James Beattie was appointed professor of moral philosophy and logic at Marischal College, Aberdeen, Scotland at the age of twenty-five. Though more fond of poetry than philosophy, he became part of the Scottish 'Common Sense' school of philosophy that included Thomas Reid and George Campbell. In 1770 Beattie published the work for which he is best known, An Essay on Truth, an abrasive attack on 'modern scepticism' in general, and on David Hume in particular, subsequently and despite Beattie's attack, Scotland's (...) most famous philosopher. The Essay was a great success, earning its author an honorary degree from Oxford and an audience with George III. Samuel Johnson declared in 1772 that 'We all love Beattie'. Hume, on the other hand, described the Essay as 'a horrible large lie in octavo', and dismissed its author as a 'bigotted silly Fellow'. Although Beattie is no match for Hume as a philosopher, the success of the Essay suggests that, unlike Hume, Beattie voices the characteristic assumptions, and anxieties, of his age. The first part of this selection—the first ever made from Beattie's prose writings—includes several key chapters from the Essay on Truth, along with extracts from all of Beattie's other works on moral philosophy. The topics treated include memory, the existence of God, the nature of virtue, and slavery. The second part of the selection is devoted to Beattie's contributions to literary criticism and aesthetics. Beattie's studies of poetry, music, taste, and the sublime are vital to the understanding of the literary culture out of which developed the early Romanticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge. (shrink)

This paper critically investigates the ethical perspectives and practices of individuals and organizations who make persuasive technologies. An organization that claims to be at the forefront of ethical persuasion is behavioral software company Boundless Mind. Yet Boundless Mind sells ostensibly oxymoronic software products: an Application Programming Interface for third-party applications that optimizes the capture of end user attention, and an application for end users on how to make third-party applications less persuasive. Drawing upon Foucault’s interpretation of ethics as an “aesthetics (...) of existence” and the related concept of “therapeutic authority,” I argue Boundless Mind justify the “poaching” and “protecting” of user attention based on a view of the human subject as fixable and their capability to instrumentalize user subjectivity to socially desirable ends. I walkthrough Boundless Mind’s technology-habit-breaking application Space and highlight a behavioral technique administered by Space called stimulus devaluation, which enables the user to develop a transformative relationship with their technology habits and persuasive applications. I conclude the paper by arguing that a persuasive technology ethics based on fixing the user obfuscates the power of persuasive technologists by limiting the scope of ethical inquiry to the activities of the user. (shrink)

In this chapter, Thelma Zeno Lavine argues that the sociology of knowledge should subject the norms of knowledge to socio-historical analysis.

Habermas' social philosophy can now be perceived in its oppositional structures and their symbolic meaning. His repetition of structural opposition finds its expression in the symbolism which pervades The Philosophic Discourse of Modernity in the opposition between the dreaded myth of the Dialectic of Enlightenment and the redemptive fantasy of the path yet to be taken. More significant for the intellectual culture of modernity is the neglect, by erasure on the part of this esteemed philosopher, of the great drama of (...) philosophy in our time. This is the drama occasioned by the dialectical struggle, rushing to climax in the 20th Century, between Enlightenment reason and its Counterenlightenment opponent. The struggle between these philosophical constellations is refracted in the great wars of this century. Thus the drama of the philosophical thought of the century and its historical development is lost. The philosophic discourse of modernity has yet to be written. Its text, once it has been freed from the tenacity of ideological hostilities and their erasures and concealing circumlocutions, will at the same time provide the sought-for foundation for social philosophy and a just society: it is the philosophic framework of Modernity itself which is the foundation of all modern philosophies, in the dialectic of Enlightenment and its Counterenlightenment other. (shrink)

How, according to Darwin, does chance variation affect evolutionary outcomes? In his 1866 book, On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, Darwin developed an argument that played an important role in his overall case for evolution by natural selection, as articulated in later editions of the Origin. This argument also figured significantly in Darwin's reflections on the theological dimensions of evolution by natural selection.

We contend that many of the criticisms of the American Psychological Association’s current Ethics Code are based on faulty assumptions and insufficient information. While the APA Ethics Committee values commentary on perceived shortcomings of the current Ethics Code as an important aspect of the current revision process, O’Donohue’s article contains inaccuracies that should be addressed. We clarify the functioning of the Ethics Code and the APA adjudication system, including explaining changes made to adjudication in light of the Commission on Ethics (...) Processes. We also explain the transparent, open process the APA has already undertaken to create a revised Ethics Code that is visionary and transformational. (shrink)

No natal de 1872, Cosima Wagner, filha de Franz Liszt e esposa de Richard Wagner, é presenteada com um conjunto de cinco ensaios que abordavam temas diversos, relativos a um projeto de renovação da cultura alemã em que ela se engajara.

Gender dysphoria is a clinically significant incongruence between expressed gender and assigned gender, with rapidly growing prevalence among children. The UK High Court recently conducted a judicial review regarding the service provision at a youth-focussed gender identity clinic in Tavistock. The high court adjudged it ‘highly unlikely’ that under-13s, and ‘doubtful’ that 14–15 years old, can be competent to consent to puberty blocker therapy for GD. They based their reasoning on the limited evidence regarding efficacy, the likelihood of progressing to (...) cross-sex hormone therapy and the ‘life-changing consequences’ of puberty blockers. In this article, I offer two concurrent arguments to dispute their reasoning. First, I argue that minors can be competent to consent to puberty blockers for GD, because the decision to undergo puberty blocker therapy is no more complex or far-reaching than other medical decisions that we accept a child should be able to make. Second, I argue that—irrespective of competence—such legal restriction for all children fundamentally contradicts the central ethical tenet of child healthcare: best interests. For these two reasons, the high court should not restrict access to puberty blockers for competent GD children. (shrink)

More than 1.5 billion students experienced disruption to education as a result of COVID-19, representing the most substantial interruption to global education in modern history. Many educational institutions transitioned to emergency remote teaching (ERT) overnight, which has presented an array of distinct challenges for educators. Using virtual interviews and an experiential approach to thematic analysis, the study examined Scottish primary teachers’ (n = 10) lived experiences of adapting to ERT practice. Findings demonstrated three main themes; ‘Meeting Learners’ Needs,’ ‘Influencing Engagement’, (...) and ‘The Impact of ERT on Teachers’. Key findings suggested that differentiating learning, engaging, and communicating with learners is more difficult during ERT than face-to-face teaching. Parental engagement is vital, however, is influenced by several mitigating factors. Finally, ERT is likely to have substantial effects on the wellbeing of those involved. Implications of these findings are considered and discussed. (shrink)

This article critically examines the 1992 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on pornography (Butler v. the Queen). The decision, like the LEAF (Legal Education Action Fund), argues that the dehumanizing and degrading images of women in pornography undermine the achievement of gender equality and reinforce existing inequality. Section 15 of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms takes precedence over Section 2(b) freedom of expression. More immediately, Section 163(8) of the Criminal Code of Canada remains the primary instrument for (...) dealing with pornography. These arguments fail to distinguish between degradation and devaluation; they offer no evidence of a connection between pornography and its effects on gender stratification, nor do they feel obliged to offer such evidence despite the extensive literature on inequality by the social science community. Citing the Sears-Roebuck case on gender discrimination, the author demonstrates that the enemy of gender equality is the stereotype of the idealized traditional woman, not the one-dimensional lust-driven nymphomaniac of pornography. Her opposite is not the "stud" of pornography who is in a constant state of tumescence but "economic man" who sublimates his sexual passion in sports, cars, politics, and money. Censorship, it is suggested, infantilizes women and contributes to their dependency. The article comments on the doctrine of "balancing" rights and on the meaning of "equality" within a feminist context. The larger questions of a trend toward the legalization of cultural issues and the role of the judiciary (weak in European democracies but strong in the American tradition) are raised. (shrink)

Two studies examined children’s developing understanding of Aesop’s fables in relation to reading comprehension and to theory of mind. Study 1 included 172 children from Junior Kindergarten through Grade 6 in a school-wide examination of the relation between reading comprehension skills and understanding of Aesop’s fables told orally. Study 2 examined the relation between theory of mind and fables understanding among 186 Junior (4-year-old) and Senior (5-year-old) Kindergarten children. Study 1 results showed a developmental progression in fables understanding with children’s (...) responses becoming increasingly decontextualized as they were able to extract the life lesson. After general vocabulary, passage comprehension predicted fables understanding. Study 2 results showed a relation between young children’s theory of mind development and their understanding of fables. After general vocabulary, second-order theory of mind predicted children’s fables understanding. Findings point to the importance of developing mental state awareness in children’s ability to judge characters’ intentions and to understand the deeper message embedded in fables. (shrink)

First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Publishers love titles that begin How or Why. Better still, How and Why, combining edification with utility. The target group is that overlap between the self-help audience and the idly curious—which is to say, most of us. And since emotions are very much about self-help and self-harm, they offer rich pickings in a burgeoning market. Flanagan's How to Do things with Emotions is a philosopher's take on moral emotions, the allusion to J. L. Austin's How to Do Things with Words (...) chiming with the self-help milieu. Reviewing cases, Flanagan points out that most scientific work in this field derives from experiments on psychology students, about as unrepresentative a slice of humanity as you could find. For Flanagan, they are too WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) to tell us much about the non-weird majority. To learn to “do emotions better,” he argues, we have to look farther afield. Although the emotional lives of cultural others are surely different from those taking Psychology 101, at some functional level they might be similar. Work out the conceptual logic and practical rationale of culturally elaborated emotions—Minangkabau “shame,” Ifaluk “righteous anger,” American “road rage”—and there is scope for comparison. Indeed, anthropology has shown as much, and it is from anthropology that Flanagan takes his cues. To mention two famous cases, what can we learn about anger management from Utku igloo-dwellers and Ilongot headhunters? Mutually dependent for survival in their snowy isolation, the Utku cannot risk getting angry. (They mercilessly tease their children into learning the futility of anger.) In the jungles of Luzon, Ilongot youths cast away their anger in externally directed violence: headhunting as cathartic sport. We can think of parallels closer to home.Flanagan's vigorously argued book, a tour de force of its kind, is both an anatomizing of anger and shame—two moral emotions we tend to “do badly”—and a proposal to “change how we do these emotions.” Indignation is fine, but anger that is vengeful or “pain-passing,” rather than righteous, is irrational and socially harmful. Shame can be incapacitating and cruel (the undeserved burn of a Twitter pile-on). What we need is reflective anger directed at injustice and a “mature sense of shame” that reminds us of the social contract and stops us misbehaving.In its How-and-Why format, the book combines theory and practice, metaethics with moralism. Here is how a prof should do self-help. But if the diagnosis is well made, the remedy is hard to imagine. As Flanagan recognizes, moral sentiments and practices are embedded in intricate forms of life and not readily detachable. Anger Utku-style is not a transferable skill, nor are educative routines forged in social ecologies remote from our own. Lacking serviceable models, Flanagan falls back on the anthropological justification that knowledge of cultural diversity expands our sense of human possibility, of other roads taken. In a globalizing world, difference is its own reward. For me, an anthropologist, that maxim is enough. Yet difference bedevils comparison, jinxing the units, warping criteria. Most languages lack a word for emotion or an equivalent umbrella concept; nor do emotion words translate well across languages. Emotion may be an incoherent notion, or at best a heuristic.Flanagan's use of the WEIRD tag makes things a bit too easy. Does it cover farmhands and factory workers? Are we so democratic, anyway? More damagingly, a typological approach blurs the circumstances of family, community, and biography that define an emotional episode and shape its phenomenology, the way it is felt and experienced—what a violent outburst or fearful exit means in the context of a life. Take Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, who flees a scene of failure and derails his life. It requires a long narrative to unravel the implications of his jumping ship and the paralyzing shame he experiences before the judgment of society. Or consider the scene in Anna Karenina in which the dignified and self-important Karenin, apprised of Anna's adulterous liaison, agonizes over the threat to his existence. To call his response jealousy would not scratch the surface. Characteristically for Tolstoy, the emotions go unnamed. Instead, we witness Karenin's fervid deliberations (emotions involve thoughts), vacillations (emotions have action tendencies), anguished calculations of impending scandal (emotions are appraisals), and bodily changes (emotions are cognized feelings). We shudder at the brutal metaphors through which he grasps his predicament and its cure: like rooting out a bad tooth, he decides. That welter of particularities escapes the theorist who needs clear-cut, comparable units, formulaic instances of jealousy or anger. But what are you left with if you omit the details? What would remain of Karenin's existential crisis?The novelist's privileged access to subjectivity is, of course, unavailable to the scientist, but the larger context of plot and character—a history of relations that gives emotional episodes their shape and power—has its analog in the ethnographic domain. Emotions are public as well as private events, their meanings and effects depending on a fit with social reality, a clash of perspectives. In thought and feeling, we are never really alone. All of which suggests that narrative, fictional or nonfictional, can capture the ongoing moment in a way that eludes other methods. If what we are after is living emotion, it is the movie, not the snapshot, that surely matters. No point in comparing “emotions” no one ever really experienced outside of an experiment.But there's the rub. In generalization—the goal of emotion theory—an emotion's social meaning, personal significance, pragmatic function, and narrative context get stripped out. All that makes it what it is! Even in doggedly empirical anthropology, detailed emotional episodes are rare (Jean Briggs's Utku ethnography Never in Anger, published in 1970, is still unsurpassed). Instead we get recollections and summary examples, lacking the constitutive detail, real-time evolutions, and consequences of the real thing. Yet these must serve for comparison, fodder for countless theoretical speculations. Are we at risk of analyzing faux emotions and building theories on cardboard constructions?An empty Arctic stage, a handful of characters, life simplified to survival: Briggs is a hard act to follow. Bare life does not make for basic emotions. On the white set, emotions prove hard to parse. That gruff hesitation, that flashing glint—are they tokens of anger? Empathy will not suffice. As Briggs shows, narrative context is all. And in our more cluttered emotional worlds, the value of backstory, interwoven biographies, and emotional plots is all the greater. Flanagan is right; we must do emotions better. (shrink)

Climate change is an anthropogenic existential threat that provokes extreme concern among climate scientists, but not, it seems, among all member of the public. Here, there is considerably more variability in level of concern and, it appears, in everyday sustainable behavior. But how does personality affect this variability in behavior? And how are underlying personality states like dispositional optimism linked to more sustainable everyday practices? Research in clinical psychology has suggested that dispositional optimism is a very positive personality characteristic associated (...) with higher levels of hope and resilience, but applied research from other domains has reported that optimists can, on occasion, bury their heads in the sand and avoid attending to external threats, like climate change, in order to maintain mood state. So are optimists more immune to climate change messaging than non-optimists? And do they make fewer sustainable choices? A series of experimental studies, manipulating signifiers of carbon footprint (Study 1) and eco labels on products (Study 2) found that optimists made more sustainable choices than non-optimists and that both groups were influenced equally by climate change film clips in terms of sustainable choices (Study 1). Optimists also displayed a false consensus effect, overestimating the proportion of people who would behave more sustainably like themselves (Study 3). Given that global problems like climate change need concerted, cooperative effort, these optimistic beliefs about how others behave could be adaptive in the long-run. Designing climate change messages to appeal to optimists might be a critical consideration for the future. (shrink)

The concept of "fitness" is a notion of central importance to evolutionary theory. Yet the interpretation of this concept and its role in explanations of evolutionary phenomena have remained obscure. We provide a propensity interpretation of fitness, which we argue captures the intended reference of this term as it is used by evolutionary theorists. Using the propensity interpretation of fitness, we provide a Hempelian reconstruction of explanations of evolutionary phenomena, and we show why charges of circularity which have been levelled (...) against explanations in evolutionary theory are mistaken. Finally, we provide a definition of natural selection which follows from the propensity interpretation of fitness, and which handles all the types of selection discussed by biologists, thus improving on extant definitions. (shrink)

This volume illuminates the achievements of present-day social science insights. It merits a close reading by those for whom the history of ideas is a living entity.