Research has demonstrated that two types of affect have an influence on judgment and decision making: incidental affect (affect unrelated to a judgment or decision such as a mood) and integral affect (affect that is part of the perceiver’s internal representation of the option or target under consideration). So far, these two lines of research have seldom crossed so that knowledge concerning their combined effects is largely missing. To fill this gap, the present review highlights differences and similarities between integral (...) and incidental affect. Further, common and unique mechanisms that enable these two types of affect to influence judgment and choices are identified. Finally, some basic principles for affect integration when the two sources co-occur are outlined. These principles are discussed in relation to existing work that has focused on incidental or integral affect but not both. (shrink)

Locke bases his moral and political philosophy on his doctrine of the ‘law of nature’. Scholars have debated the content and grounding of this law and its relationship to Christian theology. The ambiguities of the Lockean natural law’s content are traceable to an unclear grammatical construction in a crucial passage of the Treatises of Government, which can be resolved by following out a related set of arguments in that work. The ambiguities of the Lockean natural law’s grounding can then be (...) resolved by the hypothesis, strongly supported by textual evidence, that Locke relies tacitly on the reasoning of a parallel passage in Hobbes. Lockean natural law rests on neither atheistic nor specifically Christian premises but on a hypothetical natural theology. Locke’s conclusions from that natural theology represent an attempt to follow out Hobbesian logic while also tightening it up on one important point on which Hobbes himself appears to vacillate. (shrink)

The 1980s witnessed a dramatic increase in hostile takeovers in the United States. Proponents argue that well- planned mergers enhance the value of the firm and the value of the firm to society. Critics typically argue that undesired takeovers ultimately harm society due to external costs not borne by the acquiring firm. To be socially responsible, the manager must consider the effects of the merger/acquisition on all stakeholders. Different traditional ethical frameworks for decision making are proposed and reviewed. A model (...) is proposed. (shrink)

Advances in medical capability should be accompanied by discussion of their ethical implications. In the military medical context there is a growing interest in developing prophylactic interventions that will mitigate the effects of trauma and improve survival. The ethics of this novel capability are currently unexplored. This paper describes the concept of trauma prophylaxis and outlines some of the ethical issues that need to be considered, including within concept development, research and implementation. Trauma prophylaxis can be divided into interventions that (...) do not and those that do have medical enhancement as an unintended side effect of their prophylactic action. We conclude that type 1 interventions have much in common with established military medical prophylaxis, and the potentially enhancing qualities of type 2 interventions raise different issues. We welcome further debate on both interventions. (shrink)

Next SectionMaking threats and offers to patients is a strategy used in community mental healthcare to increase treatment adherence. In this paper, an ethical analysis of these types of proposal is presented. It is argued (1) that the primary ethical consideration is to identify the professional duties of care held by those working in community mental health because the nature of these duties will enable a threat to be differentiated from an offer, (2) that threatening to act in a way (...) that would equate with a failure to uphold the requirements of these duties is wrong, irrespective of the benefit accrued through treatment adherence and (3) that making offers to patients raises a number of secondary ethical considerations that need to be judged on their own merit in the context of individual patient care. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these arguments, setting out a pathway designed to assist community mental healthcare practitioners to determine whether making a specific proposal to a patient is right or wrong. (shrink)

This article addresses the ability of Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) networks to generate stagewise cognitive development in accordance with Piaget's theory of cognitive epigenesis. We carried out a replication study of the simulation experiments by McClelland (1989) and McClelland and Jenkins (1991) in which a PDP network learns to solve balance scale problems. In objective tests motivated from catastrophe theory, a mathematical theory of transitions in epigenetical systems, no evidence for stage transitions in network performance was found. It is concluded (...) that PDP networks lack the ability to recover the positive outcomes of analogous catastrophe analyses of real cognitive developmental data. In an attempt to further characterize the learning behaviour of PDP networks, we carried out a second simulation study using the discrimination‐shift paradigm. The results thus obtained indicate that PDP learning is compatible with the learning of stimulus‐response relationships, not with the acquisition of mediating rules such as conceived in (neo‐)Piagetian theory. In closing, we speculate about the feasibility of simulating stagewise development with alternative network architectures. (shrink)

In depicting the Utopia's main character Raphael Hythloday, Thomas More appears to have drawn on the character Evodius in Augustine's dialogue On Free Choice. Hythloday and Evodius hold similar views on the relation between human law and the divine prohibition on homicide. Hythloday's views appear at first to be inconsistent, but Evodius's arguments for his related views can help make better sense of Hythloday's. Both characters also turn out to display similar moral-political confusions, caused by the interaction of their Christian (...) faith with their insufficient political education, that hurt their ability to serve their country as good citizens. These confusions are typical of educated Christian citizens but not inevitable: More and Augustine each offer alternative models of more clear-sighted Christians who can serve their earthly homeland in full awareness of its imperfections. (shrink)

What do human beings use conditional reasoning for? A psychological consequence of counterfactual conditional reasoning is emotional experience, in particular, regret and relief. Adults’ thoughts about what might have been influence their evaluations of reality. We discuss recent psychological experiments that chart the relationship between children’s ability to engage in conditional reasoning and their experience of counterfactual emotions. Relative to conditional reasoning, counterfactual emotions are late developing. This suggests that children need not only competence in conditional reasoning, but also to (...) engage in this thinking spontaneously. Developments in domain general cognitive processing (the executive functions) allow children to develop from conditional reasoning to reasoning with counterfactual content and, eventually, to experiencing counterfactual emotions. (shrink)

Cancer and its treatment pose challenges that affect not only patients but also their significant others, including intimate partners. Accumulating evidence suggests that couples’ ability to communicate effectively plays a major role in the psychological adjustment of both individuals and the quality of their relationship. Two key conceptual models have been proposed to account for how couple communication impacts psychological and relationship adjustment: the social-cognitive processing (SCP) model and the relationship intimacy (RI) model. These models posit different mechanisms and outcomes, (...) and thus have different implications for intervention. The purpose of this project is to test and compare the utility of these models using comprehensive and methodologically rigorous methods. Aims are: (1) to examine the overall fit of the SCP and RI models in explaining patient and partner psychological and relationship adjustment as they occur on a day-to-day basis and over the course of 1 year; (2) to examine the fit of the models for different subgroups (males vs. females, and patients vs. partners); and (3) to examine the utility of various methods of assessing communication by examining the degree to which baseline indices from different measurement strategies predict self-reported adjustment at 1-year follow up. The study employs a longitudinal, multi-method approach to examining communication processes including: standard self-report questionnaires assessing process and outcome variables collected quarterly over the course of 1 year; smartphone-based ecological momentary assessments to sample participant reports in real time; and laboratory-based couple conversations from which we derive observational measures of communicative behavior and affective expression, as well as vocal indices of emotional arousal. Participants are patients with stage II-IV breast, colon, rectal, or lung cancer and their spouses/partners, recruited from two NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers. Results will be published in scientific journals, presented at scientific conferences, and conveyed to a larger audience through infographics and social media outlets. Findings will inform theory, measurement, and the design and implementation of efficacious interventions aimed at optimizing both patient and partner well-being. (shrink)

Although fire is inherently dangerous, leading many animals to avoid it, for most of human history, mastery of fire has been critical to survival. Humans can therefore be expected to possess evolved psychological mechanisms dedicated to controlling fire. Because techniques for starting, maintaining, and using fire differ across ecosystems, the postulated adaptations can be expected to take the form of domain-specific learning mechanisms rather than fixed behavioral templates. After outlining features that such mechanisms are predicted to possess, I review the (...) literature on fire play in western children, finding that attraction to and interest in fire is widespread, experimentation with fire often begins in early childhood, and fire play typically peaks in late childhood or early adolescence. The latter aspect stands in contrast to results from a survey of ethnographers which reveals that, in societies in which fire is routinely used as a tool, children typically master control of fire by middle childhood, at which point interest in fire is already declining. This suggests that fire learning is retarded in western children, arguably due to patterns of fire use in modern societies that are atypical when viewed from a broader cross-cultural perspective. Together with the fact that western entertainment media provide a distorted portrait of the properties of fire, this pattern, while limiting the value of naturalistic observations of fire learning in the West, nevertheless has the benefit of providing a strong testing ground for future experiments exploring the universality of the psychology underlying the control of fire. (shrink)

Dombrowski and Murdoch offer versions of the ontological argument which aim to avoid two types of objection – those concerned with the nature of the divine, and those concerned with the move from an abstract concept to a mind-independent reality. For both, the nature of the concept of God/Good entails its instantiation, and both supply a supporting argument from experience. It is only Murdoch who successfully negotiates the transition from an abstract concept to the instantiation of that concept, however, and (...) this is achieved by means of an ontological argument from moral experience which, in a reversal of the Kantian doctrine, depends ultimately on a form of the cosmological argument. (shrink)

Our lives are guided by habits. Most of the activities we engage in throughout the day are initiated and carried out not by rational thought and deliberation, but through an ingrained set of dispositions or patterns of action—what Aristotle calls a hexis. We develop these dispositions over time, by acting and gauging how the world responds. I tilt the steering wheel too far and the car’s lurch teaches me how much force is needed to steady it. I come too close (...) to a hot stove and the burn I get inclines me not to get too close again. This feedback and the habits it produces are bodily. They are possible because the medium through which these actions take place is a physical, sensible one. The world around us is, in the language of postphenomenology, an opaque one. We notice its texture and contours as we move through it, and crucially, we bump up against it from time to time. The digital world, by contrast, is largely transparent. Digital media are designed to recede from view. As a result, we experience little friction as we carry out activities online; the consequences of our actions are often not apparent to us. This distinction between the opacity of the natural world and the transparency of the digital one raises important questions. In this chapter, I ask: how does the transparency of digital media affect our ability to develop healthy habits online? If the digital world is constructed precisely not to push back against us, how are we supposed to gauge whether our actions are good or bad, for us and for others? The answer to this question has important ramifications for a number of ethical, political, and policy debates around issues in online life. For in order to advance cherished norms like privacy, civility, and fairness online, we need more than good laws and good policies—we need good habits, which dispose us to act in ways conducive to our and others’ flourishing. (shrink)

Some sacrifices—like giving a kidney or heroically dashing into a burning building—are supererogatory: they are good deeds beyond the call of duty. But if such deeds are really so good, philosophers ask, why shouldn’t morality just require them? The standard answer is that morality recognizes a special role for the pursuit of self-interest, so that everyone may treat themselves as if they were uniquely important. This idea, however, cannot be reconciled with the compelling picture of morality as impartial—the view that (...) we are each anyone’s equal. I propose an alternative Self-Other Symmetric account of our moral freedom: the limits on what morality may demand of us are set by the duties we owe to ourselves. I begin with a defense of the Self-Other Symmetry: the idea that we owe the same duties to ourselves—and have the same rights against ourselves—as any relevantly similar other. Because we are consenting parties to our own actions, I argue, our rights against ourselves do not function like the rights of unwilling others. Instead, they play a permissive function, allowing us to block the demand to give up what is ours. I conclude by uniting, aggravating, and trying to solve some paradoxes of supererogatory permissions, guided by the idea that morality cannot be reduced to a ranking of options from best-to-worst. Rights against oneself are an irreducible second dimension, one that we need if we are to unify rights and supererogation into an impartial moral vision. (shrink)

Table at Dimitri's Taverna : on seeking a philosophy of old age -- Old Greek's olive trees : on Epicurus's philosophy of fulfillment -- Deserted terrace : on time and worry beads -- Tasso's rain-spattered photographs : on solitary reflection -- Sirocco of youth's beauty : on existential authenticity -- Tintinnabulation of sheep bells : on mellowing to metaphysics -- Iphigenia's guest : on stoicism and old old age -- Burning boat in Kamini Harbor : on the timeliness of spirituality (...) -- Returning home : on a mindful old age. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Two Sonnets DANIEL GALEF Glaucus to Anthedon Such solid, stolid soil. What fun is that? What farmer ever tilled his earth to find the fieldstones leaping up at him, as at Orpheus as he sang his chanties? Mind your patch of tidy rows. I shall not bind myself to any but the Boundless Sea. A ship’s prow is the only plow for me, who neither sows nor reaps—the (...) only kind of plow that leaves no furrow. Not a mark can mar the living ocean. In her breast slip albacore and marlin, skate and shark, a marvelous bounty greater than the best terrestrial treasures. Let Pluton’s cold gems lurk; I won’t go back to scratching in his dirt. arion 28.1 spring/summer 2020 54 two sonnets Tiberius to a Slave (after Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum, III.70) What is the song the sirens used to sing? To whom did bold Prometheus give his fire? What river may I sail to reach the ring Of flaming water girding Gaia’s pyre? What pet names did the fair Achilles earn From his Achaean maidens who would stroke His naked heel? Do dryads’ lithe limbs burn? How does a god sustain Himself on smoke? How long can you, Piscicule, hold your breath Beneath these wine-bright waters of Capri? How many bubbles billow before death Is dealt? And who was Hecuba’s mother? These scholarly pursuits fascinate me— I will find their answers, one way or another.... (shrink)

Volume XVII Part 1: Phenomenology, Idealism, and Intersubjectivity: A Festschrift in Celebration of Dermot Moran's Sixty-Fifth Birthday Part 2: The Imagination: Kant's Phenomenological Legacy Aim and Scope: The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy provides an annual international forum for phenomenological research in the spirit of Husserl's groundbreaking work and the extension of this work by such figures as Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer. Contributors: Andreea Smaranda Aldea, Lilian Alweiss, Timothy Burns, Steven Crowell, Maxime Doyon, Augustin (...) Dumont, Richard Kearney, Mette Lebech, Samantha Matherne, Timothy Mooney, Thomas Nenon, Matthew Ratcliffe, Alessandro Salice, Daniele De Santis, Andrea Staiti, Anthony J. Steinbock, Michela Summa, Thomas Szanto, Emiliano Trizio, and Nicolas de Warren. Submissions: Manuscripts, prepared for blind review, should be submitted to the Editors ([email protected] and [email protected]) electronically via e-mail attachments. (shrink)

From the Upanishads to Homer -- Philosophy, did the Greeks invent it -- Pythagoras and the divinity of number -- What is there? -- The Greek tragedians on man's fate -- Herodotus and the lamp of history -- Socrates on the examined life -- Plato's search for truth -- Can virtue be taught? -- Plato's Republic, man writ large -- Hippocrates and the science of life -- Aristotle on the knowable -- Aristotle on friendship -- Aristotle on the perfect life (...) -- Rome, the Stoics, and the rule of law -- The Stoic bridge to Christianity -- Roman law, making a city of the once-wide world -- The light within, Augustine on human nature -- Islam -- Secular knowledge, the idea of university -- The reappearance of experimental science -- Scholasticism and the theory of natural law -- The Renaissance, was there one? -- Let us burn the witches to save them -- Francis Bacon and the authority of experience -- Descartes and the authority of reason -- Newton, the saint of science -- Hobbes and the social machine -- Locke's Newtonian science of the mind -- No matter? The challenge of materialism -- Hume and the pursuit of happiness -- Thomas Reid and the Scottish school -- France and the philosophes -- The federalist papers and the great experiment -- What is enlightenment? Kant on freedom -- Moral science and the natural world -- Phrenology, a science of the mind -- The idea of freedom -- The Hegelians and history -- The aesthetic movement, genius -- Nietzsche at the twilight -- The liberal tradition, J.S. Mill -- Darwin and nature's "purposes" -- Marxism, dead but not forgotten -- The Freudian world -- The radical William James -- William James' pragmatism -- Wittgenstein and the discursive turn -- Alan Turing in the forest of wisdom -- Four theories of the good life -- Ontology, what there "really" is -- Philosophy of science, the last word? -- Philosophy of psychology and related confusions -- Philosophy of mind, if there is one -- What makes a problem "moral" -- Medicine and the value of life -- On the nature of law -- Justice and just wars -- Aesthetics, beauty without observers -- God, really? (shrink)

The third volume of The History of Evil encompasses the early modern era from 1450–1700. This revolutionary period exhibited immense change in both secular knowledge and sacred understanding. It saw the fall of Constantinople and the rise of religious violence, the burning of witches and the drowning of Anabaptists, the ill treatment of indigenous peoples from Africa to the Americas, the reframing of formal authorities in religion, philosophy, and science, and it produced profound reflection on good and evil in the (...) genius of Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Teresa of Avila, and the Cambridge Platonists. This superb treatment of the history of evil during a formative period of the early modern era will appeal to those with interests in philosophy, theology, social and political history, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

We consider the questions of whether or not large language models (LLMs) have beliefs, and, if they do, how we might measure them. First, we consider whether or not we should expect LLMs to have something like beliefs in the first place. We consider some recent arguments aiming to show that LLMs cannot have beliefs. We show that these arguments are misguided. We provide a more productive framing of questions surrounding the status of beliefs in LLMs, and highlight the empirical (...) nature of the problem. With this lesson in hand, we evaluate two existing approaches for measuring the beliefs of LLMs, one due to Azaria and Mitchell (The internal state of an llm knows when its lying, 2023) and the other to Burns et al. (Discovering latent knowledge in language models without supervision, 2022). Moving from the armchair to the desk chair, we provide empirical results that show that these methods fail to generalize in very basic ways. We then argue that, even if LLMs have beliefs, these methods are unlikely to be successful for conceptual reasons. Thus, there is still no lie-detector for LLMs. We conclude by suggesting some concrete paths for future work. (shrink)

Amid the action of the 2013 Super Bowl aired the usual array of high-priced advertisements. Most ads were original. Some were unusual. One regional ad, however, seemed distantly familiar. The 30-second commercial promoted the NJOY King electronic cigarette1 to at least 10 million viewers in several major markets. It featured an attractive male model taking a drag from what looks like a cigarette. He then slowly blows smoke to the tune of Foreigner’s “Feels Like the First Time.” Of course, the (...) “smoke” does not come from burning tobacco. Rather, it is the water vapor produced by an e-cigarette as part of its nicotine delivery process. This, however, was not evident from the imagery. For those watching the broadcast, including thousands of minors, NJOY’s advertisement depicted what tobacco companies have not portrayed on television for decades: a person engaged in smoking behavior. (shrink)

It is common to hear talk of the aim of belief and to find philosophers appealing to that aim for numerous explanatory purposes. What belief 's aim explains depends, of course, on what that aim is. Many hold that it is somehow related to truth, but there are various ways in which one might specify belief 's aim using the notion of truth. In this article, by considering whether they can account for belief 's standard of correctness and the epistemic (...) norms governing belief, I argue against certain prominent specifications of belief 's aim given in terms of truth, and advance a neglected alternative. (shrink)

Simon May has argued that the notion of a principled compromise is incoherent. Reasons to compromise are always in his view strategic: though we think that the position we defend is still the right one, we compromise on this view in order to avoid the undesirable consequences that might flow from not compromising. I argue against May that there are indeed often principled reasons to compromise, and that these reasons are in fact multiple. First, compromises evince respect for persons that (...) we have reason to think of as our epistemic peers, and acknowledgement of our own finitudes as moral reasoners. Second, compromises are often made morally necessary by the shortfalls that unavoidably separate democratic institutions from democratic ideals. Third, compromises express a desirable form of democratic community. And fourth, compromises are often justified from a consequentialist point of view, in that they allow for the realization of values that would not be realized as well by the failure to compromise. (shrink)

Plato's dialogues frequently criticize traditional Greek myth, yet Plato also integrates myth with his writing. Daniel S. Werner confronts this paradox through an in-depth analysis of the Phaedrus, Plato's most mythical dialogue. Werner argues that the myths of the Phaedrus serve several complex functions: they bring nonphilosophers into the philosophical life; they offer a starting point for philosophical inquiry; they unify the dialogue as a literary and dramatic whole; they draw attention to the limits of language and the limits (...) of knowledge; and they allow Plato to co-opt cultural authority as a way of defining and legitimating the practice of philosophy. Platonic myth, as a species of traditional tale, is thus both distinct from philosophical dialectic and similar to it. Ultimately, the most powerful effect of Platonic myth is the way in which it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in a process of self-examination. (shrink)

This paper defends the epistemic account of the normativity of requests. The epistemic account says that a request does not create any reasons and thus does not have any special normative power. Rather, a request gives reasons by revealing information which is normatively relevant. I argue that compared to competing accounts of request normativity, especially those of David Enoch and James H.P. Lewis, the epistemic account gives better answers to cases of insincere requests, is simpler, and does a better job (...) incorporating the importance of relationships. I also defend the epistemic account from three objections: that requests are important because they constitute consent, that requests and wishes must be normatively different, and that some requests do not provide any new information. (shrink)

The U.S. election in November 2016 raised and amplified doubts about first-past-the-post (“plurality rule”) electoral systems. Arguments against plurality rule and for alternatives like preferential voting tend to be consequentialist: it is argued that systems like preferential voting produce different, better outcomes. After briefly noting why the consequentialist case against plurality rule is more complex and contentious than it first appears, I offer an expressive alternative: plurality rule produces actual or apparent dilemmas for voters in ways that are morally objectionable, (...) and avoidable under preferential voting systems. This expressive case against plurality rule is both simpler and more ecumenical than its consequentialist counterpart, and it provides strong reasons to prefer alternatives to plurality rule. Moreover, it suggests a distinct way of evaluating different alternatives like preferential voting. (shrink)

Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by describing a kind of exclusion that (...) has not been discussed in depth, which I call “territorial exclusion.” Territorial exclusion is the process according to which the group that wishes to exclude current citizens secedes from the territory in which those citizens reside. I argue that the wrongness of territorial exclusion explains why there is no pro tanto right for a state to exclude immigrants, because otherwise there would be a pro tanto right for the state to kick people out by seceding from the territory they inhabit. Because kicking people out like this is typically wrong, borders cannot be closed. (shrink)

I ask you to X. You now have a reason to X. My request gave you a reason. How? One unpopular theory is the epistemic account, according to which requests do not create any new reasons but instead simply reveal information. For instance, my request that you X reveals that I desire that you X, and my desire gives you a reason to X. Peter Schaber has recently attacked both the epistemic account and other theories of the reason-giving force of (...) requests. Schaber defends a new theory of the reason-giving force of requests according to which request give reasons because it is valuable for requesters and requestees that requests have this power. In this paper I argue that Schaber's attack on the epistemic account fails, and that his own theory ought to be rejected because it faces compelling objections. (shrink)

“X-Firsters” hold that there is some normative feature that is fundamental to all others (and, often, that there’s some normative feature that is the “mark of the normative”: all other normative properties have it, and are normative in virtue of having it). This view is taken as a starting point in the debate about which X is “on first.” Little has been said about whether or why we should be X-Firsters, or what we should think about normativity if we aren’t (...) X-Firsters. Hence the chapter’s two main goals. First, to provide a simple argument that one shouldn’t be an X-Firster about the normative domain, which starts with the observation that analogous views have dubious merits in analogous domains. Second, to offer an alternative view—taking normativity to be a determinable explained in terms of its determinates—that offers an interesting way to think about the structure and unity of normativity. (shrink)

Motion—and, in particular, local motion or change in location—plays a central role in Kenelm Digby’s natural philosophy and in his arguments for the immateriality of the soul. Despite this, Digby’s account of what motion consists in has yet to receive much scholarly attention. In this paper, I advance a novel interpretation of Digby on motion. According to it, Digby holds that for a body to move is for it to divide from and unify with other bodies. This is a view (...) of motion—as change in relations of parthood—that Alison Peterman attributes to Digby’s contemporary and acquaintance, Margaret Cavendish. Having shown that Digby’s presentation of the view predates Cavendish’s by more than a decade, I make a case that Digby’s work influenced Cavendish’s on this topic. In developing and defending my reading, I consider to what extent the Digbean account of motion and the arguments for it accord with the ideals of the mechanical philosophy emerging in the early modern period. (shrink)

I defend the cosmopolitan instrumentalist theory of secession, according to which a group has a right to secede only if this would promote cosmopolitan justice. I argue that the theory is preferable to other theories of secession because it is an entailment of cosmopolitanism, which is independently attractive, and because, unlike other theories of secession, it allows us to give the answers we want to give in cases like secession of the rich or secession that would make things worse for (...) minorities. I defend the view against the objections that it allows for colonialism and annexation, that it is not a distinct theory, and that it is impractical. (shrink)

Abstract This paper offers an appraisal of Phillip Pettit's approach to the problem how a merely finite set of examples can serve to represent a determinate rule, given that indefinitely many rules can be extrapolated from any such set. I argue that Pettit's so-called ethnocentric theory of rule-following fails to deliver the solution to this problem he sets out to provide. More constructively, I consider what further provisions are needed in order to advance Pettit's general approach to the problem. I (...) conclude that what is needed is an account that, whilst it affirms the view that agents' responses are constitutively involved in the exemplification of rules, does not allow such responses the pride of place they have in Pettit's theory. (shrink)

This book is a study of the role of intellect in human action as described by Thomas Aquinas. One of its primary aims is to compare the interpretation of Aristotle by Aquinas with the lines of interpretation offered in contemporary Aristotelian scholarship. The book seeks to clarify the problems involved in the appropriation of Aristotle's theory by a Christian theologian, including such topics as the practical syllogism and the problems of akrasia. Westberg argues that Aquinas was much closer to Aristotle (...) than is often recognized, and he puts forward important new interpretations of the relation of intellect and will in the stages of intention, deliberation, decision, and execution. In the concluding section of the book, he shows how this new interpretation yields fruitful insights on a range of theological topics, including sin, law, love, and the moral virtues. (shrink)

Mandatory minimum sentencing provisions have been a feature of the U.S. justice system since 1790. But they have expanded considerably under the war on drugs, and their use has expanded considerably under the Trump Administration; some states are also poised to expand drug-related mandatory minimums further in efforts to fight the current opioid epidemic. In this paper I outline and evaluate three prominent arguments for and against the use of mandatory minimums in the war on drugs—they appeal, respectively, to proportionality, (...) consistency, and efficiency. I ultimately defend the view that the use of mandatory minimums in the war on drugs is unjust. -/- . (shrink)

This paper aims to understand Hegel’s claim in the introduction to his Philosophy of Mind that mind is an actualization of the Idea and argues that this claim provides us with a novel and defensible way of understanding Hegel’s naturalism. I suggest that Hegel’s approach to naturalism should be understood as ‘formal’, and argue that Hegel’s Logic, particularly the section on the ‘Idea’, provides us with a method for this approach. In the first part of the paper, I present an (...) interpretation of Hegel’s method in which life plays a central role. In the second part of the paper, I develop Hegel’s method by providing a reading of Hegel’s Subjective Spirit, focusing on the sections ‘Anthropology’ and ‘Phenomenology’ in particular, arguing that they display the dialectic between life and cognition outlined by Hegel’s Idea. (shrink)

Danielle Celermajer advocates for reconceptualizing responsibility in light of the climate crisis. I argue instead that we must understand current concepts of responsibility which are implicit in actual responsibility practices. I illustrate this by appeal to the practice of holding each other responsible for our beliefs-a practice in which we are constantly involved, but which is often obscured. It extends our responsibility to involuntary aspects of our own mind and involves socially distributed cognitive duties. Cognitive responsibility is part and parcel (...) of shared human conceptual frameworks that we should work to uncover and fully understand rather than revise. (shrink)

This paper aims to understand Hegel’s claim in the introduction to his Philosophy of Mind that mind is an actualization of the Idea and argues that this claim provides us with a novel and defensible way of understanding Hegel’s naturalism. I suggest that Hegel’s approach to naturalism should be understood as ‘formal’, and argue that Hegel’s Logic, particularly the section on the ‘Idea’, provides us with a method for this approach. In the first part of the paper, I present an (...) interpretation of Hegel’s method in which life plays a central role. In the second part of the paper, I develop Hegel’s method by providing a reading of Hegel’s Subjective Spirit, focusing on the sections ‘Anthropology’ and ‘Phenomenology’ in particular, arguing that they display the dialectic between life and cognition outlined by Hegel’s Idea. (shrink)

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

Can a liberal state exclude illiberal immigrants in order to preserve its liberal status? Hrishikesh Joshi has argued that liberalism cannot require a commitment to open borders because this would entail that liberalism is committed to its own demise in circumstances in which many illiberal immigrants aim to immigrate into a liberal society. I argue that liberalism is committed to its own demise in certain circumstances, but that this is not as bad as it may appear. Liberalism’s commitment to its (...) own demise is merely a reflection of the fact that it must take into account the rights of outsiders, not just the rights of existing citizens, and of the fact that circumstances of injustice can sometimes leave liberal societies with no correct choice. (shrink)

This essay considers the critical response to Hegel's view of Socrates we find in Kierkegaard's dissertation, The Concept of Irony. I argue that this dispute turns on the question whether or not the examination of particular thinkers enters into Socrates’ most basic aims and interests. I go on to show how Kierkegaard's account, which relies on an affirmative answer to this question, enables him to provide a cogent defence of Socrates' philosophical practice against Hegel's criticisms.