How sexuality should be regulated in a liberal political community is an important, controversial theoretical and empirical question—as shown by the recent criminalization of possession of some adult pornography in the United Kingdom. Supporters of criminalization argue that Mill, often considered a staunch opponent of censorship, would support prohibition due to his feminist commitments. I argue that this account underestimates the strengths of the Millian account of private conduct and free expression, and the consistency of Millian anticensorship with feminist values. (...) A Millian contextual defense of liberty, however, suggests several other policy approaches to addressing the harms of pornography. (shrink)

Evidence based-policy (EBP) is a popular research paradigm in the applied social sciences and within government agencies. Informally, EBP represents an explicit commitment to applying scientific methods to public affairs, in contrast to ideologically-driven or merely intuitive “common-sense” approaches to public policy. More specifically, the EBP paradigm places great weight on the results of experimental research designs, especially randomised controlled trials (RCTs), and systematic literature reviews that place evidential weight on experimental results. One hope is that such research designs and (...) approaches to analysing the scientific literature are sufficiently robust that they can settle what really ‘works’ in public policy. Can EBP succeed in displacing reliance on domain-specific expertise? On our account, this is seldom, if ever, the case. The key reason for this is that underlying this approach is generally an appeal to argument by induction, which always requires further assumptions to underwrite its validity, and if not induction, some other argument form that also requires assumptions that are very often not validated for the case at hand. (shrink)

Evidence-based medicine, with its evidence hierarchies and emphasis on RCTs, meta-analyses and systematic reviews, sets the model for evidence-based policy almost everywhere, policing no exception. But how closely should policing follow this model? We argue that RCTs can tell you little about what you need to know for real-world practice: will this policy work where and when you implement it? Defending that it will do so takes good theory. For RCTs to play a role in theory development, they must be (...) set into a larger body of knowledge, including local knowledge about the sites of implementation. Unfortunately the standard EBM model generally ignores the other kinds of knowledge needed. An alternative model for evidence-based policing, similar to that of the new movement for ‘EBM+’ and immanent in the practice of realist synthesis, focuses on the arguments that proposed policing policies will work where and when they are implemented and looks for the evidence needed to support those arguments. (shrink)

Liberal egalitarians argue that the state is justified in taxing members of a political community to achieve distributive justice and ensure political equality and regime stability. This involves an uneasy compromise between equality and efficiency, a compromise that many argue has recently been undermined by the growth of unchecked wealth and income inequality. This essay argues that there is also a trade-off between selecting fair processes for taxation and aiming for particular distributive outcomes. The way people accumulate wealth, and the (...) way states tax often matters more than distributive outcomes. Policymakers must allow for the fair assessment of tax liabilities, avoid excessive enforcement costs and prevent political actors from using tax systems to achieve their partial ends. Recognizing these considerations justifies a systematic scheme of taxation while constraining the mechanisms for collecting revenue. I justify this position using comparative analysis, which I contrast with the conceptual intuitionistic approach associated with egalitarianism. (shrink)

Substantially increased wealth inequality across the developed world has prompted many philosophers, economists and legal theorists to support comprehensive taxes on all forms of wealth. Proposals include levying taxes on the basis of total wealth, or alternatively the change in the value of capital holdings measured from year-to-year. This contrasts with most existing policies that tax capital assets at the point they are transferred from one beneficiary to another through sale or gifts. Are these tax reforms likely to meet their (...) aims of greater economic and political equality? We argue that these policies are likely to fail because, following neoclassical economic theory, they are based on a conception of capital as possessing given values in what amounts to a static equilibrium. This mischaracterizes the dynamic and subjective character of market economies and the contested value of real instantiations of capital goods. This makes them very difficult, often impossible, to value apart from at the point of voluntary transfer or profit realization. This means most taxes levied on a mark-to-market basis will be arbitrary and unfair. We propose alternative policies based on an income realization approach to taxation that are more likely to curb excessive wealth holdings. This includes introducing international treaties that prohibit preferential tax treatment for individual companies and specific sectors, and broadening the income tax base to include the imputed rent of personal housing wealth. (shrink)

ABSTRACT“Evidence-based” methods, which most prominently include randomized controlled trials, have gained increasing purchase as the “gold standard” for assessing the effect of public policies. But the enthusiasm for evidence-based research overlooks questions about the reliability and applicability of experimental findings to diverse real-world settings. Perhaps surprisingly, a qualitative study of British educators suggests that they are aware of these limitations and therefore take evidence-based findings with a much larger grain of salt than do policy makers. Their experience suggests that the (...) real world is more heterogeneous than the world imagined by evidence-based policy enthusiasts. (shrink)

Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Ideology offers a powerful critique of ideological justifications for inequality in capitalist societies. Does this mean we should reject capitalist institutions altogether? This paper defends some aspects of capitalism by explaining the epistemic function of market economies and their ability to harness capital to meet the needs of the relatively disadvantaged. We support this classical liberal position with reference to empirical research on historical trends in inequality that challenges some of Piketty’s interpretations of the data. Then (...) we discuss the implications of this position in terms of limits on the efficacy of participatory governance within firms and the capacity of the state to levy systematic taxes on wealth. (shrink)

Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom has been interpreted as a general warning against state intervention in the economy.1 We review this argument in conjunction with Hayek’s later work and discern an institutional thesis about which forms of state intervention and economic institutions could threaten personal and political freedom. Economic institutions pose a threat if they allow for coercive interventions, as described by Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty: by giving someone the power to force others to serve one’s will by (...) threatening to inflict harm, in the absence of general rules of conduct. According to the logic of the argument, welfare-state provisions are not coercive insofar as they do not allow the identification and discriminatory treatment of individuals. By contrast, we claim that a structure of coercion is likely to emerge from the command-and-control nature of protectionist institutions and immigration restrictions currently advocated by the radical right. (shrink)

Mark Pennington’s Robust Political Economy is a systematic exposition of a framework for analyzing institutional performance. The Robust Political Economy framework evaluates institutions according to their ability to solve knowledge and incentive problems. On grounds of robustness, Pennington combines insights from Austrian market-process theory and public-choice theory to defend classical liberalism from several compelling critiques. These include theories of market failure in economics; communitarian, deliberative-democratic, and liberal-egalitarian theories of justice; and concerns with social capital, domestic and international poverty, and ecology.

Substantially increased wealth inequality across the developed world has prompted many philosophers, economists and legal theorists to support comprehensive taxes on all forms of wealth. Proposals include levying taxes on the basis of total wealth, or alternatively the change in the value of capital holdings measured from year-to-year. This contrasts with most existing policies that tax capital assets at the point they are transferred from one beneficiary to another through sale or gifts. Are these tax reforms likely to meet their (...) aims of greater economic and political equality? We argue that these policies are likely to fail because, following neoclassical economic theory, they are based on a conception of capital as possessing given values in what amounts to a static equilibrium. This mischaracterizes the dynamic and subjective character of market economies and the contested value of real instantiations of capital goods. This makes them very difficult, often impossible, to value apart from at the point of voluntary transfer or profit realization. This means most taxes levied on a mark-to-market basis will be arbitrary and unfair. We propose alternative policies based on an income realization approach to taxation that are more likely to curb excessive wealth holdings. This includes introducing international treaties that prohibit preferential tax treatment for individual companies and specific sectors, and broadening the income tax base to include the imputed rent of personal housing wealth. (shrink)

Can John Stuart Mill’s radicalism achieve liberal egalitarian ends? Joseph Persky’s The Political Economy of Progress is a provocative and compelling discussion of Mill’s economic thought. It is also a defense of radical political economy. Providing valuable historical context, Persky traces Mill’s intellectual journey as an outspoken proponent of laissez-faire to a cautious supporter of co-operative socialism. I propose two problems with Persky’s optimistic take on radical social reform. First, demands for substantive equality have led past radicals to endorse exclusionary (...) nationalist and eugenics policies. It pushes some contemporary radicals towards illiberal interventions into intimate social life. Second, the radical critique of capitalism relies on an account of profit that neglects the epistemic function of private-property markets. Once this is acknowledged, capitalism retains some progressive credentials against radical alternatives. (shrink)

Edmundson has written an admirably concise yet powerful book. It blends a critical account of Rawls’ work with an original case for democratic socialism hewn from Rawlsian stone. In my opinion, this case has some flaws but it remains a timely contribution to the enduring quest for justice and social stability.

How important is the experience of risk in business endeavors for self-respect and moral development? Tomasi prompts this question with his attempt to reconcile Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness with free-market capitalism, by claiming that economic activity is a way for people to exercise their autonomy, responsibility, and self-authorship, including through voluntary risk-taking. Critics argue that the social environment generated through market institutions is ill-suited for developing a sense of responsibility and autonomy among citizens. We refine the case for (...) economic liberty by looking at the link between risk-taking and attitudes toward democratic citizenship. We highlight the critical role of ethical business practice as a contributor to the stability of liberal-democratic societies. (shrink)

This timely and provocative book challenges the conventional wisdom that neoliberal capitalism is incompatible with social justice. Employing public choice and market process theory, Nick Cowen systematically compares and contrasts capitalism with socialist alternatives, illustrating how proponents of social justice have decisive reasons to opt for a capitalism guided by neoliberal ideas. Cowen shows how general rules of property and voluntary exchange facilitate widespread cooperation. Revisiting the works of John Rawls, he offers an interdisciplinary reconciliation of Rawlsian (...) principles with liberal democracy by introducing Robust Property-Owning Democracy, a new form of governance that aims to achieve social justice via practical, liberal means. Chapters address the knowledge problem and the incentive problem that emerge when aiming for a fair distribution of social resources and demonstrate how everyday political bargaining can help achieve just outcomes for all. Utilising insights from philosophy, politics and economics to show the role of market institutions and constitutional government in producing social justice, this book is crucial reading for academics, researchers and students of PPE and the political sciences. Its practical policy proposals will further benefit policymakers interested in mechanisms that spread the benefits of economic growth equitably. (shrink)

We begin by showing that every theory of the value of uncertain prospects must have one of three unpalatable properties. _Reckless_ theories recommend giving up a sure thing, no matter how good, for an arbitrarily tiny chance of enormous gain; _timid_ theories permit passing up an arbitrarily large potential gain to prevent a tiny increase in risk; _non-transitive_ theories deny the principle that, if A is better than B and B is better than C, then A must be better than (...) C. Having set up this trilemma, we study its horns. Non-transitivity has been much discussed; we focus on drawing out the costs and benefits of recklessness and timidity when it comes to axiology, decision theory, and normative uncertainty. (shrink)

_Anthropic Bias_ explores how to reason when you suspect that your evidence is biased by "observation selection effects"--that is, evidence that has been filtered by the precondition that there be some suitably positioned observer to "have" the evidence. This conundrum--sometimes alluded to as "the anthropic principle," "self-locating belief," or "indexical information"--turns out to be a surprisingly perplexing and intellectually stimulating challenge, one abounding with important implications for many areas in science and philosophy. There are the philosophical thought experiments and paradoxes: (...) the Doomsday Argument; Sleeping Beauty; the Presumptuous Philosopher; Adam & Eve; the Absent-Minded Driver; the Shooting Room. And there are the applications in contemporary science: cosmology ; evolutionary theory ; the problem of time's arrow ; quantum physics ; game-theory problems with imperfect recall ; even traffic analysis. _Anthropic Bias_ argues that the same principles are at work across all these domains. And it offers a synthesis: a mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects that attempts to meet scientific needs while steering clear of philosophical paradox. (shrink)

Prior research found correlations between reflection test performance and philosophical tendencies among laypeople. In two large studies (total N = 1299)—one pre-registered—many of these correlations were replicated in a sample that included both laypeople and philosophers. For example, reflection test performance predicted preferring atheism over theism and instrumental harm over harm avoidance on the trolley problem. However, most reflection-philosophy correlations were undetected when controlling for other factors such as numeracy, preferences for open-minded thinking, personality, philosophical training, age, and gender. Nonetheless, (...) some correlations between reflection and philosophical views survived this multivariate analysis and were only partially confounded with either education or self-reported reasoning preferences. Unreflective thinking still predicted believing in God whereas reflective thinking still predicted believing that (a) proper names like ‘Santa’ do not necessarily refer to entities that actually exist and (b) science does reveal the fundamental nature of the world. So some robust relationships between reflection and philosophical tendencies were detected even among philosophers, and yet there was clearly more to the link between reflection and philosophy. To this end, demographic and metaphilosophical hypotheses are considered. (shrink)

Philosophers often characterize discourse in general as aiming at some sort of convergence (in beliefs, plans, dispositions, feelings, etc.), and many views about aesthetic discourse in particular affirm this thought. I argue that a convergence norm does not govern aesthetic discourse. The conversational dynamics of aesthetic discourse suggest that typical aesthetic claims have directive force. I distinguish between dynamic and illocutionary force and develop related theories of each for aesthetic discourse. I argue that the illocutionary force of aesthetic utterances is (...) typically invitational because its dynamic force is influenced by a ‘communal’ norm. I draw on dynamic pragmatics to develop a formal account of this dynamic force that explains why invitation has pride of place in aesthetic conversation. It turns out that the end of aesthetic discourse is not convergence but a distinctive form of community, a kind of harmony of individuality, that is compatible with aesthetic disagreement. If this is right, then convergence theories of aesthetic and normative discourse, and of conversation in general, need to be revised. (shrink)

La primera parte de este libro expone la idea o teoría de las Leyes Noájicas, desde perspectivas espirituales, filosóficas, psicológicas, sociales y políticas. Varios de sus contenidos ya han sido presentados a líderes, incluidos estadistas internacionales (cuyas cartas se incluyen aquí), que han respondido con ánimo a su estudio y difusión. La segunda parte del libro presenta la conducta o práctica concreta de las Leyes Noájicas. Esta tarea precisa procede de una extensa investigación acerca de la Tradición del comentario sobre (...) la Revelación en el Sinaí, de la cual forman parte las Leyes de Noé (que ya anteriormente eran el pacto moral de la humanidad, pero que fueron reexpresadas con autoridad en el Sinaí). La forma en que las Leyes de Noé con sus detalles estructuran la conducta ética de los principales dominios de la existencia humana se establece claramente para el lector general; y con extensas notas a pie de página y referencias para aquellos que buscan profundizar el estudio. (shrink)

Definitions of human nature have preoccupied philosophers, politicians, anthropologists and social scientists for centuries. Our conceptions of ourselves - what we perceive to be 'human nature' - have taken many forms from the abstract to the biologically determined. In The Human Nature Debate, Harry Cowen describes the diversity of ideas about human nature and demonstrates the extent to which all such ideas are socially and politically grounded, reflecting the prevailing concerns and priorities of their times, from the classical Greek (...) conceptions of 'rational man' to the behaviourist explanations that did so much to bolster and justify fascism and Stalinism in the twentieth century. Cowen's admirably clear introduction to the history of ideas about human nature goes beyond the theorising to the ways in which concepts of human nature have both informed and reflected policy and practice. Drawing on a wealth of evidence and example, he demonstrates the political significance of the human nature debate, and looks at the vital interactions between theory and practice in the social sciences, social policy and social practice. (shrink)

Tasler teaches readers how to thrive when faced with difficult choices, provides a clear understanding of why you make the choices you do, and suggests the tools to make those decision change your business and your life.

"Ethical thought has no chance of being everything it seems." Bernard Williams offered this cryptic remark in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, and in this chapter I argue that understanding it is the key to understanding Williams' skepticism about moral theory and about systematization in ethics. The difficulty for moral philosophy, Williams believed, is that ethics looks one way to embodied, active agents, but looks entirely different when considered from the standpoint of theory. This, in turn, means that following (...) a moral theory is a sure route to practical alienation. I argue that once we see it for what it is, we can see that Williams own skepticism undermines his later attempts to vindicate Truthfulness. Moreover, given the pervasiveness of reflective practical alienation in ordinary life, it leaves us with a difficult question: what would a non-alienated ethical existence even look like for us? (shrink)

Analytic moral philosophers have generally failed to engage in any substantial way with the cultural history of morality. This is a shame, because a genealogy of morals can help us accomplish two important tasks. First, a genealogy can form the basis of an epistemological project, one that seeks to establish the epistemic status of our beliefs or values. Second, a genealogy can provide us with functional understanding, since a history of our beliefs, values or institutions can reveal some inherent dynamic (...) or pattern which may be problematically obscured from our view. In this paper, I try to make good on these claims by offering a sketchy genealogy of emancipatory values, or values which call for the liberation of persons from systems of dominance and oppression. The real history of these values, I argue, is both epistemologically vindicatory and functionally enlightening. (shrink)

The study of active matter systems demonstrates how interactions might co-constitute agential dynamics. Active matter systems are comprised of self-propelled independent entities which, en masse, take part in complex and interesting collective group behaviors at a far-from-equilibrium state (Menon, 2010 ; Takatori & Brady, 2015 ). These systems are modelled using very simple rules (Vicsek at al. 1995), which reveal the interactive nature of the collective behaviors seen from humble to highly complex entities. Here I show how the study of (...) active matter systems supports two related proposals regarding interaction and agency. First, I argue that the study of interactive dynamics in these systems evidences the utility of treating interaction as an ontological category (Longino, 2021 ) and challenges methodological individualism as the received explanatory primitive in the study of agency. Second, the methods used to research active matter systems demonstrate how a minimal approach to agency can scale up in studying interactive agential dynamics in more complex systems. The examples of coordination dynamics (Kelso, 2001 ) and participatory sense-making (De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007 ) are provided to show how understanding agency requires us to look beyond the individuals to the interactive agential dynamics that can guide, scaffold, or constrain their activity. (shrink)

Evolutionary development is sometimes thought of as exhibiting an inexorable trend towards higher, more complex, and normatively worthwhile forms of life. This paper explores some dystopian scenarios where freewheeling evolutionary developments, while continuing to produce complex and intelligent forms of organization, lead to the gradual elimination of all forms of being that we care about. We then consider how such catastrophic outcomes could be avoided and argue that under certain conditions the only possible remedy would be a globally coordinated policy (...) to control human evolution by modifying the fitness function of future intelligent life forms. (shrink)

I consider a number of reasons one might think we should only accept epistemic dilemmas in our normative epistemology as a last resort and argue that none of them is compelling.

The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. Other animals have stronger muscles or sharper claws, but we have cleverer brains. If machine brains one day come to surpass human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become very powerful. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on us humans than on the gorillas themselves, so the fate of (...) our species then would come to depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence. But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed AI or otherwise to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation? To get closer to an answer to this question, we must make our way through a fascinating landscape of topics and considerations. Read the book and learn about oracles, genies, singletons; about boxing methods, tripwires, and mind crime; about humanity's cosmic endowment and differential technological development; indirect normativity, instrumental convergence, whole brain emulation and technology couplings; Malthusian economics and dystopian evolution; artificial intelligence, and biological cognitive enhancement, and collective intelligence. (shrink)

Why does time pass and space does not? Are there just three dimensions? What is a quantum particle? Nick Huggett shows that philosophy -- armed with a power to analyze fundamental concepts and their relationship to the human experience -- has much to say about these profound questions about the universe. In Everywhere and Everywhen, Huggett charts a journey that peers into some of the oldest questions about the world, through some of the newest, such as: What shape is (...) space? Does it have an edge? What is the difference between past and future? What is time in relativity? Is time travel possible? Are there other universes? Huggett shows that answers to these profound questions are not just reserved for physics, and that philosophy can not only address but help advance our view of our deepest questions about the universe, space, and time, and their implications for humanity. His lively, accessible introduction to these topics is suitable for a general reader with no previous exposure to these profound and exciting questions. (shrink)

What is the purpose of art? What drives us to make it? Why do we value it? Nick Zangwill argues that the function of art is to have certain aesthetic properties in virtue of its non-aesthetic properties, and this function arises because of the artist's insight into the nature of these dependence relations and her intention to bring them about.

To what extent should we use technological advances to try to make better human beings? Leading philosophers debate the possibility of enhancing human cognition, mood, personality, and physical performance, and controlling aging. Would this take us beyond the bounds of human nature? These are questions that need to be answered now.

A dizzying trip through the mind(s) of the provocative and influential thinker Nick Land. During the 1990s British philosopher Nick Land's unique work, variously described as “rabid nihilism,” “mad black deleuzianism,” and “cybergothic,” developed perhaps the only rigorous and culturally-engaged escape route out of the malaise of “continental philosophy” —a route that was implacably blocked by the academy. However, Land's work has continued to exert an influence, both through the British “speculative realist” philosophers who studied with him, and (...) through the many cultural producers—writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers—who have been invigorated by his uncompromising and abrasive philosophical vision. Beginning with Land's early radical rereadings of Heidegger, Nietzsche, Kant and Bataille, the volume collects together the papers, talks and articles of the mid-90s—long the subject of rumour and vague legend (including some work which has never previously appeared in print)—in which Land developed his futuristic theory-fiction of cybercapitalism gone amok; and ends with his enigmatic later writings in which Ballardian fictions, poetics, cryptography, anthropology, grammatology and the occult are smeared into unrecognisable hybrids. Fanged Noumena gives a dizzying perspective on the entire trajectory of this provocative and influential thinker's work, and has introduced his unique voice to a new generation of readers. (shrink)

I argue that evidentialism should be rejected because it cannot be reconciled with empirical work on bias in cognitive and social psychology.

We review the various factors that limit adaptation by natural selection. Recent discussion of constraints on selection and, conversely, of the factors that enhance “evolvability”, have concentrated on the kinds of variation that can be produced. Here, we emphasise that adaptation depends on how the various evolutionary processes shape variation in populations. We survey the limits that population genetics places on adaptive evolution, and discuss the relationship between disparate literatures. BioEssays 22:1075–1084, 2000. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

On one thing the whole world seems to agree: Globalization is homogenizing cultures. At least, a lot of countries are acting as if that’s the case. In the name of containing what the Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood calls “the Great Star-Spangled Them,” the Canadian government subsidizes the nation’s film industry and requires radio stations to devote a percentage of their airtime to home-grown music, carving out extra airplay for stars such as Celine Dion and Barenaked Ladies. Ottawa also discouraged Borders, (...) the American book superstore, from entering the Canadian market out of fear that it would not carry enough Canadian literature. The French government spends some US $3 billion annually on culture and employs 12,000 cultural bureaucrats in an effort to preserve its vision of a uniquely French culture. Spain, South Korea and Brazil place binding domestic-content requirements on their cinemas; France and Spain do the same for television. Until recently, India barred the sale of Coca-Cola. (shrink)

This article responds to recent debates in critical algorithm studies about the significance of the term “algorithm.” Where some have suggested that critical scholars should align their use of the term with its common definition in professional computer science, I argue that we should instead approach algorithms as “multiples”—unstable objects that are enacted through the varied practices that people use to engage with them, including the practices of “outsider” researchers. This approach builds on the work of Laura Devendorf, Elizabeth Goodman, (...) and Annemarie Mol. Different ways of enacting algorithms foreground certain issues while occluding others: computer scientists enact algorithms as conceptual objects indifferent to implementation details, while calls for accountability enact algorithms as closed boxes to be opened. I propose that critical researchers might seek to enact algorithms ethnographically, seeing them as heterogeneous and diffuse sociotechnical systems, rather than rigidly constrained and procedural formulas. To do so, I suggest thinking of algorithms not “in” culture, as the event occasioning this essay was titled, but “as” culture: part of broad patterns of meaning and practice that can be engaged with empirically. I offer a set of practical tactics for the ethnographic enactment of algorithmic systems, which do not depend on pinning down a singular “algorithm” or achieving “access,” but which rather work from the partial and mobile position of an outsider. (shrink)

Our paradigms of aesthetic value condition the philosophical questions we pose and hope to answer about it. Theories of aesthetic value are typically individualistic, in the sense that the paradigms they are designed to capture, and the questions to which they are offered as answers, center the individual’s engagement with aesthetic value. Here I offer some considerations that suggest that such individualism is a mistake and sketch a communitarian way of posing and answering questions about the nature of aesthetic value.

'The Probabilistic Mind' is a follow-up to the influential and highly cited 'Rational Models of Cognition'. It brings together developments in understanding how, and how far, high-level cognitive processes can be understood in rational terms, and particularly using probabilistic Bayesian methods.

Non-representational approaches to cognition have struggled to provide accounts of long-term planning that forgo the use of representations. An explanation comes easier for cognitivist accounts, which hold that we concoct and use contentful mental representations as guides to coordinate a series of actions towards an end state. One non-representational approach, ecological-enactivism, has recently seen several proposals that account for “high-level” or “representation-hungry” capacities, including long-term planning and action coordination. In this paper, we demonstrate the explanatory gap in these accounts that (...) stems from avoiding the incorporation of long-term intentions, as they play an important role both in action coordination and perception on the ecological account. Using recent enactive accounts of language, we argue for a non-representational conception of intentions, their formation, and their role in coordinating pre-reflective action. We provide an account for the coordination of our present actions towards a distant goal, a skill we call distal engagement. Rather than positing intentions as an actual cognitive entity in need of explanation, we argue that we take them up in this way as a practice due to linguistically scaffolded attitudes towards language use. (shrink)

Previously proposed strategies for tackling hermeneutical injustices take for granted the interests people have in certain things about them being intelligible to them and/or to others, and seek to enable them to satisfy these interests. Strategies of this sort I call interests-as-given strategies. I propose that some hermeneutical injustices can instead be tackled by doing away with certain of these interests, and so with the possibility of their unfair non-satisfaction. Strategies of this sort I call interests-in-question strategies. As a case (...) study in when such an interests-in-question strategy ought to be pursued, I look at how to tackle hermeneutical injustices arising in the context of gender-affirming healthcare as provided to adults by the National Health Service in the UK. I argue that considerations of trust, privacy, and respect all support pursuing such a strategy. One way to do so, I suggest, would be by replacing the existing gatekeeping model with an informed consent model for the provision of gender-affirming healthcare. Considerations of hermeneutical justice can hence be added to the already-impressive case for undertaking this shift. (shrink)

With very advanced technology, a very large population of people living happy lives could be sustained in the accessible region of the universe. For every year that development of such technologies and colonization of the universe is delayed, there is therefore a corresponding opportunity cost: a potential good, lives worth living, is not being realized. Given some plausible assumptions, this cost is extremely large. However, the lesson for standard utilitarians is not that we ought to maximize the pace of technological (...) development, but rather that we ought to maximize its safety, i.e. the probability that colonization will eventually occur. This goal has such high utility that standard utilitarians ought to focus all their efforts on it. Utilitarians of a ‘person-affecting’ stripe should accept a modified version of this conclusion. Some mixed ethical views, which combine utilitarian considerations with other criteria, will also be committed to a similar bottom line. (shrink)