To what extent do moral judgments depend on conscious reasoning from explicitly understood principles? We address this question by investigating one particular moral principle, the principle of the double effect. Using web-based technology, we collected a large data set on individuals' responses to a series of moral dilemmas, asking when harm to innocent others is permissible. Each moral dilemma presented a choice between action and inaction, both resulting in lives saved and lives lost. Results showed that: (1) patterns of moral (...) judgments were consistent with the principle of double effect and showed little variation across differences in gender, age, educational level, ethnicity, religion or national affiliation (within the limited range of our sample population) and (2) a majority of subjects failed to provide justifications that could account for their judgments. These results indicate that the principle of the double effect may be operative in our moral judgments but not open to conscious introspection. We discuss these results in light of current psychological theories of moral cognition, emphasizing the need to consider the unconscious appraisal system that mentally represents the causal and intentional properties of human action. (shrink)

In his 1927 Analysis of Matter and elsewhere, Russell argued that we can successfully infer the structure of the external world from that of our explanatory schemes. While nothing guarantees that the intrinsic qualities of experiences are shared by their objects, he held that the relations tying together those relata perforce mirror relations that actually obtain (these being expressible in the formal idiom of the Principia Mathematica). This claim was subsequently criticized by the Cambridge mathematician Max Newman as true but (...) trivial, insofar as from a closed body of observations (or “Ramsey sentence”) one can always generate other equally-satisfactory networks of relations, provided they respect the original set’s cardinality. Since any model thus generated will be empirically adequate, “[t]he defence is therefore driven back from the fairly safe fictitious-real classification to the much less tenable ‘trivial’ and ‘important’” (Newman 1928). Given the definitional rigour afforded by the initial appeal to isomorphism (via one-to-one correspondences in extension), the received assessment, shared by Russell himself, is that retreating to a pragmatic adjudication would betoken a fatal blow. However, I suggest that reliance on “importance” can be avoided if we incorporate an impersonal criterion of diachronic precedence. When collecting observations, an ordinality emerges alongside the cardinality which gives that underived structure an irrevocable epistemological privilege. Hence, I argue that, all other things being equal, any construct parasitic on an antecedent theory ought to be regarded as inferior/dispensable, since it was generated by an algorithm lacking the world-involving pedigree of its host structure. (shrink)

This paper examines the species problem in microbiology and its implications for the species problem more generally. Given the different meanings of ‘species’ in microbiology, the use of ‘species’ in biology is more multifarious and problematic than commonly recognized. So much so, that recent work in microbial systematics casts doubt on the existence of a prokaryote species category in nature. It also casts doubt on the existence of a general species category for all of life (one that includes both prokaryotes (...) and eukaryotes). Prokaryote biology also undermines recent attempts to save the species category, such as the suggestion that species are metapopulation lineages and the idea that ‘species’ is a family resemblance concept. (shrink)

Ceteris-paribus clauses are nothing to worry about; aceteris-paribus qualifier is not poisonously indeterminate in meaning. Ceteris-paribus laws teach us that a law need not be associated straightforwardly with a regularity in the manner demanded by regularity analyses of law and analyses of laws as relations among universals. This lesson enables us to understand the sense in which the laws of nature would have been no different under various counterfactual suppositions — a feature even of those laws that involve no ceteris-paribus (...) qualification and are actually associated with exceptionless regularities. Ceteris-paribus generalizations of an‘inexact science’ qualify as laws of that science in virtue of their distinctive relation to counterfactuals: they form a set that is stable for the purposes of that field. (Though an accident may possess tremendous resilience under counterfactual suppositions, the laws are sharply distinguished from the accidents in that the laws are collectively as resilient as they could logically possibly be.) The stability of an inexact science's laws may involve their remaining reliable even under certain counterfactual suppositions violating fundamental laws of physics. The ceteris-paribus laws of an inexact science may thus possess a kind of necessity lacking in the fundamental laws of physics. A nomological explanation supplied by an inexact science would then be irreducible to an explanation of the same phenomenon at the level of fundamental physics. Island biogeography is used to illustrate how a special science could be autonomous in this manner. (shrink)

This paper explores an important type of biological explanation called ‘homology thinking.’ Homology thinking explains the properties of a homologue by citing the history of a homologue. Homology thinking is significant in several ways. First, it offers more detailed explanations of biological phenomena than corresponding analogy explanations. Second, it provides an important explanation of character similarity and difference. Third, homology thinking offers a promising account of multiple realizability in biology.

A conservation law in physics can be either a constraint on the kinds of interaction there could be or a coincidence of the kinds of interactions there actually are. This is an important, unjustly neglected distinction. Only if a conservation law constrains the possible kinds of interaction can a derivation from it constitute a scientific explanation despite failing to describe the causal/mechanical details behind the result derived. This conception of the relation between “bottom-up” scientific explanations and one kind of “top-down” (...) scientific explanation is motivated by several examples from classical and modern physics. (shrink)

Across the management, social science, and business ethics literatures, and in much of the philosophy literature, trust is characterized as a disposition to act given epistemic states—beliefs and/or expectations about others and about the risks involved. This characterization of trust is best thought of as epistemological because epistemic states distinguish trust from other dispositions. The epistemological characterization of trust is the amoral one referred to in the title of this paper, and we argue that this characterization is conceptually inadequate. We (...) outline and defend an alternative conception of trust as a moral phenomenon: when A trusts B to do something, A invites B to acknowledge and accept an obligation; when B accepts the invitation, B takes on an obligation; in that way trust creates an obligation. We conclude with an application, drawing out the difference between the epistemological conception of trust and our own in the context of Ghoshal et al.'s (Sloan Management Review 40:9—20, 1995, Academy of Management Learning & Education 4:75—91, 2005) critique of transaction cost theories of the firm. (shrink)

Sober 2011 argues that, contrary to Hume, some causal statements can be known a priori to be true—notably, some ‘would promote’ statements figuring in causal models of natural selection. We find Sober's argument unconvincing. We regard the Humean thesis as denying that causal explanations contain any a priori knowable statements specifying certain features of events to be causally relevant. We argue that not every ‘would promote’ statement is genuinely causal, and we suggest that Sober has not shown that his examples (...) of ‘would promote’ statements manage to achieve a priori status without sacrificing their causal character. (shrink)

The Food and Drug Administration authorizes the marketing of a drug only for uses that the manufacturer has demonstrated to be safe and effective, based on evidence from at least two clinical trials. However, the FDA does not regulate the practice of medicine, so physicians may prescribe drugs in any manner they choose. Prescribing drugs in ways that deviate from the uses specified in the FDA-approved drug label, package insert, and marketing authorization is referred to as off-label prescribing. This occurs (...) when physicians prescribe a drug for a therapeutic purpose other than the one approved by the FDA; treat patients in a different age cohort or gender than the population on which it was tested; or prescribe a different dose, for a different duration of use, or a different mode of administration than indicated on the label. (shrink)

Funding is an important mechanism for exercising influence over ever more parts of academic systems. In order to do so, funding agencies attempt to export their functional and normative prerequisites for financing to new fields. One essential requirement for fundees is then to construct research processes in the form of a project beforehand, one that is limited in time, scope and content. This article demonstrates how the public funding of doctoral programs expands this model of project research from experienced academics (...) to the socialization process for the new academic generation. This process of “projectification” underlies funding-driven institutional changes in doctoral training. A multi-level comparative study of German policies, funding mechanisms and organizational frameworks for doctoral training demonstrates the emergence of a specific model of predefined PhD projects. The investigation of doctoral training practices reveals that socio-epistemic preconditions regulate whether research fields adopted or rejected this demanding model. This result contradicts widespread claims about a radical change in doctoral training and suggests focusing on the actual practices of field-specific doctoral research. (shrink)

In this article we present a new experimental paradigm: comparative visual search. Each half of a display contains simple geometrical objects of three different colors and forms. The two display halves are identical except for one object mismatched in either color or form. The subject's task is to find this mismatch. We illustrate the potential of this paradigm for investigating the underlying complex processes of perception and cognition by means of an eye‐tracking study. Three possible search strategies are outlined, discussed, (...) and reexamined on the basis of experimental results. Each strategy is characterized by the way it partitions the field of objects into “chunks.” These strategies are: (i) Stimulus‐wise scanning with minimization of total scan path length (a “traveling salesman” strategy), (ii) scanning of the objects in fixed‐size areas (a “searchlight” strategy), and (iii) scanning of object sets based on variably sized clusters defined by object density and heterogeneity (a “clustering” strategy). To elucidate the processes underlying comparative visual search, we introduce besides object density a new entropy‐based measure for object heterogeneity. The effects of local density and entropy on several basic and derived eye‐movement variables clearly rule out the traveling salesman strategy, but are most compatible with the clustering strategy. (shrink)

The Human Genome Project is an expensive, ambitious, and controversial attempt to locate and map every one of the approximately 100,000 genes in the human body. If it works, and we are able, for instance, to identify markers for genetic diseases long before they develop, who will have the right to obtain such information? What will be the consequences for health care, health insurance, employability, and research priorities? And, more broadly, how will attitudes toward human differences be affected, morally and (...) socially, by the setting of a genetic “standard”? The compatibility of individual rights and genetic fairness is challenged by the technological possibilities of the future, making it difficult to create an agenda for a “just genetics.” Beginning with an account of the utopian dreams and authoritarian tendencies of historical eugenics movements, this book’s nine essays probe the potential social uses and abuses of detailed genetic information. Lucid and wide-ranging, these contributions will interest bioethicists, legal scholars, and policy makers. Essays: “The Genome Project and the Meaning of Difference,” Timothy F. Murphy “Eugenics and the Human Genome Project: Is the Past Prologue?,” Daniel J. Kevles “Handle with Care: Race, Class, and Genetics,” Arthur L. Caplan “Public Choices and Private Choices: Legal Regulation of Genetic Testing,” Lori B. Andrews “Rules for Gene Banks: Protecting Privacy in the Genetics Age,” George J. Annas “Use of Genetic Information by Private Insurers,” Robert J. Pokorski “The Genome Project, Individual Differences, and Just Health Care,” Norman Daniels “Just Genetics: A Problem Agenda,” Leonard M. Fleck “Justice and the Limitations of Genetic Knowledge,” Marc A. Lappé. (shrink)

What has compelled Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, and abroad to promote a positive image of Ottomans and Turks while they deny the Armenian genocide and the existence of anti-Semitism in Turkey? The dominant historical narrative is that Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 were embraced by the Ottoman Empire, and then later, protected from the Nazis during WWII. If we believe that Turks and Jews have lived in harmony for so long, then it is hard for us to (...) accept that the Turks could have committed genocide against the Armenians. In this article, the author confronts these convictions and circumstances to reflect on what moral responsibility the descendants of the victims of one genocide have to the descendants of victims of another. Baer delves into the history of Muslim-Jewish relations in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to tease out the origin of these many tangled truths. He aims to bring about reconciliation between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, not only to face inconvenient historical facts, but to confront it and come to terms with it. By looking at the complexities of interreligious relations, Holocaust denial, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and confronting some long-standing historical stereotypes, the author sets out to tell a new history that goes against Turkish antisemitism and admits to the Armenian genocide. (shrink)

Aristotle, as well, places che species in che position of predícate, but he does so in Metaphysics Z4, in a search that, beyond the seizing of che quiddity, attains in Z 17 the substance as cause through the form of its model of being: in itself, separate and one. Failing to recognise chis approach, che substitution by Porphyre of the species and the difference for the definition, reinforce this misreading for centuries, thus impedíng the passage, wíth Met. H, from what (...) completes the definition: the difference, to what, beyond che form, constitutes che first completion of the substance: its act of being. (shrink)

Many of our ideological, political, moral, religious, aesthetic, scientific beliefs, as well as those concerning everyday life, are controversial; other people do not share them. As a rule, that does not bother us much: we tend to retain our contestable beliefs even if we ascribe no less skill and well-informedness to those who represent other points of view than to ourselves. But is that really reasonable? Shouldn't we often admit that we might be as wrong as others? And if we (...) do, shouldn't this consequently lead us to give up many of our beliefs in favor of agnostic attitudes? Marc Andree Weber argues that in the face of disagreement with equally competent and well-informed interlocutors we should almost always refrain from insisting on our controversial beliefs – with the few exceptions being all the more remarkable. (shrink)

Standardly, epistemic peers regarding a given matter are said to be people of equal competence who share all relevant evidence. Alternatively, one can define epistemic peers regarding a given matter as people who are equally likely to be right about that matter. I argue that a definition in terms of likelihood captures the essence of epistemic peerhood better than the standard definition or any variant of it. What is more, a likelihood definition implies the truth of the central thesis in (...) the debate on peer disagreement, the so-called Equal Weight View, according to which we should give the opinions of our peers the same weight we give our own. Adopting a likelihood definition, however, does not end the debate on peer disagreement, because the alleged theoretical alternatives to the Equal Weight View, reinterpreted in the light of a likelihood definition, can in fact be shown to be compatible with this view—though the reinterpreted versions may appear less plausible than the original ones. (shrink)

Environmental philosophers spend considerable time drawing the divide between humans and the rest of nature. Some argue that humans and our actions are unnatural. Others allow that humans are natural, but maintain that humans are nevertheless distinct. The motivation for distinguishing humans from the rest of nature is the desire to determine what aspects of the environment should be preserved. The standard view is that we should preserve those aspects of the environment outside of humans and our influence. This paper (...) examines the standard view by asking two questions. First, are the suggested grounds for distinguishing humans from the rest of the environment viable? Second, is such a distinction even needed for determining what to preserve? The paper concludes that debates over whether humans are natural and whether humans are unique are unhelpful when deciding what to preserve. (shrink)

Empathy is likely more widely distributed among animals than many researchers realize or perhaps are willing to admit. Studies of social carnivores, other group-living animals, and communication via different modalities will help us learn more about the evolutionary roots and behavioral, sensory, and cognitive underpinnings of empathy, including what it means to have a sense of self. There are also important implications for debates about animal well-being.

Whereas classic work in judgment and decision making has focused on the deviation of intuition from rationality, more recent research has focused on the performance of intuition in real-world environments. Borrowing from both approaches, we investigate to which extent competing models of intuitive probabilistic decision making overlap with choices according to the axioms of probability theory and how accurate those models can be expected to perform in real-world environments. Specifically, we assessed to which extent heuristics, models implementing weighted additive information (...) integration (WADD), and the parallel constraint satisfaction (PCS) network model approximate the Bayesian solution and how often they lead to correct decisions in a probabilistic decision task. PCS and WADD outperform simple heuristics on both criteria with an approximation of 88.8% and a performance of 73.7%. Results are discussed in the light of selection of intuitive processes by reinforcement learning. (shrink)

In order to be able to provide informed, effective and responsive mental health care and to do so in an evidence‐based, collaborative and recovery‐focused way with those who use mental health services, there is a recognition of the need for mental health professionals to possess sophisticated critical thinking capabilities. This article will therefore propose that such capabilities can be productively situated within the context of the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, one of the most challenging, innovative and influential (...) thinkers of the 20th century. However, rather than focusing exclusively upon the content of Foucault's work, it will be suggested that it is possible to discern a general methodological approach across that work, a methodological approach that he refers to as “the history of the present.” In doing so, Foucault's history of the present can be understood as a productive, albeit provisional, framework in which to orientate the purpose and process of critical thinking for mental health professionals by emphasizing the need to both historicize and politicize the theoretical perspectives and therapeutic practices that characterize contemporary mental health care. (shrink)

AUTOUR DE LA RELIGION REFLEXIVE. Le concept de réflexivité chez Jean-Marc Ferry. Réflexions sur le point de vue moral. Dépasser l'ex-communication politique du religieux. AUTOUR DE LA REPUBLIQUE CREPUSCULAIRE. Prendre l'Europe au sérieux. Une éthique de la reconnaissance internationale. Pour une république européenne placée sous le signe de l'aurore.

Engineering, as a complex and multidimensional practice of technology development, has long been a source of ethical concerns. These concerns have been approached from various perspectives. There are ongoing debates in the literature of the philosophy of engineering/technology about how to organize an optimized view of the values entailed in technology development processes. However, these debates deliver little in the way of a concrete rationale or framework that could comprehensively describe different types of engineering values and their multi-aspect interrelations in (...) real engineering practices. Approaching engineering values from a meaning-based perspective, as in this paper, can be a reliable method of tackling such a controversial problem. This paper therefore proposes that technology development be considered a systemic normative practice and attempts to provide a comprehensive view of various built-in values, their different origins and features, and a way of prioritizing them in real engineering processes. Studying two cases of the Zayandeh Rood Dam and the Abbasi Dam will lead to practical insights into how to understand norms in technology development and incorporate them into engineering practice. (shrink)