Former NAACP chapter head Rachel Dolezal's attempted transition from the white to the black race occasioned heated controversy. Her story gained notoriety at the same time that Caitlyn Jenner graced the cover of Vanity Fair, signaling a growing acceptance of transgender identity. Yet criticisms of Dolezal for misrepresenting her birth race indicate a widespread social perception that it is neither possible nor acceptable to change one's race in the way it might be to change one's sex. Considerations that support transgenderism (...) seem to apply equally to transracialism. Although Dolezal herself may or may not represent a genuine case of a transracial person, her story and the public reaction to it serve helpful illustrative purposes. (shrink)

I explore how gender can shape the pragmatics of speech. In some circumstances, when a woman deploys standard discursive conventions in order to produce a speech act with a specific performative force, her utterance can turn out, in virtue of its uptake, to have a quite different force—a less empowering force—than it would have if performed by a man. When members of a disadvantaged group face a systematic inability to produce a specific kind of speech act that they are entitled (...) to perform—and in particular when their attempts result in their actually producing a different kind of speech act that further compromises their social position and agency—then they are victims of what I call discursive injustice. I examine three examples of discursive injustice. I contrast my account with Langton and Hornsby's account of illocutionary silencing. I argue that lack of complete control over the performative force of our speech acts is universal, and not a special marker of social disadvantage. However, women and other relatively disempowered speakers are sometimes subject to a distinctive distortion of the path from speaking to uptake, which undercuts their social agency in ways that track and enhance existing social disadvantages. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker claims that a “gap” in collective hermeneutical resources with respect to the social experiences of marginalized groups prevents members of those groups from understanding their own experiences (Fricker 2007). I argue that because Fricker misdescribes dominant hermeneutical resources as collective, she fails to locate the ethically bad epistemic practices that maintain gaps in dominant hermeneutical resources even while alternative interpretations are in fact offered by non-dominant discourses. Fricker's analysis of hermeneutical injustice does not account for the possibility that (...) marginalized groups can be silenced relative to dominant discourses without being prevented from understanding or expressing their own social experiences. I suggest that a gap in dominant hermeneutical resources is ambiguous between two kinds of unknowing: hermeneutical injustice suffered by members of marginalized groups, and epistemically and ethically blameworthy ignorance perpetrated by members of dominant groups. (shrink)

In the novel Die Automate (Hoffmann, 1957 ed.), the German writer Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822) describes different kinds of musical automatons which play music with expression and musicality. The whole novel is based on the effect of the automatic performances on the feelings of the two personages and on the appearance of musical automatons which simulate, with their musical skill and expressiveness, the structures of the knowledge and feelings of human beings.

"Patient advocates can help make research more ethical, but advocacy raises ethical issues of its own.

Traditionally, social entities (i.e., social properties, facts, kinds, groups, institutions, and structures) have not fallen within the purview of mainstream metaphysics. In this chapter, we consider whether the exclusion of social entities from mainstream metaphysics is philosophically warranted or if it instead rests on historical accident or bias. We examine three ways one might attempt to justify excluding social metaphysics from the domain of metaphysical inquiry and argue that each fails. Thus, we conclude that social entities are not justifiably excluded (...) from metaphysical inquiry. Finally, we ask how focusing on social entities could change the character of metaphysical inquiry. We suggest that starting from examples of social entities might lead metaphysicians to rethink the assumption that describing reality in terms of intrinsic, independent, and individualistic features is preferable to describing it in terms of relational, dependent, and non-individualistic features. (shrink)

ABSTRACT According to one widely accepted view, our actions and emotions ought to be proportional to the degree of value present in their objects. Against this proportionality principle, Pettigrove sketches a view according to which the value of some virtuous actions and attitudes derives from the characteristic way of being of the agent herself, and not from any other goods that agent appreciates, pursues, or promotes. Granting Pettigrove’s rejection of the proportionality principle, I raise some questions for his replacement account. (...) I suggest that it is not just the characteristic way of being of an agent who loves and forgives virtuously that explains the goodness of their love and forgiveness, but also the role such virtues play in making possible valuable relationships that are partially constitutive of human flourishing. (shrink)

Proofs are central, and unique, to mathematics. They establish the truth of theorems and provide us with the most secure knowledge we can possess. It is thus perhaps unsurprising that philosophers once thought that the only value proofs have lies in establishing the truth of theorems. However, such a view is inconsistent with mathematical practice. If a proof’s only value is to show a theorem is true, then mathematicians would have no reason to reprove the same theorem in different ways, (...) yet this is a practice they frequently engage in. This suggests that proofs can have a wide variety of values. My purpose in this chapter is to provide a survey of some of them. I will discuss how proofs can have practical value, for example, by helping mathematicians to make new discoveries or learn new mathematical tools, and how they can have abstract value, for example, by being beautiful or explanatory. I will also explore the relationships between different proof values. (shrink)

Emerging from the internationally recognised Theorising Normalcy and the Mundane conference series, the chapters in this book offer wide-ranging critiques of that most pervasive of ideas, 'normal'. In particular, they explore the precarious positions we are presented with and, more often than not, forced into by 'normal', and its operating system, 'normalcy' (Davis, 2010). They are written by activists, students, practitioners and academics and offer related but diverse approaches. Importantly, however, the chapters also ask, what if increasingly precarious encounters with, (...) and positions of, marginality and non-normativity offers us a chance (perhaps the chance) to critically explore the possibilities of 'imagining otherwise'? The book questions the privileged position of 'non-normativity'; in youth and unpacks the expectation of the 'normal' student in both higher and primary education. It uses the position of transable people to push the boundaries of 'disability', interrogates the psycho-emotional disablism of box-ticking bureaucracy and spotlights the 'urge to know' impairment. It draws on cross-movement and cross-disciplinary work around disability to explore topics as diverse as drug use, The Bible and relational autonomy. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, it explores the benefits of (re)instating 'normal'. By paying attention to the opportunities presented amongst the fissures of critique and defiance, this book offers new applications and perspectives for thinking through the most ordinary of ideas, 'normal'. (shrink)

. Over the last three decades, physicists have engaged in, sometimes heated, debates about relative merits and prospects of string theory as a viable research program and even about its status as a science. The aim of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of this controversy as a particular form of boundary discourse. Drawing on the sociological work of Thomas Gieryn and Lawrence Prelli, we bring to light the way in which protagonists appeal to, and rhetorically construct, different (...) views about the scientific method and the scientific ethos, in an effort to legitimize or delegitimize string theory. (shrink)

In this essay, I reply to critiques of my article “In Defense of Transracialism.” Echoing Chloë Taylor and Lewis Gordon’s remarks on the controversy over my article, I first reflect on the lack of intellectual generosity displayed in response to my paper. In reply to Kris Sealey, I next argue that it is dangerous to hinge the moral acceptability of a particular identity or practice on what she calls a collective co-signing. In reply to Sabrina Hom, I suggest that relying (...) on the language of passing to describe transracialism is potentially misleading. In reply to Tina Botts, I both defend analytic philosophy of race against her multiple criticisms and suggest that Botts’s remarks risk complicity with a form of transphobia that Talia Mae Bettcher calls the Basic Denial of Authenticity. I end by gesturing toward a more inclusive understanding of racial identity. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

The early modern period is arguably the most pivotal of all in the study of the mind, teeming with a variety of conceptions of mind. Some of these posed serious questions for assumptions about the nature of the mind, many of which still depended on notions of the soul and God. It is an era that witnessed the emergence of theories and arguments that continue to animate the study of philosophy of mind, such as dualism, vitalism, materialism, and idealism. -/- (...) Covering pivotal figures in philosophy such as Descartes, Hobbes, Kant, Leibniz, Cavendish, and Spinoza, Philosophy of Mind in the Early Modern and Modern Ages provides an outstanding survey of philosophy of mind of the period. Following an introduction by Rebecca Copenhaver, sixteen specially commissioned chapters by an international team of contributors discuss key topics, thinkers, and debates, including: -/- Hobbes, Descartes’ philosophy of mind and its early critics, consciousness, the later Cartesians, Malebranche, Cavendish, Locke, Spinoza, Descartes and Leibniz, perception and sensation, desires, mental substance and mental activity, Hume, and Kant. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of mind, enlightenment philosophy, and the history of philosophy, Philosophy of Mind in the Early Modern and Modern Ages is also a valuable resource for those in related disciplines such as religion, history of psychology, and history of science. (shrink)

This chapter explores two kinds of testimonial trust, what we call ‘evidential trust’ and ‘non-evidential trust’ with the aim of asking how testimonial trust could provide epistemic reasons for belief. We argue that neither evidential nor non-evidential trust can play a distinctive role in providing evidential reasons for belief, but we tentatively propose that non-evidential trust can in some circumstances provide a novel kind of epistemic reason for belief, a reason of epistemic facilitation. The chapter begins with an extensive discussion (...) of standard accounts of both kinds of trust and criticises especially the standard accounts of non-evidential trust. A new account of non-evidential trust is offered that avoids a number of difficulties that plague the standard accounts by rejecting what we call ‘attitude-liability assumptions’. (shrink)

Evolution was not discovered single-handedly, Rebecca Stott argues, contrary to what has become standard lore, but is an idea that emerged over many centuries, advanced by daring individuals across the globe who had the imagination to speculate on nature's extraordinary ways, and who had the courage to articulate such speculations at a time when to do so was often considered heresy.

Should monkeys be used in painful and often deadly infectious disease research that may save many human lives? This is the challenging question that Anne Barnhill, Steven Joffe, and Franklin G. Miller take on in their carefully argued and compelling article “The Ethics of Infection Challenges in Primates.” The authors offer a nuanced and even-handed position that takes philosophical worries about nonhuman primate moral status seriously and still appreciates the very real value of such research for human welfare. Overall, they (...) argue for an extension and revision of the recommendations regarding chimpanzee research offered by the Institute of Medicine in 2011; the practical upshot of their argument would allow for infection challenge research for promising interventions for Ebola and Marburg virus diseases but not for smallpox or the common cold. The IOM recommendations regarding chimpanzee research put in motion an exceptionalist policy for this great ape population. Barnhill and colleagues’ proposal would enlarge the scope of that exceptionalism to embrace NHPs other than great apes. But is such exceptionalism warranted? It is not obvious to me either that the more sophisticated capacities of a species as a whole give it greater ethical protections or that less intellectually or socially sophisticated animals ought to therefore receive less protection when it comes to painful experimental interventions. (shrink)

Philosophies of Difference engages with the concept of difference in relation to a number of fundamental philosophical and political problems. Insisting on the inseparability of ontology, ethics and politics, the essays and interview in this volume offer original and timely approaches to thinking nature, sexuate difference, racism, and decoloniality. The collection draws on a range of sources, including Latin American Indigenous ontologies and philosophers such as Henri Bergson, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, Immanuel Kant, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Charles Mills, and Eduardo Viveiros (...) de Castro. -/- The contributors think embodiment and life by bringing continental philosophy into generative dialogue with fields including plant studies, animal studies, decoloniality, feminist theory, philosophy of race, and law. Affirming the importance of interdisciplinarity, Philosophies of Difference contributes to a creative and critical intervention into established norms, limits, and categories. Invoking a conception of difference as both constitutive and generative, this collection offers new and important insights into how a rethinking of difference may ground new and more ethical modes of being and being-with. Philosophies of Difference unearths the constructive possibilities of difference for an ethics of relationality, and for elaborating non-anthropocentric sociality. -/- The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue in Australian Feminist Law Journal. (shrink)

: Aanerud's project is to develop an account of white antiracist mothering, using a model of maternal duty to raise antiracist white children. The author sets this project in the context of historic constructions of white mothering in the twentieth century and then contrasts the need for an exploration of white mothers raising white children against the literature of white mothers' raising children of color and mothers of color raising their own children, Once this distinction is made, Aanerud uses Collins's (...) account of racial ethnic mothering as a springboard into her discussion of antiracist white mothering of white children. (shrink)

According to the standard view, the so-called ‘Copenhagen interpretation’ of quantum mechanics originated in discussions between Bohr and Heisenberg in 1927, and was defended by Bohr in his classic debate with Einstein. Yet recent scholarship has shown Bohr’s views were never widely accepted, let alone properly understood, by his contemporaries, many of whom held divergent views of the ‘Copenhagen orthodoxy’. This paper examines how the ‘myth of the Copenhagen interpretation’ was constructed by situating it in the context of Soviet Marxist (...) critique of quantum mechanics in the 1950s and the response by physicists such as Heisenberg and Rosenfeld. (shrink)

The 'Gamer's Dilemma' is the problem of why some actions occurring in video game contexts seem to have similar, albeit attenuated, kinds of moral significance to their real-world equivalents, while others do not. In this paper, I argue that much of the confusion in the literature on this problem is not ethical but metaphysical. The Gamer's Dilemma depends on a particular theory of the virtual, which I call 'inflationary', according to which virtual worlds are a metaphysical novelty generated almost exclusively (...) by video games. Actions performed in virtual worlds really belong to the kinds of action they appear to—'virtual murder' is a kind of murder. Inflationary theories are contrasted with 'deflationary' theories which, in effect, consider video games purely as systems for generating images, and thus the gamer as a consumer of media images. Inflationary theories struggle to explain why video games produce this unique metaphysical novelty; deflationary theories fail to do justice to the intuition that there is some significant difference between the gamer and the consumer of other media forms. In place of either, I sketch a theory of the gamer as performer, primarily by analogy with stage and cinema actors, which I suggest captures more of the moral complexity of the gamer's action. (shrink)

Proposals to modernise fertility law in the UK In November 2023, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) published recommendations 1 for changes to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. 2 The HFEA regulates fertility treatments and embryo research in the UK. The recommendations were informed by a public consultation process during which the HFEA heard from patients, professionals and others with an interest in the regulations. The consultation ran from February - April 2023 and received just over 6800 responses. (...) The recommendations focus on four main areas that the HFEA consider to be in need of modernisation within the Act – patient protection and safety; consent; access to donor information; and future scientific developments and innovation. The Authority proposes that it should be given greater freedom and flexibility to promote patient safety and good practice. For example, through a wider range of regulatory enforcement powers,... (shrink)

Aanerud's project is to develop an account of white antiracist mothering, using a model of maternal duty to raise antiracist white children. The author sets this project in the context of historic constructions of white mothering in the twentieth century and then contrasts the need for an exploration of white mothers raising white children against the literature of white mothers’ raising children of color and mothers of color raising their own children, Once this distinction is made, Aanerud uses Collins's account (...) of racial ethnic mothering as a springboard into her discussion of antiracist white mothering of white children. (shrink)

Aanerud's project is to develop an account of white antiracist mothering, using a model of maternal duty to raise antiracist white children. The author sets this project in the context of historic constructions of white mothering in the twentieth century and then contrasts the need for an exploration of white mothers raising white children against the literature of white mothers’ raising children of color and mothers of color raising their own children, Once this distinction is made, Aanerud uses Collins's account (...) of racial ethnic mothering as a springboard into her discussion of antiracist white mothering of white children. (shrink)

New perspective on Heisenberg's interpretation of quantum mechanics for researchers and graduate students in the history and philosophy of physics.

This paper presents a critical analysis of Tamar Szabó Gendler’s view of thought experiments, with the aim of developing further a constructivist epistemology of thought experiments in science. While the execution of a thought experiment cannot be reduced to standard forms of inductive and deductive inference, in the process of working though a thought experiment, a logical argument does emerge and take shape. Taking Gendler’s work as a point of departure, I argue that performing a thought experiment involves a process (...) of self-interrogation, in which we are compelled to reflect on our pre-existing knowledge of the world. In doing so, we are forced to make judgments about what assumptions we see as relevant and how they apply to an imaginary scenario. This brings to light the extent to which certain forms of skill, beyond the ability to make valid logical inferences, are necessary to execute a thought experiment well. (shrink)

In this article, we outline a novel approach to understanding the role of responsibility in health promotion. Efforts to tackle chronic disease have led to an emphasis on personal responsibility and the identification of ways in which people can ‘take responsibility’ for their health by avoiding risk factors such as smoking and over-eating. We argue that the extent to which agents can be considered responsible for their health-related behaviour is limited, and as such, state health promotion which assumes certain forms (...) of moral responsibility should be avoided. This indicates that some approaches to health promotion ought not to be employed. We suggest, however, that another form of responsibility might be more appropriately identified. This is based on the claim that agents have prudential reasons to maintain their health, in order to pursue those things which make their lives go well—i.e. that maintenance of a certain level of health is rational for many agents, given their pleasures and plans. On this basis, we propose that agents have a self-regarding prudential responsibility to maintain their health. We outline the implications of a prudential responsibility approach to health promotion. (shrink)

In this chapter, I consider how an analysis of responsibility for habitual behaviour can help us to make judgements about people’s responsibility for their health. Much of our behaviour is habitual, featuring high levels of automaticity and low levels of reflection. Further, habitual behaviour is particularly commonplace in many “everyday” health-affecting actions like diet and physical activity. It is unclear what role conscious awareness plays in habitual behaviour, but it is generally assumed that conscious control over habitual behaviour is limited, (...) if not completely lacking, at least at the time that behaviour is performed. There has been relatively little written about responsibility for habitual behaviour. At least, few philosophical accounts of responsibility have explicitly discussed habitual behaviour or habits. A notable exception is Fischer and Ravizza’s influential Responsibility and Control, which makes reference to behaviour that is performed “instinctively” or out of “unreflective habit”. There is also a significant literature on responsibility for character, which could be considered of direct relevance to attempts to illuminate responsibility for habitual behaviour. This chapter will outline what work remains to be done in order to properly align discussions of responsibility with a psychologically informed analysis of habitual behaviour, and will indicate how this could support discussions of people’s responsibility for their health. (shrink)

Analyzing two key figures in Elif Shafak’s novel The Island of Missing Trees—a schoolgirl’s scream and a narrating fig tree—this essay analyzes the intersection between susceptibility and resilience, particularly as these terms are developed in psychology, trauma studies, and ecology. I argue that the novel’s resonant scream critiques the discourse of psychological resilience on multiple counts: its inadequacy as a response to complex trauma, its focus on autonomous individuals, its assumption that responsibility for resilience rests on victims rather than perpetrators (...) of harm, its construction of a “resistance imperative” and its disavowal of the inequalities in access to resilience-building resources. By contrast, the novel’s fig tree, I contend, exemplifies an ecological model of resilience rooted in a recognition of the interdependence of the multiple and diverse organisms that comprise an ecosystem, and of susceptibility as an advantageous suite of capacities that are crucial to resilience. These contrasting conceptions of resilience lead me to advocate for a politics of susceptibility, an eco-psychosocial politics based on the recognition that individuals cannot become resilient on their own, through their own volition, intention, or “self-efficacy”, and that focuses instead on building systemic and sustainable forms of resilience inclusive of the diverse subjects that comprise a community, society or ecosystem; that, rather than fetishizing independence, liberty and rights, fortifies interdependence and reinforces mutual responsibilities; and that rather than exploiting susceptibility as a weakness, nurtures it as the soul of resilience itself. (shrink)

This paper applies Karl Jaspers’ and Martin Heidegger’s accounts of transcendence to their descriptions of Van Gogh’s art. I will contrast Jaspers’ more vertical account of immanent transcendence to Heidegger’s horizontal one. This difference between their separate understandings of transcendence manifests itself in their estimations of the significance of Van Gogh’s art. Using phenomenology to understand Van Gogh’s art in light of immanent transcendence, moreover, illuminates a new understanding of transcendence as the ‘beyond’ that is always already here in the (...) immanent and reveals the ability of an object to point beyond itself. Both of these concepts are at work in Van Gogh’s art as well as modern art in general as the expansion of reality through new sight. Immanent transcendence and Van Gogh’s art are different but interconnected ways of rethinking experience beyond the limits of positivism and the myth of the given. Van Gogh’s art thus embodies a sensible world transformed. In particular, Van Gogh’s landscapes and still life series suggest the inexhaustibility of the things we so often overlook in our everyday experience. (shrink)

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 ...

Human Rights Education (HRE) has traditionally been articulated in terms of cultivating better citizens or world citizens. The main preoccupation in this strand of HRE has been that of bridging a gap between universal notions of a human rights subject and the actual locality and particular narratives in which students are enmeshed. This preoccupation has focused on ‘learning about the other’ in order to improve relations between plural ‘others’ and ‘us’ and reflects educational aims of national identity politics in citizenship (...) education. The article explores the learning of human rights through narratives in relations, drawing on Hannah Arendt and Sharon Todd. For this re-thinking of relations in learning human rights, the article argues that HRE needs to address both competing historical narratives on the drafting of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) as well as unique life narratives of learners. (shrink)

This paper argues that there exists a collective epistemic state of ‘Broad Medical Uncertainty’ regarding the effectiveness of many medical interventions. We outline the features of BMU, and describe some of the main contributing factors. These include flaws in medical research methodologies, bias in publication practices, financial and other conflicts of interest, and features of how evidence is translated into practice. These result in a significant degree of uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of many medical treatments and unduly optimistic beliefs about (...) the benefit/harm profiles of such treatments. We argue for an ethical presumption in favour of openness regarding BMU as part of a ‘Corrective Response’. We then consider some objections to this position, including concerns that public honesty about flaws in medical research could undermine trust in healthcare institutions. We suggest that, as it stands, the Anti-Corrective Response is unconvincing. (shrink)

Biological ontologies are used to organize, curate, and interpret the vast quantities of data arising from biological experiments. While this works well when using a single ontology, integrating multiple ontologies can be problematic, as they are developed independently, which can lead to incompatibilities. The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies Foundry was created to address this by facilitating the development, harmonization, application, and sharing of ontologies, guided by a set of overarching principles. One challenge in reaching these goals was that the (...) OBO principles were not originally encoded in a precise fashion, and interpretation was subjective. Here we show how we have addressed this by formally encoding the OBO principles as operational rules and implementing a suite of automated validation checks and a dashboard for objectively evaluating each ontology’s compliance with each principle. This entailed a substantial effort to curate metadata across all ontologies and to coordinate with individual stakeholders. We have applied these checks across the full OBO suite of ontologies, revealing areas where individual ontologies require changes to conform to our principles. Our work demonstrates how a sizable federated community can be organized and evaluated on objective criteria that help improve overall quality and interoperability, which is vital for the sustenance of the OBO project and towards the overall goals of making data FAIR. Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. (shrink)