Nick Zangwill

Last updated

Nick Zangwill
Born1957
Education London University (PhD)
Era 21st century Philosophy
Region Western philosophy
Institutions University College London, The University of Hull, and Lincoln University
Main interests
Aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of logic, meta-ethics

Nick Zangwill (born 1957) is a British philosopher and honorary research professor at University College London and Lincoln University. [1] He is known for his expertise on moral philosophy (especially metaethics), and aesthetics (especially the philosophy of music and visual art). [2]

Contents

He has also written on metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and logic.

Background

In metaethics, Zangwill has defended non-naturalism, with a special attention to dependence of morality on natural properties. He has defended externalism about moral motivation, developed aspects of expressivism, and defended non-consequentialist theory.

In aesthetics, Zangwill has defined his position as 'moderate formalism' in art as referring to those properties "that are determined solely by sensory or physical properties—so long as the physical properties in question are not relations to other things and other times." [3] The philosopher and architect Branko Mitrovic has defined formalism in art and architecture as "the doctrine that states that the aesthetic qualities of works of visual art derive from the visual and spatial properties." [4]

Philosophical views

On meat eating

Zangwill has criticized animal rights and vegetarianism and has stated that "vegetarians and vegans are the natural enemies of domesticated animals that are bred to be eaten". [5] In his 2021 paper Our Moral Duty to Eat Meat which was published in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Zangwill argues that the existence of domesticated animals depends on the practice of eating them, and that meat eating has historically benefitted many millions of animals and given them good lives. Consequently, he claims that eating non-human animal meat is not merely permissible but also good for many millions of animals. However, Zangwill clarifies that this argument does not apply to factory farm animals, as they do not have good lives. Thus, when he speaks of meat eating being justified, he means only meat from animals that overall have a good life. [6] Zangwill has commented that "I think a lot of the domesticated animals lives are a lot better than your average animal lives. They're waited on by human beings, they don't have to do much. We get rid of their predators. We provide them food, we provide them even romance." [7]

Gregory Tague has authored a reply to Zangwill, commenting that he is invoking human exceptionalism and ignores developments in animal cognition, extensive animal suffering and ecological damage caused by animal agriculture. [8] Other replies to Zangwill were authored by David Benatar in Public Affairs Quarterly [9] and Adrian Kreutz in the Journal of Animal Ethics . [10]

Philosophy of music

In the 21st century, philosophers such as Zangwill have extended the study of aesthetics in music, as studied in the 20th century by scholars such as Jerrold Levinson and Peter Kivy. In his 2015 book on the aesthetics of music titled Music and Aesthetic Reality: Formalism and the Limits of Description, Zangwill introduces his realist position by stating, "By 'realism' about musical experience, I mean a view that foregrounds the aesthetic properties of music and our experience of these properties: musical experience is an awareness of an array of sounds and of the aesthetic properties that they determine. Our experience is directed onto the sound structure and its aesthetic properties. This is the content of musical experience." [11]

Philosophy of mind

Zangwill defends a particular 'weak' version of the idea that the mental is essentially normative, as well as the anomalism of the mental.[ citation needed ]

Philosophy of logic

Zangwill defends realism about logic and attacks inferentialism.[ citation needed ]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and the nature of taste; and functions as the philosophy of art. Aesthetics examines the philosophy of aesthetic value, which is determined by critical judgements of artistic taste; thus, the function of aesthetics is the "critical reflection on art, culture and nature".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethics</span> Philosophical study of morality

Ethics or moral philosophy is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. It investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. It is usually divided into three major fields: normative ethics, applied ethics, and metaethics.

Hedonism refers to the prioritization of pleasure in one's lifestyle, actions, or thoughts. The term can include a number of theories or practices across philosophy, art, and psychology, encompassing both sensory pleasure and more intellectual or personal pursuits, but can also be used in everyday parlance as a pejorative for the egoistic pursuit of short-term gratification at the expense of others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immanuel Kant</span> German philosopher (1724–1804)

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential and controversial figures in modern Western philosophy, being called the "father of modern ethics", the "father of modern aesthetics", and for bringing together rationalism and empiricism earned the title of "father of modern philosophy".

In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics.

Pleasure is experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious animals find pleasure enjoyable, positive or worthy of seeking. A great variety of activities may be experienced as pleasurable, like eating, having sex, listening to music or playing games. Pleasure is part of various other mental states such as ecstasy, euphoria and flow. Happiness and well-being are closely related to pleasure but not identical with it. There is no general agreement as to whether pleasure should be understood as a sensation, a quality of experiences, an attitude to experiences or otherwise. Pleasure plays a central role in the family of philosophical theories known as hedonism.

In art history, formalism is the study of art by analyzing and comparing form and style. Its discussion also includes the way objects are made and their purely visual or material aspects. In painting, formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape, texture, and other perceptual aspects rather than content, meaning, or the historical and social context. At its extreme, formalism in art history posits that everything necessary to comprehending a work of art is contained within the work of art. The context of the work, including the reason for its creation, the historical background, and the life of the artist, that is, its conceptual aspect is considered to be external to the artistic medium itself, and therefore of secondary importance.

Moral nihilism is the meta-ethical view that nothing is morally right or morally wrong and that morality doesn't exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aesthetics of music</span> Branch of philosophy

Aesthetics of music is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, beauty and taste in music, and with the creation or appreciation of beauty in music. In the pre-modern tradition, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics explored the mathematical and cosmological dimensions of rhythmic and harmonic organization. In the eighteenth century, focus shifted to the experience of hearing music, and thus to questions about its beauty and human enjoyment of music. The origin of this philosophic shift is sometimes attributed to Baumgarten in the 18th century, followed by Kant.

Philosophical realism – usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters – is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder. This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding. This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself. However, realism may also include various positions which instead reject metaphysical treatments of reality entirely.

This is an alphabetical index of articles about aesthetics.

Evolutionary ethics is a field of inquiry that explores how evolutionary theory might bear on our understanding of ethics or morality. The range of issues investigated by evolutionary ethics is quite broad. Supporters of evolutionary ethics have claimed that it has important implications in the fields of descriptive ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethics of eating meat</span> Food ethics topic

Conversations regarding the ethics of eating meat are focused on whether or not it is moral to eat non-human animals. Ultimately, this is a debate that has been ongoing for millennia, and it remains one of the most prominent topics in food ethics.

Randall E. Auxier is a professor of philosophy and communication studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, a musician, environmental activist, union advocate, and candidate (2018) for the United States House of Representatives, nominated by the Green Party in the 12th Congressional District of Illinois. He is a radio host for WDBX Carbondale since 2001, a widely read author of popular philosophy, and also a co-founder and co-director of the AIPCT.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antinatalism</span> Family of philosophical views

Antinatalism or anti-natalism is a family of philosophical views that are critical of reproduction — they consider coming into existence as bad or deem procreation as immoral. Antinatalists thus argue that humans should abstain from having children. Antinatalist views are not necessarily limited only to humans, but may encompass all sentient creatures, claiming that coming into existence is a harm for sentient beings in general.

A theory of art is intended to contrast with a definition of art. Traditionally, definitions are composed of necessary and sufficient conditions and a single counterexample overthrows such a definition. Theorizing about art, on the other hand, is analogous to a theory of a natural phenomenon like gravity. In fact, the intent behind a theory of art is to treat art as a natural phenomenon that should be investigated like any other. The question of whether one can speak of a theory of art without employing a concept of art is also discussed below.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethics of uncertain sentience</span> Applied ethics issue

The ethics of uncertain sentience refers to questions surrounding the treatment of and moral obligations towards individuals whose sentience—the capacity to subjectively sense and feel—and resulting ability to experience pain is uncertain; the topic has been particularly discussed within the field of animal ethics, with the precautionary principle frequently invoked in response.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philosophical pessimism</span> Family of philosophical views

Philosophical pessimism is a family of philosophical views that assign a negative value to life or existence. Philosophical pessimists commonly argue that the world contains an empirical prevalence of pains over pleasures, that existence is ontologically or metaphysically adverse to living beings, and that life is fundamentally meaningless or without purpose. Philosophical pessimism is not a single coherent movement, but rather a loosely associated group of thinkers with similar ideas and a resemblance to each other. Their responses to the condition of life are widely varied. Philosophical pessimists usually do not advocate for suicide as a solution to the human predicament; though many favour the adoption of antinatalism, that is, non-procreation.

Robert William Fischer is an American philosopher who specializes in epistemology and ethics. He is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at Texas State University, a Senior Research Manager at Rethink Priorities, and the Director of the Society for the Study of Ethics and Animals. His books include Modal Justification via Theories, in which he defends his account of "Theory-Based Epistemology of Modality", and The Ethics of Eating Animals, in which he argues that animal agriculture is frequently morally impermissible, but that veganism is nonetheless not morally required.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlo Alvaro</span> Italian-American author and philosophy professor

Carlo Alvaro is an Italian-American author and philosophy professor at New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York.

References

  1. "Nick Zangwill". The Murphy Institute . Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  2. Nathan, Daniel (2009). "On Zangwill's aesthetic theory of art". Sztuka I Filozofia. 35. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  3. Nick Zangwill, The Metaphysics of Beauty (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), p. 56, ISBN   0801438209.
  4. Branko Mitrović, Philosophy for architects (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, [2011]), p. 51.
  5. "Why you should eat meat". aeon.co. Retrieved 2 July 2022.
  6. Zangwill, Nick (2021). "Our Moral Duty to Eat Meat". Journal of the American Philosophical Association. 7 (3): 295–311. doi: 10.1017/apa.2020.21 . ISSN   2053-4477. S2CID   236309023.
  7. "Why eating animals is our moral duty". rnz.co.nz. Retrieved 2 July 2022.
  8. Tague, Gregory F. (2023). "Is there moral justification to eat meat?" (PDF). The Ecological Citizen. 6 (1): 60–65.
  9. Benatar, David (2022). "We Have No Moral Duty to Eat Meat: A Reply to Nick Zangwill". Public Affairs Quarterly . 36 (4): 312–324. doi:10.5406/21520542.36.4.03.
  10. Kreutz, Adrian (2022). "Whatever It Is We Owe to Animals, It's Not to Eat Them". Journal of Animal Ethics . 12 (2): 123–127. doi:10.5406/21601267.12.2.02.
  11. Nick Zangwill. Music and Aesthetic Reality: Formalism and the Limits of Description. Page 14. 2015.