It is common to think of the attitude of trust as involving reliance of some sort. For example, Annette Baier argues that trust is reliance on the good will of others, and Richard Holton argues that trust is reliance from a participant stance. However, it is puzzling how trust could involve reliance, because reliance, unlike trust, is responsive to practical reasons: we rely in light of reasons that show it worthwhile to rely, but we don’t trust in light (...) of reasons that show it worthwhile to trust. To address the puzzle, I sketch an account of reliance, according to which reliance consists in action, and I sketch an account of trust, according to which trust consists in belief held from a participant stance. I conclude that it is plausible to see trust as the grounds for reliance. (shrink)

This book marks the beginning of a new phase in the philosophical investigation of classical and contemporary accounts of the self: canonical boundaries have been crossed and doctrinal justification abandoned in favor of a cosmopolitan ideal of syncretic, theoretically perspicuous, and historically informed systematic reflection. That such reflection bears on so central a concept as the self is only fitting given its implications for a broad range of questions concerning agency, the mind-body problem, and self-knowledge that are now pursued across (...) a number of disciplines, including philosophy, psychology and neuroscience. But Ganeri is not simply interested in bringing the wealth of Indian speculations on the self to bear on contemporary discussions, in the hope of supplying a much-needed corrective lens, fill in some important lacunae, or bring another voice to the table. Rather, the goal is to think with these classical Indian thinkers (of which, no less than 21 are debated at length .. (shrink)

Commentators on P.F. Strawson’s reactive attitudes emphasize the opposition between the participant and objective attitudes. This tendency overlooks Strawson’s attempt to mitigate what he saw as “a crude opposition” between these two perspectives. Strawson called attention to phenomena involving the “half-suspension” of reactive attitudes, or the “straddling” of the objective and participant stances in order to diminish this crudity. This has been largely ignored in the literature, and as a result, the phenomena that Strawson mentions are poorly understood. (...) Drawing on the work in the philosophy of emotion by Amélie Rorty and a multidimensional account of the reactive attitudes, we provide a framework to explain how such a half-suspension is possible and highlight some of its more prominent features. (shrink)

In order to be exercised meaningfully, political freedom requires the capacity to actually identify available policy options. To ensure this, society ought to engage in deliberation as a discussion oriented towards mutual learning. In order to highlight this issue, I define deliberation in terms of the participants’ openness to preference change, i.e. the deliberative stance. In the context of the systemic approach to deliberative theory, I find several factors causing the atrophy of such a deliberative stance. I note (...) that this state can occur not only when debaters are representatives or are in the presence of an audience, but also when they face the prospect of a binding decision. It is the latter effect that is a serious challenge to the micro-deliberative strategy, one that strives towards decisional powers being granted to deliberative minipublics. Presenting my findings, I propose—as an alternative to the power-oriented ‘ladder of participation’—a distinction between traditional co-decision and deliberative consultation, the latter one being an environment that is more conducive to deliberative stance. This new typology highlights factors that lead to preference petrification and allows for the appreciation of the non-decisional character of micro-deliberation. All of it leads to the conclusion that, in order to preserve their deliberative character in the systemic context, deliberative minipublics should not always be required to have decision-making powers. (shrink)

Based on the examination of 49 Chinese criminal trials transcribed from the audio-visual recordings on the ‘China Court Trial Online’ website ( https://tingshen.court.gov.cn/ ), the institutional participants–prosecutors, defence lawyers, and judges–are found to frequently repeat defendants’ responses (‘other-repetition’), after a question–answer adjacency pair. Other-repetition has been described as a resource for showing participation and familiarity (Tannen 2007), initiating repair and registering receipt (Schegloff 1997), and displaying understanding and emotional stance (Svennevig 2004). However, other-repetition in trial discourse has not been (...) thoroughly researched. Therefore, this article aims to further examine this salient institutional linguistic feature in order to explore stance construction as a third turn. It is common to associate certain prosodic features of a repetition with the stance of the speaker. However, prosody may not be a reliable cue for stance interpretation in Chinese courtrooms, as institutional participants might conceal their stance during a repetition. Though they are more explicit in displaying their stance with turn-initial repeats, the distinction between the prosody of repeats for different functions is not categorical. It is found that defendants are sensitive to the lexicogrammar and multimodal cues for stance interpretation. (shrink)

Recent work on workplace narratives as a site for the discursive construction of professional identities has focused on speakers who can be considered experienced and knowledgeable experts in their fields. The present study, in contrast, explores two types of workplace narratives — reflective and relational narratives — produced by a group of professionals who are non-experts: in this case, novice language teachers. Specifically, the article illustrates how the moral stance that a novice constructs within a narrative may be formulated (...) in uncertain terms, may be destabilized by the primary narrator, or may be subject to revision by other participants. Finally, the study highlights the relationship between the narrative dimensions of moral stance and tellership, and suggests that participant structure, participants' role relationships, and institutional power asymmetry are especially relevant factors to consider in any further analyses of novices' workplace narratives. (shrink)

Although even very advanced artificial systems do not meet the demanding conditions which are required for humans to be a proper participant in a social interaction, we argue that not all human-machine interactions (HMIs) can appropriately be reduced to mere tool-use. By criticizing the far too demanding conditions of standard construals of intentional agency we suggest a minimal approach that ascribes minimal agency to some artificial systems resulting in the proposal of taking minimal joint actions as a case of (...) a social HMI. Analyzing such HMIs, we utilize Dennett’s stance epistemology, and argue that taking either an intentional stance or design stance can be misleading for several reasons, and instead propose to introduce a new stance that is able to capture social HMIs—the AI-stance. (shrink)

For a view which grounds norms in the practices of a particular group, determining who is in that group will determine the scope of those norms. Such a view requires an account of what it is to be a member of the group subject to that practice. In this article, the author presents the beginnings of such an account, limiting his inquiry to discursive practices; we might characterize such practices as those which require, as a condition of participation, participants both (...) to exchange reasons with one another and to recognize that practice as a common source of reasons. The author argues that membership in such groups is constituted by the conjunction of shared discursive practices, common recognition of the authority of that practice, and commitments between members. In the case of discursive practices, these features of membership are inseparable. Key Words: practice • commitment • membership • discursive stance. (shrink)

Moral or ethical questions are vital because they affect our daily lives: what is the best choice we can make, the best action to take in a given situation, and ultimately, the best way to live our lives? Health ethics has contributed to moving ethics toward a more experience-based and user-oriented theoretical and methodological stance but remains in our practice an incomplete lever for human development and flourishing. This context led us to envision and develop the stance of (...) a “living ethics”, described in this inaugural collective and programmatic paper as an effort to consolidate creative collaboration between a wide array of stakeholders. We engaged in a participatory discussion and collective writing process known as instrumentalist concept analysis. This process included initial local consultations, an exploratory literature review, the constitution of a working group of 21 co-authors, and 8 workshops supporting a collaborative thinking and writing process. First, a living ethics designates a stance attentive to human experience and the role played by morality in human existence. Second, a living ethics represents an ongoing effort to interrogate and scrutinize our moral experiences to facilitate adaptation of people and contexts. It promotes the active and inclusive engagement of both individuals and communities in envisioning and enacting scenarios which correspond to their flourishing as authentic ethical agents. Living ethics encourages meaningful participation of stakeholders because moral questions touch deeply upon who we are and who we want to be. We explain various aspects of a living ethics stance, including its theoretical, methodological, and practical implications as well as some barriers to its enactment based on the reflections resulting from the collaborative thinking and writing process. (shrink)

This paper investigates a special kind of social meaning-making manifest in how we experience static objects and properties of our everyday world. This happens, for example, when we recognize objects like vacuum cleaners, sliced tomatoes, and sneakers as placed in special sites in the environment. Given the compositional features of such images, we see them as designed to accomplish communicative functions. It is argued that object configurations of this kind are recognized as externalized ostensive cues. They are seen as having (...) been created with the intention of setting off an intersubjective mode of perception. This significantly changes the perceiver’s semiotic exploration of the scene. From a ‘private’ mode of sense-making mostly structured by reference to episodic, autobiographical experiential content, the perceiver takes a language stance. In other words, the perceiver adopts a qualitatively different meaning-constructing strategy in dealing with such images. Defending this claim, we present evidence from an empirical investigation of 20 participants’ construals of photographic images depicting everyday static objects. We show that a subset of these object configurations evoke a special kind of socially responsive attitude as manifested in participants’ introspective reports. The importance of these findings is brought out by discussion of parallels in neuro-cognitive work and how ostensive cues influence infant behavior. (shrink)

This study examines the kinds of stance that but as a contrastive marker signals in Nigerian investigative public hearings, with a view to exploring the contexts in which the stances are made. The study examines forty purposively selected investigative public hearing sessions which involve interactions between complainants, defendants and a hearing panel. The data are analysed qualitatively utilising Du Bois’ interactional view of stance and Martin and White’s Appraisal system. Results indicate that but signals epistemic, evidential, emotive and (...) evaluative stances within the narrative, interrogative and closing contexts. These stances and their contextual patterns depend heavily on the roles, goals and knowledge of the participants as stancetakers who position themselves, and align with other participants and the wider discourse community in order to express evaluation and intersubjective positioning. (shrink)

This paper investigates a special kind of social meaning-making manifest in how we experience static objects and properties of our everyday world. This happens, for example, when we recognize objects like vacuum cleaners, sliced tomatoes, and sneakers as placed in special sites in the environment. Given the compositional features of such images, we see them as designed to accomplish communicative functions. It is argued that object configurations of this kind are recognized as externalized ostensive cues. They are seen as having (...) been created with the intention of setting off an intersubjective mode of perception. This significantly changes the perceiver's semiotic exploration of the scene. From a `private' mode of sense-making mostly structured by reference to episodic, autobiographical experiential content, the perceiver takes a language stance. In other words, the perceiver adopts a qualitatively different meaning-constructing strategy in dealing with such images. Defending this claim, we present evidence from an empirical investigation of 20 participants' construals of photographic images depicting everyday static objects. We show that a subset of these object configurations evoke a special kind of socially responsive attitude as manifested in participants' introspective reports. The importance of these findings is brought out by discussion of parallels in neuro-cognitive work and how ostensive cues influence infant behavior. (shrink)

This paper investigates a special kind of social meaning-making manifest in how we experience static objects and properties of our everyday world. This happens, for example, when we recognize objects like vacuum cleaners, sliced tomatoes, and sneakers as placed in special sites in the environment. Given the compositional features of such images, we see them as designed to accomplish communicative functions. It is argued that object configurations of this kind are recognized as externalized ostensive cues. They are seen as having (...) been created with the intention of setting off an intersubjective mode of perception. This significantly changes the perceiver's semiotic exploration of the scene. From a `private' mode of sense-making mostly structured by reference to episodic, autobiographical experiential content, the perceiver takes a language stance. In other words, the perceiver adopts a qualitatively different meaning-constructing strategy in dealing with such images. Defending this claim, we present evidence from an empirical investigation of 20 participants' construals of photographic images depicting everyday static objects. We show that a subset of these object configurations evoke a special kind of socially responsive attitude as manifested in participants' introspective reports. The importance of these findings is brought out by discussion of parallels in neuro-cognitive work and how ostensive cues influence infant behavior. (shrink)

How do people decide what category an artifact belongs to? Previous studies have suggested that adults and, to some degree, children, categorize artifacts in accordance with the design stance, a categorization system which privileges the designer’s original intent in making categorization judgments. However, these studies have all been conducted in Western, technologically advanced societies, where artifacts are mass produced. In this study, we examined intuitions about artifact categorization among the Shuar, a hunter-horticulturalist society in the Amazon region of Ecuador. (...) We used a forced-choice method similar to previous studies, but unlike these studies, our scenarios involved artifacts that would be familiar to the Shuar. We also incorporated a community condition to examine the possible effect of community consensus on how artifacts are categorized. The same scenarios were presented to university student participants in the UK. Across populations and conditions, participants tended to categorize artifacts in terms of a creator’s intent as opposed to a differing current use. This lends support to the view that the design stance may be a universal feature of human cognition. However, we conclude with some thoughts on the limitations of the present method for studying artifact concepts. (shrink)

People who judge that a wrongdoer’s behaviour is determined are disposed, in certain cases, to judge that the wrongdoer cannot be responsible for his behaviour. Some try to explain this phenomenon by arguing that people are intuitive incompatibilists about determinism and moral responsibility. However, Peter Strawson argues that we excuse determined wrongdoers because judging that someone is determined puts us into a psychological state – ‘the objective stance’ – which prevents us from holding them responsible, not because we think (...) that determined wrongdoers cannot be responsible. Two studies were completed to test the claim that the objective stance prevents us from judging wrongdoers responsible. Implicit association measures revealed that participants primed in the objective stance appraised a wrongdoer more positively, but as no less blameworthy, than those neutrally primed. These findings raise doubts about Strawson’s explanation of our tendency to excuse determined wrongdoers. (shrink)

Although the members’ categories associated with institutional settings may seem obvious, more can be said about the actions that make them noticeable and persistent across contexts. This study investigates how epistemic stance displays make the standardized relational pair ‘teacher–student’ relevant during writing conferences in a US university. Analysis of the interaction between teachers and their students shows that teachers tended to display more knowledgeable stances concerning writing and institutional practices, whereas students displayed knowledgeable stances with respect to their own (...) papers, indexing the immediate relevance of the ‘teacher–student’ relational pair and a tension between authority and autonomy. Further analysis reveals that participants also mentioned past and future writing activities, thus indexing the persistence of the ‘teacher–student’ pair as well as the emergence of the category ‘autonomous writer’. Additionally, participants’ orientation to the more general ‘writer–reader’ pair also functioned to index the persistent and emergent aspects of these categories. (shrink)

A profoundly interdisciplinary approach to comparative scholarship, Ecologies of Participation: IAgents, Shamans, Mystics, and Diviners argues for a radical neostructuralist stance. Developing recent theories and methods in religious studies, Cabot argues for a participatory approach to comparative studies.

Social media platforms offer convenient, instantaneous social sharing on a mass scale with tremendous impact on public perceptions, opinions, and behavior. There is a need to understand why information spreads including the human motivations, cognitive processes, and neural dynamics of large-scale sharing. This study introduces a novel approach for investigating the effect social media messaging and in-person discussion has on the inter-brain dynamics within small groups of participants. The psychophysiological impact of information campaigns and narrative messaging within a closed social (...) media environment was assessed using 24-channel wireless EEG. Data were acquired from three- or four-person groups while subjects debated contemporary social issues framed by four scenarios of varying controversy: investing in ethical vs. unethical corporations, selecting travel destination based on social awareness, determining verdict in a murder trial and the punishment of life in prison or death penalty, and decision to vaccinate. Pre-/post-scenario questionnaires assess the effects of the social media information. Inter-brain coherence between subject pairs on each social issue discussed by subjects was analyzed by concordance, agreement vs. disagreement, and by group unanimity, unanimous vs. not unanimous. Subject pairs that agreed on the social issues raised in the scenarios had significantly greater inter-brain coherence in gamma frequency range than disagreeing pairs over cortical regions known to be involved in social interactions. These effects were magnified when comparing groups where subject pairs were unanimous in their stance on the social issues for some but not all scenarios. While there was considerable overlap between scenarios in what EEG channels were significant, there was enough variability to indicate the possibility of scenario-specific effects on inter-brain coherence. (shrink)

Performance and control of upright bipedal posture requires a constant and dynamic integration of relative contributions of different sensory inputs (i. e., sensory reweighting) to enable effective adaptations as individuals face environmental changes and perturbations. Children with gymnastic experience showed balance performance closer to that of adults during and after proprioceptive alteration than children without gymnastic experience when their center of pressure (COP) was analyzed. However, a particular COP sway can be achieved through performing and coordinating different postural movements. The (...) aim of this study was to assess how children and adults of different gymnastic experience perform and control postural movements while they have to adjust balance during and after bilateral tendon vibration. All participants were equipped with spherical markers attached to their skin and two vibrators strapped over the Achilles tendons. Bipedal stance was performed in three 45-s trials in two visual conditions (eyes open, EO, and eyes closed, EC) ordered randomly in which vibration lasted 10 s. Posture movements were analyzed by a principal component analysis (PCA) calculated on normalized and weighted markers coordinates. The relative standard deviation of each principal movement component (principal position, PP-rSTD) quantified its contribution to the whole postural movements, i.e., quantified the coordinative structure. The first (principal velocities, PV-rSTD) and second (principal accelerations, PA-rSTD) time-derivatives characterized the rate-dependent sensory information associated with and the neuromuscular control of the postural movements, respectively. Children without gymnastic experience showed a different postural coordinative structure and different sensory-motor control characteristics. They used less ankle movements in the anterior-posterior direction but increased ankle movements in medio-lateral direction, presented larger hip and trunk velocities, and exhibited more hip actions. Gymnastic experience during childhood seemed to benefit the development of proprioceptive reweighting processes in children, leading to a more mature form of coordinating and controlling posture similarly to adults. (shrink)

This article explores the properties of formulations in a corpus of Hebrew radio phone-ins by juxtaposing two theoretical frameworks: conversation analysis and dialogic syntax. This combination of frameworks is applied towards explaining an anomalous interaction in the collection – a caller’s marked, unexpected rejection of a formulation of gist produced by the radio phone-in’s host. Our analysis shows that whereas previous CA studies of formulations account for many instances throughout the corpus, understanding this particular formulation in CA terms does not (...) explain its drastic rejection by the caller. We therefore turn to an in-depth examination of strategies for lexical and syntactic resonance as a stance-taking device throughout the interaction. In so doing, we not only shed light on the anomalous interaction, but also offer an answer to a provocative question previously put forward by Haddington concerning which of the two – stances or actions – have more meaningful consequences for the description of the organization of interaction. In the particular interaction analyzed here, stances play the more significant role. We propose that the intersubjective stance-taking of participants may be viewed as a meta-action employed among participants as they move across actions, sequences, and activities in talk. (shrink)

Previous works usually report greater postural stability in precise visual tasks than in stationary-gaze tasks. However, existing cognitive models do not fully support these results as they assume that performing an attention-demanding task while standing would alter postural stability because of the competition of attention between the tasks. Contrary to these cognitive models, attentional resources may increase to create a synergy between visual and postural brain processes to perform precise oculomotor behaviors. To test this hypothesis, we investigated a difficult searching (...) task and a control free-viewing task. The precise visual task required the 16 young participants to find a target in densely furnished images. The free-viewing task consisted of looking at similar images without searching anything. As expected, the participants exhibited significantly lower body displacements and a significantly higher cognitive workload in the precise visual task than in the free-viewing task. Most important, our exploration showed functional synergies between visual and postural processes in the searching task, that is, significant negative relationships showing lower head and neck displacements to reach more expended zones of fixation. These functional synergies seemed to involve a greater attentional demand because they were not significant anymore when the cognitive workload was controlled. In the free-viewing task, only significant positive relationships were found and they did not involve any change in cognitive workload. An alternative cognitive model and its potential subtended neuroscientific circuit are proposed to explain the supposedly cognitively grounded functional nature of vision–posture synergies in precise visual tasks. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Although much has been written about Chinese students’ understandings of illegitimate intertextual practices, few studies have investigated Chinese university teachers’ perceptions of plagiarism, let alone the effects of their disciplinary background on their knowledge of and attitudes toward plagiarism. This paper reports on a study that examined the knowledge that 128 Chinese university teachers of different disciplinary backgrounds had of plagiarism, their attitudes toward identified plagiarism, and their own ability to engage in legitimate paraphrasing. Multiple regression analyses showed that (...) disciplinary background and teaching experience were significant predictors of the participants’ knowledge of plagiarism, whereas disciplinary background and overseas experience significantly predicted their stance on plagiarism. A logistic regression analysis identified disciplinary background as a significant predictor of the participants’ ability to produce legitimate paraphrases. Qualitative analyses of the participants’ open-ended responses revealed that their criteria for plagiarism aligned with Anglo-American conceptions of plagiarism and that intertextual competence was dependent in no small measure on linguistic competence. (shrink)

This study sought to determine cardiologists’ degrees of ethical awareness and preferred courses of action for ethical dilemmas frequently encountered in clinical settings. For this evaluation, an online survey was created and sent to cardiologists affiliated with various academic posts in Ankara, Turkey. The survey included ten cases with various ethical considerations selected from our book, “Clinic Ethics with Cases from Cardiology.” Four possible action choices were defined for each case. Participants were asked to choose one or more of these (...) preferences. In addition, a fictional change was made in each case’s context without changing the original ethical issue, and participants were asked whether an attitude different from the first chosen one was preferred. The participation ratio was 49/185 (26%), consent ratio 47/185 (25,4%), and completion ratio 44/185 (23,7%). Nine of the ten scenario changes did not change participants’ preferred action. For most questions, action preferences were concentrated between the two options. Although legal regulations did not reduce ethical dilemmas, they clarified physicians’ action preferences. Similarly, as an obscure moral issue gained prominence, physicians were forced to draw clearer lines in their actions. External factors such as healthcare emergencies can change physicians’ ethical dilemma-solving attitudes. (shrink)

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in lowland Peru, this study examines linguistic resources used for coding agreements in Alto Perené conversation. The study draws on the anthropological tradition of conversation analysis-informed ethnographies. The investigation of agreeing responses is limited to those which allow a projectedly ‘knowing’, or K-plus, participant to raise his or her epistemic status from the sequentially second position. It is shown that Alto Perené K-plus response formats include the evaluative property word kametsari ‘good’ with an intensifier (...) and/or upgraded prosody, argument focus structures, two polarity verbs ari ‘it is the case’ and omapero ‘it is true’, and the verb ñakiro ‘as you can see’. This analysis demonstrates a relationship between the Alto Perené practices of expressing K-plus agreements and the collateral effects arising from the particular meanings and functions of structures which are used for accomplishing an agreeing action. (shrink)

Modern science, whose methodologies give special privilege to using decontextualizing strategies and downplay the role of context-sensitive strategies, have been extraordinarily successful in producing knowledge whose applications have transformed the shape of the lifeworld. Nevertheless, I argue that how the mainstream of the modern scientific tradition interprets the nature and objectives of science is incoherent; and that today there are two competing interpretations of scientific activities that are coherent and that maintain continuity with the success of the tradition: "commercially-oriented technoscience" (...) and "multi-strategy research" . The greater part of this article is devoted to discussing what is involved in MS, by pointing to its positive research program in three areas , and its critical stance towards the innovations of CT, especially insofar as it makes use of the Precautionary Principle. In this way important dimensions of the agenda of science and technology for social justice, democratic participation and sustainability become clear. (shrink)

Objective To study parental attitudes to participating in questionnaire research about perinatal postmortem immediately after late miscarriage, stillbirth and termination for fetal abnormality. Design Prospective self-completion questionnaire. Setting UK fetal medicine and delivery unit. Patients 35 women and their partners after second or third trimester pregnancy loss, making decisions about having a postmortem. Methods Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire about postmortem decision-making which included questions about their attitudes to taking part in research. Prior to giving full approval for (...) the study, the Research Ethics Committee requested feedback after 10 questionnaires had been returned. Results Responses from the first 10 participants were positive about the research and the REC allowed the study to continue. 31 questionnaires were received from parents of 17 babies. Of the 22 participants who answered a question about the impact of participating in this research, 73% stated that completing the questionnaire had helped them feel better about the decision whether or not to consent to postmortem and none reported any adverse effect of completing the questionnaire. Additional comments made by 19 participants supported this finding. Conclusion Research into this sensitive area of perinatal medicine where there is a poor outcome is possible and is indeed well received by many parents. RECs should not automatically take a negative stance towards studies of this type. (shrink)

.... The strategy I have defended involves drawing a distinction between those who can and cannot legitimately hold an agent responsible in circumstances when the agent is being covertly controlled (e.g. through implantation processes). What is intuitively unacceptable, I maintain, is that an agent should be held responsible or subject to reactive attitudes that come from another agent who is covertly controlling or manipulating him. This places some limits on who is entitled to take up the participant stance (...) in relation to agents who are rational self-controllers but nevertheless subject to covert control.26 In this way, what is compromised by conditions of covert control is not the responsibility of the agent as such. It is, rather, the participant stance of those other agents who covertly control him. Clearly it is possible to establish these specific limits on who can hold these agents responsible without denying that the agents themselves remain free and responsible. When we take this approach we will find that we are no longer faced with an unattractive choice between simply “biting the bullet” or having to “spit it out”. All we need to do is chew carefully, until there is nothing left that we find too hard to swallow. (shrink)

What is it to trust someone? What is it for someone to be trustworthy? These are the two main questions that this paper addresses. There are various situations that can be described as ones of trust, but this paper considers the issue of trust between individuals. In it, I suggest that trust is distinct from reliance or cases where someone asks for something on the expectation that it will be done due to the different attitude taken by the trustor. I (...) argue that the trustor takes Holton’s ‘participant stance’ and this distinguishes trust from reliance. I argue that trustworthiness is different from reliability and that an account of trustworthiness cannot be successful whilst ignoring the point that aligning trustworthiness with reliability removes the virtue from being trustworthy. On the question of what it is distinguishes trustworthiness from reliability, I argue that the distinction is in the opportunity for the trustee to act against the wishes of the trustor and the trustee’s consideration of the value of the trust that has been placed in them by the trustor. (shrink)

We take a tremendous interest in how other people think of us. We have certain expectations of others, concerning how we are to figure in their thought and judgment. And we often feel wronged if those are disappointed. But it is puzzling how others’ beliefs could wrong us. On the one hand, moral considerations don’t bear on the truth of a belief and so seem to be the wrong kind of reasons for belief. On the other hand, truth-directed considerations seem (...) to render moral considerations redundant. In this paper, we argue that to understand the possibility of doxastic wronging, we need to understand beliefs, no less than actions, as ways of relating to one another. In particular, how we take account of what others think and say will depend on whether we take up what P. F. Strawson calls the participant stance toward them. We show how this helps to make sense of an example Miranda Fricker identifies as a case of epistemic injustice. We then use the example to spell out the ethical significance of Tyler Burge’s idea that we have a default entitlement to accept at face value what we receive from a rational source. (shrink)

How do social media affect interpersonal relationships? Adopting a Strawsonian framework, I argue that social media make us more likely to adopt the objective attitude towards persons. Technologically mediated communication tends to inhibit interpersonal emotions and other reactive attitudes. This is due to a relative lack of the social cues that typically enable us to read minds and react to them. Adopting the objective attitude can be harmful for two reasons. First, it tends to undermine the basis of interpersonal relationships. (...) In particular, I argue that friendship is a relationship between persons that requires the participant stance. Second, it is a morally risky attitude that makes us more likely to treat persons in problematic, thing-like ways. Some philosophers have rightly urged that social media are compatible with virtuous, Aristotelian friendship. Notwithstanding, I argue that the harms associated with the objective attitude are more pressing than they might appear if we restrict our focus to relatively virtuous people with the social competence to flourish in morally risky online environments. (shrink)