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Added by: Franci Mangraviti and Viviane FairbankAbstract:
Rationality and reason are topics so fraught for feminists that any useful reflection on them requires some prior exploration of the difficulties they have caused. One of those difficulties for feminists and, I suspect, for others in the margins of modernity, is the rhetoric of reason - the ways reason is bandied about as a qualification differentially bestowed on different types of person. Rhetorically, it functions in different ways depending on whether it is being denied or affirmed. In this paper, I want to explore these rhetorics of reason as they are considered in the work of two feminist philosophers. I shall draw on their work for some suggestions about how to think about rationality, and begin to use those suggestions to develop a constructive account that withstands the rhetorical temptations.Adrian Piper. Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume II: A Kantian Conception2008, APRA Foundation Berlin-
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Added by: Sara PeppePublisher’s Note:
Adrian Piper argues that the Humean conception can be made to work only if it is placed in the context of a wider and genuinely universal conception of the self, whose origins are to be found in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. This conception comprises the basic canons of classical logic, which provide both a model of motivation and a model of rationality. These supply necessary conditions both for the coherence and integrity of the self and also for unified agency. The Kantian conception solves certain intractable problems in decision theory by integrating it into classical predicate logic, and provides answers to longstanding controversies in metaethics concerning moral motivation, rational final ends, and moral justification that the Humean conception engenders. In addition, it sheds light on certain kinds of moral behavior – for example, the whistleblower – that the Humean conception is at a loss to explain.
Comment: Best discussed alongside Kantian and Humean texts. In particular, the work considered requires prior knowledge of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Hume's conception of the self.
Galgut, Elisa. Hume’s Aesthetic Standard2012, Hume Studies 38 (2):183-200-
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: AnonymousAbstract:
In his famous essay “Of the Standard of Taste,” Hume seeks to reconcile two conflicting intuitions—the intuition that there is a great variety of taste, on the one hand, and the intuition that there is an artistic standard based on taste that has stood the test of time, on the other—by appealing to the joint verdict of his “true judges” or “ideal critics.” But Hume’s critics have themselves been the objects of criticism as not providing an adequate basis on which to establish a normative aesthetic standard based on taste. In this paper, I defend an interpretation of Hume’s ideal critics as akin to judges in certain common law traditions, and I argue that Hume does satisfactorily resolve conflicting intuitions about the nature of taste.Comment: This paper offers a reading of Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste" that examines the role of the 'true judges'
Piper, Adrian M. S.. Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception2008, APRA Foundation Berlin.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Adrian M. S. Piper
Publisher's Note: The Humean conception of the self consists in the belief-desire model of motivation and the utility-maximizing model of rationality. This conception has dominated Western thought in philosophy and the social sciences ever since Hobbes' initial formulation in Leviathan and Hume's elaboration in the Treatise of Human Nature. Bentham, Freud, Ramsey, Skinner, Allais, von Neumann and Morgenstern and others have added further refinements that have brought it to a high degree of formal sophistication. Late twentieth century moral philosophers such as Rawls, Brandt, Frankfurt, Nagel and Williams have taken it for granted, and have made use of it to supply metaethical foundations for a wide variety of normative moral theories. But the Humean conception of the self also leads to seemingly insoluble problems about moral motivation, rational final ends, and moral justification. Can it be made to work?Comment:
Foot, Philippa. Natural Goodness2001, Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Anne-Marie McCallion
Publisher's Note: Philippa Foot has for many years been one of the most distinctive and influential thinkers in moral philosophy. Long dissatisfied with the moral theories of her contemporaries, she has gradually evolved a theory of her own that is radically opposed not only to emotivism and prescriptivism but also to the whole subjectivist, anti-naturalist movement deriving from David Hume. Dissatisfied with both Kantian and utilitarian ethics, she claims to have isolated a special form of evaluation that predicates goodness and defect only to living things considered as such; she finds this form of evaluation in moral judgements. Her vivid discussion covers topics such as practical rationality, erring conscience, and the relation between virtue and happiness, ending with a critique of Nietzsche's immoralism. This long-awaited book exposes a highly original approach to moral philosophy and represents a fundamental break from the assumptions of recent debates. Foot challenges many prominent philosophical arguments and attitudes; but hers is a work full of life and feeling, written for anyone intrigued by the deepest questions about goodness and human.
Comment: This is an intermediate text which outlines and argues for the primary methodological differences between Foot’s account of the relationship between reason and morality, and the standard (broadly Humean) approach against which she is arguing. Some understanding of this standard approach is required to get the most out of this text. The text is clear throughout and would make a good compliment to courses which deal with the Humean account of Action or 20th century discussions concerning meta-ethics.
Beebee, Helen. Hume on Causation2006, Routledge-
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Added by: Laura JimenezPublisher’s Note:
Hume on Causation is the first major work dedicated to Hume’s views on causation in over fifteen years, and it argues that Hume does not subscribe to any of these three views. It places Hume’s interest in causation within the context of his theory of the mind and his theory of causal reasoning, arguing that Hume’s conception of causation derives from his conception of the nature of the inference from causes to effects.Comment: This book serves as an excellent introduction to, and critical survey of, Hume's views on causation. It will be useful in undergraduate and postgraduate courses which cover Hume's views. Chapter 1 "Hume's Targets" gives historical context to Hume's views and would work well as further reading in a week covering Hume and causation. The other chapters focus on specific interpretations or aspects of Hume's work and thus could be more useful in a postgraduate course on Hume, or causation. This will also be of course to postgraduate students who want to research Hume and/or causation.
Anjum, Rani Lill, Stephen Mumford. A Powerful Theory of Causation2010, In Anna Marmodoro (ed.) The Metaphysics of Powers, Routledge (2010): 143-59.-
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Added by: Jamie Collin
Abstract: Hume thought that if you believed in powers, you believed in necessary connections in nature. He was then able to argue that there were none such because anything could follow anything else. But Hume wrong-footed his opponents. A power does not necessitate its manifestations: rather, it disposes towards them in a way that is less than necessary but more than purely contingent. In this paper a dispositional theory of causation is offered. Causes dispose towards their effects and often produce them. But a set of causes, even though they may succeed in producing an effect, cannot necessitate it since the effect could have been counteracted by some additional power. This would require a separation of our concepts of causal production and causal necessitation. The most conspicuous cases of causation are those where powers accumulate and pass a requisite threshold for an effect to occur. We develop a model for representing powers as constituent vectors within an n-dimensional quality space, where composition of causes appears as vector addition. Even our resultant vector, however, has to be understood as having dispositional force only. This model throws new light on causal modality and cases of prevention, causation by absence and probabilistic causation.Comment: This paper develops a sophisticated formulation of a powers theory of causation in both a clear and non-technical way. It would be generally useful in a course on metaphysics, philosophy of science, or any course in which philosophical accounts of causation are relevant. More specifically, it would work well as further reading in an undergraduate course on causation and as core reading in a postgraduate course on causation.
Ginsborg, Hannah. Aesthetic Judgment and Perceptual Normativity2006, Inquiry 49(5): 403-437.-
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Added by: Ben McGorrigan, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: I draw a connection between the question, raised by Hume and Kant, of how aesthetic judgments can claim universal agreement, and the question, raised in recent discussions of nonconceptual content, of how concepts can be acquired on the basis of experience. Developing an idea suggested by Kant's linkage of aesthetic judgment with the capacity for empirical conceptualization, I propose that both questions can be resolved by appealing to the idea of "perceptual normativity". Perceptual experience, on this proposal, involves the awareness of its own appropriateness with respect to the object perceived, where this appropriateness is more primitive than truth or veridicality. This means that a subject can take herself to be perceiving an object as she (and anyone else) ought to perceive it, without first recognizing the object as falling under a corresponding concept. I motivate the proposal through a criticism of Peacocke's account of concept-acquisition, which, I argue, rests on a confusion between the notion of a way something is perceived, and that of a way it is perceived as being. Whereas Peacocke's account of concept-acquisition depends on an illicit slide between these two notions, the notion of perceptual normativity allows a legitimate transition between them: if someone's perceiving something a certain way involves her taking it that she ought to perceive it that way, then she perceives the thing as being a certain way, so that the corresponding concept is available to her in perceptual experience.Comment: This paper will mainly be of relevance in relation to the antinomy or paradox of taste, a problem famously examined by Hume and Kant. It may also be of use in relation to topics in the Philosophy of Perception or Epistemology, or in teaching on Kant's Critique of Judgment. Ginsbourg presents a very thorough discussion of the notion that perceptions make concepts available by involving implicit claims to their own appropriateness; she uses this idea to make an interesting and plausible contribution to the debate regarding the antinomy of taste.
Tiberius, Valerie. Humean Heroism: Value Commitments and the Source of Normativity2000, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 81(4) 426-46.-
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Added by: Graham Bex-Priestley
Abstract: This paper addresses the question "In virtue of what do practical reasons have normative force or justificatory power?" There seems to be good reason to doubt that desires are the source of normativity. However, I argue that the reasons to be suspicious of desire-based accounts of normativity can be overcome by a sufficiently sophisticated account. The position I defend in this paper is one according to which desires, or more generally, proattitudes, do constitute values and provide rational justifications of actions when they are organized in the right way.Comment: A good defence of desire-based accounts of value, tackling some of the most intuitive objections (such as being "too subjective" and having no foundation in reason).
Cohon, Rachel. Hume’s Moral Philosophy2010, E. N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy [electronic resource]-
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Added by: Simon Fokt
Introduction: Hume's position in ethics, which is based on his empiricist theory of the mind, is best known for asserting four theses: (1) Reason alone cannot be a motive to the will, but rather is the “slave of the passions” (see Section 3) (2) Moral distinctions are not derived from reason (see Section 4). (3) Moral distinctions are derived from the moral sentiments: feelings of approval (esteem, praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators who contemplate a character trait or action (see Section 7). (4) While some virtues and vices are natural (see Section 13), others, including justice, are artificial (see Section 9). There is heated debate about what Hume intends by each of these theses and how he argues for them. He articulates and defends them within the broader context of his metaethics and his ethic of virtue and vice. Hume's main ethical writings are Book 3 of his Treatise of Human Nature, “Of Morals” (which builds on Book 2, “Of the Passions”), his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, and some of his Essays. In part the moral Enquiry simply recasts central ideas from the moral part of the Treatise in a more accessible style; but there are important differences. The ethical positions and arguments of the Treatise are set out below, noting where the moral Enquiry agrees; differences between the Enquiry and the Treatise are discussed afterwards.Comment:
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Longino, Helen. Circles of Reason: Some Feminist Reflections on Reason and Rationality
2005, Episteme, 2 (1): 79-88
Comment:
available in this Blueprint