Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferences is underway, with notable similarities emerging between moral- and risk-based decision-making. Here we specifically assessed moral distributive justice preferences and non-moral financial gambling preferences in the same individuals, and report an association between these seemingly disparate forms of decision-making. Moreover, we find this association between distributive justice and risky decision-making exists primarily when the latter is assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task. These findings are consistent with neuroimaging studies (...) of brain function during moral and risky decision-making. This research also constitutes the first replication of a novel experimental measure of distributive justice decision-making, for which individual variation in performance was found. Further examination of decision-making processes across different contexts may lead to an improved understanding of the factors affecting moral behaviour. (shrink)

Distributive justice decision making tends to require a trade off between different valued outcomes. The present study tracked computer mouse cursor movements in a forced-choice paradigm to examine for tension between different parameters of distributive justice during the decision-making process. Participants chose between set meal distributions, to third parties, that maximised either equality (the evenness of the distribution) or efficiency (the total number of meals distributed). Across different formulations of these dilemmas, responding was consistent with the notion that individuals tend (...) to base decisions in part on the magnitude of these parameters. In addition, dilemmas associated with inconsistent responding across the sample tended to elicit the greatest spatial deviation of the cursor, potentially reflecting dilemma difficulty. One interpretation of these results is that individuals value equality and efficiency in such a way that moral dilemmas are resolved by comparing the perceived value of these qualitatively different parameters, consistent with a value pluralistic framework of decision making. A post-hoc analysis indicated that individuals also incorporated sufficiency concerns during distributive justice decision making. The results are discussed in relation to political philosophy. (shrink)

In several passages, Frege suggests that successful communication requires that speaker and audience understand the uttered words and sentences to have the same sense. On the other hand, Frege concedes that, in many ordinary cases, variation in sense is tolerable. In a recent article in this journal, Michaelson and Textor (2023) offer a new interpretation of Frege on the tolerability of sense variation according to which variation in sense is tolerable when the conversation aims at joint action, but not when (...) the conversation aims at joint thought. We maintain, contra Michaelson and Textor, that whether sense variation is tolerable does not depend on the conversational purpose, whether it be theoretical or practical. Rather, whether sense variation is tolerable depends instead on the conversational background. This picture offers what we take to be a more plausible reconstruction of Frege’s own view. (shrink)

31 The choice of human goals cannot be completely subjective, because 32 there are some (even ones that motivate many humans) that are simply 33 unintelligible as ultimate goals. For example, wealth is rational as an 34 intermediate goal, a means to achieving some further end, but it is simply 35 unintelligible to suggest that wealth is an ultimate goal in itself. Second, 36 we have seen that some things are reasonable to pursue as aspects of 37 our ultimate goals (...) (like prestige and pleasure), but they are conceptu- 38 ally dependent on some other goal to give them concrete form. In this 39 essay, I argue in favor of six candidates for ultimate goals. (shrink)

The giving up of the body or suicide for spiritual reasons has been dealt with by James Benn and D Max Moermane. The relationships of the dead and the living are discussed by Bryan J Cuevas, John Cliff ord Holt, and Matthew T Kapstein, while Hank Glassman, Mark Rowe, and Jason A Carbine talk about different funeral practices. With glossaries for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters and an elaborate index, this book is a unique peek into Buddhist practices regarding (...) the dead and deserves attention by researchers, students, and admirers of this religion. (shrink)

Abstract - Evolutionary, ecological and ethical studies are, at the same time, specific scientific disciplines and, from an historical point of view, structurally linked domains of research. In a context of environmental crisis, the need is increasingly emerging for a connecting epistemological framework able to express a common or convergent tendency of thought and practice aimed at building, among other things, an environmental policy management respectful of the planet’s biodiversity and its evolutionary potential. -/- Evolutionary biology, ecology and ethics: at (...) first glance, three different objects of research, three different worldviews and three different scientific communities. In reality, there are both structural and historical links between these disciplines. First, some topics are obviously common across the board. Second, the emerging need for environmental policy management has gradually but radically changed the relationship between these disciplines. Over the last decades in particular, there has emerged a need for an interconnecting meta-paradigm that integrates more strictly evolutionary studies, biodiversity studies and the ethical frameworks that are most appropriate for allowing a lasting co-evolution between natural and social systems. Today such a need is more than a mere luxury, it is an epistemological and practical necessity. -/- In short, the authors of this volume address some of the foundational themes that interconnect evolutionary studies, ecology and ethics. Here they have chosen to analyze a topic using one of these specific disciplines as a kind of epistemological platform with specific links to topics from one or both of the remaining disciplines. Michael Ruse’s chapter, for instance, elucidates some of the structural links between Darwinismand ethics. Ruse analyzes the Evolutionism vs. Creationism debate, emphasizing the risks run by scientists when they ideologize the scientific content of their studies. In the case of the contributions of Jean Gayon and Jean-Marc Drouin, which respectively deal with the disciplines of evolutionary biology and ecology, some central connections have been developed between these two disciplines, while reserving the option to consider in detail their topic in order to discover essential features ormeanings. Gayon analyzes the multilayered meanings of “chance” in evolutionary studies and the methodological implications that accompany such disparatemeanings. Froma similar analytical perspective, Drouin’s contribution focuses on the identification and critical evaluation of the different conceptions of time in ecology. Chance and time, factors of evolution in species and ecological systems, play a very important function in both disciplines, and these chapters help to capture their polysemous structure and development. Bryan Norton’s chapter, on adaptive environmental management, is set within an epistemological context where the Darwinian paradigm, ecological knowledge and ethical frameworks meet to give rise to practical, conservationist policies. In his contribution, Patrick Blandin pleads for the necessity of an eco-evolutionary ethics capable of fully encompassing humanity’s responsibility in the future determination of the biosphere’s evolutionary paths. Our value systems must recognize the predominant place that humanity has taken in the evolutionary history of the planet, and integrate the ethical ramifications of scientific advances in evolutionary and ecological studies. The chapter by J. Baird Callicott introduces us to a metaphorical ecological reversion with direct consequences for our moral conduct. If ecology showed that ecosystems are not organisms, recognizing organisms as a kind of ecosystem could be the basis for a new post-modern ecological ethics that lays the foundation for a better moral integration of humans with the environment. The contributions of Robin Attfield and Tom Regan delve into some of the classical issues in environmental ethics, situating them within a broader ecological and evolutionary context. Attfield’s chapter tackles the confrontation between individualistic and ecologically holistic perspectives, their different approaches to the issue of intrinsic value, and their tangled relation to monism and pluralism. Regan’s contribution ponders the criteria that allow individual beings, human and non-human, to own moral rights, the role of the struggle for existence in the relationship between species, and the logical difficulties involved in attributing intrinsic value to collective entities (species, ecosystems). Catherine Larrère’s chapter discusses the opposition between two environmental and ethical worldviews with very different philosophical centers of gravity: nature and technology. These opposing perspectives have direct consequences not only for the perception of the problems at hand and for what entities are deemed morally significant, but also for the proposed solutions. -/- To set out some foundational events in the history of evolutionary biology, ecology and environmental ethics is a first necessary step towards a clarification of their major epistemological orientations. On the basis of this inevitably nonexhaustive history, it will be possible to better position the work of the different contributors, and to build a meta-paradigm, i.e. a connecting epistemological framework resulting from one common or convergent tendency of thought and practice shared by different disciplines. (shrink)

In their Why Machines Will Never Rule the World, Landgrebe and Smith (2023) argue that it is impossible for artificial general intelligence (AGI) to succeed, on the grounds that it is impossible to perfectly model or emulate the “complex” “human neurocognitive system”. However, they do not show that it is logically impossible; they only show that it is practically impossible using current mathematical techniques. Nor do they prove that there could not be any other kinds of theories than those in (...) current use. Even if perfect theories were impossible or unlikely, perfection may not be needed and may even be unhelpful. (shrink)

The JTB definition of knowledge has been shown by Gettier to be incomplete: its three conditions are necessary for knowledge, but not sufficient. We argue that the JTB definition can be completed with a very simple fourth condition, namely that the justification for the belief in p must be sufficient to exclude ¬p. It is shown that the resulting JTB+S definition solves the Gettier problem.

Perception involves the processing of content or information about the world. In what form is this content represented? I argue that perception is widely compositional. The perceptual system represents many stimulus features (including shape, orientation, and motion) in terms of combinations of other features (such as shape parts, slant and tilt, common and residual motion vectors). But compositionality can take a variety of forms. The ways in which perceptual representations compose are markedly different from the ways in which sentences or (...) thoughts are thought to be composed. I suggest that the thesis that perception is compositional is not itself a concrete hypothesis with specific predictions; rather it affords a productive framework for developing and evaluating specific empirical hypotheses about the form and content of perceptual representations. The question is not just whether perception is compositional, but how. Answering this latter question can provide fundamental insights into perception. (shrink)

Biodiversity loss is an immense ecological crisis of our time. But while “biodiversity” has become a buzzword in media and policy, conservationists have found it difficult to build a common understanding on the nature and severity of biodiversity loss and the means to tackle it. Perhaps surprisingly, many biologists and philosophers have proposed that biodiversity might be best defended with reference to its aesthetic value. This article explores whether aesthetic values could provide strong support for biodiversity conservation. By exploring the (...) question from the viewpoints of species diversity, ecosystem diversity, and genetic diversity, we argue that there is a mismatch between apparent and real biodiversity and that aesthetics can, at best, give only limited support for biodiversity conservation. (shrink)

This chapter will discuss the relation of physicalism to social ontology, and explores problems that social ontology raises for physicalism. Physicalism is often understood to be the view that all facts—the social ones included—are physical facts, or at least are exhaustively determined by physical facts. While this view is widely endorsed, social phenomena challenge physicalism in several ways, both challenging the coherence of claims of physicalism and raising potential counterexamples.

Automated influence is one of the most pervasive applications of artificial intelligence in our day-to-day lives, yet a thoroughgoing account of its associated individual and societal harms is lacking. By far the most widespread, compelling, and intuitive account of the harms associated with automated influence follows what I call the control argument. This argument suggests that users are persuaded, manipulated, and influenced by automated influence in a way that they have little or no control over. Based on evidence about the (...) effectiveness of targeted advertising as well as empirical results about the nature of attentional control, I provide reasons to reject this argument. In turn, I use C. Thi Nguyen’s theory of value collapse to develop a new account of the harmfulness of automated influence. (shrink)

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, USA, conducted a species status assessment for a petition to list the Alexander Archipelago wolf (Canis lupus ligoni) under the Endangered Species Act in 2020-2022. This federal undertaking could not be adequately prepared without including the knowledge of Indigenous People who have a deep cultural connection with the subspecies. Our objective is to communicate the authoritative expertise and voice of the Indigenous People who partnered on the project by demonstrating how their (...) knowledge contributed to the species status assessment. The Indigenous knowledge applied in the assessment is the cultural and intellectual property of those who have shared it. We employed rapid appraisal research to expeditiously develop a preliminary and qualitative understanding of Indigenous People's cultural and ecological knowledge of Alexander Archipelago wolves. We used semi-directed interviewing and inductive coding from grounded theory for text analysis. Indigenous knowledge contributed to the agency's understanding of the Alexander Archipelago wolf in Southeast Alaska and helped the agency with their classification decision. Indigenous research partners explained the rich cultural significance and position of wolves in Tlingit society and described human–wolf relationships and ecological interactions. The agency used a single-species assessment approach based in species ecology and conservation biology, whereas the Indigenous wolf experts applied a multi-species, community ecology approach based in a sociocultural context of balance and respect. The Indigenous wolf experts successfully addressed knowledge gaps identified by the agency. The partners were challenged by a short regulatory timeframe that did not allow for comprehensive study of Indigenous knowledge and constrained review and feedback by Indigenous experts. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service learned that its assessment framework was not designed to account for an Indigenous worldview. To level the playing field, the agency and Indigenous experts should discuss how to co-develop an assessment framework that equitably applies both perspectives. (shrink)

The Welfare-Funded Sex Doula Programme is a proposed sexual needs service that advances the sexual citizenship of disabled people by providing specially trained ‘sex doulas’ to meet the various, often complex, sexual needs of disabled people. Conceived as providing disabled individuals with practical sexual support services, the role of the sex doula includes advocacy, counselling, therapy, and practical relief from sexual tension. The programme constitutes a robust, comprehensive, and theoretically cohesive welfare service that seeks to provision access to sexual citizenship (...) for disabled people. -/- Grounded in Aristotelian concepts of flourishing, the programme identifies sexual citizenship as a fundamental basic need and seeks to ensure that disabled people have the opportunity to achieve the same level of sexuality as able-bodied people. Work advancing the programme includes both philosophical and theoretical arguments showing how the programme is justified under several moral frameworks, and claims made therein have resulted in velitation in the literature regarding the potential of such a programme to violate individuals’ negative rights. (shrink)

In light of rampant fake news and disinformation in today's press and social media, I provide a new consequentialist argument that regulations on the media pertaining to certain false verifiable empirical facts are warranted. This contention is based in part on a collection of pre-existing empirical findings that I newly piece together from political science and psychology demonstrating that a post-truth society is likely with current media. My position is then defended from several counters, such as that it violates deontological (...) rights to free speech and to freedom of the press, that free speech leads to the acquisition of truth, and that government regulators can be biased and corrupt. (shrink)

Standing is a peculiar norm, allowing for deflecting that is rejecting offhand and without deliberation interventions such as directives. Directives are speech acts that aim to give directive-reasons, which are reason to do as the directive directs because of the directive. Standing norms, therefore, provide for deflecting directives regardless of validity or the normative weight of the rejected directive. The logic of the normativity of standing is, therefore, not the logic of invalidating directives or of competing with directive-reasons but of (...) ‘exclusionary permission’. That is, standing norms provide for permission to exclude from practical deliberation directive-reasons if given without the requisite standing, regardless of their normative weight. As such, standing is a type of second-order norm. Numerous everyday practices involve the deflection of directives, such as pervasive practices of deflecting hypocritical and officious directives. Of various possible models, the one that best captures the normative structure of these practices of deflection is the standing model. Accordingly, the normativity of standing is pervasive in our everyday practices. Establishing that standing, although a neglected philosophical idea, is a significant and independent normative concept. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that ‘one-instant worlds’—worlds that contain a single instant—fail to contain time. We experimentally investigate whether these worlds satisfy the folk concept of time. We found that ~50% of participants hold that there is time in such worlds. We argue that this suggests one of two possibilities. First, the population disagree about whether at least one of the A-, B-, or C-series is necessary for time, with there being a substantial sub-population for whom the presence of neither an (...) A-, B-, nor C-series, is necessary for time, and hence those folk have a radically more minimal concept of time than has been attributed to them by philosophers. Or, second, the population do not disagree about whether at least one of the A-, B-, or C-series is necessary for time, but disagree about what it takes for a world to fail to contain even a C-series. (shrink)

There was a time when Greco-Roman culture recognized faith as an indispensable social good. More recently, however, the value of faith has been called into question, particularly in connection with religious commitment. What, if anything, is valuable about faith—in the context of ordinary human relations or as a distinctive stance people might take in relation to God? I approach this question by examining the role that faith talk played both in ancient Jewish and Christian communities and in the larger Greco-Roman (...) culture in which Christian faith talk evolved. I locate the value of faith and faithfulness in the context of relationships involving trust and loyalty and argue that what is most distinctively valuable about faith is the function it plays in sustaining relationships through various kinds of challenges, including through evidentially unfavorable circumstances and significant periods of doubt. In light of this discussion, I set out a view of relational faith and, taking Mother Teresa as an exemplar, argue for two further conclusions. First, faith can play the valuable role that it plays in sustaining relationships even without belief of the salient propositions. Second, in at least some circumstances, in order for faith to play this valuable role in a way that does not require epistemic opinions that fail to fit one’s evidence, it is important that faith does not require such belief. (shrink)

The notion of uncommandability has been central to how we perceive our emotional lives, and particularly romantic love. According to this notion: while we can control how we treat people, we have little control over how we feel about them. The argument from uncommandability is often evoked as a way of sidestepping moral obligations regarding our romantic emotions. One challenge to uncommandability is the potential to manipulate our emotions through psychopharmaceuticals. Much of the debate on so-called “love drugs” has concerned (...) the permissibility and worth of these interventions. By comparison, less has been explored about their implications for moral obligation and responsibility. How might the emergence of these interventions change what can be emotionally demanded of us? We ultimately suggest that it is necessary to view the complex morality of our emotional lives through different evaluative paradigms: one concerning moral duty and obligation, where we have no claim to each other’s romantic love irrespective of its commandability, and the other concerning the appropriateness of our reactive attitudes, where we are at times justified in feeling morally injured by another person on account of their failure to love us, regardless of whether they had control in the matter. (shrink)

I argue that certain kinds of luck can partially determine an agent’s praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. To make this view clearer, consider some examples. Two identical agents drive recklessly around a curb, and one but not the other kills a pedestrian. Two identical corrupt judges would freely take a bribe if one were offered. Only one judge is offered a bribe, and so only one judge takes a bribe. Put in terms of these examples, I argue that the killer driver and (...) bribe taker are more blameworthy than their counterparts. I offer three arguments for that view, and, in doing so, I exemplify a general way to advance the moral luck debate. First, I argue against an account of moral responsibility that implies that the judges are equally blameworthy. Second, I argue that the killer driver is more blameworthy than the merely reckless driver. Third, I locate an alternative sense in which the agents in each case pair are morally on par. (shrink)

Exemption from blameworthiness is often bound to implicit or explicit claims of diminished agency, or even non-agency. This poses a dilemma in navigating moral relationships affected by mental illness. While it is crucial for assessments of responsibility to be responsive to the significance of mental illness, must this responsiveness come at a cost to symmetrical moral relations? In this paper we argue, contra recent critiques, that Strawsonian accounts of responsibility are able to navigate this dilemma, and can accommodate significant exculpation (...) on the basis of mental illness while maintaining symmetrical relations. We understand this to be part of the larger recognition that while we have certain fundamental entitlements within our moral relationships, it is also possible to be over-entitled, and to expect too much of others. Our account draws, in particular, on the moral significance of difficulty. Difficulty is inherently scalar, and in drawing on this explanatory framework we explicate a theory of both excuse and exemption by degree. We argue for a significant realm of excuse on the basis of mental illness that is fully compatible with symmetrical relations. However, we also acknowledge the limits of this accommodation on Strawsonian grounds, and argue that these limits are justified and appropriate. (shrink)

The Burge-Putnam thought experiments have generated the thesis that beliefs are not fixed by the constitution of the body. However, many philosophers have thought that if this is true then there must be another content-like property. Even if the contents of our attitudes such as the one in ‘believes that aluminum is a light metal’, do not supervene on our physical makeups, nevertheless people who are physical duplicates must be the same when it comes to evaluating their rationality and explaining (...) their actions. I argue that the considerations motivating this view are best handled with just the ordinary ‘that’-clause contents. (shrink)

Forty years have passed since video-games were first made widely available to the public and subsequently playing games has become a favorite past-time for many. Players continuously engage with dynamic visual displays with success contingent on the time-pressured deployment, and flexible allocation, of attention as well as precise bimanual movements. Evidence to date suggests that both brief and extensive exposure to video-game play can result in a broad range of enhancements to various cognitive faculties that generalize beyond the original context. (...) Despite promise, video-game research is host to a number of methodological issues that require addressing before progress can be made in this area. Here an effort is made to consolidate the past 30 years of literature examining the effects of video-game play on cognitive faculties and, more recently, neural systems. Future work is required to identify the mechanism that allows the act of video-game play to generate such a broad range of generalized enhancements. (shrink)

In elite sport, the advantages demonstrated by expert performers over novices are sometimes due in part to their superior physical fitness or to their greater technical precision in executing specialist motor skills. However at the very highest levels, all competitors typically share extraordinary physical capacities and have supremely well-honed techniques. Among the extra factors which can differentiate between the best performers, psychological skills are paramount. These range from the capacities to cope under pressure and to bounce back from setbacks, to (...) the knowledge of themselves, opponents, and the domain, which experts access and apply in performance. In the companion chapter on breadth and depth of knowledge in expert sport (see Chapter 11), we discussed the forms or kinds of knowledge deployed by elite athletes, and described some lines of research which seek to tap and study such expert knowledge (McPherson & MacMahon, 2008; McRobert, Ward, Eccles & Williams, 2011). In this chapter we focus more directly on questions about methods for measuring or more accurately assessing expert knowledge, in particular addressing a wider range of methods to help us understand what experts know. Suggesting that sport researchers can productively adopt and adapt existing qualitative methodologies for integration with more standard quantitative methods, we introduce and survey a number of areas of qualitative research in psychology. (shrink)

I apply the notion of truthmaking to the topic of fundamentality by articulating a truthmaker theory of fundamentality according to which some truths are truth-grounded in certain entities while the ones that don't stand in a metaphysical-semantic relation to the truths that do. I motivate this view by critically discussing two problems with Ross Cameron's truthmaker theory of fundamentality. I then defend this view against Theodore Sider's objection that the truthmaking approach to fundamentality violates the purity constraint. Truthmaker theorists can (...) have a trouble-free theory of fundamentality. (shrink)

In this essay I try to motivate and formulate the main epistemological questions to ask about the phenomenon of religious disagreement. I will not spend much time going over proposed answers to those questions. I address the relevance of the recent literature on the epistemology of disagreement. I start with some fiction and then, hopefully, proceed with something that has at least a passing acquaintance with truth.

Our ability to tell stories about ourselves has captivated many theorists, and some have taken these developments for an opportunity to answer long-standing questions about the nature of personhood. In this essay I employ two skeptical arguments to show that this move was a mistake. The first argument rests on the observation that storytelling is revisionary. The second implies that our stories about ourselves are biased in regard to our existing self-image. These arguments undercut narrative theories of identity, but they (...) leave room for a theory of narrative self-knowledge. The theory accommodates the first skeptical argument because there are event descriptions with retrospective assertibility conditions, and it accommodates the second argument by denying us epistemic privilege in regard to our own past. The result is that we do know our past through storytelling, but that it is a contingent feature of some of our stories that they are about ourselves. (shrink)

The study examines the argumentative competencies of people with Asperger syndrome (AS) and compares this with those of normal – or what are called neurotypical (NT) – subjects. To investigate how people with AS recognise, evaluate and engage in argumentation, we have adapted and applied the empirical instrument developed by van Eemeren, Garssen and Meuffels to study the conventional validity of the pragma-dialectical freedom rule (van Eemeren, Gars- sen & Meuffels 2003a; 2003b; 2005a; 2005b; van Eemeren & Meuffels, 2002). Our (...) paper begins with some background information on Asperger syndrome and how it impacts upon communication and argumentation; then it addresses the research questions and methods used; thirdly, it presents some initial findings; finally, it will conclude with some im- plications for those people with AS, for those they come into contact with and for the pragma-dialectic model in general. (shrink)

It can be easy to assume that since the “theist in the street” is unaware of any of the traditional arguments for theism, he or she is not in position to offer independent rational support for believing that God exists. I argue that that is false if we accept with William Alston that “manifestation beliefs” can enjoy rational support on the basis of suitable religious experiences. I make my case by defending the viability of a Moorean-style proof for theism—a proof (...) for the existence of God that parallels in structure G. E. Moore’s famous proof for the existence of the external world. I argue that this shows that even if the theist in the street has nothing to offer for helping to convince the religious sceptic, this needn’t entail that she cannot offer independent rational support in defense of her theistic belief. (shrink)

Abstract— This study aimed to identify the degree of use of the capabilities of decision-support systems in Palestinian institutions higher education, Aqsa University in Gaza - a case study. The study used a analytical descriptive approach, and the researchers used the of questionnaire tool to collect the data, the researchers using stratified random sample distributed (150) questioners to the study population and (126) was obtained back with rate of 84%. The study showed that the most important results are: that senior (...) management supports the existence of decision support systems and that there is approval by the respondents on the paragraphs of the use of the capabilities of decision support systems in general. And that there are no significant differences between the averages of the answers of respondents differences about the degree of use of decision support systems capabilities attributed to personal data. The study also concluded a series of recommendations including: increasing the adoption of the senior management decision support in their decision-making systems. And increased regulatory attention to the potential available to decision support systems directly to the senior management in the Palestinian universities in the Gaza Strip. There is an increased interest in the physical and technical possibilities available for the use of decision support systems. There is an increased interest in human potential available for the use of decision support systems. Investment of information available to universities in building the capacities of integration techniques and other information technology capabilities. The empowerment of human resources in universities and participating in making decisions concerning the construction of the capabilities of information technology. (shrink)

These three volumes, entitled Essays On Values, bring together fortyone recent articles by researchers at the Nova Institute of Philosophy (IFILNOVA). They are a small sample of everything that, in the last four years, the Institute’s researchers have published, in English, in indexed journals and collections of essays with peer review. As a whole, they reflect very well the research work that is done at IFILNOVA. Section I. of Volume 1 gathers six articles that deal directly with the question “what (...) are values?”, the question that guides all the work of the institute’s different laboratories and research groups. The first article, by Susana Cadilha and Vítor Guerreiro, results from work developed in the Laboratory of Ethics and Political Philosophy (EPLab); the second, by João Constâncio, from the Lisbon Nietzsche Group; the third, by Alexandra Dias Fortes, from the Lisbon Wittgenstein Group; the third and fifth, by Nuno Fonseca, and Maria Filomena Molder, from the Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art Group of the Laboratory of Culture and Value (CultureLab); the last, by Erich H. Rast, from the Philosophy of Language and Argumentation Theory Group and the Lisbon Mind, Cognition & Knowledge Group of the Laboratory of Argumentation, Cognition, and Language (ArgLab). Section II. brings together three articles by members of the Lisbon Nietzsche Group. Since 2010, the Lisbon Nietzsche Group has completed several funded projects, and has established itself as a leading international research group on Nietzsche’s thought. The three articles demonstrate the crucial importance of the question of values in Nietzsche’s work, always thought from the perspective of the possibility of a “transvaluation of all values”. Maria João Mayer Branco’s article focuses on the value of introspection, and how Nietzsche anticipates Wittgenstein’s “expressivist” view of the “the Peculiar Grammar of the Word ‘I’” and the impossibility of private languages. Marta Faustino’s article considers the theme of affirmation and the value of life through the interpretation of Nietzsche’s reflection on truthfulness, intellectual honesty and courage in the light of Michel Foucault’s work on parrhesia. Pietro Gori’s article studies how Nietzsche creates a new anthropological ideal based on his enquiry into the values of the “good European”. The area of Wittgenstein studies has had a strong influence on the institute since the time when it was a philosophy of language institute. The Wittgensteinian distinction between facts and values was decisive in defining the question of values as the central issue of IFILNOVA’s research project, replacing the focus on philosophy of language. More recently, the focus of research at the Lisbon Wittgenstein Group has been on epistemic values, in particular in their connection with the question of religious belief. In Section III., Nuno Venturinha’s article examines, in the light of an epistemological standpoint, the way Wittgenstein thinks about the possibility of translation. Robert Vinten’s article argues that Wittgenstein’s thought contains elements for a critique of the concept of justice and of the liberal political visions of both Richard Rorty and Chantal Mouffe, despite the fact that both have drawn inspiration from Wittgenstein. Benedetta Zavatta’s article questions the value of mythology by thinking of it as a disease of language – not only in Wittgenstein, but also in a whole philosophical tradition that preceded him. The existence of a research group in ancient philosophy is a recent but very promising development in the life of IFILNOVA. Section IV. includes two articles by members of the group. Paulo Alexandre Lima’s article considers the critique of misology and the value of discourse in Plato’s Phaedo. Hélder Telo’s article examines the pedagogical and protreptic value of imperfection in Plato’s work. (shrink)

A new kind of skepticism about philosophy is articulated and argued for. The key premise is the claim that many of us are well aware that in the past we failed to have good responses to substantive objections to our philosophical beliefs. The conclusion is disjunctive: either we are irrational in sticking with our philosophical beliefs, or we commit some other epistemic sin in having those beliefs.

There are two dominant approaches to quantification: the Fregean and the Tarskian. While the Tarskian approach is standard and familiar, deep conceptual objections have been pressed against its employment of variables as genuine syntactic and semantic units. Because they do not explicitly rely on variables, Fregean approaches are held to avoid these worries. The apparent result is that the Fregean can deliver something that the Tarskian is unable to, namely a compositional semantic treatment of quantification centered on truth and reference. (...) We argue that the Fregean approach faces the same choice: abandon compositionality or abandon the centrality of truth and reference to semantic theory. Indeed, we argue that developing a fully compositional semantics in the tradition of Frege leads to a typographic variant of the most radical of Tarskian views: variabilism, the view that names should be modeled as Tarskian variables. We conclude with the consequences of this result for Frege's distinction between sense and reference. (shrink)

Evolutionary developmental biology represents a paradigm shift in the understanding of the ontogenesis and evolutionary progression of the denizens of the natural world. Given the empirical successes of the evo-devo framework, and its now widespread acceptance, a timely and important task for the philosophy of biology is to critically discern the ontological commitments of that framework and assess whether and to what extent our current metaphysical models are able to accommodate them. In this paper, I argue that one particular model (...) is a natural fit: an ontology of dispositional properties coherently and adequately captures the crucial casual-cum-explanatory role that the fundamental elements of evo-devo play within that framework. (shrink)

Stalnaker argued that conditional excluded middle should be included in the principles that govern counterfactuals on the basis that intuitions support that principle. This is because there are pairs of competing counterfactuals that appear to be equally acceptable. In doing so, he was forced to introduced semantic vagueness into his system of counterfactuals. In this paper it is argued that there is a simpler and purely epistemic explanation of these cases that avoids the need for introducing semantic vagueness into the (...) semantics for counterfactuals. (shrink)

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the agricultural sector, enhancing both productivity and sustainability. This paper delves into the impact of AI technologies on agriculture, emphasizing their application in precision farming, predictive analytics, and automation. AI-driven tools facilitate more efficient crop and resource management, leading to higher yields and a reduced environmental footprint. The paper explores key AI technologies, such as machine learning algorithms for crop monitoring, robotics for automated planting and harvesting, and data analytics for optimizing resource use. Additionally, (...) it discusses challenges like data privacy, barriers to technology adoption, and the ethical implications of AI in farming. Integrating AI into agricultural practices holds the promise of greater efficiency and sustainability, paving the way for future innovations. (shrink)

There has been a call for a potentially revolutionary change to our existing understanding of the psychological concept of personal identity. Apparently, people can psychologically represent people, including themselves, as multiple individuals at the same time. Here we ask whether the intransitive judgments found in these studies truly reflect the operation of an intransitive concept of personal identity. We manipulate several factors that arbitrate between transitivity and intransitivity and find most support for transitivity: in contrast to prior work, most participants (...) do not make intransitive judgments when there is any reason to favor one individual over another. People change which single individual they personally identify with, depending on which individual competes more strongly or weakly for identity, rather than identifying with both individuals. Even when two individuals are identical and therefore both entitled to be the same person, we find that people make more transitive judgments once they understand the practical commitments of their responses (Experiment 4), and report not being able to actually imagine two perspectives simultaneously when reasoning about the scenario (Experiment 5). In short, we suggest that while people may make intransitive judgments, these do not reflect that they psychologically represent identity in an intransitive manner. (shrink)

“I am still in despair over losing my identity,” said a blog comment in a discussion about post-menopause weight gain. Instead of recovering an identity, for some of us, as women age, our attitudes toward fitness may require forging new identities. But the challenge in coming to desire fitness, post-menopause, is a project of actually changing my desires. Habituating a good practice can lead to a change in our appetites, so that instead of losing our identities, we may become the (...) characters that we set goals to be. (shrink)

The Deaf culture in the United States is a unique culture that is not widely understood. To members of the Deaf community in the United States, deafness is not viewed as a disease or pathology to be treated or cured; instead it is seen as a difference in human experience. Members of this community do not hide their deafness; instead they take great pride in their Deaf identity. The Deaf culture in the United States is very communitarian not individualistic. Mary (...) Beth and Dominic are a married couple in their late 20s who are genetically deaf. They are active members in the Deaf community and work as advocates for individuals who are deaf, family members of Deaf people and sign language interpreters who identify with the Deaf culture. Mary Beth and Dominic approach the fertility clinic with a request that they only want a child with the genetic gene for deafness. They would want the embryos that do not have the gene to be destroyed. This would entail creating a child who would have the gene for deafness. Medically and ethically, should the fertility clinic agree to the couple’s request? The authors argue that the couple's request should be denied and provide reasons for it from the perspectives of foundational and clinical ethics. (shrink)

Although hypointellectuals have long been a part of our cultural landscape, it is in post-conflict societies, such as those in Bosnia and Kosovo, that there has arisen a strong need for a different breed of intellectual, one who is more than simply a social critic, an educator, a person of action, and a compassionate individual. Enter the non-partisan intellectual—the hyperintellectual. It is the hyperintellectual, whose non-partisanship is manifested through a reciprocating critique and defense of both the nationalist enterprise and strong (...) interventionism of the International Community, who strives to create a climate of understanding and to enlarge the moral space so as to reduce the divisiveness between opposing parties. It is in this way that the hyperintellectual acts as a catalyst for the creation of a democratic culture within the civil societies of Bosnia and Kosovo. (shrink)

Hillel Steiner has recently attacked the notion of inalienable rights, basing some of his arguments on the Hohfeldian analysis to show that infinite arrays of legal positions would not be associated with any inalienable rights. This essay addresses the nature of the Hohfeldian infinity: the main argument is that what Steiner claims to be an infinite regress is actually a wholly unproblematic form of infinite recursion. First, the nature of the Hohfeldian recursion is demonstrated. It is shown that infinite recursions (...) of legal positions ensue regardless of whether inalienable rights exist or not. Second, the alleged problems that this might pose for the analysis are discussed. The conclusion is that one should not worry about the recursion as long as one understands correctly the role of the Hohfeldian analysis in normative reasoning. (shrink)

This short paper, written for a wide audience, introduces "science and values" topics as they have arisen in the context of eugenics. The paper especially focuses on the context of 20th century eugenics in western Canada, where eugenic legislation in two provinces was not repealed until the 1970s and thousands of people were sterilized without their consent. A framework for understanding science-value relationships within this context is discussed, and so too is recent relevant work in philosophy of science.

Environmental philosophy – broadly conceived as using philosophical tools to develop ideas related to environmental issues – is conducted and practised in highly diverse ways in different contexts and traditions in Asia. ‘Asian environmental philosophy’ can be understood to include Asian traditions of thought as well as grassroots perspectives on environmental issues in Asia. Environmental issues have sensitive political facets tied to who has the legitimacy to decide about how natural resources are used. Because of this, the works, practices, and (...) researchers in Asian environmental philosophy are exposed to being (mis)used by diverse stakeholders and actors to support political ends not related to environmental sustainability. Two processes are at play at the nexus of the construction of identities in relation to conceptualisations of nature: eco-orientalism and ecological nationalisms. This paper analyzes and exemplifies these dynamics through a conceptual framework that distinguishes ideological and socio-technical explanations of environmental degradation. Finally, to minimise the risks of political misuse, five pathways are presented to carefully help curate environmental, philosophical statements: contextualise, quantify uncertainty and ‘uniqueness’, downscale, confront claims with local realities and literature, and collaborate with researchers from other disciplines. Conjointly, these pathways aim at favouring intercultural collaboration while valuing diversity, thus supporting the development and exchanges in environmental philosophy in Asia and beyond. (shrink)

In 'The Reference Book' (2012), Hawthorne and Manley observe the following contrast between (1) and (2): -/- (1) In every race John won. (2) In every race, the colt won. -/- The name 'John' in (1) must intuitively refer to the same single individual for each race. However, the description 'the colt' in (2) has a co-varying reading, i.e. a reading where for each race it refers to a different colt. This observation is a prima facie problem for proponents of (...) so-called The-Predicativism which is the view that the name in (1) is really a covert definite description, viz. 'the John'. If the The-Predicativism is correct, (1) and (2) are therefore syntactically equivalent, but this makes it mysterious why only (2) would have a co-varying reading. In a recent paper, Fara (2015) argues that there is a simple and elegant way for proponents of The-Predicativism to explain this contrast. This explanation relies on discerning some subtle syntactic differences between (1) and (2) which in turn are based on assumptions about nominal restrictions a la Stanley and Szabó (2000). In this short paper, I demonstrate that Fara's proposed explanation has a variety of serious shortcomings and hence that the contrast between (1) and (2) remains a significant problem for Predicativism. (shrink)

Tanto las teorías causales como las teorías no causales de la acción consideran la relación de justificación entre razones y acción como una relación no causal, de caracter puramente lógico o conceptual. Según las teodas causales, la acción intencional ha de satisfacer, independientemente de la condicion de justificación, una condición adicional de causalidad. En este artículo se sostiene, en cambio, que el concepto de justificación es ya causal, de modo que no es necesario exigir un requisito causal independiente para entender (...) el concepto de acción intencional. Esta concepción causal de la justificación y de la acción intencional no se ve expuesta al problema de las cadenas causales desviadas que afecta a las teorías causales ortodoxas ni a la amenaza deI epifenomenismo de las propiedades mentales. -/- Both causal and non-causal action theories take the justification relation to be a non-causal, purely conceptual or logical relation between reasons and action. According to causal theorists, intentional action has to satisfy, besides the justification condition, an additional and independent causal condition. In this paper it is held, however, that justification is already a causal concept, so that there is no need to resort to an independent causal requirement in order to understand the concept of intentional action. This causal view of justification and intentional action does not face either the problem of wayward causalchains which infects orthodox causal theories or the threat of epiphenomenalism of mental properties. (shrink)