Gender and social inclusion efforts in agricultural development are focused on making uptake of agricultural technologies more equitable. Yet research looking at how gender relations influence technology uptake often assumes that men and women within a household make farm management decisions as individuals. Relatively little is understood about the dynamics of agricultural decision-making within dual-adult households where individuals’ management choices are likely influenced by others in the household. This study used vignettes to examine decision-making related to maize plot management in (...) 698 dual-adult households in rural Kenya. The results indicated a high degree of joint management of maize plots (55%), although some management decisions—notably those related to purchased inputs—were slightly more likely to be controlled by men, while other decisions—including those related to hiring of labor and maize end uses—were more likely to be made by women. The prevalence of joint decision-making underscores the importance of ensuring that both men’s and women’s priorities and needs are reflected in design and marketing of interventions to support maize production, including those related to seed systems, farmer capacity building, and input delivery. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the biology of species identity and the morality of crossing species boundaries in the context of emerging research that involves combining human and nonhuman animals at the genetic or cellular level. We begin with the notion of species identity, particularly focusing on the ostensible fixity of species boundaries, and we explore the general biological and philosophical problem of defining species. Against this backdrop, we survey and criticize earlier attempts to forbid crossing species boundaries in the creation (...) of novel beings. We do not attempt to establish the immorality of crossing species boundaries, but we conclude with some thoughts about such crossings, alluding to the notion of moral confusion regarding social and ethical obligations to novel interspecies beings. (shrink)

Several noted political theorists have argued that a state can be legitimate even if it does not generate in its citizens an obligation to obey the law. I argue that this claim is false. All plausible analyses of political legitimacy either build in the concept of political obligation, or else incorporate claims that require some account of political obligation. In either case, political legitimacy is possible only when a state successfully generates in its citizens an obligation to obey the law.

Lewis concludes that fallibilism is uncomfortable, though preferable to scepticism. However, he believes that contextualism about knowledge allows us to ‘dodge the choice’ between fallibilism and scepticism. For the contextualist semantics for ‘know’ can explain the oddity of fallibilism, without landing us into scepticism.

This essay compares Rawls's and Nozick's theories of justice. Nozick thinks patterned principles of justice are false, and offers a historical alternative. Along the way, Nozick accepts Rawls's claim that the natural distribution of talent is morally arbitrary, but denies that there is any short step from this premise to any conclusion that the natural distribution is unjust. Nozick also agrees with Rawls on the core idea of natural rights liberalism: namely, that we are separate persons. However, Rawls and Nozick (...) interpret that idea in different ways-momentously different ways. The tension between their interpretations is among the forces shaping political philosophy to this day. Footnotesa For comments, I thank Alyssa Bernstein, Geoffrey Brennan, Jason Brennan, Tom Christiano, Andrew I. Cohen, Andrew Jason Cohen, Tyler Cowen, Teresa Donovan, David Estlund, Jerry Gaus, Allen Habib, Alex Kaufman, Mark LeBar, Loren Lomasky (especially Loren, for insight and inspiration over a period of many years), Cara Nine, Ellen Frankel Paul, Guido Pincione, Thomas Pogge, Dan Russell, Michael Smith, Horacio Spector, and Matt Zwolinski. I thank the Earhart Foundation for financial support in the fall of 2002 and Australian National University's Research School of Social Sciences for its wonderful hospitality during a ten week stay in 2002. The support of the folks at Liberty Fund in Indianapolis during the final stages of this project goes beyond anything I will ever be able properly to thank them for. (shrink)

Michael Bergmann claims that all versions of epistemic internalism face an irresolvable dilemma. We show that there are many plausible versions of internalism that falsify this claim. First, we demonstrate that there are versions of ‘‘weak awareness internalism’’ that, contra Bergmann, do not succumb to the ‘‘Subject’s Perspective Objection’’ horn of the dilemma. Second, we show that there are versions of ‘‘strong awareness internalism’’ that do not fall prey to the dilemma’s ‘‘vicious regress’’ horn. We note along the way that (...) these versions of internalism do not, in avoiding one horn of the dilemma, succumb to the dilemma’s other horn. The upshot is that internalists have many available strategies for avoiding dilemmatic defeat. (shrink)

One widely discussed feature of Paradiso 33 is Dante’s emphasis on his failure to represent in words and memory his pilgrim’s exalted vision of the Trinity. Against other interpretations of this canto, I will discuss why, despite the fact that the language of failure seeks to reinforce the poetic illusion that revelation’s authority is grounded in an unmediated access to divine truth, the theophantic moment “represented” in Paradiso 33 instead shows that revelatory experience is nothing but a product of the (...) impulse of natural reason to exceed its own legitimate scope—that is, the theophantic moment illustrates natural reason’s inherent tendency to overstep its own limits. Consequently, I shall argue, the poema sacro’s carefully constructed representations of the pilgrim’s revelatory insight are in fact grounded in Dante’s proto-humanist understanding of the authoritative role of natural reason in representing to ourselves the possibilities of our own spiritual and earthly beatitudes. (shrink)

Let DDQ be the thesis that definite descriptions are quantifiers. Philosophers often deny DDQ because they believe that quantifiers do not depend on context in certain ways, ways in which definite descriptions do depend on context. In this paper, we examine one such argument, which, if sound, would entail the negation of DDQ.We show that this argument fails, and draw some consequences from its failure.

In the first part of this chapter, I will focus on two main questions: (1) how Maimonides departs from Aristotle in maintaining a difference of kind rather than degree in identifying prophecy rather than wisdom as the ultimate human perfection; and (2) why Maimonides does not explicitly identify a virtue of practical reasoning that corresponds to Aristotle’s understanding of phronêsis. In the second part of the chapter, I will discuss why Dante, contrary to Maimonides, emphasises the significance of practical judgement (...) in his redeployment of Aristotelian ethical theory. I will also discuss how the didactic and protreptic purposes of his poetic discourse are shaped by the same underlying psychological theory that grounds his emphasis on this intellectual virtue. The modest aim of this chapter is to treat these two engagements with Peripatetic philosophy as case studies that reward attention to the inextricable links between politics/religion and philosophical enquiry, even against the grain of seemingly common lineages sharing similar concerns. Connected with this modest aim, this chapter will also discuss how Maimonides’s and Dante’s attention to didactic and protreptic concerns impacts their treatment of philosophical questions and therefore indicates how attention to the kairos of their writings exposes and helps appreciate their philosophical rigour. (shrink)

Traditional contractarian theories based upon the theory of rational choice suffer from a number of well-known problems. For example, in positing the initial choice problem, the outcome selected by rational agents depends upon the specification of the choice situation, the range of alternatives the agents may choose from, and the nature of the rational agents themselves. Modifying any one of these three parameters likely alters the choice outcome, creating difficulties for social contract theorists who attempt to base a theory of (...) normativity upon such a choice. I describe a new form of contractarian theories, which I call evolutionary contractarianism. Although evolutionary contractarianism still seeks to ground a theory of normativity in the individual choices of rational agents, it recognizes both that agents are, at best, only boundedly rational, and that the dynamics of interaction between rational agents cannot be ignored. I explicitly concentrate on developing an evolutionary contractarian theory for norms of fair division in two bargaining games, laying a general framework which may in principle be extended to norms of fair division in other contexts. (shrink)

In this paper it is contended, against a challenging recent interpretation of Frege, that Frege should be credited with the first semirigorous formulation of semantic theory. It is argued that the considerations advanced against this contention suffer from two kinds of error. The first involves the attribution to Frege of a skeptical attitude towards the truth-predicate. The second involves the sort of justification which these arguments assume a classical semantic theory attempts to provide. Finally, it is shown that Frege was (...) in fact mindful of the need for the relevant sort of justification. (shrink)

This essay was prompted by the question of how Hathayoga, literally 'the Yoga of force', acquired its name. Many Indian and Western scholars have understood the 'force' of Haṭhayoga to refer to the effort required to practice it. Inherent in this understanding is the assumption that Haṭhayoga techniques such as _praṇayama_ are strenuous and may even cause pain. Others eschew the notion of force altogether and favor the so-called 'esoteric' definition of Haṭhayoga and moon in the body). This essay examines (...) these interpretations in light of definitions of _haṭhayoga_ and the adverbial uses of _haṭha_ in Sanskrit Yoga texts that predate the fifteenth-century _Hathapradipika_. (shrink)

Abstract Theories of personal well-being are typically developed so that they render verdicts on (a) how well-off a person is at a moment, (b) how well-off a person is over an interval of time, and (c) how good a whole life is for the person who lives it. Conative theories of welfare posit welfare-atoms that consist, e.g., in episodes of desire-satisfaction, aim-achievement, or values-realisation. Most extant conative theories are additive: they compute well-being over time - up to and including the (...) value of a whole life - by adding up the values of these welfare atoms. Here, it is shown that such atomistic, additive conative theories do not always generate plausible verdicts on (b) and (c) above. They imply that lives featuring incoherent plans and rapidly changing projects go surprisingly well for those who lived them. Holistic theories of well-being are often thought to provide a solution to problems like these. However, one of the best-known versions of welfare holism within the conative family, Rawls? rational life-preferentism, is based on the problematic assumption that there is one ideal life plan for each person. This paper presents a new form of paradigm-resemblance based conative holism that does not make this assumption and that explains the limits of additivity. (shrink)

A number of scientists have recently argued that neuroscience provides strong evidence against the requirements of the folk notion of free will. In one such line of argumentation, it is claimed that choice is required for free will, and neuroscience is showing that people do not make choices. In this article, we argue that this no-choice line of argumentation relies on a specific conception of choice. We then provide evidence that people do not share the conception of choice required of (...) the argument, nor do people hold that free will requires the conception of choice on which the argument relies. This leaves the proponents of the no-choice argument with a dilemma: Either they adopt a conception of choice that is not required of the folk concept of free will and thus they cease to be talking about the folk concept of free will, or they adopt a conception of choice that aligns with the folk concept of choice and thus the no-choice argument fails. (shrink)

Experimental examination of how the folk conceptualize certain philosophically loaded notions can provide information useful for philosophical theorizing. In this paper, we explore issues raised in Shaun Nichols' (2004) studies involving people's conception of free will, focusing on his claim that this conception fits best with the philosophical theory of agent-causation. We argue that his data do not support this conclusion, highlighting along the way certain considerations that ought to be taken into account when probing the folk conception of free (...) will. (shrink)

In addressing bioethical issues at the beginning of human life, such as abortion, in vitro fertilization, and embryonic stem cell research, one primary concern regards establishing when a developing human embryo or fetus can be considered a person. Thomas Aquinas argues that an embryo or fetus is not a human person until its body is informed by a rational soul. Aquinas's explicit account of human embryogenesis has been generally rejected by contemporary scholars due to its dependence upon medieval biological data, (...) which has been far surpassed by current scientific research. A number of scholars, however, have attempted to combine Aquinas's basic metaphysical account of human nature with current embryological data to develop a contemporary Thomistic account of a human person's beginning. In this article, I discuss two recent interpretations in which it is argued that a human person does not begin to exist until a fetus has developed a functioning cerebral cortex. (shrink)

I argue that it follows from a very plausible principle concerning understanding that the truth of an ascription of understanding is context-relative. I use this to defend an account of lexical meaning according to which full understanding of a natural kind term or name requires knowing informative, uniquely identifying information about its referent. This point undermines Putnam-style 'elm-beech' arguments against the description theory of names and natural kind terms.

This article examines why Günther Anders, one of the 20th century’s most formidable critics of technology, deemed a critique of technology necessary at all. I argue that the radical philosophy of industrialism in Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen (The Obsolescence of Human Beings) and related texts is a response to what Anders’s work presents as inadequacies of traditional Marxism, with its focus on class struggle and property relations. In effect, his critique of technology, which is more attentive to forms of domination (...) emergent with mechanization, would come to supplant classical Marxist thought. The piece concludes with some thoughts about how Anders’s ‘post-Marxist’ perspective provides insights for contemporary Marxism and, in turn, how the latter can throw light on problems in Anders’s philosophy of the machine. (shrink)

Aristotle famously argues that friendship can serve as a normative model for the practice of citizenship, and this view has been widely accepted by neo-Aristotelians. Liberals, however, are quick to reject both Aristotle's view of friendship and his view of citizenship. Does this mean that the concept of friendship is politically irrelevant for liberalism? This essay suggests, on the contrary, that the concept of friendship is far from obsolete, even for liberals. Specifically, communicative constraints derived from the norms of friendship, (...) as interpreted by Ralph Waldo Emerson, could serve to promote the modest instrumental purposes of liberal citizenship-personal freedom, social justice, and civil peace-while simultaneously allowing the practice of liberal citizenship to develop in noninstrumental directions, enriched rather than strained by the multicultural realities of most modern societies. (shrink)

The Routledge Guidebook to Aquinas‘ Summa Theologiae introduces readers to a work which represents the pinnacle of medieval Western scholarship and which has inspired numerous commentaries, imitators, and opposing views. Outlining the main arguments Aquinas utilizes to support his conclusions on various philosophical questions, this clear and comprehensive guide explores: The historical context in which Aquinas wrote A critical discussion of the topics outlined in the text including theology, metaphysics, epistemology, psychology, ethics, and political theory. The ongoing influence of Summa (...) Theologiae in modern Philosophy and Theology Offering a close reading of the original work, this guidebook highlights the central themes of Aquinas’ masterwork and is an essential read for anyone seeking an understanding of this highly influential work in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

The process of engaging in historical empathy holds the potential for significant curricular and dispositional benefits for students in history classrooms. In order to realize these benefits, classroom teachers must be able to integrate historical empathy into their existing planning and teaching; a process that would benefit from empirical examination. This single subject case study examined the pedagogical reasoning process of an experienced classroom teacher who integrated historical empathy into an existing instructional unit designed to foster student knowledge of social (...) control as an enduring historical understanding. The findings of this study suggest that experienced teachers may only be able to partially anticipate the unique pedagogical needs integrating historical empathy requires, and that a holistic examination of pedagogical reasoning during all phases of planning and teaching may be most suitable for the task. (shrink)

Many epistemologists treat knowledge as a binary relation that holds between a subject and a proposition. The contrastive account of knowledge developed by Jonathan Schaffer maintains that knowledge is a ternary, contrastive relation that holds between a subject, a proposition, and a set of contextually salient alternative propositions the subject’s evidence must eliminate. For the contrastivist, it is never simply the case that S knows that p; in every case of knowledge S knows that p rather than q. This paper (...) offers a counterexample to the contrastive account of knowledge. Part 1 summarizes the contrastive theory developed by Schaffer in a series of recent papers. Part 2 presents an example from a class of cases characterized by compatibility between the proposition p and each of the alternative propositions that occupy q. In such cases the alternative propositions that partially constitute the ternary contrastive relation play no role in the acquisition of knowledge. Part 3 considers and rejects potential responses to the counterexample. The paper concludes that the contrastive theory is not a general account of knowledge. (shrink)

Résumé: Les analogies peuvent être des outils précieux d’argumentation lors-qu’elles sont bonnes, mais quand elles sont mauvaises, elles faussent inévitablement la question qu’elles sont censées élucider. Tel est le cas de la comparaison entre la sécession et le divorce, qu’il s’agisse du divorce sous conditions ou du divorce sans égard à la faute. L’objectif de cet article est de montrer que la sécession se distingue empirique ment d’un divorce par trois différences significatives: entre personnes et peuple, entre mariage et union (...) politique, et entre divorce et sécession. Cela révèle que les deux versions de l’analogie du divorce sont inadéquates. Même si, cependant, ces écarts pou vaient être comblés et que l’analogie du divorce sous condition puisse être sauvée, je conteste le caractère approprié de l’autre version en montrant qu’aborder la sécession comme un divorce civil entraînerait des implications normatives contre-intuitives qui enlèveraient tout attrait à l’analogie du divorce sans égard à la faute, ou qui amèneraient ceux qui l’emploient à promouvoir des modifications irréalistes aux institutions légales internationales. (shrink)

A cardinal κ is nearly θ-supercompact if for every A⊆θ, there exists a transitive M⊨ZFC− closed under θ and j″θ∈N.2 This concept strictly refines the θ-supercompactness hierarchy as every θ-supercompact cardinal is nearly θ-supercompact, and every nearly 2θ<κ-supercompact cardinal κ is θ-supercompact. Moreover, if κ is a θ-supercompact cardinal for some θ such that θ<κ=θ, we can move to a forcing extension preserving all cardinals below θ++ where κ remains θ-supercompact but is not nearly θ+-supercompact. We will also show that (...) if κ is nearly θ-supercompact for some θ⩾2κ such that θ<θ=θ, then there exists a forcing extension preserving all cardinals at or above κ where κ is nearly θ-supercompact but not measurable. These types of large cardinals also come equipped with a nontrivial indestructibility result. A forcing poset is <κ-directed closed if it is γ-directed closed for all γ<κ in the sense of Jech [13, Def. 21.6]. We will prove that if κ is nearly θ-supercompact for some θ⩾κ such that θ<θ=θ, then there is a forcing extension where its near θ-supercompactness is preserved and indestructible by any further <κ-directed closed θ-c.c. forcing of size at most θ. Finally, these cardinals have high consistency strength. Specifically, we will show that if κ is nearly θ-supercompact for some θ⩾κ+ for which θ<θ=θ, then AD holds in L. In particular, if κ is nearly κ+-supercompact and 2κ=κ+, then AD holds in L. (shrink)

Hintikka and Sandu had argued that 'Frege's failure to grasp the idea of the standard interpretation of higher-order logic turns his entire foundational project into a hopeless daydream' and that he is 'inextricably committed to a non-standard interpretation' of higher-order logic. We disagree.

Calls for the “translation” of research from bench to bedside are increasingly demanding. What is translation, and why does it matter? We sketch the recent history of outcome-oriented translational research in the United States, with a particular focus on the Roadmap Initiative of the National Institutes of Health. Our main example of contemporary translational research is stem cell research, which has superseded genomics as the translational object of choice. We explore the nature of and obstacles to translational research and assess (...) the ethical and biomedical challenges of embracing a translational ethos. (shrink)

Environmental artworks are not an aesthetic affront against nature because the aesthetic qualities of artworks are to some extent a function of other sorts of qualities, such as moral, social, or ecological qualities. By appealing to a new ecological paradigm, we can characterize environmental artworks as anthropogenic disturbances and evaluate them accordingly. Andrew Light’s model of ecological citizenship emphasizes public participation in ecological restoration projects, which are very similar to environmental artworks. Participation in the creation, appreciation, and criticism of environmental (...) art can count as a form of ecological citizenship when these practices provoke public deliberation about environmental and other community-regarding values. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The phrase “ambiguous utopia” was coined by Ursula K. Le Guin in the subtitle of her novel, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. That work appeared when utopian narratives had been displaced by dystopian imaginaries. This article embarks on a comparative analysis of three short stories: Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, Angélica Gorodischer’s “Of Navigators”, and N. K. Jemisin’s “The Ones Who Stay and Fight”. Each author installs ambiguity at the center of their open-ended (...) utopian imaginaries as a way to challenge dogma, pessimism, and complacency. Le Guin interrogates the boundary between belief and knowledge to hold the threat of authoritarianism at bay. Gorodischer, a friend and contemporary of Le Guin, is considered a central figure of Argentine science fiction and fantasy. Her story imagines the discovery of a second Earth set in 1492 and highlights the need for utopianism to challenge the legacy of colonization. Finally, Jemisin’s story is a critical homage to “Omelas.” Jemisin shares the decolonial impetus of Gorodischer’s fiction, and she constructs Um-Helat on an explicitly antiracist foundation. Instead of walking away, her characters actively fight the creeping threat of intolerance while working toward that better place. (shrink)

Research on “improper” linear models has shown that predetermined weighting schemes for the linear model, such as equally weighting all predictors, can be surprisingly accurate on cross-validation. We review recent advances that can characterize the optimal choice of an improper linear model. We extend this research to the understanding of fast and frugal heuristics, particularly to the ecologically rational goal of understanding in which task environments given heuristics are optimal. We demonstrate how to test this model using the Recognition Heuristic (...) and Take the Best heuristic, show how the model reconciles with the ecological rationality program, and discuss how our prescriptive, computational approach could be approximated by simpler mental rules that might be more descriptive. Echoing the arguments of van Rooij et al., we stress the virtue of having a computationally tractable model of strategy selection, even if one proposes that cognizers use a simpler heuristic process to approximate it. (shrink)

We first argue that there are cases of “blameless non-belief.” That is, some people—through no fault of their own—fail to enter into a conscious relationship with God. But if so, then it would be unjust of God to make certain particular goods depend upon one having a conscious relationship with God. So, given that God is just, then despite what some theists believe, a relationship with God cannot be a necessary condition for the attainment of these goods; there might, e.g., (...) be atheists in heaven, even assuming that theism is true. This implies that religion is a far less important component of people’s lives than many might think. (shrink)

BackgroundDeciphering the amount of work provided by different co-authors of a scientific paper has been a recurrent problem in science. Despite the myriad of metrics available, the scientific community still largely relies on the position in the list of authors to evaluate contributions, a metric that attributes subjective and unfounded credit to co-authors. We propose an easy to apply, universally comparable and fair metric to measure and report co-authors contribution in the scientific literature. MethodsThe proposed Author Contribution Index (ACI) is (...) based on contribution percentages provided by the authors, preferably at the time of submission. Researchers can use ACI to compare the contributions of different authors, describe the contribution profile of a particular researcher or analyse how contribution changes through time. We provide such an analysis based on contribution percentages provided by 97 scientists from the field of ecology who voluntarily responded to an online anonymous survey.ResultsACI is simple to understand and to implement because it is based solely on percentage contributions and the number of co-authors. It provides a continuous score that reflects the contribution of one author as compared to the average contribution of all other authors. For example, ACI(i) = 3, means that author i contributed three times more than what the other authors contributed on average. Our analysis comprised 836 papers published in 2014-2016 and revealed patterns of ACI values that relate to career advancement.ConclusionThere are many examples of author contribution indices that have been proposed but none has really been adopted by scientific journals. Many of the proposed solutions are either too complicated, not accurate enough or not comparable across articles, authors and disciplines. The author contribution index presented here addresses these three major issues and has the potential to contribute to more transparency in the science literature. If adopted by scientific journals, it could provide job seekers, recruiters and evaluating bodies with a tool to gather information that is essential to them and cannot be easily and accurately obtained otherwise. We also suggest that scientists use the index regardless of whether it is implemented by journals or not. (shrink)