Political advertising is changing. This chapter considers some of the implications of this for the democratic process. I begin with recent reports of online political advertising. From this, two related concerns emerge. The first is that online political advertisements sometimes occur in the dark, and the second is that they can involve sending different messages to different groups. I consider these issues in turn. This involves an extended discussion of the importance of publicity and discussion in democracy, and (...) a comparison between dog whistles and dark advertisements. Through this, I look to outline some of the ways in which online political advertisements can undermine the democratic process. (shrink)

Libertarian philosophy asserts that only the initiation of physical force against persons or property, or the threat thereof, is inherently illegitimate. A corollary to this assertion is that all forms of speech, including fraudulent advertising, are not invasive and therefore should be considered legitimate. On the other hand, fraudulent advertising can be viewed as implicit theft under the theory of contract: if a seller accepts money knowing that his product does not have some of its advertised characteristics, he (...) acquires the property title to the customer’s money without voluntary consent, which is theft. The balance between these two logical extensions of property rights—the right of free speech and the right of contract—lies somewhere in the area of communication philosophy, and can be explained through understanding the role of communication in human interactions. Advertising is a form of communication that may convey important information about the conditions of the proposed contract. These conditions are expressed in particular words that may have different meanings in different circumstances. Therefore to determine whether a particular example or “misinterpretation” is mere sophistry or a type of fraud, the judicial system has to approach each issue on a case-by-case basis. The border between legal and illegal should be determined by precedents and by expectations based on commonly accepted definitions of terms—what people commonly understand by the words and other forms of communication they use. (shrink)

This paper examines why business people in Ghana prefer using images of white people on their billboard outdoor advertisements. To attain the study’s objective, a cross-sectional survey was used. Data was collected from only a section of retail and wholesale businesses within the Ejisu and Juaben districts in the Ashanti Region of Ghana which use images of white people on their billboard outdoor advertisement. The survey findings show that retail and wholesale businesses use images of white people on their outdoor (...) billboard advertisements because they are more attractive than images of black people. Also, the use of images of white people indicates a seal of professionalism, desirability, and quality services. The survey’s discovery reveals the racial perceptions of the white race in comparison with the black race by most African business people. The usage of the images of white people as the symbolic representation of ideal beauty, attractions, quality products and services, and model of authentic marketization has unfolded some of the factors that stymie the utilization of the images of the black people on an outdoor billboard advertisement. This paper contends that there is a necessity for a balanced moral reasoning and constructive racial perception of images of black people and self-identification. (shrink)

Sut Jhally begins his essay “Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse” with the following provocative claim: “Advertising is the most powerful and sustained system of propaganda in human history and its cumulative effects, unless quickly checked, will be responsible for destroying the world as we know it.” Jhally argues that the advertising industry, in fostering an association between human aspiration and desire for consumable goods, creates an artificial demand for such goods that is, at once, far (...) in excess of what is needed for human flourishing and catastrophic to the global environment. Jhally sees capitalism as the ultimate culprit. In a system in which wealth is defined as a “vast collection of commodities” (Marx, Capital), those who produce such commodities have no other choice but to promote excess consumption. Hence the advertising industry emerges as the propaganda arm of capitalism. My paper argues that, though Jhally’s analysis of the problem is both compelling and alarming, his diagnosis fails to reach its heart. Indeed, it is not Marx but Plato who provides us with the terms needed both to understand and respond to the problem Jhally cites. My paper provides a Platonic analysis of these issues and concludes with some suggestions as to how to address them. (shrink)

The Internet has revolutionized the way knowledge is currently produced, stored and disseminated. A few finger clicks on a keyboard can save time and many hours of search in libraries or shopping in stores. Online trademarks with an prefix such as e-library, e-business, e-health etc., are increasingly part of our daily professional vocabularies. However, the Internet has also produced multiple negative side effects, ranging from an unhealthy dependency to a dehumanization of human relationships. Fraudulent, unethical and scam practices are also (...) flourishing through for example misleading online advertising methods. Some social and professional networks gather users’ profiles for selling and advertising purposes, sometimes by making it technically difficult to unsubscribe. Here, I discuss some of these unethical aspects and propose some potential solutions to reduce them. (shrink)

Critics of persuasive advertising argue that it undermines the autonomy of consumers by manipulating their desires in morally problematic ways. My aim is this paper is to refine that argument by employing a conception of autonomy that is not at odds with certain forms of manipulation. I argue that the charge of manipulation is not sufficient for condemning persuasive advertising. On my view, manipulation of an agent’s desires through advertising is justifiable in cases where the agent accepts (...) the process through which the desires were developed. I show how the standard manipulation objection proves too much as it would also condemn cases of that kind. I argue that this distinction is especially important when we consider the implications of “new media.” In addition to increasing vulnerability to manipulation, new media have considerable impacts on well-being. By siding with the traditional autonomy argument, we would be compelled to take an implausible stand against all forms of manipulation through advertising, but I suggest that only a proper subset of those cases are morally problematic. This conclusion opens up a space for persuasive advertising that is permissible while nevertheless condemning cases that violate consumers’ autonomy. (shrink)

The analysis of multimodal argumentation in advertising is a crucial and problematic area of research. While its importance is growing in a time characterized by images and pictorial messages, the methods used for interpreting and reconstructing the structure of arguments expressed through verbal and visual means capture only isolated dimensions of this complex phenomenon. This paper intends to propose and illustrate a methodology for the reconstruction and analysis of “double-mode” arguments in advertisements, combining the instruments developed in social semiotics, (...) pragmatics, and argumentation theory. An advertisement is processed through a five-step path. The analysis of its context, text genre, and images leads to a first representation of the messages that it encodes both pictorially and verbally (step 1). These first semantic representations are further enriched by including their polyphonic articulations and presuppositions (step 2), their explicatures (step 3), and their dialogical functions and illocutionary forces (step 4). These pragmatic steps retrieve the commitment structure of the ad, which allows a further argument analysis conducted through argumentation schemes (step 5). (shrink)

Social advertising often employs persuasive imagery in support of a morally laden cause. These visual arguments can take the form of veridical representations of the given situation or the form of purposeful visual blends. Both visual routes to persuasion have serious ethical issues to confront. In what concerns the purportedly veridical images, controversies about picture retouching and framing have cast many doubts on their success in offering unmediated access to a given reality. Editorial interests have proven far too influential (...) on the destiny of what and how is presented to the audience from the amount of visual material available on a topic. Even when the audience is certain that photos are not doctored, the use of veridical images may be seen as unethical. Their disproportionate affective impact may lead the audience to hold biased opinions, since other concerns may be impossible to capture in a vivid picture. Visual blends may be the answer to this problem, employing the fictional or the figurative to help the viewer grasp the moral anatomy of a given situation. Their generous use of figurative meaning may be seen as their strength and their weakness at the same time. It makes them less likely to face accusations of distorting reality, because they do not claim to be windows on reality per se. At the same time, it makes them vulnerable to interpretations that miss their true point – one might appreciate the artistry of a visual metaphor or a visual pun and fail to consider the statement it makes about a given situation. Contemporary philosophical approaches to the place of visuals in moral persuasion inform my analysis of the use of visual arguments in charity-oriented advertising. (shrink)

In Defense of Advertising is a theoretical defense based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand and the economics of Ludwig von Mises. It argues that the proper foundations of advertising are reason, ethical egoism, and laissez-faire capitalism. Its theme is that the social and economic criticisms of advertising are false because they are based on a false philo­sophic and economic world view. Only an alter­native world view can refute the charges and put forth a positive moral evaluation (...) of advertising's role in human life. The author defends advertising because it appeals to the rational self-interest of consumers for the rationally selfish, profit-making gain of the capitalists. (shrink)

The article presents the evolution of the language of advertising from the 1960s to the present, presenting various images of women in advertising. Simultaneously a theoretical analysis has been carried out of the demands of second-wave feminism, which exerted significant influence on the creation of images of women in the mass media. The objective of our comparison of feminist theory with advertising practice is an attempt to answer the question of whether the present media image of women (...) liberated from the binary sexual order and weighted towards the genderqueer and/or transgender phenomena is the desired realization of the feminist demands for emancipation of and equality for women announced in the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The publication of Harry Frankfurt’s 1986 essay “On Bullshit,” and especially its republication as a book in 2005, have sparked a great deal of interest in the philosophical analysis of the concept of bullshit. The present essay seeks to contribute to the ever-widening discussion of the concept by applying it to the realm of advertising. First, it is argued that Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit is too narrow, and an alternative definition is defended that accommodates both Frankfurt’s truth-indifferent bullshit and (...) what is here termed “culpably confused bullshit.” Second, it is explained why a great deal of advertising constitutes bullshit so defined.The essay concludes by making the case that bullshitting in general is clearly unethical on both Utilitarian and Kantian grounds. (shrink)

The cliché understanding of mass media is that they are tools and means to transmit news and expand communications whose function is to be informative, provide entertainment and promote ethical codes among people. This paper, mainly relying on the views and approaches of 'Heidegger' and 'Marx' about technology, aims to analyse the media and its relation with advertisement. This analysis has put under question the current common belief and shows that the advertisement industry implies a biased viewpoint toward the world, (...) which will bring about certain philosophical requirements and consequences. This analysis also shows that the media in the new world are structurally manufactured to operate under the influence of social relations and acts. (shrink)

This paper questions the efficacy of social adverts in promoting Nigeria’s democracy and proposes creative planning as a key strategy for designing effective media messages for effective democratic principles. Social advertising pleads a course through advocacy, social mobilization or behavior change communication. The business of democracy is to get the people involved in the business of leadership. Many media messages created to inform and educate the citizenry under democratic set-ups in Nigeria have been ineffective with regards to changing behavior (...) of the citizens towards a particular course. The creative planning strategy under consideration in this paper involves the steps in the creation of media messages with focus on variables such as discourse, dramatic logic or arguments, signs and significations and the audience. Basic questions in this paper include: Why are social adverts used as tools in promoting democratic values? Are the social adverts used in Nigeria predicated on the creative planning strategy? To what extent have the social adverts contributed to the promotion of democratic principles in Nigeria? The paper examines some advertising theories as applied to message development and questions the basis for creating or designing most media messages in promoting democratic values in Nigeria. The methodology adopted in this paper is analysis and recommendations will be based on the findings. (shrink)

Marketing of food stuff to increase sale is possible with different methods. Capillary marketing is one of the most influential techniques in the issue of more sales in organizations especially in terms of selling food stuff. Food stuff should be sold in a short time due to the short durability. People who make better use of capillary marketing to supply their products and services can sell better and faster. Dependency of Iran's economy on oil incomes and affectability of such incomes (...) from political, economic and international issues cause vulnerability and fragility of the economy. One of the ways of coping with this situation is developing new products that improves inland economic condition and causes an increase in non oil exports. Meanwhile, in addition to the role of food stuff in inland economic development, it can have a determining role in non oil export. Most of the families don't have financial ability to respond steamy needs of their children. Such children are just happy with watching colorful food and being influenced by messages they don't tend to traditional food. In fact, advertisements tell children what to wear play and eat. In this study we are going to discuss marketing of children's food stuff and its advertising methods in Iran. Mitra Zarea Nemati "Investigating marketing of children's food stuff and methods of advertising in Iran" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-1 | Issue-4 , June 2017 . (shrink)

The media consumer, otherwise known as the audience is considered to react actively or passively towards media messages based on existing modern theories. However, the emergent constructs evolved primarily by the advertising media audience in reacting to media messages have deconstructed the pillars that exist as strongholds of modern media audience theories. This study is set to identify and justify the rationale for the evolvement of sociocultural factors among advertising media audience in Nigeria. The study adopts the analytical (...) method in examining outcomes of media adverts in Nigeria. Expectedly, the opportunities created by the post-post modern era are explanatory of the fact that uncelebrated sociocultural factors are paramount in determining the significant level of influence of media adverts over the audience. The study concludes that the consideration of emergent sociocultural factors in addition to modern approaches in advertising will result to more effective media advertising in Nigeria and beyond. (shrink)

Automated influence, delivered by digital targeting technologies such as targeted advertising, digital nudges, and recommender systems, has attracted significant interest from both empirical researchers, on one hand, and critical scholars and policymakers on the other. In this paper, we argue for closer integration of these efforts. Critical scholars and policymakers, who focus primarily on the social, ethical, and political effects of these technologies, need empirical evidence to substantiate and motivate their concerns. However, existing empirical research investigating the effectiveness of (...) these technologies (or lack thereof), neglects other morally relevant effects—which can be felt regardless of whether or not the technologies "work" in the sense of fulfilling the promises of their designers. Drawing from the ethics and policy literature, we enumerate a range of questions begging for empirical analysis—the outline of a research agenda bridging these fields—and issue a call to action for more empirical research that takes these urgent ethics and policy questions as their starting point. (shrink)

Promotion of prescription drugs may appear to be severely limited in some jurisdictions due to restrictions on direct-to-consumer advertising. However, in most jurisdictions, strategies exist to raise consumer awareness about prescription drugs, notably through the deployment of direct-to-consumer information campaigns that encourage patients to seek help for particular medical conditions. In Canada, DTCI is presented by industry and regulated by Health Canada as being purely informational activities, but their design and integration in broader promotional campaigns raise very similar ethical (...) concerns as those associated with DTCA. Specifically, DTCI can be an effective means of familiarizing the public with the scope and benefits of a particular prescription drug and so, like DTCA, can promote increased patient-consumer demand and thus a problematic rise in the prescribing and use of medications that may be neither the most appropriate nor the most cost-effective. Yet, with DTCI the industry is playing within the existing rules and regulations set by health regulators. To respond appropriately to this regulatory incoherence, we argue that DTCI should be regulated as a type of direct-to-consumer indirect advertising. Even if the case and specific regulations presented here are Canadian, the implications extend to every country that has a partial or total prohibition on DTCA. (shrink)

Nineteenth-century optical toys that showcase illusions of motion such as the phenakistoscope, zoetrope, and praxinoscope, have enjoyed active “afterlives” in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Contemporary incarnations of the zoetrope are frequently found in the realms of fine art and advertising, and they are often much larger than their nineteenth-century counterparts. This article argues that modern-day optical toys are able to conjure feelings of wonder and spectacle equivalent to their nineteenth-century antecedents because of their adjustment in scale. Exploring a (...) range of contemporary philosophical toys found in arts, entertainment, and advertising contexts, the article discusses various technical adjustments made to successfully “scale up” optical toys, including the replacement of hand-spun mechanisms with larger sources of motion and the use of various means such as architectural features and stroboscopic lights to replace traditional shutter mechanisms such as the zoetrope’s dark slots. Critical consideration of scale as a central feature of these installations reconfigures the relationship between audience and device. Large-scale adaptations of optical toys revise the traditional conception of the user, who is able to tactilely manipulate and interact with the apparatus, instead positing a viewer who has less control over the illusion’s operation and is instead a captive audience surrounded by the animation. It is primarily through their adaptation of scale that contemporary zoetropes successfully elicit wonder as scientific spectacles from their audiences today. (shrink)

The method of metaphysics: Metaphysics is empirical but depends not, like the sciences, on recondite experience but on close attention to aspects of everyday experience we ordinarily scarcely notice. "Real" is a broader concept than "exists" (which applies only to particulars) and also applies to phenomena, kinds, and laws, which are real, but not, of course, existent entities. But "there are real kinds, laws, etc." doesn't imply that all the kinds and laws we believe are real, are. I call my (...) approach "Innocent Realism" because--though it's certainly not naive--it requires attending to experience, so far as possible, without substantial preconceptions. There is one real world, enormously varied but also integrated. It includes physical stuff, kinds, laws, etc. and, here on earth, a vast array of human artifacts, physical, social, intellectual, and imaginative, all intimately interconnected. All this requires human mindedness (a better word than "mind" because it doesn't suggest that human mentality is an organ like the heart or the liver). Rather, it's a complex congeries of dispositions and abilities: to understand even such a relatively simple thing as what's involved in someone's believing something, we need to take account of the person's dispositions to behavior, verbal and otherwise; to the neurophysiological realizations of these dispositions; and to their connections to the world and to words in the person's linguistic community--this last requiring other people's words-world connection. "Virtual" reality is just one more computer artifact, clever, no doubt, but not metaphysically startling. It's oversold, but this is advertising hype, not serious metaphysics. (shrink)

Fairchild (2019) advertised the humility of material plenitude, arguing that despite the profligate ontology of coincident objects it entails, the best version of plenitude is one that takes no stand on a range of nearby questions about modality and coincidence. Roughly, the thought is that plenitude says only that there are coincident objects corresponding to every consistent pattern of essential and accidental properties. Plenitude says (or should say) nothing about which patterns those might be, and so should be compatible with (...) any reasonable hypothesis about which combinations of properties it is possible for something to have. I argued in the earlier paper that a particular formulation of the target view (Global Plenitude) has exactly that virtue. But, unfortunately, Global Plenitude turns out not to be very humble at all. Global Plenitude is incompatible with an exceptionally compelling hypothesis about coincidence: that there are some things which coincide, but might not have. Scandal ensues. (shrink)

The following is an advertisement for scalar epistemic consequentialism. Benefits include an epistemic consequentialism that (i) is immune from the the no-positive-epistemic-duties objection and (ii) doesn’t require bullet-biting on the rightness of epistemic tradeoffs. The advertisement invites readers to think more carefully about both the definition and logical space of epistemic consequentialism.

This book advertises itself as an exploration of the world-time parallel, that is, the parallel between the modal dimension, on the one hand, and the temporal dimension, on the other. It is that, and much more. As the authors point out, there is reasonable agreement that we can model times, through temporal logic, in ways that are analogous to those by which we model modality through the logic of possible worlds. But this formal parallel has almost universally been taken to (...) be a merely formal parallel: thus it is held that no metaphysical conclusions ought to be drawn from it. Thus, it is generally thought that one is free to accept an argument for actualism, say, but to reject a parallel argument for presentism. Rini and Cresswell compellingly argue that this is a mistake: the temporal and the modal are more than merely formally analogous. (shrink)

Behavioural techniques or ‘nudges’ can be used for various purposes. In this paper, we shift the focus from government nudges to nudges used by for-profit market agents. We argue that potential worries about nudges circumventing the deliberative capacities or diminishing the control of targeted agents are greater when it comes to market nudges, given that these (1) are not constrained by the principles that regulate government nudges (mildness, sensitivity to people’s interests and public justifiability) and (2) are often ‘stacked’ – (...) they come in great numbers that overwhelm agents. In addition, we respond to possible objections and derive several policy suggestions. (shrink)

Space tourism is an emerging field where few people have direct experience. However, considering the potential in the near future, it is beneficial to better understand how related information influences people’s attitudes about this new form of tourism. Employing information-processing-based Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 361 respondents consuming content related to space tourism on Chinese social media, we found that induced happiness and impression are positively associated with willingness to try space tourism. Information authenticity positively moderates (...) these two associations. Our findings emphasize three aspects of information during the processes of reception and filtering: meaning, intensity, and trust. Since promotional materials for space tourism rely heavily on mental simulations rather than objective feedback, creative uses of digital technology are advantageous. However, precautions must be taken to prevent exploitation, such as false advertising, exaggeration, and emotional manipulation. (shrink)

The Tannhäuser Gate. Architecture in science fiction films of the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century as a component of utopian and dystopian projections of the future. -/- The films of science fiction genre from the second half of the 20th and early 21st century contained many visions of the future, which were at the same time a reflection on the achievements and deficiencies of modern times. In 1960s, cinematographic works were dominated by optimism (...) and faith in the possibility of never-ending progress. The disappearance of political divisions between the blocs of states and the joint exploration of the cosmos was foreseen. The designers undertook cooperation with scientists, which manifested itself in showing cosmic constructions far exceeding the real technical capabilities. Starting from the 1970s, pessimism and the belief that the future will bring, above all, the intensification of negative phenomena of the present began to grow in films. Fears of the future were connected with indicating various possible defects and insoluble contradictions between them. When, therefore, some dystopian visions illustrated the threat of increase in crime, others depicted the future as saturated with state control mechanisms and the prevalence of surveillance. The fears shown on the screens were also aroused by the growth of large corporations, especially by their gaining political influence or staying outside the system of democracy. The authors of the films also presented their suspicions related to the creation of new types of weapons by corporations, the use of which might breach the current legal norms. Particular objections concerned research on biological weapons and the possible spread of lethal viruses. The development of robotics and research into artificial intelligence, which must have resulted in the appearance of androids and inevitable tensions in their relations with humans, also triggered fear. Another problem for film-makers has become hybrids that are a combination of people and electronic parts. Scriptwriters and directors likewise considered the development of genetic engineering, which led to the creation of mutant human beings. A number of film dystopias contemplated the possibility of the collapse of democratic systems and the development of authoritarian regimes in their place, often based on broad public support. This kind of dystopia also includes films presenting the consequences of contemporary hedonism and consumerism. The problem is, however, that works critical of these phenomena were themselves advertisements for attractive products. (shrink)

In their recently published book Nudge (2008) Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (T&S) defend a position labelled as ‘libertarian paternalism’. Their thinking appeals to both the right and the left of the political spectrum, as evidenced by the bedfellows they keep on either side of the Atlantic. In the US, they have advised Barack Obama, while, in the UK, they were welcomed with open arms by the David Cameron's camp (Chakrabortty 2008). I will consider the following questions. What (...) is Nudge? How is it different from social advertisement? Does Nudge induce genuine preference change? Does Nudge build moral character? Is there a moral difference between the use of Nudge as opposed to subliminal images to reach policy objectives? And what are the moral constraints on Nudge? (shrink)

A growing amount of media is paid for by its consumers through their very consumption of it. Typically, this new media is web-based and paid for by advertising. It includes the services offered by Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. We offer an ethical assessment of the attention economy, the market where attention is exchanged for new media. We argue that the assessment has ethical implications for how the attention economy should be regulated. To conduct the assessment, we employ two (...) heuristics for evaluating markets. One is the “harm” criterion, which relates to whether the market tends to engender extremely harmful outcomes for individuals or society as a whole. The other is the “agency” criterion, which relates not to the outcomes of the market, but rather, to whether it somehow reflects or has its source in weakened agency. We argue that the attention economy animates concerns with respect to both criteria and that new media should be subject to the same sort of regulation as other harmful, addictive products. (shrink)

YouTube has been implicated in the transformation of users into extremists and conspiracy theorists. The alleged mechanism for this radicalizing process is YouTube’s recommender system, which is optimized to amplify and promote clips that users are likely to watch through to the end. YouTube optimizes for watch-through for economic reasons: people who watch a video through to the end are likely to then watch the next recommended video as well, which means that more advertisements can be served to them. This (...) is a seemingly innocuous design choice, but it has a troubling side-effect. Critics of YouTube have alleged that the recommender system tends to recommend extremist content and conspiracy theories, as such videos are especially likely to capture and keep users’ attention. To date, the problem of radicalization via the YouTube recommender system has been a matter of speculation. The current study represents the first systematic, pre-registered attempt to establish whether and to what extent the recommender system tends to promote such content. We begin by contextualizing our study in the framework of technological seduction. Next, we explain our methodology. After that, we present our results, which are consistent with the radicalization hypothesis. Finally, we discuss our findings, as well as directions for future research and recommendations for users, industry, and policy-makers. (shrink)

What can make storytelling “evil” in the sense that the storytelling leads to accepting a view for no good reason, thus allowing ill-reasoned action? I mean the storytelling can be argumentatively evil, not trivially that (e.g.) the overt speeches of characters can include bad arguments. The storytelling can be argumentatively evil in that it purveys false premises, or purveys reasoning that is formally or informally fallacious. My main thesis is that as a rule, the shorter the fictional narrative, the greater (...) the potential for argumentative evil. Here, the notion of length is to be understood such that it is generally a proxy for more abstract features such as how complex and nuanced the piece is. In other argumentative contexts, length generally appears to make no comparable difference. This feature would put fictional narrative arguments in a special class beyond what is determined by obvious features, such as the definitional fact that they in some way(s) collapse two of the four traditional types of discourse: exposition, description, narration, and argument. The nonobvious features that distinguish this class have been a source of puzzlement and inquiry. (shrink)

Some sensory experiences are pleasant, some unpleasant. This is a truism. But understanding what makes these experiences pleasant and unpleasant is not an easy job. Various difficulties and puzzles arise as soon as we start theorizing. There are various philosophical theories on offer that seem to give different accounts for the positive or negative affective valences of sensory experiences. In this paper, we will look at the current state of art in the philosophy of mind, present the main contenders, critically (...) compare and contrast them. In particular, we want to examine how they handle the reason-giving power of affective states. We will look into two representationalist proposals (Evaluativism and Imperativism) and a functionalist proposal, and argue that, contrary to their own advertisements, the representationalist proposals don’t have good accounts of why and how sensory affect can motivate, rationalize, and justify subsequent behavior and intentional mental activity. We will show that our own functionalist proposal does a much better job in this regard, and that when the representationalist proposals are modified to do a better job, they fare better not because of their representationalist credentials but due to their functionalist ones. (shrink)

When agents insert technological systems into their decision-making processes, they can obscure moral responsibility for the results. This can give rise to a distinct moral wrong, which we call “agency laundering.” At root, agency laundering involves obfuscating one’s moral responsibility by enlisting a technology or process to take some action and letting it forestall others from demanding an account for bad outcomes that result. We argue that the concept of agency laundering helps in understanding important moral problems in a number (...) of recent cases involving automated, or algorithmic, decision-systems. We apply our conception of agency laundering to a series of examples, including Facebook’s automated advertising suggestions, Uber’s driver interfaces, algorithmic evaluation of K-12 teachers, and risk assessment in criminal sentencing. We distinguish agency laundering from several other critiques of information technology, including the so-called “responsibility gap,” “bias laundering,” and masking. (shrink)

Kant’s _Prolegomena_ is a piece of philosophical advertising: it exists to convince the open-minded “future teacher” of metaphysics that the true critical philosophy — i.e., the first _Critique_ — provides the only viable solution to the problem of metaphysics (i.e. its failure to make any genuine progress). To be effective, a piece of advertising needs to know its audience. This chapter argues that Kant takes his reader to have some default sympathies for the common-sense challenge to metaphysics originating (...) from Thomas Reid and his followers; this fact in turn explains his rhetorical strategies in the _Prolegomena_, particularly regarding the presentation of the problem of metaphysics. The chapter draws attention to the importance of Shaftesbury, who, with a nod to Horace, had argued for the deployment of humour to disarm fraudulent claims to epistemic and moral authority. Kant looks to Horace himself to poke fun at the common-sense challenge to metaphysics, and from there to indicate the general shape of the particular argumentative strategies of the _Critique_ — that project that alone, in his view, can promise some kind of future for metaphysics. (shrink)

Are individuals morally responsible for their implicit biases? One reason to think not is that implicit biases are often advertised as unconscious, ‘introspectively inaccessible’ attitudes. However, recent empirical evidence consistently suggests that individuals are aware of their implicit biases, although often in partial and inarticulate ways. Here I explore the implications of this evidence of partial awareness for individuals’ moral responsibility. First, I argue that responsibility comes in degrees. Second, I argue that individuals’ partial awareness of their implicit biases makes (...) them (partially) morally responsible for them. I argue by analogy to a close relative of implicit bias: moods. (shrink)

The literature on conscientious objection in medicine presents two key problems that remain unresolved: Which conscientious objections in medicine are justified, if it is not feasible for individual medical practitioners to conclusively demonstrate the genuineness or reasonableness of their objections? How does one respect both medical practitioners’ claims of conscience and patients’ interests, without leaving practitioners complicit in perceived or actual wrongdoing? My aim in this paper is to offer a new framework for conscientious objections in medicine, which, by bringing (...) medical professionals’ conscientious objection into the public realm, solves the justification and complicity problems. In particular, I will argue that: an “Uber Conscientious Objection in Medicine Committee” —which includes representatives from the medical community and from other professions, as well as from various religions and from the patient population—should assess various well-known conscientious objections in medicine in terms of public reason and decide which conscientious objections should be permitted, without hearing out individual conscientious objectors; medical practitioners should advertise their conscientious objections, ahead of time, in an online database that would be easily accessible to the public, without being required, in most cases, to refer patients to non-objecting practitioners. (shrink)

There is a wealth of resources— ideas, insights, discoveries, inventions, traditions, cultures, languages, arts, religions, sciences, narratives, stories, poems, customs and norms, music and songs, games and personal experiences, and advertisements—that we produce, curate, consume, transmit, and inherit as humans. This wealth, which I define as semantic capital, gives meaning to, and makes sense of, our own existence and the world surrounding us. It defines who we are and enables humans to develop an individual and social life. This paper discusses (...) the shift from analog to digital semantic capital, and the extent to which this might affect the semanticisation of our identities, our lives and our realities. -/- . (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists often assume that mirror reflections are optical illusions. According to many authors, what we see in a mirror appears to be behind it. I discuss two strategies to resist this piece of dogma. As I will show, the conviction that mirror reflections are illusions is rooted in a confused conception of the relations between location, direction, and visibility. This conception is unacceptable to those who take seriously the way in which mirrors contribute to our experience of the (...) world. My argument may be read as an advertisement of the neglected field of philosophical catoptrics, the philosophical study of the optical properties of mirrors. It enables us to recast familiar issues in the philosophy of perception. (shrink)

This article advances two views on the role of evaluative judgment in clinical assessments of decision-making capacity. The first is that it is rationally impossible for such assessments to exclude judgments of the values a patient uses to motivate their decision-making. Predictably, and second, attempting to exclude such judgments sometimes yields outcomes that contain intractable dilemmas that harm patients. These arguments count against the prevailing model of assessment in common law countries—the four abilities model—which is often incorrectly advertised as being (...) value-neutral in respect of patient decision-making both by its proponents and in statute. A straightforward evaluative model of capacity assessment which wears its values on its sleeves and is biased against what are called ‘serious prudential mistakes’ avoids these rational and practical problems. (shrink)

The article first rehearses three deflationary theories of reference, (1) disquotationalism, (2) propositionalism (Horwich), and (3) the anaphoric theory (Brandom), and raises a number of objections against them. It turns out that each corresponds to a closely related theory of truth, and that these are subject to analogous criticisms to a surprisingly high extent. I then present a theory of my own, according to which the schema “That S(t) is about t” and the biconditional “S refers to x iff S (...) says something about x” are exhaustive of the notions of aboutness and reference. An account of the usefulness of “about” is then given, which, I argue, is superior to that of Horwich. I close with a few considerations about how the advertised theory relates to well-known issues of reference, the conclusions of which is (1) that the issues concern reference and aboutness only insofar as the words “about” and “refer” serve to generalise over the claims that are really at issue, (2) that the theory of reference will not settle the issues, and (3) that it follows from (2) that the issues do not concern the nature of aboutness or reference. (shrink)

(This contribution is primarily based on "Implicit Bias, Moods, and Moral Responsibility," (2018) Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. This version has been shortened and significantly revised to be more accessible and student-oriented.) Are individuals morally responsible for their implicit biases? One reason to think not is that implicit biases are often advertised as unconscious. However, recent empirical evidence consistently suggests that individuals are aware of their implicit biases, although often in partial and inarticulate ways. Here I explore the implications of this evidence (...) of partial awareness for individuals’ moral responsibility. First, I argue that responsibility comes in degrees. Second, I argue that individuals’ partial awareness of their implicit biases makes them (partially) morally responsible for them. I argue by analogy to a close relative of implicit bias: moods. (shrink)

Cancellability is an essential feature of implicatures. However, its reliability has been challenged by several cases and examples in which conversational implicatures seem to be hard or even impossible to cancel. Should it then be concluded that not all implicatures are cancellable, and therefore Grice's cancellability test should be weakened or abandoned? The present paper addresses this problem by drawing a distinction between theoretical and practical cancellability, where the latter concept captures the (un)reasonableness of explicit or contextual cancellation. By analyzing (...) three legal cases of misleading advertising, I show how the indefensibility of an interpretation can account for the practical uncancellability of an implicature. To explain and account for the reasonableness of an interpretation, the presumptive inferences involved must be reconstructed and evaluated considering different dimensions, such as the conversational context and the associated presumptions. (shrink)

Background Healthcare is predicated on the use of biotechnology and medical technology, both of which are indispensable in diagnosis, treatment, and most aspects of patient care. It is therefore imperative that justifications for use of new technologies are appropriate, with the technologies working as advertised. In this paper, I consider philosophical accounts of how such justifications are made. Methods Critical philosophical reflection and analysis. Results I propose that justification in many prominent accounts is based on the designer’s professional experience and (...) on expert testimony. I argue, however, that professional designers are not in a position to justify a new biotechnology or medical device if the justification is based on testimony or past experience of presumably similar technologies. I argue (1) that similarity judgments offered by instantaneous experts cannot be viewed as contributing (epistemically) to evidential justification of new and unproven technologies; and (2) that designers and manufacturers cannot endorse a technology’s effective function in a patient-care context until it has been successfully used in that context. Conclusion I show that an expert’s past professional experiences can never predict or justify the impact of a novel technology on human health. This is because any new technology leads to the introduction of new mechanisms with unprecedented functions. The new technology therefore needs to be studied in situ and justified as a newly created mechanism within the relevant healthcare setting. Ultimately, justifications of this type rely on the scientific community and society engaging in repeated experimentation and observation of the technology, and confirming its successful use. (shrink)

When we make ethical claims, we invoke a kind of objective authority. A familiar worry about our ethical practices is that this invocation of authority involves a mistake. This worry was perhaps best captured by John Mackie, who argued that the fabric of the world contains nothing so queer as objective authority and thus that all our ethical claims are false. Kantians such as Christine Korsgaard and David Velleman offer accounts of the objectivity of ethics that do without the controversial (...) realist assumptions which gives rise to Mackie’s skepticism. They contend that our ethical claims correctly invoke objective authority not by corresponding to some normative pocket of the fabric of reality, but rather by expressing commitments that are inescapable. This Kantian strategy is often advertised as an alternative to traditional but “boring” metaethics. Its proponents promise to vindicate our ethical practices without entangling us in familiar metanormative disputes about the metaphysics, epistemology and semantics of ethics. In this paper, I argue that the Kantian strategy cannot make good on this promise. Considered as an attempt to sidestep traditional metaethics, it lacks the resources to produce the desired normative conclusions. The outlook for the Kantian strategy becomes more promising, though, if we pair it with one of two familiar metanormative theories: expressivism or reductionism. The resulting metaethically-loaded versions of the Kantian strategy can deliver the promised conclusions, but only by plunging straight into the quagmire of traditional metaethics. And there all of the familiar objections to expressivism and reductionism await. (shrink)

Predictive Processing theory, hotly debated in neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, promises to explain a number of perceptual and cognitive phenomena in a simple and elegant manner. In some of its versions, the theory is ambitiously advertised as a new theory of conscious perception. The task of this paper is to assess whether this claim is realistic. We will be arguing that the Predictive Processing theory cannot explain the transition from unconscious to conscious perception in its proprietary terms. The explanations offer (...) by PP theorists mostly concern the preconditions of conscious perception, leaving the genuine material substrate of consciousness untouched. (shrink)

The first few years of the 21st century were characterised by a progressive loss of privacy. Two phenomena converged to give rise to the data economy: the realisation that data trails from users interacting with technology could be used to develop personalised advertising, and a concern for security that led authorities to use such personal data for the purposes of intelligence and policing. In contrast to the early days of the data economy and internet surveillance, the last few years (...) have witnessed a rising concern for privacy. As bad data practices have come to light, citizens are starting to understand the real cost of using online digital technologies. Two events stamped 2018 as a landmark year for privacy: the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and the implementation of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The former showed the extent to which personal data has been shared without data subjects’ knowledge and consent and many times for unacceptable purposes, such as swaying elections. The latter inaugurated the beginning of robust data protection regulation in the digital age. Getting privacy right is one of the biggest challenges of this new decade of the 21st century. The past year has shown that there is still much work to be done on privacy to tame the darkest aspects of the data economy. As data scandals continue to emerge, questions abound as to how to interpret and enforce regulation, how to design new and better laws, how to complement regulation with better ethics, and how to find technical solutions to data problems. The aim of the research project Data, Privacy, and the Individual is to contribute to a better understanding of the ethics of privacy and of differential privacy. The outcomes of the project are seven research papers on privacy, a survey, and this final report, which summarises each research paper, and goes on to offer a set of reflections and recommendations to implement best practices regarding privacy. (shrink)

The virtual has become the latest rostrum for ideological heteronormativity; it increasingly plays host to an insidious rhetoric of unjustifiably fixed and oppositional gender binaries that exhort heterosexuality as a norm. Conservative political and religious groups, as well as consumerist advertising, utilise digital technology to reinforce cast-in-stone and adversarial social perspectives for manipulative and exploitative ends. Contrastingly, the virtual may be mobilised to support and facilitate queering in contemporary societies and may positively counter such fixed ideological heteronormative categories of (...) social life. Crucial in this transformative account of the virtual is the body, which is for Merleau-Ponty the horizon of engagement with the world as a condition for perception and performativity. Queer perspectives may, in turn, overcome the oversight of Merleau-Ponty (as critically suggested by Judith Butler and Iris Marion Young) regarding the specific gendered characteristics of the body itself, and allows for an expanded embodied and queer conceptualisation of the virtual. A transformative vision of the virtual entails therefore a rethinking of our understanding of digital technology through (a) the phenomenology of the body-subject and (b) queer theory. I argue that the idea of the body as entirely discursive or performative (per queer theory) needs to be adjusted by explicating the foundational ontological characteristics of the body-subject’s encounter of the virtual. (shrink)

Psychometrics firms such as Cambridge Analytica (CA) and troll factories such as the Internet Research Agency (IRA) have had a significant effect on democratic politics, through narrow targeting of political advertising (CA) and concerted disinformation campaigns on social media (IRA) (U.S. Department of Justice 2019; Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate 2019; DiResta et al. 2019). It is natural to think that such activities manipulate individuals and, hence, are wrong. Yet, as some recent cases illustrate, the moral concerns (...) with these activities cannot be reduced simply to the effects they have on individuals. Rather, we will argue, the wrongness of these activities relates to the threats they present to the legitimacy of political orders. This occurs primarily through a mechanism we call “emergent manipulation,” rather than through the sort of manipulation that involves specific individuals. (shrink)