Cruelty is evident in the play and interactions of quite small children. This is almost certainly normal, though it is more evident in children who have themselves been harshly treated (Amato & Fowler 2002; Luk et al. 1999).

A number of philosophers have recently held that the phenomenal aspect of experience cannot be adequately dealt with within a materialist account of the mind-body relation. A natural response for those who take both this objection and scientific considerations seriously is to adopt either a double-aspect theory of mind or a version of epiphenomenalism. In this paper I will examine such a view recently defended by Keith Campbell. Campbell calls his view a ‘new’ epiphenomenalism. I shall begin by considering Campbell's (...) conception of an imitation-man, a notion which has been elsewhere employed in arguments against materialism. I shall demonstrate that Campbell is thereby committed to entertaining seriously a suspect form of causation which I have labeled "sometime-causation". I shall then proceed to argue that for this and other reasons, Campbell's ‘new’ epiphenomenalism is not clearly superior to its traditional predecessor. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have recently held that the phenomenal aspect of experience cannot be adequately dealt with within a materialist account of the mind-body relation. A natural response for those who take both this objection and scientific considerations seriously is to adopt either a double-aspect theory of mind or a version of epiphenomenalism. In this paper I will examine such a view recently defended by Keith Campbell. Campbell calls his view a ‘new’ epiphenomenalism. I shall begin by considering Campbell's (...) conception of an imitation-man, a notion which has been elsewhere employed in arguments against materialism. I shall demonstrate that Campbell is thereby committed to entertaining seriously a suspect form of causation which I have labeled "sometime-causation". I shall then proceed to argue that for this and other reasons, Campbell's ‘new’ epiphenomenalism is not clearly superior to its traditional predecessor. (shrink)

There have been times in the history of ethical theory, especially in this century, when moral realism was down, but it was never out. The appeal of this doctrine for many moral philosophers is apparently so strong that there are always supporters in its corner who seek to resuscitate the view. The attraction is obvious: moral realism purports to provide a precious philosophical good, viz., objectivity and all that this involves, including right answers to (most) moral questions, and the possibility (...) of knowing those answers. In the last decade, moral realism has re-entered the philosophical ring in powerful-looking naturalistic form. ln this paper we provide a dialectical overview: we situate the new wave position itself, and also our objections to it, in the context of the evolving program of philosophical naturalism in 20th century analytic philosophy. We seek to show that although this new contender might initially look like championship material, it succumbs to punches surprisingly similar to those that knocked out the old-fashioned versions of naturalist moral realism. (shrink)

While deep brain stimulation (DBS) for patients with Parkinson's disease has typically raised ethical questions about autonomy, accountability and personal identity, recent research indicates that we need to begin taking into account issues surrounding the patients’ feelings of authenticity and alienation as well. In order to bring out the relevance of this dimension to ethical considerations of DBS, I analyse a recent case study of a Dutch patient who, as a result of DBS, faced a dilemma between autonomy and authenticity. (...) This case study is meant to point out the normatively meaningful tension patients under DBS experience between authenticity and autonomy. (shrink)

This article will examine how the notion of emotional authenticity is intertwined with the notions of naturalness and artificiality in the context of the recent debates about ‘neuro-enhancement’ and ‘neuro-psychopharmacology.’ In the philosophy of mind, the concept of authenticity plays a key role in the discussion of the emotions. There is a widely held intuition that an artificial means will always lead to an inauthentic result. This article, however, proposes that artificial substances do not necessarily result in inauthentic emotions. The (...) literature provided by the philosophy of mind on this subject usually resorts to thought experiments. On the other hand, the recent literature in applied ethics on ‘enhancement’ provides good reasons to include real world examples. Such case studies reveal that some psychotropic drugs such as antidepressants actually cause people to undergo experiences of authenticity, making them feel ‘like themselves’ for the first time in their lives. Beginning with these accounts, this article suggests three non-naturalist standards for emotions: the authenticity standard, the rationality standard, and the coherence standard. It argues that the authenticity standard is not always the only valid one, but that the other two ways of assessing emotions are also valid, and that they can even have repercussions on the felt authenticity of emotions. In conclusion, it sketches some of the normative implications if not ethical intricacies that accompany the enhancement of emotions. (shrink)

The interconnections, common interests, and other linkages between the Jewish and Islamic traditions have long been a matter of interest to academics. Today the need to understand these relationships, and to emphasize commonalities rather than conflicts, is of the greatest public interest. The present volume of studies, likely the first such collection in the scholarly literature, explores the full range of interconnections between Jews and Muslims in all fields (intellectual history, religion, philosophy, social history, etc.) and in all periods, from (...) the Middle Ages till today. The essays have been written by some twenty distinguished scholars from North America, Europe, and Israel. The volume is dedicated to our esteemed colleague Joel L. Kraemer, John Barrows Professor Emeritus in the Divinity School and on the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago. In the course of his distinguished career Professor Kraemer has made major contributions to our understanding of the intellectual and cultural history of the Jews in the Arabic world, Islamic and Jewish philosophy and their sources in ancient philosophy, the humanistic renaissance in Islam (on which he published two seminal monographs), and Maimonides (on which he has published many important papers and is completing a biography and a translation of Maimonides' letters, to appear in the Yale Judaica Series). (shrink)

Emotion regulation strategies may reduce the negative relationship between math anxiety and mathematics accuracy, but different strategies may differ in their effectiveness. We recorded electrodermal activity to examine the effect of physiological arousal on performance during different applied ER strategies. We explored how ER strategies might affect the decreases in accuracy attributed to physiological arousal in high math anxious individuals. Participants were instructed to use cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, or a “business as usual” strategy. During the ES condition, HMA individuals (...) showed decreases in math accuracy associated with increased EDA, compared to low math anxious individuals. For both HMA and LMA groups, CR reduced the association between physiological arousal and math accuracy, such that even elevated physiological arousal levels no longer had a negative association with math accuracy. These results show that CR provides a promising technique for ameliorating the negative relationship between math anxiety and math accuracy. (shrink)

As muitas verdades sobre a infância de nosso tempo, das mais catedráticas às mais “inovadoras”, encontram-se compiladas em livros e artigos dentro e fora de nossas bibliotecas. Grosso modo, elas constroem dois tipos de niilismo. Um niilismo de tipo universalista, que suga a criança para fora da imanência da vida e da histórica e a torna refém de estereótipos universais. Outro niilismo de tipo relativista, que esquece a criança e apenas acusa os estudos da infância como mera invenção. Evitar esses (...) extremos requer uma espécie de arte acrobática de equilibrar-se na possibilidade de um entre. Essa via busca retomar a imanência histórica da criança. Trata-se de uma pesquisa em busca da potencialização da ideia de invenção cuja atitude crítica implicasse não a pergunta pelo governo certo ou pela ausência de governo da infância, mas como não a governar assim, por essas pessoas, em nome destes princípios, em vista de tais objetivos e por meio de tais procedimentos. (shrink)

Unsatisfied with stringent statistical theories of information such as Dretske's unity theory, Millikan (2001, 2004, 2007) and Shea (2007) have independently introduced ?soft? statistical notions of information. I argue here that these soft statistical notions do not present viable alternative senses of information to that proposed by Dretske. Furthermore, what appears to be the primary motivation for ?soft? information can be undercut.

Arguably, the most widely endorsed account of normative functions in philosophy of biology is an etiological theory that holds that the function of current traits is fixed by the past selection history of other traits of that type. The earlier formulations of this “selected-effects” theory had trouble accommodating vestigial traits. In order to remedy these difficulties, the influential recent selection or modern history selected-effects theory was introduced. This paper expands upon and strengthens the argument that this theory has trouble stemming (...) from recent “no variation” cases. In addition, several influential arguments for the necessity of including a selection requirement in a theory of normative biological functions are contested. It is suggested that accounting for biological functions in certain areas of biology does not require adverting to selection. (shrink)

Philosophical analyses of scientific concepts are legion. However, this literature is replete with methodological errors that have largely gone unnoticed. Five distinct projects are conflated which has led to faulty inferences, ambiguities, and mischaracterizations. There has also been some recent enthusiasm for approaches that attempt to rectify problematic scientific concepts but the motivations for these approaches are questionable. I am hopeful that by bringing these various issues to light that it will lead practitioners to be more explicit about their aims (...) and subsequently result in better analyses. (shrink)

This article deals with the euthanasia debate in light of new life-sustaining technologies such as the left ventricular assist device (LVAD). The question arises: does the switching off of a LVAD by a doctor upon the request of a patient amount to active or passive euthanasia, i.e. to ‘killing’ or to ‘letting die’? The answer hinges on whether the device is to be regarded as a proper part of the patient's body or as something external. We usually regard the switching (...) off of an internal device as killing, whereas the deactivation of an external device is seen as ‘letting die’. The case is notoriously difficult to decide for hybrid devices such as LVADs, which are partly inside and partly outside the patient's body. Additionally, on a methodological level, I will argue that the ‘ontological’ arguments from analogy given for both sides are problematic. Given the impasse facing the ontological arguments, complementary phenomenological arguments deserve closer inspection. In particular, we should consider whether phenomenologically the LVAD is perceived as a body part or as an external device. I will support the thesis that the deactivation of a LVAD is to be regarded as passive euthanasia if the device is not perceived by the patient as a part of the body proper. (shrink)

In this article, I explore select case studies of Parkinson patients treated with deep brain stimulation in light of the notions of alienation and authenticity. While the literature on DBS has so far neglected the issues of authenticity and alienation, I argue that interpreting these cases in terms of these concepts raises new issues for not only the philosophical discussion of neuro-ethics of DBS, but also for the psychological and medical approach to patients under DBS. In particular, I suggest that (...) the experience of alienation and authenticity varies from patient to patient with DBS. For some, alienation can be brought about by neurointerventions because patients no longer feel like themselves. But, on the other hand, it seems alienation can also be cured by DBS as other patients experience their state of mind as authentic under treatment and retrospectively regard their former lives without stimulation as alienated. I argue that we must do further research on the relevance of authenticity and alienation to patients treated with DBS in order to gain a deeper philosophical understanding, and to develop the best evaluative criterion for the behavior of DBS patients. (shrink)

With regard to the handling of dual use research, the dominant approach in Germany aimed at mitigating dual use risks emphasizes the freedom of research and the strengthening of academic self-regulation. This article presents this approach as one example for a framework for handling security-relevant research, underlines the need for awareness-raising about risks of security-relevant research, and, more generally, highlights some of the dilemmas researchers and legislators face when dealing with security-relevant research. The article furthermore presents the key questions developed (...) by the German Joint Committee on the Handling of Security-Relevant Research to provide guidance for researchers and institutions when they address possible research of concern. It applies these key questions in a case study of a well-publicized experiment in which artificial intelligence and drug discovery technologies were used to determine their dual use potential in identifying highly toxic chemical substances. Moreover, it discusses the utility of the framework applied in Germany and concludes that this approach is practicable. Given the strong emphasis on the researchers’ own responsibility, however, awareness of dual use risks and risk mitigation strategies should be further enhanced and an academic culture of responsible handling of security-relevant research should be promoted. (shrink)

Metametaphysics is the study regarding the foundations and the methodology of Metaphysics. We’ll analyze in this paper three methodologies that established the origins of Metametaphysics in the Analytic Tradition: that of Alexius Meinong, Rudolf Carnap and Willard van Orman Quine. According to Meinong, there is a distinction between ‘to exist’ and ‘there is’ and, in order to preserve the intuition that every intentional act is directed towards an object, there are things that do not exist. According to Carnap, the questions (...) in Metaphysics can be easily answered by empirical or inferential means once we adopt a linguistic framework and answer these questions internally to this framework. Quine argued that to take an entity as existing is to take it as the value of a bound variable. Metametaphysics is relevant because it disambiguates our vocabulary and makes the philosophers avoid verbal disputes. Our objective in this paper was not to show our preferences to one of these methodologies but to provide a starting point for those who are not familiar with these matters — just so other researchers may engage with the issues that belong to Metametaphysics. (shrink)

Normative philosophy believes that argumentation concerning values is rational because there is a deeper value to which all are committed. Citing Ronald Dworkin’s 1977’s Taking Rights Seriously, Will Kymlicka suggests that this “ultimate value” is equality. Having a standard enables rationality because it enables competing theories to show “that one of the theories does a better job living up to the standard that they all recognize”. The measure for whether an argument weighs as much as it claims is how well (...) it accounts for treating people equally and fairly. Fair and equal treatment is measurable enough, and for the same reason values generally are: it helps form the reality of... (shrink)

In der vorliegenden Aufsatzsammlung wird die Forschungsgeschichte des „Tübinger Platon“ anhand aller zentralen Äußerungen seines Hauptvertreters dargestellt. Dabei wird die prinzipientheoretische Dimension des Platonismus zwischen Vorsokratik und Neuplatonismus sukzessiv herausgearbeitet. Die Verflechtungen mit der gesamten gegenwärtigen Platonforschung machen das Buch zur Summa, zu einer Einführung in Platon überhaupt.

Rhetoric, like any other practice, is always to be used to serve the ends of justice, and for that alone.People will be responsible for the needs of others only when they are responsive to the feelings of need, anxiety, and desire in real other people who work in real material conditions. This direct response will take place only when people are fully responsive to, and fully responsible for, their own feelings. This responsibility for individual feeling, for full complexity and depth (...) of individual feeling, is thus of political not simply personal importance.To theorize justice rhetorically, this article reviews two major theories of rhetoric that address justice: the New Rhetoric of Chaïm Perelman and Lucie .. (shrink)

O presente artigo discute a crítica de Friedrich Nietzsche ao modo como a noção de história foi utilizada, enquanto um saber objetivo, no âmbito da cultura e da educação na modernidade. O filósofo sustenta que na cultura moderna há um uso desmedido da história, o que constitui um vício que legitima as pseudo-culturas. A educação é, por excelência, o meio propagador da cultura e, segundo Nietzsche, a educação moderna reproduz e legitima um tipo de saber superficial e especializado, que é (...) contrário à vida. No presente artigo elucida-se o conceito de cultura nietzschiano, a fim de compreender as linhas gerais dos apontamentos do filósofo acerca da relação entre história, cultura e educação na modernidade. (shrink)

RESUMO O presente estudo, ainda em caráter exploratório, pretende verificar as possibilidades de uma ontologia no pensamento de Michel Foucault. Parte-se do pressuposto de que, embora Foucault não tenha abordado diretamente o tema da ontologia, encontram-se, em seus escritos, referenciais que permitem colocá-la como questão. Entende-se, também, que o tema da ontologia está relacionado, por um lado, com o tema do homem e do sujeito e, por outro, com a ética. Geralmente a ética em Foucault é discutida a partir dos (...) últimos escritos, conhecidos como genealogia da ética . A ontologia é discutida a partir de seus textos da década de 1980, sobre Aufklärung de Kant. Ontologia e ética são, portanto, conceitos já explorados em seu pensamento. A ética é conceituada por Foucault como o uso crítico da liberdade, no interior das tramas do saber-poder. A noção de ontologia está referida ao ser histórico do homem e ao tema do sujeito, em sua relação com a verdade. Conforme Foucault, trata-se de uma ontologia de nosso ser histórico. Mas ainda falta aclarar, no pensamento do autor, o que, exatamente, se mostra no ser histórico, ou seja, o que é que se torna história, fazendo-se sujeito, no sentido da ontologia. A resposta se encontra na questão sobre o homem, antes dele ser objetivado enquanto figura da modernidade. (shrink)