A long‐standing debate in the study of human communication centers on the degree to which communicators tune their communicative signals (e.g., speech, gestures) for specific addressees, as opposed to taking a neutral or egocentric perspective. This tuning, called recipient design, is known to occur under special conditions (e.g., when errors in communication need to be corrected), but several researchers have argued that it is not an intrinsic feature of human communication, because that would be computationally too demanding. In this study, (...) we contribute to this debate by studying a simple communicative behavior, communicative pointing, under conditions of successful (error‐free) communication. Using an information‐theoretic measure, called legibility, we present evidence of recipient design in communicative pointing. The legibility effect is present early in the movement, suggesting that it is an intrinsic part of the communicative plan. Moreover, it is reliable only from the viewpoint of the addressee, suggesting that the motor plan is tuned to the addressee. These findings suggest that recipient design is an intrinsic feature of human communication. (shrink)

This paper considers pick-the-winners contests as a simple method for harnessing the wisdom of crowds to produce probability forecasts. Pick-the-winners contests are those in which players pick the outcomes of selected future binary events with a prize going to the player with the most correct picks. In contrast to soliciting probability forecasts from experts, this paper shows that competition among players is to be encouraged because it improves the accuracy of the resulting crowd probability forecasts. This improvement comes because the (...) competition not only discourages the overbetting of favorites that occurs if prizes are awarded based on absolute performance, but also helps mitigate the public knowledge bias that occurs if everyone reports truthfully. In addition to the theoretical arguments, the paper analyzes picks from 6 years of pick-the-winners contests involving hundreds of players and 1037 college lacrosse games to find that the crowd proportions outperformed two benchmark sets of probabilities. (shrink)

Two distinct and perhaps mutually exclusive understandings of utilitarianism have emerged in the ethics literature. Utilitarianism is typically regarded as an approach to determine ethicality by focusing on whether or not actions produce the greater good, but has also been conceptualized as a set of traits to which individuals might be predisposed. This paper is designed to clarify the meaning and implications of such utilitarian traits as “results-oriented,” “innovative,” and “a winner.” Although the Janus-headed model of ethical theory from (...) which these traits emerged had been acknowledged by its developer as possibly misrepresenting typical views of utilitarianism, much research using these traits appears to have been conducted without clear recognition of this. If the conceptual foundation underpinning hypothesis development is disconnected from the measure used to test them, then little support for relevant predictions should emerge. A review of the literature which featured utilitarian traits generally confirmed this. This paper also explored the origins and emergence of these traits and suggested that existing evidence that these measure utilitarian ethical predispositions is not especially persuasive. Understanding what utilitarian traits do not assess is critical in order for knowledge about this potentially useful measure to advance. (shrink)

" -- Seyla Benhabib, Harvard University "Winner, 1996 Elaine and David Spitz Book Prize for the best book on liberal and democratic theory, Conference for the Study of Political Thought.

Two distinct and perhaps mutually exclusive understandings of utilitarianism have emerged in the ethics literature. Utilitarianism is typically regarded as an approach to determine ethicality by focusing on whether or not actions produce the greater good, but has also been conceptualized as a set of traits to which individuals might be predisposed. This paper is designed to clarify the meaning and implications of such utilitarian traits as “results-oriented,” “innovative,” and “a winner.” Although the Janus-headed model of ethical theory from (...) which these traits emerged had been acknowledged by its developer as possibly misrepresenting typical views of utilitarianism, much research using these traits appears to have been conducted without clear recognition of this. If the conceptual foundation underpinning hypothesis development is disconnected from the measure used to test them, then little support for relevant predictions should emerge. A review of the literature which featured utilitarian traits generally confirmed this. This paper also explored the origins and emergence of these traits and suggested that existing evidence that these measure utilitarian ethical predispositions is not especially persuasive. Understanding what utilitarian traits do not assess is critical in order for knowledge about this potentially useful measure to advance. (shrink)

If philosophers held popularity contests, David Hume would be a perennial winner. Witty, a bon vivant, and champion of reason over bigotry and superstition, it is not surprising that many contemporary thinkers want to recruit him as an ally or claim his views as precursors to their own. In the debate over the moral content of artworks and its possible relevance for artistic and aesthetic value, the group whose views are known variously as “ethicism,” “moralism,” or “moderate moralism” has (...) claimed Hume as one of its own.1 Very briefly, “moderate moralism” is the view that sometimes the moral content of artworks must be taken into account when assessing artistic or aesthetic value. The moralists’ presumed . (shrink)

Philosophers of technology are not playing the public role that our own theoretical perspectives motivate us to take. A great variety of theories and perspectives within philosophy of technology, including those of Marcuse, Feenberg, Borgmann, Ihde, Michelfelder, Bush, Winner, Latour, and Verbeek, either support or directly call for various sorts of intervention—a call that we have failed to heed adequately. Barriers to such intervention are discussed, and three proposals for reform are advanced: (1) post-publication peer-reviewed reprinting of public philosophy, (...) (2) increased emphasis on true open access publication, and (3) increased efforts to publicize and adapt traditional academic research. (shrink)

Philosophers of technology are not playing the public role that our own theoretical perspectives motivate us to take. A great variety of theories and perspectives within philosophy of technology, including those of Marcuse, Feenberg, Borgmann, Ihde, Michelfelder, Bush, Winner, Latour, and Verbeek, either support or directly call for various sorts of intervention—a call that we have failed to heed adequately. Barriers to such intervention are discussed, and three proposals for reform are advanced: post-publication peer-reviewed reprinting of public philosophy, increased (...) emphasis on true open access publication, and increased efforts to publicize and adapt traditional academic research. (shrink)

The idea of replication is based on the premise that there are permanent laws to be replicated and verified, and the scientific method is adequate for doing so. Scientific truth, however, is not absolute but relative to time and context, and the method used. Time and context are inextricably interwoven, in that time creates different contexts and contexts (e.g., Christmas Day vs. New Year’s Day) create different experiences of time, rendering psychological phenomena inherently variable. This means that internal and external (...) conditions fluctuate and are different in a replication study vs. the original. Thus, a replication experiment is just another empirical investigation that has no special status in the establishment of scientific truth. It is not the final arbiter of whether or not something exists. In their pursuit of homogeneous external conditions, replications have ignored the homogeneity of internal conditions. There is not a single replication reported in the literature that would have shown participants’ feelings and thoughts—both conscious and nonconscious—to be identical to those of the original participants. Experimental instructions can create varying ratios of conscious over nonconscious processing from one study to another. Ironically, every replication is a failure at the fundamentals of human psychology. While patterns can be discovered, they are not permanent or unchangeable laws of human behavior to be proven by the pinpoint statistical verification through replication. As scientific knowledge in physics is temporary and incomplete, should it be any surprise that science can only provide “temporary winners” for psychological knowledge of human behavior? (shrink)

Identity Economics provides an important and compelling new way to understand human behavior, revealing how our identities--and not just economic incentives--influence our decisions. In 1995, economist Rachel Kranton wrote future Nobel Prize-winner George Akerlof a letter insisting that his most recent paper was wrong. Identity, she argued, was the missing element that would help to explain why people--facing the same economic circumstances--would make different choices. This was the beginning of a fourteen-year collaboration--and of Identity Economics. The authors explain how (...) our conception of who we are and who we want to be may shape our economic lives more than any other factor, affecting how hard we work, and how we learn, spend, and save. Identity economics is a new way to understand people's decisions--at work, at school, and at home. With it, we can better appreciate why incentives like stock options work or don't; why some schools succeed and others don't; why some cities and towns don't invest in their futures--and much, much more. Identity Economics bridges a critical gap in the social sciences. It brings identity and norms to economics. People's notions of what is proper, and what is forbidden, and for whom, are fundamental to how hard they work, and how they learn, spend, and save. Thus people's identity--their conception of who they are, and of who they choose to be--may be the most important factor affecting their economic lives. And the limits placed by society on people's identity can also be crucial determinants of their economic well-being. (shrink)

Hershberger is the winner of a 2015 Insight Award from theSociety for Photographic Education for his work on this book andfor his overall contributions to the field! Photographic Theory: An Historical Anthology presents acompendium of readings spanning ancient times to the digital agethat are related to the history, nature, and current status ofdebates in photographic theory. Offers an authoritative and academically up-to-date compendiumof the history of photographic theory Represents the only collection to include ancient, Renaissance,and 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century (...) writings related to thesubject Stresses the drama of historical and contemporary debateswithin theoretical circles Features comprehensive coverage of recent trends in digitalphotography Fills a much-needed gap in the existing literature. (shrink)

The notion that people should be rewarded proportionately to how hard they work is a common one, and has recently been supported, e.g., by James Sterba on Rawlsian grounds. Such arguments involve the difficulty that inequality of outcome is to be justified by a supposed equality of opportunity, yet it is obvious that, if the gap between winners and losers in a game becomes too wide, then the person in a Rawlsian original position (or any other objective observer) would not (...) consider equality of opportunity sufficient to justify the change of losing so severely; moreover, he might prefer not to play that particular game for such high stakes. (shrink)

Identity Economics provides an important and compelling new way to understand human behavior, revealing how our identities--and not just economic incentives--influence our decisions. In 1995, economist Rachel Kranton wrote future Nobel Prize-winner George Akerlof a letter insisting that his most recent paper was wrong. Identity, she argued, was the missing element that would help to explain why people--facing the same economic circumstances--would make different choices. This was the beginning of a fourteen-year collaboration--and of Identity Economics. The authors explain how (...) our conception of who we are and who we want to be may shape our economic lives more than any other factor, affecting how hard we work, and how we learn, spend, and save. Identity economics is a new way to understand people's decisions--at work, at school, and at home. With it, we can better appreciate why incentives like stock options work or don't; why some schools succeed and others don't; why some cities and towns don't invest in their futures--and much, much more. Identity Economics bridges a critical gap in the social sciences. It brings identity and norms to economics. People's notions of what is proper, and what is forbidden, and for whom, are fundamental to how hard they work, and how they learn, spend, and save. Thus people's identity--their conception of who they are, and of who they choose to be--may be the most important factor affecting their economic lives. And the limits placed by society on people's identity can also be crucial determinants of their economic well-being. (shrink)

Public health ethics is a relatively new academic field. Crucially, it is distinguished from traditional medical ethics by its focus on populations rather than individuals. Still, the ethics of public health cannot be perceived completely detached from the ethics of individuals, as populations are made up of individuals. One issue that clearly falls within the intersection of a population- and an individual based perspective on ethics is resource allocation. Resource allocation takes place at various stages within the organisation of healthcare, (...) i.e. at the micro-, meso- and macro level [3]. Resources are almost always limited, with the consequence that some healthcare is prioritised while other care is rationed. In this manner, resource allocation creates winners and losers; those who get the best care available, those who do not receive the best care and those who do not receive care at all. It seems prudent to assume that any adequate public health ethics involved in population-based decision-making will have to address all ethical aspects of resource allocation, all the way from the macrolevel policy-making process to the micro-level implementation where it affects specific and identifiable individuals. More specifically, such an ethics must be able to deal with the ethical tensions arising between population-based concerns framing the policy design process, and individual concerns in the realisation of the resource allocations. In the following, I will identify an inherent ethical tension involved in ‘legitimate resource allocation’, which is related to the challenge of meeting the ethical requirements from a population- and an individual based perspective at the same time. (shrink)

In 1915, Frederick Soddy, later a winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, warned publicly of the future dangers of atomic war. Hisforesight depended not only upon scientific knowledge, but also upon emotion, creativity, and many sorts of nonscientific knowledge. The latter, which played a role even in the content of Soddy's scientific discoveries, included such diverse sources as contemporary politics, history, science fiction, religion, and ancient alchemy. Soddy's story may offer important, guiding msights for today's efforts in technology (...) assessment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Peaceful Persuasion: The Geopolitics of Nonviolent RhetoricSarah E. DempseyPeaceful Persuasion: The Geopolitics of Nonviolent Rhetoric. Ellen W. Gorsevski. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.pp. 262. $55.00, hardcover.The overriding emphasis on violence, militarization, and retribution within current geopolitical contexts demands that we acquire greater understandings of nonviolent communicative practices. In Peaceful Persuasion, author Ellen Gorsevski, Professor of English and Communication at Oregon State University, argues that nonviolent (...) rhetoric tends to be ignored by scholars—that its methods, strategies, and impacts are often passed over and that nonviolence is often framed as hopelessly utopian, unrealistic, and ineffective. Gorsevski situates her study of nonviolent rhetoric less within its humanistic and religious inheritance, drawing instead on a contrast with existing models of rhetoric. As a strategy for rhetorical and political action, Gorsevski takes nonviolence to be instructive of new ways to reconfigure both rhetorical studies and social movement strategy.It is important to note that Gorsevski's need to study peaceful means of relating to others is driven as much by a love of rhetorical theory as by a passion for translating an understanding of nonviolent rhetoric into strategies for activists. As such, this book provides a solid introduction to rhetorical theory, including an appendix on the connection between rhetoric and nonviolence that details what activists have to gain from each. In addition, instructors will find useful a chapter on the specifics of incorporating nonviolence into speech communication classrooms.Peaceful Persuasion's greatest contribution to rhetorical studies is the careful drawing out of the many ways that a rhetorical take on nonviolence has become increasingly necessary. To make this solid case, Gorsevski draws on four very diverse case studies of nonviolent rhetoric. In a move that is both surprising and refreshing, Gorsevski's case studies do more than provide exemplars of how critics may read nonviolence as a powerful rhetorical strategy; each helps to further delineate the key characteristics of what has been, until now, a relatively undefined area of rhetorical action.Gorsevski's gift to her readers is the ability to demonstrate the rich subtleties of nonviolence through very different contexts. The case studies [End Page 89] draw from such different sources that at first seem disorienting. Upon reflection, it becomes clearer that they greatly complicate our notions of nonviolence, redressing the disservices of previous bleary analyses that configured nonviolence only by its lack of violence rather than according to its fruitful range of seemingly contradictory strategies. The cavernous distances each study crosses illuminate the multiplicity of forms, meanings, and strategies that nonviolence may take. As such, any definition of nonviolence that I may provide in this short review does a serious disservice to the depth that Gorsevski creates through her sometimes disjointed case studies.The case studies serve at least dual purposes, as each provides an analysis that extends our understandings of nonviolence in action as it also offers instructive mini-lessons for the further development of rhetorical studies. In the first case study, Gorsevski provides a contextualized analysis of critics' interpretations of the film The Spitfire Grill, which she shows to be reflective of the "predominantly accepting orientation that rhetoric and film critics hold for the idea that humans are characterized by "innate aggression" and violence" (68). For Gorsevski, this study demonstrates that nonviolence as a lens can be applied to a range of texts just as well as any other approach to rhetoric. Gorsevski moves her analysis of nonviolent rhetoric into the geopolitical realm for her study of President of Macedonia Kiro Gligorov's historic first speech before the United Nations. She takes his speech as evidence of the usefulness of pragmatic nonviolence, which entails "noncooperation or defiance of political adversaries in order to decry a perceived injustice" (72). Gligorov's speech illustrates that nonviolence and violence are best seen less as equivalent than, rather, as operating on a sliding scale. For Gorsevski, successful use of pragmatic nonviolence may even include a measure of violence as long as it serves to reduce the escalation of further strife.Next Gorsevski explores the visual rhetoric of the gendered body of Burmese activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi to show... (shrink)

James Edward Meade was a renowned British economist who, alongside Bertil Ohlin, was joint winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Economics. Originally published in 1958, this book contains the transcription of Meade's inaugural lecture as Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University, delivered during the same year. Concise and highly readable, it will be of value to anyone with an interest in economic history, theories regarding inflation, and macroeconomic theory in general.

What lies at the heart of physical inquiry? What are the foundational ideas and working assumptions that inform the enterprise of natural science? What principles guide research? How do scientists decide whether they are building theories in the right direction? Is there a right direction? Do physical theories actually approximate an objective reality, or are they simply useful summaries, mnemonics for experimental results? This book is Nobel Prize winner Jim Peebles's contribution to such big, classic debates in the philosophy (...) of science, drawing on a lifetime of experience as a leading physicist and taking the development of physical cosmology as a "worked example." He begins with a consideration of the history of thought about the nature of the physical sciences since Einstein, culminating in a succinct statement of what he sees as the fundamental working assumptions of physics. Then, through a careful examination of the development of the general theory of relativity, Einstein's cosmological principle, the big bang theory, and our current model of the universe, he makes the argument that physical theories ultimately are useful approximations to an objective reality whose nature science is discovering. An essential reflection on and interrogation of the nature and practice of science by a giant in the field, The Whole Truth will be illuminating reading for cosmologists, physicists, and historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science alike. (shrink)

We analyze contestants’ behavior in the game show “The Weakest Link”. We focus on banking decisions, where a contestant chooses to secure an amount of money for the eventual winner, or to risk it on a general knowledge question. We find that contestants do not use the banking strategy that maximizes total expected prize money. Average earnings could be at least 17% higher. Our results suggest that contestants are not overconfident, but do try to convince other contestants that their (...) ability is higher than it really is, in order to increase chances of winning the prize. We argue that this mechanism may also be applicable to other situations that are of economic interest. (shrink)

In several recent experiments we have found that the eyes are often captured by the appearance of a sudden onset in a display, even though subjects intend to move their eyes elsewhere. Very brief fixations are made on the abrupt onset before the eyes complete their intended movement to the previously defined target. These results indicate concurrent programming of a voluntary saccade to the defined saccade target and an involuntary saccade to the sudden onset. This is inconsistent with the idea (...) that a single salience map determines the location of a saccade in a winner-take-all fashion. Other results indicate that subjects attend to more than one location in a display during saccade preparation, contrary to the claim that covert attentional scanning plays no role in saccade generation. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the defection of nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo from Britain to the USSR in 1950 in an attempt to understand how government and intelligence services assess threats deriving from the unwanted spread of secret scientific information. It questions whether contingent agendas play a role in these assessments, as new evidence suggests that this is exactly what happened in the Pontecorvo case. British diplomatic personnel involved in negotiations with their US counterparts considered playing down the case. Meanwhile, the (...) press decided to play it up, claiming that Pontecorvo was an atom spy. Finally, the British secret services had evidence showing that this was a fabrication, but they did not disclose it. If all these manipulations served various purposes, then they certainly were not aimed at assessing if there was a threat and what this threat really was. (shrink)

Peter van Inwagen’s answer to the Special Composition Question, call it Organicism, says the xs compose y iff the activity of the xs constitutes a life. What about suspended lives (i.e., cryptobiosis)? Suppose a cat is alive at t1, completely frozen at t2, then revived at t3. Is the cat alive while frozen? Plausibly no, which according to Organicism means the cat-qua-composite ceases to exist at t2. Intuitively, however, the same cat seems present at all of t1, t2, and t3. (...) To account for these intuitions, van Inwagen modifies his answer: the xs compose y iff the activity of the xs constitutes or results from a life. Alas, this modification permits problematic duplication cases where one collection of objects composes something, yet a duplicate collection does not. This prompts the search for alternative modifications that identify frozen organisms as composites without introducing duplication problems. A dispositional variant is proposed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education ed. by David J. Elliott, Marissa Silverman and Gary E. McPhersonCara Faith BernardDavid J. Elliott, Marissa Silverman, and Gary E. McPherson, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019)Three leading voices in music education, David J. Elliott, Marissa Silverman, and Gary E. McPherson, consistently work to (...) reconceive how music educators create and challenge the discourses of music learning and the ways in which people engage with music. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education furthers their contributions and serves as a break from the familiar and common “default philosophy of assessment” of tests, standards, regimens, and rankings to invite new ways of approaching music assessment.1 They, along with their coauthors, apply their theoretical, research, and teaching experience to examine music assessment through social praxis and how individuals and communities “deepen their growth as knowing and compassionate human beings.”2 In short, this Handbook is an invitation for music educators of all levels to reengage with their values and name them in their current and future practices.Using the current neoliberal state of education as a backdrop, Elliott, Silverman, and McPherson portray schools as spaces that yield corporate types of learning practices and assessments which “place little value on arts education.”3 Countering these realities, the diverse cadre of authors examines assessment [End Page 123] from different settings, roles, policies, and practices, organized around four themes. The first theme examines assessment through theoretical ideas including critical pedagogy, pragmatism, and Deleuzean frameworks. Next, in methodological practices, new ideas for assessment are considered through teacher evaluation, working with students with disabilities, and incorporating habits of mind. Creativity explores assessment through technological possibilities, popular music, and drawing, among others. Closing with international perspectives, the authors explore assessment through German and Scandinavian bildung/bildning, care as a driving force of assessment in South Africa, and an Iranian non-regulated perspective of assessment.Alexandra Kertz-Welzel asks: “Who decides what is assessed? How it is assessed? By whom is it assessed?”4 These questions are embraced and challenged throughout the Handbook. Instead of conceiving of assessment as something diagnostic—reaching musical benchmarks and aptitudes deemed by outside authorities—the authors welcome an epistemological shift of assessment. What might happen when music educators replace written self-assessments, quizzes, and playing tests in favor of, say, habits of mind (as Jillian Hogan and Ellen Winner describe in their chapter5) such as listening, noticing, being part of a community, persisting, expressing oneself, imagining, and making decisions? These changes might transform a community, one where students and teachers embrace music making beyond mere replication.6 The authors suggest ways of engaging in acts of subversion, resistance, care, and pragmatism to push past the product-driven view of assessment dictated by neoliberal and for-profit discourses.Historically, assessment has been contextualized, discussed, and critiqued through its practices; its purpose has been to gain information which aids in making decisions about teaching. In many contexts, particularly in the U.S., assessment practices stem from current educational policies, namely those noted in teacher evaluation systems.7 Such practices are intended to show student growth and drive instruction, to better label teaching quality and student success.8 In my own research on teacher evaluation, I found that music educators struggle with definitions and strategies of assessment; as a result, they defer to assessments based on hierarchies of musical skill and technique.9 Yet, Charlotte Danielson, a creator of many U.S. teacher evaluation frameworks, reminds that teaching “is not simply a matter of following a script of carrying out other people’s instructional designs.”10 Having to uphold the demands of assessment and evaluation forced many of the participants in my research to become compliant, even when they knew their teaching strategies were ancillary to who the students were and what they needed. They fabricated their assessments— often in the form of exit slips and inauthentic writing and musical compositional activities—to comply with policies. As a result, teachers’ values for music [End Page 124] teaching and learning were omitted from... (shrink)

Winner of the American Philosophical Association’s 2019 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought | Western imperialism has received many different types of moral-political justifications, but one of the most historically influential justifications appeals to an allegedly universal form of human nature. In the early modern period this traditional conception of human nature—based on a Western archetype, e.g. Spanish, Dutch, British, French, German—opens up a logical space for considering the inhabitants of previously unknown lands as having a ‘less-than-human’ nature. This (...) appeal to human nature originally found its inspiration in the philosophy of Aristotle, whose ethical thought pervaded the work of European philosophers at the outset of the early modern period and the modern age of empire. Indeed some Spanish writers—most famously, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (b. 1494)—explicitly appealed to Aristotle’s moral-political philosophy in order to justify the conquest of the Americas in the early sixteenth century, for instance to justify war against the Aztecs and other indigenous peoples. At the time of European arrival, the Aztec civilization was easily the greatest in Mesoamerica—and yet the Europeans generally considered the Aztec people to be ‘barbaric,’ i.e. less-than-fully-human. (shrink)

L.E.J. Brouwer famously took the subject’s intuition of time to be foundational and from there ventured to build up mathematics. Despite being largely critical of formal methods, Brouwer valued axiomatic systems for their use in both communication and memory. Through the Dutch Mathematical Society, Gerrit Mannoury posed a challenge in 1927 to provide an axiomatization of intuitionistic arithmetic. Arend Heyting’s 1928 axiomatization was chosen as the winner and has since enjoyed the status of being the de facto formalization of (...) intuitionistic arithmetic. We argue that axiomatizations of intuitionistic arithmetic ought to make explicit the role of the subject’s activity in the intuitionistic arithmetical process. While Heyting Arithmetic is useful when we want to contrast constructed objects with platonistic ones, Heyting Arithmetic omits the contribution of the subject and thus falls short as a response to Mannoury’s challenge. We offer our own solution, Doxastic Heyting Arithmetic, or $${\textsf{DHA}}$$, which we contend axiomatizes Brouwerian intuitionistic arithmetic. (shrink)

The difficulty of making social choices seems to take on two forms: one that is related to both preferences and the method used in aggregating them and one which is related to the preferences only. In the former type the difficulty has to do with the discrepancies of outcomes resulting from various preference aggregation methods and the computation of winners in elections. Some approaches and results which take their motivation from the computability theory are discussed. The latter ‘institution-free’ type of (...) difficulty pertains to solution theory of the voting games. We discuss the relationships between various solution concepts, e.g. uncovered set, Banks set, Copeland winners. Finally rough sets are utilized in an effort to measure the difficulty of making social choices. (shrink)

In 1960, E. P. Wigner, a joint winner of the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physics, published a paper titled On the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences [61]. This paper can be construed as an examination and affirmation of Galileo's tenet that “The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics”. To this effect, Wigner presented a large number of examples that demonstrate the effectiveness of mathematics in accurately describing physical phenomena. Wigner viewed these examples (...) as illustrations of what he called the empirical law of epistemology, which asserts that the mathematical formulation of the laws of nature is both appropriate and accurate, and that mathematics is actually the correct language for formulating the laws of nature. At the same time, Wigner pointed out that the reasons for the success of mathematics in the natural sciences are not completely understood; in fact, he went as far as asserting that “… the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation for it.”. (shrink)

"We become what we love," states Jim Garrison in Dewey and Eros: Wisdom and Desire in the Art of Teaching. This provocative book represents a major new interpretation of Dewey's education philosophy. It is also an examination of what motivates us to teach and to learn, and begins with the idea of education of eros (i.e., passionate desire)-"the supreme aim of education" as the author puts it-and how that desire results in a practical philosophy that guides us in recognizing what (...) is essentially good or valuable. Garrison weaves these threads of ancient wisdom into a critical analysis of John Dewey's writings that reveal an implicit theory of eros in reasoning, and the central importance of educating eros to seek "the Good." Chapters: Plato's Symposium: Eros, the Beautiful, and the Good • Care, Sympathy, and Community in Classroom Teaching: Feminist Reflections on the Expansive Self • Play-Doh, Poetry, and "Ethereal Things" • The Aesthetic Context of Inquiry and the Teachable Moment • The Education of Eros: Critical and Creative Value Appraisal • Teaching and the Logic of Moral Perception This book can be used in graduate courses in foundations, teacher education, philosophy of education, qualitative research, arts and education, language and literacy, and women and education. Jim Garrison is Professor of Philosophy of Education at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. He is pastpresident of the John Dewey Society and a winner of the Society's Outstanding Achievement Award. (shrink)

The claim that argumentation has no proper role in either philosophy or education, and especially not in philosophical education, flies in the face of both conventional wisdom and traditional pedagogy. There is, however, something to be said for it because it is really only provocative against a certain philosophical backdrop. Our understanding of the concept "argument" is both reflected by and molded by the specific metaphor that argument-is-war, something with winners and losers, offensive and defensive moments, and an essentially adversarial (...) structure. Such arguments may be suitable for teaching a philosophy, but not for teaching philosophy. Surely, education and philosophy do not need to be conceived as having an adversarial essence-if indeed they are thought to have any essence at all. Accordingly, philosophy and education need more pragmatic goals than even Pierce's idealized notion of truth as the end of inquiry, e.g., the simple furtherance of inquiry. For this, new metaphors for framing and understanding the concept of argumentation are needed, and some suggestions in that direction will be considered. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:328 HUME, MIRACLES AND LOTTERIES This paper addresses recent criticisms of Hume's skepticism with regard to miracles, by 1 2 Sorensen and Hambourger who argue that there are counterexamples, illustrated by lotteries, to Hume's account of how the truth of reports of improbable events (either first or second hand) must be evaluated. They believe these counterexamples are sufficient to prove that Hume's argument against the believability of miracles, defined (...) as violations of laws of nature caused by God, is unsound. Their arguments merit consideration not only in their own right but also on the basis of historical precedent, since they have in common an assumption that is found in Butler's criticism of Hume's predecessors in this debate. The bulk of my paper deals with Hambourger, who presents the most detailed version of the 'Butler' criticism. Sorensen's version can be answered in light of the evaluation of Hambourger 's argument. Hume's Argument Hume's argument is not against the possibility of miracles but against the possibility that it could ever be reasonable to believe a miracle 4 had occurred. His argument can be summed up as follows: in judging the credibility of a report of an improbable event, the probability of the event must be weighed against the probability that the report could be mistaken. The probability of an event is determined by the degree to which it conforms to known laws of nature. Laws of nature are formulated on the basis of uniform experience. Assuming that a miracle is a violation of laws of nature, any judgment that an event is miraculous presupposes a 329 judgment that there exists a uniform pattern of causation to which it is opposed, which pattern would constitute empirical proof against the miracle's occurrence. Testimony, on the other hand, is shown by experience not to be uniformly reliable. Consequently, no report of a miracle will have credibility since there will always be a uniform experience that is full proof against it, which therefore outweighs whatever merits testimony may have. In Hume's words, [N]o testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.... When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened.... If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till- then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion (E 115-116). Hambourger 's Criticism Hambourger maintains that Hume's argument depends on a principle which he calls the "principle of relative likelihood." He restates this principle as follows: Suppose that someone or, perhaps, a group of people testify to the truth of a proposition P that, considered by itself, is improbable. Then to evaluate the testimony, one must weight (sic) the probability that P is true against the probability that the informants are lying or mistaken. If it is more likely that P is true than that the informants are lying or mistaken, then, on balance, the 330 testimony renders P more likely than not, and it may be reasonable for one to believe that P. However, if it is as likely, or even more likely, that the informants are lying or mistaken than it is that P is true, then, on balance, the testimony does not render P more likely true than false, and it would not be,reasonable for one to believe that P. As a counterexample to this principle, Hambourger asks us to suppose that a lottery is held in which there are one million entrants, each of whom has a one in a million chance of winning, and that a reliable newspaper, the New York Times, reports that the winner of the lottery is Smith. He further asks us to suppose that the Times errs only once out of every 10,000 times. Thus, the probability that the Times ' report is wrong is... (shrink)

Spatial attention and eye-movements are tightly coupled, but the precise nature of this coupling is controversial. The influential but controversial Premotor theory of attention makes four specific predictions about the relationship between motor preparation and spatial attention. Firstly, spatial attention and motor preparation use the same neural substrates. Secondly, spatial attention is functionally equivalent to planning goal directed actions such as eye-movements (i.e. planning an action is both necessary and sufficient for a shift of spatial attention). Thirdly, planning a goal (...) directed action with any effector system is sufficient to trigger a shift of spatial attention. Fourthly, the eye-movement system has a privileged role in orienting visual spatial attention. This article reviews empirical studies that have tested these predictions. Contrary to predictions one and two there is evidence of anatomical and functional dissociations between endogenous spatial attention and motor preparation. However, there is compelling evidence that exogenous attention is reliant on activation of the oculomotor system. With respect to the third prediction, there is correlational evidence that spatial attention is directed to the endpoint of goal-directed actions but no direct evidence that this attention shift is dependent on motor preparation. The few studies to have directly tested the fourth prediction have produced conflicting results, so the extent to which the oculomotor system has a privileged role in spatial attention remains unclear. Overall, the evidence is not consistent with the view that spatial attention is functionally equivalent to motor preparation so the Premotor theory should be rejected, although a limited version of the Premotor theory in which only exogenous attention is dependent on motor preparation may still be tenable. A plausible alternative account is that activity in the motor system contributes to biased competition between different sensory representations with the winner of the competition becoming the attended item. (shrink)

Majority rule is often regarded as an important democratic principle. But modern democracies divide voters into districts. So if the majority should rule, which majority should rule? Should it be the popular majority, or an electoral majority (i.e., either the majority of voters in the majority of districts, or the majority of voters in districts that contain the majority of the population)? I argue that majority rule requires rule by the popular majority. This view is not novel and may seem (...) obvious. But it is rarely defended, and often rejected. I defend it by arguing that this view about which majority should rule is best supported by the arguments for why the majority should rule, and best avoids the arbitrary and perverse verdicts of rule by electoral majorities. I close by considering the significant practical implications of the view. The Electoral College is often criticized on the basis that the winner of the popular vote doesn’t always win the election. But all district-based democracies have this feature, so all district-based democracies must be reformed if they are to satisfy the principle of majority rule. (shrink)

We present a computational model of dialectical argumentation that could serve as a basis for legal reasoning. The legal domain is an instance of a domain in which knowledge is incomplete, uncertain, and inconsistent. Argumentation is well suited for reasoning in such weak theory domains. We model argument both as information structure, i.e., argument units connecting claims with supporting data, and as dialectical process, i.e., an alternating series of moves by opposing sides. Our model includes burden of proof as a (...) key element, indicating what level of support must be achieved by one side to win the argument. Burden of proof acts as move filter, turntaking mechanism, and termination criterion, eventually determining the winner of an argument. Our model has been implemented in a computer program. We demonstrate the model by considering program output for two examples previously discussed in the artificial intelligence and legal reasoning literature. (shrink)

Excerpt: In 1995, the Leo Apostel Centre in Brussels, Belgium, organised an international conference called ``Einstein meets Magritte''. Nobel prize winner Ilya Prigogine held the opening lecture at the conference, and Heinz von Foerster's lecture was scheduled last... Heinz von Foerster was enchanted by the conference theme and -- in the spirit of surrealist Belgian painter René Magritte -- had chosen an appropriate title for his talk: ``Ceci n'est pas Albert Einstein''. ... [H]e was delighted to grant the organisers (...) the following interview, in which he tells us about an even longer journey -- that of his remarkable life and scientific career. (shrink)

We study sincere-strategy preference-based approval voting (SP-AV), a system proposed by Brams and Sanver [1] and here adjusted so as to coerce admissibility of the votes (rather than excluding inadmissible votes a priori), with respect to procedural control. In such control scenarios, an external agent seeks to change the outcome of an election via actions such as adding/deleting/partitioning either candidates or voters. SP-AV combines the voters' preference rankings with their approvals of candidates, where in elections with at least two candidates (...) the voters' approval strategies are adjusted – if needed – to approve of their most-preferred candidate and to disapprove of their least-preferred candidate. This rule coerces admissibility of the votes even in the presence of control actions, and hybridizes, in effect, approval with pluralitiy voting. We prove that this system is computationally resistant (i.e., the corresponding control problems are NP-hard) to 19 out of 22 types of constructive and destructive control. Thus, SP-AV has more resistances to control than is currently known for any other natural voting system with a polynomial-time winner problem. In particular, SP-AV is (after Copeland voting, see Faliszewski et al. [2, 3]) the second natural voting system with an easy winner-determination procedure that is known to have full resistance to constructive control, and unlike Copeland voting it in addition displays broad resistance to destructive control (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim). (shrink)

Viruses are major drivers of global biogeochemistry and the etiological agents of many diseases. They are also the winners in the game of life: there are more viruses on the planet than cellular organisms and they encode most of the genetic diversity on the planet. In fact, it is reasonable to view life as a viral incubator. Nevertheless, most ecological and evolutionary theories were developed, and continue to be developed, without considering the virosphere. This means these theories need to be (...) to reinterpreted in light of viral knowledge or we need to develop new theory from the viral point-of-view. Here we briefly introduce our viral planet and then address a major outstanding question in biology: why is most of life viral? A key insight is that during an infection cycle the original virus is completely broken down and only the associated information is passed on to the next generation. This is different for cellular organisms, which must pass on some physical part of themselves from generation to generation. Based on this premise, it is proposed that the thermodynamic consequences of physical information (e.g., Landauer’s principle) are observed in natural viral populations. This link between physical and genetic information is then used to develop the Viral Information Hypothesis, which states that genetic information replicates itself to the detriment of system energy efficiency (i.e., is viral in nature). Finally, we show how viral information can be tested, and illustrate how this novel view can explain existing ecological and evolutionary theories from more fundamental principles. (shrink)

This article contributes to the debate on automation and justice by discussing two under-represented concerns: labour justice and equality. Since automation involves both winners and losers, and given that there is no ‘end of work’ on the horizon, it is argued that most normative views on the subject – i.e. the ‘allocative’ view of basic income, and the ‘desirability’ views of post-work and workist ethics – do not provide many resources with which to address unjustly unequal divisions of labour involved (...) in technological innovation. This article problematises these common responses reframing the problem from the perspective of labour justice. While the allocative view assumes that labour justice follows ‘spontaneously’ from income redistribution, the desirability views are chiefly interested in either defining or contesting the meanings of work for individuals, overlooking the interdependent nature of work and concerns of equality other than autonomy. Two conceptions of labour justice are thus applied to the problem: Paul Gomberg’s contributive justice, and Iris Young’s democratic division of labour. Instead of deciding between them, the normative core of ‘contributive parity’ is suggested as a critical standard for assessing unequal labour structures, and for envisaging a future in which technology can be an ally in making social cooperation fair. (shrink)

Although few philosophers agree about what it is for something to be art, most, if not all, agree on one thing: art must be in some sense intention dependent. Art and Art-Attempts is about what follows from taking intention dependence seriously as a substantive necessary condition for something's being art. Christy Mag Uidhir argues that from the assumption that art must be the product of intentional action, along with basic action-theoretic account of attempts (goal-oriented intention-directed activity), follows a host of (...) sweeping implications for philosophical enquiry into the nature of art and its principal relata such as authorship, art forms, and art ontology: e.g., 1) an informative distinction between art, non-art, and failed-art that any viable theory of art must capture, 2) a far more productive minimal framework for authorship not only capable of systematically addressing issues of collective authorship appropriation, etc. but also one according to which artists just are authors, 3) a coherent and structurally precise account of art forms based upon the relation between artists, artworks, and the sortal properties thereof, and 4) a unified and far less metaphysically suspect ontology of art according to which if there are such things as artworks, then artworks must be concrete things. Ultimately, Mag Uidhir aims neither to propose nor to defend any particular, precise answer to the question "What is art?" Instead, he shows the ways in which taking intention-dependence seriously as a substantive necessary condition for being art can be profoundly revelatory, and perhaps even radically revisionary, as to the scope and limits of what any particular, precise answer to such a question could viably be. -/- **Winner of The American Society for Aesthetics Outstanding Monograph Award 2013**. (shrink)

A recent message on one of the e-mail bulletin boards sent by a college student read, “I believe that the AIDS virus was developed in government labs for the purpose of controlling black folks.” In September 1990, Essence, an African American magazine with a circulation of 900,000, had as a lead article “AIDS: Is It Genocide?” In 1991, the New York Times quoted Clarence Page, African American columnist and Pulitzer prize winner: “You could call conspiracy theories about AIDS and (...) drugs fringe ideas, but they seem, to have a large following among the black intelligentsia. … [And] you find it at all levels.” In April 1992, Lorene Gary explained in Newsweek “Why it's not just paranoia.” In that same month, another New York Times article reported: “Bizarre as it may seem to most people, many black Americans believe that AIDS and the health measures used against it are part of a conspiracy to wipe out the black race.”4 In February 1992, Science quoted Peter Breggin, director of the Center for the Study of Psychiatry in Bethesda, Maryland, as saying that research on violence “cloaks the intention to identify problem black children and then … prescribe pacifying drugs.”. (shrink)

In spite of accelerated economical growth disadvantaged groups might be »non-winners« of a European Single Market now determinating the structures of any future »European House«. The responsibility of diaconia is to prevent a split between those citizens who are able to of T er mobility and flexibility and rely on effective multinational pressure-groups and those who do not. With help from concerned organs of the E. C. diaconia might benefit from an enhanced exchange of experiences, define the social responsibility of (...) the churches in Europe and participate in the shaping of a common future. (shrink)

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS. -/- The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is (...) overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into an unpalatable moral relativism on which there is no non-arbitrary basis between a justice that underwrites forms of domination such as slavery and a justice that condemns such forms of domination is equally powerful and compelling. I show that there is a way to harmonize both views that is subject to empirical test. -/- First I show that the most widely accepted and influential formulation of liberal justice, John Rawls' Justice as Fairness, in. e.g, A Theory of Justice, cannot avoid the relativistic challenge because it would not be accepted, as a matter of sociological fact, by real people in a divided society once the "veil of Ignorance" is removed and real people step out from the Original Position. To put it differently, different reflective equilibria are inevitable in a divided society. Given the weight that Rawls properly puts on the realizability of a conception of justice and its stability in practice, this is a fatal objection. There can be no divided society that is "well ordered" in Rawls' sense, governed by a shared conception of justice and known to be so governed. -/- I then turn to the most powerful statement of the CLS view, Milton's Fisk's relativistic account in The State and Justice. For Fisk, justice is a compromise between what the dominant groups can compel and what the the subordinate groups will acquiesce to., There is no one such compromise in any given situation, so the account is in that sense relativistic, but more deeply, it is relativistic in that it offers no non-arbitrary, non-question begging way to choose between the official justice of, e.g., a slaveholding society and and the radical justice of the slaves, which has no place for slaveholders as a group or slavery as an institution.All that Fisk can offer is an arbitrary existential choice: I'm with the slaves. (Or the slaveowners.) Most of us would find this disconcerting or even unacceptable. -/- I show that Fisk's general sort of account can be modified to allow for an non-arbitrary choice. Given general facts about human nature, societies based on domination will produce resistance that over the long run will diminish or eliminate various forms of domination. Through a sort of ratchet effect, rights won will be hard if not impossible to reverse. Societies embodying forms of domination can therefore be compared on dimensions of stability: the more domination, the more resistance, and the less stability. Such societies are inferior on the dimension of justice to more emancipatory society on the terms of both kinds of justice, official and radical. -/- This is not question begging because regimes of domination incorporate stability no less than more emancipatory social orders. The choice between official justice embodying domination and radical justice that does not is not arbitrary because it is based on a shared commitment to long term stability. This offers an empirical test of which social orders are more justice, and a prediction that over time, domination will tend to decrease. (shrink)

Competition – more specifically economic competition – is relevant to ethical reflection in different ways. Some of its features exacerbate the intensity of moral problems we may otherwise come across in a context of scarcity. For instance, when competition is especially tough – think about winner-takes-all cases – one agent is likely to lose significantly if he or she acts ethically, to the benefit of others who act in ways that seem ethically questionable. Whenever ‘ethics does not pay’ and (...) competition is intense, an economic actor can lose business as a result. Admittedly, business death does not necessarily amount to a person’s death, which makes it different from lifeboat cases. But running out of business is still a very serious problem. Consider also the issues that arise in the context of strong tax competition. Imposition of a fair corporate tax structure may simply chase the most mobile players to low-tax jurisdictions.Another fact about economic competition that renders ethical issues more vivid is company replaceability. Often, if a single agent renounces acting in a way considered morally problematic – e.g. investing in natural resource infrastructure and exploration in a country such as Burma – other players may step in to replace the single agent and immediately assume its morally problematic role. As a result, the people the single agent was concerned about – the citizens of Burma – may reap no positive consequences at all from what we consider the right act by the single agent.There is of course a connection between the first phenomenon – “competition may make it more costly for me to be moral” – and the second – “it makes no difference whether I act morally or not”. I lose in both cases, while no one other than a competitor who has no more moral status than I do wins. If I lose business because I aim at doing the right thing, and others immediately replace me, I will be the only loser. The only winner will be another company. And the very people I am most concerned about may gain nothing at all.It seems legitimate to expect moral theory to have at least something to tell us about what individual agents are supposed to do in such types of contexts. It is also moral theory’s task to consider under which conditions competition itself can be seen as a good thing, whether more competition is always better – as consumer protection too often assumes – and whether there is some connection between coming closer to perfect competition and getting closer to what could be called a fair price. The question is not only “how to be fair when there is competition”, it is also “can competition be fair?”These questions invite us to look more closely at markets. The marketplace allows for supply-demand coordination. It also allows consumers to compare products from different suppliers. We often operate under the assumption that the existence of competition helps to reduce the degree to which producers can exploit consumers. This assumption is, indeed, key to justifying policies that aim at fighting monopolies. But is this salutary effect enough to render even perfect competition fair? One might claim, for example, that while markets permit a reduction in producer exploitation of consumers, it may in fact exacerbate the reverse phenomenon, i.e. by allowing consumers to “exploit” workers and capitalists.Three papers offered in the present edition of Ethical Perspectives are the outcome of a workshop organized in October 2010 as part of a project entitled “Social Responsibility in Economic Life”. This workshop took place with the financial support of the Fondation Emile Bernheim at the Université catholique de Louvain. The first two papers – by Roberts and Dietsch – look at issues of fairness in competition, whereas the third – by Arnsperger – addresses the problem of fairness of competition.Competition is a location in which people continuously harm one another – e.g. my competitive practices can easily make you lose clients or your leadership position. Against this backdrop, the only important issue is often considered to be whether – and to what extent – such a harm should also be seen as a wrong.Roberts focuses on cases in which the very harm itself seems impossible to locate – a finding that would itself seem to moot the issue of wrongdoing from the start. Multiple-agent situations in particular challenge our ability to discern harm in any clear sense. Consider the case in which one agent’s acting in a questionable way seems to make no difference to the alleged victim, since had the one agent not acted in that way a second agent would have stepped in to replace the one agent and imposed at least the same degree of damage on that victim. In such an instance, how can the one agent’s acting in a questionable way be said to harm the victim, when the fact is that it makes no difference from the victim’s perspective whether the one agent acts in this way or not?Relying on an account of how individual agents can be said to participate in what is in effect a group harm, Roberts argues that that ‘no difference’ assessment is a mistake. She then demonstrates how the application of this concept of harm can translate into ethical constraints on specific agents.Dietsch focuses on regulatory competition and more specifically on the duties of one type of actor – the tax planning industry. He considers three definitions of corporate social responsibility before offering an even weaker definition. The latter consists in the following double obligation. According to Dietsch, corporations should ‘pay their taxes’ and ‘not undermine the respect of fiscal obligations by third parties’. He does not directly question the legitimacy of tax planning as a whole. He insists instead that self-regulation in this sector is utopian – more than in other sectors – even if one assigns to the actors in question a truly minimal social responsibility. In this connection, he identifies a twofold challenge that the ethical actor must, in Dietsch’s view, be prepared to meet.Finally, Arnsperger shows that the relationship between solidarity and competition can be understood in at least three ways. Competition can be seen as a source of solidarity. Solidarity can be seen as a counterweight to some effects of competition. And competition can be considered as a dynamic threat to genuine solidarity. He defends the third view as central, with clear implications for the claim according to which competition can be seen as fair. (shrink)