This paper asks how perception becomes racializing and seeks the means for its critical interruption. My aim is not only to understand the recalcitrant and limitative temporal structure of racializing habits of seeing, but also to uncover the possibilities within perception for a critical awareness and destabilization of this structure. Reading Henri Bergson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in dialogue with Frantz Fanon, Iris Marion Young and race-critical feminism, I locate in hesitation the phenomenological moment where habits of seeing can be (...) internally fractured. Hesitation, I claim, makes visible the exclusionary logic of racializing and objectifying perception, countering its affective closure and opening it to critical transformation. (shrink)

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

Consider the following argument: when a phenomenon P is observable, any legitimate understanding of P must take account of observations of P; some mental phenomena—certain conscious experiences—are introspectively observable; so, any legitimate understanding of the mind must take account of introspective observations of conscious experiences. This paper offers a (preliminary and partial) defense of this line of thought. Much of the paper focuses on a specific challenge to it, which I call Schwitzgebel’s Challenge: the claim that introspection is so untrustworthy (...) that its indispensability for a genuine understanding of the mind only shows that no genuine understanding of the mind is possible. (shrink)

The new interest in special divine action has led to a close reading of the great debates and discussions of the early modern period in an attempt to understand contemporary resistance to the notion of divine action, and to develop strategies for reaffirming the notion in a refined manner. Although continuing engagement with and evaluation of the Humean legacy on miracles and divine action will be of central importance to this programme of review, there are other issues that also need (...) to be addressed. In this article I identify some of the factors that have caused or continue to cause difficulties for the articulation of a concept of special divine action and I suggest how they might be engaged. (shrink)

In this essay, I draw on Henri Bergson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to interrogate what philosophy is and how it can continue to think. Though my answer is not reducible to the views of either philosopher, what joins them is an attempt to elaborate philosophy as a different way of seeing. In this light, I propose a view of philosophy as prosthesis—as a means and a way for seeing differently. Rather than a simple tool, philosophy as prosthesis is a transformative supplement, (...) one that our bodily perception calls for and wherein that perception is recast. Rather than a fixed or assured view, this prosthesis holds open the interval in which thinking can take place. Philosophy, I argue, must wait. It sees and thinks hesitatingly, for the temporality it inscribes is not a foreseeable development but the unfolding of life as tendency, as that which creates its own possibility as it comes into existence. (shrink)

Although vaccines are considered an efficient public health tool by medical experts, in different countries, people’s confidence in them has been decreasing. COVID-19 has elevated medical scientists’ and practitioners’ social reputation, and it may have reduced global vaccination hesitancy. Still, this alone will not altogether remove the existent frictions that prevent people from complying with vaccination schedules. This paper will review the common causes behind vaccination hesitancy. It will also explore different types of public policy interventions that health experts in (...) governments and institutions employ to fight vaccine hesitancy and non-compliance. The main objective of this article is to argue that, considering the nature of the issue (vaccine hesitancy and its causes), among the various possibilities, policies based on behavioral insights can provide an effective instrument to remove those frictions. Among them, special attention will be devoted to nudges which promise efficiency while avoiding some of the ethical and political costs of other interventions, thanks to their libertarian paternalistic frame. The article concludes by suggesting that public health policymakers should consider the libertarian paternalistic approach of nudges when deploying interventions that aim at changing people’s attitudes and behavior. (shrink)

The public rejection of scientific claims is widely recognized by scientific and governmental institutions to be threatening to modern democratic societies. Intense conflict between science and the public over diverse health and environmental issues have invited speculation by concerned officials regarding both the source of and the solution to the problem of public resistance towards scientific and policy positions on such hot-button issues as global warming, genetically modified crops, environmental toxins, and nuclear waste disposal. The London Royal Society’s influential report (...) “Public Understanding of Science”, which spearheaded the now-thriving area of science... (shrink)

It is, without a doubt, a difficult task to address at once the state of philosophy as embodied by the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy and the place of one’s own thought within it. This is the task that a co-director’s address tries to fill. Whether with a critical reexamination of the phenomenological mode of seeing distinctive of SPEP, of philosophical progress, or of the place of transcontinental philosophy, prior co-directors found ways to subtly chart the windings and turns (...) of the many streams that assemble to form this society.We seem to be, however, at a different juncture, so that another... (shrink)

Health care systems can positively influence our personal decision-making and health-related behavior only if we trust them. I propose a conceptual analysis of the trust relation between the public and a healthcare system, drawing from healthcare studies and philosophical proposals. In my account, the trust relation is based on an epistemic component, epistemic authority, and on a value component, the benevolence of the healthcare system. I argue that it is also modified by the vulnerability of the public on healthcare matters, (...) and by the system’s credibility. I apply my proposed analysis of public trust in health care systems to the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, a tendency to question vaccine policies, and to seek alternative vaccine schedules or to refuse vaccination. Understanding the role of trust and its components can be key to understanding the phenomenon. (shrink)

Background: Health care practitioners are recognized to have a large influence in shaping uptake of vaccine in new borns, children, adolescents, as well as adults. Parents remain more secure in their decisions when health care practitioners communicate successfully with them about vaccine dangers and benefits, the value as well as necessity for vaccinations, as well as vaccine safety. Thus, immunization remain the foundation of the primary health care system, an indisputable human right as well as a global health and development (...) success story, saving millions of lives yearly. Recently, we have vaccines to prevent more than 20 life threatening diseases, helping people of all ages live longer, healthier lives. Yet despite tremendous progress, far too many people around the world, including nearly 20 million infants yearly have insufficient access to vaccines. In some countries, progress has stalled or even reversed, and there is a real risk that complacency will undermine past achievements. Purpose: The current study aimed to explores vaccine hesitancy, its barriers and impact studies regarding COVID-19 decision impacts. Also, to provides policy and decision makers and operational staff with evidence to inform decisions to promote vaccine uptake across Bayelsa State. Methods: A literature review tried to do a deep dive by using a variety of search engines such as Scopus, Research Gate, Mendeley, Summon, PubMed, Google Scholar, Hinari, Dimension, Academia, CAB Abstract, OARE Abstract, SSRN search strategy to retrieve research publications, “grey literature” and expert working group reports, including author’s field experience. Findings: Absence of uniform methods of organization in the various health care facilities upon which we were obliged to rely. Thus affecting the overall immunization programme and health system. Hence policy must urgently address these challenges with emphasis on policy clarity while continuously improving infrastructure. Conclusions: Bayelsa State is categorized as low/poor performing as the findings suggest that the involvement of community-based leaders can improve community participation and acceptance while enhancing and strengthening integrated disease surveillance and Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI) monitoring and reporting systems; and conducting integrated advocacy and communications activities to promote demand for vaccination as part of increasing overall demand and acceptability of all essential Primary Health Centers (PHC) services, thus, breaking barriers of vaccine hesitancy. (shrink)

Some vaccine-hesitant people lack epistemic trust in the COVID-19 vaccine recommendation that because vaccines have been shown to be medically safe and effective, one ought to get vaccinated. Citing what I call exception information, they claim that whatever the general safety and efficacy of vaccines, the vaccines may not be safe and effective for them. Examples include parents citing information about their children's health, pregnant women's concerns about the potential adverse effects of treatment on pregnant women, young people citing their (...) relative invulnerability to extreme COVID-19 symptoms, or members of vulnerable racial groups citing epistemic injustice, such as a lack of representation in COVID-19 vaccine trials. This paper examines the extent to which a lack of epistemic trust in vaccine recommendations, based on such exemption information, is rational. (shrink)

There is increasing appreciation for the role that location plays in the experience of a musical event. This paper seeks to understand this role in terms of our habitual relationships to place, asking whether and how being musical somewhere can expand and transform our habituated comportment there, and with what consequences. This inquiry is anchored in a series of site-specific improvised performances by Jen Reimer and Max Stein, and the theory and practice of the late experimental music pioneer Pauline Oliveros. (...) The argument made interpreting these performances is grounded in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment, and Alia Al-Saji’s reception of it. This paper claims that such site-specific improvised performances can elicit a sort of hesitation in our everyday style of sensory-motor conditioning, and, concomitantly, awaken a layer of sensory living amenable to radically new sonic and behavioural configurations. (shrink)

In this paper, I present an outline of a paradox which is a variation on the lottery paradox and concerns whether we can ignore hesitant moral judgments.

One version of Pascal’s Wager says we should commit to, or cultivate belief in, whatever religion we think is most likely to bring us eternal joy. I pose a reductio for this version of the Wager. After exploring some ways the Pascalian might respond, the verdict is that it provides some reason to suspect that somewhere, somehow, the Wager goes wrong.

Vaccination complacency occurs when perceived risks of vaccine-preventable diseases are sufficiently low so that vaccination is no longer perceived as a necessary precaution. Disease outbreaks can once again increase perceptions of risk, thereby decrease vaccine complacency, and in turn decrease vaccine hesitancy. It is not well understood, however, how change in perceived risk translates into change in vaccine hesitancy. -/- We advance the concept of vaccine propensity, which relates a change in willingness to vaccinate with a change in perceived risk (...) of infection—holding fixed other considerations such as vaccine confidence and convenience. (shrink)

Many hypotheses have been advanced to explain the collective irrationality of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, such as partisanship and ideology, exposure to misinformation and conspiracy theories or the effectiveness of public messaging. This paper presents a complementary explanation to epistemic accounts of collective irrationality, focusing on the moral reasons underlying people’s decisions regarding vaccination. We argue that the moralization of COVID-19 risk mitigation measures contributed to the polarization of groups along moral values, which ultimately led to the emergence of collective irrational (...) behaviors. Collective irrationality arises from groups explicitly or implicitly endorsing values that ultimately harm both themselves and those around. The role of social media platforms in amplifying this polarization and contributing to the emergence of collective irrationality is also examined. Finally, potential strategies for addressing the moral sources of collective irrationality are discussed. (shrink)

Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s “Eye and Mind” and Bergson’s Matière et mémoire and “La perception du changement,” I ask what resources are available in vision for interrupting objectifying habits of seeing. While both Bergson and Merleau-Ponty locate the possibility of seeing differently in the figure of the painter, I develop by means of their texts, and in dialogue with Iris Marion Young’s work, a more general phenomenology of hesitation that grounds what I am calling “critical-ethical vision.” Hesitation, I argue, (...) stems from affect and leads to critical memory. In hesitation, the seeming coincidence between my habits of seeing and the visible is decentered, revealing these habits and their social reference as the constitutive horizon of my field of vision. Hesitation, then, provides the phenomenological moment within which vision may become at once critically watchful, destabilizing its objectifying habits, and ethically responsive, recollecting its affective grounds. The critical and the ethical are here inseparable. Critically, this vision is an awareness of the structures of invisibility, diacritical and habitual, social and historical, to which my vision owes—dimensions which institute particular ways of seeing and being as norm while eliding others. Ethically, this is the recognition of how seeing is already seeing with others—others whose affective influence is operative within vision, even as their existence is reductively represented or denied. (shrink)

I argue that the key dynamical concepts and laws of Newton's Principia never gained a solid foothold in Germany before Kant in the 1750s. I explain this absence as due to Leibniz. Thus I make a case for a robust Leibnizian legacy for Enlightenment science, and I solve what Jonathan Israel called “a meaningful historical problem on its own,” viz. the slow and hesitant reception of Newton in pre-Kantian Germany.

What is critical thinking, especially in the context of higher education? How have research and scholarship on the matter developed over recent past decades? What is the current state of the art here? How might the potential of critical thinking be enhanced? What kinds of teaching are necessary in order to realize that potential? And just why is this topic important now? These are the key questions motivating this volume. We hesitate to use terms such as “comprehensive” or “complete” or (...) “definitive,” but we believe that, taken in the round, the chapters in this volume together offer a fair insight into the contemporary understandings of higher education worldwide. We also believe that this volume is much needed, and we shall try to justify that claim in this introduction. (shrink)

The topics approached in the 52 papers included in this book are: neutrosophic sets; neutrosophic logic; generalized neutrosophic set; neutrosophic rough set; multigranulation neutrosophic rough set (MNRS); neutrosophic cubic sets; triangular fuzzy neutrosophic sets (TFNSs); probabilistic single-valued (interval) neutrosophic hesitant fuzzy set; neutro-homomorphism; neutrosophic computation; quantum computation; neutrosophic association rule; data mining; big data; oracle Turing machines; recursive enumerability; oracle computation; interval number; dependent degree; possibility degree; power aggregation operators; multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM); expert set; soft sets; LA-semihypergroups; single valued (...) trapezoidal neutrosophic number; inclusion relation; Q-linguistic neutrosophic variable set; vector similarity measure; fundamental neutro-homomorphism theorem; neutro-isomorphism theorem; quasi neutrosophic triplet loop; quasi neutrosophic triplet group; BE-algebra; cloud model; Maclaurin symmetric mean; pseudo-BCI algebra; hesitant fuzzy set; photovoltaic plan; decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL); Choquet integral; fuzzy measure; clustering algorithm; and many more. (shrink)

Through examining Douglass's and Fanon's concrete experiences of oppression, Cynthia R. Nielsen demonstrates the empirical validity of Foucault's theoretical analyses concerning power, resistance, and subject-formation. Going beyond merely confirming Foucault's insights, Douglass and Fanon expand, strengthen, and offer correctives to the emancipatory dimensions of Foucault's project. Unlike Foucault, Douglass and Fanon were not hesitant to make transhistorical judgments condemning slavery and colonization. Foucault's reticence here signals a weakness in his account of human being. This weakness sets him at cross-purposes not (...) only with Scotus, but also with Douglass and Fanon. Scotus's anthropology provides a basis for transhistorical moral critique; thus he is a valuable dialogue partner for those concerned about social justice and human flourishing. (shrink)

There has been a surge of interest over cases where a subject sincerely endorses P while displaying discordant strains of not-P in her behaviour and emotion. Cases like this are telling because they bear directly upon conditions under which belief should be ascribed. Are beliefs to be aligned with what we sincerely endorse or with what we do and feel? If belief doesn’t explain the discordant strains, what does? T.S. Gendler has recently attempted to explain all the discordances by introducing (...) a controversial new cognitive category—associative clusters called ‘alief’. Others think that belief explains all the discordancy cases, while others argue that in-between belief does the trick, and so on. Most advocates of the different positions, indeed, assume that their favoured analysis will explain the whole range of discordancy cases. This paper defends what I call the ‘contextual view’, where I argue that overturning this assumption of uniformity leads to more nuanced account of belief-ascription. On the contextual view, which analysis applies to which case depends on the discordancy case at hand. Perhaps a height-phobic stepping on a glass platform deserves different treatment to a hesitant stepper. I ground the contextual view in a biologically functional account of the alief/belief distinction, which construes alief as a real cognitive category but without the explanatory reach Gendler gives it. This functional distinction yields a principled strategy for determining the correct application of analysis to discordancy case. (shrink)

Explanatory pluralism holds that the sorts of comprehensive theoretical and ontological economies, which microreductionists and New Wave reductionists envision and which antireductionists fear, offer misleading views of both scientific practice and scientific progress. Both advocates and foes of employing reductionist strategies at the interface of psychology and neuroscience have overplayed the alleged economies that interlevel connections (including identities) justify while overlooking their fundamental role in promoting scientific research. A brief review of research on visual processing provides support for the explanatory (...) pluralist=s general model of cross-scientific relations and discloses the valuable heuristic role hypothetical identities play in cross-scientific research. That model also supplies grounds for hesitation about the correlation objection to the psycho-physical identity theory and complaints about an explanatory gap in physicalist accounts of consciousness. These takes on psycho-neural connections miss both the sorts of considerations that motivate hypothetical identities in science and their fundamental contribution to progressive research. Thus, their focus on the contributions of research at multiple levels of analysis does not bar explanatory pluralists from considering heuristic identity theory (HIT). Arguably, it encourages it. (shrink)

A work of Vietnamese art crossed a million-dollar mark in the international art market in early 2017. The event was reluctantly seen as a sign of maturity from the Vietnamese art amidst the many existing problems. Even though the Vietnamese media has discussed the issues enthusiastically, there is a lack of literature from the Vietnamese academics examining the subject, and even rarer in from the market perspective. This paper aims to contribute an insightful perspective on the Vietnamese art market, and (...) hesitantly the Vietnamese art as well, through the lens of fake, forgery and copy artworks. 35 cases of fake, forgery and copy paintings were found on the news and from the experts' wisdom. Through the examples, we argue that the Vietnamese art market is a temporary reaction to the immaturely rising of the Vietnamese art and the economy. Therefore, the art market is unable to function healthily unless the Vietnamese art and the economy developed. (shrink)

Our approach to emotion emphasized three key ingredients. We do not yet have a mature science of emotion, or even a consensus view—in this respect we are more hesitant than Sander, Grandjean, and Scherer or Luiz Pessoa. Relatedly, a science of emotion needs to be highly interdisciplinary, including ecology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. We recommend a functionalist view that brackets conscious experiences and that essentially treats emotions as latent variables inferred from a number of measures. But our version of functionalism (...) is not definitional or ontological. It is resolutely methodological, in good part because it is too early to attempt definitions. (shrink)

The goal of the present paper is to construct a formal explication of the pluralistic ignorance explanation of the bystander effect. The social dynamics leading to inaction is presented, decomposed, and modeled using dynamic epistemic logic augmented with ‘transition rules’ able to characterize agent behavior. Three agent types are defined: First Responders who intervene given belief of accident; City Dwellers, capturing ‘apathetic urban residents’ and Hesitators, who observe others when in doubt, basing subsequent decision on social proof. It is shown (...) how groups of the latter may end in a state of pluralistic ignorance leading to inaction. Sequential models for each agent type are specified, and their results compared to empirical studies. It is concluded that only the Hesitator model produces reasonable results. (shrink)

What does Husserlian phenomenology have to offer feminist theory? More specifically, can we find resources within Husserl’s account of the living body ( Leib ) for the critical feminist project of rethinking embodiment beyond the dichotomies not only of mind/body but also of subject/object and activity/passivity? This essay begins by explicating the reasons for feminist hesitation with respect to Husserlian phenomenology. I then explore the resources that Husserl’s phenomenology of touch and his account of sensings hold for feminist theory. (...) My reading of Husserl proceeds by means of a comparison between his description of touch in Ideas II and Merleau-Ponty’s early appropriation of this account in the Phenomenology of Perception, as well as through an unlikely rapprochement between Husserl and Irigaray on the question of touch. Moreover, by revisiting the limitations in Husserl’s approach to the body—limitations of which any feminist appropriation must remain cognizant—I attempt to take Husserl’s phenomenology of touch beyond its initial methodologically solipsistic frame and to ask whether and how it can contribute to thinking gendered and racialized bodies. The phenomenology of touch, I argue, can allow us to understand the interplay between subjective, felt embodiment and social-historical context. In opening up Husserl’s account of touch to other dimensions—intersubjective and affective—sociality is revealed as residing within, and structuring of, touch. Such touch can allow us to think embodiment anew. (shrink)

In section 1, I develop epistemic communism, my view of the function of epistemically evaluative terms such as ‘rational’. The function is to support the coordination of our belief-forming rules, which in turn supports the reliable acquisition of beliefs through testimony. This view is motivated by the existence of valid inferences that we hesitate to call rational. I defend the view against the worry that it fails to account for a function of evaluations within first-personal deliberation. In the rest of (...) the paper, I then argue, on the basis of epistemic communism, for a view about rationality itself. I set up the argument in section 2 by saying what a theory of rational deduction is supposed to do. I claim that such a theory would provide a necessary, sufficient, and explanatorily unifying condition for being a rational rule for inferring deductive consequences. I argue in section 3 that, given epistemic communism and the conventionality that it entails, there is no such theory. Nothing explains why certain rules for deductive reasoning are rational. (shrink)

Various authors debate the question of whether neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility. However, a plethora of different techniques and technologies, each with their own abilities and drawbacks, lurks beneath the label “neuroscience”; and in criminal law responsibility is not a single, unitary and generic concept, but it is rather a syndrome of at least six different concepts. Consequently, there are at least six different responsibility questions that the criminal law asks—at least one for each responsibility concept—and, I will suggest, (...) a multitude of ways in which the techniques and technologies that comprise neuroscience might help us to address those diverse questions. In a way, on my account neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility in many ways, but I hesitate to state my position like this because doing so obscures two points which I would rather highlight: one, neither neuroscience nor criminal responsibility are as unified as that; and two, the criminal law asks many different responsibility questions and not just one generic question. (shrink)

In this book the authors introduce and study the following notions: Neutrosophic Crisp Points, Neutrosophic Crisp Relations, Neutrosophic Crisp Sets, Neutrosophic Set Generated by (Characteristic Function), alpha-cut Level for Neutrosophic Sets, Neutrosophic Crisp Continuous Function, Neutrosophic Crisp Compact Spaces, Neutrosophic Crisp Nearly Open Sets, Neutrosophic Crisp Ideals, Neutrosophic Crisp Filter, Neutrosophic Crisp Local Functions, Neutrosophic Crisp Sets via Neutrosophic Crisp Ideals, Neutrosophic Crisp L-Openness and Neutrosophic Crisp L-Continuity, Neutrosophic Topological Region, Neutrosophic Closed Set and Neutrosophic Continuous Function, etc. They compute (...) the distances between neutrosophic sets and extend it to Neutrosophic Hesitancy Degree. The authors also generalize the Crisp Topological Space and Intuitionistic Topological Space to the notion of Neutrosophic Crisp Topological Space. At the end, they present applications to Neutrosophic Database, and show a security scheme based on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) using Neutrosophic Logic Manipulation. The authors utilize neutrosophic sets in order to analyze social networks data conducted through learning activities, and for the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) they employ fundamental concepts and properties of a Neutrosophic Spatial Region. Keywords: Neutrosophic Crisp Points; Neutrosophic Crisp Relations; Neutrosophic Crisp Sets; Neutrosophic Crisp Continuous Function; Neutrosophic Crisp Compact Spaces; Neutrosophic Crisp Nearly Open Sets; Neutrosophic Crisp Ideals; Neutrosophic Crisp Filter; Neutrosophic Crisp Local Functions; Neutrosophic Crisp Sets via Neutrosophic Crisp Ideals; Neutrosophic Crisp L-Openness and Neutrosophic Crisp L-Continuity; Neutrosophic Topological Region; Neutrosophic Closed Set and Neutrosophic Continuous Function; Neutrosophic Hesitancy Degree; Neutrosophic Crisp Topological Space; Neutrosophic Database; Neutrosophic Logic Manipulation; Neutrosophic Spatial Region. (shrink)

Tae Wan Kim, John Hooker, and Thomas Donaldson make an attempt, in recent articles, to solve the alignment problem. As they define the alignment problem, it is the issue of how to give AI systems moral intelligence. They contend that one might program machines with a version of Kantian ethics cast in deontic modal logic. On their view, machines can be aligned with human values if such machines obey principles of universalization and autonomy, as well as a deontic utilitarian principle. (...) Programming machines to do so might be useful, in their view, for applications such as future autonomous vehicles. Their proposal draws both on traditional logic-based and contemporary connectionist approaches, to fuse factual information with normative principles. I will argue that this approach makes demands of machines that go beyond what is currently feasible, and may extend past the limits of the possible for AI. I also argue that a deontological ethics for machines should place greater stress on the formula of humanity of the Kantian categorical imperative. On this principle, one ought never treat a person as a mere means. Recognition of what makes a person a person requires ethical insight. Similar insight is needed to tell treatment as a means from treatment as a mere means. The resources in Kim, Hooker, and Donaldson’s approach is insufficient for this reason. Hesitation regarding deployment of autonomous machines is warranted in light of these alignment concerns. (shrink)

Is part of a perfectly natural, or fundamental, relation? Philosophers have been hesitant to take a stand on this issue. One reason for this hesitancy is the worry that, if parthood is perfectly natural, then the perfectly natural properties and relations are not suitably “independent” of one another. In this paper, I argue that parthood is a perfectly natural relation. In so doing, I argue that this “independence” worry is unfounded. I conclude by noting some consequences of the naturalness of (...) parthood. (shrink)

Criticism and recommendations are very much welcome. Please don't hesitate to contact me with them. -/- .

Friedrich Nietzsche was Less Well-Read in the history of philosophy than were many of his peers in the pantheon, whether Hegel before him or Heidegger after, but he was not for that reason any less hesitant to pronounce judgment on the worth of the other great philosophers: Plato was “boring”; Descartes was “superficial”; Hobbes, Hume, and Locke signify “a debasement and lowering of the concept of ‘philosophy’ for more than a century”; Kant was an “idiot” and a “catastrophic spider,” etc.1 (...) Against this overarching trend of negativity, his uncharacteristically positive response to one thinker, a thinker who initially appears to us as quite different from him, is all the more surprising. In the summer of .. (shrink)

In the long history of moral theory, non-human animals—hereafter, just animals—have often been neglected entirely or have been relegated to some secondary status. Since its emergence in the early 19th century, utilitarianism has made a difference in that respect by focusing upon happiness or well-being (and their contraries) rather than upon the beings who suffer or enjoy. Inevitably, that has meant that human relations to and use of other animals have appeared in a different light. Some cases have seemed easy: (...) once admit that the interests of animals matter and there can be little hesitation in condemning their cruel treatment. Among the more difficult cases has been the bearing of utilitarianism upon the use of animals in various kinds of research where, though the animals might suffer, there were believed to be prospects of great human benefit and where no cruel or malicious motives need be involved. What I shall provide in the current paper is an extended discussion of the bearing of utilitarianism upon practices of animal research. Since such practices have attracted both utilitarian criticism and defense, this will require the examination of arguments on both sides, including consideration of the human benefits, the animal costs, and the ways in which the one can be weighed against the other. (shrink)

There is not as much resistance to COVID-19 mitigation as there seems, but there are structural features that make resistance seem worse than it is. Here we describe two ways that the problem seeming to be worse than it is can make it worse. First, visible hesitation to implement COVID-19 responses signals to the wider society that mitigation measures may not succeed, which undermines people’s conditional willingness to join in on those efforts. Second, our evaluations of others’ willingness to (...) implement these measures are informed by our attempts to mind-read them. Yet attempts to mind-read groups often mislead us, because groups invariably act from diverse motives whereas mind-reading works best when identifying relatively stable and consistent motivations. This means that a small minority of people refusing to implement measures can have an outsized prominence that prompts mind-reading to diagnose widespread hesitation. These two factors form a feedback loop with each other: we see some people’s hesitation, which prompts us to mind-read other people as being more uncertain about the responses than they actually are, which undermines our confidence in the responses, which in turn encourages others to mind-read this hesitation, which further undermines confidence. (shrink)

In this paper, we prove that Neutrosophic Statistics is more general than Interval Statistics, since it may deal with all types of indeterminacies (with respect to the data, inferential procedures, probability distributions, graphical representations, etc.), it allows the reduction of indeterminacy, and it uses the neutrosophic probability that is more general than imprecise and classical probabilities and has more detailed corresponding probability density functions. While Interval Statistics only deals with indeterminacy that can be represented by intervals. And we respond to (...) the arguments by Woodall et al. [1]. We show that not all indeterminacies (uncertainties) may be represented by intervals. Also, in some cases, we should better use hesitant sets (that have less indeterminacy) instead of intervals. We redirect the authors to the Plithogenic Probability and Plithogenic Statistics which are the most general forms of MultiVariate Probability and Multivariate Statistics respectively (including, of course, the Imprecise Probability and Interval Statistics as subclasses). (shrink)

Bernard Williams’ discussion of immortality in “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality” has spawned an entire philosophical literature. This literature tends to focus on one of Williams’ central claims: if we were to relinquish our mortality, we would necessarily become alienated from our existence and environment—“bored,” in his terms. Many theorists have defended this claim; many others have challenged it. Even if this claim is false, though, it still isn’t obvious that we should choose to relinquish our (...) mortality, given the option. And this is puzzling. Death is generally regarded as an evil, meriting anxiety, dread, and avoidance. What is it about our mortality that makes us hesitant to relinquish it? In this paper, I aim to explain this hesitancy and to argue in its favor: we should be hesitant to relinquish our mortality. Further, I take my discussion to suggest that most of us probably shouldn’t take this option if we were given it. To make these points, I draw on Williams’ discussion of immortality, developing and extending his thought in order to better understand how mortality shapes the way we relate to our lives, particularly the commitments and values that make them meaningful. Our mortality, it seems, plays a crucial role in our lives standing for something. Relinquishing it thus means risking the loss of this value. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that reactive attitudes play a central role in our practices concerned with holding people responsible. However, it remains controversial which emotional attitudes count as reactive attitudes such that they are eligible for this central role. Specifically, though theorists near universally agree that guilt is a reactive attitude, they are much more hesitant on whether to also include shame. This paper presents novel arguments for the view that shame is a reactive attitude. The arguments also support the (...) view that shame is a reactive attitude in the sense that concerns moral accountability. The discussion thereby challenges both the view that shame is not a reactive attitude at all, suggested by philosophers such as R. Jay Wallace and Stephen Darwall, and the view that shame is a reactive attitude but does not concern moral accountability, recently defended by Andreas Carlsson and Douglas Portmore. (shrink)

Feminist philosophy has taken too long to engage seriously with aesthetics and has been even slower in confronting natural beauty in particular. There are various possible reasons for this neglect, including the relative youth of feminist aesthetics, the possibility that feminist philosophy is not relevant to nature aesthetics, the claim that natural beauty is not a serious topic, hesitation among feminists to perpetuate women's associations with beauty and nature, and that the neglect may be merely apparent. Discussing each of (...) these possibilities affords a better understanding of, but none justify the neglect of natural beauty in feminist aesthetics. (shrink)

In two very influential papers from 2008, Tamar Gendler introduced the concept of “alief” to describe the mental state one is in when acting in ways contrary to their consciously professed beliefs. For example, if asked to eat what they know is fudge, but shaped into the form of dog feces, they will hesitate, and behave in a manner that would be consistent with the belief that the fudge is really poop. They alieve that it is disgusting, while they believe (...) it is not. This paper investigates laughter from self-proclaimed egalitarian, tolerant folk, in response to oppressive jokes that might fit the alief-model. If I merely alieve the content of a joke at which I laugh, will that constitute morally exculpating reasons for such laughter? And what else might it imply? This paper will provide insights at the intersections of humor studies, ethics, epistemology, phenomenology, and the philosophy of mind, all while being moderately and appropriately amusing. (shrink)

Abstract One of the most important things that the Darwinian revolution affected is the previous teleological thinking. In particular, the attribution of functions to various entities of the natural world with explanatory pretensions. In this change, his theory of natural selection played an important role. We all agree on that, but the diversity and heterogeneity of the answers that try to explain what Darwin did exactly with functional biology are overwhelming. In this paper I will try to show how Darwin (...) modified previous functional biology. Pre-Darwinian naturalists did not hesitate to attribute functions in which, for example, the traits of one species were in the service of other species. I will try to show that this has consequences on the discussion regarding the nature of functional language, since the main approaches, the systemic and the etiological, do not adequately account for these changes and therefore do not account for the way functional biology regulates the kind of legitimate functions. I will outline a possible new solution to this problem: appropriate functional attributions in Darwinian functional biology could be regulated by a theory or a set of laws that provide the criteria for determining its fundamental concepts. -/- Resumen: Una de las cosas más importantes a las que la revolución darwiniana afectó es el pensamiento teleológico previo. En particular, la atribución de funciones a diversas entidades del mundo natural con pretensiones explicativas. En este cambio, su teoría de la selección natural desempeñó un papel importante. Todos estamos de acuerdo en ello, pero la diversidad y heterogeneidad de las respuestas que tratan de explicar lo que Darwin hizo exactamente con la biología funcional son abrumadoras. En este artículo intentaré mostrar cómo Darwin modificó la biología funcional anterior. Los naturalistas predarwinianos no dudaban en atribuir funciones en las que, por ejemplo, los rasgos de una especie estaban al servicio de otras especies. Intentaré mostrar que esto tiene consecuencias en la discusión sobre la naturaleza del lenguaje funcional, pues los principales enfoques, el sistémico y el etiológico, no dan cuenta adecuadamente de estos cambios y, por tanto, no dan cuenta de la forma en que la biología funcional regula el tipo de funciones legítimas. Esbozaré una posible nueva solución a este problema: las atribuciones funcionales apropiadas en la biología funcional darwiniana podrían estar reguladas por una teoría o un conjunto de leyes que proporcionen los criterios para determinar sus conceptos fundamentales. -/- . (shrink)

Bob Solomon enjoyed humor, a good laugh. He was not a teller and collector of jokes or of humorous stories, as Ted Cohen and Noël Carroll are. He did not cultivate clever witticisms. Rather, his interest was in viewing life’s contingency and absurdity for the humor that can be found there, and the target of this humor was as likely to be himself or his friends as it was to be strangers. Bob also displayed philosophical courage. He once argued before (...) an incredulous audience of philosophers that the Three Stooges are funny, and admitted unashamedly to being a life-long devotee. In the published version of that talk he observes: “few adults in their chosen professions would dare attempt a Stooges gesture at risk of being terminally dismissed, but most men carry the secret knowledge around with them, and, in a wild fit of catharsis, display a tell-tale Stooges gesture when the door closes and the boss is out of view. I only hesitate to suggest that it is one of the most basic bonds between men, and perhaps the fact that it mystifies and sometimes horrifies women is far more elemental than the mere phrase ‘a sense of humor’ could ever suggest”. (shrink)

Action can only be spontaneous and impulsive if not guided by contemplation; contemplation, on the other hand, may only be luxurious playfulness if not either purposed - or suitable - to motivate action. This volume seeks to prove what may seem self-evident to common sense, but adhering to common sense is never pointless nor excessive. Next to this, Thinking in Action is the offspring of friendship, respect and commitment between two academic communities, the Hellenic and the Serbian philosophical communities, that (...) admittedly have a lot in common, especially with regard to philosophy, and hopefully as many differences as needed in order to secure a long-lasting and fertile exchange of ideas; it is also the natural-born child of necessity: philosophy is about argumentation, debate and confrontation. Thinking in Action inaugurates Hellenic-Serbian Philosophical Dialogue Series that entertains no hesitation in being as ambitious as any philosophical series could be: it seeks to establish a permanent, wide and rich channel of fruitful philosophical interaction between the two philosophical communities. Having high aspirations is one thing; meeting these aspirations as well as the expectations of the reader is a totally different one. We wish Thinking in Action, the first volume of the Hellenic-Serbian Philosophical Dialogue Series, apart from being the initial step of a long journey, will also be a fascinating one to the reader. (shrink)

As is the case in other situations of deep uncertainty, the unknowns related to the COVID-19 pandemic have aroused a great deal of attention in the media. Drawing insights both from mediatization theory and ignorance studies, we discuss the coverage of the AstraZeneca vaccine controversies to develop a new concept that we call the mediatization of ignorance. In doing so, we conceptualize the procedure through which unknowns become mediatized as a three-step process that results from a combination of logics from (...) the areas of politics, health, and science/industry. Moreover, we argue that the mediatization of ignorance may have promoted vaccine hesitancy at a moment when vaccination was crucial for addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. We conclude by suggesting the need to explore in further detail the role that ignorance plays not only in the management of the COVID-19 crisis but also in different areas of society. (shrink)

Euthanasia or mercy killing is, now a day, a major problem widely discussed in medical field. Medical professionals are facing dilemma to take decision regarding their incompetent patient while tend to do euthanasia. The dilemma is by nature moral i.e. whether it is morally permissible or not. In some countries of Europe and in some provinces of USA euthanasia is legally permitted fulfilling some conditions. It is claimed by Rachels that in our practical medical practice we do euthanasia by forbidding (...) patients from taking drugs. He concludes that if that type of euthanasia can be practiced in our society without any hesitation then why assisting euthanasia will not be permitted1. There are so many arguments both pro and con of euthanasia. But it is not the function of the current paper to discuss all the arguments. Philippa Foot in her article „Euthanasia‟ and J Velleman in his article titled as „A Right to Self-termination‟ discussed about the permissibility of euthanasia. The objective of the paper is to justify their arguments and then come to a conclusion regarding the permissibility of euthanasia. The focus will be given mainly on non- voluntary active and non-voluntary passive euthanasia. The method of discussion will be that an example will be given from Bangladesh and then the arguments provided by Foot and Velleman in their above mentioned papers will be discussed to justify the act of euthanasia on concerned patient. In the last section of the paper the situation of Bangladesh will also be considered for the permissibility of euthanasia i.e. whether the act of euthanasia can be permitted in our country considering the existing socio-cultural-religious practice. (shrink)