Cottingham : Western philosophy : an anthology (second edition) -- Cahoone : from modernism to postmodernism : an anthology (expanded -- Second edition) -- Lafollette : ethics in practice : an anthology (third edition) -- Goodin and Pettit: contemporary political philosophy: an anthology (second -- Edition) -- Eze: african philosophy : an anthology -- McNeill and Feldman : continental philosophy : an anthology -- Kim and Sosa : metaphysics : an anthology -- Lycan and Prinz : mind and cognition : (...) an anthology (third edition) -- Kuhse and Singer : bioethics : an anthology (second edition) -- Cummins and Cummins : minds, brains, and computers : the foundations of -- Cognitive science : an anthology -- Sosa, Kim, Fantl, and McGrath epistemology : an anthology (second edition) -- Kearney and Rasmussen : continental aesthetics, romanticism to -- Postmodernism : an anthology -- Martinich and Sosa : analytic philosophy : an anthology -- Jacquette : philosophy of logic : an anthology -- Jacquette : philosophy of mathematics : an anthology -- Harris, Pratt, and Waters : American philosophies : an anthology -- Emmanuel and Goold: modern philosophy from Descartes to Nietzsche : an anthology -- Scharff and Dusek : philosophy of technology ; the technological condition : an anthology -- Light and Rolston : environmental ethics : an anthology -- Taliaferro and Griffiths : philosophy of religion : an anthology -- Lamarque and Olsen : aesthetics and the philosophy of art; the analytic -- Tradition : an anthology -- John and Lopes : philosophy of literature ; contemporary and classic -- Readings : an anthology -- Cudd and Andreasen : feminist theory : a philosophical anthology -- Carroll and Choi : philosophy of film and motion pictures : an anthology -- Lange : philosophy of science : an anthology -- Shafer-Landau and Cuneo : foundations of ethics : an anthology -- Curren : philosophy of education : an anthology -- Shafer-Landau : ethical theory : an anthology -- Cahn and Meskin : aesthetics : a comprehensive anthology -- McGrew, Alspector-Kelly and Allhoff : the philosophy of science : an historical -- Anthology -- May and Brown : the philosophy of law : classic and contemporary readings -- Forthcoming -- Rosenberg and ARP : philosophy of biology : an anthology. (shrink)

This volume contains the proceedings of the six symposia of the 'Philosophers into Europe' conference held under the joint auspices of the Royal Institute of ...

Heathen Soul Lore Foundations presents a living spiritual landscape, rooted in ancient Germanic languages and understanding, offered for modern Heathens to explore and use in their own spiritual practice. This book also presents an approach for identifying and exploring ancient concepts of 'what a soul is' that may be of interest to followers of other branches of historically based modern Paganism, and to scholars of comparative religion. Linguistic analysis, literature, folklore, comparative religion, anthropology, esoteric and philosophical approaches are used to (...) analyze old Germanic-language words relating to 'the soul'. The following souls, identified through this process, are thoroughly reviewed: Ferah, Ahma, Ghost, Hama, Aldr, Mod, Hugr, Sefa, and Saiwalo. Both scholarly and inspirational perspectives are taken, intended to stimulate both intellectual and imaginative exploration of these soul-concepts and the world-view which opens out from them. This deluxe edition provides full-color illustrations on premium quality paper in a linen-wrap hardcover book. The illustrations are chosen to stimulate engagement of the imagination in comprehending these abstract entities and their metaphysical contexts. // Review by Diana L. Paxson, author of "Essential Asatru: Walking the Path of Norse Paganism": "Since she first sent me the article on "Heathen Full-Souls" for Idunna: A Journal of Northern Tradition in 2006, I have been fascinated by Winifred Hodge Rose's development of the concept of the souls as an interactive system. I am delighted to see the full presentation of so many years of patient research and contemplation becoming available at last. In Winifred's hands, philology becomes a spiritual adventure, as words from the old Germanic languages reveal new insights into who we are and our place in the spiritual universe." // Review by John Michael Greer, author of "A World Full of Gods": "Winifred Rose has done an excellent job of gathering and synthesizing material about Heathen soul lore from a wide range of disparate sources. The resulting book is a scholarly, thorough resource that belongs on the bookshelf of every Heathen, and everyone interested in the subject.". (shrink)

One of the biggest problems in applications of animal welfare science is our ability to make comparisons between different individuals, both within and across species. Although welfare science provides methods for measuring the welfare of individual animals, there’s no established method for comparing measures between individuals. In this paper I diagnose this problem as one of underdetermination—there are multiple conclusions given the data, arising from two sources of variation that we cannot distinguish: variation in the underlying target variable (welfare experience) (...) and in the relationship of measured indicators to the target. I then describe some of the possible methods of making comparisons, based on the use of similarity assumptions that will have greater or lesser justification in different circumstances, and the alternative methods we may use when direct comparisons are not possible. In the end, all our available options for making welfare comparisons are imperfect, and we need to make explicit context-specific decisions about which will be best for the task at hand while acknowledging their potential limitations. Future developments in our understanding of the biology of sentience will help strengthen our methods of making comparisons. (shrink)

In this discussion with Craig Browne, Luc Boltanski comments on how his recent work reconsiders the questions of agency and the nature of social explanation. Boltanski reflects on the connections between his investigations of grammars of justifications and his later work with Eve Chiapello on the historical transition to a new spirit of capitalism. The significance of politics, conflict and critique to Boltanski’s sociology are highlighted. Bolanski explains why he regards May 1968 as a major disruption of the capitalist social (...) order and how the conservative response to this contestation subsequently prevailed in France. The reorganisation of capitalism in recent decades has increased social division, yet Boltanski believes that the recent recession and existing discontent could lead to unexpected outcomes. (shrink)

Summary Ferdinand von Mueller (1825–96), the German-born Government Botanist of Victoria from 1853 until his death, and concurrently Director of the Melbourne Botanic Garden from 1857 until 1873, was a prolific systematic botanist, but also heavily involved in public educational activities. He conceived of the Garden as an educative place of recreation, but ultimately lost control over it. His loss did not stop his popular writing and lecturing, especially in areas related to the application of botany in horticulture, agriculture, and (...) forestry. The structure of his introductory school text—very different from the intensely logical grammar-like botany texts of the period—owed much to his political masters, but it is characterized by careful attention to language and locality. Mueller's work represents a consistent and pervasive example of attention to the ‘public understanding of science’ that resonates with the concerns of early twenty-first-century funders of scientific research. (shrink)

Obtaining informed consent from patients prior to a medical or surgical procedure is a fundamental part of safe and ethical clinical practice. Currently, it is routine for a significant part of the consent process to be delegated to members of the clinical team not performing the procedure (eg, junior doctors). However, it is common for consent-taking delegates to lack sufficient time and clinical knowledge to adequately promote patient autonomy and informed decision-making. Such problems might be addressed in a number of (...) ways. One possible solution to this clinical dilemma is through the use of conversational artificial intelligence using large language models (LLMs). There is considerable interest in the potential benefits of such models in medicine. For delegated procedural consent, LLM could improve patients’ access to the relevant procedural information and therefore enhance informed decision-making.In this paper, we first outline a hypothetical example of delegation of consent to LLMs prior to surgery. We then discuss existing clinical guidelines for consent delegation and some of the ways in which current practice may fail to meet the ethical purposes of informed consent. We outline and discuss the ethical implications of delegating consent to LLMs in medicine concluding that at least in certain clinical situations, the benefits of LLMs potentially far outweigh those of current practices. (shrink)

This eye-opening book reveals how little we've understood about the ongoing pitched battles between the sciences and the humanities--and how much may be at ...

Clarke and Beck assume that approximate number system representations should be assigned referents from our scientific ontology. However, many representations, both in perception and cognition, do not straightforwardly refer to such entities. If we reject Clarke and Beck's assumption, many possible contents for ANS representations besides number are compatible with the evidence Clarke and Beck cite.

Syntactic satiation is the phenomenon where some sentences that initially seem ungrammatical appear more acceptable after repeated exposures (Snyder 2000). We investigated satiation by manipulating two factors known to affect syntactic priming, a phenomenon where recent exposure to a grammatical structure facilitates subsequent processing of that structure (Bock 1986). Specifically, we manipulated (i) Proximity of exposure (number of sentences between primes and targets) and (ii) Lexical repetition (type of phrase repeated across primes and targets). Experiment 1 investigated whether acceptability ratings (...) of Complex-NP Constraint (CNPC) and Subject islands improve as consequence of these variables. If so, priming and satiation may be linked. When primes were separated from targets by one sentence, CNPC islands’ acceptability was improved by a preceding island of the same type, but Subject islands’ acceptability was not. When prime-target pairs were separated by five sentences, we found no improvement for either island type. Experiment 2 asked whether improvements in Experiment 1 reflected online processing or offline end-of-sentence effects. We used a self-paced reading paradigm to diagnose online structure-building and processing facilitation (Ivanova 2012) during processing. We found priming for Subject islands when primes and targets were close together, but not when they were further apart. No effects were detected when CNPC islands were close together, but there was a localized effect when sentences were further apart. The disjunction between Experiments 1 and 2 suggests repetition of the structure in Subject islands facilitated online processing but did not ‘spill over’ to acceptability ratings. Meanwhile, results for CNPC islands suggest that acceptability rating improvements in Experiment 1 may be driven by factors distinct from online processing facilitation. Together, our experiments show that satiation may not be a one-size-fit-all phenomenon but, instead, appears to manifest itself differently for different types of structures. Priming is possible and may be linked to satiation in some purportedly “unbuildable” structures (e.g. Subject islands), but not for all types (e.g. CNPC islands). Despite this, it appears that while the types of mechanisms targeting different island types are distinct, they are nevertheless similarly sensitive to the proximity between individual exposures. (shrink)

This paper addresses what we consider to be the most pressing challenge for the emerging science of consciousness: the measurement problem of consciousness. That is, by what methods can we determine the presence of and properties of consciousness? Most methods are currently developed through evaluation of the presence of consciousness in humans and here we argue that there are particular problems in application of these methods to nonhuman cases—what we call the indicator validity problem and the extrapolation problem. The first (...) is a problem with the application of indicators developed using the differences between conscious and unconscious processing in humans to the identification of other conscious vs. nonconscious organisms or systems. The second is a problem in extrapolating any indicators developed in humans or other organisms to artificial systems. However, while pressing ethical concerns add urgency to the attribution of consciousness and its attendant moral status to nonhuman animals and intelligent machines, we cannot wait for certainty and we advocate the use of a precautionary principle to avoid causing unintentional harm. We also intend that the considerations and limitations discussed in this paper can be used to further analyze and refine the methods of consciousness science with the hope that one day we may be able to solve the measurement problem of consciousness. (shrink)

Combatting chronic, lifestyle-related disease has become a healthcare priority in the developed world. The role personal responsibility should play in healthcare provision has growing pertinence given the growing significance of individual lifestyle choices for health. Media reporting focussing on the ‘bad behaviour’ of individuals suffering lifestyle-related disease, and policies aimed at encouraging ‘responsibilisation’ in healthcare highlight the importance of understanding the scope of responsibility ascriptions in this context. Research into the social determinants of health and psychological mechanisms of health behaviour (...) could undermine some commonly held and tacit assumptions about the moral responsibility of agents for the sorts of lifestyles they adopt. I use Philip Petit's conception of freedom as ‘fitness to be held responsible’ to consider the significance of some of this evidence for assessing the moral responsibility of agents. I propose that, in some cases, factors outside the agent's control may influence behaviour in such a way as to undermine her freedom along the three dimensions described by Pettit: freedom of action; a sense of identification with one's actions; and whether one's social position renders one vulnerable to pressure from more powerful others. (shrink)

The main contribution of this paper is a new account of how a community may introduce a term for a natural kind in advance of knowing the correct scientific account of that kind. The account is motivated by the inadequacy of the currently dominant accounts of how a community may do this, namely those proposed by Kripke and by Putman. Their accounts fail to deal satisfactorily with the facts that (1) typically, an item that instantiates one natural kind instantiates several (...) - 'the higher-level natural kinds problem', and (2) natural kinds often occur in nature in impure form - 'the composition problem' .On the account I propose, a term for a natural kind gains its reference by being associated with a recognitional capacity for that kind. I show how members of a scientifically ignorant community could have a recognitional capacity for a natural kind, say gold, as opposed to a certain kind of appearance, for instance the appearance that gold actually has. I argue that members of such a community can have recognitional capacities for particular natural kinds despite the actual or possible existence of duplicate kinds, e.g. water. After developing the account in detail, I show how it can deal with the two problems faced by Kripke's and Putnam's problem. The case of natural kind terms is crucial to the central debate in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind about whether we can refer non-descriptively to objects and kinds in the world. I take the account I propose to be a non-descriptive account of linguistic reference to natural kinds that can be used to support externalism in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

With increasing attention given to wild animal welfare and ethics, it has become common to depict animals in the wild as existing in a state dominated by suffering. This assumption is now taken on board by many and frames much of the current discussion; but needs a more critical assessment, both theoretically and empirically. In this paper, we challenge the primary lines of evidence employed in support of wild animal suffering, to provide an alternative picture in which wild animals may (...) often have lives that are far more positive than is commonly assumed. Nevertheless, while it is useful to have an alternative model to challenge unexamined assumptions, our real emphasis in this paper is the need for the development of effective methods for applying animal welfare science in the wild, including new means of data collection, the ability to determine the extent and scope of welfare challenges and opportunities, and their effects on welfare. Until such methods are developed, discussions of wild animal welfare cannot go beyond trading of intuitions, which as we show here can just as easily go in either direction. (shrink)

When thinking of Plato’s discussions of virtue, many dialogues come to mind, but, assuredly, the Phaedrus does not. The word ἀρετή is used only six times in the dialogue. Unlike other dialogues, the Phaedrus thematizes neither the general concept of virtue nor any of the particular virtues. Given the centrality of virtue to Plato’s ethics and politics, it is surprising to see little reference to virtue in a dialogue devoted to love and to rhetoric, topics that have deep ethical and (...) political significance. -/- I argue that the Phaedrus makes important contributions to our understanding of virtue in Plato despite the infrequency of references. First, the dialogue juxtaposes competing conceptions of virtue: the “urbane” (cf. 227d) capacity to make things conform to one’s happenstance desires, championed by Lysias, and the “manic” capacity to conform oneself to reality, championed by Socrates. After clarifying that enslavement to pleasure-lust is the underlying condition of soul for Lysianic virtue, Socrates reveals that the non-lover’s “virtue” is, in truth, virtue in name only. Rather, true virtue emerges only when the soul becomes harmoniously ordered under reason’s guidance, a condition which is achieved through the soul’s encounter with beauty. Second, in the process of articulating how true virtue comes to be in the soul, Socrates gives grounds for distinguishing it from “self-restraint” (ἐγκράτεια), a condition of soul whose outward aspect may be indistinguishable from that of virtue. While a soul in which reason does not take the reins may act from self-restraint, it does not yet act from virtue. Third, the dialogue gives us resources for seeing how other people, such as artful rhetoricians, can influence one’s cultivation of virtue. At first glance, Socrates’s claim that artful rhetoricians can “hand over” virtue (270b) seems incompatible with his claim that virtue is unteachable (cf. Meno 86d-99e). However, the dialogue offers some resources for seeing that the unteachability of virtue and the capacity for rhetoricians to “hand over” virtue are not, in fact, incompatible. From these three points, we will see that the Phaedrus offers an intellectualist account of virtue reminiscent of what we see in other dialogues. The intellectualist vision here, however, is one that includes a positive role for the subrational elements of the soul rather than one that excludes them from relevance or actively seeks to suppress them. (shrink)

The performance of natural behavior is commonly used as a criterion in the determination of animal welfare. This is still true, despite many authors having demonstrated that it is not a necessary component of welfare –some natural behaviors may decrease welfare, while some unnatural behaviors increase it. Here I analyze why this idea persists, and what effects it may have. I argue that the disagreement underlying this debate on natural behavior is not one about which conditions affect welfare, but a (...) deeper conceptual disagreement about what the state of welfare actually consists of. Those advocating natural behavior typically take a “teleological” view of welfare, in which naturalness is fundamental to welfare, while opponents to the criterion usually take a “subjective” welfare concept, in which welfare consists of the subjective experience of life by the animal. I argue that as natural functioning is neither necessary nor sufficient for understanding welfare, we should move away from the natural behavior criterion to an alternative such as behavioral preferences or enjoyment. This will have effects in the way we understand and measure welfare, and particularly in how we provide for the welfare of animals in a captive setting. (shrink)

Critics have often misunderstood the higher-order theory (HOT) of consciousness. Here we clarify its position on several issues, and distinguish it from other views such as the global The higher-order theory (HOT) of consciousness has often been misunderstood by critics. Here we clarify its position on several issues, and distinguish it from other views such as the global workspace theory (GWT) and early sensory models (e.g. first-order local recurrency theories). For example, HOT has been criticized for over-intellectualizing consciousness. We show (...) that while higher-order states are cognitively assembled, the requirements are actually considerably less than often presumed. In this sense HOT may be viewed as an intermediate position between GWT and early sensory views. Also, we clarify that most proponents of HOT do not stipulate consciousness as equivalent to metacognition or confidence. Further, compared to other existing theories, HOT can arguably account better for complex everyday experiences, such as of emotions and episodic memories. This makes HOT particularly useful as a framework for conceptualizing pathological mental states. (shrink)

Animal welfare is a concept that plays a role within both our moral deliberations and the relevant areas of science. The study of animal welfare has impacts on decisions made by legislators, producers and consumers with regards to housing and treatment of animals. Our ethical deliberations in these domains need to consider our impact on animals, and the study of animal welfare provides the information that allows us to make informed decisions. This thesis focusses on taking a philosophical perspective to (...) answer the question of how we can measure the welfare of animals. Animal welfare science is an applied area of biology, aimed at measuring animal welfare. Although philosophy of animal ethics is common, philosophy focussing on animal welfare science is rare. Despite this lack, there are definitely many ways in which philosophical methods can be used to analyse the methodologies and concepts used in this science. One of the aims of the work in this thesis is to remedy this lack of attention in animal welfare. Animal welfare science is a strong emerging discipline, but there is the need for conceptual and methodological clarity and sophistication in this science if it is to play the relevant informative role for our practical and ethical decision-making. There is thus is a strong role here for philosophical analysis for this purpose. The central aim of this thesis is to provide an account of how we can measure subjective animal welfare, addressing some of the potential problems that may arise in this particular scientific endeavour. The two questions I will be answering are: what is animal welfare, and how do we measure it? Part One of the thesis looks at the subjective concept of animal welfare and its applications. In it, I argue for a subjective welfare view - that animal welfare should be understood as the subjective experience of individuals over their lifetimes - and look at how the subjective welfare concept informs our ethical decision-making in two different cases in applied animal ethics. Part Two of the thesis looks more closely at the scientific role of welfare. Understanding welfare subjectively creates unique measurement problems, due to the necessarily private nature of mental states and here I address a few of these problems, including whether subjective experience is measurable, how we might validate indicators of hidden target variables such as welfare, how we can make welfare comparisons between individual animals and how we might compare or integrate the different types of experience that make up welfare. I end with a discussion of the implications of all these problems and solutions for the practice of welfare science, and indicate useful future directions for research. (shrink)

Ethics has been identified as an important factor that potentially affects auditors’ professional skepticism. For example, prior research finds that auditors who are more concerned with professional ethics exhibit greater professional skepticism. Further, the literature suggests that professional skepticism may lead the auditor to more vigilantly resist the client’s position in financial reporting disputes. These reporting disputes are generally resolved through negotiations between the auditor and client to arrive at the final reported amounts. To date, the role that professional skepticism (...) potentially plays in the negotiation process has been relatively unexplored. The literature prior to the enactment of Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX) suggests that auditors are more likely to approve a client position when the matter in dispute is relatively ambiguous and when changing the client’s position will result in the client failing to meet analysts’ expectations. However, changes resulting from SOX have led auditors to be more vigilant and therefore results found in the pre-SOX environment may not hold in the current environment where auditors are held more accountable for their actions. Results from an experiment with experienced audit managers and partners suggest that in the post-SOX climate, auditors’ negotiations do not appear to be substantively influenced by management being able to meet or beat forecasts. Moreover, we find that when auditors exhibit heightened professional skepticism, they are more ethical by being conservative and they stand more resolute than when auditors do not exhibit heightened professional skepticism. Finally, although we do not find a main effect for the influence of earnings forecast, we do find a significant interaction between earnings forecast and heightened professional skepticism. Implications for practice and research are then presented. (shrink)

2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may ... ISBN 978-0-262-01324-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)— ISBN 978-0-262 -51304-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Science— Political aspects. 2. Science and state. 3 .

At the time of writing the COVID-19 pandemic was entering its ninth month, with nearly 800 000 recorded fatalities and 22 million infections in 188 countries and territories.1 In previous ethics briefings2 we raised concerns about the possibility that demand for life-sustaining treatment would overwhelm supply, with a consequent requirement for health professionals to make challenging triage decisions. Fortunately, to date, these have largely not been realised, although there is a possibility that countries in which containment measures have been less-successful, (...) such as South Africa, may still be required to triage.3 Despite the successful ‘flattening of the curve’ in many countries, there is a wide consensus that we remain firmly within the pandemic. Enormous practical challenges remain. It is unclear whether the pandemic will ultimately take the form of two or more successive waves, or whether the patchwork of global responses will lead to a sustained slow ‘burn’ with sporadic flare-ups.4 Areas of uncertainty include whether infection confers some immunity, how long any such immunity might last, whether effective vaccines can be developed and if seasonal temperature fluctuations alter the spread of the virus. The pandemic will also be fundamentally shaped by the decisions that governments make and the extent to which their diktats are complied with by citizens. With the – possibly temporary – retreat of urgent clinical ethics issues, such as triage, opportunities have arisen to reflect on some of the ethical questions that underlie and structure the demanding policy decisions that governments are wrestling with. One of the early questions was how to balance the complex constellation of costs and benefits associated with lockdown. Countries that …. (shrink)

Let us first thank the four commentators who have taken the time to read and thoughtfully reflect on our paper. In that paper, we discuss how responsibility concepts must be sensitive to the temporal ( diachronic ) and social ( dyadic ) aspects of health-related behaviour, if responsibility is to play a role in health policy. This ‘if’ is a big one, and Hanna Pickard rightly challenges our position of neutrality with regard to whether or not responsibility should be incorporated (...) into health policy.1 Pickard proposes that responsibility should play a forward-looking role in health policy—used as a tool to facilitate and encourage healthy behaviours where it is reasonable to expect people to adopt such behaviours. While the conditions for such responsibility are similar to those involved in the backward-looking, desert-based responsibility we invoke, they do not warrant responses such as praise, blame, reward and punishment that may follow from desert-based responsibility. Pickard argues that even asking the question of ‘what would desert-based responsibility look like in these health contexts’ risks encouraging moralisation, stigma and blame, all of which have no place in healthcare. We agree that forward-looking responsibility could be an important tool in healthcare. We have offered …. (shrink)

This lecture reflects on the difficulties of democracy in Erik Olin Wright’s democratic socialist vision, one he elaborates in How to Be an Anti-capitalist in the 21st Century and Envisioning Real Utopias. It rejects the notion that radical democratic projects in cities, workplaces, and cooperatives can simply be scaled up for purposes of national or postnational political rule. It reflects on selected requirements of democracy apart from democratic governing institutions and practices: from democratic political culture, to education and accountability, to (...) handling globalized powers and problems such as finance, capital, and the climate crisis. The lecture concludes ambivalently, suggesting that democracy may be both necessary and impossible in realizing a politically free, socially just, and ecologically sustainable future. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 31-46 [Access article in PDF] Remedying Globalization and Consumerism: Joining the Inner and Outer Journeys in "Perfect Balance" Judith Simmer-Brown Naropa University One hundred forty years ago, Abraham Lincoln wrote in a prophetic voice: I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.... Corporations have been enthroned and an era (...) of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. 1As the global economy has grown and the economic gap between the poor nations and the rich nations has become enormous, we are realizing Lincoln's nightmare.Globalization has effects more devastating than Lincoln could have imagined. What do we mean by globalization? The president of Nabisco once defined it as "a world of homogeneous consumption." 2 It is a world in which everyone, no matter what latitude or longitude, eats the same food, wears the same clothing, and derives pleasure from the same entertainment. It is the world of McDonald's, Holiday Inn, James Bond movies, Nike shoes, and Coca-Cola. Noam Chomsky, in a lecture at Boston College, described globalization as the "new face of capitalism." 3 It is a network of power centered in corporate interests and financial institutions that controls the flow of capital in order to promote the financial interests of those in power to the detriment of all others. The strategies of globalization have to do with centralizing all power in financial interest, reducing all value to money, and subsuming governments to the interests of the corporations. According to Chomsky, the strategies employed by the transnational network are designed to consolidate this control:Buy the executive branch of the states involved;Own the legislative branch through lobbyists, campaign contributions, and term extensions, or whatever else may work; [End Page 31]Set the conditions in which policy is determined, asserting the power of global capital;Control the doctrine and information systems, especially to invent new needs in order to bolster a culture of fashionable consumption. 4The players in this transnational network reside in the wealthy countries of the world, especially the governments of the G8, and most especially the United States. The global dominance of the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization is funded by U.S. dollars funneled to them by the network. Yet this capital is not really exchange of cash; instead, it is speculation. Chomsky commented: In the last twenty-five years, there has been a huge explosion of financial institutions and financial capital, most of it speculative, with little actual capital in the economy. The flow of capital is $1.5 trillion per day, very little of it productive. Ninety-five percent of it is destructive and speculative. The return time on investments is very rapid; eighty percent has a return time of a week, and often it is less than a day. This daily flow of capital in international markets is twice the total foreign exchange of all states together. This concentrated power is interlinked, determining states' decisions. 5States are no longer autonomous agents; transnational economic interests have taken precedence over national sovereignty, regional power, and military concerns.The impact on developing countries and rural economies is devastating. The global monoculture is eradicating cultural diversity, replacing locally adapted forms of production with industrial systems divorced from natural cycles. Agriculture has become centrally managed and chemically dependent, delivering a narrower range of transportable foods to the international market. This, of course, robs the vitality of local communities and moves a greater proportion of villagers into urban life, creating megalopolises. Because everyone becomes dependent upon the same resources, "globalization creates efficiency for corporations, but it also creates artificial scarcity for consumers, thus heightening competitive pressures.... Globalization means the undermining of the livelihoods and cultural identities of the majority of the world's peoples." 6... (shrink)

Loosely put, colour constancy for example occurs when you experience a partly shadowed wall to be uniformly coloured, or experience your favourite shirt to be the same colour both with and without sunglasses on. Controversy ensues when one seeks to interpret ‘experience’ in these contexts, for evidence of a constant colour may be indicative a constant colour in the objective world, a judgement that a constant colour would be present were things thus and so, et cetera. My primary aim is (...) to articulate a viable conception of Present Constancy, of what occurs when a constant colour is present in experience, despite the additional presence of some experienced colour variation (e.g., correlating to a change in illumination). My proposed conception involves experienced colour layering – experiencing one opaque colour through another transparent one – and in particular requires one of those experienced layers to remain constant while the other changes. The aim is not to propose this layering conception of colour constancy as the correct interpretation of all constancy cases, but rather to develop the conception enough to demonstrate how it could and plausibly should be applied to various cases, and the virtues it has over rivals. Its virtues include a seamless application to constancy cases involving variations in filters (e.g., sunglasses) and illuminants; its ability to accommodate experiences of partial colours and error-free interpretations of difficult cases; and its broad theoretical-neutrality, allowing it to be incorporated into numerous perceptual epistemologies and ontologies. If layered constancy is prevalent, as I suspect it is, then our experiential access to colours is critically nuanced: we have been plunged into a world of colour without being told that we will rarely, if ever, look to a location and experience just one of them. (shrink)

It is widely assumed in philosophy that there is a tight connection between semantics and metaphysics. Semantic theories about the meanings of natural language terms and phrases are taken to provide evidence for and against various metaphysical theses about the nature of non-linguistic parts of the world. Call this view the widespread thesis. I argue that the widespread thesis is mistaken: semantic theories do not generally have robust metaphysical consequences. I contend that the best arguments for the widespread thesis turn (...) on an interpretation of semantic theories according to which they are metaphysically illuminating: the metaphysical structure of the world is directly mirrored in the structure of the theory. Terms and existential quantification in the theory signal the existence of entities in the world, predicates signal the existence of properties, and the structures of set theoretic objects invoked by the theory directly correspond to structural features of the world. Such an interpretation is not the only one available, however, and it is a substantive philosophical (and linguistic) issue which interpretation is correct. Accordingly, I develop and defend an alternative interpretation of semantic theories according to which the structural features of these theories and of their theorems reflect biological and computational constraints on the architecture of the language faculty and historical contingencies in its evolutionary development. Supposedly metaphysically committing features of the theory—including the appearance of quantification and (ostensibly) referring terms—may thus be arepresentational artifacts of these constraints, rather than representational features that reflect metaphysical reality. To determine the metaphysical consequences of a semantic theory then, we must determine which of its features represent language-independent characteristics of the world and which are arepresentational consequences of the structure of the language faculty. To do this, however, we must have some prior idea what the language-independent world is like—that is, we must engage in prior metaphysical theorizing that is not beholden to the semantic theory itself. (shrink)

This study has two aims. First, it lays out the synchronic patterning of four constructions that express static location in Secoya (Tukanoan). Each construction licenses different semantic verb types: topological verbs, postural verbs, an existential verb, and a copula. Second, this study explores the different construals encoded by these constructions and highlights the ways speakers use them creatively to elaborate on stage-level properties adjacent to location in locative utterances. Data collected from six speakers using visual stimuli reveal that each of (...) the constructions elaborates on specific aspects of locative scenes. Responses for typical/atypical scenes, negative polarity statements, and frequency patterns show that speakers can choose conceptualizations that favor Ground geometry, Figure posture, more complex Figure dispositions, or marked perspectivizations. Similar phenomena are observed in other Amazonian languages. These results raise difficulties in identifying a basic locative construction, suggesting that Secoya may not fit squarely into any type in existing typologies of spatial expression (e.g., Ameka and Levinson 2007). Additionally, the Secoya system raises questions about the relationship between conceptual alternativity and the notion of “basicness” with respect to construal types. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Platonic Ethics: Old and NewEve Browning ColeJulia Annas. Platonic Ethics: Old and New. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. Pp. vii + 196. Cloth, $35.00Readers of Plato's dialogues in our time are almost unanimously affected by what Annas here calls "the developmental thesis." We bring to Plato's texts as a dogma the [End Page 114] view that his doctrines evolved over time, that later dialogues return to problems (...) unsuccessfully addressed in earlier dialogues, and in short that the Platonic corpus as a whole should be arranged as a kind of intellectual "Bildungsroman." The early and inconclusive explorations of Socrates give way to mature and expansive metaphysical doctrines, which in turn are tested and revised in subsequent works.This developmentalist dogma has dominated interpretations of Plato, with few exceptions (notably Paul Shorey), for a century and more. Yet this makes it a rather young dogma after all. Annas argues that it is a product of Victorian scholars, and especially targets the highly influential work of Benjamin Jowett (95 n.56). Jowett placed the Republic at the center of Plato's works and interpreted others backward and forward from it. The influence of this developmental thesis has been sweeping and, Annas argues, unfortunate. Armed with it, we are reluctant to consider the doctrines of the dialogues on their own terms; we make problems for one dialogue with concerns expressed in quite another; we tend to force our readings to fit the progressive picture and distort the works in the process.To achieve some distance from developmentalism and other modern preconceptions and dogma, Annas proposes listening with an open mind to ancient readings of Plato, especially those of the so-called Middle Platonists. Most modern students of ancient philosophy have been accustomed to discount these ancients as either too marginal to deserve a hearing or too biased to be fair readers. (In addition, access to their works in reliable texts and translations has been impossible until quite recently.)But such ancient readers as Albinus, Alcinous, Arius Didymus, Philo, and Numenius have (Annas argues) much to offer.First, they are active participants in an ongoing intellectual conversation about "eudaimonism," or the sufficiency of virtue for happiness. They comfortably engage Plato in this conversation as a proponent of eudaimonism. This is as true for the Plato of Republic and Laws as for the earlier dialogues. These older readers of Platonic ethics demonstrate that it is indeed possible to discern a unified view of the relation between goodness and happiness, without violence to the texts. While Plato may speak with "many voices," as Arius Didymus averred, this does not entail that he held "many doctrines" (9).Another modern shibboleth which the older readers can help us dislodge concerns the proper understanding of the Republic. We have tended to classify it as political theory (and in this are supported by the Library of Congress, as Annas points out). While recognizing the hefty core of more individual ethical thinking which goes into the definition of justice in the soul, we have insisted that the "Fairest City" is a serious utopian project description and should shape and contain the Republic's ethical teachings. Here too the ancients were much less inhibited than we; most of them cheerfully ignore the city-building and attend mainly to the implications for moral life. Annas finds this not only salubrious and unity-supporting but more faithful to the text, whose political content she finds "brief and underdeveloped" (82).Many readers will find the treatment of Republic's political significance (or lack thereof) objectionable. Many readers will also find the idea of relinquishing developmentalism to be unappealing or even frightening. But Annas makes a strong case for [End Page 115] seriously consulting the ancient readers if only for their medicinal value; they can "... wake us from our developmental slumbers" (165). Moreover, she provides a friendly and accessible entree to their world, one which will be of value to many modern readers who have been mystified by them heretofore.All texts quoted are in translation, and the occasional bits of original texts are transliterated. An extremely helpful "cast of characters" (which everyone will be tempted to xerox and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reason and Emotion. Essays in Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical TheoryEve Browning ColeJohn M. Cooper, Reason and Emotion. Essays in Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii + 605. Cloth, $75.00.This collection of essays spans 27 years of John Cooper's career as an interpreter of ancient philosophy. Its earliest essay, "The Magna Moralia and Aristotle's Moral Philosophy," already shows Cooper's distinctive approach; (...) he seeks to discover "a simpler and more natural way" (200) to understand the discrepancies between this small treatise and Aristotle's major ethical works than by the comparatively convoluted theory of Dirlmeier. In seeking this simpler and more natural interpretive route, Cooper attends to "the philosophical content of the work" (202), rather than considerations of style and linguistic usage. He concludes with frank discussion of the problems which his interpretation cannot solve; these are dismissed with characteristic exasperation-italics: "... one must not expect to explain everything..." (210). He confines his rougher polemical points to footnotes (Dirlmeier "doesn't even face the question squarely" in note 19, hence he is "wildly off" in note 28). [End Page 430]These characteristics run through all the essays here collected. Only two of the 23 essays are previously unpublished: a reconsideration of Xenophon as a source on Socrates, and a treatment of pleasure and desire in Epicurus. Other essays take up moral problems examined by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and several Hellenistic philosophers or schools. A theme running through most if not all the discussions is the desire (shared by the ancient philosophers and by Cooper equally, it would seem) to develop and defend a viable eudaimonism. The relation between human goodness and human happiness must be shown to be one of extremely close affinity, such that the virtuous are also the happy, even in adversity. Thus though no attempt is made to connect the essays into a coherent argument leading to a global thesis about ancient moral philosophy, the book nevertheless contains the ingredients for such an argument and thesis. The book presenting such an argument and thesis could in some ways be both more elegant and more helpful than this collection; it could spend fewer of its pages in arguing against other interpreters over minor differences (the standard journal-article format for our time), more of its pages awakening the texts, eliciting their message, and presenting it in a form useful for guiding life. Perhaps Cooper will write such a book soon.But the present volume will certainly be of interest to scholars and students, who will find in it much to enjoy and ponder. Generally what is striking about Cooper's interpretations is their freshness. He is at his best when dislodging some stale orthodoxy. The essay on Xenophon's Socrates is a case in point. The portrait of Socrates which emerges in Xenophon's Memorabilia is usually taken to be far less accurate than that presented in Plato's earlier dialogues. The Memorabilia seldom appear on the required reading lists of Greek philosophy courses, nor does Xenophon's version of Socrates' approach to moral questions receive even a fraction of the scholarly attention devoted to Plato's early work. Cooper convincingly shows this neglect to rest on a prejudice. The Socrates of Xenophon's portrait addresses a different kind of audience than that of Plato; the difference in the style of questioning and in the topics discussed reflects the historical Socrates' sensitivity to his partners in conversation. He addresses them where they live (so to speak), and this makes him "all the more remarkable a person" (14).Two other strengths run throughout the essays here collected. No matter how intense the exegetical quibble may have become on any given page, Cooper is able to make a sudden soaring flight upward and provide a synoptic view of the broader philosophical terrain, both for any given philosopher and for that philosopher's contemporaries, predecessors, and successors. These flights are sometimes dizzying and often unpredictable, but always refreshing.In addition, Cooper is able to make connections with large issues in contemporary moral philosophy, relating the ancient controversies to their modern versions (John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Leo Strauss... (shrink)

How wrong is it to deceive a person into having sex with you? The common view seems to be that this depends on the nature of the deception. If it involves something very important, such as your identity, then the wrong done is very serious. But if it involves something more trivial, such as your natural hair colour, then the wrong seems less great. Tom Dougherty rejects this view. He argues that sexual deception is always seriously wrong. In this paper, (...) I present a response to Doughterty’s argument. I propose an analysis of the wrongness in deception according to which acts of deception, in sexual relations and elsewhere, may differ in their degree of wrongness, and some may not be seriously wrong. (shrink)

Let T be an infinite pseudo-tree. In [2], we showed that the cellularity of the pseudo-tree algebra Treealg(T) was the maximum of four cardinals cT, lT, ϕT, and μT: roughly, cT is the "tallness" of T; lT is the "width" of T; ϕ is the number of "points of finite branching" in T; and μ is the number of "sections of no branching" in T. Here we ask: which inequalities among these four cardinals may be satisfied, in some sense, by (...) a pseudo-tree? We show that the possible inequalities among cT, lT, ϕT, and μT attained by pseudo-trees T are closely related to the existence of generalized Suslin trees. (shrink)

The role of research ethics committees, and research ethics issues more broadly are often not viewed in the context of the development of scientific methods and the academic community. This topic piece seeks to redress this gap. I begin with a brief outline of the changes we experience within the social sciences before exploring in more detail their impact on research ethics and the practices of research ethics committees. I conclude with recommendations for how the existing research ethics processes may (...) be made more future-proof. (shrink)

COVID-19 vaccine requirements have generated significant debate. Here, we argue that, on the evidence available, such policies should have recognised proof of natural immunity as a sufficient basis for exemption to vaccination requirements. We begin by distinguishing our argument from two implausible claims about natural immunity: natural immunity is superior to ‘artificial’ vaccine-induced immunity simply because it is ‘natural’ and it is better to acquire immunity through natural infection than via vaccination. We then briefly survey the evidence base for the (...) comparison between naturally acquired immunity and vaccine-induced immunity. While we clearly cannot settle the scientific debates on this point, we suggest that we lack clear and convincing scientific evidence that vaccine-induced immunity has a significantly higher protective effect than natural immunity. Since vaccine requirements represent a substantial infringement of individual liberty, as well as imposing other significant costs, they can only be justified if they are necessary for achieving a proportionate public health benefit. Without compelling evidence for the superiority of vaccine-induced immunity, it cannot be deemed necessary to require vaccination for those with natural immunity. Subjecting them to vaccine mandates is therefore not justified. We conclude by defending the standard of proof that this argument from necessity invokes, and address other pragmatic and practical considerations that may speak against natural immunity exemptions. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

De-extinction is the process through which extinct species can be brought back into existence. Although these projects have the potential to cause great harm to animal welfare, discussion on issues surrounding de-extinction have focussed primarily on other issues. In this paper, I examine the potential types of welfare harm that can arise through de-extinction programs, including problems with cloning, captive rearing and re-introduction. I argue that welfare harm should be an important consideration when making decisions on de-extinction projects. Though most (...) of the proposed benefits of these projects are insufficient to outweigh the current potential welfare harm, these problems may be overcome with further development of the technology and careful selection of appropriate species as de-extinction candidates. (shrink)

Starting from the assumption that the history of science is, in some significant sense, rational and thus that historical episodes may serve as evidence in choosing between competing normative methodologies of science, the question arises: "Just what is this history-methodology evidential relation?" After examining the proposals of Laudan, a more plausible account is proposed.

Over the last few years, policies have been introduced in the UK that identify and treat patients as potential organ donors before death. Patients incapacitated due to catastrophic brain injury may now undergo intensive ante-mortem interventions to improve the chances of successfully transplanting their organs into third parties after death. The most significant ethical and legal problem with these policies is that they are not based on the individual’s specific wishes in the circumstances. Policy-makers appear reluctant to inform potential registrants (...) on the Organ Donor Register about ante-mortem donor optimisation procedures and to provide an opportunity to record specific wishes in advance. They are reliant on blind trust in the organ donation programme, which as I argue in this paper, presents significant risks for the achievement of its aim of securing an adequate supply of organs for transplantation. I argue that informed trust, based on accurate information about the future consequences of registra... (shrink)

When subjects violate epistemic standards or norms, we sometimes judge them blameworthy rather than blameless. For instance, we might judge a subject blameworthy for dogmatically continuing to believe a claim even after receiving evidence which undermines it. Indeed, the idea that one may be blameworthy for belief is appealed to throughout the contemporary epistemic literature. In some cases, a subject seems blameworthy for believing as she does even though it seems prima facie implausible that she is morally blameworthy or professionally (...) blameworthy. Such cases raise the question of whether one can be blameworthy for a belief in a specifically epistemic sense rather than in some already recognised sense, such as being morally or professionally blameworthy. A number of authors have recently argued that there is a moral or social sense in which one ought to conform one’s beliefs to the evidence. In this paper, I argue that even while accepting that there are moral and social norms governing belief, there are cases in which a subject is blameworthy for a belief but isn’t plausibly morally or socially blameworthy. If this latter view is correct, then we may need to develop a new account of blame which can be applied to beliefs which are not morally or socially blameworthy. (shrink)

The article responds to an overlooked objection put by Allen Buchanan to John Rawls’s theory of justice: that implementing the Difference Principle over time may require gross and frequent disruptions of people’s framing and execution of long-term plans. Having strengthened Buchanan’s objection to resolve significant weaknesses in his main counterexample, I argue that the best response to this objection draws on the concept of the rule of law, specifically, the legal doctrine of legitimate expectations, which can be found in English, (...) French, and European Union administrative law. I also explore the suitability of incorporating this doctrine into Justice as Fairness given its absence in United States constitutional and administrative law. Finally, I turn to consider the question of what the government owes to agents in whom legitimate expectations are induced and then frustrated. Here I introduce the Precept of Administrative Liability. (shrink)

"The doctrine of materialism is one of the perennial and most controversial ideas in the arts and sciences. Throughout history it has aroused strong passions, and in the Sixteenth and Twentieth centuries was a doctrine over which people were persecuted and killed. Yet it has been equally aligned with empirical, enlightened and tolerant thinking. This book explores the fascinating and important philosophy of materialism in an engaging and thought-provoking way. Opening with an overview of the ideas of some of the (...) most important materialists, including Lucretius, Epicurus, Hobbes and Hume up to Darwin and Marx, Brown and Ladyman show how materialism's origins were twofold: it was an early form of scientific explanation but also an intellectual outlook, or belief-system, about the world in general. They then explain how materialism's beginnings as imaginative vision of the true nature of things faced a major challenge from modern physics, in the form of quantum theory and the general theory of relativity. This posed major questions for materialism: how could it be reconciled with unobservable entities and new discoveries about the nature of space and time? As the authors show, out of this challenge materialism did not die but re-emerged - as the new doctrine of physicalism. Drawing on colourful examples throughout - from modern physics, the nature of the mind, and atheism - the authors argue that whilst materialism may not have all the answers, its humanism and staunch belief in observation, evidence and experiment remains our best hope in a fragmented and hyper-specialised world"--. (shrink)

Plato’s Republic is governed by an analogy drawn between the structures of cities and souls. Because the inner workings of souls are difficult to discern, we might better find the soul’s nature and virtues by looking at the city’s nature and virtues. Despite successfully using the analogy to discern the nature of the soul, its virtues, and its proper ordering, the Republic frequently obscures the very analogy that functions as its guiding thread, and it is not at all obvious whether (...) the political material in Books V–VII has a psychological correlate. This essay develops a psychological reading of key moments in the dialogue where the city-soul analogy fades in favor of more apparently political content. Focusing on the Allegory of the Cave, it argues that when the Cave is read as a “psychic drama,” it discloses reason’s drama within the soul. Like the freed prisoner, reason must be liberated from imprisonment alongside the sub-rational elements of the soul so that it may see the truth by which it can be nourished. However, reason must also descend, like the prisoner, to the sub-rational elements of the soul in order to care for them, for its own sake and for theirs. Read this way, the Republic presents an account of reason which rules the passions in the “precise sense” of Book I, that is, for their sake, and not simply for its own liberation and well-being. (shrink)

There is much in Weinstein’s article to contemplate, but I shall limit myself to making the following four main points. First, I believe that debates concerning the normative standing of hate speech law are always improved by heeding the internal variety of such law, and although I can see something of that same care in Weinstein’s article, such as when he distinguishes between different forms of hate speech law based on relative detriment to the legitimacy of so-called downstream laws, in (...) some instances this care is lacking. Second, Weinstein plays up the importance of collective authorization or democratic legitimacy of downstream laws vis-à-vis “(a) the obligation of those restrained by the speech restriction to obey a downstream antidiscrimination law; and (b) the morality of enforcing the downstream measure against those whose participatory rights have been impaired by the upstream speech restriction.” These may be important aspects of what it means to detract from the legitimacy of downstream laws, but they do not exhaust the relevant aspects. Third, I think that Weinstein’s article ignores some important nuances in what I have argued about hate speech laws and political legitimacy, and ignores something that might be true of the relationship between political and democratic legitimacy, namely, it might be that political legitimacy takes lexical priority over and, therefore, cannot be traded off against, the collective authorization or democratic legitimacy of downstream laws. Finally, I believe that in describing my use of the precautionary principle as “plainly indefensible” Weinstein has done justice neither to the raw plausibility of that principle nor to how I applied it to the special silencing effects of hate speech. (shrink)

Residents in long-term care facilities and rehab hospitals sometimes ask healthcare professionals to help them do things that HCPs judge to be on balance harmful. A person with respiratory problems may ask for a cigarette, a diabetic for alcohol, a dysphagiac for food or fluids by mouth, a person at risk for falling for her walker, and so on. These requests raise two kinds of problems. The first pits residents against HCPs. Should HCPs ever help residents do what they consider (...) harmful? The second pits HCPs against HCPs. If HCPs disagree among themselves—some thinking that the resident should receive the assistance, others thinking not—what should be done? (shrink)