This paper explores some consequences of Lewis’s (Australas J Philos 74(4):549–567, 1996) understanding of how knowledge is compartmentalized. It argues, first, that he underestimates how badly it impacts his view. When knowledge is compartmentalized, it lacks at least one of two essential features of Lewis’s account: (a) Elusiveness—familiar skeptical possibilities, when relevant, are incompatible with everyday knowledge. (b) Knowledge is a modality—when a thinker knows that p, there is no relevant possibility where p is false. Lewis proposes compartmentalized knowledge to (...) keep treating knowledge as a modality while mitigating one of its unrealistic epistemological implications: In normal modal epistemic logic (and standard possible world semantics), a thinker always counts as knowing the strongest proposition that follows from the set of all the individual propositions that this thinker knows. Lewis’s compartmentalization proposal is that thinkers merely know the conjunctions of propositions that are known in each of, but not across, their compartments. The irony is that in avoiding overblown knowledge the view now allows for thinkers to attend to skeptical error possibilities and yet knowledge is present. The account avoids inflation of knowledge in one sense only to acquire another type of knowledge the view denies subjects can have. This problem motivates an inspection of knowledge accounts whose intra-compartment closure principles are weaker than those that are valid in normal modal-logic. The conclusion is that some formulations of closure can avoid the challenge Lewis’s view faces. Nevertheless, even these closure principles pose a barrier—perhaps an implausible barrier—for knowledge of ignorance. Even when the reasoning supporting the lack of knowledge is sound, a subject cannot always know she doesn’t know. Interestingly, this obstacle is one that knowledge of knowledge doesn’t seem to face. (shrink)

Suppose you are at the gym trying to see some naked beauties by peeping through a hole in the wall. A policeman happens by, he asks you what you are doing, and you honestly tell him. He then arrests you for voyeurism. Are you guilty? We don’t know yet because there is one more fact to be considered: while you honestly thought that a locker room was on the other side of the wall, it was actually a squash court. Are (...) you guilty now? -/- Probably. You might argue that your scopophiliac ambition was impossible to satisfy given that you were peeping into a squash court, not a locker room. But this “Impossibility Defense” would fail because most jurisdictions follow the very influential Model Penal Code (MPC), which says that what is important about attempt is not the likelihood of success but rather what was going on in your head. You tried to peer into a locker room with the intention of seeing some nudity; that is enough for culpability. The fact that you were mistaken about the location does not exonerate you. -/- But now suppose that the particular jurisdiction you are in does not criminalize voyeurism. While most people think that voyeurism is just plain wrong, if not disgusting, the legislature just never got around to drafting a statute against it. Are you guilty now? The answer is no. But you might just be out of luck and convicted anyway. -/- The reason for this strange conclusion is that most jurisdictions have followed the Model Penal Code in yet another respect: along with the MPC’s “subjectivist” emphasis on what is in your head, they have followed the MPC’s lead in abolishing the Impossibility Defense entirely. As a result, people who believe that they are breaking laws when they really are not may still be subject to arrest, prosecution, and conviction respectively by police, prosecutors, and judges/juries merely if all three parties regard your conduct — especially your trying to violate a law that you mistakenly believed in — as morally reprehensible. The best, if not only, defense against this charge is the Impossibility Defense, but — again — most jurisdictions have decided to make this defense unavailable to defendants. -/- Depriving eligible defendants of the Impossibility Defense is unjust. It violates one of the most basic principles of criminal justice: the legality principle. The legality principle says that there cannot be just punishment without a crime, and there should not be a crime without an explicit law designating it as such. So you cannot be charged with, and convicted of, attempted voyeurism if voyeurism, reprehensible as it may be, was not explicitly prohibited at the time that you made the attempt. -/- If we believe in the legality principle, then we must restore the Impossibility Defense. Without the latter, too many defendants are being — and will continue to be — punished for attempts to perform acts that were not themselves illegal but which various parties in the criminal justice system (except the legislature) thought should be illegal based on their extralegal, moral prejudices. -/- In addition to the MPC, the principal obstacle to resurrecting the Impossibility Defense is a good deal of conceptual confusion that permeates relevant cases and scholarship. Too many courts and academics have conflated “factual impossibility” with “legal impossibility” and have fallaciously inferred “hybrid impossibility” from “hybrid mistakes” (that is, legal mistakes that derive from factual mistakes). One of the principal goals of this Article, then, is to clear up all of this confusion. I will explicate in the simplest possible terms (a) the difference between factual impossibility and legal impossibility, (b) why only legal impossibility qualifies as exculpatory, and (c) why hybrid impossibility simply does not exist. (shrink)

A surprisingly large number of scholars believe that (a) we are blameworthy, and therefore punishable, only for what we have control over; (b) we have control only over our actions and intentions, not the consequences of our actions; and therefore (c) if two agents perform the very same action (e.g., attempting to kill) with the very same intentions, then they are equally blameworthy and deserving of equal punishment – even if only one of them succeeds in killing. This paper argues (...) against these “equivalence theorists” that harmful consequences do make a moral difference, that the harm produced by the killer’s attempt retroactively makes her action more blameworthy, and therefore deserving of more punishment, than the failed attempter’s attempt. The primary argument for this “non-equivalence theory” is an analogy with gambling. Just as a gambler makes a deal with the casino to allow metaphysical luck to retroactively determine the “profit status” of her bet, so too the attempted killer makes a deal with “the casino of morality” to allow metaphysical luck to retroactively determine the moral status of her attempt. She makes the “moral deal” that if her attempt succeeds, her attempt was more blameworthy than if her attempt does not succeed. And it is the greater blameworthiness of the killer’s attempt that justifies our intuition that the killer should be punished more harshly than the failed attempter. (shrink)

Pierre Levy è un professore di filosofia dell’Università di Parigi VIII a Saint-Denis che si è formato alla Sorbona seguendo i corsi dei maestri, M. Serres e C. Castoriadis. I suoi interessi di studio sono rivolti alle trasformazioni dello sviluppo tecnologico nell’ambito delle forme della conoscenza e della comunicazione e alle conseguenze economiche e politiche del nuovo cyberspazio sull’evoluzione antropologica e sociale. Pierre Levy esamina, quindi, i processi basilari del processo di globalizzazione su cui si concentrano le scienze sociali; ma (...) a suo modo, da intellettuale francese che «non aspira all’esattezza storica o scientifica, ma alla fecondità filosofica e pratica». L’intelligenza collettiva. Per un'antropologia del cyberspazio (1994) si presenta come un'opera suggestiva che contiene riflessioni lucide in un linguaggio personalizzato, con concessioni liriche imbarazzati e con una narrazione ridondante. Tuttavia, in questa opera così eterodossa, è possibile ritrovare un nucleo di analisi sociologica che affonda alcune delle sue premesse nella teoria dell’evoluzione dei sistemi sociali. Nella prima parte ,presento la teoria degli spazi antropologici , da una prospettiva diacronica: gli spazi antropologici – Terra, Territorio, Merci, Sapere – corrispondono a sviluppi evolutivi della specie umana - società primitive,antiche, moderne e contemporanee - in un processo discontinuo di significazione della riproduzione simbolica e materiale. Nell’analisi dello Spazio del sapere, si evidenzia come il consolidarsi del nuovo cyberspazio potrebbe ridefinire l’organizzazione e lo sviluppo degli spazi precedenti e si sottolineano le finalità pratiche della complessa prospettiva di Pierre Lévy (A): «una filosofia politica degna di questo nome non può accontentarsi di analizzare e sezionare una situazione senza assumersi il rischio di indicare una via di uscita adeguata». L’ambito dell’analisi diventa, infine, quello delle relazioni armoniche e cacofoniche tra i differenti spazi antropologici con la riuscita metafora dei quattro punti cardinali (B). (shrink)

Bryant’s paper, "A Logic of Multiplicities: Deleuze, Immanence, and Onticology," is useful for showing how the historical legacy of hierarchy in its many philosophical forms is still present, important, and, in fact, required even by those such as Bryant who would seek to deconstruct or ignore it. The following response will discuss Bryant’s presentation of his alternative position and throughout point out: a) the straw-man versions of hierarchy that Bryant employs; b) why what Bryant claims to be inherent negatively in (...) hierarchy is not the case; c) how Bryant’s position actually relies upon hierarchy for its own explication, and finally; d) the various principles of hierarchical metaphysics that are required in order to make sense of experience and reality. These latter include the notions that i) there are many kinds of hierarchy; ii) Being and Unity are prior to Multiplicity; iii) relation without substance is incoherent; iv) hierarchy is not inherently tyrannical; v) the distinction between essentially and accidentally ordered causal series is a real and useful one; and vi) the existence of hierarchy is more self evident than is flat ontology. (shrink)

Comentario 3° en el marco de la tesis “Un Estudio en Metodología Intertextual y Exegética en Salmo 91” cuanto a mi trato, en aquel entonces, de las fuentes primarias (del testimonio documental) utilizadas asociadas a la referencia salmo 91:12 en favor de la fraseología מוט + רגל. Presentación del fragmento 5 del plato 1032 (b-366315) como siendo la confirmación de la existencia de testimonio documental para la variante conjetural propuesta por mí en la tesis (en el capítulo 4) referente a (...) la tradición observada en salmo 91:12. . . Autor: Anderson Rodrigues de Paula (RG brasileiro MG-15.713.736 y DNI argentino: 95.036.821). Fecha y lugar de la primera aparición del presente comentario: 3/1/2023, en el perfil de Academiaedu del propio autor del comentario (rosario . academia. edu/AndersonRodriguesdePaula). Aunque desde el 31/12/2022, a causa de lo que expongo a continuación, instituciones y revisores han tenido contacto privado con los hallazgos que exhibo en el presente comentario. . . Observación: lo que posibilitó el presente análisis fue la generosidad de Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) en permitirme tener acceso a imágenes de determinados manuscritos en condiciones no disponibles en The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library. En este preciso momento mientras escribo el presente comentario me encuentro ya en el proceso de trámite para obtener el permiso de uso de imágenes y así poder insertarlas en un artículo el cual ya está listo el cual pretendo publicar en el cual expongo con más detalles y gráficamente (mediante las imágenes de los manuscritos) todo el análisis que describo a continuación. (shrink)

The polis, as a gathering of various citizens, may be threatened by discord and finally may collapse because of the stasis, the internal conflict between different groups of people with diverging interests. This scheme is tackled by Plato in Gorgias, and more thoroughly in the Republic. Both dialogues were a source of inspiration for the pseudo-Pythagorean writings which flourished between the second half of the 4th century B.C. and the Hellenistic period. Among them, the treaties attributed to Kleinias, Metopus, Theages, (...) Lysis and Hippodamus frequently use the concept of stasis and pleonexia to describe how a city may be governed and what kind of danger may appear if the citizens’ behavior is not controlled. In general, these treaties adapt the vision of Plato concerning conflict to some Pythagorean images and teachings. By mingling both influences, they blur the frontier between Platonism and Pythagoreanism and create a genre of intertwined literature which may be qualified as bricolage, according to Lévi-Strauss’s concept. These philosophical texts use a range of material mostly traced back to the Hellenistic period, but also some fragments related to the conception of conflicts and violence in early Pythagoreanism. (shrink)

Antes de entrar cuidadosamente no estudo de cada filósofo, em suas respectivas ordens cronológicas, é necessário dar um panorama geral sobre eles, permitindo, de relance, a localização deles em tempos históricos e a associação de seus nomes com sua teoria ou tema central. l. OS FILÓSOFOS PRÉ-SOCRÁTICOS - No sétimo século antes de Jesus Cristo, nasce o primeiro filósofo grego: Tales de Mileto2 . Ele e os seguintes filósofos jônicos (Anaximandro: Ἀναξίμανδρος: 3 610-546 a.C.) e Anaxímenes: (Άναξιμένης: 586-524 a.C.) tentaram (...) expressar/elucidar o que é a arché, ou constitutivo fundamental do Universo. 4 Também sobressaem as teorias de Pitágoras (Ὁ Πυθαγόρας: 570 a.C.- 495 a.C.), completas de misticismo e Matemática; a de Heráclito (Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος: 540-470 a.C.), o filósofo do devir e o de seu oponente, Parmênides (Παρμενίδης: 530-460 a.C.), que elucida a primeira teoria do ser, e para qual é alcunhado como o iniciador da Metafísica. Anaxágoras (Ἀναξαγόρας: 500 a.C.- 428 a.C.) esboça uma teoria sobre o Nous, o espírito divino. Por outro lado, Demócrito (Δημόκριτος: Grécia: 460-370 a.C.) e Empédocles (Ἐμπεδοκλῆς: 490 a.C.-430 a.C.) insistem no materialismo. Em contrapartida, os sofistas (Parmênides, Cálicles (Καλλικλῆς: personagem platônico cuja existência é duvidosa) e Górgias (Γοργίας: 485 a.C.-380 a.C.)) gozam das suas aptidões à dialética, e colocam o relativismo como uma posição filosófica. Sócrates será o inimigo mais temível dessa posição. Este é o começo do movimento filosófico de Atenas, que culmina nos séculos quinto e quarto, tal qual, posteriormente, veremos. 2. O APOGEU GREGO – Sócrates (Σωκράτης: 469 a.C.-399 a.C.), Platão (Πλάτων: 428/427- 348/347 a.C.) e Aristóteles (Ἀριστοτέλης: 384 a.C.-322 a.C.) formam o triunvirato dos grandes filósofos gregos. O primeiro (Sócrates), com seu método "maiêutico" e sua teoria do conceito; o segundo (Platão), com sua teoria das ideias e seu estilo literário (dialogista); e o terceiro (Aristóteles), com a estruturação dos principais ramos filosóficos, como a Lógica, a Metafísica, a Ética, a Psicologia racional e a Política; todos eles elevaram a Filosofia para um posto de primeira ordem. Doravante, todos os filósofos tornam-se credores das contribuições desses gênios. Em certos autores, é clara a influência de Platão ou de Aristóteles. Sendo que, ambos os filósofos, tiveram influência absoluta de Sócrates, uma vez que Platão fora seu discípulo, e Aristóteles discípulo de Platão. A Idade Média, por exemplo, foi toda ela, em sua gênese e desenvolvimento, alicerçada no pensamento e nas ideias platônicas; tal era histórica é caracterizada pela luta em favor de um ou de outro autor; o platonismo tomou precedência nos primeiros séculos do cristianismo; somente após o décimo século Aristóteles foi redescoberto. 3. A FILOSOFIA CRISTÃ MEDIEVAL - Santo Agostinho (354 a.C.-430 a.C.) se destaca, no quinto século, com sua teoria da iluminação e a aplicação da teoria platônica ao Cristianismo. No século XIII, São Tomás de Aquino (1225-1274), sintetiza Aristóteles com o Cristianismo. Os dois autores formam o núcleo da filosofia cristã em seus respectivos séculos. A escolástica teve seu tempo de decadência. Se mencionam, principalmente, dois autores: João Duns Escoto (1266-1308) e Guilherme de Ockham (1285-1347). O primeiro é o "Doutor Sutil ", e o segundo cai em um fideísmo e um nominalismo, para todos os conceitos criticáveis. Em uma segunda parte, tentaremos explicar os respectivos pensamentos dos autores mencionados, e outros que pertencem ao mesmo tempo, antigos e medievais. Naquela época, a Filosofia era puramente realista, aplicada ao mundo e ao homem. Somente na Idade Moderna, a Filosofia assumirá o problema do conhecimento como a base e o começo de todo filosofar. 4. A FILOSOFIA RACIONALISTA (MODERNA) - Na Idade Moderna, sobressai o racionalismo de Descartes (1596-1650) prolongado, então, com Malebranche (1638-1715) (ocasionalismo), Espinosa (1632 -1677) (panteísmo) e Leibniz (1646-1716) (teoria das mônadas). Estamos nos séculos XVII e XVIII. A atenção será focada nas disputas filosóficas da corrente empirista contra a racionalista. 5. A FILOSOFIA EMPIRISTA – O empirismo é florescido, principalmente, na Inglaterra. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), primeiro, e depois Locke (1632-1704) com sua rejeição de ideias inatas, Berkeley (1685-1753) com postura e ideias paradoxais, também idealistas e Hume (1711-1776), com suas famosas críticas contra o princípio da causalidade e o conceito de substância, são os principais autores. 6. KANT E OS IDEALISTAS ALEMÃES - Como a tentativa de sintetizar o racionalismo e empirismo, está a teoria de Kant (1724-1804), no século XVIII. Para o seu gênio seguido pelos três idealistas alemães mais importantes: Fichte (1762-1814) (idealismo subjetivo), Schelling (1775-1854) (idealismo objetivo) e Hegel (1770-1831) (idealismo absoluto). Esses Autores representam o ápice da especulação filosófica. A análise, a profundidade, a complexidade da expressão e o espírito sistemático são as características do gênio alemão idealista. 7. OS FILÓSOFOS DO SÉCULO XIX - Antes de tudo, é necessário mencionar, no século dezenove, aos dois grandes críticos de Hegel, que são Kierkegaard (1813-1855) (precursor do existencialismo) e Marx (1818-1883) (com seu materialismo dialético). O próximo é outro casal: Nietzsche (1844-1900) (teoria do Super-homem) e Schopenhauer (1788-1860) (com seu absoluto pessimismo). Comte (1798-1857) com sua doutrina positivista, completará o quadro desses filósofos. Numa outra oportunidade, vamos desmembrar sobre o pensamento e principais ideias acerca desses autores. 8. OS FILÓSOFOS DO SÉCULO XX - Antes de tudo, há um autor que iluminou a filosofia do século XX: Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), fundador do método fenomenológico. Em seguida, existem dois fluxos que são derivados diretamente de Husserl, a saber, o existencialismo e a axiologia. Dentro da corrente axiológica, estudaremos Scheler (1874-2928). Por outro lado, o existencialismo tem quatro autores principais; dois são alemães: Heidegger (1889-1976) e Jaspers (1883-1969); e os demais são franceses: Sartre (1905-1980) e Marcel (1889-1973). Heidegger insiste em que seu tema tratado em sua filosofia não é a unicidade do homem, mas o ser em geral. Jaspers é famoso por seu conceito de transcendência (Deus). Sartre é um antiteísta sincero, e seu existencialismo é definido como um pensamento que assume todas as consequências da negação de Deus. Em contraste, Gabriel Marcel é um filósofo Católico, que conseguiu uma análise profunda das situações humanas, que aparecem em íntima concordância com as verdades cristãs. Vamos terminar com Russell (1872-1970), autor básico do positivismo lógico. Cronologia de filósofos e suas escolas até nossos dias ➢ Filosofia Antiga - Escola naturalista da Jônia: Tales, Anaximandro e Anaxímenes; - Escola matemática da Itália: Pitágoras e os pitagóricos; - Escola idealista de Eléia: Xenófanes (570-475 a.C.), Parmênides, Zenão (490/85-420 a.C.) e Meliso (h.443); - Escola empirista: Heráclito, Empédocles e Anaxágoras; - Escola atomista de Abdera: Leucipo (h.437) e Demócrito; - Escolas de Atenas: - Sofistas: Protágoras (480-410), Górgias (484-375?); Sócrates, Platão e Aristóteles; - Pirronismo: Pirro (h.365-h.275); - Estoicismo: Zenão de Cítio (359/33-262) e Crisipo (281/77-208); - Epicurismo: Epicuro (341-270); - Nova Academia: Arcesilau (315-241) e Carnéades (214-129); Romanos: Sêneca (4 a.C.-65 d.C.), Marco Aurélio (121-180) e Cícero (106-43). - Escola greco-judia: Fílon de Alexandria (25 a.C.-50 d.C.); - Neoplatonismo: Plotino (204/5-270), Porfirio (h.233-304), Jâmblico (h.250-330) e Proclo (h.411-485). ➢ Filosofia patrística - Apologistas: São Justino (100/10-165), Ireneu de Lyon (h.140-h.l 77) e Atenágoras (fines s. II); - Alexandrinos: São Clemente (h.145/50-215) e Orígenes (h.185-255); - Africanos: Tertuliano (h.160-230), Arnóbio (h.260-h.327) e Lactâncio (nascido h. 250); - Gregos: São Basílio (h.330-379), São Gregório de Nazianzo (330-390), São Gregório de Níssa (330-390) e Pseudo-Dionísio (h.500); - Latinos: São Hilário (h.315-367), Santo Ambrósio (333-397) e Santo Agostinho; - Outros: Claudiano (+h.473), Boécio (480-524), São Isidoro (h.560-633) e Beda (672/3-735). ➢ Filosofia Medieval/Escolástica - Judeus: Isaac Israeli (+h.940), Salomão Ibn Gabirol (h.l020-p.l058) e Maimônides (1135- 1204); - Árabes: Alquindi (h. 796-874), Al-Farabi (870-950), Avicena (980-1037), Algazali (1058- 1111) e Averróis (1126-1198); - Escola palatina: Alcuíno de Iorque (730/5-804), Rábano Mauro (h.784-856), Escoto Erígena (h.810-h.870) e Papa Silvestre II (+1003); - Dialéticos: Santo Anselmo (1033/4-1109) e Pedro Abelardo (1079-1142); - Tradutores: Domingo Gundisalvo (meados s. XII), Gerardo de Cremona (h. 1114-1187); - Enciclopedistas: Teodorico de Chartres (+1155), Hugo de São Vitor (+1141) e Vicente de Beauvais (+1264); - Universidades: Guilherme de Auvergne (1180- 1249) e Sigerio de Brabante (+h.l284); - Dominicanos: São Alberto Magno (1206-1280) e Santo Tomás de Aquino; - Franciscanos: Alexandre de Hales (1170/80-1245), São Boaventura (1217-1274), Roger Bacon (h.1210/14-1292), João Duns Escoto, Raimundo Lulio (1235-1315) e Guilherme de Ockham (h.1285-1349). ➢ Filosofia Moderna - Humanistas Renascentistas: Ficino (1433-1499), Erasmo (1467-1536), Maquiavel (1469- 1527), Thomas More (1480-1535), Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) e Giordano Bruno (1548- 1600); - Racionalismo: Descartes, Malebranche, Espinosa e Leibniz; - Empiristas: Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Locke, Berkeley e Hume; - Escola escocesa: Thomas Reid (1710-1796); Iluministas: Voltaire (1694-1778), Condillac (1715-1757), Diderot (1713-1784) e J. J. Rousseau (1712-1778). - Idealismo transcendental: Kant; - Idealismo subjetivo: Fichte; - Idealismo objetivo: Schelling; - Idealismo absoluto: Hegel; - Pessimismo: Schopenhauer; - Ecletismo: Cousin (1792-1867); - Positivismo: A. Comte, J. S. Mill (1806-1873) e H. Spencer (1820-1900); - Socialismo: H. Saint-Simon (1760-1825), Ch. Fourier (1772-1837) e K. Marx; - Vitalismo: Nietzsche e W. Dilthey (1833-1912). ➢ Filosofia Contemporânea - Intucionismo: H. Bergson (1859-1941); - Pragmatismo: Ch. S. Peirce (1839-1914), W. James (1842-1910) e J. Dewey (1859-1952); - Fenomenologia: Husserl, Scheler, N. Hartmann (1882-1950) e M. Merleau-Ponty (1908- 1961); - Existencialismo: Jaspers, Heidegger, Marcel e Sartre; - Atomismo lógico: B. Russell (1872-1970) e L. Wittgenstein (1889-1951); - Positivismo lógico: M. Schlick (1882-1936), R. Carnap (1891-1970 ) e A. J. Ayer (1910- 1990). - Filosofia analítica: J. L. Austin (1911-1960), G. Ryle (1900-1976), W.V.O. Quine (1908- 2000), P. F. Strawson (1919-2003) e H. Putnam (1926-); - Hermenêutica: H. G. Gadamer (1900-2002), P. Ricoeur (1913-2007) e J. Habermas (1929-). - Estruturalismo e pós-estruturalismo: F. de Saussure (1857-1913), C. Lévi-Strauss (1908- 2009) e M. Foucault (1926-1984). - Filosofia pós-moderna: J. F. Lyotard (1924-1999), G. Deleuze (1925-1995), J. Derrida (1930- 2004), R. Rorty (1931-2007) e G. Vattimo (1936-). - Comunitaristas: A. Maclntyre (1929-), Ch. Taylor (1931-). REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS CHAUÍ, M. Iniciação à Filosofia. Vol. Único. 2ª ed. São Paulo: Ática, 2013. 460 p. SANTOS, R. dos. Filosofia: Uma breve introdução. 1ª ed. Pelotas: Dissertativo Incipiens, 2014. 108 p. . Rua do Riachuelo, 303, Centro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ Casa Histórica de Osório CEP: 20230-011 E-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

The following is a transcript of the interview I (Yasuko Kitano) conducted with Neil Levy (The Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, CAPPE) on the 23rd in July 2009, while he was in Tokyo to give a series of lectures on neuroethics at The University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy. I edited his words for publication with his approval.

I argue for three conclusions. First, responsibility skeptics are committed to the position that the criminal justice system should adopt a universal nonresponsibility excuse. Second, a universal nonresponsibility excuse would diminish some of our most deeply held values, further dehumanize criminals, exacerbate mass incarceration, and cause an even greater number of innocent people (nonwrongdoers) to be punished. Third, while Saul Smilansky's ‘illusionist’ response to responsibility skeptics – that even if responsibility skepticism is correct, society should maintain a responsibility‐realist/retributivist criminal justice (...) system – is generally compelling, it would not work if a majority of society were to convert, theoretically and psychologically, to responsibility skepticism. In this (highly improbable) scenario, and only in this (highly improbable) scenario, the criminal justice system would need to be reformed in such a way that it aligned with the majority's responsibility‐skeptical beliefs and attitudes. (shrink)

At a House hearing on December 5, 2023, the presidents of three universities—Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania—refused to state that certain kinds of hate speech, specifically calls for genocide of Jews, are prohibited on their campuses. The backlash against two of them, Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Penn’s Liz Magill, was swift and devastating; both of them were successfully pressured to resign. Still, while Professors Gay’s and Magill’s responses were widely criticized as tone-deaf, they were legally correct. At many (...) private, and all public, colleges and universities, even the worst hate speech is generally protected unless it is accompanied by aggressive, threatening, or violent conduct. -/- These “demotions” augur even worse consequences, including termination, for less powerful faculty who say the “wrong” thing, in particular statements in support of Trumpism, an increasingly mainstream ideology that stitches together white supremacy, misogyny, a preference for autocracy over democracy, and several phobias—homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia. The question I address in this paper is whether these consequences are constitutional at public schools. Whose right is stronger—a public-school teacher’s First Amendment right to express pro-Trumpist sentiments or a public school’s right to maintain a fair, inclusive, and welcoming learning environment? In this article, I argue that the public school has the upper hand here, that it is indeed constitutionally permitted to prohibit political hate speech that contributes to a hostile learning environment. Still, I narrowly limit this prohibition to dehumanizing speech—that is, speech explicitly suggesting that some human beings are “lesser”, intrinsically less valuable, than other human beings. -/- One objection to this position is that public schools may not prohibit any speech, no matter how dehumanizing, because such prohibition amounts to constitutionally impermissible viewpoint discrimination. I argue, however, that viewpoint discrimination is an integral part of education and therefore constitutionally permissible. Education necessarily involves promoting some values over others. These values fall into seven categories: constitutional principles, the humanist virtues, successful character traits and behaviors, knowledge and truth, art and beauty, health (both mental and physical), and social goods (such as justice, peace, and rule of law). (shrink)

Many have the intuition that human persons are both extremely and equally valuable. This seeming extremity and equality of vale is puzzling: if overall value is the sum of one’s final value and instrumental value, how could it be that persons share the same extreme value? One way that we can solve the Value Puzzle is by following Andrew Bailey and Josh Rasmussen. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 103, 264–277 (2020) and accepting that persons have infinite final value. But there are (...) some significant downsides to their way of thinking about values, which relies on the extended real numbers. We offer a different approach: if we model values using the hyperreal numbers, we can capture many of our intuitions about the extremity and relative equality of human value without incurring the substantial theoretical costs of using the extended real numbers. We also examine other ways of modeling the infinite value of persons and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these other accounts compared to ours. (shrink)

Recently, various philosophers have argued that we can obtain knowledge via the imagination. In particular, it has been suggested that we can come to know concrete, empirical matters of everyday significance by appropriately imagining relevant scenarios. Arguments for this thesis come in two main varieties: black box reliability arguments and constraints-based arguments. We suggest that both strategies are unsuccessful. Against black-box arguments, we point to evidence from empirical psychology, question a central case-study, and raise concerns about a (claimed) evolutionary rationale (...) for the imagination's reliability. Against the constraints-based account, we argue that to the extent that it works, this does not give rise to knowledge that is distinctively from the imagination. We conclude by suggesting that the imagination's role in raising possibilities, traditionally seen as part of the context of discovery, can in fact play a role in justification, including as a bulwark against certain sorts of skepticism. (shrink)

Philosophical orthodoxy has it that intentional action consists in one’s intention appropriately causing a motion of one’s body, placing the latter as (conceptually and/or metaphysically) prior to the former. Here I argue that this standard schema should be reversed: acting intentionally is at least conceptually prior to intending. The argument is modelled on a Williamsonian argument for the priority of knowledge developed by Jenifer Nagel. She argues that children acquire the concept KNOWS before they acquire BELIEVES, building on this alleged (...) developmental priority of knowledge to establish its conceptual priority. I start by taking a closer look at Nagel’s argument, canvassing extant objections to do both with the empirical adequacy of her claims and their philosophical implications. Doing so allows me in the second part of the paper to draw lessons that inform the construction of a revamped parallel argument for the priority of ACTS INTENTIONALLY. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments appeal to selective etiologies of human morality in an attempt to undermine moral realism. But is morality actually the product of evolution by natural selection? Although debunking arguments have attracted considerable attention in recent years, little of it has been devoted to whether the underlying evolutionary assumptions are credible. In this paper, we take a closer look at the evolutionary hypotheses put forward by two leading debunkers, namely Sharon Street and Richard Joyce. We raise a battery of (...) considerations, both empirical and theoretical, that combine to cast doubt on the plausibility of both hypotheses. We also suggest that it is unlikely that there is in the vicinity a plausible alternative hypothesis suitable for the debunker’s cause. (shrink)

Actions performed in a state of automatism are not subject to moral evaluation, while automatic actions often are. Is the asymmetry between automatistic and automatic agency justified? In order to answer this question we need a model or moral accountability that does justice to our intuitions about a range of modes of agency, both pathological and non-pathological. Our aim in this paper is to lay the foundations for such an account.

I distinguish three theses associated with the new mechanistic philosophy – concerning causation, explanation and scientific methodology. Advocates of each thesis are identified and relationships among them are outlined. I then look at some recent work on natural selection and mechanisms. There, attention to different kinds of New Mechanism significantly affects of what is at stake.

A number of concerns have been raised about the possible future use of pharmaceuticals designed to enhance cognitive, affective, and motivational processes, particularly where the aim is to produce morally better decisions or behavior. In this article, we draw attention to what is arguably a more worrying possibility: that pharmaceuticals currently in widespread therapeutic use are already having unintended effects on these processes, and thus on moral decision making and morally significant behavior. We review current evidence on the moral effects (...) of three widely used drugs or drug types: propranolol, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and drugs that effect oxytocin physiology. This evidence suggests that the alterations to moral decision making and behavior caused by these agents may have important and difficult-to-evaluate consequences, at least at the population level. We argue that the moral effects of these and other widely used pharmaceuticals warrant further empirical research and ethical analysis. (shrink)

Many biological investigations are organized around a small group of species, often referred to as ‘model organisms’, such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. The terms ‘model’ and ‘modelling’ also occur in biology in association with mathematical and mechanistic theorizing, as in the Lotka–Volterra model of predator-prey dynamics. What is the relation between theoretical models and model organisms? Are these models in the same sense? We offer an account on which the two practices are shown to have different epistemic characters. (...) Theoretical modelling is grounded in explicit and known analogies between model and target. By contrast, inferences from model organisms are empirical extrapolations. Often such extrapolation is based on shared ancestry, sometimes in conjunction with other empirical information. One implication is that such inferences are unique to biology, whereas theoretical models are common across many disciplines. We close by discussing the diversity of uses to which model organisms are put, suggesting how these relate to our overall account. 1 Introduction2 Volterra and Theoretical Modelling3 Drosophila as a Model Organism4 Generalizing from Work on Model Organisms5 Phylogenetic Inference and Model Organisms6 Further Roles of Model Organisms6.1 Preparative experimentation6.2 Model organisms as paradigms6.3 Model organisms as theoretical models6.4 Inspiration for engineers6.5 Anchoring a research community7 Conclusion. (shrink)

How does valuing something for its own sake differ from valuing an entity for the sake of other things? Although numerous answers come to mind, many of them rule out substantive views about what is valuable for its own sake. I therefore seek to provide a more neutral way to distinguish the two valuing attitudes. Drawing from existing accounts of valuing, I argue that the two can be distinguished in terms of a conative-volitional feature. Focusing first on “non-final valuing”—i.e. valuing_ (...) x_ for the sake of something else—I argue that it involves adopting certain reasons on account of a desire for _x_ to contribute to other things. I then show how this contrasts final valuing. The result, I argue, is a plausible account of how the two modes of valuing differ that leaves open substantive views about what all can be valued for its own sake. This is helpful because it develops a popular methodology used to explore the value of a wide range of things, including natural entities, family heirlooms, and artworks, as well as, more broadly, entities that might have “extrinsic final value.”. (shrink)

The paper proposes a novel solution to the problem of the time of a killing (ToK), which persistently besets theories of act-individuation. The solution proposed claims to expose a crucial wrong-headed assumption in the debate, according to which ToK is essentially a problem of locating some event that corresponds to the killing. The alternative proposal put forward here turns on recognizing a separate category of dynamic occurents, viz. processes. The paper does not aim to mount a comprehensive defense of process (...) ontology, relying instead on extant defenses. The primary aim is rather to put process ontology to work in diagnosing the current state of play over ToK, and indeed in solving it. (shrink)

Some philosophers of science – the present author included – appeal to fiction as an interpretation of the practice of modeling. This raises the specter of an incompatibility with realism, since fiction-making is essentially non-truth-regulated. I argue that the prima facie conflict can be resolved in two ways, each involving a distinct notion of fiction and a corresponding formulation of realism. The main goal of the paper is to describe these two packages. Toward the end I comment on how to (...) choose among them. (shrink)

The Hodgkin–Huxley (HH) model of the action potential is a theoretical pillar of modern neurobiology. In a number of recent publications, Carl Craver ([2006], [2007], [2008]) has argued that the model is explanatorily deficient because it does not reveal enough about underlying molecular mechanisms. I offer an alternative picture of the HH model, according to which it deliberately abstracts from molecular specifics. By doing so, the model explains whole-cell behaviour as the product of a mass of underlying low-level events. The (...) issue goes beyond cellular neurobiology, for the strategy of abstraction exhibited in the HH case is found in a range of biological contexts. I discuss why it has been largely neglected by advocates of the mechanist approach to explanation. 1 Introduction2 A Primer on the HH Model2.1 The basic qualitative picture2.2 The quantitative model3 Interlude: What Did Hodgkin and Huxley Think?4 Craver’s View4.1 Mechanistic explanation4.2 Sketches4.3 Craver's view: The HH model as a mechanism sketch5 An Alternative View of the HH Model5.1 Another look at the equations5.2 The discrete-gating picture5.3 The road paved by Hodgkin and Huxley5.4 Summary and comparison to Craver6 Conclusion: The HH Model and Mechanistic Explanation6.1 Sketches and abstractions6.2 Why has aggregative abstraction been overlooked? (shrink)

There has been a resurgence of interest lately within philosophy of mind and action in the category of mental action. Against this background, the present paper aims to question the very possibility, or at least the theoretical significance, of teasing apart mental and bodily acts. After raising some doubts over the viability of various possible ways of drawing the mental act/bodily act distinction, the paper draws some lessons from debates over embodied cognition, which arguably further undermine the credibility of the (...) distinction. The insignificance of the distinction is demonstrated in part by showing how the focus on ‘inner’ acts hampers fruitful discussion of Galen Strawson’s skepticism of mental agency. Finally, the possibility is discussed that a distinction between covert and overt action should supplant the one between mental and bodily action. (shrink)

Philosophers and cognitive scientists increasingly recognize the need to appeal to motor representations over and above intentions in attempting to understand how action is planned and executed. But doing so gives rise to a puzzle, which has come to be known as “the Interface Problem”: How is it that intentions and motor representations manage to interface in producing action? The question has seemed puzzling, because each state is thought to be formatted differently: Intention has propositional format, whereas the format of (...) motor representation is motoric. My primary goal here is to defend a novel and attractive (dis)solution to the interface problem. I do so by connecting it with a rather different discussion about the format of intention, instigated by a minority of philosophers who reject the idea that intention should be construed as a propositional attitude. As I explain, the most compelling reason to accept the heterodox non-propositional conception of intention actually holds the key also to explaining away the interface problem. In so doing, the heterodox conception itself gains further credibility. (shrink)

Moral realism is often taken to have common sense and initial appearances on its side. Indeed, by some lights, common sense and initial appearances underlie all the central positive arguments for moral realism. We offer a kind of debunking argument, taking aim at realism’s common sense standing. Our argument differs from familiar debunking moves both in its empirical assumptions and in how it targets the realist position. We argue that if natural selection explains the objective phenomenology of moral deliberation and (...) judgement, then this undermines arguments from that phenomenology. This results in a simpler, and in some ways more direct, challenge to realism. It is also less vulnerable to the main objections that have been leveled against such arguments. If accepted, our conclusion should make a real difference to the dialectic in this area. It means that neither realism nor its denial is the default, to-be-refuted, position. (shrink)

The external world sceptic tells some familiar narratives involving massive deception. Perhaps we are brains in vats. Perhaps we are the victim of a deceitful demon. You know the drill. The sceptic proceeds by observing first that victims of such deceptions know nothing about their external environment and that second, since we cannot rule out being a victim of such deceptions our- selves, our own external world beliefs fail to attain the status of knowledge. Discussions of global external world scepticism (...) tend to focus on the second step, where a number of well-known lines of resistance have been offered. But there has been little attention to the first, seemingly innocuous step. That will be the focus of this paper. Part one – sections 1, 2, and 3 – will explain why these standard narratives are not convincing examples of cases where there is no knowledge of the external world. In part two – section 4 – we shall undertake a useful case study. David Lewis’s ‘Elusive Knowledge’ is often thought of as presenting an epistemological vision that is somewhat friendly to external world scepticism: as Lewis himself presents things, there are contexts where external world knowledge ascriptions are uniformly false, and where true knowledge ascriptions are limited to either axiomatic truths or truths about our inner life. We examine his discussion in the light of the preceding reflections and show that the framework he presents is not so concessionary to global external world scepticism after all. (shrink)

Available reports provide an account of academic staff’s poor job performance in higher education institutions and universities in particular. Consequently, a growing body of research has been attracted to this area, including those seeking ways to understand the problem and others aimed at proffering solutions. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the influence of occupational stress on the job performance of academic staff in universities. Three null hypotheses directed the study in line with the quantitative ex-post facto research (...) design. A sample of 150 respondents was obtained using the systematic random sampling technique from a population of 400 lecturers in the Faculty of Education from two public universities in Nigeria. A 31-item questionnaire was used for data collection. The null hypotheses were tested at the .05 alpha level using simple linear regression analysis. It was revealed that remuneration is a significant positive predictor of academic staff job performance. The prediction of workload was negatively non-significant on the job performance of academics. The provision of institutional amenities has a positive but non-significant prediction on academic staff job performance in the two public universities. It was concluded that occupational stress significantly influences the job performance of lecturers in universities. The study recommended that the government constantly pay lecturers’ salaries as and when due. Institutional managers should reward lecturers with outstanding performance to boost their morale for effective service delivery. (shrink)

To a large extent, the evidential base of claims in the philosophy of science has switched from thought experiments to case studies. We argue that abandoning thought experiments was a wrong turn, since they can effectively complement case studies. We make our argument via an analogy with the relationship between experiments and observations within science. Just as experiments and ‘natural’ observations can together evidence claims in science, each mitigating the downsides of the other, so too can thought experiments and case (...) studies be mutually supporting. After presenting the main argument, we look at potential concerns about thought experiments, suggesting that a judiciously applied mixed-methods approach can overcome them. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) have attracted extensive attention in meta-ethics, as they pose an important challenge to moral realism. Mogensen (2015) suggests that EDAs contain a fallacy, by confusing two distinct forms of biological explanation – ultimate and proximate. If correct, the point is of considerable importance: evolutionary genealogies of human morality are simply irrelevant for debunking. But we argue that the actual situation is subtler: while ultimate claims do not strictly entail proximate ones, there are important evidential connections between (...) the two. Attending to these connections clears ground for a new and improved EDA. However, it also brings into view some possible problems with EDAs that have been largely neglected so far. (shrink)

The principle of epistemic closure is the claim that what is known to follow from knowledge is known to be true. This intuitively plausible idea is endorsed by a vast majority of knowledge theorists. There are significant problems, however, that have to be addressed if epistemic closure – closed knowledge – is endorsed. The present essay locates the problem for closed knowledge in the separation it imposes between knowledge and evidence. Although it might appear that all that stands between knowing (...) the truth of the premises of a valid inference and knowledge of its conclusion is inferring it from the premises, the evidence for each of the premises may jointly count against the conclusion. The intuitive view regarding inferred knowledge says one thing, the evidence says another. One epistemological framework that seems to have the resources to resolve this tension endorses the view that knowledge always requires conclusive evidence. A second framework resolves the tension by limiting the scope of the closure principle. Only inferences drawn directly from propositions contained in the scope of a single knowledge operator are considered closed. The aim of the present essay is to revive the unpopular third option, the idea that knowledge is open. The essay proceeds by arguing that in different ways the two former frameworks only succeed in relocating the problem, not in resolving it. The first framework, the infallibilist view, relocates the problem to a sharp separation between knowledge of the occurrences of events from knowledge of their chance of occurring, a separation leading to several significant additional problems. The fallibilist view, the second framework, in endorsing closure neglects to take into full account the ways in which evidence fails to be transitive. For instance, evidence can count in favor of a conjunction while counting against each of its conjuncts. This fact, which is argued for in the essay on probabilistic as well as non-probabilistic grounds, is used as the foundation of an argument against closed knowledge that can be used as a way to understand several of the most fundamental challenges of epistemology. Not only can an open knowledge view that is based on open evidence resolve all these problems in a simple and natural way, it can also respond to formidable challenges that significantly hinder other open knowledge views. There are good reasons, then, to view both knowledge and evidence as open. (shrink)

The overwhelmingly predominant view in philosophy sees intending as a mental state, specifically a plan-like state. This paper rejects the predominant view in favor of a starkly opposed novel alternative. After criticizing both the predominant Bratman-esque view of intention, and an alternative view inspired by Michael Thompson, the paper proceeds to set out and defend the idea that acting with an intention to V should be understood disjunctively, as either one’s V-ing intentionally or one’s performing some kind of failed intentional (...) V-ing, where the two disjuncts share no common state of intention. Instructive structural parallels to perceptual disjunctivism are pointed out, and the view is shown, unlike its rivals, to successfully extend to capture both prospective and present intention, thereby unifying the three different guises of intention. (shrink)

The argument from inductive risk (AIR) states that scientists should consider the consequences of hypotheses and methodological choices in the course of ongoing research. It has played a central role in the widespread retreat from the ideal of value-free science. The argument is motivated, to a significant extent, by the laudable concern to use science to better society. I argue that this concern, when taken seriously, tells against the idea that individual working scientists should consider social consequences. First, I show (...) that the AIR assigns scientists a striking task: to frame social decisions and assess their full spectrum of consequences. Then, I argue that scientists should not be assigned such a task. For one thing, if both scientists and policy makers take social consequences into account, we are liable to end up with skewed and biased decisions. For another, scientists are not well-placed to carry out social decision making. I conclude by indicating a context in which the inductive risk line has more force, and by highlighting the importance, in discussing values in science, of attending to units and levels of analysis. (shrink)

Despite the changes in human behaviour and interactions occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, many institutions are yet to adapt to the new normal fully. While some educational institutions switched entirely to e-learning to promote teaching and learning, others could not offer education due to physical and social restrictions. Previous studies in Africa have identified reasons for the poor ICT adoption for educational purposes. However, the degree to which these factors affect ICT utilisation is barely analysed. Using a quantitative approach, this (...) study assessed ICT deployment for teaching in the COVID-19 era by focusing on their availability and challenges. A sample of 344 respondents from a population of 2,867 academic staff at two Nigerian public universities participated in the study. After receiving face validity from experts, a structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Cronbach alpha reliability indices of the questionnaire ranged from 0.72 to 0.94. Descriptive statistics (simple percentages, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (one-way ANOVA) were used for data analysis. Findings generally revealed a moderate extent in the availability of ICT resources in public universities. The cost of data, computer literacy, and electricity supply are challenges that significantly affected ICT deployment in the COVID-19 era. Based on this finding, it was concluded that personal and institutional challenges affect how ICT resources are deployed in public universities. It was recommended, among other things, that the management of each tertiary institution should apportion proceeds from internally generated revenue to procure ICT resources specific to the need of the school. The study provides the ground for further research into students’ use of ICT for educational purposes. (shrink)

Science and fiction seem to lie at opposite ends of the cognitive-epistemic spectrum. The former is typically seen as the study of hard, real-world facts in a rigorous manner. The latter is treated as an instrument of play and recreation, dealing in figments of the imagination. Initial appearances notwithstanding, several central features of scientific modeling in fact suggest a close connection with the imagination and recent philosophers have developed detailed accounts of models that treat them, in one way or another, (...) as akin to fictions. This chapter will critically discuss the fictions approach as an epistemology of scientific modeling. (shrink)

-/- INTRODUCTION: Many higher education students indulge in risky eating behaviours which tend to affect their physical, psychological and academic health. Previous studies have tried to understand the trend in students’ eating patterns without paying adequate attention to contributing factors. -/- PURPOSE: This study evaluated the influence of selected psychological variables on the consumption of balanced diets among students in two public universities in Calabar Metropolis, Nigeria. -/- METHODOLOGY: A research question was posed, and a formulated hypothesis to guide the (...) study. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. A total of 12,530 faculty of education students spread across two public universities in Calabar Metropolis constituted the population of this study. A sample of 125 students was randomly selected through the stratified technique. A four-point questionnaire was used for data collection after validation by experts. Descriptive statistical measures such as mean, standard deviation, and percentages answered the research question. The null hypothesis was tested at the .05 level of significance using the one-sample t-test analysis. -/- RESULTS: Findings revealed that the influence of psychological variables (such as stress, emotions, and mental state) on students’ consumption of balanced diets is not significantly low. -/- RECOMMENDATIONS/CLASSROOM IMPLICATIONS: Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that students cultivate the habit of always eating quality meals rich in nutrients, irrespective of their psychological state, to maintain a healthy life. (shrink)

Intention Cognitivism – the doctrine that intending to V entails, or even consists in, believing that one will V – is an important position with potentially wide-ranging implications, such as a revisionary understanding of practical reason, and a vindicating explanation of 'Practical Knowledge'. In this paper, I critically examine the standard arguments adduced in support of IC, including arguments from the parity of expression of intention and belief; from the ability to plan around one's intention; and from the explanation provided (...) by the thesis for our knowledge of our intentional acts. I conclude that none of these arguments are compelling, and therefore that no good reason has been given to accept IC. (shrink)

Thought experiments play a role in science and in some central parts of contemporary philosophy. They used to play a larger role in philosophy of science, but have been largely abandoned as part of the field’s “practice turn”. This chapter discusses possible roles for thought experimentation within a practice-oriented philosophy of science. Some of these roles are uncontroversial, such as exemplification and aiding discovery. A more controversial role is the reliance on thought experiments to justify philosophical claims. It is proposed (...) that if we adopt an underlying empiricist view of concepts, then thought experiments can be seen as affording us contact with scientific practice, despite their seemingly a priori character. The advantages and drawbacks of thought experiments are discussed via comparison with case studies, on the one, and simulations on the other hand. The chapter closes with some remarks on how to combine thought experiments with other methods. (shrink)

The nature of attention has been the topic of a lively research programme in psychology for over a century. But there is widespread agreement that none of the theories on offer manage to fully capture the nature of attention. Recently, philosophers have become interested in the debate again after a prolonged period of neglect. This paper contributes to the project of explaining the nature of attention. It starts off by critically examining Christopher Mole’s prominent “adverbial” account of attention, which traces (...) the failure of extant psychological theories to their assumption that attending is a kind of process. It then defends an alternative, process-based view of the metaphysics of attention, on which attention is understood as an activity and not, as psychologists seem to implicitly assume, an accomplishment. The entrenched distinction between accomplishments and activities is shown to shed new light on the metaphysics of attention. It also provides a novel diagnosis of the empirical state of play. (shrink)

Many have expected that understanding the evolution of norms should, in some way, bear on our first-order normative outlook: How norms evolve should shape which norms we accept. But recent philosophy has not done much to shore up this expectation. Most existing discussions of evolution and norms either jump headlong into the is/ought gap or else target meta-ethical issues, such as the objectivity of norms. My aim in this paper is to sketch a different way in which evolutionary considerations can (...) feed into normative thinking—focusing on stability. I will discuss two forms of argument that utilize information about social stability drawn from evolutionary models, and employs it to assess claims in political philosophy. One such argument treats stability as feature of social states that may be taken into account alongside other features. The other uses stability as a constraint on the realization of social ideals, via a version of the ought-implies-can maxim. These forms of argument are not new; indeed they have a history going back at least to early modern philosophy. But their marriage with evolutionary information is relatively recent, has a significantly novel character, and has received little attention in recent moral and political philosophy. (shrink)

Recent work in neuroimaging suggests that some patients diagnosed as being in the persistent vegetative state are actually conscious. In this paper, we critically examine this new evidence. We argue that though it remains open to alternative interpretations, it strongly suggests the presence of consciousness in some patients. However, we argue that its ethical significance is less than many people seem to think. There are several different kinds of consciousness, and though all kinds of consciousness have some ethical significance, different (...) kinds underwrite different kinds of moral value. Demonstrating that patients have phenomenal consciousness — conscious states with some kind of qualitative feel to them — shows that they are moral patients, whose welfare must be taken into consideration. But only if they are subjects of a sophisticated kind of access consciousness — where access consciousness entails global availability of information to cognitive systems — are they persons, in the technical sense of the word employed by philosophers. In this sense, being a person is having the full moral status of ordinary human beings. We call for further research which might settle whether patients who manifest signs of consciousness possess the sophisticated kind of access consciousness required for personhood. (shrink)

Libertarians like Robert Kane believe that indeterminism is necessaryfor free will. They think this in part because they hold both (1) thatmy being the ultimate cause of at least part of myself is necessary forfree will and (2) that indeterminism is necessary for this ``ultimateself-causation''. But seductive and intuitive as this ``USCLibertarianism'' may sound, it is untenable. In the end, nometaphysically coherent (not to mention empirically valid) conception ofultimate self-causation is available. So the basic intuition motivatingthe USC Libertarian is ultimately (...) impossible to fulfill. (shrink)

This Article falls into three general parts. The first part starts with an important question: is the insanity defense constitutionally required? The United States Supreme Court will finally try to answer this question next term in the case of Kahler v. Kansas. -/- I say “finally” because the Court refused to answer this question in 2012 when it denied certiorari to an appeal brought by John Joseph Delling, a severely mentally ill defendant who was sentenced to life in prison three (...) years earlier for two murders. Delling never had the opportunity to plead the insanity defense because his home state, Idaho, had abolished it in 1982. -/- By depriving Delling of the right to plead insanity, Idaho violated Delling’s Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and his Eighth Amendment right against “cruel and unusual” punishment. Naturally, the same is true for many other mentally ill and disabled defendants who have been prosecuted in Idaho and in the other three states that have abolished the insanity defense: Kansas, Montana, and Utah. -/- The second general part of this Article notes an insight that I stumbled upon in the course of researching the first part: the insanity defense and the mistake of law defense both require ignorance of the law, what I refer to as “normative ignorance.” Indeed, normative ignorance is what makes both of these defenses exculpatory in the first place. -/- Given this critical connection, there is a way for Idaho, Kansas, Montana, and Utah to resume compliance with the Constitution. Instead of reinstating the insanity defense per se, which might be politically unpopular, they should just broaden their mistake of law defense to include normative ignorance caused by cognitive incapacity that is itself caused by mental illness or disability. -/- Still, this Article is not merely directed at these four western states. It is directed at the other forty-six states as well. Because they already have an insanity defense, they need not incorporate it into their mistake of law defense. But in the third general part, I will argue that they should still expand their mistake of law defense to cover defendants who either lack a reasonable opportunity to learn the law or reasonably but mistakenly infer from widely accepted norms or ethics that their conduct is lawful. (shrink)

The Callicles colloquy of Plato’s Gorgias features both examination and ridicule. Insofar as Socrates’ examination of Callicles proceeds via the elenchus, the presence of ridicule requires explanation. This essay seeks to provide that explanation by placing the effort to ridicule within the effort to examine; that is, the judgment/pronouncement that something/ someone is worthy of ridicule is a proper part of the elenchic examination. Standard accounts of the Socratic elenchus do not include this component. Hence, the argument of this essay (...) suggests a need to revise the standard account of the elenchus, at least as it relates to the use of that method within the Gorgias. Insofar as a revised account of the elenchus has implications for our understanding of Socratic moral psychology, the argument of this essay also suggests a need to reconsider the moral psychological framework within which Socrates operates in the Gorgias. (shrink)

I argue that Descartes' Second Causal Proof of God in the Third Meditation evidences, and commits him to, the belief that time is "strongly discontinuous" -- that is, that there is actually a gap between each consecutive moment of time. Much of my article attempts to reconcile this interpretation, the "received view," with Descartes' statements about time, space, and matter in his other writings, including his correspondence with various philosophers.

Many scientists and philosophers of science think that beauty should play a role in theory selection. Physicists like Paul Dirac and Steven Weinberg explicitly claim that the ultimate explanations of the physical world must be beautiful. And philosophers of science like Peter Lipton say that we should expect the loveliest theory to also be the most likely. In this paper, I contend that these arguments from loveliness bear a striking similarity to Thomas Aquinas’ arguments from fittingness; both seem to presume (...) that the most beautiful theory is also the most probable. To do this, I first explain the explanatory virtues that are commonly thought to be constitutive of a lovely theory. Second, I elucidate Aquinas’ arguments from fittingness and show how they work in light of his account of beauty. Lastly, I connect the two kinds of aesthetic arguments and show the extent to which they overlap. (shrink)

I argue for two propositions. First, contrary to the common wisdom, we may justly punish individuals who are not morally responsible for their crimes. Psychopaths – individuals who lack the capacity to feel sympathy – help to prove this point. Scholars are increasingly arguing that psychopaths are not morally responsible for their behavior because they suffer from a neurological disorder that makes it impossible for them to understand, and therefore be motivated by, moral reasons. These same scholars then infer from (...) this conclusion that they must also lack criminal responsibility and therefore that our continuing to punish psychopaths for their crimes is unjust. My response is that this inference is entirely fallacious. -/- Criminal responsibility turns out to be quite distinct from moral responsibility. The two kinds of responsibility require very different conditions to be satisfied. In particular, criminal responsibility, unlike moral responsibility, does not require an agent be able to grasp and follow moral reasons; it requires only that the individual be able to grasp and follow criminal laws. Once this point is recognized, it becomes much easier to accept my thesis: while the subset of psychopaths who commit crimes are not morally responsible for their criminal behavior because they cannot understand moral reasons, they are still criminally responsible because they can understand what the consequences will be if they get caught. For this reason, even though I concede that psychopaths are not morally responsible for the crimes that they commit, our practice of punishing them for these crimes is still just. -/- Second, I argue that psychopathy is a mental illness and should be recognized as such. One reason that it should be recognized as a mental illness is simply because it is; it satisfies the main criteria for inclusion in the DSM-IV, the “bible” of mental disorders. The other reason is more practical than conceptual. It starts with two facts: the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that the preventive detention of any individual who is not a criminal suspect is not constitutional unless the individual is not only dangerous but also mentally ill; and psychopathy is not currently considered to be a mental illness. So, as things now stand, we cannot preventively commit dangerous psychopaths – that is, psychopaths who have clearly indicated that they will be committing serious crimes. Instead, we must wait for them to commit the crimes before we can lock them up. Unfortunately, this incarceration always comes too late for the victims. It would therefore be better if we could lock them up before they actually inflict any harm. Once again, then, I propose that the legal and psychological communities classify psychopathy as a mental illness. (shrink)