This final and concluding chapter highlights the main points discussed in the book and explains the importance that Early German Romanticism can have in the ecological and environmental-philosophical debate today.

The Introduction poses the book’s central question: Can Kant’s aesthetic theory support a meaningful practice of art criticism? The prevailing view says no, citing his rejection of aesthetic testimony and general principles as evidence that criticism is impossible. If testimony is ruled out, critics’ judgments lack authority; without principles, descriptive reasons seem arbitrary. The Introduction reframes these challenges and locates their solution in Kant’s neglected notion of judgments of perfection – attributive good judgments that, while nonaesthetic, can inform and support aesthetic evaluation without violating Kant’s two aesthetic tenets. Building on this insight, the book develops a hybrid model of Kantian art criticism that combines this underappreciated resource with selective elements from contemporary generalist theories, particularly Carroll’s concept of success value. The Introduction situates this project as both a response to gaps in Kant scholarship and an intervention in current debates on the role of reasons in criticism.

The Conclusion synthesizes the book’s two central phases: a revised interpretation of Kant’s theory of artistic beauty and a constructive proposal for Kantian art criticism. It recaps the main theoretical tools developed – especially the role of judgments of perfection – and their implications for contemporary debates about normativity, testimony, and the nature of criticism. The hybrid model advanced throughout the book offers a distinctive and timely alternative to both generalist and particularist frameworks. It upholds Kant’s critical legacy while equipping art criticism with renewed philosophical rigor and relevance.

This chapter is devoted to the Romantic women philosophers, and it groups their reflections on subjectivity. This chapter aims to identify a common thread that unites these women thinkers and contributes to the understanding of the Romantic Self. Despite the diversity of their perspectives, they shared a common understanding of the self as shaped by relationships with others and nature, and as incapable of imposing herself on them, a view that echoes arguments presented by the men philosophers of Romanticism. However, these women thinkers tend to focus on a particular point: the possibility for the self to create a space for her own voice and, on occasion, her actions. After the explanation of Sophie Mereau’s notion of agency, and the differences between her and Caroline Schlegel-Schelling’s political thought, the chapter focuses on Mereau’s and de Staël’s interpretations of Fichte's philosophy and their idea of autonomy. The role of memory and love in Sophie Tieck's and Dorothea Veit’s conception of the self is then analysed. The chapter closes with Günderrode’s and Bettina von Arnim’s notion of subjectivity, and its relationship with nature and society.

The development of new therapeutic methods for intervening in brain function has the potential to influence aspects of a person’s agency, including their autonomy and authenticity. To determine whether or not this is the case, we need an assay that can measure aspects of agency before and after neurointervention. This chapter introduces a framework for thinking about agency as a multidimensional construct, and describes a research project aimed at measuring agency. The authors develop an Agency Assessment Tool (AAT) using survey methods and present preliminary results from the project that shows that the AAT can characterize control and patient groups along several dimensions with a factor analysis; the results show some interesting patterns among putative conceptual dimensions with network analysis. Although the data do not go so far as to include interventions to help understand causal relations, the authors discuss the prospects for using data-driven tools to come up with ontologies of agency.

Chapter 3 analyzes some of the ways that stereotypes harm people’s sense of self and identity. One way is through expressive harm, which is the harm that results from the unwitting and inevitable perpetuation of stereotypes. Stereotypes have a pervasive cultural power that enables them to control people’s thoughts, feelings, behavior, and social interactions even when people actively disavow the stereotype. Other ways that stereotypes harm people’s sense of self and identity are through the internalization of oppressive social scripts, which ascribe motivations and expectations for behavior, and through stereotype threat, in which people inadvertently and paradoxically act in ways that correspond to stereotypes even as they are trying hard to avoid fitting stereotypes. When people with mental illness internalize oppressive social scripts and experience stereotype threat, they incorporate negative stereotypes into aspects of their experience and identity, which damages their identity and sense of self and also diminishes their autonomy.

Chapter 5 assesses harms that people with mental illness experience that are related to how their self is constituted. These include harms of de-individuation and mis-identification, but also, as this chapter focuses on, harms of social exclusion and dehumanization that result from status loss and moral distancing. Dehumanization occurs through both being reduced to a stereotyped trait and being viewed as lesser compared to others. Having a sense of belonging and being accepted as an equal member of a moral/epistemic/social community are important parts of being viewed as and viewing oneself as a full human being; these are also critical for developing and exercising autonomous agency as well as for well-being and flourishing. People with mental illness are often excluded from these communities as a result of public stigma, diminishing their autonomy and well-being. This chapter shows how dehumanization, social exclusion, and belonging uncertainty threaten belongingness and autonomy.

Chapter 6 examines what makes discrimination and microaggressions (as a form of discrimination) wrongful. Discrimination involves differential treatment where some people are treated in different, unequal, and worse ways compared to others, and where that differential treatment is based on possessing a socially undesirable trait that marks a person as bad and inferior. Discrimination is wrongful because it harms people in a variety of ways, impacting their circumstances, resources and opportunities, options, agency, autonomy, and well-being. It causes material disadvantage and distributive injustice that denies people access to resources and opportunities and prevents them from having the basic goods necessary to participation in society. It also demeans people and leads to unfair subordination, loss of deliberative freedom, and decreased autonomy. This chapter reviews the philosophical literature on discrimination to provide a pluralistic account of the many harms discrimination and microaggressions cause to people with mental illness, which altogether make discrimination wrongful.

Chapter 4 shows how internalized stigma often results in adaptive preferences that harm a person. When people incorporate aspects of negative stereotypes into their identity, they sometimes develop adaptive preferences by internalizing harmful social norms and beliefs embedded within these stereotypes. I show how people with mental illness often develop goals and desires that are shaped by these beliefs and social norms, which limits what they believe they are capable of, thus reducing their options for action and truncating their agency and autonomy. While adapting desires to one’s circumstances can be positive, as in positive adaptation, it is negative when it is harmful to a person. The adaptive preferences that result from this can be seen as rationality deficits that are oppressive and nonautonomous and that damage well-being and flourishing.

This chapter demonstrates the positive impact of the pedagogical intervention on students’ attitudes, expressed in their own words. It presents key highlights and recommendations, followed by an in-depth discussion. The sustained influence of the intervention on students’ engagement with lectures is revealed through their reflections, alongside insights into research supervisees’ experiences during their third-year projects.

This chapter synthesises current research on mathematics anxiety, tracing its precursors – such as negative emotions and attitudes – and examining its wide-ranging consequences. It explores the gendered nature of mathematics anxiety and its contribution to the persistent underrepresentation of women in STEM fields. The chapter reviews established instruments for measuring mathematics anxiety and considers key moderating factors, such as resilience and self-efficacy. Drawing on the author’s own analyses of recent empirical data, it offers new insights into the complexity and persistence of mathematics anxiety, particularly among non-specialist university students. The chapter concludes with a call to action, advocating for inclusive and emotionally intelligent pedagogical approaches that address both the cognitive and affective dimensions of mathematics learning.

The element of duty of care is covered in three sections. Section 11.1 covers the role and nature of duty – what it is there for and what it covers. Section 11.2 deals with the law on the established categories of negligence (duties and immunities). Section 11.3 discusses the methodology of negligence in cases involving novel fact scenarios, where a duty is not pre-established and needs to be developed from scratch.

Because of the complexity of this area of the law, this chapter introduces a new ‘Summary points’ feature at the ends of sections 11.1 and 11.3. It summarises the matters you should take into account when approaching a problem question and asks you to engage in an active reading exercise, linking each point with a case in that section.

The rise of the #MeToo movement has prompted a public reckoning with sexual consent, with public discourse now squarely focused on issues of sexual coercion and culpability. However, the principle of consent has a much longer history and wider significance beyond recent events. Bolstered by a social contract model that prioritises individual personhood and the protection of private property, consent has been central to the development of modern law and liberal societies (Munro, 2008). As feminist legal scholar Vanessa Munro argues, in Western legal settings, it ‘demarcate[s] the terrain between acceptable and unacceptable intrusions upon property / bodies’ (Munro, 2008, pp. 923–4) and accredits the liberal subject with its defining features of individuality, rationality and autonomy. In the specific context of sexual violence, consent is endowed with significant power (Hindes, 2022): it is used to arbitrate legal disputes over sexual assault and violence, and determine whether violation has occurred.

In this chapter I address the problem of human suffering. After giving an account of the nature of suffering, I argue that suffering does not justify intending death. However, suffering needs to be understood within the larger story of Christ’s redemptive work.

The Introduction summarises my book’s contents and highlights its key themes. I will argue that there is a human nature, from which flow a raft of ‘pre-moral’ (or ‘ultimate intrinsic’) goods. My Aristotelian (teleological and essentialist) theory of ‘natural perfectionism’ is, I will argue, compatible with Darwinism and subsequent evolutionary biology. It is not an account of normativity across the board, however. Specifically, it does not tackle the manifold quandaries that arise in the domain of practical reason; it does not treat supernatural goods (supposing these to exist); and it does not examine natural perfections in plants or the lower (non-human) animals. Two cautionary notes: first, my book treats perfectionism in the philosophical, not the colloquial, psychological, sense; more specifically, it elaborates a perfectionism of powers or faculties. Second, by focusing on powers or faculties, it avoids the pseudo-essentialisms of class, race, nation, sex etc. Last, I tackle three values that are absent from my book: namely, autonomy, pleasure and wellbeing. These cannot be natural perfections, I argue, because they fall short of being ultimate intrinsic goods.

Anosognosia, a term that denotes a lack of insight into one’s own condition, is a defining characteristic of many psychotic illnesses. As a result, generations of psychiatrists have pursued a paternalistic approach to care. Yet in the past century, the overall trend in patient care has been toward autonomy. What does it mean to respect the autonomy of patients whose lack of insight may bring them harm ? This chapter will explore these questions through each of the four principles generally employed in bioethical analysis: beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, and autonomy. Each will have an illustrative case study and explore how anosognosia can further complicate already perplexing ethical scenarios.