There’s long-standing debate over whether Locke can be considered a feminist of sorts; and there’s good reason for this: Much of what Locke says is ambiguous on the gender front. But one topic about which Locke is rather regularly described as a feminist is education. Nevertheless, Giuliana DiBiase (2020) has recently argued that Locke thinks women are naturally less rational than men—offering a decidedly anti-feminist reading of Locke on education. In this chapter, we contribute to the debate over Locke on (...) gender and education in the following ways: We start by showing how even purportedly objective pictures of Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education lean toward a feminist reading by excluding important bits of the broader context within which Locke was writing, and we work to re-set the stage some. Thereafter, we offer a taxonomy of the ways in which commentators utilize the main bit of evidence they present for their interpretations of Locke on gender and education: Letter 809. We then problematize Letter 809 and offer our own reading of it. As we do, we explore how the context provided by Locke’s often-overlooked ‘Midwifery Notes’ appears to tip the interpretive scales toward an anti-feminist reading; but, we also challenge the argument DiBiase offers for the conclusion that Locke thinks women are naturally less rational than men—turning to Locke’s Of the Conduct of the Understanding and ‘Anatomia’ along the way. As a result of our inquiry, we don’t come to any hard and fast conclusions about Locke’s stance on gender and education. Rather, our point is to underscore that it is rather difficult—indeed, far more difficult than most commentators have noted—to do so, given the evidence that we have. But, importantly, this is different from concluding that Locke himself failed to come to any concrete conclusions about the degree to which girls and women are included in his picture of education, or whether, more generally, women naturally have the same rational capacities as men. We conclude by raising some metaphilosophical questions about what it means to call an early modern philosopher or their text “feminist” in the first place. -/- . (shrink)

While many studies have investigated the ethical perceptions, ideologies and value systems of the Chinese, few studies have focused on mainland China, and even fewer have examined regional differences within China. This study examines the factor structure of Forsyth's (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire in a sample of managers from the PRC. According to Forsyth, individual differences in Relativism and Idealism influence judgements of moral issues (Forsyth, 1980). In a sample of 115 managers, results show that two similar constructs to those (...) described by Forsyth do exist in the Chinese sample. However the precise interpretation of the item groupings through a Chinese perspective, may reveal some discrete areas of difference in the labelling of these constructs. The study also finds that managers in the South of China scored significantly higher in Idealism than managers in the North. Results are presented and implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the implications of opposing domains theory for developing ethical leaders. Opposing domains theory highlights a neurological tension between analytic reasoning and socioemotional reasoning. Specifically, when we engage in analytic reasoning, we suppress our ability to engage in socioemotional reasoning and vice versa. In this article, we bring together the domains of neuroscience, psychology, and ethics, to inform our theorizing around ethical leadership. We propose that a key issue for ethical leadership is achieving a healthy balance (...) between analytic reasoning and socioemotional reasoning. We argue that organizational culture often encourages too heavy a reliance on nonemotional forms of reasoning to arrive at moral judgments. As a result, leaders run the risk of suppressing their ability to pay attention to the human side of moral dilemmas and, in doing so, dehumanize colleagues, particularly subordinates, and clients. (shrink)

Computer simulation of an epistemic landscape model, modified to include explicit representation of a centralized funding body, show the method of funding allocation has significant effects on communal trade-off between exploration and exploitation, with consequences for the community’s ability to generate significant truths. The results show this effect is contextual, and depends on the size of the landscape being explored, with funding that includes explicit random allocation performing significantly better than peer-review on large landscapes. The paper proposes a way of (...) incorporating external institutional factors in formal social epistemology, and offers a way of bringing such investigations to bear on current research policy questions. (shrink)

Blood donation is broadly understood to be a public and altruistic act. However, new theories of citizenship and subjectivity suggest that the individual and embodied qualities of blood also need to be taken into account when examining donation. This article examines the relationship between public and private elements of blood donation. Donating blood is not an entirely public act, and does not provide an entirely impersonal resource. The embodied self is integral to public practices, and, equally, public domains are important (...) to the constitution of private spaces. However, this study shows that recognition of the individuality of blood is often cast in moral terms. The exclusion of already marginalized people from donating blood presents a risk of further marginalization. If blood donation is understood to be a civic practice open to everyone, then it becomes too easy to see those who cannot donate as non-citizens. New vocabularies of difference are needed. It is an ongoing necessity that altruistic donors are valued; it is also important that those who cannot donate are not punished by this process of valuing. (shrink)

The importance of education and its profound effect on people's life make it a central issue in discussions of distributive justice. However, promoting distributive justice in education comes at a price: prioritising the education of some, as is often entailed by the principles of justice, inevitably has negative effects on the education of others. As a result, all theories of distributive justice in education face the challenge of balancing their requirements with conflicting interests. This article aims to contribute to developing (...) an account of conflicting interests by identifying a category of conflicting interests—non-positional conflicting interests—the realisation of which does not necessarily disrupt distributive justice. Non-positional conflicting interests include, for example, the interest in realising one's full potential and parents’ interest in familial relations. The article argues that the core dimensions of non-positional conflicting interests can usually be realised without upsetting distributive justice, and that actions that do upset distributive justice tend to be peripheral to these interests. Either way, there is no severe friction between distributive justice and non-positional conflicting interests: in the former cases, both are realised simultaneously. In the latter, tension exists; however, because the infringement on the conflicting interest is of relatively little weight, it is often justified, all things considered, in order to promote distributive justice. The conclusion is that while there are indeed cases in which distributive justice must retreat in the face of other interests, the friction between distributive justice and other interests is actually weaker than meets the eye. (shrink)

Although the condition known as synaesthesia is currently undergoing a scientific resurgence, to date the literature has largely focused on the heterogeneous nature of synaesthesia across individuals. In order to provide a better understanding of synaesthesia, however, general characteristics need to be investigated. Synaesthetic experiences are often described as occurring ‘internally’ or in the ‘mind’s eye’, which is remarkably similar to how we would describe our experience of visual mental imagery. We assessed the role of visual imagery in synaesthesia by (...) sampling a large group of synaesthetes and found that they report experiencing more vivid mental images than controls. These findings have important implications for our general understanding of synaesthesia and, in particular, emphasize the need to control for visual imagery in behavioural and neuroimaging paradigms. (shrink)

Computer simulation of an epistemic landscape model, modified to include explicit representation of a centralized funding body, show the method of funding allocation has significant effects on communal trade-off between exploration and exploitation, with consequences for the community’s ability to generate significant truths. The results show this effect is contextual, and depends on the size of the landscape being explored, with funding that includes explicit random allocation performing significantly better than peer review on large landscapes. The article proposes a way (...) of incorporating external institutional factors in formal social epistemology, and offers a way of bringing such investigations to bear on current research policy questions. 1Introduction2Theoretical Background3Model Description4Simulation Details 4.1Simulating the epistemic landscape4.2Simulating agents4.3Simulating communal knowledge4.4Simulating funding strategies4.5Simulating merit dynamics5Results and Discussion 5.1Experiment 1: The winner-takes-it-all mechanism only5.2Experiment 2: All dynamic mechanisms5.3Experiment 3: Adding a new funding mechanism 5.4Experiment 4: Varying the degree of myopia5.5Experiment 5: Variability of individual epistemic gain5.6Experiment 6: Likelihood of renewal6Discussion7Conclusion. (shrink)

In this paper I present and defend a highly demanding principle of justice in education that has not been seriously discussed thus far. According to the suggested approach, “all the way equality”, justice in education requires nothing short of equal educational outcome between all individual students. This means not merely between equally able children, or between children from different groups and classes, but rather between all children, regardless of social background, race, sex and ability. This approach may seem implausible at (...) first, due to the far-reaching implications it entails, primarily its requirement to deny better-off children their advantage for the sake of equality. However the paper argues that all-the-way-equality, in fact, does a better job realizing the goals of justice in education than alternative conceptions of justice. It is further argued that at least some of the principle’s most radical consequences, those that make it seem counterintuitive, can be mitigated by balancing all-the-way-equality with competing interests. (shrink)

What conceptual merit does the undying – the one that does not die properly – hold? What form of life is left for those who do not achieve death, those that death (the right, the necessity – to die...

Fast and accurate recognition of teammates is crucial in contexts as varied as fast-moving sports, the military, and law enforcement engagements; misrecognition can result in lost scoring opportunities in sport or friendly fire in combat contexts. Initial studies on teammate recognition in sport suggests that athletes are adept at this perceptual ability but still susceptible to errors. The purpose of the current proof-of-concept study was to explore the trainability of teammate recognition from very brief exposure to vision of the whole-body (...) form and motion of a previously unknown individual. Participants were divided into three groups: a 4-week training group who were also the actors for the test and training footage, a 2-week training group, and a no-training group. Findings revealed significant differences between the training groups and their improvement from the pre-to post-test on Response Accuracy and Movement Time. The current study found the best performance in the 4-week Training group. The biggest improvement was found in the 2-week training group, whilst no significant improvement was made in the Control group. These results suggest that training was effective, but also indicate that having initially performed the movements as actors may have led to improvements in baseline testing and ultimately the best results, thus physical performance of skills combined with video-based training may reduce the amount of time needed to improve teammate identification. (shrink)

We live in a world of one-size-fits-all law. People are different, but the laws that govern them are uniform. "Personalized Law" - rules that vary person by person - will change that. Here is a vision of a brave new world, where each person is bound by their own personally-tailored law. "Reasonable person" standards would be replaced by a multitude of personalized commands, each individual with their own "reasonable you" rule. Skilled doctors would be held to higher standards of care, (...) the most vulnerable consumers and employees would receive stronger protections, age restrictions for driving or for the consumption of alcohol would vary according the recklessness risk that each person poses, and borrowers would be entitled to personalized loan disclosures tailored to their unique needs and delivered in a format fitting their mental capacity. The data and algorithms to administer personalize law are at our doorstep, and embryos of this regime are sprouting. Should we welcome this transformation of the law? Does personalized law harbor a utopic promise, or would it produce alienation, demoralization, and discrimination? This book is the first to explore personalized law, offering a vision of law and robotics that delegates to machines those tasks humans are least able to perform well. It inquires how personalized law can be designed to deliver precision and justice and what pitfalls the regime would have to prudently avoid. (shrink)

In 2013 the Health Research Council of New Zealand began a stream of funding titled 'Explorer Grants', and in 2017 changes were introduced to the funding mechanisms of the Volkswagen Foundation 'Experiment!' and the New Zealand Science for Technological Innovation challenge 'Seed Projects'. All three funding streams aim at encouraging novel scientific ideas, and all now employ random selection by lottery as part of the grant selection process. The idea of funding science by lottery has emerged independently in several corners (...) of academia, including in philosophy of science. This paper reviews the conceptual and institutional landscape in which this policy proposal emerged, how different academic fields presented and supported arguments for the proposal, and how these have been reflected in actual policy. The paper presents an analytical synthesis of the arguments presented to date, notes how they support each other and shape policy recommendations in various ways, and where competing arguments highlight need for further analysis or more data. In addition, it provides lessons for how philosophers of science can engage in shaping science policy, and in particular highlights the importance of mixing complementary expertise: it takes a village to raise policy. (shrink)

There are now several proposals for introducing random elements into the process of funding allocation for research, and some initial implementation of this policy by funding bodies. The proposals have been supported on efficiency grounds, with models, including social epistemology models, showing random allocation could increase the generation of significant truths in a community of scientists when compared to funding by peer review. The models in the literature are, however, fairly abstract. This paper introduces some of the considerations that are (...) required to build on the modelling work towards a fully-fledged policy proposal, including issues of cost and fairness. (shrink)

There are various reasons for favouring Ψ-epistemic interpretations of quantum mechanics over Ψ-ontic interpretations. One such reason is the correlation between quantum mechanics and Liouville dynamics. Another reason is the success of a specific epistemic model (Spekkens, 2007), in reproducing a wide range of quantum phenomena. The potential criticism, that Spekkens' restricted knowledge principle is counter-intuitive, is rejected using `everyday life' examples. It is argued that the dimensionality of spin favours Spekkens' model over Ψ-ontic models. van Enk's extension of Spekkens' (...) model (2007) can even reproduce Bell Inequality violations, but requires negative probabilities to do so. An epistemic account of negative probabilities is the missing element for deciding the battle between Ψ-epistemic and Ψ-ontic interpretations in favour of the former. (shrink)

Police and authorities have increasingly adopted "command and control" strategies to the policing of intentionally peaceful protest crowds. These strategies work to close down access to a physical space in which a protest is to occur and thus in turn they effectively restrict the capacity of a citizen to engage in the democratic right of peaceful protest.

Erdelyi's two key tenets – that repression may be conscious (“suppression”) and that it is context-sensitive – resonate well with findings on unipolar depression. Drawing from this field, I argue that (1) “oppression,” namely, pressure from significant others to refrain from attending to certain mental contents, influences individuals' repression/suppression; and that, (2) individuals actively create the very contexts that facilitate their repression/suppression.

Language anomalies and left-hemisphere dysfunction are commonly reported in schizophrenia. Additional evidence also suggests differences in the integration of information between the hemispheres. Bilateral gain is the increase in accuracy and decrease in latency that occurs when identical information is presented simultaneously to both hemispheres. This study measured bilateral gain in controls and individuals with schizophrenia using a lexical-decision task where word or non-word judgements were made to letter strings presented in the left visual field , right visual field or (...) bilaterally . Language was not abnormally lateralized in the schizophrenia group. Controls exhibited the expected decrease in latency when words were presented bilaterally. This effect was not observed in the schizophrenia group who were actually disadvantaged in this condition. The lack of bilateral gain in schizophrenia is discussed as arising from differences in the connections between areas in each hemisphere that mediate language. (shrink)

The revolution in Western family law over the past 50 years—often described as ‘liberalization’—involves a decrease in the importance of fault-based factors alongside an increase in the significance of marital contracts. While these two trends generally complement each other, they may conflict when a couple seeks to assign economic consequences to sexual fault through a contract. Should such an agreement be legally enforceable? Which aligns more with a ‘true liberal’ perspective: advocating against fault or for the use of contracts? This (...) paper suggests a new approach that goes beyond simply determining which trend should prevail. We illustrate how the perceived conflict between proponents of sexual liberalization and proponents of contractual liberalization could be resolved by identifying the underlying reasons that motivate each ‘camp’, proposing potential legal mechanisms and specific legal contexts in which broad agreement might be reached, and explicating the multidimensionality of family law liberalization. (shrink)

Alterations to cognitive function are often reported with depression and anxiety symptoms, yet few studies have examined the same associations with mental well-being. This study examined the association between mental well-being, depression and anxiety symptoms and cognitive function in 1502 healthy adult monozygotic and dizygotic twins, and the shared/unique contribution of genetic and environmental variance. Using linear mixed models, mental well-being was positively associated with sustained attention, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, motor coordination and working memory, whereas depression and anxiety symptoms were (...) associated with poorer sustained attention, inhibition, cognitive flexibility and executive function. Bivariate twin modelling showed well-being shared a small environmental correlation with motor coordination and a small genetic correlation with working memory. Trivariate twin modelling showed well-being shared a small genetic correlation with inhibition, whereas depression and anxiety symptoms shared a small environmental correlation with inhibition. The remaining variance was mostly driven by unique G and/or E variance. Overall, well-being and depression and anxiety symptoms show both independent and shared relationships with cognitive functions but this is largely attributable to unique G or E variance and small shared G/E variance between pairs of variables. (shrink)

In this book, Tal Ben-Shahar introduces a new interdisciplinary field of study that is dedicated to exploring happiness. The study of happiness ought not be left to psychologists alone. Philosophers, theologians, biologists, economists, and scholars from other disciplines have explored ways of attaining happiness, and to do justice to this important pursuit, we ought to listen to their words and experiment with their prescriptions. Not only does the field of happiness studies embrace different disciplines, it also approaches happiness as (...) a multifaceted and multidimensional variable that includes five parts which form the acronym SPIRE: Spiritual wellbeing Physical wellbeing Intellectual wellbeing Relational wellbeing Emotional wellbeing This book addresses each of these elements of happiness, explains them, and addresses practical ways for their cultivation. (shrink)

Vegetarians have argued at great length that meat-eating is wrong. Even so, the vast majority of people continue to eat meat, and even most vegetarians eventually give up on their diets. Does this prove these people must be morally corrupt? In Why It’s OK to Eat Meat, Dan C. Shahar argues the answer is no: it’s entirely possible to be an ethical person while continuing to eat meat—and not just the "fancy" offerings from the farmers' market but also the (...) regular meat we find at most supermarkets and restaurants. Shahar’s examination forcefully echoes vegetarians’ concerns about the meat industry’s impacts on animals, workers, the environment, and public health. However, he shows that the most influential ethical arguments for avoiding meat on the basis of these considerations are ultimately unpersuasive. Instead of insisting we all become vegetarians, Shahar argues each of us has broad latitude to choose which of the world’s problems to tackle, in what ways, and to what extents, and hence people can decline to take up this particular form of activism without doing anything wrong. (shrink)

A framework is presented to better characterize the role of individual differences in information processing style and their interplay with contextual factors in determining decision making quality. In Experiment 1, we show that individual differences in information processing style are flexible and can be modified by situational factors. Specifically, a situational manipulation that induced an analytical mode of thought improved decision quality. In Experiment 2, we show that this improvement in decision quality is highly contingent on the compatibility between the (...) dominant thinking mode and the nature of the task. That is, encouraging an intuitive mode of thought led to better performance on an intuitive task but hampered performance on an analytical task. The reverse pattern was obtained when an analytical mode of thought was encouraged. We discuss the implications of these results for the assessment of decision making competence, and suggest practical directions to help individuals better adjust their information processing style to the situation at hand and make optimal decisions. (shrink)

Pluralism about scientific method is more-or-less accepted, but the consequences have yet to be drawn out. Scientists adopt different methods in response to different epistemic situations: depending on the system they are interested in, the resources at their disposal, and so forth. If it is right that different methods are appropriate in different situations, then mismatches between methods and situations are possible. This is most likely to occur due to method bias: when we prefer a particular kind of method, despite (...) that method clashing with evidential context or our aims. To explore these ideas, we sketch a kind of method pluralism which turns on two properties of evidence, before using agent-based models to examine the relationship between methods, epistemic situations, and bias. Based on our results, we suggest that although method bias can undermine the efficiency of a scientific community, it can also be productive through preserving a diversity of evidence. We consider circumstances where method bias could be particularly egregious, and those where it is a potential virtue, and argue that consideration of method bias reveals that community standards deserve a central place in the epistemology of science. (shrink)

Boilerplate, the fine print of standard contracts, is more prevalent than ever in commercial trade and in electronic commerce. But what is in it, beyond legal technicalities? Why is it so hard to read and why is it often so one-sided? Who writes it, who reads it, and what effect does it have? The studies in this volume question whether boilerplate is true contract. Does it resemble a statute? Is it a species of property? Should we think of it as (...) a feature of the product we buy? Does competition improve boilerplate? Looking at the empirical reality in which various boilerplates operate, leading private law experts reveal subtle and previously unrecognized ways in which boilerplate clauses encourage information flow, but also reduce it; how new boilerplate terms are produced, and how innovation in boilerplate is stifled; how negotiation happens in the shadow of boilerplate, and how it is subdued. They offer a new explanation as to why boilerplate is often so one-sided. With emphasis on empiricism and economic thinking, this volume provides a more nuanced understanding of the 'DNA' of market contracts, the boilerplate terms. (shrink)

Scholars and lawmakers are familiar with a meta-narrative describing the liberal revolution of spousal law that occurred in the last decades of the twentieth century, which further transformed marriage, already transformed from a Catholic religious sacrament into a public institution and legal status model in the nineteenth century, into a private contract at the end of the twentieth. This Article addresses the liberal transformation of spousal law. The goals of the discussion are threefold: First, the Article examines the liberalization as (...) a historical narrative and the sub-narratives contained therein. Secondly, it explores the liberalization as the normative framework for the current normative debates. Finally, the Article criticizes the existing school of thought and proposes principles for a new theory that would depart from the thought patterns imposed by the liberalization narrative. (shrink)

Climate change is already a major global threat, but many of its worst impacts are still decades away. Many people who will eventually be affected by it still have opportunities to mitigate harm. When considering the avoidable burdens of climate change, it seems plausible victims will often share some responsibility for putting themselves into harm’s way. This fact should be incorporated into our thinking about the ethical significance of climate-induced harms, particularly to emphasize the importance of differential abilities to get (...) and stay out of harm’s way. Currently, many people face serious obstacles to reducing their vulnerability to climate change, such as poverty, lack of education, and political or legal obstacles to mobility. Climate policy discussions should do more to emphasize the alleviation of these sources of difficulties, thereby empowering people to choose what risks they will bear in a warming world. (shrink)

Immediate experience localizes the self within the limits of the physical body. This spatial unity has been challenged by philosophical and mystical traditions aimed to isolate concepts of mind and body. A more direct challenge of the spatial unity comes from a well-defined group of experiences called 'autoscopic phenomena' , in which the subject has the impression of seeing a second own body in an extrapersonal space. AP are known to occur in many human cultures and have been described in (...) healthy, as well as neurological and psychiatric populations. In this article we investigate the phenomenology of AP as described in the writings of the ecstatic Kabbalah of the thirteenth century, and search for similarities and differences with respect to AP from these and other populations. The article discusses potential common research areas between cognitive science and the science of religious experience. (shrink)

Ecologically-motivated authoritarianism flourished initially during the 1970s but largely disappeared after the decline of socialism in the late-1980s. Today, 'eco- authoritarianism ' is beginning to reassert itself, this time modelled not after the Soviet Union but modern-day China. The new eco-authoritarians denounce central planning but still suggest that governments should be granted powers that free them from subordination to citizens' rights or democratic procedures. I argue that current eco-authoritarian views do not present us with an attractive alternative to market liberal (...) democracy even if we take a highly pessimistic view of our shared prospects under the latter sort of regime. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

As part of the rationality debate, we examine the impact of deliberative and intuitive thinking styles on diversity preference behavior. A sample of 230 students completed the Rational Experiential Inventory and the Diversity Preference Questionnaire, an original measure of diversification behavior in different real-life situations. In cases where no normative solution was available, we found a clear preference for diversity-seeking in the gain domain and diversity-aversion in the loss domain, regardless of cognitive thinking style. However, in cases where one alternative (...) normatively dominated the other, participants high in deliberative thinking style were more calibrated to normative behavior, regardless of whether their intuitive tendency preference and the normative solution were contradictory or pointed in the same direction. Our findings support a model in which deliberative but not intuitive thinking style is the crucial predictor of rational behavior, since it enables people to better adjust their intuitive preference anchor when normative considerations require doing so. (shrink)