Online Interactions and the Concept of Trust

Philosophy, ,

L. Jaffro (2018). Interactions en ligne et concept de confiance. In M. Doueihi and J. Domenicucci (eds), La confiance à l’ère numérique. Paris: Berger Levrault & éditions Rue d’Ulm, 33-62.

The chapter discusses the challenges of applying the concept of trust in the context of online interactions, and proceeds as follows: After an introductory section that combines methodological considerations with the presentation of the concept of practical trust, a second section defends the thesis that a form of trust, systemic trust, distinct from trust as a bet, is a major issue in online interactions;  systemic trust is closely linked to epistemic trust. The final section shows how this analysis may shed new light on barriers to online trust and some practical as well as theoretical problems.

Psychological and Political Balances: The Third Earl of Shaftesbury’s Reading of James Harrington

History of Philosophy, , ,

L. Jaffro (2018). Psychological and Political Balances: The Third Earl of Shaftesbury’s Reading of James Harrington. In P. Müller (ed.), Shaping Enlightenment Politics. The Social and Political Impact of the First and Third Earls of Shaftesbury. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 149-162.

The chapter investigates why James Harrington’s vocabulary, especially that of ‘balance’ and of ‘interest’, pervades Shaftesbury’s psychological discourse in Characteristicks. It turns out that the Earl’s discreet use of Harrington was not simply a conniving glance at fellow Old Whigs, unhappy with the conversion of Country to Tory, but that it included broader concerns in terms of a philosophical as well as political agenda. Shaftesbury was sensitive to the way in which Harrington revived the ancient analogy between political constitution and the human soul, constitutional balance and psychological temper, thus reconnecting the question of political justice with that of justice in the individual.

The Passions and Actions of Laughter in Shaftesbury and Hutcheson

History of Philosophy, , , , , ,

L. Jaffro (2017). The Passions and Actions of Laughter in Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. In A. Cohen and R. Stern (eds.), Thinking About the Emotions. A Philosophical History. Mind Association Occasional Series, Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2017, 130-149. https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198766858.001.0001/oso-9780198766858-chapter-7

The third Earl of Shaftesbury and Francis Hutcheson considered laughter as a passion in its own right. The hilarious response is not reducible, as Hobbes believed, to the facial expression of the sudden awareness of our own superiority. Ridicule is however an important kind of laughter; it is also an action, part of a strategy against the seriousness of fanaticism. Shaftesbury gives much importance to the politics of laughter and to the caustic power of ridicule, but also to the capacity to laugh at one’s laughter, which is crucial to what he calls good humour. Hutcheson and Shaftesbury interestingly disagree on the question of how to regulate laughter and limit its abuse.

Practical Irrationality and Anticipatory Self-Command

Philosophy, , , ,

L. Jaffro (2016). Irrationalité pratique et contrôle de soi par anticipation. Philonsorbonne, 10, 131-152. https://journals.openedition.org/philonsorbonne/810

What could an ethics for weak agents look like? The weakness envisaged here is not contingent, but constitutional. If we assume that practical irrationality, understood as the consequence of a gap between evaluation and motivation, is a background condition and not a pathological exception, several traditional questions of moral philosophy arise in a new light: (a) What is the use of the ‘better self’ perspective in moral life? In what sense is the self multiple? (b) What techniques can agents who do not have a high degree of self-command mobilize? (c) How can freedom, autonomy and the role of voluntary commitments be conceived under this pessimistic assumption?

Reid on Aesthetic Response and the Perception of Beauty

History of Philosophy, , , , ,

L. Jaffro (2015). Reid on Aesthetic Response and the Perception of Beauty. In R. Cophenhaver and T. Burras (eds), Thomas Reid on Mind, Knowledge, and Value. Mind Association Occasional Series, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 124-138. https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198733676.001.0001/acprof-9780198733676-chapter-9

The chapter deals mainly with the ‘Essay on Taste’, situates Reid’s position in the debate opened up by Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, and makes three points: the first about the nature of aesthetic perception; the second about its object, ‘excellence’; and the third about the location of beauty in the forms of nature or works of art, where excellence is expressed. Taste should be viewed as a social operation of the mind. In some cases, it involves a communication from God to human beings. The psychological approach to aesthetic perception must be complemented by a metaphysical account of what makes us feel the beautiful or the grand.

Are Moral Reasons Response-Dependent?

Philosophy, , ,

L. Jaffro, Are Moral Reasons Response-Dependent? (2015). Philinq—Philosophical Inquiries (ETS), 3(2), 17-34.

Some moral realists draw on the analogy between colours and values in order to claim that ‘desirability’ is a quality to which agents are sensitive under ideal conditions. The paper sets out objections to Michael Smith’s view that moral reasons are response-dependent and that they constitute the kind of reasons which would motivate ideal agents. The agent’s response to what appears to him or her morally desirable or morally mandatory is not a response in the same sense that our perception of a colour is a response to a disposition in the object to produce that perception. For a responsible agent appreciates values and reasons in the light of a plurality of moral considerations.

Reid on Powers of the Mind and the Person behind the Curtain

History of Philosophy,

L. Jaffro (2014). Reid on Powers of the Mind and the Person behind the Curtain. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 41, Supplement 1, 197-213. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00455091.2014.897480

According to Thomas Reid, powers of will and powers of understanding are distinguishable in thought, but conjoined in practice. This paper examines the claim that there is no inert intelligence, the operations of the understanding involving some degree of activity. The question is: whose activity? For it is clear that a great deal of our mental activity is not in our power. We need to distinguish between a weak and a strong sense of ‘power’, and consider our dependence ‘upon God and the laws of nature’ in our mental exertions.

Cyrus’ Strategy. Shaftesbury on Human Frailty and the Will

History of Philosophy, , , , ,

L. Jaffro (2014). Cyrus’ Strategy. Shaftesbury on Human Frailty and the Will. In P. Müller (ed.), New Ages, New Opinions. Shaftesbury in his World and Today. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 153-166. https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01011032/document

In Soliloquy or Advice to an Author (part I, sect. 2), Shaftesbury tells the ‘story of an amour’ in order to illustrate ‘how far a lover by his own natural strength may reach the chief principle of philosophy, and understand our doctrine of two persons in one individual self’. This ten page narrative, which silently draws on Xenophon’s story of Araspas and Pantheia (Cyropaedia, 5. 1 and 6. 1) deserves our attention for several reasons: (a) embodying Shaftesbury’s attempt to convey ancient philosophy to a modern ear, the story is a good instance of the method of teaching philosophy by fables; (b) it explores what may be termed a case of multiple self and thus reveals Shaftesbury’s views on the will and connected issues (the questions how we should construe cases of weakness of will and whether the will is free); (c) it shows the significance, for Shaftesbury, of the Stoic topos of the dangers of ‘admiration’ and of the necessity for beginners of repressing desire and practising ‘aversion’. The aim of this paper is to unfold Shaftesbury’s way of grounding the control of practical choice in the control of ‘opinion’, i.e. of judgement. According to the strongly cognitivist (Socratic) view that Shaftesbury finds in the Roman Stoics, personal integrity, practical rationality, and moral identity are dependent on our ability to respond to truth.

Shaftesbury’s Pathologia. In two parts

History of Philosophy, , , ,

Ch. Maurer & L. Jaffro (2013). Reading Shaftesbury’s Pathologia: An Illustration and Defence of the Stoic Account of the Emotions. History of European Ideas, 39(2), 207-220. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01916599.2012.679795

L. Jaffro, Ch. Maurer & A. Petit (2013). Pathologia, A Theory of the Passions. History of European Ideas, 39(2), 221-240. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01916599.2012.679796

The present article is an edition of the Pathologia (1706), a Latin manuscript on the passions by Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713). There are two parts, i) an introduction with commentary (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2012.679795), and ii) an edition of the Latin text with an English translation (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2012.679796) . The Pathologia treats of a series of topics concerning moral psychology, ethics and philology, presenting a reconstruction of the Stoic theory of the emotions that is closely modelled on Cicero and Diogenes Lærtius. It contains a most detailed typology of the passions and affections as well as an analysis of a series of psychological connections, for example between admiration and pride. On the basis of his reconstruction of Stoic moral psychology and ethics, Shaftesbury argues that in one of his phases, Horace should be interpreted as a Stoic rather than as an Epicurean. The translation and the commentary draw attention to the relations between the Pathologia and Shaftesbury’s English writings, most importantly Miscellaneous Reflections and the Inquiry Concerning Virtue, or Merit, which sheds light on several features of Shaftesbury’s relation to Stoicism.

Language and Thought

History of Philosophy, , , , ,

L. Jaffro (2013). Language and Thought. In J. Harris (ed.); The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 128-148.

This chapter set outs the variety of eighteenth-century approaches to the relations between language and thought, beginning with post-Lockean debates focused on the status of abstract general ideas, and ending with anti-empiricist Scottish philosophy at the end of the century (especially Thomas Reid). The empiricist theory of signs, notably in George Berkeley, is one important dimension of the discussions: ‘Ideas’ are centre stage, although they do not exhaust the empiricist furniture of the mind. There is also a different philosophical trend illustrated by neglected figures (James Harris, Lord Monboddo), which may be termed Platonic, and which affects eighteenth-century philosophical conceptions of language. The project of conjectural histories of language (Adam Smith) and views about the connections between linguistic skills and the social nature of human beings are also covered.

John Toland and the Moral Teaching of the Gospel

History of Philosophy, ,

L. Jaffro (2012). John Toland and the Moral Teaching of the Gospel. In R. Savage (ed.), Philosophy and Religion in Enlightenment Britain. New Case Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 77-89. https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199227044.001.0001/acprof-9780199227044-chapter-5

According to John Toland, the only intelligible content of the Gospel is the commendation of mutual love as a social virtue. The chapter situates this claim in the context of Toland’s rhetorical use of the primitive Church as an authority for a pluralistic account of society, and tries to determine his stance on the question of the foundation of morality. In spite of his constant recourse to the vocabulary of natural law, there is little doubt that Toland does not share Shaftesbury’s Stoic views and that he locates the foundation of morality, not in the providential organization of the universe and its acceptance by a self-cultivating individual, but in the interest of society. The moral teaching of the Gospel is somewhere between Epicureanism, the doctrine of utility, and the nineteenth-century idea of a religion of mankind.