This article offers a solution to the numbers problem within an individualist moral framework. Its central aims are as follows: to rescue individualist moral theories, such as moral contractualism, from their long-standing problem with interpersonal aggregation; to demonstrate how, proceeding from an individualist mode of justification, we can nevertheless make the numbers count without directly counting the numbers; to provide an individualist rationale for accepting a partially aggregative criterion of adjudication for resolving interpersonal trade-offs; and finally, to develop an extensionally (...) adequate version of partial aggregation that finds application in more structurally complex cases. (shrink)

Susan Hurley has attacked the ''Duplication Assumption'', the assumption thatcreatures with exactly the same internal states could function exactly alike inenvironments that are systematically distorted. She argues that the dynamicalinterdependence of action and perception is highly problematic for the DuplicationAssumption when it involves spatial states and capacities, whereas no such problemsarise when it involves color states and capacities. I will try to establish that theDuplication Assumption makes even less sense for lightness than for some ofthe spatial cases. This is due (...) not only to motor factors, but to the basic physicalasymmetry between black and white. I then argue that the case can be extendedfrom lightness perception to hue perception. Overall, the aims of this paper are:(1) to extend Susan Hurley''s critique of the Duplication Assumption; (2) to argueagainst highly constrained versions of Inverted Spectrum arguments; (3) to proposea broader conception of the vehicle for color perception. (shrink)

Although black holes are objects of central importance across many fields of physics, there is no agreed upon definition for them, a fact that does not seem to be widely recognized. Physicists in different fields conceive of and reason about them in radi- cally different, and often conflicting, ways. All those ways, however, seem sound in the relevant contexts. After examining and comparing many of the definitions used in practice, I consider the problems that the lack of a universally accepted (...) definition leads to, and discuss whether one is in fact needed for progress in the physics of black holes. I conclude that, within reasonable bounds, the profusion of different definitions is in fact a virtue, making the investigation of black holes possible and fruitful in all the many different kinds of problems about them that physicists consider, although one must take care in trying to translate results between fields. (shrink)

I advance a novel challenge for Divine Command Theory based on the existence of psychopaths. The challenge, in a nutshell, is that Divine Command Theory has the implausible implication that psychopaths have no moral obligations and hence their evil acts, no matter how evil, are morally permissible. After explaining this argument, I respond to three objections to it and then critically examine the prospect that Divine Command Theorists might bite the bullet and accept that psychopaths can do no wrong. I (...) conclude that the Psychopathy Objection constitutes a serious and novel challenge for Divine Command Theory. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to use philosophy and, in particular ethical theory, to identify and explore some potential conflicts.

We address the thesis recently proposed by Andy Clark, that skill-mediated access to modality implies phenomenal feel. We agree that a skill theory of perception does indeed offer the possibility of a satisfactory account of the feel of perception, but we claim that this is not only through explanation of access to modality but also because skill actually provides access to perceptual property in general. We illustrate and substantiate our claims by reference to the recently proposed 'sensorimotor contingency' theory of (...) visual awareness. We discuss why this theory offers a distinctively attractive access-based approach to perceptual consciousness because it 'dereifies' experience and permits otherwise problematic aspects of phenomenal perceptual consciousness to be explained. We suggest our approach thus offers the prospect of 'naturalizing phenomenology'. (shrink)

Logical pluralism is commonly described as the view that there is more than one correct logic. It has been claimed that, in order for that view to be interesting, there has to be at least a potential for rivalry between the correct logics. This paper offers a detailed assessment of this suggestion. I argue that an interesting version of logical pluralism is hard, if not impossible, to achieve. I first outline an intuitive understanding of the notions of rivalry and correctness. (...) I then discuss a natural account of rivalry in terms of disagreement about validity claims and the argument from meaning variance that has been raised against it. I explore a more refined picture of the meaning of validity claims that makes use of the character-content distinction of classical two dimensional semantics. There are three ways in which pluralists can use that framework to argue for the view that different logics may be rivals but could nevertheless be equally correct. I argue that none of them is convincing. (shrink)

This article redescribes early modern European defenses of private property in terms of a theoretical project of seeking to establish the true or essential nature of property. Most of the scholarly literature has focused on the historical and normative issues relating to the various accounts of original acquisition around which these defenses were organized. However, in my redescription, these so-called “original acquisition stories” appear as methodological devices for an analytic reduction and resolution of property into its fundamental elements and axioms. (...) Through these stories, property is “created” in the form of the classical liberal paradigm of presumptively exclusive, private ownership of material things. The problem is that this project of “creation” is also a project which arbitrarily excludes or marginalizes other forms and systems of property, and especially usufructuary forms of common property. After critically explicating this early modern project of creation, I go on to argue that the classical liberal paradigm and its problems continue to inform property theory and discourse in the late modern era. (shrink)

The concept of exploitation and potentially exploitative real-world practices are the subject of increasing philosophical attention. However, while philosophers have extensively debated what exploitation is and what makes it wrong, they have said surprisingly little about what might be required to remediate it. By asking how the consequences of exploitation should be addressed, this article seeks to contribute to filling this gap. We raise two questions. First, what are the victims of exploitation owed by way of remediation? Second, who ought (...) to remediate? Our answers to these questions are connected by the idea that exploitation cannot be fully remediated by redistributing the exploiter's gain in order to repair or compensate the victim's loss. This is because exploitation causes not only distributive but also relational harm. Therefore, redistributive measures are necessary but not sufficient for adequate remediation. Moreover, this relational focus highlights the fact that exploitative real-world practices commonly involve agents other than the exploiter who stand to benefit from the exploitation. Insofar as these third parties are implicated in the distributive and relational harms caused by exploitation, there is, we argue, good reason to assign part of the burden of remediation to them. (shrink)

A full appreciation for Ernst Mach's doctrine of the economy of thought must take account of his direct realism about particulars (elements) and his anti-realism about space-time laws as economical constructions. After a review of thought economy, its critics and some contemporary forms, the paper turns to the philosophical roots of Mach's doctrine. Mach claimed that the simplest, most parsimonious theories economized memory and effort by using abstract concepts and laws instead of attending to the details of each individual event (...) or experiment. For Mach, the individual case never truly repeated in all of its uniqueness, nor was all of the individual detail of a physical element adequately captured in abstract laws and schemata, however necessary these were for the pursuit of science. As can be shown from specific passages, some already published, some not, Mach's elements included physical qualia in nature similar to Russell's unsensed sensibilia, which existed even where there were no conscious observers. An argument will be presented to make the case that Mach believed in the mind-independent elements from the 1870s on, while other aspects of his thought evolved over time; I have thus dated the references to reflect this historical progression. I concentrate on Mach's ontology, as it bears on economy of thought, not his epistemology per se, which might well have been restricted to observable elements/sensations. After his own conversion to neutral monism, in the 1920s, Bertrand Russell echoed Mach's call for a 'future science' capable of handling the 'intrinsic character' of qualitative data directly without the excessive abstraction of physics. (shrink)

The present work is an attempt to analyse critically Plato's views on mind and body and more particularly on the mind-body relationship within the wider setting of Plato's metaphysics. We seek to achieve this by a philosophical examination"-of the dialogues on the basis of a generally accepted order. Strictly speaking "soul" ought perhaps to be substituted for "mind" in the above. But it seems to be in terms of "mind" that modern philosophers deal with and refer to the problem that (...) Plato tackled in terms of psyche, and as it is part of the motivation for dealing with Plato's treatment that it is of importance for the modern debate, it has been felt necessary to stress the rough identity* of the problem in the title of the book. Below this superordinate level we try to keep "mind" as a translation typically of nous and "soul" as a translation of psyche. (shrink)

The project “A Plurality of Lives” was funded and hosted by the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies at Lund University, Sweden. The aim of the project was to better understand how a second origin of life, either in the form of a discovery of extraterrestrial life, life developed in a laboratory, or machines equipped with abilities previously only ascribed to living beings, will change how we understand and relate to life. Because of the inherently interdisciplinary nature of the project aim, (...) the project took an interdisciplinary approach with a research group made up of 12 senior researchers representing 12 different disciplines. The project resulted in a joint volume, an international symposium, several new projects, and a network of researchers in the field, all continuing to communicate about and advance the aim of the project. (shrink)

Many philosophers have wrongly assumed that there is an asymmetry between the problem of induction and the logocentric predicament (the justification of deductive inferences). This paper will show that the demand for justification, for the very inferences that are required for justification, is deeply problematic. Using a Wittgensteinian approach, I will argue that justification has an internal relation with deductive and inductive inferences. For Wittgenstein, two concepts are internally related if my understanding of one is predicated on my understanding of (...) the other. Separating the two concepts so that one can be applied to the other is then a misunderstanding of role that these concepts play. (shrink)

Chapter Introduction The field of artificial intelligence is concerned with the construction of computer systems which exhibit intelligent behavior in order ...

_Neoliberalism and Academic Repression_ provides a theoretical examination of how the current higher education system is being shaped into a corporate-factory-industrial-complex. This timely collection challenges the neoliberal emphasis on valuation based on job readiness and outcome achievement.

The Peter Principle states that employees tend to be promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. In a sophisticated simulation study, Pluchino et al confirmed a version of the principle. However, they also noted that their model has the counterintuitive consequence that “the best ways for improving the efficiency of a given organization are either to promote each time an agent at random or to promote randomly the best and the worst members”. We argue that what promotion rule is (...) used can in general influence employee productivity. Accommodating this psychological aspect of promotion is noted as an open problem by Pluchino et al. Using an amended simulation model we verify that if the incentive induced by promoting the best is strong enough, then that strategy will be optimal. In a final simulation experiment we consider the effect on the efficiency of an organization of using “double standard” promotion strategies, i.e., strategies that depend on the official promotion rule being different from the de facto promotion rule. We show that double standard promotion strategies can be highly efficient, although we also note that in using such strategies the employer may take an unacceptable medium to long term risk. (shrink)

Because people with disabilities live in a world not built for them, they are often the first to experiment with new technologies and are often expert in making choices about when to use them. People with disabilities face the question that all human beings increasingly face: to what extent will a given technology promote or thwart my flourishing? More generally, and at least as importantly, what does “flourishing” mean, and how can people use technologies to promote it? To address those (...) questions, we will build six public conversations around an activity that can be essential for flourishing: communicating, navigating, belonging, expressing, curing, and procreating. Each event will feature three persons who live with a disability or are the parents of someone who does. (shrink)

Consider Susan Hurley's depiction of mainstream views of the mind: "The mind is a kind of sandwich, and cognition is the filling" (p. 401). This particular sandwich (with perception as the bottom loaf and action as the top loaf) tastes foul to Hurley, who devotes most of "Consciousness in Action" to a systematic and sometimes extraordinarily detailed critique of what has otherwise been dubbed "classical" models of the mind. This critique then provides the basis for her alternative proposal, in which (...) perception, action and environment are deeply intertwined. (shrink)

To put frameworks of Responsible Innovation and Responsible Research and Innovation (R(R)I) into practice, engagement methods have been developed to study and enhance technoscientific experts’ capacities to reflexively address value considerations in their work. These methods commonly rely on engagement between technoscientific experts and social scholars, which makes them vulnerable to structural barriers to interdisciplinary collaboration. To circumvent these barriers, we adapt Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR) for broader use within technoscientific communities. We call this adaptation: reflexive practitioner dialogues. While the (...) primary aim of this article is to introduce and explain the methodological adaptation, we also analyze results from a pilot study with participants who are involved in research on contemplative practices such as mindfulness meditation. The analysis is guided by research questions that sought to assess whether and under what conditions the practitioner dialogues support reflexive and practical engagement with value considerations in participants’ work. The results indicate that reflexive practitioner dialogues can stimulate reflexive awareness of value conflicts and help re-direct decision-making responsively. We characterize the conditions facilitating such responsiveness as “value exnovators,” highlighting the oft-unacknowledged interpersonal relational practices that support collaborative engagement with value considerations. We suggest that “exnovation”—exposing the strengths of given practices for their improvement—can support R(R)I practices by directing analytical attention to their micro-level carriers. (shrink)

In this essay, I first reflect on the notion of epistemic causality which, according to Shan and Williamson, complements the idea of evidential pluralism. Then, I shift my attention to mixed methods research. While I agree that evidential pluralism provides a strong philosophical foundation for this approach, I argue that there is an alternative, equally strong foundation that focuses on explanation rather than on evidence.

I distinguish two kinds of pleasures – value–based pleasures, which can be explained in terms of the values of those who experience them, and brute pleasures, which cannot be so explained. I apply this distinction to three related projects. First, I critically examine a recent discussion of moral character by Colin McGinn, arguing that McGinn offers a distorted view of good character. Second, I try to elucidate certain remarks Aristotle makes about the relationships between pleasure and courage and pleasure and (...) temperance. Third, I appeal to the distinction to elucidate the topic of moral improvement. (shrink)

Provability, Computability and Reflection.

Om samfundsudviklingen i Sverige med udgangspunkt i aktuel forskning inden for sociologi, nationaløkonomi og statsvidenskab, og samtidig et stridsskrift mod nyliberalismen.

The focus of this dissertation is the debate over classification and species realism/anti-realism in the new science of mechanism. I argue that Michael Ayers's Interpretation of Robert Boyle as a Lockean on species is incorrect. Boyle is more realist than Locke, indeed, Boyle's theory of classification was more similar to Leibniz's than to Locke's. This realist account of Boyle helps to diagnose an important connection between Leibniz and Boyle, and show Locke as a much more novel philosopher of science. ;I (...) then argue that this account of Boyle's realism reveals a new argument strain in Leibniz that allows him a better reply against Locke's species anti-realism. I thus argue against Susana Goodin's view that Leibniz's reply to Locke's anti-realist arguments in the New Essays are stronger than they appear to be. According to Goodin, Leibniz cannot refute Locke without either changing the subject or appealing to his own deep metaphysics. I argue that Leibniz can reply in a dialectically adequate, non-question begging way to Locke's argument without appealing to anything deeper than the science of mechanism. ;Finally, I show that, contra Ayers, one of Locke's motivations for his anti-realism stems from his theological heterodoxy, not from the corpuscularian hypothesis. This theological strain appears most strikingly within the context of the debate over the status of persons and the human species. In the Essay, Locke denies each of Leibniz's orthodox theses regarding the human species. Locke's denials of the orthodox theses appear to be motivated by his heterodox theological commitments. (shrink)