Recently, I presented evidence that there are two broad kinds of dehumanization: descriptive dehumanization and normative dehumanization. An individual is descriptively dehumanized when they are perceived as less than fully human in the biological-species sense; whereas an individual is normatively dehumanized when they are perceived as lacking a deep-seated commitment to good moral values. Here, I develop the concept of normative dehumanization by addressing skepticism about two hypotheses that are widely held by dehumanization researchers. The first hypothesis is that dehumanization (...) is distinct from mere dislike and other non-dehumanizing attitudes. The second hypothesis is that dehumanization is an important predictor of intergroup hostility. Across four studies, I found evidence that normative dehumanization is distinct from mere dislike, and denials of ideal humanness. I also found that it is a unique predictor of intergroup hostility. These findings suggest that research into dehumanization and intergroup hostility will benefit from recognizing the distinction between descriptive and normative dehumanization. (shrink)

The initial foundations to the notion that Cometan's grandparents, Irene Mary Taylor and Derrick Taylor, should be recognised for their life as laypeople in the Roman Catholic Church first emerged in January 2020 and October 2021 respectively. Irene Mary was well known for her devotion to Catholicism among her family and acquaintances, yet Cometan saw in her icon and life events an opportunity to reinvigorate Catholic fervour in England and abroad. In his own endeavour as a religious figure and (...) philosopher as the founder of Astronism, Cometan had made it clear that his paternal grandmother had played a large role in his religious life from infancy and so Irene Mary's Cause for Beatification was the culmination of this destined religious figureship. The Beatification Story of Irene Mary Taylor holds the responsibility of presenting Irene Mary for the recognition in the Roman Catholic Church in whichever capacity the Church deems suitable. The book explores the major remembered life events of Irene Mary Taylor, relates them to Catholic doctrine, and systematises them to form Irenianism, Irene Mary's eponymous Catholic system of thought. (shrink)

The struggle by black people to obtain freedom, justice, and dignity is as old as this nation. At times, great and inspiring leaders rose out of desperate situations to give confidence and feelings of empowerment to the black community. Most of these leaders urged their people to strive for racial equality. They were firmly wedded to the idea that the courts and judiciary were the vehicle to better the social position of blacks. In spite of dramatic civil rights movements and (...) periodic victories in the legislatures, black Americans by no means are equal to whites. Racial equality is, in fact, not a realistic goal. By constantly aiming for a status that is unobtainable in a perilously racist America, black Americans face frustration and despair. Over time, our persistent quest for integration has hardened into self-defeating rigidity. (shrink)

It is unlikely that when my the grandfather of Cometan, Derrick Taylor, sat down to participate in an interview with his good friend Judith Shean now almost thirty years ago that all those years later his grandson would have written a book analysing that very interview. On 22nd February 1995, Derrick Taylor agreed to participate in an interview at his home 222 Longmeanygate to reveal his experience as a Protestant turned Catholic. During the interview, Derrick Taylor provided (...) a realistic view of what his life had been like detailing loss, tragedy and suffering. By contrast, he also detailed his predisposition for experiencing interior locutions – divine communications to the ear – which filled him with great elation in times of spiritual crisis. This interview was titled Light a Candle for Me as based on Derrick Taylor's very first interaction with the Sacred Heart of Jesus when he was just seven years old in which he asked his friend's mother to light a candle for him as a metaphor for his journey to Catholicism. What we ultimately learn of Derrick Taylor's character in this 1995 interview is that he held such a dedication to the Catholic faith that he found it difficult to reconcile the fact that the world and the Church were changing. In this interview, which is now often titled the Sceptre Bulletin Interview, Derrick Taylor tells us in his own words what he thought of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. This book, the Catholic Conversion, is an exegetical work written by Derrick's grandson Cometan some 27 years later that develops his grandfather's words into a set of theological concepts that come to form Derrick Taylor's definitive approach to Catholicism. (shrink)

Diogenes Laertius (8.63-6) preserves a fascinating account of the Presocratic philosopher Empedocles' life. There, drawing on evidence from Aristotle, Xanthus, and Timaeus of Tauromenium, the biographer provides several anecdotes which are meant to demonstrate how Empedocles had, contrary to expectation, been a democratic philosopher - a paradox of itself in Ancient Greece. This article unpacks the complex web woven by Diogenes and argues that there is no good reason to assume that Empedocles was indeed a democratic philosopher, and moreover, that (...) neither Xanthus nor Aristotle thought him so. Indeed, what Diogenes actually preserves for us is the Hellenistic biographer Timaeus' critical dialectical engagement with the versions Aristotle and Xanthus, in his anachronistic bid to render Empedocles a democratic hero. (shrink)

You want to see the concert, but don’t want to take a long drive (even though the concert is far away). Such *strongly conflicting desire ascriptions* are, I show, wrongly predicted incompatible by standard semantics. I then object to possible solutions, and give my own, based on *some-things-considered desire*. Considering the fun of the concert, but ignoring the drive, you want to see the concert; considering the boredom of the drive, but ignoring the concert, you don’t want to take the (...) drive. (shrink)

The term 'fascism' continues to be very much in currency in Philippines society. To the Filipino people, its meaning is often drawn from pained memory of wholesale deprivation of democratic rights and large-scale human rights abuses. Yet, to many, the fear of fascism has still to give way to a deeper understanding of this menace. This may hold true even among those belonging to the progressive movement. One Marxist philosopher and theoretician who gave extended treatment of the issues surrounding the (...) character and conditions giving rise to fascism was Nicos Poulantzas, whose theory is employed here to interrogate the debates about fascism in the post-Marcos Philippines context. (shrink)

The influence of surrealism and Philippe Soupault on William Carlos Williams' poetry.

Research on the capacity to understand others' minds has tended to focus on representations ofbeliefs,which are widely taken to be among the most central and basic theory of mind representations. Representations ofknowledge, by contrast, have received comparatively little attention and have often been understood as depending on prior representations of belief. After all, how could one represent someone as knowing something if one does not even represent them as believing it? Drawing on a wide range of methods across cognitive science, (...) we ask whether belief or knowledge is the more basic kind of representation. The evidence indicates that nonhuman primates attribute knowledge but not belief, that knowledge representations arise earlier in human development than belief representations, that the capacity to represent knowledge may remain intact in patient populations even when belief representation is disrupted, that knowledge (but not belief) attributions are likely automatic, and that explicit knowledge attributions are made more quickly than equivalent belief attributions. Critically, the theory of mind representations uncovered by these various methods exhibits a set of signature features clearly indicative of knowledge: they are not modality-specific, they are factive, they are not just true belief, and they allow for representations of egocentric ignorance. We argue that these signature features elucidate the primary function of knowledge representation: facilitating learning from others about the external world. This suggests a new way of understanding theory of mind – one that is focused on understanding others' minds in relation to the actual world, rather than independent from it. (shrink)

We are told by philosophers that photographs are a distinct category of image because the photographic process is mind-independent. Furthermore, that the experience of viewing a photograph has a special status, justified by a viewer’s knowledge that the photographic process is mind-independent. Versions of these ideas are central to discussions of photography in both the philosophy of art and epistemology and have far-reaching implications for science, forensics and documentary journalism. Mind-independence (sometimes ‘belief independence’) is a term employed to highlight what (...) is important in the idea that photographs can be produced naturally, mechanically, accidentally or automatically. Insofar as the process is physical, natural, mechanical or causal it can occur without human agency or intervention, entirely in the absence of intentional states. Presented innocuously, the idea is that although photographs are dependent on natural or mechanical processes, they can be produced independently of human agency – particularly human beliefs. Presented in a stronger form, the claim is that even if human agency is heavily involved in the production process, the definitive features that make the photograph a photograph and determine its salient properties are nonetheless independent of human minds. In epistemic debates, mind-independence is viewed as essential for explaining why photographs occupy a distinct category among images and justifying a variety of claims about their privileged epistemic and affective status in science, forensics, popular culture and journalism. But, in the philosophy of art, claims about mind-. (shrink)

Decision theory and folk psychology both purport to represent the same phenomena: our belief-like and desire- and preference-like states. They also purport to do the same work with these representations: explain and predict our actions. But they do so with different sets of concepts. There's much at stake in whether one of these two sets of concepts can be accounted for with the other. Without such an account, we'd have two competing representations and systems of prediction and explanation, a dubious (...) dualism. Folk psychology structures our daily lives and has proven fruitful in the study of mind and ethics, while decision theory is pervasive in various disciplines, including the quantitative social sciences, especially economics, and philosophy. My interest is in accounting for folk psychology with decision theory -- in particular, for believe and wanting, which decision theory omits. Many have attempted this task for belief. (The Lockean Thesis says that there is such an account.) I take up the parallel task for wanting, which has received far less attention. I propose necessary and sufficient conditions, stated in terms of decision theory, for when you're truly said to want; I give an analogue of the Lockean Thesis for wanting. My account is an alternative to orthodox accounts that link wanting to preference (e.g. Stalnaker (1984), Lewis (1986)), which I argue are false. I argue further that want ascriptions are context-sensitive. My account explains this context-sensitivity, makes sense of conflicting desires, and accommodates phenomena that motivate traditional theses on which 'want' has multiple senses (e.g. all-things-considered vs. pro tanto). (shrink)

Recent scientific research has settled on a purely descriptive definition of happiness that is focused solely on agents’ psychological states (high positive affect, low negative affect, high life satisfaction). In contrast to this understanding, recent research has suggested that the ordinary concept of happiness is also sensitive to the moral value of agents’ lives. Five studies systematically investigate and explain the impact of morality on ordinary assessments of happiness. Study 1 demonstrates that moral judgments influence assessments of happiness not only (...) for untrained participants, but also for academic researchers and even in those who study happiness specifically. Studies 2 and 3 then respectively ask whether this effect may be explained by general motivational biases or beliefs in a just world. In both cases, we find evidence against these explanations. Study 4 shows that the impact of moral judgments cannot be explained by changes in the perception of descriptive psychological states. Finally, Study 5 compares the impact of moral and non-moral value, and provides evidence that unlike non-moral value, moral value is part of the criteria that govern the ordinary concept of happiness. Taken together, these studies provide a specific explanation of how and why the ordinary concept of happiness deviates from the definition used by researchers studying happiness. (shrink)

Past work has demonstrated that people’s moral judgments can influence their judgments in a number of domains that might seem to involve straightforward matters of fact, including judgments about freedom, causation, the doing/allowing distinction, and intentional action. The present studies explore whether the effect of morality in these four domains can be explained by changes in the relevance of alternative possibilities. More precisely, we propose that moral judgment influences the degree to which people regard certain alternative possibilities as relevant, which (...) in turn impacts intuitions about freedom, causation, doing/allowing, and intentional action. Employing the stimuli used in previous research, Studies 1a, 2a, 3a, and 4a show that the relevance of alternatives is influenced by moral judgments and mediates the impact of morality on non-moral judgments. Studies 1b, 2b, 3b, and 4b then provide direct empirical evidence for the link between the relevance of alternatives and judgments in these four domains by manipulating (rather than measuring) the relevance of alternative possibilities. Lastly, Study 5 demonstrates that the critical mechanism is not whether alternative possibilities are considered, but whether they are regarded as relevant. These studies support a unified framework for understanding the impact of morality across these very different kinds of judgments. (shrink)

A puzzling feature of paradigmatic cases of dehumanization is that the perpetrators often attribute uniquely human traits to their victims. This has become known as the “paradox of dehumanization.” We address the paradox by arguing that the perpetrators think of their victims as human in one sense, while denying that they are human in another sense. We do so by providing evidence that people harbor a dual character concept of humanity. Research has found that dual character concepts have two independent (...) sets of criteria for their application, one of which is descriptive and one of which is normative. Across four experiments, we found evidence that people deploy a descriptive criterion according to which being human is a matter of being a Homo sapiens; as well as a normative criterion according to which being human is a matter of possessing a deep-seated commitment to do the morally right thing. Importantly, we found that people are willing to affirm that someone is human in the descriptive sense, while denying that they are human in the normative sense, and vice versa. In addition to providing a solution to the paradox of dehumanization, these findings suggest that perceptions of moral character have a central role to play in driving dehumanization. (shrink)

We claim that scientists working with deep learning (DL) models exhibit a form of pragmatic understanding that is not reducible to or dependent on explanation. This pragmatic understanding comprises a set of learned methodological principles that underlie DL model design-choices and secure their reliability. We illustrate this action-oriented pragmatic understanding with a case study of AlphaFold2, highlighting the interplay between background knowledge of a problem and methodological choices involving techniques for constraining how a model learns from data. Building successful models (...) requires pragmatic understanding to apply modelling strategies that encourage the model to learn data patterns that will facilitate reliable generalisation. (shrink)

According to the Desiderative Lockean Thesis, there are necessary and sufficient conditions, stated in the terms of decision theory, for when one is truly said to want. What one is truly said to want, it turns out, varies remarkably by context—and to an underappreciated degree. To explain this context-sensitivity, and closure properties of wanting, I advance a Desiderative Lockean view that is distinctive in having two context-sensitive parameters.

By means of a comprehensive and penetrating examination of the main elements of Epicurean ethics, Phillip Mitsis forces us to reevaluate this widely misunderstood figure in the history of philosophy.

A series of recent studies have explored the impact of people's judgments regarding physical law, morality, and probability. Surprisingly, such studies indicate that these three apparently unrelated types of judgments often have precisely the same impact. We argue that these findings provide evidence for a more general hypothesis about the kind of cognition people use to think about possibilities. Specifically, we suggest that this aspect of people's cognition is best understood using an idea developed within work in the formal semantics (...) tradition, namely the notion of modality. On the view we propose, people may have separate representations for physical, moral and probabilistic considerations, but they also integrate these various considerations into a unified representation of modality. (shrink)

Democracy is the central political issue of our age, yet debates over its nature and goals rarely engage with feminist concerns. Now that women have the right to vote, they are thought to present no special problems of their own. But despite the seemingly gender-neutral categories of individual or citizen, democratic theory and practice continues to privilege the male. This book reconsiders dominant strands in democratic thinking - focusing on liberal democracy, participatory democracy, and twentieth century versions of civic republicanism (...) - and approaches these from a feminist perspective. Anne Phillips explores the under-representation of women in politics, the crucial relationship between public and private spheres, and the lessons of the contemporary women's movement as an experience in participatory democracy. (shrink)

Composition as identity, as I understand it, is a theory of the composite structure of reality. The theory’s underlying logic is irreducibly plural; its fundamental primitive is a generalized identity relation that takes either plural or singular arguments. Strong versions of the theory that incorporate a generalized version of the indiscernibility of identicals are incompatible with the framework of plural logic, and should be rejected. Weak versions of the theory that are based on the idea that composition is merely analogous (...) to identity are too weak to be interesting, lacking in metaphysical consequence. I defend a moderate version according to which composition is a kind of identity, and argue that the difference is metaphysically substantial, not merely terminological. I then consider whether the notion of generalized identity, though fundamental, can be elucidated in modal terms by reverse engineering Hume’s Dictum. Unfortunately, for realists about possible worlds, such as myself,... (shrink)

Recent attempts to legislate climate science out of existence raises the question of whether citizens are obliged to obey such laws. The authority of democratic law is rooted in both truth and popular consent, but neither is sufficient and they may conflict. These are reconciled in theory and, more importantly, in practice once we incorporate insights from the pragmatist theory of inquiry.

Algorithms wield increasing control over our lives—over the jobs we get, the loans we're granted, the information we see online. Algorithms can and often do wield their power in a biased way, and much work has been devoted to algorithmic bias. In contrast, algorithmic neutrality has been largely neglected. I investigate algorithmic neutrality, tackling three questions: What is algorithmic neutrality? Is it possible? And when we have it in mind, what can we learn about algorithmic bias?

I examine the origins of ordinary racial thinking. In doing so, I argue against the thesis that it is the byproduct of a unique module. Instead, I defend a pluralistic thesis according to which different forms of racial thinking are driven by distinct mechanisms, each with their own etiology. I begin with the belief that visible features are diagnostic of race. I argue that the mechanisms responsible for face recognition have an important, albeit delimited, role to play in sustaining this (...) belief. I then argue that essentialist beliefs about race are driven by some of the mechanisms responsible for “entitativity perception”: the tendency to perceive some aggregates of people as more genuine groups than others. Finally, I argue that coalitional thinking about race is driven by a distinctive form of entitativity perception. However, I suggest that more data is needed to determine the prevalence of this form of racial thinking. (shrink)

Future-bias is preferring some lesser future good to a greater past good because it is in the future, or preferring some greater past pain to some lesser future pain because it is in the past. Most of us think that this bias is rational. I argue that no agents have future-biased preferences that are rationally evaluable—that is, evaluable as rational or irrational. Given certain plausible assumptions about rational evaluability, either we must find a new conception of future-bias that avoids the (...) difficulties I raise, or we must conclude that future-biased preferences are not subject to rational evaluation. (shrink)

There has been a long history of arguments over whether happiness is anything more than a particular set of psychological states. On one side, some philosophers have argued that there is not, endorsing a descriptive view of happiness. Affective scientists have also embraced this view and are reaching a near consensus on a definition of happiness as some combination of affect and life-satisfaction. On the other side, some philosophers have maintained an evaluative view of happiness, on which being happy involves (...) living a life that is normatively good. Within the context of this debate we consider how people ordinarily understand happiness, and provide evidence that the ordinary understanding of happiness reflects aspects of both evaluative and descriptive views. Similar to evaluative views, normative judgments have a substantive role in the ordinary understanding of happiness. Yet, similar to descriptive views, the ordinary understanding is focused on the person’s psychological states and not the overall life they actually lived. Combining these two aspects, we argue that the ordinary understanding of happiness suggests a novel view on which happiness consists in experiencing positive psychological states when one ought to. This view, if right, has implications for both philosophical and psychological research on happiness. (shrink)

I argue that in addressing worries about the validity and reliability of implicit measures of social cognition, theorists should draw on research concerning “entitativity perception.” In brief, an aggregate of people is perceived as highly “entitative” when its members exhibit a certain sort of unity. For example, think of the difference between the aggregate of people waiting in line at a bank versus a tight-knit group of friends: The latter seems more “groupy” than the former. I start by arguing that (...) entitativity perception modulates the activation of implicit biases and stereotypes. I then argue that recognizing this modulatory role will help researchers to address concerns surrounding the validity and reliability of implicit measures. (shrink)

This chapter pursues an understanding of what Cicero thought 'Italic' philosophy to be, and proceeds to develop a broader account of how Cicero's version compares with the surviving textual evidence and testimonia from the Hellenistic period of the philosophy of the 'Italic' philosophers, including the Lucanians 'Ocellus', 'Eccelus', and 'Aresas/Aesara', and the Rudian Ennius. Special focus is placed on their theories of cosmology, psychology, and law. Collocation of 'Italic' with 'Pythagorean' philosophy of this era aids in building a more comprehensive (...) view of what Hellenistic Pythagoreanism may have looked like. Uploaded here is the pre-publication version; please email me for the printed version. (shrink)

What we must do is step back and take a grand view of the perspectives in order to understand it on a more particular level. If we can picture all of God’s attributes on a bar graph scale, all of God’s attributes would max out at 100% each. These attributes are always operating at 100%; at no time does any attribute diminish or decrease below 100%. However, there are times when one of His attributes shows forth more than another does, (...) but they are all operating at a maximum level. (shrink)

Eavesdropping judgments (judgments about truth, retraction, and consistency across contexts) about epistemic modals have been used in recent years to argue for a radical thesis: that truth is assessment-relative. We argue that judgments for 'I think that p' pattern in strikingly similar ways to judgments for 'Might p' and 'Probably p'. We argue for this by replicating three major experiments involving the latter and adding a condition with the form 'I think that p', showing that subjects respond in the same (...) way to 'thinks' as to modals. This poses a serious challenge to relativist treatments of the modal judgments, since a relativist treatment of the corresponding 'thinks' judgments is totally implausible, so if a unified account of the phenomena is to be found, it cannot be a relativist one. We briefly sketch how a unified account might look. (shrink)

It is widely held that episodic memory is constitutively connected with space and time. In particular, many contend that episodic memory constitutively has spatial and/or temporal content: for instance, necessarily representing a spatial scene, or when a given event occurred, or at the very minimum that it occurred in the past. Here, I critically assess such claims. I begin with some preparatory remarks on the nature of episodic memory. I then ask: How, if at all, is episodic memory constitutively spatial? (...) And, how, if at all, is episodic memory constitutively temporal? In answer, I argue that episodic memory need not have any spatial content, nor (in any substantial sense) need it represent when its events occur, nor even that they occur in the past. Instead, only a relatively modest connection holds between episodic memory and time in virtue of the temporal structure of its objects. Finally, I critically assess whether considerations concerning the organization and encoding of episodic memory in creatures like us provide stronger reason to posit a constitutive link between our episodic memories and space or time. (shrink)

This article traces the historical origins of the modern concept of a private inner self., with precursors in Plato and Plotinus, its first full appearance in Augustine, its classic modern form in Locke, and its dissolution in postmodernism. The article elaborates the historical narrative given in my Augustine's Invention of the Inner Self (Oxford University Press, 2000).

Modern thought typically opposes the authority of tradition in the name of universal reason. Postmodernism begins with the insight that the sociohistorical context of tradition and its authority is inevitable, even in modernity. Modernity can no longer take itself for granted when it recognizes itself as a tradition that is opposed to traditions. The left-wing postmodernist response to this insight is to conclude that because tradition is inevitable, irrationality is inevitable. The right-wing postmodernist response is to see traditions as the (...) home of diverse forms of rationality. This requires an understanding of the Socratic, self-critical aspect of intellectual traditions, which include both modern sciences and the great world religions. (shrink)

The present studies investigate how the intentions of third parties influence judgments of moral responsibility for other agents who commit immoral acts. Using cases in which an agent acts under some situational constraint brought about by a third party, we ask whether the agent is blamed less for the immoral act when the third party intended for that act to occur. Study 1 demonstrates that third-party intentions do influence judgments of blame. Study 2 finds that third-party intentions only influence moral (...) judgments when the agent's actions precisely match the third party's intention. Study 3 shows that this effect arises from changes in participants' causal perception that the third party was controlling the agent. Studies 4 and 5, respectively, show that the effect cannot be explained by changes in the distribution of blame or perceived differences in situational constraint faced by the agent. (shrink)

The paper offers a running commentary on ps-Archytas’ On Intellect and Sense Perception (composed ca. 80 BCE), with the aim to provide a clear description of Hellenistic/post-Hellenistic Pythagorean epistemology. Through an analysis of the process of knowledge and of the faculties that this involves, ps-Archytas presents an original epistemological theory which, although grounded in Aristotelian and Platonic theories, results in a peculiar Pythagorean criteriology that accounts for the acquisition and production of knowledge, as well as for the specific competences of (...) each cognitive faculty. (shrink)

Estimates of the burden of disease assess the mortality and morbidity that affect a population by producing summary measures of health such as quality-adjusted life years and disability-adjusted life years. These measures typically do not include stillbirths among the negative health outcomes they count. Priority-setting decisions that rely on these measures are therefore likely to place little value on preventing the more than three million stillbirths that occur annually worldwide. In contrast, neonatal deaths, which occur in comparable numbers, have a (...) substantial impact on burden of disease estimates and are commonly seen as a pressing health concern. In this article we argue in favor of incorporating unintended fetal deaths that occur late in pregnancy into estimates of the burden of disease. Our argument is based on the similarity between late-term fetuses and newborn infants and the assumption that protecting newborns is important. We respond to four objections to counting stillbirths: that fetuses are not yet part of the population and so their deaths should not be included in measures of population health; that valuing the prevention of stillbirths will undermine women's reproductive rights; that including stillbirths implies that miscarriages should also be included; and that birth itself is in fact ethically significant. We conclude that our proposal is ethically preferable to current practice and, if adopted, is likely to lead to improved decisions about health spending. (shrink)

Contrast between Aristotle and Kant on whether Metaphysics can be considered a science. Draws from Books 4 and 6 of Aristotle's Metaphysics and Kant's Prolegomena on any Future Metaphysic.

In this chapter, I survey what I call Lewisian approaches to modality: approaches that analyze modality in terms of concrete possible worlds and their parts. I take the following four theses to be characteristic of Lewisian approaches to modality. (1) There is no primitive modality. (2) There exists a plurality of concrete possible worlds. (3) Actuality is an indexical concept. (4) Modality de re is to be analyzed in terms of counterparts, not transworld identity. After an introductory section in which (...) I motivate analyzing modality in terms of possible worlds, I devote one section to each of these four theses. For each thesis, I take Lewis’s interpretation and defense as my starting point. I then consider and endorse alternative ways of accepting the thesis, some of which disagree substantially with Lewis’s interpretation or defense. There is more than one way to be a Lewisian about modality. (shrink)

Dave Chappelle took an extended leave from comedy for moral reasons. I argue that, while he had every right to leave comedy because of his moral concerns, he was not obliged to do so. To make this case, I present Chappelle’s argument that the potential negative consequences of his racial humor obliged him to leave. Next, I argue against Chappelle’s argument about avoidable harms as the harms are not his responsibility, he was not being negligent, and the benefits of his (...) humor outweigh the harms. I also argue in support of the intuition that another’s failure of comprehension or moral character, even if that failure will predictably result in harms to others, should not convert moral acts into immoral ones. (shrink)

Meet Tega. Blue, fluffy, and AI-enabled, Tega is a relational robot: a robot designed to form relationships with humans. Created to aid in early childhood education, Tega talks with children, plays educational games with them, solves puzzles, and helps in creative activities like making up stories and drawing. Children are drawn to Tega, describing him as a friend, and attributing thoughts and feelings to him ("he's kind," "if you just left him here and nobody came to play with him, he (...) might be sad"). Scholars and members of the public alike have raised the alarm about relational robots, worrying that the relationships that people, and especially children, form with such robots are objectionably inauthentic. We, members of an interdisciplinary team that developed and studies Tega, make this inauthenticity worry precise and offer practical recommendations for addressing it. We distinguish two kinds of (in)authenticity -- inauthenticity as unreality, and inauthenticity as deception -- arguing that neither is just what others have thought it is. With our distinction in hand, we argue that the authenticity concern can be met only through co-design methods -- methods that give stakeholders of all kinds (e.g. parents, educators, and children themselves) a genuine say in how relational robots are built. (shrink)

When did kosmos come to mean *the* kosmos, in the sense of ‘world-order’? I venture a new answer by examining later evidence often underutilised or dismissed by scholars. Two late doxographical accounts in which Pythagoras is said to be first to call the heavens kosmos (in the anonymous Life of Pythagoras and the fragments of Favorinus) exhibit heurematographical tendencies that place their claims in a dialectic with the early Peripatetics about the first discoverers of the mathematical structure of the universe. (...) Likewise, Xenophon and Plato refer to ‘wise men’ who nominate kosmos as the object of scientific inquiry into nature as a whole and the cosmic ‘communion’ (koinônia) between all living beings, respectively. Again, later testimonies help in identifying the anonymous ‘wise men’ by associating them with the Pythagoreans and, especially, Empedocles. As Horky argues, not only is Empedocles the earliest surviving source to use kosmos to refer to a harmonic ‘world-order’ and to illustrate cosmic ‘communities’ between oppositional pairs, but also his cosmology realises the mutual correspondence of these aspects in the cycle of love and strife. Thus, if later figures posited Pythagoras as the first to refer to the universal ‘world-order’ as the kosmos, they did so because they believed Empedocles to have been a Pythagorean natural scientist, whose combined focus on cosmology and ethics exemplified a distinctively Pythagorean approach to philosophy. (shrink)

I outline three conceptions of seeing that a creature might possess: ‘the headlamp conception,’ which involves an understanding of the causal connections between gazing at an object, certain mental states, and behavior; ‘the stage lights conception,’ which involves an understanding of the selective nature of visual attention; and seeing-as. I argue that infants and various nonhumans possess the headlamp conception. There is also evidence that chimpanzees and 3-year-old children have some grasp of seeing-as. However, due to a dearth of studies, (...) there is no evidence that infants or nonhumans possess the stage lights conception of seeing. I outline the kinds of experiments that are needed, and what we stand to learn about the evolution and development of perspective taking. (shrink)

“I am only what I make myself to be”, Fichte tells us. In this paper, I outline Fichte’s views on sex, marriage and gender, with two aims. Firstly, to elucidate an aspect of his moral theory which has received little attention, and secondly to argue that Fichte’s distinctive stance on selfhood, freedom, and normativity lead to a revisionary account of gender expression and identity, where people can freely carve out their own identity, irrespective of “nature”. In this paper, I therefore (...) outline Fichte’s own views, highlighting what I see as a tension in the texts between essentialism and antiessentialism about gender, before reconstructing a neo-Fichtean view which foregrounds the anti-essentialist aspect. (shrink)

Bill Cosby’s immorality has raised intriguing aesthetic and ethical issues. Do the crimes that he has been convicted of lessen the aesthetic value of his stand-up and, even if we can enjoy it, should we? This article first discusses the intimate relationship between the comedian and audience. The art form itself is structurally intimate, and at the same time the comedian claims to express an authentic self on stage. After drawing an analogy between the question of the moral character of (...) comedians and the aesthetic value of their stand-up and the debate over the ethical criticism of art, this article argues that it is reasonable to find a comedian’s performance less funny, because stand-up’s artistic success relies on this intimacy. It contrasts the comedy of Bill Cosby with that of Louis C.K. C.K.’s moral flaws are much more present in his comedy, and it is therefore more difficult to find him funny. Last, it is ethically permissible to enjoy their comedy, if no harm to others results, both because it does not corrupt the audience’s character and because amusement is valuable. (shrink)

Reeder’s article offers a new and intriguing approach to the study of people’s ordinary understanding of freedom and constraint. On this approach, people use information about freedom and constraint as part of a quasi-scientific effort to make accurate inferences about an agent’s motives. Their beliefs about the agent’s motives then affect a wide variety of further psychological processes, including the process whereby they arrive at moral judgments. In illustrating this new approach, Reeder cites an elegant study he conducted a number (...) of years ago (Reeder & Spores, 1983). All subjects were given a vignette about a man who goes with his date to a pizza parlor and happens to come across a box that has been designated for charitable donations. In one condition, the man’s date then requests that he make a donation; in the other, she requests that he steal the money that is already in the box. In both conditions, the man chooses to comply with this request. The key question is how subjects will use his behavior to make inferences about whether he is a morally good or morally bad person. The results revealed a marked difference between conditions. When the man donated to charity, subjects were generally disinclined to conclude that he must have been a morally good person. It is as though they were thinking: ‘He didn’t just do this out of the goodness of his heart. (shrink)

I argue that we can visually perceive others as seeing agents. I start by characterizing perceptual processes as those that are causally controlled by proximal stimuli. I then distinguish between various forms of visual perspective-taking, before presenting evidence that most of them come in perceptual varieties. In doing so, I clarify and defend the view that some forms of visual perspective-taking are “automatic”—a view that has been marshalled in support of dual-process accounts of mindreading.

A narrative reading of Augustine's Cassiciacum dialogues (De Beata Vita, Contra Academicos, and De Ordine) with particular focus on the role of Licentius, who learns philosophy through Socratic conversation with Augustine.

The importance of situational constraint for moral evaluations is widely accepted in philosophy, psychology, and the law. However, recent work suggests that this relationship is actually bidirectional: moral evaluations can also influence our judgments of situational constraint. For example, if an agent is thought to have acted immorally rather than morally, that agent is often judged to have acted with greater freedom and under less situational constraint. Moreover, when considering interpersonal situations, we judge that an agent who forces another to (...) act immorally (versus morally) uses more force. These two features can result in contradictory response patterns in which participants judge both that (1) a forcer forced a forcee to act and (2) the forcee was not forced by the forcer to act. Here, we characterize potential psychological mechanisms, in particular, “moral focus” and counterfactual reasoning that account for this paradoxical pattern of judgments. (shrink)