Current technology has dramatically increased the prevalence of studies to establish the genetic correlates of a wide variety of human characteristics, including not only the physical attributes that determine what we look like and the risk of physiological disease but also the psychological and cognitive characteristics that often define who we are as individuals. Perhaps one of the most deeply personal and often controversial characteristics is the concept of general intelligence, known in the psychological literature as “g.” As with the (...) genetic study of any complex trait, the first step in studying the genetics of g is to carefully define the characteristic of interest. For g, this entails establishing what intelligence means and providing a clear operational definition for how it will be measured. In this paper, we provide a brief historical and theoretical overview of the construct of general intelligence, describe its relationship to the contemporary measurement of intelligence, and discuss these concepts in light of the challenges associated with defining g as a characteristic in the study of genetics. (shrink)

Problem-based leaming (PBL) is an increasingly popular curricular technique for developing academic and intellectual talent. Aligning PBL activities and subsequent student assessment often proves to be difficult for teachers, with many PBL activities followed by traditional, pencil-and-paper assessments. This misalignment confuses students by disrupting their understanding of teacher expectations. In this paper, we discuss the importance of instruction-assessment alignment during PBL and provide detailed examples of exemplary units.

Problem-based leaming (PBL) is an increasingly popular curricular technique for developing academic and intellectual talent. Aligning PBL activities and subsequent student assessment often proves to be difficult for teachers, with many PBL activities followed by traditional, pencil-and-paper assessments. This misalignment confuses students by disrupting their understanding of teacher expectations. In this paper, we discuss the importance of instruction-assessment alignment during PBL and provide detailed examples of exemplary units.

Jonathan Walkan challenges cognitive science's dominant model of mental representation and proposes a novel, well-devised alternative. The traditional view in the cognitive sciences uses a linguistic model of mental representation. That logic-based model of cognition informs and constrains both the classical tradition of artificial intelligence and modeling in the connectionist tradition. It falls short, however, when confronted by the frame problem---the lack of a principled way to determine which features of a representation must be updated when new information becomes (...) available. So far, proposed alternatives, including the imagistic model, have not resolved the problem. Waskan proposes the Intrinsic Cognitive Models hypothesis, according to which representational states can be concpetualized as the cognitive equivalent of scale models.Waskan argues further that the proposal that humans harbor and manipulate cognitive counterparts to scale models offers the only viable explanation for what most clearly differentiates humans from other creatures: the capacity to engage in truth-preserving manipulation of representations. The ICM hypothesis, he claims, can be distinguished from sentence-based accounts of truth preservation in a way that is fully compatible with what is known about the brain. (shrink)

In 1927, Walter Lippmann published The Phantom Public, denouncing the ‘mystical fallacy of democracy.’ Decrying romantic democratic models that privilege self-governance, he writes: “I have not happened to meet anybody, from a President of the United States to a professor of political science, who came anywhere near to embodying the accepted ideal of the sovereign and omnicompetent citizen.” Almost 90 years later, Lippmann’s pragmatism is as relevant as ever, and should be applied in new contexts where similar self-governance concerns persist. (...) This paper does just that, repurposing Lippmann’s argument in the context of the ongoing debate over the role of the digital citizen in Big Data management. It is argued that proposals by the Federal Trade Commission, the White House and the US Congress, championing failed notice and choice privacy policy, perpetuate a self-governance fallacy comparable to Lippmann’s, referred to here as the fallacy of data privacy self-management. Even if the digital citizen had the faculties and the system for data privacy self-management, the digital citizen has little time for data governance. We desire the freedom to pursue the ends of digital production, without being inhibited by the means. We want privacy, and safety, but cannot complete all that is required for its protection. If it is true that the fallacy of democracy is similar to the fallacy of data privacy self-management, then perhaps the pragmatic solution is representative data management: a combination of non/for-profit digital dossier management via infomediaries that can ensure the protection of personal data, while freeing individuals from what Lippmann referred to as an ‘unattainable ideal.’. (shrink)

This title presents a comprehensive guide to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) which is an increasingly popular approach to qualitative inquiry taught to undergraduate and postgraduate students today.

In our attempts to achieve privacy and reputation deliverables, advocating for service providers and other data managers to open Big Data black boxes and be more transparent about consent processes, algorithmic details, and data practice is easy. Moving from this call to meaningful forms of transparency, where the Big Data details are available, useful, and manageable is more difficult. Most challenging is moving from that difficult task of meaningful transparency to the seemingly impossible scenario of achieving, consistently and ubiquitously, meaningful (...) forms of consent, where individuals are aware of data practices and implications, understand these realities, and agree to them as well. This commentary unpacks these concerns in the online consent context. It emphasizes that self-governance fallacy pervades current approaches to achieving digital forms of privacy, exemplified by the assertion that transparency and information access alone are enough to help individuals achieve privacy and reputation protections. (shrink)

Imagine that the person you see through the looking glass is a real person, with her own experiences, living in an environment that is the mirror-reverse of yours. You look at your right-hand glove as you put it on your right hand; she looks at her left-hand glove as she puts it on her left hand. You feel your heart beating on your left side; she feels her heart beating on her right side. You hear a bird chirping out the (...) window to your left; she hears a bird chirping out the window to her right. Is there any difference between your experience—your what-it-is-like phenomenal character—and hers? She is looking at her left-hand glove, the mirror-reverse of you as you look at your right-hand glove. Does she see what you see, a right-hand glove, or the reverse of what you see, a left-hand glove? Since her environment is the mirror-reverse of yours, and she seems to get by in it just fine, you'd probably assume, if you had to guess, that she sees it correctly. She is looking at her left-hand glove, after all. So it stands to reason that she is having an experience as of a left-hand glove, not a right-hand glove. And it stands to reason—it seems obvious—that an experience as of a left-hand glove differs in what it is like from an experience as of a right-hand glove. In this paper, I will argue that this last presupposition, obvious though it may seem, is false. I'll argue that (unless dualism is true) there is no intrinsic difference between what it is like to experience a left-hand glove and what it is like to experience a right-hand glove: if there are any relevant experiential differences, these are either merely comparative (differences in what it is like to compare gloves) or cognitive (differences in what it is like to bring an experience of a glove under a concept like LEFT or RIGHT). So your mirror-reverse twin, who won't differ from you in what she is comparing or thinking, will have the same (type of) experience as you. I'll call the position I am arguing against orientation–experience categoricalism, and the position I am arguing for orientation–experience relationism. Orientation–experience relationism is a surprising thesis, one whose falsity you might take for granted. I will argue for it by cases. Things go wrong for the orientation–experience categoricalist in one sort of way if we imagine that you and your mirror-twin's experiences differ: basically, this leads to absurdity if we imagine that you and she both live at a world with a non-orientable spatial topology (in the sense in which a Möbius strip or Klein bottle are non-orientable). Things go wrong for the orientation–experience categoricalist in a different sort of way if we assume that you and your twin would experience the same, but that someone else might have the experience that we were just imagining that your twin might have. Under these assumptions, we have to accept the existence of partial zombies, who lack the relevant phenomenology but behave as if they have it, at very close, empirically possible worlds. In an appendix, I argue that property dualism is the best alternative for those who cannot bring themselves to accept orientation-experience relationism. (shrink)

Today, there are different understandings of the first article on the content of the Christian faith, for which an analysis from a theological perspective is necessary. This research sought to reveal the meaning of the first article on the content of the Christian faith in recent theological works that have been produced, through the use of a hermeneutic exercise, conducting a bibliometric and categorical analysis and using NVivo software to analyse the qualitative data. We concluded that the recent theological literature (...) addresses the meaning of the first article of the Christian faith based on the existence, concept and definition of God and his attributes, as well as his power, behaviour, creation, revelation and reign. Although there is little extant material compared to other topics or areas of knowledge that can be explored using these tools, this fact is explained because, normally, theologians are not interested in publishing in high-impact journals. The way of approaching God in contemporary literature can be enriched by taking into account specific contexts, such as poverty, discrimination, suffering, violence, human trafficking, immigration and political realities, in such a way that it is not only a metaphysical reflection of God but also a historical and immanent and even an interreligious research that broadens the concept of the Christian God and answers questions that contemporary society asks in daily life. (shrink)

The paradox of pain is that pain is in some ways like a bodily state and in other ways like a mental state. You can have a pain in your shin, but there is no denying that you are in pain if it feels like you are. How can a state be both in your shin and in your mind? Evaluativism is a promising answer. According to evaluativism, an experience of pain in your shin represents that there is a disturbance (...) in your shin, and that it is bad that this disturbance is there. Thus, the experience brings you to tend to your shin by telling you something about the state of your shin. But the paradox of pain still confronts evaluativism in the form of the killing the messenger objection: The evaluativist has a nice story about our body‐directed responses to pain, like tending to wounds, but this story does not explain responses to pain, like taking painkillers, that seem to be experience‐directed. Evaluativists have offered accounts of experience‐directed responses to pain, but I will argue that these accounts conflict with the Transparency thesis—the claim that we can only access our experiences inferentially. Evaluativism and Transparency are natural bedfellows, so this is a problem for evaluativists. Having argued as much, I will go on to develop a new evaluativist account of taking painkillers, which does not conflict with Transparency. I call it naïve evaluativism. According to naïve evaluativism, we experience painkillers as making tissue damage or disruption less bad, and absent further reflection, that is, why we take them. (shrink)

Theories concerning the structure, or format, of mental representation should (1) be formulated in mechanistic, rather than metaphorical terms; (2) do justice to several philosophical intuitions about mental representation; and (3) explain the human capacity to predict the consequences of worldly alterations (i.e., to think before we act). The hypothesis that thinking involves the application of syntax-sensitive inference rules to syntactically structured mental representations has been said to satisfy all three conditions. An alternative hypothesis is that thinking requires the construction (...) and manipulation of the cognitive equivalent of scale models. A reading of this hypothesis is provided that satisfies condition (1) and which, even though it may not fully satisfy condition (2), turns out (in light of the frame problem) to be the only known way to satisfy condition (3). (shrink)

I argue that there can be no such thing as a borderline case of the predicate ‘phenomenally conscious’: for any given creature at any given time, it cannot be vague whether that creature is phenomenally conscious at that time. I first defend the Positive Characterization Thesis, which says that for any borderline case of any predicate there is a positive characterization of that case that can show any sufficiently competent speaker what makes it a borderline case. I then appeal to (...) the familiar claim that zombies are conceivable, and I argue that this claim entails that there can be no positive characterizations of borderline cases of ‘phenomenally conscious’. By the Positive Characterization Thesis, it follows that ‘phenomenally conscious’ can not have any borderline cases. (shrink)

This article explores a concept of artistic transgression I call aesthetic disobedience that runs parallel to the political concept of civil disobedience. Acts of civil disobedience break some law in order to publicly draw attention to and recommend the reform of a conflict between the commitments of a legal system and some shared commitments of a community. Likewise, acts of aesthetic disobedience break some entrenched artworld norm in order to publicly draw attention to and recommend the reform of a conflict (...) between artworld commitments and some shared commitments of a community. Considering artistic transgressions under the concept of aesthetic disobedience highlights often-overlooked features of modern artworld practices. Most significantly, it draws attention to the deliberative participation of a wide variety of citizens of the artworld, including not just artists and performers but also members of audiences, in the transformation of the rules and boundaries of the artworld itself. (shrink)

Among the instrumental value defenses for biodiversity conservation is the argument that biodiversity is necessary to support ecosystem functioning. Lower levels of biodiversity yield lower levels of ecosystem functioning and hence the inference that we should conserve biodiversity. In our book Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics, we point out three problems with this inference. (1) The empirical support for such an inference derives from experiments conducted on a very small set of ecosystem types (mainly grasslands and fresh water aquatic) (...) and ecosystem functions (mainly nutrient uptake, biomass production, and decomposition rates). These experiments suffer from a number of largely unavoidable logistical constraints making the generality of their results questionable. (2) Even if the experimental results were unequivocal, their lack of external validity would still raise significant questions about how (if at all) these results apply to real world conservation problems. And (3) even if the experimental results were unequivocal and completely applicable to conservation problems, relying on such defenses implies other rational policy commitments that are at odds with other positions that environmentalists commonly take. Odenbaugh and I disagree largely about what inferences follow from these points rather than about the points themselves. I think that what follows is that if environmentalists want to use instrumental value defenses, then we need to accept that not all biodiversity is useful to us, and parts that are useful are not necessarily more useful than alternatives that might threaten biodiversity. I also think that the unpalatable implied commitments need to be taken seriously. This may mean that we environmentalists have to accept that biodiversity should not always be conserved, and that parts of the environmentalist agenda are little more than strong personal preferences that others need not respect. If environmentalists are willing to accept these conclusions, then there are no problems with relying on these instrumental value defenses, but I suspect that environmentalists are likely to be unhappy with such conclusions. (shrink)

In their recent article, ‘Why lockdown of the elderly is not ageist and why levelling down equality is wrong’, Savulescu and Cameron argue for selective isolation of the elderly as an alternative to general lockdown. An important part of their argument is the claim that the latter amounts to ‘levelling down equality’ and that this is ‘unethical’ or even ‘morally repugnant’. This response argues that they fail to justify either part of this claim: the claim that levelling down is always (...) morally wrong is subject to challenges that Savulescu and Cameron do not consider; and a policy of maintaining general lockdown does not constitute levelling down, as it provides absolute benefits to those who would be worse off under selective isolation. (shrink)

A problem of the many Fs arises in cases where intuitively there is precisely one F (in the region you are talking about), but when you look closely you find many candidates for being that F, each one apparently as well-qualified as the next. Imagine an apparently solitary cloud in an otherwise blue sky. Look closer, and you'll see lots of water vapor molecules, with no one collection of them more eligible than the others to count as the cloud. Many (...) things are like this when you look closely enough. The problem arises for mundane things like rocks, houses and coins. It also arises for entities that present special philosophical challenges, like persons and experiencers. In this essay, I present a new argument that the problem of the many experiencers is an especially hard problem of the many, and property dualism—the view that properties that there is something it is like to instantiate are irreducible—may be the best way to solve it. (shrink)

Jonathan Jacobs examines the injustice of incarceration in the U.S. and U.K., both during incarceration and upon release into civil society. Situated at the intersection of criminology and political philosophy, Jacobs's focus is on moral reasoning, and he argues that the current state of incarceration is antithetical to the project of liberal democracy, as it strips incarcerated people of their agency. He advocates for reforms through a renewed commitment to the values and principles of liberal democracy and proposes a (...) retributivist conception of sanction to reform the criminal justice system and emphasizes the importance of proportionality. (shrink)

A study of fundamental issues in metaethics and in moral psychology, surveying important approaches with an emphasis on the disputed status of moral value and the roles of cognition and sensibility. Coverage of the issues includes discussion of significant thinkers from antiquity to the present.

This book begins with a critique of moral relativism and proceeds to develop a realist account of practical wisdom. The central claims are that there are objective moral facts and that knowledge of these facts can be action-guiding. The justification for these claims involves explaining the role of imagination in moral judgment and action and also showing how a realist approach to morality enables us to better account for immorality, revealing it to involve ignorance, error or falsification. The book concludes (...) with an analysis of how the character of social relations is crucial to the formation of self-conceptions and the development of moral knowledge and moral imagination. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Savulescu and Schuklenk defend and extend their earlier arguments against a right to medical conscientious objection in response to criticisms raised by Cowley. I argue that while it would be preferable to be less accommodating of medical conscientious than many countries currently are, Savulescu and Schuklenk's argument that conscientious objection is ‘simply unprofessional’ is mistaken. The professional duties of doctors should be defined in relation to the interests of patients and society, and for (...) reasons set out in this article, these may support limited accommodation of conscientious objection on condition that it does not impede access to services. Moreover, the fact that conscientious objection appears to involve unjustifiable compromise from the objector's point of view is not a reason for society not to offer that compromise. Arguing for robust enforcement of the no-impediment condition, rather than opposing conscientious objection in principle, may be a more effective way of addressing the harms resulting from an over-permissive conscientious objection policy. (shrink)

The *Kāśyapaparivarta, an early Mahāyāna sūtra, has a complex history. Sanskrit and Tibetan versions, and some of its Chinese translations, have been available to scholars for almost a century, thanks to Staël-Holstein’s 1926 editio princeps. Yet no comprehensive survey of available sources, or critical appraisal of their antecedants, has been published, and most importantly, essential Chinese materials have long been overlooked. The present contribution focuses most centrally on the Chinese translations of the scripture. In addition, the relation of the sūtra (...) to the Mahāratnakūṭa collection of forty-nine texts and the possible Indic origins of the latter are explored. (shrink)

Are there key respects in which character and character defects are voluntary? Can agents with serious vices be rational agents? Jonathan Jacobs answers in the affirmative. Moral character is shaped through voluntary habits, including the ways we habituate ourselves, Jacobs believes. Just as individuals can voluntarily lead unhappy lives without making unhappiness an end, so can they degrade their ethical characters through voluntary action that does not have establishment of vice as its end. Choosing Character presents an account of (...) ethical disability, expanding the domain of responsibility and explicating the role of character in ethical cognition. Jacobs contends that agents become ethically disabled voluntarily when their habits impair their ability to properly appreciate ethical considerations. Such agents are rational, responsible individuals who are yet incapable of virtuous action. The view develops and modifies Aristotelian claims concerning the fixity of character. Jacobs' interpretation is developed in contrast to the overlooked work of Maimonides, who also used Aristotelian resources but argued for the possibility of character change. The notion of ethical disability has profound ramifications for ethics and for current debates about blame and punishment. (shrink)

The ontology of musical works often sets the boundaries within which evaluation of musical works and performances takes place. Questions of ontology are therefore often taken to be prior to and apart from the evaluative questions considered by either performers as they present works to audiences or an audience’s critical reflection on a performance. In this paper I argue that, while the ontology of musical works may well set the boundaries of legitimate evaluation, ontological questions should not be considered as (...) prior to or apart from critical evaluation. Rather, ontological claims are a type of critical evaluation made within musical practices. I argue that philosophers of music might learn from the debate in political philosophy about the difficulty of setting the limits of public reason in a way that remains open to a plurality of legitimate evaluative perspectives. Just as pre-political or metaphysical identification of the boundaries of public reason fail to accommodate the fact of pluralism in contemporary democratic politics, so too does a metaphysical identification of the boundaries of legitimate evaluation of musical works and performances fail to accommodate the fact of pluralism in contemporary musical practices. I apply John Rawls’s formulation of political liberalism, arguing that musical ontology should be critical, not metaphysical. (shrink)

While Billy Budd's beauty has often been connected to his innocence and his moral goodness, the significance of the musical character of his beauty—what I will argue is the site of a struggle for political expression—has not been remarked upon by commentators of Melville's novella. It has, however, been deeply explored by Britten's opera. Music has often been situated at, or just beyond, the limits of communication; it has served as a medium of the ineffable, of unsaid and unsayable truths (...) (and lies), of an expressive power beyond language and reason. It is this expressive but communicatively problematic role that Billy embodies and that Billy Budd sets into political motion. In this essay, I would like to suggest that Billy's musical beauty can only be fully appreciated, and assumes full significance, when considered within the context of the various conceptions of beauty, and corresponding conceptions of authority, presented in the novella and in the opera. In particular, I will argue that Billy's beauty is a modern one that calls for the active participation of its audience. (shrink)

A recent focus of the debate on conscientious objection in healthcare is the question of whether practitioners should have to justify their refusal to perform certain functions. A recent article by Cowley addresses a practical aspect of this controversy, namely the question of whether doctors claiming conscientious objector status in relation to abortion should be required, like their counterparts claiming exemption from military conscription, to defend their claim before a tribunal. Cowley argues against the use of tribunals in the medical (...) case, on the grounds that there are likely to be fewer unjustified claims to conscientious objection in this context than in the military, and that in any case tribunals will not be an effective way of distinguishing genuine and false cases. I reject these arguments and propose a different conception of the role of a medical conscientious objection tribunal. (shrink)

In this original study, Jonathan Jacobs provides a new account of ethical realism that combines both abstract meta-ethical issues defining the debate on realism and concrete topics in moral psychology. Jacobs argues that practical reasoners can both understand the ethical significance of facts and be motivated to act by that understanding. In that sense, objective considerations are prescriptive. In his discussion of the theory of practical realism, he extends themes and claims originating in Aristotelian ethics while engaging with the (...) most important contemporary literature. Arguing that desire and reason can agree on what is good, Jacobs explains how good action is naturally pleasing to the agent. In acting well, the agent affirms certain values and enjoys doing so. Jacobs grounds his explanation of ethical value in detailed explorations of the moral psychology of self-love, friendship, and respect. Students and scholars of philosophy will be intrigued by this integrated account of meta-ethics, practical reason, and moral psychology. (shrink)

Stein Tibetan 724 was earlier identified as a list of virtues of the Buddha Amitābha. A new reading of the document and identification of its Chinese source allow its re-identification instead as a list of the virtues of invoking the Buddha Amitābha in a loud voice. The article offers a corrected transcription of the manuscript, presents and examines possible sources, and suggests the most plausible proximate original for the Tibetan translation, briefly exploring the practice of loud invocation as a Buddhist (...) practice in medieval Dunhuang. (shrink)

Can we solve the Problem of the Many, and give a general account of the indeterminacy in definite descriptions that give rise to it, by appealing to metaphysically indeterminate entities? I argue that we cannot. I identify a feature common to the relevant class of definite descriptions, and derive a contradiction from the claim that each such description is satisfied by a metaphysically indeterminate entity.

The neurodiversity paradigm is presented by its proponents as providing a philosophical foundation for the activism of the neurodiversity movement. Its central claims are that autism and other neurodivergent conditions are not disorders because they are not intrinsically harmful, and that they are valuable, natural and/or normal parts of human neurocognitive variation. This paper: (a) identifies the non‐disorder claim as the most central of these, based on its prominence in the literature and connections with the practical policy claims that the (...) paradigm is supposed to support; (b) describes the heterogeneity of autism at the behavioural and causal levels, and argues that at the behavioural level this encompasses ways of being autistic that are harmful in ways that cannot be not wholly attributed to discrimination or unjust social arrangements, challenging the claim that autism is not a disorder; (c) considers and rejects responses to this challenge based on separation of high‐ and low‐functioning autism, separation of autism from co‐occurring conditions, and viewing autism as part of an individual’s identity. Two of these responses fail for reasons that are themselves connected with the behavioural and/or causal heterogeneity of autism. (shrink)

A collection of new papers by ten philosophers exploring relations between conceptions of natural law and theism, ranging from Plato to the early modern period. Rather than defending a a specific view of natural law, the papers explicate the complex texture of the relations between the diverse conceptions of natural law and diverse conceptions of theism and its significance for moral and political thought.

Hart commences his essays by stating what he thinks is the search and its concomitant questions. The search he asserts is for principles to justify punishment. Unfortunately, no attempt is made to describe criteria of justification, let alone what is meant by principles. The questions that arise are in terms of giving a general justification for punishing individuals and for determining the severity of that punishment; and of establishing the appropriate method for selection of objects of punishment. No reference is (...) made to a general societal system, nor to the nature of a whole criminal process functioning from statutes through police, to courts and judges. He then describes a "General Justifying Aim" and a system of distribution of punishment. (shrink)

Discusses the respects in which religiously grounded considerations can have an appropriate---even important--role in the public and political discourse of a liberal polity. Examines the role tradition can have in enabling people to attain a reasoned justification for moral ideas and ideals, i.e., tradition is not always an impediment to universally valid or objective considerations. Also, discusses respects in which modern liberalism owes an important debt to religious ideas.

Philosophers of music commonly distinguish performative from critical interpretations. I would like to suggest that the distinction between critical and performative interpretations is well captured by an analogy to legal critics and judges. This parallel draws attention to several features of performative interpretation that are typically overlooked, and deemphasizes epistemic problems with performative interpretations that I believe are typically blown out of proportion and ultimately fail to capture interesting features of performative interpretation. There is an important distinction to be made (...) between critical and performative interpretation, but its source lies in a difference between the authority of critical and performative interpretations. (shrink)