One debate in the experimental exploration of everyday judgments about free will is whether most people are compatibilists or incompatibilists. Some recent research suggests that many people who have incompatibilist intuitions are making a mistake; as such, they do not have genuine incompatibilist intuitions. Another worry is whether most people appropriately understand determinism or confuse it with similar, but different, notions such as fatalism. In five studies we demonstrate people distinguish determinism from fatalism. While people overall make this distinction, a (...) large percentage of people still judge that a person who is fated to perform an action is both free and morally responsible for that action. Those who thought that one freely performs and is morally responsible for a fated action had much stronger compatibilist judgments. These data suggest that a substantial percentage of people have “free will no matter what” intuitions. As a result, even though many people may appear to be compatibilist.. (shrink)

Recently, scholars have argued that disclosure of personal information is an effective mechanism for building high-quality relationships. However, personal information can focus attention on differences in demographically diverse teams. In an experiment using 37 undergraduate teams, we examine how sharing personal information by ethnically similar and ethnically distinct newcomers to a team affects team perceptions, performance, and behavior. Our findings indicate that the disclosure of personal information by ethnically distinct newcomers improves team performance. However, the positive impact on team performance (...) comes at a cost to the newcomers, who are perceived as less competent by others and experience heightened social discomfort in team interactions. Ironically, what benefits the ethnically diverse team may undermine its ethnically distinct members. This study highlights how the management of diversity may sometimes require making trade-offs between individual interests and those of the team. (shrink)

Background: International developments suggest that providing clinical ethics services to help clinicians negotiate ethical issues that arise in clinical practice is beneficial and reflects best practice in promoting high ethical standards and patient-centered care. The aim of this study was to explore the needs and experiences of clinical staff members to inform the development of future clinical ethics support. Methods: Health professionals at a large regional health service completed an online survey containing questions about the frequency of ethical and legal (...) issues encountered in clinical practice, the type of situations that gave rise to the ethical and/or legal uncertainty or concern, how clinicians currently address these issues, and what support would be welcome. Results: The survey was completed by 369 staff members, including 61% with more than 10 years in the profession and 51% in nursing/midwifery. Two-thirds (66%) indicated they often considered ethical implications of their clinical decisions, and half (49%) often considered the legal implications. More than half (58%) were often/occasionally concerned about the ethically right thing to do. Patient requests for borderline treatment (47%), staff disagreements about patient care (48%), and patients declining recommended treatment (54%) were the most frequent reasons given for ethical or legal uncertainty. Sixty-nine percent of respondents indicated that the way their department addressed ethical issues could be improved and 85% agreed that there is a need for more discussion on ethical issues. The majority (82%) of respondents had encountered ethically challenging clinical situations where additional support would have helped. Common approaches to issues were discussion with colleagues/supervisor (91.1%), discussion at handover/group forums (50.8%), and consultation with guidelines/protocols (60.9%). Conclusions: A majority of clinical staff members surveyed have encountered ethically/legally challenging cases daily for which they have often sought additional advice. This study indicates that many clinical staff members would welcome some form of additional clinical ethics support including advice and education. (shrink)

The essays in this volume present the first comprehensive account of Fichte’s reception and influence in America, highlighting philosophical issues central to thinkers in the U.S., Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

In this paper I argue that the way in which we revise and change our beliefs is different from that in which we revise and change our judgments of value; this is due to the fact that judgments of value, unlike beliefs, have no truth-values. Changes of judgments of value do not answer in the same way to the restrictions that apply to changes of beliefs and that are determined by the norms that govern beliefs. I argue that, first when (...) we revise and change our beliefs, we should be in a position to suspend judgments, and when trying to remove doubts, we should try to avoid falsehood and, second when changing beliefs, we should be in a position to assign probabilities to those conjectures we are in suspense about. These two conditions apply to the case of changes of attitudes with truth-values, such as beliefs; I argue that these two characteristics do not apply to cases of changes of judgments of value.Neste artigo eu argumento que o modo pelo qual nós revisamos e mudamos nossas crenças é diferente daquele pelo qual revisamos e mudamos nossos juízos de valor; isto se dá porque juízos de valor, ao contrário de crenças, não possuem nenhum valor de verdade. Mudanças de juízos de valor não estão sujeitas às mesmas restrições que se aplicam às mudanças de crenças e que são determinadas pelas normas que governam estas. Eu argumento que, primeiro, quando revisamos e mudamos nossas crenças, nós deveríamos ser capazes de suspender juízos e, ao tentarmos suprimir dúvidas, deveríamos tentar evitar a falsidade e, segundo, ao mudarmos as crenças, nós deveríamos ser capazes de atribuir probabilidades àquelas conjecturas sobre as quais nós estamos em dúvida. Estas duas condições se aplicam aos casos de mudanças de atitudes com valores de verdade, tais como crenças; eu argumento que estas duas características não se aplicam aos casos de mudanças de juízos de valor. (shrink)

Millán Brusslan focuses upon “Life Force or the Rhodian Genius: A Tale,” an essay Humboldt wrote for Schiller’s journal, Die Horen, to demonstrate that both thinkers are propelled by a life force (Lebenskraft) to the aesthetic realm. In Concerning the Sublime (1801), Schiller’s presentation of nature takes place as the limits of our cognitive faculties (the powers of apprehension) are balanced with that which is beyond mastery, taking us to the realm of freedom, where the ideas of the sublime and (...) of beauty find their home. Millán Brusslan argues that Schiller and Humboldt define this home for beauty and the sublime in distinct ways. Humboldt’s realm of freedom is nature itself, whereas Schiller’s idea of freedom is rooted in the human subject, a subject which eclipses nature. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that brain death is death because, despite the appearance of genuine integration, the brain-dead body does not in fact possess the unity that is proper to a human organism. A brain-dead body is not a single entity, but a multitude of organs and tissues functioning in a coordinated manner with the help of artificial life support. In order to support this claim, I first lay out Hoffmann and Rosenkrantz’s ontological account of the requirements for organismal (...) unity and summarize an earlier paper in which I apply this account to the brain death debate. I then further support this ontological argument by developing an analogy between the requirements for the unity of an organism and the requirements for the unity of an orchestra. To do so, I begin by examining the role that a conductor plays in unifying a traditional orchestra, and then go on to show that the human organism functions like a traditional orchestra that relies upon a conductor for its unity. Next, I consider the conditions required to achieve orchestral unity in conductorless orchestras and show that, in contrast to simpler organisms like plants, the postnatal human organism lacks those conditions. I argue, in other words, that although conductorless orchestras do exist, the human organism is not one of them. Like a traditional orchestra without a conductor, the brain-dead body is not a unified whole. (shrink)

Researchers are studying how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to better detect, prognosticate and subgroup diseases. The idea that AI might advance medicine’s understanding of biological categories of psychiatric disorders, as well as provide better treatments, is appealing given the historical challenges with prediction, diagnosis and treatment in psychiatry. Given the power of AI to analyse vast amounts of information, some clinicians may feel obligated to align their clinical judgements with the outputs of the AI system. However, a potential (...) epistemic privileging of AI in clinical judgements may lead to unintended consequences that could negatively affect patient treatment, well-being and rights. The implications are also relevant to precision medicine, digital twin technologies and predictive analytics generally. We propose that a commitment to epistemic humility can help promote judicious clinical decision-making at the interface of big data and AI in psychiatry. (shrink)

This article aims at raising awareness about the intersection of populism and bioethics. It argues that illiberal forms of populism may have negative consequences on the evolution of bioethics as a discipline and on its practical objectives. It identifies at least seven potential negative effects: (1) The rise of populist leaders fosters “epistemological populism,” devaluing the expert and scientific perspectives on which bioethics is usually based, potentially steering policies away from evidence-based foundations. (2) The impact of “moral populism” is evident (...) in legislative prioritization of the “morality of common people,” often solicited through popular consultations on issues like abortion, drug legalization, or LGBT issues. (3) Populist distrust in autonomous governmental agencies and advisory bodies, including national bioethics commissions, can compromise expert advice, challenging both their authority and decisions. (4) Populists may erode transparency by undermining institutions responsible for it, hindering access to vital information for bioethical research. (5) “Medical populism” creates adversarial dynamics, prompting politicians to make simplistic healthcare policy decisions based on political rather than informed criteria, adversely affecting vulnerable populations. (6) Radical-right populist parties’ “welfare chauvinism” may shape healthcare policies, impacting service access and resource allocation, disproportionately affecting vulnerable groups such as migrants, but indirectly affecting the rest of the population. (7) Nationalist sentiments associated with populism may obstruct international collaborations, posing challenges for global bioethics that seeks to address ethical concerns beyond national borders. In summary, these dynamics raise significant bioethical concerns encompassing evidence-based decision-making, transparency, healthcare equity, and global collaboration. How bioethicists may respond to these challenges is discussed. (shrink)

There can be no doubt that Kant thought we should be reflective: we ought to care to make up our own minds about how things are and what is worth doing. Philosophical objections to the Kantian reflective ideal have centred on concerns about the excessive control that the reflective person is supposed to exert over her own mental life, and Kantians who feel the force of these objections have recently drawn attention to Kant’s conception of moral virtue as it is (...) developed in his later work, chiefly the Metaphysics of Morals. Melissa Merritt’s book is a distinctive contribution to this recent turn to virtue in Kant scholarship. Merritt argues that we need a clearer, and textually more comprehensive, account of what reflection is, in order not only to understand Kant’s account of virtue, but also to appreciate how it effectively rebuts long-standing objections to the Kantian reflective ideal. (shrink)

Este trabajo, inédito hasta ahora, recoge la transcripción de un encuentro que tuvo el autor con profesores de Filosofía para presentar algunas ideas desarrolladas en su libro El interés por la verdad. De acuerdo con el planteamiento que hace Millán-Puelles, dicho interés es de dos tipos: cognoscitivo y comunicativo. En estas páginas aborda el primero de ellos, a saber, el interés por conocer la verdad, y concretamente, ciertos aspectos morales de dicho interés.

Explores the challenges facing democracies in the twenty-first century In Democratic Failure, Melissa Schwartzberg and Daniel Viehoff bring together a distinguished group of interdisciplinary scholars in political science, law, and philosophy to explore the key questions and challenges facing democracies, both in the past and present, around the world. In ten timely essays, contributors examine the fascinating, centuries-old question of whether or not democracy can ever fulfill the promise of its ideals. Together, they explore lessons from the history of (...) democracy, various failures of democratic representation, and more. Ultimately, this latest installment of the NOMOS series provides thought-provoking insights into how we conceptualize, measure, and address democratic erosion in our present-day world. (shrink)

A crucial feature of Kant's critical-period writing on the sublime is its grounding in moral psychology. Whereas in the pre-critical writings, the sublime is viewed as an inherently exhausting state of mind, in the critical-period writings it is presented as one that gains strength the more it is sustained. I account for this in terms of Kantian moral psychology, and explain that, for Kant, sound moral disposition is conceived as a sublime state of mind.

I propose a unified solution to two puzzles: Ross's puzzle and free choice permission. I begin with a pair of cases from the decision theory literature illustrating the phenomenon of act dependence, where what an agent ought to do depends on what she does. The notion of permissibility distilled from these cases forms the basis for my analysis of 'may' and 'ought'. This framework is then combined with a generalization of the classical semantics for disjunction — equivalent to Boolean disjunction (...) on the diagonal, but with a different two-dimensional character — that explains the puzzling facts in terms of semantic consequence. (shrink)

Globalization generates new structures of human interdependence and vulnerability while also posing challenges for models of democracy rooted in territorially bounded states. The diverse phenomena of globalization have stimulated two relatively new branches of political theory: theoretical accounts of the possibilities of democracy beyond the state; and comparative political theory, which aims at bringing non-Western political thought into conversation with the Western traditions that remain dominant in the political theory academy. This article links these two theoretical responses to globalization by (...) showing how comparative political theory can contribute to the emergence of new global “publics” around the common fates that globalization forges across borders. Building on the pragmatist foundations of deliberative democratic theory, it makes a democratic case for comparative political theory as an architecture of translation that helps deliberative publics grow across boundaries of culture. (shrink)

El esteticismo y el moralismo son dos vicios de desmesura en los que se sobredimensionan los valores estéticos o morales en situaciones en las que están en juego otros valores que también deberían tomarse en cuenta, pero se subvaloran. Carlos Pereda sostiene que son patologías del juicio y argumenta que la literatura ha sido víctima de distintas variantes de estos vicios. Para ello, distingue entre diferentes formas de esteticismo y de moralismo, y analiza cómo algunas de ellas tienen implicaciones a (...) nivel semántico y de comunicación. Pereda propone un “modelo reflexivo” que contrarrestre el vértigo simplificador que representan estas patologías. En esta nota, examino críticamente la teoría de Pereda y propongo otros modos que puede tomar el análisis del esteticismo y del moralismo. (shrink)

Socrates wrote nothing; Plato's accounts of Socrates helped to establish western politics, ethics, and metaphysics. Both have played crucial and dramatically changing roles in western culture. In the last two centuries, the triumph of democracy has led many to side with the Athenians against a Socrates whom they were right to kill. Meanwhile the Cold War gave us polar images of Plato as both a dangerous totalitarian and an escapist intellectual. And visions of Plato have proliferated at the heart of (...) postmodern critiques of the very idea of metaphysics and politics. Plato's Progeny begins with an account of modern responses to the trial of Socrates and the controversial question of Socrates' relation to Plato. At its centre are two chapters exploring the idea of Platonic origins in and for philosophy, and of Platonic foundations for philosophical politics. Exploring unfamiliar as well as familiar invocations of Plato, Melissa Lane argues that twentieth-century ideological battles have obscured the importance of Socratic individualism, the nature of Platonic ethics, and the value of Platonic politics. Succinct and clearly written, this is an ideal guide for everyone interested in the way philosophers are still writing footnotes to Plato. (shrink)

For Kant, ‘reflection’ is a technical term with a range of senses. I focus here on the senses of reflection that come to light in Kant's account of logic, and then bring the results to bear on the distinction between ‘logical’ and ‘transcendental’ reflection that surfaces in the Amphiboly chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. Although recent commentary has followed similar cues, I suggest that it labours under a blind spot, as it neglects Kant's distinction between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ (...) general logic. The foundational text of existing interpretations is a passage in Logik Jäsche that appears to attribute to Kant the view that reflection is a mental operation involved in the generation of concepts from non-conceptual materials. I argue against the received view by attending to Kant's division between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ general logic, identifying senses of reflection proper to each, and showing that none accords well with the received view. Finally, to take account of Kant's notio.. (shrink)

In a familiar limerick attributed to Ronald Knox, the narrator asks how a “tree/should continue to be/when there’s no one about in the Quad,” and is subsequently reassured that its continuous existence is guaranteed by God’s being “always about in the Quad” observing it. This is meant to capture Berkeley’s so‐called ‘continuity argument’ for the existence of God, on which the claim that objects exist continuously over time is supposed to entail the existence of a Divine Mind that continuously perceives (...) the ideas that constitute those objects. But the continuity argument is not an uncontroversial one. For one thing, we might ask what divine perception is supposed to be like – does God perceive all of the ideas that we do, and in the same way that we do? And if so, does this mean that God perceives pain – that God suffers? For another thing, we might ask whether Berkeley is entitled to the claim that objects exist continuously to begin with. In this paper, I look at some of the problems associated with the continuity argument, and then present a reading of divine perception that attempts to prevent these problems from arising at the outset. (shrink)

Bioethics should pay more attention to globalization and some of its consequences than it has done so far. The COVID-19 pandemic would not have been possible without globalization, which has also increased some of its negative consequences. Globalization has intensified wildlife trade in the world. One of the main hypotheses about the origin of this pandemic is that it originated in illegal forms of wildlife trade in China. In the last 30 or 40 years, there have been zoonotic outbreaks at (...) a much frequent pace than before, many of those have been related to wildlife trade. Legal and illegal wildlife trade has grown in the shadow of globalization. Second, globalization has had a huge impact on the redistribution of wealth in the world. Since 1990 income inequality has increased in most high- and in many middle- and low-income countries. A country’s level of pre-COVID income inequality is the best predictor of the COVID death rate. These two issues are not unrelated. People living in poverty in LMIC tend to suffer more from infectious diseases and tend to be marginalized from the health sector. Additionally, poverty tends to reproduce the conditions under which zoonotic diseases can more easily spread. (shrink)

A central goal of the scientific endeavor is to explain phenomena. Scientists often attempt to explain a phenomenon by way of representing it in some manner—such as with mathematical equations, models, or theory—which allows for an explanation of the phenomenon under investigation. However, in developing scientific representations, scientists typically deploy simplifications and idealizations. As a result, scientific representations provide only partial, and often distorted, accounts of the phenomenon in question. Philosophers of science have analyzed the nature and function of how (...) scientists construct representations, deploy idealizations, and provide explanations. As such, our aim in this special issue is to bring these three pillars of research into closer contact with the contributions to it focusing on three main themes. -/- The first set of papers, Alan Baker (2021) and Marc Lange (2021), address mathematical explanations in science. Baker (2021), a proponent of mathematical Platonism, examines its capacity to evade the critique that the so-called Enhanced Indispensability Argument is circular. Lange (2021) examines distinctively mathematical explanations, arguing that neither Platonism nor representationalism are successful paths, and instead argues in favor of Aristotelian realism. A second theme emerging from the papers in this special issue is the impact that various conceptualizations of idealization have on our abilities to offer scientific explanations, to pro- duce an analysis of what explanations are or should be, and to understand scientific representation. Peter Tan (2021) suggests amending inferentialist accounts of scientific representation to account for inconsistent idealizations. Michael Strevens (2021) advocates a view wherein the introduction of idealizations into a model is legitimate so long as it pertains to non-difference-making factors, arguing for a logical reading of the notion of difference-making. Natalia Carrillo and Tarja Knuuttila (2022) offer an alternative account to the idealization-as-distortion view, emphasizing instead the holistic nature of idealization. -/- Finally, contributions by Carrillo and Knuuttila (2022), Terzian (2021), Valente (2021), and Rodriguez (2021) illustrate how issues regarding idealization, representation, and explanation are applied to specific contexts and across various sciences. Carrillo and Knuuttila (2022) examine conceptions of idealization in the context of models of the nerve impulse. Giulia Terzian (2021) extends the discussion of idealizations to the context of generative linguistics. Giovanni Valente (2021) examines how idealizations and evaluations of accurate representation impact capacities to explain phenomena in the context of statistical thermodynamics. Quentin Rodriguez (2021) examines the role of idealizations and analogies in various strategies to explain critical phenomena. -/- In what follows, we offer a brief overview of important philosophical issues connected to representation, idealization, and explanation in science. We then provide short summaries of the eight papers in this special issue. (shrink)

The origins of early German Romanticism and the philosophical contributions of the movement’s most important philosopher.

The application of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies in healthcare have immense potential to improve the care of patients. While there are some emerging practices surro...

On a version of consent theory that tempts many, predatory sexual relations involving significant power imbalances (e.g. between professors and students, adults and teenagers, or employers and employees) are wrong because they violate consent-centric norms. In particular, the wronged party is said to have been incapable of consenting to the predation, and the sexual wrong is located in the encounter’s nonconsensuality. Although we agree that these are sexual wrongs, we resist the idea that they are always nonconsensual. We argue instead (...) that it is possible for students, teenagers, employees, etc. to fully consent to sexually predatory encounters; denying as much renders survivors of predation vulnerable to compounding harms. Survivors face a dilemma: give up either their understanding of their experience as wrong, or their self-conception as an agent capable of consenting. We call the latter phenomenon agential demotion. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Political scientist Melissa Orlie asks what it means to live freely and responsibly when advantages are distributed disproportionately according to race, gender ...

In a world no longer centered on the West, what should political theory become? Although Western intellectual traditions continue to dominate academic journals and course syllabi in political theory, up-and-coming contributions of 'comparative political theory' are rapidly transforming the field. Deparochializing Political Theory creates a space for conversation amongst leading scholars who differ widely in their approaches to political theory. These scholars converge on the belief that we bear a collective responsibility to engage and support the transformation of political theory. (...) In these exchanges, 'deparochializing' political theory emerges as an intellectual, educational and political practice that cuts across methodological approaches. Because it is also an intergenerational project, this book presses us to re-imagine our teaching and curriculum design. Bearing the marks of its beginnings in East Asia, Deparochializing Political Theory seeks to de-center Western thought and explore the evolving tasks of political theory in an age of global modernity. (shrink)