In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE THOUGHT-EXPERIMENT: SHEWMON ON BRAIN DEATH 1 ANDREW TARDIFF University of Rhode Island Kingston, Rhode Island MODERN TECHNOLOGY as it advances often brings with it new ethical problems. One such problem is "brain death." In times past, that is, up until the 1960s, medical men considered cardiopulmonary collapse as the criterion for the death of the person, for with heart failure the body ceases to function as a (...) whole living organism. As technology and science advanced, however, scientists discovered that when the heart failed the very first organ to be irreparably damaged was the brain. Moreover, around this time they discovered how to revive the heart and to keep the body alive even after the brain had been destroyed. These discoveries and advances alone might not have sufficed to raise the issue of brain death. But science also discovered the crucial role the brain plays for consciousness and a fortiori for the specifically human abilities of knowing and willing. It is thus that we now have the question : once the brain has been irreparably damaged, and the possibility of consciousness and personal life thereby excluded, is such a person really dead, even though his body is alive and functioning? But it would be less than honest to say that this is an adequate history of the brain death criterion. For with the dawn of organ transplantation a new demand for living organs arose, one that had never been known before. Under the old cardiopulmonary criterion of death, the demand for living organs could not be met since the organs of a person " dead " in that sense of the word 1 " The Metaphysics of Brain Death, Persistent Vegetative State, and Dementia ", The Thomist, 49 (January, 1985) : 24-80. 435 436 ANDREW TARDIFF could not be transplanted; under the brain death criterion they could. Such a situation will quite naturally give rise to, or at least heavily contribute to, a less than objective handling of the issue. Happily, however, the literature on brain death has recently seen a serious objective appraisal of the issue: D. Alan Shewmon 's article The Metaphysics of Brain Death, Persistent Vegetative State, and Dementia. Shewmon argues persuasively that the new criterion of death is sound. He argues for an exact formulation of the criterion of the death of the person, viz., the death or irreparable destruction of one specific part of the brain, namely, the tertiary cortex. Thus, the death of the person occurs with the irrevocable destruction of the tertiary cortex, even if the rest of the body is still functional. In the following pages I will consider Shewmon's analysis of the issue and expose some of the major problems with his arguments. My critique will focus chiefly on an analysis of a certain thought-experiment of which Shewmon makes extensive use. I do this both because of its central role in Shewmon's argument and because of the light it sheds on the whole problem of using brain death as the criterion for the death of the person. The Thought-Experiment Shewmon has set out to show that only the teritary cortex is the critical structure or formed matter necessary for the human essence.2 In a later passage, however, he mitigates this claim slightly, in case science should someday discover that some other area (or just some fraction of this area) is the critical area.3 But in either case, Shewmon maintains that the crucial area is to be found in the neocortex of the cerebral hemespheres. By the time his analysis has reached page fifty-nine, he believes he has established this much. The following is an examination of his thoughtexperiment and how he establishes the above claim. Shewmon begins with certain observations about how the human essence relates to the various parts of the body. Modern 2 Ibid., p. 56ff. a Ibid., p. 59. SHEWMON ON BRAIN DEATH 437 technology has developed ways to remove parts of a man's body without killing either the man or the part. Science can remove a person's kidney, for example, and transplant it into another person 's body without killing either the person or destroying the living cells of the kidney. Moreover... (shrink)

The world is disenchanted. Rationalization, intellectualization, and scientism rule the day. We used to see the world as a magical place, but now it's just a material space. How did we get here? The shift comes in part from the rise of a certain kind of secularism, one that reduces human experiences to whatever is explainable through observation. Love? It's just a biological drive. Joy, a rush of adrenaline. Beauty, an influx of dopamine. If you can't test it, it isn't (...) true; or so the thinking goes. The Romantic Life draws upon eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Romanticism to provide five strategies to re-enchant the world, five ways to imbue the world with meaning, truth, and beauty. According to the Romantics, far from being useless, encounters with impractical things like the imagination, nature, symbolism, sincerity, and the sublime give our lives a richness and depth that cannot be attained on a purely material account of the world. By learning from their example, we can come to see into the life of things, as William Wordsworth called it. We can be re-enchanted" -- taken from back cover. (shrink)

Building on Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology of love this book takes up the "question of the Other" and argues that through the interpretive activities of the amorous imagination lovers come to experience one another as the Beloved.

Recent scholarship in technology and society studies has given attention to the notion of technological citizenship. This article seeks to further integrate perspectives on this topic with theoretical contributions about the development of moral autonomy. The author challenges the presumption that the strategy of expanding opportunities for participation in technological decision making will in itself develop people's autonomy and citizenship. He argues that concurrent efforts must be made to democratize the political-economic structures of key technologies and to help people prepare (...) morally for citizenship roles in governing these technologies. On this basis, a series of initiatives are suggested. (shrink)

Recent literature on epistemic innocence develops the idea that a defective cognitive process may nevertheless merit special consideration insofar as it confers an epistemic benefit that would not otherwise be available. For example, confabulation may be epistemically innocent when it makes a subject more likely to form future true beliefs or helps her maintain a coherent self-concept. I consider the role of confabulation in typical cases of interpersonal gaslighting, and argue that confabulation will not be epistemically innocent in such cases (...) even if it does preserve a coherent self-concept or belief-set for the subject. Analyzing the role of confabulation in gaslighting illustrates its role in on-going interpersonal relationships, and augments already growing evidence that confabulation may be quite widespread. The role of confabulation in gaslighting shows that whether confabulation confers epistemic benefits will depend greatly on the interpersonal context in which it is deployed, while whether a coherent self-concept is epistemically beneficial will depend to a great extent on the content of that self-concept. This shows that the notion of an epistemically harmful or beneficial feature of a cognitive process can and should be further clarified, and that doing so has both theoretical and practical advantages in understanding epistemic innocence itself. (shrink)

OBJECTIVE: To apply component analysis, a structured approach to the ethical analysis of risks and potential benefits in research, to published emergency research using a waiver of/exception from informed consent. The hypothesis was that component analysis could be used with a high degree of interrater reliability, and that the vast majority of emergency research would comply with a minimal-risk threshold. METHODS: A Medline search and manual search were done to identify studies using a waiver of/exception from informed consent published between (...) July 1996 and December 2000. A review panel of physicians and bioethicists independently classified nontherapeutic procedures in each study as minimal risk, probably minimal risk, or probably more than minimal risk. RESULTS: Seventy studies using a waiver of/exception from informed consent were identified. A majority of reviewers classified nontherapeutic procedures in 62 studies (88.6%) as minimal risk. Reviewers classified nontherapeutic procedures in six studies (8.6%) as minimal risk or probably minimal risk. In two studies (2.9%), nontherapeutic procedures were classified as probably more than minimal risk. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.89 (95% CI = 0.85 to 0.93), indicating very high interrater reliability. CONCLUSIONS: Component analysis can be used with high reliability to review emergency research and may improve the consistency of institutional review board review of emergency research. The vast majority of published emergency research performed using a waiver of/exception from consent complies with a properly-applied minimal-risk threshold. A minimal-risk threshold for nontherapeutic procedures protects subjects better than current U.S. regulations while permitting important emergency research to continue. (shrink)

Beberapa puluh tahun yang lalu Steven McKenzie menjadi editor sebuah kumpulan karangan yang berjudul To Each Its Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticism and their Application (1993). Dalam bunga rampai itu dibahas metode-metode penelitian lama yang berfokus pada latar belakang sejarah teks (penelitian sumber, sejarah tradisi, jenis sastra, peredaksian), cara-cara penelitian literer yang lebih baru (seperti penelitian strukturalis, pasca-strukturalis, naratif, atau reader’s respons) dan beberapa yang lain (penelitian ilmu sosial, kanonik, atau retorika). Dalam dua puluh tahun sejak terbitan itu (...) banyak pendekatan baru berkembang, misalnya, dalam symposia pertemuan para pakar Alkitab nasional dan internasional, dan dalam banyak monograf, bunga rampaidan artikel Jurnal. Untuk membantu pembaca mengikuti perkembangan cepat itu, kini McKenzie & Kaltner menerbitkan New Meanings for Ancient Texts. Mereka memilih sembilan pendekatan yang makin berpengaruh dan meminta kepada pionir-pionir utama setiap pendekatan untuk memberi deskripsi pendekatannya yang jelas bagi non spesialis dan mengilustrasikannya dengan meneliti satu atau beberapa teks contoh. Judul bab dari beberapa di antara kesembilan pendekatan itu barangkali segera ditanggap pembaca, karena sudah lebih lama dikenal. Misalnya, “Psychological Biblical Criticism” (D. Andrew Kille, pp. 137-154) dan “Ecological Criticism” (Norman Habel, pp. 39-58). Pendekatan-pendekatan ini agaknya dimuat di sini karena mengalami pergeseran paradigma dalam beberapa dasa warsa terakhir. Juga tidak baru di telinga pembaca akademis adalah “Postcolonial Biblical Criticism”(Warren Carter, pp. 97-116) dan “Postmodernism” (Hugh Pyper, pp. 117-136). Postmodernisme yang membongkar cerita-cerita besar seperti sejarah keselamatan Alkitab dan mau menyadarkan pembaca bahwa banyak jawaban kita selama ini sesungguhnya kurang pasti daripada dikira, meluas di dunia tafsir Barat; sedangkan penelitian Alkitab pascakolonial yang meneliti hubungan dominasi dan subordinasi dalam teksteks Alkitab dan dampaknya dalam sejarah kolonialisme dan lanjutannya dalam masa pasca-penjajahan, sekarang ini menjadi sangat aktual dalam distorsi relasi antara Selatan dan Utara. “New Historicism” (Gina Hens-Piazza, pp. 59-76) tidak lagi mencoba merekonstruksi realitas sejarah di belakang teks (seperti dilakukan oleh Historical Criticism), tetapi dengan cara yang multidisipliner meneliti teks sebagai representasi dari realitas kultural, sosial, politik, dan sebagainya, sambil melepaskan distingsi antara literatur dan sejarah, juga antara pengarang dan pembaca, antara arti dulu dan arti sekarang. Dekat tetapi berbeda dengan itu “Cultural-Historical Criticism of the Bible” (Timothy Beal, pp.1-20) meneliti bagaimana kata, kiasan, objek dan ide dalam Alkitab menerima bentuk dan artinya dalam konteks kebudayaan tertentu yang memproduksikannya atau mereproduksikannya. “The Bible and Popular Culture” (Linda Schearing and Valerie Ziegler, pp. 77-96) kurang berfokus pada Alkitab sendiri tetapi menganalisa bagaimana teks-teks tertentu berfungsi dalam ungkapan-ungkapan budaya rakyat, lelucon, iklan, komik, seni, film, dll., juga mengingat pergeseran yang kini terjadi dari budaya teks tertulis ke apropriasi visual. “Disability Studies and the Bible” (Nasya Junior and Jeremy Schipper, pp. 21-38) dan apa yang disebut “Queer Criticism” (Ken Stone, pp. 155-176) meneliti Alkitab dari situasi kelompok-kelompok tertentu, entah mereka orang-orangcacat yang banyak muncul dalam teks-teks Alkitab yang dapat dimengerti lebih baik dari dalam pengalaman invaliditas; atau mereka yang dari sudut seks dan jender berada dalam posisi yang tidak menguntungkan atau bahkan ditolak. Di sini a.l. tempatnya penelitian Alkitab komunitas gay and lesbian, dan lebih awal feminisme......................... Apakah bunga rampai tentang pelbagai pendekatan baru ini penting untuk seorang yang sudah cukup puas dengan metodenya selama ini atau yang menerima Alkitab sebagai buku yang mempunyai otoritas terhadap dirinya dan jemaatnya? Keberatan (kita) yang sudah lama diajukan terhadap pendekatan tersebut, pada akhir setiap karangan dengan jujur dikemukakan dan diberi tanggapan singkat. Membaca contoh-contoh penafsiran dalam bunga rampai ini, saya sering merasa diajak ke dalam suatu perjalanan yang berbelit-belit. Tetapi setelah beberapa tikungan muncul juga pemandangan menarik dan berharga yang belum pernah saya perhatikan selama ini. Selain itu, setiap artikel mulai dengan pengantar umum tentang, misalnya, fenomen postmodernisme, ilmu ekologi, atauqueer criticism yang sudah lebih lama dikembangkan di akademi umum, dan baru sekarang mulai dipakai juga untuk analisa teks-teks biblis. Pengantar-pengantar itu saja memberi gambaran menarik tentang masalah-masalah yang dewasa ini digumuli dalam komunitas global. Setuju atau tidak, mengetahuinya penting untuk keduanya. (Martin Harun, Guru Besar Ilmu Teologi Emeritus, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, Jakarta). (shrink)

One way to solve the epistemic regress problem would be to show that we can acquire justification by means of an infinite regress. This is infinitism. This view has not been popular, but Peter Klein has developed a sophisticated version of infinitism according to which all justified beliefs depend upon an infinite regress of reasons. Klein's argument for infinitism is unpersuasive, but he successfully responds to the most compelling extant objections to the view. A key component of his position is (...) his claim that an infinite regress is necessary, but not sufficient, for justified belief. This enables infinitism to avoid a number of otherwise compelling objections. However, it commits infinitism to the existence of an additional feature of reasons that is necessary and, together with the regress condition, sufficient for justified belief. The trouble with infinitism is that any such condition could account for the connection between justification and truth only by undermining the rationale for the regress condition itself. (shrink)

Aristotle is essentially human; that is, for all possible worlds metaphysically consistent with our own, if Aristotle exists, then he is human. This is a claim about the essential property of an object. The claim that objects have essential properties has been hotly disputed, but for present purposes, we can bracket that issue. In this essay, we are interested, rather, in the question of whether properties themselves have essential properties (or features) for their existence. We call those who suppose they (...) do “property essentialists”; those who do not, “property anti-essentialists,” or “quidditists.” We offer two complementary arguments. Our total argument is under-girded by two assumptions: transworld identity theory and “received view” counterfactual semantics, a la David Lewis. We then argue that, if one presumes that these are true, then one risks running headlong into paradox if one also accepts property anti-essentialism. That's the first argument. By contrast, if one accepts these same assumptions in conjunction with property essentialism, then the paradox is avoided. This is the second argument. We take it that our arguments work to show that, between property essentialism and quidditism, the property essentialist is on better footing. Plausibly, properties themselves do have essential properties for their existence. (shrink)

The problem of the criterion says that we can know a proposition only if we first know a criterion of truth and vice versa, hence, we cannot know any proposition or any criterion of truth. The epistemic levels response says that since knowledge does not require knowledge about knowledge, we can know a proposition without knowing a criterion of truth. This response (advocated by Chisholm and Van Cleve) presupposes that criteria of truth are epistemic principles. In general, however, criteria of (...) truth are not epistemic principles, so the epistemic levels response to the problem of the criterion fails. (shrink)

Conditionals are central to inference. Before people can draw inferences about a natural language conditional, they must interpret its meaning. We investigated interpretation of uncertain conditionals using a probabilistic truth table task, focussing on (i) conditional event, (ii) material conditional, and (iii) conjunction interpretations. The order of object (shape) and feature (color) in each conditional's antecedent and consequent was varied between participants. The conditional event was the dominant interpretation, followed by conjunction, and took longer to process than conjunction (mean di (...) erence 500 ms). Material conditional responses were rare. The proportion of conditional event responses increased from around 40% at the beginning of the task to nearly 80% at the end, with 55% of participants showing a qualitative shift of interpretation. Shifts to the conditional event occurred later in the feature-object order than in the object-feature order. We discuss the results in terms of insight and suggest implications for theories of interpretation. (shrink)

The best extant statement of the epistemic regress problem makes assumptions that are too strong. An improved version assumes only that that reasons require support, that no proposition is supported only by endless regresses of reasons, and that some proposition is supported. These assumptions are individually plausible but jointly inconsistent. Attempts to explain support by means of unconceptualized sensations, contextually immunized propositions, endless regresses, and holistic coherence all require either additional reasons or an external condition on support that is arbitrary (...) from the believer's own point of view. (shrink)

Although it has been largely neglected in contemporary philosophy , the problem of the criterion raises questions which must be addressed by any complete account of knowledge . But the problem of the criterion suffers not onl.

Progress in emergency and critical care requires that clinical research be performed on patients who are incapable of granting consent for research participation. Analyses of the ethics of such research have left some questions incompletely answered. Why should we be permitted to expose vulnerable patients to research risks without their consent? In particular, how do we justify research interventions that have no potential benefit for participants (nontherapeutic interventions)? This article presents a moral justification for nontherapeutic interventions in emergency research. By (...) relying on a framework for assessing research risks, and by drawing on the example of pediatric research, this justification is founded in how institutional review boards, and society in general, analyze risk. Our justification for emergency research also suggests additional protections for emergency research participants, including a stringent threshold for research risk, that still permit important research to proceed. (shrink)

Bonhoeffer’s New Beginning investigates Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life-affirming answer to how we begin again after devastation. Combining scholarly rigor and existential honesty, DeCort argues that Bonhoeffer offers an ethical and moral vision of radical hope vis-à-vis the perceived absence of God in the face of devastation.

Threshold- and signal-detection-based models have dominated theorizing about recognition memory. Building upon these theoretical frameworks, we have argued for a dual-process model in which conscious recollection and familiarity contribute to memory performance. In the current paper we assessed several memory models by examining the effects of levels of processing and the number of presentations on recognition memory receiver operating characteristics . In general, when the ROCs were plotted in probability space they exhibited an inverted U shape; however, when they were (...) plotted inzspace they exhibited a U shape. An examination of the ROCs showed that the dual-process model could account for the observed ROCs, but that models based solely on either threshold or signal-detection processes failed to provide a sufficient account of the data. Furthermore, an examination of subjects' introspective reports using the remember/know procedure showed that subjects were aware of recollection and familiarity and were able to consistently report on their occurrence. The remember/know data were used to accurately predict the shapes of the ROCs, and estimates of recollection and familiarity derived from the ROC data mirrored the subjective reports of these processes. (shrink)

There are important similarities between the epistemic regress problem and the problem of the criterion. Each turns on plausible principles stating that epistemic reasons must be supported by epistemic reasons but that having reasons is impossible if that requires having endless regresses of reasons. These principles are incompatible with the possibility of reasons, so each problem is a paradox. Whether there can be an antiskeptical solution to these paradoxes depends upon the kinds of reasons that we need in order to (...) attain our epistemic goals. This article explains the problems and considers the ways in which two different conceptions of human flourishing support the value of different kinds of reasons. One conception requires reasons that allow an easy solution to these paradoxes. The other—rational autonomy—requires reasons that depend upon endless regresses. So we cannot have the kinds of fully transparent reasons required for rational autonomy. (shrink)

John Rawls's famous difference principle is capable of at least four distinct statements, each of which occurs in A Theory of Justice. According to what I shall term the Crude Principle it is a necessary and sufficient condition for the justice of an institutional scheme which expands social and economic inequality that, subject to the satisfaction of more weighty principles, it increases the level of advantage of the least advantaged. Expressing this principle Rawls writes that,Assuming the framework of institutions required (...) by equal liberty and fair equality of opportunity, the higher expectations of those better situated are just if and only if they work as part of a scheme which improves the expectations of the least advantaged members of society. The intuitive idea is that the social order is not to establish and secure the more attractive prospects of those better off unless doing so is to the advantage of those less fortunate. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMiranda Fricker has characterized epistemic injustice as “a kind of injustice in which someone is wronged specifically in her capacity as a knower” (2007, Epistemic injustice: Power & the e...

In the past few decades, neuroscience research has greatly expanded our understanding of how the human brain functions. In particular, we have begun to explore the basis of emotions, intelligence, and creativity. These brain functions also have been applied to various aspects of behavior, thought, and experience. We have also begun to develop an understanding of how the brain and mind work during aesthetic and religious experiences. Studies on these topics have included neuropsychological tests, physiological measures, and brain imaging. These (...) different techniques have enabled us to open up a window into the brain. It is by understanding the functioning of the creative brain that we begin to understand the concept of the creative mind. It is through the use of emotions and other higher cognitive functions that the brain and mind can create ideas, music, literature, and ultimately our entire repertoire of behaviors. How these different creative abilities are derived can also be traced to various parts of the brain and how they function. Modern neuroscience allows us to begin to understand the creative aspect of the brain and mind and perhaps can take us one step further toward understanding the most profound types of aesthetic and religious experiences. (shrink)

Deductive and inductive logic confront this skeptical challenge: we can justify any logical principle only by means of an argument but we can acquire justification by means of an argument only if we are already justified in believing some logical principle. We could solve this problem if probative arguments do not require justified belief in their corresponding conditionals. For if not, then inferential justification would not require justified belief in any logical principle. So even arguments whose corresponding conditionals are epistemically (...) dependent upon their conclusions--epistemically self-supporting arguments--need not be viciously circular. R. B. Braithwaite and James Van Cleve use internalist and externalist versions of this strategy in their proposed solutions to the problem of induction. Unfortunately, their arguments for self-support are unsound and any theory of inferential justification that does not require justified belief in the corresponding conditionals of justification-affording arguments is unacceptably arbitrary. So self-supporting arguments cannot be justification-creating. (shrink)

Judgments of direct comparisons, probabilities, proportions, and ranks can all be considered referent-specific judgments, for which a good estimate requires a target to be compared against...

Edmund Husserl (1859—1938) was an influential thinker of the first half of the twentieth century. His philosophy was heavily influenced by the works of Franz Brentano and Bernard Bolzano, and was also influenced in various ways by interaction with contemporaries such as Alexius Meinong, Kasimir Twardowski, and Gottlob Frege. In his own right, Husserl is considered the founder of twentieth century Phenomenology with influence extending to thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and to contemporary continental philosophy generally. (...) Husserl’s philosophy is also being discussed in connection with contemporary research in the cognitive sciences, logic, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind, as well as in discussions of collective intentionality. At the center of Husserl’s philosophical investigations is the notion of the intentionality of consciousness and the related notion of intentional content (what Husserl first called ‘act-matter’ and then the intentional ‘noema’). To say that thought is “intentional” is to say that it is of the nature of thought to be directed toward or about objects. To speak of the “intentional content” of a thought is to speak of the mode or way in which a thought is about an object. Different thoughts present objects in different ways (from different perspectives or under different descriptions) and one way of doing justice to this fact is to speak of these thoughts as having different intentional contents. For Husserl, intentionality includes a wide range of phenomena, from perceptions, judgments, and memories to the experience of other conscious subjects as subjects (inter-subjective experience) and aesthetic experience, just to name a few. Given the pervasive role he takes intentionality to play in all thought and experience, Husserl believes that a systematic theory of intentionality has a role to play in clarifying and founding most other areas of philosophical concern, such as the theory of consciousness, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of logic, epistemology, and the philosophies of action and value. This article presents the key elements of Husserl’s understanding of intentionality and intentional content, specifically as these are developed in his works Logical Investigations and Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. (shrink)

Interface theory is the hypothesis that inferential, representational theories of perception entail that fitness, not truth, dictates the evolution of perceptual systems. They show, with simulations, that “veridical” perceptual mappings (ones that preserve at least some of the structure of the world) are routinely out-competed by “non-veridical” interfaces (ones that make no attempt to preserve that structure). They therefore take particular aim at the direct perception, ecological approach to perception and work to show that such a system, even if technically (...) an option, would never be selected for by evolution. This paper defends the ecological approach from this novel, existential attack by showing that the ecological hypothesis is so different in kind to the inferential, representational view of perception that it simply falls outside the scope of interface theory’s critiques; ecological psychology remains a viable scientific endeavor. This analysis will show that, far from being a radical new approach to perception, interface theory is simply a clear and elegant formalization of mainstream representational psychology, and any implications interface theory may have belong solely to that branch of science. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to analyze some of the epistemically pernicious effects of the use of the internet and social media. In light of this analysis, it introduces the concept of epistemic pornography and argues that epistemic agents both can and should avoid consuming and sharing epistemic pornography. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on research on epistemic virtue, cognitive biases, social media use and its epistemic consequences, fake news, paternalistic nudging, pornography, moral philosophy, moral elevation and moral exemplar theory to analyze (...) the epistemically pernicious effects of the internet and social media. Findings There is a growing consensus that the internet and social media activate and enable human cognitive biases leading to what are here called “failures of epistemic virtue.” Common formulations of this problem involve the concept of “fake news,” and strategies for responding to the problem often have much in common with paternalistic “nudging.” While fake news is a problem and the nudging approach holds out promise, the paper concludes that both place insufficient emphasis on the agency and responsibility of users on the internet and social media, and that nudging represents a necessary but not sufficient response. Originality/value The essay offers the concept of epistemic pornography as a concept distinct from but related to “fake news” – distinct precisely because it places greater emphasis on personal agency and responsibility, and following recent literature on moral elevation and moral exemplars, as a heuristic that agents might use to economize their efforts at resisting irrational cognitive biases and attempting to live up to their epistemic duties. (shrink)