Ethics.
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A popperian approach to rational argumentation in applied ethics
Fellow: Fabio Bacchini abstract & keywords
Abstract: As a consequence of Hume’s famous is-ought problem, it may seem that no rational justification of a moral statement can ever be inferentially provided, and no argument typically used in applied ethics would ever deserve the title of rational justification. This paper aims to propose a fallibilist, non-foundationalist account of rational justification of a moral standpoint based on rational argumentation. This account will be developed within a noncognitivist theory of morality — a framework that seems to constitute the most challenging context for a similar attempt. First, the paper shows how we can have a good rational justification of a moral claim also if its (necessary) moral premises are neither indubitable nor properly inferentially justified, as long as we adopt what is called a Popperian solution to the “problem of prescriptive basic statements”. Second, it argues that a good rational justification of a moral claim does not need to be deductively valid. Using the idea that implicit presumptions introduced by invalid inferences can be monitored by a number of related critical questions, the article distinguishes between fallacious and non-fallacious invalid arguments, and examines how a use of an invalid non-fallacious argument can count as a rational justification of a moral position in applied ethics. However, applied ethics must do its part, and must be explicitly based on rational argumentation. Keywords: applied ethics, justification of a moral claim, invalid non-fallacious inferences, argumentation in ethics, prescriptive premises, noncognitivism, moral statement, moral sentiment, rational justification, rational argumentation |
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Hunger as a Constitutive Property of a Culinary Work
Fellow: Fabio Bacchini abstract
Abstract: In this paper I attempt to show that a certain degree of hunger, intended as a material and psychological condition of the diner, can become a constitutive property of a culinary work. One may believe that the best possible argument supporting this thesis is one relying on the general assertion that an author’s stipulative authority over the features of his or her work, if adequately exercised, is absolute. Quite the contrary, I show that we should prefer a different and more specific argumentative strategy based on the twofold fact that the conventions ruling over culinary works are peculiarly less stringent than in many other art fields, and that hunger has a very special status with regard to culinary works, in the sense that fixing the degree of hunger of the diner may serve to fix the appropriate conditions for any minimally acceptable perceptual experience of a culinary work to take place. |
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Carving Spaces: Violence and the Sacred
Fellow: Fabio Bacchini authors & introduction
Authors: Fabio Bacchini, Ivan Blečić, Paul Dumouchel, Emanuel Muroni Introduction: Violence and the Sacred is René Girard’s first engagement outside of the domain of literary studies in which he examines the generative potential of mimetic processes of rivalry and violence, showing how cultural institutions can emerge from the local repetition of a spontaneous self-regulating mechanism of violence, and from the “misunderstanding” (or méconnaissance) of how it functioned by those who acted it out.The book is remarkable for displaying the scientific fecundity of the mimetic theory in its morphogenetic dimension. Indeed, in Girard’s thought, mimetic desire is the spark igniting a panoply of social dynamics, the primum movens of an evolution where intricate micro-social interactions of rivalry, conflict, and violence can lead not only back to peace, but also to the creation of cultural institutions. Here, the properly morphogenetic nature of mimetic theory arises from relatively simple mechanisms engendering complex, often counter-intuitive outcomes, with small changes capable of bringing about major transformations and shifts in evolutionary trajectories. The great significance of Girard’s work is to propose intelligible, in principle empirically testable, mechanisms shedding light on why and how such evolutions may progress and branch into different trajectories of social dynamics and cultural creation. Given its breath and morphogenetic nature, mimetic theory would prove relevant outside the domains of literature, early institutions and of religious phenomena where Girard himself mainly applied it. Though others have used mimetic approach for empirical research and analysis, it is surprising that little attention has been given to the mimetic perspec-tive on spatial phenomena in urban studies and political geography, in the fields studying the emergence and transformation of spatial objects and institutions, or to explore the possible implications and explanatory power of the mimetic hypothesis for the social production of space. Our goal in this paper is to suggest the possible interest and wealth of the mimetic analyses of spatial objects and institutions. |
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Refining the skill hypothesis: replies to Andrews/Westra, Tomasello, Sterelny, and Railton
Fellow: Jonathan Birch abstract & keywords
Abstract: I reflect on the commentaries on my ‘skill hypothesis’ from Andrews/Westra, Tomasello, Sterelny, and Railton. I discuss the difference between normative cognition and the broader category of action-guiding representation, and I reflect on the relationship between joint intentionality and normative cognition. I then consider Sterelny and Railton’s variants on the skill hypothesis, which highlight some important areas where future evidence could help us refine the account: the relative importance of on-the-fly skill execution vs. longer-term strategizing, the relative importance of toolmaking vs. collaborative foraging, and the question of whether norms are encoded in control models themselves or in the goals and ideals that our control models help us pursue. Keywords: normative cognition, skill, cognitive control, norms, evolution |
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How cooperation became the norm
Fellow: Jonathan Birch abstract & keywords
Abstract: Most of the contributions to Cooperation and Its Evolution grapple with the distinctive challenges presented by the project of explaining human sociality. Many of these puzzles have a ‘chicken and egg’ character: our virtually unparalleled capacity for large-scale cooperation is the product of psychological, behavioural, and demographic changes in our recent evolutionary history, and these changes are linked by complex patterns of reciprocal dependence. There is much we do not yet understand about the timing of these changes, and about the order in which different aspects of human social psychology (co-)evolved. In this review essay, I discuss four such puzzles the volume raises. These concern punishment and norm-psychology, moral judgement and the moral emotions, hierarchy and top-down coercion, and property rights and legal systems. Keywords: Human evolution, cooperation, norms, punishment, morality, emotions, hierarchy, property |
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The psychology of moral reasoning
Fellow: Monica Bucciarelli authors, abstract & keywords
Authors: Monica Bucciarelli, Sangeet Khemlani, P. N. Johnson-Laird Abstract: This article presents a theory of reasoning about moral propositions that is based on four fundamental principles. First, no simple criterion picks out propositions about morality from within the larger set of deontic propositions concerning what is permissible and impermissible in social relations, the law, games, and manners. Second, the mechanisms underlying emotions and deontic evaluations are independent and operate in parallel, and so some scenarios elicit emotions prior to moral evaluations, some elicit moral evaluations prior to emotions, and some elicit them at the same time. Third, deontic evaluations depend on inferences, either unconscious intuitions or conscious reasoning. Fourth, human beliefs about what is, and isn’t, moral are neither complete nor consistent. The article marshals the evidence, which includes new studies, corroborating these principles, and discusses the relations between them and other current theories of moral reasoning. Keywords: moral reasoning, deontic reasoning, intuitions, inferences, moral dilemmas. |
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Political corruption, individual behaviour and the quality of institutions
Fellow: Emanuela Ceva authors, abstract & keywords
Authors: Emanuela Ceva, Maria Paola Ferretti Abstract: Is the corrupt behaviour of public officials a politically relevant kind of wrong only when it causes the malfunctioning of institutions? We challenge recent institutionalist approaches to political corruption by showing a sense in which the individual corrupt behaviour of certain public officials is wrong not only as a breach of personal morality but in inherently politically salient terms. To show this sense, we focus on a specific instance of individual corrupt behaviour on the part of public officials entrusted with the power to implement public rules in a liberal democracy. Although not necessarily unlawful, their behaviour is politically wrong qua corrupt when it contradicts surreptitiously the requirement of public justification that undergirds the public order. Then, we distinguish this form of corruption as surreptitious action from such unlawful but publicly justifiable kinds of political misbehaviour as civil disobedience. Keywords: political corruption, publicity, liberal democracy, impartiality, civil disobedience |
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Responsibility for Reason-Giving: The Case of Individual Tainted Reasoning in Systemic Corruption
Fellow: Emanuela Ceva authors, abstract & keywords
Authors: Emanuela Ceva, Lubomira Radoilska Abstract: The paper articulates a new understanding of individual responsibility focused on exercises of agency in reason-giving rather than intentional actions or attitudes towards others. Looking at how agents make sense of their actions, we identify a distinctive but underexplored space for assessing individual responsibility within collective actions. As a case in point, we concentrate on reason-giving for one's own involvement in systemic corruption. We characterize systemic corruption in terms of its public ‘unavowability’ and focus on the redescriptions to which corrupt agents typically resort to vindicate their actions (e.g., when they present bribes as tokens of appreciation for services rendered). Through a multidimensional approach to reason-giving, we show that the individual rationalisations these redescriptions point to are necessarily less-than-successful since they keep thedifferent categories of reasons involved in making sense of one’s own conduct misaligned. We argue that this involves a kind of tainted reasoning at the interface between epistemic vice and epistemic disadvantage. We then consider such test cases as self-deception, wilful ignorance, and actions on ‘autopilot’ to show that tainted reasoning is constitutive of systemic corruption, not merely caused by it. On this ground, we expound a new view of responsibility centred on reason-giving as the epistemic core which all responsibility assessments track. To demonstrate the interest of this view, we compare it with existing alternatives revolving around the ideas of accountability and attributability. We conclude by showing how our understanding of responsibility can shed new light on the analysis and normative assessment of an agent’s responsible ignorance. Keywords: Systemic corruption, Rationalisation, Responsibility, Reason-giving, Self-deception, Wilful ignorance, Accountability, Attributability |
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Failing Institutions, Whistle‐Blowing, and the Role of the News Media
Fellow: Emanuela Ceva authors & abstract
Authors: Emanuela Ceva, Dorota Mokrosinska Abstract: The article discusses the normative grounds for recognising a watchdog role to the news media as concerns the dissemination of information about an institutional failure menacing a well‐ordered society. This is, for example, the case of the news media’s role in the diffusion of whistle‐blowers’ disclosures. We argue that many popular justifications for the watchdog role of the news media (as a ‘fourth estate’; a trustee of the people’s right to know; expert communicator) fail to ground that role in some unique feature that makes the news media special as concerns the performance of the role. We offer an alternative argument that shows how the watchdog role of the news media shares a justificatory ground with the role that any member of a well‐ordered society has in terms of a general duty of answerability in the face of institutional failures. Although this duty does not bear only on the news media, we concede that in some contingent circumstances, the news media might be better positioned to discharge it and, therefore, to initiate corrective actions of institutional failures effectively and conscientiously. However, the establishment of the news media’s responsibility in this sense is an empirical, not a conceptual or a normative matter. |
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Technology and Anarchy: A Reading of Our Era
Fellow: Simona Chiodo abstract & keywords
Abstract: In Technology and Anarchy: A Reading of Our Era, Simona Chiodo argues that our technological era can be read as the most radical form of anarchism ever experienced. People are not only removing the role of the expert as a mediator, but also trying, for the first time in history, to replace the role of a transcendent god itself by creating, especially through information technology, a totally immanent technological entity characterized by the typical ontological prerogatives of the divine: omnipresence (by being everywhere), omniscience (by knowing everything, especially about us), omnipotence (by having power, especially over us), and inscrutability. Chiodo proposes a novel view of our technological era by reading it as the last step of a precise trajectory of Western thought, i.e. as the most radical form of anarchism we have ever experienced, due to the crisis of the founding epistemological relationship between ideality and reality. By doing this, Chiodo helps fill the gap between technological innovation and the humanities, which is becoming an emerging research goal that is more and more urgent in order to face the greatest challenges of our present and future. Keywords: Philosophy, Epistemology, Political Philosophy, Technology & Engineering, Philosophy of Technology |
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Explanatory Judgment, Moral Offense and Value-Free Science
Fellow: Matteo Colombo authors & abstract
Authors: Matteo Colombo, Leandra Bucher, Yoel Inbar Abstract: A popular view in philosophy of science contends that scientific reasoning is objective to the extent that the appraisal of scientific hypotheses is not influenced by moral, political, economic, or social values, but only by the available evidence. A large body of results in the psychology of motivated-reasoning has put pressure on the empirical adequacy of this view. The present study extends this body of results by providing direct evidence that the moral offensiveness of a scientific hypothesis biases explanatory judgment along several dimensions, even when prior credence in the hypothesis is controlled for. Furthermore, it is shown that this bias is insensitive to an economic incentive to be accurate in the evaluation of the evidence. These results contribute to call into question the attainability of the ideal of a value-free science. |
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Why Practical Wisdom Cannot be Eliminated
Fellow: Mario De Caro Authors & AbStract
Authors: Mario De Caro, Claudia Navarini & Maria Silvia Vaccarezza Abstract: Practical wisdom eliminativism has recently been proposed in both philosophy and psychology, on the grounds of the alleged redundancy of practical wisdom (Miller 2021) and its purported developmental/psychological implausibility (Lapsley 2021). Here we respond to these challenges by drawing on an improved version of a view of practical wisdom, the “Aretai model”, that we have presented elsewhere (De Caro et al. 2021; Vaccarezza et al. 2023; De Caro et al. forthcoming). According to this model, practical wisdom is conceptualized: (i) as virtuousness tout court, i.e., as the ratio essendi of the virtues, and (ii) as a form of ethical expertise. By appealing to the first thesis, we counter the charge of psychological implausibility, while we rely on the second thesis to address the accusation of redundancy. In conclusion we argue that the Aretai model implies a significant paradigm shift in virtue ethics. Practical wisdom emerges as both necessary and sufficient for virtuousness, thereby downsizing – without eliminating entirely – the role that individual virtues play in our ethical lives. |
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The Inextricability of Fact and Value
Fellow: Massimo Dell'Utri ABSTRACT
Abstract: In this chapter I put forward some reasons to show how judgments of fact and judgments of value are intertwined. These reasons run contrary to a deep-rooted cultural tradition, which sees a sharp distinction—a dichotomy—between the natural sciences, on the one hand, and the human sciences, on the other, and therefore between facts and values. Accordingly, I show which tradition this is and what the advantages of abandoning its main tenets are. Central to the exposition is the explanation of why the science of valuations can be taken to represent one of the best instances of the inextricability of fact and value. |
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Towards a Phenomenological Axiology: Discovering What Matters
Fellow: Roberta De Monticelli abstract
Abstract: This book attempts to open up a path towards a phenomenological theory of values (more technically, a phenomenological axiology). By drawing on everyday experience, and dissociating the notion of value from that of tradition, it shows how emotional sensibility can be integrated to practical reason. This project was prompted by the persuasion that the fragility of democracy, and the current public irrelevance of the ideal principles which support it, largely depend on the inability of modern philosophy to overcome the well-entrenched skepticism about the power of practical reason. The book begins with a phenomenology of cynical consciousness, continues with a survey of still influential theories of value rooted in 20th century philosophy, and finally offers an outline of a bottom-up axiology that revives the anti-skeptical legacy of phenomenology, without ignoring the standards set by contemporary metaethics. |
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The Paradox of Axiology. A Phenomenological Approach to Value Theory
Fellow: Roberta De Monticelli abstract & keywords
Abstract: Are values more than measures of our needs and desires or internalized social and cultural rules of behaviour, originating in cultures and devoid of any universally accessible objectivity? Is there a place for values in a world of facts? If so, how can values preserve their ideality and normativity? If not, how can value judgements be true or false? Max Scheler’s Material Axiology is the best answer Classical Phenomenology provides to this dilemma. Yet Material Axiology, in particular material ethics of values, is largely ignored or looked down upon for being based on unclear presuppositions. This paper tries to provide a fresh start by clarifying the bottom-up approach characteristic of phenomenology with an exercise in experimental phenomenology in which I will analyze the actual experience of certain aesthetic values in emotionally qualified perception. Keywords: experimental phenomenology, value theory, metaethics, material axiology |
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Values, norms, justification and the appropriateness of emotions
Fellow: Roberta De Monticelli abstract
Abstract: Thought and action “depend” somehow on emotion.The study of emotional life, which has been curiously neglected by most modern philosophers, is introduced as a crucial domain of philosophical research. A introduction to the philosophy of emotions points out three fundamental features of emotions that any account should address: their phenomenology, intentionality, and epistemology. Noematic description highlights our receptivity to an infinite variety of value qualities belonging to things, capturing how things are experienced as, in a way, good or bad. Receptivity is the phenomenon of “being struck”, grounding emotional responses which are more or less appropriate and in principle correctible. Axiological positionality, which may be positive, negative, or neutral, is as much “under the jurisdiction of reason” as doxic positionality. |
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Human Dignity: absolute and intrinsic value?
Fellow: Robinson Dos Santos abstract & keywords
Abstract: Os conceitos dignidade (Würde) e dignidade humana (Menschenwürde) são empregados amplamente, nas mais diversas áreas do conhecimento, mas com muito mais frequência em áreas como a filosofia moral e política, na filosofia do direito, na bioética etc. quando se trata de justificar ou aplicar princípios, assim como fundamentar filosoficamente certos direitos e determinados deveres morais. Para isso, com grande frequência, recorre-se à filosofia prática de Kant. No âmbito da filosofia não há dúvidas de que Kant é uma das referências modernas mais importantes no que se refere à concepção de dignidade. Se, por um lado, a dignidade é lembrada como uma característica distintiva que indica a posição do ser humano no reino da natureza, isto é, distingue-o dos demais seres, tomando por base. Keywords: Value Theory, Immanuel Kant, Morality, Human Dignity, Dignidad Humana. |
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Kant e a metaética contemporânea
Fellow: Robinson Dos Santos overview & keywords
Overview: Qual o lugar de Kant na metaética contemporânea? Será possível enquadrá-lo simplesmente dentro de alguma das diversas vertentes da mesma sem maiores problemas? Em caso afirmativo, qual seria então o Kant legítimo? Aquele apresentado pelos construtivistas ou, ao contrário, o Kant “verdadeiro” é aquele oferecido pela visão dos realistas? É possível sustentar tal classificação sem incorrer, ao mesmo tempo, reduzir a complexidade de seu pensamento à uma caricatura? Entendo que, antes de mais nada, cabe perguntar e considerar se é legítimo e, até mesmo, se é necessário “encaixá-lo” ou “classificá-lo” num debate desta ordem, pois a primeira constatação, por mais óbvia que seja, é que o seu interesse não estava centrado exclusivamente em discussões metaéticas - embora possamos encontrar certos elementos que remetem a este plano - e sim, fundamentalmente, em justificar uma proposta de ética normativa. Meu objetivo neste ensaio consiste em caracterizar e analisar a controvérsia em torno de uma possível interpretação metaética da filosofia moral de Kant. Por um lado, Kant é entendido como realista moral na medida em que ele argumenta em defesa da objetividade, necessidade e validade universal da lei moral. Por outro lado, ele também é entendido como anti-realista moral, uma vez que sua ética, fundada na concepção de razão prática, é interpretada como construtivista, na qual a moral não pode ser vista como algo independente da mente humana, tal como se estivesse situada em alguma esfera sui generis. Keywords: Immanuel Kant, Moral anti-realism, Moral, Normative Ethics and Metaethics, Realismo Moral |
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Between analyticity and reciprocity: Schönecker and Allison on GMS III
Fellow: Robinson Dos Santos authors, abstract & keywords
Abstract: A Fundamentação da Metafísica dos Costumes (1785) de Kant conta nos dias de hoje com uma literatura comentadora cuja extensão e desdobramentos impõem cada vez mais dificuldades para o estabelecimento de um diagnóstico atualizado da discussão. Esta obra continua sendo objeto de investigações no âmbito da Kant-Forschung, tanto por conta de seus problemas imanentes, tais como sua estrutura, o emprego de determinados conceitos e argumentos, quanto em função de seu status no corpus kantiano, isto é, sua posição e relação face às outras obras, especialmente as de filosofia prática. Isso apenas corrobora a tese de que ainda não se chegou a uma interpretação conclusiva desta obra, ainda que tenhamos à disposição, como já dito, uma literatura abrangente e altamente especializada. Neste contexto, entre os trabalhos já reconhecidos, são muito relevantes as interpretações do pesquisador alemão Dieter Schönecker Kant: Grundlegung III-Die Deduktion des kategorischen Imperativs (1999) e de Henry Allison, um dos mais renomados pesquisadores kantianos de língua inglesa, Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary (2011). Estas são duas das mais importantes interpretações contemporâneas tanto da Fundamentação da Metafísica dos Costumes 1 como um todo, quanto da sua Seção III em particular 2. Entre as razões que podem ser citadas para justificar tal relevância eu destacaria três: a) primeiro pelo fato de serem interpretações abrangentes, rigorosas e extremamente detalhadas (oferecem evidências textuais em abundância para suas respectivas interpretações); b) segundo por tratar-se de dois reconhecidos. Keywords: Immanuel Kant, Moral Philosophy, Kantian ethics |
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La philosophie comme science morale et des normes
Fellow: Pascal Engel abstract
Abstract: Résumé Les sciences morales ont un statut paradoxal. D’un côté quand on les recrute au sein des sciences, c’est pour leur accorder la capacité de parvenir à des connaissances sinon certaines et exactes, du moins comparables à celles que peuvent nous fournir les sciences naturelles. De l’autre, en tant que sciences de l’esprit, elles semblent échapper aux critères des sciences de la nature, et ne relever que de l’interprétation par les raisons, et non pas de l’explication par les causes. Mais que devient cette différence à partir du moment où la science contemporaine renonce à l’idéal de certitude et que l’on tient tout savoir comme faillible? Quelle place la philosophie peut-elle occuper parmi les sciences morales ? N’est-elle pas, de par même l’incertitude de ses principes encore plus faillible et incertaine que les autres sciences morales et a fortiori que les sciences naturelles ? Dans cet exposé on soutiendra deux thèses à l’encontre de ces conceptions :
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Les Vices du savoir. Essai d’éthique intellectuelle
Fellow: Pascal Engel abstract
Abstract: «Notre société “de l’information” et “de la connaissance”, dans laquelle le marketing et la propagande ont pris des dimensions inédites, est envahie par le bullshit. Politiquement, le but du bullshitter n’est pas tant de plaire aux électeurs que de promouvoir un système dans lequel le vrai n’a plus de place parce qu’il n’est plus une valeur. Or celui qui ne respecte pas la vérité est aussi celui qui admet que seuls le pouvoir et la force sont les sources de l’autorité. Les penseurs post‑modernes aiment à dire que l’abandon de la vérité comme valeur laissera la voie libre à d’autres valeurs comme la solidarité ou le sens de la communauté, mais on peut aussi bien dire que le non-respect de la vérité et la promotion du baratin auront comme conséquences le règne du cynisme, le culte du pouvoir et la domination brute des puissants.». Ni réductible à l’éthique tout court, ni simple branche de l’épistémologie, l’éthique intellectuelle définit les normes qui fondent objectivement la correction des croyances. Dans ce livre, Pascal Engel montre que l’indifférence à leur égard, qu’ont en partage, à l’échelle planétaire, tant de nos politiques, journalistes et universitaires contemporains, représente la forme la plus aboutie du vice intellectuel et sape, dans la cité, la possibilité d’une démocratie véritable. |
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Ascriptivism, Norms, and Negligence
Fellow: Sebastián Figueroa Rubio ABSTRACT
Abstract: The present work deals with the problem that negligence poses for the relationship between agency and responsibility, that is, it is not possible to establish a sharp connection between the agent’s guilty mind and the wrongful situation. A critical examination of the various strategies that attempt to deal with this problem is presented, and an ascriptivist conception of action and responsibility, as well as the distinction between conduct rules and imputation rules, is developed to address the problem. As a result, a complex theory of agency is defended, the distinction between tracing and non-tracing cases is supported, and it is proposed to understand the latter under the social and normative aspects of agency. |
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Expectations and Attribution of Responsibility
Fellow: Sebastián Figueroa Rubio ABSTRACT
Abstract: Under the hypothesis that every attribution of responsibility rests on the fact that an expectation has been breached, the author proposes to understand expectations as standards adopted by a community to evaluate specific events and allow the members of the community to search for an explanation of the events which breach expectations. After presenting this way of understanding expectations, their relationship with responsibility is analyzed, having in mind the mentioned hypothesis. To close the paper, the relationship between responsibility and expectations is explored as an alternative to the idea that every attribution of responsibility supposes the breach of an obligation, whether moral or legal, by who is held responsible. |
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Objetividad de los deberes y razones para la acción. Notas desde el externalismo
Fellow: Sebastián Figueroa Rubio ABSTRACT
Abstract: En el trabajo se explora cómo un externalismo respecto de razones para la acción contribuye a comprender la relación entre agentes y normas. Para ello, primero se presenta la distinción entre externalismo e internalismo; segundo, se revisan las dificultades del internalismo para explicar la objetividad de los deberes y; finalmente, se defiende al externalismo de la crítica según la cual no puede dar cuenta del principio «debe implica puede». |
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Defining Normativity
Fellow: Stephen Finlay authors, abstract & keywords
Abstract: This paper aims to clarify debate over the nature, existence, extension, and analyzability of normativity, by investigating whether different philosophers’ claims are about the same subject or (as argued by Derek Parfit) they are using the terms ‘normative’ and ‘normativity’ with different meanings. While I suggest the term may be multiply ambiguous, I also find reasons for optimism about a common subject-matter for metanormative theory. This is supported by sketching a special hybrid view of normative judgment, perspectivism, that occupies a position between cognitivism and noncognitivism, naturalism and nonnaturalism, objectivism and subjectivism. I explore three main fissures: between (i) the “normativity” of language/thought versus that of facts and properties, (ii) abstract versus substantive, and (iii) formal versus robust normativity. Keywords: definition of normativity, cognitivism, noncognitivism, formal normativity, robust normativity, Derek Parfit, metanormative theory, perspectivism, hybrid theory |
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Normativity, Necessity and Tense: A Recipe for Homebaked Normativity
Fellow: Stephen Finlay abstract
Abstract: Normative concepts have a special taste, which many consider to be proof that they cannot be reductively analyzed into entirely nonnormative components. This paper demonstrates that at least some intuitively normative concepts can be reductively analyzed. I focus on so-called ‘hypothetical imperatives’ or ‘anankastic conditionals’, and show that the availability of normative readings of conditionals is determined by features of grammar, specifically features of tense. Properly interpreted, these grammatical features suggest that these deontic modals are analyzable in terms of conditional necessity with a certain temporal structure. |
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The Building Blocks of Social Trust: The Role of Customary Mechanisms and Property Relations for the Emergence of Social Trust in the Context of the Commons
Fellow: Marc Goetzmann abstract & keywords
Abstract: This paper argues that social trust is the emergent product of a complex system of property relations, backed up by a sub-system of mutual monitoring. This happens in a context similar to Ostrom’s commons, where cooperation is necessary for the management of resources, in the absence of external authorities to enforce sanctions. I show that social trust emerges in this context because of an institutional structure that enables individuals to develop a generalized disposition to internalize the external effects of their actions. This is made possible by the “patrimonial” nature of this structure. Keywords: Elinor Ostrom, commons, social trust, property, structuralism |
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Spaces of Law and Customs
Fellow: Marc Goetzmann abstract & keywords
Authors: Edoardo Frezet, Marc Goetzmann, Luke Mason Abstract: This collection brings together a carefully curated selection of researchers from law, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, history, social ontology and international relations, in order to examine how law and custom interact within specific material and spatial contexts.Normativity develops within these contexts, while also shaping them. This complex relationship exists within all physical places from traditional agrarian spaces to the modern shifting post-industrial workplace. The contributions gathered together in this volume explore numerous examples of such spaces from different disciplinary perspectives to interrogate the dynamic relationship between custom and law, and the material spaces they inhabit. While there are a dynamic series of conclusions regarding this relationship in different material realities, a common theme is pursued throughout: a proper understanding of law and custom stems from their material locatedness within the power dynamics of particular spaces, which, in turn, are reflexively shaped by that same normativity. The book thus generates an account of the locatedness of law and custom, and, indeed, of custom as a source of law. In this way, it provides a series of linked explorations of normative spaces, but, more fundamentally, it also furnishes a cross-disciplinary toolkit of concepts and critical tools for understanding law and custom, and their relationship.As the diversity of the contributors indicates, this book will be of great interest to legal theorists of different traditions, also legal historians and anthropologists, as well as sociologists, historians, geographers and developmental economists. |
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Relativism and the expressivist bifurcation
Fellow: Javier González de Prado Salas abstract & keywords
Abstract: Traditional expressivists want to preserve a contrast between the representational use of declarative sentences in descriptive domains and the non-representational use of declarative sentences in other areas of discourse (in particular, normative speech). However, expressivists have good reasons to endorse minimalism about representational notions, and minimalism seems to threaten the existence of such a bifurcation. Thus, there are pressures for expressivists to become global anti-representationalists. In this paper I discuss how to reconstruct in nonrepresentationalist terms the sort of bifurcation traditional expressivists were after. My proposal is that the relevant bifurcation can be articulated by appeal to the contrast between relativistic and non-relativistic assertoric practices. I argue that this contrast, which can be specified without appeal to representational notions, captures the core intuitions behind the expressivist bifurcation (in particular, it captures the anti-realist intuitions motivating many expressivist proposals). Keywords: Expressivism, anti-representationalism, pragmatism, relativism, bifurcation thesis, minimalism |
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Dispossessing Defeat
Fellow: Javier González de Prado Salas abstract
Abstract: Higher-order evidence can make an agent doubt the reliability of her reasoning. When this happens, it seems rational for the agent to adopt a cautious attitude towards her original conclusion, even in cases where the higher-order evidence is misleading and the agent’s original reasons were actually perfectly good. One may think that recoiling to a cautious attitude in the face of misleading self-doubt involves a failure to properly respond to one’s reasons. My aim is to show that this is not so. My proposal is that (misleading) higher-order evidence can undermine the agent’s possession of her first-order reasons, constituting what I call a dispossessing defeater. After acquiring the higher-order evidence, the agent is no longer in a position to rely competently on the relevant first-order considerations as reasons for her original conclusion, so that such reasons stop being available to her (even if they remain as strong as in the absence of the higher-order evidence). In this way, an agent with misleading higher-order evidence can adopt a cautious stance towards her original conclusion, while properly responding to the set of reasons that she possesses–a set that is reduced due to the acquisition of higher-order dispossessing defeaters. |
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Normative Defeaters and the Alleged Impossibility of Mere Animal Knowledge for Reflective Subjects
Fellow: Giacomo Melis abstract
Abstract: One emerging issue in contemporary epistemology concerns the relation between animal knowledge, which can be had by agents unable to take a view on the epistemic status of their attitudes, and reflective knowledge, which is only available to agents capable of taking such a view. Philosophers who are open to animal knowledge often presume that while many of the beliefs of human adults are formed unreflectively and thus constitute mere animal knowledge, some of them—those which become subject of explicit scrutiny or are the result of a deliberative effort—may attain the status of reflective knowledge. According to Sanford Goldberg and Jonathan Matheson (2020), however, it is impossible for reflective subjects to have mere animal knowledge. If correct, their view would have a number of repercussions, perhaps most notably the vindication of a dualism about knowledge, which would frustrate attempts to provide a unified account of knowledge-attributions to human adults, very young children, and non-human animals. I discuss Goldberg and Matheson’s proposal, outline some of the ways in which it is insightful, and argue that it is ultimately unsuccessful because it neglects the inherent temporal dimension of knowledge acquisition. While the article is pitched as a reply to Goldberg and Matheson, its primary aim is to highlight significant connections between the debates on the relation between animal and reflective knowledge, propositional and doxastic justification, and the theory of epistemic defeat. |
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Are Humans the only Rational Animals?
Fellows: Giacomo Melis, Susana Monsò abstract & keywords
Abstract: While growing empirical evidence suggests a continuity between human and non-human psychology, many philosophers still think that only humans can act and form beliefs rationally. In this paper, we challenge this claim. We first clarify the notion of rationality. We then focus on the rationality of beliefs and argue that, in the relevant sense, humans are not the only rational animals. We do so by first distinguishing between unreflective and reflective responsiveness to epistemic reasons in belief formation and revision. We argue that unreflective responsiveness is clearly within the reach of many animals. We then defend that a key demonstration of reflective responsiveness would be the ability to respond to undermining defeaters. We end by presenting some empirical evidence that suggests that some animal species are capable of processing these defeaters, which would entail that even by the strictest standards, humans are not the only rational animals. Keywords: rationality, non-human animals, belief revision, responsiveness to reasons, defeaters, epistemology, comparative psychology |
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Uncertainty and Planning: Cities, Technologies and Public Decision-Making
Fellows: Stefano Moroni, Daniele Chiffi abstract
Abstract: Decision-making under uncertainty is sometimes investigated as a homogeneous problem, independently of the type of decision-maker and the level and nature of the decision itself. However, when the decision-maker is a public authority, there immediately arise problems additional to those that concern any other (private) decision-maker. This is not always clearly recognised in orthodox discussions on decisions under conditions of uncertainty. This article investigates the methodological, strategic and procedural challenges of taking public decisions in such conditions. It focuses mainly on decisions involving urban contexts, such as planning decisions regarding land use and building transformations, by trying to develop some pioneering research studies in this field. |
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Values
Fellow: Kevin Mulligan abstract
Abstract: Nihilism about values occupies one end of the spectrum of possible views about value. To understand and evaluate axiological nihilism and alternatives to it this chapter considers the internal structure of the world of values and value properties and of closely related properties, the nature of the bearers of value properties, and the relation between value properties and, for example, natural properties. Bearers of value properties seem to come in two kinds: they are either objects or states of affairs. If the bearers of value are always states of affairs, then value properties are always formal properties. Although functoriality is sufficient for formality, it is not necessary. The property of being a whole and the relation of numerical difference are formal but not functorial. Thus if some bearers of value are objects, it might be the case that the non-functorial value properties of such objects are formal properties. |
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Two arguments supporting the thesis of the predictive nature of reasons for action
Fellow: Michał Piekarski abstract & keywords
Abstract: The dominant view in contemporary philosophy of action is that, to explain an action we need to provide a reason for it. A reason is what rationalises an action. According to Donald Davidson, before we can describe a reason we must identify the need that accompanies the performance of a given action, as well as the specific attitude of the agent to the action. The author of “Action, Reason and Cause” believes that the proattitude/ belief pair helps determine the reason for action, which is at the same time the action’s cause. Davidson’s view has a lot of supporters today and is strictly related to the so-called post-Humean theories of action. The objective of the present analysis is to demonstrate that the primary reason for action is not provided by the pro-attitude/belief pair, but by predictions due to which agents act in such and such a way. This expands on Elizabeth Anscombe’s intuition according to which each intention is predictive in nature. I will support the thesis about the predictive nature of reasons for action by means of two arguments. The first argument relies on the analysis of the Knobe effect concerning the asymmetry between attributing intentionality and attributing responsibility for actions; the other draws upon the theory of predictive processing. The remainder of this paper has the following structure: in §1, I will discuss Donald Davidson’s theory. §2 will focus on Elizabeth Anscombe’s conception. In §3, I will examine an argument drawn from the analysis of the Knobe effect, according to which an agent will intentionally perform a given action when he can predict the effects of performing it. §4 will introduce the problem of providing reasons for action in the context of folkpsychological explanations. §5 will examine the theory of predictive processing. §6 will demonstrate that predictions serve a specific, normative role in the decision-making processes, whereas §7 will advance the argument from predictive processing whereby to explain an action is to identify specific predictive reasoning which caused the action to be performed . In the Conclusions, I will show the consequences of my main thesis for the problem of the nature of actions and explanations, as well as the rationale for using folk-psychological categories. Keywords: reason for action, agency, normativity, Knobe effect predictions, predictive processing, folk psychology uncertainty . |
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Motivation, counterfactual predictions and constraints: normativity of predictive mechanisms
Fellow: Michał Piekarski abstract
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present the ontic approach to the normativity of cognitive functions and mechanisms, which is directly related to the understanding of biological normativity in terms of normative mechanisms. This approach assumes the hypothesis that cognitive processes contain a certain normative component independent of external attributions and researchers’ beliefs. This component consists of specific cognitive mechanisms, which I call normative. I argue that a mechanism is normative when it constitutes given actions or behaviors of a system. More precisely, it means that, on the one hand, it is their constitutive cause, and on the other hand, it determines a certain field of possibilities from which the system, guided by its own goals, preferences, environmental constraints, etc., chooses the appropriate action or behavior according to a given situation. The background for the analyses presented here is the predictive processing framework, in which it can be shown that at least some of the predictive mechanisms are in fact normative mechanisms. I refer here to the existence of a motivational relation which determines the normative dependence of the agent’s actions due to specific predictions and environmental constraints. |
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From shared intentionality to moral obligation? Some worries.
Fellow: Neil Roughley abstract & keywords
Abstract: According to Tomasello’s natural history of human morality, morality's key structures come into being in the dyadic joint action of early human hunters. Such joint action, Tomasello claims, involves the generation of a new entity, a “joint agent,” and brings with it insight into the agent-independence of agential roles. These two features are, Tomasello argues, decisive for the inception of early humans’ “respect”-based proto-morality. The key structures at work are then, he claims, “scaled up” in the “group morality” of modern humans. I raise three worries about the narrative at the level of early humans’ proto-morality. These concern the content of proto-moral “respect,” the role of language or proto-language, and the limits of focusing on dyads. In a final step, I express the concern that Tomasello’s construal of the “scaling up” process appears to lose the key structural features of respect, as it seems unable to distinguish social and moral norms. Keywords: Adam Smith, collective intentionality, moral norms, moral obligation, proto-language, proto-morality, reactive attitudes, respect, shared intentionality, social norms |
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The Normative Animal? On the Anthropological Significance of Social, Moral, and Linguistic Norms
Fellow: Neil Roughley abstract & keywords
Abstract: Humans, it is often claimed, are rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral creatures. What these characterizations may all have in common is the more fundamental claim that humans are normative animals, in the sense that they are creatures whose lives are structured at a fundamental level by their relationships to norms. The various capacities singled out by talk of rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral animals might then all essentially involve an orientation to obligations, permissions, and prohibitions. And, if this is so, then perhaps it is a basic susceptibility or proclivity to normative or deontic regulation of thought and behaviour that enables humans to develop the various specific features of their life form. This volume of new essays investigates the claim that humans are essentially normative animals in this sense. The contributors do so by looking at the nature and relations of three types of norms, or putative norms—social, moral, and linguistic—and asking whether they might all be different expressions of one basic structure unique to humankind. These questions are posed by philosophers, primatologists, behavioural biologists, psychologists, linguists, and cultural anthropologists, who have collaborated on this topic for many years. The contributors are committed to the idea that understanding normativity is a two-way process, involving a close interaction between conceptual clarification and empirical research. Keywords: normative animal thesis, social norm, linguistic rule, moral principle, standard of correctness, convention, collective intentionality, rule following, particularism, semantic norm |
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Might We Be Essentially Normative Animals?
Fellow: Neil Roughley abstract & keywords
Abstract: This chapter poses the question of whether humans might be essentially normative animals, i.e. whether traditionally prominent specificities of the human life form—our linguistic, social, and moral “natures”—might ground in a basic susceptibility, or proclivity to the deontic regulation of thought and behaviour: the “normative animal thesis.” The chapter lays out the issues at stake in attempting to answer this question. It divides into two main parts. The first begins by clarifying the—norm-related—concept of normativity at issue, distinguishing it from the—reason-related—conceptualisation current in meta-ethics and theories of rationality. It then discusses the primary candidates for generic features of norms, before dividing the normative animal thesis into various sub-claims. The second part presents the key questions at issue in the discussion of social, moral, and linguistic norms, comparing ways of conceiving them and marking the significance of such conceptualisations for the normative animal thesis. Keywords: normative animal thesis, social norm, linguistic rule, moral principle, standard of correctness, convention, collective intentionality, rule following, particularism, semantic norm |