Uberto Decembrio's Four Books on the Commonwealth (De re publica libri IV, ca. 1420), edited and translated by Paolo Ponzù Donato, is one of the earliest examples of the reception of Plato's Republic in the 15th century. This humanistic dialogue provides a thoughtful insight on themes such as justice, the best government, the morals of the prince and citizen, education, and religion. Decembrio's dialogue is dedicated to Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan, the 'worst enemy' of Florence. Making (...) use of literary and documentary sources, Ponzù Donato convincingly proves that Decembrio's thought, sharing many points with the Florentine humanist Leonardo Bruni, belongs to the same world of Civic Humanism. (shrink)

The standard view in social science and philosophy is that lying does not require the liar’s assertion to be false, only that the liar believes it to be false. We conducted three experiments to test whether lying requires falsity. Overall, the results suggest that it does. We discuss some implications for social scientists working on social judgments, research on lie detection, and public moral discourse.

This chapter proposed a novel design methodology called Value-Sensitive Design and its potential application to the field of artificial intelligence research and design. It discusses the imperatives in adopting a design philosophy that embeds values into the design of artificial agents at the early stages of AI development. Because of the high risk stakes in the unmitigated design of artificial agents, this chapter proposes that even though VSD may turn out to be a less-than-optimal design methodology, it currently provides a (...) framework that has the potential to embed stakeholder values and incorporate current design methods. The reader should begin to take away the importance of a proactive design approach to intelligent agents. (shrink)

Researchers have debated whether there is a relationship between a statement’s truth-value and whether it counts as a lie. One view is that a statement being objectively false is essential to whether it counts as a lie; the opposing view is that a statement’s objective truth-value is inessential to whether it counts as a lie. We report five behavioral experiments that use a novel range of behavioral measures to address this issue. In each case, we found evidence of a relationship. (...) A statement’s truth-value affects how quickly people judge whether it is a lie. When people consider the matter carefully and are told that they might need to justify their answer, they are more likely to categorize a statement as a lie when it is false than when it is true. When given options that inhibit perspective-taking, people tend to not categorize deceptively motivated statements as lies when they are true, even though they still categorize them as lies when they are false. Categorizing a speaker as “lying” leads people to strongly infer that the speaker’s statement is false. People are more likely to spontaneously categorize a statement as a lie when it is false than when it is true. We discuss four different interpretations of relevant findings to date. At present, the best supported interpretation might be that the ordinary lying concept is a prototype concept, with falsity being a centrally important element of the prototypical lie. (shrink)

Limited health literacy is a pervasive and independent risk factor for poor health outcomes. Despite decades of reports exhibiting that the healthcare system is overly complex, unneeded complexity remains commonplace and endangers the lives of patients, especially those with limited health literacy. In this article, we define health literacy and describe the empirical evidence associating health literacy and poor health outcomes. We recast the issue of poor health literacy from within the ethical perspective of the least well-off and argue that (...) poor health outcomes deriving from limited health literacy ought to be understood as a fundamental injustice of the healthcare system. We offer three proposals that attempt to rectify this injustice, including: universal precautions that presume limited health literacy for all healthcare users; expanded use of technology supported communication; and clinical incentives that account for limited health literacy. (shrink)

In this paper we consider conditional random quantities (c.r.q.’s) in the setting of coherence. Based on betting scheme, a c.r.q. X|H is not looked at as a restriction but, in a more extended way, as \({XH + \mathbb{P}(X|H)H^c}\) ; in particular (the indicator of) a conditional event E|H is looked at as EH + P(E|H)H c . This extended notion of c.r.q. allows algebraic developments among c.r.q.’s even if the conditioning events are different; then, for instance, we can give a (...) meaning to the sum X|H + Y|K and we can define the iterated c.r.q. (X|H)|K. We analyze the conjunction of two conditional events, introduced by the authors in a recent work, in the setting of coherence. We show that the conjoined conditional is a conditional random quantity, which may be a conditional event when there are logical dependencies. Moreover, we introduce the negation of the conjunction and by applying De Morgan’s Law we obtain the disjoined conditional. Finally, we give the lower and upper bounds for the conjunction and disjunction of two conditional events, by showing that the usual probabilistic properties continue to hold. (shrink)

We study probabilistically informative (weak) versions of transitivity by using suitable definitions of defaults and negated defaults in the setting of coherence and imprecise probabilities. We represent p-consistent sequences of defaults and/or negated defaults by g-coherent imprecise probability assessments on the respective sequences of conditional events. Moreover, we prove the coherent probability propagation rules for Weak Transitivity and the validity of selected inference patterns by proving p-entailment of the associated knowledge bases. Finally, we apply our results to study selected probabilistic (...) versions of classical categorical syllogisms and construct a new version of the square of opposition in terms of defaults and negated defaults. (shrink)

We generalize, by a progressive procedure, the notions of conjunction and disjunction of two conditional events to the case of n conditional events. In our coherence-based approach, conjunctions and disjunctions are suitable conditional random quantities. We define the notion of negation, by verifying De Morgan’s Laws. We also show that conjunction and disjunction satisfy the associative and commutative properties, and a monotonicity property. Then, we give some results on coherence of prevision assessments for some families of compounded conditionals; in particular (...) we examine the Fréchet-Hoeffding bounds. Moreover, we study the reverse probabilistic inference from the conjunction Cn+1 of n + 1 conditional events to the family {Cn,En+1|Hn+1}. We consider the relation with the notion of quasi-conjunction and we examine in detail the coherence of the prevision assessments related with the conjunction of three conditional events. Based on conjunction, we also give a characterization of p-consistency and of p-entailment, with applications to several inference rules in probabilistic nonmonotonic reasoning. Finally, we examine some non p-valid inference rules; then, we illustrate by an example two methods which allow to suitably modify non p-valid inference rules in order to get inferences which are p-valid. (shrink)

In this study, we explore the relation between scientific literacy and unwarranted beliefs. The results show heterogeneous interactions between six constructs: conspiracy theories poorly interact with scientific literacy; there are major differences between attitudinal and practical dimensions of critical thinking; paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs show similar associations ; and, only scientific knowledge interacts with other predictor of unwarranted beliefs, such as ontological confusions. These results reveal a limited impact: science educators must take into account the complex interactions between the dimensions (...) of scientific literacy and different types of unwarranted beliefs to improve pedagogical strategies. (shrink)

A standard view in social science and philosophy is that a lie is a dishonest assertion: to lie is to assert something that you think is false in order to deceive your audience. We report four behavioral experiments designed to evaluate some aspects of this view. Participants read short scenarios and judged several features of interest, including whether an agent lied. We found evidence that ordinary lie attributions can be influenced by aspects of audience uptake, are based on judging that (...) the agent made an assertion (assertion attributions), and, at least in some contexts, are not based on attributions of deceptive intent. The finding on assertion attributions is predicted by the standard view, but the finding on intent attributions is not. These results help to further clarify the ordinary concept of lying and shed light on the psychological processes involved in ordinary lie attributions and related judgments. (shrink)

This paper presents an introductory overview of the main issues that the digitalisation of industrial enterprises known as Industry 4.0 raises for social sciences. First, it will show that this technological transition—which, however, is unfinished and is seen to be in continuity with the so-called “third industrial revolution”—cannot be interpreted with reference to a deterministic approach. It can be analysed more usefully as a range of decisions affecting the industrial policies of national states, the conception and design of machines, their (...) adoption in production processes and finally their use by operators. Second, certain aspects of Industry 4.0 of special concern in terms of organisation of work processes will be analysed on various scales. Finally, we will explain various hypotheses that social and economic research is developing with regard to the new technologies’ controversial effects on employment. (shrink)

Starting from a recent paper by S. Kaufmann, we introduce a notion of conjunction of two conditional events and then we analyze it in the setting of coherence. We give a representation of the conjoined conditional and we show that this new object is a conditional random quantity, whose set of possible values normally contains the probabilities assessed for the two conditional events. We examine some cases of logical dependencies, where the conjunction is a conditional event; moreover, we give the (...) lower and upper bounds on the conjunction. We also examine an apparent paradox concerning stochastic independence which can actually be explained in terms of uncorrelation. We briefly introduce the notions of disjunction and iterated conditioning and we show that the usual probabilistic properties still hold. (shrink)

While natural law theory plays an important role for Catholic moral theology, it is true that Orthodox ethics has not endeavoured to develop its own theory of natural law. This article demonstrates the existence of the concept of natural law in Eastern Orthodox theology and argues that the main reason for this neglect is Eastern Christianity's traditional focus on faith rather than reason. In addition, the author, based on biblical and patristic grounds, highlights the necessity for a balance between the (...) two to be found and provides a way in which Orthodox moral theology could develop a natural law theory, should it ever feel the need to do so, by first redefining its relationship with the science of philosophy, after so many years of disregard. (shrink)

Interest in the demarcation problem is undergoing a boom after being shelved and even given up for dead. Nevertheless, despite current philosophical discussions, there are no substantial advances i...

Thomas Sankara was 33 years old when he seized power in a bloodless coup. During the four years of his governance, he organized adult literacy campaigns and mass vaccination of children, promoted women's rights and fought corruption as well as desertification caused by inappropriate agricultural practices introduced during the colonial period. Within two years, child mortality and illiteracy dropped significantly and vaccination coverage increased. Beyond these quantitative results, Sankara firmly believed that the decolonization of his country started from the formation (...) of the conscience of citizens, from learning to “rely on themselves” – materially and psychologically – and from the abandonment of a logic of technological and financial dependence that generated hunger and debt. To achieve his goals, he launched campaigns to “consume Burkinabè,” to plant trees and preserve rainwater in areas affected by desertification. (shrink)

En este artículo analizaremos los posibles criterios epistemológicos que, en el contexto de la filosofía hegeliana de la historia mundial, circunscriben el largo proceso revolucionario haitiano en un no-lugar narrativo. Contrario al imaginario político, económico y cultural europeo de fines del siglo XVIII y comienzos del siglo XIX, que vio en la Revolución haitiana un acontecimiento que directa o indirectamente repercute en las transformación geopolítica global, en los discursos abolicionistas y en la flujos comerciales a través del Atlántico, Hegel parece (...) en principio desatender la especificidad del proceso, aunque, como sostenemos en este contexto, es posible rastrear los motivos de una exclusión deliberada que responder a una ideas precisas de libertad y terror que anteceden, y por tanto determinan, el lugar de la Revolución haitiana en la historia mundial. (shrink)