Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 88-90.

Daniel Callahan, in his short article “Hans Jonas and Death,” writes that while he appreciates the perspective on death offered by Jonas in his “The Burden and Blessing of Mortality,” he is concerned by certain omissions that suggest Jonas may not have fully appreciated the value of life. Callahan writes that Jonas does not say “a great deal about why life is worth living,” give an account of the “meaning of evolution for human life,” or describe the “experiences and possibilities (...) in the content of the lives of the human species not found in any other one”. I argue that Jonas not only explicitly addresses the meaning of evolution for human life but also develops an ethics rooted in the inherent value of all present and future life, with particular emphasis on the value of human life. (shrink)

The clinical relevance of whole-exome sequencing is unquestionable. In the prenatal setting, the standard testing process of reflexing from karyotype to microarray to single-gene disorders may take several weeks, leaving a family in prolonged turmoil and often without answers in time to make a decision about the pregnancy. WES provides a powerful amount of data more quickly and with a higher yield of diagnostic results, allowing a timelier plan for medical management and decision-making. However, while results that pertain specifically to (...) the testing indication can be isolated, the potential for incidental findings or results that are unrelated to the original testing indication is significant. In 2013, ACMG published recommendations for reporting incidental or secondary findings, providing a list of 57 clinically actionable genes for which reporting should be obligatory. These recommendations were updated in 2015 to include the option to opt out of receiving all secondary findings. The list includes childhood-onset conditions, for which medical management would be immediately impacted. However, the list also includes adult-onset conditions such as hereditary breast and ovarian cancer and Lynch syndrome. Historically, decisions regarding genetic testing for these conditions have been left up to the individual until they reach the age of consent. While the 2015 recommendations are an improvement over the 2013 recommendations insofar as they allow an option to opt out of receiving secondary findings, the recommendations continue to have potentially troubling ethical consequences. (shrink)

In a recent article in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Frank Chervenak et al. argue that home birth is less safe than hospital birth, and that physicians have a dual duty to avoid any collaboration with home birth midwives and to make hospital birth more psychologically and socially supportive to accommodate women who want more choices during labor. The assertion that home birth is significantly less safe than hospital birth has been responded to by Howard Minkoff and Jeffrey (...) Ecker and by a recent large observational study of home birth outcomes in America. Minkoff and Ecker argue that the evidence supports, at most, a minimal increased.. (shrink)

What does music have that it pushes us to talk about it? Is music something that is beyond human language? What is the difference between "mother tongue", "language", and "discourse"? We try to find music in everything that permits encoding, insist on giving it a value or precise coordinates in documents, files or more recently, in codes and networks, but there will always be something in music that escapes from language. A certain thing that will elude the very discourse that (...) we were compelled to enunciate by music. I mean the real unattainable that is the fuel for creativity. (shrink)

Historiographical studies have provided a wealth of information on the naturalistic background of medieval political thought, having incorporated Aristotle’s thesis resulting from the reception of Politics. The goal of our study is to provide the hermeneutics of this natural philosophy using as a common thread the body as an attribute of the human constitution which imposes certain needs and from which emerge certain impulses that determine its social and political condition. Specifically, we will analyze the treatises De regno ad regem (...) Cypri and Defensor pacis by Saint Thomas Aquinas and Marsilius of Padua, respectively, regarding how the notion of body is especially important because it is the center of a series of activities which are decisive for life. (shrink)

Multiple studies show that periodic reanalysis of genomic test results held by clinical laboratories delivers significant increases in overall diagnostic yield. However, while there is a widespread consensus that implementing routine reanalysis procedures is highly desirable, there is an equally widespread understanding that routine reanalysis of individual patient results is not presently feasible to perform for all patients. Instead, researchers, geneticists and ethicists are beginning to turn their attention to one part of reanalysis—reinterpretation of previously classified variants—as a means of (...) achieving similar ends to large-scale individual reanalysis but in a more sustainable manner. This has led some to ask whether the responsible implementation of genomics in healthcare requires that diagnostic laboratories routinely reinterpret their genomic variant classifications and reissue patient reports in the case of materially relevant changes. In this paper, we set out the nature and scope of any such obligation, and analyse some of the main ethical considerations pertaining to a putative duty to reinterpret. We discern and assess three potential outcomes of reinterpretation—upgrades, downgrades and regrades—in light of ongoing duties of care, systemic error risks and diagnostic equity. We argue against the existence of any general duty to reinterpret genomic variant classifications, yet we contend that a suitably restricted duty to reinterpret ought to be recognised, and that the responsible implementation of genomics into healthcare must take this into account. (shrink)

The use of genomic testing in pregnancy is increasing, giving rise to questions over how the information that is generated should be offered and returned in clinical practice. While these tests provide important information for prenatal decision-making, they can also generate information of uncertain significance. This paper critically examines three models for approaching the disclosure of variants of uncertain significance (VUS), which can arise from forms of genomic testing such as prenatal chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA). Contrary to prevailing arguments, we (...) argue that respect for reproductive autonomy does not justify adopting a model on which an offer to disclose VUS is a routine part of genetic counselling. Instead, we contend that a commitment both to solidarity between healthcare providers and pregnant women and to the acceptance of a novel principle of caution under normative uncertainty means that we should instead adopt a model of VUS disclosure that imposes a strong presumption against offering to disclose VUS. The upshot of this is that it should be standard practice to only offer to disclose VUS when this is requested by the woman undergoing CMA. We defend our position against claims that arise from an alleged right to such information and that a presumption against an offer will lead to inequity. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become nearly ubiquitous in modern society, from components of mobile applications to medical support systems, and everything in between. In societally impactful systems imbued with AI, there has been increasing concern related to opaque AI, that is, artificial intelligence where it is unclear how or why certain decisions are reached. This has led to a recent boom in research on “explainable AI” (XAI), or approaches to making AI more explainable and understandable to human users. In the (...) military domain, numerous bodies have argued that autonomous and AI-enabled weapon systems ought not incorporate unexplainable AI, with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United States Department of Defense both explicitly including explainability as a relevant factor in the development and use of such systems. In this article, I present a cautiously critical assessment of this view, arguing that explainability will be irrelevant for many current and near-future autonomous systems in the military (which do not incorporate any AI), that it will be trivially incorporated into most military systems which do possess AI (as these generally possess simpler AI systems), and that for those systems with genuinely opaque AI, explainability will prove to be of more limited value than one might imagine. In particular, I argue that explainability, while indeed a virtue in design, is a virtue aimed primarily at designers and troubleshooters of AI-enabled systems, but is far less relevant for users and handlers actually deploying these systems. I further argue that human–machine teaming is a far more important element of responsibly using AI for military purposes, adding that explainability may undermine efforts to improve human–machine teamings by creating a prima facie sense that the AI, due to its explainability, may be utilized with little (or less) potential for mistakes. I conclude by clarifying that the arguments are not against XAI in the military, but are instead intended as a caution against over-inflating the value of XAI in this domain, or ignoring the limitations and potential pitfalls of this approach. (shrink)

Aproximaciones a la escuela francesa de epistemología Los problemas que dominan a la epistemología pueden contextualizarse históricamente como una forma de racionalidad filosófica. La filosofía se ha presentado a lo largo de la historia como un discurso en el que sus diversos componentes (metafísica, ontología, gnoseología, ética, lógica, etc.) se mostraron unidos en el molde de la ?unidad del saber?. En este marco unitario alguna de las formas del saber filosófico detenta usualmente una posición dominante. El énfasis colocado en la (...) unidad del saber filosófico, o en ?la unidad del pensamiento humano?, es una herencia que el pensamiento filosófico recibe de sus raíces mítico-teológicas. Dicha visión se vio sometida, en la historia de la filosofía, a un proceso de secularización por el cual la instancia dominante pasó de la teología a la metafísica y de ésta a la teoría del conocimiento. Entre los siglos XIX y XX, este proceso atestiguó un cambio ulterior, colocando a la epistemología como instancia dominante de la racionalidad filosófica. La sucesión debe verse como una consecuencia de la funcionalización social de los dispositivos de creencias (ideología), lo que provoca que los mismos se conviertan, en determinado momento, en un obstáculo para la producción de nuevos conocimientos. De esta manera, los nuevos conocimientos, para desarrollarse, se ven forzados a provocar reestructuraciones en el campo filosófico, ya sea mediante el reemplazo de la instancia dominante, la incorporación o creación de nuevas formas de saber filosófico -tal el caso de la epistemología-, o de la marginalización relativa de otras. Se trata de en un proceso complejo (que no es ni lineal, ni biunívoco), en el que cabe no obstante discernir un esquema de la sucesión temporal de las formas filosóficas que dominan la pretendida ?unidad del pensamiento humano? (filosofía). El que acabamos de describir es un proceso lento de sustitución y reemplazo en el tipo de garantías que se le exige elaborar a la filosofía. Algunos momentos, como el ocaso de las garantías de la fe, acaecido con el surgimiento de la filosofía moderna, podrían parecer a primera vista contrajemplos para esta concepción de la evolución del saber filosófico. Podría creerse, en efecto, que con la constitución de esferas autónomas de discurso (teología, ciencia, filosofía), del discurso filosófico se desgajó en un discurso de una naturaleza diferente: la ciencia. Sin embargo, una mirada más atenta revela un paisaje diferente, puesto que esta transformación estuvo acompañada, primero, por la aparición de una nueva instancia dominante de la unificación del conocimiento filosófico. Se trata de la búsqueda de una nueva clase de garantías, las del origen y el fundamento del conocimiento, es decir, las de la gnoseología o teoría del conocimiento, en el interior de la cual se verificó finalmente un nuevo desplazamiento, con la constitución, a fines del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX, de la ?filosofía de la ciencia? o epistemología. Este modelo para la conceptualización del desarrollo del discurso filosófico tiene la ventaja de permitirnos pensar la relación que la epistemología guarda con la instancia de saber filosófico dominante en el seno de la cual se desarrolla: la de la gnoseología. A partir de las relaciones que la epistemología guarda con la temática de las garantías del conocimiento podemos apresar, en un esquema heurístico que será complejizado de diversos modos en este libro, la diferencia entre las tesis características de la epistemología anglosajona y de la epistemología francesa. De acuerdo con en este esquema heurístico, el rasgo más característico de la epistemología anglosajona es su sujeción, en la mayor parte de su desarrollo, a la teoría del conocimiento, lo que se revela en la persistencia de algunos aspectos de la filosofía de la representación y en la reproducción de la oposición idealista entre sujeto y objeto como dos polos cuya armonía debería establecerse, filosóficamente, en términos de la verdad. En su lugar, la epistemología francesa se propuso el estudio de los mecanismos de producción de los conocimientos. La epistemología, desde esta perspectiva, ya no fue vista primordialmente como el estudio de los fundamentos del conocimiento científico, sino como la teoría de las condiciones y las formas de la práctica científica y la historia de esta práctica, tal como aparece en las distintas ciencias concretas. Expresado de otra manera, el contraste se podría establecer mediante la observación de que mientras los anglosajones hacen filosofía de la ciencia como una extensión de la lógica, los franceses la hacen como una extensión de la historia de la ciencia, es decir, encontrando en la historia el laboratorio del epistemólogo. Ahora bien, según veremos, el campo de la epistemología francesa ha cobijado una buena cantidad de debates que tienen que ver primordialmente con dos tendencias en tensión: la que enfatiza la autonomía de lo epistemológico y aquella que destaca la determinación social del pensamiento. Los trabajos de este libro esperan problematizar este y otros ejes, explorando las perspectivas de los ?clásicos? de la escuela francesa en epistemología (Bachelard, Canguilhem, Althusser, Foucault, etc.), las relaciones entre los mismos y los diálogos que cabe establecer entre estos y otras corrientes de pensamiento. ÍNDICE: La ruptura epistemológica, de Bachelard a Balibar y Pêcheux, Pedro Karczmarczyk La ruptura epistemológica según Bachelard, Althusser y Badiou, Carlos Gassmann Visitaciones Derrideanas, Jazmín Anahí Acosta Epistemología sin sujeto cognoscente. Superación, disolución o sujeción de la subjetividad en Popper, Wittgenstein y Foucault, Silvia Rivera; La torsión política del concepto de verdad en Michel Foucault, Manuel Cuervo Sola Canguilhem y Foucault. De la norma biológica a la norma política, Andrea Torrano Psicología e ideología: Foucault, Canguilhem y Althusser, Matías Abeijón . (shrink)

In international law and the ethics of war, there are a variety of actions which are seen as particularly problematic and presumed to be always or inherently wrong, or in need of some overwhelmingly strong justification to override the presumption against them. One of these actions is assassination, in particular, assassination of heads of state. In this essay I argue that the presumption against assassination is incorrect. In particular, I argue that if in a given scenario war is justified, then (...) assassination of the enemy state's leader is also justified, and in fact ought to be pursued as a means short of war. I defend this position on both consequential and deontic grounds, arguing that assassination is both more discriminate than war and serves to harm only those most responsible for the situation which justifies war in the first place. I conclude by arguing that a norm of assassination, far from being a destabilizing force, as some have argued, would in fact serve to reinforce international norms of rights and respect for persons by making clear that tyrants and would-be oppressors cannot hide behind military forces or notions of sovereignty to protect themselves from judgment and retribution. (shrink)

In recent years, many disciplines have become interested in the scientific study of morality. However, a conceptual framework for this work is still lacking. In The Moral Background, Gabriel Abend develops just such a framework and uses it to investigate the history of business ethics in the United States from the 1850s to the 1930s. According to Abend, morality consists of three levels: moral and immoral behavior, or the behavioral level; moral understandings and norms, or the normative level; and (...) the moral background, which includes what moral concepts exist in a society, what moral methods can be used, what reasons can be given, and what objects can be morally evaluated at all. This background underlies the behavioral and normative levels; it supports, facilitates, and enables them. Through this perspective, Abend historically examines the work of numerous business ethicists and organizations--such as Protestant ministers, business associations, and business schools--and identifies two types of moral background. "Standards of Practice" is characterized by its scientific worldview, moral relativism, and emphasis on individuals' actions and decisions. The "Christian Merchant" type is characterized by its Christian worldview, moral objectivism, and conception of a person's life as a unity. The Moral Background offers both an original account of the history of business ethics and a novel framework for understanding and investigating morality in general. (shrink)

The principle of proportionality demands that a war (or action in war) achieve more goods than bads. In the philosophical literature there has been a wealth of work examining precisely which goods and bads may count toward this evaluation. However, in all of these discussions there is no mention of one of the most certain bads of war, namely the psychological harm(s) likely to be suffered by the combatants who ultimately must fight and kill for the purposes of winning in (...) conflict. This paper argues that harms to one’s own soldiers must be included in proportionality judgments, and goes on to argue that one of the most significant harms one’s soldiers face are the psychological stresses and traumas associated with combat. The arguments draw on a growing wealth of psychological literature exploring the connections between combatancy and psychological trauma, and highlight, in particular, the uniquely negative impact which killing has on a combatant’s mental well-being. The paper concludes that these factors place an almost certain and rather weighty negative weight in any proportionality calculations concerning wars with ground combatants who must fight “up close and personal”, and that for more remote warfighters, there is also evidence to show that they may suffer deep psychological harm as a result of their combat roles as well. The argument, however, does not attempt to demonstrate that these factors render war impermissible. Rather, it merely shows that these harms, or bads, which can be quite significant, must be factored into our considerations of proportionality. The arguments themselves are rather uncontroversial, but they bring to light an element in the moral calculus which is sadly overlooked in most discussions of the ethics of war. (shrink)

This discussion of pride, shame, and guilt centers on the beliefs involved in the experience of any of these emotions. Through a detailed study, the author demonstrates how these beliefs are alike--in that they are all directed towards the self--and how they differ. The experience of these three emotions are illustrated by examples taken from English literature. These concrete cases supply a context for study and indicate the complexity of the situations in which these emotions usually occur.

Sociologists often ask why particular groups of people have the moral views that they do. I argue that sociology’s empirical research on morality relies, implicitly or explicitly, on unsophisticated and even obsolete ethical theories, and thus is based on inadequate conceptions of the ontology, epistemology, and semantics of morality. In this article I address the two main problems in the sociology of morality: (1) the problem of moral truth, and (2) the problem of value freedom. I identify two ideal–typical approaches. (...) While the Weberian paradigm rejects the concept of moral truth, the Durkheimian paradigm accepts it. By contrast, I argue that sociology should be metaphysically agnostic, yet in practice it should proceed as though there were no moral truths. The Weberians claim that the sociology of morality can and should be value free; the Durkheimians claim that it cannot and it should not. My argument is that, while it is true that factual statements presuppose value judgments, it does not follow that sociologists are moral philosophers in disguise. Finally, I contend that in order for sociology to improve its understanding of morality, better conceptual, epistemological, and methodological foundations are needed. (shrink)

El objetivo de este estudio es determinar la relación entre las habilidades psicolingüísticas y el rendimiento escolar. El presente estudio es cuantitativo, descriptivo correlacional, transversal no experimental. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 35 estudiantes de 4° año de un colegio particular subvencionado de Chillán, Chile. La recolección de datos se obtuvo mediante la aplicación del Test de Illinois de Aptitudes Psicolingüísticas y el promedio final de las asignaturas de Lenguaje, Matemáticas, Ciencias Sociales e Historia y Geografía. Por medio de la (...) presente investigación se concluye que se logra establecer una relación parcial entre las Habilidades Psicolingüísticas y el Rendimiento Académico. (shrink)

In this article I ask what recent moral psychology and neuroscience can and can’t claim to have discovered about morality. I argue that the object of study of much recent work is not morality but a particular kind of individual moral judgment. But this is a small and peculiar sample of morality. There are many things that are moral yet not moral judgments. There are also many things that are moral judgments yet not of that particular kind. If moral things (...) are various and diverse, then empirical research about one kind of individual moral judgment doesn’t warrant theoretical conclusions about morality in general. If that kind of individual moral judgment is a peculiar and rare thing, then it is not obvious what it tells us about other moral things. What is more, it is not obvious what its theoretical importance is to begin with—that is, why we should care about it at all. In light of these arguments, I call for a pluralism of methods and objects of inquiry in the scientific investigation of morality, so that it transcends its problematic overemphasis on a particular kind of individual moral judgment. (shrink)

The history of the field of business ethics in the U.S. remains understudied and misunderstood. In this article I begin to remedy this oversight about the past, and I suggest how it can be beneficial in the present. Using both published and unpublished primary sources, I argue that the business ethics field emerged in the early twentieth century, against the backdrop of the establishment of business schools in major universities. I bring to light four important developments: business ethics lectures at (...) the University of California and Yale University, Leon Marshall’s curriculum at the College of Commerce of the University of Chicago, and the William A. Vawter Foundation on Business Ethics at Northwestern University. Then, I consider the payoffs of my historical account for business ethics theory, pedagogy, and practice. Specifically, I present four implications of my account under these headings: business ethics as a public problem; the place of ethics in business schools; historicizing business ethics; and historical self-knowledge. (shrink)

The results of tests carried out using next-generation genomic sequencing (NGS) possess a peculiar and perhaps unique ‘diagnostic durability’. Unlike most other forms of testing, if genomic results or data are stored over time, then it remains possible to interrogate that information indefinitely, without having to retest the patient. Another peculiar property of genomic results is that their interpretations are subject to change within relatively short time frames. For instance, a genomic variant that is of uncertain significance (VUS) at the (...) time of testing may shortly afterwards come to be understood as pathogenic (P) or benign (B). Moreover, variant classifications might be downgraded from likely pathogenic to VUS or B, or regraded from B to VUS. These two properties of genomic testing have important implications for the responsible implementation of genomic testing in healthcare. One of these is that they prompt the question whether diagnostic laboratories are morally required to routinely reinterpret their genomic variant classifications and reissue patient reports in the case of materially relevant changes. We take up this question in our paper, in which we argue against the existence of any general duty to reinterpret genomic variant classifications (as had been argued for by Appelbaum et al 1). Still, we maintain that a restricted duty to reinterpret ought to be recognised.2 We thank the authors of the commentaries on our paper for their attention to our argument and for their thoughtful responses to (and expansions of) our position. Oerlemans et al address …. (shrink)

Innovation is a key driver of care provision in assisted reproductive technologies (ART). ART providers offer a range of add‐on interventions, aiming to augment standard in vitro fertilization protocols and improve the chances of a live birth. Particularly in the context of commercial provision, an ever‐increasing array of add‐ons are marketed to ART patients, even when evidence to support them is equivocal. A defining feature of ART is hope—hope that a cycle will lead to a baby or that another test (...) or intervention will make a difference. Yet such hope also leaves ART patients vulnerable in a variety of ways. This article argues that previous attempts to safeguard ART patients have neglected how the use of add‐ons in commercial ART can exploit patients’ hopes. Commercial providers of ART should provide add‐ons only free of charge, under a suitable research protocol. (shrink)

The book, written in a clear, engaging style, contains four chapters.

Concepts of decision, choice, decision-maker, and decision-making are common practical tools in both social science and natural science, on which scientific knowledge, policy implications, and moral recommendations are based. In this article I address three questions. First, I look into how present-day social scientists and natural scientists use decision/choice concepts. What are they used for? Second, scientists may differ in the application of decision/choice to X, and they may explicitly disagree about the applicability of decision/choice to X. Where exactly do (...) these disagreements lie? Third, I ask how scientists should use decision/choice concepts. What are they correctly and incorrectly used for? I argue that scientists must responsibly attend to a methodological demand: you have to have a principled, non-ad hoc, well-argued-for way of telling where decision/choice applicability ends. Thus, I aim to minimize the risk of conceptual stretching and foster responsible conceptual practices in a large body of scientific work. (shrink)

Abstract:In this paper I argue that Hume’s decision to include an account of curiosity within his theory of the passions is what gives Book 2 of the Treatise its distinctive shape, in which an account of what Hume calls “indirect” passions precedes an account of the nature of the will, which is itself followed by an account of the “direct” passions, then curiosity. On my reading, Hume concludes his theory of the passions with an account of curiosity because this is (...) where it ought to go, given how Hume understands the love of truth to arise in human nature. Not only this, but I contend that Hume’s need to account for the nature of curiosity within his theory of the passions can explain his decision to open Book 2 with a discussion of the indirect passions, rather than the direct passions. (shrink)

This commentary discusses the dynamic systems (DS) approach to communication over an information-processing (IP) model. The commenters suggest that the authors of the target article, in their treatment of the issue, do not identify the central failing of the IP model. Further, it is suggested that the DS approach should include examination of mechanisms in the emergence of symbolic communication.

In this paper I set out what I call a ‘conquest’ conception of Hume's experimental science of man. It is notable, I claim, that Hume regards what he calls the ‘capital’ of the sciences – ‘the science of MAN’ – as occupied territory, and that he views his ‘direct’ method of approach upon the science of human nature as a ‘conquest’. I expand upon such statements by leveraging the comparison that Hume draws between experimental moral philosophy and the experimental tradition (...) in natural philosophy inaugurated by Francis Bacon. Overall, I suggest that Hume's decision to ground his science of human nature upon experience and observation is as much about overthrowing the epistemic authority of speculative dogmas as it is about establishing a secure foundation for his system of the sciences, and I contend that Hume's application of his hypotheses to animals is central to this conception of his philosophical project in the Treatise. (shrink)

This paper provides a reception history of Book Two of the Treatise-Of the passions-as well as an attempt to reconcile Hume's ambitions to systematicity in Book Two with the distracted and distracting nature of the text. We currently have, I think, a good sense of the philosophical importance of Book Two within Hume's science of human nature. Yet we have not made much progress on understanding Book Two on its own terms, and especially why Book Two so often seems on (...) the verge of falling into an explanatory heap. I aim to rectify this situation by giving a reading of Book Two that makes sense of the philosophical importance of Hume's system of the passions, yet also explains why he encounters so many difficulties in setting out his system; such that he is often forced to stretch his explanations to the very edge of the credible. I contend that Hume's system of the passions is best viewed as an unstable explanatory compound, one that progressively dissolves as Hume's explanatory intentions become increasingly ambitious. (shrink)

I develop an interpretation of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concept of motor intentionality, one that emerges out of a reading of his presentation of a now classic case study in neuropathology—patient Johann Schneider—in Phenomenology of Perception. I begin with Merleau-Ponty's prescriptions for how we should use the pathological as a guide to the normal, a method I call triangulation. I then turn to his presentation of Schneider's unusual case. I argue that we should treat all of Schneider's behaviors as pathological, not only (...) his abstract movements, as is commonly acknowledged in the secondary literature, but also crucially his concrete movements. Using these facts of Schneider's illness, I reconstruct a ‘fundamental function’ of consciousness, as Merleau-Ponty called it, in which there are two kinds of bodily agency: the power of the body to be solicited by a situation and the power of the body to project a situation. I propose that these powers became dissociated in Schneider's case, as evidenced by his abstract and concrete movements, while in the normal case, these powers comprise a dynamic unity, enacted as motor intentionality. I also discuss how my interpretation complements Merleau-Ponty's assertion that motor intentions exist between mind and matter. (shrink)

A semantics of pictorial representation should provide an account of how pictorial signs are associated with the contents they express. Unlike the familiar semantics of spoken languages, this problem has a distinctively spatial cast for depiction. Pictures themselves are two-dimensional artifacts, and their contents take the form of pictorial spaces, perspectival arrangements of objects and properties in three dimensions. A basic challenge is to explain how pictures are associated with the particular pictorial spaces they express. Inspiration here comes from recent (...) proposals that analyze depiction in terms of geometrical projection. In this essay, I will argue that, for a central class of pictures, the projection-based theory of depiction provides the best explanation for how pictures express pictorial spaces, while rival perceptual and resemblance theories fall short. Since the composition of pictorial space is itself the basis for all other aspects of pictorial content, the proposal provides a natural foundation for further pictorial semantics. (shrink)

Public reason liberalism is defined by the idea that laws and policies should be justifiable to each person who is subject to them. But what does it mean for reasons to be public or, in other words, suitable for this process of justification? In response to this question, Kevin Vallier has recently developed the traditional distinction between consensus and convergence public reason into a classification distinguishing three main approaches: shareability, accessibility and intelligibility. The goal of this paper is to defend (...) the accessibility approach by demonstrating its ability to strike an appealing middle course in terms of inclusivity between shareability and intelligibility. We first argue against Vallier that accessibility can exclude religious reasons from public justification. Second, we use scientific reasons as a case study to show that accessibility excludes considerably fewer reasons than shareability. Throughout the paper, we connect our discussion of accessibility to John Rawls’s model of public reason, so as to give substance to the accessibility approach and to further our understanding of Rawls’s influential model. (shrink)

Gabriele Taylor presents a philosophical investigation of the "ordinary" vices traditionally seen as "death to the soul": sloth, envy, avarice, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony. In the course of a richly detailed discussion of individual and interrelated vices, which complements recent work by moral philosophers on virtue, she shows why these "deadly sins" are correctly so named and grouped together.

What is it for a picture to depict a scene? The most orthodox philosophical theory of pictorial representation holds that depiction is grounded in resemblance. A picture represents a scene in virtue of being similar to that scene in certain ways. This essay presents evidence against this claim: curvilinear perspective is one common style of depiction in which successful pictorial representation depends as much on a picture's systematic differences with the scene depicted as on the similarities; it cannot be analyzed (...) in terms of similarity alone. The same problem arises for many other kinds of depiction. The essay concludes that depiction in general is not grounded in resemblance but geometrical transformation. (shrink)

I make a contribution to the sociology of epistemologies by examining the neuroscience literature on love from 2000 to 2016. I find that researchers make consequential assumptions concerning the production or generation of love, its temporality, its individual character, and appropriate control conditions. Next, I consider how to account for these assumptions’ being common in the literature. More generally, I’m interested in the ways in which epistemic communities construe, conceive of, and publicly represent and work with their objects of inquiry—and (...) what’s thereby assumed about them and about the world. I argue that these implicit or explicit assumptions are a distinct type of explanandum, whose distinctiveness sociology hasn’t adequately appreciated and taken advantage of. I think it should and I hope it will. (shrink)

Durkheim's underdeveloped notion of fatalism is the keystone for a bridge between two conceptual categories central to Marxian and Durkheimian theory: alienation and anomie. Durkheim does not necessarily disagree with Marx that excessive regulation can be socially damaging but chooses to highlight the effects of under-regulation. A Durkheimian critique of overregulation becomes possible if we turn away from anomie and toward Durkheim's idea of fatalism—a concept that I will argue here is unexpectedly consistent with Marx's notion of alienation. We can (...) infer that Durkheim presents us with a notion of an “optimal” human condition that exists between anomie and fatalism. The structure of modern societies, it will be argued, is characterized not just by excessive control leading to alienation or by a lack of integrative restraint leading to anomie but also by active efforts to optimally regulate social life. (shrink)

Durkheim's underdeveloped notion of fatalism is the keystone for a bridge between two conceptual categories central to Marxian and Durkheimian theory: alienation and anomie. Durkheim does not necessarily disagree with Marx that excessive regulation can be socially damaging but chooses to highlight the effects of under- regulation. A Durkheimian critique of overregulation becomes possible if we turn away from anomie and toward Durkheim's idea of fatalism-a concept that I will argue here is unexpectedly consistent with Marx's notion of alienation. We (...) can infer that Durkheim presents us with a notion of an "optimal" human condition that exists between anomie and fatalism. The structure of modern societies, it will be argued, is characterized not just by excessive control leading to alienation or by a lack of integrative restraint leading to anomie but also by active efforts to optimally regulate social life. (shrink)

Gabriel Richardson Lear presents a bold new approach to one of the enduring debates about Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: the controversy about whether it coherently argues that the best life for humans is one devoted to a single activity, namely philosophical contemplation. Many scholars oppose this reading because the bulk of the Ethics is devoted to various moral virtues--courage and generosity, for example--that are not in any obvious way either manifestations of philosophical contemplation or subordinated to it. They argue that (...) Aristotle was inconsistent, and that we should not try to read the entire Ethics as an attempt to flesh out the notion that the best life aims at the "monistic good" of contemplation. In defending the unity and coherence of the Ethics, Lear argues that, in Aristotle's view, we may act for the sake of an end not just by instrumentally bringing it about but also by approximating it. She then argues that, for Aristotle, the excellent rational activity of moral virtue is an approximation of theoretical contemplation. Thus, the happiest person chooses moral virtue as an approximation of contemplation in practical life. Richardson Lear bolsters this interpretation by examining three moral virtues--courage, temperance, and greatness of soul--and the way they are fine. Elegantly written and rigorously argued, this is a major contribution to our understanding of a central issue in Aristotle's moral philosophy. (shrink)

The Kohlberg Gilligan Controversy has received intermittent but inconclusive attention for many years, perhaps reflecting the difficulty of bridging the two positions. This article explores the published evidence for Gilligan's claims of gender difference, gender identity difference, and role of caring in people's ethics. It seems that the evidence for pronounced gender differences in ethical attitudes within business is weak, even if gender identity is used instead of physical gender. The main propositions of Care Theory and recent advances in its (...) thinking are discussed. Special focus emerges on the notion of Attachment which seems to be the Care Theory ingredient both most able to survive critical scrutiny and most promising for bridging the divide between the Kohlberg and Gilligan paradigms. The Social Bonding Model and other possible bridge building conceptual structures are introduced. Finally, Max Weber's division between ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility provides an overarching perspective both of the gap still to be bridged and the need to keep trying to bridge it. (shrink)

Gabriele Taylor; VIII*—Love, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 76, Issue 1, 1 June 1976, Pages 147–164, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/76.1.