Why does institutional police brutality continue so brazenly? Criminologists and other social scientists typically theorize about the causes of such violence, but less attention is given to normative questions regarding the demands of justice. Some philosophers have taken a teleological approach, arguing that social institutions such as the police exist to realize collective ends and goods based upon the idea of collective moral responsibility. Others have approached normative questions in policing from a more explicit social-contract perspective, suggesting that legitimacy is (...) derived by adhering to (limited) authority. This article examines methodologies within political philosophy for analyzing police injustice. The methodological inquiry leads to an account of how justice constrains the police through both special (or positional) moral requirements that officers assume voluntarily, as well as general moral requirements in virtue of a polity’s commitment to moral, political and legal values beyond law enforcement and crime reduction. The upshot is a conception of a police role that is constrained by justice from multiple foundational stances. (shrink)

There is a growing sense that many liberal states are in the midst of a shift in legal and political norms—a shift that is happening slowly and for a variety of reasons relating to security. The internet and tech booms—paving the way for new forms of electronic surveillance—predated the 9/11 attacks by several years, while the police’s vast use of secret informants and deceptive operations began well before that. On the other hand, the recent uptick in reactionary movements—movements in which (...) the rule of law seems expendable—began many years after 9/11 and continues to this day. One way to describe this book is an examination of the moral limits on modern police practices that flow from the basic legal and political tenets of the liberal tradition. The central argument is that policing in liberal states is constrained by a liberal conception of persons coupled with particular rule of law principles. Part I consists of three chapters that constitute the book’s theoretical foundation, including an overview of the police’s law enforcement role in the liberal polity and a methodology for evaluating that role. Part II consists of three chapters that address applications of the theory, including the police’s use of informants, deceptive operations, and surveillance. The upshot is that policing in liberal societies has become illiberal in light of its response to both internal and external threats to security. The book provides an account of what it might mean to retrieve policing that is consistent with the basic tenets of liberalism and the limits imposed by those tenets. [This is an uncorrected draft of the book's preface and introduction, forthcoming from Oxford University Press.]. (shrink)

The use of deception and dishonesty is widely accepted as a fact of life in policing. This paper thus defends a counterintuitive claim: Good faith is a normative foundation for the police as a political institution. Good faith is a core value of contracts, and policing is contractual in nature both broadly (as a matter of social contract theory) and narrowly (in regard to concrete encounters between law enforcement officers and the public). Given the centrality of good faith to policing, (...) dishonesty and deception on par with fraud are justified only as a narrowly circumscribed investigative tool that is constrained by institutional commitments to the fair distribution of security and the rule of law. The practical upshot is the preclusion of most dishonest and deceptive police tactics on par with fraud, leading to an institution that is less proactive and more reactive. (shrink)

This chapter offers an overview and analysis of policing, the area of criminal justice associated primarily with law enforcement. The study of policing spans a variety of disciplines, including criminology, law, philosophy, politics, and psychology, among other fields. Although research on policing is broad in scope, it has become an especially notable area of study in contemporary legal and social philosophy given recent police controversies.

Interpreting the content of the law is not limited to what a relevant lawmaker utters. This paper examines the extent to which implied and implicit content is part of the law, and specifically whether the Gricean concept of conversational implicature is relevant in determining the content of law. Recent work has focused on how this question relates to acts of legislation. This paper extends the analysis to case law and departs from the literature on several key issues. The paper's argument (...) is based upon two points: Precedent-setting judicial opinions may consist of multiple conversations, of which some entail opposing implicata, and if a particular precedent-setting judicial opinion consists of multiple conversations, of which some entail opposing implicata, then no meaningful conversational implicatum is part of the content of that particular precedent-setting opinion. Nevertheless, the paper's conclusion leaves open the prospect of gleaning something in between conversational implicature and what is literally said, namely, conversational impliciture. (shrink)

This paper explores what the epistemic account of vagueness means for theories of legal interpretation. The thesis of epistemicism is that vague statements are true or false even though it is impossible to know which. I argue that if epistemicism is accepted within the domain of the law, then the following three conditions must be satisfied: Interpretative reasoning within the law must adhere to the principle of bivalence and the law of excluded middle, interpretative reasoning within the law must construe (...) vague statements as an epistemic phenomenon, and epistemicism must be expanded to include normative considerations in order to account for legal theories that are consistent with the first two conditions. The first two conditions are internal to a particular theory of legal interpretation, while the third condition is external to a particular theory of legal interpretation. My conclusion shows that there are legal theories that are internally consistent with the fundamental features of epistemicism. However, within the domain of law—and specifically in the case of legal theories that are internally consistent with epistemicism—I show that vagueness cannot be explained simply by our ignorance of the meaning and use of vague expressions. Rather, epistemicism must also account for ignorance of the requisite normative considerations in legal theories with which it is otherwise consistent. (shrink)

Essay on police legitimacy through public reason and community policing.

Plato’s Laws include what H.L.A. Hart called the ‘classical thesis’ about the nature and role of law: the law exists to see that one leads a morally good life. This paper develops Hart’s brief remarks by providing a panorama of the classical thesis in Laws. This is done by considering two themes: (1) the extent to which Laws is paternalistic, and (2) the extent to which Laws is naturalistic. These themes are significant for a number of reasons, including because they (...) show how Laws might be viewed as a sophisticated forerunner of natural law theory. The upshot is that Plato's metaphysical commitments about legal ontology allow him to base the truth of legal propositions on the way they relate to the truth of corresponding moral propositions. (shrink)

Hobbes is known for bridging natural and political philosophy, but less attention has been given to how this distinguishes the Hobbesian conception of the self from individualist strands of liberalism. First, Hobbes’s determinism suggests a conception of the self in which externalities determine the will and what the self is at every moment. Second, there is no stable conception of the self because externalities keep it in a constant state of flux. The metaphysical underpinnings of his project downplay the notion (...) of a purely individualistic conception of the self, pointing to a positivist theory of criminology relying upon external forces. This theory is especially prescient with respect to twentieth-century variants of positivism that focus upon how social organization affects personality. In a sense, then, modern criminological theory is indebted to Hobbes’s focus upon the connections between externalities and the self; a focus that illuminates new ways of viewing responsibility and accountability. (shrink)

Policing in many parts of the world—the United States in particular—has embraced an archetypal model: a conception of the police based on the tenets of individuated archetypes, such as the heroic police “warrior” or “guardian.” Such policing has in part motivated moves to (1) a reallocative model: reallocating societal resources such that the police are no longer needed in society (defunding and abolishing) because reform strategies cannot fix the way societal problems become manifest in (archetypal) policing; and (2) an algorithmic (...) model: subsuming policing into technocratic judgements encoded in algorithms through strategies such as predictive policing (mitigating archetypal bias). This paper begins by considering the normative basis of the relationship between political community and policing. It then examines the justification of reallocative and algorithmic models in light of the relationship between political community and police. Given commitments to the depth and distribution of security—and proscriptions against dehumanizing strategies—the paper concludes that a nonideal-theory priority rule promoting respect for personhood (manifest in community and dignity-promoting policing strategies) is a necessary condition for the justification of the above models. (shrink)

There are often public calls to codify moral sentiments after failures to help others, and recent tragedies have renewed interest in one’s legal duty to aid another. This Article examines the moral underpinnings and legitimacy of so-called “Bad Samaritan” laws—laws that criminalize failures to aid others in emergency situations. Part I examines the theoretical backdrop of duties imposed by Bad Samaritan laws, including their relationship with various moral duties to aid. This leads to the analysis in Part II, which examines (...) two related questions that are raised when moving from moral to legal duties: First, on what ground does the state have the authority to dictate that one’s needs should be met in the way specified by a particular legal duty? Second, does a special relationship exist that legitimizes the establishment of such legal duties? (shrink)

Our understanding of folk and scientific psychology often informs the law’s conclusions regarding questions about the voluntariness of a defendant’s action. The field of psychology plays a direct role in the law’s conclusions about a defendant’s guilt, innocence, and term of incarceration. However, physical sciences such as neuroscience increasingly deny the intuitions behind psychology. This paper examines contemporary biases against the autonomy of psychology and responds with considerations that cast doubt upon the legitimacy of those biases. The upshot is that (...) if reasonable doubt is established regarding whether psychology’s role in the law should be displaced, then there is room for future work to be done with respect to the truth of psychology’s conclusions about criminal responsibility. (shrink)

Essay on philosophical problems with police sting operations and the legal doctrine of entrapment.

Short online essay on the state of policing in liberal societies, discussing how executive discretionary power has grown to such a degree that it has trended toward illiberal practices and policies.

This article addresses two issues. First, it critiques a prominent position regarding how affluent states should balance their national interest on the one hand and their duty to aid developing states on the other. Second, it suggests that absent a principled way to balance national interest with international aid, a state’s more immediate concern is to comply with its negative duty to not harm other states. To support this position, the article constructs a conception of harm that may be applied (...) to questions regarding a state’s negative duties, focusing upon the example of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS). (shrink)

Essay exploring the extent to which certain agreements between the police and informants are an affront (both procedurally and substantively) to basic tenets of the liberal tradition in legal and political philosophy.

This paper analyzes ethical issues relating to lawyer mobility.

This book provides a comprehensive examination of the police role from within a broader philosophical context. Contending that the police are in the midst of an identity crisis that exacerbates unjustified law enforcement tactics, Luke William Hunt examines various major conceptions of the police—those seeing them as heroes, warriors, and guardians. The book looks at the police role considering the overarching societal goal of justice and seeks to present a synthetic theory that draws upon history, law, society, psychology, and (...) philosophy. Each major conception of the police role is examined in light of how it affects the pursuit of justice, and how it may be contrary to seeking justice holistically and collectively. The book sets forth a conception of the police role that is consistent with the basic values of a constitutional democracy in the liberal tradition. Hunt’s intent is that clarifying the police role will likewise elucidate any constraints upon policing strategies, including algorithmic strategies such as predictive policing. This book is essential reading for thoughtful policing and legal scholars as well as those interested in political philosophy, political theory, psychology, and related areas. Now more than ever, the nature of the police role is a philosophical topic that is relevant not just to police officials and social scientists, but to everyone. (shrink)

Cooperative relations steeped in honesty and good faith are a necessity for any viable society. This is especially relevant to the police institution because the police are entrusted to promote justice and security. Despite the necessity of societal honesty and good faith, the police institution has embraced deception, dishonesty, and bad faith as tools of the trade for providing security. In fact, it seems that providing security is impossible without using deception and dishonesty during interrogations, undercover operations, pretextual detentions, and (...) other common scenarios. This presents a paradox related to the erosion of public faith in the police institution and the weakening of the police's legitimacy. -/- The book seeks to solve this puzzle by showing that many of our assumptions about policing and security are unjustified. Specifically, they are unjustified in the way many of our assumptions about security were unjustified after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when state institutions embraced a variety of brutal rules and tactics in pursuit of perceived security enhancements. The police are likewise unjustified in their pursuit of many supposed security enhancements that rely on proactive deception, dishonesty, and bad faith. -/- There are compelling reasons to think that the police's widespread use of proactive deception and dishonesty is inconsistent with fundamental norms of political morality regarding fraud and the rule of law. Although there are times and places for such tactics in policing, those times and places should be much more limited than current practices suggest. (shrink)

I argue that it’s quite comprehensible to get upset about metaethical nihilism, to indulge what I call nihilistic despair. When we lose the objective moral or normative point of view, we lose the promise of luck-immune guidance and categorical importance, things many of us hope for. This is all quite Williams-friendly, but I reject his puzzling but suggestive remarks that nihilistic despair must be a self-pitying muddle. Finally, I argue that internalism about reasons is even more depressing than outright (...) nihilism, in one way at least. (shrink)

A sloppy, smug, conceptually muddled, and tendentious Christian apologist's comparison of narrowly selected texts from Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Paul, Luke, and Justin Martyr. Following Alasdair MacIntyre, Rowe defends the traditionist view according to which Spirit-enhanced ‘supernatural’ discourse is intelligible only to those on the inside of Christian faith. Rowe argues that morality and religion are abstractions. Rowe presents his translations of Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus, Paul, Luke, and Justin into modern English while also being committed to the traditionist (...) view that such translations are doomed to inaccuracy and distortion. His views invite relativism and skepticism about all kinds of inquiry, including MacIntyre’s traditioned approach. (shrink)

Supervaluationism is often described as the most popular semantic treatment of indeterminacy. There’s little consensus, however, about how to fill out the bare-bones idea to include a characterization of logical consequence. The paper explores one methodology for choosing between the logics: pick a logic thatnorms beliefas classical consequence is standardly thought to do. The main focus of the paper considers a variant of standard supervaluational, on which we can characterizedegrees of determinacy. It applies the methodology above to focus ondegree logic. (...) This is developed first in a basic, single-premise case; and then extended to the multipremise case, and to allowdegreesof consequence. The metatheoretic properties of degree logic are set out. On the positive side, the logic is supraclassical—all classical valid sequents are degree logic valid. Strikingly, metarules such as cut and conjunction introduction fail. (shrink)

Background: Transgender health care is a subject of much debate among clinicians, political commentators, and policy-makers. While the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care (SOC) establish clinical standards, these standards contain implied ethics but lack explicit focused discussion of ethical considerations in providing care. An ethics chapter in the SOC would enhance clinical guidelines. Aims: We aim to provide a valuable guide for healthcare professionals, and anyone interested in the ethical aspects of clinical support for gender (...) diverse and transgender people of all ages. Recognizing that the WPATH is a global association, we address broad challenges. We offer a reflection on general ethical principles, providing conceptual tools for healthcare providers, patients, and families to navigate the specific challenges they might encounter in transgender health care, in line with WPATH’s worldwide mission and scope. Method: This article employs a descriptive analysis, and our framework of reference is the four principles of biomedical ethics: respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Results: The article presents a discussion on the four ethical principles as applied to transgender health care. We address issues such as respect for patient autonomy in decision-making, the role of beneficence and nonmaleficence in clinical interventions, and the importance of justice in equitable treatment and access to care. Some of the ethical concerns we address in this article pertain to the current sociopolitical climate, where there has been increasing legal interference, internationally, for transgender and nonbinary people, particularly youth, seeking medical care. Discussion: We highlight the interplay between ethical principles and clinical practice, underscoring the need for ethical guidance in addressing the diverse challenges faced by healthcare providers and patients in transgender health care. We advocate for continuous refinement of ethical thinking to ensure that transgender health care is not only medically effective but also ethically sound. (shrink)

Philosophical exploration of individualism and externalism in the cognitive sciences most recently has been focused on general evaluations of these two views (Adams & Aizawa 2008, Rupert 2008, Wilson 2004, Clark 2008). Here we return to broaden an earlier phase of the debate between individualists and externalists about cognition, one that considered in detail particular theories, such as those in developmental psychology (Patterson 1991) and the computational theory of vision (Burge 1986, Segal 1989). Music cognition is an area in the (...) cognitive sciences that has received little attention from philosophers, though it has relatively recently been thrown into the externalist spotlight (Cochrane 2008, Kruger 2014, Kersten forthcoming). Given that individualism can be thought of as a kind of paradigm for research on cognition, we provide a brief overview of the field of music cognition and individualistic tendencies within the field (sections 2 and 3) before turning to consider externalist alternatives to individualistic paradigms (section 4-5) and then arguing for a qualified form of externalism about music cognition (section 6). (shrink)

A new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would fine-tune at (...) all, whether the universe is too fine-tuned, and whether the likelihood of God creating a life-permitting universe is inscrutable. (shrink)

I argue that there are non-trivial objective chances (that is, objective chances other than 0 and 1) even in deterministic worlds. The argument is straightforward. I observe that there are probabilistic special scientific laws even in deterministic worlds. These laws project non-trivial probabilities for the events that they concern. And these probabilities play the chance role and so should be regarded as chances as opposed, for example, to epistemic probabilities or credences. The supposition of non-trivial deterministic chances might seem to (...) land us in contradiction. The fundamental laws of deterministic worlds project trivial probabilities for the very same events that are assigned non-trivial probabilities by the special scientific laws. I argue that any appearance of tension is dissolved by recognition of the level-relativity of chances. There is therefore no obstacle to accepting non-trivial chance-role-playing deterministic probabilities as genuine chances. (shrink)

Two options are ‘incommensurate’ when neither is better than the other, but they are not equally good. Typically, we will say that one option is better in some ways, and the other in others, but neither is better ‘all things considered’. It is tempting to think that incommensurability is vagueness—that it is (perhaps) indeterminate which is better—but this ‘vagueness view’ of incommensurability has not proven popular. I set out the vagueness view and its implications in more detail, and argue that (...) it can explain most of the puzzling features of incommensurability. This argument proceeds without appeal to John Broome’s ‘collapsing principle’. (shrink)

John Broome has argued that value incommensurability is vagueness, by appeal to a controversial about comparative indeterminacy. I offer a new counterexample to the collapsing principle. That principle allows us to derive an outright contradiction from the claim that some object is a borderline case of some predicate. But if there are no borderline cases, then the principle is empty. The collapsing principle is either false or empty.

The unity of consciousness has so far been studied only as a relation holding among the many experiences of a single subject. I investigate whether this relation could hold between the experiences of distinct subjects, considering three major arguments against the possibility of such ‘between-subjects unity’. The first argument, based on the popular idea that unity implies subsumption by a composite experience, can be deflected by allowing for limited forms of ‘experience-sharing’, in which the same token experience belongs to more (...) than one subject. The second argument, based on the phenomenological claim that unified experiences have interdependent phenomenal characters, I show to rest on an equivocation. Finally, the third argument accuses between-subjects unity of being unimaginable, or more broadly a formal possibility corresponding to nothing we can make sense of. I argue that the familiar experience of perceptual co-presentation gives us an adequate phenomenological grasp on what between-subjects unity might be like. (shrink)

According to a number of contemporary theorists, aesthetic reasons can invite or entice us but never compel us. In this paper, I develop a Kantian account of the normative force of aesthetic reasons. While Kant would likely agree that aesthetic reasons do not give rise to obligations, his account nevertheless gives us the resources for explaining how aesthetic reasons can still have more force than merely enticing reasons. This account appeals to the distinct normativity of aesthetic judgments on Kant's theory (...) and the way in which this kind of normativity structures aesthetic exchanges with other judging subjects. I argue that, in addition to the moral reasons we have for appreciating and preserving beauty, Kant’s account can accommodate distinctly aesthetic reasons for doing so that stem from our membership in aesthetic communities. (shrink)

I discuss the apparent discrepancy between the qualitative diversity of consciousness and the relative qualitative homogeneity of the brain's basic constituents, a discrepancy that has been raised as a problem for identity theorists by Maxwell and Lockwood (as one element of the ‘grain problem’), and more recently as a problem for panpsychists (under the heading of ‘the palette problem’). The challenge posed to panpsychists by this discrepancy is to make sense of how a relatively small ‘palette’ of basic qualities could (...) give rise to the bewildering diversity of qualities we, and presumably other creatures, experience. I argue that panpsychists can meet this challenge, though it requires taking contentious stands on certain phenomenological questions, in particular on whether any familiar qualities are actual examples of ‘phenomenal blending’, and whether any other familiar qualities have a positive ‘phenomenologically simple character’. Moreover, it requires accepting an eventual theory most elements of which are in a certain explicable sense unimaginable, though not for that reason inconceivable. Nevertheless, I conclude that there are no conclusive reasons to reject such a theory, and so philosophers whose prior commitments motivate them to adopt it can do so without major theoretical cost. (shrink)

This paper responds to two arguments that have been offered against the positing of ‘i-desires’, imaginative counterparts of desire supposedly involved in fiction, pretence, and mindreading. The Introspection Argument asks why, if there are both i-desires and desires, the distinction is so unfamiliar and hard to draw, unlike the relatively clear distinctions between perception and mental imagery, or belief and belief-like imagining. The Accountability Argument asks how it can make sense to treat merely imaginative states as revealing of someone’s psychology, (...) the way we do with responses to fiction. I argue that carefully considering the relationship between other states and their imaginative counterparts sheds light on how we should expect i-desires to differ from desires, and suggests that we may often be in states that are _indeterminate_, in limbo between the two categories. This indeterminacy explains why the distinction is often hard to draw, and why these states can be revealing about us even without (determinately) being real desires. (shrink)

The starting point in the development of probabilistic analyses of token causation has usually been the naïve intuition that, in some relevant sense, a cause raises the probability of its effect. But there are well-known examples both of non-probability-raising causation and of probability-raising non-causation. Sophisticated extant probabilistic analyses treat many such cases correctly, but only at the cost of excluding the possibilities of direct non-probability-raising causation, failures of causal transitivity, action-at-a-distance, prevention, and causation by absence and omission. I show that (...) an examination of the structure of these problem cases suggests a different treatment, one which avoids the costs of extant probabilistic analyses. (shrink)

We often have some reason to do actions insofar as they promote outcomes or states of affairs, such as the satisfaction of a desire. But what is it to promote an outcome? I defend a new version of 'probabilism about promotion'. According to Minimal Probabilistic Promotion, we promote some outcome when we make that outcome more likely than it would have been if we had done something (anything) else. This makes promotion easy and reasons cheap.

Sergio Tenenbaum and Diana Raffman contend that ‘vague projects’ motivate radical revisions to orthodox, utility-maximising rational choice theory. Their argument cannot succeed if such projects merely ground instances of the paradox of the sorites, or heap. Tenenbaum and Raffman are not blind to this, and argue that Warren Quinn’s Puzzle of the Self-Torturer does not rest on the sorites. I argue that their argument both fails to generalise to most vague projects, and is ineffective in the case of the Self-Torturer (...) itself. (shrink)

Imagine a case of wrongdoing—not something trivial, but nothing so serious that adequate reparations are impossible. Imagine, further, that the wrongdoer makes those reparations and sincerely apologizes. Does she have a moral right to be forgiven? The standard view is that she does not, but this paper contends that the standard view is mistaken. It begins by showing that the arguments against a right to be forgiven are inconclusive. It ends by making two arguments in defense of that right.

Some philosophical theories of consciousness imply consciousness in things we would never intuitively think are conscious—most notably, panpsychism implies that consciousness is pervasive, even outside complex brains. Is this a reductio ab absurdum for such theories, or does it show that we should reject our original intuitions? To understand the stakes of this question as clearly as possible, we analyse the structured pattern of intuitions that panpsychism conflicts with. We consider a variety of ways that the tension between this intuition (...) and panpsychism could be resolved, ranging from complete rejection of the theory to complete dismissal of the intuition, but argue in favour of more nuanced approaches which try to reconcile the two. (shrink)

In Making Things Happen, James Woodward influentially combines a causal modeling analysis of actual causation with an interventionist semantics for the counterfactuals encoded in causal models. This leads to circularities, since interventions are defined in terms of both actual causation and interventionist counterfactuals. Circularity can be avoided by instead combining a causal modeling analysis with a semantics along the lines of that given by David Lewis, on which counterfactuals are to be evaluated with respect to worlds in which their antecedents (...) are realized by miracles. I argue, pace Woodward, that causal modeling analyses perform just as well when combined with the Lewisian semantics as when combined with the interventionist semantics. Reductivity therefore remains a reasonable hope. (shrink)

Extended cognition holds that cognitive processes sometimes leak into the world (Dawson, 2013). A recent trend among proponents of extended cognition has been to put pressure on phenomena thought to be safe havens for internalists (Sneddon, 2011; Wilson, 2010; Wilson & Lenart, 2014). This paper attempts to continue this trend by arguing that music perception is an extended phenomenon. It is claimed that because music perception involves the detection of musical invariants within an “acoustic array”, the interaction between the auditory (...) system and the musical invariants can be characterized as an extended computational cognitive system. In articulating this view, the work of J. J. Gibson (1966, 1986) and Robert Wilson (1994, 1995, 2004) is drawn on. The view is defended from several objections and its implications outlined. The paper concludes with a comparison to Krueger’s (2014) view of the “musically extended emotional mind”. (shrink)

This thesis explores the possibility of composite consciousness: phenomenally conscious states belonging to a composite being in virtue of the consciousness of, and relations among, its parts. We have no trouble accepting that a composite being has physical properties entirely in virtue of the physical properties of, and relations among, its parts. But a long­standing intuition holds that consciousness is different: my consciousness cannot be understood as a complex of interacting component consciousnesses belonging to parts of me. I ask why: (...) what is it about consciousness that makes us think it so different from matter? And should we accept this apparent difference? (shrink)

This chapter wades into the growing discussion surrounding embodied cognition and predictive processing. After surveying a recent debate between Jakob Hohwy and Andy Clark, it articulates two outstanding issues facing discussions of compatibility. It argues that headway on these issues can be made by drawing on the resources of philosophy of science.

Is it morally important to vote? It is common to think so, but both consequentialist and deontological strategies for defending that intuition are weak. In response, some theorists have turned to a role-based strategy, arguing that it is morally important to be an excellent citizen, and that excellent citizens vote. But there is a lingering puzzle: an individual vote changes very little (virtually nothing in large-scale elections), so why would the excellent citizen be so concerned to cast a ballot? Why (...) bother with something that has so little effect on the common good? This paper answers by developing the idea of respect for a practice, and then arguing that respect for democracy will often require citizens to vote. (shrink)

The assumption that psychological states and processes are computational in character pervades much of cognitive science, what many call the computational theory of mind. In addition to occupying a central place in cognitive science, the computational theory of mind has also had a second life supporting “individualism”, the view that psychological states should be taxonomized so as to supervene only on the intrinsic, physical properties of individuals. One response to individualism has been to raise the prospect of “wide computational systems”, (...) in which some computational units are instantiated outside the individual. “Wide computationalism” attempts to sever the link between individualism and computational psychology by enlarging the concept of computation. However, in spite of its potential interest to cognitive science, wide computationalism has received little attention in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. This paper aims to revisit the prospect of wide computationalism. It is argued that by appropriating a mechanistic conception of computation wide computationalism can overcome several issues that plague initial formulations. The aim is to show that cognitive science has overlooked an important and viable option in computational psychology. The paper marshals empirical support and responds to possible objections. (shrink)

One method for uncovering the subprocesses of mental processes is the “Additive Factors Method” (AFM). The AFM uses reaction time data from factorial experiments to infer the presence of separate processing stages. This paper investigates the conceptual status of the AFM. It argues that one of the AFM’s underlying assumptions is problematic in light of recent developments in cognitive neuroscience. Discussion begins by laying out the basic logic of the AFM, followed by an analysis of the challenge presented by neural (...) reuse. Following this, implications are analysed and avenues of response considered. (shrink)

‘Radical enactivism’ (Hutto and Myin 2013, 2017) eschews representational content for all ‘basic’ mental activities. Critics have argued that this view cannot make sense of the workings of the imagination. In their recent book (2017), Hutto and Myin respond to these critics, arguing that some imaginings can be understood without attributing them any representational content. Their response relies on the claim that a system can exploit a structural isomorphism between two things without either of those things being a semantically evaluable (...) representation of the other. I argue that even if this claim is granted, there remains a problem for radically enactive accounts of imagining, namely that the active establishing and maintenance of a structural isomorphism seems to require representational content even if the exploitation of such an isomorphism, when established, does not. (shrink)

مداخلة مترجمة عن الفرنسية للفيلسوف الفرنسي جيل دولوز.

One particularly successful approach to modeling within cognitive science is computational psychology. Computational psychology explores psychological processes by building and testing computational models with human data. In this paper, it is argued that a specific approach to understanding computation, what is called the ‘narrow conception’, has problematically limited the kinds of models, theories, and explanations that are offered within computational psychology. After raising two problems for the narrow conception, an alternative, ‘wide approach’ to computational psychology is proposed.