Proponents of the public goods argument ('PGA') seek to ground the authority of the state on its putative indispensability as a means of providing public goods. But many of the things we take to be public goods – including many of the goods commonly invoked in support of the PGA – are actually what we might term publicized goods. A publicized good is any whose ‘public’ character results only from a policy decision to make some good freely and universally available. (...) This fact poses complications for the PGA, insofar as the set of possible publicized goods is quite extensive indeed. (shrink)

I argue that much current thinking on externalities—at least among “lay political economists” (but even, on occasion, among professional economists)—is saddled with two analytical errors. The first is what I call coextensivism: the conflation of public goods and externalities. The second error is what I call externality profligacy: the conflation of economic and “social” externalities. The principal dangers presented by these two “dogmas on externalities” are that, while in their grips, we are under-disposed to seek negotiated, market-based solutions (of a (...) broadly Coasean nature) to challenges posed by economic externalities, and over-disposed to seek coercive, state-based solutions (of a broadly Pigouvian nature) to challenges posed by social externalities. (shrink)

The Progressive favors extending the legal institution of marriage so as to include same-sex unions along with heterosexual ones. The Traditionalist opposes such an extension, preferring to retain the legal institution of marriage in its present form. I argue that the Progressive ought to broaden her position, endorsing instead the Liberal case for extending the current institution so as to include polygamous unions as well—for any consideration favoring Progressivism over Traditionalism likewise favors Liberalism over Progressivism. Progressives inclined to resist Liberalism (...) are invited to consider an alternative position: the Libertarian stance that favors instead the ‘disestablishment’ of marriage. (shrink)

The central claim of the volume in which this chapter appears (*Fermented Landscapes*, ed. Colleen C. Myles, Univ. of Nebraska Press 2020) is that the chemical process of fermentation supplies an apt metaphor for understanding certain kinds of landscape change. The kinds of landscape change in question are, fortuitously, those often occasioned by commercial processes centered around fermentation itself: the commercial production of beer, wine, spirits, cider, cheese, and related fermented products. But what makes this metaphor apt? Which kinds of (...) landscape change are most fruitfully conceptualized as exhibiting “fermentation,” and how do they differ from other sorts of landscape change? What is it about fermentation-centered industries that effects fermentation-modeled landscape change, and when (if ever) do these industries contribute to other, different forms of landscape change? Is there any essential reason why fermentation-centered industries should create in their environs processes of transformation usefully characterized in terms of ferment? Or is this little more than a happy linguistic coincidence? In short: how much mileage do we get from this metaphor? This chapter offers a number of considerations germane to an evaluation of the “fermented landscapes” research paradigm—considerations to which readers may wish to remain alert as they study the contributions in this volume. (shrink)

Though sometimes maligned, “trolleyology” offers an effective means of opening and framing, not only classes in ethics, but indeed any introductory philosophy course taking a broadly “puzzle-based” approach. When properly sequenced, a subset of the thought experiments that are trolleyology’s stock-in-trade can generate a series of puzzles illustrating the shortcomings of our untutored moral intuitions, and which thus motivate the very enterprise of moral theorizing. Students can be engaged in the attempt to resolve said puzzles, inasmuch as they’re accessible and (...) compelling, and their resolutions generally easy to achieve. Once thus engaged, students can be directed to the fact that they had already rolled up their sleeves and begun “doing philosophy.” In this way, engagement with trolleyological puzzles can serve as a “microcosm” for philosophy more broadly, illustrating the processes of critical thinking that are likewise the stock-in-trade of philosophers across many different domains of inquiry. (shrink)

Recent debate regarding transgender persons’ bathroom-utilization prerogatives raises broader issues concerning current practices of sex segregation more generally. I argue that the only consistently Progressive position on bathroom access is an outright opposition to any form of bathroom segregation. This opposition, in turn, entails a thorough-going rejection of all types of sex- and gender-segregation. I then suggest that Progressives uncomfortable with such wide-ranging implications may wish to consider the merits of a certain Traditionalist position on such matters—one that counsels caution (...) and legislative forbearance when it comes to overturning long-standing customs (such as those embodied in current practices of sex-segregation). (shrink)

We all have different “tastes” for different tastes: some of us have a sweet tooth, while others prefer more subtle flavors; some crave spicy foods, while others cannot stand them. As Bourdieu and others have pointed out, these varying judgments seem to be more than mere preferences; often they reflect (and partially constitute) differences of class and culture. But I want to suggest that we’ve possibly overlooked another important source of these divergent gastronomic evaluations, other than hierarchy and caste: mere (...) interpersonal variability with respect to brute gustatory sensations. After all, we all know about “supertasters and cilantro-haters”; how likely is it, though, that the interpersonal heterogeneity of gustatory sensation is limited to this one dimension? In this paper, I make the case that we should take this possibility more seriously, and offer some thoughts on how we might start getting a better handle on the nature and scope of interpersonal gustatory variability—including by suggesting some diagnostics that can help us get at (what I call) some of the “non-flavor dimensions” of our gustatory experience. I conclude by developing some implications for the prospects of an “alimentary aesthetics”: namely, that—should our gustatory experiences turn out to be quite heterogeneous—then they do not seem well-suited to serve as the basic ingredients of bona fide aesthetic judgment about food and drink. (shrink)

Many theorists have recently observed that the response to the same-sex marriage controversy most congruent with basic liberal principles is neither the retention of the institution of marriage in its present form, nor its extension so as to include same-sex unions along with heterosexual ones, but rather the ‘dis-establishment’ of marriage. Less commonly observed, however, is the fact that there are two competing models for how the state might effect a regime of disestablished marriage. On the one hand, there is (...) a ‘deflationary’ approach, on which the state ceases to confer marital status, but does remain in the status-conferring business. On this approach, the state would still bestow a certain ‘thinner’, more ‘neutral’ legal status – as it does when it creates civil unions, for instance. Call this the ‘Status Model’ of disestablished marriage. On the other hand, there is an ‘eliminativist’ approach, on which the state ceases to confer any sort of status at all – not even the thin or neutral status of ‘civilly-unioned’. There simply are no registered domestic partnerships. What there is, is contract law, and individuals entering into contracts for life-partnership – contractual arrangements which might assume any of a wide variety of forms. Call this the ‘Contract Model’ of disestablished marriage. In this paper, I explore the merits of these competing models. After briefly discussing what it means to speak of ‘disestablishing marriage’, and examining the case for disestablishment, I proceed to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each model. My tentative conclusion is that the Contract Model is the one that best instantiates cardinal liberal virtues. (shrink)

The pluralist liberal defends a conception of liberal politics grounded in the thesis of value pluralism. Since he argues from a particular metaphysical thesis – value pluralism – to a particular understanding of politics – liberalism – his account will feature two separable, but interrelated, components: a distinctive justification of liberalism, and a conception of politics with distinctive content. The particular flavor of liberalism to which the pluralist is led is a species of what I term “accommodationism” – an understanding (...) that sees as a polity’s central task the accommodation of many divergent conceptions of the good life. I argue that the pluralist liberal’s case is hampered by four difficulties. Two of these difficulties challenge the justification of liberalism in terms of value pluralism, and two of them plague the particular accommodationist understanding of liberalism to which the pluralist is led. I conclude by arguing that classical liberalism is a view that is immune to these latter two criticisms. In fact, I suggest a more general claim: that classical liberalism provides the most promising resources for the articulation and defense of a conception of politics dedicated to accommodating the diverse and heterogeneous versions of human flourishing countenanced by value pluralism. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate composition models of incarnation, according to which Christ is a compound of qualitatively and numerically different constituents. We focus on three-part models, according to which Christ is composed of a divine mind, a human mind, and a human body. We consider four possible relational structures that the three components could form. We argue that a ‘hierarchy of natures’ model, in which the human mind and body are united to each other in the normal way, and (...) in which they are jointly related to the divine mind by the relation of co-action, is the most metaphysically plausible model. Finally, we consider the problem of how Christ can be a single person even when his components may be considered persons. We argue that an Aristotelian metaphysics, according to which identity is a matter of function, offers a plausible solution: Christ's components may acquire a radically new identity through being parts of the whole, which enables them to be reidentified as parts, not persons. (shrink)

It is commonly held that our intuitive judgements about imaginary problem cases are justified a priori, if and when they are justified at all. In this paper I defend this view — ‘rationalism’ — against a recent objection by Timothy Williamson. I argue that his objection fails on multiple grounds, but the reasons why it fails are instructive. Williamson argues from a claim about the semantics of intuitive judgements, to a claim about their psychological underpinnings, to the denial of rationalism. (...) I argue that the psychological claim — that a capacity for mental simulation explains our intuitive judgements — does not, even if true, provide reasons to reject rationalism. (More generally, a simulation hypothesis, about any category of judgements, is very limited in its epistemological implications: it is pitched at a level of explanation that is insensitive to central epistemic distinctions.) I also argue that Williamson’s semantic claim — that intuitive judgements are judgements of counterfactuals — is mistaken; rather, I propose, they are a certain kind of metaphysical possibility judgement. Several other competing proposals are also examined and criticized. (shrink)

The psychological reality of an inner awareness built into conscious experience has traditionally been a central element of philosophy of consciousness, from Aristotle, to Descartes, Brentano, the phenomenological tradition, and early and contemporary analytic philosophy. Its existence, however, has recently been called into question, especially by defenders of so-called transparency of experience and first-order representationalists about phenomenal consciousness. In this paper, I put forward a defense of inner awareness based on an argument from memory. Roughly, the idea is that since (...) we can only recall something if we were aware of it at the time of its occurrence, and since we can recall our own experiences, we must be aware of our own experiences at the time of their occurrence. The argument is far from new: it goes back to the Buddhist tradition and has been revived more recently in Buddhist Scholarship but also in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind, in particular by Uriah Kriegel. However, I believe that, since it is the best extant argument for inner awareness, it deserves more extensive treatment. My goal is to strengthen the memory argument by making some conceptual distinctions as to the exact thesis about inner awareness that the argument is supposed to support, considering different ways the argument may be reconstructed depending on the exact thesis to be supported, and defending the argument from a new objection, raised very recently by Daniel Stoljar. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a new version of the acquaintance view of the nature of introspection of phenomenal states. On the acquaintance view, when one introspects a current phenomenal state of one's, one bears to it the relation of introspective acquaintance. Extant versions of the acquaintance view neglect what I call the phenomenal modification problem. The problem, articulated by Franz Brentano in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, is that drawing introspective attention to one's current conscious experience may modify (...) its phenomenology. Failing to take phenomenal modification into account affects the adequacy of extant versions of the acquaintance view. The purpose of this paper is to develop a better version, the integration account, that meets the phenomenal modification challenge while preserving the merits of other versions. (shrink)

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw ends her landmark essay “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color” with a normative claim about coalitions. She suggests that we should reconceptualize identity groups as “in fact coalitions,” or at least as “potential coalitions waiting to be formed.” In this essay, I explore this largely overlooked claim by combining philosophical analysis with archival research I conducted at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society Archive in San Francisco about Somos Hermanas, (...) the solidarity project of the Alliance Against Women’s Oppression, based in the San Francisco Women’s Building (1984–90). I extend my analysis into the present by drawing on the oral history and published works of Carmen Vázquez, a key organizer in both Somos Hermanas and the Women’s Building. I argue that conceptualizing identities as in fact coalitions—as complex, internally heterogeneous unities constituted by their internal differences and dissonances and by internal as well as external relations of power—enables us to organize effective political coalitions that cross existing identity categories and to pursue a liberatory politics of interconnection. (shrink)

Introspective knowledge by acquaintance is knowledge we have by being directly aware of our phenomenally conscious states. In this paper, I argue that introspective knowledge by acquaintance is a sui generis kind of knowledge: it is irreducible to any sort of propositional knowledge and is wholly constituted by a relationship of introspective acquaintance. My main argument is that this is the best explanation of some epistemic facts about phenomenal consciousness and introspection. In particular, it best explains the epistemic asymmetry between (...) a subject who has never had a certain phenomenal state and one who has. I also consider two theoretical objections to my claim: an objection from disunity and an objection from mysteriousness. I show that these objections can be answered and that introspective knowledge by acquaintance being sui generis remains a live option on the table. (shrink)

This book surveys research in quantification starting with the foundational work in the 1970s. It paints a vivid picture of generalized quantifiers and Boolean semantics. It explains how the discovery of diverse scope behavior in the 1990s transformed the view of quantification, and how the study of the internal composition of quantifiers has become central in recent years. It presents different approaches to the same problems, and links modern logic and formal semantics to advances in generative syntax. A unique feature (...) of the book is that it systematically brings cross-linguistic data to bear on the theoretical issues, discussing French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Telugu (Dravidian), and Shupamem (Grassfield Bantu), and pointing to formal semantic literature involving quantification in around thirty languages. -- -/- 1. What this book is about and how to use it; 2. Generalized quantifiers and their elements: operators and their scopes; 3. Generalized quantifiers in non-nominal domains; 4. Some empirically significant properties of quantifiers and determiners; 5. Potential challenges for generalized quantifiers; 6. Scope is not uniform and not a primitive; 7. Existential scope versus distributive scope; 8. Distributivity and scope; 9. Bare numeral indefinites; 10. Modified numerals; 11. Clause-internal scopal diversity; 12. Towards a compositional semantics of quantifier words. (shrink)

Relational approaches are gaining more and more importance in philosophy of tech-nology. This brings up the critical question of how they can be implemented in applied ethics, law, and practice. In “Extremely Relational Robots: Implications for Law and Ethics”, Nancy S. Jecker (2024) comments on my article “Not Relational Enough? Towards an Eco-Relational Approach in Robot Ethics” (Puzio, 2024), in which I present a deep relational, “eco-relational approach”. In this reply, I address two of Jecker’s criticisms: in section. 3, I (...) deal with the connection of personhood and human identity with relationality, and in section. 4, I discuss the consequences of relational approaches for practical ethics and law. Unlike Jecker, I am strongly convinced that relational approaches can and should be implemented in applied ethics and law. (shrink)

Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.

The viability of a naïve realist theory of memory was a lively debate for philosophers of mind in the first half of the twentieth century. More recently, though, naïve realism has been largely abandoned as a non-starter in the memory literature, with representationalism being the standard view held by philosophers of memory. But rather than being carefully argued, the dismissal of naïve realism is an assumption that sits at the back of much recent theorizing in the philosophy of memory. In (...) this paper, we identify three reasons why philosophers of memory have felt compelled to outright reject naïve realism. We argue that none of those reasons are successful. Thus, far from being a non-starter, we argue that naïve realism is a theoretical perspective that needs to be given serious consideration in current philosophy of memory debates. (shrink)

Artificial agents have become increasingly prevalent in human social life. In light of the diversity of new human–machine interactions, we face renewed questions about the distribution of moral responsibility. Besides positions denying the mere possibility of attributing moral responsibility to artificial systems, recent approaches discuss the circumstances under which artificial agents may qualify as moral agents. This paper revisits the discussion of how responsibility might be distributed between artificial agents and human interaction partners (including producers of artificial agents) and raises (...) the question of whether attributions of responsibility should remain entirely on the human side. While acknowledging a crucial difference between living human beings and artificial systems culminating in an asymmetric feature of human–machine interactions, this paper investigates the extent to which artificial agents may reasonably be attributed a share of moral responsibility. To elaborate on criteria that can justify a distribution of responsibility in certain human–machine interactions, the role of types of criteria (interaction-related criteria and criteria that can be deferred from socially constructed responsibility relationships) is examined. Thereby, the focus will lay on the evaluation of potential criteria referring to the fact that artificial agents surpass in some aspects the capacities of humans. This is contrasted with socially constructed responsibility relationships that do not take these criteria into account. In summary, situations are examined in which it seems plausible that moral responsibility can be distributed between artificial and human agents. (shrink)

‘The Union of Cause and Effect in Aristotle : Physics III 3’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 32, pp. 205-232, May 2007.: I argue that Aristotle introduced a unique realist account of causation, which has not hitherto been appreciated in the history of philosophy: causal realism without a causal relation. In his account, cause and effect are unified by the ectopic actualization of the agent’s potentiality in the patient. His solution consists in the introduction of a property that belongs to (...) one subject but is realized in another subject on whose state this realization depends. I identify and analyze the multiple ontological dependencies between the causal state of the agent and that of the patient during their causal activity. (shrink)

[...] I will only investigate [Austin's] claims as challenges to present-day model theoretic semantics. My main point will be to draw a sharp line between the semantic and pragmatic aspects of performatives and thereby discover a gap in Austin’s treatment. This will in my view naturally lead to the proposal in Section 2, that is, to treating performatives as denoting changes in intensional models. The rest of Section 2 will be concerned with the status of felicity conditions and a tentative (...) extension of Montague’s PTQ. (shrink)

The question of the unity of consciousness is often treated as the question of how different conscious experiences are related to each other in order to be unified. Many contemporary views on the unity of consciousness are based on this bottom-up approach. In this paper I explore an alternative, top-down approach, according to which (to a first approximation) a subject undergoes one single conscious experience at a time. From this perspective, the problem of unity of consciousness becomes rather the problem (...) of how we can distinguish a multiplicity of goings-on within our conscious experience at any time, given that it is unique. I will present three possible top-down approaches to unity of consciousness, which I call Priority unity monism, Existence unity monism, and Brentanian unity monism. Priority monism and Existence monism are defined in analogy with the homonymous metaphysical theories of object constitution. Brentanian monism retraces Franz Brentano’s view on unity of consciousness, and is defined by appeal to some of his mereological ideas. I will argue that the latter is the best top-down approach to unity of consciousness. (shrink)

On an evidentialist position, it is epistemically rational for us to believe propositions that are (stably) supported by our total evidence. We are epistemically permitted to believe such propositions, and perhaps even ought to do so. Epistemic rationality is normative. One popular way to explain the normativity appeals to epistemic teleology. The primary aim of this paper is to argue that appeals to epistemic teleology do not support that we ought to believe what is rational to believe, only that we (...) are permitted to do so. In arguing for that, I defend an epistemic teleological position that is radical in nature. It involves no commitment to aiming at the truth. I conclude by dispelling some worries that have been raised about my position. (shrink)

Enjoying great popularity in decision theory, epistemology, and philosophy of science, Bayesianism as understood here is fundamentally concerned with epistemically ideal rationality. It assumes a tight connection between evidential probability and ideally rational credence, and usually interprets evidential probability in terms of such credence. Timothy Williamson challenges Bayesianism by arguing that evidential probabilities cannot be adequately interpreted as the credences of an ideal agent. From this and his assumption that evidential probabilities cannot be interpreted as the actual credences of human (...) agents either, he concludes that no interpretation of evidential probabilities in terms of credence is adequate. I argue to the contrary. My overarching aim is to show on behalf of Bayesians how one can still interpret evidential probabilities in terms of ideally rational credence and how one can maintain a tight connection between evidential probabilities and ideally rational credence even if the former cannot be interpreted in terms of the latter. By achieving this aim I illuminate the limits and prospects of Bayesianism. (shrink)

In many languages, the same particles that form quantifier words also serve as connectives, additive and scalar particles, question markers, roots of existential verbs, and so on. Do these have a unified semantics, or do they merely bear a family resemblance? Are they aided by silent operators in their varied roles―if yes, what operators? I dub the particles “quantifier particles” and refer to them generically with capitalized versions of the Japanese morphemes. I argue that both MO and KA can be (...) assigned a stable semantics across their various roles. The specific analysis I offer is motivated by the fact that MO and KA often combine with just one argument; I propose that this is their characteristic behavior. Their role is to impose semantic requirements that are satisfied when the immediately larger context is interpreted as the meet/join of their host’s semantic contribution with something else. They do not perform meet/join themselves. The obligatory vs. optional appearance of the particles depends on whether the meet/join interpretations arise by default in the given constellation. I explicate the proposal using the toolkit of basic Inquisitive Semantics. (shrink)

Puzio, Anna: Zeig mir deine Technik und ich sag dir, wer du bist? Was Technikanthropologie ist und warum wir sie dringend brauchen. In: Diebel-Fischer, Hermann/Kunkel, Nicole/Zeyher-Quattlender, Julian (Hg.): Mensch und Maschine im Zeitalter "Künstlicher Intelligenz". Theologisch-ethische Herausforderungen. LIT 2023. -/- Abstract: Der Aufsatz untersucht das vielschichtige Verhältnis von Mensch und Technik und plädiert für eine Technikanthropologie. Wie schon Gernot Böhme für die Technikphilosophie diagnostiziert hat, gibt es die Technikanthropologie „faktisch [ . . . ] nämlich mit einschlägigen Publikationen, Curricula (...) und Lehrstühlen“ und doch scheint es „kein überzeugendes Paradigma“ der Technikanthropologie und keine Technikanthropologie als voll entwickelte Disziplin oder Denkrichtung zu geben. Der Beitrag trägt zur Profilierung der Technikanthropologie bei. Es werden Aufgaben der Technikanthropologie herausgestellt, neue Ansätze vorgestellt und wegweisende Perspektiven für eine theologische Technikanthropologie entwickelt. Im ersten Schritt wird in Abschnitt 1 in die Technikanthropologie eingeführt. Es erfolgen die Einordnung technikanthropologischer Konzepte und die Erklärung wichtiger Begriffe. Anschließend wird in Abschnitt 2 das Verhältnis von Mensch und Maschine/Technik reflektiert und verdeutlicht, wie beide im Verhältnis zueinander neu ausgehandelt werden. Es wird gegen ein vorgängiges Verständnis sowohl desMenschen als auch derMaschine/Technik plädiert und auf die jahrhundertelangen Einschreibungen in die Vorstellungen von beiden hingewiesen. Zeig mir deine Technik und ich sag dir, wer du bist? Abschnitt 3 führt aus, wie Technik Mensch und Körper verändert und mitbestimmt, wasMensch und Körper bedeuten. In diesem Kontext wird bereits die Notwendigkeit einer Neukonzeption von Technikanthropologie deutlich. Abschnitt 4 zeigt, anhand zweier Ansätze, neue Wege der Technikanthropologie auf: einen radikalen Neuentwurf des Menschen durch Donna Haraway und des Sozialen durch Bruno Latour. Schließlich werden in Abschnitt 5 Perspektiven für eine konkrete theologische Technikanthropologie entwickelt. Gerade der anthropologische Zugang zur Technik wird sich als wichtiger Zugang der Theologie zum Technikdiskurs erweisen. (shrink)

Positive polarity items (PPIs) are generally thought to have the boring property that they cannot scope below negation. The starting point of the paper is the observation that their distribution is significantly more complex; specifically, someone/something-type PPIs share properties with negative polarity items (NPIs). First, these PPIs are disallowed in the same environments that license yet type NPIs; second, adding any NPI-licenser rescues the illegitimate constellation. This leads to the conclusion that these PPIs have the combined properties of yet-type and (...) ever-type NPIs: what appears to be a prohibition is nothing but “halfway licensing”. The paper goes on to propose a unification of the analyses of rescuable PPIs, NPIs, and negative concord, and questions the grounding of polarity sensitivity in the scalar or the referential semantics of the items involved. (shrink)

This paper explores the enactive approach in cognitive science with an eye on the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy. The aim is not that of answering the question: was Wittgenstein an ante litteram enactivist? He was not, because he was not an ante litteram (cognitive) scientist of any kind. The aim, conversely, is that of answering the question: can enactivism be Wittgensteinian? In answering positively, it will be argued that a Wittgensteinian framework can help enactive cognitive scientists in dissolving certain old problems (...) which they sometimes seem not to be able to get rid of. After the Introduction, the first two sections of the paper concern the Wittgensteinian standpoint on psychological concepts (Section 2) and the enactivist approach in its general terms (Section 3). Section 4 attempts a closer examination of some key concepts – chiefly representations, the inner, the “explanatory gap”, the “hard problem” of consciousness – considering both the enactivists’ and Wittgenstein’s attitude towards them. The Conclusion surmises the benefits of a Wittgensteinian perspective also hinting at some other problems which it can help to clarify. (shrink)

This review provides an overview of the ethics of extinctions with a focus on the Western analytical environmental ethics literature. It thereby gives special attention to the possible philosophical grounds for Michael Soulé’s assertion that the untimely ‘extinction of populations and species is bad’. Illustrating such debates in environmental ethics, the guiding question for this review concerns why – or when – anthropogenic extinctions are bad or wrong, which also includes the question of when that might not be the case (...) (i.e. which extinctions are even desirable). After providing an explanation of the disciplinary perspective taken (section “Introduction”), the concept of extinction and its history within that literature are introduced (section “Understanding extinction”). Then, in section “Why (or when) might anthropogenic extinctions be morally problematic?”, different reasons for why anthropogenic extinctions might be morally problematic are presented based on the loss of species’ value, harm to nonhuman individuals, the loss of valuable biological variety and duties to future generations. This section concludes by also considering cases where anthropogenic extinctions might be justified. Section “How to respond to extinctions?” then addresses a selection of topics concerning risks and de-extinction technologies. Finally, the section on “Extinction studies” introduces other viewpoints on the ethics of extinction from the extinction studies literature, followed by the “Conclusion”. (shrink)

Wie verändern sich Mensch und Körper durch Technik? Und welches Menschenverständnis vertritt der Transhumanismus? Anna Puzio befasst sich in der ersten philosophischen Studie zur Anthropologie des Transhumanismus mit führenden Personen des Feldes, u. a. mit Nick Bostrom, David Pearce und Natasha Vita-More. Neben Körperoptimierung und Medizintechnologien beleuchtet sie auch Alltagstechnologien wie Wearables. Dabei entwickelt sie einen neuen Ansatz zur Technikanthropologie und ein neues inklusives Menschen- und Körperverständnis im Anschluss an Donna Haraway und den Kritischen Posthumanismus im amerikanischen Raum.

Although research on epistemic injustice has focused on the effects of prejudice in epistemic exchanges, the account of prejudice that emerges in Fricker’s (2007) view is not completely clear. In particular, I claim that the epistemic role of prejudice in the structure of testimonial justification is still in need of a satisfactory explanation. What special epistemic power does prejudice exercise that prevents the speaker’s words from constituting evidence for the hearer’s belief? By clarifying this point, it will be possible to (...) address two more general issues concerning the nature of prejudice: its resistance to counterevidence and the steps involved in overcoming prejudice. I propose a hinge account of prejudice, based on the recent perspective of hinge epistemology, to help clarify these aspects. According to the hinge account, prejudices share a fundamental feature with hinges: they work as norms of evidential significance, and as such, they determine what can and cannot count as evidence for belief. (shrink)

Thick concepts, namely those concepts that describe and evaluate simultaneously, present a challenge to science. Since science does not have a monopoly on value judgments, what is responsible research involving such concepts? Using measurement of wellbeing as an example, we first present the options open to researchers wishing to study phenomena denoted by such concepts. We argue that while it is possible to treat these concepts as technical terms, or to make the relevant value judgment in-house, the responsible thing to (...) do, especially in the context of public policy, is to make this value judgment through a legitimate political process that includes all the stakeholders of this research. We then develop a participatory model of measurement based on the ideal of co-production. To show that this model is feasible and realistic, we illustrate it with a case study of co-production of a concept of thriving conducted by the authors in collaboration with a UK anti-poverty charity Turn2us. (shrink)

Maria Kokoszyńska-Lutmanowa was one of the most outstanding female representatives of the Lvov-Warsaw School. After achieving her PhD in philosophy under Kazimierz Twardowski’s supervision, she was Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s assistant. She was also influenced by Alfred Tarski whose results in semantics she analyzed and popularized. After World War II, she got the chair of logic in University of Wrocław and she organized studies in logic in this academic center. In the 1930s, Kokoszyńska kept in contact with members of the Vienna Circle (...) and became a kind of connecting factor between Polish logicians and the Viennese group. In Poland, she presented the views of members of the Vienna Circle. In Vienna, she emphasized the results of her Polish colleagues. In the present paper, some of Kokoszyńska’s results connected with the matters discussed in the Vienna Circle are presented, namely with the problem of metaphysics, the status of logic and the idea of unity of science. (shrink)

Ways of Scope Taking is concerned with syntactic, semantic and computational aspects of scope. Its starting point is the well-known but often neglected fact that different types of quantifiers interact differently with each other and other operators. The theoretical examination of significant bodies of data, both old and novel, leads to two central claims. (1) Scope is a by-product of a set of distinct Logical Form processes; each quantifier participates in those that suit its particular features. (2) Scope interaction is (...) further constrained by the semantics of the interacting operators. The arguments are developed using Minimalist syntax, Generalized Quantify theory, Discourse Representation Theory, and algebraic semantics. The contributors (Beghelli, Ben-Shalom, Doetjes, Farkas, Gutiérrez Rexach, Honcoop, Stabler, Stowell, Szabolcsi and Zwarts) make tightly related theoretical assumptions and focus on related empirical phenomena, which include the direct and inverse scope of quantifiers, distributivity, negation, modal and intensional contexts, weak islands, event-related readings, interrogatives, wh/quantifier interactions, and Hungarian syntax. An introduction to the formal semantics background is provided. Audience: Linguists, philosophers, computational and psycholinguists; advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in these fields. (shrink)

In this paper I present a new way of understanding Dutch Book Arguments: the idea is that an agent is shown to be incoherent iff he would accept as fair a set of bets that would result in a loss under any interpretation of the claims involved. This draws on a standard definition of logical inconsistency. On this new understanding, the Dutch Book Arguments for the probability axioms go through, but the Dutch Book Argument for Reflection fails. The question of (...) whether we have a Dutch Book Argument for Conditionalization is left open. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between a prominent version of the relational view of memory and recent work on forms of unsuccessful remembering or memory errors. I argue that unsuccessful remembering poses an important challenge for the relational view. Unsuccessful remembering can be divided into two kinds: misremembering and confabulating. I discuss each of these cases in light of a recent relational account, according to which remembering is characterized by an experiential relation to past events, and I argue that experiential (...) relations do not adequately distinguish between remembering and unsuccessful remembering. This is because there are, on the one hand, cases of remembering that do not instantiate the relevant experiential relations, and, on the other hand, cases of confabulation and misremembering that do instantiate the relevant experiential relations. I conclude by suggesting that any successful relationalist attempt to explain remembering needs to come to grips with unsuccessful remembering. (shrink)

Perceivers generally show a poor ability to detect changes, a condition referred to as “Change Blindness” . They are, in addition, “blind to their own blindness”. A common explanation of this “Change Blindness Blindness” is that it derives from an inadequate, “photographical” folk-theory about perception. This explanation, however, does not account for intra-individual variations of CBB across trials. Our study aims to explore an alternative theory, according to which participants base their self-evaluations on two activity-dependent cues, namely search time and (...) perceived success in prior trials. These cues were found to influence self-evaluation in two orthogonal ways: success-feedback influenced self-evaluation in a global, contextual way, presumably by recalibrating the norm of adequacy for the task. Search time influenced it in a local way, predicting the success of a given trial from its duration. (shrink)

Many have argued that a rational agent's attitude towards a proposition may be better represented by a probability range than by a single number. I show that in such cases an agent will have unstable betting behaviour, and so will behave in an unpredictable way. I use this point to argue against a range of responses to the ‘two bets’ argument for sharp probabilities.

The Reflection Principle can be defended with a Diachronic Dutch Book Argument (DBA), but it is also defeated by numerous compelling counter-examples. It seems then that Diachronic DBAs can lead us astray. Should we reject them en masse—including Lewis’s Diachronic DBA for Conditionalization? Rachael Briggs’s “suppositional test” is supposed to differentiate between Diachronic DBAs that we can safely ignore (including the DBA for Reflection) and Diachronic DBAs that we should find compelling (including the DBA for Conditionalization). I argue that Brigg’s (...) suppositional test is wrong: it sets the bar for coherence too high and places certain cases of self-doubt on the wrong side of the divide. Given that the suppositional test is unsatisfactory, we are left without any justification for discriminating between Diachronic DBAs and ought to reject them all—including the DBA for Conditionalization. (shrink)

One of the major divides in contemporary philosophy of consciousness is on whether phenomenal consciousness requires some form of self-consciousness. The disagreement revolves around the following principle (or something in the vicinity): : For any subject S and phenomenally conscious mental state C of S, C is phenomenally conscious only if S is aware of C. We may call the relevant awareness of one’s own mental states “inner awareness” and the principle “Inner Awareness Principle” (IA). In a paper recently published (...) in this Journal, Stoljar (2021) puts forward a massive theoretical criticism of IA. He addresses many extant arguments for IA, and argues, for each of them, that it is unpersuasive. In this paper, I focus on what strike me as the two most compelling arguments in Stoljar’s list: the argument from memory and the argument from attention. I argue that Stoljar’s objections to them can be rebutted; accordingly, those arguments promise to constitute the steadiest theoretical ground for IA. (shrink)

In this paper, we identify some key features of what makes something a disease, and consider whether these apply to pregnancy. We argue that there are some compelling grounds for regarding pregnancy as a disease. Like a disease, pregnancy affects the health of the pregnant person, causing a range of symptoms from discomfort to death. Like a disease, pregnancy can be treated medically. Like a disease, pregnancy is caused by a pathogen, an external organism invading the host’s body. Like a (...) disease, the risk of getting pregnant can be reduced by using prophylactic measures. We address the question of whether the ‘normality’ of pregnancy, its current necessity for human survival, or the value often attached to it are reasons to reject the view that pregnancy is a disease. We point out that applying theories of disease to the case of pregnancy, can in many cases illuminate inconsistencies and problems within these theories. Finally, we show that it is difficult to find one theory of disease that captures all paradigm cases of diseases, while convincingly excluding pregnancy. We conclude that there are both normative and pragmatic reasons to consider pregnancy a disease. (shrink)

Difficulty is often treated as blame-mitigating, and even exculpating. But on some occasions difficulty seems to have little or no bearing on our assessments of moral responsibility, and can even exacerbate it. In this paper, I argue that the relevance (and irrelevance) of difficulty with regard to assessments of moral responsibility is best understood via Quality of Will accounts. I look at various ways of characterising difficulty – including via sacrifice, effort, skill and ‘trying’ – and set out to demonstrate (...) that these factors are only blame-mitigating where, and to the extent that, they complicate ascriptions of insufficient concern. Matters become more complex, however, when we turn to difficult circumstances that seem to generate such objectionable attitudes. This is arguably the case with epistemic difficulty and certain instances of moral ignorance. Here I argue that certain difficult circumstances diminish the sense in which false moral beliefs are genuinely revelatory of the agents who hold them. In particular, I draw on the distinction between difficulty that generates objectionable attitudes, and objectionable attitudes that generate difficulty. I argue that the former, but not the latter, can plausibly be viewed as blame mitigating, and that this would apply to (limited) cases of moral ignorance. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel account of the contents of memory. By drawing on insights from the philosophy of perception, I propose a hybrid account of the contents of memory designed to preserve important aspects of representationalist and relationalist views. The hybrid view I propose also contributes to two ongoing debates in philosophy of memory. First, I argue that, in opposition to eternalist views, the hybrid view offers a less metaphysically-charged solution to the co-temporality problem. Second, I show how the (...) hybrid view conceives of the relationship between episodic memory and other forms of episodic thinking. I conclude by considering some disanalogies between perception and memory and by replying to objections. I argue that, despite there being important differences between memory and perception, those differences do not harm my project. (shrink)

Richard Bradley and others endorse Reverse Bayesianism as the way to model awareness growth. I raise a problem for Reverse Bayesianism—at least for the general version that Bradley endorses—and argue that there is no plausible way to restrict the principle that will give us the right results. To get the right results, we need to pay attention to the attitudes that agents have towards propositions of which they are unaware. This raises more general questions about how awareness growth should be (...) modelled. (shrink)