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

We examine two competing solutions to Benardete paradoxes: causal finitism, according to which nothing can have infinitely many causes, and the unsatisfiable pair diagnosis (UPD), according to which such paradoxes are logically impossible and no metaphysical thesis need be adopted to avoid them. We argue that the UPD enjoys notable theoretical advantages over causal finitism. Causal finitists, however, have levelled two main objections to the UPD. First, they urge that the UPD requires positing a ‘mysterious force’ that prevents paradoxes from (...) arising. Since such a force is implausible, the UPD is in trouble. Second, they employ recombination or patchwork principles to argue that paradoxical situations would be possible if causal finitism were false. Since such situations are not possible, causal finitism is true, and so a substantive metaphysical thesis is needed to avoid the paradoxes. We argue that the UPD proponent can successfully respond to these objections. (shrink)

Clinicians and health researchers frequently encounter opportunities to rescue people. Rescue cases can generate a moral duty to aid those in peril. As such, bioethicists have leveraged a duty to rescue for a variety of purposes. Yet, despite its broad application, the duty to rescue is under-analyzed. In this paper, we assess the state of theorizing about the duty to rescue. There are large gaps in bioethicists’ understanding of the force, scope, and justification of the two most cited duties to (...) rescue—the individual duty of easy rescue and the institutional rule of rescue. We argue that the duty of easy rescue faces unresolved challenges regarding its force and scope, and the rule of rescue is indefensible. If the duty to rescue is to help solve ethical problems, these theoretical gaps must be addressed. We identify two further conceptions of the duty to rescue that have received less attention—an institutional duty of easy rescue and the professional duty to rescue. Both provide guidance in addressing force and scope concerns and, thereby, traction in answering the outstanding problems with the duty to rescue. We conclude by proposing and propose research priorities for developing accounts of duties to rescue in bioethics. (shrink)

Most people would agree that adoption is a good thing for children in need of a family. Yet adoption is often considered a second best or even last resort for parents in making their families. Against this assumption, I explore the unique value of adoption for prospective parents. I begin with a criticism of the selective focus on the value of adoption for only those people using assisted reproductive technologies. I focus on the value of adoption for all prospective parents, (...) reflecting on non-relative, non-procreative adoptions. First, adoption can meet the important need that a child has for a family, whereas procreation creates rather than meets needs. Second, adoption provides a morally noble opportunity to extend to a stranger benefits usually withheld for one's genetic kin. As such, adoption offers a unique possibility in which impartial concern for an other can be the starting point for a lifetime of love and care. Finally, adoptions can have transformative power over adoptive parents’ conception of family and self. In highlighting the unique value of adoption, I aim to challenge the widespread assumption that adoption has second best status to procreation. Indeed adoption can exemplify the human potential for moral compassion and impartial concern for the needs of others. (shrink)

There is, in some quarters, concern about high–level machine intelligence and superintelligent AI coming up in a few decades, bringing with it significant risks for humanity. In other quarters, these issues are ignored or considered science fiction. We wanted to clarify what the distribution of opinions actually is, what probability the best experts currently assign to high–level machine intelligence coming up within a particular time–frame, which risks they see with that development, and how fast they see these developing. We thus (...) designed a brief questionnaire and distributed it to four groups of experts in 2012/2013. The median estimate of respondents was for a one in two chance that high-level machine intelligence will be developed around 2040-2050, rising to a nine in ten chance by 2075. Experts expect that systems will move on to superintelligence in less than 30 years thereafter. They estimate the chance is about one in three that this development turns out to be ‘bad’ or ‘extremely bad’ for humanity. (shrink)

Cosmological arguments for God typically have two stages. The first stage argues for a first cause or a necessary being, and the second stage argues from there to God. T. Ryan Byerly offers a simple, abductive argument for the second stage where the best explanation for why the being is found to have necessary existence is that it is a perfect being. The reasoning behind this argument is that universal generalizations explain observations of their instances; for example, the universal generalization (...) that all ravens are black explains why some particular raven is observed to be black. Similarly, the fact that a being has all perfections explains why we find the being to have necessary existence. I distinguish between two readings of Byerly’s proposed theistic explanation, and conclude that his explanation does not offer an advantage to the theist in either case. (shrink)

The modal ontological argument (MOA) proceeds from God’s possible existence to God’s actual existence. A prominent objection to the MOA is that it suffers from a symmetry problem: an exactly parallel modal ontological argument can be given for God's non-existence. Several attempts have been made to break the symmetry between the arguments. This draft is a mostly comprehensive survey of those attempts. -/- The draft was initially written as a supplement to the 2024 Summer edition of the SEP entry on (...) Ontological Arguments. However, the draft is not included in the SEP entry. (shrink)

There is much philosophical literature on the duty to rescue. Individuals who encounter and could save, at relatively little cost to themselves, a person at risk of losing life or limb are morally obligated to do so. Yet little has been said about the other side of the issue. There are cases in which the need for rescue could have been reasonably avoided by the rescuee. We argue for a duty to take rescue precautions, providing an account of the circumstances (...) in which it arises. This novel duty has important implications for public policy. We apply it to the situation of some of the uninsured in the United States. Given the US clinician's duty to provide emergency care to all people regardless of ability to pay, some of the uninsured have a moral duty to purchase health insurance. We defend the duty against objections, including the possibility that a right to rescue can be waived, thus undermining a duty to take rescue precautions, that the duty of many professionals is voluntarily incurred, and that a distinction between actively assumed and passively assumed risks matters morally. (shrink)

What sort of logic do we get if we adopt a supervaluational semantics for vagueness? As it turns out, the answer depends crucially on how the standard notion of validity as truth preservation is recasted. There are several ways of doing that within a supervaluational framework, the main alternative being between “global” construals (e.g., an argument is valid iff it preserves truth-under-all-precisifications) and “local” construals (an argument is valid iff, under all precisifications, it preserves truth). The former alternative is by (...) far more popular, but I argue in favor of the latter, for (i) it does not suffer from a number of serious objections, and (ii) it makes it possible to restore global validity as a defined notion. (shrink)

I focus on three mereological principles: the Extensionality of Parthood (EP), the Uniqueness of Composition (UC), and the Extensionality of Composition (EC). These principles are not equivalent. Nonetheless, they are closely related (and often equated) as they all reflect the basic nominalistic dictum, No difference without a difference maker. And each one of them—individually or collectively—has been challenged on philosophical grounds. In the first part I argue that such challenges do not quite threaten EP insofar as they are either self-defeating (...) or unsupported. In the second part I argue that they hardly undermine the tenability of EC and UC as well. (shrink)

Majority cycling and related social choice paradoxes are often thought to threaten the meaningfulness of democracy. But deliberation can prevent majority cycles – not by inducing unanimity, which is unrealistic, but by bringing preferences closer to single-peakedness. We present the first empirical test of this hypothesis, using data from Deliberative Polls. Comparing preferences before and after deliberation, we find increases in proximity to single-peakedness. The increases are greater for lower versus higher salience issues and for individuals who seem to have (...) deliberated more versus less effectively. They are not merely a byproduct of increased substantive agreement. Our results both refine and support the idea that deliberation, by increasing proximity to single-peakedness, provides an escape from the problem of majority cycling. (shrink)

Will future lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), or ‘killer robots’, be a threat to humanity? The European Parliament has called for a moratorium or ban of LAWS; the ‘Contracting Parties to the Geneva Convention at the United Nations’ are presently discussing such a ban, which is supported by the great majority of writers and campaigners on the issue. However, the main arguments in favour of a ban are unsound. LAWS do not support extrajudicial killings, they do not take responsibility away (...) from humans; in fact they increase the abil-ity to hold humans accountable for war crimes. Using LAWS in war would probably reduce human suffering overall. Finally, the availability of LAWS would probably not increase the probability of war or other lethal conflict—especially as compared to extant remote-controlled weapons. The widespread fear of killer robots is unfounded: They are probably good news. (shrink)

In her 2004 book Carol Gould addresses the fundamental issue of democratizing globalization, that is to say of finding ways to open transnational institutions and communities to democratic participation by those widely affected by their decisions. The book develops a framework for expanding participation in crossborder decisions, arguing for a broader understanding of human rights and introducing a new role for the ideas of care and solidarity at a distance. Reinterpreting the idea of universality to accommodate a multiplicity of cultural (...) perspectives, the author takes up a number of applied issues, including the persistence of racism, cultural rights, women's human rights, the democratic management of firms, the use of the Internet to enhance political participation, and the importance of empathy and genuine democracy in understanding terrorism and responding to it. Accessibly written with a minimum of technical jargon this is a major contribution to political philosophy. (shrink)

This book aims to develop certain aspects of Gottlob Frege’s theory of meaning, especially those relevant to intensional logic. It offers a new interpretation of the nature of senses, and attempts to devise a logical calculus for the theory of sense and reference that captures as closely as possible the views of the historical Frege. (The approach is contrasted with the less historically-minded Logic of Sense and Denotation of Alonzo Church.) Comparisons of Frege’s theory with those of Russell and others (...) are given. It is in the end shown that developing Frege’s theory in these ways reveals serious problems hitherto largely unnoticed, including those possibly rendering a Fregean intensional logic inconsistent even if his naïve class theory is excluded. (shrink)

That parthood is a transitive relation is among the most basic principles of classical mereology. Alas, it is also very controversial. In a recent paper, Ingvar Johansson has put forward a novel diagnosis of the problem, along with a corresponding solution. The diagnosis is on the right track, I argue, but the solution is misleading. And once the pieces are properly put together, we end up with a reinforcement of the standard defense of transitivity on behalf of classical mereology.

This study aimed to assess the influence of peer relationships on the self-consciousness and social adaptation of school-aged children in the Enugu North Local Government Area of Enugu State. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was used, with a population of 60,780 (29,968 males and 30,812 females). A multi-stage sampling method was employed to select 602 school-aged children from 58 schools in the Local Government Area, forming the sample for the study. For data collection, the study used questionnaires. Data were analyzed (...) with descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The findings revealed that more than half of the respondents (62.6%) showed moderate social adaptation, particularly when they were with their families (mean score of 4.53±2.31). The majority (76.6%) had low peer relationships, while 80.6% had high self-consciousness. The mean scores for peer relationships, self-consciousness, and social adaptation differed between male and female respondents. Females had higher peer relationships and social adaptation. The mean score for peer relationships was higher among students in private schools compared to those in public schools. A moderate positive relationship was found between peer relationships and social adaptation at a significance level of p<0.05. It is recommended that governmental and non-governmental organizations organize programs to facilitate peer relationships and social adaptation among school-aged children. Furthermore, teachers and parents should be educated to provide support to children in these areas. (shrink)

This paper defends the Intention Account of Inquiry. On this account, inquiry is best understood by appeal to a ‘question-directed intention’ (QDI), an intention to answer a question broadly construed. This account’s core commitments help meet recent challenges plaguing extant approaches to characterizing inquiry. First, QDIs are the type of mental state central to inquiry, not attitudes like curiosity or wonder. Second, holding a QDI towards a question and acting in service of it constitutes the start of inquiry. Third, controversial (...) norms which mandate a rational inquirer's ignorance towards the answer to her question can be reformulated and defended by appeal to rational constraints on intention. Fourth, instrumental pressures inquirers face are the standard pressures of plan-rationality. In defending these theses, I show that the Intention Account provides compelling explanations to standing challenges,in ways competitors cannot. It does so by advancing understanding of how our epistemic and practical agency are intertwined. (shrink)

The contribution of the body to cognition and control in natural and artificial agents is increasingly described as “off-loading computation from the brain to the body”, where the body is said to perform “morphological computation”. Our investigation of four characteristic cases of morphological computation in animals and robots shows that the ‘off-loading’ perspective is misleading. Actually, the contribution of body morphology to cognition and control is rarely computational, in any useful sense of the word. We thus distinguish (1) morphology that (...) facilitates control, (2) morphology that facilitates perception and the rare cases of (3) morphological computation proper, such as ‘reservoir computing.’ where the body is actually used for computation. This result contributes to the understanding of the relation between embodiment and computation: The question for robot design and cognitive science is not whether computation is offloaded to the body, but to what extent the body facilitates cognition and control – how it contributes to the overall ‘orchestration’ of intelligent behaviour. (shrink)

Cognitive penetration of perception is the idea that what we see is influenced by such states as beliefs, expectations, and so on. A perceptual belief that results from cognitive penetration may be less justified than a nonpenetrated one. Inferentialism is a kind of internalist view that tries to account for this by claiming that some experiences are epistemically evaluable, on the basis of why the perceiver has that experience, and the familiar canons of good inference provide the appropriate standards by (...) which experiences are evaluated. I examine recent defenses of inferentialism by Susanna Siegel, Peter Markie, and Matthew McGrath and argue that the prospects for inferentialism are dim. (shrink)

We rely on language to know the minds of others, but does language have a role to play in knowing our own minds? To suppose it does is to look for a connection between mastery of a language and the epistemic relation we bear to our inner lives. What could such a connection consist in? To explore this, I shall examine strategies for explaining self-knowledge in terms of the use we make of language to express and report our mental states. (...) Success in these strategies will depend on the view we take of speakers' understanding of the words they use to speak their minds. The key is to avoid circularity in the account of how they know what they mean; for if knowing what one is saying in speaking a language provides a means of knowing one's own mind, it cannot simply be a part of it. I shall look at ways in which we might proceed here, and examine whether the strategy can make room for a genuinely first-person point of view. But first let me try to motivate the problem of self-knowledge. (shrink)

I argue that Universalism (the thesis that mereological composition is unrestricted) entails Extensionalism (the thesis that sameness of composition is sufficient for identity) as long as the parthood relation is transitive and satisfies the Weak Supplementation principle (to the effect that whenever a thing has a proper part, it has another part disjoint from the first).

The philosophy of AI has seen some changes, in particular: 1) AI moves away from cognitive science, and 2) the long term risks of AI now appear to be a worthy concern. In this context, the classical central concerns – such as the relation of cognition and computation, embodiment, intelligence & rationality, and information – will regain urgency.

In this introduction, before summarizing the contents of the volume, the authors characterize materialism as it is understood within the philosophy of mind, and they identify three respects in which materialism is on the wane.

Validity is a well-defined notion. Premise circularity is not. Attempting to define premise circularity precisely generates a puzzle: a difficult-to-avoid correspondence between the definitions of ‘valid argument’ and ‘premise circular argument.’.

Klein’s account of epistemic justification, infinitism, supplies a novel solution to the regress problem. We argue that concentrating on the normative aspect of justification exposes a number of unpalatable consequences for infinitism, all of which warrant rejecting the position. As an intermediary step, we develop a stronger version of the ‘finite minds’ objection.

Divine names, i.e. the names religions use to speak of their god(s), pose a special problem to semantics. It is not only disputed whether they are proper names, descriptions, or names of kinds, the dispute between believers and non-believers over the ontological status of their bearers is a further obstacle to offering a single theory that can account for all divine names. But aboutness theory can come to the rescue here. Whatever terms divine names are, they pick out a subject (...) matter, and whereas ontology is relevant to reference, subject matters need no corresponding object in the world. Believers and non-believers can therefore agree on the name bearers’ status as topics of their conversation. (shrink)

One way in which philosophers have often sought to distinguish moral judgments from non-moral judgments is by using the “moral-conventional” distinction. I seek to raise serious questions about the significance of the moral-conventional distinction, at least for philosophers interested in moral judgment. I survey recent developments in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science that have led many to the conclusion that moral judgment is not a distinctive kind of judgment or the result of a specific, identifiable cognitive process. (...) I argue that if this conclusion is largely correct, the moral-conventional distinction loses significance. If moral judgment does not correspond to a distinctive cognitive process, it is unclear how distinguishing between types of norms tracks anything of significance to human judgment formation. I then discuss the implications of abandoning the distinction for research in the field of moral psychology and tentatively propose a more modest way of conceiving of norm significance. (shrink)

What should we make of claims by members of other groups to have moralities different from our own? Human Rights in Chinese Thought gives an extended answer to this question in the first study of its kind. It integrates a full account of the development of Chinese rights discourse - reaching back to important, though neglected, origins of that discourse in 17th and 18th century Confucianism - with philosophical consideration of how various communities should respond to contemporary Chinese claims about (...) the uniqueness of their human rights concepts. The book elaborates a plausible kind of moral pluralism and demonstrates that Chinese ideas of human rights do indeed have distinctive characteristics, but it nonetheless argues for the importance and promise of cross-cultural moral engagement. (shrink)

Techniques from behavioral economics—nudges—may help physicians increase pediatric vaccine compliance, but critics have objected that nudges can undermine autonomy. Since autonomy is a centrally important value in healthcare decision-making contexts, it counts against pediatric vaccination nudges if they undermine parental autonomy. Advocates for healthcare nudges have resisted the charge that nudges undermine autonomy, and the recent bioethics literature illustrates the current intractability of this debate. This article rejects a principle to which parties on both sides of this debate sometimes seem (...) committed: that nudges are morally permissible only if they are consistent with autonomy. Instead, I argue that, at least in the case of pediatric vaccination, some autonomy-undermining nudges may be morally justified. This is because parental autonomy in pediatric decision-making is not as morally valuable as the autonomy of adult patients, and because the interests of both the vaccinated child and other members of the community can sometimes be weighty enough to justify autonomy-infringing pediatric vaccination nudges. This article concludes with a set of worries about the effect of pediatric vaccination nudges on parent-physician relationships, and it calls on the American Academy of Pediatrics to draw on scientific and bioethics research to develop guidelines for the use of nudges in pediatric practice and, in particular, for the use of pediatric vaccination nudges. (shrink)

Climate adaptation and resilience scholars are struggling to address distributive and procedural justice in climate resilience efforts. While the capability approach (CA) has been widely appraised as a suitable justice basis for this context, there are few detailed studies assessing this possibility. This paper addresses this gap by advancing discussions about the prospects of the CA for guiding justice work in climate resilience. With its emphasis on the final value and mutually irreducible character of the concrete beings and doings of (...) individuals, we find the CA relevant for tackling salient aspects of adaptation, such as the multi-faceted and locally specific nature of climate vulnerability. We also present and discuss a capability application that has particular relevance for including distributive and procedural justice considerations in climate resilience. On the other hand, we find that extant arguments in support of the CA neglect the limitations of the CA and some dilemmas involved in applying it, also overestimating the differences between the CA and other justice approaches, especially those based on resources and needs. These problems lead us to advise against treating the CA as a one-size-fits-all solution to the ills of climate resilience and they further raise a need for joining efforts with complementary approaches. -/- . (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga has famously argued that the naturalist who accepts evolutionary theory has a defeater for all of her beliefs, including her belief in naturalism and evolution. Hence, he says, naturalism, when conjoined with evolution, is self defeating and cannot be rationally accepted. This is known as the evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN). However, Tyler Wunder (Religious Studies 51:391– 399, 2015) has recently shown that if the EAAN is framed in terms of objective probability and theism is assumed to be (...) non-contingent, then either theism is necessarily false or the EAAN is unsound. Neither option is attractive to the proponent of the EAAN. Perry Hendricks (Religious Studies 1–5, 2018) has responded to Wunder’s criticism, showing that the EAAN can be salvaged and, indeed, strengthened, by framing it in terms not of naturalism (N), but of a proposition that is entailed by N that is also consistent with theism. We will show that once Hendricks’ solution to Wunder’s objection is accepted, a puzzle ensues: if the EAAN provides the naturalist with a defeater for all of her beliefs, then an extension of it appears to provide God with a defeater for all of his beliefs. After bringing out this puzzle, we suggest several ways in which the proponent of the EAAN might solve it, but also show some potential weaknesses in these purported solutions. Whether the solutions to the puzzle that we consider ultimately succeed is unclear to us. (Translation: the authors disagree. One author thinks that the solutions (or,at least, some of them) that we consider do solve the puzzle while the other author does not.) However, it is clear to us that this is an issue that proponents of the EAAN need to address. (shrink)

Ordinary reasoning about space—we argue—is first and foremost reasoning about things or events located in space. Accordingly, any theory concerned with the construction of a general model of our spatial competence must be grounded on a general account of the sort of entities that may enter into the scope of the theory. Moreover, on the methodological side the emphasis on spatial entities (as opposed to purely geometrical items such as points or regions) calls for a reexamination of the conceptual categories (...) required for this task. Building on material presented in an earlier paper, in this work we offer some examples of what this amounts to, of the difficulties involved, and of the main directions along which spatial theories should be developed so as to combine formal sophistication with some affinity with common sense. (shrink)

In the first section, I characterize skeptical theism more fully. This is necessary in order to address some important misconceptions and mischaracterizations that appear in the essays by Maitzen, Wilks, and O’Connor. In the second section, I describe the most important objections they raise and group them into four “families” so as to facilitate an orderly series of responses. In the four sections that follow, I respond to the objections.

The theory that all processes in the universe are computational is attractive in its promise to provide an understandable theory of everything. I want to suggest here that this pancomputationalism is not sufficiently clear on which problem it is trying to solve, and how. I propose two interpretations of pancomputationalism as a theory: I) the world is a computer and II) the world can be described as a computer. The first implies a thesis of supervenience of the physical over computation (...) and is thus reduced ad absurdum. The second is underdetermined by the world, and thus equally unsuccessful as theory. Finally, I suggest that pancomputationalism as metaphor can be useful. – At the Paderborn workshop in 2008, this paper was presented as a commentary to the relevant paper by Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic " Info-Computationalism and Philosophical Aspects of Research in Information Sciences". (shrink)

This chapter first surveys general issues in the epistemic internalism / externalism debate: what is the distinction, what motivates it, and what arguments can be given on both sides. -/- The second part of the chapter will examine the internalism / externalism debate as regards to the specific case of the epistemology of memory belief.

Attempts to evaluate a belief or argument on the basis of its cause or origin are usually condemned as committing the genetic fallacy. However, I sketch a number of cases in which causal or historical factors are logically relevant to evaluating a belief, including an interesting abductive form that reasons from the best explanation for the existence of a belief to its likely truth. Such arguments are also susceptible to refutation by genetic reasoning that may come very close to the (...) standard examples given of supposedly fallacious genetic reasoning. (shrink)

It is well known that the circumflex notation used by Russell and Whitehead to form complex function names in Principia Mathematica played a role in inspiring Alonzo Church's “lambda calculus” for functional logic developed in the 1920s and 1930s. Interestingly, earlier unpublished manuscripts written by Russell between 1903–1905—surely unknown to Church—contain a more extensive anticipation of the essential details of the lambda calculus. Russell also anticipated Schönfinkel's combinatory logic approach of treating multiargument functions as functions having other functions as value. (...) Russell’s work in this regard seems to have been largely inspired by Frege’s theory of functions and “value-ranges”. This system was discarded by Russell due to his abandonment of propositional functions as genuine entities as part of a new tack for solving Russell’s paradox. In this article, I explore the genesis and demise of Russell’s early anticipation of the lambda calculus. (shrink)

The paper presents a paradoxical feature of computational systems that suggests that computationalism cannot explain symbol grounding. If the mind is a digital computer, as computationalism claims, then it can be computing either over meaningful symbols or over meaningless symbols. If it is computing over meaningful symbols its functioning presupposes the existence of meaningful symbols in the system, i.e. it implies semantic nativism. If the mind is computing over meaningless symbols, no intentional cognitive processes are available prior to symbol grounding. (...) In this case, no symbol grounding could take place since any grounding presupposes intentional cognitive processes. So, whether computing in the mind is over meaningless or over meaningful symbols, computationalism implies semantic nativism. (shrink)

Some environmental ethicists and economists argue that attributing infinite value to the environment is a good way to represent an absolute obligation to protect it. Others argue against modelling the value of the environment in this way: the assignment of infinite value leads to immense technical and philosophical difficulties that undermine the environmentalist project. First, there is a problem of discrimination: saving a large region of habitat is better than saving a small region; yet if both outcomes have infinite value, (...) then decision theory prescribes indifference. Second, there is a problem of swamping probabilities: an act with a small but positive probability of saving an endangered species appears to be on par with an act that has a high probability of achieving this outcome, since both have infinite expected value. Our paper shows that a relative concept of infinite value can be meaningfully defined, and provides a good model for securing the priority of the natural environment while avoiding the failures noted by sceptics about infinite value. Our claim is not that the relative infinity utility model gets every detail correct, but rather that it provides a rigorous philosophical framework for thinking about decisions affecting the environment. (shrink)

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was designed to increase health insurance coverage in the United States. Its most controversial feature is the requirement that US residents purchase health insurance. Opponents of the mandate argue that requiring people to contribute to the collective good is inconsistent with respect for individual liberty. Rather than appeal to the collective good, this Viewpoint argues for a duty to buy health insurance based on the moral duty individuals have to reduce certain burdens (...) they pose on others. When some people have a duty to rescue, others may have a duty to take rescue precautions, in this case, to purchase health insurance to cover acute and emergency care needs. Requiring that individuals meet this obligation is consistent with respect of individual liberty. (shrink)

Cognition is commonly taken to be computational manipulation of representations. These representations are assumed to be digital, but it is not usually specified what that means and what relevance it has for the theory. I propose a specification for being a digital state in a digital system, especially a digital computational system. The specification shows that identification of digital states requires functional directedness, either for someone or for the system of which it is a part. In the case or digital (...) representations, to be a token of a representational type, where the function of the type is to represent. [An earlier version of this paper was discussed in the web-conference "Interdisciplines" https://web.archive.org/web/20100221125700/http://www.interdisciplines.org/adaptation/papers/7 ]. (shrink)

Abstract: According to certain dispositional accounts of meaning, an agent's meaning is determined by the dispositions that an idealized version of this agent has in optimal conditions. We argue that such attempts cannot properly fix meaning. For even if there is a way to determine which features of an agent should be idealized without appealing to what the agent means, there is no non-circular way to determine how those features should be idealized. We sketch an alternative dispositional account that avoids (...) this problem, according to which an agent's meaning is determined by the dispositions that an abstract version of this agent has in optimal conditions. (shrink)

This article explores the meeting of two approaches towards philosophy and education: the philosophy for children approach advocated by Lipman and others, and Schmid’s philosophical concept of Lebenskunst. Schmid explores the concept of the beautiful or good life by asking what is necessary for each individual to be able to develop their own art of living and which aspects of life are significant when shaping a good and beautiful life. One element of Schmid’s theory is the practical application of philosophy (...) through the notions of Bildung, reflection, prudence and practical wisdom, as well as the requirement for each individual to take responsibility for actively shaping their life as an artwork. In this sense, each person is the artist responsible for living their own beautiful life. We argue that there are useful parallels between Schmid’s concept of the art of living and P4C, such as the ideal of a holistic philosophy that is “lived.” The pragmatic approach of P4C focuses on the embodied learner who practices critical, caring and creative thinking. Both P4C and Schmid’s theory are reminiscent of the Aristotelian notion of practical wisdom, which allows for an approach to an education for life that prepares students to develop their own art of living. (shrink)

This is an informal presentation of the theory of niches understood as ecological contexts. The first part sets out the basic conceptual background. The second part outlines the main principles of the theory and addresses the question of how the theory can be extended to aid our thinking in relation to the special types of causal integrity that characterize niches and niched entities.

This paper focuses on the semantics of statements of the form ‘x is P at t’ vis-à-vis its metaphysical underpinnings. I begin by considering four main readings, corresponding to the four basic parsings of the temporal modifier ‘at t’: (1) at-t x is P, (2) x-at-t is P, (3) x is-at-t P, and (4) x is P-at-t. Each of these readings—which correspond to different metaphysical conceptions of the nature of temporal change—is found inadequate or otherwise problematic. In the second part (...) of the paper I therefore consider a fifth account whose advantages over (1)–(4), I argue, exceed its revisionary costs. This fifth account is based on a conception of objects as entia successiva held together by a nexus of temporal counterparthood and reads ‘x is P at t’ as ‘the t-counterpart of x is P’. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to show that naturalists cannot reasonably endorse moral realism. My argument will come in two parts. The first part aims to show that any plausible and naturalistically acceptable argument in favor of belief in objective moral properties will appeal in part to simplicity considerations (broadly construed)—and this regardless of whether moral properties are reducible to non-moral properties. The second part argues for the conclusion that appeals to simplicity justify belief in moral properties only if (...) either those properties are not objective or something like theism is true. Thus, if my argument is sound, naturalists can reasonably accept moral realism only if they are prepared to accept something like theism. But, as will become clear, naturalists can reasonably accept theism or something like it only if belief in some such doctrine is justified by the methods of science. For present purposes, I’ll assume (what I think virtually every naturalist will grant) that belief in theism and relevantly similar doctrines is not justified by the methods of science. Thus, I will conclude that naturalists cannot reasonably accept moral realism. (shrink)

Floridi and Taddeo propose a condition of “zero semantic commitment” for solutions to the grounding problem, and a solution to it. I argue briefly that their condition cannot be fulfilled, not even by their own solution. After a look at Luc Steels' very different competing suggestion, I suggest that we need to re-think what the problem is and what role the ‘goals’ in a system play in formulating the problem. On the basis of a proper understanding of computing, I come (...) to the conclusion that the only sensible ground-ing problem is how we can explain and re-produce the behavioral ability and function of meaning in artificial computational agents. (shrink)

The theory according to which most ordinary objects are mere “entia successiva”—sequences of distinct mereological aggregates, whose unity resides exclusively in our minds—is a variant of the standard, three-dimensional conception of objects. For the aggregates are, at bottom, endurants, i.e., entities that persist through time by being fully present at any time at which they exist. In this paper I compare this theory with the so-called “stage view”, according to which ordinary objects—indeed, all objects—are sequences of momentary entities that cannot (...) truly be said to persist through time. Both theories face a number of intuitive difficulties but the stage view, I argue, has a lot more to offer in return. (shrink)

This is the editorial for a special volume of JETAI, featuring papers by Omohundro, Armstrong/Sotala/O’Heigeartaigh, T Goertzel, Brundage, Yampolskiy, B. Goertzel, Potapov/Rodinov, Kornai and Sandberg. - If the general intelligence of artificial systems were to surpass that of humans significantly, this would constitute a significant risk for humanity – so even if we estimate the probability of this event to be fairly low, it is necessary to think about it now. We need to estimate what progress we can expect, what (...) the impact of superintelligent machines might be, how we might design safe and controllable systems, and whether there are directions of research that should best be avoided or strengthened. (shrink)