We report on an application of three multivariate time series classification methods, Hive-Cote 2.0, MiniRocket, and Mr-Petsc, to gaze and eyelid movement data to classify expertise. Our methods can be used to noninvasively monitor performance and identify experts using low-grade equipment. The test case was Tetris, which is a video game in which players arrange falling blocks to clear horizontal lines with increasing points and difficulty as the game advances. In addition to being able to classify the expert players, we (...) can attribute the patterns within a time series that led to a prediction with Mr-Petsc. This allows us to describe eye behavior that is associated with expertise. This method can be used in any performance classification that involves screen-based activity that is accompanied by eye movement recordings, for example with a webcam. (shrink)

Some recent policy-oriented publications have put forward a third category of environmental values, namely relational or eudaimonic values, in addition to intrinsic and instrumental values. In this debate, there is, however, much confusion about the content of such values. This paper looks at a fundamental debate in ethics about a third category of reasons besides reasons from morality and self-interest, labelled as reasons of love, care or meaningfulness. This category allows us, first, to see the relation between relational and eudaimonic (...) values, and, second, to make clear and applicable distinctions between the relational valuing of nature and moral or instrumental valuing. (shrink)

-/- Species lists play an important role in biology and practical domains like conservation, legislation, biosecurity and trade regulation. However, their effective use by non-specialist scientific and societal users is sometimes hindered by disagreements between competing lists. While it is well-known that such disagreements exist, it remains unclear how prevalent they are, what their nature is, and what causes them. In this study, we argue that these questions should be investigated using methods based on taxon concept rather than methods based (...) on Linnaean names, and use such a concept-based method to quantify disagreement about bird classification and investigate its relation to research effort. We found that there was disagreement about 38% of all groups of birds recognized as a species, more than three times as much as indicated by previous measures. Disagreement about the delimitation of bird groups was the most common kind of conflict, outnumbering disagreement about nomenclature and disagreement about rank. While high levels of conflict about rank were associated with lower levels of research effort, this was not the case for conflict about the delimitation of bird groups. This suggests that taxonomic disagreement cannot be resolved simply by increasing research effort. (shrink)

Lettered selves and beyond -- The alphabetic body -- Gesture and non-alphabetic writing -- Technologized mathematics -- Parallel selves -- Ghost effects.

Abusive supervision has been shown to have significant negative consequences for employees’ well-being, attitudes, and behavior. However, despite the devastating impact, it might well be that employees do not always react negatively toward a leader’s abusive behavior. In the present study, we show that employees’ organizational identification and abusive supervision interact for employees’ perceived cohesion with their work group and their tendency to gossip about their leader. Employees confronted with a highly abusive supervisor had a stronger perceived cohesion and engaged (...) in less gossiping behavior when they identified more strongly with their organization. Our findings illustrate that organizational identification functions as a buffer for those confronted with an abusive supervisor. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 94 Heft: 2 Seiten: 385-422.

The Prophetic hadith “pray with your leader,” which G. H. A. Juynboll argued originated with Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj, urges Muslims to observe the prayer both at its appointed time and with an imam who delays its performance. An isnād analysis that factors in the different readings of the tradition could not reproduce Juynboll’s result and yielded significantly earlier dates of origin for the oldest two variants: the early 60s/680s and the early 80s/700s. It is argued that the tradition was invented (...) and distributed in reaction to activists who disapproved of Umayyad religious practice, especially the postponement of the ṣalāt. Two of the regime’s representatives in Iraq, the governors Ibn Ziyād and al-Ḥajjāj, were publicly accused of delaying the ṣalāt at the time the tradition was circulated. The tradition constituted thus an early articulation of the quietism that would later become a characteristic of Sunnism. (shrink)

Many systematic biologists claim that a new paradigm about species classification has been established in their discipline. This paradigm, which I call the "unified species paradigm", consists in a set of theoretical claims and methodological practices centered around the view that species are independently evolving lineages. This paper sets out the basic theoretical and methodological principles of this new paradigm, and looks at biological textbooks, publication patterns and citation patterns to evaluate the claim that there is growing consensus about it.

Contemporary debates about the role of religion in the public sphere often neglect the historical heritage of secularization theory. This neglect is addressed in La querelle de la sécularisation by the French author Jean-Claude Monod. With him, I follow the path of secularization theory from Hegel to Blumenberg. A forgotten protagonist, Erik Peterson, is brought back to light. Furthermore I describe two classical theories: the transfer thesis and the emancipation thesis. I argue that most thinkers do not simply fit either (...) frame. This complexity is also conspicuous in the 20th century debate, which centers around the ambivalent concept of eschatology. In the Löwith-Blumenberg debate, Löwith’s position is much more sophisticated and closer to Blumenberg’s than it is usually assumed. Their philosophical position with regard to secularization theory turns out to depend on a different approach to eschatology: an ‘immanent’ versus a ‘transcendent’ one. (shrink)

Ataxia‐telangiectasia (A‐T) is a pleiotropic recessive disorder characterized cerebellar ataxia, immunodeficiency, specific developmental defects, profound predisposition to cancer and acute radiosensitivity. Functional inactivation of single gene product, ATM, accounts for this compound phenotype. We suggest that ATM acts as a sensor of reactive oxygen species and/or oxidative damage cellular macromolecules, including DNA. In turn, ATM induces signalling through multiple pathways, thereby coordinating acute phase stress responses with cell cycle checkpoint control and repair of oxidative damage. Absence of ATM is proposed (...) to limit the repair of insidious oxidative damage that can occur under normal physiological conditions, ultimately leading to apoptosis of particularly sensitive cells, such as neurons and thymocytes. (shrink)

Conscientious objection and the limits of vertical toleration in the liberal state Liberal states tend to tolerate certain conscientious objectors, but not others. They tolerate doctors who conscientiously refuse to perform abortions, but do not extend the same toleration to civil servants who conscientiously refuse to register same-sex marriages. In this article, I analyse the attitude of liberal states to different claims of conscience in terms of vertical toleration, and its limits. Contrary to a prevailing political theoretical argument, I submit (...) that there is space for vertical toleration – that is, toleration by the state – in the contemporary liberal state. Yet, this space is limited. It only opens up when individuals’ practices prima facie contravene core liberal values. Whenever that is not the case, as with conscientious objection to military service, the lens of vertical toleration is not the appropriate one. But in relation to other claims of conscience, such as of doctors against abortion, the attitude of liberal states can be described in terms of vertical toleration. The practice finally reveals that certain conscientious objectors, particularly civil servants who refuse to register same-sex marriages, are not tolerated by the liberal state. Their practices exceed the limits of vertical toleration. This article explains why the prevailing practice in liberal states, as described, gets it right. (shrink)

In the last decade, the study of moral heuristics has gained in importance. I argue that we can consider speciesism as a moral heuristic: an intuitive rule of thumb that substitutes a target attribute (that is difficult to detect, e.g. “having rationality”) for a heuristic attribute (that is easier to detect, e.g. “looking like a human being”). This speciesism heuristic misfires when applied to some atypical humans such as the mentally disabled, giving them rights although they lack rationality. But I (...) argue that it is not necessarily irrational or inconsistent to hold on to this heuristic rule, because we have to take time and knowledge constraints, uncertainty aversion and emotional costs into account. However, this “heuristic defense” of speciesism uses a target attribute (rationality) that has implications of disrespect towards some atypical humans. Therefore, based on notions of impartiality and compassion, I argue for a morally better target attribute: sentience (“having a sense of well-being”). “Being a vertebrate” is suitable as a corresponding heuristic attribute because it is easy to detect and has a strong correlation with the target attribute of sentience. (shrink)

In his article ‘In Defense of Eating Meat’, Timothy Hsiao argued that sentience is not sufficient for moral status, that the pain experienced by an animal is bad but not morally bad, that the nutritional interests of humans trump the interests of animals and that eating meat is permissible. In this article I explore the strengths and weaknesses of Hsiao’s argument, clarify some issues and argue that eating meat is likely in conflict with some of our strongest moral intuitions.

There is growing agreement among taxonomists that species are independently evolving lineages. The central notion of this conception, evolutionary independence, is commonly operationalized by taxonomists in multiple, diverging ways. This leads to a problem of operationalization-dependency in species classification, as species delimitation is not only dependent on the properties of the investigated groups, but also on how taxonomists choose to operationalize evolutionary independence. The question then is how the operationalization-dependency of species delimitation is compatible with its objectivity and reliability. In (...) response to this problem, various taxonomists have proposed to integrate multiple operationalizations of evolutionary independence for delimiting species. This paper first distinguishes between a standard and a sophisticated integrative approach to taxonomy, and argues that it is unclear how either of these can support the reliability and objectivity of species delimitation. It then draws a parallel between the measurement of physical quantities and species delimitation to argue that species delimitation can be considered objective and reliable if we understand the sophisticated integrative approach as assessing the coherence between the idealized models of multiple operationalizations of evolutionary independence. (shrink)

The trolley problem, first described by Foot (1967) and Thomson (The Monist, 59, 204–217, 1976), is one of the most famous and influential thought experiments in deontological ethics. The general story is that a runaway trolley is threatening the lives of five people. Doing nothing will result in the death of those persons, but acting in order to save those persons would unavoidably result in the death of another, sixth person. It appears that, depending on the situation, we have different (...) moral judgments about the permissibility of action. We will review and systematize all the proposals in the literature of the past 35 years that have attempted to grasp our moral intuitions in a simple deontological principle. In particular, seventeen proposals will be classified: six algorithmic, seven psychological, and four other invalid accounts. This review and classification sheds light on some subtle differences and clarify a few issues. (shrink)

This article presents an argument for veganism, using a formal-axiomatic approach: a list of twenty axioms are explicitly stated. These axioms are all necessary conditions to derive the conclusion that veganism is a moral duty. The presented argument is a minimalist or core argument for veganism, because it is as parsimonious as possible, using the weakest conditions, the narrowest definitions, the most reliable empirical facts and the minimal assumptions necessary to reach the conclusion. If someone does not accept the conclusion, (...) logical consistency requires that s/he should be able to point at axiom on which s/he disagrees. The argument exposes hidden assumptions and provides a framework for an overview of the philosophical literature on animal rights and vegetarianism / veganism. (shrink)

Just as one line appears to be longer than another in an optical illusion, we can have a spontaneous moral judgment that one individual is more important than another. Sometimes such judgments can lead to moral illusions like speciesism and other kinds of discrimination. Moral illusions are persistent spontaneous judgments that violate our deepest moral values and distract us away from a rational, authentic ethic. They generate pseudo-ethics, similar to pseudoscience. The antidote against moral illusions is the ethical principle to (...) avoid unwanted arbitrariness. Speciesism involves unwanted arbitrariness, and psychological research as well as the problem of wild animal suffering demonstrate that moral illusions such as speciesism can be very persistent. (shrink)

In this paper, we will address anonymity, privacy and trust issues that arise during the research on a communication platform for multi-modal transport. Though most logistic information is currently available in electronic form, it is not widely accessible yet to all the parties concerned with transport. The major goal of a communication platform is to improve the conditions for exchanging information, which should lead to better organisation/collaboration within the transport sector. We need to merit credibility by faithfully modelling all the (...) relevant real world interactions. Therefore, we opted for a connectivity solution in which software agents act as representatives of the parties involved. All agents can be equipped with human-like skills and qualities such as intelligence, autonomy, and the ability to cooperate, coordinate and negotiate. We will demonstrate how cooperation between different transport parties can be achieved without necessarily putting all the sensitive information on the web. (shrink)

We are living in an age of crisis—or an age in which everything is labeled a crisis. Financial, debt, and refugee “crises” have erupted. The word has also been applied to the Arab Spring and its aftermath, Brexit, the 2016 U.S. election, and many other international events. Yet the term has contradictory political and strategic meanings for those challenging power structures and those seeking to preserve them. For critics of the status quo, can the rhetoric of crisis be used to (...) foment urgency around issues like climate change and financialization, or does framing a situation as a “crisis” play into the hands of the existing political order, which then seeks to tighten the leash by creating a state of emergency? Critical Theory at a Crossroads presents conversations with prominent theorists about the crises that have marked the past years, the protest movements that have risen up in response, and the use of the term in political discourse. Tariq Ali, Rosi Braidotti, Wendy Brown, Maurizio Lazzarato, Angela McRobbie, Jean-Luc Nancy, Antonio Negri, Jacques Rancière, Saskia Sassen, and Joseph Vogl offer their views on contemporary challenges and how we might address them, candidly discussing the alternatives that new social movements have offered, alongside an exchange between Zygmunt Bauman and Roberto Esposito on theories of community. Sparring over crucial developments in these past years of catastrophe and the calamity of everyday life under capitalism, they shed light on how crises and the discourse of crisis can both obscure and reveal fundamental aspects of modern societies. (shrink)

After decades of debates about species concepts, there is broad agreement that species are evolving lineages. However, species classification is still in a state of disorder: different methods of delimitation lead to competing outcomes for the same organisms, and the groups recognised as species are of widely different kinds. This paper considers whether this problem can be resolved by developing a unitary scale for evolutionary independence. Such a scale would show clearly when groups are comparable and allow taxonomists to choose (...) a conventional threshold of independence for species status. Existing measurement approaches to species delimitation are typically shot down by what I call the heterogeneity objection, according to which independently evolving groups are too heterogeneous to be captured by a single scale. I draw a parallel with the measurement of temperature to argue that this objection does not provide sufficient reasons to abandon the measurement approach, and that such an approach may even help to make the vague notion of evolutionary independence more precise. (shrink)

Secularization, A Multi-Layered Concept. On the Vicissitudes of Sociological and Philosophical Theories of Secularization This article focuses on the historical evolution of the concept of ‘secularization’ in sociology and philosophy. It does not include a description of political systems and their approach to religion and secularity. The authors dwell on the classic secularization thesis and explain how this thesis was questioned in sociology and philosophy alike. The secularization debate nowadays counts many participants reflecting diverging normative positions. Despite this multitude of (...) positions and nuances, the debate is likely to continue in the future along two particular strands: first, discussions on the use of concepts as secular/post-secular and the tenability of the religious/secular divide; second, discussions that will revolve around western modernity/multiple modernities, or ‘the West versus the rest’. (shrink)

Starting from Poincaré’s assignment of an algebraic object to a topological manifold, namely the fundamental group, this article introduces the concept of categories and their language of arrows that has, since their mid-20th-century inception, altered how large areas of mathematics, from algebra to abstract logic and computer programming, are conceptualized. The assignment of the fundamental group is an example of a functor, an arrow construction central to the notion of a category. The exposition of category theory’s arrows, which operate at (...) three distinct but deeply interconnected levels, is framed by a comparison with the language and outlook of set theory founded on the concept of membership; sets and their theorization having provided, famously through the Bourbaki initiative, the basic ontological and epistemological vocabulary for defining and handling all mathematical entities. The comparison with sets emphasizes how categories offer a form of diagrammatic argument and thought against set theory’s fidelity to syntax-based proofs; how categories invert set theory’s priority of objects and their attributes over relations by making the relations of an object to others of its kin primary; and how categories replace identity, that is, equality, between objects, by the weaker notion of isomorphism, restricting equality to identity between arrows. The article concludes with a return to topology and some remarks about the question of its possible use in articulating/characterizing cultural dynamics. (shrink)

Moderate pluralism is a popular position in contemporary philosophy of biology. Despite its popularity, various authors have argued that it tends to slide off off into a radical form of pluralism that is both normatively and descriptively ueptable. This paper looks at at the case of biological species classification, and evaluates a popular way of avoiding radical pluralism by relying on the shared aims and norms of a discipline. The main contention is that while these aims and norms may play (...) an important role in the legitimacy of species classifications, they fail to fend off radical pluralism. It follows from this that the legitimacy of species classifications is also determined by local decisions about the aims of research and how to operationalize and balance these. This is important, I argue, because it means that any acceptable view on the legitimacy of classification should be able to account for these local decisions. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that the concept of natural kinds should be eliminated because it does not play a productive theoretical role and even harms philosophical research on scientific classification. We argue that this justification for eliminativism fails because the notion of ‘natural kinds’ plays another epistemic role in philosophical research, namely, it enables fruitful investigation into non-arbitrary classification. It does this in two ways: first, by providing a fruitful investigative entry into scientific classification; and second—as is supported by (...) bibliometric evidence—by tying together a research community devoted to non-arbitrary classification. The question of eliminativism then requires weighing off the benefits of retaining the concept against its harms. We argue that the progressive state of philosophical work on natural kinds tips this balance in favour of retaining the concept. (shrink)

This article conceptualizes power in the context of long-term process of structural change. First, it discusses the field of transition studies, which deals with processes of structural change in societal systems on the basis of certain presumptions about power relations, but still lacks an explicit conceptualization of power. Then the article discusses some prevailing points of contestation in debates on power. It is argued that for the context of transition studies, it is necessary to develop an interdisciplinary framework in which (...) power is explicitly conceptualized in relation to change. Subsequently, such a framework is presented, with reference to existing literature on power. Starting with a philosophical and operational definition of power, a typology is developed of the different ways in which power can be exercised, explicitly including innovative power and transformative power. Finally, the presented power framework is applied to transition studies, redefining pivotal transition concepts in terms of power and formulating hypotheses on the role of power in transitions. By doing so, the article not only offers an interdisciplinary framework to study power in the context of transition studies, but also contributes to power debates more generally by including innovation and transformation as acts of power, and thereby proposes a re-conceptualization of the relation between power and structural change. (shrink)

Is animal farming permissible when animals would have a positive welfare? The happy animal farming problem represent the paradigmatic problem in population ethics, because its simple structure introduces the most important complications of population ethics. Three new population ethical theories that avoid the counter-intuitive repugnant and sadistic conclusions are discussed and applied to the animal farming problem. Breeding farm animals would not be permissible according to these theories, except under some rather unrealistic conditions, such as those farm animals being so (...) happy that they themselves would prefer a continuation of animal farming. Given the fact that many people believe that most farm animals are not so happy and the fact that one can formulate reasonable population ethical theories that condemn happy animal farming, it can be concluded that it is better to avoid animal farming and the consumption of animal products in general. (shrink)

Classical utilitarianism is very demanding and entails some counter-intuitive implications in moral dilemmas such as the trolley problem in deontological ethics and the repugnant conclusion in population ethics. This article presents how one specific modification of utilitarianism can avoid these counter-intuitive implications. In this modified utilitarian theory, called ‘discounted’ or ‘mild’ utilitarianism, people have a right to discount the utilities of others, under the condition that people whose utility is discounted cannot validly complain against such discounting. A complaint made by (...) a utility discounted person is not valid if either the existence of the discounting people in that option is in a specific sense necessary or the existence of the discounted person is in a sense not necessary. According to mild utilitarianism, we should choose the option that maximizes the total validly discounted or complaint-free discounted utility, i e. the sum of everyone’s utility minus the complaint-free discounts. As there are two conditions that make a complaint invalid, this right to discount can be translated into two versions: the right to bodily autonomy and the right to procreation autonomy. The former right relates to the mere means principle in deontological ethics, the latter right is useful in avoiding the repugnant conclusion problem in population ethics. The possibility of democratically imposing an upper bound on the permissible amount of discounting is discussed. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 1, Page 116-139, March 2022.

This paper discusses how, starting from Blaise Pascal’s Wager about God, in his later teaching Lacan rearticulates his Name-of-the-Father concept. Building on a discussion of Lacan’s (1963) single seminar session on the Names-of-the-Father and his 1968–1969 discussion of Pascal’s Wager in Seminar XVI, the author examines what this changing conception implies for the Lacanian approach of psychosis. It is argued that – contrary to what Lacan suggests in the nineteen fifties – within these works from the sixties the Name-of-the-Father no (...) longer refers to a privileged signifier, but to an act of faith concerning the virtuousness of the Other. This act of faith functions as a guarantee for the articulation of the subject, separates the subject from what Lacan calls “object a”, and establishes a positive expectant relation with the Other. The strength of Lacan’s revised conception is that it opens new perspectives on the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis. (shrink)

I propose a new fundamental principle in ethics: everyone who makes a choice has to avoid unwanted arbitrariness as much as possible. Unwanted arbitrariness is defi ned as making a choice without following a rule, whereby the consequences of that choice cannot be consistently wanted by at least one person. Other formulations of this anti-arbitrariness principle are given and compared with very similar contractualist principles formulated by Kant, Rawls, Scanlon and Parfit. The structure of arbitrariness allows us to fi nd (...) ways to avoid unwanted arbitrariness. The two most important implications of the anti-arbitrariness principle are discussed: non-dictatorship and non-discrimination. (shrink)

Despite its uniform appearance, the cerebellar cortex is highly heterogeneous in terms of structure, genetics and physiology. Purkinje cells (PCs), the principal and sole output neurons of the cerebellar cortex, can be categorized into multiple populations that differentially express molecular markers and display distinctive physiological features. Such features include action potential rate, but also their propensity for synaptic and intrinsic plasticity. However, the precise molecular and genetic factors that correlate with the differential physiological properties of PCs remain elusive. In this (...) article, we provide a detailed overview of the cellular mechanisms that regulate PC activity and plasticity. We further perform a pathway analysis to highlight how molecular characteristics of specific PC populations may influence their physiology and plasticity mechanisms. (shrink)

The mere means principle says it is impermissible to treat someone as merely a means to someone else’s ends. I specify this principle with two conditions: a victim is used as merely a means if the victim does not want the treatment by the agent and the agent wants the presence of the victim’s body. This principle is a specification of the doctrine of double effect which is compatible with moral intuitions and with a restricted kind of libertarianism. An extension (...) of this mere means principle, where not only using but also considering someone as merely a means is immoral, can explain and unify other deontological principles: doing versus allowing, partiality in imperfect duties of beneficence, and the asymmetry of procreational duties. A loop trolley dilemma is often presented as a counterexample of the mere means principle, but I argue that this dilemma generates a moral illusion, comparable to perceptual illusions. (shrink)