2. Thesis 2 I accept insofar as it asserts the relation of possibility to actuality to be a fundamental aspect of things. This relation is sui generis.

Regarding Equality offers an innovative and controversial analysis of the relationship between equality and pluralism. Tackling an issue central to modern political thought, Freeberg highlights the struggle to characterize citizens as equals while respecting their moral, religious, and cultural diversity. The work ably contrasts and critiques the prevailing models for balancing equality with pluralism from thinkers Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum, John Rawls, Amy Gutmann, Dennis Thompson, Michael Oakeshott, and Drucilla Cornell. From these liberal, democratic, and conservative approaches to equality (...) and pluralism, Freeberg builds a theory of responsive regard: reciprocal civility between citizens that forms a chastened conception of what we share as free and equal persons. This work will greatly add to political theorists' and philosophers' arsenals of concepts for egalitarian and democratic theory. (shrink)

Perry Anderson, Edward Palmer Thompson, David Harvey, Moishe Postone, Derek Sayer, Simon Clarke, Robert Brenner, Ellen Meiksins Wood et David McNally : neuf penseurs importants dont l'influence grandissante marque un renouveau de l'apport de l'oeuvre de Marx et de ses successeurs au champ des sciences sociales. Chaque chapitre décrit le parcours intellectuel de l'une de ces figures et analyse sa contribution à une pensée en mouvement, offrant ainsi pour la première fois au public francophone un tour d'horizon des (...) différentes formes du marxisme anglo-saxon contemporain. Hétérogène, ce courant de pensée résolument antidogmatique est traversé de tendances communes telles la critique du réductionnisme économique et une sensibilité accrue aux processus historiques des rapports de domination. Historiens, sociologues, politologues, géographes ou philosophes, les auteurs ici réunis ont chacun à leur manière contribué au vaste chantier théorique de la pensée marxiste et du matérialisme historique, qui continue de s'étendre, un siècle et demi après sa fondation. (shrink)

Courts and legal commentators have been notoriously unsuccessful in articulating a rule to differentiate between uncompensated police power regulations of land by govemment and situations in which the govemment can only interfere with property rights if it provides compensation to those owners who suffer losses. Noticeably absent from most discussions of this “takings” issue is any foundational underpinning in a theory of justice with respect to property holdings. Can two of the most influential contemporary theories ofjustice-that of John Rawls and (...) Robert Nozick -provide such needed support for the analysis of the “takings” issue? By employing the vehicle of three hypothetical exampIes I investigate this question and reach some conclusions conceming the applicability of such abstract theories of justice to the real world. (shrink)

What constitutes a just tax system, and what are its moral foundations? Should a society's tax regime be designed to achieve a just distribution of wealth among its citizens, or should such a regime be designed to promote economic growth, rising standards of living, and increasing levels of employment? Are these two goals compatible or incompatible? Why should justice not require, or at least lead to, an increase in general prosperity? The essays in this volume examine the history of tax (...) policies and the normative principles that have informed the selection of various types of taxes and tax regimes; economic data to discover which tax policies lead to economic growth; particular theories of justice or property rights regarding the design of tax systems; and other essays propose specific tax reforms. Still others challenge traditional theories of taxation, offering new ways of understanding the fiscal relationship between governments and their citizens. (shrink)

Courts and legal commentators have been notoriously unsuccessful in articulating a rule to differentiate between uncompensated police power regulations of land by govemment and situations in which the govemment can only interfere with property rights if it provides compensation to those owners who suffer losses. Noticeably absent from most discussions of this “takings” issue is any foundational underpinning in a theory of justice with respect to property holdings. Can two of the most influential contemporary theories ofjustice-that of John Rawls and (...) Robert Nozick -provide such needed support for the analysis of the “takings” issue? By employing the vehicle of three hypothetical exampIes I investigate this question and reach some conclusions conceming the applicability of such abstract theories of justice to the real world. (shrink)

In this collection, thirteen prominent philosophers and political scientists address the nature of liberalism, its origins, and its meaning and proper interpretation. Some essays examine the writings of liberalism's earliest defenders, like John Locke and Adam Smith, or the influence of classical liberalism on the American founders. Some focus on the Progressive movement and the rise of the administrative state, while others defend particular conceptions of liberalism or examine liberal theories of justice, including those of John Rawls and Robert Nozick. (...) Several essays discuss the U.S. Constitution, seeking to determine whether it is best viewed as empowering the federal government to achieve certain ends, or as strictly limiting its power to ensure the broadest freedom for individuals to pursue their own ends. Other essays address the limits of economic freedom or focus on the nature and extent of property rights and the government's power of eminent domain. (shrink)

Divisions abound as to whether politics should be held responsible to a higher moral standard or whether pragmatic considerations, or realpolitik, should prevail. The two poles are represented most conspicuously by Aristotle (for whom the proper aim of politics is moral virtue) and Machiavelli (whose prince exalted political pragmatism over morality). The fourteen contributions to this volume address perennial concerns in political and moral theory. They underscore the rekindled yearning of many to hold the political realm to a higher standard (...) despite the skepticism of dissenters who question the likelihood, or even the desirability, of success. (shrink)

Philosophers since ancient times have pondered how we can know whether moral claims are true or false. The first half of the twentieth century witnessed widespread skepticism concerning the possibility of moral knowledge. Indeed, some argued that moral statements lacked cognitive content altogether, because they were not susceptible to empirical verification. The British philosopher A. J. Ayer contends that 'They are pure expressions of feeling and as such do not come under the category of truth and falsehood. They are unverifiable (...) ... because they do not express genuine propositions.' The second half of the twentieth century brought a revival of interest among philosophers in moral and political questions. Whether or not ethics can be founded upon a rational basis continues to preoccupy the philosophical community even now. (shrink)

Philosophers since ancient times have pondered how we can know whether moral claims are true or false. The first half of the twentieth century witnessed widespread skepticism concerning the possibility of moral knowledge. Indeed, some argued that moral statements lacked cognitive content altogether, because they were not susceptible to empirical verification. The British philosopher A. J. Ayer contends that 'They are pure expressions of feeling and as such do not come under the category of truth and falsehood. They are unverifiable (...) … because they do not express genuine propositions.' The second half of the twentieth century brought a revival of interest among philosophers in moral and political questions. Whether or not ethics can be founded upon a rational basis continues to preoccupy the philosophical community even now. (shrink)

The notion of obligation of what an agent owes to himself, to others, or to society generally occupies a central place in morality. But what are the sources of our moral obligations and what are their limits? To what extent do obligations vary in their stringency and severity, and does it make sense to talk about imperfect obligations, that is, obligations that leave the individual with a broad range of freedom to determine how and when to fulfil them? The twelve (...) essays in this volume address these and other questions and explore related issues. Some of them discuss broad theoretical questions, some essays look at moral reasons for action. Others discuss specific moral obligations or the tensions that may exist between our obligations and our other concerns. (shrink)

What is a person? What makes me the same person today that I was yesterday or will be tomorrow? Philosophers have long pondered these questions. In Plato's Symposium, Socrates observed that all of us are constantly undergoing change: we experience physical changes to our bodies, as well as changes in our 'manners, customs, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, [and] fears'. Aristotle theorized that there must be some underlying 'substratum' that remains the same even as we undergo these changes. John Locke rejected (...) Aristotle's view and reformulated the problem of personal identity in his own way: is a person a physical organism that persists through time, or is a person identified by the persistence of psychological states, by memory? These essays - written by prominent philosophers and legal and economic theorists - offer valuable insights into the nature of personal identity and its implications for morality and public policy. (shrink)

What is a person? What makes me the same person today that I was yesterday or will be tomorrow? Philosophers have long pondered these questions. In Plato's Symposium, Socrates observed that all of us are constantly undergoing change: we experience physical changes to our bodies, as well as changes in our 'manners, customs, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, [and] fears'. Aristotle theorized that there must be some underlying 'substratum' that remains the same even as we undergo these changes. John Locke rejected (...) Aristotle's view and reformulated the problem of personal identity in his own way: is a person a physical organism that persists through time, or is a person identified by the persistence of psychological states, by memory? These essays - written by prominent philosophers and legal and economic theorists - offer valuable insights into the nature of personal identity and its implications for morality and public policy. (shrink)

These essays assess market liberal or libertarian political theory. They provide insights into the limits of government, develop market-oriented solutions to pressing social problems, and explore some defects in traditional libertarian theory and practice. Some of the essays deal with crucial theoretical issues, asking whether the promotion of citizens' welfare can serve as the justification for the establishment of government, or inquiring into the constraints on individual behavior that exist in a liberal social order. Some essays explore market liberal or (...) libertarian positions on specific public policy issues, such as affirmative action, ownership of the airwaves, the provision of healthcare, or the regulation of food and drugs. Other essays look at property rights, the morality of profit-making, or the provision of public goods. Still others address libertarianism as a political movement, suggesting ways in which libertarians can reach out to those who do not share their views. (shrink)

Any comprehensive discussion of property must draw on a range of disciplines - philosophy, politics, economics, and legal theory - and must address a number of fundamental questions: What is the nature of ownership, and should there be limits on the rights that attend it? Should property be held privately or in common, or should some combination of these two types of ownership prevail? To what extent does the legitimacy of a system of property depend on considerations of economic efficiency (...) or distributive justice? The essays in this volume examine these questions, as well as other important issues, from a variety of perspectives. Some explore the theory of original acquisition; others deal with the concept of self-ownership; still others look at legal or constitutional issues. (shrink)

The essays in this volume address questions about responsibility that arise in moral philosophy and legal theory. Some analyse different theories of causality, asking which theory offers the best account of human agency and the most satisfactory resolution of troubling controversies about free will and determinism. Some essays look at responsibility in the legal realm, seeking to determine how the law should assign liability for negligence, or whether the courts should allow defendants to offer excuses for their wrongdoing or to (...) claim some form of 'diminished responsibility'. Other essays explore libertarian views about political freedom and accountability, asking whether libertarian positions on consent, contract law, and responsibility are consistent, or whether restitution is superior to retribution or deterrence as a basis for a theory of corrective justice. Still others examine the notion of partial or divided responsibility, or the relationship between responsibility and the emotions. (shrink)

The essays in this volume address questions about responsibility that arise in moral philosophy and legal theory. Some analyse different theories of causality, asking which theory offers the best account of human agency and the most satisfactory resolution of troubling controversies about free will and determinism. Some essays look at responsibility in the legal realm, seeking to determine how the law should assign liability for negligence, or whether the courts should allow defendants to offer excuses for their wrongdoing or to (...) claim some form of 'diminished responsibility'. Other essays explore libertarian views about political freedom and accountability, asking whether libertarian positions on consent, contract law, and responsibility are consistent, or whether restitution is superior to retribution or deterrence as a basis for a theory of corrective justice. Still others examine the notion of partial or divided responsibility, or the relationship between responsibility and the emotions. (shrink)

Is there a moral obligation to reduce differences in income and wealth? There is an egalitarian tradition that condemns these differences, particularly as they arise in free-market capitalist society, as unfair or unjust. The opponents of this view argue that the material disparities of capitalist society have been brought about by voluntary mechanisms and thus accord with the freely exercised liberties of its citizens. They conclude that capitalist inequality is not vulnerable to the ethical complaints of its critics. They maintain (...) that the standard of living achieved as a by-product of the marketplace and its inequalities could not be adequately reproduced under egalitarian institutions. The essays in this volume, written by prominent economists, philosophers, and academic lawyers, assess the empirical and theoretical questions raised by inequalities of income and wealth. (shrink)

Recent and ongoing developments in science and technology - such as the prevention and treatment of disease through genetics and the development of increasingly sophisticated computer systems with wide-ranging applications - hold out the promise of vastly improving the quality of human life, but they can also raise serious ethical, legal, and public policy questions. The thirteen essays in this volume address these questions and related issues from a variety of perspectives. Written by prominent philosophers, economists, and legal theorists, these (...) essays offer valuable insights into the nature of scientific innovation and its implications for our social policies and practices. (shrink)

'[T]he good man should be a lover of self.' Aristotle wrote. 'For he will both himself profit by doing noble acts, and will benefit his fellows … '. Yet in much of contemporary moral philosophy, concern for one's own interests is considered a non-moral issue, while concern for the interests of others is paradigmatically moral. Indeed, a central issue in ethical theory involves the proper balance to be struck between prudence and morality, between the pursuit of one's own good and (...) the pursuit of the good of others. When deliberating over what action to take, should one weigh one's own interests more heavily than those of others? Or is it possible to accommodate both self-interest and regard for others, to show that we have self-regarding reasons for helping others? The twelve essays in this volume - written from a range of perspectives - address these questions and examine related issues. (shrink)

The thirteen essays in this volume approach the liberal-communitarian debate from a variety of perspectives. Some discuss disagreements between liberals and communitarians over the nature of moral agency and the proper functions of government. Some examine alternative ways of conceiving liberalism or community, or challenge widely held beliefs about the harmful effects of capitalism on community, or about the value of traditional practices as guides to judicial reasoning. Other essays seek to determine whether it makes sense to think of societies (...) as having and pursuing a common good, or whether culturally diverse societies can ever hope to achieve social unity. Still others examine the role of states in promoting citizens' civic education and their participation in the voluntary associations and institutions of civil society. (shrink)

What is the good life? This question captured the attention of ancient philosophers and it remains with us today, because it compels us to consider what it is to be human. To inquire about the good life is to ask, not about the proper conduct in one specific situation, but about the proper course of an entire life. It is to ask what we ought to make of ourselves as moral beings, what standards we ought to follow, and what goals (...) we ought to aspire to. But does it make sense to talk about the good life or the human good, or are there many human goods and many ways of living a good life? If there are many goods, then ow are they related, and how are we to determine whether one good outweighs another? Does living one's own life well leave room for concern for the well-being of others? Are there other non-moral concerns that may sometimes take precedence over living a good life? These are a few of the questions that will be addressed by the essays in this issue. (shrink)

The twelve essays in this collection address questions about justice and social institutions designed to secure it. Some explore the relationship between justice and equality, asking whether societies should strive to eliminate inequalities in their citizens' levels of opportunity or welfare. Some consider whether societies are obligated to provide their less fortunate citizens with some minimum level of subsistence, or whether the provision of such relief is best left to private charitable organisations. Some essays look at the relationship between justice (...) and other values, such as mutual consent, the protection of property rights, or the elimination of exploitation. Others deal with the rules governing specific practices, such as the distribution of health care, the pursuit of academic inquiry and research, or the assignment of punishments. Still others propose and defend principles for designing and evaluating social institutions. (shrink)

Of the historical figures that Gorman examines, none is more antithetical to the pluralist account of often antagonistic and conflicting rights that he favors than John Locke. To the questions that he poses for Plato and Hobbes—about how rights can be authoritative, how individual choices can be constrained by rights, how rights can be justified, and how can such moral considerations motivate people—he finds in Locke the most simplistic and unsatisfactory answers. Locke’s reliance on both God and reason to ground (...) the authority of rights and his embrace of natural rights as objective, independent, and knowable by all through reason, represent a world of fixed truth and a consistent reality that Gorman finds entirely unpersuasive. As he noted in his introductory chapter, in a world of warring ideologies, of Eastern Fundamentalism and Western pluralism, such a Lockean vision of the moral landscape seems antiquated, along with his understanding of reason as univocal. Despite observing notable differences between Plato, Hobbes, and Locke, Gorman sees among them a common thread of “reason” as something independent, eternal, unchanging in its truth, and universally applicable, and he finds this rationalist position justifiably criticized by empiricists, most prominently Hume. (shrink)

Ellen Meiksins Wood is a leading contemporary political theorist who has elaborated an innovative approach to the history of political thought, the social history of political theory .

In this groundbreaking work, Ellen Meiksins Wood rewrites the history of political theory, from Plato to Rousseau. Treating canonical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not simply in the context of political languages but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. She identifies a distinctive relation between property and state in Western history and shows how the canon, while largely the work of members or clients of dominant classes, (...) was shaped by complex interactions among proprietors, labourers and states. Western political theory, Wood argues, owes much of its vigour, and also many ambiguities, to these complex and often contradictory relations. In this new edition, incorporating both volumes, the book takes us from classical antiquity to the age of enlightenement. In the first volume, Wood traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through to the Middle Ages in the perspective of social history--a significant departure not only from the standard abstract history of ideas but also from other contextual methods. In the second volume, Wood moves on to explore the formation of the modern state, the rise of capitalism, the Renaissance and Reformation, the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. In her focus on canonical thinkers through the ages, Wood illuminates a rich and provocative legacy of political ideas unmatched in Western history"--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Today humanity faces radical global climate change, mass species extinctions, and unprecedented transformations to both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems across the globe. Environmental ethics is an academic subfield of philosophy concerned with normative and evaluative propositions about the world of nature and, perhaps more generally, the moral fabric of relations between human beings and the world we occupy. This Handbook contains 45 newly commissioned essays written by leading experts and emerging voices and represent some of the best and most contemporary (...) thinking in environmental ethics. The chapters range over a broad variety of issues, concepts, and perspectives that are both central to and characteristic of the field, thus providing an authoritative but accessible account of the history, analysis, and prospect of ideas that are essential to contemporary environmental ethics. (shrink)

Thompson provides commentary and reaction to other chapters in the book. It is organized as sections identified by the names of chapter authors. Thompson responds to chapters advancing new ideas in agriculture by indicating how he understands the authors’ analysis with respect to his own work. Chapters that address more philosophical dimensions of Thompson’s writings are addressed by clarifying the pragmatist orientation of Thompson’s thought. Michel Foucault’s metaethics is used as a basis for explaining pragmatist ethical (...) pluralism. (shrink)

Exclusive moral concern for human beings is often thought to be the ideological source of many contemporary environmental problems. So the development of a non-anthropocentric theory of intrinsic moral value, according to which at least some parts of the non-human world are morally considerable for their own sake, is often thought to be a defining characteristic of a satisfying environmental ethic. This chapter unpacks three distinct forms of anthropocentrism, outlines three versions of ethical nonanthropocentrism, and sketches some of the debate (...) between anthropocentrists and nonanthropocentrists before concluding that a virtue-theoretic approach to human natural goodness exemplifies one form of anthropocentrism that may continue to play a vital role in developing an environmental ethic suitable to the Anthropocene. (shrink)

Traditional Chinese culture, Confucianism, in particular, has a non-individualist conception of what it is to be human. It conceives of people fundamentally as members of social groups—specifically, the family, the clan, the political community and the state—not as atomic individuals as perceived in modern society. The communist ideology since the middle of the last century also emphasizes the significance of ‘the common good’ of the state which describes a specific ‘good’ that is shared and beneficial for all (or most) members (...) of a given community. Nevertheless, marketization and decentralization in China today have significantly challenged the notion of a state-oriented community that directly impacts China's healthcare system, beginning with the dismantling of the rural collectives and state-owned enterprises as part of the reform and opening process. This article will address healthcare challenges in China today, examining the conceptual/ethical issues raised by public healthcare, and contending that public health concerns should go beyond the dichotomy between individualism and collectivism. The article will argue that the family-oriented model of Confucianism offers an alternative way to look at what constitute a community and common goods. The Confucian approach to ethics is relevant to healthcare today. For example, it will be much easier to find a shared idea of common good in terms of complicated issues like healthcare; it would make sense to give a larger role to families via family savings accounts, and not have everything determined by the government. (shrink)

Bai, Tongdong 白彤東, New Mission of an Old State: Classical Confucian Political Philosophy in a Contemporary and Comparative Context 舊邦新命: 古今中西參考下的古典儒家政治哲學 Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11712-010-9183-0 Authors Ellen Y. Zhang, Department of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong Journal Dao Online ISSN 1569-7274 Print ISSN 1540-3009 Journal Volume Volume 9 Journal Issue Volume 9, Number 4.

The idea of an ideological war between science and religion, Thompson argues, is founded on a mistake. But this does not mean that there is nothing at stake. For behind the ill-conceived conflict lie complex issues about the nature of mind, consciousness, experience, subjectivity, quality, value, and the like, all of which need to be disentangled and assessed in their own right. Outgrowing Materialism leads the reader through a sequence of five “Worlds,” each of which offers a distinct way (...) of understanding (or failing to understand) these issues, and where God might belong (or not). Writing accessibly, but with a sharp eye for detail, Thompson sheds new light on the familiar territory of materialism, dualism, and structural realism, and evaluates the growing attraction of the multiverse. He argues that dualism mechanized the material world; then materialism exorcised the mental “ghost” from the machine; and finally, this machine is evaporating into pure mathematics. Outgrowing Materialism is half of Ten Ways to Weave the World: Matter, Mind, and God. The sequel, Embodying Mind, discusses five “Worlds” that precede and follow those discussed here. However, Outgrowing Materialism stands in its own right as a critique of the modern science v. religion dilemma. (shrink)

Four strands of research in the philosophy of technology have made important contributions to environmental philosophy. First, critical theory of technology emphasizes the environmentally exploitative tendencies of capitalist technological innovation. Second, phenomenologyhas examined how technologies shapeperception and orientation to the world with implications for our treatment of and regard for nature. Third, concurrent with the environmental movement itself, an empirical turn in philosophy of technology resulting in philosophers focusing their attention on particular tools and techniques. Empirical studies have emphasized environmentally (...) significant technologies. Finally, work inspired by philosophy of science has adopted scientific reasoning and methods in environmental policy with tools such as risk analysis and environmental impact assessment. These four strands of work have often merged with the work of sociologists, geographers, and political theorists interested in the connections between science and democracy. (shrink)

In this article, Ellen Bliss Talbot affirms the reality of both time and change in individual human lives, asserting that moral growth is possible because an individual is a unity in and through time.

In this paper, I submit that it is the controlled part of skilled action, that is, that part of an action that accounts for the exact, nuanced ways in which a skilled performer modifies, adjusts and guides her performance for which an adequate, philosophical theory of skill must account. I will argue that neither Jason Stanley nor Hubert Dreyfus have an adequate account of control. Further, and perhaps surprisingly, I will argue that both Stanley and Dreyfus relinquish an account of (...) control for precisely the same reason: each reduce control to a passive, mechanistic, automatic process, which then prevents them from producing a substantive account of how controlled processes can be characterized by seemingly intelligent features and integrated with personal-level states. I will end by introducing three different kinds of control, which are constitutive of skilled action: strategic control, selective, top–down, automatic attention, and motor control. It will become clear that Dreyfus cannot account for any of these three kinds of control while Stanley has difficulty tackling the two latter kinds. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that grounding relations are asymmetric. Here I develop and argue for a theory of metaphysical structure that takes grounding to be nonsymmetric rather than asymmetric. Even without infinite descending chains of dependence, it might be that every entity is grounded in some other entity. Having first addressed an immediate objection to the position under discussion, I introduce two examples of symmetric grounding. I give three arguments for the view that grounding is nonsymmetric (I call this view (...) ‘metaphysical interdependence’). These arguments are: (i) that metaphysical interdependence is the only theory able to reconcile competing intuitions about grounding; (ii) that it is the only theory consistent with both ‘gunk’ and ‘junk’; and (iii) that offers a satisfactory solution to the problem concerning whether or not grounding is itself grounded. (shrink)

It is not rare in philosophy and psychology to see theorists fall into dichotomous thinking about mental phenomena. On one side of the dichotomy there are processes that I will label “unintelligent.” These processes are thought to be unconscious, implicit, automatic, unintentional, involuntary, procedural, and non-cognitive. On the other side, there are “intelligent” processes that are conscious, explicit, controlled, intentional, voluntary, declarative, and cognitive. Often, if a process or behavior is characterized by one of the features from either of the (...) above lists, the process or behavior is classified as falling under the category to which the feature belongs. For example, if a process is implicit this is usually considered sufficient for classifying it as “unintelligent” and for assuming that the remaining features that fall under the “unintelligent” grouping will apply to it as well. Accordingly, if a process or behavior is automatic, philosophers often consider it to be unintelligent. It is my goal in this paper to challenge the conceptual slip from “automatic” to “unintelligent”. I will argue that there are a whole range of properties highlighted by the existing psychological literature that make automaticity a much more complex phenomenon than is usually appreciated. I will then go on to discuss two further important relationships between automatic processes and controlled processes that arise when we think about automatic processes in the context of skilled behavior. These interactions should add to our resistance to classifying automaticity as unintelligent or mindless. In Sect. 1, I present a few representative cases of philosophers classifying automatic processes and behaviors as mindless or unintelligent. In Sect. 2, I review trends in the psychology of automaticity in order highlight a complex set of features that are characteristic, though not definitive, of automatic processes and behaviors. In Sect. 3, I argue that at least some automatic processes are likely cognitively penetrable. In Sect. 4, I argue that the structure of skilled automatic processes is shaped diachronically by practice, training and learning. Taken together, these considerations should dislodge the temptation to equate “automatic” with “unintelligent”. (shrink)

When reflecting on the nature of skilled action, it is easy to fall into familiar dichotomies such that one construes the flexibility and intelligence of skill at the level of intentional states while characterizing the automatic motor processes that constitute motor skill execution as learned but fixed, invariant, bottom-up, brute-causal responses. In this essay, I will argue that this picture of skilled, automatic, motor processes is overly simplistic. Specifically, I will argue that an adequate account of the learned motor routines (...) that constitute embodied skills cannot be given in a purely bottom-up, brute-causal fashion. Rather, motor control is intelligent all the way down. To establish this, I will first review two recent accounts of skill, Stanley and Krakauer and Papineau, which characterize the automatic motor control responsible for the fine-grained movements constitutive of motor skill as brute, low-level phenomena. I will then isolate five key features that should apply to skilled motor control, if these accounts are correct. Together, the accounts posit that motor control is: ballistic, invariant, independent of general action trajectories, Insensitive to semantic content, and independent of personal-level intentions. In the final section of this paper, I will appeal to optimal control theory for empirical evidence to challenge the commitment to skilled action as qualified by the above features. (shrink)

When reflecting on the nature of skilled action, it is easy to fall into familiar dichotomies such that one construes the flexibility and intelligence of skill at the level of intentional states while characterizing the automatic motor processes that constitute motor skill execution as learned but fixed, invariant, bottom-up, brute-causal responses. In this essay, I will argue that this picture of skilled, automatic, motor processes is overly simplistic. Specifically, I will argue that an adequate account of the learned motor routines (...) that constitute embodied skills cannot be given in a purely bottom-up, brute-causal fashion. Rather, motor control is intelligent all the way down. To establish this, I will first review two recent accounts of skill, Stanley and Krakauer (Front Hum Neurosci, 2013. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.0050) and Papineau (R Inst Philos Suppl 73:175–196, 2013), which characterize the automatic motor control responsible for the fine-grained movements constitutive of motor skill as brute, low-level phenomena. I will then isolate five key features that should apply to skilled motor control, if these accounts are correct. Together, the accounts posit that motor control is: (1) ballistic, (2) invariant, (3) independent of general action trajectories, (4) Insensitive to semantic content, and (5) independent of personal-level intentions. In the final section of this paper, I will appeal to optimal control theory for empirical evidence to challenge the commitment to skilled action as qualified by the above features. (shrink)

Attempts to elucidate grounding are often made by connecting grounding to metaphysical explanation, but the notion of metaphysical explanation is itself opaque, and has received little attention in the literature. We can appeal to theories of explanation in the philosophy of science to give us a characterization of metaphysical explanation, but this reveals a tension between three theses: that grounding relations are objective and mind-independent; that there are pragmatic elements to metaphysical explanation; and that grounding and metaphysical explanation share a (...) close connection. Holding fixed the mind-independence of grounding, I show that neither horn of the resultant dilemma can be blunted. Consequently, we should reject the assumption that grounding relations are mind-independent. (shrink)