Scientists who engage in science and the scientific endeavor should seek truth with conviction of morals and commitment to ethics. While the number of publications continues to increase, the number of retractions has increased at a faster rate. Journals publish fraudulent research papers despite claims of peer review and adherence to publishing ethics. Nevertheless, appropriate ethical peer review will remain a gatekeeper when selecting research manuscripts in scholarly publishing and approving research applications for grant funding. However, this peer review must (...) become more open, fair, transparent, equitable, and just with new recommendations and guidelines for reproducible and accountable reviews that support and promote fair citation and citational justice. We should engineer this new peer-review process with modern informatics technology and information science to provide and defend better safeguards for truth and integrity, to clarify and maintain the provenance of information and ideas, and to rebuild and restore trust in scholarly research institutions. Indeed, this new approach will be necessary in the current post-truth era to counter the ease and speed with which mis-information, dis-information, anti-information, caco-information, and mal-information spread through the internet, web, news, and social media. The most important question for application of new peer-review methods to these information wars should be ‘Who does what when?’ in support of reproducible and accountable reviews. Who refers to the authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers as participants in the review process. What refers to disclosure of the participants' identities, the material content of author manuscripts and reviewer commentaries, and other communications between authors and reviewers. When refers to tracking the sequential points in time for which disclosure of whose identity, which content, and which communication at which step of the peer-review process for which audience of readers and reviewers. We believe that quality peer review, and peer review of peer review, must be motivated and maintained by elevating their status and prestige to an art and a science. Both peer review itself and peer review analyses of peer reviews should be incentivised by publishing peer reviews as citable references separately from the research report reviewed while crossreferenced and crosslinked to the report reviewed. (shrink)

How do people decide which claims should be considered mere beliefs and which count as knowledge? Although little is known about how people attribute knowledge to others, philosophical debate about the nature of knowledge may provide a starting point. Traditionally, a belief that is both true and justified was thought to constitute knowledge. However, philosophers now agree that this account is inadequate, due largely to a class of counterexamples (termed ‘‘Gettier cases’’) in which a person’s justified belief is true, but (...) only due to luck. We report four experiments examining the effect of truth, justification, and ‘‘Gettiering’’ on people’s knowledge attributions. These experiments show that: (1) people attribute knowledge to others only when their beliefs are both true and justified; (2) in contrast to contemporary philosophers, people also attribute knowledge to others in Gettier situations; and (3) knowledge is not attributed in one class of Gettier cases, but only because the agent’s belief is based on ‘‘apparent’’ evidence. These findings suggest that the lay concept of knowledge is roughly consistent with the traditional account of knowledge as justified true belief, and also point to a major difference between the epistemic intuitions of laypeople and those of philosophers. (shrink)

In several lectures, interviews and essays from the early 1980s, Michel Foucault startlingly argues that he is engaged in a kind of critical work that is similar to that of Immanuel Kant. Given Foucault's criticisms of Kantian and Enlightenment emphases on universal truths and values, his declaration that his work is Kantian seems paradoxical. I agree with some commentators who argue that this is a way for Foucault to publicly acknowledge to his critics that he is not, as some of (...) them charge, attempting a total critique of Enlightenment beliefs and values, but is instead attempting to transform them from within. I argue further that Foucault's self-professed Kantianism can also productively be read as a means of encouraging change in his intellectual audience, a call to courage to take up the thread of Enlightenment thought that Foucault finds in Kant's essay, `What is Enlightenment?': that of directing one's philosophical efforts towards questioning and transforming one's own present in its historical specificity, for the sake of promoting the values of freedom and autonomy therein. Though much of Kant's philosophical work is focused on that which lies outside of history, Foucault locates in some of it a concern for what is happening here and now that, I argue, he encourages his audience to take up for themselves through tracing his own intellectual lineage to Kant. In so doing, he encourages contemporary philosophers to consider the value and effects of their work on the present social and political contexts in which they live. (shrink)

In the science of consciousness, it’s oftentimes assumed that some creatures (or mental states) are more conscious than others. But in recent years, a number of philosophers have argued that the notion of degrees of consciousness is conceptually confused. This paper (1) argues that the most prominent objections to degrees of consciousness are unsustainable, (2) examines the semantics of ‘more conscious than’ expressions, (3) develops an analysis of what it is for a degreed property to count as degrees of consciousness, (...) and (4) applies the analysis to various theories of consciousness. I argue that whether consciousness comes in degrees ultimately depends on which theory of consciousness turns out to be correct. But I also argue that most theories of consciousness entail that consciousness comes in degrees. (shrink)

What sorts of reasons should citizens have in mind when they cast votes? Arguments from both sides of the EU referendum debate are used here to raise questions about what our motivations should be when voting. The article introduces John Rawls's requirement to give public reasons that are acceptable to all reasonable people.

This paper examines the idea of "objective phenomenology," or a way of understanding the phenomenal character of conscious experiences that doesn’t require one to have had the kinds of experiences under consideration. My central thesis is that structural facts about experience—facts that characterize purely how conscious experiences are structured—are objective phenomenal facts. I begin by precisifying the idea of objective phenomenology and diagnosing what makes any given phenomenal fact subjective. Then I defend the view that structural facts about experience are (...) objective. I also argue that structural facts about experience, despite being objective, nevertheless still give rise to an explanatory gap. (shrink)

Can the persistence of a human being's soul at death and prior to the bodily resurrection be sufficient to guarantee that the resurrected human being is numerically identical to the human being who died? According to Thomas Aquinas, it can. Yet, given that Aquinas holds that the human being is identical to the composite of soul and body and ceases to exist at death, it's difficult to see how he can maintain this view. In this paper, I address Aquinas's response (...) to this objection . After making a crucial clarification concerning the nature of the non-repeatability principle on which the objection relies, I argue that the contemporary notion of immanent causal relations provides us with a way of understanding Aquinas's defence that renders it both highly interesting and philosophically plausible. (shrink)

We all want to find a way to live fulfilling lives together in spite of our differences. What beliefs must be held in common if we are to do so? What beliefs must be excluded? And what are the implications for religion’s place in society? Philip Kitcher recognises that our answers to these questions have important implications for education, and he devotes a chapter of 'The Main Enterprise of the World' to the role of religion in education and wider society. (...) This paper is a critical response to that chapter. I argue that Kitcher is right to recognise that religious beliefs cannot be confined to the private sphere and thus they are a matter of educational concern. However, I question whether Kitcher makes an adequate case for the distinctive harmfulness of the beliefs that he wishes to exclude. I also question Kitcher’s suggestion that students be taught that all religions are ‘on a par’, epistemically speaking. I finish by shining a light on Kitcher’s proposal that education should aim for students to develop specific beliefs about religion, clarifying the proposal and highlighting some implications for education in practice. (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of analog representation. We first argue that the mark of the analog is to be found in the nature of a representational system’s interpretation function, rather than in its vehicles or contents alone. We then develop the rulebound structure theory of analog representation, according to which analog systems are those that use interpretive rules to map syntactic structural features onto semantic structural features. The theory involves three degree-theoretic measures that capture three independent ways in which (...) a system can be more or less analog. We explain how our theory improves upon prior accounts of analog representation, provides plausible diagnoses for novel challenge cases, extends to hybrid systems that are partially analog and partially symbolic, and accounts for some of the advantages and disadvantages of representing analogically versus symbolically. (shrink)

According to C. S. Peirce, resemblance or similarity is the basis for the relationship of iconic signs to their dynamical objects. But what is the basis of resemblance or similarity itself and how is the phenomenon of iconicity generated? How does it function in cultural practices and processes by which various forms of signs are generated (say, for example, the cartographical procedures by which maps are drawn, more generally, the diagrammatic ones by which networks of relationships are iconically represented)? To (...) what extent are they themselves performances (maps are always both the result of mappings andthe impetus for re-mappings)? With examples from texts by Virginia Woolf, W. G. Sebald and Reif Larsen, I will argue that literary texts provide us with uniqueresources for exploring, among other matters, the performative dimension of iconicity in the complex interaction among icon, index and metaphor as aprerequisite for semiosis, the generation of signs. (shrink)

In his “Space, supervenience and substantivalism”, Le Poidevin proposes a substantivalism in which space is discrete, implying that there are unmediated spatial relations between neighboring primitive points. This proposition is motivated by his concern that relationism suffers from an explanatory lacuna and that substantivalism gives rise to a vicious regress. Le Poidevin implicitly requires that the relationist be committed to the “only x and y ” principle regarding spatial relations. It is not obvious that the relationist is committed to this (...) principle in such a context. An additional motivation for Le Poidevin's argument, that space should be considered to be discrete, is that he believes that substantivalists are committed to a vicious regress. I show that the regress is in fact not of the vicious variety. These two main arguments show that Le Poidevin's suggestion that we drop the density postulate for space is unnecessary. (shrink)

Conscious experiences are characterized by mental qualities, such as those involved in seeing red, feeling pain, or smelling cinnamon. The standard framework for modeling mental qualities represents them via points in geometrical spaces, where distances between points inversely correspond to degrees of phenomenal similarity. This paper argues that the standard framework is structurally inadequate and develops a new framework that is more powerful and flexible. The core problem for the standard framework is that it cannot capture precision structure: for example, (...) consider the phenomenal contrast between seeing an object as crimson in foveal vision versus merely as red in peripheral vision. The solution I favor is to model mental qualities using regions, rather than points. I explain how this seemingly simple formal innovation not only provides a natural way of modeling precision, but also yields a variety of further theoretical fruits: it enables us to formulate novel hypotheses about the space and structures of mental qualities, formally differentiate two dimensions of phenomenal similarity, generate a quantitative model of the phenomenal sorites, and define a measure of discriminatory grain. A noteworthy consequence is that the structure of the mental qualities of conscious experiences is fundamentally different from the structure of the perceptible qualities of external objects. (shrink)

Some philosophers think that life is worth living not merely because of the goods and the bads within it, but also because life itself is good. I explain how this idea can be formalized by associating each version of such of a view with a function from length of life to the value generated by life itself. Then I argue that every version of the view that life itself is good faces some version of the following dilemma: either (1) good (...) human lives are worse than very long lives wholly devoid of pleasure, desire-satisfaction, knowledge, or any other goods, or (2) very short lives containing nothing but suffering are worth living. Since neither result is plausible, we ought to reject the view that life itself is good. On the view I favor, any given life may be worth living because of the goods that it contains, but life itself is neutral. (shrink)

Andrew McGonigal presents some interesting data concerning truth in serial fictions.1 Such data has been taken by McGonigal, Cameron and Caplan to motivate some form of contextualism or relativism. I argue, however, that many of these approaches are problematic, and that all are under-motivated as the data can be explained in a standard invariantist semantic framework given some independently plausible principles.

Are a material object, such as a statue, and its constituting matter, the clay, parts of one another? One wouldn't have thought so, and yet a number of philosophers have argued that they are. I review the arguments for this surprising claim showing how they all fail. I then consider two arguments against the view concluding that there are both pre-theoretical and theoretical considerations for denying that the statue and the clay are mutual parts.

Paper presented at a meeting of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature, Stony Brook, New York, USA, May 2000. -/- Foucault rejects the idea of intellectuals acting as "prophets": telling others what must be done and what sorts of social and political goals they should pursue. I argue that in outright rejecting such prophecy, Foucault may not be pursuing the most effective means of eventually breaking it down. I locate in Foucauldian genealogical works such as Discipline and Punish a (...) rhetorical strategy through which the intellectual acts as a prophet while also distancing him/herself from this role: the genealogist speaks as a universal intellectual while also encouraging others to question the truths thus provided, as well as the role of the intellectual as prophet itself. I argue that in so doing the genealogist engages in a kind of exile, a term I borrow from Edward Said to denote a movement of distancing without effecting a clean break. This intellectual, rather than rejecting outright the role of the prophet, works within this role while yet distancing him/herself from it -- acting as (what I call) a “prophet in exile.”. (shrink)

Presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Association for Core Texts and Courses, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, April 2010. -/- René Descartes’ Discourse on Method is paradoxical in several respects: it was published anonymously, yet is rich in autobiographical detail; further, Descartes insists that “the power of judging well and of distinguishing the true from the false…is naturally equal in all men,” and also that “the world consists almost exclusively of … minds for whom [his method of reasoning] (...) is not at all suitable” (1, 9). The Discourse indicates both that the identity of a particular reasoning subject (such as the author of the text itself) does not matter—because all rational beings could come to the same conclusion if using their reason correctly—and yet also that who one is does indeed matter to showing that one counts as one of the select group of subjects who possess knowledge. The method and its results do not speak for themselves; rather, the author must speak for them, and legitimize his authority in the process. If it were the case that Descartes’ plan did not go beyond “trying to reform [his] own thoughts and building upon a foundation which is completely [his] own” (9), then he might rest content with his own convictions regarding the truth of his conclusions, but if he wants to be recognized by others as possessing knowledge then he must either appeal to existing standards of authority to legitimize his method and its conclusions, or argue for the validity of new ones. Either way, the Discourse demonstrates Michel Foucault’s claims that knowledge production is bound up in a social context that determines what counts as true knowledge and who has the authority to speak about it. Descartes’s text shows an author both boldly presenting revolutionary arguments and methods and revealing his awareness of the difficulties and dangers of resisting the accepted standards of knowledge. It can be used to spark discussion amongst students about whether, even if we believe anyone’s reason might produce knowledge, it is still the case today that only some count as “knowers” according to criteria that are socially determined (e.g., institutional affiliation, status within an institution, the acceptability of certain sorts of projects and methods as legitimate for knowledge). (shrink)

A response to a declaration in 'Le Monde', 'Luttons efficacement contre les théories du complot' by Gérald Bronner, Véronique Campion-Vincent, Sylvain Delouvée, Sebastian Dieguez, Karen Douglas, Nicolas Gauvrit, Anthony Lantian, and Pascal Wagner-Egger, published on June the 6th, 2016.

The 13th-15th centuries were witness to lively and broad-ranging debates about the nature of persons. In this paper, I look at how the uses of ‘person’ in logical/grammatical, legal/political, and theological contexts overlap in the works of 13th-15th century contemplatives in the Latin West, such as Hadewijch, Meister Eckhart, and Catherine of Siena. After explicating the key concepts of individuality, dignity, and rationality, I show how these ideas combine with the contemplative use of first- and second-person perspectives, personification, and introspection (...) to yield a concept of 'person' that both prefigures Locke's classic 17th century definition and deeply influences the development of personalism. (shrink)

Paper presented at the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking meeting in conjunction with the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association, Chicago, April 2004.

Many philosophers accept both of the following claims: (1) consciousness matters morally, and (2) species membership doesn’t matter morally. In other words, many reject speciesism but accept what we might call 'sentientism'. But do the reasons against speciesism yield analogous reasons against sentientism, just as the reasons against racism and sexism are thought to yield analogous reasons against speciesism? This paper argues that speciesism is disanalogous to sentientism (as well as racism and sexism). I make a case for the following (...) asymmetry: (a) some non-humans clearly have interests, but (b) no non-conscious entities clearly have interests. This asymmetry, I argue, renders sentientism resistant to the standard argument against speciesism. (shrink)

I analyse the 2014 policy to promote 'British values' in schools from the perspective of the two main positions in contemporary liberal theory, comprehensive liberalism and political liberalism. I highlight in what ways comprehensive and political liberal defences of the policy are unsatisfactory, before briefly sketching a possible alternative position – ‘thin comprehensive liberalism’ – and discussing its potential for justifying a substantive education in liberal values. In light of this theoretical perspective, I suggest some ways that the existing British (...) values policy might be amended in practice so as to bring it more in line with the liberal ideal. (shrink)

I assess a number of connected ideas about temporal experience that are introspectively plausible, but which I believe can be argued to be incorrect. These include the idea that temporal experiences are extended experiential processes, that they have an internal structure that in some way mirrors the structure of the apparent events they present, and the idea that time in experience is in some way represented by time itself. I explain how these ideas can be developed into more sharply defined (...) views, and then argue that these views are inconsistent with certain empirical facts about how time is represented in the brain. These facts instead support a kind of atomic view, on which temporal experiences are temporally unstructured atoms. (shrink)

Epistemic injustices are wrongs that agents can suffer in their capacity as knowers. In this article, I offer a conceptualisation of a phenomenon I call anticipatory epistemic injustice, which I claim is a distinct and particularly pernicious type of epistemic injustice worthy of independent analysis. I take anticipatory epistemic injustice to consist in the wrongs that agents can suffer as a result of anticipated challenges in their process of taking up testimony-sharing opportunities. I distinguish my account from paradigmatic cases of (...) epistemic injustice, such as Miranda Fricker’s concepts of testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice; additionally, I differentiate my view from Kristie Dotson’s account of testimonial smothering. I argue, ultimately, that anticipatory epistemic injustice is a useful addition to our current taxonomy of epistemic injustices, as it has promising explanatory potential for a range of non-standard cases of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

I sketch here an intuitive picture of repeatable artworks as created types, which are individuated in part by historical paths (re)production. Although attractive, this view has been rejected by a number of authors on the basis of general claims about abstract objects. On consideration, however, these general claims are overgeneralizations, which whilst true of some abstracta, are not true of all abstract objects, and in particular, are not true of created types. The intuitive picture of repeatable artworks as created types (...) is, then, left in place. (shrink)

I present and discuss a counterexample to Kendall Walton's necessary condition for fictionality that arises from considering serial fictions. I argue that although Walton has not in fact provided a necessary condition for fictionality, a more complex version of Walton's condition is immune from the counterexample.

At several points throughout his career, Foucault suggests that publishing texts without authors’ names attached would be a useful step towards dismantling what he calls the “author-function:” a social and political role structured according to the way discourse is treated and disseminated in a particular social setting. I discuss Foucault’s criticisms of the author-function in terms of its relationship to the political role of intellectuals, and I argue that the demise of this role cannot be achieved through the means of (...) authorial anonymity, as Foucault suggests. Rather, it must be undermined from a position within this role itself. (shrink)

It is often suggested that when opinions differ among individuals in a group, the opinions should be aggregated to form a compromise. This paper compares two approaches to aggregating opinions, linear pooling and what I call opinion agglomeration. In evaluating both strategies, I propose a pragmatic criterion, No Regrets, entailing that an aggregation strategy should prevent groups from buying and selling bets on events at prices regretted by their members. I show that only opinion agglomeration is able to satisfy the (...) demand. I then proceed to give normative and empirical arguments in support of the pragmatic criterion for opinion aggregation, and that ultimately favor opinion agglomeration. (shrink)

"Wilderness" is a concept which has undergone a radical change in recent years. Owing to the scale of global destruction of the wilderness and its various ecosystems, the idea of wilderness has been transformed from its original negative sense as an Other into a matter of public concern. This as replaced the understanding of "wilderness " not only as a place but as a category closely linked with the development of buman culture. As the result of human practice and representation, (...) nature is thus also political Models and concepts of nature in the creative arts can be indicative of a certain culture's relationship with nature, as they communicate prevailing ideologies. This is particularly pertinent to concepts of nature in Canada where wilderness includes vast tracts of forests, lakes and an Arctic North, which has led to a distinctively Canadian relationship between Canadians and their natural environment. The change in the literary representations of interactions between humankind and environment in Canadian fiction - from the "double vision" resulting from the view of the wilderness both as a threatening Other and free space; to the view of threatened nature as a means of identification; and, finally, as a post-modem place of transgression and possibility - invites questions about both the semiotic threshold between nature and culture, and about the function of boundaries in the constitution of identity. (shrink)

The standard semantics for counterfactuals ensures that any counterfactual with a true antecedent and true consequent is itself true. There have been many recent attempts to amend the standard semantics to avoid this result. I show that these proposals invalidate a number of further principles of the standard logic of counterfactuals. The case against the automatic truth of counterfactuals with true components does not extend to these further principles, however, so it is not clear that rejecting the latter should be (...) a consequence of rejecting the former. Instead I consider how one might defuse putative counterexamples to the truth of true-true counterfactuals. (shrink)

The article aims at formulating a philosophical framework and by this giving some means at hand to save human libertarian freedom, God’s omniscience and God’s ”eternity’. This threefold aim is achieved by 1) conceiving of an agent as having different possibilities to act, 2) regarding God’s knowledge -- with respect to agents -- not only as being ”propositional’ in character but also as being ”experiential’: God knows an agent also from the ”first person perspective’, as the agent knows herself, and, (...) 3), formulating ”eternity’ and ”temporality’ as being homeomorphically related to each other. This gives rise to a coherent interplay that saves both human libertarian freedom and God’s omniscient ”view from eternity’. (shrink)

Is A & C sufficient for the truth of ‘if A were the case, C would be the case’? Jonathan Bennett thinks not, although the counterexample he gives is inconsistent with his own account of counterfactuals. In any case, I argue that anyone who accepts the case of Morgenbesser's coin, as Bennett does, should reject Bennett’s counterexample. Moreover, I show that the principle underlying his counterexample is unmotivated and indeed false. More generally, I argue that Morgenbesser’s coin commits us to (...) the sufficiency of A & C for the truth of the corresponding counterfactual. (shrink)

Many teachers appreciate discussing teaching and learning with others, and participating in a community of others who are also excited about pedagogy. Many philosophy teachers find meetings such as the biannual AAPT workshop extremely valuable for this reason. But in between face-to-face meetings such as those, we can still participate in a community of teachers and learners, and even expand its borders quite widely, by engaging in activities under the general rubric of “open education.” Open education can mean many things, (...) from sharing one’s teaching materials openly with others, to using and revising those created by others, to asking students to create open educational materials, and more. In this article I discuss the benefits and possible drawbacks of such activities, and I argue that the former outweigh the latter. (shrink)

Are counterfactuals with true antecedents and consequents automatically true? That is, is Conjunction Conditionalization: if (X & Y), then (X > Y) valid? Stalnaker and Lewis think so, but many others disagree. We note here that the extant arguments for Conjunction Conditionalization are unpersuasive, before presenting a family of more compelling arguments. These arguments rely on some standard theorems of the logic of counterfactuals as well as a plausible and popular semantic claim about certain semifactuals. Denying Conjunction Conditionalization, then, requires (...) rejecting other aspects of the standard logic of counterfactuals, or else our intuitive picture of semifactuals. (shrink)

Social philosophers often invoke the concept of false consciousness in their analyses, referring to a set of evidence-resistant, ignorant attitudes held by otherwise sound epistemic agents, systematically occurring in virtue of, and motivating them to perpetuate, structural oppression. But there is a worry that appealing to the notion in questions of responsibility for the harm suffered by members of oppressed groups is victim-blaming. Individuals under false consciousness allegedly systematically fail the relevant rationality and epistemic conditions due to structural distortions of (...) reasoning or knowledge practices, undermining their status as responsible moral agents. But attending to the constitutive mechanisms and heterogeneity of false consciousness allows us to see how having it does not eo ipso render someone an inappropriate target of blame. I focus here on the 1889 anti-suffragist manifesto “An Appeal Against Female Suffrage,” arguing that its signatories, despite false consciousness, satisfy both conditions for ordinary blameworthiness. I consider three prominent signatories, observing that the irrationality characterisation is unsustainable beyond group-level diagnoses, and that their capacity to respond appropriately to reasons was not compromised. Following recent work on epistemic injustice, I also argue that culpable mechanisms constituted their false consciousness, rendering them blameworthy for the Appeal. (shrink)

I give an account of the difference between "Holistic" and "Atomistic" views of conscious experience. On the Holistic view, we enjoy a unified "field" of awareness, whose parts are mere modifications of the whole, and therefore owe their existence to the whole. There is some tendency to saddle those who reject the Holistic field model with a (perhaps) implausible "building block" view. I distinguish a number of different theses about the parts of an experience that are suggested by the "building (...) block" metaphor, but which can be rejected by those who also reject the holistic field view. (shrink)

The Middles Ages are often portrayed as a time in which people with physical disabilities in the Latin West were ostracized, on the grounds that such conditions demonstrated personal sin and/or God’s judgment. This was undoubtedly the dominant response to disability in various times and places during the fifth through fifteenth centuries, but the total range of medieval responses is much broader and more interesting. In particular, the 13th-15th century treatment of three groups (martyrs, mothers, and mystics - whose physical (...) ‘defects’ were often understood as signs of special connection to God in this life, and who were often represented as retaining these signs in the life to come) challenge standard notions of beauty, disfigurement, and bodily perfection, particularly as the notion is applied to eternal life and our ultimate end. (shrink)

I discuss whether "sentience" (i.e., phenomenal consciousness) comes in degrees.

If states are permitted to create and maintain a military force, by what means are they permitted to do so? This paper argues that a theory of just recruitment should incorporate a concern for moral risk. Since the military is a morally risky profession for its members, recruitment policies should be evaluated in terms of how they distribute moral risk within a community. We show how common military recruitment practices exacerbate and concentrate moral risk exposure, using the UK as a (...) case study. We argue that the British state wrongs its citizens by subjecting them to excessively morally risky recruitment practices. Since, we argue, this risk exposure cannot be justified by appealing to the benefits of a military career for recruits, our argument calls for reform of existing practices. Our method of evaluation is generalizable and thus can be used to assess other states’ practices. (shrink)

This introduction to the Journal of Business Research special issue on anti-consumption briefly defines and highlights the importance of anticonsumption research, provides an overview of the latest studies in the area, and suggests an agenda for future research on anti-consumption.

The growing demand for uterus transplantation (UTx) invites continued philosophical evaluation of the function of UTx (and what constitutes its ‘success’), as well as the recipient eligibility for UTx. Currently, UTx caters to partnered, cisgender women of childbearing age looking to get pregnant and give birth to a biogenetically related child. The medical justification for this—the treatment of uterine infertility—explains the primacy of this practice. However, this dominant conceptualization of UTx does not necessarily capture the diverse needs for which both (...) cis‐ and transgender women might take interest in UTx that are not strictly procreative, such as bodily integrity and gender identity reasons. In this paper, I argue that non‐procreative motivations for uterus acquisition ought to be taken seriously as a matter of non‐discrimination and consistency. (shrink)

The debate over Hypothetical Syllogism is locked in stalemate. Although putative natural language counterexamples to Hypothetical Syllogism abound, many philosophers defend Hypothetical Syllogism, arguing that the alleged counterexamples involve an illicit shift in context. The proper lesson to draw from the putative counterexamples, they argue, is that natural language conditionals are context-sensitive conditionals which obey Hypothetical Syllogism. In order to make progress on the issue, I consider and improve upon Morreau’s proof of the invalidity of Hypothetical Syllogism. The improved proof (...) relies upon the semantic claim that conditionals with antecedents irrelevant to the obtaining of an already true consequent are themselves true. Moreover, this semantic insight allows us to provide compelling counterexamples to Hypothetical Syllogism that are resistant to the usual contextualist response. (shrink)

I reply to Ahmed’s rejection (2011) of my argument (Walters 2009) that all counterfactuals with true antecedents and consequents are themselves true.

Invasion biologists often suggest that phenotypic plasticity plays an important role in successful plant invasions. Assuming that plasticity enhances ecological niche breadth and therefore confers a fitness advantage, recent studies have posed two main hypotheses: (1) invasive species are more plastic than non-invasive or native ones; (2) populations in the introduced range of an invasive species have evolved greater plasticity than populations in the native range. These two hypotheses largely reflect the disparate interests of ecologists and evolutionary biologists. Because these (...) sciences are typically interested in different temporal and spatial scales, we describe what is required to assess phenotypic plasticity at different levels. We explore the inevitable tradeoffs of experiments conducted at the genotype vs. species level, outline components of experimental design required to identify plasticity at different levels, and review some examples from the recent literature. Moreover, we suggest that a successful invader may benefit from plasticity as either (1) a Jack-of-all-trades, better able to maintain fitness in unfavourable environments; (2) a Master-of-some, better able to increase fitness in favourable environments; or (3) a Jack-and-master that combines some level of both abilities. This new framework can be applied when testing both ecological or evolutionary oriented hypotheses, and therefore promises to bridge the gap between the two perspectives. (shrink)

We propose an approach to the question of how qualia fit into the physical world, in the context of a relational and realist completion of quantum theory, called the causal theory of views\cite{views}. This is a combination of an approach to a dynamics of discrete causal structures, called energetic causal sets, developed with M. Cortes, with a realist approach to quantum foundations, called the real ensemble formulation. In this theory, the beables are the information available at each event from its (...) causal past, such as its causal predessesors and the energy and momentum they transfer to the event. We call this the view of an event. That is, we describe a causal universe that is composed of a set of partial views of itself. We propose that conscious perceptions are aspects of some views. This addresses the problem of why consciousness always involves awareness of a bundled grouping of qualia that define a momentary self. This gives a restricted form of panpsychism defined by a physically based selection principle which selects which views have experiential aspects. We further propose that only those views which are novel, in the sense that they are not duplicates of the view of any event in the event's own causal past, are the physical correlates of conscious experience. (shrink)

This paper proposes a metaphysical framework for distinguishing between human and machine intelligence. It posits two identical deterministic worlds -- one comprising a human agent and the other a machine agent. These agents exhibit different information processing mechanisms despite their apparent sameness in a causal sense. Providing a conceptual modeling of their difference, this paper resolves what it calls “the vantage point problem” – namely, how to justify an omniscient perspective through which a determinist asserts determinism from within the supposedly (...) deterministic universe. (shrink)