It has been argued that schizophrenic delusions are “behaviourally inert.” This is evidence for the phenomenon of “double bookkeeping,” according to which people are not consistent in their commitment to the content of their delusions. The traditional explanation for the phenomenon is that people do not genuinely believe the content of their delusions. In the article, we resist the traditional explanation and offer an alternative hypothesis: people with delusions often fail to acquire or to maintain the motivation to act on (...) their delusional beliefs. This may be due to avolition, to emotional disturbances, or to the fact that, given the peculiar content of some delusions, the surrounding environment does not support the agent’s motivation to act. (shrink)

When it originated in the late 19th century, psychometrics was a field with both a scientific and a social mission: psychometrics provided new methods for research into individual differences, and at the same time, these psychometric instruments were considered a means to create a new social order. In contrast, contemporary psychometrics - due to its highly technical nature and its limited involvement in substantive psychological research - has created the impression of being a value-free discipline. In this article, we develop (...) a contrasting characterization of contemporary psychometrics as a value-laden discipline. We expose four such values: that individual differences are quantitative (rather than qualitative), that measurement should be objective in a specific sense, that test items should be fair, and that utility of a model is more important than its truth. Our goal is not to criticize psychometrics for employing these values, but rather to bring them into the open and to show that these values are not inevitable and are in need of systematic evaluation. (shrink)

This article makes a positive case for an ethnographic sensibility in political theory. Drawing on published ethnographies and original fieldwork, it argues that an ethnographic sensibility can contribute to normative reflection in five distinct ways. It can help uncover the nature of situated normative demands (epistemic argument); diagnose obstacles encountered when responding to these demands (diagnostic argument); evaluate practices and institutions against a given set of values (evaluative argument); probe, question and refine our understanding of values (valuational argument); and uncover (...) underlying social ontologies (ontological argument). The contribution of ethnography to normative theory is distinguished from that of other forms of empirical research, and the dangers of perspectival absorption, bias and particularism are addressed. (shrink)

Good epistemic practices are essential to the well-functioning of organizations. Epistemic practices are adopted norms, policies, procedures, and general methodologies that further our epistemic aims or realize our epistemic values. This chapter argues for the importance of organizational good epistemic practices through an analysis of the failures of risk management implicated in JPMorgan’s notorious ‘London Whale’ trading losses, which roiled the financial markets in 2012. A number of these failures of risk management exemplified ways in which we, as fallible reasoners, (...) may be prone to error individually and collectively. Good epistemic practices inter alia anticipate and endeavor to correct for erroneous patterns of reasoning. They help guard against future epistemic failings, and they support good reasoning within and on the part of organizations. In so doing, they constitute some of the key structural elements of organizational epistemic virtues. (shrink)

Clinical delusions are difficult to investigate in the laboratory because they co-occur with other symptoms and with intellectual impairment. Partly for these reasons, researchers have recently begun to use hypnosis with neurologically intact people in order to model clinical delusions. In this paper we describe striking analogies between the behavior of patients with a clinical delusion of mirrored self misidentification, and the behavior of highly hypnotizable subjects who receive a hypnotic suggestion to see a stranger when they look in the (...) mirror. Based on these analogies, we argue that the use of hypnosis is a reliable method to investigate the surface features of clinical delusions. But to what extent can hypnosis successfully recreate delusions? Can it also contribute to a better understanding of delusion formation? Although clinical delusions and hypnotically induced beliefs are different in etiology, some analogies can be identified in the underlying processes that characterise them, based on the two-factor theory of delusion formation. (shrink)

It is important to be able to offer an account of which activities count as scientific research, given our current interest in promoting research as a means to benefit humankind and in ethically regulating it. We attempt to offer such an account, arguing that we need to consider both the procedural and functional dimensions of an activity before we can establish whether it is a genuine instance of scientific research. By placing research in a broader schema of activities, the similarities (...) and differences between research activities and other activities become visible. It is also easier to show why some activities that do not count as research can sometimes be confused with research and why some other activities can be regarded only partially as research. Although the concept of research is important to delimit a class of activities which we might be morally obliged to promote, we observe that the class of activities which are regarded as subject to ethical regulation is not exhausted by research activities. We argue that, whether they be research or not, all the activities that are likely to affect the rights and interests of the individuals involved and impact on the rights and interests of other individuals raise ethical issues and might be in need of ethical regulation. (shrink)

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Suppose that you are soon to be a parent and you learn that there are some simple measures that you can take to make sure that your child will be healthy. In particular, suppose that by following the doctor’s advice, you can prevent your child from having a disability, you can make your child immune from a number of dangerous diseases and you can even enhance its future intelligence. All that is required for this to happen is that you (or (...) your partner) comply with lifestyle and dietary requirements. Do you and your partner have any moral reasons (or moral obligations) to follow the doctor’s advice? Would it make a difference if, instead of following some simple dietary requirements, you consented to genetic engineering to make sure that your child was free from disabilities, healthy and with above average intelligence? In this paper we develop a framework for dealing with these questions and we suggest some directions the answers might take. (shrink)

In the modern Middle East, the public institutions associated with the internationally recognized states of the region are rarely viewed as trustworthy or reliable. Born in the demise of the Ottoman Empire, midwifed by European imperial powers who paid lip service to the development of the inhabitants, and nurtured in the cold war by superpowers largely indifferent to the well-being of the peoples of the region, the existing states came to be associated with expectations of welfare provision and structures of (...) accountability that privileged external actors over local interests. In the absence of public institutions that responded to and represented local interests, people organized around those still vibrant alternative forms of community that existed – the exchange networks of informal economies or the kinship systems of extended families and the ethnic and religious communities of language, sect and confession – and sometimes they reorganized and reinterpreted these identities to supplement and ultimately supplant the failing states in which they found themselves. (shrink)

Although they produced vastly more turmoil, the uprisings in the Arab world shared many characteristics with other early 21st-century popular protests on both the left and the right, from Spain’s Indignados and Occupy Wall Street to the anti-elite votes for Brexit and Trump. The conviction that political elites and the states they rule, which were once responsible for welfare and development, now ignore and demean the interests and concerns of ordinary citizens takes many forms, but is virtually universal. The Arab (...) world was only one site of this discontent, but the story of the Arab Spring insurrections provides a cautionary illustration of the perils in abdication of political authority and accountability and provokes questions about how we understand historical moments when passions outstrip interests. (shrink)

In _Law’s Rule_, Gerald Postema provides a robust theoretical framework of the rule of law that technology scholars can use to analyze power in the digital world. He articulates how the rule of law can be concerned with private power, and not just public power. His emphasis on the ethos of fidelity allows us to see how the rule of law of law may be degraded in the digital era through the erosion of the informal institutions and practices needed to (...) sustain the rule of law. In addition to outlining these contributions, this paper argues that Postema’s account of digital power needs to focus more on digital power structures rather than digital power wielding, that digital power structures erode many informal constraints on power, and that addressing sociotechnical systems might require rethinking law’s distinctive instrumentalities in order to embrace the use of digital technologies to increase transparency and compliance. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to the emerging field of the philosophy of money and finance. The field addresses philosophical issues about the nature of money and the normative foundations of financial systems. Although philosophical theorizing about money and finance dates back to Antiquity, the topic has only recently emerged as a central research focus. The chapter also introduces the present anthology and locates its parts and chapters in the broader field. More specifically, the anthology is divided into four main (...) parts: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, and Political Philosophy. Each part contains four chapters on different but interrelated topics, which are all introduced here. (shrink)

In this paper I critique two popular, non-scientific attitudes toward genetically engineered foods. In doing so, I will be employing the concepts of ambiguity, purity/impurity, control/resistance, and unity/diversity as developed by Latina feminist metaphysicians. I begin by casting a critical eye toward a specific anti-biotech account of transgenic food crops, an account that I will argue relies on an anti-feminist metaphysics. I then cast that same critical eye toward a specific pro-biotech account, arguing that it also relies on such an (...) anti-feminist metaphysics. I will argue further that this metaphysics yields a less accurate account of genetics. I end by arguing that if we adopt a Latina feminist metaphysics we can more accurately understand plants, genetics, and genetic engineering. (shrink)

This open access book offers an exploration of delusions--unusual beliefs that can significantly disrupt people's lives. Experts from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including lived experience, clinical psychiatry, philosophy, clinical psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, discuss how delusions emerge, why it is so difficult to give them up, what their effects are, how they are managed, and what we can do to reduce the stigma associated with them. Taken as a whole, the book proposes that there is continuity between delusions and (...) everyday beliefs. It is essential reading for researchers working on delusions and mental health more generally, and will also appeal to anybody who wants to gain a better understanding of what happens when the way we experience and interpret the world is different from that of the people around us. (shrink)

Argues that in order to reinvigorate our moral inheritances we must endeavor not only to live well, but also to live better.

While Roman Catholic feminist ethicists typically endorse moral realism and crosscultural standards of justice, they also have been influenced by the postmodern interrogation of abstract reason and moral universalism. As theologians writing after the Second Vatican Council, they are increasingly sensitive to the communal and ecclesial dimensions of morality and of Christian ethics, and to the integral relation of Christian faith and ethics. This essay will consider two approaches to Catholic feminist ethics that differ in the relative weight they give (...) to constructive work for social justice, or to the grounding of ethics in prayer and mysticism. Using critical feminist reappropriations of the theology and ethics of Aquinas as examples, this essay will argue that the two approaches are overlapping and interdependent. (shrink)

Anderson explores the ramifications for the Middle East of the profound transformations in global politics at the end of the Cold War and the birth of a new, American-dominated world order.

This very short paper highlights some of my recent and forthcoming work on “good epistemic practices” in the financial services industry. It identifies some epistemic dimensions of risk management in banking and illustrates how managing for good epistemic practices might be helpful.

metaphysics of goodness is the work of an unrelentingly systematic mind, but this is no surprise at all. It is simply true to form for Bob Neville, who for decades has been working out the intricacies of his systematic thought. For Bob, being systematic has never meant being systematically selective of, but rather systematically attentive to the cosmic miscellany. This is no less true of his most recent work, in which he develops his strongly realist theory of goodness.The work as (...) a whole builds across three parts, each composed of four chapters, from the thesis of form as goodness to an account of personhood and human flourishing. These latter parts, where Neville transitions from cosmological considerations to... (shrink)

Given recent legal developments in the United States, now is a critical time to draw attention to how ‘conscientious objection’ is sometimes used by health care providers to discriminate against the LGBTQ community. We review legal developments from 2019 and present several cases where health care providers used conscientious objection in ways that discriminate against the LGBTQ community, resulting in damaged trust by this underserved population. We then discuss two important conceptual points in this debate. The first involves the interpretation (...) of discrimination (provider versus patient-centered views), and we argue for a patient-centered view; the second involves the use of the people versus procedure distinction to reach a compromise between LGBTQ individuals and the clinicians who do not want to treat them. We argue the distinction is problematic when applied to treatment of the LGBTQ population. (shrink)

The foundation of health can be understood by the heart only : in pursuit of knowledge about health in the light of Blaise Pascal's thinking.

How will we as feminists theorize these borders? How will we as beings whose very bodies are objects of globalization theorize a border which we dwell within? Ofelia Shutte asks whether it is “possible for Western feminism to disentangle itself from the historical forces of Western colonialism and from the erasure of otherness that such forces entail? (Shutte 2000, 59) I ask whether it is possible for feminism, Western or non-Western, Northern or Southern, to utilize the theoretical and political resource (...) that others, who are “othered” on both sides of the border, offer to feminist struggle. (shrink)

Individuals often describe objects in their world in terms of perceptual dimensions that span a variety of modalities; the visual (e.g., brightness: dark–bright), the auditory (e.g., loudness: quiet–loud), the gustatory (e.g., taste: sour–sweet), the tactile (e.g., hardness: soft vs. hard) and the kinaesthetic (e.g., speed: slow–fast). We ask whether individuals use perceptual dimensions to differentiate emotions from one another. Participants in two studies (one where respondents reported on abstract emotion concepts and a second where they reported on specific emotion episodes) (...) rated the extent to which features anchoring 29 perceptual dimensions (e.g., temperature, texture and taste) are associated with 8 emotions (anger, fear, sadness, guilt, contentment, gratitude, pride and excitement). Results revealed that in both studies perceptual dimensions differentiate positive from negative emotions and high arousal from low arousal emotions. They also differentiate among emotions that are similar in arousal and valence (e.g., high arousal negative emotions such as anger and fear). Specific features that anchor particular perceptual dimensions (e.g., hot vs. cold) are also differentially associated with emotions. (shrink)

Introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies on Pain and the Experience of Pain.

In this paper I argue that there is no moral justification for the conviction that rights should be reserved to humans. In particular, I reject James Griffin’s view on the moral relevance of the cultural dimension of humanity. Drawing from the original notion of individual right introduced in the Middle Ages and the development of this notion in the eighteenth century, I emphasise that the practice of according rights is justified by the interest in safeguarding the powers of reason and (...) autonomy that some individuals can exercise. Since we are in no position to rule out that non-humans can exercise these capacities, I conclude that rights should not be reserved to humans. This will lead to a reformulation of the reasons why so-called ‘marginal’ humans and non-human animals can be granted some basic rights. Being human is neither necessary nor sufficient for holding rights. All individuals, human or non-human, who can exercise reason and autonomy to some extent can be accorded basic rights in virtue of their having morally relevant preferences. (shrink)

Mounting globed environmental challenges beg for cross‐cultural discussions that highlight underlying cultural values regarding nature. This paper explores the insights of Islamic scholars as they examine the interaction of Islamic culture and the West. The Western worldview that separates religion and science, value and fact, in particular differs from Islamic tradition, which sees all facets of life and affairs as interconnected by virtue of their common source—the Creator. As traditional Islamic values have been abandoned to adopt modern Western technologies, environmental (...) problems have intensified in the Muslim world. Islamic scholars urge a return to Islamic ideals that reflect a sacramental view of the physical universe, and they champion the revival of an Islamic science that synthesizes empirical study and symbolic cognition. (shrink)

Chapter discussing what it takes for an activity to be an instance of scientific research.

A dimensional rather than a typological approach to studying class clown behavior was recently proposed (Ruch, Platt, & Hofmann, 2014). In the present study, four dimensions of class clown behavior (class clown role, comic talent, disruptive rule-breaker, and subversive joker) were used to investigate the associations between class clown behavior and indicators of social status and social functioning in the classroom in a sample of N = 300 students attending grades 6 to 9 (mean age: 13 years, 47.7% male). Participants (...) and their teachers completed measures of class clown behavior, and peer nominations of peer acceptance, mutual friends as well as social behavior in the classroom (popular-leadership, aggressive-disruptive, sensitive-isolated, and prosocial behaviors) were collected. The results showed that overall, class clown behavior was positively related to peer acceptance, the number of mutual friends in the classroom and peer-perceived social status. Overall, it was also positively related to peer-rated popular-leadership and aggressive-disruptive behaviors, as well as negatively related to prosocial behaviors. When considering the four dimensions of class clown behavior, comic talent was particularly relevant for the relationship with social status and with popular-leadership behaviors, but also with aggressive-disruptive behaviors. Aggressive-disruptive behaviors were also particularly related to the class clown dimension disruptive rule-breaker. The results underline the significance of class clown behavior for the social status and functioning of students and may help further understand the phenomenon in its multidimensional nature. (shrink)

I give a brief overview of Albert Casullo’s Essays on A Priori Knowledge and Justification (2012), followed by a summary of his diagnostic framework for evaluating accounts of a priori knowledge and a priori justification. I then discuss Casullo’s strategy for countering deficiency arguments against empiricism. A deficiency argument against empiricism can be countered by mounting a parallel argument against moderate rationalism that shows moderate rationalism to be defective in a similar way. I argue that a particular deficiency argument put (...) forth by George Bealer in “The Incoherence of Empiricism” (1992) can withstand a parallel challenge mounted by Casullo (2012, Ch.6). -/- I then consider Casullo’s preferred analysis of the concept of a priori justification, which identifies a belief’s being justified by some nonexperiential source as the feature by virtue of which it is justified a priori. On the analysis, an apriori-justfied belief that is justified to a degree that is sufficient for knowledge is not taken to be empirically indefeasible. I argue that Casullo could avail himself of an empirical indefeasibility requirement that is consistent with his minimal and fallibilist conception of a priori knowledge. Doing so would capture a feature of the concept of a priori knowledge that is of particular interest and significance. (shrink)

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.