It is a widely shared intuition that there is a close connection between knowledge-how and intentional action. In this paper, I explore one aspect of this connection: the normative connection between intending to do something and knowing how to do it. I argue for a norm connecting knowledge-how and intending in a way that parallels the knowledge norms of assertion, belief, and practical reasoning, which I call the knowledge-how norm of Intention. I argue that (...) this norm can appeal to support from arguments which parallel those for other epistemic norms, that it can deal with a number of prima facie problem cases, and that alternative conditions in a norm on intention are implausible. (shrink)

The thesis aims at analyzing the concepts of risk and safety as well as the class of concepts to which they belong, thick concepts, focusing in particular on the normative aspects involved. Essay I analyzes thick concepts, i.e. concepts such as cruelty and kindness that seem to combine descriptive and evaluative features. The traditional account, in which thick concepts are analyzed as the conjunction of a factual description and an evaluation, is criticized. Instead, it is argued that the descriptive (...) and evaluative aspects must be understood as a whole. Furthermore, it is argued that the two main worries evoked against non-naturalism – that non-naturalism cannot account for disagreement and that it is not genuinely explanatory – can be met. Essay II investigates the utilization of the Kripke/Putnam causal theory of reference in relation to the Open Question Argument. It is argued that the Open Question Argument suitably interpreted provides prima facie evidence against the claim that moral kinds are natural kinds, and that the causal theory, as interpreted by leading naturalist defenders, actually underscores this conclusion. Essay III utilizes the interpretation of the Open Question Argument argued for in the previous essay in order to argue against naturalistic reduction of risk, i.e. reduction of risk into natural concepts such as probability and harm. Three different normative aspects of risk and safety are put forward – epistemic uncertainty, distributive normativity and border normativity – and it is argued that these normative aspects cannot be reduced to a natural measure. Essay IV provides a conceptual analysis of safety in the context of societal decision-making, and argues for a notion that explicitly includes epistemic uncertainty, the degree to which we are uncertain of our knowledge of the situation at hand. Some formal versions of a comparative safety concept are also proposed. Essay V puts forward a normative critique against a common argument, viz. the claim that the public should follow the experts’ advice in recommending an activity whenever the experts have the best knowledge of the risk involved. The importance of safety in risk acceptance together with considerations from epistemic uncertainty makes the claim incorrect even after including plausible limitations to exclude ‘external’ considerations. Furthermore, it is shown that the scope of the objection covers risk assessment as well as risk management. Essay VI provides a systematized account of safety engineering practices that clarifies their relation to the goal of safety engineering, namely to increase safety. A list of 24 principles referred to in the literature of safety engineering is provided, divided into four major categories. It is argued that important aspects of these methods can be better understood with the help of the distinction between risk and uncertainty, in addition to the common distinction between risk and probability. (shrink)

In the end of the nineteenth century, there was a remarkable ‘empiricist attitude’ found among certain philosopher-scientists, an attitude which arguably emerged in the main as a reaction to the anti-scientific mood prevalent in the culture that time. Those philosopher-scientists, such as Mach and Hertz, were particularly anxious to emphasize and laud the privileged status of the empirical dimension ofour scientific knowledge, distinguishing it carefully from the theoretical constructions and hypothetical entities that are ordinarily posited by scientists. Yet, as (...) I exhibit in this article, there were certain crucial philosophical differences between these two thinkers with respect to their general conception of scientific theories and scientific norms guiding the activity. I suggest further that the most central difference in this context between Mach and Hertz can justifiably (and, perhaps, more fruitfully) be articulated and reckoned in traditional andcontemporary epistemological terms. (shrink)

Igal Kvart RATIONAL ASSERTIBILITY, THE STEERING ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE, AND PRAGMATIC ENCROACHMENT Abstract In the past couple of decades, there were a few major attempts to establish the thesis of pragmatic encroachment – that there is a significant pragmatic ingredient in the truth-conditions for knowledge-ascriptions. Epistemic contextualism has flaunted the notion of a conversational standard, and Stanley's subject-sensitive invariantism (SSI) promoted stakes, each of which, according to their proponents, play a major role as pragmatic components in the truth (...) conditions of knowledge ascriptions. These conceptions were propelled first and foremost by examples of knowledge ascriptions with obvious pragmatic aspects that seemed to require a pragmatic component in the truth-conditions of knowledge ascriptions in order to be accounted for. However, if such examples can be adequately explained not by pragmatic encroachment purely pragmatically, the central role that such examples play in supporting these accounts will be undermined. I lay out here a new pragmatic account, offering a different, purely pragmatic picture that explains such examples, and much more. If such an account and its associated explanations are adequate, then much of a need or a motivation for pragmatic encroachment is undermined. Specifically, I will develop the notion of rational assertibility, appealing to rational norms (which are not Gricean) as interfacing with semantic and epistemic (and other) norms to yield assertibility simpliciter. More importantly, I will argue for a well-entrenched pragmatic profile of knowledge, the so-called steering role of knowledge. Knowledge ascriptions, or simple assertions (that don't invoke the notion of knowledge), it will be argued, play a pragmatic role of steering audiences in joint deliberational setups to the speaker's preferred action by invoking an impending practical inference leading to that preferred action, and of ignoring incompatible alternatives. The recognition of rational forces as affecting, sometimes strongly and predominantly, intuitions associated with knowledge ascriptions, has important implications to philosophical methodology regarding what count as evidence for semantic features. One such lesson calls for securing examples with no significant rational forces at play in order to establish semantic features. Another calls attention to the ill-suitability of employing assertibility by figures in examples featuring deliberational setups for such a purpose in view of the role that such assertibility plays in reflecting rational aspects of such figures, in addition to their epistemic and semantic characteristics. Still another lesson points to a specific role that audiences play in such deliberational setups. (shrink)

Nominal concepts represent things as tokens of types. Recent research suggests that we represent principled connections between the type of thing something is (e.g., DOG) and some of its properties (k‐properties; e.g., having four legs for dogs) but not other properties (t‐properties; e.g., being brown for dogs). Principled connections differ from logical, statistical, and causal connections. Principled connections license (i) the expectation that tokens of the type will generally possess their k‐properties, (ii) formal explanations (i.e., explanation of the presence of (...) k‐properties in tokens of a type by reference to the type of thing it is), and (iii) normative expectations concerning the presence of k‐properties in tokens of the type. The present paper investigates the hypothesis that representing principled connections requires representing properties as aspects of being the relevant kind of thing (Aspect Hypothesis). Experiment 1 provides a direct test of the Aspect Hypothesis. Experiments 2 and 3 provide indirect tests of the Aspect Hypothesis. All three experiments provide support for the Aspect Hypothesis. Experiment 4 investigates a prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis concerning the manner in which formal explanations are licensed by principled connections. Finally, Experiment 5 investigates a prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis concerning the nature of the normative expectations licensed by principled connections. Together these results provide strong evidence for the idea that representing principled connections involves representing a property as being an aspect of being a given kind of thing. The results also help clarify the manner in which formal explanation differs from other modes of explanation. Finally, the results of the experiments are used to motivate a proposal concerning the formal structure of the conceptual representations implicated by principled connections. This structure provides a domain‐general way of structuring our concepts and embodies the perspective we take when we think and talk of things as being instances of a kind. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to discuss some normative aspects of Otto Neurath’s concept of scientific knowledge. I will take some reflections of Pierre Bourdieu, a sociologist known for his harsh criticism of “philosophers” as a point of reference. I have decided to employ his “non-philosophical” perspective because of its convergence with the very tradition to which the Institute Vienna Circle has aligned itself. That tradition derived the form and power of its beginnings from the unbiased attitude, (...) the impartiality of its intellectual and scientific standpoint. This impartial attitude was all but naive I wish to claim; it was the result of a conscious effort to liberate the philosophical vision from the sediments of a history of perception and thought that had reached its end in the 19th century.1 Of course, that that history had come to its end was felt by many scientists, philosophers and artists at the beginning of this century. What distinguished the Vienna Circle was that its members reacted with new insights into the nature of knowledge, indeed with the attempt to develop the impartiality of the scientific point of view. What had been in the foreground up to that time receded into the background for those versed in modern formal logic and empirical science. The disciplinary boundaries, most notably those between the natural sciences and the humanities became blurred. What we know became so complex and rich that traditional forms of classification were revealed as inadequate. For Neurath “Unified Science” was the name for future forms of classification and “encyclopedia” the name for the “orchestration” of the individual sciences. What remained of “philosophy” focussed on the logical analysis of language and — long neglected — the historical and practical aspects of science. Taking these general developments as my background here I want to defend the thesis that working on the “impartiality” of the scientist’s point of view can be seen as a contribution to and work on the normative dimensions of knowledge. In the case of the Vienna Circle and Otto Neurath such a contribution has nothing to do with developing a scientific conception of ethics or rationality.2 Rather it represents an attempt to analyze the scientific approach to reality and to reinforce the social effects of this approach by making it more precise. Viewed in this context Neurath’s project of a “scientific world conception” coincides with some perspectives whose topicality cannot be overestimated, Pierre Bourdieu’s epistemological reflections on sociology among them. (shrink)

Imagine that you’ve just spent the last several months reading Don Quixote—and that you’re all but fifty pages away from finishing. Unfortunately for you, the book was due back before you could finish, and so begrudgingly, you turn it back in, having not known what happens in the end. Riddled with curiosity, you make your best guess about Quixote’s eventual fate and suppose it is the most likely scenario. Entirely unbeknownst to you, it turns out that you were right; Quixote’s (...) ultimate destiny was just what you had supposed it would be! What luck! Quite naturally, we would say that, when all is said and done, knowing what happens to Don Quixote in the end is surely better than merely believing truly what happens in the end—the predicament you find yourself in having not actually finished the book. After all, it was just by dumb luck that you guessed the ending right—a point you could deny only on the pain of some embarrassing claim of clairvoyance. We might put the idea more generally by saying that from a purely cognitive standpoint, it is better to know the truth than to stumble upon it by luck. This general idea betrays two distinct insights about knowledge. The first is the insight that while true belief is valuable, knowledge is distinctively so—knowing the truth is valuable in a way that merely having a true belief is not. The second insight here is that you lack knowledge if it’s just by dumb luck that the belief you have is true. Call these the value insight and the anti-luck insight: Value insight: Knowledge is distinctively valuable. Luck insight: Knowledge excludes luck. In contemporary epistemology, and especially over the past five years, separate projects have arisen in correspondence with these distinct intuitions: value-driven epistemology is concerned with issues surrounding the first insight, and projects under the description of anti-luck epistemology have arisen out of the second. Now we might reasonably suppose that whatever it is that makes knowledge relevantly un-lucky would be something we could cite in accounting for what makes knowledge distinctively valuable. This natural idea reflects the thought that the insights about value and luck should not be entirely disconnected. There is a problematic tension though between this reasonable expectation and the resources epistemologists have provided for us to accommodate it. What explains the tension is the fact that value-driven and anti-luck projects in epistemology have by and large been developed apart from each other, each focused on one of our two guiding insights at the expense of the other. Consequently, value-driven epistemology’s focus on the normative but not modal properties of knowledge leaves these two aspects of knowledge disconnected much in the way that anti-luck epistemology’s focus on the modal but not the normative properties of knowledge leaves these same aspects disconnected. The lacuna here between what value driven epistemologists tell us about what makes knowledge valuable and what the anti-luck epistemologists tell us about what makes knowledge exclude luck is troubling. We may resist that there should be such a disconnect if we avoid the common flaw shared by each of these projects pursued in isolation from the other. The flaw here is essentially one of naivety: that of supposing that we can give an account of knowledge exclusively in terms of conditions that would accommodate one of the two insights, while still managing to account for the other insight—which itself we did not appeal to directly in our theory of what knowledge is—e.g. in the analysis provided of it. This is the flaw behind the value-driven approaches that think about knowledge in terms of valuable properties they can’t explain to ensure modal robustness and the anti-luck projects that think of knowledge in terms of modal properties into which we can’t well smuggle the normativity needed to explain its value. To avoid this flaw, then, we should let both of these insights dictate the conditions our analysis offers as essential to knowing. The project with which I’ll be engaging here develops substantially on this widely overlooked and promising idea. (shrink)

What is the normative role of knowledge? I argue that knowledge plays an important role as a norm of assertion and action, which is explained and unified by its more fundamental role as a norm of belief. Moreover, I propose a distinctive account of what this normative role consists in. I argue that knowledge is the aim of belief, which sets a normative standard of correctness and a corresponding normative standard of justification. According (...) to my proposal, it is correct to believe, assert and act on a proposition if and only if one is in a position to know it, but one has justification to believe, assert and act on a proposition if and only if one has justification to believe that one is in a position to know it. (shrink)

This study addresses the question of normative analysis of the value‐based aspects of nursing. In our perspective, values in science may be distinguished into (i) epistemic when related to the goals of truth and objectivity and (ii) non‐epistemic when related to social, cultural or political aspects. Furthermore, values can be called constitutive when necessary for a scientific enterprise, or contextual when contingently associated with science. Analysis of the roles of the various forms of values and models of knowledge (...) translation provides the ground to understand the specific role of values in nursing. A conceptual framework has been built to classify some of the classical perspectives on nursing knowledge and to examine the relationships between values and different forms of knowledge in nursing. It follows that adopting a normative perspective in the analysis of nursing knowledge provides key elements to identify its proper dimension. (shrink)

This study addresses the question of normative analysis of the value‐based aspects of nursing. In our perspective, values in science may be distinguished into (i) epistemic when related to the goals of truth and objectivity and (ii) non‐epistemic when related to social, cultural or political aspects. Furthermore, values can be called constitutive when necessary for a scientific enterprise, or contextual when contingently associated with science. Analysis of the roles of the various forms of values and models of knowledge (...) translation provides the ground to understand the specific role of values in nursing. A conceptual framework has been built to classify some of the classical perspectives on nursing knowledge and to examine the relationships between values and different forms of knowledge in nursing. It follows that adopting a normative perspective in the analysis of nursing knowledge provides key elements to identify its proper dimension. (shrink)

In everyday life we often act adequately, yet without deliberation. For instance, we immediately obtain and maintain an appropriate distance from others in an elevator. The notion of normativity implied here is a very basic one, namely distinguishing adequate from inadequate, correct from incorrect, or better from worse in the context of a particular situation. In the first part of this paper I investigate such ‘situated normativity’ by focusing on unreflective expert action. More particularly, I use Wittgenstein’s examples of craftsmen (...) (tailors and architects) absorbed in action to introduce situated normativity. Situated normativity can be understood as the normative aspect of embodied cognition in unreflective skillful action. I develop Wittgenstein’s insight that a peculiar type of affective behaviour, ‘directed discontent’, is essential for getting things right without reflection. Directed discontent is a reaction of appreciation in action and is introduced as a paradigmatic expression of situated normativity. In the second part I discuss Wittgenstein’s ideas on the normativity of what he calls ‘blind’ rule-following and the ‘bedrock’ of immediate action. What matters for understanding the normativity of (even ‘blind’) rule-following, is not that one has the capacity for linguistic articulation or reflection but that one is reliably participating in a communal custom. In the third part I further investigate the complex relationships between unreflective skillful action, perception, emotion, and normativity. Part of this entails an account of the link between normativity at the level of the expert’s socio-cultural practice and the individual’s situated and lived normativity. (shrink)

The thesis that meaning is normative has come under much scrutiny of late. However, there are aspects of the view that have received comparatively little critical attention which centre on meaning’s capacity to guide and justify linguistic action. Call such a view ‘justification normativity’. I outline Zalabardo’s account of JN and his corresponding argument against reductive-naturalistic meaning-factualism and argue that the argument presents a genuine challenge to account for the guiding role of meaning in linguistic action. I then present (...) a proposal regarding how this challenge may be met. This proposal is then compared to recent work by Ginsborg, who has outlined an alternative view of the normativity of meaning that explicitly rejects the idea that meanings guide and justify linguistic use. I outline how Ginsborg utilises this notion of normativity in order to provide a positive account of what it is to mean something by an expression which is intended to serve as a r.. (shrink)

In her analysis of the politics of biotechnology, Sheila Jasanoff argued that modern democracy cannot be understood without an analysis of the ways knowledge is created and used in society. She suggested calling these ways to “know things in common” civic epistemologies. Jasanoff thus approached knowledge as fundamentally social. The focus on the social nature of knowledge allows drawing parallels with some developments in philosophy of science. In the first part of the paper, I juxtapose Jasanoff’s account (...) with the philosopher Helen Longino’s approach. Longino argued that objectivity of scientific knowledge is made possible by the social nature of knowledge production. In the process of community-wide discussion, claims that are not intersubjectively acceptable are rejected and communally acceptable knowledge emerges. Longino called this knowledge-creating critical dialogue transformative. I suggest that Longino’s account can be seen as providing epistemological support for the civic epistemologies Jasanoff described. They are capable of producing knowledge in the normative philosophical sense of the word to the degree that they are able to support this transformative critical dialogue. In the second part of the paper, I explore in the light of Longino’s criteria for effective knowledge-productive dialogue one of the controversies in biotechnology policy that Jasanoff analysed. I suggest that Longino’s criteria allow identifying some fundamental obstacles for initiating and maintaining this kind of responsive critical dialogue and that the controversy can be seen as caused by inability to overcome these obstacles. In such a case, the controversy signals an epistemic failure as well as a failure of democratic policy. (shrink)

Probabilism is a Scholastic discussion of conscience beginning in the sixteenth century and lasting over four hundred years. To tackle historical issues in normative ethics, the participants had to work out a general "metaethical" theory relating epistemic and deontic logics, the logics of knowledge and virtue. May I act if I am unsure that I may? How, when I am in doubt, can I acquire the critical mass of rationality that virtue demands? The normative aspect of (...) the controversy has been studied in its historical setting, but its interesting and original metaethics has been largely ignored outside the Scholastic circle itself. The discussion is obviously relevant, even practical, today; in fact, any treatment of conscience and relativism already includes the material of probabilist analyses. (shrink)

The topic of history-of-science explanation is first briefly introduced as a generally important one for the light it may shed on action theory, on the logic of discovery, and on philosophy''s relations with historiography of science, intellectual history, and the sociology of knowledge. Then some problems and some conclusions are formulated by reference to some recent relevant literature: a critical analysis of Laudan''s views on the role of normative evaluations in rational explanations occasions the result that one must (...) make aconceptual distinction between evaluations and explanations of belief, and that there are at leastthree subclasses of the latter, rational, critical, and theoretical; I then discuss the problem of whether explanations of discoveries are self-evidencing and predictive by focusing on views of Hempel and Nickles, and I attempt a formalization of some aspects of the problem. Finally, a more systematic and concrete analysis is undertaken by using as an example the explanation of Galileo''s rejection of space-proportionality, and it is argued that the historical explanation of scientific beliefs is a type of logical analysis. (shrink)

Why comply with epistemic norms? In this paper, I argue that complying with epistemic norms, engaging in epistemically responsible conduct, and being epistemically trustworthy are constitutive elements of maintaining good epistemic relations with oneself and others. Good epistemic relations are in turn both instrumentally and finally valuable: they enable the kind of coordination and knowledge acquisition underpinning much of what we tend to associate with a flourishing human life; and just as good interpersonal relations with others can be good (...) for their own sake, standing in good epistemic relations is good for its own sake. On my account, we have reason to comply with epistemic norms because it is a way of respecting the final value of something that also tends to be an instrumentally valuable thing: good epistemic relations. Situating the account within the recent social turn in debates about epistemic instrumentalism, I argue that the dual-value aspect of good epistemic relations can explain important anti-instrumentalist intuitions, in a well-motivated way, within a broadly instrumentalist framework. (shrink)

This paper analyses the logistics of knowledge in eighteenth-century Anglo-Swedish scholarly collaborative relationships. More specifically, it analyses the making of Thomas Mangey’s Philonis Judaei Opera as a long-distance collaborative project between Mangey and the Swedish scholars Jacob Serenius and Erik Benzelius. The early modern Republic of Letters has commonly been characterised as a collaborative communication system upheld by communitarian norms. This description has however been challenged by several recent studies, which have underlined the commercial aspects of early modern scholarly (...) exchange. Building on such studies, this article highlights how negotiations about the logistics of knowledge circulation – of, e.g. shipping and long-distance financing – were an integral part of early modern transnational scholarly relationships. In the correspondence between the three scholars of 1728–42, we find ample practical details of how they struggled with slow and unreliable regional mercantile infrastructures. The strains of these logistical challenges thoroughly shaped the relationships between the three scholars, and would eventually lead to the collapse of their collaboration. (shrink)

The article соnsiders the socio-cultural aspects of the standard model (SM) in elementary particle physics and history of its creation. SM is a quantum field gauge theory of electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions, which is the basis of the modern theory of elementary particles. The process of its elaboration covers a twenty-year period: from 1954 (the concept of gauge fields by C. Yang and R. Mills) to the early 1970s., when the construction of renormalized quantum chromodynamics and electroweak theory wеre (...) completed. The socio-cultural aspects of SM are explored on the basis of a quasi-empirical approach, by studying the texts of its creators and participants in the relevant events. We note also the important role of such an “external” factor as large-scale state projects on the creation of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, which provided personnel and financial support for fundamental research in the field of nuclear physics and elementary particle physics (the implementation of thermonuclear projects took place just in the 1950s, and most of the theorists associated with the creation of SM were simultaneously the main developers of thermonuclear weapons, especially in the USSR). The formation of SM is considered as a competition between two research programs (paradigms) – gauge-field and phenomenological, associated with the rejection of the field concept. The split of the scientific community of physicists associated with this competition is going on during this period. It’s accompanied by a kind of “negotiations”, which in the early 1970s lead to the triumph of the gauge field program and the restoration of the unity of the scientific community. The norms and rules of the scientific ethos played the regulatory role in this process. The scientific-realistic position of the metaphysical attitudes of the majority of theorists and their negative attitude to the concepts of philosophical relativism and social construction of scientific knowledge are emphasized. Some features of the history of SM creation are also noted, such as the positive role of aesthetic judgments; “scientific-school” form of research (in the USSR), its pros and cons; a connection to historical-scientific “drama of ideas” with “dramas of people” who made a wrong choice and (or) “missed their opportunities”. (shrink)

The construction of a systematic philosophical foundation for logic is a notoriously difficult problem. In Part One I suggest that the problem is in large part methodological, having to do with the common philosophical conception of “providing a foundation”. I offer an alternative to the common methodology which combines a strong foundational requirement with the use of non-traditional, holistic tools to achieve this result. In Part Two I delineate an outline of a foundation for logic, employing the new methodology. The (...) outline is based on an investigation of why logic requires a veridical justification, i.e., a justification which involves the world and not just the mind, and what features or aspect of the world logic is grounded in. Logic, the investigation suggests, is grounded in the formal aspect of reality, and the outline proposes an account of this aspect, the way it both constrains and enables logic, logic's role in our overall system of knowledge, the relation between logic and mathematics, the normativity of logic, the characteristic traits of logic, and error and revision in logic. (shrink)

Kant thought that the central question of the transcendental deduction, and perhaps of the entire Critique of Pure Reason, is what he calls the quid juris of categorial concepts. The quid juris is for him the question of the legitimate right of categories, that is, of non-empirical concepts like ‘substance’ and ‘cause’, to be employed in cognition.

The interrelations of science and technology as an object of study seem to have drawn the attention of a number of disciplines: the history of both science and technology, sociology, economics and economic history, and even the philosophy of science. The question that comes to mind is whether the phenomenon itself is new or if advances in the disciplines involved account for this novel interest, or, in fact, if both are intercon nected. When the editors set out to plan this (...) volume, their more or less explicit conviction was that the relationship of science and technology did reveal a new configuration and that the disciplines concerned with 1tS analysis failed at least in part to deal with the change because of conceptual and methodological preconceptions. To say this does not imply a verdict on the insufficiency of one and the superiority of any other one disciplinary approach. Rather, the situation is much more complex. In economics, for example, the interest in the relationship between science and technology is deeply influenced by the theoretical problem of accounting for the factors of economic growth. The primary concern is with technology and the problem is whether the market induces technological advances or whether they induce new demands that explain the subsequent diffusion of new technologies. Science is generally considered to be an exogenous factor not directly subject to market forces and, therefore, appears to be of no interest. (shrink)

The term dual use technologies refers to research and technology with the potential both to yield valuable scientific knowledge and to be used for nefarious purposes with serious consequences for public health or the environment. There are two main approaches to assessing dual use technologies: pragmatic and metaphysical. A pragmatic approach relies on ethical principles and norms to generate specific guidance and policy for dual use technologies. A metaphysical approach exhorts us to the deeper study of human nature, our (...) intentions, goals, values ideals and social relations when considering dual use technology. Use of science and technology (S and T) is determined by two components of human nature: human intentions and choices. We have drawn a distinction between specific measures, goals and intentions with respect to technologies in order to show that moral judgment about technologies must precede their use. Understanding of our intentionality and values, and our moral ideals, as a measurable, tangible part of the real world is important for the prevention of any possible harm from S and T. In the context of dual use technologies, we stress the importance of three main understandings of human nature: vulnerability, responsibility and narrative identity. These can become a strong ontological “antidote” to technology’s poisoning of modern man. Each new technology can be measured and compared with man’s values, traditions and societal norms. This can be done bearing in mind the concept that human nature is not dualistic, but pluralistic. A system of ethical principles that includes the principles of good intentions, the correspondence of goals and means, the balancing of risks and benefits, simplicity, and contextuality, will help ensure that technologies are more humanistic and friendly to human beings. (shrink)

Human beings live in an incredibly complex social environment. Understanding the cognitive abilities that produce and sustain this environment is among the central goals of psychological research. Given the scope of the phenomena involved it is inevitable that research has become organized into subfields that explore different aspects of social cognition. As necessary as such a division of research labor might be, it is also necessary to keep in mind the bigger questions and think about how the pieces of the (...) social cognition puzzle might fit together. The papers in this volume take on two major pieces, what I will call psychological and normative knowledge. Like any truly challenging puzzle, it is clear that the pieces must go together somehow, but figuring out the productive points of contact is not at all obvious. The papers in the current volume address two aspects of the integration of psychological and normative knowledge. Some explore people’s intuitions about causal connections, others address conceptual linkages. Although these are two distinct types.. (shrink)

It is widely believed that the “strong programme” in the sociology of knowledge comes into serious conflict with mainstream epistemology. I argue that the programme has two aspects—one modest, and the other less so. The programme’s modest aspect—best represented by the “symmetry thesis”—does not contain anything to threaten much of the epistemological mainstream, but does come into conflict with a certain kind of epistemological “externalism”. The immodest aspect, however—in the form of “finitism”—pushes the programme towards a radical (...) form of relativism about truth. Accepting these points will allow us to put an end to much unnecessary debate surrounding the strong programme, and allow a more fruitful discussion to begin.Author Keywords: Author Keywords: Strong programme; Epistemology; Normativity; Relativism; Finitism. (shrink)

We argue that constructive approaches in epistemology and systems science, which are focused on normativity, knowledge, and communication of organisms and emphasize the primacy of activity, self-construction, and niche-construction in the cognitive agents, fit naturally to the both methodology and theory of biosemiotics. In particular, constructive view was already present in the works of the major precursors of biosemiotics: von Uexküll and Bateson, and to some extent Peirce. Biosemiotics has a chance to function as a mediating field in the (...) theoretical integration of semiotics with its construction-related sister disciplines (e.g., second order cybernetics, autopoiesis, constructivism, enactivism, and interactivism) because of its explicit assumption of the semiotic nature of life and agency and its objectified “first person” view to biosemiotic agents, the view that nevertheless avoids the agnostic attitude towards reality. (shrink)

In formal epistemology, we use mathematical methods to explore the questions of epistemology and rational choice. What can we know? What should we believe and how strongly? How should we act based on our beliefs and values? We begin by modelling phenomena like knowledge, belief, and desire using mathematical machinery, just as a biologist might model the fluctuations of a pair of competing populations, or a physicist might model the turbulence of a fluid passing through a small aperture. Then, (...) we explore, discover, and justify the laws governing those phenomena, using the precision that mathematical machinery affords. For example, we might represent a person by the strengths of their beliefs, and we might measure these using real numbers, which we call credences. Having done this, we might ask what the norms are that govern that person when we represent them in that way. How should those credences hang together? How should the credences change in response to evidence? And how should those credences guide the person’s actions? This is the approach of the first six chapters of this handbook. In the second half, we consider different representations—the set of propositions a person believes; their ranking of propositions by their plausibility. And in each case we ask again what the norms are that govern a person so represented. Or, we might represent them as having both credences and full beliefs, and then ask how those two representations should interact with one another. This handbook is incomplete, as such ventures often are. Formal epistemology is a much wider topic than we present here. One omission, for instance, is social epistemology, where we consider not only individual believers but also the epistemic aspects of their place in a social world. Michael Caie’s entry on doxastic logic touches on one part of this topic, but there is much more. Relatedly, there is no entry on epistemic logic, nor any on knowledge more generally. There are still more gaps. These omissions should not be taken as ideological choices. This material is missing, not because it is any less valuable or interesting, but because we v failed to secure it in time. Rather than delay publication further, we chose to go ahead with what is already a substantial collection. We anticipate a further volume in the future that will cover more ground. Why an open access handbook on this topic? A number of reasons. The topics covered here are large and complex and need the space allowed by the sort of 50 page treatment that many of the authors give. We also wanted to show that, using free and open software, one can overcome a major hurdle facing open access publishing, even on topics with complex typesetting needs. With the right software, one can produce attractive, clear publications at reasonably low cost. Indeed this handbook was created on a budget of exactly £0 (≈ $0). Our thanks to PhilPapers for serving as publisher, and to the authors: we are enormously grateful for the effort they put into their entries. (shrink)

It is a piece of philosophical common sense that belief and knowledge are states. Some epistemologists reject this claim in hope of answering certain difficult questions about the normative evaluation of belief. I shall argue, however, that this move offends not only against philosophical commonsense but also against ordinary common sense, at least as far as this is manifested in the semantic content of the words we use to talk about belief and knowledge. I think it is (...) relatively easily to show with some linguistic tests that ordinary belief and knowledge attributions should be classified aspectually as state descriptions. Hence, the move some epistemologists to deny that belief and knowledge are states threatens to simply change the topic rather than open up answers to difficult questions in epistemology. I do not know fully how to answer the relevant questions about the normative evaluation of belief, but I pursue this critical point here in service of a positive proposal about the general framework in which they should be answered. In brief, the general framework is one which recognizes an important place for what I call state-norms, beside the action-norms which are more familiar from normative theory. And it locates the epistemic norms that apply to beliefs and are relevant for knowledge on the state-norm side of this divide. This turns out to be not only consistent with but indeed to underwrites the philosophical and ordinary common sense that belief and knowledge are states. (shrink)

The thought of Wilfrid Sellars has figured prominently in recent discussions of the relationship between naturalism and normativity . On the one hand, some have appealed to Sellars' philosophy in defence of the thesis that what he called the normative 'space of reasons' is in some sense sui generis and irreducible to the natural causal order described by the natural sciences. On the other hand, others have exploited equally central aspects of Sellars' philosophy in defence of the seemingly incompatible (...) project of attempting to give an exhaustive scientifically naturalist account of mind and meaning, and perhaps of the nature of normativity itself. I contend that what Sellars described as 'the Janus-faced character of languagings as belonging to both the causal order and the order of reasons' ( Naturalism and Ontology ) is the key to understanding his normative and pragmatist variety of naturalism. Sellars saw himself as having articulated a detailed philosophical perspective within which the normative aspects of meaning, knowledge, truth, and representation are themselves opened up, in principle, to naturalistic explanation. (shrink)

This paper studies one aspect of the great Ming dynasty philosopher Wang Yangming’s (王陽明 1472-1529) celebrated doctrine of the unity of knowledge and action (zhi xing he yi 知行合一). Wang states that his doctrine does not apply to all knowledge, but only to an elevated form of knowledge, which he sometimes calls “genuine knowledge” (zhen zhi 真知). But what is “genuine knowledge”? I develop and compare four different interpretations of this notion: the perceptual, practical, (...) normative and introspective models. The main aim of the paper is to develop these models in more detail than has been done before. But at the end of the paper I argue that the introspective model is to be preferred over the alternatives. (shrink)

Misunderstanding Science? offers a challenging new perspective on the public understanding of science. In so doing, it also challenges existing ideas of the nature of science and its relationships with society. Its analysis and case presentation are highly relevant to current concerns over the uptake, authority, and effectiveness of science as expressed, for example, in areas such as education, medical/health practice, risk and the environment, technological innovation. Based on several in-depth case-studies, and informed theoretically by the sociology of scientific (...) class='Hi'>knowledge, the book shows how the public understanding of science questions raises issues of the epistemic commitments and institutional structures which constitute modern science. It suggests that many of the inadequacies in the social integration and uptake of science might be overcome if modern scientific institutions were more reflexive and open about the implicit normative commitments embedded in scientific cultures. (shrink)

In this dissertation I defend a Kantian notion of the given. I show that something akin to Kant's theory of intuition is necessary to make sense of the normative role perception has in forming perceptual knowledge. ;Perceptual judgments require guidance from the objects they represent. I argue that this normative aspect of perception can be explained only by appeal to a non-conceptual content caused by the object perceived. But isn't this to appeal to the mythical given? (...) I show that it is not by comparing it to the result of Sellars' famous Myth of the Given argument. Contrary to the generally accepted view, what follows from Sellars' argument is not that the given is a myth, but rather that what is immediately present to mind cannot be known. This result leaves an explanatory option which the Sellars' critique does not consider. The given might be a part of knowledge while not itself being independently knowable. ;However, because the possibility of an immediate cognitive content is thought to have been foreclosed by the Sellars argument, much subsequent epistemology has overlooked this alternative. One widespread response has been to embrace coherence theories according to which justification is regarded as a relation between beliefs. These theories regard perception as a thoroughly causal phenomenon and consequently allow no role for perception in the justification of perceptual or other beliefs. ;I argue that in perceptual contexts only perception can decide the case between equally coherent conceptual determinations. But according to the coherentist this kind of justificatory function could not involve perception since perception is a thoroughly causal phenomenon. Against this view, I argue that some notion of the given, one which circumvents Sellars' criticism, is necessary to account for the normative role perception plays in perceptual belief. I show that Kant's notion of sensible intuition circumvents the Sellars critique. The idea of the given is redeemed in Kant's account, since it makes possible a theory of the normative role that perception plays in knowledge. (shrink)

Does the psychoanalytic concept of narcissism contribute to enhancing the disciplinary quality and features of political theory? This book tries to portray the foundations of democracy as both a universal value and a system of values embedded in specific cultural systems of meaning from its psychoanalytic perspective. This cross-disciplinary normative attempt makes possible the constructive dialogue between contemporary Western and Japanese culture by focusing on how the psychological foundations of democracy are treated within a common disciplinary framework in two (...) different sociocultural contexts. In light of the integration of the psychiatrically mythical idea, the book argues that the key subjects of political theory are to identify the sources of totalitarian and fascist orientations in seemingly democratic practice, and to deal with them in psychoanalytically diagnostic and remedial terms. (shrink)

In the contemporary epistemological literature, ignorance is normally understood as the absence of an epistemic standing, usually either knowledge or true belief. It is argued here that this way of thinking about ignorance misses a crucial ingredient, which is the normative aspect of ignorance. In particular, to be ignorant is not merely to lack the target epistemic standing, but also entails that this is an epistemic standing that one ought to have. I explore the motivations for this (...) claim, and show how it can help us make sense of a range of cases concerning ignorance that the conventional, non-normative, accounts of ignorance struggle with. I also use this normative conception of ignorance to help elucidate the specific kind of epistemic standing the lack of which is entailed by ignorance. (shrink)

The author introduces a normative conception of coherence, derived from a pragmatic interpretation of the application of norms to concrete cases. A distinction is made between the justification of a norm and its application. In the case of moral norms, justification and application can be analysed as two different discursive procedures which give rise to different aspects of the principle of impartiality. Impartial justification requires a procedure by which all interests concerned are taken into account whereas impartial application requires (...) a procedure where all features of a situation are considered. The complete description of a concrete case makes necessary a coherent interpretation of all the valid norms which are prima facie applicable. This requirement of an ideal coherent system of norms is restricted to interpretive “paradigms” in the case of legal norms, because it is necessary to produce singular judgments under the restrictive conditions of scarce time and incomplete knowledge. (shrink)

STS scholarship has produced important insights about relationships between the roles of peer review and the social construction of knowledge. Yet, barriers related to access have been a continual challenge for such work. This article overcomes some past access challenges and explores peer review normativities operating in the new discipline of Engineering Education. In doing so, it contributes new insights about disciplinary development, interdisciplinarity, and peer review as a site of knowledge construction. In particular, it draws attention to (...) an aspect of peer review not previously discussed – how peer review normativities are shaped by disciplinary origins. A content analysis of peer review documentation revealed that a hyperfocus on methods, which can be traced back to disciplinary origins, continues to be a guiding normativity. However, interviews with editors revealed that they do not acknowledge that normativity. Implications of those findings and their misalignment are discussed, as are contrasts with the history of other disciplines. (shrink)

Wilfrid Sellars’ denunciation of the Myth of the Given was meant to clarify, against empiricism, that perceptual episodes alone are insufficient to ground and justify perceptual knowledge. Sellars showed that in order to accomplish such epistemic tasks, more resources and capacities, such as those involved in using concepts, are needed. Perceptual knowledge belongs to the space of reasons and not to an independent realm of experience. Dan Hutto and Eric Myin have recently presented the Hard Problem of Content (...) as an ensemble of reasons against naturalistic accounts of content. In a nutshell, it states that covariance relations—even though they are naturalistically acceptable explanatory resources—do not constitute content. The authors exploit this move in order to promote their preferred radical enactivist and anti-representationalist option, according to which, basic minds—the lower stratum of cognition—do not involve content. Although it is controversial to argue that the Hard Problem of Content effectively dismisses naturalistic theories of representation, a central aspect of it—the idea that information as covariance does not suffice to explain content—finds support among the defenders of classical cognitive representationalism, such as Marcin Miłkowski. This support—together with the acknowledgment this remark about covariance is a point already made by Sellars in his criticism of the Myth of the Given—has a number of interesting implications. Not only is it of interest for the debates about representationalism in cognitive science, where it can be understood as an anticipatory move, but it also offers some clues and insights for reconsidering some issues along Sellarsian lines—a conflation between two concepts of representation that is often assumed in cognitive science, a distinction between two types of relevant normativities, and a reconsideration of the naturalism involved in such explanations. (shrink)

I examine the relation between explanation and unification in both the original Kaluza–Klein theory, which originated in the works of Theodor Kaluza and Oskar Klein in the 1920s, and in the modern Kaluza–Klein theories which date back to the late 1970s and which are still considered by the majority of the physics community to be the best hope for a complete unified theory of all fundamental interactions. I use the conclusions of this case study to assess the merits of Philip (...) Kitcher's account of explanation as unification. I also draw lessons about physicists’ pursuit of the higher dimensional unification of the fundamental forces of nature. (shrink)

The problem of the origin of religious sciences has been discussed by both Islamic scholars and orientalists from sectarian, cultural, social and many different aspects. Sufism is one of the main sciences that are the subject of these discussions in terms of its source. Some Western researchers; they regarded the religion of Islam as inadequate in the face of the complexity of sufism. They claimed that the science of sufism was inspired by different religions and traditions such as Christianity Gnosticism, (...) Buddhism, Persian and Indian. Another discussion on the origin problem of sufism is that it is of Shia origin. Some early sufis have been scrutinized on the aforementioned issues due to their social environment and teachings. The scope of the study will be created specifically for Ma‘rūf al-Karkhī (d. 200/815). The relevant issue will be evaluated from this aspect. Because Ma'rûf attracts attention as an extremely important sufi because he is at the center of the science of sufism. As a matter of fact, Sarī al-Saqaṭī, who is the first person to mention states and authorities in the records, states that he acquired all his knowledge through Ma'rûf. Sarī, on the other hand, influenced Junayd because he was the uncle and teacher of Junayd, known as "seyyidü't-taife". Therefore, the life and teachings of Ma'rûf have spread to the foundation of sufism. Besides, it has made him a shareholder in the formation of the theoretical background of sufism. Ma'rûf's reconciliation of Sufism with truths can be considered as an example. The subject of the article is the sufi life of Ma‘rūf al-Karkhī, who is at the center of these discussions, and his role in the origin of sufism because his family is a member of the Sâbiî or Christianity religion and he is a Muslim at the hands of Imam Alī al-Riḍā (d. 203/819). Ma'rûf is in contact with other religions because of his family. In addition, he is in close contact with Alī al-Riḍā in the chain of isnad, which includes seven imams, whom Shiite circles call "golden circle". Therefore, the fact that he is one of the leading figures in the history of sufism increases the importance of the subject in his eyes. Therefore, while the life of Ma'rûf will be examined through the history of sufism, the history of sufism will be mentioned from the specificity of Ma'rûf. Because, in contrast to the normative sciences, the sufi field is dominated by the experiences and teachings of the sufis. (shrink)

In cultural history the human body has been the object of a great variety of opposing valuations, ranging from "imago dei" to "the devil's tool". At present, the body is commonly regarded as a mere means to fulfill the wishes of its "owner". According to these wishes it can be technically improved in an unlimited way. Against this view the text argues for a conception of the human body as a valuable "common heritage". The "normal" human body as the result (...) of natural and cultural history is an essential condition of the modern social and legal order. The consequences of its technical alteration should be the subject of public debates and common decisions. (shrink)

According to one large family of views, scientific explanations explain a phenomenon (such as an event or a regularity) by subsuming it under a general representation, model, prototype, or schema (see Bechtel, W., & Abrahamsen, A. (2005). Explanation: A mechanist alternative. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(2), 421–441; Churchland, P. M. (1989). A neurocomputational perspective: The nature of mind and the structure of science. Cambridge: MIT Press; Darden (2006); Hempel, C. G. (1965). Aspects of scientific (...) explanation. In C. G. Hempel (Ed.), Aspects of scientific explanation (pp. 331–496). New York: Free Press; Kitcher (1989); Machamer, P., Darden, L., & Craver, C. F. (2000). Thinking about mechanisms. Philosophy of Science, 67(1), 1–25). My concern is with the minimal suggestion that an adequate philosophical theory of scientific explanation can limit its attention to the format or structure with which theories are represented. The representational subsumption view is a plausible hypothesis about the psychology of understanding. It is also a plausible claim about how scientists present their knowledge to the world. However, one cannot address the central questions for a philosophical theory of scientific explanation without turning one’s attention from the structure of representations to the basic commitments about the worldly structures that plausibly count as explanatory. A philosophical theory of scientific explanation should achieve two goals. The first is explanatory demarcation. It should show how explanation relates with other scientific achievements, such as control, description, measurement, prediction, and taxonomy. The second is explanatory normativity. It should say when putative explanations succeed and fail. One cannot achieve these goals without undertaking commitments about the kinds of ontic structures that plausibly count as explanatory. Representations convey explanatory information about a phenomenon when and only when they describe the ontic explanations for those phenomena. (shrink)

Empirical-ethical research constitutes a relatively new field which integrates socio-empirical research and normative analysis. As direct inferences from descriptive data to normative conclusions are problematic, an ethical framework is needed to determine the relevance of the empirical data for normative argument. While issues of normative-empirical collaboration and questions of empirical methodology have been widely discussed in the literature, the normative methodology of empirical-ethical research has seldom been addressed. Based on our own research experience, we discuss (...) one aspect of this normative methodology, namely the selection of an ethical theory serving as a background for empirical-ethical research. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is the clarification of some methodological problems concerning Rawls’ theory of justice. The first part seeks to make more precise Tugendhat’s distinction between 1st-person-theory and 3rd-person-theory. Rawls’ theory fulfills all criteria for 1st-person-theories. In the second part Rawl’s coherence model for the justification of norms („reflective equilibrium“) is critically analyzed and opposed to the hypothetical decision which individuals are to make in the original position (contract model). It is shown that the conception of reflective equilibrium (...) is in various aspects mistaken. In conclusion a problem is indicated which Rawls has not satisfactorily resolved: The veil of ignorance is supposed to guarantee that the decision for the basic principles of social justice is unanimous. Nevertheless it would appear that the individuals in the original position either have too little empirical knowledge in order to make a rational decision, or they have too much knowledge in order to come to an unanimous decision. The veil of ignorance is either too fine or not fine enough. (shrink)

In this paper, I review Quine's response to the normativity charge against naturalized epistemology. On this charge, Quine's naturalized epistemology neglects the essential normativity of the traditional theory of knowledge and hence cannot count as its successor. According to Quine, normativity is retained in naturalism as ‘the technology of truth-seeking’. I first disambiguate Quine's naturalism into three programs of increasing strength and clarify the strongest program by means of the so-called Epistemic Skinner Box. Then, I investigate two ways in (...) which the appeal to technology as normative enterprise can be made good. I argue that neither coheres with other aspects of Quine's philosophy, most notably the elimination of intentionality. Finally, I briefly consider a third reconstruction of the response, which involves an extension of the web of “belief” to practical know-how. I conclude that the normativity of Quine's (strong) naturalism cannot be found in the technology of truth-seeking. (shrink)

It seems uncontroversial that perceptual experiences provide us with some “normative support” for beliefs or judgments about our surroundings. Provided that the normative force of perceptual justification is something that manifests itself in consciousness or something we commonly experience, what are its phenomenal features? To put it differently: What is it to experience the normative force of perceptual justification? In the first section I will briefly comment on the demand of a unified theory of perceptual experiences, viz. (...) a theory which is capable of integrating relevant epistemological and phenomenological aspects of perceptual experiences. In section two I will argue for a way of connecting the epistemological problem and the phenomenological problem by appealing to a compare-and-contrast strategy. Eventually, in section three, I will try to draw some lessons for our understanding of the normative force of perceptual justification. (shrink)

The current reorganisation of universities is part of a European policy aimed at strengthening Europe’s position with regard to the emerging global knowledge economy. The transformations in view of this overall goal are hardly accompanied by a critical discussion about the function or role of universities within and for society. The common assumption that universities offer a specific ‘general education’ by linking teaching to research, goes back to the modern university idea as conceived by Wilhelm von Humboldt. This article (...) intends to show that philosophical attempts to restore the modern university model as a normative standard for criticising actual developments at European universities, have become problematic for contextual reasons that beg the basic assumptions of this model. Instead of answering the question of the ‘public role of universities’, the article rather attempts to clarify the problems with which this question is connected, from a political–philosophical perspective. It is argued that the difficulties in which the contemporary discourse about universities constantly becomes entangled, reflect more fundamental impasses and even contradictions that the modern democratic project is experiencing today. (shrink)

The thesis of my paper is that argumentation theory provides a promising heuristic framework for addressing issues raised by the rationality debates in the philosophy of science, in particular the issues connected with scientific controversies over the appraisal and choice of competing theories. The first part of the paper grounds this thesis historically. In criticizing the logical empiricists, Thomas Kuhn set the stage for the subsequent opposition between a normative, anti-sociological philosophy of science and a descriptive, anti-philosophical sociology of (...) knowledge. But he also hinted at the main lines of a multi-dimensional theory of argumentation which might frame a wide range of current investigations into scientific reasoning. In the second part of the paper I focus on the central normative aspect of this framework, dialectical argumentation, and clarify the key challenge, the underdetermination of theories by evidence. In the third part, I attempt to get beyond the dichotomy informing the rationality debates by reformulating the problem of theory choice within a broader context of scientific rationality. (shrink)

Why does knowledge matter? Two answers have been influential in the recent literature. One is that it has value: knowledge is one of the goods. Another is that it plays a significant normative role: knowledge is the norm of action, belief, assertion, or the like. This paper discusses whether one can derive one of the claims from the other. That is, whether assuming the idea that knowledge has value — and some defensible general hypotheses about (...) norms and values —, we could derive the claim that it plays the alleged normative role. Or whether, assuming that knowledge does play that role — and some defensible general hypotheses —, we could derive the claim that it has value. It argues that the route from Value to Norms is unsuccessful. The main problem here is that the idea that knowledge has value does not seem enough to derive the idea that one should act on what one knows. It finds the route from Norms to Value more promising, though a complete path is missing. The main idea here is that knowledge is good because it is normatively required to do good things, such as believing the truth and acting in view of true propositions. But since not all normative conditions for doing something good is itself good, we still lack an explanation of why knowledge would be so. The paper finally suggests an alternative perspective, on which we do not try to derive the idea that knowledge has value from its normative role, but rather use its normative role to explain away the idea that it has value. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hypatia 16.3 (2001) 172-176 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Diagnosis: Difference: The Moral Authority of Medicine Diagnosis: Difference: The Moral Authority of Medicine. By Abby L. Wilkerson. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. In this compact volume, Abby Wilkerson makes several important contributions to the burgeoning literature of feminist (bio)ethics by providing substantive arguments in support of some of the key intuitive beliefs that are central to much feminist (...) bioethics thinking. Most centrally, she carefully fleshes out a feminist case for re-framing traditional bioethics approaches to the relation between health and justice. Particularly valuable is her richly detailed argument establishing the importance of bringing to the realm of health and health care Iris Marion Young's (1990) important insight that justice involves far more than questions of distribution.At the same time, Wilkerson demonstrates another major feminist tenet: that ethics and epistemology are intimately related. This connection is developed [End Page 172] through a second major theme in which she systematically tracks medicine's tendency to extend its accepted epistemic authority over physical ailments into a general authority over many other aspects of life. She documents examples of medicine's success in leveraging its scientific knowledge about certain aspects of the body into a broader ideological vision through which it claims epistemic authority in the personal and moral realm. By making explicit the gaps between medical knowledge and moral knowledge, she is able to challenge the moral authority and social power that are now granted to medical experts.While these arguments are important, they are not the whole story of the book, for its message is as much about process in bioethics as it is about conclusions. Wilkerson insists that the specific perspective of the theorist affects her/his reasoning. She demonstrates the importance of this fact by using her own distinct position as a bisexual woman to make visible the implicit acceptance and perpetuation of several ideological norms by those in dominant positions in both medicine and bioethics. The central method of the book is what she calls "material-semiotic." It involves the assumption that all human experience is mediated by culture, and the body (specifically the medicalized body) must be recognized as a political site subject to a variety of social values. We must, therefore, attend to the cultural meanings of health and illness and explore the ways that society labels and responds to these conditions. This requires investigation of the specific bodily (material) effects of these meanings in both individual and social experience.The book begins with the epistemological frame of the argument in which Wilkerson claims that medicine is deeply infected by the values and biases of the dominant culture, including its tendencies towards sexist, racist, classist, homophobic, and ablist attitudes. She explores ways in which medical theory and practice stigmatize bodily experiences common to women (in gynecology, obstetrics, and the treatment of victims of sexual or domestic violence). Medicalizing so many aspects of women's experience has the effect of obscuring women's subjective experiences and replacing them with medicine's normative perspectives of appropriate psychological norms. Moreover, the norm of femaleness promoted is a heterosexual, middle class, white variety such that other forms of social difference (e.g., non-white, non-heterosexual) must then also be medicalized and stigmatized; that is, the medical model requires explanations of difference that render pathological most variations on the privileged norm. Hence, alternative sexualities, like differences in class, abilities, race, and gender are interpreted through a medical lens that is thoroughly value-laden. In such ways, the epistemological authority granted to medicine is conflated into an unjustified form of moral authority. Although similar biases are common to every powerful social institution in the United States, they are especially pernicious within medicine because of the enormous influence it exerts in shaping knowledge about the nature of difference between social [End Page 173] groups. This immense social power may be directed towards reducing inequalities and promoting social justice, but, all too often, it is used to convey beliefs and norms that serve the interests of the privileged.Wilkerson's criticism is not reserved... (shrink)

The aim of the dissertation is to formulate a research program in moral cognition modeled on aspects of Universal Grammar and organized around three classic problems in moral epistemology: What constitutes moral knowledge? How is moral knowledge acquired? How is moral knowledge put to use? Drawing on the work of Rawls and Chomsky, a framework for investigating -- is proposed. The framework is defended against a range of philosophical objections and contrasted with the approach of developmentalists like (...) Piaget and Kohlberg. ;One chapter consists of an interpretation of the analogy Rawls draws in A Theory of Justice between moral theory and generative linguistics. A second chapter clarifies the empirical significance of Rawls' linguistic analogy by formulating a solution to the problem of descriptive adequacy with respect to a class of commonsense moral intuitions, including those discussed in the trolley problem literature originating in the work of Foot and Thomson. Three remaining chapters defend Rawls' linguistic analogy against some of its critics. In response to Hare's objection that Rawls' conception of moral theory is too empirical and insufficiently normative, it is argued that Hare fails to acknowledge both the centrality of the problem of empirical adequacy in the history of moral philosophy and the complexity of Rawls' approach to the problem of normative adequacy. In response to Nagel's claim that the analogy between moral theory and linguistics is false because whatever native speakers agree on is English, but whatever ordinary men agree in condemning is not necessarily wrong, it is argued that the criticism ignores both Rawls' use of the competence-performance distinction and the theory-dependence of the corresponding distinction in linguistics. In response to Dworkin's claim that Rawls' conception of moral theory is incompatible with naturalism and presupposes constructivism, it is argued that Dworkin's distinction between naturalism and constructivism represents a false antithesis; neither is an accurate interpretation of the model of moral theory Rawls describes in A Theory of Justice. The thesis concludes by situating Rawls' linguistic analogy within the context of broader debates in metaethics, democratic theory, natural law theory, and the theory of moral development. (shrink)