Eoin Carney | : Continuing on from recent discussions on the overlap between Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy and care ethics, this article will aim to clarify the status of practice in Ricoeur’s work. I will argue that even though Ricoeur’s philosophy is indeed marked by its “desire for a foundation,” as care ethicist Joan Tronto has pointed out, this aim is more of a fragile wager than a principle, and is always at risk of being overturned by practices and other (...) worldviews. I will demonstrate this point by arguing that Ricoeur’s hermeneutic approach to practice leads to the view that objective methods of knowledge and explanation are always grounded by the broader hermeneutic task of practical understanding and care for the self; in moral reasoning, Ricoeur’s analysis of the conflict between respect for the rule and respect for persons results in his prioritizing of respect for the singular other rather than the universal rule, meaning that the other can always disrupt and reorient universal or foundational modes of reasoning; and finally within healthcare relations Ricoeur aims to develop an alternative understanding of respect that places it in a dialectical relation with care. These practice-oriented readings of hermeneutics, morality, and respect aim to open up a dialogue between care ethics and philosophical approaches that have often been placed outside of care ethics. | : Poursuivant les récentes discussions concernant les recoupements entre la philosophie de Paul Ricoeur et les éthiques du care, cet article a pour objectif de clarifier le statut de la pratique dans l’oeuvre de Ricoeur. Je soutiendrai que même si la philosophie ricoeurienne est bien marquée par un « désir d’un fondement », ainsi que l’éthicienne du care Joan C. Tronto le souligne, cet objectif repose plus sur un pari que sur un véritable principe, et risque toujours d’être renversé par les pratiques ou d’autres visions du monde. Je démontrerai cela en soutenant trois arguments. 1) L’approche herméneutique de Ricoeur concernant la pratique mène à penser que les méthodes objectives de connaissance et d’explication sont toujours soutenues par une tâche herméneutique plus large de la compréhension pratique et du souci de soi. 2) En ce qui a trait au raisonnement moral, l’analyse de Ricoeur sur le conflit entre le respect de la règle et le respect de la personne accorde la priorité au respect de l’autre singulier plutôt que de la règle universelle. Ainsi, l’autre peut toujours perturber et réorienter l’universel ou les modes fondateurs du raisonnement. 3) Réfléchissant aux relations thérapeutiques, Ricoeur tend à suggérer une nouvelle compréhension du respect qui se place dans une relation dialectique avec le souci. Ces lectures – de l’herméneutique, de la moralité et du respect – orientées vers la pratique ouvrent la voie à un dialogue entre les éthiques du care et des approches philosophiques que l’on considère souvent éloignées de celles-ci. (shrink)

In the dissertation I examine the split between cognition and eros in Kant's notion of objectivity, which has become paradigmatic for modern theories about knowledge. I argue that the split between cognition, on the one hand, and feelings and desires, on the other, does not capture the necessary conditions of knowledge, as Kant claims, but involves a suppression of erotic factors of existence. ;The split between pure knowledge and sensual existence in Kant's thought reflects an ascetic tradition inherited from (...) both Greek and Christian sources, which views the body, sexuality, and in particular women's sexuality as a source of pollution. According to this tradition, since thought must be divested of the pollution of sensuous existence, women's sexuality precludes them from rational activity. Consequently, the philosophical commitment to purity has justified the exclusion of women from the practice of knowledge. ;The particular form of asceticism which is evident in Kant's treatment of sensibility of objective knowledge, of morality, and of aesthetic judgement, reflects the reified nature of relations in an emerging capitalist economy. The suppression of the immediate, sensual qualities in both the subject and object of knowledge, in Kant's system, corresponds to the suppression of the immediate, qualitative features of the subject and object in the process of commodity production. Both persons and things become reduced to a formal abstract equivalence. Kant's notion of objectivity makes normative this objectification of relations between persons and things. ;Thus, the paradigm of objective knowledge is not only damaging to the thinker, who must detach himself from the emotional and sensual facets of existence. It serves as an ideology which has justified the exclusion of women from the pursuit of knowledge, and which more generally legitimates the distorted human relations generated by the world of commodity production. ;By considering Kant's commitment to pure knowledge in the context of the genealogy of the concept of purity, the themes of asceticism and fetishism emerged as mutually illuminating. Implicit in the ascetic denial of sensuality is a dialectic which leads to an objectification of persons and things. Moreover, the fetishism of commodities involves a detachment of erotic interests from persons which results in an obsessive interest in objects. (shrink)

I propose an account of desire that reconciles two apparently conflicting intuitions about practical agency. I do so by exploring a certain intuitive datum. The intuitive datum is that often when an agent desires P she will seem to immediately and conclusively know that there is a reason to bring P about. Desire-based theories of reasons seem uniquely placed to explain this intuitive datum. On this view, desires are the source of an agent’s practical reasons. A desire for (...) P grounds conclusive knowledge of a reason to bring P about because that desire makes it true that there is a reason to do so. However, this implies that a basic desire for P can never be in error about there being at least some reason to bring P about. We have the conflicting intuition that basic desires sometimes rationally count for nothing. The guise of the good explains this intuition about the fallibility of desires. On this view, a desire for P represents P as good in some respect. Desires and reasons are independent, so a desire might misrepresent one’s reasons. But this independence is usually taken to rule out that desires ever provide conclusive knowledge of reasons. Capturing the intuition about conclusive knowledge rules out capturing the intuition about fallibility, and vice versa. I propose an epistemological disjunctivist version of the guise of the good that reconciles fallibility with the possibility of conclusive knowledge. (shrink)

What is the nature of the fundamental relation we have to ourselves that makes each of us a self? To answer this question, Charles Larmore develops a systematic theory of the self, challenging the widespread view that the self’s defining relation to itself is to have an immediate knowledge of its own thoughts. On the contrary, Larmore maintains, our essential relation to ourselves is practical, as is clear when we consider the nature of belief and desire. For to believe or (...) desire something consists in committing ourselves to thinking and acting in accord with the presumed truth of our belief or the presumed value of what we desire. Larmore develops this conception with frequent reference to such classic authors as Montaigne, Stendhal, and Proust and by comparing it to other views of the self in contemporary philosophy. He also discusses the important ethical consequences of his theory of the self, arguing that it allows us to better grasp what it means to be ourselves and why self-understanding often involves self-creation. Winner of the Académie Française’s Grand Prix de Philosophie, _The Practices of the Self_ is that rare kind of lucid yet rigorous work that transcends disciplinary boundaries. (shrink)

Does action always arise out of desire? G. F. Schueler examines this hotly debated topic in philosophy of action and moral philosophy, arguing that once two senses of "desire" are distinguished - roughly, genuine desires and pro attitudes - apparently plausible explanations of action in terms of the agent's desires can be seen to be mistaken. Desire probes a fundamental issue in philosophy of mind, the nature of desires and how, if at all, they motivate and justify (...) our actions. At least since Hume argued that reason "is and of right ought to be the slave of the passions," many philosophers have held that desires play an essential role both in practical reason and in the explanation of intentional action. G. F. Schueler looks at contemporary accounts of both roles in various belief-desire models of reasons and explanation and argues that the usual belief-desire accounts need to be replaced. Schueler contends that the plausibility of the standard belief-desire accounts rests largely on a failure to distinguish "desires proper," like a craving for sushi, from so-called "pro attitudes," which may take the form of beliefs and other cognitive states as well as desires proper. Schueler's "deliberative model" of practical reasoning suggests a different view of the place of desire in practical reason and the explanation of action. He holds that we can arrive at an intention to act by weighing the relevant considerations and that these may not include desires proper at all. (shrink)

The Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics practiced philosophy not as a detached intellectual discipline but as a worldly art of grappling with issues of daily and urgent human significance. In this classic work, Martha Nussbaum maintains that these Hellenistic schools have been unjustly neglected in recent philosophic accounts of what the classical "tradition" has to offer. By examining texts of philosophers such as Epicurus, Lucretius, and Seneca, she recovers a valuable source for current moral and political thought and encourages us to (...) reconsider philosophical argument as a technique through which to improve lives. Written for general readers and specialists, The Therapy of Desire addresses compelling issues ranging from the psychology of human passion through rhetoric to the role of philosophy in public and private life. (shrink)

This paper examines an issue at the centre of feminist debates about pornography and sex work, and that is whether these practices reduce women to sex objects. I question the assumption that the expression of sexual desire is unique in its power to degrade and dehumanize persons. I show that this assumption underlies Catharine MacKinnon’s attack on pornography by considering MacKinnon’s intellectual debt to the philosopher Immanuel Kant. I then examine recent discussions of sexual objectification in the philosophical (...) literature and argue that MacKinnon’s adaptation of Kant has flaws comparable to Kant’s original account of sexual desire. (shrink)

The Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics practiced philosophy not as a detached intellectual discipline but as a worldly art of grappling with issues of daily and urgent human significance. In this classic work, Martha Nussbaum maintains that these Hellenistic schools have been unjustly neglected in recent philosophic accounts of what the classical "tradition" has to offer. By examining texts of philosophers such as Epicurus, Lucretius, and Seneca, she recovers a valuable source for current moral and political thought and encourages us to (...) reconsider philosophical argument as a technique through which to improve lives. Written for general readers and specialists, The Therapy of Desire addresses compelling issues ranging from the psychology of human passion through rhetoric to the role of philosophy in public and private life. (shrink)

The Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics practiced philosophy not as a detached intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art of grappling with issues of daily and urgent human significance: the fear of death, love and sexuality, anger and aggression. Like medicine, philosophy to them was a rigorous science aimed both at understanding and at producing the flourishing of human life. In this engaging book, Martha Nussbaum examines texts of philosophers committed to a therapeutic paradigm--including Epicurus, Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus, Chrysippus, and Seneca--and (...) recovers a valuable source for our moral and political thought of today.The Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics practiced philosophy not as a detached intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art of grappling with issues of daily and urgent human significance: the fear of death, love and sexuality, anger and aggression. Like medicine, philosophy to them was a rigorous science aimed both at understanding and at producing the flourishing of human life. In this engaging book, Martha Nussbaum examines texts of philosophers committed to a therapeutic paradigm--including Epicurus, Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus, Chrysippus, and Seneca--and recovers a valuable source for our moral and political thought of today. (shrink)

Objectification is a real problem in medicine that can lead to bad medical practice or, in the worst case, dehumanization of the patient. Nevertheless, objectification also plays a major and necessary role in medicine: the patient’s body should be viewed as a biological organism in order to find diseases and be able to cure them. Listening to the patient’s illness story should not be replaced, but, indeed, developed by the physical examination of his body searching for the causes (...) of his complaints. Whereas phenomenologists have so far mainly been identifying the back sides of objectification in medicine, in this paper the aim is to analyze differences between detrimental objectifications and objectifications that do not deprive the patient of his subjectivity but, rather, at least in some cases, may lead the patient to feel more at home with his body. (shrink)

Shearmur argues for the importance of Popper’s ideas about World 3, and against the idea that they should be re-interpreted in social terms. However, he also argues for the importance of Popper’s ideas about methodological rules—and that these may be given a partially social interpretation. The content of our ideas may in consequence differ from what we take it to be, as a consequence of our institutions and practices operating as methodological rules. He also explores related ideas about the (...) interplay between World 3 and social factors in connection with Darnton’s ideas about the book and work that has built on it, and related issues about the public sphere and the problem of effective deliberative feedback on public policy. (shrink)

In the most influential chapter of his most important philosophical work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel makes the central and disarming assertions that "self-consciousness is desire itself" and that it attains its "satisfaction" only in another self-consciousness. Hegel on Self-Consciousness presents a groundbreaking new interpretation of these revolutionary claims, tracing their roots to Kant's philosophy and demonstrating their continued relevance for contemporary thought. As Robert Pippin shows, Hegel argues that we must understand Kant's account of the self-conscious nature of consciousness (...) as a claim in practical philosophy, and that therefore we need radically different views of human sentience, the conditions of our knowledge of the world, and the social nature of subjectivity and normativity. Pippin explains why this chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology should be seen as the basis of much later continental philosophy and the Marxist, neo-Marxist, and critical-theory traditions. He also contrasts his own interpretation of Hegel's assertions with influential interpretations of the chapter put forward by philosophers John McDowell and Robert Brandom. (shrink)

The Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics practiced philosophy not as a detached intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art of grappling with issues of daily and urgent human significance: the fear of death, love and sexuality, anger and aggression. Like medicine, philosophy to them was a rigorous science aimed both at understanding and at producing the flourishing of human life. In this engagingly written book, Martha Nussbaum maintains that these Hellenistic schools have been unjustly neglected in recent philosophic accounts of what (...) the classical "tradition" has to offer. By examining texts of philosophers committed to a therapeutic paradigm - including Epicurus, Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus, Chrysippus, and Seneca - she recovers a valuable source for current moral and political thought and encourages us to reconsider philosophical argument as a technique through which to improve lives. In describing the contributions of Hellenistic ethics, Nussbaum focuses on each thinker's treatment of the question of emotion. All argued that many harmful emotions are based on false beliefs that are socially taught, and that good philosophical argument can transform emotions, and, with them, both private and public life. Written for general readers and specialists, this book addresses compelling issues ranging from the psychology of human passion through rhetoric to the role of philosophy in public and private life. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Desire‐Based Theories of Reasons for Action Parfit on the Nature of Value Value‐Based Theories of Reasons for Action Why Parfit Prefers Value‐Based Theories of Reasons for Action to Desire‐Based Theories Sidgwick's Dualism of Practical Reason and Parfit's Response.

In On What Matters Derek Parfit argues that facts about reasons for action are grounded in facts about values and against the view that they are grounded in facts about the desires that subjects would have after fully informed and rational deliberation. I describe and evaluate Parfit's arguments for this value-based conception of reasons for action and find them wanting. I also assess his response to Sidgwick's suggestion that there is a Dualism of Practical Reason. Parfit seems not to (...) notice that his preferred value-based conception of reasons for action augurs strongly in favour of a view like Sidgwick's. 1. (shrink)

The usage of imprecise probabilities has been advocated in many domains: A number of philosophers have argued that our belief states should be “imprecise” in response to certain sorts of evidence, and imprecise probabilities have been thought to play an important role in disciplines such as artificial intelligence, climate science, and engineering. In this paper I’m interested in the question of whether the usage of imprecise probabilities can be given a practical motivation (a motivation based on practical rather than epistemic, (...) or alethic concerns). My aim is to challenge the central motivation for using imprecise probabilities in decision-making that has been offered in the literature: the idea that, in at least some contexts, it’s desirable to be ambiguity averse. If I succeed, this will show that we need to reconsider whether there are good reasons to use imprecise probabilities in contexts in which making good decisions is what's of primary concern. (shrink)

Bernard Williams has famously argued that all reasons for action are internal reasons.1 The internalist requirement on reasons is that all reasons must be linked to the agent’s subjective motivational state by a sound deliberative route. This argument has been the subject of a great deal of debate. In this paper I wish to draw attention to a much less discussed aspect of Williams’ papers on internalism. Williams believes that there is an essential indeterminacy regarding what an agent has a (...) reason to do. In this paper I explain indeterminacy in practical reason and give a qualified defense of it. I argue that indeterminacy has two sources according to Williams. One source is that deliberation is guided by imagination, not by rules. The second is that agent’s motivational set can be indeterminate. I do not attempt to evaluate or defend the first sort of indeterminacy. Rather, I argue that even if we reject this sort of indeterminacy we are still left with the indeterminacy of desire. The indeterminacy of desire sheds light on some little discussed problems in practical reason. (shrink)

A book reading between k.d. lang's interpretation of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah,' male and female desire, today's network culture, Adorno on radio and Nietzsche on the Greeks. The working of music is transformed by digital media, broadcast and recording dynamics. Given the sexual/religious core of Cohen's Hallelujah, this study poses a phenomenological reading of the objectification of both men and women, raising the question of desire, including gender issues and both homosexual and heterosexual desire. A review of critical thinking about (...) musical performance as 'currency' and consumed commodity takes up Adorno's reading of Benjamin's analysis of the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction as applied to music/radio/sound and the persistent role of 'recording consciousness'. Ultimately, the question of what Nietzsche called the becoming-human-of-dissonance is explored in terms of both ancient tragedy and Beethoven's striking deployment of dissonance as Nietzsche analyses both as playing with suffering, discontent, and pain itself, musically, as joy. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre explores some central philosophical, political and moral claims of modernity and argues that a proper understanding of human goods requires a rejection of these claims. In a wide-ranging discussion, he considers how normative and evaluative judgments are to be understood, how desire and practical reasoning are to be characterized, what it is to have adequate self-knowledge, and what part narrative plays in our understanding of human lives. He asks, further, what it would be to understand the modern condition (...) from a neo-Aristotelian or Thomistic perspective, and argues that Thomistic Aristotelianism, informed by Marx's insights, provides us with resources for constructing a contemporary politics and ethics which both enable and require us to act against modernity from within modernity. This rich and important book builds on and advances MacIntyre's thinking in ethics and moral philosophy, and will be of great interest to readers in both fields. (shrink)

The Slow Movement brought with itself a focus on the speed of our living, and a desire to slow down our daily activities, including movement activities. Also, in the time of the current pandemic, m...

It has often been argued that Foucault’s turn to antique and early Christian care of the self, spiritual self-.practices and truth-telling (parrhesia) results from inquiries into the confession practices and pastoral power structures in the context of a genealogy of the desiring subject. This line of reasoning is in itself not incorrect, but – this article claims – needs to be complemented with an account of Foucault’s philosophical quest for freedom and for conditions, possibilities and modes of thinking (...) and acting differently vis-à-vis the normalizing regimes of power in science and, hence, in philosophy as an academic discipline. In this context a first turn to antique philosophy seen as a ‘way of life’ constructed through ascetic practices can be detected already writings from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although indeed the project of the history of sexuality moved in a direction than Foucault had foreseen in the first volume published in 1976, earlier reflections on the need for free and critical philosophical thought relative to scientific ‘disciplines’ already prelude the later inquiries into care of the self, self-practices and parrhesia as productive for a critical philosophical attitude. (shrink)

This essay starts by discussing the definitions, and their attendant difficulties, of "casual sex," "promiscuity," and "objectification" (including whether objectification is only about treatment or can be about mere regard), and then continues to discuss the morality of casual sex and promiscuity, especially as to whether they are objectifying. Assuming a pessimist view of sexual desire and activity, the paper argues that it is nearly impossible to defend these sexual practices against the accusation of objectification, because (...) even though casual sex and promiscuity do not necessarily objectify, they likely almost always do. The essay concludes by arguing that the wrongness of objectification in these two kinds of sexual practices might not be serious, so they might be overall morally permissible. (This is a revised version from that in the 7th edition of The Philosophy of Sex.). (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to mine, reconstruct, and evaluate the phenomenological notion of practical intentionality. It is claimed that the phenomenologists of the Munich and Göttingen Circles substantially modify the idea of practical intentionality originally developed by Franz Brentano. This development, it is further contended, anticipates the switch that occurred within contemporary theory of action from a belief-desire to a belief-desire-intention model of deliberation. While Brentanoâ s position can be interpreted as a variant of the BD model, early (...) phenomenologists propose a general theory of deliberation that, in line with the BDI account, puts the notion of intention at the very core of practical intentionality. On their understanding, the concept of intention points to a primitive kind of mental state that cannot be reduced to a combination of beliefs and desires. (shrink)

The Aristotelian dictum that desire is the starting point of practical reasoning that ends in action can of course be denied. Its denial is a commonplace of moral theory in the tradition of Kant. But in this essay I am concerned with that issue only indirectly. I shall not contend that rational action always or necessarily does involve desire as its starting point; nor shall I deny it. My question concerns instead the possibility of its ever beginning in desire. For (...) there is a question whether it is even possible for reasoning to begin in desire, a question arising from the nature of desire and its objects, which to my knowledge has not been articulated. If we can see how desire can provide the arche of action, then we can consider later, and from that vantage point, whether it is necessary that it should do so. It will, I think, be possible eventually to argue that if practical reasoning has the character it must have, if it can begin in desire, then its starting point can be nothing but desire. (shrink)

This article examines the nutritional and cultural meaning underlying the list of foods mentioned in the claims of the Israelites in Numbers 11:4–6. The foods eaten by the Israelites in Egypt express stability and a familiar routine, whilst the foods of Eretz Israel, although depicted as choicer, express uncertainty. The list of foods has a literary role on several spheres: (1) The foods are elements distinguishing the agricultural practices in Eretz Israel and Egypt. (2) Fish and vegetables are an (...) indicator of the low class of the Israelites – eating fish reflects the practice of obtaining protein from small animals available to the poor. In Egypt, vegetables were more readily available and were a more prominent ingredient in the diet of the poor and slaves. (3) The food is an indicator of the Egyptian cultural identity of the Israelites – the Bible identifies the longing for the fish and vegetables characteristic of their Egyptian diet as a sign of the Israelites’ cultural and mental affiliation with Egypt. Although they left Egypt physically, they remained affiliated with Egyptian culture and identity. Contribution: This article contributes to the understanding of the biblical story of the ‘desirers’ (Nm 11:4–6) from a multidisplinary perspective. It combines the fields of ancient Egyptian agriculture, nutrition, culture and research on features of immigrants’ foods. (shrink)

In a broadly Kantian context, it is often assumed that practical self-consciousness and rational self-determination can only be understood in opposition to pleasure and desire. I argue instead that, already for Kant, rational self-determination is itself a determination of our faculty of desire. Drawing on resources from Kant and Hegel, the paper shows that sensible desire can be understood as a self-determination of our vital forces which is connected to a sensible awareness of our practical existence. In order to constitute (...) what Kant calls a higher faculty of desire, we need to develop a practical self-consciousness of this sensible desire. As Hegel develops this idea, such self-consciousness involves grasp of the very form of desire that is occluded in its sensible form, as well as a reflexive redoubling of desire whereby desire becomes its own object. (shrink)

Desires matter. What are desires? Many believe that desire is a motivational state: desiring is being disposed to act. This conception aligns with the functionalist approach to desire and the standard account of desire's role in explaining action. According to a second influential approach, however, desire is first and foremost an evaluation: desiring is representing something as good. After all, we seem to desire things under the guise of the good. Which understanding of desire is more accurate? Is (...) the guise of the good even right to assume? Should we adopt an alternative picture that emphasizes desire's deontic nature? What do neuroscientific studies suggest? -/- Essays in the first section of the volume are devoted to these questions, and to the puzzle of desire's essence. In the second part of the volume, essays investigate some implications that the various conceptions of desire have on a number of fundamental issues. For example, why are inconsistent desires problematic? What is desire's role in practical deliberation? How do we know what we want? -/- This volume will contribute to the emergence of a fruitful debate on a neglected, albeit crucial, dimension of the mind. (shrink)

This essay appraises the history of the International Academy of Practical Theology, arguing that competing aims have pulled it in different directions. The essay arose initially out of a roundtable on IAPT at an international congress in São Leopoldo, Brazil, in preparation for the next biennial conference there in 2019. Why is there a need for the IAPT? What are some of its developments? Why is it important for South America and Brazil? In response, the essay suggests that the IAPT (...) has struggled to sustain at least two prominent commitments - a desire to enhance practical theology's scholarly visibility and acumen and a real need to become a genuinely international organisation in terms of representation and inclusion. A secondary argument woven through the essay is that collegial friendships across complicated differences of location and perspective have the capacity to moderate and even heal conflicts. (shrink)

I would like to begin this essay by sharing an intuition. It is an intuition requiring much fuller development, but I see myself making a modest contribution to it here—and that is the prospect of integrating mimetic theory with Christian contemplative practice. Such integration would, I imagine, be the beginning of something very ancient and very new.I am aware of some promising developments in this direction,1 but my conviction is that its potential is barely tapped. It would probably be too (...) much to suggest that such integration could result in a distinctive "school" of spirituality, though that is not inconceivable. Perhaps a better analogy for what I envision can be found in the emerging field of Contemplative... (shrink)

A child of the era of decolonization, Claire Denis grew up in various regions of France’s subSaharan colonial lands, and was brought back to the ‘métropole’ as a teenager in the 1960s.She has thus had a double practice of foreignness, abroad, and in her ‘own’ country, whichshe did not know and where, in similar yet fundamentally different ways than in Africa, shefelt like an outsider again. As the daughter of a colonial administrator – a childhoodbeautifully evoked in her first feature, (...) Chocolat – she had stood as a highly visibleembodiment of the Western presence on colonial soil. On her return to France, she wouldlive through the more banal experience of becoming an invisible intruder, an exile at‘home’– a theme explored in her subsequent works. From the start, Denisthus drew on her personal knowledge of feeling rootless to explore issues that haveremained at the heart of her filmmaking: the deeply perplexing questions of identity andalienation, assimilation and rejection, desire and fear inseparable from the post-colonialmalaise that affects France with particular acuteness. (shrink)

'We desire all and only those things we conceive to be good; we avoid what we conceive to be bad.' This slogan was once the standard view of the relationship between desire or motivation and rational evaluation. Many critics have rejected this scholastic formula as either trivial or wrong. It appears to be trivial if we just define the good as 'what we want', and wrong if we consider apparent conflicts between what we seem to want and what we seem (...) to think is good. In Appearances of the Good, Sergio Tenenbaum argues that the old slogan is both significant and right, even in cases of apparent conflict between our desires and our evaluative judgements. Maintaining that the good is the formal end of practical inquiry in much the same way as truth is the formal end of theoretical inquiry, he provides a fully unified account of motivation and evaluation. (shrink)

This essay discusses Rae Langton’s recent collection of essays, Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification. After introducing some of the major themes of the collection, I raise questions about two of the central concepts in the book. The first question has to do with Langton’s notion of subordination. I ask why she takes pornography to be a subordinating speech act, rather than a subordinating practice, and argue that the latter view has several advantages. The remaining questions have (...) to do with Langton’s notion of objectification. Looking first at the moral dimension of objectification, I raise some concerns about Langton’s strategy for distinguishing instances of objectification from non-instances. Then, turning to Langton’s discussion of the epistemic dimension of objectification, I ask under what circumstances certain belief-forming mechanisms, such as desire-driven projection, are objectifying, on her view. (shrink)

In our everyday psychologising, emotions figure large. When we are trying to explain and predict what a person says and does, that person’s emotions are very much among the objects of our thoughts. Despite this, emotions do not figure large in our philosophical reconstruction of everyday psychological practice—in philosophical accounts of the rational production and control of behaviour. Barry Smith has noted this point: We frequently mention people’s emotional sates when assessing how they behave, when trying to understand why they (...) say and do the things they say and do, and when deciding how to deal with them. A large part of our awareness of others and our ability to make sense of them depends on their emotional make-up and our appreciation of how this affects their thoughts and actions. All of this is missing from the standard accounts of folk psychology, and the key question is why? (2002, 111-2). Before beginning to answer to Smith’s question, I want to say more to characterise the approach in philosophical psychology which he is questioning. There are many detailed philosophical accounts of the rational production and control of behaviour. My aim here isn’t to examine these details, but to characterise a certain species of philosophical psychology—one which holds that one can explain the rational production and control of behaviour in terms of a narrow set of mental state types: belief, desire (and perhaps a few others: perception or intention). Hence my label for this species: ‘Humean psychology’. The orthodox Humean view is that rational agency can be explained adequately by appeal to the agent’s beliefs and desires. So, to borrow an example from Davidson (1978), we can explain a person’s adding salt to the stew by citing her desire that the will stew taste better and her belief that if.. (shrink)

Utilizing social semiotic approaches, this article addresses how genetic researchers’ organizing narratives have involved extensive ontological and epistemological violence in their objectification Karitiana Indigenous people of Western Brazil. The paper analyses how genetic researchers have represented the Karitiana in the US and Canadian courts, post-9/11 forensic identification technology development, and patents. It also considers disputes over the sale of Karitiana cell lines by the US National Institutes of Health-funded Coriell Cell Repositories. These case studies reveal how the prominent population (...) geneticist Kenneth K. Kidd of Yale University and other genetics researchers have constituted the Karitiana as Extreme Other; liminal figures who define the boundaries of humanity. Originally sampled in 1987 by a Yale University epidemiologist, forensic genetic researchers have since utilized Karitiana cell lines to metonymically represent the Karitiana. The practices of objectification have imposed a genetically distinct special status upon the Karitiana that restricts recognition of their self-determination, rights and dignity, and which imposes onerous obligations to serve as research objects for the greater good of Humanity. The Karitiana are included as biological labour, but excluded from decision-making or asserting any other claims. Scientists have organized and maintained biotechnologically-mediated colonial relationships in which they and their institutions extract nearly all immediate and tangible benefits. The fusing of genetic research’s ontological and epistemological violence with the violence of state legal institutions raises important questions about the scope and practices of sovereignty, particularly in determining and enforcing states of exception through violence. (shrink)

One of the author's central theses in this admirable book is that in order to explain adequately the role of desire in practical reasoning and the explanation of action, it is necessary to distinguish between a broad sense of "desire," which "might be called the philosopher's sense," according to which the term applies to whatever moves a person to act, and a narrower, "more ordinary sense," according to which a person can decide to do things he has no desire to (...) do and also decide not to do other things he does have a desire to do. Since, Schueler argues, we do sometimes do things which we do not want to do, and we do not do other things which we do want to do and can do, the first sense of "desire" is too broad to enable us to explain how this is possible. This is because those who use "desire" only in the broad sense fail to distinguish between what Schueler terms "pro attitudes" and "desires proper" and in effect maintain that it is only desires proper, never pro attitudes by themselves, that move us to act. Thus, to use an example from Schueler, my belief that I have a duty to do something, such as attend a meeting at my son's school, might lead me to have a pro attitude toward attending it and to decide to do so even though I do not want to do it but instead want to stay home and read. Schueler's distinction between pro attitudes and desires proper has obvious implications for moral philosophy, some of which he discusses briefly. (shrink)

The radical liberal ideal of a completely neutral state is unattainable. A liberal society must educate its young, and this means engendering liberal principles in them. Fear of the law is not sufficient to sustain liberal society; conversely, if everything depends on fear of the law, the result will be the multiplication of laws in order to regulate everything, education having failed to impart self‐restraint. Nor is the desire for freedom so natural that it need not be implanted through education. (...) For similar reasons, the welfare state and a degree of economic regulation are, at least at this point in history, necessary for the survival of liberal societies. (shrink)

Although some psychoanalysts in the clinical field have criticised Žižek for corrupting Lacan’s teachings, through playing down the importance of the clinical, there is no doubt that Žižek’s scholarship and contribution to psychoanalysis displays mastery of Lacanian theory. Moreover, Žižek has applied this mastery to push theoretical ideas about the subject and social worlds, into public and intellectual debate. For Žižek, Lacan is a master from whom social knowledge as well as knowledge of the social is developed and critiqued. In (...) keeping with Žižek’s ontology, an examination of the intersection of belief with desire reveals the importance of a critical return to ideology that cannot be overlooked, particularly when examining how present social conditions structure an intersection of desire and belief. For Žižek, the contemporary subject believes now more than ever. Žižek positions modern social conditions together with the practices and organisations which maintain ideologies, as structuring the contours of belief. Capitalism, the supposed master of the 20th century, has presented as not so reliable. Might belief be the 21st century master, stepping in to support those ideological forces which intensify the scaffolding of a failing capitalist system? (shrink)

This paper discusses three generic types or ways of understanding the common good found in the literature, and then describes the implications of the integral common good for seven key practices of humanistic management. In particular, compared to conventional management, an approach to humanistic management based on the integral common good tends to: 1) have institutional mission and vision statements that are developed by multiple stakeholders that emphasize social and ecological well-being ahead of financial well-being; 2) have a strategic (...) orientation that emphasizes collaboration, “minimizer” and “transformer” generic strategies, a Radical Resource Based View, and uses Porter’s five forces as a way to foster collaboration; 3) structure organizations based on experimentation, sensitization, dignification, and participation ; 4) develop control systems based on value loops that seek to enhance the flourishing of multiple stakeholders; 5) emphasize multi-directional multi-stakeholder communication; 6) invite all stakeholders to participate in making decisions, including developing and choosing alternatives; 7) foster leadership based on socialized power, a focus on SMART 2.0 goals, a desire to ensure everyone is treated fairly, and an emphasis on relationships that nurture community and the integral common good. Implications for research and teaching are discussed. (shrink)

The article compares two different interpretations of Kant's categorical imperative −the practical and the logical one− and defends the practical one, arguing that it is superior because it rejects cases of free riding without necessarily rejecting cases of coordination or timing. The logical interpretation, on the other hand, leads to the undesirable outcome that it does not reject immoral cases of free riding, and to the desired outcome that it does not reject maxims of coordination/timing. Given that neither of them (...) rejects maxims of coordination/timing (they are similar in that sense) and only the practical interpretation rejects free riding, the logical interpretation should be rejected. El artículo compara dos interpretaciones diferentes del imperativo categórico kantiano −la práctica y la lógica− y defiende la superioridad de la práctica debido a que rechaza los casos de free riding, sin rechazar necesariamente los casos de coordinación/tiempo. La interpretación lógica, en cambio, lleva al resultado indeseable de no rechazar casos inmorales de free riding, y al resultado deseable de rechazar las máximas de coordinación/tiempo. Dado que ninguna de las dos rechaza las máximas de coordinación/tiempo (y en este sentido son similares) y solamente la interpretación práctica rechaza los casos de free riding, debe rechazarse la interpretación lógica. (shrink)

In this experimental piece of writing I want to think about the pedagogy of contact and the plight of the hikikomori or social recluse in Japan. I am interested in exploring how the hikikomori practices a kind of contactlessness or what I will call a deadly ipseity of desire. What does it mean to resist contact, to be without contact, to be without desire? What does it mean to risk contact, to risk being tactile with the other, to risk (...) affirming one’s desires? I want to generate a discussion about what has happened to desire, to its promise and possibility and why it is so difficult to anticipate or forecast what is to come. For me the BwO of hikikomori is the ruin of desire, the collapse of desire, a disaster of desire. I am pursuing a line of thought which highlights the loss of the possibility of processual schizophrenic breakthrough and in its place the becoming-autistic of the self, the perilous breakdown of the self. (shrink)

In asserting that the desire to possess what we cannot exclusively and permanently have lies at the root of human misery, Spinoza's Ethics discloses a problem that requires a political response. Although the final part of the Ethics appears to be the least practical of Spinoza's writings, it nonetheless foregrounds the tangible problem of our desire for possession, our desire to have what gives us joy. Moreover, it proposes a remedial practice by means of which this problematic desire might generate (...) satisfaction and strength rather than frustration and suffering. The "remedy for the affects" demands a reorientation of one's possessive desire corollary to the fundamentally affective and affirmative understanding of justice propounded in Spinoza's political writings. The cure for the possessive lovesickness portrayed in the Ethics, I aim to show, entails institutions of justice insofar as they operate upon our proprietary desires. (shrink)

This is the first book to trace the doctrine of the guise of the good throughout the history of Western philosophy. It offers a chronological narrative exploring how the doctrine was formulated, the arguments for and against it, and the broader role it played in the thought of different philosophers. -/- In recent years there has been a rich debate about whether value judgment or value perception must form an essential part of mental states such as emotions and desires, (...) and whether intentional actions must always be done for reasons that seem good to the agent. This has sparked new theoretical interest in the classical doctrine of the guise of the good: whenever we desire (to do) something, we see it under the guise of the good; that is, we conceive of what we desire as good, desirable, or justified by reasons, in some way or another. This book offers a systematic historical treatment of the guise of the good. The chapters span from Ancient and Medieval philosophy (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas), through the early modern period (Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Kant) and up to Elizabeth Anscombe's rediscovery in the 20th century after a period of relative neglect. Together they demonstrate how history can offer potential new models of the guise of the good—or new arguments against it—as well as to give a sense of how the guise of the good can bear on other philosophical issues. -/- The Guise of the Good: A Philosophical History is an excellent resource for scholars and students working on the history of ethics, philosophy of action, and practical reason. -/- 1. Introduction 2. Socrates and Plato 3. Aristotle and the Stoics 4. The Canon in Christian Philosophy 5. The Canon Doubted and Reaffirmed (1300-1600) 6. Descartes and Spinoza: Revision and Rejection 7. Empiricism: The Guise of the Good between Desire and Pleasure 8. The Guise of the Good in Hume and Kant 9. After Kant, Before Anscombe 10. Epilogue. A Fresh Start. (shrink)

According to the Desire-Based Reasons Model reasons for action are provided by desires. Many, however, are critical about the Model holding an alternative view of practical reason, which is often called valued-based. In this paper I consider one particular attempt to refute the Model, which advocates of the valued-based view often appeal to: the idea of reason-based desires. The argument is built up from two premises. The first claims that desires are states that we have reason to (...) have. The second argues that desires do not add to the stock of reasons the agent has for having them. Together the two theses entail that desires are based on reasons, which they transmit but to which they cannot add. In the paper I deal with a counterexample to the second premise: tie-breaking desires. I first distinguish two interesting cases and argue that only the second challenges the premise. Then I move onto analyze this challenge by focusing on Ruth Chang’s recent employment of it. I show that contrary to its counterintuitive appearance, the challenge can be sustained. However, I also argue that Chang overlooks the full potential of one particular response to the challenge: the introduction of higher-order reasons determining the normative significance of these desires. At the same time, I show that this response has a problem that Chang does not consider. As a result, the response can only partially disarm the challenge of tie-breaking desires; or not at all, depending on what significance we attribute to the counterexamples. (shrink)

논문은 욕구의 만족이 좋은 일인지, 좋다면 어떤 이유로 좋은지를 탐구한다. 이를 위해 “욕구되는 것은 좋음의 모습을 띤 채로 (under the guise of the good) 욕구 된다”는 견해를 검토한다. 이 입장에 따르면 욕구의 대상은 좋게 보이는 것이며 좋음을 지향하기에 행위의 동기이자 행위를 이해할 수 있게 만드는 이유를 제공한다. 하지만 욕구 만족의 규범성을 위해서는 좋게 보이는 것과 진정 좋은 것이 밀접하게, 즉 비우연적이고 신뢰할 만한 방식으로 연결되어야 한다. 논문은 좋게 보이는 것과 좋음의 연결을 위해 이 견해의 옹호자들이 제시했거나 활용할 만한 다섯 가지 (...) 전략을 검토한다. 결론은 좋게 보이는 것이 좋음에 대해 신뢰할 만한 지표라는 주장을 옹호하는 그럴듯한 논증이 아직 제출되지 않았고 이에 따라 욕구 만족이 그 자체로 좋은 일이라는 명제도 아직 입증되지 않았다는 것이다. (shrink)

This article deals with the birth of `the virus' as an object of technoscientific analysis. The aim is to discuss the process of objectification of pathogen virulence in virological and medical discourses. Through a short excursion into the history of modern virology, it will be argued that far from being a matter of fact, pathogen virulence had to be `produced', for example in petri-dishes, test-kits and hyper-real signification-practices. The now commonly accepted objective status of `the virus' has been (...) an accomplishment of a complex ensemble of actors. Indeed, this illustrates why objectification rather than objectivity has become the main focus of science and technology studies. The objectification of `the' virus was by no means a smooth process. It involved more than five decades of highly speculative and fragmented research projects before it became actualized as a separate discipline under the heading of virology. The specific objectification of viruses took place through an inter-disciplinary de-differentiation of research questions, methodologies, techniques and technologies. The main argument of this article is that viruses only became intelligible after the establishment of a virology-assemblage. Its inauguration in the early 1950s was radical and sudden because only then could the various substrands of virological technoscience affect each other through deliberate enrolment, and engender a universal intelligibility. (shrink)