The social psychology of science is a compelling new area of study whose shape is still emerging. This erudite and innovative book outlines a theoretical and methodological agenda for this new field, and bridges the gap between the individually focused aspects of psychology and the sociological elements of science studies. Presenting a side of social psychology that, until now, has received almost no attention in the social sciences literature, this volume offers the first detailed and comprehensive study of the social (...) psychology of science, complete with a large number of empirical and theoretical examples. The volume's introductory section provides a detailed analysis of how modern social psychology might apply to the study of science. Chapters show how to analyze science in terms of social cognition, attribution theory, attitudes and attitude change, social motivation, social influence and social conformity, and intergroup relations, weaving extensive illustrations from the science studies literature into the theoretical analysis. The nature and role of experimentation are discussed, as are metaanalytic methods for summarizing the results of multiple studies. Ways to facilitate the generalization of causal inferences from experimental work are also examined. The book focuses on such topics as interactions among small groups of scientists, and the impact of social motivation, influence, and conformity on scientific work. Also covered are scientists' responses to ethical issues in research, differences in cognitive style distribution, creativity in research and development, and the sociologists's view of the social psychology of science and technology. In addition, the book provides two annotated bibliographies, one on the philosophy of science and the other on social psychology, to guide readers in both disciplines to salient recent works. Valuable to the entire science studies community, this text will be of special interest to philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, and historians of science interested in the nature of knowledge development in science. Because of its novel application of social psychological theories and methods, this book will be useful as a primary text or a secondary text in courses on science studies in psychology, sociology, or philosophy departments. (shrink)

A major question for the relevant logics has been, “Under what conditions is Ackermann's ruleγ from -A ∨B andA to inferB, admissible for one of these logics?” For a large number of logics and theories, the question has led to an affirmative answer to theγ problem itself, so that such an answer has almost come to be expected for relevant logics worth taking seriously. We exhibit here, however, another large and interesting class of logics-roughly, the Boolean extensions of theW — (...) free relevant logics (and, precisely, the well-behaved subsystems of the 4-valued logicBN4) — for which γ fails. (shrink)

We humans can enhance some of our mental and physical abilities above the normal upper limits for our species with the use of particular drug therapies and medical procedures. We will be able to enhance many more of our abilities in more ways in the near future. Some commentators have welcomed the prospect of wide use of human enhancement technologies, while others have viewed it with alarm, and have made clear that they find human enhancement morally objectionable. The Ethics of (...) Human Enhancement examines whether the reactions can be supported by articulated philosophical reasoning, or perhaps explained in terms of psychological influences on moral reasoning. An international team of ethicists refresh the debate with new ideas and arguments, making connections with scientific research and with related issues in moral philosophy. (shrink)

How are justifications for religious violence developed and dothey differ from secular justifications for violence? Can liberalsocieties tolerate potentially violent religious groups? Can thosewho accept religious justifications for violence be dissuaded fromacting violently? Including six in-depth contemporary case studies,The Justification of Religious Violence is the first book toexamine the logical structure of justifications of religiousviolence. The first book specifically devoted to examining the logicalstructure of justifications of religious violence Seeks to understand how justifications for religious violenceare developed and how or (...) if they differ from ordinary secularjustifications of violence Examines 3 widely employed premises used in religiousjustifications of violence – ‘cosmic war’, theimportance of the afterlife, and ‘sacred values’ Considers to what extent liberal democratic societies shouldtolerate who hold that their religion justifies violent acts Reflects on the possibility of effective policy measures topersuade those who believe that violent action is justified byreligion, to refrain from acting violently Informed by recent work in psychology, cognitive science,neuroscience and evolutionary biology Part of the Blackwell Public Philosophy Series. (shrink)

This article explores the proposition that the brain, normally seen as an organ of the human body, should be understood as a biologically based form of artificial intelligence, in the course of which the case is made for a new kind of ‘brain exceptionalism’. After noting that such a view was generally assumed by the founders of AI in the 1950s, the argument proceeds by drawing on the distinction between science—in this case neuroscience—adopting a ‘telescopic’ or a ‘microscopic’ orientation to (...) reality, depending on how it regards its characteristic investigative technologies. The paper concludes by recommending a ‘microscopic’ yet non-reductionist research agenda for neuroscience, in which the brain is seen as an underutilised organ whose energy efficiency is likely to outstrip that of the most powerful supercomputers for the foreseeable future. (shrink)

The critical realist conception of open and closed systems is not about systems: it is about regularities in the flux of events and states of affairs. It has recently been criticised on the grounds that critical realists should take on board ideas about the general nature of systems; recognise that genuinely open social systems would be impossible; avoid polarities or dualisms where either there are event regularities and open systems, or there are no event regularities and closed systems and accept (...) partial regularities and partially open systems; and understand that orthodox economics is not based upon event regularities, laws or Humean empiricism. The objective of this paper is to ‘take stock’ of these recent criticisms. (shrink)

Counterfactual reasoning is broadly implicated in causal claims made by historians. However, this point is more generally recognized and accepted by economic historians than historians of science. A good site for examining alternative appeals to counterfactuals is to consider "what if" the Scientific Revolution had not occurred in seventeenth-century Europe. Two alternative interpretations are analyzed: that the revolution would eventually have happened somewhere else or that the revolution would not have happened at all. Broadly speaking, these two interpretations correspond to (...) the respective attitudes of philosophers and historians to the development of science. However, a case is presented for synthesizing the two interpretations into a normative historiography of science that would allow past and present concerns to interrogate each other. This exercise in counterfactual reasoning can be imagined in the spirit of a time traveler who aims to persuade, rather than simply understand, the natives he or she encounters. (shrink)

The post-truth condition is just as much about naming a meta-game as winning it. This condition can be tracked across Western intellectual history from the Homeric epics to popular culture. The common thread is that players are more likely to succeed in this meta-game if they have a certain consistency of character, which Thomas More called “integrity.” The presence of integrity means that the historical losers have often had an advantage in defining for subsequent generations the name of the game (...) because the steadfastness of their characters may make them be regarded as the agents of history, for better or worse. Further, naming the game tends to be stabilized by a variety of mental and material conditions, including “modal power”—control over what people think is and is not possible. Modal power is related to both Machiavellian politics and Kantian transcendentalism, and to the phenomenon of “truthiness.” The character of the post-truth player is epitomized by Thomas More, the “man for all seasons,” who remained consistent as he moved between multiple games, and ultimately to his execution. (shrink)

Although early‐life adversity has been associated with negative consequences during adulthood, growing evidence shows that such adversity can also lead to subsequent stress resilience and positive fitness outcomes. Telomere dynamics are relevant in this context because of the link with developmental conditions and longevity. However, few studies have assessed whether the effects of early‐life adversity on developmental telomere dynamics may relate to adult telomere dynamics. We propose that the potential links between early‐life adversity and adult telomere dynamics could be driven (...) by developmental constraints (the Constraint hypothesis), by the nature/severity of developmental adversity (the Resilience hypothesis), or by developmental‐mediated changes in individual life‐history strategies (the Pace of Life hypothesis). We discuss these non‐mutually exclusive hypotheses, explore future research directions, and propose specific studies to test these hypotheses. Our article aims to expand our understanding of the evolutionary role of developmental conditions on adult telomere dynamics, stress resilience and ageing. (shrink)

This entry has two general aims. The first is to profile the practices of neuromarketing (both current and hypothetical), and the second is to identify what is ethically troubling about these practices. It will be claimed that neuromarketing does not really present novel ethical challenges, and that marketers are simply continuing to do what they have always done, only now they have at their disposal the tools of neuroscience which they have duly recruited. What will be presupposed is a principle (...) of proportionality: marketing practices are morally objectionable commensurate with the degree to which they impugn the moral sovereignty of market actors. With this principle in mind, it is important to consider the literature which is sceptical about the potential for neuromarketing to be successful. If its claims are overblown, as will be suggested, then the ethical threat neuromarketing is said to pose, can be viewed also as overblown. An area that has worried many is that neuromarketing poses a threat to brain privacy, and so an analysis will be given of the nature of this threat, given the principle of proportionality. It will be argued that worries about brain privacy seem, prima facie, to be justified, but on closer analysis, fall away. However, a residual threat to privacy does remain: the collection over time, and aggregation of private brain information, where the target loses control over its ownership and distribution. (shrink)

Despite its prevalence, the term ‘extreme’ has received little critical attention. ‘Extremity’ is routinely employed in ways that imply its meanings are self-evident. However, the adjective itself offers no such clarity. This article focuses on one particular use of the term – ‘extreme porn’ – in order to illustrate a broader set of concerns about the pitfalls of labelling. The label ‘extreme’ is typically employed as a substitute for engaging with the term’s supposed referents (here, pornographic content). In its contemporary (...) usage, ‘extreme’ primarily refers to a set of context-dependent judgements rather than absolute standards or any specific properties the ‘extreme’ item is alleged to have. Concurrently then, the label ‘extreme’ carries a host of implicit values, and the presumption that the term’s meanings are ‘obvious’ obfuscates those values. In the case of ‘extreme porn’, this obfuscation is significant because it has facilitated the cultural and legal suppression of pornography. (shrink)

Scholarly debate over faux-snuff’s content has predominantly focused on realism and affect. This paper seeks to offer an alternative interpretation, examining what faux-snuff’s form reveals about self. Faux-snuff is typically presented from a first-person perspective (killer-cam), and as such is foundationally invested in the killer’s experiences as they record their murder spree. First then, I propose that the simulated-snuff form reifies self-experience in numerous ways. Faux-snuff’s characteristic formal attributes capture the self’s limited, fractured qualities, for example. Second, I contend that (...) the faux-snuff film’s singular focus lays bare the killer-self. The killer’s identity is principally constituted by the murders they commit. Resultantly, faux-snuff’s victims necessarily affirm the killer qua killer in the moment of murder. However, homicide eradicates the victim. Victims thus vanish in the moment they become the killer’s counter-identity. Consequently, the mock-snuff film centralises not only killing, but also the killer’s self-abnegation. Simulated-snuff’s repeated murders are a compulsive process of becoming in which the killer-self is both reified and erased. Despite presenting events through the killer’s eyes then, the simulated-snuff film can never provide access to the killer. The killer is an absent-presence that also acts as a constant reminder that the viewer is profoundly distanced from the action depicted, despite its apparent immediacy. In sum, faux-snuff commonly combines first-person form with relentless violent content. That melding leads me to scrutinize the apparently absolute binary oppositions at the heart of self-conception. By nature of their approach, these films routinely expose the tipping points between victim/killer, self/other, and life/death. In doing so, simulated-snuff catalyses questions about the self in general, and about our own selves in particular,. (shrink)

The quality of our public discourse – think of the climate change debate for instance – is never very high. A day spent observing it reveals a litany of misrepresentation and error, argumentative fallacy, and a general lack of good will. In this paper I focus on a microcosmic aspect of these practices: the use of two types of argument – the argumentum ad hominem and appeal to authority – and a way in which they are related. Public debate is (...) so contaminated by the misuse of the ad hominem tactic that it is important to have an understanding of one of the ways in which its use may be legitimate. So readers who might have expected an analysis of the ad hominem fallacy will, on the contrary, be presented with an account of one of the places for its potential success. In ad hominem, arguers are viewed as legitimate constitutive targets for their own argument; in authority arguments, arguers provide a legitimate constitutive warrant for an argument they deploy. These types of argument are connected in so far as the identities of persons deploying them carry the cognitive weight of the argument. If authority arguments sometimes deserve to succeed, ad hominem attacks on them are potentially legitimate. An important motivation for this analysis is that in identifying the success conditions for one of the ad hominem types we attain some clarity in the evaluation of their use. (shrink)

For the last four years I have been working on a book on the origins and\nimpacts of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolution. I have\nsubtitled the book a ’philosophical history’ because one of my aims is to\nrevive the lost art of passing judgement on history, in this case the history\nof our own times. This is not an easy art to practise even in the best of\ntimes, and ours is not one of them. As I delved more deeply into Kuhn’s\nbackground (...) and influence, it became clear that he was indeed correct to\nhave disowned the more radical sociological readings of Structure that\nplaced all disciplines on an equal epistemic footing. However, in the long\nterm these misreadings have unwittingly served to contain the critical\nimpulses of the would-be radicals, a result that should meet with Kuhn’s\napproval and certainly the approval of his mentor, Harvard president and\nCold Warrior James Bryant Conant, the man to whom Structure is dedicated.\nIn terms of the new sociology of science associated with the Edinburgh\nschool and its successors, ’Kuhnification’ has affected both the form\nand the content of their inquiries. In form, most of the work consists of\n’normal science’ that speaks to a narrow community of specialists rather\nthan to scientists or society at large. In content, it continues to centre on\nscience as a society in the small, at the expense of science’s role in society\nat large. While it is indeed possible, as feminists have shown, to study the\nscientific workplace as a microcosm of the injustices perpetrated in the\ngreater society, such studies have been in the minority, thanks to a lingering\nKuhnian sense of what is properly within the domain of ’science\nstudies’. (shrink)

Undercover marketing targets potential customers by concealing the commercial nature of an apparently social transaction. In a typical case an individual approaches a marketing target apparently to provide some information or advice about a product in a way that makes it seem like they are a fellow consumer. In another kind of case, a friend displays a product to you, and encourages its purchase, but fails to disclose their association with the marketing firm. We focus on this second type of (...) case and argue that the constitutive dispositions of friendship that provide for the development and maintenance of intimacy also render friends especially vulnerable to undercover marketing techniques and so to the exploitation of friendship for commercial ends. We show how this is corrupting both of the friendship and the commercial agent. (shrink)

William Lynch has persistently questioned the politics underlying my appeal to science and technology studies’ flagship symmetry principle. He believes that it licenses the worst features of the ‘post-truth condition’. I respond in two parts, the first facing the future and the second facing the past. In the first part, I argue that the symmetry principle will be crucial in decisions that society will increasingly need to make concerning the inclusion of animals and machines on grounds of sentience, consciousness, intelligence, (...) etc. In the second part, I argue that the symmetry principle has been in fact at the core of the ‘justice as fairness’ idea that has been at the core of both liberal and socialist democracies. Difficulties start once the means of expression and communication are made widely available and the standards of fairness are subject to continual questioning and renegotiation. (shrink)

The archipelago context of Maluku represents the living dynamics of Christian communities in that area, which becomes an ecclesiological foundation of the Gereja Protestan Maluku. Christianity, the embryo of the GPM, is the fruit of the evangelical works by European missionaries, particularly Dutch missions from the 18th century onwards. The Dutch-type Christianity had been adapted into models so that the form of institution and Protestant teachings in Maluku moved dynamically following socio-political and cultural changes along with the colonial and the (...) post-colonial history of Indonesian and Malukan society. It attempts to describe the manifestation of the Calvinism-model of Christianity that is continuously being contextualised through absorbing various elements of worldview, tradition, and the religiosity of the archipelago society. Cultural hermeneutics is used to interpret the socio-cultural phenomena in which the church lives in and to construct its theological understanding about Christian identity. The ecclesiological construction of GPM, in turn, is structured by plural social orders. The reality also influences the perspective about GPM from many different worldviews of the Malukan archipelago society. The contextual ecclesiological perspective, therefore, is constructed based on intermingled understandings that theology of the church can only be built by considering multifold dimensions of a particular society. The result of this research pertains to the constructive understanding of a specific ecclesial context of the GPM in their struggles for theologising their existence as God’s people and, at the same time, as an integral part of certain society in Maluku and Indonesia.Contribution: As the living contextual church that struggles for proclaiming God’s love, the GPM has a theological responsibility to conduct its church mission based on its ecclesiological understanding and practices contextually. The article contributes to the enrichment of the theological discourse on the crucial roles of a church in Maluku, in the eastern part of Indonesia. (shrink)

The Daily Show has emerged as one of the most influential media sources for political information. The same reliance on satire and parody as a means of social and political critique is on display in the show's spin‐off book, America. Both the book and television show aim to hold up a mirror to the contemporary United States. The lack of meaningful public participation in self‐governance isn't America's only critique of contemporary American democracy. A second theme is the narrow range of (...) demographic groups making up the government. America's final chapter calls attention to some slight imperfections in an otherwise perfect Union—inefficiencies, inequities, injustices, absurdities, hypocrisies, and an overall failure to live up to the lofty ideals expressed in the nation's founding documents. Like America, Earth offers an ironic but impassioned defense of democracy, along with thinly veiled criticism of its historical and contemporary opponents. (shrink)

In the past sixty years computer technology has revolutionized the way information is processed, stored, distributed, and communicated. These changes have greatly affected myriad ways of life including especially the activities of government, commerce and social life broadly construed. This entry will not attempt to cover the broad sweep of ethical issues raised by information and computer technology. It will focus on those questions within computer ethics raised by the Internet.

The relationship between religion, intolerance and conflict has been the subject of intense discussion, particularly in the wake of the events of 9-11 and the ongoing threat of terrorism. This book contains original papers written by some of the world's leading scholars in anthropology, psychology, philosophy and theology exploring the scientific and conceptual dimensions of religion and human conflict. The volume will be of great interest to academics across avariety of disciplines, including religious studies, philosophy, psychology, theology, cognitive science, anthropology, (...) politics, international relations, and evolutionary biology. It will also be ofinterest to the many lay readers who are interested in the phenomenon of religious conflict and who value access to the best available empirically informed perspectives on this topic. (shrink)

When are soldier enhancements permissible in so far as they affect moral autonomy? This question is answered via the setting out of an important condition for moral autonomy: the capacity agents have for appropriating actions and experiences into a unified morally coherent self-conception.

Brian Barry's Culture and Equality is probably the most powerful liberal egalitarian critique of multiculturalism addressing the pathologies of recognizing difference of ethnicity, religion, race, and culture. In this essay, I examine Barry's approach to the law, which underpins his theory of egalitarianism to determine whether it is enough — as Barry thinks it is — to insist on either applying the same law for everyone so that exemptions are foreclosed in general, or repealing the law since the case for (...) its existence is not justified. I find that Barry's effort is inadequate. Because the conditions for exemptions are not specified, exemptions are merely defensible, not just. Using the headscarf controversy in France to illustrate why Barry's approach backfires, I argue how enforcing the same law for all leads to undermining the very politics of redistribution that Barry champions. (shrink)

This chapter surveys the origin and development of environmental justice discourse from its early use as a civil rights strategy to resist the siting of hazardous waste facilities in the neighborhoods of poor people of color to its more contemporary usage as a directive for equity in global cooperation in pursuit of environmental sustainability. From debates among scholars and activists over the demands of justice as applied to problems of global climate change mitigation and adaptation, or climate justice, it examines (...) three principles of justice invoked in a landmark climate treaty and later applied to the design and evaluation of international climate change policy efforts. The chapter concludes by considering potential new directions that environmental justice theorizing might take in the context of other issues in environmental politics. (shrink)

A good measure of the real significance attached to a social practice is the number of people who worry about the practice's significance being misrepresented. Perhaps we are never quite told what makes the practice so significant; but if the misrepresented social practice is science, then, so argue the four books under review, this is a cause for some alarm. These books differ in almost every respect except that their authors all believe that somebody is misrepresenting the contemporary state of (...) sci- ence to the public. The range of culprits is bewildering but not entirely surprising. Gerot Böhme, a philosopher of science of the Frankfurt School, hints at a collectively self-inflicted wound, as demonstrated by his fondness for the first person plural. Stephen Cole, a Mertonian sociologist of science, lays most of the blame on members of the rival sociological school, the constructivists. Mary Midgley, that rare philosopher who tries to draw more general meaning from recent scientific developments, finds fault with prestigious scientists who attempt a similar feat but ineptly. Finally, Milton Rothman, a physicist who seems to have spent more time fathoming the minds of creationists than the mysteries of quarks, levels an omnibus charge against the forces of "spiritualism"that have continually enlarged the gap between public and scientific understandings of reality. Most of these authors indulge in a certain rhetoric of de- mystification. The exception is Cole, whose matter-of-fact style obscures the source of heat generated by the others' rhetoric. To tackle what is at stake here, I will present Midgley as a foil to Rothman and then use Rothman to introduce Bohme, all of which will serve to foil Cole. (shrink)