What is liberty, and can it be measured? In this paper I argue that the only way to have a liberty metric is to adopt an account of liberty with specific and controversial features. In particular, I argue that we can make sense of the idea of a quantity of liberty only if we are willing to count certain purely agential constraints, such as ignorance and physical incompetence, as obstacles to liberty in general. This spells trouble for traditional ‘negative’ (...) accounts, against which I argue directly. My aim is to establish the following somewhat surprising claim: that if a political theory is to contain a principle regarding the protection, maximisation, or equalisation of some liberty, it must concern itself--on pain of conceptual incoherence--with the positive preconditions (in addition to the negative preconditions) of that liberty’s effective exercise. (shrink)

This essay articulates a conception of responsibility and excuse in terms of the fair opportunity to avoid wrongdoing and explores its implications for insanity, incompetence, and psychopathy. The fair opportunity conception factors responsibility into conditions of normative competence and situational control and factors normative competence into cognitive and volitional capacities. This supports a conception of incompetence that recognizes substantial impairment of either cognitive or volitional capacities as excusing, provided the agent is not substantially responsible for her own (...) class='Hi'>incompetence. This conception helps frame the question whether psychopathy is excusing. The most common rationale for excusing psychopathy appeals to claims about cognitive incompetence. However, there are good philosophical and empirical reasons to be skeptical that psychopaths lack the relevant cognitive capacities. There is more to be said for a volitional rationale for excuse. The crucial question here is whether the problems psychopaths have with impulse control and conforming their behavior to the relevant moral and criminal norms are systematic enough to demonstrate genuine volitional incompetence. The available empirical evidence should leave us skeptical about the merits of this volitional rationale for excuse. (shrink)

Proposals to lower the age of voting, to 15 for example, are regularly met with worries that people that age are not sufficiently ‘competent’. Notice however that we allow people that age to sign binding legal contracts, provided that those contracts are co-signed by their parents. Notice, further, that in a democracy voters are collectively ‘joint authors’ of the laws that they enact. Enfranchising some less competent voters is no worry, the Condorcet Jury Theorem assures us, so long as the (...) electorate's competence averaging across all voters remains better-than-random. (shrink)

Ever since its inception, democracy has been subjected to the objection that ordinary citizens are not fit to rule. I discuss and criticize the most influential contemporary version of this argument, due to Jason Brennan, according to which democracy is illegitimate because voters are incompetent. I accept two core premises of Brennan’s argument – that legitimacy requires competence, and that voters are incompetent (in the sense of competence Brennan accepts) – but reject the conclusion that representative democracy is illegitimate. I (...) show that the argument can be interpreted as making two different claims: (1) That the democratic policymaking process as a whole is incompetent, and democratic policies therefore illegitimate; (2) that only democratic elections are incompetent, which either (a) makes democratic policies illegitimate or (b) makes elections themselves illegitimate. Each of these claims is false: (1) is false because voter incompetence does not taint the policymaking process sufficiently; (2a) is false because incompetent elections do not imply that policies made post-election are illegitimate; and (2b) is false because electoral decisions are not the kinds of things that can be illegitimate in the appropriate way. Finally, I address three potential criticisms of my defense of democracy: (i) that I set the bar for voters’ performance too low, (ii) that the representative democracy I defend is not really democratic, and (iii) that Brennan’s argument is an argument for replacing democracy with epistocracy, rather than for the illegitimacy of representative democracy. (shrink)

Most patients suffering from progressive dementia have thoughts, emotions, perspectives, and perceptions of a world of experience. Decisions about life‐sustaining treatment should incorporate a principled approach to evaluating what life is like for these patients.

The voluntary and informed consent of subjects has been the central focus of concern in research reviews, overshadowing the importance of all other considerations. The Nuremberg Code, with its rights-based protection of the subject's autonomy above all else, made it difficult to justify research with no intended benefit when subjects are incompetent to make a valid informed choice to participate. Subsequent codes providing for research with incompetent subjects followed the lead of Nuremberg, substituting the informed authorization of a proxy for (...) the informed consent of the subject. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The study of voter competence has made significant contributions to our understanding of politics, but at this point there are diminishing returns to the endeavor. There is little reason, in theory or in practice, to expect voter competence to improve dramatically enough to make much of a difference, but there is reason to think that officials? competence can vary enough to make large differences. To understand variations in government performance, therefore, we would do better to focus on the abilities (...) and performance of officials, not ordinary citizens. (shrink)

One of the most challenging and rewarding roles for in-house hospital attorneys is serving as a member of their hospital’s Bioethics Committee. As a member of the Committee, an attorney assists in developing institutional ethics policies and guidelines, and also participates in ethics consultations involving disputes about patient care. Institutions such as the Author’s employer, Texas Children’s Hospital, promote open and honest communications between members of a patient’s health care team and the patient’s parents and family; however, when communications break (...) down, the Committee’s goal is to provide an objective forum where disputes can be discussed and hopefully resolved in a professional, ethical manner. (shrink)

In the literature three mechanisms are commonly distinguished to make decisions about the care of incompetent patients: A living will, a substituted judgment by a surrogate, and a best interest judgment. Almost universally, the third mechanism is deemed the worst possible of the three, to be invoked only when the former two are unavailable. In this article, I argue in favor of best interest judgments. The evermore common aversion of best interest judgments entails a risk that health care providers withdraw (...) from the decision-making process, abandoning patients to these most difficult of decisions about life and death. My approach in this article is primarily negative, that is, I criticize the alleged superiority of the living will and substituted judgment. The latter two mechanisms gain their alleged superiority because they are supposedly morally neutral, whereas the best interest judgment entails a value judgment on behalf of the patient. I argue that on closer inspection living wills and substituted judgments are not morally neutral; indeed, they generally rely on best interest judgments, even if those are not made explicit. (shrink)

Moral high-performers have characteristic faults. I describe difficulties in handling moral problems that arise not out of faulty intentions or defective values but because the agents underestimate the complexity of the situation.

Most modern scholars seem to assume that Buddhist monks in early India had a good knowledge of Buddhist doctrine and at least of basic Buddhist texts. But the compilers of the vinayas or monastic codes seem not to have shared this assumption. The examples presented here are drawn primarily from one vinaya , and show that the compilers put in place a whole series of rules to deal with situations in which monks were startlingly ignorant of both doctrine and text. (...) One of these examples is particularly interesting for what it suggests about the linguistic sophistication of nuns, and another because it presents a case in which a nun is required to fill an important liturgical role in public and in the presence of monks. (shrink)

There is a recent surge in interest in agential accounts of perception, i.e. accounts where activity plays a central role in accounting for the nature of perceptions. Within this camp, Lisa Miracch...

There is a recent surge in interest in agential accounts of perception, i.e. accounts where activity plays a central role in accounting for the nature of perceptions. Within this camp, Lisa Miracch...

From Mill to, most recently, Bryan Caplan, political and economic elites have been seen as the solution to the public’s ignorance and incompetence. In order to show that elites are actually more competent than the public, however, we would have to find out what type of knowledge is necessary to enact good public policy. The empirical evidence shows that economic experts have a slight advantage over the general public in knowledge of how to achieve policy goals. But, contrary to (...) Caplan, the evidence indicates that economists don’t possess significant predictive knowledge, and that general economic laws are of little help in predicting the magnitude of the effects of a specific policy in a multi‐variable, complex world. When we adopt a more complex understanding of the reasons behind policy choice, and consider rules and principles in addition to goal pursuit, the slight edge of economic experts evaporates. (shrink)

The present study examined nonprofessionals' perceptions of culturally based and noncultural ethical violations. One hundred seventy-four undergraduates students read 12 vignettes depicting situations in which a clinician committed either a culturally based violation (e.g., sexist or ageist behavior) or a noncultural violation (e.g., breeching confidentiality or multiple relationship). Results indicated that participants were more likely to have unfavorable views of clinicians who had committed culturally based violations. In addition, results suggested that participants would be more likely to report a clinician (...) who had committed a culturally based violation to a supervisor or ethics board. (shrink)

This article illustrates the less-acknowledged social construction of the concept of ‘incompetency’ and draws attention to the moral concerns it raises in health care encounters in the south Indian city of Chennai. Based on data drawn from qualitative research, this study suggests that surgeons subjectively construct the idea of incompetency through their understanding of the perceived circumstantial characteristics of the patients and family members they serve. The findings indicate that surgeons often underestimate patients and family members’ capacity based on constructed (...) assessments, which leads to paternalistic practice. In this article, I illustrate how these assessments influence the surgeons’ practices and provide the moral and practical justifications for their actions. The constructed knowledge becomes a source for drawing normative justification for surgeons’ actions and, in conjunction with socially enforced power relationships, results in patients and family members to be on the receiving end of disrespectful attitudes. Based on the data analysis and by drawing on philosophical analysis, I emphasize the need to focus on ‘respect for persons,’ to rethink the framework of ‘capacity,’ and to practice respect in hospital settings. (shrink)

The specific problems of consent for the mentally incompetent are reviewed. Scientific research is essential to test the validity of present treatments and to develop new ones. The respective roles of the physician and the researcher have to be clearly defined. The vulnerability of psychiatric patients has to be taken into consideration in such a way that some research can be conducted. It is emphasised that the ethical restrictions for research, although highly justified and necessary, are in part responsible for (...) the relatively slow progress in the application of modern neurosciences to psychiatric diseases. (shrink)

On an initially plausible view of ignorance, ignorance is equivalent to the lack or absence of knowledge-that. I argue that this view is incorrect, as lack of sufficient justification for one's true belief or lack of belief doesn't necessarily amount to ignorance. My argument rests on linguistic considerations of common uses of 'ignorant' and its cognates. The phrase 'is ignorant of', I argue, functions differently grammatically and semantically from the phrase 'does not know', when the latter is used propositionally. 'Is (...) ignorant of' does not have a genuine propositional use but is best understood as equivalent to 'is not knowledgeable of'. I further argue that 'knowledgeable' and 'ignorant' are relative gradable expressions. Relative gradables typically are associated with an implicit or explicit standard of comparison, give rise to borderline cases and trigger the Sorites Paradox in their unmarked form. From these linguistic considerations, it follows that being ignorant admits of degree, and that one can fail to be ignorant despite lacking true beliefs concerning the propositions constituting a particular subject matter. The proposed treatment of knowledgeability and ignorance of facts and subject matters lends itself to an alternative reply to the problem of skepticism, which I will call the ‘simple response’. In the final section of the paper I argue that ignorance can also reflect incompetence with respect to a particular activity. The latter, I argue, is a case of lacking a particular kind of ability-involving knowledge-how, viz. practical knowledge of how to perform the activity in question. (shrink)

L'incompétence esthétique pas plus que la perte du public de l'art ne comptent parmi les effets nécessaires de la constitution progressive d'un champ artistique autonome. Habermas, Jauss, Dufrenne font voir que l'incompétence esthétique, comme l'exclusivité de l'art sont des scories de la modernité et davantage des effets d'un type d'organisation sociale, en particulier de la domination d'un seul modèle de réception esthétique.Neither aesthetic incompetency nor Art's loss of its public count as necessary effects of the progressive establishment of an autonomous (...) field of art. Habermas, Jauss, Dufrenne show that aesthetic incompetency like the exclusivity of art are to be seen as residues of modernity and as the effects of social organization, especially of the dominance of a sole model of aesthetic reception. (shrink)

Abstract:In this paper, I suggest that the moral incompetence in narcissism is associated with a particular type of emotional incompetence, namely the incompetence to experience the moral emotions, such as empathy, solidarity, loyalty, or love. I then move on to discussing the ethical ramifications of this incompetence, primarily from the point of view of sentimentalist ethics, and conclude that emotional incompetence does not in fact reduce the moral responsibility of a narcissist person, whether diagnosed with (...) Narcissistic Personality Disorder or not. My argument is based on the three criteria of moral responsibility proposed by Philip Pettit, namely those of value relevance, value judgment, and value sensitivity. I suggest that a sentimentalist ethical perspective entails that the satisfaction of two of the mentioned criteria (awareness of the social meaning of one’s choices and sufficient control of one’s actions) constitutes a moral obligation for the agent to satisfy the third criterion, namely to develop the appropriate moral sensibility and competence to actually choose morally correctly. This type of structure of obligation elucidates why narcissism is at the same time a moral failure and a psychopathology. At the same time, my argument portrays narcissism as a particular type of personality disturbance that almost uniquely reaffirms the role of moral re-education as the psychotherapeutic approach. This conclusion points to a potential revival of some of the precepts of Pinel’s affective psycho-pathology, dating back to the very beginnings of the psychotherapeutic clinic. (shrink)

The claim that photographs are fictionally incompetent (i.e. that they can only depict those particulars they are appropriately causally related to) is argued by Noël Carroll, Gregory Currie, and Nigel Warburton to be falsified by cinematic works of fiction. In response I firstly argue that it does not follow from cinema's having a capacity for the representation of ficta that photography has a capacity for the representation of ficta. Secondly, and inspired by the work of Roger Scruton, I develop an (...) account of how it is that cinema represents ficta on which this is fundamentally a matter of dramatic/theatrical representation. I argue that in cinematic fiction photography delivers a pre-existent representation of ficta rather than creating or generating fictional content. With this being so, the claim that photography is fictionally incompetent is compatible with cinematic fiction. 1. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the moral framework for surrogate decision-making for incompetent medical patients. The chapter focuses on the question of how we can respect the autonomy of those who are no longer competent to make such decisions. The standard counterfactual account of how to respect the autonomy of the incompetent is evaluated, along with accounts that ground respect for autonomy on the patient’s most recent desires and values (regardless of whether the patient still possesses those desires and values) as well (...) as accounts according to which only the current desires and values of the patient matter. Other issues discussed include whether questions of personal identity should affect decision-making for incompetent patients, whether a patient’s former desires and values factor in to the patient’s current well-being, and whether an incompetent patient’s “investment interests” should guide decisions on the patient’s behalf. (shrink)

This paper studies the lessons of principled anti-corruption experts who dared to fulfill their duty of justice in highly corrupt societies, through the true story of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Finance Minister of Nigeria. My thesis is that when principled anti-corruption experts are epistemic trespassers, they show moral incompetence. Okonjo-Iweala shows moral incompetence in two ways: she misread the opposition to her strategies and misled other honest reformers. Both actions bungled her efforts to eradicate corruption inasmuch as they (...) hindered the possibility of finding successful anti-corruption policies. Okonjo-Iweala’s moral incompetence is, I argue, the result of her epistemic trespassing that led her to act like an expert in an environment where she was not. I conclude that, in highly corrupt societies, principled anti-corruption experts should embrace moral humility, stop thinking that they are experts, and act more like students, asking questions and not rushing to think that they understand the answers. (shrink)

This chapter explores whether it is possible to treat incompetent persons paternalistically. What is often seen to be wrong about acting paternalistically towards others is that one is treating these others as if they cannot make their own decisions about their own good. So how should one think about situations where one must make decisions on behalf of people who indeed cannot make their own decisions about their own good – especially if these people are still to some extent capable (...) of expressing their desires and concerns about what happens to them? This is often the case in the medical setting, when a patient has lost decisional capacity or has not developed such a capacity in the first place. Focusing on the medical setting, this chapter argues that insofar as someone has the component elements of agency, they can be the target of unjustified paternalism. The chapter first explores the ways in which patients may lack decisional capacity and whether such patients nevertheless retain a sense of agency that can be disrespected. It then examines whether, on some plausible accounts of paternalism, what constitutes disrespect towards the competent constitutes a similar disrespect to the agential capacities of the incompetent. (shrink)

This article is an introduction to the metaphilosophical thought of the contemporary German philosopher Odo Marquard. He understands the philosopher’s competence as a competence in compensating for incompetence or, with a German neologism, as Inkompetenzkompensationskompetenz. I offer two interpretations of Marquard’s most famous notion. Both interpretations have been developed in order to answer a central question: if philosophers are incompetent, how can they live with their incompetence? The first interpretation goes back to Marquard’s early work. It leaves no (...) option for philosophers but to flee into dogmatism or skepticism. The second interpretation is inspired by Marquard’s pluralist later work. It advocates what I have called 'philosophy with a human face'. (shrink)

Philosophers and others have criticized the courts for ascribing a right of self-determination to severe incompetents. I defend ascription of a right of self-determination to these incompetents against both conceptual and normative attacks. I argue that a court need make no conceptual error when it ascribes a right of self-determination to a being who never had capacity for rational choice, and I argue that proper judicial deference to reflective conventional morality supports ascription of a right of self-determination to severe incompetents. (...) Keywords: Self-determination, incompetence, person CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Employees with self-perceived misattributed culpability or incompetence are on the receiving end of complaints, reprimands, or accusations which, from their perspective, incorrectly assume that that they have fallen short of required standards or outcomes. We analyzed an archive of 23 personal stories featuring SMCI, which had been provided by 16 Hong Kong Chinese employees. The stories indicated that the most severe impacts on employee morale had arisen from punitive and targeted feedback based on misrepresentations by superiors, who had engaged (...) in blame deflection, politicking and manipulation, conflict and retaliation, and/or prejudice and stereotyping. We also identified organizational processes, such as soliciting and accepting voice and engaging in problem solving discussions that could attenuate any adverse emotional impact. (shrink)

Of course I have an axe to grind. I am one of the old school of tutors, generally regarded as outmoded and amateurish by our more up-to-date successors, who are anxious to introduce more professionalism into Oxford's academic life. I probably shan't be replaced, but if I am, it will be by somebody competent, capable of looking the twenty-first century in the face, who knows what he is about, and adopts effective means to bringing it about.

The conflict which has tended recently to crystallize in particular around the name of Martin Heidegger goes back a long way. Where do philosophers stand in relation to political and social reality? What assistance can their problems and insights offer the process of coming to terms with this reality? In the context of the discussions surrounding Farias's book I set out my own position in Paris in November 1987; the full text was later published in German under the heading “Return (...) to Syracuse?” This title referred to the disappointment Plato felt in his own time when, at the invitation of the tyrant of Syracuse, that city's absolute ruler, he had twice gone to initiate the young prince in the basic principles of his thought concerning the just idea of the state and the just ordering of society. Things turned out badly and Plato had considerable difficulty getting back home again. Later still he was to suffer bitter disappointment when his intimate associate Dion, a member of the innermost circle of his academic community, was suddenly murdered by his own friends after heading a victorious operation to liberate Syracuse (one would like to know more about what lay behind that particular assassination). (shrink)