We describe on-going work on IAO-Intel, an information artifact ontology developed as part of a suite of ontologies designed to support the needs of the US Army intelligence community within the framework of the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS-A). IAO-Intel provides a controlled, structured vocabulary for the consistent formulation of metadata about documents, images, emails and other carriers of information. It will provide a resource for uniform explication of the terms used in multiple existing military dictionaries, thesauri and metadata registries, (...) thereby enhancing the degree to which the content formulated with their aid will be available to computational reasoning. (shrink)

This review article provides a new perspective on the ethics of green nudging. We advance a new model for assessing the ethical permissibility of green nudges (GNs). On this model, which provides normative guidance for policymakers, a GN is ethically permissible when the intervention is (1) efficacious, (2) cost-effective, and (3) the advantages of the GN (i.e. reducing the environmental harm) are not outweighed by countervailing costs/harms (i.e. for nudgees). While traditional ethical objections to nudges (paternalism, etc.) remain potential normative (...) costs associated with GNs, any such costs must be weighed against the injunction to reduce environmental harm to third parties. (shrink)

We address the ethics of scenarios in which one party entraps, intentionally tempts or intentionally tests the virtue of another. We classify, in a new manner, three distinct types of acts that are of concern, namely acts of entrapment, of intentional temptation and of virtue testing. Our classification is, for each kind of scenario, of itself neutral concerning the question whether the agent acts permissibly. We explain why acts of entrapment are more ethically objectionable than like acts of intentional temptation (...) and why these, in turn, are more ethically objectionable than like acts of virtue testing. Along the way, we scrutinize, and eventually reject, the view that acts of entrapment are ethically unacceptable because intentional temptation is involved in entrapment. (shrink)

There is a global shortage of organs for transplantation and despite many governments making significant changes to their organ donation systems, there are not enough kidneys available to meet the demand. This has led scientists and clinicians to explore alternative means of meeting this organ shortfall. One of the alternatives to human organ transplantation is xenotransplantation, which is the transplantation of organs, tissues, or cells between different species. The resurgence of interest in xenotransplantation and recent scientific breakthroughs suggest that genetically-engineered (...) pigs may soon present a realistic alternative as sources of kidneys for clinical transplantation. It is therefore important for nurses and allied health professionals to understand what is involved in xenotransplantation and its future implications for their clinical practices. First, we explore the insufficiency of different organ donation systems to meet the kidney shortage. Second, we provide a background and a summary of the progress made so far in xenotransplantation research. Third, we discuss some of the scientific, technological, ethical, and economic issues associated with xenotransplantation. Finally, we summarise the literature on the attitudes of healthcare professionals toward xenotransplantation. (shrink)

Our question is this: What makes an act one of entrapment? We make a standard distinction between legal entrapment, which is carried out by parties acting in their capacities as (or as deputies of) law- enforcement agents, and civil entrapment, which is not. We aim to provide a definition of entrapment that covers both and which, for reasons we explain, does not settle questions of permissibility and culpability. We explain, compare, and contrast two existing definitions of legal entrapment to commit (...) a crime that possess this neutrality. We point out some problems with the extensional correctness of these definitions and propose a new definition that resolves these problems. We then extend our definition to provide a more general definition of entrapment, encompassing both civil and legal cases. Our definition is, we believe, closer to being extensionally correct and will, we hope, provide a clearer basis for future discussions about the ethics of entrapment than do the definitions upon which it improves. (shrink)

Some legal theorists say that legal entrapment to commit a crime is incoherent. So far, there is no satisfactorily precise statement of this objection in the literature: it is obscure even as to the type of incoherence that is purportedly involved. (Perhaps consequently, substantial assessment of the objection is also absent.) We aim to provide a new statement of the objection that is more precise and more rigorous than its predecessors. We argue that the best form of the objection asserts (...) that, in attempting to entrap, law-enforcement agents lapse into a form of practical incoherence that involves the attempt simultaneously to pursue contrary ends. We then argue that the objection, in this form, encompasses all cases of legal entrapment only if it is supplemented by appeal to the premise that law-enforcement agents have an absolute duty never to create crimes. (shrink)

Formal clinical trials of pig-to-human organ transplant—known as xenotransplantation—may begin this decade, with the first trials likely to consist of either adult renal transplants or pediatric cardiac transplant patients. Xenotransplantation as a systematic scientific study only reaches back to the latter half of the 20th century, with episodic xenotransplantation events occurring prior to that. As the science of xenotransplantation has progressed in the 20th and 21st centuries, the public's knowledge of the potential therapy has also increased. With this, there have (...) been shifting ethical stances toward xenotransplantation in key areas, such as religious and public viewpoints towards xenotransplantation, animal rights, and public health concerns. This review provides a historical–ethical account of xenotransplantation and details if or how viewpoints have shifted over time. (shrink)

Under a ‘dirty hands’ model of undercover policing, it inevitably involves situations where whatever the state agent does is morally problematic. Christopher Nathan argues against this model. Nathan’s criticism of the model is predicated on the contention that it entails the view, which he considers objectionable, that morally wrongful acts are central to undercover policing. We address this criticism, and some other aspects of Nathan’s discussion of the ‘dirty hands’ model, specifically in relation to state entrapment to commit a crime. (...) Using János Kis’s work on political morality, we explain three dilemmatic versions of the ‘dirty hands’ model. We show that, while two of these are inapplicable to state entrapment, the third has better prospects. We then pursue our main aim, which is to argue that, since the third model precludes Nathan’s criticism, a viable ‘dirty hands’ model of state entrapment remains an open possibility. Finally, we generalize this result, showing that the case of state entrapment is not special: the result holds good for policing practices more generally, including such routine practices as arrest, detention, and restraint. (shrink)

Benjamin Schnieder has argued that several traditional definitions of truth-functionality fail to capture a central intuition informal characterizations of the notion often capture. The intuition is that the truth-value of a sentence that employs a truth-functional operator depends upon the truth-values of the sentences upon which the operator operates. Schnieder proposes an alternative definition of truth-functionality that is designed to accommodate this intuition. We argue that one traditional definition of ‘truth-functionality’ is immune from the counterexamples that Schnieder proposes and is (...) preferable to Schnieder’s alternative. (shrink)

Kit Fine has proposed a new solution to what he calls ‘a familiar puzzle’ concerning modality and existence. The puzzle concerns the argument from the alleged truths ‘It is necessary that Socrates is a man’ and ‘It is possible that Socrates does not exist’ to the apparent falsehood ‘It is possible that Socrates is a man and does not exist’. We discuss in detail Fine’s setting up of the ‘puzzle’ and his rejection, with which we concur, of two mooted solutions (...) to it. (One of these uses standard, Kripkean, notions, and the other rests on work done by Arthur Prior.) We set out, and reject, the philosophy of modality underlying Fine’s new solution, and we defend an alternative response to the alleged puzzle. Our solution follows the work of David Wiggins in distinguishing between the sentential operator ‘It is necessary that’ and the predicate modifier ‘necessarily’. We briefly provide this distinction with a possible- world semantics on which it is neither a necessary truth, in some sense, that Socrates exists nor true, in some sense, that Socrates necessarily exists. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Despite the frequency of stillbirths, the subsequent implications are overlooked and underappreciated. We present findings from comprehensive, systematic literature reviews, and new analyses of published and unpublished data, to establish the effect of stillbirth on parents, families, health-care providers, and societies worldwide. Data for direct costs of this event are sparse but suggest that a stillbirth needs more resources than a livebirth, both in the perinatal period and in additional surveillance during subsequent pregnancies. Indirect and intangible costs of stillbirth are (...) extensive and are usually met by families alone. This issue is particularly onerous for those with few resources. Negative effects, particularly on parental mental health, might be moderated by empathic attitudes of care providers and tailored interventions. The value of the baby, as well as the associated costs for parents, families, care providers, communities, and society, should be considered to prevent stillbirths and reduce associated morbidity. (shrink)

David Lewis rejected consequentialism in ethics. However, two aspects of his meta-ethical views make it a challenge to see how consequentialism could be resisted. Lewis endorses a maximising conception of rationality, where to be rational is to maximise value of a certain sort; he appears to think it is possible to be both rational and moral; and yet he rejects conceptions of moral action as acting to maximise moral value. The second tension in Lewis's views arises from his meta-ethics. Lewis's (...) naturalisation of morality is in terms of a naturalised account of value, including moral value. Insofar as he offers a motivational story for moral judgements, it is one that goes via a motivational connection to value. Yet his anti-consequentialism seems to commit him to rejecting a story of moral action entirely in terms of pursuit of moral value. In both cases there are things to be said about how to weave these strands of Lewis's thought together. After setting out these two apparent tensions in Lewis's thought about ethics, the paper discusses what a Lewisian could best say about these puzzles. Lewisians do have a number of plausible options for dealing with the first challenge. While there are things a Lewisian could attempt to extend Lewis's moral naturalism in a way that could deal with the second challenge, it is harder to see how to do this in a satisfying way. Attention then turns to what Lewis said in his letters on these topics: on that basis, perhaps Lewis was close to being an agent-relative consequentialist after all. (shrink)

This article explores the law and ethics of lobbying. The legal discussion examines disclosure regulations, employment restrictions,bribery laws, and anti-fraud provisions as each applies to the lobbying context. The analysis demonstrates that given the social value placed on the First Amendment, federal law generally affords lobbyists wide latitude in determining who, what, when, where, and how to lobby.The article then turns to ethics. Lobbying involves deliberate attempts to effect changes in the law. An argument is advanced that because law implicates (...) the use of force and because law ideally reflects the values of a democratic society, seeking to slant the law to serve a client’s narrow interests cannot provide an adequate ethical end for a lobbyist. On the contrary, a lobbyist has an affirmative moral duty to seek reasonably balanced and just laws. The article examines, refines, and defends this proposition in a number of settings. (shrink)

Quine taught us the difference between a theory’s ontology and its ideology. Ontology is the things a theory’s quantifiers must range over if it is true, Ideology is the primitive concepts that must be used to state the theory. This allows us to split the theoretical virtue of parsimony into two kinds: ontological parsimony and ideological parsimony. My goal is help illuminate the virtue of ideological parsimony by giving a criterion for ideological innocence—a rule for when additional ideology does not (...) count against parsimony. I propose the expressive power innocence criterion: if the ideology of theory one is expressively equivalent to that of theory two, then neither is ideologically simpler than the other. In its favor I offer the argument from accuracy, showing that any account of a theoretical virtue that is supposed to make theories that have it more likely to be true than theories that do not must respect it. Next I consider its ramifications, eliminating rival views and passing judgment on some arguments from parsimony that can be found in the literature. Finally, I consider two objections. First: I address an objection arising from the possibility of languages with a ‘primitive’ operator that allows us to list a theory’s primitives in the object-language. Second: I address an objection raised by Nelson Goodman against attempts to reckon simplicity by expressive power. Both objections fail. (shrink)

Here I defend the compatibility of presentism and time travel against a few objections. Keller and Nelson argue that, if presentism is at all plausible, presentism and time travel are as compatible as eternalism and time travel. But Miller and Sider are not convinced. I reply that for their concerns to have merit, Miller and Sider must assume presentists are committed to positions they need not be; I explain why presentists are not so committed and, in the process, defend (...) Keller and Nelson’s position that there is no roadblock to presentist time travel that does not also apply to eternalist time travel. (shrink)

V tomto článku se zamýšlím nad možností „správné“ (objektivní, adekvátní) interpretace Dao De Jingu (DDJ). Zamyšlení nad „komunikační situací“ vede k rozlišení několika základních prvků (autor, text, interpret, adresát). K jednotlivým prvkům stručně shrnuji současný stav interpretačního úsilí odborníků na DDJ (opíraje se především o článek A. Chana). Kontroverzní povaha výsledků současného bádání nás nemá vést ke skepticismu „integrativní hermeneutiky“, která na adekvátní interpretaci rezignuje. Je možné se i nadále držet principů „rekonstruktivní hermeneutiky“, která spatřuje adekvátní interpretaci jakožto svůj cíl.

I argue that Goodman’s philosophy should not be characterised in opposition to the philosophy of the logical empiricists, but is more fruitfully interpreted as a continuation of their philosophical programme. In particular, understanding Goodman’s philosophy as a continuation of the ideal language tradition makes explicable how a radical ontological relativist could be such a staunch nominalist at the same time.

Many commentators lament that American democracy is in crisis. It is becoming a system of minority rule, wherein a party with a minority of the nationwide vote can control the national government. Partisan gerrymandering in the House of Representatives fuels this crisis, as does the equal representation of small and large states in the Senate. But altering these features of the legislature would not end minority rule. Indeed, it has long been held that majority rule cannot be guaranteed within any (...) district system, as a minority of voters nationwide can be efficiently distributed such that a minority party wins a majority of districts by narrow margins. -/- This Article offers a way to save majority rule. Since the way a party can gain control of the legislature with a minority of the vote is to win a majority of districts by narrow margins of victory and lose a minority of districts by large margins of victory, the solution is to make margins matter. Hence, this Article proposes that we preserve electoral districts in which the candidate with the most votes wins, while making the weight of their vote in the legislature (a representative’s “legislative power”) a function of margins of victory. The first goal of this Article is to outline how this proposal, which I call “weighted voting by margin of victory” (WVMV), retains the democratic virtues of district systems while ending minority rule. This is the first basis for the democratic imperative to make margins matter. -/- There is, however, a second basis for that same imperative, which turns on the political equality of voters. The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that the democratic equality should be understood in terms of equal voting power (one person, one vote). But when margins of victory don’t matter, the power of a vote lies exclusively in its potential decisiveness. A vote that changes the margin of victory without changing the victor is “wasted”. But it is an electoral reality that votes in competitive districts are more likely to be decisive, and votes in uncompetitive districts are more likely to be wasted; as a result, candidates and parties are more responsive to some voters than others. So voters are not political equals. They do not have equal voting power, except in an empty formalistic sense. By contrast, WVMV gives votes a second type of power. The power of a vote is to potentially decide who wins and to actually change the legislative power of the victor. Each vote, in effect, transfers a unit of political power to a democratic representative. This “transference” power can be meaningfully equalized between voters. A voter in an uncompetitive district is far less likely to change who wins, but is equally able to change the margin of victory, such that their vote is no longer wasted. This gives candidates and parties a strong reason to be more equally responsive to all voters who can change the margins. Hence, there is a democratic imperative to make margins matter, in order to give voters a meaningfully equal form of voting power. -/- The final goal of this Article is to explain how we can implement WMVM in modern democracies, focusing on three particularly challenging cases: the U.S. Senate, the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and the U.S. House of Representatives. These cases are challenging for several reasons, the most pertinent of which turn on the ways we should understand margins of victory when electorates are of unequal sizes (as in the U.S. Senate) or are contested by more than two parties (as in the U.K.) or are conducted under different voting procedures (as in many districts in the U.S. House). I argue that WVMV should be considered feasible in such contexts, and hence offers a practical, rather than purely theoretical, alternative to the status quo. (shrink)

There is a significant difference between the words `is' and `exists' that has either been overlooked or under-appreciated by many philosophers. This difference comes in sentences that express existential quantification using `is', `exists', or their cognates, such as, "There are cookies in the jar," or, "There exists a strange species of fish that nobody has studied yet." Phrases such as `there are' and `there exists' are existential quantifier expressions, since they're used to express existential quantification. The orthodox view of these (...) expressions is that they are, in the words of David K. Lewis, "entirely synonymous and interchangeable". This dissertation presents and argues for an anti-orthodox view of meaning of `there is' and `there exists'. The root of the difference in meaning between the two expressions is that `there is' turns out to be context-sensitive, on the model of demonstratives like `this' or `that', while `there exists' is invariant in its meaning. These views are motivated through the introduction of a notion called `ontological robustness', which helps us evaluate the level of ontological commitment in our assertions. The anti-orthodox view is defended over orthodoxy through holistic arguments that compare the virtues of each theory, including such metrics as how they fare in accounting for our stubborn desire to talk about and quantify over nonexistent objects. (shrink)

In a world of more than 7 billion people, 80% live on less than $10 per day. Five (5) percent of global income is generated by the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population; while the wealthiest 20% of the population generates 75 percent of world income. Economics attempts to define or describe behavior and it ventures into the realm of predicting. Economics should therefore accept responsibility for controlling/directing realities. If we can understand, define and predict behavior, we should accept (...) the responsibility for changing behavior, and as economists, bring that to bear on material upliftment of the greater majority of the earth’s populace. . Since 1847, numerous role-players have debated and worked tirelessly to promote the welfare of those who are marginalised from mainstream society. To what avail? Exactly one hundred and fifty eight years later, one of the iconic statesmen of the twentieth century, Nelson Mandela, stated: “Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our time – times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accommodation – that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils” (as quoted in Green 2009:2).Clearly, significant progress in addressing the issue has not been made. A concerted drive by the United Nations led to the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in September 2000, and was endorsed by 189 world leaders. Some progress has been made during the past decade, but it is apparent that many countries are not going to be able to reach their goals. Hence, in order to address poverty at its root, attention is increasingly focused on the contribution of the informal sector and small, medium and micro enterprises. This paper explores such and offers alternatives to combat the spectres of structural unemployment and poverty. (shrink)

Daoism and Environmental Philosophy explores ethics and the philosophy of nature in the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and related texts to elucidate their potential significance in our contemporary environmental crisis. This book traces early Daoist depictions of practices of embodied emptying and forgetting and communicative strategies of undoing the fixations of words, things, and the embodied self. These are aspects of an ethics of embracing plainness and simplicity, nourishing the asymmetrically differentiated yet shared elemental body of life of the myriad things, (...) and being responsively attuned in encountering and responding to things. These critical and transformative dimensions of early Daoism provide exemplary models and insights for cultivating a more expansive ecological ethos, environmental culture of nature, and progressive political ecology. This work will be of interest to students and scholars interested in philosophy, environmental ethics and philosophy, religious studies, and intellectual history. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging and authoritative volume, leading scholars engage with the philosophy and writings of Wilhelm Dilthey, a key figure in nineteenth-century thought. Their chapters cover his innovative philosophical strategies and explore how they can be understood in relation to their historical situation, as well as presenting incisive interpretations of Dilthey's arguments, including their development, their content, and their influence on later thought. A key focus is on how Dilthey's work remains relevant to current debates around art and literature, the (...) biographical and autobiographical self, knowledge, language, science, culture, history, society, and psychology and the embodied mind. The volume will be important for researchers in hermeneutics, aesthetics, practical philosophy, and the history of German philosophy, providing a valuable introduction to Dilthey's work as well as detailed critical analysis of its ongoing significance. (shrink)

Psychiatry has witnessed a new wave of approaches to clinical phenotyping and the study of psychopathology, including the National Institute of Mental Health’s Research Domain Criteria, clinical staging, network approaches, the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology, and the general psychopathology factor, as well as a revival of interest in phenomenological psychopathology. The question naturally emerges as to what the relationship between these new approaches is – are they mutually exclusive, competing approaches, or can they be integrated in some way and used (...) to enrich each other? In this opinion piece, we propose a possible integration between clinical staging and phenomenological psychopathology. Domains identified in phenomenological psychopathology, such as selfhood, embodiment, affectivity, etc., can be overlaid on clinical stages in order to enrich and deepen the phenotypes captured in clinical staging (‘high resolution’ clinical phenotypes). This approach may be useful both ideographically and nomothetically, in that it could complement diagnosis, enrich clinical formulation, and inform treatment of individual patients, as well as help guide aetiological, prediction, and treatment research. The overlaying of phenomenological domains on clinical stages may require that these domains are reformulated in dimensional rather than categorial terms. This integrative project requires assessment tools, some of which are already available, that are sensitive and thorough enough to pick up on the range of relevant psychopathology. The proposed approach offers opportunities for mutual enrichment: clinical staging may be enriched by introducing greater depth to phenotypes; phenomenological psychopathology may be enriched by introducing stages of severity and disorder progression to phenomenological analysis. (shrink)

The pessimistic hypothesis is the hypothesis that life is bad for us, in the sense that we are worse off for having come into existence. Suppose this hypothesis turns out to be correct — existence turns out to be more of a burden than a gift. A natural next thought is that we should stop having children. But I contend that this is a mistake; procreation would often be permissible even if the pessimistic hypothesis turned out to be correct. Roughly, (...) this is because we are often in a position to know that future people will approve of having been created, and their approval will not be inappropriate even if they are worse off for having been created. And our respect for the attitudes of future people can permit us to create them. (shrink)

Sometimes, learning about the origins of a belief can make it irrational to continue to hold that belief—a phenomenon we call ‘genealogical defeat’. According to explanationist accounts, genealogical defeat occurs when one learns that there is no appropriate explanatory connection between one’s belief and the truth. Flatfooted versions of explanationism have been widely and rightly rejected on the grounds that they would disallow beliefs about the future and other inductively-formed beliefs. After motivating the need for some explanationist account, we raise (...) some problems for recent versions of explanationism. Learning from their failures, we then produce and defend a more resilient explanationism. (shrink)

This contribution unfolds an existential-ontological response to the question of sexual difference in the context of Heidegger’s formally indicative concept of “Dasein.” The question of Dasein’s “neutrality” concerns how formal indication formalizes, empties, and neutralizes the givenness of factical human existence. Ostensibly “given” biological and anthropological facts, such as sexual difference, are interpreted from an emptied and neutralized perspective that appears abstract and fictional to Heidegger’s critics. How, then, is the “neutrality” of formalizing emptying related to the “facticity” of in (...) each case factically existing as a sexual and gendered being? The answer lies in Heidegger’s elucidation of the existential-ontological structure of Dasein: Dasein is always relationally instituted in its factical entangled life through “being-with.” The sexual difference of human existence is not merely biologically or anthropologically given, but disclosed and enacted according to one’s relations with others, the environment, and oneself. The formally indicating concept “Dasein” indicates, accordingly, the concrete diversity and plurality of individuated sexual and gendered ways of being. (shrink)

Supererogatory acts—good deeds “beyond the call of duty”—are a part of moral common sense, but conceptually puzzling. I propose a unified solution to three of the most infamous puzzles: the classic Paradox of Supererogation (if it’s so good, why isn’t it just obligatory?), Horton’s All or Nothing Problem, and Kamm’s Intransitivity Paradox. I conclude that supererogation makes sense if, and only if, the grounds of rightness are multi-dimensional and comparative.

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

Supererogatory acts are those that lie “beyond the call of duty.” There are two standard ways to define this idea more precisely. Although the definitions are often seen as equivalent, I argue that they can diverge when options are infinite, or when there are cycles of better options; moreover, each definition is acceptable in only one case. I consider two ways out of this dilemma.

There at least three ways of thinking about rationality: instrumental, substantive, and intentional. By far, the instrumental account is most influential. This essay proposes that intentional rationality can provide substantive accounts with room to breathe, and in a way that is facially distinct from instrumental accounts. I suggest that the intentionality of a judgment is made up of what it is about and the orientation through which it is judged, while irrationality is the subversion of a strict supporting connection between (...) the judgment and its corresponding set of coordinated attitudes (reasons). It follows that irrational intentionality is made up of episodic states where a judgment is subverted because of a misalignment between what it is about and the way the judge is oriented towards its contents. Four examples of irrational intentionality are considered: passivity towards ends, constitutive ignorance towards facts, delirious paranoia towards objects, and a disjunctive orientation towards categorizations. (shrink)

Public discussions of political and social issues are often characterized by deep and persistent polarization. In social psychology, it’s standard to treat belief polarization as the product of epistemic irrationality. In contrast, we argue that the persistent disagreement that grounds political and social polarization can be produced by epistemically rational agents, when those agents have limited cognitive resources. Using an agent-based model of group deliberation, we show that groups of deliberating agents using coherence-based strategies for managing their limited resources tend (...) to polarize into different subgroups. We argue that using that strategy is epistemically rational for limited agents. So even though group polarization looks like it must be the product of human irrationality, polarization can be the result of fully rational deliberation with natural human limitations. (shrink)

Carine Defoort, Mario Wenning, and Kai Marchal offer three ways of engaging with Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought and the philosophical, hermeneutical, and historical issues it attempted to articulate and address.1 This work is historical with a contemporary philosophical intent: to reexamine a tumultuous contested epoch of philosophy’s past in order to reconsider its existing limitations and alternative possibilities. One dimension of this book is the investigation of constellations and entanglements of historical forces and concepts for (...) the sake of articulating critical models and alternatives for the present.2 In the book, I contested the modern self-image of philosophy... (shrink)

In this paper I argue that textualism is far less attractive as a theory of written law than some of its modern proponents think. For it is not usually sensible to expect the grammatical meaning of a provision to determine its appropriate legal meaning. Factors that are unrelated to grammar in the identification of law (e.g., legal theory, context) do too much of the work. **Draft -- acknowledgments welcome, but please do not cite.**.

A remarkable number of Nietzsche's substantive moral psychological views have been borne out by evidence from the empirical sciences. Moral judgments are products of affects on Nietzsche's view, but the latter are in turn causally dependent upon more fundamental features of the individual. Nietzsche accepts a doctrine of types. The path is short from the acceptance of the Doctrine of Types to the acceptance of epiphenomenalism, as Leiter, and more recently, Riccardi argue. This chapter explains Nietzsche's phenomenological account of willing, (...) which serves as independent motivation for the view that Nietzsche denies the causal efficacy of conscious acts of willing. It also explores that in spite of an absence of volitional freedom, self‐control can be usefully understood on a strength‐model of motivational resources. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of how Nietzsche, without employing the contemporary methods of empirical psychology, could nonetheless be such a prescient moral psychologist. (shrink)

Nihilism is the thesis that no composite objects exist. Some ontologists have advocated abandoning nihilism in favor of deep nihilism, the thesis that composites do not existO, where to existO is to be in the domain of the most fundamental quantifier. By shifting from an existential to an existentialO thesis, the deep nihilist seems to secure all the benefits of a composite-free ontology without running afoul of ordinary belief in the existence of composites. I argue that, while there are well-known (...) reasons for accepting nihilism, there appears to be no reason at all to accept deep nihilism. In particular, deep nihilism draws no support either from the usual arguments for nihilism or from considerations of parsimony. (shrink)