Asexuality is overlooked in the philosophical literature and in wider society. Such neglect produces incomplete or inaccurate accounts of romantic life and harms asexual people. We develop an account of asexuality to redress this neglect and enrich discussion of romantic life. Asexual experiences are diverse. Some asexual people have sex; some have romantic relationships in the absence of sex. We accept the common definition of asexuality as the absence of sexual attraction and explain how sexual attraction and sexual desire differ (...) by giving an affordance-like account of sexual attraction. Armed with that distinction, we show that asexuality is clearly different from celibacy or disorders of desire and that some existing philosophical theories of sexual desire struggle to accommodate asexual sexuality. We then build on asexual testimony about the diversity of non-sexual attractions to answer two common objections levelled at asexual romance: that romantic relationships require sexual attraction or that sex in the absence of sexual attraction is insufficiently focused on someone as an individual. Finally, we describe some of the ways asexuality has been erased or denigrated in society, and the specific injustices and harms that result. (shrink)

While Plantinga has famously argued that acceptance of neo-Darwinian theory commits one to the rejection of naturalism, Plantinga’s argument is vulnerable to an objection developed by Evan Fales. Not only does Fales’ objection undermine Plantinga’s original argument, it establishes a general challenge which any attempt to revitalize Plantinga’s argument must overcome. After briefly laying out the contours of this challenge, we attempt to meet it by arguing that because a purely naturalistic account of our etiology cannot explain the correlation between (...) our preference for simplicity and simplicity’s ability to serve as a veridical method of theory selection, the scientific realist is committed to the rejection of naturalism. (shrink)

In rebellion against low‐dimensional (e.g., two‐factor) theories in psychology, the authors make the case for high‐dimensional theories. This change in perspective requires a shift towards a focus on computation and quantitative reasoning.

We investigate whether standard counterfactual analyses of causation imply that the outcomes of space-like separated measurements on entangled particles are causally related. Although it has sometimes been claimed that standard CACs imply such a causal relation, we argue that a careful examination of David Lewis’s influential counterfactual semantics casts doubt on this. We discuss ways in which Lewis’s semantics and standard CACs might be extended to the case of space-like correlations.

De Dreu and Gross predict that attackers will have more difficulty winning conflicts than defenders. As their analysis is presumed to capture the dynamics of decentralized conflict, we consider how their framework compares with ethnographic evidence from small-scale societies, as well as chimpanzee patterns of intergroup conflict. In these contexts, attackers have significantly more success in conflict than predicted by De Dreu and Gross's model. We discuss the possible reasons for this disparity.

Wrongdoing is inescapable. We all do wrong and are wronged; and in response we often blame one another. But if blame is a defining feature of our social lives, so is ceasing to blame. We might excuse, justify, or forgive an offender; or simply let the offence go. Each mode of ceasing to blame is a social practice and each has characteristic norms that influence when and how we do it, as well as how it’s received. We argue that how (...) we relinquish blame, and how effective we are, depends on many circumstances only partially within our control. Like any norm-governed practice, one can do it well or poorly, appropriately or inappropriately, successfully or unsuccessfully. To successfully participate in a practice, one’s action must be done for the right reasons and secure uptake. We argue that social and material circumstances can compromise one’s ability to effectively cease to blame in the manner one prefers. But if one can fail, then one can lack access to particular ceasing to blame practices if one is regularly prevented from effectively relinquishing blame. However, uncooperative social and material circumstances do not only arise by chance. Our central argument is that circumstances of oppression can systematically compromise one’s ability and opportunities to effectively perform a variety of ceasing to blame practices. This deprivation is an insidious facet of oppression that is neglected both in theories of oppression and of forgiveness but which has significant implications for how we understand the power and purpose of forgiveness. (shrink)

In ‘Micromanagement and Poor Self-Control’, Chrisoula An-dreou argues that some cases of poor self-control are best understood as arising from poor self-management, in particular a kind of intrapersonal micromanagement. She argues that this furnishes us with a better understanding of those cases than the orthodox foreign force paradigm does (on which poor self-control amounts to diminished self-control). I argue that we cannot do without the foreign force paradigm to explain the cases that Andreou discusses. I suggest a both/and approach on (...) which poor self-management and diminished self-control together explain poor self-control. (shrink)

The modern ethical framework demands informed consent for research participation that includes disclosure of material information, as well as alternatives. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic (COVID-19) results in illness that often involves rapid deterioration. Despite the urgent need to find therapy, obtaining informed consent for COVID-19 research is needed. The current pandemic presents three types of challenges for investigators faced with obtaining informed consent for research participation: (1) uncertainty over key information to informed consent, (2) time (...) and pressure constraints, and (3) obligations regarding disclosure of new alternative therapies and re-consent. To mitigate consenting challenges, primary investigators need to work together to jointly promote urgent care and research into COVID-19. Actions they can take include (1) prior plan addressing ways to incorporate clinical research into clinical practice in emergency, (2) consider patients vulnerable with early deliberation on the consent process, (3) seek Legally Authorized Representatives (LARs), (4) create a collaborative research teams, (5) aim to consent once, despite evolving information during the pandemic, and (6) aim to match patients to a trial that will most benefit them. The COVID-19 pandemic both exacerbates existing challenges and raises unique obstacles for consent that require forethought and mindfulness to overcome. While research teams and clinician-investigators will need to be sensitive to their own contexts and adapt solutions accordingly, they can meet the challenge of obtaining genuinely informed consent during the current pandemic. (shrink)

Consider people’s ordinary concept of belief. This concept seems to pick out a particular psychological state. Indeed, one natural view would be that the concept of belief works much like the concepts one finds in cognitive science – not quite as rigorous or precise, perhaps, but still the same basic type of notion. But now suppose we turn to other concepts that people ordinarily use to understand the mind. Suppose we consider the concept happiness. Or the concept love. How are (...) these concepts to be understood? One obvious hypothesis would be that they are best understood as being more or less like the concept of belief. Maybe these concepts, too, pick out a particular mental state and thereby enable people to predict, explain and understand others’ behavior. We will argue that this hypothesis is mistaken. Instead, we suggest that the different concepts people use to understand the mind are fundamentally different from each other. Some of these concepts do indeed serve simply to pick out a particular mental state, but others allow a role for evaluative judgments. So, for example, our claim will be that when people are wondering whether a given agent is truly ‘happy’ or ‘in love,’ they are not merely trying to figure out whether this agent has a particular sort of mental state. They are also concerned in a central way with evaluating the agent herself. In short, our aim is to point to a striking sort of difference between the different concepts that people use to pick out psychological attitudes. We will be.. (shrink)

Previous studies linking personality and social integration with religiosity conflate the weakly religious with the completely nonreligious, and religious belief with group membership, leading to spurious associations. The present study characterizes the growing nonreligious population by comparing church and secular group members on personality characteristics and social integration. Although church members were higher in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and perceived social support, these differences were largely eliminated when controlling for demographics and group attendance. Secular group members were higher on Intellect/Openness. Many previously (...) reported characteristics associated with religiosity are a function not of belief itself, but of strong convictions and group identification. (shrink)

As militarization of bodies politic continues apace the world over, as military organizations again reveal themselves as primary political, economic and cultural forces in many societies, we argue that the emergent and potentially dominant form of political economic organization is a species of neo-feudal corporatism. Drawing upon Bourdieu, we theorize bodies politic as living habitus. Bodies politic are prepared for war and peace through new mediations, powerful means of public pedagogy. The process of militarization requires the generation of new, antagonistic (...) evaluations of other bodies politic. Such evaluations are inculcated via these mediations, the movement of meanings across time and space, between formerly disparate histories, places, and cultures. New mediations touch new and different aspects of the body politic: its eyes, its ears, its organs, but they are consistently targeted at the formation of dispositions, the prime movers of action. (shrink)

Although estrogens are widely considered circulating “sex steroid hormones” typically associated with female reproduction, recent evidence suggests that estrogens can act as local modulators of brain circuits in both males and females. The functional implications of this newly characterized estrogen signaling system have begun to emerge. This essay summarizes evidence in support of the hypothesis that the rapid production of estrogens in brain circuits can drive acute changes in both the production and perception of acoustic communication behaviors. These studies have (...) revealed two fundamental neurobiological concepts: (1) estrogens can be locally produced in brain circuits, independent of levels in nearby circuits and in the circulation and (2) estrogens can have very rapid effects within these brain circuits to modulate social vocalizations, acoustic processing, and sensorimotor integration. This vertebrate‐wide span of research, including vocalizing fishes, amphibians, and birds, emphasizes the importance of comparative model systems in understanding principles of neurobiology. (shrink)

Appropriate concerns about cost and unequal access to healthcare have resulted in the creation of powerful managed networks seeking to share the risks of high healthcare costs among plans, providers, and patients. Much to their credit, these managed networks have slowed the rise in healthcare spending by as much as 44% in markets with high HMO penetration. However, whether these savings will materially improve access and quality remains to be seen.

Compared to our understanding of positive prediction error signals occurring due to unexpected reward outcomes, less is known about the neural circuitry in humans that drives negative prediction errors during omission of expected rewards. While classical learning theories such as Rescorla–Wagner or temporal difference learning suggest that both types of prediction errors result from a simple subtraction, there has been recent evidence suggesting that different brain regions provide input to dopamine neurons which contributes to specific components of this prediction error (...) computation. Here, we focus on the brain regions responding to negative prediction error signals, which has been well-established in animal studies to involve a distinct pathway through the lateral habenula. We examine the activity of this pathway in humans, using a conditioned inhibition paradigm with high-resolution functional MRI. First, participants learned to associate a sensory stimulus with reward delivery. Then, reward delivery was omitted whenever this stimulus was presented simultaneously with a different sensory stimulus, the conditioned inhibitor. Both reward presentation and the reward-predictive cue activated midbrain dopamine regions, insula and orbitofrontal cortex. While we found significant activity at an uncorrected threshold for the CI in the habenula, consistent with our predictions, it did not survive correction for multiple comparisons and awaits further replication. Additionally, the pallidum and putamen regions of the basal ganglia showed modulations of activity for the inhibitor that did not survive the corrected threshold. (shrink)

Background Ethical and scientific principles require that clinical trials address an important question and have the resources needed to complete the study. However, there are no clear standards for review that would ensure that these principles are upheld.Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of nineteen experts in clinical trial design, conduct, and/or oversight to elucidate current practice and identify areas of need with respect to ensuring the scientific value and feasibility of clinical trials prior to initiation and (...) while ongoing. We used a priori and grounded theory to analyze the data and constant comparative method to induce higher order themes.Results Interviewees perceived determination of scientific value as the responsibility of the investigator and, secondarily, other parties who review or oversee research. Interviewees reported that ongoing trials are rarely reevaluated due to emerging evidence from external sources, evaluation is complex, and there would be value in the development of standards for monitoring and evaluating evidence systematically. Investigators, IRBs, and/or data monitoring committees (DMCs) could undertake these responsibilities. Feasibility assessments are performed but are typically inadequate; potential solutions are unclear.Conclusions There are three domains where current approaches are suboptimal and in which further guidance is needed. First, who has the responsibility for conducting scientific review, whether it be the investigator, IRB, and/or DMC is often unclear. Second, the standards for scientific review (e.g., appropriate search terms, data sources, and analytic plan) should be defined. Third, guidance is needed on the evaluation of ongoing studies in light of potentially new and evolving evidence, with particular reference to evidence from outside the trial itself. (shrink)

Leibovich et al. challenge the prevailing view that non-symbolic number sense is innate, that detection of numerosity is distinct from detection of continuous magnitude. In the present commentary, the authors' viewpoint is discussed in light of the integrative theory of numerical development along with implications for understanding mathematics disabilities.

Undertaking research involving vulnerable groups, such as those requiring resuscitation involves careful analysis during the ethical review process. When a person lacks the capacity to make an informed choice about their participation in a research study, a waiver of consent offers an alternative. This paper is based on a doctoral research study using ethnography to explore the resuscitative practices and experiences of rural nurses through observation and interviews. This paper aims to explore the ethical issues raised by the Human Research (...) Ethics Committee relating to consent of vulnerable patients requiring resuscitation within a rural context. In particular, the challenges of addressing risk (privacy) vs benefit (public) associated with a waiver of consent. This paper will consider why the rural context should be championed during the ethical review process, when decisions about public benefit are being deliberated. Utilising a communitarianism approach that advocates for greater rural representation during the ethical review processes will ensure that rural research involving vulnerable groups can be addressed safely and benefit not only the experiences and practices of rural nurses but also the wider rural communities they serve. (shrink)

This fourth and final volume of writings by Elizabeth Anscombe reprints her _ Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus_, together with a number of later essays on thought and language in which she explores issues of reason, representation, truth and existence. As with previous volumes this gathers hitherto inaccessible publications and previously unpublished texts. Singly and collectively the four volumes provide for a broader and deeper understanding of the thought of one of the twentieth century's most important anglophone philosophers.

On December 17, 1999, President Clinton signed the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999, which instituted a 90-day comment period for the amended Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Final Rule, a comprehensive set of guidelines that would affect how organs are allocated throughout the country. Barring further legislative action, the Final Rule, which has been over five years in the making, will be effective on March 16,2000.The Final Rule, issued by the Department of Health and Human (...) Services pursuant to the National Organ Transplant Act, was originally publishedApril 2, 1998. It provided a number of substantive changes to the process through which organs are allocated by the United Network for Organ Sharing, a private, non-profit organization charged with administering the national organ transplantation network. (shrink)

On December 17, 1999, President Clinton signed the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999, which instituted a 90-day comment period for the amended Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Final Rule, a comprehensive set of guidelines that would affect how organs are allocated throughout the country. Barring further legislative action, the Final Rule, which has been over five years in the making, will be effective on March 16,2000.The Final Rule, issued by the Department of Health and Human (...) Services pursuant to the National Organ Transplant Act, was originally publishedApril 2, 1998. It provided a number of substantive changes to the process through which organs are allocated by the United Network for Organ Sharing, a private, non-profit organization charged with administering the national organ transplantation network. (shrink)

It is no longer a revelation that companies have some responsibility to uphold human rights. However, delineating the boundaries of the relationship between business and human rights is more vexed. What is it that we are asking corporations to assume responsibility for and how far does that responsibility extend? This article focuses on the extent to which economic, social and cultural rights fall within a corporation's sphere of responsibility. It then analyses how corporations may be held accountable for violations of (...) such rights. Specifically, the article considers the use of soft law as a protective mechanism; it also details how victims of harmful corporate behaviour are using litigation (pursuant to ATCA and common law domestic causes of action) to seek redress and recognition of the harms they have directly or indirectly experienced. The article concludes with an analysis of Professor Ruggie's (the United Nations Special Representative on the issue of transnational corporations and human rights) 2008 and 2009 Reports in which it is suggested that a respect-based framework must be interpreted as imposing proactive requirements on companies to prevent the infringement of human rights. Future efforts must also be directed towards the recognition of a specialised complementary corporate responsibility to protect human rights. (shrink)

In Democracy and the Claims of Nature, the leading thinkers in the fields of environmental, political, and social theory come together to discuss the tensions and sympathies of democratic ideals and environmental values. The prominent contributors reflect upon where we stand in our understanding of the relationship between democracy and the claims of nature. Democracy and the Claims of Nature bridges the gap between the often competing ideals of the two fields, leading to a greater understanding of each for the (...) other. (shrink)

As the suspect interview is one of the key elements of a police investigation, it has received a great deal of merited attention from the scientific community. However, suspect interviews in child sexual abuse investigations is an understudied research area. In the present mixed-methods study, we examine Swedish and Norwegian police interviewers' self-reported goals, tactics, and emotional experiences when conducting interviews with suspected CSA offenders. The quantitative analyses found associations between the interviewers' self-reported goals, tactics, and emotions during these types (...) of suspect interviews. Interviewers who reported experiencing more negative emotions were more likely to employ confrontational tactics. Specifically, anger was positively associated with the goal of obtaining a confession and with aggressive tactics like raising one's voice and emphasizing the seriousness of the crime. Frustration and disgust displayed similar patterns. Somewhat contrasting these quantitative results, the thematic analysis identified a strong consensus that emotions should not and do not affect the police interviewers' work. Furthermore, the police interviewers described a range of strategies for managing emotions during the interview and for processing their emotional reactions afterwards. The present findings highlight the relevance of emotional processes in CSA suspect interviews and provide an initial exploration of the potentially complex relationship between the goals, tactics, and emotional experiences of police interviewers who question CSA suspects. (shrink)

The latest collection of essays from the cutting edge of psychedelic research, based on talks given by their authors at Breaking Convention 2019, held at The University of Greenwich, London. The largest symposium of its kind, Breaking Convention features more than 120 academic presentations biennially, and is widely regarded as the foremost global platform for serious research into psychedelic science and culture. Within these pages are essays demonstrating a shift in psychedelia. Topics include sustainability, death, the shadow, archetypes, conservation, history, (...) phenomenology, war, power, madness, and the marriage of energy and matter. An eclectic collection that reflects the diverse array of speakers that present at Breaking Convention, and echoes the shifts currently occurring in psychedelia: a build up of tension before new ground is created. (shrink)

Many have thought that there is a problem with causal commerce between immaterial souls and material bodies. In Physicalism or Something Near Enough, Jaegwon Kim attempts to spell out that problem. Rather than merely posing a question or raising a mystery for defenders of substance dualism to answer or address, he offers a compelling argument for the conclusion that immaterial souls cannot causally interact with material bodies. We offer a reconstruction of that argument that hinges on two premises: Kim’s Dictum (...) and the Nowhere Man principle. Kim’s Dictum says that causation requires a spatial relation. Nowhere Man says that souls can’t be in space. By our lights, both premises can be called into question. We’ll begin our evaluation of the argument by pointing out some consequences of Kim’s Dictum. For some, these will be costs. We will then present two defeaters for Kim’s Dictum and a critical analysis of Kim’s case for Nowhere Man. The upshot is that Kim’s argument against substance dualism fails. (shrink)

Rules regulating social behavior raise challenging questions about cultural evolution in part because they frequently confer group-level benefits. Current multilevel selection theories contend that between-group processes interact with within-group processes to produce norms and institutions, but within-group processes have remained underspecified, leading to a recent emphasis on cultural group selection as the primary driver of cultural design. Here we present the self-interested enforcement (SIE) hypothesis, which proposes that the design of rules importantly reflects the relative enforcement capacities of competing parties. (...) We show that, in addition to explaining patterns in cultural change and stability, SIE can account for the emergence of much group-functional culture. We outline how this process can stifle or accelerate cultural group selection, depending on various social conditions. Self-interested enforcement has important bearings on the emergence, stability, and change of rules. (shrink)

Balancing Change and Tradition in Global Education Reform is an invaluable resource for policymakers, faculty, students, and anyone interested in how decisions made about the education system ultimately affect the quality of education, educational access, and social justice.

We report the results of an exploratory study that examines the judgments of climate scientists, climate policy experts, astrophysicists, and non-experts (N = 3367) about the factors that contribute to the creation and persistence of disagreement within climate science and astrophysics and about how one should respond to expert disagreement. We found that, as compared to non-experts, climate experts believe that within climate science (i) there is less disagreement about climate change, (ii) methodological factors play less of a role in (...) generating disagreements, (iii) fewer personal or institutional biases influence climate research, and (iv) there is more agreement about which methods should be used to examine relevant phenomena we also observed that the uniquely American political context predicted experts’ judgments about some of these factors. We also found that, in regard to disagreements concerning cosmic ray physics, and commensurate with the greater inherent uncertainty and data lacunae in their field, astrophysicists working on cosmic rays were generally more willing to acknowledge expert disagreement, more open to the idea that a set of data can have multiple valid interpretations, and generally less quick to dismiss someone articulating a non-standard view as non-expert, than climate scientists were in regard to climate science. (shrink)

This article argues that history played a larger role in the thought of Gottlob Frege than has usually been acknowledged. Frege’s logical writings frequently employed statements about the past as examples that included references to historical persons. Frege also described history as a science and argued that historical propositions could support valid inferences and reliably identify historical persons and events. But Frege’s eternalist theory of reference, designed primarily for formal concepts and objects, struggled to accommodate such propositions. Identifying an objective (...) referent for the subjectivity of historical actors was particularly problematic. The article suggests that Frege’s writings are interesting for the philosopher of history for at least two reasons: first, his work is clarificatory when considering the key features that historical propositions must have to count as objective knowledge, and second, it foreshadowed the issues with historicity that analytical philosophy experienced in the twentieth century. It concludes that the problems Frege raised exposed the need for a new concept of inter-subjectivity to replace his own Platonic foundation for objectivity. (shrink)

Choice overload is the phenomenon that increasing the number of options in an assortment makes choosing between options more difficult, sometimes leading to avoidance of making a choice. In this pre-registered online experiment, choice overload was tested in a charitable behavior context, where participants faced a monetary donation choice. Charity organization assortment size was varied between groups, ranging between 2 and 80 options. The results indicate that there were no meaningful differences in donation likelihood between the 16 organization assortment sizes, (...) neither for individuals with high preference certainty nor for individuals with uncertain preferences among charitable causes. Having more charitable organizations to choose from did not affect donation behavior. (shrink)

ABSTRACTLeon Goldstein's critical philosophy of history has suffered a relative lack of attention, but it is the outcome of an unusual story. He reached conclusions about the autonomy of the discipline of history similar to those of R. G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott, but he did so from within the Anglo‐American analytic style of philosophy that had little tradition of discussing such matters. Initially, Goldstein attempted to apply a positivistic epistemology derived from Hempel's philosophy of natural science to historical knowledge, (...) but gradually formulated an anti‐realistic epistemology that firmly distinguished historical knowledge of the past not only from the scientific perspective but also from fictional and common‐sense attitudes to the past. Among his achievements were theories of the distinctive nature of historical evidence and historical propositions, of the constructed character of historical events, and of the relationship between historical research and contemporary culture. Taken together, his ideas merit inclusion among the most important twentieth‐century contributions to the problem of historical knowledge. (shrink)

Leon Goldstein’s critical philosophy of history has suffered a relative lack of attention, but it is the outcome of an unusual story. He reached conclusions about the autonomy of the discipline of history similar to those of R. G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott, but he did so from within the Anglo-American analytic style of philosophy that had little tradition of discussing such matters. Initially, Goldstein attempted to apply a positivistic epistemology derived from Hempel’s philosophy of natural science to historical knowledge, (...) but gradually formulated an anti-realistic epistemology that firmly distinguished historical knowledge of the past not only from the scientific perspective but also from fictional and common-sense attitudes to the past. Among his achievements were theories of the distinctive nature of historical evidence and historical propositions, of the constructed character of historical events, and of the relationship between historical research and contemporary culture. Taken together, his ideas merit inclusion among the most important twentieth-century contributions to the problem of historical knowledge. (shrink)