The genetic modification of pigs as a source of transplantable organs is one of several possible solutions to the chronic organ shortage. This paper describes existing ethical tensions in xenotransplantation (XTx) that argue against pursuing it. Recommendations for lifelong infectious disease surveillance and notification of close contacts of recipients are in tension with the rights of human research subjects. Parental/guardian consent for pediatric xenograft recipients is in tension with a child’s right to an open future. Individual consent to transplant is (...) in tension with public health threats that include zoonotic diseases. XTx amplifies concerns about justice in organ transplantation and could exacerbate existing inequities. The prevention of infectious disease in source animals is in tension with the best practices of animal care and animal welfare, requiring isolation, ethologically inappropriate housing, and invasive reproductive procedures that would severely impact the well-being of intelligent social creatures like pigs. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 165-189, May 2022. It is generally acknowledged that a certain amount of state intervention in health and health care is needed to address the significant market failures in these sectors; however, it is also thought that the primary rationale for state involvement in health must lie elsewhere, for example in an egalitarian commitment to equalizing access to health care for all citizens. This paper argues that a complete theory of justice in (...) health can be derived from a commitment to correcting market failure, or in other words promoting Pareto-efficiency, in the domain of health. This approach can address familiar problems around access to care, as well as problems related to resource allocation and rationing, the control of health care costs, and the foundations of public health. Egalitarian theories of justice in health cannot make sense of the depth and pervasiveness of state involvement in health and health care; only a theory rooted in the need to correct market failure can. (shrink)

Two problems are considered here. One relates to who has moral status, and the other relates to who has moral responsibility. The criteria for mattering morally have long been disputed, and many humans and nonhuman animals have been considered “marginal cases,” on the contested edges of moral considerability and concern. The marginalization of humans and other species is frequently the pretext for denying their rights, including the rights to health care, to reproductive freedom, and to bodily autonomy. There is broad (...) agreement across cultural and philosophical traditions about the capacities and responsibilities of moral agents. I propose an inclusive and expansive way of thinking about moral status, situating it not in the characteristics or capacities of individuals, but in the responsibilities and obligations of moral agents. Moral agents, under this view, are not privileged or entitled to special treatment but rather have responsibilities. I approach this by considering some African communitarian conceptions of moral status and moral agency. I propose that moral agency can also be more expansive and include not just individual moral agents but collective entities that have some of the traits of moral agents: power, freedom, and the capacity to recognize and act on the demands of morality and acknowledge and respect the rights of others. Expanding who and what is a moral agent correspondingly extends moral responsibility for respecting rights and fostering the conditions for the health and well-being of humans and animals onto the collective entities who uniquely have the capacity to attend to global-scale health threats such as pandemics and human-caused climate change. (shrink)

Je cherche à explorer comment l'expérience de la temporalité est multiforme et fortement perturbée à l'époque de la pandémie Covid-19 et des politiques de confinement, générant une expérience d'hétérochronie, qui remet en question notre rapport à la vie.

This article uses recent work in philosophy of science and social epistemology to argue for a shift in analytic philosophy of religion from a knowledge-centric epistemology to an epistemology centered on understanding. Not only can an understanding-centered approach open up new avenues for the exploration of largely neglected aspects of the religious life, it can also shed light on how religious participation might be epistemically valuable in ways that knowledge-centered approaches fail to capture. Further, it can create new opportunities for (...) interaction with neighboring disciplines and can help us revitalize and transform stagnant debates in philosophy of religion, while simultaneously allowing for the introduction and recovery of marginalized voices and traditions. (shrink)

Philosophers of experiment have acknowledged that experiments are often more than mere hypothesis-tests, once thought to be an experiment's exclusive calling. Drawing on examples from contemporary biology, I make an additional amendment to our understanding of experiment by examining the way that `wide' instrumentation can, for reasons of efficiency, lead scientists away from traditional hypothesis-directed methods of experimentation and towards exploratory methods.

Why do we find agents less blameworthy when they face mitigating circumstances, and what does this show about philosophical theories of moral responsibility? We present novel evidence that the tendency to mitigate the blameworthiness of agents is driven both by the perception that they are less normatively competent—in particular, less able to know that what they are doing is wrong—and by the perception that their behavior is less attributable to their deep selves. Consequently, we argue that philosophers cannot rely on (...) the case strategy to support the Normative Competence theory of moral responsibility over the Deep Self theory. However, we also outline ways in which further empirical and philosophical work would shift the debate, by showing that there is a significant departure between ordinary concepts and corresponding philosophical concepts, or by focusing on a different type of coherence with ordinary judgments. (shrink)

Galileo’s Error is a superlative work of public philosophy, particularly as a way of introducing modern academic panpsychism to a broader audience. In this commentary, I reflect on an issue that is prominent, though often with different background concerns, in both academic and popular discourse: what it means to be ‘scientific’ or ‘unscientific’. Panpsychism is not itself a scientific hypothesis, but neither is it (as critics sometimes claim) in conflict with science. Indeed, Goff argues, and I agree, that panpsychism is (...) an eminently scientific worldview, in the sense of a way of viewing reality that accords with and embraces what science reveals. But what exactly it means to ‘accord with and embrace’ science is disputed; this paper tries to untangle some of the threads. (shrink)

Medieval and early modern devotional works rarely receive serious treatment from philosophers, even those working in the subfields of philosophy of religion or the history of ideas. In this article, I examine one medieval devotional work in particular—the Middle High German image- and verse-program, Christus und die minnende Seele (CMS)—and I argue that it can plausibly be viewed as a form of medieval public philosophy, one that both exhibited and encouraged philosophical innovation. I address a few objections to my proposal—namely, (...) that CMS is neither public enough nor that it counts as proper philosophy—and I attempt to defend CMS’s public philosophical credentials in light of these objections. I conclude with a brief discussion of how devotional texts like CMS can help us do innovative public philosophy today. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article examines the under-researched figure A.W. Rehberg in his exchange with Kant over the relationship between theory and practice in the philosophy of right. I argue that Rehberg raises, what I call, two problems of political matter which attempt to show that Kant's overly formal approach to political theory cannot justifiably determine political practice. The first problem is the problem of positive determinations of right, rather than merely negative prohibitions. Rehberg takes this to mean that Kant cannot determine (...) us to a specific form of constitution. I argue that Kant's innovation of intelligible property functions as a response to this critique in that it provides the possibility of synthetic propositions of right a priori. Second, Rehberg insists that an a priori system of right cannot relate to already formed historical communities. Here Kant's response comes close to agreeing with Rehberg as Kant takes prudential or historical reasoning to harmonize with the demands of a priori right in order to applied to the sensible world. Kant, in this instance, comes closer to Rehberg by denying centralized enlightened monarchy and the reliance on natural and historical development for the application of right. (shrink)

In this paper we attempt to reply to the thoughtful comments made on our book, Responsible Brains, by a stellar group of scholars. Our reply focuses on two topics discussed in the commenting papers: first, the issue of responsibility for negligent behavior; and second, the broad claim that facts about brain function are normatively inert. In response to worries that our theory lacks normative implications, we will concentrate on an area where our theory has clear relevance to law and legal (...) policy: juvenile responsibility. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, Uchiyama Gudō, Seno’o Girō, Lin Qiuwu, and others advocated a Buddhism that was radical in two respects. Firstly, they adopted a more or less naturalist stance with respect to Buddhist doctrine and related matters, rejecting karma or other supernatural beliefs. And secondly, they held political and economic views that were radically anti-hegemonic, anti-capitalist, and revolutionary. Taking the idea of such a “radical Buddhism” seriously, A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism asks (...) whether it is possible to develop a philosophy that is simultaneously naturalist, anti-capitalist, Buddhist, and consistent. Rather than a study of radical Buddhism, then, this book is an attempt to radicalize it. The foundations of this “radicalized radical Buddhism” are provided by a realist interpretation of Yogācāra, elucidated and elaborated with some help from thinkers in the broader Tiantai/Tendai tradition and American philosophers Donald Davidson and W.V.O. Quine. A key implication of this foundation is that only this world and only this life are real, from which it follows that if Buddhism aims to alleviate suffering, it has to do so in this world and in this life. Twentieth-century radical Buddhists (as well as some engaged Buddhists) came to a similar conclusion, often expressed in their aim to realize “a Buddha land in this world.” Building on this foundation, but also on Mahāyāna moral philosophy, this book argues for an ethics and social philosophy based on a definition of evil as that what is or should be expected to cause death or suffering. On that ground, capitalism should be rejected indeed, but utopianism must be treated with caution as well, which raises questions about what it means – from a radicalized radical Buddhist perspective – to aim for a Buddha land in this world. (shrink)

Le but de ce texte est de mettre en évidence les équi­valences entre la façon dont le concept de conatus résout, dans l'Éthique, le problème de l'unité modale complexe. en rendant consis­tant le concept de chose singulière en tant que celle-ci doit être consi­dérée comme un légitime sujet d'attribution d'états, et la façon dont ce même concept dessine le rapport cognitif de l'esprit avec lui-même, rapport par lequel l'esprit se saisit comme sujet de ses états et qui ca­ractérise la notion (...) moderne de subjectivité. Ainsi, en éclairant cet as­pect du concept spinoziste de chose singulière. on comprendra aussi, de façon indirecte, l'une des conditions par lesquelles les choses peuvent, dans la doctrine spinoziste, devenir des objets ou des signes pour la connaissance humaine. (shrink)

The tripartite account of propositional, fallibilist knowledge that p as justified true belief can become adequate only if it can solve the Gettier Problem. However, the latter can be solved only if the problem of a successful coordination of the resources (at least truth and justification) necessary and sufficient to deliver propositional, fallibilist knowledge that p can be solved. In this paper, the coordination problem is proved to be insolvable by showing that it is equivalent to the ''''coordinated attack'''' problem, (...) which is demonstrably insolvable in epistemic logic. It follows that the tripartite account is not merely inadequate as it stands, as proved by Gettier-type counterexamples, but demonstrably irreparable in principle, so that efforts to improve it can never succeed. (shrink)

This discussion revises and extends Jonny Anomaly's ‘public goods’ account of public health ethics in light of recent criticism from Richard Dees. Public goods are goods that are both non-rival and non-excludable. What is significant about such goods is that they are not always provided efficiently by the market. Indeed, the state can sometimes realize efficiency gains either by supplying such goods directly or by compelling private purchase. But public goods are not the only goods that the market may fail (...) to provide efficiently. This point to a way of broadening the public goods account of public health to accommodate Dees' counterexamples, without abandoning its distinctive appeal. On the market failures approach to public health ethics, the role of public health is to correct public health-related market failures of all kinds, so far as possible. The underlying moral commitment is to economic efficiency in the sense of Pareto: if we can re-allocate resources in the economy so as to raise the welfare of some without lowering the welfare of any other, we ought to do so. (shrink)

The question I want to explore is whether experience supports an antireductionist ontology of time, that is, whether we should take it to support an ontology that includes a primitive, monadic property of nowness responsible for the special feel of events in the present, and a relation of passage that events instantiate in virtue of literally passing from the future, to the present, and then into the past.

Philosophical discussions of species have focused on multicellular, sexual animals and have often neglected to consider unicellular organisms like bacteria. This article begins to fill this gap by considering what species concepts, if any, apply neatly to the bacterial world. First, I argue that the biological species concept cannot be applied to bacteria because of the variable rates of genetic transfer between populations, depending in part on which gene type is prioritized. Second, I present a critique of phylogenetic bacterial species, (...) arguing that phylogenetic bacterial classification requires a questionable metaphysical commitment to the existence of essential genes. I conclude by considering how microbiologists have dealt with these biological complexities by using more pragmatic and not exclusively evolutionary accounts of species. I argue that this pragmatism is not borne of laziness but rather of the substantial conceptual problems in classifying bacteria based on any evolutionary standard. (shrink)

It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it (...) would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to get clear about why renewal is needed in philosophy of religion and how to achieve it. We begin with a fundamental distinction between someone’s perspective in the field and the perspective of the field, arguing that any philosopher of religion is responsible to both. Then we identify eight problems that should prevent the status quo in philosophy from appearing acceptable to anyone who takes the perspective of the field, as well as seven practical suggestions (...) which, if implemented, would help to solve these problems. The problems include such things as tribalism, ignorance about religion, and viewing issues exclusively in terms of what is religiously familiar; the mitigations such things as allowing non-Christians to join the Society of Christian Philosophers, broadening the education of philosophers of religion, and paying more attention to the deep history of religion. (shrink)

Quantum theory offers mathematical descriptions of measurable phenomena with great facility and accuracy, but it provides absolutely no understanding of why any particular quantum outcome is observed. It is the province of genuine explanations to tell us how things actually work—that is, why such descriptions hold and why such predictions are true. Quantum theory is long on the what, both mathematically and observationally, but almost completely silent on the how and the why. What is even more interesting is that, in (...) some sense, this state of affairs seems to be a necessary consequence of the empirical adequacy of quantum descriptions. One of the most noteworthy achievements of quantum theory is the accurate prediction of phenomena that, on pain of experimental contradiction, have no physical explanation. It is the purpose of this essay to make clear why quantum mechanics and quantum field theory are complete physical descriptions that describe the metaphysical incompleteness of the physical world, then to press the negative implications of this fact for naturalistic metaphysics. (shrink)

I defend a one category ontology: an ontology that denies that we need more than one fundamental category to support the ontological structure of the world. Categorical fundamentality is understood in terms of the metaphysically prior, as that in which everything else in the world consists. One category ontologies are deeply appealing, because their ontological simplicity gives them an unmatched elegance and spareness. I’m a fan of a one category ontology that collapses the distinction between particular and property, replacing it (...) with a single fundamental category of intrinsic characters or qualities. We may describe the qualities as qualitative charactersor as modes, perhaps on the model of Aristotelian qualitative (nonsubstantial) kinds, and I will use the term “properties” interchangeably with “qualities”. The qualities are repeatable and reasonably sparse, although, as I discuss in section 2.6, there are empirical reasons that may suggest, depending on one’s preferred fundamental physical theory, that they include irreducibly intensive qualities. There are no uninstantiated qualities. I also assume that the fundamental qualitative natures are intrinsic, although physics may ultimately suggest that some of them are extrinsic. On my view, matter, concrete objects, abstract objects, and perhaps even spacetime are constructed from mereological fusions of qualities, so the world is simply a vast mixture of qualities, including polyadic properties (i.e., relations). This means that everything there is, including concrete objects like persons or stars, is a quality, a qualitative fusion, or a portion of the extended qualitative fusion that is the worldwhole. I call my view mereological bundle theory. (shrink)

Is the virtue of the good citizen the same as the virtue of the good man? Aristotle addresses this in Politics 3.4. His answer is twofold. On the one hand, (the account for Difference) they are not the same both because what the citizen’s virtue is depends on the constitution, on what preserves it, and on the role the citizen plays in it, and because the good citizens in the best constitution cannot all be good men, whereas the good man’s (...) virtue is uniform. On the other hand, (the account for Identity) the two virtues are identical in the good men in the best constitution, in which all are good citizens, each possessing the ability for ruling and for being ruled. This nuanced answer can be seen as Aristotle’s synthesis of a Periclean view (contribution to state blots out personal wrongs) and a Socratic view (no good citizen is without justice). Its nuances reflect the extent to which Aristotle’s conceptions of good citizenship and the best constitution accommodate deviations of what is probable from the human ideal set out in his ethical writings. In the present chapter, I will first address three puzzles regarding the nuances of Aristotle’s answer. Second, I will consider one question about its implication: Does Aristotle’s account for Difference turn out to entail something ultra-Periclean: that no one can simultaneously be a good man and a good citizen in any constitution other than the best? I shall argue the negative. (shrink)

Citizens in wealthy liberal democracies are typically expected to see to basic needs like food, clothing, and shelter out of their own income, and those without the means to do so usually receive assistance in the form of cash transfers. Things are different with health care. Most liberal societies provide their citizens with health care or health care insurance in kind, either directly from the state or through private insurance companies that are regulated like public utilities. Except perhaps for small (...) co-pays or deductibles, citizens are not expected to see to their health needs out-of-pocket, at least for some basic level of care. Instead, when a citizen gets sick, the state or her insurance company foots the... (shrink)

In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois introduces double consciousness as a result of racial prejudice and oppression. Explained as a state of confliction felt by black Americans, Du Bois presents double consciousness as integral to understanding the black experience. Later philosophers question the importance of double consciousness to current race discussions, but this paper contends that double consciousness provides valuable insights into black and white relations. To do this, I will utilize the modern slang term, “Oreo,” to (...) highlight how a perceived incompatibility between blacks and whites could prevent America from achieving a greater unity. (shrink)

Two arguments have recently been advanced that Maxwell-Boltzmann particles areindistinguishable just like Bose–Einstein and Fermi–Dirac particles. Bringing modalmetaphysics to bear on these arguments shows that ontological indistinguishabilityfor classical (MB) particles does not follow. The first argument, resting on symmetryin the occupation representation for all three cases, fails since peculiar correlationsexist in the quantum (BE and FD) context as harbingers of ontic indistinguishability,while the indistinguishability of classical particles remains purely epistemic. The secondargument, deriving from the classical limits of quantum statistical partition (...) functions,embodies a conceptual confusion. After clarifying the doctrine of haecceitism, a thirdargument is considered that attempts to deflate metaphysical concerns altogether byshowing that the phase-space and distribution-space representations of MB-statisticshave contrary haecceitistic import. Careful analysis shows this argument to fail as well,leaving de re modality unproblematically grounding particle identity in the classicalcontext while genuine puzzlement about the underlying ontology remains for quantumstatistics. (shrink)

I argue that we can understand the de se by employing the subjective mode of presentation or, if one’s ontology permits it, by defending an abundant ontology of perspectival personal properties or facts. I do this in the context of a discussion of Cappelen and Dever’s recent criticisms of the de se. Then, I discuss the distinctive role of the first personal perspective in discussions about empathy, rational deference, and self-understanding, and develop a way to frame the problem of lacking (...) prospective access to your future self as a problem with your capacity to imaginatively empathize with your future selves. (shrink)

Goethes Protest gegen Newtons Theorie des Lichts und der Farben ist besser, als man gemeinhin denkt. Man kann diesem Protest in den wichtigsten Elementen folgen, ohne Newton in der physikalischen Sache unrecht zu geben. Laut meiner Interpretation hat Goethe in Newtons wissenschaftsphilosophischer Selbsteinschätzung eine entscheidende Schwäche aufgedeckt: Newton glaubte, mithilfe prismatischer Experimente beweisen zu können, dass das Licht der Sonne aus Lichtstrahlen verschiedener Farben zusammengesetzt sei. Goethe zeigt, dass dieser Übergang vom Beobachtbaren zur Theorie problematischer ist, als Newton wahrhaben wollte. (...) Wenn Goethe darauf beharrt, dass uns der Übergang zur Theorie nicht von den Phänomenen aufgezwungen wird, dann kommt dadurch unser eigener, freier und kreativer Beitrag zur Theorie-Bildung ans Tageslicht. Und diese Einsicht Goethes gewinnt eine überraschende Schärfe, weil Goethe plausibel machen kann, dass sich alle entscheidenden prismatischen Experimente Newtons aus der geometrischen Optik ebenso gut mit einer alternativen Theorie vereinbaren lassen. Wenn ich recht sehe, war Goethe der erste Wissenschaftsphilosoph, der mindestens eine empirisch äquivalente Alternative zu einer wohletablierten physikalischen Theorie gesehen und daraus weitreichende wissenschaftstheoretische Schlüsse gezogen hat: Damit war Goethe seiner Zeit um ein gutes Jahrhundert voraus. (shrink)

Thailand has a rich history of using aesthetics as a means of communication. This is seen not only in the communication of basic ideas, but aesthetics are also used to communicate the cultural values of the nation. Aesthetical images in Thailand have the tendency to dwell both in the realm of the mundane and the supernatural, in the daily and the esoteric. Historically, many faith traditions have used aesthetics as an effective form of communication, including Buddhism, Brahmanism, as well as (...) other local expressions of deities across the country. Art plays a large role in the daily communication of religious values and concepts. -/- While Christianity has a rather long history in Thailand, the large-scale impact that Christianity, and specifically Protestantism, has had is rather minimal. There can be a myriad of reasons for this, but one potential possibility is Christianity’s lack of an aesthetical engagement upon and within Thai culture. This potentially is not an issue of only the Protestant church in Thailand but also stems from some of the western Christian roots throughout its faith tradition. One finds a chasm between aesthetical practices and faith from the Heidelberg Confession, in which Christians became so worried about the ramifications of idol worship, that they threw out the proverbial ‘baby with the bathwater’ and basically condemned the use of icons and other forms of art in western Protestantism. -/- Therefore, this paper will examine the relationship between Thai culture and Christianity, trying to remove the western biases in Christianity and will attempt to suggest new ways that the Thai Christian Church may develop organic, indigenous Thai art, that can be used as a more effective means of communication. If Christianity wants to effectively convey its concepts into Thai culture, it must value aesthetics as a means of communication. Is it possible that Christianity could not only communicate a more effective message in Thailand, but also that Christianity could experience a more robust self-analyzation of its core concepts through Thai aesthetics? Therefore, one needs to explore the ways that Christianity may be able to better understand itself through current Thai aesthetical practices. These concepts will be explored to develop a more robust and organic way of communicating the Christian concepts through a Thai paradigm. (shrink)

Die Skeptikerin fragt, wie wir ausschließen können, dass all unsere Erlebnisse auf einem umfassenden Traum beruhen. Träfe ihre Befürchtung zu, dann wären alle unsere Meinungen über die äußere Welt falsch, und da wir das nicht ausschließen können, haben wir (so folgert sie) keinerlei Wissen über die Welt. Um dem zu begegnen, könnte man der Skeptikerin vorwerfen, dass sie unsere gemeinsame Sprache missbraucht. Welche Wörter missbraucht sie? Welche Wörter gebraucht sie so anders, dass wir uns um ihre Überlegung nicht scheren müssen? (...) Ich spiele das sprachkritische Manöver gegen die Skeptikerin zunächst anhand des Wissensbegriffs durch (und komme zu dem Ergebnis, dass wir nicht klar genug sagen können, worin die unstrittige Bedeutung des Wortes "Wissen" besteht). Dann versuche ich es mit weniger tiefsinnigen Wörtern wie "Tiger". Wer stets träumt, gebraucht solche Wörter anders als wir, so die Überlegung. Dieser Gedanke funktioniert nur, wenn wir die Existenz von Außenwelt-Dingen voraussetzen dürfen; und diese Voraussetzung bestreitet die Skeptikerin. Daher spiele ich das sprachkritische Manöver zuguterletzt anhand des Traumbegriffs durch. Jemand kann das Wort "Traum" überhaupt nur dann gelernt haben, wenn er manchmal, aber nicht immer geträumt hat. Ergebnis: Entweder ich verstehe das Wort "Traum". Dann träume ich nicht seit jeher. Oder ich verstehe das Wort nicht. Dann brauche ich mich vom Traum-Argument auch nicht an meinen Wissens-Ansprüchen irre machen zu lassen. (shrink)

In der Literatur zur Wirkungsgeschichte der Farbenlehre Goethes aus dem Jahr 1810 grassieren zwei Vorurteile: (1) Nur ein einziger Physiker von Rang (Seebeck) habe sich auf Goethes Projekt wissenschaftlich eingelassen. (2) Schon zu Goethes Lebzeiten habe sich die Fachwissenschaft mit überwältigender Mehrheit gegen den Dichter ausgesprochen. Beide Behauptungen sind falsch. ad (1): Der bedeutende Physiker und Chemiker Johann Ritter hat zwischen 1800 und 1801 eng mit Goethe kooperiert, dieselbe Forschungsmethode eingesetzt wie Goethe und aufgrund dieser Kooperation das UV-Licht entdeckt. Bis (...) zu seinem Lebensende war er der Ansicht, dass die newtonische Theorie durch Fortführung der Experimente Goethes unterminiert werden könne. ad (2): Wie sich bei einer Kampfabstimmung unter den MINT-Forschern der Goethe-Zeit ergibt (bei der sämtliche veröffentlichte Voten von 1810 bis 1832 gezählt werden), stimmten gegen Goethe die Hälfte der Naturwissenschaftler, für ihn ein Drittel, bei 15 Prozent Stimmenthaltungen. Goethe hat die Abstimmung in der Tat verloren, doch eine verheerende Niederlage sähe anders aus. (shrink)

Although the idea of freedom has been well studied as an ideal in political philosophy, relatively little scholarship has focused on the human experience of freedom. Drawing on ethnographic research between 2012 and 2013, I examine how freedom was achieved by people who practice freeganism and freecycling in Hong Kong. I show that the freedom that these people pursue, either individually or collectively, is not a freedom without constraints but a freedom that must be attained through the exercise of deliberation, (...) restraint, and self-discipline. While freegans seek liberation by withdrawing from the world and practicing self-cultivation (chushi asceticism), freecyclers do so by engaging with worldly affairs in order to create social changes (rushi asceticism). In both cases, by reimagining freedom as ethical practices rather than a right that comes naturally with birth, freegans and freecyclers in Hong Kong are able to experience moments of freedom despite inevitable structural constraints. (shrink)

When medical assistance in dying (MAiD) was legalized in Canada in June 2016, the question of allowing decisionally capable persons to make advance requests in anticipation of later incapacity was reserved for further consideration during the mandatory parliamentary review originally scheduled to begin in June 2020 (but since delayed by COVID-19). In its current form the legislation does not permit such requests, since it stipulates that at the time at which the procedure is to be administered the patient must give (...) “express consent” to receiving it. Since express consent presupposes decisional capacity, this requirement rules out administering MAiD to a patient who has lost capacity. Amendments to the legislation passed by Parliament in March 2021 open the door slightly by allowing advance requests by patients after they have been approved for MAiD, if they fear losing capacity before the procedure can be administered. But this provision would apply only to patients whose natural death was deemed to be “reasonably foreseeable”, and would continue to exclude (a) requests made after diagnosis of a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” but in advance of approval for MAiD, and (b) requests made before such a diagnosis. My aim in this paper is twofold: to explore the ethical and legal issues concerning advance requests for MAiD, and to argue for expanding provision for such requests to include both of these further scenarios. (shrink)

Ich möchte den Neurowissenschaftlern, die glauben, mit empirischen Mitteln etwas über menschliche Freiheit herausfinden zu können, eine philosophische Herausforderung entgegensetzen. Meine These lautet: Die Frage nach der menschlichen Freiheit ist ein metaphysisches Problem, das sich empirischer Naturforschung entzieht. Um das zu begründen, werde ich ein extremes Gedankenexperiment durchführen. Ich werde zuerst hypothetisch die Situation eines Subjektes beschreiben, dessen Naturwissenschaft berechtigterweise einen durchgängigen kausalen Determinismus im Gehirn postuliert und dessen Libet-Experimente für all seine Handlungen fatal ausgehen (nicht nur für unbedeutende Handbewegungen). (...) Dann werde ich zeigen, dass die deterministische Neurowissenschaft in dieser gedachten Situation gar nichts für oder gegen die Entscheidungsfreiheit des Subjekts austrägt, weil sich die Entscheidungen des hypothetischen Subjekts nicht dort abspielen, wo seine Naturwissenschaft hinzielt. – Wenn es mir gelingt, so eine Situation zu konstruieren, stellt sich die Frage, ob wir nicht in einer ähnlichen Situation stecken könnten. Meiner Ansicht nach lässt sich diese Frage zwar aufwerfen, aber nicht beantworten. Sie gehört ins Reich der metaphysischen Spekulation, genau wie die Frage, ob unser geistiges Leben nach dem biologischen Tod im Jenseits weitergehen könnte. Ziel der Überlegungen ist es, verwirrende Redeweisen wie die von meta-physischer oder transzendentaler Freiheit durch konkrete Modelle verständlicher zu machen. Die Position, die hierbei herauskommen wird, hat einige Gemeinsamkeiten mit Kants Position zur Freiheit. (shrink)

Scepticism about ought simpliciter is the view that there is no such thing as what one ought simpliciter to do. Instead, practical deliberation is governed by a plurality of normative standpoints, each authoritative from their own perspective but none authoritative simpliciter. This paper aims to resist such scepticism. After setting out the challenge in general terms, I argue that scepticism can be resisted by rejecting a key assumption in the sceptic’s argument. This is the assumption that standpoint-relative ought judgments bring (...) with them a commitment to act in accordance with those judgments. Instead, I propose an alternative account of our normative concepts according to which only ought simpliciter judgments commit one to acting in accordance with those judgments. In addition to answering the sceptical challenge, the proposal offers an independently motivated account of what makes a concept normatively authoritative. (shrink)

This article examines an appendix to the Doctrine of Virtue which has received little attention. I argue that this passage suggests that Kant makes it a duty, internal to his system of duties, to ‘join the graces with virtue’ and so to ‘make virtue widely loved’ (MM, 6: 473). The duty to make virtue widely loved obligates us to bring the standards of respectability, and so the social graces, into a formal agreement with what morality demands of us, such that (...) the social graces give the illusion of virtue. The existence of such a duty can answer Schiller’s persistent objection that Kant’s ethics scares away the Graces with Duty. (shrink)

Hate speech, understood broadly, is any form of expression intended to arouse hatred or contempt toward members of a particular social group. When university administrators have reason to believe that a planned speaking event on campus may feature hate speech (at least in the eyes of some), how should they respond? In this paper I address this question as it arises for Canadian universities. I argue that, where the regulation of campus speech is concerned, the right course of action for (...) university administrators is nearly always to do absolutely nothing. They will have reason to become actively involved only in order to ensure that a speaking event proceeds safely, or when it threatens to disrupt the functioning of the university, or when it is itself threatened with disruption by protesting groups. In those instances the justification for intervention will be to protect and facilitate speech, not to shut it down. (shrink)

This paper aims to open a dialogue between philosophers working in decision theory and operations researchers and engineers working on decision-making under deep uncertainty. Specifically, we assess the recommendation to follow a norm of robust satisficing when making decisions under deep uncertainty in the context of decision analyses that rely on the tools of Robust Decision-Making developed by Robert Lempert and colleagues at RAND. We discuss two challenges for robust satisficing: whether the norm might derive its plausibility from an implicit (...) appeal to probabilistic representations of uncertainty of the kind that deep uncertainty is supposed to preclude; and whether there is adequate justification for adopting a satisficing norm, as opposed to an optimizing norm that is sensitive to considerations of robustness. We discuss decision-theoretic and voting-theoretic motivations for robust satisficing, and use these motivations to select among candidate formulations of the robust satisficing norm. (shrink)

Laut pragmatischem Pazifismus reicht unser rein objektives Wissen über das Vor- und Umfeld von Kriegen nicht sonderlich weit. Schon unsere besten informativen Darstel­lungen jeder beliebigen Vorkriegssituation sind wertbeladen. Im Lichte dieser Einsicht wird verständlich, warum sich Pazifisten und ihre Gegner nie über aufschlussreiche Kriegsdarstellungen einigen können. Pazifisten setzen schon bei der Beschreibung an­dere Werte ein als ihre Gegner. Obwohl das in beiden Fällen legitim ist, sind die Werte der Pazifisten attraktiver als die der Kriegsbefürworter. Pazifismus ist auch ohne Ge­sinnungsethik möglich.

Kurz bevor Goethe in den Jahren 1808/9 die Wahlverwandtschaften schrieb, hatte sich sein ehemaliger naturwissenschaftlicher Kooperationspartner Johann Ritter in Untersuchungen zu Wünschelruten und Pendeln (1807/8) verloren, aus denen angeblich eine weitere tiefgreifende Analogie zwischen den Polaritäten in der Natur und denen beim Menschen hervorgehen sollte. Ritter arbeitete damals schon seit Jahren erfolgreich mit Goethes Polaritätsbegriff, und war dadurch sogar auf seinen größten Erfolg geleitet worden (die Entdeckung des UV-Lichts). So ist es nicht überraschend, dass sich Goethe für die Pendelexperimente interessierte (...) – und ihnen im Roman ein literarisches Denkmal setzte (während er sich wissenschaftlich dazu sicherheitshalber nicht äußerte). Die von beiden geteilte Polaritätsidee lief auf mehr hinaus als den vagen Gegensatz zwischen irgendwelchen antagonistischen Wirkfaktoren; vielmehr hatte sie handfeste strukturelle Implikationen im Sinne einer mathematischen Symmetrie: Bei Vertauschung der entgegengesetzten Pole in irgendeiner gegebenen Konfiguration kehren sich die ursprünglich beobachtbaren Wirkungen genau in ihr Gegenteil um. Diese Idee ist ein Kerngedanke der Farbenlehre (1810) und liegt z. B. Goethes Farbenkreis zugrunde; überraschenderweise lässt sie sich an einigen entscheidenden Wendepunkten der Wahlverwandtschaften präzise dingfest machen, und dadurch gewinnt ein beliebtes Spiel unter Goethelesern einen neuen Dreh: Die Farben des Farbenkreises haben eindeutig identifizierbare Gegenstücke im Personentableau des Romans. (shrink)

In a recent issue of Philosophy East and West Douglas Berger defends a new reading of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā XXIV : 18, arguing that most contemporary translators mistranslate the important term prajñaptir upādāya, misreading it as a compound indicating "dependent designation" or something of the sort, instead of taking it simply to mean "this notion, once acquired." He attributes this alleged error, pervasive in modern scholarship, to Candrakīrti, who, Berger correctly notes, argues for the interpretation he rejects.Berger's analysis, and the reading of (...) the text he suggests is grounded on that analysis, is insightful and fascinating, and certainly generates an understanding of Nāgārjuna's enterprise that is welcome .. (shrink)

This paper asks whether a necessity can be the source of necessity. According to an influential argument due to Simon Blackburn, it cannot. This paper argues that although Blackburn fails to show that a necessity cannot be the source of necessity, extant accounts fail to establish that it is, with particular focus on Bob Hale’s essentialist theory and Christopher Peacocke’s ‘principle-based’ theory of modality. However, the paper makes some positive suggestions for what a satisfactory answer to the challenge must look (...) like. (shrink)

Moral reasoning traditionally distinguishes two types of evil: moral and natural. The standard view is that ME is the product of human agency and so includes phenomena such as war, torture and psychological cruelty; that NE is the product of nonhuman agency, and so includes natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, disease and famine; and finally, that more complex cases are appropriately analysed as a combination of ME and NE. Recently, as a result of developments in autonomous agents in cyberspace, (...) a new class of interesting and important examples of hybrid evil has come to light. In this paper, it is called artificial evil and a case is made for considering it to complement ME and NE to produce a more adequate taxonomy. By isolating the features that have led to the appearance of AE, cyberspace is characterised as a self-contained environment that forms the essential component in any foundation of the emerging field of Computer Ethics. It is argued that this goes some way towards providing a methodological explanation of why cyberspace is central to so many of CE’s concerns; and it is shown how notions of good and evil can be formulated in cyberspace. Of considerable interest is how the propensity for an agent’s action to be morally good or evil can be determined even in the absence of biologically sentient participants and thus allows artificial agents not only to perpetrate evil but conversely to ‘receive’ or ‘suffer from’ it. The thesis defended is that the notion of entropy structure, which encapsulates human value judgement concerning cyberspace in a formal mathematical definition, is sufficient to achieve this purpose and, moreover, that the concept of AE can be determined formally, by mathematical methods. A consequence of this approach is that the debate on whether CE should be considered unique, and hence developed as a Macroethics, may be viewed, constructively, in an alternative manner. The case is made that whilst CE issues are not uncontroversially unique, they are sufficiently novel to render inadequate the approach of standard Macroethics such as Utilitarianism and Deontologism and hence to prompt the search for a robust ethical theory that can deal with them successfully. The name Information Ethics is proposed for that theory. It is argued that the uniqueness of IE is justified by its being non-biologically biased and patient-oriented: IE is an Environmental Macroethics based on the concept of data entity rather than life. It follows that the novelty of CE issues such as AE can be appreciated properly because IE provides a new perspective. In light of the discussion provided in this paper, it is concluded that Computer Ethics is worthy of independent study because it requires its own application-specific knowledge and is capable of supporting a methodological foundation, Information Ethics. (shrink)

The self can be understood in objective metaphysical terms as a bundle of properties, as a substance, or as some other kind of entity on our metaphysical list of what there is. Such an approach explores the metaphysical nature of the self when regarded from a suitably impersonal, ontological perspective. It explores the nature and structure of the self in objective reality, that is, the nature and structure of the self from without. This is the objective self. I am taking (...) a different approach. In addition to objective reality, which is usually understood and explored from an impersonal, quasi-observational and metaphysically realist perspective, we can also explore the nature and structure of subjective reality. The nature and structure of subjective reality is defined by the nature and structure of first-personal, conscious experience. Subjective reality is as real as objective reality, and a metaphysical realist such as myself can endorse the existence of both kinds of ontology. The mental states that, as experienced from the first-personal or subjective perspective, capture the nature and structure of subjective reality, are included in objective reality. The questions to explore in a subjective ontology of the self concern the nature and structure of the self from the first-personal or subjective perspective, that is, the nature and structure of the self from within. This is the subjective self. (shrink)

Nur weil Goethes letzter Brief an den Aufklärer und versierten Experimentalphysiker Lichtenberg nicht mehr beantwortet worden ist, sind viele Interpreten zu dem Ergebnis gelangt, dass Lichtenberg den Briefwechsel aus Unwillen über Goethes unbelehrbare Newton-Kritik abgebrochen hätte; Goethe selbst hat diese Interpretation nahegelegt. Doch bei gründlicher Neulektüre ergibt sich ein optimistischeres Bild. Goethe stand damals am Anfang seiner Farbenforschung, äußerte sich zu Newton weit weniger polemisch als später, gegenüber Lichtenberg aber voller Respekt – und zeigte sich offen für Kritik. In einem (...) seiner fünf Briefe reagierte Lichtenberg mit der erwünschten Kritik, und zwar so, wie sie unter Fachwissenschaftlern idealerweise aussehen sollte: voller Schwung, hinreichend skeptisch und doch konstruktiv. Goethe hat Lichtenbergs Kritik beherzigt, aufgegriffen, weitergedacht. Umgekehrt ließ sich Lichtenberg vom Briefpartner wissenschaftlich anregen; in der Tat bot Goethe ihm mit großer Sorgfalt eine Reihe von Anregungen, die gut zu Lichtenbergs Arbeit passten. Ja, Goethe ist möglicherweise zu anregend für ihn gewesen. Jedenfalls hat Lichtenberg es trotz gut dokumentierter Anzeichen von Begeisterung für Goethes gewagtes Projekt nicht vermocht, den Gedankenaustausch auf dem hohen Niveau fortzusetzen, das er zunächst geboten hatte. Ob der Briefwechsel am Ende aus gesundheitlichen Gründen, aus Willensschwäche oder einfach nur wegen Überarbeitung versandet ist, lässt sich den Dokumenten nicht entnehmen. Selbst die Hypothese einer wissenschaftlichen Entfremdung bleibt im Reich des Denkbaren. Unwahrscheinlich erscheint sie u.a. deshalb, weil an mindestens zwei Stellen eine Geistesverwandtschaft zwischen den beiden Protagonisten bestanden hat, die Goethe wohl ahnte und die heute angesichts damals unzugänglicher Texte deutlich in den Blick genommen werden kann: Erstens waren beide gleichermaßen von naturwissenschaftlichen Anwendungen des Polaritätsgedankens fasziniert, der seinerzeit viele neue Entdeckungen geliefert hatte und weitere verhieß; zweitens haben sie wichtige Einsichten der Wissenschaftsphilosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts vorweggenommen, etwa die Skepsis gegenüber eindeutig aus der Empirie abzulesenden Theorien und die These von der Theoriebeladenheit der Beobachtung. Goethe hatte Pech, dass diese Gemeinsamkeiten nicht vor Lichtenbergs Tod (und bis heute nicht) ans Tageslicht gekommen sind. Seine Kooperation mit Lichtenberg hätte zum Erfolg führen können; und der fatale Eindruck seiner Unbelehrsamkeit hätte sich vermeiden lassen. (shrink)

Selbst wenn die traditionellen Beweise der immateriellen Seele (von Platon bis Descartes) zu wünschen übrig lassen, muss uns das nicht davon abhalten, sie mit den Mitteln der modernen analytischen Philosophie neu zu fassen und wasserdicht zu machen. Ich werde (ohne eigene Diskussion der bereits vorliegenden Beweise) eine neue Version vorschlagen, die von Swinburne angeregt wurde, sich an wesentlichen Stellen von seinem Ansatz unterscheidet und auf zwei verblüffend schwachen Prämissen beruht: Einerseits auf der konsistenten Vorstellbarkeit von Gedankenspielen, in die irgend eine (...) beliebige Wahrheit über meine augenblickliche Situation integriert ist und denen zufolge ich meinen Tod seelisch, aber ohne Körper überlebe; diese Prämisse ergibt sich der virtuosen Macht unseres Möglichkeitssinns. Andererseits beruht der Beweis auf einer Voraussetzung, die sich (ohne exegetische Garantie) als Echo aristotelischer Substanz-Konzeptionen verstehen, aber ohne großen ontologischen Überbau begründen lässt – dem zufolge folgt aus der materialistischen Analyse meiner augenblicklichen Situation, dass diese Analyse während meiner gesamten Existenz gilt (einmal Körper, immer Körper). Die Logik des Beweises ist bodenständig und setzt keine strittigen modallogischen Prinzipien voraus. Und die Konklusion des Beweises besagt, dass ich jetzt eine immaterielle Seele habe, aber nichts über deren Unsterblichkeit. (shrink)

Wenn ausgerechnet Pazifisten bei der Verfechtung ihrer Position aggressiv werden, so finden wir das besonders verstörend – jedenfalls verstörender als bei anderen Spannungen zwischen Theorie und Praxis. Woran liegt das? Meiner Ansicht nach kommen in diesem Fall drei Elemente zusammen, deren Mischung die pazifistische Position von innen bedroht: Während sich der hasserfüllte Pazifist schon beim Diskutieren schnell von negativen Emotionen fortreißen lässt, also alles andere als Willensstärke dokumentiert, verlangt er in seiner Theorie ein Höchstmaß an Willensstärke, und zwar gerade im (...) Umgang mit Emotionen. Dass er das nicht schafft, wirft nicht nur ein negatives Licht auf seine Person, sondern liefert Gründe gegen seine Theorie. Lektion: Der Pazifist ist gut beraten, vorbildlich mit seinen Emotionen umzugehen. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, Newton used bis famous prism to found the physics of spectral light, thus revolutionising our thinking about colours; more than a hundred years later, Goethe protested against Newton's theory and discovered a number of new prismatic colour phenomena. Did these episodes in the history of science have any influence on the visual arts? For a decade now my visits to art museums have had an agenda: I have been looking for nineteenth-century paintings with certain spectral colour (...) (which will be described in the first half of this paper). While my search has been unsuccessful in traditional Western art, I found what I was looking for in Japa­nese art: in woodblock prints by Hokusai and Hiroshige. This is surprising; little Western science had reached Japan in their time. The second half of the paper pre­sents this riddle, which I am nowhere near solving. Even without a solution, however, a riddle can be instructive. In this case, it may help to bring into focus the fascinating exchange between two distant cultures. Much has been written on the cultural relativ­ity of colour perception, colour systematisation and colour aesthetics; I want to intro­duce a new and so far unknown case that might contribute to this debate - though the debate itself remains beyond the scope of this paper. (shrink)

Anders als oft behauptet wird, hat Goethe in seinen optischen Experimenten sehr präzise nachgemessen. So stellt seine fünfte Tafel eine ganze experimentelle Serie geometrisch akkurat dar, und zwar in einem cartesischen Koordinaten-System, dessen Maßstab sich recht genau rekontruieren lässt. Indem Goethe seine Versuchsergebnisse idealisierte und von störenden Nebeneffekten bereinigte, folgte er einer gängigen Praxis damaliger und heutiger Naturwissenschaft. Er idealisierte anders als Newton, verstieß dadurch aber nicht gegen die Regeln der Experimentierkunst.

Analytische Sätze, die kraft Definition wahr sein sollen, schaden der Naturwissenschaft oder trivialisieren ihren Fortschritt: So lautet einer der Kritikpunkte, die Quine in seinem Feldzug gegen die Unterscheidung zwischen synthetischen und analytischen Sätzen vorgebracht hat. Sie schaden, so Quine, weil sie nicht revidiert werden dürfen und damit die Wahlfreiheit beim Theorienwandel über Gebühr einschränken. (Hätte sich z.B. Einstein vom analytischen Status der newtonischen Impulsdefinition beeindrucken lassen, so hätte er die Relativitätstheorie nicht formulieren können). Oder sie trivialisieren den Fortschritt, weil sich (...) durch Preisgabe analytischer Sätze bloß die Sprache ändert – und wie soll uns eine Änderung der Begriffe vorwärtsbringen? Um dieser Herausforderung zu begegnen, müssen wir Sprach- und Theorienwandel auseinanderdividieren. Im Falle einer wissenschaftlichen Revolution findet beides gleichzeitig statt. Trotzdem kann man die Beobachtungskonsequenzen der neuen Theorie (mithilfe des Ramsey-Satzes) mit denen der alten vergleichen; und mithilfe des Carnap-Satzes kann man den jeweiligen analytischen Anteil der beiden Theorien extrahieren. Es war Carnaps Fehler, diesen Schachzug zur Definition des Begriffs vom analytischen Satz heranzuziehen. Umgekehrt wird ein Schuh draus: Mithilfe einer holismustauglichen Definition von "analytisch" lässt sich zeigen, dass die Carnap-Sätze analytisch sind. Hier die Grundidee der fraglichen Definition: Ein Satz ist analytisch, wenn sich der empirische Gehalt keiner Gesamttheorie dadurch ändert, dass man ihr den Satz einpflanzt. (shrink)