Background: Community-based education (CBE) involves educating the head (cognitive), heart (affective), and the hand (practical) by utilizing tools that enable us to broaden and interrogate our value systems. This article reports on the use of virtue ethics (VE) theory for understanding the principles that create, maintain and sustain a socially accountable community placement programme for undergraduate medical students. Our research questions driving this secondary analysis were; what are the goods which are internal to the successful practice of CBE in medicine, (...) and what are the virtues that are likely to promote and sustain them? -/- Methods: We conducted a secondary theoretically informed thematic analysis of the primary data based on MacIntyre’s virtue ethics theory as the conceptual framework. -/- Results: Virtue ethics is an ethical approach that emphasizes the role of character and virtue in shaping moral behavior; when individuals engage in practices (such as CBE), goods internal to those practices (such as a collaborative attitude) strengthen the practices themselves, but also augment those individuals’ virtues, and that of their community (such as empathy). We identified several goods that are internal to the practice of CBE and accompanying virtues as important for the development, implementation and sustainability of a socially accountable community placement programme. A service-oriented mind-set, a deep understanding of community needs, a transformed mind, and a collaborative approach emerged as goods internal to the practice of a socially accountable CBE. The virtues needed to sustain the identified internal goods included empathy and compassion, connectedness, accountability, engagement [sustained relationship], cooperation, perseverance, and willingness to be an agent of change. -/- Conclusion: This study found that MacIntyre’s virtue ethics theory provided a useful theoretical lens for understanding the principles that create, maintain and sustain CBE practice. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze the ethical implications of genetic enhancement within the specific framework of the “child’s right to an open future” argument (CROF). Whilst there is a broad ethical consensus that genetic modifications for eradicating diseases or disabilities are in line with – or do not violate – CROF, there is huge disagreement about how to ethically understand genetic enhancement. Here, I analyze this disagreement and I provide a revised formulation of the argument in the specific field (...) of genetic enhancement. First, I argue that CROF is not in contrast with every kind of enhancement. I subsequently discuss whether CROF requires some moral obligations to enhance progeny. My argument is that parents do not have the moral obligation to open as many options as possible for their children. Rather, they should provide them with a reasonable range of opportunities. Finally, I contend that the moral obligations required by CROF are directly dependent on what Allen Buchanan calls the ‘dominant cooperative framework’ in a given society. I conclude by claiming that, at present, parents are not morally obliged to genetically enhance their children since a non-enhanced person already might have access to a reasonable range of opportunities. However, the moral obligation to enhance progeny might arise if a structural modification of the dominant cooperative framework occurs. (shrink)

Reasoning about analogical arguments is known to be subject to a variety of cognitive biases, and a lack of clarity about which factors can be considered strengths or weaknesses of an analogical argument. This can make it difficult both to design empirical experiments to study how people reason about analogical arguments, and to develop scalable tutoring tools for teaching how to reason and analyze analogical arguments. To address these concerns, we describe WG-A (Warrant Game — Analogy), a framework for (...) people to analyze analogical arguments based on Bartha’s (2010) Articulation Model of analogical argumentation. We carry out two experiments designed to probe WG-A’s effectiveness in improving participants’ ability to reason about analogical arguments and argumentation in general, and argue that WG-A is a promising approach, though it is in need of further development. (shrink)

Cooperation among arts scholars is thought to be hampered by the division of research on the arts into two cultures, one scientific, one humanistic. This paper proposes an alternative model for research into the arts wherein multiple levels of explanation focussed on well-bounded phenomena integrate research across academic disciplines. Two case studies of research that fits the model are presented.

Certain simple thoughts about pictures suggest that the contents of pictures are closely bound to vision. But how far can the striking features of depiction be accounted for merely in terms of the especially visual contents which belong to pictures, without considering, for example, any issues concerning the nature of the visual experiences with which pictures provide us? This article addresses that question by providing an account of the distinctively visual contents belonging to pictures, and by using that account to (...) explain many notable general facts about depiction. Some implications of the resulting framework for the main stream of current theorizing about pictorial representation are also discussed. (shrink)

Images are double agents. They receive information from the world, while also projecting visual imagination onto the world. As a result, mind and world tug our thinking about images, or particular kinds of images, in contrary directions. On one common division, world traces itself mechanically in photographs, whereas mind expresses itself through painting.1 Scholars of photography disavow such crude distinctions: much recent writing attends in detail to the materials and processes of photography, the agency of photographic artists, and the social (...) determinants of the production and reception of photographs. As such writing makes plain, photographs cannot be reduced to mechanical traces.2 Yet background conceptions of photography as trace or index persist almost by default, as no framework of comparable explanatory power has yet emerged to replace them. A conception of photography adequate to developments in recent scholarship is long overdue. Rather than constructing such a conception top-down, as philosophers are wont to do, this paper articulates it by examining selected works by James Welling.3 There are several reasons for this: Welling’s practice persistently explores the resources and possibilities of photography, the effect of these explorations is to express a particular metaphysics of the mind’s relation to its world, and appreciating why this metaphysics is aptly expressed by exploring photography requires a revised conception of what photography is. In as much as it provides a framework for a richer interpretation of Welling, the new conception is also capable of underwriting a wide range of critical and historical approaches to photography. (shrink)

Bio-ontologies are essential tools for accessing and analyzing the rapidly growing pool of plant genomic and phenomic data. Ontologies provide structured vocabularies to support consistent aggregation of data and a semantic framework for automated analyses and reasoning. They are a key component of the Semantic Web. This paper provides background on what bio-ontologies are, why they are relevant to botany, and the principles of ontology development. It includes an overview of ontologies and related resources that are relevant to plant (...) science, with a detailed description of the Plant Ontology (PO). We discuss the challenges of building an ontology that covers all green plants (Viridiplantae). Key results: Ontologies can advance plant science in four keys areas: 1. comparative genetics, genomics, phenomics, and development, 2. taxonomy and systematics, 3. semantic applications and 4. education. Conclusions: Bio-ontologies offer a flexible framework for comparative plant biology, based on common botanical understanding. As genomic and phenomic data become available for more species, we anticipate that the annotation of data with ontology terms will become less centralized, while at the same time, the need for cross-species queries will become more common, causing more researchers in plant science to turn to ontologies. (shrink)

Traditionally, three dominant perspectives shape the role of justice in international relations theories. Realism rejects the relevance of normative principles, emphasizing power politics and the anarchic international system. Cosmopolitan egalitarianism envisions a global order where individuals, not states, are the primary moral actors, advocating universal principles of justice. In contrast, cultural relativism is skeptical of universal moral standards, arguing that cultural beliefs should be understood within their specific contexts. In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls offers a middle ground (...) between realism and cosmopolitan egalitarianism while avoiding cultural relativism. He emphasizes justice between societies while respecting their distinct identities and political autonomy. Rawls proposes a principled framework based on justice, cooperation, and shared moral commitments, balancing power dynamics with universal norms while acknowledging cultural pluralism. This article first examines Rawls's political conception of international justice as a foundation for global peace, then explores his vision of a decent Muslim society as a key partner in promoting international justice and peace. (shrink)

Communicating interdisciplinary information is difficult, even when two fields are ostensibly discussing the same topic. In this work, I’ll discuss the capacity for analogical reasoning to provide a framework for developing novel judgments utilizing similarities in separate domains. I argue that analogies are best modeled after Paul Bartha’s By Parallel Reasoning, and that they can be used to create a Toulmin-style warrant that expresses a generalization. I argue that these comparisons provide insights into interdisciplinary research. In order to demonstrate (...) this concept, I will demonstrate that fruitful comparisons can be made between Buddhism and Artificial Intelligence research. (shrink)

Rules serve many important functions in society. One such function is to codify, and make public and enforceable, a society's desired prescriptions and proscriptions. This codification means that rules come with predefined punishments administered by third parties. We argue that when we look at how third parties punish rule violations, we see that rules and their punishments often serve dual functions. They support and help to maintain cooperation as it is usually theorized, but they also facilitate the domination of marginalized (...) others. We begin by reviewing literature on rules and third-party punishment, arguing that a great deal of punishment research has neglected to consider the unique power of codified rules. We also argue that by focusing on codified rules, it becomes clear that the enforcement of such rules via third-party punishment is often used to exert control, punish retributively, and oppress outgroup members. By challenging idealized theory of rules as facilitators of social harmony, we highlight their role in satisfying personal punishment motives, and facilitating discrimination in a way that is uniquely justifiable to those who enforce them. (shrink)

The problems with grace and free will have prompted long-standing theological conflicts, chiefly revolving around certain disagreements over the nature of divine causality in respect to the free will's of creatures and His foreknowledge of free acts. Eleonore Stump offers a new interpretation of divine action on the will that holds God only acts by way of formal causality and that human cooperation with grace is only by way of "quiescence." I argue that this account lacks coherence in certain important (...) respects, especially in how human beings freely decide upon conversion - a process impossible on this model. I also argue that any model of divine causality cannot escape the dichotomy of holding a Molinist or a Banezian model of efficacious grace. In response, I offer a new interpretation of classical Thomist models of grace that preserves human freedom and divine sovereignty in grace. (shrink)

Hylomorphism is a metaphysical theory that accounts for the unity of the material parts of composite objects by appeal to a structure or ‘form’ characterizing those parts. I argue that hylomorphism is not merely a plausible or appealing solution to problems of material composition, but a position entailed by any coherent metaphysics of ordinary material objects. In fact, not only does hylomorphism have Aristotelian defenders, but it has had independent lives in both East and West. -/- I review three contemporary (...) hylomorphic theories appeal to ‘structure’ to explain the unity of material objects. Each, however, accepts a controversial principle: that substances can have other substances as proper parts. Such a principle is implausible and severely threatens the coherence of the theory. -/- I begin by showing that Thomas Aquinas’ account of form, which does not accept that substances can have other substances as parts, gives us a more coherent version of hylomorphism. Then I argue Zhu Xi, a Song dynasty Confucian thinker, developed a non-Aristotelian hylomorphism. Unlike Aristotelians, Zhu Xi’s metaphysics was formed in opposition to Buddhist versions of skepticism and gives us reasons to think that anyone who holds a view of objects stronger than Buddhists is committed to forms. In conclusion, I show directly, by appeal to some of those same considerations from Zhu Xi, why it is that all those who believe there are unified material objects will appeal to something like a substantial form. The traditional hylomorphic picture of material composition, then, remains a plausible framework for contemporary metaphysicians – and for good reason. (shrink)

The Systemic Continuum Paradigm (PCS) offers a unifying framework to understand how emergent properties—ranging from fundamental forces in physics to cognitive capacities in living systems—arise through systemic balances (BS) across multiple scales. While the Law of Structuring Systemic Emergence (LESSE) explains why one force can dominate its scale’s entire synergy in the physical domain (e.g., gravity at cosmic scales), the broader concept of Systemic Balance (BS) accounts for the emergence of non-monopolistic properties such as intelligence, consciousness, or social cooperation (...) in biological and sociotechnical contexts. This essay refines the notion of “extension of affectation” for forces that coincide with the General Systemic Balance (GSB) at a given scale, framing them as structural “monopolies,” while demonstrating that elsewhere, emergent properties operate through co-existence and catalysis rather than singular dominance. Finally, we explore how this paradigm eliminates the need for a single “Theory of Everything” in physics, while simultaneously explaining how intelligence in biological or AI systems can catalyze new configurations without invoking ex nihilo creation. We invite a transdisciplinary community—physicists, biologists, philosophers, AI researchers—to apply, critique, and expand the PCS toward a deeper understanding of cosmic, biological, and cognitive emergences. (shrink)

In the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers in some countries were forced to make distressing triaging decisions about which individual patients should receive potentially life-saving treatment. Much of the ethical discussion prompted by the pandemic has concerned which moral principles should ground our response to these individual triage questions. In this paper we aim to broaden the scope of this discussion by considering the ethics of broader structural allocation decisions raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, we (...) consider how nations ought to distribute a scarce life-saving resource across healthcare regions in a public health emergency, particularly in view of regional differences in projected need and existing capacity. We call this the regional triage question. Using the case study of ventilators in the COVID-19 pandemic, we show how the moral frameworks that we might adopt in response to individual triage decisions do not translate straightforwardly to this regional-level triage question. Having outlined what we take to be a plausible egalitarian approach to the regional triage question, we go on to propose a novel way of operationalising the ‘save the most lives’ principle in this context. We claim that the latter principle ought to take some precedence in the regional triage question, but also note important limitations to the extent of the influence that it should have in regional allocation decisions. (shrink)

Background: Besides regulatory learning skills, learning also requires students to relate to their social context and negotiate it as they transition and adjust to medical training. As such, there is a need to consider and explore the role of social and cultural aspects in student learning, particularly in problem-based learning, where the learning paradigm differs from what most students have previously experienced. In this article, we report on the findings of a study exploring first-year medical students’ experiences during the first (...) semester of an undergraduate problem-based learning medical program at an African medical school. Method: We employed a qualitative case study approach using in-depth interviews with 23 first-year medical students. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 25 years. All students were bi/multilingual (some spoke three to five languages), with English as the learning language. We conducted an inductive thematic analysis to systematically identify and analyze patterns in the data using the Braun and Clarke framework. Results: Before medical school, students worked hard to compete for admission to medical school, were primarily taught using a teacher-centered approach, and preferred working alone. At the beginning of medical school, students found it challenging to understand the problem-based learning process, the role of the case, speaking and working effectively in a group, managing a heavy workload, and taking increased responsibility for their learning. By the end of the first semester, most students were handling the workload better, were more comfortable with their peers and facilitators, and appreciated the value of the problem-based learning approach. Conclusions: Our study highlights the importance of interrogating contextual sociocultural factors that could cause tension when implementing problem-based learning in non-western medical schools. Adjustment to problem-based learning requires a conceptual and pedagogic shift towards learner-centered practice, particularly concerning self direction, the role of the case, and collaborative learning. As such, there is a need to develop and implement research informed learning development programs that enable students to reflect on their sociocultural beliefs and practices, and enhance their regulatory learning competence to optimize meaningful and early engagement with the problem based learning process. (shrink)

This article argues for epistemic decolonization by developing a relational model of knowledge, which we locate within indigenous knowledges. We live in a time of ongoing global, epistemic coloniality, embedded in and shaped by colonial ideas and practices. Epistemological decolonization requires taking nondominant knowledges and their epistemes seriously to open up the possibility of interrogating and dismantling the hegemony of the Western knowledge tradition. We here ask two related questions: What are the decolonial affordances of indigenous knowledges? And how do (...) these compare to other contemporary critiques of epistemic coloniality, specifically those mounted by posthumanism? In answer, we develop three definitional senses of relational with reference to indigenous knowledges. First, we define indigenous knowledges in relation to Western knowledge, with which they share a dialectical origin at the moment of colonial contact. Second, indigenous knowledges are relational in their ontological and axiological orientations. Third, relationality in indigenous knowledge suggests a trialectic space, rather than a dialectic space. We argue for the necessity of an anticolonial framework, which assigns priority to indigenous people’s perceptions and ways of knowing for theorizing recurring colonial relations and their (imperialistic) manifestations in producing and reproducing knowledge. (shrink)

The Evolution and Purpose of Positive and Negative Human Emotions as a Balancing Mechanism of the Mind -/- Angelito Malicse’s universal formula emphasizes the universal law of balance in nature, which governs all systems, including the human mind. By this understanding, emotions—both positive and negative—are not random phenomena but integral components of the mind’s natural balancing mechanism. They have evolved to ensure that human decision-making remains aligned with the law of balance, both internally (within the individual) and externally (in relation (...) to the environment). -/- The Evolution of Emotions -/- Throughout evolutionary history, emotions have developed as adaptive responses to the challenges of survival and reproduction. Positive emotions, such as joy, love, and contentment, likely emerged to encourage behaviors that promote well-being, social bonding, and cooperation. These emotions reward actions that sustain life and harmony, ensuring the continuation of the individual and the group. -/- Conversely, negative emotions, such as fear, anger, and sadness, evolved as warning signals to protect individuals from harm or to signal when something in the external or internal environment is out of balance. For example, fear alerts individuals to potential dangers, anger arises when boundaries are crossed or injustice is perceived, and sadness serves as a mechanism for processing loss and recalibrating goals. -/- Emotions as a Balancing Mechanism -/- Under the universal formula’s framework, human emotions act as feedback mechanisms that maintain the mind’s equilibrium. Positive emotions arise when the mind aligns with its natural and social environment, indicating that balance is achieved. Negative emotions, on the other hand, are more complex: while they evolved to signal imbalance and encourage corrective action, they can also create further imbalance if left unchecked. -/- Positive Emotions: Reinforcing Balance -/- Positive emotions foster behaviors that align with the universal law of balance. For instance: -/- Gratitude encourages appreciation for resources and relationships, promoting sustainable interactions with the environment and others. -/- Happiness serves as a reward for achieving goals that satisfy personal and collective needs, reinforcing balanced decision-making. -/- Compassion drives individuals to care for others, maintaining social harmony and collective well-being. -/- Negative Emotions: Signaling or Creating Imbalance -/- Negative emotions serve two roles: they can either act as signals to address imbalance or become sources of imbalance themselves. For example: -/- Fear may warn of potential danger and guide protective behavior, but excessive or irrational fear creates anxiety, disrupting the internal mind and external interactions. -/- Anger may highlight injustice, prompting corrective action, but unchecked anger can lead to destructive behaviors that harm relationships and social cohesion. -/- Moreover, some negative emotions inherently create imbalances, both internally and externally, when they dominate the mind: -/- Greediness fosters excessive accumulation of resources, often at the expense of others, disrupting external societal balance while breeding internal dissatisfaction. -/- Stinginess reflects an inability to share, creating friction in relationships and disrupting the natural flow of give-and-take in human interactions. -/- Jealousy breeds discontent and mistrust, harming social bonds and disrupting personal peace of mind. -/- Hatred leads to destructive behaviors, creating divisions in society and poisoning the individual’s emotional state. -/- Lustfulness focuses on excessive or unbalanced desires, leading to actions that can harm relationships and diminish long-term well-being. -/- These negative emotions, when not properly understood or managed, not only disturb the individual’s internal reality but also ripple outward to disrupt external realities, affecting relationships, communities, and even societal structures. -/- The Interplay of Emotions in Decision-Making -/- The law of karma, as described in the universal formula, emphasizes cause and effect within interconnected systems. Emotions play a crucial role in this process by guiding decision-making in accordance with natural laws. Positive emotions encourage actions that generate beneficial outcomes, while unmanaged or excessive negative emotions often drive harmful behaviors that disrupt balance. -/- For instance, greed and jealousy may lead to unethical actions in pursuit of material wealth, creating societal inequality and environmental degradation. Similarly, unchecked anger or hatred can lead to conflicts that destabilize communities and perpetuate suffering. Conversely, when individuals act with emotional awareness and align their decisions with positive emotions like compassion and gratitude, they contribute to internal peace and external harmony. -/- Emotions in Modern Contexts -/- In today’s complex world, emotions remain vital in navigating challenges, although societal and cultural influences can distort their function. Ignorance, false beliefs, and misinformation can exacerbate the imbalance caused by negative emotions. For example, modern consumerism often exploits greed and jealousy, leading to overconsumption and environmental damage. -/- This highlights the need for education and emotional intelligence. By understanding the purpose of emotions within the framework of the universal formula, individuals can recognize and manage negative emotions, ensuring they do not become sources of imbalance. -/- Conclusion -/- Positive and negative emotions are essential components of the mind’s natural balancing mechanism. Evolving over millennia, they have ensured humanity’s survival and adaptation by guiding decision-making in accordance with the universal law of balance. However, unchecked negative emotions—such as greediness, stinginess, jealousy, hatred, and lustfulness—create imbalances in both internal and external realities, leading to personal suffering and societal problems. -/- Within the context of Angelito Malicse’s universal formula, understanding and managing emotions is crucial to aligning human behavior with natural laws. By fostering positive emotions and addressing the root causes of negative emotions, humanity can minimize imbalances and create a more harmonious and balanced world. Through proper education and self-awareness, emotions can serve their true purpose as a guiding force for balance in both the individual and collective mind. -/- . (shrink)

The closing chapters of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics x are regularly described as “puzzling,” “extremely abrupt,” “awkward,” or “surprising” to readers. Whereas the previous nine books described—sometimes in lavish detail—the multifold ethical virtues of an embodied person situated within communities of family, friends, and fellow-citizens, NE x 6-8 extol the rarified, god-like and solitary existence of a sophos or sage (1179a32). The ethical virtues that take up approximately the first half of the Ethics describe moral exempla who experience fear fighting for (...) their communities, are sensitive to the esteem and recognition of others, and feel love for a desire to live together with a wide variety of kinds of friends. Such good people take pleasure in prudently expending sums to improve their communities—communities in which they exchange goods and participate in ruling and being ruled in a cooperative fashion. The exemplum of x 7-8, by contrast, is a person whose activity consists almost entirely in exercising his or her mind (nous)—a part of one’s soul that Aristotle explicitly notes is disconnected from human emotions and that can be exercised, insofar as one as wise, in a wholly solitary fashion (1178a15-16, a19-20; 1177a33-34). Although Aristotle’s claim that a “life in accord with the mind” is best and most pleasant (1178a6-7) may jar the intuitions of many people—he himself endorses Anaxagoras’ claim that the happy person will appear as “someone who is absurd” (atopos, 1179a15) to most people—it is false to claim that his conclusions in NE x 6-8 are unexpected or unanticipated, or that the text is in any way discontinuous with what precedes it. The Nicomachean Ethics exhibits aspects of ring-composition both within the work as a whole and within book 10. In NE i 5 Aristotle introduces his rendition of a trope that he inherits (most immediately) from Plato, viz. that the problem of the good can be considered like a contest between three different kinds of life—the life of enjoyment (apolaustikos), the life of politics (politikos), and the life of contemplation (theôrêtikos). NE x 6-8 returns to that contest, rendering a verdict about which life takes first, second, and third place. As the opening lines of NE x 6 note, that verdict presupposes central claims articulated between the first and last books of the Ethics, specifically about the nature of the virtues, the nature of friendship, and the nature of pleasure. NE i 5 and x 6-8 thus serve as “bookends” which encase arguments and proposition located between them. Book 10 exhibits a similar ring-composition. NE x opens with methodological reflection on the gap between the theoretical positions that thinkers articulate and the way they live their lives (especially in the case of scolds who simultaneously criticize pleasure on a scientific level but seek it on a practical level [1172a33-b8]). Chapter 8 concludes with an explicit reiteration of the methodological point, a reiteration that underscores how Aristotle’s treatment of the contest of lives incorporates central aspects of the discussion of pleasure in NE x 1-5. Aristotle’s reiteration of the problem of a gap between theory and practice also draws attention to the centrality of his treatment of pleasure in his adjudication of the three lives. Although the life of pleasure takes a distant third in the contest of lives, the contemplative life wins the contest in part because it itself is the most pleasant form of life. The central philosophical problem looming behind Aristotle’s treatment of the contest of lives concerns the relationship between the notion of activity (energeia) and the notion of a way of life (bios). In the last four decades, much of the scholarship on NE x 6-8 has sought to address the question of what activities a certain way of life includes or excludes. “Monistic” or “dominant” end interpretations of the best life have viewed it as including only contemplative activities whereas “inclusivist” end interpretations of the best life have viewed it as including non-contemplative activities. Although this chapter largely side-steps this debate—partially because there are ample recent first-rate introductory treatments of the debate, partially because I have addressed the question elsewhere in my own writing —I argue that focusing solely on the contest between the two best ways of life overshadows the way that Aristotle incorporates insights from the third way of life into the best way of life. Although the notion of a contest among different kinds of lives presupposes that the lives are mutually exclusive, Aristotle has no problem saying that the contemplative life trumps the life of pleasure because the contemplative life is more pleasant. I proceed in two parts. In the first part I examine what I will call the “outer” ring of the Ethics, namely the relationship between the contest of lives proposed in NE i 5 and its overall resolution in x 6-8. I show how i 5 and x 6 establish the framework for the contest, how x 7 adjudicates that contest in large part by relying upon premises articulated in the interim between books 1 and 10, and how x 6 and x 8 determine the second and third place positions in the contest. In the second part I focus on what I will call the “inner” ring of NE x. More than half of NE x struggles with the nature of pleasure, its role in a happy life, and the methodological problems of examining pleasure within a practical science. I show how x 1 and x 8 are “bookends” that underscore the methodological problem of examining pleasure and how the contest of lives draws upon the proximate conclusions concerning the nature of pleasure in NE x 1-5. (shrink)

The Future of Humanity with the Full Implementation of the Universal Formula -/- Humanity has long grappled with fundamental questions about free will, decision-making, and the nature of societal progress. Over centuries, countless philosophical, scientific, and religious perspectives have sought to explain the forces driving human behavior and the challenges we face as a global society. The development of a universal formula that solves the problem of free will, grounded in natural laws like the law of balance and the law (...) of karma, presents a transformative opportunity for human civilization. If fully implemented, this universal formula has the potential to reshape humanity’s future, fostering a world marked by balance, sustainability, and reduced suffering. -/- 1. A Holistic Educational System for Critical Thinking -/- The first and most immediate change from the universal formula’s implementation would be seen in education. Current educational systems often prioritize rote memorization and narrow specializations, neglecting the foundational principles of natural law that govern human behavior. By introducing the universal law of balance and the principles of cause and effect (karma) into basic education, students would learn to view decision-making through the lens of natural, universal laws. -/- A holistic educational system, as envisioned by the formula, would emphasize critical thinking, systemic thinking, and the understanding of interdependence among individuals, societies, and the environment. This educational approach would equip future generations to make decisions that prioritize societal well-being, environmental sustainability, and global cooperation. As a result, the widespread ignorance and misinformation that often fuel societal conflict and poor decision-making would diminish. -/- 2. Ethical Leadership and Governance Based on Natural Laws -/- Leaders who understand and apply the universal formula’s principles would adopt a more balanced and ethical approach to governance. The formula asserts that decision-making processes, whether individual or collective, must align with natural laws to avoid imbalance and societal dysfunction. If implemented, policies across nations would shift from short-term gains toward long-term stability, fairness, and sustainability. -/- The law of karma, whichh highlights the necessity for defect-free systems, would guide governance structures to prioritize integrity, transparency, and accountability. Corruption, misinformation, and ideologically driven policies would decline as societies embrace natural laws as their guiding principles. With this shift, government policies on resource management, social welfare, and economic growth would aim for balance rather than unchecked expansion, minimizing societal inequalities and systemic failures. -/- 3. Global Cooperation and Environmental Sustainability -/- The universal law of balance stresses that human systems, like natural ecosystems, must remain in equilibrium to function properly. In an era of climate change, resource depletion, and geopolitical tensions, applying this law globally could unify countries in their efforts to address shared challenges. -/- Nations would move beyond competition and exploitation, understanding that the Earth’s resources are finite and that environmental degradation affects all societies. Policies on population control, economic growth, and environmental conservation would be guided by scientific data and natural principles, ensuring that human activity does not disrupt the delicate balance necessary for life’s continuity. The concept of continuous economic growth, currently dominant in global economics, would be replaced by a sustainable, balanced model that prioritizes ecological and societal well-being over profit. -/- 4. Technological Advancement Aligned with Human Well-Being -/- The development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) presents both opportunities and risks for humanity. If programmed with the universal formula, AGI could become a powerful tool for societal improvement. The law of balance would serve as a guiding framework for AGI, ensuring that its decisions promote human welfare, ethical practices, and environmental harmony. -/- For AGI to function effectively, as suggested by the formula, it must integrate a complete sensor system capable of perceiving and responding to the complexities of human and environmental feedback mechanisms. By doing so, AGI could assist in real-time governance, economic planning, and social development while minimizing the risks associated with unregulated AI development. -/- 5. Reduction of Human Suffering and Societal Conflicts -/- Human suffering, in many cases, stems from ignorance, misinformation, and decisions that disrupt natural balance. The universal formula posits that decisions violating natural laws—whether influenced by false beliefs, propaganda, or systemic defects—create internal and external imbalances that manifest as societal problems. -/- By embedding the principles of natural balance into education, governance, and societal structures, the formula offers a pathway to reduce suffering. Conflicts arising from ideological, religious, or political differences could diminish as people collectively recognize the universal principles governing human behavior. Religious beliefs, rather than being sources of division, would coexist harmoniously with scientific understanding, fostering mutual respect and shared values centered around balance and well-being. -/- 6. Balanced Population Growth and Resource Management -/- One of the most critical challenges facing humanity is the unchecked growth of populations and the overconsumption of resources. The universal formula emphasizes the need for societies to understand and respect the natural carrying capacities of their environments. -/- Policies promoting balanced population growth, informed by scientific research and natural laws, would help ensure resource availability for future generations. Societies would transition from pursuing limitless economic expansion to developing sustainable, self-regulating systems that maintain equilibrium with the natural world. -/- Conclusion: A New Era of Balanced, Sustainable Humanity -/- The full implementation of the universal formula to solve the problem of free will could herald a transformative era for humanity. Through a holistic educational system, ethical governance, environmental sustainability, responsible technological development, and a shared commitment to natural laws, societies could achieve unprecedented levels of harmony, stability, and well-being. -/- While the formula’s success would depend on global cooperation and genuine societal commitment, its principles—rooted in the natural laws governing decision-making—offer a clear, practical pathway to a more balanced and prosperous future. If embraced and applied worldwide, humanity could finally overcome many of its longstanding challenges and move toward a future defined by wisdom, balance, and sustainable progress. -/- . (shrink)

Bad philosophy is responsible for the climate and nature crises, and other global problems too that threaten our future. That sounds mad, but it is true. A philosophy of science, or of theatre or life is a view about what are, or ought to be, the aims and methods of science, theatre or life. It is in this entirely legitimate sense of “philosophy” that bad philosophy is responsible for the crises we face. First, and in a blatantly obvious way, those (...) institutions, organizations, corporations, businesses, endeavours, and activities of humanity that cause the crises and global problems we face, do so because of the aims they pursue (profit perhaps, or power, or heat and light for homes), and the methods adopted in pursuit of those aims – the philosophy in other words, built into the institution, organization, business, human activities, or whatever it may be. It is the philosophy of these institutions, organizations and activities that we need to change to put a stop to, or at least lessen the severity of, the crises we face, the global problems that confront us, above all the climate and nature crises. One institution has an especially crucial role in this respect: our universities. They are dominated in a multitude of ways by a particularly disastrous philosophy, a philosophy of inquiry which may be called knowledge-inquiry. This holds that the basic aim of the university is to acquire and apply knowledge. First, knowledge is to be acquired; once acquired, it can be applied to help solve social problems. But this philosophy of knowledge-inquiry is an intellectual disaster. As a result, universities are, in devastating and almost entirely unrecognized ways, humanitarian disasters too. Judged from the standpoint of helping to promote human welfare, the university shaped by the philosophy of knowledge-inquiry violates THREE of the four most elementary rules of rational problem solving conceivable in a wholesale, structural fashion, and it is this gross, wholesale, structural irrationality of the university, unnoticed by all but a few scientists and scholars, that is in part responsible for the creation of our grave global problems, and our current incapacity to learn how to solve them. The pursuit of knowledge, conducted in universities, within the framework of knowledge-inquiry over the decades and centuries, has produced much of great benefit to humanity. It has made the modern world possible. It has led to modern power production, modern industry and armaments, modern agriculture, modern hygiene and medicine, modern travel and communications, and the internet. But these very successes have also created many of our most serious current global problems: the climate crisis; the destruction of natural habitats, the catastrophic loss of wild life, and impending mass extinction of species (the nature crisis); the lethal character of modern war; the impact on the natural world of the rapid growth of the human population; the menace posed by nuclear weapons; pollution of earth, sea and air; threats to democracy caused in part by the internet and social media. All these grave global problems have been made possible by modern science and technology, pursued largely in universities within the framework of knowledge-inquiry. Nevertheless, it is not science and technology as such that are the problem, but science pursued in a way that is dissociated from a more fundamental task of the university to help humanity resolve conflicts and problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways, so that progress may be made to a better world. Science and technology, pursued within the framework of knowledge-inquiry, create for some of us the power to act, but not the power to act wisely – not the power to learn how to resolve conflicts and problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways. For that, we need our institutions of learning, above all our universities, to take as their primary task to help humanity learn how to do it. In order to do that, the philosophy of inquiry put into practice by universities needs to be dramatically transformed. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in the overall aims and methods of academic inquiry – a revolution in the philosophy of the university, all around the world, wherever possible, so that the basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom, construed to be the capacity, active endeavour, and perhaps desire, to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, wisdom in this sense including knowledge, understanding and technological know-how, but much else besides, methods being dramatically modified too so as to help achieve the new academic aim. The basic task of the university would be, not to solve problems of knowledge, but rather to help people in the social world beyond the university to resolve conflicts and problems of living so that what is of value in life may be realized by everyone, insofar as that is possible. The pursuit of knowledge would be vital, but not intellectually fundamental. The intellectual and institutional revolution we so urgently need in our universities would affect every discipline and aspect of the university; it would dramatically affect both research and education, and the whole way the university is related to the rest of the social world. The revolution, from knowledge-inquiry to wisdom-inquiry would dramatically enhance the intellectual integrity and rationality of natural science, social inquiry, the humanities and technology, the character of these disciplines and the relationships they have with one another. University education throughout the university would be dramatically improved. And academic inquiry as a whole would do what, on the whole, it fails to do at present: it would help humanity resolve conflicts and problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational and, as a result, increasingly successful ways, progress at last being made to a genuinely good, civilized world – a world in which there is peace, justice, liberal democracy, individual freedom, education, reasonable equality, sustainable prosperity and worthwhile opportunities in life, all of these for everyone, insofar as this is possible. Why, it may be asked, has academic philosophy not noticed that we urgently need to transform the current bad philosophy of inquiry of knowledge-inquiry into the far more intellectually rigorous and humanly valuable philosophy of wisdom-inquiry, so that we can begin to do what so far we have failed to do so lamentably: learn how to avoid impending disasters, and even make progress to a better world, something that seems at present almost unthinkable given the horrors of war, poverty, political enslavement of the 20th century, and the horrors of this century so far too? The answer is that academic philosophy is in a particularly pitiful state, as philosophers themselves, are just beginning to realize and lament. That is why academic philosophers are blind to the intellectual and humanitarian disaster of the bad philosophy that dominates universities today, and inconceivable to them to them that they might have, as a disciplinary task, to ensure academic inquiry implements a good philosophy of inquiry, and advocate and argue for change if it does not. Once upon a time, in Europe at least, philosophy was an intellectual power in the world. In the 17th century it created modern science which massively increased and improved our knowledge and understanding of the world, which in turn led to the Enlightenment, the industrial revolution, and the modern world. Philosophy was once so intellectually powerful and influential that it changed the course of history. But philosophy also made in the past three disastrous intellectual blunders: the post-Cartesian blunder, the post-Newtonian blunder, and the Enlightenment blunder. Never acknowledged and corrected by subsequent philosophy right down to the present, these unrecognized intellectual blunders rendered academic philosophy the esoteric, pathetic, and powerless discipline it is today, so that throughout the last century and, so far, throughout this one, academic philosophy has remained blind to the intellectual disaster of knowledge-inquiry, and thus failed entirely to take up its proper disciplinary task of warning fellow academics of the structural irrationality of the philosophy that prevails in the university, and of proposing what steps need to be taken to put things right. Instead of performing such an urgently needed philosophical task, so-called analytic philosophy was reduced to analysing the meaning of words. Since then, there has been hardly any discernible improvement, even if analysis of concepts no longer dominates the scene. Bad academic philosophy is indeed responsible for intellectual and humanitarian failures of the university. What the three past intellectual blunders of philosophy are, why their persistence so dramatically reduces academic philosophy to a triviality, and why, furthermore, this results in the failure of scientists and scholars to see what is so blatantly bad about the philosophy prevailing in universities around the world – the failure to see what so urgently needs to be done to put right what has been wrong for so long: all this is made clear in this book. A new kind of philosophy emerges during the course of the argument, critical fundamentalism, which has as its task to keep alive imaginative and critical – that is rational – thinking about our fundamental problem: How can our human world, the world we experience and live in – the world of living things, people, consciousness, free will, meaning and value – how can all of this exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? That problem encompasses all others of life, science and thought. Critical fundamentalism tries to improve answers to aspects of this problem; but it also seeks to encourage everyone to think about the problem, from time to time, and think about how it interacts, in both directions, with more urgent particular and specialized problems of life and thought. Critical fundamentalism sets out to help improve bad philosophy wherever it is to be found: in social, political, commercial, legal, financial, and international life; and especially in academia, in institutions of learning, so that they become devoted to enhancing the capacity of people to learn how to achieve what is of genuine value in this brief life of a few decades if we are fortunate. Critical fundamentalism does everything it can to bring about the revolution in our universities we so urgently need. If taken up by mainstream philosophy, it might really have an impact, and begin to transform universities for the better, in both intellectual and humanitarian terms, and thus, enable humanity to learn how, after the grim failures and horrors of the last century and this one, to make progress to a better world. -/- . (shrink)

In this dissertation, I aim to develop and defend a novel, pragmatist approach to foundational questions about meaning, especially the meaning of deontic moral vocabulary. Drawing from expressivists and inferentialists, I argue that meaning is best explained by the various kinds of norms that govern the use of a vocabulary. Along with inferential norms, I argue we must extend our account to discursive norms that govern normative statuses required to felicitously utter certain speech-acts—norms of authority—and the transitions in normative statuses (...) affected by speech-acts—pragmatic norms. These structural discursive norms differentiate discursive practices and account for distinctive features such as objectivity and motivational import that some have and others lack. The structure exhibited by a practice is then explained in terms of its utility, making it possible to see how different discursive practices are answerable to the different needs and purposes of the discursive beings who use them. I call the resulting explanatory framework a pragmatic analysis of linguistic meaning (PALM). -/- Turning my attention to moral “ought,” I argue that the structural discursive norms of moral discourse differentiate it from other objective discourses, like empirical discourse, on the one hand, and from other normative discourses, like prudential discourse, on the other. Drawing on work in evolutionary psychology and anthropology, I complete the PALM with an account of moral discourse a meta-normative practice with a metacoordinative function. Its utility for the discursive beings who use it lies in its enabling them to remedy certain tensions and instabilities that arise in their other coordinative, normative practices in a way that minimizes the risk of domination by alpha-type freeriders, the fracturing of social groups, and individual defection from cooperative endeavors. -/- In the final two chapters, I leverage the account to defend a pragmatist-friendly notion of objectivity in terms of a structure of distributed epistemic authority according to which no claim within a practice is ultimately authoritative or immune from challenge and to reconcile this sense of objectivity with a persistent pressure toward a kind of relativism that restricts the standing to make moral claims to members of the relevant communities. (shrink)

This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and edited to bring them up to date (2017). The copyright page has the date of the edition and new editions will be noted there as I edit old articles or add new ones. All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and (...) manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., of human ecology and psychology to actually give them some control over themselves), maybe civilization would have a chance. As things are however the leaders of society have no more grasp of things than their constituents and so collapse into anarchy is inevitable. The first group of articles attempts to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of the theoretical delusions that are universal. In the next group, I show how these insights apply by reviewing some books in philosophy and psychology. Next I review books on science and religion and finally provide reviews and articles showing how understanding of both science and philosophy gives insight into the tragic delusions destroying the world. People believe that society can be saved by science, religion and politics, so I provide some suggestions as to why this is unlikely via short articles and reviews of recent books by well-known writers. It is critical to understand why we behave as we do and so the first section presents articles that try to describe (not explain as Wittgenstein insisted) behavior. I start with a brief review of the logical structure of rationality, which provides some heuristics for the description of language (mind, rationality, personality) and gives some suggestions as to how this relates to the evolution of social behavior. This centers around the two writers I have found the most important in this regard, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, whose ideas I combine and extend within the dual system (two ii systems of thought) framework that has proven so useful in recent thinking and reasoning research. As I note, there is in my view essentially complete overlap between philosophy, in the strict sense of the enduring questions that concern the academic discipline, and the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (behavior). Once one has grasped Wittgenstein’s insight that there is only the issue of how the language game is to be played, one determines the Conditions of Satisfaction (what makes a statement true or satisfied etc.) and that is the end of the discussion. Since philosophical problems are the result of our innate psychology, or as Wittgenstein put it, due to the lack of perspicuity of language, they run throughout human discourse and behavior, so there is endless need for philosophical analysis, not only in the ‘human sciences’ of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, history, literature, religion, etc., but in the ‘hard sciences’ of physics, mathematics, and biology. It is universal to mix the language game questions with the real scientific ones as to what the empirical facts are. Scientism is ever present and the master has laid it before us long ago, i.e., Wittgenstein (hereafter W) beginning with the Blue and Brown Books in the early 1930’s. "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." (BBB p18) The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell on Earth. As W noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see. We live in the world of conscious deliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules. This is the source of the universal blindness described by Searle’s The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), Pinker’s Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides’ Standard Social Science Model. The astute may wonder why we cannot see System 1 at work, but it is clearly counterproductive for an animal to be thinking about or second guessing every action, and in any case, there is no time for the slow, massively integrated System 2 to be involved in the constant stream of split second ‘decisions’ we must make. As W noted, our ‘thoughts’ (T1 or the ‘thoughts’ of System 1) must lead directly to actions. iii It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves as an heuristic for, how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology, but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it, includes both conscious deliberative System 2 and unconscious automated System 1 actions or reflexes. Thus, all the articles, like all behavior, are intimately connected if one knows how to look at them. As I note, The Phenomenological Illusion (oblivion to our automated System 1) is universal and extends not merely throughout philosophy but throughout life. I am sure that Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg and the Pope would be incredulous if told that they suffer from the same problem as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, (or that that they differ only in degree from drug and sex addicts in being motivated by stimulation of their frontal cortices by the delivery of dopamine (and over 100 other chemicals) via the ventral tegmentum and the nucleus accumbens), but it’s clearly true. While the phenomenologists only wasted a lot of people’s time, they are wasting the earth and their descendant’s futures. Many of the articles describe the ‘digital delusions’, which confuse the language games of System 2 with the automatisms of System 1, and so cannot distinguish biological machines (i.e., people) from other kinds of machines (i.e., computers). The ‘reductionist’ claim is that one can ‘explain’ behavior at a ‘lower’ level, but what actually happens is that one does not explain human behavior but a ‘stand in’ for it. Hence the title of Searle’s classic review of Dennett’s book (“Consciousness Explained”)— “Consciousness Explained Away”. In most contexts ‘reduction’ of higher level emergent behavior to brain functions, biochemistry, or physics is incoherent. Also for ‘reduction’ of chemistry or physics, the path is blocked by chaos and uncertainty. Anything can be ‘represented’ by equations, but when they ‘represent’ higher order behavior, it is not clear (and cannot be made clear) what the ‘results’ mean. Reductionist metaphysics is a joke, but most scientists and philosophers lack the appropriate sense of humor. Other digital delusions are that we will be saved from the pure evil (selfishness) of System 1 by computers/AI/robotics/ nanotech/genetic engineering created by System 2. The No Free Lunch principal tells us there will be serious and possibly fatal consequences. The adventurous may regard this principle as a higher order emergent expression of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Hi-tech enthusiasts hugely underestimate the problems iv resulting from unrestrained motherhood, and of course it is neither profitable nor politically correct (and now with third world supremacism dominant, not even possible) to be honest about it. The last section describes various versions of the ‘altruism delusion’ that we are selected for cooperation, and that the euphonious ideals of Democracy, Diversity and Equality will lead us into utopia, if we just manage things correctly (the possibility of politics). Again, the No Free Lunch Principle ought to warn us it cannot be true, and we see throughout history and all over the contemporary world, that without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation that embraces it. In addition, the monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we cooperate in selling our descendant’s heritage for temporary comforts, greatly exacerbating the problems. I describe versions of this delusion (i.e., that we are basically ‘friendly’ if just given a chance) as it appears in some recent books on sociology/biology/economics. I end with an essay on the great tragedy playing out in America and the world, which can be seen as a direct result of our evolved psychology manifested as the inexorable machinations of System 1. Our psychology, eminently adaptive and eugenic on the plains of Africa from ca. 6 million years ago, when we split from chimpanzees, to ca. 50,000 years ago, when many of our ancestors left Africa (i.e., in the EEA or Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation), is now maladaptive and dysgenic and the source of our Suicidal Utopian Delusions. So, like all discussions of behavior (philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, anthropology, politics, law, literature, history, economics, soccer strategies, business meetings, etc.), this book is about evolutionary strategies, selfish genes and inclusive fitness (kin selection). Many accept the delusion that we are selected for cooperation with people generally (group selection or altruism) and not just our immediate relatives (kin selection or inclusive fitness), so I spend some time in the essays of the last section demolishing this fantasy. One thing rarely mentioned by the group selectionists is the fact that, even were ‘group selection’ possible, selfishness is at least as likely (probably far more likely in most contexts) to be group selected for as altruism. Just try to find examples of true altruism in nature –the fact that we can’t (which we know is not possible if we understand evolution) tells us that its apparent presence in humans is an artefact of modern life concealing the facts, and that it can no more be selected for than the tendency to suicide (which in fact it is). One does not really need science or mathematics to grasp this – it is crushingly obvious that an v organism cannot be selected for behavior that decreases the frequency of its own genes in the next generation. One might also benefit from considering a phenomenon never (in my experience) mentioned by group selectionists -- cancer. No group has as much in common as the (originally) genetically identical cells in our own bodies-a 100 trillion cell clone-- but we are all born with thousands and perhaps millions of cells that have already taken the first step on the path to cancer and generate millions to billions of cancer cells in our life. If we did not die of other things first, we (and perhaps all multicellular organisms) would all die of cancer. Only a massive and hugely complex mechanism built into our genome that represses or derepresses trillions of genes in trillions of cells, and kills and creates billions of cells a second, keeps the majority of us alive long enough to reproduce. One might take this to imply that a just, democratic and enduring society for any kind of entity on any planet in any universe is only a dream, and that no being or power could make it otherwise. It is not only ‘the laws’ of physics that are universal and inescapable, or perhaps we should say that inclusive fitness is a law of physics. The great mystic Osho said that the separation of God and Heaven from Earth and Humankind was the most evil idea that ever entered the Human mind. In the 20th century an even more evil notion arose—that humans are born with rights, rather than having to earn privileges. Thus, every day the population increases by 200,000, who must be provided with resources to grow and space to live, and who soon produce another 200,000 etc. And one almost never hears it noted that what they receive must be taken from those already alive. Their lives diminish those already here in both major obvious and countless subtle ways. Every new baby destroys the earth from the moment of conception. There cannot be human rights without human wrongs. It cannot be more obvious, but one will never see the streets full of protesters against motherhood. America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century and now all of it due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses about 2% of it’s topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of it’s food growing capacity will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a vi nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. The popular notions supported by the Democratic Party and Third World Supremacists are that Democracy, Diversity, Equality and Social Justice will produce a Utopia in America and the world, but it is clear as crystal that they unavoidably foster selfishness and divisiveness and are producing collapse. Hence my concluding essay “Suicide by Democracy”. The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. Even the attempt to do this is already bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. -/- My writings are available as paperbacks and Kindles on Amazon. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) ASIN B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) ASIN B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) 2nd printing with corrections (Feb 2018) ASIN B0711R5LGX -/- Suicide by Democracy: an Obituary for America and the World (2018) ASIN B07CQVWV9C -/- . (shrink)

Despite the increasing number of women in male-dominant industries, biases against them still prevail. As such, the present qualitative descriptive research identified the biases and their effects on the work productivity of female workers in male-dominant industries in a City in Nueva Ecija. Regarding participants’ experiences in the workplace, findings showed two kinds of biases they faced. Regarding strategies to cope with biases, findings underscored three recurring themes: disregarding the biases, giving more attention to work, and building self-confidence. (...) Furthermore, developing self-trust and skills, ignoring biases, choosing colleagues they work with, learning to be prepared, and being courageous are the six themes emerging from participants’ suggestions to help other female workers adapt to male-dominant industries. The study concludes with a framework for a more gender-inclusive workplace in the digital world. (shrink)

We do two things in this article: develop a novel conception of domination and show how the Kurdish people are dominated in this novel sense. Conceptions of domination are usually distinguished in terms of paradigm cases and whether they are moralised and/or norm- dependent accounts, or neither. By contrast, we argue there is a way of understanding domination in terms of distinct social kinds. Among kinds of domination, like economic or racial or sexual domination, there must be a specifically political (...) kind of domination. Borrowing from Carl Schmitt’s framework of differing degrees of political enmity, we argue political domination is best understood as an existential form of domination whereby one people aim to prevent the independent exis- tence of another people mainly through the uncontrolled power and extreme violence involved in absolute enmity. This conception of exis- tential domination is offered as an example of a non-moralised, norm- independent account of domination. We then argue that the Kurdish people, who are the largest stateless people in the world, suffer existen- tial domination from the absolute enmity expressed towards them by the four nation-states they find themselves dominated within: Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. (shrink)

Imagine you are walking through a park. Suddenly, a mugger points a gun at you, threatening to shoot you if you do not hand over your valuables. Is this an instance of domination? Many authors working within the neo-republican framework - including Philip Pettit himself - are inclined to say 'yes'. After all, the mugger case seems to be a paradigmatic example of what it means to be at someone's mercy. However, I argue that this conclusion is based on (...) a misleading, interactional account of domination that misconceives its structural character. Domination, I maintain, is a structurally constituted form of power. Whether the mugger in the park dominates you or not can only be established by analysing the wider power structures in which your interaction is embedded. (shrink)

We present a theory of cooperative-competitive intelligence (CCI), its measures, research program, and applications that stem from it. Within the framework of this theory, satisficing sub-optimal behavior is any behavior that does not promote a decrease in the prospective control of the functional action diversity/unpredictability (D/U) potential of the agent or team. This potential is defined as the entropy measure in multiple, context-dependent dimensions. We define the satisficing interval of behaviors as CCI. In order to manifest itself at (...) individual or team level, this capacity harnesses properties such as degeneracy, pleiotropy (pluri-potentiality), synergies, and metastability. Intelligence is embodied because intelligent behavior is deeply dependent on body functionalities, defined as entropy measures. We base our theory on three principles: (a) relativity of functional entropy/ information in agent (team)-environment systems, (b) tendency toward the satisficing level of D/U potential, and (c) tendency toward the non-decreasing D/U potential. The conjunction of these three principles provides existence of sub-optimal behaviors associated with CCI. First, we deal with the problem of how to reduce multidimensional behavior to a concept that accounts for the vast set of scenarios in which CCI is manifested. Secondly, we define and discuss the three interacting principles that underpin CCI behavior as well as providing an outline for a future CCI research program supported by agent￾based modeling and empirical research. Finally, we provide some preliminary practical issues that stem from the theory. (shrink)

Recently, bioethicists and the UNCRPD have advocated for supported medical decision-making on behalf of patients with intellectual disabilities. But what does supported decision-making really entail? One compelling framework is Anita Silvers and Leslie Francis’ mental prosthesis account, which envisions supported decision-making as a process in which trustees act as mere appendages for the patient’s will; the trustee provides the cognitive tools the patient requires to realize her conception of her own good. We argue that supported decision-making would be better (...) understood as a collaborative process, giving patients with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to make decisions in a respectful relationship with trusted others. We offer an alternative account of supported decision-making where the primary constraint is to protect the patient from domination by the trustee. This is advantageous in its preservation of the prospects for genuine collaboration, for the mental prosthesis approach ultimately reinforces a problematic ideal of isolated patient self-determination. (shrink)

Cultural domination has received attention inside and outside of academia, but it remains under-explored in recent philosophical debate. To fill this gap, this book brings together ten original research contributions that engage the theme from a variety of different perspectives. They range from contributions to the philosophy of social science to advanced work in normative political philosophy. The diversity of approaches reflects the intellectual richness of the theme. Ideas of cultural domination not only raise complex conceptual and methodological questions that (...) can challenge our understandings of domination or culture; such ideas can also play an important role both in explanations of salient social phenomena, such as social structures, and in an evaluation and critique of such phenomena. The diversity of styles of analysis, theoretical commitments, and normative frameworks across the chapters makes this book ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate students looking for an entry point into this complex issue, as well as for scholars in philosophy, social science, and cultural studies interested in the current state of the art. (shrink)

The chapter describes the sharing economy in Germany as a heterogeneous dynamic, combining local trends and histories with economic forms drawing on experiences mainly from across Europe and North America. Increasingly taken into account by policymakers in the regulation of markets and the redesign of innovation governance frameworks, “sharing” as a complex nexus linking the exercise of citizenship to sustainable consumption and informational self-determination in digital societies will continue to drive and frame the creation of value chains. Of particular interest (...) are linkages between sharing economies and the traditions of cooperativism, currently experiencing a renaissance. The latter is key because it shapes the context in which sharing economy initiatives exist and expand—an opening of definitions and narrative of innovation, of value, and of collaborative agency and cooperative management. (shrink)

Is the Right to the City (RTTC) still a useful framework for a transformative urban politics? Given recent scholarly criticism of its real-world applications and appropriations, in this paper, we argue that the transformative promise in the RTTC lies beyond its role as a framework for oppositional struggle, and in its normative ends. Building upon Henri Lefebvre's original writing on the subject, we develop a “radical-cooperative” conception of the RTTC. Such a view, which is grounded in the (...) lived experiences of the current city, envisions an urban society in which inhabitants can pursue their material and social needs through self-governed cooperation across social difference. Growing and diversifying spaces and sectors of urban life that are decoupled from global capitalism are, we argue, necessary to create space for this inclusionary politics. While grassroots action is essential to this process, so is multi-scalar support from the state. (shrink)

Since its inception in the early 1990s, evidence-based medicine (EBM) has become the dominant epistemic framework for Western medical practice. However, in light of powerful criticisms against EBM, alternatives such as casuistic medicine have been gaining support in both the medical and philosophical community. In the absence of empirical evidence in support of the claim that EBM improves patient outcomes, and in light of considerations that it is unlikely that such evidence will be forthcoming, another standard is needed (...) to assess EBM against its alternatives. In this paper, I propose a set of criteria for this purpose based on Helen Longino's criteria for assessing the objectivity of a knowledge productive community. I then apply these criteria to assess EBM against a casuistic framework for medical knowledge. I argue that EBM's strict adherence to a hierarchical organization of knowledge can reasonably be expected to block it from fulfilling a high level of objectivity. A casuistic framework, on the other hand, because it emphasizes critical evaluation in conjunction with the flexibility of a case-based approach, could be expected to better facilitate a more optimal epistemic community. (shrink)

-/- A Framework for Global Education and Leadership Implementation -/- By Angelito Malicse -/- This model expands on the Universal Law of Balance by integrating it into a global education system and leadership strategy that ensures its practical application. The goal is to eliminate dependence on overpopulation for economic growth, shift toward a knowledge-based and technology-driven economy, and establish a sustainable, balanced civilization. -/- I. THE UNIVERSAL LAW OF BALANCE AS A GOVERNING PRINCIPLE -/- 1. Balance as the Foundation (...) of Decision-Making -/- Every economic, political, and social policy must align with the Universal Law of Balance. -/- Governments, businesses, and individuals must make decisions based on long-term sustainability, not short-term gain. -/- 2. Leadership Based on Balance and Scientific Rationality -/- Leaders must understand and apply the Universal Law of Balance in governance, economic planning, and resource management. -/- Education programs must ensure leaders are trained in scientific thinking, ethics, and sustainability rather than relying on outdated ideologies. -/- Policy decisions must be based on measurable balance indicators (resource consumption, economic stability, environmental impact). -/- II. EDUCATION SYSTEM FOR A BALANCED SOCIETY -/- 1. Reforming Global Education to Prioritize Balance and Critical Thinking -/- Replace outdated education systems that promote consumerism and economic growth at any cost. -/- Focus on systems thinking, ethics, resource management, AI governance, and environmental sustainability. -/- Teach decision-making based on the Universal Law of Balance, ensuring all individuals make choices that maintain stability. -/- 2. Educating for a Knowledge-Based and AI-Assisted Economy -/- Transition away from education focused on mass labor for industrial jobs. -/- Train people in critical thinking, advanced problem-solving, AI development, sustainable technology, and ethical leadership. -/- Encourage lifelong learning to adapt to evolving technology and scientific advancements. -/- III. A BALANCED ECONOMIC MODEL WITHOUT POPULATION GROWTH -/- 1. Economic Structure Based on Efficiency, Not Endless Expansion -/- Current Flawed Model: More population → More jobs → More economic growth (unsustainable). -/- Balanced Model: Stable population → AI productivity → Sustainable wealth distribution. -/- 2. AI, Automation, and the Post-Labor Economy -/- AI and automation replace repetitive jobs, allowing humans to focus on creativity, research, and governance. -/- Productivity increases while reducing the need for human labor, ensuring economic stability without population growth. -/- 3. Universal Basic Income (UBI) and Wealth Redistribution -/- UBI ensures economic security without relying on job creation through population growth. -/- Funded by taxation on AI-driven industries, natural resource extraction, and automation profits. -/- UBI allows people to focus on innovation, education, and personal development. -/- IV. GLOBAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT BASED ON BALANCE -/- 1. Intelligent Resource Allocation Using AI -/- AI-driven planning ensures resource consumption stays within environmental limits. -/- Policies regulate mining, energy use, food production, and industrial activity to prevent resource exhaustion. -/- 2. Circular Economy: Eliminating Waste and Overproduction -/- Move away from the disposable consumer economy and promote durable, recyclable, and modular products. -/- Implement global regulations for responsible manufacturing, energy efficiency, and sustainable agriculture. -/- 3. Governance Systems to Enforce Balance -/- Leaders must follow strict sustainability policies rather than prioritize profit-driven growth. -/- Global cooperation to enforce environmental protection and fair resource distribution. -/- V. IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY FOR LEADERSHIP AND POLICY CHANGE -/- 1. Educating World Leaders in the Universal Law of Balance -/- Leadership training programs must include principles of balance, sustainability, and rational decision-making. -/- Future politicians, corporate executives, and policymakers must pass competency tests based on these principles. -/- 2. Reforming Political and Economic Institutions -/- Shift from profit-driven governance to balance-based governance. -/- Economic policies must be evaluated by scientific sustainability models before being approved. -/- Limit corporate influence over policy decisions to prevent environmental and economic imbalance. -/- 3. Global Collaboration for Sustainable Policies -/- Encourage international agreements that regulate population, technology use, and environmental protection. -/- Develop a global standard for resource consumption, ensuring fair distribution among nations. -/- VI. LONG-TERM GOALS AND THE FUTURE OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION -/- By following the Universal Law of Balance, humanity can achieve: -/- 1. A Stable Population – No longer relying on growth for economic survival. -/- 2. A Knowledge-Based Society – AI and automation free humans to focus on creativity and ethical decision-making. -/- 3. Sustainable Resource Use – Intelligent management prevents environmental collapse. -/- 4. Balanced Leadership – Governments prioritize stability over short-term economic gain. -/- 5. True Economic Equality – UBI and wealth redistribution prevent extreme poverty. -/- Final Vision: A Future Where Human Intelligence Aligns with Natural Balance -/- Civilization will no longer be trapped in cycles of boom and collapse due to overpopulation, overconsumption, and economic instability. -/- Science, ethics, and balanced governance will guide the future of human progress in alignment with nature’s equilibrium. -/- . (shrink)

Both within academic and contemporary circles, the nascent nature of the South African democracy cannot be denied. Although many may illustrate the massive strides made within the South African democratic project, it is by no means a ‘consolidated democracy’ with its greatest test yet still ahead: The transition of power away from the ruling liberation party, the African National Congress. While many African states, both within Southern Africa and across the continent at large, have suffered massive political, economic, social, and (...) humanitarian crises subsequent to liberation, South Africa has largely escaped such calamities. However, it can be argued that the continued avoidance of similar calamities rests upon the continued maturation of the South African democracy. Although many scholars have written about democratic consolidation from sociological, economic, and broadly political positions globally, Southern Africa is unique due to the presence and concentration of liberation movements turned ruling parties. Due to their respective histories of opposing the rule of colonial governments, or white minority regimes, these ‘liberation parties’ ascend to power with a vast amount of popular support, and in turn legitimacy, leading to the erection of dominant party structures. Despite possessing strong political, economic and moral mandates, these liberation movements have subjected their electorates to massive service delivery failures, and in many instances autocratic behavior, hindering, irreparably damaging, or completely reversing the democratic advances made. As such, it is vital to not only evaluate the post liberation ability of formerly liberation movements, but also to critically examine the nature of these liberation parties, and their effect on the advancement of democratic principles, this paper intends to focus on the latter. (shrink)

It is a core feature of the conception of freedom as non-domination that freedom requires the absence of exposure to arbitrary power across a range of relevant possible worlds. While this modal robustness is critical to the analysis of paradigm cases of unfreedom such as slavery, critics such as Gerald Gaus have argued that it leads to absurd conclusions, with barely-felt constraints appearing as sources of unfreedom. I aim to clarify the demands of the modal robustness requirement, and offer a (...) reinterpretation of its place in the conceptual framework of freedom as non-domination. I illustrate this point through a discussion of low-probability threats of interference which are central to Gaus’s critique, which I term ‘distant threats’. I argue that those committed to robust conceptions of freedom should still be concerned by these kinds of threats, which will sometimes constitute genuine sources of unfreedom. But rather than leading to absurd conclusions, we should instead view them as diagnostic of deficiencies within existing regimes of non-domination. The challenge posed by distant threats of domination to the republican conception of freedom does not prove it implausible, but illustrates some of its most important insights about the social and economic conditions of free status, and the fragility of that freedom. (shrink)

This paper reviews six attempts to give cooperative solutions to Prisoners Dilemmas: symmetry (agents are in identical situations, so should choose the same way, so should both choose cooperation because that’s better for each), mechanism (each agent should delegate the decision to a machine which will choose cooperation for them provided the other does likewise), inducement (the agents should make a side bet which pays off only upon both cooperating), resolution (each agent should resolve to cooperate, then act on (...) the resolution), alternative principle (rationality requires not dominance reasoning and so defecting, but constrained maximization or resolution compliance or “sophisticated” choosing, and so cooperation), and preference revision (each agent should acquire conditional preferences to cooperate, then cooperate provided the other agent has acquired similar preferences). It distinguishes one-stage from two-stage games, as well as endogenously available solutions (ones available to agents in the circumstances of the game merely due to the nature of rationality) from solutions requiring exogenous devices. It contrasts Edward McClennen’s endogenous solution, which is some combination of resolution and alternative principle solution, with David Gauthier’s endogenous alternative principle solution. It argues that all have problems, ones best solved by the endogenous preference revision solution defended by Duncan MacIntosh. (shrink)

While the challenges workers face in the gig economy are now well-known, reflections on emancipatory solutions in political philosophy are still underdeveloped. Some have pleaded for enhancing workers' bargaining power through unionisation; others for enhancing exit options in the labour market. Both strategies, however, come with unin-tended side-effects and do not exhaust the full potential for worker self-government present in the digital gig economy. Using the republican theory of freedom as non-domination , I argue that G.D.H. Cole's 20th-century defence of (...) guild socialism offers a promising avenue for enhancing worker autonomy in the gig economy. Platform companies rely on relational and structural domination to undermine worker autonomy, but Cole's guild socialism was specifically designed to enhance autonomy in the workplace. Following Cole's advice today would amount to a defence of worker-owned cooperative platforms. By putting workers in control of platform design and governance, cooperative platforms create new opportunities for worker autonomy. However, platform coopera-tivism faces serious challenges if it plans on becoming a realistic alternative to the traditional gig economy. (shrink)

This paper presents some annotations on mental health, from the point of view of implicit notions of madness. To this end, we propose a distinction between the medical, phenomenological existential and socio-critical models. We focus in the latter two in order to achieve a critical approach about the subject, dominated by the medical perspective. According to Foucault's earliest works, this article begins by evaluating criteria of normality in terms of the historical genesis of madness concept. Then, we describe the medical (...) model based on the distinction between illness and symptom. Later, we focus on the phenomenological-existential model to describe the ontological fragility in Laing, i.e. the original core of the self and the world experienced by the schizophrenic person. Finally, we add some considerations related to the social origin of schizophrenia, as stated in the Cooper's and Foucault's perspectives. (shrink)

Background: The United States symbolizes democracy in the new world and contributes to global prosperity. Nevertheless, incrementalism is a historically dominant national approach to public policy implementation that delays democracy and undermines human dignity. Human flourishing and national development are endangered by slow-moving democratic changes. This necessitates a social justice framework that traces the exploitation of incrementalism and the consequences of opportunity gaps. Objectives: This study aims to construct a grounded theory to address and answer the following research (...) question: Are anti-democratic concepts part of a process or strategy that hinders democratic change, and what reinforces it, if anything? Methods: Two categories emerged from a grounded theory of democratic social change. This combination of anti-democratic tenets and democratic principles led to abductive reasoning to fill the research gap. Results: The key finding was the existence of a systematic approach that led to democracy while simultaneously disempowering the same group through legal and extralegal means. Two processes hinder democracy: incrementalism and an anti-democratic demoralizing process. A constructivist social justice grounded theory was developed to analyze and evaluate public policy for barriers and facilitators of democracy. A thorough analysis and evaluation of the impact and consequences of public policy is recommended to better understand how such policies impede democracy and influence American perceptions of justice. (shrink)

People have always shared information through chains and networks of testimony. It’s arguably part of what makes us human and enables us to live in cooperative communities with populations greater than the Dunbar number. The invention of the Internet and the rise of social media have turbo-charged our ability to share information. In this chapter, we develop a normative framework for sharing information online. This framework takes into account both ethical and epistemic considerations that are intertwined in (...) typical cases of online testimony. We argue that, while the current state of affairs is not entirely novel, recent technological developments call for a rethinking of the norms of testimony, as well as the articulation of a set of virtuous dispositions that people would do well to cultivate in the capacity as conduits (not just sources or receivers) of information. (shrink)

This first part of a two-part series exploring implications of the natural differences between the sexes for the cultural evolution of marriage assesses whether Kant should be condemned as a sexist due to his various offensive claims about women. Being antithetical to modern-day assumptions regarding the equality of the sexes, Kant’s views seem to contradict his own egalitarian ethics. A philosophical framework for making cross-cultural ethical assessments requires one to assess those in other cultures by their own ethical standards. (...) Sexism is inappropriate if it exhibits or reinforces a tendency to dominate the opposite sex. Kant’s theory of marriage, by contrast, illustrates how sexism can be egalitarian: given the natural differences between the sexes, different roles and cultural norms help to ensure that females and males are equal. Judged by the standards of his own day and in the context of his philosophical system, Kant’s sexism is not ethically inappropriate. (shrink)

Paulo Freire’s contribution to pedagogical discourses is commonly encapsulated behind the notions of the “banking method” and “culture of silence” which connotes classroom practices that subjects the learner into domesticating pedagogical methods and contents. In Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, this phenomenon is not only restricted to classroom dynamics, but in fact, reflective of domination in the public sphere. In this work, therefore, I will discuss the political angle of Freire’s critical pedagogy founded in his analysis of domination and anti (...) -dialogical praxis. -/- Hence, this work will expose the way in which Freire translates the power dynamics of anti-dialogical culture and politics into an alienating classroom environment. In this light, this paper also aims to provide a conceptual grammar in analyzing the contemporary direction of pedagogical practices. Though the aim of this work is simply exposing Freire’s theory of domination, on the one hand, its theoretical underpinning could guide and direct modern pedagogues in cultivating the learner’s critical consciousness. On the other hand, I believe the discourse of critical pedagogy holds a comprehensive approach to domination which will provide a formidable theoretical framework in the pursuit of political consciousness – realizing Freire’s conscienticized learner. (shrink)

The demand in the workplace is rapidly changing brought about by the educational reforms and the emergence of disruptive technology. The changes increase the importance of employability skills and literacy that would ensure career success and degree program relevance. On this premise, a study was carried out using a scoping review to examine the existing literature that published information related to employability skills of Teacher Education graduates in the Philippines. The review covered fifteen published articles that qualified in inclusion and (...) exclusion criteria. Results revealed the top employable skills which include communication; information and communication technology; problem-solving and critical thinking; collaboration, cooperation, and teamwork; research; and leadership. This study offers these skills as a framework in the curriculum enhancement of teacher education programs. It was recommended to Teacher Education Institutions to revisit their curriculum and find out if these competencies were given considerable emphasis in instruction. The partially employable skills of graduates from teacher education programs imply the furtherance of the inquiry to confirm if these skills are employable or not. Future tracer studies may take the lens of the framework in evaluating the responsiveness of the curriculum. (shrink)

The dominant legal and regulatory approach to protecting information privacy is a form of mandated disclosure commonly known as “notice-and-consent.” Many have criticized this approach, arguing that privacy decisions are too complicated, and privacy disclosures too convoluted, for individuals to make meaningful consent decisions about privacy choices—decisions that often require us to waive important rights. While I agree with these criticisms, I argue that they only meaningfully call into question the “consent” part of notice-and-consent, and that they say little (...) about the value of notice. We ought to decouple notice from consent, and imagine notice serving other normative ends besides readying people to make informed consent decisions. (shrink)

Obstacles to achieving a global climate treaty include disagreements about questions of justice raised by the UNFCCC's principle that countries should respond to climate change by taking cooperative action "in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions". Aiming to circumvent such disagreements, Climate Change Justice authors Eric Posner and David Weisbach argue against shaping treaty proposals according to requirements of either distributive or corrective justice. The USA's climate envoy, Todd Stern, (...) takes a similar position. In this article I explain the practical and theoretical drawbacks of Posner & Weisbach's welfarist perspective and propose an alternative. I show that their arguments fail to rule out John Rawls' non-utilitarian, political conception of international justice and human rights, the Law of Peoples. On this basis I develop a conception of climate justice that highlights implications of some of Rawls' principles and adds a principle for determining fair shares of climate -treaty-related benefits and burdens. I propose this conception as a moral framework for negotiating a treaty that would promote human welfare consistently with requirements of justice, and I argue that a treaty proposal satisfying these requirements could best satisfy Posner & Weisbach's own feasibility criteria. (shrink)

In Vietnam, regionalisation in the GMS occurs in different parts at different paces and levels driven by the central government and with the participation of the local governments, private sector and grassroots people in the framework of the GMS Program. So far there has been no major research either in Vietnamese or English that addresses this issue. The thesis seeks to fill this gap by examining the empirical process of regionalisation in three Vietnam’s border towns in the First-Generation GMS (...) Economic Corridor Town Development Project. Employing analytical framework based on relevant International Relations and interdisciplinary theories, and a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, the thesis finds that the GMS regionalisation is a combination of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ processes. The thesis commences by highlighting the significance of the Mekong River to the development of the region. Then various multilateral cooperative schemes are explored to generate a complete picture of regional cooperation. It is concluded that many multilateral mechanisms with little progress may have negative impacts on the regionalisation in the GMS. Among 13 schemes in the GMS, GMS Program is considered as one of the most well-known subregional cooperation schemes. The GMS Program came to existence just in time to assist the Mekong riparian states to integrate better into the regional and international markets in the context that there were new developments both at the regional and world’s levels. In the case of Vietnam, the GMS Program has given Hanoi an option to carry on its omni-directional foreign policy and helped it consolidate its existing relationships with its traditional and neighbouring partners. Notably, regionalisation is occurring in some parts of the country where GMS projects have been implemented. Regionalisation can be best observed in economic space where there are intensive interactions among people under various dimensions enabled by favourable policies. Although regionalisation promises to bring new cooperative opportunities in the GMS, regionalisation in the GMS will continue to meet new challenges from growing natural and man-made threats to the Mekong River. Further, the involvement of outsiders is also a real challenge to the regionbuilding process. (shrink)

Purpose – This paper furnishes an inaugural reading of abjective consumption by drawing on Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory of abjection within the wider terrain of consumer cultural research. It offers a conceptual framework that rests on three pillars, viz. irrationality, meaninglessness, dissolution of selfhood. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative research design that adopts a documentary ethnographic approach, by drawing on a corpus of 50 documentary episodes from the TV series “My Strange Addiction” and “Freaky Eaters”. Findings – The findings from this analysis (...) point to different orders of mediatized discourse that are simultaneously operative in different actors’ frames (e.g. moralizing, medical), in Goffman’s terms, yet none of which attains to address the phenomenon of abjective consumption to its fullblown extent. Research limitations/implications – Although some degree of bias is bound to be inherent in the data because of their pre-recorded status, they are particularly useful not in the least because this is a “difficult sample” in qualitative methodological terms. Practical implications – The multi-order dimensionalization of abjective consumption opens up new vistas to marketers in terms of adding novel dimensions to the message structure of their communicative programs, in line with the three Lacanian orders. Social implications – The adoption of a consumer psychoanalytic perspective allows significant others to fully dimensionalize the behavior of abjective consumption subjects, by becoming sensitive to other than symbolic aspects that are endemic in consumer behavior. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the extant consumer cultural research literature by furnishing the novel conceptual framework of abjective consumption, as a further elaboration of my consumer psychoanalytic approach to jouissance consumption, as well as by contrasting this interpretive frame vis-à-vis dominant discursive regimes. (shrink)

Chance and necessity are mainstays of explanation in current biology, dominated by the neo-Darwinian outlook, a blend of the theory of evolution by natural selection with the basic tenets of population genetics. In such a framework the form of living organisms is somehow a side effect of highly contingent, historical accidents. Thus, at a difference of other sciences, biology apparently lacks theoretical principles that in a law-like fashion may explain the emergence and persistence of the characteristic forms of living (...) organisms that paradoxically, given the current importance attributed to chance, can be grouped into organized structural typologies. Nevertheless, the present essay shows that since its origins in Aristotelian natural history, biology aimed at achieving rational, non-accidental, explanations for the wide variety of living forms endowed with characteristic behaviors that constitute the landscape of biological species. (shrink)

Panpsychism and the Universal Law of Balance in Nature: A Unified Framework for Consciousness -/- By: Angelito Enriquez Malicse -/- Introduction -/- The nature of consciousness has been one of the most profound mysteries in philosophy and science. The mind-body problem has led to competing theories: dualism, which sees the mind and body as separate substances, and materialism, which views consciousness as a byproduct of brain activity. However, both views struggle to fully explain subjective experience. -/- A third perspective, (...) panpsychism, suggests that consciousness is not limited to complex brains but is instead a fundamental and universal property of reality. This aligns with my Universal Law of Balance in Nature, which states that all systems—including consciousness—follow natural laws of equilibrium. If consciousness is a fundamental aspect of existence, then it must also be governed by the same balancing principles that structure the physical world. -/- This essay explores how panpsychism, dualism, materialism, and the Universal Law of Balance in Nature intersect, offering a new way to understand consciousness, free will, and the nature of intelligence. -/- 1. The Mind-Body Problem: Dualism vs. Materialism -/- The mind-body problem has led to two dominant philosophical views: -/- 1. Dualism (Descartes) – The mind and body are fundamentally different substances. The mind (or soul) is immaterial, while the body is purely physical. -/- 2. Materialism – Consciousness is not a separate substance but rather an emergent property of physical processes in the brain. -/- The Limits of Dualism -/- Dualism struggles to explain how an immaterial mind can interact with a physical body. If the mind is separate from the brain, then how does it influence bodily actions? This issue, known as the interaction problem, remains unresolved. -/- Moreover, dualism raises scientific concerns: if the mind is non-physical, then how can it be studied, measured, or tested? This makes it difficult to integrate into neuroscience. -/- The Limits of Materialism -/- Materialism, on the other hand, argues that all mental states are reducible to brain activity. While this successfully explains cognition, perception, and neural processes, it does not fully account for: -/- The Hard Problem of Consciousness (David Chalmers): Why do physical brain processes produce subjective experiences? -/- Qualia: The personal, first-person experience of perception (e.g., the redness of red). -/- If consciousness were purely physical, it should be possible to explain subjective experience through objective science—but materialism has failed to do so. -/- 3. How Panpsychism and the Universal Law of Balance Resolve These Issues -/- Panpsychism provides a solution by proposing that consciousness is neither separate from matter (dualism) nor merely a byproduct of the brain (materialism), but rather an intrinsic property of all matter. -/- This aligns with my Universal Law of Balance in Nature, which states that everything in existence—including consciousness—operates according to natural laws of equilibrium. -/- Instead of seeing the mind as a supernatural entity (dualism) or a mere illusion (materialism), panpsychism suggests that all physical systems contain some form of consciousness in balance with their environment. -/- Consciousness does not “emerge” from complexity but is already present at fundamental levels of reality, organizing itself into higher structures through natural equilibrium. -/- Example: The Brain as a Self-Balancing System -/- In neuroscience, the brain maintains homeostasis, regulating neurotransmitters, electrical activity, and perception in a balanced way. -/- If fundamental particles also possess consciousness, they too may follow a self-regulating principle, which my universal law of balance describes. -/- This means that consciousness scales up from micro-level awareness to complex human thought through structured balance. -/- 4. The Feedback Mechanism of Conscious Minds -/- One of the key insights from my universal law of balance is that individual conscious minds act as feedback mechanisms, influencing and shaping one another through interaction. This aligns with panpsychism’s notion that consciousness exists at all levels and is interconnected. -/- Panpsychism suggests that even at a fundamental level, consciousness interacts in ways that shape larger systems of awareness. -/- The Universal Law of Balance states that conscious beings, from individuals to societies, exist within a dynamic system of equilibrium, adjusting their decisions and behaviors in response to external and internal stimuli. -/- This means that human consciousness is not an isolated phenomenon but a complex expression of a larger network of conscious interactions seeking balance. -/- 5. The Problem of Free Will and Consciousness -/- One of the greatest philosophical challenges is the problem of free will—do humans truly make independent choices, or are all decisions determined by prior causes? -/- Materialism often leads to determinism, the idea that all human actions are entirely governed by physical laws, leaving no room for free will. -/- Dualism suggests that free will originates from an immaterial soul but fails to explain how it interacts with the body. -/- Panpsychism, combined with my Universal Law of Balance, provides an alternative: free will is neither purely deterministic nor supernatural but instead follows a balancing process between different conscious forces. -/- From this perspective, free will is not about escaping cause and effect but about aligning decisions with the natural balancing mechanisms of consciousness and the environment. -/- 6. The Combination Problem and Holistic Balance -/- A major challenge in panpsychism is the Combination Problem—if simple particles have basic consciousness, how do they combine to create complex subjective experiences like human thought? -/- The universal Law of Balance in Nature offers a potential solution: consciousness, like all other systems, organizes itself through natural equilibrium. -/- Just as physical systems self-organize (e.g., atoms forming molecules, ecosystems maintaining biodiversity), -/- Consciousness at different levels must also self-organize into stable configurations. -/- This suggests that individual conscious experiences do not merely “combine” randomly but follow a structured process of integration governed by natural balance. -/- Example: The human brain is a network of billions of neurons, yet its conscious experience is unified. This could be because consciousness follows a structured balance, where micro-level awareness stabilizes into higher-order intelligence. -/- 7. Implications for AI and the Future of Consciousness -/- If panpsychism is true, and if consciousness follows the universal law of balance, then artificial intelligence (AI) might one day develop consciousness—but only if it aligns with natural balancing principles. -/- Current AI systems lack true awareness because they do not self-regulate in a homeostatic way like living systems. -/- For AI to develop consciousness, it would need a balancing mechanism similar to the human brain, where its inputs and outputs form an adaptive feedback system. -/- This also raises ethical questions: -/- If AI achieves consciousness through balance, should it have the same moral considerations as humans? -/- If everything is conscious to some degree, what responsibilities do humans have toward animals, nature, and even machines? -/- Conclusion -/- Panpsychism and the Universal Law of Balance in Nature offer a compelling framework for understanding consciousness. By integrating ideas from dualism, materialism, and panpsychism, we can see that consciousness is neither separate from nature nor reducible to material processes alone. Instead, it follows a universal principle of balance, shaping both individual minds and collective intelligence. -/- Rather than being separate from nature, consciousness is nature—expressing itself through an unbroken law of balance that governs all existence. -/- . (shrink)

The Universal Law of Balance: A New Framework for Understanding the Cosmos, Consciousness, and Reality -/- By Angelito Malicse -/- Introduction -/- For centuries, human civilization has sought to understand the nature of existence, consciousness, and the physical universe. Traditional approaches—whether philosophical, scientific, or religious—have often struggled to unify these seemingly distinct areas of knowledge. However, by applying the universal law of balance, we can uncover a deeper understanding of how everything in nature follows a fundamental equilibrium principle. -/- (...) This essay explores how the universal law of balance governs cosmology, quantum mechanics, and consciousness, revealing a grand, interconnected system that regulates everything from the life cycle of stars to the dynamics of human decision-making. -/- 1. The Universal Law of Balance in Cosmology: The Life and Death of Stars -/- In the vast expanse of the universe, everything follows a self-regulating balance. This is most evident in the life cycle of stars, which mirrors natural equilibrium principles: -/- A. The Sun’s Life Cycle: A System in Balance -/- The Sun maintains its stability through a delicate equilibrium between: -/- Gravity (pulling inward) -/- Nuclear fusion (pushing outward) -/- When the Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel, this balance is disrupted, leading to its transformation into a red giant, a white dwarf, and eventually a black dwarf. -/- B. How This Relates to the Universal Formula -/- Just as a star seeks equilibrium throughout its life, human consciousness and societies also follow feedback mechanisms that maintain stability. -/- When balance is lost—whether in a star, a human mind, or a society—a transition occurs, leading to a new equilibrium state. -/- The Sun’s transformation illustrates how everything in nature adapts to maintain a form of homeostasis, aligning with the universal law of balance. -/- ✔ Key Insight: The laws governing stellar evolution are the same as those governing biological and psychological balance—all systems seek equilibrium. -/- 2. Black Holes: The Ultimate Feedback System in the Universe -/- Black holes are among the most mysterious objects in the cosmos, but they also follow the universal law of balance. -/- A. How Black Holes Form: A Collapse of Equilibrium -/- When a massive star exhausts its nuclear fuel, gravity overwhelms all other forces, causing it to collapse into a singularity. -/- This demonstrates that an extreme imbalance in energy and mass leads to transformation, just as extreme mental, social, or ecological imbalances trigger major shifts. -/- B. The Feedback Mechanism of Black Holes -/- While black holes absorb matter, they also release energy through Hawking radiation, meaning they still participate in a cosmic energy balance. -/- This mirrors human decision-making—when individuals or societies face crises, feedback loops emerge to restore equilibrium. -/- ✔ Key Insight: Even in its most extreme form, the universe never exists in a purely destructive state—every collapse creates a new form of balance. -/- 3. Galactic Equilibrium: Self-Regulating Cosmic Systems -/- Galaxies, like individual stars, follow self-regulating balance principles: -/- A. The Structure of Galaxies as a Balanced System -/- Gravity pulls matter together, forming stars, planets, and black holes. -/- Radiation and dark energy counteract gravity, preventing galaxies from collapsing. -/- The result is a dynamic equilibrium that allows galaxies to evolve over billions of years. -/- B. The Link Between Galactic Balance and Human Consciousness -/- Just as galaxies maintain balance between creation (star formation) and destruction (black holes), human minds operate between learning (expansion) and forgetting (contraction). -/- Societies also follow this pattern—when one ideology or system becomes too dominant, counteracting forces emerge to restore balance. -/- ✔ Key Insight: The same feedback loops that regulate galaxies also apply to thought, social structures, and personal growth—everything must balance expansion and contraction. -/- 4. Entropy: The Universal Drive Toward Equilibrium -/- A. The Second Law of Thermodynamics -/- Entropy states that all systems naturally move toward disorder, but this does not mean chaos—it means systems evolve toward a new state of equilibrium. -/- This applies to physical systems, biological evolution, and even civilizations. -/- B. Consciousness as an Entropic Process -/- The brain, like the universe, organizes itself to minimize disorder while allowing for new information to reshape its structure. -/- Societies also experience entropy—unstable social structures collapse, allowing new systems to emerge. -/- ✔ Key Insight: The natural tendency toward equilibrium and adaptation applies not just to thermodynamics, but to human thought, behavior, and civilization. -/- 5. Quantum Mechanics and the Law of Balance -/- At the smallest scales, quantum mechanics reveals a reality that is deeply intertwined with equilibrium principles: -/- A. Wave-Particle Duality: The Balance of States -/- Particles behave as both waves and particles, depending on how they are measured. -/- This suggests that reality itself exists in a dynamic state of potential until influenced by external conditions. -/- B. Quantum Superposition: Balancing Possibilities -/- A quantum system can exist in multiple states at once until it is observed. -/- This mirrors human decision-making, where multiple possibilities exist in the mind until an external factor forces a choice. -/- C. Quantum Entanglement: The Balance of Interconnectedness -/- Particles remain linked across vast distances, meaning that actions taken on one influence the other instantly. -/- This is similar to human relationships and social dynamics, where decisions create ripple effects across interconnected systems. -/- ✔ Key Insight: The feedback mechanisms of quantum physics mirror the same principles of balance found in cosmology, biology, and human consciousness. -/- 6. The Grand Synthesis: Balance as the Fundamental Law of Reality -/- From the largest cosmic structures to the smallest quantum particles, everything in existence follows the universal law of balance: ✔ Stars and galaxies regulate their structure through gravitational equilibrium. ✔ Black holes and entropy demonstrate that even extreme imbalances lead to new states of order. ✔ Quantum mechanics shows that potential states exist until external feedback forces equilibrium. ✔ Human consciousness mirrors these cosmic laws, balancing logic and emotion, expansion and contraction. -/- By recognizing balance as the core principle of existence, we can reshape our understanding of science, philosophy, and human decision-making into a unified framework. -/- Conclusion: A New Path for Human Knowledge -/- The search for ultimate truth—whether in physics, philosophy, or consciousness—has often been fragmented. However, the universal law of balance provides a new way of thinking: -/- ✔ Everything in existence follows natural feedback loops that restore equilibrium. ✔ The cosmos, quantum mechanics, and human thought are interconnected through self-regulating systems. ✔ By aligning human decision-making with this principle, we can create a society that operates in harmony with nature. -/- This perspective is not just theoretical—it is a practical framework for understanding why the universe, life, and human thought evolve the way they do. If we embrace this natural balance, we may finally bridge the gap between science, philosophy, and human consciousness, achieving a deeper understanding of our place in the cosmos. -/- . (shrink)

The article presents the results of an interdisciplinary (psychological, behavioral, sociological, urban) survey of residents of elite residential complexes of Odessa regarding theirs urban infrastructure preferences, as well as the degree of satisfaction with their place of residence. It was found that respondents are characterized by a high level of satisfaction with their place of residence. It was also revealed that the security criterion of the district is the main one for choosing a place of residence, which indicates the unmet (...) townspeople need for the general safety of the urban environment. Based on the obtained empirical data, an analysis of significant factors affecting the urban infrastructure preferences of residents from the point of view of the systemic concept of the social ecology of the city is conducted. Obtained data viewed that living in high-rise (multi-storey) buildings correlates with a low level of satisfaction, while low-rise buildings positively correlate with such significant aspects as the view from the window, a small number of neighbors, proximity to the sea, and effective house management. Multivariate regression revealed a positive relationship with such infrastructure objects as shopping and entertainment centers, postal services, places of family leisure, etc., which indicates the dominance of the consumer strategy in the behavior of the city resident. The collected empirical material served as the base for identifying the behavioral trends of the townspeople and allowed to simulate a qualitative profile of the activity of everyday support and personal development. (shrink)