According to the so-called Classical Theory, concepts are mentally represented by individually necessary and jointly sufficient application conditions. One of the principal empirical objections against this view stems from evidence that people judge some instances of a concept to be more typical than others. In this paper we present and discuss four empirical studies that investigate the extent to which this ‘typicality effect’ holds for the concept of basic needs. Through multiple operationalizations of typicality, our studies yielded evidence for a (...) strong effect of this kind: Participants tended to recall the same core examples of the concept in a free-listing task. They judged some basic needs to be more typical than others. The items that were judged to be more typical were listed more frequently in the free-listing task. These items were listed earlier on in the free-listing task. Typical basic needs, as well as non needs, were classified faster than atypical basic needs in a reaction time study. These findings suggest that the concept of basic needs may have a non-classical structure. If so, the quest for a simple and robust intensional analysis of the concept may be futile. (shrink)

Moralization is a social-psychological process through which morally neutral issues take on moral significance. Often linked to health and disease, moralization may sometimes lead to good outcomes; yet moralization is often detrimental to individuals and to society as a whole. It is therefore important to be able to identify when moralization is inappropriate. In this paper, we offer a systematic normative approach to the evaluation of moralization. We introduce and develop the concept of ‘mismoralization’, which is when moralization is metaethically (...) unjustified. In order to identify mismoralization, we argue that one must engage in metaethical analysis of moralization processes while paying close attention to the relevant facts. We briefly discuss one historical example and two contemporary cases related to COVID-19 that we contend to have been mismoralized in public health. We propose a remedy of de-moralization that begins by identifying mismoralization and that proceeds by neutralizing inapt moral content. De-moralization calls for epistemic and moral humility. It should lead us to pull away from our tendency to moralize—as individuals and as social groups—whenever and wherever moralization is unjustified. (shrink)

I argue that the concept of disease serves such radically different strategic purposes for different kinds of stakeholders that coming up with a unified philosophical definition of disease is hopeless. Instead, I defend a radically pluralist, pragmatist account of when it is appropriate to mobilize the concept of disease. I argue that it is appropriate to categorize a condition as a disease when it serves legitimate strategic goals to at least partially medicalize that condition, and when the condition is pathological (...) from inside the epistemology and metaphysics of medicine. While some conditions, like pancreatic cancer, are legitimate diseases from all stakeholders’ points of view and in any context, and while other conditions, like homosexuality, are not diseases from any legitimate point of view, there is a range of interesting, messy cases—including Deafness, autism, pre-hypertension, infertility, and ADHD, for example—whose disease status is irreducibly context-dependent and under contest. (shrink)

Some time ago, the philosopher Luciano Floridi suggested that Western philosophy, and the mainstream contemporary approach to it traditionally called ‘analytic philosophy’, is in dire need of a reboot. The concern was that the discipline might be in a period of decadence. Analytic philosophy would be benefited by greater internationalization, wider and more transparent decision-making, and the reduction (as much as possible) of conflicts of interest as well as of its current habit of hiring and providing publication opportunities on the (...) basis of contacts, networking, and academic pedigree. If we are right, then we need a reconditioning of the institutional framework of analytic philosophy that adjusts it to the current global and interconnected world. (shrink)

I’m to push back on Hill’s (2022) criticism in four ways. First: we need some context for the debate that occurred in the pages of the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective that so concerns Hill. Second: getting precise with our terminology (and not working with stereotypes) is the only theoretically fruitful way to approach the problem of conspiracy theories. Third: I address Hill’s claim there is no evidence George W. Bush or Tony Blair accused their critics, during the build-up (...) the invasion of Iraq in 2003ACE, as being “conspiracy theorists.” Fourth (and finally): I will gently suggest that Hill has succumbed to a stereotypical view of work in Philosophy on conspiracy theories. (shrink)

Bell’s theorem is often said to imply that quantum mechanics violates local causality, and that local causality cannot be restored with a hidden-variables theory. This however is only correct if the hidden-variables theory fulfils an assumption called Statistical Independence. Violations of Statistical Independence are commonly interpreted as correlations between the measurement settings and the hidden variables. Such correlations have been discarded as “fine-tuning” or a “conspiracy”. We here point out that the common interpretation is at best physically ambiguous and at (...) worst incorrect. The problem with the common interpretation is that Statistical Independence might be violated because of a non-trivial measure in state space, a possibility we propose to call “supermeasured”. We use Invariant Set Theory as an example of a supermeasured theory that violates the Statistical Independence assumption in Bell’s theorem without requiring correlations between hidden variables and measurement settings. (shrink)

In Liberalism with Excellence, Matthew Kramer makes an argument for how excellence may enter in into liberalism, despite liberalism’s strong commitment to neutrality. Kramer seeks to challenge not only the uncompromising rejection of this position by liberals such a Jonathan Quong, but also the so-called “blended” approach of “soft-perfectionist” scholars such as Joseph Raz and George Sher. In this essay, I do not so much challenge Kramer’s approach as offer an alternative for accomplishing the same thing. Under my proposal, certain (...) forms of excellence and neutrality can both be accommodated as long as state support for the form of excellence at issue is proportional to the support for such a form of excellence within the relevant polity, competing forms of excellence are non-rivalrous, and no one is forced to embrace a form of excellence with which they disagree. My proposal is therefore not what Ronald Dworkin derogatively characterized as “a checkerboard solution.” Rather than allowing the state to support contrary moral positions at one and the same time, it is a solution that takes morally compatible but nevertheless competing conceptions of excellence seriously, and exhibits neutrality by giving them proportional rather than full support. This neither forces anyone to pursue the particular forms of excellence the state supports nor prevents them from pursuing some other form of excellence entirely or, if they wish, no form of excellence at all. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars in the social sciences and humanities have turned their attention to how the rise of digital technologies is reshaping political life in contemporary society. Here, we analyze this issue by distinguishing between two classification technologies typical of pre-digital and digital eras that differently constitute the relationship between individuals and groups. In class-based systems, characteristic of the pre-digital era, one’s status as an individual is gained through membership in a group in which salient social identities are shared (...) in common with other group members. In attribute-based systems, characteristic of the digital era, one’s status as an individual is determined by virtue of possession of a set of attributes that need not be shared with others. We argue that differences between these two types of classification technologies have important implications for how persons attach (or fail to attach) to groups, and therefore what kinds of political mobilization are possible. We illustrate this argument by examining contention over the use of gender as a variable in the pricing of risk in insurance and credit – two markets in which individuals directly encounter class-based and attribute-based systems of classification, respectively. (shrink)

Humans are an exceptionally cooperative species, but there is substantial variation in the extent of cooperation across societies. Understanding the sources of this variability may provide insights about the forces that sustain cooperation. We examined the ontogeny of prosocial behavior by studying 326 children 3–14 y of age and 120 adults from six societies (age distributions varied across societies). These six societies span a wide range of extant human variation in culture, geography, and subsistence strategies, including foragers, herders, horticulturalists, and (...) urban dwellers across the Americas, Oceania, and Africa. When delivering benefits to others was personally costly, rates of prosocial behavior dropped across all six societies as children approached middle childhood and then rates of prosociality diverged as children tracked toward the behavior of adults in their own societies. When prosocial acts did not require personal sacrifice, prosocial responses increased steadily as children matured with little variation in behavior across societies. Our results are consistent with theories emphasizing the importance of acquired cultural norms in shaping costly forms of cooperation and creating cross-cultural diversity. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a defense of the coherence of the doctrine of middle knowledge against the Grounding Objection. A solution to the Grounding Objection is provided by utilising the metaphysical thesis of Modal Realism proposed by David K. Lewis (as further developed by Kris McDaniel and Philip Bricker). Utilising this metaphysical thesis will enable the Counterfactuals of Creaturely Freedom, that are part of God’s middle knowledge, to have pre-volitional truthmakers, and thus, ultimately, we will have a means to (...) finally deal with this problematic issue that has often been raised against this doctrine. (shrink)

As an alternative to linear and unidimensional perspectives focused mainly on either organic or psychological processes, the enactive approach to life and mind—a branch of 4-E cognitive theories—offers an integrative framework to study mental disorders that encompasses and articulates organic, sensorimotor, and intersubjective dimensions of embodiment. These three domains are deeply entangled in a non-trivial manner. A question remains on how this systemic and multi-dimensional approach may be applied to our understanding of mental disorders and symptomatic behavior. Drawing on Gilbert (...) Simondon’s philosophy of individuation, we provide some enactive conceptual tools to better understand the dynamic, interactive, and multi-dimensional nature of human bodies in mental disorders and psychopathological symptoms. One of such tools cursiva is sense-making, a key notion that captures the relational process of generating meaning by interacting with the sociomaterial environment. The article analyzes five aspects related to sense-making: temporality, adaptivity, the multiplicity of normativities it involves, the fundamental role of tension, and its participatory character. On this basis, we draw certain implications for our understanding of mental disorders and diverse symptoms, and suggest their interpretation in terms of difficulties to transform tensions and perform individuation processes, which result in a reduction of the field of potentialities for self-individuation and sense-making. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the value of invertebrates to human society. I initially examine various ecological, utilitarian, scientific, and cultural benefits provided by invertebrate organisms. I then explore the extent of appreciation and understanding of these values among the American public. This assessment was based on a study of residents of the state of Connecticut, including randomly selected members of the general public, farmers, conservation organization members, and scientists. The general public and farmers were found to view most invertebrates (...) with aversion, anxiety, fear, avoidance, and ignorance. Far more positive and knowledgeable attitudes toward invertebrates and their conservation were observed among scientists and, to a lesser extent, among conservation organization members. I finally examine the motivational basis for hostile attitudes toward invertebrates, particularly arthropods, among the general public. Important factors include the possibility of an innate learning disposition, the association of many invertebrates with disease and agricultural damage, differences in ecological scale between humans and invertebrates, the multiplicity of invertebrates, the apparent lack of a sense of identity and consciousness among invertebrates, the presumption of mindlessness among invertebrates, and the radical autonomy of invertebrates from human control. (shrink)

In their “social contextual view” of emotional mimicry, authors Hess and Fischer (2022) put forward emotional mimicry as a social regulator, considering it a social act, bound to certain affiliative contexts or goals. In this commentary, we argue that the core function of mimicry is to ease predicting conspecifics’ behaviours and the environment, and that as a consequence, this often smoothens social interactions. Accordingly, we make three main points. First, we argue that there is no good reason to believe that (...) the mimicry of negative expressions is fundamentally different than the mimicry of positive or ambiguous or autonomic expressions. Second, we give examples of empirical evidence that mimicry is not always a social act. Third, we show that mimicry has primary benefits for the mimicker. As such, we will briefly summarise and elaborate on the relevant findings in these respects, and propose a comparative, multi-method and ecologically valid approach which can explain the multifaceted character of the phenomenon. (shrink)

In this article, it will be concluded that the major automotive racing league, Formula 1, is failing in its efforts to be a truly unisex sport. In the current Formula 1 series, there are no female drivers. Although women have never been officially prohibited from competing in Formula 1, there have been fewer than 10 female drivers since its inception. This inquiry focuses on why women drivers have been prevented from securing professional driving positions in Formula 1 and racing on (...) equal terms with men. I argue that there are five major barriers which perpetuate women’s exclusion from this league: historical and current attitudes, assumed physical and mental inferiority, sexualisation, money, and representation and visibility. In this cultural examination, I demonstrate that the situation for women in Formula 1 appears to be bleaker than in other sports that are making progress in their quest for gender equality. However, I also suggest that, despite ethical issues, W Series – a new, women-only, single-seater car racing championship – could potentially motivates positive change for women’s car racing by promoting gender equity through a new league which enables women to improve themselves in a protected category. This article also considers the impact of sex in Formula 1, which is pertinent to the discussion surrounding alleged biological differences. The discussion employs Simone de Beauvoir’s conceptualisation of ‘Otherness’, as well as Helmut Pflugfelder’s account of female embodiment in motorsport. The overall findings are that more focused research is required for gender issues in Formula 1 to be accurately addressed. (shrink)

In Ethics 4, Spinoza argues that “A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation on life, not on death” (E4p67). Spinoza’s argument for this claim depends on his view of imagination, reason, and scientia intuitiva and on his notion of conatus. I explicate Spinoza’s view of life in terms of power (potentia) and show that Spinozan death amounts to reconfiguration rather than absolute annihilation. I then show that E4p67 reflects Spinoza’s well-known account (...) of the three kinds of knowing. Thinking of death is quintessentially imaginative and passive. The free person of E4p67 is in contrast a rational person. To reason, and as becomes especially clear E5, to experience scientia intuitiva, moreover is to think of things “without any relation to time, but [rather] sub specie aeternatitis”(E2p44c2) and to experience activity To the extent, then, that we are rational, free, and active, death is a non-issue. Indeed, to the extent that we are able to meditate on life sub specie aeternitatis, we actually experience joy, love (E5p20s, p32c), eternity (Sp23s), and “the greatest satisfaction of the Mind” (E5p27). (shrink)

This study investigated the performance of boys with psychopathic tendencies and comparison boys, aged 9 to 17 years, on two tasks believed to be sensitive to amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex func- tioning. Fifty-one boys were divided into two groups according to the Psychopathy Screening Device (PSD, P. J. Frick & R. D. Hare, in press) and presented with two tasks. The tasks were the gambling task (A. Bechara, A. R. Damasio, H. Damasio, & S. W. Anderson, 1994) and the Intradimensional/ (...) Extradimensional (ID/ED) shift task (R. Dias, T. W. Robbins, & A. C. Roberts, 1996). The boys with psychopathic tendencies showed impaired performance on the gambling task. However, there were no group differences on the ID/ED task either for response reversal or extradimensional set shifting. The implications of these results for models of psychopathy are discussed. (shrink)

An introductory exploration on the nature of emotions, and examination of some of the critical issues surrounding the emotional life of God as they relate to happiness, empathy, love, and moral judgments. Covering the different criteria used in the debate between impassibility and passibility, readers can begin to think about which emotions can be predicated of God and which cannot.

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 3, Page 634-645, September 2021.

In this paper, drawing upon Tosaka Jun’s response to Interwar debates on historicism and his account of everydayness, I offer an explanation for why contemporary secular apocalyptic claims lack convergence by focusing on the historical dimension of such claims. Everydayness, organized the routines of work and rest, is shown to be the basis for a sense of historical time, and theoretical journalism is outlined as the kind of collective epistemic procedure needed to produce a collective sense of a community’s place (...) in historical time. I defend the claim that the cause of starkly opposed responses to apocalyptic claims is due to qualitative differences in the work and rest that organize the everyday temporality. In the absence of a theoretical journalism, whether one subscribes to an apocalyptic claim will be contingent on heterogeneous personal circumstance. I conclude by outlining a limit case of indigenous post-apocalyptic claims under settler-colonialism. (shrink)

In this article, we use the theory of Information Ethics to argue that deceased people have a prima facie moral right to privacy in the context of health data research, and that this should be reflected in regulation and guidelines. After death, people are no longer biological subjects but continue to exist as informational entities which can still be harmed/damaged. We find that while the instrumental value of recognising post-mortem privacy lies in the preservation of the social contract for health (...) research, its intrinsic value is grounded in respect for the dignity of the post-mortem informational entity. However, existing guidance on post-mortem data protection is available only in the context of genetic studies. In comparing the characteristics of genetic data and other health-related data, we identify two features of DNA often given as arguments for this genetic exceptionalism: relationality and embodiment. We use these concepts to show that at the appropriate Level of Abstraction, there is no morally relevant distinction between posthumous genetic and other health data. Thus, genetic data should not automatically receive special moral status after death. Instead we make a plea for ‘contextual exceptionalism’. Our analysis concludes by reflecting on a real-world case and providing suggestions for contextual factors that researchers and oversight bodies should take into account when designing and evaluating research projects with health data from deceased subjects. (shrink)

Denis Alexander, David Glass, Peter Jeavons, Meghan Page, Bethany Sollereder, and Mats Wahlberg have offered interpretations, critique, and defenses of E. V. R. Kojonen's book The Compatibility of Evolution and Design. Here, Kojonen responds to their comments on wideranging issues related to the teleology and evolution, from models of God as Creator to the meaning of randomness and design.

Makale feminizmin genel olarak insan dışı hayvanların, özel olarak da tarımda kullanılan insan dışı hayvanların özgür ve özerk yaşama haklarını savunması gerektiğini savlamaktadır. Tarımda kullanılan insan dışı hayvanlardan elde edilen ürünlerin üretim süreçleri sadece onların bedenlerinin insanların arzuları uyarınca üretilip tüketilmelerini değil, ömürleri boyunca doğalarına aykırı şartlarda yaşayarak, sürekli eziyete maruz bırakılmalarını kapsamaktadır. Üstelik mevcut pratikler dişi insan dışı hayvanları, özellikle süt ve yumurta endüstrilerinde, biyolojik üreme yetilerinden faydalanmak adına ek eziyetlere maruz bırakmaktadır. Bu temel savı desteklemek için bell hooks (...) ve Carol J. Adams gibi yazarların eserlerinden faydalanılarak dört argüman öne sürülmüştür. Cinsiyeti biyolojik parametrelerle tanımlamanın sorunlu olacağına dair bir eleştiri de değerlendirilip, bu eleştiriye Wittgensteincı düşünceden yola çıkan bir yanıt önerilmiştir: Her ne kadar tarımda kullanılan insan dışı hayvanların cinsiyetini biyolojik parametrelerle tanımlıyor olsak da bu, biyolojinin genel olarak kadınlığı ve dişiliği tanımlamanın yeterli veya tek kriteri olduğu anlamına gelmemektedir. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉKant affirme que nous exigeons l'accord des autres quand nous rendons des jugements de goût. Je soutiens que cette affirmation fait partie d'une explication de la façon dont la phénoménologie des jugements esthétiques familiers appuie son affirmation selon laquelle les jugements de goût sont universels. La théorie esthétique de Kant n'est plausible que si nous rejetons l'affirmation répandue selon laquelle cette exigence est normative. Je propose une lecture non normative des jugements de goût kantiens basée sur une étude des textes, (...) puis je conteste les trois interprétations normatives importantes, qui nous obligent à attribuer à Kant une position qu'il n'acceptait pas. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In Why Worry about Future Generations?, Samuel Scheffler argues that we typically love humanity, and that this attachment gives us reasons to care about future generations. The paper explores this idea with an eye to understanding better the sense in which humanity is an object of attachment. The paper argues that the humanity we love should be understood in an enriched rather than a reductively biological sense, as a species that has historically sustained a complex set of cultural and (...) personal meanings. Caring about this object will lead us to be concerned about future generations. But these reasons of love should not be understood as reasons to be concerned directly about the fate of individual future people. The paper concludes with some reflections about the attachment-independent value of humanity in the enriched sense, distinguishing between relational and non-relational interpretations of this independent value. (shrink)

Transhumanism proposes human enhancement while regarding the human body as unfit for the future. This fulfills age-old aspirations for a perfect and durable body. We use “alienation” as a concept to analyze this mismatch between human aspirations and our current condition. For Hannah Arendt alienation may be accounted for in terms of earth- and world-alienation, as well as alienation from human nature, and especially from the given (“resentment of the given”). In transhumanism, the biological body is an impediment to human (...) accomplishment. At most, this movement accepts “clean” bodies, not bodies with excretions. We argue that real human bodies are valued in the event of giving birth, so a modified concept that Arendt proposed, natality, seems a suitable way to explore the dialectic alienation-reconciliation involving the body (Arendt’s “A child has been born unto us”), when re-read by some feminist scholars. (shrink)

A pair of compatibilists, John Fischer (2012: ch. 6; n.d.) and Manuel Vargas (2012) have responded to a problem about luck that Alfred Mele (2005, 2006) posed for incompatibilist believers in free will and moral responsibility. They offer assistance to libertarians - at least on this front. In this paper, we assess their responses and explain why what they offer is inadequate for libertarian purposes.

Both Wilfrid Sellars and John McDowell reject Kant’s conclusion that the world is fundamentally unknowable, and on similar grounds: each invokes conceptual change, what I call the diachronic instability of a conceptual scheme. The similarities end there, though. It is important to Sellars that the world is only knowable at “the end of inquiry” – he rejects a commonsense realism like McDowell’s for its inability to fully appreciate diachronic instability. To evaluate this disagreement, I consider Timothy Williamson’s argument that the (...) knowability thesis, as it rules out “elusive objects”, is problematically idealistic. I argue that McDowell’s insistence on diachronic instability suffices to address Williamson’s worry, and as such that his reply ought to be available to Sellars too. That Sellars would instead invoke the end of inquiry suggests it is he who underestimates the ineliminability of conceptual change. (shrink)

BackgroundLarge-scale, centralized data repositories are playing a critical and unprecedented role in fostering innovative health research, leading to new opportunities as well as dilemmas for the medical sciences. Uncovering the reasons as to why citizens do or do not contribute to such repositories, for example, to population-based biobanks, is therefore crucial. We investigated and compared the views of existing participants and non-participants on contributing to large-scale, centralized health research data repositories with those of ex-participants regarding the decision to end their (...) participation. This comparison could yield new insights into motives of participation and non-participation, in particular the behavioural change of withdrawal.MethodsWe conducted 36 in-depth interviews with ex-participants, participants, and non-participants of a three-generation, population-based biobank in the Netherlands. The interviews focused on the respondents’ decision-making processes relating to their participation in a large-scale, centralized repository for health research data.ResultsThe decision of participants and non-participants to contribute to the biobank was motivated by a desire to help others. Whereas participants perceived only benefits relating to their participation and were unconcerned about potential risks, non-participants and ex-participants raised concerns about the threat of large-scale, centralized public data repositories and public institutes, such as social exclusion or commercialization. Our analysis of ex-participants’ perceptions suggests that intrapersonal characteristics, such as levels of trust in society, participation conceived as a social norm, and basic societal values account for differences between participants and non-participants.ConclusionsOur findings indicate the fluidity of motives centring on helping others in decisions to participate in large-scale, centralized health research data repositories. Efforts to improve participation should focus on enhancing the trustworthiness of such data repositories and developing layered strategies for communication with participants and with the public. Accordingly, personalized approaches for recruiting participants and transmitting information along with appropriate regulatory frameworks are required, which have important implications for current data management and informed consent procedures. (shrink)

Spinoza is often conceived as a highly intellectualist philosopher, and it is tempting to read human freedom without attention to its material basis. In this paper, I study Spinoza's claim that the more the body can undergo, the more the mind can know in order to establish Spinoza's view of freedom under the attribute of extension.

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

Determining what has gone wrong in a malfunctioning body and proposing an effective treatment requires expertise. Since antiquity, philosophers and doctors have wondered what sort of knowledge this expertise involves, and whether and how it can warrant its conclusions. Few people were as qualified to deal with these questions as Galen of Pergamum. A practising doctor with a keen interest in logic and natural science, he devoted much of his enormous literary output to the task of putting medicine on firm (...) methodological grounds. At the same time he reflected on philosophical issues entailed by this project, such as the nature of experience, its relation to reason, the criteria of truth, and the methods of justification. This volume explores Galen's contributions to epistemology, as they arise in the specific inquiries and polemics of his works, as well as their legacy in the Islamic world. (shrink)

This chapter argues that joint attention needs to be understood in terms of one person's engagement with another person's engagement with the world. It is pivotal from a developmental perspective that we have an appropriate view of what is involved when we share experiences, or when we perceive and align with another person's ‘attention’ as a bodily-expressed and affectively toned relation with the environment. The chapter explores these theoretical issues through studies involving children with autism, who have limited ability to (...) engage with others emotionally. It concludes that intersubjective engagement, and more specifically the propensity to identify with the attitudes of others, is critical for the early development of joint attention. (shrink)

This article introduces the perspectivist interpretation of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality, characterized by two core theses. According to the results thesis, the three treatises of GM introduce three types of critical results, respectively: psychological claims about the value of morality for the interests of various character types; physiological claims about its value for the ‘progress of the species’; and medical claims about its value for health. According to the distinction thesis, the critical results of GM are descriptive, while (...) their reader-specific implications are normative. This interpretation illuminates the genealogical method of GM by answering four fundamental questions about its historical method, the history of morality that it reveals, the critical results of GM, and their intended therapeutic effects. Challenging the widespread assumption that the critical results of GM are evaluative claims, the perspectivist interpretation reveals the novelty of Nietzsche’s “new demand” for a critique of values not only relative to his predecessors’ approach to critique, but also to his own previous works. GM offers a critique that is grounded on factual claims, at once extramoral and external to morality, and internal to its readers’ evaluative perspectives, even those who remain beholden to moral values. Consequently, its authority and therapeutic efficacy are not threatened by discrepancies between it and its readers’ affective-evaluative preferences. (shrink)

One area in which the moral philosopher might say something useful for the thinking of economists is that of welfare economics – not by improving formalizations or criticizing proofs as to conditions necessary or sufficient for an optimum situation, much less by suggesting what particular state of society would be optimal. Rather, he can do this by pointing out some distinctions, by suggesting how some terms used by economists can profitably be defined, and by questioning some assumptions which seem to (...) lie behind the thinking of some economists. The following discussion is aimed along these lines. The main goal of the argument will be to produce helpful definitions of “increase the welfare of an individual” and “increase social welfare.”. (shrink)

In this paper, the Helmholtz equation with quadratic damping themes is used for modeling the dynamics of a simple prey-predator system also called a simple Lotka–Volterra system. From the Helmholtz equation with quadratic damping themes obtained after modeling, the equilibrium points have been found, and their stability has been analyzed. Subsequently, the harmonic oscillations have been studied by the harmonic balance method, and the phenomena of resonance and hysteresis are observed. The primary and secondary resonances have been researched by the (...) multiple-scale method, and the conditions of stability of the amplitudes of oscillations are determined. Chaos is detected analytically by the Melnikov method and numerically using the basin of attraction, the bifurcation diagram, the Lyapunov exponent, the phase portrait, and the Poincaré section. The effects of all the parameters of the system are analyzed in detail, and special emphasis is placed on the new parameters. Through this analysis, the complex phenomena such as hysteresis, bistability, amplitude jump, resonances, and chaos have been obtained. The control of the parameters and the necessary conditions to control the aforementioned phenomena have been found. (shrink)

What is it to be able to intend to do something? At the end of her ground-breaking book, Agents’ Abilities, Romy Jaster identifies this question as a topic for future research. This article tackles the question from within the framework Jaster assembled for understanding abilities. The discussion takes place in two different spheres: intentions formed in acts of deciding, and intentions not so formed. The gradability of abilities has an important place in Jaster’s framework, and it is explained how abilities (...) to acquire intentions of these two kinds -- including both general and specific abilities—can come in degrees, as she conceives of degrees of ability. Although Jaster “sympathize[s] with the idea that having an ability to intend to [A] is a matter of intending to [A] in a sufficient proportion of the relevant possible situations in which there is an overriding reason to intend to [A],” an alternative to this idea is developed. (shrink)

Frederick Douglass (1817?–1875) is a monumental American figure. As a runaway slave and leading black thinker, speaker, and writer in the abolitionist movement and during Reconstruction and its tragic collapse, his legacy in American history is singular. His ideals and scorching criticisms have marked American political thought about democracy, religion, race, racism, liberty, and equality. American political parties claim him, especially the Republican Party, with which he has an early connection and which has used his figure as cover for their (...) less than egalitarian projects, as do different ideological camps. One can find accounts of Douglass as an existentialist, revolutionary, proto-libertarian, liberal, civic republican thinker. His North Star continues to guide those who welcome its light, although it may lead them down different political-ideological paths.In all of this, one can imagine that those not familiar with the details of Douglass’s narratives and deeds might, in the context of all of that national hagiography, lose track of the fact that he was a black man. Frederick Douglass was a black man born into slavery, survived that brutal regime for twenty-one years, and then escaped and became a principal leader of the American abolition movement and leading black political thinker. Shortly after escaping slavery, he wrote his first famous autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and subsequently two more, in addition to volumes of speeches, articles, and a novel. It is as if his monumentality, like marble, alabaster, or bronze—the stuff of civic memorials—would obscure that irreducible fact in its grand monotones.Nick Brommell’s The Powers of Dignity: The Black Political Philosophy of Frederick Douglass reminds readers that that irreducible fact is a nontrivial, essential element of Douglass’s life and work. Bromell argues that this includes the political theory, a product of Douglass’s black political philosophy that runs through it all. He contends that Douglass argued for an inclusive conception of personhood and active citizenship, which America’s founding public philosophy, distorted by white supremacy, purposefully did not. Its elements include a defense of the moral personhood of blacks and their full and equal citizenship and a view of political community enlivened by group solidarities and active citizenship in defense of justice.In the course of his analysis, Bromell, a literary theorist, draws on an assortment of contemporary philosophical, rhetorical, and political theories, all of which have a critical theoretical bent, to explicate Douglass’s ideas. This method bears fruit in an instructive analysis of the rhetorical structure of Douglass’ his arguments. Brommell’s analysis of Douglass’s My Bondage and My Freedom usefully explains how it stands out, not only in terms of updated autobiographical details, but also style and analytical and argumentative intent. This is a reading that other scholars have pioneered, but his rhetorical analysis fleshes out, for example, the role of moral sentiments, care, and intimate and social relations in Douglass’s narrative.A central feature of Bromell’s analysis is that Douglass employs what he and others call a “fugitive rhetoric” that comprises an emphasis on the perspective of his and other black Americans’ standpoints, the holding of opposite ideas in tension, and the use of the rhetorical technique “chiasmus,” where a statement is repeated in reverse order in successive phrases or clauses. It is an illuminating analysis, but Bromell goes further by claiming that Douglass was committed to the tenets of contemporary standpoint epistemology. Douglass certainly referenced and employed his experience and viewpoint as a black man and former slave in his work, just as he directly addressed the viewpoints and interests of black Americans. However, whether this means that Douglass was committed to the set of ideas that we now call standpoint epistemology is another matter. This concern applies to Bromell’s reading of Douglass’s method of holding seemingly contrasting ideas in tension and his use of chiasmus. Contemporary philosophical theories of chiasmus carry particular metaphysical and epistemological implications, and those theories might shed light on Douglass’s political projects. However, their incidental utility does not mean they definitively describe Douglass’s intent or public philosophy. This is a specifically important point because those theories lead to subjective conceptions of truth, especially relating to ethics and politics, while Douglass, as Bromell recognizes, repeatedly and emphatically endorsed what he took to be universal normative truths.In the same vein, Bromell makes several additional claims regarding the conceptual distinctiveness of Douglass’s view of power, dignity, rights, and citizenship. Douglass employed conceptions of each and other important ideas specific to his style, approach, and ends. As other black political thinkers did before him, he used these concepts to condemn slavery, racism, and the hypocrisy of American Republicanism and Christianity to assert the equal moral personhood and dignity of blacks and demand equal rights and citizenship. Bromell rightly emphasizes the role of “power,“ as an individual capability, in Douglass’s view of natural rights, moral dignity, and citizenship. It is an emphasis that is in keeping with both Douglass’s personal narrative and his national political projects. Douglass did not think that Americans—that Black Americans or abolitionists—should passively wait for deliverance from either God or national political leadership. Likewise, Bromell is correct to push back on reductions of Douglass’s views to Lockean, Rousseauian, or Kantian interpretations. Douglass is more than an incarnation of standard deontological, liberal, or civic republican philosophy. As a nineteenth-century black radical thinker, he stood in relation and contributed to those moral and political philosophical traditions. However, Bromell’s claim that Douglass’s conceptions of power, natural rights, and citizenship are conceptually distinct from the large host of major philosophical, theological, and political theoretical accounts that preceded him and influenced those ideas in his time is suggestive but not decisive.Like other writers and theorists before him, Bromell offers us another Douglass—as a black critical political theorist. This is a testament to the fecundity of Douglass’s black political-philosophical legacy. It is a legacy that leads to competing interpretations of him; all the same and for all their differences, his scorching prophetic vision of liberty, equality, citizenship, and progress unites them all. (shrink)

This article represents comments arising from The Compatibility of Evolution and Design by Rope Kojonen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) concerning the role of chance and randomness in evolution (citations from this book are shown as page numbers in brackets). The various meanings of chance and randomness as used in descriptions of biological evolution are discussed and contrasted with their meanings in mathematics and metaphysics. The discussion relates to the role of contingency in evolution and to ideological and rhetorical extrapolations from biology (...) into philosophical world views. Overall it is concluded that evolution is not a chance process, except in the epistemic sense of “chance.” Theologically, this has implications for the idea that God creates through “a free evolutionary process” and may also influence our perspectives on divine action and intentionality in evolutionary history. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that fallibilistic justification is insufficient for propositional knowledge if veritic luck is involved. I provide a thought experiment to demonstrate that even very strong non-factive evidence is insufficient for knowledge if veritic luck is present. I then distinguish between precise justification, which I suggest is required for knowledge in cases of veritic luck, and loose justification, which is sufficient for practical cases in which beliefs are reasonable to hold even if they fall short of being (...) items of knowledge. In addition, I provide a reason for holding that PJ is required for all items of propositional knowledge, and not only for cases of veritic luck. Lastly, I propose that Gettier-style cases pertain to an ambiguity between PJ and LJ. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the relation between logical theory and evidence in the context of an anti-exceptionalist approach to logic. I hold not only that current versions of anti-exceptionalism failed to appreciate the fact that logical evidence is theory laden, but also that benefits for the view are expected when we engage with the appropriate philosophy of science. I make the discussion more vivid by considering the cases of both the Liar and Russell paradoxes, and disputes between the classical (...) and dialetheist approaches to them. Disputes between these parties involve different understandings of the logical terminology involved in the evidence (the paradoxes), and they illustrate how the data gets contaminated with theory. As a result of the discussion, I conclude that pragmatical considerations are better guides to evaluate disputes in such cases, with scientific fertility being the criterion of legitimacy for a logical system. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the contemporary relevance of Hannah Arendt’s work insofar as it relates to US racism, imperialism, and migration. While Arendt denied that US migration policy and racism were linked or even similar to exercises of racialized sovereignty, totalitarian tactics, and mass displacement in Europe, I suggest that her analyses help us to understand important racialized dialectics between prison and camp, citizen and stateless, and external displacement and internal displacement. In effect, this essay suggests that many of Arendt’s (...) analyses of racism, migration, and camps are more relevant to US history and contemporary US reality than she did or would have admitted. Arendt’s work importantly suggested that the stateless were so rightless that they lacked even criminal rights. In many respects, the criminal-stateless binary accurately illustrates the rightlessness of refugees in contrast to the rights of US citizen-criminals. However, she partly fails to recognize how the dialectical opposition between foreigner and citizen-criminal could lead to less visible forms of overlap and convergence. Arendt’s binary also indicates an adherence to crypto-normativity, despite her professed antifoundational approach to political issues. Together, her theoretical strengths and certain failures illuminate our own (mis)understandings of a set of complex circumstances experienced today. (shrink)

Brings together cutting-edge research on the use of empirical scientific methods to illuminate traditional and contemporary issues in political philosophy.

Actions that financially benefit one person may present risk to another person. For example, the payment incentives of portfolio managers and investors are often asymmetrical such that actions that benefit a portfolio manager can pose financial risk to clients. Despite the presence and potential harm of these asymmetries, few have addressed the question of who exploits these asymmetries and how to mitigate potential harm. Our study examined the effect of selfish personality traits (the Dark Triad) and interpersonal bonding on decision-making (...) for the self, another person, and another person with under reward asymmetry present. Results demonstrated that individuals higher in narcissism and psychopathy made risky decisions for themselves. However, when reward asymmetries were present, all three Dark Triad traits were associated with making riskier decisions for another person in order to benefit the self. There was also a significant interaction between interpersonal closeness generated through bonding and psychopathy such that bonding made the decision-making processes of those high in psychopathy less risky for others. These findings have implications for how different individuals with different relationships make self and other-based financial decisions, and how those decisions change when rewards are asymmetrical. (shrink)

Gender equality continues to be important because it strengthens society. One of the efforts to promote gender equality in Indonesia is gender equality education. For Catholics in Indonesia, the existence of the 2013 Curriculum Ethics and Catholic Education (PAK Kurtilas) had a strategic role in mainstreaming gender equality education. This research used library sources to research these textbooks with adequate ethical and multicultural analysis. Here, information was conveyed through a qualitative approach through annotations and descriptive data on the texts studied. (...) According to this study, the curriculum offers instructional materials on the value of gender equality in intercultural education, which used the critical discourse analysis (CDA) technique. The textbook analysis also recommended using gender-responsive learning approaches and methods so that students could comprehensively understand the material on gender equality.Contribution: This article uses a textual analysis with a religious socio-ethical viewpoint. This study could help to solve social problems through theological education. (shrink)

Dialéticos e analíticos não se entendemporque falam línguas com sintaxes parcialmentediferentes. Não obstante esta diferença, hátrês princípios básicos que regem e estruturamtanto a lógica dialética como a lógica analítica: osprincípios de identidade, de diferença e de coerênciauniversal. Os mesmos três princípios regemtambém a natureza em seu processo de evoluçãoe constituem o indivíduo e a espécie,as mutações por acaso ea seleção natural.

A serious error in the proof of a recent characterization of the existence of full conditional probabilities invariant under symmetries is corrected.