalization of love' need not necessarily be problematic, on balance, but could plausibly be expected to have either good or bad consequences depending upon how it unfolds." Although I find myself in agreement with the majority of the points the authors make to this end, as well as with the general thrust of their position, I am nevertheless left feeling rather (...) unsatisfied by their overall exposition. This is largely because they fail to provide any substantial love-specific argument, as I demonstrate in this paper. (shrink)

The study focuses on the debates on self-love in early 18th - century British moral philosophy. It examines the intricate relations of these debates with questions concerning human nature and morality in five central authors : Anthony Ashley Cooper the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Bernard Mandeville, Francis Hutcheson, Joseph Butler and Archibald Campbell. One of the central claims of this study is that a distinction between five different concepts of self-love is necessary to achieve a clear understanding of (...) the debates on self-love. Thus, egoistic self-love, self-love as love of praise, self-love as self-esteem, self-love as excessive pride and self-love as self-respect are distinguished. The role of these different concepts is analysed in the mentioned authors ’ theories of human nature and morality, and the relations between the concepts of self-love and other essential concepts of moral philosophy such as benevolence, pity and virtue are examined. This study highlights the importance of the widely discussed claim that self-love is the only motive for human agents and shows that the moral rehabilitation of self-love becomes an important issue for the period. Commentators generally agree on the importance of the notion of self-love for the period’s moral philosophy, yet little attention has been paid to the different concepts of self-love. Present-day philosophy’s tendency to equate self-love with egoism is too simplistic, and the insufficient recognition of the vagueness of the notion of self-love is shown to be an impediment to an appropriate reconstruction of important arguments in the debates on self-love. The framework suggested in this study thus enables a better comprehension of the different accounts of self-love in the selected authors ’ moral psychologies, and of their views of the moral value of self-love. This facilitates the shedding of light on central aspects of moral philosophy at the beginning of the 18th century. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been interested in love and its general role in morality. This volume focuses on and explores the complex relation between love and justice as it appears within loving relationships, between lovers and their wider social context, and the broader political realm. Special attention is paid to the ensuing challenge of understanding and respecting the lovers’ personal autonomy in all three contexts. Accordingly, the essays in this volume are divided into three thematic sections. Section I (...) aims at shedding further light on conceptual and practical issues concerning the compatibility or incompatibility of love and justice within relationships of love. For example, are loving relations inherently unjust? Might love require justice? Or do love and justice belong to distinct moral domains? The essays in Section II consider the relation between the lovers on the one hand and their broader societal environment on the other. Specifically, how exactly are love and impartiality related? Are they compatible or not? Is it unjust to favor one’s beloved? Finally, Section III looks at the political dimensions of love and justice. How, for instance, do various accounts of love inform how we are to relate to our fellow citizens? If love is taken to play an important role in fostering or hindering the development of personal autonomy, what are the political implications that need to be addressed, and how? In addressing these questions, this book engenders a better understanding both of conceptual and practical issues regarding the relation between love, justice, and autonomy as well as their broader societal and political implications. It will be of interest to advanced students and scholars working on the philosophy of love from ethical, political, and psychological angles. (shrink)

We introduce the notion of a lovely pair of models of a simple theory T, generalizing Poizat's “belles paires” of models of a stable theory and the third author's “generic pairs” of models of an SU-rank 1 theory. We characterize when a saturated model of the theory TP of lovely pairs is a lovely pair , finding an analog of the nonfinite cover property for simple theories. We show that, under these hypotheses, TP is also simple, and we study forking (...) and canonical bases in TP. We also prove that assuming only that T is low, the existentially universal models of the universal part of a natural expansion TP+ of TP, are lovely pairs, and “simple Robinson universal domains”. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the relationship between love (romantic, friendship) and moral integrity. More specifically, it looks into the conditions that need to be satisfied for the two to conflict with each other. After giving a general characterization of moral integrity and explaining some crucial moral aspects of love, both culled from the literature on integrity and on love, I provide two cases of couples whose love clashes with their integrity, one of a vegan in (...) love with a non-vegan, and another of a pro-choicer in love with a pro-lifer. I then argue that love and integrity conflict when the following conditions are satisfied: (1) the lover's integrity tracks real and worthwhile values; (2) these values are important to the lover; (3) these values are contrary to those of the beloved's; (4) the beloved acts on the beloved's values; and (5) the lover cannot justify the beloved's values. I conclude with some remarks about the actual satisfaction of these conditions—on how frequently such conflicts occur. (shrink)