In this paper, I take up the conciliatory-steadfast debate occurring within social epistemology in regards to the phenomenon of peer disagreement. I will argue, because the conciliatory perspective al-lows us to understand argumentation pragmatically—as a method of problem-solving within a community rather than as a method for obtaining the truth—that in most cases, we should not simply agree to disagree.

A theory of analogy must describe how the meaning of an analogy is derived from the meanings of its parts. In the structure‐mapping theory, the interpretation rules are characterized as implicit rules for mapping knowledge about a base domain into a target domain. Two important features of the theory are (a) the rules depend only on syntactic properties of the knowledge representation, and not on the specific content of the domains; and (b) the theoretical framework allows analogies to (...) be distinguished cleanly from literal similarity statements, applications of abstractions, and other kinds of comparisons.Two mapping principles are described: (a) Relations between objects, rather than attributes of objects, are mapped from base to target; and (b) The particular relations mapped are determined by systematicity, as defined by the existence of higher‐order relations. (shrink)

This paper explores the notion that business calls for an adversarial ethic, akin to that of sport. On this view, because of their competitive structure, both sport and business call for behaviours that are contrary to ‘ordinary morality’, and yet are ultimately justified because of the goods they facilitate. I develop three objections to this analogy. Firstly, there is an important qualitative difference between harms risked voluntarily and harms risked involuntarily. Secondly, the goods achieved by adversarial relationships in sport (...) go beyond the function of sport, i.e. to entertain audiences. Thirdly, the most plausible account of the athlete’s motivational development starts with their love of the sport, which can explain a commitment to the sporting ethics in a way that is not paralleled in business. I close by drawing attention to the ways in which an Aristotelian conception of business ethics may be able to accommodate these objections. (shrink)

This article explains the problems with Alan Shewmon’s critique of brain death as a valid sign of human death, beginning with a critical examination of his analogy between brain death and severe spinal cord injury. The article then goes on to assess his broader argument against the necessity of the brain for adult human organismal integration, arguing that he fails to translate correctly from biological to metaphysical claims. Finally, on the basis of a deeper metaphysical analysis, I offer a (...) revised rationale for the validity of the neurological criterion of human death. (shrink)

This article proposes a conceptual mapping to outline salient properties and relations that allow for a knowledge transfer from the well-established greenwashing phenomenon to the more recent machinewashing. We account for relevant dissimilarities, indicating where conceptual boundaries may be drawn. Guided by a “reasoning by analogy” approach, the article addresses the structural analogy and machinewashing idiosyncrasies leading to a novel and theoretically informed model of machinewashing. Consequently, machinewashing is defined as a strategy that organizations adopt to engage in (...) misleading behavior about ethical Artificial Intelligence /algorithmic systems. Machinewashing involves misleading information about ethical AI communicated or omitted via words, visuals, or the underlying algorithm of AI itself. Furthermore, and going beyond greenwashing, machinewashing may be used for symbolic actions such as lobbying and prevention of stricter regulation. By outlining diverse theoretical foundations of the established greenwashing domain and their relation to specific research questions, the article proposes a machinewashing model and a set of theory-related research questions on the macro, meso, and micro-level for future machinewashing research. We conclude by stressing limitations and by outlining practical implications for organizations and policymakers. (shrink)

Is the science of moral cognition usefully modelled on aspects of Universal Grammar? Are human beings born with an innate 'moral grammar' that causes them to analyse human action in terms of its moral structure, with just as little awareness as they analyse human speech in terms of its grammatical structure? Questions like these have been at the forefront of moral psychology ever since John Mikhail revived them in his influential work on the linguistic analogy and its implications for (...) jurisprudence and moral theory. In this seminal book, Mikhail offers a careful and sustained analysis of the moral grammar hypothesis, showing how some of John Rawls' original ideas about the linguistic analogy, together with famous thought experiments like the trolley problem, can be used to improve our understanding of moral and legal judgement. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unusually challenging and dangerous workplace conditions for key workers. This has prompted calls for key workers to receive a variety of special benefits over and above their normal pay. Here, we consider whether two such benefits are justified: a no-fault compensation scheme for harm caused by an epidemic and hazard pay for the risks and burdens of working during an epidemic. Both forms of benefit are often made available to members of the armed forces for (...) the harms, risks and burdens that come with military service. We argue from analogy that these benefits also ought to be provided to key workers during an epidemic because, like the military, key workers face unavoidable harms, risks and burdens in providing essential public good. The amount of compensation should be proportional to the harm suffered and the amount of hazard pay should be proportional to the risk and burden endured. Therefore, key workers should receive the same amount of compensation and hazard pay as the military where the harms, risks and burdens are equivalent. In the UK, a form of no-fault compensation has recently been made available to the surviving families of key workers who suffer fatal COVID-19 infections. According to our argument, however, it is insufficient because it offers less to key workers than is made available to the families of armed services personnel killed on duty. (shrink)

In The Fragmentation of Being, Kris McDaniel argues for ontological pluralism, proposing that we should accept not just being itself but also modes of being into which being fragments. McDaniel’s guiding idea is that being is analogous, and given the analogy of being, being should be taken to fragment into modes of being. I argue that even if McDaniel is right that being is analogous, ontological pluralism is not forced upon us. Given the analogy of being, objects don’t (...) have being simpliciter but have it in virtue of having something more fundamental particular to them. Upon examination, this falls short of supporting ontological pluralism, for the analogy of being implies that there are many grounds of being, but we are given no good reason for taking grounds of being as modes of being. (shrink)

Reasoning that compares two objects or situations to draw conclusions about previously unknown properties of one of them has traditionally been taken to be ampliative and probabilistic. I propose that it is apodeictic reasoning from a premise about isomorphic structures that is often uncertain, but which we may have good reasons to believe. I characterize the structures and their isomorphism, describe patterns of reasoning appropriate to them, and discuss some complications not immediately obvious.

The thesis we develop in this essay is that all humans are endowed with a moral faculty. The moral faculty enables us to produce moral judgments on the basis of the causes and consequences of actions. As an empirical research program, we follow the framework of modern linguistics.1 The spirit of the argument dates back at least to the economist Adam Smith (1759/1976) who argued for something akin to a moral grammar, and more recently, to the political philosopher John Rawls (...) (1971). The logic of the argument, however, comes from Noam Chomsky’s thinking on language specifically and the nature of knowledge more generally (Chomsky, 1986, 1988, 2000; Saporta, 1978). If the nature of moral knowledge is comparable in some way to the nature of linguistic knowledge, as defended recently by Harman (1977), Dwyer (1999, 2004), and Mikhail (2000; in press), then what should we expect to find when we look at the anatomy of our moral faculty? Is there a grammar, and if so, how can the moral grammarian uncover its structure? Are we aware of our moral grammar, its method of operation, and its moment-to-moment functioning in our judgments? Is there a universal moral grammar that allows each child to build a particular moral grammar? Once acquired, are different moral grammars mutually incomprehensible in the same way that a native Chinese speaker finds a native Italian speaker incomprehensible? How does the child acquire a particular moral grammar, especially if her experiences are impoverished relative to the moral judgments she makes? Are there certain forms of brain damage that disrupt moral competence but leave other forms of reasoning intact? And how did this machinery evolve, and for what particular adaptive function? We will have more to say about many of these questions later on, and Hauser (2006) develops others. However, in order to flesh out the key ideas and particular empirical research paths, let us turn to some of the central questions in the study of our language faculty.. (shrink)

In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, an important conceptual battleground for democratic theorists ought to be, it would seem, the capitalist firm. We are now painfully aware that the typical model of government in so-called investor-owned companies remains profoundly oligarchic, hierarchical, and unequal. Renewing with the literature of the 1970s and 1980s on workplace democracy, a few political theorists have started to advocate democratic reforms of the workplace by relying on an analogy between firm and state. (...) To the extent that a firm is an organization comparable to the state, it too ought to be ruled along democratic lines. Our paper tests the robustness of the analogy between firm and state by considering six major objections to it: the objection from a difference in ends, the objection from shareholders’ property rights, the objection from worker’s consent, the objection from workers’ exit opportunities, the objection from workers’ expertise, and the objection from the fragility of firms. We find all of these objections wanting. While the paper does not ambition to settle the issue of workplace democracy at once, our goal is to pave the way for a more in-depth study of the ways in which firms and states can be compared and the possible implications this may have for our understanding of the nature of managerial authority and the governance of firms. (shrink)

In this paper, I do three things. First, I say what I mean by a ‘companions in guilt’ argument in meta-ethics. Second, I distinguish between two kinds of argument within this family, which I call ‘arguments by entailment’ and ‘arguments by analogy’. Third, I explore the prospects for companions in guilt arguments by analogy. During the course of this discussion, I identify a distinctive variety of argument, which I call ‘arguments by absorption’. I argue that this variety of (...) argument inherits some of the weaknesses of standard arguments by analogy and entailment without obviously adding to their strength. (shrink)

An analogy is sometimes drawn between the proper treatment of conscientious objectors in healthcare and in military contexts. In this paper, I consider an aspect of this analogy that has not, to my knowledge, been considered in debates about conscientious objection in healthcare. In the USA and elsewhere, tribunals have been tasked with the responsibility of recommending particular forms of alternative service for conscientious objectors. Military conscripts who have a conscientious objection to active military service, and whose objections (...) are deemed acceptable, are required either to serve the military in a non-combat role, or assigned some form of community service that does not contribute to the effectiveness of the military. I argue that consideration of the role that military tribunals have played in determining the appropriate form of alternative service for conscripts who are conscientious objectors can help us to understand how conscientious objectors in healthcare ought to be treated. Additionally, I show that it helps us to address the vexed issue of whether or not conscientious objectors who refuse to provide a service requested by a patient should be required to refer that patient to another healthcare professional. (shrink)

I draw on the literature on skeptical theism to develop an argument against Christian theism based on the widespread existence of suffering that appears to its sufferer to be gratuitous and is combined with the sense that God has abandoned one or never existed in the first place. While the core idea of the argument is hardly novel, key elements of the argument are importantly different from other influential arguments against Christian theism. After explaining that argument, I make the case (...) that the argument is untouched by traditional skeptical theism. I then consider positive skeptical theism, arguing that while DePoe’s view might provide a response to my argument, it entangles the theist in worries about divine deception. Because traditional skeptical theism and DePoe’s positive skeptical theism constitute the most promising extant strategies for answering my argument, the argument constitutes a serious challenge for the Christian theist. My overall aim, then, is to draw on various strands of the skeptical theism literature to present a challenge for all Christian theists, not just those in the skeptical theist camp, while at the same time revealing some important limitations of skeptical theism. (shrink)

'Autonomy' is originally a political notion. In this chapter, I argue that the political theory Kant defended while he was writing the _Groundwork_ sheds light on the difficulties that are commonly associated with his account of moral autonomy. I argue that Kant's account of the two-tiered structure of political legislation, in his _Feyerabend Lectures on Natural Law_, parallels his distinction between two levels of moral legislation, and that this helps to explain why Kant could regard the notion of 'autonomy' as (...) apt to express the principle of morality---at least in the mid 1780s. (shrink)

Cryopreservation presents the possibility of circumventing irreversible death through the body’s extreme cooling. Once cooled, this ‘cryon’ is then stored at sub-zero temperatures until medical kno...

The genetically-modified-organism (GMO) experience has been prominent in motivating science, industry, and regulatory communities to address the social and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. However, there are some significant problems with the GMO-nanotech analogy. First, it overstates the likelihood of a GMO-like backlash against nanotechnology. Second, it invites misconceptions about the reasons for public engagement and social and ethical issues research as well as their appropriate roles in nanotech research, development, application, commercialization, and regulatory processes. After an explication of the (...) standard GMO-Nanotech analogy, these two problems are discussed in turn. (shrink)

According to an important analogy between knowledge and action, as proposed by Timothy Williamson, intention aims at action just as belief aims at knowledge. This paper investigates the analogy and discusses three difficulties that it has to face. The key is to distinguish between two different norms of intention and to see that the knowledge-action analogy is concerned with one of them only, namely, the realization norm: one ought to intentionally act if one intends to act in (...) a certain way. A modification will be proposed that replaces intention by correct intention, and some work will be done with the aim of uncovering a frame for how to properly understand the analogy and what it ultimately is grounded on, namely, the normativity of capacities that are in the business of generating various states and of realizing one’s correct intentions. Thus, a modified knowledge-action analogy will be vindicated in the end. (shrink)

In this paper, it is shown (1) that there are two schemes for argument from analogy that seem to be competitors but are not, (2) how one of them is based on a distinctive type of similarity premise, (3) how to analyze the notion of similarity using story schemes illustrated by some cases, (4) how arguments from precedent are based on arguments from analogy, and in many instances arguments from classification, and (5) that when similarity is defined by (...) means of episode schemes, we can get a clearer idea of how it integrates with the use of argument from classification and argument from precedent in case-based reasoning by using a dialogue structure. (shrink)

In its formlessness and potentiality, prime matter is a problematic entity of medieval metaphysics and its ontological limitations drastically affect human possibility of conceiving it. In this article, I analyse three influential strategies elaborated to justify an epistemic access to prime matter. They are incidental perception, negative abstraction, and analogy. Through a systematic and historical analysis of these procedures, the article shows the richness of interpretations and theoretical stakes implied by the conundrum of how prime matter can be known (...) by human beings. In particular, the reasons behind the later medieval acceptance of analogy as the main way to unveil prime matter become clearer by pointing out the correlation between the ontological and epistemological levels of the medieval examination of prime matter. (shrink)

Chronic pain is one of the most disabling medical conditions globally, yet, to date, we lack a satisfying theoretical framework for research and clinical practice. Over the prior decades, several frameworks have been presented with biopsychosocial models as the most promising. However, in translation to clinical practice, these models are often applied in an overly reductionist manner, leaving much to be desired. In particular, they often fail to characterize the complexities and dynamics of the lived experience of chronic pain. Recently, (...) an enactive, affordance-based approach has been proposed, opening up new ways to view chronic pain. This model characterizes how the persistence of pain alters a person’s field of affordances: the unfolding set of action possibilities that a person perceives as available to them. The affordance-based model provides a promising perspective on chronic pain as it allows for a systematic investigation of the interactive relation between patients and their environment, including characteristic alterations in the experience of their bodies and the space they inhabit. To help bridge the gap from philosophy to clinical practice, we unpack in this paper the core concepts of an affordance-based approach to chronic pain and their clinical implications, highlighting aspects that have so far received insufficient attention. We do so with an analogy to playing video games, as we consider such comparative illustration a useful tool to convey the complex concepts in an affordance-based model and further explore central aspects of the lived experience of chronic pain. (shrink)

This research investigates the development of analogy: In particular, we wish to study the development of systematicity in analogy. Systematicity refers to the mapping of systems of mutually constraining relations, such as causal chains or chains of implication. A preference for systematic mappings is a central aspect of analogical processing in adults (Gentner, 1980, 1983). This research asks two questions: Does systematicity make analogical mapping easier? And, if so, when, developmentally, do children become able to utilize systematicity?Children aged (...) 5–7 and 8–10 acted out stories with toy characters. Then they were asked to act out the same stories with new characters. Two variables were manipulated: systematicity, or the degree of explicit causal structure in the original stories, and the transparency of the object‐mappings. Transparency was manipulated by varying the similarity between the original characters and the corresponding new characters: it was included in order to vary the difficulty of the transfer task. If children can utilize systematicity, then their transfer accuracy should be greater for systematic stories.The results show: (1) As expected, transparency strongly influenced transfer accuracy (for both age groups, transfer accuracy dropped sharply as the object correspondences became less transparent); and (2) for the older group, there was also a strong effect of systematicity and an interaction between the two variables. Given a systematic story, 9‐year‐olds could transfer it accurately regardless of the transparency of the object correspondence. (shrink)

The λ-continuum of inductive methods was derived from an assumption, called λ-condition, which says that the probability of finding an individual having property $x_{j}$ depends only on the number of observed individuals having property $x_{j}$ and on the total number of observed individuals. So, according to that assumption, all individuals with properties which are different from $x_{j}$ have equal weight with respect to that probability and, in particular, it does not matter whether any individual was observed having some property similar (...) to $x_{j}$ (the most complete proof of this result is presented in Carnap, 1980). The problem thus remained open to find some general condition, weaker than the λ-condition, which would allow for the derivation of probability functions which might be sensitive to similarity. Carnap himself suggested a weakening of the λ-condition which might allow for similarity sensitive probability functions (Carnap, 1980, p. 45) but he did not find the family of probability functions derivable from that principle. The aim of this paper is to present the family of probability functions derivable from Carnap's suggestion and to show how it is derived. In Section 1 the general problem of analogy by similarity in inductive logic is presented, Section 2 outlines the notation and the conceptual background involved in the proof, Section 3 gives the proof, Section 4 discusses Carnap's principle and the result, Section 5 is a brief review of the solutions which have previously been proposed. (shrink)

In this paper, William Alston's argument from religious experience in Perceiving God is characterized and assessed as an indirect analogy-argument. Such arguments, I propose, should establish two similarities between sense perception (SP) and religious experience (CMP): a structural and a functional. I argue that Alston neglects functional similarity, and that SP and CMP actually perform different functions within the practices they belong to. Alston's argument is therefore significantly weaker than generally assumed. Finally, I argue that regardless of whether an (...) increased emphasis on fruits could strengthen indirect analogy-arguments or not, this is not a strategy available to Alston as long as he retains his commitments to religious exclusivism and a religious metaphysical realism. (Published Online July 10 2006). (shrink)

The analogy between artificial selection of domestic varieties and natural selection in nature was a vital element of Darwin's argument in his Origin of Species. Ever since, the image of breeders creating new varieties by artificial selection has served as a convincing illustration of how the theory works. In this paper I argue that we need to reconsider our understanding of Darwin's analogy. Contrary to what is often assumed, nineteenth-century animal breeding practices constituted a highly controversial field that (...) was fraught with difficulties. It was only with considerable effort that Darwin forged his analogy, and he only succeeded by downplaying the importance of two other breeding techniques - crossing of varieties and inbreeding - that many breeders deemed essential to obtain new varieties. Part of the explanation for Darwin's gloss on breeding practices, I shall argue, was that the methods of his main informants, the breeders of fancy pigeons, were not representative of what went on in the breeding world at large. Darwin seems to have been eager to take the pigeon fanciers at their word, however, as it was only their methods that provided him with the perfect analogy with natural selection. Thus while his studies of domestic varieties were important for the development of the concept of natural selection, the reverse was also true: Darwin's comprehension of breeding practices was moulded by his understanding of the working of natural selection in nature. Historical studies of domestic breeding practices in the eighteenth and nineteenth century confirm that, besides selection, the techniques of inbreeding and crossing were much more important than Darwin's interpretation allowed for. And they still are today. This calls for a reconsideration of the pedagogic use of Darwin's analogy too. (shrink)

This paper argues for a reinterpretation of the skill analogy in virtue ethics. It argues that the skill analogy should not be understood as proposing that being virtuous is analogous to possessing a practical skill but, rather, as proposing that being virtuous is analogous to being a good occupant of a skill-involving role. The paper argues for this by engaging with various standard objections to the analogy, two recent defences of it, and Aristotle’s treatment of it in (...) developing his account of virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics. It aims to show that neither virtue nor the skill analogy is correctly understood without recourse to the notion of a role and that once we have recourse to that notion, many objections to the analogy are met. (shrink)

This paper makes two main arguments. First, that to understand analogy in St. Thomas Aquinas, one must distinguish two logically distinct concepts he inherited from Aristotle: one a kind of likeness between things, the other a kind of relation between linguistic functions. Second, that analogy (in both of these senses) plays a relatively small role in Aquinas's treatment of divine naming, compared to the realist semantic framework in which questions about divine naming are formulated and resolved, and on (...) which the coherence of the doctrine of divine simplicity—which is what gives rise to the questions of divine naming in the first place—depends. (shrink)

I. INTRODUCTIONIs Jesus the perfect human being? An affirmative response seems unavoidable for classical Christology. Indeed, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the gathered bishops and representatives of the church across Africa, Asia, and Europe agreed that Jesus Christ was “perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity”: teleion…en Theótæti kai teleion…en anthropótæti.Theologians and patristics scholars alike often sort through the second part of this formula in the way that the remainder of the conciliar definition itself seems to indicate, interpreting (...) it to mean that nothing that belongs to the humanity we share can be lacking in the humanity of Jesus, and nothing belongs to Him that would compromise the human form. He does not, for instance, have a body animated by a divine spirit in place of a human will, or a superhuman ability to translocate. This is theologically appropriate as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. (shrink)

Successful accounts of analogy in law have two burdens to discharge. First, they must reflect the fact that the conclusion of an argument by analogy is a normative claim about how to decide a certain case. Second, they must not fail to accord relevance to the fact that the source case was authoritatively decided in a certain way. We argue in the first half of this paper that the common view of the structure of analogical arguments in law (...) cannot overcome these hurdles. In the second half we develop an original account that aims to succeed where others failed. (shrink)

We analyze the logical form of the domain knowledge that grounds analogical inferences and generalizations from a single instance. The form of the assumptions which justify analogies is given schematically as the "determination rule", so called because it expresses the relation of one set of variables determining the values of another set. The determination relation is a logical generalization of the different types of dependency relations defined in database theory. Specifically, we define determination as a relation between schemata of first (...) order logic that have two kinds of free variables: (1) object variables and (2) what we call "polar" variables, which hold the place of truth values. Determination rules facilitate sound rule inference and valid conclusions projected by analogy from single instances, without implying what the conclusion should be prior to an inspection of the instance. They also provide a way to specify what information is sufficiently relevant to decide a question, prior to knowledge of the answer to the question. (shrink)

In Sect. 1 an argument for Yogācāra Buddhist Idealism, here understood as the view that everything in the universe is of the nature of consciousness / cognition, is laid out. The prior history of the argument is also recounted. In Sect. 2 the role played in this argument by light as an analogy for cognition is analyzed. Four separate aspects of the light analogy are discerned. In Sect. 3, I argue that although light is in some ways a (...) helpful analogy for the Buddhist Idealist, in other ways it is thoroughly inappropriate. At the end of the article I ask whether the lack of fit between light and cognition is unavoidable, or whether the Buddhist Idealists could have chosen a better analogy. (shrink)

A reply to hyslop and jackson, American philosophical quarterly, April 1972: I argue that the argument form analogy begs the question, Much as does the inductive justification of induction, Of which it is a version.

Many psychologists think that concepts should be understood on analogy with the terms of scientific theories, yet the significance of this claim has always been obscure. In this paper, I clarify the psychological content of the theory analogy, focusing on influential pieces by Susan Carey. Once plainly put, the analogy amounts to the view that a mental representation has its semantic properties by virtue of its role in a restricted knowledge structure. One of the commendable things about (...) Carey's work is that, unlike many other psychologists who appeal to the theory analogy, she takes seriously the need to specify how these structures are constrained. At the same time, the constraints she offers are insufficient. Her account also faces challenges from work in the semantics of natural kind terms. (shrink)

Bok defines lying in the same way as Augustine and Kant. But she wants to oppose their position that one cannot lie to save an innocent life. This position was successfully and consistently opposed by Constant and Grotius who did so by redefining lying so that the untruth one tells to save an innocent life does not count as a lie since it does not violate a right. Bok refuses to use this way. She instead uses her analogy of (...) deception and violence. But this analogy is not, as she believes it is, intuitively clear or a good a fortiori argument. Still, if one pays attention to the ordinary sense of the words Bok uses in her confused analogy, deception and lying, force and violence, one realizes that Bok's analogy has some persuasive power, not because violence and lying are right means to save a life, but because force and deception, or force or deception are. And to see why this is so requires that Constant and Grotius's way of opposing Kant, and their definition of lying, must be adopted. Bok's apparent success with her analogy of force and lying is due to the fact that it is a shadow of the more genuine success of the analogy of force and violence and deception and lying which requires Constant and Grotius's definition of deception and lying. Thus her way of opposing Augustine and Kant is weak in trying to do it in a new approach and demonstrates the advantages of Constant and Grotius's approach. (shrink)