Il presente volume ibrida in modo originale il libro d’arte e il libro d’artista. I testi, ispirati da alcune parole presentate in forma aggettivale e pertanto più poetica e connotativa, non costituiscono un commento alle immagini create da Laura Pitingaro, ma sono chiavi interpretative che esplorano la varietà ambientale da prospettive culturali eterogenee (filosofiche, scientifiche, artistiche). Queste stesse parole costituiscono al contempo l’elemento seminale da cui germoglia la creatività immaginifica dell’artista. Da questa coesistenza e varietà di forme interpretative ed espressive (...) deriva la natura biodiversa del libro che trasforma concetti astratti in esperienze sensoriali, visive e linguistiche. Pertanto, il libro nasce con il proposito sperimentale di creare un mosaico di parole e immagini per una più profonda comprensione della biodiversità in chiave multidisciplinare e transdisciplinare. Tuttavia, il suo scopo va al di là della mera divulgazione di informazioni. Tra- smettendo non solo la conoscenza razionale, ma soprattutto la consapevolezza sensibile (dal greco aisthesis = sensazione) della biodiversità, questo libro d’arte aspira a suscitare emozioni, trasportando il lettore in un viaggio sensoriale attraverso cui idee e concetti complessi sono veicolati in modo accessibile e coinvolgente. Dunque, perché un libro d’arte per riflettere sull’ambiente? Perché è un’opera bella e preziosa come il suo contenuto, la biodiversità. (shrink)

Il presente volume ibrida in modo originale il libro d’arte e il libro d’artista. I testi, ispirati da alcune parole presentate in forma aggettivale e pertanto più poetica e connotativa, non costituiscono un commento alle immagini create da Laura Pitingaro, ma sono chiavi interpretative che esplorano la varietà ambientale da prospettive culturali eterogenee (filosofiche, scientifiche, artistiche). Queste stesse parole costituiscono al contempo l’elemento seminale da cui germoglia la creatività immaginifica dell’artista. Da questa coesistenza e varietà di forme interpretative ed espressive (...) deriva la natura biodiversa del libro che trasforma concetti astratti in esperienze sensoriali, visive e linguistiche. Pertanto, il libro nasce con il proposito sperimentale di creare un mosaico di parole e immagini per una più profonda comprensione della biodiversità in chiave multidisciplinare e transdisciplinare. Tuttavia, il suo scopo va al di là della mera divulgazione di informazioni. Tra- smettendo non solo la conoscenza razionale, ma soprattutto la consapevolezza sensibile (dal greco aisthesis = sensazione) della biodiversità, questo libro d’arte aspira a suscitare emozioni, trasportando il lettore in un viaggio sensoriale attraverso cui idee e concetti complessi sono veicolati in modo accessibile e coinvolgente. Dunque, perché un libro d’arte per riflettere sull’ambiente? Perché è un’opera bella e preziosa come il suo contenuto, la biodiversità. (shrink)

Abstract: At present, psychiatric disorders are characterized descriptively, as the standard within the scientific community for communication and, to a cer- tain extent, for diagnosis, is the DSM, now at its fifth edition. The main rea- sons for descriptivism are the aim of achieving reliability of diagnosis and improving communication in a situation of theoretical disagreement, and the Ignorance argument, which starts with acknowledgment of the relative fail- ure of the project of finding biomarkers for most mental disorders. Descrip- tivism (...) has also the advantage of capturing the phenomenology of mental dis- orders, which appears to be essential for diagnosis, though not exhaustive of the nature of the disease. I argue that if we rely on the distinction between conceptions (procedures of identification) and concepts (reference-fixing representations), which was introduced in the philosophical debate on the nature of concepts, we may understand a limited but valid role for descrip- tive characterizations, and reply to common objections addressed by those who advocate a theoretically informed approach to nosology. (shrink)

The distinction between concept and conception has been widely debated in political philosophy, whereas in the philosophy of psychology is frequently used, but rarely focused on. This paper aims at filling in this lacuna. I claim that far from being explanatorily idle, the distinction makes it possible to provide an adequate description of phenomena such as genuine disagreement, and concept contestation, which would otherwise remain implausibly puzzling. I illustrate and assess three accounts of the concept-conception distinction. Finally I propose a (...) social externalist account, which relies on deference to experts, and builds on Tyler Burge’s ideas of many decades ago. The debate on concepts and conceptions thus shows a connection with the increasing research work on experts and expertise in psychology and social epistemology. (shrink)

Health care systems can positively influence our personal decision-making and health-related behavior only if we trust them. I propose a conceptual analysis of the trust relation between the public and a healthcare system, drawing from healthcare studies and philosophical proposals. In my account, the trust relation is based on an epistemic component, epistemic authority, and on a value component, the benevolence of the healthcare system. I argue that it is also modified by the vulnerability of the public on healthcare matters, (...) and by the system’s credibility. I apply my proposed analysis of public trust in health care systems to the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, a tendency to question vaccine policies, and to seek alternative vaccine schedules or to refuse vaccination. Understanding the role of trust and its components can be key to understanding the phenomenon. (shrink)

Le controversie nosologiche in psichiatria siano orientate da ragioni sia epistemiche che non epistemiche, da questioni di evidenza ma anche di etica e sociologia della scienza, data la presenza di vari programmi di ricerca, di metodologie e anche di agenti differenti che si focalizzano sul problema del disturbo mentale. I due casi qui brevemente considerati, quello della Disposofobia e quello del Disturbo di personalità narcisistica mostrano, assieme al ruolo dell’evidenza empirica, da un lato il peso delle ragioni etiche dei gruppi (...) di pazienti e di quelle culturali della società allargata, dall’altro le dinamiche del consenso tra esperti. Che i disturbi mentali siano o non siano generi naturali, la loro classificazione è un processo razionale complesso che comprende norme e deviazioni dalle norme di diverso tipo. (shrink)

This article aims, starting from a contemporary problem (the destruction of indigenous lives and cultures in Brazil), to think about ethical questions – especially in what concerns other ways of constituting subjectivity and (dis)obedience. Thus, the indigenous obedience issue will be based on Pierre Clastres’ societies against the State, giving an extent to Viveiros de Castros and possible relationships with our western reality. The subjectivity issue, then, will be approached based on what was pointed out to us by Michel Foucault. (...) Facing these Amerindian realities as heterotopias, how could we produce resistances and dissonant possibilities in our present reality? (shrink)

There is a lot of conceptual engineering going on in medical research. I substantiate this claim with two examples, the medical debate about cancer classification and about obesity as a disease I also argue that the proper target of conceptual engineering in medical research are experts’ conceptions. These are explicitly written down in documents and guidelines, and they bear on research and policies. In the second part of the chapter, I propose an externalist framework in which conceptions have both the (...) explanatory power of psychological concepts and that of semantic concepts. It is likely, however, that human activities and practices distinct from medical research, and regulated by different practices and epistemic rules, call for different targets for conceptual engineering. I conclude with indicating an open agenda of problems for philosophers of medicine interested in conceptual engineering. (shrink)

A Kuhnian reformulation of the recent debate in psychiatric nosography suggested that the current psychiatric classification system (the DSM) is in crisis and that a sort of paradigm shift is awaited (Aragona, 2009). Among possible revolutionary alternatives, the proposed fi ve-axes etiopathogenetic taxonomy (Charney et al., 2002) emphasizes the primacy of the genotype over the phenomenological level as the relevant basis for psychiatric nosography. Such a position is along the lines of the micro-reductionist perspective of E. Kandel (1998, 1999), which (...) sees mental disorders reducible to explanations at a fundamental epistemic level of genes and neurotransmitters. This form of micro-reductionism has been criticized as a form of genetic-molecular fundamentalism (e.g. Murphy, 2006) and a multi-level approach, in the form of the burgeoning Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, was proposed. This article focuses on multi-level mechanistic explanations, coming from Cognitive Science, as a possible alternative etiopathogenetic basis for psychiatric classification. The idea of a mechanistic approach to psychiatric taxonomy is here defended on the basis of a better conception of levels and causality. Nevertheless some critical remarks of Mechanism as a psychiatric general view are also offered. (shrink)

Introduction: A general trend in the psychological literature suggests that guilt contributes to morality more than shame does. Unlike shame-prone individuals, guilt-prone individuals internalize the causality of negative events, attribute responsibility in the first person, and engage in responsible behavior. However, it is not known how guilt- and shame-proneness interact with the attribution of responsibility to others. -/- Methods: In two Web-based experiments, participants reported their attributions of moral culpability (i.e., responsibility, causality, punishment and decision-making) about morally ambiguous acts of (...) killing in different conditions. In Study 1 the vignettes were presented in the 1st person, while in Study 2 in the 3rd person. To test proneness to guilt and shame, we utilized the GASP scale, which differentiates between the affective and behavioral components of each emotion. Statistical analyses were performed in Matlab and R. -/- Results: We found that guilt- and shame-proneness were associated with the severity of attributions in both the first and the third person, but the effect was strong only in the guilt case (both subtypes) and shame-affect case, and not in the shame-behavior case. We call this the Moralizing Effect. -/- Discussion: We wonder whether our finding that guilt-prone people tend to attribute a higher degree of culpability to others is really consistent with the view that guilt motivates people to choose the “moral paths in life”. This echoes views about the harmful aspects of guilt, which have been expressed historically in philosophy, for example, by Friedrich Nietzsche. (shrink)

At present, psychiatric disorders are characterized descriptively, as the standard within the scientific community for communication and, to a certain extent, for diagnosis, is the DSM, now at its fifth edition. The main reasons for descriptivism are the aim of achieving reliability of diagnosis and improving communication in a situation of theoretical disagreement, and the Ignorance argument, which starts with acknowledgment of the relative failure of the project of finding biomarkers for most mental disorders. Descriptivism has also the advantage of (...) capturing the phenomenology of mental disorders, which appears to be essential for diagnosis, though not exhaustive of the nature of the disease. I argue that if we rely on the distinction between conceptions (procedures of identification) and concepts (reference-fixing representations), which was introduced in the philosophical debate on the nature of concepts, we may understand a limited but valid role for descriptive characterizations, and reply to common objections addressed by those who advocate a theoretically informed approach to nosology. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a version of the so-called conversational hypothesis of the ontogenetic connection between language and mindreading (Harris 1996, 2005; Van Cleave and Gauker 2010; Hughes et al. 2006). After arguing against a particular way of understanding the hypothesis (the communicative view), I will start from the justificatory view in philosophy of social cognition (Andrews 2012; Hutto 2004; Zawidzki 2013) to make the case for the idea that the primary function of belief and desire (...) attributions is to justify and normalize deviant patterns of behaviour. Following this framework, I elaborate upon the idea that development of folk psychological skills requires the subjects to engage in conversationally mediated joint and cooperative activities in order to acquire the conceptual capacity of ascribing propositional attitudes. After presenting the general version of the hypothesis, I present several testable sub-hypotheses and some psychological studies that give empirical plausibility to the hypothesis. (shrink)

Disagreement among experts is a central topic in social epistemology. What should an expert do when confronted with the different opinion of an epistemic peer? Possible answers include the steadfast view (holding to one’s belief), the abstemious view (suspending one’s judgment), and moderate conciliatory views, which specify criteria for belief change when a peer’s different opinion is encountered. The practice of Delphi techniques in healthcare, medicine, and social sciences provides a real-life case study of expert disagreement, where disagreement is gradually (...) transformed into consensus. An analysis of Delphi shows that moderate conciliatory views are descriptively more adequate than rival views. However, it also casts doubt on whether the debate in social epistemology is explanatory relevant vis-à-vis real life cases of expert disagreement, where consensus replaces truth, and acceptance is more explanatorily relevant than belief. (shrink)

This paper examines an argument by Schaffer (2017) that aims to prove how, contrary to what many philosophers hold, there is no special explanatory gap occurring in the connection between the physical and the phenomenal. This is because a gap of the same kind can be found in every connection between a more fundamental and a less fundamental level of reality. These gaps lurk everywhere in nature. For Schaffer, they can be bridged by means of substantive metaphysical principles such as (...) grounding principles. He thus puts forward a version of grounding-based physicalism, which is supposed to provide this kind of substantive bridge principle. My main contention is as follows: even if Schaffer’s argument indeed proves the existence of a gap in every connection between fundamental and derivative entities, and such gaps can be bridged by means of grounding principles, a different gap remains open in the psycho-physical connection. (shrink)

Inspired by the work of Sellars, Cumpa (2014, 2018) and Buonomo (2021) have argued that we can evaluate our metaphysical proposals on fundamental categories in terms of their capacity for reconciling the scientific and the manifest image of the world. This criterion of fundamentality would allow us to settle the question of which categories among those proposed in the debate—e.g., substance, structure or facts—have a better explanatory value. The aim of this essay is to argue against a central assumption of (...) the criterion: semantic descriptivism. Specifically, I aim at showing that the criterion rests on the idea that the manifest picture is mostly a description of the world, and thus, it commits us with certain realism. Instead, I argue that at least some of the vocabulary we use to construct our manifest picture of the world, mental vocabulary, is evaluative rather than descriptive and thus creates problems in reconcile the manifest picture with scientific psychology and neurosciences. I conclude with some remarks on alternatives that could provide a way out of the fundamentality criterion. (shrink)

El presente texto pretende analizar el concepto de 'destino' atribuido a Heráclito por ciertos autores de la antigüedad a la luz de los fragmentos del corpus heraclíteo y la doxografía disponibles. Se pretende mostrar la pertinencia de leer a los filósofos presocráticos, como Heráclito de Éfeso, en un contexto enriquecido por fragmentos y material textual de otras clases (doxografía, reminiscencias y paráfrasis) a fin de ofrecer una explicación para la atribución del término ειμαρμεν-eta o su correspondiente en latín 'fatum', al (...) filósofo Efesio. (shrink)

Algorithms influence every facet of modern life: criminal justice, education, housing, entertainment, elections, social media, news feeds, work… the list goes on. Delegating important decisions to machines, however, gives rise to deep moral concerns about responsibility, transparency, freedom, fairness, and democracy. Algorithms and Autonomy connects these concerns to the core human value of autonomy in the contexts of algorithmic teacher evaluation, risk assessment in criminal sentencing, predictive policing, background checks, news feeds, ride-sharing platforms, social media, and election interference. Using these (...) case studies, the authors provide a better understanding of machine fairness and algorithmic transparency. They explain why interventions in algorithmic systems are necessary to ensure that algorithms are not used to control citizens' participation in politics and undercut democracy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

A widespread view in philosophy claims that inner speech is closely tied to human metacognitive capacities. This so-called format view of inner speech considers that talking to oneself allows humans to gain access to their own mental states by forming metarepresentation states through the rehearsal of inner utterances (section 2). The aim of this paper is to present two problems to this view (section 3) and offer an alternative view to the connection between inner speech and metacognition (section 4). According (...) to this alternative, inner speech (meta)cognitive functions derivate from the set of commitments we mobilize in our communicative exchanges. After presenting this commitment-based approach, I address two possible objections (section 5). (shrink)

Advanced medical imaging, such as CT, fMRI and PET, has undergone enormous progress in recent years, both in accuracy and utilization. Such techniques often bring with them an illusion of immediacy, the idea that the body and its diseases can be directly inspected. In this paper we target this illusion and address the issue of the reliability of advanced imaging tests as knowledge procedures, taking positron emission tomography in oncology as paradigmatic case study. After individuating a suitable notion of reliability, (...) we argue that PET is a highly theory-laden and non-immediate knowledge procedure, in spite of the photographic-like quality of the images it delivers; the diagnostic conclusions based on the interpretation of PET images are population-dependent; PET images require interpretation, which is inherently observer-dependent and therefore variable. We conclude with a three-step methodological proposal for enhancing the reliability of advanced medical imaging. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: So far in this book, we have examined algorithmic decision systems from three autonomy-based perspectives: in terms of what we owe autonomous agents (chapters 3 and 4), in terms of the conditions required for people to act autonomously (chapters 5 and 6), and in terms of the responsibilities of agents (chapter 7). -/- In this chapter we turn to the ways in which autonomy underwrites democratic governance. Political authority, which is to say the ability of a government to exercise (...) power, may be justifiable or not. Whether it is justified and how it can come to be justified is a question of political legitimacy. Political legitimacy is another way in which autonomy and responsibility are linked. This relationship is the basis of the current chapter, and it is important in understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems. We will draw the connection as follows. We begin, in section 8.1, by describing two uses of technology: crime predicting technology used to drive policing practices and social media technology used to influence elections (including by Cambridge Analytica and by the Internet Research Agency). In section 8.2 we consider several views of legitimacy and argue for a hybrid version of normative legitimacy based on one recently offered by Fabienne Peter. In section 8.3 we will explain that the connection between political legitimacy and autonomy is that legitimacy is grounded in legitimating processes, which are in turn based on autonomy. Algorithmic systems—among them PredPol and the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook-Internet Research Agency amalgam—can hinder that legitimation process and conflict with democratic legitimacy, as we argue in section 8.4. We will conclude by returning to several cases that serve as through-lines to the book: Loomis, Wagner, and Houston Schools. -/- The link below is to an open-access copy of the chapter. (shrink)

A growing amount of media is paid for by its consumers through their very consumption of it. Typically, this new media is web-based and paid for by advertising. It includes the services offered by Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. We offer an ethical assessment of the attention economy, the market where attention is exchanged for new media. We argue that the assessment has ethical implications for how the attention economy should be regulated. To conduct the assessment, we employ two heuristics (...) for evaluating markets. One is the “harm” criterion, which relates to whether the market tends to engender extremely harmful outcomes for individuals or society as a whole. The other is the “agency” criterion, which relates not to the outcomes of the market, but rather, to whether it somehow reflects or has its source in weakened agency. We argue that the attention economy animates concerns with respect to both criteria and that new media should be subject to the same sort of regulation as other harmful, addictive products. (shrink)

We raise a problem of applicability of RCTs to validate nuclear diagnostic imaging tests. In spite of the wide application of PET and other similar techniques that use radiopharmaceuticals for diagnostic purposes, RCT-based evidence on their validity is sparse. We claim that this is due to a general conceptual problem that we call Prevalence of Treatment, which arises in connection with designing RCTs for testing any diagnostic procedure in the present context of medical research, and is particularly apparent in this (...) case. We also identify three practical reasons why RCTs do not qualify as the best option for PET validation, which have to do with specific characteristics of nuclear diagnostic imaging, and of radiopharmaceuticals. The paper is meant to contribute both to the philosophical discussion on the EBM hierarchy of evidence, and on the specific debate on radiopharmaceuticals in nuclear medicine. (shrink)

Este ensaio estabelece uma comparação estética e fenomenológica entre os pensamentos de Yves-Klein e Merleau-Ponty. Se o pintor materializou as suas reflexões e concepções em obra pictórica, o fenomenólogo francês dissertou na escrita filosófica o resultado da sua reflexão. Da análise conjunta entre um e outro resulta esta fenomenologia e estética comparativa que apresenta alguns conceitos fundamentais que alimentaram essas reflexões, tais como a visibilidade, o corpo, o mundo. Assim, para além dessa comparação, este ensaio viabiliza o diálogo entre ambos. (...) Palavras-chave: Corpo. Mundo. Visibilidade. Merleau-Ponty. Yves Klein -/- Abstract:This essay establishes an aesthetic and phenomenological comparison between the thoughts of Yves-Klein and Merleau-Ponty. If the painter materialized his reflections and concepts in pictorial work, the French phenomenologist disserted in the philosophical writing the result of his reflection. From the joint analysis between one and the other, this phenomenology and comparative aesthetics results, which presents some fundamental concepts that fed these reflections such as visibility, the body, the world. Thus, in addition to this comparison, this essay enables the dialogue between both. Keywords: Body. World. Visibility. Merleau-Ponty. Yves Klein. (shrink)

This contribution focuses on what type of question “Are mental disorders brain disorders?” is and what task Anneli Jefferson performs in her book with the same title. I distinguish between conceptual engineering and conceptual choice, the former involving the individuation of an adequate concept for a specific goal, and the latter involving the normative problem of whether we should employ the concept at hand. I contend that Anneli Jefferson’s book is a work of conceptual engineering, which is valuable in and (...) of itself, but that this is insufficient to answer an equally essential version of the question, “Are mental disorders brain disorders?”, namely, whether we should adopt the newly engineered concept or not, considering a broader range of goals for mental health research and practice. (shrink)

Though the divide between reason-based and causal-explanatory approaches in psychiatry and psychopathology is old and deeply rooted, current trends involving multi-factorial explanatory models and evidence-based approaches to interpersonal psychotherapy, show that it has already been implicitly bridged. These trends require a philosophical reconsideration of how reasons can be causes. This paper contributes to that trajectory by arguing that Donald Davidson’s classic paradigm of 1963 is still a valid option.

The role of imagination in Descartes. The critic of Sartre to the concept of image in Descartes.

Classical philosophical notions, such as conceptual truth, analyticity, and a priori knowledge, have recently re-entered the mainstream philosophical debate, after fifty years of depreciation. This paper illustrates how such notions are reintroduced and discussed in a current debate on the nature of concepts, along with the idea that a concept is individuated by an implicit definition. This traditional Neopositivist device has recently been redeployed by writers such as Peacocke, Horwich, and Boghossian. Implicit definitions raise a variety of interesting issues, from (...) semantics to epistemology: how can they succeed in fixing a concept’s semantic property, if not by convention? are they analytic, in the Quinean sense? Do they provide with a priori knowledge? Which constraints are appropriate, for some formulation genuinely to pick up the semantic property of a concept?. (shrink)

In this open access book, Timothy Aylsworth and Clinton Castro draw on the deep well of Kantian ethics to argue that we have moral duties, both to ourselves and to others, to protect our autonomy from the threat posed by the problematic use of technology. The problematic use of technologies like smartphones threatens our autonomy in a variety of ways, and critics have only begun to appreciate the vast scope of this problem. In the last decade, we have seen (...) a flurry of books making “self-help” arguments about how we could live happier, more fulfilling lives if we were less addicted to our phones. But none of these authors see this issue as one involving a moral duty to protect our autonomy. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on some new normativist positions and compare them with traditional ones. In so doing, we claim that if normative judgments are involved in determining whether a condition is a disease only in the sense identified by new normativisms, then disease is normative only in a weak sense, which must be distinguished from the strong sense advocated by traditional normativisms. Specifically, we argue that weak and strong normativity are different to the point that one ‘normativist’ label (...) ceases to be appropriate for the whole range of positions. If values and norms are not explicit components of the concept of disease, but only intervene in other explanatory roles, then the concept of disease is no more value-laden than many other scientific concepts, or even any other scientific concept. We call the newly identified position “value-conscious naturalism” about disease, and point to some of its theoretical and practical advantages. (shrink)

The harms associated with wireless mobile devices (e.g. smartphones) are well documented. They have been linked to anxiety, depression, diminished attention span, sleep disturbance, and decreased relationship satisfaction. Perhaps what is most worrying from a moral perspective, however, is the effect these devices can have on our autonomy. In this article, we argue that there is an obligation to foster and safeguard autonomy in ourselves, and we suggest that wireless mobile devices pose a serious threat to our capacity to fulfill (...) this obligation. We defend the existence of an imperfect duty to be a ‘digital minimalist’. That is, we have a moral obligation to be intentional about how and to what extent we use these devices. The empirical findings already justify prudential reasons in favor of digital minimalism, but the moral duty is distinct from and independent of prudential considerations. (shrink)

New media (highly interactive digital technology for creating, sharing, and consuming information) affords users a great deal of control over their informational diets. As a result, many users of new media unwittingly encapsulate themselves in epistemic bubbles (epistemic structures, such as highly personalized news feeds, that leave relevant sources of information out (Nguyen forthcoming)). Epistemically paternalistic alterations to new media technologies could be made to pop at least some epistemic bubbles. We examine one such alteration that Facebook has made in (...) an effort to fight fake news and conclude that it is morally permissible. We further argue that many epistemically paternalistic policies can (and should) be a perennial part of the internet information environment. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: One important criticism of algorithmic systems is that they lack transparency. Such systems can be opaque because they are complex, protected by patent or trade secret, or deliberately obscure. In the EU, there is a debate about whether the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) contains a “right to explanation,” and if so what such a right entails. Our task in this chapter is to address this informational component of algorithmic systems. We argue that information access is integral for respecting (...) autonomy, and transparency policies should be tailored to advance autonomy. -/- To make this argument we distinguish two facets of agency (i.e., capacity to act). The first is practical agency, or the ability to act effectively according to one’s values. The second is what we call cognitive agency, which is the ability to exercise what Pamela Hieronymi calls “evaluative control” (i.e., the ability to control our affective states, such as beliefs, desires, and attitudes). We argue that respecting autonomy requires providing persons sufficient information to exercise evaluative control and properly interpret the world and one’s place in it. We draw this distinction out by considering algorithmic systems used in background checks, and we apply the view to key cases involving risk assessment in criminal justice decisions and K-12 teacher evaluation. -/- The link below is to an open access version of the chapter. (shrink)

I argue that a concept is applied correctly when it is applied to the kind of things it is the concept of. Correctness as successful kind-tracking is fulfilling an externally and naturalistically individuated standard. And the normative aspect of concept-application so characterized depends on the relational (non-individualistic) feature of conceptual content. I defend this view against two objections. The first is that norms should provide justifications for action, and the second involves a version of the thesis of indeterminacy of reference.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it especially visible that mortality data are a key component of epidemiological models, being a single indicator that provides information about various health aspects, such as disease prevalence and effectiveness of interventions, and thus enabling predictions on many fronts. In this paper we illustrate the interrelation between facts and values in death statistics, by analyzing the rules for death certification issued by the World Health Organization. We show how the notion of the underlying cause of (...) death can change in view of public health goals. This brings us to a general point about how non-epistemic factors, such as values and goals, are reflected in the choice of different measures in epidemiological models. We finally argue that this analysis is not only relevant from a theoretical point of view but also has important practical consequences. (shrink)

The attention economy — the market where consumers’ attention is exchanged for goods and services — poses a variety of threats to individuals’ autonomy, which, at minimum, involves the ability to set and pursue ends for oneself. It has been argued that the threat wireless mobile devices pose to autonomy gives rise to a duty to oneself to be a digital minimalist, one whose interactions with digital technologies are intentional such that they do not conflict with their ends. In this (...) paper, we argue that there is a corresponding duty to others to be an attention ecologist, one who promotes digital minimalism in others. Although the moral reasons for being an attention ecologist are similar to those that motivate the duty to oneself, the arguments diverge in important ways. We explore the application of this duty in various domains where we have special obligations to promote autonomy in virtue of the different roles we play in the lives of others, such as parents and teachers. We also discuss the consequences of our arguments for employers, software developers, and policy makers. (shrink)

Different definitions of well-being result in different choices regarding policies, research, medical practices, and personal decisions. This book provides an overview of well-being sciences, focusing on health, well-being, and quality of life in both biomedical and social settings. In seven chapters meant for a broad audience, the author looks at health as both the lack of disease and overall well-being, discusses various philosophical views on well-being, examines challenges in measurement, and considers the effects on older adults, people with disabilities, and (...) those with chronic illnesses. (shrink)

O presente artigo pretende abordar o conceito de trágico, entendido como elemento principal ou elemento orquestrador do projecto nietzschiano em busca de uma determinação para uma nova forma de existência estética. Objectivo do autor é, pois, em primeiro lugar, explicitar o sentido da nova existência estética tal como Nietzsche, pela mão de Zaratustra, imputa à figura do Übermensch, o qual estabelece um projecto de justificação estética; em segundo lugar, trata-se de mostrar que o conceito de 'trágico'está estreitamente relacionado com o (...) conceito metafísico de 'eterno retorno'de tal modo que isso pretende, por um lado, ultrapassar a dimensão determinada da vida humana em algo maior ou melhor, e, por outro, visa a completa realização da vida humana que pode ser repetida, salientando que este movimento de repetição afirma o retorno dionisíaco do trágico. Objectivo do autor do artigo é, assim, provar que o projecto nietzschiano anuncia o Übermensch como uma nova forma de existência estética, ao mesmo tempo que recupera os conceitos de 'trágico' e 'dionisíaco', conceitos estes que animam a obra Die Geburt der Tragödie. Consequentemente, trata-se de ver até que ponto o Übermensch está afirmado como objectivo necessário e primário neste projecto, o qual permanece, contudo, uma herança enigmática em que nos deixa a filosofia de Nietzsche. /// The present article presents a brief approach to the concept of the 'tragic' understood as a main element or a conducting element in the Nietzschean project that searches for a determination of a new form of aesthetic existence. The author aims, thus, at two things: first, to explicit the meaning of this new aesthetic existence that Nietzsche, by the hand of Zarathustra, imputes to the figure of the Übermensch, which establishes a project of aesthetic justification; secondly, to show that the concept of the 'tragic' is closely related to the metaphysical concept of the 'eternal return' in such a way that it purposes, on the one hand, to surpass a determined dimension of human life into something bigger or better, and, on the other, to bring about a complete realisation of human life that can be repeated, so that the movement of repetition qffirms the dionysiac return of the tragic. The goal of the article is, moreover, to prove that the Nietzschean project announces the Übermensch as a new form of aesthetic existence while recovering the main concepts of 'tragic' and 'dionysiac', concepts that animate the book Die Geburt der Tragödie. Therefore, we shall see how the Ubermensch is placed as a necessary and prime objective in this project, which remains part of the enigmatic legacy with which Nietzsche's philosophy leaves us. (shrink)

Deontic logic is devoted to the study of logical properties of normative predicates such as permission, obligation and prohibition. Since it is usual to apply these predicates to actions, many deontic logicians have proposed formalisms where actions and action combinators are present. Some standard action combinators are action conjunction, choice between actions and not doing a given action. These combinators resemble boolean operators, and therefore the theory of boolean algebra offers a well-known athematical framework to study the properties of the (...) classic deontic operators when applied to actions. In his seminal work, Segerberg uses constructions coming from boolean algebras to formalize the usual deontic notions. Segerberg’s work provided the initial step to understand logical properties of deontic operators when they are applied to actions. In the last years, other authors have proposed related logics. In this chapter we introduce Segerberg’s work, study related formalisms and investigate further challenges in this area. (shrink)

This paper examines the practice of using predictive systems to lengthen the prison sentences of convicted persons when the systems forecast a higher likelihood of re-offense or re-arrest. There has been much critical discussion of technologies used for sentencing, including questions of bias and opacity. However, there hasn’t been a discussion of whether this use of predictive systems makes sense in the first place. We argue that it does not by showing that there is no plausible theory of punishment that (...) supports it. (shrink)

Recently, there has been much discussion of ‘fair machine learning’: fairness in data-driven decision-making systems (which are often, though not always, made with assistance from machine learning systems). Notorious impossibility results show that we cannot have everything we want here. Such problems call for careful thinking about the foundations of fair machine learning. Sune Holm has identified one promising way forward, which involves applying John Broome's theory of fairness to the puzzles of fair machine learning. Unfortunately, his application of Broome's (...) theory appears to be fatally flawed. This article attempts to rescue Holm's central insight – namely, that Broome's theory can be useful to the study of fair machine learning – by giving an alternative application of Broome's theory, which involves thinking about fair machine learning in counterfactual (as opposed to merely statistical) terms. (shrink)

When agents insert technological systems into their decision-making processes, they can obscure moral responsibility for the results. This can give rise to a distinct moral wrong, which we call “agency laundering.” At root, agency laundering involves obfuscating one’s moral responsibility by enlisting a technology or process to take some action and letting it forestall others from demanding an account for bad outcomes that result. We argue that the concept of agency laundering helps in understanding important moral problems in a number (...) of recent cases involving automated, or algorithmic, decision-systems. We apply our conception of agency laundering to a series of examples, including Facebook’s automated advertising suggestions, Uber’s driver interfaces, algorithmic evaluation of K-12 teachers, and risk assessment in criminal sentencing. We distinguish agency laundering from several other critiques of information technology, including the so-called “responsibility gap,” “bias laundering,” and masking. (shrink)

In juxtaposition with the myth and tragedy of Ovid’s Medea, this paper investigates the possibility within the Kantian conception of agency of understanding moral evil as acting against one’s better judgment. It defends the thesis that in Kant self-deception, i. e. the intentional untruthfulness to oneself, provides the fundamental structure for choosing against the moral law. I argue that, as Kant’s thought progresses, self-deception slowly proceeds to become the paradigmatic case of moral evil. This is discussed with regard to two (...) important topics in his later moral philosophy: the doctrine of radical evil and the crucial role of the duty of truthfulness in ethics. The inquiry into Kant’s theory of conscience unfolds both against this theoretical background and in light of its historical roots in the polemic against casuistry and probabilism. This contribution closes with a brief look at the tools Kant implements to counter this tendency to self-deception in moral judgment and particularly at the role casuistry plays within his conception of moral education. (shrink)

Philosophers of medicine have formulated different accounts of the concept of disease. Which concept of disease one assumes has implications for what conditions count as diseases and, by extension, who may be regarded as having a disease and for who may be accorded the social privileges and personal responsibilities associated with being sick. In this article, we consider an ideal diagnostic test for coronavirus disease 2019 infection with respect to four groups of people—positive and asymptomatic; positive and symptomatic; negative; and (...) untested—and show how different concepts of disease impact on the disease and sickness judgements for these groups. The suggestion is that sickness judgements and social measures akin to those experienced during the current COVID-19 outbreak presuppose a concept of disease containing social harm as a component. We indicate the problems that arise when adopting this kind of disease concept beyond a state of emergency. (shrink)

The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders included the Social Communication Disorder as a new mental disorder characterized by deficits in pragmatic abilities. Although the introduction of SPCD in the psychiatry nosography depended on a variety of reasons—including bridging a nosological gap in the macro-category of Communication Disorders—in the last few years researchers have identified major issues in such revision. For instance, the symptomatology of SPCD is notably close to that of Autism Spectrum Disorder. This (...) opens up the possibility that individuals with very similar symptoms can be diagnosed differently and receive different clinical treatments and social support. The aim of this paper is to review recent debates on SPCD, particularly as regards its independence from ASD. In the first part, we outline the major aspects of the DSM-5 nosological revision involving ASD and SPCD. In the second part, we focus on the validity and reliability of SPCD. First, we analyze literature on three potential validators of SPCD, i.e., etiology, response to treatment, and measurability. Then, we turn to reliability issues connected with the introduction of the grandfather clause and the use of the concepts of spectrum and threshold in the definition of ASD. In the conclusion, we evaluate whether SPCD could play any role in contemporary psychiatry other than that of an independent mental disorder and discuss the role that non-epistemic factors could play in the delineation of the future psychiatry nosography. (shrink)

Opinionated state of the art paper on scientific explanation. Analysis and discussion of the most relevant models and theories in the contemporary literature, namely, the deductive-nomological model, the models of inductive-statistical and statistical relevance, the pragmatic theory of why questions, the unifying theory of standard arguments, and the causal/non-causal counterfactual theory.

Algorithmic systems and predictive analytics play an increasingly important role in various aspects of modern life. Scholarship on the moral ramifications of such systems is in its early stages, and much of it focuses on bias and harm. This paper argues that in understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems it is essential to understand the relation between algorithms, autonomy, and agency. We draw on several recent cases in criminal sentencing and K–12 teacher evaluation to outline four key ways in (...) which issues of agency, autonomy, and respect for persons can conflict with algorithmic decision-making. Three of these involve failures to treat individual agents with the respect they deserve. The fourth involves distancing oneself from a morally suspect action by attributing one’s decision to take that action to an algorithm, thereby laundering one’s agency. (shrink)

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

Esta tesis estudia el pensamiento del conservador español Juan Donoso Cortés (1809- 1853). Más precisamente, se ocupa de responder cómo resuelve el problema de la decadencia de la autoridad monárquica en Europa a partir de las revoluciones de 1848. Para abordar este objetivo general elaboramos dos objetivos específicos. El primero busca señalar las continuidades y discontinuidades de la obra donosiana, escindida generalmente en dos períodos: el juvenil, con un Donoso Cortés liberal, y el maduro, que luego de una “conversión religiosa” (...) se vuelca hacia el catolicismo reaccionario. El segundo objetivo hace foco en el concepto de dictadura, bajo la sospecha de que en esta noción reside la clave de su proyecto conservador. Con esto en mente construimos dos hipótesis. La primera afirma que nuestro autor es consciente de la imposibilidad de restituir el proyecto monárquico. La segunda, sugiere la presencia de una fórmula parcialmente decisionista como alternativa a dicho proyecto. Luego de un trabajo de lectura de primera mano de los textos donosianos, las conclusiones confirman las hipótesis y observan que existe una continuidad estructural en las ideas del español, pero también que hay discontinuidades, de las cuales la más importante es su particular noción de dictadura, que denominamos dictadura catolizante. (shrink)

We argue that students have moral reasons to refrain from using chatbots such as ChatGPT to write certain papers. We begin by showing why many putative reasons to refrain from using chatbots fail to generate compelling arguments against their use in the construction of these papers. Many of these reasons rest on implausible principles, hollowed out conceptions of education, or impoverished accounts of human agency. They also overextend to cases where it is permissible to rely on a machine for something (...) that once required human cognition. We then give our account: you have a moral obligation to respect your own humanity (i.e., your capacity to set and pursue your own ends), and the process of writing a humanities paper is important for the cultivation of your humanity. We conclude by considering objections and offering replies. In the end, we argue that the moral reasons students have to refrain from using chatbots depend crucially on instructors’ ability to make writing assignments worthwhile. This relies on instructors having the right kind of institutional support, which sheds light on implications that this duty has for administrators, legislators, and the general public. (shrink)