This paper examines three accounts of the sleeping beauty case: an account proposed by Adam Elga, an account proposed by David Lewis, and a third account defended in this paper. It provides two reasons for preferring the third account. First, this account does a good job of capturing the temporal continuity of our beliefs, while the accounts favored by Elga and Lewis do not. Second, Elga’s and Lewis’ treatments of the sleeping beauty case lead to highly counterintuitive consequences. The proposed (...) account also leads to counterintuitive consequences, but they’re not as bad as those of Elga’s account, and no worse than those of Lewis’ account. (shrink)

Our folk epistemology says that if someone knows that P and tells you that P, then, given the absence of defeaters, if you believe what they tell you, you will come to know that P as well. A speaker's knowledge that P is then, for the most part, enough for a hearer to come to know that P. But there are counterexamples to this principle: testimonial knowledge does not always transfer from the speaker to the hearer. Why should that be (...) so? Because testimonial knowledge arises through the flow of information--from conclusive grounds--from the speaker through the speaker's assertion to the hearer's state of comprehension as of the speaker's assertion. A speaker's belief can be based on conclusive grounds, but the speaker's assertion may fail to provide conclusive grounds to the hearer. Then the hearer won't acquire knowledge, even from a knowledgeable speaker. Knowledge from testimony then works more like knowledge through perception. But wait, you say, that can't be so because testimony involves free will but perception does not. The essay ends with a broadly Hume inspired reply to this objection. (shrink)

I argue that the theory of chance proposed by David Lewis has three problems: (i) it is time asymmetric in a manner incompatible with some of the chance theories of physics, (ii) it is incompatible with statistical mechanical chances, and (iii) the content of Lewis's Principal Principle depends on how admissibility is cashed out, but there is no agreement as to what admissible evidence should be. I proposes two modifications of Lewis's theory which resolve these difficulties. I conclude by tentatively (...) proposing a third modification of Lewis's theory, one which explains many of the common features shared by the chance theories of physics. (shrink)

This paper offers both a theoretical and an experimental perspective on the relationship between connectionist and Classical (symbol-processing) models. Firstly, a serious flaw in Fodor and Pylyshyn’s argument against connectionism is pointed out: if, in fact, a part of their argument is valid, then it establishes a conclusion quite different from that which they intend, a conclusion which is demonstrably false. The source of this flaw is traced to an underestimation of the differences between localist and distributed representation. It has (...) been claimed that distributed representations cannot support systematic operations, or that if they can, then they will be mere implementations of traditional ideas. This paper presents experimental evidence against this conclusion: distributed representations can be used to support direct structure-sensitive operations, in a man- ner quite unlike the Classical approach. Finally, it is argued that even if Fodor and Pylyshyn’s argument that connectionist models of compositionality must be mere implementations were correct, then this would still not be a serious argument against connectionism as a theory of mind. (shrink)

The maturing of metaethics has been accompanied by widespread, but relatively unarticulated, discontent that mainstream metaethics is fundamentally on the wrong track. The malcontents we have in mind do not simply champion a competitor to the likes of noncognitivism or realism; they disapprove of the supposed presuppositions of the existing debate. Their aim is not to generate a new theory within metaethics, but to go beyond metaethics and to transcend the distinctions it draws between metaethics and normative ethics and between (...) cognitivism and non-cognitivism. In our experience, the differences with traditional metaethics go deep enough that it can feel as if two different paradigms are talking past each other. We attempt to bring clarity and focus to this rather inchoate debate by simultaneously articulating the general issues involved and engaging in a detailed case study of one of the prominent representatives of this discontent, Christine Korsgaard. We argue that Korsgaard fails to go beyond metaethics–indeed, fails even to provide a theory within metaethics. Our strategy for showing this is to argue that her claims are compatible with both cognitivism and non-cognitivism. We have argued elsewhere that her distinctive claims are compatible with realism. Here we focus on the crucial role that claims about agency and the will seem to play her in work and, according to our interpretation, in her attempts to go beyond mainstream metaethics. We show in detail that these claims are actually compatible with non-cognitivism. Though our discussion often focuses on her work in particular, it has clear implications for other attempts to obviate the debates of traditional metaethics. (shrink)

It has become customary to conceptualize the living cell as an intricate piece of machinery, different to a man-made machine only in terms of its superior complexity. This familiar understanding grounds the conviction that a cell's organization can be explained reductionistically, as well as the idea that its molecular pathways can be construed as deterministic circuits. The machine conception of the cell owes a great deal of its success to the methods traditionally used in molecular biology. However, the recent introduction (...) of novel experimental techniques capable of tracking individual molecules within cells in real time is leading to the rapid accumulation of data that are inconsistent with an engineering view of the cell. This paper examines four major domains of current research in which the challenges to the machine conception of the cell are particularly pronounced: cellular architecture, protein complexes, intracellular transport, and cellular behaviour. It argues that a new theoretical understanding of the cell is emerging from the study of these phenomena which emphasizes the dynamic, self-organizing nature of its constitution, the fluidity and plasticity of its components, and the stochasticity and non-linearity of its underlying processes. (shrink)

The present article is a sympathetic critique of the most prominent contemporary articulations of family abolitionism. It examines whether queer communist family abolitionism is successful in linking an account of reasons for abolition, with an account of the means of abolition, and finally with an account of the ends of abolition in the form of speculation on a possible world without families. Recent work by M.E. O’Brien has developed these connections in ways that have never been done so thoroughly before; (...) but the rejection of states as an institutional form of political power leaves it unclear what forms of equality we could expect in such a world, and why coercive power would be unnecessary there. Family abolition is a utopian political agenda; but that utopianism needs to be constrained by a realist concern with issues of power, resources, and human capacities. This will require confronting trade-offs and imperfections within possible worlds without families. The recognition that there are many paths to a world without families, and many possible such worlds, is the first step towards aligning reasons, means, and ends and confronting the social and political trade-offs that this entails. (shrink)

Following Nancy Cartwright and others, I suggest that most (if not all) theories incorporate, or depend on, one or more idealizing assumptions. I then argue that such theories ought to be regimented as counterfactuals, the antecedents of which are simplifying assumptions. If this account of the logic form of theories is granted, then a serious problem arises for Bayesians concerning the prior probabilities of theories that have counterfactual form. If no such probabilities can be assigned, the the posterior probabilities will (...) be undefined, as the latter are defined in terms of the former. I argue here that the most plausible attempts to address the problem of probabilities of conditionals fail to help Bayesians, and, hence, that Bayesians are faced with a new problem. In so far as these proposed solutions fail, I argue that Bayesians must give up Bayesianism or accept the counterintuitive view that no theories that incorporate any idealizations have ever really been confirmed to any extent whatsoever. Moreover, as it appears that the latter horn of this dilemma is highly implausible, we are left with the conclusion that Bayesianism should be rejected, at least as it stands. (shrink)

Meaningful work is an important ideal, but it seems hard to give an adequate account of meaningful work. In this article, I conduct a revisionary conceptual analysis of ‘meaningful work’, i.e. a conceptual analysis that aims at finding a better and more useful way to use this term. I argue for a distinction between cases where work itself is meaningful and cases where other sources of meaning are found at work. The term ‘meaningful work’ is most useful for the former (...) cases. I then argue for the reasons account of what makes work itself meaningful: work is meaningful if (and to the extent that) there are good reasons to do it. I compare this to established accounts of meaningful work, such as subjective meaningfulness, self-realization, alienation, the unity of conception and execution, autonomy, social contribution, and Veltman’s four-dimensional account. None of these capture the distinct concern that the concept ‘meaningful work’ should capture, or they do so less well than the reasons account. This also shows that work can be meaningful regardless of whether it is good in other respects, such as in inherent interest or opportunities for self-realization. (shrink)

Property-identical divine-command theory (PDCT) is the view that being obligatory is identical to being commanded by God in just the way that being water is identical to being H2O. If these identity statements are true, then they express necessary a posteriori truths. PDCT has been defended in Robert M. Adams (1987) and William Alston (1990). More recently Mark C. Murphy (2002) has argued that property-identical divine-command theory is inconsistent with two well-known and well-received theses: the free-command thesis and the supervenience (...) thesis. I show that Murphy's argument is vitiated by mistaken assumptions about the substitutivity of metaphysical identicals in contexts of supervenience. The free-command thesis and the supervenience thesis therefore pose no serious threat to PDCT. (Published Online August 11 2004). (shrink)

Trope theory is a leading metaphysical theory in analytic ontology. One of its classic statements is found in the work of Donald C. Williams who argued that tropes qua abstract particulars are the very alphabet of being. The concept of an abstract particular has been repeatedly attacked in the literature. Opponents and proponents of trope theory alike have levelled their criticisms at the abstractness of tropes and the associated act of abstraction. In this paper I defend the concept of a (...) trope qua abstract particular by rejecting arguments that purport to show that tropes should not be understood as abstract and by arguing that the abstractness of tropes plays an indispensable role in one of our more promising trope-theoretic analyses of universals and of concrete objects. (shrink)

I argue for the thesis (UL) that there are certain logical abilities that any rational creature must have. Opposition to UL comes from naturalized epistemologists who hold that it is a purely empirical question which logical abilities a rational creature has. I provide arguments that any creatures meeting certain conditions—plausible necessary conditions on rationality—must have certain specific logical concepts and be able to use them in certain specific ways. For example, I argue that any creature able to grasp theories must (...) have a concept of conjunction subject to the usual introduction and elimination rules. I also deal with disjunction, conditionality and negation. Finally, I put UL to work in showing how it could be used to define a notion of logical obviousness that would be well suited to certain contexts—e.g. radical translation and epistemic logic—in which a concept of obviousness is often invoked. (shrink)

This paper investigates the connection between temporal attitudes (attitudes characterised by a concern (or lack thereof) about future and past events), beliefs about temporal ontology (beliefs about the existence of future and past events) and temporal preferences (preferences regarding where in time events are located). Our aim is to probe the connection between these preferences, attitudes, and beliefs, in order to better evaluate the normative status of these preferences. We investigate the hypothesis that there is a three-way association between (a) (...) being present-biased (that is, preferring that positive events are located in the present, and negative events are located in the non-present), (b) believing that past and future events do not exist and (c) tending to have present-focused rather than non-present-focused temporal attitudes. We find no such association. This suggests that insofar as temporal preferences and temporal attitudes are connected to the ways we represent time, they are not connected to the ways we represent temporal ontology; rather, they are more likely connected to the ways we represent relative movement in, or of, time. This has important consequences for, first, explaining why we exhibit these preferences and, second, for their normative evaluation. (shrink)

Bernard Reginster, in his book The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism, takes up the challenge of figuring out what Nietzsche might mean by nihilism and the revaluation of values. He argues that there is an alternative, normative subjectivist interpretation of Nietzsche's views on nihilism and revaluation that makes as much sense as—indeed, he often clearly leans toward thinking that it makes more sense than—a fictionalist reading of Nietzsche. I argue that his arguments do not succeed. Once we have (...) looked carefully at the details of the positions and the arguments ascribed to Nietzsche, the fictionalist option is the more charitable interpretation of the texts. I focus on the metaethical issues that play a central role for Reginster in his articulation of Nietzsche's nihilism and Nietzsche's strategy for overcoming nihilism. (shrink)

This chapter offers a new criticism of the Mind argument that is both decisive and instructive. It introduces a plausible principle (γ) that places a requirement on one’s having a choice about an event whose causal history includes only other events. Depending on γ’s truth-value, the Mind argument fails in such a way that one or the other of the two main species of libertarianism is the best approach to the metaphysics of freedom. Libertarians argue the compatibility of freedom and (...) indeterminism, and their biggest obstacle is the Mind argument that argues an incompatibility between the two. The chapter aims to build a case for the truth of γ, and so for nonreductive libertarianism. This is achieved by defending it from the best objections that have been brought to light, thereby emphasizing γ’s prima facie plausibility. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts denying that temporal passage is an objective feature of reality face an explanatory challenge with respect to why it appears to us as though time passes. Recently, two solutions have surfaced. Cognitive illusionism claims that people experience the passage of time due to their belief that time passes. Cognitive error theory claims that we do not experience the passage of time, but hold the belief that we do, which we have acquired through making an inference from the prior (...) belief that time passes. These approaches suppose that belief and passage experience are explanatorily connected, and they depend on the claims that people who experience the passage of time or at least believe that they do also believe that time passes. To test these claims, we probed the beliefs of populations of individuals with depression and schizotypy, thus conditions that are strongly associated with alterations in temporal phenomenology. Depression was assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and schizotypy with the short Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O-LIFE). While cognitive illusionism and inferentialist cognitive error theory would predict a strong association between BDI and O-LIFE scores and beliefs about time passage, our study found no such association. The experience of passage does not seem to be explanatorily connected to beliefs about the passage of time. (shrink)

The New Evil Demon problem has been hotly debated since the case was introduced in the early 1980’s (e.g. Lehrer and Cohen 1983; Cohen 1984), and there seems to be recent increased interest in the topic. In a forthcoming collection of papers on the New Evil Demon problem (Dutant and Dorsch, forthcoming), at least two of the papers, both by prominent epistemologists, attempt to resist the problem by appealing to the distinction between justification and excuses. My primary aim here is (...) to critically evaluate this new excuse maneuver as a response to the New Evil Demon problem. -/- Their response attempts to give us reason to reject the idea that victims of the New Evil Demon have justification for believing as they do. I shall argue that this approach is ultimately unsuccessful, however much of value can be learned from these attempts. In particular, progress in the debate can be made by following those who advance the excuse maneuver and make explicit the connection between epistemic justification and epistemic norms. By doing so, the questions being debated are clarified, as is the methodology being used to attempt to answer them. (shrink)

Memory technologies are cultural artifacts that scaffold, transform, and are interwoven with human biological memory systems. The goal of this article is to provide a systematic and integrative survey of their philosophical dimensions, including their metaphysical, epistemological and ethical dimensions, drawing together debates across the humanities, cognitive sciences, and social sciences. Metaphysical dimensions of memory technologies include their function, the nature of their informational properties, ways of classifying them, and their ontological status. Epistemological dimensions include the truth-conduciveness of external memory, (...) the conditions under which external memory counts as knowledge, and the metacognitive monitoring of external memory processes. And lastly, ethical and normative dimensions include the desirability of the effects memory technologies have on biological memory, their effects on self and culture, and their moral status. Whilst the focus in the article is largely philosophical and conceptual, empirical issues such as the way we interact with memory technologies in various contexts are also discussed. We thus take a naturalistic approach in which philosophical and empirical concepts and approaches are seen as continuous. (shrink)

We develop a novel solution to the negation version of the Frege-Geach problem by taking up recent insights from the bilateral programme in logic. Bilateralists derive the meaning of negation from a primitive *B-type* inconsistency involving the attitudes of assent and dissent. Some may demand an explanation of this inconsistency in simpler terms, but we argue that bilateralism’s assumptions are no less explanatory than those of *A-type* semantics that only require a single primitive attitude, but must stipulate inconsistency elsewhere. Based (...) on these insights, we develop a version of B-type expressivism called *inferential expressivism*. This is a novel semantic framework that characterises meanings by inferential roles that define which *attitudes* one can *infer* from the use of terms. We apply this framework to normative vocabulary, thereby solving the Frege-Geach problem generally and comprehensively. Our account moreover includes a semantics for epistemic modals, thereby also explaining normative terms under epistemic modals. (shrink)

Moral perception has made something of a comeback in recent work on moral epistemology. Many traditional objections to the view have been argued to fail upon closer inspection. But it remains an open question just how far moral perception might extend. In this paper, I provide the beginnings of an answer to this question by assessing the relationship between the metaphysical structure of different normative properties and a plausible constraint on which properties are eligible for perceptual awareness which I call (...) the Counterfactual Strengthening Test. Along the way I consider and reject a few other possible constraints on perceptual awareness. I defend the view that moral perception is restricted to the perception of evaluative and pro tanto deontic properties. I conclude with a few gestures toward what this limitation on moral perception may mean for broader moral epistemology. (shrink)

There has recently been a revived interest in temporal justice among political philosophers. For example, lone mothers have, on average, 30 h less free time per week than people in couples without children. Recent work has focussed on free time as a distinct distributive good, but this paper argues that it would be a mistake for a theory of temporal justice to focus only on shares of free time. First, I argue that the concept of free time does not succeed (...) in tracking discretionary control over time. All of time is a resource, and the particular moral relevance of free time must be established otherwise. Second, hours of time differ in use value, and we cannot fully track our concerns about the allocation of time, whether free or necessary, without taking this into account. We care about free time but also about ‘quality time’. To explain this observation, I develop an account of the value of time as a resource. The value of time periods differs with the prospects for which a time period can be used, that is, what we can do and be with it. What we are allocating when we are allocating time is not just hours; it is hours of time with a certain value. Finally, I argue that a concern for the value of time is compatible with a resourcist theory of temporal justice. (shrink)

Modus ponens is the argument from premises of the form If A, then B and A to the conclusion B. Nearly all participants agree that the modus ponens conclusion logically follows when the argument appears in this Basic form. However, adding a further premise can lower participants’ rate of agreement—an effect called suppression. We propose a theory of suppression that draws on contemporary ideas about conditional sentences in linguistics and philosophy. Semantically, the theory assumes that people interpret an indicative conditional (...) as a context-sensitive strict conditional: true if and only if its consequent is true in each of a contextually determined set of situations in which its antecedent is true. Pragmatically, the theory claims that context changes in response to new assertions, including new conditional premises. Thus, the conclusion of a modus ponens argument may no longer be accepted in the changed context. Psychologically, the theory describes people as capable of reasoning about broad classes of possible situations, ordered by typicality, without having to reason about individual possible worlds. The theory accounts for the main suppression phenomena, and it generates some novel predictions that new experiments confirm. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a novel interpretation of the role of the understanding in generating the unity of space and time. On the account I propose, we must distinguish between the unity that belongs to determinate spaces and times – which is a result of category-guided synthesis and which is Kant’s primary focus in §26 of the B-Deduction, including the famous B160–1n – and the unity that belongs to space and time themselves as all-encompassing structures. Non-conceptualist readers of Kant (...) have argued that this latter unity cannot be the product of categorial synthesis. While they are correct that this unity is not the product of any particular act of category-guided synthesis, I argue that conceptualists are right to nevertheless attribute this unity to the understanding. I argue that it is a result of what we can think of as the ‘original’ synthesis of understanding and sensibility themselves – it is a synthesis, moreover, in which the whole is logically prior to the parts. (shrink)

What is the computational notion of “implementation”? It is not individuation, instantiation, reduction, or supervenience. It is, I suggest, semantic interpretation.

It is a commonplace belief that many beliefs, e.g. religious convictions, are a purely private matter, and this is meant in some way to serve as a defense against certain forms of criticism. In this paper it is argued that this thesis is false, and that belief is really often a public matter. This argument, the publicity of belief argument, depends on one of the most compelling and central thesis of Peircean pragmatism. This crucial thesis is that bona fide belief (...) cannot be separated from action. It is then also suggested that we should accept a form of W. K. Clifford's evidentialism. When these theses are jointly accepted in conjunction with the basic principle of ethics that it is prima facie wrong to act in such a way that may subject others to serious but unnecessary and avoidable harm, it follows that many beliefs are morally wrong. (shrink)

As national and state health care policy -making becomes contentious and complex, there is a need for a forum to debate and explore public concerns and values in health care, give voice to local citizens, to facilitate consensus among various stakeholders, and provide feedback and direction to health care institutions and policy makers. This paper explores the role that regional health care ethics committees can play and provides two contrasting examples of Networks involved in facilitation of public input into and (...) the development of health care policies and adoption of state-wide practices. (shrink)

Debates around the state-firm analogy as a route to justifying workplace democracy tend towards a static view of both state and firm, and position workplace democracy as the objective. We contend, however, that states and firms are connected to one another in ways that should alter the terms of the debate, and that the achievement of workplace democracy raises a new set of political issues about the demos in the democratic firm and ‘worker migration’ at the boundaries of the firm. (...) Our argument thus contains two key steps: First, drawing on an empirical case study of a worker-owned firm, we enrich the state-firm analogy by developing a more dynamic view of both, focussing on the creation of workplace democracies; worker movement in and out of them; the dynamic meanings of ‘citizenship’ within them; and the status of the unemployed in a world of democratic workplaces. We then argue that in moving to a more sociological view of the state, the things we were comparing begin to show their real-world connections to one another. By going beyond the idealised view of states that has distorted the state-firm analogy debates, we arrive at a more robust view of how widespread workplace democracy might reconfigure basic political relationships in society. (shrink)

(Version 2.4) I have argued elsewhere for ascribing an error theory about all normative and evaluative judgements to Nietzsche. Such a nihilism brings with it a puzzle: how could we—or at least the select few of us being addressed by Nietzsche—continue in the face of this nihilism? This is a philosophical puzzle and so, defeasibly, an interpretive puzzle. If there is no theory it would make sense for Nietzsche to have about how the select few could go on, then this (...) is some evidence against the proposed interpretation of him as a nihilist. I defended the interpretation by arguing that Nietzsche’s declarations about creating values point to a practice of generating honest evaluative illusions. Such honest evaluative illusions are tricky things, though, and, precisely because they are honest, one might worry that they lack the motivational power of genuine evaluative belief. Can they truly play the role that evaluative beliefs play in our psychological economies? I suspect that Nietzsche does not want the honest illusions to play exactly the role that evaluative beliefs played. The cheerfulness, the playfulness, the lightness that Nietzsche hopes for are, I have suggested, a function of the shift from belief to pretence, from illusion to honest illusion. The question, nonetheless, is whether the resulting picture is too light. Can I go through life merely acting, as a critic might put it? My suggestion in this essay will be that the thought of eternal recurrence is meant to add weight to the lightness of acting—“acting”, obviously, in both the here relevant senses of the word. (shrink)

According to agent relativism, each person's moral requirements are relative to her desires or interests. That is, whether a person morally ought to ø depends on what interests or desires she has. Some philosophers charge that the main argument for agent relativism trades on an ambiguity in the term "reason," "reason for action,'' or the like. This paper shows that although the argument for agent relativism may indeed harbor an ambiguity, the ambiguity is no Achilles’ heel. To remove it is (...) not to discredit the argument, but to uncover the strongest form of it, the form that makes agent relativism tenacious. (shrink)

This study aims to use the Asian knowledge model “APO” as a determinant for performance excellence in universities and identifying the most effecting factors on it. This study was applied on Al-Azhar University in Gaza strip. The result of the study showed that (APO) model is valid as a measure and there are four dimensions in the model affecting significantly more than the others (university processes, KM leadership, personnel, KM outputs). Furthermore, performance excellence produced though modernizing the means of education, (...) curriculum development, technology and flexibility in the organizational structure. The study recommends expanding the usage of (APO) model, enhancing the role of knowledge leadership, technology, organizational flexibility, sharing culture and incentive systems that encouraging innovation. (shrink)

It is well known that people from other disciplines have made significant contributions to philosophy and have influenced philosophers. It is also true (though perhaps not often realized, since philosophers are not on the receiving end, so to speak) that philosophers have made significant contributions to other disciplines and have influenced researchers in these other disciplines, sometimes more so than they have influenced philosophy itself. But what is perhaps not as well known as it ought to be is that researchers (...) in other disciplines, writing in those other disciplines' journals and conference proceedings, are doing philosophically sophisticated work, work that we in philosophy ignore at our peril. Work in cognitive science and artificial intelligence (AI) often overlaps such paradigmatic philosophical specialties as logic, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of action. This special issue offers a sampling of research in cognitive science and AI that is philosophically relevant and philosophically sophisticated. (shrink)

In a series of influential articles, George Bealer argues for the autonomy of philosophical knowledge on the basis that philosophically known truths must be necessary truths. The main point of his argument is that the truths investigated by the sciences are contingent truths to be discovered a posteriori by observation, while the truths of philosophy are necessary truths to be discovered a priori by intuition. The project of assimilating philosophy to the sciences is supposed to be rendered illegitimate by the (...) more or less sharp distinction in these characteristic methods and its modal basis. In this article Bealer's particular way of drawing the distinction between philosophy and science is challenged in a novel manner, and thereby philosophical naturalism is further defended. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Ripstein and Dan-Cohen's critiques of the 'harm principle'. Ripstein and Dan-Cohen have asserted that the harm principle should be jettisoned, because it allegedly fails to provide a rationale for criminalising certain harmless wrongs that ought to be criminalised. They argue that Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative and his concept of 'external freedom' are better equipped for ensuring that criminalisation decisions meet the requirements of fairness. Per contra, I assert that Kant's deontological theory is (...) about identifying morally wrongful and rightful conduct: it does not tell the legislature which of those wrongs justify a criminal law response in accordance with the requirements of fairness and justice. Some wrongdoers deserve censure and the stigma that results from criminalisation, but others do not. Kant's deontological theory does not limit the scope of the criminal law merely to those wrongs that deserve a criminal law response. Fair and principled criminalisation requires more than mere wrongdoing. I assert that it is only fair to criminalise wrongs when further normative reasons can be invoked to justify the use of the criminal law as a means for deterring the unwanted conduct. While 'harm to others' is not the only normative reason that can be used to demonstrate that it is fair to criminalise a given act, it is the justification that has the greatest reach. It would not be fair to criminalise mere wrongdoing (that is, every violation of freedom: trespass to goods etc. or every violation of the categorical imperative: every false promise etc.). Nor is it possible to distinguish one violation of freedom from the next, as freedom is not measurable. Thus, murder and trespass to goods would be equally wrong and equally criminalisable in Kant's scheme. A further problem with Dan-Cohen's use of the second formulation of Kant's categorical imperative is that it aims to be an inclusive criterion for identifying conduct that is prima facie criminalisable, but this inclusive approach does not explain the wrongfulness (or in Dan-Cohen's use of the categorical imperative the criminalisableness) of harming animals. In this paper, I demonstrate that the harm principle is able to meet the challenges raised by Ripstein and Dan-Cohen. I also demonstrate that it offers superior criteria for ensuring that criminalisation decisions are fair, just and principled than is offered by Kant's deontological theory. (shrink)

Our question is this: What makes an act one of entrapment? We make a standard distinction between legal entrapment, which is carried out by parties acting in their capacities as (or as deputies of) law- enforcement agents, and civil entrapment, which is not. We aim to provide a definition of entrapment that covers both and which, for reasons we explain, does not settle questions of permissibility and culpability. We explain, compare, and contrast two existing definitions of legal entrapment to commit (...) a crime that possess this neutrality. We point out some problems with the extensional correctness of these definitions and propose a new definition that resolves these problems. We then extend our definition to provide a more general definition of entrapment, encompassing both civil and legal cases. Our definition is, we believe, closer to being extensionally correct and will, we hope, provide a clearer basis for future discussions about the ethics of entrapment than do the definitions upon which it improves. (shrink)

This article provides an intuitive semantic account of a new logic for comparisons (CL), in which atomic statements are assigned both a classical truth-value and a “how much” value or extension in the range [0, 1]. The truth-value of each comparison is determined by the extensions of its component sentences; the truth-value of each atomic depends on whether its extension matches a separate standard for its predicate; everything else is computed classically. CL is less radical than Casari’s comparative logics, in (...) that it does not allow for the formation of comparative statements out of truth-functional molecules. It is argued that CL provides a better analysis of predicate vagueness than classical logic, fuzzy logic or supervaluation theory. (shrink)

I critically analyze Kevin Elliott’s A Tapestry of Values in order to tease out his views on the nature and status of values or value judgments in the text. I show there is a tension in Elliott’s view that is closely connected to a major lacuna in the philosophical literature on values in science: the need for a better theory of values.

Historically, scientific and engineering expertise has been key in shaping research and innovation policies, with benefits presumed to accrue to society more broadly over time. But there is persistent and growing concern about whether and how ethical and societal values are integrated into R&I policies and governance, as we confront public disbelief in science and political suspicion toward evidence-based policy-making. Erosion of such a social contract with science limits the ability of democratic societies to deal with challenges presented by new, (...) disruptive technologies, such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, automation and robotics, and artificial intelligence. Many policy efforts have emerged in response to such concerns, one prominent example being Europe's Eighth Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, whose focus on “Responsible Research and Innovation” provides a case study for the translation of such normative perspectives into concrete policy action and implementation. Our analysis of this H2020 RRI approach suggests a lack of consistent integration of elements such as ethics, open access, open innovation, and public engagement. On the basis of our evaluation, we suggest possible pathways for strengthening efforts to deliver R&I policies that deepen mutually beneficial science and society relationships. (shrink)

Empirical knowledge exists in the form of antiskeptical conditionals, which are propositions like [if I am not undetectably deceived, then I am holding a pen]. Such conditionals, despite their trivial appearance, have the same essential content as the categorical propositions that we usually discuss, and can serve the same functions in science and practical reasoning. This paper sketches out two versions of a general response to skepticism that employs these conditionals. The first says that our ordinary knowledge attributions can safely (...) be replaced by statements using antiskeptical conditionals, which provides a way around the standard sort of skeptical argument while accepting its soundness with respect to the usual targets. The second analyzes the objects of our ordinary knowledge attributions as antiskeptical conditionals, which allows us to refute, not just evade, the skeptic's argument. Both versions compare favorably to the best-knowncurrent approaches to skepticism, including semantic contextualism. (shrink)

The full compliance assumption has been the focus of much recent criticism of ideal theory. Making this assumption, critics argue, is to ignore the important issue of how to actually make individuals compliant. In this article, I show why this criticism is misguided by identifying the key role full compliance plays in modelling fairness. But I then redirect the criticism by showing how it becomes appropriate when Rawls and other ideal theorists expect their model of fairness to guide real-world political (...) practice. Attempts to establish institutions conforming to this ideal could have undesirable consequences and might even undermine fairness itself. (shrink)

Molyneux’s question asks whether a person born blind who has learned to identify shapes by touch could, if suddenly granted sight, immediately identify shapes visually. This question has often been used to structure discussions of whether there is a “rational connection” between sight and touch—whether it is possible to rationally doubt whether the same shape properties are both seen and felt. I distinguish two questions under this general heading. The first concerns, roughly, whether the visual and haptic perception of shape (...) is rationally connected in normally sighted perceivers. The second concerns, roughly, whether the visual and haptic perception of shape is rationally connected in all possible perceivers. I argue that real-world implementations of Molyneux’s question are irrelevant to the first question, but potentially relevant to the second. However, I also argue that the second question does not have the philosophical significance it is sometimes claimed to have. In particular, it cannot be used to adjudicate debates about whether the phenomenal character of perceptual experience is primarily determined “externally” by the worldly properties we perceive, or “internally” by physiological or functional properties of our brains. (shrink)

In this paper I provide some formal schemas for the analysis of vague predicates in terms of a set of semantic relations other than classical synonymy, including weak synonymy (as between "large" and "huge"), antonymy (as between "large" and "small"), relativity (as between "large" and "large for a dog"), and a kind of supervenience (as between "large" and "wide" or "long"). All of these relations are representable in the simple comparative logic CL, in accordance with the basic formula: the more (...) something is F, the more (or less) it is G. I use Carnapian meaning postulates to define these relations as constraints on interpretations of the formal language of CL. (shrink)

This article provides a philosophical response to the need for truth-telling about colonial history, focussing on the Australian context. The response consists in inviting philosophers and the public to engage in social-justice practices specified by a model called Distributed Truth-Telling (DTT), which integrates the historiography of injustices affecting Indigenous peoples with insights from social philosophy and cultural evolution theory. By contrast to official and large-scale truth commissions, distributed truth-telling is a set of non-elitist practices that weave three components: first, multisite, (...) multiformat, and multiscale inquiries into injustices; second, remedial imaginings and reasoning about moral repair and reconciliated futures; and finally, emotions suitable for motivating agents to cooperatively plan and implement moral revolutions. Distributed truth-telling can entrench virtuous feedback loops that contribute to moral revolutions. However, vicious feedback loops associated with collective denial and biases can impair distributed truth- telling and thwart moral revolutions. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivism says that one can know that p on the rational basis of one’s seeing that p. The basis problem for disjunctivism says that that can’t be since seeing that p entails knowing that p on account of simply being the way in which one knows that p. In defense of their view disjunctivists have rejected the idea that seeing that p is just a way of knowing that p (the SwK thesis). That manoeuvre is familiar. In this paper (...) I explore the prospects for rejecting instead the thought that if the SwK thesis is true then seeing that p can’t be one’s rational basis for perceptual knowledge. I explore two strategies. The first situates disjunctivism within the context of a ‘knowledge-first’ approach that seeks to reverse the traditional understanding of the relationship between perceptual knowledge and justification (or rational support). But I argue that a more interesting strategy situates disjunctivism within a context that accepts a more nuanced understanding of perceptual beliefs. The proposal that I introduce reimagines disjunctivism in light of a bifurcated conception of perceptual knowledge that would see it cleaved along two dimensions. On the picture that results perceptual knowledge at the judgemental level is rationally supported by perceptual knowledge at the merely functional or ‘animal’ level. This supports a form of disjunctivism that I think is currently off the radar: one that’s consistent both with the SwK thesis and a commitment to a traditional reductive account of perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

Empirical evidence shows that people have multiple time-biases. One is near-bias, another is future-bias, and a third is present-bias. Philosophers are concerned with the normative status of these time-biases. They have argued that, at least in part, the normative status of these biases depends on the extent to which they tend to promote, or frustrate, wellbeing, where “wellbeing” is taken to be of fundamental value. Since near-bias is thought to be associated with impulsivity, lack of self-control, and poor long-term health (...) and financial outcomes, it has often been supposed that it is associated with lower wellbeing. On those grounds, philosophers have argued that near-bias is rationally impermissible. By contrast, philosophical views about the normative status of future-bias have been mixed, with some arguing that future-bias is impermissible because, they think, it frustrates wellbeing, and others arguing that it is at least permissible (and perhaps obligatory) because it is the product of mechanisms whose functioning can be expected to promote wellbeing. However, to date there are no studies that have directly probed how time-biases correlate with wellbeing. Since it's not a settled matter which psychological mechanisms underlie time-biases, it is not uncontroversial which things serve as proxies for these preferences. We directly empirically investigate the connection between time-biases and measures of wellbeing, to see which of these biases is associated with promoting, or frustrating wellbeing. Contrary to expectation, we found no evidence that near-bias or present-bias are associated with frustrating wellbeing on any of the constructs we measured. On the other hand, and contrary to what some philosophers have supposed, we found that future-bias was associated with higher measures of wellbeing on several measures. We consider the implications of these findings for the evaluation of the normative status of these time biases. (shrink)

Philosophers and social scientists largely agree that fake news is not just necessarily untruthful, but necessarily insincere: it’s produced either with the intention to deceive or an indifference toward its truth. Against this, I argue insincerity is neither a necessary nor obviously typical feature of fake news. The main argument proceeds in two stages. The first, methodological step develops classification criteria for identifying instances of fake news. By attending to expressed theoretical and practical interests, I observe how our classification practices (...) turn on worries about fake news’s unique political-epistemic risks. From this, I argue (i) theories of fake news should capture independent mechanisms that realise these risks and (ii) the manifestation of them suffices for classifying a news story as fake news. The second step applies the classification criteria to bad science journalism. I argue the systematic epistemic faults in bad science journalism manifest the same political-epistemic risks we see in fake news, which suffices to justify classifying it as fake news. But since such faults aren’t plausibly attributed to its propagators being insincere, insincerity doesn’t function independently as a mechanism for realising fake news’s political-epistemic risks. Thus, I conclude, we should exclude insincerity from our accounts of the phenomenon. (shrink)