Metacognitive feelings are an integral part of mental computational processes and influence the outcome of computations. We review supporting evidence on affect inherent in perceptual processes, fluency in study decisions, metacognitive feelings in aha-experiences and intuition, and affect in early phases of interest development. These findings connect to recent theories that combine metacognitive feelings with computational models.

Spinoza’s philosophy develops in striking ways over the course of his philosophical career. In his first work on metaphysics, the Short Treatise, Spinoza insists that humility is one of the highest virtues and that human beings have no power of their own. But in his final work on metaphysics, the Ethics, Spinoza bluntly declares that humility is not a virtue and argues that our essence simply consists in power. This essay demonstrates the interconnectedness and significance of these apparently distinct shifts. (...) I argue that Spinoza’s re-evaluation of humility is a consequence of his re-thinking of human power and that attention to these shifts puts the debate over acosmism in a new and surprising light. (shrink)

In this paper we present the results of a simulation study of credence developments in groups of communicating Bayesian agents, as they update their beliefs about a given proposition p. Based on the empirical literature, one would assume that these groups of rational agents would converge on a view over time, or at least that they would not polarize. This paper presents and discusses surprising evidence that this is not true. Our simulation study shows that these groups of Bayesian agents (...) show group polarization behavior under a broad range of circumstances. This is, we think, an unexpected result, that raises deeper questions about whether the kind of polarization in question is irrational. If one accepts Bayesian agency as the hallmark of epistemic rationality, then one should infer that the polarization we find is also rational. On the other hand, if we are inclined to think that there is something epistemically irrational about group polarization, then something must be off in the model employed in our simulation study. We discuss several possible interfering factors, including how epistemic trust is defined in the model. Ultimately, we propose that the notion of Bayesian agency is missing something in general, namely the ability to respond to higher-order evidence. (shrink)

An escalating consumption of animal products characterizes contemporary Western society, resulting in severe environmental consequences and heightened exploitation of animals. Among these issues, livestock production stands out as particularly detrimental due to its significant climate impact and land usage. Paradoxically, the Swedish organic food sector positions cattle as central to achieving sustainable food production. This article delves into the strategies employed by organic organizations to legitimize the consumption of cattle’s meat and dairy. The aim is to examine how Swedish organic (...) organizations produce knowledge of sustainability, and how these sustainability constructions are intertwined with anthroparchy, a system of power relations between humans and cattle. Furthermore, the study investigates how cattle’s agencies and bodies are portrayed. Interviews, documents and media material from organic organizations in Sweden are analyzed to explore how carnism, norms of eating cattle’s meat and dairy, is maintained. The analytical framework applied is rooted in critical animal studies and draws inspiration from Foucauldian discourse analysis, examining the interplay between power and knowledge. The findings reveal that certain environmental aspects are emphasized to reinforce the norm of keeping cattle for food production, while other dimensions are overlooked. Organic organizations represent cows as active subjects transforming their environment to legitimize their status as consumable commodities. The findings also show how carnistic norms limit the organic sector’s ability to achieve environmental objectives. This study underscores how anthroparchy, the dominant power structures between humans and cattle, is reproduced in the Swedish organic context through sustainability discourses that emphasize the subjectivities of cattle. (shrink)

This article constitutes a review of the concept of resistance in critical human rights education (CHRE) and its relevance for democratic education (DE). Our conceptual analysis draws on resistance studies, the emerging study of CHRE, and its implications for DE, which we suggest are interconnected. Although resistance is tied to the history of human rights, there is a lack of conceptual analysis, which we aim to remedy in this article. We argue that resistance is a core element of CHRE for (...) promoting democracy and teaching ethically complex topics on injustices. Our approach transcends the problematic forms of HRE which can limit the discourse, produce blind spots, and empty the critical and ethical content of education. We illustrate some of the complexities of resistance through failures to resist human rights violations in democracies, but also the potential of resistance in CHRE to challenge global injustices and promote democracy. (shrink)

Hans Morten Haugen offers an analysis of the intersection of intellectual property with health, traditional knowledge and biodiversity against a backdrop of established and emerging human rights. How those rights interface and who decides are among the most difficult issues in international intellectual property, and there is no doubt that there is room for fresh ideas on how to simultaneously achieve the goals of innovation, development and access. 0Also part of series: Library of Human Rights; 2.

Tax havens and tax secrecy have risen to the top of the global policy agenda and may constitute the most important impediment for reducing inequalities. Moreover, complex corporate structures allow charging for services undertaken in various countries through one low-tax country. Transferring profits to low-tax jurisdictions will significantly reduce a multinational corporation’s overall tax burden. Individuals are assisted in opening shell corporations that officially own bank accounts where the real owner is not revealed. Reducing this practice of tax dodging has (...) proven to be difficult, despite substantial efforts by several international organizations and states over the last decade. It is too easy to be removed from the list of tax havens; mere membership in OECD’s Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes qualifies. Tax dodgers add to global inequalities and severely weaken states’ capacity to undertake their task of creating a solid tax base, embedded in the principle that all actors are taxed according to the income generated in each country. A weak tax base will lead to less trust, more violence and more deaths. Keywords: country-by-country reporting, EU, OECD, tax avoidance, tax evasion, tax havens. (shrink)

According to Vera Moser, the first professorship of healing pedagogy, Heilpädagogik at the University of Zürich in 1931, established pedagogy of the disabled as an academic discipline. Through the definition of the smallest common denominator for all disabilities, which Heinrich Hanselmann called “weakness of the soul,” a connecting element of “imbecility, deaf-mutism, blindness, neglect and idiocy” was established. Under Nazi rule, school pedagogy advanced to völkisch, nationalist special pedagogy, shifting from the category of “innate imbecility” to a broader concept of (...) disability. As an outcome of these programs and policies, 300,000 people with disabilities were killed as a part of the “T4 Aktion.” Within just a few decades after World War II, special pedagogy expanded its sphere of influence through professionalization and institutionalization in West and East Germany and across Europe. This paper explores how special pedagogy aligned itself with the Nazi regime’s discourse and policy on eugenics and race hygiene, leading to the murder and mass sterilization of “disabled” children and adults. It probes questions regarding the extent to which the professionalization of special pedagogy has drawn from the Nazi-era terminology of the deficient and foreign to legitimate the contemporary migrant bias in German and Austrian special pedagogical care. (shrink)

Parfit's reductionist theory of personal identity states that a person's persistence through time is just a matter of psychological continuity and connectedness. He uses this theory to argue against the requirement of equal concern: the view that a rational person should be equally concerned about all parts of her future. The argument is that since psychological connectedness is one of grounds of a person's concern for her future and since connectedness is weaker over longer periods, it follows that a person (...) can rationally care less about her more distant future. I argue that Parfit's argument fails because the principles it employs generate counterexamples. I conclude by showing that if Parfit's view is modified so as to avoid these counterexamples, his argument against the requirement dissolves. (shrink)

he article combines Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for common-pool resources and human rights provisions, including subsequent clarifications and jurisprudence. It analyses whether stronger local self-governance, embedded in the natural resource dimension of peoples’ rights to self-determination is a recommendable approach. Two changes in understanding are noted. First, the universal approval of indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination as specified in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Second, the wide endorsement of the specific principle of free and prior informed (...) consent. As the exercise of peoples’ rights to self-determination is done on a collective level, it is important to have awareness of whether particularly affected and marginalized households and individuals are included or not included in the decision-making process. The article then reviews a range of new instruments adopted by the OECD and the UN for improved human rights awareness and compliance in the context of economic investments. The article finds that these instruments are still underutilized. Finally, the article identifies the role of human rights in bilateral investment treaties. It finds that there are less jurisdictional restrictions – as many treaties have a wide understanding of applicable law – than cognitive restrictions – as human rights competence is rarely sought when establishing tribunals mandated to solve investments disputes. (shrink)

A number of years ago we argued that Hartshorne’s psychicalism and his doctrine of divine memory are incompatible with contemporary big bang cosmology. Theodore Walker has responded to our objection by arguing that our understanding of psychicalism is flawed and that Hartshorne’s metaphysics has the resources for accommodating what the big bang theory says about the origin and fate of the universe. In the present article we attempt to show that Walker’s defense of Hartshorne fails.

No global professional codes for the natural science and technology professions exist. In light of how the application of new technology can affect individuals and communities, this discrepancy warrants greater scrutiny. This article analyzes the most relevant processes and seeks to explain why these processes have not resulted in global codes. Moreover, based on a human rights approach, the article gives recommendations on the future process and content of codes for science and technology professions. The relevance of human rights in (...) the realm of individual conduct is based on the fact that while human rights treaties primarily outline State obligations, individuals have responsibility for human rights promotion. Human rights principles have only recently been subject to interests from policy makers and academics, and must be better clarified. Human rights principles are found to be relevant, but are effective only if they are applied in conjunction with substantive human rights. (shrink)

Features different perspectives on issues surrounding war, including such topics as the justification of war, resource scarcity, the war on terror, and surveillance tools.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ossian and the Invention of Textual HistoryKristine Louise HaugenIt is now controversial to call James Macpherson a forger or the poems of Ossian a hoax. 1 Encouraged by Derick Thomson’s 1952 demonstration that Macpherson’s Ossian indeed echoes authentic Gaelic verse, 2 a group of critics has undertaken to “rehabilitate” Macpherson, not least through a new critical edition of Ossian’s poems and related texts. 3 The edition makes it easier (...) than before to encounter Ossian directly:Morna, thou fairest of women, daughter of Cormac-Carbre? [sic] why in the circle of stones, in the cave of the rock, alone? The stream murmureth hoarsely. The blast groaneth in the aged tree. The lake is troubled before thee.... But thou art like snow on the heath. Thy hair like a thin cloud of gold on the top of Cromleach.... Thy arms, as two white pillars in the hall of Fingal. 4The authentic source of this passage seems to be the eighteenth-century commonplace that the savage and uneducated delight in figurative language, especially similes and metaphors—a commonplace enunciated often in the writings [End Page 309] of Hugh Blair, a literary critic deeply interested in Macpherson’s Ossianic productions. 5 As Harold Weinbrot and others suggest, the Ossian poems were celebrated largely because they confirmed readers’ most picturesque preconceptions about the “infancy of mankind.” 6There was room for disagreement. Many influential litterati were convinced of the poems’ antiquity, among them Goethe, Herder, Cesarotti, and a host of Scottish intellectuals. 7 But there were also detractors, mainly English—for example, Dr. Johnson and Edward Gibbon—although David Hume soon joined the skeptics, and the Scotsman Malcolm Laing issued the most crushing attack in the exchange several decades after Ossian’s first appearance in 1760. 8 The Ossian poems served a potent mixture of scholarly and political concerns, of which some were new but some were venerable. With a subtle but important shift in balance, the same mixture underlay the willingness of the most prominent eighteenth-century critics to discredit problematic texts and textual myths, even at the cost of an apparent reduction in historical knowledge. 9 For all parties Macpherson’s Ossian invited not only aesthetic delectation, but sustained thought about the relationship between early poetry and history and the value of early texts for reconstructing the past. [End Page 310]The question of British origins had preoccupied seventeenth-century antiquaries for a number of reasons, including Polydore Vergil’s unflattering Anglica Historia (first published 1546). 10 In the campaign to establish respectable national roots the Celtic druids had quickly become a kind of favorite example; they were presented early and often as heroes of British culture. The druids and their associates the bards had been described in their French setting by classical authors; William Camden, John Selden, and others transferred them easily to Celtic Britain. It was then straightforward to suggest further that the British Celts were the first discoverers of writing and philosophy, or at least discoverers concurrent with the ancient Hebrews, or both, this theory having been elaborated for the French Celts through Annius of Viterbo’s historical forgeries of 1498 and Annius’s French partisans. 11In fact this theory placed England at a disadvantage as Scotland, Ireland, and Wales had the more convincing joint claim to Celtic ancestry. Individual claims for Scotland and Ireland were frequently heard as well. The text most relevant to Ossian was the deist John Toland’s 1726 history of the druids, in which Toland both satirized the eighteenth-century clergy and argued that the ancient Celts of France and Scotland were colonists from Ireland—the original home of druidism, learning, and Toland. 12 In Toland’s version the theory made much of certain unpublished Irish manuscripts, supposedly dating from Cicero’s day and written in the “native” Irish alphabet. St. Patrick had burned hundreds of druidical religious books when he arrived in Ireland—proof that the Celts had a written language—but the bardic histories, couched in rugged verse, had escaped the evangelist’s flames. 13 Clearly, any respectable reply would need to draw on ancient manuscripts too.Even for readers unfamiliar with Toland, Macpherson’s texts... (shrink)

Against common misconceptions of Kant as a philosopher who neglects the emotional aspects of moral life, I show that he actually considers our emotional dispositions to be valuable tools for perfecting ourselves morally. ;I show not only that it is incumbent on us to cultivate morally beneficial emotions, but also how we can do it. Building on Kant's vague hints about what the process involves, I argue that cultivating a given feeling requires, above all, sharpening one's judgment about it, one's (...) sensitivity to its nature and to the shape it takes in one's own character in order to make responsible decisions about whether to act on the feeling and when one does choose to act on it, to express it in a way which harmonizes with one's sense of moral integrity. ;I begin with an argument showing that on Kant's mature moral theory, it is our duty to cultivate feelings which help us form a virtuous disposition. I then discuss particular feelings which are especially important in this regard. I begin with the feeling of respect for the moral law and show that it constitutes the motive of duty. Kant's "pure" moral motive--the motive of duty--is thus actually a feeling which is grounded in a rational grasp of the moral law. I then consider feelings associated with our duties toward ourselves and with our duties toward others and raise the question of how cultivated feelings figure in the virtuous character and also in relation to good willing and to morally worthy action. I show that certain "moral" feelings can become part of the motive of duty itself and so can serve as motives to morally worthy action. (shrink)

What is the relationship between the philosophical concept of the “autonomy of art” and the cultural policy-notion of “artistic freedom”? This article seeks to answer this question by taking the Swedish governmental report This Is How Free Art Is (Så fri är konsten 2021) and its reception in the Swedish main stream media as an emblematic example and by reading it symptomatically. Firstly, it traces the critical history of “artistic freedom” and the interrelated term “arm’s length distance”, primarily in the (...) context of Great Britain. Secondly, it critically reconstructs the concept of the “autonomy of art” in the history of Western philosophy by making a critique of a fetishized notion of art’s autonomy in the name of l’art pour l’art. The main argument is that the idea about art’s autonomy, on which the Swedish report leans, resembles such philosophical and art historical idea of art’s autonomy. The claim is also that such an understanding of art does not tie up, either philosophically or historically, with the arm’s length principle, since they ultimately rely on different conceptions of art’s freedom. (shrink)

Nietzsche wrote The Gay Science, which he later described as 'perhaps my most personal book', when he was at the height of his intellectual powers, and the reader will find in it an extensive and sophisticated treatment of the philosophical themes and views which were most central to Nietzsche's own thought and which have been most influential on later thinkers. These include the death of God, the problem of nihilism, the role of truth, falsity and the will-to-truth in human life, (...) the doctrine of the eternal recurrence, and the question of the proper attitude to adopt toward human suffering and toward human achievement. This volume presents the work in a new translation by Josefine Nauckhoff, with an introduction by Bernard Williams that elucidates the work's main themes and discusses their continuing philosophical importance. (shrink)