(von der Malsburg, 1981), “the binding problem” has with the visual percept of it, so that both are effortlessly captured the attention of researchers across many disci- perceived as being aspects of a single event. I like to plines, including psychology, neuroscience, computa- refer to these sorts of problems as perceptual binding tional modeling, and even philosophy. Despite the is- problems, since they involve unifying aspects of per- sue’s prominence in these fields, what “binding” means cepts. In addition, there are (...) cognitive binding problems: is rarely made explicit. In this paper, I will briefly survey they include relating a concept to a percept, such as the many notions of binding and will introduce some linking the visual representation of an apple to all the issues that will be explored more fully in the reviews semantic knowledge stored about it (it is edible, how it that follow. (shrink)

Images come in many varieties, but for evidential purposes, photographs are privileged. Recent advances in neuroimaging provide us with a new type of image that is used as scientific evidence. Brain images are epistemically compelling, in part because they are liable to be viewed as akin to photographs of brain activity. Here I consider features of photography that underlie the evidential status we accord it, and argue that neuroimaging diverges from photography in ways that seriously undermine the photographic analogy. While (...) neuroimaging remains an important source of scientific evidence, proper interpretation of brain images is much more complex than it appears. ‡This work was supported in part by a grant from the Leslie Humanities Center at Dartmouth College. I thank John Kulvicki for helpful comments, and Kim Sterelny, for making it possible for me to spend some time at the ANU with a grant from the Australian Research Council. †To contact the author, please write to: Dartmouth College, Department of Philosophy, Hanover, NH 03755; e-mail: adina[email protected]. (shrink)

ics. Each of these can be pursued independently to a large extent, but perhaps most intriguing is to contem- plate how progress in each will affect the other. The past several months have seen heightened interest <blockquote> _<b>The Ethics of Neuroscience</b>_ </blockquote> in the intersection of ethics and neuroscience. In the The ethics of neuroscience can be roughly subdivided popular press, the topic grabbed headlines in a May.

Duncan Black made a significant contribution to the development of public choice theory during his lifetime. Upon his death it became apparent that much of his scholarship and critique of economics was never published. Formal Contributions to the Theory of Public Choice is a collection of Duncan Black's unpublished works, representing his continuing contribution to economics and political science. It provides an insight into Black's intellectual endeavors and introduces some new ideas and extensions of earlier work.

This paper reviews the literature on male backlash in organizations, proposing a research agenda. It defines backlash, examines its causes and manifestations, who is likely to exhibit it, and offers suggestions for addressing backlash. Backlash may be on the increase in organizations and society at large. Current efforts to weaken or remove the legislative support for employment equity initiatives are one sign of this.

Dan ZAHAVI, Husserl and Transcendental Intersubjectivity. A Response to the Linguistic-Pragmatic Critique ; Françoise DASTUR, Chair et langage. Essais sur Merleau-Ponty ; Jean GREISCH, Michel Henry et l’épreuve de la vie ; Elisabeth STRÖKER, The Husserlian Foundations of Science ; John McCUMBER, Metaphysics and Oppression, Heidegger’s Challenge to Western Philosophy ; Marc RICHIR, Phénoménologie en esquisses. Nouvelles fondations ; Raphaël GÉLY, La genèse du sentir. Essai sur Merleau-Ponty ; John SALLIS, Force of Imagination: The Sense of the Elemental ; Bin (...) KIMURA, L’entre. Une approche phénoménologique de la schizophrénie ; Dermot MORAN, Tim MOONEY, The Phenomenology Reader ; Ion COPOERU, Structuri ale constituirii ; Fabio CIARAMELLI, La distruzione del’desiderio. Il narcisismo nell’epoca di consumo di massa ; Pierre KELLER, Husserl and Heidegger on Human Experience. (shrink)

A growing body of empirical research examines the effects of the so-called “social determinants of health” on health and health inequalities. Several high-profile publications have issued policy recommendations to reduce health inequalities based on a specific interpretation of this empirical research as well as a set of normative assumptions. This article questions the framework defined by these assumptions by focusing on two issues: first, the normative judgments about the fairness of particular health inequalities; and second, the policy recommendations issued on (...) this basis. We argue that the normative underpinnings of the approach are insufficiently supported and that the policy recommendations do not necessarily follow from the arguments provided. Furthermore, while many of the policies recommended—such as improving people's living conditions and reducing inequalities in wealth and power—are justified in their own right, the way these recommendations are tied to health is problematic. (shrink)

Van Orden and Paap argue that subtractive functional neuroimaging is fundamentally flawed, unfalsifiable, and cannot bear upon the nature of mind. In this they are mistaken, although their criticisms interestingly illuminate the scientific problems we confront in investigating the material basis of mind. Here, I consider the criticisms of Van Orden and Paap and discuss where they are mistaken and where justified. I then consider the picture of imaging science that Van Orden and Paap seem to espouse and sketch an (...) alternative picture that is more realistic, more interesting, and consistent with the deliverances and the weaknesses of neuroimaging techniques. Finally, I identify three assumptions that I do think neuroimaging is wedded to and briefly discuss their implications. (shrink)

Michael Cholbi thinks that the claim that motive internalism (MI), the thesis that moral beliefs or judgments are intrinsically motivating, is the best explanation for why moral beliefs are usually accompanied by moral motivation. He contests arguments that patients with ventromedial (VM) frontal brain damage are counterexamples to MI by denying that they have moral beliefs. I argue that none of the arguments he offers to support this contention are viable. First, I argue that given Cholbi's own commitments, he cannot (...) account for VM patients' behavior without attributing moral beliefs to them. Secondly, I show that his arguments that we should not believe their self-reports are unconvincing. In particular, his argument that they cannot self-attribute moral beliefs because they have a defective theory of mind is flawed, for it relies upon a misreading of both the empirical and theoretical literatures. The avenues remaining to Cholbi to support motive internalism are circular, for they rely upon an internalist premise. I provide an alternative picture consistent with neuroscientific and psychological data from both normals and those with VM damage, in which connections between moral belief and motivation are contingent. The best explanation for all the data is thus one in which MI is false. (shrink)

Traditionally, medicine has been considered a practical art. It seeks the patient’s well-being through technical means and specific skills in healing. On the other hand, healing means are connected to the life sciences, through which knowledge has developed systematically. Due to research and technological development, we can easily reveal the true meaning of medicine as science. Hippocratic practice and Aristotelian ethics have offered us a humanitarian approach, oriented to the sick person, which set the virtuous human character of each person (...) who practices the virtues. The medicine people approached to the medicine preserving an ancient picture of the practice. They have know-how of the practice, recognize the characteristics of each field of art or science appreciating its utility and benefits, but often they don’t know why or where the boundary between the two fields, science and art, falls. They are scientists and artists, too. In this article I intend to fix what science means and what art means, based on Aristotelian arguments, which lead to a perspective of a virtuous professional life. Also, it is relevant to find its common issues. No physicians can successfully practice their profession without respecting the rigor of science and training their creativity. I plead for a moral practice, for the understanding of humanity's state in any medical act. Medicine is the moral community where practice meets science and arts merge both. Medicine is not between practice and science; it is the art itself of medical practice and science. (shrink)

On some theories of rights, such as the Choice theory, only agents can have moral rights. The realm of right-holders thus excludes several potential candidates, among which are young children, mentally incapacitated persons, and groups since these are thought to lack the required degree of agency. This paper argues that groups can be right-holders. The argument comes in three steps: first, it is argued that full-blown or autonomous agency is not required for the possession of Choice theory rights, second, that (...) groups can be seen as agents, albeit in a limited sense, and third, that groups can make irreducibly collective choices in spite of their limited agency. The upshot of this argument is that groups can have rights, provided that they are organized around a coherent decision-making procedure; furthermore, this account can be employed to argue that other creatures of limited agency are possible right-holders. (shrink)

A recurring concern about luck egalitarianism is that its implementation would make some individuals, in particular those who lack marketable talents, experience shame. This, the objection goes, undermines individuals’ self-respect, which, in turn, may also lead to unequal respect between individuals. Loss of (self-)respect is a concern for any egalitarian, including distributive egalitarians, inasmuch as it is non-compensable. This paper responds to this concern by clarifying the relationship between shame and (self-)respect. We argue, first, a luck egalitarian society and ethos (...) would be radically different from the current one and incompatible with shame over lack of talent, and, second, that while shame may still occur in a less than ideal luck egalitarian society, this kind of shame does not undermine egalitarian commitments. (shrink)

"The thought of Immanuel Kant has had incalculable - and, many would say, negative - impact on the modern estimation of religion, religious belief, and religious knowledge. Yet, Davidovich argues in the strikingly original interpretation, the chief lines and import of Kant's work on religion have been crippingly misunderstood." "Davidovich radically refigures Kant scholarship by focusing decisively on his Third Critique, long thought his weakest, where she finds Kant confronting the results of his strong distinction between theoretical and practical reason. (...) There he attempts a comprehensive theory of reflective judgment, in which contemplative thought of a moral designer of the universe is a principle that overcomes the bifurcation of scientific (rational) and moral (practical) activities." "Moreover, this specifically religious consciousness, which harmonizes the lawfulness of nature with the purposiveness of freedom, is further developed, Davidovich maintains, by Rudolf Otto's and Paul Tillich's influential theories of religion. Today it can safeguard the status of religion and a normative science of religion." "Davidovich's work is an outstanding contribution, breaking new ground in both Kantian scholarship and the theory of religion."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

L�entrée de la Métaphysique d�Aristote en Europe occidentale a provoqué fascination et embarras. Les lectures nouvelles d�Aristote entrèrent souvent en confrontation avec les exégèses bibliques ; des problématiques spécifiquement médiévales, comme celle de l�être et de l�essence, sont alors apparues. Nous proposons ici la traduction d�une Question appartenant à un cours sur la Métaphysique donné à la fin du XIIIe siècle par Siger de Brabant, maître à la Faculté des arts de l�Université de Paris. La Question 7 propose une solution (...) originale au problème de l�être et de l�essence : le débat est détourné de sa perspective ontologico-théologique et resitué dans le contexte linguistique. (shrink)

This paper argues that a putative conflict between negative rights and positive rights is not a genuine conflict. The thought that they might conflict presupposes, I argue, that the two rights are valid. This is the first assumption of my argument. The second is that general rights impose duties on everyone, not just the party who faces a conflict of correlative duties. These two assumptions yield the conclusion that positive rights impose enforceable duties on the holder of the negative right; (...) no right is thus infringed if this duty is enforced so no conflict occurs. If this is correct, it means that we can include welfare or socio-economic rights in a set of general rights without generating conflicts with negative rights to non-interference; this might clear some space for arguments that favour egalitarian redistribution although it does not show that general positive rights do exist. (shrink)

This paper asks whether (human) rights enforcement is permissible given that it may entail infringing on the rights of innocent bystanders. I consider two strategies that adopt a rights-sensitive consequentialist framework and offer a positive answer to this question, namely Amartya Sen’s and Hillel Steiner’s. Against Sen, I argue that trade-offs between rights are problematic since they contradict the purpose of rights, which is to provide a pluralist solution to disagreement about values, i.e. to allow agents to act in accordance (...) with their values. I further argue that Steiner’s compensation strategy does not succeed in avoiding trade-offs so it falls prey to the same criticism. I propose a non-trade-off solution that is implicit in the accounts discussed and is more consistent with the meta-ethical framework advocated by Sen. This solution relies on an enforceable duty to share in the costs of rights enforcement hence it entails a degree of redistribution for enforcement purposes. (shrink)

Thought experiments have played a central role in philosophical methodology, largely as a means of elucidating the nature of our concepts and the implications of our theories.1 Particular attention is given to widely shared “folk” intuitions – the basic untutored intuitions that the layperson has about philosophical questions.2 The folk intuition is meant to underlie our core metaphysical concepts, and philosophical analysis is meant to explicate or sometimes refine these naïve concepts. Consistency with the deliverances of folk intuitions is a (...) sign that the philosopher is making contact with his object of interest. In order to explore folk concepts, people are often asked to provide their intuitions about a state of affairs in some alternate universe or possible world, one that differs in particular, precise ways from the way things are in the actual world. Here we provide evidence that people’s intuitions about moral responsibility sometimes diverge across worlds even when the facts about these worlds are the same. Which world one considers actual affects at least some philosophical judgments, suggesting that it is not just possible worlds to which our intuitions are tied. We will present several possible explanations for the asymmetry we have identified, and we’ll consider some implications for philosophical intuition. (shrink)

Some theorists, especially egalitarians, seek to ‘apply’ theories of justice to a specific area or good, such as health, and assess the distribution of that good at the bar of justice. On the one hand, this is understandable, given that egalitarians are often interested in making policy recommendations and these would have to be area-specific. On the other hand, it is surprising in light of the fact that theories of justice normally envisage the ‘total package of goods’ or an overall (...) good as the distribuendum. This article aims to show that this approach is problematic at least in the area of health. (shrink)

Metaethical questions are typically held to be a priori , and therefore impervious to empirical evidence. Here I examine the metaethical claim that motive-internalism about belief , the position that moral beliefs are intrinsically motivating, is true. I argue that belief-internalists are faced with a dilemma. Either their formulation of internalism is so weak that it fails to be philosophically interesting, or it is a substantive claim but can be shown to be empirically false. I then provide evidence for the (...) falsity of substantive belief-internalism. I describe a group of brain-damaged patients who sustain impairment in their moral sensibility: although they have normal moral beliefs and make moral judgments, they are not inclined to act in accordance with those beliefs and judgments. Thus, I argue that they are walking counterexamples to the substantive internalist claim. In addition to constraining our conception of moral reasoning, this argument stands as an example of how empirical evidence can be relevantly brought to bear on a philosophical question typically viewed to be a priori. (shrink)

Assume this hypothetical situation: an American pharmaceutical company, Maxwell Fisch Pharmaceuticals, Inc., wishes to perform clinical trials involving a new antipsychotic medication, Klezac. Klezac is in its third phase of the clinical stage of the drug research process. Once the testing is complete, Maxwell plans to submit a New Drug Application, the official request to begin marketing Klezac, to the Food and Drug Administration. The new drug is expected to receive FDA approval in 2 or more years. The company decides (...) to shift its research and development activities to Z, a small, developing country. In doing so, Maxwell is following the course taken by numerous other drug companies who wish to take advantage of faster governmental approval in foreign sites and ensuing cheaper research costs. (shrink)

In some recent papers, Max Coltheart has questioned the ability of neuroimaging techniques to tell us anything interesting about the mind and has thrown down the gauntlet before neuroimagers, challenging them to prove he is mistaken. Here I analyze Coltheart ’s challenge, show that as posed its terms are unfair, and reconstruct it so that it is addressable. I argue that, so modified, Coltheart ’s challenge is able to be met and indeed has been met. In an effort to delineate (...) the extent of neuroimaging’s ability to address Coltheart ’s concerns, I explore how different brain structure‐function relationships would constrain the ability of neuroimaging to provide insight about psychological questions. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755; e‐mail: adina[email protected]. (shrink)

This book describes the shape of a Christian ethic that arises from a conversation between contemporary accounts of natural law theory, and virtue ethics. The ethic that emerges from this conversation seeks to resolve the tensions in Christian ethics between creation and eschatology, narrative and natural law, and objectivity and relativity. Black moves from this analytic foundation to conclude that worship lies at the heart of a theologically grounded ethic whose central concern is the flourishing of the whole human (...) person in community with both one another and God. (shrink)