Alman İdealizminde ve bu akımdan hareket eden değerler etiği filozoflarında ahlakın insana göreli yorumu, büyük ölçüde Kant’ın, insanı niteleyen ana karakteristikler olan akıl, ben bilinci ve irade özgürlüğü temelinde ele aldığı etik görüşü üzerine kurulmuştur. Kant’ın ahlak felsefesinde özne, hem gerçekliğin öze ait yapısından hem de kendi kendine yasa koyan rasyonel irade olarak, ahlak yasasından sorumlu tutulmuştur. Bu açıdan bakıldığında Kant’la başlayan modern dönemin felsefi rasyonalizminin, insanın ahlaki oluşunu onun akıl yeteneğine ve öznelliğine dayandırdığı görülmektedir. Bu dönemde ahlak için (...) rasyonel temel arama girişimleri ön planda tutulurken ahlak adına değerlerin kaynağı (ahlaki değerler) olarak özne gösterilmiştir. Ancak hemen belirtelim ki Kant’ın idealist düşüncesine paralel olarak insan aklını temele alan ahlak anlayışı bir yeniliğe işaret etmekle birlikte kendinden sonra gelen Alman idealistlerince (Fichte, Hegel) ve değerler etiğinin kurucu filozoflarınca (Scheler, N. Hartmann) eleştirilmiştir. Bu çalışmanın amacı, ‘Ben’in, ahlakın temelini kurmada ne denli geçerli kılınabileceğini hem değerler etiği açısından hem de Alman İdealizmi çerçevesinde eleştirel açıdan bir değerlendirme yaparak etiğin insana göreli anlamını tartışmak olacaktır. (shrink)

Bu çalışmanın amacı Martin Buber etiğinin özgünlüğünü keşfetmek ve geliştirmektir. Buber varlığı ilişki temelinde ele alarak Ben-O ve Ben-Sen ilişkisi olarak ayırmıştır. Ben-O ilişkisi insanın varlıkla sıradan tecrübesine karşılık gelirken, Ben-Sen ilişkisi insanın ötekiyle diyalog kurduğu anda ortaya çıkan daha derin bir ilişkidir. Ötekiyle ilişki; tüm etik değerlendirmeleri içinde barındıran, yaşamın dinamizmine uygun, insanlık tarihinin mitolojik ve etik dinamiklerini de içeren bir ilişkinin temellerini içermektedir. Ben-Sen ilişkisi yalnızca insanın insanlarla kurduğu bir ilişkiyi değil insanın canlı, cansız ve manevi tüm varlıklarla (...) kurduğu ilişkiyi açıklamaktadır. Ben-Sen ilişkisinin sadece insanın insanla olan ilişkiyi ele almaması etik üzerine yapılan çalışmalara yeni bir bakış sağlayacak niteliktedir. Buber’in etik anlayışı; diyalog etiği, ötekiyle ilişki etiği, durum etiği, antropolojik etik, varoluş etiği, meslek etiği, anarşist etik, postmodern etik gibi birçok etik anlayışla bağlantılıdır. Buber herhangi bir ahlaki norm ve etik koda bağlı olmayan, tarihsel, ontolojik ve ilişkiyi öncül kılan geniş çaplı içeriğe sahip bir etiğin temellerini ortaya koymaktadır. (shrink)

Ahlak ve müzik, tarih boyunca, insanlığın ortak bilinci tarafından bir araya getirilen insan faaliyetinin iki farklı alanıdır. Müzik aracığıyla insanın ruhsal durumunu etkilemeye yönelik sihirsel ve dinsel ritüeller buna örnektir. Ancak sadece Antik Yunanistan'da bu iki kavram birleştirilmiş, bir teoriye dönüşmüş ve bu teori felsefi bir doktrin olarak değerlendirilmiştir. Bu teorinin adı Ethos'tur. Bu kelime Yunanca Hqo? kelimesinden üretilmiş ve Etik kavramına hayat vermiştir.Antik Yunan filozofları Ethos teorisi çerçevesinde, armoni, ritim, mod, çalgı gibi müzik kategorilerini detaylı bir şekilde incelemişlerdir. (...) Bu müzik araçlarının, insanın ahlakına edebileceği etkiye yönelik değerlendirmelerinin sonucunda onların kullanımıyla ilgili önemli neticelere ulaşmışlardır. Ethos teorisinin önemli kısımlarından birisi olan müzik eğitimi; müziği, insanın ahlaki terbiyesinin en önemli aracı olarak değerlendirmektedir.Bu çalışmada Antik Yunan felsefesinde Ethos kavramı ve teorisinin tarihçesi aydınlatılmakta ve devlet, birey, eğitim ve müzik gibi kavramların etkileşimi araştırılmaktadır. Ayrıca bu çalışmada, müziğin etik ve eğitici cephesi detaylı bir şekilde aydınlatılmaktadır. (shrink)

yüzyılda teknolojinin, değişen doğa ve insan anlayışlarının, dönüşen tarihsel ve kültürel kodların etkisi altında aile, ebeveynlik ve çocuk kavramlarının yeniden düşünülüp sorgulanması ihtiyacı doğmuştur. Endüstriyel üretim ve tüketimin farklı boyutlarda nesnesi haline getirilen çocuğun kim ve ne olduğuna dair tartışmaların yanı sıra anne-baba olmanın kültürel, tarihsel, dini, fiziki, hukukî ve ekonomik boyutları ve sorumlulukları açısından yeni tartışmalar birbirini takip etmektedir. Farklı boyutlarıyla bütün bu tartışmalar özerklik-özgürlük, insanlık onuru ve kendilik bilinci açısından çocuk-ebeveyn ilişkisinin doğum öncesi-sonrası fiziksel süreçler, temel eğitim (...) ve aile, ebeveyn konumları açısından yeni bir çalışma yöntemiyle birlikte araştırmacıların gündemini şekillendirmektedir. Cinsiyet tartışmaları, iklim değişimleri, ekonomik-politik örgütlenme biçimleri, yeni nesil teknolojiler ve biyomedikal uygulamalar ile ölçeği gittikçe küçülen ve fakat problem boyutu derinleşen bir manzara biyoetiğin sınırlarında ele alındığında yeni tartışma zemininin açılabileceğini göstermektedir. Bu çalışmada ortaya çıkan ya da çıkması muhtemel olan problemler, deontolojik etik argümanlar ve yeni biyoetik tartışmalar bağlamında fenomenolojik bir yöntemle analiz edilmiştir. (shrink)

Dieses Buch untersucht Humes revolutionäre Theorie des begrifflichen Denkens.Das begriffliche Denken ist eine wichtige Tätigkeit des Geistes. Was genau geschieht im Geist, wenn wir diese Tätigkeit ausüben? Im Vergleich zu anderen Philosophen der Frühen Neuzeit hat Hume bei der Beantwortung dieser Frage eine grössere Schwierigkeit: Humesche Ideen sind (anders als bei Descartes und Locke) rein phänomenaler Natur. Sie sind geistige "Bildchen" ohne begriffliche Struktur. Wie soll das begriffliche Denken mit Hilfe derartiger Ideen möglich sein? Hume reagierte auf diese Herausforderung mit (...) einem völlig neuartigen Ansatz und wurde zum Bahnbrecher einer moderneren Theorie des Denkens. Eine klare Einsicht in diesen Teil der Humeschen Philosophie ist zudem unentbehrlich für ein adäquates Verständnis seines Agnostizismus bezüglich der kausalen Kraft und seiner Metaphysik der Existenz. (shrink)

Varlığın kategorize edilmesi ve yüksek hakikatin anlaşılması noktasında fark edilen kavramsal zenginlik dikkat çekicidir. Örneğin milattan üç yüz yıl önce Aristo’nun ortaya koymuş olduğu doğa bilimleri müktesebatı ve mantık ilkeleri yahut onun da gerisinde tasavvufi imgeleme yoğun etkisi olan Platon’un ideler âlemi, gölgeler ve asılları kurgusu hatta hocası Sokrates’in ahlakı temellendirme biçimi ve hususan ölüm cezasıyla yüzleştiğinde vicdani bir adaleti önceleyen tavrı göz önünde bulundurulduğunda soyut düşüncede, etik algısında lineer bir ilerlemeden bahsetmenin zor olduğu fark edilecektir. Tasavvuf ilmi dairesinde düşündüğümüzde (...) vahdet-i vücûd yahut şühûd müktesebatı, İbnü’l-Arabî ile İmâm-ı Rabbânîarasında kurgulanan resmî anlatının çok öncesinde fikrî departmanını oluşturmuştur. Hallâc-ı Mansûr’un “O, Odur.”, “Ben sevdiğim şeyim, oyum; O da bendir. Biz adeta tek bir bedende birbirine katışmış iki ruhuz.” şeklinde karşımıza çıkan ifadeleri hem kadim zamandaki varlığın tek bir özde anlaşılma pratiklerine hem de mecazi dilin hakikate köprü olmak bakımından taşıdığı değerlere atıfta bulunmaktadır. Yüksek Zât yahut müteâl varlık fikri Hallâc-ı Mansûr’da kesin biçimde hatları çizilmiş bir tenzih alanında görülmesine rağmen Dīvān’ındaki ve Kitābü’ṭ-Ṭavāsīn’deki bazı ifadeleri okuyucunun zihnini karıştırabilir. Bu noktada kuşdili/manṭıḳu’ṭ-ṭayr, şathiyeşeklinde tabir edilen ifade/üslûp biçimlerini göz ardı etmemenin zorunluluğu kendiliğinden ortaya çıkar. Merkeze aldığımız şahsın, sufinin yahut sanatkârın anlaşılabilmesi ancak onun hayat hikâyesi ve eserleri vasıtasıyla oluşan büyük resme bakmakla mümkün olabilir. Buradan hareketle Hallâc-ı Mansûr’un hayatındaki kırılış noktaları, şeyhleri ve seyahatleri onun düşünce dünyasına damga vuran batıni rengi görmemize ve sekr merkezli varlık görgüsünü kavramamıza imkân tanır. Böylece Ene’l-Hak diyen birisinin niçin ve hangi maksatla bunu söylediğini kısmen de olsa anlamamıza düşünsel bir geçit açılabilir. (shrink)

This paper defends a theory of fictional truth. According to this theory, there is a fact of the matter concerning the number of hairs on Sherlock Holmes' head, and likewise for any other meaningful question one could ask about what's true in a work of fiction. We argue that a theory of this form is needed to account for the patterns in our judgments about attitude reports that embed fictional claims. We contrast our view with one of the dominant approaches (...) to fictional truth, which originates with David Lewis. Along the way we explore the relationship between fiction, counterfactuals, and vagueness. (shrink)

In this paper, I reconstruct Robert Nozick's experience machine objection to hedonism about well-being. I then explain and briefly discuss the most important recent criticisms that have been made of it. Finally, I question the conventional wisdom that the experience machine, while it neatly disposes of hedonism, poses no problem for desire-based theories of well-being.

Decision-making Capacity matters to whether a patient’s decision should determine her treatment. But why it matters in this way isn’t clear. The standard story is that dmc matters because autonomy matters. And this is thought to justify dmc as a gatekeeper for autonomy – whereby autonomy concerns arise if but only if a patient has dmc. But appeals to autonomy invoke two distinct concerns: concern for authenticity – concern that a choice is consistent with an individual’s commitments; and concern for (...) sovereignty – concern that an individual exercises control over that which is hers to control. Here, I argue, neither concern can alone explain why dmc matters. Instead, dmc matters because it indicates a harmony between the two concerns – the demands of each concern are more likely to agree if a patient has dmc. This vindicates the standard story, but also makes clear that dmc is an inappropriate gatekeeper for autonomy. (shrink)

The daring idea that convention - human decision - lies at the root both of necessary truths and much of empirical science reverberates through twentieth-century philosophy, constituting a revolution comparable to Kant's Copernican revolution. This book provides a comprehensive study of Conventionalism. Drawing a distinction between two conventionalist theses, the under-determination of science by empirical fact, and the linguistic account of necessity, Yemima Ben-Menahem traces the evolution of both ideas to their origins in Poincaré's geometric conventionalism. She argues that the (...) radical extrapolations of Poincaré's ideas by later thinkers, including Wittgenstein, Quine, and Carnap, eventually led to the decline of conventionalism. This book provides a fresh perspective on twentieth-century philosophy. Many of the major themes of contemporary philosophy emerge in this book as arising from engagement with the challenge of conventionalism. (shrink)

The literature on conscientious objection in medicine presents two key problems that remain unresolved: Which conscientious objections in medicine are justified, if it is not feasible for individual medical practitioners to conclusively demonstrate the genuineness or reasonableness of their objections? How does one respect both medical practitioners’ claims of conscience and patients’ interests, without leaving practitioners complicit in perceived or actual wrongdoing? My aim in this paper is to offer a new framework for conscientious objections in medicine, which, by bringing (...) medical professionals’ conscientious objection into the public realm, solves the justification and complicity problems. In particular, I will argue that: an “Uber Conscientious Objection in Medicine Committee” —which includes representatives from the medical community and from other professions, as well as from various religions and from the patient population—should assess various well-known conscientious objections in medicine in terms of public reason and decide which conscientious objections should be permitted, without hearing out individual conscientious objectors; medical practitioners should advertise their conscientious objections, ahead of time, in an online database that would be easily accessible to the public, without being required, in most cases, to refer patients to non-objecting practitioners. (shrink)

We introduce a two-valued and a three-valued truth-valuational substitutional semantics for the Quantified Argument Calculus (Quarc). We then prove that the 2-valid arguments are identical to the 3-valid ones with strict-to-tolerant validity. Next, we introduce a Lemmon-style Natural Deduction system and prove the completeness of Quarc on both two- and three-valued versions, adapting Lindenbaum’s Lemma to truth-valuational semantics. We proceed to investigate the relations of three-valued Quarc and the Predicate Calculus (PC). Adding a logical predicate T to Quarc, true of (...) all singular arguments, allows us to represent PC quantification in Quarc and translate PC into Quarc, preserving validity. Introducing a weak existential quantifier into PC allows us to translate Quarc into PC, also preserving validity. However, unlike the translated systems, neither extended system can have a sound and complete proof system with Cut, supporting the claim that these are basically different calculi. (shrink)

This article identifies an argument in Hobbes’s writings often overlooked but relevant to current philosophical debates. Political philosophers tend to categorize his thought as representing consent or rescue theories of political authority. Though these interpretations have textual support and are understandable, they leave out one of his most compelling arguments – what we call the lesser evil argument for political authority, expressed most explicitly in Chapter 20 of Leviathan. Hobbes frankly admits the state’s evils but appeals to the significant disparity (...) between those evils and the greater evils outside the state as a basis for political authority. More than a passing observation, aspects of the lesser evil argument appear in each of his three major political works. In addition to outlining this argument, the article examines its significance both for Hobbes scholarship and recent philosophical debates on political authority. (shrink)

Purposeful infection of healthy volunteers with a microbial pathogen seems at odds with acceptable ethical standards, but is an important contemporary research avenue used to study infectious diseases and their treatments. Generally termed ‘controlled human infection studies’, this research is particularly useful for fast tracking the development of candidate vaccines and may provide unique insight into disease pathogenesis otherwise unavailable. However, scarce bioethical literature is currently available to assist researchers and research ethics committees in negotiating the distinct issues raised by (...) research involving purposefully infecting healthy volunteers. In this article, we present two separate challenge studies and highlight the ethical issues of human challenge studies as seen through a well-constructed framework. Beyond the same stringent ethical standards seen in other areas of medical research, we conclude that human challenge studies should also include: independent expert reviews, including systematic reviews; a publicly available rationale for the research; implementation of measures to protect the public from spread of infection beyond the research setting; and a new system for compensation for harm. We hope these additions may encourage safer and more ethical research practice and help to safeguard public confidence in this vital research alternative in years to come. (shrink)

This article explains and defends a novel idea about how people can be misled by a discussion topic, even if the discussion itself does not explicitly involve the making of false claims. The crucial aspect of this idea is that people are liable to infer, from the fact that a particular topic is being discussed, that this topic is important. As a result, they may then be led to accept certain beliefs about the state of the world they consider necessary (...) for the topic’s importance. What the article calls “importance misrepresentation” occurs when these beliefs about the state of the world are false or otherwise mistaken. The article explores different ways in which importance misrepresentation can occur, and it uses this idea to help clarify and strengthen some well‐known criticisms of the topic choices of academic philosophers. (shrink)

Many of us feel existential terror when contemplating our future nonexistence. I examine several attempts to rationally justify existential terror. The most promising of these appeals to the effects of future nonexistence on the meaningfulness of our lives. I argue that even this justification fails, and therefore existential terror is irrational.

Power metaphysicians are concerned with, well, powers. Theists claim interest in the most powerful entity there is, God. As such, recent work on the ontology of powers may well have much to offer theists when thinking about God’s power. In this paper I start to provide a metaphysics of God’s ‘power’, something many definitions of omnipotence make reference to. In particular I will be interested in explicating how a power ontology can account for the strength and range of God’s power, (...) as well as showing how this account of divine power can fit with a timeless conception of God. (shrink)

Critical counter-conducts -- Who is the subject of (Foucault's human) rights? -- The ambivalence of rights -- Rights between tactics and strategy.

It is natural to think that there is a tight connection between whether someone is responsible for some outcome and whether it is appropriate to hold her accountable for that outcome. And this natural thought naturally extends to health: if someone is responsible for her health, then, all else being equal, she is accountable for it. Given this, some have thought that responsibility for health has an important role to play in distributing the benefits and burdens of healthcare. But there (...) is a reason for caution. That health is influenced by social, economic, and environmental factors is a matter of consensus. And some have argued that in light of these social determinants of health, individuals are not typically responsible for their health, rendering inappropriate policies that employ a responsibility‐for‐health criterion. This debate implicates a number of overlapping concepts and questions that are often difficult to pull apart. And I worry that those who maintain that social determinants undermine responsibility for health have latched on to the wrong target. The social determinants of health are relevant to such policies, but, I argue, not by globally undermining responsibility. Rather, social determinants are sometimes responsibility‐undermining, sometimes responsibility‐preserving, and often relevant to whether we should hold individuals accountable for their health regardless of their responsibility. This calls for a more nuanced appraisal of the ways in which the social determinants of health are relevant to such policies. And here I attempt to provide one. (shrink)

David Benatar argues that creating someone always harms them. I argue that his master argument rests on a conceptual incoherence.

Virtue consequentialism has been held by many prominent philosophers, but has never been properly formulated. I criticize Julia Driver's formulation of virtue consequentialism and offer an alternative. I maintain that according to the best version of virtue consequentialism, attributions of virtue are really disguised comparisons between two character traits, and the consequences of a trait in non-actual circumstances may affect its actual status as a virtue or vice. Such a view best enables the consequentialist to account for moral luck, unexemplified (...) virtues, and virtues and vices involving the prevention of goodness and badness. (shrink)

Interference is paternalistic when it restricts an individual’s freedom for their own good. Anti-paternalists, such as John Stuart Mill, object to this for various reasons, including that the individual is usually a better judge of her own interests than the would-be paternalist. However, Wilkinson argues that a Parfitian reductivist approach to personal identity opens the door to what he calls ‘identity-relative paternalism’ where someone’s present action is restricted for the sake of a different future self.1 This is an interesting argument, (...) but it is not clear whether it involves permissible paternalism. At the risk of stating the obvious, permissible paternalism must be both permissible and paternalistic. Wilkinson’s identity-relative paternalism could be either, but not obviously both. If the present and future selves are different individuals, then interference is potentially permissible but no longer paternalistic. Alternatively, they are identical, in which case the interference is genuine paternalism, but cannot be justified by appeal to their distinctness. Wilkinson may escape this dilemma by invoking Parfit, who challenges the common notion that identity is all or nothing.2 According to Parfit’s revisionary view, the present and future self may share some connections but not others. However, once we have identified these similarities and differences, there is no further question whether or not they …. (shrink)

Difficulties understanding speech form one of the most prevalent complaints among older adults. Successful speech perception depends on top-down linguistic and cognitive processes that interact with the bottom-up sensory processing of the incoming acoustic information. The relative roles of these processes in age-related difficulties in speech perception, especially when listening conditions are not ideal, are still unclear. In the current study, we asked whether older adults with a larger working memory capacity process speech more efficiently than peers with lower capacity (...) when speech is presented in noise, with another task performed in tandem. Using the Eye-tracking of Word Identification in Noise Under Memory Increased Load an adapted version of the “visual world” paradigm, 36 older listeners were asked to follow spoken instructions presented in background noise, while retaining digits for later recall under low or high memory load. In critical trials, instructions directed listeners’ gaze to pictures of objects whose names shared onset or offset sounds with the name of a competitor that was displayed on the screen at the same time. We compared listeners with different memory capacities on the time course for spoken word recognition under the two memory loads by testing eye-fixations on a named object, relative to fixations on an object whose name shared phonology with the named object. Results indicated two trends. For older adults with lower working memory capacity, increased memory load did not affect online speech processing, however, it impaired offline word recognition accuracy. The reverse pattern was observed for older adults with higher working memory capacity: increased task difficulty significantly decreases online speech processing efficiency but had no effect on offline word recognition accuracy. Results suggest that in older adults, adaptation to adverse listening conditions is at least partially supported by cognitive reserve. Therefore, additional cognitive capacity may lead to greater resilience of older listeners to adverse listening conditions. The differential effects documented by eye movements and accuracy highlight the importance of using both online and offline measures of speech processing to explore age-related changes in speech perception. (shrink)

The present article addresses the logic of the sphere, or the Sphere Model of Consciousness developed by Patrizio Paoletti over three decades of research. M.E.D. Ed., 2002; Flussi, territori, luogo II. M.E.D. Ed., 2002; Fare il punto nave. M.E.D. Ed., 2005; In: Proceedings conference at Leslie and Susan Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center. Bar Ilan University. Faculty of Neuroscience, Israel, 2007; Osservazione—Quaderni di Pedagogia per il Terzo Millennio, Ed. 3P, 2011; Mediazione—Quaderni di Pedagogia per il Terzo Millennio, Ed. 3P, 2011). (...) The SMC model has been experimentally applied in the educational field and lies at the base of neuroscientific and psychoeducational research conducted by the Paoletti Foundation. In recent years, it has been studied by several researchers in the field of neuroscience. Following a logical-mathematical introduction regarding the properties of the spherical shape, we illustrate for the first time the structuring of the model and its neural foundations. We emphasize the central space of the sphere, defined by the geometric model and highlight its descriptive and heuristic properties in relation to the study of consciousness. Finally, we present educational applications of the model, particularly with respect to the center of the sphere, defined in the current context as the “place of pre-existence.”. (shrink)

When it comes to eggs, two aspects are central—taste and nutritional value. And it is when eggs are fresh that these are at their peak. Hate “tastes” worst, that is, its negative intensity is highest, when it is fresh. Yet, when hate is not merely a temporary eruption but a constant feature, it distorts the agent’s behavior and attitudes. As such, its moral value worsens with maturity.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics introduced an ‘intervention ladder’ to guide policymakers on public health interventions.1 The ladder’s vertical structure represents an ordering of interventions, from least to most intrusive. In his article, Paetkau acknowledges that this ladder is ‘a useful tool’ (p. 1) for evaluating public health interventions.2 However, he objects that its focus on individual behaviour is too narrow and obscures ‘interventions that operate on the level of systems rather than individuals’ (p. 2). To be sure, some of (...) the interventions on the original ladder do involve what might ordinarily be seen as ‘system’ or environmental changes. For instance, we might encourage active transport by building dedicated cycle lanes. However, these measures still have their intended effects through altering individual choices. What Paetkau means by a ‘systemic intervention’ is specifically one that improves public health without changing individual behaviour change (pp. 2–3). For example, reducing pollution or improving public health infrastructure. He suggests that, because the Nuffield ladder focuses on individual behaviour, it may lead policymakers to overlook these possibilities. Paetkau proposes broadening the ladder to include systemic interventions. This results in what he calls a ‘stairway’ (p. 3). It …. (shrink)

The question of how to treat an incapacitated patient is vexed, both normatively and practically—normatively, because it is not obvious what the relevant objectives are; practically, because even once the relevant objectives are set, it is often difficult to determine which treatment option is best given those objectives. But despite these complications, here is one consideration that is clearly relevant: what a patient prefers. And so any device that could reliably identify a patient’s preferences would be a promising tool for (...) guiding the treatment of incapacitated patients. The patient preference predictor is just such a tool—an algorithm that takes as inputs a patient’s sociodemographic characteristics, and outputs a reliable prediction about that patient’s treatment preferences.1 But some have worried that the use of such a tool would violate or fail to appropriately respect patients’ autonomy. There are, I think, two ways to understand this kind of criticism. First, globally—as a worry that any systematic implementation of the PPP would be problematic on the grounds that it would result in significant or pervasive autonomy violations. Second, locally—as a worry that in some important range of cases, certain uses of the PPP would be problematic on autonomy grounds. Jardas et al, as I read them, address global autonomy-based criticisms, arguing—convincingly, in my view—that there’s no reason to suspect the autonomy concerns raised by the PPP would be so significant and pervasive as to render any implementation of it generally problematic.1 But even with the global criticisms rebuffed, there remains work to be done. Any ethically acceptable implementation of the PPP must be sensitive to the more local autonomy-based criticisms, with restrictions and safeguards in place to ensure respect for autonomy in the kinds of cases in which the use of the PPP might otherwise threaten …. (shrink)

"Here, for the first time, we have the work of a key pioneer presented in all its depth and range. The pragmatic and prophetic voice of Joseph Ben-David speaks with a power and a clarity that will win the attention of a new generation of scholars."--Arnold Thackray, University of Pennsylvania "A superb collection of brilliant papers by a pioneering mind of international fame, who did much to shape the sociology of science. In organizing this major work, its knowing editor, Gad (...) Freudenthal, has identified a remarkable sociological edifice that exhibits the theoretical coherence of Joseph Ben-David's many-sided and evolving contributions to the field."--Robert K. Merton, Columbia University. (shrink)

Judith Shklar, David Runciman, and others argue against what they see as excessive criticism of political hypocrisy. Such arguments often assume that communicating in an authentic manner is an impossible political ideal. This article challenges the characterization of authenticity as an unrealistic ideal and makes the case that its value can be grounded in a certain political realism sensitive to the threats posed by representative democracy. First, by analyzing authenticity’s demands for political discourse, I show that authenticity has greater flexibility (...) than many assume in accommodating practices common to politics, such as deception, concealment, and persuasion through rhetoric. Second, I argue that a concern for authenticity in political discourse represents a virtue, not a distraction, for representative democracy. Authenticity takes on heightened importance when the public seeks information on how representatives will act in contexts where the public is absent and unable to influence decisions. Furthermore, given the psychological mechanisms behind hypocrisy, public criticism is a sensible response for trying to limit political hypocrisy. From the perspective of democratic theory and psychology, the public has compelling reasons to value authenticity in political discourse. (shrink)

In this paper, a challenge is outlined for Walton’s recent analysis of the fallacy of poisoning the well. An example of the fallacy in action during a debate on affirmative action on a South African campus is taken to raise the question of how Walton’s analysis squares with the idea that disadvantaged parties in debates about race may be epistemically privileged . It is asked when the background of a participant is relevant to a debate and it is proposed that (...) a proper analysis of the poisoning the well will outline conditions under which making one participant’s background an issue in a debate would be legitimate and illegitimate. Expanding Walton’s analysis to deal with the challenge, it is concluded that calling into question a participant’s suitability to take part in a debate is never legitimate when it is based simply on a broad fact about their background (like their race or gender). (shrink)

Healthcare practitioners have access to a range of ethical guidance. However, the normative role of this guidance in ethical decision-making is underexplored. This paper considers two ways that healthcare practitioners could approach ethics guidance. We first outline the idea of deference to ethics guidance, showing how an attitude of deference raises three key problems: moral value; moral understanding; and moral error. Drawing on philosophical literature, we then advocate an alternative framing of ethics guidance as a form of moral testimony by (...) colleagues and suggest that a more promising attitude to ethics guidance is to approach it in the spirit of ‘critical engagement’ rather than deference. (shrink)

This volume addresses the relationship between law and neoliberalism. Assembling work from established and emerging legal scholars, political theorists, philosophers, historians and sociologists from around the world, including the Americas, Australia, Europe and the United Kingdom, it addresses the conceptual, legal, and political relationships between liberal legality and neoliberal economics. More specifically, the book analyses the role that legality plays in the dominant economic force of our time: offering both a legal corrective to scholarship in economics and political economy that (...) has paid insufficient attention to legal ideas and, at the same time, a political economic corrective to legal scholarship which has only recently turned to theorizing neoliberalism. It will be of enormous interest to those working at the intersection of law and politics in our neoliberal age. (shrink)

We prove a Mathias-type criterion for the Magidor iteration of Prikry forcings.

We establish the consistency of the failure of the diamond principle on a cardinal [Formula: see text] which satisfies a strong simultaneous reflection property. The result is based on an analysis of Radin forcing, and further leads to a characterization of weak compactness of [Formula: see text] in a Radin generic extension.

I reconstruct from Rietdijk and Putnam’s well-known papers an argument against the applicability of the concept of becoming in Special Relativity, which I think is unaffected by some of the objections found in the literature. I then consider a line of thought found in the discussion of the possible conventionality of simultaneity in Special Relativity, beginning with Reichenbach, and apply it to the debate over becoming. We see that it immediately renders Rietdijk and Putnam’s argument unsound. I end by comparing (...) my approach to others found in the literature, primarily Stein’s. (shrink)

Arash Abizadeh has recently argued that political communities have no right to close their borders unilaterally, since by doing so they subject outsiders to coercion which lacks democratic justification. His conclusion is that any legitimate regime of border controls must be justified to outsiders. David Miller has sought to defend closed borders by distinguishing between coercion and prevention and arguing that the latter does not require democratic justification. This paper explores a different route, arguing firstly that the requirements of democracy (...) do not provide us with practical guidance unless we also consider other values, such as rights, and secondly that being subject to coercion does not entitle one to democratic justification. These arguments suggest that Abizadeh is wrong to hold closed borders in need of democratic justification. (shrink)

A paradox at the heart of language acquisition research is that, to achieve adult-like competence, children must acquire the ability to generalize verbs into non-attested structures, while avoiding utterances that are deemed ungrammatical by native speakers. For example, children must learn that, to denote the reversal of an action, un- can be added to many verbs, but not all (e.g., roll/unroll; close/*unclose). This study compared theoretical accounts of how this is done. Children aged 5–6 (N = 18), 9–10 (N = (...) 18), and adults (N = 18) rated the acceptability of un- prefixed forms of 48 verbs (and, as a control, bare forms). Across verbs, a negative correlation was observed between the acceptability of ungrammatical un- prefixed forms (e.g., *unclose) and the frequency of (a) the bare form and (b) alternative forms (e.g., open), supporting the entrenchment and pre-emption hypotheses, respectively. Independent ratings of the extent to which verbs instantiate the semantic properties characteristic of a hypothesized semantic cryptotype for un- prefixation were a significant positive predictor of acceptability, for all age groups. The relative importance of each factor differed for attested and unattested un- forms and also varied with age. The findings are interpreted in the context of a new hybrid account designed to incorporate the three factors of entrenchment, pre-emption, and verb semantics. (shrink)

The present article reports on the finding of the principle behind quantum mechanics. The principle, referred to as genuine fortuitousness, implies that the basic event, a click in a counter, comes without any cause and thus as a discontinuity in spacetime. From this principle, the formalism of quantum mechanics emerges with a radically new content, no longer dealing with things to be measured. Instead, quantum mechanics is recognized as the theory of distributions of uncaused clicks that form patterns laid down (...) by spacetime symmetry and is thereby revealed as a subject of unexpected simplicity and beauty. The departure from usual quantum mechanics is strikingly borne out by the absence of Planck's constant from the theory. The elimination of indeterminate particles as cause for the clicks, which the principle of genuine fortuitousness implies, is analogous to the elimination of the ether implied by the principle of relativity. (shrink)

An introduction to comparative philosophy relates European and Oriental philosophies and brings to light such aspects of Eastern philosophy as intellectuality, reasoning, and logical analysis usually associated with Western thought.

Most environmental philosophers have had little use for 'conventional' philosophical and political thought. This is unfortunate, because these traditions can greatly contribute to environmental ethics and policy discussions. One mainstream concept of potential value for environmental philosophy is the notion of the public interest. Yet even though the public interest is widely acknowledged to be a powerful ethical standard in public affairs and public policy, there has been little agreement on its descriptive meaning. A particularly intriguing account of the concept (...) in the literature, however, may be found in the work of the American pragmatist John Dewey. Dewey argued that the public interest was to be continuously constructed through the process of free, cooperative inquiry into the shared good of the democratic community. This Deweyan model of the public interest has much to offer environmental philosophers who are interested in making connections between normative arguments and environmental policy discourse, and it holds great promise for enhancing environmental philosophy's role and impact in public life. (shrink)

Sarah McGrath argues that, when it comes to our controversial moral views, we have no reason to think that we are less likely to be in error than those who disagree with us. I refer to this position as the Moral Peer View. Under pressure from Nathan King, McGrath admits that the MPV need not always have been true, though she maintains it is true now. Although King seems to think that there should be current counterexamples to the MPV, he (...) holds back from actually proposing any. I argue that those of us who favor marriage equality and gender equality are currently in a position to reject the MPV with regard to these issues, and I propose conditions under which people can reasonably take their moral beliefs to be epistemically advantaged. King and McGrath agree that opponents of slavery like William Wilberforce could reasonably believe that they enjoyed an epistemic advantage over proponents of slavery, and I suggest that proponents of marriage equality and gender equality might make similar claims. I propose that we can make additional claims to epistemic advantages if we believe that almost everyone who considers the matter admits that there are advantages, those who disagree with us would admit that there are advantages and we can give a plausible explanation as to why those who we think are epistemically disadvantaged have not noticed that they are disadvantaged. Finally, I argue that it is reasonable to think that our controversial beliefs are justified if we can find reasons to think that our opponents are mistaken, and do not see similar reasons to think ourselves mistaken. This is a better policy than supposing that we are just as prone to mistakes as our opponents, as the latter is both less defensible in theory, and more likely to stifle intellectual progress. (shrink)