Guidelines recommend a ‘do-not-resuscitate’ code status for inpatients in which cardiopulmonary resuscitation attempts are considered futile because of low probability of survival with good neurological outcome. We retrospectively assessed the prevalence of DNR code status and its association with presumed CPR futility defined by the Good Outcome Following Attempted Resuscitation score and the Clinical Frailty Scale in patients hospitalised in the Divisions of Internal Medicine and Traumatology/Orthopedics at the University Hospital of Basel between September 2018 and June 2019. The definition (...) of presumed CPR futility was met in 467 of 2889 patients. 866 patients had a DNR code status. In a regression model adjusted for age, gender, main diagnosis, nationality, language and religion, presumed CPR futility was associated with a higher likelihood of a DNR code status. In the subgroup of patients with presumed futile CPR, 144 of 467 had a full code status, which was independently associated with younger age, male gender, non-Christian religion and non-Swiss citizenship. We found a significant proportion of hospitalised patients to have a full code status despite the fact that CPR had to be considered futile according to an established definition. Whether these decisions were based on patient preferences or whether there was a lack of patient involvement in decision-making needs further investigation. (shrink)

Abstract Daniel H. H. Ingalls referred to Gaudap?da's M?nd?kya K?rik?, a very early Advaita text, as ? ... the most puzzling perhaps, of all Sanskrit philosophical texts?. This article shows that some of the philosophical quandaries associated with this text are the result of inappropriately imposing a graphic and prose model of textuality upon a text composed in the k?rik? (memorial verse) genre and in an oral cultural context. Developing a model of textuality consistent with the literary genre and (...) cultural context, the article is not only able to resolve some of the philosophical problems associated with the text, but also raises the possibility that this inappropriate hermeneutical process has contributed to mislabelling Gaudap?da as an idealist. (shrink)

a brief history of the study of ignorance. There is a lack of serious investigation into ignorance: apart from the apophatic tradition in the ancient world and the Middle Ages and the more recent fields of agnotology, philosophy of race, and feminist philosophy, ignorance itself has received little philosophical attention. It is then laid out how the field that one would expect to have studied ignorance in detail, namely, epistemology, has failed to do so. The chapter also explores why this (...) could be the case. Subsequently, it is explained what is new about this book and how this fills the important gap in the study of ignorance: it develops and applies an epistemology of ignorance. Finally, it gives a brief overview of the chapters ahead. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to Pierre Le Morvan’s critique of my thesis that ignorance is lack of true belief rather than absence of knowledge. I argue that the distinction between dispositional and non-dispositional accounts of belief, as I made it in a previous paper, is correct as it stands. Also, I criticize the viability and the importance of Le Morvan’s distinction between propositional and factive ignorance. Finally, I provide two arguments in favor of the thesis that ignorance is lack (...) of true belief rather than absence of knowledge. (shrink)

Common-sense philosophy is important because it maintains that we can know many things about the world, about ourselves, about morality, and even about things of a metaphysical nature. The tenets of common-sense philosophy, while in some sense obvious and unsurprising, give rise to powerful arguments that can shed light on fundamental philosophical issues, including the perennial problem of scepticism and the emerging challenge of scientism. This Companion offers an exploration of common-sense philosophy in its many forms, tracing its development as (...) a concept and considering the roles it has been assigned to play throughout the history of philosophy. Containing fifteen newly commissioned chapters from leading experts in the history of philosophy, epistemology, the philosophy of science, moral philosophy and metaphysics, the volume will be an essential guide for students and scholars hoping to gain a greater understanding of the value and enduring appeal of common-sense philosophy. (shrink)

Is humanisme uit de tijd of net heel acuut nodig? Wat is er veranderd sinds de wereldverovering door het Westen uit vorige eeuwen en het oude humanisme? De westerse mens blijkt roofzuchtig en dreigt de mensheid in de vernieling te duwen met klimaatveranderingen, structurele ongelijkheid en uitroeiing van de biodiversiteit. Daarom bepleit dit boek onze basishouding te veranderen: ja humanisme en democratie, maar dan voorbij het hyperindividualisme en de vermarkting van mens en natuur. We kunnen daarbij leren van de zogenaamde (...) primitieve culturen in hun omgang met de natuur. En we kunnen leren luisteren naar anderen, in plaats van hen vanzelfsprekend te negeren en vernederen. Zo’n vernieuwd niet-eurocentrisch en ecologisch humanisme en democratisch denken moeten we uitwerken, eerlijk maar ook bescheidener dan we gewend zijn. Dit boek geeft bouwstenen voor dit nieuwe wervende verhaal, ook om het opkomend populisme en antihumanisme à la Trump en Bolsonaro of de nieuwe autoritaire wereldspelers zoals China een halt toe te roepen met een menswaardig, sociaal en intercultureel zingevend en respectvol verhaal. (shrink)

Pleidooi voor een nieuwe culturele wereldorde die niet uitgaat van het westerse denken in tegenstellingen, maar verschillende denkwijzen en opvattingen erkent en niet uitsluit.

Nu we de totale vrijheid hebben bereikt, heeft het weinig zin meer om over zonden te spreken. Als vanzelf wordt het toch weer interessant om over deugden na te denken: een positieve eigenschap waarover we beschikken of een goede manier van handelen. Rik Torfs treft die deugden aan op onverwachte momenten, wanneer we ons met humor proberen te beschermen, de eindeloosheid van onze wereld toch begrenzen of eenvoudigweg praten met elkaar. Even scherpzinnig als verontrustend beschrijft Torfs hoe wij, hypermoderne mensen, (...) meer mens proberen te zijn en hoe we onderweg het spoor bijster raken. Een teveel aan rationaliteit ligt volgens hem bijna altijd aan de basis van overspannen gevoelens over onszelf en foute inschattingen van de wereld, of het nu gaat over de manier waarop we ons persoonlijke geluk benaderen, over migratie denken of met onze eigen sterfelijkheid omspringen. Net omdat mensen geen rationele of volmaakte wezens zijn, is het beter om van de nood een deugd te maken. (shrink)

A pioneering work in the philosophy of mind, Content and Consciousness brings together the approaches of philosophers and scientists to the mind--a connection that must occur if genuine analysis of the mind is to be made. This unified approach permits the most forbiddingly mysterious mental phenomenon--consciousness--to be broken down into several distinct phenomena, and these are each given a foundation in the physical activity of the brain. This paperback edition contains a preface placing the book in the context of recent (...) work in the area. (shrink)

In this book by the award-winning author of Just Healthcare, Norman Daniels develops a comprehensive theory of justice for health that answers three key questions: what is the special moral importance of health? When are health inequalities unjust? How can we meet health needs fairly when we cannot meet them all? Daniels' theory has implications for national and global health policy: can we meet health needs fairly in ageing societies? Or protect health in the workplace while respecting individual liberty? Or (...) meet professional obligations and obligations of justice without conflict? When is an effort to reduce health disparities, or to set priorities in realising a human right to health, fair? What do richer, healthier societies owe poorer, sicker societies? Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly explores the many ways that social justice is good for the health of populations in developed and developing countries. (shrink)

In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the relation of consciousness, the will, and our intentional and voluntary actions. Wegner claims that our experience and common sense view according to which we can influence our behavior roughly the way we experience that we do it is an illusion.

This paper explores the potential and relevance of an innovative sociological research method known as the Imitation Game for research in health care. Whilst this method and its potential have until recently only been explored within sociology, there are many interesting and promising facets that may render this approach fruitful within the health care field, most notably to questions about the experiential knowledge or ‘expertise’ of chronically ill patients. The Imitation Game can be especially useful because it provides a way (...) to map this experiential knowledge more systematically, without falling in the dual trap of either over-relying on in-depth, but highly specific phenomenological ‘insider’-approaches that are hard to generalize, or, alternatively, problematically reducing the rich life-worlds of patients to a set of indicators in a questionnaire. The main focus of this paper is theoretical and conceptual: explaining the Imitation Game method, discussing its usefulness in the health care domain, and exploring the ways in which the approach can be utilized for chronic illness care. The paper presents both a conceptual and empirical exploration of how the Imitation Game method and its underlying theoretical concepts of ‘contributory expertise’ and ‘interactional expertise’ can be transferred from the sociological realm to the field of health care, what kinds of insights can be gained from the method, which methodological issues it may raise, and what potentially fruitful research routes can be explored. I argue that the Imitation Game can be thought of as a ‘social learning experiment’ that simultaneously enables the participants to learn from each other’s perspectives, allows researchers to explore exciting new possibilities, and also offers the tools to intervene in the practice that is being studied. (shrink)

The _Physics_ is a foundational work of western philosophy, and the crucial one for understanding Aristotle's views on matter, form, essence, causation, movement, space, and time. This richly annotated, scrupulously accurate, and consistent translation makes it available to a contemporary English reader as no other does—in part because it fits together seamlessly with other closely associated works in the New Hackett Aristotle series, such as the _Metaphysics_, _De Anima_, and forthcoming _De Caelo_ and _On Coming to Be and Passing Away_. (...) Eventually the series will include all of Aristotle's works. Sequentially numbered endnotes provide the information most needed at each juncture, while a detailed Index of Terms indicates places where focused discussion of key notions occurs. An illuminating general Introduction describes the book that lies ahead, explaining what sort of work it is and what sorts of evidence it relies on. (shrink)

How should medical services be distributed within society? Who should pay for them? Is it right that large amounts should be spent on sophisticated technology and expensive operations, or would the resources be better employed in, for instance, less costly preventive measures? These and others are the questions addreses in this book. Norman Daniels examines some of the dilemmas thrown up by conflicting demands for medical attention, and goes on to advance a theory of justice in the distribution of health (...) care. The central argument is that health care, both preventive and acute, has a crucial effect on equality of opportunity, and that a principle guaranteeing equality of opportunity must underly the distribution of health-care services. Access to care, preventive measures, treatment of the elderly, and the obligations of doctors and medical administrations are fully discussed, and the theory is shown to underwrite various practical policies in the area. (shrink)

European states, including Belgium, have looked at the construction of Europe through an economie and a political prism. Both dimensions have evolved following parallel paths. In Belgium a large consensus has always existed concerning the economie dimension of the European construction. In this respect Belgiums post-1945 European policies area direct continuation of the interwar efforts to build a West-European economic area, based on a free trade philosophy and a rejection of economic nationalism which always handicapped small trading states such as (...) Belgium. Even before the second world war the Belgian elite thus accepted the principles of economic multilateralism.In the political dimension however a consensus on a federal Europe only emerged at the end of the seventies. Till then, important parts of the Belgian political elite remained sceptical and even hostile to the construction of a supranational Europe, based on a traditional view on political autonomy and independence. The reasons why Belgian views on the political dimension of Europe slowly shifted to a federal objective were partly domestic and partly the result of the growing awareness that a small countries' political interests in the world can be best pursued through supranationality. (shrink)

Is our experience of the world 'rich' or 'thin'? In other words, are we aware of unattended sensory stimuli, or are the contents of our consciousness constrained by what we attend to? A recent, ingenious, attempt to address this issue offers us a seemingly unavailable, 'moderate' option; our experience is somewhere between the two. But before we make our minds up about this conclusion, we should see that it resulted from conflating two ways of construing the relevant concepts. I claim (...) that, one way of reading 'rich' vs. 'thin', echoes the psychologists' distinction between 'early' vs. 'late' accounts of selective attention, and I argue that 'perceptual load theory', a recent response to this empirical issue, offers us a satisfying solution to our philosophical problem. Ultimately, we are only aware of what we attend to, so we can conclude that our experience of the world is philosophically 'thin'. Nonetheless, the second way of reading 'rich' vs. 'thin' relates to the range of sensory stimuli that we can be aware of. I claim that this range depends upon the attentional load that our sensory systems are placed under. The 'moderate' position, then, merely marks out one possible degree of sensory awareness on a continuum that runs from 'rich' to 'thin'. (shrink)

Reasoning about situations we take to be impossible is useful for a variety of theoretical purposes. Furthermore, using a device of impossible worlds when reasoning about the impossible is useful in the same sorts of ways that the device of possible worlds is useful when reasoning about the possible. This paper discusses some of the uses of impossible worlds and argues that commitment to them can and should be had without great metaphysical or logical cost. The paper then provides an (...) account of reasoning with impossible worlds, by treating such reasoning as reasoning employing counterpossible conditionals, and provides a semantics for the proposed treatment. (shrink)

Précis for a book symposium, with contributions from Meg Wallace, Louis deRosset, and Chris Tillman and Joshua Spencer.

Our ability to locate moral responsibility is often thought to be a necessary condition for conducting morally permissible medical practice, engaging in a just war, and other high-stakes endeavors. Yet, with increasing reliance upon artificially intelligent systems, we may be facing a wideningresponsibility gap, which, some argue, cannot be bridged by traditional concepts of responsibility. How then, if at all, can we make use of crucial emerging technologies? According to Colin Allen and Wendell Wallach, the advent of so-called ‘artificial moral (...) agents’ (AMAs) is inevitable. Still, this notion may seem to push back the problem, leaving those who have an interest in developing autonomous technology with a dilemma. We may need to scale-back our efforts at deploying AMAs (or at least maintain human oversight); otherwise, we must rapidly and drastically update our moral and legal norms in a way that ensures responsibility for potentially avoidable harms. This paper invokes contemporary accounts of responsibility in order to show how artificially intelligent systems might be held responsible. Although many theorists are concerned enough to develop artificial conceptions ofagencyor to exploit our present inability to regulate valuable innovations, the proposal here highlights the importance of—and outlines a plausible foundation for—a workable notion ofartificial moral responsibility. (shrink)

What does "nature" mean? This general question, central to the social construction of nature, is addressed here by examining one of nature's particulars, Pacific salmon, and by looking at how one group of people, salmon biologists, imbue the fish with meaning. Based upon historical, comparative, and qualitative data, it appears that nature is socially constructed through both cognitive and physical processes. "Salmon"- and indirectly nature - emerges not as a monolithic, timeless, certain entity, but rather as one that is manipulable, (...) fleeting, and the product of a variety of social relations. In particular, public policy and economics appear to have profoundly influenced salmon biologists' cognitive and physical constructions of salmon. (shrink)

This two-part volume collects the complete fragments and most important testimonies for the leading presocratic philosophers. The Greek and Latin texts are translated on facing pages and accompanied by a brief commentary for each philosopher.

In this paper I will present a puzzle about epistemic akrasia, and I will use that puzzle to motivate accepting some non-standard views about the nature of epistemological judgment. The puzzle is that while it seems obvious that epistemic akrasia must be irrational, the claim that epistemic akrasia is always irrational amounts to the claim that a certain sort of justified false belief—a justified false belief about what one ought to believe—is impossible. But justified false beliefs seem to be possible (...) in any domain, and it’s hard to see why beliefs about what one ought to believe should be an exception. I will argue that when we get clearer about what sort of psychological state epistemic akrasia is, we can resolve the puzzle in favor of the intuitive view that epistemic akrasia is always irrational. (shrink)

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

Websites (e.g. intervention websites targeting health risk behaviors) can be effective in achieving their goals if they are used. The actual use, however, is often very low. This study aimed to assess the effect of visual complexity on intention to use websites, by using within-subjects manipulations of visual complexity and cognitive load (1097 trials, N = 93). The results indicate that high visual complexity has a negative effect on intention to use websites ( F (1, 1095) = 14.81, p < (...) .001), but this is fully mediated through attitude towards the website based on the first impression ( F (1, 1094) = 13.41, p < .001). This clearly demonstrates the powerfulness of a first impression before interacting with a website and stresses the need for evidence-based insight into how this first impression is constituted. Keywords: visual complexity; websites; intention to use. (shrink)

Websites can be effective in achieving their goals if they are used. The actual use, however, is often very low. This study aimed to assess the effect of visual complexity on intention to use websites, by using within-subjects manipulations of visual complexity and cognitive load. The results indicate that high visual complexity has a negative effect on intention to use websites = 14.81,p<.001), but this is fully mediated through attitude towards the website based on the first impression = 13.41,p<.001). This (...) clearly demonstrates the powerfulness of a first impression before interacting with a website and stresses the need for evidence-based insight into how this first impression is constituted. Keywords: visual complexity; websites; intention to use. (shrink)

Websites can be effective in achieving their goals if they are used. The actual use, however, is often very low. This study aimed to assess the effect of visual complexity on intention to use websites, by using within-subjects manipulations of visual complexity and cognitive load. The results indicate that high visual complexity has a negative effect on intention to use websites = 14.81, p <.001), but this is fully mediated through attitude towards the website based on the first impression = (...) 13.41, p <.001). This clearly demonstrates the powerfulness of a first impression before interacting with a website and stresses the need for evidence-based insight into how this first impression is constituted. Keywords: visual complexity; websites; intention to use. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of visual perception have long had to contend with questions of perceptual relativity: visual phenomenology seems to be influenced by factors independent of the objective properties of the external objects we perceive. More recently, a host of such examples has emerged from psychological studies on visual attention. In two prominent accounts of the consequences of this research, Block argues that these effects occur without changes in the way one visually represents the world to be. If true, this would (...) undermine representationalist accounts of the phenomenology of perception, which share a commitment to the claim that phenomenal character supervenes on representational content. Block’s thesis is based on experiments involving non-selective attention, and he draws the metaphysical conclusion that the resources representationalists need to distinguish veridical from illusory perception are nonexistent. The empirical evidence he considers is highly compelling, as is the ‘landscape’ model of attention that appears to underwrite it. However, in discussing these issues, Block also considers a representative example of selective attention, wherein he concedes a point that provides grounds for a plausible representationalist response. I assemble and assess this response, revealing the contradiction at the heart of Block’s thesis, and conclude, that the representationalist should remain unmoved. (shrink)

Can only science deliver genuine knowledge about the world and ourselves? Is science our only guide to what exists? Scientism answers both questions with yes. Scientism is increasingly influential in popular scientific literature and intellectual life in general, but philosophers have hitherto largely ignored it. This collection is one of the first to develop and assess scientism as a serious philosophical position. It features twelve new essays by both proponents and critics of scientism. Before scientism can be evaluated, it needs (...) to be clear what it is. Hence, the collection opens with essays that provide an overview of the many different versions of scientism and their mutual interrelations. Next, several card-carrying proponents of scientism make their case, either by developing and arguing directly for their preferred version of scientism or by responding to objections. Then, the floor is given to critics of scientism. It is examined whether scientism is epistemically vicious, whether scientism presents a plausible general epistemological outlook and whether science has limits. The final four essays zoom out and connect scientism to ongoing debates elsewhere in philosophy. What does scientism mean for religious epistemology? What can science tell us about morality and is a scientistic moral epistemology plausible? How is scientism related to physicalism? And is experimental philosophy really a form of scientism tailored to philosophy? (shrink)

This book develops an Aristotelian account of the virtue of practical intelligence or "phronesis"--an excellence of deliberating and making choices--which ...

This paper proposes a new account of bounded or minimal doxastic rationality (in the sense of Cherniak 1986), based on the notion that beliefs are answers to questions (à la Yalcin 2018). The core idea is that minimally rational beliefs are linked through thematic connections, rather than entailment relations. Consequently, such beliefs are not deductively closed, but they are closed under parthood (where a part is an entailment that answers a smaller question). And instead of avoiding all inconsistency, minimally rational (...) believers only avoid blatant inconsistencies (where some beliefs are blatantly inconsistent when they contradict one another on a particular question). Rather than cohering into a single overall world view, beliefs are more loosely connected in what is best described as a web of questions. This view of minimally rational belief naturally gives rise to an account of deductive inquiry on which deductive reasoning is a matter of posing new questions. (shrink)

This book develops and defends a theory of responsible belief. The author argues that we lack control over our beliefs, but that we can nonetheless influence them. It is because we have intellectual obligations to influence our beliefs that we are responsible for them.

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 2, Page 154-161, February 2022.

This collection of essays explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been assumed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organised as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilised and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are actually better understood as processes. Unlike previous attempts to articulate processual views of biology, which (...) have tended to use Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychist metaphysics as a foundation, this book takes a naturalistic approach to metaphysics. It submits that the main motivations for replacing an ontology of substances with one of processes are to be found in the empirical findings of science. Biology provides compelling reasons for thinking that the living realm is fundamentally dynamic, and that the existence of things is always conditional on the existence of processes. The phenomenon of life cries out for theories that prioritise processes over things, and it suggests that the central explanandum of biology is not change but rather stability, or more precisely, stability attained through constant change. This edited volume brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians interested in exploring the consequences of a processual philosophy of biology. The contributors draw on an extremely wide range of biological case studies, and employ a process perspective to cast new light on a number of traditional philosophical problems, such as identity, persistence, and individuality. (shrink)

Polarization and the Insurrection: The relation between identity and ideology in violent right-wing extremism The Capitol Hill Insurrection on January 6, 2021, in Washington has been, to many, a shocking and inconceivable event. On the face of it, far right ideologies, both in their extreme and radical varieties seem to play a crucial role here. Evidence from interviews with insurrectionists, however, suggests otherwise. Research on polarization in the United States and on radicalization into violent extremism also emphasizes identity over ideology (...) as key explanatory factor. We examine this relation and argue that the importance of identity and that of ideology in the insurrection have to be understood in relation to one another. The battle between Democrats and Republicans is about identity, but it is not a blind battle. Ideological issues are at stake. It is precisely the intertwinement of identity and extreme ideology, which drives radical partisanship in American democracy. (shrink)

While the contemporary philosophical literature is replete with discussion of the control or freedom required for moral responsibility, only more recently has substantial attention been devoted to the knowledge or awareness required, otherwise called the epistemic condition. This area of inquiry is rapidly expanding, as are the various positions within it. This chapter introduces two major positions: the reasonable expectation view and the quality of will view. The chapter then explores two dimensions of the epistemic condition that serve as fault (...) lines along which these two views diverge. The first dimension concerns different kinds of ignorance. The second concerns what agents can be directly blameworthy for. The chapter closes by sketching a novel approach that incorporates advantages of opposing positions on this topic. (shrink)

Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by describing a kind of exclusion that (...) has not been discussed in depth, which I call “territorial exclusion.” Territorial exclusion is the process according to which the group that wishes to exclude current citizens secedes from the territory in which those citizens reside. I argue that the wrongness of territorial exclusion explains why there is no pro tanto right for a state to exclude immigrants, because otherwise there would be a pro tanto right for the state to kick people out by seceding from the territory they inhabit. Because kicking people out like this is typically wrong, borders cannot be closed. (shrink)

I defend the cosmopolitan instrumentalist theory of secession, according to which a group has a right to secede only if this would promote cosmopolitan justice. I argue that the theory is preferable to other theories of secession because it is an entailment of cosmopolitanism, which is independently attractive, and because, unlike other theories of secession, it allows us to give the answers we want to give in cases like secession of the rich or secession that would make things worse for (...) minorities. I defend the view against the objections that it allows for colonialism and annexation, that it is not a distinct theory, and that it is impractical. (shrink)

This chapter introduces readers to the view that praise is a form of address, or is communicative in the sense of seeking uptake from its target. The proposal that praise is communicative will seem counterintuitive if we take blame to be our paradigm of what it is for a responsibility-response to be communicative. This is because blame is communicative in a manner that intuitively presupposes some normative failure; it involves calling its target to account (or answer) for some wrongdoing. But, (...) the ‘rightdoer’ already properly regarded the relevant reasons in acting praiseworthily. So, there is nothing for which the praiseworthy agent must similarly account or answer for. How then could praise be communicative in sense of seeking uptake from its target? This chapter develops the view that praise is communicative in that it invites the praiseworthy agent to accept credit by co-valuing their action in the evaluative terms supplied by the praiser. This proposal is defended against three objections, namely that it is descriptively inadequate regarding our actual practices, that it is morally mistaken about when we owe others a response, and that it implies redundant communication. (shrink)