Problems of False Consciousness

2021 ◽  
pp. 41-72
Author(s):  
Philip Kitcher
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Important Sense ◽  
Ethical Project

The second chapter takes up the harder case of false consciousness. It first attempts to show how the more limited methodology of its predecessor relates both to the three historical examples and to the long sweep of human ethical practice. Drawing on an account of the evolution of moral life (presented in The Ethical Project), it argues for the primacy of practices to address moral issues (to provide patterns for conduct). Ethical life emerges only when there are alternative ways for people to live, when the question “How to live?” acquires a significance. Ideals of the self provide answers to that question. False consciousness (in one important sense) arises when such ideals are denied to some groups of people.

Spiritual Exercises, Improvisation, and Moral Perfectionism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold Davidson
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Spiritual Exercises ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Spiritual Self ◽  
Experimental Attitude ◽  
Moral Perfectionism

Abstract: Beginning with Pierre Hadot’s idea of spiritual exercises and Stanley Cavell’s conception of moral perfectionism, this essay argues that improvisation can be understood as a practice of spiritual self-transformation. Focusing on the example of Sonny Rollins, the essay investigates the ways in which Rollins’ improvisations embody a series of philosophical concepts and practices: the care of the self, the Stoic exercise of cosmic consciousness, the problem of moral exemplarity, the ideas, found in the later Foucault, of a limit attitude and an experimental attitude, and so on. The underlying claim of the essay is that improvisation is not only an aesthetic exercise, but also a social and ethical practice that can give rise to existential transformations.

scholarly journals The Metaphysics of Self in Praśastapāda’s Differential Naturalism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shalini Sinha
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
True Self ◽  
Epistemic Practice

In A Compendium of the Characteristics of Categories (Padārthadharmasaṃgraha) the classical Vaiśeṣika philosopher Praśastapāda (6th century ce) presents an innovative metaphysics of the self. This article examines the defining metaphysical and axiological features of this conception of self and the dualist categorial schema in which it is located. It shows how this idea of the self, as a reflexive and ethical being, grounds a multinaturalist view of natural order and offers a conception of agency that claims to account for all the reflexive features of human mental and bodily life. Finally, it discusses the ends of self’s reflexivity and of human life as a return to the true self. It argues that at the heart of Praśastapāda’s metaphysics of self is the idea that ethics is metaphysics, and that epistemic practice is ethical practice.

Moral Emotions for Autonomous Agents

2012 ◽  
pp. 1753-1766
Author(s):  
Antoni Gomila ◽  
Alberto Amengual
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Cognitive System ◽  
The Self ◽  
Moral Autonomy ◽  
Cognitive Systems ◽  
Hybrid Architecture ◽  
Current Development ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Military Robots

In this chapter we raise some of the moral issues involved in the current development of robotic autonomous agents. Starting from the connection between autonomy and responsibility, we distinguish two sorts of problems: those having to do with guaranteeing that the behavior of the artificial cognitive system is going to fall within the area of the permissible, and those having to do with endowing such systems with whatever abilities are required for engaging in moral interaction. Only in the second case can we speak of full blown autonomy, or moral autonomy. We illustrate the first type of case with Arkin’s proposal of a hybrid architecture for control of military robots. As for the second kind of case, that of full-blown autonomy, we argue that a motivational component is needed, to ground the self-orientation and the pattern of appraisal required, and outline how such motivational component might give rise to interaction in terms of moral emotions. We end suggesting limits to a straightforward analogy between natural and artificial cognitive systems from this standpoint.

In Excess: The Body and the Habit of Sexual Difference

Hypatia ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 156-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalyn Diprose
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Social Unity

Through a re-reading of Antigone, I offer a critique of Hegel's use of the story to illustrate the unity which emerges from the representation of sexual difference in ethical life. Using Hegel's own account of habits, as the mechanism by which the body becomes a sign of the self, I argue that the pretense of social unity assumes the proper construction and representation of one body only. This critique is brought to bear upon contemporary moves towards a post-Hegelian ethics of difference.

scholarly journals Politics and Ethic of Care of the Self in Albert Camus’s The Plague

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 240-255
Author(s):  
Mukesh Kumar Bairva
Keyword(s):  
Ethic Of Care ◽  
Albert Camus ◽  
The Self ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Spiritual Discipline ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ethical Project ◽  
Speaking Truth To Power ◽  
Ethics And Politics

Albert Camus’ The Plague articulates a new aesthetic of existence that resists biopolitical normalization. It means cultivating one’s self and not attempting to discover an authentic and hidden self because it entails a continual process of becoming.  The sudden eruption of plague in Oran, signifies a rupture in history of its people as the “bored populace is consumed by commercial habits aimed at making money”. In The Plague, if some people become more self-centred and insensitive, characters such as Rieux, Rambert, Peneloux and Joseph Grand show concern for the suffering people and stand in solidarity with them. Their characterization as ordinary individuals who assume responsibility for others’ existence in times of disaster reflects Camus’ hermeneutic of care of the self as an ethical project.  Camus aptly asserts that “ordinary acts of courage and kindness are more helpful than the illusion of superheroes”. Deriving a cue from Foucault, Heidegger and Levinas, the paper attempts to explore how care of the self is intertwined with ethics and politics. It is argued that without spiritual discipline and caring for others, the ethical transformation of self cannot take place. It indicates fashioning of the self more freely and self-reflexively and thus speaking truth to power and sacrificing for others. The paper examines this poetics of self which shares an ethical relationship with truth, freedom and kindness.

Caring, Implicit Attitudes, and the Self

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Brownstein
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Attitudes ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
Important Sense ◽  
Central Claim

Across both virtue and vice cases, spontaneity has the potential to give rise to actions that seem “unowned.” Agents may lack self-awareness, control, and reasons-responsiveness in paradigmatic cases. But these are actions nevertheless, in the sense that they are not mere happenings. While agents may be passive in an important sense when acting spontaneously, they are not thereby necessarily victims of forces acting upon them (from either “outside” or “inside” their own bodies and minds). The central claim of this chapter is that spontaneous actions can be, in central cases, “attributable” to agents, by which I mean that they reflect upon the character of those agents. This claim is made on the basis of a care-based theory of attributability. Attributability licenses (in principle) what some theorists call “aretaic” appraisals. These are evaluations of an action in light of an agent’s character or morally significant traits.

The Philosophical Significance of Kohut's Theory of the Self

2021 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-237
Author(s):  
John Hanwell Riker
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Original Theory ◽  
Philosophical Significance ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Personal Ideals ◽  
Philosophic Tradition

The author seeks to articulate the philosophical significance of Heinz Kohut's original theory of the self by showing (a) how it explains the basis of our ability to create and be motivated by personal ideals; (b) how it transforms our understanding of ethical life by showing why it is in one's self-interest to become an empathic, respectful person who embodies the moral virtues as articulated by Aristotle; and (c) how it reverberates with profound insights into what it means to be human by some of the most esteemed philosophers in the Western philosophic tradition, especially Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The author concludes by critically responding to the intersubjectivist critique of Stolorow and Atwood that Kohut's notion of “self” is a reified, metaphysical concept.

The Self before Self-Consciousness: Hegel's Developmental Account

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Dahlstrom
Keyword(s):  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Status ◽  
Struggle For Recognition

This paper examines three puzzles that arise from Hegel's account of the constitution of the self and self-consciousness. The puzzles mirror questions of the respective relation of (a) the self to self-consciousness, (b) self-consciousness to recognition of and by others, and (c) the struggle for recognition to ethical life. The paper argues that Hegel's developmental account of the constitution of the self and self-consciousness provides promising prospects for resolving puzzles about the status of the self before self-consciousness and the status of self-consciousness in the family before the struggle for recognition. However, the paper questions the adequacy of Hegel's account of ethical life, in view of the puzzle that it presents and appears unable to resolve. The paper suggests that Hegel's developmental account is too restrictive, since its move from a quest for mastery to mutual recognition apparently fails to account sufficiently for asymmetrical acts of generosity and sacrifice.

Values and the Vote: Linking Issue Interpretations to the Process of Candidate Choice

1997 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dhavan V. Shah ◽  
David Domke ◽  
Daniel B. Wackman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
The Self ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Gays In The Military ◽  
Electoral Choice ◽  
Construct Activation ◽  
Military Reservists ◽  
The Military

This study explores how “moral” issues interact with individuals' core values to influence the mental processes involved in choosing among candidates. Drawing upon three major domains of research - (1) construct activation and framing; (2) values and the self; and (3) decision making - we examine how individuals interpret electoral issues and the influence of these evaluations on the process of electoral choice. The same research design was used with three subpopulations - military reservists, ROTC student members, and undergraduate students - expected to be differentially involved with two issues in the study, abortion and gays in the military. Subjects were presented simulated newspaper articles about an election contest and asked to make a candidate choice. Findings indicate that an individual's interpretation of issues - as either ethical or material in nature - is strongly related to differences in the type of decision-making strategy used, even after accounting for a variety of demographic, orientational, and issue importance variables.

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