The ability of a computer to have a sense of humor, that is, to generate authentically funny jokes, has been taken by some theorists to be a sufficient condition for artificial consciousness. Creativity, the argument goes, is indicative of consciousness and the ability to be funny indicates creativity. While this line fails to offer a legitimate test for artificial consciousness, it does point in a possibly correct direction. There is a relation between consciousness and humor, but it relies on a (...) different sense of “sense of humor,” that is, it requires the getting of jokes, not the generating of jokes. The question, then, becomes how to tell when an artificial system enjoys a joke. We propose a mechanism, the GHoST test, which may be useful for such a task and can begin to establish whether a system possesses artificial consciousness. (shrink)

Entanglement has long been the subject of discussion by philosophers of quantum theory, and has recently come to play an essential role for physicists in their development of quantum information theory. In this paper we show how the formalism of algebraic quantum field theory (AQFT) provides a rigorous framework within which to analyse entanglement in the context of a fully relativistic formulation of quantum theory. What emerges from the analysis are new practical and theoretical limitations on an experimenter's ability to (...) perform operations on a field in one spacetime region that can disentangle its state from the state of the field in other spacelike-separated regions. These limitations show just how deeply entrenched entanglement is in relativistic quantum field theory, and yield a fresh perspective on the ways in which the theory differs conceptually from both standard non-relativistic quantum theory and classical relativistic field theory. (shrink)

According to Federalist President John Adams, the legislative assembly “should be an exact portrait, in miniature, of the people at large, as it should think, reason and act like them.” It is one thing to have the legislative assembly reflect the true composition of the people at large and quite another to prearrange the voting districts so as to better ensure the desired assembly, irrespective of the verisimilitude between the composition of the people and the assembly. In such district-engineered elections, (...) the legislative assembly may not reflect the true complexion of the people as a whole but rather the complexion the engineers ideally desire the people as a whole to have. Politically inspired district drawing, unlike its racially motivated counterpart is deemed constitutionally acceptable, save at extremes, by most members of the United States Supreme Court and non-justiciable by some members thereof. There are powerful and complex arguments investigated supporting both positions. (shrink)

The authors examine the claim that the most recent cohort of U.S. women is reluctant to identify as feminist although it has egalitarian gender attitudes. Using two national surveys, they show that the most recent generation is no less likely than prior cohorts to identify as feminist. However, Baby Bust women are less apt to identify as feminist than are older women, once background characteristics and attitudes related to feminist identification are controlled. Analyses suggest this reluctance is not due to (...) an aversion to feminism but reflects the “off” timing of the feminist movement in the lives of Baby Bust women. The authors also find important differences among cohorts in the correlates of feminist identity. Most notably, the relationships of political ideology and gender attitudes to feminist identity are stronger among Baby Boom women, who came of age during the feminist movement’s second wave, than among older and younger women. (shrink)

We develop a basic theory of rosy groups and we study groups of small Uþ-rank satisfying NIP and having finitely satisfiable generics: Uþ-rank 1 implies that the group is abelian-by-finite, Uþ-rank 2 implies that the group is solvable-by-finite, Uþ-rank 2, and not being nilpotent-by-finite implies the existence of an interpretable algebraically closed field.

Noël Carroll’s (“Moderate Moralism”) conceptual framework includes four positions: radical autonomism, moderate autonomism, moderate moralism, and radical moralism. Alessandro Giovanelli (“The Ethical Criticism of Art: A New Mapping of the Territory”) argues that the radical positions, as Carroll defines them, have no modern day adherents. Therefore, the framework should be adapted such that we can see interestingly new distinctions. On Giovanelli’s new framework Carroll’s account is a moderate autonomist view. In this paper I adopt Giovanelli’s framework and raise a different (...) objection to Carroll’s account. I argue that Carroll’s account possesses a branching structure, since on this account moral and aesthetic criticism are not linearly related. Because of this structure, Carroll’s theory faces a dilemma: it’s either self-undermining or consistent with moderate autonomism, even in his own framework. Drawing on Kendall Walton’s (“Categories of Art”) notion of categories of art, I provide an account that is both non-branching and moderate moralist in Giovanelli’s framework. It’s non-branching because moral criticism bears a linear causal relation to aesthetic criticism. (shrink)

We further develop a recent new proof (by Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger—GHZ) that local deterministic hidden-variable theories are inconsistent with certain strict correlations predicted by quantum mechanics. First, we generalize GHZ's proof so that it applies to factorable stochastic theories, theories in which apparatus hidden variables are causally relevant to measurement results, and theories in which the hidden variables evolve indeterministically prior to the particle-apparatus interactions. Then we adopt a more general measure-theoretic approach which requires that GHZ's argument be modified (...) in order to produce a valid proof. Finally, we motivate our more general proof's assumptions in a somewhat different way from previous authors in order to strengthen the implications of our proof as much as possible. After developing GHZ's proof along these lines, we then consider the analogue, for our proof, of Bohr's reply to the EPR argument, and conclude (pace GHZ) that in at least one respect (viz. that of most concern to Bohr) the proof is no more powerful than Bell's. Nevertheless, we point out some new advantages of our proof over Bell's, and over other algebraic proofs of nonlocality. And we conclude by giving a modified version of our proof that, like Bell's, does not rely on experimentally unrealizable strict correlations, but still leads to a testable “quasi-algebraic” locality inequality.“... to admit things not visible to the gross creatures that we are is, in my opinion, to show a decent humility, and not just a lamentable addiction to metaphysics.”J. S. Bell. (shrink)

This article focuses on the relationship between evaluations of beauty and the ethics of living well. Separating these ideas typically involves understating how racism and patriarchy shape wider cultural and aesthetic sensibilities. I counter this tendency by foregrounding the precarity of vulnerable black children and the importance of self‐love in their efforts to flourish. My strategy involves placing Toni Morrison in conversation with Alexander Nehamas and Harry Frankfurt, philosophers who have carefully engaged the topics of beauty and love. By situating (...) aesthetic judgment within ongoing practices of social formation and political contestation, I reveal the importance of linking beauty with practices of self‐regard while also detailing my criticisms of thinkers who downplay their significance. The effect is to position Morrison as an instructive guide for scholars interested in aesthetics, ethics, and politics. (shrink)

This article considers the stakeholder approach (SHA) to organisational management through the lens of what it means for humans to live sustainably on the Earth (that is, for there to be a sustainable world). In particular, the article considers if the SHA, as it is presented in mainstream academic and management literature, is supportive of corporate practices that advance the achievement of a sustainable world. The analysis shows the SHA to have significant failings in this regard when viewed against key (...) sustainable world criteria, with issues of concern evident from the normative core of the SHA through to is practical application in the management setting. (shrink)

In the polarized debates about abortion and voluntary euthanasia, disability advocates, who normally align with left-wing social forces, have tended to side with conservative and religious voices in expressing concerns about the impact of technological and sociopolitical developments on disabled futures. This paper draws on the social model of disability and the virtue ethics tradition to explain the alignment between the religious and disability perspectives, and the theory of transformative choice to highlight the limits and biases of the pro-choice logic. (...) Yet, it also recognizes the inherent contradiction of disabled advocates taking a paternalistic position against the personal agency of women and people facing terminal illnesses. A disability perspective serves the discussion of abortion and euthanasia as an encouragement to work together for the building of a society that enables people with diverse disabilities to exist and flourish, and helps pregnant women, people facing disabling and terminal illnesses, and politicians and social influencers to make informed choices. (shrink)

Only recently have sociologists considered the role of nonhuman animals in human society. The few studies undertaken of battered women and their animal companions have revealed high rates of animal abuse co-existing with domestic violence. This study examines several aspects of the relationship between humans and animals in violent homes. The study explored the role of companion animals in the abusive relationship through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with clients at a battered women's shelter. In particular, the study focused on the use (...) of companion animals by women's violent partners to control, hurt, and intimidate the women; the responses of the animals to the women's victimization; and the role of pets as human surrogates and the resulting symbolic interaction between human and nonhuman family members. The significance of the findings for family violence research and application are discussed, as well as the broader implications for sociological investigation of human-animal interaction. (shrink)

Peter Lewis ([1997]) has recently argued that the wavefunction collapse theory of GRW (Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber [1986]) can only solve the problem of wavefunction tails at the expense of predicting that arithmetic does not apply to ordinary macroscopic objects. More specifically, Lewis argues that the GRW theory must violate the enumeration principle: that 'if marble 1 is in the box and marble 2 is in the box and so on through marble n, then all n marbles are in the (...) box' ([1997], p. 321). Ghirardi and Bassi ([1999]) have replied that it is meaningless to say that the enumeration principle is violated because the wavefunction Lewis uses to exhibit the violation cannot persist, according to the GRW theory, for more than a split second ([1999], p. 709). On the contrary, we argue that Lewis's argument survives Ghirardi and Bassi' s criticism unscathed. We then go on to show that, while the enumeration principle can fail in the GRW theory, the theory itself guarantees that the principle can never be empirically falsified, leaving the applicability of arithmetical reasoning to both micro- and macroscopic objects intact. (shrink)

This study examined the relationship between hunting and illegal violence among college males. Although similar on many socio-demographic characteristics such as age and social class , hunters were more likely than non-hunters to be white and Protestant. They also were more likely to have grown up with a family member who hunted. Hunters were about twice as likely to have been violent toward nonhuman animals; however, one type of violence—killing wild or stray animals—accounted for this difference. Regarding violence toward people, (...) hunters were more than twice as likely to have damaged or destroyed private or public property during their last year in high school but were no more likely during that year to have fought with other persons. Thus, at least for this sample, hunting related to harming animals in the wild and to property damage but not to other forms of animal abuse or violence against humans. This paper discusses possible explanations for this result and limitations of the study. (shrink)

International policy frameworks can influence values and ideals by promoting a common conception of societal good, a domain overlapping with the traditional concerns of religion. Animal welfare has begun to receive attention in the UN environmental and sustainable development policy. This article explores the potential for Hindu religious communities and organizations to contribute to the creation and implementation of policy on animal welfare and the environment. The article centers on a discussion of the UN Environment Assembly's March 2022 resolution on (...) the Animal Welfare—Environment—Sustainable Development Nexus and the traditional Hindu concepts of līlā (divine play), ahiṃsā (harmlessness), and sevā (service). (shrink)

Since 9/11, Islamophobia has been gaining the attention of scholars, and, increasingly, it is perceived to be an integral part of the emerging zeitgeist of the 21st century. However, the term itself is much debated and little consensus exists as to what it means. Using data drawn from political debate on talk radio between Nick Griffin, Chairman of the British National Party, and Abdul, a Muslim from Manchester and membership categorisation analysis as a methodology, this paper aims to reveal the (...) category-work by which Islamophobia is achieved as a members’ accomplishment. Findings indicate that two versions of Islamophobia are talked into being. On the one hand, Griffin “does” Islamophobia through the operation of an adversarial standard relational pair Islam/west which operates within a membership categorisation device “worlds”, and so he achieves exclusion through cultural incompatibility. On the other hand, Abdul uses the membership categorisation device “race” within which the adversarial standard relational pair Muslim/asian-white British is operative, and so he ascribes overt racist attitudes to Islamophobes. (shrink)

A survey of university students tested whether committing animal abuse during childhood was related to approval of interpersonal violence against children and women in families. Respondents who had abused an animal as children or adolescents were significantly more likely to support corporal punishment, even after controlling for frequency of childhood spanking, race, biblical literalism, and gender. Those who had perpetrated animal abuse were also more likely to approve of a husband slapping his wife. Engaging in childhood violence against less powerful (...) beings— animals—may generalize to the acceptance of violence against less powerful members of families and society—women and children. This paper discusses the implications of this process. (shrink)

We define a notion of residue field domination for valued fields which generalizes stable domination in algebraically closed valued fields. We prove that a real closed valued field is dominated by the sorts internal to the residue field, over the value group, both in the pure field and in the geometric sorts. These results characterize forking and þ-forking in real closed valued fields (and also algebraically closed valued fields). We lay some groundwork for extending these results to a power-bounded T-convex (...) theory. (shrink)

We study thorn forking and rosiness in the context of continuous logic. We prove that the Urysohn sphere is rosy (with respect to finitary imaginaries), providing the first example of an essentially continuous unstable theory with a nice notion of independence. In the process, we show that a real rosy theory which has weak elimination of finitary imaginaries is rosy with respect to finitary imaginaries, a fact which is new even for discrete first-order real rosy theories.

There has been a recent surge of interest in the moral philosophy of Iris Murdoch. One issue that has arisen is whether her view advocates a form of moral perception. In this paper I argue that her view does indeed advocate for a form of moral perception—what I call weak moral perception. In the process of moral reasoning weak moral perception plays a preparatory role for moral judgment, which means that moral judgment isn’t simply a matter of seeing what action (...) to perform, but that the right kind of perception is crucial to being able to make good moral decisions. One aspect of Murdoch’s account that has aroused special interest is her suggestion that the right kind of perception relies on the agent’s being in a state of love. I give what I think is the correct account of Murdochian love, which then allows me to defend her view against red herring-type objections raised recently by David Velleman and Charles Starkey. (shrink)

give a proof of the existence of nonlocal influences acting on correlated spin-1/2 particles in the singlet state which does not require any particular interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM). (Except Stapp holds that the proof fails under a many-worlds interpretation of QM—a claim we analyse in 1.2.) Recently, in responding to Redhead's ([1987], pp. 90-6) criticism that the Stapp 1 proof fails under an indeterministic interpretation of QM, Stapp [1989] (henceforth Stapp 2), has revised the logical structure of his proof (...) including its crucial locality assumption. Our main aim is to show that this revision is a step in the wrong direction because it faces two difficulties which undermine the resulting proof's significance (3.1) and validity (3. 2). We also clarify and extend the Stapp 1 proof (1. 1) with the aid of Lewis' analysis of counterfactuals (1. 2) and causal dependence (2. 2 and 2. 3). In so doing, we are able to identify two new defects in the Stapp 1 proof (1. 3 and 2. 1) in addition to corroborating Redhead's criticism (2. 2). Also, the additional assumptions which save the Stapp 1 proof's validity are detailed (2. 3) and some new difficulties for the determinist are pointed out by exploiting a slightly extended version of the proof (2. 4). In providing this full analysis of the Stapp 1 proof, we also construct the necessary framework within which to provide a critique of Stapp 2's proof (3). *Portions of this paper were presented by R. K. Clifton to the 1988 British Society for the Philosophy of Science Conference at the University of Southampton. R. K. Clifton wishes to thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, and the Governing Body of Peterhouse at Cambridge University for support during this work. (shrink)

Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, one of several popularizations paralleling Eastern mysticism and modern physics, is critiqued, demonstrating that Capra gives little attention to the differing philosophies of physics he employs, utilizing whatever interpretation suits his purposes, without prior justification. The same critique is applied and similar conclusions drawn, about some recent attempts at relating theology and physics. In contrast, we propose the possibility of maintaining a cogent relationship between these disciplines by employing theological hypotheses to account for aspects (...) of physics that are free from interpretive difficulties, such as the ability to create mathematical structures with extraordinary predictive success. (shrink)

We examine several conditions, either the existence of a rank or a particular property of þ-forking that suggest the existence of a well-behaved independence relation, and determine the consequences of each of these conditions towards the rosiness of the theory. In particular we show that the existence of an ordinal valued equivalence relation rank is a (necessary and) sufficient condition for rosiness.

Sociologists have largely ignored the role of animals in society. This article argues that human-animal interaction is a topic worthy of sociological consideration and applies a sociological analysis to one problematic aspect of human-animal relationships - animal cruelty. The article reformulates animal cruelty, traditionally viewed using a psychopathological model, from a sociological perspective.The article identifies social and cultural factors related to the occurrence of animal cruelty. Ultimately, animal cruelty is a serious social problem that deserves attention in its own right, (...) not just because of its association with human violence. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that there are valuable consonances between democratic theory and music theory, and between democratization and musical performance and enjoyment. We suggest that this connection is not as trite as it may first appear, but that, since democracy is learned and practiced in a myriad ofways, music is one such place to learn democratic citizenship. The paper begins with a normative account of democratic theory that is present in two movements. The first, “foundations,” explicates the essential (...) components, criteria, and conditions of democracy. The second, “flows,” addresses the dynamism of democratization. Here is an account of what democracy looks like in action. We then turn to an explication of music theory and improvisation. Here, we focus on jazz as a way to hear the kind of interplay, responsiveness, accountability, discipline, and extemporaneousness that occurs in good jazz, and in authentic (radical) democracy. (shrink)