Abstracts
Jennifer Hornsby – Acting Out of Habit and Knowing What You’re Doing
I shall suggest that habits should be a topic for a philosopher concerned with metaphysical questions about acts. An habitual act is a repeatable act; and we don’t have an idea of a habit without a conception of what it is to do something more than once – to do something, and then to do it again, and then, as it might be, again and again and again. What is involved in the repetition of an act?
I hope to show how an answer to that question might bear upon the consideration of habits in two connections—One: as they may be alluded to in an everyday way, when people mention their or others’ habits, perhaps in explanations of what they are doing (or did or plan to do); Two: as they belong in a philosophical understanding of agents’ practical powers.
I shall suggest that habits should be a topic for a philosopher concerned with metaphysical questions about acts. An habitual act is a repeatable act; and we don’t have an idea of a habit without a conception of what it is to do something more than once – to do something, and then to do it again, and then, as it might be, again and again and again. What is involved in the repetition of an act?
I hope to show how an answer to that question might bear upon the consideration of habits in two connections—One: as they may be alluded to in an everyday way, when people mention their or others’ habits, perhaps in explanations of what they are doing (or did or plan to do); Two: as they belong in a philosophical understanding of agents’ practical powers.
Nicolás García Mills – Hegel on Human Spirit, the Animal Soul, and Habit
In this paper, I attempt to elucidate Hegel’s conception of finite spirit (roughly, human thought and action as well as more rudimentary analogues of thought and action exhibited by lower animals) by considering its relation to nature. The main thesis I seek to articulate and defend is that Hegel’s view is naturalistic in that (unlike his predecessors’ Descartes or Kant) it construes distinctively human forms of spirit as the result of the exercise of capacities that we share with lower animals. I divide the paper into two sections. In section I, I consider some of Hegel’s most general characterizations of spirit and its relation to nature. On the basis of these pronouncements, I specify the sense in which both non-human and human animals count for Hegel as spirited or ensouled. I then shift my focus, in section II, to human animals in particular and consider the question: How do distinctively human forms of spirit arise out of nature? More specifically, how is human rationality in some sense the result of the exercise of capacities that we share with other animals? One especially important piece of Hegel’s answer to this question is his account of human animals as creatures capable of acquiring a reflective distance from what he calls our “natural determinations” – sensations, feelings, impulses, urges – through processes of habituation. Accordingly, in section II, I discuss Hegel’s account of habit and clarify the role that it plays in the emergence of human rationality.
In this paper, I attempt to elucidate Hegel’s conception of finite spirit (roughly, human thought and action as well as more rudimentary analogues of thought and action exhibited by lower animals) by considering its relation to nature. The main thesis I seek to articulate and defend is that Hegel’s view is naturalistic in that (unlike his predecessors’ Descartes or Kant) it construes distinctively human forms of spirit as the result of the exercise of capacities that we share with lower animals. I divide the paper into two sections. In section I, I consider some of Hegel’s most general characterizations of spirit and its relation to nature. On the basis of these pronouncements, I specify the sense in which both non-human and human animals count for Hegel as spirited or ensouled. I then shift my focus, in section II, to human animals in particular and consider the question: How do distinctively human forms of spirit arise out of nature? More specifically, how is human rationality in some sense the result of the exercise of capacities that we share with other animals? One especially important piece of Hegel’s answer to this question is his account of human animals as creatures capable of acquiring a reflective distance from what he calls our “natural determinations” – sensations, feelings, impulses, urges – through processes of habituation. Accordingly, in section II, I discuss Hegel’s account of habit and clarify the role that it plays in the emergence of human rationality.
Dhananjay Jagannathan – Habit and Reflection in Aristotelian Ethics
Aristotle famously holds that acting virtuously depends both on a state of the non-rational soul – excellence of character – which ensures the goodness of one’s goals and on a state of the rational soul – practical wisdom – which ensures the proper selection through deliberation of an action that serves those goals. Only the former is described as the product of habituation, while the latter is said to depend instead on time and experience. Yet neither state can be possessed without the other. These claims from Nicomachean Ethics Books II-VI, taken together, generate a puzzle: if habituation brings about excellence of character alone, then the process of acquiring practical wisdom depends on a distinct process, which simply happens to coincide with the development of character-excellence. But what explains why these processes should necessarily coincide? I shall argue that NEX.9 explains the relationship between reason and habit as contributions to human excellence and thereby resolves the puzzle that was left open by Aristotle’s discussions in NEII-VI. Aristotle here explicitly conceives of habituation as including not only repeated practice but also self-cultivation. Hence, it is wrong to think that of habituation as a process that happens to people rather than one in which they essentially participate. All the same, the goal of habituation is the preparation of one’s non-rational desires and emotions to accept an account of the good life that comes only through further reflection on the practical knowledge – ethical experience – that serves as the basis for the acquisition of practical wisdom.
Aristotle famously holds that acting virtuously depends both on a state of the non-rational soul – excellence of character – which ensures the goodness of one’s goals and on a state of the rational soul – practical wisdom – which ensures the proper selection through deliberation of an action that serves those goals. Only the former is described as the product of habituation, while the latter is said to depend instead on time and experience. Yet neither state can be possessed without the other. These claims from Nicomachean Ethics Books II-VI, taken together, generate a puzzle: if habituation brings about excellence of character alone, then the process of acquiring practical wisdom depends on a distinct process, which simply happens to coincide with the development of character-excellence. But what explains why these processes should necessarily coincide? I shall argue that NEX.9 explains the relationship between reason and habit as contributions to human excellence and thereby resolves the puzzle that was left open by Aristotle’s discussions in NEII-VI. Aristotle here explicitly conceives of habituation as including not only repeated practice but also self-cultivation. Hence, it is wrong to think that of habituation as a process that happens to people rather than one in which they essentially participate. All the same, the goal of habituation is the preparation of one’s non-rational desires and emotions to accept an account of the good life that comes only through further reflection on the practical knowledge – ethical experience – that serves as the basis for the acquisition of practical wisdom.
Annette Martín – Obliviousness: Racial, Gendered, and Other
Professor Herrera is organizing a conference in her department, and, although she frequents the building, has no idea that the venue is wheelchair-inaccessible. Dr. Klein forces a smile and politely corrects the patient’s father when he refers to her as “the nurse” after she explicitly introduced herself as “Dr. Klein, the supervising doctor.”
Each of these cases features an instance of obliviousness, a distinctive type of ignorance that, as far as I can tell, has received no sustained philosophical consideration until now. In this paper, I begin by offering a general characterization of obliviousness on which, roughly, an agent is oblivious of some significant state of affairs X when they remain clueless that X obtains despite having immediate access to evidence of this fact. I suggest that attentional failures and hermeneutical inadequacies can account for agents’ obliviousness, and argue that social and political factors shape habits of attention and interpretation in such a way as to create conditions that are ripe for obliviousness. Finally, I consider the social, political, and moral consequences of obliviousness, arguing that obliviousness contributes to harms and wrongs faced by the oppressed, while also insulating agents from uncomfortable truths and thereby protecting an unjust status quo.
Professor Herrera is organizing a conference in her department, and, although she frequents the building, has no idea that the venue is wheelchair-inaccessible. Dr. Klein forces a smile and politely corrects the patient’s father when he refers to her as “the nurse” after she explicitly introduced herself as “Dr. Klein, the supervising doctor.”
Each of these cases features an instance of obliviousness, a distinctive type of ignorance that, as far as I can tell, has received no sustained philosophical consideration until now. In this paper, I begin by offering a general characterization of obliviousness on which, roughly, an agent is oblivious of some significant state of affairs X when they remain clueless that X obtains despite having immediate access to evidence of this fact. I suggest that attentional failures and hermeneutical inadequacies can account for agents’ obliviousness, and argue that social and political factors shape habits of attention and interpretation in such a way as to create conditions that are ripe for obliviousness. Finally, I consider the social, political, and moral consequences of obliviousness, arguing that obliviousness contributes to harms and wrongs faced by the oppressed, while also insulating agents from uncomfortable truths and thereby protecting an unjust status quo.
Sasha Newton – Kant on Habit and Time
To do or to desire something habitually is to do or to desire what one always does or desires. The ‘always’ or ‘continuous present’ in one’s habitual actions and desires frees the subject of habit from regrets about the past and fears about the future: the focus is on the present as exhibiting something temporally general. One who lacks habit lives in the present as a mere passage from the past to the future; but for one who acts habitually, the present holds itself across times. In this paper I will distinguish three kinds of ‘habit’ in Kant’s works, and look at the different ways in which they relate the present to what is temporally general. I will call these natural habits, artificial habits, and free habits. (Kant himself uses the German terms, Angewohnheit and Gewohnheit, for the first two kinds of habit, and the Latin ‘habitus libertatis’ or the Latinate ‘habituell’ for free habit.) I will argue that the three kinds of habit line up with Kant’s distinction between three faculties in the mind: the imagination, the theoretical use of the power of judgment, and the practical use of the power of judgment (in virtue), respectively, and correspond to three different senses of ‘habituation’ and ‘repetition’. My main thesis is that natural and artificial habits, in all of their various forms, can have a deadening effect on the subject, causing her to ‘lose’ herself either to the mechanism of nature or to the mechanism of art (techne). The subject becomes either immersed in the natural, unconscious flow of time or artificially distanced from it. Only the free habit of virtue enables a subject to live freely and eternally in the present without the danger of her desires and actions becoming either instinctual or mechanical.
To do or to desire something habitually is to do or to desire what one always does or desires. The ‘always’ or ‘continuous present’ in one’s habitual actions and desires frees the subject of habit from regrets about the past and fears about the future: the focus is on the present as exhibiting something temporally general. One who lacks habit lives in the present as a mere passage from the past to the future; but for one who acts habitually, the present holds itself across times. In this paper I will distinguish three kinds of ‘habit’ in Kant’s works, and look at the different ways in which they relate the present to what is temporally general. I will call these natural habits, artificial habits, and free habits. (Kant himself uses the German terms, Angewohnheit and Gewohnheit, for the first two kinds of habit, and the Latin ‘habitus libertatis’ or the Latinate ‘habituell’ for free habit.) I will argue that the three kinds of habit line up with Kant’s distinction between three faculties in the mind: the imagination, the theoretical use of the power of judgment, and the practical use of the power of judgment (in virtue), respectively, and correspond to three different senses of ‘habituation’ and ‘repetition’. My main thesis is that natural and artificial habits, in all of their various forms, can have a deadening effect on the subject, causing her to ‘lose’ herself either to the mechanism of nature or to the mechanism of art (techne). The subject becomes either immersed in the natural, unconscious flow of time or artificially distanced from it. Only the free habit of virtue enables a subject to live freely and eternally in the present without the danger of her desires and actions becoming either instinctual or mechanical.
Andrew Payne – Intellectual Habits and the Experience of Emotion in Plato’s Gorgias
Socrates in the Gorgias provides one model for how intellectual habits of inquiry can transform the content of supposedly nonrational motivations. The intellectual habits in question are the result of Socrates’ practice of self-examination, and they shape the way in which he is subject to emotions such as fear and shame. This paper gives an account of how Socratic intellectual habits can shape these emotions.
First, positive intellectual habits can arise from repeated actions of examination or refutation (elenchos) of self and of others. As Socrates examines and refutes Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles, he appeals to a core of beliefs that he deploys variously in his conversations: the belief that justice is a kind of knowledge akin to crafts like medicine and carpentry, that justice and other virtues are the most important determinant of a person’s happiness, and that being just is always preferable to being unjust. His reliance on these beliefs justifies his description of himself at Gorgias 481d-482c as one who always says the same thing.
Second, Socrates uses these beliefs as principles to explain which states of affairs are fearful or shameful. He considers shameful only what is bad and unjust, and he considers the possibility of acting unjustly something more to be feared than the possibility of being treated unjustly. This does not commit Socrates to holding that the emotions are identical with beliefs. He can support a more plausible account of the emotions according to which emotions are constituted by separate affective and cognitive elements, where the cognitive element explains why something is experienced as fearful or shameful in the first place.
Socrates in the Gorgias provides one model for how intellectual habits of inquiry can transform the content of supposedly nonrational motivations. The intellectual habits in question are the result of Socrates’ practice of self-examination, and they shape the way in which he is subject to emotions such as fear and shame. This paper gives an account of how Socratic intellectual habits can shape these emotions.
First, positive intellectual habits can arise from repeated actions of examination or refutation (elenchos) of self and of others. As Socrates examines and refutes Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles, he appeals to a core of beliefs that he deploys variously in his conversations: the belief that justice is a kind of knowledge akin to crafts like medicine and carpentry, that justice and other virtues are the most important determinant of a person’s happiness, and that being just is always preferable to being unjust. His reliance on these beliefs justifies his description of himself at Gorgias 481d-482c as one who always says the same thing.
Second, Socrates uses these beliefs as principles to explain which states of affairs are fearful or shameful. He considers shameful only what is bad and unjust, and he considers the possibility of acting unjustly something more to be feared than the possibility of being treated unjustly. This does not commit Socrates to holding that the emotions are identical with beliefs. He can support a more plausible account of the emotions according to which emotions are constituted by separate affective and cognitive elements, where the cognitive element explains why something is experienced as fearful or shameful in the first place.
Lubomira Radoilska – Habitual action and the Knowledge Condition on Responsibility
When I (habitually) cough in front of others without covering my mouth, can I be criticised? Is that even an action of mine if I am not aware of doing it? So far, the moral significance of habitual actions has been either overlooked or treated as paradoxical. I show that this is due to an apparent tension between core features of habit, such as absence of conscious awareness and the so-called knowledge condition on responsibility, which can be summed up as follows: If you don’t know why you’re doing something, what you’re doing isn’t really an action of yours and so it is inappropriate to hold you (directly) responsible for it. I then consider three possible models in which the acknowledgment of habit as morally significant can be reconciled with the knowledge condition as standardly understood: 1) habit as the upshot of habituation, 2) exercise of an acquired skill, or 3) shortcut for embedded intentions. Reflecting on a case study of akrasia as objectionable habit, I argue that although none of these models is ultimately successful, we learn two valuable lessons from them: the first is about the nature of knowledge in the knowledge condition and the second, about the distinction between personal and sub-personal agency in habitual action.
When I (habitually) cough in front of others without covering my mouth, can I be criticised? Is that even an action of mine if I am not aware of doing it? So far, the moral significance of habitual actions has been either overlooked or treated as paradoxical. I show that this is due to an apparent tension between core features of habit, such as absence of conscious awareness and the so-called knowledge condition on responsibility, which can be summed up as follows: If you don’t know why you’re doing something, what you’re doing isn’t really an action of yours and so it is inappropriate to hold you (directly) responsible for it. I then consider three possible models in which the acknowledgment of habit as morally significant can be reconciled with the knowledge condition as standardly understood: 1) habit as the upshot of habituation, 2) exercise of an acquired skill, or 3) shortcut for embedded intentions. Reflecting on a case study of akrasia as objectionable habit, I argue that although none of these models is ultimately successful, we learn two valuable lessons from them: the first is about the nature of knowledge in the knowledge condition and the second, about the distinction between personal and sub-personal agency in habitual action.
Mark Sinclair – On Tendency and Inclination in Habit
In 1788 Thomas Reid distinguished habits in a strong sense from skills and abilities. An acquired habit as a principle of action is not merely a power to act or an acquired skill in action, but rather gives “inclination and impulse to action”. Our actions are often not just facilitated, but led and anticipated by a principle operating in some sense prior to voluntary decision. How can we conceive of inclination in habit, the principle which constitutes habit in the strong and proper sense? If it is not reducible to reasons (since habitual action is, by definition, not presently governed by explicit reasoning) is it merely a mechanical principle? This paper assesses how in his 1838 doctoral dissertation, Of Habit, Félix Ravaisson argues that tendency or inclination in habit is irreducible to reasoning or to any form of mechanical, efficient causation. Tendency and inclination, Ravaisson claims, are continuous with what we isolate as ‘the will’ but are still irreducible to it. This paper examines Ravaisson’s arguments in the light of the contemporary metaphysics of powers, where ideas about tendency and inclination have recently become prominent.
In 1788 Thomas Reid distinguished habits in a strong sense from skills and abilities. An acquired habit as a principle of action is not merely a power to act or an acquired skill in action, but rather gives “inclination and impulse to action”. Our actions are often not just facilitated, but led and anticipated by a principle operating in some sense prior to voluntary decision. How can we conceive of inclination in habit, the principle which constitutes habit in the strong and proper sense? If it is not reducible to reasons (since habitual action is, by definition, not presently governed by explicit reasoning) is it merely a mechanical principle? This paper assesses how in his 1838 doctoral dissertation, Of Habit, Félix Ravaisson argues that tendency or inclination in habit is irreducible to reasoning or to any form of mechanical, efficient causation. Tendency and inclination, Ravaisson claims, are continuous with what we isolate as ‘the will’ but are still irreducible to it. This paper examines Ravaisson’s arguments in the light of the contemporary metaphysics of powers, where ideas about tendency and inclination have recently become prominent.
