The majority of food in the US is distributed through global/national supply chains that exclude locally-produced goods. This situation offers opportunities to increase local food production and consumption and is influenced by constraints that limit the scale of these activities. We conducted a study to assess perspectives of producers and consumers engaged in food systems of a major Midwestern city. We examined producers’ willingness to include/increase cultivation of local foods and consumers’ interest in purchasing/increasing local foods. We used focus groups (...) of producers (two groups of conventional farmers, four local food producers) and consumers (three conventional market participants, two locavores) to pose questions about production/consumption of local foods. We transcribed discussions verbatim and examined text to identify themes, using separate affinity diagrams for producers and consumers. We found producers and consumers are influenced by the _status quo_ and real and perceived barriers to local foods. We also learned participants believed increasing production and consumption of local foods would benefit their community and creating better infrastructure could enhance efforts to scale up local food systems. Focus group participants also indicated support from external champions/programs could support expansion of local foods. We learned that diversifying local food production was viewed as a way to support local community, increase access to healthy foods and reduce environmental impacts of conventional production. Our research indicates that encouraging producers and consumers in local food systems will be more successful when support for the local community is emphasized. (shrink)

Ethical naturalism holds that ethical facts about such matters as good and bad, right and wrong, are part of a purely natural world — the world studied by the sciences. It is supported by the apparent reasonableness of many moral explanations. It has been thought to face an epistemological challenge because of the existence of an “is-ought gap”; it also faces metaphysical objections from philosophers who hold that ethical facts would have to be supernatural or “nonnatural,” sometimes on the grounds (...) that ethical thought has a practical role that no thought about purely natural facts could have. Its defenders have argued resourcefully against these challenges. (shrink)

A clearly written, authoritative introduction to Taylor's work.

In mainstream analytic epistemology, Reformed theology has made its presence prominently felt in Reformed epistemology, the view of religious belief according to which religious beliefs can be properly basic and warranted when formed by the proper functioning of the sensus divinitatis, an inborn capacity or faculty for belief in God that can be prompted to generate certain religious beliefs when presented with things (e.g., certain majestic aspects of creation). A major competitor to Reformed epistemology is Wittgensteinian quasi-fideism, a position drawn (...) from the epistemology of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, according to which some foundational religious commitments are not properly basic beliefs but some kind of apodictic, unshakeable certainties that form part of the structure of one’s rationality and worldview. I argue that the Reformed tradition has contained elements of quasi-fideism at least as far back as Calvin’s account of faith from the Institutes of the Christian Religion, book 3, chapter 2. (shrink)

According to the ‘One Object’ reading of Kant's transcendental idealism, the distinction between the appearance and the thing in itself is not a distinction between two objects, but between two ways of considering one and the same object. On the ‘Metaphysical’ version of the One Object reading, it is a distinction between two kinds of properties possessed by one and the same object. Consequently, the Metaphysical One Object view holds that a given appearance, an empirical object, is numerically identical to (...) the thing in itself that appears as that object. I raise various indiscernibility arguments against that view; because an appearance has different spatiotemporal and modal properties than a thing in itself, no appearance can be identical to a thing in itself. I point out that these arguments are similar to arguments against Monism, the view that material objects are numerically identical to the matter of which they are made. I outline some strategies Monists have developed to respond to these indiscernibility arguments and then develop parallel responses on behalf of the Metaphysical One Object view. However, I then raise another indiscernibility argument, to which, I argue, the Metaphysical One Object view cannot respond, even using the resources I have developed thus far. I develop a modified version of the Metaphysical One Object view that can respond to this new indiscernibility argument, but, I argue, this modified version of the One Object view is only a terminological variant of the Two Object view. When the Metaphysical One Object view is fully thought through it becomes the Two Object view. I conclude that Kantian appearances are not numerically identical to the things in themselves that appear to us. (shrink)

Authors De Marco and colleagues have presented a new model on the concept of invasiveness, redefining both its technical definition and practical implementation.1 While the authors raise valid critiques regarding the discrepancy in definitions, I cannot help but wonder about the purpose of redefining terms for which little confusion, if any, exists? This commentary seeks to scrutinise the rationale supporting the new model in the absence of significant clinical confusion and to explore the implications for clinical practice. Initially, one may (...) notice there is no mention of clinical relevancy, confusion among patients or whether the discrepancy in terms is causing miscommunication. It seems reasonable that some clinical confusion may exist, but so too does a similar imbalance of terms when speaking technically across the specialties; take depression and its definition as a primary example. While I certainly agree with the illustration of non-invasive prenatal testing being compared with venous blood draws as a disparity in terminology, little evidence suggests confusion concerning the nosology.2 The medical community, including both physicians and patients, recognises that the terminology is specifically used within the …. (shrink)

Draws on a broad range of scientific evidence to theorize an evolutionary basis for religion, considering how religion may have served as an essential component of early society survival and that the brain may be inherently inclined toward religious behavior.

The question of whether it is permissible to quantify into a modal context is re-examined from an empiricist perspective. Following Wiggins, it is argued that an ontology of continuants implies essentialism, but it is also argued, against Wiggins, that the only conception of necessity that we need to start out with is that of analyticity. Essentialism, of a limited kind, can then be actually generated from this. An exceptionally fine-grained identity criterion for continuants is defended in this context. The debate (...) between Wiggins and Ayer over the legitimacy of de re modality is then examined in the light of these results, and it is argued that my position is consistent with Ayer’s minimalist assumptions. It is also argued that non-continuants will not sustain the essential/accidental distinction, thus giving some concessions to the sceptics. It is also shown that there are close connections between these issues and the more modern two-dimensionalist way of disentangling the necessary from the a posteriori, and that the latter needs to learn from the former. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically analyze the notion that self-interest distorts moral belief-formation. This belief is widely shared among modern moral epistemologists, and in this paper, I seek to undermine this near consensus. I then offer a principle which can help us to sort cases in which self-interest distorts moral belief from cases in which it does not. As it turns out, we cannot determine whether such distortion has occurred from the armchair; rather, we must inquire into mechanisms of social (...) power and advantage before declaring that some moral position is distorted by self-interest. (shrink)

David Benatar has argued both for anti-natalism and for a certain pessimism about life's meaning. In this paper, I propose that these positions are expressions of a deeply impersonal philosophical temperament. This is not a problem on its own; we all have our philosophical instincts. The problem is that this particular temperament, I argue, leads Benatar astray, since it prevents him from answering a question that any moral philosopher must answer. This is the question of rational authority, which requires the (...) moral philosopher to say why existing human agents have strong practical reasons to comply with the philosopher's dictates. A purely impersonal ethical system can never do this, and this is why Benatar has no answer to this question. (shrink)

This essay lays the groundwork for a novel conception of autonomy that may be called “effective autonomy”—a conception designed to be genuinely action guiding in bioethics. As empirical psychology research on the heuristics and biases approach shows, decision making commonly fails to correspond to people’s desires because of the biases arising from bounded cognition. People who are classified as autonomous on contemporary philosophical accounts may fail to be effectively autonomous because their decisions are uncoupled from their autonomous desires. Accordingly, continuing (...) attempts to value patient autonomy must go beyond existing philosophical conceptions of autonomy to consider the background conditions of human decision making. (shrink)

Plato recognizes faction as a serious threat to any political community. The Republic’s proposed solution to faction relies on bringing citizens into a relation of ὁμόνοια. On the dominant line of interpretation, ὁμόνοια is understood along the lines of “explicit agreement” or “consensus.” Commentators have consequently thought that the καλλίπολις becomes resistant to faction when all or most of its members explicitly agree with one another about certain fundamentals of their political association—for example, they agree regarding who should govern in (...) the καλλίπολις.We argue that ὁμόνοια in Plato’s political philosophy has been under-analyzed and misunderstood. We show that, in Alcibiades I, rendering ὁμόνοια simply as agreement results in confusion about how expertise, political friendship, and civic unity are compossible in a well-ordered political community. In our view, Plato refines and adds philosophical depth to the concept of ὁμόνοια in the Republic. We claim that ὁμόνοια is a relation of psychological “like-mindedness” that obtains among members of different occupational classes in a political community. A community is rendered resistant to faction, then, when its members are, in some significant way, psychologically alike. Additionally, while Platonic ὁμόνοια can naturally be expected to result in substantive agreement among citizens, we argue that Platonic ὁμόνοια does not consist solely in agreement. (shrink)

: In the epistemology of the late Wittgenstein, a central place is given to the notion of the hinge: an arational commitment that provides a foundation of some sort for the rest of our beliefs. Quasi-fideism is an approach to the epistemology of religion that argues that religious belief is on an epistemic par with other sorts of belief inasmuch as religious and non-religious beliefs all rely on hinges. I consider in this paper what it takes to find the appropriate (...) hinge for a quasi-fideist approach to the epistemology of religion. (shrink)

“Women and the Law in Irigarayan Theory” by Gail Schwab is a reading of French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray's writings on law together with texts of American feminist jurisprudence. The first part of the article summarizes many of the conflicts surrounding the concept of equality in American feminist legal thought and attempts to move beyond them with the Irigarayan principle of equivalence or equivalent rights. The second part of the article deals more generally with the symbolic changes that will (...) be necessary in order to change the law, and with the cultural evolution that changes in the law can bring about, and more specifically with two areas of Irigarayan legal theory that are central to cultural change and evolution: the concept of female identity or virginity, and the relationship to the mother. In the conclusion, a new utopian vision of what law might be‐the cultural mediation for an evolved intersubjectivity‐is developed through Irigaray's most recent texts. (shrink)

Epistemic trust is an unacknowledged feature of medical knowledge. Claims of medical knowledge made by physicians, patients, and others require epistemic trust. And yet, it would be foolish to define all epistemic trust as epistemically responsible. Accordingly, I use a routine example in medical practice to illustrate how epistemically responsible trust in medicine is trust in epistemically responsible individuals. I go on to illustrate how certain areas of current medical practice of medicine fall short of adequately distinguishing reliable and unreliable (...) processes because of a failure to systematically evaluate health outcomes. I conclude by articulating the devastating obstacles to the consilience assumption, which takes intellectual character as the standard for epistemic responsibility. (shrink)

If a speaker selflessly asserts that p, the speaker has good evidence that p is true, asserts that p on the basis of that evidence, but does not believe that p. Selfless assertions are widely thought to be acceptable, and therefore to pose a threat to the Knowledge Norm of Assertion. Advocates for the Knowledge Norm tend to respond to this threat by arguing that there are no such things as selfless assertions. They argue that those who appear to be (...) selfless asserters either: believe what they assert, perform a speech act other than assertion, or assert a proposition other than the one that they seem to. I argue that such counterarguments are unsuccessful. There really are selfless assertions. But I also argue that they are no threat to the Knowledge Norm. There is a good case to be made that knowledge does not require belief. And if it does not, then the fact that some selfless assertions are appropriate does not tell against the Knowledge Norm. Indeed, I argue that selfless asserters know the propositions that they assert to be true. (shrink)

This paper examines the justice of unconditional basic income (UBI) through the lens of the Hegel-inspired recognition-theory of justice. As explained in the first part of the paper, this theory takes everyday social roles to be the primary subject-matter of the theory of justice, and it takes justice in these roles to be a matter of the kind of freedom that is available through their performance, namely ‘social’ freedom. The paper then identifies the key criteria of social freedom. The extent (...) to which the introduction of an UBI would meet these criteria is then examined, with a focus on the social role that stands to be most affected by an UBI, namely that of the worker-earner. It is argued that while an UBI is likely to be only partially effective as an instrument of specifically social freedom, its main justification lies not here, but in securing a basis for the subjective freedom that social freedom presupposes. (shrink)

In Republican Guard , Nicholas Xenos describes the Straussian network and its nature, focusing upon delineating what in Leo Strauss’ writings has influenced and can tell us about the ‘character of American power today and the rhetoric through which it is enhanced and sustained.’ In the end he argues and demonstrates that Strauss’ political theory provides the means by which an imperial project can be camouflaged under the cloak of an appeal to liberal democracy. This book will be of (...) interest to students and scholars of politics and international relations. (shrink)

I suggest that the post-Hegelian tradition presents us with three contrasting normative models of work. According to the first model, the core norms of work are those of means-ends rationality. In this model, the modern world of work is constitutively a matter of deploying the most effective means to bring about given ends. The rational kernel of modern work, the core norm that has shaped its development, is on this view instrumental reason, and this very same normative core, in the (...) shape of advanced technology and more efficient, time-saving production, can help to liberate it. The second model, by contrast, takes the core norms of work to be internal to working activity. Rather than work gaining its normativity from something external to it, from ends to which the work is a contingent means, on this second view the core norms of work are expressions of values or meanings that are immanent to working practices themselves. The expressive model of work regards the actual world of work to be constituted historically by work-specific norms, norms which working subjects themselves have invoked and mobilised around in the course of their struggles for emancipation. According to the third model, the core norms of work have to do neither with instrumental rationality nor authentic self-expression. Rather they concern norms that relate either to individual achievement or contribution through work (in the form of esteem) or to the conditions that must in place for individuals to participate in the exchange of services by which market societies reproduce themselves (in the form of mutual respect). (shrink)

How should an acknowledgement of contingency affect our understanding of moral identity? The book considers various ways of thinking about this question in contemporary moral and political theory. Drawing on the work of Gadamer, Ricoeur, Taylor and others, it defends a realist but pluralist 'strong hermeneutic' view.

I begin by picking up on Brandom’s suggestion that expressivism follows American pragmatism in seeking to advance the cause of the Enlightenment. This provides us with a first point of contrast with Taylor’s understanding of expressivism, since Taylor takes expressivism to be inseparably bound up with the Romantic critique of the Enlightenment and as fundamentally opposed to Enlightenment naturalism. I then distinguish two features of what we ordinarily mean by the term ‘expression’, one of which provides an intuitive basis for (...) understanding Brandom’s expressivist program, the other of which provides an interpretive key for understanding Taylor’s version of expressivism. After looking briefly at the main tenets of Taylor’s expressivism, I conclude by considering its relation to Romanticism on the one hand, and to Brandom’s expressivist renewal of the Enlightenment project on the other. (shrink)

While acknowledging the importance of sophisticated reformulations of some of the traditional arguments for “natural and revealed” religion, the bulk of this chapter expounds and then compares and contrasts the other two main developments over the past half century in the epistemology of religious belief: Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion, and Reformed epistemology. What unites these two movements is that both insist that religious belief does not typically have its origin in the attempt to explain things, both insist that religious belief (...) typically consists of a more or less comprehensive perspective on reality rather than consisting of beliefs about God simply added on to one’s other beliefs, and both insist that religious belief does not have to be rationally grounded in order to be acceptable. What especially differentiates the two movements is the difference of their polemical partners—Enlightenment evidentialism for the Reformed epistemologists versus logical positivism for Wittgenstein—and the fact that the Reformed epistemologists are resolutely realist concerning God whereas most of the Wittgensteinians are apparently not theistic realists. In closing, I point out important similarities between some remarks of early Heidegger and the shared positions of the Wittgensteinians and the Reformed epistemologists. (shrink)

This book explores the core categories of communism and capital in conjunction with a wealth of contemporary and historical political concepts and movements - from the lumpenproletariat and anarchism, to Italian autonomia and Antonia Negri, immaterial labour and the refusal of work. Drawing on literary figures such as Kafka and Beckett, Deleuze, Marx and Politics develops a politics that breaks with the dominant frameworks of post-Marxism and one-dimensional models of resistance toward a concern with the inventions, styles and knowledges that (...) emerge through minority engagement with social flows and networks. (shrink)

The other chapters in this volume discuss the important, but neglected, topic of systematicity in metaphysics. In this chapter I begin by taking a step back and asking: why is systematicity important in metaphysics? Assuming that metaphysics should be systematic, why is this the case? I canvas some answers that emerge naturally within contemporary philosophy and argue that none of them adequately explains why metaphysics should be systematic. I then turn to Kant’s account of systematicity for his explanation. I argue (...) that, while Kant’s explanation of the systematicity of metaphysics rests on a host of additional weighty philosophical commitments that many philosophers would rather do without (e.g., transcendental idealism), he is not alone in this. The contemporary answers I earlier found wanting can be transformed into satisfying explanations, I argue, but only at the cost of philosophical commitments at least as weighty as Kant’s. I conclude on a note of agnosticism: it is far from clear whether contemporary philosophy has done, or can do, better than Kant at explaining the role of systematicity in metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper raises puzzles concerning our grasp of others’ aesthetic selves. I first articulate a conception of an aesthetic self, understood as an autonomously adopted orientation to objects of aesthetic value, encompassing the embrace of aesthetic reasons and the qualitative appreciative states that follow. This articulation is motivated by the commonplace observation that people’s aesthetic identities are important to them. Given this importance, we might think it salutary to grasp other people’s aesthetic selves, under the general auspices of ‘interpersonal understanding’. (...) Given the conception of aesthetic selves, we might think that empathy is an appropriate way to do so. But, second, I argue that you can’t find out about another’s aesthetic self via empathy. We might instead think that aesthetic conversation is the way to grasp aesthetic selves. However, third, I argue that the aim of finding out about others’ aesthetic selves is at odds with the ostensible aims of aesthetic conversation, which are to do with effacing individuality and creating commonality. So aesthetic selves seem hard to grasp. I finally briefly canvass some ways of solving this problem, without settling on a firm answer, and consider how the thoughts might extend to practical identities more generally. (shrink)

did plato and aristotle have anything to say about belief? The answer to this question might seem blindingly obvious: of course they did. Plato distinguishes belief from knowledge in the Meno, Republic, and Theaetetus, and Aristotle does so in the Posterior Analytics. Plato distinguishes belief from perception in the Theaetetus, and Aristotle does so in the De anima. They talk about the distinction between true and false beliefs, and the ways in which belief can mislead and the ways in which (...) it can steer us aright. Indeed, they make belief a central component of their epistemologies.The view underlying these claims—one so widespread these days as to remain largely unquestioned—is that when Plato and Aristotle talk... (shrink)

This paper argues that Quaker business ethics can be understood as a MacIntyrean tradition. To do so, it draws on three key MacIntyrean concepts: community, compartmentalisation, and the critique of management. The emphasis in Quaker business ethics on finding unity, as well as the emphasis that Quaker businesses have placed on serving their local areas, accords with MacIntyre’s claim that small-scale community is essential to human flourishing. The emphasis on integrity in Quaker business ethics means practitioners are well-placed to resist (...) the compartmentalising pressures of contemporary work. Quaker business ethics is also highly critical of the manipulative forms of management that MacIntyre regards as dominant. As such, Quaker business ethics provides evidence that more morally ameliorative forms of running business organisations is possible, even if they remain difficult to achieve. (shrink)

This volume addresses the long-standing neglect of the category of labour in critical social theory and it presents a powerful case for a new paradigm based on the anthropological significance of work and its role in shaping social bonds.

A many-valued (aka multiple- or multi-valued) semantics, in the strict sense, is one which employs more than two truth values; in the loose sense it is one which countenances more than two truth statuses. So if, for example, we say that there are only two truth values—True and False—but allow that as well as possessing the value True and possessing the value False, propositions may also have a third truth status—possessing neither truth value—then we have a many-valued semantics in the (...) loose but not the strict sense. A many-valued logic is one which arises from a many-valued semantics and does not also arise from any two-valued semantics [Malinowski, 1993, 30]. By a ‘logic’ here we mean either a set of tautologies, or a consequence relation. We can best explain these ideas by considering the case of classical propositional logic. The language contains the usual basic symbols (propositional constants p, q, r, . . .; connectives ¬, ∧, ∨, →, ↔; and parentheses) and well-formed formulas are defined in the standard way. With the language thus specified—as a set of well-formed formulas—its semantics is then given in three parts. (i) A model of a logical language consists in a free assignment of semantic values to basic items of the non-logical vocabulary. Here the basic items of the non-logical vocabulary are the propositional constants. The appropriate kind of semantic value for a proposition is a truth value, and so a model of the language consists in a free assignment of truth values to basic propositions. Two truth values are countenanced: 1 (representing truth) and 0 (representing falsity). (ii) Rules are presented which determine a truth value for every proposition of the language, given a model. The most common way of presenting these rules is via truth tables (Figure 1). Another way of stating such rules—which will be useful below—is first to introduce functions on the truth values themselves: a unary function ¬ and four binary functions ∧, ∨, → and ↔ (Figure 2).. (shrink)

Although the contrast between ‘economy’ and culture’ that structures the Fraser-Honneth debate derives ultimately from Weber, it has a more proximate ancestry in Habermas’ work. I begin by glancing back at Habermas’ formulation, not just because its background role in shaping the current debate has not been properly acknowledged (though I believe that is the case), but because Fraser and Honneth’s original responses to it provide a nice segue into their current positions. After briefly reviewing what those responses were, I (...) then offer a critical analysis of the conceptions of economy and culture they now propose. (shrink)

A structural harm results from countless apparently innocuous interactions between a great many individuals in a social system, and not from any agent’s intentionally producing the harm. Iris Young has influentially articulated a model of individual moral responsibility for such harms, and several other philosophers have taken it as their starting point for dealing with the phenomenon of structural injustice. In this paper, I argue that this social connection model is far less realistic and socially effective than it aims to (...) be. This is because the model systematically neglects the key role played by the emotions in human moral life. (shrink)

The essay reflects on Gadamer’s ambiguous legacy for the philosophy of work. On the one hand, there are times when Gadamer reproduces the problematic distinction between language and labor which short-circuits the very idea of a hermeneutics of work. This is particularly evident in Gadamer’s reflections on technique and craftsmanship in the central sections of Truth and Method, as well as in his descriptions of the “art” of dialogue and the tasks of hermeneutics that separate them emphatically them from the (...) sphere of “making.” I raise some questions about the adequacy of the distinction Gadamer draws between techne and phronesis that structures this account. I argue here that Gadamer’s characterization of the learning process involved in the mastery of a technique, as well as his conception of the instrumentality and monologicality of technical knowledge, is difficult to sustain, especially in view of recent research in the psychology and anthropology of work. I then go on to point out that elsewhere in his oeuvre Gadamer himself is critical of the conception of work that emerges through the lens of the techne / phronesis distinction. Indeed, on these occasions he hints at a conception of work that points beyond the Arendt / Habermas conception towards a critical hermeneutics of working life. This alternative approach to work is particularly apparent in Gadamer’s appropriation of Hegel’s dialectic, in his understanding of play, and in some of his later diagnostic reflections on the spirit of the age. In section four, I offer some suggestions for explaining how the tensions evident in Gadamer’s approach to work came about. Here I am interested in what prevented Gadamer from embracing whole-heartedly the project of a hermeneutics of work that he himself helped to lay the foundations for. I conclude with some brief remarks on why we should seek to build upon these foundations and renew the project of a critical hermeneutics of work today. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSeveral eye-tracking studies have revealed that spider phobic patients show a typical hypervigilance-avoidance pattern when confronted with images of spiders. The present experiment investigated if this pattern can be changed via placebo treatment. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment with 37 women with spider phobia. They looked at picture pairs for 7 s each in a retest design: once with and once without a placebo pill presented along with the verbal suggestion that it can reduce phobic symptoms. The placebo was labelled (...) as Propranolol, a beta-blocker that has been successfully used to treat spider phobia. In the placebo condition, both the fixation count and the dwell time on the spider pictures increased, especially in the second half of the presentation time. This was associated with a slight decrease in self-reported symptom severity. In summary, we were able to show that a placebo was able to positively influence visual avoidance in spider phobia.... (shrink)

An analysis of how the sphere of work can be considered to instantiate norms of recognition, even when those norms give rise to paradoxes and ideologies surrounding how work ought to be done and the goods at stake in it.

The aim of this article is to situate Arendt’s account of labour as a critical response to humanisms of labour, or put otherwise, to situate it as an anti-humanism of labour. It compares Arendt’s account of labour with that of the most prominent humanist theorist of labour at the time of the composition of The Human Condition: Georges Friedmann. Arendt’s and Friedmann’s accounts of labour are compared specifically with respect to the range of capacities, social relations, and possibilities of fulfilment (...) at stake in the activity of labour. The comparison provides a previously unexplored context for understanding Arendt’s account of labour and her distinction between labour and work. The relevance of Arendt’s and Friedmann’s theories of labour for the contemporary debate about the meaning of work in an age of automation is also briefly discussed. (shrink)

The open borders view is frequently dismissed for making infeasible demands. This is a potent strategy. Unlike normative arguments regarding open borders, which tend to be relatively intractable, the charge of infeasibility is supposed to operate as what we call a "normative argument-stopper." Nonetheless, we argue that the strategy fails. Bringing about open borders is perfectly feasible on the most plausible account of feasibility. We consider and reject what we take to be the only three credible ways to save the (...) charge of infeasibility: by proposing an alternative account of feasibility; by proposing an alternative, more circumscribed interpretation of the subject-matter of feasibility claims; and by proposing a more expansive account of the addressees of the demand for open borders. The first fails to vindicate the claim that infeasibility is a normative argument-stopper. The second does not provide an argument against open borders at all. The third underestimates the power of at least some non-state actors. We conclude by drawing some lessons for the open borders view and the use of feasibility in politics more generally. (shrink)

Human microbiome research has revealed that legions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi live on our skin and within the cavities of our bodies. New knowledge from these recent studies shows that humans are superorganisms and that the microbiome is indispensible to our lives and our health. This volume explores some of the science on the human microbiome and considers the ethical, legal, and social concerns that are raised by this research.