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Articles 1 - 30 of 190
Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
Towards Confucian Economic Democracy: A Relational Alternative To Possessive Individualism, Sor-Hoon Tan
Towards Confucian Economic Democracy: A Relational Alternative To Possessive Individualism, Sor-Hoon Tan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article offers a Confucian conception of ownership and a different approach to equality based on a concept of relational person that could provide an alternative philosophical framework for economic democracy. The Confucian concept of nonexclusive and nonabsolute co-ownership, conditional on owners fulfilling their social responsibilities and sustained in networks of relationships mitigates the drive to appropriation and resistance to redistribution even without formalizing legal rights of equal ownership. Confucian texts’ condemnation of wide disparities between rich and poor corresponds with distributive ideas that balance equal satisfaction of needs with merit-based incentives for productivity constrained by social harmony. Without advocating …
The Ambivalent Wisdom Of Moral Disgust, Brandon Yip
The Ambivalent Wisdom Of Moral Disgust, Brandon Yip
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper has two aims. First, to provide a positive account of moral disgust. I suggest that moral disgust is a response to acts that are socially corrosive, namely, acts that undermine the normative structure to which an agent is attuned. I support this analysis with two lines of evidence: (1) moral disgust serves the important function of guarding normative structures from socially corrosive actions and (2) the analysis provides an illuminating explanation of moral disgust in a wide variety of cases. The secondary aim of this paper is to probe the normative implications of my positive account. I suggest …
Honing The Haptics Of The Heart: A New Defence Of The Perceptual Theory Of Emotion, Brandon Yip
Honing The Haptics Of The Heart: A New Defence Of The Perceptual Theory Of Emotion, Brandon Yip
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
According to the perceptual theory of emotion, emotions are evaluative perceptions. However, emotions involve us in a way that regular perception does not and this has led to two influential objections to the perceptual theory have emerged. According to the first objection, the perceptual theory is false because the phenomenology of emotion is the phenomenology of response. According to the second objection, the perceptual theory is false because emotions are susceptible to evaluations of rationality and reason-responsiveness. In this essay, I defend the perceptual theory by disarming these two objections. In response to the first objection, I suggest that emotional …
Auseinandersetzung: Heidegger's Black Notebooks And Intercultural Engagement, Steven Burik
Auseinandersetzung: Heidegger's Black Notebooks And Intercultural Engagement, Steven Burik
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Heidegger’s relation to Asian philosophy should be guided by the notion of Auseinandersetzung. Often translated as con-frontation, this term plays a pivotal role in understanding Heidegger’s engagements with Asian philosophy. Auseinandersetzung (and related terms) can help us realise the changed perspectives on our own thinking that we derive from engagements with culturally and/or historically other types of thinking. Heidegger warns us against facile endeavours of comparing and contrasting, which, as a form of comparative philosophy, he sees as a kind of dialectics unworthy of true thinking. Thinking through the term Auseinandersetzung allows us to reflect more meaningfully on comparative philosophy.
Epiphanic Empires: Commentary On Sophie Grace Chappell's Epiphanies, Brandon Yip
Epiphanic Empires: Commentary On Sophie Grace Chappell's Epiphanies, Brandon Yip
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Chappell provides a comprehensive ethical vision by reflecting on the nature of epiphanies. I suggest that two aspects of that vision, (1) the anti-theoretic impulse and (2) the republic of conversation, are in tension with the fact that our epiphanies are often imperious: they purport to authoritatively dictate normative reality to us.
The Good Life Paradox, Matthew Hammerton
The Good Life Paradox, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Picture two people on their deathbeds. The first lived comfortably, surrounded by loving family and friends, enjoying diverse pleasures and achievements throughout a long life. The second dedicated herself entirely to fighting injustice, achieving remarkable social change, but at great personal cost. Who lived the better life?Your answer might depend on what you mean by ‘better’. Philosophers have long recognized that when we call a life ‘good’ we can mean different things. So we could be talking about a life’s moral goodness – how virtuous the person was – or its prudential goodness – how well the life went for …
Merit Transference And The Paradox Of Merit Inflation, Matthew Hammerton
Merit Transference And The Paradox Of Merit Inflation, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Many religious traditions and ethical systems hold that individuals accrue merit through their good intentions, acts, and character, and demerit through their bad intentions, acts, and character. This merit and demerit, accumulated by individuals throughout their lives, gives each person a kind of ethical “score” that can determine what they deserve, and influence whether good or bad things happen to them (e.g., divine punishments and rewards, a favourable or unfavourable rebirth, etc.). In some traditions (most notably Buddhism, but also to a limited extent in Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity), “merit transference” is a feature of these merit-based ethical systems. This …
Being Seen And Being With Others: Shame And Interpersonal Relationships, Brandon Yip
Being Seen And Being With Others: Shame And Interpersonal Relationships, Brandon Yip
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
I seek to vindicate heteronomous shame: shame that one experiences in response to a judgment from another that one does not accept. I suggest that such experiences are instances of interpersonal shame. This is shame that involves a sensitivity to interpersonal ideals, whose instantiation depends partly on the attitudes of others. I defend the importance of such shame by showing how vulnerability to others is a constitutive part of rich interpersonal relationships. The account both casts light on and vindicates the heteronomous shame that is pervasive among marginalised and oppressed groups. Such shame is not irrational but involves an accurate …
Constraints Without Tears For Consequentialists, Matthew Hammerton
Constraints Without Tears For Consequentialists, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Agent-relative consequentialism uses the theoretical framework of consequentialism to capture the constraints favored by deontologists. Christopher Howard has recently argued that agent-relative consequentialism is implausible because it can only capture such constraints at the expense of getting other normative facts incorrect. In this reply, I argue that Howard’s objection to agent-relative consequentialism fails because it rests on faulty intuitions that arise from a misunderstanding of basic structural features of agent-relative consequentialism.
Not Staying Regular?, Joshua Thong
Not Staying Regular?, Joshua Thong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Consider the following claims: 1. Rational credences are real-valued. 2. A rational agent is more confident in than in just in case appropriate set-theoretic relations between the relevant events and/or appropriate inequalities between her numerical credences, whether conditional or not, hold. 3. If a rational agent’s conditional credence in, given, is greater than her conditional credence in, given, then she is more confident in than in. 4. There are two distinct and particular ways of ordering the events in a lottery over the naturals, for each of which there exists a rational agent whose comparative confidence ordering corresponds to that …
‘Workism’ Isn’T The Enemy, Matthew Hammerton
‘Workism’ Isn’T The Enemy, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Philosophy Matthew Hammerton opined that "workism" – finding meaning and identity in one’s job – should not be dismissed outright. He distinguished it from "statusism," which ties self-worth to social hierarchy and often leads to competition and misplaced values. In contrast, non-competitive workism can promote collaboration and meaningful engagement. While acknowledging concerns that workism may lead to imbalance or risk, he cautioned against pathologising the choice of those who derive deep fulfilment from their work.
What Is Wrong With Workism?, Matthew Hammerton
What Is Wrong With Workism?, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Workism is the phenomenon of people making their work the primary source of meaning and identity in their life. Recent critics of workism have argued that there is a growing trend towards it in many societies and that this is a bad thing. This article brings a philosophical perspective to the debate on workism. It develops a precise account of what workism is and evaluates the main objections raised against it by examining their underlying philosophical assumptions. Ultimately, it is argued that workism, as a way of life, is not as objectionable as its critics suggest.
Intellectual Humility Without Limits: Magnanimous Humility, Disagreement And The Epistemology Of Resistance, Brandon Yip
Intellectual Humility Without Limits: Magnanimous Humility, Disagreement And The Epistemology Of Resistance, Brandon Yip
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In this paper, I provide a characterisation of a neglected form of humility: magnanimous humility. Unlike most contemporary analyses of humility, magnanimous humility is not about limitations but instead presupposes that one possesses some entitlement in a context. I suggest that magnanimous intellectual humility (IH) consists in a disposition to appropriately refrain from exercising one's legitimate epistemic entitlements because one is appropriately motivated to pursue some epistemic good. I then shown that Magnanimous IH has an important role to play in contexts of disagreement and oppression. It calls on knowing parties to refrain from pressing their epistemic entitlements to facilitate …
Diversities Within Diversities, Sor-Hoon Tan
Diversities Within Diversities, Sor-Hoon Tan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This chapter adds to the perspectives from Chinese philosophical traditions on the issues of ecological and economic inequalities by drawing attention to recent works on Daoism offering views on ecological problems that differ from Tongdong Bai’s chapter. It also highlights a common theme that is found in several chapters in this volume: the importance of relationship. Starting from Confucian relational ethics, it offers a different perspective from Bai and others who defend Confucian hierarchy by questioning the opposition between egalitarianism and hierarchy. It argues that Confucianism strongly objects to certain kinds of inequalities, which would put it in sympathy with …
Understanding Sociability Through Mandevillean Pride: Comments On Robin Douglass's Mandeville's Fable, Antong Liu
Understanding Sociability Through Mandevillean Pride: Comments On Robin Douglass's Mandeville's Fable, Antong Liu
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
There is ‘a tendency to evaluate philosophical theories of human nature as more accurate or adequate when they are more attractive or flattering, not when they are more truthful,’ claim two contemporary moral psychologists (Flanagan and Hu 2011: 312). While this tendency may not be as widely shared as these scholars expect, the flip side of their claim indeed captures a factual truth: philosophers seldom avoid attacks on their theories and even their personalities when they insiston exposing the dark side of human nature. Indeed, not all philosophers attacked for this reasonlose their popularity, as numerous readers of Machiavelli and …
China, Feminism, And The Legacy Of Confucius, Sor-Hoon Tan
China, Feminism, And The Legacy Of Confucius, Sor-Hoon Tan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
As the double burden of paid work and family demands leads Chinese women to think twice about marriage and children, we can rush to blame Confucianism’s sexism. But this is a mistake, writes Sor-hoon Tan. We need to separate Confucian philosophy from the oppressive patriarchal norms of its time. Confucian values of care and cultivation can enrich today’s feminism and support equal opportunities for all.
The Epistemic Role Of Ai Decision Support Systems: Neither Superiors, Nor Inferiors, Nor Peers, Rand Hirmiz
The Epistemic Role Of Ai Decision Support Systems: Neither Superiors, Nor Inferiors, Nor Peers, Rand Hirmiz
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Despite the importance of discussions over the epistemic role that artificially intelligent decision support systems ought to play, there is currently a lack of these discussions in both the AI literature and the epistemology literature. My goal in this paper is to rectify this by proposing an account of the epistemic role of AI decision support systems in medicine and discussing what this epistemic role means with regard to how these systems ought to be utilized. In particular, I argue that AI decision support systems are not epistemic superiors, inferiors, or peers. Instead, I recommend that they be classified in …
What Is The Fallacy Of Approximation?, Matthew Hammerton, Sovan Patra
What Is The Fallacy Of Approximation?, Matthew Hammerton, Sovan Patra
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Many philosophers appeal to the “fallacy of approximation”, or “problem of second best”. However, despite the pervasiveness of such appeals, there has been only a single attempt to provide a systematic account of what the fallacy is. We identify the shortcomings of this account and propose a better one in its place. Our account not only captures all the contexts in which approximation-based reasoning occurs but also systematically explains the several different ways in which it can be in error.
Merit And Inequality: Confucian And Communitarian Perspectives On Singapore's Meritocracy, Sor-Hoon Tan
Merit And Inequality: Confucian And Communitarian Perspectives On Singapore's Meritocracy, Sor-Hoon Tan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper compares criticisms of Singapore’s meritocracy, especially against its impact on income disparities and class divisions, with Michael Sandel’s critique of the meritocratic ethic in the United States. Despite significant differences in their history and politics, meritocracy has similar dysfunctions in both societies, allowing us to draw theoretical conclusions about meritocracy as an ideal of governance. It then contrasts Sandel’s communitarian critique of meritocracy with recent Confucian promotion of political meritocracy and meritocratic justice and argues that the Confucian principle of “promoting the virtuous and talented” is different from the contemporary conception of meritocracy. Textual evidence indicates that a …
Confucian Family Ideal And Same-Sex Marriage: A Feminist Confucian Perspective, Sor-Hoon Tan
Confucian Family Ideal And Same-Sex Marriage: A Feminist Confucian Perspective, Sor-Hoon Tan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article engages the views of PRC Confucian scholars who responded to the United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's citing of Confucius in his majority opinion on same-sex marriage in 2015. It questions their separation of tolerance for homosexuality from legalization of same-sex marriage and argue that tolerance is not enough. The arguments in the mainland Confucian discourse about same-sex marriage highlights the historical and persistent entanglement of Confucianism with patriarchy. Instead of reviving traditional patriarchal society, further entrenching and increasing gender inequality, contemporary Confucianism could shape its own unique modern society that aspires to (and hopefully one day …
An Integrated Theory Of Happiness: The Yang Zhu Chapter Of The Liezi, Devin K. Joshi
An Integrated Theory Of Happiness: The Yang Zhu Chapter Of The Liezi, Devin K. Joshi
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article examines the integrated approach to theorizing happiness in the Yang Zhu chapter of the book associated with the Daoist master Liezi. While ancient critics famously denounced Yang Zhu as an amoral, pleasure-seeking hedonist, I argue the Yang Zhu chapter offers an individually rational but socially non-conformist approach to well-being of considerable relevance to contemporary scholarship on happiness. Not only does the chapter offer an intriguing and counter-intuitive argument about what constitutes and causes well-being, but its philosophical implications address a large number of inescapably foundational conceptual questions that can serve as metrics for evaluating theories of happiness in …
Review Of Dao Companion To Xuanxue (Neo-Daoism), Chai, David, Ed, Steven Burik
Review Of Dao Companion To Xuanxue (Neo-Daoism), Chai, David, Ed, Steven Burik
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The Dao Companion to Xuanxue (Neo-Daoism), edited by David Chai, is a wideranging volume. Covering both historical backgrounds and philosophical intricacies of the xuanxue 玄學 period in Chinese intellectual history, this volume provides the reader with a well-rounded understanding of one of the most fertile “schools” of Chinese thought, known as the xuanxue or Neo-Daoism. Chai has done an admirable job of bringing together a wide variety of scholars well-versed in one or more aspects of this important period in Chinese philosophy, and the volume even branches out into the historical periods before and after, to provide us with an …
'Kevin Vallier' Trust In A Polarized Age, Chandran Kukathas
'Kevin Vallier' Trust In A Polarized Age, Chandran Kukathas
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Vallier offers a defence of liberalism that is publicly justified as an answer to political polarization. This critique argues that the philosophical solution he offers - a version of liberalism more likely to be endorsed by moderately idealized agents - may not succeed because the source of polarization lies elsewhere: in resentments arising out of changed social conditions and the alienation of parts of society unhappy with the very liberal narrative in question.
Confucius, Wisdom, And Political Participation: Benevolence And Timeliness In The Analects, Sydney Morrow, Shane Ryan
Confucius, Wisdom, And Political Participation: Benevolence And Timeliness In The Analects, Sydney Morrow, Shane Ryan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper aims to address when the wise person should participate in politics. The question is addressed through engagement with the Analects. Rather than provide interpretations of key terms in the Analects, we provide an account of wisdom that draws from themes in the Analects. The case is made that the wise person is committed to participating in politics primarily because of the connection between wisdom and benevolence (ren 仁 in the Analects). We address challenges to the Confucian approach from the Zhuangzi concerning the potential harms of political participation. General political disengagement is not considered exemplary on the Confucian …
Deconstruction Of A Dialogue: Creative Interpretation In Comparative Philosophy, Steven Burik
Deconstruction Of A Dialogue: Creative Interpretation In Comparative Philosophy, Steven Burik
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
It is common knowledge that Martin Heidegger’s attempts at engaging non-Western philosophy are very much a construct of his own making. This article in no way seeks to disagree with those observations, but argues two things: first, that Heidegger’s “dialogue” with his two main other sources of inspiration, the ancient Greek thinkers and the German poets, is not different in kind or in principle from his engagement with East Asia. One can of course quite easily argue that Heidegger’s main interest was the ancient Greek thinkers, and then the poets, and only lastly Asia. But this hierarchy in preference does …
Assertion, Stakes And Expected Blameworthiness: An Insensitive Invariantist Solution To The Bank Cases, Brandon Yip
Assertion, Stakes And Expected Blameworthiness: An Insensitive Invariantist Solution To The Bank Cases, Brandon Yip
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Contextualists and Subject Sensitive Invariantists often cite the knowledge norm of assertion as part of their argument. They claim that the knowledge norms in conjunction with our intuitions about when a subject is properly asserting in low or high stakes contexts provides strong evidence that what counts as knowledge depends on practical factors. In this paper, I present new data to suggest they are mistaken in the way they think about cases involving high and low stakes and I show how insensitive invariantists can explain the data. I exploit recent work done on the distinction between flouting a norm and …
Well-Being And Meaning In Life, Matthew Hammerton
Well-Being And Meaning In Life, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Many philosophers now see meaning in life as a key evaluative category that stands alongside well-being and moral goodness. Our lives are assessed not only by how well they go for us and how morally good they are, but also by their meaningfulness. In this article, I raise a challenge to this view. Theories of meaning in life closely resemble theories of well-being, and there is a suspicion that the former collapse into the latter. I develop this challenge showing that it is formidable. I then answer it by offering a novel account of what meaning in life is and …
Regret Is Born Where Choice Dies, Shane Ryan
Regret Is Born Where Choice Dies, Shane Ryan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper analyses regret. On the basis of a number of examples, the case is made that regret is a negative affective state that has a perceived past choice as its object. More precisely, S regrets φ-ing, iff, and because (i) S has a negative affective state regarding φ-ing (Negative Affect State Requirement), the experience of which is explained by (ii) S perceiving that an alternative choice that was available to her would have been preferable to φ-ing (Perceived Forking Path Requirement). The resulting account is differentiated from Williams’ agent-regret and shown to avoid problems faced by Zeelenberg’s definition of …
The Fundamental Divisions In Ethics, Matthew Hammerton
The Fundamental Divisions In Ethics, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
What are the fundamental divisions in ethics? Which divisions capture the most important and basic options in moral theorizing? In this article, I reject the ‘Textbook View’ which takes the tripartite division between consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics to be fundamental. Instead, I suggest that moral theories are fundamentally divided into three independent divisions, which I call the neutral/relative division, the normative priority division, and the maximizing division. I argue that this account of the fundamental divisions of ethics better captures the main concerns that normative ethicists have when assessing moral theories. It also helps us make progress in comparative …
A Puzzle About Meaning And Luck, Matthew Hammerton
A Puzzle About Meaning And Luck, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article raises a puzzle about luck and meaning in life. The puzzle shows that, in certain cases involving luck, standard intuitions about the meaningfulness of various lives conflict with basic theoretical assumptions about the nature of meaning. After setting out the puzzle, several options for resolving it are developed and evaluated.