Democratic theorists often distinguish between two views of democratic procedures. ‘Outcomes theorists’ emphasize the instrumental nature of these procedures and argue that they are only valuable because they tend to produce good outcomes. In contrast, ‘proceduralists’ emphasize the intrinsic value of democratic procedures, for instance, on the grounds that they are fair. In this paper. I argue that we should reject pure versions of these two theories in favor of an understanding of the democratic ideal that recognizes a commitment to (...) both intrinsically valuable democratic procedures and democratic outcomes. In instances in which there is a conflict between these two commitments, I suggest they must be balanced. This balancing approach offers a justification of judicial review on the grounds that it potentially limits outcomes that undermine democracy. But judicial review is not justifiable in any instance in which a bad democratic outcome results from democratic procedures. When the loss that would result from overturning a democratic procedure is greater than the gain to democracy that would result from ensuring against an undemocratic outcome; judicial review is not justifiable. Loss or gain to democracy is defined by the negative or positive impact of each action on the core democratic values of equality and autonomy, aspects of the democratic ideal. Even when judicial review is justified, the fact that it overturns intrinsically valuable procedures suggests that such review is never ideal from the standpoint of democracy. (shrink)

According to the widely accepted principles of beneficence and distributive justice, I argue that healthcare providers and facilities have an ethical duty to reduce the ecological footprint of the services they provide. I also address the question of whether the reductions in footprint need or should be patient-facing. I review Andrew Jameton and Jessica Pierce’s claim that achieving ecological sustainability in the healthcare sector requires rationing the treatment options offered to patients. I present a number of reasons to think that (...) we should not ration health care to achieve sufficient reductions in a society’s overall consumption of ecological goods. Moreover, given the complexities of ecological rationing, I argue that there are good reasons to think that the ethical duty to reduce the ecological footprint of health care should focus on only nonpatient-facing changes. I review a number of case studies of hospitals who have successfully retrofitted facilities to make them more efficient and reduced their resource and waste streams. (shrink)

A number of philosophers of science have argued that there are important differences between robustness in modeling and experimental contexts, and—in particular—many of them have claimed that the former is non-confirmatory. In this paper, I argue for the opposite conclusion: robust hypotheses are confirmed under conditions that do not depend on the differences between and models and experiments—that is, the degree to which the robust hypothesis is confirmed depends on precisely the same factors in both situations. The positive argument turns (...) on the fact that confirmation theory doesn’t recognize a difference between different sources of evidence. Most of the paper is devoted to rebutting various objections designed to show that it should. I end by explaining why philosophers of science have (often) gone wrong on this point. (shrink)

Robin illustrates the central role that fear has played and continues to play in the wielding of power, particularly in politics and the workplace.

Explores the notion of selfhood in the wake of the post-structuralist debates.

Computationalism about the brain is the view that the brain literally performs computations. For the view to be interesting, we need an account of computation. The most well-developed account of computation is Turing Machine computation, the account provided by theoretical computer science which provides the basis for contemporary digital computers. Some have thought that, given the seemingly-close analogy between the all-or-nothing nature of neural spikes in brains and the binary nature of digital logic, neural computation could be a species of (...) digital computation. A few recent authors have offered arguments against this idea; here, I review recent findings in neuroscience that further cement the implausibility of this view. However, I argue that we can retain the view that the brain is a computer if we expand what we mean by “computation” to include analog computation. I articulate an account of analog computation as the manipulation of analog representations based on previous work on the difference between analog and non-analog representations, extending a view originally articulated in Shagrir :271–279, 2010). Given that analog computation constitutes a significant chapter in the history of computation, this revision of computationalism to include analog computation is not an ad hoc addition. Brains may well be computers, but of the analog kind, rather than the digital kind. (shrink)

I extend the literature on norms of assertion to the ubiquitous use of graphs in scientific papers and presentations, which I term “graphical testimony.” On my account, the testimonial presentation of a graph involves commitment to both (a) the in‐context reliability of the graph's framing devices and (b) the perspective‐relative accuracy of the graph's content. Despite apparent disagreements between my account and traditional accounts of assertion, the two are compatible and I argue that we should expect a similar pattern of (...) commitments in a set of cases that extends beyond the graphical one. I end by demonstrating that the account resolves apparent tensions between the demands of honesty and the common scientific practice of presenting idealized or simplified graphs: these “distortions” can be honest so long as there's the right kind of alignment between the distortion and the background beliefs and values of the audience. (shrink)

Relative to digital computation, analogue computation has been neglected in the philosophical literature. To the extent that attention has been paid to analogue computation, it has been misunderstood. The received view—that analogue computation has to do essentially with continuity—is simply wrong, as shown by careful attention to historical examples of discontinuous, discrete analogue computers. Instead of the received view, I develop an account of analogue computation in terms of a particular type of analogue representation that allows for discontinuity. This account (...) thus characterizes all types of analogue computation, whether continuous or discrete. Furthermore, the structure of this account can be generalized to other types of computation: analogue computation essentially involves analogue representation, whereas digital computation essentially involves digital representation. Besides being a necessary component of a complete philosophical understanding of computation in general, understanding analogue computation is important for computational explanation in contemporary neuroscience and cognitive science. (shrink)

Positive psychology aims to help people live and flourish, rather than merely to exist. The term “positive psychology” may seem to imply that all other psychology is in some way negative, but that implication is unintended and untrue. However the term “positive psychology” contains a softer indictment, namely, that psychology has become unbalanced. In the years since World War II psychology, guided by its funding agencies and the rising social conscience of its practitioners, has focused on helping people and society (...) solve serious problems. Clinical psychology has focused on mental illness, social psychology has focused on prejudice, racism, and aggression, and cognitive psychology has focused on diagnosing the errors and biases that lead to bad decisions. There are good reasons to spend more time and money on illness and problems than on health and strengths. Utilitarianism, compassion, and a concern for equality suggest that people in great pain should be helped before those who are not suffering. But there are at least two costs to focusing on illness, problems, and weaknesses. The first cost is an inappropriately negative view of human nature and the human condition. We teach students about the many ways the mind can go wrong, and about the frightening prevalence rates of depression, child abuse, and eating disorders. We teach students that people are fundamentally selfish creatures whose occasional good deeds are accidental products of self-esteem management. Is such cynicism and pessimism really justified? Positive psychology is realistic. It does not claim that human nature is all sweetness and light, but it does offer a more balanced view. Most people are doing reasonably well in life, and have the capacity to thrive and flourish, even when -- or especially when -- confronted with challenges, setbacks, and suffering (see Ryff & Singer, this volume; Wethington, this volume). Most people have experienced powerful feelings of moral elevation and inspiration that are unconnected to any need for self-esteem (see Haidt, this volume).. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A review of two distinctive yet, in the end, complementary approaches to reviving Nietzsche as a political thinker beyond his early reception as a prophet of National Socialism or subsequently as an apolitical thinker.

Brettschneider extends this analysis from freedom of expression to the freedoms of religion and association, and he shows that value democracy can uphold the protection of these freedoms while promoting equality for all citizens.

Following a line of research initiated in [4], we describe a general framework for turning reduction concepts of relative computability into diagrams forming an analogy with the Cichoń diagram for cardinal characteristics of the continuum. We show that working from relatively modest assumptions about a notion of reduction, one can construct a robust version of such a diagram. As an application, we define and investigate the Cichoń diagram for degrees of constructibility relative to a fixed inner model W. Many analogies (...) hold with the classical theory as well as some surprising differences. Along the way, we introduce a new axiom stating, roughly, that the constructibility diagram is as complex as possible. (shrink)

When faced with a dilemma between believing what is supported by an impartial assessment of the evidence (e.g., that one's friend is guilty of a crime) and believing what would better fulfill a moral obligation (e.g., that the friend is innocent), people often believe in line with the latter. But is this how people think beliefs ought to be formed? We addressed this question across three studies and found that, across a diverse set of everyday situations, people treat moral considerations (...) as legitimate grounds for believing propositions that are unsupported by objective, evidence-based reasoning. We further document two ways in which moral considerations affect how people evaluate others' beliefs. First, the moral value of a belief affects the evidential threshold required to believe, such that morally beneficial beliefs demand less evidence than morally risky beliefs. Second, people sometimes treat the moral value of a belief as an independent justification for belief, and on that basis, sometimes prescribe evidentially poor beliefs to others. Together these results show that, in the folk ethics of belief, morality can justify and demand motivated reasoning. (shrink)

Climate scientists frequently employ heavily idealized models. How should these models be interpreted? Some philosophers have advanced a possibilist interpretation: climate models stand in for possible scenarios that could occur, but do not provide information about how probable those scenarios are. The present paper argues that possibilism is (a) undermotivated, (b) incompatible with successful practices in the science, and (c) unable to correct for known biases. The upshot is that the models should be interpreted probabilistically in at least some cases.

When information is transformed from what has traditionally been a paper-based format into digitized elements with meaning associated to them, new and intriguing discussions begin surrounding proper and improper uses of this codified and easily transmittable information. As these discussions continue, some health care providers, insurers, laboratories, pharmacies, and other healthcare stakeholders are creating and retroactively digitizing our medical information with the unambiguous endorsement of the federal government.Some argue that these enormous databases of medical information offer improved access to timely (...) information, evidence-based treatments, and complete records from which to provide care. To the extent that these claims are true, it would seem that this is a valuable asset that offers immeasurable benefit to all. Others believe this digitization to be an egregious invasion of privacy. In this article, I investigate the broad research questions of whether the public good aspect of capturing private health information outweighs individual interests and whether it is ethical to mandate participation in health information exchanges by all individuals who use the U.S. health system. (shrink)

This book is aimed at both philosophers and scholars of American literature who wish to reexamine the philosophical depth of Melville’s writings. Contributions deal with various philosophical aspects of Melville’s work, including well-known texts such as Moby-Dick as well as lesser-known works such as Pierre, “The Encantadas,” and Clarel.

Over the last twenty-five years, climate scientists working on the attribution of climate change to humans have developed increasingly sophisticated statistical models in a process that can be understood as a kind of calibration: the gradual changes to the statistical models employed in attribution studies served as iterative revisions to a measurement(-like) procedure motivated primarily by the aim of neutralizing particularly troublesome sources of error or uncertainty. This practice is in keeping with recent work on the evaluation of models more (...) generally that views models as tools for particular tasks: what drives the process is the desire for models that provide more reliable grounds for inference rather than accuracy to the underlying mechanisms of data-generation. (shrink)

Wolff and the First Fifty Years of German Metaphysics offers a fresh account of philosophical developments in German philosophy in the first half of the 18th century. At the centre of this book is Wolff's seminal text on metaphysics, the Deutsche Metaphysik of 1719, a text that modernized and advanced German philosophy but also provoked a vigorous intellectual controversy which informed and animated German thought through the decades until Kant's later philosophical revolution. -/- Corey W. Dyck draws extensively on (...) the wider intellectual context and Wolff's own early philosophical and scientific writings to provide a new and comprehensive account of Wolff's metaphysics, with particular emphasis on Wolff's views on the human soul and God. Dyck explores the impact of Wolff's text, beginning with a widely-neglected aspect of Wolff's reception in Germany, namely, the striking uptake of his philosophy among women intellectuals and Wolff's hostile reception by his Pietist colleagues. In the concluding chapters, a number of key metaphysical debates in the aftermath of the controversy between Wolff and the Pietists are considered. The reader is shown how these two opposed intellectual systems served as the indispensable frame for metaphysical inquiry-inspiring and shaping discussion among German thinkers-in the first half of the 18th century. In the end, this all points to the rich philosophical vein exposed through the opening of the fracture between Wolffianism and Pietism, and takes a step towards giving Wolff-but also his Pietist critics and the philosophers who took up positions between them-their rightful place at the beginning of the history of classical German metaphysics. (shrink)

_Draws out numerous affinities between the sophists and Socrates in Plato's dialogues._.

How does patriarchy affect one’s conception of personal freedom? Patriarchy raises this existential question, not just for women but for other identities such as marginalized men. Using Simone de Beauvoir’s thoughts on patriarchy and existentialism, the author argues that an existential framework for patriarchy gives greater insight into the ways patriarchy is interconnected with other oppressions, affects marginalized men and others who do not identify as women, and alters people’s conception of choice as they engage the world.

Despite shifts in rhetoric and some positive movement, Americans with the disease of addiction are still often stigmatized, criminalized, and denied access to evidencebased care. Dramatically reducing the number of lives unnecessarily lost to overdose requires an evidence-based, equity-focused, well-funded, and coordinated response. We present in this brief article evidence-based and promising practices for improving and refocusing the response to this simmering public health crisis. Topics covered include improving clinical decision-making, improving access to non-judgmental evidence-based treatment, investing in comprehensive public (...) health approaches to problematic drug use, and changing the way law enforcement actors interact with people who use drugs. (shrink)

For much of his career, British political philosopher Michael Oakeshott was identified with Margaret Thatcher’s conservative policies. He has been called by some a guru to the Tories, while others have considered him one of the last proponents of British Idealism. Best known for such books as _Experience and Its Modes_ and _Rationalism in Politics_, Oakeshott has been the subject of numerous studies, but always with an emphasis on his political thought. Elizabeth Campbell Corey now makes the case that (...) Oakeshott’s moral and political philosophies are more informed by religious and aesthetic considerations than has previously been supposed. Hers is the first book-length study of this premise, arguing that Oakeshott’s views on aesthetics, religion, and morality are intimately linked in a creative moral personality that underlies his political theorizing. Corey focuses on a wealth of early material from Oakeshott’s career that has only recently been published, as well as his acclaimed “Tower of Babel” essays, to show that these works illuminate his thinking in ways that could not have been realized prior to their publication. She places Oakeshott squarely in the Augustinian tradition, citing his 1929 essay “Religion and the World,” and then identifies his departure from it. She explores Oakeshott’s recurring theme of “living one’s life in the present”; examines his explicit discussions of religion, aesthetics, and morality; and then considers his political thought in light of this moral vision. She finally compares his idea of Rationalism to Eric Voegelin’s concept of Gnosticism and considers both thinkers’ treatment of Hobbes to delineate their philosophical differences. Through this insightful analysis, Corey shows Oakeshott to be not merely a political philosopher but a thinker with humanistic interests—one who throughout his life was deeply interested in the question of what it means to be human and was moved by art, poetry, and religion while recognizing the necessary evil of political arrangements in order for those activities to flourish. Her work is a major step in a reevaluation of Oakeshott, showing that his conservatism has been greatly misunderstood and that he is more properly regarded as a philosopher whose vision of the human condition, while oftentimes detached and skeptical, is also romantic and inspired. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that popular explanatory frameworks in perceptual psychology suggest the truth of color realism. I focus on perceptual judgments and their evidential basis: namely perceptual representation. I first draw a distinction between two sorts of normativities with respect to which we can evaluate representational capacities and systems: biological and psychological normativities. The former is defined in terms of evolutionary fitness, and the latter in terms of representational accuracy. Generally, representational systems achieve psychological and biological success hand (...) in hand, but in special circumstances, a representational system can be such that it serves the organism best while not generally furnishing the organism with accurate representations. I argue in this essay that an explanation how and why our ancestors developed color vision that cleaves its biological success conditions from its psychological success conditions cannot be given unless we are prepared to say the same about the visual perception of distance and other geometrical features of the world. Moreover, it is difficult to see how the anti-realist could begin to specify psychological success conditions for color representations. Hence, we ought to accept the biological utility of color vision as evidence that it is typically representationally successful, and regard our perceptual judgments about color as generally true. (shrink)

Corey W. Dyck presents a new account of Kant's criticism of the rational investigation of the soul in his monumental Critique of Pure Reason, in light of its eighteenth-century German context. When characterizing the rational psychology that is Kant's target in the Paralogisms of Pure Reason chapter of the Critique commentators typically only refer to an approach to, and an account of, the soul found principally in the thought of Descartes and Leibniz. But Dyck argues that to do so (...) is to overlook the distinctive rational psychology developed by Christian Wolff, which emphasized the empirical foundation of any rational cognition of the soul, and which was widely influential among eighteenth-century German philosophers, including Kant. In this book, Dyck reveals how the received conception of the aim and results of Kant's Paralogisms must be revised in light of a proper understanding of the rational psychology that is the most proximate target of Kant's attack. In particular, he contends that Kant's criticism hinges upon exposing the illusory basis of the rational psychologist's claims inasmuch as he falls prey to the appearance of the soul as being given in inner experience. Moreover, Dyck demonstrates that significant light can be shed on Kant's discussion of the soul's substantiality, simplicity, personality, and existence by considering the Paralogisms in this historical context.Readership: Scholars and advanced students in history of philosophy, especially those working on Kant. (shrink)

Representation is central to contemporary theorizing about the mind/brain. But the nature of representation--both in the mind/brain and more generally--is a source of ongoing controversy. One way of categorizing representational types is to distinguish between the analog and the digital: the received view is that analog representations vary smoothly, while digital representations vary in a step-wise manner. I argue that this characterization is inadequate to account for the ways in which representation is used in cognitive science; in its place, I (...) suggest an alternative taxonomy. I will defend and extend David Lewis's account of analog and digital representation, distinguishing analog from continuous representation, as well as digital from discrete representation. I will argue that the distinctions available in this four-fold account accord with representational features of theoretical interest in cognitive science more usefully than the received analog/digital dichotomy. (shrink)

Liberal political theorists often argue that justice requires limits on policy outcomes, limits delineated by substantive rights. Distinct from this project is a body of literature dedicated to elaborating on the meaning of democracy in procedural terms. In this article, I offer an alternative to the traditional divide between procedural theories of democracy and substantive theories of justice; I call this the ‘value theory of democracy’. I argue that the democratic ideal is fundamentally about a core set of values (political (...) autonomy, equality of interests, and reciprocity) with both procedural and substantive implications. Further, I contend that limits on policy outcomes can be newly understood as part of the democratic ideal. Key Words: democracy • rights • substantive • procedural • Habermas. (shrink)

The task of theologizing literature in the twentieth century -- Bergonsian conceptions of time : duration, dualism, intention -- Meeting the eternal in the present : Bergsonsism and the theology of present time in C.S. Lewis's The great divorce -- T.S. Eliot's Bergonsian "always present" : incarnation and duration in Four quartets -- W.H. Auden's themes of time and dualism : the Bergsonsian theology of "kairos and logos.".

Raters may introduce construct-irrelevant variance when evaluating written responses to performance assessments, threatening the validity of students’ scores. Numerous factors in the rating process, including the content of students’ responses, the characteristics of raters, and the context in which the scoring occurs, are thought to influence the quality of raters’ scores. Despite considerable study of rater effects, little research has examined the relative impacts of the factors that influence rater accuracy. In practice, such integrated examinations are needed to afford evidence-based (...) decisions of rater selection, training, and feedback. This study provides the first naturalistic, integrated examination of rater accuracy in a large-scale assessment program. Leveraging rater monitoring data from an English language arts summative assessment program, I specified cross-classified, multilevel models via Bayesian estimation to decompose the impact of response content, rater characteristics, and scoring contexts on rater accuracy. Results showed relatively little variation in accuracy attributable to teams, items, and raters. Raters did not collectively exhibit differential accuracy over time, though there was significant variation in individual rater’s scoring accuracy from response to response and day to day. I found considerable variation in accuracy across responses, which was in part explained by text features and other measures of response content that influenced scoring difficulty. Some text features differentially influenced the difficulty of scoring research and writing content. Multiple measures of raters’ qualification performance predicted their scoring accuracy, but general rater background characteristics including experience and education did not. Site-based and remote raters demonstrated comparable accuracy, while evening-shift raters were slightly less accurate, on average, than day-shift raters. This naturalistic, integrated examination of rater accuracy extends previous research and provides implications for rater recruitment, training, monitoring, and feedback to improve human evaluation of written responses. (shrink)

I argue that the appropriateness of an assertion is sensitive to context—or, really, the “common ground”—in a way that hasn’t previously been emphasized by philosophers. This kind of context-sensitivity explains why some scientific conclusions seem to be appropriately asserted even though they are not known, believed, or justified on the available evidence. I then consider other recent attempts to account for this phenomenon and argue that if they are to be successful, they need to recognize the kind of context-sensitivity that (...) I argue for. (shrink)

Functionalism is a popular solution to the mind–body problem. It has a number of versions. We outline some of the major releases of functionalism, listing some of their important features as well as some of the bugs that plagued these releases. We outline how different versions are related. Many have been pessimistic about functionalism’s prospects, but most criticisms have missed the latest upgrades. We end by suggesting a version of functionalism that provides a complete account of the mind.