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Stephan Darwall (2006, 2010) claims that a conceptual connection exists between moral obligation and what he calls ‘second-personalreasons.’ In particular, he (2006) claims that, “moral obligation is an irreduciblysecond-personal concept. That an action would violate a moral obligation is…asecond-personal reason not to do it.” Asecond-personal reason, according to him (2006), is “a distinctive kind of (normative) reason for acting,” a reason made on one’s will and purportedly given (...) by an authority’s demand or address. This paper argues that Darwall fails to establish the above conceptual connection betweensecond-personalreasons and moral obligation. Since Darwall’s construal of thesecond-person standpoint is original and the best known version, if I am right, then it seems that there is no conceptual connection betweensecond-personalreasons and moral obligations. The implication is thatsecond-personalreasons at best account for only interpersonal morality. (shrink)

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Stephen Darwall, in his book TheSecond -Person Standpoint, has argued for an account of morality grounded in what he callssecond -personalreasons. My first aim in this paper is to demonstrate the value of an account like Darwall’s; as I read it, it responds to the need for an account of morality as ‘intrinsic’ to the person. However, I go on to argue, as mysecond aim in this paper, that Darwall’s account (...) is ultimately unsuccessful. I hope to achieve these aims by contrasting Darwall’ssecond -personal account with two other accounts, Hobbes’ and the neo-Kantians’. In the first case, I aim to show that Darwall’s account meets a need that the other accounts don’t in virtue of its differences from the other accounts; and in thesecond case, I aim to show that Darwall’s account ultimately fails in virtue of its residual similarities to at least one of them. (shrink)

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A lineage of prominent philosophers who have discussed thesecond-person relation can be regarded as advancing structural accounts. They posit that thesecond-person relation effects one transformative change to the structure of practical reasoning. In this paper, I criticise this orthodoxy and offer an alternative, substantive account. That is, I argue that entering intosecond-personal relations with others does indeed affect one's practical reasoning, but it does this not by altering the structure of one's agential thought, (...) but by changing whatreasons can become available. The importance ofsecond-personal thought for action is heterogenous.Second-person relations make possible the emergence of a wide variety of different kinds of practicalreasons: creating some, revealing others. Recognising this diminishes the appeal of the traditional, structural accounts of the practical significance of suchsecond-personal relations. Moving away from structural accounts facilitates a more thorough understanding of the intersubjective form of action. (shrink)

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In “Two-Level Eudaimonism andSecond-PersonalReasons,” Bradford Cokelet argues that we should reject one strategy—one I advanced earlier in this journal—for reconciling a virtue-ethical theoretical framework with that part of our moral experience that has been described assecond-personalreasons. Cokelet frames a number of related objections to that strategy, and his concerns are worth taking up. Addressing them provides an opportunity both to revisit and develop the model bruited in my earlier article and (...) to gain additional insight intosecond-personalreasons and associated relations of accountability. (shrink)

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The paper discusses thesecond-personal account of moral obligation as put forward by Stephen Darwall. It argues that on such an account, an important part of our moral practice cannot be explained, namely special obligations that are grounded in special relationships between persons. After highlighting the problem, the paper discusses several strategies to accommodate such special obligations that are implicit in some of Darwall’s texts, most importantly a disentanglement strategy and a reductionist strategy. It argues that neither one (...) of these strategies is entirely convincing. The last part of the papers sketches a novel account of how to accommodate special obligations in asecond-personal framework: According to this suggestion, special obligations might be due to the fact that relationships change the normative authority that persons have over each other. (shrink)

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In his seminal book, TheSecond-Person Standpoint, Stephen Darwall argues thatsecond-personalreasons can only occur within the realm of practical reason. In order to demonstrate this, Darwall builds on David Velleman’s distinction between substantive and formal aims of thought and action. I show that this distinction shapes Darwall’s conception of the nature of the difference between third-personal andsecond-personalreasons in such a way that the difference is conceived of as substantive (...) rather than formal. As a consequence, Darwall is left without a satisfactory rendering of both the distinctions between third-andsecond-personalreasons and the distinction between theoretical and practical reason. Conceiving of these distinctions as formal, however, would open up the possibility ofsecond-personal forms of theoretical reason. (shrink)

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In TheSecond-Person Standpoint and subsequent essays, Stephen Darwall develops an account of morality that is “second-personal” in virtue of holding that what we are morally obligated to do is what others can legitimately demand that we do, i.e., what they can hold us accountable for doing through moral reactive attitudes like blame. Similarly, what it would be wrong for us to do is what others can legitimately demand that we abstain from doing. As part of this (...) account, Darwall argues for the proposition that we have a distinctive “second-personal reason” to fulfill all of our obligations and to avoid all wrong-actions, an “authority-regarding” reason that derives from the legitimate demands the “moral community” makes of us. I show that Darwall offers an insufficient case for this proposition. My criticism of this aspect of Darwall’s account turns in part on the fact that we have compunction-based or “compunctive”reasons to fulfill all of our obligations and to avoid all wrong actions, a type of reason that Darwall seemingly overlooks. (shrink)

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In “Virtue Ethics and Deontic Constraints,” Mark LeBar claims to have discovered a two-level eudaimonist position that coheres with the claim that moral obligations are “real” and have “nonderivative normative authority.” In this article, I raise worries about how “real”second-personalreasons are on LeBar’s account, and then argue thatsecond-personalreasons ramify up from the first to thesecond level in a way that LeBar denies. My argument is meant to encourage philosophers (...) in the Aristotelian tradition to question the existence ofsecond-personalreasons of the sort Darwall elucidates. (shrink)

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Proponents of the epistemic companions in guilt argument argue that we should reject the moral error theory because it entails that there are no epistemicreasons. In this paper, I investigate whether a plausible version of the moral error theory can be constructed that does not entail an error theory about epistemicreasons. I argue that there are no irreducibly normativesecond-personalreasons even if there are irreducibly normativereasons. And epistemicreasons are (...) notsecond-personalreasons. In this case, a plausible version of the moral error theory can be constructed that does not entail an error theory about epistemicreasons if facts and claims about morality entail facts and claims about irreducibly normativesecond-personalreasons. And, as I explain, there is a good case that facts and claims about morality do entail facts and claims about irreducibly normativesecond-personalreasons. (shrink)

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It is widely held that it is good to conceive of one's life narratively, but why this is the case has not been well established. I argue that conceiving of one's life narratively can contribute to one's flourishing by mediating to oneself asecond-person experience of oneself, furnishing one with valuablesecond-personal productive distance from oneself and as a result self-understanding. Drawing on Eleonore Stump's theory that narratives re-present to their audiences thesecond-person experiences they depict, (...) I argue that conceiving of one's life narratively facilitates taking on thesecond-person experience that an audience would have in hearing one's life narrative, mediating how someone from asecond-person perspective might perceive oneself and as a result yielding valuable self-understanding. I conclude with some practical implications. (shrink)

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In spite of the burgeoning philosophical literature on human dignity, Stephen Darwall'ssecond-personal account of the dignity of persons has not received the attention it deserves. This article investigates Darwall's account and argues that it faces a dilemma, for it succumbs either to a problem of antecedence or to the wrong kind ofreasons problem. But this need not mean one should reject asecond-personal account. Instead, I argue that an alternativesecond-personal conception, (...) one I will call relational, promises to solve the dilemma by avoiding both the problem of antecedence and the wrong kind ofreasons problem. More generally, distinguishing these twosecond-personal conceptions of the dignity of persons is important to enrich the available philosophical accounts of human dignity. (shrink)

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On a widely held view, the canonical way to make sense of intentional actions is to invoke the agent's ‘motivatingreasons’, where the claim that X did A for some ‘motivating reason’ is taken to be neutral on whether X had a normative reason to do A. In this paper, I explore a challenge to this view, drawing on Anscombe's ‘second-personal’ approach to the nature of action explanation.

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There is a constant dissent between exclusivist public reason liberals and their inclusivist religious critics concerning the question whether religious arguments can figure into the public justification of state action. Firstly, I claim that the stability of this dissent is best explained as a conflict between an exclusivist third-personal account of public justification which demands restraint, and an inclusivist first-personal account which rejects restraint. Secondly, I argue that both conceptions are deficient because they cannot accommodate the valid intuitions (...) of their opponents. They either imply a violation of the integrity of religious citizens or they give room for cases where a religious majority can impose a political norm on a minority without having given this minority a reason to comply with the norm. Finally, I defend an inclusivist model of public reason liberalism which relies on asecond-personal conception of public justification. I claim that this model breaks the impasse in favor of inclusivism because religious arguments can play a role in public justification, but they can never justify state action on their own in a plural society. Thus, the problematic cases that motivate exclusivism are excluded without having introduced a principle of restraint which violates the religious integrity of citizens. (shrink)

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The book is divided into four sections, and contains two central arguments. The goal of the first argument is to show that generally accepted concepts in moral theory have an irreduciblysecond-personal character and that it is impossible to fully understand many central moral ideas without it. Here, by evaluating a broad range of literature in moral theory and articulating thesecond-personal aspect of each, Darwall elaborates on the interpersonal nature of moral obligation. The detailed discussion (...) presents some well-known moral theories, and while emphasizing the Deontological perspective, highlights thesecond-personal character of all moral theories; a perspective that has, in the past, gone unnoticed. However, as Darwall himself acknowledges, the first argument cannot vindicate the very ideas it analyzes. He thus dedicates thesecond part of the book to a reverse-strategy: instead of arguing for the existence of asecond-person foundation in moral theory, Darwall sets out to show that the presuppositions of thesecond-person standpoint include the moral law in them. In thissecond argument, Darwall explains that thesecond-personal standing can only be justified within a circle of four interrelated ideas (claim, accountability,second-personal reason, andsecond-personal authority), and that this circle necessarily excludes instances of coercion. (shrink)

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Stephen Darwall’s moral theory explains moral obligation by appealing to a “second-person” standpoint where persons usesecond-personreasons to hold one another accountable for their moral behavior. However, Darwall claims obligations obtain if and only if hypothetical persons endorse them, despite tying thesecond-person standpoint to our real-world moral practices. Focus on hypothetical persons renders critical elements of his account obscure. I solve this problem by distinguishing two ideas quietly working in tandem, the hypothetical endorsement of (...) moral norms and the hypothetical recognition of these norms. Hypothetical endorsement is a plausible source of normativity; hypothetical recognition is not. A more plausible account ofsecond-person normativity must combine hypothetical endorsement with actual recognition. I term these alternative conceptions justification and easy publication. To combine justification and easy publication in an account of moral obligation,second-person normativity should be applied first to rules. Following other moral philosophers, I introduce the concept of a “social-moral” rule into an account of moral obligation. Social-moral rules acquire normative force when they are justified for and easily published by the relevant moral community. I conclude that a rule-centric account ofsecond-personality is superior to Darwall’s reason-centric account. (shrink)

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Some moral philosophers argue that we hold others and ourselves morally responsible for acting onsecond-personalreasons. This article connects this idea with the emerging literature on the moral responsibility of groups by exploring in which sense, if any, groups can be held accountable for acting onsecond-personalreasons. On the developed view, groups aresecond-personally competent if and only if they possess capacities for sympathy, acting on that sympathy, and related self-reactive attitudes. (...) Focusing especially on loosely structured groups without unifying decision-making procedures, the article goes on to argue that the required group-level capacities can be realized through the interdependent exercise of member-level capacities. (shrink)

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We present asecond-personalaccount of corporate moral agency. This approach is in contrast to thefirst-personalapproach adopted in much of the existing literature, which concentrates on the corporation’s ability to identify moralreasons for itself. Our account treats relationships and communications as the fundamental building blocks of moral agency. Thesecond-personal account rests on a framework developed by Darwall. Its central requirement is that corporations be capable of recognizing the authority relations that they have with other moral agents. We (...) discuss the relevance of corporate affect, corporate communications, and corporate culture to thesecond-personal account. Thesecond-personal account yields a new way to specify first-personal criteria for moral agency, and it generates fresh insights into thereasons those criteria matter. In addition, asecond-personal analysis implies that moral agency is partly a matter of policy, and it provides a fresh perspective on corporate punishment. (shrink)

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Second-person relations are relations between individuals knowingly engaged in interaction with one another. These are the social contexts within which it is appropriate for one to think of and address another as ‘you’. This dissertation explores the practical consequences for agents of relating to others in this fashion. A critical analysis is offered of Stephen Darwall’s theory of moral obligations in terms of demands that can be addressed from the perspective of asecond-person. On the basis of the (...) criticisms raised, a broader conception of ‘second-personalreasons’ is advanced according to which there are a variety of species of practicalreasons that are essentially grounded insecond-person relations between agents, besides moral obligations. A paradigm case of such a species is thereasons that are presented in requests, and one chapter of this work is devoted to explaining this power people often grant to others: to intentionally create new, discretionaryreasons for them. Drawing from several historical antecedents – particularly Martin Buber, Simone Weil and Emmanuel Levinas – the analysis ofsecond-personalreasons is extended to include a discussion of the proper object of agapic love, and a discussion of the possible significance that face-to-face encounters may have for moral epistemology. (shrink)

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A normative reason for a person to? is a consideration which favours?ing. A motivating reason is a reason for which or on the basis of which a person?s. This paper explores a connection between normative and motivatingreasons. More specifically, it explores the idea that there aresecond-order normativereasons to? for or on the basis of certain first-order normativereasons. In this paper, I challenge the view that there aresecond-orderreasons so understood. (...) I then show that prominent views in contemporary epistemology are committed to the existence ofsecond-orderreasons, specifically, views about the epistemic norms governing practical reasoning and about the role of higher-order evidence. If there are nosecond-orderreasons, those views are mistaken. (shrink)

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Smilansky notes that wrongdoers seem to lack any entitlement to complain about being treated in the ways that they have treated others. However, it also seems impermissible to treat agents in certain ways, and this impermissibility would give wrongdoers who are themselves wronged grounds for complaint. This article solves this apparent paradox by arguing that what is at issue is not the right simply to make complaints, but the right to have one's demands respected. Agents must accept the authority of (...) others to makesecond-personal demands on them before they can expect others to treat their own demands as legitimate. Wrongdoers’ previous wrongdoing shows they do not treat others’ demands as authoritative. However, as they are still beings with dignity, which acts as a source of moralreasons for others, wronging them remains impermissible. (shrink)

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The papers of this special issue are the outcome of a two-­‐day conference entitled “TheSecond-­‐Person Standpoint in Law and Morality,” that took place at the University of Vienna in March 2013 and was organized by the ERC Advanced Research Grant “Distortions of Normativity.” -/- The aim of the conference was to explore and discuss Stephen Darwall’s innovative and influentialsecond-­‐personal account of foundational moral concepts such as „obligation“, „responsibility“, and „rights“, as developed in his book The (...)Second-­‐Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability (Harvard University Press 2006) and further elaborated in Morality, Authority and Law: Essays inSecond-­‐Personal Ethics I and Honor, History, and Relationships: Essays inSecond-­‐Personal Ethics II (both Oxford University Press 2013). -/- With thesecond-­‐person standpoint Darwall refers to the unique conceptual normative space that practical deliberators and agents occupy when they address claims and demands to one another (and to themselves). The very first sentence of Darwall’s examination of thesecond-­‐personal conceptual paradigm summarizes the gist of the argument succinctly when he claims that “thesecond-­‐person standpoint [is] the perspective that you and I take up when we make and acknowledge claims on one another’s conduct and will.” (Darwall 2006, 3) TheSecond-­‐Person Standpoint reminds us that this perspective has been ignored for much too long and that it better take centre stage in any philosophical analysis of moral phenomena, in order to yield a satisfying account of morality as a social institution. The negative part of Darwall’s strategy is to show that neither a purely first-­‐personal approach (represented by Kant and contemporary Kantians), nor a third-­‐personal state-­‐of-­‐affairs-­‐perspective (represented by most varieties of contemporary consequentialism) are capable of accounting for the categorical bindingness characteristic of moral obligation. The latter feat can only be accomplished, and this is the positive part of Darwall’s argument, when thosesecond-­‐personal normative “felicity conditions” and conceptual presuppositions are acknowledged and spelled out that are already presupposed in every instance of issuing (putatively valid) claims and demands. It is especiallysecond-­‐personal competence andsecond-­‐personal authority that are the bedrock of these normative conceptual presuppositions, without which engaging in any meaningful address would be impossible. Kantians and utilitarians alike have neglected this critical dimension of the normative landscape. -/- In addition to working out an original conception of moral obligation, the first eight chapters of TheSecond-­‐Person Standpoint articulate this fundamental insight with respect to a variety of traditional projects in ethical theory such as developing accounts of moral responsibility, rights, dignity, and autonomy. In this context, special emphasis is to be awarded, on the one hand, to Darwall’s refreshingsecond-­‐personal interpretation of Strawson’s influential account of reactive attitudes and moral responsibility and, on the other, to his historically well-­‐informed reconstruction of Samuel Pufendorf’s often neglected version of an enlightened theistic voluntarism concerning moral authority. Darwall dedicates thesecond part of TheSecond-­‐Person Standpoint to the urgent question: how should one respond to the sceptical challenge that expresses utter indifference to thesecond-­‐person standpoint, including all its multifarious normative presuppositions and implications? What commits us to all this? It is at this point that Darwall, firstly, refines his criticisms of the Kantian, first-­‐personal, paradigm of normativity and emphasizes that only if one already incorporates thesecond-­‐personal conceptual apparatus into a Kantian analysis of moral obligation is the latter going to yield a convincing account. Secondly, and this certainly is one of the highlights of Darwall’s theory, theSecond-­‐Person Standpoint employs themes from Fichte’s philosophy of right in order to strengthen the case for the inescapability of taking up thesecond-­‐person standpoint of moral obligation. In his contribution for this special issue Darwall further develops his diagnosis that Fichte’s thought offers in many respects a more promising, since moresecond-­‐personal, foundation of morality than, for example, Kant’s. -/- By now, the impact of Darwall’ssecond-­‐person standpoint theory has far transcended the confines of contemporary debates on moral obligation. Darwall has put to use thesecond-­‐personal apparatus to critical engagements with Joseph Raz’s theory of legal authority and Derek Parfit’s convergence arguments for his recent Triple Theory of moral wrongness. The constant theme that unifies all these diverse applications remains the one so impressively presented in TheSecond-­‐Person Standpoint: without paying attention to the “interdefinable” and “irreducible” circle of (four) foundationalsecond-­‐personal concepts (valid demand, practical authority,second-­‐personal reason, and accountability), neither superior epistemic status (Raz) nor the identification of optimific states of affairs (Parfit) are potent enough sources to generate anything close to the authority relationships that underlie the idea involved in obligating ourselves and one another. Given all of the above, it comes as no surprise that Darwall reserves his strongest sympathies for a specific ethical theory, namely contractualism. Our commitment to equal basicsecond-­‐personal authority, that Darwall arrives at through his Fichtean rectification of the Kantian project, leads him to the endorsement of a contractualist paradigm in the spirit of broadly Rawls and Scanlon. -/- . (shrink)

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There are modes of presentation of a person in thought corresponding to the first and third person pronouns. This paper proposes that there is also thought involving asecond person mode of presentation of another, which might be expressed by an utterance involving ‘you’, but need not be expressed linguistically. It suggests that co-operative activity is the locus for such thought. First person thought is distinctive in how it suppliesreasons for the subject to act. In co-operative action (...) there is first person plural intending and judging. So there is a way of thinking of another, when openly co-operating with him or her, which plays the distinctive role of giving reason for contribution to the co-operative activity. In slogan form, ‘you’ is ‘we minus I’. The way children learn to usesecond and third person pronouns is naturally explained on this view. Contrasting less sophisticated kinds of co-operative activity with more sophisticated forms, and considering some issues about common knowledge and commo.. (shrink)

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The Problem of Obligation is the problem of how to explain the features of moral obligations that distinguish them from other normative phenomena. Two recent accounts, theSecond-Personal Account and the Relational Account, propose superficially similar solutions to this problem. Both regard obligations as based on the claims or legitimate demands that persons as such have on one another. However, unlike theSecond-Personal Account, the Relational Account does not regard these claims as based in persons’ authority (...) to address them. Advocates of the Relational Account accuse theSecond-Personal Account of falling prey to the Problem of Antecedence. According to this objection, theSecond-Personal Account is committed to the implausible claim that we have an obligation to φ only if, and because, others demand that we φ. Since the Relational Account’s proposed solution to the Problem of Obligation does not face the Problem of Antecedence, its advocates argue that it is dialectically superior to theSecond-Personal Account. In this paper, I defend theSecond-Personal Account by arguing that, first, the Relational Account does not actually solve the Problem of Obligation and,second, theSecond-Personal Account does not fall prey to the Problem of Antecedence. (shrink)

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Stephen Darwall’s TheSecond Person Standpoint is built around an analysis of the “second-person standpoint,” which he argues builds in a series of presuppositions which help shape (and perhaps even give content to) morality. This paper argues that there is a kind of paradox tied up in the two central claims at the heart of this project – thatsecond-personal address directs one practically rather than epistemically by givingreasons for action one otherwise would not (...) have had, and that all moral obligation issecond-personal in precisely this way – that I will argue forces us onto the horns of a dilemma. Two possible solutions to this dilemma are analyzed, one drawing on the Kantian notion of a “regulative ideal,” the other on Michael Thompson’s concept of “bipolar normativity.” Ultimately, I argue, neither is successful. (shrink)

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Much contemporary first-order moral theory revolves around the debate between consequentialists and deontologists. Depressingly, this debate often seems to come down to irresolvable first-order intuition mongering about runaway trolleys, drowning children in shallow ponds, lying to murderers at doors, and the like. Prima facie, common sense morality contains both consequentialist and deontological elements, so it may be no surprise that direct appeal to first-order intuitions tend towards stalemate. One might infer from this that we should simply embrace some sort of (...) pluralism in the style of W.D. Ross, but there are problems with this approach too.I of course have in mind the sort of view defended by W.D. Ross. See W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930). For one thing, pluralism provides precious little guidance in hard cases. For another, there is something inherently conservative about giving Rossian pluralism any sort of default status as the corr. (shrink)

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The popularity of theodicy over the past several decades has given rise to a countermovement, “anti-theodicy”, which admonishes attempts at theodicy for variousreasons. This paper examines one prominent anti-theodical objection: that it is hubristic, and attempts to form an approach to theodicy which evades this objection. To do so I draw from the work of Eleonore Stump, who provides a framework by which we can gleansecond-personal knowledge of God. From this knowledge, I argue that we (...) can derive a theodicy which does not utilise the kind of analytic theorising anti-theodicists accuse of intellectual hubris. (shrink)

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This chapter contains sections titled: Kantian Practical Presupposition Arguments TheSecond‐Personal Aspect of Moral Obligation and Equal Dignity Kant's Argument for the Moral Law in Groundwork III Bibliography.

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The paper considers premises of the hiddenness argument with an emphasis on its usage of the concept of apersonal God. The paper’s assumption is that a recent literature onsecond-person experiences could be useful for theists in their efforts to defend their position against Schellenberg’s argument. Stump’s analyses of asecond-person knowledge indicate that what is required in order to establish an interpersonal relationship is apersonal presence of the persons in question, and therefore they (...) falsify the thesis that a minimalist requirement for a relationship between a man and God has to be belief in his existence. Recent works by developmental psychologists not only verify a hypothesis that asecond-person knowledge is not reducible to knowledge-that, but also suggest that one needs a shared form of life in order to establish an interpersonal relationship. These two insights allow the author to formulate his own response to the hiddenness argument: only when God’s presence is non-explicit—for example, when God is hidden in a human nature—can a finite person enter into apersonal relationship with him. It is the fulfilment of the requirement of being personally present that is the justifying reason for God to permit non-resistant non-belief. (shrink)

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On Chang's voluntarist account of commitments, when we commit to φ, we employ the 'normative powers' of our will to give ourselves a reason to φ that we would otherwise not have had. I argue that Chang's account, by itself, does not have sufficient conceptual resources to reconcile the normative significance of commitments with their alleged fundamentally volitional character. I suggest an alternative,second-personal account of commitment, which avoids this problem. On this account, the volitional act involved in (...) committing is one of holding ourselves accountable, thus putting us under to a pro tanto obligation to ourselves. Thesecond-personal account implies that there is an interesting link between commitment and morality. (shrink)

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Assumptions about what it is to be human are implicit in most philosophical reflections upon ethical and epistemological issues. Although such assumptions are not usually elaborated into a comprehensive theory of human nature, they are nonetheless influential in beliefs about what kinds of problem are worthy of consideration, and in judgments about the adequacy of proposed solutions. Claims to the effect that one should not be swayed by feelings and loyalties in the making of moral decisions, for example, presuppose that (...) human beings are creatures whose nature is amenable to guidance by reason rather than emotion and are creatures capable of living well when they act as impartially as possible. Analogously, claims to the effect that knowledge, to merit that title, should be acquired out of independent cognitive endeavour uncluttered by opinion and hearsay, suggest that human beings are creatures who can come to know their environment through their own unaided efforts. And claims to the effect that knowledge, once acquired, is timelessly and universally true depend upon assumptions about the constancy and uniformity of human nature across historical and cultural boundaries. (shrink)

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R. G. Collingwood's theory of re-enactment has long been understood as an important contribution to the philosophy of history. It has also been challenging to understand how re-enactment is operationalized in the practice of understanding past actors or, indeed, other minds occupying less remote regions of our experiences. Sebastian Rödl has recently articulated a compelling defence ofsecond person ascription, arguing that it is, in form, analogous to first person understanding. By Rödl's lights,second person understanding follows the (...) same order of reason as its first person counterpart. In this paper I argue that Rödl's case forsecond person understanding, and its relationship to the first person point of view, is at once compelling in its own right but also helpful in explaining how re-enactment may be operationalized. (shrink)

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Apperly's and Butterfill's theory about belief reasoning is taken as a starting-point for a discussion of how we make sense of other people's actions in real time. More specifically, the focus lies on how we can understand others' actions in terms of their epistemic states on an implicit level of processing. First, the relevant parts of Apperly's and Butterfill's theory are summarized. Then, their account of implicit theory of mind in terms of registration ascription and perceptual encountering is discussed and (...) rejected. While accepting Apperly's and Butterfill's general epistemic account of belief reasoning, the author suggests that implicit theory of mind involves visuomotor,second-person pragmatic representations. Moreover, this presentation emphasizes the central place of interaction, claiming that perceptual intentions-to-interact are fundamental to social understanding. Via the mechanism of social attention, social intentions automatically prompt agents to share and exchange sensorimotor, pragmatic information. (shrink)

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According to Donald Davidson, language is social in that only a person who has interacted linguistically with another could have a language. This paper is a discussion of Davidson’s argument in defence of that claim. I argue that he has not succeeded in establishing it, but that he has provided many of the materials out of which a successful argument could be built. Chief among these are the claims that some version of externalism about meaning is true, that possession of (...) a language requires possession of the concept of objectivity, and hence that the issue here concerns the identity of the external event that makes possible possession of the concept of objectivity. I end by presenting somereasons for thinking that only interpersonal linguistic interaction could play this role. (shrink)

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The notion of ‘bipolar’ or ‘second‐personal’ normativity is often illustrated by such situations as that of one person addressing a complaint to another, or asserting some right, or claiming some authority. This paper argues that the presence of speech acts of various kinds in the development of the idea of the ‘second‐personal’ is not accidental. Through development of a notion of ‘illocutionary authority’ I seek to show a role for the ‘second‐personal’ in ordinary testimony, (...) despite Darwall's argument that the notion of the ‘second‐personal’ marks a divide between practical and theoretical reason. (shrink)

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Stephen Darwall's TheSecond-Person Standpoint converges with Emmanuel Levinas's concern about the role of thesecond-person relationship in ethics. This paper contrasts their methodologies (regressive analysis of presuppositions versus phenomenology) to explain Darwall's narrower view of ethical experience in terms of expressed reactive attitudes. It delineates Darwall's overall justificatory strategy and the centrality of autonomy and reciprocity within it, in contrast to Levinas's emphasis on the experience of responsibility. Asymmetrical responsibility plays a more foundational role as a critical (...) counterpoint to 'mean-spirited' reciprocity than Darwall's laudable distinction between accountability and revenge, and responsibility even founds this distinction. The experience of being summoned to asymmetrical responsibility amplifies the meaning of 'authority', which is a presupposition for Darwall. Finally, asymmetrical responsibility helps develop decentred reasoning, invites risk beyond the boundaries of reciprocity at moments when autonomy appears endangered, reconciles respect and care at the experiential level, and presses to extend the scope of moral obligation. (shrink)

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The first part of the paper focuses on the role played in thought and action by possession of the first‐person concept. It is argued that only one who possesses the I concept is in a position to fully articulate certain fundamental, a priori aspects of the concept of reason. A full understanding of the concept of reason requires being inclined to be affected or immediately motivated byreasons—to form, change or confirm beliefs or other attitudes in accordance with them—when (...) thosereasons apply to one's own attitudes. The cases where rational evaluations of acts and attitudes rationally motivate immediate implementation of the evaluations to shape the acts and attitudes are distinguished from cases where they do not, by the use of the first‐person concept to mark those acts and attitudes as one's own. Thesecond part of the paper examines asymmetries between self‐knowledge and knowledge of other minds. The usual view that self‐knowledge has an immediate and a priori warrant, whereas knowledge of others’ minds rests on observation and inference is disputed. A sketch is given of knowledge of other minds that can be non‐inferential and can rest on an intellectual, non‐perceptual entitlement. When one seemingly understands an utterance in interlocution, one is a priori prima facie entitled to suppose that it comes from a rational source, and because knowledge of other minds can be immediate and epistemically grounded in intellectual, non‐empirical entitlements, it is distinguished from self‐knowledge not by being necessarily inferential or by being necessarily grounded in perception, but by being in some known contrast with thought known as one's own. (shrink)

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With the exception of some general typifications, the content of delusions is not usually approached with the depth it deserves. One of thereasons for this may be the clinical predominance that form has over delusional content, both for its description and for the development of possible treatments. The gender dimension of delusions is usually reduced to their structural implications: certain measurable and observable differences between cis-gender men and women. In the present essay my aim will be to explore (...) the content of delusions in the framework of the symbolic scope of gender norms. Arguing for a continuum between our ordinary beliefs and delusional beliefs, I will argue that there is reason to suppose that cis-heteronormative values, which involve recognizing ourselves as either male or female, are constitutive of our experiences, including delusional ones. From the perspective of thesecond person I will propose to reconceptualize listening to the delusional narrative by strategically using such values to develop a shared belief space. I will characterize delirium, both in structure and content, as an indicator of possible conflicts regarding thesecond-person relationships that the person experiencing it has with significant others. I will argue that the clinical revaluation of the delusional content makes sense for the reciprocal recognition between the listener and the narrator of the delusional experience. (shrink)

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Recent discussions by Martha Nussbaum and Steven Wall shed new light on the concept of reasonableness in political liberalism and whether the inclusion of epistemic elements in the concept necessarily makes political liberalism lose its antiperfectionist appeal. This article argues that Nussbaum’s radical solution to eliminate the epistemic component of reasonableness is neither helpful nor necessary. Instead, adopting a revised understanding of epistemic reasonableness in terms of a weak view of rationality that is procedural, external andsecond-order rather than (...) a strong view that is substantial, internal and first-order can help political liberalism maintain an epistemic dimension in the idea of reasonableness without becoming perfectionist. In addition, political liberalism can defend a stronger account of respect for persons against liberal perfectionism on the basis of the revised understanding of epistemic reasonableness. Both arguments serve to demonstrate the strength of the political liberal project. (shrink)

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We can understand and act upon the beliefs of other people, even when these conflict with our own beliefs. Children’s development of this ability, known as Theory of Mind, typically happens around age 4. Research using a looking-time paradigm, however, established that toddlers at the age of 15 months old pass a non-verbal false-belief task (Onishi and Baillargeon in Science 308:255–258, 2005). This is well before the age at which children pass any of the verbal false-belief tasks. In this study (...) we present a more complex case of false-belief reasoning with older children. We testedsecond-order reasoning, probing children’s ability to handle the belief of one person about the belief of another person. We find just the opposite: 7-year-olds pass a verbal false-belief reasoning task, but fail on an equally complex low-verbal task. This finding suggests that language supports explicit reasoning about beliefs, perhaps by facilitating the cognitive system to keep track of beliefs attributed by people to other people. (shrink)

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We can understand and act upon the beliefs of other people, even when these conflict with our own beliefs. Children’s development of this ability, known as Theory of Mind, typically happens around age 4. Research using a looking-time paradigm, however, established that toddlers at the age of 15 months old pass a non-verbal false-belief task (Onishi and Baillargeon in Science 308:255–258, 2005). This is well before the age at which children pass any of the verbal false-belief tasks. In this study (...) we present a more complex case of false-belief reasoning with older children. We testedsecond-order reasoning, probing children’s ability to handle the belief of one person about the belief of another person. We find just the opposite: 7-year-olds pass a verbal false-belief reasoning task, but fail on an equally complex low-verbal task. This finding suggests that language supports explicit reasoning about beliefs, perhaps by facilitating the cognitive system to keep track of beliefs attributed by people to other people. (shrink)

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This introductory paper sets out a framework for approaching some of the claims about thesecond person made by the papers collected in the special edition of Philosophical Explorations on TheSecond Person . It does so by putting centre stage the notion of a ‘bipolarsecond person relation’, and examining ways of giving it substance suggested by the authors of these papers. In particular, it focuses on claims made in these papers about the existence and/or nature (...) ofsecond person thought,second personreasons for action andsecond personreasons for belief and about possible connections among thought-theoretical, ethical and epistemological issues and debates in this area. (shrink)

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It has been argued that there can be no person‐regardingreasons for practising genetic therapy, since it affects identity and causes to exist an individual who would not otherwise have existed. And there can be no suchreasons for causing somebody to exist because existing cannot be better for an individual than never existing. In the present paper, both of these claims are denied. It is contended, first, that in practically all significant cases genetic therapy will not affect (...) the identity of beings of our kind. This is so irrespective of whether, essentially, we are beings with minds or beings of a certain biological species, the human one.Second, it is contended that, even if genetic therapy were to affect our identity, there could be person‐regardingreasons for conducting it, for existence can be better than non‐existence for the individual. (shrink)

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Mistakes are a fact of life, and the criminal law is sadly no exception to the rule. Wrongful convictions are rightfully abhorred, and false acquittals can likewise inspire outrage. In these cases, we implicitly draw a distinction between a court’s finding and a defendant’s actual guilt or innocence. These are intuitive concepts, but as this paper aims to show, contemporary use of the reasonable person standard in the law of self-defense muddles them. -/- Ordinarily, we can distinguish between a person's (...) material guilt or innocence and his juridical guilt or innocence. Someone is materially guilty if his actions in fact matched the conduct proscribed by the penal law. Someone is juridically guilty if he is found guilty by a tribunal, i.e., convicted by a judge or jury. When a tribunal convicts a innocent person or acquits a guilty person, the accuracy of its verdicts can be criticized. -/- There are three definitions of the reasonable person extant amongst courts and commentators: the reasonable person is either (1) a hypothetical ordinary, average person; (2) the embodiment of a community ideal; or (3) an embodiment of an objective ethical standard, i.e., ethical principles independent of community opinion. Nonetheless, after observing the circularity, vagueness, and lack of consistency in the definitions, wise courts and commentators have sometimes resorted to identifying the reasonable person with the judgment of the jury. -/- This piece argues that failure to settle on a fixed definition of the "reasonable person" in the criminal law of self-defense effectively conflates material guilt and innocence and juridical guilt and innocence at the doctrinal level. When courts do not clearly and consistently choose between standards one, two, and three, or when they expressly treat the reasonable person as a form of words standing in for the judgment of the jury, they make it conceptually impossible for observers outside the court system to apply a fixed, definite standard to assess the actual guilt of a person apart from the judgments of tribunals. -/- This paper's main purpose is to identify a conceptual knot rather than propose reforms. Still, it recommends two small changes meant to lift the confusion surrounding the reasonable person. First, it urges that courts expressly settle on one of the three definitions canvassed above.Second, it recommends that courts be mindful of the nature of the reasonable person standard and as such, be wary of treating conclusions about reasonableness as ordinary legal precedents, and wield the power of directed verdict aggressively to protect unpopular defendants from abuse by juries. (shrink)

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White supremacy dominates the academy and political discussions. It first consists of conflating the geography of the West (where Black, Indigenous, and People of Color—BIPOC—are to be found) with a specific colonizing tradition originating in ancient Greek thought—call this tradition the West. Secondly, and more profoundly, it consists in treating this tradition as the frame for the study of every other intellectual tradition, which since the Romans it brands as religion. The political function of this marginalization of BIPOC philosophy is (...) to shield Western colonialism from moral philosophical criticism. The mechanism of colonialism is interpretation—explanation in terms of propositional attitudes, like belief. Not only is this a basic commitment of the Western tradition owing to its foundational linguistic account of thought (LAT), the South Asian moral philosophy of Yoga shows interpretation to be the essence of irresponsibility: it undermines the possibilities of choice as it is antilogical and is the mechanism of oppression. In contrast, Yoga, a fourth basic ethical theory (in addition to virtue ethics, consequentialism, and deontology) identifies an alternate metaethical choice as the essence of moral responsibility: explication—understanding in terms of inferential relationships. Yoga is not only the locus classicus for a nondiscriminatory, antioppressive approach to moral standing: it constitutes reason-based, (both ideal and nonideal) normative practices of solidarity with people (including nonhumans and celestial bodies like the Earth). This paper explores the mutually exclusive disjunction between interpretation and explication, the historical impact of these methodologies, and the colonization by the West of philosophy in the game of Publish or Perish. Shaking this off is as easy as returning to the philosophically indigenous practice of explication. (shrink)

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I present two philosophical arguments that Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) and Psychopathy can be expected to be culturally variable. I argue that the ways in which people with ASPD and psychopaths can be expected to act will vary with societal values and culture. In thesecond part of the chapter, I will briefly review some of the empirical literature on cross-cultural variation in ASPD and psychopathy and argue that it is consistent with my philosophical claims. My conclusion in this (...) chapter is that methods of diagnosis will need to be culturally specific. A diagnostic instrument (such as the PCL-R or DSM) should not be uncritically employed in cultures that are very different from those in which it was initially developed. (shrink)

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Charging others with hypocrisy often acts as a way of rejecting the practicalreasons they attempt to give (Herstein, 2017). There are some merits to a practice of rejectingreasons. To accept others’ providedreasons as valid is to affirm their authority in the relevant normative domain (Isserow and Klein, 2017). Conversely, to reject thesereasons as invalid is to undermine the reason-givers’ authority in the domain. However, this practice can be rife with abuse—if we allow (...) charges of ‘Hypocrite!’ to take hold too broadly, we risk compromising the entire enterprise of reason-giving. I propose that one form of such abuse has already entered into our normative vocabulary with the concept of ‘hypocritical advice.’ At best, this term plays a superfluous role in our normative vocabulary; at worst, its vagueness perpetuates a vicious practice of reason-rejecting. Regardless of the severity of its impact on normative discourse, I will argue herein that we should do away with talk of ‘hypocritical advice.’ -/- I begin by echoing a standard distinction betweensecond- and third-personalreasons and the corresponding types of authority that ground agents’ abilities to givereasons of each kind (sec. 2). After briefly discussing the connection between authority and hypocrisy (sec. 3), I argue that most purported cases of hypocritical advice-giving rest on a confusion between an utterance as communicatingsecond- or third-personalreasons (sec. 4). Against recent suggestions thatreasons given unambiguously as advice can be hypocritical, I demonstrate that the basis for rejecting third-personalreasons given in hypocritical advice is an interestingly different one than for rejectingsecond-personalreasons given through blame (sec. 5). I close with some final considerations against keeping ‘hypocritical advice’ in our normative vocabulary. (shrink)

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