Internalists about reasons following Bernard Williams claim that an agent’s normative reasons for action are constrained in some interesting way by her desires or motivations. In this paper, I offer a new argument for such a position—although one that resonates, I believe, with certain key elements of Williams’ original view. I initially draw on P.F. Strawson’s famous distinction between the interpersonal and the objective stances that we can take to other people, from the second-person point of view. I suggest that (...) we should accept Strawson’s contention that the activity of reasoning with someone about what she ought to do naturally belongs to the interpersonal mode of interaction. I also suggest that reasons for an agent to perform some action are considerations which would be apt to be cited in favor of that action, within an idealized version of this advisory social practice. I then go on to argue that one would take leave of the interpersonal stance towards someone—thus crossing the line, so to speak—in suggesting that she do something one knows she wouldn’t want to do, even following an exhaustive attempt to hash it out with her. An internalist necessity constraint on reasons is defended on this basis. (shrink)

Philosophers have turned their attention to gaslighting only recently, and have made considerable progress in analysing its characteristic aims and harms. I am less convinced, however, that we have fully understood its nature. I will argue in this paper that philosophers and others interested in the phenomenon have largely overlooked a phenomenon I call moral gaslighting, in which someone is made to feel morally defective—for example, cruelly unforgiving or overly suspicious—for harbouring some mental state to which she is entitled. If (...) I am right about this possibility, and that it deserves to be called gaslighting, then gaslighting is a far more prevalent and everyday phenomenon than has previously been credited. And it can also be a purely structural phenomenon, as well as an interpersonal one, which remains a controversial possibility in the current literature. (shrink)

A high heritability estimate usually corresponds to a situation in which trait variation is largely caused by genetic variation. However, in some cases of gene-environment covariance, causal intuitions about the sources of trait difference can vary, leading experts to disagree as to how the heritability estimate should be interpreted. We argue that the source of contention for these cases is an inconsistency in the interpretation of the concepts ‘genotype’, ‘phenotype’, and ‘environment’. We propose an interpretation of these terms under which (...) trait variance initially caused by genetic variance is subsumed into a heritability for all cases of gene-environment covariance. (shrink)

Centralised, compliance-focused approaches to research ethics have been normalised in practice. In this paper, we argue that the dominance of such systems has been driven by neoliberal approaches to governance, where the focus on controlling and individualising risk has led to an overemphasis of decontextualised ethical principles and the conflation of ethical requirements with the documentation of ‘informed consent’. Using a UK-based case study, involving a point-of-care-genetic test as an illustration, we argue that rather than ensuring ethical practice such compliance-focused (...) approaches may obstruct valuable research. We call for an approach that encourages researchers and research communities—including regulators, ethics committees, funders and publishers of academic research—to acquire skills to make morally appropriate decisions, and not base decision-making solely on compliance with prescriptive regulations. We call this ‘ethical preparedness’ and outline how a research ethics system might make space for this approach. (shrink)

Purpose Genetic research, via the mainstream media, presents the public with novel, profound findings almost on a daily basis. However, it is not clear how much laypeople understand these presentations and how they integrate such new findings into their knowledge base. Genetic knowledge (GK), existing causal beliefs, and genetic essentialist tendencies (GET) have been implicated in such processes; the current study assesses the relationships between these elements and how brief presentations of media releases of scientific findings about genetics are consumed (...) and affect the readers. -/- Methods An Australian national survey of GK, GET, and existing causal beliefs about health phenomena (heart disease and obesity) was conducted. Participants were also exposed to news headlines that offered genetic and non-genetic partial explanations of the same health phenomena and reported their evaluations of these headlines, as well as the effects of the headlines on their personal understanding of the health phenomena. -/- Results GK was negatively-associated with GET. Whereas GK did not directly predict the evaluation and effects of the genetic headlines, GET did. GK predicted the effects of the headlines indirectly via GET and via GET and existing causal beliefs. -/- Conclusion GET seem to predict unwarranted effects of exposure to news headlines about genetic science, whereas GK seems to indirectly mitigate the same unwarranted effects. (shrink)

People’s comfort with and acceptability of artificial intelligence (AI) instantiations is a topic that has received little systematic study. This is surprising given the topic’s relevance to the design, deployment and even regulation of AI systems. To help fill in our knowledge base, we conducted mixed-methods analysis based on a survey of a representative sample of the US population (_N_ = 2254). Results show that there are two distinct social dimensions to comfort with AI: as a peer and as a (...) superior. For both dimensions, general and technological efficacy traits—locus of control, communication apprehension, robot phobia, and perceived technology competence—are strongly associated with acceptance of AI in various roles. Female and older respondents also were less comfortable with the idea of AI agents in various roles. A qualitative analysis of comments collected from respondents complemented our statistical approach. We conclude by exploring the implications of our research for AI acceptability in society. (shrink)

This chapter explores the possibility of identifying core moral claims with the states of mind which are called bodily imperatives—e.g. the ‘make it stop’ state of mind which is plausibly an aspect of, if not identical with, severe pain states and states such as severe thirst, hunger, sleeplessness, humiliation, terror, and torment. The chapter combines this idea with another, that the desire-like, conative, or ‘world-guiding’ states of mind which make normative claims on agents need not belong to the agent on (...) whom the claim is made, on a broadly Humean or desire-based view in metaethics. On the view defended, any subject’s bodily imperatives can make moral claims on any moral agent. The case is made that bodily imperatives are a good candidate for constituting the core moral claims or basic imperatives of morality, which all others are either built from, or at least constrained by. (shrink)

David Enoch, in Taking Morality Seriously, argues for a broad normative asymmetry between how we should behave when disagreeing about facts and how we should behave when disagreeing due to differing preferences. Enoch claims that moral disputes have the earmarks of a factual dispute rather than a preference dispute and that this makes more plausible a realist understanding of morality. We try to clarify what such claims would have to look like to be compelling and we resist his main conclusions.

This article aims to present Judith Butler’s theory of diaspora as a theological paradigm for post-secular social existence. Her accounts of dispossession, statelessness, and exilic identity all afford us a normative challenge for how to think politics and the theological together. We begin by framing Judith Butler’s diasporic theory of politics within Adriennes Rich’s poetic perspective on ecstatic identity. We proceed to argue that by emphasizing both the precariousness and interdependency of social life, Rich and Butler’s shared commitments to universalizing (...) queer forms of collective belonging and affective relations offer an alternative post-secular paradigm to that offered so far by theorists such as Charles Taylor or Jürgen Habermas. Achieving a post-secular “state” may ultimately be a matter of embracing the failure of our own representations, particularly the failures of contemporary religion to represent either the divine or the human, or to constitute a society with its own political theology. It is paradoxically this kind of failure that can open us up to look at ourselves, and to focus on the precariousness and vulnerability of human existence that we see with our very eyes and reproduced by our very own hands. (shrink)

This essay seeks to articulate the many implications which Giorgio Agamben's work holds for theology. It aims, therefore, to examine his conceptualizations of language in light of particular historical glosses on the “name of God” and the nature of the “mystical,” as well as to highlight the political task of profanation, one of his most central concepts, in relation to the logos said to embody humanity's “religious” quest to find its Voice. As such, we see how he challenges those standard (...) notions of transcendence which have been consistently aligned with various historical forms of sovereignty. In addition, I intend to present his redefinition of revelation as solely the unveiling of the “name of God” as the fact of our linguistic being, a movement from the transcendent divine realm to the merely human world before us. By proceeding in this manner, this essay tries to close in on one of the largest theological implications contained within Agamben's work: the establishment of an ontology that could only be described as a form of “absolute” immanence, an espousal of some form of pantheism yet to be more fully pronounced within his writings. (shrink)

In 1661, Samuel pepys arranged for his portrait to be painted for the first time. In his diary pepys refers to the painter only as ‘Mr Savill’. Using a range of archival sources, this Note conclusively identifies him as Daniel Savile, a successful City of London artist whose career has not previously been recognised. Savile catered to those men and women who could not afford the services of a ‘great’ painter such as peter Lely or Samuel Cooper. Savile’s interactions with (...) pepys offer insights into the pleasures and challenges of portrait commissioning in the Restoration. The records of Savile’s business also reveal that that he was responsible for training a significant proportion of the young women apprenticed to the painter-Stainers’ Company—an area of female employment about which little is known. The evidence about Savile’s studio allows us to deduce the potential benefits of such apprenticeship arrangements for the young women, for their employers, and for sitters. Together pepys’s diary and the records of Savile’s life illuminate the ways that painters and sitters from the middling sort negotiated the artistic culture of seventeenth-century London. (shrink)

Effective altruism is a growing humanitarian movement with a track record of success in evaluating the effectiveness of charitable spending across a wide range of projects. We suggest ways in which the foundations of this movement can be applied to the complex world of conservation.

Sexually signalling animals must trade off the benefits of attracting mates with the consequences of attracting predators. For male guppies, predation risk depends on their behaviour, colouration, environmental conditions and changing intensity of predation throughout the day. Theoretically, this drives diel patterns of display behaviour in native Trinidadian populations, where males display more under low-light conditions when their most dangerous predator is less active. Here, we observed Australian guppies in a laboratory setting to investigate their diel display pattern, and if (...) this pattern is controlled by ambient light intensity. We also quantified individual variation in both the daily frequency and diel pattern of displays, and if such variation relates to body size, colouration and a non-sexual behaviour. Under a typical daily light regime, male guppies displayed mostly in the first hour of observation. Extending the duration of dawn-like lighting, however, resulted in an extended period of high display, demonstrating that light intensity per se is an important cue for this behaviour. These findings mirror those obtained for Trinidadian populations, suggesting that male courtship timing is likely shaped by broad, potentially generalizable features of guppy ecology. The effect of acclimation to captive conditions on male behaviour is also discussed. Whereas the temporal pattern of display appeared consistent, individuals varied in their daily display frequency, and this was correlated with variation in colour phenotype and a measure of non-sexual risk acceptance behaviour. Such relationships pose promising avenues for integrating behavioural and sensory ecology with contemporary work on behavioural syndromes and animal personality. (shrink)

The Queensland fruit fly (Bactrocera tryoni) is a generalist pest that poses a significant threat to the Australian horticultural industry. This species has become broadly established across latitudes that encompass tropical to temperate climates, and hence populations occupy diverse thermal niches. Successful expansion across this range may have been brokered by evolutionarily labile features of breeding phenology, physiology and/or behaviour. We explored the potential role of behavioural flexibility by characterizing variation in adult thermal preference using a novel gradient apparatus. Flies (...) oriented within this apparatus essentially at random in the absence of thermal variation, but sought and maintained precise positions when presented with an established gradient. Male and female flies from an ‘old’ colony (>300 generations) and a ‘young’ (F7) colony were compared. Whereas we found no difference between the sexes, flies from the young colony preferred higher temperatures (30.93 ± 7.30 °C) and had greater individual variation than their counterparts from the old colony (28.16 ± 5.63 °C). Given that B. tryoni are routinely maintained at 25 °C in the laboratory, a lower mean preference of the old colony is consistent with thermal adaptation. This is further supported by their reduced phenotypic variance, which follows as a logical consequence of stabilising selection given long-term environmental constancy. These results demonstrate that B. tryoni seek to thermoregulate via adult behaviour, and that individual temperature preference can be precisely measured using a gradient apparatus. The evidence for adaptive tuning of this behaviour has importance for both the design of captive rearing protocols as well as the prediction of invasive potential and species biogeography under future climatic variation. -/- . (shrink)

We agree with N. Sekar and D. Shillers (“Engage with animal welfare in conservation,” Policy Forum, 7 August, p. 629) that welfare considerations are an important part of the myriad values in conservation. However, more humane conservation tactics are often costlier. The money and resources spent on humane conservation practices detract from the resources available for other conservation projects. This hidden ethical cost of humane conservation must be considered when proposing new approaches to conservation management.

The concept of animal personality is based on consistent individual differences in behaviour, yet little is known about the factors responsible for such variation. Theory based on sex-specific selection predicts sexual dimorphism in personality-related traits and, in some cases, differences in trait variances between the sexes. In this study, we examined the sources of individual variation for boldness behaviour in guppies (Poecilia reticulata). We first demonstrated heightened boldness expression in males relative to females across feral wild types, artificially selected domestic (...) ‘designer’ guppies, and putative hybrids of the two. Boldness and body size covaried at the strain level but were not associated among individuals within strains. We also found high and repeatable behavioural differences among individuals (0.40 > intraclass r > 0.60) in all sex/strain groups except hybrid strain females. However, there was no evidence for the heightened inter-individual male variance anticipated for personality traits subject to certain forms of directional sex-specific selection. Domestic fish were boldest overall, and indicated the largest sex difference, which is consistent with genetic linkage between boldness and male ornamental colouration. Consistently high intrinsic variation in boldness behaviour, which extends to inbred domesticated fish, may in part underpin the invasive potential of this species. (shrink)

This paper reports on the experiences of creative practice graduate researchers and academic staff as they seek to comply with the requirements of the Australian National Statement on the Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans. The research was conducted over a two-year period as part of a wider project ‘iDARE – Developing New Approaches to Ethics and Research Integrity Training through Challenges Presented by Creative Practice Research’. The research identified the appreciation of ethics that the participants acquired through their experience (...) of institutional research ethics procedures at their university. It also revealed a disjunction between the concepts of ethics acquired through meeting institutional research ethics requirements, the notion of ethics that many researchers adopt in their own professional creative practice and the contents of professional codes of conduct. A key finding of the research was that to prepare creative practice graduates for ethical decision-making in their professional lives, research ethics training in universities should be broadened to encompass a variety of contexts and enable researchers to develop skills in ethical know-how. (shrink)

The Meeting of Aesthetics and Ethics in the Academy provides a deep understanding of the nuances of ethics in the creative environment and contributes to the critical exploration of the nature of research ethics in higher education. Written by world-renown academics with a wealth of experience in this field, this volume explores ethical challenges and responses across a range of creative practices and disciplines including design, documentary film making, journalism, socially engaged arts and the visual arts. It addresses the complex (...) negotiations that creative practice researchers in higher education undertake to ensure that the ethical compliance required does not undermine the research integrity and artistic aspirations. By presenting carefully considered challenges to accepted models of research, this book illustrates critical analysis through a variety of case studies and anecdotal examples that provide an insight into improved ethics practices and policies in higher education. This book is perfect for academics, ethics administrators, higher degree research candidates and supervisors looking to engage further in creative practice research and wanting to explore and understand its ethical oversight. (shrink)

Despite the fact that the role of learning is recognised in empirical and theoretical work on sense of agency , the nature of this learning has, rather surprisingly, received little attention. In the present study we consider the contribution of associative mechanisms to SoA. SoA can be measured quantitatively as a temporal linkage between voluntary actions and their external effects. Using an outcome blocking procedure, it was shown that training action–outcome associations under conditions of increased surprise augmented this temporal linkage. (...) Moreover, these effects of surprise were correlated with schizotypy scores, suggesting that individual differences in higher level experiences are related to associative learning and to its impact on SoA. These results are discussed in terms of models of SoA, and our understanding of disrupted SoA in certain disorders. (shrink)

This book unfolds a vision for philosophical theology centered on the practices of the care of the self, the city, and creation. Rooted in Paul’s articulation of the wisdom of the cross, and in conversation with ecological, radical, and political theologies; continental philosophy; and political ecology, it addresses the challenge of injustice and ecological catastrophe. Part one reads 1 Corinthians as an exercise in reading and writing that shapes and changes relationships and capabilities. Part two follows this alternative path for (...) theology through Derrida and Kierkegaard, and neglected trajectories in Origen, Augustine, and Luther. Along the way, reading and writing are explored as exercises that transform selves, communities, and even habitats. They are creaturely acts that can scandalize the dominant orders of consumption and competition for the ends of love and justice. This is a philosophical theology engaged with political ecology, exercises that help cultivate new creation. (shrink)

First published in 1937, this book presents itself as a philosophic dialogue, starting with the diversity of men’s ideas about Good. In the first part, it considers the creation and criteria of Good and its relation to truth, pleasure and happiness. In the second part, the book examines some kinds of Good, pointing out their defects and limitations, and suggesting the character of Good which we might hold to be perfect. The topic of the book is treated both philosophically and (...) practically making it intriguing reading. (shrink)

First published in 1937, this book presents itself as a philosophic dialogue, starting with the diversity of men’s ideas about Good. In the first part, it considers the creation and criteria of Good and its relation to truth, pleasure and happiness. In the second part, the book examines some kinds of Good, pointing out their defects and limitations, and suggesting the character of Good which we might hold to be perfect. The topic of the book is treated both philosophically and (...) practically making it intriguing reading. (shrink)

First published in 1937, this book presents itself as a philosophic dialogue, starting with the diversity of men’s ideas about Good. In the first part, it considers the creation and criteria of Good and its relation to truth, pleasure and happiness. In the second part, the book examines some kinds of Good, pointing out their defects and limitations, and suggesting the character of Good which we might hold to be perfect. The topic of the book is treated both philosophically and (...) practically making it intriguing reading. (shrink)

The notion of faith has been variously understood throughout the course of Christian intellectual history. It has been common to construe faith in epistemological terms, especially by critics of religious faith. In this paper, I argue that faith, especially faith that is had in the context of relationships, should be understood as an act of ventured trust. This is not to say that beliefs and the evidence for the truth of those beliefs are unimportant. Indeed, I argue that acting on (...) the basis of good evidence is what makes faith virtuous. (shrink)

Webber, Ruth; Jones, Kate This paper is about how three Catholic agencies carved out and adapted over time a role for themselves in assisting in the recovery after the Victorian bushfires of 2009. It tracks the process from the time the Archbishop of Melbourne commissioned Catholic Social Services Victoria to survey the bushfire affected areas and work out where there were gaps in services that the Catholic agencies could fill. A significant amount of funding was allocated to the provision (...) of services by Catholic agencies for a period of up to three years in the bushfire affected regions. This was seen as a Catholic response to an extraordinary natural disaster. This was organisationally difficult because there are in excess of sixty Catholic welfare services in Victoria and it was necessary to determine who would be best able to meet the gaps and deliver appropriate services.1 It was clear that the aim was not to replicate or compete with existing services, it was to meet real needs and to do this in a cooperative and collegial way with existing players. (shrink)

This important book on Land Education offers critical analysis of the paths forward for education on Indigenous land. This analysis discusses the necessity of centring historical and current contexts of colonization in education on and in relation to land. In addition, contributors explore the intersections of environmentalism and Indigenous rights, in part inspired by the realisation that the specifics of geography and community matter for how environmental education can be engaged. This edited volume suggests how place-based pedagogies can respond to (...) issues of colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty. Through dynamic new empirical and conceptual studies, international contributors examine settler colonialism, Indigenous cosmologies, Indigenous land rights, and language as key aspects of Land Education. The book invites readers to rethink 'pedagogies of place' from various Indigenous, postcolonial, and decolonizing perspectives. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Environmental Education Research. _. (shrink)

Mathematics is a highly specialised arena of human endeavour, one in which complex notations are invented and are subjected to complex and involved manipulations in the course of everyday work. What part do these writing practices play in mathematical communication, and how can we understand their use in the mathematical world in relation to theories of communication and cognition? To answer this, I examine in detail an excerpt from a research meeting in which communicative board-writing practices can be observed, and (...) attempt to explain the observed exchanges with reference to relevance theory (a cognitivist theory of pragmatics), in combination with the situated cognition paradigm. Successful communication in the excerpt appears well described by the notion of metacognitive acquaintance, as described in Sperber & Wilson (2015), especially when a situated view of cognition is adopted. Though this example is taken from a relatively informal face-to-face communicative situation, characteristics of such situations extend even into formal written mathematics, since even the technical terminology developed in the course of the meeting includes details that may provide readers with a kind of access to the mathematicians’ cognitive processes. (shrink)

This conversational opinion article between two parties – Kate, a disability performance scholar and Sarah, an interdisciplinary artist-scholar with lived experience of disability – considers the dancing body as redeemer in the specific case of a dancer experiencing ‘chemo fog’, or Chemotherapy-Related Cognitive Impairment (CRCI) after undergoing oncological treatments for Hodgkin Lymphoma. This work draws on Pini’s own lived experience of illness (Pini & Pini, 2019) in dialogue with Maguire-Rosier’s study of dancers with hidden impairments (Gibson & Maguire-Rosier, 2020). (...) In an exploratory account based on an interview with one another, the authors ask: when our senses and perceptions of ourselves and the world we become are obfuscated, what is the nature of the new relationship between the performing self and its absent body/mind/world? How can we shape our narrative and articulate who we are, what we are doing or where we are going, if we are moving in the ‘fog’? Our discussion reveals how Pini’s dancing body elucidates healing, while recovering an agentic perspective in her experience of alienation and frustration tied to chemo fog and related impairments. With this work we offer an original perspective on how a dancing body can resist theoretical diagnosis. (shrink)