The moral self-concept has been proposed as a central predictor of prosocial behaviour. In two experiments (one preregistered), we explored the nature of the relation between the moral self-concept (explicit and implicit) and prosocial behaviour. Specifically, we investigated the role of emotions associated with prosocial behaviour (consequential or anticipated) and preference for consistency. The results revealed a relation between the explicit moral self-concept and sharing behaviour. The explicit moral self-concept was linked to anticipated and consequential emotions regarding not-sharing. Importantly, anticipated (...) and consequential emotions about not-sharing mediated the relation between self-concept and behaviour. Yet, the relation was independent of preference for consistency. The implicit moral self-concept was neither related to prosocial behaviour nor to emotions associated with behaviour. Overall, our study demonstrates the interplay between cognitive and emotional processes in explaining prosocial behaviour. More specific, it underlines the link between the moral self-concept and prosocial behaviour and highlights the role of emotions about the omission of prosocial behaviour. (shrink)

Individuals with populist radical-right (PRR) attitudes seem particularly inclined to spread disinformation. However, it is unclear whether this is due to the large amount of disinformation with a PRR bias or a general tendency to perceive disinformation as credible and/or spread it further. This study explores (1) effects of a PRR bias on perceived message credibility and likelihood of spreading disinformation, (2) the extent to which perceived message credibility mediates the spread of disinformation, (3) effects of PRR attitudes on the (...) perceived message credibility of biased disinformation, and (4) whether a PRR bias of disinformation explains the spread of disinformation by individuals with PRR attitudes despite a lack of credibility. An online experimental study (N = 572) in Germany showed that the spread of disinformation is mediated by perceived message credibility of disinformation. PRR attitudes positively predict perceived message credibility regardless of whether it is biased or unbiased disinformation. (shrink)

Game theory is central to modern understandings of how people deal with problems of coordination and cooperation. Yet, ironically, it cannot give a straightforward explanation of some of the simplest forms of human coordination and cooperation--most famously, that people can use the apparently arbitrary features of "focal points" to solve coordination problems, and that people sometimes cooperate in "prisoner's dilemmas." Addressing a wide readership of economists, sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers, Michael Bacharach here proposes a revision of game theory that resolves (...) these long-standing problems. In the classical tradition of game theory, Bacharach models human beings as rational actors, but he revises the standard definition of rationality to incorporate two major new ideas. He enlarges the model of a game so that it includes the ways agents describe to themselves their decision problems. And he allows the possibility that people reason as members of groups, each taking herself to have reason to perform her component of the combination of actions that best achieves the group's common goal. Bacharach shows that certain tendencies for individuals to engage in team reasoning are consistent with recent findings in social psychology and evolutionary biology. As the culmination of Bacharach's long-standing program of pathbreaking work on the foundations of game theory, this book has been eagerly awaited. Following Bacharach's premature death, Natalie Gold and Robert Sugden edited the unfinished work and added two substantial chapters that allow the book to be read as a coherent whole. (shrink)

Background:Moral distress is a complex phenomenon frequently experienced by critical care nurses. Ethical conflicts in this practice area are related to technological advancement, high intensity work environments, and end-of-life decisions.Objectives:An exploration of contemporary moral distress literature was undertaken to determine measurement, contributing factors, impact, and interventions.Review Methods:This state of the science review focused on moral distress research in critical care nursing from 2009 to 2015, and included 12 qualitative, 24 quantitative, and 6 mixed methods studies.Results:Synthesis of the scientific literature revealed (...) inconsistencies in measurement, conflicting findings of moral distress and nurse demographics, problems with the professional practice environment, difficulties with communication during end-of-life decisions, compromised nursing care as a consequence of moral distress, and few effective interventions.Conclusion:Providing compassionate care is a professional nursing value and an inability to meet this goal due to moral distress may have devastating effects on care quality. Further study of patient and family outcomes related to nurse moral distress is recommended. (shrink)

The definitive account of Aristotle's life and school This definitive biography shows that Aristotle's philosophy is best understood on the basis of a firm knowledge of his life and of the school he founded. First published in Italian, and now translated, updated, and expanded for English readers, this concise chronological narrative is the most authoritative account of Aristotle's life and his Lyceum available in any language. Gathering, distilling, and analyzing all the evidence and previous scholarship, Carlo Natali, one of the (...) world's leading Aristotle scholars, provides a masterful synthesis that is accessible to students yet filled with evidence and original interpretations that specialists will find informative and provocative. Cutting through the controversy and confusion that have surrounded Aristotle's biography, Natali tells the story of Aristotle's eventful life and sheds new light on his role in the foundation of the Lyceum. Natali offers the most detailed and persuasive argument yet for the view that the school, an important institution of higher learning and scientific research, was designed to foster a new intellectual way of life among Aristotle's followers, helping them fulfill an aristocratic ideal of the best way to use the leisure they enjoyed. Drawing a wealth of connections between Aristotle's life and thinking, Natali demonstrates how the two are mutually illuminating. For this edition, ancient texts have been freshly translated on the basis of the most recent critical editions; indexes have been added, including a comprehensive index of sources and an index to previous scholarship; and scholarship that has appeared since the book's original publication has been incorporated. (shrink)

Based on Pacherie’s dynamic theory of intentions, this study investigated how the way an intention is formed and sustained affects action performance and the experience of control during acting. In Experiment 1, task-irrelevant verbal commands were given while participants responded to stimuli in a two-choice reaction time task. The commands referred to an action goal congruent or incongruent with the actor’s current intention, or ordered the initiation or abortion of the action. In Experiment 2, the same commands were given as (...) participants freely chose between two actions. The distractors affected performance in the reactive task only. In both experiments, feelings of control were based on movement parameters as well as perceived matches between distractors and intended actions. These findings suggest that the way an intention is implemented affects how well it can be shielded against external perturbations and how much one feels in control. (shrink)

Drawing on recent findings in the cognitive and neurosciences, this article discusses how people manage to predict each other’s actions, which is fundamental for joint action. We explore how a common coding of perceived and performed actions may allow actors to predict the what, when, and where of others’ actions. The “what” aspect refers to predictions about the kind of action the other will perform and to the intention that drives the action. The “when” aspect is critical for all joint (...) actions requiring close temporal coordination. The “where” aspect is important for the online coordination of actions because actors need to effectively distribute a common space. We argue that although common coding of perceived and performed actions alone is not sufficient to enable one to engage in joint action, it provides a representational platform for integrating the actions of self and other. The final part of the paper considers links between lower‐level processes like action simulation and higher‐level processes like verbal communication and mental state attribution that have previously been at the focus of joint action research. (shrink)

There is a long-standing debate in philosophy about whether it is morally permissible to harm one person in order to prevent a greater harm to others and, if not, what is the moral principle underlying the prohibition. Hypothetical moral dilemmas are used in order to probe moral intuitions. Philosophers use them to achieve a reflective equilibrium between intuitions and principles, psychologists to investigate moral decision-making processes. In the dilemmas, the harms that are traded off are almost always deaths. However, the (...) moral principles and psychological processes are supposed to be broader than this, encompassing harms other than death. Further, if the standard pattern of intuitions is preserved in the domain of economic harm, then that would open up the possibility of studying behavior in trolley problems using the tools of experimental economics. We report the results of two studies designed to test whether the standard patterns of intuitions are preserved when the domain and severity of harm are varied. Our findings show that the difference in moral intuitions between bystander and footbridge scenarios is replicated across different domains and levels of physical and non-physical harm, including economic harms. (shrink)

This article explores the role of social factors in the emergence of self and other. It is suggested that the experience of causing actions contributes to a basic sense of self in which awareness of mental states and the experience of a mental self are grounded. According to the proposed evolutionary scenario, the experience of agency emerged as individuals acting in social context learned to differentiate between effects caused by their own actions and effects resulting from joint action. Through joint (...) action, individuals also developed an understanding of others' actions as goal-directed, paving the way for imitation. The ability to distinguish between action capabilities of self and other and the understanding that action-effect principles apply equally to self and other may have provided important advantages in circumstances where cooperative action and social learning were critical. The current proposal adds to previous evolutionary scenarios in that it identifies social conditions that may have shaped a basic sense of self. This, in turn, could have given rise to theory of mind and the cultural construction of mental selves. (shrink)

Joseph Raz’s The Morality of Freedom is well known for defending both a perfectionist form of liberalism and an ‘externalist’ conception of autonomy. John Christman proposes that there is a logical connection between the two theses and argues that externalist accounts of autonomy should be rejected on the basis that they are perfectionist. Christman’s perfectionism argument contains two premises: externalist theories of autonomy entail political perfectionism and political perfectionism is not defensible. I argue that neither premise is true. Externalist theories (...) of autonomy do not entail political perfectionism. Further, even assuming for the sake of argument that premise is true, premise is false. The strongest challenge to political perfectionism is that it is incompatible with the value of respect. I argue that those defending political perfectionism misconstrue what is required for respect. Once we see that respect is secured through features inherent in processes, the value of respect can be reconciled with political perfectionism. Political perfectionism is a defensible thesis and premise is false. (shrink)

This book engages with some of the most pressing ethical issues that arise from the use of animals in various business practices, providing interdisciplinary approaches to improving the nonhuman and human lives in animal-related industries. The chapters in this volume provide conceptual, theoretical and practical analyses of these issues that will shape the future direction of business ethics to more fully reflect the impacts and implications of animal-based businesses on society, its members, and nature. The authors in this volume engage (...) with topics including animal suffering and emotions, the commodification of animals, vegetarian and vegan businesses and diets, technological innovations such as gene editing and lab-cultured meat, as well as captivity, corporate disclosure of animal welfare policies, and the possibility of humane jobs as well as the consideration of animals as stakeholders. (shrink)

In the literature of collective intentions, the ‘we-intentions’ that lie behind cooperative actions are analysed in terms of individual mental states. The core forms of these analyses imply that all Nash equilibrium behaviour is the result of collective intentions, even though not all Nash equilibria are cooperative actions. Unsatisfactorily, the latter cases have to be excluded either by stipulation or by the addition of further, problematic conditions. We contend that the cooperative aspect of collective intentions is not a property of (...) the intentions themselves, but of the mode of reasoning by which they are formed. We analyse collective intentions as the outcome of team reasoning, a mode of practical reasoning used by individuals as members of groups. We describe this mode of reasoning in terms of formal schemata, discuss a range of possible accounts of group agency, and show how existing theories of collective intentions fit into this framework. (shrink)

This paper proposes a refocusing of consent for clinical genetic testing, moving away from an emphasis on autonomy and information provision, towards an emphasis on the virtues of healthcare professionals seeking consent, and the relationships they construct with their patients. We draw on focus groups with UK healthcare professionals working in the field of clinical genetics, as well as in-depth interviews with patients who have sought genetic testing in the UK’s National Health Service. We explore two aspects of consent: first, (...) how healthcare professionals consider the act of ‘consenting’ patients; and second how these professional accounts, along with the accounts of patients, deepen our understanding of the consent process. Our findings suggest that while healthcare professionals working in genetic medicine put much effort into ensuring patients’ understanding about their impending genetic test, they acknowledge, and we show, that patients can still leave genetic consultations relatively uninformed. Moreover, we show how placing emphasis on the informational aspect of genetic testing is not always reflective of, or valuable to, patients’ decision-making. Rather, decision-making is socially contextualised – also based on factors outside of information provision. A more collaborative on-going consent process, grounded in virtue ethics and values of honesty, openness and trustworthiness, is proposed. (shrink)

Participatory deliberation, whereby diverse experts and publics collectively engage in decision‐making, can ensure a more informed and just decision by centering historically marginalized perspectives and engaging a spectrum of value systems. Broad and diverse participation is crucial for the equitable distribution of risks and benefits resulting from complex and uncertain decisions such as environmental gene editing. From an ethical position that gives intrinsic value to the nonhuman and recognizes the interconnectedness of species across generations, we argue that deliberation over environmental (...) gene editing must include the voice of nature and the voice of future generations. Inclusion of these key participant groups can encourage reflection on the human relationship with nature and help safeguard intergenerational equity of decisions reached. By drawing from the legal rights of nature movement, the Boardman River Dams Project, and methods for representative participation, we offer strategies for inclusion of nonhuman nature and future generations in deliberative processes about environmental gene editing and other crucial decisions about our shared environments. (shrink)

There have been multiple factors involved in the decline of the anatomy course’s central role in medical education over the last century. The course has undergone a multitude of changes, in large part due to the rise in technology and cultural shifts away from physical dissection. This paper argues that, as the desire of medical schools to introduce clinical experiences earlier in the curriculum increased, anatomy courses began implementing changes that would align themselves with the shifting culture towards incorporating humanistic (...) values early on in the medical curriculum. One of these changes, argued as a product of this shift, included calling a cadaver a ‘patient’ and introducing the cadaver as a student’s ‘first patient’. This change has been seen in different universities and textbooks. This paper argues that the use of the words ‘patient’ to describe the cadaver in order to promote principled habits in medical students may in fact create an environment that does the opposite. By equating an environment in which the subject of dissection is lifeless and incapable of participation, and the space is discouraging of emotions and conducive to untested coping mechanisms to the clinical environment through using the word ‘patient’, values like detached concern, a controversial practice in medicine, can be implicitly encouraged. An ethical analysis of the use of the word ’patient’ to describe the cadaver shows that this practice can promote unethical habits in students and that changing this aspect of anatomy lab culture could improve ethical dispositions of future physicians. (shrink)

This paper explores the assimilation of the flightless dodo into early modern natural history. The dodo was first described by Dutch sailors landing on Mauritius in 1598, and became extinct in the 1680s or 1690s. Despite this brief period of encounter, the bird was a popular subject in natural-history works and a range of other genres. The dodo will be used here as a counterexample to the historical narratives of taxonomic crisis and abrupt shifts in natural history caused by exotic (...) creatures coming to Europe. Though this bird had a bizarre form, early modern naturalists integrated the dodo and other flightless birds through several levels of conceptual categorization, including the geographical, morphological and symbolic. Naturalists such as Charles L'Ecluse produced a set of typical descriptive tropes that helped make up the European dodo. These long-lived images were used for a variety of symbolic purposes, demonstrated by the depiction of the Dutch East India enterprise in Willem Piso's 1658 publication. The case of the dodo shows that, far from there being a dramatic shift away from emblematics in the seventeenth century, the implicit symbolic roles attributed to exotic beasts by naturalists constructing them from scant information and specimens remained integral to natural history. (shrink)

In 2004, Natalie Lloyd and Jane Mulcock initiated the Australian Animals & Society Study Group, a network of social science, humanities and arts scholars that quickly grew to include more than 100 participants. In July 2005, about 50 participants attended the group's 4-day inaugural conference at the University of Western Australia, Perth. Papers in this issue emerged from the conference. They exemplify the Australian academy's work in the fields of History, Population Health, Sociology, Geography, and English and address strong (...) themes: human-equine relationships; management of native and introduced animals; and relationships with other domestic, nonhuman animals—from cats and dogs to cattle. Human-Animal Studies is an expanding field in Australia. However, many scholars, due to funding and teaching concerns, focus their primary research in different domains. All authors in this issue—excepting one—are new scholars in their respective fields. The papers represent the diversity and innovation of recent Australian research on human-animal interactions. The authors look at both past and present, then anticipate future challenges in building an effective network to expand this field of study in Australia. (shrink)

Universities and other research institutions are increasingly providing additional training in research integrity to improve the quality and reliability of research. Various training courses have been developed, with diverse learning goals and content. Despite the importance of training that focuses on moral character and professional virtues, there remains a lack of training that adopts a virtue ethics approach. To address this, we, a European Commission-funded consortium, have designed a train-the-trainer programme for research integrity. The programme is based on (1) virtue (...) ethics, (2) the ethos of science, (3) learning by doing and (4) learner-centred teaching. The blended learning programme combines e-learning modules with participatory group sessions. Trainers are taught how to guide researchers through a series of structured exercises for fostering reflection on scientific virtues, and how to promote understanding and application of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Trainers are provided with adaptable tools and resources that can be used and combined in different ways. The programme implementation began in Spring 2020 and 470 trainers have participated to date. When trainers were asked to grade – between 0 (very bad) and 10 (excellent) – the e-learning modules and the participatory exercises, 60% scored a grade 8 or higher (median = 8, IQR = 2) for the e-learning modules, whereas 80% scored a grade 8 or higher (median = 9, IQR = 1) for the participatory exercises. A majority felt that the training helped them as a trainer to learn about ways to organise and teach a research integrity course (82%) and would recommend the interactive exercises to others (92%). Trainers have educated over 3300 researchers in Europe using our virtue-based approach. The VIRT2UE train-the-trainer programme fosters research integrity by providing trainers with exercises and tools which enable them to stimulate the development of good researchers across Europe. (shrink)

Trolley problems have been used in the development of moral theory and the psychological study of moral judgments and behavior. Most of this research has focused on people from the West, with implicit assumptions that moral intuitions should generalize and that moral psychology is universal. However, cultural differences may be associated with differences in moral judgments and behavior. We operationalized a trolley problem in the laboratory, with economic incentives and real-life consequences, and compared British and Chinese samples on moral behavior (...) and judgment. We found that Chinese participants were less willing to sacrifice one person to save five others, and less likely to consider such an action to be right. In a second study using three scenarios, including the standard scenario where lives are threatened by an on-coming train, fewer Chinese than British participants were willing to take action and sacrifice one to save five, and this cultural difference was more pronounced when the consequences were less severe than death. (shrink)

Homeopathy is over 200 years old and is still experiencing an uninterrupted influx of new practitioners and patients. Many patients and therapists swear by this "alternative healing method", which in some countries is even financed by health insurances. This seems completely incomprehensible to critics: For them it is clearly evident that homeopathy is hopelessly unscientific and has at best a placebo effect. The positions of supporters and opponents seem to be just as immutable as they are incompatible. This book answers (...) some essential and fascinating questions: What remains of the founding ideas of homeopathy in 21st century medicine? Does it really work and, if so, how? Which of the original theories can we still apply today with a clear conscience and use for the benefit of patients and the healthcare system? Where does homeopathy have its limits and does it indeed need to be critically reconsidered and evaluated? The author has dealt with the points of criticism for years, but at the same time also takes seriously the wishes and concerns of patients who often feel insufficiently cared for by conventional medical practice. Against the background of her own personal history, her book attempts to bridge the gap between these two traditionally opposing camps. (shrink)

Merrill, Booker and Fivush examine the social functions associated with transmitting intergenerational narratives to adolescents and emerging adults and how these family stories affect identity formation in early adulthood. Merrill et al. observed that the intergenerational stories of parents’ transgression and proud moments told by adolescents and emerging adults operate as a way to transmit life lessons, strengthen relationships with the parent and give insights into their parents and their self.

Genetic modification of crop plants is frequently described by its proponents as a continuation of the ancient process of domestication. While domestication, crop breeding, and GM all modify the genomes and phenotypes of plants, GM fundamentally differs from domestication in terms of the biological and sociopolitical processes by which change occurs, and the subsequent impacts on agrobiodiversity and seed sovereignty. We review the history of domestication, crop breeding, and GM, and show that crop breeding and GM are continuous with each (...) other in many important ways, but represent a momentous break from domestication because they move plant evolution off of farms and into centralized institutions. The social contexts in which these processes unfold dictate who holds rights to germplasm and agricultural knowledge, shape incentives to effect particular kinds of changes in our crops, and create or constrict biodiversity. Presenting GM as a continuation of domestication puts forward a false equivalency that fundamentally misrepresents how domestication, crop breeding, and GM occur. In doing so, this narrative diminishes public understanding of these important processes and obscures the effects of industrial agriculture on in situ biodiversity and the practice of farming. This misrepresentation is used in public-facing science communication by representatives of the biotechnology industry to silence meaningful debate on GM by convincing the public that it is the continuation of an age-old process that underlies all agricultural societies. (shrink)

This book presents a radical and intuitive argument against the notion that intentional action, agency and autonomy are features belonging only to humans. Using evidence from research into the minds of non-human animals, it explores the ways in which animals can be understood as individuals who are aware of themselves, and the consequent basis of our moral obligations towards them. The first part of this book argues for a conception of agency in animals that admits to degrees among individuals and (...) across species. It explores self-awareness and its various levels of complexity which depend on an animals’ other mental capacities. The author offers an overview of some established theories in animal ethics including those of Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Bernard Rollin and Lori Gruen, and the ways these theories serve to extend moral consideration towards animals based on various capacities that both animals and humans have in common. The book concludes by challenging traditional Kantian notions of rationality and what it means to be an autonomous individual, and discussing the problems that still remain in the study of animal ethics. (shrink)

This is a profound study of Aristotle's concept of phronesis, or practical wisdom. Carlo Natali critically reconsiders Aristotle's famous doctrine of contemplations, relating it to contemporary theories of the good life.

The first book of NE is organised on the model of investigating definitions described in the second Book of the Posterior Analytics, although, of course, with some adaptation due to the subject matter. It first establishes if the object exists and looks for the meaning of the terms used in common language to indicate it, next considers some necessary qualities of the object and then concludes with a definition of the object. We find there a dialectical syllogism of definition, and (...) not the procedure in three steps described in NE VII 1, sometimes called 'the method of ethics'. In fact, the method described in NE VII 1 does not apply to the first book of the NE. Its relevance for the NE has been somehow exaggerated. (shrink)

Feminist epistemologies hold that differences in the social locations of inquirers make for epistemic differences, for instance, in the sorts of things that inquirers are justified in believing. In this paper we situate this core idea in feminist epistemologies with respect to debates about social constructivism. We address three questions. First, are feminist epistemologies committed to a form of social constructivism about knowledge? Second, to what extent are they incompatible with traditional epistemological thinking? Third, do the answers to these questions (...) raise serious problems for feminist epistemologies? We argue that some versions of two of the main strands in feminist epistemology – feminist standpoint theory and feminist empiricism – are committed to a form of social constructivism, which requires certain departures from traditional epistemological thinking. But we argue that these departures are less problematic than one might think. Thus, (some) feminist epistemologies provide a plausible way of understanding how (some) knowledge might be socially constructed. (shrink)

In this paper I make the case for a feminist hinge epistemology in three steps. My first step is to explain hinge epistemologies as contemporary epistemologies that take Wittgenstein’s work in On Certainty as their starting point. My second step is to make three criticisms of this literature as it currently stands. My third step is to introduce feminist epistemologies, which argue that social factors like race and gender affect what different people and groups justifiably believe, and argue that developing (...) a feminist hinge epistemology is both plausible and desirable. (shrink)

"My argument is as follows. In the first section, I sketch briefly the ways in which intentionalism might provide a solution to the problem of vagueness. The second section describes the different areas in which counterfactuals must be invoked by intentionalism. In the third section I point out that on a classic analysis of counterfactuals - that of David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker - the truth conditions of counterfactuals depend on relations of similarity among possible worlds. Since similarity is vague, (...) so are counterfactuals. Finally, I show that there is no unique solution to the problem of vagueness for the specific types of counterfactuals required by intentionalists - those referring to authors' or legislators' mental states, and those attempting to transport historical authors into the present. Although some counterfactuals are relatively 'insensitive' - in Lewis's sense -- those required in intentionalist interpretation are at least moderately sensitive. This means taht different contexts will resolve the vagueness in different ways. The choice among contexts must be made by the interpreter and is not determined by author's intentions. Hence the vagueness due to counterfactual reasoning about author's intention leads to indeterminacies that cannot be resolved by intentionalism itself. Intentionalism is a solution neither to the problem of vagueness nor to the problem of indeterminacy." Distinguishes between strict intentionalism and moderate intentionalism. Both are often seen as a means for reducing vagueness in legal language. However, counterfactual intentions are needed to resolve certain problems. First, in combining actual intentions, e.g. in a legislature, where different combinations may result in different legislation. Second, it is needed to resolve conflicts between intentions, particularly between different levels of abstraction. Third, reducing vagueness, which will be necessary even with enactment intentions. Fourth, there may be no determinate intention that would even, in principle, resolve a borderline case - e.g. when intentions are conflated. [For discussion of application and enactment intentions, see Goldsworthy, "Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation," Federal Law Review 25: 1.] Lastly, counterfactuals may be necessary to distinguish between application and enactment intentions. Lewis on counterfactuals: "For Lewis and Stalnaker, the key idea in the explication of truth conditions of counterfactuals is that of 'comparative overall similarity' of possible worlds. A counterfactual is true if and only if in the closest, most similar world to the actual in which the antecedent of the conditional is true, the consequent of the conditional is also true." Thus, there may be a determinate relevant world for some cases - i.e. there may be a counterfactual that determines the answer to a counterfactual question. This, however, will not always be the case. For example, counterfactuals concerning Caesar being the leader of N. Korea. Here, for Lewis, where there are ties of closeness of counterfactuals, all tied CFs will be false. When considering counterfactual intentions for the sake of interpretation, some may be determinate or insensitive. Normally, however, this will not be the case. "For intentionalism to resolve the matter of whether the regulation prohibiting vehicles prohibits toy cars as well, one of these counterfactuals must be true and the other false. Imagine a possible world in which the oncsideration of the borderline case is added to the authors' mental states. It is likely that connected belief will be affected as well. For example consideration of the aim of the regulation will occur as a consequence of the consideration of whether the regulation applies to the borderline case: Is ensuring peace and quiet in the park overriding, or are there exceptions to accommodate children's games? When there are changes in a constellation of men tal states, we will have to imagine a situation in whichh the legislators' beleifs are very different from what they in fact were. This creates at least a profound epistemological problem, because, as Dworkin puts it: "[it] has the effect of sharply reducing the amount of historical evidence that is relevant to answering the counterfactual." More important, however, in some worlds in which the legislators consider the case of a child's toy car, they will treat the peace and quiet purpose as overriding, whereas in others they will treat the children's play purpose as overriding. This means that different worlds will resolve the truth-value of the counterfactuals differently." "If I am right that counterfactual reasoning is ubiquitous in intentionalism, intentionalism suffers from an extra dimension of vagueness and is therefore at a disadvantage when measured against theories that do not rely on counterfactuals.". (shrink)

Natalie Stoljar ist eine australische Philosophin und Professorin für feministische, politische und Rechtsphilosophie an der McGill University in Montreal, Kanada. Neben der Forschung zur Rechtsphilosophie widmete sich Stoljar den Schnittstellen von Sozialphilosophie, politischer Philosophie und Moralpsychologie. In diesem Kontext verortet sie auch das Konzept der Autonomie.

Presented as an imaginary dialogue with the author of Art and Agency , this paper displays a number of methodological shared positions: the contextualist nature of his epistemology, his focus on relations rather than on objects, his sense of pragmatism, his proximity with the notion of “person-objects” such as developed by the author of the present paper, his attention to the meso-social level and, eventually, his neutral standing in front of research objects. In spite of a few disagreements, all these (...) properties bring to light a convergence between Gell’s anthropological approach and the kind of sociological methodology presently practiced in certain trends of French sociology. (shrink)