Context — Children and adults with psychopathic traits and conduct or oppositional defiant disorder demonstrate poor decision making and are impaired in reversal learning. However, the neural basis of this impairment has not previously been investigated. Furthermore, despite high comorbidity of psychopathic traits and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, to our knowledge, no research has attempted to distinguish neural correlates of childhood psychopathic traits and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Objective—To determine the neural regions that underlie the reversal learning impairments in children with psychopathic traits (...) plus conduct or oppositional defiant disorder. Design — Case-control study. Setting — Government clinical research institute. Participants — Forty-two adolescents aged 10 to 17 years: 14 with psychopathic traits and oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder, 14 with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder only, and 14 healthy controls. Main Outcome Measure — Blood oxygenation level–dependent signal as measured via functional magnetic resonance imaging during a probabilistic reversal task. Results — Children with psychopathic traits showed abnormal responses within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area 10) during punished reversal errors compared with children wit hattention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and healthy children (P < .05 corrected for multiple comparisons). Conclusions — To our knowledge, this study provides the first evidence of abnormal ventromedial prefrontal cortex responsiveness in children with psychopathic traits and demonstrates this dysfunction was not attributable to comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. These findings suggest that reversal learning impairments in patients with developmental psychopathic traits relate to abnormal processing of reinforcement information. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed numerous weaknesses in pandemic preparedness and response, including underfunding, inadequate surveillance, and inequitable distribution of countermeasures. To overcome these weaknesses for future pandemics, WHO released a zero draft of a pandemic treaty in February, 2023, and subsequently a revised bureau's text in May, 2023. COVID-19 made clear that pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response reflect choices and value judgements. These decisions are therefore not a purely scientific or technical exercise, but are fundamentally grounded in ethics. The latest (...) treaty draft reflects these ethical considerations by including a section entitled Guiding Principles and Approaches. Most of these principles are ethical—they establish core values that undergird the treaty. Unfortunately, the treaty draft's set of principles are numerous, overlapping, and show inadequate coherence and consistency. We propose two improvements to this section of the draft pandemic treaty. First, key guiding ethical principles should be clearer and more precise than they currently are. Second, the link between ethical principles and policy implementation should be clearly established and define boundaries on acceptable interpretation, ensuring that signatories abide by these principles. (shrink)

This chapter defends a view of semantics on which developing a semantic theory closely resembles developing a scale of measurement. The view helps explain how semantics has made so much progress despite deep disagreements about the target of semantic theorizing (e.g., between those who maintain that semantics is characterizing something psychological, and those who maintain that it is characterizing something social), how appeals to set-theoretic abstracta make sense despite Benacerraf-style worries and despite the fact that set-theoretic entities fit badly with (...) standard (e.g., causal) metasemantic views, and why the threat of radical context sensitivity does not undermine the semantic project. (shrink)

Editors' introduction to 3rd thematic issue on philosophy of medicine.

Quantities like mass and temperature are properties that come in degrees. And those degrees (e.g. 5 kg) are properties that are called the magnitudes of the quantities. Some philosophers (e.g., Byrne 2003; Byrne & Hilbert 2003; Schroer 2010) talk about magnitudes of phenomenal qualities as if some of our phenomenal qualities are quantities. The goal of this essay is to explore the anti-physicalist implication of this apparently innocent way of conceptualizing phenomenal quantities. I will first argue for a metaphysical thesis (...) about the nature of magnitudes based on Yablo’s proportionality requirement of causation. Then, I will show that, if some phenomenal qualities are indeed quantities, there can be no demonstrative concepts about some of our phenomenal feelings. That presents a significant restriction on the way physicalists can account for the epistemic gap between the phenomenal and the physical. I’ll illustrate the restriction by showing how that rules out a popular physicalist response to the Knowledge Argument. (shrink)

This article gives a critical account of Agamben's contention that the camp is the paradigm of 'bio-politics' in the west. It analyses the deficiencies of this paradigm by means of comparison with other approaches to juridical topics and political theory (e.g., the treatments of the topics of force and state power in liberalism and Foucault). First, I ask about the features Agamben ascribes to the camp space and in what respects they support his contention that the camp has general significance. (...) Second, I question the reasons he gives for his view that the camp situation discloses the general tendencies of legal codes and practices in the West. In particular, I ask whether, as Agamben contends, his approach allows tendencies in the West that would otherwise be obscure to be identifiable, or whether his approach is too speculative to be useful as political theory. (shrink)

Do psychological traits predict philosophical views? We administered the PhilPapers Survey, created by David Bourget and David Chalmers, which consists of 30 views on central philosophical topics (e.g., epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language) to a sample of professional philosophers (N = 314). We extended the PhilPapers survey to measure a number of psychological traits, such as personality, numeracy, well-being, lifestyle, and life experiences. We also included non-technical ‘translations’ of these views for eventual use in other (...) populations. We found limited to no support for the notion that personality or demographics predict philosophical views. We did, however, find that some psychological traits were predictive of philosophical views, even after strict correction for multiple comparisons. Findings include: higher interest in numeracy predicted physicalism, naturalism, and consequentialism; lower levels of well-being and higher levels of mental illness predicted hard determinism; using substances such as psychedelics and marijuana predicted non-realist and subjectivist views of morality and aesthetics; having had a transformative or self-transcendent experience predicted theism and idealism. We discuss whether or not these empirical results have philosophical implications, while noting that 68% of our sample of professional philosophers indicated that such findings would indeed have philosophical value. (shrink)

Criminal courts make decisions that can remove the liberty and even life of those accused. Civil trials can cause the bankruptcy of companies employing thousands of people, asylum seekers being deported, or children being placed into state care. Selecting the right standards when deciding legal cases is of utmost importance in giving those affected a fair deal. This Element is an introduction to the philosophy of legal proof. It is organised around five questions. First, it introduces the standards of proof (...) and considers what justifies them. Second, it discusses whether we should use different standards in different cases. Third, it asks whether trials should end only in binary outcomes (e.g. guilty or not guilty) or rather use more fine-grained or precise verdicts. Fourth, it considers whether proof is simply about probability, concentrating on the famous 'Proof Paradox'. Finally, it examines who should be trusted with deciding trials, focusing on the jury system. (shrink)

Revisionary theories of logic or truth require revisionary theories of mind. This essay outlines nonclassically based theories of rational belief, desire, and decision making, singling out the supervaluational family for special attention. To see these nonclassical theories of mind in action, this essay examines a debate between David Lewis and Derek Parfit over what matters in survival. Lewis argued that indeterminacy in personal identity allows caring about psychological connectedness and caring about personal identity to amount to the same thing. (...) The essay argues that Lewis's treatment of two of Parfit's puzzle cases—degreed survival and fission—presuppose different nonclassical treatments of belief and desire. (shrink)

Søren Kierkegaard is well-known as an original philosophical thinker, but less known is his reliance upon and development of the Christian tradition of the Seven Deadly Sins, in particular the vice of acedia, or sloth. As acedia has enjoyed renewed interest in the past century or so, commentators have attempted to pin down one or another Kierkegaardian concept (e.g., despair, heavy-mindedness, boredom, etc.) as the embodiment of the vice, but these attempts have yet to achieve any consensus. In our estimation, (...) the complicated reality is that, in using slightly different but related concepts, Kierkegaard is providing a unique look at acedia as it manifests differently at different stages on life’s way. Thus, on this “perspectival account”, acedia will manifest differently according to whether an individual inhabits the aesthetic, ethical, or religious sphere. We propose two axes for this perspectival account. Such descriptions of how acedia manifests make up the first, phenomenal axis, while the second, evaluative axis, accounts for the various bits of advice and wisdom we read in the diagnoses of acedia from one Kierkegaardian pseudonym to another. Our aim is to show that Kierkegaard was not only familiar with the concept of acedia, but his contributions helped to develop and extend the tradition. (shrink)

This paper defends a novel account of how to determine the intrinsic value of possible worlds. Section 1 argues that a highly intuitive and widely accepted account leads to undesirable consequences. Section 2 takes the first of two steps towards a novel account by clarifying and defending a view about value-contribution that is based on some of W. D. Ross’ claims about the value of pleasure. Section 3 takes the second step by clarifying and defending a view about value-suppression (...) that is based on Ross’ claims about the interplay between prima-facie duties. Section 4 states and defends the account that I call Rossian Totalism. According to this account, the atoms of intrinsic value within a world only sometimes contribute their intrinsic value to the value of that world. (shrink)

Discusses the question of whether trials should just use two verdicts (e.g. guilty or not guilty) or whether they use multiple verdicts.

Book Information The Semantics of Media. By Jeff Ross. Dordrecht, Kluwer. 1997. Pp. vii + 137. £56.75.

Throughout his career, Derek Parfit made the bold suggestion, at various times under the heading of the "Normativity Objection," that anyone in possession of normative concepts is in a position to know, on the basis of their competence with such concepts alone, that reductive realism in ethics is not even possible. Despite the prominent role that the Normativity Objection plays in Parfit's non-reductive account of the nature of normativity, when the objection hasn't been ignored, it's been criticized and even (...) derided. We argue that the exclusively negative attention that the objection has received has been a mistake. On our reading, Parfit's Normativity Objection poses a serious threat to reductivism, as it exposes the uneasy relationship between our a priori knowledge of a range of distinctly normative truths and the typical package of semantic commitments that reductivists have embraced since the Kripkean revolution. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a growing interest among mainstream Anglophone moral philosophers in the empirical study of human morality, including its evolution and historical development. This chapter compares these developments with an earlier point of contact between moral philosophy and the moral sciences in the early decades of the Twentieth century, as manifested in some of the less frequently discussed arguments of G. E. Moore and W. D. Ross. It is argued that a critical appreciation of Moore (...) and Ross’s response to the emerging moral sciences of their day has significant implications for contemporary moral epistemology. The chapter also offers a novel interpretation of G. E. Moore’s ‘open question argument’. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to critically assess the idea that reasons for action are provided by desires (the Desire-based Reasons Model or the Model). I start from the claim that the most often employed meta-ethical background for the Model is ethical naturalism; I then consider attempts to argue against the Model through its naturalism. I make use of two objections that are both intended to refute naturalism per se. One is the indirect version of G. E. Moore’s Open (...) Question Argument (OQA), the other is Derek Parfit’s more recent Triviality Objection (TO). I show that naturalists might be able to avoid both objections in case the reduction they propose is tolerable. This, however, means that in order to see if the objections work, we must analyze the particular reductions proposed. Hence, though not knock down arguments as they were intended to be, the indirect OQA and TO may pose threat to the Model. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to critically assess the idea that reasons for action are provided by desires (the Model). I start from the claim that the most often employed meta-ethical background for the Model is ethical naturalism; I then argue against the Model through its naturalist background. For the latter purpose I make use of two objections that are both intended to refute naturalism per se. One is G. E. Moore’s Open Question Argument (OQA), the other is (...) class='Hi'>Derek Parfit’s Triviality Objection (TO). I show that naturalists might be able to avoid both objections in case they can vindicate the reduction proposed. This, however, leads to further conditions whose fulfillment is necessary for the success of vindication. I deal with one such condition, which I borrow from Peter Railton and Mark Schroeder: the demand that naturalist reductions must be tolerably revisionist. In the remainder of the paper I argue that the most influential versions of the Model are intolerably revisionist. The first problem concerns the picture of reasons many recent formulations of the Model advocate. By using an objection from Michael Bedke I show that on this interpretation obvious reasons won’t be accounted for by the Model. The second problem concerns idealization that is also often part of the Model. Invoking an argument by Connie Rosati, I show that the best form of idealization, the ideal advisor account, is inadequate. Hence, though not knock down arguments as they were intended to be, OQA and TO do pose a serious threat to the Model. (shrink)

According to Part VI of Derek Parfit’s On What Matters, some things matter.1 Indeed, there are normative truths to the effect that some things matter, and it matters that there are such truths. Moreover, according to Parfit, these normative truths are cognitive and irreducible. And in addition to mattering that there are normative truths about what matters, Parfit holds that it also matters that these truths are cognitive and irreducible. Indeed this matters so much that Parfit tells us that (...) if there were normative truths, but that these truths were non-cognitive or reducible, then he, Sidgwick, and Ross “would have wasted much of our lives” [OWM2 367]. That it would be a consequence of the thesis either of noncognitivism or of reductive realism that Parfit would have wasted his life is, of course, no evidence against either thesis; it is perfectly possible even for the most brilliant thinkers to waste their lives. Indeed, as any of the students from my introductory ethics course would be quick to point out, it is very difficult to think clearly and objectively about a question in which you take yourself have a large personal stake. My undergraduates readily agree that the steak they have is enough to complicate their thinking about moral vegetarianism; so certainly explosive expressions like ‘wasted my life’ give Parfit the kind of loaded stake in metaethical questions that should make us cautious of trusting his intuitive verdicts in metaethics. Fortunately, as I will argue in this paper, Parfit has not wasted his life, and he would not have wasted his life, even if it turned out that either noncognitivism or reductive realism turned out to be true. In arguing that Parfit has not wasted his life, independently of the answer to any metaethical question, I am, of course, arguing against Parfit’s own conception of what makes his life worthwhile. Parfit clearly believes that the worthwhileness of [much of]2 his life turns on the answer to questions in metaethics.. (shrink)

For Aristotle, a verb (ῥῆμα) is that which a) besides a proper meaning b) carry with it the notion of time; c) its parts do not significate separately and d) is a sign of something said of something else (OI ., 2, 16b6-8). This comprehensive definition distinguishes verbs from both nouns (since they do not carry the notion of time with themselves) and sentences or co-positings of words (since they have parts with independent meanings). Based on this definition, a verb (...) signifies three things: i) A main or proper meaning which is the meaning of the verb, e.g. running or sleeping; ii) time and iii) co-positing (or positing away). Although it is not asserted that one part is responsible for prossignification of time, its responsibility is given to co-positing-is. This might seem to be in contradiction with (c). However, it seems that (c) cannot include prossignifications of time and co-positing. What Aristotle means in (c) is just that parts of a verb cannot separately signify a meaning. Therefore, it is better to distinguish between signification, which is about meaning and prossignification, which is generally about anything but meaning. Hence, while the parts of the verb cannot have separate signification, they can have separate prossignification. Aristotle distinguishes between different kinds of verbs: 1) Definite verbs: those verbs that have definite nouns as their verb-name. 2) Indefinite verbs: those verbs that do not have definite nouns as their verb-name (OI., I, 3, 16b12-14; 10, 19b10-11). Aristotle’s examples of an indefinite verb are ‘is not-healthy’ and ‘is not-ill’. 3) Tenses of verbs: ‘was healthy’ and ‘will be healthy’ are tenses of the verb ‘is healthy’ because a verb indicates only the present time (OI., I, 3, 16b16-18). For Aristotle, almost all verbs either are composed of or can be analyzed to parts. An example of the former is ‘is healthy’ and of the latter is ‘runs,’ which can be analyzed to two parts: ‘is running.’ (OI., I, 10, 20a3-5; II, 12, 21b5-8). Thus, for him a verb either includes or can be analyzed to two parts: a part that includes the meaning and is, or is shown, by a name we call ‘verb-name’ (a), and a part that includes the co-positing of that meaning with the subject of the verb, which is or is shown by ‘is’, which we call ‘co-positing-is’ (d). The verb ‘runs’, for example, can be analyzed to a verb-name, ‘running’ and a co-positing-is (Note: Aristotle distinguishes between the verb ‘is’ in the sense of ‘exists’ and the co-positing ‘is’. Whereas in the former ‘is’ is a verb, having a signification of its own, which is ‘existing’, besides signifying time (OI., I, 10, 19b12-19), the ‘is’ in the latter is not a verb (Aristotle calls it ‘incidental’ is (OI., II, 11, 21a25-28) and is not sure whether to call it a verb or a noun (OI., I, 10, 19b22-24)) because it does not signify existing and, thus, need something else to be added. This something else is the meaning we are discussing. Therefore, it is only after the addition of the meaning to this ‘is’ that we have a verb. This is, I believe, the sense of the so much controversial text of OI, I, 3, 16b22-25: ‘For being and not being signify the existence of a thing not τὸ ὄν εἴπῃς αὐτὸ καθ᾿ ἑαυτὸ ψιλόν. For it does not indicate anything but prossignifies some co-positing (σύνθεσίν). Aristotle’s words at 16b24 about co-positing-is that it ‘prossignifies some co-positing’ (προσσημαίνει δὲ σύνθεσίν τινα) is an explicit evidence that she cannot be right.) and is not a concept apart from the things co-posited (συγκειμένων).’ This text, however, is so controversial. Originating from Ammonius and Boethius after him, who used the verb ‘copular’ for ‘est’ and Abelard, some commentators like Weidemann, Oehler, Francisco Ademollo take ‘is’ as having a copulative function. Allen Bāck notes that Aristotle does not separate off ‘is’ from other verbs as a mere copula but takes it ‘as the basic, paradigmatic form of the verb.’ He believes that in his interpretation of Aristotle (in: OI., 55, 19-24) Ammonius also took it as the paradigm for all verbs. Francisco Ademollo criticizes the standard view of taking ‘is’ as copula here and is inclined to take it as essential. David Ross thinks that although Aristotle is aware of the distinction between the existential and the copulative is, he has as yet no very clear idea of their relation. Although Jonathan Barnes agrees that the copula is surely present in de Interpretation, he thinks that at 16b22-25 Aristotle ought to be talking of existential εἶναι. Marie De Rijk Lambartus believes that there is no copula in Aristotle’s philosophical analysis of the elementary sentences and it is a mere corpus alienum in Aristotle’s semantics. Allan Bȃck believes that the copulative theory is not Aristotle’s and ‘may have come to dominate as a result of the neoPlatonizing interpretations of Aristotle’s works by Proclus, Ammonius and Boethius, which is the sign of the relation of running with a subject, e.g. Socrates in ‘Socrates runs’. Nonetheless, none of these parts significate separately. This is supposed to mean that a verb is a single signification. However, it is evident that each of the parts can signify if we use them in a different context as both of ‘running’ and ‘is’ in ‘runs’ or both of ‘is’ and ‘healthy’ in ‘is healthy’ can do. It might seem now that the first mentioned definition of verb might be contradictory. While Aristotle asserts that the parts of verb do not signify separately (d), he considers two other significations for a verb: the signification of time and relation. As it is obvious, both of these significations are done by one part of the verb, that is the co-positing-is. Therefore, in a verb e.g. ‘is healthy’ we have three significations: the significations of meaning, time and co-positing. Aristotle uses prossignification both for time (προσσημαῖνον χρόνον, OI., 2, 16b4) and co-positing (προσσημαίνει δἑ σύνθεσὶν τινα, OI, I, 3, 16b23-24). Since the copula part of a verb has no signification and does not form any conception, a verb is indeed its verb-name. Thus we see Aristotle saying that ‘verbs are in and by themselves names and signify something’ and like names, he adds, they arrest the hearer’s mind and fix his attention (OI., I, 3, 16b19-22). We can conclude then that verbs are names said of something else and carrying time. In other words, verbs are words that though have one single signification, as names have, they also have two other prossignifications: time and relation. (shrink)

When I say that my conception of metaphysics is Aristotelian, or neo-Aristotelian, this may have more to do with Aristotle’s philosophical methodology than his metaphysics, but, as I see it, the core of this Aristotelian conception of metaphysics is the idea that metaphysics is the first philosophy . In what follows I will attempt to clarify what this conception of metaphysics amounts to in the context of some recent discussion on the methodology of metaphysics (e.g. Chalmers et al . (2009), (...) Ladyman and Ross (2007)). There is a lot of hostility towards the Aristotelian conception of metaphysics in this literature: for instance, the majority of the contributors to the Metametaphysics volume assume a rather more deflationary, Quinean approach towards metaphysics. In the process of replying to the criticisms towards Aristotelian metaphysics put forward in recent literature I will also identify some methodological points which deserve more attention and ought to be addressed in future research. (shrink)

In 2009, we celebrated the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin and the sesquicentennial of the publication of his book The Origin of Species. This seems to be a good opportunity to evaluate the importance of Darwin’s work for the social sciences, mainly for philosophical anthropology. The aim of this paper is to discuss the traditional anthropocentric conceptions of man, which consider our biological species to be exceptional – qualitatively higher than other living organisms. Over the course of the (...) 20th century, philosophers have argued for the claim in a number of ways: man is supposed to be the only animal capable of laughter, love, thought or language. It has also been claimed that only members of Homo sapiens have free will, morality or religion. The paper refutes these arguments on the basis of contemporary studies by M. Davila Ross, H. Fischer, K. Arnold, K. Zuberbühler, G. Konopka, B. Libet, F. De Waal, M. Bekoff, P. Boyer, B. Hood, G. Paul and others. The author argues that the only differences between man and other animals are quantitative, and therefore the nature of humans should be studied using the methods of naturalized philosophy, with respect to the natural sciences. (shrink)

American History X (hereafter AHX) has been accused by numerous critics of a morally dangerous cinematic seduction: using stylish cinematography, editing, and sound, the film manipulates the viewer through glamorizing an immoral and hate-filled neo-nazi protagonist. In addition, there’s the disturbing fact that the film seems to accomplish this manipulation through methods commonly grouped under the category of “fascist aesthetics.” More specifically, AHX promotes its neo-nazi hero through the use of several filmic techniques made famous by Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl. (...) Now most critics admit that, in the end, the film claims to denounce racism and attempts to show us the conversion of the protagonist to the path of righteousness, but they complain that nonetheless the film (perhaps unintentionally) ends up implicitly promoting the immoral worldview it rather superficially professes to reject in its final act. This charge of hypocrisy is connected to another worry: the moral conversion in the film is said to fall flat because the intellectual resources on display to support the character’s racism are not counterbalanced by equally explicit (but superior) arguments for the anti-racist position ultimately embraced by the character. In other words, just as the devil is said to get all the good lines in Milton’s Paradise Lost, in AHX the racists get all the arguments. This has been taken to be a morally problematic flaw of the film. Critics lament that Derek’s conversion seems to result not from relevant logical inferences and valid rational argumentation but from overly simplistic and arguably egoistic insights (e.g., “has anything you've done made your life better?”) combined, perhaps, with a hackneyed cliché (in prison, one of his best friends is a black person!) In this paper I’ll attempt to rebut these charges and defend the film as a powerful, and powerfully moral, work of art. I’ll be suggesting that the seductive techniques employed allow for many viewers a degree of sympathy towards the protagonist that is crucial, both for making that character’s more horrific actions especially unsettling, and also for making his eventual conversion plausible and ultimately compelling. I’ll also argue that the manner in which his conversion is presented is in fact subtler than many critics have allowed: Derek’s transformation is not artificial or implausible but is depicted as resulting from a cumulative series of emotionally powerful life events and personal engagements. It is certainly true that it is not represented in the way some would seemingly have preferred, i.e. as straightforwardly resulting from a process of gradual intellectual improvement in Derek’s reasoning on questions of race and politics. However, I’ll argue that the decidedly emotional basis of his moral evolution is both refreshingly realistic and no hindrance to accepting his conversion as rational. Finally, properly understanding the legitimacy of the emotional foundations of much moral thought will also allow us to appreciate the ways in which our initial worries about this film’s (not insignificant) ability to persuade viewers through the engagement of emotions need not, in itself, be seen as a barrier to endorsing the film as a morally praiseworthy work. (shrink)

This paper concerns the Black Box. It is not the engineer’s black box that can be opened to reveal its mechanism, but rather one whose operations are inferred through input from (and output to) a companion observer. We are observers ourselves, and we attempt to understand minds through interactions with their host organisms. To this end, Ranulph Glanville followed W. Ross Ashby in elaborating the Black Box. The Black Box and its observer together form a system having different properties (...) than either component alone, making it a greater Black Box to any further-external observer. How far into this greater box can a further-external observer probe? The answer is crucial to understanding Black Boxes, and so an answer is offered here. It employs von Foerster’s machines, abstract entities having mechano-electrical bases, just like putative Black Boxes. Von Foerster follows Turing, Ashby, E. F. Moore, and G. H. Mealy in recognizing archetype machines that he calls trivial (predictable) and non-trivial (non-predictable). It is argued here that non-trivial machines are the only true Black Boxes. But non-trivial machines can be concatenated from trivial machines. Hence, the utter core of any greater Black Box (a non-trivial machine) may involve two (or more) White Boxes (trivial machines). This is how an unpredictable thing emerges from predictable parts. Interactions of White Boxes—of trivial machines—may be the ultimate source of the mind. Keywords: . (shrink)

The repugnant conclusion poses a conundrum in population ethics that has evaded satisfactory solution for four decades. In this article, I show that the repugnant conclusion can be avoided without sacrificing any moral intuitions. The resulting framework satisfies Parfit's requirements for `theory X'. This is achieved using non-Archimedean orders, which admit the possibility of pairs of goods for which no amount of one is better than a single unit of the other. I show that with minimal assumptions, not only are (...) such goods sensible, they are compulsory. I show that utilitarianism and expected utility theory in their canonical forms are not in general suitable in this setting, and using these tools naively can lead to ethical errors that are arbitrarily serious. Multi-dimensional lexicographic expected utility representations may be required. I use fuzzy sets to show that there needn't be a clear boundary separating goods that are not Archimedean equivalent. This may be unavoidable due to intrinsic physical limits on the ability to discriminate between different goods arising from e.g. quantum mechanics. Limited discriminatory power causes preferences to be non-transitive, which can resolve problems related to so-called `fanaticism' and `recklessness' wherein `rational' decision-makers counterintuitively prefer arbitrary long shot bets to a guaranteed lesser outcome. (shrink)

Eric Olson and David Shoemaker argue that our numerical identity over time is irrelevant to such practical issues as moral responsibility or self-concern. Being the same individual at different moments in time may, in our case, can be seen as the preservation of the relevant biological processes (e.g., according to Olson), while psychological continuity, independent of these processes, may be crucial for such issues. I will defend the view that, contrary to the above authors, any conception of our diachronic identity (...) has ethical implications, at least with regard to the aforementioned issues. My argument has two basic assumptions. (1) The dispute over identity of persons is a dispute over the conditions of our persistence in time as the same individuals, whether we consider being a person as our essential property or not (e.g., Olson maintains the latter). The question is under what conditions I am the same as a particular earlier or later individual. (2) The pronoun “I,” on the other hand, is an essential component of practical reasoning, so also of ethical one. Thus, the debate on the persistence of persons concerns the identity conditions of the individuals to whom/which we refer when planning our future actions, formulating our intentions. My rational self-concern or my moral responsibility for past actions regards the individual to whom the pronoun refers. An additional result of my argument is to undermine the influential strategy of defending positions on our diachronic identity against the charge of controversial ethical implications. It cannot be argued in the case of every such controversy that a given ethical issue only apparently involves our identity, while in fact what is relevant to it is a different relation binding persons at different moments in time. (shrink)

Action must be taken to combat climate change. Yet, how the costs of climate action should be allocated among states remains a question. One popular answer—the polluter-pays principle (PPP)—stipulates that those responsible for causing the problem should pay to address it. While intuitively plausible, the PPP has been subjected to withering criticism in recent years. It is timely, following the Paris Agreement, to develop a new version: one that does not focus on historical production-based emissions but rather allocates climate burdens (...) in proportion to each state’s annual consumption-based emissions. This change in carbon accounting results in a fairer and more environmentally effective principle for distributing climate duties. (shrink)

Mengzi states that our human nature consists of our ability to feel compassion, disdain, respect, and (dis-)approval: all human beings have them. But he also states that we lose these four emotional capacities if we don’t reflect on or attend to them. There is an apparent contradiction in saying that all humans have them, but some have lost them. This essay offers a close reading of Mengzi’s phrase “to lose it” that helps explain away this appearance of contradiction. In doing (...) so, Mengzi is interpreted to be offering an ethics of attention about how we should attend to ourselves and others selectively to have a functional social life. (shrink)

Hybridization by introgression (“hybridization”) is a complex topic in conservation. Many conservation decision-makers are concerned about hybridization by introgression because it may threaten species persistence or local phenotypes, among other potential long-term problems. While attitudes have changed towards hybridization as a conservation threat, there are still concerns about hybridization as a problem, particularly if the hybridization was anthropogenically mediated. I propose that these concerns are overblown and that it is misguided to focus on whether hybridization is unintentionally human-mediated. I argue (...) that practitioners should still consider the effects of hybridization on conservation, but the reasons should concern the long-term environmental consequences, such as ecological function and social and cultural that hybridization has, rather than whether humans “caused” the hybrid. I propose a series of steps to think differently about these cases. (shrink)

Is there one univocal or generic notion of ground? Monists answer yes, while pluralists answer no. Pluralists argue that monism cannot meet plausible constraints on an adequate theory of ground. My aim in this paper is to articulate a monist theory of ground that can satisfy the pluralist constraints in a way that leaves the pluralists with no reasons not to endorse the monist picture of ground. I do this by adopting a tripartite conception of ground and then showing that (...) it has the resources to vindicate monism while satisfying the pluralist constraints on a theory of ground. (shrink)

Modern aesthetics is divided into two branches – the Anglo-American and the Continental. A major cause of this division is their divergent views about the place of history in aesthetics, the first tending to minimize historical considerations, while the second readily embraces them. This article explores the place of history in André Malraux's theory of art and argues that his thinking quickly resolves this long-standing disagreement. (This text is a translation of the published French version.).

Mark Schroeder has argued that all reasonable forms of inconsistency of attitude consist of having the same attitude type towards a pair of inconsistent contents (A-type inconsistency). We suggest that he is mistaken in this, offering a number of intuitive examples of pairs of distinct attitudes types with consistent contents which are intuitively inconsistent (B-type inconsistency). We further argue that, despite the virtues of Schroeder's elegant A-type expressivist semantics, B-type inconsistency is in many ways the more natural choice in developing (...) an expressivist account of moral discourse. We close by showing how to adapt ordinary formality-based accounts of logicality to define a B-type account of logical inconsistency and distinguish it from both semantic and pragmatic inconsistency. In sum, we provide a roadmap of how to develop a successful B-type expressivism. (shrink)

The idea that experts (especially scientific experts) play a privileged role in determining the meanings of our words and the contents of our concepts has become commonplace since the work of Hilary Putnam, Tyler Burge, and others in the 1970s. But if experts have the power to determine what our words mean, they can do so responsibly or irresponsibly, from good motivations or bad, justly or unjustly, with good or bad effects. This paper distinguishes three families of metasemantic views based (...) on their attitudes towards bad behaviour by meaning-fixing experts, and draws a series of distinctions relevant for the normative evaluation of meaning-determining actions. (shrink)

Should we use the same standard of proof to adjudicate guilt for murder and petty theft? Why not tailor the standard of proof to the crime? These relatively neglected questions cut to the heart of central issues in the philosophy of law. This paper scrutinises whether we ought to use the same standard for all criminal cases, in contrast with a flexible approach that uses different standards for different crimes. I reject consequentialist arguments for a radically flexible standard of proof, (...) instead defending a modestly flexible approach on non-consequentialist grounds. The system I defend is one on which we should impose a higher standard of proof for crimes that attract more severe punishments. This proposal, although apparently revisionary, accords with a plausible theory concerning the epistemology of legal judgments and the role they play in society. (shrink)

We propose a pluralist account of content for predictive processing systems. Our pluralism combines Millikan's teleosemantics with existing structural resemblance accounts. The paper has two goals. First, we outline how a teleosemantic treatment of signal passing in predictive processing systems would work, and how it integrates with structural resemblance accounts. We show that the core explanatory motivations and conceptual machinery of teleosemantics and predictive processing mesh together well. Second, we argue this pluralist approach expands the range of empirical cases to (...) which the predictive processing framework might be successfully applied. This is because our pluralism is practice-oriented. A range of different notions of content are used in the cognitive sciences to explain behaviour, and some of these cases look to employ teleosemantic notions. As a result, our pluralism gives predictive processing the scope to cover these cases. (shrink)

This paper compares two alternative explanations of pragmatic encroachment on knowledge (i.e., the claim that whether an agent knows that p can depend on pragmatic factors). After reviewing the evidence for such pragmatic encroachment, we ask how it is best explained, assuming it obtains. Several authors have recently argued that the best explanation is provided by a particular account of belief, which we call pragmatic credal reductivism. On this view, what it is for an agent to believe a proposition is (...) for her credence in this proposition to be above a certain threshold, a threshold that varies depending on pragmatic factors. We show that while this account of belief can provide an elegant explanation of pragmatic encroachment on knowledge, it is not alone in doing so, for an alternative account of belief, which we call the reasoning disposition account, can do so as well. And the latter account, we argue, is far more plausible than pragmatic credal reductivism, since it accords far better with a number of claims about belief that are very hard to deny. (shrink)

The increasing demand for transparency in AI has recently come under scrutiny. The question is often posted in terms of “epistemic double standards”, and whether the standards for transparency in AI ought to be higher than, or equivalent to, our standards for ordinary human reasoners. I agree that the push for increased transparency in AI deserves closer examination, and that comparing these standards to our standards of transparency for other opaque systems is an appropriate starting point. I suggest that a (...) more fruitful exploration of this question will involve a different comparison class. We routinely treat judgments made by highly trained experts in specialized fields as fair or well-grounded even though—by the nature of expert/layperson division of epistemic labor—an expert will not be able to provide an explanation of the reasoning behind these judgments that makes sense to most other people. Regardless, laypeople are thought to be acting reasonably—and ethically—in deferring to the judgments of experts that concern their areas of specialization. I suggest that we reframe our question regarding the appropriate standards of transparency in AI as one that asks when, why, and to what degree it would be ethical to accept opacity in AI. I argue that our epistemic relation to certain opaque AI technology may be relevantly similar to the layperson’s epistemic relation to the expert in certain respects, such that the successful expert/layperson division of epistemic labor can serve as a blueprint for the ethical use of opaque AI. (shrink)

According to mainstream philosophical views causal explanation in biology and neuroscience is mechanistic. As the term ‘mechanism’ gets regular use in these fields it is unsurprising that philosophers consider it important to scientific explanation. What is surprising is that they consider it the only causal term of importance. This paper provides an analysis of a new causal concept—it examines the cascade concept in science and the causal structure it refers to. I argue that this concept is importantly different from the (...) notion of mechanism and that this difference matters for our understanding of causation and explanation in science. (shrink)

There are many different oughts. There is a moral ought, a prudential ought, an epistemic ought, the legal ought, the ought of etiquette, and so on. These oughts can prescribe incompatible actions. What I morally ought to do may be different from what I self-interestedly ought to do. Philosophers have claimed that these conflicts are resolved by an authoritative ought, or by facts about what one ought to do simpliciter or all-things-considered. However, the only coherent notion of an ought simpliciter (...) has preposterous first-order normative commitments. It is more reasonable to reject the ought simpliciter in favor of the form of normative pluralism advocated in (Tiffany 2007). (shrink)

A number of philosophers have offered quasi-perceptual theories of desire, according to which to desire something is roughly to “see” it as having value or providing reasons. These are offered as alternatives to the more traditional Humean Theory of Motivation, which denies that desires have a representational aspect. This paper examines the various considerations offered by advocates to motivate quasi-perceptualism. It argues that Humeanism is in fact able to explain the same data that the quasi-perceptualist can explain, and in one (...) case the Humean explanation is superior. Quasi-perceptual accounts of desire, the paper concludes, are for the most part unmotivated. (shrink)

Many authors have proposed that grounding is closely related to metaphysical laws. However, we argue that no existing theory of metaphysical laws is sufficiently general. In this paper we develop a general theory of grounding laws, proposing that they are generative relations between pluralities of propositions and propositions. We develop the account in an essentialist language; this allows us to state precisely the sense in which grounding might be reduced to laws. We then put the theory to use in showing (...) how moral laws can play a role in grounding particular moral facts, in defending monism about ground, and in showing in what sense there is no gap between the grounds and the grounded. Finally, we make a novel proposal about what grounds facts about ground. (shrink)

Recent years have seen fresh impetus brought to debates about the proper role of statistical evidence in the law. Recent work largely centres on a set of puzzles known as the ‘proof paradox’. While these puzzles may initially seem academic, they have important ramifications for the law: raising key conceptual questions about legal proof, and practical questions about DNA evidence. This article introduces the proof paradox, why we should care about it, and new work attempting to resolve it.

Researchers face perennial difficulties in studying live jury deliberation. As a result, the academic community struggles to reach a consensus on key matters of legal reform concerning jury trials. The hurdles faced by empirical jury researchers are often legal or institutional. This note argues that the legal and institutional barriers preventing live deliberation research should be removed and discusses two forms that live deliberation research could take.

Joseph Raz and Sergio Tenenbaum argue that the Guise of the Good thesis explains both the possibility of practical reason and its unity with theoretical reason, something Humean psychological theories may be unable to do. This paper will argue, however, that Raz and Tenenbaum face a dilemma: either the version of the Guise of the Good they offer is too strong to allow for weakness of will, or it will lose its theoretical advantage in preserving the unity of reason.

Attitudinal embeddings, such as ‘I hope that murder is wrong’ or ‘she is glad that eating meat is not wrong’ are a less substantial problem for expressivists than is standardly thought. If expressivists are entitled to talk of normative beliefs, they can explain what it is to for an attitude to be semantically related to a normative content in terms of being functionally related to a belief with a normative content.

Recent work takes both philosophical and scientific progress to consist in acquiring factive epistemic states such as knowledge. However, much of this work leaves unclear what entity is the subject of these epistemic states. Furthermore, by focusing only on states like knowledge, we overlook progress in intermediate cases between ignorance and knowledge—for example, many now celebrated theories were initially so controversial that they were not known. -/- This paper develops an improved framework for thinking about intellectual progress. Firstly, I argue (...) that we should think of progress relative to the epistemic position of an intellectual community rather than individual inquirers. Secondly, I show how focusing on the extended process of inquiry (rather than the mere presence or absence of states like knowledge) provides a better evaluation of different types of progress. This includes progress through formulating worthwhile questions, acquiring new evidence, and increasing credence on the right answers to these questions. I close by considering the ramifications for philosophical progress, suggesting that my account supports rejecting the most negative views while allowing us to articulate different varieties of optimism and pessimism. (shrink)

Early discussions of ?climate justice? have been dominated by economists rather than political philosophers. More recently, analytical liberal political philosophers have joined the debate. However, the philosophical discussion of climate justice remains in its early stages. This paper considers one promising approach based on human rights, which has been advocated recently by several theorists, including Simon Caney, Henry Shue and Tim Hayward. A basic argument supporting the claim that anthropogenic climate change violates human rights is presented. Four objections to this (...) argument are examined: the ?future persons? objection; the ?risk? objection; the ?collective causation? objection; and the ?demandingness? objection. This critical examination leads to a more detailed specification and defence of the claim that anthropogenic climate change violates human rights. (shrink)

I argue that traditional views on which beliefs are subject only to purely epistemic assessment can reject demographic profiling, even when based on seemingly robust evidence. This is because the moral failures involved in demographic profiling can be located in the decision not to suspend judgment, rather than supposing that beliefs themselves are a locus of moral evaluation. A key moral reason to suspend judgment when faced with adverse demographic evidence is to promote social equality—this explains why positive profiling is (...) dubious, along with more familiar cases of negative profiling, and why profiling is suspect even when no particular action is at stake. My suspension-based view, while compatible with revisionary normative positions, does not presuppose them. Philosophers of all stripes can reject demographic profiling both in thought and deed. (shrink)

Social scientists appeal to various “structures” in their explanations including public policies, economic systems, and social hierarchies. Significant debate surrounds the explanatory relevance of these factors for various outcomes such as health, behavioral, and economic patterns. This paper provides a causal account of social structural explanation that is motivated by Haslanger (2016). This account suggests that social structure can be explanatory in virtue of operating as a causal constraint, which is a causal factor with unique characteristics. A novel causal framework (...) is provided for understanding these explanations–this framework addresses puzzles regarding the mysterious causal influence of social structure, how to understand its relation to individual choice, and what makes it the main explanatory (and causally responsible) factor for various outcomes. (shrink)