People maintain a positive identity in at least two ways: They evaluate themselves more favorably than other people, and they judge themselves to be better now than they were in the past. Both strategies rely on autobiographical memories. The authors investigate the role of autobiographical memories of lying and emotional harm in maintaining a positive identity. For memories of lying to or emotionally harming others, participants judge their own actions as less morally wrong and less negative than those in which (...) other people lied to or emotionally harmed them. Furthermore, people judge those actions that happened further in the past to be more morally wrong than those that happened more recently. Finally, for periods of the past when they believed that they were very different people than they are now, participants judge their actions to be more morally wrong and more negative than those actions from periods of their pasts when they believed that they were very similar to who they are now. The authors discuss these findings in relation to theories about the function of autobiographical memory and moral cognition in constructing and perceiving the self over time. (shrink)

Identification of factors that predict recurrent antisocial behavior is integral to the social sciences, criminal justice procedures, and the effective treatment of high-risk individuals. Here we show that error-related brain activity elicited during performance of an in- hibitory task prospectively predicted subsequent rearrest among adult offenders within 4 y of release (N =96). The odds that an offender with relatively low anterior cingulate activity would be rearrested were approximately double that of an offender with high activity in this region, holding (...) constant other observed risk factors. These results suggest a potential neurocognitive biomarker for persistent antisocial behavior. (shrink)

A review of *The Social Origins of Language* by Robert M. Seyfarth and Dorothy L. Cheney; edited and introduced by Michael L. Platt.

Construing the instantiation of a universal by a particular in terms of my theory of aspects resolves the basic mystery of this "non-relational tie", and gives theoretical unity to the four characteristics of instantiation discerned by Armstrong. Taking aspects as distinct in a way akin to Scotus's formal distinction, I suggest that instantiation is the sharing of an aspect by a universal and a particular--a kind of partial identity. This approach allows me to address Plato's multiple location and One (...) over Many problems, Bradley's problem concerning the instantiation of relations, and the problem of change. (shrink)

Armstrong has loose identity be an equivalence relation, yet in cases of something becoming something else, loose identity is not transitive. My alternate account has an attribution of loose identity be really two: a true attribution of an underlying relation (perhaps not transitive) and a false attribution--a Humean feigning-of strict identity. The feigning may become less appropriate as the underlying relation grows more distant. What makes it appropriate initially is that the underlying relation supports a predictable change in some (...) collective. The importance of the predictably changing collective is signaled by regarding it as a single thing. (shrink)

Oliver's and Rodriguez-Pereyra's important interpretation of the problem of universals as one concerning truthmakers neglects something crucial: that there is a numerical identity between numerically distinct particulars. The problem of universals is rather how to resolve the apparent contradiction that the same things are both numerically distinct and numerically identical. Baxter's account of instantiation as partial identity resolves the apparent contradiction. A seeming objection to this account is that it appears to make instantiation symmetric, since partial identity is symmetric. (...) class='Hi'>Armstrong's standard reply is that the difference between a particular and a universal is what makes instantiation asymmetric. Brown suggests, though, that the instantiation of a universal by a universal is sometimes symmetric. However, the examples on which he relies are not universals. (shrink)

One of the advantages of my account in the essay “Instantiation as Partial Identity” was capturing the contingency of instantiation—something David Armstrong gave up in his experiment with a similar view. What made the contingency possible for me was my own non-standard account of identity, complete with the apparatus of counts and aspects. The need remains to lift some obscurity from the account in order to display its virtues to greater advantage. To that end, I propose to respond to (...) those who have grappled with it in print. There are various criticisms by commentators: that it is rendered absurd by the transitivity of identity, that it makes instantiation necessary instead of contingent, that it is unclear what counts are, that aspects are simply tropes, that my view does not capture multiple location, that I make an unclear reference to a theory of composition as identity, that the account suffers from problems with polyadicity, and that it is not a realist account of universals after all. I give responses to these objections. (shrink)

This is a review (in French) of the French translation and edition of D.M. Armstrong's Universals: An Opiniated Introduction.

Il problema apparentemente insolubile di una giustificazione non circolare dell’induzione diverrebbe più abbordabile se invece di chiederci solo cosa ci assicura che un fenomeno osservato si riprodurrà in modo uguale in un numero potenzialmente infinito di casi futuri, ci chiedessimo anche come si spiega che esso si sia manifestato fin qui in modo identico e senza eccezioni in un numero di casi finito ma assai alto. E’ questa l’idea della giustificazione abduttiva dell’induzione, avanzata in forme diverse da Armstrong, Foster (...) e BonJour: serie talmente regolari di fenomeni sono da un punto di vista logico talmente improbabili che se il mondo fosse puramente casuale (se cioè gli eventi si presentassero con frequenza proporzionale alla loro probabilità logica) esse non potrebbero verificarsi se non per una coincidenza miracolosa. Pertanto, tali regolarità si spiegano solo assumendo che siano prodotte da meccanismi o necessità nomiche; ma se questo è il caso, è corretto concludere che tali regolarità persisteranno anche in futuro senza eccezioni, e dunque le inferenze induttive su di esse sono giustificate. Anche Kornblith argomenta dall’effettivo successo delle inferenze induttive all’esistenza di regolarità oggettive in natura; mentre Sankey parte dall’ uniformità della natura per giustificare l’induzione. Congiungendo le due argomentazioni, dunque, si ottiene di nuovo una giustificazione dell’induzione in base all’argomento del “se non è un miracolo …”. Un ostacolo su questa via è specificare in che senso la natura sia uniforme (dato che ovviamente non lo è in ogni suo aspetto) e di quali regolarità possiamo aspettarci che persistano senza eccezione anche in futuro (dato che evidentemente non tutte lo fanno: l’acqua non bolle sempre a 100°, la pressione non è sempre funzione della temperatura, e così via). Entrano qui in gioco le conoscenze di sfondo e la ripetizione delle osservazioni in condizioni diverse, che ci mostrano quali circostanze siano rilevanti al verificarsi del fenomeno dato. In tal modo, le nostre descrizioni delle regolarità naturali convergono su descrizioni che specificano sia le condizioni individualmente necessarie e congiuntamente sufficienti, sia tutti gli argomenti delle funzioni che costituiscono tali regolarità. Ciò consente di formulare i principi di Uniformità della Natura e di Induzione in modo non generico (e dunque, a seconda della formulazione, vuoto o eccessivo), ma circostanziato: così essi asseriscono, rispettivamente, che la natura è uniforme negli aspetti evidenziati dalle descrizioni su cui convergiamo grazie alle osservazioni ripetute, e che solo queste descrizioni possono essere induttivamente generalizzate. Ciò consente anche di risolvere enigmi alla Goodman, quali: poiché le osservazioni ci hanno mostrato (solo) il verificarsi di una data regolarità fino al momento presente t, come possiamo presumere che essa si verificherà anche dopo t? La risposta è che osservazioni e conoscenza di sfondo non ci dicono che vi sia alcun limite temporale tra le condizioni necessarie della regolarità data. (shrink)

This paper explores some ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to improve human moral judgments in bioethics by avoiding some of the most common sources of error in moral judgment, including ignorance, confusion, and bias. It surveys three existing proposals for building human morality into AI: Top-down, bottom-up, and hybrid approaches. Then it proposes a multi-step, hybrid method, using the example of kidney allocations for transplants as a test case. The paper concludes with brief remarks about how (...) to handle several complications, respond to some objections, and extend this novel method to other important moral issues in bioethics and beyond. (shrink)

This paper explores the significance of intelligent social behavior among non-human animals for philosophical theories of communication. Using the alarm call system of vervet monkeys as a case study, I argue that interpersonal communication (or what I call “minded communication”) can and does take place in the absence of the production and recognition of communicative intentions. More generally, I argue that evolutionary theory provides good reasons for maintaining that minded communication is both temporally and explanatorily prior to the use of (...) communicative intentions. After developing these negative points about the place of communicative intentions in detail, I provide a novel alternative account according to which minded communication is characterized in terms of patterns of action and response that function to coordinate the representational mental states of agents. I show that an account which centers on patterns of representational coordination of this sort is well suited to capture the theoretical roles associated with minded communication and that it does so in a way that provides a good fit with comparative facts about the presence of minded communication among non-human animals. (shrink)

Our ordinary assertions are often imprecise, insofar as the way we represent things as being only approximates how things are in the actual world. The phenomenon of assertoric imprecision raises a challenge to standard accounts of both the norm of assertion and the connection between semantics and the objects of assertion. After clarifying these problems in detail, I develop a framework for resolving them. Specifically, I argue that the phenomenon of assertoric imprecision motivates a rejection of the widely held belief (...) that a semantic theory for a language associates a single semantic value with each of the simple and complex expressions of that language, relative to the contexts in which they occur. Instead, I propose that we adopt a framework I call semantic pluralism. (shrink)

The doctrine of permanent sovereignty over natural resources is a hugely consequential one in the contemporary world, appearing to grant nation-states both jurisdiction-type rights and rights of ownership over the resources to be found in their territories. But the normative justification for that doctrine is far from clear. This article elucidates the best arguments that might be made for permanent sovereignty, including claims from national improvement of or attachment to resources, as well as functionalist claims linking resource rights to key (...) state functions. But it also shows that these defences are insufficient to justify permanent sovereignty and that in many cases they actually count against it as a practice. They turn out to be compatible, furthermore, with the dispersal of resource rights away from the nation-state which global justice appears to demand. (shrink)

In a series of papers, Donald Davidson :3–17, 1984, The philosophical grounds of rationality, 1986, Midwest Stud Philos 16:1–12, 1991) developed a powerful argument against the claim that linguistic conventions provide any explanatory purchase on an account of linguistic meaning and communication. This argument, as I shall develop it, turns on cases of what I call lexical innovation: cases in which a speaker uses a sentence containing a novel expression-meaning pair, but nevertheless successfully communicates her intended meaning to her audience. (...) I will argue that cases of lexical innovation motivate a dynamic conception of linguistic conventions according to which background linguistic conventions may be rapidly expanded to incorporate new word meanings or shifted to revise the meanings of words already in circulation. I argue that this dynamic account of conventions both resolves the problem raised by cases of lexical innovation and that it does so in a way that is preferable to those who—like Davidson—deny important explanatory roles for linguistic conventions. (shrink)

We explicate and evaluate arguments both for and against the insanity defense itself, different versions of the insanity defense (M'Naghten, Model Penal Code, and Durham (or Product)), the Irresistible Impulse rule, and various reform proposals.

(Penultimate Draft). I consider common ground in its evolutionary context and argue for several claims. First, common ground is widely (though not universally) distributed among social animals. Second, the use of common ground is favored (i.e. is predicted to emerge and subsequently persist) among populations of animals whose members face recurrent interdependent decision-making problems in which the benefit of their courses of action are contingent on the variable choices of their stable social partner(s). Third, humans deploy cognitive and social mechanisms (...) for establishing and updating common ground that are not deployed by other living animals—the use of common ground has not only persisted within the human lineage but been amplified as well. Finally, I suggest that some of these points count against the iterative construal of common ground. In its place, I propose an alternative psychological construal of common ground in terms of what I will call reciprocal responsiveness. (shrink)

The central claim of my paper is that pragmatics has a wider scope of application than has been generally appreciated. In particular, I will argue that many discussions of pragmatics are guilty of a problematic form of provincialism. The provincialism at issue restricts the class of target systems of study to those involving groups of developmentally typical humans (or slightly idealized versions thereof), either explicitly as a matter of principle or implicitly as consequence of how it construes the underlying pragmatic (...) notions. In what follows, I will argue that this kind of provincialism is problematic because there are patterns of non-human animal social interaction that cannot be properly explained without recourse to the theoretical tool-kit of pragmatics. Crucially, rejecting provincialism about pragmatics does not entail that there are not important theoretical differences between human and non-human systems of pragmatics. It does, however, require that our core philosophical theories of social interaction and communication be centered on features independent not merely of those at work in human languages but also of uniquely human features of cognition and sociality more generally. (shrink)

This new, inexpensive translation of Plato's Apology of Socrates is an alternative to the 19th-century Jowett translation that students find online when they're trying to save money on books. Using the 1995 Oxford Classical Text and the commentaries of John Burnet and James Helm, I aimed to produce a 21st-century English translation that is both true to Plato's Greek and understandable to college students in introductory philosophy, political theory, and humanities courses. The book also includes a new translation of the (...) death scene from Plato's Phaedo, a short introduction, a dozen explanatory notes, advice on how to cite Plato in papers, and suggestions for further reading. Search for "Plato Armstrong" in Apple Books (epub ISBN 9781957448022) and Amazon (paperback ISBN 9781957448008, Kindle ISBN 9781957448015). (shrink)

In this paper, I critically assess Mark Richard’s interesting and important development of the claim that linguistic meanings can be fruitfully analogized with biological species. I argue that linguistic meanings qua cluster of interpretative presuppositions need not and often do not display the population-level independence and reproductive isolation that is characteristic of the biological species concept. After developing these problems in some detail, I close with a discussion of their implications for the picture that Richard paints concerning the dangers of (...) conceptual engineering and the prospects for dynamic notions of semantic stability. (shrink)

Plato is associated with the idea that the body holds us back from knowing ultimate reality and so we should try to distance ourselves from its influence. This sentiment appears is several of his dialogues including Theaetetus where the flight from the physical world is compared to becoming like God. In some major dialogues of Plato's later career such as Philebus and Laws, however, the idea of becoming like God takes a different turn. God is an intelligent force that tries (...) to create order in the physical world. I argue that likeness to God in these dialogues involves imitating God's effort by trying to order our bodies, souls, and societies as intelligence directs. Becoming like Plato's God is not to abandon the world. It is to improve it. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore two contrasting conceptions of the social character of language. The first takes language to be grounded in social convention. The second, famously developed by Donald Davidson, takes language to be grounded in a social relation called triangulation. I aim both to clarify and to evaluate these two conceptions of language. First, I propose that Davidson’s triangulation-based story can be understood as the result of relaxing core features of conventionalism pertaining to both common-interest and diachronic stability—specifically, (...) Davidson does not require uses of language to be self-perpetuating, in the way required by conventionalism, in order to be bona fide components of linguistic systems. Second, I argue that Davidson’s objections to conventionalism from language innovation and language variation fail, and that certain kinds of negative data in language use require an appeal to diachronic social relations. However, I also argue that recent work on communication in the a.. (shrink)

If dangerous climate change is to be avoided, it is vital that carbon sinks such as tropical rainforests are protected. But protecting them has costs. These include opportunity costs: the potential economic benefits which those who currently control rainforests have to give up when they are protected. But who should bear those costs? Should countries which happen to have rainforests within their territories sacrifice their own economic development, because of our broader global interests in protecting key carbon sinks? This essay (...) develops an argument from the “principle of fairness,” which seeks to establish that outsiders should pay states with rainforests so as to share the costs of protection. If they do not, they can be condemned for free-riding on forest states. The argument is, I suggest, compelling and also capable of enjoying support from adherents of a wide variety of positions on global justice. (shrink)

Dozens of countries have established Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) in the last decade or so, in the majority of cases employing those funds to manage the large revenues gained from selling resources such as oil and gas on a tide of rapidly rising commodity prices. These funds have raised a series of ethical questions, including just how the money contained in such funds should eventually be spent. This article engages with that question, and specifically seeks to connect debates on SWFs (...) with debates onglobaljustice. Just how good are national claims to the great wealth contained in SWFs in the first place? Using the example of Norway's very large SWF – derived from selling North-Sea petroleum – I show that national claims are at least sometimes very weak, with the implication that the wealth in many such funds is ripe for redistribution in the interests of global justice. I conclude by offering some guidance for how the money contained in such funds could best be spent, with the goal of advancing global justice. (shrink)

This paper will argue that there is no such thing as introspective access to judgments and decisions. I t won't challenge the existence of introspective access to perceptual and imagistic states, nor to emotional feelings and bodily sensations. On the contrary, the model presented in Section 2 presumes such access. Hence introspection is here divided into two categories: introspection of propositional attitude events, on the one hand, and introspection of broadly perceptual events, on the other. I shall assume that the (...) latter exists while arguing that the fonner doesn't . Section I makes some preliminary points and distinctions, and outlines the scope of the argument. Section 2 presents and motivates the general model of introspection that predicts a divided result. Section 3 provides independent evidence for the conclusion that judgments and decisions aren't introspectable. Section 4 then replies to a number of objections to the argument, the most important of which is made from the perspective of so-called "dual systems theories" of belief formation and decision making, The upshot is a limited form of eliminativism about introspection, in respect of at least two core categories of propositional attitude. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to formalize long-term trajectories of human civilization as a scientific and ethical field of study. The long-term trajectory of human civilization can be defined as the path that human civilization takes during the entire future time period in which human civilization could continue to exist. -/- Design/methodology/approach This paper focuses on four types of trajectories: status quo trajectories, in which human civilization persists in a state broadly similar to its current state into the distant future; catastrophe (...) trajectories, in which one or more events cause significant harm to human civilization; technological transformation trajectories, in which radical technological breakthroughs put human civilization on a fundamentally different course; and astronomical trajectories, in which human civilization expands beyond its home planet and into the accessible portions of the cosmos. -/- Findings Status quo trajectories appear unlikely to persist into the distant future, especially in light of long-term astronomical processes. Several catastrophe, technological transformation and astronomical trajectories appear possible. -/- Originality/value Some current actions may be able to affect the long-term trajectory. Whether these actions should be pursued depends on a mix of empirical and ethical factors. For some ethical frameworks, these actions may be especially important to pursue. (shrink)

In defending his interest-relative account of knowledge in Knowledge and Practical Interests (2005), Jason Stanley relies heavily on intuitions about several bank cases. We experimentally test the empirical claims that Stanley seems to make concerning our common-sense intuitions about these bank cases. Additionally, we test the empirical claims that Jonathan Schaffer seems to make in his critique of Stanley. We argue that our data impugn what both Stanley and Schaffer claim our intuitions about such cases are. To account for these (...) results, one must develop a better conception of the connection between a subject's interests and her body of knowledge than those offered by Stanley and Schaffer. (shrink)

Case reports about patients undergoing Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for various motor and psychiatric disorders - including Parkinson’s Disease, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Treatment Resistant Depression - have sparked a vast literature in neuroethics. Questions about whether and how DBS changes the self have been at the fore. The present chapter brings these neuroethical debates into conversation with recent research in moral psychology. We begin in Section 1 by reviewing the recent clinical literature on DBS. In Section 2, we consider (...) whether DBS poses a threat to personal identity. In Section 3 we argue for engagement with recent empirical work examining judgements of when identity changes. We conclude in Section 4 by highlighting a range of ethical issues raised by DBS, including various cross-cultural considerations. (shrink)

Resemblances obtain not only between objects but between properties. Resemblances of the latter sort - in particular resemblances between quantitative properties - prove to be the downfall of a well-known theory of universals, namely the one presented by David Armstrong. This paper examines Armstrong's efforts to account for such resemblances within the framework of his theory and also explores several extensions of that theory. All of them fail.

For students and the general reader, this is the best English translation of the entire 'Laws' available. I give several examples of important lines that are translated well in this edition, but I take issue with the translation of some other lines and with part of Schofield's introduction on grounds that these parts do not reveal Plato's political and cosmic holism as clearly as they could have.

Commentary about the role of AI in bioethics for the 10th anniversary issue of AJOB: Empirical Bioethics.

We make the case that scientifically accurate and politically feasible responses to the climate crisis require a complex understanding of human cultural practices of niche construction that moves beyond the adaptive significance of culture. We develop this thesis in two related ways. First, we argue that cumulative cultural practices of niche construction can generate stable equilibria and runaway selection processes that result in long-term existential risks within and across cultural groups. We dub this the back of the invisible hand. Second, (...) we argue that the ability of cultural groups to innovate technological solutions to environmental problems is highly constrained in ways that are exacerbated by sustained intergroup conflict, inequality and by inherently unpredictable cascades in climate change and human migration patterns. After developing these theoretical points about human cultural practices of niche construction in detail, we conclude our discussion with some tentative practical suggestions about the way that cultural evolutionary history can more fruitfully be used in efforts to remit the climate crisis and contribute to sustainable practices of human climate change adaptation. (shrink)

Je cherche à explorer comment l'expérience de la temporalité est multiforme et fortement perturbée à l'époque de la pandémie Covid-19 et des politiques de confinement, générant une expérience d'hétérochronie, qui remet en question notre rapport à la vie.

This dissertation identifies and explains four major contributions of the Laws and related late dialogues to Plato's moral and political philosophy. -/- Chapter 1: I argue that Plato thinks the purpose of laws and other social institutions is the happiness of the city. A happy city is one in which the city's parts, i.e. the citizens, are unified under the rule of intelligence. Unlike the citizens of the Republic, the citizens of the Laws can all share the same true judgments (...) of value, and this unanimity explains the city's unity. Plato thinks that aiming at the city's happiness is justified, moreover, because a unified city contributes to the universe's order. -/- Chapter 2: In the Laws, Plato holds that the sick, poor, ugly, weak, but virtuous are happy, and that health, wealth, beauty, and strength benefit the virtuous but harm the vicious. Only in the Laws does Plato commit himself to all these claims simultaneously, and I explain how the moral psychology of the Laws permits Plato to maintain them coherently. -/- Chapter 3: I argue that, in the Laws, becoming virtuous is the same as becoming like God. Becoming like God does not require escape from the world of change as it does in the Theaetetus, however. Rather, becoming like God requires bringing "measure" or appropriate order to the world of change, especially to those entities over which we have the most control—our own souls. In the Laws, citizens achieve this order as they learn to be just and to understand the nature of reality. -/- Chapter 4: Unlike the Republic and Statesman, the Laws holds that obedience of the citizens to their laws should be effected, if possible, with rational persuasion. I argue that Plato wishes such persuasion to educate the citizens of the reasons for the laws. Understanding the laws' justification is the principal way in which citizens acquire the good judgment necessary for virtue. The city becomes more happy as the citizens progress in virtue, so rational persuasion is a necessary means to the lawgiver's overall aim. (shrink)

A letter to The Times of London, May 9, 1992 protesting the Cambridge University proposal to award an honorary degree to M. Jacques Derrida.

Darwinism, especially in the form of the Modern Synthesis, has become one of the most influential theories in the worldwide scientific community. However, due to its often dogmatic interpretation, it is more and more orthodoxical. An increasing number of scientists have come to criticise Darwinism and go beyond it with a systemic approach and an expanded vision of the evolutionary process. As a matter of fact, the discovery of natural genetic engineering mechanisms shows that living cells are able to rewrite (...) their own genetic material at the genomic level, thus leading to evolutionary innovations. This teleological standpoint triggers a paradigm shift that could turn out to be a genuine scientific revolution. (shrink)

This paper has two components. The first, longer component (sec. 1-6) is a critical exposition of Armstrong’s views about the metaphysics of mathematics, as they are presented in Truth and Truthmakers and Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics. In particular, I discuss Armstrong’s views about the nature of the cardinal numbers, and his account of how modal truths are made true. In the second component of the paper (sec. 7), which is shorter and more tentative, I sketch an alternative (...) account of the metaphysics of mathematics. I suggest we insist that mathematical truths have physical truthmakers, without insisting that mathematical objects themselves are part of the physical world. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on whether and to what extent we judge that people are responsible for the consequences of their forgetfulness. We ran a series of behavioral studies to measure judgments of responsibility for the consequences of forgetfulness. Our results show that we are disposed to hold others responsible for some of their forgetfulness. The level of stress that the forgetful agent is under modulates judgments of responsibility, though the level of care that the agent exhibits toward performing (...) the forgotten action does not. We argue that this result has important implications for a long-running debate about the nature of responsible agency. (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)

Thailand has a rich history of using aesthetics as a means of communication. This is seen not only in the communication of basic ideas, but aesthetics are also used to communicate the cultural values of the nation. Aesthetical images in Thailand have the tendency to dwell both in the realm of the mundane and the supernatural, in the daily and the esoteric. Historically, many faith traditions have used aesthetics as an effective form of communication, including Buddhism, Brahmanism, as well as (...) other local expressions of deities across the country. Art plays a large role in the daily communication of religious values and concepts. -/- While Christianity has a rather long history in Thailand, the large-scale impact that Christianity, and specifically Protestantism, has had is rather minimal. There can be a myriad of reasons for this, but one potential possibility is Christianity’s lack of an aesthetical engagement upon and within Thai culture. This potentially is not an issue of only the Protestant church in Thailand but also stems from some of the western Christian roots throughout its faith tradition. One finds a chasm between aesthetical practices and faith from the Heidelberg Confession, in which Christians became so worried about the ramifications of idol worship, that they threw out the proverbial ‘baby with the bathwater’ and basically condemned the use of icons and other forms of art in western Protestantism. -/- Therefore, this paper will examine the relationship between Thai culture and Christianity, trying to remove the western biases in Christianity and will attempt to suggest new ways that the Thai Christian Church may develop organic, indigenous Thai art, that can be used as a more effective means of communication. If Christianity wants to effectively convey its concepts into Thai culture, it must value aesthetics as a means of communication. Is it possible that Christianity could not only communicate a more effective message in Thailand, but also that Christianity could experience a more robust self-analyzation of its core concepts through Thai aesthetics? Therefore, one needs to explore the ways that Christianity may be able to better understand itself through current Thai aesthetical practices. These concepts will be explored to develop a more robust and organic way of communicating the Christian concepts through a Thai paradigm. (shrink)

The genetic modification of pigs as a source of transplantable organs is one of several possible solutions to the chronic organ shortage. This paper describes existing ethical tensions in xenotransplantation (XTx) that argue against pursuing it. Recommendations for lifelong infectious disease surveillance and notification of close contacts of recipients are in tension with the rights of human research subjects. Parental/guardian consent for pediatric xenograft recipients is in tension with a child’s right to an open future. Individual consent to transplant is (...) in tension with public health threats that include zoonotic diseases. XTx amplifies concerns about justice in organ transplantation and could exacerbate existing inequities. The prevention of infectious disease in source animals is in tension with the best practices of animal care and animal welfare, requiring isolation, ethologically inappropriate housing, and invasive reproductive procedures that would severely impact the well-being of intelligent social creatures like pigs. (shrink)

This discussion revises and extends Jonny Anomaly's ‘public goods’ account of public health ethics in light of recent criticism from Richard Dees. Public goods are goods that are both non-rival and non-excludable. What is significant about such goods is that they are not always provided efficiently by the market. Indeed, the state can sometimes realize efficiency gains either by supplying such goods directly or by compelling private purchase. But public goods are not the only goods that the market may fail (...) to provide efficiently. This point to a way of broadening the public goods account of public health to accommodate Dees' counterexamples, without abandoning its distinctive appeal. On the market failures approach to public health ethics, the role of public health is to correct public health-related market failures of all kinds, so far as possible. The underlying moral commitment is to economic efficiency in the sense of Pareto: if we can re-allocate resources in the economy so as to raise the welfare of some without lowering the welfare of any other, we ought to do so. (shrink)

While naturalism is used in positive senses by the tradition of analytical philosophy, with Ludwig Wittgenstein its best example, and by the tradition of phenomenology, with Maurice Merleau-Ponty its best exemplar, it also has an extremely negative sense on both of these fronts. Hence, both Merleau-Ponty and Wittgenstein in their basic thrusts adamantly reject reductionistic naturalism. Although Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology rejects the naturalism Husserl rejects, he early on found a place for the “truth of naturalism.” In a parallel way, Wittgenstein accepts (...) a certain positive sense of naturalism, while rejecting Quine’s kind of naturalism. It is the aim of this paper to investigate the common ground in the views of Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty regarding the naturalism that they each espouse and that which they each reject. (shrink)

Philosophers of experiment have acknowledged that experiments are often more than mere hypothesis-tests, once thought to be an experiment's exclusive calling. Drawing on examples from contemporary biology, I make an additional amendment to our understanding of experiment by examining the way that `wide' instrumentation can, for reasons of efficiency, lead scientists away from traditional hypothesis-directed methods of experimentation and towards exploratory methods.