Participants studied lists of nonwords that were orthographic-phonologically similar to a nonpresented critical lure, which was also a nonword . Experiment 1 showed a high level of false recognition for the critical lure. Experiment 2 showed that the false recognition effect was also present for forewarned participants who were informed about the nature of the false recognition effect and told to avoid making false recognition judgments. The present results show that false recognition effects can be obtained even when the critical (...) lure itself is not stored during study. This finding is problematic for accounts that attribute false memories to implicit associative responses or spreading activation but is easily explained by global familiarity models of recognition memory. (shrink)

Though whistleblowing is quickly becoming an accepted means of addressing wrongdoing, whistleblower protection laws and the relevant case law are either awkwardly silent, unclear or mutually inconsistent concerning public disclosures of classified government information. I remedy this problem by first arguing that such disclosures constitute a pro tanto wrong as they violate (1) promissory obligations, (2) role obligations and (3) the obligation to respect the democratic allocation of power. However, they may be justified if (1) the information disclosed concerns grave (...) government wrongdoing, (2) alternative channels of disclosure are first exhausted and (3) steps are taken to minimize harm. (shrink)

This article discusses the possibility of a rationally justified choice between two options neither of which is better than the other while they are not equally good either (‘3NT’). Joseph Raz regards such options as incomparable and argues that reason cannot guide the choice between them. Ruth Chang, by contrast, tries to show that many cases of putative incomparability are instead cases of parity—a fourth value relation of comparability, in addition to the three standard value relations ‘better than’, ‘worse than’ (...) and ‘equally good as’. It follows, she argues, that many choice situations in which rationally justified choice seems precluded are in fact situations within the reach of practical reason. This article has three aims: (1) it challenges Chang’s argument for the possibility of parity; (2) it demonstrates that, even if parity would exist, its problematic implications for practical reason would not differ from those of Raz’s incomparability; (3) it discusses the underlying cause of hard cases of comparison: the fact that none of the three standard value relations applies (‘3NT’). It will be shown that the problematic implications for the rational justification of the choice are due to 3NT itself, irrespective of whether 3NT is explained as incomparability or parity. (shrink)

This essay discusses implications of incommensurability of values for justified decision-making, ethics and justice. Under particular conditions incommensurability of values causes what might be called ‘incomplete comparability’ of options. Some leading theorists interpret this in terms of ‘imprecise equality’ and ‘imprecise comparability.’ This interpretation is mistaken and conceals the implications of incommensurability for practical and ethical reasoning. The aim of this essay is to show that, in many cases, incommensurability prevents the assignment of determinate weights to competing values. This may (...) have problematic consequences for a complete and impartial justification of decisions concerning conflicting values to the extent that they depend on the need of weighing them. (shrink)

Amartya Sen argues that for the advancement of justice identification of ‘perfect’ justice is neither necessary nor sufficient. He replaces ‘perfect’ justice with comparative justice. Comparative justice limits itself to comparing social states with respect to degrees of justice. Sen’s central thesis is that identifying ‘perfect’ justice and comparing imperfect social states are ‘analytically disjoined’. This essay refutes Sen’s thesis by demonstrating that to be able to make adequate comparisons we need to identify and integrate criteria of comparison. This is (...) precisely the aim of a theory of justice (such as John Rawls’s theory): identifying, integrating and ordering relevant principles of justice. The same integrated criteria that determine ‘perfect’ justice are needed to be able to adequately compare imperfect social states. Sen’s alternative approach, which is based on social choice theory, is incapable of avoiding contrary, indeterminate or incoherent directives where plural principles of justice conflict. (shrink)

Video games are ideal platforms for the study of skill acquisition for a variety of reasons. However, our understanding of the development of skill and the cognitive representations that support skilled performance can be limited by a focus on game scores. We present an alternative approach to the study of skill acquisition in video games based on the tools of the Expert Performance Approach. Our investigation was motivated by a detailed analysis of the behaviors responsible for the superior performance of (...) one of the highest scoring players of the video game Space Fortress. This analysis revealed how certain behaviors contributed to his exceptional performance. In this study, we recruited a participant for a similar training regimen, but we collected concurrent and retrospective verbal protocol data throughout training. Protocol analysis revealed insights into strategies, errors, mental representations, and shifting game priorities. We argue that these insights into the developing representations that guided skilled performance could only easily have been derived from the tools of the Expert Performance Approach. We propose that the described approach could be applied to understand performance and skill acquisition in many different video games and help reveal mechanisms of transfer from gameplay to other measures of laboratory and real-world performance. (shrink)

Given the crucial role unauthorized disclosures can play in uncovering grave government wrongdoing, it makes sense to search for a defense of justified cases of what I call “classified public whistleblowing.” The question that concerns me is what form such a defense should take. The main claim will be a negative one, namely, that a defense of whistleblowing cannot be based on individual rights, be they legal or moral, though this is indeed the most commonly proposed defense. In closing, I (...) will outline a more appealing alternative, namely, a justification defense. (shrink)

This book demonstrates the importance of a duty-based approach to morality. The dominance of what has been labeled “rights talk” leads to the neglect of duties without corresponding rights and stimulates the proliferation of questionable human rights. Therefore, this book argues for a duty-based perspective on morality in order to, first, salvage duties of virtue, and, second, counter the trend of rights-proliferation by providing some conceptual clarity concerning rights and duties that will enable us to differentiate between genuine and spurious (...) rights-claims. The argument for this duty-based perspective is made by examining two particularly contentious duties: duties to aid the global poor and civic duties. These two duties serve as case studies and are explored from the perspectives of political theory, jurisprudence and moral philosophy. The argument is made that both these duties can only be adequately defined and allocated if we adopt the perspective of duties, as the predominant perspective of rights either does not recognize them to be duties at all or else leaves their content and allocation indefinite. This renewed focus on duties does not wish to diminish the importance of rights. Rather, the duty-based perspective on morality will strengthen human rights discourse by distinguishing more strictly between genuine and inauthentic rights. Furthermore, a duty-based approach enriches our moral landscape by recognizing both duties of justice and duties of virtue. The latter duties are not less important or supererogatory, but function as indispensable complements to the duties prescribed by justice. In this perceptive and exceptionally lucid book, Eric Boot argues that a duty-focused approach to morality will remedy the shortcomings he finds in the standard accounts of human rights. The study tackles staple philosophical topics such as the contrasts between duties of virtue and duties of justice and imperfect and perfect obligations. But more importantly perhaps, it also confronts the practical question of what our human rights duties are and how we ought to act on them. Boot's book is a splendid example of how philosophy can engage and clarify real world problems. Kok-Chor Tan, Department of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania A lively and enjoyable defence of the importance of our having duties to fellow human beings in severe poverty. At a time when global justice has never been more urgent, this new book sheds much needed light. Thom Brooks, Professor of Law and Government and Head of Durham Law School, Durham University. (shrink)

In this chapter I will concentrate on compromise in ethical conflict and disagreement. I will discuss compromises related to disagreement with respect to public decisions between options that represent conflicting incommensurable human values. The central question will be whether in those cases a principled compromise is possible. A ‘principled compromise’ can be defined as a rational way to achieve a trade-off or balance between conflicting values, for instance, by rational assignment of relative weights. I will argue that in some cases (...) incommensurability will prevent a principled compromise in the defined sense. I will show why phrases used by some philosophers, such as ‘making a rational trade-off’, ‘striking the right balance’, ‘finding the Aristotelian Mean’ or ‘splitting the difference’, are based on misunderstandings about the characteristics of incommensurable values that are usually at stake in the pursuit of a compromise. I will show that incommensurable values lack an equivalence relation and how this prevents a determinate trade-off or balance between them. This is especially important with respect to the pursuit of compromises in ethical conflicts, including conflicts of justice, where we need a rational and ethical justification for the final decision. I will argue that the model of deliberative democracy presents a promising procedure for making the final decision legitimate but that, in the relevant cases, it cannot avoid an ethical deficit. (shrink)

Persons and nations agree on the importance of justice but disagree on its requirements. In The End of History and the Last Man Francis Fukuyama argues that human history moves towards liberal democracy as the final ideal for all societies. It is conceivable that liberal democratic societies will converge to similar conceptions of justice and that global spread of liberal democracies will promote consensus. This paper tries to show that consensus on justice is, nevertheless, unlikely, due to reasonable disagreement. Reason (...) does not give a single rational or reasonable solution to conflicting demands of justice. This means that apart from reason, other factors play a role in what is regarded as just. Jurisdiction is influenced by tradition and zeitgeist. This explains why also liberal democracies, which may recognize similar principles of justice, still arrive at differing rankings of these principles and divergent results of jurisdiction in time and place. (shrink)

There is uncertainty and disagreement about the question which preventive actions are rationally justified with regard to moderately elevated levels of nuclear radiation. This may have at least four causes: ignorance, insufficient information, inconclusiveness and indeterminability. After the nuclear disaster with the Fukushima nuclear power plant the advice, given by some authorities, to leave Tokyo was largely based on the former two factors: ignorance and insufficient information. By contrast, the uncertainty and disagreement amongst experts about the size of the area (...) to be evacuated was mainly caused by the latter two factors: inconclusiveness and indeterminability. Inconclusiveness concerns the question whether moderately elevated radiation levels cause real and significant health risks that require drastic measures. Indeterminability concerns the problem of rationally weighing disparate benefits and costs of the preventive measures, to wit, expected health benefits versus the costs and burdens of mass evacuation. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommends that no measures should be taken unless they produce a positive net benefit. Exposure to moderately increased levels of radiation may increase the risk of fatal cancer in the future, while mass evacuation has burdensome and disruptive consequences for the society and for the persons who have to leave their residential and/or working area for a long time. Ordering of mass evacuation seems rationally and ethically justified only if the expected future benefits outweigh the present and future burdens. Small or uncertain future health benefit may be outweighed by large costs and burdens of mass evacuation. Because we have to take into consideration not only public but also individual costs and benefits, it is important to take into account the personal absolute increase in health risk of elevated radiation in addition to relative risk. Unlike relative risk, absolute risk reveals the individual chance of getting a radiation-based disease. The increase in absolute risk – that is, the difference between the chances of getting the disease with and without the exposure to the increased level of radiation – is a useful measure to reveal the personal chance of health benefit from evacuation. This personal benefit must be balanced against the personal costs and burdens. The key question is which levels of radiation absorption and health risks outweigh the burdens of mass evacuation. There seems consensus amongst experts about the justification of mass evacuation in cases of expected individual radiation absorption > 500 mSv over a year. Similarly, experts agree that expected extra radiation absorption < 10 mSv does not justify mass evacuation. But between these two extremes there is a wide range of 50-fold increasing radiation levels in which it is not clear whether the personal and public benefits from mass evacuation outweigh the personal and public costs. This may partly explain why experts and authorities gave conflicting advice about the radius of the area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant within which people had to be evacuated. The uncertainty about the right thing to do with respect to a wide range of moderately elevated levels of radiation seems to be caused not only by inconclusiveness but also by indeterminability, that is, impossibility of determinately weighing disparate costs and benefits. (shrink)

Video games are ideal platforms for the study of skill acquisition for a variety of reasons. However, our understanding of the development of skill and the cognitive representations that support skilled performance can be limited by a focus on game scores. We present an alternative approach to the study of skill acquisition in video games based on the tools of the Expert Performance Approach. Our investigation was motivated by a detailed analysis of the behaviors responsible for the superior performance of (...) one of the highest scoring players of the video game Space Fortress. This analysis revealed how certain behaviors contributed to his exceptional performance. In this study, we recruited a participant for a similar training regimen, but we collected concurrent and retrospective verbal protocol data throughout training. Protocol analysis revealed insights into strategies, errors, mental representations, and shifting game priorities. We argue that these insights into the developing representations that guided skilled performance could only easily have been derived from the tools of the Expert Performance Approach. We propose that the described approach could be applied to understand performance and skill acquisition in many different video games and help reveal mechanisms of transfer from gameplay to other measures of laboratory and real-world performance. (shrink)

This highly original book sheds new light on aspects of incommensurability of values and its implications for ethics and justice. It provides original and innovative analysis of the characteristics of incommensurability in relation to values, and explores the implications of incommensurability for ethics, justice and public decision-making.

We investigated whether mathematicians typically agree about the qualities of mathematical proofs. Between-mathematician consensus in proof appraisals is an implicit assumption of many arguments made by philosophers of mathematics, but to our knowledge the issue has not previously been empirically investigated. We asked a group of mathematicians to assess a specific proof on four dimensions, using the framework identified by Inglis and Aberdein (2015). We found widespread disagreement between our participants about the aesthetics, intricacy, precision and utility of the proof, (...) suggesting that a priori assumptions about the consistency of mathematical proof appraisals are unreasonable. (shrink)

Many religious, ideological and other beliefs are induced by upbringing. In ‘Paradoxes of Conviction’ G.A. Cohen asks why we persist in a belief, when we know we have this belief rather than a rival one, because we were brought up to believe it. Cohen adduces a syllogistic argument (named ‘the Argument’) that seems to demonstrate the irrationality of holding on to such a nurtured belief. If the Argument is right, it has far-reaching consequences because many nurtured religious and other beliefs (...) should then be abandoned as being irrational. This essay shows that the Argument is fallacious. (shrink)

It is commonly stated, by both whistleblower protection laws and political philosophers, that a breach of state secrecy by disclosing classified documents is justified if it serves the public interest. The problem with this defense of justified whistleblowing, however, is that the operative term – the public interest – is all too often left unclarified. This is problematic, because it leaves potential whistleblowers without sufficient certainty that their disclosures will be covered by the defense, leading many to err on the (...) side of caution and remain silent, depriving the public of much-needed information. Failing an agreed upon definition of the public interest or a process to determine it, judges’ applications of the public interest in whistleblowing cases have been criticized for demonstrating ‘judicial idiosyncrasy’. The present paper, therefore, sets out to provide some clarity concerning the concept of the public interest, and to ascertain the extent to which a public interest defense for whistleblowing is feasible and desirable. (shrink)

Appeals to the public interest in law are commonplace, but typically made without clarifying what the public interest is and how it can be determined. In law, this has led to ad hoc applications of the public interest and, consequently, to “judicial idiosyncrasy,” posing a threat to legal certainty. This paper aims to remedy these problems by providing much‐needed conceptual clarification. It proposes that something is in the public interest if it increases the opportunities of the members of the public (...) to pursue and realize the (permissible) ends they all share qua equal members of the public. (shrink)

On several levels, there is now a debate whether the concept of God can be made compatible with modern science. In an attempt to elucidate this debate, I give an account of my own experiences from writing a book on the foundation of quantum mechanics. In my opinion, one can give two independent arguments for the existence of God by taking as departure an epistemic (knowledge-based) interpretation of quantum theory. However, I also argue that any religious belief should be the (...) result of an existential choice governed by each person’s own context (history and culture). In particular, I give my account of Christianity as a religion connected to our western culture, how one as a scientist can relate to the relevant dogmas. (shrink)

Michael Ing's The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism is the first monograph in English about the Liji--a text that purports to be the writings of Confucius' immediate disciples, and part of the earliest canon of Confucian texts called ''The Five Classics,'' included in the canon several centuries before the Analects. Ing uses his analysis of the Liji to show how early Confucians coped with situations where their rituals failed to achieve their intended aims. In contrast to most contemporary interpreters (...) of Confucianism, Ing demonstrates that early Confucian texts can be read as arguments for ambiguity in ritual failure. (shrink)

This book is about the necessity, and even value, of vulnerability in human experience. In it, Michael Ing brings early Chinese texts into dialogue with questions about the ways in which meaningful things are vulnerable to powers beyond our control; and more specifically, how relationships with meaningful others might compel tragic actions.

The focus of this essay is on conflicts of values and rival options in public decision-making, ethics and justice that seem to require us to balance the values or options against each other. The aim is to investigate implications of the so-called fourth value relation between competing valuable options for the possibility to weigh and balance them. The fourth value relation applies to many alternatives that represent important but conflicting or incompletely compatible human values. In this essay I will try (...) to show that in those cases it is implausible that relative weights and right balances can be determined or that they exist at all. The fourth value relation has significant implications for the resolution of the relevant value conflicts because it renders the answer to the question ‘what’s the right thing to do?’ indeterminate as far as this answer depends on comparative weights of the alternatives. (shrink)

This highly original book sheds new light on aspects of incommensurability of values and its implications for ethics and justice. It provides original and innovative analysis of the characteristics of incommensurability in relation to values, and explores the implications of incommensurability for ethics, justice and public decision-making.

Political philosophical work on whistleblowing has thus far neglected the role of journalists. A curious oversight, given that the whistleblower’s objective - informing the public about government wrongdoing - can typically not be realized without the media. The present article, therefore, aims to start remedying this neglect by exploring some of the most pressing questions. Accordingly, the paper will be structured as follows: Section 1 will explain why the authorities have treated whistleblowers far more harshly than the journalists who publish (...) their disclosures. Still, the freedom of expression of media workers is less extensive than that of ordinary individuals. Section 2 will explain why by arguing that the freedom of expression of the press, contrary to that of individuals, is not an unconditional good; instead, it is good merely instrumentally. Section 3 considers and refutes an argument for a more expansive press freedom based on the marketplace of ideas model and, in doing so, also discusses some important differences between the ethics of the traditional and the new online media. Often journalists, like whistleblowers, will justify their publications based on leaked classified documents by appealing to the public interest. Yet, this is problematic for two reasons: the public interest is never clarified; and this argument overlooks the fact that the public interest can also be a reason for not publishing about leaked classified documents, even if the leaks are verified. Accordingly, Section 5 sets out to clarify the public interest. Section 4 then discusses two case studies – one concerning unverified leaks, and one concerning verified leaks – in order to demonstrate how we might employ the concept of the public interest in order to determine the permissibility of publishing about leaked classified information in practice. (shrink)

This volume of Critical Readings provides an overview of recent scholarship about Japanese thought, as it took shape during the Edo Period. It contains articles about all participants in the intellectual debate: Buddhism, Confucianism, National Studies, and Dutch Learning.

Fibril‐forming (fibrillar) collagens are extracellular matrix proteins conserved in all multicellular animals. Vertebrate members of the fibrillar collagen family are essential for the formation of bone and teeth, tissues that characterise vertebrates. The potential role played by fibrillar collagens in vertebrate evolution has not been considered previously largely because the family has been around since the sponge and it was unclear precisely how and when those particular members now found in vertebrates first arose. We present evidence that the classical vertebrate (...) fibrillar collagens share a single common ancestor that arose at the very dawn of the vertebrate world and prior to the associated genome duplication events. Furthermore, we present a model, ‘molecular incest’, that not only accounts for the characteristics of the modern day vertebrate fibrillar collagen family but demonstrates the specific effects genome or gene duplications may have on the evolution of multimeric proteins in general. BioEssays 25:142–151, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

This book contains short analyses of Ogyū Sorai’s most important works, as well as a biography and a number of essays. The essays explore various aspects of his teachings, of the origins of his thought, and of the reception of his ideas in Japan, China, and Korea before and after "modernization" struck in the second half of the nineteenth century. Ogyū Sorai has come to be considered the pivotal thinker in the intellectual history of Early Modern Japan. More research has (...) been done on Sorai than on any other Confucian thinker of this period. This book disentangles the modern reception from the way in which Sorai's ideas were understood and evaluated in Japan and China in the century following his death. The joint conclusion of the research of a number of the foremost specialists in Japan, Taiwan, and the West is that Sorai was and remains an original, innovative, and important thinker, but that his position within East-Asian thought should be redefined in terms of the East-Asian tradition to which he belonged, and not in the paradigms of European History of Philosophy or Intellectual History. The book represents up-to-date scholarship and allows both the young scholar to acquaint himself with Sorai, and the intellectual historian to compare Sorai with other thinkers of other times and of other philosophical traditions. (shrink)

_The Worship and Love of God_ is one of the most unusual writings of Swedish scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg. A "poetical novel," it dramatizes the Creation and examines the life of Adam and Eve as the first truly united couple. Considered Swedenborg's last work before he embarked on his visionary period, the manuscript was left unfinished by its author and published only after his death. Inge Jonsson, one of the world's leading scholars on Swedenborg's works, offers a scholarly (...) look into a neglected literary achievement. He examines this unique work from the perspective of sources and influences. The literary genre f hexaemeron, ancient and modern philosophy, and scientific discoveries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries come into play in Swedenborg's richly imagined and beautifully articulated world. Yet _The Worship and Love of God _also offers an intriguing glimpse into Swedenborg's future as a biblical exegete and revelator. (shrink)

This article calls for an end to the use of the term ‘invasive species’, both in the scientific and public discourse on wildlife conservation. There are two broad reasons for this: the first problem with the invasive species narrative is that this demonisation of ‘invasives’ is morally wrong, particularly because it usually results in the unjust killing of the animals in question. Following on from this, the second problem is that the narrative is also incoherent, both from scientific and philosophical (...) perspectives. At the heart of both of these issues is the problem that the invasive species narrative oversimplifies what are in fact very complex biological processes. As a result, the policies carried out with the stated aim of ‘controlling’ these animals are often unethical. In light of the current global species decline, this article asserts that the way we think and talk about these animals should be changed and the term ‘invasive species’ should be discontinued, in the hope that this leads to changes in practice. (shrink)

Ce texte est tiré de I. Baxmann et al., Arbeit und Rhythmus – Lebensformen im Wandel, Paderborn, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2009, p. 15-36. La traduction en a été assurée par Anthony Liébault et déjà mise en ligne par la revue Agôn. Nous remercions Inge Baxman de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. L'époque moderne et la critique de la conception séculaire du travail « Travailler, c'est danser ». Voilà ce que prétend Karl Bücher, économiste allemand originaire de Leipzig, (...) dans son ouvrage de 1896 intitulé - 1er XXe siècle – Nouvel article. (shrink)

What do mathematicians mean when they use terms such as ‘deep’, ‘elegant’, and ‘beautiful’? By applying empirical methods developed by social psychologists, we demonstrate that mathematicians' appraisals of proofs vary on four dimensions: aesthetics, intricacy, utility, and precision. We pay particular attention to mathematical beauty and show that, contrary to the classical view, beauty and simplicity are almost entirely unrelated in mathematics.

Inside a combinatory algebra, there are ‘internal’ versions of the finite type structure over ω, which form models of various systems of finite type arithmetic. This paper compares internal representations of the intensional and extensional functionals. If these classes coincide, the algebra is called ft-extensional. Some criteria for ft-extensionality are given and a number of well-known ca's are shown to be ft-extensional, regardless of the particular choice of representation for ω. In particular, DA, Pω, Tω, Hω and certain D∞-models all (...) share the property of ft-extensionality. It is also shown that ft-extensionality is by no means an intrinsic property of ca's i.e., that there exists a very concrete class of ca's—the class of reflexive coherence spaces—no member of which has this property. This leads to a comparison of ft-extensionality with the well-studied notions of extensionality and weak extensionality. Ft-extensionality turns out to be completely independent. (shrink)

This study compared whole body kinematics of the clean movement when lifting three different loads, implementing two data analysis approaches based on principal component analysis. Nine weightlifters were equipped with 39 markers and their motion captured with 8 Vicon cameras at 100 Hz. Lifts of 60, 85, and 95% of the one repetition maximum were analyzed. The first PCA analyzed variance among time-normed waveforms compiled from subjects and trials; the second PCA analyzed postural positions compiled over time, subjects and trials. (...) Load effects were identified through repeated measures ANOVAs with Bonferroni-corrected post-hocs and through Cousineau-Morey confidence intervals. PCAtrial scores differed in the first and fifth principal component, suggesting that increased barbell load produced higher initial elevation, lower squat position, wider feet position after squatting, and less inclined arms. PCAposture revealed significant timing differences in all components. We conclude, first, barbell load affects specific aspects of the movement pattern of the clean; second, the PCAtrial approach is better suited for detecting deviations from a mean motion trajectory and its results are easier to interpret; the PCAposture approach reveals coordination patterns and facilitates comparisons of postural speeds and accelerations. (shrink)