Minimal responsibility threateners are epistemically justified but mistaken in thinking that imposing a nonnegligible risk on others is permissible. On standard accounts, an MRT forfeits her right not to be defensively killed. I propose an alternative account: an MRT is liable only to the degree of harm equivalent to what she risks causing multiplied by her degree of responsibility. Harm imposed on the MRT above that amount is justified as a lesser evil, relative to allowing the MRT (...) to kill her victim. This hybrid account, which generalizes to those are who are more than minimally responsible, has considerable advantages. (shrink)

Saba Bazargan proposes a novel “hybrid” justification for the killing of minimally responsible threats (MRTs). His account allegedly combines two elements, namely “the complex account of liability” and “the lesser-evil discounting view.” I argue that Bazargan’s conclusion that minimally responsible threats can sometimes be killed as well as certain other conclusions that Bazargan regards as a particular advantage of his hybrid account are single-handedly generated by one element of the “hybrid account,” namely by the lesser-evil discounting view. The lesser-evil discounting (...) view therefore does not need to be combined with “the complex account of liability,” nor, indeed, with any account of liability. Thus, Bazargan’s hybrid view is redundant. Moreover, I will argue that both the hybrid view and the lesser evil discounting view of killing MRTs have strongly counter-intuitive implications and should therefore be rejected. (shrink)

According to a well-known view in the philosophy of mind, intentional attitudes by their very nature satisfy requirements of rationality (e.g. Davidson 1980; Dennett 1987; Millar 2004). This view (which I shall call Constitutivism) features prominently as the ‘principle of minimal rationality’ in de Sousa’s monograph The Rationality of Emotion (1987). By explicating this principle in terms of the notion of the formal object of an attitude, de Sousa articulates an interesting and original version of Constitutivism, which differs in (...) important respects from other extant versions. In this paper, I explore this version of Constitutivism against the background of recent developments in the theory of rationality and make explicit its ramifications for the long-standing dispute over whether the mind is essentially normative. My focus will be on how to conceive of the form of the rationality requirements that attitudes as such must satisfy according to this principle. I argue that, although de Sousa seems officially to endorse a structuralist conception of rationality, according to which these requirements are requirements of coherence, his considerations on formal objects suggest that they are more aptly conceived in terms of a reasons-responsive conception of rationality. I further argue that which of these two readings we choose makes a significant difference to the prospect of vindicating the essential normativity of mind by invoking the principle of minimal rationality. (shrink)

We evaluate people all the time for a wide variety of activities. We blame them for miscalculations, uninspired art, and committing crimes. We praise them for detailed brushwork, a superb pass, and their acts of kindness. We accomplish things, from solving crosswords to mastering guitar solos. We bungle our endeavors, whether this is letting a friend down or burning dinner. Sometimes these deeds are morally significant, but many times they are not. Simply Responsible defends the radical proposal that the blameworthy (...) artist is responsible in just the same way that the blameworthy thief is. We can be responsible for all kinds of different activities, from lip-synching to long division, from murders to meringues, but the relation involved, what author Matt King calls the basic responsibility relation, is the same in every case. We are responsible for the things we do first, then blameworthy or praiseworthy for having done them in light of whether they're good or bad, according to a variety of standards. Why is this a radical proposal? Firstly, because so much of the contemporary literature on moral responsibility has moralized its nature. According to most accounts, moral responsibility is either a special species of responsibility or else depends on moralized capacities. In contrast, King argues that we get a more complete and unifying picture of responsible agency from a more general theory of responsibility. Secondly, the proposal is radical due to its drastic simplicity. King foregoes many of the complications that feature in other accounts of responsibility, arguing that we can make do with less demanding theoretical elements. (shrink)

I argue in favor of the Minimal Approval account, an original account of an agent’s moral responsibility for her actions, understood as the conditions that must be met so that an agent’s actions speak for her such that she can appropriately be blamed on their basis. My account shares a general theoretical orientation with Deep Self views, but diverges in several respects. I argue that Deep Self views tend to seriously over-generate exemptions, such that agents are exempt from (...) responsibility even from ordinary weak-willed actions. Accordingly, much of my focus is on giving a more nuanced, and in certain senses narrower, explanation of genuine exemption cases. While I address the advantages the Minimal Approval account has over competing accounts throughout these chapters, the account also aims to provide an empirically informed response to a certain sort of skeptical worry about how it could be the case that anyone is ever responsible for what they do at all. One commonplace thought is that when agents’ behaviors are due to compulsion their “brains make them do it.” But, in a literal sense, it might seem that our brains make all of us do everything that we do. In this dissertation I head off this worry by directly addressing both what the difference is, and what it should mean for our practices. (shrink)

In the target article “How molecules became signs” I offer a molecular “thought experiment” that provides a paradigm for resolving the major incompatibilities between biosemiotic and natural science accounts of living processes. To resolve these apparent incompatibilities I outline a plausible empirically testable model system that exemplifies the emergence of chemical processes exhibiting semiotic causal properties from basic nonliving chemical processes. This model system is described as an autogenic virus because of its virus-like form, but its nonparasitic self-repair and reproductive (...) dynamics. The 16 commentaries responding to this proposal recognize its material plausibility but are divided on its value in resolving this basic biosemiotic challenge. In response, I have addressed some of the most serious criticisms raised and have attempted to diagnose the major sources of incompatible assumptions that distinguish the autogenic paradigm from other major paradigms. In particular, I focus on four main issues: the significance of the shift from a cellular to a viral perspective, the relevance of intrinsic versus extrinsic initiation and channeling of interpretive work, the insufficiency of molecular replication as a basis for grounding biological semiosis, and a (universal?) three step scaffolding logic that enables referential displacement of sign vehicle properties without loss of referential continuity (as exemplified by DNA-protein relations). Although I can’t conclude that this is the only way that biosemiotic properties can emerge from physical-chemical relations that otherwise lack these properties, I contend that this approach offers a biologically plausible demonstration that it is possible. (shrink)

In his contribution to this issue, Shaun Gallagher casts a sharply focussed critical eye over positions which claim that action is to be explained, in part, by appeal to minimal representations. On...

In our article, “Past Facts and The Nature of History”, we unpack a broadly realist view of the nature of history and historical narratives. Paul Roth’s The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation serves as our primary foil. Fons DeWulf and Roth have replied, and this is our response to their response.

“I demote practical reason from the conductor’s podium on which it is traditionally pictured, leading the performance. I picture practical reason less as an orchestral conductor than as a theatrical prompter — out of sight, following the action in case it needs to be nudged back into an intelligible course.” (David Velleman 2009, p. 4)IntroductionIn this paper I discuss our practice of exchanging explanatory and justifying reasons with one another, that is, reasons with which we explain or justify our actions, (...) choices, and decisions. I argue that the general aim and importance of this practice—as well as the associated ideas of responsibility and free will—is compatible with the finding that we are often, or even most of the time, not deliberatively aware of the reasons for which we act, prior to our acting so. That is, in many cases there are no explicit reasons, considerations we have reflected on and are aware of, that precede our actions. It is in this sense, I argue, that human ag. (shrink)

The article responds to the objections M.D. Ashfield has raised to my recent attempt at saving epistemic contextualism from the knowability problem. First, it shows that Ashfield’s criticisms of my minimal conception of epistemic contextualism, even if correct, cannot reinstate the knowability problem. Second, it argues that these criticisms are based on a misunderstanding of the commitments of my minimal conception. I conclude that there is still no reason to maintain that epistemic contextualism has the knowability problem.

In a recent book, Neil Levy argues that culpable action – action for which we are morally responsible – is necessarily produced by states of which we are consciously aware. However, criminal defendants are routinely held responsible for criminal harm caused by states of which they are not conscious in Levy’s sense. In this chapter I argue that cases of negligent criminal harm indicate that Levy’s claim that moral responsibility requires synchronic conscious awareness of the moral significance of an (...) act is too strict, and that tracing conditions cannot be successfully used to bolster Levy’s account. Instead, current legal practices indicate that criminal responsibility requires the capacity for diachronic agency and self-control, not synchronic conscious control. (shrink)

Contemporary thinkers have not been hesitant to talk about the end of religion, the end of philosophy, or the end of morality. In such a context, our society is based on what Lipovetsky calls a minimal ethics. We live at the crossroads of two types of discourses: one proclaiming moral decadence, and another that speaks about the revival of morality. The fact that ethical maximalism quits the contemporary scene does not necessarily mean that it leaves a complete vacuum. The (...) emptiness opens towards the manifestation of ethical creativity in the space of minimal ethics. In public space, and in administrative ethics, the secularization of ethics offers the possibility of feeling comfortable with promoting a form of moral relativism that does not alienate people from the sensation of ethical certainty that offers existential comfort through its firm values. (shrink)

In this book, Christopher Evan Franklin develops and defends a novel version of event-causal libertarianism. This view is a combination of libertarianism--the view that humans sometimes act freely and that those actions are the causal upshots of nondeterministic processes--and agency reductionism--the view that the causal role of the agent in exercises of free will is exhausted by the causal role of mental states and events (e.g., desires and beliefs) involving the agent. Franklin boldly counteracts a dominant theory that has similar (...) aims, put forth by well-known philosopher Robert Kane. -/- Many philosophers contend that event-causal libertarians have no advantage over compatibilists when it comes to securing a distinctively valuable kind of freedom and responsibility. To Franklin, this position is mistaken. Assuming agency reductionism is true, event-causal libertarians need only adopt the most plausible compatibilist theory and add indeterminism at the proper juncture in the genesis of human action. The result is minimal event-causal libertarianism: a model of free will with the metaphysical simplicity of compatibilism and the intuitive power of libertarianism. And yet a worry remains: toward the end of the book, Franklin reconsiders his assumption of agency reductionism, arguing that this picture faces a hitherto unsolved problem. This problem, however, has nothing to do with indeterminism or determinism, or even libertarianism or compatibilism, but with how to understand the nature of the self and its role in the genesis of action. Crucially, if this problem proves unsolvable, then not only is event-causal libertarianism untenable, so also is event-causal compatibilism. (shrink)

In conversation analytic and interactional studies, some responses are analyzed as being minimal.This article explores minimality in regard to two types of answers that appear to be used interchangeably as minimal responses to yes/no questions in Estonian. The answers represent typologically different formats, particles and echo answers. It is argued that minimality should be defined in a sequentially sensitive manner and that the two answer formats are used to display speakers’ understanding of the status of the social action (...) implemented in the preceding question. The data come from audio recordings of phone calls and face-to-face interaction. (shrink)

Emotion expressions convey valuable information about others’ internal states and likely behaviours. Accurately identifying expressions is critical for social interactions, but so is perceiver confidence when decoding expressions. Even if a perceiver correctly labels an expression, uncertainty may impair appropriate behavioural responses and create uncomfortable interactions. Past research has found that perceivers report greater confidence when identifying emotions displayed by cultural ingroup members, an effect attributed to greater perceptual skill and familiarity with own-culture than other-culture faces. However, the current research (...) presents novel evidence for an ingroup advantage in emotion decoding confidence across arbitrary group boundaries that hold culture constant. In two experiments using different stimulus sets participants not only labeled minimal ingroup expressions more accurately, but did so with greater confidence. These results offer novel evidence that ingroup advantages in emotion decoding confidence stem partly from social-cognitive processes. (shrink)

This paper advances a new agentially undemanding account of the conditions of attributability, the Minimal Approval account, and argues that it has a number of advantages over traditional Deep Self theories, including the way in which it handles agents with conditions like addiction, Tourette syndrome, and misophonia. It is argued that in order for an agent to be attributionally responsible, the mental process that leads to her action must dispose her to be such that she would, upon reflec-tion, approve (...) to some minimal degree of being moved to action by the motive on which she in fact acts. (shrink)

I formulate a compatibilism that is distinctively responsive to skeptical worries about the justification of punishment and other moral responsibility practices. I begin with an evolutionary story explaining why backward-looking reactive attitudes are “given” in human society. Cooperative society plausibly could not be sustained without such practices. The necessary accountability practices have complex internal standards. These internal standards may fully ground the appropriateness of reactive attitudes. Following a recent analogy, we can similarly hold that there are no external standards (...) for what is funny; the norms of comedy are complex, but funny is funny. However, this is compatible with moral reasons to change the practices themselves, and therefore change what is fitting within them: in the first instance, a moralistic “that's not funny” is ill-fitting, but “that shouldn't be funny” can be apt. The analogous reformist position prescribes practices constituting the minimal responsibility norms necessary for cooperative society. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Kaplan (Synthese 183:339–373, 2011) takes up the task of extending Craver’s (Explaining the brain, 2007) mechanistic account of explanation in neuroscience to the new territory of computational neuroscience. He presents the model to mechanism mapping (3M) criterion as a condition for a model’s explanatory adequacy. This mechanistic approach is intended to replace earlier accounts which posited a level of computational analysis conceived as distinct and autonomous from underlying mechanistic details. In this paper I discuss work in (...) computational neuroscience that creates difficulties for the mechanist project. Carandini and Heeger (Nat Rev Neurosci 13:51–62, 2012) propose that many neural response properties can be understood in terms of canonical neural computations. These are “standard computational modules that apply the same fundamental operations in a variety of contexts.” Importantly, these computations can have numerous biophysical realisations, and so straightforward examination of the mechanisms underlying these computations carries little explanatory weight. Through a comparison between this modelling approach and minimal models in other branches of science, I argue that computational neuroscience frequently employs a distinct explanatory style, namely, efficient coding explanation. Such explanations cannot be assimilated into the mechanistic framework but do bear interesting similarities with evolutionary and optimality explanations elsewhere in biology. (shrink)

The history of contractarian moral theory is long and varied. It includes the classic social contract theories of Hobbes (1651), Hume (1739/1740), and Kant (1785) as well as modern versions of these theories, such as those of Gauthier (1986), Scanlon (1998), Darwall (2006), and Southwood (2010). In Minimal Morality: A Multilevel Social Contract Theory (2018), I continue this tradition by developing a ‘multilevel social contract theory’ that combines Humean, Hobbesian, and Kantian moral features. In this article, I reply to (...) comments by Fred D’Agostino, John Thrasher, Christopher W. Morris, and Peter Vanderschraaf. I am deeply grateful for these commentators’ constructive and engaging comments that, in their own way, shed light on core assumptions and features of the theory. Due to space restrictions, I focus on what I consider to be the main criticisms and have organized my responses thematically. I hope that doing so will also help readers who are less familiar with my work to understand the relevance of multilevel social contract theory for morally diverse societies. (shrink)

Patient report of functioning is one component of the neurocognitive exam following traumatic brain injury, and standardized patient-reported outcomes measures are useful to track outcomes during rehabilitation. The Traumatic Brain Injury Quality of Life measurement system is a TBI-specific extension of the PROMIS and Neuro-QoL measurement systems that includes 20 item banks across physical, emotional, social, and cognitive domains. Previous research has evaluated the responsiveness of the TBI-QOL measures in community-dwelling individuals and found clinically important change over a 6-month assessment (...) interval in a sample of individuals who were on average 5 years post-injury. In the present study, we report on the responsiveness of the TBI-QOL Cognition–General Concerns and Executive Function item bank scores and the Cognitive Health Composite scores in a recently injured sample over a 1-year study period. Data from 128 participants with complicated mild, moderate, or severe TBI within the previous 6 months were evaluated. The majority of the sample was male, white, and non-Hispanic. The participants were 18–92 years of age and were first evaluated from 0 to 5 months post-injury. Eighty participants completed the 1-year follow-up assessment. Results show acceptable standard response mean values for all measures and minimal detectable change values ranging from 8.2 to 8.8 T-score points for Cognition–General Concerns and Executive Functioning measures. Anchor rating analysis revealed that changes in scores on the Executive Function item bank and the Cognitive Health Composite were meaningfully associated with participant-reported changes in the areas of attention, multitasking, and memory. Evaluation of change score differences by a variety of clinical indicators demonstrated a small but significant difference in the three TBI-QOL change scores by TBI injury severity grouping. These results support the responsiveness of the TBI-QOL cognition measures in newly injured individuals and provides information on the minimal important differences for the TBI-QOL cognition measures, which can be used for score interpretation by clinicians and researchers seeking patient-reported outcome measures of self-reported cognitive QOL after TBI. (shrink)

The anti-metaphysical argument against scientific realism is the following: Knowledge of unobservable entities implies metaphysical knowledge; There is no metaphysical knowledge. Therefore, there is no knowledge of unobservable entities. This argument has strangely received little attention in the profuse literature on scientific realism. This paper claims that the AMA is logically more fundamental than both the pessimistic meta-induction and the underdetermination argument. The second and main claim of this paper is that the instrumentalists’ use of AMA is incoherent. The gist (...) of my argument is that experimental knowledge requires minimally metaphysical knowledge, and that minimally metaphysical knowledge—when associated with empirical knowledge—suffices to yield a minimal knowledge of the unobservable. I then examine and reject two possible responses: minimally metaphysical instrumentalism and algebraic instrumentalism. (shrink)

Many have begun to despair that climate justice will prevail even in a minimal form. The affective dimensions of such despair, we suggest, threaten to make climate action appear too demanding. Thus, despair constitutes a moral challenge to individual climate action that has not yet received adequate attention. In response, we defend a duty to act in hope for a more just (climate) future. However, as we see it, this duty falls differentially upon the shoulders of more and less (...) advantaged agents in society. From arguments by Black thinkers like Derrick Bell, we draw a set of distinctions between two types of hope: one for ideal justice, and one for more modest change; and between two types of hopeful actions, those undertaken through formal political channels and those we call 'extra-political' actions; and between two sites of differential moral burdens, those of the privileged and those of the oppressed. Ours is a case for facing even bleak realities, demanding otherwise, and acting in hope to achieve a better future. (shrink)

Neurostimulation to restore cognitive and physical functions is an innovative and promising technique for treating patients with severe brain injury that has resulted in a minimally conscious state (MCS). The technique may involve electrical stimulation of the central thalamus, which has extensive projections to the cerebral cortex. Yet it is unclear whether an improvement in neurological functions would result in a net benefit for these patients. Quality-of-life measurements would be necessary to determine whether any benefit of neurostimulation outweighed any harm (...) in their response to different degrees of cognitive and physical disability. These measures could also indicate whether the technique could be ethically justified and whether surrogates could give proxy consent to its use on brain-injured patients. (shrink)

The object of this dissertation is to discover a ground for our common-sense view that a person is morally responsible for her actions. I begin with the assumption that if we are justified in holding an agent morally responsible, it must be possible for her to do better or worse than she does. Using Bergson's concept of duration as the model for how conscious experience develops, I construct a schema for how actions happen that shows how it is possible for (...) the agent to act otherwise than she does. I adopt Bergson's approach to understanding persons and their relationship to their actions because it accounts for the durational/mental aspect of the human being as well as the spatial/physical aspect. We can better understand how the person produces an action if we think of her not only as a living body with repeating life processes but also as an ongoing mental process. ;Bergson's approach can help us to understand and support theories of agent-causation. I have focused on Chisholm's concept of agent-causation and the difficulty in explaining how immanent causation happens. In Bergson's schema, making events happen is an integral part of the process of conscious experience that the human being is. As a physical body a person undergoes events; however, as a process of conscious experience, that same person becomes aware of those events in the context of her experience and can evaluate them in order to envision and implement a new approach to her situation. When the person operates in this creative mode, viewing her situation from what Bergson calls the natural standpoint, she immanently causes her own action. ;For morality, the important choice the agent makes is whether or not to assume the natural standpoint as the point of departure for her efforts. The agent can take the most credit for an action that she has developed herself. Such an action fully engages the agent's knowledge and abilities, and so best represents the person that the agent becomes through completing the action. Even in allowing habit to direct her efforts, however, the agent is minimally responsible for her action insofar as she could have chosen to bypass those directions and to act creatively. (shrink)

Socially, people find it difficult to say ‘no’ to requests or invitations. In spoken interaction, we orient to this difficulty through the design of our responses. An agreement response is characteristically said straightaway with minimal gap between request and response. A disagreement response is characteristically delayed through silence and by prefacing the disagreement turn with tokens such as ‘well’, ‘uhm’ and ‘uh’ or with accounts as to why the recipient cannot accept the request or invitation. The question for this (...) article concerns what occurs when requests or invitations are made via texting. The results from 329 texting interactions showed that if responses to a request or invitation were delayed by more than 1 minute, it was much more likely be a ‘no’ rather than a ‘yes’ response. In other words, preferred responses were sent quickly; dispreferred responses were delayed. Understanding texting as social interaction is increasingly important as the range of communicative options continues to widen, Multimedia Messaging Service, Instant Messaging, email). This study shows preference organisation similarities between spoken interaction and texting with texters orienting to social norms concerning delayed responses. Further research is needed to understand in what contexts a person might choose one communicative medium over another. (shrink)

Dear Editor, -/- It is the responsibility of healthcare professionals to present patients with the available options for managing their conditions, including the potential benefits and anticipated negative consequences of each option. Patients then weigh the potential benefits and drawbacks of each option, and juxtapose them with their wider life goals and preferences. We generally accept that patients might not choose the option that is most health or life preserving because they might value other things more. We accept that (...) forms of cancer treatment that might only minimally extend life are not always a reasonable choice or that a patient might chose not to wish to have CPR performed if they suffer a cardiac arrest. While all people tend to value health to some extent some might value friendship and family life over their health. Of course, having good health helps with having fulfilling relationships with others, but often it is having these relationships is the primary goal of tending to one's health. If you are elderly and might die soon anyway, you might wish to take the risk of meeting others and dying sooner over living longer and potentially not meeting anyone. Not everyone values the same basic goods of life (e.g. as presented by New Natural Law theorists) to the same extent. -/- Governments need to balance how they prioritise these goods, which is very difficult, especially in a liberal and pluralistic society which largely tries to refrain from making judgments on how to prioritise such goods. The authors of the original article have rightly highlighted the potential consequences of the Christmas relaxation of the lockdown measures (which relaxation has now been cancelled). Yet, we should simultaneously not expect governments and citizens to make decisions based on their consequences on the NHS and people's health. Health is a good, but not the only, or even supreme, good. Liberty, friendship and family are other goods. People also need to have hope to live their lives well, and governments need to be trusted if people are to obey them. It is not clear that the general mood in society following the cancellation of the Christmas relaxations will not have graver consequences than the original relaxation would have - this is anyone's guess. But it would not be irrational for the government to allow these relaxations - it would simply not have aimed at maximising the benefit to the NHS and people's health. We would not expect patients to always act to maximise their health, why would we necessarily expect the government to do it - it did not get voted in solely on the basis of their health policies. -/- Why we might wish people and governments to promote health in general, we should not be surprised if they make decisions where they balance different goods and not just maximise health. This might not be generally helpful to us as healthcare professionals, but it is neither irrational nor is it different how we often make decisions in our personal lives. (shrink)

In the classical Turing test, participants are challenged to tell whether they are interacting with another human being or with a machine. The way the interaction takes place is not direct, but a distant conversation through computer screen messages. Basic forms of interaction are face-to-face and embodied, context-dependent and based on the detection of reciprocal sensorimotor contingencies. Our idea is that interaction detection requires the integration of proprioceptive and interoceptive patterns with sensorimotor patterns, within quite short time lapses, so that (...) they appear as mutually contingent, as reciprocal. In other words, the experience of interaction takes place when sensorimotor patterns are contingent upon one’s own movements, and vice versa. I react to your movement, you react to mine. When I notice both components, I come to experience an interaction. Therefore, we designed a “minimal” Turing test to investigate how much information is required to detect these reciprocal sensorimotor contingencies. Using a new version of the perceptual crossing paradigm, we tested whether participants resorted to interaction detection to tell apart human from machine agents in repeated encounters with these agents. In two studies, we presented participants with movements of a human agent, either online or offline, and movements of a computerized oscillatory agent in three different blocks. In each block, either auditory or audiovisual feedback was provided along each trial. Analysis of participants’ explicit responses and of the implicit information subsumed in the dynamics of their series will reveal evidence that participants use the reciprocal sensorimotor contingencies within short time windows. For a machine to pass this minimal Turing test, it should be able to generate this sort of reciprocal contingencies. (shrink)

Life typically becomes an object of reflection when it is seen to be under threat. In particular, humans have a tendency to engage in thinking about life (instead of just continuing to live it) when being confronted with the prospect of death: be it the death of individuals due to illness, accident or old age; the death of whole ethnic or national groups in wars and other forms of armed conflict; but also of whole populations, be they human or nonhuman. (...) Even though Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene is first and foremost concerned with life--understood as both a biological and social phenomenon--it is the narrative about the impending death of the human population (i.e., about the extinction of the human species), that provides a context for its argument. "Anthropocene" names a geo-historical period in which humans are said to have become the biggest threat to life on earth. However, rather than as a scientific descriptor, the term serves here primarily as an ethical injunction to think critically about human and nonhuman agency in the universe. Restrained in tone yet ambitious in scope, the book takes some steps towards outlining a minimal ethics thought on a universal scale. The task of such minimal ethics is to consider how humans can assume responsibility for various occurrences in the universe, across different scales, and how they can respond to the tangled mesh of connections and relations unfolding in it. Its goal is not so much to tell us how to live but rather to allow us to rethink "life" and what we can do with it, in whatever time we have left. The book embraces a speculative mode of thinking that is more akin to the artist's method; it also includes a photographic project by the author."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Tracking emotional responses as they unfold has been one of the hallmarks of applied neuroscience and related disciplines, but recent studies suggest that automatic tracking of facial expressions have low validation. In this study, we focused on the direct measurement of facial muscles involved in expressions such as smiling. We used single-channel surface electromyography (sEMG) to evaluate the muscular activity from the Zygomaticus Major face muscle while participants watched music videos. Participants were then tasked with rating each video with regard (...) to their thoughts and responses to each of them, including their judgment of emotional tone (“Valence”), personal preference (“Liking”) and rating of whether the video displayed strength and impression (“Dominance”). Using a minimal recording setup, we employed three ways to characterize muscular activity associated with spontaneous smiles. The total time spent smiling (ZygoNum), the average duration of smiles (ZygoLen), and instances of high valence (ZygoTrace). Our results demonstrate that Valence was the emotional dimension that was most related to the Zygomaticus activity. Here, the ZygoNum had higher discriminatory power than ZygoLen for Valence quantification. An additional investigation using fractal properties of sEMG time series confirmed previous studies of the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) documenting a smoother contraction of facial muscles for enjoyment smiles. Further analysis using ZygoTrace responses over time to the video events discerned “high valence” stimuli with a 76% accuracy. Additional validation of this approach came against previous findings on valence detection using features derived from a single channel EEG setup. We discuss these results in light of both the recent replication problems of facial expression measures, and in relation to the need for methods to reliably assess emotional responses in more challenging conditions, such as Virtual Reality, in which facial expressions are often covered by the equipment used. (shrink)

H. sapiens stands out from other primates along many social dimensions; however, none seems as prominent and important as the capacity of our species for cumulative cultural evolution or, as Tomasello calls it, “the ratchet.” Although other primate species show evidence of cultural variation, there is little evidence of cumulative cultural evolution, i.e., the gradual accumulation, modification, and refinement of traditions and skills over historical time, in any primate species other than our own. This is clearly an extremely significant component (...) of the human phenotype, responsible for our unparalleled cultural, social, political, and technological achievements. However, it remains extremely controversial what sorts of cognitive capacities are necessary to trigger cumulative cultural evolution and whether any currently proposed candidates are really distinctive of humans. Furthermore, the ratchet raises a bootstrapping problem: before complex skills and technologies are present and necessary for biological success, there appear to be few advantages to high-fidelity social learning; however, without such high-fidelity social learning, it is unclear how traditions capable of generating complex skills and technologies could arise in the first place. In this chapter, we survey relevant empirical research in comparative and developmental psychology, integrating it with a novel theoretical analysis of the bootstrapping problem to defend a hypothesis about the minimal cognitive preconditions on the ratchet. (shrink)

This article explains how we ordinary subjects of a state who are neither political leaders nor functionaries are responsible for outcomes that are properly attributed to that state and that took place during our adult lifetime. Its focus is on the connection we forge to those outcomes via our obedience alone. If our responsibility as subjects is justified, it would apply under all regime types including oppressive and authoritarian ones. The argument is that this responsibility can only be (...) justified within a minimal account of agency and a bare-bones account of responsibility. Thus, while we incur a burden of responsibility for the state via our obedience alone, that burden does not suffice to either blame us or extract remedies from us for state injustices. For us obedient subjects, however, it is important that we be cognizant of this burden as it marks the most minimal agency we exercise in the state. (shrink)

Should philosophers address the needs of their societies? If the answer is affirmative, and if today's needs are being inadequately answered within the New Age movement for lack of viable alternatives, philosophers' minimal response could be teaching critical thinking outside the academe, and maximal response would be providing relevant wisdom for the world. The first option requires construing logic and epistemology as practical fields. The second requires reforming part of Philosophy as social thinking which provides relevant wisdom for the (...) world. I expose here the maximal response based on an analysis of society's needs forcosmology and spirituality, the New Age Movement's role in providing for those needs, its dangers and imperviousness to criticism, and philosophers' possible responsibility for and interest in answering the needs for a synoptic vision. (shrink)

This paper defends a minimal desert thesis, according to which someone who is blameworthy for something deserves to feel guilty, to the right extent, at the right time, because of her culpability. The sentiment or emotion of guilt includes a thought that one is blameworthy for something as well as an unpleasant affect. Feeling guilty is not a matter of inflicting suffering on oneself, and it need not involve any thought that one deserves to suffer. The desert of a (...) feeling of guilt is a kind of moral propriety of that response, and it is a matter of justice. If the minimal desert thesis is correct, then it is in some respect good that one who is blameworthy feel guilty—there is some justice in that state of affairs. But if retributivism concerns the justification of punishment, the minimal desert thesis is not retributivist. Its plausibility nevertheless raises doubt about whether, as some have argued, there are senses of moral responsibility that are not desert-entailing. (shrink)

According to Gawande, Lazaroff “chose badly.” Gawande suggests that physicians may be permitted to intervene in choices of this kind. What makes the temptation to intervene paternalistically in this and similar cases especially strong is that the patient’s choice contradicts his professed values. Paternalism appears less problematic in such cases because, in contradicting his values, the patient seems to sidestep his own autonomy. This chapter addresses the dangers of overextending this interpretation. I argue that it is not so easy to (...) judge when a person is not genuinely exercising autonomy, and that choosing contrary to one’s own values does not necessarily amount to sidestepping one’s autonomy. The key insight is to recognize the importance of the attitude of caring as an integral part of some expressions of autonomy. This will allow us to develop an alternative picture of minimal autonomy, according to which it is possible to choose against one’s values while genuinely exercising autonomy. For practical purposes, in medicine and elsewhere, this means that, in cases like Lazaroff’s, those tempted toward paternalism must exercise particular caution before they deem a choice to be disen- gaged from autonomy: even if a choice contradicts the person’s own values, it might be rooted in caring, and then, despite initial appearances to the contrary, it may still command the highest level of protection against paternalism. (shrink)

In this paper, we set out to develop a theoretical and conceptual framework for the new field of Radical Embodied Cognitive Neuroscience. This framework should be able to integrate insights from several relevant disciplines: theory on embodied cognition, ecological psychology, phenomenology, dynamical systems theory, and neurodynamics. We suggest that the main task of Radical Embodied Cognitive Neuroscience is to investigate the phenomenon of skilled intentionality from the perspective of the self-organization of the brain-body-environment system, while doing justice to the phenomenology (...) of skilled action. In previous work, we have characterized skilled intentionality as the organism's tendency toward an optimal grip on multiple relevant affordances simultaneously. Affordances are possibilities for action provided by the environment. In the first part of this paper, we introduce the notion of skilled intentionality and the phenomenon of responsiveness to a field of relevant affordances. Second, we use Friston's work on neurodynamics, but embed a very minimal version of his Free Energy Principle in the ecological niche of the animal. Thus amended, this principle is helpful for understanding the embeddedness of neurodynamics within the dynamics of the system “brain-body-landscape of affordances.” Next, we show how we can use this adjusted principle to understand the neurodynamics of selective openness to the environment: interacting action-readiness patterns at multiple timescales contribute to the organism's selective openness to relevant affordances. In the final part of the paper, we emphasize the important role of metastable dynamics in both the brain and the brain-body-environment system for adequate affordance-responsiveness. We exemplify our integrative approach by presenting research on the impact of Deep Brain Stimulation on affordance responsiveness of OCD patients. (shrink)

The role of responsibility in our common-sense morality of self-defense is complex. According to common-sense morality, one can sometimes use substantial, even deadly, force against people who are only minimally responsible for posing a threat to us. The role of responsibility in self-defense is thus limited. However, responsibility is still sometimes relevant. It sometime affects how much force you can use against a threatener: less if they are less responsible and more if they are more responsible. Is (...) there a well-motivated theory that can explain both why the role of responsibility is limited and why it is sometimes relevant? It is hard to see what theory could unify these disparate elements of our common-sense morality, and if one cannot be found then we may simply have to revise some of our pre-theoretic beliefs. But it would be an important advantage of a theory if it could justify those beliefs. I will argue that there is a theory of this kind: surprisingly, the familiar rights theory of self-defense, defended by Judith Thomson, can do so if it is suitably supplemented. Along the way I will survey some alternative theories of self-defense and show why they are not up to the task. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant, in a much-maligned view, thought that we could only have indirect duties to nonhuman animals who have no inherent moral value since they lack rationality. While there are various responses to this worrisome position, no one seems to consider that animals could conceivably qualify as having rationality, even on Kantian high standards. Animals engage in various activities that could be taken as indicators of the core aspects of rationality that Kant requires for having absolute worth. While these animal (...) behaviors will not prove that animals are rational, we must remember that we also cannot prove that other humans are rational. Instead, my goal is only to provide a basis for a precautionary moral principle that requires treating animals as minimally rational, given that they might be. On this basis, we ought to accept some direct Kantian duties for the respectful treatment of animals. (shrink)