This article provides the first large-scale, longitudinal study examining publication rates by gender in philosophy journals. We find that from 1900 to 1990 the proportion of women authorships in philosophy increased, but it has plateaued since the 1990s. Top Philosophy journals publish the lowest proportion of women, and anonymous review does not increase the proportion publishing in these journals. Value Theory journals do not publish articles by women in proportion to their presence in the subdiscipline. Although the proportion of women (...) authorships in philosophy has increased over time, measurable disparities persist. (shrink)

While rich countries like the USA and UK are starting to vaccinate their populations against COVID-19, poor countries may lack access to a vaccine for years. A global effort to provide vaccines through the COVAX facility Accelerator) aims to distribute 2 billion vaccinations by the end of next year, but the USA has refused to join and even those rich countries that have joined are entering into bilateral deals with pharmaceutical companies to buy up the supply. Canada, for instance, has (...) already secured enough to vaccinate its entire population nine times over, and the USA, European Union, UK, Australia and Japan can vaccinate their populations between 2 and 8 x.1 Vaccine nationalism is neither ethically justified, nor even in rich countries’ long-term self-interest. No one deserves the luck of their birth and few have much control over their country of residence. So, when there are four ventilators per 12 million people in some low-income and middle-income countries, and people are being buried in cardboard boxes in mass graves, it is simply unconscionable to argue that wealthy countries can keep their vaccines to themselves or even help their populations first.2 Vaccine nationalism fails to respect basic human rights and the people who have them. Moreover, many argue that rich countries have contributed to global poverty through a shared and violent history of colonialism and oppression and profit from instituting, upholding and sustaining coercive rules that often exacerbate, rather than alleviate, global poverty.3 Be that as it may, putting basic health systems in place to ensure everyone can get vaccinated, not only against COVID-19 but a host of other terrible diseases, would better protect even the rich from …. (shrink)

We bring together recent discussions on data capitalism and biocapitalization by studying value flows in consumer genomics firms—an industry at the intersection between health care and technology realms. Consumer genomics companies market genomic testing services to consumers as a source of fun, altruism, belonging and knowledge. But by maintaining a multisided or platform business model, these firms also engage in digital capitalism, creating financial profit from data brokerage. This is a precarious balance to strike: If these companies’ business models consist (...) of assetizing the pool of genomic data that they assemble, then part of their work has to revolve around obscuring to consumers any uncertainties that would potentially impinge on these processes of assemblage. We reflect on the nature of these practices and the market relationships that enable them, and we relate this reflection to debates around alternative market arrangements that would potentially mitigate the extractive tendencies of these and other digital health firms. (shrink)

What, if anything, do we owe others as a basic minimum? Sufficiency theorists claim that we must provide everyone with enough – but, to date, few well-worked-out accounts of the sufficiency threshold exist, so it is difficult to evaluate this proposition. Previous theories do not provide plausible, independent accounts of resources, capabilities, or welfare that might play the requisite role. Moreover, I believe existing accounts do not provide nearly enough guidance for policymakers. So, this article sketches a mechanism for arriving (...) at an account of the minimally good life that can help locate the sufficiency threshold. (shrink)

We agree with Chapman et al. (2025) that the Common Rule needs revision, particularly regarding the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in health research with Indig...

All people have human rights and, intuitively, there is a close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy. The two main theories about the natureand value of human rights often fail to account for this connection. Interest theories, on which rights protect individuals’ important interests, usually fail to capturethe close relationship between human rights and autonomy; autonomy is not constitutive of the interests human rights protect. Will theories, on which human rights protect individuals’ autonomy, cannot explain why the nonautonomous have (...) a human right to meet their needs. This paper argues that it is possible to account for the close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy if human rights at least protect individuals’ ability to live minimally good lives. It argues that people need whatever will enable them to live such lives and autonomy is partly constitutive of such a life. This argument also has importantimplications for some other key debates in the human rights literature. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This paper considers the question ‘How should institutions enable people to meet their needs in situations where there is no guarantee that all needs can be met?’ After considering and rejecting several simple principles for meeting needs, it suggests a new effectiveness principle that 1) gives greater weight to the needs of the less well off and 2) gives weight to enabling a greater number of people to meet their needs. The effectiveness principle has some advantage over the main competitors (...) including a principle suggested by David Miller in Principles of Social Justice. Miller argues that his principle accounts for the existing data on individuals’ intuitions about meeting needs. The effectiveness principle better accounts for this data. Furthermore, this paper presents a new experiment on intuitions about meeting need that is consistent with the effectiveness principle but not Miller’s principle. (shrink)

Should people have a legal human right to health? And, if so, what exactly does protecting this right require? This essay defends some answers to these questions recently articulated in Global Health Impact. It explains how these answers depend on a particular way of thinking about health and the minimally good life, how quality of life matters at and over time, what various agents should do to help people who are unable to live well enough, and many other things. Moreover, (...) it suggests some ways of improving common metrics for measuring and advancing our collective global health impact. (shrink)

:How should consumers exercise their basic economic powers? Recently, several authors have argued that consumption to bring about social change must be democratic. Others maintain that we may consume in ways that we believe promote positive change. This paper rejects both accounts and provides a new alternative. It argues that, under just institutions, people may consume as they like as long as they respect the institutions’ rules. Absent just institutions, significant moral constraints on consumption exist. Still, it is permissible, if (...) not obligatory, for people to pursue non-democratic, genuinely positive, change within whatever moral constraints exist. (shrink)

Is there a human right to health? If so, what are its grounds? Can a legal or moral human right to health provide any practical guidance when it comes to making decisions about, for instance, the allocation of scarce health resources? There are many possible answers to these questions in the literature. This article surveys some of these replies. First, however, it examines the distinctions between legal and moral human rights and rights to health vs. health care. It then surveys (...) the literature on potential grounds for a moral human right to health. It concludes by considering replies to several common objections to the existence of a human right to health. (shrink)

How should we characterize the interaction between moral and aesthetic values in the context of environmental aesthetics? This question is important given the urgency of many environmental problems and the particular role played by aesthetic value in our experience of environment. To address this question, we develop a model of Environmental Virtue Aesthetics (EVA) that, we argue, offers a promising alternative to current theories in environmental aesthetics with respect to the relationship between aesthetics and ethics. EVA counters environmental aesthetic theories (...) that focus more narrowly on scientific knowledge and ground aesthetic value in ways that obfuscate pluralistic modes of appreciation of and relationships with natural and semi-natural environments. To develop EVA, we work with a revised notion of respect and engage with ideas concerning the development of aesthetic sensibilities, care, and virtuous aesthetic appreciation. EVA has the potential to support forms of human-nature co-flourishing, as well as constituting an aesthetic grounding for ecological citizenship. (shrink)

abstract In this paper, we present a conditional argument for the moral permissibility of some kinds of infanticide. The argument is based on a certain view of consciousness and the claim that there is an intimate connection between consciousness and infanticide. In bare outline, the argument is this: it is impermissible to intentionally kill a creature only if the creature is conscious; it is reasonable to believe that there is some time at which human infants are not conscious; therefore, it (...) is reasonable to believe that it is permissible to intentionally kill some human infants. (shrink)

Most of the world's health problems afflict poor countries and their poorest inhabitants. There are many reasons why so many people die of poverty-related causes. One reason is that the poor cannot access many of the existing drugs and technologies they need. Another, is that little of the research and development (R&D) done on new drugs and technologies benefits the poor. There are several proposals on the table that might incentivize pharmaceutical companies to extend access to essential drugs and technologies (...) to the global poor.1 Still, the problem remains – the poor are suffering and dying from lack of access to essential medicines. So, it is worth considering a new alternative. This paper suggests rating pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies based on how some of their policies impact poor people's health. It argues that it might be possible to leverage a rating system to encourage companies to extend access to essential drugs and technologies to the poor. (shrink)

Anyone familiar with The Economist knows the mantra: Free trade will ameliorate poverty by increasing growth and reducing inequality. This paper suggests that problems underlying measurement of poverty, inequality, and free trade provide reason to worry about this argument. Furthermore, the paper suggests that better evidence is necessary to establish that free trade is causing inequality and poverty to fall. Experimental studies usually provide the best evidence of causation. So, the paper concludes with a call for further research into the (...) prospects for ethically acceptable experimental testing of free trade's impact on poverty and inequality. Although the paper is unabashedly methodological, its conclusions bear on many ethical debates. Ethicists sometimes argue, for instance, that there is reason to encourage free trade because they believe free trade is decreasing poverty and inequality. Clarifying the empirical facts may not settle ethical debates but it may inform them. (shrink)

This paper examines how people think about aiding others in a way that can inform both theory and practice. It uses data gathered from Kiva, an online, non-profit organization that allows individuals to aid other individuals around the world, to isolate intuitions that people find broadly compelling. The central result of the paper is that people seem to give more priority to aiding those in greater need, at least below some threshold. That is, the data strongly suggest incorporating both a (...) threshold and a prioritarian principle into the analysis of what principles for aid distribution people accept. This conclusion should be of broad interest to aid practitioners and policy makers. It may also provide important information for political philosophers interested in building, justifying, and criticizing theories about meeting needs using empirical evidence. (shrink)

: In The Morality of Freedom, Joseph Raz argues against a right to autonomy. This argument helps to distinguish his theory from his competitors'. For, many liberal theories ground such a right. Some even defend entirely autonomy-based accounts of rights. This paper suggests that Raz's argument against a right to autonomy raises an important dilemma for his larger theory. Unless his account of rights is limited in some way, Raz's argument applies against almost all (purported) rights, not just a right (...) to autonomy. But, on the traditional way of limiting accounts like his, Raz's account actually supports the conclusion that people have a right to autonomy. So, unless there is another way of limiting his account that does not have this consequence, Raz's argument against a right to autonomy does not go through. (shrink)

What should environmentalists say about free trade? Many environmentalists object to free trade by appealing the “Race to the Bottom Argument.” This argument is inconclusive, but there are reasons to worry about unrestricted free trade’s environmental effects nonetheless; the rules of trade embodied in institutions such as the World Trade Organization may be unjustifiable. Programs to compensate for trade-related environmental damage, appropriate trade barriers, and consumer movements may be necessary and desirable. At least environmentalists should consider these alternatives to unrestricted (...) free trade if they do not prevent the achievement of other important moral objectives, can efficiently reduce environmental problems, and institutional safeguards can prevent their abuse. (shrink)

The problems of global health are truly terrible. Millions suffer and die from diseases like tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malaria. One way of addressing these problems is via a Global Health Impact labeling campaign. If even a small percentage of consumers promote global health by purchasing Global Health Impact products, the incentive to use this label will be substantial. One might wonder, however, whether consumers are morally obligation to purchase any these goods or whether doing so is even morally permissible. This (...) paper suggests that if the proposal is implemented, purchasing Global Health Impact labelled goods is at least morally permissible, if not morally required. Its argument should, moreover, be of much more general interest to those considering different kinds of ethical consumption. (shrink)

Evolutionary models of human cooperation are increasingly emphasizing the role of reputation and the requisite truthful “gossiping” about reputation-relevant behavior. If resources were allocated among individuals according to their reputations, competition for resources via competition for “good” reputations would have created incentives for exaggerated or deceptive gossip about oneself and one’s competitors in ancestral societies. Correspondingly, humans should have psychological adaptations to assess gossip veracity. Using social psychological methods, we explored cues of gossip veracity in four experiments. We found that (...) simple reiteration increased gossip veracity, but only for those who found the gossip relatively uninteresting. Multiple sources of gossip increased its veracity, as did the independence of those sources. Information that suggested alternative, benign interpretations of gossip decreased its veracity. Competition between a gossiper and her target decreased gossip veracity. These results provide preliminary evidence for psychological adaptations for assessing gossip veracity, mechanisms that might be used to assess veracity in other domains involving social exchange of information. (shrink)

This chapter reviews the literature on experimental political philosophy. Much of the literature considers individuals’ intuitions about distributive justice, retributive justice, and key concepts such as the doing/allowing distinction. The chapter argues that although there is relatively little experimental political philosophy proper, there are many avenues for future research. It presumes some familiarity with political philosophy, but its main aim is not to explain the relevance of studies to particular debates. The chapter provides an overview of interesting empirical results that (...) may be of some broad interest and suggests that there is reason for those interested in experimental political philosophy to do new kinds of empirical work and employ new methods from many disciplines. Experimental philosophy need not model itself primarily on the discipline of psychology. There are many useful methods available for answering important questions experimental philosophers might want to address in these other disciplines. (shrink)

This study examines the cognitive resources underlying the attribution of stigma in substance use and misuse. A cultural model of substance misuse risk was elicited from students at a major U.S. state university. We found a contested cultural model, with some respondents adopting a model of medical risk while others adopted a model of moral failure; agreeing that moral failure primarily defined risk led to greater attribution of stigma. Here we incorporate general beliefs about moral decision-making, assessed through Moral Foundations (...) Theory. Specifically, we examined commitment to each moral foundation in relation to stigma attribution while controlling for the specific model of substance misuse risk. We found an interaction between the purity moral foundation and the cultural model of risk. This suggests that broad moral orientations, along with more specific understandings of substance misuse risk, combine to orient an individual with respect to stigma attribution. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe examined the utility of a gaze cueing paradigm to examine sensitivity to differences among negatively valenced expressions. Participants judged target stimuli, the lo...

How should we measure medicines’ global health impact to set targets, monitor performance and improve health around the world? Can such a metric provide a philosophically well-grounded basis for an ethical consumption campaign that will create incentives for pharmaceutical companies and other agents to expand (equitable) access to essential medicines? And if such metrics exist, how should we think about our individual obligations to support ethical consumption campaigns on this basis? This paper reflects on these questions in light of Tim (...) Campbell’s, Yukiko Asada’s, and Andreas Albertsen’s worries about the answers I provide in Global Health Impact: Extending Access on Essential Medicines. I explain how reflecting on treatments consequences for individuals’ ability to live minimally well supports the creation of the Global Health Impact (GHI) index (https://global-health-impact.org/). I also consider how the index might be modified to better support efforts to promote everyone’s human rights. Finally, I argue that individuals should often promote positive change through GHI and other ethical consumption campaigns. (shrink)

A message scribbled irreverently on the mediaeval walls of the Nonberg cloister says this: ‘Neither of us can go to heaven unless the other gets in.’ It suggests an argument against the view that those who love people who suffer in hell can be perfectly happy, or even free from all suffering, in heaven. This paper considers the challenge posed by this thought to the coherence of the traditional Christian doctrine on which there are some people in hell who are (...) suffering and others in heaven who are not suffering. More precisely, it defends the following argument:1. No one who loves another can be perfectly happy or free from suffering if they know that their beloved is suffering.2. Anyone in hell suffers.3. Anyone in heaven is perfectly happy or at least free from suffering.4. There can be no one in heaven who is aware of the fact that his or her beloved is in hell. The paper argues that the first premise is eminently plausible and that those who accept t.. (shrink)

Sex differences in physical and indirect aggression have been found in many societies but, to our knowledge, have not been studied in a population of hunter-gatherers. Among Aka foragers of the Central African Republic we tested whether males physically aggressed more than females, and whether females indirectly aggressed more than males, as has been seen in other societies. We also tested predictions of an evolutionary theory of physical strength, anger, and physical aggression. We found a large male bias in physical (...) aggression. Controlling for anger, we found an adult female bias in indirect aggression. Physical strength predicted anger, which predicted hitting, although results were sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of traditional healers, who were physically and emotionally distinct from other Aka. With some important caveats, our results generally support the predicted sex differences in physical aggression and indirect aggression, and the predicted relationships among anger, strength, and aggression. (shrink)

Bidirectional deep brain stimulation (DBS) platforms have enabled a surge in hours of recordings in naturalistic environments, allowing further insight into neurological and psychiatric disease states. However, high amplitude, high frequency stimulation generates artifacts that contaminate neural signals and hinder our ability to interpret the data. This is especially true in psychiatric disorders, for which high amplitude stimulation is commonly applied to deep brain structures where the native neural activity is miniscule in comparison. Here, we characterized artifact sources in recordings (...) from a bidirectional DBS platform, the Medtronic Summit RC + S, with the goal of optimizing recording configurations to improve signal to noise ratio (SNR). Data were collected from three subjects in a clinical trial of DBS for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Stimulation was provided bilaterally to the ventral capsule/ventral striatum (VC/VS) using two independent implantable neurostimulators. We first manipulated DBS amplitude within safe limits (2–5.3 mA) to characterize the impact of stimulation artifacts on neural recordings. We found that high amplitude stimulation produces slew overflow, defined as exceeding the rate of change that the analog to digital converter can accurately measure. Overflow led to expanded spectral distortion of the stimulation artifact, with a six fold increase in the bandwidth of the 150.6 Hz stimulation artifact from 147–153 to 140–180 Hz. By increasing sense blank values during high amplitude stimulation, we reduced overflow by as much as 30% and improved artifact distortion, reducing the bandwidth from 140–180 Hz artifact to 147–153 Hz. We also identified artifacts that shifted in frequency through modulation of telemetry parameters. We found that telemetry ratio changes led to predictable shifts in the center-frequencies of the associated artifacts, allowing us to proactively shift the artifacts outside of our frequency range of interest. Overall, the artifact characterization methods and results described here enable increased data interpretability and unconstrained biomarker exploration using data collected from bidirectional DBS devices. (shrink)

Is nanotechnology-based human enhancement morally permissible? One reason to question such enhancement stems from a concern for preserving our species. It is harder than one might think, however, to explain what could be wrong with altering our own species. One possibility is to turn to the environmental ethics literature. Perhaps some of the arguments for preserving other species can be applied against nanotechnology-based human enhancements that alter human nature. This paper critically examines the case for using two of the strongest (...) arguments in the environmental ethics literature to show that nanotechnology-based human enhancements are impermissible: 1) Our species, like many other naturally occurring species, has aesthetic value. So, nanotechnology-based human enhancements that alter our species should be prohibited. 2) Our species plays valuable ecological roles. Nanotechnology-based human enhancements that alter our species are likely to interfere with our species playing our ecologically valuable roles. So, such enhancements should be prohibited. Neither argument, ultimately, proves conclusive. The paper concludes, however, that considerations underlying both arguments may show us that some nanotechnology-based human enhancements are impermissible. (shrink)

The use of energy from wind has a multi-faceted relationship to visibility. Between 1973 and 1991, various actors in the West German environmental movement made assertions about the visibility of renewable sources of power, but wind energy took on a particular prominence. In this article, the question of how different actors have used knowledge and the materiality of wind turbines for competing purposes is explored. Environmentalists attempted to create visible signs of a valid alternative energy future by tinkering with small, (...) decentralized wind turbines, while the Federal Republic of Germany's Ministry of Research and established energy providers used the failure of the state-subsidized large-scale wind-energy project GROWIAN to criticize renewables and brand their application as misguided. In both cases, actors created new wind energy visibilities to convey their conflicting interests—pitting those advocating a new, environmentally friendly energy system against those who sought consolidation of the large-scale fossil-nuclear energy system. (shrink)

At first blush, debt‐for‐nature swaps seem to provide win‐win solutions to the looming problems of environmental degradation and extreme poverty. So, one might naturally assume that they are morally permissible, if not obligatory. This article will argue, however, that debt‐for‐nature swaps are sometimes morally questionable, if not morally impermissible. It suggests that some criticisms of traditional (economic) conditions placed on loans to poor countries also apply to the (environmental) conditionality implicit in such swaps. The article's main theoretical contribution is to (...) suggest a general argumentative strategy for posing a challenge to the moral acceptability of many seemingly innocuous, or even apparently good, policies in the real world. Its discussion of how we should respond to seemingly tragic dilemmas (e.g. between protecting nature and respecting human rights) may also be of general interest. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper applies the approach developed by the congnitive sciences to a classical field of social anthropology—i.e., the analysis of represetations and behaviors relative to misfortune in “traditional” societies.The initial argument is that the conceptual division and the modes of description and explanation of anthropology suffer from serious weaknesses: these concepts cannot serve to understand empirical phenomena ; they rely on a confused and erroneous conception of the different domains involved and the causalities between them; and they use simplistic (...) hypotheses about the existence and causal status of the entities that usually form the ultima ratio of anthropological reasoning. These entities would directly “cause” other individual representations or behaviors. This simplification also affects the analysis of states of belief in these entities, to which individuals would supposedly “adhere”.I argue here that the cognitivist approach, within a “methodological individualism” framework, provides a more adequate description of phenomena observed in the field. This enables the various levels and domains to be more finely defined. The analysis of “typical” utterances and inferences in a “tranditional” society, the Senufo of the Ivory Coast, is here used to clarify these anthropological problems. Two levels can be distinguished: a priori representations, which are underdetermined, enabling them to occur within valid inferences; perception and/or action, which obeys different cognitive constraints. The existential status of unobservable entities appearing in causal inferences is not equivalent depending on whether they are determined as antecedent or consequent.This paper suggests a theory of interpretive processes and beliefs having flexible references, because they are incomplete and domain-specific. It allows a comparison with facts observed in Western societies. It is also in contrast to the ordinary conception of religious states of belief — i.e., these states would be purely psychological, states of “adherence,” collective, autonomous, obligatory, part of a systemized set of knowledge; collective notions would here logically precede individual representations. (shrink)

There are two broad approaches to environmental ethics. The “conservationist” approach on which we should conserve the environment when it is in our interest to do so and the “preservationist” approach on which we should preserve the environment even when it is not in our interest to do so. We propose a new “relational” approach that tells us to preserve nature as part of what makes us who we are or could be. Drawing from Confucian and Daoist texts, we argue (...) that human identities are, or should be, so intimately tied to nature that human interests evolve in relationship to nature. (shrink)

The considerable interest with which Machiavelli treats public oaths, executions and religious or civic cults in general indicates the major role he gives to ritualized gestures in the fabrication of the political spectacle. This study argues that Machiavelli's conception of religion has tended to be analysed with the assumption that religion is a matter of faith — or that civic religion is a device of ideological indoctrination or propaganda. A ritual-oriented reading of Machiavelli, however, not only demonstrates how political drama (...) periodically transforms the 'irksomeness of constraint into the love of virtue' it also emphasizes the fact that Machiavelli promotes a ritualized polity without aiming to produce a religious or a political consensus. (shrink)

All people have human rights and there is a close connection between human rights, needs, and autonomy. Accounting for this connection is difficult on many of the traditional rights theories. On many traditional theories, human rights protect individuals’ important interests. These theories are well suited to account for the fact that human rights protect individuals from dire need. Even the non-autonomous have some needs, which constitute some of their important interests. But because these theories sometimes say autonomy is not constitutive (...) of the interests human rights protect they can fail to capture the close relationship between human rights and autonomy. On other traditional human rights theories, human rights only protect individuals’ autonomy. These theories avoid the problem sketched above. But, purely autonomy-based theories cannot explain the universality of rights -- some people lack autonomy. Furthermore, if human rights only protect individuals’ autonomy, human rights can be fulfilled and yet some can be left in dire need. So, some of the best known attempts to justify human rights either cannot appropriately connect human rights and autonomy or cannot account for the human right of all to meet their basic needs. This paper suggests that a theory on which human rights protect individuals’ ability to live minimally good lives should be taken seriously because it can avoid this dilemma. For, it argues, people need whatever will enable them to live such lives and autonomy is partly constitutive of such a life. (shrink)