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)

Results of a study investigating the relation between personality traits and ethical-orientation indicate sex is not an good predictor for differences in Machiavellian-, Type A personality- or ethical-orientation. Intelligence is found to be positively associated with Machiavellian- and Type A personality-orientation but negatively associated with ethical-orientation. Machiavellians tend to have Type A personalities, but tend to be less ethically-oriented than Nonmachiavellians. Type A personalities are more ethically-orientated than Type B personalities.

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.

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)

Because of the “problem of individual causal inefficacy,” it has been difficult to explain why a purchase that will make little to no difference to a producer’s wrongdoing is itself morally wrong. Some have recently appealed to the concept of complicity in order to support the idea that consumers have a moral reason to avoid purchasing from companies engaged in wrongdoing. In this paper, I contribute to the development of this direction in consumer ethics. First, I explore how we should (...) define moral complicity in such situations. Some have claimed that an individual’s purchase makes her complicit, even though it makes no difference to the wrongdoing, because she is still knowingly joining in with the wrong that the company or other consumers are doing. I argue, however, that it is difficult to see making a purchase as a form of joining in a joint or group action. Instead, I respond to the causal inefficacy problem directly. I argue that even when the outcome is massively overdetermined, an individual purchase still makes a causal contribution to the principal wrongdoing and thus a basic condition for an act of moral complicity is met. Yet, this does not resolve the deeper question of whether and why consumers should morally avoid purchases that make them complicit in these cases. The issue is with how small the causal contribution such an individual purchase makes. That is, an individual purchase in such a situation may only make one a little bit complicit. I argue that for the concept of moral complicity to gain traction here, we will have to appeal to normative concerns besides the outcome of the complicit action. Still, even with this account, purchases in such overdetermination cases may not often be all things considered wrong because the reasons against them may be outweighed by other relevant reasons. (shrink)

Analog representations come in different types. One distinction is between those representations that have parts that are themselves representations and those that do not (i.e., those for which the Parts Principle is true and those for which it is not). I offer a unified account of analog representation, showing what all types have in common. This account clarifies when the Parts Principle applies and when it does not, thereby illuminating why the Parts Principle is less interesting than one might have (...) thought. Understanding analog representation instead requires understanding the kinds of magnitudes used in a particular representation, and the kinds of variation possible within a representational scheme. (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.

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

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)

When the Supreme Court in 2003 struck down a Texas law prohibiting homosexual sodomy, it cited the right to privacy based on the guarantee of "substantive due process" embodied by the Constitution. But did the court act undemocratically by overriding the rights of the majority of voters in Texas? Scholars often point to such cases as exposing a fundamental tension between the democratic principle of majority rule and the liberal concern to protect individual rights. Democratic Rights challenges this view by (...) showing that, in fact, democracy demands many of these rights. Corey Brettschneider argues that ideal democracy is comprised of three core values--political autonomy, equality of interests, and reciprocity--with both procedural and substantive implications. These values entitle citizens not only to procedural rights of participation but also to substantive rights that a "pure procedural" democracy might not protect. What are often seen as distinctly liberal substantive rights to privacy, property, and welfare can, then, be understood within what Brettschneider terms a "value theory of democracy." Drawing on the work of John Rawls and deliberative democrats such as Jürgen Habermas, he demonstrates that such rights are essential components of--rather than constraints on--an ideal democracy. Thus, while defenders of the democratic ideal rightly seek the power of all to participate, they should also demand the rights that are the substance of self-government. (shrink)

Some have recently argued that the current generation dominates future generations by causing long-term climate change. They relate these claims to Philip Pettit and Frank Lovett's neorepublican theory of domination. In this paper, I examine their claims and ask whether the neorepublican conception of domination remains theoretically coherent when the relation is between current agents and nonoverlapping future subjects. I differentiate between an ‘outcome’ and a ‘relational’ conception of domination. I show how both are theoretically coherent when extended to posterity (...) but only if we make different definitional and normative choices than those made by Pettit and Lovett. (shrink)

Legal and ethical issues involved in group work are reviewed and discussed. Variations in different professional ethics codes are discussed. Recommendations for consideration by group leaders are made.

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.".

Relationships between self-ratings and expectations of an ideal U.S. president, were studied in 43 men drawn from a university setting in the eastern coast of the U.S.A. The men first rated themselves on personality variables, life choices (agentic and communal), peacefulness, spirituality, and morality. Then they were presented with a vignette requesting that they describe an ideal U.S. president on inventories measuring personality variables, life choices, peacefulness, spirituality, and morality. For the rating of the ideal U.S. president, they also were (...) asked to respond to a 20 item questionnaire that was a composite of several factors on organization and leadership, morality, spirituality, and peacefulness. The respondents belonged to one of seven different political persuasions, similar in some ways to different cultures. Self-ratings of the men and expectations of the president were highly correlated for extraversion, openness, trait morality, agentic and communal life choices. However, no significant correlations were found between the self-ratings and expectations of the president for neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, peacefulness, nor state morality. The men were also presented with vignettes for the ideal physician and ideal automechanic and asked to rate each of them on the inventory items. Overall, the U.S. President was rated as more neurotic and immoral in terms of ingrained ideas of right and wrong, but also as more caring for others, transcendent, seeking goodness and truth, forgiving, cooperative, and most concerned with matters of justice and mercy, and more concerned with both agentic (power-seeking) and communal (community-minded) life choices than were either the ideal physician or ideal automechanic. The ideal physician was rated as highest in extra-version, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and overall peacefulness, and lowest in neuroticism. The ideal automechanic was rated as highest in state or situational immorality, and lowest in both agentic (power-seeking, business-mindedness) and communal (community-mindedness) life choices, and also lowest in caring for others well-being, transcendence, seeking goodness and truth, forgiveness and cooperation, being concerned with justice and mercy, overall expectations, overall spirituality, and overall organization and leadership. In general, the self-ratings were significantly related to ratings/expectations, of the U.S. President, ideal physician, and ideal automechanic. The men seemed to identify more with the automechanic than with the present or physician. (shrink)

Rational accounts of language use such as the uniform information density hypothesis, which asserts that speakers distribute information uniformly across their utterances, and the rational speech act (RSA) model, which suggests that speakers optimize the formulation of their message by reasoning about what the comprehender would understand, have been hypothesized to account for a wide range of language use phenomena. We here specifically focus on the production of discourse connectives. While there is some prior work indicating that discourse connective production (...) may be governed by RSA, that work uses a strongly gamified experimental setting. In this study, we aim to explore whether speakers reason about the interpretation of their conversational partner also in more realistic settings. We thereby systematically vary the task setup to tease apart effects of task instructions and effects of the speaker explicitly seeing the interpretation alternatives for the listener. Our results show that the RSA-predicted effect of connective choice based on reasoning about the listener is only found in the original setting where explicit interpretation alternatives of the listener are available for the speaker. The effect disappears when the speaker has to reason about listener interpretations. We furthermore find that rational effects are amplified by the gamified task setting, indicating that meta-reasoning about the specific task may play an important role and potentially limit the generalizability of the found effects to more naturalistic every-day language use. (shrink)

Amalia Holst was an important pedagogical theorist and philosopher who was part of the distinctive intellectual milieu of Hamburg in the late 18th and early 19th century. Holst has enjoyed a fair amount of attention from scholars working on the history of feminism, and she has recently come to the attention of historians of philosophy for her incisive critique of (Rousseau-inspired) educational theories, her vocal advocacy for women’s access to higher education, and for apparently radical lines of thinking in her (...) views on history, religion, and morality. While Holst was something of a public figure in Hamburg—she published two controversial treatises in her lifetime, in addition to a lengthy review of a popular novel—there is relatively little known about her life, with most of what we do know owed to only a sparse handful of sources. It is, therefore, a rather significant development for scholars working on Holst that two letters by her should come to light. These letters are replete with new details of Holst’s life, her intellectual network, and they seem to have been wholly unaccounted for by Holst’s biographers. In this article, I will provide a transcription and translation, with annotations, of the two new letters. (shrink)

The practice of teaching virtue for pay was typical of the Greek sophists but consistently eschewed by their contemporary Socrates. Plato and Xenophon offer various explanations for Socrates' refusal to take pay, explanations intended not only to reflect favourably upon their teacher but also to reflect negatively upon the sophists. Indeed, Plato and Xenophon have been so persuasive in this regard that the mere fact of accepting pay has become a common source of invective against the sophists. This paper examines (...) and evaluates these passages of Plato and Xenophon in light of the historical information we have concerning sophistic and Socratic pedagogy in general and it reaches two major conclusions: first, that most of the reasons ascribed to Socrates for refusing to accept pay are sufficiently problematic to raise serious doubts about their authenticity and, second, that none of these reasons functions successfully as a general critique of the sophists. (shrink)

Previous research has shown implicit semantic processing of faces or pictures, but whether symbolic carriers such as words can be processed this way remains controversial. Here we examine this issue by adopting the continuous flash suppression paradigm to ensure that the processing undergone is indeed unconscious without the involvement of partial awareness. Negative or neutral words projected into one eye were made invisible due to strong suppression induced by dynamic-noise patterns shown in the other eye through binocular rivalry. Inverted and (...) scrambled words were used as controls to provide baselines at orthographic and feature levels, respectively. Compared to neutral words, emotion-described and emotion-induced negative words required longer time to release from suppression, but only for upright words. These results suggest that words can be processed unconsciously up to semantic level since under interocular suppression completely invisible words can lead to different processing speed due to the emotion information they carry. (shrink)

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)

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)

Not much is known about Prodicus of Ceos, though he is mentioned in more than a dozen Platonic dialogues and appears as a character in the Protagoras. In this article I examine the extant evidence about Prodicus from Plato and other ancient authors and show that Plato's attitude toward him was, surprisingly, one of great respect. In fact, Plato suggests that Prodicus was quite literally Socrates' teacher. I argue that by considering the evidence carefully we can determine with some confidence (...) what Socrates probably took from his instruction, namely, an art of making careful distinctions (diairesis), which had important political and philosophical applications. (shrink)

Social enterprises, as typical hybrid organisations, are embedded in a plural institutional environment in which some stakeholders regard achieving social goals as fundamental, while others see economic profit as the priority. A great challenge for social enterprises is dealing with the conflicts resulting from the diverse expectations of stakeholders. Based on the existing works on organisational legitimacy and the social business model, we propose a legitimacy-based social enterprise model composed of three main phases, namely, legitimacy proposition, legitimacy strategy planning, and (...) legitimacy strategy implementation. Our model is meant to serve as an effective legitimacy-building tool for social enterprises of various kinds. (shrink)

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

In this article, I outline a framework for the sociological study of culture that connects three intertwined elements of human culture and demonstrates the concrete contexts under which each most critically influences actions and their subsequent outcomes. In contrast to models that cast motivations, resources, and meanings as competing explanations of how culture affects action, I argue that these are fundamental constituent elements of culture that are inseparable, interdependent, and simultaneously operative. Which element provides the strongest link to action, and (...) how this link operates, must be understood as a function of the actor's position within wider social contexts. I argue that on average motivations have the most discernable link to action within a social strata, cultural resources provide the strongest link across strata, and meanings have the greatest direct influence when codified and sanctioned. I then offer a reframing and synthesis that reintegrates previously “competing” theories of culture into a more holistic context-dependent model of culture in action. Finally, I use evidence from prior empirical research, as well as new data from an ongoing ethnographic study of health behaviors among the aged, to show how various elements of culture are concretely linked to action in eight different social contexts. In doing so, I provide a roadmap for the transition out of the “either-or” logic underlying much of cultural theory and reemphasize the importance of the classical sociological concern for “when” and “how” various aspects of culture influence action and outcomes in concrete social contexts. (shrink)

Alain Locke is most known for his involvement in the Harlem Renaissance. However, he received his PhD in philosophy from Harvard University in 1918, and produced a very large corpus of philosophical work. His work shows him to have been a sophisticated philosopher who thought through practical and theoretical problems regarding the nature of cosmopolitanism, democracy, race, value, religion, art, and education. Although Locke’s philosophical work has been discussed in parts, there has been no theorizing about how his different philosophical (...) commitments fit together. In this book Corey L. Barnes begins to systematize Locke’s philosophical thought, showing how his democratic theory, philosophy of race, and value theory are connected to and undergirded by a commitment to cosmopolitanism. In so doing, Barnes unearths aspects of Locke’s thought—for example, his economic thinking—that have not been accorded attention and reimagines parts of his work about which have been theorized, all while bringing Locke into current debates about each subject. (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)

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)

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)

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)

Volume 1. Logic, Mind, Epistemology, Science and Ethics -- Volume 2. Aesthetics, history, politics, and religion.