ABSTRACT: Abstract Most modern knowledge is not science. The physical sciences have successfully validated theories to infer they can be used universally to predict in previously unexperienced circumstances. According to the conventional conception of science such inferences are falsified by a single irregular outcome. And verification is by the scientific method which requires strict regularity of outcome and establishes cause and effect. -/- Medicine, medical research and many “soft” sciences are concerned with individual people in complex heterogeneous populations. These populations (...) cannot be tested to demonstrate strict regularity of outcome in every individual. Neither randomised controlled trials nor observational studies in medicine are science in the conventional conception. Establishing and using medical and other “soft science” theories cannot be scientific. It requires conceptually different means: requiring expert judgement applying all available evidence in the relevant available factual matrix. -/- The practice of medicine is observational. Prediction of outcomes for the individual requires professional expertise applying available medical knowledge and evidence. Expertise in any profession can only be acquired through experience. Prior cases are the fundament of knowledge and expertise in medicine. Case histories, studies and series can provide knowledge of extremely high reliability applicable to establishing reliable general theories and falsifying others. Their collation, study and analysis should be a priority in medicine. Their devaluation as evidence, the failure to apply their lessons, the devaluation of expert professional judgement and the attempt to emulate the scientific method are all historic errors in the theory and practice of modern medicine. (shrink)

People are motivated by shared social values that, when held with moral conviction, can serve as compelling mandates capable of facilitating support for ideological violence. The current study examined this dark side of morality by identifying specific cognitive and neural mechanisms associated with beliefs about the appropriateness of sociopolitical violence, and determining the extent to which the engagement of these mechanisms was predicted by moral convictions. Participants reported their moral convictions about a variety of sociopolitical issues prior to undergoing functional (...) MRI scanning. During scanning, they were asked to evaluate the appropriateness of violent protests that were ostensibly congruent or incongruent with their views about sociopolitical issues. Complementary univariate and multivariate analytical strategies comparing neural responses to congruent and incongruent violence identified neural mechanisms implicated in processing salience and in the encoding of subjective value. As predicted, neuro-hemodynamic response was modulated parametrically by individuals’ beliefs about the appropriateness of congruent relative to incongruent sociopolitical violence in ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and by moral conviction in ventral striatum. Overall moral conviction was predicted by neural response to congruent relative to incongruent violence in amygdala. Together, these findings indicate that moral conviction about sociopolitical issues serves to increase their subjective value, overriding natural aversion to interpersonal harm. (shrink)

Are people with flawed faces regarded as having flawed moral characters? An “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype is hypothesized to facilitate negative biases against people with facial anomalies (e.g., scars), but whether and how these biases affect behavior and brain functioning remain open questions. We examined responses to anomalous faces in the brain (using a visual oddball paradigm), behavior (in economic games), and attitudes. At the level of the brain, the amygdala demonstrated a specific neural response to anomalous faces—sensitive to disgust and a (...) lack of beauty but independent of responses to salience or arousal. At the level of behavior, people with anomalous faces were subjected to less prosociality from participants highest in socioeconomic status. At the level of attitudes, we replicated previously reported negative character evaluations made about individuals with facial anomalies, and further identified explicit biases directed against them as a group. Across these levels of organization, the specific amygdala response to facial anomalies correlated with stronger just-world beliefs (i.e., people get what they deserve), less dispositional empathic concern, and less prosociality toward people with facial anomalies. Characterizing the “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype at multiple levels of organization can reveal underappreciated psychological burdens shouldered by people who look different. (shrink)

Some stories of moral exemplars motivate us to emulate their admirable attitudes and behaviors, but why do some exemplars motivate us more than others? We systematically studied how motivation to emulate is influenced by the similarity between a reader and an exemplar in social or cultural background (Relatability) and how personally costly or demanding the exemplar’s actions are (Attainability). Study 1 found that university students reported more inspiration and related feelings after reading true stories about the good deeds of a (...) recent fellow alum, compared to a famous moral exemplar from decades past. Study 2A developed a battery of short moral exemplar stories that more systematically varied Relatability and Attainability, along with a set of non-moral exemplar stories for comparison. Studies 2B and 2C examined the path from the story type to relatively low stakes altruism (donating to charity and intentions to volunteer) through perceived attainability and relatability, as well as elevation and pleasantness. Together, our studies suggest that it is primarily the relatability of the moral exemplars, not the attainability of their actions, that inspires more prosocial motivation, at least regarding acts that help others at a relatively low cost to oneself. (shrink)

We chart how neuroscience and philosophy have together advanced our understanding of moral judgment with implications for when it goes well or poorly. The field initially focused on brain areas associated with reason versus emotion in the moral evaluations of sacrificial dilemmas. But new threads of research have studied a wider range of moral evaluations and how they relate to models of brain development and learning. By weaving these threads together, we are developing a better understanding of the neurobiology of (...) moral judgment in adulthood and to some extent in childhood and adolescence. Combined with rigorous evidence from psychology and careful philosophical analysis, neuroscientific evidence can even help shed light on the extent of moral knowledge and on ways to promote healthy moral development. (shrink)

Debate between the A- and B-theories has rested on the supposition that there is a clear difference between A- and B-time. I argue that this supposition is mistaken for two reasons. We cannot distinguish the two conceptions of time by means of Bergsonian intuition. Unless we can do so, we cannot distinguish them at all. I defend by imagining various ways to intuit the two kinds of time, and maintaining that none of them works. I defend by showing that the (...) issue is an experiential one, unlike metaphysical issues that are less connected to experience. My conclusion is that no progress will be made in the debate between the two theories until it becomes clear what the difference is between the two kinds of time. (shrink)

A theory of rationality is a theory that evaluates instances of reasoning as rational, irrational, or (ir)rational to some degree. Theories can be categorized as rule-based or consequentialist. Rule-based theories say that rational reasoning accords with certain rules (e.g., of logic or probability). Consequentialist theories say that rational reasoning tends to produce good consequences. For instance, the reliabilist takes rationality to be reasoning that tends to produce mostly true beliefs. The pragmatist takes it to be reasoning that tends to produce (...) mostly useful beliefs. This article reviews some of the features and the challenges of rule-based, reliabilist, and pragmatist theories of rationality. (shrink)

Investigators increasingly need high quality face photographs that they can use in service of their scholarly pursuits—whether serving as experimental stimuli or to benchmark face recognition algorithms. Up to now, an index of known face databases, their features, and how to access them has not been available. This absence has had at least two negative repercussions: First, without alternatives, some researchers may have used face databases that are widely known but not optimal for their research. Second, a reliance on databases (...) comprised only of young white faces will lead to science that isn't representative of all the people whose tax contributions, in many cases, make that research possible. The “Face Image Meta-Database” (fIMDb) provides researchers with the tools to find the face images best suited to their research, with filters to locate databases with people of a varied racial and ethnic backgrounds and ages. Problems of representation in face databases are not restricted to race and ethnicity or age – there is a dearth of databases with faces that have visible differences (e.g., scars, port wine stains, and cleft lip and palate). A well-characterized database is needed to support programmatic research into perceivers' attitudes, behaviors, and neural responses to anomalous faces. The “ChatLab Facial Anomaly Database” (CFAD) was constructed to fill this gap, with photographs of faces with visible differences of various types, etiologies, sizes, locations, and that depict individuals from various ethnic backgrounds and age groups. Both the fIMDb and CFAD are available from cliffordworkman[dot]com/resources/. (shrink)

People have an “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype whereby they make negative inferences about the moral character of people with craniofacial anomalies like scars. This stereotype is hypothesized to be a byproduct of adaptations for avoiding pathogens. However, evidence for the anomalous-is-bad stereotype comes from studies of European and North American populations; the byproduct hypothesis would predict universality of the stereotype. We presented 123 Hadza across ten camps pairs of morphed Hadza faces—each with one face altered to include a scar—and asked who they (...) expected to be more moral and a better forager. Hadza with minimal exposure to other cultures chose at chance for both questions. Hadza with greater exposure to other cultures, however, expected the scarred face to be less moral and a better forager. These results suggest the anomalous-is-bad stereotype may be culturally shared or learned erroneously through associations with population-level differences, providing evidence against a universal pathogen avoidance byproduct hypothesis. (shrink)

There is a middle ground of imperfect knowledge in fields like medicine and the social sciences. It stands between our day-to-day relatively certain knowledge obtained from ordinary basic observation of regularities in our world and our knowledge from well-validated theories in the physical sciences. -/- The latter enable reliable prediction a great deal of the time of the happening of events never before experienced. The former enable prediction only of what has happened before and beyond that of educated guesses which (...) may sometimes prove right and others not when we test them. -/- The imperfection of our knowledge between those limits is a consequence of complexity. -/- Reductionist empiricism fails when faced with complexity but we all still have to live in a complex world where reductionist science cannot help us devise reliable theories from which we can predict the behaviour of the world around us. We cannot predict reliably. We can only monitor actively and manage actively the world around us if we want to try to control our environment. We have a limited prediction horizon. -/- Science and empiricism work well if we want to send Voyager I and II over 3 billion miles away but not for most other things. -/- In medicine how and when to apply probabilistic, conjectural, incomplete medical theories and explanations requires professional expertise, intuition and judgement (non scientific knowledge) which is essential. Medical diagnosis is a skill of predicting from knowledge of what has happened before that the past will recur in the current patient applying expertise and intuition from knowledge and experience of prior cases and probabilistic medical research and theory. The physician is left to an educated guess as to how the future will develop for the particular individual patient the focus of his or her current attention. (shrink)

This exchange of correspondence with a critic provides helpful explanations of aspects of the paper "On Evidence, Medical and Legal" by the same authors.

Eyal Shahar’s essay review [1] of James Penston’s remarkable book [2] seems more inspired playful academic provocation than review or essay, expressing dramatic views of impossible validity. The account given of modern biostatistical causation reveals the slide from science into the intellectual confusion and non-science RCTs have created: “…. the purpose of medical research is to estimate the magnitude of the effect of a causal contrast, for example the probability ratio of a binary outcome …” But Shahar’s world is simultaneously (...) not probabilistic, but of absolute uncertainty: “We should have no confidence in any type of evidence ….. We should have no confidence at all”. Shahar’s "Causal contrast" is attractive. It seems to make sense, but bypasses in two words the means of establishing causation by the scientific method. This phrase assumes a numeric statistically significant “contrast” is causal rather than a potential correlation requiring further investigation. The concept of “causal contrast” is a slippery slope from sense into biostatistical non-science. This can be illustrated with an hypothetical RCT where 100% of interventions exhibit a posited treatment effect and 0% of placebo controls. Internal validity is seemingly quite reasonably assumed satisfied (common-sense dictating the likelihood of an awesome magnificent fraud, bias or plain error of the magnitude required is infinitesimal). Scientific method appears satisfied. The RCT demonstrates: (1) strict regularity of outcome in the presence of posited cause; (2) the absence of outcome in its absence and (3) an intervention (experiment) showing the direction of causation is from posited cause to posited effect. Now travel further down the slope from science. Assume 50% of interventions and 0% of controls are positive. We compromise scientific method, but justify this by assuming a large subgroup which we say surely must on these figures be exhibiting the posited treatment effect. But what of 10% of interventions and 9% of placebo controls exhibiting the posited treatment effect? Our biostatistician says the 1% “causal contrast” is statistically significant. But we have: (1) minimal evidence of regularity; (2) the posited outcome irrespective of presence of posited cause and (3) our intervention is at the highest equivocal in demonstrating any form of causation. This is not science. It is, however, where biostatistics has unthinkingly taken us, as Penston has shown comprehensively [2]. We, the audience of published medical research, are now for the 10% / 9% example well down the slope from science. An unattractive hypothesis results requiring numerous assumptions similar to these:- "There is a 'contrast' which is ‘causal’, albeit the method employed is not scientific. An effect of the intervention has been observed in a very small subgroup. This subgroup is susceptible to treatment. The similar number of placebo controls exhibiting the outcome sought is irrelevant, because the 1% difference between intervention and controls is statistically significant. The statistical analysis is valid and reliable. The RCT’s internal validity is sufficiently satisfied. No funding or bias or fraud has affected the results or their analysis.” As Penston notes: “Confirming and refuting the results of research is crucial to science …. But … there’s no way of testing the results of any particular large-scale RCT or epidemiological study. Each study … is left hanging in the air, unsupported.” It gets worse. To identify a rare serious adverse reaction of a frequency of 1:10,000 can require a trial of 200,000 or larger split between controls and interventions. This is not done. But for every 100 who prospectively benefit from the intervention, 9,900 also receive it. And for every 100 benefiting one person (who likely gains no benefit) will suffer a serious unidentified adverse reaction. This is also without taking account of more common adverse reactions whether serious or otherwise. References [1] Shahar, E. (2011) Research and medicine: human conjectures at every turn. International Journal of Person Centered Medicine 1 (2), 250-253. [2] Penston, J. (2010). stats.con: How we’ve been fooled by statistics-based research in medicine. London: The London Press, UK. (shrink)

The “scarred villain” trope, where facial differences like scars signify moral corruption, is ubiquitous in film (e.g., Batman’s The Joker). Strides by advocacy groups to undermine the trope, however, suggest cinematic representations of facial differences could be improving with time. This preregistered study characterized facial differences in film across cultures (US vs. India) and time (US: 1980-2019, India: 2000-2019). Top-grossing films by country and decade were screened for characters with facial differences. We found that the scarred villain trope has actually (...) worsened with time, although in tandem with progress in also representing non-villainous characters with facial anomalies. Country of origin did not predict the presence of facial differences in villains or heroes. “Action” and “fantasy” movies were the most likely genres to depict villains with facial differences. Finally, villains’ facial differences crossed more facial subunits and were more likely to involve lips, chin, and mandible than when present in heroes. Our findings underscore the need for critical reflection on the role of cultural practices—even when seemingly innocuous—in shaping and maintaining negative biases against already stigmatized groups. (shrink)

Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on W. K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief”. Published in Clifford, W.K. “L’ètica de la creença”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 129–150. // Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on William James’s “The Will to Believe”. Published in James, William. “La voluntat de creure”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 151–172. [Introductory study published in Oya, Alberto. “Introducció. El debat entre W. K. Clifford i (...) William James”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 123–127]. (shrink)

Background: This study tested the core tenets of how facial scars are perceived by characterizing layperson response to faces with scars. The authors predicted that scars closer to highly viewed structures of the face (i.e., upper lip and lower lid), scars aligned against resting facial tension lines, and scars in the middle of anatomical subunits of the face would be rated less favorably. Methods: -/- Volunteers aged 18 years and older from the United States were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (...) to complete a face rating survey. Scars were digitally added in different locations and orientations for a total of 14 unique scars added to each face. Each participant rated 50 different faces on confidence, friendliness, and attractiveness. Data were analyzed using linear mixed effects models. Results: -/- A total of 88,850 ratings [82,990 scarred (93.4 percent)] for attractiveness, friendliness, and confidence were analyzed. In univariate linear mixed effects models, the presence of a facial scar did not significantly impact attractiveness (β = 0.016, SE = 0.014, z = 1.089, p = 0.276). A second set of linear mixed effects models identified interactions between location, subunit placement, and orientation to facial tension lines. Scars located on the lower lid mid subunit perpendicular to facial tension lines were rated less attractive (β = −0.065, SE = 0.028, z = −2.293, p = 0.022). Conclusions: -/- On average, a single well-healed facial scar does not negatively affect first impressions of attractiveness, confidence, or friendliness. Specific scar location and orientation combinations, however, such as a perpendicular scar at the mid-lower eyelid, may result in lower perceived attractiveness, confidence, and friendliness. (shrink)

As a way to make medical decisions, Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) has failed. EBM's failure arises from not being founded on real-world decision-making. EBM aspires to a scientific standard for the best way to treat a disease and determine its cause, but it fails to recognise that the scientific method is inapplicable to medical and other real-world decision-making. EBM also wrongly assumes that evidence can be marshaled and applied according to an hierarchy that is determined in an argument by authority to (...) the method by which it has been obtained. If EBM had valid theoretical, practical or empirical foundations, there would be no hierarchy of evidence. In all real-world decision-making, evidence stands or falls on its inherent reliability. This has to be and can only be assessed on a case-by-case basis applying understanding and wisdom against the background of all available facts—the "factual matrix." EBM's failure is structural and was inevitable from its inception. EBM confuses the inherent reliability and probative value of evidence with the means by which it is obtained. -/- EBM is therefore an ad hoc construct and is not a valid basis for medical decision-making. This is further demonstrated by its exclusion of relevant scientific and probative real-world decision-making evidence and processes. It draws upon a narrow evidence base that is itself inherently unreliable. It fails to take adequate account of the nature of causation, the full range of evidence relevant to its determination, and differing approaches to determining cause and effect in real-world decision-making. EBM also makes a muddled attempt to emulate the scientific method and it does not acknowledge the role of experience, understanding and wisdom in making medical decisions. (shrink)

Background: Facial attractiveness influences our perceptions of others, with beautiful faces reaping societal rewards and anomalous faces encountering penalties. The purpose of this study was to determine associations of visual attention with bias and social dispositions toward people with facial anomalies. -/- Methods: Sixty subjects completed tests evaluating implicit bias, explicit bias, and social dispositions before viewing publicly available images of preoperative and postoperative patients with hemifacial microsomia. Eye-tracking was used to register visual fixations. -/- Results: Participants with higher implicit (...) bias scores fixated significantly less on the cheek and ear region preoperatively (P = 0.004). Participants with higher scores in empathic concern and perspective taking fixated more on the forehead and orbit preoperatively (P = 0.045) and nose and lips (P = 0.027) preoperativel. -/- Conclusions: Participants with higher levels of implicit bias spent less visual attention on anomalous facial anatomy, whereas participants with higher levels of empathic concern and perspective taking spent more visual attention on normal facial anatomy. Levels of bias and social dispositions such as empathy may predict layperson gaze patterns toward those with facial anomalies and provide insights to neural mechanisms underlying the "anomalous is bad" paradigm. (shrink)

Kants Musikästhetik wird weithin unterschätzt. Dabei bietet sie die entscheidenden Ansätze zur Befreiung der Musik aus den Fängen der Nachahmungsästhetik, wie sie vor allem E.T.A.Hoffman kongenial umgesetzt hat.

This short article provides a summary of Hannah Arendt's unique (though contentious) interpretation of Immanual Kant's political philosophy.

Medicine, like law, is a pragmatic, probabilistic activity. Both require that decisions be made on the basis of available evidence, within a limited time. In contrast to law, medicine, particularly evidence-based medicine as it is currently practiced, aspires to a scientific standard of proof, one that is more certain than the standards of proof courts apply in civil and criminal proceedings. But medicine, as Dr. William Osler put it, is an "art of probabilities," or at best, a "science of uncertainty." (...) One can better practice medicine by using other evidentiary standards in addition to the "scientific." To employ only the scientific standard of proof is inappropriate, if not impossible; furthermore, as this review will show, its application in medicine is fraught with bias. Evidence is information. It supports or undermines a proposition, whether a hypothesis in science, a diagnosis in medicine, or a fact or point in question in a legal investigation. In medicine, physicians marshal evidence to make decisions on how to best prevent, diagnose, and treat disease, and improve health. In law, courts decide the facts and render justice. Judges and juries assess evidence to establish liability, to settle custody and medical issues, and to determine a defendant's guilt or innocence. (shrink)

Background: Facial proportionality and symmetry are positively associated with perceived levels of facial attractiveness. -/- Objective: The aims of this study were to confirm and extend the association of proportionality with perceived levels of attractiveness and character traits and determine differences in attractiveness and character ratings between "anomalous" and "typical" faces using a large dataset. -/- Methods: Ratings of 597 unique individuals from the Chicago Face Database were used. A formula was developed as a proxy of relative horizontal proportionality, where (...) a proportionality score of "0" indicated perfect proportionality and more negative scores indicated less proportionality. Faces were categorized as "anomalous" or "typical" by 2 independent reviewers based on physical features. -/- Results: Across the ratings for all faces, Spearman correlations revealed greater proportionality was associated with attractiveness ( ρ = 0.292, P < 0.001) and trustworthiness ( ρ = 0.193, P < 0.001), while lesser proportionality was associated with impressions of anger (ρ = 0.132, P = 0.001), dominance (ρ = 0.259, P < 0.001), and threateningness ( ρ = 0.234, P < 0.001). Mann-Whitney U tests revealed the typical cohort had significantly higher levels of proportionality (-13.98 versus -15.14, P = 0.030) and ratings of attractiveness (3.39 versus 2.99, P < 0.001) and trustworthiness (3.48 versus 3.35, P < 0.001). -/- Conclusions: This study demonstrated that facial proportionality is not only significantly associated with higher ratings of attractiveness, but also associated with judgements of trustworthiness. Proportionality plays a role in evoking negative attributions of personality characteristics to people with facial anomalies. (shrink)

In this paper I will introduce a practical explication for the notion of expertise. At first, I motivate this attempt by taking a look on recent debates which display great disagreement about whether and how to define expertise in the first place. After that I will introduce the methodology of practical explications in the spirit of Edward Craig’s Knowledge and the state of nature along with some conditions of adequacy taken from ordinary and scientific language. This eventually culminates in the (...) respective explication of expertise according to which this term essentially refers to a certain kind of service-relation. This is why expertise should be considered as a predominantly social kind. This article will end up with a discussion of advantages and prima facie plausible objections against my account of expertise. (shrink)

This pre-registered study (osf[dot]io/b9g6v) tested the hypothesis that implicit biases towards people with visible facial differences, like scars and palsies, can be reduced through routine exposure to faces bearing such anomalous features. Participants’ implicit biases were measured before and after they completed one of two exposure interventions—to people with facial anomalies, or to people of color (POC). The interventions were delivered remotely using a custom mobile phone application and consisted of two sessions per day over 5 consecutive days. Each session (...) began with exposure to 10 face photographs (anomalous or POC) followed by another person’s face (anomalous or POC) presented alongside a moral exemplar story ostensibly about them. After receiving the anomalous faces intervention, implicit biases against anomalous faces were significantly reduced but implicit biases against POC were not affected. The POC intervention did not have a targeted effect on bias against people of color, instead reducing biases against both people with visible differences and POC. Reductions in implicit biases were positively associated with perspective taking ratings made during the intervention. These findings suggest that exposure to people with facial anomalies, especially exposure that elicits perspective taking, can reduce implicit biases towards them in a targeted fashion. (shrink)

A well-documented “beauty is good” stereotype is expressed in the expectation that physically attractive people have more positive characteristics. Recent evidence has also found that unattractive faces are associated with negative character inferences. Is what is good (bad) also beautiful (ugly)? Whether this conflation of aesthetic and moral values is bidirectional is not known. This study tested the hypothesis that complementary “good is beautiful” and “bad is ugly” stereotypes bias aesthetic judgments. Using highly controlled face stimuli, this preregistered study examined (...) whether moral character influences perceptions of attractiveness for different ages and sexes of faces. Compared to faces paired with nonmoral vignettes, those paired with prosocial vignettes were rated significantly more attractive, confident, and friendlier. The opposite pattern characterized faces paired with antisocial vignettes. A significant interaction between vignette type and the age of the face was detected for attractiveness. Moral transgressions affected attractiveness more negatively for younger than older faces. Sex-related differences were not detected. These results suggest information about moral character affects our judgments about facial attractiveness. Better (worse) people are considered more (less) attractive. These findings suggest that beliefs about moral goodness and physical beauty influence each other bidirectionally. (shrink)

How does aging affect facial attractiveness? We tested the hypothesis that people find older faces less attractive than younger faces, and furthermore, that these aging effects are modulated by the age and sex of the perceiver and by the specific kind of attractiveness judgment being made. Using empirical and computational network science methods, we confirmed that with increasing age, faces are perceived as less attractive. This effect was less pronounced in judgments made by older than younger and middle-aged perceivers, and (...) more pronounced by men (especially for female faces) than women. Attractive older faces were perceived as elegant more than beautiful or gorgeous. Furthermore, network analyses revealed that older faces were more similar in attractiveness and were segregated from younger faces. These results indicate that perceivers tend to process older faces categorically when making attractiveness judgments. Attractiveness is not a monolithic construct. It varies by age, sex, and the dimensions of attractiveness being judged. (shrink)

Public attitudes towards cognitive enhancement––e.g., using stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin to improve mental functioning––are mixed. Attitudes vary by context and prompt ethical concerns about fairness, obligation, and authenticity/character. While people may have strong views about the morality of cognitive enhancement, how these views are affected by the physical characteristics of enhancers is unknown. Visible facial anomalies (e.g., scars) bear negatively on perceptions of moral character. This pre-registered study (osf[dot]io/uaw6c/) tested the hypothesis that such negative biases against people with facial (...) anomalies extend to moral beliefs surrounding their use of cognitive enhancement. In an online survey, 941 participants made moral judgments in response to a vignette about a person who had to decide whether or not to enhance. The vignette was accompanied by a face photograph that ostensibly depicted the potential enhancer and either did or did not have visible anomalies. Participants then learned whether the person ultimately decided to enhance. Next, participants played a modified Trust Game with, they were told, the person from the photograph/vignette. Participants judged enhancement to be less fair and enhancers less authentic if they had facial anomalies, while effects on judgments of moral obligation and on behavior were not detected. These findings extend previous work showing that people with visible differences are subject to an “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype that has negative consequences for perceptions of their moral character. While anomalous faces were judged more harshly, these judgments did not appear to affect behavior. These results are discussed in relation to discrimination and policy. (shrink)

The interdisciplinary debate about the nature of expertise often conflates having expertise with either the individual possession of competences or a certain role ascription. In contrast to this, the paper attempts to demonstrate how different dimensions of expertise ascription are inextricably interwoven. As a result, a balanced account of expertise will be proposed that more accurately determines the closer relationship between the expert’s dispositions, their manifestations and the expert’s function. This finally results in an advanced understanding of expertise that views (...) someone as an expert only if she is undefeatedly disposed to fulfill a contextually salient service function adequately at the moment of assessment. (shrink)

I argue that free will and determinism are compatible, even when we take free will to require the ability to do otherwise and even when we interpret that ability modally, as the possibility of doing otherwise, and not just conditionally or dispositionally. My argument draws on a distinction between physical and agential possibility. Although in a deterministic world only one future sequence of events is physically possible for each state of the world, the more coarsely defined state of an agent (...) and his or her environment can be consistent with more than one such sequence, and thus different actions can be “agentially possible”. The agential perspective is supported by our best theories of human behaviour, and so we should take it at face value when we refer to what an agent can and cannot do. On the picture I defend, free will is not a physical phenomenon, but a higher-level one on a par with other higher-level phenomena such as agency and intentionality. (shrink)

Suppose that the members of a group each hold a rational set of judgments on some interconnected questions, and imagine that the group itself has to form a collective, rational set of judgments on those questions. How should it go about dealing with this task? We argue that the question raised is subject to a difficulty that has recently been noticed in discussion of the doctrinal paradox in jurisprudence. And we show that there is a general impossibility theorem that that (...) difficulty illustrates. Our paper describes this impossibility result and provides an exploration of its significance. The result naturally invites comparison with Kenneth Arrow's famous theorem (Arrow, 1963 and 1984; Sen, 1970) and we elaborate that comparison in a companion paper (List and Pettit, 2002). The paper is in four sections. The first section documents the need for various groups to aggregate its members' judgments; the second presents the discursive paradox; the third gives an informal statement of the more general impossibility result; the formal proof is presented in an appendix. The fourth section, finally, discusses some escape routes from that impossibility. (shrink)

The aim of this exploratory paper is to review an under-appreciated parallel between group agency and artificial intelligence. As both phenomena involve non-human goal-directed agents that can make a difference to the social world, they raise some similar moral and regulatory challenges, which require us to rethink some of our anthropocentric moral assumptions. Are humans always responsible for those entities’ actions, or could the entities bear responsibility themselves? Could the entities engage in normative reasoning? Could they even have rights and (...) a moral status? I will tentatively defend the (increasingly widely held) view that, under certain conditions, artificial intelligent systems, like corporate entities, might qualify as responsible moral agents and as holders of limited rights and legal personhood. I will further suggest that regulators should permit the use of autonomous artificial systems in high-stakes settings only if they are engineered to function as moral (not just intentional) agents and/or there is some liability-transfer arrangement in place. I will finally raise the possibility that if artificial systems ever became phenomenally conscious, there might be a case for extending a stronger moral status to them, but argue that, as of now, this remains very hypothetical. (shrink)

In this discussion paper, I argue that no theory of consciousness can simultaneously respect four initially plausible metaphysical claims – namely, “first-person realism”, “non-solipsism”, “non-fragmentation”, and “one world” – but that any three of the four claims are mutually consistent. So, theories of consciousness face a “quadrilemma”. Since it will be hard to achieve a consensus on which of the four claims to retain and which to give up, we arrive at a landscape of competing theories, all of which have (...) pros and cons. I will briefly indicate which kinds of theories correspond to the four horns of the quadrilemma. (shrink)

Humean reductionism about laws of nature appears to leave a central aspect of scientific practice unmotivated: If the world’s fundamental structure is exhausted by the actual distribution of non-modal properties and the laws of nature are merely efficient summaries of this distribution, then why does science posit laws that cover a wide range of non-actual circumstances? In this paper, we develop a new version of the Humean best systems account of laws based on the idea that laws need to organize (...) information in a way that maximizes their cognitive usefulness for creature like us. We argue that this account motivates scientific practice because the laws’ applicability to non-actual circumstances falls right out of their cognitive usefulness. (shrink)

This paper generalises the classical Condorcet jury theorem from majority voting over two options to plurality voting over multiple options. The paper further discusses the debate between epistemic and procedural democracy and situates its formal results in that debate. The paper finally compares a number of different social choice procedures for many-option choices in terms of their epistemic merits. An appendix explores the implications of some of the present mathematical results for the question of how probable majority cycles (as in (...) Condorcet's paradox) are in large electorates. (shrink)

The existence of group agents is relatively widely accepted. Examples are corporations, courts, NGOs, and even entire states. But should we also accept that there is such a thing as group consciousness? I give an overview of some of the key issues in this debate and sketch a tentative argument for the view that group agents lack phenomenal consciousness. In developing my argument, I draw on integrated information theory, a much-discussed theory of consciousness. I conclude by pointing out an implication (...) of my argument for the normative status of group agents. (shrink)

This paper sketches a new and somewhat heterodox metaphysical theory of consciousness: the “many-worlds theory”. It drops the assumption that all conscious subjects’ experiences are features of one and the same world and instead associates different subjects with different “first-personally centred worlds”. We can think of these as distinct “first-personal realizers” of a shared “third-personal world”, where the latter is supervenient, in a sense to be explained. This is combined with a form of modal realism, according to which different subjects’ (...) first-personally centred worlds are all real, though only one of them is present for each subject. The theory offers a novel way of capturing the irreducibly subjective nature of conscious experience without lapsing into solipsism. The paper also looks at some scientific theories of consciousness, such as integrated information theory, through the proposed lens and reconsiders the hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

Scientists and philosophers frequently speak about levels of description, levels of explanation, and ontological levels. In this paper, I propose a unified framework for modelling levels. I give a general definition of a system of levels and show that it can accommodate descriptive, explanatory, and ontological notions of levels. I further illustrate the usefulness of this framework by applying it to some salient philosophical questions: (1) Is there a linear hierarchy of levels, with a fundamental level at the bottom? And (...) what does the answer to this question imply for physicalism, the thesis that everything supervenes on the physical? (2) Are there emergent properties? (3) Are higher-level descriptions reducible to lower-level ones? (4) Can the relationship between normative and non-normative domains be viewed as one involving levels? Although I use the terminology of “levels”, the proposed framework can also represent “scales”, “domains”, or “subject matters”, where these are not linearly but only partially ordered by relations of supervenience or inclusion. (shrink)

It is often argued that higher-level special-science properties cannot be causally efficacious since the lower-level physical properties on which they supervene are doing all the causal work. This claim is usually derived from an exclusion principle stating that if a higher-level property F supervenes on a physical property F* that is causally sufficient for a property G, then F cannot cause G. We employ an account of causation as difference-making to show that the truth or falsity of this principle is (...) a contingent matter and derive necessary and sufficient conditions under which a version of it holds. We argue that one important instance of the principle, far from undermining non-reductive physicalism, actually supports the causal autonomy of certain higher-level properties. (shrink)

Political science is divided between methodological individualists, who seek to explain political phenomena by reference to individuals and their interactions, and holists (or nonreductionists), who consider some higher-level social entities or properties such as states, institutions, or cultures ontologically or causally significant. We propose a reconciliation between these two perspectives, building on related work in philosophy. After laying out a taxonomy of different variants of each view, we observe that (i) although political phenomena result from underlying individual attitudes and behavior, (...) individual-level descriptions do not always capture all explanatorily salient properties, and (ii) nonreductionistic explanations are mandated when social regularities are robust to changes in their individual-level realization. We characterize the dividing line between phenomena requiring nonreductionistic explanation and phenomena permitting individualistic explanation and give examples from the study of ethnic conflicts, social-network theory, and international-relations theory. (shrink)

We offer a new argument for the claim that there can be non-degenerate objective chance (“true randomness”) in a deterministic world. Using a formal model of the relationship between different levels of description of a system, we show how objective chance at a higher level can coexist with its absence at a lower level. Unlike previous arguments for the level-specificity of chance, our argument shows, in a precise sense, that higher-level chance does not collapse into epistemic probability, despite higher-level properties (...) supervening on lower-level ones. We show that the distinction between objective chance and epistemic probability can be drawn, and operationalized, at every level of description. There is, therefore, not a single distinction between objective and epistemic probability, but a family of such distinctions. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss a seemingly straightforward argument against physicalism which, despite being implicit in much of the philosophical debate about consciousness, has not received the attention it deserves (compared to other, better-known “epistemic”, “modal”, and “conceivability” arguments). This is the argument from the non-supervenience of the first-personal (and indexical) facts on the third-personal (and non-indexical) ones. This non-supervenience, together with the assumption that the physical facts (as conventionally understood) are third-personal, entails that some facts – (...) namely, first-personal, phenomenal ones – do not supervene on the physical facts. Unlike other arguments against physicalism, the first-personal argument, if successful, refutes not only physicalism but also other third-personal metaphysical pictures, including standard versions of dualism. (shrink)

Much recent philosophical work on social freedom focuses on whether freedom should be understood as non-interference, in the liberal tradition associated with Isaiah Berlin, or as non-domination, in the republican tradition revived by Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner. We defend a conception of freedom that lies between these two alternatives: freedom as independence. Like republican freedom, it demands the robust absence of relevant constraints on action. Unlike republican, and like liberal freedom, it is not moralized. We show that freedom as (...) independence retains the virtues of its liberal and republican counterparts while shedding their vices. Our aim is to put this conception of freedom more firmly on the map and to offer a novel perspective on the logical space in which different conceptions of freedom are located. (shrink)

A glance is enough for people to assign psychological attributes to another person. Attractiveness is associated with positive attributes contributing to the “beauty-is-good” stereotype. Here, we aimed to study the possibility of a similar but negative bias. Specifically, we asked if people with facial anomalies are associated with negative characteristics, and if so, what accounts for this association. We tested the hypothesis that biases against faces with scars and palsies arise because of negative stereotypes (less warmth and competence) and forms (...) of dehumanization (animalistic and mechanistic). Using well-controlled stimuli (i.e., photographs of real people before and after plastic surgery) and a wide range of faces to avoid race, age, and gender biases in facial perception, we found that anomalous faces were seen as less warm, competent, and were dehumanized (in both animalistic and mechanistic ways). Our study supports the “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype, and further exposes reasons for why faces with anomalies elicit more negative evaluations compared to the same faces before the surgery. (shrink)

The ``doctrinal paradox'' or ``discursive dilemma'' shows that propositionwise majority voting over the judgments held by multiple individuals on some interconnected propositions can lead to inconsistent collective judgments on these propositions. List and Pettit (2002) have proved that this paradox illustrates a more general impossibility theorem showing that there exists no aggregation procedure that generally produces consistent collective judgments and satisfies certain minimal conditions. Although the paradox and the theorem concern the aggregation of judgments rather than preferences, they invite comparison (...) with two established results on the aggregation of preferences: the Condorcet paradox and Arrow's impossibility theorem. We may ask whether the new impossibility theorem is a special case of Arrow's theorem, or whether there are interesting disanalogies between the two results. In this paper, we compare the two theorems, and show that they are not straightforward corollaries of each other. We further suggest that, while the framework of preference aggregation can be mapped into the framework of judgment aggregation, there exists no obvious reverse mapping. Finally, we address one particular minimal condition that is used in both theorems – an independence condition – and suggest that this condition points towards a unifying property underlying both impossibility results. (shrink)

Some moral theorists argue that innocent beneficiaries of wrongdoing may have special remedial duties to address the hardships suffered by the victims of the wrongdoing. These arguments generally aim to simply motivate the idea that being a beneficiary can provide an independent ground for charging agents with remedial duties to the victims of wrongdoing. Consequently, they have neglected contexts in which it is implausible to charge beneficiaries with remedial duties to the victims of wrongdoing, thereby failing to explore the limits (...) of the benefiting relation in detail. Our aim in this article is to identify a criterion to distinguish contexts in which innocent beneficiaries plausibly bear remedial duties to the victims of wrongdoing from those in which they do not. We argue that innocent beneficiaries incur special duties to the victims of wrongdoing if and only if receiving and retaining the benefits sustains wrongful harm. We develop this criterion by identifying and explicating two general modes of sustaining wrongful harm. We also show that our criterion offers a general explanation for why some innocent beneficiaries incur a special duty to the victims of wrongdoing while others do not. By sustaining wrongful harm, beneficiaries-with-duties contribute to wrongful harm, and we ordinarily have relatively stringent moral requirements against contributing to wrongful harm. On our account, innocently benefiting from wrongdoing _per se_ does not generate duties to the victims of wrongdoing. Rather, beneficiaries acquire such duties because their receipt and retention of the benefits of wrongdoing contribute to the persistence of the wrongful harm suffered by the victim. We conclude by showing that our proposed criterion also illuminates why there can be reasonable disagreement about whether beneficiaries have a duty to victims in some social contexts. (shrink)

Political theorists have offered many accounts of collective decision-making under pluralism. I discuss a key dimension on which such accounts differ: the importance assigned not only to the choices made but also to the reasons underlying those choices. On that dimension, different accounts lie in between two extremes. The ‘minimal liberal account’ holds that collective decisions should be made only on practical actions or policies and that underlying reasons should be kept private. The ‘comprehensive deliberative account’ stresses the importance of (...) giving reasons for collective decisions, where such reasons should also be collectively decided. I compare these two accounts on the basis of a formal model developed in the growing literature on the ‘discursive dilemma’ and ‘judgment aggregation’ and address several questions: What is the trade-off between the (minimal liberal) demand for reaching agreement on outcomes and the (comprehensive deliberative) demand for reason-giving? How large should the ‘sphere of public reason’ be? When do the decision procedures suggested by the two accounts agree and when not? How good are these procedures at truthtracking on factual matters? What strategic incentives do they generate for decision-makers? My discussion identifies what is at stake in the choice between minimal liberal and comprehensive deliberative accounts of collective decisionmaking, and sheds light not only on these two ideal-typical accounts themselves, but also on many characteristics that intermediate accounts share with them. (shrink)