For the Intentionalist, utterance content is wholly determined by a speaker’s meaning-intentions; the sentence uttered serves merely to facilitate the audience’s recovering these intentions. We argue that Intentionalists ought to be Particularists, holding that the only “principles” of meaning recovery needed are those governing inferences to the best explanation; “principles” that are both defeasible and, in a sense to be elaborated, variable. We discuss some ways in which some theorists have erred in trying to tame the “wild west” of pragmatics (...) and context-sensitivity -- including recent work that makes essential appeal to the information structure of a discourse -- and in so doing, offer a general recipe for defending the Particularist picture of utterance content and its recovery that we favor. (shrink)

This article, finding that the religious paradigm tends to eclipse much of the artistry in The Brothers Karamazov, explores the novel through science and philosophy for Zosima’s “Sermons” and for Ivan’s hallucination of the Devil. It finds that the panspermia theory (“seeds everywhere”), endorsed by William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and Hermann von Helmholtz in the 1870s, can best explain Zosima’s belief that God planted “seeds from other worlds” on earth (revising both Scripture and Darwinism) and that panspermia, the transportation of (...) cosmic seeds by comets and asteroids, is crucial in the Devil’s discourse to Ivan on palingenesis (eternal recurrence) and evolution. This “repetition” of planet Earth in Ivan’s hallucination links it to “The Dream of the Ridiculous Man”, a scientific narrative of a “twin” of Earth still in its Golden Age of social harmony. The Golden Age, Dostoevsky’s symbol for utopian socialism, is an inherent theme in The Brothers Karamazov through metaphor and metonymy: in Zosima’s creed of the “earthly paradise”, which Alyosha senses in his “Cana of Galilee” epiphany; in Dmitry’s recitations of the poetry of Schiller; and in Ivan’s allusions to the Garden of Eden, a literary metaphor for the Golden Age. The final section outlines the response to the novel of the young neurophysiologist Ivan Pavlov in 1880-81, an insightful perspective on its socialist tendency. (shrink)

In performing an act of assertion we are sometimes responsible for more than the content of the literal meaning of the words we have used, sometimes less. A recently popular research program seeks to explain certain of the commitments we make in speech in terms of responsiveness to the conversational subject matter. We raise some issues for this view with the aim of providing a more general account of linguistic commitment: one that is grounded in a more general action‐theoretic notion (...) of responsibility. (shrink)

In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, such as health care system strain and stress, as well as (...) economic destruction. It proposes proceeding in three phases: the first addresses premature death, the second long-term health issues and economic harms, and the third aims to contain viral transmission fully and restore pre-pandemic activity. -/- To those who may deem an ethical framework irrelevant because of the belief that many countries will pursue "vaccine nationalism," we argue such a framework still has broad relevance. Reasonable national partiality would permit countries to focus on vaccine distribution within their borders up until the rate of transmission is below 1, at which point there would not be sufficient vaccine-preventable harm to justify retaining a vaccine. When a government reaches the limit of national partiality, it should release vaccines for other countries. -/- We also argue against two other recent proposals. Distributing a vaccine proportional to a country's population mistakenly assumes that equality requires treating differently situated countries identically. Prioritizing countries according to the number of front-line health care workers, the proportion of the population over 65, and the number of people with comorbidities within each country may exacerbate disadvantage and end up giving the vaccine in large part to wealthy nations. (shrink)

In this essay, I first evaluate the conceptual analysis of human rights by Wilfried Hinsch and Markus Stepanians. Next I criticize Allen Buchanan’s claim that Rawls did not address basic human interests/capabilities theories of human nature. I argue Buchanan is doubly mistaken when he claims that John Rawls sought to avoid such theories because they are comprehensive doctrines. Then I evaluate David Reidy’s defense of Rawls, while questioning his efforts to show how Rawls’s list of human rights could (...) be expanded. Finally, I accept James Nickel’s argument that Rawls has tied human rights too closely to intervention on their behalf. However, I reject his, and by implication Rawls’s, refusal to accept a two-tiered approach to human rights. (shrink)

This paper proposes a formal top-level model of explaining the outputs of machine-learning-based decision-making applications and evaluates it experimentally with three data sets. The model draws on AI & law research on argumentation with cases, which models how lawyers draw analogies to past cases and discuss their relevant similarities and differences in terms of relevant factors and dimensions in the problem domain. A case-based approach is natural since the input data of machine-learning applications can be seen as cases. While the (...) approach is motivated by legal decision making, it also applies to other kinds of decision making, such as commercial decisions about loan applications or employee hiring, as long as the outcome is binary and the input conforms to this paper’s factor- or dimension format. The model is top-level in that it can be extended with more refined accounts of similarities and differences between cases. It is shown to overcome several limitations of similar argumentation-based explanation models, which only have binary features and do not represent the tendency of features towards particular outcomes. The results of the experimental evaluation studies indicate that the model may be feasible in practice, but that further development and experimentation is needed to confirm its usefulness as an explanation model. Main challenges here are selecting from a large number of possible explanations, reducing the number of features in the explanations and adding more meaningful information to them. It also remains to be investigated how suitable our approach is for explaining non-linear models. (shrink)

This book deals with the nature of perceptual consciousness and the relationship of sense-data to the ordinary `macroscopic objects' of daily life.

After reading this insightful and charming classic, no one can believe that there are any arguments left for the redistributionist. De Jouvenel devastates every claim for either logic or morality in their position... --Henry G. Manne, Dean, School of Law, George Mason University In this concise and elegant work, first published in 1952, Bertrand de Jouvenel purposely ignores the economic evidence that redistributional efforts sap incentives and are economically destructive. Rather, he stresses the commonly disregarded ethical arguments showing that (...) redistribution is ethically indefensible for, and practically unworkable in, a complex society. A new introduction relates Jouvenel's arguments to current discussions about the redistributionist state and draws out many of the points of affinity with the works of Buchanan, Hayek, Rawls, and others. John Gray is Emeritus Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics. (shrink)

This volume presents seventeen essays by one of the world's leading scholars on Kant. Henry E. Allison explores the nature of transcendental idealism, freedom of the will, and the concept of the purposiveness of nature. He places Kant's views in their historical context and explores their contemporary relevance to present day philosophers.

This paper examines attention as a scientific concept, and argues that it has a patchwork structure. On this view, the concept of attention takes on different meanings, depending on the scientific context. I argue that these different meanings vary systematically along four dimensions, as a result of the epistemic goals of the scientific programme in question and the constraints imposed by the scientific context. Based on this, I argue that attention is a general reasoning strategy concept: it provides general, non-specific (...) guidance that aids scientific work. As well as shedding light on attention as a scientific concept, this theory has two wider consequences. First, it demonstrates that the patchwork approach is a fruitful way to think about psychological concepts. Second, it provides novel resources to resist eliminativism about attention. (shrink)

In the face of limited resources during the COVID-19 pandemic response, public health experts and ethicists have sought to apply guiding principles in determining how those resources, including vaccines, should be allocated.

One of the most influential of the Victorian philosophers, Henry Sidgwick also made important contributions to fields such as economics, political theory and classics. A proponent of the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, which he analysed in his classic work The Methods of Ethics , he later turned to the practical side of politics in this work, published in 1891. His aim was to have a 'rational discussion of political questions in modern states', and he offers (...) a thorough examination of Victorian politics, beginning with a discussion of political theory before moving on to more concrete matters such as property and law. The later chapters discuss the function of government through themes such as procedural matters, international affairs, war, political parties, and public participation, giving a comprehensive account of both ideas about and the functioning of late-nineteenth-century government. (shrink)

Some of our most fundamental moral rules are violated by the practices of torture and war. If one examines the concrete forms these practices take, can the exceptions to the rules necessary to either torture or war be justified? Fighting Hurt brings together key essays by Henry Shue on the issue of torture, and relatedly, the moral challenges surrounding the initiation and conduct of war, and features a new introduction outlining the argument of the essays, putting them into context, (...) and describing how and in what ways his position has modified over time. The first six chapters marshal arguments that have been refined over 35 years for the conclusion that torture can never be justified in any actual circumstances whatsoever. The practice of torture has nothing significant in common with the ticking bomb scenario often used in its defence, and weak U.S. statutes have loop-holes for psychological torture of the kind now favoured by CIA in the 'war against terrorism'. The other sixteen chapters maintain that for as long as wars are in fact fought, it is morally urgent to limit specific destructive practices that cannot be prohibited. Two possible exceptions to the UN Charter's prohibition on all but defensive wars, humanitarian military intervention and preventive war to eliminate WMD, are evaluated; and one possible exception to the principle of discrimination, Michael Walzer's 'supreme emergency', is sharply criticized. Two other fundamental issues about the rules for the conduct of war receive extensive controversial treatment. The first is the rules to limit the bombing of dual-use infrastructure, with a focus on alternative interpretations of the principle of proportionality that limits 'collateral damage'. The second is the moral status of the laws of war as embodied in International Humanitarian Law. It is argued that the current philosophical critique of IHL by Jeff McMahan focused on individual moral liability to attack is an intellectual dead-end and that the morally best rules are international laws that are the same for all fighters.Examining real cases, including U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1991, the Clinton Administration decision not to intervene in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, and CIA torture after 9/11 and its alternatives, this book is highly accessible to general readers who are interested in the ethical status of American political life, especially foreign policy. (shrink)

The science of consciousness has made great strides in recent decades. However, the proliferation of competing theories makes it difficult to reach consensus about artificial consciousness. While for purely scientific purposes we might wish to adopt a ‘wait and see’ attitude, we may soon face practical and ethical questions about whether, for example, agents artificial systems are capable of suffering. Moreover, many of the methods used for assessing consciousness in humans and even non-human animals are not straightforwardly applicable to artificial (...) systems. With these challenges in mind, I propose that we look for ecumenical heuristics for artificial consciousness to enable us to make tentative assessments of the likelihood of consciousness arising in different artificial systems. I argue that such heuristics should have three main features: they should be (i) intuitively plausible, (ii) theoretically-neutral, and (iii) scientifically tractable. I claim that the concept of general intelligence — understood as a capacity for robust, flexible, and integrated cognition and behavior — satisfies these criteria and may thus provide the basis for such a heuristic, allowing us to make initial cautious estimations of which artificial systems are most likely to be conscious. -/- . (shrink)

The main objective of this essay is to show that the process of transition from socialism to capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe is a cultural problem rather than a technical one. In pursuing that objective I analyze two interrelated issues. First, analysis shows why and how cultural differences in Central and Eastern Europe have, via transaction costs specific to the process of transition, specific and predictable effects on the results of institutional restructuring, and, consequently, on economic performance. Second, I (...) argue that spontaneous changes in the prevailing culture could, under a set of credible and stable formal rules of the game, help to close a gap between the culture supportive of capitalism and the prevailing culture in Central and Eastern Europe. a Footnotesa My colleague and friend Fred Fransen made two major contributions to this essay: he helped me identify numerous inconsistencies in the essay, and he changed a number of my perceptions on the relationship between culture and economic performance. James Buchanan, Ljubo Madzar, Henry Manne, Milic Milovanovic, and Katarina Ott gave me useful suggestions and comments on earlier drafts. I am grateful to Victor Vanberg and Ulrich Witt for the opportunity to discuss this essay with their colleagues and students at the University of Freiburg and Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany. (shrink)

Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900), English philosopher and educator is today most famous for his Methods of Ethics first published in 1874 and considered by C. D. Broad among others to be the greatest single work on ethics in English. Besides philosophy, Sidgwick wrote on education, literature, political theory, the history of political institutions, and psychical research. He was also active in University politics, economics and administration, playing a large part in the founding of the first College for women - Newnham (...) College, Cambridge. Although Methods of Ethics is considered the most valuable of his writings - reprinted here in its first and last editions - his intellect is displayed in the full extent of his writings. Professor Marshall said in reference to his discussions of the proper functions of government in Principles of Political Economy that it was 'by far the best thing of the kind in any language'. In all his writings, Sidgwick is rigorous and cautious, reluctant to advance ideas without making sure of his ground. In common with Mill he was opposed to mystical and transcendental methods. This comprehensive collection brings together the most definitive editions of all his books and includes the standard biography written by his wife, as well as two volumes of previously uncollected essays and reviews. (shrink)

Religious Investigations of William James.

This paper is the forerunner of an extensive logical analysis of the relativity idea, in which an axiomatic structure based upon the principles of topology is developed. It is meant to expose the manner in which relativity stretches from the pole of pure conception to that of factual observation, from the a priori to the a posteriori. We take pains to show, in connection with special relativity, precisely which elements are postulational and which are verifiable empirically. Our attempt can be (...) somewhat naively characterized as an effort to show how misguided it is to "derive" relativity from such experimental facts as the Michelson-Morley experiment--as so many textbooks profess to do. (shrink)

Novello, Henry We all know that these are difficult times for the Catholic Church in Australia as it grapples with the scandalous and painful issue of child sexual abuse by some clergy, religious, and lay church personnel. The Commonwealth Royal Commission investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse, announced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard on 12 November 2012, has made life for the faithful even more difficult, as the Catholic Church in Australia comes under intense and continual public scrutiny. (...) The church's Towards Healing protocol for responding to incidents of child sexual abuse acknowledges that not just the victims and their families but the 'whole Church community has been affected by incidents of abuse, for all Catholic people have been dismayed by the stories they have heard'. Thankfully, a spirit of sincere cooperation with the work of the Royal Commission is discernible on the part of the Catholic Church today, as both share in the objective of providing satisfaction to the victims and improving institutional responses as best they might. (shrink)

The practice of evidence based medicine has changed the role of the physician from information dispenser to gatherer and analyser. Studies and controlled trials that may contain unknown errors, or uncertainties, are the primary sources for evidence based decisions in medicine. These sources may be corrupted by a number of means, such as inaccurate statistical analysis, statistical manipulation, population bias, or relevance to the patient in question. Regardless of whether any of these inaccuracies are apparent, the uncertainty of their presence (...) in physician information should be disclosed to the patient. These uncertainties are not, however, shared by physicians with patients, and have caused a direct increase in patient responsibilities and mistrust. Only when disclosure of uncertainty becomes commonplace in medical practice will the physician/patient relationship evolve to a level of greater understanding and satisfaction for both the physician and patient. (shrink)

The Solvay conference of marked the birth of quantum the ory This theory constitutes a radical break with prior tradition in physics because it avers if taken seriously that nature is built not out of matter but out of knowings However the founders of the theory stipulated cautiously that the theory was not to be taken seriously in this sense as a description of nature herself but was to be construed as merely a way of computing expectations about future knowings (...) on the basis of information provided by past knowings There have been many e orts over the intervening seventy years to rid physics of this contamination of matter by mind But I use the reports at this Sym posium to support the claim that these decontamination e orts have failed and that because of recent developments pertaining to causal ity the time has come to take quantum theory seriously to take it as the basis for a conception of the universe built on knowings and other things of the same kind Quantum theory ensures that this con ception will yield all the empirical regularities that had formerly been thought to arise from the properties of matter together with all of those more recently discovered regularities that cannot be understood in that mechanical way Thus I propose to break away from the cau tious stance of the founders of quantum theory and build a theory of.. (shrink)

The original text, written in the language and style of 1904, is almost completely unreadable in 2011. I have taken the liberty of editing it and paraphrasing it for the sake of readability; I have made every effort to preserve the author’s original meaning. Section headings have been added by Prof. Steinhart.

Isaiah Berlin was one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century - a man who set ideas on fire. His defence of liberty and plurality was passionate and persuasive and inspired a generation. His ideas - especially his reasoned rejection of excessive certainty and political despotism - have become even more prescient and vital today.But who was the man behind such influential views? In Search of Isaiah Berlin tells the compelling story of a decades-long collaboration between Berlin and his (...) editor, Henry Hardy, who made it his vocation to bring Berlin's huge body of work into print. Hardy discovered that Berlin had written far more than people thought, much of it unpublished. As he describes his struggles with Berlin, who was almost on principle unwilling to have his work published, an intimate and revealing picture of the self-deprecating philosopher emerges. This is a unique portrait of a man who gave us a new way of thinking about the human predicament, and whose work had for most of his life remained largely out of view. (shrink)

David Estlund’s Democratic Authority develops a novel doctrine of “normative consent,” according to which the nonconsent of those with a duty to consent is null. This article suggests that this doctrine can be defended by confining it to contexts involving consent to an authority, which raise distinctive normative challenges, but argues that Estlund’s attempt to deploy the doctrine fails, for it does not provide convincing reasons to think that citizens have any duty to consent. In closing, the article suggests that (...) the doctrine of normative consent might yet do some useful work in a quite different theoretical setting. (shrink)

It is argued that the validity of the predictions of quantum theory in certain spincorrelation experiments entails a violation of Einstein's locality idea that no causal influence can act outside the forward light cone. First, two preliminary arguments suggesting such a violation are reviewed. They both depend, in intermediate stages, on the idea that the results of certain unperformed experiments are physically determinate. The second argument is entangled also with the problem of the meaning of “physical reality.” A new argument (...) having neither of these characteristics is constructed. It is based strictly on the orthodox ideas of Bohr and Heisenberg, and has no realistic elements, or other ingredients, that are alien to orthodox quantum thinking. (shrink)