Being Inclined is the first book-length study in English of the work of Felix Ravaisson, France's most influential philosopher in the second half of the nineteenth century. Mark Sinclair shows how Ravaisson, in his great work Of Habit, understands habit as tendency and inclination in away that provides the basis for a philosophy of nature and a general metaphysics. In examining Ravaisson's ideas against the background of the history of philosophy, and in the light of later developments in French (...) thought, Sinclair shows how Ravaisson gives an original account of the nature ofhabit as inclination, within a metaphysical framework quite different to those of his predecessors in the philosophical tradition.Being Inclined sheds new light on the history of modern French philosophy and argues for the importance of the neglected nineteenth-century French spiritualist tradition. It also shows that Ravaisson's philosophy of inclination, of being-inclined, is of great import for contemporary philosophy, andparticularly for the contemporary metaphysics of powers given that ideas about tendency have recently come to prominence in discussions concerning dispositions, laws, and the nature of causation. Being Inclined therefore offers a detailed and faithful contextualist study of Ravaisson's masterpiece,demonstrating its continued importance for contemporary thought. (shrink)

Size is not always a gauge of significance. The issue that I propose to address here centers on a single clause from the Summa theologiae. But it goes nearly to the heart of St Thomas's teaching on natural law. It concerns the way in which Thomas thinks the human mind comes to understand good and evil. The specific question raised by the clause is the role played in this process by what Thomas calls "natural inclination." This question leads to (...) an even more basic one: what it is, for Thomas, that constitutes a truly intellectual grasp of the good. (shrink)

Possediamo un testo parallelo delle prime sei lezioni sul terzo libro, in cui possiamo mettere a con-fronto la dottrina di Pietro con quella di s. Tommaso. Il confronto proposto verte sul tema delle inclinazioni naturali e, segnatamente, sul loro rapporto con il bene e con il diritto naturale. Si presentano in sinossi su tre colonne il testo di Aristotele (nella traduzione latina di Guglielmo di Moerbeke utilizzata dai due commentatori), il commento di s. Tommaso ed il commento di Pietro d’Alvernia. (...) Alla fine di ciascuna sezione ho sviluppato alcune considerazioni conclusive di taglio teoretico. L’elemento teoreticamente più interessante introdotto da Pietro è costituito dall’affermazione che l’uomo “è nato per perfezionarsi” quanto al corpo e quanto all’anima ed ha a questo una esplicita in-clinazione naturale: “[Homo] natus est perfici et naturaliter inclinatur ad hoc quod perficiatur”. Qui si riecheggia l’ontologia tommasiana delle inclinazioni naturali e la metafisica del bene che le è sotte-sa. Bonum est quod omnia appetunt, ma le sostanze appetunt quella perfezione a cui sono inclinate in virtù della loro propria forma, cum unumquodque sit id quod est per suam formam. Il bene è dunque ciò che viene richiesto dalla forma dell’ente, per giungere alla piena realizzazione del dinamismo insito nella forma stessa, dinamismo che si placa solo nella piena attualizzazione di sé, ossia nella perfezione dell’ente. Bisogna notare l’attitudine di Pietro ad usare la categoria dell’inclinazione naturale, anche quando il testo aristotelico non la contiene. È necessario indugiare un po’ su questo tema, giacché in esso - a nostro giudizio - è possibile leggere il fondamento dell’etica classica, così spesso frainteso dai moderni. L’uomo è una creatura strutturalmente “indigente”: homo pluribus indiget. Quest’indigenza, per usare la terminologia di Hume contro lo stesso Hume, è un is da cui consegue rigorosamente un ought. L’indigenza è un fatto, è una carenza costatabile empiricamente; ma costatare una carenza significa scoprire nell’essere fattuale il dover essere: lo stato in cui la carenza è tolta. L’uomo, imperfectus et ex parte animae et ex parte corporis, in ragione della sua stessa imperfezione, rimanda all’uomo “perfetto”, come la potenza rimanda all’atto ed anzi è preceduta dall’atto. (shrink)

Advocates of the use of intuitions in philosophy argue that they are treated as evidence because they are evidential. Their opponents agree that they are treated as evidence, but argue that they should not be so used, since they are the wrong kinds of things. In contrast to both, we argue that, despite appearances, intuitions are not treated as evidence in philosophy whether or not they should be. Our positive account is that intuitions are a subclass of inclinations to believe. (...) Our thesis explains why intuitions play a role in persuasion and inquiry, without conceding that they are evidential. The account also makes predictions about the structure of intuitions that are confirmed by independent arguments. (shrink)

In this article, Adriana Cavarero and Nidesh Lawtoo resume a dialogue on mimetic inclinations in view of furthering a relational, embodied and affective conception of subjectivity that challenges homo erectus from the immanent perspective of homo mimeticus. If a dominant philosophical tradition tends to restrict mimesis to an illusory representation of reality, Plato was the first to know that mimesis also operates as an affective force, or pathos, that dispossesses the subject. While Plato tended to emphasize the pathological implications of (...) mimesis, Cavarero and Lawtoo agree that both mimesis and inclinations go beyond good and evil and can be put to both pathological and democratic use. Picking up a dialogue started during a walk in New York City, Cavarero and Lawtoo, take their shared interests in Joseph Conrad's relating narratives as an occasion to discuss good and bad mimetic inclinations in contemporary politics and ethics. Joined in conclusion by the Gendered Mimesis team (Willow Verkerk, Isabelle Dahms and Giulia Rignano), topics addressed include new fascism, surging democracy, ethical responsibility for vulnerable others, hypermaternity and public happiness in a precarious world. (shrink)

Barnett Newman : Adam's line -- Kant and the newborn -- Virginia Woolf and the shadow of the "I" -- Plato erectus sed -- Men and trees -- We are not monkeys : on erect posture -- Hobbes and the macroanthropos -- Elias Canetti : upright before the dead -- Artemisia : the allegory of inclination -- Leonardo and maternal inclination -- Hannah Arendt : "a child has been born unto us" -- Schemata for a postural ethics -- (...) Coda : adieu to Lévinas. (shrink)

A descriptive, cross-sectional study aimed to determine the inclination of nursing students towards ethical values and the effects of these values on care behaviours. The data for this study were collected from 466 students studying from May 13–24, 2019. The data were collected using a questionnaire on the sociodemographic characteristics of the students, Inclination to Ethical Values Scale (IEVS), and Caring Behaviors Inventory-24 (CBI-24). In this study, 43.1 per cent of them belonged to families who had a protective (...) attitude. The total mean (SD) IEVS and CBI-24 scores were 63.99 (12.68) and 117.19 (17.95), respectively. The mean item score was 4.88 (0.74). A moderate positive correlation was observed between the inclination of the students towards ethical values and their care behaviours. The general family structure of the nursing students and their participation in an ethics class affected the inclination of the nursing students to ethical values and their care behaviours. This study showed that the ethical values of the students positively affected their care behaviours. (shrink)

Being Inclined is erudite, clearly written, and well-argued. It is rich in the history of philosophy and in philosophical ideas. It is not an exaggeration when Sinclair says that “philosophy advances, and can only advance, by means of a living dialogue with the past”. This short review cannot do the book justice.Being Inclined is divided into six chapters. From a historical viewpoint, chapters 1 and 2 are revelatory for the Anglophone reader of the last two hundred years of French philosophy. (...) Sinclair is a master at assembling all the texts that influenced Ravaisson and all the texts on which he had an influence. However, in the first two chapters, Sinclair also presents the basics of Ravaisson’s philosophy... (shrink)

A common assumption among Kantians is that the feelings/inclinations constituting non-moral motivation are little different from the brute sensations and blind instinctual urges found in animals. And since this “inner animal” lacks reason, it cannot control itself. So our rational nature must step in to govern. The problem, however, is that it must do so as a nature standing above the animal as an independent ruler. I reject this understanding of our lower nature, arguing instead that reason governs from within (...) our lower nature, by giving it shape and structure. I show that this is possible because Kant actually held a cognitive theory of emotion, one in which feeling takes the form of judgments of fit between an object and the sensible needs of the subject, by which the life or well-being of the subject is promoted. Through these judgments of feeling, reason generates a complex evaluative framework that structures our practical point of view. (shrink)

This article explores queer spatial and feminist coalitional practices through Adriana Cavarero's concept of maternal and mimetic “inclinations”, Sara Ahmed's concept of queer “orientations” and a political action by the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP). It argues that through these paradigms, social histories become central to philosophical thinking about subjectivity. Ahmed and Cavarero conceive of subjectivity through postural and spatial relations. To explore how spatial and postural relations generate subjectivities, I focus on an example of a deliberate political takeover of (...) space. In the article, Ahmed and Cavarero's concepts are explored through a historical analysis of the 1982 takeover of Holy Cross Church (London, UK) by the ECP. This political action offers a different starting point for philosophical inquiry and proposes an additional response by orienting and inclining us towards a feminist coalitional practice and commons that builds support without minimising difference. The paper will show that the conceptual tools of Cavarero, Ahmed and the ECP can be productively brought into conversation and used to conceptualise maternal inclinations through queer spatial relations and feminist coalitional practices. (shrink)

In this paper, I tackle Aquinas’s notion of ‘natural inclinations’, specifically as it occurs in his seminal elaboration of the natural law in Summa Theologiae I-II. Question 94. Article 2. Maintaining that it constitutes a departure from Aristotle’s terminology, and is hence puzzling, I go on to investigate a raft of modern, mainly Anglophone, interpretations of the concept. Beginning with Jacques Maritain, I move through the broadly chronological sequence of John Finnis, Jean Porter, Steven Jensen, Justin Matchulat and Stephen Brock. (...) In each case, I argue that – despite these scholars’ philosophical ingenuity and textual facility – there are crucial problems with their respective approaches and construals. I end the paper by outlining my own construal of ‘natural inclinations’, which, even if not bolstered by heavy textual scholarship, is at least coherent and, moreover, avoids the philosophical pitfalls of the above interpretations. (shrink)

Freedom, justice, and inclinations of the will have significant roles in St. Anselm’s moral theory, as does, I argue, virtues and vices, which can be understoodin relation to freedom and justice and as inclinations of the will. The first section of the paper discusses the relationship between freedom, justice, and the will inAnselm’s works. The second part explores Anselm’s distinctions between different aspects of the human will, as will-as-instrument, will-as-use, and will-as-inclination, then examines his further distinction of the latter (...) into the will-for-justice and will-for-benefit. The third part then argues that the will-as-inclination-for-justice takes determinate forms as virtues, which may be understood as ways of properly using and preserving human freedom. (shrink)

At first glance, it may appear perplexing to join the ancient concept of “mimesis” with the contemporary concept of “inclinations” via the title of “mimetic inclinations” – and for more than one re...

Aquinas does not argue that natural inclinations per se suffice for moral absolutes, but rather that they suffice to make their objects known as self-evidently good for persons. Acting for the contrary of a natural inclination thereby harms persons and is contrary to the Bonum Precept (Good is to be done and pursued; evil is to be avoided). Acting for a self-evident good, however, becomes morally obligatory only when indispensable.

There is a puzzle in the very notion of passive motivation ("passion" or "inclination"). To be motivated is not simply to be moved from the outside. Motivation is in some sense self-movement. But how can an agent be passive with respect to her own motivation? How is passive motivation possible? In this paper I defend the ancient view that inclination stems from a motivational source independent of reason, a motivational source that is both agential and nonrational.

What drives bodies together? What inclines them towards one another? What keeps these bodies inclined towards each other as the world around them continues to fall apart? In this article, I argue that the circulation of grief and anger produces a choral inclination, a relationality forged through our emotional responses to loss. Coming together through this choral inclination allows us to acknowledge loss, confront its conditions, and enact a collective response to it. I engage with feminist philosopher Adriana (...) Cavarero’s concept of inclination and its further development by political theorist Bonnie Honig to theorize the posture and politics of togetherness. Both thinkers turn to prefabricated relationships – between mother and child or sisters – and in proposing an alternative, I offer choral inclination to help theorize the dynamics that bring people together when neither these prefigured relationships nor access to care is readily available. I turn to grief and anger as emotions that circulate in the context of loss, and pluralize the affective responses through which our bodies incline and thus politicize one another. I develop these claims through a novel reading of Euripides’ Hecuba. In the final section, I briefly explore the motivations and leadership structure found within the Movement for Black Lives to link develop the implications for choral inclination for feminist and democratic politics. In contrast to commonplace frameworks that consider tragedy in primarily its historical context, I mobilize ancient tragedy to help theorize and enact feminist responses to the contemporary context. (shrink)

In this article I take up the image of inclination developed by Adriana Cavarero in her book, Inclinations: A Critique of Rectitude as a mode of developing an account of history informed by an ontology of heterogeneous ethics. Clarifying the potential of inclination contra the Kantian figure of “uprightness,” the principle task of this article is to reimagine the implications of inclination with regard to Walter Benjamin’s theses on history. Ultimately, I show that by pushing at the (...) relationality inherent to an inclined ontology of the self a meaningful exchange can be generated between plural historical temporalities, a move that reveals the inclined figure’s potential to redeem narratives of the historically dispossessed. (shrink)

Feeling like doing something is not the same as deciding to do it. When you feel like doing something, you are still free to decide to do it or not. You are having an inclination to do it, but you are not thereby determined to do it. I call this the moment of drama. This book is about what you are faced with, in this moment. How should you relate to the inclinations you “have,” given that you are free (...) to “act on” them or not? To answer this question, we need an account of what sort of thing we are relating to, in this moment. But here we find a genuine philosophical problem. Our inclinations are forms of motivation, with respect to which we are distinctively passive. To be motivated is to be self-moved. But how can we be passive in relation to our own self-movement? Is our relation to our inclinations like that of rider to horse? Or is it like our relation to our own, spontaneous judgments or perceptions? I lay out three constraints on any theory of inclination, and I argue that familiar theories fail to meet them, because they make being inclined to φ‎ too similar or dissimilar to φ‎-ing. I then put forward the “inner animal” view, which holds that when you are merely inclined to act, the instinctive part of yourself is already active, while the rest of you is not. In this moment, your will is “at a crossroads.” You can humanize your inclination, or dehumanize yourself. (shrink)

In this article I further Adriana Cavarero and Nidesh Lawtoo’s discussion of “mimetic inclination” to consider the way a person can be known in their uniqueness. Cavarero says that we receive a sense of the uniqueness of another by relating their narrative. I suggest that this also reveals a sense of the uniqueness of the one narrating, and that this can be understood as a practice of care. This narration is, as a consequence, distinct from representation (which itself is (...) distinct from mimesis) and is better described as apprehension. By drawing on Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, I detail a primary form of care connected to apprehension that is engendered by what Sharpe calls “the weather of antiblackness”. Morrison both details this form of care in Beloved and practises it herself in her storytelling. This expands feminist analyses of vulnerability, providing critical resources for rethinking existence apart from its colonial and patriarchal articulation. (shrink)

A stranger runs out of a bank while I am sitting at the wheel of my car waiting for the lights to change; he jumps in beside me, points a gun at me, and says, “Drive me to St. Bruno.” This is Andre Gombay's example, from his excellent paper on duress. The question that interests Gombay and me is: Could I refrain from doing what the gunman asks?

When fcc single crystals with high-symmetry crystal orientations are deformed to moderate strains by rolling, tension or channel die compression, long dislocation boundaries inclined to the extension axis form. Similarly, long dislocation boundaries are often found in grains embedded in polycrystals deformed in the same manner. These extended planar boundaries are characteristically - 30-40° from the extension direction and contain the transverse specimen axis. The objective of the present article is to demonstrate that EPBs formed during plane strain deformation are (...) parallel to equivalent slip planes, a pair of hypothetical slip systems used for analyses of the strain and crystal rotation components in place of the larger number of physical slip systems. The coincidence of EPBs and equivalent slip plane inclinations is shown to account for persistent observations of EPBs in the angle range - 30-40° from the rolling direction, in rolled single crystals of various initial orientations. The tendency of EPBs towards tilt or twist boundary character can also be rationalized on the basis of the equivalent slip system concept and consideration of the dislocation types available to be incorporated into EPBs. (shrink)

Organisations have implemented intensive home-based teleworking in response to global COVID-19 lockdowns and other pandemic-related restrictions. Financial pressures are driving organisations to continue intensive teleworking after the pandemic. Understanding employees’ teleworking inclinations post COVID-19, and how these inclinations are influenced by different factors, is important to ensure any future, more permanent changes to teleworking policies are sustainable for both employees and organisations. This study, therefore, investigated the relationships between the context of home-based teleworking during the pandemic, productivity perceptions during home-based (...) teleworking, and employees’ future teleworking inclinations beyond the pandemic. Specifically, the study examined whether pandemic-teleworking conditions related to the job, and the physical and social environments at home, influenced employees’ FTI, and if perceptions of improved or reduced productivity mediated these relationships. Data were collected during April and May 2020 with a cross-sectional online survey of teleworkers in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and other countries during the first COVID-19 lockdowns. Reported FTI were mixed. Most participants reported wanting to telework more post-pandemic compared to before the pandemic; however, 18% wanted to telework less. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that some teleworking conditions were positively associated with FTI. Other teleworking conditions were not associated with FTI. Perceived changes in productivity mediated the relationship between work privacy fit and FTI. Findings highlight the role of work privacy fit and job demands in influencing pandemic productivity perceptions and teleworking inclinations post-pandemic. Results raise questions about the suitability and sustainability of home-based teleworking for all staff. As organisations plan to increase the proportion of teleworking post-pandemic, this study suggests there is a need to support employees who perceived their productivity to be poor while home-working during the pandemic. (shrink)

Tamar Schapiro has offered an important new ‘Kantian’ account of inclination and motivation, one that expands and refines Christine Korsgaard’s view. In this article I argue that Kant’s own view differs significantly from Schapiro’s. Above all, Kant thinks of inclinations as dispositions, not occurrent desires; and he does not believe that they stem directly from a non-rational source, as she argues. Schapiro’s ‘Kantian’ view rests on a much sharper distinction between the rational and non-rational parts of the soul. In (...) the process of explaining these differences, I argue that Kant’s own view is in some respects philosophically superior to Schapiro’s. (shrink)

Four primary ethical behaviors are explored in five situations among 258 undergraduate students, mostly in public relations (PR), in two mid?Atlantic public universities. Student self?reported ethical beliefs are found to be multidimensional, with data suggesting interpretations based on theories of reasoned action.

The paper defends a version of the perceptual account of bodily feelings, according to which having a feeling is feeling something about one’s body. But it rejects the idea, familiar in the work of William James, that what one feels when one has a feeling is something biological about one’s body. Instead it argues that to have a bodily feeling is to feel an apparent bodily indication of something – a bodily appearance. Being aware of what one’s body is apparently (...) indicating to one is being aware of something about one’s body, but the focus of attention is on what is apparently being indicated, which is not something about one’s body. This is one way of making sense of the idea in contemporary phenomenology that the body is conspicuous in feelings that do not take the body as an object of awareness. Bodily inclinations are apparent indications of what one is going to do, and it is argued that feeling one’s bodily inclinations constitutes an important class of bodily feelings – e.g. feeling like crying or feeling like being sick. Such inclinations are often felt through a process of resisting them. Bodily inclinations also have some intentionality, albeit quite limited, and this goes some way towards explaining Peter Goldie’s concept of feelings towards. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that Kant’s moral psychology draws from the dualist tradition of Plato and Aristotle, which takes there to be distinct rational and non-rational parts of the soul. My aim is to challenge the air of obviousness that psychological dualism enjoys in neo-Kantian moral psychology, specifically in regard to Tamar Schapiro’s account of the nature of inclination. I argue that Kant’s own account of inclination instead provides evidence of his commitment to psychological monism, the idea that (...) the mentality of an adult human being is rational through and through. I first consider Schapiro’s “intuitions” in favour of dualism: inclination must have a non-rational source, she contends, because they assail us unbidden and are not immediately responsive to volition, and because we are not responsible simply for having inclinations (only for acting on them). I explain how a monistic account of the nature of inclination can accommodate the first two points, and explain why the third neither is a point a Kantian can accept, nor is its denial the affront to common sense that Schapiro supposes. Then I turn to Schapiro’s aim to conceive of reflection as non-rational and thus independent of justificatory thought, and yet such as to induce rational reflection. I argue that it remains mysterious how inclination, on her account, could be resourced to play this role; and with that criticism in mind, I conclude by making a positive case for Kant’s conceiving of inclination in monistic terms, as an expression of rational mindedness. (shrink)

I argue for a novel interpretation of Leibniz’s conception of the kind of contingency that matters for freedom, which I label ‘agential contingency.’ In brief, an agent is free to the extent that she determines herself to do what she judges to be the best of several considered options that she could have brought about had she concluded that these options were best. I use this novel interpretation to make sense of Leibniz’s doctrine that the reasons that explain free actions (...) are merely inclining and not necessitating. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas recognizes natural inclination to be present everywhere in nature, and this inclination is always toward what is good both for the natural thing itself and also for the universe as a whole. Thomas’s primary example of natural inclination is found in the four simple elements, which have natural inclinations to their natural places. The inclination of these non-living elements is then the basis for understanding that natural human inclinations are towards goods for the human (...) person and that the whole world shows a universal intelligent ordering toward what is good. I argue, however, that the natural inclination of non-living, natural bodies to ends that are good for the elements themselves makes good sense in Thomas’s cosmology, but not in ours. Natural substances still show finality in our cosmos, but in a more restricted way than what Thomas was able to find. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE RECTITUDE OF INCLINATION NICHOLAS INGHAM, 0.P. Provincial Archives Providence, Rhode Island 0 F THE MOST plausible mainline treatments of the relation of inclination to action and of their combination to moral estimation-Kantian, Classical Utilitarian, and Aristotelian-Thomist--only the third, remarkably enough, provides for the possibility of intrinsic rectitude as regards inclination. For Kant, of course, inclination is not only indifferent to morality but censurable as (...) a criterion for action; indeed, any act done from inclination is, for Kant, pre-moral at best and immoral at worst. Classical Utilitarianism would appear to hold that the desire for pleasure, since it is correct by nature, must also be indefectibly and intrinsically correct. But this is not so, since in any choice situation an inclination toward a given pleasure, right by nature, may be counterbalanced by competing claims, whether these claims themselves arise from other inclinations within the one moral subject or from distinct subjects with differing claims. Hence, Classical Utilitarianism must accept a doctrine of extrinsic correctness as regards the evaluation of any inclination unless the version in question can establish a universally valid overriding principle of right-in which case it is Utilitarianism no longer but some form of deontological ethics. Only in the moral thought of Aristotle and Aquinas do we actually find a plausible case for the rectitude of inclination. And it is therefore surprising that so little attention has been paid this and that so many doctrinal Aristotelian-Thomists seem unaware of it. For many scholars, otherwise well acquainted with the basic philosophical views defended by St. Thomas Aquinas in his 417 418 NICHOLAS INGHAM, O.P. Aristotelian commentaries, remain surprisingly unfamiliar with one of the most interesting parts of his metaphysics of morals: right appetite, inclination, or emotion as an integral part of moral science, moral activity, and reflexive knowledge of the morality of conduct and of disposition.' I should like to set out what seem to me to be the general Aristotelian-Thomist views, as expressed in the commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, and to develop from them a full account of intrinsic, extrinsic, stable, and per se rectitude as regards inclination or appetite. The first step in this development requires us to consider whether a moral science is possible and, if so, of what kind it must be. I Initially both St. Thomas and Aristotle appear to neglect altogether the problem whether there can be moral science as such. In listing the five intellectual virtues (understanding, science, wisdom, prudence, and art) neither mentions a science of right action. Would such a discipline be theoretical? Ordinarily the theoretical sciences in Aristotle and Aquinas perfect only theoretical powers. Does right action fall only under prudence? Prudence ordinarily is taken to be a practical virtue, not one specifically pertaining to the sciences. Three solutions to the difficulty offer themselves at once: first, moral science belongs essentially among ·the theoretical disciplines, even where allowance is made for the inclusion of practical elements in some methodologically defensible way; second, it is science but only in a highly derivative and improper sense and, in fact, is more correctly treated as providing something like a schema for the exercise of the cardinal virtues, especially prudence; third, it is thoroughly scientific in the strict and unqualified sense of the term, yet essentially not a theoretical but a practical discipline. 1 It is surprising how little serious attention seems to have been paid to Aristotle's remark in Ethics VII, 3, 1147a26-28, that, while the immediate conclusion of theoretical reasoning is affirmation, the immediate result of practical reasoning is action. THE RECTITUDE OF INCLINATION 419 The first solution, as one might easily imagine, has been championed by many of the most illustrious commentators. John of St. Thomas appears to hold that moral science is, as such, purely theoretical, even though it has practical application in prudential application.2 Maritain seems to believe that it is the theoretical treatment of a subject matter intrinsically practical in nature.3 Lottin holds that it is speculatively practical-a mixture 2 "Scientia moralis potest dupliciter considerari; uno modo, ut etiam includit prudentiam, alio modo, ut earn excludit et solum versatur circa cognitionem virtutum... (shrink)

Dispositional essentialists U. T. Place, George Molnar, and C. B. Martin hold that dispositions are intrinsically directed to their manifestations. Thomists have noted that this directedness is similar to Thomistic directedness to an end. I argue that Place, Molnar, and Martin would benefit from conceiving of dispositional directedness as the sort of directedness associated with Thomistic inclinations. Such Thomistic directedness can help them to account for the production of manifestations; to justify their reliance on dispositional directedness; to show the causal (...) relevance of dispositions; and to motivate their view that dispositions are not reducible to categorical bases. I argue, moreover, that Thomistic inclination to an end does not succumb to the most common objections to finality: it is not mentalistic or vitalistic, and it does not involve backwards causation. Place, Molnar, and Martin, therefore, can embrace the directedness associated with Thomistic inclination—and reap its benefits—without incurring any high metaphysical cost. (shrink)

Natural law ethics holds that practical rationality consists in engaging in non-defective ways with a range of fundamental goods. These basic goods are characteristically presented as reflecting the natural properties of humans, but the details of this picture vary widely. This article argues that natural law ethics can usefully be understood as a type of dispositional theory of value, which identifies the basic goods with those objectives that humans are characteristically disposed to pursue and value for their own sake. Natural (...) law theories of practical rationality can then be understood as attempts to capture the principles that would govern engagement with the basic goods under ideal conditions. The article begins by offering an account of normative inclinations as human dispositions both to act in certain ways and to believe that the actions are worthwhile or required. It then explores the implications of this account for natural law ethics, discussing the role of the basic goods in practical rationality, whether the goods may change over time and the connection between the goods and human nature. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Honig’s critical reworking of the concept of inclination and her concept of “slow regicide”. With “slow regicide” Honig describes a performative critique of the violence of the patriarchal order. However, what Honig underestimates, I argue, is that this intervention must itself be non-violent if it is not to reinstate patriarchal violence. My suggestion is that paying closer attention to the performativity of inclination shows how “slow regicide” enables a non-violent refusal in which the normativity (...) of patriarchy is frustrated and fails. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging interview Priscilla Alderson discusses how she came to research parental and childhood consent and became a sociologist and how, late in her career, she became convenor of the critical realism group started by Roy Bhaskar at the Institute for Education in London. She discusses aspects of her seminal research over the years on multiple subjects, such as the rights of children, and reflects on what critical realism has added to her social research.

When Carl Wellman introduced the reasoning-type conduction, he endorsed a dialectical view on natural language argumentation. Contemporary scholarship, by contrast, treats conductive argument predominantly on a product view. Not only did Wellman’s reasons for a dialectical view thus fall into disregard; a product-treatment of conduction also flouts the standard semantics of ‘argument’. Attempting to resolve these difficulties, our paper traces Wellman’s preference for a dialectical view to the role of defeasible warrants. These act as stand-ins for value hierarchies that arguers (...) of normal suasory inclination find acceptable. We also improve on extant ways of diagramming conduction and distinguish two of its structural variants. (shrink)

In De Caelo III 2, Aristotle observes that each element is determined by an intrinsic principle to move to its proper place: earth downward, fire upward, and water and air to their respective places in the middle. However, how are we to determine the cause of elemental motion? Aristotle admits that this ranks among the most difficult problems (μάλιστα δ’ ἀπορεῖται) as it is directly related to the argument of Physics VIII 4, which defends the view that whatever is in (...) motion is moved by something. The question of how the elements move is not resolved until we are presented with his definition of inclination (ῥοπή) in De Caelo IV 1. Inclination is the nature of each element to move to its proper place. Aristotle concludes that the principle of inclination is a cause of motion continuously orienting the elements toward their proper places by activating that which is potentially heavy or potentially light. In what follows, I shall demonstrate the internal coherence of Aristotle’s natural philosophy by deploying inclination as a principle of motion and rest to define the nature of each element. This account of inclination as a principle of motion is consistent with Aristotle’s definition of nature in Physics II 1. As an active principle of motion, inclination is identified with the activity (ἐνέργεια) of the element enacting and maintaining its own end (ἐντελέχεια) by being at rest in its proper place. As a passive principle of motion, inclination is identified with the passivity of the element to be moved to its proper place by another element insofar as the respective element undergoes generation or substantial change. (shrink)