This paper analyzes community ecologist Charles Elton’s ideas on animal communities, and situates them with respect to the classical opposition between organicist–holistic and individualistic–reductionist ecological views drawn by many historians of ecology. It is argued that Elton espoused a moderate ecological holism, which drew a middle way between the stricter ecological holism advocated by organicist ecologists and the merely aggregationist views advocated by some of their opponents. It is also argued that Elton’s moderate ecological holism resonated with his preference for (...) analogies between ecological communities and human societies over more common ones between communities and individual organisms. I discuss, on the one hand, how the functionalist-interactionist approach to community ecology introduced by Elton entailed a view of ecological communities as more or less self-maintaining functionally organized wholes, and how his ideas on this matter were incorporated into their views by organicist ecologists Frederic Clements, Victor Shelford, and Warder C. Allee et al. On the other hand, I identify some important divergences between Elton’s ecological ideas and those of organicist ecologists. Specifically, I show how Elton’s ideas on species distribution, animal migrations, and ecological succession entailed a view of animal communities as exhibiting a weaker degree of part-whole integration than that attributed to them by Clements and Shelford; and how Elton’s mixed stance on the balance of nature idea and his associated views on community stability attributed to communities a weaker form of self-regulation than that attributed to them by Allee et al. (shrink)

In light of the phenomenon of multiple realizability, many philosophers wanted to preserve the mind-brain identity theory by resorting to a “narrow reductive strategy” whereby one (a) finds mental properties which are (b) sufficiently narrow to avoid the phenomenon of multiple realization, while being (c) explanatorily adequate to the demands of psychological theorizing. That is, one replaces the conception of a mental property as more general feature of cognitive systems with many less general properties, for example, replacing the conception of (...) pain as a general property across different species with a number of species-specific kinds of pain. Many critics focused on (c), arguing that species-specific properties are not explanatorily adequate because they do not capture what is common in pain across species. In this paper I focused on (b). I argued that if one carries the narrow reductive strategy out in such a way to avoid all multiple realizability that occurs within a species, for example, accommodating individual differences by postulating a more narrow pain-relative-to-an-individual-at-a-time, then the result is for all intents and purposes a claim about tokens and not types or properties at all (the position is now about individuals having properties at times, a structured token event). I also added an important point about explanation, viz., that properties-relative-to-individuals-at-times would not serve the explanatory goals of science by failing to generalize to other individuals. (shrink)

This paper proposes extending the appearance of artefacts from human to zoomorphic on the basis of the uncanny valley phenomenon, while simultaneously realising the effects of bionic species, product realism, and gender differences on preschool children’s preferences for artificial animal appearances. In this study, animal toys were created as stimuli and a three-factor experiment was conducted with preschool children. Overall, the children demonstrated significantly stronger preferences for animal toys with extremely high or moderate realism compared with those (...) with extremely low realism. Specifically, the boys preferred the toys with extremely high realism, and the girls preferred those with moderate realism. We conclude with some suggestions regarding the direction of design guidelines for the appearance of artificial animals, to facilitate the design and creation of animal products that promote human–robot interactions and design education. (shrink)

In recent years, the research field of the evolution of art has witnessed contributions from a wide range of disciplines across the "three cultures". In this thesis, I make both a critical review of existing explanations, and try to do elucidate the evolution of art by employing insights, methods and concepts from different disciplines. First, I critically evaluate the evidentiary criteria from standard evolutionary psychology some accounts employ to demonstrate that art qualifies as a human biological adaptation. I argue that (...) these criteria do not suffice to make that claim. Furthermore, I make the case for a cultural evolutionary approach to the arts. One commonly used evidentiary criterion for art as adaptation is the “tight fit” between artnbsp;human cognition, which is interpreted as suggesting that cognition has undergone selection to produce and appreciate art. However, disentangling cultural and genetic evolution allows formulating thenbsp;hypothesis that art has evolved culturally to match human cognition. Second, I observe that in ancient and modern hunter gatherer societies, artistic activities are virtually alwaysnbsp;with ritual. I discuss what this implies for the adaptive significance of art. Specifically, if the arts have culturally evolved in function of ritualistic purposes, their adaptive value has depended on the adaptiveness of ritual. Third, because architecture is characterized by the combination of utilitarian and aesthetic aspects, it is particularly interesting from an evolutionary perspective and therefore I devote special attention to it. Employing the cross-species comparative approach, I investigate two main purposes human architecture has in common with nonhuman animal constructions: protection andnbsp;Based on the phylogenetic approach I establish that protection may have been the primary function of building aptitudes in humannbsp;and that building was later co-opted for signaling purposes. Subsequently, I comparatively evaluate thenbsp;of signaling models in the cultural evolution of architectural aesthetics. Furthermore I combine insights from environmental psychology, niche construction and cultural evolution theory to develop the hypothesis that a function of religious monumental architecture may have been to support nbsp;or even to galvanize nbsp;social learning. Finally, I connect the account I developed to the cognitive science of religion. I complement the frequently held view that religious monumental architecture is a costly signal with the mechanism of sensory exploitation. I attempt to demonstrate that by exploiting thenbsp;response of awe in religious followers, religious monumental architecture promotes and regulates prosocial behavior and creates in them an openness to adopt supernatural beliefs. Fourth, I dealnbsp;the evolution of visual art, paying again special attention to cultural evolution andnbsp;explanatory value of sensory exploitation. I assert that the relatively late appearance of figurative art in the course of human evolution may be attributed to an increase in the number of social learning opportunities within and between human populations at that time. I support this assertion with archaeological data that indicate overall population growth and increased population densities at that time. These demographic changes, I argue, have allowed the retention and accumulation of innovations required for figurative art making. Contrary to previous accounts, I furthermore aim to show that this process doesnbsp;require figurative art to have served adaptive purposes. Employing sensory exploitation, I establish that figurative art could have evolved by exploiting pre-existing biases of evolved psychology. The dominant themes of upper Paleolithic and late stone age figurative art, animals and humans, seem to support this contention. Fifth, I present a number of experimental studies I conducted to verify whether contemporary art experts would have socially learned to resist exploitation of evolved psychology. One aspect ofrsquo;s exploitative power may be that it elicits aesthetic pleasure by pushing “pleasure buttons” that evolved for other purposes. Consequently, spectators may trade-off rewards from indulging in art and biological activities, resulting in less effort being allocated to reproduction. I contend that, while the generalnbsp; may indeed be exploited, experts, who are typically being exposed to high doses of art, may have socially learned to resist exploitation by selectively preferring art from prestigious art contexts. The latter would be in line with the claim that prestige bias may trump content biases of evolved psychology. The results of three experimental studies supportnbsp;contention. I find that laypeople's art appreciation is positively affected by a content bias for attractive faces, mediated by aesthetic pleasure, whereas experts' appreciation is positively affected by prestige and mediated by admiration for the artist. Moreover, experts confer lower appreciation to attractive compared to moderately attractive content, which is consistentnbsp;the contention that expertise and the use of prestige are associatednbsp;resistance against beautiful content that exploits evolved preferences. This research thus suggests that expertise moderates content and context biases, which may be of relevance to an ongoing debate about their relative importance as drivers of cultural evolution. In addition, this study provides a tentative but novel explanation for the fact, famously established by philosopher Arthur Danto, that beauty lost its central position in Western art during the 20th century. However my findings cannot exclude alternative explanations for the fact that art expert appreciation deviates from evolved aesthetic preferences. Further research may experimentally assess the role of prestige bias and resistance as drivers of this deviation versus other, previously suggested, potential processes. For example, preferences of experts may deviate on account of the fact that art serves as a badge of elite group membership and thus expert art appreciation as a means to distinguish oneself from the masses. Alternatively, art experts may seek intellectual challenges instead of pushing pleasure buttons. Future research may experimentally verify the respective roles of these different hypothesized mechanisms. In addition, it may be investigated how insights from sexual selection research may help elucidating the different processes at play in cultural evolution and particularly in the cultural evolution of art appreciation, given the commonalities between sexual selection and cultural selection models. (shrink)

Phenotypic divergence among animal species may be due in part to species‐specific (SS) regulation of gene expression by small, non‐coding regulatory RNAs termed “microRNAs”. This phenomenon can be modulated by several variables. First, microRNA genes vary by their level of conservation, many of them being SS, or unique to a particular evolutionary lineage. Second, microRNA expression levels vary spatially and temporally in different species. Lastly, while microRNAs bind the 3′UTR of target genes in order to silence (...) their expression, the binding sites themselves are often non‐conserved. The variability of the miRNA‐target paradigm between different species is thus multifactorial, and this paradigm has only just started to gain attention from researchers in various fields. Here we present and discuss recent findings regarding the characteristics and implications of SS microRNA regulation. (shrink)

At the end of the most violent century in human history, it is good to take stock of our commitments to human and other life forms, as well as to examine the rights and the duties that might flow from their biological makeup. Professor Thomasma and Professor Loewy have held a long-standing dialogue on whether there are moral differences between animals and humans. This dialogue was occasioned by a presentation Thomasma made some years ago at Loewy's invitation at the University (...) of Illinois, Peoria, Medical Center. During that presentation, Thomasma argued that human beings are sufficiently distinct from other animals genetically and otherwise to justify a moral difference in rights and obligations. In effect, he argued that there are species-specific rights. This essay will pick up the threads of that dialogue. (shrink)

Human tool behavior is species-specific. It remains a diagnostic feature of humans, even when comparisons are made with closely related non-human primates. The archaeological record demonstrates both the deep antiquity of human tool behavior and its fundamental role in distinguishing human behavior from that of non-human primates.

A fetish is a specific emotionally loaded object, body part, or situation that draws our attention and desire, and sexual fetishism is the sexual arousal that a person experiences when in contact with such a loaded object. Until now, psychology has had trouble understanding the distinctive lust objects and the orchestration of urges in the world of fetishism, so fetishism has therefore fallen into the category of perversions and abnormal behavior. In this study, fetishism is moved to the field (...) of aesthetics, and a new theory is presented: Fetishism is the attraction to certain species-specific key stimuli that are perceived as especially beautiful and exciting. A topic or an object that contains important key stimuli automatically becomes a power object or a fetish. Therefore, we have to look into the innate sensibilities on which our aesthetics are based and into the micro-processes of the aesthetic impulse to understand why something captivates and fascinates us in a fetishist way. (shrink)

The relationships between captive primates and their caregivers are critical ones and can affect animal welfare. This study tested the effect of caregivers using chimpanzee behaviors or not, in daily interactions with captive chimpanzees. In the Chimpanzee Behavior condition the caregiver presented chimpanzee behaviors. In the Human Behavior condition the caregiver avoided using chimpanzee behaviors. The chimpanzees had individual patterns of response and had significant differences in their responses to each condition. These data are compared to a similar study conducted (...) at The Zoo Northwest Florida. Both groups of chimpanzees were sensitive and responsive to the differences in conditions. These data suggest ways to improve animal welfare. Keywords: chimpanzee behavior; animal welfare; species-specific behavior; husbandry. (shrink)

The relationships between captive primates and their caregivers are critical ones and can affect animal welfare. This study tested the effect of caregivers using chimpanzee behaviors or not, in daily interactions with captive chimpanzees. In the Chimpanzee Behavior condition the caregiver presented chimpanzee behaviors. In the Human Behavior condition the caregiver avoided using chimpanzee behaviors. The chimpanzees had individual patterns of response and had significant differences in their responses to each condition. These data are compared to a similar study conducted (...) at The Zoo Northwest Florida. Both groups of chimpanzees were sensitive and responsive to the differences in conditions. These data suggest ways to improve animal welfare. (shrink)

Despite the ontogenetic allometric size effects that explain much of phyletic variation in brain components, the residuals of some structures indicates that mosaic brain evolution was an important factor in hominid evolution, and that reorganization of the hominid brain may have occurred as early as 3+ MY. Finlay et al.'s allometric technique masks residual variation around allometric trends, and the patterns of residuals relevant to species-specific departures from strict allometric trends.

The outer membrane (OM) is an essential barrier that guards Gram‐negative bacteria from diverse environmental insults. Besides functioning as a chemical gatekeeper, the OM also contributes towards the strength and stiffness of cells and allows them to sustain mechanical stress. Largely influenced by studies of Escherichia coli, the OM is viewed as a rigid barrier where OM proteins and lipopolysaccharides display restricted mobility. Here the discussion is extended to other bacterial species, with a focus on Myxococcus xanthus. In contrast (...) to the rigid OM paradigm, myxobacteria possess a relatively fluid OM. It is concluded that the fluidity of the OM varies across environmental species, which is likely linked to their evolution and adaptation to specific ecological niches. Importantly, a fluid OM can endow bacteria with distinct functions for cell‐cell and cell‐environment interactions. (shrink)

In this response to essays by Barbara J. King, Gregory R. Peterson, Wesley J. Wildman, and Nancy R. Howell, I present arguments to counter some of the exciting and challenging questions from my colleagues. I take the opportunity to restate my argument for an interdisciplinary public theology, and by further developing the notion of transversality I argue for the specificity of the emerging theological dialogue with paleoanthropology and primatology. By arguing for a hermeneutics of the body, I respond to criticism (...) of my notion of human uniqueness and argue for strong evolutionary continuities, as well as significant discontinuities, between primates, humans, and other hominids. In addition, I answer critical questions about theological methodology and argue how the notion of human uniqueness, theologically restated as the image of God, is enriched by transversally appropriating scientific notions of species specificity and embodied personhood. (shrink)

Community discourse about the moral status of animals is critical to the future of bioethics and, indeed, to the future of modern society. Thomasma and Loewy are to be commended for sharing thoughts and trying to attain some common ground. I am grateful to them for fostering discussion and allowing me to respond. I cannot endorse the negative tone of the end of their conversation, however. They end with serious concerns about the possibility of any agreement between themselves. Even though (...) I perceive some moral differences between them, I do not believe that they are moral strangers. In this commentary I review the ways in which I agree and disagree with Thomasma and Loewy and conclude with some thoughts about the kind of broad ethical thinking we need to do to address our moral relationship to nonhuman, living creatures. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach emphasizes species-specific abilities in grounding our treatment of animals. Though this emphasis provides many action-guiding benefits, it also generates a number of complications. The criticism registered here is that Nussbaum unjustifiably restricts what is allowed into our concept of species norms, the most notable restrictions being placed on latent abilities and those that arise as a result of human intervention. These restrictions run the risk of producing inaccurate or misleading recommendations that fail to (...) correspond to the true needs of animals. Here and throughout the essay the argument draws from the lives of captive apes, especially those with extensive experience with humans. A further criticism is that the normative guidance the capabilities approach does provide is merely at the level of heuristics. Preference testing, it is argued, also uses species norms profitably as a heuristic, but it does so within a much larger and fecund system of assessing an animal’s well-being. (shrink)

Human aesthetic preferences towards a certain landscape type, a certain bodily traits of the opposite sex, a figurative style rather than another, are embedded in what we call “aesthetic experience”, a complex network of instinctive reactions, emotions, feelings, thoughts, and judgements. Are these preferences universal and species-specific, that is to say are they the same for every member of a particular species? Evolutionary psychologists advocate the universality and species-specificity of the aesthetic preferences. Going (...) back to Darwin's writings, in particular to his Notebooks, Bartalesi and Portera attempt to provide an alternative explanation for the emergence and development of human aesthetic preferences, beyond the dichotomy of nature and culture. (shrink)

This paper proposes that mammals exhibit three primary emotion categories for mating and reproduction: (1) the sex drive, or lust, characterized by the craving for sexual gratification; (2) attraction, characterized by increased energy and focused attention on one or more potential mates, accompanied in humans by feelings of exhilaration, “intrusive thinking” about a mate, and the craving for emotional union with this mate or potential mate; and (3) attachment, characterized by the maintenance of close social contact in mammals, accompanied in (...) humans by feelings of calm, comfort, and emotional union with a mate. Each emotion category is associated with a discrete constellation of neural correlates, and each evolved to direct a specific aspect of reproduction. The sex drive is associated primarily with the estrogens and androgens; it evolved to motivate individuals to seek sexual union. The attraction system is associated primarily with the catecholamines; it evolved to facilitate mate choice, enabling individuals to focus their mating effort on preferred partners. The attachment system is associated primarily with the peptides, vasopressin, and oxytocin; it evolved to motivate individuals to engage in positive social behaviors and assume species-specific parental duties.During the evolution of the genus Homo, these emotion systems became increasingly independent of one another, a phenomenon that contributes to human mating flexibility and the wide range of contemporary human mating and reproductive strategies. (shrink)

Existence value refers to the value humans ascribe to the existence of something, regard­less of whether it is or will be of any particular use to them. This existence value based on preference satisfaction should be taken into account in evaluating activities that come with a risk of species extinction. There are two main objections. The first is that on the preference satisfaction interpretation, the concept lacks moral importance because satisfying people’s preferences may involve no good or well-being (...) for them. However, existence value can be based on a restricted version of the preference satisfaction theory, which is not vulnerable to the skeptical arguments about the link between preference satisfaction and well-being. The second objection is that even if preference satisfaction can be linked to well-being, understanding existence value in terms of individual preference satisfaction is incoherent, because existence value reflects disinterested preferences that involve no benefits to the individual. However, the fact that existence value may involve disinterested preferences does not threaten the coherence of the concept, but suggests that it does not fit smoothly into the “utilitarian” or “welfarist” framework it is commonly considered within. A pluralistic normative approach based on prima facie duties can be an alternative to standard utilitarian-style approaches for considering existence value in concrete cases involving a risk of species extinction, such as through deep sea mining. (shrink)

(Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1996: 17-36) I If I am to survive until some later date, what must happen, and what must not happen, over the intervening period? I am talking here about survival in the strict sense. Take an earlier and a later person, if they are one and the same, what is it about them that makes this so? In addressing this question the preferred tool has long been the exploitation of imaginary or science fiction cases. We (...) are asked to reflect on scenarios in which an ordinary person is subjected to some unusual treatment which effectively removes one or more of the elements that usually accompanies personal persistence. If we think the subject survives the treatment, the conclusion is drawn that the elements removed are not necessary to personal identity as we conceive it. The hope is that the repeated use of this method, with a variety of scenarios, will finally produce a convergence of intuitive responses as to what is necessary and sufficient for survival. Unfortunately, this method has failed to produce the goods. The literature is brimming with cunningly constructed scenarios yet consensus as to what personal persistence involves seems as elusive as ever. So it is hardly surprising that the method has come in for some criticism recently. There is a feeling that much time has been wasted on devising fantastic stories about which many people have no firm or reliable intuitions. Hence the demand for a different approach. As for the direction the new approach should take, a general trend can be detected: a focusing on human beings, biological entities of a particular kind, with species-specific identity conditions - a move away from science fiction, towards science. I shall be arguing here that this response is premature. Although it would be a mistake to expect too much from the standard method, it delivers at least one significant result: that of the several strands that make up a human life, we believe that one particular strand is of overriding importance in regard to our continued existence. (shrink)

In attempting to form rational personal probabilities by direct inference, it is usually assumed that one should prefer frequency information concerning more specific reference classes. While the preceding assumption is intuitively plausible, little energy has been expended in explaining why it should be accepted. In the present article, I address this omission by showing that, among the principled policies that may be used in setting one’s personal probabilities, the policy of making direct inferences with a preference for frequency information (...) for more specific reference classes yields personal probabilities whose accuracy is optimal, according to all proper scoring rules, in situations where all of the relevant frequency information is point-valued. Assuming that frequency information for narrower reference classes is preferred, when the relevant frequency statements are point-valued, a dilemma arises when choosing whether to make a direct inference based upon relatively precise-valued frequency information for a broad reference class, R, or upon relatively imprecise-valued frequency information for a more specific reference class, R*. I address such cases, by showing that it is often possible to make a precise-valued frequency judgment regarding R* based on precise-valued frequency information for R, using standard principles of direct inference. Having made such a frequency judgment, the dilemma of choosing between and is removed, and one may proceed by using the precise-valued frequency estimate for the more specific reference class as a premise for direct inference. (shrink)

Background: Olfactory cues directly link the environment to gene expression. Two types of olfactory cues, food odors and social odors, alter genetically predisposed hormone-mediated activity in the mammalian brain. Methods: The honeybee is a model organism for understanding the epigenetic link from food odors and social odors to neural networks of the mammalian brain, which ultimately determine human behavior. Results: Pertinent aspects that extend the honeybee model to human behavior include bottom-up followed by top-down gene, cell, tissue, organ, organ-system, and (...) organism reciprocity; neurophysiological effects of food odors and of sexually dimorphic, species-specific social odors; a model of motor function required for social selection that precedes sexual selection; and hormonal effects that link current neuroscience to social science affects on the development of animal behavior. Conclusion: As the psychological influence of food odors and social orders is examined in detail, the socioaffective nature of olfactory cues on the biologically based development of sexual preferences across all species that sexually reproduce becomes clearer Keywords: behavior; development; evolution; odors; food; social; sexual; epigenetic; olfaction; pheromones; hormones; environment; animal; affect; effect; neuroscience (Published: 15 March 2012) Citation: Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology 2012, 2 : 17338 - DOI: 10.3402/snp.v2i0.17338. (shrink)

Some species are weedy: they move from one ecological niche to another. Other species are specialized: they are exquisitely adapted to exploit a particular niche. Human beings are the design solution in which a species is simultaneously weedy and specialized - the trick being to manage the exquisite niche-specific adaptations in software rather than in the hardware. We are built to reprogram ourselves on the fly, to select new goals, new priorities and new guidelines appropriate to (...) novel niches. Understanding ourselves as an implementation of this design solution has consequences for the theory of practical reasoning. Instrumentalism (the theory of practical reasoning according to which it consists solely in selecting means to pre-given ends) cannot be a suitable theory of rationality for such a species (that is, our own). (shrink)

The preference for learning styles is an important and widely discussed topic in educational psychology. Knowing students' preferences regarding learning style enables teachers to use more effective methods of providing information and to choose better educational tools for a particular student. This research deals with the comparison of male and female students' learning styles and contributes to the discussion of whether gender can affect a student's learning style. Kolb's assessment method was used to determine an individual's learning style. The (...) research uses both quantitative and qualitative methods in order to strengthen each method and get clearer results. 100 questionnaires were given out and 10 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The study took place at the College of Healthcare and Nursing in Brno. To concentrate on the research objectives, the respondents of similar age, same education level, and similar background were chosen. The results clearly show that male and female students tend to prefer different learning styles and that is contrary to the findings of previous research done in this area. The study helps to understand how gender can affect our way of studying and how to help individuals learn more effectively. (shrink)

Stoffregen & Bardy propose an absolutist transmodal array structure model, intended to displace models of specification in all existing perceptual theories. Absolute specification of world structure in array structures, either unimodal or transmodal, may not be provable, but might be falsifiable. Absolute specification, moreover, may not be a necessary postulate in an ecological approach to understanding perception-action.

One of the reasons for adopting hyperbolic discounting is to explain preference reversals. Another is that this value structure suggests an elegant theory of the will. I examine the capacity of the theory to solve Newcomb's problem. In addition, I compare Ainslie's account with other procedural theories of choice that seem at least equally capable of accommodating reversals of preference.

This study aims at demonstrating the usefulness of the Pareto in- clusive criterion methodology for comparative analyses of fungi toxicity. The toxicity of fungi is usually measured using a scale of several ranks. In practice, the ranks of toxicity are routinely grouped into only four conventional classes of toxicity: from a class of no toxicity, low toxicity, and moderate toxicity, to a class of high toxicity. The illustrative material included the N = 61 fungi samples obtained from three species: (...) A. ochraceus, A. niger and A. flavus. In accordance with the Pareto approach, four partial criterions of the worst toxi- city were defined, a single criterion used for each conventional class of toxicity. Finally, the odds ratios (OR) were calculated separately for each partial cri- terion, and the significance of the hypotheses OR = 1 was estimated. It was stated that A. ochraceus fungi are distinctly more toxic than the two remaining ones with respect to the all considered four partial criterions, with significance equal to p = 0.04, p = 0.04, p = 0.007 and p = 0.005, respectively. Thus, the suggested method illustrated its utility in the case under study. (shrink)

Inter-species variation in colour perception poses a serious problem for the view that colours are mind-independent properties. Given that colour perception varies so drastically across species, which species perceives colours as they really are? In this paper, I argue that all do. Specifically, I argue that members of different species perceive properties that are determinates of different, mutually compatible, determinables. This is an instance of a general selectionist strategy for dealing with cases of perceptual variation. According (...) to selectionist views, objects simultaneously instantiate a plurality of colours, all of them genuinely mind-independent, and subjects select from amongst this plurality which colours they perceive. I contrast selectionist views with relationalist views that deny the mind-independence of colour, and consider some general objections to this strategy. (shrink)

The “species-as-individuals” thesis takes species, or taxa, to be individuals. On grounds of spatiotemporal boundedness, any biological entity at any level of complexity subject to evolutionary processes is an individual. From evolutionary theory flows an ontology that does not countenance universal properties shared by evolving entities. If austere nominalism were applied to evolving entities, however, nature would be reduced to a mere flow of passing events, each one a blob in space–time and hence of passing interest only. Yet (...) if there is genuine biodiversity in nature, if nature is genuinely carved into species, and taxa, then these evolutionary entities will be genuinely differentiated into specific kinds, each species being one of its kind. Given the fact that evolving entities have un-sharp boundaries, an appropriately weak, “non-essentialist” concept of natural kind has to be invoked that does not allow for strong identity conditions. The thesis of this paper is that species are not either individuals, or natural kinds. Instead, species are complex wholes (particulars, individuals) that instantiate a specific natural kind. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 24 Moral theories which include a preference-fulfillment aspect should not restrict their concern to some subset of people’s preferences such as “now-for-now” preferences. Instead, preferences with all contents—e.g. ones which are external, diachronic, or even modal—should be taken into account. I offer a conceptualization of preferences and preference fulfillment which allows us to understand odd species of preferences, and I give a series of examples showing what it would mean to (...) fulfill such preferences and why we ought to do so. (shrink)

Frank E. Zachos offers a comprehensive review of one of today's most important and contentious issues in biology: the species problem. After setting the stage with key background information on the topic, the book provides a brief history of species concepts from antiquity to the Modern Synthesis, followed by a discussion of the ontological status of species with a focus on the individuality thesis and potential means of reconciling it with other philosophical approaches. More than 30 different (...) species concepts found in the literature are presented in an annotated list, and the most important ones, including the Biological, Genetic, Evolutionary and different versions of the Phylogenetic Species Concept, are discussed in more detail. Specific questions addressed include the problem of asexual and prokaryotic species, intraspecific categories like subspecies and Evolutionarily Significant Units, and a potential solution to the species problem based on a hierarchical approach that distinguishes between ontological and operational species concepts. A full chapter is dedicated to the challenge of delimiting species by means of a discrete taxonomy in a continuous world of inherently fuzzy boundaries. Further, the book outlines the practical ramifications for ecology and evolutionary biology of how we define the species category, highlighting the danger of an apples and oranges problem if what we subsume under the same name ("species") is in actuality a variety of different entities. A succinct summary chapter, glossary and annotated list of references round out the coverage, making the book essential reading for all biologists looking for an accessible introduction to the historical, philosophical and practical dimensions of the species problem. (shrink)

ISBN 3110150077 (paperback) DEM 58.00 A collection of invited papers on the role of preferences and desires in practical reasoning: including rational decision making, the concept of welfare, and ethics. With a substantial introduction and a bibliographical survey. culture-specific and universal factors.