Randall G. Styers
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195151077
- eISBN:
- 9780199835263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151070.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The chapter begins by exploring various psychological theories in which magic is seen as a product of inchoate or inordinate desire. Whether asserting that magic is socially reactionary and ...
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The chapter begins by exploring various psychological theories in which magic is seen as a product of inchoate or inordinate desire. Whether asserting that magic is socially reactionary and authoritarian or fundamentally anti-social and anarchical, theorists have regularly seen magic as a threat to a productive social order. The dominant scholarly construction of magic has legitimated two distinct channels through which human needs are to be constructed and resolved: a spiritualized religious realm (to shape certain aspects of human identity and assuage internal tensions) and a rationalized scientific realm (to govern appropriate manipulation of the material world). With magic deployed as the stigmatized mediator between religion and science, the secularizing separation between these two channels is reinforced, and capitalism and Western science are relegated broad instrumental control of the material world. Even recent scholarly efforts to reverse the negative valence of magic maintain important elements of the traditional distinctions among religion, magic, and science and reinforce the paradigm in which rationalized religion and science are aligned with capitalist social relations.Less
The chapter begins by exploring various psychological theories in which magic is seen as a product of inchoate or inordinate desire. Whether asserting that magic is socially reactionary and authoritarian or fundamentally anti-social and anarchical, theorists have regularly seen magic as a threat to a productive social order. The dominant scholarly construction of magic has legitimated two distinct channels through which human needs are to be constructed and resolved: a spiritualized religious realm (to shape certain aspects of human identity and assuage internal tensions) and a rationalized scientific realm (to govern appropriate manipulation of the material world). With magic deployed as the stigmatized mediator between religion and science, the secularizing separation between these two channels is reinforced, and capitalism and Western science are relegated broad instrumental control of the material world. Even recent scholarly efforts to reverse the negative valence of magic maintain important elements of the traditional distinctions among religion, magic, and science and reinforce the paradigm in which rationalized religion and science are aligned with capitalist social relations.
Frisbee Sheffield
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199286775
- eISBN:
- 9780191713194
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286775.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
This book is concerned with Plato's examination of the nature and aims of human desire, and the role that it plays in our ethical lives. For Plato, analysing our desires is a way of reflecting on the ...
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This book is concerned with Plato's examination of the nature and aims of human desire, and the role that it plays in our ethical lives. For Plato, analysing our desires is a way of reflecting on the kind of people that we are, and on our prospects for a worthwhile and happy life. This assumes that desires are the sorts of thing that are amenable to such reflection. This book considers why Plato held such a view, and in what direction he thought our desires could best be shaped. The kind of relationships which typically took place at symposia was an important way in which young men learnt how to value and desire the right kinds of things, and in the appropriate manner. They were, in short, a way in which virtue was transmitted to the young. The book argues that seen in this light, the Symposium belongs amongst those dialogues concerned with moral education. The Symposium offers a distinctive approach to central Platonic themes concerning education, virtue, epistemology, and moral psychology, one that is grounded in an account of the nature and goals of a loving relationship.Less
This book is concerned with Plato's examination of the nature and aims of human desire, and the role that it plays in our ethical lives. For Plato, analysing our desires is a way of reflecting on the kind of people that we are, and on our prospects for a worthwhile and happy life. This assumes that desires are the sorts of thing that are amenable to such reflection. This book considers why Plato held such a view, and in what direction he thought our desires could best be shaped. The kind of relationships which typically took place at symposia was an important way in which young men learnt how to value and desire the right kinds of things, and in the appropriate manner. They were, in short, a way in which virtue was transmitted to the young. The book argues that seen in this light, the Symposium belongs amongst those dialogues concerned with moral education. The Symposium offers a distinctive approach to central Platonic themes concerning education, virtue, epistemology, and moral psychology, one that is grounded in an account of the nature and goals of a loving relationship.
B. Diane Lipsett
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199754519
- eISBN:
- 9780199827213
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199754519.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
Self-restraint or self-mastery may appear to be the opposite of erotic desire. But in three ancient tales of conversion—The Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and Joseph and Aseneth—the ...
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Self-restraint or self-mastery may appear to be the opposite of erotic desire. But in three ancient tales of conversion—The Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and Joseph and Aseneth—the interplay of desire and self-restraint is complex and dynamic, as careful literary analysis shows. This study treats conversion—the marked change in a protagonist’s piety and identity—as in part an effect of story, a function of narrative textures, coherence, and closure. Readings of the three narratives gain nuance through appeals to varied theorists of desire, self-formation, and narrative, including Foucault, psychoanalytic theorists, and the ancient literary critic Longinus. Well grounded in scholarship on Hermas, Thecla, and Aseneth, the closely paced readings sharpen attention to each story, while also advancing discussions of ancient views of the self; of desire, masculinity, and virginity; of the cultural codes around marriage and continence; and of the textual energetics of conversion tales.Less
Self-restraint or self-mastery may appear to be the opposite of erotic desire. But in three ancient tales of conversion—The Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and Joseph and Aseneth—the interplay of desire and self-restraint is complex and dynamic, as careful literary analysis shows. This study treats conversion—the marked change in a protagonist’s piety and identity—as in part an effect of story, a function of narrative textures, coherence, and closure. Readings of the three narratives gain nuance through appeals to varied theorists of desire, self-formation, and narrative, including Foucault, psychoanalytic theorists, and the ancient literary critic Longinus. Well grounded in scholarship on Hermas, Thecla, and Aseneth, the closely paced readings sharpen attention to each story, while also advancing discussions of ancient views of the self; of desire, masculinity, and virginity; of the cultural codes around marriage and continence; and of the textual energetics of conversion tales.
B. Diane Lipsett
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199754519
- eISBN:
- 9780199827213
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199754519.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
The conclusion compares concisely how the different narrative textures and particularities of the tales of Hermas, Thecla, and Aseneth generate discrete representations of conversion. It also offers ...
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The conclusion compares concisely how the different narrative textures and particularities of the tales of Hermas, Thecla, and Aseneth generate discrete representations of conversion. It also offers a compressed summary of some of the gender-laden elements in these conversion stories: virginity, celibacy, masculinity, self-mastery and desire. Each story offers a distinctive development of the thematic of desire, restraint, and conversion.Less
The conclusion compares concisely how the different narrative textures and particularities of the tales of Hermas, Thecla, and Aseneth generate discrete representations of conversion. It also offers a compressed summary of some of the gender-laden elements in these conversion stories: virginity, celibacy, masculinity, self-mastery and desire. Each story offers a distinctive development of the thematic of desire, restraint, and conversion.
Maria Alvarez
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199550005
- eISBN:
- 9780191720239
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550005.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Understanding human beings and their distinctive rational and volitional capacities is one of the central tasks of philosophy. The task requires a clear account of such things as reasons, desires, ...
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Understanding human beings and their distinctive rational and volitional capacities is one of the central tasks of philosophy. The task requires a clear account of such things as reasons, desires, emotions, and motives, and of how they combine to produce and explain human behaviour. Kinds of Reasons offers a fresh and incisive treatment of these issues, focusing in particular on reasons as they feature in contexts of agency. The account offered builds on some important recent work in the area; but it takes its main inspiration from the tradition that receives its seminal contemporary expression in the writings of G. E. M. Anscombe, a tradition that runs counter to the broadly Humean orthodoxy that has dominated the theory of action for the past forty years. The book offers an alternative to the Humean view that our reason for acting are mental states: it explains and develops a distinctive version of the view that our reasons for acting are facts, and defends it against difficulties that have been thought to be insurmountable. In addition, it proposes an account of the relation between reasons and desires, and of the role these play in practical reasoning and in the explanation of action.Less
Understanding human beings and their distinctive rational and volitional capacities is one of the central tasks of philosophy. The task requires a clear account of such things as reasons, desires, emotions, and motives, and of how they combine to produce and explain human behaviour. Kinds of Reasons offers a fresh and incisive treatment of these issues, focusing in particular on reasons as they feature in contexts of agency. The account offered builds on some important recent work in the area; but it takes its main inspiration from the tradition that receives its seminal contemporary expression in the writings of G. E. M. Anscombe, a tradition that runs counter to the broadly Humean orthodoxy that has dominated the theory of action for the past forty years. The book offers an alternative to the Humean view that our reason for acting are mental states: it explains and develops a distinctive version of the view that our reasons for acting are facts, and defends it against difficulties that have been thought to be insurmountable. In addition, it proposes an account of the relation between reasons and desires, and of the role these play in practical reasoning and in the explanation of action.
Randall G. Styers
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195151077
- eISBN:
- 9780199835263
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151070.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Since the emergence of religious studies and the social sciences as academic disciplines in the late nineteenth century, the concept of "magic" has played a major role in defining religion and in ...
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Since the emergence of religious studies and the social sciences as academic disciplines in the late nineteenth century, the concept of "magic" has played a major role in defining religion and in mediating religion's relation to science. Many of the most important scholars in these disciplines have debated the relation of magic to religion and science, yet traditional efforts to formulate distinctions among these categories have proved notoriously unstable, the subject of repeated critique and deconstruction. The notion of magic has remained stubbornly amorphous. This book seeks to account for the extraordinary vitality of scholarly discourse purporting to define and explain magic despite its failure to do just that. The book argues that the persistence of scholarly debates over magic can best be explained in light of the Western drive to establish and secure distinctive norms for modern identity--norms based on narrow forms of instrumental rationality, industrious labor, rigidly defined sexual roles, and the containment of wayward forms of desire. Magic has served to designate a form of alterity or deviance against which dominant Western notions of appropriate religious piety, legitimate scientific rationality, and orderly social relations are brought into relief. Scholars have found magic an invaluable tool in their efforts to define the appropriate boundaries of religion and science. On a broader level, magical thinking has served as an important foil for modernity itself. Debates over the nature of magic have offered a particularly rich site at which scholars have worked to define and to contest the nature of modernity and norms for life in the modern world.Less
Since the emergence of religious studies and the social sciences as academic disciplines in the late nineteenth century, the concept of "magic" has played a major role in defining religion and in mediating religion's relation to science. Many of the most important scholars in these disciplines have debated the relation of magic to religion and science, yet traditional efforts to formulate distinctions among these categories have proved notoriously unstable, the subject of repeated critique and deconstruction. The notion of magic has remained stubbornly amorphous. This book seeks to account for the extraordinary vitality of scholarly discourse purporting to define and explain magic despite its failure to do just that. The book argues that the persistence of scholarly debates over magic can best be explained in light of the Western drive to establish and secure distinctive norms for modern identity--norms based on narrow forms of instrumental rationality, industrious labor, rigidly defined sexual roles, and the containment of wayward forms of desire. Magic has served to designate a form of alterity or deviance against which dominant Western notions of appropriate religious piety, legitimate scientific rationality, and orderly social relations are brought into relief. Scholars have found magic an invaluable tool in their efforts to define the appropriate boundaries of religion and science. On a broader level, magical thinking has served as an important foil for modernity itself. Debates over the nature of magic have offered a particularly rich site at which scholars have worked to define and to contest the nature of modernity and norms for life in the modern world.
Maria Alvarez
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199550005
- eISBN:
- 9780191720239
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550005.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
The Introduction sets out the aim of the book, which is to contribute to a better understanding of reasons in the context of human action. Some of the questions the book addresses are: What are ...
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The Introduction sets out the aim of the book, which is to contribute to a better understanding of reasons in the context of human action. Some of the questions the book addresses are: What are reasons? Are there different kinds of reasons? Are reasons beliefs and desires? If not, how are they related to beliefs and desires? And what role do these play in motivating and explaining actions?It outlines three basic claims which underpin some of the major views and arguments defended in the book: that all reasons are facts; that discussions about reasons have been afflicted by an act/object ambiguity inherent in the terms ‘belief’ and ‘desire’; and that in understanding actions performed for a reason, we need to distinguish between motivation and explanation; that is, between the task of identifying and characterizing what motivates an agent, and what explains his action. The Introduction also lays out some of the main doctrines defended in the book—outlined in the following chapter summaries.Less
The Introduction sets out the aim of the book, which is to contribute to a better understanding of reasons in the context of human action. Some of the questions the book addresses are: What are reasons? Are there different kinds of reasons? Are reasons beliefs and desires? If not, how are they related to beliefs and desires? And what role do these play in motivating and explaining actions?
It outlines three basic claims which underpin some of the major views and arguments defended in the book: that all reasons are facts; that discussions about reasons have been afflicted by an act/object ambiguity inherent in the terms ‘belief’ and ‘desire’; and that in understanding actions performed for a reason, we need to distinguish between motivation and explanation; that is, between the task of identifying and characterizing what motivates an agent, and what explains his action.
The Introduction also lays out some of the main doctrines defended in the book—outlined in the following chapter summaries.
Sergio Tenenbaum (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195382440
- eISBN:
- 9780199870158
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195382440.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Most philosophers working in moral psychology and practical reason think that either the notion of “good” or the notion of “desire” have central roles to play in our understanding of intentional ...
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Most philosophers working in moral psychology and practical reason think that either the notion of “good” or the notion of “desire” have central roles to play in our understanding of intentional explanations and practical reasoning. However, philosophers disagree sharply over how we are supposed to understand the notions of ‘desire’ and ‘good’, how these notions relate, and whether both play a significant and independent role in practical reason. In particular, the “Guise of the Good” thesis — the view that desire (or perhaps intention, or intentional action) always aims at the good — has received renewed attention in the last twenty years. Can one have desire for things that the desirer does not perceive to be good in any, or form intentions to act in way that one does not deem to be good? Does the notion of good play any essential role in an account of deliberation or practical reason? Moreover, philosophers also disagree about the relevant notion of good. Is it a purely formal notion, or does it involve a substantive conception of the good? Is the primary notion, the notion of the good for a particular agent, or the notion of good simpliciter? Does the relevant notion of good make essential appeal to human nature, or would it in principle extend to all rational beings? While these questions are central in contemporary work in ethics, practical reason, and philosophy of action, they are not new; similar issues were discussed in the ancient period. The book aims to bring together “systematic” and more historically-oriented work on these issues.Less
Most philosophers working in moral psychology and practical reason think that either the notion of “good” or the notion of “desire” have central roles to play in our understanding of intentional explanations and practical reasoning. However, philosophers disagree sharply over how we are supposed to understand the notions of ‘desire’ and ‘good’, how these notions relate, and whether both play a significant and independent role in practical reason. In particular, the “Guise of the Good” thesis — the view that desire (or perhaps intention, or intentional action) always aims at the good — has received renewed attention in the last twenty years. Can one have desire for things that the desirer does not perceive to be good in any, or form intentions to act in way that one does not deem to be good? Does the notion of good play any essential role in an account of deliberation or practical reason? Moreover, philosophers also disagree about the relevant notion of good. Is it a purely formal notion, or does it involve a substantive conception of the good? Is the primary notion, the notion of the good for a particular agent, or the notion of good simpliciter? Does the relevant notion of good make essential appeal to human nature, or would it in principle extend to all rational beings? While these questions are central in contemporary work in ethics, practical reason, and philosophy of action, they are not new; similar issues were discussed in the ancient period. The book aims to bring together “systematic” and more historically-oriented work on these issues.
Talbot Brewer
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199557882
- eISBN:
- 9780191720918
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557882.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
The virtue ethics movement in recent philosophical ethics can usefully be divided into two quite separate streams of thought. Some have turned to the texts of Plato and Aristotle for new answers to ...
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The virtue ethics movement in recent philosophical ethics can usefully be divided into two quite separate streams of thought. Some have turned to the texts of Plato and Aristotle for new answers to established questions in philosophical ethics, while others have sought a vantage point from which the basic questions of the field could themselves be put in question. The aim of this book is to elaborate and defend a version of the second, more radical sort of virtue ethics. The book begins with a fundamental reconsideration of the way in which thought makes itself practical in temporally extended activities and lives. This reconsideration yields an alternative picture of the self — a picture with recognizably Aristotelian and Platonic elements — and puts that picture to work in retrieving an unfamiliar conception of the proper task of philosophical ethics, one that provides a suitable home for retrieving the virtue concepts. The critical bite of the book is directed in the first instance at ideas that are prevalent among philosophers. Yet there is reason to think that these philosophical ideas express a conception of the self that shapes contemporary Western culture, and that hinders our capacity to make full sense of our activities, passions, and lives, or to attain full articulacy about the values to which we might hope to answer. The book argues that the rise of the fact/value distinction and of the characteristically modern distinction between person‐relative and impersonal goods are best understood as a story of encroaching confusion and not as the story of progressive discovery that they are often taken to be. The book culminates in an attempt to show that the ethical and epistemic virtues conduce to a single, monistic sort of goodness that fosters intimate relationships as well as healthy political community, and that overcomes the putative opposition between self‐interest and morality.Less
The virtue ethics movement in recent philosophical ethics can usefully be divided into two quite separate streams of thought. Some have turned to the texts of Plato and Aristotle for new answers to established questions in philosophical ethics, while others have sought a vantage point from which the basic questions of the field could themselves be put in question. The aim of this book is to elaborate and defend a version of the second, more radical sort of virtue ethics. The book begins with a fundamental reconsideration of the way in which thought makes itself practical in temporally extended activities and lives. This reconsideration yields an alternative picture of the self — a picture with recognizably Aristotelian and Platonic elements — and puts that picture to work in retrieving an unfamiliar conception of the proper task of philosophical ethics, one that provides a suitable home for retrieving the virtue concepts. The critical bite of the book is directed in the first instance at ideas that are prevalent among philosophers. Yet there is reason to think that these philosophical ideas express a conception of the self that shapes contemporary Western culture, and that hinders our capacity to make full sense of our activities, passions, and lives, or to attain full articulacy about the values to which we might hope to answer. The book argues that the rise of the fact/value distinction and of the characteristically modern distinction between person‐relative and impersonal goods are best understood as a story of encroaching confusion and not as the story of progressive discovery that they are often taken to be. The book culminates in an attempt to show that the ethical and epistemic virtues conduce to a single, monistic sort of goodness that fosters intimate relationships as well as healthy political community, and that overcomes the putative opposition between self‐interest and morality.
SWAPAN CHAKRAVORTY
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182665
- eISBN:
- 9780191673856
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182665.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
A recent survey of drama and society in the English Renaissance ends with applauding Thomas Middleton as ‘a master’ who ‘will take no contemporary ...
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A recent survey of drama and society in the English Renaissance ends with applauding Thomas Middleton as ‘a master’ who ‘will take no contemporary value for granted, no reality as unchanging’. His promiscuous texts are proven material for postmodern theatre and pedagogy, constantly assaulting the tidy notions of high and low, genre and counter-genre. It is not surprising that academic criticism should have managed to find in Middleton the extremes of both committed didacticism and detached irony. One reason it still finds him so difficult to place is the suggestion in his plays that desires, morals, society, and politics are subject to rules that can operate only by misrepresenting themselves to our consciousness. The suggestion makes Middleton an important waymark in our emergence out of cognitive innocence.Less
A recent survey of drama and society in the English Renaissance ends with applauding Thomas Middleton as ‘a master’ who ‘will take no contemporary value for granted, no reality as unchanging’. His promiscuous texts are proven material for postmodern theatre and pedagogy, constantly assaulting the tidy notions of high and low, genre and counter-genre. It is not surprising that academic criticism should have managed to find in Middleton the extremes of both committed didacticism and detached irony. One reason it still finds him so difficult to place is the suggestion in his plays that desires, morals, society, and politics are subject to rules that can operate only by misrepresenting themselves to our consciousness. The suggestion makes Middleton an important waymark in our emergence out of cognitive innocence.
Sergio Tenenbaum
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195382440
- eISBN:
- 9780199870158
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195382440.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
In the introduction, Tenenbaum provides a general overview about the main debates that arise from investigation of the relation between desire (and practical reason) and the good, and briefly ...
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In the introduction, Tenenbaum provides a general overview about the main debates that arise from investigation of the relation between desire (and practical reason) and the good, and briefly explains the contribution that the individual chapters make to these debates, as well as how these chapters hang together.Less
In the introduction, Tenenbaum provides a general overview about the main debates that arise from investigation of the relation between desire (and practical reason) and the good, and briefly explains the contribution that the individual chapters make to these debates, as well as how these chapters hang together.
Graham Oddie
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199273416
- eISBN:
- 9780191602658
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199273413.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This book presents an extended argument for a robust realism about value. The robust realist affirms the following distinctive theses. There are genuine claims about value which are true or false — ...
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This book presents an extended argument for a robust realism about value. The robust realist affirms the following distinctive theses. There are genuine claims about value which are true or false — there are facts about value. These value-facts are mind-independent — they are not reducible to desires or other mental states, or indeed to any non-mental facts of a non-evaluative kind. And these genuine, mind-independent, irreducible value-facts are causally efficacious. Values, quite literally, affect us. These are not particularly fashionable theses, and taken as a whole they go somewhat against the grain of quite a lot of recent work in the metaphysics of value. Further, against the received view, this book argues that we can have knowledge of values by experiential acquaintance, that there are experiences of value which can be both veridical and appropriately responsive to the values themselves. Finally, these value-experiences are not the products of some exotic and implausible faculty of ‘intuition’. Rather, they are perfectly mundane and familiar mental states — namely, desires. This view explains how values can be ‘intrinsically motivating’, without falling foul of the widely accepted ‘queerness’ objection. There are, of course, other objections to each of the realist's claims. In showing how and why these objections fail, the book introduces a wealth of interesting and original insights about issues of wider interest — including the nature of properties, reduction, supervenience, and causation.Less
This book presents an extended argument for a robust realism about value. The robust realist affirms the following distinctive theses. There are genuine claims about value which are true or false — there are facts about value. These value-facts are mind-independent — they are not reducible to desires or other mental states, or indeed to any non-mental facts of a non-evaluative kind. And these genuine, mind-independent, irreducible value-facts are causally efficacious. Values, quite literally, affect us. These are not particularly fashionable theses, and taken as a whole they go somewhat against the grain of quite a lot of recent work in the metaphysics of value. Further, against the received view, this book argues that we can have knowledge of values by experiential acquaintance, that there are experiences of value which can be both veridical and appropriately responsive to the values themselves. Finally, these value-experiences are not the products of some exotic and implausible faculty of ‘intuition’. Rather, they are perfectly mundane and familiar mental states — namely, desires. This view explains how values can be ‘intrinsically motivating’, without falling foul of the widely accepted ‘queerness’ objection. There are, of course, other objections to each of the realist's claims. In showing how and why these objections fail, the book introduces a wealth of interesting and original insights about issues of wider interest — including the nature of properties, reduction, supervenience, and causation.
N. M. L. Nathan
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239543
- eISBN:
- 9780191679957
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239543.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Beneath metaphysical problems there often lies a conflict between what we want to be true and what we believe to be true. This book shows how these conflicts can be systematically thought through, ...
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Beneath metaphysical problems there often lies a conflict between what we want to be true and what we believe to be true. This book shows how these conflicts can be systematically thought through, and proposes a resolution as a general philosophical objective. It examines in detail a set of interrelated oppositions about the freedom and the reality of the will. It shows how difficult it is to find a freedom either of decision or of action that is both an object of reflective desire and an object of rational disbelief. It also discusses conflicts about volition as such, contending that the veridicality of volitional experience is no less easy to doubt than the veridicality of our experience of colours. In this context, arguments emerge for a voluntarist theory of the self.Less
Beneath metaphysical problems there often lies a conflict between what we want to be true and what we believe to be true. This book shows how these conflicts can be systematically thought through, and proposes a resolution as a general philosophical objective. It examines in detail a set of interrelated oppositions about the freedom and the reality of the will. It shows how difficult it is to find a freedom either of decision or of action that is both an object of reflective desire and an object of rational disbelief. It also discusses conflicts about volition as such, contending that the veridicality of volitional experience is no less easy to doubt than the veridicality of our experience of colours. In this context, arguments emerge for a voluntarist theory of the self.
L. W. Sumner
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198238782
- eISBN:
- 9780191679773
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238782.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Moral philosophers agree that welfare matters. But they do not agree about what it is, or how much it matters. This book presents an original theory of welfare, investigating its nature and ...
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Moral philosophers agree that welfare matters. But they do not agree about what it is, or how much it matters. This book presents an original theory of welfare, investigating its nature and discussing its importance. It considers and rejects all notable rival theories, both objective and subjective, including hedonism and theories founded on desire or preference. The book's own theory connects welfare closely with happiness or life satisfaction. The book then proceeds to defend welfarism, that is, to argue (against the value pluralism that currently dominates moral philosophy) that welfare is the only basic ethical value, the only thing which we have a moral reason to promote for its own sake. It concludes by discussing the implications of this thesis for ethical and political theory.Less
Moral philosophers agree that welfare matters. But they do not agree about what it is, or how much it matters. This book presents an original theory of welfare, investigating its nature and discussing its importance. It considers and rejects all notable rival theories, both objective and subjective, including hedonism and theories founded on desire or preference. The book's own theory connects welfare closely with happiness or life satisfaction. The book then proceeds to defend welfarism, that is, to argue (against the value pluralism that currently dominates moral philosophy) that welfare is the only basic ethical value, the only thing which we have a moral reason to promote for its own sake. It concludes by discussing the implications of this thesis for ethical and political theory.
Timothy Schroeder
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195172379
- eISBN:
- 9780199849987
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195172379.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Desires lead to actions, influence feelings, and determine what counts as a reward. Recent empirical evidence shows that these three aspects of desire stem from a common biological origin. Informed ...
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Desires lead to actions, influence feelings, and determine what counts as a reward. Recent empirical evidence shows that these three aspects of desire stem from a common biological origin. Informed by contemporary science as much as by the philosophical tradition, this book reveals this common foundation and builds a new philosophical theory of desire that puts desire's neglected face — reward — at its core. This book delves into the way that actions and feelings are produced in the brain, arguing that a distinctive system is responsible for promoting action, on the one hand, and causing feelings of pleasure and displeasure, on the other. This system, the brain's reward system, is the causal origin of both action and feeling, and is the key to understanding the nature of desire.Less
Desires lead to actions, influence feelings, and determine what counts as a reward. Recent empirical evidence shows that these three aspects of desire stem from a common biological origin. Informed by contemporary science as much as by the philosophical tradition, this book reveals this common foundation and builds a new philosophical theory of desire that puts desire's neglected face — reward — at its core. This book delves into the way that actions and feelings are produced in the brain, arguing that a distinctive system is responsible for promoting action, on the one hand, and causing feelings of pleasure and displeasure, on the other. This system, the brain's reward system, is the causal origin of both action and feeling, and is the key to understanding the nature of desire.
Simon Goldhill
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149844
- eISBN:
- 9781400840076
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149844.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
How did the Victorians engage with the ancient world? This book is an exploration of how ancient Greece and Rome influenced Victorian culture. Through Victorian art, opera, and novels, the book ...
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How did the Victorians engage with the ancient world? This book is an exploration of how ancient Greece and Rome influenced Victorian culture. Through Victorian art, opera, and novels, the book examines how sexuality and desire, the politics of culture, and the role of religion in society were considered and debated through the Victorian obsession with antiquity. Looking at Victorian art, it demonstrates how desire and sexuality, particularly anxieties about male desire, were represented and communicated through classical imagery. Probing into operas of the period, the book addresses ideas of citizenship, nationalism, and cultural politics. And through fiction—specifically nineteenth-century novels about the Roman Empire—it discusses religion and the fierce battles over the church as Christianity began to lose dominance over the progressive stance of Victorian science and investigation. Rediscovering some great forgotten works and reframing some more familiar ones, the book offers extraordinary insights into how the Victorian sense of antiquity and our sense of the Victorians came into being. With a wide range of examples and stories, it demonstrates how interest in the classical past shaped nineteenth-century self-expression, giving antiquity a unique place in Victorian culture.Less
How did the Victorians engage with the ancient world? This book is an exploration of how ancient Greece and Rome influenced Victorian culture. Through Victorian art, opera, and novels, the book examines how sexuality and desire, the politics of culture, and the role of religion in society were considered and debated through the Victorian obsession with antiquity. Looking at Victorian art, it demonstrates how desire and sexuality, particularly anxieties about male desire, were represented and communicated through classical imagery. Probing into operas of the period, the book addresses ideas of citizenship, nationalism, and cultural politics. And through fiction—specifically nineteenth-century novels about the Roman Empire—it discusses religion and the fierce battles over the church as Christianity began to lose dominance over the progressive stance of Victorian science and investigation. Rediscovering some great forgotten works and reframing some more familiar ones, the book offers extraordinary insights into how the Victorian sense of antiquity and our sense of the Victorians came into being. With a wide range of examples and stories, it demonstrates how interest in the classical past shaped nineteenth-century self-expression, giving antiquity a unique place in Victorian culture.
John Bricke
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198250111
- eISBN:
- 9780191681240
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198250111.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This is a philosophical study of the theory of mind and morality that David Hume developed in his Treatise of Human Nature and other writings. The chief elements in this theory of mind are Hume's ...
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This is a philosophical study of the theory of mind and morality that David Hume developed in his Treatise of Human Nature and other writings. The chief elements in this theory of mind are Hume's accounts of reasons for action and of the complex interrelations of desire, volition, and affection. On this basis, the book lays out and defends Hume's thoroughgoing non-cognitivist theory of moral judgement, and shows that cognitivist and standard sentimentalist readings of Hume are unsatisfactory, as are the usual interpretations of his views on the connections between morality, justice, and convention.Less
This is a philosophical study of the theory of mind and morality that David Hume developed in his Treatise of Human Nature and other writings. The chief elements in this theory of mind are Hume's accounts of reasons for action and of the complex interrelations of desire, volition, and affection. On this basis, the book lays out and defends Hume's thoroughgoing non-cognitivist theory of moral judgement, and shows that cognitivist and standard sentimentalist readings of Hume are unsatisfactory, as are the usual interpretations of his views on the connections between morality, justice, and convention.
Hendrik Lorenz
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199290635
- eISBN:
- 9780191604027
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199290636.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy
Plato’s Republic introduces and employs an elaborate psychological theory whose core commitment it is that human motivation comes in three forms: rational, spirited, and appetitive. The Brute Within ...
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Plato’s Republic introduces and employs an elaborate psychological theory whose core commitment it is that human motivation comes in three forms: rational, spirited, and appetitive. The Brute Within offers a detailed philosophical analysis of appetitive motivation and of Plato’s conception of appetite as a part of the soul. In doing so, it explores both the psychological theory of the Republic and its afterlife in Plato’s later dialogues as well as in Aristotle’s psychology and ethics. It shows that Plato’s Timaeus, a relatively late dialogue, preserves the substance of the Republic’s conception of appetite as a distinct part of the soul. At the same time, the Timaeus offers a number of important clarifications and amplifications of the theory of the tripartite soul, whose full significance emerges once the Timaeus is read in the context of a number of other later dialogues, most importantly the Theaetetus and the Philebus. In turning to Aristotle’s psychological theory and moral psychology, the book calls attention to the remarkable continuity between Aristotle’s and Plato’s thought in this area. It shows how Aristotle made Plato’s psychological theory his own both by modifying it where appropriate and by giving it a more determinate and precise formulation.Less
Plato’s Republic introduces and employs an elaborate psychological theory whose core commitment it is that human motivation comes in three forms: rational, spirited, and appetitive. The Brute Within offers a detailed philosophical analysis of appetitive motivation and of Plato’s conception of appetite as a part of the soul. In doing so, it explores both the psychological theory of the Republic and its afterlife in Plato’s later dialogues as well as in Aristotle’s psychology and ethics. It shows that Plato’s Timaeus, a relatively late dialogue, preserves the substance of the Republic’s conception of appetite as a distinct part of the soul. At the same time, the Timaeus offers a number of important clarifications and amplifications of the theory of the tripartite soul, whose full significance emerges once the Timaeus is read in the context of a number of other later dialogues, most importantly the Theaetetus and the Philebus. In turning to Aristotle’s psychological theory and moral psychology, the book calls attention to the remarkable continuity between Aristotle’s and Plato’s thought in this area. It shows how Aristotle made Plato’s psychological theory his own both by modifying it where appropriate and by giving it a more determinate and precise formulation.
Bede Rundle
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198236917
- eISBN:
- 9780191679414
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198236917.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This book challenges the quasi-mechanical view of human action that is dominant in contemporary philosophy of mind. A materialist view of the mind and a causal theory of action fit together ...
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This book challenges the quasi-mechanical view of human action that is dominant in contemporary philosophy of mind. A materialist view of the mind and a causal theory of action fit together conveniently: the notion of action as caused by thoughts and desires allows philosophers to accommodate explanations of action within a framework that is congenial to scientific understanding, and the conception of mind as physical enables them to make sense of causal transactions between the two domains. This book offers an alternative approach. Compelling reasons are given for demoting causation and for shifting the emphasis to the role played by behaviour in accounts of thought, belief, desire, intention, freedom, and other key concepts. The book's approach sheds fresh light not only on human behaviour but also on animal mentality, and has important implications for the feasibility of current programmes in cognitive science.Less
This book challenges the quasi-mechanical view of human action that is dominant in contemporary philosophy of mind. A materialist view of the mind and a causal theory of action fit together conveniently: the notion of action as caused by thoughts and desires allows philosophers to accommodate explanations of action within a framework that is congenial to scientific understanding, and the conception of mind as physical enables them to make sense of causal transactions between the two domains. This book offers an alternative approach. Compelling reasons are given for demoting causation and for shifting the emphasis to the role played by behaviour in accounts of thought, belief, desire, intention, freedom, and other key concepts. The book's approach sheds fresh light not only on human behaviour but also on animal mentality, and has important implications for the feasibility of current programmes in cognitive science.
Ann E. Cudd
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187434
- eISBN:
- 9780199786213
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187431.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter discusses the direct and indirect psychological harms of oppression. Direct psychological harms are intentionally inflicted by dominant on subordinate groups. These include terror and ...
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This chapter discusses the direct and indirect psychological harms of oppression. Direct psychological harms are intentionally inflicted by dominant on subordinate groups. These include terror and psychological trauma, humiliation and degradation, objectification, religion, ideology, and cultural domination. Indirect psychological harms occur when the beliefs and values of the privileged or oppressor groups are subconsciously accepted by the subordinate and assimilated into their self-concept or value/belief scheme. Indirect forces thus work through the psychology of the oppressed to mold them and co-opt them to result in choices and decisions that harm the oppressed while benefiting the privileged. These include shame and low self-esteem, false consciousness, and deformed desire.Less
This chapter discusses the direct and indirect psychological harms of oppression. Direct psychological harms are intentionally inflicted by dominant on subordinate groups. These include terror and psychological trauma, humiliation and degradation, objectification, religion, ideology, and cultural domination. Indirect psychological harms occur when the beliefs and values of the privileged or oppressor groups are subconsciously accepted by the subordinate and assimilated into their self-concept or value/belief scheme. Indirect forces thus work through the psychology of the oppressed to mold them and co-opt them to result in choices and decisions that harm the oppressed while benefiting the privileged. These include shame and low self-esteem, false consciousness, and deformed desire.
