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

Psycholinguistic methods hold great promise for experimental philosophy. Many philosophical thought experiments and arguments proceed from verbal descriptions of possible cases. Many relevant intuitions and conclusions are driven by spontaneous inferences about what else must also be true in the cases described. Such inferences are continually made in language comprehension and production. This chapter explains how methods from psycholinguistics can be employed to study such routine automatic inferences, with a view to assessing intuitions and reconstructing arguments. We demonstrate how plausibility (...) ratings, pupillometry, and reading time measurements can be used to examine hypotheses about automatic inferences in speech and text comprehension. Two experiments on inferences from polysemous (perception-)verbs provide evidence of a potentially consequential ‘salience bias’. Findings help assess intuitions about unusual cases and analyse a philosophical paradox (‘argument from hallucination’). The paper thus illustrates how we can adapt psycholinguistic methods for philosophical purposes and demonstrates the methods’ philosophical usefulness. (shrink)

Pragmatism’s heartening recent revival (spearheaded by Richard Rorty’s bold intervention into analytic philosophy Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) has coalesced into a distinctive philosophical movement frequently referred to as ‘neopragmatism’. This movement interprets the very meaning of pragmatism as rejection of metaphysical commitments: our words do not primarily serve to represent non-linguistic entities, but are tools to achieve a range of human purposes. A particularly thorough and consistent version of this position is Huw Price’s global expressivism. We here critically (...) appraise Price’s understanding of a commitment to pragmatism as a rejection of metaphysics, and argue that such rejection is not as easy or desirable as Price claims. First we argue that Price’s global expressivism itself draws on significant metaphysical assumptions (a ‘word-world’ dualism, and a nominalism concerning the meaning of general terms). Then we seek to resolve neopragmatist anxieties about metaphysics by arguing that metaphysics is indispensable for pragmatist philosophizing insofar as it seeks ways for human beings to realise themselves through practices of understanding reality and their place in it. If, as we argue, metaphysics consists in a maximally general inquiry into the nature and structure of reality, to try to block it seems a puzzling exercise in epistemic self-harm. (shrink)

It is still a live question in epistemology and philosophy of science as to what exactly evidence is. In my view, evidence consists in experiences called “seemings.” This view is a version of the phenomenal conception of evidence, the position that evidence consists in nonfactive mental states with propositional content. This conception is opposed by sense-data theorists, disjunctivists, and those who think evidence consists in physical objects or publicly observable states of affairs—call it the courtroom conception of evidence. Thomas Kelly (...) has recently argued that the phenomenal conception cannot play all the roles evidence plays and is thus inadequate. Having first explained the nature of seemings, in this essay I utilize Kelly’s own understanding of the four major roles of evidence and argue that the phenomenal conception can play each one. Experience is a good candidate for evidence. (shrink)

Intuitive judgments elicited by verbal case-descriptions play key roles in philosophical problem-setting and argument. Experimental philosophy's ‘sources project’ seeks to develop psychological explanations of philosophically relevant intuitions which help us assess our warrant for accepting them. This article develops a psycholinguistic explanation of intuitions prompted by philosophical case-descriptions. For proof of concept, we target intuitions underlying a classic paradox about perception, trace them to stereotype-driven inferences automatically executed in verb comprehension, and employ a forced-choice plausibility-ranking task to elicit the relevant (...) stereotypical associations of perception- and appearance-verbs. We obtain a debunking explanation that resolves the philosophical paradox. (shrink)

This article explores the notion of pedagogical authority as exercised in the Community of Inquiry, the method for facilitating Philosophy for Children (P4C). It argues that the teachers’ pedagogical authority in a Community of Inquiry is not predicated on their intellectual superiority or status. Rather it finds its legitimacy in their role as instigators of students’ thinking skills, which are assumed to be already possessed by the learners. This thesis is discussed in relation to Rancière’s concept of the dissociation of (...) the will and the intellect, which is treated here as conceptual complement to the existing interpretation of pedagogical authority as understood and practiced by scholars in the field of P4C. (shrink)

I argue, contra Mohan Matthen, that at least some aesthetic pleasures arising from the appreciation of aesthetic features of artworks are what he calls ‘r-pleasures’ as opposed to ‘f-pleasures’—and moreover, that the paradigm aesthetic pleasure appears to be an r-pleasure on Matthen's terms. I then argue that talk of r- and f-pleasures does not distinguish different kinds, but two different features of pleasure; so this supposed distinction cannot be used to characterize a sui generis aesthetic pleasure.

Environmental philosophy – broadly conceived as using philosophical tools to develop ideas related to environmental issues – is conducted and practised in highly diverse ways in different contexts and traditions in Asia. ‘Asian environmental philosophy’ can be understood to include Asian traditions of thought as well as grassroots perspectives on environmental issues in Asia. Environmental issues have sensitive political facets tied to who has the legitimacy to decide about how natural resources are used. Because of this, the works, practices, and (...) researchers in Asian environmental philosophy are exposed to being (mis)used by diverse stakeholders and actors to support political ends not related to environmental sustainability. Two processes are at play at the nexus of the construction of identities in relation to conceptualisations of nature: eco-orientalism and ecological nationalisms. This paper analyzes and exemplifies these dynamics through a conceptual framework that distinguishes ideological and socio-technical explanations of environmental degradation. Finally, to minimise the risks of political misuse, five pathways are presented to carefully help curate environmental, philosophical statements: contextualise, quantify uncertainty and ‘uniqueness’, downscale, confront claims with local realities and literature, and collaborate with researchers from other disciplines. Conjointly, these pathways aim at favouring intercultural collaboration while valuing diversity, thus supporting the development and exchanges in environmental philosophy in Asia and beyond. (shrink)

This three-part paper presents Gordon Pask’s conversation theory (CT) and interaction of actors theory (IA) and outlines ways to apply these cybernetic approaches to designing technologies and scenarios for both formal and informal learning. The first part of the paper covers concepts central to CT and IA, explaining the relationship between conceptual and mechanical operators, and machines mediating informal and formal learning. The second part of the paper applies visual representations of CT and IA to understanding the use of Pask’s (...) course assembly systems (CASTE and THOUGHTSTICKER), created between the late 1960s and the 1980s, and the ThoughtShuffler search interface, created in the 2010s. The third part proposes two pathways for design based on CT and IA: firstly, the potential for designers and observers to reformulate the qualities of tools and learning scenarios to augment human thinking and collective action; and secondly, the possibility to create tools with malleable interfaces that allow users to become intermediaries rather than consumers of knowledge. (shrink)

The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a central concept in climate change economics. This chapter explains the SCC and investigates it philosophically. As is widely acknowledged, any SCC calculation requires the analyst to make choices about the infamous topic of discount rates. But to understand the nature and role of discounting, one must understand how that concept—and indeed the SCC concept itself—is yoked to the concept of a value function, whose job is to take ways the world could be (...) across indefinite timespans and to rank them from better to worse. A great deal, therefore, turns on the details of the value function and on just what is meant by “better” and “worse.” This chapter seeks to explicate these and related issues, and then to situate them within the evolving landscape of federal climate policy in the United States. (shrink)

Animal ethicists have recently debated the ethical questions raised by disenhancing animals to improve their welfare. Here, we focus on the particular case of breeding hens for commercial egg-laying systems to become blind, in order to benefit their welfare. Many people find breeding blind hens intuitively repellent, yet ‘welfare-only’ positions appear to be committed to endorsing this possibility if it produces welfare gains. We call this the ‘Blind Hens’ Challenge’. In this paper, we argue that there are both empirical and (...) theoretical reasons why even those adopting ‘welfare-only’ views should be concerned about breeding blind hens. But we also argue that alternative views, which (for example) claim that it is important to respect the telos or rights of an animal, do not offer a more convincing solution to questions raised by the possibility of disenhancing animals for their own benefit. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall defend two main claims. First, Friedman’s famous paper “On the methodology of positive economics” (“F53”) cannot be properly understood without taking into account the influence of three authors who are neither cited nor mentioned in the paper: Max Weber, Frank Knight, and Karl Popper. I shall trace both their substantive influence on F53 and the historical route by which this influence took place. Once one has understood these ingredients, especially Weber’s ideal types, many of F53’s (...) astonishing sentences like “the more significant the theory, the more unrealistic the assumptions”, make good sense. Second, I shall claim that the much-discussed question whether Friedman’s essay espouses an instrumentalist or a realist position, is the wrong question to be asked. I shall illustrate that by a comparison with examples from physics in which also unrealistic assumptions are made. Also there, the question whether these assumptions are indicators of instrumentalism or realism is not appropriate. Cleared from these misunderstandings, F53 presents itself as an interesting and reasonable but much less controversial contribution to the methodology of economics. (shrink)

A brief introduction to a diverse and interesting group of papers in contemporary epistemology.

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

This study examines the correlation between job descriptions and salaries at Immaculate Conception College of Balayan Inc. (ICCBI), a private Catholic institution devoted to faith-based education. Using qualitative research, a single-case study was conducted with ten (10) participants selected through purposive sampling based on specific criteria. Through face-to-face interviews, data was collected and analyzed using a narrative approach. Thus, it was found out that job descriptions at ICCBI are established through methods like job analysis, role and responsibility approaches, qualifications, and (...) the school manual-based method. Salary determination involves factors such as tenure, educational attainment, performance, teaching loads, experience, and collegial care. Key factors influencing job descriptions include salary differentiation, aligned job descriptions, career development opportunities, and increased duties and responsibilities. Variations in the salary structure are affected by teaching loads, department designations, and educational qualifications. The findings indicate that job descriptions impact employee salaries at the institution, and future research is encouraged to explore identified factors for insights into developing more efficient roles and contributing to organizational effectiveness. With this, the study proposed a strategic plan for future use and implementation. (shrink)

_Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism_ is a classic critique of France's policies in Algeria in the 1950s and 1960s and inspired much subsequent writing on colonialism, post-colonialism, politics, and literature. It includes Sartre's celebrated preface to Fanon's classic _Wretched_ _of the Earth. Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism _ had a profound impact on French intellectual life, inspiring many other influential French thinkers and critics of colonialism such as Jean-Francois Lyotard, Frantz Fanon, Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Derrida.

Excerpt: In this essay I explore the nature of the necessity of historical development in Nietzsche’s genealogy of Judeo-Christian moral values. I argue that the progression of moral stages in Nietzsche’s study is ordered in such a way that the failure of each stage is logically and structurally necessary, that each failure structures the resultant system or paradigm, but that the historical manifestation of moral paradigms coinciding with predicted or projected theoretical structures is contingent upon a multitude of other historical (...) factors. Therefore, the systematic internal failures of moral stages allow for, but do not cause, successive events. (shrink)

This study explores the employee retention strategies implemented by administrators in educational institutions, focusing on Immaculate Conception College of Balayan, Inc. The qualitative case study involved 10 participants, including administrators and employees selected based on stable tenure and appropriate qualifications. Through face- to-face interviews, key determinants influencing retention, such as teacher satisfaction, job contentment, professional growth, and loyalty, were identified. Recognition and incentives emerged as the primary retention strategy, significantly influencing employee satisfaction and fostering a sense of belonging. The study (...) concludes that these strategies are effective, contributing to the retention of skilled professionals. Recommendations emphasize the importance of recognizing and providing incentives as core strategies for administrators in educational settings, recognizing their role in creating a positive work environment and promoting sustained employee commitment. The findings at ICCBI underscore the observed effectiveness of these strategies. (shrink)

In the replies to my critics that follow I offer a more detailed account of the specific papers that they discuss or examine. The papers that they are especially concerned with are: “The Material World and Natural Religion in Hume’s Treatise” (Ryan) [Essay 3], “Hume’s Skepticism and the Problem of Atheism” (Fosl) [Essay 12], and “Hume’s Philosophy of Irreligion and the Myth of British Empiricism (Gautier) [Essay 16].

Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy is a collection of essays that are all concerned with major figures and topics in the early modern philosophy. Most of the essays are concerned, more specifically, with the philosophy of David Hume (1711-1776). The sixteen essays included in this collection are divided into five parts. These parts are arranged under the headings of: (1) Metaphysics and Epistemology; (2) Free Will and Moral Luck; (3) Ethics, Virtue and Optimism; (4) Skepticism, Religion and Atheism; and (...) (5) Irreligion and the Unity of Hume’s Thought. A particularly important theme running through many of these essays is the subject of Hume’s irreligious aims and intentions. The fifth and final part of the collection is devoted to an articulation and defence of this specific understanding of Hume’s philosophical thought. (shrink)

Should a principle of charity be applied to the interpretation of the colour concepts exercised in visual experience? We think not. We shall argue, for one thing, that the grounds for applying a principle of charity are lacking in the case of colour concepts. More importantly, we shall argue that attempts at giving the experience of colour a charitable interpretation either fail to respect obvious features of that experience or fail to interpret it charitably, after all. Charity to visual experience (...) is therefore no motive for resisting the natural, Galilean response to a scientific understanding of light and vision. The best interpretation of colour experience ends up convicting it of widespread and systematic error. (shrink)

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY PRIZE for the best published book in the history of philosophy [Awarded in 2010] _______________ -/- Although it is widely recognized that David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) belongs among the greatest works of philosophy, there is little agreement about the correct way to interpret his fundamental intentions. It is an established orthodoxy among almost all commentators that skepticism and naturalism are the two dominant themes in this work. The difficulty has been, (...) however, that Hume's skeptical arguments and commitments appear to undermine and discredit his naturalistic ambition to contribute to "the science of man". This schism appears to leave his entire project broken-backed. The solution to this riddle depends on challenging another, closely related, point of orthodoxy: namely, that before Hume published the Treatise he removed almost all material concerned with problems of religion. Russell argues, contrary to this view, that irreligious aims and objectives are fundamental to the Treatise and account for its underlying unity and coherence. It is Hume's basic anti-Christian aims and objectives that serve to shape and direct both his skeptical and naturalistic commitments. When Hume's arguments are viewed from this perspective we can solve, not only puzzles arising from his discussion of various specific issues, we can also explain the intimate and intricate connections that hold his entire project together. This "irreligious" interpretation provides a comprehensive fresh account of the nature of Hume's fundamental aims and ambitions in the Treatise. It also presents a radically different picture of the way in which Hume's project was rooted in the debates and controversies of his own time, placing the Treatise in an irreligious or anti-Chrisitan philosophical tradition that includes Hobbes, Spinoza and freethinking followers. Considered in these terms, Hume's Treatise constitutes the crowning achievement of the Radical Enlightenment. (shrink)

What was René Girard’s attitude towards philosophy? What philosophers influenced him? What stance did he take in the philosophical debates of his time? What are the philosophical questions raised by René Girard’s anthropology? In this interview, Paul Dumouchel sheds light on these issues.

The paper looks at three big ideas that have been associated with the term “relativism.” The first maintains that some property has a higher-degree than might have been thought. The second that the judgments in a particular domain of discourse are capable only of relative truth and not of absolute truth And the third, which I dub with the oxymoronic label “absolutist relativism,” seeks to locate relativism in our acceptance of certain sorts of spare absolutist principles. -/- The first idea (...) is well illustrated by the famous cases drawn from physics, but is ill suited for providing a model for the sorts of relativism about normative domains that have most interested philosophers. -/- The second idea – according to which it is the truth of certain judgments that is relative – seems subject to a very difficult dilemma. -/- The final idea provides a coherent model of cases like etiquette but is not plausibly applied to the moral or epistemic domains. (shrink)

It is one thing to hold that merely statistical evidence is _sometimes_ insufficient for rational belief, as in typical lottery and profiling cases. It is another thing to hold that merely statistical evidence is _always_ insufficient for rational belief. Indeed, there are cases where statistical evidence plainly does justify belief. This project develops a dispositional account of the normativity of statistical evidence, where the dispositions that ground justifying statistical evidence are connected to the goals (= proper function) of objects. There (...) are strong intuitive motivations for doing this. For we can turn almost any case of _non-justifying_ merely statistical evidence into a case of _justifying_ merely statistical evidence by adding information about the dispositions and goals of the objects involved. The resulting view not only helps us understand when and why merely statistical evidence is normatively significant, but it also helps us understand how statistical evidence relates to more standard forms of evidence (perceptual, testimonial). The emerging view also has surprising applications, as it imposes limitations on the epistemic value of fine-tuning arguments for theism as well as undermines a standard class of case-based arguments for moral encroachment. (shrink)

In this paper, I explain the kinematics of non-ideal metalinguistic disagreement. This occurs when one speaker has greater control in the joint activity of pairing contents with words in a context. I argue that some forms of non-ideal metalinguistic disagreement are deeply worrying, namely those that involves certain power imbalances. In such cases, a speaker possesses illegitimate control in metalinguistic disagreement owing to the operation of identity prejudice. I call this metalinguistic injustice. The wrong involves restricting a speaker from participating (...) in the processes that determine the epistemic/linguistic resources of a conversation, and/or undermining a speaker's ability to affect metalinguistic outcomes. (shrink)

Proponents of public reason views hold that the exercise of political power ought to be acceptable to all reasonable citizens. This article elucidates the common structure shared by all public reason views, first by identifying a set of questions that all such views must answer and, second, by showing that the answers to these questions stand in a particular relationship to each other. In particular, we show that what we call the ‘rationale question’ is fundamental. This fact, and the common (...) structure more generally, are often overlooked or distorted within the literature. As a result, we argue, several prominent argumentative moves made by both critics and defenders of public reason are unsuccessful. Our overall conclusion is that discussions of public reason views would be more fruitful if they made consistent use of the common structure we identify. (shrink)

This paper explores the question: What would conceptual engineering have to be in order to promote social justice? Specifically, it argues that to promote social justice, conceptual engineering must deliver the following: it needs to be possible to deliberately implement a conceptual engineering proposal in large communities; it needs to be possible for a conceptual engineering proposal to bring about change to extant social categories; it needs to be possible to bring a population to adopt a conceptual engineering proposal for (...) the right reasons; and it needs to be possible to do – without producing harmful consequences. I show that, of the three dominant approaches to conceptual engineering in the literature, only one of them seems amenable to the idea that it is possible and legitimate to promote social justice in accordance with –. (shrink)

Conservatism about perceptual justification tells us that we cannot have perceptual justification to believe p unless we also have justification to believe that perceptual experiences are reliable. There are many ways to maintain this thesis, ways that have not been sufficiently appreciated. Most of these ways lead to at least one of two problems. The first is an over-intellectualization problem, whereas the second problem concerns the satisfaction of the epistemic basing requirement on justified belief. I argue that there is at (...) least one Conservative view that survives both difficulties, a view which has the further ability to undercut a crucial consideration that has supported Dogmatist views about perceptual justification. The final section explores a tension between Conservatism and the prospects of having a completely general account of propositional justification. Ironically, the problem is that Conservatives seem committed to making the acquisition of propositional justification too easy. My partial defense of Conservatism concludes by suggesting possible solutions to this problem. (shrink)

A basic challenge to naturalistic moral realism is that, even if moral properties existed, there would be no way to naturalistically represent or track them. Here, the basic structure for a tracking account of moral epistemology is given in empirically respectable terms, based on a eudaimonist conception of morality. The goal is to show how this form of moral realism can be seen as consistent with the details of evolutionary biology as well as being amenable to the most current understanding (...) of representationalist or correspondence theories of truth. (shrink)

Social robots are robots that can interact socially with humans. As social robots and the artificial intelligence that powers them becomes more advanced, they will likely take on more social and work roles. This has many important ethical implications. In this paper, we focus on one of the most central of these, the impacts that social robots can have on human autonomy. We argue that, due to their physical presence and social capacities, there is a strong potential for social robots (...) to enhance human autonomy as well as several ways they can inhibit and disrespect it. We argue that social robots could improve human autonomy by helping us to achieve more valuable ends, make more authentic choices, and improve our autonomy competencies. We also argue that social robots have the potential to harm human autonomy by instead leading us to achieve fewer valuable ends ourselves, make less authentic choices, decrease our autonomy competencies, make our autonomy more vulnerable, and disrespect our autonomy. Whether the impacts of social robots on human autonomy are positive or negative overall will depend on the design, regulation, and use we make of social robots in the future. (shrink)

This is a contribution to a Book symposium on The Limits of Free Will: Selected Essays by Paul Russell. Russell provides replies to three critics of The Limits of Free Will. The first reply is to Robert Wallace and focuses on the question of whether there is a conflict between the core compatibilist and pessimist components of the "critical compatibilist" position that Russell has advanced. The second reply is to Angela Smith's discussion of the "narrow" interpretation of moral responsibility (...) responsibility (as defended by R. Jay Wallace) and how best to respond to it. The third and last reply is concerned with Christopher Bennett's criticism of Russell's views concerning "motivational scepticism" and the possibility of pure practical reasons. (shrink)

That many values can be consequentialized – incorporated into a ranking of states of affairs – is often taken to support the view that apparent alternatives to consequentialism are in fact forms of consequentialism. Such consequentializing arguments take two very different forms. The first is concerned with the relationship between morally right action and states of affairs evaluated evaluator-neutrally, the second with the relationship between what agents ought to do and outcomes evaluated evaluator-relatively. I challenge the consequentializing arguments for both (...) forms of consequentialism. The plausibility of the evaluator-neutral consequentializing of certain values, I argue, in fact establishes the implausibility of an evaluator-neutral consequentialist account of such values. The problems that beset this evaluator-neutral consequentializing argument do not beset its evaluator-relative counterpart. But I demonstrate that evaluator-relatively consequentialized theories can also readily be ‘deontologized’, located within an alternative evaluative framework that is congenial to the articulation of nonconsequentialist moral theories. Such an alternative framework can accommodate what is compelling in consequentialists’ ‘Compelling Idea,’ and what is attractive in their Explanatory Thought. This alternative, moreover, can function as a shared evaluative framework within which the merits of consequentialist and nonconsequentialist alternatives can be considered without begging the question either way. (shrink)

Proponents of the extended mind have suggested that phenomenal transparency may be important to the way we evaluate putative cases of cognitive extension. In particular, it has been suggested that in order for a bio-external resource to count as part of the machinery of the mind, it must qualify as a form of transparent equipment or transparent technology. The present paper challenges this claim. It also challenges the idea that phenomenological properties can be used to settle disputes regarding the constitutional (...) status of bio-external resources in episodes of extended cognizing. Rather than regard phenomenal transparency as a criterion for cognitive extension, we suggest that transparency is a feature of situations that support the ascription of certain cognitive/mental dispositional properties to both ourselves and others. By directing attention to the forces and factors that motivate disposition ascriptions, we arrive at a clearer picture of the role of transparency in arguments for extended cognition and the extended mind. As it turns out, transparency is neither necessary nor sufficient for cognitive extension, but this does not mean that it is entirely irrelevant to our understanding of the circumstances in which episodes of extended cognizing are apt to arise. (shrink)

De Finetti would claim that we can make sense of a draw in which each positive integer has equal probability of winning. This requires a uniform probability distribution over the natural numbers, violating countable additivity. Countable additivity thus appears not to be a fundamental constraint on subjective probability. It does, however, seem mandated by Dutch Book arguments similar to those that support the other axioms of the probability calculus as compulsory for subjective interpretations. These two lines of reasoning can be (...) reconciled through a slight generalization of the Dutch Book framework. Countable additivity may indeed be abandoned for de Finetti's lottery, but this poses no serious threat to its adoption in most applications of subjective probability. Introduction The de Finetti lottery Two objections to equiprobability 3.1 The ‘No random mechanism’ argument 3.2 The Dutch Book argument Equiprobability and relative betting quotients The re-labelling paradox 5.1 The paradox 5.2 Resolution: from symmetry to relative probability Beyond the de Finetti lottery. (shrink)

Public shaming plays an important role in upholding valuable social norms. But, under what conditions, if any, is it morally justifiable? Our aim in this paper is systemically to investigate the morality of public shaming, so as to provide an answer to this neglected question. We develop an overarching framework for assessing the justifiability of this practice, which shows that, while shaming can sometimes be morally justifiable, it very often is not. In turn, our framework highlights several reasons to be (...) concerned about the increasingly widespread phenomenon of online public shaming. (shrink)

Plato's _Republic_ divided subsequent study of justice in two, as a virtue of people and of institutions. Here, the start of a reunification is attempted. Justice is first understood personally as the virtuous mean between arrogance and servility, where just people properly respect themselves and others. Because justice requires that like cases be treated alike and self-respect is a special instance of respect generally, justice requires a single standard for self and others. In understanding justice in terms of respect, structural (...) analogies become apparent between “recognition” and “appraisal” respect, on the one hand, and Rawls' two principles of justice on the other. The present view is then compared to “social egalitarian” theories of justice and the essay concludes with a discussion of how mercy is related to justice and an explanation of why just people always look for reasons to mitigate blame and punishment but never to aggravate them. (shrink)

Free Will & The Tragic Predicament : Making Sense of Williams -/- The discussion in this paper aims to make better sense of free will and moral responsibility by way of making sense of Bernard Williams’ significant and substantial contribution to this subject. Williams’ fundamental objective is to vindicate moral responsibility by way of freeing it from the distortions and misrepresentations imposed on it by “the morality system”. What Williams rejects, in particular, are the efforts of “morality” to further “deepen” (...) or “refine” the notion of the voluntary, with a view to securing “ultimate justice”. It is these aims and aspirations, he argues, that take us to the precipice of scepticism. In Shame and Necessity (1993) Williams advances a vindicatory genealogy that unmasks the “illusions” and “fantasies” of our current ethical ideas as they relate to agency and responsibility. What we are then left with is the task of “recasting our ethical conceptions” . It is here that Williams is especially insistent on the importance and value of historical consciousness and reflection. The role of our reflections about the Greeks and tragedy is precisely to show that in order to move forward, into the future, we need to first look back at where we have come from. The value of these “untimely” observations is that they provide us with alternatives and options that we might otherwise lack. What we discover, when we consider the Greeks, is their commitment to a “pessimism of strength” that rests on rejecting scepticism. It is this two-sided perspective on our ethical predicament that delivers a more truthful account of our human situation, one that will help us discard those illusions and fantasies of "morality" that we are “better off” without. An account of this kind refuses to accept an optimism that insists that any form of responsible ethical life must be one that is immune to the influence of luck and fate. This is the fundamental lesson that we can learn from the ancient Greeks and that Williams seeks to “recover” for us. (shrink)

In the 6th century, Paul the Persian used his own pen to write a summary of Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias in the Persian language. Severus Sebokht translated it into Syriac. This book is a transcription and translation of the Syriac manuscript of Paul the Persian's Peri Hermeneias and a comparison of it with Aristotle's original Greek text.

Examples of extended cognition typically involve the use of technologically low-grade bio-external resources (e.g., the use of pen and paper to solve long multiplication problems). The present paper describes a putative case of extended cognizing based around a technologically advanced mixed reality device, namely, the Microsoft HoloLens. The case is evaluated from the standpoint of a mechanistic perspective. In particular, it is suggested that a combination of organismic (e.g., the human individual) and extra-organismic (e.g., the HoloLens) resources form part of (...) a common mechanism that realizes a bona fide cognitive routine. In addition to demonstrating how the theoretical resources of neo-mechanical philosophy might be used to evaluate extended cognitive systems, the present paper illustrates one of the ways in which mixed reality devices, virtual objects (i.e., holograms), and online (Internet-accessible) computational routines might be incorporated into human cognitive processes. This, it is suggested, speaks to the recent interest in mixed/virtual reality technologies across a number of disciplines. It also introduces us to issues that cross-cut disparate fields of philosophical research, such as the philosophy of science and the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

We are witnessing increasing use of the Internet, particular social media, to criticize (perceived or actual) moral failings and misdemeanors. This phenomenon of so-called ‘online public shaming’ could provide a powerful tool for reinforcing valuable social norms. But it also threatens unwarranted and severe punishments meted out by online mobs. This paper analyses the dangers associated with the informal enforcement of norms, drawing on Locke, but also highlights its promise, drawing on recent discussions of social norms. We then consider two (...) crucial conditions that online public shaming must meet in order to be justifiable: proportionality and accountability. We argue that these requirements are in fact frequently violated, rendering most cases of online public shaming unjustified. While the use of online public shaming against others’ vices has some apparent virtues, it is currently rarely justified, given its own vices. (shrink)

Continuing prior work by the author, a simple classical system for personal obligation is integrated with a fairly rich system for aretaic (agent-evaluative) appraisal. I then explore various relationships between definable aretaic statuses such as praiseworthiness and blameworthiness and deontic statuses such as obligatoriness and impermissibility. I focus on partitions of the normative statuses generated ("normative positions" but without explicit representation of agency). In addition to being able to model and explore fundamental questions in ethical theory about the connection between (...) blame, praise, permissibility and obligation, this allows me to carefully represent schemes for supererogation and kin. These controversial concepts have provided challenges to both ethical theory and deontic logic, and are among deontic logic's test cases. (shrink)

An important question about moral progress is what causes it. One of the most popular proposed mechanisms is moral reasoning: moral progress often happens because lots of people reason their way to improved moral beliefs. Authors who defend moral reasoning as a cause of moral progress have relied on two broad lines of argument: the general and the specific line. The general line presents evidence that moral reasoning is in general a powerful mechanism of moral belief change, while the specific (...) line tries to establish that moral reasoning can explain specific historical examples of moral progress. In this paper, we examine these lines in detail, using Kumar and Campbell’s (2022, A Better Ape: The Evolution of the Moral Mind and How It Made Us Human. Oxford University Press) model of rational moral progress to sharpen our focus. For each line, we explain the empirical assumptions it makes; we then argue that the available evidence supports none of these assumptions. We conclude that at this point, we have no idea if moral reasoning causes moral progress. (shrink)

Descartes holds that when you perceive something with perfect clarity, you are compelled to assent and cannot doubt. (This is a psychological claim.) Many commentators read him as endorsing Psychologism, according to which this compulsion is a matter of brute psychological force. I show that, in Descartes’s view, perfect clarity provides a reason for assent—indeed a perfect reason, which precludes any reason for doubt. (This is a normative claim.) Furthermore, advancing a view I call Rational Force, he holds that the (...) normative claim explains the psychological one: since your will is naturally responsive to reasons, you are compelled to assent because you have a perfect reason to assent. This coheres with his view that will is essentially active, self-determined, and free. The force that clarity exerts on the will is not the brute push of an efficient cause, but the rational pull of a final cause. (shrink)

The success of political liberalism depends on there being an overlapping consensus among reasonable citizens—including religious citizens—upon principles of political morality. This paper explores the resources within one major religion—Christianity—that might lead individuals to endorse (or reject) political liberalism, and thus to join (or not join) the overlapping consensus. I show that there are several strands within Christian political ethics that are consonant with political liberalism and might form the basis for Christian citizens’ membership of the overlapping consensus. Nonetheless, tensions (...) remain, and it is not clear that Christians could wholeheartedly endorse the political conception or give unreserved commitment to political liberal ideals. (shrink)

Clear and distinct perception is the centrepiece of Descartes’s philosophy — it is the source of all certainty — but what does he mean by ‘clear’ and ‘distinct’? According to the prevailing approach, what it means for a perception to be clear is that its content has a certain objective property, like truth. I argue instead that clarity is at least partly a subjective, phenomenal quality whereby a content is presented as true to the perceiving subject. Clarity comes in degrees. (...) Any weak degree of clarity, available to the senses, can be merely subjective, since what it presents as true may not actually be true. But complete clarity, available to intellectual perception, has an objective dimension, since what it presents as true is always some truth, some bit of reality. Further, I argue that the other perceptual qualities that Descartes identifies — obscurity, confusion, and distinctness — are all defined in terms of clarity. Of particular note is the fact that distinctness is not a positive feature to be added to clarity: a distinct perception is just a completely clear perception. (shrink)

Knowledge implies the presence of a positive relation between a person and a fact. Factual ignorance, on the other hand, implies the absence of some positive relation between a person and a fact. The two most influential views of ignorance hold that what is lacking in cases of factual ignorance is knowledge or true belief, but these accounts fail to explain a number of basic facts about ignorance. In their place, we propose a novel and systematic defense of the view (...) that factual ignorance is the absence of awareness, an account that both comes apart from the dominant views and overcomes their deficiencies. Given the important role that ignorance plays in moral and legal theory and our understanding of various epistemic injustices, a precise and theoretically unproblematic account of the nature of ignorance is important not only for normative epistemology, but also for law, ethics, and applied epistemology. (shrink)

As robots and Artificial Intelligences become more enmeshed in rich social contexts, it seems inevitable that we will have to make them into moral machines equipped with moral skills. Apart from the technical difficulties of how we could achieve this goal, we can also ask the ethical question of whether we should seek to create such Artificial Moral Agents (AMAs). Recently, several papers have argued that we have strong reasons not to develop AMAs. In response, we develop a comprehensive analysis (...) of the relevant arguments for and against creating AMAs, and we argue that all things considered we have strong reasons to continue to responsibly develop AMAs. The key contributions of this paper are threefold. First, to provide the first comprehensive response to the important arguments made against AMAs by Wynsberghe and Robbins (in “Critiquing the Reasons for Making Artificial Moral Agents”, Science and Engineering Ethics 25, 2019) and to introduce several novel lines of argument in the process. Second, to collate and thematise for the first time the key arguments for and against AMAs in a single paper. Third, to recast the debate away from blanket arguments for or against AMAs in general, to a more nuanced discussion about the use of what sort of AMAs, in what sort of contexts, and for what sort of purposes is morally appropriate. (shrink)