This paper investigates the moral emotion of being socially, but non-agentially connected to a harm. I propose understanding the emotion of an affiliated onlooker as a species of regret called ‘social-regret’. Breaking from existing guilt- and shame-based accounts, I argue that social-regret can be a fitting, expressive, and revelatory reactive attitude that opens the way for deliberation over accountability for others’ harms. When we feel social-regret, our attention is directed towards the moral salience of our social relations and the expectations (...) that undergird them, as well as possibilities for ameliorative action. I consider several existing accounts of affiliated onlookers’ emotions (including embarrassment, guilt, and shame), and I highlight the advantages of supplementing these with a regret-based account. Social-regret provides a novel way to understand negative, self-directed emotions in response to others’ harms as rational, expressive, and potentially reason-giving experiences. (shrink)

Within the field of virtue and vice epistemology open-mindedness is usually considered an archetypal virtue. Nevertheless, there is ongoing disagreement over how exactly it should be defined. In this paper I propose a novel definition of open-mindedness as a process of impartial belief revision and use it to argue that we should shift our normative assessments away from the trait itself to the context in which it is exercised. My definition works by three sequential stages: not screening new claims, impartially (...) weighing the evidential strength of claims, and updating beliefs accordingly. Using this definition I argue for a focus on agents’ particular circumstances to determine what degrees of credulity, open-, or closed-mindedness are appropriate in any given situation. As well as providing conceptual clarity regarding the concept of open-mindedness this paper indicates the benefits of this contextual approach for our everyday epistemic attitudes. In particular it enables us to recognise, without stigma, when ourselves or others deviate from open-mindedness for appropriate reasons. (shrink)

Our world is mobile. People move, either within the state or from one state to another, to access opportunities, to improve their living conditions, or to start afresh. Yet, we usually assume that migration is an exceptional activity that leads to permanent settlement. In this paper, I invite us to reconsider this assumption. First, I analyse several ways in which people experience mobility in contemporary societies. Then, I turn to migration, as a specific form of mobility. I distinguish between a (...) legal/administrative, a social, and a self-identification-based approach to migration, demonstrating that they lead to divergent definitions of who is a migrant. I proceed by introducing the concept of mobile migration and by developing a typology of mobile migrants. I conclude that, in order to devise migration policies that treat migrants fairly, a careful consideration of the claims and interests of the different types of mobile migrants is necessary. (shrink)

The capabilities approach is the theory according to which, in order to assess people's quality of life and reflect on the basic political entitlements, we should consider what people are capable of doing and being. Focusing mostly on Nussbaum's account, a number of scholars analysed the metaethical structure underlying the approach, showing her Aristotelian and Kantian sources. This article explores another aspect of Nussbaum's theory which has so far been somewhat overlooked: the role of emotions in the justification and motivational (...) support of the approach. After showing the importance Nussbaum places on compassion (and other benevolent emotions) to warrant her moral theory, I argue that – assuming her own cognitive account of compassion – her argument begs the question. I will then contend that Nussbaum's case does not have the inner tools to overcome such a circularity, trying to suggest, in conclusion, a possible way out which is consistent with it. (shrink)

Early in World War I, Virginia Woolf wrote these words: ‘The future is dark, which is on the whole, the best thing the future can be […]’. It is tempting to assume that darkness simply hides the unknown and the threatening. It is more challenging to think of it as Woolf did: rich with possibility in even the most desperate times.We live in what many would readily describe as dark times. These times have brought (among much else) a once-in-a-century public (...) health crisis, the continued redemption of toxic white supremacy, declining trust in and support for public institutions, and growing evidence of impending climate devastation. ‘Dark Futures’ will consider some of the scenes of this devastation and mine them for insights into our predicaments and our prospects. (shrink)

I show that Wittgenstein's critique of G.H. Hardy's mathematical realism naturally extends to Paul Benacerraf's influential paper, ‘Mathematical Truth’. Wittgenstein accuses Hardy of hastily analogizing mathematical and empirical propositions, thus leading to a picture of mathematical reality that is somehow akin to empirical reality despite the many puzzles this creates. Since Benacerraf relies on that very same analogy to raise problems about mathematical ‘truth’ and the alleged ‘reality’ to which it corresponds, his major argument falls prey to the same critique. (...) The problematic pictures of mathematical reality suggested by Hardy and Benacerraf can be avoided, according to Wittgenstein, by disrupting the analogy that gives rise to them. I show why Tarskian updates to our conception of ‘truth’ discussed by Benacerraf do not answer Wittgenstein's concerns. That is, because they merely presuppose what Wittgenstein puts into question, namely, the essential uniformity of ‘truth’ and ‘proposition’ in ordinary discourse. (shrink)

Defences of racial anti-realism typically proceed by establishing that nothing possesses the descriptive characteristics associated with the term ‘race’. This leaves them vulnerable to the externalist challenge that the descriptive meaning of ‘race’ is subject to revision based on discoveries about the nature of its referent. That referent is, according to constructionist realists, the groups we call races (the R-groups). Anti-realists and constructionist realists agree that the R-groups are constructed as real social groups by being viewed and treated as though (...) they were relatively homogenous groups, differing in significant, inherent, heritable ways. Only, anti-realists insist they are not races, but racialized groups. I seek to harness their agreement about the socially constructed nature of the R-groups to break the impasse between anti-realists and constructionist realists and settle their dispute in the anti-realist position's favour. On the account of their social construction agreed by both sides, R-groups exhibit empty concept dependency: they depend for their existence on people's utilizing a concept with no referent. Race cannot be both the concept which captures the R-groups’ nature and the empty concept on whose utilization their existence depends. When we are forced to choose, I argue, the latter is the only justifiable option. (shrink)

Michela Massimi has written a book broad in scope and ambition but full of wonderful details. It moves from technical philosophical discussions of conditionals to detailed case studies of work in child literacy. From perspectival art to dark matter. From Borges to blown glass – and much else in between. It is impossible not to be impressed. -/- Massimi's book is a detailed elaboration and defence of a position, perspectival realism, she has been developing over several years. Perspectival realism offers (...) a new twist on realism debates in science. Standard scientific realist views focus on the products of science. They are concerned with questions like whether our current scientific theories are approximately true or our best models accurate. Massimi's perspectival realism, in contrast, focuses on the process of scientific investigation. She is interested in the question of how scientific communities come to produce reliable knowledge. Massimi addresses that question by offering the reader several detailed case studies. The centrepiece of the book is a long and multi-part discussion in Chapter 4 in which she describes the development of models in nuclear physics, climate science, and developmental psychology. The central message of each case study is the same: scientific knowledge emerges through the interaction of diverse scientific communities. For example, crucial to the development of models explaining nuclear stability was prior work done by petrologists, vulcanologists, meteorologists, and others in establishing a consistent pattern of isotopic abundances through a variety of environments. It was this knowledge which in conjunction with other accepted physical constraints, like Pauli's exclusion principle, that led to the development of a series of nuclear models, culminating in Goeppert Mayer and Jensen's Nobel Prize-winning shell model. (shrink)

J.S. Mill argues against licensing or forced medical examinations of prostitutes even if these would reduce harm, for two reasons: the state should not legitimize immoral conduct; and coercing prostitutes would violate Mill's harm principle as they do not risk causing non-consensual harm to others, their clients do. There is nothing puzzling about Mill opposing coercive restrictions on self-regarding immoral conduct while also opposing state support of that conduct. But why does Mill oppose restrictions on prostitutes’ liberty if those restrictions (...) could prevent harm to third parties? Mill's position is not puzzling once we recognize that his harm principle is not a harm-prevention principle that warrants restrictions on liberty to prevent harm no matter who caused it (as David Lyons famously argued) but instead warrants restrictions on liberty only of individuals who are the morally relevant cause of that harm. Mill's discussion of prostitution shows he prioritizes both individuality and moral progress over harm reduction. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue that the normative significance of the inner aspects of filial piety – in particular, filial love – is better captured when we understand filial love as part of the virtue of filial piety rather than as an object of duty. After briefly introducing the value of filial love, I argue that the idea of a duty to love one's loving parents faces serious difficulties in making sense of the normative significance of filial (...) love. Then I show why the virtue-ethical approach to filial love, which views filial love as a constitutive part of the virtue of filial piety, can do justice to its normative significance while avoiding the difficulties. (shrink)

Greater public awareness of the occurrence of sexual assault has led to the creation of mobile phone apps designed to facilitate consent between sexual partners. These apps exhibit serious practical shortcomings in realistic contexts; however, in this paper I consider the hypothetical case in which these practical shortcomings are absent. The prospect of this viable consent app creates an interesting challenge for consequentialism – one that is comparable to the objection that the theory justifies killing innocent persons to prevent large (...) numbers of less serious harms like experiencing brief, painful headaches. I outline and reject the most straightforward way for consequentialists to address this challenge, and I argue that the empirical calculations at stake reveal something rarely appreciated: consequentialists ought to sometimes favour reinforcing deontological constraints in common-sense morality rather than seeking to undermine them. (shrink)

Strawson's view on punishment has been either neglected or recoiled from in contemporary scholarship on ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (FR). Strawson's alleged retributivism has made his view suspect and troublesome. In this article, we first argue, against the mainstream, that the punishment passage is an indispensable part of the main argument in FR (section 1) and elucidate in what sense Strawson can be called ‘a retributivist’ (section 2). We then elaborate our own hypothesis of symbolic retribution to explain the continuum between (...) moral reactive attitudes and punishment that Strawson only adumbrates (section 3). After this justification of the punitive response to wrongdoing, we compare and contrast our specific kind of retributivist hypothesis with other positions in the so-called ‘new retributivism’ (section 4). Our hypothesis differs from other subvarieties of expressive retributivism in putting centre stage the idea of punishment as taking up a reverential stance towards the victim. (shrink)