This paper argues that the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodology provides a principled approach to embedding common values in to AI systems both early and throughout the design process. To do so, it draws on an important case study: the evidence and final report of the UK Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. This empirical investigation shows that the different and often disparate stakeholder groups that are implicated in AI design and use share some common values that can be used to (...) further strengthen design coordination efforts. VSD is shown to be both able to distill these common values as well as provide a framework for stakeholder coordination. (shrink)

Aristotle's account of natural slavery appears to be internally inconsistent concerning whether slavery is advantageous to the natural slave. Whereas the Politics asserts that slavery is beneficial to the slave, the ethical treatises deny such a claim. Examination of Aristotle's arguments suggests a distinction which resolves the apparent contradiction. Aristotle distinguishes between the common benefit between two people who join together in an association And the same benefit which exists between a whole and its parts. Master and slave share no (...) common benefit, but instead the slave receives the same benefit a master does, albeit only through participation in the master as a part within a whole. Although Aristotle's distinction hardly justifies his doctrine of slavery, it saves Aristotle from one alleged internal inconsistency and sheds light on what Aristotle means by association and the common good. (shrink)

This study was performed on disseminated low-grade chromite ore, Gedarif State, Umm Saqata-Qala Elnahal, to treatment the ore by Heavy media separation (HMS) with low intensity magnetic separation (LIMS) for course fraction size (-212+75) μm and selective flocculation for chromite slimes (-75) μm. The ore of the study area is low grade contains 21.5% Cr2O3 with the liberation size of chromite mineral in the range (0.30-0.05) mm. The main gangue of the ore is mineral silicates as the Antigorite mineral. The (...) ore was crushed, ground, and then classified to tow fraction size (-212+75) μm and slimes (-75) μm. Fractions size (-212+75) μm contained 25.58% Cr2O3 was treated by HMS via Bromofrom mixed with carbon tetrachloride flowed by low intensity magnetic separator. HMS with LIMS obtained the highest recovery 82.52% and grade 46.62% Cr2O3 for chromite concentrate with 2.54 Cr/Fe. The slimes (-75) μm contained 22.17% Cr2O3 was treated by selective flocculation method. Optimum grade 42.71% Cr2O3 and recovery 37.10% for chromite concentrate, were achieved at sodium silicate concentration 100 mg/l, starch concentration 45 mg/l, pH=9, and solid percentage 5%. (shrink)

Respect for autonomy and beneficence are frequently regarded as the two essential principles of medical ethics, and the potential for these two principles to come into conflict is often emphasised as a fundamental problem. On the one hand, we have the value of beneficence, the driving force of medicine, which demands that medical professionals act to protect or promote the wellbeing of patients or research subjects. On the other, we have a principle of respect for autonomy, which demands that we (...) respect the self-regarding decisions of individuals. As well as routinely coming into opposition with the demands of beneficence in medicine, the principle of respect for autonomy in medical ethics is often seen as providing protection against beneficial coercion (i.e. paternalism) in medicine. However, these two values are not as straightforwardly opposed as they may appear on the surface. In fact, the way that we understand autonomy can lead us to implicitly sanction a great deal of paternalistic action, or can smuggle in paternalistic elements under the guise of respect for autonomy. -/- This paper is dedicated to outlining three ways in which the principle of respect for autonomy, depending on how we understand the concept of autonomy, can sanction or smuggle in paternalistic elements. As the specific relationship between respect for autonomy and beneficence will depend on how we conceive of autonomy, I begin by outlining two dominant conceptions of autonomy, both of which have great influence in medical ethics. I then turn to the three ways in which how we understand or employ autonomy can increase or support paternalism: firstly, when we equate respect for autonomy with respect for persons; secondly, when our judgements about what qualifies as an autonomous action contain intersubjective elements; and thirdly, when we expect autonomy to play an instrumental role, that is, when we expect people, when they are acting autonomously, to act in a way that promotes or protects their own wellbeing. I then provide a proposal for how we might work to avoid this. I will suggest that it may be impossible to fully separate paternalistic elements out from judgements about autonomy. Instead, we are better off looking at why we are motivated to use judgements about autonomy as a means of restricting the actions of patients or research subjects. I will argue that this is a result of discomfort about speaking directly about our beneficent motivations in medical ethics. Perhaps we can reduce the incentive to smuggle in these beneficent motivations under the guise of autonomy by talking directly about beneficent motivations in medicine. This will also force us to recognise paternalistic motivations in medicine when they appear, and to justify paternalism where it occurs. (shrink)

Since the 1960s, there have been many efforts to defend the relevance of History of Science to Philosophy of Science, and vice versa. For the most part, these efforts have been limited to providing an abstract rationale for a closer integration between the two fields, as opposed to showing: (a) how such an integrated work is to be produced concretely, and (b) how an integrated approach can lead us to a better understanding of past and/or current science. 1 In this (...) chapter, I argue that the most promising way to integrate the history and philosophy of science is the historicist-hermeneutic approach. I will present the main features of the historicist-hermeneutic approach, and will show, concretely, how it can provide a mutually beneficial integration of the History of Science and the Philosophy of Science. More specifically, I will employ the historicist-hermeneutic approach to elucidate one of the most problematic historical case studies in philosophy of science: namely, Jean Perrin’s argument for molecular reality, which he formulated at the beginning of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The case describes researchers who are seeking ethics guidance on communicating with participants in a phase-1 COVD-19 vaccine trial about FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines (Wilfond, Duenas, and Johnson 2023). The researchers want help choosing among three options they have identified for encouraging participants to obtain one of the authorized vaccines. We argue that research ethics consultants should consider going beyond this question to address another ethics concern the researchers might have overlooked.

My aim in this article is to challenge the standard North American diet’s (SAD) default status in church and among North American Christians generally. First, I explain what is at stake in my guiding question—“Is unrestrained omnivorism as typified by SAD spiritually beneficial?”—and then I attempt to allay some common skeptical concerns about the suitability of food ethics as a topic for serious Christian discernment. Second, I develop a prima facie case that SAD is not spiritually beneficial, drawing on five (...) traditional sources for Christian moral deliberation, including and especially general revelation and discernment of the fruits of the spirit. I conclude that, in the absence of a rebuttal vindicating SAD, the church should actively encourage Christians to adopt more redemptive eating habits, and Christians who are able should take action toward this end. (shrink)

High grade chromite ore has been decreased constantly due to the importance of chromium element in industrial uses such as metallurgical, chemical, and refractory industries. Therefore, beneficiation of low grade has been more significant .Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is combination of statistical and mathematical methods used for modeling and analyzing problems. In this study, the Central Composite Design (CCD) was applied by using Design-Expert (version 6.0.5) for modeling and optimizing the effect of operating variables on the performance of gravity (...) separation via pilot plant shaking table for chromite ore. Three operating variables were studied, namely feed rate, tilt angle, and flow rate during the tests. The sample under study is low grade chromite ore, containing (30.21%, Cr2O3). The mathematical model equations of ANOVA model revealed that the grade of concentrate is more sensetive for feed rate (g/min) compered to water flow rate (l/min).whereas , recovery of concentrate is more sensetive for tilt angle compered to water flow rate (l/min) and feed rate (g/min). Optimized responses for the beneficiation process were found at concentrate with 48.52% Cr2O3 in with 83.09% recovery and it was achieved at water flow rate 15.33 l/min, tilt angle 2.16 ≈ 2.00 degree, and feed rate of 195.38 g/min. (shrink)

This article explores the ambivalent relationship of neo-Aristotelian naturalism to ethical supervenience. One of the main proponents of this approach, Michael Thompson, holds a position that leads to a rejection of local ethical supervenience. It is argued that this rejection implicitly undermines a premise held by other prominent neo-Aristotelian naturalists, such as Philippa Foot or Rosalind Hursthouse, who implemented Thompson’s species-relative logic of ethical evaluations into their theories. This premise—that there is a systematic connection between the virtuous life and the (...) benefit of the individual—could be re-established if neo-Aristotelian naturalism abandoned the species-essentialist understanding of life-forms and instead accepted local ethical supervenience as an ethical frame of reference. Although this article derives its problem from the main works of the aforementioned authors, its interest lies not mainly in exegesis, but in the systematic discussion of the logical status and the functionality of the concept of life-form in neo-Aristotelian naturalism. This discussion will be enriched by the inclusion of the logical distinctions and insights from modern philosophical biology. (shrink)

Some early phase clinical studies of candidate HIV cure and remission interventions appear to have adverse medical risk–benefit ratios for participants. Why, then, do people participate? And is it ethically permissible to allow them to participate? Recent work in decision theory sheds light on both of these questions, by casting doubt on the idea that rational individuals prefer choices that maximise expected utility, and therefore by casting doubt on the idea that researchers have an ethical obligation not to enrol participants (...) in studies with high risk–benefit ratios. This work supports the view that researchers should instead defer to the considered preferences of the participants themselves. This essay briefly explains this recent work, and then explores its application to these two questions in more detail. (shrink)

The boundaries of social categories are frequently altered to serve normative projects, such as social reform. Griffiths and Khalidi argue that the value-driven modification of categories diminishes the epistemic value of social categories. I argue that concerns over value-modified categories stem from problematic assumptions of the value-free ideal of science. Contrary to those concerns, non-epistemic value considerations can contribute to the epistemic improvement of a scientific category. For example, the early history of the category infantile autism shows how non-epistemic value (...) considerations can contribute to delimiting and establishing infantile autism as a distinct category in mainstream psychiatry. In the case of infantile autism, non-epistemic considerations have led to a new interpretation of existing data, the expansion of research to include biology, and the creation of diagnostic criteria that further contribute to collecting relevant data. Given this case study, it can be argued that non-epistemic values can improve our knowledge of scientific categories. (shrink)

Commentators commonly assume that Descartes regards it as a function of the passions to inform us or teach us which things are beneficial and which are harmful. As a result, they tend to infer that Descartes regards the passions as an appropriate guide to what is beneficial or harmful. In this paper I argue that this conception of the role of the passions in Descartes is mistaken. First, in spite of a number of texts appearing to show the contrary, I (...) argue that Descartes does not regard it as the role of the passions to inform us about what is beneficial or harmful. Second, although Descartes calls the passions good and useful, I argue that Descartes does not think we should allow ourselves to be guided by them. When we recognize that the function of the passions is largely motivational and not informative, we can more easily understand Descartes's practical advice in The Passions of the Soul that happiness requires us to guide our passions instead of letting our passions guide us. (shrink)

Space tourism is an emerging field where few people have direct experience. However, considering the potential in the near future, it is beneficial to better understand how related information influences people’s attitudes about this new form of tourism. Employing information-processing-based Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 361 respondents consuming content related to space tourism on Chinese social media, we found that induced happiness and impression are positively associated with willingness to try space tourism. Information authenticity positively moderates (...) these two associations. Our findings emphasize three aspects of information during the processes of reception and filtering: meaning, intensity, and trust. Since promotional materials for space tourism rely heavily on mental simulations rather than objective feedback, creative uses of digital technology are advantageous. However, precautions must be taken to prevent exploitation, such as false advertising, exaggeration, and emotional manipulation. (shrink)

Recent AI progress led to a boost in beneficial applications from multiple research areas including VR. Simultaneously, in this newly unfolding deepfake era, ethically and security-relevant disagreements arose in the scientific community regarding the epistemic capabilities of present-day AI. However, given what is at stake, one can postulate that for a responsible approach, prior to engaging in a rigorous epistemic assessment of AI, humans may profit from a self-questioning strategy, an examination and calibration of the experience of their own epistemic (...) agency – especially to counteract both intentional misdirection by unethical actors and unintentional epistemic self-sabotage. In this paper, we expound on a new avenue of utilizing AIVR tools to advance an AI-related misdirection awareness of humans in the deepfake era. Firstly, we harness scientific knowledge from the psychology and neuroscience of magic where the study of misdirection techniques is center stage. Secondly, we connect the latter to creativity research linking human creative potential to inspiration from the seemingly impossible. Overall, AIVR could become an empowering experiential testbed for human epistemic agency enabling a better rational evaluation of AI capabilities. However, a misuse of the same type of tools could yield AIVR safety risks if not counteracted preemptively. (shrink)

In The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing explains how bare land is formed. Capitalism produces ‘ruins’ by stripping living beings of the capacity to form their own ecological relations, a necessary condition for the reproduction of life. Contemporary capitalism alienates living beings from ecological relations, i.e. capitalism generates “the ability to stand alone, as if the entanglements of living did not matter. Through alienation, people and things become (...) mobile assets; they can be removed from their lifeworlds in distance-defying transport to be exchanged with other assets from other life worlds, elsewhere” (Tsing 2021, 5). Cutting the threads of the web of life through capitalist alienation, however, produces bare land as a side effect, infertile waste deprived of the means to reproduce itself without capitalist support. Alienation is the deracination of living beings from their lifeworld, transforming them into passive cogs for capitalist accumulation. However, Tsing upholds matsutake mushrooms, rare fungi popular among Japa- nese foodies, as exemplars of the resilience of ecological relations. Even amidst ruins, matsutakes successfully form beneficial relations with other living beings, like pine trees, other fungi and human beings. The insistent capacity to regenerate ecological relations is the ineluctable means of reproduction for the matsutake mushroom. Even at the end of the world, the matsutake persists by perpetually co-producing new lifeworlds for itself and fellow living beings (see also Haraway 2016). I claim that Tsing’s approach to capitalist alienation is descriptively convinc- ing but lacks the affective force for ecological class consciousness. Tsing surveys the web of life from the perspective of living beings quite distant from humankind, articulating a theoretical diagnosis rather than a political exhortation. On an affective level, it is challenging to generate ecological class consciousness among the (presumably) human readers of my chapter if they are presented with only the biographies of mushrooms growing far beyond my home. As Chantal Mouffe (2018, 72) argues, the construction of an emphatically political identity requires an appeal to the affects, like hope, indignation or compassion. Latour and Schultz also stress that ecological politics currently suffers from an affective misalignment, with people failing to identify with the fate of their increasingly inhospitable environments (2022, 47). Why would European humans care about these unknown fungi? The reproduction of our CO2-intensive livelihoods largely depends on the emission of bare land elsewhere, so in the short run, we stand to benefit more from putting our heads in the sand. I employ Chakrabarty’s (2021) suggestion of grounding post-humanist politics first in strategic anthropocentrism to subsequently push for a post-humanist expansion of our human understanding. One must first feel personally interpellated by the crisis of the global means of reproduction before one can grasp the need for an ecological class politics beyond human confines. I turn to John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath as a kindred spirit with more mobilising potential. Steinbeck tells the story of a family of impoverished farmers from Oklahoma, the Joads, travelling to California in pursuit of a better life, yet only encountering more poverty, exploitation and anti-immigrant racism. Steinbeck describes in detail the environmental and social devastation, but he focuses on the commodified labour power of migrant farmers rather than commodified mushrooms. Steinbeck’s main characters are also uprooted from their entangled histories in the land and community of rural Oklahoma, but they present a more familiar face of the ecological class deprived of the means of reproduction. Steinbeck’s outcry against alienation-as-deracination is clear, but the shift in perspective facilitates the empathetic outrage required for building ecological class consciousness. Steinbeck’s strategic anthropocentrism helps human readers understand why alienation-as-deracination is a concern. (shrink)

In recent decades, P. F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” (1962) has had an enormous influence on philosophical views of moral responsibility. Many contemporary views follow Strawson in centering questions of responsibility on the appropriateness of certain attitudes in our interpersonal relations, especially attitudes of blame and anger, rather than on the abstract nature of free will. Strawson’s influence has in many ways been beneficial, but the prevailing Strawsonian views have taken on some of the more dubious tendencies of contemporary moral (...) philosophy. Among them is the tendency to think of our ethical relations narrowly in terms of the sort of respect that we owe friends and strangers alike, while neglecting attitudes of concern and understanding. This tendency distorts our views of our ethical relations and how we should respond to one another’s wrongful conduct. To correct those distortions, I retrieve insights from older traditions of ethical thought—especially Platonic, Stoic, and Christian traditions—which give love and understanding a central place in our ethical relations, along with respect. These traditions, which have profoundly shaped the development of Western ethical thought, are unduly neglected in contemporary moral philosophy. By joining the insights of these traditions with the insights of Strawsonian views of responsibility, I believe we can articulate a more complete and compelling view of ethical life and responsibility. (shrink)

In a crucial passage in the Parmenides, Parmenides states that the power of conversation (ten tou dialegesthai dynamin) depends on forms (135b-c) and indicates that this power is a prerequisite for philosophy. In chapter xx Kristian Larsen raises the question what implications this passage has for Plato’s conception of dialectic and argues that the discussion of the thesis that knowledge is perception in the Theaetetus, and in particular the conclusion to this discussion found at 184b3-186e12, provides an explanation of Parmenides’ (...) claims about the power of conversation. The chapter provides a detailed interpretation of the final refutation of Theaetetus’ thesis that knowledge is perception that highlights the way the dramatic features of the Theaetetus accentuate the argument Socrates develops in order to refute the thesis. Larsen argues that a central feature of the drama of the dialogue is Socrates’ attempt at redirecting Theaetetus from mathematics toward dialectic and philosophy. In particular, Socrates aims to make Theaetetus realize that being and the good or the beneficial are things that are what they are, themselves by themselves, that they are on a par, ontologically speaking, and that reaching for them, and attempting to come to grips with them, in thought, is a requirement for knowledge in general and for dialectic in particular. (shrink)

It is often assumed that the chief responsibility medical professionals bear is patient care and advocacy. The meeting of other duties, such as ensuring a more just distribution of medical resources and promoting the public good, is not considered a legitimate basis for curtailing or slackening beneficial patient services. It is argued that this assumption is often made without sufficient attention to foundational principles of professional ethics; that once core principles are laid bare this assumption is revealed as largely unwarranted; (...) and, finally, that these observations at the level of moral theory should be reflected, in various ways, in medical practice. Specifically, this essay clarifies a tension that exists between different kinds of moral principles and explores the possibility of dissipating that tension by shoring up foundational principles. The paper begins by setting out three alternative models of how best to balance patient advocacy responsibilities with broader social responsibilities. It then turns to critically assess these models and argue that one has several advantages over the others. (shrink)

Milk contains a prominently beneficial nutritional value. Amino acids, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and also minerals can be found in it. Therefore, consuming it has an important role in children’s diet. Calcium is one of its most significant components, which is indispensable for bones and teeth, and for normal activity of muscle and nervous system, and also for controlling clotting processes. This manuscript reviews the key nutritional values of milk, and then determines some consumption recommendations for milk and dairy products, which (...) might support creating children’s proper diet, and also maintain their growth and calcium balance. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already having a major impact on society. As a result, many organizations have launched a wide range of initiatives to establish ethical principles for the adoption of socially beneficial AI. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of proposed principles threatens to overwhelm and confuse. How might this problem of ‘principle proliferation’ be solved? In this paper, we report the results of a fine-grained analysis of several of the highest-profile sets of ethical principles for AI. We assess whether these (...) principles converge upon a set of agreed-upon principles, or diverge, with significant disagreement over what constitutes ‘ethical AI.’ Our analysis finds a high degree of overlap among the sets of principles we analyze. We then identify an overarching framework consisting of five core principles for ethical AI. Four of them are core principles commonly used in bioethics: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice. On the basis of our comparative analysis, we argue that a new principle is needed in addition: explicability, understood as incorporating both the epistemological sense of intelligibility (as an answer to the question ‘how does it work?’) and in the ethical sense of accountability (as an answer to the question: ‘who is responsible for the way it works?’). In the ensuing discussion, we note the limitations and assess the implications of this ethical framework for future efforts to create laws, rules, technical standards, and best practices for ethical AI in a wide range of contexts. (shrink)

Accuracy‐first epistemology is an approach to formal epistemology which takes accuracy to be a measure of epistemic utility and attempts to vindicate norms of epistemic rationality by showing how conformity with them is beneficial. If accuracy‐first epistemology can actually vindicate any epistemic norms, it must adopt a plausible account of epistemic value. Any such account must avoid the epistemic version of Derek Parfit's “repugnant conclusion.” I argue that the only plausible way of doing so is to say that accurate credences (...) in certain propositions have no, or almost no, epistemic value. I prove that this is incompatible with standard accuracy‐first arguments for probabilism, and argue that there is no way for accuracy‐first epistemology to show that all credences of all agents should be coherent. (shrink)

Delusions are defined as irrational beliefs that compromise good functioning. However, in the empirical literature, delusions have been found to have some psychological benefits. One proposal is that some delusions defuse negative emotions and protect one from low self-esteem by allowing motivational influences on belief formation. In this paper I focus on delusions that have been construed as playing a defensive function (motivated delusions) and argue that some of their psychological benefits can convert into epistemic ones. Notwithstanding their epistemic costs, (...) motivated delusions also have potential epistemic benefits for agents who have faced adversities, undergone physical or psychological trauma, or are subject to negative emotions and low self-esteem. To account for the epistemic status of motivated delusions, costly and beneficial at the same time, I introduce the notion of epistemic innocence. A delusion is epistemically innocent when adopting it delivers a significant epistemic benefit, and the benefit could not be attained if the delusion were not adopted. The analysis leads to a novel account of the status of delusions by inviting a reflection on the relationship between psychological and epistemic benefits. (shrink)

According to the Theory of the Second Best, in non-ideal circumstances, approximating ideals might be suboptimal (with respect to a specific interpretation of what “approximating an ideal” means). In this paper, I argue that the formal model underlying the Theory can apply to problems in epistemology. Two applications are discussed: First, in some circumstances, second-best problems arise in Bayesian settings. Second, the division of epistemic labour can be subject to second-best problems. These results matter. They allow us to evaluate the (...) claim, made by many philosophers, that second-best problems have import in epistemology (and the specific conditions under which the Theory finds applications). They also allow us to see that talk of “approximating an ideal” is ambiguous, and to clarify the conditions in which approximating an epistemic ideal might be beneficial. (shrink)

Wearable devices are increasingly present in the health context, as tools for biomedical research and clinical care. In this context, wearables are considered key tools for a more digital, personalised, preventive medicine. At the same time, wearables have also been associated with issues and risks, such as those connected to privacy and data sharing. Yet, discussions in the literature have mostly focused on either technical or ethical considerations, framing these as largely separate areas of discussion, and the contribution of wearables (...) to the collection, development, application of biomedical knowledge has only partially been discussed. To fill in these gaps, in this article we provide an epistemic (knowledgerelated) overview of the main functions of wearable technology for health: monitoring, screening, detection, and prediction. On this basis, we identify 4 areas of concern in the application of wearables for these functions: data quality, balanced estimations, health equity, and fairness. To move the field forward in an effective and beneficial direction, we present recommendations for the 4 areas: local standards of quality, interoperability, access, and representativity. (shrink)

This paper aims to uncover some of the important contributions the phenomenological method can offer to philosophical issues in literary studies. It leads us to the idea that the archetypes found in fiction are intuited phenomenologically. This idea is then linked to a social constructive attainment of meaning for reality. From the intersubjectivity provided by phenomenology, empathy with characters in fiction is then displayed as more than an intellectual activity, as it becomes known to have practical implications. It is framed (...) as involving the same processes as the empathy we have with people in the real world. This equivalency allows for the plausibility of the notion that fiction-making is a necessary process for our interpretations of reality. It designates our involvement in fiction as beneficial to our experience of the real world and supports the notion it can train us to empathize. Such training is displayed to be posssible from phenomenology’s role in the process of empathy. Phenomenology's method de-centers the Cartesian ego to prevent any impasse between internal consciousness and the external world. Since they are bridged together by intentionality, we learn that phenomenology is a method that can contribute to how we conceive of empathy. (shrink)

Epiphenomenalism is the view that phenomenal properties – which characterize what it is like, or how it feels, for a subject to be in conscious states – have no physical effects. One of the earliest arguments against epiphenomenalism is the evolutionary argument (James 1890/1981; Eccles and Popper 1977; Popper 1978), which starts from the following problem: why is pain correlated with stimuli detrimental to survival and reproduction – such as suffocation, hunger and burning? And why is pleasure correlated with stimuli (...) beneficial to survival and reproduction – such as eating and breathing? According to the argument, the fact that we have these particular correlations and not other ones must have an evolutionary explanation. But given epiphenomenalism, differences in phenomenal properties could not cause differences in fitness, so natural selection would not be expected to favor these correlations over any other ones. Epiphenomenalism thus renders these correlations an inexplicable coincidence, and should therefore be rejected. The evolutionary argument has been widely criticized and few have deemed it cogent (Broad 1925; Jackson 1982; Robinson 2007; Corabi 2014). In this paper, I will consider previous and potential criticisms and conclude some of them are indeed fatal to the argument if it is understood, as it traditionally has been, as an argument for any standard version of non-epiphenomenalism such as physicalism and interactionism. I will then offer a new and improved version of the argument, as an argument for a particular non-epiphenomenalist view, which I will call the phenomenal powers view. This is the view that phenomenal properties produce and thereby (metaphysically) necessitate their effects in virtue of how they feel, or in virtue of their intrinsic, phenomenal character alone – along the lines of C. B. Martin and John Heil’s powerful qualities view (Martin and Heil 1999; Heil 2003). I will argue that the phenomenal powers view explains the correlations given natural selection far better than any other view. It follows that if (and only if) understood as an argument for the phenomenal powers view, the evolutionary argument is far stronger than it is usually thought to be. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new, expanded range of relevant cognitive psychological research on collaborative recall and social memory to the philosophical debate on extended and distributed cognition. We start by examining the case for extended cognition based on the complementarity of inner and outer resources, by which neural, bodily, social, and environmental resources with disparate but complementary properties are integrated into hybrid cognitive systems, transforming or augmenting the nature of remembering or decision-making. Adams and Aizawa, noting this distinctive complementarity argument, (...) say that they agree with it completely: but they describe it as “a non-revolutionary approach” which leaves “the cognitive psychology of memory as the study of processes that take place, essentially without exception, within nervous systems.” In response, we carve out, on distinct conceptual and empirical grounds, a rich middle ground between internalist forms of cognitivism and radical anti-cognitivism. Drawing both on extended cognition literature and on Sterelny’s account of the “scaffolded mind” (this issue), we develop a multidimensional framework for understanding varying relations between agents and external resources, both technological and social. On this basis we argue that, independent of any more “revolutionary” metaphysical claims about the partial constitution of cognitive processes by external resources, a thesis of scaffolded or distributed cognition can substantially influence or transform explanatory practice in cognitive science. Critics also cite various empirical results as evidence against the idea that remembering can extend beyond skull and skin. We respond with a more principled, representative survey of the scientific psychology of memory, focussing in particular on robust recent empirical traditions for the study of collaborative recall and transactive social memory. We describe our own empirical research on socially distributed remembering, aimed at identifying conditions for mnemonic emergence in collaborative groups. Philosophical debates about extended, embedded, and distributed cognition can thus make richer, mutually beneficial contact with independently motivated research programs in the cognitive psychology of memory. (shrink)

It is often suggested that social media is a hostile environment for critical thinking and that a major source for epistemic problems concerning social media is that it facilitates emotions. We argue that emotions per se are not the source of the epistemic problems concerning social media. We propose that instead of focusing on emotions, we should focus on the affective scaffolding of social media. We will show that some affective scaffolds enable desirable epistemic practices, while others obstruct beneficial epistemic (...) practices, or enable hostile epistemic practices. Particularly, we will show that emotions play a crucial role in the epistemic practice of critical thinking and that the affective scaffolding of social media can support, or hinder, online critical thinking. The upshot of our argument is that affective scaffoldings of social media can harness emotions to support beneficial epistemic practices, like online critical thinking. (shrink)

A standing presumption in the literature is that devil’s advocacy is an inherently beneficial argumentative move; and that those who take on this role in conversation are paradigms of argumentative virtue. Outside academic circles, however, devil’s advocacy has acquired something of a notorious reputation: real-world conversations are rife with self-proclaimed devil’s advocates who are anything but virtuous. Motivated by this observation, in this paper we offer the first in-depth exploration of non-ideal devil’s advocacy. We draw on recent analyses of two (...) better known discursive practices—mansplaining and trolling—to illuminate some of the signature traits of vicious devil’s advocacy. Building on this comparative examination, we show that all three practices trade on a manipulation of illocutionary force; and we evaluate their respective options for securing plausible deniability. (shrink)

Paternalistic interventions restrict individuals’ liberty or autonomy so as to guide their decisions towards options that are more beneficial for them than the ones they would choose in the absence of such interventions. Although some philosophers have emphasised that there is a case for justifiable paternalism in certain circumstances, much of contemporary moral and political philosophy works from a strong presumption against paternalistic interventions. However, Richard Arneson has argued that there are egalitarian reasons that support the case for paternalism: paternalistic (...) interventions can protect poor decision-makers from making ‘bad’ choices, thus preventing inequalities between them and those with better decision-making skills. This paper seeks to clarify and advance our understanding of the egalitarian argument for paternalism. Arneson’s argument adds an important and often neglected dimension to the debate about paternalism but also raises a number of questions about equality, paternalism and the relationship between the two. (shrink)

In this article we present an advanced version of Dual-PECCS, a cognitively-inspired knowledge representation and reasoning system aimed at extending the capabilities of artificial systems in conceptual categorization tasks. It combines different sorts of common-sense categorization (prototypical and exemplars-based categorization) with standard monotonic categorization procedures. These different types of inferential procedures are reconciled according to the tenets coming from the dual process theory of reasoning. On the other hand, from a representational perspective, the system relies on the hypothesis of conceptual (...) structures represented as heterogeneous proxytypes. Dual-PECCS has been experimentally assessed in a task of conceptual categorization where a target concept illustrated by a simple common-sense linguistic description had to be identified by resorting to a mix of categorization strategies, and its output has been compared to human responses. The obtained results suggest that our approach can be beneficial to improve the representational and reasoning conceptual capabilities of standard cognitive artificial systems, and –in addition– that it may be plausibly applied to different general computational models of cognition. The current version of the system, in fact, extends our previous work, in that Dual-PECCS is now integrated and tested into two cognitive architectures, ACT-R and CLARION, implementing different assumptions on the underlying invariant structures governing human cognition. Such integration allowed us to extend our previous evaluation. (shrink)

Issues of pretense and imagination are of central interest to philosophers, psychologists, and researchers in allied fields. In this entry, we provide a roadmap of some of the central themes around which discussion has been focused. We begin with an overview of pretense, imagination, and the relationship between them. We then shift our attention to the four specific topics where the disciplines' research programs have intersected or where additional interactions could prove mutually beneficial: the psychological underpinnings of performing pretense and (...) of recognizing pretense, the cognitive capacities involved in imaginative engagement with fictions, and the real-world impact of make-believe. In the final section, we discuss more briefly a number of other mental activities that arguably involve imagining, including counterfactual reasoning, delusions, and dreaming. (shrink)

Descartes's approach to practical judgments about what is beneficial or harmful, or what to pursue or avoid, is almost exactly the opposite of his approach to theoretical judgments about the true nature of things. Instead of the cautious skepticism for which Descartes is known, throughout his ethical writings he recommends developing the habit of making firm judgments and resolutely carrying them out, no matter how doubtful and uncertain they may be. Descartes, strikingly, takes irresolution to be the source of remorse (...) and repentance, of vice, and of a weak soul. In order to explain its dangerousness, this essay offers an analysis of irresolution as a failure of the will to determine itself to follow a judgment in the face of ignorance or uncertainty. This analysis connects irresolution to weakness of will and explains why Descartes regards resolution as an essential component of virtue. (shrink)

I show that the social stratification of academic science can arise as a result of academics’ preference for reading work of high epistemic value. This is consistent with a view on which academic superstars are highly competent academics, but also with a view on which superstars arise primarily due to luck. I argue that stratification is beneficial if most superstars are competent, but not if most superstars are lucky. I also argue that it is impossible to tell whether most superstars (...) are in fact competent or lucky, or which group a given superstar belongs to, and hence whether stratification is overall beneficial. (shrink)

There are two opposing views concerning intuitive cases of wage exploitation. The first denies that they are cases of exploitation at all. It is based on the nonworseness claim: there is nothing wrong with a discretionary mutually beneficial employment relationship. The second is the reasonable view: some employment relationships can be exploitative even if employers have no duty towards their employees. This article argues that the reasonable view does not completely defeat defences of wage exploitation, because these do not rely (...) solely on the nonworseness claim. They also rely on the idea, popularised by Alan Wertheimer, that exploitation is a form of disequilibrium price occurring in defective markets. The article then proceeds to criticise Wertheimer’s account through neoclassical, new institutional, and Austrian economics. It concludes that considerations for economic efficiency are irrelevant to assessing intuitions regarding exploitation. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the costs and benefits of confabulation, focusing on the type of confabulation people engage in when they offer explanations for their attitudes and choices. What makes confabulation costly? In the philosophical literature confabulation is thought to undermine claims to self-knowledge. I argue that when people confabulate they do not necessarily fail at mental-state self-attributions, but offer ill-grounded explanations which often lead to the adoption of other ill-grounded beliefs. What, if anything, makes confabulation beneficial? As people (...) are unaware of the information that would make their explanations accurate, they are not typically in a position to acknowledge their ignorance or provide better-grounded explanations for their attitudes and choices. In such cases, confabulating can have some advantages over offering no explanation because it makes a distinctive contribution to people’s sense of themselves as competent and largely coherent agents. This role of ill-grounded explanations could not be as easily played by better-grounded explanations should these be available. In the end, I speculate about the implications of this conclusion for attempting to eliminate or reduce confabulation. (shrink)

The charge of hypocrisy is a peculiar kind of accusation: it is damning and ubiquitous; it is used to deny the hypocrite standing to speak; and it is levelled against a great variety of conduct. Much of the philosophical literature on hypocrisy is aimed at explaining why hypocrisy is wrongful and worthy of censure. We focus instead on the use of the accusation of hypocrisy and argue for a revisionary claim. People think that hypocrisy in politics is bad and that (...) calling it out is good. Our novel claim is that even if hypocrisy in politics is bad (and that is a big if), calling it out is worse. We give a feminist case as to why accusations of hypocrisy are problematic. We also go further and claim that hypocrisy is a ubiquitous and perhaps even a necessary and beneficial part of political debate in liberal democracies. We also consider and reject candour as a possible alternative solution to hypocrisy in public debate. We argue that requiring people to be candid is not necessarily a good solution because it will often require one to divulge what is private when there are good reasons not to do so. (shrink)

In this paper I provide a forward-looking account of the difference between the responsibility of children and the responsibility of adults. I do so by means of criticizing agency-cultivation accounts of responsibility. According to these accounts, the justification for holding a person to a norm is the cultivation of their moral agency, and children are, just like adults, considered responsible to the extent that they can have their moral agency cultivated in this manner. Like many forward-looking accounts, these accounts claim (...) that the purpose of holding adults to norms is similar to the purpose of holding children to norms. I argue that the justifications for holding adults to norms are different because of the particular ways in which adults can be in moral disagreement with one another, and the consequences that this has. Moral disagreement is relevant to consequentialist accounts because it impacts on whether and how we can secure beneficial outcomes via holding someone to a norm. One of the upshots of this analysis is that the forward-looking justification for holding adults to norms is qualitatively different from how and why we should hold children to norms. (shrink)

While there has been a lot of discussion of picture perception both in perceptual psychology and in philosophy, these discussions are driven by very different background assumptions. Nonetheless, it would be mutually beneficial to arrive at an understanding of picture perception that is informed by both the philosophers’ and the psychologists’ story. The aim of this paper is exactly this: to give an account of picture perception that is valid both as a philosophical and as a psychological account. I argue (...) that seeing trompe l’oeil paintings is, just as some philosophers suggested, different from other cases of picture perception. Further, the way our perceptual system functions when seeing trompe l’oeil paintings could be an important piece of the psychological explanation of perceiving pictures. (shrink)

Design for Values (DfV) philosophies are a series of design approaches that aim to incorporate human values into the early phases of technological design to direct innovation into beneficial outcomes. The difficulty and necessity of directing advantageous futures for transformative technologies through the application and adoption of value-based design approaches are apparent. However, questions of whose values to design are of critical importance. DfV philosophies typically aim to enrol the stakeholders who may be affected by the emergence of such a (...) technology. However, regardless of which design approach is adopted, all enrolled stakeholders are human ones who propose human values. Contemporary scholarship on metahumanisms, particularly those on posthumanism, have decentred the human from its traditionally privileged position among other forms of life. Arguments that the humanist position is not (and has never been) tenable are persuasive. As such, scholarship has begun to provide a more encompassing ontology for the investigation of nonhuman values. Given the potentially transformative nature of future technologies as relates to the earth and its many assemblages, it is clear that the value investigations of these design approaches fail to account for all relevant stakeholders (i.e., nonhuman animals). This paper has two primary objectives: (1) to argue for the cogency of a posthuman ethics in the design of technologies; and (2) to describe how existing DfV approaches can begin to envision principled and methodological ways of incorporating non-human values into design. To do this, the paper provides a rudimentary outline of what constitutes DfV approaches. It then takes up a unique design approach called Value Sensitive Design (VSD) as an illustrative example. Out of all the other DfV frameworks, VSD most clearly illustrates a principled approach to the integration of values in design. (shrink)

Conscientious objection in health care is a form of compromise whereby health care practitioners can refuse to take part in safe, legal, and beneficial medical procedures to which they have a moral opposition (for instance abortion). Arguments in defense of conscientious objection in medicine are usually based on the value of respect for the moral integrity of practitioners. I will show that philosophical arguments in defense of conscientious objection based on respect for such moral integrity are extremely weak and, if (...) taken seriously, lead to consequences that we would not (and should not) accept. I then propose that the best philosophical argument that defenders of conscientious objection in medicine can consistently deploy is one that appeals to (some form of) either moral relativism or subjectivism. I suggest that, unless either moral relativism or subjectivism is a valid theory—which is exactly what many defenders of conscientious objection (as well as many others) do not think—the role of moral integrity and conscientious objection in health care should be significantly downplayed and left out of the range of ethically relevant considerations. (shrink)

This dissertation explains Karl Marx’s understanding of nature, human action, and a materialist standard of practical action. Marx’s understands natural processes as not identical with human action. There are two types of human action for Marx: material action and social action. Material action can use natural processes. Social action does not directly use natural processes, but social action can promote how material action uses natural processes. The difference between natural processes, material action, and social action is important for Marx since (...) it: maintains the independent reality of nature, maintains the development of material accomplishments as separate from social forms, and demonstrates the transitory status of social forms. This difference between material action and social action allows Marx to criticize certain social forms while praising the productive possibilities of the current level of technical development. A practical standard is developed using Marx’s understanding of nature and human action. This practical standard is based on humans’ necessary relationship to natural processes. Beneficial outcomes according to humans’ material abilities and their existence as natural beings is established by application of the practical standard. The materialist standard of practical action can be understood as an ethical theory that is not based on traditional ethical criteria. (shrink)

Some claim that Composition as Identity (CI) entails Mereological Essentialism (ME). If this is right, then we have an effective modus tollens against CI: ME is clearly false, so CI is, too. Rather than deny the conditional, I will argue that a CI theorist should embrace ME. I endorse a theory of modal parts such that ordinary objects are spatially, temporally, and modally extended. Accepting modal parts is certainly beneficial to CI theorists, but it also provides elegant solutions to the (...) traditional puzzles of constitution, making it a competitive move in its own right. (shrink)

Knowledge of the subject only ever speaks to the subject himself and of nothing more than the subject himself. And yet, when due to their mode of emergence, objects of this knowledge seem to occupy part of a space (whatever it may be) which would contain them, it is tempting for the subject to give this space the name of Reality. The conventional western philosophies (and science) gave in to this temptation. They came to distinguish the Subject {place-of-the-mind} from the (...) Reality {place-of-the-objects} whereas Reality is only the "objectified" or rather "objectivized" aspect of knowledge of the subject. From this artificial distinction followed a great confusion, a dispute that lasted for centuries, and still does, between different -isms with infinitesimal differences, from which the most influential parties emerge victorious each at his turn. In reaction to this confusion a "pivotal" re-orientation is suggested, considering the way objects of knowledge emerge and are organized, not in correlation with objects of Reality but with the subject for himself and knowledge for itself. For this re-orientation the OK proposes to transcend the subject's mind to reveal its logical principles. That's the specific subject I would like to delve into here : the transcendence of meaning. This is necessary for understanding the OK and could be beneficial to “mental health counseling”. (shrink)

Neurosis can be interpreted as a methodological condition which any aim-pursuing entity can suffer from. If such an entity pursues a problematic aim B, represents to itself that it is pursuing a different aim C, and as a result fails to solve the problems associated with B which, if solved, would lead to the pursuit of aim A, then the entity may be said to be "rationalistically neurotic". Natural science is neurotic in this sense in so far as a basic (...) aim of science is represented to be to improve knowledge of factual truth as such (aim C), when actually the aim of science is to improve knowledge of explanatory truth (aim B). Science does not suffer too much from this neurosis, but philosophy of science does. Much more serious is the rationalistic neurosis of the social sciences, and of academic inquiry more generally. Freeing social science and academic inquiry from neurosis would have far reaching, beneficial, intellectual, institutional and cultural consequences. (shrink)

“Love hurts”—as the saying goes—and a certain amount of pain and difficulty in intimate relationships is unavoidable. Sometimes it may even be beneficial, since adversity can lead to personal growth, self-discovery, and a range of other components of a life well-lived. But other times, love can be downright dangerous. It may bind a spouse to her domestic abuser, draw an unscrupulous adult toward sexual involvement with a child, put someone under the insidious spell of a cult leader, and even inspire (...) jealousy-fueled homicide. How might these perilous devotions be diminished? The ancients thought that treatments such as phlebotomy, exercise, or bloodletting could “cure” an individual of love. But modern neuroscience and emerging developments in psychopharmacology open up a range of possible interventions that might actually work. These developments raise profound moral questions about the potential uses—and misuses—of such anti-love biotechnology. In this article, we describe a number of prospective love-diminishing interventions, and offer a preliminary ethical framework for dealing with them responsibly should they arise. (shrink)

Altruistic deception (or the telling of “white lies”) is common in humans. Does it also exist in non-human animals? On some definitions of deception, altruistic deception is impossible by definition, whereas others make it too easy by counting useful-but-ambiguous information as deceptive. I argue for a definition that makes altruistic deception possible in principle without trivializing it. On my proposal, deception requires the strategic exploitation of a receiver by a sender, where “exploitation” implies that the sender elicits a behaviour in (...) the receiver that is beneficial in a different type of situation and is expressed only because the signal raises the probability, from the receiver’s standpoint, of that type of situation. I then offer an example of a real signal that is deceptive in this sense, and yet potentially altruistic (and certainly cooperative): the purr call of the pied babbler. Fledglings associate purr calls with food, and adults exploit this learned association, in the absence of food, to lead fledglings away from predators following an alarm call. I conclude by considering why altruistic deception is apparently so rare in non-human animals. (shrink)

Scientific researchers welcome disagreement as a way of furthering epistemic aims. Religious communities, by contrast, tend to regard it as a potential threat to their beliefs. But I argue that religious disagreement can help achieve religious epistemic aims. I do not argue this by comparing science and religion, however. For scientific hypotheses are ideally held with a scholarly neutrality, and my aim is to persuade those who arecommittedto religious beliefs that religious disagreement can be epistemically beneficial for them too.