Robust Virtue Epistemology As Anti‐Luck Epistemology: A New Solution

Robust Virtue Epistemology (RVE) maintains that knowledge is achieved just when an agent gets to the truth through, or because of, the manifestation of intellectual virtue or ability. A notorious objection to the view is that the satisfaction of the virtue condition will be insufficient to ensure the safety of the target belief; that is, RVE is no anti‐luck epistemology. Some of the most promising recent attempts to get around this problem are considered and shown to ultimately fail. Finally, a new proposal for defending RVE as a kind of anti‐luck epistemology is defended. The view developed here turns importantly on the idea that knowledge depends on ability and luck in a way that is gradient, not rigid, and that we know just when our cognitive success depends on ability not rather, but more so, than luck.     

感恩:一种积极的生活取向

感恩是一种觉察和感激生命积极机能的生活取向,不仅源于他人的帮助行为,也源于个体对生命积极机能的觉知。积极生活取向的感恩对个体的人格特质、幸福感、人际互动、健康都具有积极的意义。开拓新的研究方法,进一步探寻感恩的作用机制是未来研究的方向。     

A Puzzle Concerning Gratitude and Accountability

P.F. Strawson’s account of moral responsibility in “Freedom and Resentment” has been widely influential. In both that paper and in the contemporary literature, much attention has been paid to Strawson’s account of blame in terms of reactive attitudes like resentment and indignation. The Strawsonian view of praise in terms of gratitude has received comparatively little attention. Some, however, have noticed something puzzling about gratitude and accountability. We typically understand accountability in terms of moral demands and expectations. Yet gratitude does not express or enforce moral demands or expectations. So, how is it a way to hold an agent accountable? In a more general manner, we might ask if there is even sense to be made of the idea that agents can be accountable—i.e., “on the hook”—in a positive way. In this paper, I clarify the relationship between gratitude and moral accountability. I suggest that accountability is a matter of engaging with others in a way that is basically concerned with their feelings and attitudes rather than solely a matter of moral demands. Expressions of gratitude are a paradigmatic form of this concerned engagement. I conclude by defending my view from the objection that it leads to an overly generous conception of holding accountable and suggest in reply that moral responsibility skeptics may not help themselves to as many moral emotions as they might have thought.

     

感恩：积极心理研究的新领域

感恩有助于增强个人的生活幸福感、促进人与人之间的交往,有益于社会生活。随着积极心理学研究的深入,感恩也逐渐受到了国外学者的关注,研究也取得了一定的成果.论文介绍了感恩的界定、测量及其相关因素.提出了在中国文化背景下研究感恩和将感恩研究应用于实践的建议。     

Virtue in Virtue Ethics

This paper represents two polemics. One is against suggestions (made by Harman and others) that recent psychological research counts against any claim that there is such a thing as genuine virtue (Cf. Harman, in: Byrne, Stalnaker, Wedgwood (eds.) Fact and value, pp 117–127, 2001). The other is against the view that virtue ethics should be seen as competing against such theories as Kantian ethics or consequentialism, particularly in the specification of decision procedures.     

做知恩善报的穆斯林

《古兰经》说:"我确已把智慧赏赐鲁格曼,[我说]:‘你当感谢真主。感谢的人,只为自己而感谢,辜负的人,须知真主确是无求的,确是可颂的。’"(31:12)经文告诉我们,真主赐予鲁格曼贤哲的智慧中,就有感恩一项,而且,要知道感恩对自己有好处;而不知道感恩的人,则对自己有伤害,会导致贫穷和声誉受损。《古兰经》还反复告诉我们这样的道理:"感谢者,只为自己的利益而感谢;辜负者[须知]我的主确是无求的、确是尊荣的。’"(27:40)经文中说此话的人是苏莱曼圣人,他同样告诉我们感恩能带来利益和荣耀。     

Gratitude and Good Government

I attempt to show that it is notphilosophically incompetent to ground politicalobligation in feelings of gratitude. But theargument needs to be stated carefully.Gratitude must be distinguished fromreciprocity. It applies only to good governmentwhich provides benefits to citizens for whichthey ought to feel grateful. It applies only tocitizens who accept that their feelings ofgratitude are properly demonstrated by anacceptance on their part of the duties ofcitizenship. It does not apply to citizenswhose benefits are purchased at the expense ofthe unjust treatment of fellow citizens.     

西方公民道德研究

我国的民主法治社会最直接的价值依托是公民道德,公民道德建设是我国社会道德建设的核心。西方公民道德的四个理论问题：公民道德的本质、公民道德为何必要、公民道德与国家的关系、公民不服从,可为我国公民道德建设提供某种理论参照。     

A Virtue Politics for Liberal Democracy

The Journal of Value Inquiry -     

Gratitude for small and large favors: A behavioral test

The effect of large and small favors on gratitude was tested using a behavioral measure. Participants were 149 undergraduates (120 female, 29 male). Half received raffle tickets for a US$100 prize, and half received tickets for a US$10 prize. Some received tickets from another (fictitious) student, and others received tickets by chance. Participants receiving a favor subsequently distributed more tickets to the other student; participants receiving a more valuable favor also distributed more (ps?<?0.05). Self-reported grateful motivation predicted distribution better than did indebtedness. Grateful motivation mediated the relationship between favor and distribution (p?<?0.05). Results provide validity for a behavioral measure of gratitude, tentatively support favor value as a determinant of gratitude, and further differentiate between gratitude and indebtedness.     

In Gratitude: A Non-utopian Response to Roth and Santostefano

Roth and Santostefano have usefully expanded the dialogue about the environment's role in psychological functioning. Santostefano offers a clinical approach that utilizes landscapes in reworking trauma. Roth cautions that a utopian perspective falsely dichotomizes natural and cultivated into bifurcated categories of good and bad that were the underpinnings of Nazi purification. Further, such thinking neglects the role of desire in the conflicts of human nature. This reply builds on Santostefano and Roth to suggest that incorporating an environmental lens into psychoanalysis challenges the human condition to act willfully on behalf of its own survival.     

Gratitude,Citizenship and Education

Citizenship education is a complex matter, and not least the place of civic virtues in it. This is illustrated by a consideration of the civic virtue of gratitude. Two conceptions of gratitude are explored. Gratitude seen as a debt is examined and Kants exposition of it, including his objections to a persons getting himself into the position where he has to show gratitude as a beneficiary, is explored. An alternative conception of gratitude as recognition is developed. This, it is claimed, has more relevance to the kind of gratitude it would be appropriate for citizens of a democratic state to feel. The educational implications of these views are indicated.