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2Constrained by reason, transformed by love: Murdoch on the standard of proofIn Gary Browning (ed.), Murdoch on Truth and Love, Springer Verlag. 2018.According to Iris Murdoch, the chief experience in morality is loving attention. Her view calls into question the Kantian account of the standard of moral authority, and ultimately denies that reason might provide moral discernment, validate moral experience or drive us toward moral progress. Like Kant, Murdoch defines the moral experience as the subjective experience of freedom, which resists any reductivist approach. Unlike Kant, she thinks that this free agency is unprincipled. Some of her ar…Read more
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2The Dilemma of Normative Supervenience: A Constructivist SolutionIn Bartosz Brożek, Antonino Rotolo & Jerzy Stelmach (eds.), Supervenience and Normativity, Springer. pp. 105-122. 2017.
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1Compassion and Practical Reason: The Perspective of the VulnerableIn Carolyn Price & Justin Caouette (ed.), The Moral Psychology of Compassion. pp. 77-94. 2018.Contemporary moral philosophers and philosophers of the emotions widely agree that Kant’s discussion of compassion is an unfortunate byproduct of his rationalistic and legalistic account of ethics. In fact, Kant departs from the solid established rationalist tradition not only in distancing himself from dogmatic and perfectionist rationalism but also in claiming that there is a practical use of reason, which commits him to acknowledge that reason directly guides rational agents by furnishing the…Read more
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1Kant on RecognitionHandbuch Anerkennung Springer Reference Geisteswissenschaften. 2020.This entry concerns Kant's conception of moral recognition, mutual recognition, and dignity.
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1Reasons in Moral PhilosophyIn Colin Aitken, Amalia Amaya, Kevin D. Ashley, Carla Bagnoli, Giorgio Bongiovanni, Bartosz Brożek, Cristiano Castelfranchi, Samuele Chilovi, Marcello Di Bello, Jaap Hage, Kenneth Einar Himma, Lewis A. Kornhauser, Emiliano Lorini, Fabrizio Macagno, Andrei Marmor, J. J. Moreso, Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco, Antonino Rotolo, Giovanni Sartor, Burkhard Schafer, Chiara Valentini, Bart Verheij, Douglas Walton & Wojciech Załuski (eds.), Handbook of Legal Reasoning and Argumentation, Springer Verlag. pp. 35-46. 2011.The concept of reason is pervasive in our ordinary practices, but there is a large and divisive disagreement about their role in the foundation and explanation of morality. Such disagreement depends on three related issues, which concern the definition of “moral reasons,” their sources and functions. This chapter first takes into account material and formal definitions of moral reasons and clarifies the role of reasons in the explanation and justification of intentional action. Second, it addres…Read more
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1Disclaiming responsibility, voicing disagreements, negotiating boundariesOxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility 7 (1): 283-305. 2021.This essay introduces the novel category of “disclaimers” – distinctive normative acts which challenge third-party attributions of responsibility in a community governed by norms of mutual accountability. While the debate focuses on evasive and wrongful refusals to take responsibility for one’s wrongs, this essay argues that disclaimers are fundamental modes of exercising normative powers, whose main functions are demanding recognition, responding to wrongs, voicing disagreement, exiting alienat…Read more
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1“Practical Necessity: the Subjective Experience”In W. Huemer & B. Centi (eds.), Value and Ontology, Ontos-verlag. 2009.
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1Defeaters and Practical KnowledgeSynthese, DOI: 10.1007/S11229-016-1095-Z 195 (7). 2018.This paper situates the problem of defeaters in a larger debate about the source of normative authority. It argues in favour of a constructivist account of defeasibility, which appeals to the justificatory role of moral principles. The argument builds upon the critique of two recent attempts to deal with defeasibility: first, a particularist account, which disposes of moral principles on the ground that reasons are holistic; and second, a proceduralist view, which addresses the problem of d…Read more
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1Ethical ConstructivismCambridge University Press. 2022.Ethical constructivism holds that truths about the relation between rationality, morality, and agency are best understood as constructed by correct reasoning, rather than discovered or invented. Unlike other metaphors used in metaethics, construction brings to light the generative and dynamic dimension of practical reason. On the resultant picture, practical reasoning is not only productive but also self-transforming, and socially empowering. The main task of this volume is to illustrate how con…Read more
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1The practical significance of the categorical imperativeOxford Studies in Normative Ethics 11 (1): 177-198. 2021.On a standard interpretation, the aim of the formula of universal law is to provide a decision procedure for determining the deontic status of actions. By contrast, this chapter argues for the practical significance of the CI centering on Kant’s account of the dynamics of incentives. This approach avoids some widespread misconceptions about how the CI operates and false expectations about what it promises and delivers. In particular, it explains how it differs from deductive practical inferences…Read more
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1Change in view: sensitivity to facts in prospective rationalityIn Giancarlo Marchetti, Hilary Putnam, Donald Davidson, Sharyn Clough & Ruth Anna Putnam (eds.), La contingenza dei fatti e l'oggettivita dei valori, Mimesis. pp. 137-158. 2013.Rational agents often make progress by revisiting their previous judgments about what to believe and what to do. In fact, practical reasoning in general may be thought to be a complex activity by which we bring what matters into view. On this construal of practical reasoning, the process of revision takes center stage, and it often includes (even though it is not limited to) rethinking and re-describing the facts of the matter. Sensitivity to facts is thus an important aspect of practical and th…Read more
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Structural Modes of Recognition and Virtual Forms of Empowerment: Towards a New Antimafia CultureIn R. Pickering-Iazzi (ed.), The Italian Antimafia, New Media, and the Culture of Legality. pp. 39-61. 2017.As rational agents, we are engaged in practices of mutual accountability. We produce reasons that explain and justify what we do. In producing reasons, we address demands of explanation and justification. Where do such demands come from? This is one of the central questions of this chapter. My contention is that in the attempt to make sense of and justify their actions, rational subjects construct reasons in an ideal dialogue with others. In the practice of exchanging reasons, rational subjects …Read more
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Reasons in moral philosophyIn G. Bongiovanni, Don Postema, A. Rotolo, G. Sartor, C. Valentini & D. Walton (eds.), Handbook in Legal Reasoning and Argumentation, Springer. 2011.
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Compassion and Practical Reason: The Perspective of the VulnerableIn Carolyn Price & Justin Caouette (eds.), The Moral Psychology of Compassion, Springer. pp. 77-94. 2018.
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Constrained by reason, transformed by love: Murdoch on the standard of proofIn Gary Browning (ed.), Murdoch on Truth and Love, Springer Verlag. 2018.According to Iris Murdoch, the chief experience in morality is the recognition of others, and this is the experience of loving attention. Love is an independent source of moral authority, distinct from the authority of reason. It is independent because it can be attained through moral experiences that are not certified by reason and cannot be achieved by rational deliberation. This view of love calls into question a cluster of concepts, such as rational agency and principled action, which figure…Read more
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Perché punire il colpevole? Un approccio filosofico alla responsabilità penaleIn Maria Zanichelli (ed.), Il diritto visto da fuori: scienziati, intellettuali, artisti si interrogano sul senso della giuridicità oggi, Zanichelli. pp. 19-28. 2020.A reflection on the justification of punishment.
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Sidgwick and Kant on Practical Knowledge and Rational ActionIn Tyler Paytas & Tim Henning (eds.), Kantian and Sidgwickian Ethics: The Cosmos of Duty Above and the Moral Law Within, Routledge. pp. 61-83. 2020.In this chapter, I compare and contrast Kant’s and Sidgwick’s arguments in defense of moral cognition as objective practical knowledge. Kant focuses on practical truths in terms of practical laws governing the mind in action, while Sidgwick is concerned with practical truths about action. I argue that this is a crucial difference in the understanding of practical knowledge, which is matched by a different understanding of moral phenomenology and of the significance of subjective experience in ac…Read more
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Il paradigma dell’osservatore responsabileNotizie di Politeia 35 ( 136): 157-167. 2019.This paper addresses the issue of the responsibilities associated with the observer's stance.
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“Reflective Efficacy. On Neil Sinhababu Humean Nature"Rivista Italiana di Filosofia E Psicologia 1 (9): 67-72. 2018.This is a contribution to the symposium on Neil Sinhababu Humean Nature.
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Autonomy, Emotional Vulnerability and the Dynamics of PowerIn Sandrine Berges & Alberto L. Siani (eds.), Women Philosophers on Autonomy: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Routledge. pp. 208-225. 2018.Traditionally, philosophers have focused on whether and how emotions threaten autonomy, insofar as they lie outside the sphere of rational agency. That is, they have conceptualized emotional vulnerability as passivity. Second, they have considered how emotions are insensitive to rational judgment, focusing on cases in which emotions are dissonant or recalcitrant. Third, in recognizing the motivational force of emotions, philosophers have tracked their negative impact on rational deliberation. In…Read more
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Responsabilità, reciprocità e cooperazioneRivista di Filosofia 99 469-475. 2018.This article accounts for the relation among the concepts of mutual accountability, cooperation, and reciprocity.
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The spring of action: in butō improvisationIn Alessandro Bertinetto & Marcello Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, Routledge. 2021.This chapter discusses butō dance as an example of improvisation that challenges not only the extant philosophical definitions of improvisation, but also some fundamental presumptions about self-government and agency that are current in action theory. In the first part of the chapter, I identify the main features of butō improvisation, with regard to the nature of its basic movement, and the kind of subjectivity implicated in its generation. I then raise some questions regarding the philosophica…Read more
Carla Bagnoli
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
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University of Modena and Reggio EmiliaProfessor
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Action |
Value Theory |
Normative Ethics |