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575Recent work on human nature: Beyond traditional essencesPhilosophy Compass 9 (9): 642-652. 2014.Recent philosophical work on the concept of human nature disagrees on how to respond to the Darwinian challenge, according to which biological species do not have traditional essences. Three broad kinds of reactions can be distinguished: conservative intrinsic essentialism, which defends essences in the traditional sense, eliminativism, which suggests dropping the concept of human nature altogether, and constructive approaches, which argue that revisions can generate sensible concepts of human n…Read more
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Michael E. Bratman, Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and AgencyInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 9 (2): 265-270. 2001.
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43Hilberts Krawatte, Ryles Clown und Gehlens Schlüssel. Zur Analyse von GewohnheitshandlungenZeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 61 (2). 2007.Gewohnheitshandlungen stellen für die kausale Handlungstheorie eine Herausforderung dar: Einerseits werden sie offenkundig auf weite Strecken nicht durch vorgängige bewusste Wünsche gesteuert. Andererseits glauben wir, dass dabei der Akteur in der Regel über sie diejenige Form von Kontrolle ausübt, die sie als seine absichtlichen Handlungen qualifiziert. Somit kann es den Anschein haben, dass Gewohnheitshandlungen entscheidende Gegenbeispiele für eine Theorie liefern, die die für Absichtlichkeit…Read more
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Wanting*, Consciousness and AffectIn Wanting and Intending: Elements of a Philosophy of Practical Mind, Springer Verlag. 2016.
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Being in the tradition, an historical systematic reconstruction of Gadamer hermeneuticsPhilosophisches Jahrbuch 101 (2): 381-394. 1994.
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429Philosophie der LebenswissenschaftenInformation Philosophie 4 14-27. 2013.This paper summarizes (in German) recent tendencies in the philosophy of the life sciences.
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26Kann Kunst anästhetisch werden?Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 59 (2). 2005.Viele Kunstphilosophen heute, beispielsweise Vertreter der institutionellen Theorie und der Clusterkonzeption der Kunst, bestreiten, dass zwischen der Kunst und dem Ästhetischen ein begrifflicher Zusammenhang besteht. Sie stützen sich dabei auf der ‚anästhetischen These’, der zufolge es Kunstwerke gibt, die nicht darauf angewiesen sind, in der ästhetischen Einstellung rezipiert zu werden. In diesem Artikel verteidige ich die traditionelle Sicht, dass ein solcher begrifflicher Zusammenhang, auch …Read more
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85The uses of hierarchy: Autonomy and valuingPhilosophical Explorations 5 (3). 2002.Autonomy and valuing are two significant practical phenomena that have been analysed in terms of higher-order wanting. I argue that reference to higher-order capacities is indeed required to make sense of both concepts, but also that such analyses need a more differentiated understanding of "wanting to want" than has hitherto been proposed. Central for autonomy is the instantiation of four types of optative relationship by an accountable agent under conditions of rationality. Valuing requires th…Read more
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31Socioecological pressures, proximal psychological mechanisms and moral normativity. Situating Tomasello’s Natural History of Human MoralityPhilosophical Psychology 31 (5): 639-660. 2018.
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47From shared intentionality to moral obligation? Some worriesPhilosophical Psychology 31 (5): 736-754. 2018.
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Wanting* and Its SymptomsIn Wanting and Intending: Elements of a Philosophy of Practical Mind, Springer Verlag. 2016.
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Introduction: Moral Sentimentalism: Context and CritiqueIn Neil Roughley & T. Schramme (eds.), On Moral Sentimentalism, Cambridge Scholars Press. pp. 1-18. 2015.
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45Being humans: anthropological universality and particularity in transdisciplinary perspectives (edited book)Walter de Gruyter. 2000.But what is a man? Shall I say a rational animal? Assuredly not; for it would be necessary forthwith to inquire into what is meant by animal, ...
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695The Double Failure of 'Double Effect'In Christoph Lumer & Sandro Nannini (eds.), Intentionality, deliberation and autonomy: the action-theoretic basis of practical philosophy, Ashgate Publishing. 2007.The ‘doctrine of double effect’ claims that it is in some sense morally less problematic to bring about a negatively evaluated state of affairs as a ‘side effect’ of one’s pursuit of another, morally unobjectionable aim than it is to bring it about in order to achieve that aim. In a first step, this chapter discusses the descriptive difference on which the claim is built. That difference is shown to derive from the attitudinal distinction between intention and ‘acceptance’, a distinction that is…Read more
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21Forms of Fellow Feeling: Empathy, Sympathy, Concern and Moral Agency (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2017.What is the basis of our capacity to act morally? This is a question that has been discussed for millennia, with philosophical debate typically distinguishing two sources of morality: reason and sentiment. This collection aims to shed light on whether the human capacity to feel for others really is central for morality and, if so, in what way. To tackle these questions, the authors discuss how fellow feeling is to be understood: its structure, content and empirical conditions. Also discussed are…Read more
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22Wanting and Intending: Elements of a Philosophy of Practical MindSpringer Verlag. 2016.In the book’s first chapter, the topic of practical mind is approached via a brief survey of a number of important positions in the history of philosophy. The founding question for a philosophy of practical mind is raised by Aristotle when he asks what it is in the soul that originates movement. I discuss the answers to this question proposed by Plato, Aristotle himself, Hobbes and Hume, before rounding off the historical survey with a look at the introduction of the notion of “pro-attitude” in …Read more
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DecidingIn Wanting and Intending: Elements of a Philosophy of Practical Mind, Springer Verlag. 2016.
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15The Normative Animal?: On the Anthropological Significance of Social, Moral and Linguistic Norms (edited book)Foundations of Human Interacti. 2019.It is often claimed that humans are rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral creatures. What these characterizations may all have in common is the more fundamental claim that humans are normative animals, in the sense that they are creatures whose lives are structured at a fundamental level by their relationships to norms. The various capacities singled out by discussion of rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral animals might then all essentially involve an orientation to obligations, permissi…Read more
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17Über die Gegenstände und Mechanismen von Billigung und MissbilligungZeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 67 (4). 2013.
Duisburg and Essen, NRW, Germany
Areas of Specialization
Moral Emotivism and Sentimentalism |
Moral Emotion, Misc |
Reasons |
Practical Reason |