What does Wittgenstein say about the learning child? In the Philosophical Investigations, he writes, ‘An important part … will consist in the teacher’s pointing to the objects, directing the child’s attention to them, and at the same time uttering a word.’ Here Wittgenstein is describing what is called ‘joint attention’ which is agreed to be a rich resource for learning in children. In this essay, I explore the developmental significance of this passage particularly with regards the learning that occurs in (...) the pre-linguistic child during joint attention. I refer to critical remarks elsewhere in the PI which can help further convey what Wittgenstein means when he talks about attentional capacities and how they develop, including the relevant ability for responsiveness required for the learning to proceed. These considerations should motivate a defence of the social initiation model of learning contra Luntley’s mentalist-individualist account, this despite conceding that certain prior capacities do play a role, though not a central one since these do not pick out the relevant ability (responsiveness) required for learning to take place in the child. (shrink)

In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, such as health care system strain and stress, as well as (...) economic destruction. It proposes proceeding in three phases: the first addresses premature death, the second long-term health issues and economic harms, and the third aims to contain viral transmission fully and restore pre-pandemic activity. -/- To those who may deem an ethical framework irrelevant because of the belief that many countries will pursue "vaccine nationalism," we argue such a framework still has broad relevance. Reasonable national partiality would permit countries to focus on vaccine distribution within their borders up until the rate of transmission is below 1, at which point there would not be sufficient vaccine-preventable harm to justify retaining a vaccine. When a government reaches the limit of national partiality, it should release vaccines for other countries. -/- We also argue against two other recent proposals. Distributing a vaccine proportional to a country's population mistakenly assumes that equality requires treating differently situated countries identically. Prioritizing countries according to the number of front-line health care workers, the proportion of the population over 65, and the number of people with comorbidities within each country may exacerbate disadvantage and end up giving the vaccine in large part to wealthy nations. (shrink)

All parties involved in researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing COVID-19 vaccines need guidance on their ethical obligations. We focus on pharmaceutical companies' obligations because their capacities to research, develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines make them uniquely placed for stemming the pandemic. We argue that an ethical approach to COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution should satisfy four uncontroversial principles: optimising vaccine production, including development, testing, and manufacturing; fair distribution; sustainability; and accountability. All parties' obligations should be coordinated and mutually consistent. For (...) instance, companies should not be obligated to provide host countries with additional booster shots at the expense of fulfilling bilateral contracts with countries in which there are surges. Finally, any satisfactory approach should include mechanisms for assurance that all parties are honouring their obligations. This assurance enables countries, pharmaceutical companies, global organisations, and others to verify compliance with the chosen approach and protect ethically compliant stakeholders from being unfairly exploited by unethical behaviour of others. (shrink)

This book’s goal is to give an intellectual context for the following manuscript. -/- Includes bibliographical references and an index. Pages 1-123. 1). Philosophy. 2). Metaphysics. 3). Philosophy, German. 4). Philosophy, German -- 18th century. 5). Philosophy, German and Greek Influences Metaphysics. I. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich -- 1770-1831 -- Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus. II. Rosenzweig, Franz, -- 1886-1929. III. Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, -- 1775-1854. IV. Hölderlin, Friedrich, -- 1770-1843. V. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel, 1952-. [Translation (...) from German into English of the-- Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus.]. -/- Note: the manuscript is in the handwriting of G.W.F. Hegel, but the actual authorship is disputed. No date is given. Franz Rosenzweig made up the title as it is known today. He published the text in 1917. At that time, F. Rosenzweig thought F.W.J. Schelling was the author. No one has read this book for errors. As always, any errors, mistakes or oversights etc. are mine alone. Given a couple more years, I could improve this book. This is a philosophical translation and not a philological translation. Martin Luther who did the famous early translation of the Bible into German wrote in a letter, “If anyone does not like my translation, they can ignore it… (September 15, 1530)”. There are no ‘correct’ translations. Some are just better than other translations. -/- The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism. The German title is: Das Älteste Systemprogramm Des Deutschen Idealismus. This title was made up by Franz Rosenzweig in 1917, when he first published the manuscript. He found the manuscript in the Royal Library in Berlin in 1913. The manuscript suggested date is around 1796 and was done by handwriting research. However, the manuscript is not dated. The Prussian State Library auctioned in March 1913 from the auction of the house Liepmannssohn in Berlin a single sheet on the front and back with Hegel's cursive handwriting. The manuscript was lost during WWII. But Dieter Henrich found it again in 1979 in the “Biblioteka Jagiellonska” in Krakow (Poland), where it is today. Address: Jagiellonian Library, Jagiellonian University, al. Mickiewicza 22, 30-059 Cracow, Poland. Later research suggests that manuscript had come from the estate of Hegel’s student Friedrich Christoph Förster (1791-1868). He was one of the editors of Hegel’s posthumous works and most likely had access to a number of Hegel’s manuscripts. This text actually being one of them. Hegel traveled around Bohemia with Marie and Friedrich Christoph Förster around the year 1820-21 (see Klaus Vieweg). -/- Philosophical mystery -- who is the author or authors of this text? -/- Take a plunge into the deep and cold waters. Maybe a quagmire or quandary, but decidedly interesting. This project is to contextualize an old handwritten manuscript which is about 225 years old. The actual author is a mystery. I offer my own assessment. You can make your own assessments. The mystery has continued to unfold since 1917. There is plenty to read. Otherwise, think about the authorship and read more of the German philosophers and authors from this period and enjoy the depth of thinking and philosophizing. On one hand, there is just the sheer fun in the puzzle of the authorship questions; and on the other hand, these are the alluring thoughts that lead to the nascent stage of German Idealism and our intellectual heritage. There is no end to the accolades for this group of philosophers. A heritage that we still hear in in our attempts to move forward into our future. -/- Do your own astute exegesis (ἐξήγησις) as all paths are still open. Let your thought take to the wings of what is called thinking with this text. Critical encounters (Auseinandersetzung, or a Gegenüberstellung) with at least: Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854), and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) --- starts here! German Idealism. We are not going to study this situation endlessly, instead we make some broad strokes and provide you a general context. You are allowed to read between the lines too. Goal: to understand the overall affinity and differences between the intellectuals of this period in German history; and to come to grips with this demanding text within its large scholarly context in the last 100 years. There are no final answers. (shrink)

Understanding community-level selection using Lewontin’s criteria requires both community-level inheritance and community-level heritability, and in the discipline of community and ecosystem genetics, these are often conflated. While there are existing studies that show the possibility of both, these studies impose community-level inheritance as a product of the experimental design. For this reason, these experiments provide only weak support for the existence of community-level selection in nature. By contrast, treating communities as interactors (in line with Hull’s replicator-interactor framework or Dawkins’s idea (...) of the “extended phenotype”) provides a more plausible and empirically supportable model for the role of ecological communities in the evolutionary process. (shrink)

Interactions between an intelligent software agent and a human user are ubiquitous in everyday situations such as access to information, entertainment, and purchases. In such interactions, the ISA mediates the user’s access to the content, or controls some other aspect of the user experience, and is not designed to be neutral about outcomes of user choices. Like human users, ISAs are driven by goals, make autonomous decisions, and can learn from experience. Using ideas from bounded rationality, we frame these interactions (...) as instances of an ISA whose reward depends on actions performed by the user. Such agents benefit by steering the user’s behaviour towards outcomes that maximise the ISA’s utility, which may or may not be aligned with that of the user. Video games, news recommendation aggregation engines, and fitness trackers can all be instances of this general case. Our analysis facilitates distinguishing various subcases of interaction, as well as second-order effects that might include the possibility for adaptive interfaces to induce behavioural addiction, and/or change in user belief. We present these types of interaction within a conceptual framework, and review current examples of persuasive technologies and the issues that arise from their use. We argue that the nature of the feedback commonly used by learning agents to update their models and subsequent decisions could steer the behaviour of human users away from what benefits them, and in a direction that can undermine autonomy and cause further disparity between actions and goals as exemplified by addictive and compulsive behaviour. We discuss some of the ethical, social and legal implications of this technology and argue that it can sometimes exploit and reinforce weaknesses in human beings. (shrink)

The article critically discusses Walton’s (and co-authors’) argument scheme approach to good argumentation. Four characteristics of Walton’s approach are presented: 1. Argument schemes provide normative requirements. 2. These schemata are enthymematic. 3. There are associated critical questions. 4. The method is inductive, abstracting schemata from groups of similar arguments. Four adequacy conditions are applied to these characteristics: AC1: effectiveness in achieving the epistemic goal of obtaining and communicating justified acceptable opinions; AC2: completeness in capturing the good argument types; AC3: efficiency (...) in achieving the goals; AC4: justification of the argument schemes. The discussion reveals weaknesses in Walton’s account, including they are neither effective nor truly justified. A better alternative is an epistemological approach based on epistemological principles. (shrink)

Satirical cartooning in Vietnam is subject to a complex dynamic: an increasingly liberalised and internationalised economy, and the rise of social media in a one-party state. This article examines what state-sanctioned satirical cartoons can reveal about the representation and management of political criticism in such a context. We find a growing trend of depicting corruption as a systemic problem, which is present in 45 per cent of the sample and in 70 per cent of the 20 most-viral cartoons in one (...) of Vietnam’s most popular magazines, Tuoi Tre Cuoi (Youth Humour). This trend can be interpreted as a change in the sensibility of audiences and a shift toward a more tolerant media landscape. The trend, however, may also be a worrying sign of the dual dangers of cynicism in Vietnamese politics: the development of apathy among audiences and the cynical use of art by authorities. Despite these concerns, we argue, political cartoons in Vietnam provide an important public avenue for collective political reflection and everyday social solidarity. (shrink)

It is common to cite the child’s “right to an open future” in discussions of how parents and the state may and should treat children. However, the right to an open future can only be useful in these discussions if we have some method for deriving the content of the right. In the paper in which he introduces the right to an open future Joel Feinberg seems to provide such a method: he derives the right from the content of adult (...) autonomy rights. In this paper I argue that his argument fails. If it is to give us guidance about the content of the child’s right to an open future, then the right should be interpreted as a right to a maximally open future. But this strong interpretation is unjustified: the arguments that can be found in Feinberg in favor of the right are invalid, and, in any case, this interpretation has implausible implications. A moderate interpretation of the right to an open future, according to which children have a right to acquire some reasonable range of skills and options, is more plausible. However, if a moderate interpretation is correct, there is not only no argument in Feinberg to support it, there is also no method for deriving the content of the right. Without such a method we have to bring in other moral considerations in order to work out the limits on parental discretion and what children are owed. The right to an open future then does no normative work. (shrink)

Nearly all defences of the agent-causal theory of free will portray the theory as a distinctively libertarian one — a theory that only libertarians have reason to accept. According to what I call ‘the standard argument for the agent-causal theory of free will’, the reason to embrace agent-causal libertarianism is that libertarians can solve the problem of enhanced control only if they furnish agents with the agent-causal power. In this way it is assumed that there is only reason to accept (...) the agent-causal theory if there is reason to accept libertarianism. I aim to refute this claim. I will argue that the reasons we have for endorsing the agent-causal theory of free will are nonpartisan. The real reason for going agent-causal has nothing to do with determinism or indeterminism, but rather with avoiding reductionism about agency and the self. As we will see, if there is reason for libertarians to accept the agent-causal theory, there is just as much reason for compatibilists to accept it. It is in this sense that I contend that if anyone should be an agent-causalist, then everyone should be an agent-causalist. (shrink)

The principle of the double effect is one of the most practical in the study of moral theology. As a principle it is important not so much in purely theoretical matters as in the application of theory to practical cases. It is especially necessary in the subject matter of scandal, material cooperation, illicit pleasure and of injury done to oneself or to another. Although it is a fundamental principle, it is far from a simple one; and moralists readily admit its (...) complexity. Moreover, it is not an inflexible rule or mathematical formula, but rather an efficient guide to prudent moral judgment in solving the more difficult cases. (shrink)

The theory of epistemic vigilance posits that -- to quote the eponymous paper that introduced the theory -- “humans have a suite of cognitive mechanisms for epistemic vigilance, targeted at the risk of being misinformed by others." Despite the widespread acceptance of the theory of epistemic vigilance, however, I argue that the theory is a poor fit with the evidence: while there is good reason to accept that people ARE vigilant, there is also good reason to believe that their vigilance (...) is NOT epistemic. Rather, the evidence actually supports an alternative theory, one that I dub the theory of "Machiavellian vigilance": humans have a suite of cognitive mechanisms for Machiavellian vigilance, targeted at tracking others' relative social status and maintaining or enhancing one's own status. The evidence against epistemic vigilance stems from three sources: (a) data demonstrating that people are terrible at detecting honesty or competence, (b) data demonstrating that our vigilance is phylogenetically prior to the development of homo sapiens, and therefore was not designed to be sensitive to linguistic communication, and (c) data demonstrating that people's sources of information are distributed, and not detectable through individual vigilance. The evidence in favor of Machiavellian vigilance is the mirror image of the evidence against epistemic vigilance: (a) data demonstrating that people are very accurate at detecting status, (b) data demonstrating that social species, including bonobos and chimps, track the social status of their conspecifics, and (c) data demonstrating that people can quickly track status even in new social groups. (shrink)

The paper develops a classificatory system of basic argument types on the basis of the epis-temological approach to argumentation. This approach has provided strict rules for several kinds of argu-ments. These kinds may be brought into a system of basic irreducible types, which rely on different parts of epistemology: deductive logic, probability theory, utility theory. The system reduces a huge mass of differ-ent argument schemes to basic types and gives them an epistemological foundation.

What is the connection between the way we represent time and things in time, on the one hand, and our capacity to remember particular past events, on the other? This is the substantive question that has stood behind the project of putting together this volume. The methodological assumption that has informed this project is that any progress with the difficult and fascinating set of issues that are raised by this question must draw on the resources of various areas both in (...) philos- ophy and in psychology. (shrink)

When people want to identify the causes of an event, assign credit or blame, or learn from their mistakes, they often reflect on how things could have gone differently. In this kind of reasoning, one considers a counterfactual world in which some events are different from their real-world counterparts and considers what else would have changed. Researchers have recently proposed several probabilistic models that aim to capture how people do (or should) reason about counterfactuals. We present a new model and (...) show that it accounts better for human inferences than several alternative models. Our model builds on the work of Pearl (2000), and extends his approach in a way that accommodates backtracking inferences and that acknowledges the difference between counterfactual interventions and counterfactual observations. We present six new experiments and analyze data from four experiments carried out by Rips (2010), and the results suggest that the new model provides an accurate account of both mean human judgments and the judgments of individuals. (shrink)

This paper considers whether victims can justify what appears to be unnecessary defensive harming by reference to an honour-based justification. I argue that such an account faces serious problems: the honour-based justification cannot permit, first, defensive harming, and second, substantial unnecessary harming. Finally, I suggest that, if the purpose of the honour based justification is expressive, an argument must be given to demonstrate why harming threateners, as opposed to opting for a non-harmful alternative, is the most effective means of affirming (...) one’s honour. Along the way, I also suggest why I think that internalism about the constraints on defensive harming (the view that the satisfaction of the necessity constraint is a necessity condition of a threatener’s liability) is correct. Most importantly, externalism implies that threateners can be liable to suffer gratuitous harm. I take this to be an unattractive consequence of the view. (shrink)

The article develops an internalist justification of welfare ethics based on empathy. It takes up Hume’s and Schopenhauer’s internalistic (but not consistently developed) justification approach via empathy, but tries to solve three of their problems: 1. the varying strength of empathy depending on the proximity to the object of empathy, 2. the unclear metaethical foundation, 3. the absence of a quantitative model of empathy strength. 1. As a solution to the first problem, the article proposes to limit the foundation of (...) welfare ethics to certain types of empathy. 2. In response to the second problem, an internalistic metaethical conception of the justification of moral principles is outlined, the result of which is: The moral value of the well-being of persons is identical to the expected extent of (positive and negative) empathy arising from this well-being. 3. The contribution to the solution of the third problem and focus of the article is an empirical model of the (subject’s) expected extent of empathy depending on (an object’s) well-being. According to this model, the extent of empathy is not proportional to the expected empathy, but follows a concave function and is therefore prioritarian. Accordingly, the article provides a sketch of an internalist justification of prioritarianism. (shrink)

This article proposes an empirical approach to understanding the life of an organism that overcomes reductionist and dualist approaches. The approach is based on Immanuel Kant’s analysis of the cognitive conditions required for the recognition of an organism: the concept of teleology and the assumption of a formative power of self-generation. It is analyzed how these two criteria are applied in the cognition of a developing organism. Using the example of a developmental series of a plant leaf, an active and (...) relational process between observer and developing organism is shown, within which the teleology and self-generating power of the organism can be empirically observed through the mental faculties of understanding and will. Furthermore, it is emphasized that, according to Kant, even physical objects are not readily given, but are actively constituted through the unification of sense perceptions with concepts. This Kantian mode of objectification facilitates cognition of the physical properties of an organism. It can be supplemented with a participatory and co-constitutive mode of realization, in which the life of the organism (its teleologically organizing and self-generating power) can become an object of empirical research. Furthermore, it is argued that the participatory mode also facilitates an expanded conception of nature that allows for the existence of living beings within it. Finally, an analogy to Goethe’s approach to the living organism is highlighted. In summary, it is stated that to understand life, one must consciously participate in it. (shrink)

Functional diversity holds the promise of understanding ecosystems in ways unattainable by taxonomic diversity studies. Underlying this promise is the intuition that investigating the diversity of what organisms actually do—i.e. their functional traits—within ecosystems will generate more reliable insights into the ways these ecosystems behave, compared to considering only species diversity. But this promise also rests on several conceptual and methodological—i.e. epistemic—assumptions that cut across various theories and domains of ecology. These assumptions should be clearly addressed, notably for the sake (...) of an effective comparison and integration across domains, and for assessing whether or not to use functional diversity approaches for developing ecological management strategies. The objective of this contribution is to identify and critically analyze the most salient of these assumptions. To this aim, we provide an “epistemic roadmap” that pinpoints these assumptions along a set of historical, conceptual, empirical, theoretical, and normative dimensions. (shrink)

Value capture occurs when an agent’s values are rich and subtle; they enter a social environment that presents simplified — typically quantified — versions of those values; and those simplified articulations come to dominate their practical reasoning. Examples include becoming motivated by FitBit’s step counts, Twitter Likes and Re-tweets, citation rates, ranked lists of best schools, and Grade Point Averages. We are vulnerable to value capture because of the competitive advantage that such crisp and clear expressions of value have in (...) our private reasoning and our public justification. There is, however, a price. In value capture, we take a central component of our autonomy — our ongoing deliberation over the exact articulation of our values — and we outsource it. And the metrics to which we outsource usually engineered for the interests of some external force, like a large-scale institution’s interest in cross-contextual comprehensibility and quick aggregability. That outsourcing cuts off one of the key benefits to personal deliberation. In value capture, we no longer adjust our values and their articulations in light of own rich experience of the world. Our values should often be carefully tailored to our particular selves or our small-scale communities, but in value capture, we buy our values off the rack. In some cases – like decreasing CO2 emissions – the costs of non-tailored values are outweighed by the benefit of precise collective coordination. In other cases, like in our aesthetic lives, they are not. This suggests that we should want different values suited to different scales. We should want value federalism. Some values are perhaps best pursued at the largest-scale level, others at smaller scales. The problem occurs when we exhibit an excess preference for the largest-scale values – when we consistently let the universal metrics swamp our quieter interests. (shrink)

In any field, we might expect different features relevant to its understanding and development to receive attention at different times, depending on the stage of that field’s growth and the interests that occupy theorists and even the history of the theorists themselves. In the relatively young life of argumentation theory, at least as it has formed a body of issues with identified research questions, attention has almost naturally been focused on the central concern of the field—arguments. Focus is also given (...) to the nature of arguers and the position of the evaluator, who is often seen as possessing a “God’s-eye view” (Hamblin 1970). Less attention, however, has been paid in the philosophical literature to the .. (shrink)

Belief storage is often modeled as having the structure of a single, unified web. This model of belief storage is attractive and widely assumed because it appears to provide an explanation of the flexibility of cognition and the complicated dynamics of belief revision. However, when one scrutinizes human cognition, one finds strong evidence against a unified web of belief and for a fragmented model of belief storage. Using the best available evidence from cognitive science, we develop this fragmented model into (...) a nascent theory of the cognitive architecture of belief storage. (shrink)

I proffer a success argument for classical logical consequence. I articulate in what sense that notion of consequence should be regarded as the privileged notion for metaphysical inquiry aimed at uncovering the fundamental nature of the world. Classical logic breeds necessitism. I use necessitism to produce problems for both ontological naturalism and atheism.

When it comes to social criticism of the economy, Critical Theory has thus far failed to discover specific immanent norms in that sphere of activity. In response, we propose that what is needed is to double down on the idealism of Critical Theory by taking seriously the sophisticated structure of agency developed in Hegel’s own account of freedom as self-determination. When we do so, we will see that the anti-metaphysical gestures of recent Critical Theory work in opposition to its attempts (...) to develop immanent critique. In this paper we first briefly reconsider Axel Honneth’s project as it concerns economic institutions and then respond by returning to the problem of freedom and articulating a view according to which the problem of individual self-determination and the problem of social production are the same problem seen from different angles. Then we present briefly Hegel’s own social theory from this perspective before moving on to trace the outlines of such a critical theory of contemporary capitalism. (shrink)

This paper will address Foucault’s analysis of the Hebrew and Christian pastor and argue that Foucault’s analysis of pastoral power in Security, Territory, Population neglects an important characteristic of the shepherd/pastor figure: violence. Despite Foucault’s close analysis of the early development of the Hebrew pastor, he overlooks the role of violence and instead focuses on sacrifice. However the sacrificial pastor does not figure in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Hebrew pastor is called to lead, feed and protect the flock, not sacrifice (...) for them. This is not to suggest that the theme of sacrifice is absent in the Hebrew Scriptures but that sacrifice is not a role attributed to the pastor until Jesus’ reinterpretation of the “good shepherd” in Chapter 10 of The Gospel of John.4 In distinguishing the Hebrew and Christian formulations of the pastor, the roles of violence and sacrifice in each can be understood more clearly. Beginning with the Hebrew Scriptures I will demonstrate the importance of violence in the figure of David as the first “shepherd of men”. I will argue that violence and the ability to protect the flock was a significant and determining characteristic of the Hebrew pastor. Contrary to Foucault’s assertion I will demonstrate that sacrifice was not a role attributed to the Hebrew pastor. While the words and life of Jesus provide a new sacrificial paradigm for understanding the “shepherd of men,” it is Paul who provides the foundation on which the practice of the Christian pastor is established in the Church. Therefore I will examine the writing of Paul to demonstrate the way violence operates in the Christian pastorate. I will argue that sacrifice does not replace violence but violence is subsumed in the sacrificial pastor and continues to operate. Finally I will suggest that the introduction of violence into Foucault’s analysis establishes a deeper connection between pastoral power and biopower. Thus, this connection engenders a richer understanding of the tension in Foucault’s work between care and violence in the poles of biopower: to make live and let die. (shrink)

In times of populist mistrust towards experts, it is important and the aim of the paper to ascertain the rationality of arguments from expert opinion and to reconstruct their rational foundations as well as to determine their limits. The foundational approach chosen is probabilistic. However, there are at least three correct probabilistic reconstructions of such argumentations: statistical inferences, Bayesian updating, and interpretive arguments. To solve this competition problem, the paper proposes a recourse to the arguments' justification strengths achievable in the (...) respective situation. (shrink)

We argue that there is a conflict among classical theism's commitments to divine simplicity, divine creative freedom, and omniscience. We start by defining key terms for the debate related to classical theism. Then we articulate a new argument, the Aloneness Argument, aiming to establish a conflict among these attributes. In broad outline, the argument proceeds as follows. Under classical theism, it's possible that God exists without anything apart from Him. Any knowledge God has in such a world would be wholly (...) intrinsic. But there are contingent truths in every world, including the world in which God exists alone. So, it's possible that God contingently has wholly intrinsic knowledge. But whatever is contingent and wholly intrinsic is an accident. So, God possibly has an accident. This is incompatible with classical theism. Finally, we consider and rebut several objections. (shrink)

We draw out significant consequences of a relatively popular theory of metaphysical modality—branching actualism—for cosmological arguments for God’s existence. According to branching actualism, every possible world shares an initial history with the actual world and diverges only because causal powers (or dispositions, or some such) are differentially exercised. We argue that branching actualism undergirds successful responses to two recent cosmological arguments: the Grim Reaper Kalam argument and a modal argument from contingency. We also argue that branching actualism affords a response (...) to one popular defense of the classic contingency argument. What results are new difficulties for several cosmological arguments arising from the metaphysics of modality. (shrink)

Let serious propositional contingentism (SPC) be the package of views which consists in (i) the thesis that propositions expressed by sentences featuring terms depend, for their existence, on the existence of the referents of those terms, (ii) serious actualism—the view that it is impossible for an object to exemplify a property and not exist—and (iii) contingentism—the view that it is at least possible that some thing might not have been something. SPC is popular and compelling. But what should we say (...) about possible worlds, if we accept SPC? Here, I first show that a natural view of possible worlds, well-represented in the literature, in conjunction with SPC is inadequate. Though I note various alternative ways of thinking about possible worlds in response to the first problem, I then outline a second more general problem—a master argument—which generally shows that any account of possible worlds meeting very minimal requirements will be inconsistent with compelling claims about _mere possibilia_ which the serious propositional contingentist should accept. (shrink)

This paper takes up David Kaplan's suggestion that the phenomenon of cognitive dynamics can be approached via a study of what it takes for someone to change her mind. It is argued that in order for a subject to be able to change her mind about something, there must be occasions on which the following is the case: (1) First, the subject believed of an 'x' that it was f, now she believes of 'x' that it is not-f. (2) She (...) stopped believing of 'x' that it was f before she started believing of 'x' that it was not-f. (3) She knows that (1) and (2). The first part of the investigation shows why (1) - (3) are necessary within an account of what it is for someone to change her mind. The second part focuses on condition (3) and argues that it entails that the sameness or difference of thought content over time must sometimes be an epistemic given, i.e., that the subject can know that a thought she entertains now is the same as a thought she entertained earlier. (shrink)

This paper argues that we should reject G. E. Moore’s anti-skeptical argument as it is presented in “Proof of an External World.” However, the reason I offer is different from traditional objections. A proper understanding of Moore’s “proof” requires paying attention to an important distinction between two forms of skepticism. I call these Ontological Skepticism and Epistemic Skepticism. The former is skepticism about the ontological status of fundamental reality, while the latter is skepticism about our empirical knowledge. Philosophers often assume (...) that Moore’s response to “external world skepticism” deals exclusively with the former, not the latter. But this is a mistake. I shall argue that Moore’s anti-skeptical argument targets an ontological form of skepticism. Thus, the conclusion is an ontological claim about fundamental reality, while the premises are epistemic claims. If this is correct, then the conclusion outstrips the scope of its premises and proves too much. (shrink)

Some critics of invasion biology have argued the invasion of ecosystems by nonindigenous species can create more valuable ecosystems. They consider invaded communities as more valuable because they potentially produce more ecosystem services. To establish that the introduction of nonindigenous species creates more valuable ecosystems, they defend that value is provisioned by ecosystem services. These services are derived from ecosystem productivity, the production and cycling of resources. Ecosystem productivity is a result of biodiversity, which is understood as local species richness. (...) Invasive species increase local species richness and, therefore, increase the conservation value of local ecosystems. These views are disseminating to the public via a series of popular science books. Conservationists must respond to these views, and I outline a method of rejecting such arguments against controlling invasive species. Ecological systems are valuable for more than local productivity and biodiversity is not accurately described by a local species count. (shrink)

It often seems incorrect to say that psychiatric conditions are diseases, and equally incorrect to say that they are not. This results in what would seem to be an unsatisfactory stalemate. The present essay examines the considerations that have brought us to such a stalemate in our discussions of autism. It argues that the stalemate in this particular case is a reflection of the fact that we need to find the logical space for a position that rejects both positive and (...) negative answers. It then suggests one way in which we might find such space, by applying Michael Dummett’s notion of semantic disharmony. (shrink)

The idea that payment for research participation can be coercive appears widespread among research ethics committee members, researchers, and regulatory bodies. Yet analysis of the concept of coercion by philosophers and bioethicists has mostly concluded that payment does not coerce, because coercion necessarily involves threats, not offers. In this article we aim to resolve this disagreement by distinguishing between two distinct but overlapping concepts of coercion. Consent-undermining coercion marks out certain actions as impermissible and certain agreements as unenforceable. By contrast, (...) coercion as subjection indicates a way in which someone’s interests can be partially set back in virtue of being subject to another’s foreign will. While offers of payment do not normally constitute consent-undermining coercion, they do sometimes constitute coercion as subjection. We offer an analysis of coercion as subjection and propose three possible practical responses to worries about the coerciveness of payment. (shrink)

Activist artists often face a difficult question: is striving to change the world undermined when pursued through difficult and experimental artistic means? Looking closely at Adrian Piper's 'Four Intruders plus Alarm Systems' (1980), I will consider why this is an important concern for activist art, and assess three different responses in relation to Piper’s work. What I call the conciliatory stance recommends that when activist artists encounter misunderstanding, they should downplay their experimental artistry in favor of fitting their work to (...) their audience's appreciative capacities. What I call the steadfast stance recommends that activist artists have reason to use their privilege of artistic exceptionalism to challenge their audience's expectations, even if this leads to misunderstanding. I claim that a middle position that I call liberal conciliation best balances the demands for actual change placed on activism and the experimental means that artists bring to activism. (shrink)

Nell'alto medioevo vi erano tre possibilità per il filosofo che volesse difendere l'esistenza degli universali: in primo luogo ante rem, seguendo la linea platonico-agostiniana degli universali trascendenti e questa è la via teologica; in secondo luogo la via post rem, cioè la via del concettualismo, conosciuta oggi come astrattismo, per cui gli universali sono il prodotto dell'astrazione della mente e questa è una via logica; la terza via è quella in re e difende gli universali immanenti che esistono negli universali (...) ed è una risposta ontologica. La seconda via fu difesa da Boezio nel secondo commento a Porfirio. La prima teoria è stata generalmente accettata da tutti i filosofi dell'alto medioevo eccetto Abelardo, mentre la terza via, quella degli universali immanenti, che ha come fonti antiche l'Isagoge di Porfirio e le Categoriae di Aristotele, fu difesa principalmente da quattro autori: Giovanni Scoto Eriugena, Anselmo d'Aosta, Odone di Cambrai e Guglielmo di Champeaux. L'A. prende in esame e confronta le soluzioni di Anselmo di Canterbury e Odone di Cambrai. (shrink)

I defend a new argument for causal finitism, the view that nothing can have an infinite causal history. I begin by defending a number of plausible metaphysical principles, after which I explore a host of novel variants of the Littlewood-Ross and Thomson’s Lamp paradoxes that violate such principles. I argue that causal finitism is the best solution to the paradoxes.

Much of the philosophical literature on causation has focused on the concept of actual causation, sometimes called token causation. In particular, it is this notion of actual causation that many philosophical theories of causation have attempted to capture.2 In this paper, we address the question: what purpose does this concept serve? As we shall see in the next section, one does not need this concept for purposes of prediction or rational deliberation. What then could the purpose be? We will argue (...) that one can gain an important clue here by looking at the ways in which causal judgments are shaped by people‘s understanding of norms. (shrink)

Modal collapse arguments are all the rage in certain philosophical circles as of late. The arguments purport to show that classical theism entails the absurdly fatalistic conclusion that everything exists necessarily. My first aim in this paper is bold: to put an end to action-based modal collapse arguments against classical theism. To accomplish this, I first articulate the ‘Simple Modal Collapse Argument’ and then characterize and defend Tomaszewski’s criticism thereof. Second, I critically examine Mullins’ new modal collapse argument formulated in (...) response to the aforementioned criticism. I argue that Mullins’ new argument does not succeed. Third, I critically examine a powers-based modal collapse argument against classical theism that has received much less attention in the literature. Fourth, I show why God’s being purely actual, as well God’s being identical to each of God’s acts, simply cannot entail modal collapse given indeterministic causation. This, I take it, signals the death of modal collapse arguments. But not all hope is lost for proponents of modal collapse arguments—for the death is a fruitful one insofar as it paves the way for new inquiry into at least two new potential problems for classical theism. Showing this is my paper’s second aim. (shrink)

How does the monitoring of a testifier's credibility by recipients of testimony bear upon the epistemic licence accruing to a recipient's belief in the testifier's communications? According to an intuitive and philosophically influential conception, licensed acceptance of testimony requires that recipients of testimony monitor testifiers with respect to their credibility. I argue that this conception, however, proves to be untenable when confronted with the wealth of empirical evidence bearing on the ways in which testifiers and their interlocutors actually interact.

James Henry Collin recently developed a new symmetry breaker favouring the ontological argument’s possibility premiss over that of the reverse ontological argument. The symmetry breaker amounts to an undercutting defeater for the reverse possibility premiss based on Kripkean cases of a posteriori necessity. I argue, however, that symmetry re-arises in two forms. First, I challenge the purported asymmetry in epistemic entitlements to the original and reverse possibility premisses. Second, relevantly similar Kripkean cases equally undercut the original possibility premiss.

Ectogestation involves the gestation of a fetus in an ex utero environment. The possibility of this technology raises a significant question for the abortion debate: Does a woman’s right to end her pregnancy entail that she has a right to the death of the fetus when ectogestation is possible? Some have argued that it does not Mathison & Davis. Others claim that, while a woman alone does not possess an individual right to the death of the fetus, the genetic parents (...) have a collective right to its death Räsänen. In this paper, I argue that the possibility of ectogestation will radically transform the problem of abortion. The argument that I defend purports to show that, even if it is not a person, there is no right to the death of a fetus that could be safely removed from a human womb and gestated in an artificial womb, because there are competent people who are willing to care for and raise the fetus as it grows into a person. Thus, given the possibility of ectogestation, the moral status of the fetus plays no substantial role in determining whether there is a right to its death. (shrink)

As autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) begin living in the home, performing service tasks and assisting with daily activities, their actions will have profound ethical implications. Consequently, AMRs need to be outfitted with the ability to act morally with regard to human life and safety. Yet, in the area of robotics where morality is a relevant field of endeavor (i.e. human-robot interaction) the sub-discipline of morality does not exist. In response, the Utilibot project seeks to provide a point of initiation for (...) the implementation of ethics in an AMR. The Utilibot is a decision-theoretic AMR guided by the utilitarian notion of the maximization of human well-being. The core ethical decision-making capacity of the Utilibot consists of two dynamic Bayesian networks that model human and environmental health, a dynamic decision network that accounts for decisions and utilities, and a Markov decision process (MDP) that decomposes the planning problem to solve for the optimal course of action to maximize human safety and well-being. (shrink)

Benardete paradoxes involve a beginningless set each member of which satisfies some predicate just in case no earlier member satisfies it. Such paradoxes have been wielded on behalf of arguments for the impossibility of an infinite past. These arguments often deploy patchwork principles in support of their key linking premise. Here I argue that patchwork principles fail to justify this key premise.

The paper argues that an account of understanding should take the form of a Carnapian explication and acknowledge that understanding comes in degrees. An explication of objectual understanding is defended, which helps to make sense of the cognitive achievements and goals of science. The explication combines a necessary condition with three evaluative dimensions: an epistemic agent understands a subject matter by means of a theory only if the agent commits herself sufficiently to the theory of the subject matter, and to (...) the degree that the agent grasps the theory (i.e., is able to make use of it), the theory answers to the facts and the agent’s commitment to the theory is justified. The threshold for outright attributions of understanding is determined contextually. The explication has descriptive as well as normative facets and allows for the possibility of understanding by means of non-explanatory (e.g., purely classificatory) theories. (shrink)

Serious actualism is the view that it is metaphysically impossible for an entity to have a property, or stand in a relation, and not exist. Fine (1985) and Pollock (1985) influentially argue that this view is false. In short, there are properties like the property of nonexistence, and it is metaphysically possible that some entity both exemplifies such a property and does not exist. I argue that such arguments are indeed successful against the standard formulation of serious actualism. However, I (...) also argue that we should distinguish a weaker formulation of serious actualism using the actualist distinction between truth in, and truth at, a possible world. This weaker formulation is then shown to be consistent with the existence and possible exemplification of properties like the property of nonexistence. I end with a novel argument for the truth of the weaker formulation. (shrink)

What is philosophy of science? Numerous manuals, anthologies or essays provide carefully reconstructed vantage points on the discipline that have been gained through expert and piecemeal historical analyses. In this paper, we address the question from a complementary perspective: we target the content of one major journal of the field—Philosophy of Science—and apply unsupervised text-mining methods to its complete corpus, from its start in 1934 until 2015. By running topic-modeling algorithms over the full-text corpus, we identified 126 key research topics (...) that span across 82 years. We also tracked their evolution and fluctuating significance over time in the journal articles. Our results concur with and document known and lesser-known episodes of the philosophy of science, including the rise and fall of logic and language-related topics, the relative stability of a metaphysical and ontological questioning (space and time, causation, natural kinds, realism), the significance of epistemological issues about the nature of scientific knowledge as well as the rise of a recent philosophy of biology and other trends. These analyses exemplify how computational text-mining methods can be used to provide an empirical large-scale and data-driven perspective on the history of philosophy of science that is complementary to other current historical approaches. (shrink)

Brauer (2022) has recently argued that if it is possible that there is nothing, then the correct modal logic for metaphysical modality cannot include D. Here, I argue that Brauer’s argument is unsuccessful; or at the very least significantly weaker than presented. First, I outline a simple argument for why it is not possible that there is nothing. I note that this argument has a well-known solution involving the distinction between truth in and truth at a possible world. However, I (...) then argue that once the semantics presupposed by Brauer’s argument is reformulated in terms of truth at a world, we have good reasons to think that a crucial semantic premise in Brauer’s argument should be rejected in favour of an alternative. Brauer’s argument is, however, no longer valid with this alternative premise. Thus, plausibly Brauer’s argument against D is only valid, if it is not sound. (shrink)

This paper explores the level of obligation called for by Milton Friedman’s classic essay “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits.” Several scholars have argued that Friedman asserts that businesses have no or minimal social duties beyond compliance with the law. This paper argues that this reading of Friedman does not give adequate weight to some claims that he makes and to their logical extensions. Throughout his article, Friedman emphasizes the values of freedom, respect for law, and duty. (...) The principle that a business professional should not infringe upon the liberty of other members of society can be used by business ethicists to ground a vigorous line of ethical analysis. Any practice, which has a negative externality that requires another party to take a significant loss without consent or compensation, can be seen as unethical. With Friedman’s framework, we can see how ethics can be seen as arising from the nature of business practice itself. Business involves an ethics in which we consider, work with, and respect strangers who are outside of traditional in-groups. (shrink)

This presentation is about an evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness linked to a human specific anxiety. It is a continuation of other works (2011 Book chapter, 2014 TSC Poster). AIM: Present a scenario describing an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness that introduces a human specific anxiety which is active in our human lives. METHOD: The scenario starts with our pre-human ancestors which were capable to manage representations and to partly identify with their conspecifics (Olds 2006, DeWaal 2008). These identifications brought our ancestors (...) to merge the representations of their conspecifics with the limited auto-representation of their own entity. The result was an auto-representation becoming about an entity existing in environment. This process is proposed as having progressively generated an ancestral form of self-consciousness as object and as subject. These identifications took place also with suffering conspecifics and have imposed to our ancestors a huge anxiety increase that had to be limited. Tools developed for that limitation (caring, collaboration, empathy, ToM, ...) have linked consciousness to anxiety management while also procuring evolutionary benefits. Human minds now contain an unconscious part of that ancestral anxiety that guides many of our mental states. RESULT: An evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness is made available as linked to a specific anxiety management that characterizes human minds. Continuations are introduced, some related to mental health. CONCLUSION: The proposed evolutionary scenario presents self-consciousness and a specific human anxiety as sharing a same evolutionary nature. This new source of anxiety needs more investigations. (shrink)