The problem with reductionism in biology is not the reduction, but the implicit attitude of determinism that usually accompanies it. Methodological reductionism is supported by deterministic beliefs, but making such a connection is problematic when it is based on an idea of determinism as fixed predictability. Conflating determinism with predictability gives rise to inaccurate models that overlook the dynamic complexity of our world, as well as ignore our epistemic limitations when we try to model it. Furthermore, the assumption of a (...) strictly deterministic framework is unnecessarily hindering to biology. By removing the dogma of determinism, biological methods, including reductive methods, can be expanded to include stochastic models and probabilistic interpretations. Thus, the dogma of reductionism can be saved once its ties with determinism are severed. In this paper, I analyze two problems that have faced molecular biology for the last 50 years—protein folding and cancer. Both cases demonstrate the long influence of reductionism and determinism on molecular biology, as well as how abandoning determinism has opened the door to more probabilistic and unconstrained reductive methods in biology. (shrink)

Since the Nuremberg Code and the first Declaration of Helsinki, globally there has been increasing adoption and adherence to procedures for ensuring that human subjects in research are as well informed as possible of the study’s reasons and risks and voluntarily consent to serving as subject. To do otherwise is essentially viewed as violation of the human research subject’s legal and moral rights. However, with the recent philosophical concerns about responsible robotics, the limits and ambiguities of research-subjects ethical codes become (...) apparent on the matter of constructing automata that maximally resemble human beings (as defined hereunder). In this case, the automata themselves, as products of research and development, are in the very process of their construction subjects of research and development. However, such research faces a paradox: The subjects cannot give their informed consent to this research for their own development, although their consent would be needed for the research. According to ethical codes, this research would be unethical. The article then explores whether the background concepts giving rise to this paradox could be reframed in order to allow such research to proceed ethically. (shrink)

An inequality in quantum mechanics, which does not appear to be well known, is derived by elementary means and shown to be quite useful. The inequality applies to 'all' operators and 'all' pairs of quantum states, including mixed states. It generalizes the rule of the orthogonality of eigenvectors for distinct eigenvalues and is shown to imply all the Robertson generalized uncertainty relations. It severely constrains the difference between probabilities obtained from 'close' quantum states and the different responses they can have (...) to unitary transformations. Thus, it is dubbed a master inequality. With appropriate definitions the inequality also holds throughout general probability theory and appears not to be well known there either. That classical inequality is obtained here in an appendix. The quantum inequality can be obtained from the classical version but a more direct quantum approach is employed here. A similar but weaker classical inequality has been reported by Uffink and van Lith. (shrink)

The aspiration for volitional evolution, or human evolution directed by humans themselves,has increased in philosophical, scientific, technical, and commercial literature. The prospect of shaping the very being who is the consumer of all other innovations offers great commercial potential, one to which all other innovations would in effect be subservient. Actually an amalgam of projected technical/commercial developments, this prospective innovation has practical and ethical ramifications. However, because it is often discussed in a scientific way (specifically that of evolutionary theory), it (...) first calls for examination in terms of common scientific approaches to evolution. Yet, as evolutionary-theory controversies point up, evolution may be considered as neither a directed nor a directable process – a problem for the ontology of volitional evolution. One challenge for theories and programs aiming to implement the proposed innovation is then whether it is theoretically coherent. While I offer responses to the challenge in the form of objections, these in turn remain problematic. Two central issues of responsible innovation arise: (1) If this prospect were feasible, would it be responsible to implement it, and (2) if it is not even theoretically coherent, is it responsible for innovators, even this early-on, to keep promoting it as if it were? (shrink)

Metacognition is the capacity to evaluate the success of one's own cognitive processes in various domains; for example, memory and perception. It remains controversial whether metacognition relies on a domain-general resource that is applied to different tasks or if self-evaluative processes are domain specific. Here, we investigated this issue directly by examining the neural substrates engaged when metacognitive judgments were made by human participants of both sexes during perceptual and memory tasks matched for stimulus and performance characteristics. By comparing patterns (...) of fMRI activity while subjects evaluated their performance, we revealed both domain-specific and domain-general metacognitive representations. Multivoxel activity patterns in anterior prefrontal cortex predicted levels of confidence in a domain-specific fashion, whereas domain-general signals predicting confidence and accuracy were found in a widespread network in the frontal and posterior midline. The demonstration of domain-specific metacognitive representations suggests the presence of a content-rich mechanism available to introspection and cognitive control. (shrink)

As engineers propose constructing humanlike automata, the question arises as to whether such machines merit human rights. The issue warrants serious and rigorous examination, although it has not yet cohered into a conversation. To put it into a sure direction, this paper proposes phrasing it in terms of whether humans are morally obligated to extend to maximally humanlike automata full human rights, or those set forth in common international rights documents. This paper’s approach is to consider the ontology of humans (...) and of automata and whether ontological difference between them, that pertains to the very bases of human rights, affects the latter’s claims to full human rights. Considering common bases of human rights, can these bases tell us whether a certain ontological distinction of humans from automata—or a de facto distinction about humans tacitly acknowledged by full-rights-recognizing societies—makes a difference in whether humans are morally obligated to assign these entities full rights? Human rights to security also arise. The conclusion is that humans need not be under any moral obligation to confer full human rights on automata. The paper’s ultimate point is not to close the discussion with this ontological cap but to set a solid moral and legal groundwork for opening it up tout court. (shrink)

When agents insert technological systems into their decision-making processes, they can obscure moral responsibility for the results. This can give rise to a distinct moral wrong, which we call “agency laundering.” At root, agency laundering involves obfuscating one’s moral responsibility by enlisting a technology or process to take some action and letting it forestall others from demanding an account for bad outcomes that result. We argue that the concept of agency laundering helps in understanding important moral problems in a number (...) of recent cases involving automated, or algorithmic, decision-systems. We apply our conception of agency laundering to a series of examples, including Facebook’s automated advertising suggestions, Uber’s driver interfaces, algorithmic evaluation of K-12 teachers, and risk assessment in criminal sentencing. We distinguish agency laundering from several other critiques of information technology, including the so-called “responsibility gap,” “bias laundering,” and masking. (shrink)

The intersection of development and evolution has always harbored conceptual issues, but many of these are on display in contemporary evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). These issues include: (1) the precise constitution of evo-devo, with its focus on both the evolution of development and the developmental basis of evolution, and how it fits within evolutionary theory; (2) the nature of evo-devo model systems that comprise the material of comparative and experimental research; (3) the puzzle of how to understand the widely used (...) notion of 'conserved mechanisms'; (4) the definition of evolutionary novelties and expectations for how to explain them; and (5) the demand of interdisciplinary collaboration that derives from investigating complex phenomena at key moments in the history of life, such as the fin-limb transition. This Element treats these conceptual issues with close attention to both empirical detail and scientific practice to offer new perspectives on evolution and development. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

This philosophical narrative delves into deepening crises afflicting modern democracies, when extreme inequality and its resultant alienation grips not just adults but, even more anguishingly, children. These children and often their parents come in far under the social radar, so out-of-touch that even census takers overlook them. In this milieu, weapons and narcotics are as much an unquestioned part of life as breathing. The world beyond this invisible cage entirely escapes them, nor does the larger society miss them or know (...) about them. This documentary narrative follows a thirteen-year-old who forces himself to escape his oblivious father, not out of hope, but for sheer escape from the execrable situation, without even the will to be himself, whatever that is. He also must navigate through his nightmare existemce, relying on an illicit business, the only thing he knows as well as breathing. If the individuals in this milieu--which cut across racial boundaries--ever even hear of voting, they are drawn to strong-arm politicians, who appeal to these scattered inhabitants, as examples of strength, no-nonsense, even hatred. The ethics of such circumstances' mere existence--further extreme than even those in Les Miserable--in our societies poses a formidable challenge to the ethics of social and political philosophy and are hardly touched upon in the academic literature. The central philosophical question is whether it is possible for a political system to preempt such conditions, particularly when these individuals, especially the children, are veritably invisible. The metaphilosophical issue is why philosophy does not focus more concern about this ignored human morass. To say an indictment of soiciopolitical philosophy is not justified here, that the persons encountered here are merely messed-up self-indulgent people, only adds cause to the charge. (shrink)

Algorithmic systems and predictive analytics play an increasingly important role in various aspects of modern life. Scholarship on the moral ramifications of such systems is in its early stages, and much of it focuses on bias and harm. This paper argues that in understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems it is essential to understand the relation between algorithms, autonomy, and agency. We draw on several recent cases in criminal sentencing and K–12 teacher evaluation to outline four key ways in (...) which issues of agency, autonomy, and respect for persons can conflict with algorithmic decision-making. Three of these involve failures to treat individual agents with the respect they deserve. The fourth involves distancing oneself from a morally suspect action by attributing one’s decision to take that action to an algorithm, thereby laundering one’s agency. (shrink)

There is a conflict between a strictly political approach to LGBT rights, in which the battle must never cease. and the less encountered notion that individuals can let the battle settle into the background and simply get on with unpolitical life. at least unpolitical at home. The article takes the example of India as a salient place to view this conflict. As a democratic nation, India has had some limited progress in protecting LGBT rights. How its massively differentiated and traditional (...) society has adopted and tolerated this moral enjoinder is another matter. Certainly, acceptance is as important as legal recognition. But how are the politics faring at the individual level? One of the best media for feeling a nation’s political pulse is not internet or television but literature. Two current Indian authors exemplify how, at the personal level, some sexual politicking has already succeeded, in some social realms, by almost disappearing from the narrative. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: So far in this book, we have examined algorithmic decision systems from three autonomy-based perspectives: in terms of what we owe autonomous agents (chapters 3 and 4), in terms of the conditions required for people to act autonomously (chapters 5 and 6), and in terms of the responsibilities of agents (chapter 7). -/- In this chapter we turn to the ways in which autonomy underwrites democratic governance. Political authority, which is to say the ability of a government to exercise (...) power, may be justifiable or not. Whether it is justified and how it can come to be justified is a question of political legitimacy. Political legitimacy is another way in which autonomy and responsibility are linked. This relationship is the basis of the current chapter, and it is important in understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems. We will draw the connection as follows. We begin, in section 8.1, by describing two uses of technology: crime predicting technology used to drive policing practices and social media technology used to influence elections (including by Cambridge Analytica and by the Internet Research Agency). In section 8.2 we consider several views of legitimacy and argue for a hybrid version of normative legitimacy based on one recently offered by Fabienne Peter. In section 8.3 we will explain that the connection between political legitimacy and autonomy is that legitimacy is grounded in legitimating processes, which are in turn based on autonomy. Algorithmic systems—among them PredPol and the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook-Internet Research Agency amalgam—can hinder that legitimation process and conflict with democratic legitimacy, as we argue in section 8.4. We will conclude by returning to several cases that serve as through-lines to the book: Loomis, Wagner, and Houston Schools. -/- The link below is to an open-access copy of the chapter. (shrink)

This paper lays out the basic structure of any view involving coincident entities, in the light of the grounding problem. While the account is not novel, I highlight fundamental features, to which attention is not usually properly drawn. With this in place, I argue for a number of further claims: The basic differences between coincident objects are modal differences, and any other differences between them need to be explained in terms of these differences. More specifically, the basic difference is not (...) a difference in sort. A number of recent defenses of coincidence, which share the basic structure I outline, misidentify what, in their accounts, plays the basic role of addressing the grounding problem. More tentatively, I argue Coincident entities differ only in these modal properties, and properties they entail. In particular, they do not differ in properties like ‘being a tree,’ ‘being a statue,’ or aesthetic properties, and finally in light of how the account of coincidence offered addresses the grounding problem, the grounding problem provides no reason to prefer monism to pluralism. (shrink)

I argue that most counterfactuals are false.

Although they were never to meet and corresponded only briefly, Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft shared a mutual admiration and a strong intellectual bond. Macaulay’s work had a profound and lasting effect on Wollstonecraft, and she developed and expanded on many of Macaulay’s ideas. While she often took these in a different direction, there remains a great synergy between their ideas to the extent that we can understand Wollstonecraft’s own feminist arguments by approaching them through the frameworks and ideas that (...) Macaulay provided. These included the principles of classical republicanism, particularly in its understanding of the values of freedom, equality and virtue, and an understanding of reason as grounded in immutable principles that apply equally to both sexes. On the question of women’s freedom and social equality with men, I argue that though Macaulay sets up the problem in far richer and more detailed philosophical terms, in the end it is Wollstonecraft that has the more compelling account of its far-reaching social implications and of how this might be addressed. (shrink)

Pascal’s Wager involves expected utilities. In this chapter, we examine the Wager in light of two main features of expected utility theory: utilities and probabilities. We discuss infinite and finite utilities, and zero, infinitesimal, extremely low, imprecise, and undefined probabilities. These have all come up in recent literature regarding Pascal’s Wager. We consider the problems each creates and suggest prospects for the Wager in light of these problems.

Over the past several decades environmental ethics has grown markedly, normative ethics having provided essential grounding in assessing human treatment of the environment. Even a systematic approach, such as Paul Taylor’s, in a sense tells the environment how it is to be treated, whether that be Earth’s ecosystem or the universe itself. Can the environment, especially the ecosystem, as understood through the study of ecology, in turn offer normative and applied ethics any edification? The study of ecology has certainly increased (...) awareness of the fact that it is not possible for a moral agent within the ecosystem to step outside its intricate mesh of actions and events, of causes and effects. That is, absolutely everything that an agent can do can have some, often unforeseeable, outcome in the environment. An incompletely snuffed-out match tossed out a car window can cause a forest fire, which causes biome destruction, which causes x, y, and z. In sum, the ecosystem can edify ethics in terms of the scope of ethics, which remains an unsettled, if too-often ignored, matter. By such an inclusive view of moral scope, as derived in part from ecology and as presented here, the scope of moral behavior would include—whether or not adventitiously—every action an agent may do. By this view, moral scope is, in essence, unlimited. The article offers some ramifications of this view of moral scope. (shrink)

Most current dental ethics curricula use a deontological approach to biomedical and dental ethics that emphasizes adherence to duties and principles as properties that determine whether an act is ethical. But the actual ethical orientation of students is typically unknown. The purpose of the current study was to determine the ethical orientation of dental students in resolving clinical ethical dilemmas. First-year students from one school were invited to participate in an electronic survey that included eight vignettes featuring ethical conflicts common (...) to the health care setting. The Multidimensional Ethics Scale was used to evaluate the students’ ethical judgments of these conflicts. Students rated each vignette along 13 ethically relevant items using a 7-point scale. Nine of the thirteen items were analyzed because they represent the dominant ethical theories, including deontology. One hundred sixteen dental students successfully completed the survey. Of the analyzed items, those associated with deontology had comparatively weak associations with whether students judged the action to be ethical and whether students judged themselves likely to perform the action. Whether an action was judged to be caring had the strongest association with whether the action was judged to be ethical and whether students judged themselves likely to perform the action. These results suggest that adherence to duties or principles has weaker association with students’ ethical judgments and behavior compared to caring, which was found to be more influential in their ethical judgments and behavior. Current dental school curricula with a primary focus on deontology may no. (shrink)

This article serves as either an addendum or as an expansion of ideas and work developed in my 2024 book, The Rationality Project: Across the Millennia, issued by Palgrave Macmillan. The book explores 21 potential theories for explaining rationality in terms of why and how one among these can serve in the position of explanatory power. The book does not fully explain all of these candidate theories, assigning that complete role to this addendum or work-in-progress. The main reason for this (...) abbreviation in assessing all the theories in the book is that the complete coverage—which this addendum allows—of all 21 theories would become too detailed for some philosophical readers. This addendum; one may consider, is then for the more technically minded reader—although certainly not-too-technically minded readers are welcome to explore it. If it becomes too bogged in detail for those latter kinds of readers, they may end up skimming the material in this addendum, trying at least to get the general idea of how these addendum sections fit into the book's goals. (shrink)

Two Socratic dialogues often considered “comic”—Ion and Hippias Major—have also been contested as to their Platonic authenticity. Plato’s dialogues; while certainly engaging, can also seem grim in their philosophical intensity: At least one author has contended that the dialogue more firmly established as genuinely by Plato, Symposium; has some comic elements: This article goes a step further in suggesting that this dialogue does not merely have comic elements but is in fact a comedy. It draws on several texts in the (...) literature on Greek comedy over the past century and suggests that; although the dialogue sets itself serious philosophical challenges, its structure; style; and method are deeply steeped in comedic modes from around Plato’s day. This is not to presume whether Plato was deliberately writing a comedy. In general, writers are often strongly influenced by literary fashions of the day, so it would not be far stretching the matter to understand the work as comedic. Thereby, the article offers, via textual analysis, an argument for how the dialogue is a comedy along withcounter-arguments against such a notion. In the end, indeed, acknowledging it is a comedy promises to open up new angles on interpreting that dialogue. (shrink)

There have long been calls from industry for guidance in implementing strategies for sustainable development. The Circular Economy represents the most recent attempt to conceptualize the integration of economic activity and environmental wellbeing in a sustainable way. This set of ideas has been adopted by China as the basis of their economic development, escalating the concept in minds of western policymakers and NGOs. This paper traces the conceptualisations and origins of the Circular Economy, tracing its meanings, and exploring its antecedents (...) in economics and ecology, and discusses how the Circular Economy has been operationalized in business and policy. The paper finds that while the Circular Economy places emphasis on the redesign of processes and cycling of materials, which may contribute to more sustainable business models, it also encapsulates tensions and limitations. These include an absence of the social dimension inherent in sustainable development that limits its ethical dimensions, and some unintended consequences. This leads us to propose a revised definition of the Circular Economy as “an economic model wherein planning, resourcing, procurement, production and reprocessing are designed and managed, as both process and output, to maximize ecosystem functioning and human well-being”. (shrink)

Human-sciences research often focuses on social problems to create tools for solving them. Yet, in using common prejudices in gathering and sorting data on their subjects, they risk propagating those same prejudices. This article proposes that a major subject matter of human sciences is human concepts themselves. Concepts about “what we are,” individually and as a species, are deeply embedded, if not essential. It concludes that for greater precision, practitioners in human sciences must take maximum advantage of this characteristic of (...) the subject, making individuals’ concepts about what they consider themselves to be integral criteria of data gathering and sorting. (shrink)

In Wollstonecraft’s early writings, she articulates the foundational theological and philosophical principles that would underpin her work throughout her career. One difference between her early and later work lies in the way that the values to which she refers are combined. Whereas Wollstonecraft at first appeals to the separate ideals of independence, equality, and virtue, from the 1790s onwards she integrates these into a characteristic republican framework that was in common use amongst dissenting theorists at the time. The set of (...) values on which Wollstonecraft draws, and the version of the republican framework that she develops, closely resemble those of Richard Price with whose work she was familiar. Examining the structural similarities between their respective models, I argue, gives us an insight into the systematic manner of aspects of Wollstonecraft’s own thought. It also allows us to see how Wollstonecraft goes beyond the republicanism of Price and others as she develops her own feminist solutions to the problems of structural domination. (shrink)

I argue that metaphysical views of material objects should be understood as 'packages', rather than individual claims, where the other parts of the package include how the theory addresses 'recalcitant data', and that when the packages meet certain general desiderata - which all of the currently competing views *can* meet - there is nothing in the world that could make one of the theories true as opposed to any of the others.

Hans C. Ohanian 1 claims to “defeat” the conventionalist thesis of clock synchronization using an argument based on dynamics. My aim here is to show that his argument does not succeed.

A comprehensive introduction to the ways in which meaning is conveyed in language. Alan Cruse covers semantic matters, but also deals with topics that are usually considered to fall under pragmatics. A major aim is to highlight the richness and subtlety of meaning phenomena, rather than to expound any particular theory.

We outline a simple development of special and general relativity based on the physical meaning of the spacetime interval. The Lorentz transformation is not used.

Bayesianism is our leading theory of uncertainty. Epistemology is defined as the theory of knowledge. So “Bayesian Epistemology” may sound like an oxymoron. Bayesianism, after all, studies the properties and dynamics of degrees of belief, understood to be probabilities. Traditional epistemology, on the other hand, places the singularly non-probabilistic notion of knowledge at centre stage, and to the extent that it traffics in belief, that notion does not come in degrees. So how can there be a Bayesian epistemology?

So-called “traditional epistemology” and “Bayesian epistemology” share a word, but it may often seem that the enterprises hardly share a subject matter. They differ in their central concepts. They differ in their main concerns. They differ in their main theoretical moves. And they often differ in their methodology. However, in the last decade or so, there have been a number of attempts to build bridges between the two epistemologies. Indeed, many would say that there is just one branch of philosophy (...) here—epistemology. There is a common subject matter after all. In this paper, we begin by playing the role of a “bad cop,” emphasizing many apparent points of disconnection, and even conflict, between the approaches to epistemology. We then switch role, playing a “good cop” who insists that the approaches are engaged in common projects after all. We look at various ways in which the gaps between them have been bridged, and we consider the prospects for bridging them further. We conclude that this is an exciting time for epistemology, as the two traditions can learn, and have started learning, from each other. (shrink)

Hans Reichenbach was a formidable figure in early-twentieth-century philosophy of science. Educated in Germany, he was influential in establishing the so-called Berlin Circle, a companion group to the Vienna Circle founded by his colleague Rudolph Carnap. The movement they founded—usually known as "logical positivism," although it is more precisely known as "scientific philosophy" or "logical empiricism"—was a form of epistemology that privileged scientific over metaphysical truths. Reichenbach, like other young philosophers of the exact sciences of his generation, was deeply impressed (...) by the far-reaching changes in physics brought about by Einstein's special and general theories of relativity. Reichenbach responded to scientific advances by doing fundamental work in space-time theories, in quantum mechanics, in statistical mechanics, and in the development of probability theory—making him the most important philosopher of physics in the first generation of logical empiricism. Forced from his academic position by the Nazi race laws in 1933, Reichenbach wrote _Experience and Prediction_ at the University of Istanbul, where had had fled, expressly to introduce logical positivism to English speakers. In the two decades following World War II, during the explosion of scientific advances in North America, logical positivism was the reigning theory of the philosophy of science and Reichenbach was at the peak of his career. But, inevitably, support for logical positivism began to wane as it became obvious that the justification of scientific theories could not be entirely resolved by relying on strictly formal, technical processes. The growth of the discipline of the history of philosophy of science, which has created an audience of scholars eager for seminal classics in scientific philosophy, and the evidence supporting a historicist paradigm within logical positivism are two important reasons to make _Experience and Prediction_ available once again. "Hans Reichenbach's_ Experience and Prediction_ is one of the most important books in twentieth-century philosophy of science. Its author was, along with Rudolf Carnap, one of the two principal ambassadors to North America of the exciting new European philosophical movement known here under the names 'Logical Positivism' and 'Scientific Philosophy.' In 1938, when the book was published, Reichenbach was an exile from his native Germany, teaching in Istanbul, Turkey, and about to emigrate to the United States to take up a prestigious position at UCLA. He wrote_ Experience and Prediction_ in English as his calling card to his new American colleagues. More than any other single book,_ Experience and Prediction_ set the agenda for the new discipline of the philosophy of science that was to emerge after World War II as, perhaps, the most exciting new area in North American philosophy. Many of the problems still at the focus of discussion were given their classic formulations in this book. Long out of print,_ Experience and Prediction_ appears here in a new edition accompanied by a splendid historical introduction by the noted young philosopher and historian of the philosophy of science, Alan Richardson. A jewel of a book may once again be appreciated in its proper setting." —Don A. Howard, University of Notre Dame. (shrink)

Despite the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, assimilationist policies continue, whether official or effective. Such policies affect more than the right to group choice. The concern is whether indeed genocide or “only” ethnocide (or culturecide)—the elimination of a traditional culture—is at work. Discussions of the distinction between the two terms have been inconsistent enough that at least one commentator has declared that they cannot be used in analytical contexts. While these terms, I contend, have distinct senses, (...) yet in cases of governmental and other institutional assimilationist policy for indigenous peoples, such ethnocide effectively entails genocide. Insofar as any people’s cultural practices and beliefs are essential for life and health, individuals in groups value, if tacitly, their culture as highly as their language or any artifact: Thus, attempts to eradicate a culture through assimilation in fact eradicate individuals’ lives and health and so are effectively murderous. Acknowledgement by worldwide organizations that assimilationist ethnocide is effectively genocide should affect policy concerning indigenous peoples and thus has significance for international law. (shrink)

Grounding has become all the rage in recent philosophical work and metaphilosophical discussions. While I agree that the concept of ground marks something useful, I am skeptical about the metaphysical weight many imbue it with, and the picture of ‘worldly layering’ that grounding talk inspires. My skepticism centers around the fact that grounding involves necessitation, combined with reasons for thinking matters of necessity are matters of logical or conceptual (semantic, psychological) relations. I sketch an argument for deflationism about ground based (...) on this sort of deflationism about necessity and essence. I also note that in at least some cases, the considerations supporting modal deflationism directly support deflationism about whatever grounding relations may obtain in these cases. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: One important criticism of algorithmic systems is that they lack transparency. Such systems can be opaque because they are complex, protected by patent or trade secret, or deliberately obscure. In the EU, there is a debate about whether the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) contains a “right to explanation,” and if so what such a right entails. Our task in this chapter is to address this informational component of algorithmic systems. We argue that information access is integral for respecting (...) autonomy, and transparency policies should be tailored to advance autonomy. -/- To make this argument we distinguish two facets of agency (i.e., capacity to act). The first is practical agency, or the ability to act effectively according to one’s values. The second is what we call cognitive agency, which is the ability to exercise what Pamela Hieronymi calls “evaluative control” (i.e., the ability to control our affective states, such as beliefs, desires, and attitudes). We argue that respecting autonomy requires providing persons sufficient information to exercise evaluative control and properly interpret the world and one’s place in it. We draw this distinction out by considering algorithmic systems used in background checks, and we apply the view to key cases involving risk assessment in criminal justice decisions and K-12 teacher evaluation. -/- The link below is to an open access version of the chapter. (shrink)

Autonomy, equality and freedom often appear to be significantly interrelated with one another. However, it has been a challenge to unite these concepts. This article attempts to take up the challenge and demonstrate how these interrelate: .

Robert Wilson’s The Eugenic Mind Project is a major achievement of engaged scholarship and socially relevant philosophy and history of science. It exemplifies the virtues of interdisciplinarity. As principal investigator of the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project, while employed in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alberta, Wilson encountered a proverbial big ball of mud with questions and issues that involved local individuals living through a painful set of memories and implicated his institutional home in (...) outstanding moral obligations. It is engaged scholarship because it required building relationships with affected persons and taking responsibility for his institution’s legacy, as well as transforming Wilson’s own outlook along the way. It is socially relevant philosophy and history of science because it brings to light issues that remain salient today, especially how eugenic themes are ubiquitous in societal discourse and evinced in everyday decisions. It is interdisciplinary because to accomplish this type of analysis requires intellectual gymnastics that range over diverse domains of research: from standpoint theory and disability studies to oral history and governmental policy; from the evolutionary biology of prosociality and variation to conceptual questions about the categorization of human traits and types. (shrink)

In his Treatise Hume makes a profound suggestion: philosophical problems, especially problems in metaphysics, are verbal. This view is most vigorously articulated and defended in the course of his investigation of the problem of the self, in the section “Of personal identity.” My paper is a critical exploration of Hume's arguments for this influential thesis and an analysis of the context that informs this 1739 version of the nature of philosophical problems that anticipates the linguistic turn in philosophy. -/- .

This article discusses the views of Immanuel Kant on sexual perversion (what he calls "carnal crimes against nature"), as found in his Vorlesung (Lectures on Ethics) and the Metaphysics of Morals (both the Rechtslehre and Tugendlehre). Kant criticizes sexual perversion by appealing to Natural Law and to his Formula of Humanity. Neither argument for the immorality of sexual perversion succeeds.

One of the most salient contemporary concerns in academic debates and pop culture alike is the extent to which new technologies may re-cast Homo sapiens. Species members may find themselves encased in a type of existence they deem to be wanting in comparison with their present form, even if the promised form was assured to be better. Plausibly, the concern is not merely fear of change or of the unknown, but rather it arises out of individuals’ general identification with what (...) they are and what their friends and family are. In altering that identity beyond a point, they lose it and thus lose themselves in a kind of living death. The three volumes analysed in this essay offer widely differing perspectives on the relations between humans and new technology. As the three works reviewed here together make clear, a whole, fully coherent, definitive work on the composite redesign of human nature (CROHN) still has yet to materialize. (shrink)

While the image of the slave as the antithesis of the freeman is central to republican freedom, it is striking to note that slaves themselves have not contributed to how this condition is understood. The result is a one-sided conception of both freedom and slavery, which leaves republicanism unable to provide an equal and robust protection for historically outcast people. I draw on the work of Frederick Douglass – long overlooked as a significant contributor to republican theory – to show (...) one way why this is so. Focusing the American Revolution, the subsequent republican government established new political institutions to maintain the collective interests of the whole population. The political revolution was held in place by processes of public reason that reflected the values and ideas of the people that had rebelled. The black population, however, had not been part of this revolution. After emancipation, black Americans were required to accept terms of citizenship that had already been defined, leaving them socially dominated, subject to the prejudices and biases within the prevailing ideas of public discourse. Douglass argued that republican freedom under law is always dependent on a more fundamental revolution, that he calls a ‘radical revolution in thought’, in which the entire system of social norms and practices are reworked together by members of all constituent social groups – women and men, black and white, rich and poor – so that it reflects a genuinely collaborative achievement. Only then can we begin the republican project of contestatory freedom as independence or non-domination that today’s republicans take for granted. (shrink)

A dissociated area of medical research warrants bioethical consideration: a proposed transplantation of a donor’s entire body, except head, to a patient with a fatal degenerative disease. The seeming improbability of such an operation can only underscore the need for thorough bioethical assessment: Not assessing a case of such potential ethical import, by showing neglect instead of facing the issue, can only compound the ethical predicament, perhaps eroding public trust in ethical medicine. This article discusses the historical background of full-body (...) transplantation, documents the seriousness of its current pursuit, and builds an argument for why prima facie this type of transplant is bioethically distinct. Certainly, this examination can only be preliminary, indicating what should be a wide and vigorous discussion among practitioners and ethicists. It concludes with practical suggestions for how the medical and bioethics community may proceed with ethical assessment. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the question of whether humans should reproduce. Some say human life is too punishing and cruel to impose upon an innocent. Others hold that such harms do not undermine the great and possibly unique value of human life. Tracing these outlooks historically in the debate has barely begun. What might philosophers have said, or what did they say, about human life itself and its value to merit reproduction? This article looks to (...) Kant, who wrote much on whether, by reproducing, humans do wrong or right morally. It assesses two main arguments: one examining whether perfect or imperfect duties condone reproduction, the other whether Kant’s teleological or, in the opposite sense, his eschatological outlooks can salvage reproduction. These two arguments are essential for building the entire argument. This article finds that, although Kant’s arguments against reproducing are strong, some of his writing seems to support reproduction as a good. Yet, must we must assume an author, even one who strove for systematicity, must be consistent over his entire oeuvre on every issue, especially if not handled directly in a single work? The article concludes that Kant does not sufficiently, systematically support anti-natalism as more moral than pro-natalism. It is best for the current debate to grapple with the very dilemma that daunted Kant. (shrink)

Critiques John Martin Fischer's bootstrapping model of divine foreknowledge. Invited contribution to a special journal issue on John Martin Fischer's _Our Fate: Essays on God and Free Will_ (Oxford, 2016).

Care is more than dispensing pills or cleaning beds. It is about responding to the entire patient. What is called “bedside manner” in medical personnel is a quality of treating the patient not as a mechanism but as a being—much like the caregiver—with desires, ideas, dreams, aspirations, and the gamut of mental and emotional character. As automata, answering an increasing functional need in care, are designed to enact care, the pressure is on their becoming more humanlike to carry out the (...) function more effectively. The question becomes not merely whether the care automaton can effect good bedside manner but whether the patient’s response is not feeling deceived by the humanlikeness. It seems the device must be designed either to effect explicit mere human-“likeness,” thus likely undermining its bedside-manner potential, or to fool the patient completely. Neither option is attractive. This article examines the social problems of designing maximally humanlike care automata and how problems may start to erode the human rights of users/patients. The article then investigates the alternatives for dealing with this problem, whether by industrial and professional self-regulation or public-policy initiatives. It then frames the problem in the broader historical perspective in terms of previous bans, moratoria, and other means of control of hazardous and potentially rights-violating techniques and materials. (shrink)

As to what distinguishes music from other sound, some investigators in both philosophy and cognitive scientists have answered “tonality.” It seems subservient even to rhythm. Tonality is considered to be the central factor around which the piece is oriented; it gives a sense of home, expectation, and completeness. Most important, much of this inquiry builds on naturalistic, evolutionary explanation to account for human nature and behavior. The conclusion of such line of thought is that sounds missing tonality or tonal focus (...) cannot be music. This article challenges such sort of naturalistic criteria distinguishing music from nonmusic. Permitting certain sets of sounds to be considered music does not necessitate denial or approval of naturalistic explanations but does allow nontonal music to serve a part of human and musical evolution. (shrink)

Philosophical materialists suggest that a person can be identified with their brain. My paper is a critical investigation of this provocative thesis and an analysis of some of the prominent arguments to support this view. My overall argument is that there is more to this issue than some philosophers appear to acknowledge.

If any area of current philosophy is so incendiary as to veer on violence, it is argument about a divide being’s existence. Hinman’s sober offering is possibly one of the most thorough apologetics in contemporary times, meriting serious consideration yet certain to draw fire. Since Darwin, the religious have taken up arms, both metaphorically and, in the case of World Trade Center and its imitators, literally. In turn, growing atheist movements reacted against such defensiveness. This upsurge in side-taking and regrouping (...) evidences a powerful human need for settling the issue. A peek at the arguments reveals a mess. One advantage of Hinman’s new work is that, among other goals, it attempts to order the mess. The work exudes care and some respect for the various perspectives. Its sheer breadth and depth of scholarship and capacity in articulating it attests the generally due respect of the many sides, which often exhibit the rational and irrational in one commentator. The central theme tying the various arguments together is that ideologies outside of the sciences’ themselves are informing science-based, evidential arguments about any divine’s existence. Many sides of the debate, including the monotheistic, are equally guilty. (shrink)

This paper defends the traditional view that the laws of nature are contingent, or, if some of them are necessary, this is due to analytic principles for the individuation of the law-governed properties. Fundamentally, I argue that the supposed explanatory purposes served by taking the laws to be necessary --showing how laws support counterfactuals, how properties are individuated, or how we have knowledge of properties--are in fact undermined by the continued possibility of the imagined scenarios--this time, described neutrally--which seemed to (...) disprove the claim to necessity in the first place. I speculate that this will be true for any proposed necessary a posteriori truths, and is a basis for rejecting their supposed metaphysical significance. (shrink)

The Golden Rule (“what you want done [or not done] to yourself, do [or don’t do] to others”) is the most widely accepted summary statement of human morality, and even today it continues to have philosophical supporters. This article argues that the Golden Rule suffers from four faults, the first two related to the ethics of justice and the second two related to the ethics of benevolence. One, it fails to explain how to deal with non-reciprocation. Two, it fails to (...) make clear that my obligations are obligations regardless of how I would wish to be treated by others. Three, it lacks any special value in explaining the right occasions for benevolence. And, four, it has no power to motivate benevolence. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell’s conception of philosophy evolved dramatically in 1911 — the year he fell in love with Lady Ottoline Morrell. For many years Russell had been an ardent advocate of the view that philosophers ought to look for truths that are certain. The co-author of Principia Mathematica altered his commitment to certainty in philosophy in 1911. An analysis of his published views and correspondence from this time strongly suggests that the radical transformation was induced by an epiphany brought about by (...) his emotional entanglement with his lover. (shrink)

Thanks to mounting discussion about projected technologies’ possibly altering the species mentally and physically, philosophical investigation of what human beings are proceeds robustly. Many thinkers contend that whatever we are has little to do with how we should behave. Yet, tampering with what the human being is may tread upon human rights to be whatever one is. Rights given in widely recognized documents such as the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples assume what humans are and need depends (...) upon ontological assumptions about human existence. Godman turns to human ontology—just what kind of beings humans are (from an angle distinct from the other two books) and how these play into rights. She is concerned with how well the social sciences accord with what we are. Gunkel homes in on a more specific moral topic than Godman's general concern with identity’s role in rights: automata moral status and rights. He enjoins us to inquire into what human rights are before we take on the new technologies’ challenge to it. Schneider’s Artificial You, while not explicitly about rights, poses a rights quandary. Certain individuals with reputable resources and practical backing explicitly seek to evolve the species as they see fit. The urgency among these works concerns how we need a sharper idea of what we are, how we should act and be treated, and how our rights fare among potential human improvements. (shrink)