That is the short title. The long title is: ‘How a deterministic interpretation of quantum theory would, if correct, show that compatibilism is not true; and some implications of this for theodicy’. Let us start with what people think they mean by freedom who, like myself, reject both determinism and compatibilism. Freedom-fans, we might call them. Better, let us start with what they do not mean, since proponents of determinism too frequently saddle them with views they do not hold. Freedom-fans (...) do not doubt causality. (shrink)

With each of our three criminal-law topics—defining offenses, apprehending suspects, and establishing punishments—we feel, I believe, strong moral resistance to the idea that our practices should be settled by a prospective-participant perspective. This becomes quite clear when we look at how the “reforms” suggested by institutional viewing might combine once we consider all three topics together: imagine a more extensive and swifter use of the death penalty in homicide cases coupled with somewhat lower standards of evidence; or think of backing (...) a strict-liability criminal statute with the death penalty. Of course, such “reforms” would increase the execution of innocents; but, their proponents will tell us, any penal system involves the punishment of some innocents, and, if it provides for the death penalty, the execution of some innocents. Moreover, why is it worse for innocents to be punished than for innocents to suffer an equivalent harm in some other way? Formulated from a prospective-participant perspective: Why not run a small risk of being innocently executed in exchange for reducing, much more significantly, the risk of dying prematurely in other ways? (shrink)

Life is a battlefield onto which we are thrown at birth, with only fate and fortune settling upon where we land. Wherever we land, whether it's on the front lines or surrounded by a network of defenses, we are all asking the same question: why are we here? The problem with this question, however, is that we tend to answer it from our own relative positions, and so we all arrive at different conclusions. The many answers we've created have filled (...) the field. They have become banners that are raised high so that we can see and follow them. These banners are always at risk of being toppled though; always at risk of losing their capacity for belief. But then, what if belief is more than a mere by-product of our universal search? What if belief can change the very fabric of this field? That is, what if truth is actually irrelevant, and the only real thing that makes up this battlefield is the belief, and consequently the collective will, which we invest in our answers? (shrink)

Since Hilary Putnam offered multiple realization as an empirical hypothesis in the 1960s, philosophical consensus has turned against the idea that mental processes are identifiable with brain processes, and multiple realization has become the keystone of the 'antireductive consensus' across philosophy of science. Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro offer the first book-length investigation of multiple realization, which serves as a starting point to a series of philosophically sophisticated and empirically informed arguments that cast doubt on the generality (...) of multiple realization in the cognitive sciences. They argue that mind-brain identities have played an important role in the growth and achievements of the cognitive sciences, and suggest that there is little prospect for multiple realization in an empirically-based theory of mind. This leads Polger and Shapiro to offer an alternative framework for understanding explanations in the cognitive sciences, as well as in chemistry, biology, and other non-basic sciences. (shrink)

'Methinks I am like a man, who having narrowly escap'd shipwreck', David Hume writes in A Treatise of Human Nature, 'has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe'. With these words, Hume begins a memorable depiction of the crisis of philosophy and his turn to moral and political philosophy as the path forward. In this groundbreaking work, Thomas W. (...) Merrill shows how Hume's turn is the core of his thought, linking Hume's metaphysical and philosophical crisis to the moral-political inquiries of his mature thought. Merrill shows how Hume's comparison of himself to Socrates in the introduction to the Treatise illuminates the dramatic structure and argument of the book as a whole, and he traces Hume's underappreciated argument about the political role of philosophy in the Essays. (shrink)

This paper extends the discussion of guanxi beyond instrumental evaluations and advances a normative assessment of guanxi. Our discussion departs from previous analyses by not merely asking, Does guanxi work? but rather Should corporations use guanxi? The analysis begins with a review of traditional guanxi definitions and the changing economic and legal environment in China, both necessary precursors to understanding the role of guanxi in Chinese business transactions. This review leads us to suggest that there are distinct types of, and (...) uses for guanxi. We identify the potentially problematic aspects of certain forms of guanxi from a normative perspective, noting among other things, the close association of particular types of guanxi with corruption and bribery. We conclude that there are many different forms of guanxi that may have distinct impacts on economic efficiency and the well-being of ordinary Chinese citizens. Consistent with Donaldson and Dunfee (1999), we advocate a particularistic analysis of the different forms of guanxi. (shrink)

"Displaying a masterful grasp of the texts, the author shows how otherness forces itself upon the existentialist Sartre, gradually constraining him to modify his understanding of consciousness as omnipotent. The issue is Sartre’s discovery of the social and its conceptual assimilation into his individualistic, consciousness-oriented philosophy." —Thomas R. Flynn "This very successful and accessible scholarly book... is simultaneously a succinct and clear overview of Sartre’s philosophical works.... and a fresh consideration of Sartre’s body of work." —Choice "Busch’s admirably clear (...) and compact discussion is essential reading for Sartre scholars, since it powerfully addresses many issues dividing them... " —Ethics "... a useful overview of the evolution of Sartre’s thought... " —Review of Politics "... a thought provoking reassessment of Sartre's philosophical career." —Man and World "... succinct, richly documented survey... " —International Studies in Philosophy. (shrink)

Moral universalism centrally involves the idea that the moral assessment of persons and their conduct, of social rules and states of affairs, must be based on fundamental principles that do not, explicitly or covertly, discriminate arbitrarily against particular persons or groups. This general idea is explicated in terms of three conditions. It is then applied to the discrepancy between our criteria of national and global economic justice. Most citizens of developed countries are unwilling to require of the global economic order (...) what they assuredly require of any national economic order, for example, that its rules be under democratic control, that it preclude life-threatening poverty as far as is reasonably possible. Without a plausible justification, such a double standard constitutes covert arbitrary discrimination against the global poor. Key Words: contextualism • corruption • discrimination • Rawls • resource exports • world poverty. (shrink)

In Natural Minds Thomas Polger advocates, and defends, the philosophical theory that mind equals brain -- that sensations are brain processes -- and in doing so brings the mind-brain identity theory back into the philosophical debate about consciousness. The version of identity theory that Polger advocates holds that conscious processes, events, states, or properties are type- identical to biological processes, events, states, or properties -- a "tough-minded" account that maintains that minds are necessarily indentical to brains, a position held (...) by few current identity theorists. Polger's approach to what William James called the "great blooming buzzing confusion" of consciousness begins with the idea that we need to know more about brains in order to understand consciousness fully, but recognizes that biology alone cannot provide the entire explanation. Natural Minds takes on issues from philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and metaphysics, moving freely among them in its discussion.Polger begins by answering two major objections to identity theory -- Hilary Putnam's argument from multiple realizability and Saul Kripke's modal argument against mind-brain identity. He then offers a detailed account of functionalism and functional realization, which offer the most serious obstacle to consideration of identity theory. Polger argues that identity theory can itself satisfy the kind of explanatory demands that are often believed to favor functionalism. (shrink)

According to the received view in philosophy of mind, mental states or properties are _realized_ by brain states or properties but are not identical to them. This view is often called _realization_ _physicalism_. Carl Gillett has recently defended a detailed formulation of the realization relation. However, Gillett’s formulation cannot be the relation that realization physicalists have in mind. I argue that Gillett’s “dimensioned” view of realization fails to apply to a textbook case of realization. I also argue Gillett counts as (...) realization some cases that should not count if realization physicalism is to be distinguished from its competitors in the usual ways. I conclude that the relation described by Gillett cannot be realization. (shrink)

A widely accepted theory holds that emotional experiences occur mainly in a part of the human brain called the amygdala. A different theory asserts that color sensation is located in a small subpart of the visual cortex called V4. If these theories are correct, or even approximately correct, then they are remarkable advances toward a scientific explanation of human conscious experience. Yet even understanding the claims of such theories—much less evaluating them—raises some puzzles. Conscious experience does not present itself as (...) a brain process. Indeed experience seems entirely unlike neural activity. For example, to some people it seems that an exact physical duplicate of you could have different sensations than you do, or could have no sensations at all. If so, then how is it even possible that sensations could turn out to be brain processes? (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 47, Issue 4, Page 412-424, Fall 2019.

By now it is cliché to observe that so-called reductionism is not one mammoth doctrine. There are, as it were, many reductionisms. Needless to say, there are at least as many antireductionisms. Despite the fact that neither reductionisms nor their counterparts are single and unified doctrines there do seem to be some family resemblances. One, it seems to me, is that both reductionisms and antireductionisms are acute responses to certain metaphysical worries. Some of these worries are metaphysical in nature, and (...) others are worries about the nature of metaphysics. My contention is that these worries are by and large misguided, and thus that the anxious reactions of both reductionists and antireductionists are unwarranted. For the present purposes I will distinguish between reductionist and antireductionist theses, on the one hand, and reductionist and antireductionist approaches, on the other. This is a perhaps clumsy distinction, and I don’t know that it carves reductionism at its joints. But I think it can be made to do some work. By theses I have in mind particular views about the nature of reduction and reductive relations, which can be worked out in various ways some of which will be discussed below. By approaches I have in mind the motivations and background assumptions that go into formulating or adopting particular theses. Individual reductionists and antireductionists usually hold what we might then call a theory, a combination of an approach and a thesis. A great deal has been written about the merits of or truth of any number of 1 reductionist or antireductionist theses. Presumably there are some assumptions about approaches and motivations lurking in the background. But very little has been said about the merits of the various approaches themselves. Put another way: There is a lively debate over whether particular reductionist theses can solve certain problems or avoid certain objections. But not enough attention has been given to whether these are problems worth solving or objections worth overcoming. (shrink)

Recently some philosophers interested in consciousness have begun to turn their attention to the question of what evolutionary advantages, if any, being conscious might confer on an organism. The issue has been pressed in recent dicussions involving David Chalmers, Todd Moody, Owen Flanagan and Thomas Polger, Daniel Dennett, and others. The purpose of this essay is to consider some of the problems that face anyone who wants to give an evolutionary explanation of consciousness. We begin by framing the problem (...) in the context of some current debates. Then we. (shrink)

The notion of disinterestedness is often conceived of as antiquated or ideological. In spite of this, Hilgers argues that one cannot reject it if one wishes to understand the nature of art. He claims that an artwork typically _asks_ a person to adopt a disinterested attitude towards what it shows, and that the effect of such an adoption is that it makes the person temporarily _lose the sense of herself_, while enabling her to _gain a sense of the other_. Due (...) to an artwork’s particular wealth, multiperspectivity, and dialecticity, the engagement with it cannot culminate in the construction of world-views, but must initiate a process of self-critical thinking, which is a precondition of real self-determination. Ultimately, then, the aesthetic experience of art consists of a dynamic process of _losing the sense of oneself_, while _gaining a sense of the other_, and of _achieving selfhood_. In his book, Hilgers spells out the nature of this process by means of rethinking Kant’s and Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theories in light of more recent developments in philosophy–specifically in hermeneutics, critical theory, and analytic philosophy–and within the arts themselves–specifically within film and performance art. (shrink)

In a democratic society, the social rules are imposed by all upon each. As “recipients” of the rules, we tend to think that they should be designed to engender the best attainable distribution of goods and ills or quality of life. We are inclined to assess social institutions by how they affect their participants. But there is another, oft-neglected perspective which the topic of health equity raises with special clarity: As imposers of the rules, we are inclined to think that (...) harms we inflict through the rules have greater moral weight than like harms we merely fail to prevent or to mitigate. What matters morally is not merely how we affect people, but how we treat them through the rules we impose. While current (consequentialist and Rawlsian) theorizing is dominated by the first perspective and thus supports purely recipient-oriented moral conceptions, an adequate approach to social justice requires a balancing of both. Such balancing results in a relational conception of justice, which distinguishes various ways in which an institutional scheme may causally affect the quality of life of its participants.This essay argues that the strength of our moral reason to prevent or mitigate particular medical conditions depends not only on what one might call distributional factors, such as how badly off the people affected by these conditions are in absolute and relative terms, how costly prevention or treatment would be, and how much patients would benefit from given treatment. Rather, it depends also on relational factors, that is, on how we are related to the medical conditions they suffer. It then discusses some implications of this view for understanding responsibilities for international health outcomes. (shrink)

The works of Max Weber have generated a most promising interest in the social sciences with regard to his contribution to contemporary thought. While many of his substantive insights have been recognized, the attention accorded his methodological works has been comparatively scant, and often is a mere reflection of the scattered manner in which Weber himself often pursued this topic. Despite the many confusions and contradictions in Weber's methodological thought, a Weberian methodological program can be constructed from his writings. By (...) focusing on Weber's emphasis on the study of values as developed within a neo-Kantian framework, the development of Weber's methodological thought is outlined, and out of this a methodological program consistent with Weberian principles is proposed. Thus, the argument is made that Weber's methodological works are not merely of historical interest, but inform the ongoing debate over the appropriate methodological orientation of the social sciences. (shrink)

Patriotismus ist nicht nur innere Einstellung, sondern auch Anleitung zum Handeln. Etwa so: Bürger und Regierungen dürfen - und sollten vielleicht - sich mehr um das Überleben und Wohlergehen ihres eigenen Staates, ihrer Kultur und ihrer Landsleute kümmern als um das fremder Staaten, Kulturen und Personen . Oder: Bürger und Regierungen dürfen - und sollten vielleicht - sich mehr um die Gerechtigkeit ihres eigenen Staates und um von dessen Mitgliedern erlittenes Unrecht kümmern als um die Gerechtigkeit anderer Sozialsysteme und um (...) von Ausländern erlittenes Unrecht . Auch wenn diese Behauptungen wahr sind, ist doch der Geltungsbereich der behaupteten patriotischen Prioritäten streng begrenzt. Sie können nicht rechtfertigen, dass mächtige Staaten anderen ungerechte internationale Spielregeln aufzwingen oder solche nutzniessend ignorieren. Die immer wachsende internationale Ungleichheit der Lebenschancen geht auf solche ungerechten Regeln zurück, die auch erheblich zu Korruption und Repression in den Entwicklungsländern beitragen. (shrink)

The Reformed theological tradition has maintained that faith consists in trust, with that trust involving belief of certain doctrinal propositions. This paper has two aims. First, it contributes towards rehabilitating this conception of faith. I start, accordingly, by setting out the Reformers’ basic case: faith consists in trust because faith is a response to the promises of God, by which the Christian receives God’s forgiveness and is united with God. This argument is independent of any commitment to nondoxasticism or doxasticism (...) about faith. Second, it argues for a methodological commitment which the Reformers’ conception of faith-as-trust complies with, which I think is independently compelling, and which has significant implications for contemporary debates on faith: the kind of faith that matters is that which enables the individual to stand justified, or righteous, before God. Philosophical accounts of faith are unavoidably entangled with theological disputes about justification. (shrink)

Consider what the brain-state theorist has to do to make good his claims. He has to specify a physical–chemical state such that any organism (not just a mammal) is in pain if and only if (a) it possesses a brain of suitable physical–chemical structure; and (b) its brain is in that physical–chemical state. This means that the physical–chemical state in question must be a possible state of a mammalian brain, a reptilian brain, a mollusc’s brain (octopuses are mollusca, and certainly (...) feel pain), etc. At the same time, it must not be a possible (physically possible) state of the brain of any physically possible creature that cannot feel pain. Even if such a state can be found, it must be nomologically certain that it will also be a state of the brain of any extraterrestrial life that may be found that will be capable of feeling pain before we can even entertain the supposition that it may be pain. It is not altogether impossible that such a state will be found... . But this is certainly an ambitious hypothesis. (Putnam 1967/1975, p. 436) The belief that mental states are multiply realized is now nearly universal among philosophers, as is the belief that this fact decisively refutes the identity theory. I argue that the empirical support for multiple realization does not justify the confidence that has been placed in it. In order for multiple realization of mental states to be an objection to the identity theory, the neurological differences among pains, for example, must be such as to guarantee that they are of distinct neurological kinds. But the phenomena traditionally cited do not provide evidence of that sort of variation. In particular, examples of neural plasticity do not provide such evidence. (shrink)

Mental and physical causes do not competedthe presence of one does not exclude the efficacy of the other. This point is obvious from the perspective of an interventionist theory of causation, but only when this theory gets its proper due. Doubts about the interventionist justification for concluding that there is both physical and mental causation, we have argued, rest on misunderstandings of interventionism. When looking to interventions to reveal causal structures, care must be taken to consider the right variable sets. (...) Jaegwon Kim’s diagram is the wrong starting point for interventionist causal reasoning because it includes variables that are related by non-causal relations in addition to causal relations. When it comes to understanding exclusion, less is more. (shrink)

This study explores Nietzsche's political education as a means of understanding his wider political thought. Incorporating biographical details of Nietzsche's own education, it outlines the course of political education that Nietzsche recommends as an antidote to the crisis in Western European culture. Heilke begins by examining Nietzsche's formulation of this crisis, especially his conceptions of "Romantic Pessimism," "Socratism," and Christianity. For Nietzsche, only a properly ordered education could resolve the problem of how one can transform a society whose fundamental cultural (...) and political premises one rejects. Through education Nietzsche sought to establish a new political and social system founded upon the principles of tragedy and grounded in the aesthetic tradition of German Romanticism. Nietzsche's Tragic Regime focuses on Nietzsche's political philosophy until his resignation from his post as professor in 1876, with attention also to the later writings. (shrink)

Firms possessing a unique competency to rescue the victims of a human catastrophe have a minimum moral obligation to devote substantial resources toward best efforts to aid the victims. The minimum amount that firms should devote to rescue is the largest sum of their most recent year’s investment in social initiatives, their five-year trend, their industry’s average, or the national average. Financial exigency may justify a lower level of investment. Alternative social investments may be continued if they have an equally (...) compelling rationale. These duties apply to the global pharmaceutical companies in the context of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. (shrink)

A collection of photographs taken at Comiskey Park before and during Chicago White Sox baseball games, from 1973 to the final home game on September 30, 1990.

This article develops a social epistemological analysis of Web-based search engines, addressing the following questions. First, what epistemic functions do search engines perform? Second, what dimensions of assessment are appropriate for the epistemic evaluation of search engines? Third, how well do current search engines perform on these? The article explains why they fulfil the role of a surrogate expert, and proposes three ways of assessing their utility as an epistemic tool—timeliness, authority prioritisation, and objectivity. “Personalisation” is a current trend in (...) Internet-delivered services, and consists in tailoring online content to the interests of the individual user. It is argued here that personalisation threatens the objectivity of search results. Objectivity is a public good; so there is a prima facie case for government regulation of search engines. (shrink)

Feeling moved or touched can be accompanied by tears, goosebumps, and sensations of warmth in the centre of the chest. The experience has been described frequently, but psychological science knows little about it. We propose that labelling one’s feeling as being moved or touched is a component of a social-relational emotion that we term kama muta. We hypothesise that it is caused by appraising an intensification of communal sharing relations. Here, we test this by investigating people’s moment-to-moment reports of feeling (...) moved and touched while watching six short videos. We compare these to six other sets of participants’ moment-to-moment responses watching the same videos: respectively, judgements of closeness, reports of weeping, goosebumps, warmth in the centre of the chest, happiness, and sadness. Our eighth time series is expert ratings of communal sharing. Time series analyses show strong and consistent cross-correlations of feeling moved and touched and closeness with each other and with each of the three physiological variables and expert-rated communal sharing – but distinctiveness from happiness and sadness. These results support our model. (shrink)

A widely accepted theory holds that emotional experiences occur mainly in a part of the human brain called the amygdala. A different theory asserts that color sensation is located in a small subpart of the visual cortex called V4. If these theories are correct, or even approximately correct, then they are remarkable advances toward a scientific explanation of human conscious experience. Yet even understanding the claims of such theories.

There is an argument for functionalism—and _ipso facto_ against identity theory—that can be sketched as follows: We are, or want to be, or should be dedicated to functional explanations in the sciences, or at least the special sciences. Therefore—according to the principle that what exists is what our ideal theories say exists—we are, or want to be, or should be committed to metaphysical functionalism. Let us call this the _argument from functional_ _explanation_. I will try to reveal the motivation for (...) making such an argument, and sketch the kind of response that should be made by critics of functionalism. (shrink)

The view that the relationship between minds and brains can be thought of on the model of software and hardware is pervasive. The most common versions of the view, known as functionalism in philosophy of mind, hold that minds are realized by brains.

In Freedom: An Impossible Reality, Ray Tallis argues that we escape imprisonment by causal determinism, and thus gain free will, by the virtual distance from natural laws afforded us by intentionality, a human capacity that he claims cannot be naturalized. I respond that we can’t know in advance that intentionality will never be subsumed by science, and that our capacities to entertain possibilities and decide among them are natural cognitive endowments that supervene on generally reliable neural processes. Moreover, any disconnection (...) from the multi-level determinants that account for human behavior cannot augment, but would likely undermine, effective human agency. Our full inclusion in nature, understood in terms of a pragmatic, explanatory determinism, is therefore not a prison from which we need to escape. (shrink)

We citizens of the affluent countries tend to discuss our obligations toward the distant needy mainly in terms of donations and transfers, assistance and redistribution: How much of our wealth, if any, should we give away to the hungry abroad? Using one prominent theorist to exemplify this way of conceiving the problem, I show how it is a serious error — and a very costly one for the global poor.

Forthcoming in Philosophy of Science. Despite some recent advances, multiple realization remains a largely misunderstood thesis. Consider the dispute between Lawrence Shapiro and Carl Gillett over the application of Shapiro’s recipe for deciding when we have genuine cases of multiple realization. I argue that Gillett follows many philosophers in mistakenly supposing that multiple realization is absolute and transitive. Both of these are problematic. They are tempting only when we extract the question of multiple realization from the explanatory context in which (...) it is invoked. Anchoring multiple realizability in its theoretical context provides grounds for arbitrating disagreements. Doing so, I argue, favors the view advanced by Shapiro. (shrink)