This essay examines prominent New Confucian Mou Zongsan’s account of Confucian democracy by focusing on his key notion of “self-restriction.” According to Mou, true sage-kings would willingly respect ordinary people’s individual endeavors in the political realm and endorse democracy as a form of government. This move of self-restriction then aligns Confucianism with democracy in a way that fundamentally restructures traditional Confucian rulership. I make contributions on two fronts. First, I offer a reading of Mou’s self- (...) class='Hi'>restriction different from existing ones that can help to disambiguate many aspects of Mou’s political thought. Second, what is often left out of existing discussion on Mou is the narrative of political myth and distinctive personality types associated with it. For Mou, political leadership’s impetus for transcending rule-based order and the people’s aspirations for the “superman” run deep and lie in the lasting appeal of political myth. Invoking Nietzsche, I discuss the sense in which transforming traditional rulership is not only a question of ought—why Confucians ought to adopt self-restriction—but a question of how it is possible for self-restriction to fulfill its mission. Commentators on his thought have so far largely glossed over this second aspect of Mou’s thought, thereby selling short the complexity of the idea of self-restriction. My key argument is that Mou’s self-restriction shows an effort to revamp the superman’s politics of the extraordinary into a politics of the ordinary. (shrink)

Originally, Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition ignored Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, on the basis that Hegel’s post-Jena writings moved from intersubjectivism to idealism. More recently, however, Honneth has reconsidered the elements of the Phenomenology that consider recognition. Around the same time that he began re-evaluating Hegel’s discussions of recognition, Honneth developed a theory of “elementary recognition” that is a basic level of affective engagement with one’s environment that must be in place before one can take up cognitive relations to others. (...) On its face, Honneth’s study of Hegel’s Phenomenology and his discussion of elementary recognition would seem to be largely unrelated. But as this paper will show, the two works discuss very similar ideas and complement each other quite well. Furthermore, the expansion of some ideas developed in Honneth’s study of the Phenomenology can help respond to criticisms that have been leveled against his theory of elementary recognition. (shrink)

Several political theorists argue that states have rights to self-determination and these rights justify immigration restrictions. Call this: the self-determination argument for immigration restrictions. In this article, I develop an objection to the self-determination argument. I argue that if it is morally permissible for states to restrict immigration because they have rights to self-determination, then it can also be morally permissible for states to deport and denationalize their own citizens. We can either accept that it is (...) permissible for states to deport and denationalize their own citizens or reject the self-determination argument. To avoid this implication, we should reject the self-determination argument. That is, we should also reject the conclusion that rights to self-determination can justify any significant immigration restrictions. (shrink)

This paper offers a partial justification of so-called "deontological restrictions." Specifically it defends the "self/other asymmetry," that we are morally obligated to treat our own agency, and thus its results, as specially important. The argument rests on a picture of moral obligation of a broadly Kantian sort. In particular, it rests on the basic normative assumption that our fundamental obligations are determined by the principles which a rational being as such would follow. These include principles which it is not (...) essential for rational beings to accept, but acceptance of which we could non-arbitrarily attribute to them simply in their capacity as rational. Among these principles is the asymmetry mentioned above. (shrink)

This article elaborates on Christopher Norris's claim that certain aspects of Derrida's work are amenable to formalisation in modal-logical terms. Norris contends that any adequate analysis of the logic behind Derrida's work must provide an account of the notions of possibility, necessity, and necessary possibility, particularly as they are related to Derrida's notion of iterability. This article examines the further hypothesis that Derrida's understanding of modality, according to which possibilities must be accounted for even if they are never realised, might (...) even better be described in terms of possible worlds. In possible-worlds semantics, the conceptual meaning of a statement is constituted by the set of alternative contexts in which that statement is true. This article argues, however, that possible-worlds semantics would be unthinkable without the experience that one referent can be substituted for another. The possibility of this experience is best described in Derridean terms. Read through Derrida's thought of the trace, the properly semantic substitutions may come to be seen as dependent on the substitution of the thing for itself; on what Derrida calls ‘the substitution of the unique for the unique’. (shrink)

The South African government’s COVID-19 pandemic risk mitigation strategies significantly limited social contact, which necessitated a novel approach to existing face-to-face career guidance practices. The Grade 9 Career Guidance Project, originally developed as a group-based career development intervention, required radical adaptation into a self-directed, manualized format to offer career guidance to Grade 9 learners from low-income communities amid a global pandemic. The adaptation and continuation of the project was deemed essential as secondary school learners in low-income communities have limited (...) career guidance support. Furthermore, a close collaboration with the teachers at eight resource-constrained South African secondary schools was vital for successful implementation. To assess the success of the adaptation to a self-directed format, a mixed-methods design was employed, and Life Orientation teachers’ evaluative feedback was solicited. Favorable quantitative results were obtained; majority of teachers agreed that learners enjoyed the booklet and that it was deemed an adequate substitute to the previous contact-based format of the Career Guidance Project. This was also confirmed by the qualitative findings revealing teachers’ satisfaction with the booklet’s content, specifically that the booklet is complementary to the Life Orientation curriculum. Qualitative findings identified specific contextual barriers that contributed to some learners struggling to use the booklet optimally. The results suggest that it is feasible and acceptable to implement a self-directed career guidance intervention among secondary school learners amid a global pandemic. Teachers recommended ways to integrate the booklet, resources, and contact sessions as a preferred way forward. These findings have important implications for similar resource-constrained settings that may not have readily access to in-person career guidance and counseling human development. (shrink)

A familiar objection to restrictive consequentialism is that a restrictive consequentialist is incapable of having true friendships. In this paper I distinguish between an instrumentalist and a non-instrumentalist version of this objection and argue that while the restrictive consequentialist can answer the non-instrumentalist version, restrictive consequentialism may still seem vulnerable to the instrumentalist version. I then suggest a consequentialist reply that I argue also works against this version of the objection. Central to this reply is the claim that a restrictive (...) consequentialist is capable of true friendship if the value she aims for is not merely seen as a function of her self-regarding desires, but includes as a central constituent a form of objective value often referred to as 'flourishing' or 'self-realization'. (shrink)

The study of teachers' readiness to work with adolescents with disabilities in terms of their professional self-determination was carried out on the basis of the study of works containing scientific ideas about the essence of professional self-determination, conceptual provisions on the essence of the phenomenon of "readiness", analysis of the characteristics of persons with psychophysical disorders. Studying the readiness of teachers to work with persons with disabilities on professional self-determination included questions on their knowledge of the essence (...) of professional self-determination; awareness of the importance and necessity of owning personal qualities, practical skills in organizing work on the professional self-determination of schoolchildren with developmental disabilities. In the course of the study, the levels of teachers' readiness were identified: high, average, below average according to the criteria: motivational, cognitive, procedural, organizational, evaluative. (shrink)

A restrictive view of self-control identifies exercises of self-control with synchronic intrapsychic processes, and pictures diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies not as proper instances of self-control, but as clever ways of avoiding the need to exercise that ability. In turn, defenders of an inclusive view of self-control typically argue that we should construe self-control as more than effortful inhibition, and that, on grounds of functional equivalence, all these diverse strategies might be properly described as instances of (...) self-control. In this paper, I take a fresh look at this debate by focusing on cases of addiction. I argue that addicted agents face a paradigmatic sort of self-control challenge, which makes addiction an important test case for theories of self-control. And I discuss evidence that highlights both the unreliability of synchronic intrapsychic strategies and the crucial role that is played by diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies in successful attempts at achieving abstinence by addicted individuals. Abstaining addicts are a paradigmatic case of agents who successfully exercise self-control, and they mostly do so by relying on diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies. This, I argue, lends further support to an inclusive view of self-control. (shrink)

In their comprehensive article, Bayefsky and Berkman outline a framework for limiting access to certain types of fetal genetic information through professional self-regulation. Given the rap...

The libertarian view of freedom has attracted considerable attention in the past three decades. It has also been subjected to numerous criticisms regarding its nature and effects on society. G. A. Cohen''s recent book, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality, continues this attack by linking libertarian views on freedom to their view of self-ownership. This paper formulates and evaluates Cohen''s major arguments against libertarian freedom and self-ownership. It contends that his arguments against the libertarian rights definition of freedom are (...) inadequate and need modification. Similarly, Cohen''s defense of restrictions on self-ownership on behalf of autonomy are also found wanting. Finally, I argue that the thesis of self-ownership (whether in its full or partial version) ought to be rejected. (shrink)

Cochlear implants (CI) support the development of oral language in hearing-impaired children. However, even with CI, speech recognition in noise (SRiN) is limited. This raised the question, whether these restrictions are related to the quality of life (QoL) of children and adolescents with CI and how SRiN and QoL are related to each other. As a result of a systematic literature research only three studies were found, indicating positive moderating effects between SRiN and QoL of young CI users. Thirty studies (...) addressed the quality of life of children and adolescents with CI. Following the criteria of the World Health Organization (WHO) for pediatric HRQoL (1994) only a minority used validated child centered and age appropriate QoL instruments. Moreover, despite the consensus that usually children and adolescents are the most prominent informants of their own QoL (parent- reports complement the information of the children) only a minority of investigators used self-reports. Restricted SRiN may be a burden for the QoL of children and adolescents with CI. Up to now the CI community does not seem to be aware of a possible impairment of QoL in young CI users. Further studies addressing this topic are urgently needed, which is also relevant for parents, clinicians, therapists, teachers, and politicians. Additionally investigators should use valid pediatric QoL instruments. They should be aware, that most of the young CI users are able to inform about their quality of life also themselves (additionally to parents). (shrink)

Recent work suggests a strong connection between intuitions regarding our own free will and our moral behavior. We investigate the origins of this link by asking whether preschool-aged children construe their own moral actions as freely chosen. We gave children the option to make three moral/social choices (avoiding harm to another, following a rule, and following peer behavior) and then asked them to retrospect as to whether they were free to have done otherwise. When given the choice to act (either (...) morally or immorally), children avoided harm and abided by rules, but they endorsed their freedom to have done otherwise. When choice was restricted by adult instruction, children did not endorse their free choice and indicated feeling constrained by moral obligation in their explanatory responses. These results suggest that children believe that their moral actions afford free will, but this belief is dependent on their experience of choice. (shrink)

This paper argues for a dilemma: you can accept liberalism or immigration restrictions, but not both. More specifically, the standard arguments for restricting freedom of movement apply equally to textbook liberal freedoms, such as freedom of speech, religion, occupation and reproductive choice. We begin with a sketch of liberalism’s core principles and an argument for why freedom of movement is plausibly on a par with other liberal freedoms. Next we argue that, if a state’s right to self-determination grounds a (...) prima facie right to restrict immigration, then it also grounds a prima facie right to restrict freedom of speech, religion, sexual choice and more. We then suggest that the social costs associated with freedom of immigration are also costs associated with occupational choice, speech and reproduction. Thus, a state’s interest in reducing these costs gives it prima facie justification to restrict not only immigration but also other core liberal freedoms. Moreover, we rebut the objection that, even if the standard arguments for a prima facie right to restrict immigration also support a prima facie right to restrict liberal freedoms generally, there are differences that render immigration restrictions – but not restrictions on speech, religion, etc. – justified all things considered. In closing, we suggest that the theoretical price of supporting immigration restrictions – viz., compromising a commitment to liberal principles – is too steep to pay. (shrink)

Constitutional law in the United States is, for most practical purposes, the product of ‘judicial review’, the power of judges to disallow policy choices made by other officials or institutions of government, ostensibly because those choices are prohibited by the Constitution. This extraordinary and unprecedented power, America's dubious contribution to the science of government, has made American judges the most powerful in the world, not only legislators but super-legislators, legislators with virtually the last word. Because lawmaking power divorced from popular (...) will is tyranny, most states have attempted to reconcile the lawmaking power of judges with representative self-government by subjecting all or some judges to some form of popular election. In all but four such states, judges, encouraged and supported by their fellow lawyers in the organized bar—would-be judges and beneficiaries of judicial power—have responded by adopting codes of judicial ethics that limit what candidates for election to judicial office are permitted to say. The effect is to undermine elections as a control on judicial power by limiting criticism of judicial activism, the misuse of judicial power. (shrink)

How should feminists view acts of self-sacrifice performed by women? According to a long-standing critique of care ethics such acts ought to be viewed with scepticism. Care ethics, it is claimed, celebrates acts of self-sacrifice on the part of carers and in doing so encourages women to choose caring for others over their own self-development. In doing so, care ethics frustrates attempts to liberate women from the oppression of patriarchy. Care ethicists have responded to this critique by (...) noting limits on the level, form, or scope of self-sacrifice that work to restrict its role in their theories. While we do not here take issue with the initial feminist critiques of self-sacrifice, we suspect that the strategies offered by Care ethicists in response are importantly flawed. Specifically, these responses undervalue the positive roles that self-sacrifice can play in fighting patriarchal oppression. As a result, in attempting to restrict an oppressive norm, these responses risk foreclosing on valuable means of resistance. Our aim is to explore these positive roles for self-sacrifice and thereby rehabilitate its standing with feminists. (shrink)

Kant's claim that time is a subjective form of intuition was first proposed in his Inaugural Dissertation. This view was immediately criticised by Schultz, Lambert and Mendelssohn. Their criticisms are based on the claim that representations change which implies that change is real. From the reality of change they then argue to the reality of time, which undermines its supposed status as a subjective form of intuition that only applies to appearances. Kant took these criticisms very seriously and attempted to (...) reply to them in § 7 of the Transcendental Aesthetic. This paper provides a critical assessment of the objections raised by Schultz, Lambert and Mendelssohn as well as of Kant's diagnosis and response. In particular, it shows how Kant can consistently hold that knowledge of our mental states is restricted to knowledge of appearances. (shrink)

Arguments in favor of an individual moral right to keep and bear firearms typically appeal to the value of guns as a reasonable means of self-defense. This is, for the most part, an empirical claim. If it were shown that allowing private gun ownership would lead to an overall net increase in crime or other social harms, then the strength of a putative right to own a gun would be diminished. But would it be defeated completely? I do not (...) think so, and indeed I want to suggest in this paper that even if the harms outweigh the benefits, that neither an outright ban on handguns nor restrictive discretionary ownership policies are justified as an initial reaction. In other words, given that the overall harms outweigh the overall benefits, the default position is still one in favor of reasonably permissive gun laws over a total ban or restrictive discretionary policies. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that it is possible to explain why a culpable aggressor forfeits his right not to suffer the harm necessary to prevent his aggression if a killer forfeits his right to life. I argue that this strategy accounts also for the necessity restriction on self-defense. I respond to several objections, including the worry that it makes no sense to attempt a derivation of the relatively uncontroversial from the highly controversial.

This study presents the application of self-organizing maps to air-quality data in order to analyze episodes of high pollution in Madrid. The goal of this work is to explore the dataset and then compare several scenarios with similar atmospheric conditions : some of them when no actions were taken and some when traffic restrictions were imposed. The levels of main pollutants, recorded at these stations for eleven days at four different times from 2015 to 2018, are analyzed in order (...) to determine the effectiveness of the anti-pollution measures. The visualization of trajectories on the self-organizing map let us clearly see the evolution of pollution levels and consequently evaluate the effectiveness of the taken measures, after and during the protocol activation time. (shrink)

The destiny of philosophy is indissociably linked with the destiny of man. Whatever its ultimate aspirations, philosophy remains rooted in man and his self-questioning. It is not merely a reflection on man, but one of his vital activities: an intellectual enterprise which is created and sustained by living philosophers and which is addressed, implicitly or explicitly, to other men. Even if its outer horizons encompass more than the strictly human, its insights remain valid only for humans. Human beings alone (...) can grasp and extend philosophical truth. It is in view of this fundamental fact that Heidegger asks: “What is the meaning of the expression ‘to philosophize’ if the philosophical problematic is such that it finds its abode and its center in the essence of man?” Within the confines of this paper, we shall not attempt to determine what philosophizing is; instead, we shall concentrate on the question of the role of man and self in truth, of which philosophical truth is a paradigm case. We should observe at the outset, however, that it is one thing to hold that philosophical truth is grasped as valid by individual human beings alone and quite another thing to assert that such truth is exclusively the truth of or about such individuals. It may be one of the conditions of philosophical truth that it be true for someone—for the philosopher himself, or for his actual or potential interlocutors—but this does not mean that the scope of philosophy is restricted to explicating man's essence or the sense of a singular human life. Philosophical method itself transcends the particular content of philosophy, as we see clearly in the effort of metaphysics to systematize insight. Yet it remains the case that philosophy finds its primary origin and support in man. (shrink)

Left and right libertarians alike are attracted to the thesis of self-ownership because, as Eric Mack says, they ‘believe that it best captures our common perception of the moral inviolability of persons’. Further, most libertarians, left and right, accept that some version of the Lockean Proviso restricts agents’ ability to acquire worldly resources. The inviolability of SO purports to make libertarianism more appealing than its egalitarian counterparts, since traditional egalitarian theories cannot straightforwardly explain why, e.g. forced organ donation and (...) forced labor are serious wrongs even when they generate more equitable outcomes or benefit the greater good. I argue that, when SO is coupled with LP, this appeal is unfounded. SO, as usually construed, allows for the possibility of justified incursions of non-culpable agents up to and including forced organ donation. I conclude by considering a few possible responses on behalf of the libertarian, assessing each one’s plausibility. (shrink)

School-based Physical Education is important, especially to students with disabilities whose participation in physical activities out of school is limited. The development over time of participation-related constructs in relation to students’ perceived functioning and achievement is explored. Students in mainstream inclusive secondary school self-rated their PE-specific self-efficacy, general school self-efficacy, aptitude to participate in PE, and perceived physical and socio-cognitive functional skills at two timepoints, year 7 and year 9. Results were compared between three groups of students (...) with: disabilities, high grades, or low grades in PE. Over time, perceived physical skills of students with disabilities became strongly associated with self-efficacy and aptitude to participate. Perceived socio-cognitive skills in the study sample improved and had a positive effect on PE-specific self-efficacy. Efforts should be made to limit the accelerated negative impact of perceived restricted functioning of students with disabilities. Grading criteria need to be developed to comply with standards adapted to fit abilities of students with disabilities. Meaningful learning experiences appear to be created when participation is promoted and capacity beliefs are boosted. Allocating resources to support the development of students’ socio-cognitive skills seem to have potential for overall positive school outcome. (shrink)

:This essay explores the meaning and normative significance of Locke’s depiction of individuals as proprietors of their own person. I begin by reconsidering the long-standing puzzle concerning Locke’s simultaneous endorsement of divine proprietorship and self-ownership. Befuddlement vanishes, I contend, once we reject concurrent ownership in the same object: while God fully owns our lives, humans are initially sole proprietors of their own person. Locke employs two conceptions of “personhood”: as expressing legal independence vis-à-vis humans and moral accountability vis-à-vis God. (...) Humans own their person in the first sense. As original proprietors of their own person, individuals are entitled to subject themselves to self-chosen authorities, thereby incurring obligations of obedience. But they may not choose just any authority. Divine ownership of human life delimits personal self-ownership by restricting the ways in which humans can dispose of their persons: we cannot possibly consensually subject ourselves to absolute and arbitrary power. Locke’s rights-forfeiture theory for crime makes slavery and despotism nonetheless potentially rightful conditions. I argue that, paradoxically, divine dominium of human life underpins both the impermissibility of voluntary enslavement and the justifiability of penal slavery. My analysis helps explain why modern Lockean theories of self-ownership that reject Locke’s theological premises have adopted an ambiguous stance toward despotic rule. (shrink)

Philosophers have given sustained attention to the controversial possibility of (legal) markets in transplantable human organs. Most of this discussion has focused on whether such markets would enhance or diminish autonomy, understood in either the personal sense or the Kantian moral sense. What this discussion has lacked is any consideration of the relationship between self-ownership and such markets. This paper examines the implications of the most prominent and defensible conception of self-ownership--control self-ownership (CSO)--for both market and nonmarket (...) organ-allocation mechanisms. The paper contends that CSO rules out a large set of nonmarket mechanisms, including escheatage ("presumed consent"), compensated takings of organs, and restricted gifting. It also argues that CSO, if accompanied by an economistic concern for welfare, can underwrite varying types of markets in human organs, ranging from mutual-insurance pools to inter vivos (i.e., live donor) organ sales. (shrink)

In a recent article, David Christensen casts aspersions on a restricted version of van Fraassen's Reflection principle, which he dubs ‘Self-Respect’(sr). Rejecting two possible arguments for sr, he concludes that the principle does not constitute a requirement of rationality. In this paper we argue that not only has Christensen failed to make a case against the aforementioned arguments, but that considerations pertaining to Moore's paradox indicate that sr, or at the very least a mild weakening thereof, is indeed a (...) plausible normative principle. (shrink)

Under what conditions are material objects, such as particles, parts of a whole object? This is the composition question and is a longstanding open question in philosophy. Existing attempts to specify a non-trivial restriction on composition tend to be vague and face serious counterexamples. Consequently, two extreme answers have become mainstream: composition (the forming of a whole by its parts) happens under no or all conditions. In this paper, we provide a self-contained introduction to the integrated information theory (...) of consciousness (IIT). We show that IIT specifies a non-trivial restriction on composition: composition happens when integrated information is maximized. We compare the IIT-restriction to existing proposals and argue that the IIT-restriction has significant advantages, especially in response to the problems of vagueness and counterexamples. An appendix provides an introduction to calculating parts and wholes with a simple system. (shrink)

The promotion of the self‐managing capacities of people has become a marker of contemporary mental health practice, yet self‐management remains a largely uncontested construct in mental health settings. This discourse analysis based upon the work of Foucault investigates self‐management practices for bipolar disorder and their action upon how a person with bipolar disorder comes to think of who they are and how they should live. Using Foucault's framework for exploring the ethical self and transcripts of interviews (...) with people living with bipolar disorder, this discourse analysis finds that the discursive practices of self‐management for bipolar disorder are prescribing a restricted regime for living based upon the quintessential neo‐liberal subject using practices that are focused upon managing an unreliable and problematic self. The article concludes with the proposition that the problem of bipolar disorder (for which self‐management is an answer) is less about the object itself and more about how we construct the nature of the self. A Māori indigenous ontology is used here as an example of an alternative discursive resource through which people make sense of the self and which allows ways of thinking about self‐management that engage with ambivalence and ambiguity rather than restriction and regulation. (shrink)

This article asks whether states have a right to close their borders because of their right to self-determination, as proposed recently by Christopher Wellman, Michael Walzer, and others. It asks the fundamental question whether self-determination can, in even its most unrestricted form, support the exclusion of immigrants. I argue that the answer is no. To show this, I construct three different ways in which one might use the idea of self-determination to justify immigration restrictions and show that (...) each of these arguments fails. My conclusion is that the nature and value of self-determination have to do with the conditions of genuine self-government, not membership of political society. Consequently, the demand for open borders is fully consistent with respect to self-determination. (shrink)

The improbability of a spontaneously generated self-assembling molecule has suggested that life began with a set of simpler, collectively replicating elements, such as an enclosed autocatalytic set of polymers (or autocell). Since replication occurs without a self-assembly code, acquired characteristics are inherited. Moreover, there is no strict distinction between alive and dead; one can only infer that an autocell was alive if it replicates. These features of early life render natural selection inapplicable to the description of its change-of-state (...) because they defy its underlying assumptions. Moreover, natural selection describes only randomly generated novelty; it cannot describe the emergence of form at the interface between organism and environment. Self-organization is also inadequate because it is restricted to interactions amongst parts; it too cannot account for context-driven change. A modified version of selection theory or self-organization would not work because the description of change-of-state through interaction with an incompletely specified context has a completely different mathematical structure, i.e. entails a non-Kolmogorovian probability model. It is proposed that the evolution of early life is appropriately described as lineage transformation through context-driven actualization of potential, with self-organized change-of-state being a special case of no contextual influence, and competitive exclusion of less fit individuals through a selection-like process possibly (but not necessarily) playing a secondary role. It is argued that natural selection played an important role in evolution only after genetically mediated replication was established. (shrink)

In Wrongs and Crimes, Victor Tadros argues that wrongdoers acquire special duties to those they’ve wronged, and from there he generates wrongdoers’ duties to contribute to general deterrence by being punished. In support, he contends that my manipulation argument against compatibilism fails to show that causal determination is incompatible with the proposed duties wrongdoers owe to those they’ve wronged. I respond that I did not intend my manipulation argument to rule out a sense of moral responsibility that features such duties, (...) and that I don’t believe it does. In fact, I’m willing to accept a restricted version of Tadros’s proposal, and I explain how this addition modifies the self-defense-based position on deterrence that I’ve defended in the past. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Self of Book 1 and the Selves of Book 2 Terence Penelhum One ofthe more familiar problems ofinterpretationin Hume's Treatise is that of reducing the sense of shock that arises from the apparent differences between what he says about the selfin book 1 and what he says about it in book 2. One way in which scholars have attempted to reduce it is to take him very (...) seriously when he distinguishes, in the book 1 discussion, "betwixt personal identity, as itregards our thought or imagination, and as it regards our passions or the concern we take in ourselves."1 If one does this, it becomes possible to see that what might seem to be inconsistent positions are compatible, and merely represent complementary aspects of an extended account of how human beings represent their natures and identities to themselves in thought and feeling and choice. This, at least, is now widely believed. The belief has led to very illuminating accounts of Hume's analysis of the emotional life and ita relationship to his more famous theories in epistemology.2 In spite of these, I think there is an egregious gap in Hume's psychology which we should not be tempted to suppose he has filled. Unless I have misread them, two recent authors have yielded to this very temptation. Since I have said Hume's psychology has an important gap in it, I should begin by making clear what the gap is, and emphasize that I do not think I have uncovered an inconsistency in Hume's theories of the self. He has, of course, been accused of such inconsistencies.3 His account in book 1 has itself been said to be inconsistent because he ascribes to the self there a tendency to confuse invariance and succession in telling us how we come to generate the fiction of continuing identity; such a story seems to ascribe a continuing reality to the mind in the very process ofshowing how the beliefin it can come toexistwhen there are onlysuccessive perceptions toconstitute it. This is a special application of a wider charge sometimes levelled against him, thatalthoughhisassociationism appearstoreduce allexplanation to relationships between perceptions, he is bound to depart from this restriction in ascribing tendencies and mistakes to the mind. Given the nature ofthe beliefhe is explainingwhen he discusses self-identity, the special application is troubling.4 He has also been accused of Volume XVIII Number 2 281 TERENCE PENELHUM inconsistencyin assumingat the outset ofhis discussion oftheindirect passions in book 2 that we have an idea, or even an impression, ofthe self, when in book 1 he has appeared to deny this. Many have argued (and I have been among them) that Hume can be acquitted of these charges. Mercer, for example, has made short workofthe last one.5 When Hume introduces the selfin book 2, he says clearly that he is referring to "self, or that succession of related ideas and impressions, of which we have an intimate memory and consciousness" (T 277), not to the idea of the pure ego constructed by rationalist philosophers. The charge of confusion in the argument of Treatise 1.4.6 has been rebutted by several writers, beginning with Nelson Pike.6 In the briefest summary: since the mind is nothing but a series of perceptions, Hume's question in book 1 is not a question about how it is that a mind he tacitly assumes to be more than this comes to think it is more than this, but a question about how the series that the mind actually is, comes to include within it from time to time perceptions ofthe series that represent it as having an identity that it (strictly) lacks. The actual relationship of the mind to its perceptions is one ofinclusion, and Hume's puzzle is how certain perceptionsofthe mind come to be in the mind. This reading ofHume may well leave him with some unattractive problems, but it does not convict him of contradicting himself. If something like this is accepted, we can see Hume in book 1 as combining scepticism about philosophical defences of a natural belief with the assumption of an obUgation to give an account of how... (shrink)

A subject is a being who has a life to lead. In this paper, I explore the array of resources that are available to us (i.e., Westerners at the turn of the millennium) to articulate and assess our lives. Specifically, I shall reflect on the impact that such matters may have on our naturalist conviction that the world ultimately consists of a causal network where notions such as sense and value have no direct bearing. Sometend to assume that an implication (...) of our naturalist world-view is that the notions of sense and value are inevitably relative to the subject’s desires and inclinations. This is, however, a line of reasoning that I would like to resist. For I am convinced that this approach unnecessarily restricts the number of resources to which we can legitimately appeal in order to lead our lives. This restriction will turn out to be quite serious because, as we shall see, it dramatically distorts our perception of the relevance that social ties may have in the life of a subject, as well as the conditions under which a human life may escape the absurd. (shrink)

:In this essay I attempt to vindicate the “asymmetry thesis,” according to which ownership of one’s own body is intrinsically different from ownership of other objects, and the view that self-ownership, as libertarians normally understand the concept, enjoys a special “fact-insensitive” status as a fundamental right. In particular, I argue in favor of the following claims. First, the right of self-ownership is most plausibly understood as based on the more fundamental notion of respect for persons, where the concept (...) of a person is in turn understood, along the lines set out by P. F. Strawson and P. M. S. Hacker, as referring to an entire biological organism with a certain set of mental and corporeal characteristics. If we restrict our attention to human persons, we can say on this basis that there is a special moral status attaching to the entire human body, and to no more than the human body. Second, self-ownership is not, as critics have sometimes supposed, based on a more fundamental right to equal freedom or autonomy. Criticisms of self-ownership as insufficiently justified on the basis of such rights are therefore off target. Rather, equal freedom and self-ownership are each based directly on the more fundamental notion of respect for persons. For left-libertarians, the asymmetry thesis serves to give priority to self-ownership when delineating a set of original property rights, given that there are many alternative ways of realizing equal freedom not all of which involve fully respecting people’s property rights in themselves. (shrink)

Paternalism is the restriction of a person's autonomy for the good of that person. It embodies a familiar conflict of intuitions: while we cherish individual freedom, we also want to protect/promote what we know to be good. So, every paternalist must meet two challenges: paternalism must be justifiable as a restriction of autonomy as well as effective in terms of well-being. In this essay, I argue that the ‘autonomy’ restricted by paternalism is a Razian brand of free (...) class='Hi'>self-authorship and that the ‘good’ protected is captured by Martha Nussbaum's account of personal well-being. I then defend a mild welfare paternalism based on a dichotomy implicit in any defensible description of well-being. I argue that some aspects of the good life do not require endorsement and, therefore, can be justifiably and effectively promoted by autonomy-restricting means. Finally, I discuss why paternalism need not be hostile to ethical independence. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that ordinary conscious experience involves some form of sense of self or consciousness of oneself. Moreover, this claim is often restricted to a 'thin' or 'minimal' notion of self-consciousness, or even 'the simplest form of self-consciousness', as opposed to more sophisticated forms of self-consciousness which are not deemed ubiquitous in ordinary experience. These formulations suggest that self-consciousness comes in degrees, and that individual subjects may differ with respect to the degree of (...) self-consciousness they exhibit at a given time. In this article, I critically examine this assumption. I consider what the claim that self-consciousness comes in degrees may mean, raise some challenges against the different versions of the claim, and conclude that none of them is both coherent and particularly plausible. (shrink)

Past research illustrated that leaders could restrict followers’ deviance by reinforcing social norms of appropriate behaviors. Nevertheless, we submit that this understanding is incomplete without considering the effects of leaders on followers’ self-sanctions given that most undesirable behaviors are controlled internally. This research argues that interactional justice is an effective strategy for leaders to enhance followers’ self-sanctions. Leaders’ interactional justice provides personalized information and dyadic treatment that indirectly reduce employees’ deviance by restraining followers’ moral disengagement. Besides, this study (...) examines the social sanction role of ethical leadership. Ethical leaders highlight the importance of adherence to collective norms, which influence the relationship between followers’ moral disengagement and deviance. By identifying the different pathways via which they influence followers’ moral disengagement, we integrate interactional justice and ethical leadership into one theoretical framework. Our predictions are supported by data analyses of 220 samples from a multi-wave and -source field study. This integrative framework contributes to a comprehensive understanding of how leaders restrict employees’ deviance. (shrink)

In this paper, I criticize Michael Huemer's phenomenal conservatism, the theory of justification according to which if it seems to S that p, then in the absence of defeaters, S thereby has at least some degree of justification for believing that p. Specifically, I argue that beliefs and hunches provide counterexamples to phenomenal conservatism. I then defend a version of restricted phenomenal conservatism, the view that some but not all appearances confer prima facie justification on their propositional contents. Specifically, I (...) defend the view that S has defeasible justification for believing that p if and only if it seems to S that p and it seems to S that she is acquainted with the fact that makes p true. Finally, I criticize Huemer's self-defeat argument for phenomenal conservatism. (shrink)

Paternalism is the restriction of a person's autonomy for the good of that person. It embodies a familiar conflict of intuitions: while we cherish individual freedom, we also want to protect/promote what we know to be good. So, every paternalist must meet two challenges: paternalism must be justifiable as a restriction of autonomy as well as effective in terms of well-being. In this essay, I argue that the ‘autonomy’ restricted by paternalism is a Razian brand of free (...) class='Hi'>self-authorship and that the ‘good’ protected is captured by Martha Nussbaum's account of personal well-being. I then defend a mild welfare paternalism based on a dichotomy implicit in any defensible description of well-being. I argue that some aspects of the good life do not require endorsement and, therefore, can be justifiably and effectively promoted by autonomy-restricting means. Finally, I discuss why paternalism need not be hostile to ethical independence. (shrink)

This article involves a critical examination of the recent paradigm shift in the appraisal of women's dress. Whereas in the past, female fashion was criticized primarily in terms of its impractical and restrictive nature and more `functional' and `natural' modes of dress were advocated, in recent times the legitimacy of the notion of `functional' or `natural' dress has been challenged. As theorists such as Wilson, Sawchuck and Hollander have pointed out, to assume that there is a `natural' mode of dress (...) which reflects the body `as it really is' wrongly presupposes that the body pre-exists culture when in fact it is always inescapably encoded by cultural norms. However, as is argued in the article, while recent theorists have revealed the naivete of the functionalist paradigm upon which previous critiques of fashion have been premised, their alternative conception of liberatory dress as that which highlights the constructed nature of the body is equally as problematic insofar as it leaves unchallenged the reduction of self-identity to image which the advertising and fashion industries now endorse and promote. In championing the idea of dress as a parodic play in which the body of the wearer is denaturalized, postmodern theories of fashion display an unwitting complicity with our contemporary culture of the spectacle which privileges the cult of appearance over all other sources of identity formation. (shrink)

Since the virtues of Professor Audi's paper are obvious and my time is limited, 1 shall restrict myself here to negative comments. I shall argue, first, that condition (1) - the unconscious true belief condition - in Audi's account of "clear cases of self-deception" is too strong and, second, that he does not succeed in justifying his limitation of the self-deceiver to sincere avowals of the proposition with respect to which he is in self-deception.

One powerful argument against self-ownership is that it degrades personhood by leading individuals to view themselves and others as mere instrumental goods, alienable commodities to be exchanged in markets like other products and services. In general terms, this line of criticism (called the “commodification argument”) maintains that a direct and causal relationship exists between certain legal institutions (self-ownership) and certain attitudes (instrumentalism) and that the undesirability of the latter justifies restrictions on the former. In this article, I will (...) critically examine Margaret Jane Radin’s book Contested Commodities (1996), which presents a well-developed, compelling version of the commodification argument. I will advance three central points over the course of the article: first, the purported causal connection between self-ownership and instrumentalism is either weak or nonexistent; second, the commodification argument does little independent moral work, tending instead to be parasitic on arguments against economic, racial, and gender inequality; and third, what independent moral work it does do seems to be directed not so much at self-ownership as at liberal neutrality. I will conclude by showing that the weaknesses of Radin’s diverse defenses of the commodification argument cast doubt upon the anticommodificationist enterprise as a whole. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:WORKING WARFARE AND ITS RESTRICTIONS IN THE JEWiSH TRADITION Reuven Kimelman Brandeis University The test case for any political theory of checks and balances is war. It also tests the outer limits of the ethical deployment of power. I. Types of Wars The Jewish ethics of war focuses on two issues: its legitimation and its conduct. The Talmud classifies wars according to their source oflegitimation. Biblically mandated wars are (...) termed mandatory (milhemet mitzvah or milhemet hovah). Wars undertaken at the discretion of the Sanhédrin are termed discretionary (milhemet reshut). There are three types of mandatory wars: Joshua's war of conquest againstthe seven Canaanite nations, the war againstAmaleq, anddefensive wars against an already launched attack. Discretionary wars are usually expansionary efforts undertaken to enhance the political prestige of the government or to secure economic gain. The first type of mandatory war is only of historical interest as the Canaanite nations lost their national identity already in ancient times. This ruling, which appears repeatedly in rabbinic literature, is part ofa tendency to blunt the impact of the seven-nations policy. The Bible points out that these policies were not implemented even during the zenith of ancient Israel's power (Kings 9:20; 2 Chr 8:7-9; see also Judges 1:21-33, Ps 106:34). Indeed, an ancient Midrash explicitly excludes the possibility of transferring the seven-nations ruling to other non-Jewish residents of the Land ofIsrael. Maimonides is just as explicit in emphasizing that all trace 44Reuven Kimmelman of them has vanished. By limiting the jurisdiction of the seven-nations ruling to the conditions ofancient Canaan it was effectively removed from the postbiblical ethical agendaand vitiated as aprecedent forcontemporary practice. The second category ofmandatory war, against Amaleq, has also been rendered operationally defunct by comparing them with the Canaanites, or by postponing the battle to the immediate premessianic struggle, or by viewing them as a metaphor for genocidal evil. The two remaining categories, reactive defensive wars (which are classified as mandatory) and expansionary wars (which are classified as discretionary) remain intact. So, for example, King David's response to the Philistine attackaredesignated mandatory, whereashis wars "to expandthe border of Israel" are designated discretionary. Intermediate wars such as preventive, anticipatory, or preemptive defy so neat a classification. Not only are the classifications debated in the Talmud, but commentators disagree on the categorization of the differing positions in the Talmud. The major clash occurs between the eleventh century Franco-German scholar Rashi and the thirteenth century Franco-Provencal scholar Meiri. According to Rashi, the majority position considers preemptive action to be discretionary whereas the minority position expounded by Rabbi Judah considers it to be mandatory. According to Meiri, a preemptive strike, against an enemy who it is feared might attack or who is already known to be preparing for war is deemed mandatory by the majority ofthe rabbis, but discretionaryby Rabbi Judah. Accordingly, Rabbi Judah defines a counterattack as mandatory only in response to an already launched attack. A similar reading of Maimonides also limits the mandatory classification to a defensive war launched in response to an attack. With these distinctions between mandatory and discretionary wars in mind, we should be able to investigate the Jewish concerns with the problematics ofwarby focusing on preemptive strikes, declarations ofwar, ethics of warfare, and draftability. II. Preemptive Strikes as Self-Defense Not only Machiavellians view the security and survival ofthe state as nonnegotiable. National self-defense is as much amoral right as is personal self-preservation. Whereas it is clear that offensive war cannot be subsumed under the inalienable right of self-defense, the moral status of pre-emptive attacks is not as clear. Is the moral category of self-defense Working Warfare and Its Restrictions in the Jewish Tradition 45 limited to an already launched attack? The majority talmudic position, according to Rashi, and that of Rabbi Judah, according to Meiri, would answer in the affirmative. Their position is seconded by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which states: "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherentright ofindividual ofcollective self-defense ifan armed attack occurs against a member." The minority position of Rabbi Judah, according to Rashi, and the... (shrink)