Over the last century, psychoanalysis has transformed the ways in which we think about our relationships with others. Psychoanalytic concepts and methods, such as the unconscious and dream analysis, have greatly impacted on social, cultural and political theory. Reinterpreting the ways in which geography has explored people's mental maps and their deepest feelings about places, The Body and the City outlines a new cartography of the subject. Mapping key coordinates of meaning, identity and power across the sites of body and (...) city, author Steve Pile explores a wide range of critical thinking, particularly the work of Lefebvre, Freud and Lacan to present a pathbreaking psychoanalysis of space. (shrink)

This book uncovers and explores the constant tension between the historical and the transcendental that lies at the heart of Michel Foucault's work. In the process, it also assesses the philosophical foundations of his thought by examining his theoretical borrowings from Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, who each provided him with tools to critically rethink the status of the transcendental. Given Foucault's constant focus on the question of the possibility for knowledge, the author argues that his philosophical itinerary can be understood (...) as a series of attempts to historicize the transcendental. In so doing, he seeks to uncover a specific level that would identify these conditions without falling either into an excess of idealism or of materialism. The author concludes that, although this problem does unify Foucault's work and gives it its specifically philosophical dimension, none of the concepts successively provided manages to name these conditions without falling into the pitfalls that Foucault originally denounced as characteristic of the "anthropological sleep"—various forms of confusion between the historical and the transcendental. Although Foucault's work provides us with a highly illuminating analysis of the major problems of post-Kantian philosophies, ultimately it remains aporetic in that it also fails to overcome them. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between skin, ego and second skins. It does so conceptually by re-examining Freud’s suggestion, in The Ego and the Id, that the ego is first and foremost a bodily entity, while also being a projection of a surface (i.e. skin). Drawing upon Anzieu, a dynamic model of inter-weaving surfaces can be seen to underpin an understanding of the ego — and skin ego. This model is fundamentally spatialized. Even so, an appreciation of the spatialities of (...) skin and ego can be developed further. To illuminate these spatialities, this article examines two key experiences of T.E. Lawrence during his military service in Arabia (c. 1917), as he describes them in his autobiographical account Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In a meeting with British military police, and in the notorious Deraa rape incident, what is at stake is Lawrence of Arabia’s skins. Reading these experiences using Freud and Anzieu, the article argues that these events re-present an ongoing chafing of Lawrence’s skin, ego and second skins, which can be called his ‘skin of suffering’. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper identifies two central paradoxes threatening the notion of amor fati [love of fate]: it requires us to love a potentially repellent object (as fate entails significant negativity for us) and this, in the knowledge that our love will not modify our fate. Thus such love may seem impossible or pointless. I analyse the distinction between two different sorts of love (eros and agape) and the type of valuation they involve (in the first case, the object is loved (...) because we value it; in the second, we value the object because we love it). I use this as a lens to interpret Nietzsche's cryptic pronouncements on amor fati and show that while an erotic reading is, up to a point, plausible, an agapic interpretation is preferable both for its own sake and because it allows for a resolution of the paradoxes initially identified. In doing so, I clarify the relation of amor fati to the eternal return on the one hand, and to Nietzsche's autobiographical remarks about suffering on the other. Finally, I examine a set of objections pertaining both to the sustainability and limits of amor fati, and to its status as an ideal. (shrink)

In this paper I distinguish between two main critical questions: ‘how possible’ questions, which look for enabling conditions and raise issues of epistemic normativity; and ‘whether permissible’ questions, which relate to conditions of legitimacy and ethical normativity. I examine the interplay of both types of questions in Foucault’s work and argue that this helps us to understand both the function of the historical a priori in the archeological period and the subsequent accusations of crypto-normativity levelled against Foucault by commentators such (...) as Taylor and Habermas. I chart the complex conceptual space available for a defense. After examining several possible replies, I conclude that the most effective option, and the one that fits Foucault’s approach best, is to refuse the demand for normative justification as self-defeating, and to opt for the cultivation of an appropriate ethical sensibility through an emphasis on critique as a performative practice of the self. I offer in conclusion some thoughts on what such practice may look like for Foucault. (shrink)

Since fully covering such a topic in the short space imparted to this paper is an impossible task, I have chosen to focus on three philosophers: Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre. Of the three, only the latter was undoubtedly an existentialist ⎯ Heidegger explicitly rejected the categorisation (in the Letter on Humanism), and there is disagreement among commentators about Nietzsche’s status1. However, they have two major common points which justify my focusing on them: firstly, they uphold the primacy of existence over (...) essence. Against the rationalist trend prevalent until the end of the XVIIIth Century, which saw human nature as determined a priori (as rational), all three authors consider human beings as living, self-interpreting entities, whose understanding of themselves is dependent on specific cultural and historical conditions. Given that this self-understanding is taken as constitutive of what it means to be human, it becomes impossible to define the essence of man independently of (let alone prior to) his existence. Secondly (and consequently), they reject the idea that philosophy can start from the study of man as a detached, disembodied consciousness primarily bent on knowing the world ⎯ or even that such a consciousness exists, except as a fiction propagated by rationalism2. Man is viewed as an embodied being, whose reason and cognitive powers are only the visible part of a much deeper and wider engagement with the world. In turn, this rejection of the primacy of rationality and of consciousness explains the central part played by affectivity in our three authors’ works. In all its forms3, affectivity is strongly tied to the body (although existentialist thinkers hold that it is neither identical to nor determined by physical reactions4): once the importance of embodiment has been recognised, an analysis of affectivity becomes necessary to understand the ways in which human beings relate both to themselves and to the world. Whereas the rationalist tradition mostly rejected affectivity5, either on moral grounds (as emotions interfere with self-mastery) or for epistemological reasons (because they cloud the clarity of mind supposedly required by knowledge), Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre insist on rehabilitating it, mostly for two reasons: firstly, as it is constitutive of what it means to be human, affectivity just cannot be set aside ⎯ so the rationalist ideal to do away with emotions is unmasked as an illusion, the roots of which need to be investigated.. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the relation between phenomenology and anthropology by placing Foucault's first published piece, “Introduction to Binswanger's Dream and Existence“ in dialectical tension with The Order of Things. I argue that the early work, which so far hasn't received much critical attention, is of particular interest because, whereas OT is notoriously critical of anthropological confusions in general, and of “Man” as an empirico‐transcendental double in particular, IB views “existential anthropology” as a unique opportunity to establish a new (...) and fruitful relation between transcendental forms and empirical contents. This is because IB focuses on a specific object, “Menschsein”, which is neither the transcendental subject nor an empirical being. Thus for the young Foucault, existential anthropology occupies a fertile methodological middle ground between transcendental approaches and empirical forms of analysis. I first interpret anthropology in the light of phenomenology and defend the view that Menschsein is neither a transcendental structure nor a concrete particular, but the instantiation of the first in the second. I argue that for anthropology to yield the full theoretical benefits Foucault claims for it, the particular cases of Menschsein examined in existential analysis have to be regarded as exemplary. I then read phenomenology back in the light of anthropology and examine how, for Foucault, the analysis of Menschsein in dreams benefits fundamental ontology by affording us a clearer view of some of the main existentiale than the focus on everyday waking experience in Being and Time. Finally, I turn to the limits and difficulties of this early position and my reading of it, and to their consequences for Foucault's later view. (shrink)

ABSTRACTNietzsche's famous claim, ‘das Thun ist Alles’, is usually translated as ‘the deed is everything’. I argue that it is better rendered as ‘the doing is everything’. Accordingly, I propose a processual reading of agency in GM 1 13 which draws both on Nietzsche's reflections on grammar, and on the Greek middle voice, to displace the opposition between deeds and events, agents and patients by introducing the notion of middle-voiced ‘doings’. The relevant question then is not ‘is this a doing (...) or a happening?’ but ‘what is the process unfolding in the doer, and what is her engagement with it?’. I argue that this middle voiced reading makes better sense than either naturalist or expressivist interpretations of the key thought in GM 1 13 that ‘there is no doer behind the doing’, and that GM 1 13 does not only provide us with a critique of slave morality, as is often said, but also with an example of a middle-voiced doing: self-deception. I explore the phenomenology of middle-voiced doings in other passages and show that it has at least three features: reflective awareness of being engaged with an internal process, responsiveness, and absence of reflective control. (shrink)

I tease out two early Christian puzzles about agency: (a) agential control: how can agents self-constitute if their primary experience of themselves is not one of control, as in Greek antiquity, but of relative powerlessness? And (b) ethical expertise: how can agents constitute themselves as ethical agents if they cannot trust themselves to recognize, and act in the light of, the good? I argue, first, that Foucault saw the importance of these puzzles and focused on extreme obedience as affording a (...) possible resolution; second, that he failed to resolve the puzzles because of his reliance on an overly voluntarist and reflective understanding of obedience as an exercise of will; and finally, that turning to Cassian’s own thoughts on the relation between extreme obedience and humility as kenosis affords us a way out of the puzzles. (shrink)

I tease out two early Christian puzzles about agency: (a) agential control: how can agents self-constitute if their primary experience of themselves is not one of control, as in Greek antiquity, but of relative powerlessness? And (b) ethical expertise: how can agents constitute themselves as ethical agents if they cannot trust themselves to recognize, and act in the light of, the good? I argue, first, that Foucault saw the importance of these puzzles and focused on extreme obedience as affording a (...) possible resolution; second, that he failed to resolve the puzzles because of his reliance on an overly voluntarist and reflective understanding of obedience as an exercise of will; and finally, that turning to Cassian’s own thoughts on the relation between extreme obedience and humility as kenosis affords us a way out of the puzzles. (shrink)

Nietzsche's views on knowledge have been interpreted in at least three incompatible ways - as transcendental, naturalistic or proto-deconstructionist. While the first two share a commitment to the possibility of objective truth, the third reading denies this by highlighting Nietzsche's claims about the necessarily falsifying character of human knowledge (his so-called error theory). This paper examines the ways in which his work can be construed as seeking ways of overcoming the strict opposition between naturalism and transcendental philosophy whilst fully taking (...) into account the error theory (interpreted non-literally, as a hyperbolic warning against uncritical forms of realism). In doing so, it clarifies the nature of Nietzsche's ontological commitments, both in the early and the later work, and shows that his relation to transcendental idealism is more subtle than is allowed by naturalistic interpreters while conversely accounting for the impossibility of conceiving the conditions of the possibility of knowledge as genuinely a priori. (shrink)

What Heidegger means by “freedom” in Being and Time is somewhat mysterious: while the notion crops up repeatedly in the book, there is no dedicated section or study, and the concept is repeatedly connected to a new and opaque idea – that of the “choice to choose oneself.” Yet the specificity of Being and Time’s approach to freedom becomes apparent when the book is compared to other texts of the same period, in particular The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, The Fundamental (...) Concepts of Metaphysics, The Essence of Grounds, and The Essence of Freedom. Although there are some differences, the definition of freedom that can be found there identifies it with “existence” or “transcendence,” Dasein’s ek-static opening onto the world. Thus “being in the world must also be primordially bound up with or derived from the basic feature of Dasein’s existence, freedom… Dasein’s transcendence and freedom are identical! Freedom provides itself with intrinsic possibility: a being is, as free, necessarily in itself transcending” (GA 26: 238; Heidegger’s italics). Note the apodictic modality of the claim: it is not simply the case that Dasein, as transcending, is free. Anything that has the structure of being in the world must be free: freedom is co-extensive with Dasein. Yet Dasein is often pictured in Being and Time as anything but free: it “ensnares itself” (268), is “lost” (264), “alienated” (178), and needs to be “liberated” (264, 303). Thus comparison between Being and Time and other texts on freedom yields an important paradox: although by definition it transcends toward the world, the Dasein of Division I is deprived of freedom. It must be free, and yet phenomenological analysis shows that it is not free. To understand the specific meaning of freedom in Being and Time, one has to square this circle. (shrink)

Most commentators assume that the affirmation of life can be defined univocally, as an act the success of which can be assessed by means of the test of the eternal return in GS341; and, that the affirmation of life is synonymous with what Nietzsche calls amor fati, and thus singlehandedly encapsulates Nietzsche’s ethical ideal. I take issue with both assumptions and develop an alternative view. I argue that for Nietzsche there are two ways to affirm life ethically. The first is (...) unreflective and piecemeal. I propose a substantive modification to Bernard Reginster’s procedural approach by suggesting that life is affirmed each time an agent seeks to overcome, and succeeds in overcoming, resistance in the pursuit of a first order desire expressive of love for life – the last clause being mine. I further argue that even with this added clause this first form cannot defeat what Reginster calls the ‘normative core of nihilism’, namely the experiencing of suffering as an objection to life. I identify in Nietzsche’s later work a second form of ethical life affirmation: a holistic, ecstatic act, a Dionysian blessing which ‘calls good’ life as a whole and thus redeems it by making it fully desirable on erotic grounds. Yet even in its two ethical forms the affirmation of life does not suffice to define Nietzsche’s ethical ideal. The very perspective of life affirmation is limited because it remains beholden to the very framework Nietzsche sought to escape: the Christian overarching concern for redemption and preoccupation with theodicic narratives. By contrast, I argue that amor fati, as agapic love of life, affords Nietzsche with a distinct resource to go beyond theodicic prospects and examine its relation to the erotic love of life, which is at the core of both forms of ethical life affirmation. I offer a pluralistic reading of GS341, not simply as a test of life affirmation, but as articulating Nietzsche’s two ethical ideals, amor fati on the one hand, and the affirmation of life in both its forms, on the other. (shrink)

Nietzsche's views on knowledge have been interpreted in at least three incompatible ways-as transcendental, naturalistic, or proto-deconstructionist. While the first two share a commitment to the possibility of objective truth, the third reading denies this by highlighting Nietzsche's claims about the necessarily falsifying character of human knowledge. This chapter examines the ways in which his work can be construed as seeking ways of overcoming the strict opposition between naturalism and transcendental philosophy, whilst fully taking into account the error theory. In (...) doing so, it clarifies the nature of Nietzsche's ontological commitments, both in the early and the later work, and shows that his relation to transcendental idealism is more subtle than is allowed by naturalistic interpreters, while conversely accounting for the impossibility of conceiving the conditions of possibility of knowledge as genuinely a priori. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References.

Being and Time, Heidegger praises Kant as “the first and only person who has gone any stretch of the way towards investigating the dimension of temporality or has even let himself be drawn hither by the coercion of the phenomena themselves” (SZ: 23).1 Kant was, before Husserl (and perhaps, in Heidegger's mind, more than him), a true phenomenologist in the sense that the need to curtail the pretension of dogmatic metaphysics to overstep the boundaries of sensible experience led him to (...) focus on phenomena and the conditions of their disclosure: thus, the “question of the inner possibility of such knowledge of the super-sensible , however, is presented as thrown back upon the more general question of the inner possibility of a general making-manifest(Offenbarmachen) of beings (Seiende) as such” (GA 3: 10, emphasis supplied). So Kant shouldn’t be read as an epistemologist (contrary to Descartes, for example), but as an ontologist2: “Kant's inquiry is concerned with what determines nature as such -- occurrent beings as such -- and with how this ontological determinability is possible” (GA 25: 75). Heidegger sees this investigation into the “ontological determinability” of entities as an a priori form of inquiry: “what is already opened up and projected in advance ie the horizon of ontological determinability . . . is what in a certain sense is “earlier” than a being and is called a priori” (GA 25: 37). This a priori character of ontological determinability forms the main link between Kant's critical project and fundamental ontology, itself characterised as a form of transcendental philosophy: “transcendental knowledge is a knowledge which investigates the possibility of an understanding of being, a pre-ontological understanding of being. And such an investigation is the task of ontology. Transcendental knowledge is ontological knowledge, i.e. a priori knowledge of the ontological constitution of beings” (GA 25: 186). Thus Heidegger presents his own inquiry into the nature of Being as a way to address the same issue as Kant: “what is asked about is Being -- that which determines entities as entities, that on the basis of which entities are already understood, however we may discuss them in detail.. (shrink)

Most commentators assume that the affirmation of life can be defined univocally, as an act the success of which can be assessed by means of the test of the eternal return in GS341; and, that the affirmation of life is synonymous with what Nietzsche calls amor fati, and thus singlehandedly encapsulates Nietzsche’s ethical ideal. I take issue with both assumptions and develop an alternative view. I argue that for Nietzsche there are two ways to affirm life ethically. The first is (...) unreflective and piecemeal. I propose a substantive modification to Bernard Reginster’s procedural approach by suggesting that life is affirmed each time an agent seeks to overcome, and succeeds in overcoming, resistance in the pursuit of a first order desire expressive of love for life – the last clause being mine. I further argue that even with this added clause this first form cannot defeat what Reginster calls the ‘normative core of nihilism’, namely the experiencing of suffering as an objection to life. I identify in Nietzsche’s later work a second form of ethical life affirmation: a holistic, ecstatic act, a Dionysian blessing which ‘calls good’ life as a whole and thus redeems it by making it fully desirable on erotic grounds. Yet even in its two ethical forms the affirmation of life does not suffice to define Nietzsche’s ethical ideal. The very perspective of life affirmation is limited because it remains beholden to the very framework Nietzsche sought to escape: the Christian overarching concern for redemption and preoccupation with theodicic narratives. By contrast, I argue that amor fati, as agapic love of life, affords Nietzsche with a distinct resource to go beyond theodicic prospects and examine its relation to the erotic love of life, which is at the core of both forms of ethical life affirmation. I offer a pluralistic reading of GS341, not simply as a test of life affirmation, but as articulating Nietzsche’s two ethical ideals, amor fati on the one hand, and the affirmation of life in both its forms, on the other. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the relation between phenomenology and anthropology by placing Foucault?s first published piece, Introduction to Binswanger?s?Dream and Existence? in dialectical tension with The Order of Things. I argue that the early work, which so far hasn?t received much critical attention, is of particular interest because while OT is notoriously critical of anthropological confusions in general, and of?Man? as an empirico-transcendental double in particular, IB views?existential anthropology? as a unique opportunity to establish a new and fruitful relation (...) between transcendental forms and empirical contents. This is because IB focuses on a specific object,?Menschsein?, which is neither the transcendental subject nor an empirical being. Thus for the young Foucault existential anthropology occupies a fertile methodological middle ground between transcendental approaches and empirical forms of analysis. I first interpret anthropology in the light of phenomenology and defend the view that Menschsein is neither a transcendental structure nor a concrete particular, but as the instantiation of the first in the second. I argue that for anthropology to yield the full theoretical benefits Foucault claims for it, the particular cases of Menschsein examined in existential analysis have to be regarded as exemplary. I then read phenomenology back in the light of anthropology and examine how, for Foucault, the analysis of Menschsein in dreams benefits fundamental ontology by affording us a clearer view of some of the main existentiale than the focus on everyday waking experience in Being and Time. Finally, I turn to the limits and difficulties of this early position and my reading of it, and to their consequences for Foucault?s later view. (shrink)

Review Symposium on John Forrester and Laura Cameron’s Freud In Cambridge.

πέπλους τε νῆσαι λινογενεῖς τ’ ἐπενδύταςτε νῆσαιCanter: τε νίσαιPoll.A: τάνυσαιPoll.FSnêsaimantles and outer garments born of flaxGreek has three verbs νέω: ‘swim’, ‘spin’ and ‘heap up, pile’. The aorist infinitive of both and is νῆσαι. LSJ takes Sophocles, fr. 439 R. to be an instance of νέω. Pearson comments: ‘νῆσαι is loosely used for ὑϕαίνειν. The process of spinning, being preparatory to that of weaving, was apt to be regarded as part of the same operation rather than as a distinct (...) art … Soph. probably had in mind η 96 πέπλοι | λεπτοὶ ἐΰννητοι βεβλήατο, ἔργα γυναικῶν’. Lloyd-Jones accordingly translates the fragment ‘to weave robes and tunics made of linen’. (shrink)

One staple of living in our information society is having access to the web. Web-connected devices interpret our queries and retrieve information from the web in response. Today’s web devices even purport to answer our queries directly without requiring us to comb through search results in order to find the information we want. How do we know whether a web device is trustworthy? One way to know is to learn why the device is trustworthy by inspecting its inner workings, 156–170 (...) 1995; Humphreys 2004, Episteme, 6, 221–229 2009). But ordinary users of web devices cannot inspect their inner workings because of their scale, complexity, and the corporate secrecy which enshrouds both the procedures by which the devices operate and the companies that make them. Further piling on this predicament, authors have criticized web technology on the grounds that the invisibility of the web devices’ inner workings prevents users from critically assessing the procedures that produce a given output, in some cases, barring users from fulfilling their epistemic responsibilities, 343–355 2010; Miller and Record Episteme, 10, 117–134 2013). I consider four broad kinds of reasons which we can acquire without inspecting the inner workings of black-boxed technology: individual understanding, expert testimony, testing through experience, and social vetting; and show how each is a viable method of appraising black-boxed technology. By deploying these methods, we can remain responsible inquirers while nonetheless benefitting from today’s epistemic resources on the web. (shrink)

When confronting the issues related to developments in modern medicine and biotechnology, we must repeatedly ask ourselves anew what can and cannot be justified in an ethical sense. For radically new ethical questions seem to arise through innovative techniques such as stem cell research or preimplantation diagnosis — and with them new areas of conflicting interests. If one scrutinizes the previous positions related to this subject, it becomes conspicuous that a multitude of questions has quickly piled up — however, (as (...) in the case of Germany) comprehensive and differentiated views have mostly been lacking. (shrink)

With no precise boundaries, always on the move and too complex to be defined by space and time, is it possible to map the human subject? This book attempts to do just this, exploring the places of the subject in contemporary culture. The editors approach this subject from four main aspects--its construction, sexuality, limits and politics--using a wide ranging review of literature on subjectivity across the social and human sciences. The first part of the book establishes the idea that the (...) subject is constructed through detailed histories of the subject. The second part shows that sexuality cannot be assumed to be natural through the contributors' research on the place of sexuality in subjectivity and subjectivity in sexuality. The essays in the third part take issue with the idea of a singular, self-contained identity. Power relations and the effects of power are consistent themes throughout the book and the final section deals explicitly with relations of power, whether organized around gender, race, class or other kinds of difference. Contributors: Steve Pile, Nigel Thrift, Miles Ogborn, Carolyn Steedman, David Matless, David Sibley, David Bell, Julia Cream, Vic Seidler, Hester Parr, Chris Philo, Marcus Doel, Paul Rodaway, Nigel Rapport, Stephen Frosh, Valerie Walkerdine, Gillian Rose and Michael Keith. (shrink)

Hope is hard to characterise because of the exceptional diversity of its applications, to the point that one may wonder whether there is continuity between ordinary cases of hope and what is often called 'hope against hope'. In this paper, I shall follow the relatively small but growing literature on hope and examine propositional hopes, i.e. hopes of the form 'hoping that p', with a particular focus on recent work by Philip Pettit and Adrienne Martin. I shall do this first (...) by identifying a significant difficulty encountered by what has become known as the 'orthodox definition'. The OD defines hope by means of two necessary and sufficient conditions: A hopes that p if and only if A desires that p and A assigns to p a degree of probability between 0 and 1. On this definition, to hope is to desire an outcome we deem neither certain nor impossible. Note that the relevant probability assignment is subjective: the OD allows, for example, that children can hope for Father Christmas to visit them on Christmas Eve. (shrink)

This volume gathers together for the first time are all the key texts in a crucial debate in modern philosophy, centered on Leibniz's famous 1695 essay, the "New System of the Nature of Substances and their Communication," in which he introduced his strikingly original theory of metaphysics. His "system" became increasingly famous and drew him into discussion and development of these ideas, both in public and in private, with a variety of thinkers, most notably the great French philosopher Pierre Bayle. (...) Woolhouse's and Francks's new English edition gives the only full representation of this debate, and will therefore be essential reading for anyone who wishes to gain a proper understanding of Leibniz's philosophy and its intelletual context. All the texts are newly translated and extensively annotated; many appear in English for the first time. (shrink)

Hope is hard to characterise because of the exceptional diversity of its applications, to the point that one may wonder whether there is continuity between ordinary cases of hope and what is often called 'hope against hope'. In this paper, I shall follow the relatively small but growing literature on hope and examine propositional hopes, i.e. hopes of the form 'hoping that p', with a particular focus on recent work by Philip Pettit and Adrienne Martin. I shall do this first (...) by identifying a significant difficulty encountered by what has become known as the 'orthodox definition'. The OD defines hope by means of two necessary and sufficient conditions: A hopes that p if and only if A desires that p and A assigns to p a degree of probability between 0 and 1. On this definition, to hope is to desire an outcome we deem neither certain nor impossible. Note that the relevant probability assignment is subjective: the OD allows, for example, that children can hope for Father Christmas to visit them on Christmas Eve. (shrink)

This chapter offers a proceduralist argument against capital punishment. More specifically, it contends that the possibility of irrevocable mistakes precludes the just administration of the death penalty. At stake is a principle of political morality: legal institutions must strive to remedy their mistakes and to compensate those who suffer from wrongful sanctions. The incompatibility of remedy and execution is the crux of the irrevocability argument: because the wrongly executed cannot enjoy the morally required compensation, execution is impermissible. Along with defending (...) his key premises, Yost explains the complicated role that sentencing uncertainty plays in the argument. He concludes by noting some of the flaws in substantive consequentialist and retributivist justifications of capital punishment. (shrink)