joel.vanfossen.86@hosei.ac.jp

Abstract: It seems like a problem to say that love can be merited—its value is located in its transcendence of comparative judgments. However, we commonly make judgments about who is and is not worth loving. We deem certain romantic partners, friends, and family members as worth or not worth our loving time, attention, and effort. In this paper, I argue that love can be merited, and it is merited because of a person’s intrinsic valuable qualities. However, it is not the fact that such qualities can be compared that is relevant. What is relevant is the fact that such qualities are gradable, and what it means for someone to merit love is that their qualities meet a threshold or standard of value for love. Moreover, love requires some amount of practical wisdom in discerning these thresholds and when someone meets or fails to meet them. This is important to recognize since we are creatures of finite love. We do not have the capacity to love everyone who is both worthy and unworthy of love. Given our finite capacities, I argue that making wise and discerning judgments about whom to love should be kept in mind when philosophizing about love.

Abstract: Respect and self-respect are the cornerstone motivations in Kantian moral psychology. But “respect” is an ambiguous term. As Stephen Darwall has argued, sometimes respect refers to a constraint on practical reason, but at other times it refers to a person-directed pro-attitude. In this article, I argue that this distinction is a problem regarding self-respect since self-respect, in the latter sense, lacks warrant. Furthermore, I discuss Nietzsche’s conception of “self-reverence,” which in some ways serves as a replacement for Kantian self-respect in the pro-attitude sense. I argue that, in Nietzsche’s view, the value that a person anticipates and aspires to realize in the future warrants self-reverence, even in cases where the person cannot fully articulate this value. This kind of self-directed value is what Nietzsche means when he claims in Beyond Good and Evil §287, “The noble soul has reverence for itself.”

Abstract: On Nietzsche's view, shame regulates social relations in a fundamental way, but it may also have deleterious effects on one's conscience and sense of freedom. In this article, I present an interpretation of this view. I do this in four parts. First, I outline and expand upon a kind of shame in Nietzsche's thought that Brian Leiter calls “meta-affectual shame.” Second, I describe another kind of shame on Nietzsche's view that I call “protective shame.” I do this by comparing what Nietzsche can say about the origin of shame to a recent account of the origin of shame by David Velleman. Third, I show that “meta-affectual shame” is the kind he considers harmful or dangerous. Finally, I show how Nietzsche thinks “protective shame” can have a positive role insofar as “rigorous selfishness” (EH “Destiny” 7) is characteristic of those whom Nietzsche calls “profound spirits” (BGE 40).

Abstract: This article addresses two topics related to disgust in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche: (1) how moral disgust is harmful and (2) to what extent moral disgust is conditionally fitting. Nietzsche argues that self-disgust is dangerous because it is characteristic of ascetic morality. Yet disgust is conditionally fitting insofar as it triggers an adverse reaction to ascetic moral systems, or what I have called “disgusting moralities.” The first section is a general analysis of the role of self-disgust in the cultivation of ascetic morality. In the second section, I compare this analysis of disgust to two popular contemporary theories of disgust (the Terror Management and Animal-Nature Reminder theories). In the third section, I argue that Nietzsche advocates disgust at certain harmful moral systems. He thinks disgust is a fitting emotion for such moral systems because it causes an immediate adverse reaction. This reaction is fitting, Nietzsche thinks, because such moral systems are infectious. I maintain his view of disgust is compatible with convincing psychological theories of disgust, namely the Entanglement Thesis and Co-Opt Thesis.