What is a thing? What is an object? Tristan Garcia decisively overturns 100 years of Heideggerian orthodoxy about the supposedly derivative nature of objects to put forward a new theory of ontology that gives us deep insights into the world and our place in it."e.

Viewing emotion from an evolutionary perspective, researchers have argued that simple responses to affective stimuli can be triggered without mediation of cognitive processes. Indeed, findings suggest that positively and negatively valenced stimuli trigger approach and avoidance movements automatically. However, affective stimulus–response compatibility phenomena share so many central characteristics with nonaffective stimulus–response compatibility phenomena that one may doubt whether the underlying mechanisms differ. We suggest an “affectively enriched” version of the theory of event coding (TEC) that is able to account for (...) both affective and nonaffective compatibility, and that can account for the observation that both types of compatibility seem to be modulated by goals and intentions. Predictions from the model are tested in an experiment where participants carried out approach and avoidance responses to either the valence or the orientation of emotionally charged pictures. Under affective instruction the positive-approach/negative-avoid mapping yielded faster responses than the positive-avoid/negative-approach mapping, but no such effect was observed under spatial instruction. Conversely, spatial compatibility effects were obtained under spatial, but not under affective instruction. We conclude that affective and nonaffective compatibility effects reflect the same mechanism. (shrink)

Hydraulic fracturing ('fracking') has enabled the recovery of previously inaccessible resources and rendered new areas of the underground 'productive'. While a number of studies in the US and UK have examined public attitudes toward fracking and its various impacts, how people conceptualise the deep underground itself has received less attention. We argue that views on resources, risk and the deep underground raise important questions about how people perceive the desirability and viability of subterranean interventions. We conducted day-long deliberation workshops (two (...) in each country), facilitating discussions among diverse groups of people on prospective shale extraction in the US and UK. Themes that emerged in these conversations include seeing the Earth as a foundation; natural limits (a greater burden than the subsurface can withstand versus simply overuse of natural resources); and ideas about the fragility, instability and opacity of the deep underground. We find that concerns in both countries were not limited to specific, localised impacts but also addressed ecosystem links between surface and subsurface environments and broader questions about the use, identification and value of natural resources. (shrink)

Political philosophy was once dominated by discussion of the virtues of character and their importance to the good life and the good society. Contemporary political philosophers, however, following the towering influence of John Rawls, have primarily focused on a single virtue of institutions: justice, while largely avoiding controversial claims about the good life. As a result, political philosophy lacks a unified account of the virtues of institutions and the virtues of character. More importantly, we lack an understanding of the connection (...) between the just society and the good life. This book begins to mend this broken seam, which, on reflection, lies at the heart of our deepest political problems. The book’s central argument is that the virtues of character require institutions, while good institutions enable persons to live together virtuously. Political institutions are a necessary precondition for the moral agency exhibited by the virtues. But good institutions enable virtue to grow, while helping to constrain the excesses of vice. On this view, justice emerges primarily as a virtue of character, not institutions. The just person balances conformity to existing institutional norms with practically wise reforms. Ultimately, this book concludes that the just society and the good life are linked through the common good of virtuous activity within the shared institutions of a political community. (shrink)

Significant disagreement remains in ethics about the duties we have towards wild animals. This paper aims to mediate those disagreements by exploring how they are supported by, or diverge from, the common-sense ethical principles of non-maleficence, beneficence, autonomy and justice popular in medical ethics. We argue that these principles do not clearly justify traditional conservation or a ‘hands-off ’ approach to wild-animal welfare; instead, they support natural negative duties to reduce the harms that we cause as well as natural positive (...) duties to promote the welfare of wild animals. (shrink)

Although research in ecopsychology commonly identifies the value of spiritual experiences in nature for psychological well-being and environmental behaviour, previous research has not compared the outcomes of these experiences in natural and human-built settings. In the present study, the relationship between self-reported mystical experiences in natural and human-built environments for psychological well-being and environmental behaviour was investigated. A sample of 305 participants completed an amended version of Hood's Mysticism Scale, a measure of psychological well-being, and brief environmental behaviour scale. Correlations (...) indicated that mystical experiences in natural and in human-built environments both significantly predicted psychological well-being, but only mystical experiences in natural settings predicted environmental behaviour. This study suggests that mystical experiences in natural and human-built environments may be related to different outcomes. (shrink)

Criteria of historical assessment are applied to the Turin Shroud to determine which hypothesis relating to the image formation process is the most likely. To implement this, a ‘Minimal Facts’ approach is followed that takes into account only physicochemical and historical data receiving the widest consensus among contemporary scientists. The result indicates that the probability of the Shroud of Turin being the real shroud of Jesus of Nazareth is very high; historians and natural theologians should therefore pay it increased attention.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This paper examines an ideology I call techno-colonialism. I argue that techno-colonialism represents an attempt to selectively reproduce settler colonial practices adjusted to twenty-first century realities. This argument has implications for contemporary settler colonialism, the radical right, and climate change politics. In what follows, I discuss the techno-colonial doctrines of Nick Land, Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel, and Patri Friedman. These figures articulate a political theory about exploiting new technologies to escape the state and found new societies. To explore techno-colonial ideology, (...) I focus on Seasteading—the practice of creating floating city-states to colonize the ocean––as an attempted realization of techno-colonial ideals. As I claim, techno-colonialism attempts to humanize the politics of settlement. But I argue that techno-colonialism's ambitions fail, and techno-colonialism fails to create a harmless politics of settlement. I conclude that we should be attentive to the relations of political and economic power in which such exit projects are embedded. Moreover, this paper also promotes our understanding of climate change and the radical right's politics. While scholars most naturally associate the radical right with climate change denialism, the techno-colonists illustrate another possibility. They welcome catastrophe, and see rising-sea levels as an opportunity to start society afresh. (shrink)

Cultural capital and hegemonic masculinity are two concepts that have received intense attention. While both have received serious consideration, critique and analysis, the context or field-specificity of each is sometimes ignored. They have been used in a diversity of ways. Using ethnographic and interview data from a US male bodybuilding community, this study highlights one useful employment. Hegemonic masculinity takes different shapes in different fields of interaction, acting as a form of cultural capital: gender capital. Inherent in this discussion are (...) the cultural contradictions apparent among individuals striving for either physical or ideological embodiments of gender capital. Individuals can attempt to embody hegemonic idealizations, but bodies are not only inscribed with gender, inscriptions are read, and read differently by different social actors and in different settings. The capacity of gender capital to remain elusive is precisely what enables gender practices and projects like bodybuilding to retain passionate participation. (shrink)

Gillian Russell has recently proposed counterexamples to such elementary argument forms as Conjunction Introduction and Identity. These purported counterexamples involve expressions that are sensitive to linguistic context—for example, a sentence which is true when it appears alone but false when embedded in a larger sentence. If they are genuine counterexamples, it looks as though logical nihilism—the view that there are no valid argument forms—might be true. In this paper, I argue that the purported counterexamples are not genuine, on the grounds (...) that they equivocate. Having defused the threat of logical nihilism, I argue that the kind of linguistic context sensitivity at work in Russell’s purported counterexamples, if taken seriously, far from leading to logical nihilism, reveals new, previously undreamt-of valid forms. By way of proof of concept I present a simple logic, Solo-Only Propositional Logic, designed to capture some of them. Along the way, some interesting subtleties about the fallacy of equivocation are revealed. (shrink)

What is the relationship between justice as an individual virtue and justice as an institutional virtue? The latter has been exhaustively explored by political philosophers, whereas the former remains underexplored in the literature on virtue ethics. This article defends the view that individual justice is logically prior to institutional justice, and argues that this view requires a conception of individual justice I call ‘justice as lawfulness’. The resulting view consists of three claims. First, just institutions are composed of the relations (...) between just persons. Second, the just person has a disposition to act in accordance with the legal and social norms (collectively, thenomoi) of the existing political tradition. Third, departures from thenomoirequire that the just person act with practical wisdom to reform thenomoiaccording to an implicit standard of justice in the political tradition. (shrink)

The question of man -- Time and the will -- Receptivity and spatiality -- Distance and concealment -- Art and difference -- The 'speaking' of language -- Human nature and sensus communis -- Inspiration and genius -- Thought and expression -- A history of truth and truthfulness -- Being and the hidden God.

Traditional whistleblowing theories have purported that whistleblowers engage in a rational process in determining whether or not to blow the whistle on misconduct. However, stressors inherent to whistleblowing often impede rational thinking and act as a barrier to effective whistleblowing. The negative impact of these stressors on whistleblowing may be made worse depending on who engages in the misconduct: a peer or advisor. In the present study, participants are presented with an ethical scenario where either a peer or advisor engages (...) in misconduct, and positive and the negative consequences of whistleblowing are either directed to the wrongdoer, department, or university. Participant responses to case questions were evaluated for whistleblowing intentions, moral intensity, metacognitive reasoning strategies, and positive and negative, active and passive emotions. Findings indicate that participants were less likely to report the observed misconduct of an advisor compared to a peer. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that when an advisor is the source of misconduct, greater negative affect results. Post-hoc analyses were also conducted examining the differences between those who did and did not intend to blow the whistle under the circumstances of either having to report an advisor or peer. The implications of these findings for understanding the complexities involved in whistleblowing are discussed. (shrink)

What happened to the theories of Europe developed by the Enlightenment? Following a pluridisciplinary perspective, this book examines the way in which the projects conceived in the 18th century were reinvested both in the founding texts of the European Union and in contemporary political theory.

Kosmopolitismus wird oft als elitäre Geisteshaltung angesehen. Diese Studie geht allerdings von der These aus, dass er auch ein gesellschaftliches und politisches Engagement begründet hat. Es wird untersucht, wie Weltbürger grenzüberschreitend gemeinsame Positionierungen entwickelten und umsetzten. Im Fokus steht der Umgang mit dem kosmopolitischen Erbe der Aufklärung im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert zwischen Deutschland und Frankreich. 0Auf der Suche nach Transferphänomenen, Spannungen und Verflechtungen werden entscheidende Umbruchsphasen beleuchtet: die Debatten des Revolutionszeitalters, die Erneuerung des Internationalismus nach 1848/1849, das Wechselverhältnis (...) von Nationalismus und Universalismus um 1871, die Friedensbewegung vor 1914 und der Versuch, nach dem Krieg eine friedliche Weltordnung weltbürgerlich zu begründen. Die Aufarbeitung kosmopolitischer Einstellungen bietet Einsicht in einen deutsch-französischen Lernprozess, der die Durchsetzung einer geteilten Demokratieauffassung begünstigt hat. (shrink)

Sound-producing movements in percussion performance require a high degree of fine motor control. However, there remains a relatively limited empirical understanding of how performance level abilities develop in percussion performance in general, and marimba performance specifically. To address this issue, nine percussionists performed individualised excerpts on marimba within three testing sessions spaced 29 days apart to assess early, intermediate, and late stages of motor learning. Motor learning was quantified via analyses of both the temporal control of mallet movements, and the (...) spatial variability of upper-limb movements. The results showed that temporal control of mallet movements was greater in the intermediate compared to the early learning session, with no significant additional improvements revealed in the late learning session. In addition, spatial variability in the left and right elbows decreased within the intermediate compared to the early learning session. The results suggest that temporal control of mallet movements may be driven by reductions in spatial variability of elbow movements specifically. As a result, this study provides novel evidence for kinematic mechanisms underlying motor learning in percussion which can be applied towards enhancing musical training. (shrink)

This volume is dedicated to the topic of the human evaluation and interpretation of animals in ancient and medieval cultures. From a transcultural perspective contributions from Assyriology, Byzantine Studies, Classical Archaeology, Egyptology, German Medieval Studies and Jewish History look into the processes and mechanisms behind the transfer by people of certain values to animals, and the functions these animal-signs have within written, pictorial and performative forms of expression.

A great need for systematic evaluation of ethics training programs exists. Those tasked with developing an ethics training program may be quick to dismiss the value of training evaluation in continuous process improvement. In the present effort, we use a case study approach to delineate how to leverage formative and summative evaluation measures to create a high-quality ethics education program. With regard to formative evaluation, information bearing on trainee reactions, qualitative data from the comments of trainees, in addition to empirical (...) findings, can ensure that the training program operates smoothly. Regarding summative evaluation, measures examining trainee cognition, behavior, and organization-level results provide information about how much trainees have changed as a result of taking the ethics training. The implications of effective training program evaluation are discussed. (shrink)

Georges Palante, figure oubliée de la sociologie naissante, fut le théoricien d'une révolte intransigeante de l'individu face aux mécanismes oppressifs déployés par la société. Lecteur de Nietzsche et de Schopenhauer, ennemi déclaré des durkheimiens, socialiste non marxiste, farouche défenseur de l'individu, Georges Palante est un penseur iconoclaste qui n'a eu de cesse de développer une éthique individualiste et libertaire en vue du plein épanouissement des facultés et des potentialités individuelles. Cependant, par un étrange paradoxe, l'éthique palantienne prend sa source dans (...) une philosophie pessimiste qui offre à la révolte un caractère tragique et indompté : elle doit avoir lieu et ce, malgré la certitude de sa défaite. C'est précisément ce paradoxe que cet ouvrage entend questionner tout en offrant une introduction à l'oeuvre de Georges Palante. Interroger la possibilité d'une révolte pessimiste, c'est interroger ce moment de l'insoumission et de la désobéissance propre à la condition humaine. Palante ouvre la voie qui inscrit la révolte et le mouvement du refus dans la constitution même de l'homme. Avec Albert Camus, Palante pourrait affirmer : "Qu'est-ce qu'un homme révolté? Un homme qui dit non. Mais s'il refuse, il ne renonce pas : c'est aussi un homme qui dit oui dès son premier mouvement.". (shrink)

State Medical Boards (SMBs) can take severe disciplinary actions (e.g., license revocation or suspension) against physicians who commit egregious wrongdoing in order to protect the public. However, there is noteworthy variability in the extent to which SMBs impose severe disciplinary action. In this manuscript, we present and synthesize a subset of 11 recommendations based on findings from our team’s larger consensus-building project that identified a list of 56 policies and legal provisions SMBs can use to better protect patients from egregious (...) wrongdoing by physicians. (shrink)

Heidegger argues that for being x to count as ‘alive’ it must satisfy three metaphysical conditions. It must be capable of engaging in active behaviour with a form of intentional directedness that offers to us a “sphere of transposition” into which we can intelligibly “transpose ourselves.” Heidegger’s discussion of these conditions, as they apply to the being of animals, is well-known. But, if his argument is sound, they ought also to apply to the being of plants. Heidegger, unfortunately, does not (...) supply this part of his ontology of life in any systematic detail. However, my thesis is that it is possible to interpret the nature and activities of plants, along the lines of –, and thus to make good on Heidegger’s omission. The key to this reconstruction is a reconceptualization of plant movements as constituted by a form of representationally blind, motor-intentionality. (shrink)

Tristan J. Rogers ABSTRACT: What might a Stoic approach to politics look like? David Goodhart aptly describes the political divide pervading Western societies in terms of the ‘somewheres,’ who are communitarian, rooted in particular places, and resistant to social and political change, versus the ‘anywheres,’ who are cosmopolitan, mobile, and enthusiastic embracers of change. Stoicism ….

The seven articles included in the AJOB Neuroscience special issue map important ethical issues that have and will continue to emerge with advances in neuroscience and neurotechnology. A critical c...

This article demonstrates how instructors of professionalism and ethics training programs can integrate a professional decision-making tool in training curricula. This tool can help trainees understand how to apply professional decision-making strategies to address the threats posed by a variety of psychological and environmental factors when they are faced with complex professional and ethical situations. We begin by highlighting key decision-making frameworks and discussing factors that may undermine the use of professional decision-making strategies. Then, drawing upon findings from past research, (...) we present the “SMART” professional decision-making framework: seeking help, managing emotions, anticipating consequences, recognizing rules and context, and testing assumptions and motives. Next, we present a vignette that poses a complex ethical and professional challenge and illustrate how each professional decision-making strategy could or should be used by characters in the case. To conclude, we review a series of educational practices and pedagogical tools intended to help trainers facilitate trainee learning, retention, and application of “SMART” decision-making strategies. (shrink)

This paper introduces two languages and associated logics designed to afford perspicuous representations of a range of natural language arguments involving adverbs and the like: first-order logic with basic adverbs (FOL-BA) and first-order logic with scoped adverbs (FOL-SA). The guiding logical idea is that an adverb can come between a term and the rest of the statement it is a part of, resulting in a logically stronger statement. I explain various interesting challenges that arise in the attempt to implement the (...) guiding idea, and provide solutions for some but not all of them. I conclude by outlining some directions for further research. (shrink)

I present two counterexamples to the recently back-in-favour truth-tracking account of knowledge: one involving a true belief resting on a counterfactually robust delusion, one involving a true belief acquired alongside a bunch of false beliefs. These counterexamples carry over to a recent modification of the theory due to Briggs and Nolan (2012), and seem invulnerable to a recent defence of the theory against known counterexamples, by Adams and Clarke (2005).

What might a Stoic approach to politics look like? David Goodhart aptly describes the political divide pervading Western societies in terms of the ‘somewheres,’ who are communitarian, rooted in particular places, and resistant to social and political change, versus the ‘anywheres,’ who are cosmopolitan, mobile, and enthusiastic embracers of change. Stoicism recognizes a similar distinction. This paper defends a conservative interpretation of Stoic politics. According to ‘Stoic conservatism,’ cosmopolitanism is an ethical ideal through which we perform the obligations assigned by (...) our communitarian role in society. The view is ‘conservative’ in that it favors existing institutions as the starting point for virtue instead of reasoning a priori about what virtue requires. Stoic politics consists neither in cosmopolitan transcendence of particular attachments, nor in passive acceptance of the communitarian status quo, but in ethical improvement toward virtue, within the political structure of society. (shrink)

G.A. Cohen was perhaps libertarianism’s most formidable critic. In Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality he levels several strong criticisms against Robert Nozick’s theory put forth in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. In this paper, I counter several of Cohen’s criticisms. The debate operates at three stages: self-ownership, world-ownership, and initial acquisition. At the first stage, Cohen does not attempt to refute self-ownership, but weaken its force in providing moral grounds for capitalism. Here I argue that Cohen’s attempt to overturn Nozick’s slavery argument (...) is unsuccessful because partial-slavery, while normatively different from full-slavery, is still normatively wrong. At the second stage, Cohen argues for a joint-ownership view of the world’s resources. In particular, he claims that self-ownership is rendered merely formal in a jointly-owned world and in a capitalist world. To rebut this challenge I show that even if Cohen is right about this, libertarian self-ownership is only formal in Cohen’s peculiar case where only two people exist and one owns everything. In contrast, self-ownership in a jointly-owned world is formal in all cases. Lastly, at the third stage, Cohen argues against Nozick’s interpretation of the Lockean proviso, claiming that it is impossible to satisfy. Granting Cohen’s argument here, I go on to defend Jan Narveson’s no-proviso view of acquisition from Cohen’s thus far unanswered criticism. I show that significantly, in his critique, Cohen equivocates between positive and negative rights. Taken jointly, my responses at these three stages ground the anti-egalitarian conclusion that, in Cohen’s words, ‘[e]xtensive inequality of condition is unavoidable, or avoidable only on pain of violating people’s rights to themselves and to things.’ The sequence, then, is from self-ownership, to world-ownership, via initial acquisition. (shrink)

The notion of rigidity looms large in philosophy of language, but is beset by difficulties. This paper proposes a simple theory of rigidity, according to which an expression has a world-relative semantic property rigidly when it has that property at, or with respect to, all worlds. Just as names, and certain descriptions like The square root of 4, rigidly designate their referents, so too are necessary truths rigidly true, and so too does cat rigidly have only animals in its extension. (...) After spelling out the theory, I argue that it enables us to avoid the headaches that attend the misbegotten desire to have a simple rigid/non-rigid distinction that applies to expressions, giving us a simple solution to the problem of generalizing the notion of rigidity beyond singular terms. (shrink)

In this paper, we prove a definable version of Kirszbraun's theorem in a non‐Archimedean setting for definable families of functions in one variable. More precisely, we prove that every definable function, where and, that is λ‐Lipschitz in the first variable, extends to a definable function that is λ‐Lipschitz in the first variable.

According to a standard story, part of what we have in mind when we say that an argument is valid is that it is necessarily truth preserving: if the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true. But—the story continues—that’s not enough, since ‘Roses are red, therefore roses are coloured’ for example, while it may be necessarily truth-preserving, is not so in virtue of form. Thus we arrive at a standard contemporary characterisation of validity: an argument is valid when (...) it is NTP in virtue of form. Here I argue that we can and should drop the N; the resulting account is simpler, less problematic, and performs just as well with examples. (shrink)