In this chapter, I describe my “post-diagnosis” experiences as the parent of an autistic child, those years in which I tried, but failed, to make sense of the overwhelming and often nonsensical information I received about autism. I argue that immediately after being given an autism diagnosis, parents are pressured into making what amounts to a life-long commitment to a therapy program that (they are told) will not only dramatically change their child, but their family’s financial situation and even their (...) entire mode of existence. Moreover, despite information overload, many treatment programs for autism rely on empty jargon and make completely unrealistic promises, so parents are left feeling overwhelmed and panicked. Even well respected therapy programs encourage parents to spend liberally. Indeed, autistic therapists, who help construct what I refer to as the Culture of Autism, advise parents to commit to a minimum of 35 to 45 hours of intensive therapy every week. The implications are clear: for a parent who works full-time, their autistic child becomes a second full-time job. Autism is big business right now, and therapists are pushing parents to the brink of desperation. So it is not too surprising that there is a desperate cry for a more permanent solution—which is why researchers seek to cure autism. But there are two ways to conceptualize cure. A Therapeutic Cure model (TC) conceives of a cure as a beneficial treatment for the patient that eliminates or ameliorates the harms of the disease or condition. But the notion of a therapeutic cure for autism is highly implausible, given the complexities of autism. Indeed, at this point, the vast majority of researchers have come to the conclusion that the idea of a therapeutic cure for autism is simply a non-starter. Therefore the bulk of research seeking a cure for autism focuses instead on a second approach, which I refer to as the Negative Eugenics Cure model (NEC). With this model, the intention is to eliminate the disease or condition without regard for the health or well-being of the organism carrying the disease or condition. So, with regard to autism, researchers are focusing on identifying genetic markers for autism that can be detected in utero, or in embryos, so that autistic fetuses can be eliminated and autism eradicated by preventing the existence of autistic individuals. I review both models and argue that both fail to provide convincing arguments that the “solution” either offers is desirable. Both rest on the assumption that autism renders a life not worth living which, all things considered, is false. Instead of pushing to cure autism, an idea pervasive in this Culture of Autism, I contend that autistics are individuals with lives worth living. Moreover, rather than expend millions on research to search for the means to eliminate autism, we should instead expend our resources to ensure autistic individuals have access to support they may need. If the phenomenology of autism were better understood and appreciated, the panicked demand for a cure for autism might abate and perhaps autism could be seen as having value in and of its own right. (shrink)

Unjustifiable assumptions about sex and gender roles, the untamable potency of maleness, and gynophobic notions about women's bodies inform and influence a broad range of policy-making institutions in this society. In December 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit continued this ignoble cultural pastime when they decided Everson v. Michigan Department of Corrections. In this decision, the Everson Court accepted the Michigan Department of Correction's claim that “the very manhood” of male prison guards both threatens the safety (...) of female inmates and violates the women's “special sense of privacy in their genitals” and declared that sex-specific employment policies for prison guards is not impermissibly discriminatory. I believe that the Court's decision relies on unacceptable stereotypes about sex, gender and sexuality and it significantly undermines Title VII's power to end discriminatory employment practices. (shrink)

After stating "I am gay" Navy Lieutenant Paul G. Thomasson was honorably discharged from the military. In Thomasson v. Perry (1996), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth District affirmed Thomasson's discharge. Thomasson is now considered the leading case evaluating the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. In this paper, I show that the court's analysis of the Department of Defense policy rests of two unarticulated and undefended assumptions about sexuality. The first is that an act of (...) sex is essentially defined in terms of the sexual orientation of the persons engaging in that act. The second is that whether or not a person is an open homosexual determines the essential nature of the homosexual acts of others. I conclude that both assumptions are untenable, therefore the "don't ask, don't tell" policy is indefensible. (shrink)

What is so striking about Breaking Bad is how centrally impairment and disability feature in the lives of the characters of this series. It is unusual for a television series to cast characters with visible or invisible impairments. On the rare occasions that television shows do have characters with impairments, these characters serve no purpose other than to contribute to their ‘Otherness.’ Breaking Bad not only centralizes impairment, but impairment drives and sustains the story lines. I use three interrelated themes (...) from Disability Scholarship to analyze Breaking Bad. The first theme, Bodily Control, is that good bodies are controlled bodies and that uncontrolled, messy bodies are frightening, bad bodies. Indeed, the messiness of impairment and disability is so bad, that impaired and disabled individuals are excluded or shut out or excluded from many areas of public life. The second theme, Normalcy, is that the effect of hiding away impairment, of attempting to conceal disability, is that society becomes defined by, and structured around, the concept of normalcy. Normalcy, being normal, attaining and maintaining normalcy, is the preoccupation of most in society. To fail to be normal, or to fall from what is considered to be normal, is a source of tremendous anxiety for most people. These two themes, Bodily Control and Normalcy are conceptually connected: impairment, disease and dying are so feared because they are socially invisible and, therefore unknown and unknowable. They are the undiscussable taboos. The third theme, Bodily Realism, is that having a realistic view of the body, which would at minimum require accepting the fact that human bodies are fragile things, prone to disease and accident and are ultimately destined to die, makes one more at ease in the world, and able to live better lives and live as a better person. Indeed, so the argument goes, our lives would be richer, more rewarding—emotionally and morally—if we cared less about normalcy because of a dread of abnormalcy, but instead learned to accept if not positively value the physical variability of human existence. (shrink)

If one can judge a society by how it treats its prisoners, one can surely judge a society by how it treats cognitively- and learning-impaired children. In the United States children with physical and cognitive impairments are subjected to higher rates of corporal punishment than are non-disabled children. Children with disabilities make up just over 13% of the student population in the U.S. yet make up over 18% of those children who receive corporal punishment. Autistic children are among the most (...) likely to receive corporal punishment. -/- Although they may deny or redescribe particular instances of corporal punishment or their use of restraints, educators defend such actions as legitimate punishment. In this paper, I assess the logic underlying the use of restraints and corporal punishment on autistic children by educators. The rationalizations for the corporal punishment or restraint of autistics stems from the educator’s desire to control the autistic children so as to end typical autistic behaviors such as rocking, repetitive verbalizations, or “flapping” but also the autistic child’s non-affective responses such as not appearing to feel remorse or shame or the absence of a verbal acknowledgement of remorse or shame. The educators assume that the autistic’s failure to exhibit the desired responses is evidence of the autistic’s moral incorrigibility and is, therefore, evidence of the appropriateness of corporal punishment. But this assumption of the incorrigibility of the autistic child is questionable. -/- Indeed accepting this incorrigibility assumption reveals two important problems. First, instructors using physical punishment on autistic children do not understand autism. Second, they are not working with a tenable conception of punishment. Any action undertaken to induce socially acceptable behaviors (whether it be the end of autistic acts or responses such as remorse) is to fail to understand what the legitimate punishment of children is about. (shrink)

Although typical arguments for knitting are that it is useful, therapeutic or the latest trend, I argue that knitting can play a life-changing part in the creation of a person’s self. Knitting can be a genuinely powerful activity, one worthy of respect and admiration.

Whiteness theorists argue that whiteness has two essential features. First, whiteness colonizes, appropriates and controls the Other. Whiteness is, then, racist.Second, whiteness is constructed unwittingly. Whites are, it is claimed, unaware of the harms they inflict on a genocidal scale because whiteness, like the air we breathe, is “invisible” to those who construct it and are constructed by it. Whiteness is, then, innocent. I think defining whiteness as innocent racism is troubling for two reasons. First, it leaves whites unaccountable for (...) the acts of racism they perpetuate. Second, I think that the claim that whiteness is invisible “like the air we breathe,” while a powerful and fascinating metaphor, is mistaken. I will argue that whiteness is closeted; and while the closet makes the acknowledgement of whiteness difficult, it does not make it impossible. Thus, though closeted, whites are morally accountable for the acts of racism they commit. (shrink)

This book examines autism from the tradition of analytic philosophy, working from the premise that Autism Spectrum Disorders raise interesting philosophical questions that need to be and can be addressed in a manner that is clear, jargon-free, and accessible. The goal of the original essays in this book is to provide a philosophically rich analysis of issues raised by autism and to afford dignity and respect to those impacted by autism by placing it at the center of the discussion.

This article aims to draw on the ‘Qur'anic Rationalism’ of Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328) in elucidating an Islamic epistemology of theistic natural signs, in the lens of contemporary philosophy of religion. In articulating what Ibn Taymiyya coins ‘God's method of proof through signs (istidlāluhu taʿālā bi'l-āyāt)’, it seeks aid in particular from the work of C. Stephen Evans and other contemporary philosophers of religion, in an attempt to understand the relevance and force of this alternative to natural theology within (...) the Islamic tradition. In doing so, it aims to respond to existing criticisms of Ibn Taymiyya's perspective in the literature, and to consider the implications of a Taymiyyan reading of theistic natural signs, on the epistemic function of Qur'anic āyāt as theistic evidence. (shrink)

Cet article évalue, du point de vue moral, les justifications possibles pour le recours à la taxation en vue de promouvoir des comportements « sains ». L’objectif est de démontrer qu’un tel instrument recevrait une meilleure justification, c’est-à-dire plus en accord avec des principes égalitariens respectueux de la liberté individuelle, s’ils s’inscrivaient dans une logique de mutualisation. Pour ce faire, les arguments du bien-être individuel et de l’efficience sociale sont discutés afin d’en pointer les fécondités et limites. Au travers de (...) leurs limites, ces arguments introduisent naturellement à une troisième manière d’appréhender le problème, sous l’angle de la mutualisation. Ce principe représente moins une remise en cause radicale des arguments précédents qu’une reformulation du recours à l’efficience sociale et une limitation du champ d’application des appels au bien-être individuel. Il repose sur deux idées. La première est que la référence à une notion de responsabilité, même affadie, est nécessaire. De plus, celle-ci doit être conçue comme partagée entre producteurs et consommateurs ainsi que limitée au domaine financier. La seconde est que la mutualisation ne peut être déconnectée d’intuitions égalitariennes formulées de manière générale. (shrink)

Au regard du vieux débat sur la « fuite des cerveaux », le devoir de promouvoir le développement des pays pauvres semblait incompatible avec le droit humain à l’émigration. A l’encontre de cette idée, Jagdish Bhagwati a proposé dans les années 70 une mesure qui permettait au personnel qualifié de quitter les pays pauvres, tout en taxant leur revenu au bénéfice de leurs pays d’origine. Cet article discute (et rejette) trois justifications possibles de la taxe Bhagwati. Il conclut qu’une telle (...) mesure ne peut être défendue ni comme une compensation pour ce que le pays aurait gagné si les diplômés n’avaient pas émigré, ni comme une obligation de réciprocité basée sur l’investissement dans l’éducation, ni comme une mesure de diminution de l’inégalité entre les opportunités des migrants et de ceux qui restent au pays. Si la mobilité géographique va de pair avec la mobilité sociale, taxer les migrants revient à taxer la mobilité sociale, plutôt que les hauts revenus eux-mêmes. (shrink)

Abstract: Sign language recognition is one of the most rapidly expanding fields of study today. Many new technologies have been developed in recent years in the fields of artificial intelligence the sign language-based communication is valuable to not only deaf and dumb community, but also beneficial for individuals suffering from Autism, downs Syndrome, Apraxia of Speech for correspondence. The biggest problem faced by people with hearing disabilities is the people's lack of understanding of their requirements. In this paper we try (...) to fill this gap. By trying to translate sign language using artificial intelligence algorithms, we focused in this paper using transfer learning technique based on deep learning by utilizing a MobileNet algorithm and compared it with the previous paper results[10a], where we get in the Mobilenet algorithm on the degree of Accuracy 93,48% but the VGG16 the accuracy was 100% For the same number of images (43500 in the dataset in size 64*64 pixel ) and the same data split training data into training dataset (70%) and validation dataset(15%) and testing dataset(15%) and 20 epoch . (shrink)

Sign Language Recognition (SLR) aims to translate sign language into text or speech in order to improve communication between deaf-mute people and the general public. This task has a large social impact, but it is still difficult due to the complexity and wide range of hand actions. We present a novel 3D convolutional neural network (CNN) that extracts discriminative spatial-temporal features from photo datasets. This article is about classification of sign languages are not universal and are usually not mutually intelligible (...) although there are also similarities among different sign languages. They are the foundation of local Deaf cultures and have evolved into effective means of communication. Although signing is primarily used by the deaf and hard of hearing, hearing people also use it when they are unable to speak, when they have difficulty speaking due to a health condition or disability (augmentative and alternative communication), or when they have deaf family members, such as children of deaf adults. In this article we use the 43500 image in the dataset in size 64*64 pixel by use CNN Architecture and achieved 100% accuracy. (shrink)

The problem of religious disagreement between epistemic peers is a potential threat to the epistemic justification of one’s theistic belief. In this paper, I develop a response to this problem which draws on the central epistemological thesis of skeptical theism concerning our inability to make proper judgements about God’s reasons for permitting evil. I suggest that this thesis may extend over to our judgements about God’s reasons for self-revealing, and that when it does so, it can enable theists to remain (...) steadfast amid disagreement with epistemic peers who hold a contrary theistic belief (i.e., atheistic belief). For if we’re unable to make proper judgements about God’s reasons for self-revealing, then for all we know, God has some reason for not revealing Himself to our apparent epistemic peer. Thus, their epistemic credentials needn’t provide reason to reduce one’s confidence to such a degree as to no longer uphold one’s theistic belief. (shrink)

In reference to the philosophical theology of medieval Islamic theologian Ibn Taymiyya, this paper outlines a parallel between Taymiyyan thought and Alvin Plantinga’s thesis of ‘Reformed Epistemology’. In critiquing a previous attempt to build an account of ‘Islamic externalism’, the Taymiyyan model offers an account that can be seen as wholly ‘Plantingan’.

In this article, I consider how the epistemic problem of religious disagreement has been viewed within the Islamic tradition. Specifically, I consider two religious epistemological trends within the tradition: Islamic Rationalism and Islamic Traditionalism. In examining the approaches of both trends toward addressing the epistemic problem, I suggest that neither is wholly adequate. Nonetheless, I argue that both approaches offer insights that might be relevant to building a more adequate response. So, I attempt to combine insights from both by drawing (...) a distinction between inferential and noninferential reflective responsibility. Given this distinction, I argue that it may be possible for a theist to remain steadfast in upholding their tradition-specific theistic belief, without having to hold that belief by way of inference; but nevertheless, having to be sufficiently reflectively responsible in forming their theistic belief noninferentially. (shrink)

This chapter aims to draw on the critical threads of those vibrant theological conversations within the formative years of Islamic thought in considering the different theological models of the Divine within the broader Islamic tradition under the purview of classical theism as it is understood today in the contemporary philosophy of religion. In doing so, it makes reference to the major strands within the theological (‘ilm al- kalām & atharī scripturalism) and philosophical (falsafa) schools of the Islamic tradition. It aims (...) to consider how these different trends, schools, and thinkers construct a model of God in light of the classical and neo-classical theistic model of God. (shrink)

American Sign Language, or ASL as its acronym is commonly known, is a fascinating language, and many people outside of the Deaf community have begun to recognize its value and purpose. It is a visual language consisting of coordinated hand gestures, body movements, and facial expressions. Sign language is not a universal language; it varies by country and is heavily influenced by the native language and culture. The American Sign Language alphabet and the British Sign Language alphabet are completely contrary. (...) Fingerspelling is one-handed in ASL and two-handed in BSL, with the exception of the letter C. AI technologies, particularly deep learning, can play an important role in breaking down communication barriers between deaf or hearing-impaired people and other communities, significantly contributing to their social inclusion. Recent advances in sensing technologies and AI algorithms have paved the way for the development of a wide range of applications aimed at meeting the needs of the deaf and hearing-impaired communities. To that end, the purpose of this paper is By attempting to translate sign language using artificial intelligence algorithms, we focused in this paper on a transfer learning technique based on deep learning using a ResNet algorithm and compared it to previous papers in which we used VGG19[1]and mobileNet [2], where we get in the ResNet algorithm on the degree of Accuracy 93,48% e number of images (43500 in the dataset in size 64*64 pixel ) and the data split training data into training dataset (70%) and validation dataset(15%) and testing dataset(15%) and 20 epoch. (shrink)

there is a communication gap between hearing-impaired people and those with normal hearing, sign language is the main means of communication in the hearing-impaired population. Continuous sign language recognition, which can close the communication gap, is a difficult task since the ordered annotations are weakly supervised and there is no frame-level label. To solve this issue, we compare the accuracy of each model using two deep learning models, Inception and Xception . To that end, the purpose of this paper is (...) By attempting to translate sign language using deep learning models, we focused in this paper a comparing between Inception and Xception ¬¬¬¬¬ algorithm and compared it to previous papers in which we used VGG19[1], mobileNet [2], where we get in the Inception and Xception algorithm on the degree of Accuracy 99.32%, 99,43% respectively. number of images (29000 in the dataset in size 75*75 pixel ) and the data split training data into training dataset (70%) and validation dataset(15%) and testing dataset(15%) and 20 epoch. (shrink)

The extent to which individuals with a variety of cultural backgrounds differ in empathic responsiveness is unknown. This article describes the differences in trait empathy in one independent and one interdependent society (i.e., the US and Iran, respectively). The analysis of data collected from self-reported questionnaires answered by 326 adults indicated a significant difference in the cognitive component of empathy concerning participants’ affiliation to either egocentric or socio-centric society: Iranian participants with interdependent cultural norms, reported higher cognitive empathy compared to (...) American participants who share independent cultural norms. In line with previous studies, gender differences were observed in all subscales of questionnaires, except the Empathy Quotient (EQ). Female participants demonstrated more empathy than males in both samples. Implications for understanding the cross-cultural differences of various components of empathy are discussed. (shrink)

This paper sets out a research agenda for a political theory of climate displacement, by critically examining one prominent proposal—the idea of a normative status for ‘climate refugees’—and by proposing an alternative. Drawing on empirical work on climate displacement, I show that the concept of the climate refugee obscures the complexity and heterogeneity of climate displacement. I argue that, because of this complexity and heterogeneity, approaches to climate displacement that put the concept of the climate refugee at their centre will (...) fail to treat like cases alike and relevantly different cases differently. In response to these failings, I outline an alternative—the pluralist theory of climate displacement—which confronts the specific challenges that climate displacement poses in different practical and institutional contexts, whilst also treating climate displacement as a unified phenomenon at the second-order level of burden-sharing. (shrink)

Chapter: WHITE PRIVILEGE AND THE COLOR OF FEAR This chapter focuses on the role that power, innocence and ignorance play in maintaining the position of white privilege. There are times when white people use their privilege in ways that overtly attempt to put and keep people of color in their places, but more often white privilege is less obvious. White privilege does not stand out in white peoples’ behavior at all times. When white behavior is normalized, it is masked. At (...) these times, white privilege and power hide behind the masks of innocence and the masks of ignorance. White people can mask from themselves and others their location with relations to power. In the film, The Color of Fear, David C. hides his power. As he hides his power, he keeps his privilege invisible, that is, behind a mask. In this chapter, we focus on the masking and unmasking of innocence and ignorance to get a better look at how the process of normalization of these masks makes whiteness powerful and consequently hides white privilege. The logic of power and privilege is reflected in the following relationship: -/- innocence + ignorance = Invisibility (of White Privilege) -/- . (shrink)

How can researchers use race, as they do now, to conduct health-care studies when its very definition is in question? The belief that race is a social construct without “biological authenticity” though widely shared across disciplines in social science is not subscribed to by traditional science. Yet with an interdisciplinary approach, the two horns of the social construct/genetics dilemma of race are not mutually exclusive. We can use traditional science to provide a rigorous framework and use a social-science approach so (...) that “invisible” factors are used to adjust the design of studies on an as-needed basis. One approach is to first observe health-care outcomes and then categorize the outcomes, thus removing genetic differences as racial proxies from the design of the study. From the outcomes, we can then determine if there is a pattern of conceivable racial categories. If needed, we can apply dynamic notions of race to acknowledge bias without prejudice. We can use them constructively to improve outcomes and reduce racial disparities. Another approach is nearly identical but considers race not at all: While analyzing outcomes, we can determine if there are biological differences significant enough to identify classifications of humans. That is, we look for genetic patterns in the outcomes and classify only those patterns. There is no attempt to link those patterns to race. (shrink)

Abstract -/- “The Obvious Invisibility of the Relationship Between Technology and Social Values” -/- We all too often assume that technology is the product of objective scientific research. And, we assume that technology’s moral value lies in only the moral character of its user. Yet, in order to objectify technology in a manner that removes it from a moral realm, we rely on the assumption that technology is value neutral, i.e., it is independent of all contexts other than the context (...) in which it is used morally or immorally by someone. However, there is a power to technology. At the very least, technology should be seen as reflecting the values that it rises from: a developmental context. Consequently, we can make the invisible moral realm visible as we investigate the relationship between culture and technology. Pragmatically, we can trace how cultural values inform what counts as a scientific question. When we look at the 1980s epidemiological model for AIDS we see how the presuppositions within a culture frame the type of question asked, i.e. What population do we see AIDS occurring in? This question initially leads scientific research away from actual individual behaviors until a different question is asked that leads the question towards behavioral epidemiological models rather than population models. Secondly, we can make visible the circumstance that depicts that what constitutes a scientific problem has a direct relationship to the types of technologies that are developed. We can more clearly see this circular relationship between culture and technology by looking at clinical research and practice regarding heart disease. Men who were dying of diagnosed heart disease were showing symptoms of problems in large arteries of the heart. Women were also dying of heart disease, but since their large arteries were not overwhelmingly compromised they were not being properly diagnosed until recently. Different technologies and protocol were needed to “see” different symptoms in the smaller vessels of women. Thirdly, I show how the types of technology developed, in turn, can create new values or enhance preexisting values within a culture. DNA research can be used to investigate long, unanswered questions about qualitative dimensions of life in quantitative manners. Yet, long held unanswered questions about a biological basis of race or intelligence are themselves rarely challenged as uninteresting or misguided even when they are tied to prejudicial qualitative assumptions if the chance of a “scientific” answer is possible. When existing technologies or modifications of existing technologies can be used they seem to direct human reactions and behaviors in predictable ways. The technologies themselves may be said to direct culture in ethically valenced manners. (shrink)

. This article seeks to outline how a Muslim believer can deflect a defeater for Islamic belief put forward by Erik Baldwin and Tyler McNabb. In doing so, it aims to reject the suggestion that an Islamic religious epistemology is somehow antithetical to a model of Reformed epistemology which is not fully compatible with Plantingian. Taken together with previous work on Islam and RE, the article not only aims to provide reason to think that Baldwin and McNabb’s proposed epistemic defeater (...) for Islamic belief isn’t problematic, it also seeks to show how the concerns raised by Baldwin and McNabb over a Plantingian model of RE in Islamic milieu, are no longer tenable. (shrink)

In a number of recent publications, Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler have argued for a novel approach to the design of public policy. Their proposal has received a great deal of attention, both within academic circles and the public at large. Drawing upon evidence from behavioral economics and empirical psychology, the authors attempt to demonstrate that the conventional antagonism between libertarians and paternalists within political theory dissolves in conditions that obtain widely in public decision-making. Where free choice and the promotion (...) of individual welfare can coexist, the authors believe that designers of public policy ought to be libertarian paternalists. In this paper I criticize their proposal on grounds that the authors are unable to sufficiently motivate the paternalistic element of their approach. I argue that the empirical evidence cited by the authors is capable of supporting a number of competing approaches, including what I call libertarian utilitarianism and libertarian justice. Since the evidence that the authors draw upon does not provide us any grounds for selecting between these rival approaches, I conclude that Sunstein and Thaler are unable to provide us with a convincing guide for the design of public policy. In order to show that this is the case, I consider three arguments in favor of libertarian paternalism, and find each lacking. I end with some comments about what we can properly conclude on the basis of Sunstein and Thaler’s arguments. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy of religion has been fascinated with questions of the rationality of religious belief. Alvin Plantinga—a prominent Christian philosopher—has contributed greatly to the exploration of these questions. Plantinga’s epistemology is rooted in the intuitions of Thomas Reid’s “common-sense” philosophy and has developed into a distinctive outlook that we may coin, Plantingian (Calvinist) Reidianism. This chapter aims to propose that, in fact, the central ideas of that outlook can be seen prior to Reid (and John Calvin), beyond the confines of (...) exclusively Christian and European circles, in the theological epistemology of the Damascene Islamic theologian, Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328 CE). In exploring the contours of a Taymiyyan worldview, primed upon the notion of fiṭra, Ibn Taymiyya can be seen to have developed a faculty-based account of knowledge, moderate foundationalism, and a distinct “Reformed” epistemology. Within the midst of these developments, Ibn Taymiyya offers a potential framework for a “common-sense” philosophical methodology. Taken together these ideas form the basis for the intuitions of Plantingian Reidianism. Therefore, Plantinga might have looked to an earlier figure working in another tradition for historical support and inspiration for his religious epistemology. (shrink)

The most public-facing forms of contemporary Darwinism happily promote its worldview ambitions. Popular works, by the likes of Richard Dawkins, deflect associations with eugenics and social Darwinism, but also extend the reach of Darwinism beyond biology into social policy, politics, and ethics. Critics of the enterprise fall into two categories. Advocates of Intelligent Design and secular philosophers (like Mary Midgley and Thomas Nagel) recognise it as a worldview and argue against its implications. Scholars in the rhetoric of science or science (...) communication, however, typically take the view that Darwinism isn't a worldview, but a scientific theory, which has been improperly embellished by some; they uphold the distinction between is and ought and argue that science is restricted to the former. This prompts an is–ought problem on another level. I catalogue the ways in which Darwinism plainly is a worldview and why commentators' beliefs that it ought not to be distorts their analysis. Hence, it is their own worldview that precludes them from accepting Darwinism's worldview implications. (shrink)

This article reviews three books written by Larry May concerning the foundations of international criminal law: Crimes Against Humanity: A Normative Account (2005), War Crimes and Just War (2007), and Aggression and Crimes Against Peace (2008).

This article responds to Nir Eisikovits’ recent book Sympathizing with the Enemy: Reconciliation, Transitional Justice, Negotiation (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2010).

Past work has demonstrated that people’s moral judgments can influence their judgments in a number of domains that might seem to involve straightforward matters of fact, including judgments about freedom, causation, the doing/allowing distinction, and intentional action. The present studies explore whether the effect of morality in these four domains can be explained by changes in the relevance of alternative possibilities. More precisely, we propose that moral judgment influences the degree to which people regard certain alternative possibilities as relevant, which (...) in turn impacts intuitions about freedom, causation, doing/allowing, and intentional action. Employing the stimuli used in previous research, Studies 1a, 2a, 3a, and 4a show that the relevance of alternatives is influenced by moral judgments and mediates the impact of morality on non-moral judgments. Studies 1b, 2b, 3b, and 4b then provide direct empirical evidence for the link between the relevance of alternatives and judgments in these four domains by manipulating (rather than measuring) the relevance of alternative possibilities. Lastly, Study 5 demonstrates that the critical mechanism is not whether alternative possibilities are considered, but whether they are regarded as relevant. These studies support a unified framework for understanding the impact of morality across these very different kinds of judgments. (shrink)

There are two ironies in the popular science genre. First, it seeks to simplify even as it confounds. Authors in this genre have simultaneously to evoke awe-inspiring, sublime imagery, while also rendering the content easily accessible to a non-expert audience. Second, in doing so they undermine the naive realism of scientific orthodoxy and the liberal humanist subject that is their implied reader. The first irony occurs because of the use of the epistemological sublime, which is a rough cognate with awe, (...) or wonder and which is the sublime of the eighteenth century, including that of Kant. The second irony is disclosed because of what I call the ontological sublime, characteristic of late twentieth-century theories of the sublime. The ontological sublime is more radical. Rather than being triggered by the limits of knowledge or imagination — as with awe and wonder — it calls into question ontological categories, including the integrity of reality, or indeed the coherence of the subject having the sublime experience. Rather than being self-affirming (like Kant's sublime), it is an ambivalent effect; it can be seen as self-abnegating or, more frequently, disruptive of the notion of selfhood entirely, even to the point of undermining the existence of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

This chapter aims to lay out a map of the diverse epistemological perspectives within the Islamic theological tradition, in the conceptual framework of contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. In order achieve that goal, it aims to consider epistemological views in light of their historic context, while at the same time seeking to “translate” those broadly medieval perspectives into contemporary philosophical language. In doing so, the chapter offers a succinct overview of the main epistemic trends within the Islamic theological tradition concerning (...) religious epistemology. The chapter is divided into two main sections designated for discussions of differing accounts found in distinct trends of the tradition, namely the Rationalist and Traditionalist trends. The discussion concerning the Rationalist trend focuses on the philosophical-theologians of the dominant Mu’tazilite, Ash’arite, and Maturidite schools. The section on Islamic Traditionalism focuses on the Atharite scripturalism of Ibn Qudāma, and in particular the thought of Ibn Taymiyya. In order to map out these historic positions in light of contemporary religious epistemology, reference is made to a threefold typology of current views in the literature: (1) theistic evidentialism, (2) reformed epistemology, and (3) fideism. As such, the remainder of the chapter will attempt to outline the different approaches toward religious epistemology in the Islamic theological tradition with this threefold typology in mind. (shrink)

Two problems are considered here. One relates to who has moral status, and the other relates to who has moral responsibility. The criteria for mattering morally have long been disputed, and many humans and nonhuman animals have been considered “marginal cases,” on the contested edges of moral considerability and concern. The marginalization of humans and other species is frequently the pretext for denying their rights, including the rights to health care, to reproductive freedom, and to bodily autonomy. There is broad (...) agreement across cultural and philosophical traditions about the capacities and responsibilities of moral agents. I propose an inclusive and expansive way of thinking about moral status, situating it not in the characteristics or capacities of individuals, but in the responsibilities and obligations of moral agents. Moral agents, under this view, are not privileged or entitled to special treatment but rather have responsibilities. I approach this by considering some African communitarian conceptions of moral status and moral agency. I propose that moral agency can also be more expansive and include not just individual moral agents but collective entities that have some of the traits of moral agents: power, freedom, and the capacity to recognize and act on the demands of morality and acknowledge and respect the rights of others. Expanding who and what is a moral agent correspondingly extends moral responsibility for respecting rights and fostering the conditions for the health and well-being of humans and animals onto the collective entities who uniquely have the capacity to attend to global-scale health threats such as pandemics and human-caused climate change. (shrink)

Pacifists and their opponents disagree not only about moral questions, but rather often about factual questions as well—as seen when looking at the controversy surrounding the crisis in Kosovo. According to my reconstruction of pacifism, this is not surprising since the pacifist,legitimately, looks at the facts in the light of her system of value. Her opponent, in turn, looks at the facts in the light of an alternative value system, and the quarrel between the two parties about supposedly descriptive matters (...) never ceases, as there is no objective reality about the war in question that could settle the issue.In my view, the pacifist's value-laden way of looking at reality implicitly obeys three epistemic imperatives. First, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Human Nature ("Resist demonizing the other side; always try to understand the case from the other point of view"). Second, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Non-Violent Alternatives ("Always search for non-violent alternatives to military action"). Third, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Uncontrolled Escalation ("Hone your senses to the uncontrolled, irreversible side effects of military action, particularly to the danger of military escalation leading to another world war"). Objective reality has no way of telling us how far we should go in following these imperatives. Rather, we have to make the decision about how far we are going to take them ourselves. In this way, the pacifist's epistemic imperatives are comparable to Kant's regulative principles. (shrink)

Nach Morton White können wir die holistische Quine/Duhem-These auf ethische Sätze genauso anwenden wie auf wissenschaftliche. Demzufolge mögen sich die meisten ethische Sätze zwar nicht einzeln testen lassen, wohl aber im Zusammenhang einer kompletten Theorie, die sowohl deskriptive als auch normative Sätze enthält. Ich diskutiere zwei Vorschläge dafür, wie dieser Vergleich durchbuchstabiert werden könnte. Laut Whites eigenem Vorschlag lassen sich einige normative Konsequenzen des Gesamtsystems durch Konfrontation mit den emotionalen Reaktionen des Sprechers testen. Laut meinem Vorschlag sind einige normative Konsequenzen (...) des Systems bereits Beobachtungssätze in Quines Sinn und können genauso getestet werden wie naturwissenschaftliche Beobachtungssätze, nämlich durch Sinneserfahrung. Kurzum, es gibt moralische Beobachtungssätze. Quine bezeichnet diejenigen Sätze als Beobachtungssätze, die alle anwesenden Sprecher einer Gemeinschaft stets gleich beurteilen und die der einzelne Sprecher ausschließlich aufgrund momentaner Sinnesreizung bejaht oder verneint (also unabhängig von Hintergrund-Informationen). In Quines Argument gegen moralische Beobachtungssätze steckt folgender Fehler: Quine glaubt, dass sich moralische Fragen immer nur angesichts von Hintergrund-Informationen beurteilen lassen. Bei vielen moralischen Sätzen mag das so sein; aber es gibt Gegenbeispiele, in denen Hintergrund-Informationen ausgeschaltet sind, z.B. "Dies ist sichtbares Unrecht". (shrink)

Transcript of an Interview on the podcast: Irreverend: Faith and Current Affairs.

Our interpretive resources enable us to make sense of, navigate, and communicate about our shared world. These resources not only carve the world up into categories, but also guide how we, individually and collectively, are oriented towards it. In this thesis, I examine how these resources, and the dispositions they guide, may be harmful. A vital kind of interpretive resources are frames, which equip us with unified perspectives on the world. Perspectives are suites of open-ended interpretive (inquisitive, attentional, inferential, evaluative, (...) and affective) dispositions. Frames thereby guide how we interpret, respond to, and navigate the world. I show that these perspectives are epistemically powerful and indispensable. I argue that flawed perspectives, and the distorting frames that produce them, are deeply pernicious and I examine their relationship to oppression. (shrink)

Abstract: Fruits are a rich source of energy, minerals and vitamins. They also contain fiber. There are many fruits types such as: Apple and pears, Citrus, Stone fruit, Tropical and exotic, Berries, Melons, Tomatoes and avocado. Classification of fruits can be used in many applications, whether industrial or in agriculture or services, for example, it can help the cashier in the hyper mall to determine the price and type of fruit and also may help some people to determining whether a (...) certain type of fruit meets their nutritional requirement. In this paper, machine learning based approach is presented for classifying and identifying 10 different fruit with a dataset that contains 6847 images use 4793 images for training, 1027 images for validation and 1027 images for testing. A deep learning technique that extensively applied to image recognition was used. We used 70% from image for training and 15% from image for validation 15% for testing. Our trained model achieved an accuracy of 100% on a held-out test set, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach. (shrink)

Motivated ignorance is an incentivized absence of knowledge that arises in circumstances of unequal power relations, a self-protective non-knowing which frees individuals from having to reflect on the privileges they have in virtue of membership in a dominant social group. In philosophical discussions, the term “motivated ignorance” gets used interchangeably with “willful ignorance.” In the first half of this paper, using Charles Mills’ (2007) white ignorance as the defining case, I argue that this is a mistake. A significant swath of (...) cases of motivated ignorance are non-willful, or deep, following Rik Peels (2010). But in all cases, benefits accrued to some in virtue of their social position are gained and maintained at the expense of harms to others. In the second half of this paper, I argue that these harms are what ground attributions of culpability in cases of motivated ignorance and drive the normative requirement that the subject know better, so long as the facts in question are ordinarily and easily knowable (in a sense to be specified). Willfulness is not a necessary condition for culpability, even if it is a sufficient one. (shrink)

This paper presents a diagrammatic notation for visualizing epistemic entities and relations. The notation was created during the Visualizing Worldviews project funded by the University of Toronto’s Jackman Humanities Institute and has been further developed by the scholars participating in the university’s Research Opportunity Program. Since any systematic diagrammatic notation should be based on a solid ontology of the respective domain, we first outline the current state of the scientonomic ontology. We then proceed to providing diagrammatic tools for visualizing the (...) epistemic entities and relations of this ontology. These basic diagramming techniques allow us to construct diagrams of various types for both synchronic and diachronic visualizations. The paper concludes by highlighting some future research directions. As the notation presented here is de facto accepted and used in scientonomy, the paper suggests no modifications. (shrink)

Public health care interventions—regarding vaccination, obesity, and HIV, for example—standardly take the form of information dissemination across a community. But information networks can vary importantly between different ethnic communities, as can levels of trust in information from different sources. We use data from the Greater Pittsburgh Random Household Health Survey to construct models of information networks for White and Black communities--models which reflect the degree of information contact between individuals, with degrees of trust in information from various sources correlated with (...) positions in that social network. With simple assumptions regarding belief change and social reinforcement, we use those modeled networks to build dynamic agent-based models of how information can be expected to flow and how beliefs can be expected to change across each community. With contrasting information from governmental and religious sources, the results show importantly different dynamic patterns of belief polarization within the two communities. (shrink)

Le but de ce texte est de mettre en évidence les équi­valences entre la façon dont le concept de conatus résout, dans l'Éthique, le problème de l'unité modale complexe. en rendant consis­tant le concept de chose singulière en tant que celle-ci doit être consi­dérée comme un légitime sujet d'attribution d'états, et la façon dont ce même concept dessine le rapport cognitif de l'esprit avec lui-même, rapport par lequel l'esprit se saisit comme sujet de ses états et qui ca­ractérise la notion (...) moderne de subjectivité. Ainsi, en éclairant cet as­pect du concept spinoziste de chose singulière. on comprendra aussi, de façon indirecte, l'une des conditions par lesquelles les choses peuvent, dans la doctrine spinoziste, devenir des objets ou des signes pour la connaissance humaine. (shrink)

Since intelligent design (ID) advocates claimed the ubiquitous mouse trap as an example of systems that cannot have evolved, mouse trap history is doubly relevant to studying material culture. On the one hand, debunking ID claims about mouse traps and, by implication, also about other irreducibly complex systems has a high educational value. On the other hand, a case study of mouse trap history may contribute insights to the academic discussion about material culture evolution. Michael Behe argued that mouse traps (...) cannot trap mice with any part missing; therefore, they cannot have a precursor with one part less, therefore, cannot have a continuous history, and therefore, cannot have evolved. The patented and seminal precursor of current flat snap traps, however, had one part less, because spring and striker were formed of one wire. Secondly, historical records that reach back into the Bronze Age suggest that its history continued for a very long time. Thirdly, all prerequisites for evolution (variation, transmission, and selection) abound in mouse trap populations. Hence, Behe’s triple-jump conclusion about mouse traps is false each step. There is no, in principle, impossibility for mouse traps to evolve. An evolutionary account of mouse trap history also has academic merits beyond its educational value. Three important conclusions can be drawn: (1) reticulate phylogenies of artifact systems may be resolvable as overlapping, but branching, phylogenies of parts; (2) homologous ideas may be realized by analogous material, that is, phylogenies of information do not necessarily coincide with those of material parts; (3) recombination of parts between different artifact systems increases the cumulative nature of cultural evolution. (shrink)

It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it (...) would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices. (shrink)

Libraries provide resources for knowledge acquisition, recreation, personal interests and inter-personal relationships for all categories of users. It enables the individual to obtain spiritual, inspirational, and recreational activities through reading, and therefore the opportunity of interacting with the society’s wealth and accumulated knowledge. This study examined the undergraduate students’ use of University library services and resources. It was affirmed the undergraduate utilized the University Libraries as learning centre. This was shown by the massive turn out to patronize the library services (...) and resources weekly. (shrink)