Evolutionary fitness threats and rewards are associated with subjectively unpleasant and pleasant sensations, respectively. Initially, these correlations appear explainable via adaptation by natural selection. But here I analyse the major metaphysical perspectives on consciousness – physicalism, dualism, and panpsychism – and conclude that none help to understand the adaptive-seeming correlations via adaptation. I also argue that a recently proposed explanation, the phenomenal powers view, has major problems that mean it cannot explain the adaptive-seeming correlations via adaptation either. So the mystery (...) – call it the evolutionary paradox of consciousness – remains. Some have used this mystery to argue for non-naturalistic (e.g. theistic) explanations. But I propose a naturalistic, non-adaptive explanation of the adaptive-seeming correlations: namely, ‘sensational associative learning’ during development. In this perspective, pairing of particular sensations with unconditioned stimuli – fitness rewards or threats – cause the sensations themselves to come to be interpreted as good or bad, respectively. Sensations, like colours, that are not reliably paired with either fitness rewards or threats remain largely unvalenced. Sensational associative learning also provides explanations for adaptive-seeming structural aspects of sensations, such as the observation that sounds of different pitch are experienced as ordinal in correspondence to their wavelengths while the same is not true of colours of different hue. The sensational associative learning perspective appears compatible with physicalism, panpsychism, and dualism (though not epiphenomenalism). (shrink)

Recent work in moral philosophy has emphasized the foundational role played by interpersonal accountability in the analysis of moral concepts such as moral right and wrong, moral obligation and duty, blameworthiness, and moral responsibility (Darwall 2006; 2013a; 2013b). Extending this framework to the field of moral psychology, we hypothesize that our moral attitudes, emotions, and motives are also best understood as based in accountability. Drawing on a large body of empirical evidence, we argue that the implicit aim of the central (...) moral motives and emotions is to hold people - whether oneself or others - accountable for compliance with the demands of morality. Moral condemnation is based in a motive to get perpetrators to hold themselves accountable for their wrongdoing, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere retributive motive to make perpetrators suffer (�2). And moral conscience is based in a genuine motive to hold oneself accountable for behaving in accordance with moral demands, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere egoistic motive to appear moral to others (�3). The accountability-based theory of the moral motives and emotions we offer provides better explanations of the extant empirical data than any of the major alternative theories of moral motivation. Moreover, conceiving of moral psychology in this way gives us a new and illuminating perspective on what makes morality distinctive: its essential connection to our practice of holding one another accountable (�4). (shrink)

This textbook, which is completely self-contained and can be read by anyone with a secondary school education, is the result of the author's material prepared over the past 15 years of teaching introductory natural language semantics to graduate and undergraduate students at McGill University. The intended audience comprises undergraduate and graduate students in linguistics as well as those in philosophy, computer science and psychology with an interest in natural language semantics. The aim of the textbook is to teach the fundamentals (...) of natural language semantics, with English as the principal, though not the exclusive, target language. The principal aim of the textbook is to provide the student with all the basics necessary to be able him or her read research in natural language semantics, regardless of the theory assumed by the author of the research. In contrast to other textbooks in the field, which aim to introduce students to a particular theory of natural language semantics, this textbook seeks to give to its reader a clear overview of the kind of natural language phenomena which, at least prima facie, fall within the ambit of an investigation of natural language semantics; to assist the reader in developing a mastery of the mathematical tools used to formulate hypotheses about the natural language phenomena studied; and to impart to the reader an appreciation of the interplay between hypothesis and data. As a result, the textbook is rich in its presentation of the patterns of English, drawing extensively on the best and most contemporary descriptive grammars of English. The textbook also has more than 500 exercises, with answers to half of them. (shrink)

Ender Wiggin spends much of Ender's Game playing games of one sort or another. These range from simple role‐playing games with his siblings (“buggers and astronauts”), to battleroom contests, to the strange free play Giant's Drink video game in which he must kill a giant and confront his deepest fears. This chapter examines the role that games play in Ender's development as both a military commander and as a human being. It considers a number of interrelated questions: What is a (...) game? Is it really appropriate to call Battle School activities “games,” given how serious they are? What is the relationship between a good game and the development of a good person?. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer one example of conceptual change. Specifically, I contend that the discovery that viruses could cause cancer represents an excellent example of branch jumping, one of Thagard’s nine forms of conceptual change. Prior to about 1960, cancer was generally regarded as a degenerative, chronic, non-infectious disease. Cancer causation was therefore usually held to be a gradual process of accumulating cellular damage, caused by relatively non-specific component causes, acting over long periods of time. Viral infections, on the (...) other hand, were generally understood to be acute processes, whereby single, specific and necessary causal agents acted alone to produce disease. However, during the 1960s and 1970s, a number of cancers were discovered to have an infectious aetiology. Of particular note were two—Burkitt’s lymphoma and cervical cancer—which I will discuss in detail later in this piece. Together, these discoveries led, in the short term, to a tentative aetiological reclassification of some types of cancer as infectious diseases and, in the longer term, to a full-blown reclassification of cancer as an aetiological disease branch in its own right. This process of reclassification forms the empirical basis for my concluding remarks on the influence of classification upon causation in medicine. Through this, I aim to demonstrate that conceptual change, far from being a purely abstract concern of the philosopher of science, is of substantial import to scientific practitioners. (shrink)

There is little work of a systematic nature in ethical theory or deontic logic on aretaic notions such as praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, despite their centrality to common-sense morality. Without more work, there is little hope of filling the even larger gap of attempting to develop frameworks integrating such aretaic concepts with deontic concepts of common-sense morality, such as what is obligatory, permissible, impermissible, or supererogatory. It is also clear in the case of aretaic concepts that agency is central to such (...) appraisal, so some agential notions must be integrated with aretaic concepts as well. The current paper takes the first step in a larger project aimed at the closure of these gaps. Here I sketch a simple framework for the aretaic appraisal of an agent's performance, layered on top of a simple framework for agency and predetermination. In Part I, I develop the framework for agency, ability, and inevitability, combining elements of work by Brown, Elgesem, Carmo, Santos, and Jones. In Part II, drawing on work by Chisholm and Sosa on intrinsic preferability, I sketch and explore a framework for defining aretaic superiority, praiseworthiness, blameworthiness, neutrality, and indifference, etc., retaining proper links to agency. (shrink)

We pose two arguments for the view that sentences containing definite descriptions semantically express multiple propositions: a general proposition as Russell suggested, and a singular proposition featuring the individual who uniquely satisfies the description at the world-time of utterance. One argument mirrors David Kaplan's arguments that indexicals express singular propositions through a context-sensitive character. The second argument mirrors Kent Bach's and Stephen Neale's arguments for pluralist views about terms putatively triggering conventional implicatures, appositive, and nonrestrictive relative clauses. After presenting these (...) arguments, we show that rival explanations (appeals to implicature, referential use, presupposition, etc.) do not offer equally compelling explanations of the data, and defend the methodology employed in the arguments against some criticisms. (shrink)

The plays in this new volume were written early in Marcel’s career, and were published together under the title Le Seuil invisible (The Invisible Threshold) in 1913. The first play, Grace, explores the theme of religious conversion. The drama depicts a crisis between characters of genuine depth and sincerity, who are struggling with different interpretations of shared experiences. Similar themes are addressed but developed differently in the second play, The Sandcastle. This drama explores the confrontation between one’s beliefs and their (...) consequences when faced with challenging family and social circumstances. The play asks us to think about what happens when our beliefs and theories, especially about religion, morality and politics, come up against situations in life that can test them. Both plays illustrate one of the major themes of both Marcel’s dramatic and philosophical work: that life’s most profound, fulfilling experiences are compromised more than ever in what he describes as the modern, broken world (le monde cassé), one unfortunately characterized by alienation, loss of meaning and feelings of despair. (shrink)

Burt's argument relies on a motte-and-bailey fallacy. Burt aims to argue against the value of genetics for social science; instead she argues against certain interpretations of a specific kind of genetics tool, polygenic scores (PGSs). The limitations, previously identified by behavioural geneticists including ourselves, do not negate the value of PGSs, let alone genetics in general, for social science.

Category theory reveals commonalities between structures of all sorts. This book shows its potential in science, engineering, and beyond.

This book contributes to the 'new view' reading of Adam Smith, providing a historically and contextually rich interpretation of Smith's thought. Smith built a moral philosophy on the foundations of a natural theology of human sociality. Examination of his life, relationship with David Hume, and use of divine names shows that he retained a progressive form of Christian theism. The book interrogates the metaphor of the 'invisible hand' and highlights the importance of the religious dimension of Adam Smith's thought for (...) his moral philosophy, his jurisprudence and his economics. It reflects on the contemporary relevance of a theological reading of Smith and lays the ground for further inquiry between economic and religious perspectives. (shrink)

Tracing Walter Benjamin's convergences with, and divergences from, influential German theorist Carl Schmitt, this edited collection places his thinking in the context of broader 20th century political philosophy of his time, and examines the question of whether Benjamin presents the possibility for a distinctive political theology, mapping the coordinates of this question without collapsing the tensions internal to Benjamin's thought. This volume brings together a host of multifaceted contributions that explore why Benjamin has been a fertile source for thinking about (...) political theology and the possibilities that this new perspective brings to light. (shrink)

This is a review of John Horty's book, _Agency and Deontic Logic_, OUP 2000.

"Ethical Explorations: Moral Dilemmas in a Universe of Possibilities" by Brendan Shea is an open access textbook that provides a comprehensive study of ethical philosophy. Shea makes it his task to chart the sprawling landscape of moral thought from ancient times to the present, employing a straightforward, easily accessible style. -/- In the book, each chapter addresses a distinct ethical theory. Shea discusses everything from Plato's allegorical Cave to contemporary issues in bioethics. The text features relatable narratives, clear explanations (...) of core concepts, thought-provoking questions, and handy glossaries to help readers grasp the subject matter. -/- Among the topics, you'll find the principles of utilitarianism through the adventures of a princess, an exploration of duty via a story about a golem, and a look at natural law theory through an engaging science-fiction tale. Contemporary themes also make an appearance, including discussions on Marxism, Nietzsche's radical ideas, Simone de Beauvoir's intersection of feminism and existentialism, and racial theories from W.E.B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King. -/- As an open access (CC-BY) textbook, "Ethical Explorations" is freely available to everyone, making the study of moral philosophy accessible to all. It's a tool that gives its readers the means to wrestle with ethical questions in an ever-changing world. (shrink)

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) makes use of explicit procedures for grading evidence for causal claims. Normally, these procedures categorise evidence of correlation produced by statistical trials as better evidence for a causal claim than evidence of mechanisms produced by other methods. We argue, in contrast, that evidence of mechanisms needs to be viewed as complementary to, rather than inferior to, evidence of correlation. In this paper we first set out the case for treating evidence of mechanisms alongside evidence of correlation in (...) explicit protocols for evaluating evidence. Next we provide case studies which exemplify the ways in which evidence of mechanisms complements evidence of correlation in practice. Finally, we put forward some general considerations as to how the two sorts of evidence can be more closely integrated by EBM. (shrink)

This paper argues that promises are proposals in joint practical deliberation, the activity of deciding together what to do. More precisely: to promise to ϕ is to propose (in a particular way) to decide together with your addressee(s) that you will ϕ. I defend this deliberative theory by showing that the activity of joint practical deliberation naturally gives rise to a speech act with exactly the same properties as promises. A certain kind of proposal to make a joint decision regarding (...) one's own actions turns out to have the very same normative effects, under the very same conditions, as a promise. I submit that this cannot be a coincidence: we should conclude that promises and the relevant kind of proposals in joint practical deliberation are one and the same. (shrink)

We present a general framework for analyzing the contribution to reproductive success of a behavioural action. An action may make a direct contribution to reproductive success, but even in the absence of a direct contribution it may make an indirect contribution by changing the animal's state. We consider actions over a period of time, and define a reward function that characterizes the relationship between the animal's state at the end of the period and its future reproductive success. Working back from (...) the end of the period using dynamic programming, the optimal action as a function of state and time can be found. The procedure also yields a measure of the cost, in terms of future reproductive success, of a suboptimal action. These costs provide us with a common currency for comparing activities such as eating and drinking, or eating and hiding from predators. The costs also give an indication of the robustness of the conclusions that can be drawn from a model. We review how our framework can be used to analyze optimal foraging decisions in a stochastic environment. We also discuss the modelling of optimal daily routines and provide an illustration based on singing to attract a mate. We use the model to investigate the features that can produce a dawn song burst in birds. State is defined very broadly so that it includes the information an animal has about its environment. Thus, exploration and learning can be included within the framework. (shrink)

What accounts for the capacity of ordinary speakers to comprehend utterances of their language? The phenomenology of hearing speech in one’s own language makes it tempting to many epistemologists to look to perception for an answer to this question. That is, just as a visual experience as of a red square is often taken to give the perceiver immediate justification for believing that there is a red square in front of her, perhaps an auditory experience as of the speaker asserting (...) that p gives the competent hearer immediate justification for believing that the speaker has asserted that p. My aim here is to offer reasons for resisting this temptation. I argue that the perceptual model cannot adequately account for the hearer’s justification in many cases. The arguments here also allow us to draw certain further morals about the role of phenomenology in the epistemology of perception. (shrink)

One way to challenge the substantiveness of a particular philosophical issue is to argue that those who debate the issue are engaged in a merely verbal dispute. For example, it has been maintained that the apparent disagreement over the mind/brain identity thesis is a merely verbal dispute, and thus that there is no substantive question of whether or not mental properties are identical to neurological properties. The goal of this paper is to help clarify the relationship between mere verbalness and (...) substantiveness. I first argue that we should see mere verbalness as a certain kind of discourse defect that arises when the parties differ as to what each takes to be the immediate question under discussion. I then argue that mere verbalness, so understood, does not imply that the question either party is attempting to address is a non-substantive one. Even if it turns out that the parties to the mind/brain dispute are addressing subtly different questions, these might both be substantive questions to which their respective metaphysical views provide substantive answers. One reason it is tempting to reach deflationary conclusions from the charge of mere verbalness is that we fail to distinguish it from the claim that a sentence under dispute is, in a certain sense, indisputable. Another reason is that we fail to distinguish mere verbalness from a certain sort of indeterminacy. While indisputability and indeterminacy plausibly capture forms of nonsubstantiveness, I argue that mere verbalness is insufficient to establish either indisputability or indeterminacy. (shrink)

Gilbert Harman’s famous principle of Clutter Avoidance commands that “one should not clutter one’s mind with trivialities". Many epistemologists have been inclined to accept Harman’s principle, or something like it. This is significant because the principle appears to have robust implications for our overall picture of epistemic normativity. Jane Friedman (2018) has recently argued that one potential implication is that there are no genuine purely evidential norms on belief revision. In this paper, we present some new objections to a suitably (...) formulated version of the clutter principle qua norm on belief revision. Moreover, we argue that the clutter principle is best understood as a norm on non-doxastic stages of inquiry. In our view, it is a norm of asking and considering questions rather than a norm of settling on an answer to a question by forming a belief. (shrink)

Over 115 000 people are waiting for life-saving organ transplants, of whom a small fraction will receive transplants and many others will die while waiting. Existing efforts to expand the number of available organs, including increasing the number of registered donors and procuring organs in uncontrolled environments, are crucial but unlikely to address the shortage in the near future and will not improve donor/recipient compatibility or organ quality. If successful, organ bioengineering can solve the shortage and improve functional outcomes. Studying (...) manufactured organs in animal models has produced valuable data, but is not sufficient to understand viability in humans. Before risking manufactured organ experimentation in living humans, study of bioengineered organs in recently deceased humans would facilitate evaluation of the function of engineered tissues and the complex interactions between the host and the transplanted tissue. Although such studies do not pose risk to human subjects, they pose unique ethical challenges concerning the previous wishes of the deceased, rights of surviving family members, effective operation and fair distribution of medical services, and public transparency. This article investigates the ethical, legal and social considerations in performing engineered organ research on the recently deceased. (shrink)

According to current hierarchies of evidence for EBM, evidence of correlation is always more important than evidence of mechanisms when evaluating and establishing causal claims. We argue that evidence of mechanisms needs to be treated alongside evidence of correlation. This is for three reasons. First, correlation is always a fallible indicator of causation, subject in particular to the problem of confounding; evidence of mechanisms can in some cases be more important than evidence of correlation when assessing a causal claim. Second, (...) evidence of mechanisms is often required in order to obtain evidence of correlation. Third, evidence of mechanisms is often required in order to generalise and apply causal claims. While the EBM movement has been enormously successful in making explicit and critically examining one aspect of our evidential practice, i.e., evidence of correlation, we wish to extend this line of work to make explicit and critically examine a second aspect of our evidential practices: evidence of mechanisms. (shrink)

The literature contains a disconnect between accounts of how humans learn lexical semantic representations for words. Theories generally propose that lexical semantics are learned either through perceptual experience or through exposure to regularities in language. We propose here a model to integrate these two information sources. Specifically, the model uses the global structure of memory to exploit the redundancy between language and perception in order to generate inferred perceptual representations for words with which the model has no perceptual experience. We (...) test the model on a variety of different datasets from grounded cognition experiments and demonstrate that this diverse set of results can be explained as perceptual simulation (cf. Barsalou, Simmons, Barbey, & Wilson, 2003) within a global memory model. (shrink)

Mechanistic philosophy of science views a large part of scientific activity as engaged in modelling mechanisms. While science textbooks tend to offer qualitative models of mechanisms, there is increasing demand for models from which one can draw quantitative predictions and explanations. Casini et al. (Theoria 26(1):5–33, 2011) put forward the Recursive Bayesian Networks (RBN) formalism as well suited to this end. The RBN formalism is an extension of the standard Bayesian net formalism, an extension that allows for modelling the hierarchical (...) nature of mechanisms. Like the standard Bayesian net formalism, it models causal relationships using directed acyclic graphs. Given this appeal to acyclicity, causal cycles pose a prima facie problem for the RBN approach. This paper argues that the problem is a significant one given the ubiquity of causal cycles in mechanisms, but that the problem can be solved by combining two sorts of solution strategy in a judicious way. (shrink)

In “Does Controlled Donation after Circulatory Death Violate the Dead Donor Rule?” the authors maintain that compliance with the dead donor rule (DDR) does not require a valid determination of deat...

In this paper, we contend that the psychology of addiction is similar to the psychology of ordinary, non-addictive temptation in important respects, and explore the ways in which these parallels can illuminate both addiction and ordinary action. The incentive salience account of addiction proposed by Robinson and Berridge (1993; 2001; 2008) entails that addictive desires are not in their nature different from many of the desires had by non-addicts; what is different is rather the way that addictive desires are acquired, (...) which in turn affects their strength. We examine these “incentive salience” desires, both in addicts and non-addicts, contrasting them with more cognitive desires. On this account, the self-control challenge faced by addicted agents is not different in kind from that faced by non-addicted agents – though the two may, of course, differ greatly in degree of difficulty. We explore a general model of self-control for both the addict and the non-addict, stressing that self-control may be employed at three different stages, and examining the ways in which it might be strengthened. This helps elucidate a general model of intentional action. (shrink)