During high summer 1721, while rioters and bankrupts gathered outside Parliament, Robert Walpole's new ministry forced through a bill to clear up the wreckage left by the stock-market crash, the South Sea Bubble, and the visionary projects swept away when it burst. In early August the President of the Royal Society Isaac Newton, a major investor in South Sea stock, and the Society's projectors, learned of a new commercial scheme promising apparently automatic profits, a project for a perpetual motion. (...) Their informants were a young Viennese courtier Joseph Emmanuel Fischer von Erlach, a contact of Desaguliers recently engaged in industrial espionage in northern England, and the Leiden physics professor Willem 'sGravesande, who had visited London five years earlier. They reported that they had been summoned to a remarkable series of demonstrations in the castle of Weissenstein, the seat of the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. In a carefully guarded room of the castle there was set up a hollow wooden wheel covered in oilcloth, about 12 feet in diameter and 18 inches thick on an axle 6 feet in length. Its designer, a Saxon engineer and clockmaker Johann Bessler, who travelled Germany under the name Orffyreus, had been in Kassel for four years, published schemes for perpetual motion and been appointed commercial councillor. The Landgrave, well-known as a patron of advanced engineering schemes, commissioned him to build a new machine and put it on show before expert witnesses (Figure 1). (shrink)

When do the folk think that mereological composition occurs? Many metaphysicians have wanted a view of composition that fits with folk intuitions, and yet there has been little agreement about what the folk intuit. We aim to put the tools of experimental philosophy to constructive use. Our studies suggest that folk mereology is teleological: people tend to intuit that composition occurs when the result serves a purpose. We thus conclude that metaphysicians should dismiss folk intuitions, as tied into a benighted (...) teleological view of nature. (shrink)

Knowledge is widely thought to entail belief. But Radford has claimed to offer a counterexample: the case of the unconfident examinee. And Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel have claimed empirical vindication of Radford. We argue, in defense of orthodoxy, that the unconfident examinee does indeed have belief, in the epistemically relevant sense of dispositional belief. We buttress this with empirical results showing that when the dispositional conception of belief is specifically elicited, people’s intuitions then conform with the view that knowledge entails (dispositional) (...) belief. (shrink)

Two separate research programs have revealed two different factors that feature in our judgments of whether some entity persists. One program—inspired by Knobe—has found that normative considerations affect persistence judgments. For instance, people are more inclined to view a thing as persisting when the changes it undergoes lead to improvements. The other program—inspired by Kelemen—has found that teleological considerations affect persistence judgments. For instance, people are more inclined to view a thing as persisting when it preserves its purpose. Our goal (...) in this paper is to determine what causes persistence judgments. Across four studies, we pit normative considerations against teleological considerations. And using causal modeling procedures, we find a consistent, robust pattern with teleological and not normative considerations directly causing persistence judgments. Our findings put teleology in the driver’s seat, while at the same time shedding further light on our folk notion of an object. (shrink)

Through case studies that highlight the type of information that is seldom reported in the news, Faces of Environmental Racism exposes the type and magnitude of environmental racism, both domestic and international. The essays explore the justice of current environmental practices, asking such questions as whether cost-benefit analysis is an appropriate analytic technique and whether there are alternate routes to sustainable development in the South.

Through case studies that highlight the type of information that is seldom reported in the news, Faces of Environmental Racism exposes the type and magnitude of environmental racism, both domestic and international. The essays explore the justice of current environmental practices, asking such questions as whether cost-benefit analysis is an appropriate analytic technique and whether there are alternate routes to sustainable development in the South.

In 2011, Hibbard suggested an intelligence measure for agents who compete in an adversarial sequence prediction game. We argue that Hibbard’s idea should actually be considered as two separate ideas: first, that the intelligence of such agents can be measured based on the growth rates of the runtimes of the competitors that they defeat; and second, one specific (somewhat arbitrary) method for measuring said growth rates. Whereas Hibbard’s intelligence measure is based on the latter growth-rate-measuring method, we survey other methods (...) for measuring function growth rates, and exhibit the resulting Hibbard-like intelligence measures and taxonomies. Of particular interest, we obtain intelligence taxonomies based on Big-O and Big-Theta notation systems, which taxonomies are novel in that they challenge conventional notions of what an intelligence measure should look like. We discuss how intelligence measurement of sequence predictors can indirectly serve as intelligence measurement for agents with Artificial General Intelligence (AGIs). (shrink)

This paper investigates the relationship between ethics and income among individuals of different religions in the HKSAR of China. The presence of both traditional Chinese religion and Christianity from the West makes our study particularly interesting. The content of ethical beliefs varies with religion and thus the effect of ethics on income may also vary across religion. Furthermore, a reverse causal relationship may run from income to ethics. Since culture and taste affect the consumption behavior of a person, depending on (...) the religion of the person, a person with a higher income may or may not like to ‘acquire’ more ethics. Our empirical results find that there is indeed a simultaneous relationship between income and being ethical so that a single equation estimation of income on ethics and vice versa generates biased estimates. Using a two-stage instrumental variable estimation, our study finds that being ethical contributes to higher income for Christians and the non-religious group, but lowers it for people of traditional Chinese religion. On the other hand, an increase in income increases the likelihood of a person’s being ethical for both Christians and the people of traditional Chinese religion, but reduces it for the non-religious group. (shrink)

The political writings of Jean-Francois Lyotard, the prophet of the postmodern, are presented here as both the missing dimension of his work and the key to understanding his position within contemporary debate.

Schizophrenia has been investigated predominately from psychological, psychiatric and neurobiological perspectives. This book is unique in examining it from a philosophical point of view. It should appeal to every reader who wants to better understand this major mental illness, providing unique insights into the 'experience' of schizophrenia.

This is an introduction to the Symposium on Nonparadigmatic Forms of Punishment. We explain what we mean by calling certain instances of punishment 'nonparadigmatic' and explain why nonparadigmatic punishments are of philosophical interest. We then introduce the contributions to the Special Issue and conclude by outlining directions that future research on nonparadigmatic punishment might take. We focus on three particular ways in which punishment might be nonparadigmatic: cases involving nonstandard punishing agents, those involving nonstandard subjects of punishment, and those involving (...) nonstandard means of punishment. (shrink)

We examine the occurrence of ethicsrelated terms in 10-K annual reports over 1994-2006 and offer empirical observations on the conceptual framework of Erhard et al. 2007). We use a pre-Sarbanes-Oxley sample subset to compare the occurrence of ethics-related terms in our 10-K data with samples from other studies that consider virtue-related phenomena. We find that firms using ethics-related terms are more likely to be "sin" stocks, are more likely to be the object of class action lawsuits, and are more likely (...) to score poorly on measures of corporate governance. The consistency of our results across these alternative measures of ethical behavior suggests that managers who portray their firm as "ethical" in 10-K reports are more likely to be systematically misleading the public. These results are consistent with the integrity-performance paradox. (shrink)

Over the past decade, corporate scandals have proliferated. These scandals, along with the emergence of the #MeToo movement and Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) mandates, have increased the scrutiny of corporations’ ethics culture. How have companies responded in terms of the language appearing in their public ethics documents? We compare the Code of Ethics in 2008 versus 2019 for a sample of S&P 500 firms. For the vast majority of firms, their Code of Ethics lengthened, with the average 2019 (...) code having 29% more words (about 1760 words) than the 2008 average. The language of the codes has also changed. Words such as _bribery, corruption, sustainability, speak up, bullying, slavery,_ and _human rights_ all saw significantly higher usage in the later period. We review possible reasons for the dramatic changes and suggest what questions remain about the motivations behind them. Whether the changes we observe are primarily intrinsically motivated or simply market responses to public pressures is yet to be determined. What is clear from our findings is that society seems to be entering a new age of increasingly moral—or, at least, moralized—corporate governance. (shrink)

This book provides an introduction to literacy pedagogy within today's new media environment.

In Two Minds is a practical casebook of problem solving in psychiatric ethics. Written in a lively and accessible style, it builds on a series of detailed case histories to illustrate the central place of ethical reasoning as a key competency for clinical work and research in psychiatry. Topics include risk, dangerousness and confidentiality; judgements of responsibility; involuntary treatment and mental health legislation; consent to genetic screening; dual role issues in child and adolescent psychiatry; needs assessment; cross-cultural and gender issues; (...) rational and irrational suicide; shared decision making in multi-agency teams, and the growing role of the user's voice in psychiatry. Key ethical concepts are carefully introduced and explained. The text is richly supported by detailed guides for further reading. There are separate chapters on teaching psychiatric ethics, including a sample seminar, and on writing a research ethics application. Each case history and discussion is followed by a critical commentary from a practitioner with relevant experience. Jim Birley adds a comparative international perspective on psychiatric ethics. Cartoons by Johnny Cowee provide punchy counterpoint! In Two Minds is the sister volume to the third edition of Sidney, Paul Chodoff and Steven Green's highly successful Psychiatric Ethics. In providing a bridge between theory and practice, it will be essential reading for everyone concerned with improving standards in mental health care. (shrink)

Doping poses a threat to sport worldwide. Studies have revealed that, in addition to elite athletes, amateur and recreational sportsmen and sportswomen are making increasing use of performance-enhancing drugs. Worryingly this trend has been documented among young people. Anti-doping efforts seeking to deter elite athletes from doping through detection of the use of prohibited substances are costly and have not been completely effective either at the top-level or the amateur/recreational level. A thoughtful education program, inspired by honesty and respect, might (...) be more effective in shaping attitudes towards doping in young people and protecting their health. For these reasons, the Italian “Lotta al Doping” (Fight Against Doping) project sought to cause a cultural shift in young people by taking anti-doping seminars to high schools. In the 2017-2018 school year we reached more than 20,800 students from 157 high schools through 202 seminars. Before and after the seminars, we administrated anonymous, voluntarily completed surveys with a set of questions (items = 15), taken from the WADA-Play-True-Quiz. Upon completion of the 2-hour seminar, the majority of the answers given by the students resulted correct (13 out of 15 items, p<0.000001, McNemar) confirming the value of the initiative. This project stands out as promising in the doping prevention process at the youth and amateur levels. (shrink)

We propose a model of natural language inference which identifies valid inferences by their lexical and syntactic features, without full semantic interpretation. We extend past work in natural logic, which has focused on semantic containment and monotonicity, by incorporating both semantic exclusion and implicativity. Our model decomposes an inference problem into a sequence of atomic edits linking premise to hypothesis; predicts a lexical semantic relation for each edit; propagates these relations upward through a semantic composition tree according to properties of (...) intermediate nodes; and joins the resulting semantic relations across the edit sequence. A computational implementation of the model achieves 70% accuracy and 89% precision on the FraCaS test suite. Moreover, including this model as a component in an existing system yields significant performance gains on the Recognizing Textual Entailment challenge. (shrink)

Using the writings of slaves and former slaves, as well as commentaries on slavery, Between Slavery and Freedom explores the American slave experience to gain a better understanding of six moral and political concepts—oppression, paternalism, resistance, political obligation, citizenship, and forgiveness. The authors use analytical philosophy as well as other disciplines to gain insight into the thinking of a group of people prevented from participating in the social/political discourse of their times. Between Slavery and Freedom rejects the notion that philosophers (...) need not consider individual experience because philosophy is "impartial" and "universal." A philosopher should also take account of matters that are essentially perspectival, such as the slave experience. McGary and Lawson demonstrate the contribution of all human experience, including slave experiences, to the quest for human knowledge and understanding. (shrink)

In his classic paper, The Serpent Beguiled Me And I Did Eat, Gerald Dworkin makes the case that, without probable cause, the useof Proactive Law Enforcement Techniques (PALETs) is morally impermissible. Call this prohibition Dworkin’s Rule (DR). Here we argue that there are two reasonable exceptions to DR—the use of PALETs, without probable cause, is justifi ed when employed against High Level Government Officials (HLGOs) and High Level Business Officials (HLBOs). Moreover, these exceptions are consistent with Dworkin’s notion of Ideal (...) Criminal Sanctioning. Finally, if society were to endorse the use of PALETs on HLBOs, we might be able to dispose of the current bane of American business, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and let business get back to the business of business. (shrink)

Instead of presuming the ‘observer’ as given, we are (re)sensing the observer and are thereby offering an ‘open order cybernetics’ (OOC). We are first of all concerned about our acquisition and use of language as the precondition for any meaningful statement. This self-reflexive point of departure distinguishes our project from philosophers who are presuming ‘something’ (‘closure’, ‘selforganization’, ‘self ’, ‘auto-poiesis’, ‘senses’, ‘objects’, ‘subjects’, ‘language’, ‘nervous systems’ etc.) in the first place without being aware of their presumptions i.e. that they are (...) able to already talk meaningfully about ‘something’. We are undertaking a self-reflexive loop towards our already undertaken ‘meaningful’ actions, reflecting inside our concepts on our concepts, trying to find out how our concepts about ‘something’ have come into existence. We are reflecting on our concepts through this ongoing open investigation. We are sketching the ramifications of such a self-reflexive loop for epistemology as well as for the main research areas within cognitive science (i.e. language acquisition, perception, consciousness). We are also pointing towards virtual reality in combination with the arts as an awareness aid, helping us in our self-reflexive endeavours. (shrink)

Introduction Future HIV vaccine efficacy trials with adolescents will need to ensure that participants comprehend study concepts in order to confer true informed assent. A Hepatitis B vaccine trial with adolescents offers valuable opportunity to test youth understanding of vaccine trial requirements in general. Methods Youth reviewed a simplified assent form with study investigators and then completed a comprehension questionnaire. Once enrolled, all youth were tested for HIV and confirmed to be HIV-negative. Results 123 youth completed the questionnaire (mean age=15 (...) years; 63% male; 70% Hispanic). Overall, only 69 (56%) youth answered all six questions correctly. Conclusions Youth enrolled in a Hepatitis B vaccine trial demonstrated variable comprehension of the study design and various methodological concepts, such as treatment group masking. (shrink)

Using the recommendations of the Commission on Freedom of the Press, we ask today's media consumers how they rate the performance of modern American journalism. We employ original survey data collected from journalism students at a major Midwest university, framing our findings in the context of the commission's 1947 recommendations. The result is presentation of contemporary opinions about the performance of American media in the context of journalism ideals articulated more than 60 years ago.

Advance directives enable individuals to project their healthcare preferences into a period of anticipated incapacity. With advance directives, individuals can designate whom they would like to have make healthcare decisions for them, or give their healthcare provider advice on what to do, or both. Canada has an unusually wide variety of legislative approaches to advance directives. In what follows we describe and evaluate these, with the aim of pointing the way toward the ideally best legislation and policies on such directives.

Canada is one of the few countries in the world—China is another—that has decriminalized abortion. In Canada, there are no legislative or judicial restrictions whatsoever on abortion: When, where, and under what circumstances abortions can be performed are all unregulated. In sharp contrast, abortion is generally illegal in South American and predominantly Catholic countries, as well as in African and Muslim countries. And the countries that do allow legal abortions, including most in Europe along with America, Australia, and Russia, typically (...) permit it only up to a certain time or make it subject to circumstances such as risk to the woman. In what follows we will first explain how Canada came to decriminalize abortion and then go on to assess that position from an ethical point of view. (shrink)

À la suite des récentes décisions légales reconnaissant plus de deux parents à certains enfants canadiens, nous nous demandons s’il existe des raisons morales pour limiter à deux le nombre de parents qu’un enfant peut avoir. Nous examinons quelques arguments traditionnels soutenant cette position et nous trouvons qu’ils ne suffisent pas pour la justifier. Nous présentons aussi un argument inspiré par le travail de Brighouse et Swift au sujet des bienfaits d’être parent, et nous montrons qu’il n’est pas assez fort (...) pour soutenir la nécessité de limiter à deux le nombre de parents. En terminant, nous suggérons quelques autres façons de séparer de façon positive l’idée de «parent» des notions traditionnelles. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 5, May 2022.