Kopeikin (forthcoming a, forthcoming b) and Rachels’ (1975) bare-difference cases elicit the intuition that killing is no different than letting die. Hill’s (2018) bare-difference cases elicit the intuition that killing is worse than letting die. At least one of the intuitions must be mistaken. This calls for an error theory. Hill has an error theory for the intuition elicited by the Kopeikin/Rachels’ cases. Kopeikin and Rachels have an error theory for the intuition elicited by Hill’s cases. A (...) natural thought is that we are at an impasse. There is no plausible basis for preferring one error theory to the other. I argue that this natural thought is mistaken. Not all error theories are equal. Preliminary considerations favor Hill’s error theory and disfavor the Kopeikin/Rachels error theory. But preliminary considerations are not decisive. The way forward in the bare-difference debate is not to evaluate intuitions. The intuitions are in. What is left to do now is evaluate the comparative status of the Hill and the Kopeikin/Rachels error theories. (shrink)

No two individuals with the autism diagnosis are ever the same—yet many practitioners and parents can recognize signs of ASD very rapidly with the naked eye. What, then, is this phenotype of autism that shows itself across such distinct clinical presentations and heterogeneous developments? The “signs” seem notoriously slippery and resistant to the behavioral threshold categories that make up current assessment tools. Part of the problem is that cognitive and behavioral “abilities” typically are theorized as high-level disembodied and modular functions—that (...) are assessed discretely (impaired, normal, enhanced) to define a spectral syndrome. Even as biology reminds us that organic developing bodies are not made up of independent switches, we remain often seduced by the simplicity of mechanistic and cognitive models. Developmental disorders such as autism have accordingly been theorized as due to different modular dysfunctions—typically of cortical origin, i.e., failures of “theory of mind” (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985), of the “mirror neuron system” (Ramachandran and Oberman, 2006), of “weak central coherence” (Happe and Frith, 2006) or of the balance of “empathizing” and “systemizing” (Baron-Cohen, 2009), just to list a few. -/- The broad array of autonomic (Ming et al., 2005; Cheshire, 2012) and sensorimotor (Damasio and Maurer, 1978; Maurer and Damasio, 1982; Donnellan and Leary, 1995; Leary and Hill, 1996; Donnellan and Leary, 2012; Donnellan et al., 2012) differences experienced and reported by people with autism have by such theories typically been sidelined as “co-morbidities,” possibly sharing genetic causes, but rendered as incidental and decisively behaviorally irrelevant symptoms—surely disconnected from cognition. But what if the development of cortically based mental processes and autonomous control relies on the complexities and proper function of the peripheral nervous systems? Through such an “embodied” lens the heterogeneous symptoms of autism invites new interpretations. We propose here that many behavioral-level findings can be re-defined as downstream effects of how developing nervous systems attempt to cope and adapt to the challenges of having various noisy, unpredictable, and unreliable peripheral inputs. (shrink)

English title: "The early literary education of the young José Gaos in Valencia (1915-1919)"Resumen: Nuestra intención en este texto es investigar acerca de los primeros años de formación del pensamiento de José Gaos (1900-1969); así pues, no parece ser demasiado erróneo pensar que aquél, hacia 1915 no era, aún, puramente “filosófico”: la Filosofía representaba parte de su formación, cumpliendo el mismo papel —eso sí: básico y fundamental— que desempeñó la Literatura. El primer auténtico encuentro con la Filosofía se daría antes (...) de su llegada a Valencia, en ese mismo año de 1915; pero ese también es el año en que Gaos recibirá una sólida formación estético-literaria a través de prensa y revistas filosóficas, especialmente en el grupo que conformó junto con Max Aub, José Medina Echeverría y su hermano Carlos Gaos. Abstract: This paper investigates in detail about the early years of José Gaos (1900-1969) and his education in philosophy and literature. Therefore, we know that their studies (academic or not) were not purely “philosophical” in 1915. Literature and philosophy played in Gaos an equally important role. The first real encounter with philosophy happens before he comes to Valencia in 1915; but in this year Gaos also receives a strong education, in aesthetic and literary, through press and philosophical journals, and especially within the group formed with Max Aub, José Medina Echeverría and his brother Carlos Gaos. Palabras clave: José Gaos, literatura, juventud, formación, Valencia. Keywords: José Gaos, literature, youth, education, Valencia. (shrink)

The paper discusses the sense in which the changes undergone by normative economics in the twentieth century can be said to be progressive. A simple criterion is proposed to decide whether a sequence of normative theories is progressive. This criterion is put to use on the historical transition from the new welfare economics to social choice theory. The paper reconstructs this classic case, and eventually concludes that the latter theory was progressive compared with the former. It also briefly comments on (...) the recent developments in normative economics and their connection with the previous two stages. (Published Online April 18 2006) Footnotes1 This paper suspersedes an earlier one entitled “Is There Progress in Normative Economics?” (Mongin 2002). I thank the organizers of the Fourth ESHET Conference (Graz 2000) for the opportunity they gave me to lecture on this topic. Thanks are also due to J. Alexander, K. Arrow, A. Bird, R. Bradley, M. Dascal, W. Gaertner, N. Gravel, D. Hausman, B. Hill, C. Howson, N. McClennen, A. Trannoy, J. Weymark, J. Worrall, two annonymous referees of this journal, and especially the editor M. Fleurbaey, for helpful comments. The editor's suggestions contributed to determine the final orientation of the paper. The author is grateful to the LSE and the Lachmann Foundation for their support at the time when he was writing the initial version. (shrink)

Yirminci yüzyıl bilimde büyük değişim ve dönüşümlerin gerçekleştiği bir dönemdir. Bu yüzyıl içerisinde moleküler biyoloji, kuantum fiziği, genetik mühendisliği ve biyoteknoloji gibi çeşitli bilimlerin temellerinin atıldığı, bilimsel keşifler ve yenilikler neticesinde kuramların ve teknolojilerin hızla geliştiği ve bu gelişmelerin insanlık tarihini köklü bir şekilde etkilediği bir dönem olmuştur. Yirminci yüzyılda bilimsel ilerleme önceki dönemlerden çok daha hızlı bir oranda gerçekleşmiş ve toplumsal yaşam üzerindeki etkisinin daha derin olduğu gözlemlenmiştir. Bu nedenle yirminci yüzyıl genellikle icatların ve teknolojik gelişmelerin yüzyılı olarak adlandırılmaktadır (...) çünkü bilimsel keşiflerin sayısı artmakla birlikte çok sayıda bilim insanı mevcut teknolojiyi daha etkin bir şekilde kullanarak çalıştıkları alanlarda kapsamlı sonuçlara ulaşmışlardır. Dolayısıyla bilim ve teknoloji bu süre zarfında geçmişte olduğundan çok daha yakın hale gelmiştir. Bununla birlikte, bilimin ilerlemesinin hızlı bir şekilde devam etmesi ve mevcut araştırmaların önemli bir kısmının tarihsel bir bakış açısıyla incelenemeyecek kadar yeni ve çok sayıda olması nedeniyle bu yüzyıldaki bütün bilimsel gelişmelerden ve disiplinlerden bahsetmek mümkün değildir. Bu sebeple yazının kapsamını daraltmak açısından yirminci yüzyılda bilimi ve teknolojiyi en çok etkileyen alan olan fizik bilimindeki önemli konulara değinmek bu dönemin ruhunu anlamak ve bilimin dönüşümüne yönelik bir kavrayışa sahip olmak açısından daha uygun gözükmektedir. Bu bağlamda, çalışmada Dünya’mızı ve evreninin işleyişini anlama konusunda başvurduğumuz disiplinlerden biri olan fizik biliminde yirminci yüzyılda devrimsel bir düşünce olarak karşımıza çıkan Albert Einstein’ın özel ve genel görelilik kuramına yer verilmekle birlikte aynı zamanda günümüzde etkileri bilimsel ve teknolojik düzeyde devam eden kuantum mekaniğine yönelik genel bir perspektif sunulmaktadır. (shrink)

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare oral Artemether-Lumefantrine to intravenous Quinine by exploring its effectiveness in cerebral malaria in hospitalized patients. Materials and Methods: A randomized prospective study was conducted among 64 hospitalized cases of cerebral malaria. One group of patients was treated with intravenous Quinine and another group was treated with oral Artemether-Lumefantrine. Response in clinical, laboratory parameters and outcome of treatment were noted every eight hours. Results: Oral Artemether-Lumefantrine showed almost similar response in clinical and (...) laboratory parameters with median temperature (101º F), pulse rate (102 b/m), systolic BP (110mmHg), GCS (12), hemoglobin (9.8 g/dl), WBC (9000/μl), platelet (130000/μl), B. glucose (101 mg/dl), S. creatinine (1.8 mg/dl), ALT (32 U/L), mean disappearance time of parasite from blood (40 hours), and mean time for regaining full consciousness (30 hours). Final outcome was also similar in both drugs with only 1 death (3.1%) reported in each group. Conclusion: In cerebral malaria intravenous Quinine or oral Artemether-Lumefantrine therapy does not have any statistically significant difference in terms of clinical parameter, laboratory parameter and final outcome. (shrink)

Fizik disiplininde astronomiye yönelik sorular Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) ve Isaac Newton (1643-1727) gibi fizik alanında devrim yaratan düşüncelerin ortaya çıkmasına yol açmıştır. Kepler ‘Yeni Astronomi’ (Astronomia Nova), ‘Dünya'nın Uyumu’ (Harmonice Mundi) ve ‘Kopernik Astronomisinin Özeti’ (Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae) adlı çalışmalarından hareketle ileri sürdüğü gezegensel hareket yasaları, Newton ise 1687 yılında yayımlanan ‘Doğa Felsefesinin Matematiksel İlkeleri’ (Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica) isimli çalışmasında yer verdiği hareket yasaları ile fizik disiplininde Aristoteles fiziğinin terk edilerek yeni bir fizik anlayışının ortaya çıkmasına ve böylece fizik (...) alanında bir devrimin meydana gelmesine sebep olmuşlardır. Fizik disiplininde gerçekleşen bu devrimin bir benzeri ise canlıların çalışılması ya da biyoloji disiplini söz konusu olduğunda 1800’lerden biraz daha geç bir zamana rastlamaktadır. Biyolojide gerçekleşen devrimsel düşünce doğal seçilim mekanizması ile canlılarda zaman içerisinde gerçekleşen değişim ve dönüşüm sürecini açıklayan Charles Darwin’in evrim kuramına yönelik görüşlerini ortaya koymasına tekabül etmektedir. Bu kapsamda çalışmada öncelikli olarak canlılarda meydana gelen değişim süreçlerine yönelik tespitleri ile Darwin’in görüşlerinin olgunlaşmasına katkıda bulunan Fransız Transformistler (Dönüşümcüler) olarak da bilinen Georges-Louis Leclerc (Comte de Buffon), Jean-Baptiste Lamarck ve George Cuvier’in görüşlerine yer verilmektedir. Ardından bu bilim insanlarının canlılardaki dönüşümsel ya da evrimsel değişime ilişkin argümanlarının Darwin’in evrim kuramını nasıl etkilediği ve bu etkilerin sonucunda biyoloji biliminde nasıl bir devrimin ortaya çıkmasına yardımcı oldukları aktarılmakta ve bu çerçevede Darwin’in on dokuzuncu yüzyılda biyoloji biliminde devrime yol açan tespitlerine ve evrim kuramının ayrıntılarına yer verilmektedir. (shrink)

In this position paper, we describe a number of methodological and philosophical challenges that arose within our interdisciplinary Digital Humanities project CatVis, which is a collaboration between applied geometric algorithms and visualization researchers, data scientists working at OCLC, and philosophers who have a strong interest in the methodological foundations of visualization research. The challenges we describe concern aspects of one single epistemic need: that of methodologically securing (an increase in) trust in visualizations. We discuss the lack of ground truths in (...) the (digital) humanities and argue that trust in visualizations requires that we evaluate visualizations on the basis of ground truths that humanities scholars themselves create. We further argue that trust in visualizations requires that a visualization provides provable guarantees on the faithfulness of the visual representation and that we must clearly communicate to the users which part of the visualization can be trusted and how much. Finally, we discuss transparency and accessibility in visualization research and provide measures for securing transparency and accessibility. (shrink)

Clarke and Beck assume that approximate number system representations should be assigned referents from our scientific ontology. However, many representations, both in perception and cognition, do not straightforwardly refer to such entities. If we reject Clarke and Beck's assumption, many possible contents for ANS representations besides number are compatible with the evidence Clarke and Beck cite.

Among the terrestrial species, the majority 332 species is represented by small Volant and non Volant species belonging to the orders Vandeleuria is a small genus of rodent also known long-tailed climbing mouse. Vandeleuria Nilagirica is a Subspecies of Vandelueuria Olaracia species is divided by geographical variations and morphological characterized described namely dumeticola Hodgson, Nilagirica Jerodon, Spandicea Ryley, Rubida Thomas, Modesta Thomas, and Nolthenii Phillips as its Sub Species and the synonymized wrought on Ryley with the nominate sub species and (...) Provensis Hodgson, badius Blyth and marica Thomas with dumesticola Hodgson (V.V Agarwal and Chakraborty 1980). Vandeleuria nilagirica is longer tails, arboreal,It is very shy Nocturnal and omnivore, feeding is usually the spruce leaves and small flower sand buds of small plants that includes small insects also. IUCN status of this species is Endangered. This species is Endamic to the tropical forest along the Northern Western Ghats, Nilgiri Hills (Musses & Carleton 2005). Species altitudinal range is 900 to 2100 M. Theses are found in mountainous areas where there is no hassle. It is Listed as a under scheduled ‘V’ of the Indian wild life Act. As compared to other zones, the frequency of occurrence of F. pennanti and B. bandicota was found to be very low at all the localities in southeastern Rajasthan. Some of the hills have been afforested and the plantations have a very low herbaceous ground cover. This may be one of the reasons of low occurrence of the long-tailed tree mouse, Vandeleuriaoleracea. Suncus stoliczkanus, the Anderson’s shrew was found to be absent in this zone (Ishwar prakash & Himmat Singh 2001). In Thar desert Maximum number of Vandeleuria oleracea 66.6% Species Was observed ( Prakash I,PratapSingh 2005) .Human Disturbance, floods, habitat loss & degradation found to be major threat to these species. This small mammal is plays in important role in the Environment. (shrink)

This article presents a newly discovered votive inscription found during the course of the 2013 survey conducted at the ancient city of Phaselis and in its territory. The inscription was found where the stairs to the acropolis from the southwest of the theatre end, in front of the west wall of the tower structure give access to the acropolis. This inscription in the Doric dialect, on a limestone block measuring 0.315 x 0.77 x 0.61 m., records a dedication to Athena (...) Polias. The letters 0.03 m. high, exhibit Late Archaic - Early Classical Period features ( - - - - ) and, consequently the inscription can be dated to the Vth century B.C. -/- Phaselis and its Chief Goddess Athena Polias From the earliest times of Athena worship, especially in the Aegean Islands and Hellas, this goddess was the protectress of cities, institutions and mythological heroes and she manifested this function in various ways. In one of the earliest recorded examples she carries the epithet ἐρυσίπτολις (guardian of the cities), and in another example, in a Linear B inscription discovered in the Palace of Knossos on Crete as Atana Potnia (a-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ja), the mistress of the palace. But perhaps the most striking myth relating to this role of Athena is undoubtedly that of the Palladion statue, the reason for the fall of Troy and for defeat in the Trojan War. In this context, Troy could resist the Achaeans for as long as it was protected by the Palladion, but after it was stolen by Odysseus and Diomedes, the city was captured by the Achaeans. Subsequently, Athens, Argos and Sparta, the most powerful Greek cities, as later the city of Rome, in order to obtain Athena’s protection and so to gain legitimization for the expansion of their empires, invented their own myths claiming that the Palladion statue from Troy was brought to their cities. In another myth the Goddess became the protectress of Tegea through giving Medusa’s hair as a protective image to a hero of the city. Athena’s frequently used epithets, Polias (Πολιάς), Poliouchos (Πολιοῦχος), and the epithet the protectress of the Athenians (Ἀθηνᾶ Ἀθηνῶν μεδέουσα), employed as a means of religious propaganda by the city of Athens when it established the Delian League which subsequently evolved into an empire, clearly indicate Athena was regarded as guardian of the cities. Particularly during the Archaic and Classical Periods, it was this aspect of Athena that, politically placed the Goddess amongst the most important of deities with Zeus and Apollo, and she is most commonly found with the epithet Polias. The epithet Polias or similar, refers in particular to the heart of these cities, to their acropoleis, where Athena Polias was usually worshipped. Her temples located on the heights of the cities made her role particularly visible as the main protecting goddess. One of the best examples of this “visibility”concerns the earliest record of the epithet Polias as, although she wasn’t the chief deity of Argos, within the sanctuary of Athena Polias located on Larisa hill an inscription was found which supplies us with the text of a cult regulation which is datable to the VIth century. B.C.. The Anatolian goddess of Malija, equal to Athena (in Lycia), was attested in Hittite texts from IInd millennium B.C.. This goddess worshipped in Lycia, close to the city of Phaselis, is similarly in a relationship with cities and acropoleis. The Inscribed Pillar of Ksanthos dating from the Vth century B.C. records that many acropoleis were seized with the help of Athena ptoliporthos (πτολίπορθος) “Sacker of Cities”. In the same inscription the city of Patara was named together with Malija and it may refer to the Patara of Malija as in the example of the Lindian Athena (Lindos, city of Athena). Moreover, the goddess Malija was named with the epithet Wedrẽñni (regional, municipal) the equivalent of the epithet Polias in Rhodiapolis. During the great colonization movements (750-550 B.C.) the colonists brought the cult of Athena Polias to many Mediterranean cities, as was the case for example for Lindos on the island of Rhodos. As a matter of fact the strongest ties between Lindos and the colonies which Rhodes founded was the cult of Athena. In consequence, these cities offered precious gifts to the Temple of Athena in Lindos as a demonstration of both their veneration of the goddess and of loyalty. According to myth, the city of Phaselis was colonized in 691/690 B.C. by a group under the leadership of Lakios from Lindos and the Athena cult of the mother city was brought to Phaselis. Thereafter the Phaselitai dedicated the helmets and sickles to Athena Lindia upon which was inscribed, “Having taken them from the Solymoi, the Phaselitai offered them to Athena Lindia, when Lakios was the leader of the colonists”. In addition to this, the other evidence concerning the presence of Athena in the city confirms that this deity was the chief goddess of Phaselis. During the Classical, and especially in the Hellenistic Period, depictions of Athena’s owl, of her Palladion and of Athena Promachos are found. As mentioned above, the epithet Polias usually draws attention to a city’s acropolis with the temple of Athena Polias located there. In the case of Phaselis, the find spot of these votive inscriptions, reused in a wall of a tower that was built in defense of the acropolis, provides an additional indication for the localization of Athena’s temple to the acropolis. This temple most probably was on the acropolis where there are the ruins of a columned building and large ashlar blocks possibly indicating the site of a temple; however, due to the dense vegetation and in the absence of excavations, at present this localisation cannot be stated with certainty. Another reference indicating that Athena Polias was the chief deity of the city was the presence of a holy relic in the Temple of Athena, the spear of the hero of the Trojan War Achilles. During his campaign against the Persians, Alexander the Great stayed in Phaselis in the winter of 334/333 B.C. and he left Achilles’ spear in the Temple of Athena at Phaselis. During the Hellenistic Period, Hellenistic Kings were mentioned with the chief deities of the Archaic and Classical periods as were the emperors in Roman Imperial Period. And according with this practice, the boule and demos of Phaselis worshipped Athena Polias together with the deified emperors, known from an honorific inscription for a certain Ptolemaios. Evidence from the Late Roman Period, especially from the IIIrd century A.D., records the Palladeios agons (ἀγὼν Παλλάδειος) were held in the city in honour of the Goddess Athena. Consequently, philological, epigraphic as well as numismatic evidence shows the Goddess Athena was the chief deity of the city of Phaselis from the Archaic Period into the Late Roman Period. As the epithet Polias on this votive inscription indicates, the goddess had a temple which should be located on the acropolis where the holy relic (Achilles’ spear) was kept and where the officials of the goddess conducted their functions. This new votive inscription provides record of the role Athena occupied in this early post-colonisation period of the city’s political and socio-cultural history. Further, it is also a physical document dating from the city’s Late Archaic-Early Classical Period, aiding in the evaluation of both Phaselis and of the wider region’s history of settlement. (shrink)

It is contended that to construct a social theory capable to comprehend the Russian Modernization one has to broaden first and foremost the conceptual basis of research. The basic element lacking in the orthodox Marxist conceptual scheme is the notion of ‘social unconsciousness’. It is demonstrated that Slavoj Zizek’s works represent the most ingenious fusion of post-structuralism, psychoanalysis and Marxism that treats the ability to disclose social contradictions. It is shown that the adequate comprehension of social contradictions system is possible (...) in the light of ideologies grounded on social equality values . They can reveal the main contradiction of Russian social life, i.e. the contradiction between Empire Ambitions of Russian bureaucracy and the interests and values of the ill-structured Civil Society. Key words : ideologies, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, S. Zizek, social contradictions. (shrink)

The computational genomics community has come increasingly to rely on the methodology of creating annotations of scientific literature using terms from controlled structured vocabularies such as the Gene Ontology (GO). We here address the question of what such annotations signify and of how they are created by working biologists. Our goal is to promote a better understanding of how the results of experiments are captured in annotations in the hope that this will lead to better representations of biological reality through (...) both the annotation process and ontology development, and in more informed use of the GO resources by experimental scientists. (shrink)

What is it to be a woman? What is it to be a man? We start by laying out desiderata for an analysis of 'woman' and 'man': descriptively, it should link these gender categories to sex biology without reducing them to sex biology, and politically, it should help us explain and combat traditional sexism while also allowing us to make sense of the activist view that gendering should be consensual. Using a Putnam-style 'Twin Earth' example, we argue that none of (...) the existing analyses in the feminist literature succeeds in meeting all of our desiderata. Finally, we propose a positive account that we believe can satisfy all the desiderata outlined. According to our theory, the genders 'woman' and 'man' are individuated not by their contemporary connections to sex biology, but by their historical continuity with classes that were originally closely connected to sex biology. (shrink)

Many philosophers, psychologists, and medical practitioners believe that killing is no worse than letting die on the basis of James Rachels's Bare-Difference Argument. I show that his argument is unsound. In particular, a premise of the argument is that his examples are as similar as is consistent with one being a case of killing and the other being a case of letting die. However, the subject who lets die has both the ability to kill and the ability to let die (...) while the subject who kills lacks the ability to let die. Modifying the latter example so that the killer has both abilities yields a pair of cases with morally different acts. The hypothesis that killing is worse than letting die is the best explanation of this difference. (shrink)

The present work posits that social motives, particularly status seeking in the form of moral grandstanding, are likely at least partially to blame for elevated levels of affective polarization and ideological extremism in the U.S. In Study 1, results from both undergraduates (N = 981; Mean age = 19.4; SD = 2.1; 69.7% women) and a cross-section of U.S. adults matched to 2010 census norms (N = 1,063; Mean age = 48.20, SD = 16.38; 49.8% women) indicated that prestige-motived grandstanding (...) was consistently and robustly related to more extreme ideological views on a variety of issues. In Study 2, results from a weighted, nationally-representative cross-section of U.S. adults (N = 2,519; Mean age = 47.5, SD = 17.8; 51.4% women) found that prestige motivated grandstanding was reliably related to both ideological extremism and affective polarization. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has motivated medical ethicists and several task forces to revisit or issue new guidelines on allocating scarce medical resources. Such guidelines are relevant for the allocation of scarce therapeutics and vaccines and for allocation of ICU beds, ventilators, and other life-sustaining treatments or potentially scarce interventions. Principles underlying these guidelines, like saving the most lives, mitigating disparities, reciprocity to those who assume additional risk (eg, essential workers and clinical trial participants), and equal access may (...) compete with one another. We propose the use of a “categorized priority system” (also known as a “reserve system”) as an improvement over existing allocation methods, particularly because it may be able to achieve disparity mitigation better than other methods. (shrink)

Public discourse is often caustic and conflict-filled. This trend seems to be particularly evident when the content of such discourse is around moral issues (broadly defined) and when the discourse occurs on social media. Several explanatory mechanisms for such conflict have been explored in recent psychological and social-science literatures. The present work sought to examine a potentially novel explanatory mechanism defined in philosophical literature: Moral Grandstanding. According to philosophical accounts, Moral Grandstanding is the use of moral talk to seek social (...) status. For the present work, we conducted six studies, using two undergraduate samples (Study 1, N = 361; Study 2, N = 356); a sample matched to U.S. norms for age, gender, race, income, Census region (Study 3, N = 1,063); a YouGov sample matched to U.S. demographic norms (Study 4, N = 2,000); and a brief, one-month longitudinal study of Mechanical Turk workers in the U.S. (Study 5, Baseline N = 499, follow-up n = 296), and a large, one-week YouGov sample matched to U.S. demographic norms (Baseline N = 2,519, follow-up n = 1,776). Across studies, we found initial support for the validity of Moral Grandstanding as a construct. Specifically, moral grandstanding motivation was associated with status-seeking personality traits, as well as greater political and moral conflict in daily life. (shrink)

Steven Hales and Jennifer Johnson—building off their (2014) work as well as Hales (2015, 2016)—have recently conducted two studies in Philosophical Psychology (2018) that show that there is a relationship between optimism and folk assessments of luck. Hales and Johnson use these results to argue that there is no such thing as luck. Instead, they claim that the concept is highly subjective and a cognitive illusion and that what we are in need of is an error theory. After reviewing Hales (...) and Johnson’s position, I levy four objections against their view. First, they ignore the fact that luck involves a chanciness condition. Second, their standards for what it means to be a useful philosophical theory are too high. Third, their view ignores the fact that there are various accounts of value in the literature and assumes a kind of relativism that few people would be willing to accept. Lastly, their error theory is not supported by the empirical evidence. Because of these problems, Hales and Johnson’s argument is not a serious threat to extant accounts of luck. (shrink)

Shortages of new therapeutics to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced clinicians, public health officials, and health systems to grapple with difficult questions about how to fairly allocate potentially life-saving treatments when there are not enough for all patients in need (1). Shortages have occurred with remdesivir, tocilizumab, monoclonal antibodies, and the oral antiviral Paxlovid (2) -/- Ensuring equitable allocation is especially important in light of the disproportionate burden experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by disadvantaged groups, including Black, Hispanic/Latino and (...) Indigenous communities, individuals with certain disabilities, and low-income persons. However, many health systems have resorted to first-come, first-served approaches to allocation, which tend to disadvantage individuals with barriers in access to care (3). There is mounting evidence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in access to medications for COVID-19 (4, 5). -/- One potential method to promote equitable allocation is to use a weighted lottery, which is an allocation strategy that gives all eligible patients a chance to receive the scarce treatment while also allowing the assignment of higher or lower chances according to other ethical considerations (6). We sought to assess the feasibility of implementing a weighted lottery to allocate scarce COVID-19 medications in a large U.S. health system and to determine whether the weighted lottery promotes equitable allocation. (shrink)

I defend a new version of the non-identity theodicy. After presenting the theodicy, I reply to a series of objections. I then argue that my approach improves upon similar approaches in the literature.

The modal account of luck is the predominant account of luck in epistemology and ethics. In the first half of this paper, I discuss three possible interpretations of the modal account and raise objections to each. I then raise an objection to all plausible versions of the modal account, that is, that whether an event is lucky or the extent to which it is a matter of luck will depend on what initial conditions or features of the event one holds (...) constant across nearby possible worlds. However, there is often reasonable disagreement about what the relevant initial conditions of an event are, and the modal account of luck has no means of determining which description of the event is correct. As such, the modal account is subject to a kind of reference class problem, and the view cannot actually tell us the extent to which certain events are a matter of luck. (shrink)

People who report believing in God fear death. They also experience grief when someone they love dies. Philosophers and social scientists sometimes claim that this can only be plausibly explained by the hypothesis that people who claim to believe in God do not really believe in God. I show that this is mistaken. I identify three independently plausible explanations of why people who genuinely believe in God would have these behaviors and attitudes. First, there is an evolutionary explanation of why (...) the fear of death would be resilient even if one genuinely believes God has good things in store for us after death. Second, people often fear low probability outcomes. It may be that religious people are afraid of hell or the cessation of existence even if they judge those outcomes to have a low probability. Third, belief in God is typically combined with views according to which death is accompanied by the permanent loss and radical transformation of important relationships. (shrink)

In the first chapter of his Knowledge and Lotteries, John Hawthorne argues that thinkers do not ordinarily know lottery propositions. His arguments depend on claims about the intimate connections between knowledge and assertion, epistemic possibility, practical reasoning, and theoretical reasoning. In this paper, we cast doubt on the proposed connections. We also put forward an alternative picture of belief and reasoning. In particular, we argue that assertion is governed by a Gricean constraint that makes no reference to knowledge, and that (...) practical reasoning has more to do with rational degrees of belief than with states of knowledge. (shrink)

One might think that if the majority of virtue signallers judge that a proposition is true, then there is significant evidence for the truth of that proposition. Given the Condorcet Jury Theorem, individual virtue signallers need not be very reliable for the majority judgment to be very likely to be correct. Thus, even people who are skeptical of the judgments of individual virtue signallers should think that if a majority of them judge that a proposition is true, then that provides (...) significant evidence that the proposition is true. We argue that this is mistaken. Various empirical studies converge on the following point: humans are very conformist in the contexts in which virtue signalling occurs. And stereotypical virtue signallers are even more conformist in such contexts. So we should be skeptical of the claim that virtue signallers are sufficiently independent for the Condorcet Jury Theorem to apply. We do not seek to decisively rule out the relevant application of the Condorcet Jury Theorem. But we do show that careful consideration of the available evidence should make us very skeptical of that application. Consequently, a defense of virtue signalling would need to engage with these findings and show that despite our strong tendencies for conformism, our judgements are sufficiently independent for the Condorcet Jury Theorem to apply. This suggests new directions for the debate about the epistemology of virtue signalling. (shrink)

Academic institutions migrated to modular teaching-learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure the quality of the pedagogical innovations employed, the study determined the students’ evaluation of the faculty prepared instructional modules for the courses they enrolled in during the first and second semesters of Academic Year 2020-2021. Employing a descriptive-correlational research design, the study was participated by 644 students from three colleges who were then available during the data gathering. Data gathered through online surveys were then analyzed using descriptive statistics (...) and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient utilizing jamovi software. Results revealed that the faculty-prepared instructional modules were acceptable and satisfactory to the students. Besides, the students' evaluation of the instructional modules was positively related to their level of satisfaction. Still, the students recommended that a review of the modules be done before sending the modules; a more extended time allotment is considered, and sufficient concrete examples are given in the modules. With this, the faculty concerned are encouraged to review the phases involved in the design, development, and distribution of the instructional modules to make them highly acceptable and very satisfactory to the students while maintaining the quality of both the content and aesthetics of the learning materials. Considering the study’s limitations, further endeavors may be carried out to validate this pedagogical innovation. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to develop neutrosophic quadruple algebraic hyperstructures. Specifically, we develop neutrosophic quadruple semihypergroups, neutrosophic quadruple canonical hypergroups and neutrosophic quadruple hyperrings and we present elementary properties which characterize them.

This paper takes under consideration a piece by Roger Crisp in which he questions what the problem of moral luck can teach us about COVID-19 lockdown rule-breakers. Taking the position that although such rule-breakers might seem to be new examples of moral luck, Crisp ends up denying the existence of moral luck and argues that moral luck is an outdated notion in so far as it relies on other questionable aspects of morality, that is, retributivist punishment and blame. Although the (...) author agrees with Crisp that pandemic rule-breaker cases are putative examples of resultant moral luck, he proposes that Crisp has misconstrued what moral luck is and the paper examines in detail what he sees as the numerous problems with Crisp’s claims. The author concludes that Crisp’s analysis of pandemic rule-breaking does not shed any new light on the moral luck debate, and the difficult questions of luck, moral responsibility, and desert are not so easily resolved. -/- . (shrink)

We address the ethics of scenarios in which one party entraps, intentionally tempts or intentionally tests the virtue of another. We classify, in a new manner, three distinct types of acts that are of concern, namely acts of entrapment, of intentional temptation and of virtue testing. Our classification is, for each kind of scenario, of itself neutral concerning the question whether the agent acts permissibly. We explain why acts of entrapment are more ethically objectionable than like acts of intentional temptation (...) and why these, in turn, are more ethically objectionable than like acts of virtue testing. Along the way, we scrutinize, and eventually reject, the view that acts of entrapment are ethically unacceptable because intentional temptation is involved in entrapment. (shrink)

Our question is this: What makes an act one of entrapment? We make a standard distinction between legal entrapment, which is carried out by parties acting in their capacities as (or as deputies of) law- enforcement agents, and civil entrapment, which is not. We aim to provide a definition of entrapment that covers both and which, for reasons we explain, does not settle questions of permissibility and culpability. We explain, compare, and contrast two existing definitions of legal entrapment to commit (...) a crime that possess this neutrality. We point out some problems with the extensional correctness of these definitions and propose a new definition that resolves these problems. We then extend our definition to provide a more general definition of entrapment, encompassing both civil and legal cases. Our definition is, we believe, closer to being extensionally correct and will, we hope, provide a clearer basis for future discussions about the ethics of entrapment than do the definitions upon which it improves. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

Successful teamwork doesn't work overnight, what makes teamwork potent is team building. (Plagiarism) According to Abdullah, et. al., (2022) team building training can improve group cohesiveness or the quality of sticking together or unity teamwork more likely to be higher with a significant score difference. This study used mixed methods both qualitative and quantitative data collection, and an analysis method to answer the research method, random sampling is named as such because the data set is chosen via random selection, where (...) every member of the population has an equal probability of being selected (Tao, 2023). The respondents were 100 restaurant employees and 10 managers from the chosen restaurant in Malolos City in Bulacan. The subcategories of team building, including activities, communication, skills, personality, problem-solving, and values, have all received a consensus of strong agreement, with weighted averages falling within the range of 3.26 to 3.44. This level of agreement aligns with the scores for motivation at 3.43 and productivity at 3.38. These values have been calculated by determining the mean, which spans from 3.25 to 4.00. The advantages of team building that is being observed by the managers is to create familiarity and teamwork among the employees, to improve the quality of service and the quality of the food especially the respondents are in the food service sector, development, and training for the employees to achieve the establishments’ goal and lastly rebuilding and build a relationship with one employee to another. However, for the disadvantages, it costs a lot of money to conduct team building in the management. Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected. Despite the fact that there is a low correlation between teambuilding activities and motivation and employee productivity, there is still a significant relationship between the variables. (shrink)

Scientific hedges are communicative devices used to qualify and weaken scientific claims. Gregor Betz has argued—unconvincingly, we think—that hedging can rescue the value-free ideal for science. Nevertheless, Betz is onto something when he suggests there are political principles that recommend scientists hedge public-facing claims. In this article, we recast this suggestion using the notion of public justification. We formulate and reject a Rawlsian argument that locates the justification for hedging in its ability to forge consensus. On our alternative proposal, hedging (...) is often justified because it renders scientific claims as publicly accessible reasons. (shrink)

Some feminists hold that surrogacy contracts should be unenforceable or illegal because they contribute to and perpetuate unjust gender inequalities. I argue that in developed countries, surrogacy contracts either wouldn't have these negative effects or that these effects could be mitigated via regulation. Furthermore, the existence of a regulated surrogacy market is preferable on consequentialist grounds.

In an important and widely cited paper, Zerilli, Knott, Maclaurin, and Gavaghan (2019) argue that opaque AI decision makers are at least as transparent as human decision makers and therefore the concern that opaque AI is not sufficiently transparent is mistaken. I argue that the concern about opaque AI should not be understood as the concern that such AI fails to be transparent in a way that humans are transparent. Rather, the concern is that the way in which opaque AI (...) is opaque is very different than the way in which humans are opaque. What matters is the degree to which the opaque processes of a class of decision makers are stable, uniform, and safe. The degree to which such processes have these features in humans is higher than the degree to which such processes have these features in opaque AI. And therefore we should require AI to be more transparent than humans. (shrink)

For any essential property God has, there is an ability He does not have. He is unable to bring about any state of affairs in which He does not have that property. Such inabilities seem to preclude omnipotence. After making trouble for the standard responses to this problem, I offer my own solution: God is not omnipotent. This may seem like a significant loss for the theist. But I show that it is not. The theist may abandon the doctrine that (...) God is omnipotent without scaling back the extent of His power and without denying that He has all perfections. (shrink)

It is often assumed that all lucky events are significant. The thought is that a chancy event such as winning the lottery is lucky for you in part because it affects your interests or well-being. But whether you win an Absurdist Raffle in which there are no prizes, is, intuitively, not a matter of luck. This is because this event—even if chancy—is not significant for any subject. However, a few philosophers have recently claimed not only that luck does not necessarily (...) involve a significance condition but that we should not view luck involving claims in terms of significance. After reviewing the literature on this topic, I argue that lucky events are significant. A significance condition is necessary to distinguish between different kinds of luck: practical, epistemic, and moral. All lucky events are significant and chancy, but they can be significant for subjects in different ways. For example, an event is epistemically lucky for you if it is epistemically significant and chancy, but such events need not affect your practical interests or moral standing. Furthermore, I argue that events that are chancy but not significant should be thought of in terms of chance and not luck. (shrink)

Some legal theorists say that legal entrapment to commit a crime is incoherent. So far, there is no satisfactorily precise statement of this objection in the literature: it is obscure even as to the type of incoherence that is purportedly involved. (Perhaps consequently, substantial assessment of the objection is also absent.) We aim to provide a new statement of the objection that is more precise and more rigorous than its predecessors. We argue that the best form of the objection asserts (...) that, in attempting to entrap, law-enforcement agents lapse into a form of practical incoherence that involves the attempt simultaneously to pursue contrary ends. We then argue that the objection, in this form, encompasses all cases of legal entrapment only if it is supplemented by appeal to the premise that law-enforcement agents have an absolute duty never to create crimes. (shrink)

I defend a solution to the puzzle of petitionary prayer based on some ideas of Aquinas, Gregory the Great, and contemporary desert theorists. I then address a series of objections. Along the way broader issues about the nature of desert, what is required for an action to have a point, and what is required for a puzzle to have a solution are discussed.

There is a wealth of evidence which indicates that arguments are not very efficient tools for changing minds. Against this scepticism, Dutilh Novaes (2023) presents evidence that, given the right social context, arguments sometimes play a significant role in belief revision. However, drawing on Levy (2021), I argue that the evidence Dutilh Novaes cites is compatible with the view that it is not arguments that change individual minds but instead belief outsourcing that occurs alongside the consideration of arguments.

In Algorithms & Autonomy, Rubel, Castro, and Pham (hereafter RCP), argue that the concept of autonomy is especially central to understanding important moral problems about algorithms. In particular, autonomy plays a role in analyzing the version of social contract theory that they endorse. I argue that although RCP are largely correct in their diagnosis of what is wrong with the algorithms they consider, those diagnoses can be appropriated by moral theories RCP see as in competition with their autonomy based theory. (...) Most notably, proponents of consequentialism and virtue ethics can appropriate RCPs insights. This is good news because RCP’s social contract theory is vulnerable to a well known class of counterexamples. The most significant contribution of RCP, if I am right, is in their identification, presentation, and evaluation of concrete cases involving algorithms and not in the more controversial claims about theoretical ethics that RCP themselves see as central to what they are doing. (shrink)

Recently, Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) got much attention from researchers even though ITS educational technology began in the late 1960s and ITS is just embryonic from laboratories into the field. In this paper we outline an intelligent tutoring system for teaching basics of the databases system called (MDB). The MDB was built as education system by using the authoring tool (ITSB). MDB contains learning materials as a group of lessons for beginner level which include relational database system and lessons in (...) the process to install and set up a database. MDB system has exams for each level of the Lessons. An evaluation was done to see the effectiveness the MDB among learners and instructors. The outcome of the evaluation was promising. (shrink)

I present a counterexample to Kirk-Giannini’s Dilemmatic Theory of gaslighting.