Attribution theorists assume that character information informs judgments of blame. But there is disagreement over why. One camp holds that character information is a fundamental determinant of blame. Another camp holds that character information merely provides evidence about the mental states and processes that determine responsibility. We argue for a two-channel view, where character simultaneously has fundamental and evidential effects on blame. In two large factorial studies (n = 495), participants rate whether someone is blameworthy when he makes a mistake (...) (burns a cake or misses a bus stop). Although mental state inferences predict blame judgments, character information does not. Using mediation analyses, we find that character information influences responsibility via two channels (Studies 3–4; n = 447), which are sensitive to different kinds of information (Study 5; n = 149). On the one hand, forgetfulness increases judgments of responsibility, because mental lapses manifest an objectionable character flaw. On the other hand, forgetfulness decreases judgments of state control, which in turn decreases responsibility judgments. These two channels cancel out, which is why we find no aggregate effect of forgetfulness on responsibility. Our results challenge several fundamental assumptions about the role of character information in moral judgment, including that good character typically mitigates blame. (shrink)

In the heart of southeast Texas, an industrial powerhouse often referred to as the 'Golden Triangle', the oil refineries and petrochemical plants stand as stalwart testaments to the region's economic evolution. Interestingly, before the discovery of oil at Spindletop, the lumber and cattle industries powered this region's economy. A profound shift occurred when the Lucas Gusher, a fountain of oil spurting thousands of feet into the air, struck the lands of Spindletop Hill on January 10, 1901. This remarkable discovery of (...) the Spindletop oilfield on a slat dome formation south of Beaumont, Texas, marked the birth of the modern petroleum industry and fundamentally transformed the region's geopolitical, economic, and cultural landscapes. People from all over the country relocated to Gladys City and Beaumont in search of work and new opportunities, creating a boomtown as the town's population swelled from 10,000 to 50,000. The newfound urbanization brought by the oil industry transformed the town and the surrounding areas, creating a ripple effect across the region that would be felt for generations to come. The surge in oil-driven economic activity transmuted the region into a vibrant nexus of commerce, with the oil industry emerging as a critical architect of growth and advancement. This newfound affluence incited by the petroleum sector ushered in an era of economic diversification, laying the groundwork for industrialization’s further evolution. The Spindletop Oil Fields not only underscored the United States’ ascent as the foremost petroleum-producing nation but also signaled the nation’s initiation into the Petroleum Age. It was Spindletop that solidified its position as America’s first significant oil field, becoming an enduring symbol of its industrial might. By 1985, over 153,000,000 barrels of oil had been produced and extracted from the Spindletop oil fields, underscoring the magnitude of this extraordinary resource. (shrink)

Doxastic normativism is the thesis that norms are constitutive of or essential to belief, such that no mental state not subject to those norms counts as a belief. A common normativist view is that belief is essentially governed by a norm of truth. According to Krister Bykvist and Anandi Hattiangadi, truth norms for belief cannot be formulated without unpalatable consequences: they are either false or they impose unsatisfiable requirements on believers. I propose that we construe the fundamental norm of belief (...) as a knowledge norm, rather than a truth norm. I argue that a specific kind of knowledge norm—one that has a subject's obligation to believe that p depend on her being in a position to know that p—might avoid the well-known formulation problems with truth norms. (shrink)

Normativists about belief hold that belief formation is essentially rule- or norm-guided. On this view, certain norms are constitutive of or essential to belief in such a way that no mental state not guided by those norms counts as a belief, properly construed. In recent influential work, Kathrin Glüer and Åsa Wikforss develop novel arguments against normativism. According to their regress of motivations argument, not all belief formation can be rule- or norm-guided, on pain of a vicious infinite regress. I (...) argue that the regress of motivations argument is unsuccessful: an appeal to the notion of blind rule-following, drawn from a plausible interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following, stops the regress of motivations in its tracks. (shrink)

Inspired by the practice of dialogue in ancient philosophical schools, the Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWOL) Project at the University of Notre Dame has sought to put dialogue back at the center of philosophical pedagogy. Impromptu philosophical dialogue, however, can be challenging for students who are new to philosophy. Anticipating this challenge, the Project has created a series of manuals to help instructors conduct dialogue groups with novice philosophy students. Using these guidelines, we incorporated PWOL-style dialogue groups into (...) our Spring 2021 course “The Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender” with the hope that, through having conversations about these challenging topics, our students would both be able to practice having philosophical dialogues as well as form their views on race and gender in light of contributions from their diverse peers. This article examines several strategies for how instructors can seek to incorporate similar dialogues into their own introductory classroom. (shrink)

Arguments from Silence have been used many times in attempts to discredit the foundations of religions. In this project, I demonstrate how one might judge the epistemic value of such arguments. To begin, I lay out for examination a specific argument from silence given by Walter Richard Cassels in his work Supernatural Religion. I then discuss a recently developed Bayesian approach for dealing with arguments from silence. Finally, using Cassels’s work and the work of some of the critics who replied (...) to his argument, I argue for what probabilities might be applied in the use of the Bayesian method for testing the epistemic value Cassels’s argument and demonstrate how one might respond to similar arguments. (shrink)

The contours of sustainable systems are defined according to communities’ goals and values. As researchers shift from sustainability-in-the-abstract to sustainability-as-a-concrete-research-challenge, democratic deliberation is essential for ensuring that communities determine what systems ought to be sustained. Discourse analysis of dialogue with Michigan direct marketing farmers suggests eight sustainability values – economic efficiency, community connectedness, stewardship, justice, ecologism, self-reliance, preservationism and health – which informed the practices of these farmers. Whereas common heuristics of sustainability suggest values can be pursued harmoniously, we discuss (...) how this typology reflects the more intricate project of balancing values in tension with one another. (shrink)

Inspired by recent breakthroughs in predictive modeling, practitioners in both industry and government have turned to machine learning with hopes of operationalizing predictions to drive automated decisions. Unfortunately, many social desiderata concerning consequential decisions, such as justice or fairness, have no natural formulation within a purely predictive framework. In efforts to mitigate these problems, researchers have proposed a variety of metrics for quantifying deviations from various statistical parities that we might expect to observe in a fair world and offered a (...) variety of algorithms in attempts to satisfy subsets of these parities or to trade o the degree to which they are satised against utility. In this paper, we connect this approach to fair machine learning to the literature on ideal and non-ideal methodological approaches in political philosophy. The ideal approach requires positing the principles according to which a just world would operate. In the most straightforward application of ideal theory, one supports a proposed policy by arguing that it closes a discrepancy between the real and the perfectly just world. However, by failing to account for the mechanisms by which our non-ideal world arose, the responsibilities of various decision-makers, and the impacts of proposed policies, naive applications of ideal thinking can lead to misguided interventions. In this paper, we demonstrate a connection between the fair machine learning literature and the ideal approach in political philosophy, and argue that the increasingly apparent shortcomings of proposed fair machine learning algorithms reflect broader troubles faced by the ideal approach. We conclude with a critical discussion of the harms of misguided solutions, a reinterpretation of impossibility results, and directions for future research. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been fascinated by the stream of consciousness––thoughts, images, and bits of inner speech that dance across the inner stage. Yet for centuries, such “mind-wandering” was deemed private and thus resistant to empirical investigation. Recent developments in psychology and neuroscience have reinvigorated scientific interest in the stream of thought, leading some researchers to dub this “the era of the wandering mind”. Despite this flurry of progress, scientists have stressed that mind-wandering research requires firmer philosophical foundations. The time is (...) therefore ripe for the philosophy of mind-wandering. Our review begins with a foundational question: what is mind-wandering? We then investigate the significance of mind-wandering for general philosophical topics, namely mental action, introspection, and the norms of thinking and attention. (shrink)

Since humankind’s earliest philosophical inquiries, society has been plagued by the taboos associated with suicide. It has been rebuked without respite, both on moral and religious grounds. This paper comes to the defense of suicide by combating the opprobrious arguments that have been raised against it. It begins by exploring what exactly constitutes ‘suicide’, then follows a historical account of the ethics surrounding it from antiquity to modern times. Specific focus is given to Kant’s deontological secularization of the previously, strictly (...) theological, natural law argument. It claims that Kant is in large part to blame for the stigma around suicide, and by proxy mental health in general in the twenty-first century. Finally, this paper will address said stigma vis-à-vis psychoanalytic ethics and offer a complete restructuring of the concept of suicide in an attempt to change how the western world perceives it. (shrink)

Markosian presents an argument against certain theories of time based on the aesthetic value of music. He argues that turning a piece of music sideways in time destroys its intrinsic value, which would not be possible if the Spacetime Thesis were true. In this paper I show that sideways music poses no problems for any theory of time by demonstrating that turning a piece of music sideways does not affect its intrinsic value. I do this by appealing to spatial analogies (...) that highlight the similarities between spatial and temporal rotations. (shrink)

Individualist normative theories appear inadequate for the complex moral challenges of climate change. In climate ethics, this is especially notable with the relative marginalization of Kant. I argue that Kant’s philosophy, understood through its historical and cosmopolitan dimensions, has untapped potential for the climate crisis. First, I situate Kant in climate ethics and evaluate his marginalization due to perceived individualism, interiority and anthropocentrism. Then, I explore aspects of Kant’s historical and cosmopolitan writings, which present a global, future-orientated picture of humanity. (...) Ultimately, Kant’s philosophy offers a unique take on the climate deadlock capable of sustaining the individual in the collective. (shrink)

The principle of Anteriority says that prospects that are identical from the perspective of every possible person’s welfare are equally good overall. The principle enjoys prima facie plausibility, and has been employed for various theoretical purposes. Here it is shown using an analogue of the St Petersburg Paradox that Anteriority is inconsistent with central principles of axiology.

We investigate the causal uncertainty surrounding the flash crash in the U.S. Treasury bond market on October 15, 2014, and the unresolved concern that no clear link has been identified between the start of the flash crash at 9:33 and the opening of the U.S. equity market at 9:30. We consider the contributory effect of mini flash crashes in equity markets, and find that the number of equity mini flash crashes in the three-minute window between market open and the Treasury (...) Flash Crash was 2.6 times larger than the number experienced in any other three-minute window in the prior ten weekdays. We argue that (a) this statistically significant finding suggests that mini flash crashes in equity markets both predicted and contributed to the October 2014 U.S. Treasury Bond Flash Crash, and (b) mini-flash crashes are important phenomena with negative externalities that deserve much greater scholarly attention. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Kant’s pre-critical ontology, though generally dismissed by environmental philosophers, provides ecological lessons by way of its metaphysical affinities with environmental philosophy. First, I reference where environmental philosophy tends to place Kant and highlight his relative marginalization. This marginalization makes sense given focus on his critical works. I then outline Kant’s pre-critical ontological framework and characterize the ways in which it is ecological. Finally, I conclude with some ecological reflections on the pre-critical philosophy and its (...) possible relevance for contemporary environmental issues. (shrink)

This paper presents a new system of logic, LF, that is intended to be used as the foundation of the formalization of science. That is, deductive validity according to LF is to be used as the criterion for assessing what follows from the verdicts, hypotheses, or conjectures of any science. In work currently in progress, we argue for the unique suitability of LF for the formalization of logic, mathematics, syntax, and semantics. The present document specifies the language and rules of (...) LF, lays out some notational conventions, and states some basic technical facts about the system. (shrink)

Orthodoxy holds that there is a determinate fact of the matter about every arithmetical claim. Little argument has been supplied in favour of orthodoxy, and work of Field, Warren and Waxman, and others suggests that the presumption in its favour is unjustified. This paper supports orthodoxy by establishing the determinacy of arithmetic in a well-motivated modal plural logic. Recasting this result in higher-order logic reveals that even the nominalist who thinks that there are only finitely many things should think that (...) there is some sense in which arithmetic is true and determinate. (shrink)

Our paper serves as an introduction to a budding field: the philosophy of mind-wandering. We begin with a philosophical critique of the standard psychological definitions of mind-wandering as task-unrelated or stimulus-independent. Although these definitions have helped bring mind-wandering research onto centre stage in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, they have substantial limitations that researchers must overcome to move forward. Specifically, the standard definitions do not account for (i) the dynamics of mind wandering, (ii) task-unrelated thought that does not qualify as mind-wandering, (...) and (iii) the ways that mind-wandering can be task-related. We then survey three philosophical accounts that improve upon the current psychological definitions. We first present our account of mind-wandering as “unguided thinking”. Next we review Thomas Metzinger’s view that mind-wandering can be defined as thought lacking meta-awareness and cognitive agency, as well as Peter Carruthers’s and Fabian Dorsch’s definitions of mind-wandering as disunified thinking. We argue that these latter views are inadequate, and we show that our definition of mind-wandering as unguided thinking is not only conceptually and phenomenologically precise but also can be operationalized in a principled way for empirical research. (shrink)

Urban infrastructures serve as the backbone of modern economies, mediating global exchanges and responding to urban demands. Yet, our comprehension of these complex structures, particularly within diverse socio-political terrain, remains fragmented. In bridging this knowledge gap, this study delves into “boundary objects”—entities enabling diverse stakeholders to collaborate without a comprehensive consensus. Central to our investigation is the hypothesis that oceanic infrastructural developments are instrumental in molding the interface of urban, industrial, and energy sectors within marine contexts. Our lens is directed (...) at the Gulf of Mexico, which is distinguished by its industrial depth and expansive marine grid. We highlight the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway’s (GIWW) paramount role in regional movement and the ecological facets of practices such as dredging, which is vital for transport and coastal conservation. A striking revelation of our study is the transformation of offshore structures in the Gulf into vibrant marine habitats. Emphasizing the intertwined nature of marine infrastructures, we denote oceans as pivotal platforms for impending urban expansion, especially as land resources wane. Our research aspires to validate the role played by oceans as a nexus in the urban–industrial–energy fusion. (shrink)

The notion of an extended simple region (henceforth ESR) has recently been marshalled in the service of arguments for a variety of conclusions. Exactly how to understand the idea of extendedness as it applies to simple regions, however, has been largely ignored, or, perhaps better, assumed. In this paper we first (§1) outline what we take to be the standard way that philosophers are thinking about extendedness, namely as an intrinsic property of regions. We then introduce an alternative picture (§2), (...) according to which extendedness is extrinsic. In §3 we argue that it matters which way of thinking about extendedness is the right one, since how ESRs behave is sensitive to what extendedness consists in, and various arguments that appeal to ESRs turn out to be unsound if extendedness is extrinsic rather than intrinsic. (shrink)

One of the most pivotal yet under-examined moments in Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise is his attempt to define the notion of 'faith'. In this paper, I unpack Spinoza's understanding of his definition and its significance within the broader argument of the Treatise by carefully analyzing the relationship between the definition's terminology and logical structure. I specifically examine the connection Spinoza draws between faith and obedience, arguing that according to Spinoza's definition, conceiving of obedience implies conceiving of faith, and not the other (...) way around (as many commentators have claimed). I explore the implications of this entailment for interpreting the nature and function of Spinoza's 'dogmas of universal faith'. Spinoza claims that the definition faith ultimately grounds his main argument in the Treatise, which makes the case for a radical separation between 'faith' and 'philosophy'. One of my goals in the paper is to bring out in higher resolution how the definition underwrites this argument, and what it ultimately means. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Morgenbesser's Coin is a thought experiment that exemplifies a widespread disposition to infer counterfactual independence from causal independence. I argue that this disposition is mistaken by analysing a closely related thought experiment.

Art is a creative phenomenon which changes constantly, not just insofar as it is being created continually, but also in the very meaning of ‘art.’ Finding a suitable definition of art is no easy task and it has been the subject of much inquiry throughout artistic expression. This paper suggests a crucial distinction between ‘art forms’ and ‘forms of art’ is necessary in order to better understand art. The latter of these corresponds to that which we would typically call art (...) such as painting, singing, etc. The former corresponds to the form out of which these take shape, movement, speech, etc. With this distinction set out, it becomes clearer that art and the aesthetic is rooted in the properties of the ‘thing’ such as the color, shape, and the texture, rather than the product of creation itself. Thus, the future of art will bring a new aesthetic in which these properties become recognized as art and as such there will be an aesthetic of everyday life. (shrink)

Background: This study tested the core tenets of how facial scars are perceived by characterizing layperson response to faces with scars. The authors predicted that scars closer to highly viewed structures of the face (i.e., upper lip and lower lid), scars aligned against resting facial tension lines, and scars in the middle of anatomical subunits of the face would be rated less favorably. Methods: -/- Volunteers aged 18 years and older from the United States were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (...) to complete a face rating survey. Scars were digitally added in different locations and orientations for a total of 14 unique scars added to each face. Each participant rated 50 different faces on confidence, friendliness, and attractiveness. Data were analyzed using linear mixed effects models. Results: -/- A total of 88,850 ratings [82,990 scarred (93.4 percent)] for attractiveness, friendliness, and confidence were analyzed. In univariate linear mixed effects models, the presence of a facial scar did not significantly impact attractiveness (β = 0.016, SE = 0.014, z = 1.089, p = 0.276). A second set of linear mixed effects models identified interactions between location, subunit placement, and orientation to facial tension lines. Scars located on the lower lid mid subunit perpendicular to facial tension lines were rated less attractive (β = −0.065, SE = 0.028, z = −2.293, p = 0.022). Conclusions: -/- On average, a single well-healed facial scar does not negatively affect first impressions of attractiveness, confidence, or friendliness. Specific scar location and orientation combinations, however, such as a perpendicular scar at the mid-lower eyelid, may result in lower perceived attractiveness, confidence, and friendliness. (shrink)

Perhaps the central question in action theory is this: what ingredient of bodily action is missing in mere behaviour? But what is an analogous question for mental action? I ask the following: what ingredient of active, goal-directed, thought is missing in mind-wandering? I answer that guidance is the missing ingredient that separates mind-wandering and directed thinking. I define mind-wandering as unguided attention. Roughly speaking, attention is guided when you would feel pulled back, were you distracted. In contrast, a wandering attention (...) drifts from topic to topic unchecked. From my discussion of mind-wandering, I extract general lessons about the causal basis, experiential character, and limits of mental action. Mind-wandering is a case study that allows us to tease apart two causal bases of mental action––guidance and motivation––that often track together and are thus easy to conflate. The contrast between mind-wandering and active thinking also sheds light on how goals are experienced during mental action. Goals are rarely the objects of awareness; rather, goals are “phenomenological frames” that carve experience into felt distractions (which we are guided away from) and relevant information (which we are guided towards). Finally, I account for a limit-case of mental action that psychologists call “intentional mind-wandering”. (shrink)

There is no shortage of pedagogical theories from the tradition formal methods of instruction to the free-play methods of unschooling. A sharp shift in education and instruction models took place with the introduction of critical pedagogy. The focus was no longer on the authority of the teacher and the submissive, passive approach taken by the learner, but rather on the engagement between the two. Still, even when critical pedagogy is utilized in a formal model of education something is missing from (...) the system—experiential learning. Although the unschooling method has been criticized it does provide the benefit of experiential learning. This paper explores the nature of education and evaluates models and theories of pedagogy with the conclusion that a paradoxical approach in which there is a merger between the formal guidelines set by traditional educational models and the experiential learning methods of unschooling approach best prepares learners for the world and to be engaged citizens. Although what, precisely, this paradoxical system would entail is not discussed in this paper, it opens the door for further discussion on the topic and for consideration of the theories which have attempted to do exactly this and improve upon them going forward. (shrink)

There is a constant tension that exists within each individual. This is the struggle between the hidden ideologies and fixed ideas which enslave the individual and the need to rid themselves of them. It is through these that implicit religion forms. We require, in order to counteract this, a new theology, a secular theology – one which emphasizes the individual. In order to bring about a new theology, it is necessary to reconsider the philosophies of Adam Weishaupt, Louis Althusser, and (...) Max Stirner and bring them into the modern discussion of implicit religion. This paper aims to bring together these understudied philosophers as well as contemporary leaders in political theology in order to reimagine the potential of the individual to rid themselves from fixed ideas and to realize their potential. (shrink)

I discuss an objection by Margaret Wilson against Robert Brandom’s interpretation of Leibniz’s account of perceptual distinctness. According to Brandom, Leibniz holds that (i) the relative distinctness of a perception is a function of its inferentially articulated content and (ii) apperception, or awareness, is explicable in terms of degrees of perceptual distinctness. Wilson alleges that Brandom confuses ‘external deducibility’ from a perceptual state of a monad to the existence of properties in the world, with ‘internally accessible content’ for the monad (...) in that state. Drawing on Leibniz, I develop a response to Wilson on Brandom’s behalf. (shrink)

Relations occupy a shadowy place in Spinoza's metaphysics while they play a distinguished role in our mental lives and possess a complex epistemological status at the interface between being and its representation in the mind. This chapter attempts to disentangle Spinoza's concept of relations from his concept of universals. It suggests that there are grounds for regarding universals as a separate type of “metaphysical being." The chapter focuses on two of Spinoza's early works, the Short Treatise (KV) and the Metaphysical (...) Thoughts (CM). Spinoza subsumes relations under the category of ‘beings of reason’ in multiple early texts. Spinoza's denial that relations have the status of ideas of the natures of existing objects can be viewed in light of the putative purchase of language on metaphysical reality. The chapter ends with some brief concluding remarks, gesturing toward Spinoza's mature conception of relations in the Ethics. (shrink)

Although mind-wandering research is rapidly progressing, stark disagreements are emerging about what the term “mind-wandering” means. Four prominent views define mind-wandering as 1) task-unrelated thought, 2) stimulus-independent thought, 3) unintentional thought, or 4) dynamically unguided thought. Although theorists claim to capture the ordinary understanding of mind-wandering, no systematic studies have assessed these claims. Two large factorial studies present participants (n=545) with vignettes that describe someone’s thoughts and ask whether her mind was wandering, while systematically manipulating features relevant to the four (...) major accounts of mind-wandering. Dynamics explains between four and twenty times more variance in participants’ mind-wandering judgments than other features. Our third study (n=153) tests and supports a unique prediction of the dynamic framework—obsessive rumination contrasts with mind-wandering. Our final study (n=277) used vignettes that resemble mind-wandering experiments. Dynamics had significant and large effects, while task-unrelatedness was insignificant. These results strongly align with the dynamic conception of mind-wandering. (shrink)

Literature, in particular philosophical literature, proves to be particularly challenging when read in isolation from the philosophy it comes from. Reading Sarte’s Nausea through Kierkegaard illuminates important themes of language, music, the ethical and aesthetic, and immediacy in both Nausea and Kierkegaard’s various pseudonymous works. The comparison here is extremely fruitful given the poetic and literary form of Kierkegaard’s work, especially against this particular work from Sartre. The themes in Nausea that are examined are interestingly not present in his other (...) works and are necessary in some regard to be brought forth in a novel rather than a philosophical treatise. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is rarely appreciated for his contributions to public philosophy. This is unsurprising, given his dry, technical style, criticism of the popular German philosophy movement, and prolonged silence on religious topics following censorship threats from Frederick William II. Yet Kant’s underappreciation vis-à-vis public philosophy is curious: Not only was he a vocal supporter of the early French Revolution, but he also said much on the public and political value of enlightenment. These ideas come across indirectly in his systematic writings (...) and explicitly in writings for the learned public. This paper focuses on the question as to whether Kant should be viewed as a public philosopher, drawing from recent contributions in Kant scholarship to argue for the affirmative, though in an admittedly qualified sense. (shrink)

The science of mind wandering has rapidly expanded over the past 20 years. During this boom, mind wandering researchers have relied on self-report methods, where participants rate whether their minds were wandering. This is not an historical quirk. Rather, we argue that self-report is indispensable for researchers who study passive phenomena like mind wandering. We consider purportedly “objective” methods that measure mind wandering with eye tracking and machine learning. These measures are validated in terms of how well they predict self-reports, (...) which means that purportedly objective measures of mind wandering retain a subjective core. Mind wandering science cannot break from the cycle of self-report. Skeptics about self-report might conclude that mind wandering science has methodological foundations of sand. We take a rather more optimistic view. We present empirical and philosophical reasons to be confident in self-reports about mind wandering. Empirically, these self-reports are remarkably consistent in their contents and behavioral and neural correlates. Philosophically, self-reports are consistent with our best theories about the function of mind wandering. We argue that this triangulation gives us reason to trust both theory and method. (shrink)

Kant has traditionally been viewed as an unhelpful resource for environmental concerns, despite his immensely influential moral and political philosophy. This paper shows that Kant’s Critique of Judgment can be a valuable resource for environmental ethics, with methodological implications for political action and environmental policy. I argue that Kant’s Analytic of the Beautiful and Critique of Teleological Judgment provide philosophical tools for valuing nature aside from interest and for developing forms of environmental protectionism. My approach differs from other Kantian accounts (...) that discuss our moral relations to nonrational nature, since these usually rely on Kant’s limited statements about flora and fauna in his Lectures on Ethics, Metaphysics of Morals, and the Analytic of the Beautiful. Though we can defend indirect duties toward animals and beautiful plants, as these accounts convincingly show, they rarely engage with the possibility of us having moral views of ecosystems. Moral views of nature can be useful as methodological heuristics for mobilizing and instituting environmental policies regarding climate change such as biodiversity loss, and this paper will provide a defense of a Kantian moral view of nature from which subsequent climate-related actions can be motivated. (shrink)

The research behind this paper was motivated by Lyman Tower Sargent’s keynote address on Australian utopian literature, presented at the Demanding the Impossible: Utopia, Dystopia and Science Fiction conference, held at Monash University in 2007. 1 In the printed version of his paper, Sargent notes that the theme of religion “runs throughout Australian utopianism, but with extremely varied content.” 2 This is certainly true of the late Victorian era, when public discussion of issues relating to evolutionary theory and the role (...) of religion in society grew particularly intense. This paper will investigate some of the different treatments of science and religion in Australian utopian literature from 1870 to 1900. I will contend that an examination of this literature supports recent historiography, which contests the problematic science-versus-religion dichotomy that has often been used to characterise the Victorian “crisis of faith.” I will first consider the historical context of the late Victorian era and scholarly trends concerning the relationship between science and religion, before moving on to examine how some Australian utopian authors of the late nineteenth century approached the issues of science, Darwinism, eugenics, secularism, church reform, spiritualism, and agnosticism. Through a brief examination of selected contemporary utopian texts that focus on issues relating to science and religion, I intend to demonstrate the wide range of attitudes and beliefs influencing utopianism in late-nineteenth-century Australia. (shrink)

Despite analgesic and emetogenic benefits, cannabis has been banned from prescription in a number of western countries. Although some benefits are shared by drugs already available, the options of prescription are limited to the physician. The negative side-effects of cannabis do not justify this limitation on freedom and autonomy. Recreational use warrants limitations, as the search for euphoria is regularly believed to be a non-autonomous behavior. Medical prescriptions serve an analgesic and emetogenic purpose comparable to other prescribed drugs. This vindicates (...) the right for a physician to prescribe cannabis to qualified patients. For a patient to be considered qualified, they must be an adult that does not drive often, is not pregnant, and not at risk of schizophrenia or cardiovascular disease. If possible, cannabis should be eaten in an effort to avoid smoke irritation in the lungs and aerodigestive tract. In the end, the question is not whether cannabis use is efficable, but rather is the limitation of medical treatments to patients in need ethical? In light of the medical benefits, the banning of cannabis is simply immoral. Keywords: cannabis, banned substance, prescription, analgesic, emetogenic Note. Authors did not receive any external funding, nor display conflict of interest. (shrink)

There has been a revived interest in the relevance of Kant's philosophy for contemporary global issues. This paper investigates the extent to which Kant's philosophy can provide grounds for addressing the global issue of climate change, despite his seemingly conservative defense of reform over revolution. First, I argue that Kant's account of societal progress as metamorphosis is compatible with the conception of a green revolution understood as restructuring society toward sustainability. Second, I claim that Kant's evolutionary model of political change (...) offers a helpful framework for thinking about how to transition present societies to more sustainable ones. I conclude with reflections on how Kant's views have applied relevance for climate-related problems. (shrink)

Sustainability is commonly recognized as an important goal, but there is little agreement on what sustainability is, or what it requires. This paper looks at some common approaches to sustainability, and while acknowledging the ways in which they are useful, points out an important lacuna: that for something to be sustainable, people must be willing to work to sustain it. The paper presents a framework for thinking about and assessing sustainability which highlights people working to sustain. It also briefly discusses (...) Integrated Water Resource Management and the example of the California Water Plan to explore what such a perspective brings that is overlooked in other approaches, and how this approach might be pursued. Ultimately, this framework argues that a system can only be described as sustainable if people’s work to sustain the system is biophysically possible, socially possible, and if people would freely choose to do the sustaining work. -/- Read More: http://ascelibrary.org.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29WR.1943-5452.0000526. (shrink)

Political polarization is on the rise, undermining the shared space of public reason necessary for a thriving democracy and making voters more willing than ever to dismiss the perspectives of their political opponents. This destructive tendency is especially problematic when it comes to issues of race and gender, as informed views on these topics necessarily require engaging with those whose experiences may differ from our own. In order to help our students combat further polarization, we created a course on "The (...) Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender" that incorporated intergroup dialogues - small, diverse, semester-long discussion groups-that focused on building the civic virtues of toleration, egalitarianism, and solidarity. In this article, we describe our approach, including the evidence that intergroup dialogue can act as a catalyst for democratic dialogue. We hope that the practice of intergroup dialogue can help other instructors cultivate the civic virtues in their philosophy classrooms as well. (shrink)

An often-overlooked characteristic of the human mind is its propensity to wander. Despite growing interest in the science of mind-wandering, most studies operationalize mind-wandering by its task-unrelated contents. But these contents may be orthogonal to the processes that determine how thoughts unfold over time, remaining stable or wandering from one topic to another. In this chapter, we emphasize the importance of incorporating such processes into current definitions of mind-wandering, and propose that mind-wandering and other forms of spontaneous thought (such as (...) dreaming and creativity) are mental states that arise and transition relatively freely due to an absence of constraints on cognition. We review existing psychological, philosophical and neuroscientific research on spontaneous thought through the lens of this framework, and call for additional research into the dynamic properties of the mind and brain. (shrink)

Judgments of blame for others are typically sensitive to what an agent knows and desires. However, when people act negligently, they do not know what they are doing and do not desire the outcomes of their negligence. How, then, do people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing? We propose that people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing based on perceived mental control, or the degree to which an agent guides their thoughts and attention over time. To acquire information about others’ mental control, (...) people self-project their own perceived mental control to anchor third-personal judgments about mental control and concomitant responsibility for negligent wrongdoing. In four experiments (N = 841), we tested whether perceptions of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Study 1 showed that the ease with which people can counterfactually imagine an individual being non-negligent mediated the relationship between judgments of control and blame. Studies 2a and 2b indicated that perceived mental control has a strong effect on judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and that first-personal judgments of mental control are moderately correlated with third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Finally, we used an autobiographical memory manipulation in Study 3 to make personal episodes of forgetfulness salient. Participants for whom past personal episodes of forgetfulness were made salient judged negligent wrongdoers less harshly compared to a control group for whom past episodes of negligence were not salient. Collectively, these findings suggest that first-personal judgments of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and indicate a novel role for counterfactual thinking in the attribution of responsibility. (shrink)

Commonsense holds that testimony transfers knowledge from a speaker to the hearer. If the speaker has knowledge, then the hearer acquires it. Call that sufficiency. And a hearer acquires knowledge only if the speaker has it to transfer. Call that necessity. This article reviews counterexamples--and some replies to those counterexamples--to both claims.

Spontaneous actions are preceded by brain signals that may sometimes be detected hundreds of milliseconds in advance of a subject's conscious intention to act. These signals have been claimed to reflect prior unconscious decisions, raising doubts about the causal role of conscious will. Murakami et al. (2014. Nat Neurosci 17: 1574–1582) have recently argued for a different interpretation. During a task in which rats spontaneously decided when to abort waiting, the authors recorded neurons in the secondary motor cortex. The neural (...) activity and relationship to action timing was parsimoniously explained using an integration-to-bound model, similar to those widely used to account for evidence-based decisions. In this model, the brain accumulates spontaneously occurring inputs voting for or against an action, but only commits to act once a certain threshold is crossed. The model explains how spontaneous decisions can be forecast (partially predicted) by neurons that reflect either the input or output of the integrator. It therefore presents an explicit hypothesis capable of rejecting the claim that such predictive signals imply unconscious decisions. We suggest that these results can inform the current debate on free will but must be considered with caution. (shrink)

Typically, fair machine learning research focuses on a single decision maker and assumes that the underlying population is stationary. However, many of the critical domains motivating this work are characterized by competitive marketplaces with many decision makers. Realistically, we might expect only a subset of them to adopt any non-compulsory fairness-conscious policy, a situation that political philosophers call partial compliance. This possibility raises important questions: how does partial compliance and the consequent strategic behavior of decision subjects affect the allocation outcomes? (...) If k% of employers were to voluntarily adopt a fairness-promoting intervention, should we expect k% progress (in aggregate) towards the benefits of universal adoption, or will the dynamics of partial compliance wash out the hoped-for benefits? How might adopting a global (versus local) perspective impact the conclusions of an auditor? In this paper, we propose a simple model of an employment market, leveraging simulation as a tool to explore the impact of both interaction effects and incentive effects on outcomes and auditing metrics. Our key findings are that at equilibrium: (1) partial compliance by k% of employers can result in far less than proportional (k%) progress towards the full compliance outcomes; (2) the gap is more severe when fair employers match global (vs local) statistics; (3) choices of local vs global statistics can paint dramatically different pictures of the performance vis-a-vis fairness desiderata of compliant versus non-compliant employers; (4) partial compliance based on local parity measures can induce extreme segregation. Finally, we discuss implications for auditors and insights concerning the design of regulatory frameworks. (shrink)

Background: Facial attractiveness influences our perceptions of others, with beautiful faces reaping societal rewards and anomalous faces encountering penalties. The purpose of this study was to determine associations of visual attention with bias and social dispositions toward people with facial anomalies. -/- Methods: Sixty subjects completed tests evaluating implicit bias, explicit bias, and social dispositions before viewing publicly available images of preoperative and postoperative patients with hemifacial microsomia. Eye-tracking was used to register visual fixations. -/- Results: Participants with higher implicit (...) bias scores fixated significantly less on the cheek and ear region preoperatively (P = 0.004). Participants with higher scores in empathic concern and perspective taking fixated more on the forehead and orbit preoperatively (P = 0.045) and nose and lips (P = 0.027) preoperativel. -/- Conclusions: Participants with higher levels of implicit bias spent less visual attention on anomalous facial anatomy, whereas participants with higher levels of empathic concern and perspective taking spent more visual attention on normal facial anatomy. Levels of bias and social dispositions such as empathy may predict layperson gaze patterns toward those with facial anomalies and provide insights to neural mechanisms underlying the "anomalous is bad" paradigm. (shrink)

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on mind and attention in Indian philosophy at Harvard University, on September 21st and 22nd, 2013, written by Kevin Connolly, Jennifer Corns, Nilanjan Das, Zachary Irving, and Lu Teng, and available at http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This portion of the report explores the question: What can Indian philosophy tell us about how we perceive the world?