The computational genomics community has come increasingly to rely on the methodology of creating annotations of scientific literature using terms from controlled structured vocabularies such as the Gene Ontology (GO). We here address the question of what such annotations signify and of how they are created by working biologists. Our goal is to promote a better understanding of how the results of experiments are captured in annotations in the hope that this will lead to better representations of biological reality through (...) both the annotation process and ontology development, and in more informed use of the GO resources by experimental scientists. (shrink)

El debate que se gestó alrededor del concepto de existencia en manos de Willard Van Orman Quine y Rudolf Carnap, dio al siglo XX un cúmulo de aportes significativos a la ontología. La postura realista, con algunas variantes, de Quine y el criterio anti-realista de Carnap, otorga insumos para pensar de mejor forma cómo se intenta dar descripciones acerca del inmobiliario del mundo. Conocer este debate es importante, ya que, se expone los alcances y limitaciones que implican las explicaciones ontológicas (...) acerca de la realidad que deben ser tenidas en cuenta en la actualidad. Este trabajo cumple esa función, la de explicar sintéticamente uno de los debates más importantes para la ontología. (shrink)

I argue that the offense generation pattern of slurring terms parallels that of impoliteness behaviors, and is best explained by appeal to similar purely pragmatic mechanisms. In choosing to use a slurring term rather than its neutral counterpart, the speaker signals that she endorses the term. Such an endorsement warrants offense, and consequently slurs generate offense whenever a speaker's use demonstrates a contrastive preference for the slurring term. Since this explanation comes at low theoretical cost and imposes few constraints on (...) an account of the semantics of slurs, this suggests that we should not require semantic accounts to provide an independent explanation of the offense profile. (shrink)

We address the ethics of scenarios in which one party entraps, intentionally tempts or intentionally tests the virtue of another. We classify, in a new manner, three distinct types of acts that are of concern, namely acts of entrapment, of intentional temptation and of virtue testing. Our classification is, for each kind of scenario, of itself neutral concerning the question whether the agent acts permissibly. We explain why acts of entrapment are more ethically objectionable than like acts of intentional temptation (...) and why these, in turn, are more ethically objectionable than like acts of virtue testing. Along the way, we scrutinize, and eventually reject, the view that acts of entrapment are ethically unacceptable because intentional temptation is involved in entrapment. (shrink)

Some, but not all, of the mistakes a person makes when acting in apparently necessary self-defense are reasonable: we take them not to violate the rights of the apparent aggressor. I argue that this is explained by duties grounded in agents' entitlements to a fair distribution of the risk of suffering unjust harm. I suggest that the content of these duties is filled in by a social signaling norm, and offer some moral constraints on the form such a norm can (...) take. (shrink)

There is a wealth of evidence which indicates that arguments are not very efficient tools for changing minds. Against this skepticism, Novaes (2023) presents evidence that, given the right social context, arguments sometimes play a significant role in belief revision. However, drawing on Levy (2021), I argue that the evidence Novaes cites is compatible with the view that it is not arguments that change individual minds but instead belief outsourcing that occurs alongside the consideration of arguments.

Law-enforcement agencies are increasingly able to leverage crime statistics to make risk predictions for particular individuals, employing a form of inference that some condemn as violating the right to be “treated as an individual.” I suggest that the right encodes agents’ entitlement to a fair distribution of the burdens and benefits of the rule of law. Rather than precluding statistical prediction, it requires that citizens be able to anticipate which variables will be used as predictors and act intentionally to avoid (...) them. Furthermore, it condemns reliance on various indexes of distributive injustice, or unchosen properties, as evidence of law-breaking. (shrink)

In addition to protecting agents’ autonomy, consent plays a crucial social role: it enables agents to secure partners in valuable interactions that would be prohibitively morally risk otherwise. To do this, consent must be observable: agents must be able to track the facts about whether they have received a consent-based permission. I argue that this morally justifies a consent-practice on which communicating that one consents is sufficient for consent, but also generates robust constraints on what sorts of behaviors can be (...) taken as consent- communicating. (shrink)

The problem of moral disagreement has been presented as an objection to contextualist semantics for ‘ought’, since it is not clear that contextualism can accommodate or give a convincing gloss of such disagreement. I argue that independently of our semantics, disagreements over ‘ought’ in non-cooperative contexts are best understood as indirect metalinguistic disputes, which is easily accommodated by contextualism. If this is correct, then rather than posing a problem for contextualism, the data from moral disagreements provides some reason to adopt (...) a semantics that allows contextual variance in the meanings of ‘ought’. (shrink)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has developed a novel framework for assessing and communicating uncertainty in the findings published in their periodic assessment reports. But how should these uncertainty assessments inform decisions? We take a formal decision-making perspective to investigate how scientific input formulated in the IPCC’s novel framework might inform decisions in a principled way through a normative decision model.

Sometimes speakers within a linguistic community use a term that they do not conceptualize as a slur, but which other members of that community do. Sometimes these speakers are ignorant or naïve, but not always. This article explores a puzzle raised when some speakers stubbornly maintain that a contested term t is not derogatory. Because the semantic content of a term depends on the language, to say that their use of t is semantically derogatory despite their claims and intentions, we (...) must individuate languages in a way that counts them as speaking our language L, assigns t a determinately derogatory content in L, and still accommodates the other features of slurs’ linguistic profile. Given the difficulty of doing this, there is some reason to give a non-semantic analysis of the derogatory aspect of slurs. The author suggests that rather than dismissing the stubborn as semantically incompetent, we would do better to appeal to expected uptake as moral reasons for the stubborn to adjust their linguistic practices. (shrink)

​I evaluate a suggestion, floated by Kimberly Ferzan (this volume), that the twitter hashtag campaign #BelieveWomen is best accommodated by non-reductionist views of testimonial justification. I argue that the issue is ultimately one about the ethical obligation to trust women, rather than a question of what grounds testimonial justification. I also suggest that the hashtag campaign does not simply assert that ‘we should trust women’, but also militates against a pernicious striking-property generic (roughly: ‘women make false sexual assault accusations’), that (...) distorts our evaluation of women’s testimony concerning sexual assault. I conclude #BelieveWomen does not demand that we believe against the evidence, or uncritically, or be more trusting than we have evidential justification to be. Rather, it aims to bring our trust closer to what is merited by the base-rate of reliable testimony from women concerning sexual assault. (shrink)

In some cases, there appears to be an asymmetry in the evidential value of statistical and more individualized evidence. For example, while I may accept that Alex is guilty based on eyewitness testimony that is 80% likely to be accurate, it does not seem permissible to do so based on the fact that 80% of a group that Alex is a member of are guilty. In this paper I suggest that rather than reflecting a deep defect in statistical evidence, this (...) asymmetry might arise from a general constraint on rational inquiry. Plausibly the degree of evidential support needed to justify taking a proposition to be true depends on the stakes of error. While relying on statistical evidence plausibly raises the stakes by introducing new kinds of risk to members of the reference class, paradigmatically `individualized' evidence---evidence tracing back to A's voluntary behavior---can lower the stakes. The net result explains the apparent evidential asymmetry without positing a deep difference in the brute justificatory power of different types of evidence. (shrink)

Recently, an increasing number of scholars have been showing interest in old-fashioned racism again. While recent studies on old-fashioned racism apparently increase our knowledge of this psychological theory of racism, the studies actually shed light on a different type of racism, namely offensive racism. The aim of this text is to argue that psychological theories of racism, like old-fashioned racism and modern racism, depend on societies’ social norms. I will show that questionnaires are highly sensitive to social norms, and if (...) there is change in social norms, the original measurement object alters. The theory of old-fashioned racism implicitly assumes agents that follow (or conform to) the social norm to behave prejudiced. Today, however, this social norm does not exist in Western societies. If agents express the same prejudices today, they indicate their willingness to breach the social norm to behave unprejudiced. Thereby, classic old-fashioned racism measures reflect a new kind of racism today. (shrink)

In The Future of Human Nature, Jürgen Habermas raises the question of whether the embryonic genetic diagnosis and genetic modification threatens the foundations of the species ethics that underlies current understandings of morality. While morality, in the normative sense, is based on moral interactions enabling communicative action, justification, and reciprocal respect, the reification involved in the new technologies may preclude individuals to uphold a sense of the undisposability of human life and the inviolability of human beings that is necessary for (...) their own identity as well as for reciprocal relations. Engaging with liberal bioethics and Catholic approaches to bioethics, the article clarifies how Habermas’ position offers a radical critique of liberal autonomy while maintaining its postmetaphysical stance. The essay argues that Habermas’ approach may guide the question of rights of future generations regarding germline gene editing. But it calls for a different turn in the conversation between philosophy and theology, namely one that emphasizes the necessary attention to rights violations and injustices as a common, postmetaphysical starting point for critical theory and critical theology alike. In 2001, Jürgen Habermas published a short book on questions of biomedicine that took many by surprise.[1] To some of his students, the turn to a substantive position invoking the need to comment on a species ethics rather than outlining a public moral framework was seen as the departure from the “path of deontological virtue,”[2] and at the same time a departure from postmetaphysical reason. Habermas’ motivation to address the developments in biomedicine had certainly been sparked by the intense debate in Germany, the European Union, and internationally on human cloning, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, embryonic stem cell research, and human enhancement. He turned to a strand of critical theory that had been pushed to the background by the younger Frankfurt School in favor of cultural theory and social critique, even though it had been an important element of its initial working programs. The relationship of instrumental reason and critical theory, examined, among others, by Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse and taken up in Habermas’ own Knowledge and Interest and Theory of Communicative Action became ever-more actual with the development of the life sciences, human genome analysis, and genetic engineering of human offspring. Today, some of the fictional scenarios discussed at the end of the last century as “science fiction” have become reality: in 2018, the first “germline gene-edited” children were born in China.[3] Furthermore, the UK’s permission to create so-called “three-parent” children may create a legal and political pathway to hereditary germline interventions summarized under the name of “gene editing.”In this article, I want to explore Habermas’ “substantial” argument in the hope that philosophy and theology become allies in their struggle against an ever-more reifying lifeworld, which may create a “moral void” that would, at least from today’s perspective, be “unbearable”, and for upholding the conditions of human dignity, freedom, and justice. I will contextualize Habermas’ concerns in the broader discourse of bioethics, because only by doing this, his concerns are rescued from some misinterpretations.[1] Jürgen Habermas, The Future of Human Nature.[2] Ibid., 125, fn. 58. 8[3] Up to the present, no scientific publication of the exact procedure exists, but it is known that the scientist, Jiankui He, circumvented the existing national regulatory framework and may have misled the prospective parents about existing alternatives and the unprecedented nature of his conduct. Yuanwu Ma, Lianfeng Zhang, and Chuan Qin, "The First Genetically Gene‐Edited Babies: It's “Irresponsible and Too Early”," Animal Models and Experimental Medicine ; Matthias Braun, Meacham, Darian, "The Trust Game: Crispr for Human Germline Editing Unsettles Scientists and Society," EMBO reports 20, no. 2. (shrink)

A popular informal argument suggests that statistics about the preponderance of criminal involvement among particular demographic groups partially justify others in making defensive mistakes against members of the group. One could worry that evidence-relative accounts of moral rights vindicate this argument. After constructing the strongest form of this objection, I offer several replies: most demographic statistics face an unmet challenge from reference class problems, even those that meet it fail to ground non-negligible conditional probabilities, even if they did, they introduce (...) new costs likely to cancel out any justificatory contribution of the statistic, but even if they didn’t, demographic facts are the wrong sort to make a moral difference to agents’ negative rights. I conclude that the popular argument should be rejected, and evidence-relative theories do not have the worrisome implication. (shrink)

Richard Wollheim famously argued that figurative pictures depict their scenes, in part, in virtue of their ability to elicit a unique type of visual experience in their viewers, which he called seeing-in. According to Wollheim, experiences of seeing-in are necessarily twofold, that is, they involve two aspects of visual awareness: when a viewer sees a scene in a picture, she is simultaneously aware of certain visible features of the picture surface, the picture’s design, and the scene depicted by the picture. (...) Even though Wollheim’s notion of twofoldness has been very influential, a number of philosophers have put forward powerful arguments against it. In this paper, I defend the claim that some pictorial experiences are twofold in Wollheim’s sense. My argument has two parts. In the first part, I provide a phenomenal contrast argument in favor of twofoldness. In the second part, I respond to what I take to be the most important objections against twofoldness. I believe that both parts together provide strong support for the claim that some pictorial experiences are twofold in Wollheim’s sense. (shrink)

A ‘vestigial social practice' is a norm, convention, or social behavior that persists even when few endorse it or its original justifying rationale. Begby (2021) explores social explanations for the persistence of prejudice, arguing that even if we all privately disavow a stereotype, we might nevertheless continue acting as if it is true because we believe that others expect us to. Meanwhile the persistence of the practice provides something like implicit testimonial evidence for the prejudice that would justify it, making (...) it rational for members of the next generation to acquire the corresponding prejudiced beliefs. This paper distinguishes between three different types of vestigial social practice in terms of the underlying explanatory mechanisms, and argues that the persistence of prejudicial social stereotypes is most tightly linked not to others’ beliefs or expectations, but to the ways that material infrastructure constrains options shapes social outcomes. Given that, the persistence of a practice only provides grounds to infer that most people endorse the corresponding prejudiced belief only if we are in a position to dismiss relevant alternative explanations. (shrink)

Under a ‘dirty hands’ model of undercover policing, it inevitably involves situations where whatever the state agent does is morally problematic. Christopher Nathan argues against this model. Nathan’s criticism of the model is predicated on the contention that it entails the view, which he considers objectionable, that morally wrongful acts are central to undercover policing. We address this criticism, and some other aspects of Nathan’s discussion of the ‘dirty hands’ model, specifically in relation to state entrapment to commit a crime. (...) Using János Kis’s work on political morality, we explain three dilemmatic versions of the ‘dirty hands’ model. We show that, while two of these are inapplicable to state entrapment, the third has better prospects. We then pursue our main aim, which is to argue that, since the third model precludes Nathan’s criticism, a viable ‘dirty hands’ model of state entrapment remains an open possibility. Finally, we generalize this result, showing that the case of state entrapment is not special: the result holds good for policing practices more generally, including such routine practices as arrest, detention, and restraint. (shrink)

This paper describes an undergraduate course in metaphilosophy for philosophy majors and argues that there are four potential benefits to students; namely that doing metaphilosophy (1) allows students to draw their own conclusions about what philosophy is, (2) develops students’ metacognitive skills to promote learning, (3) establishes students as members of the philosophical community, and (4) disposes students to live lives that reflect their philosophical education. It describes issues of transparency of course design and the particulars of the course, including (...) course content, and provides excerpts of student work to demonstrate student learning outcomes. Finally, it will suggest that even if it is not possible to offer a stand-alone course in metaphilosophy, instructors should provide opportunities to reflect on metaphilosophical issues in their other philosophy courses. (shrink)

There has been recent discussion of a puzzle posed by emotions that are backward looking. Though our emotions commonly diminish over time, how can they diminish fittingly if they are an accurate appraisal of an event that is situated in the past? Agnes Callard (2017) has offered a solution by providing an account of anger in which anger is both backwards looking and resolvable, yet her account depends upon contrition to explain anger’s fitting diminishment. My aim is to explain how (...) anger can fittingly diminish even when there is lack of contrition. I propose a permissivism about fittingness by showing that both anger and compassion are fitting responses to blameworthy behaviour. I argue that anger is rendered fitting because it accurately appraises the behaviour, whereas compassion becomes fitting as a valuational response to what the behaviour reveals about the lived experience of the offender. I then respond to some worries my account raises, and I clarify details of my account to show that it is not unrealistic to the way some of our anger actually does diminish. I end with a proposal that our anger can fittingly diminish through the act of forgiveness when compassion is not a forthcoming affective response. (shrink)

A common view in the philosophy of perception holds that states of seeing objects face to face have particular contents. When you see, say, a dog face to face, your visual state represents the particular dog that is in front of you. In this paper, I argue for a related claim about states of seeing objects in conventional photographs. When you see a dog in a photograph, for example, your visual state represents the particular dog that was in front of (...) the camera when the photograph was taken, that is, the photograph's depictum. The argument in this paper proceeds in two steps. In the first step, I discuss states of seeing objects face to face. I argue that such a state represents the particular object whose surface is responsible for the optical information that the visual system uses to construct the state's attributive representational content. In the second step, I apply the result of this discussion to states of seeing objects in photographs. I argue that a state of seeing an object in a photograph has a particular content that represents the object that was in front of the camera when the photograph was taken. (shrink)

A type of argument occasionally made in metaethics, epistemology and philosophy of science notes that most ordinary uses of some expression fail to satisfy the strictest interpretation of the expression, and concludes that the ordinary assertions are false. This requires there to be a presumption in favour of a strict interpretation of expressions that admit of interpretations at different levels of strictness. We argue that this presumption is unmotivated, and thus the arguments fail.

It is often assumed that trolling is an intentional action. The aim of the paper is to argue for a form of unintentional trolling. Firstly, we outline minimal conditions for intentional actions. Secondly, an unintentional trolling example is introduced. Thirdly, we will show that in some cases, an utterance can be expressive, while it is perceived as descriptive. On the basis of the justification-suppression model, we argue that the introduced trolling example is such a case. In order to bypass social (...) sanctions for expressing prejudices, agents unintentionally express their prejudices through stories that appear to be descriptive. Thereby, the characterized behavior does not fulfill the minimal conditions for intentional action. Fourthly, we give criteria that can be used to identify unintentional trolls. Finally, after unintentional trolling is analyzed, the trolls’ behavioral goals are considered. In conclusion, an analysis of unintentional trolling is given, which has explanatory benefits in contrast to the classic intentional trolling concepts. (shrink)

A novel account of virtue signaling and what makes it bad has recently been offered by Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke. Despite plausibly vindicating the folk’s conception of virtue signaling as a bad thing, their account has recently been attacked by both Neil Levy and Evan Westra. According to Levy and Westra, virtue signaling actually supports the aims and progress of public moral discourse. In this paper, we rebut these recent defenses of virtue signaling. We suggest that virtue signaling only (...) supports the aims of public moral discourse to the extent it is an instance of a more general phenomenon that we call norm signaling. We then argue that, if anything, virtue signaling will undermine the quality of public moral discourse by undermining the evidence we typically rely on from the testimony and norm signaling of others. Thus, we conclude, not only is virtue signaling not needed, but its epistemological effects warrant its bad reputation. (shrink)

Kit Fine has proposed a new solution to what he calls ‘a familiar puzzle’ concerning modality and existence. The puzzle concerns the argument from the alleged truths ‘It is necessary that Socrates is a man’ and ‘It is possible that Socrates does not exist’ to the apparent falsehood ‘It is possible that Socrates is a man and does not exist’. We discuss in detail Fine’s setting up of the ‘puzzle’ and his rejection, with which we concur, of two mooted solutions (...) to it. (One of these uses standard, Kripkean, notions, and the other rests on work done by Arthur Prior.) We set out, and reject, the philosophy of modality underlying Fine’s new solution, and we defend an alternative response to the alleged puzzle. Our solution follows the work of David Wiggins in distinguishing between the sentential operator ‘It is necessary that’ and the predicate modifier ‘necessarily’. We briefly provide this distinction with a possible- world semantics on which it is neither a necessary truth, in some sense, that Socrates exists nor true, in some sense, that Socrates necessarily exists. (shrink)

Recent global efforts of the United States and England to withdraw from international institutions, along with recent challenges to human rights courts from Poland and Hungary, have been described as part of a growing global populist backlash against the liberal international order. Several scholars have even identified the recent threat of mass withdrawal of African states from the International Criminal Court (ICC) as part of this global populist backlash. Are the African challenges to the ICC part of a global populist (...) movement developing in Africa? More fundamentally, how are the African challenges to the ICC examples of populism, if at all? In this paper, I show that, while there is considerable overlap between the strategies used by particular African leaders to challenge the ICC and those typically considered populist, as well as a discernible thin populist ideology to sustain them, there is insufficient evidence of a larger anti-ICC populist movement in Africa. Although Africa is not as united against the ICC as the populist narrative suggests, the recent challenges to the Court from Africa pose a significant challenge to the Court, as the institution is still in the early stages of building its legitimacy. (shrink)

In this article, I contribute to the debate between two philosophical traditions—the Kantian and the Aristotelian—on the requirements of criminal responsibility and the grounds for excuse by taking this debate to a new context: international criminal law. After laying out broadly Kantian and Aristotelian conceptions of criminal responsibility, I defend a quasi-Aristotelian conception, which affords a central role to moral development, and especially to the development of moral perception, for international criminal law. I show than an implication of this view (...) is that persons who are substantially and non-culpably limited in their capacity for ordinary moral perception warrant an excuse for engaging in unlawful conduct. I identify a particular set of conditions that trigger this excuse, and then I systematically examine it as applied to the controversial case of former-child-soldier-turned leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Dominic Ongwen, who is currently at trial at the International Criminal Court. (shrink)

This paper surveys some philosophical issues with the language surrounding mental illness, but is especially focused on pejoratives relating to mental illness. I argue that though 'crazy' and similar mental illness-based epithets (MI-epithets) are not best understood as slurs, they do function to isolate, exclude, and marginalize members of the targeted group in ways similar to the harmfulness of slurs more generally. While they do not generally express the hate/contempt characteristic of weaponized uses of slurs, MI-epithets perpetuate epistemic injustice by (...) portraying sufferers of mental illness as deserving minimal credibility. After outlining the ways in which these epithets can cause harm, I examine available legal and social remedies, and suggest that the best path going forward is to pursue a reclamation project rather than aiming to censure the use of MI-epithets. (shrink)

How is it possible for a picture to depict a picture? Proponents of perceptual theories of depiction, who argue that the content of a picture is determined, in part, by the visual state it elicits in suitable viewers, that is, by a state of seeing-in, have given a plausible answer to this question. They say that a picture depicts a picture, in part, because, under appropriate conditions of observation, a suitable viewer will be able to see a picture in the (...) picture. In this article, I first argue that this answer is in conflict with the way in which some of the most influential perceptual theories of depiction – Robert Hopkins's version of the experienced resemblance theory and Dominic Lopes's version of the recognition theory – construe seeing-in. I then formulate a version of the recognition theory that avoids this conflict and show how it can explain the depiction of pictures. (shrink)

The most notable contributions to contemporary philosophy of mind have been written by philosophers of mind for philosophers of mind. Without a good understanding of the historical framework, the technical terminology, the philosophical methodology, and the nature of the philosophical problems themselves, not only do undergraduate students face a difficult challenge when taking a first course in philosophy of mind, but instructors lacking specialized knowledge in this field might be put off from teaching the course. This paper is intended to (...) provide a framework for instructors with little background in this area of philosophy to develop a course in philosophy of mind. This course, aimed at the advanced undergraduate student, provides students with the tools necessary for understanding some of the key readings in contemporary philosophy of mind and offers unique benefits to both majors and non-majors. The course described here focuses on just two of the main problems in philosophy of mind—the mind-body problem and the problem of phenomenal consciousness—and briefly touches on other issues one might address. Finally, several solutions to common challenges that arise in an advanced philosophy course are discussed. (shrink)

This paper examines whether American parents legally violate their children’s privacy rights when they share embarrassing images of their children on social media without their children’s consent. My inquiry is motivated by recent reports that French authorities have warned French parents that they could face fines and imprisonment for such conduct, if their children sue them once their children turn 18. Where French privacy law is grounded in respect for dignity, thereby explaining the French concerns for parental “over-sharing,” I show (...) that there are three major legal roadblocks for such a case to succeed in US law. First, US privacy tort law largely only protects a person’s image where the person has a commercial interest in his or her image. Secondly, privacy tort laws are subject to constitutional constraints respecting the freedom of speech and press. Third, American courts are reluctant to erode parental authority, except in cases where extraordinary threats to children’s welfare exist. I argue that while existing privacy law in the US is inadequate to offer children legal remedy if their parents share their embarrassing images of them without their consent, the dignity-based concerns of the French should not be neglected. I consider a recent proposal to protect children’s privacy by extending to them the “right to be forgotten” online, but I identify problems in this proposal, and argue it is not a panacea to the over-sharing problem. I conclude by emphasizing our shared social responsibilities to protect children by teaching them about the importance of respecting one another’s privacy and dignity in the online context, and by setting examples as responsible users of internet technologies. (shrink)

Recently, psychologists have developed indirect measurement procedures to predict suicidal behavior. A prominent example is the Death/Suicide Implicit Association Test (DS-IAT). In this paper, I argue that there is something special about the DS-IAT which distinguishes it from different IAT measures. I argue that the DS-IAT does not measure weak or strong associations between the implicit self-concept and the abstract concept of death. In contrast, assuming a goal-system approach, I suggest that sorting death-related to self-related words takes effort because death-related (...) words trigger avoidance-impulses, which suicide ideation weakens. The DS-IAT taps into weakened automatic responses from the self-preservation system. Additionally, the suggested cognitive structure, illuminated with the selfish-goal theory, explains predictable suicidal behavior. (shrink)

Cross-species comparisons are benefited by compatible datasets; conclusions related to phylogenetic comparisons, questions on convergent and divergent evolution, or homologs versus analogs can only be made when the behaviors being measured are comparable. A direct comparison of the social function of physical contact across two disparate taxa is possible only if data collection and analyses methodologies are analogous. We identify and discuss the parameters, assumptions and measurement schemes applicable to multiple taxa and species that facilitate cross-species comparisons. To illustrate our (...) proposed guidelines for evaluating the role played by tactile contact in social behavior across disparate taxa, this paper presents data on mother-offspring relationships in the two species studied by the authors: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) and dolphins (bottlenose and spotted, Tursiops truncatus and Stenella frontalis, respectively). Cross-species comparative studies allow for a more comprehensive assessment of the similarities and differences with respect to how animals traverse the relationships that form their social groups and societies. (shrink)

The identification of plausible epistemic approaches in science as well as the social problem definitions with which scientists implicitly work is essential for the quality of a deliberative public policy. While responding to the Nanofutures project, I will reflect on the essential elements of such a policy.

This Article outlines a vision of responsible innovation and outlines a public policy and implementation strategy for it.

This work is driven by the attempt to criticise Phenomenology with the help of Levinas. Similar to the Frankfurt School, he characterises it as a “vision of essences”. These eidetical essences are, and can never be fully absolute, not only because several movements of Hegelian Dialectics are refuted in submitting knowledge either to the imago of mere immanence, or to normative structures which are postulated as invariant like in certain versions of Neoplatonism, but because they function as an apriori of (...) an eternally unfinished and fragmented Lebenswelt. Maybe it is to harsh to compare Husserl to the neoscholastic readings of Descartes and to the formalist interpretations of Kant. Husserl is well aware of the kinaesthetic foundations of consciousness and, contrary to Heidegger, he even promotes Spinozism in a certain phase of his work which excels his adolescent fervour of Berkeley. Nevertheless, Husserl incorporates a subject-based, “monadic” transcendentalism, that paradoxically leads to the dissolution of subjective identity. Traditional reasoning itself is exfoliated to perfection in Heidegger afterwards. Husserl's halfhearted formalism ignores the materialist theory of the simulacrum by Lucretius. Heideggers philosophy widens this overseen aspect in calling the Eidos an Aussehen in referring to the Presocratics, but it despises any kind of method and finally flees in to poetry, maintaining its fatalist errors which it committed right form the start: this is why it gained the name of pseudo-concreteness. Cursed through a specific anti-sociological tendency caused by an anti-empiricist vision of history, their theories virtually (not conceptually) exclude the influences of society on philosophy: they are the end result of the era of Kulturkampf, in which idealism tried to battle positivism, naturalism and historicism. Husserl even defines this philosophical battle as the very struggle of existence. The formulation of the Eidos becomes performance. Aristotle used Eidos synonymous to genus and species. Hence the amplitudes of these philosophies foster the metaphysical standpoint of race, that got out of hand in the Nazi Era and even later on. The “topic” of blood and soil appears in Husserl's definition of Heimwelt and his Eurocentrism. Phenomenology is in no case to blame for National Socialism, and it has very little to to with its causes. My work simply tries to make the same analogy that Marx had made for Hegel. It tries to describe, how two leading philosophers of the German Bourgeoisie are reproducing the categories of their surrounding society without even really observing it. (shrink)

Many philosophers, psychologists, and medical practitioners believe that killing is no worse than letting die on the basis of James Rachels's Bare-Difference Argument. I show that his argument is unsound. In particular, a premise of the argument is that his examples are as similar as is consistent with one being a case of killing and the other being a case of letting die. However, the subject who lets die has both the ability to kill and the ability to let die (...) while the subject who kills lacks the ability to let die. Modifying the latter example so that the killer has both abilities yields a pair of cases with morally different acts. The hypothesis that killing is worse than letting die is the best explanation of this difference. (shrink)

In the first chapter of his Knowledge and Lotteries, John Hawthorne argues that thinkers do not ordinarily know lottery propositions. His arguments depend on claims about the intimate connections between knowledge and assertion, epistemic possibility, practical reasoning, and theoretical reasoning. In this paper, we cast doubt on the proposed connections. We also put forward an alternative picture of belief and reasoning. In particular, we argue that assertion is governed by a Gricean constraint that makes no reference to knowledge, and that (...) practical reasoning has more to do with rational degrees of belief than with states of knowledge. (shrink)

I defend a new version of the non-identity theodicy. After presenting the theodicy, I reply to a series of objections. I then argue that my approach improves upon similar approaches in the literature.

The modal account of luck is the predominant account of luck in epistemology and ethics. In the first half of this paper, I discuss three possible interpretations of the modal account and raise objections to each. I then raise an objection to all plausible versions of the modal account, that is, that whether an event is lucky or the extent to which it is a matter of luck will depend on what initial conditions or features of the event one holds (...) constant across nearby possible worlds. However, there is often reasonable disagreement about what the relevant initial conditions of an event are, and the modal account of luck has no means of determining which description of the event is correct. As such, the modal account is subject to a kind of reference class problem, and the view cannot actually tell us the extent to which certain events are a matter of luck. (shrink)

[On Consciousness, Religion, and Freedom of the Will] An interview with Daniel Dennett on consciousness, religion and free will.

One might think that if the majority of virtue signallers judge that a proposition is true, then there is significant evidence for the truth of that proposition. Given the Condorcet Jury Theorem, individual virtue signallers need not be very reliable for the majority judgment to be very likely to be correct. Thus, even people who are skeptical of the judgments of individual virtue signallers should think that if a majority of them judge that a proposition is true, then that provides (...) significant evidence that the proposition is true. We argue that this is mistaken. Various empirical studies converge on the following point: humans are very conformist in the contexts in which virtue signalling occurs. And stereotypical virtue signallers are even more conformist in such contexts. So we should be skeptical of the claim that virtue signallers are sufficiently independent for the Condorcet Jury Theorem to apply. We do not seek to decisively rule out the relevant application of the Condorcet Jury Theorem. But we do show that careful consideration of the available evidence should make us very skeptical of that application. Consequently, a defense of virtue signalling would need to engage with these findings and show that despite our strong tendencies for conformism, our judgements are sufficiently independent for the Condorcet Jury Theorem to apply. This suggests new directions for the debate about the epistemology of virtue signalling. (shrink)

El artı́culo sugiere el carácter esquemático de dos ensayos de J. Derrida sobre la epokhé heideggeriana. A partir del cruce de los esquemas relativos a la presencia en general y los fines del humanismo, el análisis se concentra en la referencia a la epokhé en ambos prolegómenos de 1968. Al insistir en la esquematización preliminar, el comentario insinúa el programa de lectura implicado en el seguimiento mimético de las mallas semánticas.

Recently, Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) got much attention from researchers even though ITS educational technology began in the late 1960s and ITS is just embryonic from laboratories into the field. In this paper we outline an intelligent tutoring system for teaching basics of the databases system called (MDB). The MDB was built as education system by using the authoring tool (ITSB). MDB contains learning materials as a group of lessons for beginner level which include relational database system and lessons in (...) the process to install and set up a database. MDB system has exams for each level of the Lessons. An evaluation was done to see the effectiveness the MDB among learners and instructors. The outcome of the evaluation was promising. (shrink)

Open science will make science more efficient, reliable, and responsive to societal challenges. The European Commission has sought to advance open science policy from its inception in a holistic and integrated way, covering all aspects of the research cycle from scientific discovery and review to sharing knowledge, publishing, and outreach. We present the steps taken with a forward-looking perspective on the challenges laying ahead, in particular the necessary change of the rewards and incentives system for researchers (for which various actors (...) are co-responsible and which goes beyond the mandate of the European Commission). Finally, we discuss the role of artificial intelligence (AI) within an open science perspective. (shrink)

We reflect on a decade of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) as a discourse emerging from the European Commission (EC) 10 years ago. We discuss the foundations for RRI, its emergence during the Seventh Framework programme and its subsequent evolution during Horizon 2020. We discuss how an original vision for RRI became framed around five so-called ‘keys’: gender, open access, science communication, ethics and public engagement. We consider the prospects for RRI within the context of the EC’s Open Science agenda (...) and Horizon Europe programme, before closing with some reflections on the contribution RRI has made to debates concerning the relationship between science, innovation and society over the last decade. (shrink)