- Waco, Texas, United States
Paul Carron
Baylor University, Baylor Interdisciplinary Core, Faculty Member
- Baylor University, Philosophy, Faculty Memberadd
- I am faculty member in the Honors College at Baylor University. My research explores various issues in the philosophi... moreI am faculty member in the Honors College at Baylor University. My research explores various issues in the philosophical subfield of moral psychology. In particular, I seek to discern the capacities—intellectual, emotional, psychological, and/or neurological—that allow us to hold each other morally responsible for our actions. I am the coordinator of a team-taught course, Social World I: The City and the Soul in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core. I also regularly teach a biblical ethics course.edit
This essay draws on Heidegger’s account of technology and boredom and argues that the smartphone reveals a new kind of loneliness – profound loneliness. I examine three features of modern life – authenticity, boredom, and loneliness – and... more
This essay draws on Heidegger’s account of technology and boredom and argues that the smartphone reveals a new kind of loneliness – profound loneliness. I examine three features of modern life – authenticity, boredom, and loneliness – and ask if any of these modes of being are the poièsis of the smartphone. I introduce three historical types of loneliness – primordial loneliness, existential loneliness, and profound loneliness. Whereas modern, industrialized life makes existential loneliness possible, the smartphone reveals our capacity for profound loneliness. Like profound boredom, profound loneliness is “inconspicuous and wide-ranging,” concealed from us, hidden from view. Profound loneliness isolates us from everything, including ourselves. I also introduce a new form of boredom, profound boredom with something, and argue that the smartphone also reveals this new form of boredom, a pervasive, wide-ranging boredom of which we are unaware.
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This essay contributes to the growing number of Kierkegaard scholars who emphasize Kierkegaard’s social analysis and contribution to political thought analyzing Kierkegaard’s understanding of how the crowd shapes personal identity and how... more
This essay contributes to the growing number of Kierkegaard scholars who emphasize Kierkegaard’s social analysis and contribution to political thought analyzing Kierkegaard’s understanding of how the crowd shapes personal identity and how social comparison is a roadblock on the path to authentic selfhood. First, I offer a brief overview of social comparison theory, an important discovery of twentieth century social psychology. Social comparison theory (SCT) is evidenced in stories, anecdotes, and numerous laboratory experiments and studies, and suggests that the agent’s self-conception is largely determined by social and cultural forces. SCT provides both a theoretical framework and empirical support for Kierkegaard’s understanding of the crowd’s influence on the agent’s self-conception and emotions. Second, I examine several Kierkegaardian texts to show his understanding of the way the crowd influences the agent’s self-conception and how the crowd is always a stumbling block on the self’s road to authenticity. Finally, the same texts provide a solution to the crowd’s threat to authenticity: developing social courage through emotion regulation strategies. Social psychology is utilized to develop and strengthen these implicit social emotion regulation strategies, especially social attentional deployment. Human beings are largely constituted by our social group, and for Kierkegaard there are only two social options: the crowd, or the Eternal. Taking the Eternal as one’s object requires focusing to the Eternal and not the crowd, and one needs social courage to accomplish this shift in focus.
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This essay argues that there are concrete emotion regulation practices described, but not developed, in Kierkegaard's Christian Discourses. These prac-tices—such as attentiveness to emotion, attentional deployment, and cognitive... more
This essay argues that there are concrete emotion regulation practices described, but not developed, in Kierkegaard's Christian Discourses. These prac-tices—such as attentiveness to emotion, attentional deployment, and cognitive reappraisal—help the reader to regulate her emotions, to get rid of negative, unwanted emotions such as worry, and to cultivate and nourish positive emotions such as faith, gratitude, and trust. An examination of the Discourses also expose Kierkegaard's understanding of the emotions; his view is akin to a perceptual theory of the emotions that closely connects emotions and concerns. In particular, this analysis unearths two main regulatory strategies located in the Discourses, strategies that closely resemble present-day psychological accounts of emotion regulation. I conclude that contemporary research reinforces Kierkegaard's philosophical analysis of emotions and emotion-regulation strategies. Drawing on this research provides the most persuasive interpretation of Kierkegaard's understanding of the emotions and emotion-regulation strategies. Additionally, present-day research clarifies the otherwise elusive, opaque strategies he describes. Finally, my analysis demonstrates that Kierkegaard's work can uniquely contribute to the present-day psychological research by emphasizing the need for diachronic regulation strategies, while the contemporary literature overwhelmingly focuses on synchronic strategies.
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In this essay, I first describe Kierkegaard’s understanding of free and responsible selfhood. I then describe one of Kierkegaard’s unique contributions to freedom and responsibility – his perceptual theory of the emotions. Kierkegaard... more
In this essay, I first describe Kierkegaard’s understanding of free and responsible selfhood. I then describe one of Kierkegaard’s unique contributions to freedom and responsibility – his perceptual theory of the emotions. Kierkegaard understands emotions as perceptions that are related to beliefs and concerns, and thus the self can—to some extent—freely participate in the cultivation of various emotions. In other words, one of the ways that self takes responsibility for itself is by taking responsibility for its emotions. In the final section, I turn to Kierkegaard’s understanding of social comparison and the role that the “crowd” plays in shaping the self’s beliefs, desires, and emotions. Kierkegaard is clear that envy and social comparison are detrimental to becoming a self, yet envy and social comparison are pervasive social practices. I conclude that Kierkegaard understands both the value and the difficulty of cultivating social courage: the crowd is untruth due to the difficulty of holding fast to one’s values when confronted by crowd.
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Forse mai come in questo tempo la dignità dell'uomo, qual è stata riconosciuta dalla cultura tradizionale, è messa a dura prova dalle sfide, che giungono da tante parti del sapere, della politica e della società. Riflettere, dunque, su... more
Forse mai come in questo tempo la dignità dell'uomo, qual è stata riconosciuta dalla cultura tradizionale, è messa a dura prova dalle sfide, che giungono da tante parti del sapere, della politica e della società. Riflettere, dunque, su temi come l'identità, la libertà e la responsabilità, appare un compito ineludibile.
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Forse mai come in questo tempo la dignità dell'uomo, qual è stata riconosciuta dalla cultura tradizionale, è messa a dura prova dalle sfide, che giungono da tante parti del sapere, della politica e della società. Riflettere, dunque, su... more
Forse mai come in questo tempo la dignità dell'uomo, qual è stata riconosciuta dalla cultura tradizionale, è messa a dura prova dalle sfide, che giungono da tante parti del sapere, della politica e della società. Riflettere, dunque, su temi come l'identità personale, la libertà e la responsabilità, appare un compito ineludibile.
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In Nicomachean Ethics 2.1, Aristotle draws a now familiar analogy between aretai ('virtues') and technai ('skills'). The apparent basis of this comparison is that both virtue and skill are developed through practice and repetition,... more
In Nicomachean Ethics 2.1, Aristotle draws a now familiar analogy between aretai ('virtues') and technai ('skills'). The apparent basis of this comparison is that both virtue and skill are developed through practice and repetition, specifically by the learner performing the same kinds of actions as the expert: in other words, we become virtuous by performing virtuous actions. Aristotle’s claim that “like states arise from like activities” has led some philosophers to challenge the virtue-skill analogy. In particular, Aristotle’s skill analogy is sometimes dismissed because of the role that practical wisdom or phronesis purportedly plays in character virtue. In this paper, I argue that a proper understanding of character virtue, phantasia-based emotions, and Aristotle’s implicit distinction between habituated and strict or full virtue (aretè kuria) grounds his virtue-skill analogy. Character virtue stems from the non-rational orektikon and is developed through the habituation of passionate elements, primarily phantasia and pathé. Pathé are pleasurable or affective perceptions, not judgments or beliefs. Thus, pathé are subject to non-rational habituation. Practical wisdom, on the other hand, is an intellectual virtue stemming from the rational part of the soul. Though practical wisdom is necessary for full virtue (aretè kuria), it is not necessary for the habituated character virtue that Aristotle refers in Book II. Once we understand the phantastic basis of emotions and the distinction between habituated and full virtue, the virtue-skill analogy is apt. I conclude by briefly mentioning two contemporary forms of emotion regulation—cognitive reappraisal and cognitive behavioral therapy—that lend support from empirical psychology to Aristotle’s claim that emotions (pathé) can be habituated. Character virtue is indeed a skill; it is—at least in part—the skill of emotion regulation.
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This essay offers a reconstruction of Aristotle’s account of the voluntary in the Nicomachean Ethics, arguing that the voluntary grounds one notion of responsibility with two levels, and therefore both rational and non-rational animals... more
This essay offers a reconstruction of Aristotle’s account of the voluntary in the Nicomachean Ethics, arguing that the voluntary grounds one notion of responsibility with two levels, and therefore both rational and non-rational animals are responsible for voluntary actions. Aristotle makes no distinction between causal and moral responsibility in the NE; rather, voluntariness and prohairesis form different bases for responsibility and make possible different levels of responsibility, but both levels of responsibility fall within the ethical sphere and are aptly appraised. Important differences between the two levels remain. Animals and children are aptly appraised for direct voluntary actions. Conversely, only adults capable of prohairesis or rational choice are appraised for indirect voluntary actions—psychologically compelled actions that stem from character. Furthermore, while children and animals are responsible for actions, only adults casually contribute to the formation of their characters and thus are aptly appraised for character traits.
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This essay argues that recent evidence in neurobiology and psychology supports Aristotle’s foundational psychology and account of self-control and demonstrates that his account of virtue is still relevant for understanding human agency.... more
This essay argues that recent evidence in neurobiology and psychology supports Aristotle’s foundational psychology and account of self-control and demonstrates that his account of virtue is still relevant for understanding human agency. There is deep correlation between the psychological foundation of virtue that Aristotle describes in The Nicomachean Ethics (NE)—namely his distinction between the rational and nonrational parts of the soul, the way that they interact, and their respective roles in self-controlled action—and dual-process models of moral judgment. Furthermore, Aristotle’s conception of character traits requires emotion regulation, and there is growing evidence in neurobiology and psychology of this ability. Most importantly, individuals can intentionally influence and control their “emotion-generating” system, and furthermore can generate lasting neurological and behavioral changes through deliberate practice. This essay briefly reviews Aristotle’s account of the ψυχή (psyche/soul) and moral virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics, and then reviews contemporary evidence of emotional self-regulation or self-control that correlates with Aristotle’s account of virtue, demonstrating the ongoing relevance of Aristotle for understanding human agency.
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This essay draws on Adam Smith’s moral sentimentalism to critique primatologist Frans de Waal’s gradualist theory of human morality. De Waal has spent his career arguing for continuity between primate behavior and... more
This essay draws on Adam Smith’s moral sentimentalism to critique primatologist Frans de Waal’s gradualist theory of human morality. De Waal has spent his career arguing for continuity between primate behavior and human moral-ity, proposing that empathy is a primary moral building block evident in primate behavior. Smith’s moral sentimentalism—with its emphasis on the role of sympathy in moral virtue—provides the philosophical framework for de Waal’s understand-ing of morality. Smith’s notion of sympathy and the imagination involved in sympa-thy is qualitatively different from animal sympathy. I argue that Smithian sympathy includes the ability to represent propositional attitudes and take into account mul-tiple perspectives which are then synthesized into a singular impartial perspective. Furthermore, Smithian moral judgment requires the capacity for emotion regulation and moral self-cultivation, or the ability to shape and control one’s reactive attitudes. Taken together, these capacities far outstrip the capacities of animals, disrupting de Waal’s gradualism.
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This essay is a Neo-Aristotelian critique of Frans de Waal’s evolutionary moral sentimentalism. For a sentimentalist, moral judgments are rooted in reactive attitudes such as empathy, and De Waal argues that higher primates have the... more
This essay is a Neo-Aristotelian critique of Frans de Waal’s evolutionary moral sentimentalism. For a sentimentalist, moral judgments are rooted in reactive attitudes such as empathy, and De Waal argues that higher primates have the capacity for empathy—they can read other agent’s minds and react appropriately. De Waal concludes that the building blocks of human morality—primarily empathy—are present in primate social behavior. I will engage de Waal from within the sentimentalist tradition itself broadly construed and the Aristotelian virtue tradition more specifically. Within an Aristotelian framework, emotion regulation is necessary for moral responsibility. Aristotle understands that emotions are evaluative perceptions with cognitive content, and non-human animals do not possess the cognitive capacities for emotion regulation and are thus not morally responsible. This marks a boundary between primate behavior and human morality.
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This essay examines the recent Planet of the Apes films through the lens of recent research in primatology. The films lend imaginary support to primatologist Frans de Waal’s evolutionary moral sentimentalism; however, the movies also show... more
This essay examines the recent Planet of the Apes films through the lens of recent research in primatology. The
films lend imaginary support to primatologist Frans de Waal’s evolutionary moral sentimentalism; however, the
movies also show that truly moral emotions outstrip the cognitive capacities of the great apes. The abstract
moral principles employed by the ape community in the movie require the ability to understand and apply a
common underlying explanation to perceptually disparate situations; in contrast, recent research in comparative
psychology demonstrates that the great apes lack this capacity. Since the capacity for abstraction is required
on even the most basic version of moral sentimentalism—Shaun Nichols’ sentimental rules account—the lack
of the capacity for abstraction reveals a qualitative distinction between primate social behavior and human
morality.
films lend imaginary support to primatologist Frans de Waal’s evolutionary moral sentimentalism; however, the
movies also show that truly moral emotions outstrip the cognitive capacities of the great apes. The abstract
moral principles employed by the ape community in the movie require the ability to understand and apply a
common underlying explanation to perceptually disparate situations; in contrast, recent research in comparative
psychology demonstrates that the great apes lack this capacity. Since the capacity for abstraction is required
on even the most basic version of moral sentimentalism—Shaun Nichols’ sentimental rules account—the lack
of the capacity for abstraction reveals a qualitative distinction between primate social behavior and human
morality.
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Ethics instruction within an interdisciplinary core program involving a diverse student community representing many major fields of study presents unique challenges. Those challenges are in some ways compounded in the context of a... more
Ethics instruction within an interdisciplinary core program involving a diverse student community representing many major fields of study presents unique challenges. Those challenges are in some ways compounded in the context of a religiously affiliated university whose spiritual and ethical commitments are grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition even as its student population reflects increasing religious diversity. The authors present one method of addressing these challenges in hopes of inspiring broader discussions of how to teach ethics across the curriculum to students from many backgrounds and with myriad academic and professional goals.
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Teaching at a private, conservative religious institution poses unique challenges for equality, diversity, and inclusivity education (EDI). Given the realities of the student population in the Honors College of a private, religious... more
Teaching at a private, conservative religious institution poses unique challenges for equality, diversity, and inclusivity education (EDI). Given the realities of the student population in the Honors College of a private, religious institution, it is necessary to first introduce students to the contemporary realities of inequality and oppression and thus the need for EDI. This chapter proposes a conceptual framework and pedagogical suggestions for teaching basic concepts of social justice in a team-taught, interdisciplinary social science course. The course integrates four different approaches to justice: theoretical, social scientific, narratological, and experiential. The discussion of the experiential dimension of the course references practical pedagogical strategies for making social justice and inequality real for our students. Understanding the realities of social inequality and its roots can foster a better understanding of the social forces and structures that perpetuate inequality. Furthermore, this approach can plant the intellectual and empathic seeds to challenge in-group bias and hopefully germinate into fruitful interaction with diverse others. Finally, this rich, interdisciplinary encounter with social inequality and justice can prepare students to work for just social structures that will lead to a more inclusive world.
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Plato’s Symposium contains two accounts of Socrates going into a trance state (1997: 174d-e and 200e following). In this paper, we explore what Socrates is seeing (or not seeing) in his moments of silence in light of contemporary research... more
Plato’s Symposium contains two accounts of Socrates going into a trance state (1997: 174d-e and 200e following). In this paper, we explore what Socrates is seeing (or not seeing) in his moments of silence in light of contemporary research in neurobiology which makes us of technological developments in brain imaging to support its findings. We argue that though the descriptions of this Socratic silent activity are minimal, the dialogues present this Socratic practice as habitual. Second, we maintain that these trances are often understood as a practice where Socrates contemplates the good. While we do not deny this reading, we argue that they should also be regarded as a meditative practice aimed at achieving emotional self-control. This view is supported by substantial evidence from the meditative traditions in the Ancient Greek world, amply documented by Pierre Hadot and Peter Kingsley. We consider contemporary research in neurobiology that supports the view that intentional mental actions including meditation have a profound impact on brain activity, neuroplasticity, and help engender emotional self-control. We learn about this impact on brain activity through technological development, a prime example of how technology benefits humanity. Socrates attains the balanced emotional self-control that Alcibiades describes because of the sustained mental effort he exerts that directly impacts his brain and his emotional and philosophical life. As such, Socrates’ meditative practices offer a concrete model of self-care that we would do well to embrace today. While technology offers exciting opportunities to enhance human flourishing, at the same time, technology offers many challenges to humanity in that it can become a dehumanizing force in our world. We need to embrace therapeutic modes of self-care, whose efficacy can be established through technology as a means of battling the challenges to human dignity that are present in the contemporary age, namely mass media, consumerism, the proliferation of personal computing devices, the erosion of privacy. We must find therapeutic means to create the space for the continued flourishing of humanity. Practices such as Socratic meditation offer humanity those therapeutic optiona
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In this article we argue that Plato’s Republic presents two models of virtue cultivation: the self-mastery model and the harmony model, and that these models have important similarities with two contemporary psychological models of... more
In this article we argue that Plato’s Republic presents two models of virtue cultivation: the self-mastery model and the harmony model, and that these models have important similarities with two contemporary psychological models of emotional self-regulation. We argue that the Socratic distinction illuminates the value in cognitive reappraisal and that the contemporary neurological research supports the wide range of attitudes toward the value of emotional experience found in the Republic.
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Critical commentary on Brian D. Brost's essay from Southwest Philosophy Review 31 (1):167-175 (2015).
Research Interests: Plato and Moral Reasoning
What are the freedom-relevant conditions necessary for someone to be a morally responsible person? I examine several key authors beginning with Harry Frankfurt that have contributed to this debate in recent years, and then look back to... more
What are the freedom-relevant conditions necessary for someone to be a morally responsible person? I examine several key authors beginning with Harry Frankfurt that have contributed to this debate in recent years, and then look back to the writings or Søren Kierkegaard to provide a solution to the debate. In this project I investigate the claims of semi-compatibilism and argue that while its proponents have identified a fundamental question concerning free will and moral responsibility—namely, that the agential properties necessary for moral responsibility ascriptions are found in scenarios where the agent acts on her own as opposed to her action resulting from freedom undermining external causes such as manipulation, phobias, etc.—they have failed to show that the freedom-relevant agential properties identified in those actual-sequence scenarios are compatible with causal determinism. My argument is that only a voluntarist-libertarian theory can adequately account for the kinds of cases that the semicompatibilist identify. I argue that there are three freedom-relevant conditions necessary for someone to be a morally responsible person: a hierarchical understanding of human desires [specifically and mental states generally], an incompatibilist (non-deterministic) understanding of human action, and a historical understanding of character development. The ability to reflect critically about one’s own desires and emotions, and thus to have a kind of self-knowledge and understanding with regard to the springs of one’s own actions, is required to make it possible for the agent to be the “source” of her own actions and character. The non-deterministic understanding of human action is needed for a similar reason: if determinism is true, then every action a person performs can be ultimately traced to and exhaustively explained in terms of factors outside the agent’s control, thus making the agent’s responsibility for his actions an illusion. And finally,human nature must be such that, over time, one’s choices leave a dispositional residue self-understanding and motivation in the person’s self, out of which, in mature understanding and motivation, the person acts as a fully responsible agent.
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Philosophers have long assumed that human beings are fundamentally different from other animals. Even Aristotle – a keen observer of animal behavior and cognitive capacities – believed that animals lack logos, and therefore are incapable... more
Philosophers have long assumed that human beings are fundamentally different from other animals. Even Aristotle – a keen observer of animal behavior and cognitive capacities – believed that animals lack logos, and therefore are incapable of moral virtue or action. However, in recent years scientists in many fields have begun to take seriously Darwin’s claim that morality evolved. The primatologist Frans de Waal has spent his career carefully observing and recording the behavior of chimps and bonobos and argues that the building blocks of human morality – empathy and fairness – are evident in primate social behavior. Morality has evolved, and there is no qualitative difference between human and animal moral capacities. It comes as no surprise that many philosophers (and a number of psychologists) challenge this evolutionary claim. After all, doesn’t moral agency presuppose reflective self-awareness, autonomy, rationality, intentional action, and a host of other abilities that clearly exceed animal capacities?
This course will explore the notion of moral agency and ask with Mark Rowlands, Can Animals be Moral? To answer that question, we must also get clear about what constitutes moral agency. Along the way we will examine evidence from psychology and primatology and investigate what capacities humans share with other animals and what – if any – capacities are uniquely human. This research challenges the classical Western philosophical distinction between humans and animals. However, close examination of the issues might also reveal what is truly distinct about human morality.
This course will explore the notion of moral agency and ask with Mark Rowlands, Can Animals be Moral? To answer that question, we must also get clear about what constitutes moral agency. Along the way we will examine evidence from psychology and primatology and investigate what capacities humans share with other animals and what – if any – capacities are uniquely human. This research challenges the classical Western philosophical distinction between humans and animals. However, close examination of the issues might also reveal what is truly distinct about human morality.
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Virtue ethicists since Aristotle have believed people have character, and that their character disposes them to good or evil deeds. Our commonsense or folk psychology concurs; we typically explain and predict actions on the basis of... more
Virtue ethicists since Aristotle have believed people have character, and that their character disposes them to good or evil deeds. Our commonsense or folk psychology concurs; we typically explain and predict actions on the basis of people's long-term personality traits. Furthermore, virtue ethicists argue that cultivating good stable dispositions—moral virtues—is a necessary part of a life of happiness and flourishing. However, social psychology experiments dating back to the early 20th century have challenged the very notion of character. In fact, many psychologists have long believed that people lack character—stable dispositions simply do not exist. Philosophers have recently started paying attention to these studies, resulting in the situationist critique of virtue ethics. After studying Aristotle’s understanding of character, we will examine this psychological tradition of situationism and its appropriation by philosophers. We will then look at some revisionist virtue accounts formulated in response to situationism. Finally, we will survey recent experiments in positive psychology that provide some evidence for the cultivation of stable character traits.
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This course will examine the increasingly blurry lines between human and non-human intelligence, emotional capacities, and behavior. From Aristotle to recent research in psychology, primatology, neurobiology, we will investigate the... more
This course will examine the increasingly blurry lines between human and non-human intelligence, emotional capacities, and behavior. From Aristotle to recent research in psychology, primatology, neurobiology, we will investigate the capacities that humans share with other intelligent animals. We will find that this research challenges the classical Western philosophical distinction between humans and animals. However, close examination of the issues might also reveal what is truly distinct about human nature.
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This essay proposes that Socrates practiced various spiritual exercises, induding meditation, and that this Socratic practice of meditation was habitual, aimed at cultivating emotional self-control and existential preparedness.... more
This essay proposes that Socrates practiced various spiritual exercises, induding meditation, and that this Socratic practice of meditation was habitual, aimed at cultivating emotional self-control and existential preparedness. Corntemporary research in neurobiology supports the view that intentional mental actions, including mediation, have a profound impact on brain activity, neuroplasticity, and help engender emotional self-control. This impact on brain activity is confirmed via technological developments, a prime example of how technology benefits humanity, Socrates attains the balanced emotional self-control that Alcibiades describes in the Symposium because of the sustained mental effort he exerts that direct impetus his brain and his emotional and philosophical life. The essay concludes that Socratic meditative practices aimed at manifesting true dignity as human beings within the complexities of a technological world offer a promising model of self-care worthy of embracing today.
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Research Interests: Psychology and Virtue
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In Nicomachean Ethics 2.1, Aristotle draws a now familiar analogy between aretai ('virtues') and technai ('skills'). The apparent basis of this comparison is that both virtue and skill are developed through practice and... more
In Nicomachean Ethics 2.1, Aristotle draws a now familiar analogy between aretai ('virtues') and technai ('skills'). The apparent basis of this comparison is that both virtue and skill are developed through practice and repetition, specifically by the learner performing the same kinds of actions as the expert: in other words, we become virtuous by performing virtuous actions. Aristotle’s claim that “like states arise from like activities” has led some philosophers to challenge the virtue-skill analogy. In particular, Aristotle’s skill analogy is sometimes dismissed because of the role that practical wisdom or phronesis purportedly plays in character virtue. In this paper, I argue that a proper understanding of character virtue, phantasia-based emotions, and Aristotle’s implicit distinction between habituated and strict or full virtue (aretè kuria) grounds his virtue-skill analogy. Character virtue stems from the non-rational orektikon and is developed through the hab...
Research Interests:
In Nicomachean Ethics 2.1, Aristotle draws a now familiar analogy between aretai ('virtues') and technai ('skills'). The apparent basis of this comparison is that both virtue and skill are developed through practice and... more
In Nicomachean Ethics 2.1, Aristotle draws a now familiar analogy between aretai ('virtues') and technai ('skills'). The apparent basis of this comparison is that both virtue and skill are developed through practice and repetition, specifically by the learner performing the same kinds of actions as the expert: in other words, we become virtuous by performing virtuous actions. Aristotle’s claim that “like states arise from like activities” has led some philosophers to challenge the virtue-skill analogy. In particular, Aristotle’s skill analogy is sometimes dismissed because of the role that practical wisdom or phronesis purportedly plays in character virtue. In this paper, I argue that a proper understanding of character virtue, phantasia-based emotions, and Aristotle’s implicit distinction between habituated and strict or full virtue (aretè kuria) grounds his virtue-skill analogy. Character virtue stems from the non-rational orektikon and is developed through the hab...
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This essay contributes to the growing number of Kierkegaard scholars who emphasize Kierkegaard’s social analysis and contribution to political thought analyzing Kierkegaard’s understanding of how the crowd shapes personal identity and how... more
This essay contributes to the growing number of Kierkegaard scholars who emphasize Kierkegaard’s social analysis and contribution to political thought analyzing Kierkegaard’s understanding of how the crowd shapes personal identity and how social comparison is a roadblock on the path to authentic selfhood. First, I offer a brief overview of social comparison theory, an important discovery of twentieth century social psychology. Social comparison theory (SCT) is evidenced in stories, anecdotes, and numerous laboratory experiments and studies, and suggests that the agent’s self-conception is largely determined by social and cultural forces. SCT provides both a theoretical framework and empirical support for Kierkegaard’s understanding of the crowd’s influence on the agent’s self-conception and emotions. Second, I examine several Kierkegaardian texts to show his understanding of the way the crowd influences the agent’s self-conception and how the crowd is always a stumbling block on the self’s road to authenticity. Finally, the same texts provide a solution to the crowd’s threat to authenticity: developing social courage through emotion regulation strategies. Social psychology is utilized to develop and strengthen these implicit social emotion regulation strategies, especially social attentional deployment. Human beings are largely constituted by our social group, and for Kierkegaard there are only two social options: the crowd, or the Eternal. Taking the Eternal as one’s object requires focusing to the Eternal and not the crowd, and one needs social courage to accomplish this shift in focus.
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Acknowledgements I would like to thank Leslie Roy Ballard for his very helpful comments and editing suggestions on the earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank the members of my writing group, Anne-Marie Schultz, Tom... more
Acknowledgements I would like to thank Leslie Roy Ballard for his very helpful comments and editing suggestions on the earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank the members of my writing group, Anne-Marie Schultz, Tom Hanks, and Davide Zori for helpful comments and suggestions. Finally, thanks to Zea Miller for organizing a fine conference and to the participants at the Work of Cognition and Neuroethics in Science Fiction conference at the Insight Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience.
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This essay draws on Adam Smith’s moral sentimentalism to critique primatologist Frans de Waal’s gradualist theory of human morality. De Waal has spent his career arguing for continuity between primate behavior and human morality,... more
This essay draws on Adam Smith’s moral sentimentalism to critique primatologist Frans de Waal’s gradualist theory of human morality. De Waal has spent his career arguing for continuity between primate behavior and human morality, proposing that empathy is a primary moral building block evident in primate behavior. Smith’s moral sentimentalism—with its emphasis on the role of sympathy in moral virtue—provides the philosophical framework for de Waal’s understanding of morality. Smith’s notion of sympathy and the imagination involved in sympathy is qualitatively different from animal sympathy. I argue that Smithian sympathy includes the ability to represent propositional attitudes and take into account multiple perspectives which are then synthesized into a singular impartial perspective. Furthermore, Smithian moral judgment requires the capacity for emotion regulation and moral self-cultivation, or the ability to shape and control one’s reactive attitudes. Taken together, these capacities far outstrip the capacities of animals, disrupting de Waal’s gradualism.
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This essay proposes that Socrates practiced various spiritual exercises, induding meditation, and that this Socratic practice of meditation was habitual, aimed at cultivating emotional self-control and existential preparedness.... more
This essay proposes that Socrates practiced various spiritual exercises, induding meditation, and that this Socratic practice of meditation was habitual, aimed at cultivating emotional self-control and existential preparedness. Corntemporary research in neurobiology supports the view that intentional mental actions, including mediation, have a profound impact on brain activity, neuroplasticity, and help engender emotional self-control. This impact on brain activity is confirmed via technological developments, a prime example of how technology benefits humanity, Socrates attains the balanced emotional self-control that Alcibiades describes in the Symposium because of the sustained mental effort he exerts that direct impetus his brain and his emotional and philosophical life. The essay concludes that Socratic meditative practices aimed at manifesting true dignity as human beings within the complexities of a technological world offer a promising model of self-care worthy of embracing today.
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In this essay, I first describe Kierkegaard’s understanding of free and responsible selfhood. I then describe one of Kierkegaard’s unique contributions to freedom and responsibility – his perceptual theory of the emotions. Kierkegaard... more
In this essay, I first describe Kierkegaard’s understanding of free and responsible selfhood. I then describe one of Kierkegaard’s unique contributions to freedom and responsibility – his perceptual theory of the emotions. Kierkegaard understands emotions as perceptions that are related to beliefs and concerns, and thus the self can—to some extent—freely participate in the cultivation of various emotions. In other words, one of the ways that self takes responsibility for itself is by taking responsibility for its emotions. In the final section, I turn to Kierkegaard’s understanding of social comparison and the role that the “crowd” plays in shaping the self’s beliefs, desires, and emotions. Kierkegaard is clear that envy and social comparison are detrimental to becoming a self, yet envy and social comparison are pervasive social practices. I conclude that Kierkegaard understands both the value and the difficulty of cultivating social courage: the crowd is untruth due to the difficulty of holding fast to one’s values when confronted by crowd.
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This essay argues that recent evidence in neurobiology and psychology supports Aristotle’s foundational psychology and account of self-control and demonstrates that his account of virtue is still relevant for understanding human agency.... more
This essay argues that recent evidence in neurobiology and psychology supports Aristotle’s foundational psychology and account of self-control and demonstrates that his account of virtue is still relevant for understanding human agency. There is deep correlation between the psychological foundation of virtue that Aristotle describes in The Nicomachean Ethics (NE)—namely his distinction between the rational and nonrational parts of the soul, the way that they interact, and their respective roles in self-controlled action—and dual-process models of moral judgment. Furthermore, Aristotle’s conception of character traits requires emotion regulation, and there is growing evidence in neurobiology and psychology of this ability. Most importantly, individuals can intentionally influence and control their “emotion-generating” system, and furthermore can generate lasting neurological and behavioral changes through deliberate practice. This essay briefly reviews Aristotle’s account of the ψυχή (psyche/soul) and moral virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics, and then reviews contemporary evidence of emotional self-regulation or self-control that correlates with Aristotle’s account of virtue, demonstrating the ongoing relevance of Aristotle for understanding human agency.
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Teaching at a private, conservative religious institution poses unique challenges for equality, diversity, and inclusivity education (EDI). Given the realities of the student population in the Honors College of a private, religious... more
Teaching at a private, conservative religious institution poses unique challenges for equality, diversity, and inclusivity education (EDI). Given the realities of the student population in the Honors College of a private, religious institution, it is necessary to first introduce students to the contemporary realities of inequality and oppression and thus the need for EDI. This chapter proposes a conceptual framework and pedagogical suggestions for teaching basic concepts of social justice in a team-taught, interdisciplinary social science course. The course integrates four different approaches to justice: theoretical, social scientific, narratological, and experiential. The discussion of the experiential dimension of the course references practical pedagogical strategies for making social justice and inequality real for our students. Understanding the realities of social inequality and its roots can foster a better understanding of the social forces and structures that perpetuate inequality. Furthermore, this approach can plant the intellectual and empathic seeds to challenge in-group bias and hopefully germinate into fruitful interaction with diverse others. Finally, this rich, interdisciplinary encounter with social inequality and justice can prepare students to work for just social structures that will lead to a more inclusive world.
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What are the freedom-relevant conditions necessary for someone to be a morally responsible person? I examine several key authors beginning with Harry Frankfurt that have contributed to this debate in recent years, and then look back to... more
What are the freedom-relevant conditions necessary for someone to be a morally responsible person? I examine several key authors beginning with Harry Frankfurt that have contributed to this debate in recent years, and then look back to the writings or Søren Kierkegaard to provide a solution to the debate. In this project I investigate the claims of semi-compatibilism and argue that while its proponents have identified a fundamental question concerning free will and moral responsibility—namely, that the agential properties necessary for moral responsibility ascriptions are found in scenarios where the agent acts on her own as opposed to her action resulting from freedom undermining external causes such as manipulation, phobias, etc.—they have failed to show that the freedom-relevant agential properties identified in those actual-sequence scenarios are compatible with causal determinism. My argument is that only a voluntarist-libertarian theory can adequately account for the kinds of cases that the semicompatibilist identify. I argue that there are three freedom-relevant conditions necessary for someone to be a morally responsible person: a hierarchical understanding of human desires [specifically and mental states generally], an incompatibilist (non-deterministic) understanding of human action, and a historical understanding of character development. The ability to reflect critically about one’s own desires and emotions, and thus to have a kind of self-knowledge and understanding with regard to the springs of one’s own actions, is required to make it possible for the agent to be the “source” of her own actions and character. The non-deterministic understanding of human action is needed for a similar reason: if determinism is true, then every action a person performs can be ultimately traced to and exhaustively explained in terms of factors outside the agent’s control, thus making the agent’s responsibility for his actions an illusion. And finally,human nature must be such that, over time, one’s choices leave a dispositional residue self-understanding and motivation in the person’s self, out of which, in mature understanding and motivation, the person acts as a fully responsible agent.