The current COVID-19 pandemic and the previous SARS/MERS outbreaks of 2003 and 2012 have resulted in a series of major global public health crises. We argue that in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs and to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechenisms it is necessary to integrate the large and exponentially growing body of heterogeneous coronavirus data. Ontologies play an important role in standard-based knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. Accordingly, we initiated the (...) development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology in early 2020. -/- As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. CIDO is aligned with the Basic Formal Ontology and Viral Infectious Disease Ontology. CIDO has imported terms from over 30 OBO ontologies. For example, CIDO imports all SARS-CoV-2 protein terms from the Protein Ontology, COVID-19-related phenotype terms from the Human Phenotype Ontology, and over 100 COVID-19 terms for vaccines (both authorized and in clinical trial) from the Vaccine Ontology. CIDO systematically represents variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses and over 300 amino acid substitutions therein, along with over 300 diagnostic kits and methods. CIDO also describes hundreds of host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and the drugs that target proteins in these PPIs. CIDO has been used to model COVID-19 related phenomena in areas such as epidemiology. The scope of CIDO was evaluated by visual analysis supported by a summarization network method. CIDO has been used in various applications such as term standardization, inference, natural language processing (NLP) and clinical data integration. We have applied the amino acid variant knowledge present in CIDO to analyze differences between SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants. CIDO's integrative host-coronavirus PPIs and drug-target knowledge has also been used to support drug repurposing for COVID-19 treatment. -/- CIDO represents entities and relations in the domain of coronavirus diseases with a special focus on COVID-19. It supports shared knowledge representation, data and metadata standardization and integration, and has been used in a range of applications. (shrink)

Skepticism is one of the most enduring and profound of philosophical problems. With its roots in Plato and the Sceptics to Descartes, Hume, Kant and Wittgenstein, skepticism presents a challenge that every philosopher must reckon with. In this outstanding collection philosophers engage with skepticism in five clear sections: the philosophical history of skepticism in Greek, Cartesian and Kantian thought; the nature and limits of certainty; the possibility of knowledge and related problems such as perception and the debates between objective knowledge (...) and constructivism; the transcendental method as a response to skepticism and the challenge of naturalism; overcoming the skeptical challenge. (shrink)

Gordon Baker in his last decade published a series of papers (now collected in Baker 2004), which are revolutionary in their proposals for understanding of later Wittgenstein. Taking our lead from the first of those papers, on "perspicuous presentations," we offer new criticisms of 'elucidatory' readers of later Wittgenstein, such as Peter Hacker: we argue that their readings fail to connect with the radically therapeutic intent of the 'perspicuous presentation' concept, as an achievement-term, rather than a kind of 'objective' mapping (...) of a 'conceptual landscape.' Baker's Wittgenstein, far from being a 'language policeman' of the kind that often fails to influence mainstream philosophy, offers an alternative to the latent scientism of Wittgenstein's influential 'elucidatory' readers. (shrink)

Commentators regularly attribute to Frege realist, idealist, and quietist responses to metaphysical questions concerning the abstract objects he calls ‘thoughts’. But despite decades of effort, the evidence offered on behalf of these attributions remains unconvincing. I argue that Frege deliberately avoids commitment to any of these positions, as part of a metaphysical separatist policy motivated by the fact that logic is epistemologically autonomous from metaphysics. Frege’s views and arguments prove relevant to current attempts to argue for epistemological autonomy, particularly that (...) of ethics. (shrink)

The death of Peter Winch in 1997 sparked a revived interest in his work with this book arguing his work suffered misrepresentation in both recent literature and in contemporary critiques of his writing. Debates in philosophy and sociology about foundational questions of social ontology and methodology often claim to have adequately incorporated and moved beyond Winch's concerns. Re-establishing a Winchian voice, the authors examine how such contentions involve a failure to understand central themes in Winch's writings and that the issues (...) which occupied him in his Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy and later papers remain central to social studies. The volume offers a careful reading of the text in alliance with Wittgensteinian insights and alongside a focus on the nature and results of social thought and inquiry. It draws parallels with other movements in the social studies, notably ethnomethodology, to demonstrate how Winch's central claim is both more significant and more difficult to transcend than sociologists and philosophers have hitherto imagined. (shrink)

Frege claims that the laws of logic are characterized by their “generality,” but it is hard to see how this could identify a special feature of those laws. I argue that we must understand this talk of generality in normative terms, but that what Frege says provides a normative demarcation of the logical laws only once we connect it with his thinking about truth and science. He means to be identifying the laws of logic as those that appear in every (...) one of the scientific systems whose construction is the ultimate aim of science, and in which all truths have a place. Though an account of logic in terms of scientific systems might seem hopelessly antiquated, I argue that it is not: a basically Fregean account of the nature of logic still looks quite promising. (shrink)

Whether intentional suppression of an unpleasant or unwanted memory reduces the ability to recall that memory subsequently is a contested issue in contemporary memory research. Building on findings that similar processes are recruited when individuals remember the past and imagine the future, we measured the effects of thought suppression on memory for imagined future scenarios. Thought suppression reduced the ability to recall emotionally negative scenarios, but not those that were emotionally positive. This finding suggests that intentionally avoiding thoughts about emotionally (...) negative episodes may inhibit representations of those memories, progressively reducing their availability to recall. (shrink)

In this article I examine three ways in which one might interpret Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (PI). In a partial response to Hans‐Johann Glock's article in this journal, I suggest that since publication PI has, broadly speaking, been interpreted in three ways: doctrinal; elucidatory; or therapeutic. The doctrinal interpretation is shown to be, at best, difficult to sustain textually. The elucidatory (standard) interpretation, though seemingly closer to the text, is shown both to implicate Wittgenstein in some unfortunate philosophical commitments and to (...) face a problem of “motivation.” I argue that, correctly understood, any attempt to elucidate in PI is undertaken only in pursuit of the therapeutic goal. I conclude by arguing that the therapeutic interpretation is the only interpretation that can adequately make sense of Wittgenstein's text as a whole and the metaphilosophical remarks in particular. Furthermore, it is the only interpretation that can demonstrate Wittgenstein's continued importance and relevance as a philosopher. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

This paper sets out an account of trust in AI as a relationship between clinicians, AI applications, and AI practitioners in which AI is given discretionary authority over medical questions by clinicians. Compared to other accounts in recent literature, this account more adequately explains the normative commitments created by practitioners when inviting clinicians’ trust in AI. To avoid committing to an account of trust in AI applications themselves, I sketch a reductive view on which discretionary authority is exercised by AI (...) practitioners through the vehicle of an AI application. I conclude with four critical questions based on the discretionary account to determine if trust in particular AI applications is sound, and a brief discussion of the possibility that the main roles of the physician could be replaced by AI. (shrink)

Is there a response, which is not accounted for by regression to the mean, natural history, the Hawthorne effect?The term placebo comes to us from the Latin for "I shall please," indicating that the phenomenon known as the "placebo effect" or "placebo response" has been familiar to medical practitioners for a number of centuries, at least. As we reached the mid-20th century and randomized controlled trials became a central feature of medical research, the use of controls and blinding in those (...) trials allowed for the isolation of the placebo effect in ways that made it much clearer that there... (shrink)

Much has been written on the relative merits of different readings of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The recent renewal of the debate has almost exclusively been concerned with variants of the ineffabilist (metaphysical) reading of TL-P - notable such readings have been advanced by Elizabeth Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and H. O. Mounce - and the recently advanced variants of therapeutic (resolute) readings - notable advocates of which are James Conant, Cora Diamond, Juliet Floyd and Michael Kremer. During this debate, (...) there have been a number of writers who have tried to develop a third way, incorporating what they see as insights and avoiding what they see as flaws in both the ineffabilist and resolute readings. The most prominent advocates of these elucidatory readings of TL-P are Dan Hutto (2003) and Marie McGinn (1999). In this paper we subject Hutto's and McGinn's readings of TL-P to critical scrutiny. We find that in seeking to occupy the middle ground they ultimately find themselves committed to (and in the process commit Wittgenstein to) the very ineffabilism they (and Wittgenstein) are seeking to overcome. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Many of our common-sense moral judgments seemingly imply the existence of moral luck. I attempt to avoid moral luck while retaining most of these judgments. I defend a view on which agents have moral equality of opportunity. This allows us to account for our anti-moral-luck intuitions at less cost than has been previously recognized.

Since its origins in the mid-Twentieth Century, Cognitive Science has almost exclusively operated within the philosophical frames provided by Cartesian Representationalism. In recent years, alternative, phenomenological and pragmatist, frames have served as a resource for the emergence of non-representational approaches to mind and cognition. These have been gathered under the label ‘4E cognition’, indicating their Embodied, Extended, Enacted and Embedded nature. This chapter examines one version of 4E cognition, which builds upon Ecological Psychology, and argues that it fails to pass (...) the Evaluation Test: it cannot account for the central role of normativity and evaluation in our responsiveness to loci of significance in the lifeworld, while failing to provide an argument for the exclusion of evaluative and normative aspects. (shrink)

Experiments in particle physics have hitherto failed to produce any significant evidence for the many explicit models of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) that had been proposed over the past decades. As a result, physicists have increasingly turned to model-independent strategies as tools in searching for a wide range of possible BSM effects. In this paper, we describe the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SM-EFT) and analyse it in the context of the philosophical discussions about models, theories, and (bottom-up) (...) effective field theories. We find that while the SM-EFT is a quantum field theory, assisting experimentalists in searching for deviations from the SM, in its general form it lacks some of the characteristic features of models. Those features only come into play if put in by hand or prompted by empirical evidence for deviations. Employing different philosophical approaches to models, we argue that the case study suggests not to take a view on models that is overly permissive because it blurs the lines between the different stages of the SM-EFT research strategies and glosses over particle physicists' motivations for undertaking this bottom-up approach in the first place. Looking at EFTs from the perspective of modelling does not require taking a stance on some specific brand of realism or taking sides in the debate between reduction and emergence into which EFTs have recently been embedded. (shrink)

Frankfurt cases are supposed to provide us with counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities. Among the most well known responses to these cases is what John Fischer has dubbed the flicker of freedom strategy. Here we revisit a version of this strategy, which we refer to as the fine-grained response. Although a number of philosophers, including some who are otherwise unsympathetic to Frankfurt’s argument, have dismissed the fine grained response, we believe there is a good deal to be said (...) on its behalf. We argue, in particular, that reflection on certain cases involving omissions undermines the main objections to the response and also provides the groundwork for an argument in support of it. (shrink)

InWhere the Ethical Action Is,we argued that medical and ethical modes of thought are not different in kind but different aspects of a situation. One of the consequences of this argument is that the requirement for or benefits of normative moral theorising in bioethics is undercut. In response, Wagner has argued that normative moral theories should be reconceived as models. Wagner’s argument seems to be that once reconceived as models, the rationale for moral theorising, undercut by our arguments inWhere the (...) Ethical Action Is,will be re-established because we will see those moral-theories-now-rebranded-as-models as serving a role akin to the role models serve in some of the natural sciences. In this response to Wagner, we provide two arguments against Wagner’s proposal. We call these arguments the Turner-Cicourel Challenge and the Question Begging Challenge. (shrink)

The article presents a pluralistic model of value change, emphasizing the interplay between technology and societal values. It critiques the Simple Change Model, which suggests a uniform transition from one dominant value scheme to another, arguing instead for emergent and differential value change. Emergent value change occurs when new values arise within specific contexts without displacing existing ones, often influenced by generational experiences with technology and niches where new technologies are introduced. Differential value change highlights how distinct groups may adopt (...) different value schemes based on their unique contexts and experiences, sometimes leading to societal polarization and the need to reconcile incompatible value schemes. The article stresses the importance of individual experiences of ethical uncertainty and disruption in understanding these changes. By integrating these complexities, the model offers a rich, non-deterministic framework for analyzing how values evolve in response to technological advancements. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on four varieties of shame absence. My hope is that re-flection on these varieties of shame-absence will go some way to giving us a more complete picture of the role that shame plays in our moral character and in discussions of atrocity. I note that the shame that emerges from an exposure to atrocity can be in part what leads us to identify the event as atro-cious. I progress to argue that when shame is absent, (...) this absence can serve to blind us to the atrocity that is before us and that is ours to work to prevent. Feeling shame is part of seeing the atrocity for what it is in an appropriate emotionally-engaged manner. It is thus a vital part of being human, and its absence in certain cases is an all-too-human failure of humanity. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss stigma, understood as a category which includes acknowledged, enacted degradation, discreditation and discrimination. My discussion begins with an analysis of HIV stigma, as discussed in a social media post on Twitter. I then analyse a fictionalized clinical stigma scenario. These two analyses are undertaken to highlight aspects of the conceptual anatomy and interactional dynamics of stigma and by extension shame. Brief social media declarations and short, fictionalized clinical interactions are rich with information which helps us (...) understand how stigma—degradation, discreditation and discrimination—is operationalized in interaction. (shrink)

Digital technology has prompted philosophers to rethink some of the fundamental categories we use to make sense of the world and ourselves. Particularly, the concept of ‘identity’ and its reconfiguration in the digital age has sparked much debate in this regard. While many studies have addressed the impact of the digital on personal and social identities, the concept of ‘collective identity’ has been remarkably absent in such inquiries. In this article, I take the context of social movements as an entry (...) point to discuss the reconfiguration of collective identity in social media environments. I do so by introducing a narrative approach to collective identity. I argue that Twitter’s affordances invite new ways of constructing collective identities and imply a shifting relationship between the individual and the collective. (shrink)

In our article, Where the ethical action is, we argue that medical and ethical modes of thought are not different in kind but merely different aspects of a clinical situation. In response, Emmerich argues that in so doing, we neglect several important features of healthcare and medical education. Although we applaud the spirit of Emmerich’s response, we argue that his critique is an attempt at a general defence of the value of bioethical expertise in clinical practice, rather than a specific (...) critique of our account. (shrink)

I provide two arguments against value-free naturalism. Both are based on considerations concerning biological teleology. Value-free naturalism is the thesis that both (1) everything is, at least in principle, under the purview of the sciences and (2) all scientific facts are purely non-evaluative. First, I advance a counterexample to any analysis on which natural selection is necessary to biological teleology. This should concern the value-free naturalist, since most value-free analyses of biological teleology appeal to natural selection. My counterexample is unique (...) in that it is likely to actually occur. It concerns the creation of synthetic life. Recent developments in synthetic biology suggest scientists will eventually be able to develop synthetic life. Such life, however, would not have any of its traits naturally selected for. Second, I develop a simple argument that biological teleology is a scientific but value-laden notion. Consequently, value-free naturalism is false. I end with some concluding remarks on the implications for naturalism, the thesis that (1). Naturalism may be salvaged only if we reject (2). (2) is a dogma that unnecessarily constrains our conception of the sciences. Only a naturalism that recognizes value-laden notions as scientifically respectable can be true. Such a naturalism is a functional naturalism. (shrink)

A retelling of Plato's famous cave allegory. Inspired by Dōgen, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein.

Philosophical debates about how best to explain emotion or placebo are debates about how best to characterise and explain the distinctive form of human responsiveness to the world that is the object of interest for each of those domains of inquiry. In emotion research, the cognitive theory of emotion faces several intractable problems. I discuss two of these: the problem of epistemic deficit and the problem of recalcitrant emotions. Cognitive explanations in Placebo Studies, such as response-expectancy and belief-based explanations, also (...) face the problem of epistemic deficit in addition to the problem of logically self-destructive true belief. While such considerations might motivate a retreat to affect, this brings its own problems. I argue that it is a particular version of cognitivism, representational cognitivism (Rep-Cog), that generates the paradoxes we encounter in emotion and placebo research. I propose that turning to nonrepresentational accounts of cognition will dissolve these paradoxes. As I move toward conclusion, I propose drawing on the ethnomethodological tradition to respecify human responsiveness to loci of significance in the lifeworld by undertaking ethnographies of members’ own situated methods for making intelligible and accountable their attitudinal and nonattitudinal responsiveness to loci of significance in their environment. (shrink)

Recently, there have been calls to develop a more contextual approach to phenomenological psychopathology—an approach that attends to the socio-cultural as well as personal and biographical factors that shape experiences of mental illness. In this Perspective article, we argue that to develop this contextual approach, phenomenological psychopathology should adopt a new paradigm case. For decades, schizophrenia has served as the paradigmatic example of a condition that can be better understood through phenomenological investigation. And recent calls for a contextual approach continue (...) to use schizophrenia as their primary example. We argue, in contrast, that substance misuse provides a better paradigm case around which to develop a contextually sensitive phenomenological psychopathology. After providing a brief vignette and analysis of a case of substance misuse, we explain why this kind of condition requires considerable sensitivity and attention to context, better motivating the incorporation and development of new contextually sensitive approaches. (shrink)

The proper relationship between phenomenology and naturalism has reemerged as a pressing issue following interdisciplinary developments in the cognitive sciences. Most solutions opt for a naturalized phenomenology, rather than a phenomenological naturalism. This article takes up the latter approach, confronting the implications of Merleau-Ponty's reformulation of Husserl's paradox of subjectivity. I argue that Merleau-Ponty's formulation—which I term “the paradox of madness”—reveals a deep, ontological contingency in what Husserl took to be necessary transcendental structures of consciousness and world, revealing that these (...) transcendental structures are in fact embedded in and contaminated by the very world they constitute and disclose. (shrink)

The adoption of web-based telecare services has raised multifarious ethical concerns, but a traditional principle-based approach provides limited insight into how these concerns might be addressed and what, if anything, makes them problematic. We take an alternative approach, diagnosing some of the main concerns as arising from a core phenomenon of shifting trust relations that come about when the physician plays a less central role in the delivery of care, and new actors and entities are introduced. Correspondingly, we propose an (...) applied ethics of trust based on the idea that patients should be provided with good reasons to trust telecare services, which we call sound trust. On the basis of this approach, we propose several concrete strategies for safeguarding sound trust in telecare. (shrink)

Introductory Chapter to the _Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition_ (CUP, 2009).

According to a traditional view, humans are superior to their non‐human terrestrial companions because they alone are “rational animals.” Although the traditional view is presupposed by our social and legal institutions, it has been called into question by modern science: Darwin himself claimed that humans differ in degree rather than in kind from animals, and recent discoveries in comparative animal cognition have seemed to confirm Darwin's assertion. Sustaining the traditional view in light of these discoveries calls out for a careful (...) comparison of the human mind with its precursors, the vertebrate mind and the mammalian mind. Psychological capacities shared across the animal kingdom are repurposed in humans, rendering humans uniquely capable of rationality. To be rational is to respond appropriately to value. Humans as such are not rational animals, but have the potential to become rational animals. This potential marks a morally relevant difference in kind between humans and non‐human animals. (shrink)

A person presented with adequate but not conclusive evidence for a proposition is in a position voluntarily to acquire a belief in that proposition, or to suspend judgment about it. The availability of doxastic options in such cases grounds a moderate form of doxastic voluntarism not based on practical motives, and therefore distinct from pragmatism. In such cases, belief-acquisition or suspension of judgment meets standard conditions on willing: it can express stable character traits of the agent, it can be responsive (...) to reasons, and it is compatible with a subjective awareness of the available options. (shrink)

Both Philip and Andrew are philosophy students whose interests converge around the philosophy of technology broadly understood. Philip's interest is specifically aimed toward the ethics of Transhumanism and depictions of Transhumanism in works of fiction. On the other hand, Andrew finds himself more focused on religious behavior in the technological world. While the two perspectives might not seem that close, there is certain to be an overlap in Andrew and Philip's shared understanding of how technological phenomena play (...) a crucial role concerning religion and society. (shrink)

Plotinus holds an important position in the history of late ancient philosophy on the concept of human agency. On the one hand, he follows Plato in regarding a human agent as one who self-identifies with the rational soul, becomes one from many, and acts from reason (Republic, 443de). On the other hand, due to the view characteristic of the second century CE that destiny causally determines the sensible world and sophisticated debates concerning freedom and determinism up to, and during, the (...) second century CE, Plotinus develops Plato’s view further in an effort to meet the challenges posed by earlier determinists. The position he develops in the Enneads is a dynamic synthesis of Platonic, Peripatetic, Stoic, and Middle-Platonic theorizing on human causation that shows how one can be a self-determining agent even while living in a world governed by destiny. I argue that the key to understanding Plotinus’ theory of human agency is to understand the role that consciousness plays since he holds that in order to be the sole causal source of our actions, and therefore truly self-determining, we must derive our premises for action from Intellect. Important for my purposes is his peculiar view that Intellect is also “in ourselves” (V.1.10.5-8) and can be reached by turning inwards and ascending upwards which is possible through possessing a unique mode of consciousness, namely awareness (sunaisthēsis). (shrink)

Today, many philosophers write on topics of contemporary interest, such as emerging technologies, scientific advancements, or major political events. However, many of these reflections, while philosophically valuable, fail to contribute to those who may benefit the most from them. In this article, we discuss our own experience of engaging with nursing researchers and practicing nurses. By drawing on the field of philosophical phenomenology, we intervene in a longstanding debate over the meaning of “empathy” in nursing, which has important implications for (...) nursing research, training, and practice. However, our intention is not only to introduce and discuss this philosophical intervention. Rather, we present this intervention as a model for how philosophers might successfully engage with the field of nursing, and perhaps with other fields as well, with the aim of effecting positive change in research or practice. The article proceeds in five parts. First, we introduce the problem of conceptual clarity in nursing and explain why many nursing concepts are still in need of refinement. Second, we discuss the origins of the concept of empathy in nursing and outline the challenges associated with borrowing theory from other fields. Third, we explain how nurses tend to conceptualize empathy today, drawing upon the psychological distinction between cognitive and emotional empathy. Fourth, we discuss our intervention in this debate and explain how we attempt to resolve existing conceptual confusions by developing the concept of empathy from the ground up. Fifth, we conclude by briefly reflecting upon some of the challenges of interdisciplinary engagement and providing some recommendations based upon our own experience. (shrink)

Isocrates' Antidosis ("Defense against the Exchange") and Aristotle's Protrepticus ("Exhortation to Philosophy") were recovered from oblivion in the late nineteenth century. In this article we demonstrate that the two texts happen to be directly related. Aristotle's Protrepticus was a response, on behalf of the Academy, to Isocrates' criticism of the Academy and its theoretical preoccupations. -/- Contents: I. Introduction: Protrepticus, text and context II. Authentication of the Protrepticus of Aristotle III. Isocrates and philosophy in Athens in the 4th century IV. (...) The Protrepticus of Aristotle as a response to the Antidosis of Isocrates V. Conclusion: dueling conceptions of philosophy, still dueling. (shrink)

Focuses on the relationship between Igwebuike philosophy and the advancing of girl-child education.

Resolving to finish reading a novel, staying true to your punk style, or dedicating your life to an artistic project: these are examples of aesthetic commitments. I develop an account of the nature of such commitments, and I argue that they are significant insofar as they help us manage the temporally extended nature of our aesthetic agency and our relationships with aesthetic objects. At the same time, focusing on aesthetic commitments can give us a better grasp on the nature of (...) aesthetic normativity; this is because, in making aesthetic commitments, we are capable of giving aesthetic concerns the weight of obligation. I argue that appealing to aesthetic commitments allows us to account for the existence of aesthetic obligations as well as their grounding. I conclude by arguing that, although the aesthetic domain is a domain of play and freedom of choice, there is nevertheless an important place in it for both aesthetic commitments and the aesthetic obligations they generate. (shrink)

According to the traditional Christian understanding, being devoted to God is partly constitutive of human welfare. I explicate this tradition view, in three stages. First, I sketch a general theory of well-being which I call ‘Platonic Personalist Perfectionism.’ Second, I show how being devoted to God is uniquely perfective. I discuss three different components of the posture of devotion: abnegation (surrender of one’s will to God), adoration (responding to God’s goodness with attention, love and praise), and existential dependence (receiving one’s (...) self-worth as an unmerited gift from God). All three components of devotion are perfective in a dual way: they are salvific (they remediate a great harm) and consummative (they confer a great benefit). Third, I respond to the objection that devotion involves subjugating oneself, and thus amounts to an all-things-considered harm, notwithstanding whatever benefits it confers. I argue that so long as one’s acts of abnegating, adoring, and existentially depending are acts of one’s own, then subjugation is not essential to devotion. However, devotion does diminish one if the object of one’s devotion is unsuitable. I argue that the only suitable object of devotion is the God of traditional theism. (shrink)

Proponents of public reason views hold that the exercise of political power ought to be acceptable to all reasonable citizens. This article elucidates the common structure shared by all public reason views, first by identifying a set of questions that all such views must answer and, second, by showing that the answers to these questions stand in a particular relationship to each other. In particular, we show that what we call the ‘rationale question’ is fundamental. This fact, and the common (...) structure more generally, are often overlooked or distorted within the literature. As a result, we argue, several prominent argumentative moves made by both critics and defenders of public reason are unsuccessful. Our overall conclusion is that discussions of public reason views would be more fruitful if they made consistent use of the common structure we identify. (shrink)

Bare plural generic sentences pervade ordinary talk. And yet it is extremely controversial what semantics to assign to such sentences. In this paper, I achieve two tasks. First, I develop a novel classification of the various standard uses to which bare plurals may be put. This “variety data” is important—it gives rise to much of the difficulty in systematically theorizing about bare plurals. Second, I develop a novel account of bare plurals, the radical account. On this account, all bare plurals (...) fail to express propositions. The content of a bare plural has to be pragmatically “completed” by a speaker in order for her to make an assertion. At least the content of a quantifier expression has to be supplied. But sometimes, the content of a sentential operator or modal verb is also supplied. The radical account straightforwardly explains the variety data: Speakers’ communicative intentions vary wildly across different contexts. (shrink)

There are a number of assumptions made in our accepted psychology of moral decision-making that consequentialism seems to violate:: value connectionism, pluralism and dispositionalism. But consequentialism violates them only on a utilitarian or similar theory of value, not on the rival sort of theory that is sketched here.

Most recent discussions of reasons in art criticism focus on reasons that justify beliefs about the value of artworks. Reviving a long-neglected suggestion from Paul Ziff, I argue that we should focus instead on art-critical reasons that justify actions—namely, particular ways of engaging with artworks. I argue that a focus on practical rather than theoretical reasons yields an understanding of criticism that better fits with our intuitions about the value of reading art criticism, and which makes room for a nuanced (...) distinction between criticism that aims at universality and criticism that is resolutely personal. (shrink)

Many have offered accounts of the procreative asymmetry, the claim that one has no moral reason to create a life just because it would be happy, but one has moral reason not to create a life just because it would be miserable. I suggest a new approach. Instead of looking at the procreative asymmetry on its own, we can situate it within a broader landscape of asymmetries. Specifically, there are two other analogous asymmetries in the prudential and epistemic domains. The (...) prudential asymmetry says that one has no prudential reason to acquire a desire just because it would be satisfied, but one has prudential reason not to acquire a desire just because it would be frustrated. The epistemic asymmetry says that one has no epistemic reason to acquire a belief just because it is true, but one has epistemic reason not to acquire a belief just because it is false. The existence of these analogous asymmetries in these normative domains suggests the possibility of a unified account of all three asymmetries as instances of a more fundamental asymmetry of value-based reasons. This paper develops a working model of what such a unified account might look like. Such an account can give us a unified explanation of a variety of phenomena, reinforce the plausibility of each of these asymmetries, and give us a novel picture of how value gives us reasons that might extend beyond these three applications. (shrink)