Shame is most frequently defined as the emotion we feel when we fail to live up to standards, norms, or ideals. I argue that this definition is flawed because it cannot explain some of the most paradigmatic features of shame. Agents often respond to shame with violence, but if shame is the painful feeling of failing to live up to an ideal, this response is unintelligible. I offer a new account of shame that can explain the link between shame and (...) violence. On my view, shame arises out of a tension between our identity and our self-conception: those things about which we feel shame are part of our identities, but they are not part of our self-conception. I conclude by arguing that this account of shame is a valuable moral emotion. (shrink)

It is common to think that we would be morally better people if we never felt envy. Recently, some philosophers have rejected this conclusion by arguing that envy can often be directed toward unfairness or inequality. As such, they conclude that we should not suppress our feelings of envy. I argue, however, that these defenses only show that envy is sometimes morally permissible. In order to show that we would not be better off without envy, we must show how envy (...) is not merely morally permissible, but morally valuable. Here I provide a defense of envy's moral value. I argue that feelings of envy are integral to the value that moral agents place on the goods and talents that they judge to be central to a worthwhile life. (shrink)

One way of understanding Kant’s views about moral emotions is the cultivation view. On this view, emotions play a role in Kantian morality provided they are properly cultivated. I evince a sceptical position about the cultivation view. First, I show that the textual evidence in support of cultivation is ambiguous. I then provide an account of emotions in Kant’s theory that explains both his positive and negative views about them. Emotions capture our attention such that they both disrupt the mind’s (...) composure and serve as a surrogate for reason. As such, Kant cannot recommend that we cultivate our emotions. (shrink)

Attitudes like shame and contempt seem to be at odds with basic tenets of Kantian moral theory. I argue on the contrary that both attitudes play a central role in Kantian morality. Shame and contempt are attitudes that protect our love of honour, or the esteem we have for ourselves as moral persons. The question arises: how are these attitudes compatible with Kant's claim that all persons deserve respect? I argue that the proper object of shame and contempt is not (...) the humanity within a person, but rather her self-conceit, or the false esteem that competes with love of honour. (shrink)

Kant’s commitment to universalism has been called into question since increasing attention has been paid to his work on race in the last 20 years. This worry can easily be applied to Kant’s work on education: when Kant describes education as allowing humanity to fulfill its Bestimmung (vocation), scholars might reasonably conclude that such a claim only applies certain racial groups. Yet Salomo Friedlaender claims that if Kant’s moral theory is taught to children, “Every person is valued according to her (...) morality and no longer, as in our crude days, according to ‘race’ or national and religious affiliation.” This interpretation of Kant might strike some contemporary Kant scholars as naïvely optimistic, but neo-Kantians were well aware of Kant’s racial claims. By examining how neo-Kantians read Kant’s work on race, I argue that Friedlaender’s interpretation provides a way of reading an unracialized Bestimmung in the pedagogy. (shrink)

One of the more notorious passages in Kant occurs in the Doctrine of Right where he claims that ‘bloodguilt’ will cling to members of a dissolving society if they fail to execute the last murderer (MM, 6: 333). Although this is the most famous, bloodguilt appears in three other passages in Kant’s writings. These have received little attention in Kant scholarship. In this article, I examine these other passages and argue that bloodguilt functions as a symbol for the demandingness of (...) justice. I then offer a sympathetic interpretation of the passage from the Doctrine of Right. (shrink)

Kant typically is not identified with the tradition of virtue epistemology. Although he may not be a virtue epistemologist in a strict sense, I suggest that intellectual virtues and vices play a key role in his epistemology. Specifically, Kant identifies a serious intellectual vice that threatens to undermine reason, namely enthusiasm (Schwärmerei). Enthusiasts become so enamored with their own thinking that they refuse to subject reason to self-critique. The particular danger of enthusiasm is that reason colludes in its own destruction: (...) enthusiasm occurs when self-conceit and reason’s desire to transcend its boundaries mutually reinforce each other. I conclude by sketching an account of Kantian intellectual virtue that is consistent with Kantian moral virtue. (shrink)

Spite is typically considered a vicious emotion that causes us to engage in petty, vindictive, and sometimes self-destructive behavior. Even though it has this bad reputation, I will argue that spite is a reactive attitude. Spite is emotional defiance of another’s command: to spite you, I will do something exactly because you told me not to. Our liability to feelings of spite presupposes that we recognize others as having practical authority, which is why it qualifies as a reactive attitude. I (...) conclude by offering conditions under which spite can be justified and unjustified. (shrink)

Several philosophers who argue that forgiveness is an important virtue also wish to maintain the moral value of retributive emotions that forgiveness is meant to overcome. As such, these accounts explicate forgiveness as an Aristotelian mean between too much resentment and too little resentment. I argue that such an account ends up making forgiveness superfluous: it turns out that the forgiving person is not praised for a greater willingness to let go of her resentment, but rather for her fairness or (...) good judgment. I conclude by arguing that the virtue of fair-mindedness is more compatible with maintaining the value of the retributive emotions than the virtue of forgiveness. (shrink)

The use of child soldiers in armed conflict is an increasing global concern. Although philosophers have examined whether child soldiers can be considered combatants in war, much less attention has been paid to their moral responsibility. While it is tempting to think of them as having diminished or limited responsibility, child soldiers often report feeling guilt for the wrongs they commit. Here I argue that their feelings of guilt are both intelligible and morally appropriate. The feelings of guilt that child (...) soldiers experience are not self-censure; rather their guilt arises from their attempts to come to terms with what they see as their own morally ambiguous motives. Their guilt is appropriate because it reaffirms their commitment to morality and facilitates their self-forgiveness. (shrink)

In Naked, Krista K. Thomason offers a multi-faceted account of shame, covering its nature as an emotion, its positive and negative roles in moral life, its association with violence, and its provocation through invitations to shame, public shaming, and stigmatization. Along the way, she reflects on a range of examples drawn from literature, memoirs, journalism, and her own imagination. She also considers alternative views at length, draws a wealth of important distinctions, and articulates many of the most intuitive (...) objections to her own view in order to defend it more thoroughly. As such, the book’s subtitle, The Dark Side of Shame and Moral Life, undersells its scope and ambition. This is an exploration not just of shame’s dark side but a kaleidoscopic appreciation of both the nature and the (dis)value of shame and shaming. Somewhat undercutting this breadth, Thomason relies heavily on Kantian intuitions about equal respect and recognition for persons and their dignity; in several key arguments, she tells us to disregard predictable and systematic consequences of emotions, practices, and institutions so that we can better focus on their constitutive or internal aspects. Of course, every philosopher inevitably brings theoretical commitments to bear when writing about moral psychology, but non-Kantian readers should be forewarned that — despite the fact that Thomason says that she does “not assume any particular moral theory” — her ethical conclusions about shaming and stigmatizing are likely to be plausible only to those who are already snugly tied into a web of “Kantian commitments” (p. 9). (shrink)

Kant’s conception of mental illness is unlikely to satisfy contemporary readers. His classifications of mental illness are often fluid and ambiguous, and he seems to attribute to human beings at least some responsibility for preventing mental illness. In spite of these apparent disadvantages, I argue that Kant’s account of mental illness can be illuminating to his views about the normative dimensions of human cognition. In contrast to current understandings of mental illness, Kant’s account is what I refer to as “non-pathological.” (...) That is, most mental illnesses are for Kant continuous with normally functioning cognition. Someone with a healthy reason can easily fall into mental illness and someone with mental illness can (perhaps not as easily) re-establish healthy reason. By accepting a non-pathological definition of mental illness, it follows for Kant that humans have more agency and responsibility regarding their mental health than current views allow, which explains why several of his writings aim to prescribe a “diet of the mind” (2:271). Contrary to popular readings of Kant as a champion of reason’s power, Kant’s conception of mental illness shows that he recognizes how fragile human reason can be. (shrink)

Moral philosophers have defended anger as an important part of our moral lives. In spite of these defenses, skeptics have nonetheless argued that it would be better all things considered to get over anger to the extent that we can. They will often point to moral exemplars like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Gandhi to show both (a) that we can successfully overcome our feelings of anger and (b) that we would be morally better off doing so. In this chapter, (...) I argue against this aspiration. Those who advocate for such an aspiration fail to recognize that getting over anger would require us to radically reshape our moral psychology. I argue that feelings of anger are more central to our moral emotional lives than skeptics realize and that they cannot be removed without altering other valuable moral commitments. (shrink)

Our emotions can be revealing. They can not only reflect our character traits and our judgments, but they can also tell us things about ourselves that we do not fully realize or may not want to admit. In this chapter, I am particularly interested in how we relate to what I will call alienated emotions: emotional experiences that are unusual, surprising, or even disturbing. What, if anything, do our alienated emotions tell us about who we are? I argue here that (...) alienated emotions lead to important questions about the ethics of self-interpretation. (shrink)

Kant’s non-voluntarist conception of political obligation has led some philosophers to argue that he would reject self-government rights for indigenous peoples. Some recent scholarship suggests, however, that Kant’s critique of colonialism provides an argument in favor of granting self-government rights. Here I argue for a stronger conclusion: Kantian political theory not only can but must include sovereignty for indigenous peoples. Normally these rights are considered redress for historic injustice. On a Kantian view, however, I argue that they are not remedial. (...) Sovereignty rights are a necessary part of establishing perpetual peace. By failing to acknowledge the sovereignty of native groups, states once guilty of imperialism leave open the in principle possibility for future violence, even though no current conflict exists. Only in recognizing self-government rights can states truly commit to the cosmopolitan ideal. (shrink)

Shaming behavior on social media has been the cause of concern in recent public discourse. Supporters of online shaming argue that it is an important tool in helping to make social media and online communities safer and more welcoming to traditionally marginalized groups. Objections to shaming often sound like high-minded calls for civility, but I argue that shaming behavior poses serious risks. Here I identify moral and political risks of online shaming. In particular, shaming threatens to undermine our commitment to (...) the co-deliberative practices of morality. As a result, online shaming can undermine the very goals it is supposed to accomplish. (shrink)

Although moral philosophers have argued that shame is a valuable moral emotion, feminist philosophers have been skeptical. From the feminist perspective, shame appears to be an emotion more mediated by social circumstances than moral philosophers acknowledge. It is, they will argue, not an accident that shame occurs more frequently in people with marginalized identities. If who I am is a social subordinate, this would explain why women feel more shame. This argument relies on the assumption that the reason women feel (...) more shame is because they internalize negative social judgments about themselves. Although this explanation is tempting, in this chapter I want to evince a skeptical position against it. I want to put pressure on the claim that women internalize their oppression and that this process explains their shame. Instead, I argue that their shame can be explained by the difficulties of navigating one’s identity under conditions of oppression. (shrink)

In everyday moral experience, we judge ourselves for our emotional responses. Most of the philosophical literature on recalcitrant emotions focuses on (a) whether and how they are possible or (b) whether and how they are irrational. My interest here is in the ways we blame ourselves for recalcitrant emotions. I aim to show that it is harder than it looks to explain self-blame for recalcitrant emotions. I argue recalcitrance alone does not give us a reason to feel any particular way (...) about our emotions and it is not sufficient grounds for self-blame. (shrink)

"Naked" is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in shame and its role in morality. The book is particularly timely given how common public shaming has become in online settings. Krista K. Thomason argues that, even though shame is a negative emotion with potentially damaging consequences, its dark side is outweighed by its moral benefits insofar as shame is constitutive of desirable moral commitments. According to the author, being liable to shame is constitutive of respecting other people’s points (...) of view, acknowledging others’ moral standing, and accepting that our identities are not only set by what we think of ourselves, but also by factors outside of our control that include our personal histories and other people’s opinions of us. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of self-documentation in the care of the self. As is well known, Michel Foucault exposes how disciplinary power functions in hospitals, schools, prisons, and other institutions to train the living for productive use. An important tool of disciplinary power is documentation, or the recording and cataloguing of the living that constitutes them as objects of knowledge. I show how documentation creates and extends knowledge to individuals. At the same time, documents become physical appendages of the (...) lives they record, which, while separable from those lives, nevertheless affect those lives. Despite these apparently negative functions, Foucault finds that documentation can also be the means by which the living take over their own disciplining. In writings about both fiction and ancient ethics, Foucault points to self-documentation as a way of objectifying the self before the self, so that the self may train itself according to self-imposed standards. Although disciplinary power may be inescapable, self-documentation offers a technique of counter-discipline that functions alongside and against institutional discipline. (shrink)

Since it was presented in 1963, Chisholm’s paradox has attracted constant attention in the deontic logic literature, but without the emergence of any definitive solution. We claim this is due to its having no single solution. The paradox actually presents many challenges to the formalization of deontic statements, including (1) context sensitivity of unconditional oughts, (2) formalizing conditional oughts, and (3) distinguishing generic from nongeneric oughts. Using the practical interpretation of ‘ought’ as a guideline, we propose a linguistically motivated logical (...) solution to each of these problems, and explain the relation of the solution to the problem of contrary-to-duty obligations. (shrink)

The notion of relevance plays a role in many accounts of knowledge and knowledge ascription. Although use of the notion is well-motivated, theorists struggle to codify relevance. A reasonable person standard of relevance addresses this codification problem, and provides an objective and flexible standard of relevance; however, treating relevance as reasonableness seems to allow practical factors to determine whether one has knowledge or not—so-called “pragmatic encroachment.” I argue that a fuller understanding of reasonableness and of the role of practical factors (...) in the acquisition of knowledge lets us avoid pragmatic encroachment. (shrink)

Knowing what one believes sometimes takes effort—it sometimes involves seeking to know one’s beliefs as causes. And when one gains self-knowledge of one’s belief this way—that is, through causal self-interpretation—one engages in a characteristically human kind of psychological liberation. By investigating the nature of causal self-interpretation, I discover some surprising features of this liberty. And in doing so, I counter a trend in recent philosophical theories, of discounting the value of self-knowledge in projects of human liberation.

Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia (1962) generates wildly different reactions among philosophers. Interpreting Austin on perception starts with a reading of this text, and this in turn requires reading into the lectures key ideas from Austin’s work on natural language and the theory of knowledge. The lectures paint a methodological agenda, and a sketch of some first-order philosophy, done the way Austin thinks it should be done. Crucially, Austin calls for philosophers to bring a deeper understanding of natural language meaning to (...) bear as they do their tasks. In consequence Austin’s lectures provide a fascinating start—but only a start—on a number of key questions in the philosophy of perception. (shrink)

What role does ‘ordinary language philosophy’ play in the defense of common sense beliefs? J.L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein each give central place to ordinary language in their responses to skeptical challenges to common sense beliefs. But Austin and Wittgenstein do not always respond to such challenges in the same way, and their working methods are different. In this paper, I compare Austin’s and Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophical positions, and show that they share many metaphilosophical commitments. I then examine Austin and Wittgenstein’s (...) respective takes on the problem of other minds and the problem of our knowledge of the external world. Interestingly, we find Wittgenstein employing methods more frequently associated Austin and vice versa. Moreover, we find that a variety of defenses of common sense beliefs are compatible with ‘ordinary language philosophy.’. (shrink)

Context has emerged as a central concept in a variety of contemporary approaches to reasoning. The conference at which the papers in this volume were presented, CONTEXT 2001, was the third international, interdisciplinary conference on the topic of context, and was held in Dundee, Scotland on July 27-30, 2001.

In this paper we argue that the eudaimonist virtue of hope holds pride of place in development of psychological traits that promote human flourishing. The argument is part theoretical and part empirical. On the theoretical side, hope, the virtue, is the disposition to envision future good possibilities for oneself and one’s community and to move towards those possibilities. This renders hope necessary for any agent’s self-conscious pursuit of the goods that constitute flourishing, and also for the development of other virtues. (...) On the empirical side, we draw on evidence from psychology to argue that early in development, humans need relationships of trust with caregivers to develop the future orientation and features of agency constitutive of the virtue of hope. Thus the virtue of hope generally needs to be fostered, in part, through trusting relationships for humans to flourish. (shrink)

This document presents the Bonn PRINTEGER Consensus Statement: Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for research performing organisations. The aim of the statement is to complement existing instruments by focusing specifically on institutional responsibilities for strengthening integrity. It takes into account the daily challenges and organisational contexts of most researchers. The statement intends to make research integrity challenges recognisable from the work-floor perspective, providing concrete advice on organisational measures to strengthen integrity. The statement, which was concluded February 7th 2018, provides guidance on (...) the following key issues: § 1. Providing information about research integrity§ 2. Providing education, training and mentoring§ 3. Strengthening a research integrity culture§ 4. Facilitating open dialogue§ 5. Wise incentive management§ 6. Implementing quality assurance procedures§ 7. Improving the work environment and work satisfaction§ 8. Increasing transparency of misconduct cases§ 9. Opening up research§ 10. Implementing safe and effective whistle-blowing channels§ 11. Protecting the alleged perpetrators§ 12. Establishing a research integrity committee and appointing an ombudsperson§ 13. Making explicit the applicable standards for research integrity. (shrink)

This document presents the Bonn PRINTEGER Consensus Statement: Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for research performing organisations. The aim of the statement is to complement existing instruments by focusing specifically on institutional responsibilities for strengthening integrity. It takes into account the daily challenges and organisational contexts of most researchers. The statement intends to make research integrity challenges recognisable from the work-floor perspective, providing concrete advice on organisational measures to strengthen integrity. The statement, which was concluded February 7th 2018, provides guidance on (...) the following key issues: § 1.Providing information about research integrity § 2.Providing education, training and mentoring § 3.Strengthening a research integrity culture § 4.Facilitating open dialogue § 5.Wise incentive management § 6.Implementing quality assurance procedures § 7.Improving the work environment and work satisfaction § 8.Increasing transparency of misconduct cases § 9.Opening up research § 10.Implementing safe and effective whistle-blowing channels § 11.Protecting the alleged perpetrators § 12.Establishing a research integrity committee and appointing an ombudsperson § 13.Making explicit the applicable standards for research integrity. (shrink)

This article explores the enduring mysteries of consciousness and the afterlife, two enigmatic topics that have fascinated humanity for ages. Despite extensive scientific efforts, the existence of an afterlife remains unproven, and understanding consciousness remains a significant challenge. The research introduces innovative hypotheses through simple thought experiments with empirical evidence and robust theoretical foundations. It delves into the complexities of consciousness, its relationship with the brain, and the need for interdisciplinary approaches encompassing physics, psychology, and philosophy. Boldly contemplating the probability (...) of a continuous consciousness after death, the study argues that existing evidence strongly supports this idea. Beyond theoretical implications, it envisions practical outcomes, suggesting that insights into these mysteries could enhance human well-being and contribute to a more harmonious world. In summary, this article embarks on a quest to shed light on age-old questions about consciousness and the afterlife. Through fresh methodologies, it aims to provide new perspectives that could reshape our understanding of existence and inspire intellectuals to positive individual and societal advancements. -/- . (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to higher-order metaphysics as well as to the contributions to this volume. We discuss five topics, corresponding to the five parts of this volume, and summarize the contributions to each part. First, we motivate the usefulness of higher-order quantification in metaphysics using a number of examples, and discuss the question of how such quantifiers should be interpreted. We provide a brief introduction to the most common forms of higher-order logics used in metaphysics, and indicate a (...) number of questions which can be raised in such systems using logical vocabulary alone. Using a further example, we return to applications of higher-order logics in metaphysics. We also mention key developments in the history of higher-order logic as it pertains to metaphysics. Finally, we mention certain arguments which have been raised against the use of higher-order logic, and some ways of responding to them. (shrink)

"[L]ove is not merely a contributor - one among others - to meaningful life. In its own way it may underlie all other forms of meaning....by its very nature love is the principal means by which creatures like us seek affective relations to persons, things, or ideals that have value and importance for us. I. The Look of Love.

Many of our most important goals require months or even years of effort to achieve, and some never get achieved at all. As social psychologists have lately emphasized, success in pursuing such goals requires the capacity for perseverance, or "grit." Philosophers have had little to say about grit, however, insofar as it differs from more familiar notions of willpower or continence. This leaves us ill-equipped to assess the social and moral implications of promoting grit. We propose that grit has an (...) important epistemic component, in that failures of perseverance are often caused by a significant loss of confidence that one will succeed if one continues to try. Correspondingly, successful exercises of grit often involve a kind of epistemic resilience in the face of failure, injury, rejection, and other setbacks that constitute genuine evidence that success is not forthcoming. Given this, we discuss whether and to what extent displays of grit can be epistemically as well as practically rational. We conclude that they can be (although many are not), and that the rationality of grit will depend partly on features of the context the agent normally finds herself in. In particular, grit-friendly norms of deliberation might be irrational to use in contexts of severe material scarcity or oppression. (shrink)

There is no doubt that custard apple diseases are among the important reasons that destroy the Custard Apple plant and its agricultural crops. This leads to obvious damage to these plants and they become inedible. Discovering these diseases is a good step to provide the appropriate and correct treatment. Determining the treatment with high accuracy depends on the method used to correctly diagnose the disease, expert systems can greatly help in avoiding damage to these plants. The expert system correctly diagnoses (...) Custard Apple disease to make it easier for farmers to find the right treatment based on the appropriate diagnosis. Objectives: A specialized syllable language system was established for the diagnosis of Custard Apple plant disease. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a new approach to integrating philosophical phenomenology with qualitative research. The approach uses phenomenology’s concepts, namely existentials, rather than methods such as the epoché or reductions. We here introduce the approach to both philosophers and qualitative researchers, as we believe that these studies are best conducted through interdisciplinary collaboration. In section 1, we review the debate over phenomenology’s role in qualitative research and argue that qualitative theorists have not taken full advantage of what philosophical phenomenology (...) has to offer, thus motivating the need for new approaches. In section 2, we introduce our alternative approach, which we call Phenomenologically Grounded Qualitative Research (PGQR). Drawing parallels with phenomenology’s applications in the cognitive sciences, we explain how phenomenological grounding can be used to conceptually front-load a qualitative study, establishing an explicit focus on one or more structures of human existence, or of our being in the world. In section 3, we illustrate this approach with an example of a qualitative study carried out by one of the authors: a study of the existential impact of early parental bereavement. In section 4, we clarify the kind of knowledge that phenomenologically grounded studies generate and how it may be integrated with existing approaches. (shrink)

Aggregating individuals’ consistent attitudes might produce inconsistent collective attitudes. Some groups therefore need the capacity to form attitudes that are irreducible to those of their members. Such groups, group-agent realists argue, are agents in control of their own attitude formation. In this paper, however, I show how group-agent realism overlooks the important fact that groups consist of strategically interacting agents. Only by eliminating group agency from our social explanations can we see how individuals vote strategically to gain control of their (...) groups and produce collective attitudes we cannot make sense of if we treat groups as agents. (shrink)

We provide an analysis of the public's having warranted epistemic trust in science, that is, the conditions under which the public may be said to have well-placed trust in the scientists as providers of information. We distinguish between basic and enhanced epistemic trust in science and provide necessary conditions for both. We then present the controversy regarding the connection between autism and measles–mumps–rubella vaccination as a case study to illustrate our analysis. The realization of warranted epistemic public trust in science (...) requires various societal conditions, which we briefly introduce in the concluding section. (shrink)

The objective of the paper is to implement and validate diagnosis in the medical field via refined neutrosophic fuzzy logic (RNFL). As such, we have proposed a Max-Min composition (MMC) method in RNFL. This method deals with the diagnosis under certain constraints like uncertainty and indeterminacy. Further, we have considered the diagnosis problems to validate the sensitivity analysis of the novel multi attribute decision-making technique. Finally, we gave the graphical representations and compared the obtained results with other existing measures in (...) refined neutrosophic fuzzy sets. (shrink)

Here, I discuss how natural biological evolution might have selected human origin and the psychology of the better mind-brain. However, all humans are closely related; why do we make crimes, war, hate, and jealousy their primary reasons and overcoming methodologies? How can they gain their best happiness? What kind of philosophy apply to annalize this big question and convince humankind to evolve their mind? How we could achieve our optimum potential happiness by developing hidden intelligence to make the world a (...) happier place to live in. (shrink)

This discussion of Sergio Tenenbaum’s excellent book, Rational Powers in Action, focuses on two noteworthy aspects of the big picture. First, questions are raised about Tenenbaum’s methodology of giving primacy to cases in which the agent has all the requisite background knowledge, including knowledge of a means that will be sufficient for achieving her end, and no significant false beliefs. Second, the implications of Tenenbaum’s views concerning the rational constraints on revising our ends are examined.

How does consciousness vary across the animal kingdom? Are some animals ‘more conscious’ than others? This article presents a multidimensional framework for understanding interspecies variation in states of consciousness. The framework distinguishes five key dimensions of variation: perceptual richness, evaluative richness, integration at a time, integration across time, and self-consciousness. For each dimension, existing experiments that bear on it are reviewed and future experiments are suggested. By assessing a given species against each dimension, we can construct a consciousness profile for (...) that species. On this framework, there is no single scale along which species can be ranked as more or less conscious. Rather, each species has its own distinctive consciousness profile. (shrink)

A review of Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare’s Two-Level Utilitarianism, by Gary E. Varner. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xv + 336. H/b £40.23. and The Philosophy of Animal Minds, edited by Robert W. Lurz. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. 320. P/b £20.21.

I examine the epistemic import of collaborative research in science. I develop and defend a functional explanation for its growing importance. Collaborative research is becoming more popular in the natural sciences, and to a lesser degree in the social sciences, because contemporary research in these fields frequently requires access to abundant resources, for which there is great competition. Scientists involved in collaborative research have been very successful in accessing these resources, which has in turn enabled them to realize the epistemic (...) goals of science more effectively than other scientists, thus creating a research environment in which collaboration is now the norm. (shrink)