Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2021.1905541
Jared Warren
Abstract Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained is probably the most widely read book about consciousness ever written by a philosopher. Despite this, the book has had a surprisingly small influence on how most philosophers of mind view consciousness. This might be because many philosophers badly misunderstand the book. They claim it does not even attempt to explain consciousness, but instead denies its very existence. Outside of philosophy the book has had more influence, but is saddled by the same misunderstanding. Now, 30 years after publication, Consciousness Explained deserves reconsideration from anyone interested in consciousness. Here I make a case for this. To start, I will clear up the central misunderstanding of the book. With that done, I will explain and update Dennett’s tantalizing approach to consciousness and the mind. The result brings us very, very close to explaining consciousness. Or so I will argue.
{"title":"This Quintessence of Dust - Consciousness Explained, at Thirty","authors":"Jared Warren","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2021.1905541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2021.1905541","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained is probably the most widely read book about consciousness ever written by a philosopher. Despite this, the book has had a surprisingly small influence on how most philosophers of mind view consciousness. This might be because many philosophers badly misunderstand the book. They claim it does not even attempt to explain consciousness, but instead denies its very existence. Outside of philosophy the book has had more influence, but is saddled by the same misunderstanding. Now, 30 years after publication, Consciousness Explained deserves reconsideration from anyone interested in consciousness. Here I make a case for this. To start, I will clear up the central misunderstanding of the book. With that done, I will explain and update Dennett’s tantalizing approach to consciousness and the mind. The result brings us very, very close to explaining consciousness. Or so I will argue.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49160136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2021.1947155
Haicheng Zhao
Abstract In this paper, I first seek a relatively plausible formulation of the safety principle. To this end, I refute a recent form of safety by Duncan Pritchard and then defend another weaker form of safety as a necessary condition for knowledge. Second, and more importantly, I point out that this weaker safety is still insufficient, in that it neglects one’s belief regarding nearby error-possibilities—a factor that is largely omitted in the literature but could determine whether or not one knows. I then develop a safety-based account of knowledge that incorporates this element of belief concerning nearby error-possibilities. It is argued that such an account addresses various problematic cases and delivers useful resources for accommodating the phenomenon of knowledge-defeat, while preserving the important anti-skeptical power behind a safety principle.
{"title":"Safety and Unawareness of Error-Possibility","authors":"Haicheng Zhao","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2021.1947155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2021.1947155","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this paper, I first seek a relatively plausible formulation of the safety principle. To this end, I refute a recent form of safety by Duncan Pritchard and then defend another weaker form of safety as a necessary condition for knowledge. Second, and more importantly, I point out that this weaker safety is still insufficient, in that it neglects one’s belief regarding nearby error-possibilities—a factor that is largely omitted in the literature but could determine whether or not one knows. I then develop a safety-based account of knowledge that incorporates this element of belief concerning nearby error-possibilities. It is argued that such an account addresses various problematic cases and delivers useful resources for accommodating the phenomenon of knowledge-defeat, while preserving the important anti-skeptical power behind a safety principle.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47797388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2021.1944289
J. Urbas
This new study of RalphWaldo Emerson deserves praise for its effort to place his writing within the tradition of philosophy as a way of life. Drawing on the work of Pierre Hadot, Reza Hosseini proposes a long-overdue reframing of Emerson’s philosophy that departs from epistemologizing readings and returns to the fundamental question of the conduct of life. To this end, the author draws on the influence of the Socratic tradition but also on Emerson’s abiding passion for the Persian poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, and Saadi. This combination of classical and Eastern sources constitutes by far the most original contribution of the book. What the two traditions share, on this account, is a vision of literary excellence as furthering a philosophical mode of existence. The ‘essence’ of Emerson’s ‘literary philosophy’ lies in the adoption of this transcultural model for his own writing (145). The Introduction and the second and final chapters (‘Socrates and Emerson on Areté’ and ‘Emerson’s Literary Humanism: The Persian Connection’) define the concepts informing the study as a whole. Areté, or ‘excellence’—with Emersonian self-reliance being the ‘arêté of the mind’ (26)— serves the ends of psychagogia, or ‘influencing the soul through the power of words’ (6), which enables a move beyond the aporiae of the early Socratic dialogues (12). Thus literary excellence is less an end in itself than ameans of ‘moral persuasion to change our way of seeing the world’ (5), the better to escape aporetic impasses by responding positively to philosophy’s call for a new art of living in the world with intelligence, beauty, and grace. In the author’s view, the Persian concept of Adab, or ‘literary humanism’ (7, 122), best captures this broader cultural, philosophical, and practical aim that takes us beyond the merely belletristic, on the one hand (123–124), and the egoistic limits of self-culture or Bildung, on the other (7, 123). The third chapter focuses on Emerson’s style, and it is here that the most serious conceptual and methodological problems first appear. Taken together, they reflect unresolved theoretical difficulties with the term literary —by which the author really means ‘humanist’—and a problematic practical relation to the Emersonian text itself—a relation all too often distant or mediated where it should be direct and demonstrative. ‘The question of style’ (35) is answered with summaries of scholarly opinion on the subject Philosophical Papers
{"title":"Emerson's Literary Philosophy","authors":"J. Urbas","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2021.1944289","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2021.1944289","url":null,"abstract":"This new study of RalphWaldo Emerson deserves praise for its effort to place his writing within the tradition of philosophy as a way of life. Drawing on the work of Pierre Hadot, Reza Hosseini proposes a long-overdue reframing of Emerson’s philosophy that departs from epistemologizing readings and returns to the fundamental question of the conduct of life. To this end, the author draws on the influence of the Socratic tradition but also on Emerson’s abiding passion for the Persian poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, and Saadi. This combination of classical and Eastern sources constitutes by far the most original contribution of the book. What the two traditions share, on this account, is a vision of literary excellence as furthering a philosophical mode of existence. The ‘essence’ of Emerson’s ‘literary philosophy’ lies in the adoption of this transcultural model for his own writing (145). The Introduction and the second and final chapters (‘Socrates and Emerson on Areté’ and ‘Emerson’s Literary Humanism: The Persian Connection’) define the concepts informing the study as a whole. Areté, or ‘excellence’—with Emersonian self-reliance being the ‘arêté of the mind’ (26)— serves the ends of psychagogia, or ‘influencing the soul through the power of words’ (6), which enables a move beyond the aporiae of the early Socratic dialogues (12). Thus literary excellence is less an end in itself than ameans of ‘moral persuasion to change our way of seeing the world’ (5), the better to escape aporetic impasses by responding positively to philosophy’s call for a new art of living in the world with intelligence, beauty, and grace. In the author’s view, the Persian concept of Adab, or ‘literary humanism’ (7, 122), best captures this broader cultural, philosophical, and practical aim that takes us beyond the merely belletristic, on the one hand (123–124), and the egoistic limits of self-culture or Bildung, on the other (7, 123). The third chapter focuses on Emerson’s style, and it is here that the most serious conceptual and methodological problems first appear. Taken together, they reflect unresolved theoretical difficulties with the term literary —by which the author really means ‘humanist’—and a problematic practical relation to the Emersonian text itself—a relation all too often distant or mediated where it should be direct and demonstrative. ‘The question of style’ (35) is answered with summaries of scholarly opinion on the subject Philosophical Papers","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44752877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2021.1952105
Robert S. Fudge
Abstract In light of the environmental pressure humans are currently placing on the biosphere, there is overwhelming evidence to think that we have entered the early stages of a major extinction event. Indeed, some scientists worry this extinction event will be so bad as to constitute Earth’s sixth mass extinction. Our most pressing responsibility as a species is to do everything in our power to prevent such an extinction from occurring. But the question I wish to pursue here is, what should our philosophical response be if we fail? Drawing on George Harris’ account of tragic loss, I argue that, while we should rightly consider an anthropogenic extinction a moral tragedy and cause for grief, we should not consider it cause for despair. The reason is that we can take aesthetic consolation from the knowledge that life will almost certainly recover and re-diversify in new and unpredictable ways. Adam Smith’s insights into the beauty and sublimity of systems is particularly relevant in showing how Earth’s biosphere remains a bearer of aesthetic value, even in the face of the (temporary, though long-term) damage we are causing it.
{"title":"Aesthetic Consolation in an Age of Extinction","authors":"Robert S. Fudge","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2021.1952105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2021.1952105","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In light of the environmental pressure humans are currently placing on the biosphere, there is overwhelming evidence to think that we have entered the early stages of a major extinction event. Indeed, some scientists worry this extinction event will be so bad as to constitute Earth’s sixth mass extinction. Our most pressing responsibility as a species is to do everything in our power to prevent such an extinction from occurring. But the question I wish to pursue here is, what should our philosophical response be if we fail? Drawing on George Harris’ account of tragic loss, I argue that, while we should rightly consider an anthropogenic extinction a moral tragedy and cause for grief, we should not consider it cause for despair. The reason is that we can take aesthetic consolation from the knowledge that life will almost certainly recover and re-diversify in new and unpredictable ways. Adam Smith’s insights into the beauty and sublimity of systems is particularly relevant in showing how Earth’s biosphere remains a bearer of aesthetic value, even in the face of the (temporary, though long-term) damage we are causing it.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44673509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2021.1896375
I. Haji
Abstract Obligation incompatibilism is the view that determinism precludes moral obligation. I argue for the following. (i) Two principles, ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ and ‘ought not’ is equivalent to ‘impermissible’, generate a powerful argument for obligation incompatibilism. (ii) Assuming conceptual ties between blameworthiness and impermissibility or belief in impermissibility, these principles also imperil blameworthiness provided determinism is true. If determinism undermines blameworthiness, it also undermines proposed justifications of punishment that presuppose blameworthiness. Allegedly blameworthiness-free justifications of punishment fare no better given their moral presuppositions. (iii) The most promising compatibilist reply to the argument for obligation incompatibilism should concede that obligation requires alternatives but of a variety that one can have even if determinism is true.
{"title":"Obligation Incompatibilism and Blameworthiness","authors":"I. Haji","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2021.1896375","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2021.1896375","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Obligation incompatibilism is the view that determinism precludes moral obligation. I argue for the following. (i) Two principles, ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ and ‘ought not’ is equivalent to ‘impermissible’, generate a powerful argument for obligation incompatibilism. (ii) Assuming conceptual ties between blameworthiness and impermissibility or belief in impermissibility, these principles also imperil blameworthiness provided determinism is true. If determinism undermines blameworthiness, it also undermines proposed justifications of punishment that presuppose blameworthiness. Allegedly blameworthiness-free justifications of punishment fare no better given their moral presuppositions. (iii) The most promising compatibilist reply to the argument for obligation incompatibilism should concede that obligation requires alternatives but of a variety that one can have even if determinism is true.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/05568641.2021.1896375","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43157498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-18DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2020.1850329
E. Ani
Abstract There have been two parallel views regarding the role of voting in deliberation. The first is that deliberation before the fabrication of balloting was completely devoid of voting. The second is that voting is not just part of deliberation, but is standard to deliberation. I argue in this article that neither of these views is correct. Implicit voting has always existed across time and space but only as a last resort in the event of a failure of natural unanimity. What is relatively modern is the establishment of what I call explicit voting; namely, balloting, outside deliberation and often without deliberation. I also distinguish between natural and artificial unanimities, and clarify that artificial unanimities are products of implicit voting. I demonstrate these clarifications with some examples of deliberation. I deploy these clarifications to rid a certain debate of confusion regarding the precise role of voting in consensual deliberation.
{"title":"What Exactly is Voting to Consensual Deliberation?","authors":"E. Ani","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2020.1850329","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2020.1850329","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract There have been two parallel views regarding the role of voting in deliberation. The first is that deliberation before the fabrication of balloting was completely devoid of voting. The second is that voting is not just part of deliberation, but is standard to deliberation. I argue in this article that neither of these views is correct. Implicit voting has always existed across time and space but only as a last resort in the event of a failure of natural unanimity. What is relatively modern is the establishment of what I call explicit voting; namely, balloting, outside deliberation and often without deliberation. I also distinguish between natural and artificial unanimities, and clarify that artificial unanimities are products of implicit voting. I demonstrate these clarifications with some examples of deliberation. I deploy these clarifications to rid a certain debate of confusion regarding the precise role of voting in consensual deliberation.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/05568641.2020.1850329","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47602552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2020.1762114
M. Jeffers
Abstract A recent movement within political philosophy called luck egalitarianism has attempted to synthesize the right’s regard for responsibility with the left’s concern for equality. The original motivation for subscribing to luck egalitarianism stems from the belief that one’s success in life ought to reflect one’s own choices and not brute luck. Luck egalitarian theorists differ in the decision procedures that they propose, but they share in common the general approach that we ought to equalize individuals with respect to brute luck so that differences in distribution are only a consequence of the responsible choices that individuals make. I intend to show that through the application of its own distributive procedures, the interpersonal luck egalitarian approach actually undermines its original motivation by making the lives of individuals subject to brute luck. I propose two alternative methods that the luck egalitarian could use to prevent the problems suffered by the interpersonal luck egalitarian standard.
{"title":"Luck and the Limits of Equality","authors":"M. Jeffers","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2020.1762114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2020.1762114","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract A recent movement within political philosophy called luck egalitarianism has attempted to synthesize the right’s regard for responsibility with the left’s concern for equality. The original motivation for subscribing to luck egalitarianism stems from the belief that one’s success in life ought to reflect one’s own choices and not brute luck. Luck egalitarian theorists differ in the decision procedures that they propose, but they share in common the general approach that we ought to equalize individuals with respect to brute luck so that differences in distribution are only a consequence of the responsible choices that individuals make. I intend to show that through the application of its own distributive procedures, the interpersonal luck egalitarian approach actually undermines its original motivation by making the lives of individuals subject to brute luck. I propose two alternative methods that the luck egalitarian could use to prevent the problems suffered by the interpersonal luck egalitarian standard.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/05568641.2020.1762114","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41379819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2020.1773306
Yuchen Guo
Abstract People have a capacity to imaginatively recreate mental states that they themselves do not have. These recreative states are referred to as ‘I-states’. Several philosophers, such as Gregory Currie, Tyler Doggett, and Andy Egan, propose that the combination of i-desire and i-belief—two typical I-states—can motivate agents. The goal of this paper is to defend this i-desire + i-belief account. Here I consider a kind of dramatic acting—method acting—in which an actor aspires to sincere performances by experientially inhabiting the role of the character, as involving I-states and that it implies that i-desires and i-beliefs can motivate agents. First, I analyze the features of method acting; second, I argue that those accounts which do not include the concept of i-desire cannot explain these features; third, I argue that the i-desire + i-belief account can do that and it therefore is the best explanation of how a method actor is motivated on stage.
{"title":"‘Becoming’ Romeo","authors":"Yuchen Guo","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2020.1773306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2020.1773306","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract People have a capacity to imaginatively recreate mental states that they themselves do not have. These recreative states are referred to as ‘I-states’. Several philosophers, such as Gregory Currie, Tyler Doggett, and Andy Egan, propose that the combination of i-desire and i-belief—two typical I-states—can motivate agents. The goal of this paper is to defend this i-desire + i-belief account. Here I consider a kind of dramatic acting—method acting—in which an actor aspires to sincere performances by experientially inhabiting the role of the character, as involving I-states and that it implies that i-desires and i-beliefs can motivate agents. First, I analyze the features of method acting; second, I argue that those accounts which do not include the concept of i-desire cannot explain these features; third, I argue that the i-desire + i-belief account can do that and it therefore is the best explanation of how a method actor is motivated on stage.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/05568641.2020.1773306","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48424572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2020.1846603
Kok Yong Lee
Abstract Reasons evidentialism is the view that normative reasons can be analyzed in terms of evidence about oughts (i.e., propositions concerning whether or not S ought to Φ). In this paper, I defend a new reason-evidentialist account according to which normative reasons are evidence against propositions of the form S ought not to Φ. The arguments for my view have two strands. First of all, I argue that my view can account for three difficulty cases, cases where (i) a fact is both a reason for S to Φ and a reason for S not to Φ, (ii) a fact is both evidence for the proposition that S ought to Φ and evidence for the proposition that S ought not to Φ, and (iii) the subject is genuinely torn, as far as reasons are concerned, between Φ-ing and not Φ-ing. Second, I argue that my view can account for what a reason against S Φ-ing is.
{"title":"Reasons As Evidence Against Ought-Nots","authors":"Kok Yong Lee","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2020.1846603","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2020.1846603","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Reasons evidentialism is the view that normative reasons can be analyzed in terms of evidence about oughts (i.e., propositions concerning whether or not S ought to Φ). In this paper, I defend a new reason-evidentialist account according to which normative reasons are evidence against propositions of the form S ought not to Φ. The arguments for my view have two strands. First of all, I argue that my view can account for three difficulty cases, cases where (i) a fact is both a reason for S to Φ and a reason for S not to Φ, (ii) a fact is both evidence for the proposition that S ought to Φ and evidence for the proposition that S ought not to Φ, and (iii) the subject is genuinely torn, as far as reasons are concerned, between Φ-ing and not Φ-ing. Second, I argue that my view can account for what a reason against S Φ-ing is.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/05568641.2020.1846603","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43583819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2020.1850328
C. Vitrano
Abstract In his recent book The Human Predicament, David Benatar describes the human condition as a tragic predicament, and the upshot is that we ought to refrain from having children and adopt an attitude of pragmatic pessimism. I argue that both his pessimism and anti-natalism are not warranted, and I focus on two features: the lack of meaning in our lives and their poor quality. I begin by arguing that the lack of cosmic meaning does not present a serious reason for regret, and the presence of terrestrial meaning, especially when viewed from the more limited perspectives, is undervalued by Benatar. Then I challenge Benatar’s claims about the quality of our lives, arguing that our resilience to adversity is not something we ought to regret, but to celebrate.
{"title":"The Predicament That Wasn’t: A Reply to Benatar","authors":"C. Vitrano","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2020.1850328","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2020.1850328","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In his recent book The Human Predicament, David Benatar describes the human condition as a tragic predicament, and the upshot is that we ought to refrain from having children and adopt an attitude of pragmatic pessimism. I argue that both his pessimism and anti-natalism are not warranted, and I focus on two features: the lack of meaning in our lives and their poor quality. I begin by arguing that the lack of cosmic meaning does not present a serious reason for regret, and the presence of terrestrial meaning, especially when viewed from the more limited perspectives, is undervalued by Benatar. Then I challenge Benatar’s claims about the quality of our lives, arguing that our resilience to adversity is not something we ought to regret, but to celebrate.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/05568641.2020.1850328","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43742939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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