In the remainder of this article, we will disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We will accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous (...) research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism. (shrink)

Does the Ship of Theseus present a genuine puzzle about persistence due to conflicting intuitions based on “continuity of form” and “continuity of matter” pulling in opposite directions? Philosophers are divided. Some claim that it presents a genuine puzzle but disagree over whether there is a solution. Others claim that there is no puzzle at all since the case has an obvious solution. To assess these proposals, we conducted a cross-cultural study involving nearly 3,000 people across twenty-two countries, speaking eighteen (...) different languages. Our results speak against the proposal that there is no puzzle at all and against the proposal that there is a puzzle but one that has no solution. Our results suggest that there are two criteria—“continuity of form” and “continuity of matter”— that constitute our concept of persistence and these two criteria receive different weightings in settling matters concerning persistence. (shrink)

Andrea Cesalpino is an important figure in the history of science. He demonstrated that blood circulates into heart from veins and from the heart to arteries, paving the way to Harvey’s complete description of blood circulation. Moreover, he was the founder of botany as a systematic discipline, which he based, rather than on the observation of accidental similarities of plants, on the discovery of their vegetative-generative principle. In philosophy, he attempted to conciliate the immortality of the soul (i.e., the (...) form of the body) with the existence of a unique immaterial intellect, which is individuated and multiplied in the singular souls that participate to it. (shrink)

Die Übernahme des KI-Unternehmens DeepMind durch Google für rund eine halbe Milliarde US-Dollar signalisierte vor einem Jahr, dass von der KI-Forschung vielversprechende Ergebnisse erwartet werden. Spätestens seit bekannte Wissenschaftler wie Stephen Hawking und Unternehmer wie Elon Musk oder Bill Gates davor warnen, dass künstliche Intelligenz eine Bedrohung für die Menschheit darstellt, schlägt das KI-Thema hohe Wellen. Die Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus (EAS, vormals GBS Schweiz) hat mit der Unterstützung von Experten/innen aus Informatik und KI ein umfassendes Diskussionspapier zu den Chancen (...) und Risiken der künstlichen Intelligenz verfasst und geht darin auf aktuelle, mittel- und langfristige Herausforderungen im Bereich der KI-Entwicklung ein. (shrink)

El kitsch no es solo una categoría que ha definido una de las posibles gramáticas estéticas de la modernidad, sino también una dimensión antropológica que ha tenido diferentes configuraciones en el curso de los procesos históricos. El ensayo ofrece una mirada histórico-crítica sobre las transformaciones que condujeron desde el kitsch de principios del siglo XX hasta el neokitsch contemporáneo: desde la génesis del kitsch hasta su afirmación como una de las manifestaciones más tangibles de la cultura de masas. Integrándose con (...) la estética posmoderna, el kitsch se transforma en neokitsch, una estética que utiliza el kitsch como su propia sintaxis en el complejo escenario de la estética contemporánea. /// -/- Kitsch is not just a category that has defined one of the possible aesthetic grammars of modernity, but also an anthropological dimension that has had different configurations in the course of historical processes. The essay offers a historical-critical look at the transformations that led from the early twentieth century kitsch to the contemporary neokitsch: from the genesis of kitsch to its affirmation as one of the most tangible manifestations of mass culture. Integrating with postmodern aesthetics, kitsch turns into neokitsch, an aesthetic that deliberately uses kitsch as its own syntax in the complex scenario of contemporary aesthetics. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine the objective side of subjectivity formation through music. I attempt to show how music is a way to configure subjectivity in its interiority, but in a way that it can be shared between other individual subjectivities. Music has an objective structure, but this structure is the temporal and sonorous interiority of subjectivity. It has as its objective manifestation and consequence the feelings and emotions. These feelings are subjective, and in the level of (...) subjective Geist they are related to intuition. Hegel believes that such intuition cannot be properly communicated, due to its exclusive access to the individual subject himself. Despite that, music is an art, and it takes part in the level of absolute Geist. That means that music is the connection between the objective and subjective sides of Geist, being a product of social relations, including the sharing, experience and recognition of subjective operations by the participants in society as something in common. Art is related to intuition but it is not intuition itself, nor it is reduced to the capacity of intuition. All three capacities of the subjective Geist in the theoretical Geist (namely intuition, representation and thinking) can be part of the relationship between art and the individual perspective.However, the link between art and intuition is an analogy between the subjective Geist and the absolute Geist, considering that art is a level of manifestation of social self-consciousness where the people and the social group have not yet become conscious of its content in its manifestation. The exposition of the ideal content of social relations is manifested through absolute Geist, beginning with its sensible manifestation. After this process, it is signified through a practice related to representation, and finally it is related to a conceptually and linguistically mediated practice, philosophy. These products cannot be a consequence of a mere subjective connections, but must be (as part of absolute Geist) a consequence of the objective relation between individuals in its subjective manifestations. Furthermore, subjective capacities are a condition without which the development of the absolute Geist is not possible. At the same time, it is not possible that subjective Geist’s capacities can be fully realized without social relations. Science is not a product of an individual-solipsistic relationship with the environment, but a product of a social relations, including language, shared experiences and shared ways of comprehension, such as the common way to feel and receive the environment in a subjective level discussed below. I divide this exposition into three parts: (1) music and subjectivity, where I deal with the relation between body vibration, time, sound and the formal interiority of the listener/musical subject, analyzing the form of music in its subjective side (the relation to the listener); (2) music and content, where I examine the content generated by music as being the process of formation itself (i.e. the process of given form to the interiority of subjectivity through sounds becomes its own content, namely, the feelings); and (3) music and words, where I scrutinize the relationship between music and words’ capacities to make reference and to have content, considering the connection between pure music and lyrics, and between music and poetry as singular forms of art. I conclude with the idea that music has a specific role in Hegel’s system, which is to bring to light and develop absolute Geist’s (understood as the objectivation and formation of a social and cultural subjectivity) internal aesthetic form. (shrink)

The work of theologian Rudolf Bultmann is often judged without due consideration of the historical and personal circumstances in which it occurred. It is forgotten that theology is always carried out in a specific context. Thus, this article aims to do justice to this theologian by recognizing the relevance of his hermeneutical method. It will be demonstrated that demythologization is a powerful exegetical-apologetic operation, because, at the same time that it points to the mythological layer that covers the text of (...) the New Testament, it emancipates it from myth. The next step will be to show that by recognizing a mythological envelope covering the text of the New Testament, Bultmann intended to prove that the mythological vision itself had a fundamentally existential purpose. This is because mythological language does not present an objective image of the world as it is; on the contrary, it seeks to communicate the understanding that man has of himself in the world in which he lives. Therefore, the myth should be interpreted not cosmologically, but anthropologically, or better still, existentially. It is, therefore, from this perspective that Bultmann seeks to highlight the relevance of the message of the New Testament. (shrink)

considerations are given about the state of quantificational views about terms that were to involve the metacognitive ability of self deixis.

I seek to show in this paper how, in addressing the concept of “I” and the question of self-knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason, one encounters a paradox, which is essentially a consequence of the doctrine of transcendental idealism. I point to Kant's concept of “I” and its three co-constitutive perspectives. The importance of the concept of subject and its intertwining with the concept of reason is pointed out, as also how these two concepts appear in the text of (...) the Critique of Pure Reason as presuppositions. Subsequently, I deal with some basic questions of transcendental idealism. Finally, I briefly present the three perspectives of the "I": as a phenomenon, as a transcendental structure, and as a noumenon. I conclude by bringing back what Kant himself conceives as a paradox, which is the subject’s self-affection, and the relation between the subject as noumenon and as inner sense. (shrink)

In this paper, I present some concepts of Hegel’s philosophy of art, aiming to interpret a cultural-political situation, namely, Bolsonarism in contemporary Brazil. I present the ideas in the following order: (a) the modes of comprehension, mainly through the distinction between the poetic and the prosaicmodes; (b) the conception of “Action [Handlung]” as a category of art, by means of its three levels: State of the World [Weltzustand], Situation [Situation], and Action itself [Handlung als solche]; (c) an evaluation of the (...) anachronism of the ideas of myth and hero in contemporary times, through a reflection mediated by the categories of sublation [Aufhebung] and history. (shrink)

This research presents an analysis of the pericope of 2 Thessalonians 2 from the perspective of the linguistic phenomenon of deixis. And, in doing so, the theory of enunciation will be taken as a theoretical contribution, in order to highlight a small body of words that link the encoder to the enunciation situation. The asymmetry of the act of enunciation is recognized and, therefore, the interpreter's need to reconstruct its meaning from indications present in the enunciation. In the case of (...) the epistolary text, the presence of the deictic device is essential, since the communication situation lacks anchorage. Thus, the objective of this work is to identify the enunciative coordinates of the author (enunciator). (shrink)

The original New Testament documents disappeared very early, probably before the end of the first century, as they are not even quoted in the post-apostolic period and are not even mentioned as having been seen by anyone anywhere. The surviving manuscripts that have come down to us are copies of copies. And these copies have many errors. Therefore, textual criticism is used in order to restore the primitive form of the text before the errors and changes produced by the hands (...) and minds of copyists. A Herculean effort has been made to arrive at the form of the text that circulated or was known in the early years of Christianity. Textual critics, for example, raised many hypotheses and theories such as textual types, with the aim of pointing to handwritten copies that could be closer to what was thought to be the first century text. Editions of "Novum Instrumentum Omne" by Erasmus of Rotterdam, which went on sale March 1, 1516, and "The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881)" by Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort" represent the effort of scholars to give the public an edition of the Greek New Testament based on the best and oldest surviving Greek manuscripts. The present research intends to describe the beginning of the textual criticism of the New Testament with emphasis on the edition of the Greek New Testament of Erasmus of Rotterdam, in the researches of the scholars B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort and in the theory of the textual types. (shrink)

Many commentators have understood Philippians 3:2 as a clear warning against Judaizers. This verse, however, admits of other interpretations. And indeed, some commentators have suggested new readings for this passage. For example, one author suggested that the apostle might have had the Cynic philosophers in mind. Others thought that Paul distinguished between three kinds of people. This article aims to contribute to this debate by presenting the viewpoint of Norman DeWitt, who provides (indirect) evidence that the Epicureans were among the (...) main opponents of Paul and Christianity. And he assumes that after the evidence of certain symbols and elements in the language of the author of the letter, it can be seen that the infamous epithet in 3.2: "τοὺς κύνας" refers to the followers of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. In addition to Norman DeWitt, we sought to dialogue with other authors who deal with the subject and contribute to the reflection of this investigation. As methodology, a bibliographical study was carried out. As a result, it is emphasized that Philippians verse 3:2 is open to many identity possibilities. (shrink)

The biblical passage from Luke 16, 19-31 is one of the most cited and discussed in the New Testament. However, when analyzed based on the relationships engendered following the narrated facts, a series of presupposed narrative programs contributes to the elucidation of the meaning of this text. This research, therefore, will analyze the aforementioned passage from the perspective of Greimasian semiotics. The method aims to reveal the generative path of meaning and highlight the intratextual elements, which make up the path (...) of construction of the meaning of the passage. It allows you to analyze your superficial and deep structures: it goes from the simple to the complex, from the most abstract to the most concrete. It can thus highlight the semantic oppositions from which the meaning of the text and its fundamental semantic category are constituted. The method has the potential to represent the relational organization between the social conditions of the subjects of the narrative. Furthermore, it provides neutral methodological support that avoids a priori conclusions and bias. The analysis of intertextuality completes the process started with Greimasian semiotics. This is because a careful reading of Lc 16,19-31 will not ignore its immediate and broader context: Luke and Acts read sequentially. By placing the parable in this broader narrative, Luke's readers could perceive connective elements, linking the story told by Jesus to what was happening in the early church. Thus, in Jesus' mouth the story of the rich man and the beggar was told as a criticism of avarice, but in Luke's editorial plan it was used to challenge believers to get involved in caring for the poor. (shrink)

Background: Despite being often taken as the benchmark of quality for diagnostic and classificatory tools, 'validity' is admitted as a poorly worked out notion in psychiatric nosology. Objective: Here we aim at presenting a view that we believe to do better justice to the significance of the notion of validity, as well as at explaining away some misconceptions and inappropriate expectations regarding this attribute in the aforementioned context. Method: The notion of validity is addressed taking into account its role, the (...) framework according to which it should be assessed and the specific contents to which it refers within psychiatric nosology. Results and Conclusions: The notion of validity has an epistemological thrust and its foremost role is distinguishing correct reasoning and truth from what is irrational or false. From it follows not only that 'validity' always refers to elements of knowledge and rationality such as arguments, inferences and propositions, but also that the appropriate frameworks to assess 'validity' are logics and scientific methodology. When the validity of a psychiatric diagnostic category is at stake, the contents to which it refers are those relevantly related to the notion of 'diagnostic concept'. The consequences of our reading on the notion of 'validity' are discussed vis-à-vis the challenges faced by psychiatric nosology in order to have its diagnostic categories validated. (shrink)

Research on the ethics of algorithms has grown substantially over the past decade. Alongside the exponential development and application of machine learning algorithms, new ethical problems and solutions relating to their ubiquitous use in society have been proposed. This article builds on a review of the ethics of algorithms published in 2016, 2016). The goals are to contribute to the debate on the identification and analysis of the ethical implications of algorithms, to provide an updated analysis of epistemic and normative (...) concerns, and to offer actionable guidance for the governance of the design, development and deployment of algorithms. (shrink)

This research aims to contribute to the discussion on the subject of Abortion by analyzing the concepts of formed and unformed in the Septuagint in Exodus 21:22-23, and the opinions of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas on the social status of the fetus. The Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, which was translated in stages into Greek between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century BC, presents a different point of view than that found in the Hebrew text (...) of Exodus 21:22-23. It introduces the notions of formed and unformed fetus. In other words, he understood the fetus (embryo) in a perspective of developing reality. Augustine and Aquinas, two important names in Christian theology, seem to have reflected a tradition that granted protection to the unborn child according to the stages of its development. The discussion around the topic of abortion is complex, very sensitive, but it should not be avoided. Bibliographical research was used as methodology. As a result, it will be pointed out that the biblical presentation of human beings does not begin with an explanation of conception or the fetal period. It does not discuss the point at which the embryo attains the full moral status of a human person. Thus, for this research, the discussion about abortion must necessarily take into account issues such as risk to the pregnant woman's life; fetal malformation etc. But, above all, it must be centered on the personality of the pregnant woman. (shrink)

The history of the interpretation of Psalm 46 has been articulated around the search for its context. Some commentators have sought to pin its historical circumstance to certain events in Israel's past, such as the siege of Sennacherib's army over Judah or a major geological event such as an earthquake. Others have asserted that the author of the Psalm did not have in mind a past event, but a future one, namely, a time of peace and cessation of wars. But (...) is this search for the context of the author's day really essential for the modern reader? Shouldn't the diligent reading of any text culminate in merging the past with the present?And, finally, shouldn't the reader's horizons be called into question when interpreting a text? This research will seek to analyze these questions from the dialogue with authors such as Franz Delitzsch, Hermann Gunkel, Hans Georg Gadamer, G. Heinrich Ewald and Arie Folger; authors who contributed to the reflection of this research. -/- . (shrink)

According to luck egalitarianism, it is unjust if some are worse off than others through no fault or choice of their own. The most common criticism of luck egalitarianism is the ‘harshness objection’, which states that luck egalitarianism allows for too harsh consequences, as it fails to provide justification for why those responsible for their bad fate can be entitled to society's assistance. It has largely gone unnoticed that the harshness objection is open to a number of very different interpretations. (...) We present four different interpretations of the harshness objection in which the problem pertains to counterintuitive implications, badness of outcome, disproportionality, or inconsistency, respectively. We analyse and discuss appropriate luck egalitarian replies. Disentangling these different versions clarifies what is at the heart of this dispute and reveals the point of the harshness objection. We conclude that only the inconsistency version involves a durable problem for luck egalitarianism. (shrink)

While COVID-19 vaccines provide light at the end of the tunnel in a difficult time, they also bring forth the complex ethical issue of global vaccine distribution. The current unequal global distribution of vaccines is unjust towards the vulnerable living in low-income countries. A vaccine tax should be introduced to remedy this. Under such a scheme, a small fraction of the money spent by a country on vaccines for its own population would go into a fund, such as COVAX, dedicated (...) to buying vaccines and distributing them to the world’s poorest. A vaccine tax would provide a much-needed injection of funds to remedy the unequal distribution of vaccines. The tax allows for a distribution that, to a lesser degree, reflects the ability to pay and is superior to a donation-based model because it minimises the opportunity for free-riding. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse actual causation in terms of production. The latter concept is made precise by a strengthened Ramsey Test semantics of conditionals: \ iff, after suspending judgement about A and C, C is believed in the course of assuming A. This test allows us to verify or falsify that an event brings about another event. Complementing the concept of production by a weak condition of difference-making gives rise to a full-fledged analysis of causation.

Dear Editor, in a previous paper we have tried to delve into what validity means in the context of psychiatric nosology, arguing for a pragmatic view of it. Here we want to briefly reassert the basic points of our analysis, make a few clarifications and address some issues raised by commentators.

two considerations on why language has nothing to do with intentionality.

Due to the shortage of organs, it has been proposed that the ban on organ sales is lifted and a market-based procurement system introduced. This paper assesses four prominent proposals for how such a market could be arranged: unregulated current market, regulated current market, payment-for-consent futures market, and the family-reward futures market. These are assessed in terms of how applicable prominent concerns with organ sales are for each model. The concerns evaluated are that organ markets will crowd out altruistic donation, (...) that consent to sell organs is invalid, that sellers will be harmed, and that commodification of organs will affect human relationships in a negative way. The paper concludes that the family-reward futures market fares best in this comparison but also that it provides the weakest incentive to potential buyers. There is an inverse relationship between how applicable prominent critiques are to organ market models and the increase in available organs they can be expected to provide. (shrink)

Hassoun argues that the poor in the world have a right to health and that the Global Health Impact Index provides consumers in well-off countries with the opportunity to ensure that more people have access to essential medicines. Because of this, these consumers would be ethically obliged to purchase Global Health Impact Index-labeled products in the face of existing global inequalities. In presenting her argument, Hassoun rejects the so-called democratic account of ethical consumption in favor of the positive change account. (...) Two versions of the democratic change account are relevant. One underscores the importance of democratic procedures and institutions, while the other stresses our fundamental moral equality. While at least one prominent institutionalist account has problems, revised versions would be less vulnerable to Hassoun’s counterexamples. Furthermore, institutionalist accounts come with the epistemological gains from democratic procedures and deliberations, which may be especially important under uncertainty. Finally, and perhaps more challenging for the Global Health Impact index project, this measure may place the burden unfairly on those who need to buy medicines. This is a pivotal insight from the non-institutionalist version of the democratic account of ethical consumption. (shrink)

We define a formal semantics of conditionals based on _normatively ideal worlds_. Such worlds are described informally by Armgardt (Gabbay D, Magnani L, Park W, Pietarinen A-V (eds) Natural arguments: a tribute to john woods, College Publications, London, pp 699–708, 2018) to address well-known problems of the counterfactual approach to causation. Drawing on Armgardt’s proposal, we use iterated conditionals in order to analyse causal relations in scenarios of multi-agent interaction. This results in a refined counterfactual approach to causal responsibility in (...) legal contexts, which solves overdetermination problems in an intuitively accessible manner. (shrink)

Linguistic studies from discursive perspective emphasize the concept of semantic autonomy and deny the realist notion of language. They argue that knowledge of social meaning and the effects of language are important to understanding a text. For Michel Pêcheux, in a speech, the meaning of word scan be explained by the interrelationship between words, more specifically, by the words that were not said. Meaning is thought of as symbolic, neither fixed nor exact. But Eric Donald Hirsch argued that the text (...) means what its author meant, and therefore the reader's aim is to retrieve the author's intended meaning. Only authorial intent can validate an interpretation. From the set who diverging points of view, some questions emerged, such as, for example, is language a neutral means of reflecting the world? Is a meaning by public consensus possible? Is textual meaning a matter of conscience or words? And more, can the reader benefit from an interpretive perspective that goes beyond the grammatical boundary? These are the questions that this work intends to explore. (shrink)

This article aims to understand the meaning of the phrase: “Θεοὶ μὲν γὰρ εἰσίν” - “Surely the gods exist” in the context of the so-called letter about the happiness of Epicurus. And to this purpose, it will question the relationship of this enunciate with the program of the “Blessed life” of the philosopher of Samos. Epicuro was presenting his declaration of faith: Θεοὶ εἰσίν? Probably not. But it is true that he used theological language when he presented his plan of (...) happiness. Why did he do it? This is the question that this article will seek to answer. (shrink)

The wishes of registered organ donors are regularly set aside when family members object to donation. This genuine overruling of the wishes of the deceased raises difficult ethical questions. A successful argument for providing the family with a veto must (a) provide reason to disregard the wishes of the dead, and (b) establish why the family should be allowed to decide. One branch of justification seeks to reconcile the family veto with important ideas about respecting property rights, preserving autonomy, and (...) preventing harm. These arguments are ultimately unsuccessful. Another branch of arguments is consequentialist, pointing out the negative consequences of removing the veto. Whether construed as concerning family distress or as a potential drop in the organs available, these arguments are unsuccessful; the first fails to recognize the tremendous distress associated with waiting for an organ, while the second has little supporting evidence. A final section considers and rejects whether combining some of the arguments just examined could justify the family veto. We should thus remove the family veto in organ donation. (shrink)

This paper considers the argument according to which, because we should regard it as a priori very unlikely that we are among the most important people who will ever exist, we should increase our confidence that the human species will not persist beyond the current historical era, which seems to represent a crucial juncture in human history and perhaps even the history of life on earth. The argument is a descendant of the Carter-Leslie Doomsday Argument, but I show that it (...) does not inherit the crucial flaw in its immediate ancestor. Nonetheless, we are not forced to follow the argument where it leads if we instead significantly decrease our confidence that we can affect the long-run future of humanity. GPI Working Paper No. 1-2019. (shrink)

The well-known formal semantics of conditionals due to Stalnaker Studies in logical theory, Blackwell, Oxford, 1968), Lewis, and Gärdenfors The logic and 1140 epistemology of scientific change, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1978, Knowledge in flux, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1988) all fail to distinguish between trivially and nontrivially true indicative conditionals. This problem has been addressed by Rott :345–370, 1986) in terms of a strengthened Ramsey Test. In this paper, we refine Rott’s strengthened Ramsey Test and the corresponding analysis of explanatory relations. We (...) show that our final analysis captures the presumed asymmetry between explanans and explanandum much better than Rott’s original analysis. (shrink)

The reading of Genesis 18,20 does not make clear what the sin of Sodom is. The Hebrew text only says that the transgression of the inhabitants of that city was greatly aggravated: “וחַטָּאתָּם” –“vëchatåtåm” -“כָּבְ דָּה” –“khåvëdåh” -“מְ אֹד” –“mëod”. Even the passage in Gen 19,5 gives no clue to a specific sin: in this passage it seems more evident that the sodomites are violating the normal canons of hospitality. But then why do popular imaginations and some interpreters identify the (...) sin of Sodom with homosexuality? This research will demonstrate that a number of factors led to this type of interpretation. First it was understood that Gen 19,5 gave an indication of the sexual orientation of the inhabitants of Sodom; then the passages of Leviticus 18,22 and 20,13 were invoked to regulate this opinion; the next step was to connect Gen 18,20 and 19,5 with Paul’s comments in Romans 1 in which the sin of Sodom was associated with homosexual sex. This connection was sustained by Augustine and also by the author of “Visio Sancti Pauli”. The coming together of these factors was the catalyst for later traditions in which the sin of Sodom is presented as homosexual sex. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism is often taken to task for its alleged harsh implications. For example, it may seem to imply a policy of nonassistance toward uninsured reckless drivers who suffer injuries. Luck egalitarians respond to such objections partly by pointing to a number of factors pertaining to the cases being debated, which suggests that their stance is less inattentive to the plight of the victims than it might seem at first. However, the strategy leaves some cases in which the attribution of (...) individual responsibility is appropriate . One such case is oral health or significant aspects of this. It is appropriate, the paper argues, to hold people responsible for a number of factors that affect their oral health. A luck egalitarian approach inspired by John Roemer can assess whether people have acted responsibly by comparing their choices to those of their peers. A luck egalitarian approach to oral health would recommend prioritizing scarce resources in a responsibility-weighted queuing system and include copayment and general taxation among its measures of financing. (shrink)

Rare diseases pose a particular priority setting problem. The UK gives rare diseases special priority in healthcare priority setting. Effectively, the National Health Service is willing to pay much more to gain a quality-adjusted life-year related to a very rare disease than one related to a more common condition. But should rare diseases receive priority in the allocation of scarce healthcare resources? This article develops and evaluates four arguments in favour of such a priority. These pertain to public values, luck (...) egalitarian distributive justice the epistemic difficulties of obtaining knowledge about rare diseases and the incentives created by a higher willingness to pay. The first is at odds with our knowledge regarding popular opinion. The three other arguments may provide a reason to fund rare diseases generously. However, they are either overinclusive because they would also justify funding for many non-rare diseases or underinclusive in the sense of justifying priority for only some rare diseases. The arguments thus fail to provide a justification that tracks rareness as such. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

It is often assumed that we are only blameworthy for that over which we have control. In recent years, however, several philosophers have argued that we can be blameworthy for occurrences that appear to be outside our control, such as attitudes, beliefs and omissions. This has prompted the question of why control should be a condition on blameworthiness. This paper aims at defending the control condition by developing a new conception of blameworthiness: To be blameworthy, I argue, is most fundamentally (...) to deserve to feel guilty. Being blamed by someone else is not necessarily harmful to the wrongdoer. The blame might not be expressed, or the wrongdoer might not care. But to blame oneself necessarily involves suffering. This conception of blameworthiness explains why the control condition should obtain: We are morally blameworthy for A only if A was under our control because to be blameworthy is to deserve to feel guilty, to feel guilty is to suffer, and one deserves to suffer for A only if A was under one’s control. (shrink)

In December 2015, Wales became the first country in the UK to move away from an opt-in system in organ procurement. The new legislation introduces the concept of deemed consent whereby a person who neither opt in nor opt out is deemed to have consented to donation. The data released by the National Health Service in July 2017 provide an excellent opportunity to assess this legislation in light of concerns that it would decrease procurement rates for living and deceased donation, (...) as well as sparking an increase in family refusals. None of these concerns have come to pass, with Wales experiencing more registered donors, fewer family refusals and more living donations. However, as the number of actual donors has dropped slightly from a high level, the situation must be monitored closely in the years to come. (shrink)

This essay provides an analysis of the role of affectivity in Martin Heidegger's writings from the mid to late 1920s. We begin by situating his account of mood within the context of his project of fundamental ontology in Being and Time. We then discuss the role of Befindlichkeit and Stimmung in his account of human existence, explicate the relationship between the former and the latter, and consider the ways in which the former discloses the world. To give a more vivid (...) and comprehensive picture of Heidegger's account of mood, we focus on the experience of anxiety by articulating both its function within fundamental ontology and, relatedly, its revelatory nature. We conclude by considering the place of emotions in Heidegger's thinking from this period. In a companion essay, ‘Affectivity in Heidegger II: Temporality, Boredom, and Beyond’, we complement our present analysis by revisiting the issue of affectivity in terms of Heidegger's discussion of temporality in Division II of Being and Time. We also expand our present discussion by considering the fundamental mood of boredom and other specific moods that Heidegger considers within his later thinking. (shrink)

It is sometimes argued that certain sentences of natural language fail to express truth conditional contents. Standard examples include e.g. Tipper is ready and Steel is strong enough. In this paper, we provide a novel analysis of truth conditional meaning using the notion of a question under discussion. This account explains why these types of sentences are not, in fact, semantically underdetermined, provides a principled analysis of the process by which natural language sentences can come to have enriched meanings in (...) context, and shows why various alternative views, e.g. so-called Radical Contextualism, Moderate Contextualism, and Semantic Minimalism, are partially right in their respective analyses of the problem, but also all ultimately wrong. Our analysis achieves this result using a standard truth conditional and compositional semantics and without making any assumptions about enriched logical forms, i.e. logical forms containing phonologically null expressions. (shrink)

Age-based rationing remains highly controversial. This question has been paramount during the Covid-19 pandemic. Analyzing the practices, proposals, and guidelines applied or put forward during the current pandemic, three kinds of age-based rationing are identified: an age-based cut-off, age as a tiebreaker, and indirect age rationing, where age matters to the extent that it affects prognosis. Where age is allowed to play a role in terms of who gets treated, it is justified either because this is believed to maximize benefits (...) from scarce resources or because it is believed to be in accordance with the value of fairness understood as (a) fair innings, where less priority is given to those who have lived a full life or (b) an egalitarian concern for the worse off. By critically assessing prominent frameworks and practices for pandemic rationing, this article considers the balance the three kinds of age-based rationing strike between maximizing benefits and fairness. It evaluates whether elements in the proposals are, in fact, contrary to the justifications of these measures. Such shortcomings are highlighted, and it is proposed to adjust prominent proposals to care for the worse off more appropriately and better consider whether the acquired benefits befalls the young or the old. (shrink)

The scarcity of livers available for transplants forces tough choices upon us. Lives for those not receiving a transplant are likely to be short. One large group of potential recipients needs a new liver because of alcohol consumption, while others suffer for reasons unrelated to their own behaviour. Should the former group receive lower priority when scarce livers are allocated? This discussion connects with one of the most pertinent issues in contemporary political philosophy; the role of personal responsibility in distributive (...) justice. One prominent theory of distributive justice, luck egalitarianism, assesses distributions as just if, and only if, people's relative positions reflect their exercises of responsibility. There is a principled luck egalitarian case for giving lower priority to those who are responsible for their need. Compared to the existing literature favouring such differentiation, luck egalitarianism provides a clearer rationale of fairness, acknowledges the need for individual assessments of responsibility, and requires initiatives both inside and outside of the allocation systems aimed at mitigating the influence from social circumstances. Furthermore, the concrete policies that luck egalitarians can recommend are neither too harsh on those who make imprudent choices nor excessively intrusive towards those whose exercises of responsibility are assessed. (shrink)

This paper delves into the use of machine learning-based systems in decision-making processes and its implications for moral responsibility as traditionally defined. It focuses on the emergence of responsibility gaps and examines proposed strategies to address them. The paper aims to provide an introductory and comprehensive overview of the ongoing debate surrounding moral responsibility in automated decision-making. By thoroughly examining these issues, we seek to contribute to a deeper understanding of the implications of AI integration in society.

In this paper, we propose a regularity theory of causation. The theory aims to be reductive and to align with our pre‐theoretic understanding of the causal relation. We show that our theory can account for a wide range of causal scenarios, including isomorphic scenarios, omissions, and scenarios which suggest that causation is not transitive.

By presenting and synthesizing findings on the character of boredom, the article advances a theoretical account of the function of the state of boredom. The article argues that the state of boredom should be understood as a functional emotion that is both informative and regulatory of one's behavior. Boredom informs one of the presence of an unsatisfactory situation and, at the same time, it motivates one to pursue a new goal when the current goal ceases to be satisfactory, attractive or (...) meaningful. Boredom ultimately promotes both movement and the restoration of the perception that one's activities are meaningful and congruent with one's overall projects. (shrink)

This paper explores an idea of Stoic descent that is largely neglected nowadays, the idea that an argument is valid when the conditional formed by the conjunction of its premises as antecedent and its conclusion as consequent is true. As it will be argued, once some basic features of our naıve understanding of validity are properly spelled out, and a suitable account of conditionals is adopted, the equivalence between valid arguments and true conditionals makes perfect sense. The account of validity (...) outlined here, which displays one coherent way to articulate the Stoic intuition, accords with standard formal treatments of deductive validity and encompasses an independently grounded characterization of inductive validity. (shrink)

An important argument against prohibiting organ sales is that it removes the best option available to individuals in dire circumstances. However, this line of reasoning fails to recognise that selling a kidney on a regulated market is only the best option in a very narrow comparison, where a regulated organ market is compared with banning organ sales. Once we acknowledge this narrowness, selling a kidney is not the best option. This paves the way for a distributive justice-based critique of the (...) ‘best option’ argument for organ markets, which illuminates that organ markets should be compared with a broader set of alternatives. If providing the option of selling a kidney is not the best option, but rather the best option we are willing to provide, and one which means that many people will remain in poverty and unjust circumstances, then this reflects poorly on those societies willing to offer only this option and not a better one. (shrink)

There seems to be a minimal core that every theory wishing to accommodate the intuition that the future is open must contain: a denial of physical determinism (i.e. the thesis that what future states the universe will be in is implied by what states it has been in), and a denial of strong fatalism (i.e. the thesis that, at every time, what will subsequently be the case is metaphysically necessary).1 Those two requirements are often associated with the idea of an (...) objective temporal flow and the non-reality of the future. However, at least certain ways to frame the “openness” intuition do not rely on any of these. Branching Time Theory (BTT) is one such: it is compatible with the denial that time flow is objective and it is couched in a language with a (prima facie) commitment to an eternalist ontology. BTT, though, urges us to resist certain intuitions about the determinacy of future claims, which arguably do not lead either to physical determinism or to fatalism. Against BTT, supporters of the Thin Red Line Theory (TRL) argue that their position avoids determinism and fatalism, while also representing the fact that there is a future which is “special” because it is the one that will be the case. But starting with Belnap and Green 1994, some have objected to the tenability of TRL, mainly on metaphysical grounds. In particular, those argue that “positing a thin red line amounts to giving up objective indeterminism,”2 and that “has unacceptable consequences, ranging from a mistreatment of actuality to an inability to talk coherently about what would have happened had what is going to happen not taken place.”3 In this paper, we wish to reframe the.. (shrink)