Answering the Ethical Question

Many philosophers have attempted to answer the ‘ethical question’: can the ethical value of an artwork ever contribute to its aesthetic value, and if so, how? In this paper, I consider a methodological question that arises out of this discussion: should attempts to address the ethical question use analytic tools found in contemporary philosophical literature, art criticism, or some combination of the two? I concur with arguments proposed elsewhere, which suggest that art criticism has an important role to play in addressing the ethical question. However, I argue that any fruitful attempt to answer the question must defend some particular way of understanding the ethical value of artworks, which suggests that we should address what I label the ‘art question’: what is the role and importance of art? This question, I suggest, is one with which philosophers can usefully engage. This division of labour offers a way forward in addressing this important issue.     

Religion and Madness

The question I try to answer in this paper is: How should we distinguish mad from sane religious belief? After looking at the clear-cut but opposed answers of Freud and Jung, I then examine the modern psychiatric answer, particularly as presented in the DSM IV. After arguing that each of the three answers is unsatisfactory, I look at what I take to be the more promising approach of Con Drury, Wittgenstein’s friend and biographer, in an essay called “Madness and Religion,” where, drawing on the religious histories of Joan of Arc, George Fox and Tolstoy and three of his own psychiatric patients, Drury suggests that there is no objective yet ethical way to make the distinction. This leads to my own answer, which is that the best we can do is to distinguish mad from neurotic religious belief; and hence that the safest position, although not the most comfortable, is the neurotic one.     

Moral Emotions

Emotions can be the subject of moral judgments; they can also constitute the basis for moral judgments. The apparent circularity which arises if we accept both of these claims is the central topic of this paper: how can emotions be both judge and party in the moral court? The answer I offer regards all emotions as potentially relevant to ethics, rather than singling out a privileged set of moral emotions. It relies on taking a moderate position both on the question of the naturalness of emotions and on that of their objectivity as revealers of value: emotions are neither simply natural nor socially constructed, and they apprehend objective values, but those values are multi‐dimensional and relative to human realities. The “axiological” position I defend jettisons the usual foundations for ethical judgments, and grounds these judgments instead on a rationally informed reflective equilibrium of comprehensive emotional attitudes, tempered with a dose of irony.     

Duties to Make Friends

Why, morally speaking, ought we do more for our family and friends than for strangers? In other words, what is the justification of special duties? According to partialists, the answer to this question cannot be reduced to impartial moral principles. According to impartialists, it can. This paper briefly argues in favour of impartialism, before drawing out an implication of the impartialist view: in addition to justifying some currently recognised special duties, impartialism also generates new special duties that are not yet widely recognised. Specifically, in certain situations, impartial principles generate duties to take actions and adopt attitudes in our personal lives that increase the chance of new or different special relationships being formed—new or different friendships, family-like relationships, relationships akin to co-nationality, and so on. In fact, even if one thinks partialism is the best justification of the duties we have once in special relationships, impartialist justifications for taking steps to form such relationships should have some sway. Moreover, a little reflection shows that these duties are not as demanding or counterintuitive as one might expect.     

Ethical Phenomenology and Metaethics

In recent times, comments have been made and arguments advanced in support of metaethical positions based on the phenomenology of ethical experience – in other words, the feel that accompanies our ethical experiences. In this paper I cast doubt on whether ethical phenomenology supports metaethical positions to any great extent and try to tease out what is involved in giving a phenomenological argument. I consider three such positions: independent moral realism (IMR), another type of moral realism – sensibility theory – and noncognitivism. Phenomenological arguments have been used in support of the first two positions, but my general claim is that ethical phenomenology supports no metaethical position over any other.I discuss two types of phenomenological argument that might be offered in support of different types of moral realism, although I couch my debate in terms of IMR. The first argument asserts that ethical properties are not experienced in the way that rivals to IMR say we experience them. Against this I claim that it is odd to think that one could experience ethical properties as any metaethical theory characterizes them. The second argument is more complicated: the general thought is that an adequate metaethical theory should not distort our ethical experience unduly. I consider one aspect of our ethical experience – that there is some ethical authority to which our judgements answer – in order to illustrate this idea. I discuss why IMRealists might think that this phenomenon supports their position. Against them I claim that other metaethical positions might be able to accommodate the phenomenon of ethical authority. Even if they cannot, then, secondly, I argue that there are other aspects of our ethical experience that sit more naturally with other metaethical positions. Hence, one cannot argue that ethical phenomenology as a whole supports one theory over any others.     

A moral justification for killing in self-defence

In the first part of this paper I will argue that for a case to be one of killing in self-defence at least the following three important conditions need to be met: (i) the defender's death must seem to him/her to be imminent; (ii) there must be a choice forced upon the defender between being killed or killing his/her attacker; (iii) the responsibility for (i) and (ii) must be the attacker's. I go on to point out that a lethal use of force which meets conditions (i)—(iii) is thought by most people to be morally permissible. However we believe also that everyone has the right to life and this cannot be taken away under any circumstances. But if this is so, how can we justify one person intentionally killing another? Or to put the point differently: what, in our moral assessment of such cases, are we to claim an attacker has done that is so morally wrong we are prepared to argue that if one of them has to be killed, it is the attacker? I hope to answer this question in the second part of my paper by developing a strand of ethical thought, associated with Kant.     

To Live Is to Know,to Know Is to Change: Change in Personal Construct Psychology and Psychological Constructivism

This article deals with the subject of personal change. As such, one could be tempted to say that it deals with psychology as a whole: What else should psychology be concerned with? But this is not exactly how things are, as I will argue by answering a first question: Is psychology, as a discipline, mainly concerned with the study of human change? To a second question—whether personal construct theory (PCT) in particular is mainly concerned with the study of human change—I give an affirmative answer, after some necessary qualifications. I would like to dwell particularly on answering a third question: Can the way personal construct theory deals with change be regarded as centering around a peculiarity? I am convinced that the revolutionary and cutting-edge nature of PCT can be fully appreciated only by pinpointing and highlighting such a peculiarity. In discussing this, I find it convenient to answer a last question: Is the way PCT deals with change akin to the way other theories handle it? After having discussed personal change as it is treated in PCT, I give a bird's eye view of the contribution of personal construct psychology to the fields of psychology more concerned with change—namely, developmental and educational psychology. The last part of the article will focus on the role of change in clinical psychology, and on what Kelly pointed out as the focus of convenience of his theoretical construction: personal construct psychotherapy as a relational process aimed at favoring a personal change.     

Global ethics: increasing our positive impact

Global ethics is no ordinary subject. It includes some of the most urgent and momentous issues the world faces, such as extreme poverty and climate change. Given this, any adequate review of that subject should, I suggest, ask some questions about the relation between what those working in that subject do and the real-world phenomena that are the object of their study. The main question I focus on in this essay is this: should academics and others working in the field of global ethics take new measures aimed at having more real-world positive impact on the phenomena they study? Should they take new measures, that is, aimed at bringing about more improvements in those phenomena, improvements such as reductions in extreme poverty and in emissions of greenhouse gases? I defend a positive answer to this question against some objections, and also discuss some of the kinds of measure we might take in an attempt to have more positive impact.     

On Understanding Worship in School. Part One: on schooling and education

As worship in school is currently a topic of public debate, it may be useful to re‐examine one of the influential books on the subject,School Worship, an Obituary, by Professor J.M. Hull, published in 1975. I shall argue that it was mistaken in important respects. His case for the abolition of worship in schools was made on essentially philosophical grounds. He sought not just to make the weak point that it is increasingly difficult to overcome many of the practical obstacles, but to make the stronger claim that the practice is conceptually incoherent. This is what makes his position a philosophical one and, as such, subject to philosophical scrutiny. One of the factors that appears to influence Hull's position is his conception of philosophy. Despite his careful analysis of the concepts of education and worship, at a critical point his account seems to rely on a form of philosophical evidential‐ism. In opposition to Hull, I take the view that this is a mistake. A more consistent, philosophical approach of conceptual clarification would have shown that there are various forms of education and that, in at least one case, it not only makes sense to worship as a part of the educational process, but that worship is of its essence as its motivation, substance and goal. The implication of this conclusion is that politicians are not intellectually confused in insisting on a form of education in which worship has an integral role. Whether it is practicable, socially desirable and politically reasonable in an increasingly secular and religiously plural society is quite another matter. Given the current state of society, one might conclude that the government should take a more pluralistic approach through its legislation. The government is there to serve a variety of communities and interests. One might reasonably argue that if the state‐school system is genuinely to serve this plural society there should be more scope for incorporating into the education system a diversity of practice. There might then be different schools with distinctive concepts of education, consistent with the needs and aspirations of the diverse communities and interests. In this part of the article I shall look particularly at the way in which schooling might accommodate a variety of activities and raise the question as to why worship might not be one of them. Hull's answer seems to hinge on the definition of worship and on the definition of education. The former I shall examine in Part Two, but here I shall seek to identify and examine that feature of education that Hull claims would exclude worship in school.     

I—Liberty's Chains

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question 'What problem is the General Will designed to solve?' I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy.     

The ethics of enforced medical treatment: the balance model

ABSTRACT When is it right to enforce medical treatment on a patient who is refusing that treatment? English law recognises two ethical principles as of paramount importance: the autonomy of the patient; and the consequences of not treating compared with treating. The law, by and large, operates these principles in succession. Thus, in the case of a patient refusing treatment, the law asks first, is the patient competent? Only if the answer is no, are the consequences considered. We criticise the position taken by English law and argue, first, that competence is a graded and not a binary concept, and secondly, that the two ethical principles should be applied not sequentially but at the same time. These two ideas form what we have called the balance model. This model could be used for an empirical study of individuals’ ethical beliefs, and in particular to test the hypothesis that the ethical beliefs of most individuals conform to the balance model rather than to the position taken by English law.     

Kant and Kantians on “the Normative Question”

After decades of vigorous debate, many contemporary philosophers in the Kantian tradition continue to believe, or at least hope, that morality can be given a firm grounding by showing that rational agents cannot consistently reject moral requirements. In the present paper, I do not take a stand on the possibility of bringing out the alleged inconsistency. Instead I argue that, even if a successful argument could be given for this inconsistency, this would not provide an adequate answer to “the normative question” (i.e., “why should I be moral?”). My defense of this claim emerges from a defense of a claim about Kant, namely, that he did not attempt to answer the normative question in this way. After carefully articulating Kant’s answer to the normative question, I argue that his answer to this question contains a lesson about why we should not embrace the approach that is popular among many contemporary Kantians.     

Moral Obligation and Moral Motivation in Confucian Role-Based Ethics

How is the Confucian moral agent motivated to do what he or she judges to be right or good? In western philosophy, the answer to a question such as this depends on whether one is an internalist or externalist concerning moral motivation. In this article, I will first interpret Confucian ethics as role-based ethics and then argue that we can attribute to Confucianism a position on moral motivation that is neither internalist nor externalist but somewhere in between. I will then illustrate my claim with my reading of Mencius 6A4, showing that it is superior to readings found in the literature, which typically assume that Mencius is an internalist.     

Movin’ on up: higher-level requirements and inferential justification

Does inferential justification require the subject to be aware that her premises support her conclusion? Externalists tend to answer “no” and internalists tend to answer “yes”. In fact, internalists often hold the strong higher-level requirement that an argument justifies its conclusion only if the subject justifiably believes that her premises support her conclusion. I argue for a middle ground. Against most externalists, I argue that inferential justification requires that one be aware that her premises support her conclusion. Against many internalists, I argue that this higher-level awareness needn’t be doxastic or justified. I also argue that the required higher-level awareness needn’t be caused in some appropriate way, e.g. by a reliable or properly functioning faculty. I suspect that this weaker higher-level requirement is overlooked because, at first glance, it seems absurd to allow nondoxastic, unjustified, and unreliably-caused higher-level awareness to contribute to inferential justification. One of the central goals of this paper is to explain how such weak awareness can make an essential contribution to inferential justification.     

Consciousness, accessibility, and the mesh between psychology and neuroscience

How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural machinery of the cognitive access that underlies reports of phenomenal consciousness? We see the problem in stark form if we ask how we can tell whether representations inside a Fodorian module are phenomenally conscious. The methodology would seem straightforward: Find the neural natural kinds that are the basis of phenomenal consciousness in clear cases--when subjects are completely confident and we have no reason to doubt their authority--and look to see whether those neural natural kinds exist within Fodorian modules. But a puzzle arises: Do we include the machinery underlying reportability within the neural natural kinds of the clear cases? If the answer is "Yes," then there can be no phenomenally conscious representations in Fodorian modules. But how can we know if the answer is "Yes"? The suggested methodology requires an answer to the question it was supposed to answer! This target article argues for an abstract solution to the problem and exhibits a source of empirical data that is relevant, data that show that in a certain sense phenomenal consciousness overflows cognitive accessibility. I argue that we can find a neural realizer of this overflow if we assume that the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness does not include the neural basis of cognitive accessibility and that this assumption is justified (other things being equal) by the explanations it allows.     

Radical Passivity: Ethical Problem or Solution? A Preliminary Investigation

Abstract

In our present-day Western society, there has been an increasing tendency towards individualism and indifference and away from altruism and empathy. This has led to a resurgence of ethical concerns in contemporary Continental philosophy. Following the thinking of philosophers such as Emmanuel Levinas, ethics has come to be defined in terms of a disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others. Levinas claims that taking care of others in need is not a free, rational decision, but a fundamental responsibility that is pre-consciously felt. We are passively obligated before we can actively choose to help. Levinas therefore argues that the needy other incapacitates our normal selfish ways, and that this ‘radical passivity’ enables us to recognise our inherent responsibility towards others in need. Levinas’s own thinking on this subject is not unambiguous, however. While his early works stress the fact that we cannot care for others if we do not first take care of ourselves, his later works focus exclusively on the other as locus of our ethical responsibility. Following this line of thinking, a false opposition has emerged between an absolutised egoism and a crushing altruism that threatens to undermine the recent resurgence of ethical concerns. For how can we continue to care for others if we fail to recognise the duties we have towards ourselves? Moreover, what is the moral significance of responsible action if it is not freely chosen but passively imposed?     

An objection to gareth evans' account of self-identity

In chapter seven ‘Self Identification’ of his challenging book The Varieties of Reference, Gareth Evans attempts to give an account of how it is that one is able to think about oneself self‐consciously. On Evans’ view, when one attempts to think of oneself self‐consciously that person is having what he calls an ‘I’ thought. Since these ‘I’ thoughts are a case of reference, more specifically self‐reference, Evans thinks that these thoughts can be explained by employing the same theoretical framework that he uses to explain other kinds of reference. Evans thinks all thoughts are essentially structured, and this means that they must fall under his ‘generality constraint’. Since ‘I’ thoughts are also ‘thoughts’ they are essentially structured as well, and they too must be subject to the generality constraint. The radical implication of this is that Evans thinks that if ‘I’ thoughts are subject to the generality constraint, then he can show that self‐reference must be reference to a thing which we can locate on a spatio‐temporal map. In this article I hope to accomplish three things. First, I will spell out in detail the argument Evans uses to arrive at his claim that self‐reference must be reference to something located on a spatio‐temporal map. Second, I will raise an objection, which states that Evans’ conclusion that self‐reference must involve spatio‐temporal location is not a consequence of the generality constraint. Finally I will argue that Evans’ conclusion that self‐reference must involve spatio‐temporal location is in fact in tension with the generality constraint, rather than being an implication of it.     

TOPICAL EPISTEMOLOGIES

Abstract: What is the point of developing an epistemology for a topic—for example, morality? When is it appropriate to develop the epistemology of a topic? For many topics—for example, the topic of socks—we see no need to develop a special epistemology. Under what conditions, then, does a topic deserve its own epistemology? I seek to answer these questions in this article. I provide a criterion for deciding when we are warranted in developing an epistemological theory for a topic. I briefly apply this criterion to moral epistemology and argue that some approaches to moral epistemology should be abandoned. I also argue that we can develop an epistemology for a topic without committing ourselves to a specific substantive theory of justification, such as reliabilism or coherentism, if we work within a suitably neutral framework.     

Bringing the Body Back to Sexual Ethics

The body and bodily experience make little appearance in analytic moral philosophy. This is true even of analytic sexual ethics—the one area of ethical inquiry we might have expected to give a starring role to bodily experience. I take a small step toward remedying that by identifying one way in which the bodily experience of sex is ethically significant: some of the physical actions of sex have a default expressive significance, conveying trust, affection, care, sensitivity, enjoyment, and pleasure. When people having sex don't in fact have these feelings, the sex can be misleading, even if they've antecedently communicated that they don't have these feelings. This account of how sex can mislead is inspired by a perhaps surprising source, Catholic sexual morality. Analytic sexual ethicists could benefit from emulating Catholic sexual morality's attentiveness to the bodily nature of sex and its ethical significance.     

Infelicitous Cancellation: The Explicit Cancellability Test for Conversational Implicature Revisited

This paper questions the adequacy of the explicit cancellability test for conversational implicature as it is commonly understood. The standard way of understanding this test relies on two assumptions: first, that that one can test whether a certain content is (merely) conversationally implicated, by checking whether that content is cancellable, and second, that a cancellation is successful only if it results in a felicitous utterance. While I accept the first of these assumptions, I reject the second one. I argue that a cancellation can succeed even if it results in an infelicitous utterance, and that unless we take this possibility into account we run the risk of misdiagnosing philosophically significant cases.