This essay considers how scholarly approaches to the development of molecular biology have too often narrowed the historical aperture to genes, overlooking the ways in which other objects and processes contributed to the molecularization of life. From structural and dynamic studies of biomolecules to cellular membranes and organelles to metabolism and nutrition, new work by historians, philosophers, and STS scholars of the life sciences has revitalized older issues, such as the relationship of life to matter, or of physicochemical inquiries to (...) biology. This scholarship points to a novel molecular vista that opens up a pluralist view of molecularizations in the twentieth century and considers their relevance to current science. (shrink)

Foundational theories of mental content seek to identify the conditions under which a mental representation expresses, in the mind of a particular thinker, a particular content. Normativists endorse the following general sort of foundational theory of mental content: A mental representation r expresses concept C for agent S just in case S ought to use r in conformity with some particular pattern of use associated with C. In response to Normativist theories of content, Kathrin Glüer-Pagin and Åsa Wikforss propose a (...) dilemma, alleging that Normativism either entails a vicious regress or falls prey to a charge of idleness. In this paper, I respond to this argument. I argue that Normativism can avoid the commitments that generate the regress and does not propose the sort of explanation required to charge that its explanation has been shown to be problematically idle. The regress-generating commitment to be avoided is, roughly, that tokened, contentful mental states are the product of rule-following. The explanatory task Normativists should disavow is that of explaining how it is that beliefs and other contentful mental states are produced. I argue that Normativism, properly understood as a theory of content, does not provide this kind of psychological explanation, and therefore does not entail that such explanations are to be given in terms of rule-following. If this is correct, Normativism is not the proper target of the dilemma offered by Glüer-Pagin and Wikforss. Understanding why one might construe Normativism in the way Glüer-Pagin and Wikforss must, and how, properly understood, it avoids their dilemma, can help us to appreciate the attractiveness of a genuinely normative theory of content and the importance of paying careful attention to the sort of normativity involved in norm-based theories of content. (shrink)

Despite the initial strangeness of grouping Iris Murdoch (a Platonist), Martha Nussbaum (an Aristotelian), and Richard Rorty (a pragmatist) together, this paper will argue that these thinkers share a strong commitment to the moral purport of literature. I will also show that their shared idea of moral engagement through literature interlocks the individual’s sense of self and the world of others. After considering their accounts, I will conclude by raising the question of literature’s moral limits.

Abstract: Creativity and holistic education involves dynamic interplay between generating ideas and making judgment about them. Getting the balance right is critical and as Carl Jung (2009) explains, the creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect alone but by the play instinct, the creative mind plays with the object and thoughts it loves. As mentioned earlier to be creative is a response to the inward thoughts and emotions of a human being, we encourage children in the western (...) world to make hand prints with paint, to colour in the lines and if we realise it or not we are using creativity as a holistic part of their development, by encouraging their creative intelligence; sadly, in the Middle East the idea of creativity is a poverty mindset that has been heavily removed from their culture and creative intelligence and it is this that has destroyed creativity from painting to writing. (shrink)

Four studies explore the role of perceptual fluency in attenuating bullshit receptivity, or the tendency for individuals to rate otherwise meaningless statements as “profound”. Across four studies, we presented participants with a sample of pseudoprofound bullshit statements in either a fluent or disfluent font and found that overall, disfluency attenuated bullshit receptivity while also finding little evidence that this effect was moderated by cognitive thinking style. In all studies, we measured participants’ cognitive reflection, need for cognition, faith in intuition, and (...) superstitious beliefs. Superstition strongly predicted bullshit receptivity regardless of fluency. Inconclusive results were found for the remaining scales. Potential links for the role of perceptual disfluency in promoting analytic thinking are discussed. (shrink)

Juhani Yli-Vakkuri has argued that the Twin Earth thought experiments offered in favour of semantic externalism can be replaced by a straightforward deductive argument from premisses widely accepted by both internalists and externalists alike. The deductive argument depends, however, on premisses that, on standard formulations of internalism, cannot be satisfied by a single belief simultaneously. It does not therefore, constitute a proof of externalism. The aim of this article is to explain why.

The increasing workplace use of artificially intelligent (AI) technologies has implications for the experience of meaningful human work. Meaningful work refers to the perception that one’s work has worth, significance, or a higher purpose. The development and organisational deployment of AI is accelerating, but the ways in which this will support or diminish opportunities for meaningful work and the ethical implications of these changes remain under-explored. This conceptual paper is positioned at the intersection of the meaningful work and ethical AI (...) literatures and offers a detailed assessment of the ways in which the deployment of AI can enhance or diminish employees’ experiences of meaningful work. We first outline the nature of meaningful work and draw on philosophical and business ethics accounts to establish its ethical importance. We then explore the impacts of three paths of AI deployment (replacing some tasks, ‘tending the machine’, and amplifying human skills) across five dimensions constituting a holistic account of meaningful work, and finally assess the ethical implications. In doing so we help to contextualise the meaningful work literature for the era of AI, extend the ethical AI literature into the workplace, and conclude with a range of practical implications and future research directions. (shrink)

Traditionally, discussions of moral participation – and in particular moral agency – have focused on fully formed human actors. There has been some interest in the development of morality in humans, as well as interest in cultural differences when it comes to moral practices, commitments, and actions. However, until relatively recently, there has been little focus on the possibility that nonhuman animals have any role to play in morality, save being the objects of moral concern. Moreover, when nonhuman cases are (...) considered as evidence of moral agency or subjecthood, there has been an anthropocentric tendency to focus on those behaviors that inform our attributions of moral agency to humans. For example, some argue that the ability to evaluate the principles upon which a moral norm is grounded is required for full moral agency. Certainly, if a moral agent must understand what makes an action right or wrong, then most nonhuman animals would not qualify (and perhaps some humans too). However, if we are to understand the evolution of moral psychology and moral practice, we need to turn our attention to the foundations of full moral agency. We must first pay attention to the more broadly normative practices of other animals. Here, we begin that project by considering evidence that great apes and cetaceans participate in normative practices. (shrink)

This quantitative study utilized the descriptive method of research that aimed to assess the implementation of environmental conservation practices in Baybay City Leyte with 92 officials and 115 zone residents of the 23 barangays in the city. Data were gathered through online and pen-paper surveys using frequency mean and Chi-square test. Barangay officials & Zone residents showed the same level of awareness of the environmental conservation practices implemented in Baybay City. Based on the results, the highest average weighted mean environmental (...) conservation practices were the Ordinance on Solid Waste Management. Whereas, the Ordinance on the Use of Plastics Bags has the lowest average weighted mean. There is no significant difference in the level of awareness of the environmental conservation practices between the barangay officials and zone residents. The findings on the level of implementation of the environmental conservation practices, barangay officials asserted a high level of implementation while zone residents claim to have implemented of all the (3) ordinances. For barangay officials, the Ordinance on Solid Waste Management had the highest weighted mean. While the Ordinance on the Use of Plastics Bags had the lowest weighted mean. Whereas, for the zone residents the Ordinance on Regulating the Use of Plastics Bags had the highest weighted mean. While the Ordinance on Anti-Littering and Prohibiting Persons from Throwing any Refuse or Garbage, Spitting, or Improper Urinating into Streets and Canals had the lowest weighted mean. There is a significant difference in the level of implementation of the environmental conservation practices between the barangay officials and zone residents on the Ordinance on Anti-Littering and Prohibiting Persons from Throwing any Refuse or Garbage, Spitting, Improper Urinating into Streets and Canal and Ordinance on Solid Waste Management. However, there is no significant difference in the level of implementation of environmental conservation practices in the Ordinance of the Use of Plastics Bags. (shrink)

Many of our most important goals require months or even years of effort to achieve, and some never get achieved at all. As social psychologists have lately emphasized, success in pursuing such goals requires the capacity for perseverance, or "grit." Philosophers have had little to say about grit, however, insofar as it differs from more familiar notions of willpower or continence. This leaves us ill-equipped to assess the social and moral implications of promoting grit. We propose that grit has an (...) important epistemic component, in that failures of perseverance are often caused by a significant loss of confidence that one will succeed if one continues to try. Correspondingly, successful exercises of grit often involve a kind of epistemic resilience in the face of failure, injury, rejection, and other setbacks that constitute genuine evidence that success is not forthcoming. Given this, we discuss whether and to what extent displays of grit can be epistemically as well as practically rational. We conclude that they can be (although many are not), and that the rationality of grit will depend partly on features of the context the agent normally finds herself in. In particular, grit-friendly norms of deliberation might be irrational to use in contexts of severe material scarcity or oppression. (shrink)

Nudges are small changes in the presentation of options that make a predictable impact on people's decisions. Proponents of nudges often claim that they are justified as paternalistic interventions that respect autonomy: they lead people to make better choices, while still letting them choose for themselves. However, existing work on nudges ignores the possibility of “hard choices”: cases where a person prefers one option in some respects, and another in other respects, but has no all‐things‐considered preference between the two. In (...) this paper, I argue that many significant medical decisions are hard choices that provide patients with an opportunity to exercise a distinctive sort of “formative autonomy” by settling their preferences and committing themselves to weigh their values in a particular way. Since nudges risk infringing formative autonomy by depriving patients of this opportunity, their use in medical contexts should be sensitive to this risk. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is to be explained by appeal to the externalist distinction between concepts and conceptions. If concepts are determined by non-conceptual relations to objective properties rather than by associated conceptions (whether individual or communal), then topic preservation through semantic change will be possible. The requisite level of objectivity is guaranteed by the possibility of collective error and does not depend on a stronger level of objectivity, such as mind-independence or independence from linguistic or social practice more generally. This means (...) that the requisite level of objectivity is exhibited not only by natural kinds, but also by a wide range of philosophical kinds, social kinds and artefactual kinds. The alternative externalist accounts of conceptual engineering offered by Herman Cappelen and Derek Ball fall back into a kind of descriptivism which is antithetical to externalism and fails to recognise this basic level of objectivity. (shrink)

Words change meaning over time. Some meaning shift is accompanied by a corresponding change in subject matter; some meaning shift is not. In this paper I argue that an account of linguistic meaning can accommodate the first kind of case, but that a theory of concepts is required to accommodate the second. Where there is stability of subject matter through linguistic change, it is concepts that provide the stability. The stability provided by concepts allows for genuine disagreement and ameliorative change (...) in the context of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Basándome en la explicación que hace Jean-Paul Sartre de la violencia, sostengo que no solo la mala fe es inevitable en la práctica, sino que una mala fe limitada es necesaria para la autenticidad. Aunque violar la libertad de otros es mala fe, es imposible no violar nunca la libertad de alguien. Además, y de manera fundamental, la estructura ontológica del para-sí implica que este solo puede ser auténtico en el modo de no ser auténtico. Tratar de evitar por completo (...) la mala fe es, en sí mismo, un acto de mala fe, porque es un intento de constituirse como esencialmente auténtico, pero el para-sí no tiene esencia preexistente. Sin embargo, al reconocer la total responsabilidad de uno por elegir la mala fe, se limita su alcance. Esta mala fe limitada es, de hecho, necesaria para la autenticidad, un proyecto vivido en situaciones concretas y no una ley moral categórica que prohíbe la mala fe. [This is a Spanish translation by Leandro Sánchez Marín of the article "The Authentic Person's Limited Bad Faith".]. (shrink)

This article engages Richard Rorty’s controversial concept of ethnocentrism with the help of Randolf (Randy) S. David’s writings. The first section defines Rorty’s concept of ethnocentrism and responds to the general criticisms of relativism and divisiveness that have been made against it. The second section suggests a conceptual replacement for Rorty’s notion of a vicious ethnocentrism: egotism. Egotism is a kind of cultural ethnocentrism that is resistant to openness, creativity, and social transformation. Inspired by David’s work, the third and final (...) section suggests how the concepts of ethnocentrism and egotism might be of some use as conceptual tools for articulating contemporary social issues in the Philippines. (shrink)

A number of modern theologians have concluded that the rise of natural science makes it necessary to give up the idea that God acts in particular ways to affect the course of events in the world. I reply to this claim, taking up the challenge to explain what might be meant by a ”special’ act of God. There are several ways to conceive of such acts, including the possibility that God might determine what is left determinable in the structures of (...) nature, e.g., at the quantum level. I address objections to this view, and consider metaphysical puzzles that it presents. (shrink)

In this article, we describe the notion of dialogue move intended as the minimal unit for the analysis of dialogues. We propose an approach to discourse analysis based on the pragmatic idea that the joint dialogical intentions are also co-constructed through the individual moves and the higher-order communicative intentions that the interlocutors pursue. In this view, our goal is to bring to light the pragmatic structure of a dialogue as a complex net of dialogical goals, which represent the communicative purposes (...) that the interlocutors intend to achieve through their utterances. Dialogue moves are shown to represent the necessary interpretive link between the general description of the dialogical context or type and the syntactical analysis of the sentences expressed by the individual utterances. In the concluding part of this article, we show how this method can be used and further developed for analyzing various types of real-life dialogues, outlining possible uses and lines of empirical research based thereon. (shrink)

Suppose some person 'A' sets out to accomplish a difficult, long-term goal such as writing a passable Ph.D. thesis. What should you believe about whether A will succeed? The default answer is that you should believe whatever the total accessible evidence concerning A's abilities, circumstances, capacity for self-discipline, and so forth supports. But could it be that what you should believe depends in part on the relationship you have with A? We argue that it does, in the case where A (...) is yourself. The capacity for "grit" involves a kind of epistemic resilience in the face of evidence suggesting that one might fail, and this makes it rational to respond to the relevant evidence differently when you are the agent in question. We then explore whether similar arguments extend to the case of "believing in" our significant others -- our friends, lovers, family members, colleagues, patients, and students. (shrink)

I reconsider the concept of dignity in several ways in this article. My primary aim is to move dignity in a more relational direction, drawing on care ethics to do so. After analyzing the power and perils of dignity and tracing its rhetorical, academic, and historical influence, I discuss three interventions that care ethics can make into the dignity discourse. The first intervention involves an understanding of the ways in which care can be dignifying. The second intervention examines whether the (...) capacity to care should be considered a distinguishing moral power – as rationality often is – in light of which humans have dignity. In the third intervention, I cast dignity as a fundamentally relational concept and argue that relationality is constitutive not only of dignity but also of the wider enterprise of normativity. I understand relationality as the condition of connection in which all human beings stand with some other human beings. A thought experiment involving the last person on earth helps to reframe the normative significance of human relatedness. Dignity emerges as fundamentally grounded in relationality. (shrink)

This chapter takes a critical look at universities from the perspective of the neopragmatist philosophy of education outlined by Richard Rorty. The chapter begins with a discussion of Rorty’s view of the ends that educational institutions properly serve in a liberal democracy. It then considers the kind of culture that Rorty takes to be conducive to those ends and the kind that is antithetical to them. Rorty sometimes characterizes the latter as a culture of ‘egotism’. After describing the main aspects (...) of such a culture, the chapter uses it as an interpretive key for understanding the ‘dark side’ of the contemporary university. Our thesis is that within a Rortyan, neo-pragmatist philosophy of higher education, the ends that universities are meant to serve in a liberal democracy are vulnerable to frustration and corruption by a culture of egotism. (shrink)

This is a contribution to the symposium on Herman Cappelen’s book Fixing Language. Cappelen proposes a metasemantic framework—the “Austerity Framework”—within which to understand the general phenomenon of conceptual engineering. The proposed framework is austere in the sense that it makes no reference to concepts. Conceptual engineering is then given a “worldly” construal according to which conceptual engineering is a process that operates on the world. I argue, contra Cappelen, that an adequate theory of conceptual engineering must make reference to concepts. (...) This is because concepts are required to account for topic continuity, a phenomenon which lies at the heart of projects in conceptual engineering. I argue that Cappelen’s own account of topic continuity is inadequate as a result of the austerity of his metasemantic framework, and that his worldly construal of conceptual engineering is untenable. (shrink)

The psychological contract refers to the implicit and subjective beliefs regarding a reciprocal exchange agreement, predominantly examined between employees and employers. While contemporary contract research is investigating a wider range of exchanges employees may hold, such as with team members and clients, it remains silent on a rapidly emerging form of workplace relationship: employees’ increasing engagement with technically, socially, and emotionally sophisticated forms of artificially intelligent (AI) technologies. In this paper we examine social robots (also termed humanoid robots) as likely (...) future psychological contract partners for human employees, given these entities transform notions of workplace technology from being a tool to being an active partner. We first overview the increasing role of robots in the workplace, particularly through the advent of sociable AI, and synthesize the literature on human–robot interaction. We then develop an account of a human-social robot psychological contract and zoom in on the implications of this exchange for the enactment of reciprocity. Given the future focused nature of our work we utilize a thought experiment, a commonly used form of conceptual and mental model reasoning, to expand on our theorizing. We then outline potential implications of human-social robot psychological contracts and offer a range of pathways for future research. (shrink)

This article examines the potential for moral agency in human resource management practice. It draws on an ethnographic study of human resource managers in a global organization to provide a theorized account of situated moral agency. This account suggests that within contemporary organizations, institutional structures—particularly the structures of Anglo-American market capitalism— threaten and constrain the capacity of HR managers to exercise moral agency and hence engage in ethical behaviour. The contextualized explanation of HR management action directly addresses the question of (...) whether HRM is inherently unethical. The discussion draws on MacIntyre’s conceptualization of moral agency within contemporary social structures. In practice, HR managers embody roles that may not be wholly compartmentalized. Alternative institutional structures can provide HR managers with a vocabulary of motives for people-centred HRM and widen the scope for the exercising of moral agency, when enacted within reflective relational spaces that provide milieus for critical questioning of logics and values. This article aims to contribute to and extend debate on whether HRM can ever be ethical, and provide a means of reconnecting business ethics with longstanding concerns in critical management studies. (shrink)

Using artificial intelligence (AI) to make decisions in human resource management (HRM) raises questions of how fair employees perceive these decisions to be and whether they experience respectful treatment (i.e., interactional justice). In this experimental survey study with open-ended qualitative questions, we examine decision making in six HRM functions and manipulate the decision maker (AI or human) and decision valence (positive or negative) to determine their impact on individuals’ experiences of interactional justice, trust, dehumanization, and perceptions of decision-maker role appropriate- (...) ness. In terms of decision makers, the use of human decision makers over AIs generally resulted in better perceptions of respectful treatment. In terms of decision valence, people experiencing positive over negative decisions generally resulted in better perceptions of respectful treatment. In instances where these cases conflict, on some indicators people preferred positive AI decisions over negative human decisions. Qualitative responses show how people identify justice concerns with both AI and human decision making. We outline implications for theory, practice, and future research. (shrink)

The short experimental film Shifting Perspectives stems from a collaborative research project initiated in 2019 in Sydney, Australia, during the 'Choreographic Hack Lab-a week-long laboratory co-presented by Critical Path and Sydney Festival in partnership with the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS), which asked artists and academics to rethink and respond to the idea of the Anthropocene (Pini & George, 2019). The film was later developed in 2020 during a Responsive Residency at Critical Path, Sydney, awarded to anthropologist and (...) choreographer Sarah Pini in collaboration with Jestin George, biotechnologist and visual artist, and Melissa Ramos, visual artist and filmmaker. This work aims to open a multivocal interdisciplinary dialogue across screendance, performance and synthetic biology. Inspired by a recent conversation between two leaders in the field of synthetic biology (Sarah Richardson and Tom Knight) and their divergent approaches to working with microbial life (Agapakis, 2019), the film invites to consider how collaborating with microorganisms can reshape our future in a more-than-human world. (shrink)

The Promise of Friendship investigates what makes friendship possible and good for human beings. In dialogue with authors ranging from Aristotle and Montaigne to Proust, Levinas, and Derrida, Sarah Horton argues that friendship is suited to our finitude—that is, to the limits within which human beings live—and proposes a novel understanding of friendship as translation: friends translate the world for each other so that each one experiences the world not as the other does but in light of the friend's (...) always-unknowable experience. The very distance between friends that makes it impossible for them to know each other wholly also makes it possible for them to be transformed by friendship. Friendship, then, is possible and good for those who love precisely that they can never wholly know the friend. Friendship is a profound, mutual self-giving that highlights the irreplaceability of each person, fundamentally shapes the self, and is one of the greatest joys of human existence. (shrink)

Artificially intelligent (AI) technologies are increasingly being used in many workplaces. It is recognised that there are ethical dimensions to the ways in which organisations implement AI alongside, or substituting for, their human workforces. How will these technologically driven disruptions impact the employee–employer exchange? We provide one way to explore this question by drawing on scholarship linking Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT) to the psychological contract (PC). Using ISCT, we show that the macrosocial contract’s ethical AI norms of beneficence, non-maleficence, (...) autonomy, justice, and explicability can feed into national- and organisational-level microsocial contracts. We also outline the role of employees’ technology frames in this process. We then use an illustrative example to demonstrate how this multilevel normative background helps to inform the content of individuals’ PCs in the context of working with AI technologies. (shrink)

Is there a sense in which we exercise direct volitional control over our beliefs? Most agree that there is not, but discussions tend to focus on control in forming a belief. The focus here is on sustaining a belief over time in the face of ‘epistemic temptation’ to abandon it. It is argued that we do have a capacity for ‘doxastic self-control’ over time that is partly volitional in nature, and that its exercise is rationally permissible.

It can be hard to see where money fits in the world. Money seems both real and imaginary, since it has obvious causal powers, but is also, just as obviously, something humans have just made up. Recent philosophical accounts of money have declared it to be real, but for very different reasons. John Searle and Francesco Guala disagree over whether money is just whatever acts like money, or just whatever people believe to be money. In developing their accounts of institutions (...) as a part of social reality, each uses money as a paradigm institution, but they disagree on how institutions exist. Searle argues that the institution of money belongs to an ontological level separate from the physical world, held up by the collective intentions of a group, while Guala claims that money is a part of the ordinary physical world and is just whatever performs a “money-like function” in a group, regardless of what that group believes about it. Here, we argue that any purely functional account like Guala’s will be unable to capture the distinctive phenomenon of money, since monetary transactions are defined by the attitudes transactors hold toward them. Money will be obscured or misidentified if defined functionally. As we go on to show by examining recent work by Smit et al., belief in money does not require taking on all of Searle’s ontological commitments, but money and mental contents will stand or fall together. (shrink)

This is a defence of the claim that names are predicates with a demonstrative element in their singular use.

Artificially intelligent (AI) technologies are increasingly being used in many workplaces. It is recognised that there are ethical dimensions to the ways in which organisations implement AI alongside, or substituting for, their human workforces. How will these technologically driven disruptions impact the employee–employer exchange? We provide one way to explore this question by drawing on scholarship linking Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT) to the psychological contract (PC). Using ISCT, we show that the macrosocial contract’s ethical AI norms of beneficence, non-maleficence, (...) autonomy, justice, and explicability can feed into national- and organisational-level microsocial contracts. We also outline the role of employees’ technology frames in this process. We then use an illustrative example to demonstrate how this multilevel normative background helps to inform the content of individuals’ PCs in the context of working with AI technologies. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that an adequate meta-semantic framework capable of accommodating the range of projects currently identified as projects in conceptual engineering must be sensitive to the fact that concepts (and hence projects relating to them) fall into distinct kinds. Concepts can vary, I will argue, with respect to their direction of determination, their modal range, and their temporal range. Acknowledging such variations yields a preliminary taxonomy of concepts and generates a meta-semantic framework that allows us both to (...) accommodate the full range of cases and to identify a proper subset of concepts for special ameliorative consideration. Ignoring such variations, in contrast, leads to a restricted meta-semantic framework that accommodates only a subset of the particular projects while generating implausible accounts of others. (shrink)

In a series of recent articles, Robin Jeshion has developed a theory of singular thought which she calls ‘cognitivism’. According to Jeshion, cognitivism offers a middle path between acquaintance theories—which she takes to impose too strong a requirement on singular thought, and semantic instrumentalism—which she takes to impose too weak a requirement. In this article, I raise a series of concerns about Jeshion's theory, and suggest that the relevant data can be accommodated by a version of acquaintance theory that distinguishes (...) unsuccessful thoughts of singular form from successful singular thoughts, and in addition allows for ‘trace-based’ acquaintance. (shrink)

Translation (French to English) of Jean-Luc Marion's "La donation en son herméneutique," originally published (in French) as chapter II of Reprise du donné (Paris: PUF, 2016).

When we define something as a crime, we generally thereby criminalize the attempt to commit that crime. However, it is a vexing puzzle to specify what must be the case in order for a criminal attempt to have occurred, given that the results element of the crime fails to come about. I argue that the philosophy of action can assist the criminal law in clarifying what kinds of events are properly categorized as criminal attempts. A natural thought is that this (...) project should take the form of specifying what it is in general to attempt or try to perform an action, and then to define criminal attempts as attempts to commit crimes. Focusing on Gideon Yaffe's resourceful work in Attempts (Oxford University Press, 2010) as an example of this strategy, I argue that it results in a view that is overly inclusive: one will count as trying to commit a crime even in the far remote preparatory stages that we in fact have good reason not to criminalize. I offer an alternative proposal to distinguish between mere preparations and genuine attempts that has its basis not in trying, but doing: a criminal attempt is underway once what the agent is doing is a crime. Working out the details of this schema turns out to have important implications for action theory. A recently burgeoning view known as Naive Action Theory holds that all action can be explained by appeal to some further thing that the agent is doing, and that that the same explanatory nexus is at work even when we appeal to what the agent is intending, trying, or preparing to do -- these notions do explanatory work because they too refer to actions that are in progress, albeit in their infancy. If this is right, than the notion of 'doing' will also be too inclusive for the purposes of the criminal law. I argue that we should draw the reverse conclusion: the distinctions between pure intending, trying, preparing, and doing serve an important purpose in the criminal law, and this fact lends support to the view that they are genuine metaphysical and explanatory distinctions. (shrink)

Although they are often grouped together in comparison with non-dualist theories, Plato's soul-body dualism, and Descartes' mind-body dualism, are fundamentally different. The doctrines examined are those of the Phaedo and the Meditations. The main difference, from which others flow, lies in Plato's acceptance and Descartes' rejection of the assumption that the soul (= intellect) is identical with what animates the body.

In her book Specifications Grading, Linda B. Nilson advocates for a grading regimen she claims will save faculty time, increase student motivation, and improve the quality and rigor of student work. If she is right, there is a strong case for many faculty to adopt some version of the system she recommends. In this paper, we argue that she is mostly right and recommend that faculty move away from traditional grading. We begin by rehearsing the central features of specifications grading (...) and providing two examples of how to implement it in philosophy classes. In light of the examples, we argue that specifications grading fulfills two of Nilson’s central desiderata but not the third. Since specifications grading generates two benefits that when combined increase student learning, without adding or increasing burdens, we conclude that student learning increases when courses are revised to include aspects of specifications grading. (shrink)

Translation (French to English) of "Philosophie et théologie : nouvelles frontières" by Emmanuel Falque.

In this paper, I argue that an externalist theory of thought content provides the means to resolve two debates in moral philosophy. The first—that between judgement internalism and judgement externalism—concerns the question of whether there is a conceptual connection between moral judgement and motivation. The second—that between reasons internalism and reasons externalism—concerns the relationship between moral reasons and an agent's subjective motivational set. The resolutions essentially stem from the externalist claim that concepts can be grasped partially, and a new moral (...) theory, which I call ‘moral externalism’, emerges. (shrink)

This paper explores the position that moral enhancement interventions could be medically indicated in cases where they provide a remedy for a lack of empathy, when such a deficit is considered pathological. In order to argue this claim, the question as to whether a deficit of empathy could be considered to be pathological is examined, taking into account the difficulty of defining illness and disorder generally, and especially in the case of mental health. Following this, Psychopathy and a fictionalised mental (...) disorder are explored with a view to consider moral enhancement techniques as possible treatments for both conditions. At this juncture, having asserted and defended the position that moral enhancement interventions could, under certain circumstances, be considered medically indicated, this paper then goes on to briefly explore some of the consequences of this assertion. First, it is acknowledged that this broadening of diagnostic criteria in light of new interventions could fall foul of claims of medicalisation. It is then briefly noted that considering moral enhancement technologies to be akin to therapies in certain circumstances could lead to ethical and legal consequences and questions, such as those regarding regulation, access, and even consent. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that content externalism and privileged access are compatible, but that one can, in a sense, have privileged access to the world. The supposedly absurd conclusion should be embraced.

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)

In this paper, I draw on a recent account of perceptual knowledge according to which knowledge is contrastive. I extend the contrastive account of perceptual knowledge to yield a contrastive account of self-knowledge. Along the way, I develop a contrastive account of the propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, regrets and so on) and suggest that a contrastive account of the propositional attitudes implies an anti-individualist account of propositional attitude concepts (the concepts of belief, desire, regret, and so on).

My aim in this paper is to move toward a relational moral theory of harm through examination of a common yet underexplored form of child maltreatment: childhood psychological abuse. I draw on relational theory to consider agential, intrapersonal, and interpersonal ways in which relational harms develop and evolve both in intimate relationships and in conditions of oppression. I set forth three distinctive yet interconnected forms of relational harm that childhood psychological abuse causes: harm to the relational agency of individuals, harm (...) to the relationships individuals hold with themselves, especially with regard to how they respect, know, and trust themselves, and harm to interpersonal relationships of both a direct and indirect nature in present and future timeframes. I close by noting that while relationships can be the site of human brutality that destroys the relational self, paradoxically and promisingly, they also can be a primary means of the relational reconstitution of the self. Ultimately, relational analyses of the harms of childhood psychological abuse reveal several key elements of a relational theory of harm and demonstrate the significance of relational harms for moral philosophy. (shrink)

Writing to the young emperor Nero, Seneca elaborates a sophisticated distinction between compassion and mercy for use in forensic contexts, agreeing with earlier Stoics that compassion is a vice, but adding that there is a virtue called mercy or 'clemency.' This Stoic repudiation of compassion has won the attention of Nussbaum, who argues that it was motivated by a respect for persons as dignified agents, and was of a piece with the Stoics' cosmopolitanism. This chapter engages Nussbaum's presentation of the (...) Stoics, examining Seneca’s On Clemency and Epictetus' use of the term prohairesis, showing that while there is some truth in her characterization, it needs to be qualified in important ways. It also analyzes Augustine's engagement with Seneca's On Clemency in the City of God 9.5, and in his letters concerning punishment for vandalism, theft, and human trafficking. It argues that Augustine has a nuanced mercy ethic that is deeply informed by Seneca's position, but that he intentionally improves upon it. (shrink)

The primary aim of this essay is to investigate modalities of resistance to sexual violence. It begins from the observation that the nature of what we understand ourselves to be resisting—that is, how we define the scope, content, and causes of sexual violence—will have profound implications for how we are able to resist. I critically engage one model of resistance to sexual violence: feminist philosophical scholarship on self-defense, highlighting several shortcomings in how the feminist self-defense discourse inadvertently frames sexual violence. (...) Holding these criticisms in mind, I expand the landscape of resistance to sexual violence by considering the new possibilities that empathy might offer. The work of two contemporary women of color feminists—Roxane Gay and Tarana Burke—launches further exploration of empathy’s alternative modes of resistance. By focusing on empathy between survivors of sexual violence, we can expand our understanding of the possibilities of resistance by redistributing and broadening our attention in three main ways: from action to affect and attitude, from a spatially and temporally limited event to something more expansive, and from the individual through the interpersonal to the structural. (shrink)

This essay examines the analysis of language in The Concept of Anxiety and argues that language ultimately reveals itself as both dangerous and salvific. The pseudonymous author, Vigilius Haufniensis, is suspicious of language, for it divides the individual from herself and thereby makes possible the self-forgetfulness of objective chatter. Indeed, this warning (which commenters have tended to follow uncritically) is a legitimate one – yet it fails to grasp that by rendering the self other than itself, language constitutes the self. (...) In other words, the individual’s very existence depends on language. Moreover, the attempt to establish oneself as absolutely self-identical is precisely sin. Language opens us to alterity, and for this reason the demonic cannot endure it and seeks to control it. Language is uncontrollable, however, to the point that no sign permits us to be certain that we have rightly distinguished good from evil, the salvific from the demonic – and salvation can come only if we renounce the attempt to establish distinctions that are beyond our power. By employing a pseudonymous figure who views language with suspicion, Kierkegaard shows that language is dangerous, even deadly, but also allows us to realize that language is the condition of possibility for salvation. (shrink)

Augustine on select metaphysical topics: hylomorphism vs. dualism, theories of God, angels.

Advances in immunotherapy pave the way for vaccines that target not only infections, but also unhealthy behaviors such as smoking. A nicotine vaccine that eliminates the pleasure associated with smoking could potentially be used to prevent children from adopting this addictive and dangerous behavior. This paper offers an ethical analysis of such vaccines. We argue that it would be permissible for parents to give their child a nicotine vaccine if the following conditions are met: (1) the vaccine is expected to (...) result in a net benefit to each individual vaccinated, (2) the expected harms from the side effects of the vaccine are lower than the non-voluntary harms of smoking, and (3) there are no less manipulative methods available that are as effective at preventing smoking initiation. Finally, we show how the framework developed here could be used to analyze the ethics of other chemical interventions designed to modify children’s behavior. (shrink)