This chapter has two goals. First, I will present an interpretation of Kant’s mature account of punishment, which includes a strong commitment to retributivism. Second, I will sketch a non-retributive, “ideal abolitionist” alternative, which appeals to a version of original position deliberation in which we choose the principles of punishment on the assumption that we are as likely to end up among the punished as we are to end up among those protected by the institution of punishment. This is radical (...) relative to Kant’s mature theory of punishment, but arguably it conforms better to the spirit of Kant’s first Critique remarks on imputation and punishment than his mature theory does. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a justification of punishment which can be endorsed by free will skeptics, and which can also be defended against the "using persons as mere means" objection. Free will skeptics must reject retributivism, that is, the view that punishment is just because criminals deserve to suffer based on their actions. Retributivists often claim that theirs is the only justification on which punishment is constrained by desert, and suppose that non-retributive justifications must therefore endorse (...) treating the people punished as mere means to social ends. Retributivists typically presuppose a monolithic conception of desert: they assume that action-based desert is the only kind of desert. But there are also personhood-based desert claims, that is, desert claims which depend not on facts about our actions, but instead on the more abstract fact that we are persons. Since personhood-based desert claims do not depend on facts about our actions, they do not depend on moral responsibility, so free will skeptics can appeal to them just as well as retributivists. What people deserve based on the mere fact of their personhood is to be treated as they would rationally consent to be treated if all they had in view was the mere fact of their personhood. We can work out the implications of this view for punishment by developing a hypothetical consent justification in which we select principles of punishment in the Rawlsian original position, so long as we are careful not to smuggle in the retributivist assumption that it is under our control whether we end up as criminals or as law-abiding citizens once we raise the veil of ignorance. (shrink)

This paper is about an asymmetry in the justification of praising and blaming behaviour which free will theorists should acknowledge even if they do not follow Wolf and Nelkin in holding that praise and blame have different control conditions. That is, even if praise and blame have the same control condition, we must have stronger reasons for believing that it is satisfied to treat someone as blameworthy than we require to treat someone as praiseworthy. Blaming behaviour which involves serious harm (...) can only be justified if the claim that the target of blame acted freely cannot be reasonably doubted. But harmless praise can be justified so long as the claim that the candidate for praise did not act freely can be reasonably doubted. Anyone who thinks a debate about whether someone acted freely is truth-conducive has to acknowledge that reasonable doubt is possible in both these cases. (shrink)

An apparently increasing number of philosophers take free will skepticism to pose a serious challenge to some of our practices. This must seem odd to many—why should anyone think that free will skepticism is relevant for our practices, when nobody seems to think that other canonical forms of philosophical skepticism are relevant for our practices? Part of the explanation may be epistemic, but here I focus on a metaethical explanation. Free will skepticism is special because it is compatible with ‘basic (...) moral reasons’—moral reasons acknowledged by all mainstream ethicists—and other minds and induction skepticism are not. One example is our reason not to intentionally harm others. Practical seriousness about other minds and induction skepticism undermines this reason, but practical seriousness about free will skepticism only undermines a potential overrider of this reason, that is, the reason of retribution. (shrink)

This paper argues that Kant endorses a distinction between rational and natural sympathy, and it presents an interpretation of rational sympathy as a power of voluntarya posterioriproductive imagination. In rational sympathy we draw on the imagination’s voluntary powers (a) to subjectively unify the contents of intuition, in order to imaginatively put ourselves in others’ places, and (b) to associate imagined intuitional contents with the concepts others use to convey their feelings, in such a way that those contents prompt feelings in (...) us that are like their feelings. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to explain and defend the following argument: (1) If it can be reasonably doubted that someone had free will with respect to some action, then it is a requirement of justice to refrain from doing serious retributive harm to him in response to that action. (2) Anyone who believes the free will debate to be philosophically valuable must accept that it can be reasonably doubted that anyone ever has free will. (3) Therefore, anyone who (...) believes the free will debate to be philosophically valuable must accept that it is a requirement of justice to refrain from serious retributive harm. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss a problem for Kant's strategy of appealing to the agent qua noumenon to undermine the significance of determinism in his theory of free will. I then propose a solution. The problem is as follows: given determinism, how can some agent qua noumenon be 'the cause of the causality' of the appearances of that agent qua phenomenon without being the cause of the entire empirical causal series? This problem has been identified in the literature (Ralph Walker (...) provides what is perhaps the most dramatic presentation of it). But it has never received an adequate solution. In this paper, I argue that Walker’s objection is only decisive if we must understand our responsibility as responsibility for events, but not causal laws. I argue that we need not interpret Kant's theory in this way. I demonstrate that each agent qua noumenon could be responsible for "limited instantiation scope" causal laws which necessitate only the phenomenal actions of that same agent qua phenomenon. Part of this project involves showing that there are relevant constituents of actions which are "rare" enough to instantiate such laws. I demonstrate that, on Kant's view, events in agents’ bodies are not rare enough, but events in agents’ phenomenal souls are. (shrink)

Kant’s notion of (what I will call) rational sympathy solves a problem about how we can voluntarily fulfill our imperfect duty to adopt those ends of others which have value only because they have been set by rational agents, ends which I will refer to as merely permissible ends (MPEs). Others’ MPEs are individuated in terms of their own concepts of their MPEs, and we can only adopt their MPEs in terms of their concepts, since to adopt them in terms (...) of different concepts would be to adopt different ends. Others’ concepts of their MPEs may contain marks of the first person, and should contain no marks of law apart from permissibility. Rational sympathy allows us to adopt ends individuated in terms of concepts with marks of these kinds because rational sympathy allows us to voluntarily adopt others’ first-person perspectives in imagination, and to voluntarily shape our contingent feelings so that such concepts motivate us despite their underdetermination by law. (shrink)

This is a semifinal draft of a forthcoming paper. Kant’s account of the pain of remorse involves a hybrid justification based on self-retribution, but constrained by forward-looking principles which say that we must channel remorse into improvement, and moderate its pain to avoid damaging our rational agency. Kant’s corpus also offers material for a revisionist but textually-grounded alternative account based on wrongdoers’ sympathy for the pain they cause. This account is based on the value of care, and has forward-looking constraints (...) much like Kant’s own account. Drawing on both Kant’s texts and recent work in empirical psychology, I argue that experiences of remorse which conform to the sympathetic account may fulfill Kant’s forward-looking goals better than those conforming to his own account. (shrink)

This chapter offers non-retributive, broadly Kantian justifications of punishment and remorse which can be endorsed by free will skeptics. We lose our grip on some Kantian ideas if we become skeptical about free will, but we can preserve some important ones which can do valuable work for free will skeptics. The justification of punishment presented here has consequentialist features but is deontologically constrained by our duty to avoid using others as mere means. It draws on a modified Rawlsian original position (...) in which we assume we are just as likely to be among the punished when the veil of ignorance is raised as we are to be among those protected by the institution of punishment. The justification of remorse presented here is care-based, and draws on the value of sympathizing with people we have wronged, which has a Kantian ground in the duty to take others’ ends as our own. (shrink)

In contemporary free will theory, a significant number of philosophers are once again taking seriously the possibility that human beings do not have free will, and are therefore not morally responsible for their actions. (Free will is understood here as whatever satisfies the control condition of moral responsibility.) Free will theorists commonly assume that giving up the belief that human beings are morally responsible implies giving up all our beliefs about desert. But the consequences of giving up the belief that (...) we are morally responsible are not quite this dramatic. Giving up the belief that we are morally responsible undermines many, and perhaps most, of the desert claims we are pretheoretically inclined to accept. But it does not undermine desert claims based on the sheer fact of personhood. Even in the absence of belief in moral responsibility, personhood-based desert claims require us to respect persons and their rights. So personhood-based desert claims can provide a substantial role for desert in free will skeptics' ethical theories. (shrink)

I defend a deontological social contract justification of punishment for free will deniers. Even if nobody has free will, a criminal justice system is fair to the people it targets if we would consent to it in a version of original position deliberation (OPD) where we assumed that we would be targeted by the justice system when the veil is raised. Even if we assumed we would be convicted of a crime, we would consent to the imprisonment of violent criminals (...) if prison conditions were better than the state of nature but deterring enough to prevent the state of nature. And even if we assumed we would be accused of a crime, we would consent to an evidentiary standard low enough to allow a conviction rate sufficient to prevent the state of nature. After explaining this justification, I contrast it with the public health quarantine justification defended by Derk Pereboom and Gregg Caruso, and argue that it provides a stronger response to the using criminals as mere means objection. (shrink)

In contemporary free will theory, a significant number of philosophers are once again taking seriously the possibility that human beings do not have free will, and are therefore not morally responsible for their actions. Free will theorists commonly assume that giving up the belief that human beings are morally responsible implies giving up all our beliefs about desert. But the consequences of giving up the belief that we are morally responsible are not quite this dramatic. Giving up the belief that (...) we are morally responsible undermines many, and perhaps most, of the desert claims we are pretheoretically inclined to accept. But it does not undermine desert claims based on the sheer fact of personhood. Even in the absence of belief in moral responsibility, personhood-based desert claims require us to respect persons and their rights. So personhood-based desert claims can provide a substantial role for desert in free will skeptics' ethical theories. (shrink)

Kant’s theory of friendship is crucial in defending his ethics against the longstanding charge of emotional detachment. But his theory of friendship is vulnerable to this charge too: the Kantian sage can appear to reject sympathetic suffering when she cannot help a suffering friend. I argue that Kant is committed to the view that both sages and ordinary people must suffer in sympathy with friends even when they cannot help, because sympathy is necessary to fulfill the imperfect duty to adopt (...) others’ merely permissible ends, and we ought to take friends’ MPEs as our own. MPEs are individuated in terms of concepts which include marks of the first person, and no marks of law other than permissibility. To adopt ends of others individuated in terms of such concepts rather than merely promote them as means to different ends, those concepts must engage with one’s feelings in a way that requires sympathy. (shrink)

The first part of this paper surveys five perspectives in Kant’s philosophy on the quantity of retribution to be inflicted on wrongdoers, ordered by two dimensions of difference – whether they are theoretical or practical perspectives, and the quantity of retribution they prescribe: (1) theoretical zero, the perspective of theoretical philosophy; (2) practical infinity, the perspective of God and conscience; (3) practical equality, the perspective of punishment in public law; (4) practical degrees, the perspective we adopt in private relations to (...) others and (5) practical zero, a perspective I argue is entailed by Kant’s doctrine of strict right, which is his justification of coercing compliance with public law. Kant acknowledges 1–4 but not 5. The second part draws on Kant’s account of the burden of proof in criminal law to argue that Kant is wrong to adopt 3 in responding to criminals, and that we ought to adopt 5 instead. (shrink)

One reason that many philosophers are reluctant to seriously contemplate the possibility that we lack free will seems to be the view that we must believe we have free will if we are to regard each other as persons in the morally deep sense—the sense that involves deontological notions such as human rights. In the contemporary literature, this view is often informed by P.F. Strawson's view that to treat human beings as having free will is to respond to them with (...) the reactive attitudes, and that if we suspend the reactive attitudes we can only regard human beings as objects to be manipulated in the service of social goals. This purported implication of suspending the reactive attitudes has persuaded many philosophers that we cannot truly treat human beings as persons without assuming that they have free will. I argue that this line of thinking is misguided. I think Strawson is correct to worry that the consequentialism he sees as implicit in the objective attitude undermines our ability to treat each other as persons. But I think it is a mistake to accept that we must maintain the reactive attitudes, or any other attributions of free will or moral responsibility, to avoid a depersonalizing slide into consequentialism. Kant's idea of treating people as autonomous ends in themselves, rather than as mere means to ends, provides a compelling analysis of what it means to treat humans as persons, and I argue that there are ways of interpreting Kant's idea which do not involve reactive attitudes or any other attributions of free will or moral responsibility. -/- . (shrink)

Asymmetry theories about free will and moral responsibility are a recent development in the long history of the free will debate. Kant commentators have not yet explored the possibility of an asymmetrical reconstruction of Kant's theory of freedom, and that is my goal here. By "free will", I mean the sort of control we would need to be morally responsible for our actions. Kant's term for it is "transcendental freedom", and he refers to the attribution of moral responsibility as "imputation". (...) By "Kant's theory of freedom", I mean not only his theory of transcendental freedom and imputation, but also the various ways in which he draws on these ideas in his moral theory. (shrink)

Kant’s conception of remorse has not received focused discussion in the literature. I argue that he thinks we ought to experience remorse for both retributivist and consequentialist reasons. This account casts helpful light on his ideas of conversion and the descent into the hell of self-cognition. But while he prescribes a heartbreakingly painful experience of remorse, he acknowledges that excess remorse can threaten rational agency through distraction and suicide, and this raises questions about whether actual human beings ought to cultivate (...) their consciences in such a way as to experience remorse on his model. (shrink)

This paper concerns the role of the transcendental distinction between agents qua phenomena and qua noumena in Kant's theory of free will. It argues (1) that Kant's incompatibilism can be accommodated if one accepts the "ontological" interpretation of this distinction (i.e. the view that agents qua noumena are ontologically prior to agents qua phenomena), and (2) that Kant's incompatibilism cannot be accommodated by the "two-aspect" interpretation, whose defining feature is the rejection of the ontological priority of agents qua noumena. The (...) ontological interpretation allows Kant to be an incompatibilist because the ontological priority of agents qua noumena "ontologically undermines" the significance of phenomenal determinism for agents' free will. That is, since agents qua noumena are ontologically prior to agents qua phenomena, the fact that agents qua noumena are not subject to determinism is more fundamental than the fact that agents qua phenomena are subject to determinism, and it is the more fundamental fact that we should be concerned with in the metaphysical foundations of moral responsibility. Recent (independent) work by myself, Eric Watkins, and Robert Hanna is drawn on to demonstrate that the ontological interpretation can mount a better defense against some traditional objections than has often been thought. -/- According to the two-aspect interpretation, the transcendental distinction between agents qua noumena and qua phenomena is a semantic and epistemological distinction. Since it rejects the ontological priority of noumena, it has no way to assert that the non-determinism of agents qua noumena is more metaphysically fundamental than the determinism of agents qua phenomena. For the two-aspect interpretation, the truth of determinism must remain just as fundamental as the truth of any other characterization of agents. This means that, on the two-aspect interpretation, there is no better reason to call Kant an incompatibilist than there is to call him a compatibilist. Since Henry Allison has presented the most detailed two-aspect interpretation of the agential transcendental distinction, the arguments against the two-aspect distinction address his interpretation. Part of Allison's strategy is to argue that phenomenal determinism poses less of a problem for free will if we accept his accounts of the Second Analogy and empirical psychology. I point our problems in these accounts and argue that this strategy cannot be accepted. -/- . (shrink)

This chapter offers non-retributive, broadly Kantian justifications of punishment and remorse that can be endorsed by free will skeptics. We lose our grip on some Kantian ideas if we become skeptical about free will, but we can preserve some important ones that can do valuable work for free will skeptics. The justification of punishment presented here has consequentialist features but is deontologically constrained by our duty to avoid using others as mere means. It draws on a modified Rawlsian original position (...) in which we assume we are just as likely to be among the punished when the veil of ignorance is raised as we are to be among those protected by the institution of punishment. The justification of remorse presented here is care-based and draws on the value of sympathizing with people we have wronged, which has a Kantian ground in the duty to take others’ ends as our own. (shrink)

Kant is entitled to his claim that determinism and incompatibilist moral responsibility coexist if he is interpreted as holding that each agent qua noumenon is atemporally responsible for the particular causal laws which necessitate the actions of that agent qua temporal phenomenon. The fact of causal necessitation is imposed on the empirical world a priori by theoretical reason, and it serves to objectively temporally order phenomena. This imposition is purely formal, however, and explains only the epistemically necessary features of the (...) causal series---i.e. the universal fact that there are deterministically necessitating causal laws. Theoretical reason also generates the empirical, a posteriori types under which particular causal laws appear. But theoretical reason is not responsible for the fact that some particular causal laws obtain rather than some others, i.e. it is not responsible for the fact that some particular laws are actual rather than merely possible. Noumena are responsible for the obtaining of particular causal laws, and some noumena are human agents. ;Qua noumena, we are responsible for the obtaining of the particular causal laws which necessitate our phenomenal actions. Our free actions qua noumena are choices of maxims, not choices of causal laws. Our choices of maxims appear in inner sense as temporally extended phenomena of empirical psychology, necessitated by particular causal laws. The practical types under which we choose our maxims and the theoretical a posteriori types and laws under which these choices appear to us are entirely different, and we cannot know why they correlate as they do. But we can know that they correlate: if our choices of maxims had been different, they would have yielded different appearances. We can explain how these appearances could have been different in terms of the fact that noumena are responsible for the obtaining of particular causal laws. If our noumenal choices had been different, their appearances would have been necessitated according to different laws. (shrink)

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility is an edited collection of new essays by an internationally recognized line-up of contributors. It is aimed at readers who wish to explore the philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism and their implications.

By Focusing on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s magnum opus Truth and Method, this paper aims to show how understanding itself — including the understanding of artworks, texts, tradition, and living speech — can be understood as a kind of game or dialogical play-process which requires crucial ethical conditions to be met if it is going to succeed. Success, in terms of the communication of meaning, requires that the players (or interlocutors) commit to a genuine participation with each other in which they “open” (...) themselves to each other’s “claims to truth,” take each other seriously, listen, respond and question, and stand prepared to risk their old prejudices, learn from each other, and be transformed in the process. (shrink)

Hardly anyone disputes that discrimination can be a grave moral wrong. Yet this consensus masks fundamental disagreements about what makes something discrimination, as well as precisely why acts of discrimination are wrong. Benjamin Eidelson develops systematic answers to those two questions. He claims that discrimination is a form of differential treatment distinguished by its special connection to the differential ascription of some property to different people, and goes on to argue that what makes some cases of discrimination intrinsically wrongful (...) is that they manifest an attitude of disrespect for the personhood of those who are disfavored. He endeavors to specify what this attitude consists in, and to demonstrate how attending to its character can help us to better understand the moral dimensions of different forms of wrongful discrimination. The book concludes with an extended discussion of racial profiling in law enforcement. (shrink)

Kiesewetter defends the normativity of rationality by presenting a new solution to the problems that arise from the common assumption that we ought to be rational. He provides a defence of a reason-response conception of rationality, an evidence-relative account of reason, and an explanation of structural irrationality in relation to these accounts.

Sometimes our intentions and beliefs exhibit a structure that proves us to be irrational. This dissertation is concerned with the question of whether we ought (or have at least good reason) to avoid such irrationality. The thesis defends the normativity of rationality by presenting a new solution to the problems that arise from the common assumption that we ought to be rational. The argument touches upon many other topics in the theory of normativity, such as the form and the content (...) of rational standards or requirements, the preconditions of criti¬cism, and the function of reasons in deliberation and advice. Over and above an exten¬sive assessment of the problems discussed in the literature, the thesis provides a detailed defence of a reason-response conception of rationality, a novel, evidence-relative account of reasons, and an explanation of structural irrationality in terms of these accounts. (shrink)

A semantics for quantified modal logic is presented that is based on Kleene's notion of realizability. This semantics generalizes Flagg's 1985 construction of a model of a modal version of Church's Thesis and first-order arithmetic. While the bulk of the paper is devoted to developing the details of the semantics, to illustrate the scope of this approach, we show that the construction produces (i) a model of a modal version of Church's Thesis and a variant of a modal set theory (...) due to Goodman and Scedrov, (ii) a model of a modal version of Troelstra's generalized continuity principle together with a fragment of second-order arithmetic, and (iii) a model based on Scott's graph model (for the untyped lambda calculus) which witnesses the failure of the stability of non-identity. (shrink)

Consider the following 'principles':2(Norm of Belief Schema) Necessarily, a belief of is correct (relative to some scenario) if and only if p (at that scenario) — where 'p' has the aforementioned content .(Generalized Norm of Belief) Necessarily, for all propositions , a belief of is correct (relative to some scenario) if and only if is true (at that scenario).Both 'principles' appear to capture the aim(s) of belief. (NBS) particularizes the aims to beliefs of distinct content-types. (GNB) generalizes these aims of (...) beliefs as truth. Properly understood, the instances of (NBS) appear to be at least approximately true as does (GNB). Of course, one might harbor concerns about whether these are mere .. (shrink)

According to a widely held view, epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief – much like prudential or moral reasons are normative reasons for action. In recent years, however, an increasing number of authors have questioned the assumption that epistemic reasons are normative. In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti-normativism about epistemic reasons and present a number of arguments in support of normativism. The challenge for anti-normativism is to say what kind of reasons epistemic reasons are if (...) they are not normative reasons. I discuss various answers to this challenge and find them all wanting. The arguments for normativism each stress a certain analogy between epistemic reasons and normative reasons for action. Just like normative reasons for action, epistemic reasons provide partial justification; they provide premises for correct reasoning; they constitute good bases for the responses they are reasons for; and they are reasons for which agents can show these responses without committing a mistake. In each case, I argue that the relevant condition is plausibly sufficient for the normativity of a reason, and that normativism is in any case in a much better position to explain the analogy than anti-normativism. (shrink)

According to an attractive and widely held view, all practical reasons are explained in terms of the (instrumental or final) value of the action supported by the reason. I argue that this theory is incompatible with plausible assumptions about the practical reasons that correspond to certain moral rights, including the right to a promised action and the right to an exclusive use of one’s property. The argument is an explanatory rather than extensional one: while the actions supported by the relevant (...) reasons (e.g. keeping a valid promise or respecting property) can be argued to have a certain kind of value, I argue that this value presupposes a moral right, and therefore cannot explain the reason. Reflection on such cases suggest the conclusion that reasons that are subject to normative powers are generally not value-based. This also has important implications for the dialectic between ‘value-first’ and ‘reasons-first’ approaches to normativity. (shrink)

If you ought to perform a certain act, and some other action is a necessary means for you to perform that act, then you ought to perform that other action as well – or so it seems plausible to say. This transmission principle is of both practical and theoretical significance. The aim of this paper is to defend this principle against a number of recent objections, which (as I show) are all based on core assumptions of the view called actualism. (...) I reject actualism, provide an alternative explanation of its plausible features, and present an independent argument for the transmission principle. (shrink)

An increasing number of regulations propose the notion of ‘AI audits’ as an enforcement mechanism for achieving transparency and accountability for artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Despite some converging norms around various forms of AI auditing, auditing for the purpose of compliance and assurance currently have little to no agreed upon practices, procedures, taxonomies, and standards. We propose the ‘criterion audit’ as an operationalizable compliance and assurance external audit framework. We model elements of this approach after financial auditing practices, and argue (...) that AI audits should similarly provide assurance to their stakeholders about AI organizations’ ability to govern their algorithms in ways that mitigate harms and uphold human values. We discuss the necessary conditions for the criterion audit, and provide a procedural blueprint for performing an audit engagement in practice. We illustrate how this framework can be adapted to current regulations by deriving the criteria on which ‘bias audits’ for hiring algorithms can be performed, as required by the recently effective New York City Local Law 144 of 2021. We conclude by offering critical discussion on the benefits, inherent limitations, and implementation challenges of applying practices of the more mature financial auditing industry to AI auditing where robust guardrails against quality assurance issues are only starting to emerge. Our discussion as informed by experiences in performing these audits in practice highlights the critical role that an audit ecosystem plays in ensuring the effectiveness of such methodology. (shrink)

Gadamer's Ethics of Play examines the ethical dimensions of understanding by focusing on the concept of dialogical "play" in Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method. The book is accessible to an undergraduate audience, while also being relevant to ongoing debates among Gadamer scholars.

As sophisticated artificial intelligence software becomes more ubiquitously and more intimately integrated within domains of traditionally human endeavor, many are raising questions over how responsibility (be it moral, legal, or causal) can be understood for an AI’s actions or influence on an outcome. So called “responsibility gaps” occur whenever there exists an apparent chasm in the ordinary attribution of moral blame or responsibility when an AI automates physical or cognitive labor otherwise performed by human beings and commits an error. Healthcare (...) administration is an industry ripe for responsibility gaps produced by these kinds of AI. The moral stakes of healthcare are often life and death, and the demand for reducing clinical uncertainty while standardizing care incentivizes the development and integration of AI diagnosticians and prognosticators. In this paper, we argue that (1) responsibility gaps are generated by “black box” healthcare AI, (2) the presence of responsibility gaps (if unaddressed) creates serious moral problems, (3) a suitable solution is for relevant stakeholders to voluntarily responsibilize the gaps, taking on some moral responsibility for things they are not, strictly speaking, blameworthy for, and (4) should this solution be taken, black box healthcare AI will be permissible in the provision of healthcare. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps, and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may (...) freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Towards the unconditioned: Kant, Epicurus and Glückseligkeit -- Arendt and the time of the pardon -- Kant, evil, and the unconditioned -- Judgment after Derrida.

The first philosophers of the Frankfurt School famously turned to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud to supplement their Marxist analyses of ideological subjectification. Since the collapse of their proposed "marriage of Marx and Freud," psychology and social theory have grown apart to the impoverishment of both. Returning to this union, Benjamin Y. Fong reconstructs the psychoanalytic "foundation stone" of critical theory in an effort to once again think together the possibility of psychic and social transformation. Drawing on the (...) work of Hans Loewald and Jacques Lacan, Fong complicates the famous antagonism between Eros and the death drive in reference to a third term: the woefully undertheorized drive to mastery. Rejuvenating Freudian metapsychology through the lens of this pivotal concept, he then provides fresh perspective on Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse's critiques of psychic life under the influence of modern cultural and technological change. The result is a novel vision of critical theory that rearticulates the nature of subjection in late capitalism and renews an old project of resistance. (shrink)

At least some of your beliefs are commitments. When you believe that P as a commitment, your stance on P is such that you believe it on the basis of your considered judgement. Sometimes, you also believe that you believe P. Such self‐beliefs can also be commissive in a sense, as when they are reflective endorsements of your lower‐order commissive beliefs. In this paper I argue that one's commissive self‐beliefs ontologically constitute one's lower‐order commissive beliefs because one's commissive self‐beliefs instantiate (...) the same inferential dispositions that are constitutive of one's lower‐order commissive beliefs. Constitutive relations between commissive self‐beliefs and first‐order commissive beliefs are maximally epistemically secure because they do not result from any epistemic procedure by which one must try (and possibly fail) to detect one's first‐order commissive beliefs. This maximal epistemic security suffices to warrant one's commissive self‐beliefs, such that one possesses commissive self‐knowledge of an especially privileged sort. (shrink)

Redesigning humans -- Engaging with transhumanism -- Living "forever" : transhumanism and mortality -- "Unlimited" intelligence and well-being -- The role of the philosopher in transhumanism -- Transhumanism and Buddhist philosophy : two approaches to suffering -- Conclusion : Contesting and considering.

In this paper, I discuss Hud Hudson's compatibilistic interpretation of Kant's theory of free will, which is based on Davidson's anomalous monism. I sketch an alternative interpretation of my own, an incompatibilistic interpretation according to which agents qua noumena are responsible for the particular causal laws which determine the actions of agents qua phenomena. Hudson's interpretation should be attractive to philosophers who value Kant's epistemology and ethics, but insist on a deflationary reading of things in themselves. It is in an (...) incompatibilist interpretation of Kant's theory of free will that a "positive" conception of noumena is at its most important. If a compatibilistic interpretation is acceptable, one might suppose that we can do without a "positive" conception of noumena throughout Kant's philosophy. I demonstrate, however, that there are central elements of Kant's theory of free will that cannot be accommodated within Hudson's interpretation. (shrink)

An English language translation accompanies the original Greek text of Aristotle's book about the nature of the state, constitutions, revolutions, democracy, and oligarchy.

The English Neoplatonic philosopher Ralph Cudworth introduced the term ‘consciousness’ into the English philosophical lexicon. Cudworth uses the term to define the form and structure of cognitive acts, including acts of freewill. In this article I highlight the important role of theological disputes over the place and extent of human freewill within an overarching system of providence. Cudworth’s intellectual development can be understood in the main as an increasingly detailed and nuanced reaction to the strict voluntarist Calvinism that is typified (...) in the thought of his near contemporary William Perkins. At the heart of Cudworth’s rejection of Calvinism is the dilemma over whether God is understood primarily in terms of will or justice. In this fleshing-out of the power of consciousness Cudworth moves from an instrumental account of the working of the human mind towards an account of human consciousness that is intrinsic to his definition of human agency. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the objections that have been raised against the view that equality is intrinsically valuable also provide objections to the view that all practical reasons can be explained in terms of value. Plausible egalitarian principles entail that under certain conditions people have claims to an equal share. These claims entail reasons to distribute goods equally that cannot be explained by value if equality has no intrinsic value.

This is the first book to explore the role of quotation in modern Jewish thought. It shows how quotation is the binding tissue that links language and thought, modernity and tradition, religion and secularism as a way of being in the world.