Stefaan E. Cuypers

Strawson's view on punishment has been either neglected or recoiled from in contemporary scholarship on ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (FR). Strawson's alleged retributivism has made his view suspect and troublesome. In this article, we first argue, against the mainstream, that the punishment passage is an indispensable part of the main argument in FR (section 1) and elucidate in what sense Strawson can be called ‘a retributivist’ (section 2). We then elaborate our own hypothesis of symbolic retribution to explain the continuum between moral reactive attitudes and punishment that Strawson only adumbrates (section 3). After this justification of the punitive response to wrongdoing, we compare and contrast our specific kind of retributivist hypothesis with other positions in the so-called ‘new retributivism’ (section 4). Our hypothesis differs from other subvarieties of expressive retributivism in putting centre stage the idea of punishment as taking up a reverential stance towards the victim.

We are all persons or selves. But what exactly does it mean that we possess an identity and autonomy as persons or selves? This book explores the related problems of self-identity and personal autonomy within the framework of contemporary analytical anthropology, a blend of analytical philosophy of mind and action with moral psychology. Cuypers critically examines the empiricist bundle theory and metaphysical ego theory of self-identity as well as the hierarchical Frankfurt / Dworkin model of personal autonomy. Arguing that all these standard views are found wanting, Cuypers then offers an alternative 'personalist' theory of personal identity, plus an innovative 'moderately heteronomous' theory of autonomy without ever going beyond the analytical frame of reference. In critical discussion with analytical philosophers such as Derek Parfit, John Perry and Harry Frankfurt, this book develops an original perspective on the nature of persons or selves that is orthogonal to the received views in analytical anthropology.

Psychosomatic medicine, with its prevailing biopsychosocial model, aims to integrate human and exact sciences with their divergent conceptual models. Therefore, its own conceptual foundations, which often remain implicit and unknown, may be critically relevant. We defend the thesis that choosing between different metaphysical views on the ‘mind–body problem’ may have important implications for the conceptual foundations of psychosomatic medicine, and therefore potentially also for its methods, scientific status and relationship with the scientific disciplines it aims to integrate: biomedical sciences, psychology and social sciences. To make this point, we introduce three key positions in the philosophical ‘mind–body’ debate and investigate their consequences for the conceptual basis of the biopsychosocial model in general and its ‘psycho-biological’ part in particular. Despite the clinical merits of the biopsychosocial model, we submit that it is conceptually underdeveloped or even flawed, which may hamper its use as a proper scientific model.

Psychiatry is a discipline on the border between the biomedical sciences on the one hand and the humanities and social sciences (most notably psychology and anthropology) on the other. This unique position undoubtedly contributes to the attractiveness of psychiatry as a medical specialism for many young doctors, but it also causes significant problems. Unlike other medical disciplines, in which the definitions of diseases are based on objective, measurable pathophysiological underpinnings, psychiatric diagnosis and classification has been based on descriptions of inherently subjective mental and behavioral symptoms that are supposed to be deviant from "normal" psychology or behavior, as reflected in the current ..

Derk Pereboom has advanced a four-case manipulation argument that, he claims, undermines both libertarian accounts of free action not committed to agent-causation and compatibilist accounts of such action. The first two cases are meant to be ones in which the key agent is not responsible for his actions owing to his being manipulated. We first consider a “hard-line” response to this argument that denies that the agent is not morally responsible in these cases. We argue that this response invites a dialectically uncharitable reading of the argument. We then propose an alternative interpretation; it affirms that, at least prima facie, the manipulated agent in the first two cases is not responsible. Finally, we question Pereboom’s rationale for why the manipulation in these cases subverts responsibility.

An overarching aim of education is the promotion of children's personal well-being. Liberal educationalists also support the promotion of children's personal autonomy as a central educational aim. On some views, such as John White's, these two goals—furthering well-being and cultivating autonomy—can come apart. Our primary aim in this paper is to argue for a species of a stronger view: assuming preferentism as our axiology, we suggest that there is an essential association between the autonomy of our springs of action, such as desires and beliefs, on the one hand, and personal well-being, on the other. If we are right about this link, then we have at our disposal a partial (non-instrumental) validation of the liberal ideal of autonomy.

Architecture has a marked influence on ethical perception. Ethical perception, in turn, has a pronounced influence on what we are morally responsible for, our decisions, choices, intentional omissions, and overt actions, for instance. It thus stands to reason that architecture bears saliently on moral responsibility. If we now introduce a widely accepted premise that one of the fundamental aims of education is to see that our children turn into morally responsible agents, we can further infer that architecture has an influence on educating for moral responsibility. Our primary aims in this paper are, first, to uncover associations between architecture and ethical perception, on the one hand, and moral..

Evolutionary psychology and human sociobiology often reject the mere possibility of symbolic causality. Conversely, theories in which symbolic causality plays a central role tend to be both anti-nativist and anti-evolutionary. This article sketches how these apparent scientific rivals can be reconciled in the study of disgust. First, we argue that there are no good philosophical or evolutionary reasons to assume that symbolic causality is impossible. Then, we examine to what extent symbolic causality can be part of the theoretical toolbox of the evolutionary social sciences. This examination leads to the conclusion that it is possible to make evolutionary sense of Mary Douglas’s theory of disgust, and that her view of symbolic causality can and should inform evolutionary theories of (sociocultural) disgust.

Osobliwość takich doznań, jak ból, głód i pragnienie. Reliabilizm w drugiej części szóstej Medytacji Kartezjusza Artykuł omawia epistemiczny status cielesnych doznań takich, jak ból, głód i pragnienia, o których mowa w drugiej części szóstej Medytacji Kartezjusza. Argumentuję, że ów fragment stanowi integralny komponent epistemologicznego programu, który można znaleźć w Medytacjach. Na ogół widzi się Kartezjusza jako zwolennika infallibilizmu, internalizmu oraz fundacjonalizmu. Tymczasem w odniesieniu do wiedzy i przekonań opartych na doznaniach cielesnych przyjmuje on fallibilizm, eksternalizm i reliabilizm. Na rzecz tego wniosku przemawia z jednej strony, analiza tego, czego naucza nas – według Kartezjusza – natura przez wrażenia bólu, głodu i pragnienia, z drugiej strony jego analiza błędów, którym podlega nasza natura, przeprowadzona przeze mnie z wykorzystaniem zaproponowanego przez Wilfrida Sellarsa podziału na logiczną przestrzeń rozumu oraz empiryczną przestrzeń przyczyn.

ABSTRACT This paper returns to the very concept of moral responsibility. Its focus is not on the conditions but on the nature of moral responsibility. First, it introduces the Strawsonian and ledger conceptions of moral responsibility. Next, it contrasts and compares these conceptions. Finally, it evaluates both conceptions and asks which is the right one. Though this article works toward further clarifying the concept of moral responsibility, its conclusion is open-ended. RESUMEN El artículo vuelve sobre el asunto de la responsabilidad moral y se enfoca no en sus condiciones, sino en la naturaleza de la responsabilidad moral. En primer lugar, introduce las concepciones de Strawson y del "libro mayor" [ledger conception] de la responsabilidad moral. Luego, compara y contrasta esas dos concepciones, Finalmente, evalúa las dos concepciones y se pregunta cuál será la correcta. Aunque el artículo aporta a la aclaración del concepto de responsabilidad moral, su conclusión es abierta.

In the debate on free will and moral responsibility, Saul Smilansky is a hard source-incompatibilist who objects to source-compatibilism for being morally shallow. After criticizing John Martin Fischer’s too optimistic response to this objection, this paper dissipates the charge that compatibilist accounts of ultimate origination are morally shallow by appealing to the seriousness of contingency in the framework of, what Paul Russell calls, compatibilist-fatalism. Responding to the objection from moral shallowness thus drives a wedge between optimists and fatalists within the compatibilist camp.

It is suggested that the current hierarchical (Frankfurt-Dworkin) model of personal autonomy in philosophical anthropology gives expression to the fundamental presupposition of self-determination in much educational practice and pedagogical theory. Radical criticisms are made of the notions of self-identification and self-evaluation which are of the utmost importance to this model. Instead of relying on such ‘acts of the will’ as decision and choice for the explanation of self-identification and self- evaluation, the non-intentional as well as the non-individualistic character of these processes is stressed and analysed in terms of volitional necessity and social dependence. The consequence of this criticism is the substitution of the concept of extreme personal autonomy by that of caring about oneself as the first principle of education.

In his 1973 paper?The Justification of Education? R.S. Peters aspired to give a non-instrumental justification of education. Ever since, his so-called?transcendental argument? has been under attack and most critics conclude that it does not work. They have, however, thrown the baby away with the bathwater, when they furthermore concluded that Peters? justificatory project itself is futile. This article takes another look at Peters? justificatory project. As against a Kantian interpretation, it proposes an axiological-perfectionist interpretation to bring out the permanent importance of this project and suggests some possible strategies for its successful execution.

In this paper, I want to give an interpretation of Harry Frankfurt’s complex theory of the will with respect to the issue of “autonomy and necessity”. My central claim is that Frankfurt’s employment of the concept of the will is equivocal. He actually uses three distinct conceptions of the will without ever distinguishing them from one another. I shall introduce and justify such a clarifying tripartite distinction. Although my discussion will be limited to Frankfurt’s view of the will, this distinction and the points made about its components can easily be generalized. In my opinion, then, such a tripartite distinction must form an essential part of any rich theory of the will.Both the first and the second conception of the will can readily be understood within the scope of the debate between compatibilism and incompatibilism. The third conception, however, transcends the framework of this classical opposition because the autonomy of this third kind of will positively requires necessity. Autonomy is not only compatible with necessity : according to the third conception, the former also intrinsically involves the latter. Although this conception of the will is somewhat unfamiliar and non-standard in the debate, I shall try to show that it captures an important fact about our volitional nature — a deep fact which is often overlooked or neglected.

This paper argues that the classical debate on personal identity in analytical philosophy implicitly rests upon the untenable doctrine of philosophical atomism. Both the Cartesian Ego Theory and the Empiricist Bundle Theory are built upon the indefensible epistemological presupposition that the self is a private object of introspective knowledge. It is suggested that Peter Strawson's descriptive metaphysics of the person as a public agent contains the essential preliminaries for a non-atomistic view of personal identity.

Richard Stanley Peters was one of the founding fathers of analytic philosophy of education in the twentieth century. After reviewing Peters’ disentanglement of the ambiguities of liberal education, I reconstruct his view on the status and the existential foundations of the humanities. What emerges from my reconstruction is an original justificatory argument for the value of liberal education as general education in the sense of initiation into the heritage of the humanities. To close, I evaluate the scope and power of this argument from the existential concern of the humanities.