Despite advances in palliative care, some patients still suffer significantly at the end of life. Terminal Sedation (TS) refers to the use of sedatives in dying patients until the point of death. The following limits are commonly applied: (1) symptoms should be refractory, (2) sedatives should be administered proportionally to symptoms and (3) the patient should be imminently dying. The term ‘Expanded TS’ (ETS) can be used to describe the use of sedation at the end of life outside one or (...) more of these limits.In this paper, we explore and defend ETS, focusing on jurisdictions where assisted dying is lawful. We argue that ETS is morally permissible: (1) in cases of non-refractory suffering where earlier treatments are likely to fail, (2) where gradual sedation is likely to be ineffective or where unconsciousness is a clinically desirable outcome, (3) where the patient meets all criteria for assisted dying or (4) where the patient has greater than 2 weeks to live, is suffering intolerably, and sedation is considered to be the next best treatment option for their suffering.While remaining two distinct practices, there is scope for some convergence between the criteria for assisted dying and the criteria for ETS. Dying patients who are currently ineligible for TS, or even assisted dying, should not be left to suffer. ETS provides one means to bridge this gap. (shrink)

We are grateful to the commentators on our article1 for their thoughtful engagement with the ethical and clinical complexity of expanded terminal sedation (ETS) in end-of-life care. We will start by noting some points of common ground, before moving on to the more challenging ways in which TS might be permissibly expanded. First, several commentators pointed out, and we completely concur, that it is important to provide patients with full information about their end-of-life options, including the ‘outcomes, uncertainties and costs (...) of ETS’.2 Where possible, they should be given time to ‘process their feelings and to reflect on how they wish to live in their last few days, weeks or months’.3 Furthermore, where patients receive sedation, it will be critical that they receive appropriate medical and nursing care to prevent physical complications such as pressure ulcers.2 This would be no different from other patients who are in states of reduced consciousness from disease. We acknowledge that there are heightened risks with earlier and more rapid TS, including the potential loss of spiritual and social moments,4 as well as the meaning that can be derived from conscious existential distress.3 However, while these conscious experiences might be valuable to some, others might weigh them less highly against the foreseen …. (shrink)

It is often said that it is important for patients to possess hope that their treatment will be successful. We agree, but a widely appealed to type of hope—hope based on conviction (religious or otherwise), renders this assertion problematic. If conviction‐based hope influences patient decisions to undergo medical procedures, then questions are raised about the scope of patient autonomy. Libertarians permit patients to make decisions to undergo medical procedures on the basis of any considerations, including conviction‐based hopes, on grounds of (...) respect for freedom of choice. Rational interventionists want to restrict choices made on the basis of conviction‐based hope on the grounds that choices based on hope incorporate irrationality of a sort incompatible with autonomous decision‐making. In this article, we navigate a middle path between these extremes, arguing that patient decision‐making based on conviction‐based hope ought to be acceptable and permitted in health care when it conforms to norms of practical rationality. These norms allow patients some room to make decisions to consent to undergo medical procedures informed by conviction‐based hope. (shrink)

Paternalism has attracted new defenders in recent years. Such defenders typically either downplay the normative significance of autonomy or deny that we are sufficiently rational for paternalistic interventions to be objectionable.1 Both of these argumentative strategies constitute challenges to John Stuart Mill’s influential anti-paternalistic ‘harm principle’, which states that coercive interference with the liberty of competent adults is justifiable only if such interference prevents harm to non-consenting third parties (Mill, p. 23).2 In this journal, Wilkinson has provided a novel, (...) provocative defence of paternalism in the medical context—one that (provisionally) accepts rather than challenges Mill’s harm principle.3 Wilkinson’s argument is complex. But he begins with Parfit’s influential account of personal identity.4 According to Parfit, Alice at T1 can be the same person as Alice at T2, but the extent to which Alice at T1 and Alice at T2 are similar depends on the extent to which there are ‘chains’ of strong psychological connections between Alice at T1 and Alice at T2. Strong psychological connections, in turn, are mental states such as intentions or beliefs, or psychological traits. For example, if Alice at T2 remembers very little about herself the day before, and the day before that, all the way to Alice at T1, Alice at T2 has completely different psychological traits than Alice at T1—for example, Alice at T1 was courageous, whereas Alice at T2 is cowardly—then Alice at T1 and Alice at T2 are distinct persons. If the harm principle is correct and Alice is autonomous, it is permissible to interfere with Alice’s liberty only if it prevents harm to some non-consenting third party. But if we accept Parfit’s view on personal identity, then a novel defence of paternalistic intervention emerges: Alice at T2 may well be a distinct person from Alice at T1. So, …. (shrink)

According to standard philosophical and clinical understandings, pain is an essentially mental phenomenon. In a challenge to this standard conception, a recent burst of empirical work in experimental philosophy, such as that by Justin Sytsma and Kevin Reuter, purports to show that people ordinarily conceive of pain as an essentially bodily phenomenon—specifically, a quality of bodily disturbance. In response to this bodily view, other recent experimental studies have provided evidence that the ordinary concept of pain is more complex than (...) previously assumed: rather than tracking only bodily or only mental aspects of pain, the ordinary concept of pain can actually track either of these aspects. The polyeidic analysis of the folk concept of pain, as proposed by Emma Borg et al., captures this complexity. Whereas previous empirical support for the polyeidic view has focused on the context-sensitivity of the folk concept of pain, here we discuss individual differences in people’s ‘pain priors’—namely, their standing tendencies to think of pain in relatively mind-centric or body-centric ways. We describe a preliminary empirical study and present a small number of findings, which will be explored further in future work. The results we discuss are part of a larger programme of work which seeks to integrate philosophical pain research into clinical practice. For example, we hypothesise that variations in how patients with chronic pain are thinking about pain could help predict their responses to treatment. (shrink)

According to standard philosophical and clinical understandings, pain is an essentially mental phenomenon (typically, a kind of conscious experience). In a challenge to this standard conception, a recent burst of empirical work in experimental philosophy, such as that by Justin Sytsma and Kevin Reuter, purports to show that people ordinarily conceive of pain as an essentially bodily phenomenon—specifically, a quality of bodily disturbance. In response to this bodily view, other recent experimental studies have provided evidence that the ordinary (‘folk’) (...) concept of pain is more complex than previously assumed: rather than tracking only bodily or only mental aspects of pain, the ordinary concept of pain can actually track either of these aspects. The polyeidic (or ‘many ideas’) analysis of the folk concept of pain, as proposed by Emma Borg et al., captures this complexity. Whereas previous empirical support for the polyeidic view has focused on the context-sensitivity of the folk concept of pain, here we discuss individual differences in people’s ‘pain priors’—namely, their standing tendencies to think of pain in relatively mind-centric or body-centric ways. We describe a preliminary empirical study and present a small number of findings, which will be explored further in future work. The results we discuss are part of a larger programme of work which seeks to integrate philosophical pain research into clinical practice. For example, we hypothesise that variations in how patients with chronic pain are thinking about pain could help predict their responses to treatment. (shrink)

'Thought insertion' in schizophrenia involves somehow experiencing one's own thoughts as someone else's. Some philosophers try to make sense of this by distinguishing between ownership and agency: one still experiences oneself as the owner of an inserted thought but attributes it to another agency. In this paper, we propose that thought insertion involves experiencing thought contents as alien, rather than episodes of thinking. To make our case, we compare thought insertion to certain experiences of 'verbal hallucination' and show that they (...) amount to different descriptions of the same phenomenon: a quasi-perceptual experience of thought content. We add that the agency/ownership distinction is unhelpful here. What requires explanation is not why a person experiences a type of intentional state without the usual sense of agency, but why she experiences herself as the agent of one type of intentional state rather than another. We conclude by sketching an account of how this might happen. (shrink)

Frankfurt cases are supposed to provide us with counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities. Among the most well known responses to these cases is what John Fischer has dubbed the flicker of freedom strategy. Here we revisit a version of this strategy, which we refer to as the fine-grained response. Although a number of philosophers, including some who are otherwise unsympathetic to Frankfurt’s argument, have dismissed the fine grained response, we believe there is a good deal to be said (...) on its behalf. We argue, in particular, that reflection on certain cases involving omissions undermines the main objections to the response and also provides the groundwork for an argument in support of it. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments claim that evolution has influenced our moral faculties in such a way that, if moral realism is true, then we have no positive moral knowledge. I present several popular objections to the standard version of this argument, then give a new EDA that has clear advantages in responding to these objections. Whereas the Standard EDA argues that evolution has selected for many moral beliefs with certain contents, this New EDA claims that evolution has selected for one belief: (...) belief in the claim that categorical reasons exist. If moral realism is true, then this claim is entailed by all positive moral claims, and belief in it is defeated due to evolutionary influence. This entails that if realism is true, then we have no positive moral knowledge. While there may be objections against this New EDA, it is much stronger than the Standard EDA, and one realists ought to worry about. (shrink)

How should ‘the physical’ be defined for the purpose of formulating physicalism? In this paper I defend a version of the via negativa according to which a property is physical just in case it is neither fundamentally mental nor possibly realized by a fundamentally mental property. The guiding idea is that physicalism requires functionalism, and thus that being a type identity theorist requires being a realizer-functionalist. In §1 I motivate my approach partly by arguing against Jessica Wilson's no fundamental mentality (...) constraint. In §2 I set out my preferred definition of ‘the physical’ and make my case that physicalism requires functionalism. In §3 I defend my proposal by attacking the leading alternative account of ‘the physical,’ the theory-based conception. Finally, in §4 I draw on my definition, together with Jaegwon Kim's account of intertheoretic reduction, to defend the controversial view that physicalism requires a priori physicalism. (shrink)

One popular reason for rejecting moral realism is the lack of a plausible epistemology that explains how we come to know moral facts. Recently, a number of philosophers have insisted that it is possible to have moral knowledge in a very straightforward way—by perception. However, there is a significant objection to the possibility of moral perception: it does not seem that we could have a perceptual experience that represents a moral property, but a necessary condition for coming to know that (...) X is F by perception is the ability to have a perceptual experience that represents something as being F . Call this the ‘Representation Objection’ to moral perception. In this paper I argue that the Representation Objection to moral perception fails. Thus I offer a limited defense of moral perception. (shrink)

Opposition to inducement payments for research subjects is an international orthodoxy amongst writers of ethics committee guidelines. We offer an argument in favour of these payments. We also critically evaluate the best arguments we can find or devise against such payments, and except in one very limited range of circumstances, we find these unconvincing.

When is it permissible to allow a newborn infant to die on the basis of their future quality of life? The prevailing official view is that treatment may be withdrawn only if the burdens in an infant's future life outweigh the benefits. In this paper I outline and defend an alternative view. On the Threshold View, treatment may be withdrawn from infants if their future well-being is below a threshold that is close to, but above the zero-point of well-being. I (...) present four arguments in favor of the Threshold View, and identify and respond to several counterarguments. I conclude that it is justifiable in some circumstances for parents and doctors to decide to allow an infant to die even though the infant's life would be worth living. The Threshold View provides a justification for treatment decisions that is more consistent, more robust, and potentially more practical than the standard view. (shrink)

Since 2000, 11 human uterine transplantation procedures (UTx) have been performed across Europe and Asia. Five of these have, to date, resulted in pregnancy and four live births have now been recorded. The most significant obstacles to the availability of UTx are presently scientific and technical, relating to the safety and efficacy of the procedure itself. However, if and when such obstacles are overcome, the most likely barriers to its availability will be social and financial in nature, relating in particular (...) to the ability and willingness of patients, insurers or the state to pay. Thus, publicly funded healthcare systems such as the UK9s National Health Service (NHS) will eventually have to decide whether UTx should be funded. With this in mind, we seek to provide an answer to the question of whether there exist any compelling reasons for the state not to fund UTx. The paper proceeds as follows. It assumes, at least for the sake of argument, that UTx will become sufficiently safe and cost-effective to be a candidate for funding and then asks, given that, what objections to funding there might be. Three main arguments are considered and ultimately rejected as providing insufficient reason to withhold funding for UTx. The first two are broad in their scope and offer an opportunity to reflect on wider issues about funding for infertility treatment in general. The third is narrower in scope and could, in certain forms, apply to UTx but not other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). The first argument suggests that UTx should not be publicly funded because doing so would be inconsistent with governments’ obligations to prevent climate change and environmental pollution. The second claims that UTx does not treat a disorder and is not medically necessary. Finally, the third asserts that funding for UTx should be denied because of the availability of alternatives such as adoption and surrogacy. (shrink)

One of the most commonly referenced ethical principles when it comes to the management of dying patients is the doctrine of double effect (DDE). The DDE affirms that it is acceptable to cause side effects (e.g. respiratory depression) as a consequence of symptom‐focused treatment. Much discussion of the ethics of end of life care focuses on the question of whether actions (or omissions) would hasten (or cause) death, and whether that is permissible. However, there is a separate question about the (...) permissibility of hastening or causing unconsciousness in dying patients. Some authors have argued that the DDE would not permit end of life care that directly aims to render the patient unconscious. The claim is that consciousness is an objective human good and therefore doctors should not intentionally (and permanently) suppress it. Three types of end of life care (EOLC) practices will be explored in this article. The first is symptom‐based management (e.g. analgesia); the second is proportional terminal sedation as a means of relieving suffering (also referred to as palliative sedation or continuous deep sedation); and finally, deliberate and rapid sedation to unconsciousness until death (a practice we call terminal anaesthesia in this paper). After examining the common arguments for the various types of symptom‐based management and sedation, we apply the DDE to the latter two types of EOLC practices. We argue that aiming at unconsciousness, contrary to some claims, can be morally good or at least morally neutral in some dying patients. (shrink)

This chapter explains how Xunzi's text and views helped shape the thought of the Neo-Confucian philosophers, noting and explicating some areas of influence long overlooked in modern scholarship. It begins with a general overview of Xunzi’s changing position in the tradition (“Xunzi’s Status in Neo-Confucian Thought”), in which I discuss Xunzi’s status in three general periods of Neo-Confucian era: the early period, in which Neo-Confucian views of Xunzi were varied and somewhat ambiguous, the “mature” period, in which a broad consensus (...) formed and then became orthodoxy for several centuries, and a late and often overlooked reassessment of Xunzi that took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the second section (“Debating Human Nature on Xunzi’s Terms”), I discuss in greater detail Neo-Confucian criticisms of Xunzi’s views on human nature, noting that in key respects the Neo-Confucians accepted Xunzi’s somewhat uncharitable characterization of the doctrine that human nature is good, thereby taking on a considerably greater burden of proof than necessary. In the third section (“Virtue without Roots”), I attempt to explicate what is perhaps the most prominent but also the most laconic Neo-Confucian criticism of Xunzi, which is that Xunzi misunderstands the “great root” or “great foundation” of cosmic and social order, finding it in conventional human relationships rather than in the deeper, purer and more powerful inner workings of human nature. In the final section (“The Accretional Theory of Knowledge Acquisition”), I explain how the major differences between Xunzi and his Neo-Confucian critics can be cast as a dispute about how moral knowledge is acquired, where Xunzi’s critics assume that acquiring moral knowledge of any meaningful kind is impossible without a natural base or foundation of moral knowledge to begin with. (shrink)

Nietzsche appears to adopt a radical Kantian view of objects called constructivism, which holds that the existence of all objects depends essentially on our practices. This essay provides a new reconstruction of Nietzsche's argument for constructivism and responds to five pressing objections to reading Nietzsche as a constructivist that have not been addressed by commentators defending constructivist interpretations of Nietzsche.

In this chapter the author defends the view that the major variants of Confucian ethics qualify as virtue ethics in the respects that matter most, which concern the focus, investigative priority, and explanatory priority of virtue over right action. The chapter also provides short summaries of the central Confucian virtues and then explains how different Confucians have understood the relationship between these and what some regard as the chief or most comprehensive virtue, ren (humaneness or benevolence). Finally, it explicates what (...) most Confucians take to be a requirement of all virtues, which the author calls “wholeheartedness,” and concludes by highlighting some neglected implications of the wholeheartedness requirement for ethics more generally. These include reasons for linking conceptions of virtue and human nature, for thinking that good character necessitates that individuals change how things seem to them, and for endorsing automatic as opposed to intensively deliberative judgments and decisions. (shrink)

[Comment] We believe that climate winners have a part to play in redressing the inequalities brought about by climate change—indeed, we think some of their winnings are not legitimate because they were unearned, lucky windfalls. But the matter must be considered carefully. First, we do not claim that all climate gains are illegitimate, meaning that climate justice does not warrant confiscating all climate gains wholesale. Next, and perhaps somewhat unintuitively (at first), we argue that some of the illegitimate gains should (...) be transferred to polluters—that is the unintuitive part—while the rest should be used to compensate those harmed by climate change. [Open access]. (shrink)

Delusional misidentification is commonly understood as the product of an inference on the basis of evidence present in the subject's experience. For example, in the Capgras delusion, the patient sees someone who looks like a loved one, but who feels unfamiliar, so they infer that they must not be the loved one. I question this by presenting a distinction between “recognition” and “identification.” Identification does not always require recognition for its epistemic justification, nor does it need recognition for its psychological (...) functioning. Judgments of identification are often the product of a non-inferential mechanism. Delusional misidentification arises as the product of this mechanism malfunctioning. (shrink)

We welcome Cho and Wu’s suggestion that the study of auditory verbal hallucinations could be improved by contrasting and testing more explanatory models. However, we have some worries both about their criticisms of inner speech-based self-monitoring models and whether their proposed spontaneous activation model is explanatory.

Our actions have causes, some of which are beyond our control. Of that there can be no serious doubt. Some worry that this fact undermines the commonsense view that we perform free actions for which we are morally responsible. My aim in this article is to show that such worries are unfounded and, consequently, that pure non-causal theories of free action, according to which free actions must be entirely uncaused, are false. My argument for this conclusion doesn’t presuppose the cogency (...) of existing objections to non-causal theories of free agency. (shrink)

The management process affects the level of ethical performance in organizational life. As one part of this process, managers establish priorities which give direction to an organization. In business firms, management typically stresses the attainment of profits and other related economic and technical factors. Since little explicit recognition is given to ethics, the resulting climate makes it easy to ignore ethical factors. Changing this situation by making ethics a significant part of the corporate culture is difficult and requires a combination (...) of management communication and management example. However, managers who choose to emphasize ethics and who skillfully articulate their importance can improve the integration of ethics into the day-to-day operating decisions of the firm. (shrink)

COMMISSIONER KLAUS VERSEN: Counselors, I want to remind you both of two matters. First, this commission is not bound by the statutes or legal precedents of ...

When is life-sustaining treatment not in the best interests of a minimally conscious child? This is an extremely difficult question that incites seemingly intractable debate. And yet, it is the question courts in England and Wales have set out to answer in disputes about appropriate medical treatment for children.

According to what I will call mitigating soft compatibilism, although the truth of determinism is consistent with free action and moral responsibility, determinism nevertheless mitigates praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. In this paper, I take a closer look at this novel brand of compatibilism. My principal aim in doing so is to further explicate the view and to explore ways in which it can be deployed in defense of the more general compatibilist thesis. I also discuss one of the most pressing challenges (...) facing a compatibilist view of this sort, and I offer some suggestions as to how proponents of the view might attempt to address that challenge. (shrink)

In many forms of severe acute brain injury there is an early phase when prognosis is uncertain, followed later by physiological recovery and the possibility of more certain predictions of future impairment. There may be a window of opportunity for withdrawal of life support early, but if decisions are delayed there is the risk that the patient will survive with severe impairment. In this paper I focus on the example of neonatal encephalopathy and the question of the timing of prognostic (...) tests and decisions to continue or to withdraw life-sustaining treatment. Should testing be performed early or later; and how should parents decide what to do given the conflicting values at stake? I apply decision theory to the problem, using sensitivity analysis to assess how different features of the tests or different values would affect a decision to perform early or late prognostic testing. I draw some general conclusions from this model for decisions about the timing of testing in neonatal encephalopathy. Finally I consider possible solutions to the problem posed by the window of opportunity. Decision theory highlights the costs of uncertainty. This may prompt further research into improving prognostic tests. But it may also prompt us to reconsider our current attitudes towards the palliative care of newborn infants predicted to be severely impaired. (shrink)

Identifying a range of key concerns related to representation and difference, Representing the Other offers a provocative agenda for the future development of feminist theory and practice. The book's contributors, including many key international researchers in women's studies, draw on personal experiences of speaking "for" and "about" others in their research, professional practice, academic writing, or political activism. They highlight problems of representing the Other with an ethnic or cultural background different from one's own and extend discussions of "Othering" to (...) representations of children, prostitutes, infertile women, fat women, gay men with HIV/AIDS, and people with disabilities. The reader, which includes articles and discussions from four issues of the journal Feminism & Psychology, also features new pieces and an extensive editorial introduction. Representing the Other will be integral reading for students and academics in women's studies, gender studies, and feminist theory across a range of social science disciplines, including social psychology, sociology, anthropology, sociolinguistics, social policy, and political science. (shrink)

The introduction explain the need for how an international, inclusive discussion about the range of different methodological approaches from different traditions of philosophy can be read alongside each other and be seen in sometimes very critical conversation with each other. In addition, the introduction identifies four broad themes in the volume: the largest group of chapters advocate methods that promote history of philosophy as an unapologetic, autonomous enterprise with its own criteria within philosophy. Second, three chapters can be seen as (...) historicizing the history of philosophy from within. Third, four chapters argue for history of philosophy as a means toward making contributions to contemporary philosophy. Finally, two chapters explore the relationship between the history of philosophy and the history of science. (shrink)

Students often invoke quantum mechanics in class or papers to make philosophical points. This tendency has been encouraged by pop culture influences like the film What the Bleep do We Know? There is little merit to most of these putative implications. However, it is difficult for philosophy teachers unfamiliar with quantum mechanics to handle these supposed implications in a clear and careful way. This paper is a philosophy of science version of MythBusters. We offer a brief primer on the nature (...) of quantum mechanics, enumerate nine of the most common implications associated with quantum mechanics, and finally clarify each implication with the facts. Our goal is to explain what quantum mechanics doesn’t show. (shrink)

It is well known that the trisyllabic ending of the pentameter, which, with the Augustan elegists, declines in popularity until it is practically rejected by Ovid, meets with a revival in Martial. His pentameters show a considerably higher proportion of trisyllabic endings than those of either Tibullus or Propertius.1 Is it possible to dis-cover any reasons, conscious or instinctive, that conditioned the revival of this type of ending?

First Published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Birth asphyxia is the most common single cause of death in term newborn infants. The majority of deaths in developed countries follow decisions to withdraw intensive care. Recent technological advances, particularly the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, may affect the process of prognostication and decision-making. There is little existing evidence about how prognosis is determined in newborn infants and how this relates to treatment withdrawal decisions.An exploratory qualitative study was performed using in-depth semi-structured interviews with a (...) sample of ten neonatologists from tertiary intensive care units in the UK. Participants were purposively selected to ensure a range of experience and type of unit. They were asked about the process of prognostication for infants with birth asphyxia and decisions about treatment withdrawal. Interviews were transcribed and thematically analysed.MRI played a significant role in decision-making about life-sustaining treatment for a number of clinicians. Clinicians did not identify particular ethical concerns related to MRI, though wider discussion revealed issues relating to uncertainty around predictions, the timing of prognostication and decision-making, and difficulty in predicting quality of life. (shrink)

In bioethical discussions of preimplantation genetic diagnosis and prenatal screening, accusations of eugenics are commonplace, as are counter-claims that talk of eugenics is misleading and unhelpful. This paper asks whether “eugenics talk”, in this context, is legitimate and useful or something to be avoided. It also looks at the extent to which this linguistic question can be answered without first answering relevant substantive moral questions. Its main conclusion is that the best and most non-partisan argument for avoiding eugenics talk is (...) the Autonomy Argument. According to this, eugenics talk per se is not wrong, but there is something wrong with using its emotive power as a means of circumventing people’s critical–rational faculties. The Autonomy Argument does not, however, tell against eugenics talk when such language is used to shock people into critical–rational thought. These conclusions do not depend on unique features of eugenics: similar considerations apply to emotive language throughout bioethics. (shrink)

Comment on "The ethical 'elephant' in the death penalty 'room'". Arguments in defense of the death penalty typically fall into one of two groups. Consequentialist arguments point out beneficial aspects of capital punishment, normally focusing on deterrence, while non-consequentialist arguments seek to justify execution independently of its effects, for example, by appealing to the concept of retribution. Michael Keane's target article "The ethical 'elephant' in the death penalty 'room'" should, we believe, be read as an interesting new consequentialist defense of (...) physician involvement in capital punishment. (shrink)

Although interpretivists are right to give inner speech a central role in generating self-knowledge, they mischaracterize the precise nature of this role. Inner speech is fundamentally an action, a form of speech, and provides us with self-knowledge not by being something that we perceive (or “quasi-perceive”) and interpret, but by being something that we knowingly do. Once this is appreciated, interpretivism is undermined.

Alan Turing draws a firm line between the mental and the physical, between the cognitive and physical sciences. For Turing, following a tradition that went back to D=Arcy Thompson, if not Geoffroy and Lucretius, throws talk of function, intentionality, and final causes from biology as a physical science. He likens Amother nature@ to the earnest A. I. scientist, who may send to school disparate versions of the Achild machine,@ eventually hoping for a test-passer but knowing that the vagaries of his (...) experimental course are history and accident. (shrink)