In the paper we present a formal system motivated by a specific methodology of creating norms. According to the methodology, a norm-giver before establishing a set of norms should create a picture of the agent by creating his repertoire of actions. Then, knowing what the agent can do in particular situations, the norm-giver regulates these actions by assigning deontic qualifications to each of them. The set of norms created for each situation should respect (1) generally valid deontic principles being the (...) theses of our logic and (2) facts from the ontology of action whose relevance for the systems of norms we postulate. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to point out the modelling choices that lead to different systems of deontic action logic. A kind of a roadmap is presented. On the one hand it can help the reader to find the deontic logic appropriate for an intended application relying on the information considering the way in which a deontic logic represents actions and how it characterises deontic properties in relation to (the representation of) actions. On the other hand it is a (...) guideline how to build a deontic action logic which satisfies the desired properties. (shrink)

Trivalence is quite natural for deontic action logic, where actions are treated as good, neutral or bad.We present the ideas of trivalent deontic logic after J. Kalinowski and its realisation in a 3-valued logic of M. Fisher and two systems designed by the authors of the paper: a 4-valued logic inspired by N. Belnap’s logic of truth and information and a 3-valued logic based on nondeterministic matrices. Moreover, we combine Kalinowski’s idea of trivalence with deontic action logic based on boolean (...) algebra. (shrink)

In the paper we provide an overview of issues related to the models used in the research on the logic of norms and actions. We present two models of the variability of the world: temporal (acyclic) and atemporal (cyclic). In the first one the past is always clearly defined, and the future is potentially “branched”. The second type of model allows for a return to the situation that took place. Next we describe different approaches towards agency modeling. We present the (...) most important paradigms, including the logic of actions, where actions are interpreted as transitions between the situations and STIT logic, which states only the responsibility of the agent for particular states of affairs. We discuss questions of determinism and indeterminism of actions, identification of basic actions and operations and the issue of identity. The final part of the paper is devoted to deontic categories. In particular, the applicability of the concepts of strong and weak permission and prohibition in different situational contexts, and their relationship to the two concepts of obligation: abstract and derived. (shrink)

In the paper we discuss different intuitions about the properties of obligatory actions in the framework of deontic action logic based on boolean algebra. Two notions of obligation are distinguished–abstract and processed obligation. We introduce them formally into the system of deontic logic of actions and investigate their properties and mutual relations.

We investigate a speci c model of knowledge and beliefs and their dynamics. The model is inspired by public announcement logic and the approach to puzzles concerning knowledge using that logic. In the model epistemic considerations are based on ontology. The main notion that constitutes a bridge between these two disciplines is the notion of epistemic capacities. Within the model we study scenarios in which agents can receive false announcements and can have incomplete or improper views about other agent's epistemic (...) capacities. Moreover, we try to express the description of problem speci cation using the tools from applied ontology { RDF format for information and the Protege editor. (shrink)

D'Arcy May, in his review, contends Magliola argues that the Buddhist doctrines of no-self and rebirth are contradictory, whereas Magliola in fact argues just the opposite--that these two Buddhist doctrines are not contradictory (and he explains why). What Magliola does contend is that Buddhist no-self and rebirth contradict the Catholic teachings of individual identity and "one life-span only." D'Arcy May's review contends that Magliola admits "authoritative statements" are "hard to come by" in Buddhism, whereas Magliola in his book contends that (...) "authoritative statements" play a very important role in Buddhism: his book explains how "authority" functions in Buddhism, and he directs readers to the careful "vetting" of his book--including his discussions of "authority in Buddhism"-- by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi (for Theravada) and Ven. Dr. Dhammadipa [Fa Yao] (for both Theravada and the two "Big Vehicles"). His book also cites approvals by several established academics who are Buddhologists. Magliola's "Reply" goes on to argue that D'Arcy May's interpretation of the "sensus fidelium" foists the opinions of "white intellectual elites and higher-income Catholics of the North Atlantic tier of countries and their geographical projections--Australia, etc. (only 9 percent of the world's Catholic population) upon the 68 percent of Catholics who live in the global South and East. Magliola's "Reply" also expresses his dismay that D'Arcy May, throughoout his review, dodges the pivotal Derridean notion of "samenesses erected by irreducible difference" though this "thought-motif" constitutes the scaffolding of Magliola's entire book. (shrink)

An intrinsic property, according to one important account, is a property that is had by all of one's duplicates. Instead, one might choose to characterize intrinsic properties as those that can be had in the absence of all distinct individuals. After reviewing the problems with these earlier accounts, the author presents a less problematic analysis. The goal is to clarify the rough idea that an intrinsic property is a special sort of non-relational property; having the property does not consist in (...) any relation one bears to distinct individuals. (shrink)

Impartially Optimizing Consequentialism requires agents to act so as to bring about the best outcome, as judged by a preference ordering which is impartial among the needs and interests of all persons. IOC may seem to be only rational response to the recognition that one is only one person among many others with equal intrinsic moral status. A person who adopts a less impartial deontological alternative to IOC may seem to fail to take seriously the fact that other persons matter (...) in the same way that she takes herself to matter. This paper examines this ‘seductive appeal’ of IOC. It argues that IOC is not the only rational way to recognize the fact that each person matters. It presents an alternative conception of how to recognize the status of other persons as beingswho-matter, an alternative that has Kantian rather than consequentialist implications. (shrink)

In "How to Define Intrinsic Properties" I offered a relational account of the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction. The basic idea is that F is an intrinsic property of an item x just in case x’s having F consists entirely in x’s having certain internal properties, where an internal property is one whose instantiation does not consist in one’s relation to any distinct items (items other than oneself and one’s proper parts). I still think that this relational analysis is largely correct, and here (...) I provide additional support for it and defend it against some objections that have been raised. In the process I aim to make the account somewhat more precise, especially by contrasting it with a grounding approach to defining the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction. (shrink)

This is the English (and extended version) of an interview originally published in Estonian in October 2018. In the interview, Simpson summarizes a particular way of defending the practice of no-platforming. The varying appeal of different defences of the practice in different socio-historical contexts (i.e. the UK/US versus a post-Soviet country such as Estonia) is discussed also.

Like Bennett's account of ‘even’, my analysis incorporates the following plausible and widespread intuitions. (a) The word ‘even’ does not make a truth-functional difference; it makes a difference only in conventional implicature. In particular, ‘even’ functions neither as a universal quantifier, nor a most or many quantifier. The only quantified statement that ‘Even A is F’ implies is the existential claim ‘There is an x (namely, A) that is F’, but this implication is nothing more than what the Equivalence Thesis (...) already demands. (b) ‘Even’ is epistemic in character, implying some type of unexpectedness, surprise, or unlikelihood. Moreover, despite Kay's arguments to the contrary, this implication is part of the meaning of ‘even’. (c) ‘Even’ is a scalar term, since unexpectedness comes in degrees. And, finally, (d) the felicity of an ‘even’-sentence S requires that S* be sufficiently surprising in comparison to its true neighbors. However,pace Bennett, being more surprising than just one true neighbor will not suffice. At the same time, being more surprising than all true neighbors is unnecessary. Suffice it that S* is more surprising than most true neighbors. (shrink)

According to one brand of 'externalism', cognitive theories should individuate mental content 'widely'--that is, partly in terms of environmental features. David Marr's theory of vision is often cited in support of this view. Many philosophers (most notably, Tyler Burge) regard it as a prime example of a fruitful cognitive theory that widely individuates the representations it posits. I argue that, contrary to popular belief, Marr's theory does not presuppose an externalist view of mental content.

Olson (1997a) tries to refute the Psychological Approach to personal identity with his Fetus Argument, and Mackie (1999) aims to do the same with the Death Argument. With the help of a suggestion made by Baker (1999), the following discussion shows that these arguments fail. In the process of defending the Psychological Approach, it is made clear exactly what one is and is not committed to as a proponent of the theory.

The New Zealand philosopher, Robert Nola (1940-2022), has died. He was a kind man, a good friend, and a fine philosopher. Here is how I remember him.

This is a critical response to "Defending Eugenics", published in MBR in 2018.

Where does the mind begin and end? Most philosophers and cognitive scientists take the view that the mind is bounded by the skull or skin of the individual. Robert Wilson, in this provocative and challenging 2004 book, provides the foundations for the view that the mind extends beyond the boundary of the individual. The approach adopted offers a unique blend of traditional philosophical analysis, cognitive science, and the history of psychology and the human sciences. The companion volume, Genes and (...) the Agents of Life, explores the theme in the biological sciences. Written with verve and clarity, this ambitious book will appeal to a broad swathe of professionals and students in philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and the history of the behavioural and human sciences. You can download the table of contents here. (shrink)

In the era of “big data,” science is increasingly information driven, and the potential for computers to store, manage, and integrate massive amounts of data has given rise to such new disciplinary fields as biomedical informatics. Applied ontology offers a strategy for the organization of scientific information in computer-tractable form, drawing on concepts not only from computer and information science but also from linguistics, logic, and philosophy. This book provides an introduction to the field of applied ontology that is of (...) particular relevance to biomedicine, covering theoretical components of ontologies, best practices for ontology design, and examples of biomedical ontologies in use. After defining an ontology as a representation of the types of entities in a given domain, the book distinguishes between different kinds of ontologies and taxonomies, and shows how applied ontology draws on more traditional ideas from metaphysics. It presents the core features of the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), now used by over one hundred ontology projects around the world, and offers examples of domain ontologies that utilize BFO. The book also describes Web Ontology Language (OWL), a common framework for Semantic Web technologies. Throughout, the book provides concrete recommendations for the design and construction of domain ontologies. (shrink)

Debunking arguments typically attempt to show that a set of beliefs or other intensional mental states bear no appropriate explanatory connection to the facts they purport to be about. That is, a debunking argument will attempt to show that beliefs about p are not held because of the facts about p. Such beliefs, if true, would then only be accidentally so. Thus, their causal origins constitute an undermining defeater. Debunking arguments arise in various philosophical domains, targeting beliefs about morality, the (...) existence of God, logic, and others. They have also arisen in material-object metaphysics, often aimed at debunking common-sense ontology. And while most of these arguments feature appeals to ‘biological and cultural contingencies’ that are ostensibly responsible for our beliefs about which kinds of objects exist, few of them take a serious look at what those contingencies might actually be. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to remedy this by providing empirical substantiation for a key premise in these debunking arguments by examining data from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and developmental psychology that support a ‘debunking explanation’ of our common-sense beliefs and intuitions about which objects exist. Second, to argue that such data also undermines a particular kind of rationalist defense of common-sense ontology, sometimes employed as a response to the debunking threat. (shrink)

Johnston famously argued that the colors are, more or less inclusively speaking, dispositions to cause color experiences by arguing that this view best accommodates his five proposed core beliefs about color. Since then, Campbell, Kalderon, Gert, Benbaji, and others, have all engaged with at least some of Johnston’s proposed core beliefs in one way or another. Which propositions are core beliefs is ultimately an empirical matter. We investigate whether Johnston’s proposed core beliefs are, in fact, believed by assessing the agreement/disagreement (...) of non-philosophers with them. Two experiments are run each with large sample sizes, the second designed to address criticisms of the first. We find that non-philosophers mostly agree with the proposed core beliefs, but that they agree with some more than others. (shrink)

Material traces of the past are notoriously inscrutable; they rarely speak with one voice, and what they say is never unmediated. They stand as evidence only given a rich scaffolding of interpretation which is, itself, always open to challenge and revision. And yet archaeological evidence has dramatically expanded what we know of the cultural past, sometimes demonstrating a striking capacity to disrupt settled assumptions. The questions we address in Evidential Reasoning are: How are these successes realized? What gives us confidence (...) in the credibility and robustness, the trustworthiness, of the evidential claims based on archaeological data? And, what constitute best practices in building evidential claims, critically scrutinizing them and putting them to work in archaeological contexts? Rather than retreat to abstractions about how how science operates in the ideal, we approach this question by interrogating a number of close-to-the-ground case studies with the aim of teasing out the wisdom embodied in archaeological practice. The cases we consider – of fieldwork, strategies for working with old evidence, and the role of external resources – illuminate the role of various types of inferential scaffolding and bring into focus practice-grounded epistemic norms that we believe serve archaeologists better than the all-or-nothing ideals of truth and objectivity that dominate programmatic debate. (shrink)

This is a response to Erman and Moller's response to our reply to their 'Political Legitimacy in the Real Normative World', both also in this journal.

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 46-48.

Vinten looks at the relationship between Wittgenstein’s philosophy and the social sciences as well as at the ideological implications of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and applications of Wittgenstein’s philosophy to problems in social science. He examines and assesses the work of thinkers like Richard Rorty, Perry Anderson, and Chantal Mouffe. -/- “Robert Vinten has produced an impressively meticulous and wide-ranging discussion of how Wittgenstein’s mature philosophy can revitalize the social sciences. There is insight and scholarship on every page. This important book (...) will open up new possibilities for both philosophers and social scientists.” —Leonidas Tsilipakos, Lecturer, University of Bristol, UK. (shrink)

This paper engages critically with anti-representationalist arguments pressed by prominent enactivists and their allies. The arguments in question are meant to show that the “as-such” and “job-description” problems constitute insurmountable challenges to causal-informational theories of mental content. In response to these challenges, a positive account of what makes a physical or computational structure a mental representation is proposed; the positive account is inspired partly by Dretske’s views about content and partly by the role of mental representations in contemporary cognitive scientific (...) modeling. (shrink)

This collection of original essays--by philosophers of biology, biologists, and cognitive scientists--provides a wide range of perspectives on species. Including contributions from David Hull, John Dupre, David Nanney, Kevin de Queiroz, and Kim Sterelny, amongst others, this book has become especially well-known for the three essays it contains on the homeostatic property cluster view of natural kinds, papers by Richard Boyd, Paul Griffiths, and Robert A. Wilson.

We respond to Stephen T. Davis’ criticism of our earlier essay, “Assessing the Resurrection Hypothesis.” We argue that the Standard Model of physics is relevant and decisive in establishing the implausibility and low explanatory power of the Resurrection hypothesis. We also argue that the laws of physics have entailments regarding God and the supernatural and, against Alvin Plantinga, that these same laws lack the proviso “no agent supernaturally interferes.” Finally, we offer Bayesian arguments for the Legend hypothesis and against the (...) Resurrection hypothesis. (shrink)

This study is about an aspect of the reception of Herbatianism in Austria which has not been thoroughly investigated so far. It pertains to a controversy opposing Robert Zimmermann and Franz Brentano in the context of discussions which took place in the Philosophical Society of the University of Vienna. This study looks more specifically at three important episodes involving the Philosophical Society, first, the controversy over Herbartianism, second that over the evaluation of Schelling’s philosophy, and finally the reception of (...) Bolzano in Austria. I will first describe the circumstances that led Zimmermann to get involved in the Philosophical Society and the source of his controversy with Brentano and his followers. I will then comment Zimmermann’s address as chairman of the Philosophical Society and Brentano’s reaction to Zimmermann’s remarks on Schelling and the historical period to which he belongs. I will complete my analysis of Brentano’s reaction with a summary of his evaluation of Herbart’s philosophical program to which Zimmermann adhered. The last part focuses on Zimmermann’s decisive role in the reception of Bolzano in Vienna in connection with the Bolzano Commission established by the Philosophical Society. I will conclude with brief remarks on Zimmermann’s legacy in Vienna. (shrink)

This paper evaluates the Natural-Kinds Argument for cognitive extension, which purports to show that the kinds presupposed by our best cognitive science have instances external to human organism. Various interpretations of the argument are articulated and evaluated, using the overarching categories of memory and cognition as test cases. Particular emphasis is placed on criteria for the scientific legitimacy of generic kinds, that is, kinds characterized in very broad terms rather than in terms of their fine-grained causal roles. Given the current (...) state of cognitive science, I conclude that we have no reason to think memory or cognition are generic natural kinds that can ground an argument for cognitive extension. (shrink)

Is testimony a legitimate source of aesthetic belief? Can I, for instance, learn that a film is excellent on your say-so? Optimists say yes, pessimists no. But pessimism comes in two forms. One claims that testimony is not a legitimate source of aesthetic belief because it cannot yield aesthetic knowledge. The other accepts that testimony can be a source of aesthetic knowledge, yet insists that some further norm prohibits us from exploiting that resource. I argue that this second form of (...) pessimism has certain advantages over the first. I offer two candidates for the non-epistemic norm that, on this view, stands in the way of our taking aesthetic testimony. And I argue that this form of pessimism meets a challenge to pessimism in general – that of explaining why, if testimony cannot be a legitimate source of aesthetic belief, we can nonetheless rightly rely on the aesthetic recommendations of others. (shrink)

Discussions of whistleblowing and employee loyalty usually assume either that the concept of loyalty is irrelevant to the issue or, more commonly, that whistleblowing involves a moral choice in which the loyalty that an employee owes an employer comes to be pitted against the employee''s responsibility to serve public interest. I argue that both these views are mistaken and propose a third view which sees whistleblowing as entirely compatible with employee loyalty.

(Part of a symposium on an OUP collection of Paul Russell's papers on free will and moral responsibility). Paul Russell’s The Limits of Free Will is more than the sum of its parts. Among other things, Limits offers readers a comprehensive look at Russell’s attack on the problematically idealized assumptions of the contemporary free will debate. This idealization, he argues, distorts the reality of our human predicament. Herein I pose a dilemma for Russell’s position, critical compatibilism. The dilemma illuminates the (...) tension between Russell’s critical and compatibilist commitments. The problem is not obviously insurmountable, and as a compatibilist who is sympathetic to the view, my aim is to spark further discussion. (shrink)

This paper examines two recent contributions to the hate speech literature – by Steven Heyman and Jeremy Waldron – which seek a justification for the legal restriction of hate speech in an account of the way that hate speech infringes against people’s dignity. These analyses look beyond the first-order hurts and disadvantages suffered by the immediate targets of hate speech, and consider the prospect of hate speech sustaining complex social structures whose wide-scale operations lower the social status of members of (...) targeted groups. In Heyman’s and Waldron’s accounts we find plausible insights into the nature of identity-based social hierarchies, and the harms that redound to subordinated people under the operations of such hierarchies. I argue, however, that both analyses are unsuccessful as justifications for the restriction of hate speech, because they do not ultimately provide reason to think that hate speech is responsible for creating or sustaining identity-based social hierarchies. (shrink)

Wenn Präsident Kennedy nicht erschossen worden wäre, hätte er dann Nordvietnam bombardiert? Das weiß Gott allein. Oder doch nicht? Weiß wenigstens Er, was Kennedy getan hätte? ... Die Jesuiten behaupteten unter anderem, daß viele menschliche Handlungen in dem Sinne frei seien, daß die Ausführenden nicht logisch oder kausal gezwungen seien, sie auszuführen. („Frei“ wird im vorliegenden Aufsatz stets in diesem Sinne verwendet werden.) Wie behält Gott dann die Kontrolle über die menschliche Geschichte? Nicht dadurch, daß Er menschliche Handlungen kausal determiniert, (...) wie die Dominikaner geglaubt zu haben scheinen , sondern indem Er Umstände herbeiführt, von denen Er weiß, daß wir in ihnen freiwillig Seinen Plänen entsprechend handeln werden. (shrink)

Permissivism says that for some propositions and bodies of evidence, there is more than one rationally permissible doxastic attitude that can be taken towards that proposition given the evidence. Some critics of this view argue that it condones, as rationally acceptable, sets of attitudes that manifest an untenable kind of arbitrariness. I begin by providing a new and more detailed explication of what this alleged arbitrariness consists in. I then explain why Miriam Schoenfield’s prima facie promising attempt to answer the (...) Arbitrariness Objection, by appealing to the role of epistemic standards in rational belief formation, fails to resolve the problem. Schoenfield’s strategy is, however, a useful one, and I go on to explain how an alternative form of the standards-based approach to Permissivism – one that emphasizes the significance of the relationship between people’s cognitive abilities and the epistemic standards that they employ – can respond to the arbitrariness objection. (shrink)

Are the following propositions true of the colors: No object can be more than one determinable or determinate color all over at the same time (Incompatibility); the colors of objects are mind-independent (Objectivism); and most human observers usually perceive the colors of objects veridically in typical conditions (Veridicality)? One reason to think not is that the empirical literature appears to support the proposition that there is mass perceptual disagreement about the colors of objects amongst human observers in typical conditions (P-Disagreement). (...) In this article, we defend Incompatibility, Objectivism, and Veridicality by calling into question whether the empirical literature really supports P-Disagreement. (shrink)

In disagreements about trivial matters, it often seems appropriate for disputing parties to adopt a ‘middle ground’ view about the disputed matter. But in disputes about more substantial controversies (e.g. in ethics, religion, or politics) this sort of doxastic conduct can seem viciously acquiescent. How should we distinguish between the two kinds of cases, and thereby account for our divergent intuitions about how we ought to respond to them? One possibility is to say that ceding ground in a trivial dispute (...) is appropriate because the disputing parties are usually epistemic peers within the relevant domain, whereas in a more substantial disagreement the disputing parties rarely, if ever, qualify as epistemic peers, and so ‘sticking to one’s guns’ is usually the appropriate doxastic response. My aim in this paper is to explain why this way of drawing the desired distinction is ultimately problematic, even if it seems promising at first blush. (shrink)

This paper makes the case for arms control regimes to govern the development and deployment of autonomous weapon systems and long range uninhabited aerial vehicles.

Moral luck occurs when factors beyond an agent’s control positively affect how much praise or blame she deserves. Kinds of moral luck are differentiated by the source of lack of control such as the results of her actions, the circumstances in which she finds herself, and the way in which she is constituted. Many philosophers accept the existence of some of these kinds of moral luck but not others, because, in their view, the existence of only some of them would (...) make morality unfair. I, however, argue that this intermediary approach is unstable, because either morality is fair in ways that rule out resultant, circumstantial, and constitutive moral luck (and this leads to moral responsibility skepticism), or morality is unfair in ways that permit the existence of those kinds of moral luck. Thus, such intermediary approaches lack the motivation that their proponents have long taken them to have. In the appendix, I point to ways in which morality is unfair concerning the scope of moral responsibility, moral obligation, moral taint, being a good or bad person, and flourishing. (shrink)

Trope theory is an increasingly prominent contender in contemporary debates about the existence and nature of properties. But it suffers from ambiguity concerning the nature of a trope. Disambiguation reveals two fundamentally different concepts of a trope: modifier tropes and module tropes. These types of tropes are unequally suited for metaphysical work. Modifier tropes have advantages concerning powers, relations, and fundamental determinables, whereas module tropes have advantages concerning perception, causation, character-grounding, and the ontology of substance. Thus, the choice between modifier (...) tropes and module tropes is significant and divides the advantages of trope theory simpliciter. In addition, each resulting trope theory is unstable: modifier trope theory threatens to collapse into realism and module trope theory threatens to collapse into austere nominalism. This invites reflection on the stability of trope theory in general. (shrink)

This paper explains how the practice of ‘no platforming’ can be reconciled with a liberal politics. While opponents say that no platforming flouts ideals of open public discourse, and defenders see it as a justifiable harm-prevention measure, both sides mistakenly treat the debate like a run-of-the-mill free speech conflict, rather than an issue of academic freedom specifically. Content-based restrictions on speech in universities are ubiquitous. And this is no affront to a liberal conception of academic freedom, whose purpose isn’t just (...) to protect the speech of academics, but also to give them the prerogative to determine which views and speakers have sufficient disciplinary credentials to receive a hearing in academic contexts. No platforming should therefore be acceptable to liberals, in principle, in cases where it is used to support a university culture that maintains rigorous disciplinary standards, by denying attention and credibility to speakers without appropriate disciplinary credentials. (shrink)

"This volume emerged from workshops held at Pennsylvania State University in 2003 and Stanford University in 2005"--P. vii.

In this paper, I claim that extant empirical data do not support a radically embodied understanding of the mind but, instead, suggest (along with a variety of other results) a massively representational view. According to this massively representational view, the brain is rife with representations that possess overlapping and redundant content, and many of these represent other mental representations or derive their content from them. Moreover, many behavioral phenomena associated with attention and consciousness are best explained by the coordinated activity (...) of units with redundant content. I finish by arguing that this massively representational picture challenges the reliability of a priori theorizing about consciousness. (shrink)

What kind of mental state is episodic memory? I defend the claim that it is, in key part, imagining the past, where the imagining in question is experiential imagining. To remember a past episode is to experientially imagine how things were, in a way controlled by one’s past experience of that episode. Call this the Inclusion View. I motive this view by appeal both to patterns of compatibilities and incompatibilities between various states, and to phenomenology. The bulk of the paper (...) defends the account against four objections. Imagining and remembering seem to differ in whether they are active or passive, in the forms of singular content they involve, in their relations to observation and in their relations to belief. I argue that these differences can be accommodated, and some even explained, once we flesh out what else is involved in episodic memory, in addition to imagining the past. (shrink)

A number of philosophers working in applied ethics and bioethics are now earnestly debating the ethics of what they term “moral bioenhancement.” I argue that the society-wide program of biological manipulations required to achieve the purported goals of moral bioenhancement would necessarily implicate the state in a controversial moral perfectionism. Moreover, the prospect of being able to reliably identify some people as, by biological constitution, significantly and consistently more moral than others would seem to pose a profound challenge to egalitarian (...) social and political ideals. Even if moral bioenhancement should ultimately prove to be impossible, there is a chance that a bogus science of bioenhancement would lead to arbitrary inequalities in access to political power or facilitate the unjust rule of authoritarians; in the meantime, the debate about the ethics of moral bioenhancement risks reinvigorating dangerous ideas about the extent of natural inequality in the possession of the moral faculties. (shrink)

The fact that real-world decisions made by artificial intelligences are often ethically loaded has led a number of authorities to advocate the development of “moral machines”. I argue that the project of building “ethics” “into” machines presupposes a flawed understanding of the nature of ethics. Drawing on the work of the Australian philosopher, Raimond Gaita, I argue that ethical dilemmas are problems for particular people and not problems for everyone who faces a similar situation. Moreover, the force of an ethical (...) claim depends in part on the life history of the person who is making it. For both these reasons, machines could at best be engineered to provide a shallow simulacrum of ethics, which would have limited utility in confronting the ethical and policy dilemmas associated with AI. (shrink)

A theory of cognitive systems individuation is presented and defended. The approach has some affinity with Leonard Talmy's Overlapping Systems Model of Cognitive Organization, and the paper's first section explores aspects of Talmy's view that are shared by the view developed herein. According to the view on offer -- the conditional probability of co-contribution account (CPC) -- a cognitive system is a collection of mechanisms that contribute, in overlapping subsets, to a wide variety of forms of intelligent behavior. Central to (...) this approach is the idea of an integrated system. A formal characterization of integration is laid out in the form of a conditional-probabilitybased measure of the clustering of causal contributors to the production of intelligent behavior. I relate the view to the debate over extended and embodied cognition and respond to objections that have been raised in print by Andy Clark, Colin Klein, and Felipe de Brigard. (shrink)

In the Sociology of Emotion and Affect Studies, affects are usually regarded as an aspect of human beings alone, or of impersonal or collective atmospheres. However, feelings and emotions are only specific cases of affectivity that require subjective inner selves, while the concept of ‘atmospheres’ fails to explain the singularity of each individual case. This article develops a theory of social affect that does not reduce affect to either personal feelings or collective emotions. First, I use a Spinozist understanding of (...) the ‘body’ to conceptualize the receptivity and mutual constitution of bodies, to show how affects do not ‘belong’ to anybody; they are not solely attributable either to the human or to any kind of body alone, but emerge in situations of the encounter and interaction. Next I build upon Jean-Marie Guyau’s concept of transmissions to show how we can theorize affect as an emerging transmission between and among bodies. Finally, I demonstrate how we now have a complete conceptual frame for theorizing affect in relation to all bodies in any given social scene, the grand composition of which I call affectif. (shrink)