Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte - Volume 110, Issue 4, 2018

The Nurturing Stance. A critical addition to Strawsonian theories of responsibility.

In this paper I provide an important addition to Strawsonian theory. In the first section I briefly discuss the Strawsonian approach to responsibility. Then I discuss in some detail the stance we, according to Strawsonians, take 
towards people who lack the abilities to comply with moral norms. This ‘objective stance’ is inconsistent with the stance that is considered typical and desirable in psychiatric contexts and care-relationships more generally speaking. In order to resolve this conflict I formulate an additional stance that allows Strawsonian theory to account for this.

Autism as a polysemic and dynamic phenomenon

In this paper we demonstrate how the dominant discourse about autism, that stresses biological explanations, has certain ethical implications. On the one hand, such discourse is exculpating. In autism’s history, genetic explanations helped removing the blame from so-called refrigerator mothers. In present-day diagnostic practice, the idea of having a biological diagnosis helps people and their parents see beyond blame and guilt. On the other hand, a simplistic approach to biology risks neglecting the experiences and stories of autistic people in favour of finding causes and cures. In our own research we have noticed that narratives of autistic people explore an alternative autism discourse, one that demonstrate multiple meanings and dynamics of autism. We demonstrate, using the theories of Georges Canguilhem and the science of epigenetics, how dynamic models of life and mind offer the possibility to look at autism differently. Rather than seeing autistic people as people with fundamental flaws in their genes or software faults in their brains that have to be explained, autism appears as a phenomenon that exists in interaction with the context, as a meaningful reaction to the environment.

Suicide and the value of a rational life

In recent Kantian discussions about suicide, it is not uncommon to find relatively ‘mild’ approaches towards suicide. Even though as a rule suicide is still impermissible, some argue that there may be circumstances that can make suicide morally permissible. If a person suffers such that she cannot be considered to have a rational life any more, suicide is no longer immoral because the object of the moral duty is no longer present. In this paper, I investigate this argumentative strategy by exploring what it might mean to have a ‘rational life’. I argue that on a minimal conception, people who suffer unbearably still lead rational lives and suicide is thus not morally justified. On substantial conceptions, however, not only does having a rational life become a contingent affair, it also leads to a more liberal approach towards suicide than ‘mild Kantians’ may be prepared to accept.

Emotions Caused by Untrue Propositions: A Broader View of the Paradox of Fiction

Ever since Colin Radford wrote his article ‘How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?’ in 1975, philosophers have tried to solve the so-called paradox of fiction, or the question how we can be moved by objects of which we know they don’t really exist. What is striking about discussions on the paradox of fiction is that they often present fictional works as collections of untrue statements and focus on the content of these works, without regard for their form or mode of presentation. In this paper, I argue for a re-examination of the paradox of fiction, in which the work of fiction is treated as a complex of form and content. In this regard, I propose to expand Peter Lamarque’s thought theory, which he explicitly formulated to solve the paradox of fiction, with his later developed concept of opacity, which states that the content of the imaginings we form when reading fiction are fundamentally connected to the specific descriptions within the fictional work.

A New Chance for Infinitesimals?

This article discusses the connection between the Zenonian paradox of magnitude and probability on infinite sample spaces. Two important premises in the Zenonian argument are: the Archimedean axiom, which excludes infinitesimal magnitudes, and perfect additivity. Standard probability theory uses real numbers that satisfy the Archimedean axiom, but it rejects perfect additivity. The additivity requirement for real-valued probabilities is limited to countably infinite collections of mutually incompatible events. A consequence of this is that there exists no standard probability function that describes a fair lottery on the natural numbers. If we reject the Archimedean axiom, allowing infinitesimal probability values, we can retain perfect additivity and describe a fair, countable infinite lottery. The article gives a historical overview to understand how the first option has become the current standard, whereas the latter remains ‘non-standard’.

Women and men towards a new type of leadership

In the Netherlands emancipation has had a lot of attention in the last decades of the former century. Nowadays, often is thought the inequality be­tween men and women at the workplace is solved. Nevertheless, despite the high amount of for instance female students, in higher positions in organizations and academies female leaders still are a minority. More important, their qualities to lead are underestimated, as well by men as by themselves. In today’s world, a combination of feminine and masculine leadership is the best way to manage the modern fluid network organizations, and androgyn leaders are highly searched for.