Synthetic organisms are at the same time organisms and artifacts. In this paper we aim to determine whether such entities have a good of their own, and so are candidates for being directly morally considerable. We argue that the good of non-sentient organisms is grounded in an etiological account of teleology, on which non-sentient organisms can come to be teleologically organized on the basis of their natural selection etiology. After defending this account of teleology, we argue that there are no (...) grounds for excluding synthetic organisms from having a good also grounded in their teleological organization. However, this comes at a cost; traditional artifacts will also be seen as having a good of their own. We defend this as the best solution to the puzzle about what to say about the good of synthetic organisms. (shrink)

Recently something close to a consensus about the best way to naturalize the notion of biological function appears to be emerging. Nonetheless, teleological notions in biology remain controversial. In this paper we provide a naturalistic analysis for the notion of natural design. Many authors assume that natural design should be assimilated directly to function. Others find the notion problematic because it suggests that evolution is a directed process. We argue that both of these views are mistaken. Our naturalistic account does (...) not simply equate design with function. We argue that the distinction between function and design is important for understanding the evolution of the physical and behavioral traits of organisms. (shrink)

The present thesis explores some metaphysical issues concerning biochemical kinds and the relations between chemical and biological properties and phenomena. The main result of this thesis is that there is something sui generis about biochemical kinds. This result is motivated by two theoretical steps. The first is characterising biochemical functions as weakly emergent from the chemical structure [Chapter 3, Chapter 6]. The second is via an account for which biochemical kinds are natural categories [Chapter 4, Chapter 7]. The thesis comprises (...) four parts. Part I [Chapter 1, Chapter 2] aims to offer the methodological and conceptual tools that underpin this research. Chapter 1 presents the debate on the unity of science and the motivation of the research. Chapter 2 presents the account of natural kinds that will be used throughout the thesis. Part II [Chapter 3, Chapter 4] offers a detailed metaphysical analysis of the molecular gene. Chapter 3 argues that molecular genes are weakly emergent from nucleic acids. Chapter 4 argues that the category "molecular gene" can be deemed a natural kind, following the account presented in Chapter 2. Part III [Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7] explores some of the themes related to biochemical kinds and generalises some of the results from Part II. Chapter 5 considers biochemical functions and how functional attribution should be interpreted for biochemical molecules. Chapter 6 considers the relation between biochemical functions and structure, spelt in terms of weak emergence and explores unity in biochemistry. Chapter 7 considers the topic of biochemical kinds per se and argues that biochemical kinds are natural categories. Part IV [Chapter 8] elucidates the main outcome and the implications that this research can have for future discussion in the philosophy and metaphysics of biochemistry and the unity of science. (shrink)

This is a short overview of the biological functions debate in philosophy. While it was fairly comprehensive when it was written, my short book ​A Critical Overview of Biological Functions has largely supplanted it as a definitive and up-to-date overview of the debate, both because the book takes into account new developments since then, and because the length of the book allowed me to go into substantially more detail about existing views.

Following Mayr (1961) evolutionary biologists often maintain that the hallmark of biology is its evolutionary perspective. In this view, biologists distinguish themselves from other natural scientists by their emphasis on why-questions. Why-questions are legitimate in biology but not in other natural sciences because of the selective character of the process by means of which living objects acquire their characteristics. For that reason, why-questions should be answered in terms of natural selection. Functional biology is seen as a reductionist science that applies (...) physics and chemistry to answer how-questions but lacks a biological point of view of its own. In this paper I dispute this image of functional biology. A close look at the kinds of issues studied in biology and at the way in which these issues are studied shows that functional biology employs a distinctive biological perspective that is not rooted in selection. This functional perspective is characterized by its concern with the requirements of the life-state and the way in which these are met. (shrink)

This article deals with a type of functional explanation, viability explanation, that has been overlooked in recent philosophy of science. Viability explanations relate traits of organisms and their environments in terms of what an individual needs to survive and reproduce. I show that viability explanations are neither causal nor historical and that, therefore, they should be accounted for as a distinct type of explanation.

This paper reviews the debate on the notion of biological function and on functional explanation as this takes place in philosophy. It describes the different perspectives, issues, intuitions, theories and arguments that have emerged. The author shows that the debate has been too heavily influenced by the concerns of a naturalistic philosophy of mind and argues that in order to improve our understanding of biology the attention should be shifted from the study of intuitions to the study of the actual (...) practice of biological inquiry. (shrink)

I argue that there are at least four different ways in which the term ‘function’ is used in connection with the study of living organisms, namely: function as activity, function as biological role, function as biological advantage, and function as selected effect. Notion refers to what an item does by itself; refers to the contribution of an item or activity to a complex activity or capacity of an organism; refers to the value for the organism of an item having a (...) certain character rather than another; refers to the way in which a trait acquired and has maintained its current share in the population. The recognition of a separate notion of function as biological advantage solves the problem of the indeterminate reference situation that has been raised against a counterfactual analysis of function, and emphasizes the importance of counterfactual comparison in the explanatory practice of organismal biology. This reveals a neglected problem in the philosophy of biology, namely that of accounting for the insights provided by counterfactual comparison. (shrink)

I argue that there are at least four different ways in which the term ‘function’ is used in connection with the study of living organisms, namely: function as activity, function as biological role, function as biological advantage, and function as selected effect. Notion refers to what an item does by itself; refers to the contribution of an item or activity to a complex activity or capacity of an organism; refers to the value for the organism of an item having a (...) certain character rather than another; refers to the way in which a trait acquired and has maintained its current share in the population. The recognition of a separate notion of function as biological advantage solves the problem of the indeterminate reference situation that has been raised against a counterfactual analysis of function, and emphasizes the importance of counterfactual comparison in the explanatory practice of organismal biology. This reveals a neglected problem in the philosophy of biology, namely that of accounting for the insights provided by counterfactual comparison. (shrink)

According to historical theories of biological function, a trait's function is determined by natural selection in the past. I argue that, in addition to historical functions, ahistorical functions ought to be recognized. I propose a theory of biological function which accommodates both. The function of a trait is the way it contributes to fitness and fitness can only be determined relative to a selective regime. Therefore, the function of a trait can only be specified relative to a selective regime. Apart (...) from its desirable pluralism, only this view of relational function can support the function/accident and function/malfunction distinctions commonly thought to be part of the concept of function. Furthermore, only relational function correctly characterizes the explanatory consequences of function attributions in evolutionary biology. (shrink)

There are two general approaches to characterising biological functions. One originates with Cummins. According to this approach, the function of a part of a system is just its causal contribution to some specified activity of the system. Call this the ‘C-function’ concept. The other approach ties the function of a trait to some aspect of its evolutionary significance. Call this the ‘E-function’ concept. According to the latter view, a trait's function is determined by the forces of natural selection. The C-function (...) and E-function concepts are clearly quite different, but there is an important relation between them which heretofore has gone unnoticed. The purpose of this paper is to outline that relation.This is not the first paper to discuss the relation of C-function and E-function. Previous attempts all follow either one of two strategies. The first proposes that the two concepts are ‘unified.’ The other proposes that they are radically distinct and apply to wholly different fields within biology. (shrink)

Functional hypotheses about animal signalling often refer to mental states of the sender or the receiver. Mental states are functional categorizations of neurophysiological states. Functional questions about animal signals are intertwined with causal questions. This interrelationship is illustrated in regard to avian distraction displays. In purposive signalling, the sender has a goal of influencing the behavior of the receiver. Purposive signalling is innovative if the sender's goal is unrelated to the biological function of the signal. This may be the case (...) in some instances of false alarm calling. Biological functionalism differs from philosophical functionalism in its concept of identity and in the specification of relevant inputs and outputs. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss recent debates concerning etiological theories of functions. I defend an etiological theory against two criticisms, namely the ability to account for malfunction, and the problem of structural doubles. I then consider the arguments provided by Bigelow and Pargetter (1987) for a more forward looking account of functions as propensities or dispositions. I argue that their approach fails to address the explanatory problematic for which etiological theories were developed.

Biological knowledge does not fit the image of science that philosophers have developed. Many argue that biology has no laws. Here I criticize standard normative accounts of law and defend an alternative, pragmatic approach. I argue that a multidimensional conceptual framework should replace the standard dichotomous law/ accident distinction in order to display important differences in the kinds of causal structure found in nature and the corresponding scientific representations of those structures. To this end I explore the dimensions of stability, (...) strength, and degree of abstraction that characterize the variety of scientific knowledge claims found in biology and other sciences. (shrink)

Teleological explanations (TEs) account for the existence or properties of an entity in terms of a function: we have hearts because they pump blood, and telephones for communication. While many teleological explanations seem appropriate, others are clearly not warranted-for example, that rain exists for plants to grow. Five experiments explore the theoretical commitments that underlie teleological explanations. With the analysis of [Wright, L. (1976). Teleological Explanations. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press] from philosophy as a point of departure, we examine (...) in Experiment 1 whether teleological explanations are interpreted causally, and confirm that TEs are only accepted when the function invoked in the explanation played a causal role in bringing about what is being explained. However, we also find that playing a causal role is not sufficient for all participants to accept TEs. Experiment 2 shows that this is not because participants fail to appreciate the causal structure of the scenarios used as stimuli. In Experiments 3-5 we show that the additional requirement for TE acceptance is that the process by which the function played a causal role must be general in the sense of conforming to a predictable pattern. These findings motivate a proposal, Explanation for Export, which suggests that a psychological function of explanation is to highlight information likely to subserve future prediction and intervention. We relate our proposal to normative accounts of explanation from philosophy of science, as well as to claims from psychology and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Constitutivist accounts in metaethics explain the normative standards in a domain by appealing to the constitutive features of its members. The success of these accounts turns on whether they can explain the connection between normative standards and the nature of individuals they authoritatively govern. Many such explanations presuppose that any member of a norm-governed kind must minimally satisfy the norms governing its kind. I call this the Threshold Commitment, and argue that constitutivists should reject it. First, it requires constitutivists to (...) restrict the scope of their explanatory ambitions, because it is not plausibly true of social kinds. Second, despite the frequent reliance on physical artifacts in constitutivists’ illustrations of the Threshold Commitment, it counter-intuitively entails that physical artifacts can cease to exist without being physically destroyed. Third, it misconstrues the normative force of authoritative norms on very defective kind-members because it locates this force not in the norm, but in the threat of non-existence. Fortunately, constitutivism can be decoupled from the Threshold Commitment, and I close by sketching a promising alternative account. (shrink)

I distinguish two forms of pluralism about biological functions, between-discipline pluralism and within-discipline pluralism. Between-discipline pluralism holds that different theories of function are appropriate for different subdisciplines of biology and psychology. I provide reasons for rejecting this view. Instead, I recommend within-discipline pluralism, which emphasizes the plurality of function concepts at play within any given subdiscipline of biology and psychology.

Biochemical kinds such as proteins pose interesting problems for philosophers of science, as they can be studied from the points of view of both biology and chemistry. The relationship between the biological functions of biochemical kinds and the microstructures that they are related to is the key question. This leads us to a more general discussion about ontological reductionism, microstructuralism, and multiple realization at the biology-chemistry interface. On the face of it, biochemical kinds seem to pose a challenge for ontological (...) reductionism and hence motivate a dual theory of chemical and biological kinds, a type of pluralism about natural kinds. But it will be argued that the challenge, which is based on multiple realization, can be addressed. The upshot is that there are reasonable prospects for ontological reductionism about biochemical kinds, which corroborates natural kind monism. (shrink)

Recently the functional model of reduction has become something like the standard model of reduction in philosophy of mind. In this paper, I argue that the functional model fails as an account of reduction due to problems related to three key concepts: functionalization, realization and causation. I further argue that if we try to revise the model in order to make it more coherent and scientifically plausible, the result is merely a simplified version of what in philosophy of science is (...) known as mechanistic explanation. Hence, instead of analyzing reduction in philosophy of mind in terms of functional reduction, it should be analyzed in terms of mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

We argue that ecology in general and biodiversity and ecosystem function research in particular need an understanding of functions which is both ahistorical and evolutionarily grounded. A natural candidate in this context is Bigelow and Pargetter’s evolutionary forward-looking account which, like the causal role account, assigns functions to parts of integrated systems regardless of their past history, but supplements this with an evolutionary dimension that relates functions to their bearers’ ability to thrive and perpetuate themselves. While Bigelow and Pargetter’s account (...) focused on functional organization at the level of organisms, we argue that such an account can be extended to functional organization at the community and ecosystem levels in a way that broadens the scope of the reconciliation between ecosystem ecology and evolutionary biology envisioned by many BEF researchers. By linking an evolutionary forward-looking account of functions to the persistence-based understanding of evolution defended by Bouchard and others, and to the theoretical research on complex adaptive systems, we argue that ecosystems, by forming more or less resilient assemblages, can evolve even while they do not reproduce and form lineages. We thus propose a Persistence Enhancing Propensity account of role functions in ecology to account for this overlap of evolutionary and ecological processes. (shrink)

Dignity is traditionally thought to apply to almost all and almost only humans. However, I argue that an account of a distinctly human dignity cannot achieve a coherent and non-arbitrary justification; either it must exclude some humans or include some nonhumans. This conclusion is not as worrying as might be first thought. Rather than attempting to vindicate human dignity, dignity should extend beyond the human, to include a range of nonhuman animals. Not only can we develop a widely inclusive account (...) of dignity by pursuing this route, but we can still defend the three core principles that lie at the heart of contemporary thinking about dignity: that bearers of dignity possess dignity to an equal degree, in virtue of possessing the same intrinsic worth, and that this generates direct and claimable rights. I thus develop an account of dignity that includes nonhuman animals. I argue that the capacity to value most plausibly grounds dignity. This capacity arises from valenced sentience: a being values insofar as they have experiences that matter to them. I then characterise what follows from this. First, I contend that it is only the capacity to value grounds dignity because this produces the most plausible, simplest, and most explanatorily powerful account of dignity. We ought to reject pluralist accounts which assert a sharp distinction between bearers and non-bearers of rational agency, and biocentric accounts which include non-sentient organic entities. Second, I argue this property grounds an account of dignity that is non-hierarchical. There are no degrees of dignity. Instead, all possessors of the capacity to value have the same kind of intrinsic value, and the same equal fundamental right: to consideration of their interest in leading a life of value. Finally, I argue that since the fundamental right is to consideration, moral agents have claimable duties to engage in a deliberative procedure with actionable requirements. Specific rights are instantiations of this general procedure. Certain revisionist conclusions follow on my view, for instance, that nonhumans should be given greater weight and inclusion in a far wider range of cases, but my account is sensitive to the range of different things different beings value, so it does not generate counterintuitive implications. I conclude that dignity extends beyond the human. (shrink)

This dissertation focuses on teleology and functions in biology. More precisely, it focuses on the scientific legitimacy of teleofunctional attributions and explanations in biology. It belongs to a multi-faceted debate that can be traced back to at least the 1970s. One aspect of the debate concerns the naturalization of functions. Most authors try to reduce, translate or explain functions and teleology in terms of efficient causes so that they find their place in the framework of the natural sciences. Our approach (...) here is radically different, as we question the premise that teleological explanations are disguised causal explanations. On the contrary, we defend that they are acceptable in natural sciences and in biology in particular. We challenge the idea that teleological explanations are immature causal explanations, as well as the idea that teleology and functions are some sort of intentional explanations. We therefore reject the accusations of anthropomorphism, vitalism and finalism. On the contrary, we defend that teleology, causality and intentionality correspond to different, autonomous and complementary modes of representation of the outside world. -/- ———[FRANÇAIS]——— -/- Ce travail de thèse porte sur la téléologie et les fonctions en biologie. Plus précisément, il porte sur la légitimité scientifique des attributions et des explications téléofonctionnelles en biologie. Il s’inscrit dans le cadre d’un débat à plusieurs facettes que l’on peut faire remonter au moins jusqu’aux années 1970 et qui est encore très actif aujourd’hui. L’un des aspects du débat porte sur la naturalisation des fonctions, c’est-à-dire sur la manière de les réduire, de les traduire ou de les expliciter en termes de causes efficientes de sorte qu’elles trouvent leur place dans le cadre des sciences de la nature. Notre approche ici est radicalement différente, car nous remettons en question la prémisse selon laquelle les explications téléologiques seraient des explications causales déguisées. Nous défendons au contraire qu’elles sont acceptables en tant que telles aussi bien de façon générale que dans le domaine scientifique et en particulier en biologie. De façon générale, nous remettons en question l’idée selon laquelle la pensée téléologique serait une pensée causale immature, ainsi que sa dépendance présumée vis-à-vis de la psychologie, c’est-à-dire de l’intentionnalité. Nous rejetons donc les accusations d’anthropomorphisme, de vitalisme et de finalisme formulées contre elle. Nous défendons au contraire que la téléologie, la causalité et l’intentionnalité correspondent à des modes différents, autonomes et complémentaires de représentation du monde extérieur. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the common claim that the ascription of ecological functions to organisms in functional ecology raises issues about levels of natural selection is ill-founded. This claim, I maintain, mistakenly assumes that the function concept as understood in functional ecology aligns with the selected effect theory of function advocated by many philosophers of biology (sometimes called “The Standard Line” on functions). After exploring the implications of Wilson and Sober’s defence of multilevel selection for the prospects of defending a (...) selected effect account of ecological functions, I identify three main ways in which functional ecology’s understanding of the function concept diverges from the selected effect theory. Specifically, I argue (1) that functional ecology conceives ecological functions as context-based rather than history-based properties of organisms; (2) that it attributes to the ecological function concept the aim of explaining ecosystem processes rather than with that of explaining the presence of organisms within ecosystems; and (3) that it conceives the ecological functions of organisms as use and service functions rather than design functions. I then discuss the extent to which the recently proposed causal role and organizational accounts of ecological functions better accord with the purposes for which the ecological concept is used in functional ecology. (shrink)

A number of areas of biology raise questions about what is of value in the natural environment and how we ought to behave towards it: conservation biology, environmental science, and ecology, to name a few. Based on my experience teaching students from these and similar majors, I argue that the field of environmental ethics has much to teach these students. They come to me with pent-up questions and a feeling that more is needed to fully engage in their subjects, and (...) I believe some exposure to environmental ethics can help focus their interests and goals. I identify three primary areas in which environmental ethics can con- tribute to their education. The first is an examination of who (or what) should be considered to be part of our moral community (i.e., the community to whom we owe direct duties). Is it humans only? Or does it include all sentient life? Or all life? Or ecosystems considered holistically? Often, readings implicitly assume one or more of these answers; the goal is to make the student more sensitive to these implicit claims and to get them to think about the different reasons that support them. The second area, related to the first, is the application of the different answers concerning the extent of the ethical community to real environmental issues and problems. Students need to be aware of how the different answers concerning the moral community can imply conflicting answers for how we should act in certain cases and to think about ways to move toward conflict resolution. The third area in which environmental ethics can contribute is a more conceptual one, focusing on central concepts such as biodiversity, sustainability, species, and ecosystems. Exploring and evaluating various meanings of these terms will make students more reflective and thoughtful citizens and biologists, sensitive to the implications that different conceptual choices make. (shrink)

This paper explores the nature of emotions by considering what appear to be two differing, perhaps even conflicting, approaches to affectivity—an evolutionary functional account, on the one hand, and a phenomenological view, on the other. The paper argues for the centrality of the notion of function in both approaches, articulates key differences between them, and attempts to understand how such differences can be overcome.