Control-based models of moral responsibility typically employ a notion of "tracing," according to which moral responsibility requires an exercise of control either immediately prior to the behavior in question or at some suitable point prior to the behavior. Responsibility, on this view, requires tracing back to control. But various philosophers, including Manuel Vargas and Angela Smith, have presented cases in which the plausibility of tracing is challenged. In this paper we discuss the examples and we argue that they do not (...) in fact impugn an attractive and natural tracing component. Our discussion can function in part as a defense of a control-based account of moral responsibility, but also as simply a defense of tracing. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Just Doctoring: Medical Ethics in the Liberal State. By Troyen A. Brennan. The Ends of Human Life: Medical Ethics in a Liberal Polity. By Ezekiel J. Emanuel.

Event-related potential components are sensitive to the processes underlying how questions are understood. We use so-called “covert” wh-questions in Mandarin to probe how such components generalize across different kinds of constructions. This study shows that covert Mandarin wh-questions do not elicit anterior negativities associated with memory maintenance, even when such a dependency is unambiguously cued. N = 37 native speakers of Mandarin Chinese read Chinese questions and declarative sentences word-by-word during EEG recording. In contrast to prior studies, no sustained anterior (...) negativity was observed between the cue word, such as the question-embedding verb “wonder,” and the in-situ wh-filler. SANs have been linked with working memory maintenance, suggesting that grammatical features may not impose the same maintenance demands as the content words used in prior work. (shrink)

Digital Media: Human–Technology Connection examines the technologically textured world through case studies that illustrate the way humans and technology connect with each other and the world. An interdisciplinary array of sources from philosophy, postphenomenology, philosophy of technology, media studies, media ecology, and film studies shows that digital media and its content are not neutral. This technology textures the world in multiple and varied ways that transform human abilities, augment experience, and pattern the world.

Addressing many topics in epistemology and metaphysics, this treatise sets out a new theory of the unity of objects, and discusses personal identity, the metaphysics of possible worlds, the continuity in space time, and the nature of philosophical theorizing.

Using an approach developed in the context of human bioethics, we argue that chimpanzees in research can be regarded as vulnerable subjects. This vulnerability is primarily due to communication barriers and situational factors—confinement and dependency—that make chimpanzees particularly susceptible to risks of harm and exploitation in experimental settings. In human research, individuals who are deemed vulnerable are accorded special protections. Using conceptual and moral resources developed in the context of research with vulnerable humans, we show how chimpanzees warrant additional safeguards (...) against harm and exploitation paralleling those for human subjects. These safeguards should include empowering third parties to act as surrogate decision makers for chimpanzees, ensuring participant “assent,” and avoiding recruitment of animal subjects based merely on convenience. (shrink)

Starting from a behavioural-economics critique of standard rational choice theory Sugden seeks to restate the case for classical liberalism. That case has three strands: a refutation of libertarian...

This paper argues that Richard Tuck, in his book Free Riding, fails to show it is rational to vote except in unusual cases.

ObjectivesThe purpose of the current study was to examine whether a self-report measure identifies prenatal substance use and predicts resulting adverse birth outcomes in a large cohort using electronic medical records.MethodsPregnant patients who were admitted between 2014 and 2015 at Christiana Care Health System and delivered singleton birth were included in the analyses. Participant demographic information, pregnancy comorbidities, self-reported substance use, and birth outcomes were retrieved from electronic medical records. Detailed descriptive analyses of prenatal substance use were conducted, and logistic (...) models were evaluated for the associations between substance use and each birth outcome.ResultsThe average maternal age was 30 years, 37% receiving Medicaid. Over 58% were White, 26% were Black, and 13% were Hispanic. Cigarette smoking only showed the highest prevalence among substance u... (shrink)

This paper explores the resurgence of anti-scientism in contemporary debates surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, Big Data, and Generative AI, drawing parallels with 20th-century Czech philosophical critiques of scientism. The work of Czech intellectuals such as Tomáš G. Masaryk, Karel Čapek, Josef Šafařík, Jan Patočka, and Václav Havel is revisited to understand how their concerns about the dominance of scientific rationalism remain relevant today. The paper critiques both the blind faith in science as a comprehensive solution to complex human problems and (...) the reductive dismissal of science as a tool of control. It argues for a nuanced middle ground that recognizes the value of scientific inquiry while also emphasizing ethical, spiritual, and humanistic considerations. By engaging with these Czech perspectives, the paper proposes a framework for critically navigating the interplay between ethics, technology, and human values in the face of contemporary challenges such as pandemics, AI, and climate change. This approach challenges both scientific and anti-scientific extremism and advocates for a balanced discourse that integrates wonder, ethics, and critical inquiry. (shrink)

The paper mobilizes Adam Smith’s treatment of the division of labour in relation to the production, consumption and exchange of knowledge. One aspect of this mobilization deals with the epistemic demands that exchange makes on its participants. The other deals with increasing returns in the provision of knowledge itself, treating knowledge creation as just another example of specialization and exchange. These two aspects come together in relation to the epistemic demands associated with assessing knowledge quality. These demands differ according to (...) whether the knowledge is embodied in products or whether the knowledge is an object for its own sake. It is argued that disciplines play a critical role as institutions for meeting the epistemic demands that the division of labour creates in the ‘knowledge’ case. (shrink)

RésuméLa mort d'une personne peut-elle être intrinsèquement mauvaise pour la personne qui meurt? Et pourquoi est-il mal de tuer une autre personne? Je soutiens qu'une réponse adéquate à l'une ou l'autre de ces questions requiert d'apprécier l'importance morale de l'autonomie. J'examine ici la conception dominante de ce qui rend la mort mauvaise — la théorie de la dépossession —, ainsi que deux conceptions rivales de ce qui fait qu'il est mal de tuer — la théorie de la dépossession appliquée à (...) l'acte de tuer, et la thèse des droits liminaux de Judith Thomson. Bien que mon objectif principal dans cet article soit d'établir l'importance de l' autonomie pour expliquer à lafois que la mort est mauvaise et qu'il est mal de tuer, je pense également qu'une réflexion sur ce qui rend la mort mauvaise nous apprend quelque chose au sujet des droits et de leur force, et qu'une réflexion sur les droits nous apprend quelque chose quant à ce qui fait que la mort et l'immortalité sont toutes deux de mauvaises choses. (shrink)

Research indicates that greater involvement in religion may be associated with better physical health. The purpose of this study is to see if the satisfaction of spiritual needs is associated with health. This model that contains the following core hypotheses: Individuals who attend church more often are more likely to receive spiritual support from fellow church members than people who attend worship services less frequently ; receiving more spiritual support is associated with stronger feelings of belonging in a congregation; individuals (...) who feel they belong in their congregations are more likely to feel their spiritual needs have been met; and people who feel their spiritual needs have been met are more likely to rate their health in a favorable manner. The data provide support for each of these relationships. (shrink)

This paper begins from one of the most commonly found questions in phenomenology, “What is Phenomenlogy?”, to argue that phenomenology is a trans-disciplinary approach to engaging with the products of human culture. This approach is characterized by paying particular attention to the distinction between facticity and transcendence within “lived experience” so as to help us better articulate and evaluate the promises that animate every human institution. Such a task necessarily requires inter-disciplinary input and helps us engage in our lives—in our (...) shared cultural life—differently. (shrink)

How may we best understand the motivational structure that stands behind individuals' acts of voting? In “The Impartial Spectator Goes to Washington” we suggested that expressive concerns swamp narrowly consequential motivations, in contradistinction to normal market transactions in which the priority is reversed. A striking consequence of this fact is that individuals will be led to vote for outcomes that they would reject were they in a position to act decisively. In this regard we found the moral psychology Adam Smith (...) develops in The Theory of Moral Sentiments remarkably fecund in suggesting alternatives to what we call the standard theory of electoral behavior. (shrink)

Work on dispositions focuses chiefly on dispositions that are manifested in dynamic causal processes. Williams, Neil. 2005. “Static and Dynamic Dispositions.” Synthese 146: 303–24 has argued that the focus on dynamic dispositions has been at the expense of a richer ontology of dispositions. He contends that we ought to distinguish between dynamic and static dispositions. The manifestation of a dynamic disposition involves some change in the world. The manifestation of a static disposition does not involve any change in the world. (...) In this paper, we concede that making a conceptual distinction between dynamic and static dispositions is useful and we allow that we can truthfully represent objects as manifesting static dispositions. However, we argue that the distinction is not ontologically deep. Rather, the truthmakers for our representations of static dispositions are actually dynamic dispositions to whose manifestations we may fail to be sensitive. (shrink)

The paper unpacks the nuanced ethical potential in the metaphor of gardening that is depicted in Karel Čapek’s The Gardener’s Year, and the relevance of Čapek’s metaphor for understanding Voltaire’s famously ambiguous ending to Candide. Against more pessimistic or passive accounts of what Candide could have meant, the paper agrees with scholars who consider Candide’s maxim as meaning to engage in active, and communal practise of character development. By using Čapek’s much fuller account of the gardener in the practice of (...) cultivation to fill in the gaps in Voltaire’s account, the paper shows that gardening is a rich metaphor of the virtuous person engaged in lifelong character cultivation. (shrink)

Beyond program explanation -- Mental causation on the program model -- Can hunter-gatherers hear color? -- Structural irrationality -- Freedom, coercion, and discursive control -- Conversability and deliberation -- Petit's molecule -- Contestatory citizenship : deliberative denizenship -- Crime, responsibility, and institutional design -- Disenfranchised silence -- Joining the dots.

This article takes up Paul Ricœur’s suggestion that he learned more about the idea of justice by positioning himself on the juridical plane than he had by moving directly to a consideration of political theory. It contends that Ricœur’s very interesting but largely neglected text, “The Just between the Legal and the Good,” illustrates the value of doing philosophical work at a level where there is an imperative to make a judgement and following on from that to distribute, in the (...) fairest way possible, the goods that are at the heart of the dispute. The article also offers a detailed commentary on Ricœur’s text, noting the unusual form of critique that it brings to bear on Rawls’s principles of justice. It also discusses Ricœur’s proposals for entrenching those principles in a concrete judicial practice. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

Psychoanalytic feminism is that body of writing which uses psychoanalysis to further feminist theory and, in principle, feminist practice.