A key source of support for the view that challenging people’s beliefs about free will may undermine moral behavior is two classic studies by Vohs and Schooler (2008). These authors reported that exposure to certain prompts suggesting that free will is an illusion increased cheating behavior. In the present paper, we report several attempts to replicate this influential and widely cited work. Over a series of five studies (sample sizes of N = 162, N = 283, N = 268, N (...) = 804, N = 982) (four preregistered) we tested the relationship between (1) anti-free-will prompts and free will beliefs and (2) free will beliefs and immoral behavior. Our primary task was to closely replicate the findings from Vohs and Schooler (2008) using the same or highly similar manipulations and measurements as the ones used in their original studies. Our efforts were largely unsuccessful. We suggest that manipulating free will beliefs in a robust way is more difficult than has been implied by prior work, and that the proposed link with immoral behavior may not be as consistent as previous work suggests. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the particular structure of the content of so-called generic memories, specifically of those of recurring events from one's past. This way of remembering has two central features that are in tension to each other: what is mentally represented is both rather specific as one is typically simulating a scene and sufficiently abstract as the represented scene stands for a series of similar former events. It will be argued that the phenomenon can be adequately described as a (...) mental state representing personal event prototypes. This description further allows to account for the dynamic process of remembering, in which, depending on the context, different forms of personal remembering may come to the fore. (shrink)

Observational learning can enhance the acquisition and performance quality of complex motor skills. While an extensive body of research has focused on the benefits of synchronous (i.e., concurrent physical practice) and non-synchronous (i.e., delayed physical practice) observational learning strategies, the question remains as to whether these approaches differentially influence performance outcomes. Accordingly, we investigate the differential outcomes of synchronous and non-synchronous observational training contexts using a novel dance sequence. Using multidimensional cross-recurrence quantification analysis, movement time-series were recorded for novice dancers (...) who either synchronised with (n = 22) or observed and then imitated (n = 20) an expert dancer. Participants performed a 16-count choreographed dance sequence for 20 trials assisted by the expert, followed by one final, unassisted performance trial. Although end-state performance did not significantly differ between synchronous and non-synchronous learners, a significant decline in performance quality from imitation to independent replication was shown for synchronous learners. A non-significant positive trend in performance accuracy was shown for non-synchronous learners. For all participants, better imitative performance across training trials led to better end-state performance, but only for the accuracy (and not timing) of movement reproduction. Collectively, the results suggest that synchronous learners came to rely on a realtime mapping process between visual input from the expert and their own visual and proprioceptive intrinsic feedback, to the detriment of learning. Thus, the act of synchronising alone does not ensure an appropriate training context for advanced sequence learning. (shrink)

This paper examines the soul-turning metaphor in Book 7 of Plato’s Republic. It argues that the failure to find a consistent reading of how the metaphor is used has contributed to a number of long-standing disagreements, especially concerning the more famous metaphor with which it is intertwined, the Cave allegory. A full reading of the metaphor, as it occurs throughout Book 7, is offered, with particularly close attention to what is one of the most difficult and stubbornly divisive passages in (...) Book 7, 532b6–d1. (shrink)

This paper defends a reading of eikasia—the lowest kind of cognition in the Divided Line—as a kind of empirical cognition that Plato appeals to when explaining, among other things, the origin of ethical error. The paper has two central claims. First, eikasia with respect to, for example, goodness or justice is not different in kind to eikasia with respect to purely sensory images like shadows and reflections: the only difference is that in the first case the sensory images include representations (...) of value properties. Second, eikasia is not the bare awareness of images or simply a label for an error (mistaking image for original) but a kind of empirical, image-confined cognition, and one that has an important part to play in characterising the cognitive abilities of the non-rational parts of the soul. (shrink)

This paper takes a detailed look at the Republic’s Divided Line analogy and considers how we should respond to its most contentious implication: that pistis and dianoia have the same degree of ‘clarity’ (σαφήνεια). It argues that we must take this implication at face value and that doing so allows us to better understand both the analogy and the nature of dianoia.

In book 10 of the Republic we find a new argument for the division of the soul. The argument’s structure is similar to the arguments in book 4 but, unlike those arguments, it centres on a purely cognitive conflict: believing and disbelieving the same thing, at the same time. The argument presents two interpretive difficulties. First, it assumes that a conflict between a belief and an appearance—e.g. disbelieving that a stick partially immersed in water is, as it appears, bent—entails a (...) conflict between beliefs. Prima facie, there is only one belief, the belief that contradicts the appearance. Second, it is unclear what parts of the soul Plato intends to divide between: some argue that it is, as in book 4, a partition between a rational and a non-rational part; others argue that it is a new partition between a higher and a lower subdivision of the rational part. This paper offers solutions to both difficulties through an analysis of what Plato means by φαινόμενα, ‘appearances’, and δόξαι, ‘beliefs’. It is argued, first, that the relevant appearances are entirely sensory but nonetheless sufficiently belief-like to (a) warrant being called δόξαι and (b) oppose, by themselves, our beliefs; there is no need for a third mental state, a belief that assents to the appearance. A second claim concerns a central line in the argument, 602e4–6, that has served as the primary evidence that the partition is within the rational part of the soul. Those who wish to avoid this conclusion generally resort to alternative, and less natural, translations of 602e4–6. It is argued that this is unnecessary: once we have correctly understood sensory appearances, we see that the standard translation of 602e4–6 in fact entails a division between a rational and a non-rational part of the soul. (shrink)

I offer a reading of the two conceptions of the good found in Plato’s Protagoras: the popular conception—‘the many’s’ conception—and Socrates’ conception. I pay particular attention to the three kinds of goods Socrates introduces: (a) bodily pleasures like food, drink, and sex; (b) instrumental goods like wealth, health, or power; and (c) virtuous actions like courageously going to war. My reading revises existing views about these goods in two ways. First, I argue that the many are only ‘hedonists’ in a (...) very attenuated sense. They do not value goods of kind (b) simply as means to pleasures of kind (a); rather, they have fundamentally different attitudes to (a) and (b). Second, the hedonism that Socrates’ defends includes a distinction between kinds of pleasures: (a) bodily pleasures and (c) the pleasures of virtuous actions. This distinction between kinds of pleasures—some that do and some that do not exert the ‘power of appearance’—allows Socrates to address one of the central beliefs in the popular conception of akrasia, namely that it involves a special kind of unruly desire: non-rational appetites for pleasures like food, drink, or sex. Socrates replaces the motivational push of non-rational appetites with the epistemic pull of the appearance of immediate pleasures like food, drink, and sex. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the translation of a line in Plato's description of the ‘greatest accusation’ against imitative poetry, Republic 606a3–b5. This line is pivotal in Plato's account of how poetry corrupts its audience and is one of the Republic's most complex and interesting applications of his partite psychology, but it is misconstrued in most recent translations, including the most widely used. I argue that an examination of the text and reflections on Platonic psychology settle the translation decisively.

Abortion is arguably the most controversial and divisive moral issue of modern times, but up until now the debate has taken place almost exclusively within a Western cultural, religious and philosophical context. For the past three decades in the West arguments both for and against abortion have been mounted by groups of all kinds, from religious fundamentalists to radical feminists and every shade of opinion in between. Rather than mutual understanding, however, the result has been the polarisation of opinion and (...) the deepening of entrenched positions. In the face of this deadlock a new perspective is urgently required. Buddhism is an ancient tradition which over the centuries has refined its distinctive beliefs and values in the course of a long interaction with the major cultures of Asia. As Buddhism continues to engage the attention of the West, the time is now opportune for its views on abortion to be heard. This is the first book to explore the abortion question from a range of Buddhist cultural and ethical perspectives. The approach is interdisciplinary and will be of relevance to those working in fields such as law, ethics, medicine, philosophy, religion, the social sciences and women's studies. (shrink)

Starting from the observation that there is a gap between knowledge of the environmental sciences and practical engagement, for example, in climate change or biodiversity loss, this article explores one possible explanation for this situation—namely, the process of objectification inherent in science. It then proposes to remedy the situation by defending the idea of a ‘first-person ecology’. This term refers to a field of research and practice that looks at the relationship between humans and nature from the point of view (...) of the embodied and situated nature of lived experience. The lived experience of nature at the heart of a first-person ecology is first studied from an epistemic perspective using the concept of recognition, inspired by the Frankfurt School philosopher and sociologist Axel Honneth. It is then approached from a phenomenological perspective, using the emerging field of ecospirituality to describe the characteristics of this experience. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of the ethical and conceptual relationship between free speech and press freedom. Many authors have argued that, despite there being some common ground between them, these two liberties should be treated as properly distinct, both theoretically and practically. The core of the argument, for this “unbundling” approach, is that conflating free speech and press freedom makes it too easy for reasonable democratic regulations on press freedom to be portrayed, by their opponents, as part of a (...) programme of illiberal censorship. While we acknowledge the important grain of truth in that argument, we try to show how the alternative, “unbundling” approach can also be used to undermine or mischaracterise democratically justifiable opposition to media regulations in despotic regimes. In light of the problems on both sides, we defend a contextually-variable account of the relation between these two liberties. (shrink)

Perceivers generally show a poor ability to detect changes, a condition referred to as “Change Blindness” . They are, in addition, “blind to their own blindness”. A common explanation of this “Change Blindness Blindness” is that it derives from an inadequate, “photographical” folk-theory about perception. This explanation, however, does not account for intra-individual variations of CBB across trials. Our study aims to explore an alternative theory, according to which participants base their self-evaluations on two activity-dependent cues, namely search time and (...) perceived success in prior trials. These cues were found to influence self-evaluation in two orthogonal ways: success-feedback influenced self-evaluation in a global, contextual way, presumably by recalibrating the norm of adequacy for the task. Search time influenced it in a local way, predicting the success of a given trial from its duration. (shrink)

Historically, laws and policies to criminalize drug use or possession were rooted in explicit racism, and they continue to wreak havoc on certain racialized communities. We are a group of bioethicists, drug experts, legal scholars, criminal justice researchers, sociologists, psychologists, and other allied professionals who have come together in support of a policy proposal that is evidence-based and ethically recommended. We call for the immediate decriminalization of all so-called recreational drugs and, ultimately, for their timely and appropriate legal regulation. We (...) also call for criminal convictions for nonviolent offenses pertaining to the use or possession of small quantities of such drugs to be expunged, and for those currently serving time for these offenses to be released. In effect, we call for an end to the “war on drugs.”. (shrink)

Slurring is a kind of hate speech that has various effects. Notable among these is variable offence. Slurs vary in offence across words, uses, and the reactions of audience members. Patterns of offence aren’t adequately explained by current theories. We propose an explanation based on the unjust power imbalance that a slur seeks to achieve. Our starting observation is that in discourse participants take on discourse roles. These are typically inherited from social roles, but only exist during a discourse. A (...) slurring act is a speech-act that alters the discourse roles of the target and speaker. By assigning discourse roles the speaker unjustly changes the power balance in the dialogue. This has a variety of effects on the target and audience. We show how these notions explain all three types of offence variation. We also briefly sketch how a role and power theory can help explain silencing and appropriation. Explanatory power lies in the fact that offence is correlated with the perceived unjustness of the power imbalance created. (shrink)

Forty years have passed since video-games were first made widely available to the public and subsequently playing games has become a favorite past-time for many. Players continuously engage with dynamic visual displays with success contingent on the time-pressured deployment, and flexible allocation, of attention as well as precise bimanual movements. Evidence to date suggests that both brief and extensive exposure to video-game play can result in a broad range of enhancements to various cognitive faculties that generalize beyond the original context. (...) Despite promise, video-game research is host to a number of methodological issues that require addressing before progress can be made in this area. Here an effort is made to consolidate the past 30 years of literature examining the effects of video-game play on cognitive faculties and, more recently, neural systems. Future work is required to identify the mechanism that allows the act of video-game play to generate such a broad range of generalized enhancements. (shrink)

The neutral and nearly neutral theories of molecular evolution are sometimes characterized as theories about drift alone, where drift is described solely as an outcome, rather than a process. We argue, however, that both selection and drift, as causal processes, are integral parts of both theories. However, the nearly neutral theory explicitly recognizes alleles and/or molecular substitutions that, while engaging in weakly selected causal processes, exhibit outcomes thought to be characteristic of random drift. A narrow focus on outcomes obscures the (...) significant role of weakly selected causal processes in the nearly neutral theory. (shrink)

The study’s goal was to provide an educational intervention in Algebra through GeoGebra that would boost students’ confidence, improve their learning, and correct their most minor mastered skills, allowing them to improve their Algebra performance. The research design was quasi-experimental, with 40 nonrandomly chosen participants comprising the GeoGebra and control groups. Mean and standard deviation was employed to describe the algebra performance and confidence of the respondents. At the same time, independent and dependent t-tests were used to determine the students’ (...) significant difference in algebra performance and confidence in the pre-and post-test between the control and GeoGebra groups. GeoGebra effectively improved algebra confidence, enhanced learning, and remedied the students’ least mastered skills. GeoGebra is recommended as an instructional material in teaching and learning Algebra and can be extended to other mathematics content areas. (shrink)

In this open peer commentary, we categorize the possible “neuroscience in national security” definitions of misuse of science and identify which, if any, are uniquely presented by advances in neuroscience. To define misuse, we first define what we would consider appropriate use: the application of reasonably safe and effective technology, based on valid and reliable scientific research, to serve a legitimate end. This definition presents distinct opportunities for assessing misuse: misuse is the application of invalid or unreliable science, or is (...) the use of reliable scientific methods to serve illegitimate ends. Ultimately, we conclude that while national security is often a politicized issue, assessing the state of scientific progress should not be. (shrink)

A gas in a box is perhaps the most important model system studied in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Usually, studies focus on the gas, whereas the box merely serves as an idealized confinement. The present article focuses on the box as the central object and develops a thermodynamic theory by treating the geometric degrees of freedom of the box as the degrees of freedom of a thermodynamic system. Applying standard mathematical methods to the thermody- namics of an empty box allows (...) equations with the same structure as those of cosmology and classical and quantum mechanics to be derived. The simple model system of an empty box is shown to have interesting connections to classical mechanics, special relativity, and quantum field theory. (shrink)

The precarious rights of senior citizens, especially those who are highly educated and who are expected to counsel and guide the younger generations, has stimulated the creation internationally of advocacy associations and opinion leader groups. The strength of these groups, however, varies from country to country. In some countries, they are supported and are the focus of intense interest; in others, they are practically ignored. For this is reason we believe that the creation of a network of all these associations (...) is essential. The proposed network would act as a support for the already-existing policies of the United Nations’ High Commission for Human Rights, of independent experts, and of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People. All three have long ago recommended the creation of a recognized instrument for uniting presently scattered efforts. The proposed network, therefore, will seek to promote the international exchange of relevant expertise, and it will reinforce the commitments and actions that single countries are currently taking to meet these objectives. For example, informative public events can be organised to promote particular support initiatives and to provide an opportunity for new members of the network to be presented. The network will promote health for senior citizens, disease prevention, senior mobility, safe free time for seniors, alimentary education, protection against new risks and dangers, as well as equity in the services necessary for seniors to adopt new information and communication technologies. In the case of retired academic members, the network will promote equality with respect to continuing use of digital technologies (particularly email), continuing access to research libraries, and the guaranteed ability for seniors to fund their own research programs and to deliver free seminars. (shrink)

Both short and long-term video-game play may result in superior performance on visual and attentional tasks. To further these findings, we compared the performance of experienced male video-game players (VGPs) and non-VGPs on a Simon-task. Experienced-VGPs began playing before the age of 10, had a minimum of 8 years of experience and a minimum play time of over 20 h per week over the past 6 months. Our results reveal a significantly reduced Simon-effect in experienced-VGPs relative to non-VGPs. However, this (...) was true only for the right-responses, which typically show a greater Simon-effect than left-responses. In addition, experienced-VGPs demonstrated significantly quicker reaction times and more balanced left-versus-right-hand performance than non-VGPs. Our results suggest that experienced-VGPs can resolve response-selection conflicts more rapidly for right-responses than non-VGPs, and this may in part be underpinned by improved bimanual motor control. (shrink)

Considerable recent research in neurosciences has dealt with the topic of consciousness, even though there is still disagreement about how to identify and classify conscious states. Recent behavioral work on the topic also exists. We survey recent behavioral and neuroscientific literature with the aims of commenting on strengths and weaknesses of the literature and mapping new directions and recommendations for experimental psychologists. We reconcile this literature with a view of human information processing (Cowan, 1988; Cowan et al., 2024) in which (...) a capacity-limited focus of attention is embedded within the activated portion of long-term memory, with dual bottom-up and top-down control of the focus of attention. None of the many extant theories fully captures what we propose as the organization of conscious thought at cognitive and neural levels. It seems clear that information from various cognitive functions, based on signals from various brain areas, is integrated into a conscious whole. In our new proposal, the integration involves funneling information to a hub or focus of attention neurally centered in the parietal lobes and functionally connected to areas representing the currently attended information. This funneling process (bringing information from diverse sensory and frontal sources to contact a small parietal area where attended information is coordinated and combined) may be the converse of global broadcasting, from other proposals (Baars et al., 2021; Baars & Franklin, 2003; Dehaene & Changeux, 2011). The proposed system incorporates many principles from previous research and theorization and strives toward a resolution of the relation between consciousness and attention. Keywords: consciousness, attention, embedded processes model, experimental psychology, neuroscience. (shrink)

As national and state health care policy -making becomes contentious and complex, there is a need for a forum to debate and explore public concerns and values in health care, give voice to local citizens, to facilitate consensus among various stakeholders, and provide feedback and direction to health care institutions and policy makers. This paper explores the role that regional health care ethics committees can play and provides two contrasting examples of Networks involved in facilitation of public input into and (...) the development of health care policies and adoption of state-wide practices. (shrink)

WikiSilo is a tool for theorizing across interdisciplinary fields such as Cognitive Science, and provides a vocabulary for talking about the problems of doing so. It can be used to demonstrate that a particular cognitive theory is complete and coherent at multiple levels of discourse, and commensurable with and relevant to a wider domain of cognition. WikiSilo is also a minimalist theory and methodology for effectively doing science. WikiSilo is simultaneously similar to and distinct, as well as integrated and separated (...) from Wikipedia™. This paper will introduce the advantages of WikiSilo for use in the Cognitive Sciences. (shrink)

In a recent study, we found a negative association between psychopathy and violence against genetic relatives. We interpreted this result as a form of nepotism and argued that it failed to support the hypothesis that psychopathy is a mental disorder, suggesting instead that it supports the hypothesis that psychopathy is an evolved life history strategy. This interpretation and subsequent arguments have been challenged in a number of ways. Here, we identify several misunderstandings regarding the harmful dysfunction definition of mental disorder (...) as it applies to psychopathy and regarding the meaning of nepotism. Furthermore, we examine the evidence provided by our critics that psychopathy is associated with other disorders, and we offer a comment on their alternative model of psychopathy. We conclude that there remains little evidence that psychopathy is the product of dysfunctional mechanisms. (shrink)

Je cherche à explorer comment l'expérience de la temporalité est multiforme et fortement perturbée à l'époque de la pandémie Covid-19 et des politiques de confinement, générant une expérience d'hétérochronie, qui remet en question notre rapport à la vie.

Je cherche à explorer comment l'expérience de la temporalité est multiforme et fortement perturbée à l'époque de la pandémie Covid-19 et des politiques de confinement, générant une expérience d'hétérochronie, qui remet en question notre rapport à la vie.

Le but de ce texte est de mettre en évidence les équi­valences entre la façon dont le concept de conatus résout, dans l'Éthique, le problème de l'unité modale complexe. en rendant consis­tant le concept de chose singulière en tant que celle-ci doit être consi­dérée comme un légitime sujet d'attribution d'états, et la façon dont ce même concept dessine le rapport cognitif de l'esprit avec lui-même, rapport par lequel l'esprit se saisit comme sujet de ses états et qui ca­ractérise la notion (...) moderne de subjectivité. Ainsi, en éclairant cet as­pect du concept spinoziste de chose singulière. on comprendra aussi, de façon indirecte, l'une des conditions par lesquelles les choses peuvent, dans la doctrine spinoziste, devenir des objets ou des signes pour la connaissance humaine. (shrink)

The question I want to explore is whether experience supports an antireductionist ontology of time, that is, whether we should take it to support an ontology that includes a primitive, monadic property of nowness responsible for the special feel of events in the present, and a relation of passage that events instantiate in virtue of literally passing from the future, to the present, and then into the past.

Due to the emergence of ICT in ELT sector, seasoned English teachers find it resistant to such a shift despite having a positive attitude towards its use. This quasi-experimental study aimed to examine the extent to which seasoned English language teachers developed their ICT skills through a Service-Learning Activity (SLA). Using a one-group pre- and post-test design, this study collected the data through a modified Needs Assessment Survey (NAS) distributed to fourteen purposively selected participants. It was administered to examine what (...) professional ICT development would greatly benefit them. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and themes according to the Service-Learning Activity (SLA) topics. A Post Evaluation Survey (PES) was administered, and its result was compared to the initial test. The results showed that the seasoned teachers gained significant learning gains in terms of (1) sharing of knowledge from other teachers; (2) being encouraged to use ICT tools; (3) training opportunities; (4) working with other colleagues; and 5) attending professional workshops which include SLA. However, this study unveiled that the English teachers had no significant difference in perceptions regarding the roles of computers in teaching before and after the intervention. Limitations and recommendations for future studies were discussed. (shrink)

Many hold that distributing healthcare according to medical need is a requirement of equality. Most egalitarians believe, however, that people ought to be equal on the whole, by some overall measure of well-being or life-prospects; it would be a massive coincidence if distributing healthcare according to medical need turned out to be an effective way of promoting equality overall. I argue that distributing healthcare according to medical need is important for reducing individuals' uncertainty surrounding their future medical needs. In other (...) words, distributing healthcare according to medical need is a natural feature of healthcare insurance; it is about indemnity, not equality. (shrink)

This paper is basically a presentation of the tenets of Pierre Bourdieu’s philosophy in a language and level that can be easily understood by Filipino students and scholars of philosophy, cultural studies and Philippine studies. The discussion of Bourdieu’s philosophy revolves around 1) his concepts of habitus, field and symbolic violence; 2) his critique of television; 3) his theory of capitals; 4) some implications of his theory of capitals; and 5) his being public intellectual. The ultimate aim of this paper (...) is to suggest some aspects and dimensions of Philippine society and culture that can be analyzed using some of bourdieu’s thoughts as interpretive frameworks, as well as to challenge the said Filipino students and scholars of philosophy, cultural studies and Philippine studies to creatively and effectively appropriate such theories for the enrichment of the theoretical corpus of Philippine studies. This paper is part of a series of similar works done by one of the co-authors that dealt with Adorno, Schleiermacher and Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer and Bultmann, and Lyotard. (shrink)

This discussion revises and extends Jonny Anomaly's ‘public goods’ account of public health ethics in light of recent criticism from Richard Dees. Public goods are goods that are both non-rival and non-excludable. What is significant about such goods is that they are not always provided efficiently by the market. Indeed, the state can sometimes realize efficiency gains either by supplying such goods directly or by compelling private purchase. But public goods are not the only goods that the market may fail (...) to provide efficiently. This point to a way of broadening the public goods account of public health to accommodate Dees' counterexamples, without abandoning its distinctive appeal. On the market failures approach to public health ethics, the role of public health is to correct public health-related market failures of all kinds, so far as possible. The underlying moral commitment is to economic efficiency in the sense of Pareto: if we can re-allocate resources in the economy so as to raise the welfare of some without lowering the welfare of any other, we ought to do so. (shrink)

Conscious but incapacitated patients need protection from both undertreatment and overtreatment, for they are exceptionally vulnerable, and dependent on others to act in their interests. In the United States, the law prioritizes autonomy over best interests in decision making. Yet U.S. courts, using both substituted judgment and best interests decision making standards, frequently prohibit the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from conscious but incapacitated patients, such as those in the minimally conscious state, even when ostensibly seeking to determine what patients would (...) have wanted. In the United Kingdom, under the Mental Capacity Act of 2005, courts decide on the best interests of incapacitated patients by, in part, taking into account the past wishes and values of the patient. This paper examines and compares those ethicolegal approaches to decision making on behalf of conscious but incapacitated patients. We argue for a limited interpretation of best interests such that the standard is properly used only when the preferences of a conscious, but incapacitated patient are unknown and unknowable. When patient preferences and values are known or can be reasonably inferred, using a holistic, all-things-considered substituted judgment standard respects patient autonomy. (shrink)

Commentary on Walsh, E. 2020. Cognitive transformation, dementia, and the moral weight of advance directives. The American Journal of Bioethics. 20(8): 54–64.

The genetic modification of pigs as a source of transplantable organs is one of several possible solutions to the chronic organ shortage. This paper describes existing ethical tensions in xenotransplantation (XTx) that argue against pursuing it. Recommendations for lifelong infectious disease surveillance and notification of close contacts of recipients are in tension with the rights of human research subjects. Parental/guardian consent for pediatric xenograft recipients is in tension with a child’s right to an open future. Individual consent to transplant is (...) in tension with public health threats that include zoonotic diseases. XTx amplifies concerns about justice in organ transplantation and could exacerbate existing inequities. The prevention of infectious disease in source animals is in tension with the best practices of animal care and animal welfare, requiring isolation, ethologically inappropriate housing, and invasive reproductive procedures that would severely impact the well-being of intelligent social creatures like pigs. (shrink)

I defend a one category ontology: an ontology that denies that we need more than one fundamental category to support the ontological structure of the world. Categorical fundamentality is understood in terms of the metaphysically prior, as that in which everything else in the world consists. One category ontologies are deeply appealing, because their ontological simplicity gives them an unmatched elegance and spareness. I’m a fan of a one category ontology that collapses the distinction between particular and property, replacing it (...) with a single fundamental category of intrinsic characters or qualities. We may describe the qualities as qualitative charactersor as modes, perhaps on the model of Aristotelian qualitative (nonsubstantial) kinds, and I will use the term “properties” interchangeably with “qualities”. The qualities are repeatable and reasonably sparse, although, as I discuss in section 2.6, there are empirical reasons that may suggest, depending on one’s preferred fundamental physical theory, that they include irreducibly intensive qualities. There are no uninstantiated qualities. I also assume that the fundamental qualitative natures are intrinsic, although physics may ultimately suggest that some of them are extrinsic. On my view, matter, concrete objects, abstract objects, and perhaps even spacetime are constructed from mereological fusions of qualities, so the world is simply a vast mixture of qualities, including polyadic properties (i.e., relations). This means that everything there is, including concrete objects like persons or stars, is a quality, a qualitative fusion, or a portion of the extended qualitative fusion that is the worldwhole. I call my view mereological bundle theory. (shrink)

Extant research on home literacy practices such as parental reading socialisation have demonstrated positive impacts on children in terms of academic performance. A particular aspect that sparks pedagogic importance is the scaffolding potential of reading at home to the learning of English language in non-native English Language contexts. This study aimed to examine the effects of mother’s involvement in home- reading sessions on students’ English reading skill performance in Bau, Sarawak. Prior to carrying out the intervention of reading at home (...) with their children, 31 mothers of Bidayuh ethnicity voluntarily attended a one-day workshop to orient them to the intervention and the use of logbooks to record details of their shared readings. However, only 18 mothers conducted reading sessions with their children and submitted a total of 21 logbooks detailing the frequency and material selection for reading. Their children, consisting of primary 1 to 4 students were required to sit for a pre-test and a post-test that measure their English language reading proficiency. The test scores were analysed using the paired-sample T-test. There was a significant increase in the students’ post-test scores following the reading intervention. The results revealed that despite the low frequency of mother-child shared reading sessions, the sessions positively affected the students’ reading performance. This finding suggests that parental reading socialisation can facilitate students’ literacy development. However, the use of materials in Bidayuh as a native language as opposed to Malay or English may increase the rural parents’ participation in home-literacy activities, and encourage early literacy in children. (shrink)

Darwinism, especially in the form of the Modern Synthesis, has become one of the most influential theories in the worldwide scientific community. However, due to its often dogmatic interpretation, it is more and more orthodoxical. An increasing number of scientists have come to criticise Darwinism and go beyond it with a systemic approach and an expanded vision of the evolutionary process. As a matter of fact, the discovery of natural genetic engineering mechanisms shows that living cells are able to rewrite (...) their own genetic material at the genomic level, thus leading to evolutionary innovations. This teleological standpoint triggers a paradigm shift that could turn out to be a genuine scientific revolution. (shrink)

It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it (...) would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices. (shrink)

Монографія "Проблеми та перспективи розвитку системи вищої освіти в сучасному суспільстві" присвячена висвітленню особливостей функціонування сучасної вищої освіти, що виникають під впливом сучасних викликів у VUCA-світі, а також – визначенню перспектив подальшого розвитку вищої освіти. Особливу увагу авторам монографії потрібно приділяти вивченню тих умов реформування вищої освіти, які забезпечать сталий та результативний розвиток майбутніх фахівців. Автори колективної монографії дослідили комплекс нагальних проблем вищої освіти в Україні та за кордоном; визначили шляхи їх вирішення в умовах сучасних викликів на тлі трансформаційних змін (...) у суспільстві. Це, у свою чергу, вплинуло на побудову логічної структури монографії. У першому розділі монографії "Врядування у системі вищої освіти України" висвітлено проблеми ефективного управління в сучасних університетах, а також перехід від управління до врядування у закладах вищої освіти та фактори, що сприяють цьому процесу. Розглянуто український досвід щодо участі студентів у діяльності університетів. У другому розділі "Розвиток потенціалу університетів: від теорії до практики" автори вивчають фактори, які впливають на розвиток ЗВО. Особлива увага приділяється вивченню розвитку наукового-педагогічного персоналу та впровадженню інноваційних технологій у розвиток працівників закладів вищої освіти. У третьому розділі «Забезпечення якості вищої освіти: європейський та український досвід» увагу авторів монографії зосереджено на вивченні сучасних підходів до оцінювання студентів та аналізі стейкхолдерів забезпечення якості системі вищої освіти в Україні та в ЄС. (shrink)

Philosophers of experiment have acknowledged that experiments are often more than mere hypothesis-tests, once thought to be an experiment's exclusive calling. Drawing on examples from contemporary biology, I make an additional amendment to our understanding of experiment by examining the way that `wide' instrumentation can, for reasons of efficiency, lead scientists away from traditional hypothesis-directed methods of experimentation and towards exploratory methods.

In his account of the individuation and creation of thinking in Difference and Repetition Gilles Deleuze claims that there belongs “an experience of death.” What does this mean and imply for an attempt to come to terms with Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism? The following article presents a reading that explores this question, arguing that Deleuze’s account of what it means to think has two aspects that must be understood in relation to each other. On the one hand, Deleuze’s ontology of intensive (...) difference involves an image of human individuation grounded upon a “death present in the living.” On the other hand, Deleuze writes that in the creation of “thinking in thought” there is an experience of death. Understanding the relation between the individuating aspect of death – as the emergence of the pure and empty form of time as the basis for representational thinking and judgement – and the experience of this individuating factor in the creation of thinking in thought, Deleuze’s claim can be made sense of and its centrality in his system clarified. When death as an individuating factor becomes experience, thinking is transmuted from dead representation to intensive life, and transcendental empiricism is operationalized. (shrink)

Rudolf Steiner conceived of his work as a ‘spiritual science’. In his book on the history of philosophy 'The Riddles of Philosophy', he writes that one can expect philosophy in the future to develop in the direction of a spiritual science. Hundred years after Steiner the question arises whether such a development can be seen. The following article explores this question on the basis of the work of Dr Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon. Ben-Aharon claims that in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze such (...) a development can be perceived. Taking Ben-Aharon’s work as point of departure, the article explores this claim by focusing on Steiner’s idea of a living death process constitutive of human consciousness and shows how this can be found also in Deleuze’s thinking. According to Steiner, what he terms an ‘imaginative cognition’ is related to the experience of this process. The notion of a spiritual science is then discussed with regard to the works of Deleuze and his co-author Félix Guattari and their notion of a ‘nomad’ science of intensity and the virtual. Ben-Aharon’s reading of Deleuze and Guattari is contextualized by Ben-Aharon’s own account of the creation of imaginative cognition. This shows how the idea of an immanent relation between life and death can be brought to bear on Deleuze and Guattari’s claim that philosophy creates a new virtuality. The article ends by outlining Ben-Aharon’s critique of Deleuze, pointing to a difference between Steiner’s spiritual science and Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy of impersonal intensive individuation without any identity. (shrink)

Moral reasoning traditionally distinguishes two types of evil: moral and natural. The standard view is that ME is the product of human agency and so includes phenomena such as war, torture and psychological cruelty; that NE is the product of nonhuman agency, and so includes natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, disease and famine; and finally, that more complex cases are appropriately analysed as a combination of ME and NE. Recently, as a result of developments in autonomous agents in cyberspace, (...) a new class of interesting and important examples of hybrid evil has come to light. In this paper, it is called artificial evil and a case is made for considering it to complement ME and NE to produce a more adequate taxonomy. By isolating the features that have led to the appearance of AE, cyberspace is characterised as a self-contained environment that forms the essential component in any foundation of the emerging field of Computer Ethics. It is argued that this goes some way towards providing a methodological explanation of why cyberspace is central to so many of CE’s concerns; and it is shown how notions of good and evil can be formulated in cyberspace. Of considerable interest is how the propensity for an agent’s action to be morally good or evil can be determined even in the absence of biologically sentient participants and thus allows artificial agents not only to perpetrate evil but conversely to ‘receive’ or ‘suffer from’ it. The thesis defended is that the notion of entropy structure, which encapsulates human value judgement concerning cyberspace in a formal mathematical definition, is sufficient to achieve this purpose and, moreover, that the concept of AE can be determined formally, by mathematical methods. A consequence of this approach is that the debate on whether CE should be considered unique, and hence developed as a Macroethics, may be viewed, constructively, in an alternative manner. The case is made that whilst CE issues are not uncontroversially unique, they are sufficiently novel to render inadequate the approach of standard Macroethics such as Utilitarianism and Deontologism and hence to prompt the search for a robust ethical theory that can deal with them successfully. The name Information Ethics is proposed for that theory. It is argued that the uniqueness of IE is justified by its being non-biologically biased and patient-oriented: IE is an Environmental Macroethics based on the concept of data entity rather than life. It follows that the novelty of CE issues such as AE can be appreciated properly because IE provides a new perspective. In light of the discussion provided in this paper, it is concluded that Computer Ethics is worthy of independent study because it requires its own application-specific knowledge and is capable of supporting a methodological foundation, Information Ethics. (shrink)

I argue that we can understand the de se by employing the subjective mode of presentation or, if one’s ontology permits it, by defending an abundant ontology of perspectival personal properties or facts. I do this in the context of a discussion of Cappelen and Dever’s recent criticisms of the de se. Then, I discuss the distinctive role of the first personal perspective in discussions about empathy, rational deference, and self-understanding, and develop a way to frame the problem of lacking (...) prospective access to your future self as a problem with your capacity to imaginatively empathize with your future selves. (shrink)

This chapter treats substantial self-knowledge – that is knowledge about our values, character, and dispositions – in relation to self-directed mindshaping mechanisms. In particular, I consider character trait self-attributions and how their mindshaping effects can be accounted for in terms of virtual social models proposed by Zawidzki and the agentialist framework defended by McGeer. I focus on cases of norm change and affective conflict to show how, in these cases, our mindshaping activities include self-ascriptions that have inferentialist and interpretative uses (...) – that is, that are based on inferences from our behavior and other evidence – as well as prescriptive functions. (shrink)