Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Theoretical ethics includes both metaethics (the meaning of moral terms) and normative ethics (ethical theories and principles). Practical ethics involves making decisions about every day real ethical problems, like decisions about euthanasia, what we should eat, climate change, treatment of animals, and how we should live. It utilizes ethical theories, like utilitarianism and Kantianism, and principles, but more broadly a process of reflective equilibrium and consistency to decide how to act and be.

Numerous high-profile ethics scandals, rising inequality, and the detrimental effects of climate change dramatically underscore the need for business schools to instill a commitment to social purpose in their students. At the same time, the rising financial burden of education, increasing competition in the education space, and overreliance on graduates’ financial success as the accepted metric of quality have reinforced an instrumentalist climate. These conflicting aims between social and financial purpose have created an existential crisis for business education. To resolve (...) this impasse, we draw on the concept of moral self-awareness to offer a system-theoretical strategy for crowding-in a culture of ethics within business schools. We argue that to do so, business schools will need to (1) reframe the purpose of business, (2) reframe the meaning of professional success, and (3) reframe the ethos of business education itself. (shrink)

I argue that rejection is a speech act that cannot be reduced to assertion. Adapting an argument by Huw Price, I conclude that rejection is best conceived of as the speech act that is used to register that some other speech act is (or would be) violating a rule of the conversation game. This can be naturally understood as registering *norm violations* where speech acts are characterised by their essential norms. However, I argue that rejection itself is not to be (...) characterised by a norm. Instead, registering violations is a necessary condition for understanding the normative framework in the first place. The core observation is that the concept of an 'illegal move' is intelligible, so a speech act can be (say) an assertion, despite violating the essential norm of asserting. Rejection has the function of pointing out that a move is illegal. But registering rule violations is a precondition of playing games with rules (it is part of the concept 'game'), not itself a rule in a game. A similar special role of rejection (that it is not explicable in the terms provided by a framework, but needed to conceptualise these terms) likely occurs in other frameworks as well, e.g. characterising speech acts by commitments or their effect on a common ground. (shrink)

The authors respond to a wide range of objections defending our argument that some forms of behaviour modification utilising advances in the cognitive sciences are desirable and need not necessarily undermine autonomy or freedom.

Many of us assume that all the free editing and sorting of online content we ordinarily rely on is carried out by AI algorithms — not human persons. Yet in fact, that is often not the case. This is because human workers remain cheaper, quicker, and more reliable than AI for performing myriad tasks where the right answer turns on ineffable contextual criteria too subtle for algorithms to yet decode. The output of this work is then used for machine learning (...) purposes to generate algorithms constructed from large data sets containing thousands of correctly coded observations. The fact that ghost workers are treated as consumers distorts the basic logic of the employment relationship, effectively placing the worker-as-consumer in the worst of both worlds, in which they hold the legal rights of neither group. This puts them in a regulatory limbo position in which they have little or no protection, control, or guarantee of return on investment. This is because the platforms that facilitate ghost work have orchestrated a three-way virtual relationship that absolves all parties of responsibility, while placing nearly all the risks and opportunity costs squarely on the shoulders of the workers. As a result, we believe such a work arrangement as it stands, does not uphold basic standards of Rawlsian justice as fairness. (shrink)

Ziel dieses Papiers ist es die Ordnungsethik – einen bereichsethischen Ansatz, der derzeit vor allem für wirtschaftsethische Fragestellungen benutzt wird – als eine universelle Methode zur Analyse von bereichsethischen Fragestellungen vorzustellen. Um das Vorhaben handhabbar zu machen, muss es in zweierlei Hinsicht eingeschränkt werden. Zum einen kann es sich hier natürlich nicht um eine voll ausgearbeitete Methodologie für die Analyse von bereichsethischen Fragestellungen handeln, sondern nur um eine methodische Skizze. Zum anderen soll es in diesem Papier im Wesentlichen um solche (...) bereichsethischen Fragestellungen gehen, deren Lösung die Implementierung von formellen wie informellen Regeln erfordert. (shrink)

Janet Radcliffe Richards’ The Ethics of Transplants outlines a novel framework for moral inquiry in practical contexts and applies it to the topic of paid living kidney donation. In doing so, Radcliffe Richards makes two key claims: that opponents of organ markets bear the burden of proof, and that this burden has not yet been satisfied. This paper raises four related objections to Radcliffe Richards’ methodological framework, focusing largely on how Radcliffe Richards uses this framework in her discussion of kidney (...) sales. We conclude that Radcliffe Richards’ method of inquiry hinders our ability to answer the very question that it ought to help us resolve: What is there best reason to do, all things considered? (shrink)

Recent AI progress led to a boost in beneficial applications from multiple research areas including VR. Simultaneously, in this newly unfolding deepfake era, ethically and security-relevant disagreements arose in the scientific community regarding the epistemic capabilities of present-day AI. However, given what is at stake, one can postulate that for a responsible approach, prior to engaging in a rigorous epistemic assessment of AI, humans may profit from a self-questioning strategy, an examination and calibration of the experience of their own epistemic (...) agency – especially to counteract both intentional misdirection by unethical actors and unintentional epistemic self-sabotage. In this paper, we expound on a new avenue of utilizing AIVR tools to advance an AI-related misdirection awareness of humans in the deepfake era. Firstly, we harness scientific knowledge from the psychology and neuroscience of magic where the study of misdirection techniques is center stage. Secondly, we connect the latter to creativity research linking human creative potential to inspiration from the seemingly impossible. Overall, AIVR could become an empowering experiential testbed for human epistemic agency enabling a better rational evaluation of AI capabilities. However, a misuse of the same type of tools could yield AIVR safety risks if not counteracted preemptively. (shrink)

We argue that attempts to extrapolate moral motives for non-egoistic behavior in organizational behavior often interpret results empathically or deontically, while leaving other moral motivational frames, such as the utilitarian and virtue ethical, under-examined. We encourage the creation of experimental measures to distinguish various philosophical frames.

The Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation, which has been endorsed by hundreds of influential academic ethicists, calls for establishing a vegan economy by banning what it refers to as all unnecessary animal suffering, including fishing. It does so by appeal to the moral principle of equal consideration of comparable interests. I argue that this principle is misapplied by discounting morally relevant cognitive capacities of self-conscious and volitional personhood as distinguished from merely sentient non-personhood. I describe it as a kind of (...) anthropomorphizing moralism which I call anthropomoralism, defined as the tendency to project morally relevant characteristics of personhood onto merely sentient non-persons by discounting their existing differences with actual persons. I show that this attitude can lend support to the resurgent attempt to treat fetal pain as equally morally considerable to that of childbearing persons they gestate within. I explain that the only sound way to apply the principle of equal consideration of comparable interests is to compare experiences of actual persons. Therefore, while supporting a vegan economy may be morally praiseworthy, it should not be deemed morally obligatory. (shrink)

Little is know about factors that influence the development of public self-consciousness. One potential factor is exposure to audiences: being repeatedly aware of one's object status could create a high disposition to focus on public self-aspects. To explore this hypothesis public self-consciousness was assessed in two groups of subjects: 62 professors and actors (high exposure to audiences) and 39 people without audience experience. Analysis show that significant differences exist for public self-consciousness in men only. Also, history of frequent exposure to (...) audience is significantly but weakly correlated with high public self-consciousness in men. This supports previous observations indicating that self-consciousness seems to develop differently for men and women. (shrink)

Pope Francis takes the Big Bang as supplying empirical evidence for God’s existence, going so far as to credit God’s will as the force behind natural selection. So if natural selection is the emanation of divine will, then so too is what Richard Dawkins calls the “selfish gene” underlying it. The trouble is that the natural forces of self-interest may win out over the better angels of our nature, spelling disaster for the human species—and the planet sustaining it. For the (...) drive of individual self-interest is the main fuel of capitalism, which has become the dominant global economic paradigm. And this unbridled self-interest is arguably most responsible for widespread environmental degradation. Therefore, if humanity should ultimately expire as a direct result of its evolutionary adaptations, it won’t exactly be a ringing endorsement of the architect of life, the universe, and everything. (shrink)

Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, not only tries to establish a relationship that is direct, coherent, inter-operational and "precise" between this science, its name as a science, and its object of study, but also begins an indignation that tries to set a science — materially adequate and formally correct — to study τὸ ὂν ᾗ ὂν. In order to complete this task, Aristotle does an in-focus strategy that consists on the diffusion of τὸ ὄν in its categories, that allows Aristotle the (...) possibility of formulate a science ἐπιστήμη to study τὸ ὂν ᾗ ὂν at the same time that supports the diffusion of τὸ ὄν in the "different categories or supreme genres" of τὸ ὄν. Due to this argumentation, Aristotle distinguishes the ἐπιστήμη σοφία of any other type of knowledge: the former is fundamentally an enquiry "about the first causes (πρῶτα αἴτια) and the principles (ἀρχὰς)". With this conception in mind, Aristotle was able to characterize several related forms of the ἐπιστήμη σοφία which, as a whole, eventually allow him to establish a science of the principles and causes "maximally universal and referred to…everything real", and in consequence, to "that that is, as long as something is". In this work, I will try to reconstruct such arguments, and offer some observations and conjectures referred to these notions that plausibly incline the scale in favor of an ontological reading of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, in order to contribute to clarify the confusion that exists between the aim of the discipline with the justification to establish the existence of its own object. (shrink)

Quelque nombreuses et quelque influentes qu'elles soient par ailleurs, les vues d'Aristote sur le langage se caractérisent à la fois par leur hétérogénéité et par leur marginalité. Sans faire nulle part du langage et de la signification l'objet d'une investigation autonome et méthodique, Aristote multiplie les remarques et les digressions à leur sujet, que ce soit dans ses écrits d'éthique et de politique ou dans ses traités d'histoire et de philosophie naturelle, ou encore dans ses manuels de dialectique, de poétique (...) et de rhétorique. Face à l'abondance de ces matériaux et aux difficultés qu'ils présentent du fait de s'offrir au lecteur en ordre quelque peu dispersé, «Le langage. Lectures d'Aristote» fait le choix d'indexer l'étude du langage chez Aristote sur des passages précis du corpus en ne posant aux textes aristotéliciens d'intérêt linguistique que les questions auxquelles ces mêmes textes - tantôt pris isolément, tantôt mis en relation les uns avec les autres - apportent une réponse. (shrink)

Copyright is at the centre of both popular and academic debate. That emotions are running high is hardly surprising – copyright influences who contributes what to culture, how culture is used, and even the kind of persons we are and come to be. Consequentialist, Lockean, and personality interest accounts are generally advanced in the literature to morally justify copyright law. I argue that these approaches fail to ground extensive authorial rights in intellectual creations and that only a small subset of (...) the rights accorded by copyright law is justified. The pared-down version of copyright that I defend consists of the right to attribution, the right to have one’s non-endorsement of modifications or uses of one’s work explicitly noted, and the right to a share of the profit resulting from the commercial uses of one’s work. I also cursorily explore whether contribution to another person’s work gives rise to moral interests. (shrink)

What does it mean to say that some features, such as gender, race and sexual orientation, are socially constructed? Many scholars claim that social constructionism about a kind is a version of realism about that kind, according to which the corresponding kind is a social construction, that it, it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructionism, then, is a version of realism about a kind that asserts that the kind is real, and puts forward a particular view about (...) the nature of the kind, namely, that it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructivists about human kinds such as gender, race and sexual orientation often make an additional claim, namely, that these kinds are social constructions but they are typically believed to be biological kinds (that is, people are typically wrong about the nature of these kinds). Ron Mallon (2017) calls social constructions that are (falsely) taken to be biological kinds covert social constructions. This paper is about how we could have terms in our natural language that come to refer to covert social constructions. (shrink)

The prologue of the Sophistici elenchi is as close an Aristotelian text gets to dealing with language as a subject matter in its own right, only in reverse. Language and its features bear consideration to the extent that they account for some major predicaments discursive reasoning is prone to, both as a separate and as a common endeavour. That being said, the linguistic pitfalls that trick us into thinking that whatever is the case for words and word-compounds is also the (...) case for the things and facts linguistic items stand for reveal as much about good linguistic habits and sound argumentation as they themselves are revealed by the principles and rules our argumentation goes by. In this connection, Aristotle resorted to a curious (or not so curious) analogy between words and counters which played a major role in explaining why language is such a powerful source of illusion and deception. As it happens, Aristotle accounting analogy is a case in point for showcasing the level of sophistication medieval Latin literature on fallacies achieved as early as the first half of the twelfth century. As a matter of fact, Western commentators managed to build compelling cases both in favour of and against the understanding that was to become and still is the standard story – which, of course, speaks volumes about their exegetical proficiency and technical expertise. On the one hand, trusting implicitly Boethius’ translation and well aware of his views on disputational hazards as opposed to computational reliability, they usually understood Aristotle’s comparison as if it was an analogy in name only. On the other hand, despite Boethius’ translation put them at a considerable disadvantage, Latin commentators were able to construe Aristotle’s analogy as bringing together two sets of symbolic variables (words and counters) that are neither entirely free nor entirely bound – which expose them to subtle but critical shifts in value and meaning. (shrink)

Y a-t-il des Idées et peut-on démontrer qu’elles existent ? Parmi les protagonistes anciens de la controverse qui a opposé partisans et adversaires des Idées, Aristote mérite une attention toute particulière. De fait, si – au moment où Aristote intervient dans le débat autour de l’hypothèse des Idées – ce débat a déjà une histoire, c’est avec lui que cette histoire atteint une maturité qui est à la fois d’ordre doctrinal et doxographique. De fait, non seulement Aristote est le premier (...) à avoir défini certaines au moins des propriétés de ce qui est et se dit en commun de plusieurs, mais encore a-t-il pris soin d’inscrire ces définitions dans la continuité de l’héritage socratique dont il s’est explicitement revendiqué tout en dénonçant sa dérive aux mains des successeurs de Socrate. L’objectif principal du cycle de conférences a été d’étudier les objections qu’Aristote a formulées à l’encontre des partisans des Idées en prenant comme fil conducteur la notion de substance que sa discussion des Formes platoniciennes tantôt présuppose, tantôt mobilise explicitement. Pour ce faire, nous avons procédé à une lecture détaillée d’un certain nombre de documents, tirés aussi bien de ses écrits d’école que des vestiges de ses traités perdus, où Aristote rejette la notion d’un universel substantiel (autant dire, en l’occurrence, séparé) et s’efforce de mettre à mal les arguments que ses partisans avançaient pour prouver son existence. (shrink)

Religious disagreement – the existence of inconsistent religious views – is familiar and widespread. Among the most fundamental issues of such disagreement is whether to characterise the divine as personal or non-personal. On most other religious issues, the diverse views seem to presuppose some view on the personal/non-personal issue. In this essay, I address a particular question arising from disagreement over this issue. Let an exclusivist belief be a belief that a doctrine d on an issue is true, and that (...) doctrines on the issue that differ from d are false. Assume that for at least some people, there is no epistemic reason to prefer any one exclusivist view on the personal/non-personal question. This might be because disagreements act as defeaters for disputants’ beliefs, or because someone comes at the question without already holding a belief on the matter, and finds each view equally plausible. In these circumstances, is it still possible to engage with particular traditions in a realist, truth-seeking way? I answer that it is, arguing for a new pluralist approach to the personal/non-personal issue. By ‘pluralist’, I mean an approach that reinterprets a doctrine d on a given issue to be consistent with doctrines on the issue that differ from d. I start with probably the best-known pluralist account of religion, that of John Hick. After presenting his account I identify a problem that it faces which any pluralist account must address, one that has clear relevance to the personal/non-personal question. I then draw on Thomas Merton to outline an alternative pluralist route, illustrating how such an approach can apply to Christian and Buddhist ideas of an ultimate spiritual goal. The personal/non-personal issue is a good test for the approach I develop: because of the issue’s fundamentality, if the approach succeeds here then the prospects look bright for applying it to other topics of religious disagreement. (shrink)

This case study takes place in the context of a small urban supermarket chain. It examines the extent to which such firms should work to lower food waste on sustainability and human rights grounds. The scenario examines structural inefficiencies along the supply chain from food production to consumption, asking students to consider what power supermarkets have to correct these inefficiencies, and what ethical responsibility this may create for them to do so. Government regulations written to encourage or require food purveyors (...) to gift their excess supply to the needy are discussed. (shrink)

Little is known with regard to the precise cognitive tools the self uses in acquiring and processing information about itself. In this article, we underline the possibility that inner speech might just represent one such cognitive process. Duval and Wicklund’s theory of self-awareness and the selfconsciousness, and self-knowledge body of work that was inspired by it are reviewed, and the suggestion is put forward that inner speech parallels the state of self-awareness, is more frequently used among highly self-conscious persons, and (...) represents an effective, if not indispensable, tool involved in the formation of the self-concept. The possibility is also raised that the extent to which one uses inner speech could partially explain individual differences in self-consciousness and self-knowledge. A selective review of the private and inner speech literature is presented, and some possible ways of testing the hypothesis by using pre-existing techniques are proposed in the hope of stimulating empirical investigations. Some implications are outlined in conclusion. (shrink)

Al interior de la filosofía de la técnica, el debate sobre la acción es recurrente y recientemente muestra discusiones polarizadas. En un extremo, se encuentran los defensores de una teoría estándar de la acción (TEAI), quienes sostienen que la acción interesante es únicamente humana, con base en las intenciones de los sujetos y, aplicada objetos técnicos, vinculada a su función. En el otro extremo, encontramos a quienes sostienen la posibilidad de que elementos no humanos también posean capacidad de transformación, más (...) próximos a lo que se denomina una “teoría de la agencia”. En un esfuerzo inicial para revisar la potencialidad de la TEAI para su abordaje en el campo de estudios de la técnica y la tecnología, revisitamos la noción de intencionalidad. Para ello, dividimos el trabajo en tres partes. En la primera parte, caracterizamos los rasgos básicos de la TEAI. En la segunda parte, desde los aportes de la filosofía de la mente, analizamos internamente la distinción entre intencionalidad original y derivada (Dennett). Finalmente, desde los aportes de la Teoría del Actor-red, revisamos externamente la acción intencional desde algunos desplazamientos propuestos por la ontología relacional, con nociones como actantes y ensamblajes (Latour). Consideramos que estas reflexiones contribuyen a repensar las transformaciones contemporáneas del mundo artificial. (shrink)

A core challenge for contemporary bioethics is how to address the tension between respecting an individual’s autonomy and promoting their wellbeing when these ideals seem to come into conflict (Not...

The primary aim of this chapter is to evaluate whether considerations about a priori domains and abstract objects favor atheism over theism.

Self-awareness represents the capacity of becoming the object of one’s own attention. In this state one actively identifies, processes, and stores information about the self. This paper surveys the self-awareness literature by emphasizing definition issues, measurement techniques, effects and functions of self-attention, and antecedents of self-awareness. Key self-related concepts (e.g., minimal, reflective consciousness) are distinguished from the central notion of self-awareness. Reviewed measures include questionnaires, implicit tasks, and self-recognition. Main effects and functions of self-attention consist in selfevaluation, escape from the (...) self, amplification of one's subjective experience, increased self-knowledge, self-regulation, and inferences about others' mental states (Theory-of-Mind). A neurocognitive and socioecological model of self-awareness is described in which the role of face-to-face interactions, reflected appraisals, mirrors, media, inner speech, imagery, autobiographical knowledge, and neurological structures is underlined. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel account of focal stress and pitch contour in English dialogue. We argue that one should analyse and treat focus and pitch contour jointly, since (i) some pragmatic interpretations vary with contour (e.g., whether an utterance accepts or rejects; or whether it implicates a positive or negative answer); and (ii) there are utterances with identical prosodic focus that in the same context are infelicitous with one contour, but felicitous with another. We offer an account of two (...) distinct pitch contours that predicts the correct felicity judgements and implicatures, outclassing other models in empirical coverage or formality. Prosodic focus triggers a presupposition, where what is presupposed and how the presupposition is resolved depends on prosodic contour. If resolving the presupposition entails the proffered content, then the proffered content is uninteresting and hence the utterance is in-felicitous. Otherwise, resolving the presupposition may lead to an implicature. We regiment this account in SDRT. (shrink)

Reflection on the nature and value of fiction has often paid attention to the possibility of acquiring knowledge through engaging with fictional works. The alleged imaginative character of fiction appreciation and the sort of emotional responses that fiction is able to prompt in the viewer have been frequently invoked in order to explain the peculiar cognitive value that fictions may possess. In this paper, I would like to question whether fiction as such possesses a specific kind of value. Although I (...) agree that fictional works can convey certain kinds of knowledge, I think that the cognitive virtues that we attribute to fictional works do not have much to do with their fictional character as such. Rather, these values are grounded upon the various properties that the different representational artifacts that can serve to produce fictional works possess. Thus while I think fictional works can deliver various sorts of cognitive value, this value is not intrinsically connected with the fictional nature of these works. (shrink)

We offer an argument for the extended mind based on considerations from brain development. We argue that our brains develop to function in partnership with cognitive resources located in our external environments. Through our cultural upbringing we are trained to use artefacts in problem solving that become factored into the cognitive routines our brains support. Our brains literally grow to work in close partnership with resources we regularly and reliably interact with. We take this argument to be in line with (...) complementarity or “second-wave” defences of the extended mind that stress the functional differences between biological elements and external, environmental resources in putative cases of extended cognition. Complementarity defences argue that many of the kinds of cognition humans excel at can only be accomplished by brains working together with a body that directly manipulates and acts on the world [Rowlands (1999); Menary (2007); Sutton (2010)]. We argue that complementarity and functionalist defences of the extended mind aren’t opposed, but that complementarity considerations can provide much needed and hitherto under exploited leverage in defending EMT. Moreover, the developmental work we will describe adds extra weight to the complementarity case for EMT. (shrink)

Auf welchen normativen Grundlagen beruhte das NS-System? Mit welcher Rechtfertigung konnte der Führerwille dort zu einer Quelle des Rechts werden? Wie war es gemäß der NS-Strafgesetzgebung möglich, Handlungen zu bestrafen, die gegen kein geschriebenes Gesetz verstießen? Die in diesem Band versammelten und kommentierten Originaltexte geben Einblick in das Denken von Rechtstheoretikern, die mit dem Nationalsozialismus sympathisierten, und belegen deren Versuch, autoritäre und dem Rechtsstaat widersprechende Rechtsprinzipien zu legitimieren. Dabei zeigt sich ein überraschender und bis jetzt von der rechts- und moralphilosophischen (...) Forschung weitgehend unbeachteter Aspekt des NS-Unrechtssystems: der Versuch einer »Ethisierung« des Rechts und die damit verbundene Totalisierung des machtstaatlichen Einflusses. (shrink)

Is the brain the biological substrate of consciousness? Most naturalistic philosophers of mind have supposed that the answer must obviously be «yes » to this question. However, a growing number of philosophers working in 4e (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive) cognitive science have begun to challenge this assumption, arguing instead that consciousness supervenes on the whole embodied animal in dynamic interaction with the environment. We call views that share this claim dynamic sensorimotor theories of consciousness (DSM). Clark (2009) a founder and (...) leading proponent of the hypothesis of the extended mind, demurs, arguing that as matter of fact the biology of consciousness doesn’t allow for a brain, body and world boundary crossing architecture. We begin by looking at one of the arguments for DSM, the variable neural correlates argument. We then outline two criticisms that Clark has made of this argument and endorse his criticisms. However we finish up by using the case of sensory substitution to argue that something of this argument for DSM nevertheless survives. We suggest that Clark ought to concede sensory substitution as a case in which the conscious mind extends. (shrink)

The concept of autonomy, once central to the self-understanding of modern philosophy, is under attack from at least two sides: (1) on the one side, there is a reawakened interest in naturalist philosophy, questioning the hybris of human self-understanding as being “above nature” and essentially free and rational; (2) on the other side, there is the feminist critique of autonomy as the wrongful generalization of a certain masculine/western understanding of the subject as independent person. Both aim at the core of (...) what the term “autonomy” normatively stands for: the capacity for rational self-determination. We inherit this concept of autonomy from Kant and encounter a variety of post-Kantian variations of it. In my paper, I will turn to Hegel in order to show that, although conceptualizing autonomy as rational self-determination, in his Philosophy of Nature, he incorporates elements of both naturalism and relational autonomy. Under revision, his concept of spirit provides us with a picture of the human as self-conscious animal or nature grasping itself. His notion of autonomy then turns out to be surprisingly fruitful for current debates, enabling us to understand our animalistic nature and our fundamental interdependency in a way that is not opposed to such concepts as rationality, freedom, and autonomy. As I will try to show, re-reading Hegel thus allows us to reconceptualize autonomy in a way that accords with its critics. (shrink)

It’s constitutive of classical theism that there is a necessarily existent personal god who is also the creator of the universe, where the latter claim includes at least the following three theses: (i) God is wholly distinct from the natural world; (ii) God is the originating or sustaining cause of the natural world; and (iii) God created the natural world ex nihilo, i.e., without the use of pre-existing materials. Call this tripartite component of classical theism the classical view of creation. (...) In this paper, I offer a new argument against classical theism. In particular, I argue that creation ex nihilo is prima facie impossible, and that since the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is constitutive of classical theism, classical theism is false. (shrink)

Behavioral intervention techniques leveraging reactive responses have gained popularity as tools for promoting ethical behavior. Choice architects, for example, design and present default opt-out options to nudge individuals into accepting preselected choices deemed beneficial to both the decision-maker and society. Such interventions can also employ mild financial incentives or affective triggers including joy, fear, empathy, social pressure, and reputational rewards. We argue, however, that ethical competence is achieved via reflection, and that heavy reliance on reactive behavioral interventions can undermine the (...) development of ethical competence over the long term. Specifically, drawbacks may occur through motivational displacement, dependency, moral crowding out, loss of personal autonomy, and reactance. We introduce complementary cognitive boosting techniques designed to stimulate reflective cognition, as a more promising long-term strategy for instilling ethical behavior. One such approach is the Moral Self-Awareness (MSA) motivational construct, which incrementally leads agents to increasing levels of ethical reflection. We explain why ethical boosting approaches present more edifying and durable alternatives to reactive behavioral interventions and offer suggestions for social and organizational policy. (shrink)

Recent advances in the Super Linguistics of pictures have laid the Super Semantic foundation for modelling the phenomena of narrative sequencing and co-reference in pictorial and mixed linguistic-pictorial discourses. We take up the question of how one arrives at the pragmatic interpretations of such discourses. In particular, we offer an analysis of: (i) the discourse composition problem: how to represent the joint meaning of a multi-picture discourse, (ii) observed differences in narrative sequencing in prima facie equivalent linguistic vs pictorial discourses, (...) and (iii) the phenomenon of co-referencing across pictures. We extend Segmented Discourse Representation Theory to spell out a formal Super Pragmatics that applies to linguistic, pictorial and mixed discourses, while respecting the particular ‘genius’ of either medium and computing their distinctive pragmatic interpretations. (shrink)

Algunas de las preguntas fundamentales de la filosofía del arte son: 1) ¿Qué es una obra de arte?, 2) ¿Qué es Arte?, 3) ¿Qué es el arte? Responderlas es determinar el sentido del arte. Este tipo de preguntas están planteadas bajo la fórmula ¿Qué es X?, es decir, preguntas en las cuales en lo simple esta lo complejo, preguntas en donde lo simple no quiere decir que sean sencillas; son preguntas que traen dentro de si su naturaleza y carácter metafísico-ontológico-gnoseológico, (...) y hasta axiológico. No es el propósito de este trabajo hacer frente o resolver estos problemas, sino proporcionar una aproximación al concepto de “obra de arte” en la época actual y como podría entenderse en relación a ciertos problemas ontológicos y epistemológicos actuales. -/- [Extended Version of: Vélez León, Paulo (2006). «Aproximaciones a la ¿obra de arte?». En Políticas al borde. Una investigación sobre el arte contemporáneo cuencano en los discursos políticos actuales, editado por Paulo Vélez León y Hernán Pacucuru. Cuenca: Universidad de Cuenca/Bienal Internacional de Cuenca, 2006, pp. 1-12]. (shrink)

A key premise of the kalam cosmological argument is that the universe began to exist. However, while a number of philosophers have offered powerful criticisms of William Lane Craig’s defense of the premise, J.P. Moreland has also offered a number of unique arguments in support of it, and to date, little attention has been paid to these in the literature. In this paper, I attempt to go some way toward redressing this matter. In particular, I shall argue that Moreland’s philosophical (...) arguments against the possibility of traversing a beginningless past are unsuccessful. (shrink)

There is growing concern that a global economic system fueled predominately by financial incentives may not maximize human flourishing and social welfare externalities. If so, this presents a challenge of how to get economic actors to adopt a more virtuous motivational mindset. Relying on historical, psychological, and philosophical research, we show how such a mindset can be instilled. First, we demonstrate that historically, financial self-interest has never in fact been the only guiding motive behind free markets, but that markets themselves (...) are representations of our individual and collective moral identities. Building on this understanding, we review the research on how economic incentives crowd out virtue-oriented concerns. We then introduce the concept of moral self-awareness (MSA), an evolving mindset informed by reflection on moral identity, namely what one’s actions say about oneself given the impacts on others or society that one’s action may effect. MSA comprises three fundamental aspects of virtue-oriented reasoning: pride, shame, and guilt. Finally, we offer a four-stage model anchored in systems theory, yielding ever more refined motivating strategies for maximizing human flourishing and social welfare externalities. (shrink)

Can we employ the property of rationality in establishing what rationality requires? According to a central and formal thesis of John Broome’s work on rational requirements, the answer is ‘no’ – at least if we expect a precise answer. In particular, Broome argues that (i) the property of full rationality (i.e. whether or not you are fully rational) is independent of whether we formulate conditional requirements of rationality as having a wide or a narrow logical scope. That is, (ii) by (...) replacing a wide-scope requirement with a corresponding narrow-scope requirement (or vice versa), we do not alter the situations in which a person is fully rational. As a consequence, (iii) the property of full rationality is unable to guide us in determining whether a rational requirement has a wide or a narrow logical scope. We cannot resolve the wide/narrow scope debate by appealing to a theory of fully rational attitudes. This paper argues that (i), (ii) and (iii) are incorrect. Replacing a wide- with a corresponding narrow-scope requirement (or vice versa) can alter the set of circumstances in which a person is fully rational. The property of full rationality is therefore not independent of whether we formulate conditional requirements of rationality as having a wide or a narrow logical scope. As a consequence, the property of full rationality can guide us in determining what rationality requires – even in cases where we expect a precise answer. (shrink)

This paper discusses whether rationality, morality or prudence impose process-requirements upon us. It has been argued that process-requirements fulfil two essential functions within a system of rational, moral or prudential requirements. These functions are considered to prove the existence of process-requirements. First, process-requirements are deemed necessary to ensure that rationality, morality or prudence can guide our deliberations and actions. Second, their existence is regarded as essential for the correctness of our ordinary explanations of why a person possesses a certain degree (...) of morality, rationality or prudence. However, I argue that these two functions are unable to show the existence of process-requirements. Instead, I propose a different essential function for process-requirements: they are necessary for attributing the correct degree of rationality, morality or prudence to a subject who is not entirely rational, moral or prudent. This function, I argue, necessitates the existence of process-requirements. (shrink)

Este volumen monográfico, desde una visión interdisciplinar aporta al estudio de la familia, así como al reconocimiento que se requiere en el ámbito educativo secundario y superior de una estructura consolidada del estudio de la bioética para una correcta educación en el cuidado de la vida, y de las políticas públicas que den estabilidad a la vida del hogar. 21 textos, dividos en cuatro secciones, desde el marco antropológico de la persona y la familia, abordan diversos ámbitos y temas relativos (...) al contexto familiar, tales como: el contexto psico-pedagógico, la bioética, el ciclo de vida familiar y la pastoral familiar. (shrink)

The requirements of rationality are fundamental in practical and theoretical philosophy. Nonetheless, there exists no correct account of what constitutes rational requirements. This paper attempts to provide a correct constitutive account of ‘rationality requires’. I argue that rational requirements are grounded in ‘necessary explanations of subjective incoherence’, as I shall put it. Rationality requires of you to X if and only if your rational capacities, in conjunction with the fact that you not-X, explain necessarily why you have a non-maximal degree (...) of subjective coherence. (shrink)

Phenomenal transparency was once widely believed to be necessary for cognitive extension. Recently, this claim has come under attack, with a new consensus coalescing around the idea that transparency is neither necessary for internal nor extended cognitive processes. We take these recent critiques as an opportunity to refine the concept of transparency relevant for cognitive extension. In particular, we highlight that transparency concerns an agent’s employment of a resource – and that such employment is compatible with an agent consciously apprehending (...) (or attending to) a resource. This means it is possible for an object to be transparent and opaque to an agent, even at a single moment in time. Once we understand transparency in this way, the detractors’ claims lose their bite, and existing arguments for transparency’s necessity for cognitive extension return to apply with full force. (shrink)

The generative AI boom is unleashing its minions. Enterprise software vendors have rolled out legions of automated assistants that use large language model (LLM) technology, such as ChatGPT, to offer users helpful suggestions or to execute simple tasks. These so-called copilots and chatbots can increase productivity and automate tedious manual work. In this article, we explain how that leads to the risk that users' ethical competence may degrade over time — and what to do about it.