Admiration, Moral Knowledge and Transformative Experiences

In this paper, I examine the role played by the emotion of admiration in formulating moral judgments. First, I discuss whether and when admiration is a reliable source of moral knowledge, or, on the contrary, it misleads the subject, leaving her prey to forms of uncritical devotion to unworthy objects of admiration. To do so, I tryto elucidate which underlying theory of emotions best allows one to characterize admiration as a reliable source of moral knowledge. Second, I introduce the notion of transformative moral experience, understood as a subclass of transformative experiences (cf. Paul 2014), and I argue that it is precisely admiration that ensures the rationality of the choices made in such experiences. Finally, in light of this analysis, I show how admiration-together with the constellation of positive and negative emotions connected to the perception of moral exemplarity-acts as a central element for the maintenance of moral integrity. I defend, in particular, the idea that integrity should not be understood as mere coherence, nor as a static maintenance of the moral status quo, but as being firmly rooted in one's own identity yet open to novelty (see Rees and Webber 2014; Cox, La Caze, and Levine 2014, 2017) and especially to the novelty represented by transformative moral experiences

A Guide to Moral Knowledge. The Epistemic Role of Moral Emotions

In this paper, I defend the epistemic role of moral emotions. After some introductory remarks, by making use of an attitudinal theory of emotions, I claim that emotions are to be conceived as intentional states directed towards evaluative properties in the world, and have therefore both correctness conditions and justification conditions. Then, I define and list moral emotions, and I defend the objective status of evaluative and moral properties. Such preliminary moves allow me to make my main point. Firstly, when discussing the standards to assess if moral emotions\u2019 formal object can be counted as an epistemic one, I propose a threefold intentionality theory of moral emotions, which allows me to equate their secondary formal objects to those of epistemic emotions. Secondly, when considering the roles moral emotions must play in order to be counted as epistemically relevant, I defend both the direct justificatory role and the indirect motivational role of moral emotions

La realtà è iconoclastica: forme del realismo in Iris Murdoch (e C.S. Lewis)

The purpose of this paper is to highlight that the word ‘realism’ has a complex status in Iris Murdoch’s thought, since it refers to different (while converging) meanings: a metaethical thesis, a methodological practice and an existential position which is surprisingly analogous to that phenomenologically described in C.S. Lewis’s work A Grief Observed. I have therefore three tasks: i) giving and account of the debate on moral realism as a metaethical theory in Iris Murdoch; ii) analyzing her ‘methodological’ and ‘existential’ realism; iii) showing the symmetries among Murdoch’s existential realism and C.S. Lewis’s on

Virtue ethics: an anti-moralistic defence

open1The aim of this paper is to single out four main kinds of ethical moralism, which might be associated to virtue ethics, and to offer a virtue-ethical response to each. By doing so, I aim at defending virtue ethics, properly understood, from the intrinsic danger of a moralistic drift. I begin by proposing a definition of moralism and a list of its main forms. I define moralism as the "perception of a moral judgment as coming from outside the agent", and I single four main forms out, which I label Inflexibility moralism (IM), Pervasivity moralism (PM), Extremeness moralism (EM) and Unentitlement moralism (UM). Then, I list the main features of the virtue-ethical perspective I embrace, and finally, I argue that such normative approach can prevent a moralistic drift, insofar as it effectively avoids the mentioned charges. Thus, I conclude that a virtue-ethical approach, thanks to its capacity of reconciling reasons and motives, and to its proposing a first-personal perspective on morality, has an advantage in presenting moral requirements in a non-moralistic fashion.openVaccarezza, SVaccarezza,

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide and the sirtuins caution: Pro-cancer functions

This scoping review aims to perform a brief but comprehensive assessment of existing peer-reviewed literature and determine whether raising nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide can prevent or promote tumorigenesis. The examination of extensive peer-reviewed data regarding the synthesis of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide has been performed with a focus on nuclear dynamics and the deoxyribose nucleic acid repair pathway. Various enzymatic protective functions have been identified from nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide levels, as well as the threat role that is also explored. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide precursors and sirtuin-activating compounds are becoming ubiquitous in the commercial market. Further research into whether elevating levels of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide or overexpression of sirtuins can increase the potential for neoplasm or other age-related pathophysiology is warranted due to the high energy requirements of certain diseases such as cancer

The SPARC_LAB Thomson source

The SPARC_LAB Thomson source is a compact X-ray source based on the Thomson backscattering process presently under its second phase of commissioning at the LNF. The electron beam energy ranges between 30 and 150 MeV, the electrons collide head-on with the Ti:Sapphire FLAME laser pulse the energy of which ranges between 1 and 5 J with pulse lengths in the 25 fs–10 ps range, this provides an X-ray energy tunability in the range of 20–500 keV, with the further capability to generate strongly non-linear phenomena and to drive diffusion processes due to multiple and plural scattering effects. The experimental results of the obtained X-ray radiation are presented

Santi, eroi e l’unità delle virtù. Una proposta esemplarista di educazione morale

This article sheds light on moral education from an exemplarist perspective. Following Linda Zagzebski's Exemplarist Virtue Theory, we relate several fundamental exemplarist intuitions to the classical virtue ethical debate over the unity-disunity of the virtues, to endorse a pluralistic exemplar-based approach to moral education ("Empe"). After a few preliminary remarks, we argue that Empe amounts to defending "a prima facie" disunitarist perspective in moral theory, which admits both exemplarity in all respects (moral sainthood) and single-domain exemplarity (moral heroism). Then, we evaluate the effectiveness of heroes and saints for moral education, according to four criteria derived from Empe. This analysis allows us to conclude that moral education should value both kinds of exemplars and, therefore, adopt weaker standards of exemplarity than the unitarist's ones