This paper introduces a conceptual framework, denoted as ‘Line Theory,’ which is predicated on the procedural anatomy inherent in ordinary plans. A plan, recognized as a set of instructions for execution, undergoes in-depth scrutiny to analyze its constituent elements. The concise examination delves into the formation of line and effect within real space stemming from procedures. Line theory serves the purpose of elucidating the absolute optimization of plans. It is formulated to inaugurate an exploration into the veracity of procedures and (...) their elemental changes, examining their correlation with space and motion at the most fundamental level. The scientific community has extensively delved into the examination of the behavior and structure of objects at the microscopic level. This paper endeavors to stimulate interest in the analogous analysis of procedures. The fundamental objective within this theoretical framework is to offer a distinct philosophical perspective on changes and effects. (shrink)

In August 2021, Froese et al. published survey data collected from 2,543 respondents on their subjective experiences living under imposed social distancing measures during COVID-19 (1). The questionnaire was issued to respondents in the UK, Japan, and Mexico. By combining the authors’ expertise in phenomenological philosophy, phenomenological psychopathology, and enactive cognitive science, the questions were carefully phrased to prompt reports that would be useful to phenomenological investigation and theorizing (2–4). These questions reflected the various author’s research interests (e.g., technology, grief, (...) time). Between April 7th and July 31st, 2021, a second questionnaire with the same question set was issued to respondents of the original who had agreed to do a follow-up. This was intended to capture subjective reports of life under social distancing measures a year after the initial survey. By this time–depending on their country of residence and health status–respondents had potentially lived with repeated and prolonged lockdowns and a variety of other restrictions on their social lives. When taken together, Survey I and Survey II provide a cross-cultural and longitudinal dataset that allows for analysis of longer-term impacts of imposed social distancing measures on people’s experiences. For researchers working in diverse disciplines, this dataset offers a rich resource that reflects people’s reactions to the imposition of different social restrictions in different countries and over different time periods. (shrink)

Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, including the mind. One argument against physicalism appeals to neardeath experiences, conscious experiences during episodes, such as cardiac arrest, when one's normal brain functions are severely impaired. The core contention is that NDEs cannot be physically explained, and so we have reason to appeal to the non-physical in explaining them. In this paper, we consider in detail a recent article by Pim van Lommel in which he appeals to NDEs in arguing against (...) physicalism and in favour of an alternative conception of the mind as non-localized and immaterial. Our main contentions are, first, that it is not clear that physicalism cannot accommodate the phenomena of NDEs and, second, that it is not obvious how the conception of the mind as non-localized and immaterial is supposed to help. (shrink)

Traditionally pragmatists have been favorably disposed to improving our understanding of agency and ethics through the use of empirical research. In the last two decades simulation theory has been championed in certain cognitive science circles as a way of explaining how we attribute mental states and predict human behavior. Drawing on research in psychology and neuroscience, Alvin I. Goldman and Robert M. Gordon have not only used simulation theory to discuss how we “mindread”, but have suggested that the theory has (...) implications for ethics. The limitations of simulation theory for “mindreading” and ethics are addressed in this article from an interactionist or neo-Meadian pragmatic perspective. To demonstrate the limitations of simulation theory scenes from the television show Mad Men are used as “thought-experiments”. (shrink)

Knowledge of human uses of animals is an important, but understudied, aspect of how humans treat animals. We developed a measure of one kind of knowledge of human uses of animals – knowledge of factory farming. Studies 1 (N = 270) and 2 (N = 270) tested an initial battery of objective, true or false statements about factory farming using Item Response Theory. Studies 3 (N = 241) and 4 (N = 278) provided evidence that responses to a 10-item Knowledge (...) of Factory Farming Scale predicted a reduction in consumption of animal products (rs = −.17- −.27) and approval of political actions aimed at factory farming (rs = .2 – .24). Path models from Studies 3 and 4 suggested that different kinds of knowledge uniquely predicted different outcomes. The Knowledge of Factory Farming scale was a unique predictor of approval of political actions concerning factory farmed animals but not animal consumption. Knowledge of Animals Used as Food predicted animal consumption but not political actions concerning farmed animals. These results highlight that different kinds of knowledge can be relevant for different animal related outcomes. (shrink)

There can be no doubt that discrimination based on sex, race, ethnicity, religion or beliefs should not be tolerated in academia. Surprisingly, however, in recent years, policies of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity(DIE), officially introduced to counteract discrimination, have increasingly led to quite the opposite result: the exclusion of individuals who do not share a radical 'woke' ideology on identity politics (feminism, other gender activisms, critical race theory, etc.), and to the suppression of the academic freedom to discuss such dogmas. This (...) subversion of academia ― disguised Trojan-horse style as universal human rights advocacy ― is unacceptable because academia must be politically neutral and protect freedom of speech, a cornerstone of professional scholarly activity without which universities as we know them will slowly but surely suffocate. -/- Our purpose here is to put together some particularly illustrative cases of such repression in a single book, testifying to a ubiquitous trend within western culture, irreducible to a few isolated complaints. The essays contained here illustrate the abuse of power, censorship and witch-hunts at many universities and research centres in the name of DIE. -/- List of coauthors in alphabetical order: Dorian Abbot, Tomonori Agoh, Gerhard Amendt, Ivar Arpi, David Benatar, Peter Boghossian, Civitas Research Team, David Díaz Pardo de Vera, Pedro Domingos, Janice Fiamengo, Étienne Forest, Jorge Gibert Galassi, Norman Goldstuck, José L. González Quirós, Lawrence M. Krauss, Patrick LaBelle, Martín López Corredoira, Heather Mac Donald, Martin Malmgren, Erik. J. Olsson, Jordan Peterson, Constantin Polychronakos, Philip C. Salzman, Alessandro Strumia, Tom Todd, Andrei Yafaev. (shrink)

Background. The literature on Theory of Mind (ToM) in antisocial samples is limited despite evidence that the neural substrates of theory of mind task involve the same circuits implicated in the pathogenesis of antisocial behaviour. Method. Eighty-nine male DSM-IV Antisocial Personality Disordered subjects (ASPDs) and 20 controls (matched for age and IQ) completed a battery of ToM tasks. The ASPD group was categorized into psychopathic and non-psychopathic groups based on a cut-off score of 18 on the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version. (...) Results. There were no significant group (control v. psychopath v. non-psychopathic ASPD) dif- ferences on basic tests of ToM but both psychopathic and non-psychopathic ASPDs performed worse on subtle tests of mentalizing ability (faux pas tasks). ASPDs can detect and understand faux pas, but show an indifference to the impact of faux pas. On the face/eye task non-psychopathic ASPDs showed impairments in the recognition of basic emotions compared with controls and psychopathic ASPDs. For complex emotions, no significant group differences were detected largely due to task difficulty. Conclusions. The deficits in mentalizing ability in ASPD are subtle. For the majority of criminals with ASPD and psychopathy ToM abilities are relatively intact and may have an adaptive function in maintaining a criminal lifestyle. Our findings suggest the key deficits appear to relate more to their lack of concern about the impact on potential victims than the inability to take a victim perspective. The findings tentatively also suggest that ASPDs with neurotic features may be more impaired in mentalizing ability than their low anxious psychopathic counterparts. (shrink)

For students and the general reader, this is the best English translation of the entire 'Laws' available. I give several examples of important lines that are translated well in this edition, but I take issue with the translation of some other lines and with part of Schofield's introduction on grounds that these parts do not reveal Plato's political and cosmic holism as clearly as they could have.

Inspired by Paul Moser's recent work, this paper presents a new parable on the topic of belief and unbelief in the tradition of Wisdom, Flew and Mitchell. -/- This paper was read at the annual POH Symposium at Lake Wenatchee, WA in May, 2010. An edited version of this paper has appeared in the second issue of the Seattle Critical Review (online).

In this paper, we develop an analysis of the structure and content of loneliness. We argue that this is an emotion of absence-an affective state in which certain social goods are regarded as out of reach for the subject of experience. By surveying the range of social goods that appear to be missing from the lonely person's perspective, we see what it is that can make this emotional condition so subjectively awful for those who undergo it, including the profound sense (...) of being unable to realise oneself, in collaboration with others. (shrink)

Externalist theories hold that a comprehensive understanding of mental disorder cannot be achieved unless we attend to factors that lie outside of the head: neural explanations alone will not fully capture the complex dependencies that exist between an individual’s psychiatric condition and her social, cultural, and material environment. Here, we firstly offer a taxonomy of ways in which the externalist viewpoint can be understood, and unpack its commitments concerning the nature and physical realization of mental disorder. Secondly, we apply a (...) strongly externalist approach to the case of Autistic Spectrum Disorder, and argue that this condition can be illuminated by appeal to the hypothesis of extended cognition. We conclude by briefly considering the significance this strongly externalist approach may have for psychiatric practice and pedagogy. (shrink)

Future-bias is the preference, all else being equal, for negatively valenced events be located in the past rather than the future, and positively valenced ones to be located in the future rather than the past. Strong risk aversion is the preference to pay some cost to mitigate the badness of the worst outcome. People who are both strongly risk averse and future-biased can face a series of choices that will guarantee them more pain, for no compensating benefit: they will be (...) pain pumped. Thus, combining these preferences is rationally impermissible. Dougherty (2011) argues that this gives us reason to think that future-bias is rationally impermissible. This argument, and a similar one presented by Greene and Sullivan (2015), relies on the idea that if several preferences are not rationally combinable, then in the absence of some explanation of why they are not combinable, we should conclude that (at least) one of them is rationally impermissible. We take up this question by, inter alia, reflecting on the empirical results of a study we ran that probes people’s risk averse and future-biased preferences. We argue that the data, in conjunction with other considerations, suggests that we should not infer from the irrationality of the combination of these preferences to the irrationality of one of the preferences singly. We also argue that given the descriptive data about these preferences, there is no reason to think that, if one of them is rationally impermissible, then it is future-bias. (shrink)

A close reading of the poem of Parmenides, with focal attention to the way the proem situates Parmenides' insight in relation to Hesiod and Anaximander and provides the context for the thought of "... is". I identify three pointed ambiguities, in the direction of the journey to the gates of the ways of Night and Day, in the way the gates swing open before the waiting traveler, and in the character of the "chasm" that their opening makes, and I suggest (...) ways in which these ambiguities at once complicate and determine the significance of the thought of "... is" and its implications for the status of the opinions of mortals. (shrink)

This paper provides an assessment of the bodily-attitudinal theory of emotions, according to which emotions are felt bodily attitudes of action readiness. After providing a reconstruction of the view and clarifying its central commitments two objections are considered. An alternative object side interpretation of felt action readiness is then provided, which undermines the motivation for the bodily-attitudinal theory and creates problems for its claims concerning the content of emotional experience. The conclusion is that while the bodily-attitudinal theory marks out a (...) distinctive proposal concerning the question of what emotions are, there remain significant issues which need addressing if it is to be a plausible competitor to existing theories of emotion. (shrink)

According to some philosophers, the mind enjoys a form of presence to itself. That is to say, in addition to being aware of whatever objects it is aware of, it is also (co-presently) aware of itself. This paper explores the proposal that we should think about this kind of experiential-presence in terms of a form of non-intentional awareness. Various candidates for the relevant form of awareness, as constituting supposed non-intentional experiential-presence, are considered and are shown to encounter significant problems. The (...) fact that a plausible account of the non-intentional awareness which experience putatively has of itself cannot be framed with reference to such forms of awareness is grounds for scepticism concerning the cogency of non-intentional experiential presence. (shrink)

It is a commonly expressed sentiment that the science and philosophy of well-being would do well to learn from each other. Typically such calls identify mistakes and bad practices on both sides that would be remedied if scientists picked the right bit of philosophy and philosophers picked the right bit of science. We argue that the differences between philosophers and scientists thinking about well-being are more difficult to reconcile than such calls suggest, and that pluralism is central to this task. (...) Pluralism is a stance that explicitly drives towards accommodating and nurturing the richness and diversity of well-being, both as a concept and as an object of inquiry. We show that well-being science manifests a contingent pluralism at the level of methodology, whereas philosophy of well-being has largely rejected pluralism at the conceptual level. Recently, things have begun to change. Within philosophy, conceptual monism is under attack. But so is methodological pluralism within science. We welcome the first development, and bemoan the second. We argue that a joined-up philosophy and science of well-being should recognise the virtues of both conceptual and methodological pluralism. Philosophers should embrace the methodological justification of pluralism that can be found in the well-being sciences, and scientists should embrace the conceptual reasons to be pluralist that can be found in philosophical debate. (shrink)

At Sophist 253d-e the Eleatic Visitor offers a notoriously obscure description of the fields of one-and-many that the dialectician “adequately discerns.” Against the readings of Stenzel, Cornford, Sayre, and Gomez-Lobo, I propose an interpretation of that passage that takes into account the trilogy of Theaetetus-Sophist-Statesman as its context. The key steps are to respond to the irony of Socrates’ refutations at the end of the Theaetetus by reinterpreting the last two senses of logos as directed to forms and to recognize (...) their correlation with the two different modes of diairesis practiced by the Eleatic Visitor. These steps position us to recognize in the Visitor’s remarks at Sophist 253d-e a schematic description of the two kinds of eidetic field that the two modes of diairesis trace. (shrink)

The idea that there could be spatially extended mereological simples has recently been defended by a number of metaphysicians (Markosian 1998, 2004; Simons 2004; Parsons (2000) also takes the idea seriously). Peter Simons (2004) goes further, arguing not only that spatially extended mereological simples (henceforth just extended simples) are possible, but that it is more plausible that our world is composed of such simples, than that it is composed of either point-sized simples, or of atomless gunk. The difficulty for these (...) views lies in explaining why it is that the various sub-volumes of space occupied by such simples, are not occupied by proper parts of those simples. Intuitively at least, many of us find compelling the idea that spatially extended objects have proper parts at every sub-volume of the region they occupy. It seems that the defender of extended simples must reject a seemingly plausible claim, what Simons calls the geometric correspondence principle (GCP): that any (spatially) extended object has parts that correspond to the parts of the region that it occupies (Simons 2004: 371). We disagree. We think that GCP is a plausible principle. We also think it is plausible that our world is composed of extended simples. We reconcile these two notions by two means. On the one hand we pay closer attention to the physics of our world. On the other hand, we consider what happens when our concept of something—in this case space—contains elements not all of which are realized in anything, but instead key components are realized in different features of the world. (shrink)

A number of recent theories of quantum gravity lack a one-dimensional structure of ordered temporal instants. Instead, according to many of these views, our world is either best represented as a single three-dimensional object, or as a configuration space composed of such three-dimensional objects, none of which bear temporal relations to one another. Such theories will be empirically self-refuting unless they can accommodate the existence of conscious beings capable of representation. For if representation itself is impossible in a timeless world, (...) then no being in such a world could entertain the thought that a timeless theory is true, let alone believe such a theory or rationally believe it. This paper investigates the options for understanding representation in a three-dimensional, timeless, world. Ultimately it concludes that the only viable option is one according to which representation is taken to be deeply non-naturalistic. Ironically then we are left with two seemingly very unattractive options. Either a very naturalistic motivation—taking seriously a live view in fundamental physics—leads us to a very non-naturalistic view of the mental, or else views in the philosophy of mind partly dictate what is an acceptable theory in physics. (shrink)

This paper identifies a tension between the commitment to forming rationally justified emotions and the happy life. To illustrate this tension I begin with a critical evaluation of the positive psychology technique known as ‘gratitude training’. I argue that gratitude training is at odds with the kind of critical monitoring that several philosophers have claimed is regulative of emotional rationality. More generally, critical monitoring undermines exuberance, an attitude that plays a central role in contemporary models of the happy life. Thus, (...) prominent notions of what it takes to maintain emotion rationality and what it takes to maintain happiness are in tension. To resolve this tension, I argue that some people have good reason to depreciate critical monitoring—even while maintaining the requirement of emotion rationality that we be sensitive to facts about how our concerns are faring. (shrink)

This paper offers a Nietzschean theory of emotion as expressed by following thesis: paradigmatic emotional experiences exhibit a distinctive kind of affective intentionality, specified in terms of felt valenced attitudes towards the (apparent) evaluative properties of their objects. Emotional experiences, on this Nietzschean view, are therefore fundamentally feelings towards value. This interpretation explains how Nietzschean affects can have evaluative intentional content without being constituted by cognitive states, as these feelings towards value are neither reducible to, nor to be thought along (...) the lines of, judgements, perceptions, or other mental states. (shrink)

The present study aims to build a thorough understanding and causes of terrorism. It discusses probable psychological and sociological factors for terrorist activities. Paper elaborates the presence of psychopathologies and cultural influences that harbor mindsets of terrorist individuals. It also highlights the relationship between religion and violence and elaborates the impact of media and its role for terrorism. The identification of psycho-social factors linked with terrorism and violence serve as a way to better understand the phenomenon. This is likely to (...) promote peace, harmony, and love in Nigerian societies. (shrink)

In this paper, I draw a distinction between two types of deepfake, and unpack the deceptive strategies that are made possible by the second. The first category, which has been the focus of existing literature on the topic, consists of those deepfakes that act as a fabricated record of events, talk, and action, where any utterances included in the footage are not addressed to the audience of the deepfake. For instance, a fake video of two politicians conversing with one another. (...) The second category consists of those deepfakes that direct an illocutionary speech act - such as a request, injunction, invitation, or promise - to an addressee who is located outside of the recording. For instance, fake footage of a company director instructing their employee to make a payment, or of a military official urging the populace to flee for safety. Whereas the former category may deceive an audience by giving rise to false beliefs, the latter can more directly manipulate an agent's actions: the speech act's addressee may be moved to accept an invitation or a summons, follow a command, or heed a warning, and in doing so further a deceiver's unethical ends. (shrink)

We are witnessing increasing use of the Internet, particular social media, to criticize (perceived or actual) moral failings and misdemeanors. This phenomenon of so-called ‘online public shaming’ could provide a powerful tool for reinforcing valuable social norms. But it also threatens unwarranted and severe punishments meted out by online mobs. This paper analyses the dangers associated with the informal enforcement of norms, drawing on Locke, but also highlights its promise, drawing on recent discussions of social norms. We then consider two (...) crucial conditions that online public shaming must meet in order to be justifiable: proportionality and accountability. We argue that these requirements are in fact frequently violated, rendering most cases of online public shaming unjustified. While the use of online public shaming against others’ vices has some apparent virtues, it is currently rarely justified, given its own vices. (shrink)

Tracking theories see knowledge as a relation between a subject’s belief and the truth, where the former is responsive to the latter. This relationship involves causation in virtue of a sensitivity condition, which is constrained by an adherence condition. The result is what I call a stable causal relationship between a fact and a subject’s belief in that fact. I argue that when we apprehend the precise role of causation in the theory, previously obscured problems pour out. This paper presents (...) thirteen distinct and original counterexamples to Nozick’s tracking theory—many of which also constitute problems for more recent tracking theories. I begin by discussing how tracking relates to causation: Nozick invokes causation through conditions similar to those of Lewisian causal dependence. As a result, when causal dependence is not necessary for causation, Nozick fails to identify knowledge. I then address the inability of causation to capture epistemically important concepts, such as justification and truth. I conclude by discussing the underlying asymmetries between causation and knowledge that undermine any attempt to reduce knowledge to a purely metaphysical relation. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide an overview of the conceptual terrain of what we call conative accounts of personal identity. These are views according to which the same-person relation in some sense depends on a range of broadly conative phenomena, especially desires, behaviours and conventions. We distinguish views along three dimensions: what role the conations play, what kinds of conations play that role, and whether the conations that play that role are public or private. We then offer a more detailed (...) consideration of direct private conativism—the version of conativism that we favour—before considering how conativists ought respond to a general worry, according to which any conativist view will lead us to be radically pluralist about persons. (shrink)

A central claim in contemporary philosophy of mind is that the phenomenal character of experience is entirely determined by its content. This paper considers an alternative called Mode Intentionalism. According to this view, phenomenal character outruns content because the intentional mode contributes to the phenomenal character of the experience. I assess a phenomenal contrast argument in support of this view, arguing that the cases appealed to allow for interpretations which do not require positing intentional modes as phenomenologically manifest aspects of (...) experience. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that reflection on the patterns of practical concern that agents like us exhibit strongly suggests that the same person relation comes in continuous degrees rather than being an all or nothing matter. We call this the SP-degree thesis. Though the SP-degree thesis is consistent with a range of views about personal-identity, we argue that combining desire-first approaches to personal-identity with the SP-degree thesis better explains our patterns of practical concern, and hence gives us reason to (...) endorse such an approach. We then argue that the combination of the SP-degree thesis and the desire-first approach are best modelled by a stage-theoretic view of persistence according to which temporal counterpart relations are non-symmetric relations that come in continuous degrees. Ultimately, we think that the overall appeal of this package of views provides reason to accept the package: reasons that outstrip the reasons we have to endorse any particular member of the package. (shrink)

At 287c of the Statesman the Eleatic Visitor — or, more deeply, Plato — faces a daunting task. Because statesmanship has been shown to collaborate with “countless” other arts that share with it the work of “caring” for the city, to understand statesmanship requires distinguishing these arts into an intelligible set of kinds and recognizing how these might go together. Accordingly, the Visitor abandons the mode of division he has practiced without exception up until this moment, bifurcation or “halving,” and (...) offers, instead, a sorting of the arts into fifteen kinds of work. How was Plato able to get his bearings towards the heterogeneous multiplicity of the arts in order to do this sorting? In this paper I suggest that he may have found a paradigm in the double octave matrix of notes from which, according to contemporary musical theory, the seven musical “modes” are drawn. To show the plausibility of this suggestion, I first reconstruct the double octave matrix, which was later to be called the Greater Perfect System, and then show a striking series of points of substantive and structural analogy that hold between this matrix and the Visitor’s division of the arts into fifteen kinds. (shrink)

Can the theory that reality is a simulation be tested? We investigate this question based on the assumption that if the system performing the simulation is nite (i.e. has limited resources), then to achieve low computational complexity, such a system would, as in a video game, render content (reality) only at the moment that information becomes available for observation by a player and not at the moment of detection by a machine (that would be part of the simulation and whose (...) detection would also be part of the internal computation performed by the Virtual Reality server before rendering content to the player). Guided by this principle we describe conceptual wave/particle duality experiments aimed at testing the simulation theory. (shrink)

Many population axiologies avoid the Repugnant Conclusion by endorsing Superiority: some number of great lives is better than any number of mediocre lives. But as Nebel shows, RC follows from the Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion: a guaranteed mediocre life is better than a sufficiently small probability of a great life. This result is concerning because IRC is plausible. Recently, Kosonen has argued that IRC can be true while RC is false if small probabilities are discounted to zero. This article details the (...) unique problems created by combining Superiority with discounting. The resultant view, Superiority Discounting, avoids the Repugnant Conclusion only at the cost of the Preposterous Conclusion: near-certain hell for arbitrarily many people is better than near-certain heaven for arbitrarily many people. (shrink)

Dass wir alle in einer gemeinsamen Wirklichkeit leben, setzen wir meist unhinterfragt voraus. Sehen Andere die Welt dann doch einmal anders, mag es uns scheinen, als sähen sie diese einfach nicht so, wie sie wirklich ist. Schwerer fällt uns anzuerkennen, dass andere zuweilen in ganz anderen Wirklichkeiten unterwegs sind als wir selbst. - Tom Poljansek zeigt, wie sich die Vorstellung einer Pluralität menschlicher Wirklichkeiten mit der Annahme einer wahrnehmungsunabhängigen Realität vereinbaren lässt, ohne sich in einen Relativismus der vielen Wirklichkeiten zu (...) verlaufen. In Auseinandersetzung mit »kontinentalen« und »analytischen« Ansätzen legt er eine elegante Theorie menschlicher Wirklichkeiten vor, die konstruktivistische und realistische, phänomenologische und naturalistische Motive unerwartet miteinander verbindet. (shrink)

This paper examines the causal basis of our ability to attribute emotions to music, developing and synthesizing the existing arousal, resemblance and persona theories of musical expressivity to do so. The principal claim is that music hijacks the simulation mechanism of the brain, a mechanism which has evolved to detect one's own and other people's emotions.

This book defends Aestheticism- the claim that everything is aesthetically valuable and that a life lived in pursuit of aesthetic value can be a particularly good one. Furthermore, in distilling aesthetic qualities, artists have a special role to play in teaching us to recognize values; a critical component of virtue. I ground my account upon an analysis of aesthetic value as ‘objectified final value’, which is underwritten by an original psychological claim that all aesthetic values are distal versions of practical (...) values. This is followed by systematic accounts of beauty, sublimity, comedy, drama, and tragedy, as well as appendix entries on the cute, the cool, the kitsch, the uncanny, the horrific, the erotic, and the furious. (shrink)

We ask whether it is reasonable to delay or refuse to take COVID-19 vaccines that have been shown in clinical trials to be safe and effective against infectious diseases. We consider two kinds of vaccine hesitancy. The first is geared to scientifically informed open questions about vaccines. We argue that in cases where the data is not representative of relevant groups, such as pregnant women and ethnic minorities, hesitancy can be reasonable on epistemic grounds. However, we argue that hesitancy is (...) not reasonable if a vaccine has passed well-conducted clinical trials. The second kind of hesitancy is to do with beliefs about the institutions offering a successfully trialled vaccine and the justifiability of cooperating with those institutions. For example, in the UK, distrust of the UK Government or the National Health Service is identified as a factor in the vaccine hesitancy of minority ethnic populations. We ask whether this sort of hesitation is reasonable given normative requirements of fair co-operation, both with those institutions and the wider population. We suggest that the answer is not straightforward. Sometimes the hesitation is unreasonable but understandable. -/- . (shrink)

It is an important feature of creatures like us that our various motivations compete for control over our behaviour, including mental behaviour such as imagining and attending. In large part, this competition is adjudicated by the stimulation of affect — the intrinsically pleasant or unpleasant aspects of experience. In this paper I argue that the motivation-affect system controls a sub-type of attention called 'alerting attention' to bring various goals and stimuli to consciousness and thereby prioritize those contents for action. This (...) view allows me to flesh out the global workspace theory of consciousness, as well as some of the phenomenal characteristics of conscious experience. (shrink)

Metaphysics is largely an a priori business, albeit a business that is sensitive to the findings of the physical sciences. But sometimes what the physical sciences tell us about our own world underdetermines what we should think about the metaphysics of how things actually are, and even how they could be. This chapter has two aims. The first is to defend a particular conception of the methodology of a priori metaphysics by, in part, exemplifying that methodology and revealing its results. (...) The second is to present a new account of holes. These two aims dovetail nicely. We are independently interested in providing a better analysis of the concept <hole> that yields a more plausible metaphysical story about holes. But focusing on holes is also a good way to explore the methodology we endorse: for this is an area of metaphysics that is sufficiently self-contained and narrow in focus that it provides a manageable case study, while at the same time raising interesting and deep issues about the nature of space. Ultimately we defend a new, functionalist, analysis of holes, which, unlike its rivals, neither misidentifies nor renders us implausibly eliminativist about holes under various different metaphysical suppositions about the nature of space. In the process, we set out the complex relations between the intension of “hole,” and its extension at various worlds under different suppositions about the nature of space. In explicating these relations our account exemplifies what we take to be the core methodology in a priori metaphysics. (shrink)

Ismael aims for an understanding of the nature of an embedded perspective of agents in a world. If successful, this would explain a cluster of ways in which from an embedded perspective, we experience the world in an array of temporally asymmetric ways. Moreover, these are ways that have led many philosophers to rather metaphysically inflationary views about the nature of time, according to which time itself really is dynamical, and is characterized by the movement of an objectively (i.e., non-perspectival) (...) present. Ismael aims to explain these features of our experience without positing any such metaphysical picture. She argues that there are constraints which prevent us from taking this Olympian conception of the world and our place in it, and that these, jointly, explain why we experience the world in these temporally asymmetric ways. We take up two related questions. First, what it would mean to say that these constraints are not merely epistemic, and second, how far these constraints get us in explaining why we experience the world in these ways. (shrink)

How wrong is it to deceive someone into sex by lying, say, about one's profession? The answer is seriously wrong when the liar's actual profession would be a deal breaker for the victim of the deception: this deception vitiates the victim's sexual consent, and it is seriously wrong to have sex with someone while lacking his or her consent.

The direct social perception thesis claims that we can directly perceive some mental states of other people. The direct perception of mental states has been formulated phenomenologically and psychologically, and typically restricted to the mental state types of intentions and emotions. I will compare DSP to another account of mindreading: dual process accounts that posit a fast, automatic “Type 1” form of mindreading and a slow, effortful “Type 2” form. I will here analyze whether dual process accounts’ Type 1 mindreading (...) serves as a rival to DSP or whether some Type 1 mindreading can be perceptual. I will focus on Apperly and Butterfill’s dual process account of mindreading epistemic states such as perception, knowledge, and belief. This account posits a minimal form of Type 1 mindreading of belief-like states called registrations. I will argue that general dual process theories fit well with a modular view of perception that is considered a kind of Type 1 process. I will show that this modular view of perception challenges and has significant advantages over DSP’s phenomenological and psychological theses. Finally, I will argue that if such a modular view of perception is accepted, there is significant reason for thinking Type 1 mindreading of belief-like states is perceptual in nature. This would mean extending the scope of DSP to at least one type of epistemic state. (shrink)

This paper proffers an account of why interdisciplinary research on, inter alia, the nature of time can be fruitful even if the disciplines in question have different explanatory pro-jects. We suggest that the special sciences perform a subject setting role for lower-level disciplines such as physics. In essence, they tell us where, amongst a theory of the physical world, we should expect to locate phenomena such as temporality; they tell us what it would take for there to be time. Physical (...) theory tells us whether there is anything like that in the world and what its hidden nature is. Only working in tandem can physics and the special sciences locate and describe the phenomenon that is time. (shrink)

In recent literature, panpsychism has been defended by appeal to two main arguments: first, an argument from philosophy of mind, according to which panpsychism is the only view which successfully integrates consciousness into the physical world (Strawson 2006; Chalmers 2013); second, an argument from categorical properties, according to which panpsychism offers the only positive account of the categorical or intrinsic nature of physical reality (Seager 2006; Adams 2007; Alter and Nagasawa 2012). Historically, however, panpsychism has also been defended by appeal (...) to a third argument based on considerations about the nature and observability of causation. This argument has not been much discussed in recent times. Here is a concise version from William James: "… the concrete perceptual flux, taken just as it comes, offers in our own activity-situations perfectly comprehensible instances of causal agency … If we took these experiences as the type of what actual causation is, we should have to ascribe to cases of causation outside of our life, to physical cases also, an inwardly experiential nature. In other words, we should have to espouse a so-called “pan-psychic” philosophy" (James 1911: 218). James here suggests that we have direct experience of causation in our own agency. He thereby directly contradicts David Hume, who famously denied that we have any experience of causation. James goes on to claim that if this experience is representative of causation in general, it follows that all causation is mental, and that panpsychism is true. This kind of argument for panpsychism can be called the argument from (experience of) causation. This chapter offers, first, a history of this argument and arguments closely related to it, and second, an analysis of the argument – is it valid, are its premises in any way defensible, and how does it relate to the other, more popular arguments for panpsychism from philosophy of mind and categorical properties? (shrink)

Harold Noonan has recently argued (2003) that one of Lewis’s (1983: 76– 77) arguments for the view that objects persist by perduring is flawed. Lewis’s argument can be divided into two main sections, the first of which attempts to show that it is possible that there exists a world of temporal parts or stages, and the second, which attempts to show that our world is such a world. Noonan claims that there is a flaw in each of these two stages.We (...) argue to the contrary. (shrink)

Nearly everyone prefers pain to be in the past rather than the future. This seems like a rationally permissible preference. But I argue that appearances are misleading, and that future-biased preferences are in fact irrational. My argument appeals to trade-offs between hedonic experiences and other goods. I argue that we are rationally required to adopt an exchange rate between a hedonic experience and another type of good that stays fixed, regardless of whether the hedonic experience is in the past or (...) future. (shrink)

The fear of death resists philosophical attempts at reconciliation. Building on theories of emotion, I argue that we can understand our fear as triggered by a de se mode of thinking about death which comes into conflict with our will to live. The discursive mode of philosophy may help us to avoid the de se mode of thinking about death, but it does not satisfactorily address the problem. I focus instead on the voluntary diminishment of one’s will to live. I (...) argue that we can encourage a natural tendency for the will to live to decline as we approach death. I then consider two objections: Is not the will to live too fundamental for us to control? And even if we can control it, would not a declining will to live result in a general despair that it is better to resist? I argue that both of these objections can be overcome. (shrink)

Public shaming plays an important role in upholding valuable social norms. But, under what conditions, if any, is it morally justifiable? Our aim in this paper is systemically to investigate the morality of public shaming, so as to provide an answer to this neglected question. We develop an overarching framework for assessing the justifiability of this practice, which shows that, while shaming can sometimes be morally justifiable, it very often is not. In turn, our framework highlights several reasons to be (...) concerned about the increasingly widespread phenomenon of online public shaming. (shrink)

Review of Jean Moritz Müller, The World-Directedness of Emotional Feeling.