The gap between economic rationality, as embedded in utility maximization, and ethical rationality, identified with a set of rules that prescribe the right course of action, has been a challenging issue for economists, philosophers, and business ethicists. Despite the difference and the noncompetition between a scientific economic approach of economics and business ethics, and a behavioral and philosophical one, we highlight the importance of the Aristotelian concept of prudence or phronesis applied to business activity. Phronesis allows for a conceptualization of (...) rationality that can be simultaneously applied to economics and ethics. It also allows conceiving the intrinsically ethical nature of economic rationality. This relationship requires an appropriate education and the intervention of the state. (shrink)

In this article I maintain the importance of the Aristotelian concept of prudence or phronesis applied to business ethics, distinguishing its meaning from Solomon and Hartman’s approaches to Aristotelian business ethics. Whereas Solomon stresses the value of perception of particulars and Hartman criticizes the incapacity of Aristotelian phronesis to dwell with the interests of others, I advocate that Aristotelian virtue ethics is important because the concept of phronesis does three things: (a) stresses the rational calculation and general principles or rules (...) in virtue ethics, in general, and business ethics, in particular; (b) provides a communal-based ethics principle; and c) offers us a clear comprehension about what calculation or reasoning is in ethics. (shrink)

Habermas maintains that neoliberalism precludes the building of a European demos and entails a regression towards the exclusionary but still democratic nation state. Although this article agrees with Habermas’s claim regarding the regressive impact of neoliberalism, it argues that this regression is best described as moving not towards an exclusionary but still democratic national people but rather towards an illiberal, anti-democratic nation state.

Main description: Over the past years global justice has established itself as one of the new and most promising frontiers of political theory. Sovereign Justice collects valuable contributions from scholars of both continental and analytic tradition, and aims to investigate into the relationship between global justice and the nation state. It deals with the moral relevance of national boundaries and cosmopolitanism, and takes into account the most influential traditions that shape current approaches to the subject, especially those descending from Rawls (...) and Kant. (shrink)

This short piece draws on political philosophy to show how social media interference operations can be used by hostile states to weaken the apparent legitimacy of democratic governments. Democratic societies are particularly vulnerable to this form of attack because democratic governments depend for their legitimacy on citizens' trust in one another. But when citizen see one another as complicit in the distribution of deceptive content, they lose confidence in the epistemic preconditions for democracy. The piece concludes with policy recommendations for (...) how democratic governments should protect themselves. (shrink)

Deepfake technology uses machine learning to fabricate video and audio recordings that represent people doing and saying things they've never done. In coming years, malicious actors will likely use this technology in attempts to manipulate public discourse. This paper prepares for that danger by explicating the unappreciated way in which recordings have so far provided an epistemic backstop to our testimonial practices. Our reasonable trust in the testimony of others depends, to a surprising extent, on the regulative effects of the (...) ever-present possibility of recordings of the events they testify about. As deepfakes erode the epistemic value of recordings, we may then face an even more consequential challenge to the reliability of our testimonial practices themselves. (shrink)

This article presents an analytic critique of the predominant revisionist theoretical paradigm of just war (henceforth: revisionism). This is accomplished by means of a precise description and explanation of the practicability problem that confronts it, namely that soldiers that revisionism would deem “unjust” are bound to fail to fulfil the duties that revisionism imposes on them, because these duties are overdemanding. The article locates the origin of the practicability problem in revisionism’s overidealized conception of a soldier as an individual rational (...) agent analogous to the aggressor or defender in a case of lethal self-defense, who is capable of reflecting on the morality of his status in war and of the killing he performs and thus of recognizing his revisionist duties. Revisionism, however, ignores the following fact: Killing in war is not a natural human behavior. This is why training soldiers to kill is—and arguably always has been—a necessity for the existence of war and the killing that occurs in it. Moreover, this training involves a certain level of moral desensitization to violence whose goal is to prevent soldiers from thoroughly reflecting on the morality of the killing they engage in. Hence, war and killing can only exist if soldiers are trained in such a way that they do not reflect on whether they could be addressees of revisionist duties in the first place. This means that military training is a “constitutive condition” of soldiers and war, which is why it cannot excuse their noncompliance with revisionist duties, thus making these duties categorically overdemanding. The argument here draws on the paradigmatic example of modern US military killing conditioning (MC), but embeds it into a broader military-historical perspective that describes how soldiers have always needed to be mentally and morally influenced in order to enable war and killing. The article’s explanation of revisionism’s practicability problem has a constructive consequence for future theory-building in the ethics of war: It implies that a potentially revised ethical theory of war must necessarily analyze the institutions that allocate belligerent resources, if it aims to morally assess battlefield behavior in a practicable manner. (shrink)

When we look back upon people in past societies, such as slaveholders and colonialists, we judge their actions to have been morally atrocious. Yet we should give some thought to how the future will judge us. Here I argue that future people are likely to regard our behavior as no better than that of the past. If these future people are to be believed, then we are morally hopeless; we have little chance of working out the moral truth for ourselves. (...) I argue that we ought to resist this conclusion, and that our best means for doing so it to reject moral objectivity and accept instead a form of time-linked moral relativism. (shrink)

How can we tell whether an incident counts as a microaggression? How do we draw the boundary between microaggressions and weightier forms of oppression, such as hate crimes? I address these questions by exploring the ontology and epistemology of microaggression, in particular the constitutive relationship between microaggression and systemic social oppression. I argue that we ought to define microaggression in terms of the ambiguous experience that its victims undergo, focusing attention on their perspectives while providing criteria for distinguishing microaggression.

We consider the theory Thprin of Boolean algebras with a principal ideal, the theory Thmax of Boolean algebras with a maximal ideal, the theory Thac of atomic Boolean algebras with an ideal where the supremum of the ideal exists, and the theory Thsa of atomless Boolean algebras with an ideal where the supremum of the ideal exists. First, we find elementary invariants for Thprin and Thsa. If T is a theory in a first order language and α is a linear (...) order with least element, then we let Sentalg be the Lindenbaum-Tarski algebra with respect to T, and we let intalg be the interval algebra of α. Using rank diagrams, we show that Sentalg ⋍ intalg, Sentalg ⋍ intalg ⋍ Sentalg, and Sentalg ⋍ intalg. For Thmax and Thac we use Ershov's elementary invariants of these theories. We also show that the algebra of formulas of the theory Tx of Boolean algebras with finitely many ideals is atomic. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence has been adopted in a wide range of domains. This shows the imperative need to contribute to making citizens insightful actors in debates and decisions involving the adoption of AI mechanisms. Currently, existing approaches to the teaching of basic AI concepts through programming treat machine intelligence as an external element/module. After being trained, that external module is coupled to the main application. Combining block-based programming and WiSARD weightless artificial neural networks, this article presents the conceptualization and design of (...) a new methodology, AI from concrete to abstract, to endow general people with a minimum understanding of what AI means. The main strategy adopted was to include AI training and classification primitives as blocks that compose an otherwise conventional computer program. This way, the programmer can use these blocks as he/she uses other programming constructs. In order to achieve this purpose, we also propose BlockWiSARD, a block-based programming environment designed to promote the demystification of artificial intelligence via practical activities related to the development of learning machines, as well as through the observation of their learning process. As a beneficial side effect of BlockWiSARD, the difference between a program capable of learning from data and a conventional computer program becomes more evident. In addition, the simplicity of the WiSARD weightless artificial neural network model enables easy visualization and understanding of training and classification tasks internal realization. (shrink)

Carnival was brought to the New World by Spanish and Portuguese colonizers, and it has been preserved there up to our day, although in the meantime it has almost disappeared from the countries where it originated. One asks oneself if Carnival has kept its original characteristics over the years, or if it instead has been transformed, and if so, how. The ethnological and cultural variety present in Latin America leads us to think that there must have been an evolution over (...) the years, and that Carnival should show some signs of acculturation. It is the examination of these two points that will be the subject of our study. (shrink)

Many of our cognitive capacities are the result of enculturation. Enculturation is the temporally extended transformative acquisition of cognitive practices in the cognitive niche. Cognitive practices are embodied and normatively constrained ways to interact with epistemic resources in the cognitive niche in order to complete a cognitive task. The emerging predictive processing perspective offers new functional principles and conceptual tools to account for the cerebral and extra-cerebral bodily components that give rise to cognitive practices. According to this emerging perspective, many (...) cases of perception, action, and cognition are realized by the on-going minimization of prediction error. Predictive processing provides us with a mechanistic perspective that helps investigate the functional details of the acquisition of cognitive practices. The argument of this paper is that research on enculturation and recent work on predictive processing are complementary. The main reason is that predictive processing operates at a sub-personal level and on a physiological time scale of explanation only. A complete account of enculturated cognition needs to take additional levels and temporal scales of explanation into account. This complementarity assumption leads to a new framework—enculturated predictive processing—that operates on multiple levels and temporal scales for the explanation of the enculturated predictive acquisition of cognitive practices. Enculturated predictive processing is committed to explanatory pluralism. That is, it subscribes to the idea that we need multiple perspectives and explanatory strategies to account for the complexity of enculturation. The upshot is that predictive processing needs to be complemented by additional considerations and conceptual tools to realize its full explanatory potential. (shrink)

This paper examines the scholarship, evidence, and assumptions that place the origins of Chinese drama in shamanic ritual. The paper is roughly divided in two parts: the first contextualizes the use of shamanism within the theories of art and literature of one of the first scholars to link the origins of Chinese theatre to shamanism, Wang Guowei, to show that Wang’s view of the relationship between shamanism and drama differs from mainstream interpretations. The second part assesses the views of modern (...) ethnographers and historians of China on the role of shamanism in theater, with a focus on the work of the scholar Piet van der Loon. (shrink)

Contemporary and emerging chatbots can be fine-tuned to imitate the style, tenor, and knowledge of a corpus, including the corpus of a particular individual. This makes it possible to build chatbots that imitate people who are no longer alive — deathbots. Such deathbots can be used in many ways, but one prominent way is to facilitate the process of grieving. In this paper, we present a framework that helps make sense of this process. In particular, we argue that deathbots can (...) serve as affective scaffolds, modulating and shaping the emotions of the bereaved. We contextualize this affective scaffolding by comparing it to earlier technologies that have also been used to scaffold the process of grieving, arguing that deathbots offer some interesting novelties that may transform the continuing bonds of intimacy that the bereaved can have with the dead. We conclude with some ethical reflections on the promises and perils of this new technology. (shrink)

Theories of skill acquisition have made radically different predictions about the role of general problem‐solving methods in acquiring rules that promote effective transfer to new problems. Under one view, methods that focus on reaching specific goals, such as means‐ends analysis, are assumed to provide the basis for efficient knowledge compilation (Anderson, 1987), whereas under an alternative view such methods are believed to disrupt rule induction (Sweller, 1988). We suggest that the role of general methods in learning varies with both the (...) specificity of the problem solver's goal and the systematicity of the strategies used for testing hypotheses about rules. In the absence of a specific goal people are more likely to use a rule‐induction learning strategy, whereas provision of a specific goal fosters use of difference reduction, which tends to be a non‐rule‐induction strategy. We performed two experiments to investigate the impact of goal specificity and systematicity of rule‐induction strategies in learning and transfer within a complex dynamic system. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that during free exploration of a problem space, greater learning occurred if participants adopted more systematic strategies for rule induction, and that participants come to favor such strategies. Experiment 2 revealed that participants who were provided with a specific goal performed well on the initial problem but were impaired on a transfer test using a similar problem with a different goal. Instruction on a systematic rule‐induction strategy facilitated solution for both the initial and transfer problems, but participants' use of this strategy declined if they had a specific goal. Our results support Sweller's (1988) proposal that general problemsolving methods applied to a specific goal foster acquisition of knowledge about an isolated solution path but do not provide an effective way of learning the overall structure of a problem space. We interpret these results in terms of dualspace theories of search through problem space. (shrink)

Build the skills you need to understand and resolve ethical problems! Ethical Dimensions in the Health Professions, 7th Edition provides a solid foundation in ethical theory and concepts, applying these principles to the ethical issues surrounding health care today. It uses a unique, six-step decision-making process as a framework for thinking critically and thoughtfully, with case studies of patients to illustrate ethical topics such as conflict of interest, patient confidentiality, and upholding best practices. Written by Regina F. Doherty, an (...) educator and occupational therapist, this book will help you make caring and effective ethical choices that improve patient care and outcomes. UNIQUE! Ethical decision-making process provides an organizing framework to use in making the best decisions when faced with ethical problems. Patient stories depict real-life situations and demonstrate the ethical decision-making process. Reflection boxes depict important concepts and stimulate critical thinking. Summary boxes highlight the most important information in each section. Coverage of interprofessional team decision-making reflects this important, expanding movement in healthcare nationally and internationally. Questions for thought and discussion encourage students to apply the ethical decision-making process to different situations. NEW! Updated content throughout the book reflects the changes in the growing interprofessional movement. NEW! Expanded content on clinician well-being includes tools for supporting moral resilience and preventing burnout in health professionals. NEW! Updated content addresses the topics of social justice, health disparities, intersectionality, and health outcomes. NEW! Updated national standards and regulations are provided for electronic health communications, data protections, and clinical research. NEW! Coverage of scientific literature is expanded with studies on the effects of compassion on patient outcomes, patient safety, and provider and organizational well-being. NEW! Coverage of ethical issues impacting healthcare and society includes topics such as medical scarcity due to healthcare supply chain shortages and extreme weather events due to climate change. (shrink)

Morality and Cognitive Science What do we know about how people make moral judgments? And what should moral philosophers do with this knowledge? This article addresses the cognitive science of moral judgment. It reviews important empirical findings and discusses how philosophers have reacted to them. Several trends have dominated the cognitive science of morality in … Continue reading Morality and Cognitive Science →.

Studies on mind-wandering frequently use reading as an experimental task. In these studies, reading is conceived as a cognitive process that potentially offers a contrast to mind-wandering, because it seems to be task-related, goal-directed and stimulus-dependent. More recent work attempts to avoid the dichotomy of successful cognitive processes and processes of mind-wandering found in earlier studies. We approach the issue from the perspective that texts provoke modes of cognitive involvement different from the information processing and recall account that underlies many (...) early mind-wandering studies. After all, reading itself is an umbrella term for activities that are characterized by a variety of phenomenological and functional signatures. We conceptualize reading and mind-wandering in relation to each other through the framework of enculturated predictive processing, which is informed by research in literary studies. Earlier accounts think of reading predominantly in terms of the construction of situation models that organize textual information. By contrast, enculturated predictive processing foregrounds shifting stances readers can take in relation to the text. Characters featuring in literary texts might be mind-wandering themselves, or passages in literary style might make the construction of a clearly defined situational model impossible. Furthermore, we take into account that texts often elicit mind-wandering through the construction of task-relevant and attention-driven virtual scenarios in readers' minds. This more complex account of reading can enrich recent attempts to understand mind-wandering as a complex, multi-dimensional phenomenon. The study of mind-wandering can benefit, we argue, from a closer attention to the process of reading and to the texts it deploys as stimuli. The emerging perspective from enculturated predictive processing and literary studies makes distinctions in reading that in turn enable research on mind-wandering to ask more precise questions about (1) different kinds of mind-wandering, (2) different modes of reading, and (3) how and where they interconnect across time. (shrink)

Abstract pictures are distinguished from depictive pictures in that no visibly recognizable objects can be seen in them. Abstract pictures are thus non-depictive and non-figurative. The question still remains, however, if abstract pictures can be representations. The aim of this chapter is to defend the view that abstract pictures can be representational and therefore have content or subject matter. It will be shown that there are at least three ways to understand what the subject matter of abstract pictures can be: (...) it is either abstracted from figurative content, it is spiritual or the subject matter is produced. (shrink)