The idea of basic action is a fixed point in the contemporary investigation of the nature of action. And while there are arguments aimed at putting the idea in place, it is meant to be closer to a gift of common sense than to a hard-won achievement of philosophical reflection. It first appears at the stage of innocuous description and before the announcement of philosophical positions. And yet, as any decent magician knows, the real work so often gets done in (...) the set-up. I argue that the seemingly innocent idea of basic action is, in fact, bound up with a wide-spread conception of the nature of bodily or physical action (section 3). Its legitimacy is vital to the intelligibility of the causal theory of action, according to which physical action consists of a mere event and a condition of mind joined (in the right way) by the bond of causality. Left unchecked, means-end reason threatens to permeate physical action, and thus threatens the sovereignty of the sphere of material events at the center of the causal theory: such events, including the movements of one’s body when one intentionally moves it, are thought to be constitutively independent of the subject’s rational capacities. Basic action is a necessary countermeasure, a sort of metaphysical containment wall needed to preserve the separate jurisdictions of the mind of the acting subject and what merely happens. I argue that so long as action theory proceeds under the assumption that there must be basic action, it must regard our relation to the progress of our own deeds as not different in principle from Marx’s understanding of the relation of the non-worker (Nichtarbeiter) to the material processes that realize his own ideas, namely the work done on the factory floor. Each is alienated from the progress, or getting done, of his deeds. In each the process of doing something intentionally turns out to be a case of delegating tasks to another power. How the process comes to completion is not willed, and at best watched: the causal work is not the agent’s work, his knowledge not self-knowledge (section 5). We should find this unacceptable. And if this is right, it should be a pressing question whether there must be basic action. I argue that we have no good reason to think so: basic action is not forced on us by argument (sections 2 and 4). It is open to us to consider an alternative, one on which action is not, in the fundamental case, barren of means- end structure, but instead permeated by it: we register as a force in nature not at the limit of the means-end order but precisely in its constitution. [from article introduction]. (shrink)

A measure of good and bad is internal to something falling under it when that thing falls under the measure in virtue of what it is. The concept of an internal standard has broad application. Compare the external breed standards arbitrarily imposed at a dog show with the internal standards of health at work in the veterinarian's office. This paper is about practical standards, measures of acting well and badly, and so measures deployed in deliberation and choice. More specifically, it (...) is about the attempt to explain the unconditional validity of certain norms (say, of justice and prudence) by showing them to be internal to our agency and the causality it involves. This is constitutivism. Its most prominent incarnations share a set of assumptions about the nature of agency and our knowledge of it: conceptualism, formalism and absolutism. This essay investigates the merits and viability of rejecting all of them while still seeking the ground of practical normativity in what we are, in our fundamental activity. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to display an alternative to the familiar decompositional approach in action theory, one that resists the demand for an explanation of action in non-agential terms, while not simply treating the notion of intentional agency as an unexplained primitive. On this Anscombean alternative, action is not a worldly event with certain psychological causes, but a distinctive form of material process, one that is not simply caused by an exercise of reason but is itself a productive (...) exercise of reason. I argue that to comprehend the proposed alternative requires an account of the temporality of events in general. An event does not simply have a position in time, but is itself temporally structured. With the inner temporality of events in view, the Anscombean conception of action as a specifically self-conscious form of temporal unity is made available for critical reflection. (shrink)

Current bans on sports and drugs rest on inadequate grounds. Prohibitions on drugs in sports should rely more on what it is permissible to ban, not on what "must" be banned. Further permissible prohibitions should enjoy democratic support at levels.

Other wills: the second-person in ethics. . ???aop.label???. doi: 10.1080/13869795.2014.941907.

Few have given an extended treatment of the non-statistical sense of normality: a sense captured in sentences like “dogs have four legs,” or “hammers normally have metal heads,” or “it is normal for badgers to take dust baths.” The most direct extant treatment is Bernhard Nickel’s Between Logic and the World, where he claims that the normal or characteristic for a kind is what we can explain by appeal to the right sorts of explanations. Just which explanatory strategies can ground (...) normalities, though, is difficult to determine without inviting circularity into the account. After raising this and other worries for Nickel’s account, I develop my own account according to which normal features are those which are explained by the kind of thing involved. (shrink)

“On the Problem of Action” contrasts two conceptions of the task of action theory: the dominant conception, which I call the decompositional approach, and an alternative, non-decompositional approach that is implicit in the tradition of action theory descending from Aristotle. Decompositionalists seek to characterize intentional action as a composite of something inward and something outward, bound together by some generic kind of causal relation. I show that this approach is committed to characterizing action in terms that treat the agent’s own (...) standpoint on her action as a separable factor, not integral to the worldly happening that constitutes her action proper, and I argue that this commitment leads decompositionalists to focus their theorizing not on actions-in-progress, but on cases of completed action. I then show how the neo-Aristotelian approach to understanding action contrasts with the decompositional approach in each of these respects: it seeks, not to explain what intentional action is by decomposing action into several not-intrinsically-agential factors, but rather to characterize the understanding of what it is to act implicit in the agent’s knowledge of her own action-in-progress. The main aim of this paper is simply to show that there is an alternative to the decompositional project, one that resists the demand for an explanation of action in non-agential terms, while not simply treating the notion of intentional agency as an unexplained primitive. To see the possibility of this sort of understanding of action is, I argue, to see how action could turn out to be, not a worldly event with certain psychological causes, but a distinctive form of material process, one that is not simply caused by an exercise of reason but is itself a exercise of reason, it is itself the exercise of a power of practical cognition. (shrink)

The paper considers and rejects two arguments against the performance of sexual reassignment surgery. First, it is argued that the operation is not mutilating, but functionally enabling. Second, it is argued that the operation is not objectionably deceptive, since, if there is such a thing as our 'real sex', we do not know (ordinarily) what it is. The paper is also intended to shed light on what our sexual identity is and on what matters in sexual relations.

This chapter aims to get away from the ‘psychological attitude’ approach framing current philosophical discussion of delusion. We ask not what kind of attitude a delusion is – a belief or an imagination? Something else? – as if it were already clear what the ‘content’ of a delusion could be. We aim instead to shift attention to the question of the ‘object’ of delusions. What is delusion of? What is the object of this form of thinking? This focus on a (...) delusion’s object, over its attitudinal nature, is partly motivated by a desire properly to connect delusory thought with ordinary forms of fantastical thinking that are ubiquitous in the experiences faced by reflective humans in everyday life. We aim at securing a continuity, in a way that much extant discussion of delusion fails to, between delusory thought with more ordinary forms of thinking present in, for example, fantastical or magical thinking. Exploring familiar expressions of such thinking, especially those involved in love and loss, enables us to bring out the way in which such expressions convey forms of affective self-consciousness – that have the subject and her relations as an object – that are not naturally taken as reports liable to investigation as true or false. This raises the question about what how to think about what someone is doing when they give expression to a delusion should we think of them as expressing an attitude towards a truth or false content, or may they be doing something rather different? (shrink)

This section is a discussion of Joseph Raz's Conception of Normativity introduced by Georgios Pavlakos.

Debates about obesity are really about the meaning of responsibility. The trend toward local foods reflects the changing nature of space due to new communication technologies. Vegetarian theory capitalizes on biotechnology’s challenge to the meaning of species. And food politics, as this book makes powerfully clear, is actually about the political anxieties surrounding globalization. In _Eating Anxiety_, Chad Lavin argues that our culture’s obsession with diet, obesity, meat, and local foods enacts ideological and biopolitical responses to perceived threats to both (...) individual and national sovereignty. Using the occasion of eating to examine assumptions about identity, objectivity, and sovereignty that underwrite so much political order, Lavin explains how food functions to help structure popular and philosophical understandings of the world and the place of humans within it. He introduces the concept of digestive subjectivity and shows how this offers valuable resources for rethinking cherished political ideals surrounding knowledge, democracy, and power. Exploring discourses of food politics, _Eating Anxiety_ links the concerns of food—especially issues of sustainability, public health, and inequality—to the evolution of the world order and the possibilities for democratic rule. It forces us to question the significance of consumerist politics and—simultaneously—the relationship between politics and ethics, public and private. (shrink)

Offers objections to cognitive definitions of death. Death is a biological concept, and should have biological criteria for its definition.

I examine two kinds of arguments in favour of imposing restrictions on smoking by hospitalised psychiatric patients. First, I look at patient-centered arguments in favour of restrictions. These arguments focus on the benefits that patients will receive if their smoking is stopped or curtailed. Second, I examine arguments that seek to justify restrictions by citing the costs that smokers impose on others. Neither kind of argument justifies any meaningful restrictions on the smoking of hospitalised psychiatric patients.

The definition of death should be framed in biological rather than psychological or moral terms. Loss of personal identity, for example, does not equal death, even if it is a worse fate.

In Sociology of Culture and of Cultural Practices, Laurent Fleury presents a synthesis of research and debate from France and the United States. He traces the development of the sociology of culture from its origins and examines the major trends that have emerged in this branch of sociology. Fleury also raises issues of cultural hierarchy, distinction, and legitimate culture and mass culture and focuses on new areas of research, including the role of institutions, the reception of works of art, aesthetic (...) experience, and emancipation through art. (shrink)

Work by Sales and Lavin has suggested that it is possible to improve the moral and ethical thinking of psychologists. In particular, moral and ethical thinking by psychologists could be improved if psychologists learned to use defensible moral metrics. The usefulness of formal training in ethics and morality, with the implicit condemnation of the moral metrics that might be taught in such training, has been challenged by writers such as Justice Holmes. He has alleged that professionals learn how to behave (...) in their professional roles by practicing them. A variety of problems are noted with Holmes' view. Further, psychologists cannot rely on expert advice from Institutional Review Boards or Ethics Committees, even if they wished to do so. Institutional Review Boards, and by implication Ethics Committees, have serious deficiencies. However, psychologists can make considerable progress in their moral and ethical thinking, if they distinguish ethics from morality and also notice the similarities between moral thinking and scientific thinking and theorizing. A controversy over the recovered-memory therapy is employed to illustrate some of these distinctions and similarities. The argument continues by developing two moral metrics. The first begins with ethics and culminates in moral appraisal. The second makes moral appraisal an earlier step than ethical appraisal. With these metrics described, it is then noted that a popular metric in psychology, that of Koocher and Keith-Spiegel, is inadequate. It is then shown that the two moral metrics earlier described are reasonably believed to be adequate. The adequacy of one of them is directly illustrated with an example involving the question of whether persons with serious mental illnesses should be allowed to enter into contracts that would relax the criteria for their involuntary hospitalization and treatment. It is concluded that teachable, intellectually defensible moral metrics are possible, and that their use would improve the moral and ethical thinking of psychologists. (shrink)

The paper discusses the moral difficulties physicians encounter when determining the level of formality they will use when addressing their patients. It is argued that physicians ought not to use a patient's first name unless the patient also uses the physician's first name. In short, physicians and patients should always address each other with the same level of formality. It is argued that this is so even when patients invite physicians to address them informally.

Defends an alternative to danger to self or others as a basis for involuntary treatment. Involuntary hospitalization for treatment should hinge on a patient's competence to refuse treatment.

Offers reasons for rejecting principle of relevant similarity. Like cases need not be treated alike. I may treat one person better than another simply because I prefer to do so.