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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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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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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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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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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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1“Practical Necessity: the Subjective Experience”In W. Huemer & B. Centi (eds.), Value and Ontology, Ontos-verlag. 2009.
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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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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
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Il ruolo epistemico delle norme costitutiveIn Che fare? Nuove prospettive filosofiche sull’azione, . pp. 129-152. 2013.This chapter accounts for the epistemic role of constitutive norms of practical rationality from a Kantian constructivist perspective.
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The Claims of Reason: Engstrom’s account of practical knowledgeIris. European Journal of Philosophy and Public Debate 3 197-203. 2011.
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Desideri e necessità: sull’incompletezza della ragione praticaIn M. Galletti (ed.), La mente morale. Persone, ragioni, virtù. pp. 83-99. 2014.This essay is a constructivist account of the role of desires in practical reasoning.
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One Among Many: responsibility and alienation in mass actionIn Teresa Marques & Chiara Valentini (eds.), Collective Action, Philosophy and Law, Routledge. 2021.This chapter argues that some paradigmatic cases of collective action, called mass-action, build upon alienation. Individual alienation qualifies as a coordinative mechanism, which explains collective actions performed by large groups. Alienation requires individuals to detach from their personal stance, and bracket their personal attachments and motivations. Differently from strategic and normative coordinative devices, alienation bypasses strategic normative regulations, such as law and enforc…Read more
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Kant and Sidgwick on the objectivity and practical reasonIn Tyler Paytas & Tim Henning (eds.), Kantian and Sidgwickian Ethics: The Cosmos of Duty Above and the Moral Law Within, Routledge. 2020.This paper compares Kant’s and Sidgwick’s arguments in defense of objective practical knowledge. While Kant focuses on practical truths in terms of practical laws governing the mind in action, Sidgwick is concerned with practical truths about action. 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 accounting for the authority of moral obligations. Key…Read more
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“The Predicament of Temporality: Williams’ challenge to Kant’s conception of practical reasonIn Marcel van Ackeren & Matthieu Queloz (eds.), Bernard Williams on Philosophy and History, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.This chapter argues that Williams’ criticisms of Kant’s account of morality should be viewed in light of their disagreement about the function of reason. This interpretation unearths a fundamental challenge, due to the tension between the temporal features of human agency and the allegedly categorical authority of some normative claims. This is a predicament central to any theory of practical reason. For Kant its root lies in human embodiment, finitude and fragility, and the remedy is the normat…Read more
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ValuesIn 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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Phenomenology of the Aftermath: Ethical Theory and the Intelligibility of Moral ExperiencePoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 94 185-212. 2007.
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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.
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 |