Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review current practice in sharing and mining medical data revealing benefits, costs and ethical issues. Based on stakeholder perspectives and values, the authors create an ethical code to regulate the sharing and mining of medical information. Design/methodology/approach The framework is based on a review of academic, practitioner and legal research. Findings Owing to the inability of current safeguards to protect consumers from risks related to the disclosure of medical information, the authors develop (...) a framework for ethical sharing and mining of medical data, security, transparency, respect, accountability, community and quality, which espouses security, transparency, respect, accountability, community and quality as the basic tenets of ethical data sharing and mining practice. Research limitations/implications The STRACQ framework is an original, previously unpublished contribution that will require modification over time based on discussion and debate within and among the academy, medical community and public policymakers. Social implications The framework for sharing borrows from the Fair Credit Reporting Act, allowing the collection and dissemination of identified medical data but placing strict limitations on use. Following this framework, benefits of shared and mined medical data are freely available with appropriate safeguards for consumer privacy. Originality/value Mandates for adoption of electronic health-care records require an understanding of medical data mining. This paper presents a review of data mining techniques and reasons for engaging in the practice of identifying benefits, costs and ethical issues. The authors create an original framework, STRACQ, for ethical sharing and mining of medical information, allowing knowledge exploration while protecting consumer privacy. (shrink)

This is collection of four philosophical texts written exclusively by women. It contemplates in chronological order The Dialogue by Catherine of Siena, The Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila, An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex by Judith Drake, and An Enquiry into the Evidence of the Christian Religion by Susanna Newcome. As such, the collection includes works in value theory, practical reason, theology, metaphysics, and epistemology. It encompasses eminently philosophical topics such as self-knowledge, prudence vs. morality, the pursuit (...) of perfection, the cosmological argument, Cartesianism, the psychology of religious experience, reason vs. faith, and an array of topics in Early Modern feminism. (shrink)

The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test is one of the oldest, most frequently used, multiple-choice critical-thinking tests on the market in business, government, and legal settings for purposes of hiring and promotion. I demonstrate, however, that the test has serious construct-validity issues, stemming primarily from its ambiguous, unclear, misleading, and sometimes mysterious instructions, which have remained unaltered for decades. Erroneously scored items further diminish the test’s validity. As a result, having enhanced knowledge of formal and informal logic could well (...) result in test subjects receiving lower scores on the test. That’s not how things should work for a CT assessment test. (shrink)

This study aims to characterise Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) members’ perceptions on five main themes associated with ethics reviews, namely, the nature of research, ethical/moral issues, assent, participants’ risk and HREC prerogatives issues. Three hundred and sixteen HREC members from over 200 HRECs throughout Australia responded to an online questionnaire survey. The results show that in general, HREC members’ beliefs are reasoned and align with sound principles of ethical reviews. There seems to be a disposition for living up to (...) ethical/moral values, avoiding the issue of consent waivers and respecting participants’ welfare, as well as a sense of ambiguity about HREC prerogatives. Problematic areas were a tendency towards over-valuing quantitative research methods for their perceived validity and a neutral view on issuing consent waivers to participants with intellectual disability and, finally, the belief that research that limits disclosure, plans deception or actively conceals is morally unjustifiable. Implications for professional development and policy-making are discussed. (shrink)

The standard philosophical view is that compulsive behaviors are caused by “irresistible” desires. Gary Watson famously argued that this view conflates compulsion with weakness of the will, and proposed differentiating weakness and compulsion by appealing to the normal strength-of-will of members of the community. This extrinsic distinction leaves no room for phenomenological differences between weakness and compulsion. Evidence from clinical psychology shows, however, that compulsion is associated with certain phenomenological features that are absent in cases of weakness. I therefore (...) reject the irresistible desire account. Instead, I propose that psychological compulsions “wear down” an individual’s normal faculty of self-control, i.e., the will. The recurrent inhibition of the behavior by the will overexerts this faculty, causing the psychological stress noted by psychologists. This stress raises the cost of resistance until it is unbearable. The subject abandons resistance and therefore performs the behavior. (shrink)

I argue against Lori Watson and Christie Hartley's recent criticisms of convergence approaches to public justification. In particular, I argue that convergence approaches can capture what is distinctive about democratic decision‐making and provide an attractive account of stability for the right reasons.

A comprehensive treatment of the concept of causation in evolutionary biology that makes clear its central role in both historical and contemporary debates. Most scientific explanations are causal. This is certainly the case in evolutionary biology, which seeks to explain the diversity of life and the adaptive fit between organisms and their surroundings. The nature of causation in evolutionary biology, however, is contentious. How causation is understood shapes the structure of evolutionary theory, and historical and contemporary debates in evolutionary biology (...) have revolved around the nature of causation. Despite its centrality, and differing views on the subject, the major conceptual issues regarding the nature of causation in evolutionary biology are rarely addressed. This volume fills the gap, bringing together biologists and philosophers to offer a comprehensive, interdisciplinary treatment of evolutionary causation. Contributors first address biological motivations for rethinking evolutionary causation, considering the ways in which development, extra-genetic inheritance, and niche construction challenge notions of cause and process in evolution, and describing how alternative representations of evolutionary causation can shed light on a range of evolutionary problems. Contributors then analyze evolutionary causation from a philosophical perspective, considering such topics as causal entanglement, the commingling of organism and environment, and the relationship between causation and information. Contributors John A. Baker, Lynn Chiu, David I. Dayan, Renée A. Duckworth, Marcus W Feldman, Susan A. Foster, Melissa A. Graham, Heikki Helanterä, Kevin N. Laland, Armin P. Moczek, John Odling-Smee, Jun Otsuka, Massimo Pigliucci, Arnaud Pocheville, Arlin Stoltzfus, Karola Stotz, Sonia E. Sultan, Christoph Thies, Tobias Uller, Denis M. Walsh, Richard A. Watson. (shrink)

It is natural to think that social groups are concrete material particulars, but this view faces an important objection. Suppose the chess club and nature club have the same members. Intuitively, these are different clubs even though they have a common material basis. Some philosophers take these intuitions to show that the materialist view must be abandoned. I propose an alternative explanation. Social groups are concrete material particulars, but there is a psychological explanation of nonidentity intuitions. Social groups appear coincident (...) but nonidentical because they are perceived to be governed by conflicting social norms. (shrink)

Philosophers and linguists currently lack the means to reliably identify evaluative concepts and measure their evaluative intensity. Using a corpus-based approach, we present a new method to distinguish evaluatively thick and thin adjectives like ‘courageous’ and ‘awful’ from descriptive adjectives like ‘narrow,’ and from value-associated adjectives like ‘sunny.’ Our study suggests that the modifiers ‘truly’ and ‘really’ frequently highlight the evaluative dimension of thick and thin adjectives, allowing for them to be uniquely classified. Based on these results, we believe our (...) operationalization may pave the way for a more quantitative approach to the study of thick and thin concepts. (shrink)

How should thought and consciousness be understood within a view of the world as being through-and-through physical? Many philosophers have proposed non-reductive, levels-based positions, according to which the physical domain is fundamental, while thought and consciousness are higher-level processes, dependent on and determined by physical processes. In this book, Kevin Morris's careful philosophical and historical critique shows that it is very difficult to make good metaphysical sense of this idea - notions like supervenience, physical realization, and grounding all fail (...) to articulate a viable non-reductive, levels-based physicalism. Challenging assumptions about the mind-body problem and providing new perspectives on the debate over physicalism, this accessible and comprehensive book will interest scholars working in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. (shrink)

_Challenges conventional understandings of Heidegger’s account of the body._.

Some of philosophy's most central concepts, including art, friendship, and happiness, have been argued to be dual character concepts. Their main characteristic is that they encode not only a descriptive dimension but also an independent normative dimension for categorization. This article introduces the class of dual character concepts and discusses various accounts of their content and structure. A specific focus will be placed on their relation to two other classes of concepts, thick concepts and natural kind concepts. The study of (...) dual character concepts not only demonstrates that a wide range of concepts is inherently normative, but it also reveals new possibilities for investigating gender biases, generics, and social roles. (shrink)

This paper advances the conception of social entrepreneurs as caring entrepreneurs. We argue that the care ethics of social entrepreneurs, implying the pursuit of caring goals through caring processes, can be challenged when they engage in the process of scaling up their ventures. We propose that social entrepreneurs can sustain their care ethics as the essential dimension of their venture only if they are able to build a caring enterprise. Organizational care designates the set of organizing principles that facilitate the (...) embedding of care ethics at an organizational level, beyond the imprinting induced by social entrepreneurs’ personal ethics. (shrink)

People coordinate body postures and gaze patterns during conversation. We review literature showing that (1) action embodies cognition, (2) postural coordination emerges spontaneously when two people converse, (3) gaze patterns influence postural coordination, (4) gaze coordination is a function of common ground knowledge and visual information that conversants believe they share, and (5) gaze coordination is causally related to mutual understanding. We then consider how coordination, generally, can be understood as temporarily coupled neuromuscular components that function as a collective unit (...) known as a coordinative structure in the motor control literature. We speculate that the coordination of gaze and body sway found in conversation may be understood as a cross‐person coordinative structure that embodies the goals of the joint action system. (shrink)

Most philosophers have largely downplayed any relevance of multiple meanings of the folk concept of truth in the empirical domain. However, confusions about what truth is have surged in political and everyday discourse. In order to resolve these confusions, we argue that we need a more accurate picture of how the term ‘true’ is in fact used. Our experimental studies reveal that the use of ‘true’ shows substantial variance within the empirical domain, indicating that ‘true’ is ambiguous between a correspondence (...) and a coherence reading. We then explore the consequences of these results for the project of re-engineering truth. (shrink)

This essay explores the unique temporal experience in anxiety. Drawing on first-person accounts as well as examples from literature, I attempt to show how anxiety not only disrupts our physiological and cognitive timing but also disturbs the embodied rhythms of everyday social life. The primary goal, however, is to articulate the extent to which human existence itself is a temporally structured event and to identity the ways that anxiety disrupts this structure. Using Martin Heidegger’s account of human existence as a (...) point of departure, I show how the mood of anxiety has the power to alter our self-interpretations by closing down or constricting our experience of the future. I argue that a constricted future impedes our ability ‘to be’ because it closes off the range of projective meanings that we would ordinarily draw on to create or fashion our identities. (shrink)

Generic statements (‘Tigers have stripes’) are pervasive and early-emerging modes of generalization with a distinctive linguistic profile. Previous experimental work found that generics display a unique asymmetry between their acceptance conditions and the implications that are typically drawn from them. This paper presents evidence against the hypothesis that only generics display an asymmetry. Correcting for limitations of previous designs, we found a generalized asymmetry effect across generics, various kinds of explicitly quantified statements (‘most’, ‘some’, ‘typically’, ‘usually’), and variations in types (...) of predicated properties (striking vs. neutral). We discuss implications of these results for our understanding of the source of asymmetry effects and whether and in which ways these effects might introduce biased beliefs into social networks. (shrink)

This paper presents the results of two corpus studies investigating the discourse surrounding conspiracy theories and genuine theories. The results of these studies show that conspiracy theories lack the epistemic and scientific standing characteristic of theories more generally. Instead, our findings indicate that conspiracy theories are spread in a manner that resembles the dissemination of rumors and falsehoods. Based on these empirical results, we argue that it is time for both re-engineering conspiracy theory and for relabeling "conspiracy theory". We propose (...) relabelling conspiracy theories as either "conspiracy stories" or "conspiracy narratives" to more accurately convey their true nature. (shrink)

Assertions are the centre of gravity in social epistemology. They are the vehicles we use to exchange information within scientific groups and society as a whole. It is therefore essential to determine under which conditions we are permitted to make an assertion. In this paper we argue and provide empirical evidence for the view that the norm of assertion is justified belief: truth or even knowledge are not required. Our results challenge the knowledge account advocated by, e.g. Williamson (1996), in (...) general, and more specifically, put into question several studies conducted by Turri (2013, 2016) that support a knowledge norm of assertion. Instead, the justified belief account championed by, e.g. Douven (2006), seems to prevail. (shrink)

This paper offers a phenomenological analysis of Heidegger’s account of “the uncanny” as it relates to the coronavirus pandemic. It explores how the pandemic has disrupted Dasein’s sense of “homelike” familiarity and how this disruption has undermined our ability to be, that is, to understand or make sense of things. By examining our experience of temporality, lived-space, and intersubjectivity, the paper illuminates different ways in which the pandemic has left us confused and anxious about our self-interpretations and future projects. The (...) paper concludes by showing how the uncanny is not simply something we feel in times of crisis; it is, for Heidegger, who we are. This means the secure feeling of familiarity that we embodied prior to the pandemic was an illusion all along, that we are not and never have been at-home in the world. (shrink)

In 2022, students at North American universities with third-dose COVID-19 vaccine mandates risk disenrolment if unvaccinated. To assess the appropriateness of booster mandates in this age group, we combine empirical risk-benefit assessment and ethical analysis. To prevent one COVID-19 hospitalisation over a 6-month period, we estimate that 31 207–42 836 young adults aged 18–29 years must receive a third mRNA vaccine. Booster mandates in young adults are expected to cause a net harm: per COVID-19 hospitalisation prevented, we anticipate at least (...) 18.5 serious adverse events from mRNA vaccines, including 1.5–4.6 booster-associated myopericarditis cases in males (typically requiring hospitalisation). We also anticipate 1430–4626 cases of grade ≥3 reactogenicity interfering with daily activities (although typically not requiring hospitalisation). University booster mandates are unethical because they: (1) are not based on an updated (Omicron era) stratified risk-benefit assessment for this age group; (2) may result in a net harm to healthy young adults; (3) are not proportionate: expected harms are not outweighed by public health benefits given modest and transient effectiveness of vaccines against transmission; (4) violate the reciprocity principle because serious vaccine-related harms are not reliably compensated due to gaps in vaccine injury schemes; and (5) may result in wider social harms. We consider counterarguments including efforts to increase safety on campus but find these are fraught with limitations and little scientific support. Finally, we discuss the policy relevance of our analysis for primary series COVID-19 vaccine mandates. (shrink)

Increasingly, frontiers between business and philanthropy seem to be blurred. Reward-Based Crowdfunding platforms contribute to this blurring of lines since they propose funders to support both for-profit and philanthropic projects. Our empirical paper explores the case of Ulule, the leading crowdfunding platform in Europe. Our results, based on a statistical analysis of more than 3000 projects, show that crowdfunding platforms foster specific kinds of relationships relying on reciprocal giving, beyond the usual opposition between altruistic and selfish motivations. We use the (...) work of Marcel Mauss to account for this process of reciprocal giving, and we argue that Maussian theory of gift can be used more generally to describe funding activities in the context of early stage entrepreneurship. (shrink)

This paper integrates personal narratives with the methods of phenomenology in order to draw some general conclusions about ‘what it means’ and ‘what it feels like’ to be depressed. The analysis has three parts. First, it explores the ways in which depression disrupts everyday experiences of spatial orientation and motility. This disruption makes it difficult for the person to move and perform basic functional tasks, resulting in a collapse or contraction of the life-world. Second, it illustrates how depression creates a (...) situational atmosphere of emotional indifference that reduces the person’s ability to qualitatively distinguish what matters in his or her life because nothing stands out as significant or important anymore. In this regard, depression is distinct from other feelings because it is not directed towards particular objects or situations but to the world as a whole. Finally, the paper examines how depression diminishes the possibility for ‘self-creation’ or ‘self-making’. Restricted by the illness, depression becomes something of a destiny, preventing the person from being open and free to access a range of alternative self-interpretations, identities, and possible ways of being-in-the-world. (shrink)

This paper discusses and evaluates a recent argument for the conclusion that an attractive variety of Russellian monism ought to be regarded as a form of physicalism. According to this line of thought, if the Russellian’s “inscrutable” properties are held to ground not only experience, but also the physical structure of the world—and in this sense are not “experience-specific”—they thereby have an unproblematic place in physicalist metaphysics. I argue, in contrast, that there can be a sense in which the Russellian’s (...) inscrutables are experience-specific in a way that a physicalist probably ought to find objectionable, even if they play some role other than grounding experience. This will be the case, I argue, if certain worlds are taken to be possible, as they sometimes have: worlds of “bare structure” and worlds with what might be called “swapped inscrutables”. In this way, I claim that accepting certain possibilities has consequences for how one should understand the nature of the Russellian’s inscrutables and the place they have in physicalist metaphysics. (shrink)

In a series of articles in this journal, Michael Tye (2002) and Paul Noordhof (2001, 2002) have sparred over the correct explanation of the putative invalidity of the following argument: the pain is in my fingertip; the fingertip is in my mouth; therefore, the pain is in my mouth. Whereas Tye explains the failure of the argument by stating that “pain “creates an intensional context, Noordhof maintains that the “in” in ‘the pain is in my fingertip’ is not spatial, but (...) has state-attributing character. In this paper, we offer a third account, explaining the failure of the argument through state-attributing pragmatic implicatures. Empirical evidence is provided in support of this account. (shrink)

_The Ethics of Surveillance: An Introduction_ systematically and comprehensively examines the ethical issues surrounding the concept of surveillance. Addressing important questions such as: Is it ever acceptable to spy on one's allies? To what degree should the state be able to intrude into its citizens' private lives in the name of security? Can corporate espionage ever be justified? What are the ethical issues surrounding big data? How far should a journalist go in pursuing information? Is it reasonable to expect a (...) degree of privacy in public? Is it ever justifiable for a parent to read a child’s diary? Featuring case studies throughout this textbook provides a philosophical introduction to an incredibly topical issue studied by students within the fields of applied ethics, ethics of technology, privacy, security studies, politics, journalism and human geography. (shrink)

It is often held that it is conceptually impossible to distinguish between a pain and a pain experience. In this article I present an argument which concludes that people make this distinction. I have done a web-based statistical analysis which is at the core of this argument. It shows that the intensity of pain has a decisive effect on whether people say that they 'feel a pain'(lower intensities) or 'have a pain' (greater intensities). This 'intensity effect'can be best explained by (...) people's varying confidence about their pain, and indicates that 'feeling pain' can be identified as introspective report and 'having pain' as an objective statement — analogous to the traditional sense modalities. However, if people have the ability to make both introspective and objective statements about pain, then it seems indeed the case that they distinguish the appearance from the reality of pain. (shrink)

In this paper, I draw on Heidegger’s phenomenology of “moods” (_Stimmungen_) to interpret loneliness as a diffused and atmospheric feeling-state that often undergirds the lives of older adults, shaping the ways in which they are attuned to and make sense of the world. I focus specifically on residents in long-term care facilities to show how the social isolation and lockdown measures of the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically intensified the mood. The aim is to shed light on how profound and totalizing the (...) experience has been for residents. Making use of Heidegger’s account of the affective “collapse” or “breakdown” (_Zusammenbruch_) of meaning, I argue that when older adults are functionally locked in their rooms for months at a time and cut off from the orienting routines and rhythms of the relational world, the result is a crumbling of the fundamental meaning-structures that constitute subjectivity. The global sense of abandonment and disconnection strips away the possibility for self-understanding, and residents are often left confused and abandoned to an existence that has been drained of meaning and significance. (shrink)

In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger introduces a unique interpretation of death as a kind of world-collapse or breakdown of meaning that strips away our ability to understand and make sense of who we are. This is an ‘ontological death’ in the sense that we cannot be anything because the intelligible world that we draw on to fashion our identities and sustain our sense of self has lost all significance. On this account, death is not only an event that we (...) can physiologically live through; it can happen numerous times throughout the finite span of our lives. This paper draws on Arthur Frank’s (At the will of the body: reflections on illness. Houghton, Boston, 1991) narrative of critical illness to concretize the experience of ‘ontological death’ and illuminate the unique challenges it poses for health care professionals. I turn to Heidegger’s conception of ‘resoluteness’ (Entschlossenheit) to address these challenges, arguing for the need of health care professionals to help establish a discursive context whereby the critically ill can begin to meaningfully express and interpret their experience of self-loss in a way that acknowledges the structural vulnerability of their own identities and is flexible enough to let go of those that have lost their significance or viability. (shrink)

The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics and a standard interpretation of the awareness of pain have a common feature: Both postulate the existence of an irresolvable duality. Whereas many physicists claim that all particles exhibit particle and wave properties, many philosophers working on pain argue that our awareness of pain is paradoxical, exhibiting both perceptual and introspective characteristics. In this chapter, we offer a pessimistic take on the putative paradox of pain. Specifically, we attempt to resolve the supposed paradox by (...) undermining the reasons offered for accepting the introspective side of the dualism. (shrink)

The Ethics of Surveillance: An Introduction systematically and comprehensively examines the ethical issues surrounding the concept of surveillance. Addressing important questions such as: Is it ever acceptable to spy on one's allies? To what degree should the state be able to intrude into its citizens' private lives in the name of security? Can corporate espionage ever be justified? What are the ethical issues surrounding big data? How far should a journalist go in pursuing information? Is it reasonable to expect a (...) degree of privacy in public? Is it ever justifiable for a parent to read a child’s diary? Featuring case studies throughout, this textbook provides a philosophical introduction to an incredibly topical issue studied by students within the fields of applied ethics, ethics of technology, privacy, security studies, politics, journalism and human geography. (shrink)

Affect-based theorists and life satisfaction theorists disagree about the nature of happiness, but agree about this methodological principle: a philosophical theory of happiness should be in line with the folk concept HAPPINESS. In this article, we present two empirical studies indicating that it is affect-based theories that get the folk concept HAPPINESS right: competent speakers judge a person to be happy if and only if that person is described as feeling pleasure/good most of the time. Our studies also show that (...) the judgement that a person is feeling pleasure/good most of the time reliably brings about the judgement that they are satisfied with their life, even if that person is described as not satisfied. We suggest that this direct causal relation between the concepts POSITIVE AFFECT and LIFE SATISFACTION might explain why many philosophers have been attracted to life satisfaction theories. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to motivate the idea of a social reason and demonstrate its usefulness in social theorizing. For example, in a society that values getting married young, the fact that one is young is a reason to get married. In racist and sexist societies, we have social reasons to be racist and sexist. Social reasons give rise to social requirements and obligations, where these requirements often conflict with prudential and moral requirements. My application of reasons to (...) social philosophy parallels Charles Mills' and Carole Pateman's applications of social contract theory to political philosophy. While they use social contract theory to make sense of patriarchy and white supremacy, I use the theory of normative reasons to make sense of social injustice. The theory of normative reasons meets non-ideal theory. (shrink)

Affect-based theorists and life satisfaction theorists disagree about the nature of happiness, but agree about this methodological principle: a philosophical theory of happiness should be in line with the folk concept HAPPINESS. In this article, we present two empirical studies indicating that it is affect-based theories that get the folk concept HAPPINESS right: competent speakers judge a person to be happy if and only if that person is described as feeling pleasure/good most of the time. Our studies also show that (...) the judgement that a person is feeling pleasure/good most of the time reliably brings about the judgement that they are satisfied with their life, even if that person is described as not satisfied. We suggest that this direct causal relation between the concepts POSITIVE AFFECT and LIFE SATISFACTION might explain why many philosophers have been attracted to life satisfaction theories. (shrink)

Despite recent growth in surveillance capabilities there has been little discussion regarding the ethics of surveillance. Much of the research that has been carried out has tended to lack a coherent structure or fails to address key concerns. I argue that the just war tradition should be used as an ethical framework which is applicable to surveillance, providing the questions which should be asked of any surveillance operation. In this manner, when considering whether to employ surveillance, one should take into (...) account the reason for the surveillance, the authority of the surveillant, whether or not there has been a declaration of intent, whether surveillance is an act of last resort, what is the likelihood of success of the operation and whether surveillance is a proportionate response. Once underway, the methods of surveillance should be proportionate to the occasion and seek to target appropriate people while limiting surveillance of those deemed inappropriate. By drawing on the just war tradition, ethical questions regarding surveillance can draw on a long and considered discourse while gaining a framework which, I argue, raises all the key concerns and misses none. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Traces Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's engagement with deconstructive thought from his early work in the 1960s to the present, examining his key concepts - infancy, Voice, potentiality, sovereignty, bare life, messianism - in relation to key texts and concepts in Jacques Derrida's work.

People seem to perceive and locate pains in bodily locations, but also seem to conceive of pains as mental states that can be introspected. However, pains cannot be both bodily and mental, at least according to most conceptions of these two categories: mental states are not the kind of entities that inhabit body parts. How are we to resolve this paradox of pain? In this paper, I put forward what I call the ‘Developmental Challenge’, tackling the second pillar of this (...) paradox, i.e. the introspectionist view of pain according to which genuine pain reports are introspective reports. This view forms an inconsistent triad with two other widely held positions: young children make genuine pain reports, and young children do not make introspective reports. After introducing the paradox and the introspectionist view of pain in part 1, I present the developmental challenge, and defend both and. I conclude that the inconsistent triad can only be resolved by reconsidering the introspectionist view of pain. In discussing three potential factors that lead to the puzzling intricacies of our concept of pain, I argue that the concept of pain might not be paradoxical after all. (shrink)

A physicalist holds, in part, that what properties are instantiated depends on what physical properties are instantiated; a physicalist thinks that mental properties, for example, are instantiated in virtue of the instantiation of physical “realizer” properties. One issue that arises in this context concerns the relationship between the “causal powers” of instances of physical properties and instances of dependent properties, properties that are instantiated in virtue of the instantiation of physical properties. After explaining the significance of this issue, I evaluate (...) two core lines of thought that have been advanced in favor of Subset Inheritance, the view that instances of dependent properties typically have some, but not all, of the powers of physical realizers, and do not have any powers that are not also powers of physical realizers. The first argument that I address turns on our intuitive reactions to certain cases; the second appeals to the phenomenon of multiple realization. I argue that neither line of thought succeeds, and thus that insofar as we grant that an instance of a dependent property inherits some of the powers of its physical realizer, defenders of subset inheritance have not provided a compelling reason to think that it will not inherit all of the powers of its physical realizer. (shrink)

Introduction -- Organization, society and politics -- An Aristotelian perspective -- The politics -- The public good -- The rhetoric -- Talk and texts -- The Nichomachean ethics -- Decision making and ethics -- The Poetics -- Bolshevism to ballet in three steps -- What is "public interest"?: a case study -- Where do we go from here?

The dominance of agency theory can reduce our collective scope to analyse private equity in all its diversity and depth. We contribute to theorisation of private equity by developing a contrasting perspective that draws on a rich tradition of virtue ethics. In doing so, we juxtapose 'private equity' with 'public good' to develop points of rhetorical and analytical contrast. We develop a typology differentiating various forms of private equity, and focus on the 'take private' form. These takeovers are where private (...) equity funds are used to buy all a firm's publicly listed shares. Take private deals reduce reporting requirements and lessen the amount of public scrutiny a firm comes under. They allow greater control of a firm's assets and resources but also have effects in terms of the wider social fabric. The 'public good' and virtue ethics offer an alternative basis for theorisation of these deals. This provides a needed contrast to accounts of private equity based on agency theory. (shrink)

Some decisions we make—such as becoming a parent or moving to a different part of the world—are transformative. According to L. A. Paul, transformative decisions pose a major problem to us because they fall outside the realm of rationality. Her argument for that conclusion rests on the premise that subjective value is central in transformative decisions. This paper challenges that premise and hence the overall conclusion that transformative decisions usually are not rational. In the theoretical part of the paper, we (...) specify conditions under which transformative decisions are possibly rational and likely rational. The data we present in the empirical part of the paper reveal that subjective value often plays only a minor role in people’s decision-making process. Putting both parts together, we argue that people have a great chance of making rational transformative choices. (shrink)

This paper challenges the philosophical assumption that bodily sensations are free from normative constraints. It examines the normative status of bodily sensations through two studies: a corpus-linguistic analysis and an experimental investigation. The corpus analysis shows that while emotions are frequently subject to normative judgments concerning their appropriateness, similar attitudes are less evident towards bodily sensations like feelings of pain, hunger and cold. In contrast, however, the experimental study reveals notable differences in conceptions of bodily sensations. It finds that sensations (...) of hunger and cold are occasionally subject to normative assessment, with about half of the participants considering it reasonable to assess these sensations normatively. (shrink)

An increasing number of philosophers argue that indeterminacy is metaphysical (or worldly) in the sense that indeterminacy has its source in the world itself (rather than how the world is represented or known). The standard arguments for metaphysical indeterminacy are centered around the sorites paradox. In this essay, I present a novel argument for metaphysical indeterminacy. I argue that metaphysical indeterminacy follows from the existence of constitutive social construction; there is indeterminacy in the social world because there is indeterminacy in (...) how the social world is constructed. (shrink)

Defenders of the subset view of realization have claimed that we can resolve well-known worries about mental-physical causal overdetermination by holding that mental properties are subset realized by physical properties, that instances of subset realized properties are parts of physical realizers, and that part-whole overdetermination is unproblematic. I challenge the claim that the overdetermination generated by the subset view can be legitimated by appealing to more mundane part-whole overdetermination. I conclude that the subset view does not provide a unique solution (...) to overdetermination worries. (shrink)

A prominent objection to supervenience physicalism is that a definition of physicalism in terms of supervenience allows for physicalism to be compatible with nonphysicalist outlooks, such as certain forms of emergentism. I take as my starting point a recent defense of supervenience physicalism from this objection. According to this line of thought, the subvenient base for emergent properties cannot be said to be purely physical; rather, it is “polluted” with emergent features in virtue of necessarily giving rise to them. Thus, (...) if emergentism is true, it is false that everything supervenes on physical properties. I argue that this gives way to a new challenge for supervenience physicalism. The challenge, roughly, is to distinguish the emergentist’s “polluted” base from a physical supervenience base; that is, to give conditions under which the subvenient base is not “polluted” by supervenient properties. The problem, I argue, is that it is hard to see how this can be done without collapsing supervenience physicalism into alternative approaches to physicalism. I thus argue that if the present defense of supervenience physicalism succeeds in defending the adequacy of a supervenience-based definition of physicalism, it does so by compromising its uniqueness. (shrink)