This paper provides a retrospective and prospective overview of TU Delft’s approach to engineering ethics education. For over twenty years, the Ethics and Philosophy of Technology Section at TU Delft has been at the forefront of engineering ethics education, offering education to a wide range of engineering and design students. The approach developed at TU Delft is deeply informed by the research of the Section, which is centered around Responsible Research and Innovation, Design for Values, and Risk Ethics. These theoretical (...) approaches are premised on the notion that technologies are inherently value-laden, and as such contain the possibility of fostering or hindering moral values. Each of these approaches encourages students to take a proactive attitude with respect to their projects and profession, thinking creatively about – and taking responsibility for – how to both prevent harm and do good via the technologies they help develop. To explain how this is put into practice, this paper sketches a brief history of ethics teaching at TU Delft, outlines current activities, and presents future plans for Bachelor and Master’s level engineering ethics education at TU Delft. (shrink)

Central to many discussions of motivated reasoning is the idea that it runs afoul of epistemic normativity. Reasoning differently about information supporting our prior beliefs versus information contradicting those beliefs, is frequently equated with motivated irrationality. By analyzing the normative status of belief polarization, selective scrutiny, biased assimilation and the myside bias, I show this inference is often not adequately supported. Contrary to what’s often assumed, these phenomena need not indicate motivated irrationality, even though they are instances of belief-consistent information (...) processing. Second, I engage with arguments purporting to show that belief-consistent information processing does not indicate motivated irrationality because of its mere differential treatment of confirming and non-confirming evidence, but rather because it reveals the undermining presence of an irrelevant influence, such as a desire or partisan identity-driven cognition. While linking belief-consistent reasoning to a deeper source of directional motivation to make good on the claim that it indicates motivated irrationality is indeed what’s needed, two prominent such arguments fail. The non-normativity of many reasoning processes often taken to indicate motivated irrationality is not in fact well established. (shrink)

The debate on whether and why misinformation is bad primarily focuses on the spread of false beliefs as its main harm. From the assumption that misinformation primarily causes harm through the spread of false beliefs as a starting point, it has been contended that the problem of misinformation has been exaggerated. Its tendency to generate false beliefs appears to be limited. However, the near-exclusive focus on whether or not misinformation dupes people with false beliefs neglects other epistemic harms associated with (...) it. Specifically, I show that misinformation also causes trouble for the epistemic goods of truth attainment, intellectual autonomy and debate pluriformity. Moreover, for each of these goods, I argue that emphasizing error-avoidance exacerbates, rather than mitigates, the harms caused by misinformation. These oversights and dilemmas show that prioritizing error-avoidance in the fight against misinformation is not a neutral default policy or necessarily a net positive. A shift in focus away from the spread of false beliefs as the main harm of misinformation is needed to better understand and counter its negative effects. (shrink)

In dit artikel wordt de dominante metafysische oriëntatie in de hedendaagse meta-ethiek kritisch onder de loep genomen. Het hedendaagse debat, dat zich voornamelijk richt op de vraag hoe moraliteit metafysisch gezien 'in de werkelijkheid past', wordt gekenmerkt door een reeks complexe en soms esoterische discussies die, zo wordt betoogd, weinig bijdragen aan ons filosofische begrip van ethiek. Deze focus op metafysische grondslagen heeft geleid tot een tunnelvisie, waarin het debat gevangen zit tussen steeds ingewikkeldere vormen van non-cognitivisme, herconceptualisaties van 'objectiviteit' (...) en metafysische acrobatiek. Als alternatief wordt voorgesteld de aandacht in de meta-ethiek te verleggen naar het domein van praktisch redeneren. Door ons te concentreren op de patronen van geldige praktische argumentatie en het soort overwegingen dat mensen daadwerkelijk overtuigt, kunnen we wellicht een beter inzicht krijgen in de aard van ethische normativiteit en de rol ervan in ons leven. Het artikel pleit voor een meer pragmatische en minder metafysisch beladen benadering van de meta-ethiek, die zich richt op de daadwerkelijke praktijken van moreel redeneren en argumenteren. (shrink)

The falsity of moral claims is commonly deduced from two tenets: that they presuppose the existence of objective values and that these values don’t exist. Hence, the error theory concludes, moral claims are false. In this article, I put pressure on the image of human morality that is presupposed in moving from the non-existence of objective values to the falsity of moral claims. I argue that, while, understood in a certain way, the two premises of the error theory are correct, (...) this does not render moral discourse false, because moral objectivity is disanalogous to objectivity in empirical sciences and as such need not be characterized in terms of mind-independency. Using Dewey, I illuminate the possibility of accommodating the guiding intuitions of the error theory in a first-order account of morality. (shrink)

In dit artikel betwist ik het gangbare idee dat de rede ontoereikend is voor morele motivatie, met name in relatie tot universele ethische kwesties. Door een uitgebreide verkenning van de Dual-Process Theory (DPT) stel ik dat onze morele intuïties zowel trainbaar zijn als een inherente neiging hebben naar universalistische overwegingen. Ik betoog dat sociale rechtvaardiging en de drang naar rationele argumentatie een cruciale rol spelen in het vormen en veranderen van onze morele standpunten. Concluderend pleit ik voor een herwaardering van (...) klassiek moreel redeneren en stel ik dat een universele ethiek psychologisch realistischer is dan eerder werd aangenomen. (shrink)

Exclusionary defeat is Joseph Raz’s proposal for understanding the more complex, layered structure of practical reasoning. Exclusionary reasons are widely appealed to in legal theory and consistently arise in many other areas of philosophy. They have also been subject to a variety of challenges. I propose a new account of exclusionary reasons based on their justificatory role, rejecting Raz’s motivational account and especially contrasting exclusion with undercutting defeat. I explain the appeal and coherence of exclusionary reasons by appeal to commonsense (...) value pluralism and the intermediate space of public policies, social roles, and organizations. We often want our choices to have a certain character or instantiate a certain value and in order to do so, that choice can only be based on a restricted set of reasons. Exclusion explains how pro tanto practical reasons can be disqualified from counting towards a choice of a particular kind without being outweighed or undercut. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on technological innovation and how insights from technological design can be used to address the challenges associated with the setting in which frugal innovation operates. The resource-constrained setting of frugal innovation puts high demands the design requirements of frugal innovation technologies and the possible conflicts between these requirements. Within the ethics of technology, there is a growing literature that explicitly focuses on how to make technological design more sensitive to important moral values, commonly referred to as value-sensitive (...) design or design for values. However, despite strong commonalities, frugal innovation does not feature as a strong application domain in the literature on value-sensitive design practices. Since frugal innovation takes place in and/or for a resource-constrained context, focusing on just one value could easily lead to other relevant values not being appropriately embedded in the design. For value-sensitive design practices to contribute to frugal innovation, it seems better to think in terms of ‘design for context X’ rather than ‘design for value X’, as the latter may be too narrowly focused on one specific value. Systematic research on design practices is necessary to gain more insight in which values are particularly relevant, both in terms of internal values and in terms of external values, but also in the relevant operationalisations, which may differ substantially in different contexts and which may make value conflicts both more complicated but also more easily solvable. (shrink)

Paper presented at the symposium on the occasion of the retirement of Sven Ove Hansson. The symposium took place on 13-14 December 2019 at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Inaugural speech spoken in acceptance of the chair ‘Ethics of water engineering’ at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of Delft University of Technology on 16 November 2018.

Intreerede In verkorte vorm uitgesproken op 16 november 2018 ter gelegenheid van de aanvaarding van het ambt van hoogleraar ‘Ethics of water engineering’ aan de faculteit Techniek, Bestuur en Management van de Technische Universiteit Delft.

While resilience is a major concept in development, climate adaptation, and related domains, many doubts remain about how to interpret this term, its relationship with closely overlapping terms, or its normativity. One major view is that, while resilience originally was a descriptive concept denoting some adaptive property of ecosystems, subsequent applications to social contexts distorted its meaning and purpose by framing it as a transformative and normative quality. This article advances an alternative philosophical account based on the scrutiny of C.S. (...) Holling’s original work on resilience. We show that resilience had a central role among Holling’s proposals for reforming environmental science and management, and that Holling framed resilience as an ecosystem’s capacity of absorbing change and exploiting it for adapting or evolving, but also as the social ability of maintaining and opportunistically exploiting that natural capacity. Resilience therefore appears as a transformative social-ecological property that is normative in three ways: as an intrinsic ecological value, as a virtue of organizations or management styles, and as a virtuous understanding of human–nature relations. This interpretation accounts for the practical relevance of resilience, clarifies the relations between resilience and related terms, and is a firm ground for further normative work on resilience. (shrink)

Roughly, the noetic account characterizes scientific progress in terms of increased understanding. This chapter outlines a version of the noetic account according to which scientific progress on some phenomenon consists in making scientific information publicly available so as to enable relevant members of society to increase their understanding of that phenomenon. This version of the noetic account is briefly compared with four rival accounts of scientific progress, viz. the truthlikeness account, the problem-solving account, the new functional account, and the epistemic (...) account. In addition, the chapter seeks to precisify the question that accounts of scientific progress are (or should be) aiming to answer, viz. “What type of cognitive change with respect to a given topic or phenomenon X constitutes a (greater or lesser degree of) scientific improvement with respect to X?”. (shrink)

Background: Critically ill patients often require complex clinical care by highly trained staff within a specialized intensive care unit (ICU) with advanced equipment. There are currently limited data on the costs of critical care in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). This study aims to investigate the direct-medical costs of key infectious disease (tetanus, sepsis, and dengue) patients admitted to ICU in a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam, and explores how the costs and cost drivers can vary between the (...) different diseases. -/- Methods: We calculated the direct medical costs for patients requiring critical care for tetanus, dengue and sepsis. Costing data (stratified into different cost categories) were extracted from the bills of patients hospitalized to the adult ICU with a dengue, sepsis and tetanus diagnosis that were enrolled in three studies conducted at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in HCMC from January 2017 to December 2019. The costs were considered from the health sector perspective. The total sample size in this study was 342 patients. -/- Results: ICU care was associated with significant direct medical costs. For patients that did not require mechanical ventilation, the median total ICU cost per patient varied between US$64.40 and US$675 for the different diseases. The costs were higher for patients that required mechanical ventilation, with the median total ICU cost per patient for the different diseases varying between US$2,590 and US$4,250. The main cost drivers varied according to disease and associated severity. -/- Conclusion: This study demonstrates the notable cost of ICU care in Vietnam and in similar LMIC settings. Future studies are needed to further evaluate the costs and economic burden incurred by ICU patients. The data also highlight the importance of evaluating novel critical care interventions that could reduce the costs of ICU care. (shrink)

I argue that, although Aristotle himself does not say it in so many words, the Phaedrus has a deep influence on the three books of Aristotle’s Rhetoric. I also show that this influence is not only negative, as some scholars believe, but that Aristotle draws and expands on some of the results and propositions of the Phaedrus. After demonstrating how influential the Phaedrus is for the Rhetoric, I return in my conclusion to the difference between the two works.

Standard accounts of civil disobedience include nonviolence as a necessary condition. Here I argue that such accounts are mistaken and that civil disobedience can include violence in many aspects, primarily excepting violence directed at other persons. I base this argument on a novel understanding of civil disobedience: the special character of the practice comes from its combination of condemnation of a political practice with an expressed commitment to the political. The commitment to the political is a commitment to engaging with (...) others as co-members in the on-going political project of living together. I show how such an understanding of civil disobedience is superior to the Rawlsian strain of thought, which focuses on fidelity to law. Rawls was concerned with civil disobedience solely in the context of overriding political obligation. The project of characterizing a contestatory political practice that can be distinguished and used in a wider variety of contexts than Rawls is concerned with, including under illegitimate regimes, beyond the nation-state, or on behalf of anarchism, requires a different understanding of civil disobedience. (shrink)

Deleuze’ün Spinozacı yaşam tahayyülünde ‘ne yapmalıyız?’ sorusuna normatif, ahlaki ya da siyasi bir yanıt bulamıyoruz ama varoluşu düşünmenin içkin bir olanağını keşfediyoruz. Düşünmeye 'dışarıdan' yani dünyadan başlamak insani (kurgusal) bir dünyaya değil, içinde yaşadığımız gerçek dünyaya inanmak demektir. İçkinliğin politik anlamı düşünceyi dünyaya getirmektir.

Skeptical theists are seeking for some reasonable solutions to the evidential problem of evil. One of the most fundamental responses of skeptical theism is that the concept of “gratuitous evil”, which cannot be a proof of the absence of God. Therefore, it is not the existence of God that skeptical theism suspects. Instead, skeptical theism contemplates whether the evil in the world really has a “gratuitous” basis. This paper focuses on Peter van Inwagen's “no-minimum claim”. No-minimum claim” stands in opposition (...) to the views that assume that God minimizes the evils that exist in the world in order to achieve justice. “No-minimum claim” acknowledges that these evils still have enormous amounts to people. Thus “no-minimum claim” suggests that the evils experienced in the world are incompatible with the “best of all possible worlds” views or the other explanations of classical theodicy. According to the “no minimum claim”, the reason why the amount of evil in the world still seems so high may be God’s deliberate calculations in effecting the distribution of these evils. In order to reach these calculations, it is not necessary for the amount of evil that God allowed to reflect on the world to be perfectly manifested at the minimum level. The purpose of this paper is to consider the skeptical theism approach within the framework of Peter van Inwagen's “no-minimum claim” and to limit his arguments to an alternative approach to skeptic theism. Our claim is that such view coincides with skeptical theism, but the “no- minimum claim” still has some ambiguities at the point of the limits of evil. From this, we can conclude that the “no minimum claim” has received many objections in the skeptical theism literature and these objections are justified at certain points. (shrink)

This study asserts that W.V.O. Quine’s eliminative philosophical gaze into mereological composition affects inevitably his interpretations of composition theories of ontology. To investigate Quine’s property monism from the account of modal eliminativism, I applied to his solution for the paradoxes of de re modalities’ . Because of its vital role to figure out how dispositions are encountered by Quine, it was significantly noted that the realm of de re modalities doesn’t include contingent and impossible inferences about things. Therefore, for him, (...) all the intrinsic forces and elements of entities such as powers and causal or teleological dispositions for ontology demand to be seen necessarily as bound variables from a monist perspective. Although his denial of analyticity and the elimination of dispositional field of ontology, S. Mumford criticizes the monist perspective of Quine’s paradoxical approach to superveniences. Because superveniences create problems while determining type-type identities from a monist mereological perspective. It is observed that Quine faces with a reduction again in terms of his dispositional monism despite his critiques to repulse vagueness from the ontology in his well-known article Two Dogmas of Empiricism. -/- . (shrink)

In the ancient Greek world, the concept of 'miasma,' which becomes permanent and has the potential to grow over time due to evil acts such as murder committed in the city, is a concept frequently referred to in many classical tragedies. To the extent that miasma has a bad connotation due to its nature and is a situation that occurs due to evil actions, it can be considered together with the philosophical problem of evil. In this study, we aim to (...) examine the concept of miasma by focusing on the characters in La Jauría, one of the most prominent films of recent South American cinema, rather than a purely conceptual analysis of the concept. Filmed in the jungles of Colombia and directed by Colombian director Andrés Ramírez Pulido, the 2022 film La Jauría is a psychological drama that focuses on the lives of young people involved in crime. The tragic story of Eliu, the protagonist of the film, which takes place mainly in a prison specially designed to rehabilitate inmates, seems to us to be a very suitable focal point for examining the concepts of miasma, catharsis, and ecstasy, which are frequently referred to in ancient Greek tragedy. To do so, we will first address the various contexts in which miasma has been used historically, considering the flow of events in the movie La Jauría. Then, we will look at the relationship of the concept of miasma with the problem of evil. Finally, we will discuss the possibilities of the concept of purification, which is seen as a kind of antidote to miasma. (shrink)

The social group named after the various discourses of individuals who define themselves as the champions of the men's rights movement on social media is called the “Manosphere” in the literature. “Oneitis”, a concept in the jargon of the manosphere, basically refers to a disease state used to represent situations in which a man invests excessive attention in a woman who is not equally interested in him. For the Red Pill movement, the most influential group in the manosphere, oneitis is (...) criticized as a pattern of behavior that should be avoided by men. Red Pill philosophy is also often associated with alt-right ideologies due to its anti-feminist and pragmatic views. Red Pill thought can therefore often be seen as contrasting with Woke Culture, a counter-cultural movement that advocates the constant practice of vigilance against political discourses that oppress certain social groups through structural mechanisms of oppression such as racism, anti-blackness, and anti-feminism. In this paper, I argue that the concept of oneitis, when suspended from its anti-feminist and commodifying contexts, can in fact be read as a critique of a conception of love that is deeply rooted in traditional gender roles that are often criticized from perspectives such as feminism or Woke Culture. When the liberation from oneitis is considered independently of the manosphere framework, it can be read as a critique of coercive social practices in terms of romantic relationships. (shrink)

Are words like ‘woman’ or ‘man’ sex terms that we use to talk about biological features of individuals? Are they gender terms that we use to talk about non-biological features e.g. social roles? Contextualists answer both questions affirmatively, arguing that these terms concern biological or non-biological features depending on context. I argue that a recent version of contextualism from Jennifer Saul that Esa Diaz-Leon develops doesn't exhibit the right kind of flexibility to capture our theoretical intuitions or moral and political (...) practices concerning our uses of these words. I then float the view that terms like 'woman' or 'man' are polysemous, arguing that it makes better sense of the significance of some forms of criticisms of mainstream gender ideology. (shrink)

Experimental philosophers have gathered impressive evidence for the surprising conclusion that philosophers' intuitions are out of step with those of the folk. As a result, many argue that philosophers' intuitions are unreliable. Focusing on the Knobe Effect, a leading finding of experimental philosophy, we defend traditional philosophy against this conclusion. Our key premise relies on experiments we conducted which indicate that judgments of the folk elicited under higher quality cognitive or epistemic conditions are more likely to resemble those of the (...) philosopher. We end by showing how our experimental findings can help us better understand the Knobe Effect. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that will help in understanding and evaluating, along social and ethical lines, the issue of killing day-old male chicks and two alternative directions of responsible innovations to solve this issue. The following research questions are addressed: Why is the killing of day-old chicks morally problematic? Are the proposed alternatives morally sound? To what extent do the alternatives lead to responsible innovation? The conceptual framework demonstrates clearly that there is a (...) moral “lock-in”, and why the killing of day-old chicks is indeed an issue. Furthermore, it is shown that both alternative directions address some important objections with regard to the killing of day-old chicks, but that they also raise new dilemmas. It also becomes clear that the framework enables and secures anticipation, reflection, deliberation with and responsiveness to stakeholders, the four dimensions of responsible innovation, in a structured way. (shrink)

Upon doing something generous for someone with whom you are close, some kind of reciprocity may be appropriate. But it often seems wrong to actually request reciprocity. This chapter explores the wrongness in making these requests, and why they can nevertheless appear appropriate. After considering several explanations for the wrongness at issue (involving, e.g. distinguishing oughts from obligation, the suberogatory, imperfect duties, and gift-giving norms), a novel proposal is advanced. The requests are disrespectful; they express that their agent insufficiently trusts (...) the hearer to recognize their own reasons to reciprocate, and the close relationship between them morally requires this kind of trust. This proposal is articulated and situated in the recent discussion of the normativity of requests. The chapter concludes by explaining how these requests may appear appropriate. Agents in these relationships often have standing to make requests, though the standing is lacking in these particular cases. (shrink)

Political legitimacy is best understood as one type of a broader notion, which I call institutional legitimacy. An institution is legitimate in my sense when it has the right to function. The right to function correlates to a duty of non-interference. Understanding legitimacy in this way favorably contrasts with legitimacy understood in the traditional way, as the right to rule correlating to a duty of obedience. It helps unify our discourses of legitimacy across a wider range of practices, especially including (...) the many evaluations we increasingly make of international institutions of various sorts, but also including domestic institutions. (shrink)

A critical survey of various positions on the nature, use, possession, and analysis of normative concepts. We frame our treatment around G.E. Moore’s Open Question Argument, and the ways metaethicists have responded by departing from a Classical Theory of concepts. In addition to the Classical Theory, we discuss synthetic naturalism, noncognitivism (expressivist and inferentialist), prototype theory, network theory, and empirical linguistic approaches. Although written for a general philosophical audience, we attempt to provide a new perspective and highlight some underappreciated problems (...) about normative concepts. (shrink)

[...] Rousseau bir yandan çağının yükselen değerlerinden yararlanırken diğer yandan bu değerlerin içeriden eleştirisini yapmayı başarabilen düşünürlerden biri olduğu için fikirleri ölümünden asırlar sonra bile önemini yitirmemiştir. Demokratik devletlerin meşruiyet krizinin giderek derinleştiği ve çoğunlukçu, majoritarian, ideolojilerin etraflıca sorgulanmaya başlandığı çağımızda, demokrasiyi çoğunluk kararına ek olarak “rıza”, “Yurttaşlık”, “sivil özgürlük”, “kamusal uzlaşı” ve “Genel İrade” kavramlarıyla birlikte ele alan Rousseau’yu yeniden okumak önemlidir [...] Rousseau-demokrasi ilişkisinin kazılıp ortaya çıkartılacağı bu metinde uğranılacak olan kavramsal duraklar sırasıyla: Eşitsizlik (doğal ve toplumsal), özgürlük (...) (doğal ve sivil), politik bütün (bodypolitic), Genel İrade, ortak iyi (common good) ve Egemen olmalıdır. Söz konusu kavramlar, Rousseau’nun onlara yüklediği özgün anlamları gözden kaçırılmadan sanki ilk defa karşılaşılıyormuşçasına bir zihin açıklığı ile okundukları zaman, onun demokrasi görüşü de gün ışığına çıkartılabilir. (shrink)

Ethicists struggle to take reductive views seriously. They also have trouble conceiving of some supervenience failures. Understanding why provides further evidence for a kind of hybrid view of normative concept use.

Abstract Most discussions of risk are developed in broadly consequentialist terms, focusing on the outcomes of risks as such. This paper will provide an alternative account of risk from a virtue ethical perspective, shifting the focus to the decision to take the risk. Making ethical decisions about risk is, we will argue, not fundamentally about the actual chain of events that the decision sets in process, but about the reasonableness of the decision to take the risk in the first place. (...) A virtue ethical account of risk is needed because the notion of the ‘reasonableness’ of the decision to take the risk is affected by the complexity of the moral status of particular instances of risk-taking and the risk-taker’s responsiveness to these contextual features. The very idea of ‘reasonable risk’ welcomes judgments about the nature of the risk itself, raises questions about complicity, culpability and responsibility, while at its heart, involves a judgement about the justification of risk which unavoidably focuses our attention on the character of the individuals involved in risk making decisions. Keywords: Risk; ethics; morality; responsibility; virtue; choice; reasons . (shrink)

One of the central figures of philosophy of language- John Langshaw Austin, attributes principles of causation to the mere pragmatic language. Conversely, Kant tried to construct a “free human act” which is independent from any physical determination except its innate motivations via his well-known the phenomenal / noumenal distinction. That kind of Kantian metaphysical ground which addresses to the noumenal field, he obviously tries to establish this behavioral causation again by denying Austinian style pragmatic propositions or illocutionary acts. I claimed (...) that sort of duality between Austin and Kant, creates an epistemological problem with how propositions and actions relate. From a Kantian position, it (indetermination) is overlooked by Austin's propositional doctrine, without being grounded on any universal principle, but only with propositions that embraced by speech act theory. (shrink)

This article supports the thesis that the rejection of the analytic/Continental distinction is not possible with an analytic point of view, and grounds the possibility of authentic philosophy within the reasons for the existence of contemporary Continental philosophy. After the presentation of the problem, in the first part, the reasons why classical philosophy was experienced as a way of life in ancient Greece is explained and associated with the act of ‘parrhesia’. In the second part, the rise of the analytic/Continental (...) distinction and the dogmas of reductionism and scientism are shed light on with reference to the texts of some pioneering analytic philosophers. Afterwards, the problem of hegemony in the Anglophone world is pointed out and the position of Continental philosophy is reconsidered under the conceptualization major and minor philosophy. Finally, contemporary Continental philosophy is defined as ‘authentic philosophy’ due to the rhizomatic connections it establishes both in itself & at an interdisciplinary level. (shrink)

I develop a cognitive account of how humans make skeptical judgments (of the form “X does not know p”). In my view, these judgments are produced by a special purpose metacognitive "skeptical" mechanism which monitors our reasoning for hasty or overly risky assumptions. I argue that this mechanism is modular and shaped by natural selection. The explanation for why the mechanism is adaptive essentially relies on an internalized principle connecting knowledge and action, a principle central to pragmatic encroachment theories. I (...) end the paper by sketching how we can use the account I develop here to respond to the skeptic. (shrink)

It is a matter of philosophical debate whether Jonathan Israel’s assessment of Spinoza’s notion of ‘state religion’ can be interpreted as an atheistic and Marxist reading of Spinoza. Contrary to the widely accepted view, Spinoza has a peculiar understanding of religion; and thus, his views cannot, simply, be equated with atheism. By relying on this fact, in this article, I am going to shed light on the issue and try to show to what extent Israel’s interpretation goes beyond what Spinoza (...) himself claims and whether or not Spinoza’s views can make him an atheist. Another concern of the text will be elucidating Marx’s critique of Bruno Bauer’s argument for the abolition of religion and laying bare if there is any continuity between Marx and Spinoza on the problem of religion. After Israel’s interpretation is restated, both Spinozistic view of religion, as he puts forward in the Theological-Political Treatise [Tractatus Theologico- Politicus, 1670] and Political Treatise [Tractatus Politicus, 1676] and Marx’s arguments on the same issue in “On the Jewish Question” [in Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher, 1844] will be examined in detail. Depending on these investigations, it will be argued that what Israel defends in his text Radical Enlightenment [2001] does not make Spinoza an atheist; on the contrary, although Spinoza is not an advocate of the commonsensical view of religion, he defends his own understanding of religion—which causes him to be regarded, prejudicedly, as an atheist. Furthermore, it will be pointed out that Israel’s interpretation cannot be a Marxist interpretation either because Marx’s critique of religion is generally misunderstood and mistaken with that of Bruno Bauer. Neither Spinoza’s views on religion nor that of Marx are completely compatible with what Israel defends in Radical Enlightenment; nevertheless, this does not mean that Israel tries to make an atheist or Marxist out of Spinoza through his appropriation of the philosopher. (shrink)

In this article, Deleuze & Guattari (D+G)’s conception of democracy will be approached with regard to art’s envisagement of “becoming-democratic” as a mode of thinking through percepts and affects. For D+G, democracy is, by no means, a desirable political goal or the name of a type of governance appropriate for the world. On the contrary, as long as it is a representation mechanism, democracy has negative connotations since it promotes the dominance of majority. For this reason, the only way of (...) affirming democracy is to cleanse and subtract the governmental layers which fix it as a system of social measurement, and re-associate it with “multiplicity” & “becoming”. In this respect, democracy can only be affirmed if it is paired with the notions of becoming-democratic, becoming-revolutionary and becoming-minor. Nevertheless, it is not the case that mainstream political philosophy or professional politics are the only methods for formulating opinions on democracy. “Politics of art” would provide means of thinking upon becoming democratic since art—being a mode of thinking by itself—may place many issues about which one could talk only theoretically (or which would hardly become a part of daily life) on a living plane, even though that plane would solely exist in the world of the work of art. In brief, on the condition that it is not an apparatus of representation, art may turn into a medium of thinking upon becoming-democratic, in addition to all the other becomings that it is related to. (shrink)

This study aims to grasp the two distinct artworks one is from the literary field: Penal Colony, written by F. Kafka and the other one is from painting: The Large Glass, designed by M. Duchamp. This text tries to unravel the similarities betwe- en these artworks in terms of two main significations around “The Officer” from Penal Colony and “The Bachelors” from The Large Glass. Because of their vital role on the re-production of status-quo, this text asserts that there is (...) a similarity between them in the name of being part of the dispositions of body and desire. First of all, the text focuses on Penal Colony, especially on “The Officer” in or- der to observe his obsession towards the order that ruled by former and the late officer of colony. Deleuze & Guattari conceptualize it as “abstract-machines” and it refers to a contingent state of being which is produced as an obligatory entity. Besides, The Officers’ application via a “labeling machine” on inmates creates a framewok of a dispositif in Foucauldian terminology. Secondly, it is emphasized that The Bachelors from the Large Glass for his context, due to its reference for the concept of desire and a metaphorical connotation for desire as “cocoa”. The Large Glass is also turn around the dispositif in a different way: love. It is stated that criticizing the love to nowhere which belongs to The Bachelors and it can be found that there is an abstract-machine again in back of this practice and it converts The Bachelors’ energeia to make an apparatus possible and operative. (shrink)

I argue that legitimacy discourses serve a gatekeeping function. They give practitioners telic standards for riding herd on social practices, ensuring that minimally acceptable versions of the practice are implemented. Such a function is a necessary part of implementing formalized social practices, especially including law. This gatekeeping account shows that political philosophers have misunderstood legitimacy; it is not secondary to justice and only necessary because we cannot agree about justice. Instead, it is a necessary feature of actual human social practices, (...) which must be implemented via practitioners' discretion in changing contexts. (shrink)

The essays collected in this special issue explore what legitimacy means for actors and institutions that do not function like traditional states but nevertheless wield significant power in the global realm. They are connected by the idea that the specific purposes of non-state actors and the contexts in which they operate shape what it means for them to be legitimate and so shape the standards of justification that they have to meet. In this introduction, we develop this guiding methodology further (...) and show how the special issue’s individual contributions apply it to their cases. In the first section, we provide a sketch of our purpose-dependent theory of legitimacy beyond the state. We then highlight two features of the institutional context beyond the state that set it apart from the domestic case: problems of feasibility and the structure of international law. (shrink)

After the collapse of the totalitarian regimes, participation into public matters has been an objective of democratic theory. Judging by a variety of instances from the sixties to today, it can be said that finding new means for encouraging audiences to participate in their works has become the major concern for contemporary art as well. Therefore, we can say that the problem of participation is the focal point of art and politics.

El siglo XVIII está considerado como una época en la que el método de investigación newtoniano está bien establecido y su uso no se cuestiona, según autores como Kuhn. Sin embargo, como veremos, esto está muy alejado de la realidad, ya que aquí planteamos los dos objetivos siguientes: por un lado, observaremos como dentro de los propios llamados newtonianos no hay un uso uniforme del método newtoniano y que algunos de ellos incluso lo modifican en sus obras donde exponen la (...) doctrina de Newton. Por otro lado, expondremos el método de Émilie du Châtelet, quien, habiendo leído a Newton y a estos pensadores, siente rechazo hacia la metodología que proponen y se dispone a elaborar lo que se puede considerar un precedente del método hipotético-deductivo utilizado hoy día. Lo que se persigue con el presente estudio, en definitiva, es arrojar luz sobre la situación del newtonianismo del siglo XVIII y mostrar el trabajo de du Châtelet como un puente entre dos épocas en relación a la metodología. (shrink)

Moral (or ethical) sensitivity is widely viewed as a foundational learning goal in engineering ethics education. We have argued in this paper is that this view of moral sensitivity cannot be readily transported from the nursing context to the engineering context on the basis of a care-analogy. The particularized care characteristic of the nursing context is decisively different from the generalized and universalized forms of care characteristic of the engineering context. Through a focus on care and maintenance, the engineering student’s (...) moral sensitivity can be refined, opening up a perceptual awakening and affectivity towards the complex nature of the engineer’s Other. This awakening is in part promoted through an understanding of the ideology of neutrality as a moment in the history engineering. Becoming aware of this ideology as an ideology can then be seen as an activity of dividing loyalties that allows for a reflexive and critical view of the biases and presuppositions inherited within the world of engineering. This process of deepening the engineering student’s moral sensitivity is perhaps as much a process of the student becoming aware of her professional world, how it shapes her understanding of herself, and what it means to be a good engineer. (shrink)

Among the many functions of models, explanation is central to the functioning and aims of science. However, the discussions surrounding modeling and explanation in philosophy have largely remained separate from each other. This chapter seeks to bridge the gap by focusing on the puzzle of model-based explanation, asking how different philosophical accounts answer the following question: if idealizations and fictions introduce falsehoods into models, how can idealized and fictional models provide true explanations? The chapter provides a selective and critical overview (...) of the available strategies for solving this puzzle, mainly focusing on idealized models and how they explain. (shrink)

Causal determinism is the view that all events in the universe are predetermined and that the laws of nature causally necessitate these events. In the debates on free will, there are two different positions called incompatibilism and compatibilism. Accordingly, compatibilist accounts claim that free will and causal determinism can be compatible and coexist. On the contrary, incompatibilist accounts defend that compatibilist accounts are problematic and claim that free will cannot exist in a universe where causal determinism holds. The main approach (...) that we will consider in this work will be the incompatibilist approach of the American philosopher Peter van Inwagen, which he defends in free will debates. The arguments put forward by Peter van Inwagen as the basis of incompatibilism can be summarized as the consequence argument and the Mind argument. The consequence argument, hypothetically takes into account a world in which causally deterministic and claiming that free will doesn't exist in such a world. Peter van Inwagen's Mind argument, on the other hand, claims that agent-causation cannot be sufficient for a definite possession of free will because a person who represents oneself as an agent in every event s/he is involved in, cannot be sure whether the consequences of these events are due to chance. In both arguments, Peter van Inwagen refers to philosophical moves that affirm incompatibilism is consistent for free will debate. Therefore in my dissertation, I argue that incompatibilism is actually a sufficient step towards solving the free will and causal determinism dilemma in a theoretical sense. This work also deals with Peter van Inwagen's views on philosophy of action and philosophy of religion in general. Additionally, in order to draw the relational framework between causal determinism and free will, the concepts of 'event', 'causal powers' and 'states of affairs' are used methodologically. Instead of just having an ethical discussion of free will, I took care to stay within the boundaries of the metaphysics of free will. (shrink)

In this Chapter, we address the challenge of explaining institutional change, asking whether the much-criticized rational choice perspective can contribute to the understanding of institutional change in political science. We discuss the methodological reasons why rational choice institutionalism (RCI) often assumes that institutional change is exogenous and discontinuous. We then identify and explore the possible pathways along which RCI can be extended to be more useful in understanding institutional change in political science. Finally, we reflect on what RCI theorizing would (...) look like if it started to take endogenous change seriously: by giving up some of its simplifying assumptions, RCI can be a useful tool for analyzing institutional change, but choosing this path has consequences for the generality of the models in RCI as well as for the style of its theorizing. (shrink)

Abstract: Colon cancer is a prevalent and life-threatening disease, necessitating accurate and timely diagnosis for effective treatment and improved patient outcomes. This research paper presents the development of a knowledge-based system for diagnosing colon cancer using the CLIPS language. Knowledge-based systems offer the potential to assist healthcare professionals in making informed diagnoses by leveraging expert knowledge and reasoning mechanisms. The methodology involves acquiring and structuring medical knowledge specific to colon cancer, followed by the implementation of a knowledge- based system using (...) CLIPS. The system's design integrates relevant medical databases and employs advanced reasoning mechanisms to facilitate accurate diagnosis. Evaluation results demonstrate the system's effectiveness, with high accuracy and sensitivity rates compared to existing methods. The findings highlight the potential of knowledge-based systems in improving clinical practice and patient care. The research contributes to the growing field of medical informatics by demonstrating the feasibility and effectiveness of CLIPS-based knowledge systems for colon cancer diagnosis. Future research can focus on enhancing system performance and expanding its scope to encompass other types of cancer diagnoses. (shrink)

I argue for a new conception of practical authority based on an analysis of the relationship between authority and subject. Commands entail a demand for practical deference, which establishes a relationship of hierarchy and vulnerability that involves a variety of signals and commitments. In order for these signals and commitments to be justified, the subject must be under a preexisting duty, the authority’s commands must take precedence over the subject’s judgment regarding fulfillment of that duty, the authority must accept the (...) position and responsibilities of command, and the authority must be sufficiently trustworthy relative to how vulnerable the subject makes herself by deferring. This results in an instrumentalist conception of practical authority that can be favorably compared to Joseph Raz’s famous service conception. The relational conception’s main advantage is that it focuses on the authority as much as the subject, requiring that the authority accept responsibility for the relationship and be sufficiently trustworthy. (shrink)