As with any proposal for institutional reform, and especially one that has gained so much ground in such a short amount of time, this paper asks whether diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement is good for corporations. Are businesses stronger with DEI practices and ideas or weaker? We believe that the DEI movement is asking the right questions: How do we create more just and equitable institutions? The challenge, however, is whether this movement is giving the right answers to such (...) questions. The main premise of our paper is that without deeper principles than DEI itself, these qualities of corporate life will be misunderstood, misused, and disordered in our increasingly fragmented and politicized culture. We propose in this essay that “subsidiarity” serves as one of those deeper principles that can order and enrich our understanding of DEI. It serves as a gift principle that begins to reveal the deepest nature of our work, namely, that our work allows us to exercise our gifts in serving others. (shrink)

As with any proposal for institutional reform, and especially one that has gained so much ground in such a short amount of time, this paper asks whether diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement is good for corporations. Are businesses stronger with DEI practices and ideas or weaker? We believe that the DEI movement is asking the right questions: How do we create more just and equitable institutions? The challenge, however, is whether this movement is giving the right answers to such (...) questions. The main premise of our paper is that without deeper principles than DEI itself, these qualities of corporate life will be misunderstood, misused, and disordered in our increasingly fragmented and politicized culture. We propose in this essay that “subsidiarity” serves as one of those deeper principles that can order and enrich our understanding of DEI. It serves as a gift principle that begins to reveal the deepest nature of our work, namely, that our work allows us to exercise our gifts in serving others. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists both ask questions about what the world is like. How do these fields interact with one another? How should they? Naturalism Beyond the Limits of Science investigates an approach to these questions called methodological naturalism. According to methodological naturalism, when coming up with theories about what the world is like, philosophers should, whenever possible, make use of the same methodology that is deployed by scientists. Although many contemporary philosophers have implicit commitments that lead straightforwardly to methodological naturalism, (...) few have a clear understanding of how widespread and disruptive methodological naturalism promises to be for the field. By way of a series of case studies involving laws of nature, composition, time and modality, and drawing on historical and contemporary scientific developments including the discovery of the neutrino, the introduction of dark energy, and the advent of relativity theory, this book demonstrates the ways in which scientists rely on extra-empirical reasoning and how that very same extra-empirical reasoning can yield surprising results when applied to philosophical debates. Along the way, Nina Emery's investigation illuminates the complex relationship between philosophy and the sciences, and makes the case that philosophers and scientists alike would benefit from a greater understanding of the connections between the two fields. (shrink)

New technologies with military applications may demand new modes of governance. In this article, we develop a taxonomy of technology governance forms, outline their strengths, and red-team their weaknesses. In particular, we consider the challenges and opportunities posed by advancing artificial intelligence, which is likely to have substantial dual-use properties. We conclude that subnational governance, though prevalent and mitigating some risks, is insufficient when the individual rewards from societally harmful actions outweigh normative sanctions, as is likely to be the case (...) with AI. Nationally enforced standards are promising ways to govern AI deployment, but they are less viable in the “race-to-the-bottom” environments that are becoming common. When it comes to powerful technologies with military implications, there is only one multilateral option with a strong historical precedent: a non-proliferation plus norms-of-use regime, which we call NPT+. We believe that a non-proliferation regime may, therefore, be the necessary foundation for AI governance. However, AI may exhibit characteristics that would make a non-proliferation regime less effective than it has proven for nuclear weapons. As an alternative, verification-backed restrictions on AI development and use would address more risks, but they face challenges in the case of advanced AI, and we show how these challenges may not have technical solutions. Perhaps more importantly, we show that there is no clear example of major powers restricting the development of a powerful military technology when that technology lacks a ready substitute. We, therefore, turn to a final alternative, International Monopoly, which was the preferred solution of many scholars and policymakers in the early nuclear era. It should be considered again for governing AI: a monopoly would require less-invasive monitoring, though at the possible cost of eroding national sovereignty. Ultimately, we conclude that it is too soon to tell whether a non-proliferation regime, a verification-based regime, or an International Monopoly is most feasible for governing AI. Nonetheless, a variety of policies would yield a high return across all three scenarios, and we conclude by identifying some of these steps that could be taken today. (shrink)

I argue against the common and influential view that non-trivial chances arise only when the fundamental laws are indeterministic. The problem with this view, I claim, is not that it conflicts with some antecedently plausible metaphysics of chance or that it fails to capture our everyday use of ‘chance’ and related terms, but rather that it is unstable. Any reason for adopting the position that non-trivial chances arise only when the fundamental laws are indeterministic is also a reason for adopting (...) a much stronger, and far less attractive, position. I suggest an alternative account, according to which chances are probabilities that play a certain explanatory role: they are probabilities that explain associated frequencies. 1 Introduction2 A Paradigm Case3 The Incompatibilist’s Criterion4 Against the Incompatibilist’s Criterion5 The Explanatory Criterion6 Conclusion. (shrink)

Paul Appelbaum and colleagues propose four models of informed consent to research that deploys whole genome sequencing and may generate incidental findings. They base their analysis on empirical data that suggests that research participants want to be offered incidental findings and on a normative consensus that researchers incur a duty to offer them. Their models will contribute to the heated policy debate about return of incidental findings. But in my view, they do not ask the foundational question, In the context (...) of genome sequencing, how much work can consent be asked to do? (shrink)

I argue that the way the world appears to be plays an important role in standard scientific practice, and that therefore the way the world appears to be ought to play a similar role in metaphysics as well. I then show how the argument bears on a specific first-order debate in metaphysics – the debate over whether there are composite objects. This debate is often thought to be a paradigm case of a metaphysical debate that is largely insulated from scientific (...) considerations, and is often disparaged or avoided by naturalistically inclined metaphysicians as a result. My argument below shows that this attitude is a mistake. The way in which metaphysical debates can be informed by our best science is more complex and far-reaching than is often acknowledged in the literature. (shrink)

I present an argument for the view that laws ground their instances. I then outline two important consequences that follow if we accept the conclusion of this argument. First, the claim that laws ground their instances threatens to undermine a prominent recent attempt to make sense of the explanatory power of Humean laws by distinguishing between metaphysical and scientific explanation. And second, the claim that laws ground their instances gives rise to a novel argument against the view that grounding relations (...) are metaphysically necessary. (shrink)

This paper argues for a largely unnoted distinction between relational and modal components in the lexical semantics of verbs. Wehypothesize that many verbs encode two kinds of semantic information:a relationship among participants in a situation and a subset ofcircumstances or time indices at which this relationship isevaluated. The latter we term sublexical modality.We show that linking regularities between semantic arguments andsyntactic functions provide corroborating evidence in favor of thissemantic distinction, noting cases in which the semantic groundingof linking through participant-role properties (...) apparently fails. Thissemantic grounding can be preserved, however, once we abstractaway from sublexical modality in lexical semantic representations.Semantically-based linking constraints are insensitive to the sublexicalmodality component of lexical entries and depend only on informationin a predicator's situational core. (shrink)

The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies1–11. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion-related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. Here we show that six patients with focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region necessary for the normal generation of emotions and, in particular, social emotions12–14, produce an abnor- mally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of (...) judgements on moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours (for example, having to sacrifice one person’s life to save a number of other lives)7,8. In contrast, the VMPC patients’ judgements were normal in other classes of moral dilemmas. These findings indicate that, for a selective set of moral dilemmas, the VMPC is critical for normal judgements of right and wrong. The findings support a necessary role for emotion in the generation of those judgements. (shrink)

I argue against the common and influential view that non-trivial chances arise only when the fundamental laws are indeterministic. The problem with this view, I claim, is not that it conflicts with some antecedently plausible metaphysics of chance or that it fails to capture our everyday use of ‘chance’ and related terms, but rather that it is unstable. Any reason for adopting the position that non-trivial chances arise only when the fundamental laws are indeterministic is also a reason for adopting (...) a much stronger, and far less attractive, position. I suggest an alternative account, according to which chances are probabilities that play a certain explanatory role: they are probabilities that explain associated frequencies. (shrink)

In her paper, “The Non-Governing Conception of Laws,” Helen Beebee argues that it is not a conceptual truth that laws of nature govern, and thus that one need not insist on a metaphysical account of laws that makes sense of their governing role. I agree with the first point but not the second. Although it is not a conceptual truth, the fact that laws govern follows straightforwardly from an important (though under-appreciated) principle of scientific theory choice combined with a highly (...) plausible claim about the connection between scientific theory choice and theory choice in metaphysics. I present and defend this argument and then show how the resulting understanding of governance gives rise to an especially strong version of recent explanatory circularity arguments against Humeanism about laws of nature. Finally, I present three options for a further understanding of the governance relation that are compatible with my argument. (shrink)

In this critical notice of Kment's _Modality and Explanatory Reasoning_, we focus on Kment’s arguments for impossible worlds and on a key part of his discussion of the interactions between modality and explanation – the analogy that he draws between scientific and metaphysical explanation.

Evidence on AI acceptance comes from a diverse field comprising public opinion research and largely experimental studies from various disciplines. Differing theoretical approaches in this research, however, imply heterogeneous ways of studying AI acceptance. The present paper provides a framework for systematizing different uses. It identifies three families of theoretical perspectives informing research on AI acceptance—user acceptance, delegation acceptance, and societal adoption acceptance. These models differ in scope, each has elements specific to them, and the connotation of technology acceptance thus (...) changes when shifting perspective. The discussion points to a need for combining the three perspectives as they have all become relevant for AI. A combined approach serves to systematically relate findings from different studies. And as AI systems affect people in different constellations and no single perspective can accommodate them all, building blocks from several perspectives are needed to comprehensively study how AI is perceived in society. (shrink)

Within the growing developmental literature on children's testimonial learning, the emphasis placed on children's evaluations of testimonial evidence has shielded from view some of the more collaborative dimensions of testimonial learning. Drawing on recent philosophical work on testimony and interpersonal trust, we argue for an alternative way of conceptualizing the social nature of testimonial learning. On this alternative, some testimonial learning is the result of a jointly collaborative epistemic activity, an activity that aims at the epistemic goal of true belief, (...) but that does so by means of an irreducibly social process. (shrink)

Some theories of quantum mechanical phenomena endorse wave function realism, according to which the physical space we inhabit is very different from the physical space we appear to inhabit. In this paper I explore an argument against wave function realism that appeals to a type of simplicity that, although often overlooked, plays a crucial role in scientific theory choice. The type of simplicity in question is simplicity of fit between the way a theory says the world is and the way (...) the world appears to be. This argument can be understood as one way of spelling out the so-called “incredulous stare objection” that is sometimes leveled against surprising metaphysical theories. (shrink)

A series of recent arguments purport to show that most counterfactuals of the form if A had happened then C would have happened are not true. These arguments pose a challenge to those of us who think that counterfactual discourse is a useful part of ordinary conversation, of philosophical reasoning, and of scientific inquiry. Either we find a way to revise the semantics for counterfactuals in order to avoid these arguments, or we find a way to ensure that the relevant (...) counterfactuals, while not true, are still assertible. I argue that regardless of which of these two strategies we choose, the natural ways of implementing these strategies all share a surprising consequence: they commit us to a particular metaphysical view about chance. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Wie kann Gottes Gegenwart trotz ihrer Verborgenheit wahrgenommen werden? In dem folgenden Beitrag möchte ich zeigen, wie Simone Weil die Erfahrungen der Verborgenheit und der Abwesenheit Gottes als Signatur des Unglücks und der Entwurzelung der Menschen in der Moderne analysiert. Des Weiteren wird dargestellt, wie Simone Weil vor diesem Hintergrund mit einer kreuzestheologischen Denkfigur reflektiert, wie die Gottesliebe in besonderer Weise im Unglück verborgen anwesend sein kann, trotz Erfahrung der Abwesenheit Gottes. Hier schließt sich die erkenntnistheoretische Frage nach der (...) Wahrnehmbarkeit der verborgenen Gegenwart Gottes an. So soll ausgeführt werden, wie Simone Weil aufzeigt, wie durch ästhetische Formen der Schönheit und Ordnung der Welt, durch ethische Formen von Nächstenliebe und Freundschaft und durch die religiöse Formen in Liturgie und Gebet als höchster Form der Aufmerksamkeit die verborgen gegenwärtige Gottesliebe indirekt wahrgenommen werden kann. Dies spricht schließlich für eine andere Deutung der Verborgenheit Gottes als im sog. Verborgenheitsargument von J. L. Schellenberg, mit dem von der Verborgenheit auf die Nichtexistenz Gottes geschlossen wird. (shrink)

Why are humans so clever? This book explores the idea that this cleverness has evolved through the increasing complexity of social groups. It brings together contributions from leaders in the field, examining social intelligence in different animal species and exploring its development, evolution and the brain systems upon which it depends.

Actualism is the view that only actually existing things exist. Presentism is the view that only presently existing things exist. In this paper, I argue that being an actualist without also being a presentist is not as easy as many philosophers seem to think. A common objection to presentism is that there is an unavoidable conflict between presentism and relativity theory. But actualists who do not wish to be presentists cannot point to this relativity objection alone to support their position. (...) Unless they have some antecedent reason for thinking that actualism is more plausible than presentism, anyone who is moved by the relativity objection to give up presentism should be moved by a related objection to give up actualism as well. If there is a reason to be an actualist without also being a presentist, it must go beyond the relativity objection to presentism. (shrink)

Presentism is the view that only presently existing things exist. Actualism is the view that only actually existing things exist. Although these views have much in common, the position we take with respect to one of them is not usually thought to constrain the position that we may take toward the other. In this paper I argue that this standard attitude deserves further scrutiny. In particular, I argue that the considerations that motivate one common objection to presentism—the grounding objection—threaten to (...) give rise to an analogous grounding objection to actualism. Those who are moved by grounding considerations to give up presentism should either be moved by analogous considerations to give up actualism as well or be prepared to undertake quite a bit of further work in order to defend their position. (shrink)

A historical and systematic introduction to what the medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote about the Trinity. By focusing on the thought of one of the greatest defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity, Gilles Emery OP elucidates the classical Christian understanding of God.

I argue that there are such things as nomological probabilities—probabilities that play a certain explanatory role with respect to stable, long-run relative frequencies. Indeed, I argue, we should be willing to accept nomological probabilities even if they turn out to be metaphysically weird or even wholly sui generis entities. I then give an example of one way in which this argument should shape future work on the metaphysics of chance by describing a challenge to a common group of analyses of (...) objective probability—Humean analyses— understood as analyses of nomological probability. (shrink)

Temporal ersatzism is the view that past entities exist, but are not concrete. The view is analogous to modal ersatzism, according to which merely possible worlds exist, but are not concrete. The goal of this paper is to give the reader a sense of the scope of available temporal ersatzist views, the ways in which the analogy with modal ersatzism may be helpful in characterizing and defending those views, and the sorts of considerations that are relevant when evaluating particular versions (...) of temporal ersatzism. (shrink)

Opening salvo -- Who are we, anyway? -- Dictators -- International & domestic terrorism -- America's changing demographics -- Anger & the loss of civility -- Whatever happened to common sense? -- Racism in America -- Guns in America -- Our world's deteriorating environment -- The 2020 pandemic -- Black Lives Matter -- The 2020 election -- January 6, 2021 -- Conspiracy theories & misinformation -- Technology & social media -- Our government -- The constitution & American democracy -- Closing (...) salvo -- Lessons I learned. (shrink)

"Formats for Reports on Conferences." Bulletin de Philosophie Médiévale, 46(), pp. 207–209.

This chapter focuses on the relations between objective probabilities in physical theories at different levels. In general philosophy of probability, it is frequently assumed that a fundamental deterministic theory cannot support probabilistic phenomena at any higher level, or more generally that there cannot be non-trivial probabilities in higher-level theories that are not encoded in probabilities at the lower level. These assumptions face significant challenges from some well-understood physical theories – I focus on statistical mechanics and Bohmian mechanics – where a (...) deterministic description at some lower level gives rise to an effectively probabilistic theory at some higher level; in each case, constraints arising from an objective physical limitation on the acquisition of evidence concerning the lower level plays a crucial role in supporting the higher-level probabilities. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed across the language sciences that some semantic participant information is lexically encoded in the representation of verbs and some is not. In this paper, we propose that semantic obligatoriness and verb class specificity are criteria which influence whether semantic information is lexically encoded. We present a comprehensive survey of the English verbal lexicon, a sentence continuation study, and an on-line sentence processing study which confirm that both factors play a role in the lexical encoding of participant (...) information. (shrink)

Social scientists have long examined the changing role of the individual, and the influence of individualism in social and economic arrangements as well as behavioral decisions. With respect to co-operative behavior among farmers, however, the ideology of individualism has been little theorized in terms of its relationship to the longstanding virtue of independence. This paper explores this relationship by combining analysis of historical literature on the agricultural cooperative movement with the accounts of contemporary English farmers. I show that the virtue (...) of independence is deployed to justify a variety of cooperative (formal and informal) and non-cooperative practices and that, despite apparently alternative interpretations, independence is most often conflated with individualistic premises. That conflation, I argue, leads farmers to see their neighbors as natural competitors: as those from whom which independence must be sought. This has the effect of masking the structural dependencies which farmers face (such as lenders and large purchasers) and limits the alternatives available to them to realize a view of independence that is maintained, rather than opposed, by interdependent collective action. Thus perceived, individualism is an ideological doctrine that succeeds by appealing to the virtue of independence, while simultaneously denying its actual realization. (shrink)

The authors present a critical edition of the Quaestio de formalitatibus of John Duns Scotus. In the introduction to their edition, they examine the evidence of the manuscripts and the external and internal evidence to determine the authorship, place and date of the question. They conclude that the Quaestio was disputed by John Duns Scotus at Paris in the Franciscan studium sometime between 1305 and 1307. Chronologically, Scotus’ Quaestio, disputed at Paris, would seem to be his final, magisterial word on (...) the subject of the formal distinction. Finally, the authors examine the transmission of the text in each of the manuscripts in order to establish a stemma codicum and the principles that govern their edition. (shrink)