Much social theory tends to emphasize the external goods of social practices, often neglecting the internal goods of those practices. For example, many analyses of religious rituals over-emphasize the instrumental and individualistic ends of prayer and liturgy by describing such religious practices as effective means for achieving external ends like positive emotions, psychological benefits, social status, or social capital. By contrast, we use a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics perspective to analyze the relational goods, such as trust and intimacy, (...) which are expressed and sustained through ritualized social practices. Using ethnographies of Haitian and Ghanaian Christians in the U.S., we demonstrate that prayer and liturgy can also be understood as constitutive-ends practices, practices in which human persons engage to sustain relations with others because there are goods inherent to those relationships. We further argue that in many religious practices, the end goals and the means—i.e. specific aspects of the practice—are inseparable. Our approach to developing theory combines critical engagement with numerous other theorists and also exploring how well various theories can explain the motivations and experiences of participants in the religious rituals where we conducted our ethnographies. (shrink)

My dissertation, “Love, Self-Constitution, and Practical Necessity,” offers an interpretation of love between people. Love is puzzling because it appears to involve essentially both rational and non-rational phenomena. We are accountable to those we love, so love seems to participate in forms of necessity, commitment, and expectation, which are associated with morality. But non-rational attitudes—forms of desire, attraction, and feeling—are also central to love. Consequently, love is not obviously based in rationality or inclination. In contrast to views that attempt to (...) fit love into existing models of practical reasoning, I argue that love participates in a unique form of practical necessity, different from both moral and psychological necessity, yet bearing resemblances to each. Distinctive to this type of practical necessity is a direct appeal to another particular person that cannot be delivered in third-personal terms—that is, a non-moral yet normative type of expectation on another person. This type of expectation is predominant in loving relationships, but can also make better sense of the experiences of humor and beauty, as well as attitudes like forgiveness, gratitude, and agent-regret. I treat Immanuel Kant’s discussion of the experience of beauty in the Critique of Judgment and Christine Korsgaard’s work on self-constitution as fruitful starting points for this account of love. I conclude that our loving relationships enable us to have distinctive personal selves, and provide support for this account of love by offering a complementary theory of grief. In Part One of the dissertation, I focus on two prominent approaches to love characteristic of the sentimentalist and rationalist traditions. I begin with the work of David Hume, which treats desire (understood as something like a simple impulse or craving) as the paradigmatic mental state, and emphasizes our personal and affective dimensions. Hume has the valuable insight that loving someone affects our sense of ourselves. But Hume’s view becomes unsatisfying when he claims that love is essentially enfeebling, implying that to love is to be passive toward and readily overcome by another person. While this indicates Hume’s awareness that love involves being open and receptive to another person, the problem is that love is also a demanding attitude. Hume lacks the conceptual resources to offer a nuanced view of the self, in which we can—with one attitude—be both demanding of and vulnerable to another person. Hume’s model of a desire-based deliberative process has recently been revived in Harry Frankfurt’s discussions on love and rationality. Frankfurt, however, goes beyond Hume’s picture of the self by introducing a notion of “identification,” which he offers to make sense of our apparent ability to commit ourselves decisively to certain projects or people. I argue that active powers like identification and commitment cannot be accommodated within any basically Humean moral psychology. Such abilities, and with them the possibility of love, depend on something closer to a Kantian conception of rational agency. I next focus on the work of Kant, who provides the substantial counterpart to Humean-inspired moral theories, but is not known for his insight into our emotional lives. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant divides love into “practical love”—what we experience when we are morally motivated to help someone—and “pathological love”—what we experience when we feel fond of something. But in reality, we experience love neither as a mere preference for another person, nor as something that generates the kind of demands that would be binding on any rational creature. David Velleman attempts to remedy the deficiency of Kant’s dichotomy. Velleman offers a Kantian theory in which he describes love and respect as two ends of a continuum of attitudes that it is morally appropriate to have toward people. Velleman’s view has the peculiar implication that everyone deserves the love of everyone else, and I argue that this is a fatal flaw. Like Kant and Velleman, Korsgaard characterizes personal love as involving the treatment of other people as Kantian ends-in-themselves to a heightened degree. Korsgaard, though, also contends that our individual identities depend upon our personal relationships, and I take this position seriously for the remainder of the dissertation. Ultimately, however, characterizations of loving relations as subsets of moral relations can account for the authority of the demands of love, but not its particularity. The major conclusion of Part One is that any attempt to understand love primarily on a model of practical reasoning with which we are already familiar is doomed to fail. Our experience of love calls for a theory of a unique type of practical necessity. In Part Two I take seriously the possibility that love is simultaneously inescapable (in something like the way morality is supposed to be), and yet ineluctably personal. In love, we experience an engagement with a person as essentially particular, rather than as an instance of a rational agent in general. To make sense of this direct attachment to an individual, I argue that love involves distinctive forms of expectation and disappointment. When those we love let us down, they hurt our feelings, which is not a response to a failed prediction, but nor is it a reaction to a moral insult or offense. According to Peter Strawson and Stephen Darwall, second-personal moral reactive attitudes (such as resentment) always have third-personal analogues (such as indignation). In contrast, I argue that the type of hurt feelings associated with love is a second-personal reactive attitude that does not have a third-personal corollary. I take this as evidence that the expectations involved in love are not objective in the way that the moral is objective. Nor, however, is love a matter of mere preference. On my interpretation, Kant introduces this different type of expectation in the Critique of Judgment. Whereas he characterizes moral judgments as universally communicable, judgments of beauty implicitly involve only second-personal address: I appeal to your direct experience with a particular object. This provides the conceptual space for an account of love according to which it involves a uniquely second-personal form of practical necessity. I contend that the second-personal addresses we make in love are appeals to strengthen the intimacy implicit in the loving relationship, and I identify three interrelated dimensions of that intimacy. First, those we love have the standing to interpret us in a constitutive manner. We fine-tune and make determinate the character of our concerns and interests in part by accepting the interpretations provided by those we love. In that way, the people we love have the normative power to constitute who we are. Second, we share a perspective with those we love in a way that is not reducible to or derivative of our independent perspectives. Loving someone centrally involves the activity of forming concerns together, and we do this in a mode best understood on the model of playing a spontaneous game or improvising music. Finally, being loved enables us to see ourselves as distinctive and special, because the concern those who love us have for us does not track the objective merit of our characteristics. These dimensions of the intimacy that characterizes a loving relationship reveal what it is that we appeal for in love, and how we are hurt when our appeals are rebuffed. In broad terms, this dissertation advocates the recognition of a non-moral yet normative type of expectation, which is predominant in loving relationships. Humor and beauty, too, make more sense when understood in terms of this non-moral yet normative type of expectation, as they involve appeals to others that are more than mere predictions of, but less than rational demands for, a certain kind of response. Introducing this alternative notion of expectation into the discourse of moral philosophy can shed light on other common attitudes that are clearly normative, but defy translation into objective, third-personal terms. Such attitudes include certain experiences of pride and shame, apology and forgiveness, the bestowing of mercy, gratitude, agent-regret, and perhaps a basic sense of trust we have in others. Ultimately, I situate love in respect to grief, which demonstrates my theory’s ability to make sense of related dimensions of our emotional lives. The people we love and grieve over give us a sense of who we are as distinctive, particular individuals, as the three interrelated dimensions of intimacy in loving relationships reveal. Consequently, grief is best understood as a type of practical disorientation—namely, a disorientation that involves the loss of the personal self. I present my account of grief against the type of account that would draw philosophical conclusions about the nature of love and grief from empirical psychological data alone. In particular, these data indicate that we recover quickly from the deaths of loved ones, and Dan Moller draws the philosophical conclusion that those we love fulfill certain roles in our lives and are replaceable. In contrast, I contend that while we should acknowledge the truth of the objective judgment, made in the third-person, that we will likely recover after the deaths of those we love, it does not follow that we must affirm such a claim from the internal perspective of one person who loves another. As a result, the case of love and grief supports a general claim concerning the proper work of moral philosophy, which is that the understanding of ourselves gained through empirical data is not a substitute for the normative conclusions that are revealed through first-personal reflections on our relationships. (shrink)

Research in multi-agent systems typically assumes a regulative model of social practice. This model starts with agents who are already capable of acting autonomously to further their individual ends. A social practice, according to this view, is a way of achieving coordination between multiple agents by restricting the set of actions available. For example, in a world containing cars but no driving regulations, agents are free to drive on either side of the road. To prevent collisions, we introduce driving regulations, (...) insisting that everyone drives on the left hand side of the road. We accept this limitation on our freedom because it lowers the probability of a collision. -/- This paper describes AI systems that are based on the constitutive view of social practice. According to this alternative view, there are certain actions that are only available to the agent because he is participating in a practice of a certain sort. For example, you can swing a peculiarly shaped piece of wood without participating in any particular practice - but this action will only constitute a strike if you are participating in a game of baseball. I can raise my hand whenever I like, but this only counts as voting for the motion within the institution of voting. But not all the examples are from frivolous, optional or institutional activities. Sellars and Brandom argue that even the fundamental act of assertion is only possible within the context of a particular social practice: the Game of Giving and Asking for Reasons. -/- The constitutive view, which is familiar to philosophers, is relatively unknown within the AI community. -/- The central aim of this paper is to show how the constitutive view of practice can be put to use in AI applications. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta a Weber y Habermas como los umbrales o polos de una modernidad que tiene al progreso como horizonte teórico-práctico. El diagnóstico weberiano sobre la modernidad y su proceso de desencantamiento del mundo y la injustificada reducción de la actividad racional a una actividad utilitario-estratégica desprovista de su carácter veritativo y de su orientación valórica, Habermas la utiliza para justificar su propuesta teórico-crítica respecto a la modernidad y la "paradoja de la racionalización", distinguiendo "sistema" y "mundo vital". Aquí (...) "desencantamiento del mundo" y "consenso del proyecto de lamodernidad", se encuentranThis article presents Weber and Habermas like the thresholds or poles of a modernity that has to the progress as theoretical- practical horizon. The diagnosis weberiano on the modernity and his process of disenchantment of the world and the unjustified reduction of the rational activity to a utilitarian-strategic activity devoid of his character of truth, Habermas uses to justify his theoretical-critical offerwith regard to themodernity and the "paradox of the rationalization", distinguishing "system" and "vital world". Here "disenchantment of the world" and "consensus of the project of the modernity", they are. (shrink)

Constitutional dialogue has become an influential concept to understand the relationship between courts and other the institutional branches of the state, with the primary focus being on legislatures. More recently, the place of dialogue within the constitutional literature has been challenged as vague; providing a potential to over-reach or overstate the judicial role and distorting the reality of practices which in fact shape the relationship between courts and other institutions. Critics have placed into focus the question: should constitutional scholarship (...) abandon ‘constitutional dialogue’ as a way of understanding the relationship between courts and other institutions within the constitutional order? This article seeks to respond to this question by arguing that constitutional dialogue remains an important aspect of understanding the development of constitutional understanding about inter-institutional roles but does so by acknowledging the criticisms levelled against constitutional dialogue. Developing this approach, the argument made in this article seeks to recast the theoretical foundations of dialogue in constitutional theory by shifting the understanding of dialogue away from its normative and descriptive tethers. In its place, constitutional dialogue should be considered in the context of a philosophical understanding of language and the role that it plays to create constitutional meanings and experiences. Dialogue has a deeper and more significant register than a metaphor conveying a ‘conversation’, ‘communication’ or a ‘deliberative rationality’ between the institutions of the constitutional order—dialogue must be understood through the perspective of language as disclosing a world of common meaning and experience. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.3 (2002) 425-446 [Access article in PDF] Giving Orders: Theory and Practice in the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina Vicki Hsueh Indians. Of Edisto Ashapo and Combohe to the South our friends. Of Wando Ituan Sewee and Sehey to the north came to our assistance and were zealous and resolute in it 1000 bowmen In our want supplied us. Q. Spaniards. What we shall (...) doe to the Spaniards if we invade them we brake the peace, if we sit still we loose our reputation with the Indians our friends. Westoes. Inland man eaters. Country. To the northward more sickly, about Ashley River fertile and of a wonderful growth. Tatchequea. A very fruitfull Country 8. days jorney by the North west the Emperor our friend and enemy to the Westoes and to hard for them. Q. Settlem't. 500 people will secure the settlement 1000 perfect it. desires supplys of necessarys till that time Excerpt from Carolina Memoranda in the handwriting of John Locke, Esq., 15 September 1670 Within the last decade, scholars such as James Tully, Barbara Arneil, and Bhikhu Parekh have performed a crucial intervention on modern constitu-tionalism's behalf. 1 Not only has constitutionalism in the modern age been [End Page 425] plagued by assumptions of cultural uniformity and an on-going inability to adjudicate between competing cultural claims, but it has been unable effectively to diagnose those limitations and dilemmas. The root of the problem, James Tully suggests, is ultimately a matter of historical perspective. "[T]he tendency," he writes, "is not to notice the philosophical and ideological debates over the last three hundred years... only the result of these debates is seen—the victorious modern language of constitutional uniformity—and claims for recognition are viewed through its framework as if it were impartial and universal." 2 In response Tully and others have sought to tackle this predicament at its historical root. Identifying modern constitutionalism's colonial origins as a significant part of the problem, their studies address the development of constitutionalism and colonialism as an entwined phenomenon in the early modern period, focusing particularly on the British-American context. In this sense, Locke's Two Treatises of Government stands as an exemplary illustration of the period's entangled colonial and constitutional temperaments. Well-known for its influential articulation of compact and resistance, the Two Treatises, Barbara Arneil argues "were written as a defence of England's colonial policy in the new world against the sceptics in England and the counter-claims of both the aboriginal nations and other European powers in America." 3 Accordingly, present-day constitutionalism continues to bear the weighty legacy of those colonial rationales. "[T]he language of modern constitutionalism," Tully further explains, "which has come to be authoritative was designed to exclude or assimilate cultural diversity and justify uniformity. The design is difficult to see because this 'modern' language has become the customary way of thinking about, reflecting on and envisioning a just constitutional order." Ultimately, Tully submits, citing Wittgenstein, "A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably." 4This much-needed thickening of constitutionalism's historical context has enriched our awareness of constitutionalism's vexed origins, as it has proffered potent tools for interrogating current cultural adjudication. Yet, a troubling predicament persists. As if caught within the tenacious grip of the language of modern constitutionalism, Tully, Arneil, and Parekh insistently portray seventeenth-century British-American colonialism solely as a straightforward process of appropriation and assimilation without addressing or incorporating the [End Page 426] complex and contingent elements of that history in its emergence. Lacking the various negotiations and accommodations between settler and indigene in ambition and actualization, their portrayals crucially underplay the dynamic relationship between theories of constitutionalism and practices of colonialism—an approach that ultimately serves to reinscribe the narrative of triumphalist progress within their critiques. 5This problematic is the context for my reading of the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina,1669... (shrink)

This paper discusses three inter-related themes in Barbara Herman's Moral Literacy norm-constituted power completes’ practical reason or rational agency.

Agency and identity -- Necessitation -- Acts and actions -- Aristotle and Kant -- Agency and practical identity -- The metaphysics of normativity -- Constitutive standards -- The constitution of life -- In defense of teleology -- The paradox of self-constitution -- Formal and substantive principles of reason -- Formal versus substantive -- Testing versus weighing -- Maximizing and prudence -- Practical reason and the unity of the will -- The empiricist account of normativity -- The rationalist account of normativity (...) -- Kant on the hypothetical imperative -- Against particularistic willing -- Deciding and predicting -- Autonomy and efficacy -- The function of action -- The possibility of agency -- Non-rational action -- Action -- Attribution -- The psychology of action -- Expulsion from the garden : the transition to humanity -- Instinct, emotion, intelligence, and reason -- The parts of the soul -- Inside or outside -- Pull yourself together -- The constitutional model -- Models of the soul -- The city and the soul -- Platonic virtues -- Justice : substantive, procedural, and platonic -- Kant and the constitutional model -- Defective action -- The problem of bad action -- Being governed by the wrong law -- Or five bad constitutions -- Conceptions of evil -- Degrees of action -- Integrity and interaction -- Deciding to be bad -- The ordinary cases -- Dealing with the disunified -- Kant's theory of interaction -- My reasons -- Deciding to treat someone as an end in himself -- Interacting with yourself -- How to be a person -- What's left of me? (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I analyse Rahel Jaeggi’s socio-ontological account of forms of life. I show that her framework is a two-sided one, since it involves an understanding of forms of life both as inert bundles of practices and as having a normative structure. Here I argue that this approach is based on an a priori argument which assumes normativity as the condition of intelligibility of social criticism. I show that the intimate tension between these two sides is reflected (...) in the socio-ontological model of the constitution of social phenomena, which on the one side is understood in terms of habituation and materialization, and on the other side in terms of constitution through norms. The second side in the end prevails and leads to some sort of normative essentialism which involves a prescriptive meta-theoretical understanding of normativity combined with a socio-ontological model of constitutive rules. I then analyse two arguments that Jaeggi offers in support of her assumption that normative constitution is the deep structure of social practices. I name these the functional-teleological argument, and the crisis developmental argument, and argue that neither succeeds in proving that practices are not normatively underdetermined. (shrink)

n this paper, I analyse Rahel Jaeggi’s socio-ontological account of forms of life. I show that her framework is a two-sided one, since it involves an understanding of forms of life both as inert bundles of practices and as having a normative structure. Here I argue that this approach is based on an a priori argument which assumes normativity as the condition of intelligibility of social criticism. I show that the intimate tension between these two sides is reflected in (...) the socio-ontological model of the constitution of social phenomena, which on the one side is understood in terms of habituation and materialization, and on the other side in terms of constitution through norms. The second side in the end prevails and leads to some sort of normative essentialism which involves a prescriptive meta-theoretical understanding of normativity combined with a socio-ontological model of constitutive rules. I then analyse two arguments that Jaeggi offers in support of her assumption that normative constitution is the deep structure of social practices. I name these the functional- teleological argument, and the crisis developmental argument, and argue that neither succeeds in proving that practices are not normatively underdetermined. (shrink)

This book aims to distil the essentials of liberal constitutionalism from the jurisprudence and practice of contemporary liberal-democratic states. Most constitutional theorists have despaired of a liberal consensus on the fundamental goals of constitutional order. Instead they have contented themselves either with agreement on lower-level principles on which those who disagree on fundamentals may coincidentally converge, or, alternatively with a process for translating fundamental disgreement into acceptable laws. Alan Brudner suggests a conception of fundamental justice that liberals of competing philosophic (...) schools may accept as fulfilling their own basic commitments. He argues that the model liberal-democratic constitution is best understood as a unity of three constitutional frameworks: libertarian, egalitarian, and communitarian. Each of these has a particular conception of public reason. Brudner criticizes each of these frameworks insofar as its organizing conception claims to be fundamental, and moves forward to suggest an Hegelian conception of public reason within which each framework is contained as a constituent element of a whole. When viewed in this light, the liberal constitution embodies a surprising synthesis. It reconciles a commitment to individual liberty and freedom of conscience with the perfectionist idea that the state ought to cultivate a type of personality whose fundamental ends are the goods essential to dignity. Such a reconciliation, the author suggests, may attract competing liberalisms to a consensus on an inclusive conception of public reason under which political authority is validated for those who share a confidence in the individual's inviolable worth. (shrink)

This paper examines two reasons anthropological expertise has recently come to be considered relevant to American debates about the beginnings and ends of life. First, bioethicists and clinicians working to accommodate diverse perspectives into clinical decision-making have come to appreciate the importance of culture. Second, anthropologists are the recognized authorities on the cultural logic and behaviors of the “Other.” Yet the definitions of culture with which bioethicists and clinicians operate may differ from those used by contemporary anthropologists, who view culture (...) as a contingent, contested set of social practices that are continually formulated and re-negotiated in daily interactions. Using ethnographic examples, the author argues that the qualities that constitute “personhood” should be sought in social practices rather than in cognitive capacities or moral attributes. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate Libyan journalists’ perspectives regarding the media laws Articles 37,132, 38 and 46, which address media freedom in the new Libyan Constitution of 2017. Design/methodology/approach Focus group discussions were done with 35 Libyan journalists, 12 of them from the Constitution Committee, while 23 of them reported the update of the constitution in the Libyan Parliament. Findings The results of the study indicated that there were media laws articles that did not conform to (...) the international laws and United Nations treaties, which the Libyan Parliament committee approved. Another finding from the journalists was the Constitution should provide and guarantee press freedom, while media laws articles approved to put a paragraph about “censorship” in the press and media as a tool to silence government opposition. In addition, journalists indicated future constitution should redraft Article 38 to conform with Article 19 of the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” to support the “principles of freedom of expression and information” without control. Moreover, Article 46 needs to be changed and linked to the “provisions of international law on the right of information access” to improve the access and dissemination of information in the media. Practical implications Redrafting the constitution articles in the future can be summarised as follows: First, the Libyan Constitution should provide and guarantee press freedom without any censorship and include clear articles to protect journalists in conflict zones. Second, Articles 37,132 and 38, about “freedom of information and publication,” need to be redrafted to link with Article 19 of the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” to support the principles of freedom of expression and information, and the use of this right must not be subject to prior control. Third, Article 46 needs to be changed and linked to the provisions of “International law on the Right of Access to Information” to improve access and dissemination of information in the media to protect confidentiality sources. The most important articles should be implemented because after the Arab Spring revolutions, there was a transitional period in societies and a change in the constitutions of Tunisia and Egypt. They developed legal articles about media freedom so that Libya resembles other Arab countries. From that point, the journalists recommended that all information should be protected from government interference to ensure transparency, combat corruption and protect independent journalists. These articles will open the way to add more development articles to media freedom rules in the Journalists’ Syndicate. Fourth, there are also various types of threats encountered by journalists in their work. In pursuit of their right and freedom of expression, they recommended that Libya must establish an independent self-regulatory media that are free from political and economic influence. Fifth, journalists need licenses for them to work through the syndicate. The new syndicate should play an active role to safeguard the rights of journalists, activists and media entities to carry out their work and end the self-censorship. Sixth, the constitution should also add articles to end the impunity and change the articles in the penal code. Overall, the journalists covering the conflict and war are encountering threats, violence and imprisonment. As a result, Libyan journalists must seek new legislation to defend independent journalism and freedom of expression in their deeply divided country. In addition, they need to have a strong central authority to defend journalists and journalism in wartime, where journalists are regularly threatened, abducted and sometimes killed. Also, the Libyan Journalists Syndicate should stress the importance of the media’s self-regulation to guarantee their rights to freedom of expression, grant their readers’ respect and minimise government’s interference. Finally, they need to develop new laws to grant media freedom from regulations and restrictions, as well as defend and promote democracy, the citizens’ right to be informed, as well as their right to discuss and disseminate information. There is also the need to implement articles in the constitution, articles about the protection of political speech, which would be specific enough to differentiate between what is legally permitted and what may be ethically offensive. Originality/value This study will help the new Libyan parliament after the legislative elections on 24 December 2021 to amend the media laws articles in the constitution. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 237-241 [Access article in PDF] Practical, Functional, and Natural Kinds Nick Haslam Keywords: Classification, essentialism, natural kinds, practical kinds. I am grateful to the two commentators for giving my paper their serious attention, and for writing such stimulating, clarifying, and challenging responses. In a brief response I can only begin to discuss a select few issues, although both commentaries could generate a great (...) deal of profitable exchange.Zachar's commentary elaborates his practical kinds model, discusses several of the graded series of kinds proposed in my taxonomy of psychiatric categories, and disputes some aspects of my treatment of natural kinds. Zachar and I have no quarrel on his first point. I recognize his practical kinds model as a general theory of psychiatric classification rather than simply as a description of one type of category, the "practical kind." It was perhaps bad form to pilfer a term from Zachar's model and give it a more circumscribed role in my own, although by doing so I intended both to acknowledge the importance of the concept and to situate it among some of its alternatives.All the same, I stand by the account of practical kinds developed in my paper, even if it reflects a narrower sense than Zachar's. In my sense, practical kinds are pragmatically drawn distinctions imposed on continuous dimensions, whereas to Zachar all psychiatric categories are at least to some degree practical. He therefore proposes a broad "continuum" of practical kinds. The difficulty that I have with this proposal is that such a continuum implies a fundamental unity among psychiatric categories: categories are all to be understood first and foremost in pragmatic terms and differences in kind between them in internal structure are to be neglected. In my view, although the pragmatic bases of psychiatric classification are vitally important, and perhaps inadequately formulated in my paper, the neglect of internal structure and of possible breaks in the continuum of kinds are real limitations of the practical kinds model. Although Zachar is partially justified in claiming that his view is pluralistic, allowing as it does for variability in degrees of practicality, by failing to acknowledge distinctly different kinds of categories in the psychiatric domain, his view is less pluralistic than I believe it should be.One example of what I take to be this neglect of structural differences is a conflation of two sorts of practicality in Zachar's work. On the one hand, certain categories such as hypertension or obesity are defined on pragmatic grounds, a binary distinction being drawn in the absence of an internal discontinuity, because individuals identified as category members are adjudged to [End Page 237] be at significantly elevated risk. On the other hand, some categories just happen to have high practical utility. Zachar argues that schizotaxia, for example, is practical because it affords a variety of scientific and clinical inferences.It seems to me that these sorts of practicality—or perhaps these sorts of relations to practicality—are importantly different. Hypertension is defined as a category because of its practical utility—because a certain blood pressure threshold marks an inflection in actuarial risk of other illnesses—and might therefore be said to have "front-end" or constitutive practicality. Schizotaxia, which taxometric research shows to be a discrete kind (Haslam, 2003), is not defined and identified primarily on the basis of its relation to an external criterion, but on the basis of its internal structure. Its features cohere in a way that indicates a category with a determinate prevalence. It has "back-end" or consequential practicality to the degree that this category enables useful predictions. These two proposed forms of practicality are equally important: both mean that categories will be pragmatically valuable. However, they are also different, being characteristic of different kinds of categories and perhaps even negatively related. Kinds with front-end practicality, that is, may tend to have a more restricted range of practical implications, defined as they are in relation to specific external criteria. Kinds with back-end practicality, in contrast, may enable a wider array of predictions to the extent that... (shrink)

Recently, we initiated a new research line on fulfillment in life by developing a conceptual framework and a self-report measure. To enhance conceptual clarity and complement theoretical considerations and empirical findings, we investigated lay conceptions of a fulfilled life in German-speaking participants at different life stages. First, we selected a qualitative approach using an open-ended question asking participants to describe a fulfilled life. Second, for a more comprehensive understanding, quantitative data were collected about the relevance of sources in providing fulfillment (...) and ratings on a fulfilling life in the present and a fulfilled life in retrospect. Qualitative content analysis was used to assess the responses to the open-ended question. One-fifth of the data was double coded, and intercoder reliability was high. Responses comprised a variety of descriptions, and we grouped them into seven themes, three of which overlapped with the prior conceptualization, namely the core elements of general description, cognitive appraisals, and affective appraisals. Cognitive evaluations related to intrapersonal aspects, particularly having lived life fully, attained personally significant goals, and developed oneself, as well as interpersonal, generative aspects, such as having made a contribution and been able to leave something of value. These categories are mostly in line with what the Fulfilled Life Scale measures. Further themes referred to correlates—including sources—and antecedents, including resources, personal characteristics, and quality of life, all considered worthy to be the subject of empirical investigation but which were not included in the conceptual model. Qualitative and quantitative results suggest that individuals derive fulfillment from different sources. Fulfillment from a profession and having a life task was strongly associated with longer-term fulfillment. Only a few age and sex differences were found. The overarching framework developed from the qualitative results can stimulate further investigation. Our findings underscore that a fulfilled life as a distinct construct should be measured directly rather than via a proxy. Insights into the constituents, sources, and antecedents of a fulfilled life can inform practice to promote a life well lived. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that one of the standards that governs practical reasoning is the stability standard. The stability standard, I argue, is a norm that is constitutive of practical reasoning: insofar as we do not take violations of this norm to be relevant considerations, we do not count as engaged in reasoning at all. Furthermore, I argue that it is a standard we can explicitly employ in order to deliberate about our ends or desires themselves. Importantly, this standard (...) will not require that some ends are prescribed or determined by reason alone. (edited). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.2 (2003) 119-134 [Access article in PDF] The Constitution of Rhetoric's Tradition Maurice Charland Rhetoric is not a discipline. That is to say, as a domain of theoretical and practical knowledge, rhetoric is weakly institutionalized, lacking a centralized arbiter and standardized set of procedures for establishing truth claims. It also lacks the basic characteristics that Michel Foucault defines as disciplinary, for while we can identify "groups (...) of objects, methods, their corpus of properties considered to be true, the interplay of rules and definitions, of techniques and tools," these are neither universally admitted, nor do they "constitute a sort of anonymous system, freely available to whoever wishes, or whoever is able to make use of them, without their being any question of their meaning" (1972, 222). On the contrary, despite the fact that rhetoric is usually figured as offering practical and, indeed, positive knowledge, the meaning of its terms is always being questioned and at stake. While we might, by considering terms loosely, seek to identify rhetoric in terms of objects such as "persuasion," or "discourse," these are not exclusively its province. Furthermore, the ends of rhetoric are themselves unclear. Is rhetoric really the art of discovering the available means of persuasion? Or is it an art of citizenship? Or a method of enquiry? It has at times been defined as each. Consequently, none of these methods can fix its identity. At most, we can say that "rhetoric," as a domain of knowledge, signals a commitment to the idea of agency in discourse.Rhetoric, while not disciplinary, nevertheless "hangs together" as a domain of knowledge even though it does not cohere conceptually. It is, or comes close to being, a "discursive formation." That is to say, we can identify a field that produces statements concerning discourse and its operations, which is characterized by certain regularities that articulate with the term rhetoric itself. The first such regularity is the gesture of negation. Rhetoric refuses philosophy (or acts out having been refused by philosophy). [End Page 119] Rhetoric further is defined against other intellectual genres: rhetoric is not poetics, is not political science, is not ethics, though it may "speak" to them. Ultimately, though, this tells us very little about the nature of rhetoric's difference, for while refusal is effective in positing the existence of a boundary between rhetoric and other domains, the location of that boundary and what it contains remains unspecified. Rhetoric must also be attributed an at least provisional sense. This is accomplished by rhetoric's second gesture, which initially appears more substantial. Rhetoric is framed in terms of the positivity of a foundational "tradition." Indeed, the gesture toward tradition is ubiquitous. Consider, for example, both the title and principles of organization of Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg's (1990) anthology, George Kennedy's (1998) recursion to the idea of "tradition" even as he attempts to present rhetoric as a natural and cross-cultural phenomenon, recent feminist works that explicitly address "the tradition," 1 the routine citation of Classical authorities and examples, the recurrence of "new" rhetorics, including Burke's dramatism, Perelman's theory of argumentation, as well as Barthes' semiotics, which are offered as supplements to tradition's lacks, and, finally, the energy devoted to the study of the history of rhetoric. The rhetorical tradition, as something bequeathed or put in play by ancient teachers, appears to offer rhetoric a substance, a literature, and a set of problems, particularly through variants of two other principles of discursive formation identified by Foucault, commentary and the author-function. Even so, the gesture toward tradition does not imply the existence of a historically rooted and fixed corpus or model: "Tradition" is a vague term, there is no unproblematic canon of texts to be commented upon, and tradition itself, rather than Aristotle, Plato, or Cicero, stands as "author." What we debate is the meaning of the "tradition," the uneasy relationship between Socrates and Sophists, Plato and Aristotle, but as positions rather than personae. Furthermore, in the name of rhetoric, ancient and modern texts are often read against the grain, and what is... (shrink)

Background Bioethics and law distinguish between the practices of "physician-assisted death" and "allowing the patient to die." Discussion Advances in biotechnology have allowed medical devices to be used as destination therapy that are designed for the permanent support of cardiac function and/or respiration after irreversible loss of these spontaneous vital functions. For permanent support of cardiac function, single ventricle or biventricular mechanical assist devices and total artificial hearts are implanted in the body. Mechanical ventilators extrinsic to the body are (...) used for permanent support of respiration. Clinical studies have shown that destination therapy with ventricular assist devices improves patient survival compared to medical management, but at the cost of a substantial alteration in end-of-life trajectories. The moral and legal assessment of the appropriateness and permissibility of complying with a patient's request to electively discontinue destination therapy in a life-terminating act in non-futile situations has generated controversy. Some argue that complying with this request is ethically justified because patients have the right to request withdrawal of unwanted treatment and be allowed to die of preexisting disease. Other commentators reject the argument that acceding to an elective request for death by discontinuing destination therapy is 'allowing a patient to die' because of serious flaws in interpreting the intention, causation, and moral responsibility of the ensuing death. Summary Destination therapy with cardiac and/or ventilatory medical devices replaces native physiological functions and successfully treats a preexisting disease. We posit that discontinuing cardiac and/or ventilatory support at the request of a patient or surrogate can be viewed as allowing the patient to die if--and only if--concurrent lethal pathophysiological conditions are present that are unrelated to those functions already supported by medical devices in destination therapy. In all other cases, compliance with a patient's request constitutes physician-assisted death because of the pathophysiology induced by the turning off of these medical devices, as well as the intention, causation, and moral responsibility of the ensuing death. The distinction between allowing the patient to die and physician-assisted death is pivotal to the moral and legal status of elective requests for death by discontinuing destination cardiac and/or ventilatory medical devices in patients who are not imminently dying. This distinction also represents essential information that must be disclosed to patients and surrogates in advance of consent to this type of therapy. (shrink)

The dissertation defends that the often-assumed link between constructivism and universalism builds on non-constructivist, perfectionist grounds. To this end, I argue that an exemplary form of universalist constructivism – i.e., O’Neill’s Kantian constructivism – can defend its universalist commitments against an influential particularist form of constructivism – i.e., political liberalism as advanced by Rawls, Macedo, and Larmore – only if it invokes a perfectionist view of the good. (En route, I show why political liberalism is a form of particularism and (...) reconstruct the role of its conception of public justification, its implied contextualism about justified belief, its conceptions of toleration, neutrality, good reasons, and legitimacy, and, not least, its justification-constitutive conception of reasonableness.) Contrary to what is often assumed, then, at the level of a vindication of the very project of a universalist constructivism, universalist constructivists should construe perfectionists not as their opponents, but as partial, though uneasy, allies. (shrink)

Words and Life (= WL) is a bulky collection of 29 essays, edited and introduced by James Conant. Pragmatism: An Open Question (= P) is a much thinner collection, dedicated to Conant, of just three lectures. Taken together, the two books constitute an argument for pragmatism as a viable option in contemporary philosophy, and a new (pragmatic) basis for what remains viable in the philosophical and political ideals of the Enlightenment. As in a previous collection of essays (Putnam 1990), Conant’s (...) role appears to be more than just editorial. In his own lengthy introductions, he gives Putnam’s work an interpretive ‘spin’, of which Putnam, for his part, seems to approve. Together, Putnam and Conant develop a strain of pragmatism which is well worth looking into.1 Putnam’s pragmatism is best captured by the quote from Cavell (1979: p. 125) which appears as the motto on the title page of the 1994 collection, and from which its title – ‘Words and Life’ – is derived. It is the view that although philosophy is an open ended practice of reflection, rather than a purely contemplative theory of one kind or another, the practice in question is at one and the same time a part of culture (immanence) and a step beyond it (transcendence). In Cavell’s language, the task of such reflection (‘philosophizing’) is ‘to confront culture with itself, along the lines in which it meets in me’, where the self in question – the individual qua philosopher – appears to be engulfed by culture even as he is confronting it from the outside. On this interpretation, Putnam’s appeal to practice in philosophy is part of an attempt to keep its transcendent, or critical, dimension alive, even while recognizing philosophy’s radical embeddedness in culture and tradition, and the futility of seeking some God’s-eye view from which reality as such is to be viewed.2 The question is whether, and how, these two perspectives can be held together. If our standards of rational criticism transcend any particular culture in terms of their scope and authority, how can they also be embedded in culture and immanent to it? Can pragmatism offer a coherent synthesis of these two dimensions.. (shrink)

Movements tend to employ instituent practices and to acquire constitutive characteristics when they set up the material foundations of their collective autonomy, i.e. when they establish socially reproductive commons, democratically producing forms of life that respond to basic needs of the participants to the commons. The legal recognition of the sphere of the commons and the freedom of people to share, co-establish and self-regulate whole infrastructures of their social production is therefore not a negligible change but a complete reversal (...) of the logic currently underlying our legal order. It is, therefore, clear that to the end of multiplying and expanding the sphere of the commons we need to invent a new theory of a law of the commons and a hybrid and transitional semi-state ius communis, which will be capable of incorporating the acquis of social movements and receptive to emerging forms of life of the oppressed. (shrink)

Mechanistic approaches are very common in the causal interpretation of biological and neuroscientific experimental work in today’s philosophy of science. In the mechanistic literature a strict distinction is often made between causal relations and constitutive relations, where the latter cannot be causal. One of the typical reasons for this strict distinction is that constitutive relations are supposedly synchronic whereas most if not all causal relations are diachronic. This strict distinction gives rise to a number of problems, however. Our end goal (...) in this paper is to argue that it should be given up, at least in the context of the biological and the psychological sciences. To that effect, we argue that constitutive relations in this context are diachronic, thus undermining the aforementioned reason. We offer two cases from scientific practice in which constitutive relations are regarded as both diachronic and causally efficacious, review three existing ways of dealing with the apparent diachronic nature of interlevel relations in mechanisms and propose a new account of diachronic, causal constitutive relevance. (shrink)

The first section takes up some main details of American constitutional history. At the end of that section and in section two, we concentrate on one constitutional doctrine in particular, judicial review. We argue that this doctrine rests, traditionally, on the foundational idea of a permanent tension between democratic institutions and basic rights. In section three, we deal with the problem just raised, by suggesting an alternative view of the relationship that exists between these fundamental constitutional elements. Here we attempt (...) to show that there is an essential principled harmony between basic constitutional rights and democratic majority rule. And we try to locate judicial review within this alternative conception. Then in section four and in the conclusion we discuss the institutional arrangements for the practice of judicial review in the light of this alternative conception. (shrink)

In June 2019 Victoria became the first state in Australia to permit “voluntary assisted dying”, with its governance detailed in the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017. While taking lead from the regulation of medically assisted death practices in other parts of the world, Victoria’s legislation nevertheless remains distinct. The law in Victoria only makes VAD available to persons determined to be “already dying”: it is expressly limited to those medically prognosed to die “within weeks or months.” In this article, (...) we discuss the emergence of the Victorian legislation across key formative documents. We show how, in devising VAD exclusively for those “already at the end of their lives”, the Victorian state mobilizes the medico-legal category of the already dying. We argue that this category functions to negotiate a path between what are seen as the unacceptable alternatives of violent suicide on the one hand, and an unlimited right to die on the other. Further, we argue that the category of the already dying operates to make medical practitioners the gatekeepers of this new life-ending choice and effectively limits the realization of autonomy at the end of life. (shrink)

Beauty and the End of Art shows how a resurgence of interest in beauty and a sense of ending in Western art are challenging us to rethink art, beauty and their relationship. By arguing that Wittgenstein's later work and contemporary theory of perception offer just what we need for a unified approach to art and beauty, Sonia Sedivy provides new answers to these contemporary challenges. These new accounts also provide support for the Wittgensteinian realism and theory of perception that make (...) them possible. -/- Wittgenstein's subtle form of realism explains artworks in terms of norm governed practices that have their own varied constitutive norms and values. Wittgensteinian realism also suggests that diverse beauties become available and compelling in different cultural eras and bring a shared 'higher-order' value into view. With this framework in place, Sedivy argues that perception is a form of engagement with the world that draws on our conceptual capacities. This approach explains how perceptual experience and the perceptible presence of the world are of value, helping to account for the diversity of beauties that are available in different historical contexts and why the many faces of beauty allow us to experience the value of the world's perceptible presence. -/- Carefully examining contemporary debates about art, aesthetics and perception, Beauty and the End of Art presents an original approach. Insights from such diverse thinkers as Immanuel Kant, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Arthur Danto, Alexander Nehamas, Elaine Scarry and Dave Hickey are woven together to reveal how they make good sense if we bring contemporary theory of perception and Wittgensteinian realism into the conversation. (shrink)

BackgroundBioethics and law distinguish between the practices of "physician-assisted death" and "allowing the patient to die."DiscussionAdvances in biotechnology have allowed medical devices to be used as destination therapy that are designed for the permanent support of cardiac function and/or respiration after irreversible loss of these spontaneous vital functions. For permanent support of cardiac function, single ventricle or biventricular mechanical assist devices and total artificial hearts are implanted in the body. Mechanical ventilators extrinsic to the body are used for permanent (...) support of respiration. Clinical studies have shown that destination therapy with ventricular assist devices improves patient survival compared to medical management, but at the cost of a substantial alteration in end-of-life trajectories. The moral and legal assessment of the appropriateness and permissibility of complying with a patient's request to electively discontinue destination therapy in a life-terminating act in non-futile situations has generated controversy. Some argue that complying with this request is ethically justified because patients have the right to request withdrawal of unwanted treatment and be allowed to die of preexisting disease. Other commentators reject the argument that acceding to an elective request for death by discontinuing destination therapy is 'allowing a patient to die' because of serious flaws in interpreting the intention, causation, and moral responsibility of the ensuing death.SummaryDestination therapy with cardiac and/or ventilatory medical devices replaces native physiological functions and successfully treats a preexisting disease. We posit that discontinuing cardiac and/or ventilatory support at the request of a patient or surrogate can be viewed as allowing the patient to die if--and only if--concurrent lethal pathophysiological conditions are present that are unrelated to those functions already supported by medical devices in destination therapy. In all other cases, compliance with a patient's request constitutes physician-assisted death because of the pathophysiology induced by the turning off of these medical devices, as well as the intention, causation, and moral responsibility of the ensuing death. The distinction between allowing the patient to die and physician-assisted death is pivotal to the moral and legal status of elective requests for death by discontinuing destination cardiac and/or ventilatory medical devices in patients who are not imminently dying. This distinction also represents essential information that must be disclosed to patients and surrogates in advance of consent to this type of therapy. (shrink)

Clinical practice is where the clinical encounter and decision-making occur. Thus, it constitutes the focus of medicine. Since the time of Hippocrates, it has been composed of five activities that have come to be known as anamnesis, i.e., history taking or clinical interview, diagnosis, prognosis, therapy, and prevention. These five activities are fundamental features of the healing relationship. The present chapter is devoted to the analysis and discussion of their logical, methodological, and philosophical problems. Usually, the patient expects the physician (...) to be an expert of her specialty devoid of a bad reputation. This constitutes what may be called a good doctor, i.e., one whose clinical decisions are right and good in most cases, at least in as many cases as another expert in the same area also achieves. In what follows, we shall analyze the characteristics and presuppositions of such right and good clinical decisions. To this end, we shall undertake a conceptual analysis of the clinical encounter and its outcomes, in order to develop a theory of clinical practice. Our analysis consists of the following five parts: 9.1 The Clinical Encounter; 9.2 Anamnesis and Diagnosis; 9.3 Prognosis; 9.4 Therapy; 9.5 Prevention. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China. By G.E.R. Lloyd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi + 175. Price not given.The Art of the Han Essay: Wang Fu's Ch'ien-Fu Lun. By Anne Behnke Kinney. Tempe: Center for Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1990. Pp. xi + 154. Paper $10.00.The Autobiography of Jamgön Kongtrul: A Gem of Many Colors. By Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrön (...) Thayé and translated by Richard Barron (Chökyi Nyima). Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2003. Pp. xxii + 549. Price not given.Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyō. By William R. LaFleur. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xiii + 173. Paper $14.95.Becoming the Compassion Buddha: Tantric Mahamudra for Everyday Life. By Lama Thubten Yeshe, edited by Robina Courtin, and foreword by Geshe Lhundub Sopa. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xi + 194. Paper $14.95.Between Two Worlds East and West: An Autobiography. By J. N. Mohanty. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 134. Hardcover RS 525.00.The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. Edited by Roman Malek, S.V.D. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica and China-Zentrum; and Nettetal, Germany: Steyler Verlag, 2002. Pp. 391. EUR 40.00.Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis. By Volker Scheid. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 407. Hardcover $69.95. Paper $23.95.Confucian Feminist: Memoirs of Zeng Baosun (1893-1978). Translated and adapted by Thomas L. Kennedy. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002. Pp. xxi + 170. Price not given.Consciousness Studies: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. By K. Ramakrishna Rao. Jefferson (North Carolina) and London: McFarland and Company, 2002. Pp. 367. Hardcover $65.00.Constituting Communities: Theravāda Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia. Edited by John Clifford Holt, Jacob N. Kinnard, and Jonathan S. Walters. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 224. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.Developments in Indian Philosophy from Eighteenth Century Onwards: Classical and Western. By Daya Krishna. Volume X Part 1 of History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, edited by D. P. Chattopadhyaya. New [End Page 110] Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2001. Pp. xxiii + 417. Hardcover RS 1200.East and West: Identità e dialogo interculturale. By Giangiorgio Pasqualotto. Venezia: Marsilo Editori, 2003. Pp. 210. EUR 16.00.Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. By Edward Slingerland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 352. Price not given.Encountering Kā lī: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Edited by Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xviii + 321. Hardcover $55.00, £37.95. Paper $21.95, £15.95.Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy. Edited by Antonio S. Cua. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xx + 1020. Hardcover $150.00.Essays on Indian Philosophy. By J. N. Mohanty and edited by Purushottama Bilimoria. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xxxvii + 347. Paper RS 525.00.Faith, Humor, and Paradox. By Ignacio L. Götz. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2002. Pp. 136. Hardcover $61.95.Four Illusions: Candrakīrti's Advice for Travelers on the Bodhisattva Path. Translated by Karen C. Lang. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xv + 240. Price not given.The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory. By David R. Loy. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. 223. Paper $16.95.The Hidden History of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. By Bryan J. Cuevas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 328. Price not given.Huang Di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text. By Paul U. Unschuld. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 520. Hardcover $75.00, £52.00.In Dewey's Wake: Unfinished Work of Pragmatic Reconstruction. Edited by William J. Gavin. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. vi + 249. Hardcover $71.50. Paper $23.95.Knowledge and Freedom in Indian Philosophy. By Tara Chatterjea. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2002. Pp. xvi + 159. Hardcover... (shrink)

This paper defends a neo-Aristotelian conception of practical wisdom as a virtue that enables human agents to reflect on and direct their lives toward virtuous ends over time. This view is sometimes assumed to require a commitment to an intellectualist Grand End or blueprint view. On that view, practical wisdom would require philosophical insight and an implausibly well worked out set of weighted preferences. In this paper, I aim to show that particularists can and should take on much of what (...) was thought to belong to the Grand End view. I argue for a conception of practical wisdom as a virtue of extended action that accounts for overarching ends without the need to appeal to an unrealistic, intellectualized blueprint for life. Further, on the view advocated here, as in Aristotle, practical wisdom is a virtue of substantial rationality and a different capacity from instrumental rationality in that it requires reflection on what constitutes a good human life. This is not high-minded philosophical reflection and is, in fact, something rather mundane that draws on the same rational capacities we deploy to assess the goodness of actions. (shrink)

In this chapter, we consider how a commitment to acting in a child’s interestsChild's interests can be brought to bear on three specific ethical quandaries that face those caring for children at the end of lifeEnd-of-life, and how such a commitment might seem to cohere or be in tension with other principles such as autonomyAutonomy and justiceJustice. We examine the status of ‘do not resuscitateDo Not Resuscitate ’ orders in children and argue that they cannot exist in children in the (...) same form as in adults. Since the standard of ethical permissibility is set by the interestsInterest of the child, rather than the preferencesPreferences of parentParents or doctor, there is no single person with authorityAuthority to agree an adult-style DNRDo Not Resuscitate. Looking at clinically-assisted feeding or hydrationHydration, we argue that withholding, withdrawing, commencing or continuing it each constitutes an intervention and needs to be carefully justified by considering its burdens and harmsHarm in the broadest sense reasonableReasonable. Finally, we consider ‘palliative sedationPalliative sedation’ and suggest that, while there are circumstances under which sedation is an inevitable result of adequate symptom controlSymptom control, impaired consciousness does not of itself represent a way to control symptoms and should not be deliberately induced. (shrink)

As readers of The Rhetorical Presidency might expect, the Framers’ remarks at the Constitutional Convention revealed a deep concern about popular political ignorance—and a desire to shield the new government from it. However, when it came to designing the presidency, the Founders seem to have been less intent on insulating sitting presidents from the mass public than on guarding the presidents’ selection itself against elite factions that might take advantage of the public’s ignorance. The resulting constitutional structure left the actual (...) relationship between the president and the public open‐ended. In short order, even the most restrained, patrician presidents took advantage of the opportunity to invoke, and to shape, public opinion—setting the stage for Andrew Jackson’s, and his Democratic successors’, more aggressive presidential populism. (shrink)

The overall aim of this two-part paper is to provide a supplement to ability theories of practice in terms of a defense of the following thesis: Individuals’ ability to act appropriately sometimes depends on their exercise of the ability directly to perceive normative states. In part I, I presented the account of direct perception. In this part II, I argue that, by the lights of this account, normative states are sometimes directly perceptible. Also, I show that the ability directly to (...) perceive normative states is a commonly possessed—and exercised—ability. On this basis, I establish the conclusion that, in situations of social interaction, individuals’ ability to act appropriately is sometimes underwritten by their exercise of the ability directly to perceive normative states. By way of ending, I briefly explain the different ways in which my discussion constitutes both a useful supplement to ability theories of practice and a reply to an important objection raised against these theories. (shrink)

In this chapter, we revisit some of these central and unresolved practical problems facing contemporary African philosophy. We have identified racism, poverty, religion, gender, Afrophobia, sexuality, democracy and environment as some of the topical and contentious issues in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. Although these issues have been extensively dealt with in the literature in philosophy in general, they have largely been understood from different Western philosophical persuasions. Even though some African philosophers have considered these issues, there is still a lack of (...) robust conversations on the possible directions that humanity, especially from the African perspective ought to take on each of these important issues prompting the need for further interrogation into these. We, therefore, seek to consider how these issues might be conceptualised in sub-Saharan Africa without necessarily reproducing Western philosophical paradigms. For each of these topics, we show how it constitutes a problem to contemporary Africa by drawing the reader’s attention to the reality of each of the problems in contemporary Africa such as colour prejudice, discrimination, poverty, religious extremism and violent conflicts, human rights violations, gender inequality and violence, intolerance, xenophobia and Afrophobia, bad governance, state capture and the ecological crisis. We then analyse how each of the problems has so far been articulated, understood and circumscribed within the African philosophical traditions. In the end, we seek to propose how to ground new philosophical perspectives by which to understand these issues beyond the existing contemporary philosophical perspectives. (shrink)

Abstract: Practical deliberation is deliberation concerning what to do governed by norms on intention (e.g. means-end coherence and consistency), which are taken to be a mark of rational deliberation. According to the theory of practical deliberation I develop in this paper we should think of the norms of rational practical deliberation ecologically: that is, the norms that constitute rational practical deliberation depend on the complex interaction between the psychological capacities of the agent in question and the agent's environment. I argue (...) that this view does a better job of justifying particular norms for practical deliberation than intrinsic or constitutivist theories. Finally, I argue against the Myth Theory of deliberation, which takes there to be no such norms on deliberation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Most medical learned societies have endorsed both "equivalence" between all forms of withholding or withdrawing treatment and the "discontinuity" between euthanasia and practices to withhold or withdraw treatment. While the latter are morally acceptable insofar as they consist in letting the patient die, the former constitutes an illegitimate act of actively interfering with a patient's life. The moral distinction between killing and letting die has been hotly debated both conceptually and empirically, most notably by experimental philosophers, with inconclusive results. (...) This article employs a "revisionary" intuititionist perspective to discuss the results of a clinical ethics study about intensivists' perceptions of withhold or withdraw decisions. The results show that practitioners' moral experience is at odds with both the discontinuity and equivalence theses. This outcome allows us to revisit certain concepts, such as intention and causal relationship, that are prominent in the conceptual debate. Intensivists also regard end-of-life decisions as being on a scale from least to most active, and whether they regard active forms of end-of-life decisions as ethically acceptable depends on the overarching professional values they endorse: the patient's best chances of survival, or the patient's quality of life. (shrink)

This paper considers the economic effect of the Christian practice of forgiveness. In particular, the argument is that the gift of divine forgiveness in Christ, as articulated by Anselm, interrupts `economy' (with its logic of scarcity, debt, and finally death) and puts in place an aneconomic order (with its theo-logic of abundance, ceaseless generosity, and resurrection) that is full of the promise of deliverance from the affliction of capitalism. Also addressed here is the way that the human reception of divine (...) forgiveness takes shape in the Works of Mercy, how these works are not rightly understood as `mere charity' at home within `economy' but in fact constitute the appearance of an order that heralds the end of economy, and, finally, how this practice of forgiveness redeems/ reconfigures what is commonly called `economic justice'. (shrink)

End-of-life decision making constitutes a major challenge for bioethical deliberation and political governance in modern democracies: On the one hand, it touches upon fundamental convictions about life, death, and the human condition. On the other, it is deeply rooted in religious traditions and historical experiences and thus shows great socio-cultural diversity. The bioethical discussion of such cultural issues oscillates between liberal individualism and cultural stereotyping. Our paper confronts the bioethical expert discourse with public moral attitudes. The paper is based on (...) a qualitative study comprising 12 focus group discussions with religious and secular persons in the USA, Germany, and Israel. Considering the respective socio-political and legal frameworks, the thematic analysis focuses on moral attitudes towards end-of-life decision making and explores the complex interplay between individual preferences, culture, and religion. Our findings draw attention to the variety and complexity of cultural and religious aspects of end-of-life decision making. Although there is local consensus that goes beyond radical individualism, positions are not neatly matched with national cultures or religious denominations. Instead, the relevance of the specific situatedness of religious beliefs and cultural communities becomes visible: Their status and role in individual situations, for example, as consensual or conflicting on the level of personal perspectives, family relationships, or broader social contexts, e.g., as a majority or minority culture within a political system. As the group discussions indicate, there are no clear-cut positions anchored in “nationality,” “culture,” or “religion.” Instead, attitudes are personally decided on as part of a negotiated context representing the political, social and existential situatedness of the individual. Therefore, more complex theoretical and practical approaches to cultural diversity have to be developed. (shrink)

In this review essay, I offer a summary of Brian E. Butler’s The Democratic Constitution: Experimentalism and Interpretation. Butler’s democratic experimentalism offers the thesis that democracy needs to be protected democratically rather than by relying on the judicial supremacy over constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court. Butler illustrates what democratic experimentalism looks like through a close reading of key cases showing the virtues of an on-going, open-ended, empirical, fallibilist, and collaborative approach to constitutional interpretation against rival formalist and exclusionary theories. (...) Butler relies on Richard Posner’s iconoclastic empirical approach to adjudication in advancing his thesis. However, Posner is skeptical of the Deweyan democracy Butler deploys to illustrate the democratic constitution. Further, Posner dismisses the philosophical pragmatism of Peirce and Dewey that Butler uses to ground his theory. Because of Butler’s reliance on Posner’s judicial practice and his side-stepping of Posner’s views on democracy and philosophical pragmatism, I ask how Butler’s proposal stands in relation to the ways it departs from Posner’s theory, if not his practice. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that in order to secure some of his system’s key commitments, Fichte employs argumentation essentially patterned after the technique of practical postulation in Kant. This is a mode of reasoning that mobilizes a distinctly Kantian notion of nonepistemic justification, which itself is premised upon a broadly Kantian conception of the nature of reason. Succinctly stated, such argumentation proceeds essentially as follows. (1) By the basic nature and operations of rationality, every rational being is, as such, (...) committed to E as an ultimate end (final purpose, highest goal). (2) E can be understood as actually attainable only if descriptive proposition P is assented to. (3) We cannot, in principle, possess genuine evidence for or against P; therefore, (4) while we do not have (and never could have) good epistemic grounds for assenting to P, we do have (and always will have) perfectly sufficient rational grounds for doing so. While this assent has no basis in pertinent evidence, it nonetheless has an unshakeable foundation in the basic operations and requirements of rationality. This is so because this assent (a) sustains a commitment integral to rationality as such, and (b) affirms a proposition that no evidence could ever discredit. I proceed to discuss what I take to be two instances of this sort of argumentation in Fichte: first, The Vocation of Man's unusual argument for belief in the real existence of a world transcendent to human representations, and second, the same work's subsequent depiction of that world as strictly mentalistic (immaterial, intellectual, teleological) in its true constitution. VM portrays both positions as decisive determinants of the overall upshot of the Wissenschaftslehre (WL), and explicitly casts them as articles of “faith” or “belief” (Glaube), grounded in unshakeable ethical conviction, by contrast with items of “knowledge” (Wissen). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Approaching the End: Eschatological Reflections on Church, Politics, and Life by Stanley Hauerwas, and: Without Apology: Sermons for Christ’s Church by Stanley HauerwasLaura M. HartmanApproaching the End: Eschatological Reflections on Church, Politics, and Life Stanley Hauerwas grand rapids, mi: eerdmans, 2013. 251 pp. $24.00Without Apology: Sermons for Christ’s Church Stanley Hauerwas new york: seabury books, 2013. 169 pp. $18.00Stanley Hauerwas is prolific. By my count, there are forty-six (...) books to his name, including these two from 2013. And yet in the preface to Without Apology, he writes, “I am often asked, ‘How many books have you written?’ My truthful answer must be, ‘I have no idea.’ … I could count them, but I have no interest in doing so” (ix). Hauerwas’s reluctance to number his career in books shows his preference for smaller units of measurement (“how some reader may find this sermon, or that sentence or chapter … helpful”), but it also reflects his view that he is not the sole author of his works. To his credit, he mentions two influential women—his wife, Paula Gilbert, an experienced clergywoman, and his assistant, Carole Baker, who gives the sermons a “work-over” after they are written (ix).Those who know Hauerwas know what to expect from these volumes: thoughtful arguments that unflinchingly assert the centrality of Christ and of the Church; a heavy dose of pacifism; major appearances from John Howard Yoder and Karl Barth (as well as multiple cameos from fascinating authors who are now on my to-read list); and accessible, open prose outlining clear, thought-provoking arguments. The two books reviewed here are quite different from one another: Without Apology is a book of sermons; Approaching the End is a book of essays loosely organized around a theme of eschatology. But both contain the hallmarks of “classic Hauerwas”—his signature mix of virtue ethics, communitarian interests, and narrative sensibilities.Without Apology contains recent sermons, primarily in Episcopal churches. Drawing on lectionary readings, Hauerwas brings his own theological interpretation and creates fairly short, satisfying sermons, which he readily describes (in Paula Gilbert’s words) as “tight” (87). This collection also includes four sermons on the topic of priesthood and some other writings of note: the already-classic “An Open Letter to Christians Beginning College” (good for use with Christian undergraduates) and “Sexing the Ministry” (food for thought for [End Page 215] seminarian and clergy alike). Without Apology manifests several major themes, but the biggest of these connects with the title: Hauerwas is “unapologetic” about his Christian faith and doesn’t engage in theology of the “apologetic” style. His emphasis, rather, is on being truthfully present with one another in the church community.Approaching the End promises eschatological reflections and delivers on the promise. Although he is writing about eschatology, Hauerwas strongly maintains that he is not reaching his own “end” and disavows any contention that Approaching the End is a kind of “swan song” (xiv). He addresses politics and war in several chapters. In “The End of Sacrifice: An Apocalyptic Politics,” he makes the case that if Christians believe Jesus’s sacrifice was “the end of all sacrifices,” then we should not “continue to participate in the sacrifice of war” (36). Similar themes emerge in “War and Peace,” later in the volume. In “Church Matters: On Faith and Politics,” Hauerwas writes, “One of the challenges Christians confront is how the politics we helped create has made it difficult to sustain the material practices constitutive of an ecclesial culture to produce Christians” (68). He welcomes the “end” of churches and denominations as we know them because “it means that the church is finally free to be a politics” (86).Hauerwas also discusses the future of churches and denominations. “The End of Protestantism” reiterates that “if the church is to be faithful … then we must recover what it means for the church to be an alternative politics” (92). This chapter’s emphasis on Methodism and his appraisal of Methodists as “free church Catholics” (94) is of note. In “Which Church? What Unity?” Hauerwas discusses the ecumenical movement, prompted by George Lindbeck’s challenge to do so (98). Hauerwas’s... (shrink)

My main argument is that the advice offered to experimental psychologists by Hertwig & Ortmann overlooks fundamental differences between the goals of researchers in psychology and economics. Furthermore, it is argued that the reduction of data variability is not always an end to be sought by psychologists. Variability that originates in individual differences constitutes valuable data for psychological research.

The renewed engagement with Aristotle’s concept of practical wisdom in management and organization studies is reflective of the wider turn towards practice sweeping across many disciplines. In this sense, it constitutes a welcome move away from the traditional rationalist, abstract, and mechanistic modes of approaching ethical decision-making. Within the current engagement, practical wisdom is generally conceptualized, interpreted or read as a form of deliberation or deliberative judgement that is also cognizant of context, situatedness, particularity, lived experience, and so on. We (...) argue that while this way of conceptualizing practical wisdom moves closer to practice in accounting for the concrete and particular reality within which individuals enact ethics, it does not adequately account for practice in the ontological and relational sense posited in practice theories. Practical wisdom conceptualized on the _deliberative_ dimension still retains a higher emphasis on distinct entities (individuals/institutions), reflexive agency, conscious mental states, goal-directed action, and intentionality. In other words, it puts a higher stress on individual _wisdom_, as opposed to _practice_ or the relational interaction of the individual and social inhering in practice. We offer an alternative conceptualization of practical wisdom based on the _dispositional_ mode of being in the world which is rarely deliberate, intentional, or reflective. Our conceptualization integrates Aristotle’s original ethical framework, which is already embedded in a practice-based ontology, with insights from practice theories to show how practical wisdom is intuitively channelled in the _dispositional_ mode in a given social configuration of virtues/ends. (shrink)

There are two contrasting views on the decision-making for life-sustaining treatment in advanced stages of dementia when the patient is deemed incompetent. One is to respect the patient's precedent autonomy by adhering to advance directives or using the substituted judgement standard. The other is to use the best-interests standard, particularly if the current judgement on what is best for the incapacitated patient contradicts the instructions from the patient's precedent autonomy. In this paper, I argue that the protracted clinical course of (...) dementia over many years requires the extended perspective of a progressive decision-making process—extended in both social space and time. The ongoing debate between these two competing views has missed this perspective by focussing on an exclusive disjunction between the competent former self and the incompetent current self. Drawing on theories of situated cognition in cognitive science, I will show that the cognition of a demented patient can be viewed as extended and embodied by her supportive social environment. As the disease progresses, the content of the mind of a demented person becomes partially constituted by such external resources along with her diminishing intrinsic mind. With this understanding, medical decision-making for a demented patient can be construed as a temporally and socially extended practice. A collective decision-making body consisting of the patient, her family and surrogates, and the clinician, should make progressive decisions as a whole over years of the disease course. Finally, I will provide a practical example of how this proposal can be applied in clinical practice. (shrink)

This dissertation addresses a debate about the proper relationship between democratic theory and institutions. The debate has been waged between two rival approaches: on the one side is an aggregative and economic theory of democracy, known as constitutional economics, and on the other side is deliberative democracy. The two sides endorse starkly different positions on the issue of what makes a democracy legitimate and stable within an institutional setting. Constitutional economists model political agents in the same way that neoclassical economists (...) model economic agents, that is, as self-regarding, rational maximizers; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and stability depend on the extent to which the design of institutional rules and practices maximize individual utility by promoting efficient schemes of collective choice. Deliberative democrats, on the other hand, understand political agents as communicative reason-giving subjects who justify their preferences and positions on issues that jointly affect them in a process of consensus-directed discourse, or deliberation; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and order depend on the degree to which institutional norms and practices promote deliberation and draw upon deliberated public judgment. I argue that despite the numerous incompatibilities between constitutional economics and deliberative democracy—which amount to a 'deep divide'—an opportunity to produce a genuine synthesis of the two approaches arises inasmuch as it is possible to overcome several points of opposition in their separate research programmes. The central thesis of the dissertation is that it is possible to construct a bridge spanning the divide between constitutional economists and deliberative democrats, and that Dewey and Bentley's transactional view can facilitate this bridge-building project. Pursuant to this end, the points of opposition between the v research programmes are mediated by way of five concepts which, on balance, favor deliberative democracy and its feasible institutionalization. (shrink)

Argues that we do not act intentionally ‘under the guise of the good.’ This makes it hard to explain why akrasia is distinctively irrational; but this is no objection, since it is just as hard to explain on the opposing view. Ends with a problem of akrasia for ethical rationalists.

Does the cultivation of liberty undermine communities of practice? The answer depends significantly on what is meant by the cultivation of liberty and on what is meant by a community of practice. On the question of community, the work of Rawls and Sandel serves as a starting point. I examine three conceptions — the instrumental, the sentimental and the constitutive — and attempt to illustrate them with examples of communities of practice. I argue that Sandel's criterion for distinguishing between the (...) sentimental and constitutive conceptions of community does not do the work required of it.On the question of liberty undermining community, I argue that if liberty is taken as license then it is a threat both to communities and to practices, whereas if it is taken as independence then it threatens neither. Two conceptions of independence can be distinguished. One, which is central to liberal political theory, does not presuppose an account of the good; the other, which I argue is central to the flourishing of a community of practice, does. It presupposes that account of the good which is implicit in the end or telos of the practice concerned. (shrink)