This is the first study to examine the relationship between sustainability and soundness in banking as part of an integrated reporting approach. We consider 12 major European banks over the period 2006–2016. To test the relationship, two indexes were constructed, the sustainable performance index, which attempts to measure sustainability, and the banking soundness index, which measures bank soundness. The results show a bidirectional causality between sustainability and banking soundness. More specifically, soundness encourages banks to engage in sustainable development activities, while (...) the implementation of a sustainable development approach has a negative effect on banking soundness. Our research contributes to the literature on this topic in two ways. First, we propose a new method for measuring banking soundness based on a Bayesian approach. This approach allows us to study a large number of criteria and allows us to determine proactively the importance and the contribution of different determinants in achieving soundness. In addition, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to study the relationship between bank soundness and sustainability. (shrink)

The author makes a study of the problem of love understood as meeting of the two parts of a soul-sphere. It is a Greek myth that has had a long tradition in the Arabic literature on love. The author is centered in Ibn Hazm of Cordoba.

This article argues that standard causal and functionalist definitions of realization fail to account for the realization of entities that cannot be individuated in causal or functional terms. By modifying such definitions to require that realizers also logically suffice for any historical properties of the entities they realize, one can provide for the realization of entities whose resistance to causal/functional individuation stems from their possession of individuative historical properties. But if qualia cannot be causally or functionally individuated, then qualia can (...) be physically realized only if the thesis that all things are physical or physically realized is insufficient for physicalism. (shrink)

Well-Being and Death addresses philosophical questions about death and the good life: what makes a life go well? Is death bad for the one who dies? How is this possible if we go out of existence when we die? Is it worse to die as an infant or as a young adult? Is it bad for animals and fetuses to die? Can the dead be harmed? Is there any way to make death less bad for us? Ben Bradley defends the (...) following views: pleasure, rather than achievement or the satisfaction of desire, is what makes life go well; death is generally bad for its victim, in virtue of depriving the victim of more of a good life; death is bad for its victim at times after death, in particular at all those times at which the victim would have been living well; death is worse the earlier it occurs, and hence it is worse to die as an infant than as an adult; death is usually bad for animals and fetuses, in just the same way it is bad for adult humans; things that happen after someone has died cannot harm that person; the only sensible way to make death less bad is to live so long that no more good life is possible. (shrink)

Theories of phenomenal intentionality have been claimed to resolve certain worries about the indeterminacy of mental content that rival, externalist theories face. Thus far, however, such claims have been largely programmatic. This paper aims to improve on prior arguments in favor of phenomenal intentionality by using attention and Gestalt principles as specific examples of factors that influence the phenomenal character of perceptual experience in ways that thereby help determine perceptual content. Some reasons are then offered for rejecting an alternative interpretation (...) of these examples, according to which the phenomenal effects of attention and Gestalt principles play no role in the determination of perceptual content. (shrink)

This paper defends the view, put roughly, that to think that p is to guess that p is the answer to the question at hand, and that to think that p rationally is for one’s guess to that question to be in a certain sense non-arbitrary. Some theses that will be argued for along the way include: that thinking is question-sensitive and, correspondingly, that ‘thinks’ is context-sensitive; that it can be rational to think that p while having arbitrarily low credence (...) that p; that, nonetheless, rational thinking is closed under entailment; that thinking does not supervene on credence; and that in many cases what one thinks on certain matters is, in a very literal sense, a choice. Finally, since there are strong reasons to believe that thinking just is believing, there are strong reasons to think that all this goes for belief as well. (shrink)

Dans cet article, on élabore une réflexion sur les rapports entre intentionnalité et histoire du capitalisme à partir du commentaire schélérien de L’Éthique protestante de Max Weber. Nous montrons d’abord que la psychologie est un moyen de dépasser l’alternative ruineuse entre matérialisme et idéalisme de par sa position centrale dans la genèse des phénomènes sociaux : les individus capitalistes sont portés au travail notamment par des incitations psychologiques qui sont déterminées autant par le contenu du dogme que les conditions sociales (...) de sa pratique. Nous montrons ensuite que la phénoménologie de Scheler décrit une intentionnalité historique en écart avec l’intentionnalité qui vise des essences axiologiques : le capitalisme substitue à l’amour un pseudo a priori contingent qui détermine l’intentionnalité à partir du ressentiment et de l’angoisse, celle-là même dont Weber, au moyen de la figure du puritain abandonné par un dieu hyper-transcendant et épouvanté par son statut sotériologique, faisait l’histoire. Ainsi, on essaie d’indiquer, en compagnie de Scheler, les outils phénoménologiques pour penser l’intentionnalité non pas comme la visée qui aurait toujours déjà disposé d’un donné intuitif, mais comme une instance d’essentialisation constamment contrariée par le processus historique, qui fait écart par rapport à la visée phénoménologique des essences – comme si Scheler faisait usage de ce qu’on pourrait appeler une phénoménologie négative. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article questions Metz’s purification of the evaluative subject, and wishes to pose the theological question concerning the meaning of life from a normative and social conception of subjectivity. Before asking whether or not God is indispensable to the meaning of life, it is first necessary to identify the ways in which God is hidden in the fundamental evaluations that the contemporary subject makes in the globalized capitalist world.

In this article, I attempt to resuscitate the perennially unfashionable distinctive feeling theory of pleasure (and pain), according to which for an experience to be pleasant (or unpleasant) is just for it to involve or contain a distinctive kind of feeling. I do this in two ways. First, by offering powerful new arguments against its two chief rivals: attitude theories, on the one hand, and the phenomenological theories of Roger Crisp, Shelly Kagan, and Aaron Smuts, on the other. Second, by (...) showing how it can answer two important objections that have been made to it. First, the famous worry that there is no felt similarity to all pleasant (or unpleasant) experiences (sometimes called ‘the heterogeneity objection’). Second, what I call ‘Findlay’s objection’, the claim that it cannot explain the nature of our attraction to pleasure and aversion to pain. (shrink)

Motivated by weaknesses with traditional accounts of logical epistemology, considerable attention has been paid recently to the view, known as anti-exceptionalism about logic, that the subject matter and epistemology of logic may not be so different from that of the recognised sciences. One of the most prevalent claims made by advocates of AEL is that theory choice within logic is significantly similar to that within the sciences. This connection with scientific methodology highlights a considerable challenge for the anti-exceptionalist, as two (...) uncontentious claims about scientific theories are that they attempt to explain a target phenomenon and prove their worth through successful predictions. Thus, if this methodological AEL is to be viable, the anti-exceptionalist will need a reasonable account of what phenomena logics are attempting to explain, how they can explain, and in what sense they can be said to issue predictions. This paper makes sense of the anti-exceptionalist proposal with a new account of logical theory choice, logical predictivism, according to which logics are engaged in both a process of prediction and explanation. (shrink)

According to hedonism about well-being, lives can go well or poorly for us just in virtue of our ability to feel pleasure and pain. Hedonism has had many advocates historically, but has relatively few nowadays. This is mainly due to three highly influential objections to it: The Philosophy of Swine, The Experience Machine, and The Resonance Constraint. In this paper, I attempt to revive hedonism. I begin by giving a precise new definition of it. I then argue that the right (...) motivation for it is the ‘experience requirement’ (i.e., that something can benefit or harm a being only if it affects the phenomenology of her experiences in some way). Next, I argue that hedonists should accept a felt-quality theory of pleasure, rather than an attitude-based theory. Finally, I offer new responses to the three objections. Central to my responses are (i) a distinction between experiencing a pleasure (i.e., having some pleasurable phenomenology) and being aware of that pleasure, and (ii) an emphasis on diversity in one’s pleasures. (shrink)

In this paper, I show that Nietzsche is a Kantian, and what being Kantian means. He accepts the idea that our perception is configured by concepts which unify and inform the world around us, and which result from a biological evolution of the human species. His Kantianism is thus biological and mainly influenced by Friedrich Albert Lange’s reading of Kant. But this Nietzschean conceptualism must be inscribed in his thought of the will to power, where the perceptive fixation of the (...) world is the result of a degeneration caused by the biological, psychological and historical recovery of the will to power. Thus, I show that Nietzsche’s Kantianism is as biological as it is axiological. (shrink)

Cet article examine le fragment de l’homme-mesure de Protagoras, tout d’abord en exposant les grands courants de son interprétation, ensuite et surtout en présentant les positions respectives et antagonistes de Nietzsche et Heidegger. Heidegger, contre Nietzsche, fait reposer l’homo-mensura sur un arrière-fond ontologique et platonicien, où la mesure n’est possible que depuis l’ouverture ontologique qui la précède. Cette interprétation a sa légitimité historique et philologique. Mais Nietzsche comprend le fragment comme entièrement irréductible au platonisme : Protagoras aurait pensé la connaissance (...) comme l’étude de types psychologiques, non pas selon une norme épistémique stable, mais selon les variations d’intensité qui touchent toute psychè mais aussi toute communauté sociale. Je prends appui sur cette dernière intuition pour dégager ce qui me semble l’interprétation la plus riche du fragment de l’homme-mesure, à partir des remarques d’Eugène Dupréel – une interprétation sociale et normative où Protagoras est le penseur d’une praxis qui, dans une situation et dans une communauté données, est capable d’améliorer les impressions subjectives du plus grand nombre. (shrink)

Cet article examine le fragment de l’homme-mesure de Protagoras, tout d’abord en exposant les grands courants de son interprétation, ensuite et surtout en présentant les positions respectives et antagonistes de Nietzsche et Heidegger. Heidegger, contre Nietzsche, fait reposer l’_homo-mensura_ sur un arrière-fond ontologique et platonicien, où la mesure n’est possible que depuis l’ouverture ontologique qui la précède. Cette interprétation a sa légitimité historique et philologique. Mais Nietzsche comprend le fragment comme entièrement irréductible au platonisme : Protagoras aurait pensé la connaissance (...) comme l’étude de types psychologiques, non pas selon une norme épistémique stable, mais selon les variations d’intensité qui touchent toute psychè mais aussi toute communauté sociale. Je prends appui sur cette dernière intuition pour dégager ce qui me semble l’interprétation la plus riche du fragment de l’homme-mesure, à partir des remarques d’Eugène Du... (shrink)

The goal of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to identify in Heidegger’s work a determination of the history of metaphysics parallel to the famous onto-theological one, and which I will label onto-agathological. Based upon a text from the course of 1935, “Einführung in die Metaphysik,” I argue that for Heidegger the history of metaphysics is not only the Aristotelian onto-theology, but is also characterized by the Platonic pre-eminence of the good over being. In short, it is an onto-agathological (...) history. Second, and as a consequence of the first point, I will flesh out the hypothesis of another history metaphysics, and emphasize its strong phenomenological content which stands in opposition to the Neo-Kantianism of Windelband and Rickert. (shrink)

What is it for a life to be meaningful? In this article, I defend what I call Consequentialism about Meaning in Life, the view that one's life is meaningful at time t just in case one's surviving at t would be good in some way, and one's life was meaningful considered as a whole just in case the world was made better in some way for one's having existed.

Philosophers of logic are particularly interested in understanding the aims, epistemology, and methodology of logic. This raises the question of how the philosophy of logic should go about these enquires. According to the practice-based approach, the most reliable method we have to investigate the methodology and epistemology of a research field is by considering in detail the activities of its practitioners. This holds just as true for logic as it does for the recognised empirical and abstract sciences. If we wish (...) to systematically understand the aims and epistemology of logic, we are best placed achieving this by looking at what logicians do, rather than reflecting upon the nature of logic itself. In this entry, we outline the motivations for a practice-based approach towards the philosophy of logic and highlight its advantages over more “top-down” approaches, which attempt to infer conclusions about the nature of logic and its methodology on the basis of traditional assumptions about knowledge, metaphysics, or logic itself. We end by addressing several prominent concerns raised against the practice-based approach. (shrink)

In this article, I want to understand how Max Scheler and Martin Heidegger understand the social norms for our perceptions and our daily practices, and how they describe the need to go beyond this normativity in favor of another, more “personal” or even more “authentic”. I defend that it is a call of consciousness that breaks the social normativity, and which commits the human being to no longer act mechanically, but to live freely. This break with social normativity is a (...) phenomenological reduction that I call “ethical reduction”. The whole point of the article is to show that such a reduction is in fact based on social normativities as they are the criterion of the call, the environment in which such a call is possible. From this point of view, the reflective subject remains a social subject. (shrink)

I argue that extant accounts of harm all fail to account for important desiderata, and that we should therefore jettison the concept when doing moral philosophy.

One prominent argument in international law and religious thought for abolishing capital punishment is that it violates individuals’ right to life. Notably, this _right-to-life argument_ emerged from normative and legal frameworks that recognize deadly force against aggressors as justified when necessary to stop their unjust threat of grave harm. Can capital punishment be necessary in this sense—and thus justified defensive killing? If so, the right-to-life argument would have to admit certain exceptions where executions are justified. Drawing on work by Hugo (...) Bedau, I identify a thought experiment where executions are justified defensive killing but explain why they cannot be in our world. A state’s obligations to its prisoners include the _obligation to use nonlethal incapacitation_ (ONI), which applies as long as prisoners pose no imminent threat. ONI precludes executions for reasons of future dangerousness. By subjecting the right-to-life argument to closer scrutiny, this article ultimately places it on firmer ground. (shrink)

Given the plethora of competing logical theories of validity available, it’s understandable that there has been a marked increase in interest in logical epistemology within the literature. If we are to choose between these logical theories, we require a good understanding of the suitable criteria we ought to judge according to. However, so far there’s been a lack of appreciation of how logical practice could support an epistemology of logic. This paper aims to correct that error, by arguing for a (...) practice-based approach to logical epistemology. By looking at the types of evidence logicians actually appeal to in attempting to support their theories, we can provide a more detailed and realistic picture of logical epistemology. To demonstrate the fruitfulness of a practice-based approach, we look to a particular case of logical argumentation—the dialetheist’s arguments based upon the self-referential paradoxes—and show that the evidence appealed to support a particular theory of logical epistemology, logical abductivism. (shrink)

The move to satisficing has been thought to help consequentialists avoid the problem of demandingness. But this is a mistake. In this article I formulate several versions of satisficing consequentialism. I show that every version is unacceptable, because every version permits agents to bring about a submaximal outcome in order to prevent a better outcome from obtaining. Some satisficers try to avoid this problem by incorporating a notion of personal sacrifice into the view. I show that these attempts are unsuccessful. (...) I conclude that, if satisficing consequentialism is to remain a position worth considering, satisficers must show (i) that the move to satisficing is necessary to solve some problem, whether it be the demandingness problem or some other problem, and (ii) that there is a version of the view that does not permit the gratuitous prevention of goodness. (shrink)

In this paper, I reconstruct Robert Nozick's experience machine objection to hedonism about well-being. I then explain and briefly discuss the most important recent criticisms that have been made of it. Finally, I question the conventional wisdom that the experience machine, while it neatly disposes of hedonism, poses no problem for desire-based theories of well-being.

The philosophical study of well-being concerns what makes lives good for their subjects. It is now standard among philosophers to distinguish between two kinds of well-being: - lifetime well-being, i.e., how good a person's life was for him or her considered as a whole, and - temporal well-being, i.e., how well off someone was, or how they fared, at a particular moment in time or over a period of time longer than a moment but shorter than a whole life, say, (...) a day, month, year, or chapter of a life. Many theories have been offered of each of these kinds of well-being. A common view is that lifetime well-being is in some way constructed out of temporal well-being. This book argues that much of this literature is premised on a mistake. Lifetime well-being cannot be constructed out of temporal well-being, because there is no such thing as temporal well-being. The only genuine kind of well-being is lifetime well-being. The Passing of Temporal Well-Being will prove essential reading for professional philosophers, especially in moral and political philosophy. It will also be of interest to welfare economists and policy-makers who appeal to well-being. (shrink)

"Cet ouvrage collectif présente le dialogue entre de jeunes chercheurs en phénoménologie et Alexander Schnell, phénoménologue contemporain ; à partir de son ouvrage paru en 2020, Le Clignotement de l'être. Il défend la vivacité de la phénoménologie transcendantale aujourd'hui, en tant que méthode philosophique qui interroge les secrets de la subjectivité et son rapport à la réalité, au fil conducteur des concepts d'intentionnalité, de réduction, de générativité, d'absolu, et d'histoire. La question directrice qui rassemble les contributions réunies ici est la (...) suivante : quand le phénoménologue effectue la réduction phénoménologique et fait l'expérience du transcendantal comme tel, à quelle réalité fait-il face?"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Among the areas of knowledge that the method of reflective equilibrium (RE) has been applied to is that of logical validity. According to RE in logic, we come to be justified in believing a (deductive) logical theory in virtue of establishing some state of equilibrium between our initial judgements over the validity of specific (natural language) arguments and the logical principles which constitute our logical theory. Unfortunately, however, while relatively popular, RE with regards to logical theorizing is underspecified. In particular, (...) it’s unclear what constitute: (1) the relevant logical “data”, (2) logical theories, so that they can be suitably tested, and (3) the mechanisms under which such theories are tested. Considering the various options for how to interpret the position, we argue that in order to be workable the advocate of RE about logic must embrace what we call an _operationalised_, _wide_ and _communal_ version of RE with a _rich_ understanding of logical theories. Fortunately for the advocate of RE, there is an available account of logic’s epistemology which possesses just these properties, _logical predictivism_. However, equally unfortunately, logical predictivism commits the advocate of RE to certain further claims that they have historically been weary of holding. Consequently, it is unclear whether RE about logic itself is a viable proposal, or rather a similar but distinct epistemology of logic. (shrink)

This book presents the history of metaphysics through transcendental phenomenology and interpretations of Kant, Fichte, Cohen, Windelband, Rickert, Husserl, Scheler, and Heidegger. Slama introduces the "praxiologico-transcendental" figure where transcendental knowledge opens up a "praxiological" life of subjectivity for whom reality becomes a continual practical problem. In so doing, this book also establishes the principles of a "praxiological" thinking of perception, starting from the conceptuality of the “tool”, which is grounded in the praxiologico-transcendantal. Thus, the author presents and argues for (...) this unitary figure of transcendental philosophy as a crucial figure of metaphysics. This book appeals to students and researchers working in phenomenology and metaphysics. Ce livre propose une histoire de la métaphysique à partir de la figure de Kant, et avec la phénoménologie transcendantale comme centre. À partir d'une lecture précise d'auteurs centraux de la tradition transcendantale, il fait l'hypothèse d'une figure "praxiologico-transcendantale" où la connaissance transcendantale ouvre une vie "praxiologique" de la subjectivité, qui se trouve ainsi frottée au réel qui devient un incessant problème pratique pour lui. Ce faisant, ce livre établit les principes d'une pensée de la perception "praxiologique", à partir de la conceptualité de l' « outil ». Il s'agit in fine de donner une figure unitaire de la philosophie transcendantale dans son ensemble, comme moment crucial dans l'histoire de la métaphysique. (shrink)

On montre ici comment Heidegger interprète Héraclite, et par quel moyen il le fait. Ce moyen, c’est Hölderlin. On examine comment le fr. 51, rapporté à la fois par le Banquet de Platon et par Hippolyte de Rome, et qui inscrit la dysharmonie au cœur de l’harmonie, a permis d’abord à Hölderlin, dans ses écrits philosophiques, de déployer une conception neuve de la philosophie kantienne, puis à Heidegger, tributaire de Hölderlin, d’accomplir un tournant à la fois dans l’interprétation de la (...) tradition et dans sa propre pensée. Hölderlin lit le fragment d’Héraclite dans Platon, mais le comprend autrement que Platon, en substituant à une forme passive (diapheromenon) une forme active (diapheron) : ainsi, la différence à l’œuvre dans l’harmonie ne cesse de « se différencier », de travailler l’harmonie, de la contrecarrer, constituant ainsi une « sensation trans­cendantale » mouvementée qui ébranle l’inconditionné de la philosophie critique. Heidegger, dans les années 1930, poursuit ce chemin en inscrivant au fond de l’existence humaine une telle sensation transcendantale, tonalité affective qui rend raison d’une dimension fondamentale de l’homme que décrivait déjà Hölderlin : sa finitude devant les dieux, qu’il « veut » laisser à distance, auxquels il « veut » renoncer. Un tel « vouloir », traversé par le renoncement et la souffrance, mani­feste la différence au travail dans l’harmonie, non sans conduire jusqu’au polemos héraclitéen, fameusement interprété par Heidegger. C’est ainsi toute sa pensée des années 1930, qu’on réinscrit – loin du prétendu « dépassement de la méta­physique » – dans la métaphysique, qui trouve un éclaircissement – mais peut-être aussi, en retour, le fr. 51, la parole même d’Héraclite. (shrink)

This paper examines how practical intentionality is described by Husserl and Heidegger respectively, and looks at the phenomenological and sociological issues of these descriptions. In Husserl, the phenomenological reduction reveals that the practices of the world involve two intentionalities which wrap one inside the other. The foundation of this dynamic is a theoretical intentionality: there are always reasons which make it possible to understand why such and such an object is surrounded by such and such a value. In the early (...) Heidegger’s work, life is not expressed by means of judgments, and it coils around itself, perpetuating itself in the ordinary practices of the world. We show that this phenomenological immanentism is put in question by Heidegger himself, and in particular in connection to the issue of the social source of intentionality. We consider the question of the compatibility between immanentism and normativity, which involve a dialectic that sheds new light on the phenomenological project. (shrink)

Dans cet article, on articule les pensées de Hegel et de Weber à partir de la figure du Quaker et de la tolérance étatique qu’elle implique. L’on montre que Hegel pense la tolérance comme l’épreuve par l’État du négatif préservé dans sa négativité, insoluble dans l’unité rationnelle étatique, et que Weber renverse la perspective pour penser la tolérance à partir des intérêts communautaires de la secte. Une telle comparaison autorise une étude phénoménologique de la communauté sectaire comme espace normatif normé (...) par les regards, où chacun est sous le regard de chacun et fond sa subjectivité dans la communauté tout entière, sans qu’il soit besoin d’une transcendance normative autre que la secte elle-même. Nous montrons qu’un tel mode d’existence, caractéristique de la modernité, est expérience de la séparation, et in fine de la mort de dieu. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this special issue of the International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, we focus on the questions around Meaning and Gods and their connection.

This article describes the role Don Quixote plays as a character and as a novel in Nietzsche’s work. Against the background of German romanticism’s reception of the novel, and by identifying the status of the novel, its characters, its author and its reader, I argue that Don Quixote plays a problematic role in Nietzsche’s writings: his character is at once the paradigm of the metaphysical individual caught in metaphysical illusions, the mocked receptacle of the ressentiment of readers and of Cervantes (...) himself, but Don Quixote also represents the experience of a deep suffering, revealing the world outside the simulacra of metaphysics. This investigation leads us to draw parallels between Don Quixote and Christ, but also Zarathustra, and to rehabilitate a certain form of suffering, inherited from a certain understanding of Christ, in the work of Nietzsche. (shrink)

The books I review are a series of three volumes of the same project, Nietzsche’s Engagements with Kant and the Kantian Legacy, edited in 2017 by Marco Brusotti, Herman Siemens, João Constâncio, Tom Bailey, Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay who seek to situate Nietzsche’s work in relation to Kant and Kantianism and to interpret it from this perspective. This review consists of two parts: the first part reviews and discusses each of the works focusing on a selection of (...) prominent chapters; the second part extends their intuitions. (shrink)

Cet article examine le fragment de l’homme-mesure de Protagoras, tout d’abord en exposant les grands courants de son interprétation, ensuite et surtout en présentant les positions respectives et antagonistes de Nietzsche et Heidegger. Heidegger, contre Nietzsche, fait reposer l’homo-mensura sur un arrière-fond ontologique et platonicien, où la mesure n’est possible que depuis l’ouverture ontologique qui la précède. Cette interprétation a sa légitimité historique et philologique. Mais Nietzsche comprend le fragment comme entièrement irréductible au platonisme : Protagoras (et son frère de (...) pensée Thucydide) aurait pensé la connaissance comme l’étude de types psychologiques, non pas selon une norme épistémique stable, mais selon les variations d’intensité qui touchent toute psychè mais aussi toute communauté sociale. Je prends appui sur cette dernière intuition pour dégager ce qui me semble l’interprétation la plus riche du fragment de l’homme-mesure, à partir des remarques d’Eugène Dupréel – une interprétation sociale et normative où Protagoras est le penseur d’une praxis (la médecine, la politique…) qui, dans une situation et dans une communauté données, est capable d’améliorer les impressions subjectives du plus grand nombre. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking new study, Ben Ware carries out a bold reassessment of the relationship between modernism and ethics, arguing that modernist literature and philosophy offer more than simply a snapshot of the moral conflicts of the past: they provide a crucial point of reference for today's emancipatory struggles. Modernism in this assessment is characterized not only by a concern with language and aesthetic creativity, but also by a preoccupation with the question of how to live. Investigating ethical ideas in (...) Wittgenstein, Beckett, Kierkegaard, Kant, Cavell, Marx, Henry James and Lacan, Ware demonstrates how these thinkers can bring us to a new understanding of a constellation of issues which contemporary radical thought must re-visit: utopia, repetition, perfectionism, subtraction, negativity, critique, absence, duty, revolution and political love. The result is a timely and provocative intervention, which re-draws the boundaries for future debates on the ethics and politics of modernism. (shrink)

Recent literature on intrinsic value contains a number of disputes about the nature of the concept. On the one hand, there are those who think states of affairs, such as states of pleasure or desire satisfaction, are the bearers of intrinsic value (“Mooreans”); on the other hand, there are those who think concrete objects, like people, are intrinsically valuable (“Kantians”). The contention of this paper is that there is not a single concept of intrinsic value about which Mooreans and Kantians (...) have disagreed, but rather two distinct concepts. I state a number of principles about intrinsic value that have typically (though not universally) been held by Mooreans, all of which are typically denied by Kantians. I show that there are distinct theoretical roles for a concept of intrinsic value to play in a moral framework. When we notice these distinct theoretical roles, we should realize that there is room for two distinct concepts of intrinsic value within a single moral framework: one that accords with some or all of the Moorean principles, and one that does not. (shrink)

The distinction between perception and cognition has always had a firm footing in both cognitive science and folk psychology. However, there is little agreement as to how the distinction should be drawn. In fact, a number of theorists have recently argued that, given the ubiquity of top-down influences, we should jettison the distinction altogether. I reject this approach, and defend a pluralist account of the distinction. At the heart of my account is the claim that each legitimate way of marking (...) a border between perception and cognition deploys a notion I call ‘stimulus-control.’ Thus, rather than being a grab bag of unrelated kinds, the various categories of the perceptual are unified into a superordinate natural kind. (shrink)

Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 2-3, Page 267-283, April 2022.

A clear and provocative introduction to the ethics of COVID-19, suitable for university-level students, academics, and policymakers, as well as the general reader. It is also an original contribution to the emerging literature on this important topic. The author has made it available Open Access, so that it can be downloaded and read for free by all those who are interested in these issues. Key features include: -/- A neat organisation of the ethical issues raised by the pandemic. An exploration (...) of the many complex interconnections between these issues. A succinct case for a continued lockdown until we develop a vaccine. An original account of the Deep Moral Problem of the Pandemic, and a Revolutionary Argument for how we should change society post-pandemic. References to, and engagement with, many of the best writings on the pandemic so far (both in popular media and academic journals). -/- ISBN: 978-0-6489016-0-0. (shrink)

Death has long been a pre-occupation of philosophers, and this is especially so today. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death collects 21 newly commissioned essays that cover current philosophical thinking of death-related topics across the entire range of the discipline. These include metaphysical topics--such as the nature of death, the possibility of an afterlife, the nature of persons, and how our thinking about time affects what we think about death--as well as axiological topics, such as whether death is bad (...) for its victim, what makes it bad to die, what attitude it is fitting to take towards death, the possibility of posthumous harm, and the desirability of immortality. The contributors also explore the views of ancient philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato and Epicurus on topics related to the philosophy of death, and questions in normative ethics, such as what makes killing wrong when it is wrong, and whether it is wrong to kill fetuses, non-human animals, combatants in war, and convicted murderers. With chapters written by a wide range of experts in metaphysics, ethics, and conceptual analysis, and designed to give the reader a comprehensive view of recent developments in the philosophical study of death, this Handbook will appeal to a broad audience in philosophy, particularly in ethics and metaphysics. (shrink)

Several critics of realist theories of political legitimacy have alleged that it possesses a problematic bias towards the status quo. This bias is thought to be reflected in the way in which these...