Experiencing tragedy may broaden our ability to understand the suffering of others, and further our ability to endure future suffering. In the work of stoic philosopher Epictetus, he proports one should practice premeditatio malorum, preparing for the tragedies to come so that when they do occur one will be less disturbed. Through the stories of those that have survived tragedy and great suffering though, we can grow to understand the choices people make that lead to suffering are often the lesser (...) of two evils. When man sees a reason to suffer, he will choose to suffer, it is possible to understand and explain what experiencing suffering causes. The writings of philosophical professor Michael Brady, Susan Feagin, and others explain that the virtues of suffering are enough so we should not avoid the experience of it. We study history so that we may avoid repeating it, and just the same we experience the suffering that comes naturally throughout life so that we may avoid repeating it. (shrink)

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

Considerable variation exists not only in the kinds of transposable elements (TEs) occurring within the genomes of different species, but also in their abundance and distribution. Noting a similarity to the assortment of organisms among ecosystems, some researchers have called for an ecological approach to the study of transposon dynamics. However, there are several ways to adopt such an approach, and it is sometimes unclear what an ecological perspective will add to the existing co-evolutionary framework for explaining transposon-host interactions. This (...) review aims to clarify the conceptual foundations of transposon ecology in order to evaluate its explanatory prospects. We begin by identifying three unanswered questions regarding the abundance and distribution of TEs that potentially call for an ecological explanation. We then offer an operational distinction between evolutionary and ecological approaches to these questions. By determining the amount of variance in transposon abundance and distribution that is explained by ecological and evolutionary factors, respectively, it is possible empirically to assess the prospects for each of these explanatory frameworks. To illustrate how this methodology applies to a concrete example, we analyzed whole-genome data for one set of distantly related mammals and another more closely related group of arthropods. Our expectation was that ecological factors are most informative for explaining differences among individual TE lineages, rather than TE families, and for explaining their distribution among closely related as opposed to distantly related host genomes. We found that, in these data sets, ecological factors do in fact explain most of the variation in TE abundance and distribution among TE lineages across less distantly related host organisms. Evolutionary factors were not significant at these levels. However, the explanatory roles of evolution and ecology become inverted at the level of TE families or among more distantly related genomes. Not only does this example demonstrate the utility of our distinction between ecological and evolutionary perspectives, it further suggests an appropriate explanatory domain for the burgeoning discipline of transposon ecology. The fact that ecological processes appear to be impacting TE lineages over relatively short time scales further raises the possibility that transposons might serve as useful model systems for testing more general hypotheses in ecology. (shrink)

Imagine that someone recovers relatively quickly, say, within two or three months, from grief over the death of her spouse, whom she loved and who loved her; and suppose that, after some brief interval, she remarries. Does the fact that she feels better and moves on relatively quickly somehow diminish the quality of her earlier relationship? Does it constitute a failure to do well by the person who died? Our aim is to respond to two arguments that give affirmative answers (...) to these questions. The first argument, which is developed by Dan Moller in “Love and Death”, states that recovering relatively quickly from grief over the deaths of people who are close to us is deeply regrettable, in one respect, because it means that these people were relatively unimportant to us. The second, which derives from some classic literary discussions of grief, states that such a recovery is regrettable because it amounts to abandoning the person who died. Responding to these arguments promises to dissolve certain anxieties about whether we do well by the people we love when they die. Beyond this, it promises to help us better understand what it means to cultivate good relationships with these people during their lives. (shrink)

Scientists use models to understand the natural world, and it is important not to conflate model and nature. As an illustration, we distinguish three different kinds of populations in studies of ecology and evolution: theoretical, laboratory, and natural populations, exemplified by the work of R.A. Fisher, Thomas Park, and David Lack, respectively. Biologists are rightly concerned with all three types of populations. We examine the interplay between these different kinds of populations, and their pertinent models, in three examples: the notion (...) of “effective” population size, the work of Thomas Park on /Tribolium/ populations, and model-based clustering algorithms such as /Structure/. Finally, we discuss ways to move safely between three distinct population types while avoiding confusing models and reality. (shrink)

"The concluding chapter, penned by C. E. Emmer, both revisits and greatly expands upon disputations within the contested territory of kitsch as term and tool in cultural turf-war arsenals. Focusing on debates surrounding two visual responses to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Dennis Madalone's 2003 music video for the patriotic anthem 'America We Stand As One' and Jenny Ryan's 'plushie' sculpture, 'Soft 9/11,' Emmer utilizes these debates to reveal the coexisting and competing attitudes towards ostensibly kitschy objects (...) and the contentiousness of deploying kitsch as a term in these debates. The buzzing activity of the internet provides much of the raw material for his arguments. Through his close reading of both the works themselves and the public response to them, Emmer once more focuses attention on the competing and overlapping attitudes towards kitsch and the way in which it and its semantic cousins remain a viable and valuable resource with which to police the borders that surround the artworld. Ultimately, his contribution further grounds a wider premise operative in this collection--namely, that a simple and rigid dichotomy of kitsch and (high) art does not and indeed cannot capture the elusive and mercurial nature of kitsch." --from the editor's introduction. (shrink)

According to Paul Draper and Ryan Nichols the practice of philosophy of religion—and especially its theistically committed practitioners—regularly violate norms of rationality, objectivity, and impartiality in the review, assessment, and weighing of evidence. (Draper and Nichols, 2013). We consider the charge of epistemic partisanship and show that the observational data does not illustrate a norm-violating form of inquiry. The major oversight in the charge of epistemic partiality is the epistemically central role of prior probabilities in determining the significance of (...) incongruent evidence. We argue that reasonably divergent views on the likelihood of theism on incongruent evidence can also account for differences in significance. We conclude that it is an epistemic requirement that committed theists regard incongruent evils as much less significant evidence against theism than do lukewarm theists, agnostics, or atheists. Differences in the significance of evidence quite properly reflect differences in commitments to theism. (shrink)

We discuss Sharon Ryan’s Deep Rationality Theory of wisdom, defended recently in her “Wisdom, Knowledge and Rationality.” We argue that (a) Ryan’s use of the term “rationality” needs further elaboration; (b) there is a problem with requiring that the wise person possess justified beliefs but not necessarily knowledge; (c) the conditions of DRT are not all necessary; (d) the conditions are not sufficient. At the end of our discussion, we suggest that there may be a problem with the (...) very assumption that an informative, non-circular set of necessary and sufficient conditions of wisdom can be given. (shrink)

This article seeks to provide a response to the Aloneness Argument Against Classical Theism proposed by Joseph C. Schmid and Ryan T. Mullins. This response focuses on showing the unsoundness of the argument once the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity is reformulated within the essentialist aspectival framework provided by the Aspectival Account. Formulating a response to this argument will thus also serve the further purpose of providing an extension of the Aspectival Account and a needed revision of the Doctrine of (...) Divine Simplicity, which can aid others in their quest to further clarify the nature of this doctrine. (shrink)

Weak enough relevant logics are often closed under depth substitutions. To determine the breadth of logics with this feature, we show there is a largest sublogic of R closed under depth substitutions and that this logic can be recursively axiomatized.

Aristotle’s cryptic De Anima III 5 has precipitated an enormous volume of commentary, especially about the identity of what has come to be known as active intellect and how it relates to potential intellect. Some take active intellect to be the prime mover of Metaphysics Λ, others a hypostatic or cosmic principle (for example, an ideal Intellect, intellect associated with the tenth celestial sphere, etc.), and others a faculty, potentiality, or power of the human soul that is distinct in function, (...) office, or operation from potential intellect. But a very different, ontologically lightweight way of characterizing active and potential intellect can be reconstructed from fragments of a work by the only interpreter personally acquainted with Aristotle, his junior colleague, Theophrastus of Eresus. This reconstruction suggests various philosophically attractive solutions to notorious problems raised by Aristotle’s text. (shrink)

We discuss at some length evidence from the cognitive science suggesting that the representations of objects based on spatiotemporal information and featural information retrieved bottomup from a visual scene precede representations of objects that include conceptual information. We argue that a distinction can be drawn between representations with conceptual and nonconceptual content. The distinction is based on perceptual mechanisms that retrieve information in conceptually unmediated ways. The representational contents of the states induced by these mechanisms that are available to a (...) type of awareness called phenomenal awareness constitute the phenomenal content of experience. The phenomenal content of perception contains the existence of objects as separate things that persist in time and time, spatiotemporal information, and information regarding relative spatial relations, motion, surface properties, shape, size, orientation, color, and their functional properties. (shrink)

What do we owe those with whom we inquire? Presumably, quite a bit. Anything beyond what is necessary to secure knowledge? Yes. In this paper, I argue for a class of ‘zetetic rights.’ These are rights distinctive to participants in group inquiry. Zetetic rights help protect important central interests of inquirers. These include a right to aid, a right against interference, and a right to exert influence over the course of inquiry. Building on arguments by Fricker (2015), I defend these (...) rights, and explore cases of their violation: zetetic wrongings. I argue that zetetic wrongings constitute a distinctive, ubiquitous, and significant form of injustice in our epistemic and zetetic lives. To improve our inquiries and avoid epistemic injustice, we need to contend with zetetic wronging. Making this case helps show that a complete picture of epistemic life must account for the deep influence of our cooperative ties to one another. (shrink)

These essays draw on work in the history and philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and language, the development of concepts in children, conceptual..

Discussion of the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), the hypothesis that an extraterrestrial civilization (ETC) is active on Earth today, is taboo in academia, but the assumptions behind this taboo are faulty. Advances in biology have rendered the notion that complex life is rare in our Galaxy improbable. The objection that no ETC would come to Earth to hide from us does not consider all possible alien motives or means. For an advanced ETC, the convergent instrumental goals of all rational agents – (...) self-preservation and the acquisition of resources – would support the objectives of removing existential threats and gathering strategic and non-strategic information. It could advance these objectives by proactively gathering information about and from inhabited planets, concealing itself while doing so, and terminating potential rivals before they become too dangerous. Other hypotheses of ETC behavior, including the zoo/interdict hypothesis and the dark forest hypothesis, also undercut the objection that the ETH is highly improbable. The ETH does not require support from extraordinary evidence because the presence of an ETC on Earth is not highly unlikely and would overturn none of our well-tested scientific knowledge. The fact that most reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) have natural or human explanations does not count against it. Inference to the best explanation offers a way to find evidence for this hypothesis, and some evidence for it exists, some of it taking the form of reliable witness reports. The most plausible alternative explanation for some UAP reports declines in probability over time. A hypothesis that is not highly improbable, does not contradict any well-established facts or theories, and explains otherwise unexplained evidence is a rational hypothesis. Since the ETH is a rational hypothesis, investigation of it should not be taboo. (shrink)

This paper presents the main topics, arguments, and positions in the philosophy of AI at present (excluding ethics). Apart from the basic concepts of intelligence and computation, the main topics of ar-tificial cognition are perception, action, meaning, rational choice, free will, consciousness, and normativity. Through a better understanding of these topics, the philosophy of AI contributes to our understand-ing of the nature, prospects, and value of AI. Furthermore, these topics can be understood more deeply through the discussion of AI; so (...) we suggest that “AI Philosophy” provides a new method for philosophy. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview of Carnap, a free and open framework for the development of formal reasoning applications. Carnap’s design emphasizes flexibility, extensibility, and rapid prototyping. Carnap-based applications are written in Haskell, but can be compiled to JavaScript to run in standard web browsers. This combination of features makes Carnap ideally suited for educational applications, where ease-of-use is crucial for students and adaptability to different teaching strategies and classroom needs is crucial for instructors. The paper describes Carnap’s implementation, along (...) with its current and projected pedagogical applications. (shrink)

Abstract This paper explores Reiner Schürmann’s account of perigrinal ontology from the perspective of Meister Eckhart. What is so extraordinary about his work is its retrieval of nuances in Plato’s philosophy of mind. Professor Schürmann’s approach to Philosophy focused on a philosopher’s philosophy of mind. For example, his course titles, such as Augustine’s Philosophy, were listed and taught in Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind. The advantage of his approach can best be seen in his study of the Medieval Philosopher Meister Eckhart. (...) In this work, Professor Schürmann totalizes the relationship between the will and the intellect and unites the different categories of Platonic philosophy under the concept of perigrinal ontology. Instead of treating epistemology or aesthetics in isolation, they are examined as they relate to ontology. In Plato’s epistemology, the highest form of knowing is different; at its highest point, knowledge is a seeing. Meister Eckhart and the other Neoplatonic philosophers continued the argument that Plato initiated. This is not an instance of Gnosticism in that the successors of Plato in the Christian tradition are not introducing new material but are extending Plato’s philosophy. At the center of the controversies about Meister Eckhart’s alleged departure from Christian doctrine is the oneness with God. Here, Professor Schürmann acts like a good editor. He painstakingly draws out pertinent distinctions to demonstrate Meister Eckhart’s adherence to tradition. It is interesting in this light to consider what Saint Thomas Aquinas has said on some of these same issues. One can see, too, that Meister Eckhart is a good deal closer to Saint Thomas than is generally thought. Saint Thomas's writings are full of references to Neoplatonic philosophers, but he also actively engages with their ideas. Though exploring this is beyond this paper's scope, Saint Thomas’s commentary of the Christian Neoplatonist Pseudo Dionysius primarily supports this point. We also need to recall that the period in which all this unfolded was a period in history marked by the democratization of religion. More importantly, Meister Eckhart’s time was informed by the democratization of theology. Meister Eckhart’s writings and personal commitment to that project are noteworthy in this context. His decision to teach women in religious orders advanced theology, a historical breakthrough. There are some notable debates that Professor Schürmann addressed in this work. Perhaps chief among these is the overly close connection between the writings of Meister Eckhart and that of the late Heidegger. It had been suggested that Martin Heidegger’s interest in Zen Buddhism was thought to include that of Meister Eckhart. Waiting upon Being and detachment or releasement were similar in these three schools of thought. Professor Schürmann viewed this as a form of syncretism, the mashing up of ideas that seem similar but have important distinctions. For Professor Schürmann, the absolute absence of the faculty of the will in Meister Eckhart’s work distinguished him from these other philosophies. It is striking that Professor Schürmann repeatedly cites texts where Meister Eckhart sees the highest form of knowledge as purely a feature of the intellect. He even goes so far as to note that the will is almost absent from Meister Eckhart’s philosophy of mind. -/- . (shrink)

Literature in epistemology tends to suppose that there are three main types of understanding – propositional, atomistic, and objectual. By showing that all apparent instances of propositional understanding can be more plausibly explained as featuring one of several other epistemic states, this paper argues that talk of propositional understanding is unhelpful and misleading. The upshot is that epistemologists can do without the notion of propositional understanding.

A growing number of linguistic attempts to explain how languages change use cultural-evolutionary models involving selection or drift. Developmental constraints and biases, which take center stage in evolutionary developmental biology or evo-devo, seem to be absent within this framework, even though linguistics is home to numerous notions of constraint. In this paper, we show how these evo-devo concepts could be applied to linguistic change and why they should. This requires some conceptual groundwork, due to important differences between linguistic and biotic (...) evolution. In biological evolution, development generates the organism's variable traits on which selection and drift act. In linguistic evolution by analogy, we say development generates the linguistic variants on which selection and drift can act. “Linguistic development” then picks out how individual speakers produce and comprehend language. It involves much more than just learning. Using this broad notion of development, we distinguish between different types of bias that could operate in the processes of linguistic innovation and transmission, which correspond to genetic mutation and biological reproduction, respectively. Having thus sharpened our conceptual toolbox, we then reanalyze two well-documented cases of linguistic change and show that, in both these cases, linguists have only considered Neo-Darwinian evolutionary explanations, falsely deploying an exclusive disjunction of selection and drift. We show that there is at least a third relevant alternative in these examples, namely developmental constraint or bias in the sense we explicate here. (shrink)

The New Evil Demon problem has been hotly debated since the case was introduced in the early 1980’s (e.g. Lehrer and Cohen 1983; Cohen 1984), and there seems to be recent increased interest in the topic. In a forthcoming collection of papers on the New Evil Demon problem (Dutant and Dorsch, forthcoming), at least two of the papers, both by prominent epistemologists, attempt to resist the problem by appealing to the distinction between justification and excuses. My primary aim here is (...) to critically evaluate this new excuse maneuver as a response to the New Evil Demon problem. -/- Their response attempts to give us reason to reject the idea that victims of the New Evil Demon have justification for believing as they do. I shall argue that this approach is ultimately unsuccessful, however much of value can be learned from these attempts. In particular, progress in the debate can be made by following those who advance the excuse maneuver and make explicit the connection between epistemic justification and epistemic norms. By doing so, the questions being debated are clarified, as is the methodology being used to attempt to answer them. (shrink)

This chapter explores the metaphysical views about higher-order logic held by two individuals responsible for introducing it to philosophy: Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970). Frege understood a function at first as the remainder of the content of a proposition when one component was taken out or seen as replaceable by others, and later as a mapping between objects. His logic employed second-order quantifiers ranging over such functions, and he saw a deep division in nature between objects and functions. (...) Russell understood propositional functions as what is obtained when constituents of propositions are replaced by variables, but eventually denied that they were entities in their own right. Both encountered contradictions when supposing there to exist as many objects as functions, and both adopted views about the meaningfulness of higher-order discourse that were difficult to state from within their own strictures. (shrink)

En este breve ensayo me interesa analizar el concepto de lenguaje privado desarrollado por Ludwig Wittgenstein. La importancia radica en el desafío que plantea esta noción cuando nos ponemos a pensar sobre las posibilidades reales de un lenguaje puramente privado. En este sentido, el argumento del enfoque wittgensteiniano sostiene que el significado de las palabras no se origina en experiencias subjetivas individuales, sino en la interacción social dentro de una comunidad de hablantes. De modo que, si cada persona tuviera un (...) lenguaje exclusivamente privado, la comunicación sería imposible. Por ello, el objetivo de este escrito se centra en debatir si efectivamente el lenguaje es un fenómeno colectivo, arraigado en prácticas compartidas y acuerdos tácitos, o bien, puede tratarse de una construcción personal subjetiva. En síntesis, para examinar este planteo me centraré en el argumento propuesto por Kripke contra el lenguaje privado, y desde allí, analizaré la paradoja escéptica de Wittgenstein. (shrink)

In this first installment of a three-part series, I focus on the critique of civility. In so doing, I do not defend incivility. In fact, part of my critique of civility extends equally to incivility. My position is that we must move our normative discourse beyond both the thesis of civility and the antithesis of incivility to a synthesis that reframes the discussion in terms of nonviolence.

When it comes to contentious conversations, the call for civility is commonplace. Rarely do we hear a call for nonviolence in communication. This is unfortunate, since nonviolence is a better standard than civility (a standard I critiqued in part one of this three-part series). Part of the problem is that a framework for communicative nonviolence has not (to my knowledge) been fully developed. Mohandas (“Mahatma”) Gandhi, the “father of nonviolence,” is widely known for nonviolence, but primarily in the realm of (...) noncommunicative action. However, there is a natural line of development in that direction from elements in his thought: Gandhi derives his commitment to nonviolence ("ahimsa" in Sanskrit) from his "law of Truth," which directs us to follow “Truth in thought, Truth in speech, and Truth in action." Inspired by Gandhi among others, Marshall B. Rosenberg developed what he termed "Nonviolent Communication" (NVC). Valuable though NVC is, it is most applicable to particular conversational contexts. It is but one part of a broader nonviolent framework, which I’ll call "ahimsic communication" (AC) to distinguish it from NVC. In this second installment of the series, I develop a framework for AC. (shrink)

In parts one and two of this three-part series, I developed a framework for ahimsic (nonviolent) communication (AC) as an alternative to the standard communicative norm of civility. The framework presented for AC offers various categories of resistance to violence, including nonviolent forms of negotiation, compromise, protest, verbal force, verbal distraction, argumentation, and communicative satyagraha (Gandhian nonviolence applied to communication). I also provided a range of real-life examples of successful AC resistance, including the stories of Derek Black, Daryl Davis, James (...) Lawson, and Antoinette Tuff. These examples demonstrate that AC “works” even against neo-Nazis, KKK grand wizards, angry punch-throwing bikers, and active school shooters. In this third and final installment, I will explain why AC works—better than any form of violent communication (VC). My main claim is that AC derives strategic power from its moral power. As various components of my argument are drawn from the nonviolence tradition more generally, what follows will double as a primer on the morality of nonviolence. However, we will also see significant differences in how we must adapt nonviolent strategy and morality to the case of communication. (shrink)

In philosophy of aesthetics, scholars commonly express a commitment to the premise that there is a distinctive type of judgment that can be meaningfully labeled “aesthetic”, and that these judgments are distinctively different from other types of judgments. We argue that, within an Aristotelian framework, there is no clear avenue for meaningfully differentiating “aesthetic” judgment from other types of judgment, and, as such, we aim to question the assumption that aesthetic judgment does in fact constitute a distinctive kind of judgment (...) that is in need of, or can be subject to, distinctive theorizing. We advance our argument primarily through demonstrating that leading contemporary accounts of aesthetic judgment do not successfully distinguish a type of judgment in that they do not tell us how making an aesthetic judgment differs substantially from judging that 2 + 3 = 5, that football is entertaining, or that today is Tuesday. (shrink)

This article discusses the adequacy of Rawls’ theory of justice as a tool for racial justice. It is argued that critics like Charles W Mills fail to appreciate both the insights and limits of the Rawlsian framework. The article has two main parts spread out over several different sections. The first is concerned with whether the Rawlsian framework suffices to prevent racial injustice. It is argued that there are reasons to doubt whether it does. The second part is concerned with (...) whether a Rawlsian framework has the resources to rectify past racial injustice. It is argued that it has more resources to do this than Mills allows. This second part of the article centers on two Rawlsian ideas: ideal theory and the fair equality of opportunity principle. It is argued that ideal theory is essential for the kind of rectificatory work that Mills wants nonideal theory to do, and that where there is a socioeconomic legacy of past injustice, it is hard to see how FEO could be implemented if it did no rectificatory work, a result which means that there is less need to turn to nonideal theory at all. (shrink)

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

The two purposes of this essay. The general philosophical problem with most versions of social libertarianism and how this essay will proceed. The specific problem with liberty explained by a thought-experiment. The positive and abstract theory of interpersonal liberty-in-itself as ‘the absence of interpersonal initiated constraints on want-satisfaction’, for short ‘no initiated impositions’. The individualistic liberty-maximisation theory solves the problems of clashes, defences, and rectifications without entailing interpersonal utility comparisons or libertarian consequentialism. The practical implications of instantiating liberty: three rules (...) of liberty-in-practice, 1) initial ultimate control of one’s body, 2) initial ultimate control of one’s used resources, 3) consensual interpersonal interactions and resource transfers. These rules are economically efficient and maximise general want-satisfaction. Private property and legal remedies are additional practical institutional aspects, but to which ‘initiated impositions’ then apply prima facie. Libertarian law is often mistaken for complete libertarianism. Moral explanations are a separate issue. The three main moral theories imply libertarianism, but it can be morally posited independently of them. Critical rationalism and its application. No empirical or argumentative support for theories. An important ambiguity with ‘justification’. How the epistemology applies to the theory of liberty and its application but remains separable in principle. Conclusion: there are further published explanations but this should be enough to generate useful criticism. Appendix replying to some typical comments. (shrink)

In American universities, even Asian Philosophy is still often taught following methods adapted from European universities of the nineteenth century. Whether or not this approach is well-suited to philosophy as it was conceived in that era, it is inadequate if the aim is to develop a deep appreciation of Japanese philosophy. To limit what we consider Japanese philosophy to only what bears a distinct resemblance to academic Western philosophy, and accordingly to approach Japanese philosophy purely theoretically, is to risk missing (...) the greater part. Much of Japanese philosophy is applied philosophy, or in other words, what Pierre Hadot calls a “way of life,” and to appropriate it meaningfully requires practice rather than mere intellectual study alone. Thus, I contend that a proper means for introducing Western students is a more holistic method grounded in practicing traditional arts, such as composing haiku. I argue that the seventeenth century poet Matsuo Bashō can serve as a valuable resource in this process. I conclude with a description of the methods that I use in my efforts at teaching Japanese philosophy to undergraduate university students in South Texas. (shrink)

Many assume that whenever government is entitled to make a law, it is entitled to enforce that law coercively. I argue that the justification of legal authority and the justification of governmental coercion come apart. Both in ideal theory and in actual human societies, governments are sometimes entitled to make laws that they are not entitled to enforce coercively.

Most accounts of cognitive scaffolding focus on ways that external structure can support or augment an agent’s cognitive capacities. We call cases where the interests of the user are served benign scaffolding and argue for the possibility and reality of hostile scaffolding. This is scaffolding which depends on the same capacities of an agent to make cognitive use of external structure as in benign cases, but that undermines or exploits the user while serving the interests of another agent. We develop (...) criteria for scaffolding being hostile and show by reference to examples including the design features of electronic gambling machines and casino management systems that hostile scaffolding exists and can be highly effective. In cases where the scaffolding is deep and permits the offloading of significant cognitive work, hostile scaffolding exploitatively manipulates cognitive processing itself. Given the extent of human reliance on scaffolding this is an important and neglected vulnerability. [This is an updated version of the paper, added in February 2023.]. (shrink)

Human cognitive acts are directed towards objects extended in space of a wide range of different types. What follows is a new proposal for bringing order into this typological clutter. The theory of spatially extended objects should make room not only for the objects of physics but also for objects at higher levels, including the objects of geography and of related disciplines. It should leave room for different types of boundaries, including both the bona fide boundaries which we find in (...) the physical world and the fiat (or human-demarcation-induced) boundaries with which much of geography has to deal. Two distinct axiomatic theories of boundaries are accordingly presented, and the need for both is examined in some detail. The resultant dual framework is shown to have application above all for our understanding of issues involving contact, division, and separation, issues which have posed serious difficulties for the ontological theories of boundaries that have been proposed hitherto. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of the prospects and ethics of using AI to achieve human enhancement, and more broadly what we call intellectual augmentation (IA). After explaining the central notions of human enhancement, IA, and AI, we discuss the state of the art in terms of the main technologies for IA, with or without brain-computer interfaces. Given this picture, we discuss potential ethical problems, namely inadequate performance, safety, coercion and manipulation, privacy, cognitive liberty, authenticity, and fairness in more detail. (...) We conclude that while there are very significant technical hurdles to real human enhancement through AI, and significant ethical problems, there are also significant benefits that may realistically be achieved in ways that are consonant with a rights-based ethics as well. We also highlight the specific concerns that apply particularly to applications of AI for "sheer" IA (more realistic in the near term), and to enhancement applications, respectively. (shrink)

Developments that suggest the universe is full of life make the Fermi paradox increasingly pressing, but our search for an extraterrestrial technological civilization (“ETC”) is handicapped by our ignorance of its probable nature and behavior. This paper offers a way around this problem by drawing on information theoretical concepts, including game theory and Bayesian probability. It argues that, whatever its ultimate goals, an ETC would have the same instrumental goals as other intelligent agents. Generically, these are self-preservation and the acquisition (...) of resources. For an advanced ETC, these generic goals imply the objectives of removing existential threats and acquiring strategic and non-strategic information. Since the most problematic existential threats for any ETC would be from other civilizations and planets hosting such civilizations would also be copious sources of information, these objectives would lead it to gather information from these locations and to protect itself against them. This dual-goals hypothesis resolves the Fermi paradox, redirects the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and makes testable predictions regarding ETC’s behavior on Earth if it is here. (shrink)

Excerpt: 1. Introduction This chapter provides insight into the diverse ethical debates on genetics and epigenetics. Much controversy surrounds debates about intervening into the germline genome of human embryos, with catchwords such as genome editing, designer baby, and CRISPR/Cas. The idea that it is possible to design a child according to one’s personal preferences is, however, a quite distorted view of what is actually possible with new gene technologies and gene therapies. These are much more limited than the editing and (...) design metaphors suggest. Such metaphors are therefore highly problematic phrases in the context of new gene technologies, for two reasons. On one hand, to design a child of choice by modifying the genome would require modifying any gene of choice, which is more than can be done with current gene technologies, such as CRISPR/Cas. On the other hand, a modification of genes would need to be enough to create any characteristic of choice in the future child. The latter presupposes the assumption of genetic determinism. Moreover, the CRISPR/Cas technology can not only be used in a potentially therapeutic manner at the germline level. In addition, there is the (more likely) scenario of a future clinical therapeutic use of these new gene technologies for modifying the DNA sequence of other cells of the body (somatic genome editing). There is also the option of modifying the epigenome, that is, the spatial configuration of DNA (epigenome editing) (see table 1). Like genetics and genome editing, epigenetics has been at the center of recent popular scientific and ethical discourse as well as scientific debates. The concept of epigenetics has given rise to very different notions of inheritability and responsibility for health, which, however, are oftentimes based on scientifically controversial basic assumptions. That there continues to be covert genetic determinism in the form of epigenetic determinism (see table 2) in debates about epigenetics has been pointed out in ethical analyses of epigenetics. Neither genetic determinism nor epigenetic determinism has been confirmed scientifically. It is therefore important to recognize the concepts that are discussed (and sometimes harshly criticized) in debates about genome editing and epigenetics—for example, concepts about the causal role of DNA for our own life course. This importance is based on the fact that if we understand such controversial concepts, we will be able to remain critical when evaluating scientific knowledge and ethical arguments about genome editing and epigenetics. This chapter, therefore, explains some of these concepts. For an ethical analysis of epigenetics as well as of genome editing, it is necessary to understand and critically reflect upon the underlying concepts of genetic determinism and other, related -isms. The following section offers a detailed introduction to these -isms (section 2; see also table 2). Section 3 provides an ethical analysis of genome editing and epigenetics based on the explanations in section 2. Section 3 focuses on inheritability and responsibility, justice, safety, the problem of consent, and the effects of genome editing and epigenetics on embryos and future generations. This section does not discuss in detail further points that can be found in ethical debates about epigenetics as well as in ethical debates about genome editing. These points include (among others): • fear that the findings of epigenetics and that the methods of genome editing are misused—this also with respect to eugenics and enhancement; • naturalness—an issue we mention in passing a few times in the following analysis; • a possible connection between the genome/epigenome and the concept of human dignity, and the derived danger of instrumentalization and infringement of autonomy when intervening in the genome or epigenome. Since current discourse about ethical issues associated with genome editing focuses mainly on germline interventions, which are, for instance, interventions into a human embryo’s genome, we mainly focus on germline interventions when comparing the debates on genome editing and on epigenetics in section 3. (shrink)

Tradução do artigo "Mill between Aristotle and Bentham".

In this article, robust evidence is provided showing that an individual’s moral character can contribute to the aesthetic quality of their appearance, as well as being beautiful or ugly itself. It is argued that this evidence supports two main conclusions. First, moral beauty and ugliness reside on the inside, and beauty and ugliness are not perception-dependent as a result; and, second, aesthetic perception is affected by moral information, and thus moral beauty and ugliness are on the outside as well.

This paper examines how professionals (N = 32) working on artificial intelligence (AI) view structural AI ethics challenges like injustices and inequalities beyond individual agents' direct intention and control. This paper answers the research question: What are professionals’ perceptions of the structural challenges of AI (in the agri-food sector)? This empirical paper shows that it is essential to broaden the scope of ethics of AI beyond micro- and meso-levels. While ethics guidelines and AI ethics often focus on the responsibility of (...) designers and the competencies and skills of designers to take this responsibility, our results show that many structural challenges are beyond their reach. This result means that while ethics guidelines and AI ethics frameworks are helpful, there is a risk that they overlook more complicated, nuanced, and intersected structural challenges. In addition, it highlights the need to include diverse stakeholders, such as quadruple helix (QH) participants, in discussions around AI ethics rather than solely focusing on the obligations of AI developers and companies. Overall, this paper demonstrates that addressing structural challenges in AI is challenging and requires an approach that considers four requirements: (1) multi-level, (2) multi-faceted, (3) interdisciplinary, and (4) polycentric governance. (shrink)

A common view among nontheists combines the de jure objection that theism is epistemically unacceptable with agnosticism about the de facto objection that theism is false. Following Plantinga, we can call this a “proper” de jure objection—a de jure objection that does not depend on any de facto objection. In his Warranted Christian Belief, Plantinga has produced a general argument against all proper de jure objections. Here I first show that this argument is logically fallacious (it makes subtle probabilistic fallacies (...) disguised by scope ambiguities), and proceed to lay the groundwork for the construction of actual proper de jure objections. (shrink)

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

Observational astronomy is plagued with selection effects that must be taken into account when interpreting data from astronomical surveys. Because of the physical limitations of observing time and instrument sensitivity, datasets are rarely complete. However, determining specifically what is missing from any sample is not always straightforward. For example, there are always more faint objects (such as galaxies) than bright ones in any brightness-limited sample, but faint objects may not be of the same kind as bright ones. Assuming they are (...) can lead to mischaracterizing the population of objects near the boundary of what can be detected. Similarly, starting with nearby objects that can be well observed and assuming that objects much farther away (and sampled from a younger universe) are of the same kind can lead us astray. Demographic models of galaxy populations can be used as inputs to observing system simulations to create “mock” catalogues that can be used to characterize and account for multiple, interacting selection effects. The use of simulations for this purpose is common practice in astronomy, and blurs the line between observations and simulations; the observational data cannot be interpreted independent of the simulations. We will describe this methodology and argue that astrophysicists have developed effective ways to establish the reliability of simulation-dependent observational programs. The reliability depends on how well the physical and demographic properties of the simulated population can be constrained through independent observations. We also identify a new challenge raised by the use of simulations, which we call the “problem of uncomputed alternatives.” Sometimes the simulations themselves create unintended selection effects when the limits of what can be simulated lead astronomers to only consider a limited space of alternative proposals. (shrink)

When are morally good actions beautiful, when indeed they are? In this paper, it is argued that morally good actions are beautiful when they appear to express the deep or true self, and in turn tend to give rise to an emotion which is characterised by feelings of being moved, unity, inspiration, and meaningfulness, inter alia. In advancing the case for this claim, it is revealed that there are additional sources of well-formedness in play in the context of moral beauty (...) in addition to those that have tended to be focused on to date: one which is connected to imagining a deep location for the goodness concerned, and another which is connected to imagining that the goodness stems from capacities which are essential to the person. (shrink)

Recently, the Intelligent Design movement has challenged the claim of many in the scientific establishment that nature gives no empirical signs of having been deliberately designed. In particular, ID arguments in biology dispute the notion that neo-Darwinian evolution is the only viable scientific explanation of the origin of biological novelty, arguing that there are telltale signs of the activity of intelligence which can be recognized and studied empirically. In recent years, a number of Catholic philosophers, theologians, and scientists have expressed (...) opposition to ID. Some of these critics claim that there is a conflict between the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and that of the ID movement, and even an affinity between Aquinas’s ideas and theistic Darwinism. We consider six such criticisms and find each wanting. (shrink)