A capability approach has been proposed to risk analysis, where risk is conceptualized as the probability that capabilities are reduced. Capabilities refer to the genuine opportunities of individuals to achieve valuable doings and beings, such as being adequately nourished. Such doings and beings are called functionings. A current debate in risk analysis and other fields where a capability approach has been developed concerns whether capabilities or actual achieved functionings should be used. This paper argues that in risk analysis the consequences (...) of hazardous scenarios should be conceptualized in terms of capabilities, not achieved functionings. Furthermore, the paper proposes a method for assessing capabilities, which considers the levels of achieved functionings of other individuals with similar boundary conditions. The capability of an individual can then be captured statistically based on the variability of the achieved functionings over the considered population. (shrink)

This is a short introduction to a book symposium on Paul Gowder's recent book, _The Rule of Law in thee Real World_ (Cambridge University Press, 2016). The book symposium will appear in the St. Luis University Law Journal, 62 St. Louis U. L.J., -- (2018), with commentaries on Gowder's book by colleen Murphy, Robin West, Chad Flanders, and Matthew Lister, along with replies by Paul Gowder.

With her new book, The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice, Colleen Murphy has advanced novel, comprehensive and sophisticated philosophical accounts of both what severely conflict-ridden societies should be aiming for and how they should pursue it. Ultimately grounded on a prizing of rational agency, Murphy maintains that these societies, roughly, ought to strive for a stable and legitimate democratic polity committed to not repeating gross historical injustice and do so in ways that do right by victims. In (...) this article, I argue, contra Murphy, that achieving democratic rights to political participation should not be considered an essential aim of transitional justice, and that, in contrast, doing right by victims should be considered an essential aim of it, not merely an appropriate means to achieving other aims. In addition, I highlight an issue downplayed in Murphy’s book, namely, the need to make trade-offs amongst the aims of transitional justice, which becomes particularly pressing upon accepting that doing right by victims is one of them. (shrink)

Those who wish to defend the role of aesthetic values in science face a dilemma: Either aesthetic language is used metaphorically for what are ultimately epistemic features, or aesthetic language is used literally but it is difficult to see the importance of such values in science. I introduce a new account that gets around this problem by looking to an overlooked source of aesthetic value in science: the relation between form and content. I argue that a fit between the content (...) of a thought experiment, and the way in which that content is formulated, can have important epistemic pay offs through contributing to scientific understanding. (shrink)

Since the Supreme Court upheld the partial birth abortion ban in 2007, more U.S. abortion providers have begun performing intraamniotic digoxin injections prior to uterine dilation and evacuations. These injections can cause medical harm to abortion patients. Our objective is to perform an in-depth bioethical analysis of this procedure, which is performed mainly for the provider’s legal benefit despite potential medical consequences for the patient.

Is there a role for aesthetic judgements in science? One aspect of scientific practice, the use of thought experiments, has a clear aesthetic dimension. Thought experiments are creatively produced artefacts that are designed to engage the imagination. Comparisons have been made between scientific (and philosophical) thought experiments and other aesthetically appreciated objects. In particular, thought experiments are said to share qualities with literary fiction as they invite us to imagine a fictional scenario and often have a narrative form (Elgin 2014). (...) But philosophical discussions of aesthetics in science have focused mainly on the epistemic role of beauty and elegance when it comes to theories and mathematical proofs, and thought experiments have been widely overlooked. My aim in this chapter is to address how the aesthetic choices scientists make in the design of a thought experiment contribute to its function: to communicate, convince, or explain a theory or phenomenon. A key issue is whether any aesthetic features in science provide anything beyond catching our attention, or are at best, a mere heuristic aid. I respond to accounts that argue this way and show how formulation is important in scientific thought experiments and, similarly to literary fictions, there is more than one way of interpreting a thought experiment scenario. I end by considering which literary examples are most appropriate when making comparisons with thought experiments. As a result, the difference between representations in art and science raised in current discussions is not as stark as it has been made out to be, and science is a more heterogeneous practice than has been allowed. Part of the value of thought experiments in scientific practice includes the qualities they share with literary works. (shrink)

Emotional hardcore and other music genres featuring screamed vocals are puzzling for the appreciator. The typical fan attaches appreciative value to musical screams of emotional pain, all the while acknowledging it would be inappropriate to hold similar attitudes towards their sonically similar everyday counterpart: actual human screaming. Call this the screamed vocals problem. To solve the problem, I argue we must attend to the anti-sublimating aims that get expressed in the emotional hardcore vocalist’s choice to scream the lyrics. Screamed vocals (...) help us see the value in rejecting (a) restrictive social norms of emotional expressiveness and (b) restrictive artistic norms about how one ought to express or represent pain in art—namely that if one is going to do so, one must ensure the pain has been ‘beautified’. In developing this second point, I argue that emotional hardcore is well-suited (although not individually so) for putting pressure on longstanding views in the history of aesthetics about the formal relationship between art and human pain. (shrink)

This chapter begins by sketching an account of morally responsible agency and the general conditions under which it may fail. We discuss how far individuals with psychiatric diagnoses may be exempt from morally responsible agency in the way that infants are, with examples drawn from a sample of diagnoses intended to make dierent issues salient. We further discuss a recent proposal that clinicians may hold patients responsible without blaming them for their acts. We also consider cognitively impaired subjects in the (...) light of related issues in moral and political theory, asking whether they have been unjustly excluded from liberal conceptions of political community due to their presumed lack of agency. (shrink)

Historically left to the margins, the topics of imagination and creativity have gained prominence in philosophy of science, challenging the once dominant distinction between ‘context of discovery’ and ‘context of justification’. The aim of this chapter is to explore imagination and creativity starting from issues within contemporary philosophy of science, making connections to these topics in other domains along the way. It discusses the recent literature on the role of imagination in models and thought experiments, and their comparison with fictions. (...) It then turns to the importance of constraints on imaginings in the scientific domain, as well as whether constraints can hinder creativity. The second part of the paper focuses on the social dimensions of science. It considers imagination and creativity of scientific communities, asks whether the institution of science promotes creativity (and whether we want it to) or if it encourages conservativeness, and ends with a reflection on the politics of imagination and creativity in science. (shrink)

Ernest Sosa and others have proposed a safety condition on knowledge: If S knows p, then in the nearest (non-actual) worlds in which S believes p, p is true.1 Colloquially, this is the idea that knowing requires not being easily mistaken. Here, I will argue that like another condition requiring a counterfactual relation between a subject’s belief and the world, viz. Robert Nozick’s sensitivity condition, safety leads, in certain cases, to the unacceptable result that knowledge is not closed under known (...) implication. (shrink)

Under what conditions is a belief inferentially justified? A partial answer is found in Justification from Justification : a belief is inferentially justified only if all of the beliefs from which it is essentially inferred are justified. After reviewing some important features of JFJ, I offer a counterexample to it. Then I outline a positive suggestion for how to think about inferentially justified beliefs while still retaining a basing condition. I end by concluding that epistemologists need a model of inferentially (...) justified belief that is more permissive and more complex than JFJ. (shrink)

Researchers are working to derive sperm from banked testicular tissue taken from pre-pubertal boys who face therapies or injuries that destroy sperm production. Success in deriving sperm from this tissue will help to preserve the option for these boys to have genetically related children later in life. For the twin moral reasons of preserving access and equity in regard to having such children, clinicians and researchers are justified in offering the option to the parents of all affected boys. However, some (...) parents may wish to decline the option to bank tissue from their boys because the technique may seem too unfamiliar or unusual, but over time people may become more comfortable with the technique as they have done with other novel assisted reproductive treatments. Other parents may wish to decline the option because of moral or religious reasons. A prominent natural law theory holds, for example, that the ARTs that would be involved in using sperm derived from banked tissue to produce a child are morally objectionable. Some parents might not want to bank tissue in order to shield their son from using ARTs they see as objectionable. Clinicians and researchers should respect parents who wish to decline banking tissue, but parents should ordinarily embrace choices that protect the possible interests their sons may have as adult men, including the wish to have genetically related children. (shrink)

The value of extending the human lifespan remains a key philosophical debate in bioethics. In building a case against the extension of the species-typical human life, Nicolas Agar considers the prospect of transforming human beings near the end of their lives into Galapagos tortoises, which would then live on decades longer. A central question at stake in this transformation is the persistence of human consciousness as a condition of the value of the transformation. Agar entertains the idea that consciousness could (...) persist in some measure, but he thinks little is to be gained from the transformation because the experiences available to tortoises pale in comparison to those available to human beings. Moreover, he thinks persisting human consciousness and values would degrade over time, being remade by tortoise needs and environment. The value available in the transformation would not, then, make the additional years of life desirable. Agar’s account does not, however, dispose of the tortoise transformation as a defensible preference. Some people might still want this kind of transformation for symbolic reasons, but it would probably be better that no continuing human consciousness persist, since that consciousness would be inexpressible as such. Even so, it is not irrational to prefer various kinds of lifespan extension even if they involve significant modifications to human consciousness and values. (shrink)

The central claim of Schopenhauer’s account of human motivation is that ‘cognition is the medium of motives’. In light of motivation’s cognitively mediated structure, he contends that human beings are caused to act by ‘mere thoughts’, what he refers to metaphorically as ‘fine, invisible threads’. Despite this avowedly intellectualist handling of the subject, some commentators remain convinced that Schopenhauer is best read as accepting the ‘Humean truism’ that reason alone never motivates; rather, motivation always has its source in desire together (...) with instrumental belief (Young 1987). Here, I raise some doubts for the Humean reading by arguing that it does not take sufficient account of the transformative effects of cognitive mediation, effects which support cases of non-desiderative motivation. I argue in particular that Schopenhauer permits cases of motivation by the essentially cognitive states of imagination and recognition. Tracing this intellectualist strand in Schopenhauer’s view of motivation has two important results. First, it unmasks an important structural role for Besonnenheit (reflectiveness) in his account of practical agency, thereby revealing a unified thread running throughout his system; second, we alight on a possible ‘expressivist’ picture of his account of motivation, something it shares with his broader theory of action. (shrink)

A novel argument is offered against the following popular condition on inferential knowledge: a person inferentially knows a conclusion only if they know each of the claims from which they essentially inferred that conclusion. The epistemology of conditional proof reveals that we sometimes come to know conditionals by inferring them from assumptions rather than beliefs. Since knowledge requires belief, cases of knowing via conditional proof refute the popular knowledge from knowledge condition. It also suggests more radical cases against the condition (...) and it brings to light the under-recognized category of inferential basic knowledge. (shrink)

Conceivability is an important source of our beliefs about what is possible; inconceivability is an important source of our beliefs about what is impossible. What are the connections between the reliability of these sources? If one is reliable, does it follow that the other is also reliable? The central contention of this paper is that suitably qualified the reliability of inconceivability implies the reliability of conceivability, but the reliability of conceivability fails to imply the reliability of inconceivability.

We will be in a better position to evaluate some important skeptical theses if we first investigate two questions about justified suspended judgment. One question is this: when, if ever, does one justified suspension confer justification on another suspension? and the other is this: what is the structure of justified suspension? the goal of this essay is to make headway at answering these questions. After surveying the four main views about the non-normative nature of suspended judgment and offering a taxonomy (...) of the epistemic principles that might govern which suspended judgments are justified, I will isolate five important principles that might govern which suspended judgments are justified. I will call these suspension-to-suspension principles. I will then evaluate these principles by the lights of each of the four views about what suspensions are. I close by drawing some conclusions about the prospects for skepticism, the structure of justified suspended judgment, and the importance of theorizing about justified suspended judgment. (shrink)

There are no technologies at the present time that would allow parents to select the sexual orientation of their children. But what if there were? Some commentators believe that parents should be able to use those techniques so long as they are effective and safe. Others believe that these techniques are unethical because of the dangers they pose to homosexual men and women in general. Both sides point to motives and consequences when trying to analyse the ethics of this question. (...) These arguments are reviewed, and it is concluded that opponents of these technologies have not shown good reason why the law or policy should override parental choice in this matter. In general, therefore, if technologies become available to choose the sexual orientation of children, parents should be allowed to use them, provided they are safe and disrupt no interest of the child. This use will, at the very least, protect homosexual children from parents who do not want them, but it will also allow parents who want homosexual children to make that choice as well. (shrink)

Joseph Newhard (2017) argues that a libertarian anarchist society would be at a serious military disadvantage if it extended the nonaggression principle to include potential foreign invaders. He goes so far as to recommend cultivating the ability to launch a nuclear attack on foreign cities. In contrast, I argue that the free society would derive its strength from a total commitment to property rights and the protection of innocent life. Both theory and history suggest that a free society would be (...) capable of defending itself, and indeed that it would probably use other means to avoid military conflict altogether. (shrink)

In his recent book Bad Beliefs and Why They Happen to Good People, Neil Levy argues that conspiracy theories result from the same rational processes that underlie epistemic success. While we think many of Levy’s points are valuable, like his criticism of the myth of individual cognition and his emphasis on the importance of one’s social epistemic environment, we believe that his account overlooks some important aspects. We argue that social deference is an active process, and as such can be (...) helped or hindered by epistemic virtues and vices. With this in mind, holders of bad beliefs acquire more responsibility than is considered by Levy. (shrink)

This paper looks at an argument strategy for assessing the epistemic closure principle. This is the principle that says knowledge is closed under known entailment; or (roughly) if S knows p and S knows that p entails q, then S knows that q. The strategy in question looks to the individual conditions on knowledge to see if they are closed. According to one conjecture, if all the individual conditions are closed, then so too is knowledge. I give a deductive argument (...) for this conjecture. According to a second conjecture, if one (or more) condition is not closed, then neither is knowledge. I give an inductive argument for this conjecture. In sum, I defend the strategy by defending the claim that knowledge is closed if, and only if, all the conditions on knowledge are closed. After making my case, I look at what this means for the debate over whether knowledge is closed. (shrink)

In the heyday of linguistic philosophy an experimental philosophy movement was born, and this chapter tells its story, both in its historical and philosophical context and as it is connected to controversies about experimental philosophy today. From its humble beginnings at the Vienna Circle, the movement matured into a vibrant research program at Oslo, and sought adventure at Berkeley thereafter. The harsh and uncharitable reaction it met is surprising but understandable in light of disciplinary tensions and the legacy of antipsychologism—sentiments (...) and arguments which have reemerged today, albeit in modified form. Yet the research at Oslo remained unperturbed and it flourished in both its theory and its applications, which spanned the philosophical domain. The Berkeley years were short but intense, as exemplified by their engagement with ordinary-language philosophy, J.L. Austin, and the theory of communicative significance. (shrink)

What epistemic defect needs to show up in a skeptical scenario if it is to effectively target some belief? According to the false belief account, the targeted belief must be false in the skeptical scenario. According to the competing ignorance account, the targeted belief must fall short of being knowledge in the skeptical scenario. This paper argues for two claims. The first is that, contrary to what is often assumed, the ignorance account is superior to the false belief account. The (...) second is that the ignorance account ultimately hobbles the skeptic. It does so for two reasons. First, when this account is joined with either a closure-based skeptical argument or a skeptical underdetermination argument, the best the skeptic can do is show that we don’t know that we know. And second, the ignorance account directly implies the maligned KK principle. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article offers a novel sceptical argument that the sensitivity-contextualist must say is sound; moreover, she must say that the conclusion of this argument is true at ordinary standards. The view under scrutiny has it that in different contexts knowledge-attributing sentences express different propositions, propositions which differ in the stretch of worlds across which the subject is required to track the truth. I identify the underlying reason for the sceptical result and argue that it makes sensitivity-contextualism irremediably flawed. Contextualists, I (...) conclude, should abandon sensitivity for some other piece of epistemic machinery. (shrink)

ABSTRACT When patients refuse to receive medical treatment, the consequences of honouring their decisions can be tragic. This is no less true of patients who autonomously decide to refuse treatment. I distinguish three possible implications of these autonomous decisions. According to the Permissibility Claim, such a decision implies that it is permissible for the patient who has made the autonomous decision to forego medical treatment. According to the Anti‐Paternalism Claim, it follows that health‐care professionals are not morally permitted to treat (...) that patient. According to the Binding Claim it follows that these decisions are binding on health‐care professionals. My focus is the last claim. After arguing that it is importantly different from each of the first two claims, I give two arguments to show that it is false. One argument against the Binding Claim draws a comparison with cases in which patients autonomously choose perilous positive treatments. The other argument appeals to considered judgments about cases in which disincentives are used to deter patients from refusing sound treatments. (shrink)

This chapter corrects for Susan Sontag's undeserved neglect by contemporary ethical philosophers by bringing awareness to some of the unique metaethical insights born of her reflections on photographic representations of evil. I argue that Sontag's thought provides fertile ground for thinking about: (1) moral perception and its relation to moral knowledge; and (2) the epistemic and moral value of our emotional responses to the misery and suffering of others. I show that, contrary to standard moral perception theory (e.g. Blum 1994), (...) Sontag holds that we can have general moral perceptual knowledge. I then explore Sontag's idea that certain emotional responses, like sympathy and compassion, can sometimes be impertinent, in virtue of their having false or illusory content. I explain why this is so, and show the epistemic and motivational problems it poses for moral sentimentalism. (shrink)

Letheby’s book is an engaging and crystal-clear exploration of the philosophical issues raised by the use of psychedelic drugs. In this paper, we focus on the epistemological issues Letheby examines in chapter 8 and argue that his analysis requires an agency-first approach to epistemic evaluation. On an agency-first approach, epistemic evaluation is about identifying the skills agents needs to acquire in order to pursue and fulfil their epistemic goals.

This paper is about the nature of God’s pre-creation knowledge of possible creatures. I distinguish three theories: non-qualitative singularism, qualitative singularism, and qualitative generalism, which differ in terms of whether the relevant knowledge is qualitative or non-qualitative, and whether God has singular or merely general knowledge of creatures. My main aim is to argue that qualitative singularism does not depend on a version of the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles to the effect that, necessarily, qualitatively indiscernible individuals are identical. It (...) follows that qualitative singularism does not depend on the view that possible creatures categorically have qualitative individual essences. (shrink)

As effective altruists often point out affluent people can do great good for others without having to make significant self-sacrifices. What is the correct moral assessment of patterns of giving that bring about great good and yet carry little in the way of self-sacrifice? Here I will clarify this question, state why it is important, and argue for an answer to it. After sketching the intuitive category of the morally best acts, I argue that self-sacrifice is not a condition that (...) an act must meet to be among the morally best acts. I argue that self-sacrifice is instead a condition that agents must meet to be deserving of the highest praise. (shrink)

In an earlier paper, I presented a novel objection to closure-based skeptical arguments. There I argued that the best account of what makes skeptical scenarios effective cripples the closure-based skeptical arguments that use those scenarios. On behalf of the skeptic, Christopher Buford and Anthony Brueckner have replied to my objection. Here I review my original argument, criticize their replies, and highlight two important issues for further investigation.

Some parents have taken steps to ensure that they have deaf children, a choice that contrasts with the interest that other parents have in enhancing the traits of their children. Julian Savulescu has argued that, morally speaking, parents have a duty to use assisted reproductive technologies to give their children the best opportunity of the best life. This view extends beyond that which is actually required of parents, which is only that they give children reasonable opportunities to form and act (...) on a conception of a life that is good for them. Does the selection of deaf children violate that responsibility? Morally speaking, parents should refrain from using assisted reproductive treatments or prenatal interventions in order to have a child with a disability. Deafness and other disabilities represent intrinsic disadvantages that cannot be offset by other advantages that families and society can offer to people. By the same token, neither should parents seek enhancements of intelligence or physical traits that would undercut intrinsic goods of human life in similar ways. These moral arguments do not, however, sustain the judgment that the law should necessarily interfere with parents' decisions in these matters, even if those choices are morally unwise. (shrink)

The sensitivity condition on knowledge says that one knows that P only if one would not believe that P if P were false. Difficulties for this condition are now well documented. Keith DeRose has recently suggested a revised sensitivity condition that is designed to avoid some of these difficulties. We argue, however, that there are decisive objections to DeRose’s revised condition. Yet rather than simply abandoning his proposed condition, we uncover a rationale for its adoption, a rationale which suggests a (...) further revision that avoids our objections as well as others. The payoff is considerable: along the way to our revision, we learn lessons about the epistemic significance of certain explanatory relations, about how we ought to envisage epistemic closure principles, and about the epistemic significance of methods of belief formation. (shrink)

Some commentators argue that conception constitutes the onset of human personhood in a metaphysical sense. This threshold is usually invoked as the basis both for protecting zygotes and embryos from exposure to risks of death in clinical research and fertility medicine and for objecting to abortion, but it also has consequences for certain religious perspectives, including Catholicism whose doctrines directly engage questions of personhood and its meanings. Since more human zygotes and embryos are lost than survive to birth, conferral of (...) personhood on them would mean – for those believing in personal immortality – that these persons constitute the majority of people living immortally despite having had only the shortest of earthly lives. For those believing in resurrection, zygotes and embryos would also be restored to physical lives. These outcomes do not mean that conception cannot function as a metaphysical threshold of personhood, but this interpretation carries costs that others do not. For example, treating conception as a moral threshold of respect for human life in general, rather than as a metaphysical threshold of personhood, would obviate the prospect of the afterlife being populated in the main by persons who have never lived more than a few hours or days. (shrink)

The traditional way of drawing the a priori/a posteriori distinction, bequeathed to us by Kant, leads to overestimating the role that experience plays in justifying ourbeliefs. There is an irony in this: though Kant was in the rationalist camp, his way of drawing the distinction gives an unfair advantage to radical empiricism. I offer an alternative way of drawing the distinction, one that does not bias the rationalist/empiricist debate.

Granting that there could be true subjunctive conditionals of libertarian freedom (SCLs), I argue (roughly) that there could be such conditionals only in connection with individual "possible creatures" (in contrast to types). This implies that Molinism depends on the view that, prior to creation, God grasps possible creatures in their individuality. In making my case, I explore the notions of counterfactual implication (that relationship between antecedent and consequent of an SCL which consists in its truth) and counterfactual relevance (that feature (...) of an antecedent in virtue of which it counterfactually implies something or other). (shrink)

Bioconservative commentators argue that parents should not take steps to modify the genetics of their children even in the name of enhancement because of the damage they predict for values, identities and relationships. Some commentators have even said that adults should not modify themselves through genetic interventions. One commentator worries that genetic modifications chosen by adults for themselves will undermine moral agency, lead to less valuable experiences and fracture people's sense of self. These worries are not justified, however, since the (...) effects of modification will not undo moral agency as such. Adults can still have valuable experiences, even if some prior choices no longer seem meaningful. Changes at the genetic level will not always, either, alienate people from their own sense of self. On the contrary, genetic modifications can help amplify choice, enrich lives and consolidate identities. Ultimately, there is no moral requirement that people value their contingent genetic endowment to the exclusion of changes important to them in their future genetic identities. Through weighing risks and benefits, adults also have the power to consent to—and assume the risks of—genetic modifications for themselves in a way not possible in prenatal genetic interventions. (shrink)

This paper discusses the representation and explanation of relationships between phenomena that are important in psychiatric contexts. After a general discussion of complexity in the philosophy of science, I distinguish zooming-out approaches from zooming-in approaches. Zooming-out has to do with seeing complex mental illnesses as abstract models for the purposes of both explanation and reduction. Zooming-in involves breaking complex mental illnesses into simple components and trying to explain those components independently in terms of specific causes. Connections between existing practice and (...) zooming-out are drawn, and zooming-in is criticised. (shrink)

Anja Karnein has suggested that because of the importance of respect for persons, law and policy should require some human embryos created in vitro to be available for adoption for a period of time. If no one comes forward to adopt the embryos during that time, they may be destroyed (in the case of embryos left over from fertility medicine) or used in research (in the case of embryos created for that purpose or left over from fertility medicine). This adoption (...) option would increase the number of embryos available for couples looking for help in having children, but that effect is less important—Karnein argues—than the observance of respect for human persons. As possible persons, she holds that embryos ought to be treated, as if they will become children, if only for a while. If enacted as a matter of law and policy, an ‘adoption option’ would wrongly interfere with the dispositional rights women and men ought to have over embryos they create in the course of trying to have children. Karnein's proposal would also deprive researchers of certainty that the embryos they create for research would actually be available that way, leading to increased burdens of time and money and maybe even to more embryos than would otherwise be produced. Karnein's analysis does not show, moreover, that any duty of rescue applies to embryos. No woman is required to adopt any embryo, which significantly undercuts the justification for an obligatory adoption period. (shrink)

This paper argues that the disagreement between positivists and nonpositivists about law is substantive rather than merely verbal, but that the depth and persistence of the disagreement about law, unlike for the case of morality, threatens skepticism about law. The range of considerations that can be brought to bear to help resolve moral disagreements is broader than is the case for law, thus improving the prospects of reconciliation in morality. But the central argument of the paper is that law, unlike (...) morality, is a concept-dependent social kind, in the sense that law cannot exist in a society without someone in that society having the concept of law. Since the existence of the social kind law is largely dependent on the existence of the corresponding concept, when different actors have different concepts, they can end up creating different kinds. Hence, the difference between positivists and nonpositivists is not just a conceptual one but is capable of giving rise to different legal norms. (shrink)

The history of psychiatry does not inspire confidence, even among psychiatrists, and there has always been a cottage industry in medicine and psychology that wrestles with various conceptual problems around mental illness. It’s arguable that philosophers of science have not paid enough attention to this literature. Even if you aren’t interested in psychiatry, you might profit from the debates in psychometrics on the measurement of mental constructs, or look at the arguments over causation, reduction, and explanation that psychiatrists fight out (...) among themselves, increasingly with some philosophical input. Kenneth Kendler is a major contributor to this literature as theorist, experimentalist, and (via his role in the DSM) institution-builder and gatekeeper. He stands out too for his willingness to engage and learn from philosophy; and also to teach, for many of us can vouch to learning a lot about psychiatry from Kendler’s willingness to collaborate with philosophers and integrate the two communities. So it is a great pleasure to have a selection of Kendler’s papers assembled in one place. The essays in this volume cover a variety of conceptual issues in psychiatry, together with some historical material looking at the recent development of biomedical psychiatry. The most notable historical piece is the chapter on the origins of the Fechner criteria for validation of diagnoses, which had an enormous impact on the development of biological psychiatry in the 1970s. This collection covers many issues, and we won’t try to discuss everything, instead opting for one or two main issues that we think philosophers of science will be especially interested in. But there is something here for almost everyone in philosophy of science, and we urge them to look at this volume even if psychiatry is not on their normal reading list. (shrink)

This note evaluates the claim of Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature that the advent of strong states led to a decline in violence. I test this claim in the modern context, measuring the effect of the strength of government in lower-income countries on reductions in homicide rates. The strength of government is measured using Polity IV, Worldwide Governance Indicators, and government consumption as a percentage of GDP. The data do not support Pinker’s hypothesis.