_A timely call for recovering the true meanings of the nineteenth‑century terms that are hobbling current political debates__ “Masterful.... James cuts through the tangled terminological and conceptual jungle of modern globalist discourse... [with] fascinating discussions of the origins and meanings of the words.”—G. John Ikenberry, ___Foreign Affairs___ “James delves into the often-surprising intellectual origins of key concepts in the arguments about globalisation—and illuminates the debate in the process.”—Gideon Rachman, _Financial Times_, "Best Books of 2021: Politics"_ Nationalism, conservatism, liberalism, (...) socialism, and capitalism are among the most fiercely debated ideas in contemporary politics. Since these concepts hark back to the nineteenth century, much of their nuanced meaning has been lost, and the words are most often used as epithets that short-circuit productive discussion. In this insightful book, Harold James uncovers the origins of these concepts and examines how the problematic definition and meaning of each term has become an obstacle to respectful communication. Noting that similar linguistic misunderstandings accompany such newer ideas as geopolitics, neoliberalism, technocracy, and globalism, James argues that a rich historical knowledge of the vocabulary surrounding globalization, politics, and economics—particularly the meaning and the usefulness that drove the original conceptions of the terms—is needed to negotiate the gaps between different understandings and make fruitful political debate once again possible. (shrink)

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 and ongoing debt-related troubles there have been widespread calls to put banking and economic activity on a secure ethical foundation, either by regulation or through voluntary reform. In this volume a distinguished set of authors explore various economic, philosophical, and ethical ideas from historical, contemporary, and future-looking perspectives. At the core are two related ideas much mentioned but far more rarely examined: the idea of natural law and that of the common (...) good.In these essays the foundations and meaning of these notions are carefully studied and put to work in examining the nature and scope of ethics in relation to global economics. (shrink)

It is not the case--as is widely assumed--that only sentences can be used to make assertions: speakers can also make assertions by uttering ordinary words and phrases in isolation. That is the central claim of this dissertation. ;This claim is in conflict with certain familiar philosophical doctrines. In particular, we consider: Dummett's view that to assert just is to say an assertoric sentence under conventionally specified conditions; Gareth Evans' idea that, to say that P, it is at least required that (...) the words used express the thought that P ; Frege's so-called context principle, according to which words have meaning only in the context of a sentence; Russell's theory of definite descriptions. ;Having argued that the assertoric use of words and phrases is in conflict with these philosophical doctrines, we consider a defense of these views, to the effect that every assertoric utterance of an word or phrase in isolation is actually an utterance of an elliptical sentence. In Chapter Three, we consider the syntactic ellipsis hypothesis, according to which the utterances in question have sentential Syntactic Structures. In Chapter Four, we consider the semantic ellipsis hypothesis: the hypothesis that the expressions produced are not syntactic sentences, but nevertheless have illocutionary force and express propositions. We argue that neither of these ellipsis hypotheses offers a satisfactory account of the way speakers can and do use words and phrases in isolation. We conclude, therefore, that the defense fails and that speakers can make assertions using words and phrases in isolation. (shrink)

What grounds a judgment that a work of art is immoral? This book argues that we cannot judge artworks morally in the same way that we judge people. What>'s more, there is no direct influence from moral judgments to aesthetic judgments: it is possible for artworks to be both immoral and beautiful.

This paper has three aims: to define autonomism clearly and charitably, to offer a positive argument in its favour, and to defend a larger view about what is at stake in the debate between autonomism and its critics. Autonomism is here understood as the claim that a valuer does not make an error in failing to bring her moral and aesthetic judgements together, unless she herself values doing so. The paper goes on to argue that reason does not require the (...) valuer to make coherent her aesthetic and moral evaluations. Finally, the paper shows that the denial of autonomism has realist commitments that autonomism does not have, and concludes that issues of value realism and irrealism are relevant to the debates about autonomism in ways that have not hitherto been recognized. (shrink)

Resolution of the entropy‐evolution problem was a significant issue for Pierre Teilhard de Chardin throughout his scientific career. Although never truly satisfied with his solution, he proposed that all energy must be psychic and contain two components. Tangential energy is related to physical energy. Radial energy in some way accounts for increasing complexity and consciousness in evolution. Analysis of developments in thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and information theory show that Gibbs free energy contains both calorimetric and noetic components, thus validating Teilhard's (...) intuition. (shrink)

Immoralists hold that in at least some cases, moral fl aws in artworks can increase their aesthetic value. They deny what I call the valence constraint: the view that any effect that an artwork’s moral value has on its aesthetic merit must have the same valence. The immoralist offers three arguments against the valence constraint. In this paper I argue that these arguments fail, and that this failure reveals something deep and interesting about the relationship between cognitive and moral value. (...) In the fi nal section I offer a positive argument for the valence constraint. (shrink)

What responsibilities do audiences have in engaging with artworks? Certain audience responses seem quite clear: for example, audiences should not vandalize or destroy artworks; they should not disrupt performances. This paper examines other kinds of resisting responses that audiences sometimes engage in, including petitioning the artist to change their works, altering copies of artworks, and creating new artworks in another artist’s fictional world. I argue for five claims: (1) while these actions can sometimes infringe on the rights of artists, the (...) rights of artists are not absolute; (2) the fact that such actions are based on mistaken interpretations of the artworks has no normative weight; (3) there can be reason to object to additions and alterations whose conception of the artwork is morally worse than the original (and so, there can be reason to support additions and alterations whose conception is morally better); (4) petitioning raises special moral problems; and, most important, (5) some of these actions are valuable because they involve creative and aesthetic activity. Those acts of audience resistance that are creative, morally improve on the original work, and that minimize the infringement of the artists’ rights are good, and should be encouraged. (shrink)

Ancient Chinese and Greek thinkers alike were preoccupied with the moral value of music; they distinguished between good and bad music by looking at the music’s effect on moral character. The idea can be understood in terms of two closely related questions. Does music have the power to affect the ethical character of either listener or performer? If it does, is it better as music for doing so? I argue that an affirmative answers to both questions are more plausible than (...) it might seem at first. (shrink)

© British Society of Aesthetics 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society of Aesthetics. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] adaptation of literary works into films has been almost completely neglected as a philosophical topic. I discuss two questions about this phenomenon:What do we mean when we say that a film is faithful to its source?Is being faithful to its source a merit in a film adaptation?In response to, I set out two distinct (...) senses of fidelity: story fidelity and thematic fidelity. I then argue, in response to, that thematic fidelity, but not story fidelity, is an aesthetic merit in a film adaptation. The key steps in this argument involve showing that merely preserving the story from one medium to another does not typically involve an aesthetically... (shrink)

Aesthetic internalism claims a link between judgement and motivation: aesthetic judgements bring with them motivations to act in characteristic ways. Critics object that there is a difference between merely liking something and judging it to be aesthetically good, and that it is our likings, not our aesthetic judgements, that motivate us. This paper develops a version of aesthetic internalism that can respond to this criticism. Wholehearted aesthetic judgements are characterized by stability, attention, and motivation. Making such judgements is an important (...) part of a good life, and so at least some aesthetic judgements are motivating. So we have reason to think that this version of aesthetic internalism is true. This paper defends wholehearted aesthetic internalism against objections, and assesses an argument from aesthetic internalism to aesthetic non-cognitivism. While wholehearted aesthetic internalism can only offer qualified support to non-cognitivism, it nonetheless offers a number of fruitful avenues for further work. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that in at least some interesting cases, the moral value of a narrative work depends on the aesthetic properties of that artwork. It does not follow that a work that is aesthetically bad will be morally bad (or that it will be morally good). The argument comprises four stages. First I describe several different features of imaginative engagement with narrative artworks. Then I show that these features depend on some of the aesthetic properties of those (...) works. Third, I argue that these same features of imaginative engagement are morally salient, by virtue of inviting more or less sophisticated and reflective moral responses. Finally, I show that the overall moral value of an artwork depends in part on whether or not the prescribed response is simple or complex, passive or reflective. (shrink)

The topic of this essay is how non-realistic novels challenge our philosophical understanding of the moral significance of literature. I consider just one case: Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. I argue that standard philosophical views, based as they are on realistic models of literature, fail to capture the moral significance of this work. I show that Catch-22 succeeds morally because of the ways it resists using standard realistic techniques, and suggest that philosophical discussion of ethics and literature must be pluralistic if it (...) is to include all morally salient literature, and not just novels in the “Great Tradition” and their ilk. (shrink)

One important but infrequently discussed difficulty with expressivism is the attitude type individuation problem.1 Expressivist theories purport to provide a unified account of normative states. Judgments of moral goodness, beauty, humor, prudence, and the like, are all explicated in the same way: as expressions of attitudes, what Allan Gibbard calls “states of norm-acceptance”. However, expressivism also needs to explain the difference between these different sorts of attitude. It is possible to judge that a thing is both aesthetically good and morally (...) bad. While the realist can explain the difference by suggesting that each judgment makes reference to a different property (or set of properties), the expressivist cannot. She must show that what is expressed by the speaker is different in each case. This has proven to be difficult to do. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there is good reason to believe that we can be influenced by fictions in ways that matter morally, and some of the time we will be unaware that we have been so influenced. These arguments fall short of proving a clear causal link between fictions and specific changes in the audience, but they do reveal rather interesting and complex features of the moral psychology of fiction. In particular, they reveal that some Platonic worries about (...) the dangers of art cannot be dismissed lightly. (shrink)

I explore the claim that “fictive imagining” – imagining what it is like to be a character – can be morally dangerous. In particular, I consider the controversy over William Styron’s imagining the revolutionary protagonist in his Confessions of Nat Turner. I employ Ted Cohen’s model of fictive imagining to argue, following a generally Kantian line of thought, that fictive imagining can be dangerous if one has the wrong motives. After considering several possible motives, I argue that only internally directed (...) motives can satisfy the moral concern. Finally, I suggest that when one has the right motives, fictive imagining is morally praiseworthy since it improves one’s ability to imagine the lives of others. (shrink)

How is one to distinguish a true lover of peace from a mere appeaser, a pacifist, and a warmonger? Distinguishing them can be sometimes confusing, as they will often appropriate each other’s language. The criterion for the above distinction does not only lie in outward behavior, as knowledge of inward attitudes is also required. A right understanding of these attitudes and motivations involve at least an implicit grasp of the true nature of peace, which is investigated as something more than (...) the mere absence of war, insofar as peace is primarily a work of two moral virtues: justice and charity. It is in the spirit of justice and charity that the true lover of peace must then distinguish—both in one’s own life and with nations—between what can be ignored and / or forgiven, and what must be redressed. Furthermore, the distinction between the lover of peace and the pacifist, with the possibility of pacifism being a distinct tradition from just war philosophy, is investigated. The argument is made that pacifism should not be considered outside the context of just war because one needs that context to address if and who demands restitution. (shrink)

In recent years it has become more and more difficult to distinguish between metaethical cognitivism and non-cognitivism. For example, proponents of the minimalist theory of truth hold that moral claims need not express beliefs in order to be (minimally) truth-apt, and yet some of these proponents still reject the traditional cognitivist analysis of moral language and thought. Thus, the dispute in metaethics between cognitivists and non-cognitivists has come to be seen as a dispute over the correct way to characterize our (...) psychology: are moral judgments beliefs, or a kind of pro-attitude? In this paper, I argue that this distinction, too, is difficult to maintain in the light of a reasonable skepticism about folk psychology. I conclude by suggesting some new possibilities for the analysis of moral language that look beyond this distinction. I begin by briefly reviewing some contemporary positions in metaethics on cognitivism and non-cognitivism, that are intended to emphasize the supposed psychological differences between the two views. I show that the appearance of a clear difference between these views depends on one's having a very strong commitment to the context-independence and completeness of certain concepts of folk psychology. I then argue for a moderate skepticism about folk psychology. I conclude that folk concepts like ?belief? are not sufficiently well-defined to settle this metaethical dispute. (shrink)

Original essays by leading philosophers of science explore the question of whether metaphysics can and should be naturalized--conducted as part of natural science.

Moral philosophers who differ from one another on a wide range of questions tend to agree on at least one general point. Most believe that things are worth valuing either because of their relationship to something else worth valuing, or because they are simply (in themselves) worth valuing. I value my car, because I value getting to work; I value getting to work, because I value making money and spending time productively; and I value those things because I value leading (...) a fulfilling life—and that valuing needs no justification. The values that need to be justified by other values are extrinsic; those that do not are intrinsic. Most traditional philosophical approaches to value justification are foundational in this sense: intrinsic values provide a foundation upon which other values can be justified. (shrink)

IT IS DIFFICULT for me to read Pride and Prejudice without empathizing either with Elizabeth Bennet, or sometimes with her father, Mr Bennet. Not only do my own responses to and opinions of the events and characters of the book at times resemble theirs, but even when they do not, I find myself seeing the event from Elizabeth’s or Mr Bennet’s point of view. For example, at the close of the book, Elizabeth’s former dislike of Mr Darcy has completely vanished, (...) in part because of learning of a number of good deeds that Mr Darcy has done very quietly for their family. When Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth (for the second time) she is delighted to accept him. However, everyone else in Elizabeth’s family despises Mr Darcy, and they also believe that Elizabeth still hates him. So it is easy to understand Mr Bennet’s surprise and distaste when Mr Darcy asks Mr Bennet for Elizabeth’s hand; after all, Mr Bennet still believes Mr Darcy to be prideful and haughty. While I am not myself surprised to hear Elizabeth’s response—the reader learns much more of Mr Darcy’s character than Mr Bennet does—I do have the experience of imagining being surprised. I am also capable of empathizing with Elizabeth, who is excited, flustered, and a bit ashamed at having so misjudged Mr Darcy early on, and I can imagine having these feelings for people I have misjudged. I can (to some degree) understand why she finds explaining all this to Mr Bennet so difficult. I go back and forth, as I read, between the perspectives of Mr Bennet and Elizabeth. These experiences of mine are experiences of the sort that I call ‘empathizing with fictions’, although we sometimes might describe such experiences by saying that we ‘identified’ with a particular character or characters in a story. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that if Kantian and consequentialist ethical theories are vulnerable to the so-called “problem of alienation,” a virtue ethics based on Xunzi’s ethical writings will also be vulnerable to this problem. I outline the problem of alienation, and then show that the role of ritual ( li ) in Xunzi’s theory renders his view susceptible to the problem as it has been traditionally understood. I consider some replies on Xunzi’s behalf, and also discuss whether the problem (...) affects other Confucian and eudaimonian approaches to virtue ethics. I close by considering some solutions to the problem and the affect that this result has on the argumentative dialectic between the three major ethical traditions. (shrink)

Since Phillipa Foot’s paper ‘Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives’ was published some twenty-five years ago, questions about categorical imperatives and the alleged rationality of acting morally have been of central concern to ethicists. For critics and friends of Kantian ethical theories, these questions have special importance. One of the distinctive features of Kantian ethical theories is that they claim that there are categorical imperatives: imperatives which dictate which actions one should follow insofar as one is rational.This way of (...) parsing morally right action as a kind of rational action seems to side-step at least some of the anti-realist objections that other kinds of moral theories must face.1 Instead, the Kantian must defend the claim that failure to act morally is a failure of rationality. Rationality as a normative concept is sometimes thought to be more clear and perhaps more objective than other basic normative concepts. (shrink)

How is one to distinguish a true lover of peace from a mere appeaser, a pacifist, and a warmonger? Distinguishing them can be sometimes confusing, as they will often appropriate each other’s language. The criterion for the above distinction does not only lie in outward behavior, as knowledge of inward attitudes is also required. A right understanding of these attitudes and motivations involve at least an implicit grasp of the true nature of peace, which is investigated as something more than (...) the mere absence of war, insofar as peace is primarily a work of two moral virtues: justice and charity. It is in the spirit of justice and charity that the true lover of peace must then distinguish—both in one’s own life and with nations—between what can be ignored and / or forgiven, and what must be redressed. Furthermore, the distinction between the lover of peace and the pacifist, with the possibility of pacifism being a distinct tradition from just war philosophy, is investigated. The argument is made that pacifism should not be considered outside the context of just war because one needs that context to address if and who demands restitution. (shrink)

Some works of fiction are widely held by critics to have little value, yet these works are not only popular but also widely admired in ways that are not always appreciated. In this paper I make use of Kendall Walton’s account of fictional worlds to argue that fictional worlds can and often do have value, including aesthetic value, that is independent of the works that create them. In the process, I critique Walton’s notion of fictional worlds and offer a defense (...) of the study and appreciation of fictional worlds, as distinguished from the works of fiction with which they are associated. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore a set of moral questions about the portrayal of evil characters in fiction: might the portrayal of evil in fiction ever be morally wrong? If so, under what circumstances and for what reasons? What kinds of portrayals are morally wrong and what kinds are not? I argue that whether or not imagining evil is morally wrong depends on the formal and structural properties of the work.

Art has not always had the same salience in philosophical discussions of ethics that many other elements of our lives have. There are well-defined areas of "applied ethics" corresponding to nature, business, health care, war, punishment, animals, and more, but there is no recognized research program in "applied ethics of the arts" or "art ethics." Art often seems to belong to its own sphere of value, separate from morality. The first questions we ask about art are usually not about its (...) moral rightness or virtue, but about its beauty or originality. However, it is impossible to do any serious thinking about the arts without engaging in ethical questions. (shrink)

This volume is about how and whether art can be morally bad (or morally good). Politicians, media pundits, and others frequently complain that particular works of art are morally dangerous, or, sometimes, that particular works are morally edifying (the "great works" of literature, for example). But little attention is often given to the question of what makes art morally good in the first place. This comprehensive volume of forty-five new essays explores a wide variety of historical and theoretical perspectives, looking (...) at different art forms and different problems. -/- Each section of the volume samples a mix of topics that have been widely discussed alongside those that have been less noticed by philosophers. What emerges is a sense of the great variety of different problems and approaches as well as some recurring and overlapping themes. -/- The essays in this volume put forth a deliberate effort to stretch beyond some of the debates and problems most familiar to Anglophone philosophers. Familiar topics and positions have been placed side by side in the volume with new and neglected ones, sometimes suggesting surprising connections and conflicts. The volume is divided into four sections: Historical Perspectives, Theoretical Approaches, Individual Arts, and Problems. Chapters in "Historical Perspectives" cover significant historical and cultural periods in which philosophical debates about ethics and art became salient, from ancient Greece and China to Japan, the Harlem Renaissance, and beyond. These chapters show the wide variety of different concrete practices that were associated with the idea of "art," as well as the great range of approaches to thinking about what constitutes an "ethical" concern. The section on "Theoretical Approaches" takes up questions about the relationship between moral and aesthetic evaluation, moral theories, and the familiar debate between "moralists," "autonomists," and others. The section on "Individual Arts" considers how moral questions arise in distinctive ways for different art forms, including traditional arts such as music, literature, and painting, and newer art forms such as video games. The final section, "Problems," takes up a variety of special ethical problems that arise in the arts, such as forgery, cultural appropriation, and moral learning. (shrink)

Psychology, philosophy and common sense -- Psychological empiricism (part A): do non-empirical psychological phenomena exist? -- Psychological empiricism (part B): a critique -- The subject matter of psychology (part A): the conscious personal self -- The subject matter of psychology (part B): differing kinds of psychic phenomena -- Locating the empirical in psychology -- Human nature and rational psychology -- Psychology, truth and personalism -- The reality and psychological significance of freedom.

Art has not always had the same salience in philosophical discussions of ethics that many other elements of our lives have. There are well-defined areas of "applied ethics" corresponding to nature, business, health care, war, punishment, animals, and more, but there is no recognized research program in "applied ethics of the arts" or "art ethics." Art often seems to belong to its own sphere of value, separate from morality. The first questions we ask about art are usually not about its (...) moral rightness or virtue, but about its beauty or originality. However, it is impossible to do any serious thinking about the arts without engaging in ethical questions. (shrink)