The curriculum design, faculty characteristics, and experience of implementing masters' level international research ethics training programs supported by the Fogarty International Center was investigated. Multiple pedagogical approaches were employed to adapt to the learning needs of the trainees. While no generally agreed set of core competencies exists for advanced research ethics training, more than 75% of the curricula examined included international issues in research ethics, responsible conduct of research, human rights, philosophical foundations of research ethics, and research regulation and ethical (...) review process. Common skills taught included critical thinking, research methodology and statistics, writing, and presentation proficiency. Curricula also addressed the cultural, social, and religious context of the trainees related to research ethics. Programs surveyed noted trainee interest in Western concepts of research ethics and the value of the transnational exchange of ideas. Similar faculty expertise profiles existed in all programs. Approximately 40% of faculty were female. Collaboration between faculty from low- and middleincome countries (LMICs) and high-income countries (HICs) occurred in most programs and at least 50% of HIC faculty had previous LMIC experience. This paper is part of a collection of papers analyzing the Fogarty International Research Ethics Education and Curriculum Development program. (shrink)

Resumen: El artículo resume algunos comentarios - como se han expuesto en mi libro La Existencia en busca de la razón. Apuntes sobre la filosofía de Karl Jaspers, Editorial Académica Española, LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG, Alemania , 2012- sobre el significado de las situaciones-límite en la filosofía de Karl Jaspers, como un punto de giro con respecto a la fenomenología de Husserl y a la filosofía trascendental de Kant . Para Jaspers, el significado de las situaciones-límite (...) como estructura de la Existenz subraya la posibilidad del riesgo en la historicidad individual, que rompe el " flujo" de la reflexividad y, al mismo tiempo , apela a una apertura de la eticidad -sin sacrificar la universalidad del imperativo categórico . Palabras clave: Fenomenología de la conciencia, conciencia enferma, auto-conciencia reflexiva, situaciones-límite, pensamiento trascendiente, método rascendental, aclaración existencial, historicidad individual. (shrink)

Resumen No hay ningún tema fundamental en la fi losofía de Karl Jaspers que no se encuentre vinculado al pensamiento de la comunicación: este pensamiento descansa en la base de la concepción jaspersiana de la verdad, de la razón; de la libertad; de la trascendencia; de la fe fi losófi ca; de la autenticidad existencial; del fi losofar como “conversión” radical del pensamiento con vistas a la posible existencia y de la propia concepción de la aclaración existencial. El presente ensayo (...) aborda la fi losofía de la comunicación de K. Jaspers en su centralidad y signifi cación para el fi losofar en nuestro tiempo. -/- Abstract There is no fundamental issue in the philosophy of Karl Jaspers without some linking to the communication’s thinking: this thought lies at the basis of jaspersian conception of truth, reason, freedom, transcendence, philosophical faith, existential authenticity. Communication means philosophizing as radical “conversion” of thinking with a view to possible existence and the very concept of existential enlightenment. This paper discusses the philosophy of communication of K. Jaspers in its centrality and its signifi cance for the philosophical consciousness in our time. -/- . (shrink)

Abstract: The essay addresses the meaning of boundary situations in the philosophy of Karl Jaspers, as a turning point drawing on Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and Immanuel Kant's transcendental philosophy, and as a key for the comprehension of some of the differences in Karl Jaspers' philosophy regarding the thought of Husserl and Kant, respectively. For Jaspers, the meaning of boundary situations as a structure of Existenz underlines the possibility of risk in the individual historicity. Taking risks breaks the flow of reflection (...) and, at the same time, appeals to an opening of ethics—without sacrificing the universality of Kant's categorical imperative. From Jaspers' point of view, Husserl's phenomenology does not open the possibility of self-transformation of the self, nor contributes it to the unfolding of the "inner action" of the transcending thinking, and since the boundary situations break the flow of the selfreflective consciousness, tensions arising between consciousness and Existenz remain beyond the scope of Husserl's phenomenology. Similarly, as seen from Jaspers' position the meaning of Kant's transcendental method has become different after the clarification by the Existenz, which not only shows that thought is at stake in boundary situations, but also that Existenz at the same time puts its potentiality and its fate at stake. (shrink)

This review was presented on April 20, 2011 at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. The session, Author meets Critics: Empathy in the Context of Philosophy, was organized by the Karl Jaspers Society of North America.

Resumen El presente trabajo aborda el entramado de condiciones en virtud de las cuales Kant muestra la posibilidad del conocimiento objetivo; esto es, la posibilidad de la ciencia, en tanto estructura trascendental cuya articulación, referida a la apercepción, convierte a ésta última en clave para descifrar(describir) los límites del entendimiento. En este sentido, se muestra el significado de la apercepción trascendental para interpretar la filosofía de Kant en términos de una filosofía de la posibilidad, en la que el tema de (...) lo ente es desbordado en el ámbito de lo trascendental. -/- Abstract The present work addresses the network of conditions through which Kant weighs up the possibility of the objective knowledge; i.e., the possibility of science considered as a transcendental structure (whose referred articulation to apperception turns it onto a key for deciphering the limits of understanding). According to this, the meaning of the transcendental apperception for understanding Kant’s philosophy of possibility is shown, while the issue of entity is overwhelmed at the realm of the transcendental. (shrink)

One might think that if the majority of virtue signallers judge that a proposition is true, then there is significant evidence for the truth of that proposition. Given the Condorcet Jury Theorem, individual virtue signallers need not be very reliable for the majority judgment to be very likely to be correct. Thus, even people who are skeptical of the judgments of individual virtue signallers should think that if a majority of them judge that a proposition is true, then that provides (...) significant evidence that the proposition is true. We argue that this is mistaken. Various empirical studies converge on the following point: humans are very conformist in the contexts in which virtue signalling occurs. And stereotypical virtue signallers are even more conformist in such contexts. So we should be skeptical of the claim that virtue signallers are sufficiently independent for the Condorcet Jury Theorem to apply. We do not seek to decisively rule out the relevant application of the Condorcet Jury Theorem. But we do show that careful consideration of the available evidence should make us very skeptical of that application. Consequently, a defense of virtue signalling would need to engage with these findings and show that despite our strong tendencies for conformism, our judgements are sufficiently independent for the Condorcet Jury Theorem to apply. This suggests new directions for the debate about the epistemology of virtue signalling. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to close a gap in Michael Walzer’s argument for the moral equality of soldiers. Specifically, I seek to show that Walzer’s argument for the moral equality of soldiers depends upon an implicit analysis of the function of excuses. I provide this analysis of excuses: a triadic relationship between moral norms, a background of normality and excuses. I then use this analysis to show that Jeff McMahan’s argument for the moral inequality of soldiers rest upon an (...) implausible view of excuses, namely that the conditions of war merely constitute excuses for failing to comply with ordinary, or peacetime, morality. I argue that the conditions of war are best understood as providing a new background of normality rather than a set of excuses. To show this, I identify five conditions that separate the normality of war from the normality of peace. (shrink)

Nationalism is a set of beliefs about the nation: its origins, nature, and value. For nationalists, we are particular social animals. On the one hand, our lives are structured by a profound sense of togetherness and similarity: We share languages and memories. On the other hand, our lives are characterized by deep divisions and differences: We draw borders and contest historical narratives. For nationalism, humanity is neither a single species-wide community nor an aggregation of individuals but divided into distinct and (...) unique nations. At the heart of nationalism are claims about our identity and needs as social animals that form the basis of a series of normative claims. To answer the question “what should I do” or “how should I live,” one must first answer the questions “who am I” and “where do I belong.” Nationalism says that our membership in a nation takes precedence and ultimately must guide our choices and actions. In terms of guiding choice and action, nationalist thought proposes a specific form of partiality. Rather than treat the interests or claims of persons and groups impartially, the nationalist demands that one favors one’s own, either as a group or as individual persons. While nationalism does not claim to be the only form of partiality, it does claim to outrank all others: Loyalty or obligations to other groups or identities are subordinated to national loyalty. Together, these claims function as a political ideology. Nationalism identifies the nation as the central form of community and elevates it to the object of supreme loyalty. This fundamental concern for the nation and its flourishing can be fragmented into narrower aims or objectives: national autonomy, national identity, and national unity. Debate on nationalism tends to divide into two clusters, one descriptive and one normative, that only make partial contact. For historians and sociologists, the questions are explanatory: What is nationalism, what is a nation, how are they related, and when and how did they emerge? Philosophers and political theorists focus on the justification of nationalism or nationalist claims: Is national loyalty defensible, what are the limits of this loyalty, how do we rank our loyalties, and does nationalism conflict with human rights? (shrink)

This article argues that Fabre’s cosmopolitan war is implausible because it ignores the psychological realities of war. Building on J.L. Mackie’s notion of an ‘ethics of fantasy’ – a morality reduced to lip-service and incapable of action-guiding – I argue that a view based on a flawed view of either human agency or the environment in which it is exercised is doomed to practical irrelevance. In rejecting patriotism and advancing a highly individualistic view of war, Fabre relies upon a highly (...) flawed view of human agency, ignoring the psychological mechanism of depersonalisation essential to large-scale cooperation and the practice of war. In Part I, I offer an initial account of what an ‘ethics of fantasy’ is and offer one major reason why certain moralities fail as practical guidance. In Part II, I contrast Fabre’s moral cosmopolitanism with ancient cosmopolitanism; I focus on her rejection of patriotism and other identity-based forms of partiality. In Part III, I summarise key findings, mostly in social psychology, on how large-scale social cooperation is achieved. I highlight the central role of depersonalisation and its felicity conditions. In Part IV, I argue that Fabre’s view faces a dilemma. Either her cosmopolitanism is compatible with identity-based partiality, or it is not. If not, then she does not even have a view of war given that large-scale cooperation requires it. If her view is compatible, then she needs a functional replacement for patriotism. I conclude by showing that the alternatives fail to satisfy the felicity conditions of depersonalisation which war requires. (shrink)

Much has been discussed about angels in terms of their nature and their actions in the Bible. But philosophically, there hasn't been much discussed about the existence of angels. Specifically, whether angels can be shown to exist by reason. This paper argues that reason can lead us to conclude that angels do exist.

In the heart of southeast Texas, an industrial powerhouse often referred to as the 'Golden Triangle', the oil refineries and petrochemical plants stand as stalwart testaments to the region's economic evolution. Interestingly, before the discovery of oil at Spindletop, the lumber and cattle industries powered this region's economy. A profound shift occurred when the Lucas Gusher, a fountain of oil spurting thousands of feet into the air, struck the lands of Spindletop Hill on January 10, 1901. This remarkable discovery of (...) the Spindletop oilfield on a slat dome formation south of Beaumont, Texas, marked the birth of the modern petroleum industry and fundamentally transformed the region's geopolitical, economic, and cultural landscapes. People from all over the country relocated to Gladys City and Beaumont in search of work and new opportunities, creating a boomtown as the town's population swelled from 10,000 to 50,000. The newfound urbanization brought by the oil industry transformed the town and the surrounding areas, creating a ripple effect across the region that would be felt for generations to come. The surge in oil-driven economic activity transmuted the region into a vibrant nexus of commerce, with the oil industry emerging as a critical architect of growth and advancement. This newfound affluence incited by the petroleum sector ushered in an era of economic diversification, laying the groundwork for industrialization’s further evolution. The Spindletop Oil Fields not only underscored the United States’ ascent as the foremost petroleum-producing nation but also signaled the nation’s initiation into the Petroleum Age. It was Spindletop that solidified its position as America’s first significant oil field, becoming an enduring symbol of its industrial might. By 1985, over 153,000,000 barrels of oil had been produced and extracted from the Spindletop oil fields, underscoring the magnitude of this extraordinary resource. (shrink)

While nudging has garnered plenty of interdisciplinary attention, the ethics of applying it to climate policy has been little discussed. However, not all ethical considerations surrounding nudging are straightforward to apply to climate nudges. In this article, we overview the state of the debate on the ethics of nudging and highlight themes that are either specific to or particularly important for climate nudges. These include: the justification of nudges that are not self-regarding; how to account for climate change denialists; transparency; (...) knowing the right or best behaviours; justice concerns; and whether the efficacy of nudges is sufficient for nudges to be justified as a response to the climate crisis. We conclude that climate nudges raise distinct ethical questions that ought to be considered in developing climate nudges. (shrink)

Ethical vagueness has garnered little attention. This is rather surprising since many philosophers have remarked that the science of ethics lacks the precision that other fields of inquiry have. Of the few philosophers who have discussed ethical vagueness the majority have focused on the implications of vagueness for moral realism. Because the relevance of ethical vagueness for other metaethical positions has been underexplored, my aim in this paper is to investigate the ramifications of ethical vagueness for expressivism. Ultimately, I shall (...) argue that expressivism does not have the resources to adequately account for ethical vagueness, while cognitivism does. This demonstrates an advantage that cognitivism holds over expressivism. (shrink)

The problem of fake news and the spread of misinformation has garnered a lot of attention in recent years. The incentives and norms that give rise to the problem, however, are not unique to journalism. Insofar as academics and journalists are working towards the same goal, i.e., publication, they are both under pressures that pervert. This chapter has two aims. First, to integrate conversations in philosophy of science, epistemology, and metaphilosophy to draw out the publishing incentives that promote analogous problems (...) of fake news and misinformation in academic research communities more broadly. Second, to argue for a (partial) solution. This chapter argues that research communities benefit when authors believe what they argue for in print and it warns against attempts to loosen our publication norms to permit publishing without belief. (shrink)

Assertion is governed by an epistemic norm requiring knowledge. This idea has been hotly debated in recent years, garnering attention in epistemology, philosophy of language, and linguistics. This chapter presents and extends the main arguments in favor of the knowledge norm, from faulty conjunctions, several conversational patterns, judgments of permission, excuse, and blame, and from showing how. (Paired with a chapter by Peter J. Graham and Nikolaj J. L. L. Pedersen, "Knowledge is Not Our Norm of Assertion.").

It is a common criticism of presentism – the view according to which only the present exists – that it errs against truthmaker theory. Recent attempts to resolve the truthmaker objection against presentism proceed by restricting truthmaker maximalism (the view that all truths have truthmakers), maintaining that propositions concerning the past are not made true by anything, but are true nonetheless. Support for this view is typically garnered from the case for negative existential propositions, which some philosophers contend are exceptions (...) to truthmaker maximalism. In this article, we argue that a ‘no truthmakers’ approach to the truthmaker objection is critically flawed. (shrink)

We study the performance of ChatGPT interpreting prompts that require legal expertise to answer. Our inputs are very close adaptations from the "Contextual Canons" section of Scalia and Garner's Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts (Thomson West: 2012). We report our findings for the entire section (comprising 14 canons) of the book. We conclude that ChatGPT is exceptionally successful in taking the contextual canons into account.

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence systems has generated a means whereby assistive bionic prosthetics can become both more effective and practical for the patients who rely upon the use of such machines in their daily lives. However, de lege lata remains relatively unspoken as to the legal status of patients whose devices contain self-learning CIS that can interface directly with the peripheral nervous system. As a means to reconcile for this lack of legal foresight, this article approaches the topic (...) of CIS-nervous system interaction and the impacts it may have on the legal definition of “persons” under the law. While other literature of this nature centres upon notions of transhumanism or self-enhancement, the approach herein approached is designed to focus solely upon the legal nature of independent CIS actions when operating alongside human subjects. To this end, it is hoped that further discussion on the topic can be garnered outside of transhumanist discourse to expedite legal consideration for how these emerging relationships ought to be received by law-generating bodies internationally. (shrink)

Since 2023, the UK government's response to the “migrant crisis” has revolved around two controversial flagship policies: the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda, and the detention of migrants aboard a giant barge. In this short article, I examine the colonial and gendered dimensions of the two policies, finding them to be examples of the coloniality of gender. What this indicates, I suggest, is that the purpose of these policies is not merely to deter potential migrants—particularly LGBTQIA+ migrants—but also to (...) create a political narrative that allows the Conservative Party to garner right-wing votes by participating in high-profile culture wars; namely, the debate over transgender rights and the debate over how the UK should reckon with its imperial past. (shrink)

There is a standard quantificational view of generic sentences according to which they have a tripartite logical form involving a phonologically null generic operator called 'Gen'. Recently, a number of theorists have questioned the standard view and revived a competing proposal according to which generics involve the predication of properties to kinds. This paper offers a novel argument against the kind-predication approach on the basis of the invalidity of Generic Excluded Middle, a principle according to which any sentence of the (...) form ⌜Either Fs are G or Fs are not G⌝ is true. I argue that the kind-predication approach erroneously predicts that GEM is valid, and that it can only avoid this conclusion by either collapsing into a form of the quantificational analysis or otherwise garnering unpalatable metaphysical commitments. I also show that, while the quantificational approach does not validate GEM as a matter of logical form, the principle may be validated on certain semantic analyses of the generic operator, and so, such theories should be rejected. (shrink)

The market failures approach to business ethics has recently garnered substantial critical attention (see, e.g., Cohen and Peterson 2019; Moriarty 2020; Steinberg 2017; Hsieh 2017; von Kriegstein 2016; Smith 2018; Endorfer and Larue 2022; Singer 2018). Though precursors of this view can be found in the literature (e.g., McMahon 1981; Friedman 1970), it was Joseph Heath (2004, 2006, 2014, 2023) who developed the approach and gave it its name. The market failures approach (henceforth: MFA) is concerned with the ethical obligations (...) of managers of firms (Heath 2014, 69). Roughly, it holds that managers ought not to conduct their businesses in a way that exploits market failures. “Market failure” is a technical term, meaning any failure of the conditions of the first fundamental welfare theorem, sometimes called the “Pareto conditions” (see Arrow 1951). The theorem states that if the Pareto conditions hold, then the market equilibrium will use society’s scarce resources efficiently, meaning that no one could be made better-off without making anyone else worse off. Efficiency, according to Heath (2014, chapter 7), is the implicit morality of the market. We coordinate much of our shared activity using markets, Heath claims, because of their ability to produce efficient results. Markets are good forms of social organization, according to Heath, because they are the best way to promote our values given empirical facts about the frailties of human psychology and the informational constraints that we face. As such, managers ought not compromise the very conditions that justify a market economy by profiting from breakdowns in the market’s efficiency. Managers are permitted to maximize profits, so long as they do not violate the market’s norm of efficiency in so doing. This is because the fundamental justification for the profit motive is that it is necessary for the operation of the price system which is essential to the efficiency properties of markets. In this paper, I will argue that the MFA is more general than even Heath himself claims. The MFA describes the professional obligations of managers, but the view I develop, the generalized market failures approach, describes the obligations of all market participants. Since efficiency is the implicit morality of the market, it binds not just managers, but all market participants, including consumers, investors and workers. Market participants are permitted to maximize the benefit they gain from market interactions, as long as they do so in a way that does not take advantage of any market failures. Generalizing the MFA in this way has three benefits: first, we gain a unified understanding of the ethics of non-managerial market roles; second, we will develop an even better understanding of the duties of managers; finally, it gives us the resources to respond to some familiar objections to the MFA found in the literature. In the next section, I will further motivate the MFA and explain how this motivation can be easily generalized to other market roles. Importantly, one can avoid benefiting from a market failure in two distinct ways: by avoiding transactions that exploit market failures or by transacting in such markets and then remediating the harm done, by compensating those negatively affected by the market failure. This section concludes by discussing how the remediation duties are to be split between the transacting parties and how to identify the parties to whom compensation is owed. In section 3, I use the tools of the generalized MFA to develop a unified ethics of consumption, investment and labor, respectively. This is the basis of a grand abductive argument for the generalized MFA. The view is strongly supported by the fact that it provides attractive and unifying explanations of our obligations in domains as variegated as carbon offsetting, CEO compensation, the reparations white Americans owe to black Americans and occupational licensure. Section 4 briefly concludes. (shrink)

Common-sense allows that talk about moral truths makes perfect sense. If you object to the United States’ Declaration of Independence’s assertion that it is a truth that ‘all men’ are ‘endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights’, you are more likely to object that these rights are not unalienable or that they are not endowed by the Creator, or even that its wording ignores the fact that women have rights too, than that this is not the sort of thing (...) which could be a truth. Whether it is a truth or not seems beside the point, anyway; the writers of the Declaration could just have well written, ‘We hold it to be self-evident that all men are created equal, and also that it is self-evident that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,’ save only that its cadence would lack some of the poetic resonance of the version which garnered Hancock’s signature. Yet famously, ethical noncognitivists have proclaimed that moral sentences can’t be true or false – that, like ‘Hooray!’ or ‘dammit!’, they are not even the kinds of things to be true or false. Noncognitivism is sometimes even defined as the view that this is so, but even philosophers who define ‘noncognitivism’ more broadly, as consistent with the idea that moral sentences may be true or false, have believed that they needed to do important philosophical spadework in order to make sense of how moral sentences could be true or false. In this article we’ll look at the puzzle about moral truth as it is faced by early noncognitivists and by metaethical expressivists, the early noncognitivists’ contemporary cousins. We’ll look at what it would take for expressivists to ‘earn the right’ to talk about moral truths at all, and in particular at what it would take for them to earn the right to claim that moral truths behave in the ways that we should expect – including that meaningful moral sentences which lack presuppositions are true or false, and that classically valid arguments are truth-preserving.. (shrink)

The present study investigated the viewpoints of visitors and their experiences with al-Qarawiyyin as conveyed through Google Reviews. The study aimed to determine the primary aspects that underlie the visitors’ experiences at al-Qarawiyyin and to examine these experiences through sentiment. This research examined both quantitative ratings and qualitative comments. The reviews were obtained from Google by utilizing the Google Review Downloader tool. The reviews underwent content analysis in order to categorize them into distinct aspects or categories. Subsequently, a sentiment analysis (...) was performed to ascertain positive, negative, and neutral viewpoints about the institution. The results unveiled seven key aspects pertaining to visitor experiences: access, education, facilities, general aspects, location, national and international heritage, and serenity. The categories of national and international heritage, as well as facilities, were given greater emphasis, while the category of location received comparatively less attention. Based on the examination of star ratings and sentiment, it can be inferred that the majority of visitors were satisfied with their experience at al-Qarawiyyin. Nevertheless, the aspect that garnered the bulk of one-two-star ratings and negative reviews was the access category. The results of this study carry significant implications for scholarly investigations in the fields of higher education and tourism. (shrink)

Philosophy is experiencing a resurgence of property (PD) and generic substance dualism (SD). One important argument for SD that has played a role in this resurgence is some version of a modal argument. Until recently, premise (3) of the argument (Possibly, I exist, and no wholly physical objects exist.) has garnered most of the attention by critics. However, more recently, the focus has also been on (2) (Wholly physical objects are essentially, wholly, and intrinsically physical and wholly spiritual substances are (...) essentially, wholly, and intrinsically immaterial.). Andrew Bailey has provided one of the best criticisms of (2) on offer. In what follows, I present and clarify one form of the argument and defend premise (2) by responding to important defeaters proffered by Andrew Bailey and his contingent physicalism. (shrink)

The mathematical formalism of quantum theory has been established for nearly a century, yet its physical foundations remain elusive. In recent decades, connections between quantum theory and information theory have garnered increasing attention. This study presents a physical derivation of the mathematical formalism quantum theory based on information-theoretic considerations in physical systems. We postulate that quantum systems are characterized by single independent adjustable variables. Utilizing this physical postulate along with the conservation of total probability, we derive the standard Hilbert space (...) formalism of quantum theory, including the Born probability rule. This comprehensive derivation of quantum theory offers a clear and concise physical foundation for the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Alongside the increasing popularity of digital, ‘social’ media platforms, has been the emergence of self-styled digital life-coaches, many of whom seek to propagate their knowledge of and interests in a variety of topics through online social networks (such as, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, etc.). With many of these ‘social influencers’ garnering a large online following, their popularity, social significance and cultural impact offers important insights into the place and purpose of the subject in our digital media environment. Accordingly, this chapter will (...) examine the proliferation of digital media technologies, which, on the one hand, propose the dissolution of the subject (wearable technology, technological singularity, etc.), while on the other, provide new opportunities for discovering, ‘sharing’ and/or improving one’s ‘inner-Self’ (digital media gurus, online health and fitness regimes, etc.). It is in considering how the effects of this ‘digital subject’ redefines traditional (Cartesian) conceptions, that the relative significance of ‘Digital Guru Media’ (DGM) can be drawn. In particular, explicit attention is given to examining how our engagements with social media can be considered in relation to Lacan’s (2002) notion of the big Other and its relevance in introducing, examining and, possibly, subverting, the digital media guru. (shrink)

This chapter introduces topical issues in the ethical debate on speciesism. It does so against a background of the history of the debate and with an emphasis on concerns that arise at the intersection of speciesism and science. The term speciesism was coined in the 1970s by Richard Rider and popularized by Peter Singer, who defined speciesism as “a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of (...) other species.” Critiques of speciesism are undergirded by the principle that comparable interests should be given equal consideration, regardless of species-membership. To what extent the interests of humans and non-humans are comparable, however, has been a matter of contention and is partly beholden to empirical findings. Diverging opinions on this matter have given rise to a variety of more and less species-egalitarian views, often paired with rivalling accounts of “moral status”. A minority of ethicists have explicitly defended speciesism or some version thereof, including Bernard Williams and, more recently, Shelly Kagan. Apart from the back-and-forths between critics and defenders, the speciesism debate has transformed over the last decade, in three respects. First, discourse on animal ethics has witnessed a “political turn”, moving away from analyses of moral status and towards discussions of human-animal relations in interspecies societies. Secondly, apart from anthropocentric speciesism, i.e., privileging humans over non-humans, there has been an increasing interest in non-anthropocentric speciesism, i.e., privileging some non-human species over others. Thirdly, speciesism has been endorsed as a prominent topic in the new, activist-leaning research field of Critical Animal Studies, and has recently garnered substantial attention from psychologists. As these disciplinary changes and conceptual refinements suggest, half a century after its coinage, speciesism continues to be an important scholarly and ethical concept whose history is still in the making. (shrink)

The lack of gender parity in philosophy has garnered serious attention recently. Previous empirical work that aims to quantify what has come to be called “the gender gap” in philosophy focuses mainly on the absence of women in philosophy faculty and graduate programs. Our study looks at gender representation in philosophy among undergraduate students, undergraduate majors, graduate students, and faculty. Our findings are consistent with what other studies have found about women faculty in philosophy, but we were able to add (...) two pieces of new information. First, the biggest drop in the proportion of women in philosophy occurs between students enrolled in introductory philosophy classes and philosophy majors. Second, this drop is mitigated by the presence of more women philosophy faculty. (shrink)

Critics of conspiracy theories often charge that such theories are implausible because conspiracies of the kind they allege tend to fail. Thus, according to these critics, conspiracy theories that have been around for a while would have been, in all likelihood, already exposed if they had been real. So, they reason, they probably are not. In this article, I maintain that the arguments in support of this view are unconvincing. I do so by examining a list of four sources recently (...) cited in support of the claim that conspiracies tend to fail. I pay special attention to two of these sources, an article by Brian Keeley, and, especially, an article by David Grimes, which is perhaps the single “best” article in support of the idea that conspiracies tend to fail. That is, it offers the most explicit and elaborate attempt to establish this view. Further, that article has garnered significant (uncritical) attention in the mainstream press. I argue that Grimes's argument does not succeed, that the common assertion that conspiracies tend to fail remains poorly supported, and that there are good reasons to think that at least some types of conspiracies do not tend to fail. (shrink)

Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator”(2006-08) involved NBC staff working with police and a watchdog group called “Perverted Justice” to televise “special intensity” arrests of men who were lured into meeting adult decoys posing as young children, presumably for a sexual encounter. As reality television, “To Catch a Predator” facilitates public shaming of those caught in front of the cameras, which distinguishes it from fictional representations. In one case, a Texas District Attorney, Louis Conradt, shot himself on film, unable to (...) bear the public humiliation of cameras airing his arrest. The show engenders conflicting responses: Did the show fulfill a public service by informing the public about real dangers and deterring potential predators, or was it an insensitive effort to garner ratings by taking advantage of human weaknesses? Is the sort of public shaming it imposes an appropriate form of punishment given the legitimate purposes of punishment? Did the show portray justice, or did it entrap victims? How did NBC’s working relationship with local police bear on the answer to that question? This paper addresses these questions and develops three objections to the show: that NBC in effect metes out unjust punishment; that it invades privacy; and that it entraps. (shrink)

Product-harm crisis is an important organizational management topic due to the potential detrimental business impact. Organizations are more vulnerable than ever to the possibility of product related incidents disrupting business at any point in the supply chain. To counteract this implicit threat to an organizations reputation and financial wellbeing, if properly deployed, continuity management fosters the ability to run in the face of a crisis event; whereby business continuity management induces the means for appropriate product-harm crisis responses. In this study, (...) the author synthesizes selected published research presenting product-harm crisis management considerations. Based on an assigned literature review; the author summarizes article content, compares and contrasts methods and extrapolates results and conclusions garnered from the selected scholarly research; then provides an actionable recommendation for enabling effective product-harm crisis management. (shrink)

As evidenced in recent literature in moral philosophy, commending actions on their propensity to develop enduring moral traits is not the province of the virtue theorist alone. For however we understand the moral goals of human beings and the nature of right action we recognize that a temperate, just or beneficent person is more likely to conform to the demands of morality than one lacking in these virtues. If this idea is used as a standard for assessing the worth of (...) activities generally and engaging in sporting activity particularly it becomes clear that the highest level of athletic engagement, that is, professional sports, is often morally problematic. The not uncommon phenomenon of athletic underperformance once a sizable, secure contract has been achieved, the expanding quantity and severity of verbal abuse directed at officials and other athletes, as well as the increasing incidence of on-field violence, raise concern that developing moral virtues is no longer a goal of professional sporting activities. This conclusion, however, is not a result of the concept of sport itself or even the idea of professional sport. Both amateur and professional sport are capable of promoting moral development in their participants by making possession of certain virtues a condition for success in that activity. So the problem lies not in the conceptual details of sporting activity but rather in the formulation or prosecution of the rules and expectations governing the sport in question. The essay argues that not only is sport capable of being a worthwhile activity but that there is a sport that in fact generally meets the conditions for being a worthwhile activity, namely professional cricket. In defending this claim it is shown that it is not an essential feature of professional cricket that garners our moral commendation but rather a complex set of contingent features: the Laws of Cricket, the enforcement of those laws and the historico-social context in which the game is set. (shrink)

Antyrealizm etyczny reprezentowany jest obecnie przez około 30% filozofów analitycznych. Podzielają oni przekonanie, że nie istnieją moralne własności, fakty czy wartości. Przez długi okres rozwijany był on zwłaszcza przez akognitywistów. Jednak od czasu publikacji książki J. Mackiego Ethics. Inventingright and wrong (1977) antyrealistyczny sceptycyzm został zradykalizowany, przybierając także formę teorii globalnego błędu. Przyjęcie powyższego przekonania prowadzi do trzech strategii postępowania: 1. fikcjonalizmu asertorycznego (J. Mackie), 2. fikcjonalizmu nieasertorycznego (R. Joyce) oraz 3. eliminatywizmu (I. Hinckfuss i R. Garner). W artykule, (...) przyjmując antyrealistyczny punkt wyjścia przedstawicieli teorii globalnego błędu, analizuję powody, dla których warto wyeliminować etykę, i powody, dla których moglibyśmy mieć z tym problem. Następnie przedstawiam argumenty, ze względu na które pomysł eliminacji etyki pośrednio wspiera zmianę myślenia o realizmie etycznym z paradygmatu ontologicznego na racjonalistyczny. W związku z tym prezentuję koncepcję rewizyjnego realizmu racji oraz dowodzę, że nie poddaje się ona argumentom zwolenników eliminacji etyki. (shrink)

At the heart of philosophical counselling, an emerging field of practical philosophy, is a modest claim, that the lay public can benefit from all that philosophy has to offer. If accepted, this claim suggests that different philosophical traditions should be incorporated into the philosophical counselling discourse. Even though various philosophical traditions have slowly been incorporated, there are sparse mentions of African philosophy in the philosophical counselling literature. However, Ubuntu philosophy has recently garnered some attention. Nonetheless, in this talk I address (...) this dearth of African philosophical input through the introduction of two alternative notions of African philosophy, namely, African hermeneutics and conversational philosophy. These two schools of thought provide valuable and enriching insights to the philosophical counselling discourse. Through this introduction, I aim to transform two key mechanisms as found in the philosophical counselling literature. These mechanisms, that of a hermeneutical happening and collaborative philosophising, invaluable as they are to our understanding of philosophical counselling, lack a certain contextual nuance and situated sensitivity. Consequently, a problematic value-neutrality is continually reproduced; the philosophical counsellor then emerges as an “unprejudiced and value neutral educator”. With the help of African hermeneutics and conversational philosophy, I aim to positively transform these mechanisms. This transformation involves taking seriously the situated and contextual response, emerging from and responding to, in this case, an African lifeworld. Resultant is an interpretive actualisation through a collaborative undertaking rooted in the very conditions of the philosophical conversation. (shrink)

It is increasingly recognized that knowledge is the norm of assertion. As this view has gained popularity, it has also garnered criticism. One widely discussed criticism involves thought experiments about “selfless assertion.” Selfless assertions are said to be intuitively compelling examples where agents should assert propositions that they don’t even believe and, hence, don’t know. This result is then taken to show that knowledge is not the norm of assertion. This paper reports four experiments demonstrating that “selfless assertors” are viewed (...) as both believing and knowing the propositions they assert: this is the natural and intuitive way of interpreting the case. Thought experiments about selfless assertions do not threaten the knowledge account and they do not motivate weaker alternative accounts. The discussion also highlights a general lesson for philosophers: thought experiments intended to probe for mental state attributions should not conflict with basic principles that guide social cognition. (shrink)

Stereotypes shape inferences in philosophical thought, political discourse, and everyday life. These inferences are routinely made when thinkers engage in language comprehension or production: We make them whenever we hear, read, or formulate stories, reports, philosophical case-descriptions, or premises of arguments – on virtually any topic. These inferences are largely automatic: largely unconscious, non-intentional, and effortless. Accordingly, they shape our thought in ways we can properly understand only by complementing traditional forms of philosophical analysis with experimental methods from psycholinguistics. This (...) paper seeks, first, to bring out the wider philosophical relevance of stereotypical inference, well beyond familiar topics like gender and race. Second, we wish to provide philosophers with a toolkit to experimentally study these ubiquitous inferences and what intuitions they may generate. This paper explains what stereotypes are, and why they matter to current and traditional concerns in philosophy – experimental, analytic, and applied. It then assembles a psycholinguistic toolkit and demonstrates through two studies how potentially questionnaire-based measures can be combined with process measures to garner evidence for specific stereotypical inferences and study when they ‘go through’ and influence our thinking. (shrink)

This brief commentary has three goals. The first is to argue that ‘‘framework debate’’ in cognitive science is unresolvable. The idea that one theory or framework can singly account for the vast complexity and variety of cognitive processes seems unlikely if not impossible. The second goal is a consequence of this: We should consider how the various theories on offer work together in diverse contexts of investigation. A final goal is to supply a brief review for readers who are compelled (...) by these points to explore existing literature on the topic. Despite this literature, pluralism has garnered very little attention from broader cognitive science. We end by briefly considering what it might mean for theoretical cognitive science. (shrink)

The revolution brought about by quantum mechanics in the early 20th century was nothing short of remarkable. It shattered the foundational principles of classical physics, giving rise to a plethora of controversial and intriguing conceptual questions. Questions that still perplex and confound the scientific community today. Is the quantum mechanical description of physical reality complete? Are the objects of nature truly inseparable? And most importantly, do objects not have a specific position before measurement, and are there non-causal quantum jumps? These (...) vital problems continue to garner more attention as time passes, particularly with the fading of positivism. If you're a student seeking to explore the fascinating philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics, this book might be just what you need. Written in Persian, brings you closer to the heart of quantum controversies and the fascinating world of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Brentano's theory of consciousness has garnered a surprising amount of attention in recent philosophy of mind. Here I argue for a novel interpretation of Brentano's theory that casts it as more original than previously appreciated and yet quite plausible upon inspection. According to Brentano's theory, as interpreted here, a conscious experience of a tree is a mental state that can be simultaneously thought of, or framed, equally accurately as an awareness of a tree or an awareness of an awareness of (...) a tree. (shrink)

The Generality Problem is widely recognized to be a serious problem for reliabilist theories of justification. James R. Beebe's Statistical Solution is one of only a handful of attempted solutions that has garnered serious attention in the literature. In their recent response to Beebe, Julien Dutant and Erik J. Olsson successfully refute Beebe's Statistical Solution. This paper presents a New Statistical Solution that countenances Dutant and Olsson's objections, dodges the serious problems that trouble rival solutions, and retains the theoretical virtues (...) that made Beebe's solution so attractive in the first place. There indeed exists a principled, rigorous, conceptually sparse, and plausible solution to the Generality Problem: it is the New Statistical Solution. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the popular “information transmitted” interpretation of absolute judgments, and to provide an alternative interpretation if one is needed. Design/methodology/approach – The psychologists Garner and Hake and their successors used Shannon’s Information Theory to quantify information transmitted in absolute judgments of sensory stimuli. Here, information theory is briefly reviewed, followed by a description of the absolute judgment experiment, and its information theory analysis. Empirical channel capacities are scrutinized. A remarkable coincidence, (...) the similarity of maximum information transmitted to human memory capacity, is described. Over 60 representative psychology papers on “information transmitted” are inspected for evidence of memory involvement in absolute judgment. Finally, memory is conceptually integrated into absolute judgment through a novel qualitative model that correctly predicts how judgments change with increase in the number of judged stimuli. Findings – Garner and Hake gave conflicting accounts of how absolute judgments represent information transmission. Further, “channel capacity” is an illusion caused by sampling bias and wishful thinking; information transmitted actually peaks and then declines, the peak coinciding with memory capacity. Absolute judgments themselves have numerous idiosyncracies that are incompatible with a Shannon general communication system but which clearly imply memory dependence. Research limitations/implications – Memory capacity limits the correctness of absolute judgments. Memory capacity is already well measured by other means, making redundant the informational analysis of absolute judgments. Originality/value – This paper presents a long-overdue comprehensive critical review of the established interpretation of absolute judgments in terms of “information transmitted”. An inevitable conclusion is reached: that published measurements of information transmitted actually measure memory capacity. A new, qualitative model is offered for the role of memory in absolute judgments. The model is well supported by recently revealed empirical properties of absolute judgments. (shrink)

Nikolai Fedorov (1829–1903), the progenitor of so-called Russian Cosmism, is an eccentric figure without parallel in the domain of modern thought. His intellectual vision, elaborated across a number of essays and the sprawling unpublished magnum opus written from the 1870s to the 1890s, The Question of Fraternity, attempted a novel theorization of the trajectory, meaning, and telos of the human species through the fulcrum of resurrection. The speculative dimension of Fedorov's cosmist project has garnered the most sustained theoretical interest, but (...) this speculative dimension develops out of a determinate critical diagnosis of the fundamental operations of Western modernity. Reconstructing the elements that make up the diagnostic tendency of Fedorov's project, and then recentering his project around them, allows for the speculative and cosmic elements of his thought to be properly understood. As a result, his project is revealed to be a thinking and acting out of an intimacy with death and with the earth, a thinking and acting grounded in a delegitimating refusal of the colonial, biopolitical, and capitalist foundations of modernity. Only with the delineation of the critical as the internal drive for the cosmically speculative is Fedorov's difference from dominant modes of eco- and geo-constructivist thought sufficiently retained. Our essay pursues this line of thinking to show the decisive significance of Fedorov's critical project, incubated on the margins of Western modernity, for two dominant lines of critical theory—those associated most closely with the names of Karl Marx and Michel Foucault. It does so by reconstructing Fedorov's refusal of the modern biopolitical paradigm, his expansion of the analytics of expropriation, his ambitious reconfiguration of the cartographical imaginary of collective life around the cemetery and the commune, and finally his speculative rewriting of the liturgy as the material enactment of the common task. (shrink)

In recent discussions of two important issues in the philosophy of perception, viz. the problems of perceptual presence and perceptual constancy, Merleau-Ponty’s ideas have been garnering attention thanks to the work of Sean Kelly and Alva Noë. Although both Kelly’s normative approach and Noë’s enactive approach highlight important aspects of Merleau-Ponty’s view, I argue that neither does full justice to it because they overlook the central role that style plays in his solution to these problems. I show that a closer (...) look at the Phenomenology and several other texts from this period reveals that, on Merleau-Ponty’s account, we are able to perceive the absent features of objects as present, constant properties, and constant objects because we recognize that the objects we perceive have a unique style that persists through and unifies all their appearances. (shrink)

Purpose – A key cybernetics concept, information transmitted in a system, was quantified by Shannon. It quickly gained prominence, inspiring a version by Harvard psychologists Garner and Hake for “absolute identification” experiments. There, human subjects “categorize” sensory stimuli, affording “information transmitted” in perception. The Garner-Hake formulation has been in continuous use for 62 years, exerting enormous influence. But some experienced theorists and reviewers have criticized it as uninformative. They could not explain why, and were ignored. Here, the “why” (...) is answered. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A key Shannon data-organizing tool is the confusion matrix. Its columns and rows are, respectively, labeled by “symbol sent” (event) and “symbol received” (outcome), such that matrix entries represent how often outcomes actually corresponded to events. Garner and Hake made their own version of the matrix, which deserves scrutiny, and is minutely examined here. Findings – The Garner-Hake confusion-matrix columns represent “stimulus categories”, ranges of some physical stimulus attribute (usually intensity), and its rows represent “response categories” of the subject’s identification of the attribute. The matrix entries thus show how often an identification empirically corresponds to an intensity, such that “outcomes” and “events” differ in kind (unlike Shannon’s). Obtaining a true “information transmitted” therefore requires stimulus categorizations to be converted to hypothetical evoking stimuli, achievable (in principle) by relating categorization to sensation to intensity. But those relations are actually unknown, perhaps unknowable. Originality/value – The author achieves an important understanding: why “absolute identification” experiments do not illuminate sensory processes. (shrink)

This study examines the Egyptian House of Zakat and Charities as an example for Al- Azhar's public role after June 30, 2013. It raises questions regarding Al-Azhar's role in state-society relations, as well as the social, political, and economic implications of the institution's work. The study is based on the concept of the "common sphere," a theoretical model that assumes Al- Azhar's ideal position is to contribute to strengthening cooperative relations between society and the state in a way that reflects (...) the interests of both parties and not to reflect the dominance of one over the other and support it in a way that strengthens conflictual relations. The conclusion of the study is that the policies of the Zakat House assist the state in implementing its austerity economic policies and make up for the lack of public expenditure on service sectors by utilizing donor funds. Thus, the Zakat House contributes to enhancing Al-Azhar's standing in its relations with the state and society. It also aids economically impoverished segments of the population. Nevertheless, compared to the state and Al-Azhar, society at large continues to garner less benefit from the Zakat House's activities. -/- تناقش هذه الدراسة مؤسسة بيت الزكاة والصدقات المصري، باعتباره نموذجًا للحضور الأزهري في المجال العام في مرحلة ما بعد 30 حزيران/ يونيو 2013. وتتساءل عن الأبعاد الاجتماعية والسياسية والاقتصادية لنشاط المؤسسة، وآثار هذه الأنشطة في علاقات الدولة والمجتمع وفي موقع مؤسسة الأزهر من هذه العلاقات. وتعتمد الدراسة في تحليلها على مفهوم "المجال المشترك"، وهو نموذج نظري يفترض أن الوضع المثالي للأزهر وممارساته في المجال العام هو أن يُسهم في تعزيز العلاقات التعاونية بين المجتمع والدولة بما يعكس مصالح الطرفين، لا أن تعكس الهيمنة والسيطرة لأحدهما على الآخر وتدعمها بما يعزز العلاقات الصراعية بين الدولة والمجتمع. وتخلص الدراسة إلى أن سياسات بيت الزكاة تدعم الدولة جزئيًا في تمرير سياساتها الاقتصادية التقشفية وتُعوض قلة الإنفاق العام على القطاعات الخدمية، وذلك باستخدام أموال المتبرعين. يُسهم البيت في تعزيز قوة الأزهر في علاقاته بكل من الدولة والمجتمع. وتستفيد فئات فقيرة من المساعدات والإعانات التي يقدمها البيت. لكن يظل المجتمع أقل الأطراف استفادة من نشاط المؤسسة مقارنة بكل من الدولة والأزهر. (shrink)

Abstract of of the anthology: Digitalisation encompasses all areas of life and is thus also relevant for theology and the Church. This is not just about the possible uses of social media; in this anthology, digitalisation is understood as a phenomenon that shapes society, the Church and theology with the help of various technologies, such as artificial intelligence. In this context, theology and the Church represent places of digitalisation on the one hand, and, at the same time, the discourse on (...) digitalisation can be advanced with the help of theological thinking on the other. This anthology is both theologically ecumenical and is anchored in an international context. The editors' research focus is on ethics. -/- With contributions by: Aaron J. Butler, Heide A. Campbell, Michael Fuchs, Stephen Garner, David J. Gunkel, Florian Höhne, Markus Huppenbauer, Peter G. Kirchschläger, Birte Platow, Raphael Salvi, Thomas Schlag, Peter Seele, Gotlind Ulshöfer, Joachim Wiemeyer and Lukas Zapf. (shrink)

Causal finitism, the view that the causal history of any event must be finite, has garnered much philosophical interest recently—especially because of its applicability to the Kalām cosmological argument. The most prominent argument for causal finitism is the Grim Reaper argument, which attempts to show that, if infinite causal histories are possible, then other paradoxical states of affairs must also be possible. However, this style of argument has been criticized on the grounds of (i) relying on controversial modal principles, and (...) (ii) providing a false diagnosis of the paradoxes involved. In this paper, I develop a new kind of Grim Reaper argument immune to these criticisms. I show that, by using insights from the literature on time travel, causal finitists should instead argue that infinite causal histories are problematically inexplicable, as they entail the possibility of unexplained foiling mechanisms. The fruits of this paper are that (i) a novel supporting argument for the Kalām is developed, and (ii) along the way of building this argument, it is shown that the literatures on time travel and causal finitism are deeply and intimately connected. (shrink)