Willem Lemmens full professor

Research Willem Lemmens

Research team

Expertise

History of Early Modern Philosophy, David Hume, meta-ethics and moral psychology, bio-ethics

Irreligion and common illusions in Hume's moral Enquiry and the Natural History of Religion. 01/10/2020 - 30/09/2023

Abstract

Against the traditional lines of interpretation highlighting the naturalistic and skeptical aspects of Hume's work, recent literature has offered an alternative focus for reading the Treatise on Human Nature and the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (EHU) as an attempt to show that religious beliefs are deprived of epistemic and moral authority. Less attention has been paid from this angle to Hume's position in his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (EPM), yet his irreligious attitude with respect to morality persists even after, as, at least in some interpretations, his Natural History of Religion (NHR) shows. The present project proposes to explore Hume's stance with respect to the role of irreligion in the EPM and NHR account of morality. The approach proposed here starts from the question left open in EHU 11.29. I defend the idea that in EPM Hume not only advocates a secular foundation of morality, but also gives a perspective to answer this open question in a positive way: religion can indeed support moral behavior under certain conditions. He could not reach this conclusion based on the normative epistemology developed in EHU. But from the natural-historical approach that he advocates in EPM and NHR, Hume develops a set of socio-anthropological concepts, thereby shifting the focus of the role played by psychological mechanisms in Treatise. If one reads EPM and NHR in this way, the irreligious attitude of Hume can receive a milder interpretation.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Scientific Chair - Interreligious dialogue and conflict-prevention. 01/09/2018 - 31/08/2019

Abstract

This project aims at a better understanding of the ideological, cultural and political dimensions of interreligious conflict and its possible solutions and mediations. The hypothesis is that an internal understanding of religious traditions forms a necessary precondition of a reconciliatory dialogue required for conflict prevention and solution.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Naturalizing religion: in Search of Hume's Heritage for Contemporary Cognitive Science of Religion. 01/01/2018 - 31/12/2021

Abstract

David Hume (1711-1776) was fascinated by religion and considered it to be a universal feature of the human condition and civilization. In this project we investigate the relevance of Hume's naturalistic-historical explanation of the origins of religion for contemporary Cognitive Science of Religion. We defend that Hume had a keen eye for the historical and praxeological foundations of religious belief. Our hypothesis is that contemporary CSR could profit from this approach and, vice versa, that contemporary CSR could contribute to a better understanding of the historical meaning and relevance, but also the content of Hume's anthropology of religion.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Ethics With or Without Ontology: The Taylor-Putnam Debate. 01/10/2017 - 30/09/2020

Abstract

Is the attribution of value compatible with the physical, biological, and psychological explanations of the empirical sciences? The philosophical reflection on this question is often divided into two approaches: "naturalistic" doctrines that take empirical science as our best guide to understanding reality and "hermeneutical" views, which argue that the empirical sciences do not provide human beings with their primary and most significant access to the world. This project explores a novel form of ethics in between hermeneutical and naturalistic approaches by confronting Charles Taylor's moral philosophy with the pragmatist ethics of Hilary Putnam. On the one hand, their shared concern is that crucial features of human life – especially moral ones – precisely disappear by adopting a scientific stance. On the other hand, Taylor and Putnam are of different minds on the question of how to defend the autonomy of morality with regard to empirical science. The Taylor-Putnam debate starts from the observation that most people are reluctant to embrace naturalism fully and yet remain highly skeptical of all things that do not fit the naturalist model. Reflecting on this debate, this project develops a position that does not assume that the autonomy of morality must be defended from within a naturalistic framework. Instead, it seeks to show that the most fundamental problems of ethics and ontology arise in the border regions between hermeneutical and naturalistic approaches.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Interreligious dialogue and conflict-prevention 01/09/2016 - 31/08/2018

Abstract

This project aims at a better understanding of the ideological, cultural and political dimensions of interreligious conflict and its possible solutions and mediations. The hypothesis is that an internal understanding of religious traditions forms a necessary precondition of a reconciliatory dialogue required for conflict prevention and solution.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

'Trembling Curiosity': The Naturalizing of Religion in the Early Modern Period 01/10/2015 - 30/09/2018

Abstract

This research project examines the shifting relationship between curiosity and religion and argues for curiosity's centrality in new 'naturalized' accounts of religion in the early modern period (1500- 1800). At once seen as a natural human propensity, central to scientific knowledge, and a sin by some theological thinkers, British philosopher Thomas Hobbes puts curiosity to new and transformative use, making it the foundation of his explanation of religion and, in doing so, providing the resources for a naturalized account of religion, or an account that appeals to psychological, cognitive, and social features of the human being. Religion begins to be seen as a human social practice like any other, not an exceptional, supernatural phenomenon. The project uses Hobbes as an anchoring figure and then turns to David Hume and others in the period, including Spinoza and Malebranche, and focuses primarily on curiosity and related concepts like anxiety and wonder. The project analyzes the shifting relationship between new understandings of curiosity and religion in the period and seeks to use these insights to take on questions encountered today, for example, questions about whether and how religion might be part of our humanness, how and why religion persists as it does, and, in light of changing perspectives on curiosity, how to make better sense of the relationship between religious and scientific knowledge.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Neurological diversity and epigenetic influences in utero. An ethical investigation of maternal responsibility towards the future child. 01/07/2015 - 30/06/2017

Abstract

This project deals with the question of responsibility of pregnant women towards their child. As such, there is a need to investigate also the perspective of women themselves, a perspective that is sometimes overlooked in philosophical discussions on this theme. I will explicitly also investigate the ideas and theories of feminist philosophers and their viewpoints on responsibility, pregnancy and difference, and investigate the viewpoints of women in the qualitative part of the research to avoid gender bias.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Perceiving affordances in natural, social and moral environments. A study of the concept of affordance, and its explanatory value. 01/10/2014 - 30/09/2017

Abstract

When a person stretches out her hand to me, I see it as an invitation to shake her hand. In other words, I see her hand as 'shake-able'. J.J. Gibson invented a word for this phenomenon. He called it an 'affordance'. The out-stretched hand 'affords' me to shake it. Likewise, a ball flying towards me 'affords' me to catch it, if I have the right kind of skills. It has the affordance 'catch-ability'. What, now, makes it the case that I see features of situations as 'Q-able'. Clearly, not only the physical properties of the situation or object matter. Characteristics of the perceiver are involved as well, cf. my ball catching skills. A person who's never played a ball game may not see a fast flying ball as catchable. How should this mode of perception be construed? Does the perceiver 'infer' the affordance from assembled information about himself and the situation? Or is the affordance perceived 'directly', without an inferential process? Gibson endorsed the latter, but his theory doesn't provide a clear story of how direct perception of affordances should be understood. The concept of affordance is attractive for applications in many domains such as social and moral perception, but has also received a lot of criticism for its vagueness and the uncertainty of its explanatory role. This project aims at elucidating what it means to perceive affordances in their wide – physical, social and moral – application, and at providing a solid basis for their explanatory role.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Cross pressures. Charles Taylor on strong evaluation, morality, and Nietzsche. 01/10/2014 - 30/09/2016

Abstract

This project aims to come to grips with the rich philosophy of Charles Taylor by focusing on his concept of 'strong evaluation'. I argue that a close examination of this term brings out more clearly the continuing concerns of his writings as a whole. I trace back the origin of strong evaluation in Taylor's earliest writings, and continue by laying out the different philosophical themes that revolve around it. I further distinguish the separate arguments in which strong evaluation is central, uncovering several methodological conflicts in Taylor's strategies. Arguing against most of his commentators, I suggest that a distinction should be drawn between the philosophical anthropological, moral, and ontological implications of strong evaluation.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Trusting our institutions: compliance in taxation and the ethics of good governance. 01/01/2014 - 31/12/2017

Abstract

This project will investigate, first of all, how trust forms a necessary personal and collective attitude to stabilize human cooperation in the sphere of tax governance. Secondly, it will flesh out the conditions that threaten the relation between TP and TA and makes distrust to proliferate. And thirdly, it examines the hypothesis that the quality of the trust relation within the sphere of taxation derives necessarily from and mirrors the deeper trust in the quality of political governance within a given political society.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Radicalizing embodied moral emotions. 01/10/2013 - 30/09/2014

Abstract

I will propose an 'existence proof' of a theory of radical embodied moral emotions, keeping the virtues of Prinz' account of the role of emotions in morality, but without relying on 'mentalistic' concepts.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Conscience and its objections: a comprehensive investigation. 01/10/2012 - 30/09/2015

Abstract

The research project I propose will contribute to ongoing discussions on this matter in academic and popular writing. It sets itself the task of examining the central problem more comprehensively than has been done to date. I will start by clarifying the concept of 'conscience'. Building on this, I will investigate whether, and to what extent, a person is justified to act on her conscience, irrespective of what her conscience holds. In addition, I will discuss cases in which following conscience becomes problematic in the light of other moral demands.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Cross pressures. Charles Taylor on strong evaluation, morality, and Nietzsche. 01/10/2012 - 30/09/2014

Abstract

The topic of moral pluralism has become an important issue within secular, post-modern societies. However, in the struggle to deal with conflicting values, the philosophical reflection has come up with strategies that undervalue, avoid or simply neglect the tensions within contemporary moral culture. Against this background, this project intends to develop a philosophical understanding of morality which does recognize the felt 'cross pressures,' the permanent tensions between competing values within Western culture. First, by reconstructing Charles Taylor's view on contemporary moral culture through a close examination of the concept of 'strong evaluation'. Second, by exploring the potential of Nietzsche's diagnosis of nihilism for Taylor's analysis.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

From Passions to Religion. The Rhetoric and Politics of Hume's account of Superstition. 01/01/2012 - 31/12/2015

Abstract

The project challenges the idea that Hume's account of superstition exemplifies a typical radical enlightenment approach of religion. While Hume without doubt defends a profound and major critique of the religious fanaticism that stands forward in monotheism and Christendom, he defends at the same time that religion is a product of the passions and imagination and as such forms an ineradicable part of the human condition. For Hume, the major question is not how reason could replace superstition, but how a politics of religion could help to alleviate the excesses of religious passions, while at the same time fostering the sense of morality. Thus Hume's precutionary conservatism is compaticle with the acceptance of a moderate form of superstition as constitutive dimension of human sociability and civil society. This project defends that this nuanced and pragmatic position of Hume can be reconstructed on the basis of his essays and the History of England. At the same time this project wants to elucidate the relation between Hume's religious scepticism and his practical critique of superstition.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

The cross pressures of morality. Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Taylor on meaning, morals and post-modernity. 01/10/2011 - 30/09/2012

Abstract

This project provides, for the first time, a confrontation between Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), the herald of nihilism who claimed that all previous foundations of morality have been undermined, and Charles Taylor (*1931), the advocate of strong evaluation and the inevitability of meaning. The basic thought, however, is not the clash between Nietzsche and Taylor, but rather the idea that, despite several differences, there is an important level of agreement between both thinkers as well. Central to this discussion is the morally pluralistic context of post-modern Western society. How do Nietzsche and Taylor understand and evaluate the post-modern moral context, and in what respects does the dialogue between them allow for a normative account on how to move among the cross pressures of morality? Can Nietzsche's and Taylor's positive moral views be viewed as adopting a 'third' position between fundamentalism and moral relativism? This question is explored by focussing on one of the most important moral ideals of post-modernity: authenticity.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Culture of Civility: Bringing Together Justice and Stability in Divided Societies. 01/10/2011 - 31/12/2011

Abstract

This project investigates from the perspective of political philosophy and ethics the possibilities to reconcile religiously divided societies. In such societies, pluralism can hardly be framed into a framework of reasonableness. However, this project argues that an agreement among people is possible even in these societies. It defends that a culture of civility can provide a non-institutional consensus that enables citizens to reciprocate on the basis of some fundamental liberal values.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Passion, narrative, and social order in Spinoza and Hume. 01/10/2010 - 30/09/2014

Abstract

This project aims to compare the social and political views of Spinoza and Hume. Both historically and conceptually, such a comparison can be valuable. A social order is always a fragile equilibrium, Spinoza and Hume agree, determined by historical constructs such as the political system and religion. Politics must operate and look for reform within these constructs, and not on the basis of abstract principles. I will argue that the reason for this shared socio-political outlook can be found in Hume's and Spinoza's views of human nature. They regard humans as tiny parts of an impersonal natural order. Our finitude makes us very dependent on our surroundings. Therefore, our thoughts and emotions cannot be understood without taking into account their interrelations with those of other people. Now a stable social order is only possible when there is a sufficient degree of emotional harmony among a people. For such harmony, the historical constructs mentioned are indispensable. A way of thinking of these constructs is as 'narratives', i.e. as consisting of both reality-based and fictitious components, which bring a people's hopes and fears together. In both Spinoza and Hume, I will finally argue, the religious narrative holds a peculiar place. Though it may have a perverting effect on the human passions, it may also, when stripped from superstition, stimulate a social disposition.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

The Rhetoric of the Passions. Towards a Historical and Contextual Interpretation of Hume's Theory of the Passions and his Practical Critique of Religion. 01/07/2009 - 31/12/2013

Abstract

This research project develops a systematic interpretation of the relation between Hume's strictly philosophical theory of the passions and his more rhetoric-essayistic evaluation of the religious passions. The objective is to gain a better understanding of Hume's shift towards a more moderate appreciation of religious passions in his later essays and the congruence of this shift with his naturalistic account of the passionate origin of religion and religious fanaticism as such.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

An ethical and applied enquiry into the relation between pluralism, ethics and regulation in biomedical and technological matters. 01/10/2006 - 30/09/2010

Abstract

In the context of the results of biomedical and technological research, law and ethics are strongly linked to eachother. In the future, the legislator will more and more be urged to regulate the questions and problems that will be raised in this context. This proposal therefore wants to look at how the legislator should react to this.

Researcher(s)

  • Promoter: Adams Maurice
  • Co-promoter: Lemmens Willem
  • Fellow: Braspenning Sven

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Tragedy, Ethics and 'Moral Luck'. An inquiry in the light of the philosophy of culture and of moral philosophy into the limits of procedural ethics and the role of narrative traditions and worldviews in the moral experience. 01/01/2004 - 31/12/2006

Abstract

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Religious passions and emotions. Study of the specificity of the passional attachment in religion and of the crucial role of the accompanying emotions. 01/01/2002 - 31/12/2005

Abstract

This project is situated at the intersection of philosophical anthropology and the study of spirituality. It aims at the investigation of the role of passions and emotions in religious attachment(s) and identification(s). The working hypothesis is that the recent developments in the philosophical theory of the emotions, in particular moral phychology, can be assimilated and integrated in the hermeneutics of the following aspects of religion and spirituality: (i) the role of passions and emotions in religious symbolism and incarnation; (ii) the purification and/or cultivation of passions and emotions in spiritual experience; (iii) the passional attachment to the absolute and the development of an attitude of religious trust.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Ex abundantia cordis. A philosophical inquiry into the role of emotions in religion. 01/01/2002 - 31/12/2005

Abstract

Especially in the philosophy of mind and in moralphilosophy there is an important theoretical tradition on passions and emotions. These theories were never applied to the specific domain of religious passions and emotions. By doing just that this research project wants to get clarity concerning the question whether emotions hinder, accompane or constitute the religious attidtude of the subject.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Tragedy and ethics. An actualisation of the ethics of tragic choices, based on the work of Martha Nussbaum. 01/06/2001 - 31/12/2005

Abstract

The work of the american ethicist Martha Nussbaum offers a masterful analysis of greec tragedies, especially of the narrative ethics that is included in them. We would like to reflect further on the following questions a) what kind of ethics is implied in the tragic choices of Greek tragedy and b) how can this type of ethical discernment be actualised in our time, taking into account the difference of world view between us and ancient Greeks?

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

Project type(s)

  • Research Project

Passions, moral sensibility and virtue. An investigation of Hume's moral naturalism in the perspective of contemporary Anglo-American moral psychology and virtue-ethics. 01/10/1998 - 30/09/2000

Abstract

This investigation wants to://..- assess Hume's concept of moral knowledge in the context of the moral realism-debat;//..- evaluate Hume's theory of the passions from the perspective of contemporary Anglo-American moral psychology.//..- assess the relation between Hume's naturalism and his virtue ethics from the perspective of contemporary virtue ethics.

Researcher(s)

Research team(s)

    Project type(s)

    • Research Project