History and literature provide striking examples of people who are morally admirable, in part, because of their profound faith in people’s decency. But moral philosophers have largely ignored this trait, and I suspect that many philosophers would view such faith with suspicion, dismissing it as a form of naïvete or as some other objectionable form of irrationality. I argue that such suspicion is misplaced, and that having a certain kind of faith in people’s decency, which I call faith in humanity, (...) is a centrally important moral virtue. In order to make this view intuitively more plausible, I discuss two moral exemplars – one historical and the other literary – whose lives vividly exhibit such faith. Then I provide a rationale for the view that having such faith is morally admirable. Finally, I discuss cases in which someone’s faith in humanity can lead her to make judgments that are, to some degree, epistemically irrational. I argue that the existence of such cases does not pose a serious objection to the view that having faith in humanity is a moral virtue. Rather, it makes salient important limits on the role that epistemic, as opposed to practical, rationality should occupy in our ideals of how to live. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that there are limits to the ways we can permissibly treat people, even in the service of good ends. For example, we may not steal someone’s wallet, even if we plan to donate the contents to famine relief, or break a promise to help a colleague move, even if we encounter someone else on the way whose need is somewhat more urgent. In other words, we should observe certain constraints against mistreating people, where a constraint is (...) a moral principle that we should not violate, even when that is the only way to prevent further, similar violations or other, greater evils. But, despite its intuitive appeal, the view that there are constraints has drawn considerable criticism, and attempts to provide a rationale for constraints have been, at best, substantially incomplete. In this paper, I develop a novel rationale for constraints that fills important gaps left by views in the literature. The account helps make sense of constraints by identifying a morally significant relation that we bear to people when, and only when, we observe certain constraints against mistreating them. Put roughly, observing these constraints is a condition for being worthy of a form of trust that I call civic trust, and being worthy of such trust is an essential part of living with others in the sort of harmony that characterizes morally permissible interaction. By focusing, in ways other accounts do not, on the role that observing constraints plays in our psychological lives, this approach not only makes the structure of constraints more intelligible, but also helps us better appreciate the force of our reason to observe constraints, and better understand the kind of moral community to which we should aspire. (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)

A number of moral philosophers have endorsed instances of the following curious argument: it would be better if a certain moral theory were true; therefore, we have reason to believe that the theory is true. In other words, the mere truth of the theory—quite apart from the results of our believing it or acting in accord with it—would make for a better world than the truth of its rivals, and this fact provides evidence of the theory’s truth. This form of (...) argument may seem to be an obvious non-starter. After all, the fact that the truth of some empirical claim, say, the claim that there is an afterlife, would be desirable does not, by itself, give us any reason to believe it. But I argue that, when it is properly understood, this form of argument—which I call the better world argument—is valid in moral philosophy. I develop and defend a version of the argument that rests on the view that the correct moral theory cannot exhibit a certain form of self-defeat—a form that, as far as I know, has not been discussed in the literature. I also identify two promising applications of this form of argument. The first is a defense of permissions to promote one’s own private aims, rather than promote the greater good, and the second, an argument against the possibility of moral dilemmas. (shrink)

Secular moral philosophy has devoted little attention to the nature and significance of faith. Perhaps this is unsurprising. The significance of faith is typically thought to depend on the truth of theism, and so it may seem that a careful study of faith has little to offer non-religious philosophy. But I argue that, whether or not theism holds, certain kinds of faith are centrally important virtues, that is, character traits that are morally admirable or admirable from some broader perspective of (...) human flourishing. I discuss three varieties of faith that a virtuous person has in people: faith in herself, faith in people to whom she bears certain personal relationships, and faith in humanity. Coming to understand the nature of these forms of faith and the roles they play in human life promises to deepen our understanding of aspects of moral life and aspects of human flourishing that are poorly grasped. Beyond this, it makes valuable contributions to the literature on self-trust and the literature on epistemic partiality in friendship, and it helps us better understand the relation between our epistemic and practical ideals. (shrink)

“If the concept of God has any validity or any use,” James Baldwin writes in The Fire Next Time, “it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.” This essay is a meditation on Baldwin’s claim. I begin by presenting Baldwin’s account of a grave danger that characterizes our social lives – a source of profound estrangement from ourselves and from one another. I (...) draw on the work of the theologian Howard Thurman in order to explain how faith in a loving God can enable us to cope with this danger in a manner that may render us, in some sense, larger, freer, and more loving. Finally, I sketch Baldwin’s account of how we might cope with this danger not by relying on God’s love, but rather by relying in certain ways on our love for one another. (shrink)

In “Reconciliation as Non-Alienation: The Politics of Being at Home in the World,” Catherine Lu develops a novel account of reconciliation. Put briefly, she claims that reconciliation aims to address agents’ alienation from the unjust social institutions and practices that structure their lives; it aims, in other words, to enable these agents to be at home in their social worlds. In these comments, I present two kinds of challenges that Lu’s account faces. Both challenges have their source in forms of (...) shame and fear that are apt to discourage socially privileged agents from participating in the process of reconciliation that Lu describes. My hope is that thinking through responses to the challenges that I discuss will deepen our understanding of the grounds for engaging in reconciliation at all, the relation between our ideals of reconciliation and our ideals of justice, and the burdens that may be associated with the pursuit of these ideals. (shrink)

I provide an overview of my work to date (Fall 2023), discuss some of the main themes that animate my work, and briefly describe some of my planned future projects.

In A Confession, a memoir of his philosophical midlife crisis, Tolstoy recounts falling into despair after coming to believe that his life, and for that matter all human life, is meaningless and absurd. Although Tolstoy's account of the origin and phenomenology of his crisis is widely regarded as illuminating, his response to the crisis, namely, embracing a religious tradition that he had previously dismissed as “irrational,” “incomprehensible,” and “mingled with falsehood” seems unpromising, at best. Nevertheless, I argue, Tolstoy's account of (...) his response makes a valuable contribution to contemporary thought about the meaning and absurdity of life. I begin by drawing on classic discussions in the philosophical literature, and on Tolstoy's memoir, in order to characterize the problem of meaning and the problem of the absurd, and to clarify the relation between these problems. I then draw on Tolstoy's account of his response to his crisis in order to characterize a form of faith in our deepest values. I argue that such faith supplies one important part of the story concerning how we might respond to the problem of the absurd — a part that has been overlooked by more recent discussions of these issues. (shrink)

The distinctive experiences of multiracial people have been underexplored in philosophy. For instance, it is not uncommon for a multiracial person to anticipate or encounter racial denials. A racial denial occurs when a person’s assertion of their racial identity, e.g. “I am Black,” is challenged or called into doubt. While monoracial individuals can generally assert their race without being challenged (e.g. “I am Black” or “I am White”), a multiracial person may be met with the rejoinder, “You aren’t really Black” (...) or “You aren’t really White.” Utilizing Miranda Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice, this essay argues that some racial denials arise because our existing racial vocabulary has gaps, and that these gaps can be traced to unjust origins. Ultimately, this essay’s aim is threefold. First, it aims to understand the nature of racial denials. Second, it demonstrates that attending to the lives multiracial people can yield important insights into race and epistemic injustice. Third, by focusing on multiracial experience, this essay aims to redress — in a limited way — the marginalization of multiracial lives within philosophical theory. (shrink)

In the United States, roughly 1 out of 4 births takes place at a hospital certified as Baby-Friendly. This paper offers a multi-disciplinary perspective on the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI), including empirical, normative, and historical perspectives. Our analysis is novel in that we trace how medical practices of “quality improvement,” which initially appear to have little to do with breastfeeding, may have shaped the BFHI. Ultimately, we demonstrate that a rich understanding of the BFHI can be obtained by tracing how (...) norms of gender/motherhood interact with, and are supplemented by, other normative, historical, and institutional realities. We conclude with suggestions for practical revisions to the BFHI. (shrink)

Belief-in reports of the form 'S believes in O' have been taken to have at least two senses: factual and evaluative. I begin by briefly suggesting that there is no evidence for two distinct senses, then spend most of the paper developing a general semantics for belief-in reports. I explore, and use my semantics to explain, several features of belief-in reports: the context-dependence of what belief-that reports they entail, their widespread lack of equivalence with belief-that reports, and their neg-raising property. (...) Put roughly, my semantics says that 'S believes in O' a) asserts that, for some contextually salient property F, S believes that O has F and b) presupposes that S either has a belief that O has F for which they meet an affective and evidential requirement or has a belief that O doesn’t have F for which they meet an affective and evidential requirement. (shrink)

Which political principles should govern global politics? In his new book, Simon Caney engages with the work of philosophers, political theorists, and international relations scholars in order to examine some of the most pressing global issues of our time. Are there universal civil, political, and economic human rights? Should there be a system of supra- state institutions? Can humanitarian intervention be justified?

Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Elizabeth Anderson on 18 June 2014.

Scientific realism driven by inference to the best explanation (IBE) takes empirically confirmed objects to exist, independent, pace empiricism, of whether those objects are observable or not. This kind of realism, it has been claimed, does not need probabilistic reasoning to justify the claim that these objects exist. But I show that there are scientific contexts in which a non-probabilistic IBE-driven realism leads to a puzzle. Since IBE can be applied in scientific contexts in which empirical confirmation has not yet (...) been reached, realists will in these contexts be committed to the existence of empirically unconfirmed objects. As a consequence of such commitments, because they lack probabilistic features, the possible empirical confirmation of those objects is epistemically redundant with respect to realism. (shrink)

Taking steps from Wilson’s distinction between strong and weak emergence, in this paper I cast doubts on the prospect of weak emergence. After discussing the relationship between properties set at different levels and supporting different counterfactuals and laws, I discuss one crucial condition for a property to be weakly emergent, one that is usually taken as the primary motivation for emergence, that of being “realization indifferent”. I set an argument aimed at showing that this realization indifference does not accord with (...) systematic relations holding between properties set at the mental level vis-a-vis their realizers. Since it is not possible to have mental properties which are not systematic, mental properties cannot be weakly emergent properties. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that existing artificial systems are not phenomenally conscious, and that the construction of phenomenally conscious artificial systems would require significant technological progress if it is possible at all. We challenge this assumption by arguing that if Global Workspace Theory (GWT) — a leading scientific theory of phenomenal consciousness — is correct, then instances of one widely implemented AI architecture, the artificial language agent, might easily be made phenomenally conscious if they are not already. Along the way, (...) we articulate an explicit methodology for thinking about how to apply scientific theories of consciousness to artificial systems and employ this methodology to arrive at a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for phenomenal consciousness according to GWT. (shrink)

Although digital breast tomosynthesis has higher sensitivity than digital mammography and at least as high specificity, digital mammography remains the most common method for conducting mammographic screening. At the same time, mammography systems are now delivered “DBT-ready” and can be used for either digital mammography or digital breast tomosynthesis. In this paper, we ask whether it is ethically permissible to use such equipment for digital mammography, given its lower sensitivity. We argue it is not, and that clinics are ethically required (...) to use their DBTready equipment to screen with digital breast tomosynthesis whenever this is practically possible. Our argument relies on a comparison between digital breast tomosynthesis and a hypothesized improvement in the image quality of digital mammography. (shrink)

I develop a challenge for the view that 'believe' is a propositional attitude verb based on two observations: (i) 'believe' can embed 'in O', and (ii) 'in O' does not denote a proposition. To develop my challenge, I argue (section 2) that 'believe' is not homonymous or polysemous between a propositional belief-that and non-propositional belief-in interpretation, and (section 3) that type-shifting 'in O'’s denotation to a proposition falsely predicts that belief-in and belief-that reports are equivalent.

This paper develops an information-sensitive theory of the semantics and probability of conditionals and statements involving epistemic modals. The theory validates a number of principles linking probability and modality, including the principle that the probability of a conditional If A, then C equals the probability of C, updated with A. The theory avoids so-called triviality results, which are standardly taken to show that principles of this sort cannot be validated. To achieve this, we deny that rational agents update their credences (...) via conditionalization. We offer a new rule of update, Hyperconditionalization, which agrees with Conditionalization whenever nonmodal statements are at stake but differs for modal and conditional sentences. (shrink)

Under what conditions would an artificially intelligent system have wellbeing? Despite its clear bearing on the ethics of human interactions with artificial systems, this question has received little direct attention. Because all major theories of wellbeing hold that an individual’s welfare level is partially determined by their mental life, we begin by considering whether artificial systems have mental states. We show that a wide range of theories of mental states, when combined with leading theories of wellbeing, predict that certain existing (...) artificial systems have wellbeing. Along the way, we argue that there are good reasons to believe that artificial systems can have wellbeing even if they are not phenomenally conscious. While we do not claim to demonstrate conclusively that AI systems have wellbeing, we argue that there is a significant probability that some AI systems have or will soon have wellbeing, and that this should lead us to reassess our relationship with the intelligent systems we create. (shrink)

A letter replying to Bayne et al. "Tests for consciousness in humans and beyond", 2024, arguing that the search for consciousness "beyond" healthy adult humans should begin with other animals.

A distorted representation of one's own body is a diagnostic criterion and core psychopathology of both anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Despite recent technical advances in research, it is still unknown whether this body image disturbance is characterized by body dissatisfaction and a low ideal weight and/or includes a distorted perception or processing of body size. In this article, we provide an update and meta-analysis of 42 articles summarizing measures and results for body size estimation (BSE) from 926 (...) individuals with AN, 536 individuals with BN and 1920 controls. We replicate findings that individuals with AN and BN overestimate their body size as compared to controls (ES= 0.63). Our meta-regression shows that metric methods (BSE by direct or indirect spatial measures) yield larger effect sizes than depictive methods (BSE by evaluating distorted pictures), and that effect sizes are larger for patients with BN than for patients with AN. To interpret these results, we suggest a revised theoretical framework for BSE that accounts for differences between depictive and metric BSE methods regarding the underlying body representations (conceptual vs. perceptual, implicit vs. explicit). We also discuss clinical implications and argue for the importance of multimethod approaches to investigate body image disturbance. (shrink)

This article addresses the Aristotelian debate in the 17th century on the incorporeality of light and its extension, focusing especially on the Iberian and Italian contexts. The aim of the essay is to show that, while late Aristotelianism unitedly rejected light’s corporeity, many differences arose regarding the way in which this incorporeality should be understood. Relevant perspectives in all of their discussions were Scotus’ teaching of the intentional nature of light, and the Neoplatonics’ claim of its metaphysical provenance. In the (...) Iberian environment, Jesuit scholars/theologians (the school of Toledo, the Conimbricenses, Francisco Suárez, and Antonio Rubio) were especially characterized by their attempt to save Aristotle’s original explanation in De Anima, although theoretical discrepancies on many significant points divide them. Italian intellectuals such as Zabarella, Dandini, Lagalla and Liceti were instead more willing to seek a reconciliation between Aristotle’s statement and the explanation of light posited by Scotus and the Neoplatonists, and more receptive to the need for a new theory of matter. (shrink)

The relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is; this is the first and only full-length study of this concept. This book shows that mereology, the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology. Peter Simons surveys and criticizes previous theories, especially the standard extensional view, and proposes a more adequate account which encompasses both temporal and modal considerations in detail. 'Parts could easily be the standard book on mereology for the next twenty (...) or thirty years.' Timothy Williamson, Grazer Philosophische Studien. (shrink)

Governments are often so focused on short-term gains that they ignore the long term, thus creating extra unnecessary burdens on their citizens, and violating their responsibilities to future generations. What can be done about this? In this paper I propose a package of reforms to the ways in which policies are made by legislatures, and in which those policies are scrutinised, implemented and evaluated. The overarching aim is to enhance the accountability of the decision-making process in ways that take into (...) account the interests of persons in the future. (shrink)

[Winner of the Teorema Essay Prize for Young Scholars 2024]. How can we know we are not dreaming? In this essay, I tackle this and related questions from a transcendental standpoint, by building a philosophical narrative centred upon three “giants”: Descartes, Kant, and Putnam. From each, I take some ideas and discard some others, with the aim of developing a historically informed, yet original, transcendental approach to dream skepticism. I argue that dreams can be distinguished from objective cognitions, since they (...) do not regularly fulfil the transcendental conditions of such cognitions, e.g. the conditions of linguistic reference. Indeed, drawing on some insights by G. E. Moore and Wittgenstein, I further argue that the formulations of dream skepticism prove nonsensical: they cannot be linguistically understood. However, reflection on these skeptical formulations may lead us to a clear aesthetic understanding of the transcendental conditions of sense, as well as of the meaning of philosophically problematic words like “dream,” “perception,” and “reality.”. (shrink)

LLMs have dramatically improved in capabilities in recent years. This raises the question of whether LLMs could become genuine agents with beliefs and desires. This paper demonstrates an in principle limit to LLM agency, based on their architecture. LLMs are next word predictors: given a string of text, they calculate the probability that various words can come next. LLMs produce outputs that reflect these probabilities. I show that next word predictors are exploitable. If LLMs are prompted to make probabilistic predictions (...) about the world, these predictions are guaranteed to be incoherent, and so Dutch bookable. If LLMs are prompted to make choices over actions, their preferences are guaranteed to be intransitive, and so money pumpable. In short, the problem is that selecting an action based on its potential value is structurally different then selecting the description of an action that is most likely given a prompt: probability cannot be forced into the shape of expected value. The in principle exploitability of LLMs raises doubts about how agential they can become. This exploitability also offers an opportunity for humanity to safely control such AI systems. (shrink)

This paper offers the first careful analysis of the possibility that AI and humanity will go to war. The paper focuses on the case of artificial general intelligence, AI with broadly human capabilities. The paper uses a bargaining model of war to apply standard causes of war to the special case of AI/human conflict. The paper argues that information failures and commitment problems are especially likely in AI/human conflict. Information failures would be driven by the difficulty of measuring AI capabilities, (...) by the uninterpretability of AI systems, and by differences in how AIs and humans analyze information. Commitment problems would make it difficult for AIs and humans to strike credible bargains. Commitment problems could arise from power shifts, rapid and discontinuous increases in AI capabilities. Commitment problems could also arise from missing focal points, where AIs and humans fail to effectively coordinate on policies to limit war. In the face of this heightened chance of war, the paper proposes several interventions. War can be made less likely by improving the measurement of AI capabilities, capping improvements in AI capabilities, designing AI systems to be similar to humans, and by allowing AI systems to participate in democratic political institutions. (shrink)

This paper examines the question of whether Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT possess minds, focusing specifically on whether they have a genuine folk psychology encompassing beliefs, desires, and intentions. We approach this question by investigating two key aspects: internal representations and dispositions to act. First, we survey various philosophical theories of representation, including informational, causal, structural, and teleosemantic accounts, arguing that LLMs satisfy key conditions proposed by each. We draw on recent interpretability research in machine learning to support these (...) claims. Second, we explore whether LLMs exhibit robust dispositions to perform actions, a necessary component of folk psychology. We consider two prominent philosophical traditions, interpretationism and representationalism, to assess LLM action dispositions. While we find evidence suggesting LLMs may satisfy some criteria for having a mind, particularly in game-theoretic environments, we conclude that the data remains inconclusive. Additionally, we reply to several skeptical challenges to LLM folk psychology, including issues of sensory grounding, the "stochastic parrots" argument, and concerns about memorization. Our paper has three main upshots. First, LLMs do have robust internal representations. Second, there is an open question to answer about whether LLMs have robust action dispositions. Third, existing skeptical challenges to LLM representation do not survive philosophical scrutiny. (shrink)

This paper develops a semantic solution to the puzzle of Free Choice permission. The paper begins with a battery of impossibility results showing that Free Choice is in tension with a variety of classical principles, including Disjunction Introduction and the Law of Excluded Middle. Most interestingly, Free Choice appears incompatible with a principle concerning the behavior of Free Choice under negation, Double Prohibition, which says that Mary can’t have soup or salad implies Mary can’t have soup and Mary can’t have (...) salad. Alonso-Ovalle 2006 and others have appealed to Double Prohibition to motivate pragmatic accounts of Free Choice. Aher 2012, Aloni 2018, and others have developed semantic accounts of Free Choice that also explain Double Prohibition. -/- This paper offers a new semantic analysis of Free Choice designed to handle the full range of impossibility results involved in Free Choice. The paper develops the hypothesis that Free Choice is a homogeneity effect. The claim possibly A or B is defined only when A and B are homogenous with respect to their modal status, either both possible or both impossible. Paired with a notion of entailment that is sensitive to definedness conditions, this theory validates Free Choice while retaining a wide variety of classical principles except for the transitivity of entailment. The homogeneity hypothesis is implemented in two different ways, homogeneous alternative semantics and homogeneous dynamic semantics, with interestingly different consequences. (shrink)

Today’s exponential advancement of information and communication technologies is reconfiguring participatory urban development practices. The use of digital technology implies new forms of decentralised governance, collaborative knowledge production, and social activism. The digital transformation has the potential to overcome shortcomings in citizen participation, make participatory processes more deliberative, and enable collaborative approaches for making cities. While digital tools such as digital mapping, e‐participation platforms, location‐based games, and social media offer new opportunities for the various actors and may act as a (...) catalyst for renegotiating urban space and collective goods, digitalisation can also perpetuate or even attenuate existing inequalities and exclusion. This editorial introduces the thematic issue “Citizen Participation, Digital Agency, and Urban Development” which focuses on the trajectories and (dis)continuities of citizen participation through digitalisation and elaborates this with examples from Europe and Asia on how the digital transformation impacts, challenges, or reproduces hegemonic power relations in urban development. (shrink)

Triviality results threaten plausible principles governing our credence in epistemic modal claims. This paper develops a new account of modal credence which avoids triviality. On the resulting theory, probabilities are assigned not to sets of worlds, but rather to sets of information state-world pairs. The theory avoids triviality by giving up the principle that rational credence is closed under conditionalization. A rational agent can become irrational by conditionalizing on new evidence. In place of conditionalization, the paper develops a new account (...) of updating: conditionalization with normalization. (shrink)

In the present paper, I analyze the Husserlian theory of time from a phenomenology of person perspective. I suggest that the phenomenological concept of time – especially considering the notions of ritentional modifications and sinking – is strictly related with the personal individuation. Hence, my argument is that personhood is developed with latent and subliminal inclinations too, opening a new discussion regarding the reliability of the eidetic-reductive method in characterology.

In this paper I reconstruct and discuss Antonio Rubio (1546-1615)’s theory of the composition of the continuum, as set out in his Tractatus de compositione continui, a part of his influential commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, published in 1605 but rewritten in 1606. Here I attempt especially to show that Rubio’s is a significant case of Scholastic overlapping between Aristotle’s theory of infinitely divisible parts and indivisibilism or ‘Zenonism’, i.e. the theory that allows for indivisibles, extensionless points, lines, and surfaces, which (...) are supposed to take part in the composition of the continuum. Even if such a syncretic tendency was, in many different ways, already developing in the medieval period and then at the end of the sixteenth century, Rubio’s position is indeed peculiar. He maintains that indivisibles are real and actual, infinite in act, really distinct from each other, and that, although they indwell in substance, indivisibles do not contribute directly to the constitution of the continuum. In this reconstruction I emphasize notably Rubio’s usage of mereological notions like those of part, whole, completeness and incompleteness. (shrink)

You omega know something when you know it, and know that you know it, and know that you know that you know it, and so on. This paper first argues that omega knowledge matters, in the sense that it is required for rational assertion, action, inquiry, and belief. The paper argues that existing accounts of omega knowledge face major challenges. One account is skeptical, claiming that we have no omega knowledge of any ordinary claims about the world. Another account embraces (...) the KK thesis, and identifies knowledge with omega knowledge. This position faces counterexamples, and struggles to make sense of inexact knowledge. The paper then develops a new account of knowledge, by proposing the principle of Reflective Luminosity: if you know that you know something, then you omega know it. I argue that Reflective Luminosity allows for omega knowledge while avoiding the problems for KK. (shrink)

Background -/- Emerging technologies and societal changes create new ethical concerns and greater need for cross-disciplinary and cross–stakeholder communication on navigating ethics in research. Scholarly articles are the primary mode of communication for researchers, however there are concerns regarding the expression of research ethics in these outputs. If not in these outputs, where should researchers and stakeholders learn about the ethical considerations of research? Objectives -/- Drawing on a scoping review, analysis of policy in a specific disciplinary context (learning and (...) technology), and reference group discussion, we address concerns regarding research ethics, in research involving emerging technologies through developing novel policy that aims to foster learning through the expression of ethical concepts in research. Approach -/- This paper develops new editorial policy for expression of research ethics in scholarly outputs across disciplines. These guidelines, aimed at authors, reviewers, and editors, are underpinned by: -/- a cross-disciplinary scoping review of existing policy and adherence to these policies; a review of emerging policies, and policies in a specific discipline (learning and technology); and, a collective drafting process undertaken by a reference group of journal editors (the authors of this paper). -/- Results -/- Analysis arising from the scoping review indicates gaps in policy across a wide range of journals (54% have no statement regarding reporting of research ethics), and adherence (51% of papers reviewed did not refer to ethics considerations). Analysis of emerging and discipline-specific policies highlights gaps. Conclusion -/- Our collective policy development process develops novel materials suitable for cross-disciplinary transfer, to address specific issues of research involving AI, and broader challenges of emerging technologies. (shrink)

In this chapter I argue that the necessity of the present counts against theories of synchronic free will, according to which a person may have free will at a time t0 even once that person has decided at t0 to do something. I defend the theory of diachronic free will against recent critiques drawn from the work of Michael Rota and Katherin Rogers. And I chart some of the implications for the philosophy of religion.

You omega know p when you possess every iteration of knowledge of p. This book argues that omega knowledge plays a central role in philosophy. In particular, the book argues that omega knowledge is necessary for permissible assertion, action, inquiry, and belief. Although omega knowledge plays this important role, existing theories of omega knowledge are unsatisfying. One theory, KK, identifies knowledge with omega knowledge. This theory struggles to accommodate cases of inexact knowledge. The other main theory is skeptical, claiming that (...) we do not omega know any ordinary claims about the world. This book develops and critically compares three new theories of omega knowledge. (shrink)

According to hedonistic act utilitarianism, an act is morally right if and only if, and because, it produces at least as much pleasure minus pain as any alternative act available to the agent. This dissertation gives a partial defense of utilitarianism against two types of objections: action guidance objections and intuitive objections. In Chapter 1, the main themes of the dissertation are introduced. The chapter also examines questions of how to understand utilitarianism, including (a) how to best formulate the moral (...) explanatory claim of the theory, (b) how to best interpret the phrase "pleasure minus pain," and (c) how the theory is related to act consequentialism. The first part (Chapters 2 and 3) deals with action guidance objections to utilitarianism. Chapter 2 defines two kinds of action guidance: doxastic and evidential guidance. It is argued that utilitarianism is evidentially but not doxastically guiding for us. Chapter 3 evaluates various action guidance objections to utilitarianism. These are the objections that utilitarianism, because it is not doxastically guiding, is a bad moral theory, fails to be a moral theory, is an uninteresting and unimportant moral theory, and is a false moral theory. The second part (Chapters 4, 5 and 6) deals with intuitive objections to utilitarianism. Chapter 4 presents three intuitive objections: Experience Machine, Transplant, and Utility Monster. Three defenses of utilitarianism are subsequently evaluated. Chapter 5 and 6 introduces two alternative defenses of utilitarianism against intuitive objections, both of which concern the role that imagination plays in thought experimentation. In Chapter 5, it is argued that we sometimes unknowingly carry out the wrong thought experiment when we direct intuitive objections against utilitarianism. In many such cases, we elicit moral intuitions that we believe give us reason to reject utilitarianism, but that in fact do not. In Chapter 6, it is argued that using the right kind of sensory imagination when we perform thought experiments will positively affect the epistemic trustworthiness of our moral intuitions. Moreover, it is suggested that doing so renders utilitarianism more plausible. In Chapter 7, the contents of the dissertation are summarized. (shrink)

Despite well-established results in survey methodology, many experimental philosophers have not asked whether and in what way conclusions about folk intuitions follow from people’s responses to their surveys. Rather, they appear to have proceeded on the assumption that intuitions can be simply read off from survey responses. Survey research, however, is fraught with difficulties. I review some of the relevant literature—particularly focusing on the conversational pragmatic aspects of survey research—and consider its application to common experimental philosophy surveys. I argue for (...) two claims. First, that experimental philosophers’ survey methodology leaves the facts about folk intuitions massively underdetermined; and second, that what has been regarded as evidence for the instability of philosophical intuitions is, at least in some cases, better accounted for in terms of subjects’ reactions to subtle pragmatic cues contained in the surveys. (shrink)

Here I propose an interpretation of the ancient Stoic psychological theory on which (i) the concepts that an adult human possesses affect the content of the perceptual impressions (φαντασίαι αἰσθητικαί) she forms, and (ii) the content of such impressions is exhausted by an ‘assertible’ (ἀξίωμα) of suitable complexity. What leads the Stoics to accept (i) and (ii), I argue, is their theory of assent and belief formation, which requires that the perceptual impression communicate information suitable to serve as the content (...) of belief. In arguing for (i), I reject a rival interpretation on which conceptualization occurs subsequently to the formation of a perceptual impression. In arguing for (ii), I deny that perceptual impressions have two kinds of content: one formulated in an assertible, the other sensory, featuring independently of this assertible. I explore the implications of (i) and (ii) for the Stoic theory of emotions, expertise, and rationality, and argue that they shed new light on the workings of impression, assent, and belief. (shrink)

The mindshaping hypothesis proposes a “de-intellectualized” explanation for human unique cooperation. In contrast to standard mindreading accounts, which emphasize the evolution of sophisticated reasoning about others’ propositional attitudes to explain how our ancestors became hyper cooperators, the hypothesis holds that sophisticated mindreading was a late-arriving product of our ancestors becoming better cooperators via the evolution of mechanisms that shape and regulate the minds of members of human groups to be suited to cooperation. Comparative research with nonhumans, especially our closest living (...) relatives, the great apes, is of utmost importance for evaluating the mindshaping hypothesis—for instance, to what extent can apes maintain relatively complex forms of culture and cooperation without reasoning about propositional attitudes? The concept of mindshaping also opens up new questions in comparative cognition that are worth exploring in their own right, such as whether apes regulate each other’s behavior via social norms. This chapter assesses what we currently do and do not know about the nature and extent of various mindshaping mechanisms in nonhuman great apes, focusing on culture and social learning, pedagogy, and social norms. (shrink)

According to the B-theory, the passage of time is an illusion. The B-theory therefore requires an explanation of this illusion before it can be regarded as fullysatisfactory; yet very few B-theorists have taken up the challenge of trying to provide one. In this paper I take some first steps toward such an explanation by first making a methodological proposal, then a hypothesis about a key element in the phenomenology of temporal passage. The methodological proposal focuses onthe representational content of the (...) element of experience by virtue of which time seems to pass. The hypothesis involves the claim that the experience of changeinvolves the representation of something enduring, rather than perduring, through any change. (shrink)

自史蒂芬·霍金(Stephen Hawking) 的暢銷科普著作《時間簡史》(以下簡稱《簡史》) 在上世紀八十年代末問世以來，至今天二十一世紀，華人基督教界就他宇宙無起點的論述仍有相當之評論，但可惜對評論未有綜合分析。評論者因寫作目的，也甚少交代霍金宇宙學的來龍去脈。故本文嘗試略述霍金宇宙學的歷史 背景及發展經過，繼而舉出華人基督教界的評論，帶出其獨特性，並提出商確的地方，以反省未來可行路向。.

Background Previous analyses of democracy and population health have focused on broad measures, such as life expectancy at birth and child and infant mortality, and have shown some contradictory results. We used a panel of data spanning 170 countries to assess the association between democracy and cause-specific mortality and explore the pathways connecting democratic rule to health gains. -/- Methods We extracted cause-specific mortality and HIV-free life expectancy estimates from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (...) and information on regime type from the Varieties of Democracy project. These data cover 170 countries and 46 years. From the Financing Global Health database, we extracted gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, also covering 46 years, and Development Assistance for Health estimates starting from 1990 and domestic health spending estimates starting from 1995. We used a diverse set of empirical methods—synthetic control, within-country variance decomposition, structural equation models, and fixed-effects regression—which together provide a robust analysis of the association between democratisation and population health. -/- Findings HIV-free life expectancy at age 15 years improved significantly during the study period (1970–2015) in countries after they transitioned to democracy, on average by 3% after 10 years. Democratic experience explains 22·27% of the variance in mortality within a country from cardiovascular diseases, 16·53% for tuberculosis, and 17·78% for transport injuries, and a smaller percentage for other diseases included in the study. For cardiovascular diseases, transport injuries, cancers, cirrhosis, and other non-communicable diseases, democratic experience explains more of the variation in mortality than GDP. Over the past 20 years, the average country's increase in democratic experience had direct and indirect effects on reducing mortality from cardiovascular disease (−9·64%, 95% CI −6·38 to −12·90), other non-communicable diseases (−9·14%, −4·26 to −14·02), and tuberculosis (−8·93%, −2·08 to −15·77). Increases in a country's democratic experience were not correlated with GDP per capita between 1995 and 2015 (ρ=–0·1036; p=0·1826), but were correlated with declines in mortality from cardiovascular disease (ρ=–0·3873; p<0·0001) and increases in government health spending (ρ=0·4002; p<0·0001). Removal of free and fair elections from the democratic experience variable resulted in loss of association with age-standardised mortality from non-communicable diseases and injuries. -/- Interpretation When enforced by free and fair elections, democracies are more likely than autocracies to lead to health gains for causes of mortality (eg, cardiovascular diseases and transport injuries) that have not been heavily targeted by foreign aid and require health-care delivery infrastructure. International health agencies and donors might increasingly need to consider the implications of regime type in their efforts to maximise health gains, particularly in the context of ageing populations and the growing burden of non-communicable diseases. (shrink)

Objective: To assess the relation between autocratisation—substantial decreases in democratic traits (free and fair elections, freedom of civil and political association, and freedom of expression)—and countries’ population health outcomes and progress toward universal health coverage (UHC). -/- Design: Synthetic control analysis. -/- Setting and country selection: Global sample of countries for all years from 1989 to 2019, split into two categories: 17 treatment countries that started autocratising during 2000 to 2010, and 119 control countries that never autocratised from 1989 to (...) 2019. The treatment countries comprised low and middle income nations and represent all world regions except North America and western Europe. A weighted combination of control countries was used to construct synthetic controls for each treatment country. This statistical method is especially well suited to population level studies when random assignment is infeasible and sufficiently similar comparators are not available. The method was originally developed in economics and political science to assess the impact of policies and events, and it is now increasingly used in epidemiology. -/- Main outcome measures: HIV-free life expectancy at age 5 years, UHC effective coverage index (0-100 point scale), and out-of-pocket spending on health per capita. All outcome variables are for the period 1989 to 2019. -/- Results: Autocratising countries underperformed for all three outcome variables in the 10 years after the onset of autocratisation, despite some improvements in life expectancy, UHC effective coverage index, and out-of-pocket spending on health. On average, HIV-free life expectancy at age 5 years increased by 2.2% (from 64.7 to 66.1 years) during the 10 years after the onset of autocratisation. This study estimated that it would have increased by 3.5% (95% confidence interval 3.3% to 3.6%, P<0.001) (from 64.7 to 66.9 years) in the absence of autocratisation. On average, the UHC effective coverage index increased by 11.9% (from 42.5 to 47.6 points) during the 10 years after the onset of autocratisation. This study estimated that it would have increased by 20.2% (95% confidence interval 19.6% to 21.2%, P<0.001) (from 42.5 to 51.1 points) in the absence of autocratisation. Finally, on average, out-of-pocket spending on health per capita increased by 10.0% (from $4.00 (£3.1; €3.4) to $4.4, log transformed) during the 10 years after the onset of autocratisation. This study estimated that it would have increased by only 4.4% (95% confidence interval 3.9% to 4.6%, P<0.001) (from $4.0 to $4.2, log transformed) in the absence of autocratisation. -/- Conclusions: Autocratising countries had worse than estimated life expectancy, effective health service coverage, and levels of out-of-pocket spending on health. These results suggest that the noticeable increase in the number of countries that are experiencing democratic erosion in recent years is hindering population health gains and progress toward UHC. Global health institutions will need to adjust their policy recommendations and activities to obtain the best possible results in those countries with a diminishing democratic incentive to provide quality healthcare to populations. (shrink)