This book defends the view that any adequate account of rational decision making must take a decision maker's beliefs about causal relations into account. The early chapters of the book introduce the non-specialist to the rudiments of expected utility theory. The major technical advance offered by the book is a 'representation theorem' that shows that both causal decision theory and its main rival, Richard Jeffrey's logic of decision, are both instances of a more general conditional decision theory. The book (...) solves a long-standing problem for Jeffrey's theory by showing for the first time how to obtain a unique utility and probability representation for preferences and judgements of comparative likelihood. The book also contains a major new discussion of what it means to suppose that some event occurs or that some proposition is true. The most complete and robust defence of causal decision theory available. (shrink)

The pragmatic character of the Dutch book argument makes it unsuitable as an "epistemic" justification for the fundamental probabilist dogma that rational partial beliefs must conform to the axioms of probability. To secure an appropriately epistemic justification for this conclusion, one must explain what it means for a system of partial beliefs to accurately represent the state of the world, and then show that partial beliefs that violate the laws of probability are invariably less accurate than they could be otherwise. (...) The first task can be accomplished once we realize that the accuracy of systems of partial beliefs can be measured on a gradational scale that satisfies a small set of formal constraints, each of which has a sound epistemic motivation. When accuracy is measured in this way it can be shown that any system of degrees of belief that violates the axioms of probability can be replaced by an alternative system that obeys the axioms and yet is more accurate in every possible world. Since epistemically rational agents must strive to hold accurate beliefs, this establishes conformity with the axioms of probability as a norm of epistemic rationality whatever its prudential merits or defects might be. (shrink)

The current legal status and medical ethics of routine or religious penile circumcision of minors is a matter of ongoing controversy in many countries. We focus on the United Kingdom as an illustrative example, giving a detailed analysis of the most recent British Medical Association guidance from 2019. We argue that the guidance paints a confused and conflicting portrait of the law and ethics of the procedure in the UK context, reflecting deeper, unresolved moral and legal tensions surrounding child genital (...) cutting practices more generally. Of particular note is a lack of clarity around how to apply the “best interests” standard—ordinarily associated with time-sensitive proxy decision making regarding therapeutic options for a medically unwell patient—to a parental request for a medically unnecessary surgery to be carried out on the genitalia of a healthy child. Challenges arise in measuring and assigning weights to intended sociocultural or religious/spiritual benefits, and even to health-related prophylactic benefits, and in balancing these against potential physical, functional, and psychosexual risks or harms. Also of concern are apparently inconsistent safeguarding standards being applied to children based on their birth sex categorization or gender of rearing. We identify and discuss recent trends in British and international medical ethics and law, finding gradual movement toward a more unified standard for evaluating the permissibility of surgically modifying healthy children's genitals before they can meaningfully participate in the decision. (shrink)

This is a paper about the problem of realism in meta-ethics (and, I hope, also in other areas, but that hope is so far pretty speculative). But it is not about the problem of whether realism is true. It is about the problem of what realism is. More specifically, it is about the question of what divides meta-ethical realists from irrealists. I start with a potted history of the Good Old Days.

Behavior genetics is a controversial science. For decades, scholars have sought to understand the role of heredity in human behavior and life-course outcomes. Recently, technological advances and the rapid expansion of genomic databases have facilitated the discovery of genes associated with human phenotypes such as educational attainment and substance use disorders. To maximize the potential of this flourishing science, and to minimize potential harms, careful analysis of what it would mean for genes to be causes of human behavior is needed. (...) In this paper, we advance a framework for identifying instances of genetic causes, interpreting those causal relationships, and applying them to advance causal knowledge more generally in the social sciences. Central to thinking about genes as causes is counterfactual reasoning, the cornerstone of causal thinking in statistics, medicine, and philosophy. We argue that within-family genetic effects represent the product of a counterfactual comparison in the same way as average treatment effects (ATEs) from randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Both ATEs from RCTs and within-family genetic effects are shallow causes: They operate within intricate causal systems (non-unitary), produce heterogeneous effects across individuals (non-uniform), and are not mechanistically informative (non-explanatory). Despite these limitations, shallow causal knowledge can be used to improve understanding of the etiology of human behavior and to explore sources of heterogeneity and fade-out in treatment effects. (shrink)

In this paper I criticize the commonly accepted idea that the generalizations of the special sciences should be construed as ceteris paribus laws. This idea rests on mistaken assumptions about the role of laws in explanation and their relation to causal claims. Moreover, the major proposals in the literature for the analysis of ceteris paribus laws are, on their own terms, complete failures. I sketch a more adequate alternative account of the content of causal generalizations in the special sciences (...) which I argue should replace the ceteris paribus conception. (shrink)

Evidence that confirms a scientific hypothesis is said to be ‘novel’ if it is not discovered until after the hypothesis isconstructed. The philosophical issues surrounding novel confirmation have been well summarized by Campbell and Vinci [1983]. They write that philosophers of science generally agree that when observational evidence supports a theory, the confirmation is much stronger when the evidence is ‘novel’... There are, nevertheless, reasons to be skeptical of this tradition... The notion of novel confirmation is beset with a theoretical (...) puzzle about how the degree of confirmation can change without any change in the evidence, hypothesis, or auxiliary assumptions... There have not yet appeared any obviously satisfactory solutions to these problems Much of the literature on novel confirmation relies on the Bayesian analysis of conditional probabilities. Let H represent a hypothesis, E an event that confirms the hypothesis, and B some relevant background information. Denote by Pr the conditional probability of x given y. There are various plausible measures of the degree of support that E lends to H. Among these are: Degree of support = Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pt In the work cited, Campbell and Vinci offer a somewhat more involved Bayesian interpretation. Formula is discussed by Gardner [1981] who points out that under this formulation there can be no role for novelty. 'The function Pr contains no third slot in which to insert a temporal relation between the invention of H and the inventor's learning E. Obviously, then, this relation could not possibly affect E's support of H.' Formula, on the other hand, suggests a role for novelty. Bayes's Theorem allows us to rewrite the formula as Degree of support = Pr x [Pr – 1] We can use 1/Pr as a measure of the novelty of E. Then shows that the degree of support increases with novelty of E. In the paper already cited, Campbell and Vinci discuss shortcomings of this analysis. Formula expresses an alternative offered by Howson [1984]. In that formula, Pr represents the probability of H assuming that only B – {E} is known. This allows for the possibility of non-novel facts generating support for hypotheses. Niiniluoto [1984] argues for a variant along the lines of, in which we account for the possibility that the theorist was unaware that his hypothesis entails E. One problem in deciding among these approaches is that the choice of a definition for the degree of support appears arbitrary. What kind of argument could justify the choice of one definition over another? It is our position that there can be no basis for addressing this question in the absence of an explicit model of the process by which hypotheses are generated. Only in the presence of such a model can the various conditional probabilities be given meaningful interpretations. We provide such models in Sections 1, 2 and 4. The simple model of Section 1, incorporating strong assumptions, yields the conclusion that novelty is irrelevant. When these assumptions are relaxed in the later sections, novelty becomes relevant for a variety of reasons. It is at least potentially the case that scientists have more information about their own abilities than is publicly available, and this information might influence their decisions about whether even to attempt novel prediction. If this is so, then it should be incorporated into the model of hypothesis generation. This requires an explicit discussion of how scientists respond to incentives and how the incentives themselves evolve, which in turn takes us into the realm of economic theory. We have addressed these issues in another paper, written for an audience of economists. The results of this research are summarized in Section 3. (shrink)

A tacit assumption since the 19th Century has been that the neocortex serves as the "seat of consciousness." An unexpected challenge to that assumption arose in 1949 with the discovery that high-frequency EEG activation associated with an alert state requires the intactness of the brainstem reticular formation. This discovery became the impetus for nearly three decades of research on what came to be known as the reticular activating system. By the 1970s, however, methodological and philosophical controversies led to general abandonment (...) of subcortical theories of attention and consciousness, with a return to an almost exclusive focus upon the cortex. With recent advances in the neurosciences the focus is shifting once more, this time to the unique contributions of cortical, thalmic, and brainstem structures in mediating selective attention and perceptual awareness. This paper offers a nontechnical review of the history of these developments up to contemporary interest in the putative role of oscillatory EEG patterns in the integration of perceptual features of experience. It puts forward the thesis that a key to understanding attention and consciousness is an appreciation of contributions of the thalmus to these cognitive processes. (shrink)

I discuss several issues related to "classical" spacetime structure. I review Galilean, Newtonian, and Leibnizian spacetimes, and briefly describe more recent developments. The target audience is undergraduates and early graduate students in philosophy; the presentation avoids mathematical formalism as much as possible.

This paper reports the results of a four year study to measure the effect of a Business and Society course on the ethical judgment of students. The research involves a matched pre/post survey with control design, with the Business and Society course functioning as the treatment variable. The subjects were undergraduate and graduate (M.B.A.) business students (n=460). The answer to the question posed by the title of this paper is yes, in a more ethical direction.

In chapter five of Wise Choices, Apt Feelings Allan Gibbard develops what he calls a ‘normative logic’ intended to solve some problems that face an expressivist theory of norms like his. The first is “the problem of embedding: The analysis applies to simple contexts, in which it is simply asserted or denied that such-and-such is rational. It says nothing about more complex normative assertions.”1 That is the problem with which I will be concerned. Though he doesn’t list it as (...) one of the problems to be solved, Gibbard’s devices also explain what it means to say that a certain normative argument is ‘valid’, that one normative statement follows from some others. Both of these questions arise because of the ways we ordinarily think and speak, ways which on a simplistic version of expressivism appear not to make any sense. An expressivist committed to making sense of the way we ordinarily think and speak in normative language owes some account of embeddings and of logic. Gibbard’s device seems to me the clearest and most systematic of any expressivist attempt to meet these challenges. (shrink)

Truth-talk exhibits certain features that render it philosophically suspect and motivate a deflationary account. I offer a new formulation of deflationism that explains truth-talk in terms of semantic pretense. This amounts to a fictionalist account of truth-talk but avoids an error-theoretic interpretation and its resulting incoherence. The pretense analysis fits especially well with deflationism’s central commitment, and it handles truth-talk’s unusual features effectively. In particular, this approach suggests an interesting strategy for dealing with the Liar paradox. This version of deflationism (...) has advantages over the formulations currently available in the literature, mainly because it offers a more satisfying account of the generalizing role deflationary views take as truth-talk’s central function. Explaining the notion of truth in terms of pretense generates some special concerns, but none we cannot address through careful consideration of how pretense operates in truth-talk and of the attitudes instances of pretending involve. (shrink)

This article initially provides a brief overview of virtue epistemology; it thereafter considers some possible ramifications of this branch of the theory of knowledge for the philosophy of education. The main features of three different manifestations of virtue epistemology are first explained. Importantly, it is then maintained that developments in virtue epistemology may offer the resources to critique aspects of the debate between Hirst and Carr about how the philosophy of education ought to be carried out and by whom. Wilfred (...) Carr's position—that educational practitioners have privileged access to philosophical knowledge about teaching practice—will in particular be questioned. It will be argued that Carr's view rests on a form of epistemology, internalism, which places unreasonably narrow restrictions upon the range of actors and ways, in which philosophical knowledge of and/or for education might be achieved. In declaring that practical wisdom regarding teaching is ‘entirely dependent’ on practitioner reflection, Carr not only radically deviates from Aristotle's notion of practical wisdom, he also, in effect, renders redundant all philosophical research about education that is not initiated by teachers in this manner. It is concluded that Aristotle's general approach to acquiring information and knowledge about the world might yet still offer a foundation for a more comprehensive philosophy of education; one that makes clear that the professional testimony and reflection of teachers, observation of teaching practice, and already existing educational philosophy, theory and policy can all be perceived as potentially valuable sources of philosophical knowledge of and for education. (shrink)

Having asked, “What, then, is time?” Augustine admitted, “I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.” We all have a sense of time, but the description and explanation of it remain remarkably elusive. Through a series of detailed descriptions, Husserl attempted to clarify this sense of time. In my book, I trace the development of his account of our temporal self-awareness, starting (...) with his early 1905-1909 lectures on time consciousness and proceeding through the 1917-18 Bernau Manuscripts, the Analyses of Passive Syntheses of the 1920’s and ending with the C, B and E manuscripts on time and instincts of the 1930s. Although my book covers all the stages of Husserl’s account of temporality, it is nonetheless systematic in its approach. It is organized about a number of basic topics in the theory of time and presents and critically appraises Husserl’s positions on the issues pertaining to each. • THE ONTOLOGICAL STATUS OF TIME: Is time objective or subjective? Is it “out there,” a part of external reality or does it have a merely subjective existence, residing only in our memories and anticipations? Does Husserl’s “subjective” account presuppose ob-jective time? • THE “PRESENCE” OF THE PAST AS PAST: Memory, if it is to be distinguished from a direct, sensuous perception, must grasp the past as past. It must somehow “see” what no longer exists as no longer existing. The issue is: how do we do this? The same question arises with regard to our grasp through anticipation of the future as future. • THE TEMPORALITY OF OBJECTS: For Husserl, the apprehension of any sort of extended event, such as a melody, involves the synthesis of the “retentions” (the short term memories) of its notes and the anticipations these retentions awake in us. The question, here, is: what exactly is involved in this synthesis of retentions and anticipa-tions? How can these elements come together to present a single, individual object rather than presenting us with merely a collection of disparate presentations? In other words: How does temporal synthesis accomplish this presentation? • THE TEMPORALITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Husserl asserts that consciousness, in placing its object in time also places itself in time. How does it do this? What is the relation between the consciousness that places itself in time and the consciousness that is placed in time? How do we unify them? • THE ONTOLOGICAL STATUS OF TIME-CONSTITUTING PHENOMENA: Husserl claims that “time-constituting phenomena are evidently objectivities fundamentally different than those constituted in time. They are neither individual objects nor individual processes, and the predicates of such objects or processes cannot be meaningfully ascribed to them.” This assertion raises a number of questions about the ontological status of these time-constituting phenomena. If we cannot apply the predicates of individual objects to them, what is the nature of their being? Given that such phenomena com-pose the field of consciousness, what is the ontological status of consciousness? Furthermore, if our apprehension directs itself towards individual objects, how can our consciousness grasp the pre-individual, time-constituting phenomena that make it up? At issue here is the status of Husserl’s own descriptions of consciousness and the temporal process. Does his theory undermine the possibility of the evidence he presents for it? • THE RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE EGO: Our sense of self involves more than our consciousness, more than the memories, perceptions, and anticipations that give it its content. It involves our sense as the subjective referent of every act, as the person to whom the world appears, as the one who is affected by the world and who acts with regard to it. What is the relation of this sense of self to our time consciousness? How does the simultaneous constitution of consciousness and its object result in the presence of the I that is the subject of consciousness? (shrink)

This paper explores some issues concerning the nature and structure of causal explanation in psychiatry and psychology from the point of view of the “interventionist” theory defended in my book, Making Things Happen. Among the issues is explored is the extent to which candidate causal explanations involving “upper level” or relatively coarse-grained or macroscopic variables such as mental/psychological states (e.g. highly self critical beliefs or low self esteem) or environmental factors (e.g. parental abuse) compete with explanations that instead appeal to (...) underlying, “lower level” or more fine gained neural, genetic, or biochemical mechanisms. (shrink)

Suppose we wish to decide which of a pair of actions has better consequences in a case in which both actions result in infinite utility. Peter Vallentyne and others have proposed that one action has better consequences than a second if there is a time after which the cumulative utility of the first action always outstrips the cumulative utility of the second. I argue against this principle, in particular I show how cases may arise in which up to any point (...) of time action a1 produces more utility than action a2, yet for each individual involved a2 produces more utility. (shrink)

Sometimes, the fact that an attitude is fitting seems like a demand to have that attitude. But in other cases, the fact that an attitude is fitting seems more like a permission to have the attitude. I defend a proposal that can accommodate both of these appearances. I argue that there is a kind of emotionlessness, which I call apathy, that can be fitting or unfitting in just the same way that emotion can. I further argue that, in some (...) cases, it can be fitting to respond a single object either with emotion or with apathy. When both apathy and emotion are fitting options, the fittingness of the emotion is a permission-like status; failures to have the fitting emotion are not failures of fit. But when an emotion is fitting and apathy is unfitting, the fittingness of the emotion is a demand-like status; failures to have the emotion are failures of fit. (shrink)

Current discussions of business ethics usually only consider deontological and utilitarian approaches. What is missing is a discussion of traditional teleology, often referred to as virtue ethics. While deontology and teleology are useful, they both suffer insufficiencies. Traditional teleology, while deontological in many respects, does not object to utilitarian style calculations as long as they are contained within a moral framework that is not utilitarian in its origin. It contains the best of both approaches and can be used to focus (...) on the individual''s role within an organization. More work is needed in exposing students and faculty to traditional teleology and its place in business ethic''s discussions. (shrink)

Widely used by instructors who emphasize the logical structure of philosophical theories and the dialectical play of argument, this popular work provides clear, reliable, and up-to-date discussions of central philosophical debates. The fourth edition incorporates major revisions--the first since 1982--and features an extensive change in content. Every chapter has been reworked to improve its organization, to make it more accessible and engaging to the student, and to reflect recent discussions.

In this paper, I argue that in at least some interesting cases, the moral value of a narrative work depends on the aesthetic properties of that artwork. It does not follow that a work that is aesthetically bad will be morally bad (or that it will be morally good). The argument comprises four stages. First I describe several different features of imaginative engagement with narrative artworks. Then I show that these features depend on some of the aesthetic properties of those (...) works. Third, I argue that these same features of imaginative engagement are morally salient, by virtue of inviting more or less sophisticated and reflective moral responses. Finally, I show that the overall moral value of an artwork depends in part on whether or not the prescribed response is simple or complex, passive or reflective. (shrink)

This paper introduces a novel form of pragmatic encroachment: one that makes a difference to the status of emotion rather than the status of belief. I begin by isolating a distinctive standard in terms of which we can evaluate emotion – one sometimes called “subjective fittingness,” “epistemic justification,” or “warrant.” I then show how this standard for emotion could face a kind of pragmatic encroachment importantly similar to the more familiar encroachment on epistemic standards for belief. Encroachment on warranted (...) emotion is a striking proposal that deserves attention. In fact, there are good reasons to think that encroachment on warranted emotion deserves to be considered the default view for those who already accept pragmatic encroachment on the epistemic status of belief. I support this parity claim by arguing for a principle that establishes a limited coordination between the conditions that warrant emotion and the conditions that justify belief. (shrink)

The waning popularity of logical empiricism and the supposed discovery of insurmountable technical difficulties led most philosophers to abandon the project to formulate a formal criterion of empirical significance. Such a criterion would delineate claims that observation can confirm or disconfirm from those it cannot. Although early criteria were clearly inadequate, criticisms made of later, more sophisticated criteria were often indefensible or easily answered. Most importantly, Carnap’s last criterion was seriously misinterpreted and an amended version of it remains tenable.

We use an event study to capture the investor reaction to the first Newsweek Green Rankings in September 2009, a notable, multi-dimensional recent development in the rating of corporate environmental CSR performance. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we develop hypotheses about market investor reaction to the disclosure of new, relevant corporate environmental performance in both the short and longer term, whether market investors’ reaction reflects industry context, and whether firm-level contextual variables representing firm size, and market legitimacy significantly impacts the investor (...) reaction. We find that, for the sample of the largest 500 US firms ranked by Newsweek, investors react positively both to the raw and within-industry rankings of green performance in terms of both short-term and longer-term returns. Moreover, the investor reaction is significantly influenced by contextual variables such as firm size and firm market legitimacy. Our results are compatible with the inference that rating agencies like Newsweek serve a valuable information dissemination function such that investors in better ranked firms anticipate larger future cash flows due to more positive reactions from key stakeholders such as environmentally-conscious customers, employees, NGOs, regulators, and thus reward these firms with stock price increases. Finally, larger, more visible firms benefit more, while firms which have more market legitimacy benefit less. We believe these findings will be of considerable interest to scholars of environmental corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

This book aims to contribute significantly to the understanding of issues of value which repeatedly emerge in interdisciplinary discussions on space and society. Although a recurring feature of discussions about space in the humanities, the treatment of value questions has tended to be patchy, of uneven quality and even, on occasion, idiosyncratic rather than drawing upon a close familiarity with state-of-the-art ethical theory. One of the volume's aims is to promote a more robust and theoretically informed approach to the (...) ethical dimension of discussions on space and society. While the contributions are written in a manner which is accessible across disciplines, the book still withstands scrutiny by those whose work is primarily on ethics. At the same time it allows academics across a range of disciplines an insight into current approaches toward how the work of ethics gets done. The issues of value raised could be used to inform debates about regulation, space law and protocols for microbial discovery as well as longer-range policy debates about funding. (shrink)

Naive deductivist accounts of confirmation have the undesirable consequence that if E confirms H, then E also confirms the conjunction H·X, for any X—even if X is completely irrelevant to E and H. Bayesian accounts of confirmation may appear to have the same problem. In a recent article in this journal Fitelson (2002) argued that existing Bayesian attempts to resolve of this problem are inadequate in several important respects. Fitelson then proposes a new‐and‐improved Bayesian account that overcomes the problem of (...) irrelevant conjunction, and does so in a more general setting than past attempts. We will show how to simplify and improve upon Fitelson's solution. (shrink)

Written for students, Mind, Matter, and Nature presumes no prior philosophical training on the part of the reader. The book nevertheless holds the arguments discussed to rigorous standards and is conversant with recent literature, thus making it useful as well to more advanced students and professionals interested in a resource on Thomistic hylomorphism in the philosophy of mind.

I present an argument against a relational theory of spacetime that regards spacetime as a ‘structural quality of the field’. The argument takes the form of a trilemma. To make the argument, I focus on relativistic worlds in which there exist just two fields, an electromagnetic field and a gravitational field. Then there are three options: either spacetime is a structural quality of each field separately, both fields together, or one field but not the other. I argue that the first (...) option founders on a problem of geometric coordination and that the second and third options collapse into substantivalism. In particular, on the third option it becomes clear that the relationalist’s path to Leibniz equivalence is no simpler or more straightforward than the substantivalist’s. (shrink)

I clarify a widely accepted form of contemporary naturalism and argue that supervenient physicalism should not be considered an option for those who embrace this version of naturalism. Among other things, my thesis implies that if there are insuperable difficulties for strict physicalism, then the move toward supervenience views of the mind/body problem amounts to an abandonment of this version of naturalism and not a minor adjustment of it. More precisely, my argument is this: strict physicalism excludes both substance (...) and property or event dualism. But the supervenience thesis entails some form of property or event dualism. So strict physicalism excludes the supervenience thesis. Moreover, given the nature of a widely accepted contemporary understanding of naturalism, it is best construed along strict physicalist lines and naturalists of this persuasion should not be supervenient physicalists. To make my case, I offer a characterization of a ubiquitous version of contemporary naturalism followed by an analysis of the most plausible version of supervenient physicalism consistent with this form of naturalism. I then try to show why this version of supervenient physicalism should not be an option for a naturalist of a certain persuasion. (shrink)

The most successful science on the Aristotelian model was geometry in the style of Euclid. As advocated in the Posterior Analytics, Euclid’s Elements laid out geometry as a structure of theorems deduced from definitions and axioms that were evident to reason. However, geometry deals with the category of quantity, whereas Aristotelian definitions are paradigmatically in the category of substance. This chapter argues that definitions in the category of quantity have fulfilled well the Aristotelian ideal of stating the essence of ‘what (...) a thing is’, in such a way as to support a superstructure of demonstrations about that thing. Euclid’s definition of circle is a prime example: it is philosophically satisfying and from the first theorem of the Elements proved itself very productive of theorems. As this chapter demonstrates, the definition of ratio was more difficult. Euclid stands at the end of a long search for a definition of ratio, one of the most central notions of mathematics, that is both philosophically satisfying and mathematically productive. The search was not wholly successful. (shrink)

Naturalness is an extra-empirical quality that aims to assess plausibility of a theory. Finetuning measures are often deputized to quantify the task. However, knowing statistical distributions on parameters appears necessary. Such meta-theories are not known yet. A critical discussion of these issues is presented, including their possible resolutions in fixed points. Both agreement to and skepticism of naturalness’s utility remains credible, as is skepticism to any extra-empirical theory assessment that claims to identify “more correct” theories that are equally empirically (...) adequate. The severe implications of SEETA are set forward in some detail. We conclude with a summary and discussion of the viability of three main viewpoints toward naturalness and finetuning, where the “moderate naturalness position” is suggested to be most appealing, not suffering from the disquietudes of the extreme pro- and anti-naturalness positions. (shrink)

This article uses the case of “social impact bonds” (SIBs) to explore the role of social science methods in new markets in “social investment.” Pioneered in the UK in 2010, SIBs use private capital to fund social programs with governments paying returns for successful outcomes. Central to the SIB model is the question of evaluation and the method to be used in determining program outcomes and investor returns. In the United States, the randomized controlled trial (RCT) has been the dominant (...) method. However, this has not been without controversy. Some SIB practitioners and investors have argued that, while this may be the perfect tool, the need to grow the SIB market demands a more pragmatic approach. Drawing from a three-year study of SIBs, and informed by Science and Technology Studies (STS)-inspired work on valuation and the social life of methods, the article explores RCTs as both a valuation technology central to SIB design and the object of a micropolitics of valuation which has impeded market growth. It is the relationship between, and the politics of, evaluation and valuation that is a key lesson of the SIB experiment and an important insight for future research on “social investment” and other settings where methods are constitutive of financial value. (shrink)

Proponents of the language of thought (LOT) thesis are realists when it comes to syntactically structured representations, and must defend their view against instrumentalists, who would claim that syntactic structures may be useful in describing cognition, but have no more causal powers in governing cognition than do the equations of physics in guiding the planets. This paper explores what it will take to provide an argument for LOT that can defend its conclusion from instrumentalism. I illustrate a difficulty in (...) this project by discussing arguments for LOT put forward by Horgan and Tienson. When their evidence is viewed in the light of results in connectionist research, it is hard to see how a realist conception of syntax can be formulated and defended. (shrink)

Although Wittgenstein's philosophy long went untranslated in France, he was not entirely unread. Yet the relatively minor impact of Wittgenstein in mid-century French-language philosophy stands in marked contrast to the centrality of Wittgenstinian themes in Anglo-American thinking. Early French writings on Wittgenstein, as well a colloquium on analytic philosophy held at Royaumont in 1958, are discussed, and explanations proposed for Wittgenstein's limited reception in France in the five decades following the publication of the Tractatus in 1921/22. Possible effects of Wittgenstein's (...) quasi-absence from French discussion in the period on more recent theoretical reflection are briefly examined. It is suggested that Oxford philosophers of the 1950s, and in particular J.L. Austin, had a more immediate impact on French readers. (shrink)

Summary It would be convenient to pretend that the histories of educational philosophy in Britain and, by extension, the USA and Australia, were responses to a common social and intellectual history but convenience in this case could only be accomplished at the expense of explanatory power. The history of educational philosophy in these three places is parallel but not in common. Philosophy of education in Britain is more closely related to philosophy than is philosophy of education in the USA. (...) Philosophy of education in the USA appropriated the lead of the American Social Science Association and initially retained closer connections with social science than did its English counterpart. Nevertheless, it is argued here that educational philosophy's reference to social science?Victorian and modern?is the missing explanatory element in modem histories of the discipline. The appropriation of education by social science?a common feature of the intellectual history of education in Britain, Australasia, and the USA?leavened the research agenda of educational philosophy in Britain. Peters? educational work can be best understood as an attempt to reunite education with moral philosophy such that the study of education would resume a profile similar to its nineteenth?century counterpart, when it was moral philosophy that provided the most interesting discussions of human nature, primitive customs, and social institutions?education among them. (shrink)

Excerpt from Kant's Critique of Aesthetic Judgement: Translated, With Seven Introductory Essays, Notes, and Analytical Index It seems a strange fact that the works which have exerted the greatest and most permanent influence are those of which it is most difficult to give a final and conclusive interpretation. Is it that the philosophic mind merely amuses itself looking for the answers to riddles the solution of which destroys the interest, so that it is not so much misinterpretation as explanation that (...) great philosophers have to fear? Or is it that philosophers propose questions which depend upon higher categories than those of common understanding, with the natural result that their point of view is but imperfectly comprehended by lesser minds? Or is it simply that the works that have exerted most influence are those which arc most comprehensive and many-sided, and that different critics seize upon different aspects of the whole, and throw the emphasis on different points? It is not necessary to attempt to answer these questions generally, or further than affects Kant's Aesthetics. Certainly no work has exerted an equal influence on the subsequent history of aesthetics, and yet it has been most variously interpreted. However, while critics differ as to Kant's meaning on many essential points, they seem to be mostly agreed that the chief source of strength in the work lies in its comprehensiveness and its method. How they have been able to arrive at this conclusion in the face of their own criticisms, is a different matter. For they have for the most part attempted to show that the work as a whole involves an important modification of Kant's fundamental position of critical idealism, and that in its different parts it betrays considerable hesitation and vacillation of opinion on vital questions, and, moreover, frequently falls into flagrant inconsistency. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

An interpretation of the yoga practice of prāṇāyāma (breath control) that is influenced by the existential phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty is offered. The approach to yoga is less concerned with comparing his thought to the classical yoga texts than with elucidating the actual experience of breath control through the constructs provided by Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the lived body. The discussion of yoga can answer certain pedagogical goals but can never finally be severed from doing yoga. Academic discourse centered entirely on the (...) theoretical concepts of yoga philosophies must to some extent remain incomplete. Patañjali's "Yoga Sūtra" is itself a manual of practice. For this reason, the commentary of the scholar-practitioner T. K. V. Desikachar has been chosen as the basis for this study, rather than a more exclusively theoretical commentary. In so doing, yoga will be approached as an experience or phenomenon, not just in the context of a series of academic debates. (shrink)

In metaphysics and philosophy of science, a significant movement is making inroads, under the banner of ‘neo-Aristotelianism’. This movement has so far been focused primarily on the physical sciences; but given that Aristotle the natural scientist was above all a biologist, it is worth asking what a neo-Aristotelian philosophy of biology would look like? In this paper, I begin a discussion on precisely that question. One interesting result is that the fact that biology is now permeated by evolutionary ways of (...) thinking is all but irrelevant to answering that question. Far more important is how central are concepts of organic form, function and development to biology. Given recent developments, there are reasons to think at least some areas of the biological sciences would welcome a neo-Aristotelian philosophy of biology - i.e. a critical exploration of these concepts from an Aristotelian perspective. (shrink)

Despite its intrinsic plausibility, the sensitivity principle has remained deeply unpopular on the grounds that it violates an even more plausible closure principle. Here we show that sensitivity does not, in general, violate closure. Sensitivity only violates closure when combined with further auxiliary premises—regarding which of an agent’s commitments constitute that agent’s beliefs—which are optional for the sensitivity theorist.

This book is an inquiry into the extent to which human relationships are foundational in morality. J. Kellenberger seeks to discover, first, how relationships between persons, and ultimately the relationship that each person has to each person by virtue of being a person, underlie the various traditional components of morality—obligation, virtue, justice, rights, and moral goods—and, second, how relationship morality is more fully consonant with our moral experience than other forms of human morality. Kellenberger traces the implications of relationship (...) morality for an understanding of religious duty to God and for the status of our obligations to animals. He also examines issues relating to a feminist "ethics of caring." While this book is a work in ethics, its approach is not limited to an examination of theories of obligation, such as utilitarianism, nor is it limited to the traditional areas covered by wider philosophical treatments of ethics. It embraces these but examines such moral categories as love, respect for persons, shame, and their place in morality. (shrink)

Those who believe that miracles (temporary suspensions of some law of nature accomplished by divine power) have occurred typically hold that they are rare and that only a small percentage of all people have been eyewitnesses to them or been direct beneficiaries of them. Although a claim that they occur far more frequently would be empirically highly implausible, I argue that the claim that God performs miracles in such a pattern unavoidably implies that God is guilty of unfairness. I (...) articulate a criterion of fairness, discuss various types of miracles, and defend my conclusion against a variety of possible rejoinders. (shrink)

In his reflections on inner time consciousness written in the years 1917–1918, Husserl makes use of an illustrative device he apparently developed in fits and starts between 1905–1911 2: the so-called “time-diagram.” It proves to be an important instrument for several of the texts published in Husserliana XXXIII, in particular Text Nr. 2: “Die Komplexion von Retention und Protention. Gradualitäten der Erfüllung und das Bewusstsein der Gegenwart. Graphische Darstellung des Urprozesses”. More, the diagram appears in these texts in a (...) much more refined and complete manner than anything found in Husserliana X, which in turn allows us to sharpen a number of questions that had already arisen with original 1928 publication of Husserl’s 1905 Zeitvorlesungen. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to expound and distinguish\nbrentano's concept of "Intentional inexistence" (found in\n'psychologie von einem empirischen standpunkt') and\nhusserl's early concept of intentionality (in 'logische\nuntersuchungen'). The main purpose is to show that\nhusserl's phenomenological views are very different from\nand far more developed than brentano's and that he rejects\nmany of his concepts and doctrines. First, brentano's\ndesignation of eight defining characteristics of mental\nphenomena, the purpose of which is to define psychology, is\noutlined. This is followed by a detailed discussion of\nhusserl's criticisms and (...) revisions, emphasizing what\nhusserl thought was brentano's most important insight,\ni.E., That consciousness is intentional. A discussion of\nthree views of the nature of consciousness is given,\nconcluding with husserl's general criticisms that brentano\nfell victim to dualism and representationalism and that his\nconcept of the intentional nature of mind was distorted by\na commitment to naturalism, the latter being overcome only\nby husserl's own transcendental phenomenology in 'ideen'\nand later works. (shrink)

IT IS DIFFICULT for me to read Pride and Prejudice without empathizing either with Elizabeth Bennet, or sometimes with her father, Mr Bennet. Not only do my own responses to and opinions of the events and characters of the book at times resemble theirs, but even when they do not, I find myself seeing the event from Elizabeth’s or Mr Bennet’s point of view. For example, at the close of the book, Elizabeth’s former dislike of Mr Darcy has completely vanished, (...) in part because of learning of a number of good deeds that Mr Darcy has done very quietly for their family. When Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth (for the second time) she is delighted to accept him. However, everyone else in Elizabeth’s family despises Mr Darcy, and they also believe that Elizabeth still hates him. So it is easy to understand Mr Bennet’s surprise and distaste when Mr Darcy asks Mr Bennet for Elizabeth’s hand; after all, Mr Bennet still believes Mr Darcy to be prideful and haughty. While I am not myself surprised to hear Elizabeth’s response—the reader learns much more of Mr Darcy’s character than Mr Bennet does—I do have the experience of imagining being surprised. I am also capable of empathizing with Elizabeth, who is excited, flustered, and a bit ashamed at having so misjudged Mr Darcy early on, and I can imagine having these feelings for people I have misjudged. I can (to some degree) understand why she finds explaining all this to Mr Bennet so difficult. I go back and forth, as I read, between the perspectives of Mr Bennet and Elizabeth. These experiences of mine are experiences of the sort that I call ‘empathizing with fictions’, although we sometimes might describe such experiences by saying that we ‘identified’ with a particular character or characters in a story. (shrink)

Physicists use different theories to describe the world on different scales. In particular, they use the standard model of particle physics at very high energies, but move to various effective field theories, such as quantum electrodynamics, when modelling lower energy scattering processes. One way to explain this methodological fact is pragmatic in spirit. According to this view, physicists move to an effective field theory at lower energies in order to extract predictions and qualitative understanding which would be difficult or impossible (...) to extract directly from a more fundamental theory. By contrast, another way of accounting for the methodological data is metaphysical in spirit. On this view, the reason that physicists use different theories at different scales is that the world actually exhibits different nomic structure on different scales. These two positions have recently been thrown into sharp relief in a debate between Woodward (2016) and Batterman (2021), with Woodward taking the pragmatist line and Batterman the metaphysical line. One difficulty with the metaphysical answer is that its content is unclear: in what sense exactly could an effective field theory provide a better representation of the nomic structure of the world in its domain of applicability than our world’s fundamental theory? This talk attempts to provide an answer to this question by developing a simple metaphysical model. I start by assuming a set of possible worlds which are nomically possible according to some fundamental theory (I suggest that one is free to adopt either a Humean or Non-Humean view of these fundamental nomic necessities). I then introduce an equivalence relation between possible worlds: two worlds are scale-E equivalent if they assign the same values to physical quantities below energy scale E (up to some finite level of precision P). The key question now is whether this relation induces equivalence classes on the set of nomically possible worlds. I argue that in the case of current quantum field theories this does indeed occur, as evidenced by the possibility of “integrating out” high energy degrees of freedom in the renormalisation group framework. The formation of equivalence classes in the fundamental theory's possibility space indicates that some of its high energy features do not make a difference to its low energy dynamical behaviour. This suggests the following reading of the claim that an effective field theory provides a better representation of the nomic structure of the world in its domain of applicability: the solutions of the effective field theory stand in one-to-one correspondence with equivalence classes induced by the scale-E equivalence relation, whereas the fundamental theory overcounts the physical possibilities which are relevant at scale E. In this sense, the effective field theory provides a more natural representation of low energy physics than the fundamental theory. I conclude by explaining how this metaphysical model offers a reduction compatible understanding of multiple realisability, once again pointing to renormalisation group results in quantum field theory to support this. (shrink)

We here analyse the ethical dimensions of the UK's ‘Research Excellence Framework’, the latest version of an exercise which assesses the quality of university research in the UK every seven or so years. We find many of the common objections to this exercise unfounded, such as that it is excessively expensive by comparison with alternatives such as various metrics, or that it turns on the subjective judgement of the assessors. However there are grounds for concern about the crude language in (...) which for example all relevant scholarship becomes called ‘research’ and publications become ‘outputs’. The focus on the impact of research, which was a new feature of the most recent exercise, is particularly problematic, creating as it does a tendency to what Aristotle called alazony, self-aggrandisement, on the part of academics. We conclude that the REF is a mixed good from an ethical point of view, and that more could be done to mitigate its more unfortunate features. (shrink)

The abductivist reply to skepticism is the view that commonsense explanations of the patterns and regularities that appear in our sensory experiences should be rationally preferred to skeptical explanations of those same patterns and regularities on the basis of explanatory considerations. In this article I critically examine Laurence BonJour’s rationalist version of the abductivist position. After explaining why BonJour’s account is more defensible than other versions of the view, I argue that the notion of probability he relies upon is (...) deeply problematic, that he incorporates an implausible double-standard concerning a priori and a posteriori justification, and that his view is vulnerable to skepticism about the a priori. I suggest that some of these problems are due to idiosyncratic commitments BonJour makes and that abductivists would be better off without them. I conclude with some suggestions about how to improve BonJour’s abductivist response to skepticism. (shrink)

Reaction is a subject usually avoided by political theorists, since it raises awkward historical, philosophical and political questions. Perhaps philosophers of history might make better sense of it. In this article I claim that reaction has to be understood in relation to the concepts of revolution, tradition, progress and conservatism. I argue that the specific meaning of reaction is a response to the specific action that establishes the principle that order should be established only on enlightened principles. The few theorists (...) who have dealt with reaction have disagreed about whether it is the same as conservatism or not. I show that reaction is not an element in what I call a status quo conservatism, though it is an element in any conservatism conceived more broadly. I characterise reaction in full as the attempt to reverse the establishment of the principle that only enlightened principles shall be the basis of political order, the attempt to resist the further establishment of those enlightened principles, and also the attempt to criticise contemporary enlightened politics in terms of the unenlightened standards which existed before the revolution. (shrink)

While greatly appreciative of Kaveny's important study of a neglected form of religious/moral discourse in the public square, this essay critically examines her metaphors for prophetic indictments and finds the metaphor of moral chemotherapy particularly problematic and the metaphor of warfare, connected with the just-war tradition, more promising. It stresses the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of avoiding contempt in prophetic indictments, as Kaveny conceives them, and finds her proposed solutions to this problem—standing with the people and expressing empathy (...) and compassion toward them—inadequate to the task. It further argues that attending to prophetic imagination, in addition to prophetic denunciation, can broaden the scope of practical deliberation and, at the same time, increase possible prophetic contributions to moral and political discourse. (shrink)

This article profiles Modern Language studies in United Kingdom universities in a sometimes polemical way, drawing on the author’s experiences, insights and reflections as well as on published sources. It portrays the unique features of Modern Languages as a university discipline, and how curricula and their delivery have evolved. As national and international higher education contexts change more fundamentally and more rapidly than ever before, it seeks to draw on recent and current data to describe the impact of (...) student choice and to identify trends, particularly with regard to the place of literature. (shrink)

This special issue of Business Ethics Quarterly was organized for two reasons. First, the academic fields of business ethics and accounting ethics have developed without close theoretical or empirical connections. This is the case even though the profession of accounting is an important component of the organizational world. For this reason, it is important to foster attempts to build a bridge between the two fields, so that research in accounting ethics is more closely related to business ethics. Second, the (...) recent deluge of business scandals in which financial reporting and auditing were central elements suggests that a special issue on accounting ethics is timely.The original hope was that the special issue would contain a balance of papers from researchers in “accounting ethics” and those in “business ethics.” In line with the hope that the papers would be responsive to both fields, almost every paper submitted was reviewed by one person who is identified with business ethics and one person who is identified with accounting ethics. As it turns out, most of the papers in this issue were written by people whose academic home is the accounting department. The mix of papers reflects the emphasis in the accounting literature on empirical research on ethical behavior. (shrink)