Liver transplantation (LT) activities during the COVID-19 pandemic have been curtailed in many countries. The impact of various policies restricting LT on outcomes of potential LT candidates is unclear. We studied all patients on the nationwide LT waitlists in Hong Kong and Singapore between January 2016 and May 2020. We used continuous time Markov chains to model the effects of different scenarios and varying durations of disruption on LT candidates.

Could Christians and Muslims be referring to the same God? Consider Gareth Evans’s causal theory of reference, on which a name refers to the dominant source of information in the name’s “dossier”. I argue that information about experiences, in which God is simply the object of acquaintance, can dominate the dossier. Thus, this "demonstrative" use of names offers a promising alternative avenue by which users of the divine names can refer to the same referent despite having different conceptions of God.

Without doctors being able to explain medical decisions to patients, I argue their use of black box AIs would erode the effective and respectful care they provide patients. In addition, I argue that physicians should use AI black boxes only for patients in dire straits, or when physicians use AI as a “co-pilot” (analogous to a spellchecker) but can independently confirm its accuracy. I respond to A.J. London’s objection that physicians already prescribe some drugs without knowing why they work.

Russellian monism – an influential doctrine proposed by Russell (1927/1992) – is roughly the view that the natural sciences can only ever tell us about the causal, dispositional, and structural properties of physical entities and not about their categorical properties, and, moreover, that our qualia are constituted by categorical properties. Recently, Stoljar (2001a, 2001b), Strawson (2008), Montero (2010, 2015), Alter and Nagasawa (2012), and Chalmers (2015) have attempted to develop this doctrine into a version of physicalism. Russellian monism faces the (...) so-called combination problem, according to which it is difficult to see how categorical properties could collectively constitute qualia. In this paper, I suggest that there is an insufficiently discussed aspect of the combination problem which I call the difference-maker problem. Taking the difference-maker problem into account, I argue that the combination problem – whether or not it can be solved – results in a dilemma for the project of developing Russellian physicalism. That is, Russellian monism is either physicalistically unacceptable or it is implausible; hence, Russellian monism and physicalism are incompatible. (shrink)

Set aside fanciful doomsday speculations about AI. Even lower-level AIs, while otherwise friendly and providing us a universal basic income, would be able to do all our jobs. Also, we would over-rely upon AI assistants even in our personal lives. Thus, John Danaher argues that a human crisis of moral passivity would result However, I argue firstly that if AIs are posited to lack the potential to become unfriendly, they may not be intelligent enough to replace us in all our (...) jobs. If instead they are intelligent enough to replace us, the risk they become unfriendly increases, given that they would not need us and humans would just compete for valuable resources. Their hostility will not promote our moral passivity. Secondly, the use of AI assistants in our personal lives will become a problem only if we rely on them for almost all our decision-making and motivation. But such a (maximally) pervasive level of dependence raises the question of whether humans would accept it, and consequently whether the crisis of passivity will arise. (shrink)

In this paper, we describe four broad ‘meta-methods’ employed in scientific and philosophical research of qualia. These are the theory-centred metamethod, the property-centred meta-method, the argument-centred meta-method, and the event-centred meta-method. Broadly speaking, the theory-centred meta-method is interested in the role of qualia as some theoretical entities picked out by our folk psychological theories; the property-centred meta-method is interested in some metaphysical properties of qualia that we immediately observe through introspection ; the argument-centred meta-method is interested in the role of (...) qualia in some arguments for non-physicalism; the event-centred metamethod is interested in the role of qualia as some natural events whose nature is hidden and must be uncovered empirically. We will argue that the event-centred metamethod is the most promising route to a comprehensive scientific conception of qualia because of the flexibility of ontological and methodological assumptions it can provide. We also reveal the hidden influences of the different meta-methods and in doing so show why consideration of meta-methods has value for the study of consciousness. (shrink)

I contend there exists a platonistic good that all other good (excellent) things must resemble, supplementing this theory with Aristotelian features. Something’s goodness holds in virtue of the thing’s own properties being such as to satisfy its kind-based standards, and those K-standards resembling the platonic good. As for the latter condition, the K-standards resemble it firstly with respect to requiring activities, and secondly also at the level of what teleology those activities are directed towards.

Russellian monism—an influential doctrine proposed by Russell (The analysis of matter, Routledge, London, 1927/1992)—is roughly the view that physics can only ever tell us about the causal, dispositional, and structural properties of physical entities and not their categorical (or intrinsic) properties, whereas our qualia are constituted by those categorical properties. In this paper, I will discuss the relation between Russellian monism and a seminal paradox facing epiphenomenalism, the paradox of phenomenal judgment: if epiphenomenalism is true—qualia are causally inefficacious—then any judgment (...) concerning qualia, including epiphenomenalism itself, cannot be caused by qualia. For many writers, including Hawthorne (Philos Perspect 15:361–378, 2001), Smart (J Conscious Stud 11(2):41–50, 2004), and Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson (The philosophy of mind and cognition, Blackwell, Malden, 2007), Russellian monism faces the same paradox as epiphenomenalism does. I will assess Chalmers’s (The conscious mind: in search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press, New York, 1996) and Seager’s (in: Beckermann A, McLaughlin BP (eds) The Oxford handbook of philosophy of mind. Oxford University Press, New York, 2009) defences of Russellian monism against the paradox, and will put forward a novel argument against those defences. (shrink)

Aristotelian theory, as found in Michael Thompson and Philippa Foot, claims that to be good is to be good as a member of that kind. However, I contend that something can satisfy kind-relative standards but nonetheless be bad—I propose a hypothetical Ebola-like microbe that meets its kind-standards of being destructive for its own sake, but it would plausibly be bad for doing so. I anticipate an Aristotelian objection that evaluations should only be made from "within" the lifeform conception rather than (...) from without. (shrink)

The disciplinary characterisation (DC) is the most popular approach to defining metaphysical naturalism and physicalism. It defines metaphysical naturalism with reference to scientific theories and defines physicalism with reference to physical theories, and suggests that every entity that exists is a posited entity of these theories. DC has been criticised for its inability to solve Hempel’s dilemma and a list of problems alike. In this paper, I propose and defend a novel version of DC that can be called a historical (...) paths approach. The idea is (roughly) that metaphysical naturalism can be defined with reference to the historical ideas that current scientific ideas descend from. I argue that it is not rendered implausible by the above problems, and hence that DC is more defensible and attractive than it may first appear. I then argue that the approach also provides a useful framework for the naturalisation of the philosophy of mind and phenomenology. (shrink)

The Taizhou school of philosophy, followers of Wang Yangming, places significant emphasis on the body, which has led to theoretical challenges concerning the potential dissipation of natural desires. Critics contend that while Taizhou philosophy acknowledges the natural state of human existence, it fails to provide a satisfactory explanation for the existence of evil and tends to overlook the crucial role of deliberate moral practice by idealizing the natural as morally perfect. Drawing on insights from embodied cognition, this article aims to (...) shed light on the nuanced perspectives of Taizhou moral philosophy and address common criticisms regarding its approach to evil and moral practice. I will explore Taizhou’s holistic understanding, which integrates mind and body, self and others, offering fresh insights into the interplay between deliberation and spontaneity within moral practices. As a comparative and interdisciplinary endeavor, this work seeks to bridge the divide between Eastern and Western philosophical traditions and between moral philosophy and empirical science. This article not only aims to enhance our understanding of Taizhou philosophy but also strives to illuminate broader implications for ethical behavior and moral reasoning in a diverse, global context. (shrink)

Traditionally, it has been thought that, assuming other conditions are satisfied, your action must be morally worthy or good if you are acting solely from good motives. There is a lively dispute as to which motives are good, but whichever motives are good, acting solely from good motives is not always good and can even be bad on the whole. We may act rightly from a good motive while being indifferent to what matters most. Indifference, I argue, can make our (...) actions less than ideally good and at times even bad. Traditional theories, however, cannot accommodate cases of indifference by assuming absent and ineffective motives can never make a difference to an action’s moral value. Absent as well as ineffective motives can make an action less good and at times even bad. To accommodate this, we need to adopt a proportionality principle in assessing an action. An action is made good to a degree in proportion to the goodness of its effective motives. But an action is also made bad to a degree in proportion to the disproportion it exhibits through its whole set of relevant motives including not only effective motives but also absent as well as ineffective ones. (shrink)

Debates over the reality of race often rely on arguments about the connection between race and science—those who deny that race is real argue that there is no significant support from science for our ordinary race concepts; those who affirm that race is real argue that our ordinary race concepts are supported by scientific findings. However, there is arguably a more fundamental concern here: How should we define race concepts in the first place? The reason I claim that this definitional (...) question is more fundamental is that our handling of the underlying definitional problem often determines the scientific support our ordinary race concepts need, and importantly the likelihood of finding such support. In short, the defini- tional question, “How do we define race?” often undercuts the question of whether race is scientifically meaningful. (shrink)

Alexander Bird (2001; 2002; 2007) offers a powerful argument showing that, regardless of whether necessitarianism or contingentism about laws is true, salt necessarily dissolves in water. The argument is that the same laws of nature that are necessary for the constitution of salt necessitate the solubility of salt. This paper shows that Bird’s argument faces a serious objection if the possibility of emergentism – in particular, C. D. Broad’s account – is taken into account. The idea is (roughly) that some (...) emergent laws in some possible worlds may disrupt the solubility of salt without disrupting its constitution. (shrink)

On 25 May 2020, Officer Derek Chauvin asphyxiated George Floyd in Minneapolis — a murder that was captured in a confronting nine-minute bystander video that set off a firestorm of activity on online social networks, in the streets of the United States, and even worldwide. These protests captured the collective rage, dissatisfaction, and resentment personally and vicariously experienced towards the widespread systematic injustice and mistreatment of African Americans by police and vigilantes. The scale of these protests, both online and in (...) the streets, has been estimated to have far exceeded the civil rights marches of the 1960s (Buchanan et al. 2020). Considering the widespread extent of these protests, our research aims to analyse conflictual intergroup moral dynamics in terms of the reactive attitudes expressed by distinct online communities on Twitter. This paper examines the extent to which the Strawsonian (1962) reactive attitudes framework is applicable to the Twitter discourse around the Black Lives Matter protests reignited by the murder of George Floyd. In particular, we argue that the Strawsonian framework is inadequate to understand a range of prevalent attitudes expressed in this discourse — attitudes that we call reactionary as opposed to merely reactive. Reactionary attitudes include counter-indignation on behalf of the accused rather than Strawsonian indignation on behalf of the victim of a moral wrong. We document the expression of such attitudes among the right-wing participants in the online discourse about the Black Lives Matter movement. (shrink)

Monism is our name for a range of views according to which the connection between dispositions and their categorical bases is intimate and necessary, or on which there are no categorical bases at all. In contrast, Dualist views hold that the connection between dispositions and their categorical bases is distant and contingent. This paper is a defence of Monism against an influential conceivability argument in favour of Dualism. The argument suggests that the apparent possibility of causal behaviour coming apart from (...) categorical bases is best explained by Dualism. We argue that Monism can explain the apparent possibility as well, if we take metaphysically alien laws — namely, laws whose metaphysical nature is alien to the actual world — into account. (shrink)

This article offers comprehensive criticism of the Turing test and develops quality criteria for new artificial general intelligence (AGI) assessment tests. It is shown that the prerequisites A. Turing drew upon when reducing personality and human consciousness to “suitable branches of thought” re-flected the engineering level of his time. In fact, the Turing “imitation game” employed only symbolic communication and ignored the physical world. This paper suggests that by restricting thinking ability to symbolic systems alone Turing unknowingly constructed “the wall” (...) that excludes any possi-bility of transition from a complex observable phenomenon to an abstract image or concept. It is, therefore, sensible to factor in new requirements for AI (artificial intelligence) maturity assessment when approaching the Tu-ring test. Such AI must support all forms of communication with a human being, and it should be able to comprehend abstract images and specify con-cepts as well as participate in social practices. (shrink)

Christopher Hill contends that the metaphysical modalities can be reductively explained in terms of the subjunctive conditional and that this reductive explanation yields two tests for determining the metaphysical modality of a proposition. He goes on to argue that his reductive account of the metaphysical modalities in conjunction with his account of modal knowledge underwrites the further conclusion that conceivability does not provide a reliable test for metaphysical possibility. I argue (1) that Hill’s reductive explanation of the metaphysical modalities in (...) terms of the subjunctive conditional does not yield a reductive explanation of knowledge of metaphysical modality in terms of knowledge of subjunctive conditionals, and (2) that his account of modal knowledge is at odds with his contention that conceivability does not provide epistemic access to metaphysical possibility. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Lewtas [2017] recently articulated an argument claiming that emergent conscious causal powers are impossible. In developing his argument, Lewtas makes several assumptions about emergence, phenomenal consciousness, categorical properties, and causation. We argue that there are plausible alternatives to these assumptions. Thus, the proponent of emergent conscious causal powers can escape Lewtas’s challenge.

The 16th and 17th centuries witnessed a philosophical shift that would help pave the way for modern science, a shift from metaphysical theories of material objects to other views embracing only the empirically-accessible parts of material things. One much-debated topic in the course of this shift was regarding prime matter. The late scholastic Jacobus Zabarella (1533-1589) arrived upon his views about prime matter via his version of the regressus method, a program for a sort of scientific reasoning. In his De (...) rebus naturalibus, Zabarella defends the position that prime matter is extended. However, it is less clear how he accounts for its extension. There is an important text where he apparently suggests that prime matter is extended in and of itself. However, there are two other texts apparently stating that matter is extended in virtue of a distinct accident in the category of quantity. I argue that a decisive reading based solely upon any particular texts is not available. Nevertheless, examining Zabarella’s writing on the topic as a whole, the trajectory of his overall argument is remarkably sympathetic to Averroes, who famously took the accidentally quantified position. Thus, from this systematic feature, the accidentally quantified reading is more reasonable. (shrink)

In Aristotle’s writings regarding the biology of embryology, especially in the Generation of Animals, he contends that the mother’s menstrual fluids provide the material for the generation of the offspring, and the father’s form determines its formation as a member of that species (e.g. human). The katamenia (menstrual fluids) of the mother are said to be potentially all the body parts of the offspring, though actually none of them. So, the fluids are potentially the offspring. But are they a first (...) potentiality or second potentiality (first actuality) of a human, in the terminology of De Anima II? In this paper I will argue that katamenia are a first potentiality of a human. My first argument is that katamenia do not have the potential for human activities such as thinking, but rather the potential of becoming something having the potential for those activities. I answer the objection that katamenia are not even a first potentiality, by appealing to an important text contending that for any x whose source of becoming is external, x is potentially y if nothing in x with respect to matter needs to be changed in order for an external principle to make x into y. (shrink)

In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences. Some authors in medical ethics even speak of a new phase in the history of ethics, hailing "empirical ethics" as a logical next step in the development of practical ethics after the turn to "applied ethics." The name empirical ethics is ill-chosen because of its associations with "descriptive ethics." Unlike descriptive (...) ethics, however, empirical ethics aims to be both descriptive and normative. The first question on which I focus is what kind of empirical research is used by empirical ethics and for which purposes. I argue that the ultimate aim of all empirical ethics is to improve the context-sensitivity of ethics. The second question is whether empirical ethics is essentially connected with specific positions in meta-ethics. I show that in some kinds of meta-ethical theories, which I categorize as broad contextualist theories, there is an intrinsic need for connecting normative ethics with empirical social research. But context-sensitivity is a goal that can be aimed for from any meta-ethical position. (shrink)

The Humility Thesis is a persistent thesis in contemporary metaphysics. It is known by a variety of names, including, but not limited to, Humility, Intrinsic Humility, Kantian Humility, Kantian Physicalism, Intrinsic Ignorance, Categorical Ignorance, Irremediable Ignorance, and Noumenalism. According to the thesis, we human beings, and any knowers that share our general ways of knowing, are irremediably ignorant of a certain class of properties that are intrinsic to material entities … Continue reading Humility Regarding Intrinsic Properties →.

An accurate classification of bacteria is essential for the proper identification of patient infections and subsequent treatment decisions. Multi-Locus Sequence Typing (MLST) is a genetic technique for bacterial classification. MLST classifications are used to cluster bacteria into clonal complexes. Importantly, clonal complexes can serve as a biological species concept for bacteria, facilitating an otherwise difficult taxonomic classification. In this paper, we argue for the inclusion of terms relating to clonal complexes in biomedical ontologies.

In Necessary Beings, Bob Hale addresses two questions: What is the source of necessity? What is the source of our knowledge of it? He offers novel responses to them in terms of the metaphysical notion of nature or, more familiarly, essence. In this paper, I address Hale’s response to the first question. My assessment is negative. I argue that his essentialist explanation of the source of necessity suffers from three significant shortcomings. First, Hale’s leading example of an essentialist explanation merely (...) asserts that the nature of an entity explains some necessity, but leaves unexplained how it does so. Second, his essentialist explanation of particular necessities introduces new necessities that remain unexplained. Third, Hale’s version of essentialism presupposes a controversial metaphysical theory of properties, for which he offers no defense. (shrink)

Coffee and tea are two beverages commonly-consumed around the world. Therefore, there is much research regarding their physiological effects. However, less is known about their psychological meanings. Derived from a predicted lay association between coffee and arousal, we posit that exposure to coffee-related cues should increase arousal, even in the absence of actual ingestion, relative to exposure to tea-related cues. We further suggest that higher arousal levels should facilitate a concrete level of mental construal as conceptualized by Construal Level Theory. (...) In four experiments, we find that coffee cues prompted participants to see temporal distances as shorter and to think in more concrete, precise terms. Both subjective and physiological arousal explain the effects. We situate our work in the literature that connects food and beverage to cognition or decision-making. We also discuss the applied relevance of our results as coffee and tea are among the most prevalent beverages globally. (shrink)

Gerade weil das Bestehen auf Rangordnungen in der heutigen Gesellschaft anstößig und fremd wirkt, ist es lohnenswert, sich ihnen mit Nietzsche neu zu stellen, der sie als sein Problem bezeichnete. Er richtet sie gezielt gegen die Gleichheit, von der er befürchtet, ihr Anspruch auf Universalität verunmögliche Individualität, Anders-Sein und damit auch alle Größe. Den moralischen Wert der Gleichheit kritisieren heißt nicht, sich von demokratischen Grundprinzipien oder Errungenschaften zu verabschieden. Geklärte Rangverhältnisse reduzieren Komplexität, vereinfachen die Kommunikation, machen Verhalten erwartbar und vereinfachen (...) so die Orientierung. So könnte gerade in den modernen Ausprägungen der Demokratie ein offenerer Umgang mit Rangordnungen zu ihrer Stärkung beitragen. Die Nietzsche-Forschung hat eine Beschäftigung mit dem Begriff bisher weitgehend vermieden. Alberts schließt diese Forschungslücke. Er geht persönlichen, philologischen und philosophischen Anhaltspunkten für Nietzsches Denken nach und untersucht die Perspektiven, die dabei auf verschiedenste Lebensbereiche wie Natur, Religion, Moral, Wissenschaft und Interindividualität eröffnet werden. (shrink)

A repository of clinically associated Staphylococcus aureus (Sa) isolates is used to semi‐automatically generate a set of application ontologies for specific subfamilies of Sa‐related disease. Each such application ontology is compatible with the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) and uses resources from the Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry. The set of application ontologies forms a lattice structure beneath the IDO‐Core and IDO‐extension reference ontologies. We show how this lattice can be used to define a strategy for the construction of a new (...) taxonomy of infectious disease incorporating genetic, molecular, and clinical data. We also outline how faceted browsing and query of annotated data is supported using a lattice application ontology. (shrink)

In a recent article, Marilyn Baffoe-Bonnie offers three arguments for conducting CRISPR/Cas9 biotechnology research to cure sickle-cell disease (SCD) based on addressing historical and current injustices in SCD research and care. I show that her second and third arguments suffer from roughly the same defect, which is that they really argue for something else rather than for conducting CRISPR/Cas9 research in particular. For instance, the second argument argues that conducting this gene therapy research would improve the relationship between SCD sufferers (...) (who are mostly of African descent) and health care providers. But really what is essential in improving this relationship is for those providers to genuinely care and be concerned, and this could be lacking even with the CRISPR research being done. Indeed, this relationship could be improved even without that research being done, as long as there is genuine concern. Thus, this argument actually argues for the need for genuine concern. As for the third argument, one (of two) problems arises because it claims that CRISPR research for SCD should be pursued because the benefits would be shared by even non-research-participants, as non-participants would be encouraged. However, this argues for any research for SCD, not for CRISPR research in particular. I conclude that a better justice-based argument will use only Baffoe-Bonnie’s first argument, which is based on historic neglect of an actual cure for SCD (going beyond merely management or transplant therapies). (shrink)

This paper argues that free speech is a ‘two-way right’. The right to marriage is a typical two-way right: it is not a guarantee that every single person can get married. Instead, it only ensures that if two consenting adults wish to marry each other, they can do so freely. Similarly, the right to free speech does not protect a speaker’s unilateral right to speak, nor an audience’s unilateral right to hear. Free speech protects the parties’ right to communicate with (...) each other. Many agree that communication is a collaborative activity. Yet, this collaborative essence is sometimes overlooked. Particularly, when analyzing speech rights, there is a tendency to zoom in on either the speaker interests or the audience interests, focusing on the distinctions between the two. The two-way approach reorients our understanding of free speech, to one that is more integrally shaped by a concept of communication as a joint collaborative endeavor. (shrink)

This paper focuses on coherence and consistency as elements of moral integrity, arguing that several kinds of—mostly second-order—virtues contribute to establishing coherence and consistency in a person's judgements and behaviour. The virtues relevant for integrity always accompany other, substantive virtues, and their associated values, principles and rules. In moral education we teach children all kinds of substantive virtues with integrity as our goal. Nevertheless, many adults do not attain moral integrity, although they are clearly not immoral. What precisely are they (...) lacking? Education for moral integrity should focus on strengthening motivational self-sufficiency, furthering critical and imaginative thinking and promoting moral unity. (shrink)

Epikurs Philosophie ist Ausdruck seines Ringens um Orientierung. Es geht ihm nicht um ein abstraktes, theoretisches, auf Wahrheiten basierendes Lehrsystem, sondern um die Praxis eines gelingenden Lebens. Durch nüchterne Planung und Einsicht in die Abläufe der Natur will er Ängste vermeiden und eine sichere Orientierung auch im Umgang mit dem Ungewissen gewährleisten. Der Epikureismus lässt sich mit grundlegenden Begriffen und Konzepten der Philosophie der Orientierung deuten, darunter Vertrauen, Autorität, Plausibilität, Paradoxien, Orientierung in Routinen und Orientierung durch Achtung und Planung. -/- (...) In: Andrea Bertino / Ekaterina Poljakova / Andreas Rupschus / Benjamin Alberts (Hg.), Zur Philosophie der Orientierung, Berlin / Boston 2016, S. 33–48. (shrink)

According to some proponents of an empirical medical ethics, medical ethics should take the experience, insights, and arguments of doctors and other medical practitioners as their point of departure. Medical practitioners are supposed to have ‘moral wisdom.’ In this view, the moral beliefs of medical practitioners have a special status. In sections I-IV, I discuss two possible defences of such a status. The first defence is based on the special status of the moral beliefs of the health professional as an (...) expert in medical ethics, and the second defence on the special status of the health professional’s moral beliefs as a practitioner. The first defence is built up around the opposition between experts and laypersons, while the second defence rests on the opposition between practitioners and theorists. In sections V and VI, I examine the interrelations between empirical ethics and anti-theory in ethics. Some regard empirical ethics as a laudable alternative to theory-driven normative ethics. I explore their objections against ethical theory and ethical theorising, and conclude that they are not valid. In the last section, VII, I discuss the role of ethicists in medical practice. (shrink)

Policy-making must always pay attention to race. That is the central claim of this chapter. Regardless of whether some particular policy debate is ostensibly “racial”, policy-makers must attend to questions of race, because race is a ubiquitous, but frequently unnoticed, feature of our world. I examine the type of philosophical question about race that I think philosophers and policy-makers would do well to examine and consider how the question “What is race?” is pertinent to policy debate. Examples will be drawn (...) from Australia, the United States, and Britain to illustrate these abstract arguments. (shrink)

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Active Bacterial Core Surveillance (CDC ABCs) Program is a collaborative effort betweeen the CDC, state health departments, laboratories, and universities to track invasive bacterial pathogens of particular importance to public health [1]. The year-end surveillance reports produced by this program help to shape public policy and coordinate responses to emerging infectious diseases over time. The ABCs case report form (CRF) data represents an excellent opportunity for data reuse beyond the original surveillance purposes.

Some people wrongly believe that A. Turing’s works that underlie all modern computer science never discussed “physical” robots. This is not so, since Turing did speak about such machines, though making a reservation that this discussion was still premature. In particular, in his 1948 report [8], he suggested that a physical intelligent machine equipped with motors, cameras and loudspeakers, when wandering through the fields of England, would present “the danger to the ordinary citizen would be serious.” [8, ]. Due to (...) this imperfection of technology in the field of knowledge that we now call robotics, the methodology that he proposed was based on human speech, or rather on text. Other natural human skills were too difficult to implement, while the exchange of cues via written messages was much more accessible for engineering implementation in Turing’s time. Nevertheless, since then, the progress of computer technology has taken forms that the founder of artificial intelligence could not have foreseen. (shrink)

The study of race and racism is an area of growth in philosophy. The quantity of research published under the banner of ‘the philosophy of race’ is increasing; research monographs and edited collections are appearing in greater numbers, and there is even a noticeable though still lamentably small increase in the number of professional posi- tions being advertised in the philosophy of race. However, one notable feature of this research is how much it focuses upon the racial context of the (...) USA. Most of its active and prominent researchers are based in the USA, nearly all new posts with designated research specialisms in race are at universities in the USA, and most of its key research questions are framed in the racial idiom and social context of the contemporary USA. In many respects, this is a good thing: if the philosophy of race cannot find fertile ground in the USA, there is little hope of it flourishing anywhere. However, this emphasis on the US context may have a negative side too. (shrink)

In my paper, I develop a phenomenological and pragmatist reflection on the fragility of liberal democracy’s moral foundations in times of war. Following Judith Shklar’s conception of the “liberalism of fear”, the legitimacy of the liberal-democratic order is seen as grounded in experiences of suffering caused by political violence. It is also assumed that the liberalism of fear delivers an adequate conception of the normative foundations of the European project. With the help of phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (...) and Michel Henry, the paper ants to philosophically deepen the liberalism of fear by outlining a theory of “pathic evidence” as a normative foundation and the concept of a common “flesh of the political” as a shared moral sensitivity that sets boundaries to political conflict as well as the political imaginary, excluding what I call the production of “monumental meaning”. It then examines the question which political conditions are needed for this evidence to become a shared, communal criteria of ethical thought, and considers inner and outer challenges to the transmission and reproduction of this evidence in time, drawing especially on John Dewey’s ideas of democratic communication and social intelligence. In the current war, the following problem appears as crucial for the “soul” of European democracies which are confronted with the need to respond to Russia’s attack: How can a political morality grounded in pathic evidence be sustained, once it is challenged by an aggressor who, out of cultural and political reasons, shows a higher level of toleration towards violence? Besides aggression from an external foe, there are also temporal dynamics that further the loss of the inhibiting force of pathic evidence from the inside. As it shall be argued, boredom can be such a factor. The paper concludes by drawing conclusions for the current war in Ukraine. (shrink)

Although the index is one of the best known features of Peirce's theory of signs there is little appreciation of Peirce's theory of the index amongst contemporary philosophers of language. Amongst Peirce scholars, the value placed on Peirce's account is greater, but is largely based on Thomas Goudge's paper, "Peirce's Index" (Goudge, 1965). Despite marking a crucial milestone in our comprehension of Peirce's theory, our understanding of indices and indexical reference has grown markedly over the last forty years. Time has (...) now come, then, to develop the work that Goudge began and to provide a full analysis of Peirce's account that makes its value to the philosophy of language clear. I undertake this enterprise here. (shrink)

Albert Musschenga | : The central question of this article is, Are animals morally responsible for what they do? Answering this question requires a careful, step-by-step argument. In sections 1 and 2, I explain what morality is, and that having a morality means following moral rules or norms. In sections 3 and 4, I argue that some animals show not just regularities in their social behaviour, but can be rightly said to follow social norms. But are the norms they (...) follow also moral norms? In section 5, I contend, referring to the work of Shaun Nichols, that the basic moral competences or capacities are already present in nonhuman primates. Following moral rules or norms is more than just acting in accordance to these norms; it requires being motivated by moral rules. I explain, in section 6, referring to Mark Rowlands, that being capable of moral motivation does not require agency; being a moral subject is sufficient. Contrary to moral agents, moral subjects are not responsible for their behaviour. Stating that there are important similarities between animal moral behaviour and human, unconscious, automatic, habitual behaviour, I examine in section 7 whether humans are responsible for their habitual moral behaviour, and if they are, what then the grounds are for denying that moral animals are responsible for their behaviour. The answer is that humans are responsible for their habitual behaviour if they have the capacity for deliberate intervention. Although animals are capable of intervention in their habitual behaviour, they are not capable of deliberate intervention. | : La question centrale dans cet article est celle de savoir si les animaux sont moralement responsables de ce qu’ils font. Répondre à cette question nécessite une argumentation minutieuse et progressive. Dans les sections 1 et 2, j’explique ce qu’est la moralité, et qu’être doté de moralité signifie de se conformer à des règles ou à des normes morales. Dans les sections 3 et 4, je pose que certains animaux ne se contentent pas de montrer des régularités dans leur comportement social, mais qu’ils suivent aussi véritablement des normes sociales. Toutefois, les normes qu’ils suivent sont-elles morales? Dans la section 5, je prétends, en me référant aux travaux de Shaun Nichols, que les compétences ou capacités morales de base sont déjà présentes chez les primates non humains. Respecter des règles ou des normes morales est bien plus que d’agir conformément à ces normes; cela requiert d’être motivé par des règles morales. Dans la section 6, me référant à Mark Rowlands, j’explique que d’être capable de motivation morale ne nécessite pas d’être un agent moral; le fait d’être un sujet moral suffit. Contrairement aux agents moraux, les sujets moraux ne sont pas responsables de leur comportement. Affirmant qu’il y a de grandes similitudes entre le comportement moral d’un animal et le comportement inconscient, automatique et habituel d’un humain, je me penche, dans la section 7, sur la question de savoir si les humains sont responsables de leur comportement moral habituel, et si tel est le cas, sur quelle base on peut alors nier le fait que les animaux sont eux aussi responsables de leur comportement. La réponse à cette question est que les humains sont responsables de leur comportement habituel s’ils disposent d’une capacité d’intervention réfléchie, délibérée. Bien que les animaux soient capables d’intervenir dans leurs comportements habituels, ils ne peuvent le faire de manière réfléchie, délibérée. (shrink)

As indicated in the title this article is a brief description of the body, soul and spirit of man, based on the divine revelations received by the Austrian mystic Jakob Lorber between 1840 and 1864. While it is common knowledge that man has a body and a soul, very little is known about the spirit in man which is the primary source of knowledge and power, penetrating both the soul and body.

In this paper, I critically assess different interpretations of Bohmian mechanics that are not committed to an ontology based on the wave function being an actual physical object that inhabits configuration space. More specifically, my aim is to explore the connection between the denial of configuration space realism and another interpretive debate that is specific to Bohmian mechanics: the quantum potential versus guidance approaches. Whereas defenders of the quantum potential approach to the theory claim that Bohmian mechanics is better formulated (...) as quasi-Newtonian, via the postulation of forces proportional to acceleration; advocates of the guidance approach defend the notion that the theory is essentially first-order and incorporates some concepts akin to those of Aristotelian physics. Here I analyze whether the desideratum of an interpretation of Bohmian mechanics that is both explanatorily adequate and not committed to configuration space realism favors one of these two approaches to the theory over the other. Contrary to some recent claims in the literature, I argue that the quasi-Newtonian approach based on the idea of a quantum potential does not come out the winner. (shrink)

This paper addresses a family of issues surrounding the biological phenomenon of resistance and its representation in realist ontologies. The treatments of resistance terms in various existing ontologies are examined and found to be either overly narrow, internally inconsistent, or otherwise problematic. We propose a more coherent characterization of resistance in terms of what we shall call blocking dispositions, which are collections of mutually coordinated dispositions which are of such a sort that they cannot undergo simultaneous realization within a single (...) bearer. A definition of ‘protective resistance’ is proposed for use in the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) and we show how this definition can be used to characterize the antibiotic resistance in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The ontological relations between entities in our MRSA case study are used alongside a series of logical inference rules to illustrate logical reasoning about resistance. A description logic representation of blocking dispositions is also provided. We demonstrate that our characterization of resistance is sufficiently general to cover two other cases of resistance in the infectious disease domain involving HIV and malaria. (shrink)

In this article I examine the consequences of the dominance of intuitive thinking in moral judging and deciding for the role of moral reasoning in moral education. I argue that evidence for the reliability of moral intuitions is lacking. We cannot determine when we can trust our intuitive moral judgements. Deliberate and critical reasoning is needed, but it cannot replace intuitive thinking. Following Robin Hogarth, I argue that intuitive judgements can be improved. The expertise model for moral development, proposed by (...) Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, not only teaches us how we acquire intuitive moral judgements, it also shows the interconnectedness of intuitive thinking and deliberate reasoning. Analysing the expertise model in more detail, I show that it cannot do justice to the importance of reasoning skills. Reasoning skills are needed because we expect people to be able to argue for their standpoints. I conclude that moral education should not only aim at improving intuitive moral judgements, but also at acquiring reasoning skills. (shrink)

This paper begins to examine different interpretations of causa sui as the key notion used by Strawson to argue for the impossibility of ultimate moral responsibility. Descartes’ and Spinoza’s interpretations are representative in understanding the notion of causa sui. Strawson is, I think, on the side of Descartes. If causa sui can be interpreted differently from the way in which Strawson did, the idea of moral responsibility would change. I shall here examine Spinoza’s notion of causa sui, which is an (...) alternative approach to Strawson’s, for leading to the possibility of moral responsibility. The Chinese concept of the Supreme Polarity (taiji) can be interpreted as a foundation of self-determination when philosophically comparing it with Spinoza’s idea of causa sui, which means an immanent and efficient cause. In the Chinese context, the ontological account of an agent explains how and why persons actively participate in the ordering of the world in the Confucian way of life. Based upon this, I will attempt to examine the idea of moral responsibility with the notion of taking responsibility for oneself or, as I will call it, “selfassignment”, and consider how the role a person plays might contribute to understanding the relationship between free will and moral responsibility. In other words, the ontological claim that the unitary principle of Heaven-andEarth is innately immanent in each person seems to endorse the possibility of ultimate responsibility even though the teleological commitment to making the world better implies the absence of free will. This is one of the alternative ways that we can take moral responsibility without free will. (shrink)

This is PhD thesis submitted to Institute Philosophy of Russian Academy of Science in March 2021.

While environmental claims are increasingly used by companies to appeal consumers, they also attract greater scrutiny from independent parties interested in consumer protection. Consumers are now able to compare corporate environmental claims against external, often disconfirming, information to form their brand attitudes and purchase intentions. What remains unclear is how the level of information specificity of both the environmental claims and external disconfirming information interact to influence consumer reactions. Two experiments address this gap in the CSR communication literature. When specific (...) claims are countered by specific external information, consumers report more negative brand attitudes and lower purchase intentions. The effect is serially mediated by skepticism toward the claims and lack of corporate credibility. We conclude by discussing strategies that firms can utilize to avoid information dilution and ensure that external disconfirming information percolates to consumers as specific. (shrink)

Representing the kinetic state of a patient (posture, motion, and activity) during vital sign measurement is an important part of continuous monitoring applications, especially remote monitoring applications. In contextualized vital sign representation, the measurement result is presented in conjunction with salient measurement context metadata. We present an automated annotation system for vital sign measurements that uses ontologies from the Open Biomedical Ontology Foundry (OBO Foundry) to represent the patient’s kinetic state at the time of measurement. The annotation system is applied (...) to data generated by a wearable personal status monitoring (PSM) device. We demonstrate how annotated PSM data can be queried for contextualized vital signs as well as sensor algorithm configuration parameters. (shrink)