Make-Believe Spelunking

To what extent, and in what ways, is it possible for works of fiction to influence their readers’ ethical development? In this essay, I explore different answers to this descriptive question in philosophy and literary studies. I dub a view shared by Iris Murdoch and Martha Nussbaum as the attention account: that great works of fiction can influence their reader’s ethical development by compelling them to cultivate ethically charged attention. I then evaluate Joshua Landy’s criticism of this account and his alternative, which I dub the clarification account: that works of fiction can influence their reader’s ethical development by helping them clarify their core ethical commitments. I argue that neither the attention account nor the invitation account describes the one and only way in which works of fiction can influence their readers’ ethical development. I then ask a normative question: what ways in which works of fiction can influence our ethical development should we embrace? Drawing on Kendall Walton’s make-believe model of fictional experience, I develop an account of a third way in which works of fiction can influence their readers’ ethical development, which I call the invitation account: works of fiction can influence their readers’ ethical development by inviting them to unseat and positively revise their ethical commitments. I make the case for the invitation account by using it to analyze two contemporary novels, Rachel Cusk’s Outline and Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. I argue that the process described by the invitation account—that is, the way of invitation—is one we should embrace.

Between Affects and Norms

This article seeks to explore the meaning of emotional content in a transnational public sphere, in particular with regard to the concept of solidarity. The main normative question that the author discusses here is how far it is possible – if it’s the case at all – to move beyond the basic structure of nation-linked patriotic feeling to solidarity as a transnational political emotion. He divides his argument into two steps. First, he analyzes how the concept of constitutional patriotism could be reframed around the contours of post-national contexts. He suggests that Hegel’s concept of patriotism as a political disposition can contribute to a transnational framework. In a second step, the author discusses solidarity as a transnational political emotion, arguing that one should have in view both its formative process and its contingencies in order to understand the institutional and symbolic mediation of affective contents of social praxis.

Challenges of Aligning Artificial Intelligence with Human Values

As artificial intelligence (AI) systems are becoming increasingly autonomous and will soon be able to make decisions on their own about what to do, AI researchers have started to talk about the need to align AI with human values. The AI ‘value alignment problem’ faces two kinds of challenges—a technical and a normative one—which are interrelated. The technical challenge deals with the question of how to encode human values in artificial intelligence. The normative challenge is associated with two questions: “Which values or whose values should artificial intelligence align with?” My concern is that AI developers underestimate the difficulty of answering the normative question. They hope that we can easily identify the purposes we really desire and that they can focus on the design of those objectives. But how are we to decide which objectives or values to induce in AI, given that there is a plurality of values and moral principles and that our everyday life is full of moral disagreements? In my paper I will show that although it is not realistic to reach an agreement on what we, humans, really want as people value different things and seek different ends, it may be possible to agree on what we do not want to happen, considering the possibility that intelligence, equal to our own, or even exceeding it, can be created. I will argue for pluralism (and not for relativism!) which is compatible with objectivism. In spite of the fact that there is no uniquely best solution to every moral problem, it is still possible to identify which answers are wrong. And this is where we should begin the value alignment of AI.

Should Moral Judgments Affect Aesthetic Judgments (or the Other Way Around)?

This chapter offers a defense of autonomism—the view that aesthetic and moral judgments are independent of one another. When we ask whether judging an artwork to be morally bad affects its aesthetic value, we are asking a normative question about what it is best for us to do. Should we take a moral judgment about the effects of an artwork to bear on our aesthetic judgment about the work itself? The chapter argues that we do not make any error if we refuse to change one judgment in light of the other. We are free to keep them separate. This chapter concludes with replies to objections from both those who endorse a stronger link between morality and aesthetics as well as those who want a complete separation.

Edith Landmann-Kalischer on Aesthetic Demarcation and Normativity

Two perennial questions in aesthetics, among others, are the demarcation question, viz., what, if anything, distinguishes the aesthetic domain from the cognitive or moral domains, and the normative question, viz., what kind of normativity, if any, does the aesthetic domain involve. Although recent attempts to answer these questions can be found in contemporary literature, in this paper I examine the answers defended by the early phenomenologist Edith Landmann-Kalischer. I show that Landmann-Kalischer answers the demarcation question by blending together a cognitivist account of aesthetic judgment with an objectivist account of beauty, and that she builds an account of aesthetic normativity on this cognitivist and objectivist basis. I contend that her subtle and unified account of aesthetic demarcation and normativity has advantages over other competing hedonist and Kantian views and, as such, merits further consideration in contemporary debates.

Contractual Constructions

Social contract theory can be understood as a form of constructivism. Constructivism is the view that the content of morality can be defined by a procedure, the results of which define principles of actions. Constructivism can be understood as directed both to the normative question of what principles are justifiable and to the meta-ethical question as to the logical status of such principles. In respect of the latter, constructivism holds to a procedure-dependent conception of practical reason rather than a truth-directed view. In the case of social contract theory, the procedure is made up of three elements: an original position; the reasoning of the contracting parties; and the contents of the agreement that those contracting parties conclude with one another. Some contract theorists can be thought of as aspiring to a form of ethical reductionism, involving the defining of moral notions in non-moral terms by means of the constructed procedure, but this is not true of all. In this connection, there is a dispute as to whether rationality is to be defined in terms of self-interest. Constructivism is offered as an alternative to intuitionism, in which it is assumed that principles are in some sense self-evident.

A Classical Jewish Approach to “The Normative Question”

One of the fundamental questions in analytic meta-ethics is what Christine Korsgaard calls “the normative question.” It is a question that typically arises when a moral agent is confronted with a difficult moral obligation, and as a result, asks himself, “Must I really do this? Why must I do it?” In mainstream analytic philosophy, the responses to this question invariably take the form of a philosophical argument that starts from (allegedly) universally compelling premises, and draws from them the conclusion that, therefore, we really must do what morality requires of us—that morality is really binding for us. In this chapter, however, I explore a fundamentally different approach to the “normative question” based on (or inspired by) classical Judaism. First I formulate a parallel “normative question,” as it would arise in a Jewish context, and seek the appropriate classical Jewish response to it. Then, I offer a way of applying it to morality in general.

Raising Children

This article aims to answer a core normative question concerning child poverty: What types of responsibilities should be assumed by the state and caregivers as the main agents of justice involved in the problem? By approaching this question, I aim to explore the complex triangulation between children, caregivers, and the state, as well as the paradox of the double role of caregivers as former victims and current agents of justice. In order to accomplish this, I will first present the internal and external issues that arise when the focus is placed on the victims, and, secondly, when attention shifts to the perpetrators. Finally, I will advocate for the need to fundamentally reframe the debates, centering attention on the damage, on investing the construction of a culture of care that includes preventive measures to dismantle common prejudices about poverty and neglect, and on introducing measures to care for the caregivers as a necessary step to break the perpetuation of (child) poverty.

Introduction

The chapter explains the key issues that the book addresses, its methodological approach, and the structure of the argument. The book proceeds from an observation that, in many contemporary democracies, criminal disenfranchisement remains the only form of exclusion of adult, mentally competent citizens from equal citizenship entitlements. The book therefore aims to determine whether such restrictions could be considered justified in contemporary democracies. The chapter examines the currently predominant empirical approach to the problem and explains the importance of developing a comprehensive normative account of criminal disenfranchisement. After exploring alternative frameworks, the chapter proposes that the answer to the normative question should be sought within the domain of citizenship theory, which allows one to ask questions about the substance of membership duties in a polity and the conditions that one needs to satisfy to enjoy the rights attached to the citizenship status.