Twentieth century philosophers introduced the distinction between “objective rightness” and “subjective rightness” to achieve two primary goals. The first goal is to reduce the paradoxical tension between our judgments of what is best for an agent to do in light of the actual circumstances in which she acts and what is wisest for her to do in light of her mistaken or uncertain beliefs about her circumstances. The second goal is to provide moral guidance to an agent who may be (...) uncertain about the circumstances in which she acts, and hence is unable to use her standard moral principle directly in deciding what to do. This paper distinguishes two important senses of “moral guidance”; proposes criteria of adequacy for accounts of subjective rightness; canvasses existing definitions for “subjective rightness”; finds them all deficient; and proposes a new and more successful account. It argues that each comprehensive moral theory must include multiple principles of subjective rightness to address the epistemic situations of the full range of moral decision-makers, and shows that accounts of subjective rightness formulated in terms of what it would reasonable for the agent to believe cannot provide that guidance. (shrink)

Recently two distinct forms of rule-utilitarianism have been introduced that differ on how to measure the consequences of rules. Brad Hooker advocates fixed-rate rule-utilitarianism, while Michael Ridge advocates variable-rate rule-utilitarianism. I argue that both of these are inferior to a new proposal, optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism. According to optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism, an ideal code is the code whose optimum acceptance level is no lower than that of any alternative code. I then argue that all three forms of rule-utilitarianism fall prey to two fatal (...) problems that leave us without any viable form of rule-utilitarianism. (shrink)

A moral code consists of principles that assign moral status to individual actions – principles that evaluate acts as right or wrong, prohibited or obligatory, permissible or supererogatory. Many theorists have held that such principles must serve two distinct functions. On the one hand, they serve a theoretical function, insofar as they specify the characteristics in virtue of which acts possess their moral status. On the other hand, they serve a practical function, insofar as they provide an action-guide: a standard (...) by reference to which a person can choose which acts to perform and which not. Although the theoretical and practical functions of moral principles are closely linked, it is not at all obvious that what enables a principle to fill one of these roles automatically equips it to fill the other. In this paper I shall briefly examine some of the reasons why a moral principle might fail to fill its practical role, i.e., be incapable of guiding decisions. I shall then sketch three common responses to this kind of failure, and examine in some detail the adequacy of one of the most popular of these responses. (shrink)

One of the main motivations for compositional nihilism, the view that there are no composite material objects, concerns the many puzzles and problems associated with them. Nihilists claim that eliminating composites provides a unified solution to a slew of varied, difficult problems. However, numerous philosophers have questioned whether this is really so. While nihilists clearly avoid the usual, composite-featuring formulations of the puzzles, the concern is that the commitments that generate the problems are not eliminated along with composites. If this (...) is correct, it severely undercuts the motivation for the view. However, I argue that it is not correct. The aim of this paper is to explain exactly how and why eliminating composites dissolves substantive metaphysical puzzles. More generally, I aim to clarify the nihilist’s ontological commitments and the scope of the paraphrase strategy she employs. (shrink)

"Readers of Badiou will have to take account of this remarkable book. Phelps shows how Saint Paul is not marginal to Badiou's philosophy but lies at the heart of it." - Clayton Crockett, University of Central Arkansas "This book offers an important step forward in the theological reception of Alain Badiou's philosophy by exploring how Badiou, despite his radical atheism, nevertheless remains entagled in theology." - Frederiek Depoortere, Catholic University of Leuven The place of theology in Alain Badious writings is (...) key to understanding his thought. Badiou is one of the most influential theorists of recent times. Alain Badiou: Between Theology and Anti-theology provides one of the first comprehensive analyses of the relationship between Badiou's philosophy and theology. Examining the full range of Badiou's writings, this provocative study explores how Badiou's philosophy relies on theology even if he claims otherwise and actively attempts to work against theology. Despite the complex questions discussed ranging across ontology, the theory of truth and the subject, philosophy and its conditions, and anti-philosophy this book presents a clear and accessible overview of the theological, religious and biblical themes which animate Badiou's philosophy. (shrink)

What should we do if we cannot figure what morality requires of us? Holly M. Smith argues that the best moral codes solve this problem by offering two tiers, one of which tells us what makes acts right and wrong, and the other of which provides user-friendly decision guides. She opens a path towards resolving a deep problem of moral life.

'Alain Badiou: Between Theology and Anti-theology' provides one of the first comprehensive analyses of the relationship between Badiou's philosophy and theology. Examining the full range of Badiou's writings, this provocative study explores how Badiou's philosophy relies on theology even if he claims otherwise and actively attempts to work against theology. Despite the complex questions discussed - ranging across ontology, the theory of truth and the subject, philosophy and its conditions, and anti-philosophy - this book presents a clear and accessible overview (...) of the theological, religious and biblical themes which animate Badiou's philosophy. (shrink)

Figuren des Akrobatischen sind in der Literatur der Moderne omnipräsent. Zwischen 1850 und 1925 werden sie zum Träger poetischer, philosophischer und politischer Visionen der Zeit. Um die lange Jahrhundertwende bricht sich in Europa eine überwältigende Faszination für Zirkus und Varieté Bahn: Das Artistenmilieu wird motivischer Stichwortgeber der Künste, Projektionsfläche antibürgerlicher Imaginationen und gesellschaftsutopischer Gegenerzählungen. Im Kontext dieses Popularitätshochs gerät das akrobatische Vermögen den literarischen Taktgebern der Zeit zum Träger einer vielgestaltigen Semantik der Überschreitung: Flaubert erklärt sich zum Artisten, Kafka zum (...) Kunstreiter, Baudelaire fordert akrobatische Disziplin, Nietzsche seiltänzerische Kühnheit. Als Grenzgänger, der scheinbar mühelos die Schwerkraft überwindet und unter Einsatz des Lebens über dem Abgrund balanciert, gilt der Akrobat noch den Avantgarden als programmatisches Symbol für ein neues Subjektverständnis im Spannungsfeld von spielerischer Leichtigkeit und tödlichem Ernst, von Disziplin und Überwältigung, von Möglichkeit und Unmöglichkeit. Anna Luhn untersucht die Konzeptualisierungen des Akrobatischen im literarischen Diskursraum der Moderne erstmals in ihren historischen Voraussetzungen, ästhetischen Effekten und utopischen Fluchtpunkten. (shrink)

A finer-grained delineation of a given explanandum reveals a nexus of closely related causal and non- causal explanations, complementing one another in ways that yield further explanatory traction on the phenomenon in question. By taking a narrower construal of what counts as a causal explanation, a new class of distinctively mathematical explanations pops into focus; Lange’s characterization of distinctively mathematical explanations can be extended to cover these. This new class of distinctively mathematical explanations is illustrated with the Lotka-Volterra equations. There (...) are at least two distinct ways those equations might hold of a system, one of which yields straightforwardly causal explanations, but the other of which yields explanations that are distinctively mathematical in terms of nomological strength. In the first, one first picks out a system or class of systems, finds that the equations hold in a causal -explanatory way; in the second, one starts with the equations and explanations that must apply to any system of which the equations hold, and only then turns to the world to see of what, if any, systems it does in fact hold. Using this new way in which a model might hold of a system, I highlight four specific avenues by which causal and non- causal explanations can complement one another. (shrink)

Twentieth century philosophers introduced the distinction between “objective rightness” and “subjective rightness” to achieve two primary goals. The first goal is to reduce the paradoxical tension between our judgments of (i) what is best for an agent to do in light of the actual circumstances in which she acts and (ii) what is wisest for her to do in light of her mistaken or uncertain beliefs about her circumstances. The second goal is to provide moral guidance to an agent who (...) may be uncertain about the circumstances in which she acts, and hence is unable to use her standard moral principle directly in deciding what to do. This paper distinguishes two important senses of “moral guidance”; proposes criteria of adequacy for accounts of subjective rightness; canvasses existing definitions for “subjective rightness”; finds them all deficient; and proposes a new and more successful account. It argues that each comprehensive moral theory must include multiple principles of subjective rightness to address the epistemic situations of the full range of moral decision-makers, and shows that accounts of subjective rightness formulated in terms of what it would reasonable for the agent to believe cannot provide that guidance. -/- . (shrink)

Martin Hollis; Education as a Positional Good, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 16, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 235–244, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.146.

This paper articulates an account of causation as a collection of information-theoretic relationships between patterns instantiated in the causal nexus. I draw on Dennett’s account of real patterns to characterize potential causal relata as patterns with specific identification criteria and noise tolerance levels, and actual causal relata as those patterns instantiated at some spatiotemporal location in the rich causal nexus as originally developed by Salmon. I develop a representation framework using phase space to precisely characterize causal relata, including their degree (...) of counterfactual robustness, causal profiles, causal connectivity, and privileged grain size. By doing so, I show how the philosophical notion of causation can be rendered in a format that is amenable for direct application of mathematical techniques from information theory such that the resulting informational measures are causal informational measures. This account provides a metaphysics of causation that supports interventionist semantics and causal modeling and discovery techniques. (shrink)

A finer-grained delineation of a given explanandum reveals a nexus of closely related causal and non-causal explanations, complementing one another in ways that yield further explanatory traction on the phenomenon in question. By taking a narrower construal of what counts as a causal explanation, a new class of distinctively mathematical explanations pops into focus; Lange’s characterization of distinctively mathematical explanations can be extended to cover these. This new class of distinctively mathematical explanations is illustrated with the Lotka–Volterra equations. There are (...) at least two distinct ways those equations might hold of a system, one of which yields straightforwardly causal explanations, and another that yields explanations that are distinctively mathematical in terms of nomological strength. In the first case, one first picks out a system or class of systems, and finds that the equations hold in a causal–explanatory way. In the second case, one starts with the equations and explanations that must apply to any system of which the equations hold, and only then turns to the world to see of what, if any, systems it does in fact hold. Using this new way in which a model might hold of a system, I highlight four specific avenues by which causal and non-causal explanations can complement one another. _1_. Introduction _2._ Delineating the Boundaries of Causal Explanation _2.1._ Why construe causal explanation narrowly? The land of explanation versus grain-focusing _2.2._ Reasons to narrow the scope of causal explanation _3._ Broadening the Scope of Mathematical Explanation _4._ Lotka–Volterra: Same Model, Different Explanation Types _4.1._ General biocide in the Lotka–Volterra model _4.2._ Two ways a model can hold, yielding causal versus mathematical explanations _5._ Four Complementary Relationships between Mathematical and Causal Explanation _5.1._ Slight reformulations of explananda _5.2._ Causal distortion of idealized mathematical models _5.3._ Partial explanations requiring supplementation _5.4._ Explanatory dimensionality _6._ Conclusion. (shrink)

In this article, I will describe how the Utopians whom John Dewey once referenced are possibly the ancestors of Indigenous peoples, in this case, ancestors of the Diné. I will describe a Diné philosophy of education through the Kinaałdá ceremony which was the first ceremony created by the Holy People of the Diné to ensure the survival of the people. I frame this ceremony as an educational experience that illuminates the similarities between the Diné and Utopian philosophies of education. It (...) is through an understanding and experiencing of the Kinaałdá that one can fully experience a real example of the ‘Utopian schools.’ It is through an upbringing within a non-acquisitive paradigm, ontologically and epistemologically, that one can fully envision this society that William Schubert explains through a compilation of various philosophers and theorists in order to make it understandable to an acquisitive society. The oral teachings from my ancestors through songs, stories and ceremonies that have been passed down to the current generations prove that the utopia once existed and that some ‘Utopians’ still exist. This explanation of a Diné philosophy of education through the Kinaałdá ceremony is my lived example of what Dewey seemed to have dreamt or found in another dimension. I claim that the Utopians Dewey witnessed were possibly Indigenous peoples. (shrink)

Why do organizations need to learn? This question will be discussed in this article, as well as the definition and characteristics of learning organizations. The reader will get a comprehensive description of a learning organization based on Peter M. Senge “The fifth discipline” to understand how a learning organization differs from traditional organizations. The final chapter will get an outlook that future learning processes within networks will have a stronger role, since it allows a better understanding between intraorganizational and interorganizational (...) learning processes. Purpose of the article: This article will lead you within the topic of learning organizations. It will set a first input to different approaches how a learning organization can be defined and get established.Through this the reader will get an impression that a common vision is very important for these approches. So this article will set a first trigger for the interested reader for learning organisazations. Methodology/methods: Literature study for creation of new knowledge due to scientific work.Scientific aim: The reader will get a comprehensive description of a learning organization based on Peter M. Senge “The fifth discipline” to understand how a learning organization differs from traditional organizations due to literatur study. The article will show that there is still a lot of research potential to create a role model concept for the implementation of a learning organizsation. Findings: Due to the inconsistent research results further multifaceted approaches remain to gather further research results. As more people will be employed in organizations, communication will become a more important component within a learning organization. Furher more a common vision is very important to establish a learning organization. Conclusions : Core issue lies in questioning how learning processes of individuals and within organizations are working. The various concepts for “learning organization” describing organizational learning, to constantly expand the learning ability of organizations and, consequently, the skills to solve problems from individuals and organizations itself. Here the integrative approaches e.g. the fifth discipline try to close the research gap and clarify the phenomenon of organizational learning.. Due to the inconsistent research results further multifaceted approaches remain to gather further research results. As more people will be employed in organizations, communication will become a more important component within a learning organization.. Different approaches showed the importance of communication within learning organizations as a fundamental component of those. Following the results of these concepts, it is important to promote collective learning processes so that organizational learning can occur.. In future learning within networks will get a more and more important role, as it allows to forster the understanding between intraorganisational and interorganizational learning processes.. (shrink)

The theme of the dissertation is that we should not be too cautious about engaging in metaphysics of modality; what may appear to be a refusal to engage in metaphysical speculation may instead involve a commitment to epistemic consequences that we should not accept. In Part I, I argue that David Lewis's modal realism implies that scepticism towards induction is rationally unavoidable. I conclude that his theory must be rejected. ;While not endorsing Lewis's account of the nature of possible worlds, (...) I argue that the recombination principle is what is causing the problems, and that this principle will cause problems when combined with any theory of modality according to which there are objective matters of fact as to what is possible or necessary. ;I conclude that we must reject the recombination principle, and that any principle we accept in its place must be one which will not lead to inductive scepticism. This suggests that we cannot countenance any objective possibilities that contravene actual natural laws. ;In Part II, I argue that one sort of explanation is closely connected with objective possibility: A fundamental explanation for some state of affairs involves saying something about its nature that has implications for what is objectively possible. I defend a weak form of the principle of sufficient reason, according to which every state of affairs has a fundamental explanation ;I go on to recast and defend a version of the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God. This argument, on my view, is plausible only when taken as an inductive argument, and indeed, as an inference to the best explanation. I argue that the theistic hypothesis deserves to be taken seriously on its merits as an explanation; more generally, I claim that it is not sufficient grounds for rejecting any hypothesis simply to say that it involves commitments as to what is possible or necessary. A willingness to accept some such commitments is an unavoidable consequence of what we normally take to be rational ways of forming beliefs. (shrink)

Humean accounts of laws are often contrasted with governing accounts, and recent developments have added pragmatic versions of Humeanism. This paper offers Mitchell's pragmatist, perspectival account of laws as a third option. The differences between these accounts come down to the role of modality. Mitchell's bottom-up account allows for subtle gradations of modal content to be conveyed by laws. The perspectival character of laws is not an accident or something to be eventually eliminated - it is part of how this (...) modal content is conveyed. I conclude with a discussion of the metaphysical commitments in Humeanism as requiring a perspectiveless view of the manifold from outside, and how Mitchell's situated account is better able to account for the substantive notion of possibility involved in scientific laws. (shrink)

The reduction of grounding to causation, or each to a more general relation of which they are species, has sometimes been justified by the impressive inferential capacity of structural equation modelling, causal Bayes nets, and interventionist causal modelling. Many criticisms of this assimilation focus on how causation is inadequate for grounding. Here, I examine the other direction: how treating grounding in the image of causation makes the resulting view worse for causation. The distinctive features of causal modelling that make this (...) connection appealing are distorted beyond use by forcing them to fit onto grounding. The very inferential strength that makes causation attractive is only possible because of a narrow construal of what counts as a causal relation; as soon as that broadens, the inferential capacity markedly diminishes. Making causation suitable for application to grounding spoils what was appealing about causation for this task in the first place. However, grounding need not appeal to causation: causal modelling does not have exclusive claim to structural equation modeling or other formal techniques of modelling structure. I offer a case in favour of a different kind of metaphysical frugality, which tend towards narrow, more restrictive construals of relations like causation or grounding, because then each relation behaves more homogenously. This more homogenous behavior delivers stronger inferential power per relation even though there may be more relations to which one is committed. (shrink)

This essay proposes that subcultural practices such as gossip and fan writing are feminist epistemologies that can form radical archive inquiry and knowledge production, and creative outputs. Drawing on feminist new materialism and archive theory, I develop a set of principles for practice-based research methodologies that incorporate a researcher's intersubjective relationship with archive matter (e.g. records, documents, classification systems, social-material contexts) and consider the production of knowledge from such research as forms of tabulation. Fabulation here is seen as part of (...) a critically transgressive epistemological stance that expands feminist critiques of universalising master narratives and archive orthodoxies. My proposition, formed in part through a residency in the Woman's Art Library in London, is to name such research gestures ‘archive fanfiction’, where experimental and practice-oriented method moves with feminist politics and activism. (shrink)

Certain primitive Yoruba carry about with them boxes covered with cowrie shells, which they treat with special regard. When asked what they are doing, they apparently reply that the boxes are their heads or souls and that they are protecting them against witchcraft. Is that an interesting fact or a bad translation? The question is, I believe, partly philosophical. In what follows, I shall propound and try to solve the philosopher's question, arguing that it has large implications for the theory (...) of Social Anthropology. (shrink)

Economics is probably the most subtle, precise and powerful of the social sciences and its theories have deep philosophical import. Yet the dominant alliance between economics and philosophy has long been cheerfully simple. This is the textbook alliance of neo-Classicism and Positivism, so crucial to the defence of orthodox economics against by now familiar objections. This is an unusual book and a deliberately controversial one. The authors cast doubt on assumptions which neo-Classicists often find too obvious to defend or, indeed, (...) to mention. They set out to disturb an influential concensus and to champion an unpopular cause. Although they go deeper into both philosophy and economics than is usual in interdisciplinary works, they start from first principles and the text is provokingly clear. This will be a stimulating book for all economic theorists and philosophers interested in the philosophy of science and social science. (shrink)

Losing an arm to rescue a child from a burning building is supererogatory. But is losing an arm to save two children more supererogatory than losing two arms to save a single child? What factors make one act more supererogatory than another? I provide an innovative account of how to compare which of two acts is more supererogatory, and show the superiority of this account to its chief rival.

Recent writers on negligence and culpable ignorance have argued that there are two kinds of culpable ignorance: tracing cases, in which the agent’s ignorance traces back to some culpable act or omission of hers in the past that led to the current act, which therefore arguably inherits the culpability of that earlier failure; and non-tracing cases, in which there is no such earlier failure, so the agent’s current state of ignorance must be culpable in its own right. An unusual but (...) intriguing justification for blaming agents in non-tracing cases is provided by Attributionism, which holds that we are as blameworthy for our non-voluntary emotional reactions, spontaneous attitudes, and the ensuing patterns of awareness as we are for our voluntary actions. The Attributionist explanation for why some non-tracing cases involve culpability is an appealing one, even though it has limited scope. After providing a deeper account of why we should take the Attributionist position seriously, I use recent psychological research to argue for a new account of the conditions under which agents are culpable for straightforward instances of blameworthy acts. That account is extended to blameworthiness for non-voluntary responses. I conclude that even when the agent’s failure to notice arises from a nonvoluntary objectionable attitude, very few such cases are ones in which Attributionism implies that the agent is blameworthy for her act. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the nature and consequences of confabulation about political opinions and behaviours. When people confabulate, they give reasons for their choices or behaviour which are ill-grounded and do not capture what really brought the behaviour about, but they do this with no intention to deceive and endorse their own accounts. I suggest that this can happen when people are asked why they voted a certain way, or support certain campaigns, and so on. Confabulating in these political (...) contexts seems bad because we do not get a fully truthful account of why some political choice was made, and so the reasoning behind the choice is under-scrutinised. However, I argue that if people have a virtue of self-regulation, confabulation in political contexts can actually be part of the process of coming to better understand our political choices and embody more consistently the political values which we ascribe to. (shrink)

Are the workings of the international world to be explained scientifically, or are they to be understood through their inward meaning? In Explaining and Understanding International Relations philosopher Martin Hollis and international relations scholar Steve Smith join forces to analyse the dominant theories of international relations and to examine the philosophical issues underlying them. The book has three parts. In the first the authors review the growth of the discipline since 1918, pose the 'level of analysis' problem of whether to (...) account for a sytem in terms of its units or vice versa, and contrast the demand of scientific method with those of interpretative understanding. In the second they apply the contrast to four factors often cited in accounting for international behaviour - the international system, the state, bureaucracies, and decision-making individuals. Rival accounts of the games nations play are offered in readiness for the final part, where the authors propose a theoretical agenda, air their differences, and invite readers to take sides. By tackling deep theoretical issues with lucidity and verve this book will excite debate among theorists and students of international relations while also engaging thought about the philosophical character of the social sciences. (shrink)

To prepare for potential human infection challenge studies involving SARS-CoV-2, we convened a multidisciplinary working group to address ethical questions regarding whether and how much SAR...

In his recent book Bad Beliefs and Why They Happen to Good People, Neil Levy argues that conspiracy theories result from the same rational processes that underlie epistemic success. While we think many of Levy’s points are valuable, like his criticism of the myth of individual cognition and his emphasis on the importance of one’s social epistemic environment, we believe that his account overlooks some important aspects. We argue that social deference is an active process, and as such can be (...) helped or hindered by epistemic virtues and vices. With this in mind, holders of bad beliefs acquire more responsibility than is considered by Levy. (shrink)

Martin Hollis; The Pen and the Purse, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 5, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 153–169, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.197.

This book is a philosophers' attempt to bring together ideas put forward by economists, sociologists and political theorists. The author begins by exploring the economist's assumption that action is rational if it helps to achieve the agent's goals as efficiently as possible. The assumption is explored with the aid of rational-choice theory and game-theory, but it is rejected in the end for failing to account for the elements of trust and morality which rational social life requires. A discussion of 'Rational (...) Expectations' and of 'maximising' and 'satisficing' leads to a portrait of social actors as rational role-players. Rationality is, finally, the expression of the self in a social world. The book intervenes in intense current debates within and among several disciplines. Its concern is with the true nature of social actors and the proper character of social science. Its arguments are the more challenging for being presented in a simple, incisive and lucid prose. It will be of particular interest to philosophers, social theorists and social scientists interested in the philosophical aspects of their discipline. (shrink)

With growth in the quantity of business ethics journals in recent years, assessments of journal quality are helpful to ethics researchers and administrators, as researchers consider available publication venues, and administrators consider the value of faculty research. The few published evaluations of business ethics journals have predominantly utilized two methods of journal quality determination: citation analysis and surveys of active researchers. This study employs a novel method to assess business ethics journals: 83 Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business business (...) schools provided their internally developed journal lists that were used to evaluate faculty research, and the submitted lists were then analyzed for the presence and assessment of business ethics journals. This analysis yielded a ranking of 24 business-ethics-centric journals, and this ranking reflects the collective judgments of AACSB business school faculties. The results of this study are pragmatic in that the journal evaluation data employed metrics actually used by business schools to determine the quality of business ethics journals. These findings also provide additional impetus for the recognition of business ethics as a distinct business discipline and business ethics research as a unique field of scholarly endeavor. While studies of business ethics may be influential when they are published in non-BEC journals, such studies may be more powerfully impactful when published in BEC journals. (shrink)

Michael McKenna’s Conversation and Responsibility is a genuine tour de force: a richly detailed, sustained argument for an innovative theory about the nature of moral responsibility, one that offers multiple layers of theoretical architectonic. Its depth repays equally deep examination, and I have learned a great deal from reading and thinking about it. Any philosopher seeking a rigorous yet generous introduction to the state of contemporary discussion on moral responsibility could hardly do better than to read this book. It is (...) true that I am not yet persuaded by McKenna’s central thesis that the most illuminating way to understand moral responsibility is to view it as a type of interpersonal conversation. And I am dubious that his strategy of accounting for the “fittingness” of blaming responses in terms of the “intelligibility” of such responses as part of a conversation can really be made to pan out. Nonetheless I greatly appreciated a great number of the positions and proposals mad .. (shrink)

Kant's theory of animals is based on his belief that animals have presentations and consciousness and in this are like human beings. When we abuse animals then we are more likely to abuse human beings. But animals are organic beings that have internal purposiveness and hence are ends for which other things are means. In this limited sense animals have intrinsic value.

Even though the evidence‐based medicine movement (EBM) labels mechanisms a low quality form of evidence, consideration of the mechanisms on which medicine relies, and the distinct roles that mechanisms might play in clinical practice, offers a number of insights into EBM itself. In this paper, I examine the connections between EBM and mechanisms from several angles. I diagnose what went wrong in two examples where mechanistic reasoning failed to generate accurate predictions for how a dysfunctional mechanism would respond to intervention. (...) I then use these examples to explain why we should expect this kind of mechanistic reasoning to fail in systematic ways, by situating these failures in terms of evolved complexity of the causal system(s) in question. I argue that there is still a different role in which mechanisms continue to figure as evidence in EBM: namely, in guiding the application of population‐level recommendations to individual patients. Thus, even though the evidence‐based movement rejects one role in which mechanistic reasoning serves as evidence, there are other evidentiary roles for mechanistic reasoning. This renders plausible the claims of some critics of evidencebased medicine who point to the ineliminable role of clinical experience. Clearly specifying the ways in which mechanisms and mechanistic reasoning can be involved in clinical practice frames the discussion about EBM and clinical experience in more fruitful terms. (shrink)

After witnessing extraordinary scientific and regulatory efforts to speed development of and access to new COVID-19 interventions, patients facing other serious diseases have begun to ask “where’s...

In this field guide, I distinguish five separate senses with which the term ‘mechanism’ is used in contemporary philosophy of science. Many of these senses have overlapping areas of application but involve distinct philosophical claims and characterize the target mechanisms in relevantly different ways. This field guide will clarify the key features of each sense and introduce some main debates, distinguishing those that transpire within a given sense from those that are best understood as concerning distinct senses. The ‘new mechanisms’ (...) sense is at the center of most of these contemporary debates and will be treated at greater length; subsequent senses of mechanism will be primarily distinguished from this one. In part I of this paper, I distinguish two senses of the term ‘mechanism’, both of which are explicitly hierarchical and nested in character, such that any given mechanism is comprised of smaller sub-mechanisms, in turn comprised of yet smaller sub-sub-mechanisms and so on. While both of the senses discussed here are anti-reductive, they differ in their focus on scientific practice versus metaphysics, in the degree of regularity they attribute to mechanisms, and in terms of their relationships to the discussions of mechanisms in the history of philosophy and science. (shrink)

For centuries it has been a mainstay of European and American moral thought that keeping promises—and the allied activity of upholding contracts—is one of the most important requirements of morality. On some historically powerful views the obligation to uphold promises or contracts not only regulates private relationships, but also provides the moral foundation for our duty to support and obey legitimate governments. Some theorists believe that the concept of keeping promises has gradually moved to center stage in European moral thought. (...) They see this movement as part of an historical shift from a moral conception in which an individual’s duties are mainly externally imposed and unalterable, to a conception in which duties are largely chosen by the individual. (shrink)

We use the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to assess the reputational risks created by political investment opportunities that allow managers to spend unlimited and potentially undisclosed firm resources on independent political expenditures. This new opportunity raises important ethical questions, as it is difficult, and perhaps impossible, under current law for shareholders to hold managers accountable for this investment choice and the reputational risks it entails. Using firms’ known political activity as a proxy for (...) managers’ likely future use of independent political expenditures, we examine how market participants reacted to Citizens United, conditional on this prior activity and corporate governance attributes related to the concentration of decision rights in senior management and blockholders. The results of our analyses document that firms with both a high level of known political activity and CEO-chairperson of the board duality experienced negative abnormal returns in reaction to Citizens United. In contrast, firms with concentrated ownership experienced positive abnormal returns; however, as known political activity increased, investors discounted the benefits of concentrated ownership. These findings suggest that investors expect this expansion of firms’ political investment opportunities to amplify principal-agent problems inherent in corporate political activity. Additionally, our findings provide evidence for those deliberating the mandatory disclosure of firms’ investments in politics as a means of increasing managerial accountability to both shareholders and the public. (shrink)