This paper presents a preliminary analysis of the first participatory budgeting experiment in the United States, in Chicago's 49th Ward. There are two avenues of inquiry: First, does participatory budgeting result in different budgetary priorities than standard practices? Second, do projects meet normative social justice outcomes? It is clear that allowing citizens to determine municipal budget projects results in very different outcomes than standard procedures. Importantly, citizens in the 49th Ward consistently choose projects that the research literature classifies as low (...) priority. The results are mixed, however, when it comes to social justice outcomes. While there is no clear pattern in which projects are located only in affluent sections of the ward, there is evidence of geographic clustering. Select areas are awarded projects like community gardens, dog parks, and playgrounds, while others are limited to street resurfacing, sidewalk repairs, bike racks, and bike lanes. Based on our findings, we offer suggestions for future programmatic changes. (shrink)

Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferences is underway, with notable similarities emerging between moral- and risk-based decision-making. Here we specifically assessed moral distributive justice preferences and non-moral financial gambling preferences in the same individuals, and report an association between these seemingly disparate forms of decision-making. Moreover, we find this association between distributive justice and risky decision-making exists primarily when the latter is assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task. These findings are consistent with neuroimaging studies (...) of brain function during moral and risky decision-making. This research also constitutes the first replication of a novel experimental measure of distributive justice decision-making, for which individual variation in performance was found. Further examination of decision-making processes across different contexts may lead to an improved understanding of the factors affecting moral behaviour. (shrink)

Contemporary moral theorists are increasingly attentive to the ways human beings actually make sense of their moral experience and compose meaningful lives. Martha Nussbaum's re-introduction of Aristotelian practical wisdom and Alasdair MacIntyre's emphasis on narrativity are good examples of a shift in focus away from tedious polemics about the single "right thing to do" in a situation. But recent theorists have tended to lack a highly articulated philosophical framework--especially a full-blooded theory of moral belief and deliberation--that would enable us better (...) to wend our way along the trails they have blazed. We are born, MacIntyre proclaims, with a social past, a tradition into which we grow. Yet MacIntyre advances a new moral vision independent of recent philosophical traditions that might accommodate and direct his own insights and inquiries. Classical American pragmatism, especially as developed by John Dewey, provides a framework that can clarify and extend the achievements of contemporary moral theory. I contend that a thoroughgoing reconstruction of our moral vision would profit immensely from looking back to Dewey's theory of moral understanding. I propose here to articulate the center of vision of this theory by developing a Deweyan conception of deliberation as imaginative dramatic rehearsal. (shrink)

Purpose Prescription stimulant use as “cognitive enhancers” has been described among undergraduate college students. However, the use of prescription stimulants among future health care professionals is not well characterized. This study was designed to determine the prevalence of prescription stimulant misuse among students at an academic health sciences center. -/- Method Electronic surveys were e-mailed to 621 medical, pharmacy, and respiratory therapy students at East Tennessee State University for four consecutive weeks in fall 2011. Completing the survey was voluntary and (...) anonymous. Surveys asked about reasons for, frequency of, and side effects of nonprescription misuse of prescription stimulants. Given the sensitive material, an opportunity to win one of ten $50 gift cards was used as an incentive. -/- Results Three hundred seventy-two (59.9%) students completed the survey from three disciplines (47.6% medical, 70.5% pharmacy, and 57.6% respiratory therapy). Overall, 11.3% of responders admitted to misusing prescription stimulants. There was more misuse by respiratory therapy students, although this was not statistically significant (10.9% medicine, 9.7% pharmacy, 26.3% respiratory therapy; P = .087). Reasons for prescription stimulant misuse included to enhance alertness/ energy (65.9%), to improve academic performance (56.7%), to experiment (18.2%), and to use recreationally/get high (4.5%). -/- Conclusions Prescription stimulant misuse was prevalent among participating students, but further research is needed to describe prevalence among future health care workers more generally. The implications and consequences of such misuse require further study across professions with emphasis on investigating issues of academic dishonesty (e.g., “cognitive enhancement”), educational quality, and patient safety or health care quality. (shrink)

The popularity of logos derived from the Tennessee flag can be explained by its obvious and relevant symbolism, but also by the phenomenon of pragmatic unity through which the Tennessee flag evokes the Confederate flag, as well as by the phenomenon of visual synecdoche, which allows observers to associate the three-star element with the entire flag and its associated meanings.

A leading semiotician, Thomas A. Sebeok (1920-2001), developed a useful typology which the author uses to analyze national and subnational flags, exploring them as signals, icons, indexes, and symbols and using extensively illustrations.

With the release of Laudato Si (2015) Pope Francis has introduced new conceptual language into Catholic social teaching (CST), what he has called "integral ecology." His intent appears to be grounded in the realization that "It is essential to seek comprehensive solutions which consider the interactions with natural systems themselves and with social systems" (LS, no. CXXXVIII). Pope Francis goes on to make the case that ''We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but (...) rather with one complex crisis with isboth social and environmental" (LS, no. CXXXVIII). Consequently, in order to solve this crisis we need to utilize "an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time pro­ tecting nature" (LS, no. CXXXVlll). This perspective represents a major development in CST whereby the encyclical connects the dots between ecology/environment, economics and society, three essential aspects of what many in the environmental community and elsewhere see as in­ dispensable for humanity to achieve a sustainable relationship with the Earth. While this is extremely important for articulating a Catholic vision of sustainability, that is not the direction we take in this article. Rather our intent is to use the concept of integral ecology to do three things:(1) examine a current case in the U.S. that has received signif­ icant media attention as well as notoriety-the water crisis in Flint, Michigan; (2) describe how our recent understanding of the epigenetic impacts of environmental toxins casts a new and ominous light on this crisis and on other instances of environmental toxin exposure, and (3) propose some ideas on how epigenetic research might enlarge our in­ terpretation of basic aspects of CST highlighted in Laudato Si such as human dignity, justice and the common good. (shrink)

Aworkshop was held August 26–28, 2015, by the Earth- Life Science Institute (ELSI) Origins Network (EON, see Appendix I) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This meeting gathered a diverse group of around 40 scholars researching the origins of life (OoL) from various perspectives with the intent to find common ground, identify key questions and investigations for progress, and guide EON by suggesting a roadmap of activities. Specific challenges that the attendees were encouraged to address included the following: What key (...) questions, ideas, and investigations should the OoL research community address in the near and long term? How can this community better organize itself and prioritize its efforts? What roles can particular subfields play, and what can ELSI and EON do to facilitate research progress? (See also Appendix II.) The present document is a product of that workshop; a white paper that serves as a record of the discussion that took place and a guide and stimulus to the solution of the most urgent and important issues in the study of the OoL. This paper is not intended to be comprehensive or a balanced representation of the opinions of the entire OoL research community. It is intended to present a number of important position statements that contain many aspirational goals and suggestions as to how progress can be made in understanding the OoL. The key role played in the field by current societies and recurring meetings over the past many decades is fully acknowledged, including the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL) and its official journal Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, as well as the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL). (shrink)

People increasingly form beliefs based on information gained from automatically filtered Internet ‎sources such as search engines. However, the workings of such sources are often opaque, preventing ‎subjects from knowing whether the information provided is biased or incomplete. Users’ reliance on ‎Internet technologies whose modes of operation are concealed from them raises serious concerns about ‎the justificatory status of the beliefs they end up forming. Yet it is unclear how to address these concerns ‎within standard theories of knowledge and justification. (...) To shed light on the problem, we introduce a ‎novel conceptual framework that clarifies the relations between justified belief, epistemic responsibility, ‎action, and the technological resources available to a subject. We argue that justified belief is subject to ‎certain epistemic responsibilities that accompany the subject’s particular decision-taking circumstances, ‎and that one typical responsibility is to ascertain, so far as one can, whether the information upon which ‎the judgment will rest is biased or incomplete. What this responsibility comprises is partly determined by ‎the inquiry-enabling technologies available to the subject. We argue that a subject’s beliefs that are ‎formed based on Internet-filtered information are less justified than they would be if she either knew how ‎filtering worked or relied on additional sources, and that the subject may have the epistemic ‎responsibility to take measures to enhance the justificatory status of such beliefs.‎. (shrink)

The last decade has witnessed the mass distribution and adoption of smart home systems and devices powered by artificial intelligence systems ranging from household appliances like fridges and toasters to more background systems such as air and water quality controllers. The pervasiveness of these sociotechnical systems makes analyzing their ethical implications necessary during the design phases of these devices to ensure not only sociotechnical resilience, but to design them for human values in mind and thus preserve meaningful human control over (...) them. This paper engages in a conceptual investigations of how meaningful human control over smart home devices can be attained through design. The value sensitive design (VSD) approach is proposed as a way of attaining this level of control. In the proposed framework, values are identified and defined, stakeholder groups are investigated and brought into the design process and the technical constraints of the technologies in question are considered. The paper concludes with some initial examples that illustrate a more adoptable way forward for both ethicists and engineers of smart home devices. (shrink)

Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is an established method for integrating values into technical design. It has been applied to different technologies and, more recently, to artificial intelligence (AI). We argue that AI poses a number of challenges specific to VSD that require a somewhat modified VSD approach. Machine learning (ML), in particular, poses two challenges. First, humans may not understand how an AI system learns certain things. This requires paying attention to values such as transparency, explicability, and accountability. Second, ML (...) may lead to AI systems adapting in ways that ‘disembody’ the values embedded in them. To address this, we propose a threefold modified VSD approach: 1) integrating a known set of VSD principles (AI4SG) as design norms from which more specific design requirements can be derived; 2) distinguishing between values that are promoted and respected by the design to ensure outcomes that not only do no harm but also contribute to good; and 3) extending the VSD process to encompass the whole life cycle of an AI technology in order to monitor unintended value consequences and redesign as needed. We illustrate our VSD for AI approach with an example use case of a SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing app. (shrink)

Adequate epistemic justification is best conceived as the appearance, over time, of knowledge to the subject. ‘Appearance’ is intended literally, not as a synonym for belief. It is argued through consideration of examples that this account gets the extension of ‘adequately justified belief’ at least roughly correct. A more theoretical reason is then offered to regard justification as the appearance of knowledge: If we have a knowledge norm for assertion, we do our best to comply with this norm when we (...) express as assertions only beliefs that appear to us to be knowledge. If we are doing our best, there is little point in further sanctions. So a norm of knowledge for assertion would lead to a secondary norm of justified belief as the appearance of knowledge, marking a point at which our assertions may be corrected but should not be blamed. (shrink)

Scientific consensus is widely deferred to in public debates as a social indicator of the existence of knowledge. However, it is far from clear that such deference to consensus is always justified. The existence of agreement in a community of researchers is a contingent fact, and researchers may reach a consensus for all kinds of reasons, such as fighting a common foe or sharing a common bias. Scientific consensus, by itself, does not necessarily indicate the existence of shared knowledge among (...) the members of the consensus community. I address the question of under what conditions it is likely that a consensus is in fact knowledge based. I argue that a consensus is likely to be knowledge based when knowledge is the best explanation of the consensus, and I identify three conditions—social calibration, apparent consilience of evidence, and social diversity, for knowledge being the best explanation of a consensus. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Barry Loewer attempts to defend Humeanism about laws of nature from a charge that Humean laws are not adequately explanatory. Central to his defense is a distinction between metaphysical and scientific explanations: even if Humeans cannot offer further metaphysical explanations of particular features of their “mosaic,” that does not preclude them from offering scientific explanations of these features. According to Marc Lange, however, Loewer’s distinction is of no avail. Defending a transitivity principle linking scientific explanantia to (...) their metaphysical grounds, Lange argues that a charge of explanatory inadequacy resurfaces once this intuitive principle is in place. This paper surveys, on behalf of the Humean, three strategies for responding to Lange’s criticism. The ready availability of these strategies suggests that Lange’s argument may not bolster anti-Humean convictions, since the argument rests on premises that those not antecedently sharing these convictions may well reject. The three strategies also correspond to three interesting ways of thinking about relations of grounding linking Humean laws and their instances, all of which are consistent with theses of Humean supervenience, and some of which have been heretofore overlooked. (shrink)

Design for Values (DfV) philosophies are a series of design approaches that aim to incorporate human values into the early phases of technological design to direct innovation into beneficial outcomes. The difficulty and necessity of directing advantageous futures for transformative technologies through the application and adoption of value-based design approaches are apparent. However, questions of whose values to design are of critical importance. DfV philosophies typically aim to enrol the stakeholders who may be affected by the emergence of such a (...) technology. However, regardless of which design approach is adopted, all enrolled stakeholders are human ones who propose human values. Contemporary scholarship on metahumanisms, particularly those on posthumanism, have decentred the human from its traditionally privileged position among other forms of life. Arguments that the humanist position is not (and has never been) tenable are persuasive. As such, scholarship has begun to provide a more encompassing ontology for the investigation of nonhuman values. Given the potentially transformative nature of future technologies as relates to the earth and its many assemblages, it is clear that the value investigations of these design approaches fail to account for all relevant stakeholders (i.e., nonhuman animals). This paper has two primary objectives: (1) to argue for the cogency of a posthuman ethics in the design of technologies; and (2) to describe how existing DfV approaches can begin to envision principled and methodological ways of incorporating non-human values into design. To do this, the paper provides a rudimentary outline of what constitutes DfV approaches. It then takes up a unique design approach called Value Sensitive Design (VSD) as an illustrative example. Out of all the other DfV frameworks, VSD most clearly illustrates a principled approach to the integration of values in design. (shrink)

The distinction between presentism and eternalism is usually sought in some formula like ‘Only presently existing things exist’ or ‘Past, present, and future events are equally real’. I argue that ambiguities in the copula prevent these slogans from distinguishing significant opposed positions. I suggest in addition that one can find a series of significant distinctions if one takes spacetime structure into account. These presentisms and eternalisms are not contradictory. They are complementary elements of a complete naturalistic philosophy of time.

Philosophers have recently argued, against a prevailing orthodoxy, that standards of knowledge partly depend on a subject’s interests; the more is at stake for the subject, the less she is in a position to know. This view, which is dubbed “Pragmatic Encroachment” has historical and conceptual connections to arguments in philosophy of science against the received model of science as value free. I bring the two debates together. I argue that Pragmatic Encroachment and the model of value-laden science reinforce each (...) other. Drawing on Douglas’ argument about the indispensability of value judgments in science, and psychological evidence about people’s inability to objectively reason about what they care about, I introduce a novel argument for Pragmatic Encroachment. (shrink)

Emerging technologies such as cloud computing, augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence and robotics, among others, are transforming the field of manufacturing and industry as a whole in unprecedent ways. This fourth industrial revolution is consequentially changing how operators that have been crucial to industry success go about their practices in industrial environments. This short paper briefly introduces the notion of the Operator 4.0 as well as how this novel way of conceptualizing the human operator necessarily implicates human values in (...) the technologies that constitute it. Similarly, the design methodology known as value sensitive design (VSD) is drawn upon to discuss how these Operator 4.0 technologies can be design for human values and, conversely, how a potential value-sensitive Operator 4.0 can be used to strengthen the VSD methodology in developing novel technologies. (shrink)

The potential for vaccines to prevent the spread of infectious diseases is crucial for vaccination policy and ethics. In this paper, I discuss recent evidence that the current COVID-19 vaccines have only a modest and short-lived effect on reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission and argue that this has at least four important ethical implications. First, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 should be seen primarily as a self-protective choice for individuals. Second, moral condemnation of unvaccinated people for causing direct harm to others is unjustified. (...) Third, the case for a harm-based moral obligation to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is weak. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, coercive COVID-19 vaccination policies (e.g., measures that exclude unvaccinated people from society) cannot be directly justified by the harm principle. (shrink)

This paper reviews current debates in social epistemology about the relations ‎between ‎knowledge ‎and consensus. These relations are philosophically interesting on their ‎own, but ‎also have ‎practical consequences, as consensus takes an increasingly significant ‎role in ‎informing public ‎decision making. The paper addresses the following questions. ‎When is a ‎consensus attributable to an epistemic community? Under what conditions may ‎we ‎legitimately infer that a consensual view is knowledge-based or otherwise ‎epistemically ‎justified? Should consensus be the aim of scientific inquiry, and (...) if so, what ‎kind of ‎consensus? How should dissent be handled? It is argued that a legitimate inference ‎that a ‎theory is correct from the fact that there is a scientific consensus on it requires taking ‎into ‎consideration both cognitive properties of the theory as well as social properties of ‎the ‎consensus. The last section of the paper reviews computational models of ‎consensus ‎formation.‎. (shrink)

A close reading of the poem of Parmenides, with focal attention to the way the proem situates Parmenides' insight in relation to Hesiod and Anaximander and provides the context for the thought of "... is". I identify three pointed ambiguities, in the direction of the journey to the gates of the ways of Night and Day, in the way the gates swing open before the waiting traveler, and in the character of the "chasm" that their opening makes, and I suggest (...) ways in which these ambiguities at once complicate and determine the significance of the thought of "... is" and its implications for the status of the opinions of mortals. (shrink)

At Sophist 253d-e the Eleatic Visitor offers a notoriously obscure description of the fields of one-and-many that the dialectician “adequately discerns.” Against the readings of Stenzel, Cornford, Sayre, and Gomez-Lobo, I propose an interpretation of that passage that takes into account the trilogy of Theaetetus-Sophist-Statesman as its context. The key steps are to respond to the irony of Socrates’ refutations at the end of the Theaetetus by reinterpreting the last two senses of logos as directed to forms and to recognize (...) their correlation with the two different modes of diairesis practiced by the Eleatic Visitor. These steps position us to recognize in the Visitor’s remarks at Sophist 253d-e a schematic description of the two kinds of eidetic field that the two modes of diairesis trace. (shrink)

It has been a common assumption that words are substances that instantiate or have properties. In this paper, I question the assumption that our ontology of words requires posting substances by outlining a bundle theory of words, wherein words are bundles of various sorts of properties (such as semantic, phonetic, orthographic, and grammatical properties). I argue that this view can better account for certain phenomena than substance theories, is ontologically more parsimonious, and coheres with claims in linguistics.

Autonomous weapons systems (AWS), sometimes referred to as “killer robots”, are receiving evermore attention, both in public discourse as well as by scholars and policymakers. Much of this interest is connected with emerging ethical and legal problems linked to increasing autonomy in weapons systems, but there is a general underappreciation for the ways in which existing law might impact on these new technologies. In this paper, we argue that as AWS become more sophisticated and increasingly more capable than flesh-and-blood soldiers, (...) it will increasingly be the case that such soldiers are “in the power” of those AWS which fight against them. This implies that such soldiers ought to be considered hors de combat, and not targeted. In arguing for this point, we draw out a broader conclusion regarding hors de combat status, namely that it must be viewed contextually, with close reference to the capabilities of combatants on both sides of any discreet engagement. Given this point, and the fact that AWS may come in many shapes and sizes, and can be made for many different missions, we argue that each particular AWS will likely need its own standard for when enemy soldiers are deemed hors de combat. We conclude by examining how these nuanced views of hors de combat status might impact on meaningful human control of AWS. (shrink)

Miller analyzes the relationship between consent and autonomy by offering three pictures. For autonomy, Miller distinguishes between procedural, substantive, and weak substantive autonomy. The corresponding views of consent are what Miller has termed as consensual minimalism, consensual idealism, and consensual realism. The requirements of sexual consent under consensual minimalism are a voluntary informed agreement. However, feminist critiques reveal the inadequacies of this simple position. Consensual idealism, which corresponds with substantive autonomy, offers a robust picture where consent and (...) autonomy must be based on non-oppression. However, this view is considered too ideal and it ignores context. Weak substantive autonomy takes into account the context in the sexual domain. Correspondingly, consensual realism takes into account the context and still fulfills the requirements of consent. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a non-volitional account that has received a good deal of attention recently, Angela Smith's rational relations view. I argue that without historical conditions on blameworthiness for the non-voluntary non-volitionist accounts like Smith’s are (i) vulnerable to manipulation cases and (ii) fail to make sufficient room for the distinction between badness and blameworthiness. Towards the end of the paper I propose conditions aimed to supplement these deficiencies. The conditions that I propose are tailored to suit non-volitional accounts (...) of blameworthiness. Unlike some volitional historical conditions on blameworthiness, the conditions that I propose do not require that the person have exercised voluntary control (e.g., via choices or decisions) over the acquisition of her attitudes or values. (shrink)

This essay explains some basic concepts about BDSM, and it responds to two important objections to it. The first is the psychological objection—that BDSM practitioners suffer from mental disorders—and the second is the ethical objection—that BDSM practitioners have morally compromised desires because of the kinds of activities they desire to participate in, especially ones that involve roles that dip into tortured oppressive histories (e.g., "rape" scenes, "master-and-slave" scenes). The paper argues that both objections fail, and, more specifically focusing on the (...) ethical objection, argues that BDSM desires are psychologically, conceptually, and phenomenologically different from their seeming counterpart real-life desires that are truly ethically defective. Finally, the paper argues that BDSM practitioners, in having to always understand, explore, and justify their desires (especially to a majority that is hostile to them), have an interesting chance to lead rich, flourishing lives. (shrink)

Healthcare is becoming increasingly automated with the development and deployment of care robots. There are many benefits to care robots but they also pose many challenging ethical issues. This paper takes care robots for the elderly as the subject of analysis, building on previous literature in the domain of the ethics and design of care robots. Using the value sensitive design approach to technology design, this paper extends its application to care robots by integrating the values of care, values that (...) are specific to AI, and higher-scale values such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The ethical issues specific to care robots for the elderly are discussed at length alongside examples of specific design requirements that work to ameliorate these ethical concerns. (shrink)

What are words? What makes two token words tokens of the same word-type? Are words abstract entities, or are they (merely) collections of tokens? The ontology of words tries to provide answers to these, and related questions. This article provides an overview of some of the most prominent views proposed in the literature, with a particular focus on the debate between type-realist, nominalist, and eliminativist ontologies of words.

One method for preventing the spread of the coronavirus and other contagious diseases is through social distancing. Therefore, creating a tool to measure and quickly discover the precise distance is necessary. In order to prevent physical contact between individuals, this study aimed to detects individuals’ physical distance, through an inaugurated battery-powered device that monitors physical distance through wireless technology. Specifically, in public or crowded areas, to lessen the spread of the virus. This study focuses on detecting people’s physical distance in (...) the region of interest utilizing an Ultrasonic and VL53L0X sensors and determining the significant difference between the two sensors in monitoring physical distance. This study employs an applied experimental research design. The efficiency of both sensors in measuring physical distance was evaluated through analysis. The Ultrasonic and VL53L0X sensors underwent 15 tests. Furthermore, the researchers effectuated a t-test to determine the significant difference between the two sensors. Data gathered revealed that the sensors’ combined mean in terms of measuring physical distance indicates that the ultrasonic sensor performed better than VL53L0X, measuring 134.7 cm, notwithstanding 99.8 cm for the VL53L0X sensor. Complementary to this, the results of the t-test show that the VL53L0X sensor and Ultrasonic sensor have a significant difference in terms of distance precision. (shrink)

Drawing primarily from the cultural traditions and beliefs of the Muscogee peoples, I will provide an account of how harmony can play a foundational role in providing a structure to morality. In the process of providing this account, I will begin (§2) by defining two key Muscogee concepts: ‘energy’ (§2.1) and ‘harmony’ (§2.2). I will also explain how the relationship between these two concepts can provide a structure for morality. Then I will explain the conditions that make promoting harmony a (...) normative principle (§3) by explaining why promoting harmony is relevant to humans (§3.1) as well as a providing a prudential reason to promote harmony (§3.2). Finally, I will explain how harmony can be achieved (§4) by explaining two examples that highlight the importance of non-moral knowledge in promoting harmony. I will then conclude with some remarks about how the Muscogee concept of harmony relates to some contemporary metaethical concerns (§5). (shrink)

This paper argues for a particular view about in what metaphysical equivalence consists: namely, that any two metaphysical theories are metaphysically equivalent if and only if those theories are strongly hyperintensionally equivalent. It is consistent with this characterisation that said theories are weakly hyperintensionally distinct, thus affording us the resources to model the content of propositional attitudes directed towards metaphysically equivalent theories in such a way that non-ideal agents can bear different propositional attitudes towards metaphysically equivalent theories.

The repugnant conclusion poses a conundrum in population ethics that has evaded satisfactory solution for four decades. In this article, I show that the repugnant conclusion can be avoided without sacrificing key moral intuitions. This is achieved using non-Archimedean orders, which admit the possibility of pairs of goods for which no amount of one is better than a single unit of the other. I show that with minimal assumptions, not only are such goods sensible, they are compulsory. I show that (...) utilitarianism and expected utility theory in their canonical forms are not in general suitable in this setting, and using these tools naively can lead to ethical errors that are arbitrarily serious. Multi-dimensional lexicographic expected utility representations may be required. I use fuzzy sets to show that there needn't be a clear boundary separating goods that are not Archimedean equivalent. (shrink)

As engineers propose constructing humanlike automata, the question arises as to whether such machines merit human rights. The issue warrants serious and rigorous examination, although it has not yet cohered into a conversation. To put it into a sure direction, this paper proposes phrasing it in terms of whether humans are morally obligated to extend to maximally humanlike automata full human rights, or those set forth in common international rights documents. This paper’s approach is to consider the ontology of humans (...) and of automata and whether ontological difference between them, that pertains to the very bases of human rights, affects the latter’s claims to full human rights. Considering common bases of human rights, can these bases tell us whether a certain ontological distinction of humans from automata—or a de facto distinction about humans tacitly acknowledged by full-rights-recognizing societies—makes a difference in whether humans are morally obligated to assign these entities full rights? Human rights to security also arise. The conclusion is that humans need not be under any moral obligation to confer full human rights on automata. The paper’s ultimate point is not to close the discussion with this ontological cap but to set a solid moral and legal groundwork for opening it up tout court. (shrink)

The Church of Satan, the seminal example of organizational Satanism, was founded in 1966. During the 1970s, the Church of Satan was wracked by a history of numerous schisms. Despite the notoriety of Satanism in popular culture, few scholars have analyzed the Church of Satan as a religious organization. Furthermore, not many scholars have directly discussed the schisms that it has undergone.

The familiar Cartesian sceptical arguments all involve an explanation of our experiences. An account of the persuasive power of the sceptical arguments should explain why this is so. This supports a diagnosis of the error in Cartesian sceptical arguments according to which they mislead us into regarding our perceptual beliefs as if they were justified as inferences to the best explanation. I argue that they have instead a perceptual justification that does not involve inference to the best explanation and that (...) should not be put in doubt by the sceptical hypotheses. (shrink)

NOTE TO THE READER - December, 2021 ●●●●● -/- After a long period of time devoted to research in other areas, the author returned to the subject of this paper in a book-length study, CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning. In this book (Chapter 11, “The Metalogic of Meaning”), the position developed in the 1982 paper, "Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning", has been substantively revised and several important corrections made. It is recommended that readers read (...) the revised and corrected version that appears in the book, CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON. ●●●●● -/- The book is available in a printed edition, ISBN 978-0-578-88646-6, from online booksellers such as Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and through independent bookstores. The book is also available as a freely downloadable _corrected second edition_ eBook, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5458352, through PhilSci, PhilPapers, HAL, and other online archives. ●●●●● -/- In addition to the above-mentioned book, readers may find "A Primer on Bartlett's CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON" to be useful as a guide to the nearly 900-page CRITIQUE. The primer is available as a free download through PhilPapers. ●●●●● -/- "Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning" describes a logically compelling criterion of meaning — that is, a necessary condition of meaning, one which is non-arbitrary and compelling. One cannot _not_ accept the proposed criterion without self-referential inconsistency. This “metalogical” variety of self-referential inconsistency is new, opening a third category beyond semantical and pragmatical forms of self-referential inconsistency. ●●●●● -/- It is argued that such a criterion of meaning can serve as an instrument of internal criticism for any theoretical framework that permits reference to a class of objects. The paper combines the concern of the logical empiricists to formulate a rigorous meaning criterion, with the analytical interest in identifying and eliminating self-defeating statements through an analysis of the referential structure of theories. ●●●●● -/- The paper is followed by a list of other publications by the author that further develop and extend the ideas presented here. (shrink)

This narrative commentary on Nietzschean ambitions, in part influenced by Zarathustra and Ecce Homo, centers on a long, ongoing, expansive, and highly imaginative technological projects by two men, Stuart Beholt and Alby Tolby. Having worked up adventurous software in university days, their experiences interwoven with their friendship bring out a panoply of current philosophical issues--and beyond. This narrative philosophy evokes and explores more issues than current philosophical debates concerning emerging technologies can include in a more conventional work. At the same (...) time, this structure makes the read readily accessible , including such issues as the intriguing recent flirtation of religion and materialism that have only been broached in the literature. At the same time, high finance and monetary issues, besides the alluring beauty of solving tremendous engineering problems, pull the two übermensch into ever greater schemes, well evoking the question of the limits of ethics and epistemology. Even if this approach does not coincide with the reader's research, it can offer an enjoyable delving into philosophical problems. (shrink)

Empirical work has lately confirmed what many philosophers have taken to be true: people are ‘biased toward the future’. All else being equal, we usually prefer to have positive experiences in the future, and negative experiences in the past. According to one hypothesis, the temporal metaphysics hypothesis, future-bias is explained either by our beliefs about temporal metaphysics—the temporal belief hypothesis—or alternatively by our temporal phenomenology—the temporal phenomenology hypothesis. We empirically investigate a particular version of the temporal belief hypothesis according to (...) which future-bias is explained by the belief that time robustly passes. Our results do not match the apparent predictions of this hypothesis, and so provide evidence against it. But we also find that people give more future-biased responses when asked to simulate a belief in robust passage. We take this to suggest that the phenomenology that attends simulation of that belief may be partially responsible for future-bias, and we examine the implications of these results for debates about the rationality of future-bias. (shrink)

The ethics of technology has primarily focused on what values are and how they can be embedded in technologies through design. In this context, some work has been done to show the efficacy of a number of design approaches. However, existing studies have not clearly pointed out the ways in which design-for-values approaches can be used by design team managers to properly organize and use technologies in practice. This chapter attempts to fill this gap by discussing the value sensitive design (...) (VSD) approach as a useful means of co-designing technologies as a toolkit for existing workflow management, in this case, Agile. It will be demonstrated that VSD shows promise as a way of democratically designing technologies as well as fostering democratic technology policy innovation. (shrink)

The past few years has seen a resurgence in the public interest in space flight and travel. Spurred mainly by the likes of technology billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the topic poses both unique scientific as well as ethical challenges. This paper looks at the concept of generation ships, conceptual behemoth ships whose goal is to bring a group of human settlers to distant exoplanets. These ships are designed to host multiple generations of people who will be born, (...) live, and die on these ships long before it reaches its destination. This paper takes reproductive ethics as its lens to look at how genetic enhancement interventions can and should be used not only to ensure that future generations of offspring on the ships, and eventual exoplanet colonies, live a minimally good life but that their births are contingent on them living genuinely good and fulfilling lives. The paper makes the further claim that if such a thesis holds, it also does so for human enhancement on Earth. (shrink)

Theism and its cousins, atheism and agnosticism, are seldom taken to task for logical-epistemological incoherence. This paper provides a condensed proof that not only theism, but atheism and agnosticism as well, are all of them conceptually self-undermining, and for the same reason: All attempt to make use of the concept of “transcendent reality,” which here is shown not only to lack meaning, but to preclude the very possibility of meaning. In doing this, the incoherence of theism, atheism, and agnosticism is (...) secondary to the more general incoherence of any attempts to refer to so-called “transcendent realities.” A recognition of the conceptually fundamental incoherence of theism, atheism, and agnosticism compels our rational assent to a position the author names “paratheism.”. (shrink)

At 287c of the Statesman the Eleatic Visitor — or, more deeply, Plato — faces a daunting task. Because statesmanship has been shown to collaborate with “countless” other arts that share with it the work of “caring” for the city, to understand statesmanship requires distinguishing these arts into an intelligible set of kinds and recognizing how these might go together. Accordingly, the Visitor abandons the mode of division he has practiced without exception up until this moment, bifurcation or “halving,” and (...) offers, instead, a sorting of the arts into fifteen kinds of work. How was Plato able to get his bearings towards the heterogeneous multiplicity of the arts in order to do this sorting? In this paper I suggest that he may have found a paradigm in the double octave matrix of notes from which, according to contemporary musical theory, the seven musical “modes” are drawn. To show the plausibility of this suggestion, I first reconstruct the double octave matrix, which was later to be called the Greater Perfect System, and then show a striking series of points of substantive and structural analogy that hold between this matrix and the Visitor’s division of the arts into fifteen kinds. (shrink)

What distinguishes causation from grounding? One suggestion is that causation, but not grounding, occurs over time. Recently, however, counterexamples to this simple temporal criterion have been offered. In this paper, we situate the temporal criterion within a broader framework that focuses on two aspects: locational overlapping in space and time and the presence of intermediaries in space and time. We consider, and reject, the idea that the difference between grounding and causation is that grounding can occur without intermediaries. We go (...) on to use the fact that grounding and causation both involve intermediaries to develop a better temporal criterion for distinguishing causation from grounding. The criterion is this: when a cause and effect are spatially disjoint, there is always a chain of causal intermediaries between the cause and the effect that are extended in time. By contrast, when the grounds and the grounded are spatially disjoint, there is always a chain of grounding intermediaries, but the chain need not be extended in time, it can be purely spatial. The difference between grounding and causation, then, is that causation requires time for chaining in a way that grounding does not. (shrink)

Empirical evidence suggests that a majority of people believe that time robustly passes, and that many also report that it seems to them, in experience, as though time robustly passes. Non-dynamists deny that time robustly passes, and many contemporary non-dynamists—deflationists—even deny that it seems to us as though time robustly passes. Non-dynamists, then, face the dual challenge of explaining why people have such beliefs and make such reports about their experiences. Several philosophers have suggested the stable-self explanation, according to which (...) what partly explains one or both of the explananda is that people believe themselves to have a stable persisting self which is imagined either as moving through time, or as being stationary, with time moving around it. This paper empirically investigates this explanation. We found, however, no evidential support for the stable-self explanation, leaving the non-dynamist but also, we will argue, the dynamist, with an extant explanatory challenge. (shrink)

This chapter takes the form of a discussion between the editors of this volume and Steven Lukes, one the most eminent critics of methodological individualism. The focus is on Lukes’ interpretation of methodological individualism in terms of linguistic exclusivism (i.e., naive reductionism), the multiple-realization problem, Boudon’s and Elster’s micro-foundationalist approach, ontological individualism, and the rationality of human action.

One feature of language is that we are able to make mistakes in our use of language. Amongst other sorts of mistakes, we can misspeak, misspell, missign, or misunderstand. Given this, it seems that our metaphysics of words should be flexible enough to accommodate such mistakes. It has been argued that a nominalist account of words cannot accommodate the phenomenon of misspelling. I sketch a nominalist trope-bundle view of words that can.