NKF Workshop – Rationality, normativity and equal opportunities

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Stina Björkholm

Post doc, Institute for Futures Studies

Implicit Bias in Conversation: Pragmatic Stereotypes and Meta-Pragmatic Negotiation

Members of stigmatized social groups are often treated unjustly in conversation. One example of this is Fricker’s influential work on epistemic injustice, this is (in part) because a speakers’ utterance might be assigned less (or no) credibility because of a prejudiced stereotype about her social identity held by the listener (Fricker, 2007, p. 2). In this paper, I offer an account of conversational implicit bias, which is characterized as the situations in which interlocutors speak and behave in conversation as if they accept a prejudiced stereotype that contradicts their explicitly endorsed beliefs. I argue for an account of how interlocutors accept pragmatic stereotypes as background assumptions of conversations and that the presumption of such stereotypes explains implicit bias in conversation. I further argue that interlocutors might try to challenge such stereotypes in conversation by engaging in meta-pragmatic negotiations about which stereotypes to accept. However, I ultimately argue for the pessimistic conclusion that such negotiations are often unsuccessful and should not be the primary remedy against these types of injustices.

Petra Andersson

Forskare, Göteborgs universitet

Att som kvinna förmedla en mansdominerad tradition

Undervisningen i filosofihistoria för studenter på grundkursen tenderar att innebära att ett pärlband av viktiga, manliga tänkare radas upp inför studenterna. Läromedlet är skrivet av en man, textutdragen är förstås skrivna av de manliga filosofer som kursen presenterar. De historiskt viktiga filosoferna har dessutom ofta något att säga om varför filosofi inte är ett ämne för kvinnor, eller om varför tänkande inte är en aktivitet för kvinnor, om än inte just den delen av deras tänkande är anledningen till att de ingår i filosofisk kanon. Jag kommer att prata om de svårigheter som jag tycker att filosofisk kanon ställer läraren inför. Jag kommer att prata om hur jag försöker hantera den svårigheten tillsammans med studenterna, termin efter termin. Min föreläsning bygger helt på mina egna erfarenheter som lärare, inte på forskning.

Sofia Bokros

PhD candidate in Theoretical Philosophy, Uppsala University

Meaning-Constitutive Inferences and Semantic Competence

According to inferentialism, the meanings of expressions or some class of expressions are wholly or partly constituted by inferences. That is, for an expression E, there are some particular inferences that are meaning-constitutive for E. There are many different philosophical motivations for embracing inferentialism, but one central motivation is that inferentialism enables us to explain why competent speakers are disposed to accept certain inferences and claims involving E a priori. Nonetheless, the explanatory potential of inferentialism in this regard seems threatened by certain counterexamples and plausible assumptions about semantic competence and belief. In this paper I will explore whether inferentialism can be made compatible with these counterexamples and plausible assumptions, without being deprived of its explanatory power. Firstly, I’ll consider a dispositionalist view of semantic competence and I will argue that it does not succeed in safeguarding the explanatory power of inferentialism. Secondly, I’ll consider a normativist proposal, which I will argue is a more promising route for the inferentialist.

Elisabeth Schellekens Dammann

Chair Professor of Aesthetics, Uppsala University

Failure as Omission and Retroactive Aesthetic Judgements

In this paper I distinguish between different kinds of failures of aesthetic judgements with a view to exploring a form of failure which involves the outright omission of aesthetic judgement. Such omissions come to pass when an object of attention could or ought to have been experienced and judged aesthetically but where such an experience or judgement simply failed to arise, and can be traced back to at least three kinds of reason: i) lack of aesthetic quality; ii) lack of appropriate ontological status; iii) lack of aesthetic prominence. I shall examine some aspects of this kind of failure and argue that a missed opportunity to experience an object of attention’s aesthetic character is a missed opportunity to engage with that object’s aesthetic potential where such potential, although not always accessible to us, can nonetheless retroactively be said to pertain to the object in a meaningful sense also under experientially unfavourable conditions. This warrants talk of rehabilitation to some degree.

Mahdiyeh Moosavi

PhD in Practical Philosophy, Norms and Normativity, Uppsala University

Excuses and Intentions

It is a common idea, both in ordinary thought and in contemporary moral theorizing, that excuses have normative force, in the sense that they can render blame inappropriate. In providing a general theory of excuses, we need to answer at least three questions. First, we must determine what does the normative force of an excuse consist in. The second question concerns the explanation of the normative power of excuses. And the third question is about the unifying feature of excuses. In this talk, I aim to explore the possibility of answering the latter two explanatory questions by examining a family of views that I call the intention-based theories of excuses. According to the Strong Intention-based Theory (SIT), excuses undermine blameworthiness by showing that, since the agent has all the morally required intentions, she hasn’t violated the moral obligations we hold her to. The Strong Intention-based Theory aims not only to provide a unified explanation of excuses, but also to explain why and how they undermine blameworthiness. As I argue, SIT fails to explain particular instances of excused wrongdoing in some coercive contexts. In many coercive contexts, one’s action is excused despite the fact that one knowingly and intentionally performs what seems to be a serious wrongdoing. To accommodate such cases, the Weak Intention-based Theory (WIT), argues that excuses merely show that the agent has made all the morally adequate choices, without implicating that she has not violated an obligation we hold her to. However, even this weakened intention-based account fails to provide a sufficient account of excused wrongdoing. In its exclusive emphasis on the agent’s intentions, WIT fails to capture what constitute a complete explanation of excused wrongdoings.

Åsa Burman

Reader in Practical Philosophy, Stockholm University

On Social Power

Power is central to the social sciences, the humanities, and to understanding the political sphere. However, despite its significance, it has not been considered a central concept in analytic philosophy. To overcome this shortcoming, I turn to contemporary social ontology, where the concept of social power is gaining attention. I identify and define two types of social power: deontic and telic. Deontic powers are our institutional rights (positive deontic powers) and obligations (negative deontic powers), and they concern what we can demand of each other. By contrast, telic powers are about ideals or standards that we sometimes try to live up to and hold ourselves and other agents responsive to. Positive telic power is about being perceived as an exemplar of a kind, as a woman or citizen, i.e., as fulfilling the ideal of womanhood or citizenship. Negative telic power is about being perceived as failing to live up to the ideal, i.e., being perceived by other agents as substandard in relation to the ideal. Deontic and telic power can both reinforce and conflict with one another. I conclude by drawing out the features the two forms of power have in common and suggest a general definition of social power.

Panelsamtal: Att vara kvinna inom filosofi

• Sharon Rider
  Professor i Teoretisk filosofi, Uppsala universitet

• Malin Jörnvi
  Medgrundare av NKF, Uppsala universitet alumn, ledningskoordinator på Uppsala stadsteater (från augusti)

• Maria Svedberg
  Forskare i Praktisk filosofi, lika villkorsombud, Uppsala universitet