In this paper, I explore a fundamental but under-appreciated distinction between two ways of understanding the desire-satisfaction theory of well-being. According to proactive desire satisfactionism, a person is benefited by the acquisition of new satisfied desires. According to reactive desire satisfactionism, a person can be benefited only by the satisfaction of their existing desires. I first offer an overview of this distinction. I then canvass several ways of developing a general formulation of desire satisfactionism that would capture the reactive view, (...) and argue that all come with significant costs. (shrink)

Informed consent is a central concept for empirical and theoretical research concerning pregnancy management decisions and is often taken to be one of the more fundamental goals of the profession of genetic counseling. Tellingly, this concept has been seen by disability communities as salutary, despite longstanding critiques made by disability activists, advocates, and scholars concerning practices involved in genetic counseling more generally. In this chapter, we show that the widespread faith in informed consent is misleading and can be detrimental to (...) the practice of genetic counseling as guided by concerns of justice and equity. We proceed in two steps. First, we explain how informed consent is flawed as a practical concept. Second, we show how the inadequacy of informed consent illuminates the animating core of disability critiques of genetic counseling: the issue of ableism. We argue that the problem of ableism cannot be solved with informed consent because it is not merely a problem of information, but also of epistemic schemas. We suggest that what we call critically informed consent is better suited to move genetic counseling from being aware of the problem of ableism to becoming actively anti-ableist. (shrink)

Pattern-based reasons are reasons for action deriving not from the features of our own actions, but from the features of the larger patterns of action in which we might be participating. These reasons might relate to the patterns of action that will actually be carried out, or they might relate to merely hypothetical patterns. In past work, I have argued that accepting merely hypothetical pattern-based reasons, together with a plausible account of how to weigh these reasons, can lead to disastrous (...) consequences. However, in this article, I argue that this problem is not limited to hypothetical pattern-based reasons: it turns out that there are analogous issues for reasons deriving from actual patterns. I then suggest that we can avoid this problem by adopting a different account of the weight of pattern-based reasons. (shrink)

When we think about ethics, we normally focus on a particular sort of agent: the individual person. Some philosophers have argued that we should rethink the limits of what counts as an ethically relevant unit of agency by expanding outward, and claiming that groups of people can have normative reasons for action. In this paper, I explore whether we can go in the other direction. Are there sub‐personal beings who count as agents with their own reasons for action? In particular, (...) might the temporal parts of persons, beings like “me‐in‐my‐twenties,” be thought of as normative agents? This idea, I argue, has deep attractions, and deep, but surmountable, challenges. And if we do accept this idea, I argue, this can indirectly help to support the case for thinking that groups can have reasons for action. (shrink)

Could it be true that even though we as a group ought to do something, you as an individual ought not to do your part? And under what conditions, in particular, could this happen? In this article, I discuss how a certain kind of case, introduced by David Copp, illustrates the possibility that you ought not to do your part even when you would be playing a crucial causal role in the group action. This is because you may have special (...) agent-relative reasons against participating that are not shared by the group as a whole. I defend the claim that these are indeed cases in which you ought not to do your part in what the group ought to do. I then argue that we can expect these cases to produce a troubling kind of rational conflict. (shrink)

The paradox of hedonism is the idea that making pleasure the only thing that we desire for its own sake can be self-defeating. Why would this be true? In this paper, I survey two prominent explanations, then develop a third possible explanation, inspired by Joseph Butler's classic discussion of the paradox. The existing accounts claim that the paradox arises because we are systematically incompetent at predicting what will make us happy, or because the greatest pleasures for human beings are found (...) in certain special goods which hedonists cannot enjoy. On the account that I develop, the paradox is a consequence of a theory about the nature of pleasure, together with a view about the requirements of rational belief. Which of these explanations is correct, I argue, bears on central questions about how to understand the nature and extent of the paradox. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper endeavors to establish a comprehensive account of human knowledge that embraces the probabilistic nature of truth, the integral role of language in our cognitive processes, and the uncertainty and fallibility inherent in our cognitive systems. Drawing upon the work of various philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists, the paper advocates for a reinterpretation of the traditional "Justified True Belief" as "Justified Probable Belief." Additionally, the biological underpinnings of this perspective are explored, with an emphasis on synaptic plasticity, dopamine-based learning, (...) and epigenetic mechanisms. (shrink)

This commentary responds to the article “What Is the Aim of Pediatric ‘Gender‐Affirming’ Care?,” by Moti Gorin, in the same issue of the journal. Gender‐affirming care is often treated as exceptional and subject to heightened scrutiny. This exceptionalization results in its being held to stricter evidentiary standards than other forms of medical interventions are. But values and value judgments are inextricable from the practice of evidence‐based medicine. For gender‐affirming care, values shape what counts as “strong” evidence, whether the legitimacy of (...) transgender identity is assumed versus treated as something to be investigated, how to characterize the testimonial accounts of trans and gender‐nonconforming patients, and more. We argue that these kinds of questions are part of the practice of medicine, not exceptional to transgender people and gender‐affirming care. However, litigation of evidence for gender‐affirming care in state and national policy underscores the moral urgency of thinking carefully about what values ought to guide evidence. (shrink)

In this paper, I assess John McDowell's paper "Avoiding the Myth of the Given" (2009) (AMG) and its theory of epistemological openness to the world. I trace its motivations back to Kantian, Sellarsian and Aristotelean roots. I argue that McDowell subscribes to a kind of Holistic Theory of Rationality (HTR). To explain the HTR, I will analyze the Sellarsian notions of the "Manifest Image," the "Myth of the Given" and the "logical space of reasons." I argue that the holistic nature (...) of McDowell's theory gives it particular properties that put it in need of conservatism, because all the elements of the theory "hang together" - i.e. cohere - in a dangerous fashion. I argue that McDowell cannot afford big changes without upsetting the apple-cart. With this in mind, I shall assess the merits and demerits of AMG, and its modified theory of perceptual content, as an attempted conservative reform of HTR. I want to argue that, taken independently, AMG is a good and important change, but taken holistically it is non-conservative, and disruptive, of the McDowellian picture. Thus, if we wish to proceed with the McDowellian path, we are led to a choice between rejecting the local reform (and retreating back to an earlier version) or demanding further explanations of its global implications. (shrink)

Plausibly, one important part of a good life is doing work that makes a contribution, or a positive difference to the world. In this paper, however, I explore contribution pessimism, the view that people will not always have adequate opportunities for making contributions. I distinguish between three interestingly different and at least initially plausible reasons why this view might be true: in slogan form, things might become too easy, they might become too good, or we might be too late. Now, (...) one response to these problems might be to deliberately attempt to undo them. However, I claim that this solution is intuitively misguided, and argue that explaining this supports a holistic approach to the value of contributions. Finally, I argue that if contribution pessimism is correct, it could provide an explanation of some widely held intuitions about issues in population ethics, with implications about the practical issue of how much priority we should give to addressing risks of human extinction. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the conceptions of "Nothigness" and "nihility" in Western continental philosophy and Japanese philosophy. The experience of the Self, and the experiences of the transcendent, are constructed upon the prevalent assumptions of the culture that the individual finds herself in. The question of the relationship between the "I" and the "World" is differently solved (or stabilized, fixed) in different cultures. I seek to defend and interrogate the claim that Japan's core metaphysical stance is that of non-dualistic non-essentialism. In (...) Takeuchi Yoshimi's words, "Japan is nothing." By contrast, Europe is "something" - e.g., history, space, structure, being. The European metaphysics of self-understanding, at least in some aspects of Continental thought, is based on the primacy of being over nothingness, whereas Japanese metaphysics is based on the non-duality of substance and insubstantiality. Japanese metaphysics, Japanese self-identity, is "zero." Japanese metaphysics, including Buddhism, is based on the idea of nonsubstantiality, i.e. groundlessness of Being. We could say that in Japan "the transcendental center that consolidates the system is absent" (Karatani 1990: 70). This analysis illuminates how differently, and still productively, the experience of nihilism can appear in Japan and in the West. (shrink)

The paradox of hedonism is the idea that intrinsically desiring nothing other than pleasure can prevent one from obtaining pleasure. In this article, I show how the paradox of hedonism can be used as the basis for an objection against hedonism about well-being, and one that is more defensible than has been commonly recognized. Moreover, I argue that the challenge presented by the paradox can be used to target not only hedonism about well-being, but also desire satisfactionism and the hybrid (...) theory. However, I argue that certain sophisticated versions of all three theories can escape it. (shrink)

Mit Herbert Schnädelbach bestimmen die Autoren dieses Bandes Philosophie als 'Versuch gedanklicher Orientierung im Bereich der Grundsätze unseres Denkens, Erkennens und Handelns'. Ihre Texte sind Beiträge zur inhaltlichen Ausführung dieser programmatischen Begriffsbestimmung.

The complexity approach to political economy suggests that radical uncertainty is a necessary feature of a complex and evolving socioeconomic landscape. Radical uncertainty raises various adaptive challenges that are likely to escalate in the coming decades under the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” It jeopardizes the wellbeing of ordinary citizens, whose welfare prospects, job opportunities, and income stream are rendered insecure. It also renders precarious the robust implementation of universal human rights, including the right to social security. In fact, it will be (...) argued that human rights cannot be institutionally secured unless they are implemented in a “complexity aware” way that takes account of the uncertainty of the socioeconomic order. In particular, in order to better protect the dignity of rights holders, and to allow them to survive and thrive in the face of radical uncertainty, governments ought to explore various institutional alternatives to existing schemes. It will be suggested that most existing conditional welfare policies systematically fall short of complexity-aware institutional implementation to the extent that they rely on unreasonable assumptions regarding the availability of salient technocratic control over the complex socioeconomic order. Some economists and philosophers have suggested that UBI (Universal Basic Income) might be a viable way to implement the right to social security today. I propose that some of UBI’s most ethically and economically controversial features, such as unconditionality and universality, appear relatively appealing in light of the complexity perspective. In the absence of better alternatives, UBI might even be a requirement of a robust implementation of the human right to social security – a right that welfare states are already committed to on the level of ideal theory but predictably fail to respect in practice due to policy incoherence. However, open questions remain about whether UBI can be transformed from an ideal model into a pragmatic policy. (shrink)

In his influential 1949 essay, The Intellectuals and Socialism, F.A. Hayek prophesied that the “revival of liberalism” must coincide with the resurgence of “the courage to be Utopian.” Today, at a time when liberalism is under attack from multiple fronts, we need courage more than ever. Indeed, the rediscovery of the Utopian potential of liberalism coincides with going back to its roots. My paper shows that liberalism, especially in its so-called “epistemic” or "evolutionary" branch whose notable theorists include Adam Smith, (...) J.S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, and F.A. Hayek, provides a framework for “real Utopian” theory and practice. However, I argue that evolutionary liberalism should be enriched with the insights of contemporary evolutionary theory and complexity theory to properly account for the downsides of social evolution and to overcome the understandable charge of social Darwinism. Only then can it robustly realise its emancipatory aspirations and real Utopian promise. (shrink)

Classical liberals have a long and convoluted history with the welfare state. Welfare policy has engaged liberals ever since the debates round poor relief, land ownership, and distributive justice in authors like John Locke, Thomas Paine, Herbert Spencer, and Henry George. However, the majority of the welfare state debate, from David Hume and Adam Smith to Milton Friedman and Richard Epstein, has been conducted primarily on the basis of rule-consequentialist reasoning, weighing the expected (long-term) costs and benefits of different institutional (...) rules. Classical liberals tend to be primarily concerned with welfare in the “happiness of individuals” sense and only secondarily with welfare in the “government handout” sense. This necessitates an investigation into the expected benefits and costs of various institutional rules and social policies. As a result, any disagreements about the best institutional pathway forward must be settled through comparative institutional analysis. Today, it seems to me that the classical liberal perspective must choose between two alternative pathways, each of which has its pros and cons, and each of which seems compatible with the abstract and general rules of the market society: 1) The Minimally Redistributive State based on a classical liberal constitution supported by robust market institutions and a civil society mosaic of polycentric mutual aid networks; or 2) The Welfare State of Law which, in addition to all of the above, adds a few carefully rule-bound and market-conforming redistributive mechanisms, the most important of which is the robust guarantee of something like a conditional minimum income scheme or an unconditional UBI/NIT scheme. In addition, the 3) “Third Way” models of the Social Market Economy and the Free Market Welfare State are also sometimes included as a third option. (shrink)

This essay comprises two chapters from the first part of Bollnow’s book on moods, namely the second chapter on the concept of Stimmung and the third chapter on Stimmungen as the sustaining foundation of the soul. It argues that moods constitute the simplest and most original form in which human life comes to know itself. Moods are understood as a specific harmony between, first, the inner and outer world; second, the states of the body and the soul; and, third, the (...) individual faculties of the soul. Moods differ from emotions in the narrow sense, which are always intentionally directed towards a specific object, whereas moods do not have any specific object; they are states of being, structuring and coloring human existence as a whole. Hence, no system of moods is provided, but their extensive diversity is indicated. Furthermore, transient, unsteady, or “moody” moods are distinguished from persistent or basic moods. (shrink)

In virtue of what do we enjoy episodes of pleasure? According to the phenomenological theory of pleasure, we enjoy pleasures in virtue of having certain kinds of phenomenal experiences. According to the attitude theory of pleasure, we enjoy pleasures in virtue of having a certain kind of pro-attitude. In this chapter, we show that the attitude theory faces a dilemma. The attitude that is relevant to pleasure—the desire, liking, or favoring—is either necessarily co-instantiated with certain phenomenology, or not. If the (...) attitude theorist denies that the relevant attitudes are phenomenologically enriched in this sense, then their theory has the problematic implication that pleasure can come radically apart from phenomenology. This leads to a *problem of hedonic inversion*. If the attitude theorist instead affirms that the relevant attitudes are phenomenologically enriched, then they undermine their main objection to the phenomenological theory of pleasure. This is the so-called *heterogeneity problem*, according to which pleasures do not feel alike. Either way, the attitudinal theorist faces a difficult challenge in their ongoing debate with phenomenological theorists. (shrink)

The Finnish experiment of 2017–18 is a crucial test case. It provides one of the most robust experimental tests of a universal basic income (UBI) in the context of an advanced industrialised society. And it is a real milestone, since it represents a nonutopian approach to UBI that can be palatable to middle class voters. But its partial success is also a partial failure. Although it is too early to render judgement, the Finnish case shows that there are many obstacles (...) for the successful implementation of theoretical models. Experiments often fall short of the ideal experimental conditions. This speaks against taking too optimistic a view on the next steps. (shrink)

Liberal-minded basic income scholars often argue that UBI has two key properties that work together to justify it. Let us call these the freedom justification and the narrative justification. On the one hand, UBI is defended because it gives people more freedom to do what they want to do. (Stigler, 1946, Friedman, 1962; Van Parijs, 1995; Widerquist, 2013) They exhibit primary concern for the purely formal properties of the regime of liberal neutrality. On the other hand, many scholars, including many (...) of the same liberal scholars, argue that UBI also pushes society substantively towards desirable social outcomes. They combine the freedom justification with substantive predictions and expectations. (Rifkin, 1995; Murray, 2016; Weeks, 2020) However, I show that both existentialist philosophy (Sartre) and complexity theory (Knight, Hayek, Schumpeter) suggest that a liberal social order is compatible, at best, with rough pattern prediction about a multiply realizable future that remains narratively open to multiple possible trajectories. Liberal neutrality, to the extent that it nourishes radical freedom, is incompatible with strong, stable narrative predictions. As Nozick put, it “liberty upsets patterns”. This is true of all liberal UBI models, and liberal institutions in general. (shrink)

As a response to the COVID-19 crisis, governments have turned to various discretionary measures such as cash transfers to consumers and businesses with mixed results. Universal Basic Income (UBI) is back on the agenda as well. One of the main advantages of UBI, as scholars like F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James M. Buchanan have argued, is that it does not depend upon competent and benevolent government discretion—which is often in short supply—but upon pre-established rules. This paper argues that the (...) UBI scheme holds tentative promise from the point of view of improving the institutional crisis preparedness of a complex socioeconomic order. The pre-established rules of UBI buttress the rule of law framework that improves the ability of economic agents to spontaneously coordinate their actions in times of crisis characterized by radical uncertainty, disequilibrium shocks, and institutional instability. Furthermore, UBI combines the distribution of fungible resources with the delegation of independent decision-making power to millions of crisis-struck individuals and communities. Compared to discretionary tax-and-transfer schemes, the rules of UBI therefore appear more compatible with the polycentric discovery of novel solutions from the bottom-up. In times of crisis, UBI may be relied upon as one cornerstone of what I shall call the permanent crisis management framework. Having such a permanent scheme may minimize - although it does not altogether eliminate - the need for discretionary transfers, targeted intervention, and technocratic management in times of crisis. However, this theoretical model of UBI as a facilitator of polycentric crisis preparedness faces several practical challenges that need to be addressed in further research. (shrink)

This article analyses the phenomenology and ontology of videogames through the lens of semiotics. The difference between games and more traditional narrative models (such as those found in books and movies) lies on the structural level. The game narrative needs to be ‘written’ (played) before it can be ‘read’ (interpreted). Games provide fluidity of interactive immersion: the interface as the place of the merger between the player and the game. A connection, without delay, is established between the movement of the (...) player’s hands and the virtual movement across virtual space-times of the virtual characters/events on the screen. The connection is cybernetic, of course, and real. The actuality of the virtual is established as the action of the finger movements of the player. Games require at least a minimum degree of interaction. The player has a role as the master of the code, as the last string of code attached to complete the sequence. Such is the definition of the Cinematic under the formal demands of the Ludic: the defining-delimiting-restricting background which nonetheless, by its very (fixed) presence, provides the nurturing ground for the appearance and presence of (fluid) malleability as the ‘gap’ or ‘lack’ in the structure to be filled – in whatever manner – by the player in the act of his or her (world-constitutive) existential engagement. (shrink)

Why humanism, still/again? The very same question was asked – not for the first time, nor for the last – by Sartre, in a rhetorical mood, in his 1946 landmark treatise, L’existentialisme est un humanisme, a work which propounded many of the topics and doctrines that were to become the core of the new French existentialist movement in philosophy and literature. In differentiating “his” philosophy from the other humanist traditions of the time – from those allied with it, like Marxism, (...) to those hostile to it, like Christianity – he chose to define “existentialist” humanism as radically distinct from “essentialist” or “classical” humanism (basically everything pre-Sartre or pre-Existentialism). Humanism he defined as “une theorie qui prend l’homme comme fin et comme valeur supérieure." In his reading of history, this pre-existentialist humanism of his forebears, as represented by Enlightenment’s offspring, unduly emphasized such things as “human nature”, “human rights” (god-given or natural) and social law-likeness – all essentialist, anti-individualistic theories of the human condition. Existentialism wanted to strip away the last vestiges of any essentialist salvaging of the absoluteness of Man’s condition: “l’homme est libre, l’homme est liberté”; “Nous sommes seuls, sans excuses … l’homme est condamné à être libre." Instead of history or the social condition being the sculptor of man, it is man himself who is the author of his own destiny and of the course of history. This open up possibilities of progress but also temptations of hubris and disaster. (shrink)

In his insightful book, Trust in a Polarized Age, Kevin Vallier (2021) convincingly shows that the legitimacy and sustainability of liberal democratic institutions are dependent upon the maintenance of social and institutional trust. This insight, I believe, has value beyond the illustrious halls of post-Rawlsian, post-Gausian thought. Indeed, while I remain skeptical towards some of the premises of public reason liberalism, I am convinced that any liberal democratic political philosopher who takes the trust literature seriously and who has made their (...) (pragmatic or principled) peace with redistribution has good reasons to sympathize with the general outlines of the institutional palette that emerges out of his book. In this article, I will take for granted Vallier’s assumption that the erosion of social and institutional trust is a serious problem. This motivates investigating the trust-bearing attributes of the redistributive welfare state and the “principle of social insurance” that underpins it. I reconstruct and critically analyse Vallier’s case for a liberal democratic welfare state. I show that he makes a convincing public reason argument for universal social insurance but proceeds too hastily to exclude the principle of unconditionality from consideration. The rest of my paper consists of defending this claim by presenting two kinds of arguments— empirical and theoretical—that I think public reason liberals like Vallier, according to their own commitments, should be motivated to incorporate into their comprehensive discussion of the public justifications for and against basic income. They will show that Universal Basic Income (UBI), although it remains contentious, has some features that could appeal to a diverse citizenry, and thus tilt the balance of public reason judgments towards UBI. (shrink)

In a number of works, James M. Buchanan set out a proposal for a ‘demogrant’— a form of universal basic income that applied the principles of generality and non discrimination to the tax and the transfer sides of the scheme and was to be implemented as a constitutional rule outside the realm of day-to-day politics. The demogrant has received surprisingly little scholarly attention, but this article locates it in Buchanan’s broader constitutional political economy project and shows it was a logical (...) application of his theoretical framework to the problem of inefficient and unfair welfare systems when reform to the basic institutions of majoritarian democracy was not forthcoming. The demogrant aims to end the problems of majority cycling and rent seeking that plague contemporary welfare states and therefore offers a model of welfare without rent seeking—a constitutional welfare state. We compare Buchanan’s demogrant model to other universal basic income and negative income tax models and consider the most important criticisms. We conclude that rescuing the demogrant model from relative obscurity would be a fruitful future task of applied constitutional political economy and public choice. (shrink)

What does effective poverty relief entail? How are we to assess the capacity of advanced industrialized societies to solve the problem of poverty? What role, if any, is left for the welfare state? This chapter argues that poverty relief, far from being primarily a matter of post hoc redistribution, primarily consists in a Hayekian-Schumpeterian discovery (or innovation) procedure whereby the problems of the poor are continuously discovered, identified, and eventually solved from the bottom up. This suggests new avenues for reform. (...) I argue, from the point of view of complexity theory, that governments must overcome knowledge and governance problems that limit their competence in the realm of solving the problems of the poor. As a result, any efficient system of poverty relief is unlikely to emerge from imposing an efficient and equitable top-down delivery of given goods and services based on established practices or preferences. The knowledge of what goods and services are required, and what practices should be modified to produce them, is not given to policy makers; it needs to be discovered. And this discovery is best modeled as an entrepreneurial, inquisitive, and experimental process. This process is best understood by applying complexity theory and the Austrian (Hayekian) epistemic paradigm. (shrink)

Tämä artikkeli esittelee utilitaristisen valistusliberalismin käsityksen sananvapaudesta. Sen perusväite on, että tiedonhaluinen, kehittyvä ja demokraattinen yhteiskunta hyötyy pitkällä tähtäimellä enemmän laajan sananvapauden sallimisesta kuin sen maltillisestakin rajoittamisesta. Tämän näkökulman mukaan haitallisen puheen – kuten vihapuheen ja muun loukkaavan puheen – tukahduttaminen on epätoivottavaa mutta tilannekohtaisesti hyötylaskelmien mukaan perusteltavissa, jos laajan sananvapauden pitkän tähtäimen hyödyt on otettu riittävästi huomioon. Ongelma onkin siinä, että näitä pitkän tähtäimen hyötyjä ei yleensä ole otettu riittävästi huomioon. Sananvapauden haitat ovat kiistattomia, joten sananvapauden uskottavan puolustuksen tulee (...) lähteä tämän todellisuuden hyväksymisestä. Sen tulee tarjota uskottava teoreettinen vaihtoehto houkutteleville valtiollisille ratkaisuille, kuten kohdennetulle vihapuhelainsäädännölle. Väitän, että radikaalin valistusliberalismin esittämä laajan sananvapauden malli tarjoaa tällaisen vaihtoehdon. (shrink)

My paper proposes a tentative framework of bio-existential semiotics based on a reading of Peirce, Darwin, Heidegger, Tarasti, and others. According to this view, there is an evolutionary continuum to life. Human beings are natural organisms and they exhibit many similar bio-existential phenomena. Natural evolution also produces the anthropological, societal and global semiotic processes that constitute cultural evolution as an outgrowth. In the bio-existential perspective, the world is composed of imperfect systems and imperfect consciousnesses where every lifeform must struggle for (...) its existence. Every “Dasein” must face the fact that it must die because it cannot comprehend or control the universe in its totality. This is why life and existence are “tragic” phenomena. Every bio-existential Dasein is a partial comprehension of the universe, and the only way the universe can comprehend itself is through these partial perspectives, which are born to imperfection and die in imperfection, but whose imperfection is of the essence of the universe. This is why bio-existentialism makes for a “tragic” perspective: we are mortals, and all mortals must die. Nonetheless, there is also hope and optimism in this view of life. In conceiving of existence as having certain universal principles that extend from biology to sociology, semioticians and philosophers can formulate new ways of looking at the world. Together with scientists and artists, they can hopefully work towards a better – or at least more refined – ethical attitude towards science, nature and society. (shrink)

Despite the ubiquity of inner speech in our mental lives, methods for objectively assessing inner speech capacities remain underdeveloped. The most common means of assessing inner speech is to present participants with tasks requiring them to silently judge whether two words rhyme. We developed a version of this task to assess the inner speech of a population of patients with aphasia and corresponding language production deficits. As expected, patients’ performance on the silent rhyming task was severely impaired relative to controls. (...) More surprisingly, however, patients’ performance on this task did not correlate with their performance on a variety of other standard tests of overt language abilities. In particular, patients who were generally unimpaired in their abilities to overtly name objects during confrontation naming tasks, and who could reliably judge when two words spoken to them rhymed, were still severely impaired (relative to controls) at completing the silent rhyme task. This seems to suggest that inner speech was more severely impaired in these patients than outer speech. However, these results should also cause us to critically reflect on the relation between inner speech and silent rhyme judgments more generally. (shrink)

Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been proposed as a potential way in which welfare states could be made more responsive to the ever-shifting evolutionary challenges of institutional adaptation in a dynamic environment. It has been proposed as a tool of “real freedom” (Van Parijs) and as a tool of making the welfare state more efficient. (Friedman) From the point of view of complexity theory and evolutionary economics, I argue that only a welfare state model that is “polycentrically” (Polanyi, Hayek) organized (...) as an evolving network of distributed decision-making can respond to the challenges of complexity in an adaptively efficient manner. UBI has the theoretical possibility to facilitate flexible, bottom-up innovation, since a) it embodies the “rule of law” principles of generality, nondiscrimination, simplicity, and transparency, and b) it grants people widespread freedom to experiment, innovate, and deviate from established practices and norms; but whether it can be made to work as intended depends on a number of variables in its design. I situate my research in the contemporary UBI debate around automation and technological development, which I interpret creatively through the lens of contemporary evolutionary political economy. I advance a syncretic model of institutional design based upon the shared insights of the Santa Fe, Neo-Hayekian, and Neo-Schumpeterian schools of evolutionary economics that, following Adam Thierer and Michael Munger, I call the framework of Permissionless Innovation (PI). Under the PI framework, which is a development of the tradition of evolutionary liberalism (Hume, Smith, Mandeville, Mill, Hayek, Polanyi, Schumpeter, Hodgson), individuals are granted the default right to innovate without having to ask for permission, and the right to basic income, which they can use to support their right to innovate, mutate, and experiment. This framework is a liberal framework to the extent it relies on widespread human freedom as a means of fostering innovation and social learning. And it is an evolutionary framework to the extent that it seeks to facilitate evolutionary socioeconomic processes for the sake of social progress and welfare advancement. I proceed to show, through an analysis of how innovation operates in both the economy and the cultural domain, that UBI can be used as an important cornerstone of an evolutionary liberal model of “ecostructural” governance that treats the socioeconomic order as an ecological garden of spontaneous growths, adaptations, and innovations. I call this the Permissionless Innovation Universal Basic Income (PIUBI) framework. In it, the right to innovate, deviate, and mutate is upheld as the “gold standard” of institutional design whereby individuals are granted widespread freedoms combined with the provision of UBI and other innovation-fostering (carefully bound) services and regulations. In the coming decades, UBI may even enable poor people to take better advantage of Human Enhancement Technologies (HETs) and other experimental innovations. Such a framework is compatible with a fast pace of evolutionary development, but the regulatory model accompanying such a framework must be capable of responding to evolutionary lock-ins, maladaptive innovations, self-destructive behaviour on the part of UBI recipients, and the management of catastrophic and existential risks. In the end, I will have shown that the PIUBI framework can be justified as a plausible default institutional mechanism for responding to radical uncertainty, but it needs to be experimentally adapted to changing circumstances with the help of various situation-specific, polycentric, multi-level, approaches. (shrink)

In recent years, language has been shown to play a number of important cognitive roles over and above the communication of thoughts. One hypothesis gaining support is that language facilitates thought about abstract categories, such as democracy or prediction. To test this proposal, a novel set of semantic memory task trials, designed for assessing abstract thought non-linguistically, were normed for levels of abstractness. The trials were rated as more or less abstract to the degree that answering them required the participant (...) to abstract away from both perceptual features and common setting associations corresponding to the target image. The normed materials were then used with a population of people with aphasia to assess the relationship of abstract thought to language. While the language-impaired group with aphasia showed lower overall accuracy and longer response times than controls in general, of special note is that their response times were significantly longer as a function of a trial’s degree of abstractness. Further, the aphasia group’s response times in reporting their degree of confidence (a separate, metacognitive measure) were negatively correlated with their language production abilities, with lower language scores predicting longer metacognitive response times. These results provide some support for the hypothesis that language is an important aid to abstract thought and to metacognition about abstract thought. (shrink)

Different opinions about the simplicity of God may be connected with different understandings of how abstract terms are used to name the properties which are affirmed of a being. If these terms are taken to signify parts of that being, this being is not a simple one. Thomas Aquinas, who attributes essence, existence and perfections to God, nevertheless thinks that these are not different parts of God. When essence, existence and perfections are attributed to God, they all denominate the same, (...) the Being of the first cause. For Aquinas, this is a consequence of his way of introducing the language about God by basing it upon the philosophical ways leading to God as first cause. Awareness of this connection between Divine attributes and the arguments for God’s existence is crucial for an adequate understanding of Aquinas’ position. (shrink)

Um princípio moral a priori, segundo Kant, não resulta dizer que ele vem antes da experiência moral, mas que pode ter uma origem independente dela, recebendo uma justificação sem um recurso à experiência. A Metafísica dos Costumes de Kant é de ordem metodológica, sendo que o método analítico consiste em que a partir do saber filosófico aplica-se o princípio a casos particulares. Desse modo, Kant procura estabelecer o princípio supremo da moralidade e, este seria um juízo sintético a priori, tendo (...) as formas puras da sensibilidade e do entendimento para possibilitarem os juízos sintéticos a priori. Além disso, o princípio supremo da moralidade justificará a priori e deduzirá dele as obrigações morais. Há três proposições fundamentais das quais Kant estabelece para apresentar o princípio supremo da moralidade: a primeira refere-se ao valor moral da ação da qual está em seu cumprimento por dever e não simplesmente em conformidade com o dever; a segunda proposição afirma que uma ação desempenhada por dever não tem seu valor no propósito a ser atingido, mas na máxima que a determina; e por fim, a terceira declara o dever sendo a necessidade de uma ação executada por respeito à lei. Kant alcança o imperativo moral através de desdobramentos conceituais, onde formula o Imperativo Categórico sendo uma máxima de ação que possui um valor universal, isto é, aplicada ao indivíduo e para todos os outros seres racionais. Todo comportamento moral é, segundo Kant, comportamento regrado. Isso quer dizer que o agir moralmente consiste em seguir a lei moral de certo modo. Há um quadro de deveres apontado na obra Metafísica dos Costumes, onde se apresenta a distinção entre os deveres para consigo e deveres para com os outros e, dessa maneira, entende-se em deveres para consigo como, não cometer suicídio e desenvolver os talento, e assim, em deveres para com os outros se entende como, manter as promessas e ajudar as pessoas que necessitam. E portanto, Kant critica a Regra de ouro por não fazer essa distinção entre deveres para consigo e deveres para com os outros. O imperativo categórico institui a necessidade de julgar as máximas desde um ponto de vista imparcial, e uma máxima de ação é uma regra de agir que tem validade apenas para um indivíduo. Desse modo, uma ação praticada por dever tem seu valor na máxima que a determina, isto é, uma máxima de ação é uma regra subjetiva do agir, a possível portadora do dever moral. Kant testa as máximas a partir daquilo que ele considera o princípio supremo da moralidade, ou seja, o Imperativo Categórico. Logo, um imperativo é um mandamento da razão, onde todos os imperativos exprimem-se pelo verbo dever. Sendo assim, há duas subclasses básicas de imperativos: hipotéticas ou categóricas. Um imperativo hipotético apresenta uma ação como necessária para atingir um determinado fim, e os imperativos hipotéticos ainda se subdividem em problemáticos, isto é, para uma intenção possível, e em assertóricos, para uma intenção real. O Imperativo Categórico é o princípio que estabelece se as máximas de ação, ou seja, são regras subjetivas do agir, que podem ser consideradas leis práticas. Em outras palavras, o Imperativo Categórico é uma norma para decidir quais máximas podem ser transformadas em leis práticas. A fórmula geral do Imperativo Categórico, “Age apenas segundo uma máxima tal que possas ao mesmo tempo querer que ela se torne lei universal’’ é o único princípio da moralidade. Portanto, a universalidade de uma máxima é a exigência do princípio supremo da moral de Kant. Ter uma vontade boa é exatamente cumprir o dever pelo dever, e é exatamente isso que confere valor moral a nossas ações. Logo, seguir uma lei moral é apenas uma condição necessária do agir moralmente, mas não é suficiente. Kant em a Fundamentação da metafísica dos costumes sustenta, desse modo, que: “Não há nada em lugar algum, no mundo e até mesmo fora dele, que se possa pensar como sendo irrestritamente bom, a não ser tão-somente uma boa vontade.” (KANT, GMS, 4: 393) Segundo Kant o conceito de bom e mau não tem que ser determinado antes da lei moral, isto é, não existe nada de modo absoluto bom, mas apenas existe uma boa vontade. Desse modo, Kant critica tanto a ética antiga de virtudes e a ética utilitarista de seu tempo. Algumas propriedades são até favoráveis a essa boa vontade e podem facilitar muito sua obra, contudo não têm qualquer valor intrínseco incondicional, mas pressupõem sempre ainda uma boa vontade, que restringe, aliás, com razão, a alta estima em que são tidas e não permite tê-las como absolutamente boas. A moderação nos afectos e paixões, o autodomínio e a sóbria deliberação não somente são coisas boas sob muitos aspectos, mas parece até mesmo constituir uma parte do valor intrínseco da pessoa; só que falta muito ainda para declará-los sem restrição como bons. Pois, sem princípios de uma boa vontade, podem tronar-se extremamente maus, e o sangue-frio de um malfeitor torna-o não só mais perigoso, mas também ainda mais imediatamente abominável aos nossos olhos do que teria sido assim considerado sem isso. (KANT, GMS, 4: 393) Kant afirma, assim, que as virtudes de certo modo podem ser más se não existir uma vontade boa para guia-la, logo, ele não louva de modo absoluto as virtudes e também não admite que a felicidade possa ser o fim último que justifica as ações morais, mas a priorização do correto e não do bem. E por fim, Kant argumenta contra a ética utilitarista, declarando que uma ação não pode ser considerada como sendo absolutamente boa a partir de seus resultados. Desse modo, há regras morais que se deve cumprir, independente dos resultados ou consequências. A proposta da ética kantiana em sustentar que existem princípios auto evidentes, ou seja, normas morais, ou o tal princípio supremo da moralidade, onde prioriza o correto ao invés do bem, ao meu ver revela a pureza da ação do homem em contraste com sua capacidade para tal. Assim, quando Kant refere-se as ações, não apenas as consequências delas as tornam certas ou erradas, isto é, erradas independentemente das suas consequências, aliás, uma ação é errada quando com ela infringe-se intencionalmente algumas das normas morais. E por fim, acredito ser pior provocar um mal que permitir que um mal ocorra, como por exemplo, é pior matar uma pessoa que deixá-la morrer. E também, seria pior dar origem a um mal intencionalmente que dar a origem a um mal que não pretendemos produzir, como por exemplo, é pior torturar alguém que fazer algo que resulte em sofrimento como efeito colateral. (shrink)

The classical liberal paradigm has always argued for strong economic freedom combined with limits on government power. But it has also been always openminded about using government programs to improve the society. These principles, if applied to today’s society, are simultaneously a criticism of “really existing” welfare state ideology – with its lack of economic freedom and its reliance on the expansive bureaucracy – but also an opportunity for reforming welfare states toward more freedom-based alternatives. There is a utopian potential (...) in classical liberalism. This book articulates how several strands of liberalism, including Austrian school liberalism and Chicago school liberalism, may support something like universal basic income (UBI). (shrink)

Intellectual property (IP) can internalize positive externalities associated with the creation and discovery of ideas, thereby increasing investment in efforts to create and discover ideas. However, IP law also causes negative externalities. Strict IP rights raise the transaction costs associated with consuming and building on existing ideas. This causes a tragedy of the anticommons, in which valuable resources are underused and underdeveloped. By disincentivizing creative projects that build on existing ideas, IP protection, even if it increases original innovation, can inadvertently (...) reduce the rate of iterative innovation. The net effect of IP law on innovation and welfare depends on the relative magnitude of these positive and negative externalities. We argue that the current regime probably suffers from excessive, and excessively rigid, IP protection. This motivates the search for institutional alternatives and complements. We suggest that a monocentric IP rights regime may not be the only, or the most efficient, way to internalize the positive externalities of innovation. The knowledge economy supports the emergence of diverse, polycentric forms of bottom-up self-governance, both market and community led, that entail the citizen coproduction of the norms and practices of intellectual creation and discovery. (shrink)

Starting from the problem of tolerance in a multicultural society, the author undermines the limits of a classical‐liberal foundation (negative tolerance) and suggests the need for a new meaning: a positive concern of tolerance implying appreciation of a variety of social cultures and value traditions. On an ethical level, positive tolerance can be grounded in the Discourse Theory, developing the classical Kantian deontological ethics in a transcendental‐pragmatic and in a transcendental‐hermeneutic sense. In this way, discourse ethics can answer two questions (...) posed by tolerance in a multicultural society: the duty to support all in the pursuit of their ideals and realize positive tolerance as well as its restrictions. (shrink)

Was Foucault a neoliberal? This book may not settle the debate, but it marks a pivotal moment in scholarship. Situating Foucault in the liberalizing, anti-statist, and anti-Communist moments in European and U.S. history, and placing him on the French “Second Left,” opens up new horizons of thought. It forces progressives and socialists to tackle with the complex legacy of Foucault. They can either go along with Foucault to critically explore the productive and emancipatory side of neoliberalism or else bemoan his (...) (however incomplete) “neoliberal turn.” Scholars should pursue further synergistic connections between the Foucauldian and neoliberal analyses of emancipation, experimentalism, decentralized “power-knowledge,” and agential self-creation. And new questions should be asked: “Are our old conceptual tools and ideological categories ill-equipped to tackle the novel challenges of 21st century emancipatory politics? What does it mean to rethink social emancipation, beyond the hegemonic left-right mapping, after Foucault?” Dean & Zamora’s book, aside from being an informative, provocative, and fun read, prompts many questions and challenges us – in one of Foucault’s favourite phrases – to think and act differently. (shrink)

Karl Widerquist is one of the world’s leading theorists and proponents of Universal Basic Income (UBI). His argument for UBI, however, is only one important cornerstone of his broader theory of justice and freedom. This theory entails a critical reassessment of the justification and proper scope of property rights. This is the task of The Problem of Property, a nifty little book which originates in previously unpublished parts of his doctoral thesis—the same thesis that formed the foundation of his Independence, (...) Propertylessness, and Basic Income: Freedom as the Power to Say No (2013, New York: Palgrave MacMillan). The current book is thus a welcome companion piece to that magnum opus. At the same time, The Problem of Property, thanks to its brevity and clarity, is a decent standalone introduction to Widerquist’s philosophy. While some fans of his previous works might be disappointed that UBI takes an unexpected backseat, the book’s narrow critical focus on the normative justifications of property rights makes it a goldmine for political philosophers. Even Lockean right-libertarians, his ostensible main targets, should find its freedom-based arguments familiar and easy to grasp, even if they may be puzzled by some of the radical conclusions that he draws from them. (shrink)

*Taxation in Utopia" by Donald Morris makes a valuable contribution to social theory. It offers new taxonomies of actual and potential social schemes according to their diabolically creative sacrificial impositions. Perhaps the main reason to celebrate Morris’s contribution is its ability to provide insightful parallels between pecuniary and nonpecuniary “required sacrifices.” Utopian literature is rife with—indeed inseparable from—demands of sacrifice for the sake of the collective good. Morris reminds us that the full cost of Utopian schemes is measured not in (...) monetary value alone, but in the loss of freedoms, dignity, privacy, autonomy, etc. At the same time, a comprehensive analysis should also take full account of the positive side of the Utopian social calculus. It is not enough to condemn the sacrifices; one also needs to appraise the positive achievements. (shrink)

Shadow pictures radically changed the modern understanding of pictorial concepts. Tim Otto Roth’s broadly based cultural history traces the consequences of this revolution of methods of vision and image production in the sciences and the arts. By means of abundant image and text sources he develops a picture theory based on physics and projective geometry. This definitive book comprising 500 pages provides a generally understandable and vivid insight in the history of shadowgraphs from the 19th century until the present (...) age. A crucial role play scientific processes as the X-ray technique, but also the artistic examination of space and body. (shrink)

How can libertarianism—which is thought to be hostile to any redistribution—support universal, unconditional cash transfers in the form of a Basic Income? Surprisingly, many vocal proponents of programmes similar to Basic Income—such as economist Milton Friedman, public intellectual Charles Murray, and eBay co-founder Pierre Omidiyar—are self-described libertarians. As this chapter demonstrates, these and other libertarian proponents are not deviating from libertarian thought: instead, they reflect the nuance and diversity of its theoretical foundations. To that end, this chapter explores several justifications (...) for a Basic Income grounded in libertarianism. By libertarianism, we mean a family of theories that emphasize the right of the individual to be free from coercion, a strong respect for private property rights and the free market, and a presumption that market distributions are just and should be disturbed only in limited circumstances. We argue that each variant of libertarianism justifies, but does not mandate, redistribution, although for differing reasons and at different levels. Because this conclusion runs counter to most readers’ impressions of libertarianism, this chapter focuses on making the libertarian case for redistribution. We further show that once one accepts the case for redistribution, providing such redistribution through unrestricted, unconditional cash transfers best reflects core libertarian principles. (shrink)

Dysphoria is a complex phenomenon which must be defi ned in the framework of different forms of affections. It belongs to the broader field of emotions, which are characterized by some essential features: i.e. movement, passiveness, tran-sitoriness, and reference to the others. All these four essential features of emotion are specifi cally altered in depression, whose phenomenology is presented in a clinical case. In discussing dysphoria, a first distinction is made between par-ticular and global affections. The fi rst type encompasses (...) emotions and feelings, while the second one includes humor, mood and temper. Dysphoria belongs to one of these global affective states: the humor, which has to do with the spatial dimension of existence. In dysphoria the patient experiences the world as oppressive and invasive of his/her intimacy; the others are lived as persons demanding answers or actions he/she is not able to fulfill. Finally, the phenomenology of dysphoria is analyzed through the four essential features described above and examples are given. (shrink)

A distorted representation of one's own body is a diagnostic criterion and core psychopathology of both anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Despite recent technical advances in research, it is still unknown whether this body image disturbance is characterized by body dissatisfaction and a low ideal weight and/or includes a distorted perception or processing of body size. In this article, we provide an update and meta-analysis of 42 articles summarizing measures and results for body size estimation (BSE) from 926 (...) individuals with AN, 536 individuals with BN and 1920 controls. We replicate findings that individuals with AN and BN overestimate their body size as compared to controls (ES= 0.63). Our meta-regression shows that metric methods (BSE by direct or indirect spatial measures) yield larger effect sizes than depictive methods (BSE by evaluating distorted pictures), and that effect sizes are larger for patients with BN than for patients with AN. To interpret these results, we suggest a revised theoretical framework for BSE that accounts for differences between depictive and metric BSE methods regarding the underlying body representations (conceptual vs. perceptual, implicit vs. explicit). We also discuss clinical implications and argue for the importance of multimethod approaches to investigate body image disturbance. (shrink)

Philosophical texts always have a form as well as content. This seemingly self-evident fact is often overlooked by interpreters. Philosophy is frequently discussed as if it were solely concerned with formulating clear arguments and consistent concepts. The consequence of this fixation on content is that form is dismissed as little more than an incidental and insignificant packaging. However, a brief look at the history of philosophy reveals that neglecting form in this way creates a significant blind spot. -/- The choice (...) of a particular form often arises precisely in response to fundamental problems that are difficult to address in purely content-based terms. How can truth be expressed in language? How can others be inspired to lead a philosophical life? For this issue of Wijsgerig Perspectief, we have invited experts from different periods in the history of Western philosophy to reflect on the various ways in which the relationship between form and content in philosophical texts can be understood. -/- [In Dutch: Filosofische teksten hebben, behalve een inhoud, ook altijd een vorm. Dit schijnbaar evidente gegeven wordt lang niet altijd door interpreten in ogenschouw genomen. Vaak wordt er over de filosofie gesproken alsof zij alleen maar zou draaien om het formuleren van heldere argumenten en consistente concepten. Het gevolg van deze fixatie op de inhoud van de tekst is dat de vorm wordt afgedaan als weinig meer dan een toevallige en onbelangrijke verpakking. Een korte blik op de geschiedenis van de filosofie wijst echter uit dat een dergelijke veronachtzaming van vorm een grote blinde vlek creëert. -/- De keuze voor een bepaalde vorm komt vaak juist voort uit een reactie op fundamentele problemen die zich moeilijk aan de orde laten stellen in puur inhoudelijke termen. Hoe kan waarheid in taal worden uitgedrukt? Hoe kunnen andere mensen ertoe worden bewogen een filosofisch leven te leiden? Voor dit nummer van Wijsgerig Perspectief hebben we kenners van verschillende tijdvlakken in de geschiedenis van de Westerse filosofie uitgenodigd om te reflecteren op de verschillende manieren waarop de relatie tussen vorm en inhoud in filosofische teksten begrepen kan worden. (shrink)

Was ist Natur oder was könnte sie sein? Diese und weitere Fragen sind grundlegend für Naturdenken und -handeln. Das Lehr- und Studienbuch bietet eine historisch-systematische und zugleich praxisbezogene Einführung in die Naturphilosophie mit ihren wichtigsten Begriffen. Es nimmt den pluralen Charakter der Wahrnehmung von Natur in den philosophischen Blick und ist auch zum Selbststudium bestens geeignet.