An investigation into the way in which information technology has shaped how and what we know, from "Google-knowing" to privacy and social media.

This paper contributes to the (re-)conceptualisation of responsible innovation by proposing an evolutionary economic approach that focuses on the role of consumers in the innovation process. After a discussion of the philosophical foundations and ethical implications of this approach, which bears an explanatory potential that has not been adequately considered in previous discussions of responsible innovation, we present a first step towards capturing the important but often neglected role of consumers in innovation processes (including responsible innovation): We propose an agent-based (...) model that incorporates a multidimensional space of characteristics in which new products or services are represented by more than the mere aspect of price and quality. Instead, innovations are denoted by a large set of characteristics, including also negative or harmful ones. The model is used to illustrate that consumers’ heterogeneity and bounded rationality – even if considered in a simple manner – indeed play a crucial role in the creation and diffusion of responsible innovation which can and should be used for further work in this field and for possible extensions of the model. (shrink)

Know-it-All Society is about how we form and maintain our political convictions, and the ways in which political ideologies, human psychology and technology conspire to make our society more dogmatic, less intellectually humble and ultimately less democratic.

Beginning in earnest in the late 1990s, educational researchers devoted increasing attention to the study of “active learning,” leading to a robust literature on the topic in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Meanwhile, during largely the same period, political theorists discovered the radical philosophy of Giorgio Agamben, which soon after began to ripple through more radical forms of philosophy of education. While both the SoTL works on active learning and writings of “Agambenian” philosophers of education have offered new insights (...) into their respective fields, active learning has not yet received a systematic philosophical reflection and the community of Agambenian philosophy of education has not yet been systematized. This article addresses both gaps, first through an outline of existing Agambenian approaches to the philosophy of education and second by theorizing active learning as a form of “destituent potential.” The systematic reflection on the three threads of Agambenian philosophy of education—whatever, potentiality, and study—offers an introduction to less familiar readers, and the second section offers a model for how philosophical concepts can become theoretical tools for SoTL analysis. (shrink)

Emergent forms of political protest and constitution often provide limit cases for their contemporary theoretical models, and transnational protest movements from Occupy to Democracy in Europe 2025...

This paper examines ethical issues involved in the mass marketing of securities to individuals. The marketing of products deemed “socially questionable” or “sinful” (like tobacco and alcohol) has long been recognized as posing special ethical challenges (Kotler, P. and S. Levy: 1971, Harvard Business Review 49, 74–80; Davidson, D. K: 1996, Selling Sin: The Marketing of Socially Unacceptable Products (Quorum Press, Westport). We contend that marketers should consider securities (i.e. common stock, options) in a similar vein, as a potentially dangerous (...) product. Given the inherent volatility of equity prices, responsible marketers need to exercise caution and restraint in promoting securities. We evaluate whether the NYSE’s current guidelines adequately encourage ethical marketing practices and deter unethical ones. Using recent examples of controversial brokerage advertisements, we expose weaknesses in the Exchange’s vague injunction that members not “mislead” reasonable people by making “exaggerated claims” in their communications. From a moral perspective, we find it troublesome that intentionality need not be present for a promotion to be considered misleading. Also problematic is the continued invocation of the reasonable person standard to judge the propriety of advertisements. We close with some thoughts on improving the quality of securities marketing. We suggest that the NYSE, in the interests of fostering higher ethical behavior among member marketers, may need to revive a marketing code of conduct prevalent on Wall Street in an earlier era. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility has been intensively discussed in business ethics literature, whereas the social responsibility of private consumers appears to be less researched. However, there is also a growing interest from business ethicists and other scholars in the field of consumer social responsibility. Nevertheless, previous discussions of ConSR reveal the need for a viable conceptual basis for understanding the social responsibility of consumers in an increasingly globalized market economy. Moreover, evolutionary aspects of human morality seem to have been neglected despite (...) the fact that private consumers are undoubtedly human beings. In addition to that, empirical studies suggest that many consumers believe themselves to be responsible but do not act according to their alleged values or attitudes. This raises the question of what deters them from doing so. Therefore, the contribution of this conceptual paper is threefold: we conceptualize ConSR in terms of a combination of a Max Weber-inspired approach with the social connection approach to shared responsibility proposed by Iris Marion Young; shed light on the previously neglected implications of an evolutionarily induced bounded morality for ConSR, and identify potential obstacles to socially responsible consumption, particularly against the backdrop of shared social responsibility and bounded morality. In this latter respect, the paper focuses specifically on the obstacles of low moral intensity, moral stupefaction, informational complexity, and the lack of perceived consumer effectiveness. In sum, the paper advances knowledge in the field of ConSR by using a transdisciplinary, literature-based approach. (shrink)

Research has suggested a fundamental connection between fairness and well-being at the individual, relational, and societal levels. Mattering is a multidimensional construct consisting of feeling valued by, and adding value to, self and others. Prior studies have attempted to connect mattering to both fairness and a variety of well-being outcomes. Based on these findings, we hypothesize that mattering acts as a mediator between fairness and well-being. This hypothesis was tested through Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling using multidimensional measures of fairness, mattering, (...) and well-being. Results from a Latent Path Analysis conducted on a representative sample of 1,051U.S. adults provide support to our hypothesis by revealing a strong direct predictive effect of mattering onto well-being and a strong indirect effect of fairness onto well-being through mattering. Results also show that mattering is likely to fully mediate the relationship between fairness and multiple domains of well-being, except in one case, namely, economic well-being. These findings illustrate the value of a focus on mattering to understand the relationship between fairness and well-being and to provide future directions for theory, research, and practice. Theoretical implications for the experience of citizenship and participation, along with cross-cultural considerations, are also discussed. (shrink)

Are most people sincere when they share misinformation and conspiracies online? This question, while natural and important, is difficult to answer for obvious reasons. But it also applies poorly to one of the main vehicles for misinformation—memes. And it can be ambiguous; as a result, we should be mindful of two distinctions. First, a distinction between belief and a related propositional attitude, commitment. And second, the distinction between the propositional content of an attitude and what I will call its political (...) meaning. I will suggest that these distinctions not only can help us understand how we communicate online, but they also suggest a lesson about what we should be focusing on when fighting misinformation. (shrink)

In The Afterlife of Moses, Steinberg addresses the story of Moses and the Exodus as a foundational myth of politics, of the formation not of a nation but of a political community grounded in universal law. Motivated in part by this recent period of reactionary insurgency in the US, Europe, and Israel, this work of intellectual history articulates the way in which a critique of myths of origin as a principle of democratic government, affect, and citizenship has equal relevance in (...) these places and equal fragility. (shrink)

In this engaging and spirited text, Michael Lynch argues that truth does matter, in both our personal and political lives. He explains that the growing cynicism over truth stems in large part from our confusion over what truth is.

This paper addresses whether, how, and to what extent social studies student teachers who have been introduced to inquiry-oriented teaching (as manifest in the National Council for the Social Studies C3 Framework) in their secondary social studies methods course incorporate this approach into the planning for their practicum experience. Based on analysis of lesson plans used in the practicum and follow-up interviews with a small subset of student teachers, this paper analyzes the factors that promote or inhibit use of this (...) approach to teaching in their practicum experience. Results indicate the C3-oriented teaching approach, as taught in the methods course, did appear in the student teachers’ lesson plans. A small subset of student teachers used the framework competently while two smaller subsets were less adept in their application. The degree of application was affected by student teachers’ perceptions of their school placements and students’ needs. (shrink)

Extract: Clearly, academic life takes place at the intersection of many social practices. If MacIntyre is right, the role-specific virtues of academic life should be understood in terms of these practices.2 Academic virtues are those excellences required to obtain the internal goods of the social practices constituting academic life. And the social practices of academic life are sustained, competitive and cooperative attempts to achieve a set of academic goals and realize academic forms of excellence. They are also sustained attempts to (...) expand and improve conceptions of these goals and forms of excellence. They emerge out of traditions—for instance the tradition of scientific argument— and must be understood in terms of these traditions. MacIntyre argues that this preliminary account of virtues in relation to social practices needs to be deepened in two ways: connecting it to the unity of an individual’s life on the one hand and to a coherent historical tradition on the other. Virtues are not just any set of traits delivering the internal goods of social practices, but those that serve to make coherent a person’s life and her place in an on-going tradition. They are crucial to lending meaning to one’s life and its struggles. (shrink)

At the heart of this essay lies the problem of Christian universals.Sin-talk is arguably Christian theology’s primary contribution to any account of the human condition. Fashionable or unfashionabl...

The rapid advancement of algorithmic trading has demonstrated the success of AI automation, as well as gaps in our understanding of the implications of this technology proliferation. We explore ethical issues in the context of autonomous trading agents, both to address problems in this domain and as a case study for regulating autonomous agents more generally. We argue that increasingly competent trading agents will be capable of initiative at wider levels, necessitating clarification of ethical and legal boundaries, and corresponding development (...) of norms and enforcement capability. (shrink)

‘Epistemics: an enterprise linking traditional epistemology, first with cognitive science and, second, with social scientific and humanistic disciplines that explore the interpersonal and cultural processes impinging on knowledge and belief’ (Epistemology and Cognition, p. vii).

This paper addresses some of Sellars's views on conceptual change and revision, spread across several books and articles. It begins with Sellars's distinction between rules of criticism and rules of action. I argue that Sellars's distinction here actually sheds light on the epistemology of theoretical revision. Many revisions of theoretical commitments can be motivated by the force of rules of action that govern the maintenance of our theories. I offer a partial account of this, positing two rules of action. A (...) rule of maximizing explanatory strength compels us to refine and revise theories to improve their performance, while a rule of conservatism puts boundaries on the acceptable pursuit of those goals. The dynamic between these two guides revision, narrowing the range of acceptable options. Sellars's conception of the roles of analogy and affinity are considered, as well as an elaboration of a Sellarsian point about meaning change. (shrink)

This philosophical analysis of the phenomenon of racism brings together some of the most influential analytic philosophers writing on racism today. The introduction by Tamas Pataki outlines the historical and thematic development of conceptions of race and racism, and locates the following essays against the backdrop of contemporary reactions to that development. While the framework is primarily analytic, the volume also includes essays deeply informed by psychoanalysis, phenomenology, and feminist and social theory. The fourteen chapters in this collection address three (...) interrelated questions: What is racism? What are the causes of racism? and What are the moral and political implications of racism? Although their approaches are wide ranging, the contributors to Racism in Mind broadly endorse a psychological-characterological approach to the understanding of many aspects of racism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Political Affections: Civic Participation and Moral Theology by Joshua HordernMichael P. JaycoxPolitical Affections: Civic Participation and Moral Theology By Joshua Hordern NEW YORK: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2013. 312 PP. $125.00Hordern asks his reader to consider that the decline of participatory democracy in Western societies may be ameliorated by a renewed appreciation of the role of emotions in politics. Creatively retrieving many elements of the Augustinian tradition, he argues (...) that the “evaluative intentionality” of emotions is an imperfect type of moral insight whereby human beings both participate in and conform themselves to the created “order of value” (40, 77). Although the power of sin profoundly destabilizes human inclinations, emotions can become stable moral guides through a process of “intersubjective verification” (81). Hordern claims that the epistemological capacities of socially stabilized emotions are substantial enough to enable the community to “participate in and evaluate the goods with which institutional practices are concerned, recognize the authority of those who promote the proper ends of those goods, and initiate common political reflection and deliberation” (142).Bringing these insights to bear upon his own political context, Hordern claims the “resentment,” “alienation,” and “disillusionment” that some British citizens feel toward the cosmopolitan project of the European Union stands as [End Page 213] evidence that “law which is not primarily rooted in the locality which it governs will run the risk of opposing the affections of the people” (22, 23, 242). Working from the premise that “local loves are the fertile soil in which more wide-ranging loves may grow,” Hordern champions “the politically beneficial possibilities of a limited ethnocentricity,” by which he means that emotions shared in smaller communities and within nation-states motivate citizens to attend to the common good most effectively (224, 240).Anticipating the objections to this proposal, Hordern assures his reader that the influence of Christianity upon democratic processes minimizes the negative effects of ethnocentric nationalism, such as the oppression of socially vulnerable groups. Insofar as Christian emotions participate uniquely in the transcendent order of values, the participation of this community in the temporal order would “disturb, renew, or correct patterns of social trust” (271) and provide “a critical standpoint whereby affections in all institutions may be described and assessed” (164).This reviewer shares some of Hordern’s general premises regarding the intelligence of emotions and their motivational potential in public life. By way of evaluation, however, I find three significant problems with his argument. First, although Hordern grasps Martha Nussbaum’s emotion theory quite well, he habitually mischaracterizes the more central aspects of her moral thought in order to prop up his somewhat more conservative agenda. For example, he accuses her of denying the existence of a “stable moral order” and of endorsing an individualistic concept of agency (98). These inferences fail to account for the highly social and essentialist vision of human flourishing that provides the normative content of her capability theory and her feminist ethic.Second, he offers some weak arguments as he develops his account of emotional stabilization. For example, he alleges that virtue cannot stabilize emotion because it is a form of “epistemological self-dependence” that “tends to block repentant attentiveness,” but this assertion is grounded in his antecedent concern to discredit Aristotelian habituation as a moral theory (110, 101). As he develops his own alternative proposal about intersubjective verification by appeals to “the power of memory,” he glosses over significant counterarguments concerning the “contested” nature of social memories of historical events (110, 115).Third, Hordern does not propose any universal norms of justice capable of checking the authority of particular civil governments. For example, he seems dismissive about the moral dangers of emotionally motivated nationalism, the gravity of which he attempts to minimize by emphasizing the critical aspect of Christian political participation. (The historical record of fascism in Europe would hardly support such a claim.) Nevertheless, he presumes a tacit normative point of reference every time he offers a political judgment. For example, he claims that civil authority should caution “against overreaching [End Page 214] itself in pride,” but this is to beg the question of what the interventionist role of governments should be vis-à-vis systemic injustice (198).Political... (shrink)

Minimalists generally see themselves as engaged in a descriptive project. They maintain that they can explain everything we want to say about truth without appealing to anything other than the T-schema, i.e., the idea that the proposition that p is true iff p. I argue that despite recent claims to the contrary, minimalists cannot explain one important belief many people have about truth, namely, that truth is good. If that is so, then minimalism, and possibly deflationism as a whole, must (...) be rejected or recast as a profoundly revisionary project. (shrink)

Janna Thompson dismisses environmental ethics primarily because it does not meet her criteria for ethics: consistency, non-vacuity, and decidability. In place of a more expansive environmental ethic, she proposes to limit moral considerability to beings with a “point of view.” I contend, first, that a point-of-view centered ethic is unacceptable not only because it fails to meet the tests of her own and other criteria,but also because it is precisely the type of ethic that has contributed to our current environmental (...) dilemmas. Second, I argue that the holistic, ecocentric land ethic of Aldo Leopold, as developed by J. Baird Callicott, an environmental ethic that Thompson never considers, nicely meets Thompson’s criteria for acceptable ethics, and may indeed be the cure for our environmental woes. (shrink)

The practice of recontact in genomic medicine has the power to help rectify long‐standing inequities in genetic testing. However, if not delivered systematically, recontacting practices also have the potential to reinforce these same inequities. Recontact, which occurs when contact between a clinician and patient is reinitiated after a relationship has ended, is often in search of or in response to updated interpretation or results. Currently, recontact is happening in a patient‐driven and ad hoc manner, undermining its potential to benefit all (...) patients. In this paper, the authors position justice as an additional argument in favor of systematic recontact and an argument against the predominantly patient‐initiated model. They argue that patients from equity‐deserving groups should be early beneficiaries of an emerging responsibility to recontact patients. The authors share illustrative clinical vignettes and propose role‐specific and systems‐level solutions to rightfully position recontact as a tool to promote a more equitable clinical genomics future. (shrink)

The present article undertakes a psychological reading of The Child's Conception of the World as a cultural artifact in which genetic psychology's naturalistic and positivistic assumptions reflect an Enlightenment model of science, and Piaget figures as an agent of technological rationality. A phenomenological analysis of the text reveals how Piaget's research engages in an active repression of specific dimensions of childhood experience. Young children's 'adualistic' conceptions of thought, self and language are deemed 'confused', and thereby discounted, by virtue of the (...) fact such children do not 'correctly' dichotomize experience in accord with the cultural norm of mechanistic rationality. Piaget's numerous associations of the child's 'primitive' views and the (childish) thought of the pre-Socratics are briefly explored. (shrink)