In his paper ‘A libertarian case for mandatory vaccination’, Jason Brennan argues that even libertarians, who are very averse to coercive measures, should support mandatory vaccination to combat the harmful disease outbreaks that can be caused by non-vaccination. He argues that libertarians should accept the clean hands principle, which would justify mandatory vaccination. The principle states that there is a (sometimes enforceable) moral obligation not to participate in collectively harmful activities. Once libertarians accept the principle, they will be compelled to (...) support mandatory vaccination. In my paper, I argue that the cases Brennan uses to justify this principle are disanalogous to the case of non-vaccination and that they are not compelling to libertarians. The cases Brennan offers can be explained by a libertarian using the individual sufficiency principle: which states that if an individual’s action is sufficient to cause harm, then there is a (sometimes enforceable) moral obligation not to carry out that action. I argue that this principle is more appropriate to Brennan’s examples, and more appealing to the libertarian, than the clean hands principle. In order to get libertarians to accept the clean hands principle, I present a modified version of one of Brennan’s cases that is analogous to the case of non-vaccination. Using this case, I argue that whether the clean hands principle will justify mandatory vaccination is dependent on whether the herd immunity rate in a given population is approaching a threshold after which a collective risk of harm will be imposed onto others. (shrink)

The Market Failures Approach (MFA) is one of the leading theories in contemporary business ethics. It generates a list of ethical obligations for the managers of private firms that states that they should not create or exploit market failures because doing so reduces the efficiency of the economy. Recently the MFA has been criticised by Abraham Singer on the basis that it unjustifiably does not assign private managers obligations based on egalitarian values. Singer proposes an extension to the MFA, the (...) Justice Failures Approach (JFA), in which managers have duties to alleviate political, social, and distributive inequalities in addition to having obligations to not exploit market failures. In this paper I describe the MFA and JFA and situate them relative to each other. I then highlight a threefold distinction between different types of obligations that can be given to private managers in order to argue that a hybrid theory of business ethics, which I call the MFA +, can be generated by arguing that managers have obligations based on efficiency and duties based on equality to the extent that these latter obligations do not lead to efficiency losses. This argument suggests a novel theoretical option in business ethics, elucidates the issues that are at stake between the MFA and the JFA, and clarifies the costs and benefits of each theory. (shrink)

Recently two distinct forms of rule-utilitarianism have been introduced that differ on how to measure the consequences of rules. Brad Hooker advocates fixed-rate rule-utilitarianism, while Michael Ridge advocates variable-rate rule-utilitarianism. I argue that both of these are inferior to a new proposal, optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism. According to optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism, an ideal code is the code whose optimum acceptance level is no lower than that of any alternative code. I then argue that all three forms of rule-utilitarianism fall prey to two fatal (...) problems that leave us without any viable form of rule-utilitarianism. (shrink)

Hegel for Social Movements by Andy Blunden is an introduction to the reading of Hegel intended for those already active in social movements. It introduces Hegel's ideas in a way which will be useful for those fighting for social change, and while some familiarity with philosophy would be an advantage for the reader, the main pre-requisite is a commitment to the practical pursuit of ideal aims. The book covers the whole sweep of Hegel's writing, but focuses particularly on the (...) Logic and Hegel's social theory - the Philosophy of Right. Blunden brings to his exposition an original interpretation of Hegel's Logic as the logic of social change, utilizing his expertise in Vygotsky's cultural psychology and Soviet Activity Theory. (shrink)

"Readers of Badiou will have to take account of this remarkable book. Phelps shows how Saint Paul is not marginal to Badiou's philosophy but lies at the heart of it." - Clayton Crockett, University of Central Arkansas "This book offers an important step forward in the theological reception of Alain Badiou's philosophy by exploring how Badiou, despite his radical atheism, nevertheless remains entagled in theology." - Frederiek Depoortere, Catholic University of Leuven The place of theology in Alain Badious writings is (...) key to understanding his thought. Badiou is one of the most influential theorists of recent times. Alain Badiou: Between Theology and Anti-theology provides one of the first comprehensive analyses of the relationship between Badiou's philosophy and theology. Examining the full range of Badiou's writings, this provocative study explores how Badiou's philosophy relies on theology even if he claims otherwise and actively attempts to work against theology. Despite the complex questions discussed ranging across ontology, the theory of truth and the subject, philosophy and its conditions, and anti-philosophy this book presents a clear and accessible overview of the theological, religious and biblical themes which animate Badiou's philosophy. (shrink)

Implicit cognition is cognition that happens automatically and (typically) non-consciously. In moral psychology, implicit cognition is almost always understood in terms of dual process models of moral judgment. In this chapter, we address the question whether implicit moral judgment is usefully cashed out in terms of automatic (“type 1”) processes, and what the limitations of this approach are. Our chapter has six sections. In (1), we provide a brief overview of dual process models of domain-general (moral and non-moral) cognition. (2) (...) reviews a recent debate regarding the soundness of dual process models to begin with. Section (3) is about dual process accounts of moral judgment specifically. The last three sections then survey attempts to go beyond a simplistic automatic/controlled (“type 2”) distinction in conceptualizing implicit moral cognition. Recently, three main theoretical approaches have emerged, which all revolve around the questions whether type 2 processing can successfully penetrate implicit moral cognition. First, rational learning approaches highlight how episodes of moral learning can feed back into and shape our moral intuitions (4). Second, so-called triple process models suggest that automatic cognitive outputs can under certain circumstances be reined in by reflective cognition (5). Finally, recent evidence shows that moral reasoning is not as impotent as earlier developments in empirical moral psychology claimed to demonstrate (6). (shrink)

Particularity of a place -- At home -- Coming near -- Coves and kayaks -- Late one -- Here and there -- Responsive place -- Inmost places -- Potential in locality -- Panoramic view -- Perpetual departure -- Transcending particularity -- Our communal place -- Spacious relationships -- Spacious God-country -- Ripping and sewing -- From the creative place.

Even though the evidence‐based medicine movement (EBM) labels mechanisms a low quality form of evidence, consideration of the mechanisms on which medicine relies, and the distinct roles that mechanisms might play in clinical practice, offers a number of insights into EBM itself. In this paper, I examine the connections between EBM and mechanisms from several angles. I diagnose what went wrong in two examples where mechanistic reasoning failed to generate accurate predictions for how a dysfunctional mechanism would respond to intervention. (...) I then use these examples to explain why we should expect this kind of mechanistic reasoning to fail in systematic ways, by situating these failures in terms of evolved complexity of the causal system(s) in question. I argue that there is still a different role in which mechanisms continue to figure as evidence in EBM: namely, in guiding the application of population‐level recommendations to individual patients. Thus, even though the evidence‐based movement rejects one role in which mechanistic reasoning serves as evidence, there are other evidentiary roles for mechanistic reasoning. This renders plausible the claims of some critics of evidencebased medicine who point to the ineliminable role of clinical experience. Clearly specifying the ways in which mechanisms and mechanistic reasoning can be involved in clinical practice frames the discussion about EBM and clinical experience in more fruitful terms. (shrink)

Several philosophers have proposed that key instances of moral progress in the past, as well as perhaps some present or future progressive changes, rely on people overcoming the notion that their current institutions and social practices are “natural, necessary, and inevitable feature[s] of the social world” (Pleasants, “Moral Argument is Not Enough,” 166). I call this account of how moral progress happens denaturalization. In this paper, I provide a more rigorous account of denaturalization than has thus far been provided in (...) the literature, so that its plausibility and its promise as a mechanism of progressive change can be better assessed. I develop an account according to which denaturalization occurs when people come to have more accurate judgments about the costs of abandoning status quo institutions in favor of alternative institutions. I draw on the philosophy of conventionality to develop an account of costs and provide a limited defense of the psychological realism of the costs account of denaturalization. With this more detailed and explicit account in hand, I explore under what kinds of conditions denaturalization is likely to lead to moral progress. (shrink)

How do we justify the normative standards to which we appeal in support of our moral progress judgments, given their historical and cultural contingency? To answer this question in a noncircular way, Elizabeth Anderson and Philip Kitcher appeal exclusively to formal features of the methodology by which a moral change was brought about; some moral methodologies are systematically less prone to bias than others and are therefore less vulnerable to error. However, we argue that the methodologies espoused by Anderson and (...) Kitcher implicitly appeal to the substantive principle of “moral universalism.” This sets up the positive project of the paper: an attempt to vindicate moral universalism with a pragmatic genealogy. Using resources from cultural evolutionary theory and the history of ideas we argue that the universalistic norms widely committed to in many societies today have the function of maintaining cooperation in large anonymous groups. Furthermore, while universalistic norms play this instrumental role, their functional benefits are best secured when people following such norms do so for intrinsic rather than instrumental reasons. Finally, having elaborated our pragmatic genealogy, we close by considering how this genealogy should affect our commitment to moral universalism and how it can complement the methods of Anderson and Kitcher. (shrink)

What should we do if we cannot figure what morality requires of us? Holly M. Smith argues that the best moral codes solve this problem by offering two tiers, one of which tells us what makes acts right and wrong, and the other of which provides user-friendly decision guides. She opens a path towards resolving a deep problem of moral life.

This article uses the methods that Locke advocated in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding to evaluate manuscript evidence from five different schemes and two drafts of the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, to thereby determine what role, if any, John Locke had in writing it, and in advocating for slavery and absolutism. It focuses on the influential claims put forward by David Armitage 20 years ago, that Locke was responsible for actively promoting slavery in Carolina’s Fundamental Constitutions. It enables the reader (...) to view, and judge, the relevant evidence. The author concludes, and invites the reader to conclude, that Armitage’s main claims lack foundation in the manuscript evidence. That evidence instead points towards the legal power of those who owned Carolina, the Lords Proprietors, and to the crown, which granted Carolina’s charter, and to the logic of a different theory of government, patriarchalism, for the rationale behind both slavery and absolutism. The central ideas behind slavery and colonization were epitomized, as Locke understood, by Sir Robert Filmer, who wrote the book to which Locke responded in his Two Treatises of Government. Filmer’s ally, Sir Henry Spelman, like Filmer a deeply committed royalist who believed in the king’s unlimited prerogatives, composed the original 1629 Carolina charter that shaped the Fundamental Constitutions. Misattributing the authorship of particular clauses to Locke is a symptom of a larger failure to distinguish the impact of momentous debates over authority and race in the seventeenth century. Locke’s theories did, in practice as well as principle, reject the theory of domination put forward by Filmer, and argued instead for human rights and democracy that were inclusive and capacious. The manuscript evidence has the potential to reshape how modern democratic theory is understood in the present. (shrink)

Within the cognitive sciences, most researchers assume that it is the job of linguists to investigate how language is represented, and that they do so largely by building theories based on explicit judgments about patterns of acceptability – whereas it is the task of psychologists to determine how language is processed, and that in doing so, they do not typically question the linguists' representational assumptions. We challenge this division of labor by arguing that structural priming provides an implicit method of (...) investigating linguistic representations that should end the current reliance on acceptability judgments. Moreover, structural priming has now reached sufficient methodological maturity to provide substantial evidence about such representations. We argue that evidence from speakers' tendency to repeat their own and others' structural choices supports a linguistic architecture involving a single shallow level of syntax connected to a semantic level containing information about quantification, thematic relations, and information structure, as well as to a phonological level. Many of the linguistic distinctions often used to support complex (or multilevel) syntactic structure are instead captured by semantics; however, the syntactic level includes some specification of “missing” elements that are not realized at the phonological level. We also show that structural priming provides evidence about the consistency of representations across languages and about language development. In sum, we propose that structural priming provides a new basis for understanding the nature of language. (shrink)

_The first comprehensive examination in English of Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View._.

Cohesion may be based primarily on interpersonal ties or rely instead on the connection between member and group, while groups may cohere temporarily based on the immediate alignment of interests among members or may be tied together more permanently by socio-emotional bonds. Together, these characteristics define four prototypical group types. Cliques and coalitions are based primarily on dyadic ties. Groups of comrades or colleagues rely instead on the connection of members to the group for cohesion, which reduces the marginal cost (...) of increasing group size. The strong glue of socio-emotional cohesion binds cliques and comrades, while coalitions and groups of colleagues are often based on weaker forms of cohesion. The mix of strong and weak adhesives and the greater scalability offered by the member-group bond provide the building blocks for assembling very large societies without overtaxing the social brain. (shrink)

Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer (henceforth Levelt et al. 1999) propose a model of production incorporating a lemma stratum, which is concerned with the syntactic characteristics of lexical entries. We suggest that syntactic priming experiments provide evidence about how such syntactic information is represented, and that this evidence can be used to extend Levelt et al.'s model. Evidence from syntactic priming experiments also supports Levelt et al.'s conjecture that the lemma stratum is shared between the production and comprehension systems.

Previous studies have shown cognitive task performance to be affected by tinnitus severity, but also that the literature is conflicted. This study sought to identify neuroticism as a possible confound, since severe tinnitus distress is associated with higher levels of neuroticism. A total of 78 participants undertook two cognitive tasks. It was found that when undertaking a Stroop paradigm, controlling for neuroticism rendered previously significant results not significant. It was also found that neuroticism was not a significant covariate for a (...) change blindness task. Gender, age, anxiety, and depression were all controlled for, and future implications for the literature discussed. (shrink)

The measurement of mind appears to constitute a problem generally different from that encountered in the measurement of matter. From the viewpoint of scientific methodology, however, the differences between mental measurement and physical measurement are not as great as they sometimes appear. The major difficulty involves a proper clarification of the mind we measure and, unfortunately, this clarification is a little more difficult than the clarification of the matter we measure. In order to achieve this clarification, it is necessary to (...) reorient some of our habitual ways of thinking by taking several specific steps. (shrink)

The main objective of this 2-week RCT study was to test the efficacy of the previously developed Noticing Nature Intervention to boost wellbeing during winter months. The NNI consists of noticing the everyday nature encountered in one’s daily routine and making note of what emotions are evoked. Community adults were randomly assigned to engage in the NNI or were assigned to one of two control conditions. Paired t-tests revealed significant increases pre- to post-intervention in the NNI group for positive affect, (...) elevation, nature connectedness, and hope agency, and a marginally significant increase in transcendent connectedness. No significant pre-post difference emerged for any aspect of wellbeing in the control conditions. Analysis of qualitative findings revealed that negative emotion themes were 2.13 times more likely to be associated with built photos than with nature photos. Feelings of peace, awe, happiness, humbleness, and hope were more likely to be associated with nature photos, while feelings of annoyance, loneliness, curiosity, uncertainty, anger, yearning, and comfortableness were more likely to be associated with built photos. Overall, results indicated that engaging in the NNI can provide a wellbeing boost, even in the cold of winter. This study is the first to test any nature-based wellbeing intervention during colder, winter months, and to directly assess the impact of a nature-based wellbeing intervention on levels of hope. (shrink)

The theme of the dissertation is that we should not be too cautious about engaging in metaphysics of modality; what may appear to be a refusal to engage in metaphysical speculation may instead involve a commitment to epistemic consequences that we should not accept. In Part I, I argue that David Lewis's modal realism implies that scepticism towards induction is rationally unavoidable. I conclude that his theory must be rejected. ;While not endorsing Lewis's account of the nature of possible worlds, (...) I argue that the recombination principle is what is causing the problems, and that this principle will cause problems when combined with any theory of modality according to which there are objective matters of fact as to what is possible or necessary. ;I conclude that we must reject the recombination principle, and that any principle we accept in its place must be one which will not lead to inductive scepticism. This suggests that we cannot countenance any objective possibilities that contravene actual natural laws. ;In Part II, I argue that one sort of explanation is closely connected with objective possibility: A fundamental explanation for some state of affairs involves saying something about its nature that has implications for what is objectively possible. I defend a weak form of the principle of sufficient reason, according to which every state of affairs has a fundamental explanation ;I go on to recast and defend a version of the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God. This argument, on my view, is plausible only when taken as an inductive argument, and indeed, as an inference to the best explanation. I argue that the theistic hypothesis deserves to be taken seriously on its merits as an explanation; more generally, I claim that it is not sufficient grounds for rejecting any hypothesis simply to say that it involves commitments as to what is possible or necessary. A willingness to accept some such commitments is an unavoidable consequence of what we normally take to be rational ways of forming beliefs. (shrink)

Andy Blunden completes his immanent critique of Activity Theory, begun in 2010 with An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity. A summary of the ontological foundations of Activity Theory introduces a critical review of the work of activity theorists across the world with a focus of applications in medical and educational contexts, and concluded with a review of the ethics of collaboration. Blunden expands the domain of Activity Theory to address the pressing problems facing humanity today and activities lacking in (...) clear objects, collaboration in voluntary projects and social movements, the life projects of individuals and emerging practices. Blunden brings an understanding of Marxist and Hegelian philosophy to bear on the application of Activity Theory to problems of social change. (shrink)

Andy Blunden's Hegel Marx & Vygotsky, Essays in Social Philosophy presents his novel approach to social theory in a series of essays. Blunden aims to use the cultural psychology of Lev Vygotsky and the Soviet Activity Theorists to renew Hegelian Marxism as an interdisciplinary science. This allows psychologists and social theorists to share their insights through concepts equally valid in either domain. The work includes critical reviews of the works of central figures in Soviet psychology and other writers (...) offering fruitful insights. Essays on topics as diverse as vaccine scepticism and the origins of language test out the interdisciplinary power of the theory, as well as key texts on historical analysis, methodology and the nature of the present conjuncture. (shrink)

Two Greek myths attest to the power of music to blur distinctions between humans and nonhumans: Orpheus made music that inspired human-like attention in animals, trees, and stones, while the Sirens reduced passing sailors to the level of animals incapable of resisting their song. Recast in terms employed by Lacan, these myths portray music as calling forth a response in creatures thought merely able to react and, contrariwise, stripping away the capacity for response in humans, leaving nothing but reaction in (...) its place. Critiquing Lacan’s dogmatic distinction between human and animal behavior, Derrida questioned the “purity and indivisibility” of reaction and response and recommended that critics explore the involvement of both in “the whole differentiated field of experience and of a world of life-forms.” In this essay, I take up Derrida’s challenge with regard to music as it has been understood in the European aesthetic tradition. While music has long been considered capable of provoking highly refined cognitive and emotional responses, it also acts upon the body in a wide variety of ways, many of them involuntary – a fact that has struck music’s advocates as alternately promising and disturbing. Revisiting eighteenth- and nineteenth-century commentaries by the philosophers and critics Johann Georg Sulzer, Johann Gottfried Herder, and Eduard Hanslick, I first illuminate persistent anxieties over the admixture of reaction and response in musical listening. I then turn to recent ethological studies in order to argue against any decisive separation of the human from the nonhuman in the arena of musical aesthetics. (shrink)

The contributors represent the complete spectrum of positions between a relativism that challenges the very concept of a single world and the idea that there are ascertainable, objective universals.

It is suggested that if Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) is to fulfil its potential as an approach to cultural and historical science in general, then an interdisciplinary concept of activity is needed. Such a concept of activity would provide a common foundation for all the human sciences, underpinning concepts of, for example, state and social movement equally as, for example, learning and personality. For this is needed a clear conception of the ‘unit of analysis’ of activity, i.e., of what constitutes (...) ‘ an activity’, and a clear distinction between the unit of analysis and the substance , i.e., ultimate reality underlying all the human sciences: artifact-mediated joint activity. It is claimed that the concept of ‘project collaboration’ – the interaction between two or more persons in pursuit of a common objective – forms such a unit of activity, the single ‘molecule’ in terms of which both sociological and psychological phenomena can be theorised. It is suggested that such a clarification of the notion of activity allows us to see how individual actions and societal activities mutually constitute one another and are each construed in the light of the other. (shrink)

Contrary to what Jeanne Moyer asserts, Kant does not have a normative dualism going in his works on teleological judgment and these can be used to develop a more woman friendly view of human nature.

Societies change over time. Chattel slavery and foot-binding have been abolished, democracy has become increasingly widespread, gay rights have become established in some countries, and the animal rights movement continues to gain momentum. Do these changes count as moral progress? Is there such a thing? If so, how should we understand it? These questions have been receiving increasing attention from philosophers, psychologists, biologists, and sociologists in recent decades. This survey provides a systematic account of recent developments in the understanding of (...) moral progress. We outline the concept of moral progress and describe the different types of moral progress identified in the literature. We review the normative criteria that have been used in judging whether various developments count as morally progressive or not. We discuss the prospects of moral progress in the face of challenges that claim that moral progress is not psychologically possible for human beings, and we explore the metaethical implications of moral progress. (shrink)

The power of technology to transform religions, science, and political institutions has often been presented as nothing short of revolutionary. Does technology have a similarly transformative influence on societies’ morality? Scholars have not rigorously investigated the role of technology in moral revolutions, even though existing research on technomoral change suggests that this role may be considerable. In this paper, we explore what the role of technology in moral revolutions, understood as processes of radical group-level moral change, amounts to. We do (...) so by investigating four historical episodes of radical moral change in which technology plays a noteworthy role. Our case-studies illustrate the plurality of mechanisms involved in technomoral revolutions, but also suggest general patterns of technomoral change, such as technology’s capacity to stabilize and destabilize moral systems, and to make morally salient phenomena visible or invisible. We find several leads to expand and refine conceptual tools for analysing moral change, specifically by crystallizing the notions of ‘technomoral niche construction’ and ‘moral payoff mechanisms’. Coming to terms with the role of technology in radical moral change, we argue, enriches our understanding of moral revolutions, and alerts us to the depths of which technology can change our societies in wanted and unwanted ways. (shrink)

How regular do mechanisms need to be, in order to count as mechanisms? This paper addresses two arguments for dropping the requirement of regularity from the definition of a mechanism, one motivated by examples from the sciences and the other motivated by metaphysical considerations regarding causation. I defend a broadened regularity requirement on mechanisms that takes the form of a taxonomy of kinds of regularity that mechanisms may exhibit. This taxonomy allows precise explication of the degree and location of regular (...) operation within a mechanism, and highlights the role that various kinds of regularity play in scientific explanation. I defend this regularity requirement in terms of regularity’s role in individuating mechanisms against a background of other causal processes, and by prioritizing mechanisms’ ability to serve as a model of scientific explanation, rather than as a metaphysical account of causation. It is because mechanisms are regular, in the expanded sense described here, that they are capable of supporting the kinds of generalizations that figure prominently in scientific explanations. (shrink)

William James’ Principles of Psychology, in which he made famous the ‘specious present’ doctrine of temporal experience, and Edmund Husserl’s Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins, were giant strides in the philosophical investigation of the temporality of experience. However, an important set of precursors to these works has not been adequately investigated. In this article, we undertake this investigation. Beginning with Reid’s essay ‘Memory’ in Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, we trace out a line of development of ideas about (...) the temporality of experience that runs through Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, William Hamilton, and finally the work of Shadworth Hodgson and Robert Kelly, both of whom were immediate influences on James (though James pseudonymously cites the latter as ‘E.R. Clay’). Furthermore, we argue that Hodgson, especially his Metaphysic of Experience (1898), was a significant influence on Husserl. (shrink)

Amanda Hollis-Brusky shows how the Federalist Society serves as the hub of a complex circulatory system and how the ideas it generates have become the lifeblood of the conservative movement.

use and tool making underlying a system of production mediating between needs and their satisfaction. – The relationship of the entire community to the ...