One recent priority of the U.S. government is developing autonomous robotic systems. The U.S. Army has funded research to design a metric of evil to support military commanders with ethical decision-making and, in the future, allow robotic military systems to make autonomous ethical judgments. We use this particular project as a case study for efforts that seek to frame morality in quantitative terms. We report preliminary results from this research, describing the assumptions and limitations of a program that assesses the (...) relative evil of two courses of action. We compare this program to other attempts to simulate ethical decision-making, assess possibilities for overcoming the trade-off between input simplification and output reliability, and discuss the responsibilities of users and designers in implementing such programs. We conclude by discussing the implications that this project highlights for the successes and challenges of developing automated mechanisms for ethical decision making. (shrink)

What we must do is step back and take a grand view of the perspectives in order to understand it on a more particular level. If we can picture all of God’s attributes on a bar graph scale, all of God’s attributes would max out at 100% each. These attributes are always operating at 100%; at no time does any attribute diminish or decrease below 100%. However, there are times when one of His attributes shows forth more than another does, (...) but they are all operating at a maximum level. (shrink)

Some atheistic philosophers have argued that God could have created a world with free moral agents and yet absent of moral evil. Using possible world semantics, Alvin Plantinga sought to defuse this logical form of the problem of evil. In this critical note, Leslie Allan examines the adequacy of Plantinga's argument that the existence of God is logically compatible with the existence of moral evil. The veracity of Plantinga's argument turns on whether his essential use of counterfactual conditionals preserves (...) the logic of this type of conditional. (shrink)

Background There has been debate on whether a global or unified field of bioethics exists. If bioethics is a unified global field, or at the very least a closely shared way of thinking, then we should expect bioethicists to behave the same way in their academic activities anywhere in the world. This paper investigates whether there is a 'global bioethics' in the sense of a unified academic community. Methods To address this question, we study the web-linking patterns of bioethics institutions, (...) the citation patterns of bioethics papers and the buying patterns of bioethics books. Results All three analyses indicate that there are geographical and institutional differences in the academic behavior of bioethicists and bioethics institutions. Conclusion These exploratory studies support the position that there is no unified global field of bioethics. This is a problem if the only reason is parochialism. But these regional differences are probably of less concern if one notices that bioethics comes in many not always mutually understandable dialects. (shrink)

Donald Hoffman proposed a bold theory—that objects do not exist independently of us perceiving them and that all that really exists is conscious agents. In this critical review, Leslie Allan examines the three core components of Hoffman's new idealism. He proposes solutions to linguistic absurdities suffered by Hoffman's theory before considering its most serious problems. These include oversimplifications of evolutionary theory, self-refutation, heuristic sterility and dependence on scientific realism.

Neuroscience hasn’t shown how quite similar sensory circuits encode quite different colors and other qualia, nor how the unified pictorial form of images is encoded, nor how these codes yield conscious images. Neuroscience’s fixation here on cortical codes may be the culprit. Treating conscious images partly as retinal substances may avoid these problems. The evidence for conscious retinal images is that (a) the cortical codes for images are quite problematic, (b) injecting retinas with certain genes turns dichromats into trichromats without (...) cortical help, (c) retinas can discern colors by themselves without cortex, (d) retinal distortions appear in images but cortical distortions don’t, (e) retinal detectors support finely detailed colors, but V4 detectors don’t, due to their big receptive fields, (f) retinal activity has pictorial form, but viable cortical codes for pictorial form don’t exist. So, the colors and unified pictorial form of images arguably arise mainly across arrays of retinal detectors—not from abstract cortical codes. Images may be hidden in retinal activity beyond what EEGs show of it (cf. Strawson’s monism). Also, cortex refines these retinal images but cortical impairment (anesthesia, lesions, etc.) blocks awareness of them, for they’re no longer accessible to the mind’s subject-centered consciousness, resident in cortex. This proposal is largely testable and based in recent evidence. It avoids neuroscience’s elusive, problematic coded images and enigmatic explanations of how they become conscious. (shrink)

Enlightenment philosopher, René Descartes, set out to establish what could be known with certainty, untainted by a deceiving demon. With his method of doubt, he rejected all previous beliefs, allowing only those that survived rigorous scrutiny. In this essay, Leslie Allan examines whether Descartes's program of skeptical enquiry was successful in laying a firm foundation for our manifold beliefs. He subjects Descartes's conclusions to Descartes's own uncompromising methodology to determine whether Descartes escaped from a self-imposed radical skepticism.

This case study examines some of the challenges, and in particular conflicts of interest, that professors face in writing letters of reference for their students.

On the ten year anniversary of 2Girls1Cup, this article examines the complex balance of shock, pleasure and disgust elicited by this viral video.

The ontological argument for the existence of God has enjoyed a recent renaissance among philosophers of religion. Alvin Plantinga's modal version is perhaps the most notable example. This essay critically examines Plantinga's rendition, uncovering both its strengths and weaknesses. The author concludes that while the argument is probably formally valid, it is ultimately unsound. Nonetheless, Plantinga's version has generated much interest and discussion. The author spends some time uncovering the reasons for the argument's powerful intuitive appeal. He concludes his essay (...) by appraising Pruss's recent defence of Plantinga's argument. (shrink)

In his _Treatise on the Golden Lion_, Fazang says that wholes are _in_ each of their parts and that each part of a whole _is_ every other part of the whole. In this paper, I offer an interpretation of these remarks according to which they are not obviously false, and I use this interpretation in order to rigorously reconstruct Fazang's arguments for his claims. On the interpretation I favor, Fazang means that the presence of a whole's part suffices for the (...) presence of the whole and that the presence of any such part is both necessary and sufficient for the presence of any other part. I also argue that this interpretation is more plausible than its extant competitors. (shrink)

Despite the closure of virtually all original grindhouse cinemas, ‘grindhouse’ lives on as a conceptual term. This article contends that the prevailing conceptualization of ‘grindhouse’ is problematized by a widening gap between the original grindhouse context (‘past’) and the DVD/home-viewing context (present). Despite fans’ and filmmakers’ desire to preserve this part of exploitation cinema history, the world of the grindhouse is now little more than a blurry set of tall-tales and faded phenomenal experiences, which are subject to present-bias. The continuing (...) usefulness of grindhouse-qua-concept requires that one should pay heed to the contemporary contexts in which ‘grindhouse’ is evoked. (shrink)

This paper is an examination of the concept of recognition and its connection with identity and respect. This is related to the question of how women are or are not adequately recognised or respected for their achievements in sport and whether eliminating sex segregation in sport is a solution. This will require an analysis of the concept of excellence in sport, as well as the relationship between fairness and inclusion in an activity that is fundamentally about bodily movement. I argue (...) that attempts to address the problem of women’s recognition in sport need to do so in ways that neither eliminate sport as a fairness regulated system for developing individual excellence in bodily movement nor that prevent women’s achievement of sporting excellence, with the regard that belongs to them. Doing this requires us to decide whether sport is about champions or about individual excellence. (shrink)

Excellence in sport performance is normally taken to be a matter of superior performance of physical movements or quantitative outcomes of movements. This paper considers whether a wider conception can be afforded by certain kinds of nature based sport. The interplay between technical skill and aesthetic experience in nature based sports is explored, and the extent to which it contributes to a distinction between different sport-based approaches to natural environments. The potential for aesthetic appreciation of environmental engagement is found to (...) be strongly dependent on whether or not environmental engagement is exploited for the end of producing a quantifiable result or enhancing technical skill. It is also argued that an existential rather than spectatorial attitude to aesthetic experience is offered by specifically nature oriented sport. Aesthetic experience achieved in this way is therefore neither passive nor detached, but extends Berleant's concept of participatory environmental aesthetics and underpins both an alternate (wide) conception of excellence in sport activity and a richer experience of aesthetic engagement than more objectivised standpoints. (shrink)

This paper responds to Kevin Krein’s claim in that the particular value of nature sports over traditional ones is that they offer intensity of sport experience in dynamic interaction between an athlete and natural features. He denies that this intensity is derived from competitive conflict of individuals and denies that nature sport derives its value from internal conflict within the athlete who carries out the activity. This paper responds directly to Krein by analysing ‘intensity’ in sport in terms of the (...) relationship between attention and reflection and the interaction between self and environment. I reply directly to Krein’s rejection of self-competition as based on a mischaracterisation of internal struggle and argue that the weighing of incompatible desires does not involve a fragmented self. I argue that the unique intensity to which Krein refers is strongly comparable to the Kantian conception of the sublime and explore how sublime experience fits Krein’s account and outline some serious problems that such an ideal of experience poses for nature sport. (shrink)

In many jurisdictions in the United States and elsewhere, the law governing deadly force by police and civilians contains a notable asymmetry. Often civilians but not police are bound by the imminence requirement—that is, a necessary condition for justifying deadly force is reasonable belief that oneself or another innocent person faces imminent threat of grave harm. In U.S. law enforcement, however, there has been some shift toward the imminence requirement, most evident in the use-of-force policy adopted by the Department of (...) Justice in 2022. This article defends that shift and argues that the ethical case for the imminence requirement in policing is stronger than Shannon Brandt Ford suggests in a recent article. Though the imminence requirement’s impacts on policing and public safety require ongoing study, the principle of equality before the law and the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing both provide moral grounds for this requirement, especially given the lack of evidence that the status quo helps protect life. (shrink)

This is an introduction to the book Fiinta istorica (The Historical Being), written by the 20th century Romanian philosopher Lucian Blaga. Blaga was an important thinker, authoring over 30 books of philosophy and a great many articles. Unfortunatly very little of his work is translated into English. This book is the very last that he wrote. It was published posthumously.

In a recent paper, Kevin Krein argues that the notion of self-competition is misplaced in adventure sports and of only limited application altogether, for two main reasons: (i) the need for a consistent and repeatable measure of performance; and (ii) the requirement of multiple competitors. Moreover, where an individual is engaged in a sport in which the primary feature with which they are engaged is a natural one, Krein argues that the more accurate description of their activity is not 'competition', (...) but an attempt at harmonious interaction. I raise a number of problems against both criteria and argue that traditional and adventure sports do both involve self-competition on at least two levels: bettering one's previous performance and resisting the desire to quit. I argue that self-reflexive competition is not so much with one's self (which is philosophically absurd), but within one's self, between conflicting motivations and desires. I explore what is involved in self-reflexive competition, particularly at a phenomenological, self-constituting level, and raise the question of whether it is appropriate for activity in wilder natural environments. (shrink)

Math prospective teachers must be able to think creatively and solve problems. The study looked into preservice teachers’ creative thinking and problem-solving abilities in statistics. The investigation was guided by a correlational design in a public university in the Philippines. Stratified random sampling was used to select the 103 study participants from two teacher education programs. Through google forms, data were collected using Torrance et al. (2008)’s tests of creative thinking and researcher-made statistics problem test. The findings revealed that preservice (...) teachers have commendable creative thinking, particularly fluency, flexibility, and elaboration skills. Still, they lack problem-solving skills in statistics, specifically with central tendency, dispersion, and position measures. The correlational analysis revealed no link between creative thinking and problem-solving. Still, creative thinking and problem-solving courses are recommended to help preservice teachers develop their fundamental skills as mathematics educators. (shrink)

As a non-cognitivist analysis of moral language, Charles Stevenson's sophisticated emotivism is widely regarded by moral philosophers as a substantial improvement over its historical antecedent, radical emotivism. None the less, it has come in for its share of criticism. In this essay, Leslie Allan responds to the key philosophical objections to Stevenson's thesis, arguing that the criticisms levelled against his meta-ethical theory rest largely on a too hasty reading of his works.

This paper explores ludonarrative dissonance as it occurs in sport, primarily as the conflict experienced by participants between dominant narratives and self-generated interpretations of embodied experience. Taking self-narrative as a social rather than isolated production, the interaction with three basic categories of dominant narrative is explored: transformative, representing a spectrum from revelatory to distorting, bullying and colonising. These forms of dominant narrative prescribe interpretations of the player’s experience of play and of self that displace their own, with the end result (...) of dissonance and self-alienation. (shrink)

Arguments from consciousness to God’s existence (ACs) contend that physicalism is too problematic to explain the mind’s ultimate source. They add that theism probably better explains this source in terms of God making us in his own image (with conscious, unified, rational minds). But ACs are problematic too. First, physicalism has various competitors beside theism. Russellian monism and dual-aspect theory are examples. Second, all these theories, including theism, are seriously flawed. For example, it’s tied to traditional dualism, which has causal (...) issues (according to Murphy, Churchland, and other physicalists). But we argue that this theistic dualism can be refined to avoid its issues—and the issues in all other theories. So, it probably explains the mind’s origin better than other theories. We rely here on Lowe’s dualism, where the mind’s subject exists immaterially yet spatially, and is a unified, simple entity (unlike neural aggregates with their quite separate parts). This turns the tables on Churchland, Murphy, and other advocates for scientism. -/- . (shrink)

L’érosion actuelle de la confiance du public envers les campagnes de vaccination et les décisions de politiques publiques qui y sont associées, aggravée par des scandales comme ceux relatifs à la pandémie H1N1 et l’utilisation du Tamiflu™, risque de diminuer de façon significative l’efficacité de ces interventions importantes pour la santé publique. Un manque de confiance de la population envers les acteurs de santé publique peut conduire à une méfiance accrue face aux interventions, pouvant ainsi compromettre l’atteinte des objectifs recherchés (...) par une intervention spécifique et, conséquemment, avoir un impact important sur les bénéfices attendus pour la population visée par cette intervention. Dans la production des avis d’experts, les membres des comités consultatifs d’experts en immunisation (CCEI) peuvent avoir une influence importante sur la prise de décision publique, notamment, sur la sélection par les décideurs de santé publique de vaccins en particulier et la façon dont les campagnes de vaccination seront déployées. En contrepartie de cette influence sur les décisions publiques, une indépendance et une transparence sont attendues de leur part puisque des mécanismes de divulgation et de gestion de conflits d’intérêts (CI) imparfaits peuvent affecter négativement la confiance du public à l’égard de telles décisions. Il apparaît donc important de s’assurer que des mécanismes de gestion des CI, transparents et robustes, existent pour ces comités. Dans cette étude, les avis ou rapports d’évaluation de la pertinence de la vaccination préparés par un CCEI au Québec ont été examinés pour quatre types de maladies évitables par la vaccination (infections invasives à méningocoques et à pneumocoques, coqueluche et virus du papillome humain). Le but était de : 1) identifier les CI divulgués par les membres du CCEI dans leurs rapports comparativement à ceux déclarés dans leurs publications scientifiques pour ces mêmes infections ; 2) analyser la nature des CI (réel, potentiel, apparent, personnel, financier, institutionnel, etc.) et l’impact potentiel (risque) sur la prise de décision impartiale et sur la confiance du public ; et 3) évaluer les mécanismes de gestion de CI actuellement utilisés par ce CCEI. Les résultats de cette étude montrent que très peu de rapports du CCEI contiennent une section sur les CI par rapport à la pléthore divulguée dans les publications scientifiques publiées par les membres du CCEI. De plus, les CI divulgués dans les rapports fréquemment ne correspondent pas à ceux décrits dans les publications scientifiques. Il serait donc important d’introduire des mesures visant à accroître la transparence des experts en immunisation et d’améliorer les mécanismes de divulgation et de gestion des CI afin de veiller à ce que la confiance du public envers les décideurs en santé publique soit maintenue et améliorée. (shrink)

This paper argues against the conception of sport as theatre. Theatre and sport share the characteristic that play is set in a conventionally-defined hypothetical reality, but they differ fundamentally in the relative importance of audience and the narrative point of view. Both present potential for participants for development of selfhood through play and its personal possibilities. But sport is not essentially tied to audience as is theatre. Moreover, conceptualising sport as a form of theatre valorises the spectator’s narrative as normative (...) for sport experience over that of the participant athlete or player, eliding player experience. Imposition of external narratives over experience risks fossilising interpretation and inhibits the beneficial effects of play for self-realisation, especially as a form of self-examination and creation through internal self-narrative. (shrink)

This article identifies an argument in Hobbes’s writings often overlooked but relevant to current philosophical debates. Political philosophers tend to categorize his thought as representing consent or rescue theories of political authority. Though these interpretations have textual support and are understandable, they leave out one of his most compelling arguments – what we call the lesser evil argument for political authority, expressed most explicitly in Chapter 20 of Leviathan. Hobbes frankly admits the state’s evils but appeals to the significant disparity (...) between those evils and the greater evils outside the state as a basis for political authority. More than a passing observation, aspects of the lesser evil argument appear in each of his three major political works. In addition to outlining this argument, the article examines its significance both for Hobbes scholarship and recent philosophical debates on political authority. (shrink)

I argue that understanding the self in terms of narrative construction does not preclude the possibility of error concerning one’s own self. Identity is a projection of first and second-order desires and a product of choice in relation to desire. Self-deceit appears in this connection as a response to an identity that one has constructed through choice and/or desire but not acknowledged in one’s self-account, reflecting a conflict between desires or a motivated failure to account. This analysis is applied primarily (...) to acknowledgement of one’s sexual identity. (shrink)

Ambiguity in the athlete’s perception and description of pain that opens the door to a series of reinterpretations of athletic experience and events that argue the development of an increasingly inauthentic relation to self and others on the part of those who consume performance as third parties (spectators) and ultimately those who produce it first hand (athletes). The insertion of the spectator into the sport situation as a consumer of the athlete’s activity and the preference given to spectator interpretation shift (...) control of meaning away from the athlete and encourage a demand for athlete suffering in aid of the spectator’s own need for meaning. Through discussions of the function of narrative in sport spectacle, the witnessing role of spectators, and the phenomenon of vicarious substitution, I discuss the representation of the athlete as a character ideal and moral exemplar. At a more developed level of external interpretation, the athlete (or team) becomes the champion of the spectator, the role model or focal point of civic pride whose victory asserts the ascendence of my team and town over yours; and finally, the athlete or team is the intentional object of fan identification: my team is me. I conclude that the existential commitment of the spectator as devoted fan is an inauthentic one. (shrink)

Russellian monism (RM) attributes experience to the intrinsic nature of physics’ abstract mathematical accounts of the world. It’s touted as a promising mind-body solution, for it avoids dualist and physicalist issues. Yet this status is imperiled by its deeply obscure ideas of mental combination, protophenomenal entities, emergent experience, grounded abstractions, et cetera. This “metaphysical magical mystery tour” may render RM as problematic as competing views. A clear, simple panpsychism akin to Strawson’s might avoid these issues. In this theory (NPP), experience (...) is the real, underlying nature of matter-energy, hidden beyond its sensory appearances. NPP may avoid panpsychist combination problems by showing how neurons can electrically bind their minimal experience to form percepts, thoughts, and subjects. This might explain combination in testable ways, while RM instead turns to questionable microsubjects and binding mechanisms. NPP’s virtues are its metaphysical simplicity, empirical support, testable foundations—and its avoidance of the issues in RM and other standard theories. It might point to a mind-body solution. (shrink)

Boyle argues that because matter naturally possesses size, shape and mobility, it can be organized into structures that have qualities that exceed what the particles themselves have. These structures can become an essence or ‘corpuscular form’ that accounts both for the properties of the body and its membership in a natural kind. Similarly, increasingly more complex structures can result in the production of organisms that are also members of natural kinds. In this way, Robert Boyle is arguing for a version (...) of natural kind realism that is based on the structure of the underlying matter and discovered empirically via the resulting properties. (shrink)

Despite the broad agreement that microaggressions cause harm, there is disagreement on how to capture microaggressor's accountability. Friedlaender (2018) argues that, in many cases, survivors of microaggressions are not justified in holding the microaggressor blameworthy or blaming them (Friedlaender 2018, 14). I argue, in contrast, that we are generally justified in holding most microaggressors blameworthy and blaming them. By adopting a broadly blame-inclusive account of microaggressor accountability, we are in a position to satisfy the desiderata an ideal account should meet: (...) (1) account for cumulative harm; (2) consistently allow for standing to forgive; and (3) be risk sensitive to the microaggressed. By possessing these virtues, I believe my view of microaggressor accountability better equips us to take seriously the harm caused by microaggressions and center the well-being of microaggressees. I respond to Friedlaender's concerns regarding epistemic ignorance and what they call the disaggregation problem. In contrast to Friedlaender's broadly blame-exclusive responsibility model, I motivate a broadly blame-inclusive model for holding microaggressors accountable, explaining how it fulfills the desiderata. I respond to the objection that my account is too blame-inclusive by providing examples of (1) justified microaggressions; (2) excused microaggressions; and (3) blameworthiless microaggressions where blame is justified all the same. (shrink)

Ongoing research in the fields of genetics and biotechnology hold the promise of improved diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases, and potentially the development of individually tailored pharmaceuticals and gene therapies. Difficulty, however, arises in determining how these services are to be evaluated and integrated equitably into public health care systems such as Canada's. The current context is one of increasing fiscal restraint on the part of governments, limited financial resources being dedicated to health care, and rising costs for new (...) health care services and technologies. This has led to increasing public debate in the last few years about how to reform public health care, and whether we should prohibit, permit or perhaps even encourage private purchase of health care services. ;In Canada, some of these concerns have crystallized around the issue of gene patents and commercial genetic testing, in particular as illustrated by the case of Myriad Genetics' patented BRACAnalysis test for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. While most Canadians who currently access genetic services do so through the public health care system, for those with the means, private purchase is becoming an option. This situation raises serious concerns---about justice in access to health care; about continued access to safe and reliable genetic testing supported by unbiased patient information; and about the broader effects of commercialization for ongoing research and the Canadian public health care system. Commercial genetic testing presents a challenge to health care professionals, policy analysts, and academics concerned with the social, ethical and policy implications of new genetic technologies. Using the Myriad case as an exemplar, tools from moral philosophy, the social sciences, and health policy and law will be brought to bear on the larger issues of how as a society we should regulate commercial research and product development, and more coherently decide which services to cover under public health insurance and which to leave to private purchase. Generally, the thesis is concerned with the question of "how best to bring capital, morality, and knowledge into a productive and ethical relationship". (shrink)

Leslie Allan defends his thesis that ethics is objective in the sense of requiring moral agents to offer impartial reasons for acting. Radical subjectivists have attacked this requirement for impartiality on a number of grounds. Some critics make the charge that Allan's thesis is simply a version of subjectivism in disguise. He responds by showing how a broadly naturalist view of ethics accommodates objective moral constraints. Allan also counters cases in which impartiality is purportedly not morally required and considers (...) the subjectivists' response to the problem of demarcating moral from non-moral judgements. (shrink)

Meta-ethics is the area of philosophy in which thinkers explore the language and nature of moral discourse and its relations to other non-moral areas of life. In this introduction to the discipline written explicitly for novices, Leslie Allan outlines the key questions and areas of analysis in contemporary meta-ethics. In clear, tabular format, he summarizes the core concepts integral to each of the major meta-ethical positions and the strengths of each view. To prompt further thinking and reading, Allan explains (...) briefly the major objections to each theory and lists each view's best known advocates. (shrink)

Much of the literature on forgiveness is dedicated to understanding the reasons to forgive and what changes in attitude are required to do so. But philosophers have been much less attentive to what happens after agents forgive. This is a serious oversight, since the reasons to forgive do not always retain their force and it is not always possible, or advisable, to maintain the changes in attitudes that forgiveness requires. Fortunately, Monique Wonderly has begun to fill this lacuna in the (...) literature with her recent work on un-forgiveness. According to the author, un-forgiveness involves altering our attitudes, by either reinhabiting an adversarial stance towards an agent for their wrongdoing and/or returning one’s relationship with them to the state it was in prior to forgiveness taking place. While Wonderly’s account of un-forgiveness is both novel and illuminating, it is incomplete. In this paper, we argue that one can also un-forgive by forgetting that the wrong in question occurred and/or that the previously forgiven agent was the perpetrator of the wrong. We contend that not only is it possible to un-forgive by forgetting, but doing so can be both justified and morally important. We defend our view by considering the objection that un-forgiveness by forgetting can negatively impact victims’ relationships with wrongdoers as well as addressing the concern that agents cannot exercise their agency over their memories in order to un-forgive by forgetting. (shrink)

In his seminal essay, 'Two Concepts of Rules', John Rawls draws a central distinction between justifying a practice and justifying a particular action falling under it. In this review, Leslie Allan walks through Rawls's essay, highlighting his key arguments for a strengthened version of rule utilitarianism and reflecting on the lasting influence of his analysis.

God seemingly had a duty to create minds each of infinite worth through possessing God-like knowledge. People might object that God’s own infinite worth was all that was needed, or that no mind that God created could have truly infinite worth; however, such objections fail. Yet this does not generate an unsolvable Problem of Evil. We could exist inside an infinite mind that was one among endlessly many, perhaps all created by Platonic Necessity. “God” might be our name for this (...) Necessity, or for the infinite mind inside which we existed, or for an infinite ocean of infinite minds. (shrink)

The author mounts a case against the libertarian and hard determinist's thesis that free will is impossible in a deterministic world. He charges incompatibilists with misconstruing ordinary 'free will' talk by overlaying common language with their own metaphysical presuppositions. Through a review of ordinary discourse and recent developments in jurisprudence and the sciences, he draws together the four key factors required for an act to be free. He then puts his 4C theory to work in giving a credible account of (...) how caused human agents 'could have done otherwise'. (shrink)

The rapidly declining biosphere integrity, representing one of the core planetary boundaries, is alarming. One of the most widely accepted measures to halt the rate of biodiversity loss is to maintain and expand protected areas that are effectively managed. However, it requires substantial finance derived from nature-based tourism, specifically visitors from urban areas. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) on 535 Vietnamese urban residents, the current study examined how their biodiversity loss perceptions can affect their willingness to pay for the (...) entrance fee and conservation in protected areas. We found that perceived environmental degradation, loss of economic growth, loss of nature-based recreation opportunity, and loss of knowledge as consequences of biodiversity loss has indirect effects on paying willingness through the mediation of the attitude towards conservation. Especially, the perceived knowledge loss also has a direct positive influence on the willingness to pay for the entrance fee and conservation. In contrast, perceived loss of health is negatively associated with the attitude towards conservation. Based on these findings, we suggest that building an eco-surplus culture among urban residents can be a promising way to generate more finance from nature-based tourism for conservation in protected areas and ease the domestic government's and international organizations' funding allocations problems. (shrink)

Computationalism treats minds as computations. It hasn't explained how our quite similar sensory circuits encode our quite different qualia, nor how these circuits encode the binding of the different qualia into unifi ed perceptions. But there is growing evidence that qualia and binding come from neural electrochemical substances such as sensory detectors and the strong continuous electromagnetic field they create. Qualia may thus be neural substances, not neural computations (though computations may still help modulate qualia). This neuroelectrical view not only (...) avoids computationalism's empirical issues but also its problematic metaphysics. (shrink)

Neuroelectrical panpsychism (NP) offers a clear, simple, testable mind–body solution. It says that everything is at least minimally conscious, and electrical activity across separate neurons creates a unified, intelligent mind. NP draws on recent experimental evidence to address the easy problem of specifying the mind's neural correlates. These correlates are neuroelectrical activities that, for example, generate our different qualia, unite them to form perceptions and emotions, and help guide brain operations. NP also addresses the hard problem of why minds accompany (...) these neural correlates. Here, the real nature of matter-energy (beyond how it appears to sense organs) is consciousness that occupies space, exerts forces, and unites neuroelectrically to form minds. This doesn't reduce consciousness to observable neural activities, nor posit any radically different entities. NP also deals with panpsychism's combination problem by explaining how the mind's subject and experiences arise by electrically combining simple experiences in brains. (shrink)

The author challenges both the eliminative idealist's contention that physical objects do not exist and the phenomenalist idealist's view that statements about physical objects are translatable into statements about private mental experiences. Firstly, he details how phenomenalist translations are parasitic on the realist assumption that physical objects exist independently of experience. Secondly, the author confronts eliminative idealism head on by exposing its heuristic sterility in contrast with realism's predictive success.

In his seminal essay, Harry Frankfurt argued that our exercise of free will and allocation of moral responsibility do not depend on us being able to do other than we did. Leslie Allan defends this moral maxim from Frankfurt's attack. Applying his character-based counterfactual conditional analysis of free acts to Frankfurt's counterexamples, Allan unpacks the confusions that lie at the heart of Frankfurt's argument. The author also explores how his 4C compatibilist theory measures up against Frankfurt’s conclusions.

The concept of acting intentionally is an important nexus where ‘theory of mind’ and moral judgment meet. Preschool children’s judgments of intentional action show a valence-driven asymmetry. Children say that a foreseen but disavowed side-effect is brought about 'on purpose' when the side-effect itself is morally bad but not when it is morally good. This is the first demonstration in preschoolers that moral judgment influences judgments of ‘on-purpose’ (as opposed to purpose influencing moral judgment). Judgments of intentional action are usually (...) assumed to be purely factual. That these judgments are sometimes partly normative — even in preschoolers — challenges current understanding. Young children’s judgments regarding foreseen side-effects depend upon whether the children process the idea that the character does not care about the side-effect. As soon as preschoolers effectively process the ‘theory of mind’ concept, NOT CARE THAT P, children show the side-effect effect.idea.. (shrink)

Spanish translation, introductory study and notes on Charles Leslie Stevenson’s “Persuasive Definitions”. Published in Stevenson, Charles L. “Definiciones persuasivas”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. VIII, n. 1 (2021), pp. 105–125. -/- [Introductory study published in Oya, Alberto. “Presentación. Las definiciones persuasivas según Charles L. Stevenson”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. VIII, n. 1 (2021), pp. 101–104].

E-money systems have revolutionized global business transactions through digital payment methods. This quantitative correlational study aimed to assess the awareness and acceptance of e-money among individuals in Balayan, Batangas. Employing quota and purposive sampling, 100 participants aged 21 to 70 completed a survey questionnaire. Statistical analysis revealed that consumers were aware of e-money but lacked comprehensive knowledge. They acknowledged the convenience of e-money for online shopping and expense tracking. Age significantly influenced acceptance, while gender did not exhibit a similar effect. (...) Significant differences were observed in awareness and acceptance levels. Recommendations for improving acceptance include administrator-led campaigns, business incentives, consumer education, financial institution partnerships, and integration into student curricula. The study underscores the need for targeted strategies to translate e-money knowledge into practical use. Future research should explore adoption trends over time, barriers, and the impact of regulations on e-money utilization. (shrink)

Police killings of individuals with mental illness have prompted calls for greater funding of mental health services to shift responsibilities away from the police. Such investments can reduce police interactions with vulnerable populations but are unlikely to eliminate them entirely, particularly in cases where individuals with mental illness have a weapon or are otherwise dangerous. It remains a pressing question, then, how police should respond to these and other vulnerable aggressors with diminished culpability (VADCs). This article considers and ultimately rejects (...) three potential approaches from the ethics of defensive force literature. It looks to improve on them by developing what I call the fusion account, which explains how vulnerability and diminished culpability fit together to provide moral grounds for extra protections from deadly force. The article’s final sections explore the policy implications of the fusion account for police administrators, officers, and the law. (shrink)

One prominent argument in international law and religious thought for abolishing capital punishment is that it violates individuals’ right to life. Notably, this _right-to-life argument_ emerged from normative and legal frameworks that recognize deadly force against aggressors as justified when necessary to stop their unjust threat of grave harm. Can capital punishment be necessary in this sense—and thus justified defensive killing? If so, the right-to-life argument would have to admit certain exceptions where executions are justified. Drawing on work by Hugo (...) Bedau, I identify a thought experiment where executions are justified defensive killing but explain why they cannot be in our world. A state’s obligations to its prisoners include the _obligation to use nonlethal incapacitation_ (ONI), which applies as long as prisoners pose no imminent threat. ONI precludes executions for reasons of future dangerousness. By subjecting the right-to-life argument to closer scrutiny, this article ultimately places it on firmer ground. (shrink)

Unger has recently argued that if you are the only thinking and experiencing subject in your chair, then you are not a material object. This leads Unger to endorse a version of Substance Dualism according to which we are immaterial souls. This paper argues that this is an overreaction. We argue that the specifically Dualist elements of Unger’s view play no role in his response to the problem; only the view’s structure is required, and that is available to Unger’s opponents. (...) We outline one such non-Dualist view, suggest how to resolve the dispute, respond to some objections, and argue that ours is but one of many views that survive Unger’s challenge. All these views are incompatible with microphysicalism. So Unger’s discussion does contain an insight: if you are the only conscious subject in your chair, then microphsyicalism is false. Unger’s mistake was to infer Substance Dualism from this; for microphysicalism is not the only alternative to Dualism. (shrink)

Richard Rorty’s liberal utopia offers an interesting model for those who wish to explore the emancipatory potential of a post-foundational account of politics, specifically liberalism. What Rorty proposes is a form of liberalism that is divorced from its Kantian metaphysical foundations. This paper will focus on the gulf that appears between Rorty’s liberal utopia in theory, the political form that it must ultimately manifest itself in, and the consequences this has for debates on pluralism, diversity, and identity, within liberal political (...) thought. -/- The strength of Rorty’s liberal utopia, in his analysis, lies in the fact that with the rejection of philosophy and metaphysics, we can simply get on with the job of reducing cruelty through experimental tinkering with the liberal political system. Instead of trying to develop intellectually sophisticated justifications for why we act, we should just act. Political action, for Rorty, does not require a philosophical or metaphysical justification. However, upon closer critical examination, we can see that whatever potential Rorty’s liberal utopia may have in theory, this is negated by the fact that at the level of political praxis, his re-description of liberalism leaves us with a conception of liberalism that is essentially unchanged. Whilst Rorty has re-situated liberalism from the philosophical to the political, his solution fails to address any internal problems. (shrink)