Confusion surrounds Catholic teaching on the use of assisted nutrition and hydration, specifically the question of when, if ever, its refusal or removal is ethical. This paper focuses on two often-neglected considerations: the relationship between means and mechanism, and an assessment of proportionality of the mechanism from the patient’s perspective. The authors draw on two critical principles of Catholic moral teaching: only ordinary means are required, and proportionality is subject to the perspective of the patient, not just that of experts (...) or the culture. The mechanisms that provide food and water have distinct benefits and burdens. Their proportionality is properly subject to analysis by the patient or surrogate, who determines which mechanism is acceptable in the patient’s situation. (shrink)

Lieder and Griffiths rightly urge that computational cognitive models be constrained by resource usage, but they should go further. The brain's primary function is to regulate resource usage. As a consequence, resource usage should not simply select among algorithmic models of “aspects of cognition.” Rather, “aspects of cognition” should be understood as existing in the service of resource management.

Lifestyle-induced diseases are becoming a burden on healthcare, actualizing the discussion on health responsibilities. Using data from the National Association for Heart and Lung Diseases ’s 2015 Health Survey, this study examined the public’s attitudes towards personal and social health responsibility in a Norwegian population. The questionnaires covered self-reported health and lifestyle, attitudes towards personal responsibility and the authorities’ responsibility for promoting health, resource-prioritisation and socio-demographic characteristics. Block-wise multiple linear regression assessed the association between attitudes towards health responsibilities and individual (...) lifestyle, political orientation and health condition. We found a moderate support for social responsibility across political views. Respondents reporting unhealthier eating habits, smokers and physically inactive were less supportive of health promotion policies. The idea that individuals are responsible for taking care of their health was widely accepted as an abstract ideal. Yet, only a third of the respondents agreed with introducing higher co-payments for treatment of ‘self-inflicted’ conditions and levels of support were patterned by health-related behaviour and left-right political orientation. Our study suggests that a significant support for social responsibility does not exclude a strong support for personal health responsibility. However, conditional access to healthcare based on personal lifestyle is still controversial. (shrink)

This essay reviews theory and research regarding the “Michelangelo phenomenon,” which describes the manner in which close partners shape one another’s dispositions, values, and behavioral tendencies. Individuals are more likely to exhibit movement toward their ideal selves to the degree that their partners exhibit affirming perception and behavior; exhibiting confidence in the self’s capacity and enacting behaviors that elicit key features of the self’s ideal. In turn, movement towards the ideal self yields enhanced personal well-being and couple well-being. We review (...) empirical evidence regarding this phenomenon and discuss self and partner variables that contribute to the process. (shrink)

The edited collection Rorty and Beyond assesses and moves beyond Rorty’s legacy, bringing together leading international philosophers. The collection covers diverse territory, from his views about what we may hope for to his personal character, and everything in between.

Introduction générale à la philosophie des sciences du 20e siècle.

Il s'agit là d'un livre sur la lecture et l'écriture. Son véritable thème est cependant l'impertinence, voire l'impossibilité. A quoi bon, en effet, écrire sur la lecture quand il suffit de lire? Et que peut-on dire de plus sur l'écriture si l'on écrit déjà? Ainsi ce livre ne comportera-t-il, à proprement parler, aucune matière, et ne transmettra-t-il essentiellement qu'un mouvement : celui de la lecture des testes des autres et de l'écriture qu'elle entraînera. Seul le mouvement peut changer une impossibilité (...) en possibilité, voire en nécessité. Ayant compris, dans une vie antérieure de lecteur, l'impossibilité du Tractatus de Wittgenstein comme livre de pensée, on touchera ici à la nécessité qu'il soit écrit. Puis on explorera, avec " Pierre Ménard, auteur, du Quichotte ", une curieuse possibilité, celle que cette nécessité d'écrire soit le fait du lecteur et non pas de l'auteur. Enfin on aboutira, avec Joseph Joubert et Maurice Blanchot, à l'impossibilité d'écrire, c'est-à-dire à la question de la possibilité de la littérature posée enfin avant celle de la philosophie. C'est en effet avec Blanchot que s'ouvrira le passage entre la philosophie et la littérature et que l'engin de l'écriture atteindra sa " vitesse de libération ". Il prendra alors tout son sens d'une écriture postérieure qui, bien qu'elle fasse suite à l'impossibilité de la pensée, n'en a plus forcément besoin du " pré-texte ". C'est le moment où l'on conçoit, avec Blanchot, " que, dans une œuvre littéraire, on puisse exprimer des pensées aussi difficiles et d'une forme aussi abstraite que dans un ouvrage philosophique, mais à condition qu'elles ne soient pas encore pensées ". (shrink)

No “labirinto da liberdade”, interessante é a solução apresentada por Leibniz como forma de assegurar uma ação humana livre sem que essa desafie, em qualquer medida, a vontade e a presciência divinas. No presente artigo, pretendemos, assim, refletir, ainda que brevemente, sobre como o filósofo delineia e compatibiliza as ideias, à primeira visada paradoxais, de liberdade e determinação. Veremos como Leibniz, em última instância, acaba por garantir uma ação em que a liberdade se inscreve entre a necessidade e a contingência, (...) o que a torna, por consequência, moralmente responsável. (shrink)

Applying fresh tools from economics to explain puzzling behaviors of religious radicals: Muslim, Christian, and Jewish; violent and benign. How do radical religious sects run such deadly terrorist organizations? Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Taliban all began as religious groups dedicated to piety and charity. Yet once they turned to violence, they became horribly potent, executing campaigns of terrorism deadlier than those of their secular rivals. In Radical, Religious, and Violent, Eli Berman approaches the question using the economics of organizations. (...) He first dispels some myths: radical religious terrorists are not generally motivated by the promise of rewards in the afterlife (including the infamous seventy-two virgins) or even by religious ideas in general. He argues that these terrorists (even suicide terrorists) are best understood as rational altruists seeking to help their own communities. Yet despite the vast pool of potential recruits—young altruists who feel their communities are repressed or endangered—there are less than a dozen highly lethal terrorist organizations in the world capable of sustained and coordinated violence that threatens governments and makes hundreds of millions of civilians hesitate before boarding an airplane. What's special about these organizations, and why are most of their followers religious radicals? Drawing on parallel research on radical religious Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Berman shows that the most lethal terrorist groups have a common characteristic: their leaders have found a way to control defection. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Taliban, for example, built loyalty and cohesion by means of mutual aid, weeding out “free riders” and producing a cadre of members they could rely on. The secret of their deadly effectiveness lies in their resilience and cohesion when incentives to defect are strong.These insights suggest that provision of basic social services by competent governments adds a critical, nonviolent component to counterterrorism strategies. It undermines the violent potential of radical religious organizations without disturbing free religious practice, being drawn into theological debates with Jihadists, or endangering civilians. (shrink)

Acerbo Stefano, « Mito e storia nella mitografia di età imperiale: Lico πολέμαρχος (Apollod., Bibl. III 41) », Emerita 87–2 (2019), p. 285–304 [la référence à la polémarchie dans le récit de la conquête du pouvoir à Thèbes contribue au plan de composition du Ps.-Apollodore. Cette allusion anachronique peut être vue comme un choix d’auteur, qui montre le rôle joué par les mythographes dans l’interaction entre le temps mythique et le passé historique]. Ameling Walter, « Zum Kult der Arsinoe Phi...

According to strong emergentism, it is a brute fact that higher-level properties (e.g., consciousness, values, etc.) emerge given certain complex structures. In this paper, I will argue that since it is allegedly a brute fact that emergent properties emerge in certain complex systems, they should emerge in anything. Since they do not emerge in anything, they also do not emerge only in certain complex systems. I will apply this argument to consciousness as the primary target, to refute certain views within (...) the philosophy of mind, according to which consciousness is an emergent property that arises only in certain complex aggregates, i.e., brains. (shrink)

In the first section of this paper I present the measurement-theoretic fallacy of 'over-assignment of structure': the unwarranted assumption that every numeric relation holding among two (or more) numbers represents some empirical, physical relation among the objects to which these numbers are assigned as measures (e.g., of temperature). In the second section I argue that a generalized form of this fallacy arises in various philosophical contexts, in the form of a misguided, over-extended application of one conceptual domain to another. Three (...) examples are given: (i) the reduction of arithmetic into set theory, (ii) the ascription of full-blown intentional states to (at least some) non-overtly intentional creatures, such as Wittgenstein's builders, and (iii) the analysis of some modal notions as involving quantification over possible worlds (or their substitutes). The discussion of the third example gives rise to a novel account of possible-worlds talk. (shrink)

Pretende-se neste artigo abordar o problema da relação entre o ressentimento e a formação dos juízos morais presentes na obra de Schopenhauer a partir de uma perspectiva crítica proposta por Nietzsche que tem suas bases na constatação de que existe na ética ocidental um enfraquecimento das posturas afirmativas da vida como resultado de uma decadência fisiopatológica que influencia a ordem dos juízos morais sobre a existência humana. A ética niilista de Schopenhauer seria um exemplo de uma desagregação dos instintos afirmativos (...) vitais configurando-se por isso como uma moral da fraqueza e, consequentemente um sintoma da decadência cultural europeia. (shrink)

Schopenhauer afirma que uma ética não dogmática requer leis demonstráveis derivadas da experiência. Nesse sentido o fundamento de uma ética deve ser uma metafísica imanente, que sustente, na experiência possível, suas afirmações, e que seja, por isso mesmo, capaz de dar de uma vez por todas um fundamento legítimo à moral. A fundamentação da moral schopenhaueriana segue, portanto, uma argumentação muito próxima de uma metodologia científica. Para Schopenhauer a filosofia deve se aproximar mais de uma cosmologia do que da teologia. (...) Max Horkheimer em “O pensamento de Schopenhauer em relação à ciência e à religião” destaca a fecundidade de tal posição filosófica e atualiza a importância de Schopenhauer tanto para sua formação quanto para uma legítima interpretação da modernidade. Acompanhamos, neste artigo tanto os aspectos fundamentais da fundamentação schopenhaueriana da moral, quanto aspectos da interpretação de Horkheimer da empreitada do filósofo. (shrink)

Scientists often diverge widely when choosing between research programs. This can seem to be rooted in disagreements about which of several theories, competing to address shared questions or phenomena, is currently the most epistemically or explanatorily valuable—i.e. most successful. But many such cases are actually more directly rooted in differing judgments of pursuit-worthiness, concerning which theory will be best down the line, or which addresses the most significant data or questions. Using case studies from 16th-century astronomy and 20th-century geology and (...) biology, I argue that divergent theory choice is thus often driven by considerations of scientific process, even where direct epistemic or explanatory evaluation of its final products appears more relevant. Broadly following Kuhn’s analysis of theoretical virtues, I suggest that widely shared criteria for pursuit-worthiness function as imprecise, mutually-conflicting values. However, even Kuhn and others sensitive to pragmatic dimensions of theory ‘acceptance’, including the virtue of fruitfulness, still commonly understate the role of pursuit-worthiness—especially by exaggerating the impact of more present-oriented virtues, or failing to stress how ‘competing’ theories excel at addressing different questions or data. This framework clarifies the nature of the choice and competition involved in theory choice, and the role of alternative theoretical virtues. (shrink)

Sensory ecology is a discipline that focuses on how living creatures use information to survive, but not to live. By trans-defining the orthodox concept of sensory ecology, a serious heterodox question arises: how do organisms use their senses to live, i.e. to enjoy or suffer life? To respond to such a query the objective and emotional meaning of symbols must be revealed. Our program is distinct from both the neo-Darwinian and the classical ecological perspective because it does not focus on (...) survival values of phenotypes and their functions, but asks for the aesthetic effect of biological structures and their symbolism. Our message recognizes that sensing apart from having a survival value also has a beauty value. Thus, we offer a provoking and inspiring new view on the sensory relations of ‘living things’ and their surroundings, where the innovating power of feelings have more weight than the privative power of reason. (shrink)

ḥeleḳ 1. Mile de-agadeta ṿe-divre maḥshavah u-musar ʻal seder moʻade ha-shanah -- ḥeleḳ 2. Mile deʼagadeta ṿe-divre maḥshavah u-musar she-neʼemru be-rubam li-fene ḥaverim maḳshivim.

I argue that scientific and poetic modes of objectivity are perspectival duals: 'views' from and onto basic natural forces, respectively. I ground this analysis in a general account of objectivity, not in terms of either 'universal' or 'inter-subjective' validity, but as receptivity to basic features of reality. Contra traditionalists, bare truth, factual knowledge, and universally valid representation are not inherently valuable. But modern critics who focus primarily on the self-expressive aspect of science are also wrong to claim that our knowledge (...) is or should be ultimately mediated by ourselves. In objective science, we represent nature as a field of phenomena determined by and within explanatorily-basic physical structures that encode the causal impact of elemental physical forces. These causally-basic forces hence ground the possibility of objective scientific theory, even though (I argue) they are systematically excluded from its representational contents. I show how my notions of force and field emerge partly through my effort to naturalize concepts of 'God' and 'Laws' in 17th-century natural philosophy. In science, we use the structure of basic forces' impact to see corresponding objects. We do not see these forces themselves—and this relates to the 'transcendence' of 'God'. I supplement this historical analysis by critiquing standard accounts of objectivity, and by synthesizing elements from neo-Kantian epistemology and current 'structural' realism into a view that I call 'dynamic structuralism'. Finally, I argue that physics systematically relies on passive characterizations of phenomena like inertia and impressed force. Dynamic alternatives that are just as empirically adequate are possible, but they are non-scientific. Poetic objectivity involves a direct presentation of nature as an order of interacting forces. I elaborate first by developing a novel theory of the relation between beauty and sublimity, mediated by a basic category of 'sensory force' (e.g. a 'singing' tone in a beautiful melody). I then describe the interaction between sensory and affective dimensions of aesthetic experience, in relation to an original historical analysis of passion and 'disinterestedness' in Kant, Schiller and Nietzsche. I synthesize these lines of analysis into a critique of the role of 'expression' in art. I also resist 'spectator'-centric aesthetics, in this connection, by developing an account of artistic objectivity in dialogue with Ruskin's critique of the 'pathetic fallacy'. I contrast artistic objectivity with Romantic ideals of self-expression, while elaborating its positive relation to certain currents within Victorian and Modernist aesthetics, including Imagists' stress on 'exteriority'. My project creatively extends Nietzsche's view that philosophical and scientific theories are 'perspectival' expressions of theorists' drives. It is a virtue of Nietzsche's account that he takes the outlet of strong human drives in creative acts of theorizing to be just one among many higher modes of 'will to power' in nature—many of which are totally impersonal. But Nietzsche is still too focused on self-expression or willing one's own power. Objective science involves external forces' 'expression' in and through us, not just 'expressing' our own powers. And Nietzsche's vitalistic 'will to power' must be replaced by a basic ontology that better accommodates inorganic phenomena, like the 'lawful' order of celestial motions. Thus I aim to de-anthropomorphize and 'de-organicize' post-Kantian notions of willful striving and organic development, while preserving for force the primary ontological and evaluative status that theorists from Schiller and Goethe to Schelling and Schlegel to Emerson and Nietzsche attributed to will or to life. (shrink)

In the first two sections I present and motivate a formal semantics program that is modeled after the application of numbers in measurement (e.g., of length). Then, in the main part of the paper, I use the suggested framework to give an account of the semantics of necessity and possibility: (i) I show thatthe measurement theoretic framework is consistent with a robust (non-Quinean) view of modal logic, (ii) I give an account of the semantics of the modal notions within this (...) framework, and (iii) I defend the suggested account against various objections. (shrink)

In this paper I use data from interviews conducted with coral scientists to examine the socio-ecological dimensions of science, i.e. how science shapes and is shaped by the living world around it. I use two sets of ideas in particular: niche construction and socio-ecological value frameworks. Using these I offer socio-ecological criteria by which coral scientists evaluate the activities of coral science, more specifically which living systems are intended to benefit from coral science as an activity, and the motivations behind (...) this. The overall picture I present is one of coral science as activity primarily aimed at sustaining a diverse set of living systems, including humans, other organisms, species, and ecosystems, and the social practices associated with these. The value relations between scientists and aspects of these processes dictate how they respond to shifts in the socio-ecological context coral science is embedded in, explaining why the activities associated with coral science are changing as reef ecosystems are threatened. The implication is that natural sciences more generally are entangled with a greater number of social and ecological process than is typically considered, and that shifts in the activities undertaken by scientists may be driven by ecological as well as social and epistemic processes. (shrink)