Practical Expressivism

Author(s):  
Neil Sinclair

Morality is a human institution that can be adequately understood as a naturalistically explicable coordination device, whereby human beings work towards, sustain, and refine mutually beneficial patterns of action and reaction. This morality owes nothing to an ethical reality that exists outside of human inclination: moral judgements and argument do not (attempt to) discover, describe or cognize a robust realm of moral facts or properties. Rather, such judgements express affective or practical states of mind, similar to preferences, desires, policies, or plans. Practical Expressivism argues that the locating of this expression within the wider coordinating practice of morality provides an attractive explanation and partial vindication of the forms and assumptions of this uniquely human institution. This book therefore defends a version of expressivism about morality, and one that embraces the ‘quasi-realist’ project of showing how an expressivist understanding of morality is consistent with the judgements of that practice being potentially disagreed with, logically regimented, and mind-independently true. In doing so it provides domesticating accounts of disagreement, logic, truth, and mind-independence, and shows how expressivism is compatible with truth-conditional semantics. The version of expressivism defended is ‘practical’ both insofar as it emphasizes the importance of the practical, coordinating, role of moral practice in pursuing the quasi-realist project, and insofar as it generates recipes and strategies that expressivists can repeatedly deploy to explain the forms and assumptions of our moral practice.

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Callanan

AbstractIt is well known that Kant uses the notion of the holy will in the Groundwork so as to contrast it with the finite wills of human beings. It is less clear, however, what function this contrast is supposed to perform. I argue that one role of the holy will is to illustrate transcendental idealism’s account of the relation between moral knowledge and moral practice. The position is one intended to negotiate between ostensibly competing traditions. Kant uses the holy will as a way of endorsing the metaphysical picture of the scholastic tradition’s so-called ‘ethics of freedom’, whereby the ideal of moral perfection is conceived as the perfection of one’s power of freedom to the point where one is constitutively incapable of immoral action. This position is married however with the claim that the holy will’s inaccessibility to human cognition motivates a subject-oriented moral epistemology more usually associated with Enlightenment humanism. I conclude by claiming that the nuanced role for the holy will can be understood as part of Kant’s expansion of the value of religious faith [Glaube] to the domain of practical inquiry in general.


Author(s):  
Jonardon Ganeri

Attention is of fundamental importance in the philosophy of mind, in epistemology, in action theory, and in ethics. This book presents an account in which attention, not self, explains the experiential and normative situatedness of human beings in the world. Attention consists in an organization of awareness and action at the centre of which there is neither a practical will nor a phenomenological witness. Attention performs two roles in experience, a selective role of placing and a focal role of access. Attention improves our epistemic standing, because it is in the nature of attention to settle on what is real and to shun what is not real. When attention is informed by expertise, it is sufficient for knowledge. That gives attention a reach beyond the perceptual: for attention is a determinable whose determinates include the episodic memory from which our narrative identities are made, the empathy for others that situates us in a social world, and the introspection that makes us self-aware. Empathy is other-directed attention, placed on you and focused on your states of mind; it is akin to listening. Empathetic attention is central to a range of experiences that constitutively require a contrast between oneself and others, all of which involve an awareness of oneself as the object of another’s attention. An analysis of attention as mental action gainsays authorial conceptions of self, because it is the nature of intending itself, effortful attention in action, to settle on what to do and to shun what not to do.


IIUC Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 33-46
Author(s):  
Kalim Ullah

Human beings are deeply related to land. Human beings take birth on land, live on land, die on land and mixes with land ultimately. As stated in the holy Quran: ‘We (Allah) created you (human beings) from the soil, we shall make you return to the soil and We shall call you back again from the soil’ (20:55). Human life is surrounded by soil i.e. land. So, land is a highly completed issue of human life involving economic, social, political, cultural and often religious systems. Land administration is thus a critical element and often a pre-condition for peaceful society and sustainable development. In administrating land, Khatian or record of rights plays a vital role to determine the rights and interests of the respective parties as supportive evidence. In this article, discussion is mainly made on the fact that Khatian or record of rights is not a document of title solely but it may be an evidence of title as well as possession. IIUC Studies Vol.15(0) December 2018: 33-46


2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 138-148
Author(s):  
Francesco Zammartino

Seventy Years after its proclamation, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, despite not having a binding force for the states, still provides at international level the fundamental text from which the principles and the values for the preservation of liberty and right of people are taken. In this article, the author particularly underlines the importance of Declaration’s article 1, which states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. With these words the Declaration presses states to undertake economic policies aimed at achieving economic and social progress for all individuals. Unfortunately, we also have to underline the lack of effective social policies in government programs of the E.U. Member States. The author inquires whether it is left to European judges to affirm the importance of social welfare.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-113
Author(s):  
Nathalia Gleyce dos Santos Salazar

Resumo:  Apresenta-se uma discussão sobre o conhecimento e a tese dos três mundos no qual a interação entre estes nos aproxima da verdade do problema corpo-mente, tendo em vista, uma nova proposta de solução. O terceiro mundo é uma peça importante neste trabalho; sendo assim, analisaremos o que Popper designa como Mundo 3, em que ele consiste e o papel da linguagem como diferencial do ser humano. Apresentamos as críticas popperianas às correntes monistas e dualistas, ousando fazer uma crítica a Teoria do Conhecimento tradicional. Desta forma, a proposta apresentada por este filósofo da ciência diferencia-se de tudo que estava sendo feito até então, por isso, o interesse de apresentar essa abordagem pouco trabalhada de Popper. Palavras-chave: Conhecimento. Corpo-Mente. Mundo 3.Abstract: In this work, we present a discussion about knowledge and the theory of the three worlds in which the interaction between them approaches to the truth of the mind-body problem, in view of a proposed solution. The third world is an important piece in this work. Therefore, we will analyze what Popper describes as World 3, what it is and the role of language as a differential of human beings. We present Popper’s criticisms to the monistic and dualistic currents, daring to criticize the theory of traditional knowledge. Thus, the proposal of science presented by this philosopher differs from everything that was being done until then. This explains the interest in presenting this unusual approach to Popper.Keywords: Knowledge. Body-Mind.  World 3. REFERÊNCIASLEAL-TOLEDO, Gustavo . Popper e seu Cérebro. Revista da Faculdade de Letras. Série Filosofia, v. XXIII, p. 59-68, 2007.POPPER, Karl Raimund. A Lógica da Pesquisa Científica. Tradução de Leonidas Hegenberg e Octanny Silveira de Mota.  São Paulo: editora Cultrix. 2007.POPPER, Karl Raimund. Conhecimento Objetivo: uma abordagem evolucionária. Tradução de Milton Amado.  Belo Horizonte, Ed. Itatiaia Ilimitada. São Paulo, Ed. Da Universidade São Paulo, 1975._______.  O Conhecimento e o Problema Corpo –Mente. Tradução Joaquim Alberto Ferreira Gomes. Lisboa, Ed. 70. 1996.   _______. Conjecturas e Refutações: o desenvolvimento do conhecimento científico. Trad. Benedita Bettencourt. Ed. Livraria Almedina, 2006._______.  O Eu e Seu Cérebro. Karl Popper, Jonh C. Eccles;Tradução Silvio Meneses Garcia, Helena Cristina F. Arantes e Aurélio Osmar C. de Oliveira. – Campinas, SP: Papirus; Brasília, DF: Editora Universidade de Brasília. 1991.   _______. O Racionalismo Crítico na Política. Tradução de Maria da Conceição Côrte – Real. Brasília, Editora Universidade de Brasília, 2ª edição, 1994, 74p.SEARLE, John R. La construcción de la realidad social. Trad. Antoni Domènech. Barcelona: Paidós Ibérico, 1995.  


Author(s):  
Максим Глебович Калинин

Продолжая публиковать оригинальный текст и русский перевод новонайденных фрагментов «Книги глав о ведении» Иосифа Хаззайи (VIII в.), одного из ярчайших представителей восточносирийской мистической традиции, предлагаем вниманию читателей главы 75-162 из фрагмента, представленного восточносирийской рукописью Paris. syr. 434. Эти главы включают в себя комментарий Иосифа Хаззайи на видение Иезекииля, другие экзегетические пассажи, изречения о смирении и любви, описания мистического опыта и пространное рассуждение о роли ангелов в жизни человечества. We proceed to publish the original text and Russian translation of the newly discovered fragments of «Book of the Chapters on Knowledge» of Joseph Ḥazzāyā (8th c.), one of the brightest representatives of the East Syriac mystical tradition. Now the readers are offered the original text and Russian translation of chapters 75-162 from the fragment of Joseph Ḥazzāyā’s work known from the East Syriac manuscript Paris. syr. 434. These chapters include the commentary of Joseph Ḥazzāyā on Ezekiel’s vision, another exegetical passages, sayings on humility and love, various descriptions of mystical experience, and a lengthy discourse on the role of angels in the life of human beings.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 1027-1044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Freer ◽  
Fabrizio Maggi ◽  
Mauro Pistello

Background:The virome is a network of viruses normally inhabiting humans. It forms a conspicuous portion of the so-called microbiome, once generically referred to as resident flora. Indeed, viruses infecting humans without leading to clinical disease are increasingly recognized as part of the microbiome and have an impact on the development of our immune system. In addition, they activate inflammasomes, multiprotein complexes that assemble in cells and that are responsible for the downstream effects of sensing pathogens.Objective:This review aims at summarizing the evidence on the role of the virome in modulating inflammation and emphasizes evidence for Anelloviruses as useful molecular markers to monitor inflammatory processes and immune system competence.Method:We carried out a review of the literature published in the last 5 years and summarized older literature to take into account ground-breaking discoveries concerning inflammasome assembly and virome.Results:A massive amount of data recently emerging demonstrate that the microbiome closely reflects what we eat, and many other unexpected variables. Composition, location, and amount of the microbiome have an impact on innate and adaptive immune defences. Viruses making up the virome contribute to shaping the immune system. Anelloviruses, the best known of such viruses, are present in most human beings, persistently without causing apparent disease. Depending on their interplay with such viruses, inflammasomes instruct host defences to tolerate or forfeit a specific microorganism.Conclusion:The virome plays an important role in shaping human immune defences and contributes to inflammatory processes by quenching or increasing them.


Author(s):  
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker

Christ’s healing of humanity consists, crucially, in forming human beings for loving relationship with himself and others. In this respect, Christ also takes the role of the beautiful beloved. Believers become pilgrims by falling in love with the beautiful Christ by the initiative of the Holy Spirit, who cleanses their eyes to see him as beautiful and enkindles desire in their hearts. By desiring and loving the beautiful Christ, the believer is conformed to him and learns to walk his path. Desiring the beautiful Christ forms a believing community shaped aesthetically and morally for a particular way of life: pilgrimage to the heavenly homeland. Formation is both earthly and eschatological, for so too is the journey and the activity of the pilgrim.


Author(s):  
Ursula Coope

The Neoplatonists have a perfectionist view of freedom: an entity is free to the extent that it succeeds in making itself good. Free entities are wholly in control of themselves: they are self-determining, self-constituting, and self-knowing. Neoplatonist philosophers argue that such freedom is only possible for nonbodily things. The human soul is free insofar as it rises above bodily things and engages in intellection, but when it turns its desires to bodily things, it is drawn under the sway of fate and becomes enslaved. This book discusses this notion of freedom, and its relation to questions about responsibility. It explains the important role of notions of self-reflexivity in Neoplatonist accounts of both freedom and responsibility. Part I sets out the puzzles Neoplatonist philosophers face about freedom and responsibility and explains how these puzzles arise from earlier discussions. Part II looks at the metaphysical underpinnings of the Neoplatonist notion of freedom (concentrating especially on the views of Plotinus and Proclus). In what sense (if any) is the ultimate first principle of everything (the One) free? If everything else is under this ultimate first principle, how can anything other than the One be free? What is the connection between freedom and nonbodiliness? Part III looks at questions about responsibility, arising from this perfectionist view of freedom. Why are human beings responsible for their behaviour, in a way that other animals are not? If we are enslaved when we act viciously, how can we be to blame for our vicious actions and choices?


Author(s):  
Donald Bloxham

Against majority opinion within his profession, Donald Bloxham argues that it is legitimate, often unavoidable, and frequently important for historians to make value judgements about the past. History and Morality draws on a wide range of historical examples, and its author’s insights as a practising historian. Examining concepts like impartiality, neutrality, contextualization, and the use and abuse of the idea of the past as a foreign country, Bloxham’s book investigates how the discipline has got to the point where what is preached can be so inconsistent with what is practised. It illuminates how far tacit moral judgements infuse works of history, and how strange those histories would look if the judgements were removed. Bloxham argues that rather than trying to eradicate all judgemental elements from their work historians need to think more consistently about how, and with what justification, they make the judgements that they do. The importance of all this lies not just in the responsibilities that historians bear towards the past—responsibilities to take historical actors on those actors’ own terms and to portray the impact of those actors’ deeds—but also in the role of history as a source of identity, pride, and shame in the present. The account of moral thought in History and Morality has ramifications far beyond the activities of vocational historians.


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