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Added by: Jamie RobertsonAbstract: Summary (from Introduction of Autonomy and Mental Disorder, Radoilska ed.): In 'Mental disorder and the value(s) of autonomy', Jane Heal identifies and critically examines a form of thought which is implicit in discussions about what we, as a society, owe to people with mental disorder. This form of thought builds upon intuitions which link respect for a person with respect for a person's autonomy. In light of these intuitions, the issue of how to treat a person with mental disorder may seem to revolve around the question whether or not this person has the capacity for autonomy. However, Heal argues, inquiries that share this logical form are methodologically inappropriate and potentially unhelpful in answering either of the questions they put together: what we owe to people with mental disorder and what is involved in autonomy as a capacity. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, the apparent consensus about autonomy as a capacity for self-determination that ought to be protected from interference by a corresponding right to self-determination is too shallow to ground a coherent course of action in terms of respect for autonomy. Even if we work with the assumption that autonomy is part of the Enlightenment project, we face an important dilemma since we have to choose between a Kantian or rationality oriented and a Millian or well-being oriented take on the nature and significance of autonomy. Secondly, even if we were to reach a substantive consensus on the concept of autonomy, it would arguably require an intricate array of mental capacities, outside the reach of at least some people with mental disorder. Getting clearer on what autonomy is will not help us find out what it means to treat these people respectfully.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirAbstract: Because it embraces a domain that is invincibly pluralistic and dynamic, aesthetic theory can serve as a model for feminist theory. Feminist theory, which takes gender as a constituted point of departure, pluralizes theory, thereby challenging its unicity. This anomalous approach to theory is also implicit in conventional aesthetics, which has for that reason been spurned by centrist philosophy. Whilst aesthetics therefore merits attention from feminists, there is reason to be wary of such classic aesthetic doctrines as the the thesis that art is "autonomous" and properly percevied "disinterestedly". That belief has roots in somatophobic dualism which ultimately leads to consequences as negative for art and the aesthetic as for women. Feminists rightly join with other critics of traditional dominative dualisms; yet they can learn from the expansive tendency in aesthetics toward openness and self-reflexive innovation.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirIntroduction: Public art is an oxymoron according to the standards of modernist art and aesthetic theory. Modern philosophical aesthetics focuses almost exclusively on subjective experience and a commodified work of art. Art is taken to be the product of an individual and autonomous act of expression, and its appreciation is, likewise, a private act of contemplation. By contrast, as a public phenomenon, art must entail the artist's self-negation and deference to a collective community. It is interesting to observe that the recognized art of nearly all cultures, including that of the western European tradition prior to the late Renaissance, embraces just such a collective model, indulging the differences among individuals as variant manifestations of a common spirit. The celebrated treasures of Greece and Rome, as well as the Christian works of the Middle Ages and the age of the fresco that succeeded them, do not exalt the private vision of individual artists so much as they bespeak the shared values and convictions of cultural communities, and are accordingly to be found in those edifices and open places where people regularly gather to commemorate those same values and convictions. Privacy was for centuries a privative concept, demarcating the dissociated and limited experience of persons cut off from and below the level of full social humanity.
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Added by: Björn FreterAbstract:
Abstract: Empirical research into moral decision-making is often taken to have normative implications. For instance, in his recent book, Greene (2013) relies on empirical findings to establish utilitarianism as a superior normative ethical theory. Kantian ethics, and deontological ethics more generally, is a rival view that Greene attacks. At the heart of Greene’s argument against deontology is the claim that deontological moral judgments are the product of certain emotions and not of reason. Deontological ethics is a mere rationalization of these emotions. Accordingly Greene maintains that deontology should be abandoned. This paper is a defense of deontological ethical theory. It argues that Greene’s argument against deontology needs further support. Greene’s empirical evidence is open to alternative interpretations. In particular, it is not clear that Greene’s characterization of alarm-like emotions that are relative to culture and personal experience is empirically tenable. Moreover, it is implausible that such emotions produce specifically deontological judgments. A rival sentimentalist view, according to which all moral judgments are determined by emotion, is at least as plausible given the empirical evidence and independently supported by philosophical theory. I therefore call for an improvement of Greene’s argument.
Comment: Defends deontological ethics against debunking arguments based on neuroscientific evidence, notably Joshua Greene's critique. Can be used in a unit on neurophilosophy, empirically informed ethics, or philosophy of cognitive science; e.g., can be pitted against Greene's "The secret joke of Kant's soul"
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: AnonymousAbstract:
In some vicarious cases of compensation, an agent seems obligated to compensate for a harm they did not inflict. This raises the problem that obligations for compensation may arise out of circumstantial luck. That is, an agent may owe compensation for a harm that was outside their control. Addressing this issue, I identify five conditions for compensation from the literature: causal engagement, proxy, ill-gotten gains, constitution, and affiliation. I argue that only two of them specify genuine and irreducible grounds for compensation, and that factors determining the agent’s obligations may be beyond their control. However, I suggest that this is unproblematic. There is thus no problem of circumstantial moral luck for compensation.
Comment: Argues that there is no problem of moral luck for obligations of compensation. Surveys possible ethical justifications of compensation and may thus be used as a text in a class on reparation, restoration, and related issues in applied ethics and political philosophy. Also discusses moral luck, particularly circumstantial luck, and may thus be used to showcase how the issue of moral luck arises in the circumscribed context of compensation.
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Added by: Jamie CollinPublisher's Note: Mainstream and Formal Epistemology provides the first easily accessible yet erudite and original analysis of the meeting point between mainstream and formal theories of knowledge. These two strands of thinking have traditionally proceeded in isolation from one another but in this book Vincent F. Hendricks brings them together for a systematic comparative treatment. He demonstrates how mainstream and formal epistemology may significantly benefit from one another, paving the way for a new unifying program of 'plethoric' epistemology. His book will both define and further the debate between philosophers from two very different sides of the epistemological spectrum.
Comment: This would be useful in a course on epistemology, formal epistemology, philosophical logic or formal methods in philosophy. Though the abstract describes the book as easily accessible, it is fairly technical in places (though remains a good introduction to the topic). Later chapters do rely, to some extent, on earlier ones; however, individual chapters from this book would provide very good introductions to topics such as the analysis of knowledge, modal epistemology, contextualism in epistemology etc.
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Added by: Jamie CollinAbstract: Epistemic logic is the logic of knowledge and belief. It provides insight into the properties of individual knowers, has provided a means to model complicated scenarios involving groups of knowers and has improved our understanding of the dynamics of inquiry.
Comment: This would be useful in a course on epistemology, formal epistemology, philosophical logic or formal methods in philosophy. This is quite a compact entry for the Stanford Enclyclopedia of Philosophy. It is not hugely technical, but symbol-phobes will find it logic-heavy.
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Added by: Sara Peppe, Contributed by: Jonathan EgidPublisher’s Note:
Sage Philosophy is an anthology of three main parts: Part one contains papers by Odera Oruka clearing the way and arguing about his research over the last decade on indigenous sages in Kenya. Part Two introduces verbatim interviews with a given number of those sages, while Part Three consists of published papers by scholars who are critics or commentators on the Oruka project. The author has spent the last decade in Kenya carrying out his research. It is the general stand of the book that the sages turn out to be thinkers or philosophers in no trivial sense, despite their lack of modern formal education. This study is a critique for all those scholars who hitherto have found no practice of critical philosophy in traditional Africa.
Comment: A great anthology broken down in three parts, including sages about Kenyan culture and cognate interviews with a final academic, in-depth, analysis. Great book for building knowledge about the Kenyan culture to be used as an overview on the theme.
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Added by: Nick NovelliAbstract: Richard Henson attempts to take the sting out of this view of Kant on moral worth by arguing (i) that attending to the phenomenon of the overdetermination of actions leads one to see that Kant might have had two distinct views of moral worth, only one of which requires the absence of cooperating inclinations, and (ii) that when Kant insists that there is moral worth only when an action is done from the motive of duty alone, he need not also hold that such a state of affairs is morally better, all things considered, than one where supporting inclination is present. Henson's proposals seem to me both serious and plausible. I do not think that either of his models, in the end, can take on the role Kant assigns to moral worth in the argument of the Groundwork. But seeing the ways Henson's account diverges from Kant's makes clearer what Kant intended in his discussion of those actions he credits with moral worth. [...] An action has moral worth if it is required by duty and has as its primary motive the motive of duty. The motive of duty need not reflect the only interest the agent has in the action (or its effect); it must, however, be the interest that determines the agent's acting as he did.
Comment: This article is a good discussion of the issue of acting out of inclination as opposed to duty in Kant's philosophy. It would provide a useful perspective on that issue in a course on Kant's philosophy. As it engages with R.G. Henson's argument on the subject, it would be usefully taught wherever his work is, but it could also be taught in isolation from it as familiarity with Henson's work is not required to understand the article.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Jojanneke VanderveenAbstract: This article analyses a hitherto neglected problem at the transition from ideal to non‐ideal theory: the problem of knowledge. Ideal theories often make idealising assumptions about the availability of knowledge, for example knowledge of social scientific facts. This can lead to problems when this knowledge turns out not to be available at the non‐ideal level. Knowledge can be unavailable in a number of ways: in principle, for practical reasons, or because there are normative reasons not to use it. This can make it necessary to revise ideal theories, because the principle of 'ought implies can' rules out certain theories, at least insofar as they are understood as action‐guiding. I discuss a number of examples and argue that there are two tendencies that will increase the relevance of this problem in the future: the availability of large amounts of sensitive data whose use is problematic from a normative point of view, and the increasing complexity of an interrelated world that makes it harder to predict the effects of institutional changes. To address these issues, philosophers need to cooperate with social scientists and philosophers of the social sciences. Normative theorising can then be understood as one step in a long process that includes thinkers from different disciplines. Ideal theory can respond to many of the charges raised against it if it is understood along these lines and if it takes the problem of knowledge and its implications seriously.
Comment: Helen Reviewing - Topical article engaging with the debate about ideal and non-ideal theory and the relation between these.
Comment: This text would be a good candidate for inclusion in a course about autonomy, philosophy of disability, or the ethics or political philosophy of mental health or aging (due to discussion of dementia). If assigned as part of a course on autonomy, students will benefit from considering Heal's approach to breaking down the logical components of the concept and her nuanced discussion of the limitations of autonomy as a moral principle for understanding our obligations toward people with mental disorders. This second element is the central question of the paper and would be of interest when examining disability or mental health from a philosophical perspective.