I propose an approach to naturalized philosophy of science that takes the social nature of scientific practice seriously. I criticize several prominent naturalistic approaches for adopting "cognitive individualism", which limits the study of science to an examination of the internal psychological mechanisms of scientists. I argue that this limits the explanatory capacity of these approaches. I then propose a three-level model of the social nature of scientific practice, and use the model to defend the claim that scientific knowledge is socially (...) produced. (shrink)

The Levelling-Down Objection is a standard objection to monistic egalitarian theories where equality is the only thing that has intrinsic value. Most egalitarians, however, are value pluralists; they hold that, in addition to equality being intrinsically valuable, the egalitarian currency in which we are equal or unequal is also intrinsically valuable. In this paper, I shall argue that the Levelling-Down Objection still minimizes the weight that the intrinsic badness of inequality could have in the overall intrinsic evaluation of (...) outcomes, given a certain way of measuring the badness of inequality, namely, the Additive Individual-Complaints Measure. (shrink)

The striving for a more equal society has been an inspiring ideal for social policy and a powerful engine for the foundations of the welfare state. However, equality as a political concept has been subject to ongoing criticism and has been gradually denounced. In an attempt to reclaim the appeal of economic equality, this paper endeavors to cross the common boundaries of redistribution and to offer a different equalizing strategy titled "Levelling Down". This strategy has been extensively debated in (...) political philosophy but has not been examined through a social policy perspective. This gap is addressed in the following discussion which aims to generate achievable policy implications with greater commitment to the ideal of equality. (shrink)

The question of whether cognition can influence perception has a long history in neuroscience and philosophy. Here, we outline a novel approach to this issue, arguing that it should be viewed within the framework of top-down information-processing. This approach leads to a reversal of the standard explanatory order of the cognitive penetration debate: we suggest studying top-down processing at various levels without preconceptions of perception or cognition. Once a clear picture has emerged about which processes have influences on (...) those at lower levels, we can re-address the extent to which they should be considered perceptual or cognitive. Using top-down processing within the visual system as a model for higher-level influences, we argue that the current evidence indicates clear constraints on top-down influences at all stages of information processing; it does, however, not support the notion of a boundary between specific types of information-processing as proposed by the cognitive impenetrability hypothesis. (shrink)

We show how faceted search using a combination of traditional classification systems and mixed-membership topic models can go beyond keyword search to inform resource discovery, hypothesis formulation, and argument extraction for interdisciplinary research. Our test domain is the history and philosophy of scientific work on animal mind and cognition. The methods can be generalized to other research areas and ultimately support a system for semi-automatic identification of argument structures. We provide a case study for the application of the methods to (...) the problem of identifying and extracting arguments about anthropomorphism during a critical period in the development of comparative psychology. We show how a combination of classification systems and mixed-membership models trained over large digital libraries can inform resource discovery in this domain. Through a novel approach of “drill-down” topic modeling—simultaneously reducing both the size of the corpus and the unit of analysis—we are able to reduce a large collection of fulltext volumes to a much smaller set of pages within six focal volumes containing arguments of interest to historians and philosophers of comparative psychology. The volumes identified in this way did not appear among the first ten results of the keyword search in the HathiTrust digital library and the pages bear the kind of “close reading” needed to generate original interpretations that is the heart of scholarly work in the humanities. Zooming back out, we provide a way to place the books onto a map of science originally constructed from very different data and for different purposes. The multilevel approach advances understanding of the intellectual and societal contexts in which writings are interpreted. (shrink)

My main purpose here is to provide an account of context selection in utterance understanding in terms of the role played by schemata and goals in top-down processing. The general idea is that information is organized hierarchically, with items iteratively organized in chunks—here called “schemata”—at multiple levels, so that the activation of any items spreads to schemata that are the most accessible due to previous experience. The activation of a schema, in turn, activates its other components, so as to (...) predict a likely context for the original item. Since each input activates its own schemata, conflicting schemata compete with (and inhibit) each other, while multiple activations of a schema raise its likelihood to win the competition. There is therefore a double movement—with bottom-up activation of schemata enabling top-down prediction of other contextual components—triggered by multiple sources. Another claim of the paper is that goals are represented by schemata placed at the highest-levels of the executive hierarchy, in accordance with Fuster’s model of the brain as a hierarchically organized perception action cycle. This account can be considered, in part at least, a development of ideas contained in Relevance Theory, though it may imply that some other claims of the theory are in need of revision. Therefore, a secondary purpose of the paper is a contribution to the analysis of that theory. (shrink)

Models of discourse and narration elaborated within the classical compositional framework have been characterized as bottom-up models, according to which discourse analysis proceeds incrementally, from phrase and sentence local meaning to discourse global meaning. In this paper we will argue against these models. Assuming as a case study the issue of discourse coherence, we suggest that the assessment of coherence is a top-down process, in which the construction of a situational interpretation at the global meaning level guides local meaning (...) analysis. In support of our hypothesis, we explore the role of executive functions (brain functions involved in planning and organization of goal-oriented behaviors) in coherence’s establishment, discussing the results of several studies on narrative abilities of patients with brain injuries. We suggest that, compared to other models of discourse processing focused on comprehension, our model is a viable candidate for an integrated account of discourse comprehension and production. (shrink)

The article proposes to further develop the ideas of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by including into evolutionary research an analysis of phenomena that occur above the organismal level. We demonstrate that the current Extended Synthesis is focused more on individual traits (genetically or non-genetically inherited) and less on community system traits (synergetic/organizational traits) that characterize transgenerational biological, ecological, social, and cultural systems. In this regard, we will consider various communities that are made up of interacting populations, and for which the (...) individual members can belong to the same or to different species. Examples of communities include biofilms, ant colonies, symbiotic associations resulting in holobiont formation, and human societies. The proposed model of evolution at the level of communities revises classic theorizing on the major transitions in evolution by analyzing the interplay between community/social traits and individual traits, and how this brings forth ideas of top-down regulations of bottom-up evolutionary processes (collaboration of downward and upward causation). The work demonstrates that such interplay also includes reticulate interactions and reticulate causation. In this regard, we exemplify how community systems provide various non-genetic ‘scaffoldings’, ‘constraints’, and ‘affordances’ for individual and sociocultural evolutionary development. Such research complements prevailing models that focus on the vertical transmission of heritable information, from parent to offspring, with research that instead focusses on horizontal, oblique and even reverse information transmission, going from offspring to parent. We call this reversed information transfer the ‘offspring effect’ to contrast it from the ‘parental effect’. We argue that the proposed approach to inheritance is effective for modelling cumulative and distributed developmental process and for explaining the biological origins and evolution of language. (shrink)

Proof-theoretic models of grammar are based on the view that an explicit characterization of a language comes in the form of the recursive enumeration of strings in that language. That recur-sive enumeration is carried out by a procedure which strongly generates a set of structural de-scriptions Σ and weakly generates a set of strings S; a grammar is thus a function that pairs an element of Σ with elements of S. Structural descriptions are obtained by means of Context-Free phrase structure (...) rules or via recursive combinatorics and structure is assumed to be uniform: binary branching trees all the way down. In this work we will analyse natural language constructions for which such a rigid conception of phrase structure is descriptively inadequate, and pro-pose a solution for the problem of phrase structure grammars assigning too much or too little structure to natural language strings: we propose that the grammar can oscillate between levels of computational complexity in local domains, which correspond to elementary trees in a lexicalised Tree Adjoining Grammar. (shrink)

You may remember that a document circulated amongst University of Manchester staff asks, “Can top down management make our university great?” I suspect there is a difficulty with solving this problem by increasing the admission requirements, in terms of the grades you need to get in. At a certain level, one encounters a widespread and strong preference not to be the bottom level.

Is any unified theory of brain function possible? Following a line of thought dat- ing back to the early cybernetics (see, e.g., Cordeschi, 2002), Clark (in press) has proposed the action-oriented Hierarchical Predictive Coding (HPC) as the account to be pursued in the effort of gain- ing the “Grand Unified Theory of the Mind”—or “painting the big picture,” as Edelman (2012) put it. Such line of thought is indeed appealing, but to be effectively pursued it should be confronted with experimental (...) findings and explana- tory capabilities (Edelman, 2012). The point we are making in this note is that a brain with predictive capa- bilities is certainly necessary to endow the agent situated in the environment with forethought or foresight, a crucial issue to outline the unified account advocated by Clark. But the capacity for fore- thought is deeply entangled with the capacity for emotions and when emotions are brought into the game, cogni- tive functions become part of a large-scale functional brain network. However, for such complex networks a consistent view of hierarchical organization in large-scale functional networks has yet to emerge (Bressler and Menon, 2010), whilst heterarchical organization is likely to play a strategic role (Berntson et al., 2012). This raises the necessity of a multilevel approach that embraces causal relations across levels of explanation in either direc- tion (bottom–up or top–down), endorsing mutual calibration of constructs across levels (Berntson et al., 2012). Which, in turn, calls for a revised perspective on Marr’s levels of analysis framework (Marr, 1982). In the following we highlight some drawbacks of Clark’s proposal in address- ing the above issues. (shrink)

I critically examine the semantic view of theories to reveal the following results. First, models in science are not the same as models in mathematics, as holders of the semantic view claim. Second, when several examples of the semantic approach are examined in detail no common thread is found between them, except their close attention to the details of model building in each particular science. These results lead me to propose a deflationary semantic view, which is simply that model construction (...) is an important component of theorizing in science. This deflationary view is consistent with a naturalized approach to the philosophy of science. (shrink)

The prominent place 0f corpuscularizm mechanism in L0ckc`s Essay is nowadays universally acknowledged} Certainly, L0ckc’s discussions 0f the primary/secondary quality distinction and 0f real essences cannot be understood without reference to the corpuscularizm science 0f his day, which held that all macroscopic bodily phenomena should bc explained in terms 0f the motions and impacts 0f submicroscopic particles, 0r corpuscles, each of which can bc fully characterized in terms of 21 strictly limited range 0f (primary) properties: size, shape, motion (or mobility), (...) and, perhaps, solidity 0r impcnctrability.2 Indeed, L0ckc’s lists 0f primary quali-. (shrink)

This contribution provides an assessment of the epistemological role of scientific models. The prevalent view that all scientific models are representations of the world is rejected. This view points to a unified way of resolving epistemic issues for scientific models. The emerging consensus in philosophy of science that models have many different epistemic roles in science is presented and defended.

One of the deepest tensions in Locke’s Essay, a work full of profound and productive conflicts, is one between Locke’s metaphysical tendencies—his inclination to presuppose or even to argue for substantive metaphysical positions—and his devout epistemic modesty, which seems to urge agnosticism about major metaphysical issues. Both tendencies are deeply rooted in the Essay. Locke is a theorist of substance, essence, quality. Yet, his favorite conclusions are epistemically pessimistic, even skeptical; when it comes to questions about how the world is (...) constituted, our understandings cannot penetrate very far. Locke seems torn between metaphysics and modesty, between dogmatism and skepticism. This chapter will consider two specific examples of this sort of tension. The first involves the ontology of body, and the second, the ontology of mind. The conflict concerning bodily natures looks like this: As is well-known, Locke typically describes bodies in the terms of the corpuscularian science of his day, as exemplified especially by the natural philosopher Robert Boyle. Locke’s characterizations of the real essences of bodies are mechanist. He envisions them as corpuscularian textures-- spatial arrangements of particles possessing size. (shrink)

I argue that Evolutionary Psychologists’ notion of adaptationism is closest to what Peter Godfrey-Smith (2001) calls explanatory adaptationism and as a result, is not a good organizing principle for research in the biology of human behavior. I also argue that adopting an alternate notion of adaptationism presents much more explanatory resources to the biology of human behavior. I proceed by introducing Evolutionary Psychology and giving some examples of alternative approaches to the biological explanation of human behavior. Next I characterize adaptation (...) and explain the range of biological phenomena that can count as adaptations. I go onto introduce the range of adaptationist views that have been distinguished by philosophers of biology and lay out explanatory adaptationism in detail. (shrink)

Clinical evidence has shown that physical exercise during pregnancy may alter brain devel- opment and improve cognitive function of offspring. However, the mechanisms through which maternal exercise might promote such effects are not well understood. The present study examined levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and absolute cell num- bers in the hippocampal formation and cerebral cortex of rat pups born from mothers exer- cised during pregnancy. Additionally, we evaluated the cognitive abilities of adult offspring in different behavioral paradigms (exploratory (...) activity and habituation in open field tests, spatial memory in a water maze test, and aversive memory in a step-down inhibitory avoid- ance task). Results showed that maternal exercise during pregnancy increased BDNF lev- els and absolute numbers of neuronal and non-neuronal cells in the hippocampal formation of offspring. No differences in BDNF levels or cell numbers were detected in the cerebral cortex. It was also observed that offspring from exercised mothers exhibited better cognitive performance in nonassociative (habituation) and associative (spatial learning) mnemonic tasks than did offspring from sedentary mothers. Our findings indicate that maternal exer- cise during pregnancy enhances offspring cognitive function (habituation behavior and spa- tial learning) and increases BDNF levels and cell numbers in the hippocampal formation of offspring. (shrink)

I explore Locke’s complex attitude toward the natural philosophy of his day by focusing on Locke’s own treatment of Newton’s theory of gravity and the presence of Lockean themes in defenses of Newtonian attraction/gravity by Maupertuis and other early Newtonians. In doing so, I highlight the inadequacy of an unqualified labeling of Locke as “mechanist” or “Newtonian.”.

Alternative splicing allows for the production of many gene products from a single coding sequence. I introduce the concept of alternative splicing via some examples. I then discuss some current hypotheses about the explanatory role of alternative splicing, including the claim that splicing is a significant contributor to the difference in complexity between the human genome and proteosome. Hypotheses such as these bring into question our working concepts of the gene. I examine several gene concepts introduced to cope with processes (...) such as alternative splicing. Next I introduce some hypotheses about the evolution of mechanisms alternative splicing in higher organisms. I conclude that attention to alternative splicing reveals that we adopt an attitude that developmental theorizing must inform evolutionary theorizing and vice versa. (shrink)

I. Introduction Siris, Berkeley's last major work, is undeniably a rather odd book. It could hardly be otherwise, given Berkeley's aims in writing it, which are three-fold: 'to communicate to the public the salutary virtues of tar-water,'1 to provide scientific background supporting the efficacy of tar-water as a medicine, and to lead the mind of the reader, via gradual steps, toward contemplation of God.2 The latter two aims shape Berkeley's extensive use of contemporary natural science in Siris. In particular, Berkeley's (...) focus on what he calls fire (or aether or light) as a quasiuniversal 'cause' of natural change3 serves these purposes, for the 'activity' of the aether, in his view, can both explain the miraculous virtues of a certain medicine, i.e. tar-water, and reveal God's action and his divine order.4 Berkeley's corpuscular speculations, including his use of fire-theory, are not especially idiosyncratic as natural philosophy. In his theorizing, as Jessop and other have noted, he is heavily indebted to the work of Hermann Boerhaave, the Dutch chemist, botanist, and physician whose teachings were highly influential in mid-eighteenth century Britain.5 Boerhaave, along with other Dutch natural philosophers cited by Berkeley, assigned a central role in accounting for physio-chemical activity to fire, a subtle, insensible particulate substance, sometimes identified with light. (shrink)

Descartes and Boyle were the most influential proponents of strict mechanist accounts of the physical world, accounts which carried with them a distinction between primary and secondary (or sensible) qualities. For both, the distinction is a piece of natural philosophy. Nevertheless the distinction is quite differently articulated, and, especially, differently grounded in the two thinkers. For Descartes, reasoned reflection reveals to us that bodies must consist in mere extension and its modifications, and that sensible qualities as we conceive of them (...) based on sense perception can pertain only to the mind. Just how we are supposed to arrive at this realization is, this essay will argue, a deep puzzle that brings us to the basic assumptions of Descartes' metaphysics. For Boyle, by contrast, while reflection can reveal the unique explanatory status of mechanism, and, thus, the primary/secondary quality distinction, only experience can confirm its truth. Our central focus will be on Descartes, and on the question: How does he intend to remove the sensible qualities from the physical world, how does he strip them from bodies? I will try to show that Descartes has an argument that he takes to show a priori that sensible qualities cannot be attributed to the material world (as foundational qualities, or, as we conceive of them based on sense experience). The argument fails, however, leaving him with at best a partly empirical case for removing the sensible qualities, based on the purported explanatory success of his physics. (shrink)

Here I outline the argument in Kim Sterelny’s book The Evolved Apprentice. I present some worries for Sterelny from the perspective of modelers in behavioral ecology. I go on to discuss Sterelny’s approach to moral psychology and finally introduce some potential new applications for his evolved apprentice view.

In this paper, I defend the view that there are many scientific images that have a serious epistemic role in science but this role is not adequately accounted for by the going view of representation and its attendant theoretical commitments. The relevant view of representation is Laura Perini’s account of representation for scientific images. I draw on Adina Roskies’ work on scientific images as well as work on models in science to support my conclusion.

Although George Berkeley himself made no major scientific discoveries, nor formulated any novel theories, he was nonetheless actively concerned with the rapidly evolving science of the early eighteenth century. Berkeley's works display his keen interest in natural philosophy and mathematics from his earliest writings (Arithmetica, 1707) to his latest (Siris, 1744). Moreover, much of his philosophy is fundamentally shaped by his engagement with the science of his time. In Berkeley's best-known philosophical works, the Principles and Dialogues, he sets up his (...) idealistic system in opposition to the materialist mechanism he finds in Descartes and Locke. In De Motu, Berkeley refines and extends his philosophy of science in the context of a critique of the dynamic accounts of motion offered by Newton and Leibniz. And in Siris, Berkeley's flirtation with neo-Platonism draws inspiration from the fire theory of Boerhaave as well as Newton's aetherial speculations in the Queries of the Optics. In examining Berkeley's critical engagement with the natural philosophy of his time, we will thus improve our understanding of not just his philosophy of science, but of his philosophical corpus as a whole. (shrink)

Locke’s metaphysical commitments are a matter of some controversy. Further controversy attends the issue of whether and how Locke adapts his views in order to accommodate the success of Newton’s Principia. The chapter lays out an interpretation of Locke’s commitments according to which Locke’s response to Newton on gravity does not require the positing of brute powers and is consistent with his core essentialism. The chapter raises the question of how the hypothesis concerning the creation of matter, alluded to at (...) 4.10.18, fits with these commitments. The chapter concludes that the De grav hypothesis would represent a significant revision to the background metaphysical picture of the Essay, but that nevertheless its attractions to Locke are intelligible and illuminating. (shrink)

Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis’ famous and influential Discours sur les différentes figures des astres, which represented the first public defense of attractionism in the Cartesian stronghold of the Paris Academy, sometimes suggests a metaphysically agnostic defense of gravity as simply a regularity. However, Maupertuis’ considered account in the essay, I argue, is much more subtle. I analyze Maupertuis’ position, showing how it is generated by an extended consideration of the possibility of attraction as an inherent property and fuelled by (...) an understanding of Lockean skepticism about knowledge of real essences that is more nuanced perhaps even than Locke’s own. (shrink)

The rich connections between metaphysics and natural philosophy in the early modern period have been widely acknowledged and productively mined, thanks in no small part to the work of Margaret Wilson, whose book, Descartes, served as an inspirational example for a generation of scholars. The task of this paper is to investigate one particular such connection, namely, the relation between occasionalist metaphysics and strict mechanism. My focus will be on the work of Nicholas Malebranche, the most influential Cartesian philosopher after (...) Descartes himself. I begin with two crucial facts about Malebranche’s philosophy: (1) Malebranche was an occasionalist, that is, he held that God was the only true cause, that all modifications of bodies and of minds can be produced by God alone. (2) Malebranche adhered firmly to strict mechanism. By strict mechanism, I mean the view, found most prominently in Descartes and in Boyle’s more ideological writings, that the qualities of bodies are exhausted by a very short list (size, shape, motion, and perhaps solidity) and that, most importantly, bodies interact only at contact by impact. Another way of describing this “contact action” requirement is as the thesis that the only fundamental laws of physics are laws of inertial motion and laws of the communication of motion at impact. In.. (shrink)

While De Motu, Berkeley's treatise on the philosophical foundations of mechanics, has frequently been cited for the surprisingly modern ring of certain of its passages, it has not often been taken as seriously as Berkeley hoped it would be. Even A.A. Luce, in his editor's introduction to De Motu, describes it as a modest work, of limited scope. Luce writes: The De Motu is written in good, correct Latin, but in construction and balance the workmanship falls below Berkeley's usual standards. (...) The title is ambitious for so brief a tract, and may lead the reader to expect a more sustained argument than he will find. A more modest title, say Motion without Matter, would fitly describe its scope and content. Regarded as a treatise on motion in general, it is a slight and disappointing work; but viewed from a narrower angle, it is of absorbing interest and high importance. It is the application of immaterialism to contemporary problems of motion, and should be read as such. ...apart from the Principles the De Motu would be nonsense.1.. (shrink)

The purpose of this chapter is to outline some of the thinking behind new e-learning technology, including e-portfolios and personal learning environments. Part of this thinking is centered around the theory of connectivism, which asserts that knowledge - and therefore the learning of knowledge - is distributive, that is, not located in any given place (and therefore not 'transferred' or 'transacted' per se) but rather consists of the network of connections formed from experience and interactions with a knowing community. And (...) another part of this thinking is centered around the new, and the newly empowered, learner, the member of the net generation, who is thinking and interacting in new ways. These trends combine to form what is sometimes called 'e-learning 2.0' - an approach to learning that is based on conversation and interaction, on sharing, creation and participation, on learning not as a separate activity, but rather, as embedded in meaningful activities such as games or workflows. (shrink)

In this paper it will be shown that when a conditional statement is understood or known to be true, a number of implicitly specified variables are given more or less concrete values. Each of the variables will be defined and examples will be employed to demonstrate their use in conditional evaluation. From time to time this analysis in terms of variables will be contrasted with a 'possible worlds' analysis of conditionals. The purpose of this paper is not to argue against (...) the possible worlds analysis but rather to provide an alternative to that analysis. (shrink)

Both Immanuel Kant and Paul Guyer have raised important concerns about the limitations of Lockean thought. Following Guyer, I will focus my attention on questions about the proper ambitions and likely achievements of inquiry into the natural/physical world. I will argue that there are at least two important respects, not discussed by Guyer, in which Locke’s account of natural philosophy is much more flexible and accommodating than may be immediately apparent. On my interpretation, however, one crucial source of a too-limited (...) vision of natural philosophy remains in Locke, where he is appropriately criticized by both Kant and Guyer. My method will be to begin with a distinction that Locke draws in the very first draft of the Essay, between what he calls “the sensible object” and, on the other hand, “the uncertain philosophical cause.” I believe that Locke’s notion of “sensible object,” as opposed to uncertain philosophical cause, retains a central place in his thought in the published Essay, despite the fact thateven though this contrast is never made explicitly there. Tracing the evolution of these two concepts in his thought will allow us to track and better understand his developing views about the relation between the project of the. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: I. Life and Works II. Theoretical Natural Philosophy: Boyle's Corpuscularianism III. Experimental Natural Philosophy and Methodology IV. Theology, Metaphysics, and Natural Philosophy V. Boyle's Influence.

That corpuscularianism played a critical role in Locke’s philosophical thought has perhaps now attained the status of a truism. In particular, it is universally acknowledged that the primary/secondary quality distinction and the conception of real essence found in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding cannot be understood apart from the corpuscularian science of Locke’s time.1 When Locke provides lists of the primary qualities of bodies,2 the qualities that “are really in them whether we perceive them or no,” those lists show strong (...) resemblances to Robert Boyle’s views about the “primary affections” of matter, as expressed in such influential programmatic works as On the Origin of Forms and Qualities.3 Moreover, Locke’s conception of the real essences of bodies, the inner constitutions which serve as the causal sources of all their properties, typically appears to be a corpuscularian one.4 Nevertheless, the question of the nature of Locke’s philosophical allegiance to corpuscularianism remains a controversial one.5.. (shrink)

Alison Gopnik and Andrew Meltzoff have argued for a view they call the ‘theory theory’: theory change in science and children are similar. While their version of the theory theory has been criticized for depending on a number of disputed claims, we argue that there is a fundamental problem which is much more basic: the theory theory is multiply ambiguous. We show that it might be claiming that a similarity holds between theory change in children and (i) individual scientists, (ii) (...) a rational reconstruction of a Superscientist, or (iii) the scientific community. We argue that (i) is false, (ii) is non-empirical (which is problematic since the theory theory is supposed to be a bold empirical hypothesis), and (iii) is either false or doesn’t make enough sense to have a truth-value. We conclude that the theory theory is an interesting failure. Its failure points the way to a full, empirical picture of scientific development, one that marries a concern with the social dynamics of science to a psychological theory of scientific cognition. (shrink)

This article argues that, as commonly understood, indirect discrimination is not necessarily unjust: 1) indirect discrimination involves the disadvantaging in relation to a particular benefit and such disadvantages are not unjust if the overall distribution of benefits and burdens is just; 2) indirect discrimination focuses on groups and group averages and ignores the distribution of harms and benefits within groups subjected to discrimination, but distributive justice is concerned with individuals; and 3) if indirect discrimination as such is unjust, strict egalitarianism (...) has to be the correct account of distributive justice, but such egalitarianism appears vulnerable to the leveling down objection (whether decisively or not), and many theorists explicitly reject strict egalitarianism anyway. The last point threatens the position of liberals who oppose indirect discrimination but think significant inequalities can be just. (shrink)

Considerations of autonomy and independence, properly understood, support strictly egalitarian provision of necessary medical treatment. If the financially better-off can purchase access to necessary medical treatments that the financially less well-off cannot purchase without help, then their discretionary power to give or to withhold monetary gifts indirectly gives them the power to make life-and-death or sickness-and-health decisions for others. To prevent private citizens from having this objectionable form of power, government must ensure that citizens’ finances do not affect their access (...) to medical treatments that significantly prolong life, relieve suffering, or cure or mitigate disabilities. Government should ensure this even if doing so involves leveling down and even if it is unclear whether egalitarian provision of necessary treatment would provide better care to the poor than a less egalitarian health care system would. (shrink)

Despite the frequency of stillbirths, the subsequent implications are overlooked and underappreciated. We present findings from comprehensive, systematic literature reviews, and new analyses of published and unpublished data, to establish the effect of stillbirth on parents, families, health-care providers, and societies worldwide. Data for direct costs of this event are sparse but suggest that a stillbirth needs more resources than a livebirth, both in the perinatal period and in additional surveillance during subsequent pregnancies. Indirect and intangible costs of stillbirth are (...) extensive and are usually met by families alone. This issue is particularly onerous for those with few resources. Negative effects, particularly on parental mental health, might be moderated by empathic attitudes of care providers and tailored interventions. The value of the baby, as well as the associated costs for parents, families, care providers, communities, and society, should be considered to prevent stillbirths and reduce associated morbidity. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the objections that have been raised against the view that equality is intrinsically valuable also provide objections to the view that all practical reasons can be explained in terms of value. Plausible egalitarian principles entail that under certain conditions people have claims to an equal share. These claims entail reasons to distribute goods equally that cannot be explained by value if equality has no intrinsic value.

This paper argues that there are good reasons to limit the scope of luck egalitarianism to co‐existing people. First, I outline reasons to be sceptical about how “luck” works intergenerationally and therefore the very grounding of luck egalitarianism between non‐overlapping generations. Second, I argue that what Kasper Lippert‐Rasmussen calls the “core luck egalitarian claim” allows significant intergenerational inequality which is a problem for those who object to such inequality. Third, luck egalitarianism cannot accommodate the intuition that it might be required (...) to leave future generations better off than we are, even if it would come at no cost to ourselves. Finally, I argue that following another, broader, version of luck egalitarianism would require us to level down future generations and possibly even ourselves, which is a problem for those persuaded by the levelling‐down objection. (shrink)

This chapter explores the idea that phylogenetic diversity plays a unique role in underpinning conservation endeavour. The conservation of biodiversity is suffering from a rapid, unguided proliferation of metrics. Confusion is caused by the wide variety of contexts in which we make use of the idea of biodiversity. Characterisations of biodiversity range from all-variety-at-all-levels down to variety with respect to single variables relevant to very specific conservation contexts. Accepting biodiversity as the sum of a large number of individual measures (...) results in an empirically intractable framework. However, large-scale decisions cannot be based on biodiversity variables inferred from local conservation imperatives because the variables relevant to the many systems being compared would be incommensurate with one another. We therefore need some general conception of biodiversity that would make tractable such large-scale environmental decision-marking. We categorise the large array of strategies for the measurement of biodiversity into four broad groups for consideration as general measures of biodiversity. We compare common moral justifications for the conservation of biodiversity and conclude that some form of instrumental value is the most plausible justification for biodiversity conservation. Although this is often interpreted as a reliance on option value, we opt for a broadly consequentialist characterisation of biodiversity conservation. We conclude that the best justified general measure of biodiversity will be some form of phylogenetic diversity. (shrink)

Over the past decade, scholars, institutions, and activists have voiced strong concerns about the potential of automated decision systems to indirectly discriminate against vulnerable groups. This article analyses the ethics of algorithmic indirect discrimination, and argues that we can explain what is morally bad about such discrimination by reference to the fact that it causes harm. The article first sketches certain elements of the technical and conceptual background, including definitions of direct and indirect algorithmic differential treatment. It next introduces three (...) prominent accounts of fairness as potential explanations if the badness of algorithmic indirect discrimination, but argues that all three are vulnerable to powerful levelling-down-style objections. Instead, the article demonstrates how proper attention to the way differences in decision-scenarios affect the distribution of harms can help us account for intuitions in prominent cases. Finally, the article considers a potential objection based on the fact that certain forms of algorithmic indirect discrimination appear to distribute rather than cause harm, and notes that we can explain how such distributions cause harm by attending to differences in individual and group vulnerability. (shrink)

Thus Spoke Zarathustra expresses a revolt against the quest for “afterworlds.” Nietzsche is seen transferring rationality to the body, welcoming the many in akingdom of the un-unified multiple, with a burst of enthusiasm at the figure of recurrence. At first, he values an acceptation of suffering through reconciliation with time, and puts the onus on the divine to refute the dismembering of the oneness of meaning and unity of the soul’s quest for joy in eternity. Then confrontingChristianity, he sees its (...) refusal to sacrifice anyone, at the cost of making all sick with a unique healer, and rejects it as incompatible with his ideal of plenitude. Inthe absence of an ontology of the person, the affirmation of the individual and his value, opposed to the antagonistic affirmation of the many put in front of theone God and destroyed by him, ends up dislocating the reality of the self. The Nietzschean option resisted any leveling down—this is its merit—yet the mysteryof the Trinity needs to be brought into the reflection to respect Nietzsche’s own terms in defining the final problem which is also the one option: Dionysus orthe Crucified? (shrink)

Malicious moral envy is an aversive reaction to a rival’s moral properties or accomplishments, accompanied by a tendency to level-down the target by morally tarnishing or sabotaging them. In this essay I give an account of malicious moral envy, showing how it is a sub-type of envy more generally. I describe Donald Trump’s behaviors toward Barack Obama and Anthony Fauci as a case study of malicious moral envy. I argue that malicious moral envy is puzzling, first because it is (...) self-defeating, and then—more interestingly—because it betrays an ambivalence about morality and moral requirements. I explore how malicious moral envy relates to other issues in the literature on moral ambivalence, including moral exemplars, moral saints, admirable immorality, and the pathologizing of moral outliers. Ultimately I suggest that mild forms of malicious moral envy may play an important role in helping agents navigate the socially complex and constantly changing landscape of moral requirements. (shrink)

We propose to understand the global financial crisis of 2008 as an historical event marked by public decisions, economic evaluations and ratings, and business practices driven by a sense of subjugation to powerful others, uncritical conformity to serendipitous rules, and a levelling down of all meaningful differences. The crisis has also revealed two important things: that the free-market economy has inherent problems highlighting the limits of (financial) business, and, consequently, that the business organisation is not as strong as is (...) usually assumed. We reconstruct some of the most dramatic events of that time by using the narratives of two former Lehman Brothers insiders. We then provide an interpretation of that world by using Heidegger’s notions of being and care. Our investigation uncovers persistent inauthentic relationships nourished by the public structure of the financial market, which, drawing on Heidegger, we call the they. In the financial market the what of the world becomes more important than authentic being and self. But a hitch-free switch to authenticity becomes possible through anxiety and the call of conscience. (shrink)