Jul 2026· Canadian Journal of Philosophy· pp. 1-20· 0 citations· 14 references
Abstract
According to the legal-grammatical picture of constitutivism, the constitutive standards of a kind x carry an existential threat: abiding by them is necessary for being an x at all. But this seems to leave no room for defective x’s—the bad-x problem. A functional model escapes this problem, yet it fits structural rational agency poorly. I argue that a suitably complex legal-grammatical model—one attentive to how legal enterprises are materially realized—makes room for genuinely internal violations: intelligible fouls, correctable from a dynamic kernel of perfect compliance. The existential threat survives, yet genuine defect finds a place within it.
Non-naturalists claim that normative properties are
sui generis
, attitude-independent, and irreducible to natural properties. A common objection is that although we shape our lives around normative properties, non-naturalism rules out any plausible explanation of how this is possible. Non-naturalism seems to...
Mikayla Kelley, Keshav Singh· Canadian Journal of Philosop...· 0 citations
Some interpreters hold that, for Aristotle, the pleasant is the primary
de dicto
goal of every vicious person. I argue that this is false and develop an alternative account of vicious motivation by self-interest (
to sumpheron
). In
Nicomachean Ethics
2.3, Aristotle claims that the vicious person errs with re...
Sometimes, it may seem that an agent faces an obligation dilemma—a situation in which they cannot fulfill their obligations no matter what they do. However, there are at least three problems for any theory that embraces obligation dilemmas. The logical problem arises from a conflict between obligation dilemmas and vene...
Aaron Thieme· Philosophy and Phenomenologi...· 0 citations
In this article, we consider several responses to Wittgenstein’s private language argument (
PLA
) beginning with A.J. Ayer’s “Robinson Crusoe” thought experiment from his 1954 symposium with Rush Rhees. While I’ll claim that Ayer’s response is unsound and doesn’t imperil a properly understood version of the
PLA...
Michael P. Wolf· Grazer Philosophische Studie...· 0 citations
Can animals reason? If so, what would their reasoning consist in, and how, if at all, would it differ from its human counterpart? On these questions, John Locke stakes out a position that also merits consideration today. I argue that, for Locke, reasoning is a matter of the subject's construing her mental states as s...
Constitutivists say authoritative practical norms are grounded in the nature of action. But how are they so grounded? I argue that there is a deep, under-appreciated division among constitutivists on this point. “Transcendental” constitutivism says all rational agents are committed to practical norms on pain of incon...
Bennett Eckert‐Kuang· Canadian Journal of Philosop...· 0 citations
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