This paper engages the philosophical concepts of subjectification and acknowledgment in conversation with Philip Pullman’s young adult novel, Northern Lights. Our particular focus is Lyra Belacqua, Pullman’s central character. Precarious in her vulnerability and in her unknown significance, we read Lyra as usefully negotiating the dangerous transition from childhood to adolescence. In her negotiation of this complex liminality, we argue that Lyra models those difficult-to-define moments encountered by children as they learn to be in and of the world. Situating our (...) reading in a Philosophy of Education discourse, we draw theoretically from the work of Gert Biesta and Stanley Cavell. With Biesta as the primary focus of our paper, we generalize beyond Northern Lights to argue that the reading of fiction constitutes “a weak educational event” in Biesta’s intriguing understanding of that phrase. Partly as a theoretical framing for the Pullman text, we begin with an outline of Biesta’s philosophy. (shrink)

BackgroundThe coronavirus 2019 pandemic placed unprecedented pressures on healthcare services and magnified ethical dilemmas related to how resources should be allocated. These resources include, among others, personal protective equipment, personnel, life-saving equipment, and vaccines. Decision-makers have therefore sought ethical decision-making tools so that resources are distributed both swiftly and equitably. To support the development of such a decision-making tool, a systematic review of the literature on relevant ethical values and principles was undertaken. The aim of this review was to identify (...) ethical values and principles in the literature which relate to the equitable allocation of resources in response to an acute public health threat, such as a pandemic.MethodsA rapid systematic review was conducted using MEDLINE, EMBASE, Google Scholar, LitCOVID and relevant reference lists. The time period of the search was January 2000 to 6th April 2020, and the search was restricted to human studies. January 2000 was selected as a start date as the aim was to capture ethical values and principles within acute public health threat situations. No restrictions were made with regard to language. Ethical values and principles were extracted and examined thematically.ResultsA total of 1,618 articles were identified. After screening and application of eligibility criteria, 169 papers were included in the thematic synthesis. The most commonly mentioned ethical values and principles were: Equity, reciprocity, transparency, justice, duty to care, liberty, utility, stewardship, trust and proportionality. In some cases, ethical principles were conflicting, for example, Protection of the Public from Harm and Liberty.ConclusionsAllocation of resources in response to acute public health threats is challenging and must be simultaneously guided by many ethical principles and values. Ethical decision-making strategies and the prioritisation of different principles and values needs to be discussed with the public in order to prepare for future public health threats. An evidence-based tool to guide decision-makers in making difficult decisions is required. The equitable allocation of resources in response to an acute public health threat is challenging, and many ethical principles may be applied simultaneously. An evidence-based tool to support difficult decisions would be helpful to guide decision-makers. (shrink)

How is it that we think and refer in the first-person way? For most philosophers in the analytic tradition, the problem is essentially this: how two apparently conflicting kinds of properties can be reconciled and united as properties of the same entity. What is special about the first person has to be reconciled with what is ordinary about it. The range of responses reduces to four basic options. The orthodox view is optimistic: there really is a way of reconciling these (...) apparently contradictory properties as contained within the same thing. The heretical views are pessimistic and content to be so: there is no such way, and that is because there is simply nothing to reconcile – because there is really nothing special about what is in question; or there is really nothing ordinary about it; or there is really nothing …. (shrink)

In this paper I want to propose that we see solipsism as arising from certain problems we have about identifying ourselves as subjects in an objective world. The discussion will centre on Wittgenstein’s treatment of solipsism in his Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus. In that work Wittgenstein can be seen to express an unusually profound understanding of the problems faced in trying to give an account of how we, who are subjects, identify ourselves as objects in the world. We have in his (...) compressed remarks, the kernels of a number of arguments which all come together to form what can be called the problem of self-identification. I want to argue that the solipsism of the Tractatus arises at least in part as a solution to, or – to put it less optimistically – as a symptom or articulation of this problem. In approaching Wittgenstein’s early discussion of solipsism in this way I will obviously be in disagreement with some other interpretations of the work. For example, there are those who think that there is no ‘solipsism of the Tractatus’.1 In fact, the Tractarian arguments presented below as motivating solipsism have been seen as fulfilling the quite opposite function of refuting it. I do not intend in this piece to engage with alternative interpretations. Let me say a little bit about why I have granted myself the licence not to do so. First, the focus of my concern with solipsism is on how it connects with what I have called the problem of self-identification. While it is a concern that emerged in an attempt to make sense of Wittgenstein’s remarks in. (shrink)

O'Brien provides a critical assessment of Ernest Mandel's 1975 monograph Late Capitalism. In so doing, he offers a historical narrative that puts into question Mandel's framing of 'waves' of capitalist development as a process of capital accumulation that was dependent upon uneven development in the Third World. O'Brien starts by problematising Mandel's argument that an initial concentration of money, capital and bullion in the hands of Europeans explains combined and uneven development. He goes on to demonstrate that Mandel's notion of (...) imperialism as a necessary conduit for the flow of surplus capital from industrialising Europe does not stand up to the historical evidence. In fact, O'Brien maintains an alternative thesis, namely that these marginalised regions were insuffciently penetrated by European capital. (shrink)

Lucy O'Brien argues that a satisfactory account of first-person reference and self-knowledge needs to concentrate on our nature as agents. Clearly written, with rigorous discussion of rival views, this book will be of interest to anyone working in the philosophy of mind and action.

_"The Essential Plotinus_ is a lifesaver. For many years my students in Greek and Roman Religion have depended on it to understand the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages. The translation is crisp and clear, and the excerpts are just right for an introduction to Plotionus's many-layered view of the world and humankind’s place in it." --F. E. Romer, University of Arizona.

Longtermism is the view that positively influencing the long-term future is one of the key moral priorities of our time. Longtermists generally focus on humans, and neglect animals. This is a mistake. In this paper I will show that the basic argument for longtermism applies to animals at least as well as it does to humans, and that the reasons longtermists have given for ignoring animals do not withstand scrutiny. Because of their numbers, their capacity for suffering, and our ability (...) to influence their futures, animals ought to be a central concern of longtermists. Furthermore, I will suggest that longtermism is a fruitful framework for thinking about the wellbeing of animals, as it helps us to identify actions we can take now that have a reasonable chance of improving the wellbeing of animals over the very long term. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question “what connection is there between our answer to the question of what we are, and the question, what our actions are?” Suppose that actions are reflexive changes of agents. On that supposition, there would be a direct connection between the answers to those two questions. An action of mine will be a reflexive change of me, and what I am will fix the nature of those changes. I hold that supposition to be true and consider (...) reasons in favor of believing it. However, the paper is not primarily aimed at defense of that thesis. It rather concerned with exploring what consequences accepting it has for the competing notions of what we are, given what we ordinarily think actions are, and bringing to light a tension between thinking of actions as reflexive changes of agents in this way, and a kind of causal understanding of actions that is prevalent. What emerges is that we should shift where we start our theorizing: we cannot assume that action theory primarily involves the task of characterizing the relation between an agent and changes caused, rather than a characterization of a particular kind of relation between the agent and herself. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper argues that the retort ‘easy for you to say’ is a complaint about the target’s standing, but that it invokes a standing norm that is unjustified. Moreover, I argue that in many cases the person for whom it is ‘easy to say’ should speak.

In Just Fodder, Milburn argues for a relational account of our duties to animals. Following Clare Palmer, he argues that, though all animals have negative rights that we have a duty not to violate, we only gain positive obligations towards animals in the contexts of our relationships with them, which can be personal or political. He argues that human beings have collective positive duties towards domesticated animals, in virtue of the kind of relationship between us established by domestication. However, when (...) it comes to wild animals, he argues that we have no such morally relevant relationships, and so we have only negative duties towards them. I argue that throughout history and even prehistory human beings have morally entangled themselves with wild animals sufficiently that we may in fact have collective positive duties towards many, if not all, wild animals. (shrink)

Directed panspermia is the deliberate seeding of lifeless planets with microbes, in the hopes that, over evolutionary timescales, they will give rise to a complex self-sustaining biosphere on the target planet. Due to the immense distances and timescales involved, human beings are unlikely ever to see the fruits of their labours. Such missions must therefore be justified by appeal to values independent of human wellbeing. In this paper I investigate the values that a directed panspermia mission might promote. Paying special (...) attention to the outcome in which sentient animals evolve, I argue that we have strong reasons to believe the value of a mission would be negative. Research on wild animal suffering has shown that there is a huge amount of suffering among wild animals on Earth. I argue that there are structural features of evolution by natural selection which explain the prevalence of suffering on Earth, and make it predictable that suffering would prevail on the target planet too. Finally, using insights from procreative ethics I argue on non-consequentialist grounds that creators have duties to their sentient creations which cannot be met in directed panspermia missions. (shrink)

Lucy F. O'Brien; XII*—The Problem of Self-Identification, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 95, Issue 1, 1 June 1995, Pages 235–252, https://doi.o.

The charge of hypocrisy is a peculiar kind of accusation: it is damning and ubiquitous; it is used to deny the hypocrite standing to speak; and it is levelled against a great variety of conduct. Much of the philosophical literature on hypocrisy is aimed at explaining why hypocrisy is wrongful and worthy of censure. We focus instead on the use of the accusation of hypocrisy and argue for a revisionary claim. People think that hypocrisy in politics is bad and that (...) calling it out is good. Our novel claim is that even if hypocrisy in politics is bad (and that is a big if), calling it out is worse. We give a feminist case as to why accusations of hypocrisy are problematic. We also go further and claim that hypocrisy is a ubiquitous and perhaps even a necessary and beneficial part of political debate in liberal democracies. We also consider and reject candour as a possible alternative solution to hypocrisy in public debate. We argue that requiring people to be candid is not necessarily a good solution because it will often require one to divulge what is private when there are good reasons not to do so. (shrink)

Heidegger's thinking in the decades following the publication of Being and Time is often deemed irreconcilable with that work. Critics contrast the notion of "resoluteness" in Being and Time with Heidegger's post-war account of "releasement" in an attempt to establish a discrepancy between the allegedly voluntarist humanism of his early work and the supposedly 'anti-humanist' thinking of his later work. By contrast, Mahon O'Brien argues for the structural and thematic coherence of Heidegger's movement from authenticity to the search for an (...) authentic free relation to the world - as captured by the term "releasement". By demonstrating the structural and thematic unity of Heidegger's thought in its entirety, O'Brien paves the way for a more measured and philosophically grounded understanding of the issues at stake in the Heidegger controversy. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that we are answerable in a special way for our intentional actions. And it is also widely accepted that we are thus answerable because we perform intentional actions for reasons. The aim of this chapter is to argue against this ‘reasons’ view of such answerability. First, reasons are distinguished from practical standards. Then, it is argued that the best interpretation of the practices in which we treat agents as answerable is that they fundamentally concern practical standards (...) rather than reasons. This view shows that we are answerable, not just because we are deliberators, but because we are executive agents whose complex executive capacities open us to criticism. (shrink)

It is commonplace for both philosophers and cognitive scientists to express their allegiance to the "unity of consciousness". This is the claim that a subject’s phenomenal consciousness, at any one moment in time, is a single thing. This view has had a major influence on computational theories of consciousness. In particular, what we call single-track theories dominate the literature, theories which contend that our conscious experience is the result of a single consciousness-making process or mechanism in the brain. We argue (...) that the orthodox view is quite wrong: phenomenal experience is not a unity, in the sense of being a single thing at each instant. It is a multiplicity, an aggregate of phenomenal elements, each of which is the product of a distinct consciousness-making mechanism in the brain. Consequently, cognitive science is in need of a multi-track theory of consciousness; a computational model that acknowledges both the manifold nature of experience, and its distributed neural basis. (shrink)

One kind of successful communication involves the transmission of knowledge from speaker to hearer. Such testimonial knowledge transmission is usually seen as conforming to three widely held epistemological approaches: reliabilism, impartialism and evidentialism. First, a speaker must be a reliable testifier in order that she transmits knowledge, and reliability is cashed out in terms of her likelihood of speaking the truth. Second, if a certain speaker's testimony has sufficient epistemic weight to be believed by hearer1, then it should also be (...) believed by hearer2. Third, the normative constraint here is evidentially grounded: whether or not a hearer should believe a speaker depends on the evidence the hearer has that the speaker is telling the truth. I argue that there are cases of testimonial knowledge transmission that are incompatible with these three claims. This is when one accepts the testimony of an intimate friend. (shrink)

THIS article concerning Mr. Marshall's open letter to Governor Smith does not pretend to be an answer. It suggests some philosophical considerations on the point at issue. The Editor.

My aim in this paper is to articulate further what may be called an agency theory of self-knowledge. Many theorists have stressed how important agency is to self- knowledge, and much work has been done drawing connections between the two notions.² However, it has not always been clear what _epistemic_ advantage agency gives us in this area and why it does so. I take it as a constraint on an adequate account of how a subject knows her own mental states (...) and acts, that it construe the known mental states and acts realistically and as independent of their self-ascription, and that it deliver genuine epistemic standing to the knower. The main task of the paper will, then, be to explore how our having rational agency with respect to our mental states may be able to secure genuine epistemic warrant for our self-ascriptions of states or acts independent of the ascriptions. This task will be carried out by focussing on the question of what account we should give of our knowledge of what I call our acts of judging. In the remainder of this section, I will do a little to clarify what is meant by that question. Section 2 will attempt to introduce us to elements of the best way to approach the question by considering some alternative strategies. Section 3 is devoted to forming some idea of what _kind_ of warrant we are looking for when considering how agency might give us self-knowledge. Section 4 aims to present a suggestion as to how agency gives us the kind of warrant identified over our acts of judging. Section 5 deals with some objections. (shrink)

In ‘The Epistemic Goals of the Humanities’, Stephen Grimm (2024) argues for epistemic continuities between the humanities, on one hand, and the social and natural sciences, on the other. This paper focuses on discontinuities. Drawing inspiration from Svetlana Alexievich’s literary non-fiction, I argue that if a reader is to gain a specific kind of understanding of the actions of the agents who appear in such work, they must engage in a rational evaluation of those agents’ reasons and actions. This epistemic (...) process may yield, not just understanding of another’s action, but a grip on the evaluative distance between the reader and the agents she reads about, together with a greater appreciation of normative matters. These epistemic gains are, I suggest, central to the value of the humanities, and play a key role in its corrective power. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen has argued that there is a surprising truth in conservatism—namely, that there is a reason for some valuable things to be preserved, even if they could be replaced with other, more valuable things. This conservative thesis is motivated, Cohen suggests, by our judgments about a range of hypothetical cases. After reconstructing Cohen's conservative thesis, I argue that the relevant judgments about these cases do not favor the conservative thesis over standard, nonconservative axiological views. But I then argue (...) that there is a Mirrored Histories case that is such that, if one shares Cohen's conservative attitude, judgments about this case favor Cohen's conservative thesis over a wide range of non-conservative axiological views. Reflection on this case also suggests a different explanation of apparently conservative judgments that merits consideration in its own right. (shrink)

Hume is usually taken to have an evidentialist account of testimonial belief: one is justified in believing what someone says if one has empincal evidence that they have been reliable in the past. This account is impartialist: such evidence is required no matter who the person is, or what refotions she may have to you. I, however, argue that Hume has another account of testimony, one grounded in sympathy. This account is partialist, in that empincal evidence is not required in (...) order for one to be justified in believing some of the assertions of one's friends. (shrink)

It is suggested that George Cotkin's essay is unpersuasive in its two central claims. Firstly, the evidence is not persuasive that there has been a discernible "moral turn" among historians in the last two decades; rather, it is argued that an engagement with morality has been fairly constant in historical scholarship since its ancient origins. Secondly, it is felt that Cotkin is evasive on whether he wishes historians merely to have opinions about the moralities of others in the past or (...) to be moral agents themselves; the first position is thought to be tenable, the latter probably not. (shrink)

Niche construction is the process whereby organisms, through their activities and choices, modify their own and each other’s niches. By transforming natural-selection pressures, niche construction generates feedback in evolution at various different levels. Niche-constructing species play important ecological roles by creating habitats and resources used by other species and thereby affecting the flow of energy and matter through ecosystems—a process often referred to as “ecosystem engineering.” An important emphasis of niche construction theory (NCT) is that acquired characters play an evolutionary (...) role through transforming selective environments. This is particularly relevant to human evolution, where our species has engaged in extensive environmental modification through cultural practices. Humans can construct developmental environments that feed back to affect how individuals learn and develop and the diseases to which they are exposed. Here we provide an introduction to NCT and illustrate some of its more important implications for the human sciences. (shrink)

In this chapter I defend a novel view of the relationships among intention for the future, self-control, and co-operation. I argue that when an agent forms an intention for the future she comes to regard herself as criticizable if she does not act in accordance with her intention and as praiseworthy if she does. In forming intentions, then, agents acquire dispositions to have reflexive evaluative attitudes. In contexts where the agent has inclinations that run contrary to her unrescinded intention, these (...) evaluative attitudes help her to resist these inclinations. Intentions have, in other words, a built-in mechanism for self-control. I go on to argue that this mechanism can also function as a mechanism for co-operative behaviour. Sometimes a common species of co-operation just is the exercise of self-controlled behaviour in a social context. If this is on the right track, agents like us are not just equipped to formulate and abide by plans for the future, we are also thereby equipped for exercising self-control and participating in co-operative ventures. (shrink)

Doctors have an ethical and legal duty to respect patient confidentiality. We consider the basis for this duty, looking particularly at the meaning and value of autonomy in health care. Enabling patients to decide how information about them is disclosed is an important element in autonomy and helps patients engage as active partners in their care.Good quality data is, however, essential for research, education, public health monitoring, and for many other activities essential to provision of health care. We discuss whether (...) it is necessary to choose between individual rights and the wider public interest and conclude that this should only rarely be necessary. The paper makes some recommendations on practical steps which could help ensure that good quality information is available for work which benefits society and the public health, while still enabling patients’ autonomy to be respected. (shrink)

This study offers a new analysis of the last argument of Plato's Phaedo for the immortality of the soul. Interpretations of this argument and especially of the last section have differed considerably. Judgements on its value have usually been adverse. One scholar speaks of the ‘screen of unreal argument’ which concludes the proof, and writes that ‘from the standpoint of logic the argument has petered out into futility’. Another describes the final stage of the proof as ‘a blatant petitio principii’. (...) A third remarks that the conclusion follows ‘if we do not look too closely’. (shrink)

Heidegger’s accounts of Dasein’s dual nature as both individual and social in Being and Time have been a longstanding source of confusion and controversy in the literature. Many critics have been keen to identify contradictions between Heidegger’s positive account of the social nature of everyday Dasein and the putatively solipsistic account of authentic Dasein which comes later. This paper focuses on Heidegger’s brief attempts to sketch the outlines for the notion of something like authentic intersubjectivity. In doing so we will (...) see where the temptation arises to read Heidegger as having failed to remain consistent but also how Heidegger himself is responsible for some of the confusion here. (shrink)

This is one of four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and nineteen multi-disciplinary partner organizations. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of public health legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; competency in using those laws; coordination of law-based public health actions; and information. Options presented in this paper are for consideration by (...) policymakers and practitioners — in all jurisdictions and all relevant sectors and disciplines — with responsibilities for all-hazards emergency preparedness.This paper focuses on the fourth core element: information that can be used in shaping and applying law as a public health tool, specifically in the context of public health emergencies. (shrink)

A prime example of metaphor use is to denigrate marginalized populations as a means of supporting adverse social policies against group members. This article describes the use of organism, object, natural catastrophe/war and animal metaphors in the immigration restriction debate of the early 1900s. In addition to describing linguistic metaphors that served to dehumanize immigrants or portray them as a threat to social functioning, more global conceptual metaphors will also be discussed.