Andreas Christiansen,Bjørn Hallsson | : In many cases, the public want to restrict an activity or technology that they believe to be dangerous, but that scientific experts believe to be safe. There is thus a tension between respecting the preferences of the people and making policy based on our best scientific knowledge. Deciding how to make policy in the light of this tension requires an understanding of why citizens sometimes disagree with the experts on what is risky and what (...) is safe. In this paper, we examine two highly influential theories of how people form beliefs about risks: the theory that risk beliefs are errors caused by bounded rationality and the theory that such beliefs are part and parcel of people’s core value systems. We then discuss the implications of the psychological theories for questions regarding liberal-democratic decision making: Should policy be responsive to the preferences of citizens in the domain of risk regulation? What risk-regulation policies are legitimate? How should liberal-democratic deliberation be structured? | : Dans de nombreux cas, le public veut restreindre une activité ou une technologie qu’il croit être dangereuse, mais que les experts scientifiques considèrent être sécuritaire. Il y a alors une tension entre le respect des préférences des gens et des politiques fondées sur nos meilleures connaissances scientifiques. Décider comment élaborer une politique à la lumière de cette tension nécessite de comprendre pourquoi les citoyens sont parfois en désaccord avec les experts à propos de ce qui est risqué et ce qui est sûr. Dans cet article, nous examinons deux théories très influentes sur la façon dont les gens forment des croyances sur les risques : la théorie selon laquelle les croyances liées au risque sont des erreurs causées par la rationalité limitée et la théorie selon laquelle ces croyances font partie intégrante des systèmes de valeurs fonda-mentales des personnes. Nous discutons ensuite les implications des théories psychologiques pour les questions touchant la prise de décision libérale-démocratique : Les politiques devraient-elles être sensibles aux préférences des citoyens dans le domaine de la régulation des risques? Quelles politiques de régulation des risques sont légitimes? Comment la délibération libérale-démocratique devrait-elle être structurée? (shrink)

In this article we discuss what we call the deliberative division of epistemic labor. We present evidence that the human tendency to engage in motivated reasoning in defense of our beliefs can facilitate the occurrence of divisions of epistemic labor in deliberations among people who disagree. We further present evidence that these divisions of epistemic labor tend to promote beliefs that are better supported by the evidence. We show that promotion of these epistemic benefits stands in tension with what extant (...) theories in epistemology take rationality to require in cases of disagreement. We argue that the epistemic benefits that result from the deliberative division of epistemic labor can provide epistemic reason to maintain confidence in cases of disagreement. We then show that the deliberative division of epistemic labor constitutes a distinct kind of epistemic dependence. (shrink)

The degree of doxastic revision required in response to evidence of disagreement is typically thought to be a function of our beliefs about (1) our interlocutor’s familiarity with the relevant evidence and arguments, and their intellectual capacities and virtues, relative to our own, or (2) the expected probability of our interlocutor being correct, conditional on our disagreeing. While these two factors are typically used interchangeably, I show that they have an inverse correlation in cases of disagreement about politically divisive propositions. (...) This presents us with a puzzle about the epistemic impact of disagreement in these cases. The most significant disagreements on (1) are the least significant disagreements on (2), and vice versa. I show that assessing the epistemic status of an interlocutor by reference to either (1) or (2) has uncomfortable consequences in these cases. I then argue that this puzzle cannot be escaped by claiming that we usually have dispute-independent reason to reject the significance of politically charged disagreement altogether. (shrink)

Fairness, the notion that people deserve or have rights to certain resources or kinds of treatment, is a fundamental dimension of moral cognition. Drawing on recent evidence from economics, psychology, and neuroscience, we ask whether self-interest is always intuitive, requiring self-control to override with reasoning-based fairness concerns, or whether fairness itself can be intuitive. While we find strong support for rejecting the notion that self-interest is always intuitive, the literature has reached conflicting conclusions about the neurocognitive systems underpinning fairness. We (...) propose that this disagreement can largely be resolved in light of an extended Social Heuristics Hypothesis. Divergent findings may be attributed to the interpretation of behavioral effects of ego depletion or neurostimulation, reverse inference from brain activity to the underlying psychological process, and insensitivity to social context and inter-individual differences. To better dissect the neurobiological basis of fairness, we outline how future research should embrace cross-disciplinary methods that combine psychological manipulations with neuroimaging, and that can probe inter-individual, and cultural heterogeneities. (shrink)

In this paper we present the results of a simulation study of credence developments in groups of communicating Bayesian agents, as they update their beliefs about a given proposition p. Based on the empirical literature, one would assume that these groups of rational agents would converge on a view over time, or at least that they would not polarize. This paper presents and discusses surprising evidence that this is not true. Our simulation study shows that these groups of Bayesian agents (...) show group polarization behavior under a broad range of circumstances. This is, we think, an unexpected result, that raises deeper questions about whether the kind of polarization in question is irrational. If one accepts Bayesian agency as the hallmark of epistemic rationality, then one should infer that the polarization we find is also rational. On the other hand, if we are inclined to think that there is something epistemically irrational about group polarization, then something must be off in the model employed in our simulation study. We discuss several possible interfering factors, including how epistemic trust is defined in the model. Ultimately, we propose that the notion of Bayesian agency is missing something in general, namely the ability to respond to higher-order evidence. (shrink)

Andreas Christiansen,Bjørn Hallsson | : In many cases, the public want to restrict an activity or technology that they believe to be dangerous, but that scientific experts believe to be safe. There is thus a tension between respecting the preferences of the people and making policy based on our best scientific knowledge. Deciding how to make policy in the light of this tension requires an understanding of why citizens sometimes disagree with the experts on what is risky and what (...) is safe. In this paper, we examine two highly influential theories of how people form beliefs about risks: the theory that risk beliefs are errors caused by bounded rationality and the theory that such beliefs are part and parcel of people’s core value systems. We then discuss the implications of the psychological theories for questions regarding liberal-democratic decision making: Should policy be responsive to the preferences of citizens in the domain of risk regulation? What risk-regulation policies are legitimate? How should liberal-democratic deliberation be structured? | : Dans de nombreux cas, le public veut restreindre une activité ou une technologie qu’il croit être dangereuse, mais que les experts scientifiques considèrent être sécuritaire. Il y a alors une tension entre le respect des préférences des gens et des politiques fondées sur nos meilleures connaissances scientifiques. Décider comment élaborer une politique à la lumière de cette tension nécessite de comprendre pourquoi les citoyens sont parfois en désaccord avec les experts à propos de ce qui est risqué et ce qui est sûr. Dans cet article, nous examinons deux théories très influentes sur la façon dont les gens forment des croyances sur les risques : la théorie selon laquelle les croyances liées au risque sont des erreurs causées par la rationalité limitée et la théorie selon laquelle ces croyances font partie intégrante des systèmes de valeurs fonda-mentales des personnes. Nous discutons ensuite les implications des théories psychologiques pour les questions touchant la prise de décision libérale-démocratique : Les politiques devraient-elles être sensibles aux préférences des citoyens dans le domaine de la régulation des risques? Quelles politiques de régulation des risques sont légitimes? Comment la délibération libérale-démocratique devrait-elle être structurée? (shrink)

Politics is rife with motivated cognition. People do not dispassionately engage with the evidence when they form political beliefs; they interpret it selectively, generating justifications for their desired conclusions and reasons why contrary evidence should be ignored. Moreover, research shows that epistemic ability (e.g. intelligence and familiarity with evidence) is correlated with motivated cognition. Bjørn Hallsson has pointed out that this raises a puzzle for the epistemology of disagreement. On the one hand, we typically think that epistemic ability in (...) an interlocutor gives us reason to downgrade our belief upon learning that we disagree. On the other hand, if our interlocutor is under the sway of motivated cognition, then we have reason to discount his opinion. In this paper, I argue that Hallsson's puzzle is solved by adopting a Bayesian approach to disagreement. If an interlocutor is under the sway of motivated cognition, his disagreement should not affect our beliefs--no matter his ability. Because we implicitly and to high accuracy know his beliefs before he reveals them to us, disagreement provides us with no new information on which to conditionalize. I advance a model which accommodates the motivated cognition dynamic and other key epistemic features of disagreement. (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag bietet eine umfassende Diskussion des Textes “Humanismus und Christentum” des dänischen Philosophen und Theologen Knud E. Løgstrup. Er verortet den Text in seinem geistesgeschichtlichen Kontext und analysiert seine wichtigsten Argumente wie auch seine zentrale These, der zufolge Humanismus und Christentum einen entscheidenden Grundsatz teilen, insofern beide die Ethik als “stumm“ oder “unausgesprochen“ verstehen. Darüber hinaus wird dargelegt, wie Løgstrups Text zentrale Überlegungen in dessen späteren Publikationen, besonders in dem Hauptwerk Die ethische Forderung, vorwegnimmt.

We demonstrate how to validly quantify into hyperintensional contexts involving non-propositional attitudes like seeking, solving, calculating, worshipping, and wanting to become. We describe and apply a typed extensional logic of hyperintensions that preserves compositionality of meaning, referential transparency and substitutivity of identicals also in hyperintensional attitude contexts. We specify and prove rules for quantifying into hyperintensional contexts. These rules presuppose a rigorous method for substituting variables into hyperintensional contexts, and the method will be described. We prove the following. First, it (...) is always valid to quantify into hyperintensional attitude contexts and over hyperintensional entities. Second, factive empirical attitudes validate, furthermore, quantifying over intensions and extensions, and so do non-factive attitudes, both empirical and non-empirical , provided the entity to be quantified over exists. We focus mainly on mathematical attitudes, because they are uncontroversially hyperintensional. (shrink)

Medicalization is frequently defined as a process by which some non-medical aspects of human life become to be considered as medical problems. Overdiagnosis, on the other hand, is most often defined as diagnosing a biomedical condition that in the absence of testing would not cause symptoms or death in the person’s lifetime. Medicalization and overdiagnosis are related concepts as both expand the extension of the concept of disease. They are both often used normatively to critique unwarranted or contested expansion of (...) medicine and to address health services that are considered to be unnecessary, futile, or even harmful. However, there are important differences between the concepts, as not all cases of overdiagnosis are medicalizations and not all cases of medicalizations are overdiagnosis. The objective of this article is to clarify the differences between medicalization and overdiagnosis. It will demonstrate how the subject matter of medicalization traditionally has been non-medical phenomena, while the subject matter of overdiagnosis has been biological or biomolecular conditions or processes acknowledged being potentially harmful. They also refer to different types of uncertainty: medicalization is concerned with indeterminacy, while overdiagnosis is concerned with lack of prognostic knowledge. Medicalization is dealing with sickness while overdiagnosis with disease. Despite these differences, medicalization and overdiagnosis are becoming more alike. Medicalization is expanding, encompassing the more “technical” aspects of overdiagnosis, while overdiagnosis is becoming more ideologized. Moreover, with new trends in modern medicine, such as P4 medicine, medicalization will become all-encompassing, while overdiagnosis more or less may dissolve. In the end they may converge in some total “iatrogenization.” In doing so, the concepts may lose their precision and critical sting. (shrink)

Overdiagnosis and disease are related concepts. Widened conceptions of disease increase overdiagnosis and vice versa. This is partly because there is a close and complex relationship between disease and overdiagnosis. In order to address the problems with overdiagnosis, we may benefit from a closer understanding this relationship. Accordingly, the objective of this article is to elucidate the relationship between disease and overdiagnosis. To do so, the article starts with scrutinizing how overdiagnosis can explain the expansion of the concept of disease. (...) Then it investigates how definitions of disease address various challenges of overdiagnosis. The article specifically investigates recent attempts to clarify the relationship between the concepts of disease and overdiagnosis. Several shortcomings are identified and lead to a closer analysis of overdiagnosis in the diagnostic process. Contrary to recent contributions to the field, it is argued that cases of overdiagnosis are not cases of disease. They are non-verified labelling of disease. It is revealed how overdiagnosis establishes an unwarranted link between indicative phenomena, such as polyps or cell changes, and harm, and thereby generates a link to disease. One implication of this study is that we should stop attributing disease language to indicative phenomena. That is, we should stop calling it “cancer screening” when we are actually searching for polyps. Another implications is that we should strive for scientific progress in differentiating phenomena that are of negative value to us from those that are not. In overdiagnosis we diagnose something that is not disease: it is over-diagnosis. (shrink)

The Scandinavian welfare states have public health care systems which have universal coverage and traditionally low influence of private insurance and private provision. Due to raises in costs, elaborate public control of health care, and a significant technological development in health care, priority setting came on the public agenda comparatively early in the Scandinavian countries. The development of health care priority setting has been partly homogeneous and appears to follow certain phases. This can be of broader interest as it may (...) shed light on alternative models and strategies in health care priority setting. Some general trends have been identified: from principles to procedures, from closed to open processes, and from experts to participation. Five general approaches have been recognized: The moral principles and values based approach, the moral principles and economic assessment approach, the procedural approach, the expert based practice defining approach, and the participatory practice defining approach. There are pros and cons with all of these approaches. For the time being the fifth approach appears attractive, but its lack of true participation and the lack of clear success criteria may pose significant challenges in the future. (shrink)

This paper addresses the mereological problem of the unity of structured propositions. The problem is how to make multiple parts interact such that they form a whole that is ultimately related to truth and falsity. The solution I propose is based on a Platonist variant of procedural semantics. I think of procedures as abstract entities that detail a logical path from input to output. Procedures are modeled on a function/argument logic, but are not functions. Instead they are higher-order, fine-grained structures. (...) I identify propositions with particular kinds of molecular procedures containing multiple sub-procedures as parts. Procedures are among the basic entities of my ontology, while propositions are derived entities. The core of a structured proposition is the procedure of predication, which is an instance of the procedure of functional application. The main thesis I defend is that procedurally conceived propositions are their own unifiers detailing how their parts interact so as to form a unit. They are not unified by one of their constituents, e.g., a relation or a sub-procedure, on pain of regress. The relevant procedural semantics is Transparent Intensional Logic, a hyperintensional, typed λ-calculus, whose λ-terms express four different kinds of procedures. While demonstrating how the theory works, I place my solution in a wider historical and systematic context. (shrink)

In the debate on conscientious objection in healthcare, proponents of conscience rights often point to the imperative to protect the health professional’s moral integrity. Their opponents hold that the moral integrity argument alone can at most justify accommodation of conscientious objectors as a “moral courtesy”, as the argument is insufficient to establish a general moral right to accommodation, let alone a legal right. This text draws on political philosophy in order to argue for a legal right to accommodation. The moral (...) integrity arguments should be supplemented by the requirement to protect minority rights in liberal democracies. Citizens have a right to live in accordance with their fundamental moral convictions, and a right to equal access to employment. However, this right should not be unconditional, as that would unduly infringe on the rights of other citizens. The right must be limited to cases where the moral basis is more fundamental in a sense that all reasonable citizens in a liberal democracy should accept, such as the constitutive role of the inviolability of human life in liberal democracies. There should be a legal, yet circumscribed, right to accommodation for conscientious objectors refusing to provide healthcare services that they reasonably consider to involve the intentional killing of a human being. (shrink)

Theories of structured meanings are designed to generate fine-grained meanings, but they are also liable to overgenerate structures, thus drawing structural distinctions without a semantic difference. I recommend the proliferation of very fine-grained structures, so that we are able to draw any semantic distinctions we think we might need. But, in order to contain overgeneration, I argue we should insert some degree of individuation between logical equivalence and structural identity based on structural isomorphism. The idea amounts to forming an equivalence (...) class of different structures according to one or more formal criteria and designating a privileged element as a representative of all the elements, i.e., a first among equals. The proposed method helps us to a cluster of notions of co-hyperintensionality. As a test case, I consider a recent objection levelled against the act theory of structured propositions. I also respond to an objection against my methodology. (shrink)

This article presents and evaluates arguments supporting that an approval procedure for genome-edited organisms for food or feed should include a broad assessment of societal, ethical and environmental concerns; so-called non-safety assessment. The core of analysis is the requirement of the Norwegian Gene Technology Act that the sustainability, ethical and societal impacts of a genetically modified organism should be assessed prior to regulatory approval of the novel products. The article gives an overview how this requirement has been implemented in the (...) regulatory practice, demonstrating that such assessment is feasible and justified. Even in situations where genome-edited organisms are considered comparable to non-modified organisms in terms of risk, the technology may have—in addition to social benefits—negative impacts that warrant assessments of the kind required in the Act. The main reason is the disruptive character of the genome editing technologies due to their potential for novel, ground-breaking solutions in agriculture and aquaculture combined with the economic framework shaped by the patent system. Food is fundamental for a good life, biologically and culturally, which warrants stricter assessment procedures than what is required for other industries, at least in countries like Norway with a strong tradition for national control over agricultural markets and breeding programs. (shrink)

Logical semantics includes once again structured meanings in its repertoire. The leading idea is that semantic and syntactic structure are more or less isomorphic. A key motive for reintroducing sensitivity to semantic structure is to obtain fine‐grained meanings, which are individuated more finely than in possible‐world semantics, namely up to necessary equivalence. Just getting the truth‐conditions right is deemed insufficient for a full semantic analysis of sentences. This paper surveys some of the most recent contributions to the program of structured (...) meaning, while providing historical background. I suggest that to make substantial advances the program needs to solve the problem of propositional unity and develop an intensional mereology of abstract objects. (shrink)

There is a tendency in the business ethics literature to think of ethics in restrictive terms: what one should not do, and how to control this. Drawing on Lawrence Kohlberg''s theory of moral development, the paper focuses on, and draws attention to, another more positive aspect of ethics: the capacity of ethics to inspire and empower individuals, as well as groups. To understand and facilitate such empowerment, it is argued that it is necessary to move beyond Kohlberg''s justice reasoning so (...) as to appreciate the value and importance of feeling and care. Accordingly, we draw upon case study material to review the meaning of Kohlberg''s higher stages — 5, 6 and 7 — to question the meaning of ethical reasoning. With such deeper understanding of particular ethical codes or practices, it is thought that members of organisations may come closer to thespirit, as opposed to the letter, of ethical conduct in organisations. This, we argue, is consistent with the degree of trust and integrity demanded by leaner, post-bureaucratic ways of organizing and conducting business as well as being personally beneficial to the people involved. (shrink)

Aim of the paper is to present a new logic of technical malfunction. The need for this logic is motivated by a simple-sounding philosophical question: Is a malfunctioning corkscrew, which fails to uncork bottles, nonetheless a corkscrew? Or in general terms, is a malfunctioning F, which fails to do what Fs do, nonetheless an F? We argue that ‘malfunctioning’ denotes the modifier Malfunctioning rather than a property, and that the answer depends on whether Malfunctioning is subsective or privative. If subsective, (...) a malfunctioning F is an F; if privative, a malfunctioning F is not an F. An intensional logic is required to raise and answer the question, because modifiers operate directly on properties and not on sets or individuals. This new logic provides the formal tools to reason about technical malfunction by means of a logical analysis of the sentence “a is a malfunctioning F”. (shrink)

New emerging biotechnologies, such as gene editing, vastly extend our ability to alter the human being. This comes together with strong aspirations to improve humans not only physically, but also mentally, morally, and socially. These conjoined ambitions aggregate to what can be labelled “the gene editing of super-ego.” This article investigates a general way used to argue for new biotechnologies, such as gene-editing: if it is safe and efficacious to implement technology X for the purpose of a common good Y, (...) why should we not do so? This is a rhetorical question with a conditional, and may be dismissed as such. Moreover, investigating the question transformed into a formal argument reveals that the argument does not hold either. Nonetheless, the compelling force of the question calls for closer scrutiny, revealing that this way of arguing for biotechnology is based on five assumptions. Analysis of these assumptions shows their significant axiological, empirical, and philosophical challenges. This makes it reasonable to claim that these kinds of question based promotions of specific biotechnologies fail. Hence, the aspirations to make a super-man with a super-ego appear fundamentally flawed. As these types of moral bioenhancement arguments become more prevalent, a revealing hype test is suggested: What is special with this technology, compared to existing methods, that makes it successful in improving human social characteristics in order to make the world a better place for all? Valid answers to this question will provide good reasons to pursue such technologies. Hence, the aim is not to bar the development of modern biotechnology, but rather to ensure good developments and applications of highly potent technologies. So far, we still have a long way to go to make persons with goodness gene. (shrink)

Soames's cognitive propositions are strings of acts to be performed by an agent, such as predicating a property of an individual. King takes these structured propositions to task for proliferating too easily. King's objection is based on an example that purports to show that three of Soames's propositions are really just one proposition. I translate the informally stated propositions King attributes to Soames into the intensional λ-calculus. It turns out that they are all β-equivalent to the proposition King claims Soames's (...) three propositions are identical to. I argue on philosophical grounds against identifying β-equivalent propositions. The reason is that β-conversion obliterates too many of the procedural distinctions that are central to an act-based theory such as Soames's and which are worth preserving. In fact, β-expansion allows the addition of a fifth proposition that highlights additional procedural distinctions and propositional structure. The welcome conclusion is that we have five procedurally distinct, if equivalent, propositions. (shrink)

We present here the papers selected for the volume on the Unity of Propositions problems. After summarizing what the problems are, we locate them in a spectrum from those aiming to provide substantive, reductive explanations, to those with a more deflationary take on the problems.

The topic of this paper is the notion of technical (as opposed to biological) malfunction. It is shown how to form the property being a malfunctioning F from the property F and the property modifier malfunctioning (a mapping taking a property to a property). We present two interpretations of malfunctioning. Both interpretations agree that a malfunctioning F lacks the dispositional property of functioning as an F. However, its subsective interpretation entails that malfunctioning Fs are Fs, whereas its privative interpretation entails (...) that malfunctioning Fs are not Fs. We chart various of their respective logical consequences and discuss some of the philosophical implications of both interpretations. (shrink)

New technologies facilitate the enhancement of a wide range of human dispositions, capacities, or abilities. While it is argued that we need to set limits to human enhancement, it is unclear where we should find resources to set such limits. Traditional routes for setting limits, such as referring to nature, the therapy-enhancement distinction, and the health-disease distinction, turn out to have some shortcomings. However, upon closer scrutiny the concept of enhancement is based on vague conceptions of what is to be (...) enhanced. Explaining why it is better to become older, stronger, and more intelligent presupposes a clear conception of goodness, which is seldom provided. In particular, the qualitative better is frequently confused with the quantitative more. We may therefore not need “external” measures for setting its limits – they are available in the concept of enhancement itself. While there may be shortcomings in traditional sources of limit setting to human enhancement, such as nature, therapy, and disease, such approaches may not be necessary. The specification-of-betterment problem inherent in the conception of human enhancement itself provides means to restrict its unwarranted proliferation. We only need to demand clear, sustainable, obtainable goals for enhancement that are based on evidence, and not on lofty speculations, hypes, analogies, or weak associations. Human enhancements that specify what will become better, and provide adequate evidence, are good and should be pursued. Others should not be accepted. (shrink)

Human enhancement is ontologically, epistemologically, and ethically challenging and has stirred a wide range of scholarly and public debates. This article focuses on some conceptual issues with HE that have important ethical implications. In particular it scrutinizes how the concept of human enhancement relates to and challenges the concept of health. In order to do so, it addresses three specific questions: Q1. What do conceptions of HE say about health? Q2. Does HE challenge traditional conceptions of health? Q3. Do concepts (...) of health set limits to or direct HE? Addressing Q1 reveals that HE tends to frame and form our conception of health. Thereby it challenges traditional conceptions of health. Accordingly, health does not provide strong sources for setting limits to HE. On the contrary HE seems to define and expand the concept of health. Common to the concepts of HE and health is that both depend on vague value concepts, such as happiness, well-being, or goodness. There seems to be a tendency in the HE literature to define the goal of human life in terms of what is bigger, stronger, faster, more intelligent, and more resilient. However, this is confusing “goodness” with “more” and quality with quantity. Until HE more appropriately defines happiness, HE will fail to provide a relevant compass for improving the life of human beings. On the contrary, if we let simplified conceptions of “enhancement” come to define goodness or health, we may do more harm than good. Until doing so, we may well learn from Tithonus, listen to Douglas Adams’ Wowbagger, and pay attention to Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Enhanced life may not be better. The same goes for health. (shrink)

With Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity Richard Rorty tries to persuade us that a case for liberalism is better served by historical narrative than by philosophical theory. The liberal ironist is the complex protagonist of Rorty’s anti-foundationalist story. Why does Rorty think irony serves—rather than undermines—commitments to liberal democracy? I distinguish political from existential dimensions of irony, consider criticisms of Rorty’s ironist, and then draw on recent work by Lear to argue that Rorty’s ironist character nevertheless can be recast as an (...) image useful to the self-understanding of contemporary liberal democrats. (shrink)

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) developed a distinctive and controversial brand of pragmatism that expressed itself along two main axes. One is negative—a critical diagnosis of what Rorty takes to be defining projects of modern philosophy. The other is positive—an attempt to show what intellectual culture might look like, once we free ourselves from the governing metaphors of mind and knowledge in which the traditional problems of epistemology and metaphysics (and indeed, in Rorty's view, the self-conception of modern philosophy) are rooted. The (...) centerpiece of Rorty's critique is the provocative account offered in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979, hereafter PMN). In this book, and in the closely related essays collected in Consequences of Pragmatism (1982, hereafter CP), Rorty's principal target is the philosophical idea of knowledge as representation, as a mental mirroring of a mind-external world. Providing a contrasting image of philosophy, Rorty has sought to integrate and apply the milestone achievements of Dewey, Hegel and Darwin in a pragmatist synthesis of historicism and naturalism. Characterizations and illustrations of a post-epistemological intellectual culture, present in both PMN (part III) and CP (xxxvii-xliv), are more richly developed in later works, such as Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989, hereafter CIS), in the popular essays and articles collected in Philosophy and Social Hope (1999), and in the four volumes of philosophical papers, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (1991, hereafter ORT); Essays on Heidegger and Others (1991, hereafter EHO); Truth and Progress (1998, hereafter TP); and Philosophy as Cultural Politics (2007, hereafter PCP). In these writings, ranging over an unusually wide intellectual territory, Rorty offers a highly integrated, multifaceted view of thought, culture, and politics, a view that has made him one of the most widely discussed philosophers in our time. (shrink)

This article attempts to rehabilitate the concept of fetishism and to contribute to the debate on the social role of objects as well as to fashion theory. Extrapolating from Michel Serres’ theory of the quasi-objects, I distinguish two phenomenologies possessing almost opposite characteristics. These two phenomenologies are, so I argue, essential to quasi-object theory, yet largely ignored by Serres’ sociological interpreters. They correspond with the two different theories of fetishism found in Marx and Durkheim, respectively. In the second half of (...) the article, I introduce the fashion object as a unique opportunity for studying the interchange between these two forms of fetishism and their respective phenomenologies. Finally, returning to Serres, I briefly consider the theoretical consequences of introducing the fashion object as a quasi-object. (shrink)

Following Quine, Davidson, and Dennett, I take mental states and linguistic meaning to be individuated with reference to interpretation. The regulative principle of ideal interpretation is to maximize rationality, and this accounts for the distinctiveness and autonomy of the vocabulary of agency. This rationality-maxim can accommodate empirical cognitive-psychological investigation into the nature and limitations of human mental processing. Interpretivism is explicitly anti-reductionist, but in the context of Rorty's neo-pragmatism provides a naturalized view of agents. The interpretivist strategy affords a less (...) despondent view of constructive philosophical activity than Rorty's own. (shrink)

This article argues that anthropology may represent untapped perspectives of relevance to social theory. The article starts by critically reviewing how anthropology has come to serve as the ‘Other’ in various branches of social theory, from Marx and Durkheim to Parsons to Habermas, engaged in a hopeless project of positing ‘primitive’ or ‘traditional’ society as the opposite of modernity. In contemporary debates, it is becoming increasingly recognized that social theory needs history, back to the axial age and beyond. The possible (...) role of anthropology in theorizing modernity receives far less attention. That role should go much beyond representing a view from ‘below’ or a politically correct appreciation of cultural diversity. It involves attention to key theoretical concepts and insights developed by maverick anthropologists like Arnold van Gennep, Marcel Mauss, Victor Turner and Gregory Bateson, concepts that uniquely facilitate an understanding of some of the underlying dynamics of modernity. (shrink)

Background: The knowledge of scientific dishonesty is scarce and heterogeneous. Therefore this study investigates the experiences with and the attitudes towards various forms of scientific dishonesty among PhD-students at the medical faculties of all Norwegian universities.MethodAnonymous questionnaire distributed to all post graduate students attending introductory PhD-courses at all medical faculties in Norway in 2010/2011. Descriptive statistics. Results: 189 of 262 questionnaires were returned (72.1%). 65% of the respondents had not, during the last year, heard or read about researchers who committed (...) scientific dishonesty. One respondent had experienced pressure to fabricate and to falsify data, and one had experienced pressure to plagiarize data. On average 60% of the respondents were uncertain whether their department had a written policy concerning scientific conduct. About 11% of the respondents had experienced unethical pressure concerning the order of authors during the last 12 months. 10% did not find it inappropriate to report experimental data without having conducted the experiment and 38% did not find it inappropriate to try a variety of different methods of analysis to find a statistically significant result. 13% agreed that it is acceptable to selectively omit contradictory results to expedite publication and 10% found it acceptable to falsify or fabricate data to expedite publication, if they were confident of their findings. 79% agreed that they would be willing to report misconduct to a responsible official. Conclusion: Although there is less scientific dishonesty reported in Norway than in other countries, dishonesty is not unknown to doctoral students. Some forms of scientific misconduct are considered to be acceptable by a significant minority. There was little awareness of relevant policies for scientific conduct, but a high level of willingness to report misconduct. (shrink)

In this article we explore how diagnostic and therapeutic technologies shape the lived experiences of illness for patients. By analysing a wide range of examples, we identify six ways that technology can form the experience of illness. First, technology may create awareness of disease by revealing asymptomatic signs or markers. Second, the technology can reveal risk factors for developing diseases. Third, the technology can affect and change an already present illness experience. Fourth, therapeutic technologies may redefine our experiences of a (...) certain condition as diseased rather than unfortunate. Fifth, technology influences illness experiences through altering social-cultural norms and values regarding various diagnoses. Sixth, technology influences and changes our experiences of being healthy in contrast and relation to being diseased and ill. This typology of how technology forms illness and related conditions calls for reflection regarding the phenomenology of technology and health. How are medical technologies and their outcomes perceived and understood by patients? The phenomenological way of approaching illness as a lived, bodily being-in-the-world is an important approach for better understanding and evaluating the effects that medical technologies may have on our health, not only in defining, diagnosing, or treating diseases, but also in making us feel more vulnerable and less healthy in different regards. (shrink)

Demographical changes in high income counties will increase the need of health care services but reduce the number of people to provide them. Welfare technology is launched as an important measure to meet this challenge. As with all types of technologies we must explore its ethical challenges. A literature review reveals that welfare technology is a generic term for a heterogeneous group of technologies and there are few studies documenting their efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency. Many kinds of welfare technology break (...) with the traditional organization of health care. It introduces technology in new areas, such as in private homes, and it provides new functions, e.g. offering social stimuli and entertainment. At the same time welfare technology is developed for groups that traditionally have not been extensive technology users. This raises a series of ethical questions with regard to the development and use of welfare technologies, which are presented in this review. The main challenges identified are: (1) Alienation when advanced technology is used at home, (2) conflicting goals, as welfare technologies have many stakeholders with several ends, (3) respecting confidentiality and privacy when third-party actors are involved, (4) guaranteeing equal access and just distribution, and (5) handling conflicts between instrumental rationality and care in terms of respecting dignity and vulnerability. Addressing these issues is important for developing and implementing welfare technologies in a morally acceptable manner. (shrink)

In his 2000 book Logical Properties Colin McGinn argues that predicates denote properties rather than sets or individuals. I support the thesis, but show that it is vulnerable to a type-incongruity objection, if properties are (modelled as) functions, unless a device for extensionalizing properties is added. Alternatively, properties may be construed as primitive intensional entities, as in George Bealer. However, I object to Bealer’s construal of predication as a primitive operation inputting two primitive entities and outputting a third primitive entity. (...) Instead I recommend we follow Pavel Tichý in construing both predication and extensionalization as instances of the primitive operation of functional application. (shrink)

The point of departure for this article is a review of the discussion between Twaddle and Nordenfelt on the concepts of disease, illness, and sickness, and the objective is to investigate the fruitfulness of these concepts. It is argued that disease, illness, and sickness represent different perspectives on human ailment and that they can be applied to analyze both epistemic and normative challenges to modern medicine. In particular the analysis reveals epistemic and normative differences between the concepts. Furthermore, the article (...) demonstrates, against Nordenfelt's claim, that the concepts of disease, illness, and sickness can exist without a general theory of health. Additionally, the complexity of different perspectives on human ailment also explains why it is so difficult to give strict definitions of basic concepts within modern health care. (shrink)

The emerging concept of systems medicine is at the vanguard of the post-genomic movement towards ‘precision medicine’. It is the medical application of systems biology, the biological study of wholes. Of particular interest, P4 systems medicine is currently promised as a revolutionary new biomedical approach that is holistic rather than reductionist. This article analyzes its concept of holism, both with regard to methods and conceptualization of health and disease. Rather than representing a medical holism associated with basic humanistic ideas, we (...) find a technoscientific holism resulting from altered technological and theoretical circumstances in biology. We argue that this holism, which is aimed at disease prevention and health optimization, points towards an expanded form of medicalization, which we call ‘holistic medicalization’: Each person’s whole life process is defined in biomedical, technoscientific terms as quantifiable and controllable and underlain a regime of medical control that is holistic in that it is all-encompassing. It is directed at all levels of functioning, from the molecular to the social, continual throughout life and aimed at managing the whole continuum from cure of disease to optimization of health. We argue that this medicalization is a very concrete materialization of a broader trend in medicine and society, which we call ‘the medicalization of health and life itself’. We explicate this holistic medicalization, discuss potential harms and conclude by calling for preventive measures aimed at avoiding eventual harmful effects of overmedicalization in systems medicine. (shrink)

According to the expressivist argument the choice to use biotechnologies to prevent the birth of individuals with specific disabilities is an expression of disvalue for existing people with this disability. The argument has stirred a lively debate and has recently received renewed attention. This article starts with presenting the expressivist argument and its core elements. It then goes on to present and examine the counter-arguments before it addresses some aspects that have gained surprisingly little attention. The analysis demonstrates that the (...) expressivist argument has a wide range of underpinnings and that counter-arguments tend to focus on only a few of these. It also reveals an important aspect that appears to have been ignored, i.e., that people do not select foetuses based on chromosomes or other biological traits, but based on characteristics of living persons with specific disabilities. This makes it more difficult to undermine the claim that negative selection of foetuses expresses a disvaluing of persons with such disabilities. It leaves the expressivist argument with a strong bite still. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to provide a non‐contradictory interpretation of sentences such as “Smith's murderer might not have murdered Smith”. An anti‐actualist, two‐dimensional framework including partial functions provides the basis for my solution. I argue for two claims. The modal profile of the proposition expressed by “The F might not have been an F” is complex: at any world where there is a unique F the proposition is true; at any world without a unique F the proposition has (...) no truth‐value; hence, at no world is it false. It remains an open semantic and epistemological question which of the first two kinds of world the actual world is. The semantic method should be based on explicit intensionalization in lieu of actualism. Actualism accords a privileged role to the actual world. Explicit intensionalization places all possible worlds, including the actual one, on an equal footing. Syntactically, a lambda‐bound world variable replaces the actual‐world constant or operator, while the other world variable is existentially bound. (shrink)

Bariatric surgery is effective on short- and medium-term weight loss, reduction of comorbidities, and overall mortality. A large and increasing portion of the population is eligible for bariatric surgery, which increases instant health care costs. A review of the literature identifies a series of ethical challenges: unjust distribution of bariatric surgery, autonomy and informed consent, classification of obesity and selecting assessment endpoints, prejudice among health professionals, intervention in people's life-world, and medicalization of appearance. Bariatric surgery is particularly interesting because it (...) uses surgical methods to modify healthy organs, is not curative, but offers symptoms relief for a condition that it is considered to result from lack of self-control and is subject to significant prejudice. Taking the reviewed ethical issues into account is important when meeting persons eligible for bariatric surgery, as well as in the assessment of and decision making on surgery for obesity. (shrink)

Trust can be understood as a precondition for a well-functioning society or as a way to handle complexities of living in a risk society, but also as a fundamental aspect of human morality. Interactions on the Internet pose some new challenges to issues of trust, especially connected to disembodiedness. Mistrust may be an important obstacle to Internet use, which is problematic as the Internet becomes a significant arena for political, social and commercial activities necessary for full participation in a liberal (...) democracy. The Categorical Imperative lifts up trust as a fundamental component of human ethical virtues – first of all, because deception and coercion, the antitheses of trust, cannot be universalized. Mistrust is, according to Kant, a natural component of human nature, as we are social beings dependent on recognition by others but also prone to deceiving others. Only in true friendships can this tendency be overcome and give room for unconditional trust. Still we can argue that Kant must hold that trustworthy behaviour as well as trust in others is obligatory, as expressions of respect for humanity. The Kantian approach integrates political and ethical aspects of trust, showing that protecting the external activities of citizens is required in order to act morally. This means that security measures, combined with specific regulations are important preconditions for building online trust, providing an environment enabling people to act morally and for trust-based relationships. (shrink)

The standard rule of single privative modification replaces privative modifiers by Boolean negation. This rule is valid, for sure, but also simplistic. If an individual a instantiates the privatively modified property (MF) then it is true that a instantiates the property of not being an F, but the rule fails to express the fact that the properties (MF) and F have something in common. We replace Boolean negation by property negation, enabling us to operate on contrary rather than contradictory properties. (...) To this end, we apply our theory of intensional essentialism, which operates on properties (intensions) rather than their extensions. We argue that each property F is necessarily associated with an essence, which is the set of the so-called requisites of F that jointly define F. Privation deprives F of some but not all of its requisites, replacing them by their contradictories. We show that properties formed from iterated privatives, such as being an imaginary fake banknote, give rise to a trifurcation of cases between returning to the original root property or to a property contrary to it or being semantically undecidable for want of further information. In order to determine which of the three forks the bearers of particular instances of multiply modified properties land upon we must examine the requisites, both of unmodified and modified properties. Requisites underpin our presuppositional theory of positive predication. Whereas privation is about being deprived of certain properties, the assignment of requisites to properties makes positive predication possible, which is the predication of properties the bearers must have because they have a certain property formed by means of privation. (shrink)

In a 2010 paper Daley argues, contra Fodor, that several syntactically simple predicates express structured concepts. Daley develops his theory of structured concepts within Tichý’s Transparent Intensional Logic . I rectify various misconceptions of Daley’s concerning TIL. I then develop within TIL an improved theory of how structured concepts are structured and how syntactically simple predicates are related to structured concepts.