Books by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza
The Murdochian Mind, 2022
Iris Murdoch was a philosopher and novelist of extraordinary breadth and originality whose work d... more Iris Murdoch was a philosopher and novelist of extraordinary breadth and originality whose work defies simple categorisation. Her philosophical writing engages with an astonishingly wide range of figures, from Plato and Kant to Sartre and Heidegger, and her work increasingly inspires debate in ethics, aesthetics, religion, and literature.
The Murdochian Mind is an outstanding reference source to the full span of Murdoch's philosophical work, comprising 37 specially commissioned chapters written by an international team of leading scholars. Divided into five clear parts, the volume covers the following areas:
A guide to Murdoch's key philosophical texts, including The Sovereignty of Good and Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals.
Core themes and concepts in Murdoch's philosophy, such as love, moral vision, and attention.
Murdoch's engagement with the history of philosophy, including Plato, Kant, Hegel, Simone Weil, and Wittgenstein.
Interdisciplinary connections with art, literature, and religion, including Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity.
Murdoch and contemporary philosophical debates, including feminism, virtue ethics, and metaethics.
The application of Murdoch’s thought to applied ethics, including animal ethics, psychiatric ethics, and the environment.
Although recent years have seen a blossoming of interest in Murdoch’s philosophy, The Murdochian Mind is the first volume to do justice to the incredibly rich and wide-ranging nature of her work. As such it will be of great interest to students of philosophy, especially ethics and aesthetics, as well as those in related disciplines such as literature, religion, and gender studies.
Papers by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza
The Journal of Ethics, 2024
The phenomenon of moral transformation, though important, has received little attention in virtue... more The phenomenon of moral transformation, though important, has received little attention in virtue ethics. In this paper we propose a virtue-ethical model of moral transformation as character transformation by tracking the development of new identity-defining (‘core’) character traits, their expressions, and their priority structure, through the change in what appears as possible or impossible to the moral agent. We propose that character transformation culminates when what previously appeared as morally possible to the agent now appears impossible, i.e. unconceived and unthinkable, moving through stages of transformation where some possibilities gradually disappear while others open up. While we show an example of moral transformation towards virtue, we allow that such transformation can occur in the opposite direction, hence we make claims about ‘character traits’ rather than virtues of vices. Through the example of former slave-trader Rodrigo’s transformation in the film The Mission, we follow the parallel development of new objects of value and ways of valuing (with respect to a group of indigenous people of South America) with the closing down of the possibility of disrespecting and harming them, to the end-point of transformation, where allowing their capture is for Rodrigo both unconceived and, when conceived, unthinkable.
Philosophies, 2023
How do we see the world aright? This question is central to Iris Murdoch’s philosophy as well as ... more How do we see the world aright? This question is central to Iris Murdoch’s philosophy as well as to that of her great source of inspiration, Simone Weil. For both of them, not only our action, but the very quality of our being depends on the ability to see things as they are, where vision is both a metaphor for immediate understanding and a literal expression of the requirement to train our perception so as to get rid of illusions. For both, too, the method to achieve this goal is attention. For both, finally, attention requires a dethronement of the self, considered as the source of illusion. In this paper I investigate what moral perception means for each of these philosophers and how it operates through attention and its relationship with the self. I will show that, despite many striking similarities, Murdoch’s project does not equal ‘Weil minus God’, but offers a different concept of the self, a different understanding of its removal, and therefore a different picture of attention and moral perception. In evaluating both views, I will gesture towards a third way represented by Zen Buddhism, which both philosophers variously consider but do not embrace.
The Murdochian Mind, 2022
Penultimate draft of the chapter on Attention in The Murdochian Mind, edited by Silvia Caprioglio... more Penultimate draft of the chapter on Attention in The Murdochian Mind, edited by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza and Mark Hopwood (Routledge, forthcoming). Please quote the final published version.
European Journal of Philosophy, 2021
An important yet often unacknowledged aspect of moral discourse is the phenomenon of moral imposs... more An important yet often unacknowledged aspect of moral discourse is the phenomenon of moral impossibility, which challenges more widely accepted models of moral discussion and deliberation as choice among possible options. Starting from observations of the new possibilities of anti-immigrant attitudes and hate crimes which have been described by the press as something being 'unleashed', the paper asks what it means for something to enter or not the sphere of possibility in the moral sense, and whether it is ever desirable for something to remain or be pushed back outside the realm of the morally possible. Three forms of moral impossibility are identified: the unconceived, the unthinkable, and moral incapacity. Through the discussion of a stark fictional example of moral impossibility, the paper concludes that while the category of moral impossibility cannot settle disagreement, it sheds light on some of the most fundamental aspects of the moral life.
Journal of Animal Ethics, 2022
This paper engages with two fundamental attitudes towards the animals that are used for human con... more This paper engages with two fundamental attitudes towards the animals that are used for human consumption: attention and ironic detachment. Taken as two polarities that determine animal consumption, I discuss how these two attitudes are shaped or manifested during various en-counters with the animals in question. Starting from a striking photograph from the Lychee and Dog Meat Festival in China, I explore the embodiment of these attitudes in the “gaze” of human participants during the moment of encounter with animals that are going to be killed for food.
Journal of Value Inquiry, 2019
Among the possible ways of gaining moral knowledge, moral perception figures as a controversial y... more Among the possible ways of gaining moral knowledge, moral perception figures as a controversial yet fruitful option. If moral perception is possible, moral disagreement is addressed not by appealing to principles but to the process and the objects of perception, and moral progress occurs not through deliberation but by refining one's perceptual faculties. The possibility of "seeing clearly and justly" is at the heart of Iris Murdoch's thought, but Murdoch herself does not put forth a systematic argument for this view. In this paper I propose an argument for moral perception based on Murdoch's philosophy, while engaging with contemporary debates in moral perception. The key idea I take from Murdoch is that perception is conceptually laden, where concepts are understood as ways of grasping the world according to human concerns. Murdoch's position enables us to solve a difficult tension: explaining the motivating force of perception while maintaining objectivity in ethics. This view of moral perception also constitutes a radical position in the debate, where even the most optimistic defenses appeal to the supervenience of values on facts. If Murdoch is right, however, we perceive complex properties, including values, directly, so that appeal to supervenience becomes unnecessary and some of the grounds for the very distinction between fact and value are put into question.
Animals, 2020
In their daily practices, many ethical vegans choose what to eat, wear, and buy among a range of ... more In their daily practices, many ethical vegans choose what to eat, wear, and buy among a range of options that is limited to the exclusion of animal products: the idea of using such products is not ordinarily rejected, but does not occur as a possibility at all. In other cases, when confronted with the possibility of consuming animal products, vegans have claimed to reject it by saying that it would be impossible for them to do so. I refer to this overlooked phenomenon as 'moral impossibility'. An analysis of moral impossibility in animal ethics shows that it arises when one's very conception of 'what animals are' shifts: through encounter with other animals (physical presence) or when individuals learn in an engaged way about animals and what happens to them in production facilities (imaginative presence). This establishes a link between increased knowledge, understanding, and imaginative exploration on the one hand, and the exclusion, not of the choice, but of the very possibility of using animals as resources on the other. Taking seriously moral impossibility in veganism has two important consequences: one is that the debate around veganism needs to shift from choice and decision, toward an analysis of concepts and moral framing; the other is that moral psychology is no longer to be understood as empirical psychology plus ethical analysis, but the contents of psychological findings are themselves influenced and framed by moral reflection.
In: Panizza, S. and Wilson, P. Simone Weil: Venice Saved, Bloomsbury , 2019
Chapter on Weil's Venice Saved
Routledge Handbook of Translation and Philosophy, ed P. Rawling and P. Wilson, Routledge, 2018
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1953) is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of l... more Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1953) is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of language. He did not write extensively on translation, but this chapter shows how his insights can be applied to translation. Wittgenstein’s method, which takes pragmatic aspects of language to be of paramount importance, is discussed in relation to the ways in which translation can benefit. Four key concepts are discussed from Wittgenstein’s 1953 Philosophical Investigations: language-games; forms of life; aspect-seeing; and the surveyable representation. Language-games, for example, are the different contexts in which we use language, with particular aims and rules which give the words their specific meaning. Instead of postulating a corresponding entity for each word, which the translator needs to find, a Wittgensteinian approach to translation suggests that we first need to understand which language-games texts are playing, and within what kinds of forms of life they fit. The task of translation is to recreate similar contexts and effects, rather than identifying an absolute referent. The chapter concludes with suggestions about how to evaluate different translations by appealing to Wittgenstein’s conception of language.
forthcoming in Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (2022)
This paper takes up Axel Honneth's suggestion that we, in the 21 st century Western world, should... more This paper takes up Axel Honneth's suggestion that we, in the 21 st century Western world, should revisit the Marxian idea of reification; unlike Honneth, however, I will apply reification mainly to the ways in which humans relate to non-human animals. First, I summarise Honneth's concept of reification; then I explain why thinking about reification in relation to non-human animals is particularly important today; I end by suggesting that Iris Murdoch's idea of attention can help address the problem of reification, adding something important to Honneth's idea of recognition, and allowing us to consider reification from an ethical perspective.
Drafts by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza
Book Reviews by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza
The Iris Murdoch Review, 2023
Philosophical Investigations, 2023
Talks by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza
Iris Murdoch Conference: Literature and Philosophy in Dialogue, 2024
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Books by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza
The Murdochian Mind is an outstanding reference source to the full span of Murdoch's philosophical work, comprising 37 specially commissioned chapters written by an international team of leading scholars. Divided into five clear parts, the volume covers the following areas:
A guide to Murdoch's key philosophical texts, including The Sovereignty of Good and Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals.
Core themes and concepts in Murdoch's philosophy, such as love, moral vision, and attention.
Murdoch's engagement with the history of philosophy, including Plato, Kant, Hegel, Simone Weil, and Wittgenstein.
Interdisciplinary connections with art, literature, and religion, including Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity.
Murdoch and contemporary philosophical debates, including feminism, virtue ethics, and metaethics.
The application of Murdoch’s thought to applied ethics, including animal ethics, psychiatric ethics, and the environment.
Although recent years have seen a blossoming of interest in Murdoch’s philosophy, The Murdochian Mind is the first volume to do justice to the incredibly rich and wide-ranging nature of her work. As such it will be of great interest to students of philosophy, especially ethics and aesthetics, as well as those in related disciplines such as literature, religion, and gender studies.
Papers by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza
Drafts by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza
Book Reviews by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza
Talks by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza
The Murdochian Mind is an outstanding reference source to the full span of Murdoch's philosophical work, comprising 37 specially commissioned chapters written by an international team of leading scholars. Divided into five clear parts, the volume covers the following areas:
A guide to Murdoch's key philosophical texts, including The Sovereignty of Good and Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals.
Core themes and concepts in Murdoch's philosophy, such as love, moral vision, and attention.
Murdoch's engagement with the history of philosophy, including Plato, Kant, Hegel, Simone Weil, and Wittgenstein.
Interdisciplinary connections with art, literature, and religion, including Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity.
Murdoch and contemporary philosophical debates, including feminism, virtue ethics, and metaethics.
The application of Murdoch’s thought to applied ethics, including animal ethics, psychiatric ethics, and the environment.
Although recent years have seen a blossoming of interest in Murdoch’s philosophy, The Murdochian Mind is the first volume to do justice to the incredibly rich and wide-ranging nature of her work. As such it will be of great interest to students of philosophy, especially ethics and aesthetics, as well as those in related disciplines such as literature, religion, and gender studies.