Republic 554c-d—where the oligarchic individual is said to restrain his appetites ‘by compulsion and fear’, rather than by persuasion or by taming them with speech—is often cited as evidence that the appetitive part of the soul can be ‘persuaded’. I argue that the passage does not actually support that conclusion. I offer an alternative reading and suggest that appetite, on Plato’s view, is not open to persuasion.

To wonder a question, I argue, is to have a kind of appetitive desire. This helps answer a range of objections to the view that wondering is a kind of desire for knowledge. It may also imply that wondering is not subject to rational norms.

Enneads I: 8.14 poses significant problems for scholars working in the Plotinian secondary literature. In that passage, Plotinus gives the impression that the body and not the soul is causally responsible for vice. The difficulty is that in many other sections of the same text, Plotinus makes it abundantly clear that the body, as matter, is a mere privation of being and therefore represents the lowest rung on the proverbial metaphysical ladder. A crucial aspect to Plotinus’s emanationism, however, is that (...) lower levels of a metaphysical hierarchy cannot causally influence higher ones and, thus, there is an inconsistency in the Egyptian’s magnum opus, or so it would seem. Scholars have sought to work through this paradox by positing that Plotinus is a “paleolithic Platonist” or Socratic. The advantage of this approach is that one may be able to resolve the tension by invoking Socrates’s eliminativist solution to the problem of weakness of will, as found in The Protagoras. In the following article, I argue that such attempts are not wrong-headed just underdetermined. They take up the standard reading of Socratic moral intellectualism, namely the “informational” interpretation and, therefore, fail to render a coherent view of Plotinus’s moral philosophy. The following paper, in contrast, utilizes a new reading of intellectualism advanced by Brickhouse and Smith, which, when subtended with a “powers approach” to causality, resolves the aforementioned, problematic passage of Enneads. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a surge of interest among Plato scholars in the tripartition of the soul in the Republic. Particular attention has been devoted to the nature of the soul-parts, and whether or not each part is agent-like. A key element in this debate has been the question whether or not the non-rational parts have access to significant cognitive and conceptual resources. That this is the case, and that appetite cannot be entirely unreasoning, is the widely accepted (...) view, shared by Annas, Bobonich, Cooper, and Irwin among others. A number of scholars – most notably Lorenz and Stalley – have recently criticized this reading of Plato’s tripartition, and argued that the text does not in fact support such a reading. I believe that the weight of evidence remains in favour of the mainstream view, despite the interesting objections raised by the critics. I argue that these critics fail to appreciate the variety of ways in which the non-rational parts employ cognitive and conceptual resources. I also explain that their alternative interpretations of the relevant passages are unconvincing. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationships between perception, representation and appetition in Leibniz's later metaphysics, and defends four theses. First, for Leibniz perceptions are not the carriers of content, but they are identical to representational content. Second, Leibniz's appetitions are the carriers of content and he should be taken at his word when he declares, "Thought consists in conatus". Third, while it is true that for Leibniz representational content is determined by a species of mapping or function from representation to what (...) is represented, this is not the only component that determines representational content for Leibniz. The correspondence in terms of which Leibniz characterizes representation includes an ontological component, namely a lineage or trace from representation to represented object via God's creation, and appetitions constitute this trace. Finally, Leibniz's account of how ideas represent and how perceptions represent are distinct, and derivation plays a key role in how ideas represent. (shrink)

Carnal Appetites does not fully work out a single coherent thesis. Rather, it is a preliminary exploration of a set of issues about food, culture and identity. Here is how Probyn describes her project: “The aim of this book is simple but immodest. Through the optic of food and eating, I want to investigate how as individuals we inhabit the present: how we eat into cultures, eat into identities, indeed eat into ourselves. At the same time I am interested (...) in the question of what’s bothering us, what’s eating us now?” (2-3). Chapters explore shame, disgust, caring, sensuality, colonialism, racism, and global capitalism. (shrink)

What is lust? Its classification depends on where we look for its essence. Physiologically, it may appear as an appetite, urge, or drive; phenomenologically, as a desire or emotion; morally, as a sin or a life-affirming force. This chapter argues that the act of classifying lust is itself a normative choice, revealing what we take to matter in human life, whether survival and reproduction, pleasure and freedom, identity and self-expression, or social and moral order. By examining lust as drive, desire, (...) emotion, and social construction, I show how each framework highlights certain dimensions of human experience while obscuring others. The chapter also traces the tension between lust’s biological function and its subjective phenomenology: while rooted in reproduction, lust is often pursued for pleasure alone. Whether condemned as a sin or reclaimed as vitality, lust reflects the values through which we understand desire, the body, and human flourishing. (shrink)

This dissertation is a study of appetite in Plato’s Timaeus, Republic and Phaedrus. In recent research is it often suggested that Plato considers appetite (i) to pertain to the essential needs of the body, (ii) to relate to a distinct set of objects, e.g. food or drink, and (iii) to cause behaviour aiming at sensory pleasure. Exploring how the notion of appetite, directly and indirectly, connects with Plato’s other purposes in these dialogues, this dissertation sets out to evaluate these ideas. (...) By asking, and answering, three philosophically and interpretatively crucial questions, individually linked to the arguments of the dialogues, this thesis aims to show (i) that the relationship between appetite and the body is not a matter of survival, and that appetite is better understood in terms of excess; (ii) that appetite is multiform and cannot be defined in terms of a distinct set of objects; and (iii) that appetite, in Plato, can also pertain to non-sensory objects, such as articulated discourse. -/- Chapter one asks what the universe can teach us about embodied life. It argues that Plato, in the Timaeus, works with an important link between the universe and the soul, and that the account of disorder, irrationality and multiformity identifying a pre-cosmic condition of the universe provides a key to understanding the excessive behaviour and condition of a soul dominated by appetite. -/- Chapter two asks why the philosophers of the Republic’s Kallipolis return to the cave, and suggests that Plato’s notion of the noble lie provides a reasonable account of this. By exploring the Republic’s ideas of education, poetry and tradition, it argues that appetite – a multiform and appearance oriented source of motivation – is an essential part of this account. -/- Chapter three asks why Socrates characterizes the speeches of the Phaedrus as deceptive games. It proposes that this question should be understood in the light of two distinctions: one between playful and serious discourse and one between simple and multiform. It argues that the speeches of the Phaedrus are multiform games, and suggests that appetite is the primary source of motivation of the soul addressed, personified by Phaedrus. -/- . (shrink)

This paper examines the view that desires are beliefs about normative reasons for action. It describes the view, and briefly sketches three arguments for it. But the focus of the paper is defending the view from objections. The paper argues that the view is consistent with the distinction between the direction of fit of beliefs and desires, that it is consistent with the existence of appetites such as hunger, that it can account for counterexamples that aim to show that (...) beliefs about reasons are not sufficient for desire, such as weakness of will, and that it can account for counterexamples that aim to show that beliefs about reasons are not necessary for desire, such as addiction. The paper also shows how it is superior to the view that desires are appearances of the good. (shrink)

In books 8 and 9 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates provides a detailed account of the nature and origins of four main kinds of vice found in political constitutions and in the kinds of people that correspond to them. The third of the four corrupt kinds of person he describes is the ‘democratic man’. In this paper, I ask what ‘rules’ in the democratic man’s soul. It is commonly thought that his soul is ruled in some way by its appetitive part, (...) or by a particular class of appetitive desires. I reject this view, and argue instead that his soul is ruled by a succession of desires of a full range of different kinds. I show how this view helps us better understand Plato’s depiction of corrupt souls in the Republic more generally, and with it his views on the rule of the soul, appetitive desire, and the nature of vice. (shrink)

I argue that Aristotelian decisions (προαιρέσεις) cannot be conceived of as based solely on wish (βούλησις) and deliberation (βούλευσις), as the standard picture (most influentially argued for in Anscombe's "Thought and Action in Aristotle", in R. Bambrough ed. New Essays on Plato and Aristotle. London: Routledge, 1965) suggests. Although some features of the standard view are correct (such as that decisions have essential connection to deliberation and that wish always plays a crucial role in the formation of a decision), Aristotelian (...) decisions sometimes must include non-rational desires such as appetite. Consequently, any exegetical account of Aristotle’s notion of decision must be able to accommodate this feature. (shrink)

Sexual lust – understood as a feeling of sexual attraction towards another – has traditionally been viewed as a sort of desire or at least as an appetite akin to hunger. I argue here that this view is, at best, significantly incomplete. Further insights can be gained into certain occurrences of lust by noticing how strongly they resemble occurrences of “attitudinal” (“object-directed”) emotion. At least in humans, the analogy between the object-directed appetites and attitudinal emotions goes well beyond their (...) psychological structure to include similar ways in which their occurrence can be introspectively recognized, resulting in similar extensions of their functionality and meaningfulness to the subject. I conclude that although further research is needed, given the strength of the analogy, the ability of lust to satisfy some general requirements for being an emotion, and perhaps certain neurological findings, lust may somewhat uniquely straddle the line between appetite and emotion. (shrink)

A relative or absolute shortage of one or more nutrients results in malnutrition. It is a major public health concern for children under ten in low-income countries. A state of nutritional deficiency caused by inadequate protein or calorie intake is known as malnutrition. Children in developing countries frequently suffer from primary acute malnutrition as a result of insufficient food supplies brought on by social, economic, and environmental factors. From November to December 2024, a self-designed descriptive questionnaire study was carried out (...) in the Narayanganj region of Bangladesh. The study included all relevant the study included all relevant information from their parents about their children aged one to ten years who had malnutrition-related problems. At most 62.6% of the children were from rural areas, whereas 37.1% were from town areas and 52.6% of parents were educated according to their interpretation. Analyzing the children's weight revealed that, 49 of them are underweight, 139 have a suitable body mass index, and 22 are heavyweight, with a body mass index greater than 48.6% of children were in excellent physical condition and were in good health. While 40.0% of the children had ordinary health, 7.6% had the worst physical state with minimal clinical characteristics, and eight instances had no apparent cause. On the other hand, diarrhea and decreased appetite are the most common issues, reported by 131 respondents overall. Finally, stronger preventive measures and greater community awareness can lessen malnutrition intensity and prevalence in that area of Bangladesh. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the appetite for self-preservation and its central role in Francis Bacon’s natural philosophy. In the first part, I introduce Bacon’s classification of universal appetites, showing the correspondences between natural and moral philosophy. I then examine the role that appetites play in his theory of motions and, additionally, the various meanings accorded to preservation in this context. I also discuss some of the sources underlying Bacon’s ideas, for his views about preservation reveal traces of Stoicism, (...) Telesian natural philosophy, the natural law tradition, as well as late-scholastic ideas. Bacon assumes the existence of two kinds of preservation: self-preservation and preservation of the whole. The appetite through which the whole preserves itself overpowers individual appetites for self-preservation. In Bacon’s theory of motions, the primacy of global preservation – that is, the preservation of the whole – is evidenced by the way matter resists being annihilated, while self-preservation at a local and particular level is revealed through other kinds of motion. Bacon’s notion of appetite reflects a specific metaphysics of matter and motion, in which the preservation of natural bodies follows teleological patterns shared by both nature and humanity: the preservation of the whole is the highest goal, both in moral and natural philosophy. In this chapter, I argue that in Bacon’s natural philosophy different kind of things, including nature and humans, are ruled by patterns that are constitutive of correlated orders, neither of which is reducible to the other: there is no priority of the natural order over the moral, or vice versa. Thus, at a more general level, both are expressions of the same type of divinely imposed, law-like behaviour. (shrink)

In current society, eating is most definitely a gendered act: that is, what we eat and how we eat it factors in both the construction and the performance of gender. Furthermore, eating is a gendered act with consequences that go far beyond whether one orders a steak or a salad for dinner. In the first half of this paper, I identify the dominant myths surrounding both female and male eating, and I show that those myths contribute in important ways to (...) cultural constructions of male and female appetites more generally speaking. In the second half, I argue that the Christian church should share feminism’s perception of these current cultural myths as fundamentally disordered, and I claim that the Christian traditions of fasting and feasting present us with a concrete means to counter those damaging conceptions and reclaim a healthy attitude toward our hunger. (shrink)

There is a strong appetite in ‘the wild’ (i.e., beyond the academy) for public philosophy. There are myriad forums available, from magazines and online publications to podcasts and YouTube videos, for those who wish to engage in philosophy in a non-academic context. For academic philosophers, this has raised methodological and metaphilosophical questions like: ‘what is the best way to engage in public philosophy?’ and ‘what are our aims when we engage in public philosophy?’ But what do ‘the public’ want? If (...) public philosophy is philosophy written for a public audience, what is it, exactly, that it can or might do for them? Several answers have been proposed by philosophers, but less attention has been paid to how the public themselves might answer that question. The aim of this essay is to try and put together at least the beginning of an answer. In June 2022 we put out a survey in the hope of eliciting views from ‘the public’ on issues relating to the nature and aims of both philosophy (more generally) and public philosophy. In doing so, our aim was to take a ‘democratic’ approach to answering the question: What is public philosophy? (shrink)

Semaglutide, sold under the brand names of Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy, is one of the most popular drugs on the market. Manufactured by Novo Nordisk, semaglutide is the newest in a family of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists used most commonly to treat type II diabetes. To date, the results of semaglutide for the treatment of type II diabetes have been overwhelmingly positive. It is for the drug’s effects on appetite suppression and weight loss, however, that have led its surge in (...) popularity, with many hailing semaglutide as the new ‘miracle drug for weight loss’. Despite its popularity, both the governmental and popular reception to the drug has largely been mixed. In this paper, we address a range of ethical concerns and argue that while many are legitimate, they do not provide conclusive reason not to prescribe semaglutide for weight loss. (shrink)

An undergraduate who studies various humanities-faculty disciplines is likely to find the preoccupations of analytic philosophy to be strange and isolated. “We study Foucault in politics, we study Foucault in social anthropology, we study Foucault in literature, but in analytic philosophy we study what is a proposition and how can we informatively say that Hesperus is Phosphorus.” The paradox is that these isolated academics do not bond with other isolated disciplines in the humanities faculty, such as economics. “Surely the loners (...) have to band together in this hostile world, but actually there is little bonding.” I present a quick solution and then three explanations of why there is little bonding, two of which are these: the analytic philosopher’s appetite for exploring “little holes” - positions that probably only a very careful and slow reasoner would detect - prevents bonding with other isolated projects; and the academics between these projects (e.g. political philosophers) are not able to channel information adequately, so leading figures don’t know enough about each other’s discipline. This paradox seems very similar to Tim Crane’s though. Anxious about this, I give one reason to think it is different though. (shrink)

The canonical Buddhist account of the cognitive processes underlying our experience of the world prefigures recent developments in neuroscience. The developments in question are centered on two main trends in neuroscience research and thinking. The first of these involves the idea that our everyday experience of ourselves and of the world consists in a series of discrete microstates. The second closely related notion is that affective structures and systems play critical roles in governing the formation of such states. Both of (...) these ideas are contained within the Buddhist theory of dependent co-origination. This paper explicates the theory of dependent co-origination in light of the aforementioned developments. It examines the role of the theory of dependent co-origination within Buddhism and it draws attention to critical differences with the neuroscientific account of the same process. Finally, it discusses specific ways in which these differences may be usefully applied to neuroscience research and thinking. (shrink)

How homogenous are the sources of human motivation? Textbook Humeans hold that every human action is motivated by desire, thus any heterogeneity derives from differing objects of desire. Textbook Kantians hold that although some human actions are motivated by desire, others are motivated by reason. One question in this vicinity concerns whether there are states such that to be in one is at once take the world to be a certain way and to be motivated to act: the state-question. My (...) question here is different: whether passion and reason constitute distinct sources of human motivation: the source question. In this essay, I defend an affirmative answer to the source-question while remaining neutral on the state-question. I distinguish between what I call orectic desires, which are associated with the appetites, and anorectic desires, which are associated with judgments of the good. I argue that the two sorts of desires constitute distinct sources of motivation initially on the basis of their differing epistemological profiles. Specifically, self-attributions of anorectic desires are governed by the transparency condition, self-attributions of orectic desires are not. It emerges from this discussion that the motivation for performing an action arises in very different ways from each sort of desire. This difference, in turn, is explained by their differing relations to the will. Roughly, an orectic desire influences the will, but an anorectic desire is the will. The motivation to perform some of our actions derives simply from the determination that they are to-be-done—from reason. (shrink)

This paper responds to two trends in debates about Plato's view of women in the Republic. First, many scholars argue or assume that Plato seeks to minimize the influence of femininity in the ideal city, and to make guardian women themselves as “masculine” as possible. Second, scholars who address the relationship between Plato's views of women and his psychological theory tend to focus on the reasoning and appetitive parts of the tripartite soul. In response to the first point, we argue (...) that the idea that Plato seeks to masculinize/de-feminize the city oversimplifies his treatment of Greek gender norms. Although he does want to eliminate some traditionally feminine qualities from the city, he also seeks to eliminate many masculine qualities as well. Moreover, while he tries to make guardian women more like men in some respects, he simultaneously aims to make guardian men more like Greek women in important ways. Regarding the second point, we argue that this project of reimagining gender norms is illuminated by Plato's psychology, but instead of emphasizing reason and appetite, we show how his views are connected to his account of the third, “spirited” part of the soul, thumos, and its dual hard/soft or aggressive/gentle nature. (shrink)

In book 9 of Plato's Republic, Socrates describes the nature and origins of the ‘tyrannical man’, whose soul is said to be ‘like’ a tyrannical city. In this paper, I examine the nature of the ‘government’ that exists within the tyrannical man's soul. I begin by demonstrating the inadequacy of three potentially attractive views sometimes found in the literature on Plato: the view that the tyrannical man's soul is ruled by his ‘lawless’ unnecessary appetites, the view that it is (...) ruled by sexual desire, and the view that it is ruled by a lust for power. I then present my own account. On the view I defend, the tyrannical man's soul is to be understood as ruled by a single, persistent, powerful desire for bodily pleasure: as much as he can get, and however he can get it. Finally, I show how understanding the tyrannical man's soul in the way I recommend helps resolve some commonly expressed concerns about this part of the Republic. I suggest, on this basis, that Plato's procedure in constructing his catalogue o.. (shrink)

Semaglutide (Wegovy), a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA), has attracted global attention for its appetite-suppressing and weight-loss effects. Approved by the U.S. FDA in 2022 for adolescents aged 12 and older, it has since been authorized in several other countries. Despite this, its use among youth remains limited, with ongoing concerns about its long-term safety, efficacy, and suitability during periods of growth and development. Advocates see Wegovy as an important tool for addressing pediatric obesity and its psychological burdens, while (...) critics caution against widespread use in such a vulnerable population. -/- This paper examines an underexplored ethical dimension of Wegovy’s use in children: its impact on mental health. We argue that Wegovy may offer mental health benefits for children—such as reducing weight stigma, improving self-esteem, and avoiding invasive interventions such as bariatric surgery. However, these potential benefits are constrained by barriers to access, supply shortages, risks of misuse, and the possibility of reinforcing stigma and class-based discrimination. -/- In light of these considerations, we argue that while Wegovy offers promising health benefits for children, its long-term effects on growth, development, and mental health remain uncertain, warranting further study before definitive policy decisions are made. If future evidence confirms its value, it is our view that access should be equitable and accompanied by reforms to reduce stigma, regulate prescribing, and prevent misuse. Until then, clinicians should prescribe cautiously, ensuring clear medical need and implementing safeguards against risks such as weight regain, treatment interruption, and bias in care. (shrink)

Plato’s Republic, sometimes translated as The State, is among the most enduring works of philosophy. Although composed in the fourth century BCE, its central insights continue to resonate across millennia. At its heart lies an analogy between the soul of the individual and the structure of the political community: the state is the soul writ large. For Plato, harmony within the self produces harmony within society, while disorder in the soul inevitably echoes outward into civic conflict, corruption, and tyranny. The (...) crises of the state, in other words, are always rooted in the crises of the human person. This insight has lost none of its relevance. The twenty-first century is marked by acute social polarization, widening inequality, rampant consumerism, and declining trust in institutions. These problems are often described in purely political or economic terms, but Plato’s perspective reminds us that they are also psychological and moral. They arise when reason is displaced by appetite, when spirit is distorted into anger or resentment, and when the inner life of citizens falls into imbalance. In this sense, the state is a mirror: the disquiet of the individual soul is projected onto the structures of government and society. Yet our present moment also requires an expansion of Plato’s framework. For while he emphasized the correspondence between inner and outer life, modern history shows that the environment, the material conditions of land, water, air, and resources, cannot be separated from the equation. Environmental stress magnifies inner frustration. Periods of famine, climate disruption, or ecological collapse have historically given rise to social unrest, mass migration, and even civilizational decline. When the natural world fails to sustain human needs, the tension between reason, spirit, and appetite becomes sharper, often erupting in destructive forms. (shrink)

Recent AI regulations require deployers of high-risk systems to assess impacts on values like fundamental rights and other legally protected interests. However, existing practice-most notably Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments (FRIAs) under the EU AI Actremains mostly limited to qualitative guidelines. As a result, risk evaluation can be inconsistent and highly variable across assessments. To address this issue, we propose a reference model for value-impact assessment that specifies the core components that any more detailed formalization should incorporate. The model builds on (...) a classical risk paradigm, integrating distinct measures for hazard, exposure, vulnerability, and response or mitigation. We use the EU AI Act's FRIA as a reference case for applying the model to AI risk assessments. The model provides three especially salient recommendations. First, it rejects purely ordinal risk matrices in favor of geometric or ratio-scaled severity ladders, enabling the coherent calculation of expected risk. Second, in analyzing risk mitigation measures, it requires separate estimates of efficacy and reliability, with explicit success criteria and scope conditions that allow for dynamic updating. Third, the model operationalizes regulatory precaution, or risk appetite, through the integration of tail-sensitive risk metrics (e.g., Conditional Value-at-Risk). This lets regulators give appropriate weight to low-probability, high-impact (or catastrophic) harms to fundamental rights without distorting ordinary expected-risk calculations. The result is a structured foundation for more consistent value-impact assessments. (shrink)

A significant strand of the ethical psychology, aesthetics and politics of Plato's Republic revolves around the concept of poikilia, ‘fascinating variety’. Plato uses the concept to caution against harmful appetitive pleasures purveyed by democracy and such artistic or cultural practices as mimetic poetry. His aim, this article shows, is to contest a prominent conceptual connection between poikilia and beauty (kallos, to kalon). Exploiting tensions in the archaic and classical Greek concept, Plato associates poikilia with dangerous pleasures to redirect admiration toward (...) a distinctly philosophical pursuit of the nature of beauty. This is to displace a prominent and problematic cultural sensibility—the aesthetics of poikilia—not to deny that fascinating variety, even in mimetic poetry, may be beautiful. Rather, Plato's cultural critique lays bare an epistemological problem in the ethical psychology of beauty: since they cannot be distinguished from what seems beautiful, how should one respond to fascinating yet dangerous attractions? (shrink)

Kant’s earliest conception of freedom has usually been understood as building on the compatibilism of Leibniz and Wolff: free action is compatible with the principle of sufficient reason because its occurrence is not absolutely but instead merely hypothetically necessary and hence contingent. But recent scholarship has challenged this consensus. Scholars have made compelling cases not only that Kant, in the Nova dilucidatio of 1755, advocated a freedom without contingency, but also, to the contrary, that he acknowledged freedom to involve a (...) more radical contingency incompatible with the principle of sufficient reason—if not already in the Nova dilucidatio, then at least in the Beweisgrund essay of 1763. But a reexamination of the role the concept ‘contingency’ plays in these two texts confirms the more standard view that the Nova dilucidatio defends a compatibilism in the Leibnizian tradition and that the Beweisgrund essay is at least consistent with this compatibilism. The 1755 Nova dilucidatio addresses an objection to the Leibnizian principle of sufficient reason by Christian August Crusius: actions antecedently determined by grounds would happen with a necessity that would make them “unavoidable” and hence unfree. Kant’s response appeals, at least implicitly, to two different conceptions of contingency. (1) Absolute or in se contingency: the opposite of a free action is excluded not by an essence (and hence does not involve a contradiction) but rather by antecedently determining grounds. Here, Kant draws on Leibniz’s account, as developed by Christian Wolff and Alexander Baumgarten, of an absolute or in se contingency compatible with the principle of sufficient reason. (2) Physical contingency or physical indifference: the opposite of a free action is not excluded by any non-appetitive or physical antecedent determining grounds, i.e., by any determining grounds outside willing and desiring; hence a free action occurs if and only if the agent prefers it. Here, Kant is likely drawing on the account of physical contingency or indifference introduced by Friedrich Wagner and developed by Baumgarten. Finally, the Beweisgrund essay of 1763 attributes yet a third kind of contingency to freedom: (3) free actions appear to be contingent in the sense that they contain the inherent possibility of deviating from the laws of nature that direct everything in creation toward perfection. This “teleo-nomologically contingency” (as we might call it) is neutral on the question of compatibilism: it neither affirms nor denies that the opposite of a free action is excluded by antecedently determining grounds. (shrink)

In the Republic, Plato argues that the soul has three distinct parts or elements, each an independent source of motivation: reason, spirit, and appetite. In this paper, I argue against a prevalent interpretation of the motivations of the spirited part and offer a new account. Numerous commentators argue that the spirited part motivates the individual to live up to the ideal of being fine and honorable, but they stress that the agent's conception of what is fine and honorable is determined (...) by social norms. I argue that while it is correct to hold that spirit aims to be fine and honorable, it is not the case that the agent’s conception of what it is to be fine and honorable is determined by social norms. Instead, there is a fact of the matter about what it is to be fine and honorable, and it is this fact that shapes the individual’s conception of the fine and honorable. I argue that being fine and honorable involves living up to your rational views about how you should behave, despite appetitive temptations to the contrary. I claim that this condition of the soul is the basis of a variety of interrelated admirable traits, some with moral and others with aesthetic connotations. (shrink)

The paper defends three claims about Aristotle’s theory of uncontrolled actions (akrasia) in NE 7.3. First, I argue that the first part of NE 7.3 contains the description of the overall state of mind of the agent while she acts without control. Aristotle’s solution to the problem of uncontrolled action lies in the analogy between the uncontrolled agent and people who are drunk, mad, or asleep. This analogy is interpreted as meaning that the uncontrolled agent, while acting without control, is (...) still in possession of her knowledge but she is unable to use it as knowledge due to the temporary disablement of her reason by appetite. Due to this disablement, the uncontrolled agent is temporarily unable to be motivated to act by her knowledge and acts merely on her appetite. Second, I argue that the second part of NE 7.3 provides an analysis of the particular mental state from which the uncontrolled action issues. Its central passage is a description of the uncontrolled agent’s state of mind before the uncontrolled action and not, as it has been traditionally understood, a description of her state of mind during the uncontrolled action. Third, I argue that, on Aristotle’s view, the transition from the state before the uncontrolled action to the state in which the agent already acts without control does not involve any psychological state that would constitute the agent’s choice to abandon her decision and give in to her desires but proceeds on a purely physiological level. (shrink)

It is well known that in the Republic, Socrates presents a view of the soul or the psyche according to which it has three distinct parts or aspects, which he calls the reasoning, spirited, and appetitive parts. Socrates’ clearest characterization of these parts of the soul occurs in Republic IX, where he suggests that they should be understood in terms of the various goals or ends that give rise to the particular desires that motivate our actions. In Republic X, however, (...) Socrates uses the phenomenon of cognitive conflict about matters of fact to show that the soul has only two parts, the rational and the irrational. Moreover, he characterizes these parts in terms of cognitive tendencies, such as forming beliefs on the basis of reason versus forming beliefs on the basis of perceptual appearances. In this chapter, I explain how these divergent accounts of the soul and its parts are legitimate alternative characterizations. A consequence of my argument is that we should not think of the divided soul as primarily a division of desires, but rather as a division of cognitive attitudes towards the world, each of which yields different sorts of desires. (shrink)

Let me say something, to begin with, about wanting weird stuff. Stuff like saucers of mud. The example, famously, is from Anscombe’s Intention (Anscombe Anscombe 957)) where she is, in effect, defending a version of the old scholastic maxim, Omne appetitum appetitur sub specie boni. If your Latin is rusty like mine, what that says is just that every appetite – for better congruence with modern discussions, let’s say every desire – desires under the aspect of the good, or in (...) the wording made current by Velleman, under the guise of the good (Velleman 992). To desire something is to regard it as good in some way, as having some desirability characteristic. And not just any old thing can be regarded as good in some way, as having some desirability characteristic. Obviously if this is correct, it rules against our giving desires any sort of ground-floor role in our understand-. (shrink)

In the tripartite psychology of the Republic, Plato characterizes the “spirited” part of the soul as the “ally of reason”: like the auxiliaries of the just city, whose distinctive job is to support the policies and judgments passed down by the rulers, spirit’s distinctive “job” in the soul is to support and defend the practical decisions and commands of the reasoning part. This is to include not only defense against external enemies who might interfere with those commands, but also, and (...) most importantly, defense against unruly appetites within the individual’s own soul.1 Spirit, according to this picture, is by nature reason’s faithful auxiliary in the soul, while appetite is always a potential enemy to be watched .. (shrink)

The Protagoras is the touchstone of Socrates’ moral intellectualist stance. The position in a nutshell stipulates that the proper reevaluation of a desire is enough to neutralize it.[1] The implication of this position is that akrasia or weakness of will is not the result of desire (or fear for that matter) overpowering reason but is due to ignorance. -/- Socrates’ eliminativist position on weakness of will, however, flies in the face of the common-sense experience regarding akratic action and thus Aristotle (...) was at pains to render Socrates’ account of moral incontinence intelligible. The key improvement Aristotle makes to Socrates’s model is to underscore that the conditioning of the akratic’s body plays a critical role in determining the power of one’s appetites and, accordingly, the capacity of one to resist the temptations these appetites present for rational evaluation. As Aristotle puts it, “For the incontinent man is like the people who get drunk quickly and on little wine, i.e., on less than most people.” (1151a 3-4). Aristotle presents what I shall call a somatic paradigm (i.e. the drunkard analogy) in order to tackle the problem of akrasia and it is this somatic solution that marks a significant improvement over Socrates’s intellectualist or informational model or so the tradition tells us. -/- In this paper, I wish to push back on the above Aristotelian explanation. I argue that when one fully examines Socrates’ account of weakness of will that Aristotle’s solution is less effective than is traditionally thought. In fact, Socrates can bring Aristotle’s model into his own; just as Aristotle absorbs what is right about Socrates’s model, namely, that akratic action utilizes reason but to a limited degree, Socrates in Meno (77C-78A) develops his own somatic model of weakness of will that connects to the intellectualist paradigm of the Protagoras. To achieve this rapprochement between the two models, I zero in on the description provided by Socrates of those individuals who desire bad things knowing they are bad as “ill-starred” or “bad spirited” (κακοδαίμων ). The “bad-spirited” is the coward and, in contrast to Aristotle’s drunkard, becomes fearful quickly from little danger. This additional somatic component, when connected to Socrates’s position on akrasia in Protagoras adds a new twist to Socrates’s model in the following way: while no one wishes to be ill-starred such that more harm than good will befall one, one may become so as a result of the bad choices one knowingly makes. -/- -/- [1] “After him came Socrates, who spoke better and further about this subject, but even he was not successful. For he used to make the virtues into sciences, and this is impossible. For the sciences all involve reason, and reason is to be found in the intellectual part of the soul. So that all the virtues, according to him arise in the rational part of the soul. The result is that in making the virtues into sciences he is doing away with the nonrational part of the soul and is thereby doing away with passion and character…” (Aristotle, Magna Moralia 1.1. 1182 a15-26). (shrink)

Many philosophers today approach important psychological phenomena, such as weakness of the will and moral motivation, using a broadly Humean distinction between beliefs, which aim to represent the world, and desires, which aim to change the world. On this picture, desires provide the ends or goals of action, while beliefs simply tell us how to achieve those ends. In the Republic, Socrates attempts to explain the phenomena using a different distinction: he argues that the human soul or psyche consists in (...) reason, spirit, and appetite. It is initially tempting to assimilate Socrates’ picture to the standard belief ⁄ desire model, and to think that reason’s role in motivating action is restricted to calculating the best means for satisfying spirited and appetitive desires. But this would be a mistake, since Socrates thinks that each element in the soul is capable of setting the ends of action. But then how exactly should we understand these elements? My aim in this essay is to introduce the reader to Plato’s theory of the tripartite psychology. In part 2, I present Socrates’ argument for the claim that the soul has three elements. In part 3, I provide a general characterization of reason, spirit, and appetite, respectively. I then turn to discuss two central interpretive issues. In part 4, I discuss the sense in which Socrates considers the appetitive and spirited elements to be non-rational. And in the final part of the essay, I discuss the issue of how we ought to conceive of the parts of the soul, and more specifically, whether we should think of them as agent-like parts, or in some other way. (shrink)

In this paper I examine some of the positive epistemic and moral dimensions of anger in Plato’s dialogues. My aim is to show that while Plato is clearly aware that retaliatory anger has negative effects on people’s behavior, the strategy we find in his dialogues is not to eliminate anger altogether; instead, Plato aims to transform or rechannel destructive retaliatory anger into a different, more productive, reformative anger. I argue that this new form of anger plays a crucial positive role (...) in our intellectual and moral development. In relation to our intellectual development, anger is often part of people’s reactions to the Socratic interrogations and it often helps or hinders attempts to acknowledge one’s ignorance and become motivated to learn. For anger to play a positive role in the context of philosophical conversations, Plato suggests its transformation from being an outward-looking and reactive emotion oriented towards retaliation (refutation), into a mostly inward-looking emotion aimed at ones’ own moral and intellectual reform or self-betterment. In relation to our moral progress, anger is strategically linked both to the control of our appetites and to the virtue of courage, so anger is crucial to the psychology of the good citizen. Concretely, anger is needed both for the development of the right opposition to injustice and greed, and for the formation of an adequate sensitivity to justice. (shrink)

Socrates believes that living well is primarily an intellectual undertaking: we live well if we think correctly. To intellectualists, one might think, the body and activities related to it are of little interest. Yet Socrates has much to say about food, eating, and cookery. This paper examines Socrates’ criticism of ‘feeding on opson’ (opsophagia) in Xenophon’s Memorabilia and of opson cookery (opsopoiia) in Plato’s Gorgias. I argue that if we consider the specific cultural meaning of eating opson, we can see (...) that Socrates takes a nuanced stance on food and cookery: he recommends careful consumption and skillful production, not austerity or abstinence. This nuance in Socrates’ discussion of food changes our interpretation of Socrates’ criticism of rhetoric in the Gorgias: in comparing rhetoricians to opson chefs – not to pastry chefs, as many have assumed – Socrates evokes the dangers of indulging in speeches while acknowledging their necessity for Athenian public life. (shrink)

This essay explores the moral and philosophical implications of human aerial technology—especially drones and warplanes—on bird life, with a particular focus on war zones such as Ukraine and Gaza. While the devastating consequences of armed conflict on human populations are rightly central to political and ethical discourse, non-human lives, especially those of birds, remain largely invisible within these narratives. Through a philosophical lens grounded primarily in the thought of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche, this work asks: What does the destruction (...) or disruption of bird life during human warfare reveal about the ethical architecture of modern civilization? Kant’s deontological ethics, though not explicitly centered on animals, emphasizes that cruelty toward non-human beings corrodes our moral sensibility and violates our duty to moral self-improvement. From this view, drone warfare’s unreflective harm to birds is symptomatic of a deeper desensitization. Nietzsche, by contrast, critiques the moral ideal itself, revealing how violence against the weak—be they humans or birds—is an honest expression of humanity’s will to dominate. Where Kant insists, we owe respect to life through universal laws, Nietzsche challenges us to confront our appetite for conquest, even when dressed in moral justification. Between these poles lies a question that this essay confronts: Can there be an “ethics of the sky”—a moral orientation that resists the mechanized indifference of aerial warfare and restores attention to life forms that share our atmosphere but not our speech? Birds, as symbolic inheritors of freedom, migration, and evolutionary grace, become philosophical barometers: their suffering marks not just ecological loss, but the failure—or exposure—of human ethics. This essay urges that to speak of justice in wartime must mean more than human rights; it must begin to include avian lives that cannot protest, but who nonetheless perish under the weight of our machines. (shrink)

By defining freedom in terms of power, Spinoza understands individual freedom as irreducibly relational. I propose that Spinoza develops his theory of power to understand how individual power or freedom is limited and enhanced by the power of those around one. For Spinoza, the power of an individual is a function of that individual’s emotions, imaginative conceptions of itself and the world and its appetites. In this paper (1) I will argue that Spinoza reformulates a concept of freedom in (...) terms of power. (2) His mature theory of freedom as power proposes that individual power is determined through social interaction, and is thus best understood as a relational theory of freedom. (3) I will show that as a consequence of Spinoza’s theory, individual power and empowerment relies on those around the individual and, thus, to achieve individual liberation we must pursue collective empowerment. (shrink)

One of the vexed questions in the philosophy of wonder and indeed education is how to ensure that the next generation harbours a sense of wonder. Wonder is important, we think, because it encour- ages inquiry and keeps us as Albert Einstein would argue from ‘being as good as dead’ or ‘snuffed-out candles’ (Einstein 1949, 5). But how is an educator to install, bring to life, or otherwise encourage a sense of wonder in his or her stu- dents? Biologist Rachel (...) Carson suggests that exploring nature and specifically undertaking walks along the rocky coast of Maine would keep alive a person’s inborn sense of wonder (Carson 1984). Philosopher Jesse Prinz thinks that exposure to art will encourage wonderment because artworks, as he puts it, are “inventions for feeding the appetite that wonder excites in us” (Prinz 2013). Weird fiction (a subgenre of speculative fiction) – and in particular the work of one of its greatest exponents, the early-20th-century American author How- ard Phillips Lovecraft – is likewise a catalyst for wonder. The reason behind this is that Lovecraft’s ‘wonder-stories’ are densely packed with wonder per design; and in support of this claim I shall in what is to come 1) provide a brief introduction to Lovecraft and weird fiction; 2) present a working definition of wonder; and 3) clarify what is meant by something being ‘densely packed with wonder’ via bringing to the fore evidence of Lovecraft’s literary wonder- mongery. The paper ends with some reflections on the notion of ‘dark wonder’, why this peculiar label might be suitable for the kind of wonder we find in Lovecraft’s work, and why exposure to ‘dark wonder’ can be edifying, and in that sense educational. (shrink)

This paper reads Republic 583b-608b as a single, continuous line of argument. First, Socrates distinguishes real from apparent pleasure and argues that justice is more pleasant than injustice. Next, he describes how pleasures nourish the soul. This line of argument continues into the second discussion of poetry: tragic pleasures are mixed pleasures in the soul that seem greater than they are; indulging them nourishes appetite and corrupts the soul. The paper argues that Plato has a novel account of the ‘paradox (...) of tragedy’, and that the Republic and Philebus contain complementary discussions of tragic and comic pleasure. (shrink)

The essay concerns the negative end of the political argument of the Republic, that injustice—the rule of unreason—is both widespread and undesirable, and that whatever shadows of virtue or order might be found in its midst are corrupt and unstable. This claim is explained in detail in Republic 8 and 9. These passages explain recognizable faults in recognizable regimes in terms of the failure of the rule of reason and the corresponding success of the rule of non-rational forms of motivation. (...) I will first look at degenerate regimes as they appear in a less systematic way in the Ship of State passage in Republic 6 and in the discussion with Thrasymachus in book 1. I then give a general overview of the system of degenerate regimes in book 8 to examine what exactly goes wrong with them and why, and explain how the process of degeneration ought be understood as the progressive decay of the rule of reason. Finally, I argue that a close look at this decay reveals something surprising: that degenerate regimes and characters feature weak versions of virtue, shadow-virtues that are based on appearances and held in place by force. Thus in the end the whole process of degeneration ought be understood as an extended conflict between reason and appetite. (shrink)

The central question of the branch of metaethics we may call philosophical moral psychology concerns the nature or essence of moral judgment: what is it to think that something is right or wrong, good or bad, obligatory or forbidden? One datum in this inquiry is that sincerely held moral views appear to influence conduct: on the whole, people do not engage in behaviours they genuinely consider base or evil, sometimes even when they would stand to benefit from it personally. Moral (...) judgments thus appear to be motivationally effective, at least to an extent. This motivational success would be readily explained if they simply were motivationally effective psychological states, such as desires. This is what Hobbes seems to do when he claims that "whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good; and the object of his hate and aversion, evil."1 But this is far too quick. We know that moral judgments can also fail to lead to corresponding action. For example, since it is conceptually possible – not to mention all too common in the actual world – to think that something is wrong and yet want to do it, thinking that something is wrong cannot simply consist in aversion toward it, unlike Hobbes seems to have thought. In this way, reflection on the various.. (shrink)

The Theosophical Society, founded in New York in 1875, was, at the turn of the Twentieth Century, a global phenomenon with 100,000 members. New Age philosopher Dr Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was appointed as the first Secretary General of the German Section of the Theosophical Society on 19 October 1902. The Theosophical Society offered Rudolf Steiner a platform, a ready-made audience, infrastructure, and the insider experience of the world’s leading New Age spiritual society. The success of the Theosophical Society demonstrated that (...) there was a public appetite to hear about reincarnation, karma, maya, kamaloca, and other Eastern and alternative spiritual ideas. The Theosophical Society provided Rudolf Steiner a capable, multilingual, and determined personal assistant, Marie von Sivers (1867-1948). For Rudolf Steiner the Theosophical Society offered the perfect training ground for what would be, a decade later, his life’s work, the Anthroposophical Society. Rudolf Steiner grew the membership of the German Section of the Theosophical Society from 377 in 1905 to 3,702 in 1913. He earned cash from ticketing of his lectures and his Mystery plays, and from book sales of his personal publishing house, ‘Philosophisch-Theosophischer Verlag’. Another enterprise, the ‘Johannes-Bau-Verein’ (Johannes Building Association) was founded in 1911, independent of the Theosophical Society, to build a theatre in Munich to present Rudolf Steiner's plays. The building application was rejected by the Munich municipal authorities in 1912. The resistance to a build in Munich, provided impetus for the move to build in Dornach, Switzerland. The Anthroposophical Society was founded 28 December 1912 in Cologne, Germany. Most of the members of the German Section of the Theosophical Society members followed Rudolf Steiner into the Anthroposophical Society. The Theosophical Society expelled Rudolf Steiner from the Theosophical Society on 7 March 1913. The foundation stone for the Goetheanum (then still called the ‘Johannesbau’) was laid 20 September 1913. The Theosophical Society had served as the ideal prototype and springboard for founding and growing the Anthroposophical Society. (shrink)

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes directly influenced and, possibly, was also influenced by Spinoza. Hobbes and Spinoza were both aware of the advanced science of mid‐seventeenth‐century Europe and of the uncomfortable fit of that science with traditional moral and religious doctrines. Spinoza defines ‘appetite’ in terms of striving and ‘desire,’ in turn, in terms of appetite. The basis for Spinoza's theory of desire in an account of causation implies that the distinction between activity and passivity may be incremental. For both (...) Hobbes and Spinoza, the emotions are basic enough to psychology that a theory of them amounts to a theory of human nature: it tells us what, in a very basic way, human beings are like. The chapter addresses the authors’ views on the question of whether and how human beings can change. It presents consequences of the philosophers’ accounts of human nature for their ethics and politics. (shrink)

Many scholars have denied that Plato’s argument about desire at Philebus 34c10–35d7 is related to his recollection arguments in the Meno and Phaedo, because it is concerned only with postnatal experiences of pleasure. This paper argues against their denial by showing that the desire argument in question is intended to prove the soul’s possession of innate memory of pleasure. This innateness interpretation will be supported by a close analysis of the Timaeus, where Plato suggests that our inborn desires for food (...) and drink derive from the primitive experiences of pleasure that have naturally been incorporated into the appetitive part of the soul. (shrink)

In the Ethics, Spinoza famously rejects freedom of the will. He also offers an error theory for why many believe, falsely, that the will is free. Standard accounts of his arguments for these claims focus on their efficacy against incompatibilist views of free will. For Spinoza, the will cannot be free since it is determined by an infinite chain of external causes. And the pervasive belief in free will arises from a structural limitation of our self-knowledge: because we are aware (...) of our actions but unaware of their causes, we suppose that we alone must be responsible for them. Yet I argue that the standard accounts miss a further element of Spinoza’s arguments that also targets compatibilist views on which free will is consistent with a specific kind of determination—namely, self-determination in accordance with our value judgments. For Spinoza, we are misled not only in supposing that our actions lack external determination but also in thinking that they are determined by our representations of value. In fact, our actions are determined by our appetites, which are blind to our value judgments. And the pervasive belief that our actions are determined by such judgments arises from the projection of value onto the objects we seek. As he denies us free will, then, Spinoza also denies us a capacity central to agency—the capacity to determine our actions in accordance with our ideas of the good. This makes his arguments against free will more consequential, and more radical, than commonly assumed. (shrink)

Beauty, according to Thomas Aquinas, is attributed to those things that please when seen (quae visa placent).¹ The significance of this lapidary description is obscure, especially as it pertains to aesthetic perception and Aquinas’s doctrine of beauty. If taken literally and univocally, does this description exclude beauty that is heard, tasted, smelled, or felt? What about the intelligible beauty of poetry, a rhetorical argument, a perfect mathematical demonstration, a person of exemplary moral character, or the intellectual vision of God? Furthermore, (...) what could it mean for vision, a power of sensory apprehension, to be pleased—pleasure being a passion in a sensory appetite? Alternatively, if this description of beauty is just a colorful metaphor, then it tells us very little about the details of Aquinas’s understanding of human aesthetic perception of beauty. A similar series of questions concern the beautiful itself, the object of that visa placent. Is beauty a mere per se sensible that is confined to the proper sensible of color and such visible common sensibles as motion, rest, number, magnitude, and shape? What about the myriad forms of embodied intelligible beauty found throughout nature and art? Such forms of beauty seem to be neither mere per se sensibles nor strictly immaterial intelligibilities, but fully enmattered and yet intelligible manifestations of beauty, like the beauty of the Crucified. -/- My primary concern in this essay is to address these exegetical questions by fleshing out the implications of Aquinas’s explicit remarks and positions on beauty and human perception with a view to a constructive Thomist account of aesthetic perception. In this essay, I draw upon a number of erudite studies on beauty and aesthetics in Aquinas, studies that have already completed the exegetical heavy lifting required for saying something constructive about Aquinas and aesthetic perception. I will define “aesthetic perception” in the course of addressing the parade of questions introduced earlier. Before we clarify the psychology of aesthetic perception and the experience of admiring beauty, we first must say what Aquinas took beauty to be. Once beauty as an object of perception enters more clearly into view, we can then apply Aquinas’s psychological taxonomy to differentiate which operations and powers enable us to admire beautiful objects. (shrink)

International regulation of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) is increasingly conceived as an exercise in risk management. This requires a shared approach for assessing the risks of AWS. This paper presents a structured approach to risk assessment and regulation for AWS, adapting a qualitative framework inspired by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It examines the interactions among key risk factors—determinants, drivers, and types—to evaluate the risk magnitude of AWS and establish risk tolerance thresholds through a risk matrix informed by (...) background knowledge of event likelihood and severity. Further, it proposes a methodology to assess community risk appetite, emphasizing that such assessments and resulting tolerance levels should be determined through deliberation in a multistakeholder forum. The paper highlights the complexities of applying risk-based regulations to AWS internationally, particularly the challenge of defining a global community for risk assessment and regulatory legitimization. (shrink)