I here press an often overlooked question: Why does the fairness of a sanction require an adequate opportunity to avoid it? By pressing this question, I believe I have come to better understand something that has long puzzled me, namely, what philosophers (and others) might have in mind when they talk about “true moral responsibility,” or the “condemnatory force” of moral blame, or perhaps even “basic desert.” In presenting this understanding of “condemnation” or of “basic desert,” I am presenting (...) an idea that I do not, myself, endorse—one to which I am, myself, opposed. I present and defend it, hoping that, if what I say accurately captures what people have in mind, it will also show how condemnation or desert, in this sense, can be left behind. (shrink)

A good number of people currently thinking and writing about reasons identify a reason as a consideration that counts in favor of an action or attitude.1 I will argue that using this as our fundamental account of what a reason is generates a fairly deep and recalcitrant ambiguity; this account fails to distinguish between two quite different sets of considerations that count in favor of certain attitudes, only one of which are the “proper” or “appropriate” kind of reason for them. (...) This ambiguity has been the topic of recent discussion, under the head “the wrong kind of reasons problem.”2 I will suggest that confusion about “the wrong kind of reason” will be dispelled by changing our account of what a reason is. While I agree both that reasons are considerations and that certain.. (shrink)

Many assume that we can be responsible only what is voluntary. This leads to puzzlement about our responsibility for our beliefs, since beliefs seem not to be voluntary. I argue against the initial assumption, presenting an account of responsibility and of voluntariness according to which, not only is voluntariness not required for responsibility, but the feature which renders an attitude a fundamental object of responsibility (that the attitude embodies one’s take on the world and one’s place in it) also guarantees (...) that it could not be voluntary. It turns out, then, that, for failing to be voluntary, beliefs are a central example of the sort of thing for which we are most fundamentally responsible. (shrink)

I hope to show that, although belief is subject to two quite robust forms of agency, "believing at will" is impossible; one cannot believe in the way one ordinarily acts. Further, the same is true of intention: although intention is subject to two quite robust forms of agency, the features of belief that render believing less than voluntary are present for intention, as well. It turns out, perhaps surprisingly, that you can no more intend at will than believe at will.

Here I defend my solution to the wrong-kind-of-reason problem against Mark Schroeder’s criticisms. In doing so, I highlight an important difference between other accounts of reasons and my own. While others understand reasons as considerations that count in favor of attitudes, I understand reasons as considerations that bear (or are taken to bear) on questions. Thus, to relate reasons to attitudes, on my account, we must consider the relation between attitudes and questions. By considering that relation, we not only solve (...) the wrong-kind-of-reason problem, but we also bring into view rational agency—the use of reasons in thought. (shrink)

In this paper I consider fairness of blaming a wrongdoer. In particular, I consider the claim that blaming a wrongdoer can be unfair because blame has a certain characteristic force, a force which is not fairly imposed upon the wrongdoer unless certain conditions are met--unless, e.g., the wrongdoer could have done otherwise, or unless she is someone capable of having done right, or unless she is able to control her behavior by the light of moral reasons. While agreeing that blame (...) has a characteristic force, I am skeptical of this charge of unfairness. My skepticism concerns itself less with the particular conditions of fairness proposed than with the idea that blame can be rendered unfair by its characteristic force. If to blame a person were simply to perform certain intentional actions, then, as we will see, blame could be rendered unfair by its force. But to blame a person is not just to act in certain ways. It is, at least in large part, to make certain judgments or adopt certain attitudes. However, it is unclear how these attitudes or judgments carry "force"? and also unclear whether they can be rendered unfair by their force. Examining these issues, I will suggest that much of the force of blame is found in a set of judgments--most centrally, the judgment that one person failed to show proper regard for others. But, I will argue, once it is granted that such judgments are true, their characteristic force cannot render them unfair. (shrink)

I argue to a conclusion I find at once surprising and intuitive: although many considerations show trust useful, valuable, important, or required, these are not the reasons for which one trusts a particular person to do a particular thing. The reasons for which one trusts a particular person on a particular occasion concern, not the value, importance, or necessity of trust itself, but rather the trustworthiness of the person in question in the matter at hand. In fact, I will suggest (...) that the degree to which you trust a particular person to do a particular thing will vary inversely with the degree to which you must rely, for the motivation or justification of your trusting response, on reasons that concern the importance, or value, or necessity of having such a response. (shrink)

There seems to be widespread agreement that to be responsible for something is to be deserving of certain consequences on account of that thing. Call this the “merited-consequences” conception of responsibility. I think there is something off, or askew, in this conception, though I find it hard to articulate just what it is. The phenomena the merited-consequences conception is trying to capture could be better captured, I think, by noting the characteristic way in which certain minds can rightly matter to (...) other such minds—the way in which certain minds can carry a certain kind of importance, made manifest in certain sorts of responses. Mattering, not meriting, seems to me central. However, since I cannot yet better articulate an alternative, I continue in the merit-consequences framework. I focus on a particular class of consequences: those that are non-voluntary, in a sense explained. The non-voluntariness of these reactions has two important upshots. First, questions about their justification will be complex. Second, they are not well thought of as consequences voluntarily imposed upon the wrongdoer by the responder. By focusing on merited consequences and overlooking non-voluntariness, we risk misunderstanding the significance of moral criticism and of certain reactions to moral failure. (shrink)

A common line of thought claims that we are responsible for ourselves and our actions, while less sophisticated creatures are not, because we are, and they are not, self-aware. Our self-awareness is thought to provide us with a kind of control over ourselves that they lack: we can reflect upon ourselves, upon our thoughts and actions, and so ensure that they are as we would have them to be. Thus, our capacity for reflection provides us with the control over ourselves (...) that grounds our responsibility. I argue that this thought is subtly, but badly, confused. It uses, as its model for the control that grounds our responsibility, the kind of control we exercise over ordinary objects and over our own voluntary actions: we represent to ourselves what to do or how to change things, and then we bring about that which we represent. But we cannot use this model to explain our responsibility for ourselves and our actions: if there is a question about why or how we are responsible for ourselves and our actions, it cannot be answered by appeal to a sophisticated, self-directed action. There must be some more fundamental account of how or why we are responsible. I replace the usual account with a novel but natural view: responsible mental activity can be modeled, not as an ordinary action, but as the settling of a question. This shift will require abandoning the tempting but troublesome thought that responsible activity involves discretion and awareness—which, I argue, we must abandon in any case. (shrink)

Donald Davidson opens ‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes’ by asking, ‘What is the relation between a reason and an action when the reason explains the action by giving the agent's reason for doing what he did?’ His answer has generated some confusion about reasons for action and made for some difficulty in understanding the place for the agent's own reasons for acting, in the explanation of an action. I offer here a different account of the explanation of action, one that, though (...) minimal and formal, preserves the proper role for the agent's own reasons for acting. (shrink)

According to ‘Excluders’, descriptive uncertainty – but not normative uncertainty – matters to what we ought to do. Recently, several authors have argued that those wishing to treat normative uncertainty differently from descriptive uncertainty face a dependence problem because one's descriptive uncertainty can depend on one's normative uncertainty. The aim of this paper is to determine whether the phenomenon of dependence poses a decisive problem for Excluders. I argue that existing arguments fail to show this, and that, while stronger ones (...) can be found, Excluders can escape them. (shrink)

I here defend an account of the will as practical reason —or, using Kant's phrase, as " reason in its practical employment"—as against a view of the will as a capacity for choice, in addition to reason, by which we execute practical judgments in action. Certain commonplaces show distance between judgment and action and thus seem to reveal the need for a capacity, in addition to reason, by which we execute judgment in action. However, another ordinary fact pushes in the (...) other direction: the activities of the will are activities for which the person is answerable in a very particular sort of way. This answerability is most easily understood if willing involves settling a question. Settling a question seems to be a capacity of reason. Thus it can seem that activities of will are activities of our capacity for reasoning. I will suggest that we can accommodate the commonplaces while still understanding the will as reason in its practical employment, by abandoning the assumption that practical reasoning concludes in a judgment. Rather, reasoning which concludes in a judgment—reasoning directed at the question of whether p—is theoretical reasoning. In its practical employment, reason is directed at the question of whether to x; it concludes, not in a judgment about x-ing, but rather in an intention to x. (shrink)

Many think of reasons as facts, propositions, or considerations that stand in some relation (or relations) to attitudes, actions, states of affairs. The relation may be an explanatory one or a “normative” one—though some are uncomfortable with irreducibly “normative” relations. I will suggest that we should, instead, see reasons as items in pieces of reasoning. They relate, in the first instance, not to psychological states or events or states of affairs, but to questions. That relation is neither explanatory nor “normative.” (...) If we must give it a label, we could call it “rational”—but that will mean, I think, only that the consideration bears on the question. By thus putting reasoning first, we not only avoid a handful of difficulties that have plagued thinking about reasons, but we also bring back to center-stage the importance of rational agency. (shrink)

In the classical Turing test, participants are challenged to tell whether they are interacting with another human being or with a machine. The way the interaction takes place is not direct, but a distant conversation through computer screen messages. Basic forms of interaction are face-to-face and embodied, context-dependent and based on the detection of reciprocal sensorimotor contingencies. Our idea is that interaction detection requires the integration of proprioceptive and interoceptive patterns with sensorimotor patterns, within quite short time lapses, so that (...) they appear as mutually contingent, as reciprocal. In other words, the experience of interaction takes place when sensorimotor patterns are contingent upon one’s own movements, and vice versa. I react to your movement, you react to mine. When I notice both components, I come to experience an interaction. Therefore, we designed a “minimal” Turing test to investigate how much information is required to detect these reciprocal sensorimotor contingencies. Using a new version of the perceptual crossing paradigm, we tested whether participants resorted to interaction detection to tell apart human from machine agents in repeated encounters with these agents. In two studies, we presented participants with movements of a human agent, either online or offline, and movements of a computerized oscillatory agent in three different blocks. In each block, either auditory or audiovisual feedback was provided along each trial. Analysis of participants’ explicit responses and of the implicit information subsumed in the dynamics of their series will reveal evidence that participants use the reciprocal sensorimotor contingencies within short time windows. For a machine to pass this minimal Turing test, it should be able to generate this sort of reciprocal contingencies. (shrink)

In "Rational Capacities" Michael Smith outlines the sense of capacity he believes to be required before blame is appropriate. I question whether this sense of capacity is required. In so doing, I consider different ways in which blame might be conditioned.

This paper proposes an intermediate account of personhood, based on the capacity to participate in intersubjective interactions. We articulate our proposal as a reply to liberal and restrictive accounts, taking Mark Rowlands’ and Stephen Darwall’s proposals as contemporary representatives of each view, respectively. We argue that both accounts fall short of dealing with borderline cases and defend our intermediate view: The criteria of personhood based on the second-person perspective of mental state attribution. According to it, a person should be able (...) to participate in intersubjective interactions. We apply our proposal to the borderline cases of non-human primates and human infants. (shrink)

I suggest that Fischer concedes too much to the consequence argument when he grants that we may not make a difference. I provide a broad sketch of (my take on) the dispute between compatibilists and incompatibilists, while suggesting that some of the discussion may have confused the freedom required for moral responsibility with a very different notion of autonomy. I introduce that less usual notion of autonomy and suggest that those who are autonomous, in this sense, do make a difference.

I first sketch the different things we might have in mind, when thinking about responsibility. I then relate each of those to possible investigations of human agency. The most interesting such relation, in my opinion, is that between agency and what I call “responsibility as mattering.” I offer some hypotheses about that relation.

I first present what Peter Strawson calls his “Social Naturalism,” as applied to ethics. I then briefly present the way in which his Naturalism allows Strawson to resist skepticism about moral responsibility and free will, as argued in “Freedom and Resentment.” His way of resisting this kind of skepticism opens his Naturalism to another challenge: it can seem objectionably relativistic. I have provided a response to this challenge, on Strawson’s behalf, in the final chapter of my _Freedom, Resentment, and the (...) Metaphysics of Morals_ (2020). In this paper I expand upon that response—in particular, on the way in which the introduction of admittedly contested ideals might provide sufficient critical purchase to avoid objectionable relativism while remaining broadly naturalistic. (shrink)

I consider Paulina Sliwa’s fruitful account of “taking responsibility” as “owning the normative footprint” of a wrong. Unlike most, Sliwa approaches the topic without concern for what I call “responsible agency.” I raise the possibility that this is virtue. I then question whether the “footprint” is simply given with the wrong or whether it must instead be made determinate through subsequent interaction, perhaps through conversation. I next distinguish two different kinds of conversation: a cooperative negotiation and a low-level power struggle. (...) The later is often part of what I call “the blame game.” I suggest that the “blame” of the blame game is the blame of ordinary life, to be distinguished from the technical term in the current philosophical literature, and I give an account of it. I note that one may sometimes opt out of the blame game simply by owning a generous interpretation of the footprint, something Sliwa discusses. I note that doing so is sometimes, but not always, virtuous. (shrink)

This chapter presents two contrasting pictures of the will. On the first, “the will” is a psychological structure or module within a person that originates spontaneous or endogenous activity, independently of external influence. On the second, “the will” is that collection of ordinary states of mind (cares, concerns, beliefs, desires, commitments, fears, etc.) that generates intentional, or voluntary, or responsible activity—it is the functioning together of those aspects of mind that account for human activity. A challenge is posed for each. (...) The challenge for the first is to say how the outputs of this module are the activity of the person. The challenge for the second is to say how psychological activity that might be entirely explained by a person’s history and environment can nonetheless be free and responsible activity. The replies take up an important question about the role of consciousness, in each picture. (shrink)

This chapter presents four different senses of “voluntary” that might be in play. First, voluntary1 movement contrasts with bodily movement not guided by the person—such as blinking or digesting, which are involuntary1. Second, you might move voluntarily1, and yet make a mistake—you might send an email to the wrong person—you then act involuntarily2. In contrast, voluntary2 action is successful. Third, you might purposely and even successfully do something you didn’t want to do—through the cargo overboard during the storm. In such (...) cases, you act involuntarily3. In contrast, you might act happily, as a volunteer, so to speak. You then act voluntarily3. Finally, sometimes you can be manipulated or deceived into acting as a volunteer—in which case you lack an important form of freedom. We might say that you act involuntarily4. I suggest that the first two senses might be fruitfully studied by neuroscience, while the final sense marks a distinction draw by ethical reflection. (shrink)

The book intends to interpret how different religions articulate their territories and manage the relationship with other religions, understanding systems and multiple everyday spaces, in a dynamic that is not only a component of contemporary reality, but is central to living it. The underlying thesis is that religion is the great geopolitical issue of our time, but an interpretation is only possible in terms of religious plurality and how ideas, symbolism, subjectivities and practices are incorporated in the daily life of (...) those who share the religious times and spaces, producing territorial identities and imaginary concrete cartographies as world projects. The volume has articles that focus on the religious space being gestated, expanded, contracted, celebrated or represented as a foundation for common life, as well as inter-religious conflicts arising in a world of diverse and differential coexistence. It is not a debate about classical geopolitics, but how geopolitical relations cross cultural-religious experience. (shrink)

In this document I survey my work to date (i.e., to September 2010) and connect it to the larger themes that have been animating it.

Recently, there has been an insurgence of corporations that bioprospect in Third World countries (going into these areas in hopes of utilizing traditional knowledge about local natural resources so as to eventually develop a synthetic alternative that they can then market). Although this type of bioprospecting does not encounter the problem of depleting environmental resources, other problems arise. Two primary problems are: (1) determining who has legal ownership of these resources, and (2) who should share in the profits that were (...) derived, in part, from these resources. Despite the attention that these problems have received, there has been little attention focused on the issue that I believe underlies these problems -- the differing views of nature between corporations (who consider nature to be an individually owned resource) and Third World communities (many of whom consider nature to be a communally owned resource). In this paper, I present what I believe is an additional useful tool for policy makers in resolving the current problems regarding bioprospecting in Third World countries. The tool I have in mind is a set of method components that can be used as guidelines as well as a test for inclusiveness. To arrive at these components, I will look to James D. Proctor's methodological proposal for resolving conflicts between those with differing views of nature. Because he presents this methodology in a limited context (as a means of resolving the Ancient Forest debate), I will clarify and expand his methodology so as to arrive at a set of methods that I believe can be helpful in arriving at a fair global policy regarding bioprospecting in Third World countries. (shrink)

The idea that we may continue to exist in a bodiless condition after our death has long played an important role in beliefs about immortality, ultimate rewards and punishments, the transmigration of souls, and the like. There has also been long and heated disagreement about whether the idea of disembodied existence even makes sense, let alone whether anybody can or does survive dissolution of his material form. It may seem doubtful that anything new could be added to the (...) debate at this late date, but I hope to show that this is not so. I will explore the problem of disembodiment from a somewhat different direction than has been tried before, one that leads to what seem to me more interesting and more definite conclusions about its unintelligibility. Furthermore, the approach I will be taking puts both the traditional mind-body problem and the competing claims of dualism and physicalism in a fresh light that can help us to understand better the nature of our embodied existence. (shrink)

In 1982, when T. M. Scanlon published “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” he noted that, despite the widespread attention to Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, the appeal of contractualism as a moral theory had been under appreciated. In particular, the appeal of contractualism’s account of what he then called “moral motivation” had been under appreciated.1 It seems to me that, in the intervening quarter century, despite the widespread discussion of Scanlon’s work, the appeal of contractualism, in precisely this regard, has still been (...) under appreciated—even though Scanlon makes what he once called “moral motivation” central, throughout his work. My first aim, then, is to do my best to draw out and make vivid this appeal. I will do this by first considering the two questions that Scanlon thinks must be addressed by any moral theory, what he once called “the question of subject matter” and “the question of motivation.” I will spend some time first locating and explicating the second question, of motivation, and then displaying Scanlon’s answer to it—it is this answer which provides contractualism with its under-appreciated appeal. I will then return to the question of subject matter—which will, by that point, have been revealed as not wholly distinct from the question of motivation, as Scanlon understands it. But it is as an answer to this question that Scanlon’s theory is most often.. (shrink)

The philosophical or theoretical commitments informing psychological research are sometimes characterized, even by theoretical psychologists themselves, as nonempirical, outside the bounds of methodological consideration, and/or nonrational. We argue that this characterization is incoherent. We illustrate our concern by analogy with problematic appeals to Kuhn’s work that have been influential in theoretical psychology. Following the contemporary pragmatist tradition, we argue that our philosophical/theoretical commitments are part of our larger webs of belief, and that for any of these beliefs to have meaning (...) their content must be informed by our practical engagement with the world, i.e., they are based on empirical evidence, broadly construed. It is this empirical basis that allows us to recognize our commitments at all and rationally to assess and criticize them when necessary. We conclude by demonstrating a rational assessment of the philosophical/theoretical commitments underlying a recent study in the social psychology of religion. (shrink)

In his article "Thoughts" (MIND, July 1960) William Ginnane argues that "thought is pure intentionality," and that our thoughts are not embodied essentially in the mental imagery and other elements of phenomenology that cross our minds along with the thoughts. Such images merely illustrate out thoughts. In my discussion I resist this claim pointing out that our thoughts are often embodied in events that can be described in phenomenological terms, especially when our reports of our thinking are introduced by the (...) colorful phrases that Ginnane himself suggests, such as "It crossed my mind that.." or "It occurred to me that…" It is true that we also have a mode of speech in which we report what we have thought in well-formed sentences. Sometimes the very utterance of such sentences is what we call thinking out loud. More often than not, however, our thoughts are fragmentary enough so that if someone asks us what we were thinking, we must stop and rather carefully formulate the expression of those thoughts. In this case there has been nothing running through our minds which can be phenomenologically described as complete sentences, yet in formulating the significance of what has been passing through our minds we do use complete sentences. It is true that one of the confusions we have been bothered by in the past is the idea that in describing the contents of our minds we must somehow find there a proto-type of the report we give in propositional form. The philosopher's phrase "entertaining a proposition" only encourages this confusion, as it looks like an attempt to describe one's mental history phenomenologically. Nevertheless, the successive phenomenological events that occur in our minds often seem to be not merely illustrations accompanying our thoughts, but to embody what we say occurred to us. (shrink)

A. A. Long, one of the world's leading writers on ancient philosophy, presents eighteen essays on the philosophers and schools of the Hellenistic and Roman periods--Epicureans, Stoics, and Sceptics. The discussion ranges over four centuries of innovative and challenging thought in ethics and politics, psychology, epistemology, and cosmology.

This article re-examines the theoretical basis for environmental and heritage interpretation in tourist settings in the light of hermeneutic philosophy. It notes that the pioneering vision of heritage interpretation formulated by Freeman Tilden envisaged a broadly educational, ethically informed and transformative art. By contrast, current cognitive psychological attempts to reduce interpretation to the monological transmission of information, targeting universal but individuated cognitive structures, are found to be wanting. Despite growing signs of diversity, this information processing approach to interpretation remains dominant. (...) The article then presents the alternative paradigm of hermeneutics through the works of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer, to provide a broader interpretation of interpretation. This not only captures the essence of Tilden’s definition but construes heritage interpretation as a more inclusive, culturally situated, critically reflexive and dialogical practice. (shrink)

Kevin McCain’s Evidentialism and Epistemic Justification is the most thorough defense of evidentialism to date. In this work, McCain proposes insightful new theses to fill in underdeveloped parts of evidentialism. One of these new theses is an explanationist account of evidential fit that appeals to dispositional properties. We argue that this explanationist account faces counterexamples, and that, more generally, explanationists should not understand evidential fit in terms of dispositional properties.

Luck egalitarians argue that distributive justice should be understood in terms of our capacity to be responsible for our choices. Both proponents and critics assume that the theory must rely on a comprehensive conception of responsibility. I respond to luck egalitarianism’s critics by developing a political conception of responsibility that remains agnostic on the metaphysics of free choice. I construct this political conception by developing a novel reading of John Rawls’ distinction between the political and the comprehensive. A surprising consequence (...) is that many responsibility-based objections to luck egalitarianism turn out to be objections to Rawls’ political liberalism as well. (shrink)

Much mischief concerning the concept of a human body is generated by the failure of philosophers to distinguish various important senses of the term 'body.' I discuss three of those senses and illustrate the issues they can generate by discussing the concept of a Lockean exchange of bodies as well as the brain-body switch.

Berkeley, Hume, and Russell rejected the traditional analysis of substances in terms of qualities which are supported by an "unknowable substratum." To them the proper alternative seemed obvious. Eliminate the substratum in which qualities are alleged to inhere, leaving a bundle of coexisting qualities--a view that we may call the Bundle Theory or BT. But by rejecting only part of the traditional substratum theory instead of replacing it entirely, Bundle Theories perpetuate certain confusions which are found in the Substratum Doctrine. (...) I examine two major types of BT developed by Russell and by G. F. Stout with the intention of showing that (1) the seemingly innocuous concept of "a quality" employed by these versions cannot be used to state their theories coherently, and (2) the fatal problems that the BT encounters point to a more satisfactory and interesting alternative to both the Substratum Doctrine and the BT. This is a view that I call the Qualified Particulars Theory. In a final section I draw morals from this discussion that apply to the analogous Humean view that a mind is a "bundle of perceptions and sensations.". (shrink)

This paper is a response to Anthony Brueckner's critique of my essay "The Self-Defeating Character of Skepticism," which appeared in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 1992. In this reply I contend that the three main avenues by which one might plausibly account for one's self-awareness are unavailable to an individual who is restricted to the skeptic's epistemic ground rules. First, all-encompassing doubt about the world cancels our "external" epistemic access via perception to ourselves as material individuals in the world. Second, (...) one does not have direct cpistemic access to one's substantial self through introspection, since the self as such is not a proper object of inner awareness. Third, we cannot claim, as Descartes did, that we have indirect epistemic access to the substantial self by inference from the occurrence of experiences.The summary conclusion for which I argue is that, if we are to account for our self-knowledge, we cannot adopt the purely subjective epistemological stance that is at the heart of global skepticism. (shrink)

An important source of doubt about our knowledge of the "external world" is the thought that all of our sensory experience could be delusive without our realizing it. Such wholesale questioning of the deliverances of all forms of perception seems to leave no resources for successfully justifying our belief in the existence of an objective world beyond our subjective experiences. I argue that there is there is a fatal flaw in the very expression of philosophical doubt about the "external world." (...) Therefore, no such justification is necessary. The feature of skepticism which I believe renders it vulnerable is the assumption that each of us has a right to be certain of his own existence as a subject of conscious experience even in the face of comprehensive doubt about our empirical beliefs. (shrink)

According to Cian Dorr, non-cognitivism has the implausible implication that arguments like the following are cases of wishful thinking: If lying is wrong, then the souls of liars will be punished in the afterlife; lying is wrong; therefore, the souls of liars will be punished in the afterlife. Dorr further claims that if non-cognitivism implies that the above argument and similar arguments are cases of wishful thinking, then non-cognitivism remains implausible even if one solves the so-called Frege-Geach problem. Dorr’s claims (...) have faced a number of objections, but I believe that Dorr is on to something. So, after summarizing Dorr’s argument and briefly describing three flaws in what Dorr claims, I shall present a distinct objection to non-cognitivism and use the preceding to show what Dorr’s argument gets right and what it gets wrong. (shrink)

Responsible innovation (RI), also termed Responsible Research and Innovation, has emerged due to increasing concern over how to integrate ethical and societal values into research and innovation policy and governance (Von Schomberg 2013), in response to questioning of the societal role of science as well as populist resurgence in some countries (Long and Blok 2017a). Within a RI approach, innovators must consider three dimensions of responsibility, including the dimensions of (1) ‘avoiding harm’ to people and the planet, (2) ‘doing (...) good’ through the offering of innovations that foster sustainable development, and (3) the development of facilitative global governance schemes (Voegtlin and Scherer 2017). (shrink)

In his Meditations Descartes concludes that he is a res cogitans, an unextended entity whose essence is to be conscious. His reasoning in support of the conclusion that he exists entirely distinct from his body has seemed unconvincing to his critics. I attempt to show that the reasoning which he offers in support of his conclusion. although mistaken, is more plausible and his mistakes more interesting than his critics have acknowledged.

ChatGPT – a large language model – recently passed the U.S. bar exam. The startling rise and power of generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT lead us to consider whether and how more specialized systems could be used to overcome existing barriers to the legal system. Such systems could be employed in either of the two major stages of the pursuit of justice: preliminary information gathering and formal engagement with the state’s legal institutions and professionals. We focus on (...) the former and argue that developing and deploying publicly funded AI legal advisors can reduce economic and shame-based cultural barriers to the information-gathering stage of pursuing justice. (shrink)

Highlights: -/- • Breastfeeding and breastfeeding support can contribute to mitigating climate change. • Achieving global nutrition targets will save more emissions than fuel-switching. • Breastfeeding support programmes support a just transition. • This work can support the expansion of mitigation options in energy system models. -/- Abstract: -/- Renewable gas has been proposed as a solution to decarbonise industrial processes, specifically heat demand. As part of this effort, the breast-milk substitutes industry is proposing to use renewable gas as a (...) substitute for fossil natural gas. However, decarbonising the industrial processing of breast-milk substitutes can increase social license for these products, potentially undermining breastfeeding. World Health Organisation nutrition targets aim to increase exclusive breastfeeding to at least 50% globally by 2025 to improve maternal, infant, and young child health and nutrition. This target will have implications for the energy transition. A weakness of existing energy models is that demands for end-use products such as breast-milk substitutes are typically not considered explicitly. This paper develops an analytical framework for explicitly representing infant feeding methods in energy systems models. We compare the emissions saved in Ireland from decarbonising the industrial processing of breast-milk substitutes with renewable gas with the emissions saved by an increase in exclusive breastfeeding to 50% in both Ireland and a key export market, China. We demonstrate that the emissions saved from achieving the minimum global breastfeeding target are greater than when renewable gas is used to displace natural gas in the production of breast-milk substitutes in Ireland. We discuss the decarbonisation of breast-milk substitutes in relation to the principle of justice as non-maleficence, a principle based on the commitment to avoid harm, a novel application of a principle of justice. We conclude that breastfeeding support can be considered a demand-side measure for mitigating climate change by reducing the demand for energy services to produce breast-milk substitutes. A key recommendation is to position breastfeeding support as both a public health and a climate justice issue that is relevant for a just transition. The framework developed for this paper could be applied to support the inclusion of a wider range of mitigation options with social justice outcomes in energy system models. [Open access]. (shrink)

Joint attention is a social-cognitive phenomenon in which two or more agents direct their attention together towards the same object. Definitions range from this rather broad conception to more specific definitions which require that, in addition, attention be directed to the same aspect of that object and that agents need to be mutually aware of their jointly attending. Joint attention is an important coordination mechanism in joint action. The capacity for engaging in joint attention, in particular in the sense of (...) this narrower definition, is frequently taken to indicate the presence of theory of mind in the participating agents, and is also implicated in the development of theory of mind. However, the prominence of sensorimotor components in establishing and sustaining episodes of joint attention — e.g., eye and head movements, pointing and vocalizations — suggests that sensorimotor approaches to social interaction may be well-placed to account for important parts of joint attention without invoking theory-of-mind abilities, and may therefore provide a valuable alternative to approaches emphasizing theory of mind. In particular, sensorimotor accounts may explain aspects of joint attention through the dynamics and regularities in the sensorimotor processes that coordinate the activities of the agents. (shrink)

I have recently argued that if the causal theory of reference is true, then, on pain of absurdity, no normative ethical theory is true. In this journal, Michael Byron has objected to my reductio by appealing to Frank Jackson’s moral reductionism. The present essay defends reductio while also casting doubt upon Jackson’s moral reductionism.

Mark White has developed a provocative skepticism about antitrust law. I first argue against three claims that are essential to his argument: the state may legitimately constrain or punish only conduct that violates someone’s rights, the market’s purpose is coordinating and maximizing individual autonomy, and property rights should be completely insulated from democratic deliberation. I then sketch a case that persons might have a right to a competitive market. If so, antitrust law does deal with conduct that violates rights. The (...) main thread running throughout the article is that what counts as a legitimate exercise of property rights is dynamic, sensitive to various external conditions, and is the proper object of democratic deliberation. (shrink)

As the title of the article suggests, “The Burqa Ban”: Legal Precursors for Denmark, American Experiences and Experiments, and Philosophical and Critical Examinations, the authors embark on a factually investigative as well as a reflective response. More precisely, they use The 2018 Danish “Burqa Ban”: Joining a European Trend and Sending a National Message (published as a concurrent but separate article in this issue of INTERNATIONAL STUDIES JOURNAL) as a platform for further analysis and discussion of different perspectives. These include (...) case-law at the international level while focusing attention on recent rulings and judicial reasoning by the ECtHR and the ECJ; critical thought-experiments in religion, morality, human rights, and the democratic public space; a contextualized account of burqa-wearing interventions by federal and state governments and, moreover, various courts in the United States; and philosophical commentary and, in some instances, criticism of the Danish and/or European (French, etc.) approach. The different contributions have different aims. The section on case-law at the international level reports on those central judgments that, in effect, helped to pave the path for the Kingdom of Denmark’s burqa ban. Concerning the concurring judges at the ECtHR, the opinions served to uphold a preexisting ban and to grant a wide margin of appreciation to the national authorities, thereby limiting the Court’s own review. -/- As regards to the ECJ, the legality of company rules that contain a policy of neutrality for the workplace was examined, with a similar outcome. The authors who discuss religion, morality, human rights and the democratic public space are endeavoring to, respectively, appeal to ethics as a testing stone for law and to both challenge and address several forms of “expressivist worry” in connection with face veils. In doing so, the authors ask a number of thought-provoking questions that hopefully will inspire public policymakers to careful analysis. While the section that is devoted to American perspectives highlights a comprehensive survey of political and legal responses to, in particular, full-face veils like the burqa, the relevant author also incorporates public perceptions and, in the course of examining these, draws a parallel to “the fate” of the hoodie. The constitutionality of burqa-wearing in America, so it also appears, is partially an open question, but differentiating between religious, political, or personal reasons is a de jure premise. Given that the Danish legislators who drafted law L 219 to ban burqa-wearing in public places rely on a reference to political Islam, they relegate religious and personal reasons to the private domain, thereby also adopting secularism as a premise. This is explored in the last author response of the article, more precisely, in an account of the underlying materialism that, in turn, is applied to Muslim women. If policymakers and legislators engaged in Thinking Things Through exercises, they could, as a minimum, avoid law-making strategies that are not in the spirit of the theory they themselves invoke, albeit tacitly. While the aim of, as it were, arresting culturally self-contradicting legislators is unique for the section in question, all the authors who contribute to the joint research project have one end-goal in common, namely to inform about important perspectives while at the same time opening up for parameters for (more) fruitful, constructive and (if need be) critical debate in the future. With this in mind, four recommendations are presented by the research director for the project. Legally, politically, socially and culturally, conflict-resolution should not translate the relationship between rulers and the ruled into a separation ideology, an instance of controllers versus the controlled. All things being equal, that is the objective limit for a democratic society. (shrink)

This chapter explores the concept and practice of responsible management of innovation. Responsible innovation is a key response to the grand challenges faced by society, helping to develop innovations with society in mind, and limit any unintended consequences. Responsible managers with influence over innovations need knowledge and understanding of how responsible innovation applies to their roles and how as individuals they can manage innovation responsibly. While the application of responsible innovation to these contexts faces a number of practical and conceptual (...) challenges, this chapter will focus on the contribution and potential of responsible management of innovation processes to provide economic and societal benefits. This chapter explores these issues through the perspective of individual managers, at the level of the organisation and finally at the level of the innovation system. (shrink)