Long claimed to be the dominant conception of practical reason, the Humean theory that reasons for action are instrumental, or explained by desires, is the basis for a range of worries about the objective prescriptivity of morality. As a result, it has come under intense attack in recent decades. A wide variety of arguments have been advanced which purport to show that it is false, or surprisingly, even that it is incoherent. Slaves of the Passions aims to set the record (...) straight, by advancing a version of the Humean theory of reasons which withstands this sophisticated array of objections. Schroeder defends a radical new view which, if correct, means that the commitments of the Humean theory have been widely misunderstood. Along the way, he raises and addresses questions about the fundamental structure of reasons, the nature of normative explanations, the aims of and challenges facing reductive views in metaethics, the weight of reasons, the nature of desire, moral epistemology, and most importantly, the relationship between agent-relational and agent-neutral reasons for action. (shrink)

Expressivism - the sophisticated contemporary incarnation of the noncognitivist research program of Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare - is no longer the province of metaethicists alone. Its comprehensive view about the nature of both normative language and normative thought has also recently been applied to many topics elsewhere in philosophy - including logic, probability, mental and linguistic content, knowledge, epistemic modals, belief, the a priori, and even quantifiers. Yet the semantic commitments of expressivism are still poorly understood and have not been (...) very far developed. As argued within, expressivists have not yet even managed to solve the "negation problem" - to explain why atomic normative sentences are inconsistent with their negations. As a result, it is far from clear that expressivism even could be true, let alone whether it is. Being For seeks to evaluate the semantic commitments of expressivism, by showing how an expressivist semantics would work, what it can do, and what kind of assumptions would be required, in order for it to do it. Building on a highly general understanding of the basic ideas of expressivism, it argues that expressivists can solve the negation problem - but only in one kind of way. It shows how this insight paves the way for an explanatorily powerful, constructive expressivist semantics, which solves many of what have been taken to be the deepest problems for expressivism. But it also argues that no account with these advantages can be generalized to deal with constructions like tense, modals, or binary quantifiers. Expressivism, the book argues, is coherent and interesting, but false. (shrink)

According to noncognitivists, when we say that stealing is wrong, what we are doing is more like venting our feelings about stealing or encouraging one another not to steal, than like stating facts about morality. These ideas challenge the core not only of much thinking about morality and metaethics, but also of much philosophical thought about language and meaning. _Noncognitivism in Ethics_ is an outstanding introduction to these theories, ranging from their early history through the latest contemporary developments. Beginning with (...) a general introduction to metaethics, Mark Schroeder introduces and assesses three principal kinds of noncognitivist theory: the speech-act theories of Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare, the expressivist theories of Blackburn and Gibbard, and hybrid theories. He pays particular attention both to the philosophical problems about what moral facts could be about or how they could matter which noncognitivism seeks to solve, and to the deep problems that it faces, including the task of explaining both the nature of moral thought and the complexity of moral attitudes, and the ‘Frege-Geach’ problem. Schroeder makes even the most difficult material accessible by offering crucial background along the way. Also included are exercises at the end of each chapter, chapter summaries, and a glossary of technical terms - making _Noncognitivism in Ethics_ essential reading for all students of ethics and metaethics. (shrink)

Expressing Our Attitudes pulls together over a decade of work by Mark Schroeder, one of the leading figures in contemporary metaethics. Two new and seven previously published papers weave treatments of propositions, truth, and the attitudes together with detailed development of competing alternative expressivist frameworks and discussion of their relative advantages. A substantial new introduction both offers new arguments of its own, and provides a map to reading these essays as a unified argument.Along with its sister volume, Explaining the (...) Reasons We Share, this volume advances the theme that metaethical inquiry is continuous with other areas of philosophy. (shrink)

This volume presents over a decade of work by Mark Schroeder, one of the leading figures in contemporary metaethics. One new and ten previously published papers weave together treatments of reasons, reduction, supervenience, instrumental rationality, and legislation, to explore the nature and limits of moral explanation.

This book is a philosophical study of the relations between hearing and thinking about music. The central problem it addresses is as follows: how is it possible to talk about what a listener perceives in terms that the listener does not recognize? By applying the concepts and techniques of analytic philosophy the author explores the ways in which musical hearing may be described as nonconceptual, and how such mental representation contrasts with conceptual thought. The author is both philosopher and musicologist (...) and uniquely combines the perspectives of both disciplines. Exploring the philosophical questions of mental representation in the relatively neglected, nonverbal domain of music, this study is a major contribution to the philosophical understanding of music perception and cognitive theory. (shrink)

We prove a number of results motivated by global questions of uniformity in computabi- lity theory, and universality of countable Borel equivalence relations. Our main technical tool is a game for constructing functions on free products of countable groups. We begin by investigating the notion of uniform universality, first proposed by Montalbán, Reimann and Slaman. This notion is a strengthened form of a countable Borel equivalence relation being universal, which we conjecture is equivalent to the usual notion. With this additional (...) uniformity hypothesis, we can answer many questions concerning how countable groups, probability measures, the subset relation, and increasing unions interact with universality. For many natural classes of countable Borel equivalence relations, we can also classify exactly which are uniformly universal. We also show the existence of refinements of Martin’s ultrafilter on Turing invariant Borel sets to the invariant Borel sets of equivalence relations that are much finer than Turing equivalence. For example, we construct such an ultrafilter for the orbit equivalence relation of the shift action of the free group on countably many generators. These ultrafilters imply a number of structural properties for these equivalence relations. (shrink)

The hypothesis that there has been selection pressure for mechanisms which enable us to perceive the present tends to be conflated with the hypothesis that there has been selection pressure for mechanisms that compensate for inevitable neural delay. The relationship between the two is more subtle, because increases in neural delay can be advantageous for building more useful perceptions.

What is human freedom? By addressing a number of theological 'limit situations', Robert Greystones, while at Oxford University in the 1320s, developed his own philosophical theory. This volume is the first Latin critical edition, with a clear English translation. There is an extensive introduction describing his life and teaching on human freedom.

This article considers the potential for a researcher to use their own creative practice as a method of data collection. Much of the published material in this field focuses on more theoretical positions, with limited use being made of specific PhDs that illustrate the context in which practice was undertaken by the researcher. It explores strategies for data collection and researcher motivation during what the author identifies as "researcher practice." This is achieved through the use of three PhD case studies. (...) Methods of data collection focus on: the use of output from practice for quantitative data collection, the use of output from practice for qualitative data collection, and the use of output from practice for data translation. The article discusses the methodologies employed in the case studies to identify themes which enable the definition of a generic researcher practitioner methodology. It notes the significance of creative practice in support of data collection and the differences between researcher practice and commercial practice, and emphasises the contribution of researcher practice towards personal motivation. (shrink)

The environmentalist’s condition can be one of loss, the perception of a depleted and polluted environment as a product of modern consumption. Compounding this grief, some environmental losses loom as unrecognizable or beyond our immediate perception. Capitalism responds to this obscure loss by offering consumption and development, perhaps of a green variety, as a panacea for pain. This paper concerns the capacities of making music, as an activity and process, to help recognize and respond to present environmentally destructive patterns of (...) grief and resource-product consumption. I see this paper as an opportunity to begin a conversation about how ecomusicology might approach discussions of environmental... (shrink)

This paper offers a discursive analysis of the position of mature students vis-a-vis higher education and its increasingly necessary linkage with industry. Longstanding questions are raised as to what higher education is actually for: intellectual expansion, or merely to prepare young people for work? If it is the latter, then where does this leave mature students, who have less 'career' time left to use their degrees, and may simply be studying because of an interest in a given subject?

This paper offers a discursive analysis of the position of mature students vis-a-vis higher education and its increasingly necessary linkage with industry. Longstanding questions are raised as to what higher education is actually for: intellectual expansion, or merely to prepare young people for work? If it is the latter, then where does this leave mature students, who have less 'career' time left to use their degrees, and may simply be studying because of an interest in a given subject?

Recent approaches to studying argumentation in institutions have pointed out the role of institutional rules in constraining argumentation that takes place in institutional contexts. However, few studies explain how these rules concretely affect actual argumentation. In particular, little work has been done as to the consequences of interactional asymmetry which often exists between participants in institutional contexts. While previous studies have suggested that this asymmetry exists as an aberration in the deliberative process, this paper argues that asymmetry is built into (...) day-to-day institutional practices as a means of achieving institutional agendas. This article draws upon findings from workplace and discourse studies to explicate particular dimensions of asymmetry that commonly occur within institutional settings, and establishes a methodological framework to account for how this asymmetry can be operationalized for arguments that favor institutional interests regardless of the underlying strength of the arguments being made. Drawing on a controversial case of institutional argumentation during a hearing of the US House Committee on Un-American Activities in the mid-1950s, this article demonstrates how in using these advantages, HUAC is able to overcome legitimate witness counterarguments to its claims and achieve its institutional goals for the hearing. Though the testimony is admittedly 60-years old, HUAC is a useful case study: the asymmetry in the exchange is clear and we have a historical record to verify the factual accuracy of the claims being made. Additionally, we can see how the subsequent legal reforms that reduced conditions of asymmetry for witnesses were responsible for HUAC’s eventual demise as an institutional force. Though this paper analyzes one particular interaction, these findings are applicable to analysis of argumentation in many institutional settings. (shrink)

Because obituaries are succinct and explicitly intended to summarize their subjects’ lives, they may be expected to include only the features that the author finds most salient but also to signal to others in the community the socially-recognized aspects of the deceased’s character. We begin by reviewing studies 1 and 2, in which obituaries were carefully read and labeled. We then report study 3, which further develops these results with a semi-automated, large-scale semantic analysis of several thousand obituaries. Geography, gender, (...) and elite status all turn out to be associated with the virtues and values associated with the deceased. (shrink)

A set of approximately 500 words taken from the literature on emotion was examined. The overall goal was to develop a comprehensive taxonomy of the affective lexicon, with special attention being devoted to the isolation of terms that refer to emotions. Within the taxonomy we propose, the best examples of emotion terms appear to be those that (a) refer to internal, mental conditions as opposed to physical or external ones, (b) are clear cases of stares, and (c) have affect as (...) opposed to behavior or cognition as a predominant (rather than incidental) referential focus. Relaxing one or another of these constraints yields poorer examples or nonexamples of emotions; however, this gradedness is not taken as evidence that emotions necessarily defy classical definition. (shrink)

Obituaries are an especially rich resource for identifying people’s values. Because obituaries are succinct and explicitly intended to summarize their subjects’ lives, they may be expected to include only the features that the author(s) find most salient, not only for themselves as relatives or friends of the deceased, but also to signal to others in the community the socially-recognized aspects of the deceased’s character. We report three approaches to the scientific study of virtue and value through obituaries. We begin by (...) reviewing studies 1 and 2, in which obituaries were carefully read and labeled. We then report study 3, which further develops these results with a semi-automated, large-scale semantic analysis of several thousand obituaries. Finally, we present the results of study 4 in which individuals were asked to write prospective obituaries. Geography, gender, and elite status all turn out to influence the virtues and values associated with the deceased. (shrink)

Over the history of the study of visual perception there has been great success at discovering countless visual illusions. There has been less success in organizing the overwhelming variety of illusions into empirical generalizations (much less explaining them all via a unifying theory). Here, this article shows that it is possible to systematically organize more than 50 kinds of illusion into a 7 × 4 matrix of 28 classes. In particular, this article demonstrates that (1) smaller sizes, (2) slower speeds, (...) (3) greater luminance contrast, (4) farther distance, (5) lower eccentricity, (6) greater proximity to the vanishing point, and (7) greater proximity to the focus of expansion all tend to have similar perceptual effects, namely, to (A) increase perceived size, (B) increase perceived speed, (C) decrease perceived luminance contrast, and (D) decrease perceived distance. The detection of these empirical regularities was motivated by a hypothesis, called “perceiving the present,” that the visual system possesses mechanisms for compensating neural delay during forward motion. This article shows how this hypothesis predicts the empirical regularity. (shrink)

This chapter has two main goals: to update philosophers on the state of the art in the scientific psychology of intelligence, and to explain and evaluate challenges to the measurement invariance of intelligence tests. First, we provide a brief history of the scientific psychology of intelligence. Next, we discuss the metaphysics of intelligence in light of scientific studies in psychology and neuroimaging. Finally, we turn to recent skeptical developments related to measurement invariance. These have largely focused on attributability: Where do (...) the mechanisms and dispositions that explain people’s performance on tests of intelligence inhere – in the agent, in the local testing environment, in the culture, or in the interactions among these? After explaining what measurement invariance is in the context of intelligence testing, we explore the phenomenon of stereotype threat as a challenge to measurement invariance, as well as more recent work on overcoming or buffering against stereotype threat. (shrink)

Progress in philosophy is difficult to achieve because our methods are evidentially and rhetorically weak. In the last two decades, experimental philosophers have begun to employ the methods of the social sciences to address philosophical questions. However, the adequacy of these methods has been called into question by repeated failures of replication. Experimental philosophers need to incorporate more robust methods to achieve a multi-modal perspective. In this chapter, we describe and showcase cutting-edge methods for data-mining and visualization. Big data is (...) a useful investigatory tool for moral psychology, and it fits well with the Ramsification method the first author advances in a series of recent papers. The guiding insight of these papers is that we can infer the meaning and structure of concepts from patterns of assertions and inferential associations in natural language. (shrink)

Authorship transgressions, duplicate data reporting and reporting/data errors compromise the integrity of biomedical publications. Using a standardized template, we raised concerns with journals about each of these characteristics in 33 pairs of publications originating from 15 preclinical trials reported by a group of researchers. The outcomes of interest were journal responses, including time to acknowledgement of concerns, time to decision, content of decision letter, and disposition of publications at 1 year. Authorship transgressions affected 27/36 publications. The median proportion of duplicate (...) data within pairs of publications was 45%. Data/reporting discrepancies [median 3 ] were present in 28/33 pairs. Journals acknowledged receipt of concerns for 53% and 94% of publications by 1 month and 9 months, respectively. After 1 year, journals had communicated decisions for 16/36 publications. None of the decision letters specifically addressed each of the concerns raised. Decisions were no action, correction and retraction for 9, 3 and 4 publications, respectively: the amounts of duplicate data reporting and data/reporting discrepancies were similar irrespective of journal decision. Authorship transgressions affected 6/9 publications for which no action was decided. Journal responses to concerns about duplicate publication, authorship transgressions, and data/reporting discrepancies were slow, opaque and inconsistent. (shrink)

We perceive color everywhere and on everything that we encounter in daily life. Color science has progressed to the point where a great deal is known about the mechanics, evolution, and development of color vision, but less is known about the relation between color vision and psychology. However, color psychology is now a burgeoning, exciting area and this Handbook provides comprehensive coverage of emerging theory and research. Top scholars in the field provide rigorous overviews of work on color categorization, color (...) symbolism and association, color preference, reciprocal relations between color perception and psychological functioning, and variations and deficiencies in color perception. The Handbook of Color Psychology seeks to facilitate cross-fertilization among researchers, both within and across disciplines and areas of research, and is an essential resource for anyone interested in color psychology in both theoretical and applied areas of study. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists have been vigorously examining the psychological capacities that realize our moral agency. Our purpose is to take some of this work and present its implications for moral education. To connect recent work with more long-standing debates in moral education, we frame this discussion with Helen Haste’s 1996 examination of liberal and communitarian positions on moral agency and education. We argue that contemporary research does not confirm the descriptive theory of moral agency offered by either liberal theorists or (...) communitarians, but nonetheless the prescriptive theory of liberal moral education can be vindicated. (shrink)

Few automated legal reasoning systems have been developed in domains of law in which a judicial decision maker has extensive discretion in the exercise of his or her powers. Discretionary domains challenge existing artificial intelligence paradigms because models of judicial reasoning are difficult, if not impossible to specify. We argue that judicial discretion adds to the characterisation of law as open textured in a way which has not been addressed by artificial intelligence and law researchers in depth. We demonstrate that (...) systems for reasoning with this form of open texture can be built by integrating rule sets with neural networks trained with data collected from standard past cases. The obstacles to this approach include difficulties in generating explanations once conclusions have been inferred, difficulties associated with the collection of sufficient data from past cases and difficulties associated with integrating two vastly different paradigms. A knowledge representation scheme based on the structure of arguments proposed by Toulmin has been used to overcome these obstacles. The system, known as Split Up, predicts judicial decisions in property proceedings within family law in Australia. Predictions from the system have been compared to those from a group of lawyers with favourable results. (shrink)

We have studied a number of long-term meditators in previous studies. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are differences in baseline brain function of experienced meditators compared to non-meditators. All subjects were recruited as part of an ongoing study of different meditation practices. We evaluated 12 advanced meditators and 14 non-meditators with cerebral blood flow SPECT imaging at rest. Images were analyzed with both region of interest and statistical parametric mapping. The CBF of long-term meditators was (...) significantly higher compared to non-meditators in the prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, thalamus, putamen, caudate, and midbrain. There was also a significant difference in the thalamic laterality with long-term meditators having greater asymmetry. The observed changes associated with long-term meditation appear in structures that underlie the attention network and also those that relate to emotion and autonomic function. (shrink)

Over the past 15 years, there have been two increasingly popular approaches to the study of meaning in cognitive science. One, based on theories of embodied cognition, treats meaning as a simulation of perceptual and motor states. An alternative approach treats meaning as a consequence of the statistical distribution of words across spoken and written language. On the surface, these appear to be opposing scientific paradigms. In this review, we aim to show how recent cross-disciplinary developments have done much to (...) reconcile these two approaches. The foundation to these developments has been the recognition that intralinguistic distributional and sensory-motor data are interdependent. We describe recent work in philosophy, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and computational modeling that are all based on or consistent with this conclusion. We conclude by considering some possible directions for future research that arise as a consequence of these developments. (shrink)

Hailed by Margaret Thatcher as the founder of modern conservatism, Keith Joseph is commonly ranked among the most influential politicians of the late-20th century. A complex and enigmatic figure Joseph was almost unique among Mrs Thatcher's senior ministers in refusing to write his own memoirs. Challenging both the "mad monk" view held by his critics and his status of mythical hero to his admirers, the authors present a picture of Joseph as a thinker and decision-maker. the authors tell of Joseph's (...) formative years before he entered Parliamnet in 1956: the powerful Jewish dynasty into which Josph was born; his time at Harrow; at Oxford; his war years in the Royal Artillery; and his Fellowship at All Souls. This volume charts the political career of Keith Joseph. The authors challenge Joseph's self-declared conversion to Conservatism in 1974 and the importance of his "education" of Margaret Thatcher. His own ambition, intellectual integrity and consistency are all examined and a different picture emerges of his role as the intellectual driving force behind Conservative Government policy in the 1980s. (shrink)

Hailed by Margaret Thatcher as the founder of modern conservatism, Keith Joseph is commonly ranked among the most influential politicians of the late-20th century. A complex and enigmatic figure Joseph was almost unique among Mrs Thatcher's senior ministers in refusing to write his own memoirs. Challenging both the "mad monk" view held by his critics and his status of mythical hero to his admirers, the authors present a picture of Joseph as a thinker and decision-maker. the authors tell of Joseph's (...) formative years before he entered Parliamnet in 1956: the powerful Jewish dynasty into which Josph was born; his time at Harrow; at Oxford; his war years in the Royal Artillery; and his Fellowship at All Souls. This volume charts the political career of Keith Joseph. The authors challenge Joseph's self-declared conversion to Conservatism in 1974 and the importance of his "education" of Margaret Thatcher. His own ambition, intellectual integrity and consistency are all examined and a different picture emerges of his role as the intellectual driving force behind Conservative Government policy in the 1980s. (shrink)

Hailed by Margaret Thatcher as the founder of modern conservatism, Keith Joseph is commonly ranked among the most influential politicians of the late-20th century. A complex and enigmatic figure Joseph was almost unique among Mrs Thatcher's senior ministers in refusing to write his own memoirs. Challenging both the "mad monk" view held by his critics and his status of mythical hero to his admirers, the authors present a picture of Joseph as a thinker and decision-maker. the authors tell of Joseph's (...) formative years before he entered Parliamnet in 1956: the powerful Jewish dynasty into which Josph was born; his time at Harrow; at Oxford; his war years in the Royal Artillery; and his Fellowship at All Souls. This volume charts the political career of Keith Joseph. The authors challenge Joseph's self-declared conversion to Conservatism in 1974 and the importance of his "education" of Margaret Thatcher. His own ambition, intellectual integrity and consistency are all examined and a different picture emerges of his role as the intellectual driving force behind Conservative Government policy in the 1980s. (shrink)

Angelaki, Volume 16, Issue 1, Page 1-3, 01Mar2011.

We highlight a particular meta-philosophical assumption; namely, the philosophical “Claim-Claim” to the effect that meaningful philosophical utterances are, at least in core cases, descriptive claims. In Section I, we explain the Claim-Claim and describe its place in contemporary philosophy. In Section II, we sketch some of its stultifying implications. In Section III, we attempt to make these implications vivid by considering a case study. Specifically, we show that the Claim-Claim has had a pernicious effect on recent attempts to make sense (...) of Martin Heidegger’s philosophical project. Section IV explains Heidegger’s positive pragmatic account, while Section V is a brief and polemical attempt to advance an alternative to the status quo. (shrink)

Novel cellular therapy techniques promise to cure many haematology patients refractory to other treatment modalities. These therapies are intensive and require referral to and care from specialised providers. In the USA, this pool of providers is not expanding at a rate necessary to meet expected demand; therefore, access scarcity appears forthcoming and is likely to be widespread. To maintain fair access to these scarce and curative therapies, we must prospectively create a just and practical system to distribute care. In this (...) article, we first review previously implemented medical product and personnel allocation systems, examining their applicability to cellular therapy provider shortages to demonstrate that this problem requires a novel approach. We then present an innovative system for allocating cellular therapy access, which accounts for the constraints of distribution during real-world oncology practice by using a combination of the following principles: maximising life-years per personnel time, youngest and robust first, sickest first, first come/first served and instrumental value. We conclude with justifications for the incorporation of these principles and the omission of others, discuss how access can be distributed using this combination, consider cost and review fundamental factors necessary for the practical implementation and maintenance of this system. (shrink)

Tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies. What does pleasure have to do with morality? What role, if any, should intuition have in the formation of moral theory? If something is ‘simulated’, can it be immoral? -/- This accessible and wide-ranging textbook explores these questions and many more. Key ideas in the fields of normative ethics, metaethics and applied ethics are explained rigorously and systematically, with a vivid writing style that enlivens the topics with energy (...) and wit. Individual theories are discussed in detail in the first part of the book, before these positions are applied to a wide range of contemporary situations including business ethics, sexual ethics, and the acceptability of eating animals. A wealth of real-life examples, set out with depth and care, illuminate the complexities of different ethical approaches while conveying their modern-day relevance. -/- This concise and highly engaging resource is tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies, with a clear and practical layout that includes end-of-chapter summaries, key terms, and common mistakes to avoid. It should also be of practical use for those studying Philosophy as part of the International Baccalaureate or an introductory Philosophy course at university. -/- Ethics for A-Level is of particular value to students and teachers, but Fisher and Dimmock’s precise and scholarly approach will appeal to anyone seeking a rigorous and lively introduction to the challenging subject of ethics. (shrink)

In this study, we sought to obtain detailed opinion on some of the practical issues that might arise should physician-assisted suicide (PAS) ever be legalized in the UK. We carried out an anonymous postal questionnaire of medical students, junior and senior doctors working at an acute hospital trust, over a three-week period. A total of 435 questionnaires were distributed and we had an overall return rate of 34%. We found that opinions changed very little as doctors progressed from medical school (...) through to senior clinical positions. Overall, there was neutral opinion on whether PAS should be legalized. There was strong support for a multidisciplinary approach to the process and the involvement of the coroner. An opt-out clause for physicians who did not want to be involved in assisted suicide also received strong support. (shrink)

Ligation is a form of chemical self-assembly that involves dynamic formation of strong covalent bonds in the presence of weak associative forces. We study an extremely simple form of ligation by means of a dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) model extended to include the dynamic making and breaking of strong bonds, which we term dynamically bonding dissipative particle dynamics (DDPD). Then we use a chemical genetic algorithm (CGA) to optimize the model’s parameters to achieve a limited form of ligation of trimers—a (...) proof of principle for the evolutionary design of self-assembling chemical systems. (shrink)