This article groups the rhetoric of hate on the Internet into five generic categories. Although continuous with its ancestral form, we argue that in its discontinuity this cyberspace variant is uniquely harmful to children because of its diffuse textuality, anonymity, and potential for immersive, user-interactivity. This unique postmodern grammar compels us to confront the sacrosanct premises of our paradoxical ethic of tolerance. We conclude that a postmodern ethic that features accountability can be derived by augmenting our conception of critical praxis.

The account of vagueness Bertrand Russell provided in his 1923 paper, entitled simply “Vagueness” (see Russell [1923]1997), has been thought by some to be inconsistent. One main objection, raised by Timothy Williamson (1994), is that Russell’s attempt early in the paper to distinguish vagueness from generality is at odds with the definition of vagueness he presents later in the same paper. It is as if, as Williamson puts it, Russell “backslides” from his previous distinction (1994, 60), resulting in (...) a conflation of generality and vagueness that is at best problematic for a rigorous account of the phenomenon of vagueness. In this paper, I will defend Russell from this particular objection. While his 1923 paper may not be as clear at various points as one might hope, I do believe it is possible to construct a single theory of vagueness that can be applied equally well to his earlier and later discussions. Thus, Russell’s view is not ultimately inconsistent. In this paper, I will first present the interpretation of Russell’s concept of vagueness that falls prey to the charge of conflating vagueness and generality. Once the problem is clear, I will present an alternative interpretation, one that arises from certain reflections on G. W. Leibniz’s theory of perception. This Leibnizian interpretation of Russell, I will argue, resolves the apparent contradiction in Russell’s account of vagueness. (shrink)

Some Key Controversies in the Philosophy of Science Larry Laudan. the mouths of my realist, relativist, and positivist. (By contrast, there is at least one person who hews to the line I have my prag- matist defending.) But I have gone to some  ...

Evidential Pluralism maintains that in order to establish a causal claim one normally needs to establish the existence of an appropriate conditional correlation and the existence of an appropriate mechanism complex, so when assessing a causal claim one ought to consider both association studies and mechanistic studies. Hitherto, Evidential Pluralism has been applied to medicine, leading to the EBM+ programme, which recommends that evidence-based medicine should systematically evaluate mechanistic studies alongside clinical studies. This paper argues that Evidential Pluralism can also (...) be fruitfully applied to the social sciences. In particular, Evidential Pluralism provides (i) a new approach to evidence-based policy; (ii) an account of the evidential relationships in more theoretical research; and (iii) new philosophical motivation for mixed methods research. The application of Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences is also defended against two objections. (shrink)

Christopher Kutz has written an excellent book: part metaphysics, part ethical theory, and part legal philosophy. The aim of the book, as is clear from the title, is to examine and defend the idea of complicity, that is, the responsibility of individuals for their participation in collective harms. While there has not been a lot of philosophical work on this topic, there has been some good work, and Kutz is responsive to most of it. But basically, this book strikes out (...) on its own, building a conception of complicity from an analysis of collective action and individual intention. The cornerstone of the analysis is the idea that individuals should be responsible for what they participate in, regardless of whether the participation makes a causal difference for the outcome. (shrink)

I begin my analysis of consent by agreeing with Professor Hurd that consent functions as a “moral transformative” by altering the obligations and permissions that determine the Tightness of others' actions. I further agree with her that consent is intimately related to the capacity for autonomous action; one who cannot alter others' obligations through consent is not fully autonomous. I cannot improve on her elaboration of these points.

This chapter provides an overview of a range of probabilistic theories of causality, including those of Reichenbach, Good and Suppes, and the contemporary causal net approach. It discusses two key problems for probabilistic accounts: counterexamples to these theories and their failure to account for the relationship between causality and mechanisms. It is argued that to overcome the problems, an epistemic theory of causality is required.

This chapter presents an overview of the major interpretations of probability followed by an outline of the objective Bayesian interpretation and a discussion of the key challenges it faces. I discuss the ramifications of interpretations of probability and objective Bayesianism for the philosophy of mathematics in general.

Many international business training programs present a viewpoint of cultural relativism that encourages business people to adapt to the host country's culture. This paper presents an argument that cultural relativism is not always appropriate for business ethics; rather, a code of conduct must be adapted which presents guidelines for core ethical business conduct across cultures. Both moral and economic evidence is provided to support the argument for a universal code of ethics. Also, four steps are presented that will help ensure (...) that company ethical standards are followed internationally. (shrink)

We criticize the following views: only the rapist is responsible since only he committed the act; no one is responsible since rape is a biological response to stimuli; everyone is responsible since men and women contribute to the rape culture; and patriarchy is responsible but no person or group. We then argue that, in some societies, men are collectively responsible for rape since most benefit from rape and most are similar to the rapist.

Objective Bayesianism says that the strengths of one’s beliefs ought to be probabilities, calibrated to physical probabilities insofar as one has evidence of them, and otherwise sufficiently equivocal. These norms of belief are often explicated using the maximum entropy principle. In this paper we investigate the extent to which one can provide a unified justification of the objective Bayesian norms in the case in which the background language is a first-order predicate language, with a view to applying the resulting formalism (...) to inductive logic. We show that the maximum entropy principle can be motivated largely in terms of minimising worst-case expected loss. (shrink)

This piece is a review essay on Victor Tadros’s The Ends of Harm. Tadros rejects retributive desert but believes punishment can be justified instrumentally without succumbing to the problems of thoroughgoing consequentialism and endorsing using people as means. He believes he can achieve these results through extension of the right of self-defense. I argue that Tadros fails in this endeavor: he has a defective account of the means principle; his rejection of desert leads to gross mismatches of punishment and culpability; (...) and he cannot account for punishment of inchoate crimes. (shrink)

Now, twenty years later, this collection of fifteenessays brings her work into dialogue with those philosophical views that are at center stage today-- in critical theory, communitarianism, virtue theory, and feminism.

The publication in 1975 of Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology provoked a great controversy, for in that work Wilson claimed that ethics was rooted in human biology. On the first page of the book, he asserted that our deepest intuitions of right and wrong are guided by the emotional control centers of the brain, which evolved via natural selection to help the human animal exploit opportunities and avoid threats in the natural environment. In 1998, the publication of Wilson's Consilience renewed the (...) controversy, as he continued to argue for explaining ethics through the biology of the moral sentiments.Footnotes* I am grateful to the Earhart Foundation for a research grant that supported the writing of this essay. (shrink)

Wee people at London, are so humbly immersd in slavish business, & taken up wth providing for a wretched Carkasse; yt there's nothing almost, but what is grosse & sensuall to be gotten from us. If a bright thought springs up any time here, ye Mists & Foggs extinguish it again presently, & leaves us no more, yn only ye pain, of seeing it die & perish away from us. Humphrey Ditton to Roger Cotes, ca. 1703THE CALCULUS OF ACCOMPLISHMENTDuring the (...) last decade of his life, Sir Isaac Newton took the measure of achievement. Probably shortly before 1725, Newton scribbled on the undated cover of a letter a brief list of those discoveries he believed belonged entirely ‘to the English’. Included were ‘the variation of the Variation’ ; the circulation of the blood; telescopic sights and the micrometer variously improved by his contemporaries, Robert Hooke and John Flamsteed; and ‘the Libration of the Moon’ likely in reference to Newton's own explanation of lunar eccentricity. Notably, this was not simply a personal calculation. Newton makes no mention of such controversial matters as the fluxional calculus, the refraction of light, or even the measure of universal gravitation, which he otherwise might have claimed as his own efforts. Even the private lights of the solitary genius could still accommodate a distinctly broader sense of the depth of national accomplishment. (shrink)

Retributivism is generally thought to forbid the punishment of the innocent, even if such punishment would produce otherwise good results, such as deterrence. It has recently been argued that because capital punishment always entails the risk of executing an innocent person, instituting capital punishment is tantamount to intentionally taking innocent lives and therefore cannot be justified on retributive grounds. I argue that there are several versions of retributivism, only one of which might categorically forbid risking punishing innocent persons. I also (...) argue that our moral practices reveal either that we do not hold this particular version of retributivism, or that we reject equating risking punishing the innocent with intentionally doing so. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A9102008 00005. (shrink)

Freedom of association, as I understand it, refers to the liberty a person possesses to enter into relationships with others—for any and all purposes, for a momentary or long-term duration, by contract, consent, or acquiescence. It likewise refers to the liberty to refuse to enter into such relationships or to terminate them when not otherwise compelled by one's voluntary assumption of an obligation to maintain the relationship. Freedom of association thus is a quite capacious liberty.

In this chapter we explore the process of extrapolating causal claims from model organisms to humans in pharmacology. We describe and compare four strategies of extrapolation: enumerative induction, comparative process tracing, phylogenetic reasoning, and robustness reasoning. We argue that evidence of mechanisms plays a crucial role in several strategies for extrapolation and in the underlying logic of extrapolation: the more directly a strategy establishes mechanistic similarities between a model and humans, the more reliable the extrapolation. We present case studies from (...) the research on atherosclerosis and the development of statins, that illustrate these strategies and the role of mechanistic evidence in extrapolation. (shrink)

This essay, as will become obvious, owes a huge debt to Mark Kelman, particularly to his article “Interpretative Construction in the Substantive Criminal Law.” That debt is one of both concept and content. There is rich irony in my aping Kelman's deconstructionist enterprise, for I do not share his enthusiasm for either the “insights” or the political agenda of the Critical Legal Studies movement. I do not believe that either the law in general or the criminal law in particular is (...) radically indeterminate, rife with internal contradictions, or an expression of the interests of a dominant economic class. And although, like Kelman, I believe that the freedom/determinism, act/character, and rule/principle dichotomies must ultimately be dealt with in order to have a completely satisfactory account of criminal law, I also believe that these dichotomies loom just as large in other areas of law and in normative theory generally. They are problems for Crits as well as for liberal-legalists. In any event, my intentions in undertaking this deconstructionist enterprise are modestly reformist, not revolutionary. I do not intend to shift any paradigms, but to work with well-established ones. I will assume that criminal law seeks to accomplish some blend of retributive response to and deterrence of culpable choices, choices to defy moral norms that are also legal norms. I will also assume that a culpable choice is one that reflects negatively on the values held by the chooser. Beyond these quite modest assumptions, I need not and will not venture in this paper, realizing, of course, that much has and can be written about the proper aims of punishment and the proper account of culpability. (shrink)

The Chinese room argument is a thought experiment of John Searle (1980a) and associated (1984) derivation. It is one of the best known and widely credited counters to claims of artificial intelligence (AI)—that is, to claims that computers do or at least can (someday might) think. According to Searle’s original presentation, the argument is based on two key claims: brains cause minds and syntax doesn’t suffice for semantics. Its target is what Searle dubs “strong AI.” According to strong AI, Searle (...) says, “the computer is not merely a tool in the study of the mind, rather the appropriately programmed computer really is a mind in the sense that computers given the right programs can be literally said to understand and have other cognitive states” (1980a, p. 417). Searle contrasts strong AI with “weak AI.” According to weak AI, computers just simulate thought, their seeming understanding isn’t real understanding (just as-if), their seeming calculation is only as-if calculation, etc. Nevertheless, computer simulation is useful for studying the mind (as for studying the weather and other things). (shrink)

The full-text of this article is not currently available in ORA, but the original publication is available at springerlink.com . N.B. Timothy Williamson is now based at the Philosophy Faculty, University of Oxford.

This is the second volume in a sub-series of specially commissioned collaborative volumes on key topics at the heart of contemporary philosophy of law that will be appearing regularly within Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Law. A distinguished international team of legal theorists examine the issue of constitutionalism and pose such foundational questions as: why have a constitution? How do we know what the constitution of a country really is? How should a constitution be interpreted? Why should one generation feel (...) bound by the constitution of an earlier one? The volume will be of particular importance to those in philosophy, law, political science and international relations interested in what kinds of constitutions should be adopted in countries without them, and involved in debates about constitutional interpretation. (shrink)

In the overwhelmingly public world of the twentieth century, science often seems simultaneously remote and ubiquitous. There are many complex reasons for this, of course, not the least being the capacity of technology for material transformation and the apparent inability of scientific discourse to communicate its practice to the unanointed. In some ways, our current predicament appears similar to that of the late eighteenth century when so many promises had already been made of what natural philosophy might accomplish, and when (...) many clamoured for access to the power of natural philosophical practice. At that point, on the verge of the stunning dislocations of the industrial revolution, many of the literate and mechanical public took considerable steps to bridge the gap otherwise policed by social distinction. (shrink)

This text addresses various topics in applied ethics from Western and non-Western perspectives. Multicultural perspectives are fully integrated throughout the text.

The categories of "civilian" or "soldier,” “combatant" or “noncombatant,” are thought to be stable. Yet, the case of the naked soldier taking a bath challenges such stability in a way that illustrates the serious conceptual and normative problems with identifying such social groups.

Orthodox criminal law doctrine treats mistakes of law and mistakes of fact differently for purposes of both exculpation and inculpation. Kenneth Simons’ paper in general defends this orthodoxy. I have earlier criticized the criminal law’s attempt to distinguish mistakes of law from mistakes of fact, and I continue to maintain, in opposition to Simons, that the distinction is problematic.

The Rwandan genocide of 1994 occurred due to widespread complicity. I will argue that complicity can be the basis for legal liability, even for criminal liability, if two conditions are met. First, the person’s actions or inactions must be causally efficacious at least in the sense that had the person not committed these actions or inactions the harm would have been made significantly less likely to occur. Second, the person must know that her actions or inactions risk contributing to a (...) harmful enterprise, and must intend that these actions or inactions risk making this contribution. But it is not part of this analysis that the defendant must intend the harmful result. I explore the boundaries between legal and moral complicity and end with a discussion of how the analysis defended in the paper affects such questions as how many people in Rwanda should be prosecuted for the genocide which occurred due to widespread complicity. (shrink)

El artículo aborda de modo breve la extensa producción epistemológica y metodológica de Hugo Zemelman. El esfuerzo está centrado en mostrar su potencialidad no como reemplazo de un modo aceptado de hacer investigación científica, sino más bien en valorizar una forma diferente de hacer el recorte del campo de observación y posterior intervención en el mismo. A partir de este objetivo, se revisan categorías relevantes de la propuesta, procurando conformar un “corpus” de conocimiento coherente y pertinente a los fines de (...) comprender el planteo que realiza el autor estudiado.The article briefly summarizes the extensive epistemological and methodological production of Hugo Zemelman. The effort shows its potentiality not as a replacement of an accepted mode of scientific research, but in give value to a different form to make the frame of the observation field and later its intervention. Later, I review his main categories, trying to create a coherent and pertinent ‘corpus’ of knowledge in order to comprehend the proposal from the author. (shrink)