scholarly journals Forgiveness and the Repairing of Epistemic Trust

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Adam Green
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Intellectual Virtues ◽  
Epistemic Trust ◽  
Epistemic Dimension ◽  
The Way

Abstract The epistemic relevance of forgiveness has been neglected by both the discussion of forgiveness in moral psychology and by social epistemology generally. Moral psychology fails to account for the forgiveness of epistemic wrongs and for the way that wrongs in general have epistemic implications. Social epistemology, for its part, neglects the way that epistemic trust is not only conferred but repaired. In this essay, I show that the repair of epistemic trust through forgiveness is necessary to the economy of knowledge for fallible persons like us. Despite the fact that forgiveness is never included on lists of important intellectual virtues or epistemic activities, it is vital to our lives as social knowers. Likewise, an account of forgiveness that neglects its epistemic dimension is importantly incomplete.

How to Distinguish Aristotle's Virtues

Phronesis ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marguerite Deslauriers
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Virtue ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Art ◽  
Intellectual Virtues ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis paper considers the distinctions Aristotle draws (1) between the intellectual virtue of phronêsis and the moral virtues and (2) among the moral virtues, in light of his commitment to the reciprocity of the virtues. I argue that Aristotle takes the intellectual virtues to be numerically distinct hexeis from the moral virtues. By contrast, I argue, he treats the moral virtues as numerically one hexis, although he allows that they are many hexeis 'in being'. The paper has three parts. In the first, I set out Aristotle's account of the structure of the faculties of the soul, and determine that desire is a distinct faculty. The rationality of a desire is not then a question of whether or not the faculty that produces that desire is rational, but rather a question of whether or not the object of the desire is good. In the second section I show that the reciprocity of phronêsis and the moral virtues requires this structure of the faculties. In the third section I show that the way in which Aristotle distinguishes the faculties requires that we individuate moral virtues according to the objects of the desires that enter into a given virtue, and with reference to the circumstances in which these desires are generated. I then explore what it might mean for the moral virtues to be different in being but not in number, given the way in which the moral virtues are individuated. I argue that Aristotle takes phronêsis and the political art to be a numerical unity in a particular way, and that he suggests that the moral virtues are, by analogy, the same kind of unity.

scholarly journals Does the apple fall far from the tree?: reviewing the communication of scientific information about GMOs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Online Content ◽  
The Public ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
Textual Content ◽  
The Way

Online content is changing the way the public accesses and understands science. The staggering number of often conflicting online sources about science makes it difficult for the lay public to know where to turn in search of accurate scientific information. This project will examine how the nature of online content might be affecting how the public learns about science. Through textual content analyses, it will examine the chain of communication (scientists→online media→public) and document how scientific information evolves. Okanagan Specialty Fruits’ Arctic apple, a genetically modified organism (GMO) that has had the polyphenol oxidase (PPO) gene silenced, will be used as a case study. Three primary themes guide my research: the public understanding of science (PUS), the communication of risk and uncertainty, and social epistemology. The primacy of the PUS movement in public venues for science makes it an important theory for my project, while theories of risk/uncertainty and social epistemology will inform my analysis. My results suggest that: 1) stories about science often include over and understatements of uncertainties and risks; 2) online media stories apply rhetorical frames when reporting scientific information, but the way in which framing is used appears to be reflective of whether the author wishes to persuade their audience; and 3) the rhetorical frames used by online stories about science are not typically integrated into the public’s commentary in a meaningful way, supporting the notion that audiences are active rather than passive and that the public seeks out content that complements their pre-existing beliefs.

Temperance and Epistemic Purity in Plato’s Phaedo

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Marechal
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
The Body ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Epistemic Stance ◽  
Philosophical Life ◽  
The Way

Abstract In this paper I examine the moral psychology of the Phaedo and argue that the philosophical life in this dialogue is a temperate life, and that temperance consists in exercising epistemic discernment by actively withdrawing assent from incorrect evaluations the body inclines us to make. Philosophers deal with bodily affections by taking a correct epistemic stance. Exercising temperance thus understood is a necessary condition both for developing and strengthening rational capacities, and for fixing accurate beliefs about value. The purification philosophers strive for, and the purifying role of philosophy, should then be understood as a clarificatory act consisting in making one’s thoughts clear and withdrawing assent from erroneous evaluative content in our desires and pleasures. Along the way, I argue that philosophers must neither avoid situations and activities that cause bodily affections as much as possible, nor ignore or care little about them.

On Clean, Soiled, and Spattered Hands

Equity ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 152-188
Author(s):  
Irit Samet
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Dirty Hands ◽  
Vast Number ◽  
Ad Hominem ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Judicial Reasoning ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines the clean hands doctrine, according to which a claimant who knocks on the court’s door with a hand tainted by illegality or immorality will not be given her day in court. Instead of listening to her potentially successful claim, Equity resorts to its characteristic ad hominem, flexible, morally sensitive, and ex post approach to drive him/her away. The doctrine, despite its effect on a vast number of disputes, is under-theorised and fraught with lack of clarity. The chapter first considers the sources of the considerable legal anxiety caused by the way this powerful gatekeeper operates, before discussing the underpinnings of the three traditional justifications for keeping the clean hands gatekeeper in place: coherence, deterrence, and integrity. I then make the argument that by interpreting the integrity justification as a concept rooted in moral psychology, we can understand how the incommensurable justifications relate to each other and operate in judicial reasoning. I conclude by showing how the clean hands gatekeeper creates a ‘dirty hands’ type dilemma for judges and what they can do about it.

Shaping the Arrow of the Will: Skorupski on Moral Feeling and Rationality

Utilitas ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theo Van Willigenburg
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Moral Practice ◽  
The Will ◽  
Moral Feeling ◽  
Moral Stance ◽  
The Way

I oppose the way John Skorupski characterizes morality in terms of the blameworthy and the role he consequently assigns to punitive feelings in directing one's will and shaping one's character. Skorupski does not hold that the punishment involved in blame- and guilt-feelings grounds the normativity of moral obligation. He defends a specific view of moral psychology and moral practice in which the blame-feeling disposes to the withdrawal of recognition, which involves some sort of casting the transgressor out of the community resulting in the suffering of repentance which is necessary to make atonement (at-one-ment) possible. I argue that this picture threatens to socialize morality. I defend the Kantian idea that the will is not aligned to obligation through castigation, but through our consciousness of our vocation as takers and givers of reasons. This highlights very different feelings as essential to the typically moral stance, feelings that are not necessarily punitive, like feelings of respect and reverence.

Colloquium 1 Commentary on Politis

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-49
Author(s):  
Keith McPartland
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
The Way

This paper examines the interpretation of erôs in Plato’s Symposium developed by Vasilis Politis in his paper, “The Volatility of Erôs.” The paper first argues that some of the central claims made by Politis are untenable. It then suggests that there is, nevertheless, an important distinction that Politis points to between the way in which erôs is directed specifically at beauty and the way in which desires for the good are directed specifically at goodness. An attempt is made to put this distinction on a new footing incorporating some recent work on Plato’s moral psychology. 


Reasons, Indeterminacy, and Compromise

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
Ability To Work ◽  
Desire Satisfaction ◽  
The Way

This chapter addresses objections to the book’s account of moral authority. Metaphysically, it may be argued that since what we ought to do is determined by the balance of reasons, there are no moral indeterminacies of the kind the account presupposes. In response, I argue that this objection holds fast to the weighing conception of reasons in a way that ignores the widespread incommensurability of reasons. Psychologically, it will be objected that since people’s actions can be modeled as maximizing their desires, it is not plausible that they will be able to work out their moral disagreements in the way the account assumes. I respond by criticizing this desire-satisfaction psychology as failing to account for end-means reasoning and develop an alternative, more Aristotelian moral psychology that accounts for that, as well as for our commitments and our ability to work out conflicts among our commitments via principled compromises.

The Young

2020 ◽  
pp. 164-177
Author(s):  
Dominic Scott
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Clinical Analysis ◽  
The Way

I now turn to the groups Aristotle excludes from the audience of the NE. The first consists of the young, whom I take to include anyone under the age of 30. What is puzzling is that Aristotle excludes them at the beginning of the work as being unable to benefit from argument (I 3), but then at the end talks about the conditions under which they can benefit from it (X 3). I resolve the tension by distinguishing two kinds of argument: the clinical analysis of eudaimonia found in the NE itself, and a rhetorical kind of discourse that would appeal to the more emotional nature of the young. I develop this reading by discussing Aristotle’s moral psychology and the way it was influenced by Plato’s views on the spirited part of the soul.

scholarly journals Paradox in Plato's ‘Phaedrus’

1982 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 64-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Margaret Mackenzie
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Verbal Content ◽  
The Way

A paradox is like a pun. It is also like a Delphic oracle. For in all three cases, we escape puzzlement, or spoil the joke, when we interpret, when we follow the tracks of the words and disentangle their meaning. So paradoxes are about words - either about the relation between one word and another, or about the relation between words and the world; and the punch of the paradox is delivered by its verbal content. Thus it is characteristic of a good paradox that its verbal content is vicious: paradoxes are very often self-referential, such as ‘Please ignore this notice’.Paradoxes may be classified according to two main types. Firstly, there are the innocuous paradoxes which tell - or point the way to - a surprising truth. The Socratic Paradoxes, for example, are paradoxical because to say ‘No-one does wrong willingly’ is to contradict the phenomena. But deeper reflection upon Socrates' moral psychology and his account of the good life, might make us concede the truth of his dictum. Certainly it is Socrates' view that we all hold beliefs that entail his thesis. Similarly Heracleitus tells the truth that we cannot step into the same (in all respects) river twice; although if we concede that the waters may flow without damaging the identity of the river, what he says is false. Thus ordinary paradoxes tend to have two faces - their initial, paradoxical one, where they appear false, and their truth, apparent upon reflection.

The idea of the self in the evolution of Hume’s account of the passions

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (S1) ◽  
pp. 171-182
Author(s):  
Jane McIntyre
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
The Self ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
The Way

Terence Penelhum has written extensively about the role of the idea of the self in Hume's account of the emotional and moral life of persons. Penelhum fails to notice, however, a change that takes place in the way that the idea of the self functions in Hume's account of the passions as that account evolved after the Treatise. This paper charts part of that evolution, and reflects on its significance for Hume's moral psychology.

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