Freedom and poverty in the Kantian state

The coercive authority of the Kantian state is rationally grounded in the ideal of equal external freedom, which is realized when each individual can choose and act without being constrained by another's will. This ideal does not seem like it can justify state‐mandated economic redistribution. For if one is externally free just as long as one can choose and act without being constrained by another, then only direct slavery, serfdom, or other systems of overt control seem to threaten external freedom. Yet Kant endows the freedom‐based state with considerable powers of economic redistribution. I argue that recent commentary has misunderstood both Kant's account of why poverty is a form of freedom‐threatening dependence and the extent of the Kantian state's powers for remedying poverty. Criticizing Arthur Ripstein and the Kantianism of the “Toronto‐School,” I argue that the most salient notion of dependence at issue within the Kantian framework is not the direct control of the choice‐making capacities of another but asymmetrical influence in a power relationship. For Kant, poverty is fundamentally a problem of structural disempowerment.     

ON BEING HEARD BUT NOT SEEN: MILBANK AND LASH ON AQUINAS,ANALOGY AND AGNOSTICISM

The article investigates an important recent dispute within systematic theology over the interpretation of Thomas Aquinas. John Milbank has defended the view that the doctrine of analogy in Aquinas is peculiarly implicated with his entire ontology, that it cannot be understood in merely semantic terms, and that it involves a less “agnostic” position on knowledge of God than is often assumed. The article critically engages this position in two ways. It offers an archaeology of the prior polemical context out of which the claim arose, for the meaning and purpose of Milbank's claim are illuminated once it is seen as the vigorous repudiation of a “grammatical” or “linguistic” interpretation of Thomas on analogy which had been proffered earlier by Nicholas Lash. It will also provide a close investigation of the citations and interpretations of Aquinas texts that Milbank uses to ground his position, in order to adjudicate the dispute with Lash. The result will be to call strongly into question the plausibility of Milbank's readings of Aquinas. The article also indicates at several points the way in which those readings are shaped by an overriding anti‐Kantian thrust in Milbank's entire approach to the discussion. In conclusion, it adumbrates the larger and older question which subtends the entire dispute: to what degree is some kind of vision or intuitive grasp of being as such, or of God's being, granted human beings in this life?     

Kant on Acting from Juridical Duty

ABSTRACT

A much debated passage in the Metaphysics of Morals often leads commentators to believe that it is not possible to act from juridical duty. On the one hand, Kant says that all lawgiving includes an incentive ‘which connects a ground to determining choice to this action subjectively with the representation of the law’ (MM: 218). On the other hand, he claims that juridical lawgiving ‘does not include the incentive of duty in the law’ (MM: 219). The first claim seems to entail that agents can perform a juridical duty for the sake of that duty; the second seems to entail that agents cannot perform a juridical duty for the sake of that duty. This paper shows that it is possible to reconcile both passages and to claim that one can act from juridical duty in Kant’s terms. First, it gives an account of what can be called the paradox of juridical duties. Second, it discusses briefly how responses to the paradox remain somewhat unsatisfactory. Finally, it clarifies how agents can act with no other incentive but the actual juridical duty without endangering the Kantian morality-law divide.     

Interpretation of Poverty in St. Louis County,Minnesota

The paper analyzes subjective poverty in St. Louis County, Minnesota with the methods of systematic data collection. The initial hypothesis states that American people blame the individuals for their poor living conditions. Based on the Easterlin paradox, the next hypothesis states that subjective and absolute poverty lines are independent. Taking into account that the USA is a developed country, subjective wellbeing is supposed to be associated with relative deprivation. The paper concludes that the items most related to poverty are “no job”, “no access to basic needs” and “addiction”. The main causes of poverty are “cycle of poverty”, “no job” and “addiction”. The main consequences of poverty are “no access to basic needs”, “poor health” and “minimum education”. The results revealed that the most important items related to poverty and the main causes and consequences of poverty cannot be classified unambiguously as being individualist, structural or fatal. The analysis showed that subjective poverty line is different from the objective lines. This result supports the Easterlin paradox and implies that people can be dissatisfied with their lives even when they are above the poverty line according to the official statistics. Elimination of absolute poverty may therefore not be enough to improve subjective well-being. The evidence that relative income assessment is not correlated with subjective well-being implies that people are not concerned with their relative income position.     

Heidegger,Communal Being,and Politics

There are two critical, but opposite interpretations of Heidegger’s understanding of being as a social ontology. One charges Heidegger with adhering to an anti-social “private irony,” while the other charges him with promoting a “self-canceling” totality. The current essay replies to these two charges with a discussion of Heidegger’s understanding of being as “communal being,” which is implicated both in the early Heidegger’s concept of “being-in-the-world-with-others” and in the later Heidegger’s keyword of Ereignis. It argues that Heidegger’s understanding of being as communal being is neither identical with totalitizing publicness nor the same as voluntaristic egotism. According to Heidegger, both the publicness of das Man and voluntaristic egotism are the real threats to humanity at present. Because of them, we human beings are in danger of being uprooted from the earth upon which we—as communal beings—have already and always dwelled and lived with others from the very beginning of human history.     

Social construction: big-G grounding,small-g realization

The goal of this paper is to make headway on a metaphysics of social construction. In recent work (forthcoming), I’ve argued that social construction should be understood in terms of metaphysical grounding. However, I agree with grounding skeptics like Wilson (Inquiry 1–45, 2014) that bare claims about what grounds what are insufficient for capturing, with fine enough grain, metaphysical dependence structures. To that end, I develop a view on which the social construction of human social kinds (e.g., race) is a kind of realization relation. Social kinds, I argue, are multiply realizable kinds. I depart from the Wilson by further arguing that an appeal to grounding is not otiose when it comes to social construction. Social construction, I claim, belongs to the “big-G” Grounding genus, but it is the specific “small-g” relation of realization at work in cases of human kind social construction.     

Beyond the east-west divide: rethinking the narrative of the Jews’ political status in Europe, 1600–1750

The enduring cliché of the east-west divide obscures the nature of the Jews’ changing political status in Europe: the period 1600–1750 cannot be described using the binary of a progressive “West” and a backward “east.” Rather, Jews in Western Europe developed a new political status of “civic parity” (Holland, England) or “corporate parity” (southern France), while Jews in Eastern Europe, especially in the private towns of magnate estates, similarly acquired a new status of “corporate parity” with Christian burghers. It was in Central Europe that Jews in this period lagged behind: while they gained a form of juridical standing in the Holy Roman Empire, their privileges were largely gained as individuals or collections of individuals. In terms of political status, the period is marked by a tripartite division of progressive west and a progressive east contrasted with a backward Central Europe.     

On thought experiments as a priori science

Against Norton's claim that all thought experiments can be reduced to explicit arguments, I defend Brown's position that certain thought experiments yield a priori knowledge. They do this, I argue, not by allowing us to perceive “Platonic universals” (Brown), even though they may contain non‐propositional components that are epistemically indispensable, but by helping to identify certain tacit presuppositions or “natural interpretations” (Feyerabend's term) that lead to a contradiction when the phenomenon is described in terms of them, and by suggesting a new natural interpretation in terms of which the phenomenon can be redescribed free of contradiction.     

Ideology and the Harms of Self-Deception: Why We Should Act to End Poverty

In thinking about global poverty, the question of moral motivation is of central importance: Why should the average person in the West feel morally compelled to do anything to help the poor? Various answers to this question have been constructed—and yet poverty persists. In this paper I will argue that, among other difficulties, the current approaches to the problem of poverty (from Peter Singer and Thomas Pogge) overlook a critical element: that poverty not only harms the poor, it harms every human being. Its existence forces us to live in a world where we are compelled by a pervasive ideology to eviscerate our own humanity and neglect our human impulses. Drawing on Karl Marx’s Aristotelian-influenced notion of our human essence as “species-being,” I will construct an account of moral motivation in the face of poverty that stems from a selfish desire to avoid these harms. Thus our moral impetus for acting to help the poor comes not from feelings of guilt about how poverty harms them, but rather from recognizing that poverty is harming all of us. By fighting against global poverty, we seek to make the world a better place for ourselves and the poor alike.     

Aristotle on the Unity of Composite Substance

Aristotle claims that a sensible substance is composed of form and matter, while he insists that it is a unity in a strict sense. So there is the question—in what sense can a composite thing be a unity? Aristotle’s key solution lies in his account of matter as potentiality and form as actuality. Many scholars are bewildered by his laconic solutions, and there are mainly two approaches undertaken in interpretations. One is called “projective”; the other is called “explanatory.” But neither interpretation is satisfying. The main tasks of this paper are to reexamine the problem and the two interpretations, then to argue that the composition of a sensible substance should be understood in light of its coming-to-be; that its unity refers to its being a functional unity.     

PEIRCE'S "ARCHITECTURE OF THEORIES" AND THE PROBLEM OF PRAGMATISM

The paper begins as a response to Tom Rockmore's thesis that contemporary pragmatism is a healthy “confusion” of disparate views. While Rockmore sees the need of some of today's pragmatists to provide a motivation for what he calls “epistemic optimism,” I contend that the crucial question of pragmatism, the problem of pragmatism, is the ontological status of pragmatic meaning. Thus rather than a mere “epistemic optimism,” I call upon pragmatists to assert a fallible yet unabashedly metaphysical optimism. The argument supporting this claim is made in the context of Peirce's “The Architecture of Theories.” In “The Architecture of Theories” Peirce opens the door to a pragmatic metaphysics while at the same time committing the error of subordinating truths and reality to “the long run of inquiry.” Rockmore suggest that the solution may lie in a return to Kant's notion of the “powers of the mind.” However, it is my contention that a solution to this problem cannot be found within Kant at all. I shall argue here that until contemporary pragmatism decisively extracts itself from the Kantian paradigm, the pragmatic philosophic value of pragmatic meaning will always be qualified, conditional and ontologically subordinated, having the same effect upon the standing of pragmatism as a philosophy as well. Moreover, I shall endeavor to show that when the Kantian paradigm is finally abandoned, pragmatism's classic difficulties with realism and what Peircc called “the long run” of scientific inquiry can also be resolved. Kantian “powers of the mind” and constructivist “epistemological optimism” would then be transformed into what I shall call unrestricted pragmatism. On the other hand if the Kantian impediment is not overcome, these difficulties will continue to form the basis of a more sceptical and traditionally restricted pragmatism, one which lacks the confidence desired by both Rockmore and myself.     

Responsibility Ethics,Shared Understandings,and Moral Communities

Margaret Walker's Moral Understandings offers an “expressive‐collaborative,” culturally situated, practice—based picture of morality, critical of a “theoretical‐juridical” picture in most prefeminist moral philosophy since Henry Sidgwick. This essay compares her approach to ethics with that of John Rawls, another exemplar of the “theoretical‐juridical” model, and asks how Walker's approach would apply to several ethical issues, including interaction with (other) animals, social reform and revolution, and basic human rights.     

Social Construction and Achieving Reference1

One influential view is that at least some putatively natural human kinds are actually social constructions, understood as some real kind of thing that is produced or sustained by our social and conceptual practices. Category constructionists share two commitments: they hold that human category terms like “race” (and racial terms) and “sex” (and sexual terms) and “homosexuality” and “perversion” actually refer to constructed categories, and they hold that these categories are widely but mistakenly taken to be natural kinds. But it is far from clear that these two commitments are consistent. The sort of mismatch between belief and underlying nature constructionists’ suppose is often taken to indicate a failure of reference. Reliance on a causal‐historical account of reference allows the preservation of reference, but unfortunately, constructionists' appropriation of causal historical accounts of reference is beset by difficulties that do not attend natural kind theorists’ appeals to such accounts. Here, I set out these difficulties, but argue that they can be answered, allowing terms for apparently natural human kinds refer to some sort of social construction about which there is massive error.     

Mind,Consciousness, and Free Will

This commentary discusses how philosophy and science can collaborate to understand the human mind, considering dialogues involving three philosophers and three cognitive scientists. Their topics include the relation of philosophy and science, the nature of mind, the problem of consciousness, and the existence of free will. I argue that philosophy is more general and normative than science, but they are interdependent. Philosophy can build on the cognitive sciences to develop a theory of mind I call “multilevel materialism,” which integrates molecular, neural, mental, and social mechanisms. Consciousness is increasingly being understood as resulting from neural mechanisms. Scientific advances make the traditional concept of free will implausible, but “freeish” will is consistent with new theories of decision making and action resulting from brain processes. Philosophers should work closely with scientists to address profound problems about knowledge, reality, and values.     

Time,quantum mechanics,and tense

The relational approach to tense holds that “the now”, “passage”, and “becoming” are to be understood in terms of relations between events. The debate over the adequacy of this framework is illustrated by a comparative study of the sense in which physical theories, (in)deterministic and (non)relativistic, can lend expression to the metaphysics at issue. The objective is not to settle the matter, but to clarify the nature of this metaphysics and to establish that the same issues are at stake in the relational approach to value-definiteness and probability in quantum mechanics. They concern the existence of a unique present, respectively actuality, and a notion of identity over time that cannot be paraphrased in terms of relations.     

On Brain, Soul, Self, and Freedom: An Essay in Bridging Neuroscience and Faith

The article begins at the intellectual fissure between many statements coming from neuroscience and the language of faith and theology. First I show that some conclusions drawn from neuroscientific research are not as firm as they seem: neuroscientific data leave room for the interpretation that mind matters. I then take a philosophical‐theological look at the notions of soul, self, and freedom, also in the light of modern scientific research (self‐organization, neuronal networks), and present a view in which these theologically important notions are seen in relation both to matter (brain) and to God. I show that religious insights expressed with soul and free will bear a remarkable resemblance to certain insights from neuroscience and the science of complex, self‐organizing systems, including emphasis on corporeality and emphasis on organization as a form of that corporeality, and that they also show an interesting parallel — albeit described in different terms — concerning the crucial role of a valuation principle that generates attraction. With that, the common‐sense idea that freedom simply is the same as indeterminism is refuted: freedom primarily means self‐determination. I bring to the fore that the self is not a static thing but a “longing.” Such longing springs from something, and it is the relationship to this source that constitutes the self. The main concern is to point out the crucial role of attraction with respect to being and to life, and to draw attention not only to the astonishing parallel on this point between Thomas Aquinas and Alfred North Whitehead but also to a surprising — albeit more implicit — analogy between these philosophical‐theological views and scientific theories of self‐organization (such as those concerning neuronal networks). In short, being attracted toward what appears as “good” is what constitutes us as selves and what thereby signifies the primary meaning of our freedom.     

The Visual Guide to Morality: Vision as an Integrative Analogy for Moral Experience,Variability and Mechanism

Analogies help organize, communicate and reveal scientific phenomena. Vision may be the best analogy for understanding moral judgment. Although moral psychology has long noted similarities between seeing and judging, we systematically review the “morality is like vision” analogy through three elements: experience, variability and mechanism. Both vision and morality are experienced as automatic, durable and objective. However, despite feelings of objectivity, both vision and morality show substantial variability across biology, culture and situation. The paradox of objective experience and cultural subjectivity is best understood through constructionism, as both vision and morality involve the flexible combination of more basic ingredients. Specifically, both vision and morality involve a mechanism that demonstrates Gestalt, combination and coherence. The “morality is like vision” analogy not only provides intuitive organization and compelling communication for moral psychology but also speaks to debates in the field, such as intuition versus reason, pluralism versus universalism and modularity versus constructionism.     

Does the Bible Tell Me So? Weighing the Influence of Content versus Bias on Bible Interpretation Using Survey Experiments

Discussions of biblical interpretation often proceed under one of two assumptions. Readers’ interpretations are primarily formed (1) inductively, according to the Bible's objective content, or (2) through the lens of preformed ideologies and biases. We assessed the influence of these two factors using two survey experiments with undergraduates. In study 1 (N = 214), participants were randomly assigned one of two nearly identical translations of Ephesians 5:22-28 (a famous passage describing gendered marital submission), with the only difference being that one translation included verse 21 in which Christians are told to “submit to one another.” Participants did not perceive a different message about gendered submission between translations, nor were they more likely to interpret either as misogynistic. However, gender ideology and religious importance did predict interpretation. Study 2 (N = 217) essentially replicated study 1 (using different translations of Ephesians 5:21-28), but one version replaced all “subjection” language with “commitment” language. Participants were significantly more likely to perceive a complementarian message from the translation that referenced “subjection” and they were also more likely to perceive it as misogynistic. Again, gender ideology and religious characteristics predicted interpretation. Findings suggest bias shapes interpretation, but more extreme content modifications (e.g., removing/changing key terms) can also influence interpretation.     

Kantian and Consequentialist Ethics: The Gap Can Be Bridged

Richard Hare argues that the fundamental assumptions of Kant's ethical system should have led Kant to utilitarianism, had Kant not confused a norm's generality with its universality, and hence adopted rigorist, deontological norms. Several authors, including Jens Timmermann, have argued contra Hare that the gap between Kantian and utilitarian/consequentialist ethics is fundamental and cannot be bridged. This article shows that Timmermann's claims rely on a systematic failure to separate normative and metaethical aspects of each view, and that Hare's attempt to bridge the gap between Kantian and consequentialist ethics is immune to Timmermann's criticisms. Furthermore, the term “Kantian ethics” is often misleading, and should typically be qualified as either “Kantian rationalism” or “Kantian deontology” in order to avoid confusions of the sort Timmermann falls into.     

Belief,quasi-belief,and obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) poses a puzzle about beliefs: Those with OCD experience anxiety and motivation suggesting that they believe something, even though they may profess not to believe that very thing. OCD also poses a puzzle about free will, since persons with OCD often describe their behavior as compelled, though it is unclear how it is compelled. This paper argues that at least some cases of OCD are best described as being driven by “quasi-beliefs” which have some, but not all, of the functional properties of beliefs. (A brief discussion contrasts these quasi-beliefs with the “aliefs” recently posited by Tamar Gendler.) An alternative to the quasi-belief account of OCD is the claim is that OCD can be explained in terms of ordinary beliefs that simply have irrational contents. The paper argues that the quasi-belief account of OCD fits the empirical details of the disorder better than alternative accounts.