In this paper, I articulate and defend a conception of trust that solves what I call “the trickster problem.” The problem results from the fact that many accounts of trust treat it similar to, or identical with, relying on someone’s good will. But a trickster could rely on your good will to get you to go along with his scheme, without trusting you to do so. Recent philosophical accounts of trust aim to characterize what it is for one person to (...) trust another so as to avoid this problem, but no extant account successfully does so. I argue that connecting trust to important, normatively defined relationships like friendship, romantic partnerships and parenting shows us something important about trust. The clearest cases of trust are found within the confines of normatively defined relationships like these, suggesting that there is a normative element to trust. Trusting someone involves not just believing that another person’s good will covers your interactions. Trusting involves believing that, at least in a certain domain of interaction, you are entitled to rely on that person’s good will. This account solves the trickster problem, because a trickster is not entitled to his victim’s good will. (shrink)

This chapter presents an account of an angrily virtuous, or patient, person informed by research on emotion in empirical and philosophical psychology. It is argued that virtue for anger is determined by excellence and deficiency with respect to all three of anger’s psychological functions: appraisal, motivation, and communication. Many competing accounts of virtue for anger assess it by attention to just one function; it is argued that singular evaluations of a person’s anger will ignore important dimensions of anger that bear (...) on virtue and vice. Thus, possessing excellence with respect to only one function of anger is insufficient for virtue. The account is also extended to the characteristic vices of anger: wrath and meekness. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the idea that someone can deserve resentment or other reactive emotions for what she does by attention to three psychological functions of such emotions – appraisal, communication, and sanction – that I argue ground claims of their desert. I argue that attention to these functions helps to elucidate the moral aims of reactive emotions and to distinguish the distinct claims of desert, as opposed to other moral considerations.

In this paper, I explore the idea that someone can deserve resentment or other reactive emotions for what she does by attention to three psychological functions of such emotions—appraisal, communication, and sanction—that I argue ground claims of their desert. I argue that attention to these functions helps to elucidate the moral aims of reactive emotions and to distinguish the distinct claims of desert, as opposed to other moral considerations.

In this review I present the main claims of McKenna's book Conversation and Responsibility. There McKenna develops a theory of moral responsibility inspired by an analogy with the relationship people bear to each other as part of a conversational exchange. The first half of the book develops the conversational account and considers objections to it. In the second half of the book, McKenna turns to an examination of the kind of normative claim being made when we say that being morally (...) responsible is to be understood in terms of appropriately holding someone morally responsible. I discuss the main themes of the book, how McKenna advances the literature on moral responsibility, and some challenges/limits of the view. (shrink)

In this chapter, I defend a novel account of contempt’s evaluative presentation by synthesizing relevant psychological work (Rozin et al. 1999; Fischer and Roseman 2007; Fischer 2011; Hutcherson and Gross 2011) with philosophical insights (Mason 2003; Bell 2005; Abramson 2009; Bell 2013). I then show how a concern about contempt’s status as an emotion involved in holding people accountable can be helpfully addressed. Finally, I gesture at an account of why, when we feel contemptuous toward people, our accountability responses involve (...) withdrawal and exclusion rather than approach and confrontation. (shrink)

I here consider the reasonableness of punishing future autonomous military robots. I argue that it is an engineering desideratum that these devices be responsive to moral considerations as well as human criticism and blame. Additionally, I argue that someday it will be possible to build such machines. I use these claims to respond to the no subject of punishment objection to deploying autonomous military robots, the worry being that an “accountability gap” could result if the robot committed a war crime. (...) (Sparrow 2007). But these robots will be blameworthy and morally responsible for their wrongful conduct. I then show that we have reasons to punish them based both on good effects and the impact on the robot, itself. (shrink)

Alstin, Zac The increasing support that euthanasia is gathering in South Australia with a new euthanasia bill about to be passed is discussed. Some of the implicit and explicit challenges and pressures that the introduction of such a bill will pose are highlighted.

Alstin, Zac Conventional wisdom teaches that prohibition is counter-productive. We are all familiar with the idea that making something illegal - whether it be drug abuse, alcohol consumption, or abortion - merely 'drives it underground'. Abortion is indeed one of the most potent examples, with the spectre of 'backyard abortion' haunting any talk of restricting abortion access. On a global scale the term 'unsafe abortion' serves the same purpose - reinforcing the idea that unless abortion is made safe, legal, and (...) easy to access, women will resort to abortion practices that are intrinsically unsafe. (shrink)

Alstin, Zac Do you know the term realpolitik? It' German for realistic or practical politics, and implies a view of political life in which ideals and ethics are subordinate to practical goals. Readers may be surprised to learn that there was ever a time when politics was not self-evidently the pursuit of practical goals without regard to ideals or ethics. 'olitics'alone is now sufficient to invoke bastardry, deceit, and terrifying acts of pragmatism, in the minds of many.

Alstin, Zac The varied iterations of Natural Law theory draw - either explicitly or implicitly - upon a meta-physical account of human nature. They are firmly grounded in an objective description of human nature, and the goods which characterise and sustain it. Natural Law theory is primarily a work of discovery: we distinguish between good and evil in the first instance by observing and discovering the things that contribute to human flourishing.

Alstin, Zac At a March lecture in Canberra, Australian ethicist and pro-abortion activist Dr Leslie Cannold, spoke about the 'unfinished business' of abortion law reform in Australia. A frustrated friend sent me the transcript of this lecture and asked me to write something in response. But given the context of Cannold's lecture: a pro-abortion speech to a pro-abortion audience about pro-abortion law reform, a direct response seems impertinent. Plus, as a rule of thumb, when you play 'Pin the Tail' on (...) a live donkey you're liable to get a kick in the teeth. It makes more sense to take Cannold's speech at face value as evidence of an abortion activist's self-imposed mission in our society. To attack her for saying what she believes is perhaps in Cannold's own words "like blaming a leopard for having spots.". (shrink)

Alstin, Zac Results of a Belgian study have revealed that a large number of people suffering from Locked-In Syndrome are happy. Disability is foremost a challenge to one's values, not to our happiness.

Alstin, Zac While researching the possibility of a link between the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the rejection of traditional Western values, a quotation from Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen emerged in which he seemed to identify just such a connection. The argument in its bare essentials is that the affirmation of a gravely immoral act is implicit rejection of any moral theory which condemns such an act. Traditional Western ethics condemns the bombing of Hiroshima as gravely immoral. Therefore, affirmation (...) of the bombing is implicit rejection of traditional Western ethics. (shrink)

Alstin, Zac The increasing support that euthanasia is gathering in South Australia with a new euthanasia bill about to be passed is discussed. Some of the implicit and explicit challenges and pressures that the introduction of such a bill will pose are highlighted.

Alstin, Zac Euthanasia, which is defined as the intentional killing of another human being, is compared with the established categories of killing in self-defence or as a foreseeable consequence of medical treatment.

I here sketch a reply to Peter van Inwagen’s Rollback Argument, which suggests that libertarian accounts of free agency are beset by problems involving luck. Van Inwagen imagines an indeterministic agent whose universe is repeatedly ‘rolled back’ by God to the time of her choice. Since the agent’s choice is indeterministic, her choices are sometimes di erent in the imaginary rollback scenarios. I show that although this is true, this need not impair her control over what she does. I develop (...) an account of when and why the fact that an agent would choose di erently impairs control, which provides a novel response to the Rollback Argument. (shrink)

I develop and explore the main themes of Vargas's recent book. The first section of my review lays out Vargas's case for revisionism about moral responsibility: the idea that our thinking about moral responsibility is internally inconsistent, so we need to purge core problematic elements. In the section section, I develop Vargas's own revisionist position. Vargas argues that the practice of blaming people aims at agency cultivation: trying to train people to be more sensitive to moral considerations. I explore similarities (...) between Vargas's model of blame and the classical model, also knows as the 'morality's enforcer' or 'economy of threats' model. I argue that Vargas's revisionism shares the core problem of this model: it has difficulty making sense of the warrant of blaming people who are and will be continue to be unresponsive to blame. Finally, I briefly explore Vargas's discussion of the situationist literature and his argument that manipulation cases don't threaten our being morally responsible for what we do. (shrink)

This paper defends an account of forgiveness that is sensitive to recent work on anger. Like others, we claim anger involves an appraisal, namely that someone has done something wrong. But, we add, anger has two further functions. First, anger communicates to the wrongdoer that her act has been appraised as wrong and demands she feel guilty. This function enables us to explain why apologies make it reasonable to forgo anger and forgive. Second, anger sanctions the wrongdoer for what she (...) has done. This function allows us to explore the moral status of forgiveness, including why forgiveness is typically elective. (shrink)

David Boonin has recently advanced several challenges to the self-defense justification of punishment. Boonin argues that the self-defense justification of punishment justifies punishing the innocent, justifies disproportionate punishment, cannot account for mitigating excuses, and does not justify intentionally harming offenders as we do when we punish them. In this paper, I argue that the self-defense justification, suitably understood, can avoid all of these problems. To help demonstrate the self-defense theory’s attraction, I also develop some contrasts between the self-defense justification, Warren (...) Quinn’s better known ‘auto-retaliator’ argument, and desert-based justifications of punishment. In sum, I show that the self-defense justification of punishment is more resilient than commonly supposed and deserves to be taken seriously as a justification of punishment. (shrink)

The notion of life is here presented as a major theme which permeates all of Spinoza’s writings, from the earliest work to the mature statement of his philosophy in the Ethics. Some of the implications of this concept are here outlined, and a number of possible objections to my dynamic interpretation of the concept of life are also explicitated and answered. This artide is a translation of the essay, “Sur une idée directrice de la philosophie de Spinoza,” from Sylvain Zac, (...) Etudes spinozistes, ©1985, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin. (shrink)

Vie, conatus, vertu.--Philosophie et théologie chez Spinoza.--Spinoza et le langage.--Spinoza et la théorie des attributs de Dieu de Maïmonide.--Allégorie et prophétie.--Société et communion chez Spinoza.--État et nature chez Spinoza.--Spinoza et l'État des Hébreux.--Durée et histoire chez Spinoza.--L'idée de loi.--Le chapitre XVI du Traité théologico-politique.--Le péché et le pardon d'après Spinoza.--Le Spinoza de Martial Guéroult I.--Le Spinoza de Martial Guéroult.

In order to further clarify the meaning of Spinoza’s teachings, I will demonstrate in the following article that, according to the author of the Ethics, God is life, that the conatus, the internal dynamism of all singular things, are the manifestations of the life of God in different degrees, in the infinity of his modes relating to the infinity of his attributes, that virtue, the most perfect form of the conatus in man, is the “true life,” participation in the life (...) of God, accompanied by an adequate consciousness of itself, and finally, that the supreme virtue of the soul which is designated by the theologians’ word “salvation,” the fully joyous consciousness of things, oneself and God, which is accompanied by the idea of God, is the supreme attainment of life tied to the most perfect possible knowledge of the infinite essence of God in its direct relation with the singular essences of things. (shrink)

Currently, there are many advocacy interventions aimed at reducing animal consumption. We report results from a lab (N = 267) and a field experiment (N = 208) exploring whether, and to what extent, some of those educational interventions are effective at shifting attitudes and behavior related to animal consumption. In the lab experiment, participants were randomly assigned to read a philosophical ethics paper, watch an animal advocacy video, read an advocacy pamphlet, or watch a control video. In the field experiment, (...) we measured the impact of college classes with animal ethics content versus college classes without animal ethics content. Using a pretest, post-test matched control group design, humane educational interventions generally made people more knowledgeable about animals used as food and reduced justifications and speciesist attitudes supporting animal consumption. None of the interventions in either experiment had a direct, measurable impact on self-reported animal consumption. These results suggest that while some educational interventions can change beliefs and attitudes about animal consumption, those same interventions have small impacts on animal consumption. (shrink)

How does character information inform judgments of blame? Some argue that character information is indirectly relevant to blame because it enriches judgments about the mental states of a wrongdoer. Others argue that character information is directly relevant to blame, even when character traits are causally irrelevant to the wrongdoing. We propose an empirical synthesis of these views: a Two Channel Model of blame. The model predicts that character information directly affects blame when this information is relevant to the wrongdoing that (...) elicits blame. Further, the effect of character information on blame depends on judgments about the true self that are independent of judgments of intentionality. Across three pre-registered studies (N = 662), we found support for all three predictions of the Two Channel Model. We propose that this reflects two distinct functions of blame: a social regulatory function that encourages norm compliance and a pedagogical function that encourages personal improvement. (shrink)

Knowledge of human uses of animals is an important, but understudied, aspect of how humans treat animals. We developed a measure of one kind of knowledge of human uses of animals – knowledge of factory farming. Studies 1 (N = 270) and 2 (N = 270) tested an initial battery of objective, true or false statements about factory farming using Item Response Theory. Studies 3 (N = 241) and 4 (N = 278) provided evidence that responses to a 10-item Knowledge (...) of Factory Farming Scale predicted a reduction in consumption of animal products (rs = −.17- −.27) and approval of political actions aimed at factory farming (rs = .2 – .24). Path models from Studies 3 and 4 suggested that different kinds of knowledge uniquely predicted different outcomes. The Knowledge of Factory Farming scale was a unique predictor of approval of political actions concerning factory farmed animals but not animal consumption. Knowledge of Animals Used as Food predicted animal consumption but not political actions concerning farmed animals. These results highlight that different kinds of knowledge can be relevant for different animal related outcomes. (shrink)

Several previous studies have reported atypicality in resting-state functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorder, yet the relatively small effect sizes prevent us from using these characteristics for diagnostic purposes. Here, canonical correlation analysis and hierarchical clustering were used to partition the high-functioning ASD group into subgroups. A support vector machine model was trained through the 10-fold strategy to predict Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule scores within the ASD discovery group, which was further validated in an independent sample. The neuroimage-based partition derived (...) two subgroups representing severe versus mild autistic patients. We identified FCs that show graded changes in strength from ASD-severe, through ASD-mild, to controls, while the same pattern cannot be observed in partitions based on ADOS score. We also identified FCs that are specific for ASD-mild, similar to a partition based on ADOS score. The current study provided multiple pieces of evidence with replication to show that resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging FCs could serve as neural biomarkers in partitioning high-functioning autistic individuals based on their symptom severity and showing advantages over traditional partition based on ADOS score. Our results also indicate a compensatory role for a frontocortical network in patients with mild ASD, indicating potential targets for future clinical treatments. (shrink)

Beginnings of Marxist historical thinking in Slovakia.