Are interpersonal affordances a distinct type of affordance, and if so, what is it that differentiates them from other kinds of affordances? In this paper, I show that a hard distinction between interpersonal affordances and other affordances is warranted and ethically important. The enactivist theory of participatory sense-making demonstrates that there is a difference in coupling between agent-environment and agent-agent interactions, and these differences in coupling provide a basis for distinguishing between the perception of environmental and interpersonal affordances. Building further (...) on this foundation for understanding interpersonal affordances, I argue that in line with some enactivist work on social cognition, interpersonal affordances ought to be considered as those that are afforded by agents and are recognized as such. Given this distinction, I also make the point that because our social conventions establish persons as more than mere agents, the direct perception of interpersonal affordances may also involve seeing others as embodied selves. Distinguishing between types of affordances thus also matters ethically: there can be harms done when an agent is not perceived as an agent, and there can be harms done when an agent is not perceived as a self. (shrink)

Recently, I argued that human subjects in artificial wombs ‘share the same moral status as newborns’ and so, deserve the same treatment and protections as newborns. This thesis rests on two claims: subjects of partial ectogenesis—those that develop in utero for at time before being transferred to AWs—are newborns and subjects of complete ectogenesis—those who develop in AWs entirely—share the same moral status as newborns. In response, Elizabeth Chloe Romanis argued that the subject in an AW is ‘a unique human (...) entity…rather than a fetus or a newborn’. She provides four lines of response to my essay. First, she argues that I have ‘misconstrued’ what birth is. Once we correct that error, it becomes clear that subjects of partial ectogenesis have not been born. Second, she argues that my claims imply that non-implanted embryos ‘would also be “born”’. But that is absurd. Third, she claims I fail to ‘meaningfully respond’ to distinctions she draws between subjects of ectogenesis and neonates. Finally, she criticises my essay for focusing on subjects of AWs rather than focusing on pregnant persons. I respond to each of these charges. In doing so, I reaffirm that some subjects of ectogenesis are newborns and all subjects of ectogenesis—even those that have not been born—share the same moral status as newborns. (shrink)

Was the first book to examine the exciting area of overlap between philosophy and quantum mechanics with chapters by leading experts from around the world.

I argue that evidentialism should be rejected because it cannot be reconciled with empirical work on bias in cognitive and social psychology.

The term “posthuman” has been used in very different senses by different authors.2 I am sympathetic to the view that the word often causes more confusion than clarity, and that we might be better off replacing it with some alternative vocabulary.

In this paper epistemic pluralism concerning knowledge is taken to be the claim that very different facts may constitute knowledge. The paper argues for pluralism by arguing that very different facts can constitute the knowledge‐making links between beliefs and facts. If pluralism is right, we need not anxiously seek a unified account of the links between beliefs and facts that partly constitute knowledge in different cases of knowledge. The paper argues that no good reasons have been put forward in favour (...) of believing in a unified maker of knowledge. It then appeals to the role of knowledge in order to argue that we have positive reason to embrace pluralism. (shrink)

Responding to serious environmental problems, requires urgent and fundamental shifts in our day-to-day lifestyles. This paper employs a qualitative, cross-cultural approach to explore people’s subjective self-reflections on their experiences of pro-environmental behavioral spillover in three countries; Brazil, China, and Denmark. Behavioral spillover is an appealing yet elusive phenomenon, but offers a potential way of encouraging wider, voluntary lifestyle shifts beyond the scope of single behavior change interventions. Behavioral spillover theory proposes that engaging in one pro-environmental action can catalyze the performance (...) of others. To date, evidence for the phenomenon has been mixed, and the causal processes governing relationships between behaviors appear complex, inconsistent and only partly understood. This paper addresses a gap in the literature by investigating accounts of behavioral spillover in three diverse cultural settings using qualitative semi-structured interviews. The analysis shows that while around half of participants overall who were questioned recalled spillover effects, the other half had not consciously experienced spillover. There were few significant differences across cultures, though some forms of spillover effects were reported more in some cultures than others. More environmentally-engaged participants across all three countries were significantly more likely to experience spillover than those who were less engaged. Accounts of within-domain spillovers were most commonly reported, mainly comprising waste, resource conservation and consumption-related actions. Accounts of between-domain spillover were very rare. Recollection of contextual and interpersonal spillover effects also emerged from the interviews. Our findings suggest that more conscious behavioral spillover pathways may be limited to those with pre-existing environmental values. Behavioral spillover may comprise multiple pathways incorporating conscious and unconscious processes. We conclude that targeting behavioral catalysts that generate more socially diffuse spillover effects could offer more potential than conventional spillover involving a single individual. (shrink)

Recent research suggests that language evolution is a process of cultural change, in which linguistic structures are shaped through repeated cycles of learning and use by domain-general mechanisms. This paper draws out the implications of this viewpoint for understanding the problem of language acquisition, which is cast in a new, and much more tractable, form. In essence, the child faces a problem of induction, where the objective is to coordinate with others (C-induction), rather than to model the structure of the (...) natural world (N-induction). We argue that, of the two, C-induction is dramatically easier. More broadly, we argue that understanding the acquisition of any cultural form, whether linguistic or otherwise, during development, requires considering the corresponding question of how that cultural form arose through processes of cultural evolution. This perspective helps resolve the “logical” problem of language acquisition and has far-reaching implications for evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

morality? I want to pursue these questions by examining an argument against moral realism that Simon Blackburn has developed.' In parts 1 and 2, I consider..

People are unable to report how they decide whether to move backwards or forwards to catch a ball. When asked to imagine how their angle of elevation of gaze would change when they caught a ball, most people are unable to describe what happens although their interception strategy is based on controlling changes in this angle. Just after catching a ball, many people are unable to recognise a description of how their angle of gaze changed during the catch. Some people (...) confidently choose incorrect descriptions that would guarantee failure of interception demonstrating unconscious knowledge co-existing with systematically different conscious beliefs. Where simple solutions to important evolutionary problems exist, unconscious perception needs to be impervious to conscious beliefs. (shrink)

This paper argues that the dirty hands literature has overlooked a crucial distinction in neglecting to discuss explicitly the issue of, what I call, symmetry. This is the question of whether, once we are confronted with a dirty hands situation, we could emerge with our hands clean depending on the action we choose. A position that argues that we can keep our hands clean I call “asymmetrical” and one that says that we will get our hands dirty no matter what (...) we do I call “symmetrical”. Not acknowledging this distinction is a problem because, firstly, it adds to the existing confusions about how best to define what dirty hands are. Secondly, it prevents the concept of dirty hands from being applied properly to other contexts such as, for example, the responsibility and accountability of politicians. I argue that we have good reason to favour a symmetrical understanding because it gives a more convincing account of what makes an action dirty and because it more accurately captures our complex moral decision-making when faced with dirty hands situations. The paper concludes by outlining possible implications that the distinction between the symmetry view and the asymmetry view has on wider debates surrounding the problem of dirty hands. (shrink)

This paper considers three arguments by David Shugarman and Maureen Ramsay for why dirty hands cannot be democratic. The first argues that it is contradictory, in principle, to use undemocratic means to pursue democratic ends. There is a conceptual connection between means and ends such that getting one’s hands dirty is incompatible with acting in accordance with democratic ends. The second claims that using dirty-handed means, in practice, will undermine democracy more than it promotes it and therefore cannot be justified. (...) The final criticism states that politicians with dirty hands are a sign that politics is no longer meeting the criteria necessary to be called democratic. The paper shows that such rejections of democratic dirty hands are based on misunderstandings of the nature of dirty hands and democratic politics. (shrink)

The problem of dirty hands is, roughly speaking, concerned with situations in which an agent is faced with a choice between two evils so that, no matter what they do, they will have to violate something of important moral value. Theorists have been primarily concerned with dirty hands choices arising in politics because they are thought to be particularly frequent and pressing in this sphere. Much of the subsequent discussion in the literature has focused on the impact that such choices (...) have on a well-functioning democracy and how, if at all, we can ensure that a politician dirtying their hands does not undermine core democratic values and processes. A particular concern has been whether dirty-handed politicians ought to publicly reveal their actions after the fact and whether they should be held accountable through some form of punishment. The first aim of this paper is to point out that the focus on what is required in the wake of a dirty-handed decision, based on the need to protect the democratic system ought to be balanced with a genuine concern for reparative justice and what is owed to the victims of dirty hands. In the second part of this paper, I then examine the suitability of one common way in which perpetrators partly repair the damage they have done to victims, namely apologizing, in the dirty hands context. (shrink)

What are the groundrules in the philosophy of art? What criteria of adequacy should we use for assessing theories of art?

I reply to some recent comments by Brian Weatherson on my 'simulation argument'. I clarify some interpretational matters, and address issues relating to epistemological externalism, the difference from traditional brain-in-a-vat arguments, and a challenge based on 'grue'-like predicates.

In two experiments, we examined whether POWER is embodied in terms of horizontal forward and backward movement using an action compatibility task. Participants were asked to categorize power-relate...

This paper reviews the severe visual focus problems of health economists–they have developed a one-sided fixation with equity issues, neglecting the efficiency agenda. The problems of meeting need are not just about access–they will vary with cost and supply. Economists in fact developed a more balanced agenda in the 1970s but have failed to follow it up. The paper defines the triple nationalisation of the National Health Service , and presents evidence that pluralism, using the purchaser/provider split, has become more (...) efficient in long term care, home care and services for people with learning difficulties. Health economics has failed to explore options for using the dynamic forces of choice and competition for improving health services. The paper makes the case for a decision rule that “we should seek the process of health care service supply and development which maximises the delivery of high quality, lower cost user relevant services”. (shrink)

Despite his longstanding silence regarding Marx’s Capital, I wish here to argue that Badiou has in fact, in the three volumes of Being and Event, produced the materials for a contemporary logic of the capitalist social form. He has done so, however, in the form of an arsenal of abstract concepts that have yet to be precisely measured against Marx’s critical and formal reproduction of capitalism, the systematic exposition of which consumes the three volumes of Capital. I first argue that (...) Badiou’s general disinterest in the logic of capitalism and Marx’s Capital specifically takes on a strongly symptomatic, spectral presence in the 1994-1995 seminar Lacan: Anti-philosophy 3. Secondly, while it is true that Badiou’s Logics of Worlds never discusses the logic of appearance that governs all capitalist things, it is possible nonetheless to read Logics as an abstract translation and formalisation of Marx’s Capital. In this view, Capital should quite simply be read as a systematic demonstration of the logic of what Marx calls the capitalist social form, which is to say, in Badiou’s jargon, the logic or science of the appearance of things in the capitalist world. In a sense, then, this means nothing more, though nothing less, than subjecting the Logics of Worlds to a Marxian torsion: in order to demonstrate that which Badiou has neglected, Marx has in fact already accomplished, i.e. the systematic, synthetic demonstration of the necessary forms of the appearance of commodities in the capitalist social form. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, Ken Olum attempts to refute the doomsday argument by appealing to the self–indication assumption (SIA) that your very existence gives you reason to think that there are many observers. Unlike earlier users of this strategy, Olum tries to counter objections that have been made against (SIA). We argue that his defence of (SIA) is unsuccessful. This does not, however, mean that one has to accept the doomsday argument (or the other counter–intuitive results that (...) flow from related thought–experiments). A developed theory of observation selection effects shows why the doomsday argument is inconclusive, and how one can consistently reject both it and (SIA). (shrink)

Cummins (this issue) puts the case for an innate module for deontic reasoning. We argue that this case is not persuasive. First, we claim that Cummins’evolutionary arguments are neutral regarding whether deontic reasoning is learned or innate. Second, we argue that task differences between deontic and indicative reasoning explain many of the phenomena that Cummins takes as evidence for a deontic module. Third, we argue against the suggestion that deontic reasoning is superior to indicative reasoning, either in adults or children. (...) Finally, we re‐evaluate Cummins’interpretation of differences in children's performance on deontic and indicative versions of Wason's selection task. (shrink)

This paper considers the real and imagined geographies of livestock animals. In doing so, it reconsiders the spatial relationship between people and domesticated farm animals. Some consideration is given to the origins of domestication and comparisons are drawn between the natural and domesticated geographies of animals. The paper mainly focuses on the contemporary geographies of livestock animals and, in particular, "rare breeds" of British livestock animals. Attention is given to the spatial relationship these animals have with people and the place (...) of these animals in the British countryside today. The paper concludes by highlighting why it is important to consider livestock animal breeds as part of on-going research into the geographies of domestic livestock animals. (shrink)

The concept of culture is an integral part of contemporary psychology. However, a mindless use of the concepts and practices traditionally prevalent in academic psychology may lead us into theoretical quandaries borne out of the age old controversy about the nature of psychology as a natural or cultural science. This paper attempts to resolve the quandaries by clarifying a conceptual distinction and relation between interpretive and explanatory psychological theories under a neo-diffusionist metatheory of culture, the view of culture as interpersonally (...) and intrapersonally distributed non-genetically transmitted information. We then outline and advocate both interpretive and explanatory research programs in psychological studies of culture, arguing for 'experimental semiotics' as an interpretive research program in the methodological tradition of experimentation. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

In this paper, I assess Dickie's institutional theory of art. I compare the earlier and later forms of the theory, and I point to various problems of detail with these accounts. I then proceed by arguing that Dickie's definition excludes Krispy Kreme doughnut boxes from possessing the status of being works of art, and it excludes those who made them from possessing the status of being artists. The intention is not to offer a counter example to Dickie's account. Rather, the (...) complaint is that there could be no philosophical point or interest in a concept of art which excludes these doughnut boxes. The best way to see this is by contrast with a concept of art that includes them. Thus I outline what I call a ‘creative’ account. What we want is a concept of art which helps us understand a certain phenomenon in the world – the phenomenon that we call ‘art’. In this light, I argue that Dickie's institutional theory tells us nothing about why people want to make art and nothing about why they want to experience it. By contrast, the creative theory, which embraces both doughnut boxes and things in galleries, is more explanatory. (shrink)

With the rise of the internet and the proliferation of technology to gather and organize data, our era has been defined as "the information age." With the prominence of information as a research concept, there has arisen an increasing appreciation of the intertwined nature of fields such as logic, linguistics, and computer science that answer the questions about information and the ways it can be processed. The many research traditions do not agree about the exact nature of information. By bringing (...) together ideas from diverse perspectives, this book presents the emerging consensus about what a conclusive theory of information should be. The book provides an introduction to the topic, work on the underlying ideas, and technical research that pins down the richer notions of information from a mathematical point of view. The book contains contributions to a general theory of information, while also tackling specific problems from artificial intelligence, formal semantics, cognitive psychology, and the philosophy of mind. There is focus on the dynamics of information flow, and also a consideration of static approaches to information content; both quantitative and qualitative approaches are represented. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the Special Issue and offers an overview of the corpus of work on the topic since the publication of Michael Walzer’s seminal article, ‘Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands’.

Public acceptance is often seen as a key reason why water-recycling technology is rejected. A common assumption is that projects fail because the general public is unable to comprehend specialist information about risk and the belief that if the public were better informed, they would accept change more readily. This article suggests that rhetoric about acceptance is counterproductive in progressing sustainability as it does not address issues relating to institutional arrangements and reinforces a dichotomy between expert and lay groups. Instead, (...) it is argued that institutional change is needed to build opportunities for constructive public engagement. The failure to implement sustainable water use through recycling can be understood as the result of several factors including present cost structures for water, institutional conservatism, administrative fragmentation, and inadequate involvement of communities in planning. Achieving sustainable water use through recycling may require better coordination between agencies and integrated government policies. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the points of confluence and dissonance in Jan Patočka and Louis Althusser’s respective theories of the idea of modern science, focusing on two texts from 1965, Patočka’s “Conférences de Louvain” and Althusser’s Lire le Capital. I argue that while Patočka’s diagnosis—which he shares with Husserl—of the “abyss” lying between the empty schematism of modern scientific formalization and an engaged concern for the přirození svět or “natural world” (broadly analogous to Husserl’s Lebenswelt) remains a variously inflected (...) constant in his thought, Althusser’s reading of Capital offers an objective correction or supplement to Patočka’s diagnosis. In this view, it is Reading Capital that first presents Marx’s Capital as a scientifically precise yet historically and socially determined and “concerned” (to use Patočka’s term) logical formalization of the contemporary, capitalist world. While Patočka’s few passing references to the young Marx throughout his kompletní dílo uniformly present the latter as a thinker of the post-Hegelian humanism of labour and productive subjectivity, I argue following Althusser and Alain Badiou that in Capital, Marx constructs an asubjective science of the necessary forms of appearance of all things in a historically specific world, a logical and scientific formalization of the historically specific “life world” Marx defines as the capitalist social form. (shrink)

I distinguish two different arguments against cognitivism in Bernard Williams’ writings on moral dilemmas. The first turns on there being a truth of the matter about what we ought to do in moral a dilemma. That argument can be met by appealing to our epistemic shortcomings and to pro tanto obligations. However, those responses make no headway with the second argument which concerns the rationality of the moral regret that we feel in dilemma situations. I show how the rationality of (...) moral regret can be explained on an ‘independent desire’ model. And I show how Williams’ second argument only appears to have force because of a certain faulty way of conceiving of the issue over cognitivism. But Williams’ argument rightly alerts us to the rational role of desire in our moral thought. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper takes Lee McIntyre’s argument for post-truth and uses it to explain the contemporary rise of bad faith and bullshitting social actors. The paper then posits the critical realist metatheoretical framework of ontological realism, epistemic relativity, and judgemental rationality as a means of understanding the societal placement and the operation of bullshit and bad faith. Utilizing the CR concept of alethic truth enables epistemologies to be judged on a standard of truth separate from the epistemology itself. Using this (...) separation of truth from truth seeking techniques, the social processes inherent in epistemic communities and their translation into social epistemology are then examined in order put bullshit in its social place. The conclusion then discusses some suggested actions to begin to bolster epistemic communities and their associated institutional forms, as well as supporting the production and use of individuals’ judgmental rationality. (shrink)

This article raises a series of points of confluence between Badiou’s philosophy and that of Bernard Bolzano, whom Badiou has identified as a historical predecessor but never directly engaged. These points include their respective critiques of Kant and Hegel, as well as their various concepts of sets, platonist realism, axiomatisation, the infinite, adequate demonstration, structure, and mathematics as the adequate language of being.

Can we hold citizens causally responsible for the outcomes of their voting decisions? They could stand in the causal relationship required for such responsibility either collectively or individually. Recent accounts ascribing responsibility to citizens have primarily taken the collective route because of a major obstacle to using an individualistic approach, namely, the problem of overdetermination: the actions of each citizen do not make an individual difference to, and therefore cannot be a cause of, the overall political outcome. I suggest, drawing (...) on Parfit (1984) and Wright (1985), that we should allow for the idea that individuals can be causally responsible in virtue of making a difference to an outcome not only as an individual, but also as part of a set of agents. I conclude that we therefore can overcome the problem of overdetermination for the individualistic approach and that it merits further investigation. (shrink)

I ask four questions: (1) Why should we think that our hominid ancestor's predation is not just a causal influence but the main causal factor responsible for human cruelty? (2) Why not think of human cruelty as a necessary part of a syndrome in which other phenomena are necessarily involved? (3) What definitions of cruelty does Nell propose that we operate with? And (4) what about the meaning of cruelty for human beings?

Linda Radzik, Making Amends: Atonement in Morality, Law, and Politics. For someone with sensibilities such as mine, Kantian ethical theory pulls in two...

Erdelyi argues persuasively for his unified theory of repression. Beyond this, what can studying repression bring to our understanding of other aspects of emotional function? Here we consider ways in which work on repression might inform the study of, on one hand, emotional memory, and on the other, the emotional numbing seen in patients with chronic persistent depersonalization symptoms.

Robert Sullivan, Liberalism and Crime: The British Experience Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2000, vii + 227pp.

This commentary on Professor Kasher's and General Yadlin's article employs a bit of violence. It transforms and broadens some of the ideas presented in their article. I argue that committing these acts of violence are justified because, if their article is left as written, it is difficult to tell at what point the Kasher/Yadlin (K/Y) theory corresponds with just war theory and at what points it does not. This commentary alters K/Y theory, and alters classical just war theory as well, (...) so as to place the two theories in parallel as much as possible. Once the alterations are complete, it becomes more evident that the two theories share much in common. What also becomes more evident is that the two theories differ in important respects since the one deals with conventional war and the other with unconventional (asymmetric) war. The differences vindicate Kasher's and Yadlin's claim that it is necessary to spend time to re-think just war theory, especially when dealing with terrorism. (shrink)