Rainer Forst’s constructivism argues that a right to justification provides a reasonably non-rejectable foundation of justice. With an exemplary focus on his attempt to ground human rights, I argue that this right cannot provide such a foundation. To accord to others such a right is to include them in the scope of discursive respect. But it is reasonably contested whether we should accord to others equal discursive respect. It follows that Forst’s constructivism cannot ground human rights, or justice, categorically. At best, it can ground them hypothetically. This opens the door wide for ethical foundations of human rights.

The concept of modernity, according to Michel Foucault and Marcel Gauchet, is closely related to the idea of a new form of power. While Foucault analyzes power from within, Gauchet develops a theory of power based on a relation to externality. Both perceive the asylum as one of the most representative settings of this modern form of power. I show that Gauchet’s model preserves Foucault’s contribution, while giving it a new significance.

In this paper, I argue that viewing Frege’s puzzle through a semantic lens results in the rejection of solutions to it on irrelevant grounds. As a result, I develop a solution to it that rests on a non-semantic sense of context-sensitivity. And I apply this picture to Frege’s puzzle when it arises through the use of identity statements designed to establish that distinct speakers are talking about the same thing.

According to ‘strong cognitivism’, all reasons for action are rooted in normative features that the motivated subject (explicitly or implicitly) takes objects to have (or lack) independently of her attitudes towards these objects. My main concern in this paper is to argue against strong cognitivism, that is, to establish the view that conative attitudes do provide subjects with reasons for action. My central argument to this effect is a top-down one that proceeds by an analysis of the complex phenomenon of caring and derives a conclusion regarding the (motivational and normative) nature of more basic mental phenomena—particular desires.

In the Science of Logic and Philosophical Encyclopaedia, Hegel reconstructs Kant’s Critical philosophy by developing: a transcendental logic in the Science of Logic and Philosophy of Nature (§2), a pragmatic account of the a priori (§3), and a crucial use of the verb “realisieren” in connection with concepts and principles (§4). These three points are central to Hegel’s specifically cognitive semantics, which Hegel developed from Kant’s Thesis of Singular Cognitive Reference into a systematic, pragmatic realism. Hegel’s re-analysis of Kant’s Critical philosophy is thus the first and still one of the most adequate forms of pragmatic realism.

I here defend the thesis that the best life is the life that one plays as a game—specifically, a ‘Suitsian’ game that meets the definition proposed in The Grasshopper by Bernard Suits. Even more specifically, it is a nested, open, role-playing game where the life’s quality as a game partly depends on there being no more people than players. To defend this thesis I refute two powerful challenges to it, one from Thomas Hurka (2006) and another from within The Grasshopper itself. In the process, I offer a new interpretation of that enigmatic and challenging book.

The following claims are independently plausible but jointly inconsistent: (1) epistemic deontologism is correct (i.e., there are some beliefs we ought to have, and some beliefs we ought not to have); (2) we have no voluntary control over our beliefs; (3) S’s lack of control over whether she φs implies that S has no obligation to φ or to not φ (i.e., ought-implies-can). The point of this paper is to argue that there are active and passive aspects of belief, which can come apart, and to argue that deontological epistemic evaluations apply to the active aspect of belief.

Annas’ virtue ethics faces the Circularity Objection. She claims that a just soul is disposed to doing just acts. If a just soul is defined neither in terms of right acts nor rules, then the Circularity Objection is circumvented. Drawing upon Korsgaard’s recent work, it is shown that Annas’ argument faces anew the Circularity Objection. Then, I examine Annas’ fresh attempts to avert the Circularity Objection by appealing to the community of the virtuous. I argue that this move does not save her theory from either relativism or the Circularity Objection.

Animals in Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics can neither respond to the ethical demand, nor can they be the Other from whom the demand emanates. Levinas’ characterisation of the Other as human seems to be incompatible with his description of the Other as infinitely transcendent and of the face as refusing to be contained. A corrective can be found in Martin Buber’s two-dimensional account of the encounter. Buber widens the scope of entities with which morally demanding encounters are possible. Complementing the Levinasian account of the encounter with Buber’s provides a way of recognising non-human animals as the Other in the moral encounter.