Despite the profound potential of MacIntyre’s revolutionary virtue paradigm, management scholars have struggled to make sense of one of the most contentious and insightful philosophers of our time. This conceptual paper attempts to move past the transliteration of MacIntyre in favour of a translation of his contribution in a manner than retains something closer to its full meaning, while helpfully guiding empirical efforts to apply this emerging paradigm to modern organisations. This translation entails a dismissal of MacIntyre’s hypercritical bias in (...) order to accommodate an expansion of his ideas into the language and logic of management theory and practice. Schein’s methodological roadmap for deciphering culture is offered, as is theory-building using comparative case research, as offering two particularly promising directions for future empirical studies that seek to use the theory of virtue in order to reconceptualise and study the modern organisation. (shrink)

Anti‐intellectualists about knowledge‐how insist that, when an agent S knows how to φ, it is in virtue of some ability, rather than in virtue of any propositional attitudpaes, S has. Recently, a popular strategy for attacking the anti‐intellectualist position proceeds by appealing to cases where an agent is claimed to possess a reliable ability to φ while nonetheless intuitively lacking knowledge‐how to φ. John Bengson and Marc Moffett and Carlotta Pavese have embraced precisely this strategy and have thus claimed, for (...) different reasons, that anti‐intellectualism is defective on the grounds that possessing the ability to φ is not sufficient for knowing how to φ. We investigate this strategy of argument‐by‐counterexample to the anti‐intellectualist's sufficiency thesis and show that, at the end of the day, anti‐intellectualism remains unscathed. (shrink)

This paper is about two topics: metaepistemological absolutism and the epistemic principles governing perceptual warrant. Our aim is to highlight—by taking the debate between dogmatists and conservativists about perceptual warrant as a case study—a surprising and hitherto unnoticed problem with metaepistemological absolutism, at least as it has been influentially defended by Paul Boghossian as the principal metaepistemological contrast point to relativism. What we find is that the metaepistemological commitments at play on both sides of this dogmatism/conservativism debate do not line (...) up with epistemic relativism nor do they line up with absolutism, at least as Boghossian articulates this position. What this case study reveals is the need in metaepistemological option space for the recognition of a weaker and less tendentious form of absolutism, what we call “environment relativism”. On this view, epistemic principles are knowable, objective, and they can serve as the basis of particular epistemic evaluations, but their validity is relative to the wider global environment in which they are applied. (shrink)

Suppositional theories of conditionals take apparent similarities between supposition and conditionals as a starting point, appealing to features of the former to provide an account of the latter. This paper develops a novel form of suppositional theory, one which characterizes the relationship at the level of semantics rather than at the level of speech acts. In the course of doing so, it considers a range of novel data which shed additional light on how conditionals and supposition interact.

The Swamping Argument – highlighted by Kvanvig (2003; 2010) – purports to show that the epistemic value of truth will always swamp the epistemic value of any non-factive epistemic properties (e.g. justification) so that these properties can never add any epistemic value to an already-true belief. Consequently (and counter-intuitively), knowledge is never more epistemically valuable than mere true belief. We show that the Swamping Argument fails. Parity of reasoning yields the disastrous conclusion that nonfactive epistemic properties – mostly saliently justification (...) – are never epistemically valuable properties of a belief. We close by diagnosing why philosophers have been mistakenly attracted to the argument. (shrink)

Internalist approaches to epistemic justification are, though controversial, considered a live option in contemporary epistemology. Accordingly, if ‘active’ externalist approaches in the philosophy of mind—e.g. the extended cognition and extended mind theses—are _in principle_ incompatible with internalist approaches to justification in epistemology, then this will be an epistemological strike against, at least the _prima facie_ appeal of, active externalism. It is shown here however that, contrary to pretheoretical intuitions, neither the extended cognition _nor_ the extended mind theses are in principle (...) incompatible with two prominent versions of epistemic internalism—viz., accessibilism and mentalism. In fact, one possible diagnosis is that pretheoretical intuitions regarding the incompatibility of active externalism with epistemic internalism are symptomatic of a tacit yet incorrect identification of epistemic internalism with epistemic individualism. Thus, active externalism is not in principle incompatible with epistemic internalism per se and does not significantly restrict one’s options in epistemology. (shrink)

Duncan Pritchard has, in the years following his (2005) defence of a safety-based account of knowledge in Epistemic Luck, abjured his (2005) view that knowledge can be analysed exclusively in terms of a modal safety condition. He has since (Pritchard in Synthese 158:277–297, 2007; J Philosophic Res 34:33–45, 2009a, 2010) opted for an account according to which two distinct conditions function with equal importance and weight within an analysis of knowledge: an anti-luck condition (safety) and an ability condition-the latter being (...) a condition aimed at preserving what Pritchard now takes to be a fundamental insight about knowledge: that it arises from cognitive ability (Greco 2010; Sosa 2007, 2009). Pritchard calls his new view anti-luck virtue epistemology (ALVE). A key premise in Pritchard’s argument for ALVE is what I call the independence thesis; the thesis that satisfying neither the anti-luck condition nor the ability condition entails that the other is satisfied. Pritchard’s argument for the independence thesis relies crucially upon the case he makes for thinking that cognitive achievements are compatible with knowledge-undermining environmental luck—that is, the sort of luck widely thought to undermine knowledge in standard barn facade cases. In the first part of this paper, I outline the key steps in Pritchard’s argument for anti-luck virtue epistemology and highlight how it is that the compatibility of cognitive achievement and knowledge- undermining environmental luck is indispensible to the argument’s success. The second part of this paper aims to show that this compatibility premise crucial to Pritchard’s argument is incorrect. (shrink)

Pascal Engel (2008) has insisted that a number of notable strategies for rejecting the knowledge norm of assertion are put forward on the basis of the wrong kinds of reasons. A central aim of this paper will be to establish the contrast point: I argue that one very familiar strategy for defending the knowledge norm of assertion—viz., that it is claimed to do better in various respects than its competitors (e.g. the justification and the truth norms)— relies on a presupposition (...) that is shown to be ultimately under motivated. That presupposition is the uniqueness thesis—that there is a unique epistemic rule for assertion, and that such a rule will govern assertions uniformly. In particular, the strategy I shall take here will be to challenge the sufficiency leg of the knowledge norm in a way that at the same time counts against Williamson’s (2000) own rationale for the uniqueness thesis. However, rather than to challenge the sufficiency leg of the knowledge norm via the familiar style of ‘expert opinion’ and, more generally, ‘second-hand knowledge’ cases (e.g. Lackey (2008)), a strategy that has recently been called into question by Benton (2014), I’ll instead advance a very different line of argument against the sufficiency thesis, one which turns on a phenomenon I call epistemic hypocrisy. (shrink)

Autonomous Knowledge: Radical Enhancement, Autonomy, and the Future of Knowing motivates and develops a new research programme in epistemology that is centred around the concept of epistemic autonomy.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 32-41, January/February 2022.

Anti-intellectualists about knowledge-how insist that, when an agent S knows how to φ, it is in virtue of some ability, rather than in virtue of any propositional attitudes, S has. Recently, a popular strategy for attacking the anti-intellectualist position proceeds by appealing to cases where an agent is claimed to possess a reliable ability to φ while nonetheless intuitively lacking knowledge-how to φ. John Bengson & Marc Moffett (2009; 2011a; 2011b) and Carlotta Pavese (2015a; 2015b) have embraced precisely this strategy (...) and have thus claimed, for different reasons, that anti-intellectualism is defective on the grounds that possessing the ability to φ is not sufficient for knowing how to φ. We investigate this strategy of argument-by-counterexample to the anti- intellectualist’s sufficiency thesis and show that, at the end of the day, anti-intellectualism remains unscathed. (shrink)

Overdiagnosis is an emerging problem in health policy and practice: we address its definition and ethical implications. We argue that the definition of overdiagnosis should be expressed at the level of populations. Consider a condition prevalent in a population, customarily labelled with diagnosis A. We propose that overdiagnosis is occurring in respect of that condition in that population when the condition is being identified and labelled with diagnosis A in that population ; this identification and labelling would be accepted as (...) correct in a relevant professional community; but the resulting label and/or intervention carries an unfavourable balance between benefits and harms. We identify challenges in determining and weighting relevant harms, then propose three central ethical considerations in overdiagnosis: the extent of harm done, whether harm is avoidable and whether the primary goal of the actor/s concerned is to benefit themselves or the patient, citizen or society. This distinguishes predatory, misdirected and tragic overdiagnosis; the degree of harm moderates the justifiability of each type. We end with four normative challenges: methods for adjudicating between professional standards and identifying relevant harms and benefits should be procedurally just; individuals, organisations and states are differently responsible for addressing overdiagnosis; overdiagnosis is a matter for distributive justice: the burdens of both overdiagnosis and its prevention could fall on the least-well-off; and communicating about overdiagnosis risks harming those unaware that they may have been overdiagnosed. These challenges will need to be addressed as the field develops. (shrink)

In recent decades, it has been argued that the modern concept of forgiveness is absent from Aristotle’s conception of συγγνώμη as it appears in his Rhetoric and Nicomachean Ethics. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle’s view is more modern than it might appear. I defend the idea that Aristotle’s treatment of συγγνώμη, when seen in conjunction with his theory of ethical decision, involuntary action, and character alteration, commits him to a cognitive and emotional theory of forgiveness that is both (...) well-grounded and thoroughly modern. I go on to claim that Aristotle’s view of συγγνώμη helps to solve at least four controversial problems about the nature of forgiveness raised by modern philosophers: how one can forgive a wrong without condoning it, whether forgiveness is a duty, whether moral luck requires us to forgive more widely, and whether forgiveness ought to be unconditional. (shrink)

Anti-luck epistemology is an approach to analyzing knowledge that takes as a starting point the widely-held assumption that knowledge must exclude luck. Call this the anti-luck platitude. As Duncan Pritchard (2005) has suggested, there are three stages constituent of anti-luck epistemology, each which specifies a different philosophical requirement: these stages call for us to first give an account of luck; second, specify the sense in which knowledge is incompatible with luck; and finally, show what conditions must be satisfied in order (...) to block the kind of luck with which knowledge was argued to be incompatible. What I’ll show here is that the modal account of luck offers a plausible story at the first stage and leads naturally to equally plausible lines to take at the second and third stages, at which a safety condition on knowledge is squarely motivated. There are, however, recent challenges—advanced by Jonathan Kvanvig (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77: 272–281, 2008); Kelly Becker (2007); and Jennifer Lackey (Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86(2):255–267, 2008), among others—to the plausibility of the safety-based anti-luck project I’ve sketched here at each of its three stages of development. Once I’ve made precise the challenges, I’ll show why none implies that we abandon the commitments of the safety-based anti-luck project at any of its stages. What we should conclude, then, is that a safety-condition on knowledge is motivated by independently defensible accounts of (1) what luck is; and (2) just how knowledge should be thought incompatible with it. (shrink)

In this paper we develop a relational approach to the question of animal agency. We distinguish between agency and action and, using three examples of non-human animal behaviour, explore how human-other animal interactions might be understood in terms of action, agency and resistance. In order to do this we draw on the distinction between primary and corporate agency found in the work of Margaret Archer, arguing that, while non-human animals are able to act and to exercise primary agency, they are (...) unable to exercise corporate agency. Animals are therefore agents; they act and their actions have consequences, they also resist conditions which they do not like and, in some circumstances, are able to change the conditions of their agency. We discuss the place of animals in the social world and the political implications of this way of viewing animal agency. (shrink)

Epistemic relativists often appeal to an epistemic incommensurability thesis. One notable example is the position advanced by Wittgenstein in On certainty (1969). However, Ian Hacking’s radical denial of the possibility of objective epistemic reasons for belief poses, we suggest, an even more forceful challenge to mainstream meta-epistemology. Our central objective will be to develop a novel strategy for defusing Hacking’s line of argument. Specifically, we show that the epistemic incommensurability thesis can be resisted even if we grant the very insights (...) that lead Hacking to claim that epistemic reasons are always relative to a style of reasoning. Surprisingly, the key to defusing the argument is to be found in recent mainstream work on the epistemic state of objectual understanding. (shrink)

Of all the criticisms that Aristotle gives of his predecessors’ theories of soul in De anima I.3–5, none seems more unmotivated than the ones directed against the world soul of Plato’s Timaeus. Against the current scholarly consensus, I claim that the status of Aristotle’s criticisms is philosophical rather than eristical, and that they provide important philosophical reasons, independent of Phys. VIII.10 and Metaph. Λ.6, for believing that νοῦς is without spatial extension, and that its thinking is not a physical motion.

The misuse of alcohol inflicts a major toll on individual users, their families, and the wider society. This includes disruptions of family life, violence, absenteeism and problems in the workplace, child neglect and abuse, and excess morbidity and mortality. The World Health Organization estimates that alcohol ranks eighth among global risk factors for death and is the third leading global risk factor for disease and disability. In the United States, alcohol dependence affects four to five percent of the population at (...) any given time. Alcohol dependence also exacts a significant financial toll.... (shrink)

In this article, we examine the ways gendered frames shift to make room for societal changes while maintaining existing pillars of systemic gender inequality. Utilizing the case of U.S. media representations of transgender people who reproduce, we analyze how media outlets make room for increasing societal recognition of transgender people and maintain cisnormative and repronormative traditions and beliefs in the process. Specifically, we outline how these media outlets accomplish both outcomes in two ways. First, they reinforce cisgender-based repronormativity via conceptualizations (...) of transgender reproduction as new and occurring in contrast to normative, cisgender reproduction. Second, they create a transnormative reproductive subject, which establishes a new socially sanctioned script for what it means to be transgender and what types of transgender experience may be recognized or accepted in mainstream society. In conclusion, we draw out implications for understanding how social authorities may shift existing gender frames to make room for changes in society while at the same time maintaining normative beliefs. These normative beliefs continue to facilitate societal patterns of gender inequality within such new frames. (shrink)

Perceptual experience is present-directed in the sense that what we perceptually experience seems to be temporally present, while what we remember or imagine does not. One way of explaining this contrast is to claim that perceptual experience uniquely involves awareness of the property of presence (either conceived as an observer-independent property of the present time or as a relation of simultaneity between an event and one’s experience of it). I argue against this explanation and in favour of one on which (...) perception’s feeling of present-orientation is explained in terms of the feeling of aptness for action guidance that characterizes perceptual experience. I argue that an advantage of this view is that, unlike its rivals, it can make perception’s present-directedness straightforwardly compatible with the specious present theory as an account of experiences of motion and change. (shrink)

This article considers two different, yet related, theoretical approaches that could be employed to ground the anarchist critique of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary practice, and thus of the state in general: the State-Primacy Theory and the Quadruplex Theory. The State-Primacy Theory appears to be consistent with several of Bakunin's claims about the state. However, the Quadruplex Theory might, in fact, turn out to be no less consistent with Bakunin's claims than the State-Primacy Theory. In addition, the Quadruplex Theory seems no less capable (...) of supporting the anarchist critique of Marxism-Leninism than the State-Primacy Theory. The article concludes by considering two possible refinements that might be made to the Quadruplex Theory. (shrink)

It seems, at first glance, that a Kantian ethics approach to moral enhancement would tend towards the position that there could be no place for emotional modulation in any understanding of the endeavour, owing to the typically understood view that Kantian ethics does not allow any role for emotion in morality as a whole. It seems then that any account of moral bioenhancement which places emotion at its centre would therefore be rejected. This article argues, however, that this assumption is (...) incorrect. Given later writings by Kant on the role of sympathy, and taking into account other concerns in Kantian ethics, it may in fact be the case that Kantian ethics would allow for an account of moral bioenhancement through emotional modulation, and that in some cases such an intervention might even be considered to be a duty. (shrink)

Derek Parfit presents his Mere Addition Paradox in order to demonstrate that it is extremely difficult to avoid the Repugnant Conclusion. And in order to avoid it, Parfit has embraced perfectionism. However, Stuart Rachels and Larry Temkin, taking their lead from Parfit, have concluded, instead, that the Repugnant Conclusion can be avoided by denying the axiom of transitivity with respect to the all-things-considered-better-than relation. But this seems to present a major challenge to how we evaluate normatively. In this article I (...) show how the Mere Addition Paradox and the Repugnant Conclusion can both be avoided without subscribing to perfectionism, and without sacrificing the axiom of transitivity. (shrink)

Peterson et al. (2023) identify two potential uses of psychedelic drugs in Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (AD/ADRD). The first is to treat depression and anxiety that commonly occur afte...

In DA I.2–5, Aristotle offers a series of critical discussions of earlier Greek definitions of the soul. The status of these discussions and the role they play in the justification of Aristotle’s theory of soul in DA II–III is controversial. In contrast to a common view, I argue that these discussions are not dialectical but philosophical. I also contend that Aristotle does not consider earlier philosophical definitions of soul to be endoxa, but rather contradoxa – beliefs about which the many (...) and the wise disagree among themselves. Through an analysis of Plato’s and Empedocles’s definitions of soul, I show that these definitions are nevertheless treated by Aristotle as potential scientific principles for explaining two of the soul’s per se attributes: causing motion and cognition in animate bodies. The main role of the critical discussions in DA I.2–5 is to show that all such earlier definitions of soul fail this explanatory task. Nevertheless, I show that these chapters are not wholly aporetic. Aristotle makes progress by solving two scientific puzzles within them: whether the soul has spatial parts, and whether ‘soul’ refers to a uniform entity across biological species. (shrink)

Philosophers, scientists, and artists alike are prone to explore important questions concerning ecology as it relates to the impact of human actions for the future of nature and human civilizations. The main focus in this essay is to consider ecological implications of art understood as a form of leisure. Art is of course more than leisure for the artists and other arts professionals, but its personal and societal roles also serve as leisure activities. Both the production of art and its (...) consumption have important ecological implications. Select philosophical (Hegel) and scientific (Escobar) concerning art and nature provide a context for exploring art’s role in ecology. Complementing the philosophical and scientific understanding of ecological concerns are the efforts of artists and arts institutions to address ecological concerns both in their creative works and in assessing ecological implications of their respective practices. Ecology concerns environmental relationships taking place among the elements of nature (weather, land and water for example) that relate to evolutionary change and the effects on life in the built environments that comprise human civilizations. [i] Leisure, as I shall understand it here functions as a creative force in the life of human persons. [i]Robert A. Stebbins, “Leisure, Happiness, and Positive Lifestyle” and John Haworth, “Leisure, Life, Enjoyment,” in editors, Sam Elkingtonand Sean J. Gammon, Contemporary Perspectives in Leisure (London and New York: Routledge, 2014), 28-64. (shrink)

Editor’s note: Presidential Address delivered at Portland, Oregon on March 17, 2013 on the occasion of the AOS annual meeting. The submission was not edited, at the insistence of the author; this was granted as a prerogative restricted to his Presidential Address, for reasons that will be understood by a perusing of the subject matter. All infelicities are in keeping with the original submission. Author’s note: In keeping with the theme of this Address the published text aims to reproduce exactly (...) the words that were read out. The version presented here is based on a scanned image of the only copy of the original typescript with the author’s hand-written changes, retrieved from a member of the audience to whom it was given after the proceedings. Transliteration follows the conventions of the Journal, and the source references have been moved into the footnotes. Bibliographical attributions are minimal: colleagues will easily distinguish between sweeping statements which could be documented if need be, and the private opinions of the writer. (shrink)