Nonviolent movements mainly characterized by not taking part in and resist-ing violent practices developed no multiple levels have had a significant contribution inputting an end to wars and oppressive systems. However, it is worth asking whether theyhave, consequently, contributed to the construction of peace. This article, centered onGandhi, reflects upon the general contribution of nonviolence for historical changes ar-ticulated through Paul Ricoeur’s critique and interpretation of the influence of these move-ments in the intricate relationship between politics and violence. -/- .

For children, the collateral damage of the COVID-19 pandemic response has been considerable. In this paper, we use the framework of evidence-based medicine to argue that child abuse is another negative side effect of COVID-19 lockdowns. While it was certain that school closures would have profound social and economic costs, it remains uncertain whether they have any effect on COVID-19 transmission. There is emerging evidence that lockdowns significantly worsened child abuse on a global scale. Low-income and middle-income countries are particularly (...) vulnerable to increases in child abuse. The best available external evidence from systematic research during the pandemic demonstrates an increase in the risk of child maltreatment, an increase in child maltreatment hospitalisations and a concerning decrease in official child maltreatment referrals. The paradoxical phenomenon of increased hospitalisations and decreased reports is unlikely to be explained by a genuine decrease in child abuse. We conclude that lockdowns have an unacceptably high risk of negative side effects for children, as evidenced by child abuse, the true extent of which appears to be masked by lockdown-related disruptions to schools and other surveillance systems. The desire for a sense of security may be a tempting bias towards emphasising the resilience of children, but it is ethically problematic to push children towards abuse in the name of public health. It is our view that the collateral damage of prolonged school closures for society’s most vulnerable members is a powerful ethical consideration against any pandemic response which involves their use. (shrink)

In “Semantics of Fictional Terms,” Garcia-Carpintero critically surveys the most recent literature on the topic of fictional names. One of his targets is realism about fictional discourse. Realists about fictional discourse believe that: (a) it contains true sentences that have fictional names as their subjects; (b) sentences containing names can be true only if those names have referents; (c) fictional names have fictional characters – abstract objects – as their referents. The fundamental problem that arises for realists is that not (...) all true sentences containing fictional names are plausibly about abstract objects. This leads to the need to introduce disjunctive conceptions of property attribution that Garcia-Carpintero claims are implausible, and that realism should therefore be rejected. He also maintains, however, that (a) is correct. I agree. Furthermore, I am also committed to anti-realism about fictional discourse – that fictional names have no referents. Garcia-Carpintero claims that my view is simply a notational variant of realism. I argue that this is false – that my view could not possibly be a notational variant of any extant realist theory. (shrink)

It is common for philosophers to argue that psychopaths are not morally responsible because they lack some of the essential capacities for morality. In legal terms, they are criminally insane. Typically, however, the insanity defense is not available to psychopaths. The primary reason is that they appear to have the knowledge and understanding required under the M’Naghten Rules. However, it has been argued that what is required for moral and legal responsibility is ‘deep’ moral understanding, something that psychopaths do not (...) have either due to their lacking empathy or practical reason. In the first part of the paper, I argue that psychopaths do not lack the abilities required for deep moral understanding, although they have deficits in those areas. According the M’Naghten Rules, therefore, psychopaths are not insane. Under a less strict formulation of the insanity plea, like the Model Penal Code, however, there is a good case to be made for their lacking substantial capacity. I argue that because psychopathy is an essentially moral disorder, and because of the nature of psychopathic violence, psychopaths should not be excused under the insanity plea. It would be tantamount to excusing someone for committing a crime because they are bad. Arguably, this contravenes the entire system of law. (shrink)

Fictional names present unique challenges for semantic theories of proper names, challenges strong enough to warrant an account of names different from the standard treatment. The theory developed in this paper is motivated by a puzzle that depends on four assumptions: our intuitive assessment of the truth values of certain sentences, the most straightforward treatment of their syntactic structure, semantic compositionality, and metaphysical scruples strong enough to rule out fictional entities, at least. It is shown that these four assumptions, taken (...) together, are inconsistent with referentialism, the common view that names are uniformly associated with ordinary individuals as their semantic value. Instead, the view presented here interprets names as context-sensitive expressions, associated in a context of utterance with a particular act of introduction, or dubbing, which is then used to determine their semantic value. Some dubbings are referential, which associate names with ordinary individuals as their semantic values; others are fictional, which associate names, instead, with sets of properties. Since the semantic values of names can be of different sorts, the semantic rule interpreting predication must be complex as well. In the body of the paper, I show how this new treatment of names allows us to solve our original puzzle. I defend the complexity of the semantic predication rule, and address additional worries about ontological commitment. (shrink)

We take ourselves to have an inner life of thought, and we take ourselves to be capable of linguistically expressing our thoughts to others. But what is the nature of this “inner life” of thought? Is conscious thought necessarily carried out in language? This paper takes up these questions by examining Merleau-Ponty’s theory of expression. For Merleau-Ponty, language expresses thought. Thus it would seem that thought must be independent of, and in some sense prior to, the speech that expresses it. (...) He also claims, however, that thinking just is linguistic expression, and thus that language constitutes thought. The primary aim of this paper is to make sense of this constitutive claim while maintaining that, for Merleau-Ponty, there is an inner life of thought that exists independently of linguistic expression, and that this inner life rightly deserves the label “thought”. The upshot of this account is twofold. First, it explains why the mainstream view of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of expression seems plausible, but is ultimately inadequate. Second, it functions as a corrective to contemporary debates about the nature and scope of phenomenal consciousness and the sense in which conscious experience has content. (shrink)

This paper argues for a Husserlian account of phenomenal intentionality. Experience is intentional insofar as it presents a mind-independent, objective world. Its doing so is a matter of the way it hangs together, its having a certain structure. But in order for the intentionality in question to be properly understood as phenomenal intentionality, this structure must inhere in experience as a phenomenal feature. Husserl’s concept of horizon designates this intentionality-bestowing experiential structure, while his concept of motivation designates the unique phenomenal (...) character of this structure as it is experientially lived through. The way experience hangs together is itself a phenomenal feature of experience. (shrink)

A theory of the first-person plural occupies a unique place in philosophical investigations into intersubjectivity and social cognition. In order for the referent of the first-person plural—“the We”—to come into existence, it seems there must be a shared ground of communicative possibility, but this requires a non-circular explanation of how this ground could be shared in the absence of a pre-existing context of communicative conventions. Margaret Gilbert’s and John Searle’s theories of collective intentionality capture important aspects of the We, but (...) fail to fully account for this shared ground of communicative possibility. This paper argues that Merleau-Ponty’s concept of intercorporeity helps reconcile the positive aspects of these accounts while also explaining how the genesis of the social world is continuous with perceptual life in general. This enables an account of the first-person plural as dependent on reciprocal communicative interaction without the need to posit a primitive or primordial “we-mode” of consciousness. “Intercorporeity” designates a bodily openness to others that is not fundamentally different in kind from the general style of bodily comportment found in Merleau-Ponty’s rich analyses of perceptual life. (shrink)

This paper brings together several strands of thought from both the analytic and phenomenological traditions in order to critically examine accounts of cognitive enhancement that rely on the idea of cognitive extension. First, I explain the idea of cognitive extension, the metaphysics of mind on which it depends, and how it has figured in recent discussions of cognitive enhancement. Then, I develop ideas from Husserl that emphasize the agential character of thought and the distinctive way that conscious thoughts are related (...) to one another. I argue that these considerations are necessary for understanding why forms of cognitive extension may diminish our cognitive lives in different ways. This does not lead to a categorical rejection of cognitive enhancement as unethical or bad for human flourishing, but does warrant a conservative approach to the design and implementation of cognitive artifacts. (shrink)

Standard rigid designator accounts of a name’s meaning have trouble accommodating what I will call a descriptive name’s “shifty” character -- its tendency to shift its referent over time in response to a discovery that the conventional referent of that name does not satisfy the description with which that name was introduced. I offer a variant of Kripke’s historical semantic theory of how names function, a variant that can accommodate the character of descriptive names while maintaining rigidity for proper names. (...) A descriptive name’s shiftiness calls for a semantic account of names that makes their semantic values bipartite, containing both traditional semantic contents and what I call "modes of introduction." Both parts of a name's semantic value are derived from the way a name gets introduced into discourse -- from what I refer to as its "context of introduction." Making a name's semantic value bipartite in this way allows for a definite description to be a part of proper name's meaning without thereby sacrificing that name’s status as a rigid designator. On my view, a definite description is part of descriptive name’s mode of introduction. That is, it is part of what determines the content assigned to that name. As it turns out, making a definite description part of a descriptive name’s mode of introduction allows for that definite description to play the role of a mere reference-fixer regarding that name’s content, as Kripke would have it. However, my account allows a definite description to fix a descriptive name’s content actively over time, thereby explaining its inherent shiftiness. (shrink)

There are many examples offered as evidence that proper names are predicates. Not all of these cases speak to a name’s semantic content, but many of them do. Some of these include attributive, quantifier, and ambiguity cases. We will explore those cases here, and we will see that none of them conclusively show that names are predicates. In fact, all of these constructions can be given alternative analyses that eliminate the predicative characteristics of names they feature. These analyses do not (...) involve having names functioning as predicates in any way at all. In attributive cases, the names within them are to be understood as occurring in a comparative construction, not an attributive construction. In the last two sorts of cases, the names that occur are analyzed as part of a more complex referring device for a specific domain, rather than functioning as predicates. Both paraphrases can be given plausible semantic treatments that have significant advantages over their competitors. For this reason, there is less motivation to focus on predicative views of proper names. (shrink)

This was a public talk given in the spring of 2013 during sexual assault awareness week. I believe roughly 800 attended. The philosophy dept was NOT expecting that but at any rate, this is the gist: While there are many different motivations for raising questions about the Sexual Assault Awareness Movement, at least one motivation comes from feminist controversies about what counts as consensual sex. Historically, this controversy arose between those known as "anti-pornography feminists", and "sex positive feminists" whose proponents (...) had very different understandings of what counts as sexual autonomy for women. It is important to understand that questioning the current definitions of what counts as an instance of sexual assault does not entail an anti-feminist agenda. There is not a unified feminist front on this topic. To assume otherwise is to risk silencing victims of sexual assault even further by imposing a particular conception of sexual assault upon them that they might themselves reject. If we are to properly address sexual assault as feminists we must listen to victims of sexual assault and develop a theory of consent in tandem with victims' own understanding of that concept. (shrink)

Husserl introduces a phenomenological concept called “motivation” early in the First Investigation of his magnum opus, the Logical Investigations. The importance of this concept has been overlooked since Husserl passes over it rather quickly on his way to an analysis of the meaningful nature of expression. I argue, however, that motivation is essential to Husserl’s overall project, even if it is not essen- tial for defining expression in the First Investigation. For Husserl, motivation is a relation between mental acts whereby (...) the content of one act make some fur- ther meaningful content probable. I explicate the nature of this relation in terms of “evidentiary weight” and differentiate it from Husserl’s notion of Evidenz, often translated as “self-evidence”. I elucidate the importance of motivation in Husserl’s overall phenomenological project by focusing on his analyses of thing-perception and empathy. Through these examples, we can better understand the continuity between the Logical Investigations and Husserl’s later work. (shrink)

Husserlian phenomenology, as the study of conscious experience, has often been accused of solipsism. Husserl’s method, it is argued, does not have the resources to provide an account of consciousness of other minds. This chapter will address this issue by providing a brief overview of the multiple angles from which Husserl approached the theme of intersubjectivity, with specific focus on the details of his account of the concrete interpersonal encounter – “empathy.” Husserl understood empathy as a direct, quasi-perceptual form of (...) intentionality through which the sense of the Other is constituted. Furthermore, his account of empathy is holistically integrated with his overall theory of intersubjectivity, including his discussions of the objectivity of nature, and the social, historical, and communal aspects of subjectivity. Husserl’s theory of empathy continues to cast a long shadow, influencing both the analytic and continental approaches to the problem of other minds, as well as contemporary account of social cognition in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Inductively defined structures are ubiquitous in mathematics; their specification is unambiguous and their properties are powerful. All fields of mathematical logic feature these structures prominently: the formula of a language, the set of theorems, the natural numbers, the primitive recursive functions, the constructive number classes and segments of the cumulative hierarchy of sets. -/- This dissertation gives a mathematical characterization of a species of inductively defined structures, called accessible domains, which include all of the above examples except the set of (...) theorems. The concept of an accessible domain comes from Wilfried Sieg's analysis of proof-theoretic practices, starting with his dissertation. In particular, he noticed the special epistemological character of elements of an accessible domain: they can always be uniquely identified with their build-up. Generally, the unique build-up of elements justifies the principles of induction and recursion. -/- I use category theory to give an abstract characterization of accessible domains. I claim that accessible domains are all instances of initial algebras for endofunctors. Grounded in the historical roots of Sieg's discussions, this dissertation shows how the properties of initial algebras for endofunctors and accessible domains coincide in a satisfying and natural way. -/- Filling out this characterization, I show how important examples of accessible domains fit into this broad characterization. I first characterize some accessible domains by relatively simple functors (e.g. finite, polynomial, those that preserve certain colimits) where we can see how iterating the functor can produce the accessible domain. Then I describe accessible domains that result from more involved specifications (e.g. ordinals and segments of the cumulative hierarchies associated with CZF, IZF, and ZF) by relying heavily on algebraic set theory. I end with a discussion of some of the methodological features of category theory in particular that helped characterize accessible domains. (shrink)

It is often argued that the ability to imagine what others think and feel is central to moral functioning. In this paper, I consider to what extent this is true. I argue that neither the ability to think of others as having representational mental states, nor the ability to imagine being in their position, is necessary for moral understanding or moral motivation. I go on to argue that the area in which thinking about others’ thoughts and feelings appears to play (...) the largest role is that of supererogatory actions. Being able to get on well with others seems to be importantly predicated on our ability to think about their thoughts and feelings and being able to take up their perspective. However, when it comes to grosser moral norms and restrictions, such as harm norms, there is little reason to think that thinking about others’ thoughts and feelings plays a central role in understanding such norms or being motivated by them. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to determine how Locke understands suspension and the role it plays in his view of human liberty. To this end I, 1) discuss the deficiencies of the first edition version of ‘Of Power’ and why Locke needed to include the ability to suspend in the second edition, then 2) analyze Locke’s definitions of the power to suspend with a focus on his use of the terms ‘source’, ‘hinge’, and ‘inlet’ to describe the power. I (...) determine from these descriptions that the ability to suspend is a passive power and is a necessary condition for the rational deliberation that Locke takes to be necessary for acting as a free agent. In 3) I connect Locke’s view of the power to suspend to his discussion in the sections that precede ‘Of Power.’ I argue that the kind of judgment that Locke endorses in his discussion of the Molyneux problem is also at work in acts of suspension. In 4) I apply my interpretation to Locke’s description of the connection between the power to suspend and liberty. In 5) I conclude with a discussion of a passage from the fifth edition of the Essay. Locke adds this passage to address worries raised by Limborch over the course of their correspondence. According to Chappell, it lends evidence to the view that Locke takes suspensions to be caused by undetermined volitions. (shrink)

A crucial part of the contemporary interest in logicism in the philosophy of mathematics resides in its idea that arithmetical knowledge may be based on logical knowledge. Here an implementation of this idea is considered that holds that knowledge of arithmetical principles may be based on two things: (i) knowledge of logical principles and (ii) knowledge that the arithmetical principles are representable in the logical principles. The notions of representation considered here are related to theory-based and structure-based notions of representation (...) from contemporary mathematical logic. It is argued that the theory-based versions of such logicism are either too liberal (the plethora problem) or are committed to intuitively incorrect closure conditions (the consistency problem). Structure-based versions must on the other hand respond to a charge of begging the question (the circularity problem) or explain how one may have a knowledge of structure in advance of a knowledge of axioms (the signature problem). This discussion is significant because it gives us a better idea of what a notion of representation must look like if it is to aid in realizing some of the traditional epistemic aims of logicism in the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

This paper responds to recent work in the philosophy of Homotopy Type Theory by James Ladyman and Stuart Presnell. They consider one of the rules for identity, path induction, and justify it along ‘pre-mathematical’ lines. I give an alternate justification based on the philosophical framework of inferentialism. Accordingly, I construct a notion of harmony that allows the inferentialist to say when a connective or concept is meaning-bearing and this conception unifies most of the prominent conceptions of harmony through category theory. (...) This categorical harmony is stated in terms of adjoints and says that any concept definable by iterated adjoints from general categorical operations is harmonious. Moreover, it has been shown that identity in a categorical setting is determined by an adjoint in the relevant way. Furthermore, path induction as a rule comes from this definition. Thus we arrive at an account of how path induction, as a rule of inference governing identity, can be justified on mathematically motivated grounds. (shrink)

What makes a person the same over time is a question dealt with by many philosophers. I too offered a purely metaphysical answer in a different work, however, as with many other theorists, I offered an answer outside of considering the political consequences of the theory I offered. Upon reflection, I now see that this was a mistake in need of correction. This is because I believe that conceptually a theory about how a person remains one and the same over (...) time presupposes an understanding of the nature of personhood as an ontological kind. That is, to remain the same person over time logically requires remaining a person. While being a counting as a person is a purely metaphysical matter, the fact is having the status of being a person is highly significant both morally and politically, as any social movement fighting for being granted this status to groups of individuals who have been denied it. To ignore the moral and political consequences of a metaphysical theory of persons is therefore ethically irresponsible. I argue that many of the assumptions concerning personhood are ethically and politically biased in favor of a conception of persons that disadvantages certain individuals, and that examining and correcting these biases is essential to be ethically responsible theorists of personhood. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of empathy as the form of experience directed at embodied unities of expressive movement. After outlining the key differences between simulation theory and the phenomenological approach to empathy, the paper argues that while the phenomenological approach is closer to respecting a necessary constitutional asymmetry between first-personal and second-personal senses of embodiment, it still presupposes a general concept of embodiment that ends up being problematic. A different account is proposed that is neutral on the explanatory role (...) of the first-person sense of embodiment, which leads to an emphasis on the transformative nature of empathy and a broadening of the scope of possible targets of empathic awareness. (shrink)

Empty names vary in their referential features. Some of them, as Kripke argues, are necessarily empty -- those that are used to create works of fiction. Others appear to be contingently empty -- those which fail to refer at this world, but which do uniquely identify particular objects in other possible worlds. I argue against Kripke's metaphysical and semantic reasons for thinking that either some or all empty names are necessarily non-referring, because these reasons are either not the right reasons (...) for thinking that a name necessarily must fail to refer, or they are too broad -- they make every empty name necessarily non-referential. Plausibly, the explanation for the necessary non-reference of fictional names should be semantic, yet the explanation should not rule out a priori the contingent non-reference of certain other empty names. In light of this, I argue that a name's semantic value needs to carry information about its referential potential. I claim that names do so by encoding information about the way they were introduced into discourse. Names that are fictional will be marked as being non-referential -- they will fail to refer as a matter of their semantics. In contrast, names that are contingently empty will be marked as referential, but they will be failed referential names that could have been successful. The reason, then, for the non-referential status of a fictional name, will be semantic, as our intuitions suggest it should be. Likewise, the reason for the non-referential status of other empty names, those created by acts of failed attempts to refer, will be metaphysical, again, in keeping with our intuitions. (shrink)

Over the past fifteen years there has been a considerable amount of debate concerning what theoretical population dynamic models tell us about the nature of natural selection and drift. On the causal interpretation, these models describe the causes of population change. On the statistical interpretation, the models of population dynamics models specify statistical parameters that explain, predict, and quantify changes in population structure, without identifying the causes of those changes. Selection and drift are part of a statistical description of population (...) change; they are not discrete, apportionable causes. Our objective here is to provide a definitive statement of the statistical position, so as to allay some confusions in the current literature. We outline four commitments that are central to statisticalism. They are: 1. Natural Selection is a higher order effect; 2. Trait fitness is primitive; 3. Modern Synthesis (MS)-models are substrate neutral; 4. MS-selection and drift are model-relative. (shrink)

The philosophical foundation of human rights has become more explicit, given that the presumption of peace in the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights demands further development, both in its definition and in the conditions or requirements for its fulfillment. Based on the discussion of the human right to peace, we propose to reinterpret the Arendtine expression “The right to have rights” as the philosophical formula that calls for the ascension of peace to a legal enunciation; this is (...) based on the critique of Human Rights, the valuation of human singularity, and on believing in the merging of actions and discourses that characterize Hannah Arendt’s politics.Keywords: peace, human rights, stateless persons, philosophical foundation, the human right to peace. (shrink)

This is what I hope is an illuminating, and to a certain degree, novel exposition of Montague Grammar. It is against many standard interpretations, and perhaps even against things Montague himself says at times. However, it makes more sense of how his various commitments fit together in a systematic way. Why, for instance, is it called "Montague Grammar" rather than "Montague Semantics," and what role does his commitment to Fregeanism plays in his conception of language? It is clear that he (...) is committed to the idea that function application is the fundamental mode of semantic composition, and that he is committed to an intensional framework. However, intensions have, since Carnap, been understood as nearly conceptually equivalent to functions from possible worlds to sets of individuals. But, in truth, possible worlds semantics is just dressed up extensional semantics. There are just more objects to go around to serve as inputs for functions, whatever we think of their ontological status. That is, possible worlds semantics is really a semantic reduction of intensional semantics achieved by expanding our ontological commitments. It would be difficult to make sense of Montague's strong commitment to Fregean semantics, if his notion of intension was that of Carnap's. According to my interpretation, Montague's notion of intension must be distinct from the version adopted by possible world semantics. Montague took seriously the idea that intensional semantics was something quite different from extensionalist semantics. The first was not reducible to the second semantically speaking. Just as Frege believed that meaning consisted of both sense and reference, so too did Montague. However, just as Frege also believed, Montague thought that sense and reference were systematically related. As I illustrate, interpreting Montague as adopting a different notion of intension can also resolve the apparent problem of distinguishing the difference in meaning between intensional equivalents. It might also enable us to draw a distinction in epistemic logic between an agent having contradictory beliefs and believing contradictions. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s relation to Husserl has been understood along a spectrum running from outright repudiation to deep appreciation. The aim of this paper is to clarify a significant and heretofore largely neglected unifying thread connecting Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, while also demonstrating its general philosophical import for phenomenological philosophy. On this account, the details of a programmatic philosophical continuity between these two phenomenologists can be structured around the concept of motivation. Merleau-Ponty sees in Husserl’s concept of motivation a necessary and innovative concept (...) that we must formulate in order to properly theorize the anonymous and passive functioning of “operative intentionality.” Motivation is the principle that bridges this domain with the egoic life of consciousness. Merleau-Ponty’s focus on anonymity, bodily habit, and other facets of operative intentionality are thus not a repudiation of Husserl’s analyses of intentionality, but rather a deepening of the notion of consciousness. I conclude by showing how Merleau-Ponty’s early work on motivation lays the conceptual groundwork for his later rethinking of intentionality in terms of institution, and thus mature ontology of the flesh. (shrink)

In 2016, Colin Kaepernick, a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, remained seated during the national anthem in order to protest racial injustice and police brutality against African-Americans. After consulting with National Football League and military veteran Nate Boyer, Kaepernick switched to taking a knee during the anthem for the remainder of the season. Several NFL players and other professional athletes subsequently adopted this gesture. This article brings together complementary Confucian and phenomenological analyses to elucidate the significance of Kaepernick’s gesture, (...) and in the process provide a phenomenological characterization of the connection between the Confucian notions of sagehood and ritual. Kaepernick’s gesture subverts the anthem ritual from within while simultaneously remaining faithful to the ideals it is meant to express. Furthermore, it institutes a new bodily form of patriotic self-expression compatible with both American and Confucian ideals. (shrink)

Recently, and rather startlingly, given the history of the debate about a name's semantic content, some claim that names are in fact predicates -- predicativism. Some of predicativists claim that a name's semantic content involves the concept of being called -- calling accounts that have been traditionally meta-linguistic. However, these accounts fail to be informative. Inspired by Burge's claim that proper names are literally true of the individuals that have them, Fara develops a non-meta-linguistic concept of being called analysed in (...) terms of property attributions. I offer seven separate reasons for rejecting the account, one of which is that Fara's development of the view, at least, has implausible consequences for a theory of name acquisition. I sketch an alternative account of name acquisition that is meta-linguistic in nature, but because it is not offered as a theory of name's content, the standard worries fail to apply. In fact, I argue that an account of name acquisition must be meta-linguistic, and therefore a more nuanced conception of meta-linguistic speech acts is required. The account invokes Austin's performative-constative distinction. It analyses name acquisition as due to performative meta-linguistic speech acts. (shrink)

Psychopaths are the bugbears of moral philosophy. They are often used as examples of perfectly rational people who are nonetheless willing to do great moral wrong without regret; hence the disorder has received the epithet “moral insanity” (Pritchard 1835). But whereas philosophers have had a great deal to say about psychopaths’ glaring and often horrifying lack of moral conscience, their aesthetic capacities have received hardly any attention, and are generally assumed to be intact or even enhanced. Popular culture often portrays (...) psychopaths in ways that suggest a great gap between their amorality and their aesthetic sensitivity. In The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991), Hannibal Lecter appreciates fine art, fashion, and wine, while he eats his way through his enemies. His real-life counterparts, however, do not demonstrate the same sensitivities. There is no evidence that psychopaths are capable of real aesthetic appreciation, and some evidence that they are not. In this paper, we set out the limited evidence for the psychopath’s deficient aesthetic sensitivity. The best explanations of what the psychopath lacks turn out to implicate abilities that are also thought to be central to moral thought and action: an impaired capacity for empathizing with others and deficient ability to take a disinterested attitude towards things (socalled distance). We endorse the latter explanation. Thinking about what underlies the psychopath’s deficient aesthetic understanding turns out to throw light on a difficult problem: the connection between ethics and aesthetics. (shrink)

Abstract: Many, if not most philosophers, deny that a sentence like ‘Sherlock Holmes smokes’ could be true. However, this attitude conflicts with the assignment of true to that sentence by natural language speakers. Furthermore, this process of assigning truth values to sentences like ‘Sherlock Holes smokes’ seems indistinguishable from the process that leads speakers to assign true to other sentences, those like ‘Bertrand Russell smokes’. I will explore the idea that when speakers assign the value true to the first sentence, (...) they are not mistaken or confused — that we ought to take these assignments at face value. I show how the most popular alternative to this idea is inadequate for explaining various sentences involving fictional names. In addition, I offer evidence that these truth value assignments to sentences are tracking semantic content rather than pragmatic effects. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to show that the existence of empty names raise problems for the Millian that go beyond the traditional problems of accounting for their meanings. Specifically, they have implications for Millian strategies for dealing with puzzles about belief. The standard move of positing a referent for a fictional name to avoid the problem of meaning, because of its distinctly Millian motivation, implies that solving puzzles about belief, when they involve empty names, do in fact hang (...) on Millian assumptions after all. (shrink)

This book is about whether reference to an individual is the essential feature of a proper name -- a widely held view -- or whether referring to an individual is simply a contingent feature. Three questions need resolving, then. First, whether all names in particular contexts are themselves referring devices. Second, whether recognizing names types and the consequent issue of their ambiguity can be resolved simply by distinguishing between name types and tokens thereof. Last, whether names are ever referential in (...) the way Kripke and others have convincingly argued. The answer to first two questions is negative. The answer to third is a qualified "yes." I explain the theory that allows for these answers in the manuscript, as well as addressing other issues such as: the problem of fictional names; descriptive names; empty names; what an act of naming consists of; an account of ontological commitment; and the data that suggests that names are predicates. (shrink)

According to EJ Lowe, diachronic necessity and synchronic necessity are logically independent. Diachronic possibility concerns what could happen to an object over time and therefore concerns future possibilities for that object given its past history. Synchronic possibility concerns what is possible for an object in the present or at a past present moment. These are logically independent, given certain assumptions. While it may true that because I am 38, it is impossible diachronically for me to be 30 (at least once (...) we restrict the degree of relevant possibility), it is possible, given that at some point in the past, I may have been conceived slightly earlier than I was, that I am now 37. Likewise, it is possible diachronically for me to be somewhere other than where I am, but given that one object cannot be in different places at the same time, it is impossible for me now to be somewhere other than where I am, and this is true at each past point in my history too. There are, then, two axis upon which to distinguish what is and is not possible: tensed possibilities and possibilities of degree, which include nomic, metaphysical, and logical necessities, among others. I examine the interactions between these possibilities and I come to the conclusion that logical necessity is not in fact logical necessity simpliciter. Whether something is logically necessary depends upon tensed possibilities. I argue that while synchronic logical necessity entails diachronic logical necessity, the reverse entailment does not hold. I explore the consequences of this for certain philosophical debates in semantics including the concept of rigid designation, and descriptive names. (shrink)

Whether perceptual experience represents high-level properties like causation and natural-kind in virtue of its phenomenology is an open question in philosophy of mind. While the question of high-level properties has sparked disagreement, there is widespread agreement that the sensory phenomenology of perceptual experience presents us with low-level properties like shape and color. This paper argues that the relationship between the sensory character of experience and the low-level properties represented therein is more complex than most assume. Careful consideration of mundane examples, (...) like looking at a coin from an oblique angle, show that the low-level properties represented in experience do not necessarily figure in the sensory character of the experience. Furthermore, the sensible properties invoked when characterizing the sensory character of a perceptual experience are not necessarily included in the sensible properties represented in a perceptual experience. On this basis it is argued that perceptual experience has a disunified metaphysics, consisting in distinct sensory and cognitive components. The account is developed in relation to existing unified and disunified accounts, and discussed in terms of its implications for cognitive penetration, the reliability of introspection, the transparency of experience, and cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

Voted one of Christianity Today's 1996 Books of the Year! The carnivalesque, pluralistic culture in which we live can be seen as a consequence of the breakdown of modernity (which touted itself as the "greatest show on earth"), combined with a recognition of the socially constructed character of reality. Since the old construction has been discredited and is in a process of decomposition, the season is open on the construction of new realities which are produced with the speed and ease (...) of temporary circus tents being raised. Far from witnessing the erosion or even eclipse of religious belief that the Enlightenment so confidently predicted, the eclipse of the Enlightenment has resulted in a veritable smorgasbord of religions and worldviews for our consumption. So Richard Middleton and Brian Walsh colorfully describe our postmodern setting. In this book they survey postmodern culture and philosophy, offering lucid explanations of such difficult theories as deconstruction. They are sympathetic to the postmodern critique, yet believe that a gospel stripped of its modernist trappings speaks a radical word of hope and transformation to our chaotic culture. The book for those who wonder what postmodernism is and how biblical Christians might best respond. Endorsement (from the back cover): “In Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be, Middleton and Walsh lead us into the postmodern crisis with skill and sensitivity, and with the mobilization of a comprehensive reading program. But this is not simply one more review. The book makes a suggestive theological response to the crisis, exploring the claims of biblical faith in a shrewd way. It will be a most helpful resource for those who care about our common future and who are willing to think honestly, informed by faith. I anticipate the book will be widely used, to our common benefit.” Walter Brueggemann, author of Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination. (shrink)

Critics of Institutional Review Board (IRB) practices often base their charges on the claim that IRB review began with and is premised upon a "medical model" of research, and hence a "medical model" of risk. Based on this claim, they charge that IRB review, especially in the institutional Reviw boardsocial and behavioral sciences, has experienced "mission creep". This paper argues that this line of critique is fundamentally misguided. While it remains unclear what critics mean by "medical model", the point of (...) contemporary human research subjects regulation remains the same across all domains of research. That point is to protect the autonomy of human subjects, primarily through the use of informed consent. In fields as different as biomedical self-experimentation and ethnography there is the danger of losing sight of subjects' autonomy. Critiques of the so-called medical model are sometimes libertarian and sometimes utilitarian in spirit. Either way, such critiques have not yet demonstrated that these philosophical schools of thought have the resources to guard against the potential risk of harm that lexically prioritizing the autonomy of human subjects does. Precisely because IRB review recognizes that human subjects research occurs in different fields using different research methods, IRB review requires researchers to explain their particular methods, the particular risks of harm created by these methods, and the implementation of procedures by which subjects may autonomously consent to precisely those risks. (shrink)

This paper concerns two topics which, I hope to show, are vitally connected. One is the distinctive importance of appellate adjudication in the legal system of United States. The other is the workings of entangled concepts in the law. That appellate adjudication is important in some sense may seem obvious to everybody (to a few it will seem obvious that appellate adjudication is unimportant). My point will be that via appellate adjudication courts engineer entangled legal concepts, and it is this (...) aspect of appellate adjudication that is both crucial and unique to it, at least in the U.S. legal system. Entangled concepts intertwine description and evaluation; entangled legal concepts facilitate and constrain legal reasoning and legal judgments, in ways that distinguish legal adjudication from pure politics or the implementation of public policy. In the paper itself, I demonstrate more fully what it is for a legal concept to be an entangled one and how entanglement supplies guidance in adjudication. I also broach how entanglement in legal concepts and engineered entanglement have significance for legal pedagogy; appellate adjudication; the respective roles of the judiciary, the legislature, and administrative agencies; the erosion of the distinction between so-called public law and so-called private law; and our understanding of the fact/value distinction. -/- Understanding more specifically the nature of the entanglement at work in appellate adjudication requires much closer scrutiny of appellate opinions than we usually give. I examine carefully the background to MacPherson v. Buick and Justice Benjamin Cardozo’s particular re-engineering of ‘negligence’ and ‘duty,’ entangled concepts belonging to the same legal taxonomy. Via this scrutiny, I demonstrate the flaws in the engineering of some concepts in the buildup to MacPherson, and how these flaws led to those concepts’ collapse and ultimately to Cardozo’s re-engineering of ‘negligence’ and ‘duty.’ I also explain why careful understanding of the engineering of entangled legal concepts can make us appreciate that even the most successful of such concepts have within in them the grounds for their own obsolescence. -/- To show that conceptual engineering of entangled concepts occurs outside the context of state common law, I also examine how the U.S. Supreme Court has engineered ‘commerce’, itself an entangled concept. The recent decision regarding the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act makes this example particularly timely. This secondary example also clarifies the nature of entanglement and engineering it. -/- This article concerns appellate adjudication in any area of law. I maintain that whether we are dealing with private law or public law, common law or statutory law or Constitutional law, the defining feature of appellate adjudication is its continuous engineering and reengineering of entangled legal concepts. The merger of fact and value in these concepts explains both the fertility of appellate adjudication and the constraints judges work with when they work with legal concepts that entangle fact and value. (shrink)

Given the wide the range of legally available options for end-of-life care in recent decades: from aggressive, even experimental, treatment to active euthanasia, our ethical analysis struggles to keep pace with technology and law. In this essay I show that the principle of double effect (PDE) remains, and will continue to be, a useful tool for ethical analysis of end-of-life care. According to PDE, an agent may ethically perform an act that s/he foresees will have a significant bad effect (e.g., (...) death) in addition to a good effect (e.g., pain relief) only if s/he does not intend the bad effect, the act is not bad for reasons other than its causing the bad effect, and there is a proportionately serious reason to act. Following a brief explanation of PDE and preliminary considerations in favor of counting death as a bad effect, I analyze several end-of-life options in terms of the principle. I begin with those that enjoy significant consensus among proponents of PDE: active euthanasia, “passive euthanasia,” and palliative care. Then I consider the less-straightforward cases of drug provision, refusing food and water, and terminal sedation, arguing that participation in such actions is justifiable via PDE only under very limited conditions. (shrink)

This article approaches the reflections of Paul Ricoeur regarding testimony to befound in his work Memory, History,Forgetting. Through reading of this work, we pos-tulate the idea that to consider others as readers or spectators of our actions forms animportant part of the construction of human subjectivity. The thesis that subjectivityarises as a discourse towards the other is proposed here, inasmuch as human experi-ences are transmitted narratively in the form of testimony, which stands as an examplefor the understanding of the experiences (...) of the past. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that standard psychological continuity theory does not account for an important feature of what is important in survival – having the property of personhood. I offer a theory that can account for this, and I explain how it avoids the implausible consequences of standard psychological continuity theory, as well as having certain other advantages over that theory.

In a letter to William Molyneux John Locke states that in reviewing his chapter 'Of Power' for the second edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding he noticed that he had made one mistake which, now corrected, has put him "into a new view of things" which will clarify his account of human freedom. Locke says the mistake was putting “things for actions” on p.123 of the first edition, a page on which the word 'things' does not appear (The Correspondence (...) of John Locke. E.S. de Beer, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), Vol.4, no.1643, 15 July, 1693.) It is the aim of this paper to (1) elucidate where the correction occurs, (2) give an analysis of why the correction is needed, and (3) give an explanation of why Locke believed replacing 'things' with 'actions' was an important change. (shrink)

Some are skeptical about the possibility of objectivity in law. In this article, I argue that common law legal adjudication can yield objective judgments, based on a legitimate conception of objectivity, one that shares in the kind of objectivity available to scientific and ethical judgments.

Why are natural theories pre-well-ordered by consistency strength? In previous work, an approach to this question was proposed. This approach was inspired by Martin's Conjecture, one of the most prominent conjectures in recursion theory. Fixing a reasonable subsystem $T$ of arithmetic, the goal was to classify the recursive functions that are monotone with respect to the Lindenbaum algebra of $T$. According to an optimistic conjecture, roughly, every such function must be equivalent to an iterate $\mathsf{Con}_T^\alpha$ of the consistency operator ``in (...) the limit'' within the ultrafilter of sentences that are true in the standard model. In previous work the author established the first case of this optimistic conjecture; roughly, every recursive monotone function is either as weak as the identity operator in the limit or as strong as $\mathsf{Con}_T$ in the limit. Yet in this note we prove that this optimistic conjecture fails already at the next step; there are recursive monotone functions that are neither as weak as $\mathsf{Con}_T$ in the limit nor as strong as $\mathsf{Con}_T^2$ in the limit. In fact, for every $\alpha$, we produce a function that is cofinally equivalent to $\mathsf{Con}^\alpha_T$ yet cofinally equivalent to $\mathsf{Con}_T$. (shrink)

An increasing number of European research projects return, or plan to return, individual genomic research results (IRR) to participants. While data access is a data subject’s right under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and many legal and ethical guidelines allow or require participants to receive personal data generated in research, the practice of returning results is not straightforward and raises several practical and ethical issues. Existing guidelines focusing on return of IRR are mostly project-specific, only discuss which results to (...) return, or were developed outside Europe. To address this gap, we analysed existing normative documents identified online using inductive content analysis. We used this analysis to develop a checklist of steps to assist European researchers considering whether to return IRR to participants. We then sought feedback on the checklist from an interdisciplinary panel of European experts (clinicians, clinical researchers, population-based researchers, biobank managers, ethicists, lawyers and policy makers) to refine the checklist. The checklist outlines seven major components researchers should consider when determining whether, and how, to return results to adult research participants: 1) Decide which results to return; 2) Develop a plan for return of results; 3) Obtain participant informed consent; 4) Collect and analyse data; 5) Confirm results; 6) Disclose research results; 7) Follow-up and monitor. Our checklist provides a clear outline of the steps European researchers can follow to develop ethical and sustainable result return pathways within their own research projects. Further legal analysis is required to ensure this checklist complies with relevant domestic laws. (shrink)

This paper points to some problems for the position that D.M. Walsh calls "alternative individualism," and argues that in defending this view Walsh has omitted an important part of what separates individualists and externalists in psychology. Walsh's example of Hox gene complexes is discussed in detail to show why some sort of externalism about scientific taxonomy more generally is a more plausible view than any extant version of individualism.

Denis Walsh has written a striking new defense in this journal of the statisticalist (i.e., noncausalist) position regarding the forces of evolution. I defend the causalist view against his new objections. I argue that the heart of the issue lies in the nature of nonadditive causation. Detailed consideration of that turns out to defuse Walsh’s ‘description‐dependence’ critique of causalism. Nevertheless, the critique does suggest a basis for reconciliation between the two competing views. *Received December 2009; revised December 2009. (...) †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, 599 Lucas Hall, One University Boulevard, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO 63121; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Commentary on Walsh, E. 2020. Cognitive transformation, dementia, and the moral weight of advance directives. The American Journal of Bioethics. 20(8): 54–64.

The presented study introduces a new theoretical model of collapse for social, cultural, or political systems. Based on the current form of quantum anthropology conceptualized by Heidi Ann Russell, further development of this field is provided. The new theoretical model is called the spiral model of collapses, and is suggested to provide an analytical framework for collapses in social, cultural, and political systems. The main conclusions of this study are: 1) The individual crises in the period before a collapse (...) of social, cultural, and political systems form the trajectory of a conical helix similar to a vortex. 2) The occurrences of crises in the period before a collapse have the shape of the trajectory on the surface of the circular cone with a convex wall narrowing up to its peak. The shape of this cone is based on the Fibonacci sequence coiled into the three-dimensional space. 3) The constant circular movement along the trajectory of crises can occur in exceptional situations in the development of social, cultural, and political systems; however, such a state is always temporary. In such cases, the trajectory of the crisis does not follow the Fibonacci sequence, but the shape of a regular helix. Remaining on the trajectory of a regular helix in the long-term is highly improbable for social, cultural, and political systems. 4) The creation of new potentialities after the final collapse of a system is explained by the conception of topological inversion, when the heretofore embodied part of the energy-information field returns to the global, wave-particle energy-information potential. 5) The global, wave-particle energy-information potential is a source of energy-information for future embodiments in the sense of the future collapses of wave functions. (shrink)

The Self Beyond Itself is a defense of an incompatibilist, hard determinist view of free will. Free will is here defined in a very strong sense, as the existence of actions that do not result from any causes other than the agent herself. The question of how to define free will, especially whether it consists in the ability to do otherwise, and what the ability to do otherwise amounts to, is not given much consideration in this book.Ravven frames her work (...) in a broad historical context. The kind of determinism she favors is to be found in Aristotle, Maimonides, and Spinoza, as she interprets them. The main culprit responsible for the Western conception of free will is Augustine. Ravven finds elements of Augustine in a number of theories of free will, including those of Descartes and Kant. In her view, any proponent of free will is an unwitting Augustinian.Ravven’s tendency to see an Augustinian legacy in later views of free will result in her making some fairly implausible claims. Ravven .. (shrink)