Le but de ce texte est de mettre en évidence les équi­valences entre la façon dont le concept de conatus résout, dans l'Éthique, le problème de l'unité modale complexe. en rendant consis­tant le concept de chose singulière en tant que celle-ci doit être consi­dérée comme un légitime sujet d'attribution d'états, et la façon dont ce même concept dessine le rapport cognitif de l'esprit avec lui-même, rapport par lequel l'esprit se saisit comme sujet de ses états et qui ca­ractérise la notion (...) moderne de subjectivité. Ainsi, en éclairant cet as­pect du concept spinoziste de chose singulière. on comprendra aussi, de façon indirecte, l'une des conditions par lesquelles les choses peuvent, dans la doctrine spinoziste, devenir des objets ou des signes pour la connaissance humaine. (shrink)

A key source of support for the view that challenging people’s beliefs about free will may undermine moral behavior is two classic studies by Vohs and Schooler (2008). These authors reported that exposure to certain prompts suggesting that free will is an illusion increased cheating behavior. In the present paper, we report several attempts to replicate this influential and widely cited work. Over a series of five studies (sample sizes of N = 162, N = 283, N = 268, N (...) = 804, N = 982) (four preregistered) we tested the relationship between (1) anti-free-will prompts and free will beliefs and (2) free will beliefs and immoral behavior. Our primary task was to closely replicate the findings from Vohs and Schooler (2008) using the same or highly similar manipulations and measurements as the ones used in their original studies. Our efforts were largely unsuccessful. We suggest that manipulating free will beliefs in a robust way is more difficult than has been implied by prior work, and that the proposed link with immoral behavior may not be as consistent as previous work suggests. (shrink)

L'article avance l'hypothèse selon laquelle la distinction entre les conceptions cartésienne et spinoziste des rapports esprit/corps se situe dans le niveau plus profond des différents diagnostiques que ces doctrines supposent concernant les conditions d'emergence du problème éthique por l'être humain.

In this Article, I will argue that a person may be deserving of criminal punishment even in certain situations where she is not necessarily morally responsible for her criminal act. What these situations share in common are two things: the psychological factors that motivate the individual’s behavior are environmentally determined and her crime is serious, making her less eligible for sympathy and therefore less likely to be acquitted. -/- To get to this conclusion, I will proceed in four steps. In (...) Part II, I will offer the first two of these steps. First, I will argue that our foundational assumption that moral responsibility is necessary for just blame and punishment is not self-evident and is actually rather difficult to explain and justify. Second, I will offer an explanation and justification that appeals to our moral psychology. Specifically, I will argue that we subscribe to this assumption ultimately because we sympathize with agents who lack responsibility for their actions. -/- Third, in Part IV, I aim to show that even if moral responsibility is not conceptually — only “emotionally” — necessary for just blame and punishment, the traditionally recognized criminal excuses are not at risk because, contrary to popular wisdom, they do not really rely on this assumption to begin with. Instead, they stand less for the metaphysical proposition that we should refrain from blaming and punishing the non-responsible and more for the normative/ethical proposition that we should refrain from blaming and punishing those whom we cannot reasonably expect to have acted better. I will further argue that the latter proposition does not necessarily reduce to the former. -/- Fourth, once I have defended my account of the excuses, I will question in Parts V and VI the increasingly popular notion that we should add certain conditions or circumstances to the list of recognized excuses. I will focus on one in particular — the psychological theory of “situationism” — and will argue that, despite its initial plausibility, it should be kept off the list. While situationism arguably does negate moral responsibility, it does not negate criminal responsibility. -/- Of course, this is a controversial point. Criminal responsibility is almost universally thought to require moral responsibility. But in a previous article, "Dangerous Psychopaths: Criminally Responsible But Not Morally Responsible, Subject to Criminal Punishment And to Preventive Detention," 48 San Diego L. Rev. 1299, I used personality psychology to drive a wedge between the two. In this article, I will use the opposite end of the psychological spectrum — social psychology — to drive the same important wedge. (shrink)

Este artigo prolonga a análise do argumento apresentado por Descartes em favor da primeira certeza no início da Segunda Meditação, iniciada em um artigo anterior. É examinada a passagem subsequente ao referido argumento com vistas a estabelecer que sua compreensão aponta para um debate velado entre Descartes e seus leitores versa- dos na doutrina escolástica, mais particularmente nas concepções da definição como estruturada pela composição do gênero e da diferença e de específica e de conceito universal abstrato. Procuro mostrar que (...) as razões que Des- cartes dispõe para recusar essas concepções podem ser extraídas de certa interpretação do argumento em favor da certeza da proposição eu existo e que essa recusa é imprescindível para a compreensão adequada do penso, logo existo e, portanto, de seu argumento em favor do dualismo. -/- RESUMÉE: Cet article prolonge l´analyse, publiée dans un article précédent, sur l'argumentation cartésienne qui le conduit à la première certitude au début de la Seconde Méditation. Je propose une interprétation du passage, qui vient juste après cet argument, où Descartes décline la réponse « animal rational » à la question sur sa nature. Ce passage, comme j'essaierai de le montrer, cache un dialogue masqué entre l'auteur et ses lecteurs ayant une formation scolastique. Plus particulièrement, il s'agit de montrer que la critique de Descartes vise de façon plus générale la conception de la définition par genre et différence spécifique, ainsi que la notion de concept en tant qu’universal abstrait. Les raisons qui peuvent justifier cette critique et la rendre plus qu’un simple préjugé de la part de Descartes sont ici puisées dans l'interprétation de l'argumentation cartésienne en faveur de la première certitude, proposée auparavant. On verra alors que la compréhension correcte de ce qui est en question dans ce texte révèle une condition capitale et pour l' acceptation du je pense, donc j'existe et donc pour son raisonnement en faveur du dualisme. (shrink)

Ce texte propose une justification de la critique que Spinoza adresse à Descartes, par l’intermédiaire de Louis Meyer, dans la Préface des Principes de la Philosophie de Descartes ; plus particulièrement, il s’agit de reconstruire ses raisons pour affirmer qu’il n’a pas été prouvé, dans la Seconde Méditation, que la chose qui est désignée par le terme ‘je’ puisse être une substance. L’argument qui doit soutenir cette affirma- tion peut être schématisé de la façon suivante : Descartes ne peut introduire (...) un indice temporel dans la certitude de la proposition Je suis, j’existe que s’il accepte que la compréhension de cette proposition enveloppe la possibilité de l’existence d’autres choses pensantes finies, ce qui contredit l’unes des conditions de la conception d’une chose comme substance, telles que lui-même les a définies dans l’article 60 de la première partie des Principes de la Philosophie. (shrink)

This article aims to deepen the question of atheism within Primo Levi’s work from a philosophical point of view. Taking into account the current debate on the «sacred» in Levi’s moral reflection, instead I propose an opposite perspective, according to which atheism stands for both the conditio sine qua non and the landing place of his ethics. At first, I aim to reconstruct the way in which Levi articulates the disassociation between God and Evil, underling how, according to Levi, the (...) concept of Providence is not only illogical, but particularly immoral. Such a perspective evokes a certain affinity with the atheistic tradition which opposed to Christian theodicy over modern philosophy. The conclusion is devoted to an in-depth analysis of the meaning of «Luck» as the only plausible ethical reason for survival. (shrink)

The external world sceptic tells some familiar narratives involving massive deception. Perhaps we are brains in vats. Perhaps we are the victim of a deceitful demon. You know the drill. The sceptic proceeds by observing first that victims of such deceptions know nothing about their external environment and that second, since we cannot rule out being a victim of such deceptions our- selves, our own external world beliefs fail to attain the status of knowledge. Discussions of global external world scepticism (...) tend to focus on the second step, where a number of well-known lines of resistance have been offered. But there has been little attention to the first, seemingly innocuous step. That will be the focus of this paper. Part one – sections 1, 2, and 3 – will explain why these standard narratives are not convincing examples of cases where there is no knowledge of the external world. In part two – section 4 – we shall undertake a useful case study. David Lewis’s ‘Elusive Knowledge’ is often thought of as presenting an epistemological vision that is somewhat friendly to external world scepticism: as Lewis himself presents things, there are contexts where external world knowledge ascriptions are uniformly false, and where true knowledge ascriptions are limited to either axiomatic truths or truths about our inner life. We examine his discussion in the light of the preceding reflections and show that the framework he presents is not so concessionary to global external world scepticism after all. (shrink)

Pierre Levy è un professore di filosofia dell’Università di Parigi VIII a Saint-Denis che si è formato alla Sorbona seguendo i corsi dei maestri, M. Serres e C. Castoriadis. I suoi interessi di studio sono rivolti alle trasformazioni dello sviluppo tecnologico nell’ambito delle forme della conoscenza e della comunicazione e alle conseguenze economiche e politiche del nuovo cyberspazio sull’evoluzione antropologica e sociale. Pierre Levy esamina, quindi, i processi basilari del processo di globalizzazione su cui si concentrano le scienze (...) sociali; ma a suo modo, da intellettuale francese che «non aspira all’esattezza storica o scientifica, ma alla fecondità filosofica e pratica». L’intelligenza collettiva. Per un'antropologia del cyberspazio (1994) si presenta come un'opera suggestiva che contiene riflessioni lucide in un linguaggio personalizzato, con concessioni liriche imbarazzati e con una narrazione ridondante. Tuttavia, in questa opera così eterodossa, è possibile ritrovare un nucleo di analisi sociologica che affonda alcune delle sue premesse nella teoria dell’evoluzione dei sistemi sociali. Nella prima parte ,presento la teoria degli spazi antropologici , da una prospettiva diacronica: gli spazi antropologici – Terra, Territorio, Merci, Sapere – corrispondono a sviluppi evolutivi della specie umana - società primitive,antiche, moderne e contemporanee - in un processo discontinuo di significazione della riproduzione simbolica e materiale. Nell’analisi dello Spazio del sapere, si evidenzia come il consolidarsi del nuovo cyberspazio potrebbe ridefinire l’organizzazione e lo sviluppo degli spazi precedenti e si sottolineano le finalità pratiche della complessa prospettiva di Pierre Lévy (A): «una filosofia politica degna di questo nome non può accontentarsi di analizzare e sezionare una situazione senza assumersi il rischio di indicare una via di uscita adeguata». L’ambito dell’analisi diventa, infine, quello delle relazioni armoniche e cacofoniche tra i differenti spazi antropologici con la riuscita metafora dei quattro punti cardinali (B). (shrink)

Durante le celebrazioni per il centenario della nascita di Primo Levi del 2019 anche importanti riviste cattoliche, come "Civiltà Cattolica" e "Vita e Pensiero", sono tornate a riflettere sull'opera, il pensiero e la testimonianza dello scrittore torinese. Questo contributo cerca di ricostruire pertanto la ricezione di Primo Levi nel mondo cattolico . Dopo un breve inquadramento storico del complicato rapporto tra Chiesa e Shoah, si evidenzieranno le strutture interpretative che hanno caratterizzato la lettura delle opere di Levi in ambito cattolico (...) in un arco temporale che va dal 1963 al 2019. Letture che operano un'interessante movimento di appropriazione non privo tuttavia di importanti problematicità che meritano di essere evidenziate e meditate. La parte finale del saggio ricostruirà l'ateismo di Primo Levi, mettendo in luce come il rapporto tra Primo Levi e la cultura cattolica sia caratterizzato tanto da comunanze fondamentali, quanto da una distanza irriducibile. (shrink)

Contrary to what he expected, Primo Levi didn’t experience his life after being released from Auschwitz as cheerful and light-hearted. He – like many other survivors – was haunted by an obscure and solid anguish. It took some effort for him to discern the object or source of this anguish. He finally identified it as springing from a sense of shame or guilt in front of the drowned, that is, of those who were exterminated in the Lager. He could not (...) determine, however, whether his shame or guilt was at all rational. In this paper l examine Levi’s shame in light of what I regard as the dominant conception of practical deliberation, according to which principles and emotional detachment are central to our ability to deliberate appropriately. This conception underlies the role that John Rawls ascribes to the original position in the determination of the fundamental principles of justice. Deliberation in the original position is supposed to abstract away from any particular moral situations that one may actually have faced, since these are purely circumstantial elements to be discarded as both irrelevant and misleading for a proper deliberation on the principles of justice. In this paper, I intend both to make a case against the conception of practical deliberation on which Rawls’ original position relies and to vindicate the rationality of Levi’s shame, once some well-entrenched assumptions are brought to light and challenged. (shrink)

It is well known that the nature of consciousness is elusive, and that attempts to understand it generate problems in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, psychology, and neuroscience. Less appreciated are the important – even if still elusive – connections between consciousness and issues in ethics. In this chapter we consider three such connections. First, we consider the relevance of consciousness for questions surrounding an entity’s moral status. Second, we consider the relevance of consciousness for questions surrounding moral responsibility for action. (...) Third, we consider the relevance of consciousness for the acquisition of moral knowledge. (shrink)

A partire dall’incontro con l’opera di Darwin agli inizi degli anni Trenta, Primo Levi eleverà le scienze naturali a incrollabile a priori ontologico della sua riflessione etica e politica. Ciò che si intende mostrare è quanto una solida e consapevole conoscenza del darwinismo abbia costituito il “filtro di lettura” principale della riflessione su Auschwitz compiuta in Se questo è un uomo. È in quest’ottica che il binomio sommersi-salvati, vero e proprio nucleo del pensiero di Levi, rivela tutta la sua portata (...) concettuale. Quest’ultimo rappresenta infatti la risultante socio-antropologica delle leggi inegualitarie della vita, in opposizione alle quali Levi concepisce la disperata necessità della lotta umana contro i limiti dolorosi della materia vivente. Nelle opere della maturità, il naturalismo continuerà a fornire a Levi gli strumenti di base per l’elaborazione di originali soluzioni concettuali a problemi filosofici cruciali come l’origine della aggressività umana, la natura del male politico, il rapporto umano-animale e il nesso natura-civiltà. (shrink)

It is often argued that development aid can and should compensate the restrictions on migration. Such compensation, Shachar has recently argued, should be levied as a tax on citizenship to further the global equality of opportunity. Since citizenship is essentially a ‘birthright lottery’, that is, a way of legalizing privileges obtained by birth, it would be fair to compensate the resulting gap in opportunities available to children born in rich versus poor countries by a ‘birthright privilege levy’. This article (...) sets out a defence of three theses. The first states that equality of opportunity is incompatible with, and cannot be achieved in, segregated territories. The second posits that to believe that material equality compensates the injustice of restrictions on movement is to commit a ‘sedentarist mistake’. The third affirms that any citizenship levy, including the egalitarian and non-sedentarist formula I’m proposing, would be better understood as a penalty rather than a tax. (shrink)

How does valuing something for its own sake differ from valuing an entity for the sake of other things? Although numerous answers come to mind, many of them rule out substantive views about what is valuable for its own sake. I therefore seek to provide a more neutral way to distinguish the two valuing attitudes. Drawing from existing accounts of valuing, I argue that the two can be distinguished in terms of a conative-volitional feature. Focusing first on “non-final valuing”—i.e. valuing_ (...) x_ for the sake of something else—I argue that it involves adopting certain reasons on account of a desire for _x_ to contribute to other things. I then show how this contrasts final valuing. The result, I argue, is a plausible account of how the two modes of valuing differ that leaves open substantive views about what all can be valued for its own sake. This is helpful because it develops a popular methodology used to explore the value of a wide range of things, including natural entities, family heirlooms, and artworks, as well as, more broadly, entities that might have “extrinsic final value.”. (shrink)

La questione antropologica è sicuramente uno dei temi più dibattuti all’interno degli studi filosofici attorno all’opera di Primo Levi. L’obbiettivo del presente contributo è quello di offrire una lettura darwiniana del modo in cui lo scrittore torinese ha definito il complesso rapporto tra umano e non-umano. A mio parere, analizzare il pensiero antropologico di Levi a partire dalle tesi psicologico-evoluzioniste esposte da Darwin in The Descent of Man permette infatti di risolvere le contraddizioni e le aporie in cui sembrano cadere (...) alcune interpretazioni post-umaniste e umaniste. L’ipotesi di un Primo Levi ‘lettore di The Descent of Man’ verrà qui indagata sia dal punto di vista filologico sia da quello argomentativo e concettuale. (shrink)

This paper explores some consequences of Lewis’s (Australas J Philos 74(4):549–567, 1996) understanding of how knowledge is compartmentalized. It argues, first, that he underestimates how badly it impacts his view. When knowledge is compartmentalized, it lacks at least one of two essential features of Lewis’s account: (a) Elusiveness—familiar skeptical possibilities, when relevant, are incompatible with everyday knowledge. (b) Knowledge is a modality—when a thinker knows that p, there is no relevant possibility where p is false. Lewis proposes compartmentalized knowledge to (...) keep treating knowledge as a modality while mitigating one of its unrealistic epistemological implications: In normal modal epistemic logic (and standard possible world semantics), a thinker always counts as knowing the strongest proposition that follows from the set of all the individual propositions that this thinker knows. Lewis’s compartmentalization proposal is that thinkers merely know the conjunctions of propositions that are known in each of, but not across, their compartments. The irony is that in avoiding overblown knowledge the view now allows for thinkers to attend to skeptical error possibilities and yet knowledge is present. The account avoids inflation of knowledge in one sense only to acquire another type of knowledge the view denies subjects can have. This problem motivates an inspection of knowledge accounts whose intra-compartment closure principles are weaker than those that are valid in normal modal-logic. The conclusion is that some formulations of closure can avoid the challenge Lewis’s view faces. Nevertheless, even these closure principles pose a barrier—perhaps an implausible barrier—for knowledge of ignorance. Even when the reasoning supporting the lack of knowledge is sound, a subject cannot always know she doesn’t know. Interestingly, this obstacle is one that knowledge of knowledge doesn’t seem to face. (shrink)

The principle of epistemic closure is the claim that what is known to follow from knowledge is known to be true. This intuitively plausible idea is endorsed by a vast majority of knowledge theorists. There are significant problems, however, that have to be addressed if epistemic closure – closed knowledge – is endorsed. The present essay locates the problem for closed knowledge in the separation it imposes between knowledge and evidence. Although it might appear that all that stands between knowing (...) the truth of the premises of a valid inference and knowledge of its conclusion is inferring it from the premises, the evidence for each of the premises may jointly count against the conclusion. The intuitive view regarding inferred knowledge says one thing, the evidence says another. One epistemological framework that seems to have the resources to resolve this tension endorses the view that knowledge always requires conclusive evidence. A second framework resolves the tension by limiting the scope of the closure principle. Only inferences drawn directly from propositions contained in the scope of a single knowledge operator are considered closed. The aim of the present essay is to revive the unpopular third option, the idea that knowledge is open. The essay proceeds by arguing that in different ways the two former frameworks only succeed in relocating the problem, not in resolving it. The first framework, the infallibilist view, relocates the problem to a sharp separation between knowledge of the occurrences of events from knowledge of their chance of occurring, a separation leading to several significant additional problems. The fallibilist view, the second framework, in endorsing closure neglects to take into full account the ways in which evidence fails to be transitive. For instance, evidence can count in favor of a conjunction while counting against each of its conjuncts. This fact, which is argued for in the essay on probabilistic as well as non-probabilistic grounds, is used as the foundation of an argument against closed knowledge that can be used as a way to understand several of the most fundamental challenges of epistemology. Not only can an open knowledge view that is based on open evidence resolve all these problems in a simple and natural way, it can also respond to formidable challenges that significantly hinder other open knowledge views. There are good reasons, then, to view both knowledge and evidence as open. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) have attracted extensive attention in meta-ethics, as they pose an important challenge to moral realism. Mogensen (2015) suggests that EDAs contain a fallacy, by confusing two distinct forms of biological explanation – ultimate and proximate. If correct, the point is of considerable importance: evolutionary genealogies of human morality are simply irrelevant for debunking. But we argue that the actual situation is subtler: while ultimate claims do not strictly entail proximate ones, there are important evidential connections between (...) the two. Attending to these connections clears ground for a new and improved EDA. However, it also brings into view some possible problems with EDAs that have been largely neglected so far. (shrink)

This study analyzed the monitoring and evaluation of HIV/AIDS prevention programs in Southern Senatorial District of Cross River State, Nigeria. The study considered different levels of care/support and tested for locational variations in the monitoring/evaluation of HIV/AIDs prevention programs. A descriptive survey research design was utilized. This study covered 596 public health employees (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and laboratory employees) in the study area. A sample of 239 respondents was chosen using the proportional stratified random sampling procedure. Data was collected using (...) a questionnaire constructed by the researchers and validated by specialists. Data gathered were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results indicated that HIV/AIDs programs have been successfully monitored/evaluated to a high extent. High rates of success in the monitoring/evaluation of HIV/AIDs prevention programs are attributable to high rates of care/support provided to people living with HIV/AIDs. There was a significant variation in the monitoring/evaluation of HIV/AIDs prevention programs based on the location of health facilities, with higher rates recorded for urban areas. Based on the findings, it was concluded that the monitoring/evaluation of HIV/AIDs prevention programs in the Southern Senatorial District of Cross River State had recorded a significant level of success. The study recommended, among others, that there should be even distribution of medical facilities, resources and personnel to both urban and rural areas to promote equity and access to materials needed to contain or mitigate the spread of the pandemic across all locations. (shrink)

Libertarians like Robert Kane believe that indeterminism is necessaryfor free will. They think this in part because they hold both (1) thatmy being the ultimate cause of at least part of myself is necessary forfree will and (2) that indeterminism is necessary for this ``ultimateself-causation''. But seductive and intuitive as this ``USCLibertarianism'' may sound, it is untenable. In the end, nometaphysically coherent (not to mention empirically valid) conception ofultimate self-causation is available. So the basic intuition motivatingthe USC Libertarian is ultimately (...) impossible to fulfill. (shrink)

I defend an interpretation of the first Critique’s category of totality based on Kant’s analysis of totality in the third Critique’s Analytic of the mathematical sublime. I show, firstly, that in the latter Kant delineates the category of totality — however general it may be — in relation to the essentially singular standpoint of the subject. Despite the fact that sublime and categorial totality have a significantly different scope and function, they do share such a singular baseline. Secondly, I argue (...) that Kant’s note (in the first Critique’s metaphysical deduction) that deriving the category of totality requires a special act of the understanding can be seen as a ‘mark’ of that singular baseline. This way, my aesthetical ‘detour’ has the potential of revealing how the subjective aspects of object-constitution might be accounted for in the very system of the categories (of quantity) itself. (shrink)

A tese de que o conceito espinosista de ideia de afecção, introduzido na Ética, expressa o sentido mais preciso do que seja, para o autor, o conceito de ideia da imaginação. Este texto pretende problematizar essa leitura, procurando fornecer subsídios para a hipótese de que ela não é nem inequivocamente corroborada pelo texto da Ética, nem exigida pela doutrina aí apresentada. -/- It is widely accepted by scholars that Spinoza’s concept of idea of affection, introduced in the Ethics, states his (...) notion of the idea of imagination. In this paper I address this reading, claiming that it is not either unequivocally corroborated by the text of the Ethics, or required by the doctrine developed there. (shrink)

The law views with suspicion statistical evidence, even evidence that is probabilistically on a par with direct, individual evidence that the law is in no way suspicious of. But it has proved remarkably hard to either justify this suspicion, or to debunk it. In this paper, we connect the discussion of statistical evidence to broader epistemological discussions of similar phenomena. We highlight Sensitivity – the requirement that a belief be counterfactually sensitive to the truth in a specific way – as (...) a way of epistemically explaining the legal suspicion towards statistical evidence. Still, we do not think of this as a satisfactory vindication of the reluctance to rely on statistical evidence. Knowledge – and Sensitivity, and indeed epistemology in general – are of little, if any, legal value. Instead, we tell an incentive-based story vindicating the suspicion towards statistical evidence. We conclude by showing that the epistemological story and the incentive-based story are closely and interestingly related, and by offering initial thoughts about the role of statistical evidence in morality. (shrink)

People are often offended by beliefs, expect apologies for beliefs, apologize for their own beliefs. In many mundane cases, people are morally criticized for their beliefs. Intuitively, then, beliefs seem to sometimes wrong people. Recently, the philosophical literature has picked up on this theme, and has started to discuss it under the heading of doxastic wrongdoing. In this paper we argue that despite the strength of such initial intuitions, at the end of the day they have to be rejected. If (...) it can be ever truthfully asserted that beliefs wrong, this is always derivative – beliefs wrong only in virtue of other things (like evidence-gathering actions) wronging. We distinguish between modest and ambitious doxastic wrongdoing theories (the former deny, while the latter accept, the possibility of a morally wrong yet epistemically permissible belief); we argue that each of these options faces insurmountable problems; and we offer partly debunking explanations of the intuitions purportedly supporting doxastic wrongdoing. (shrink)

Statistical evidence—say, that 95% of your co-workers badmouth each other—can never render resenting your colleague appropriate, in the way that other evidence (say, the testimony of a reliable friend) can. The problem of statistical resentment is to explain why. We put the problem of statistical resentment in several wider contexts: The context of the problem of statistical evidence in legal theory; the epistemological context—with problems like the lottery paradox for knowledge, epistemic impurism and doxastic wrongdoing; and the context of a (...) wider set of examples of responses and attitudes that seem not to be appropriately groundable in statistical evidence. Regrettably, we do not come up with a fully general, fully adequate, fully unified account of all the phenomena discussed. But we give reasons to believe that no such account is forthcoming, and we sketch a somewhat messier account that may be the best that can be had here. (shrink)

Many scientists and philosophers of science think that beauty should play a role in theory selection. Physicists like Paul Dirac and Steven Weinberg explicitly claim that the ultimate explanations of the physical world must be beautiful. And philosophers of science like Peter Lipton say that we should expect the loveliest theory to also be the most likely. In this paper, I contend that these arguments from loveliness bear a striking similarity to Thomas Aquinas’ arguments from fittingness; both seem to presume (...) that the most beautiful theory is also the most probable. To do this, I first explain the explanatory virtues that are commonly thought to be constitutive of a lovely theory. Second, I elucidate Aquinas’ arguments from fittingness and show how they work in light of his account of beauty. Lastly, I connect the two kinds of aesthetic arguments and show the extent to which they overlap. (shrink)

Available reports provide an account of academic staff’s poor job performance in higher education institutions and universities in particular. Consequently, a growing body of research has been attracted to this area, including those seeking ways to understand the problem and others aimed at proffering solutions. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the influence of occupational stress on the job performance of academic staff in universities. Three null hypotheses directed the study in line with the quantitative ex-post facto research (...) design. A sample of 150 respondents was obtained using the systematic random sampling technique from a population of 400 lecturers in the Faculty of Education from two public universities in Nigeria. A 31-item questionnaire was used for data collection. The null hypotheses were tested at the .05 alpha level using simple linear regression analysis. It was revealed that remuneration is a significant positive predictor of academic staff job performance. The prediction of workload was negatively non-significant on the job performance of academics. The provision of institutional amenities has a positive but non-significant prediction on academic staff job performance in the two public universities. It was concluded that occupational stress significantly influences the job performance of lecturers in universities. The study recommended that the government constantly pay lecturers’ salaries as and when due. Institutional managers should reward lecturers with outstanding performance to boost their morale for effective service delivery. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn a recent paper, Michael Pardo argues that the epistemic property that is legally relevant is the one called Safety, rather than Sensitivity. In the process, he argues against our Sensitivity-related account of statistical evidence. Here we revisit these issues, partly in order to respond to Pardo, and partly in order to make general claims about legal epistemology. We clarify our account, we show how it adequately deals with counterexamples and other worries, we raise suspicions about Safety's value here, and (...) we revisit our general skepticism about the role that epistemological considerations should play in determining legal policy. (shrink)

We explicate and evaluate arguments both for and against the insanity defense itself, different versions of the insanity defense (M'Naghten, Model Penal Code, and Durham (or Product)), the Irresistible Impulse rule, and various reform proposals.

We present a puzzle about knowledge, probability and conditionals. We show that in certain cases some basic and plausible principles governing our reasoning come into conflict. In particular, we show that there is a simple argument that a person may be in a position to know a conditional the consequent of which has a low probability conditional on its antecedent, contra Adams’ Thesis. We suggest that the puzzle motivates a very strong restriction on the inference of a conditional from a (...) disjunction. (shrink)

We present a minimal pragmatic restriction on the interpretation of the weights in the “Equal Weight View” regarding peer disagreement and show that the view cannot respect it. Based on this result we argue against the view. The restriction is the following one: if an agent, $$\hbox {i}$$ i, assigns an equal or higher weight to another agent, $$\hbox {j}$$ j,, he must be willing—in exchange for a positive and certain payment—to accept an offer to let a completely rational and (...) sympathetic $$\hbox {j}$$ j choose for him whether to accept a bet with positive expected utility. If $$\hbox {i}$$ i assigns a lower weight to $$\hbox {j}$$ j than to himself, he must not be willing to pay any positive price for letting $$\hbox {j}$$ j choose for him. Respecting the constraint entails, we show, that the impact of disagreement on one’s degree of belief is not independent of what the disagreement is discovered to be. (shrink)

Despite the changes in human behaviour and interactions occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, many institutions are yet to adapt to the new normal fully. While some educational institutions switched entirely to e-learning to promote teaching and learning, others could not offer education due to physical and social restrictions. Previous studies in Africa have identified reasons for the poor ICT adoption for educational purposes. However, the degree to which these factors affect ICT utilisation is barely analysed. Using a quantitative approach, this (...) study assessed ICT deployment for teaching in the COVID-19 era by focusing on their availability and challenges. A sample of 344 respondents from a population of 2,867 academic staff at two Nigerian public universities participated in the study. After receiving face validity from experts, a structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Cronbach alpha reliability indices of the questionnaire ranged from 0.72 to 0.94. Descriptive statistics (simple percentages, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (one-way ANOVA) were used for data analysis. Findings generally revealed a moderate extent in the availability of ICT resources in public universities. The cost of data, computer literacy, and electricity supply are challenges that significantly affected ICT deployment in the COVID-19 era. Based on this finding, it was concluded that personal and institutional challenges affect how ICT resources are deployed in public universities. It was recommended, among other things, that the management of each tertiary institution should apportion proceeds from internally generated revenue to procure ICT resources specific to the need of the school. The study provides the ground for further research into students’ use of ICT for educational purposes. (shrink)

The paper argues that knowledge is not closed under logical inference. The argument proceeds from the openness of evidential support and the dependence of empirical knowledge on evidence, to the conclusion that knowledge is open. Without attempting to provide a full-fledged theory of evidence, we show that on the modest assumption that evidence cannot support both a proposition and its negation, or, alternatively, that information that reduces the probability of a proposition cannot constitute evidence for its truth, the relation of (...) evidential support is not closed under known entailment. Therefore the evidence-for relation is deductively open regardless of whether evidence is probabilistic or not. Given even a weak dependence of empirical knowledge on evidence, we argue that empirical knowledge is also open. On this basis, we also respond to the strongest argument in support of knowledge closure. Finally, we present a number of significant benefits of our position, namely, offering a unified explanation for a range of epistemological puzzles. (shrink)

-/- INTRODUCTION: Many higher education students indulge in risky eating behaviours which tend to affect their physical, psychological and academic health. Previous studies have tried to understand the trend in students’ eating patterns without paying adequate attention to contributing factors. -/- PURPOSE: This study evaluated the influence of selected psychological variables on the consumption of balanced diets among students in two public universities in Calabar Metropolis, Nigeria. -/- METHODOLOGY: A research question was posed, and a formulated hypothesis to guide the (...) study. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. A total of 12,530 faculty of education students spread across two public universities in Calabar Metropolis constituted the population of this study. A sample of 125 students was randomly selected through the stratified technique. A four-point questionnaire was used for data collection after validation by experts. Descriptive statistical measures such as mean, standard deviation, and percentages answered the research question. The null hypothesis was tested at the .05 level of significance using the one-sample t-test analysis. -/- RESULTS: Findings revealed that the influence of psychological variables (such as stress, emotions, and mental state) on students’ consumption of balanced diets is not significantly low. -/- RECOMMENDATIONS/CLASSROOM IMPLICATIONS: Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that students cultivate the habit of always eating quality meals rich in nutrients, irrespective of their psychological state, to maintain a healthy life. (shrink)

The idea that knowledge can be extended by inference from what is known seems highly plausible. Yet, as shown by familiar preface paradox and lottery-type cases, the possibility of aggregating uncertainty casts doubt on its tenability. We show that these considerations go much further than previously recognized and significantly restrict the kinds of closure ordinary theories of knowledge can endorse. Meeting the challenge of uncertainty aggregation requires either the restriction of knowledge-extending inferences to single premises, or eliminating epistemic uncertainty in (...) known premises. The first strategy, while effective, retains little of the original idea—conclusions even of modus ponens inferences from known premises are not always known. We then look at the second strategy, inspecting the most elaborate and promising attempt to secure the epistemic role of basic inferences, namely Timothy Williamson’s safety theory of knowledge. We argue that while it indeed has the merit of allowing basic inferences such as modus ponens to extend knowledge, Williamson’s theory faces formidable difficulties. These difficulties, moreover, arise from the very feature responsible for its virtue- the infallibilism of knowledge. (shrink)

Before the semester begins, a teacher tells his students: “There will be exactly one exam this semester. It will not take place on a day that is an immediate-successor of a day that you are currently in a position to know is not the exam-day”. Both the students and the teacher know – it is common knowledge – that no exam can be given on the first day of the semester. Since the teacher is truthful and reliable, it seems that (...) the students can know that what he says is true. However, in that case, assuming the students can know that they know whatever it is they know (KK) and assuming their knowledge is closed under entailment (closure), the students can reason from what they know to the conclusion that no exam will take place during the semester. This conclusion contradicts what they supposedly know: that there will be an exam. This puzzle, we argue, gives rise to a new consideration for the rejection of KK. We discuss unique features of the argument, especially in comparison to Timothy Williamson's rejection of KK in light of other versions of the surprise exam paradox. (shrink)

There is a tension for those who want to simultaneously hold that Abraham’s disposition to sacrifice Isaac is epistemically justified and yet hold that a contemporary father would not be justified in believing that God is commanding him to sacrifice his son. This paper attempts to resolve that tension. While some commentators have correctly pointed out that one must take Abraham’s long relationship with God into account when considering Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son, they do not entertain the possibility (...) that his hearing this commandment is evidence against the hypothesis that Abraham is speaking to God. I grant this possibility. But I argue that when God commands Abraham to do the unthinkable, Abraham’s previously acquired evidence could still be sufficient to justify his belief that he is speaking with God. And in making this argument, I attempt to show what differentiates Abraham from the contemporary father who thinks that God is commanding him to sacrifice his son. (shrink)

In her paper, The case for physician assisted suicide: not proven, Bonnie Steinbock argues that the experience with Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act fails to demonstrate that the benefits of legalising physician assisted suicide outweigh its risks. Given that her verdict is based on a small number of highly controversial cases that will most likely occur under any regime of legally implemented safeguards, she renders it virtually impossible to prove the case for physician assisted suicide. In this brief paper, we (...) suggest some ways that may enable us to weigh the risks and benefits of legalisation more fairly and, hopefully, allow us to close the case for physician assisted suicide. (shrink)

Harman and Lewis credit Kripke with having formulated a puzzle that seems to show that knowledge entails dogmatism. The puzzle is widely regarded as having been solved. In this paper we argue that this standard solution, in its various versions, addresses only a limited aspect of the puzzle and holds no promise of fully resolving it. Analyzing this failure and the proper rendering of the puzzle, it is suggested that it poses a significant challenge for the defense of epistemic closure.

The Sleeping Beauty problem—first presented by A. Elga in a philosophical context—has captured much attention. The problem, we contend, is more aptly regarded as a paradox: apparently, there are cases where one ought to change one’s credence in an event’s taking place even though one gains no new information or evidence, or alternatively, one ought to have a credence other than 1/2 in the outcome of a future coin toss even though one knows that the coin is fair. In this (...) paper we argue for two claims. First, that Sleeping Beauty does gain potentially new relevant information upon waking up on Monday. Second, his credence shift is warranted provided it accords with a calculation that is a result of conditionalization on the relevant information: “this day is an experiment waking day” (a day within the experiment on which one is woken up). Since Sleeping Beauty knows what days d could refer to, he can calculate the probability that the referred to waking day is a Monday or a Tuesday providing an adequate resolution of the paradox. (shrink)

There are few indulgences academics can crave more than to have their work considered and addressed by leading researchers in their field. We have been fortunate to have two outstanding philosophers from whose work we have learned a great deal give ours their thoughtful attention. Grappling with Stephen Yablo’s, and Juan Comesaña’s comments and criticisms has helped us gain a better understanding of our ideas as well as their shortcomings. We are extremely grateful to them for the attentiveness and seriousness (...) with which they have considered our arguments and to philosophical studies for giving us this opportunity. Given the substantive difference between the two response papers, there is not much beyond sincere gratitude that we can covey to them jointly. We will therefore address them in turn. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson has famously argued that the principle should be rejected. We analyze Williamson's argument and show that its key premise is ambiguous, and that when it is properly stated this premise no longer supports the argument against. After canvassing possible objections to our argument, we reflect upon some conclusions that suggest significant epistemological ramifications pertaining to the acquisition of knowledge from prior knowledge by deduction.

In the wake of the spectacular success of Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice, philosophers have paid a great deal of attention to testimonial injustice. Testimonial injustice occurs when recipients of testimony discount it in virtue of its source: usually, their social identity. The remedy for epistemic injustice is almost always listening better and giving greater weight to the testimony we hear, on most philosophers' implicit or explicit view. But Fricker identifies another kind of epistemic injustice: hermeneutical injustice. This kind of injustice (...) occurs when someone can't articulate their own experience or understand their situation for lack of the hermeneutical tools. There is a possible tension between these kinds of injustice, we suggest: sincere testimony may be misleading (may fail to identify significant harms the testfier is subject, or may fail to register its magnitude, or to categorize it as the kind of harm it is) in virtue of a lack of hermeneutical resources. This tension raises the possibility that there are situations in which experts - those who possess hermeneutical tools - may be able to correct the testimony of those who experience harms in virtue of their identity. In this paper, we identify possible cases in which epistemic injustice might be reduced through such correction: in which an increase in testimonial injustice might serve to decrease it in the longer run, for example. We also suggest how the obvious dangers of a too great readiness to see testimony as in need of expert correction might be mitigated, and how the expert might suggest corrections without ceasing to listen. (shrink)

We explore consequences of the view that to know a proposition your rational credence in the proposition must exceed a certain threshold. In other words, to know something you must have evidence that makes rational a high credence in it. We relate such a threshold view to Dorr et al.’s :277–287, 2014) argument against the principle they call fair coins: “If you know a coin won’t land tails, then you know it won’t be flipped.” They argue for rejecting fair coins (...) because it leads to a pervasive skepticism about knowledge of the future. We argue that the threshold view of evidence and knowledge gives independent grounds to reject fair coins. (shrink)

Background We investigated the personal philosophies of eight persons with a tetraplegic condition (four male, four female), all living in Sweden with a chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) and all reporting a good life. Our purpose was to discover if there is a philosophical mindset that may play a role in living a good life with a traumatic SCI. Methods Two rounds of in-depth qualitative interviews were performed by the same interviewer, a philosophical practitioner by training (de Miranda). The second (...) round systematically covered the following elements: bodily sense, sense of self, sense of belonging, sense of the possible, sense of purpose and philosophical sense. This six-step method developed by de Miranda is called SMILE_PH, an acronym for Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health. Results All the interviewees, as a consequence of their trauma, reported having gone through a reinvention of themselves which implied questioning the meaning and purpose of their life in particular and life in general. A philosophical rather than realistic sense of the possible was abstracted toward teleological growth. All interviewees developed a sense of purpose based on self-interested altruism and solidarity with disabled peers. Conclusions To reinvent a good life with SCI, in addition to physical training and willpower, one needs to consider philosophical questions about the self and life, what Kant called the cosmic interests of reason: What may I hope? What must I do? What can I know? Our results indicate that we should, in the future, explore what the philosophical health approach may bring to rehabilitation processes in the months or years that follow the trauma. (shrink)

A number of concerns have been raised about the possible future use of pharmaceuticals designed to enhance cognitive, affective, and motivational processes, particularly where the aim is to produce morally better decisions or behavior. In this article, we draw attention to what is arguably a more worrying possibility: that pharmaceuticals currently in widespread therapeutic use are already having unintended effects on these processes, and thus on moral decision making and morally significant behavior. We review current evidence on the moral effects (...) of three widely used drugs or drug types: propranolol, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and drugs that effect oxytocin physiology. This evidence suggests that the alterations to moral decision making and behavior caused by these agents may have important and difficult-to-evaluate consequences, at least at the population level. We argue that the moral effects of these and other widely used pharmaceuticals warrant further empirical research and ethical analysis. (shrink)