What I call "strategic injustice" involves a set of formal and informal regulatory rules and conventions that often lead to grossly unfair outcomes for a class of individuals despite their resistance. My goal in this paper is to provide the necessary conditions for such injustices and for eliminating their instances from our social practices. To do so, I follow Peter Vanderschraaf's analysis of circumstances of justice and expand his account by embedding "asymmetric conflictual coordination games" that summarize fair division problems (...) in a dynamic social network. I use the network effect on such coordination games to explain the emergence of stable exploitative behavior and conventions by a class of individuals even in the presence of restraining efforts by others. I conclude that such unfair conventions are resilient to uncoordinated individual actions and interventions. In fact, maintaining a rough equality itself turns into another coordination problem. Finally, I show that something similar to a social movement that restructures the network of social relations is necessary to solve such coordination problems. (shrink)

My goal is to help us see the importance of social connections to social change in even our conceptual toolbox regarding social transformation. I compare and summarize two discussions about the political value of hope: one in Western modern political thought and the other in non-violent movements and their subsequent philosophy. I follow Michelle Moody- Adams’ conviction that visionaries and intellectuals of constructive social movements ground political hope in collectives rather than in individuals, as Western political philosophy tends to do. (...) However, I suggest that the proper interpretation of a collectivist hope requires attention to the people with whom we hope. (shrink)

YouTube has been implicated in the transformation of users into extremists and conspiracy theorists. The alleged mechanism for this radicalizing process is YouTube’s recommender system, which is optimized to amplify and promote clips that users are likely to watch through to the end. YouTube optimizes for watch-through for economic reasons: people who watch a video through to the end are likely to then watch the next recommended video as well, which means that more advertisements can be served to them. This (...) is a seemingly innocuous design choice, but it has a troubling side-effect. Critics of YouTube have alleged that the recommender system tends to recommend extremist content and conspiracy theories, as such videos are especially likely to capture and keep users’ attention. To date, the problem of radicalization via the YouTube recommender system has been a matter of speculation. The current study represents the first systematic, pre-registered attempt to establish whether and to what extent the recommender system tends to promote such content. We begin by contextualizing our study in the framework of technological seduction. Next, we explain our methodology. After that, we present our results, which are consistent with the radicalization hypothesis. Finally, we discuss our findings, as well as directions for future research and recommendations for users, industry, and policy-makers. (shrink)

YouTube has been implicated in the transformation of users into extremists and conspiracy theorists. The alleged mechanism for this radicalizing process is YouTube’s recommender system, which is optimized to amplify and promote clips that users are likely to watch through to the end. YouTube optimizes for watch-through for economic reasons: people who watch a video through to the end are likely to then watch the next recommended video as well, which means that more advertisements can be served to them. This (...) is a seemingly innocuous design choice, but it has a troubling side-effect. Critics of YouTube have alleged that the recommender system tends to recommend extremist content and conspiracy theories, as such videos are especially likely to capture and keep users’ attention. To date, the problem of radicalization via the YouTube recommender system has been a matter of speculation. The current study represents the first systematic, pre-registered attempt to establish whether and to what extent the recommender system tends to promote such content. We begin by contextualizing our study in the framework of technological seduction. Next, we explain our methodology. After that, we present our results, which are consistent with the radicalization hypothesis. Finally, we discuss our findings, as well as directions for future research and recommendations for users, industry, and policy-makers. (shrink)

A thorough and closely argued examination of a central issue in philosophical logic, an issue which is shown to have profound implications for the philosophy of language and much of metaphysics.

In this paper, I argue in favor of a structural turn in social contract theory. More precisely, I argue that dealing with the complex and dynamic nature of the social world requires an emphasis on social structures greater than what contractarians often consider. I take structures to be the dynamic and non-random networks of interdependence among all active components that shape society. I also constrain my focus to a growing body of literature on diversity that explores plausible contractarian alternatives given (...) the complexity of modern societies. I argue that shifting weight from diversity to structures in theorizing alternative contractarian frameworks would be an improvement. (shrink)

Understanding a normative concept like oppression requires attention to not only its harms but also the causes of those harms. In other words, a complete understanding of such a concept requires a proper causal explanation. This causal explanation can also inform and constrain our moral response to such harms. Therefore, the conceptual explanatory framework that we use to inform our moral diagnosis and our moral response become significant. The first goal of this dissertation is to propose complexity theory as the (...) proper framework for not only explaining a social phenomenon like oppression but also understanding the proper sites for social change. The second goal of this dissertation is to answer three interrelated questions about how we should respond, morally, to a chronic and complex social problem like racial or gender inequality: (1) Why do the current interventions to address these problems fail? (2) Do social movements play any unique role in addressing these problems? (3) What is our individual responsibility to participate in social movements? In response, I argue that the explanatory frameworks that we choose to understand the cause(s) of social problems can be the source of the inadequacy of our intervention. I argue that a proper social and moral intervention needs to capture the complex and dynamic nature of the social world. I also show that changing the explanatory framework allows us to see the unique role social movements play in making effective and sustainable social change possible. Finally, I conclude supporting such movements is a moral imperative. (shrink)

Knowledge is power. Knowledge about human psychology is increasingly being produced using natural language processing (NLP) and related techniques. The power that accompanies and harnesses this knowledge should be subject to ethical controls and oversight. In this chapter, we address the ethical pitfalls that are likely to be encountered in the context of such research. These pitfalls occur at various stages of the NLP pipeline, including data acquisition, enrichment, analysis, storage, and sharing. We also address secondary uses of the results (...) and tools developed through psychometric NLP, such as profit-driven targeted advertising, political campaigns, and domestic and international psyops. Along the way, we reflect on potential ethical guidelines and considerations that may help researchers navigate these pitfalls. (shrink)

Volume 32, Issue 1, March 2019, Page 67-69.

Social movements possess transformative and progressive power. In this paper, I argue that how this is so, or even if this is so, depends on one's explanatory framework. I consider three such explanatory frameworks for social movements: methodological individualism, collectivism, and complexity theory. In evaluating the various appeals and weaknesses of these frameworks, I show that complexity theory is uniquely poised to capture the complex and dynamic reality of the social world.

Drawing on work of the past decade, this volume brings together articles from the philosophy, history, and sociology of science, and many other branches of the biological sciences. The volume delves into the latest theoretical controversies as well as burning questions of contemporary social importance. The issues considered include the nature of evolutionary theory, biology and ethics, the challenge from religion, and the social implications of biology today (in particular the Human Genome Project).

Mimesis as Make-Believe is important reading for everyone interested in the workings of representational art.

This chapter defends the property dualism argument. The term “semantic premise” mentioned is used to refers to an assumption identified by Brian Loar that antiphysicalist arguments, such as the property dualism argument, tacitly assume that a statement of property identity that links conceptually independent concepts is true only if at least one concept picks out the property it refers to by connoting a contingent property of that property. It is argued that, the property that does the work in explaining the (...) possibility of a posteriori identities need not be a first-order property of the referent in question. On his view, the property dualism argument requires only a weaker semantic premise, which allows that the property in question be a higher order property. A refined version of the property dualism argument is formulated, which uses the weaker premise, and defends the argument against various objections. (shrink)

This book demonstrates how children's imagination makes a continuing contribution to their cognitive and emotional development.

In Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems, leading figures in the fields of virtue ethics and ethics come together to present the first ...

A common reducible representation space of the Lie algebras su and su is equipped with two different types of scalar products. The representation bases are labeled by the azimuthal and magnetic quantum numbers. The generators of su are the x-, y- and z-components of the orbital angular momentum operator. The representation of each of these Lie algebras is unitary with respect to only one of the scalar products. To each positive magnetic quantum number a family of the su-Barut–Girardello coherent states (...) is associated. The normalization and resolution of the identity condition for the coherent states are realized in two different approaches, i.e. the unitary and the non-unitary approaches. For the coherent states of the non-unitary case we calculate the uncertainty relation for the Hermitian x- and y-components of the angular momentum operator. While the unitary case leads to the known uncertainty relation for the Hermitian x- and y-components of su Lie algebra. (shrink)

The essays collected here offer original insight into the problem of hope and the philosophy of peace. The essays offer hopeful reflection on the Covid-19 pandemic, recent challenges to democratic norms, climate change, and other emerging threats.

Two problems are considered here. One relates to who has moral status, and the other relates to who has moral responsibility. The criteria for mattering morally have long been disputed, and many humans and nonhuman animals have been considered “marginal cases,” on the contested edges of moral considerability and concern. The marginalization of humans and other species is frequently the pretext for denying their rights, including the rights to health care, to reproductive freedom, and to bodily autonomy. There is broad (...) agreement across cultural and philosophical traditions about the capacities and responsibilities of moral agents. I propose an inclusive and expansive way of thinking about moral status, situating it not in the characteristics or capacities of individuals, but in the responsibilities and obligations of moral agents. Moral agents, under this view, are not privileged or entitled to special treatment but rather have responsibilities. I approach this by considering some African communitarian conceptions of moral status and moral agency. I propose that moral agency can also be more expansive and include not just individual moral agents but collective entities that have some of the traits of moral agents: power, freedom, and the capacity to recognize and act on the demands of morality and acknowledge and respect the rights of others. Expanding who and what is a moral agent correspondingly extends moral responsibility for respecting rights and fostering the conditions for the health and well-being of humans and animals onto the collective entities who uniquely have the capacity to attend to global-scale health threats such as pandemics and human-caused climate change. (shrink)

This chapter presents an opinionated account of how to understand the contributions of experience, especially with respect to the role of cognitive science, in developing and assessing metaphysical theories of reality. I develop a methodological basis for the idea that, independently of work in experimental philosophy focused on explications of concepts, contemporary metaphysical theories with a role for experiential evidence can be fruitfully connected to empirical work in psychology, especially cognitive science. My argument is not that cognitive science should replace (...) the metaphysician’s use of a priori theorizing and ordinary experience as a guide to metaphysical reality. Rather, we should enrich our perspective on a priori theorizing and ordinary experience as a guide to metaphysical reality by drawing on any relevant work in cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper investigates the importance of standardising and maintaining the transparency of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) functions nomenclature, designs, and operations in all categories up until fully autonomous vehicles. The aim of this paper is to reveal the discrepancies in ADAS functions across automakers and discuss the underlying issues and potential solutions. In this pilot study, user manuals of various brands are reviewed systematically and critical analyses of common ADAS functions are conducted. The result shows that terminologies used to describe (...) ADAS functions vary widely across manufacturers and sometimes do not reflect their fundamental functions intuitively. Operational conditions and control procedures also vary across the selected models under this study. Due to this lack of consensus across the industry, drivers are not aware or well informed about ADAS functions in their vehicles, leading to a very low utilization rate and may lead to misuse of those functions. This paper provides insightful suggestions for the transport industry, Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts, and regulators to design frameworks and guidelines in governing the naming convention, operating conditions, control procedures, and information disclosure of ADAS. Such guidelines can be the foundations for regulating future AI-based self-driving functions. (shrink)