The ecosystem services argument is a highly publicised instrumental argument for protecting biodiversity. I develop a new objection to this argument based on the lack of a causal connection from global species losses to local ecosystem changes. I survey some alternative formulations of services arguments, including ones incorporating option value or a precautionary principle, and show that they do not fare much better than the standard version. I conclude that environmental thinkers should rely less on ecosystem services as a means (...) to defend biodiversity, and that attention should be focused on additional types of value which might be attributed to global biodiversity. (shrink)

1 Responsibility and self-control................................. 1 Michael Smith 2 The capacity to have done otherwise: an agent-centred view 21 Philip Pettit 3 Private law and private narratives.............................. 37 Arthur Ripstein 4 Honoré on responsibility for outcomes........................ 61 Stephen R. Perry 5 Responsibility and fault: a relational and functional approach to responsibility 81 Peter Cane 6 Obligations and outcomes in the law of torts............... 111 John Gardner 7 Unpacking “causation‘....................................... 145 Jane Stapleton 8 Private law: between visionaries and bricoleurs............... 187 William Lucy (...) 9 Appreciations and responses................................. 219 Tony Honoré Index................................................... 241. (shrink)

Mata and von Helversen's integrative review of adult age differences in search performance makes a good case that cognitive control may impact certain aspects of self-regulation of search. However, information foraging as a framework also offers an avenue to consider how adults of different ages adapt to age-related changes in cognition, such as in cognitive control.

Some types of solar radiation management (SRM) research are ethically problematic because they expose persons, animals, and ecosystems to significant risks. In our earlier work, we argued for ethical norms for SRM research based on norms for biomedical research. Biomedical researchers may not conduct research on persons without their consent, but universal consent is impractical for SRM research. We argue that instead of requiring universal consent, ethical norms for SRM research require only political legitimacy in decision-making about global SRM trials. (...) Using Allen Buchanan & Robert Keohane's model of global political legitimacy, we examine several existing global institutions as possible analogues for a politically legitimate SRM decision-making body. (shrink)

Although many scientists and engineers insist that technologies are value-neutral, philosophers of technology have long argued that they are wrong. In this paper, I introduce a new argument against the claim that technologies are value-neutral. This argument complements and extends, rather than replaces, existing arguments against value-neutrality. I formulate the Value-Neutrality Thesis, roughly, as the claim that a technological innovation can have bad effects, on balance, only if its users have “vicious” or condemnable preferences. After sketching a microeconomic model for (...) explaining or predicting a technology’s impact on individuals’ behavior, I argue that a particular technological innovation can create or exacerbate collective action problems, even in the absence of vicious preferences. Technologies do this by increasing the net utility of refusing to cooperate. I also argue that a particular technological innovation can induce short-sighted behavior because of humans’ tendency to discount future benefits too steeply. I suggest some possible extensions of my microeconomic model of technological impacts. These extensions would enable philosophers of technology to consider agents with mixed motives—i.e., agents who harbor some vicious preferences but also some aversion to acting on them—and to apply the model to questions about the professional responsibilities of engineers, scientists, and other inventors. (shrink)

This study describes discourse features of messages posted to an Internet discussion forum about depression based on the analysis of a small corpus of message texts. The message texts were classified into three types: problem messages, advice messages and thanks messages, and salient discourse features of each message type were described and analyzed in terms of discourse function. Features of problem messages included: frequent use of metaphorical language to describe symptoms, use of or type questions to request advice, and a (...) general lack of direct requests for advice. Advice messages were characterized by casual style and exhibited a variety of discourse patterns with the common function of expressing positive regard and solidarity. The occurrence of these patterns can be related to the special interpersonal needs associated with the discourse function of giving advice. Thanks messages were responses to advice messages, and usually included some expression of thanks for advice, but interestingly, thanks message writers never indicated that they had acted upon or would act upon the advice they received. (shrink)

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2018.

One central question of climate justice is how to fairly allocate the global emissions budget. Some commentators hold that the concept of fairness is hopelessly equivocal on this point. Others claim that we need a complete theory of distributive justice to answer the question. This paper argues to the contrary that, given only weak assumptions about fairness, we can show that fairness requires an allocation that is at least as prioritarian as the equal per capita view. Since even the equal (...) per capita view is more prioritarian than is politically feasible, fairness is univocal enough for all practical purposes. (shrink)

Pediatric critical careCritical care refers to the health care of children with life-threatening illness or following major surgery or severe injury. This care is offered in different contexts across the globe. In well-resourced environments, critical careCritical care may be provided in pediatric intensive care units, which provide highly complex medical care with advanced, potentially expensive technological devices aimed primarily at sustaining life; whereas in poorly resourced regions, only primary care may be available for critically ill or injured childrenInjured children. Even (...) where PICU facilities are available, they are a scarce and expensive resource. The knowledge and ability to sustain a critically ill or injured child’sInjured children life, potentially with effects on the child and family’s quality of lifeQuality of life and at the expense of other children’s health care, leads to frequent ethical challenges. Ethical issues related to how best to ensure optimal quality of lifeQuality of life and the fair distribution of scarce resources are common. In-depth knowledge and understanding of the individual patient’s medical, scientific and psychosocial context, through interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration; as well as familiarity with the overriding, relevant ethico-legal policiesPolicy and principles is essential for appropriate decision-makingDecision-making. Truthful communicationCommunication with the family is essential, using a shared decision-makingDecision-making process, and the child’s best interestBest interest must be central to every decision. This chapter presents an overview of the recommended approach to, and important considerations for, ethical decision-makingDecision-making in the PICU, using a hypothetical case example. (shrink)

With the 1901 publication of his Les Mythes babyloniens et les premiers chapitres de la Genèse, the French Catholic scholar Alfred Loisy examined carefully parallels between Babylonian literature and the Book of Genesis. In German scholarship, this had been a growing fascination since at least the 1895 publication of Hermann Gunkel’s Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit. Loisy’s use of the concept of “Myth” provides an important window into the appropriation of German scholarship on religion and the Bible into (...) the French scholarly world. Through Loisy’s work, what had been primarily a German Protestant academic discussion became one of the matchsticks that ignited what would become known as the Roman Catholic Modernist Crisis. This present article situates Loisy’s appropriation of “Myth” from the German scholarship he mastered within the proximate cultural, historical, and religious context that became Roman Catholic Modernism. (shrink)

The recent translation into English of Jean-Luc Marion’s essay “Saint Thomas Aquinas and Onto-Theo-Logy” provides an opportunity to re-examine the significance of Marion’s earlier criticisms of Aquinas in the light of his most current position on Aquinas. Toward this end, I discuss the role that the doctrine of analogy plays in Marion’s reassessment, and partial retraction, of the controversial indictment of Aquinas that was presented in God without Being. Marion’s claim that the Thomistic conception of God as ipsum esse should (...) be understood by “starting from the distance of God” is highlighted in order to elucidate how, for Aquinas, the doctrine of analogy functions phenomenologically, as do the divine names generally, to manifest the character of God as infinite goodness and excessive givenness. (shrink)

Writing Laws in Antiquity. Edited by Dominique Jaillard and Christophe Nihan. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte, vol. 19. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2017. Pp. 170. €58.

To what extent do people attribute meanings to “nonsense” words? How general is such attribution of meaning? We used a set of words lacking conventional meanings to elicit drawings of made‐up creatures. Separate groups of participants rated the nonsense words and the drawings on several semantic dimensions and selected what name best corresponded to each creature. Despite lacking conventional meanings, “nonsense” words elicited a high level of consistency in the produced drawings. Meaning attributions made to nonsense words corresponded with meaning (...) attributions made by separate people to drawings that were inspired by the name. Naïve participants were able to recover the name that inspired the drawing with greater‐than‐chance accuracy. These results suggest that people make liberal and consistent use of non‐arbitrary relationships between forms and meanings.Open Research Badges This article has been awarded Open Materials and Open Data badges. All materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/8juyc/. Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science: https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki. (shrink)

Traditional representations of philosophy have tended to prize the role of reason in the discipline. These accounts focus exclusively on ideas and arguments as animating forces in the field. But anecdotal evidence and more rigorous sociological studies suggest there is more going on in philosophy. In this article, we present two hypotheses about social factors in the field: that social factors influence the development of philosophy, and that status and reputation—and thus social influence—will tend to be awarded to philosophers who (...) offer rationally compelling arguments for their views. In order to test these hypotheses, we need a more comprehensive grasp on the field than traditional representations afford. In particular, we need more substantial data about various social connections between philosophers. This investigation belongs to a naturalized metaphilosophy, an empirical study of the discipline itself, and it offers prospects for a fuller and more reliable understanding of philosophy. (shrink)

Children born today in the Maldives may someday have to abandon their homeland. Rising seas, caused by climate change, could swallow most of their tiny island nation within their lifetime. Their fate symbolizes the double inequity at the heart of climate change: those who have contributed the least to climate change will suffer the most from it. All is not lost, however. The scale and impact of climate change depends on the policies that people choose. How quickly will we eliminate (...) our greenhouse gas emissions? How will we do it? Who will pay for it? What will we protect through adaptation? How will we weigh the fortunes of future generations and the natural world against our own? Answers to questions like these reflect a constellation of value judgments that deserve close scrutiny. In addition to providing essential background on the science, economics, and politics of climate change, this book explores the values at stake in climate policy with the aim of shrinking the gap between climate ethics and climate policy. -/- Table of Contents -/- Acknowledgements / Preface / Introduction / 1. The Physical Science of Climate Change / 2. The Economics of Climate Change / 3. Values in Climate Politics / 4. The Moral Foundations of Climate Action / 5. Cross-Cutting Issues in Climate Ethics / 6. Values in Mitigation Policy / 7. Values in Adaptation Policy / 8. Intergenerational Justice and Climate Policy / 9. Nature, Values, and Climate Policy / Bibliography / Index. (shrink)

Expressing views not easily placed within any one school of opinion, this collection of the papers of Tony Honore reflects the author's contribution, as both critic and participant in debate, to the study of legal philosophy over the last twenty-five years. His wide-ranging essays cover such topics as motivation to conform to the law, norms and obligations, and rights and justice, and conclude with an essay supporting the use of law to encourage or reinforce morality.

Socrates' dream puts in generalized form the difficulty that plato saw in the mathematician's procedure of hypothesis, I.E., Of positing undemonstrated first principles ("prota") or elements ("stoicheia") as starting-Points of demonstration. If the elements are unknown, How can what is constructed from them be known?--A difficulty to which plato had earlier called attention in the 'republic' (510cd, 533cd.) this interpretation accords with the mathematical setting and personages of the dialogue, And explains why the explicit refutation of theaetetus' third proposal, That (...) knowledge be defined as true belief accompanied by a logos, Is so perfunctory and unconvincing. Furthermore, The dilemma thus brought to light is reflected in 'posterior analytics' (book i, Chap. 3), Which was presumably written during aristotle's residence in the academy in association with plato and the other mathematicians gathered around him. (shrink)

Spanning pivotal years in the historic democratization of South Africa, this analysis provides a trenchant reflection of higher education in transition. Penned by one of South Africa’s foremost philosophers of education, the critique grapples with very real concerns in higher education policymaking and practice, including stakeholder politics, institutional cultures, and curriculum transformation and interrogation of the function of higher education institutions in modern societies. Exposing the tensions between egalitarian principles and the nature of higher knowledge, the essays raise questions to (...) which there are no simple answers. With characteristic rigor, the analysis looks into the assumptions underlying much of the thinking about these questions and concludes that a failure to sharpen thinking around higher education is a failure to recognize the epistemic value of academic practice in a developing democracy. (shrink)

The presence of slavery in the Laws has puzzled and distressed many of Plato's admirers. However, before passing judgment on Plato's attitude toward slavery, we must first have a clear idea of the legal status of the slave under Plato's law, and compare it with the slave's position under Greek law of Plato's day. This work sets out to do just that, as well as to provide a good account of Greek law, much of which has been lost over the (...) course of history. (shrink)

We characterize four fruitful and underappreciated epistemic roles played by the concept of an individualized niche in contemporary biology, utilizing results of a qualitative empirical study conducted within an interdisciplinary biological research center. We argue that the individualized niche concept (1) shapes the research agenda of the center, (2) facilitates explaining core phenomena related to inter-individual differences, (3) helps with managing individual-level causal complexity, and (4) promotes integrating local knowledge from ecology, evolutionary biology, behavioral biology and other biological fields. We (...) thereby also challenge arguments that the niche concept is superfluous in ecology. (shrink)

Although many aspects of the physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms remain unknown, recent advances in our knowledge suggest that the CREC proteins are promising disease biomarkers or targets for therapeutic intervention in a variety of diseases. The CREC family of low affinity, Ca2+‐binding, multiple EF‐hand proteins are encoded by five genes,RCN1,RCN2,RCN3,SDF4, andCALU, resulting in reticulocalbin, ER Ca2+‐binding protein of 55 kDa (ERC‐55), reticulocalbin‐3, Ca2+‐binding protein of 45 kDa (Cab45), and calumenin. Alternative splicing increases the number of gene products. The proteins are (...) localized in the cytosol, in various parts of the secretory pathway, secreted to the extracellular space or localized on the cell surface. The emerging functions appear to be highly diverse. The proteins interact with several different ligands. Rather well‐described functions are attached to calumenin with the inhibition of several proteins in the endoplasmic or sarcoplasmic reticulum membrane, the vitamin K12,3‐epoxide reductase, the γ‐carboxylase, the ryanodine receptor, and the Ca2+‐transporting ATPase. Other functions concern participation in the secretory process, chaperone activity, signal transduction as well as participation in a large variety of disease processes. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of moral progress commonly acknowledge the problem of mass atrocities. But the implications of such events for our ability to perceive, and achieve, progress are rarely considered in detail. This paper aims to address this gap. The paper takes as its starting point Allen Buchanan’s evolutionary theory of moral progress in his 2020 book Our Moral Fate. Through critical analysis of Buchanan’s theory, the paper shows that moral philosophers seeking to draw evidence from atrocities must pay closer attention (...) to social scientific research into such crimes, and particularly to findings concerning the diverse motives, intentions, and ideological influences on perpetrators. At the same time, the paper suggests that mass atrocities exhibit the action-guiding influence not only of moral norms, but also of social and legal norms. The paper concludes by briefly considering the significance of mass atrocities for theories of moral progress beyond Our Moral Fate. (shrink)

Recent work in various branches of philosophy has reinvigorated debate over the psychology behind moral judgment. Using Marc Hauser's categorization of theories as “Kantian,” “Humean,” or “Rawlsian” to frame the discussion, I argue that the existing evidence weighs against the Kantian model and partly in favor of both the Humean and the Rawlsian models. Emotions do play a causal role in the formation of our moral judgments, as the Humean model claims, but there are also unconscious principles shaping our moral (...) judgments, as the Rawlsian model predicts. Thus, Hauser's tripartite division of possible models of moral psychology is inadequate. Drawing on research in cognitive neuroscience, clinical and behavioral psychology, and psychopathology, I sketch a new, developmental sentimentalist model of moral psychology. I call it a “Mencian” model, after the Confucian philosopher Mencius. On this model, moral judgments are caused by emotions, but because of the way emotions are mapped onto particular actions, moral judgments unconsciously reflect certain principled distinctions. (shrink)