In this paper, I argue that, on a reductionist reading of Buddhist no-self ontology, Buddhists could not have sincere ethical intentions toward persons. And if Buddhists cannot have sincere intentions toward persons, they cannot have second-personal moral reasons for acting. From this I conclude that Buddhists fail to qualify as genuine members of the moral community if, as some contemporary Anglo-American moral philosophers argue, such membership depends on an individual agent’s having the capacity to be motivated by second-personal moral reasons.

This paper offers the first philosophical analysis of a form of artificial intelligence (AI) which the author calls facial profiling technology (FPT). FPT is a type of facial analysis technology designed to predict criminal behavior based solely on facial structure. Marketed for use by law enforcement, face classifiers generated by the program can supposedly identify murderers, thieves, pedophiles, and terrorists prior to the commission of crimes. At the time of this writing, an FPT company has a contract with the United (...) States federal government. After recounting how FPT resurrects the same moral problems associated with the pseudoscience of physiognomy, the author of this manuscript develops and defends the ‘Liberal Argument Against Facial Discrimination’ (LAAFD), which concludes that government use of FPT poses a significant risk of violating the classical liberal value of equality before the law by committing unjust discrimination against groups of people whose faces happen to match FPT classifiers. A key move in the argument suggests how a future scenario that results in widespread discrimination based solely on facial structure could be as unjustified and harmful, mutatis mutandis, as similar discrimination based solely on racial background. In the final section, the author of this paper develops prima facie policy proposals designed to protect classical liberal values if FPT is to be utilized by governments in liberal democratic societies. (shrink)

This book examines spectral haunting through the philosophies of Levinas and Derrida. Arguing that moral obligation can appear terrifying to the complacent self, the text interrogates ethical responsibility in contemporary horror genres.

Thomas Ricketts has developed a powerful interpretation of Frege on judgment, truth and logic. Recently, Ricketts has modified his reading, holding that judgment is an act of knowledge-acquisition; this rules out incorrect judgment. I argue that Ricketts goes too far here. I criticize the textual basis for Ricketts's new view, and show that the interpretive problems which led him to this change can be met without such extreme measures. Thus, I defend Ricketts' earlier view against his own later modification. Along (...) the way I discuss Kant and Brentano on judgment, and I explore Fregean argument concerning the objectivity of truth. (shrink)

This essay places Paulo Freire in dialogue with a Black Radical Tradition (BRT) in three distinct yet interrelated ways. First, the paper situates the significance of Cedric’s Robinson’s articulation of a BRT while exploring how contemporary scholars are troubling his disputatious relationship with Marxist social thought. Second, the paper foregrounds Freire’s modest contributions to a BRT in his anticolonial literacy campaigns in Guinea Bissau, Africa. Extending the principles of ‘dialogical cultural action’ in the context of African struggle that Freire documented (...) in the letters compiled in Pedagogy in Process, a robust theorization of solidarity comes into sharper view. Third, the paper calls for further reinvention of Freire pointing to the ways his cogent analysis can be augmented by other racialized groups and radical traditions in solidarity with Black struggle to more explicitly confront the inherent racism and anti-Blackness fundamental to global capitalism. (shrink)

The first chapter explores the theory developed in Kripke's "Outline of a Theory of Truth." A tension in Kripke's account of the concept of truth is revealed--a conflict between two intuitions. The first intuition, called the "fixed point conception of truth," is that the whole meaning of the truth predicate is given by the formula "we may assert of a sentence that it is true iff we may assert that sentence." The second intuition, called the "thesis of the supervenience of (...) semantics," is that the interpretation of the truth predicate is determined by the interpretations of all the other non-logical constants of the language. I show that these two intuitions cannot be reconciled within the context of Kripke's theory, and I argue for the choice of the fixed point conception of truth over the principle of the supervenience of semantics. Chief among the considerations that I advance is the fact that the fixed point conception of truth yields a natural logic of truth. In the second chapter I present that logic of truth in the form of a cut-free sequent calculus. I then turn, in chapter three, to a discussion of the significance of such cut-free sequent calculi. I argue that we may view the sequent calculus introduction rules for a logical constant as giving the meaning of that constant, under certain conditions. In particular, we can see our logic of truth as providing an explication of our intuitive concept of truth which complements Kripke's original model-theoretic explication. The fourth chapter takes up some criticisms of Kripke's theory which center on the logic of truth. In addition, the general ideas developed in the first three chapters are applied in a discussion of the various schemes of three-valued logic which can be used in the development of Kripke's approach. Finally, in the last chapter, it is shown that Kripke's technical concepts, and the logical ideas developed in the second and third chapters, can be used to provide a unified account of many contexts in which paradox arises. (shrink)

Jorge Luis Borges introduces the mythical ouroboros as follows: “A third-century Greek amulet, to be found today in the British Museum, gives us an image that can better illustrate that infinitude:...

The moral complexity surrounding intervention is influenced by a broad spectrum of both ethical and practical assumptions and considerations.

A number of thinkers in recent decades have argued that, in light of the Trinity, we can see that God's being is communion. Particularly effective was John D. Zizioulas, whose Trinitarian ontology centered on communion. Some skeptical of this claim have invoked Aquinas as a source for countering an ontology of communion. I argue that, while Thomas never explicitly affirms that the divine being is communion, he can give us deep resources for reaching this conclusion. Indeed, he can ultimately lead (...) us towards a divine being which is more thoroughly a matter of communion—and towards an ontology which is more radically Trinitarian—than anything we find in Zizioulas. (shrink)

The three books reviewed in this essay, Morality Among Nations: An Evolutionary View , Righteous Realists: Political Realism, Responsible Power, and American Culture in the Nuclear Age , and Securing Europe , in some sense represent a reaction to Reagan's ideological policies.

Smith provides a summary of Walzer's work, with particular emphasis on his method of moral argument. Walzer's argument emphasizes the importance of moral judgment based on the principle of human rights rather than on utilitarian calculation.

The essay first makes some observations on the general interrelationship between the logical writings of Albert and Buridan. Second, it gives an account of a ‘semantic logical model’ for analyzing complex subject terms in some basic categorical propositions which is defended by Albert of Saxony, and briefly recounts Buridan's criticisms of that model. Finally, the essay maintains that the Albertian model is typically compatible with, and a further development of, what is called by a late-fourteenth century anonymous scholar ‘the English-Rule’ (...) but the ‘determinable/determinate’ grammatical model defended by Buridan is not. (shrink)

Post-millennial scholarship in Buddhist studies reflects increasing interest from Anglophone philosophers working within the analytic tradition.1 Within this emerging body of work the aim has been not merely to bring the conceptual toolkit of analytic philosophers to bear on topics traditionally of interest to Buddhist philosophers but also to enlist the theories that analytic philosophers have developed on core topics within epistemology and metaphysics as frameworks within which to interpret the work of major Buddhist philosophers. Two recent notable examples of (...) this interpretative enterprise are seen in the work of Siderits and Hayashi. These Anglophone commentators utilize theories... (shrink)

This dissertation aims at forging an archetectonic link between Kant's first and third Critiques within a cognitive-semantic framework. My aim is to show how the major conceptual innovations of Kant’s third Critique can be plausibly understood in terms of the theoretical aims of the first, (Critique of Pure Reason). However, unlike other cognition-oriented approaches to Kant's third Critique, which take the point of contact between the first and third Critique's to be the first Critique's Transcendental Analytic, I link these two (...) works via the first Critique's Transcendental Dialectic, specifically its discussions of the "ideas of pure reason." -/- According to Kant, the “ideas of pure reason” (IPRs) — viz., the notions of self, world-whole, and God — are innate content-bearing entities representing three types of transempirical object, none of which are possible objects of cognition. However, although Kant denies that these rather unique content-bearers can be used for purposes of “speculative cognition,” he does think that they have an internal functional value for human cognitive systems. Although under my analysis of their functional value the IPRs subserve a highest-order aim which derives from theoretical reason — namely, to ground and optimize cognitive systematicity — their directive content in fact renders their implementation(thus their form of intentionality) more characteristic of practical reason. Kant’s positive account of reason’s “interest” in and use of the IPRs exhibits a kind of cognitive pragmatism. -/- Of utmost concern to the cognitive-semantic enterprise, as I conceive it, is the development of (what might be called) a metaphysics of intentionality. A `metaphysics of intentionality', as I use the term, refers to a coherent set of postulative propositional cognitions (or, at any rate, content-bearing entities) implemented, first, for the sake of rationally explaining the phenomenological unity and object-directed character of our perceptual states and, second, to explain why the objects represented in such states are, or must be, law-governed and thus necessarily amenable to scientific investigation. On my view, the discussions in Kant’s third Critique nontrivially contribute to the development of a metaphysics of intentionality and thus to the larger cognitive-semantic enterprise of Kant's first Critique, and it is this link that lends Kant's third Critique a cognitive significance. -/- . (shrink)

This little book which is a sequel to "Cartesianism" is not written for professional philosophers. Its less ambitious purpose is to initiate undergraduate students of Catholic Universities and Colleges, who are engaged in the study of scholastic philosophy, into a knowledge of the fundamental principles of those numerous systems that have contributed to the chaos of modern thought from the time of Descartes to the present day.

Integrating large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 into medical ethics is a novel concept, and understanding the effectiveness of these models in aiding ethicists with decision-making can have significant implications for the healthcare sector. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of GPT-4 in responding to complex medical ethical vignettes and to gauge its utility and limitations for aiding medical ethicists. Using a mixed-methods, cross-sectional survey approach, a panel of six ethicists assessed LLM-generated responses to eight (...) ethical vignettes.The main outcomes measured were relevance, reasoning, depth, technical and non-technical clarity, as well as acceptability of GPT-4’s responses. The readability of the responses was also assessed. Of the six metrics evaluating the effectiveness of GPT-4’s responses, the overall mean score was 4.1/5. GPT-4 was rated highest in providing technical (4.7/5) and non-technical clarity (4.4/5), whereas the lowest rated metrics were depth (3.8/5) and acceptability (3.8/5). There was poor-to-moderate inter-rater reliability characterised by an intraclass coefficient of 0.54 (95% CI: 0.30 to 0.71). Based on panellist feedback, GPT-4 was able to identify and articulate key ethical issues but struggled to appreciate the nuanced aspects of ethical dilemmas and misapplied certain moral principles.This study reveals limitations in the ability of GPT-4 to appreciate the depth and nuanced acceptability of real-world ethical dilemmas, particularly those that require a thorough understanding of relational complexities and context-specific values. Ongoing evaluation of LLM capabilities within medical ethics remains paramount, and further refinement is needed before it can be used effectively in clinical settings. (shrink)

This study uses evidence from the press and from the parliamentary record to examine the extent to which, and the ways in which, people involved in the public debate over laboratory experiments on human embryos in Britain during the 1980s drew on images from science fiction. It is shown that negative images from science fiction were used in the debate, but that these images could be transformed into resources for defending, as well as attacking, this form of scientific endeavor. It (...) is also shown that other fictional structures were present in the debate and that both sides relied heavily on fictional components to justify their competing appraisals of embryo research. (shrink)

The history of evolutionary thought / Michael Ruse -- The origin of life / Jeffrey L. Bada and Antonio Lazcano -- Paleontology and the history of life / Michael Benton -- Adaptation / Joseph Travis and David N. Reznick -- Molecular evolution / Francisco J. Ayala -- Evolution of the genome / Brian Charlesworth and Deborah Charlesworth -- The pattern and process of speciation / Margaret B. Ptacek and Shala J. Hankison -- Evolution and development / Gregory (...) A. Wray -- Social behavior and sociobiology / Daniel J. Rubenstein -- Human evolution / Henry M. McHenry -- Evolutionary biology of disease and Darwinian medicine / Michael F. Antolin -- Beyond the Darwinian paradigm : understanding biological forms / Brian Goodwin -- Philosophy of evolutionary thought / Kim Sterelny -- Evolution and society / Manfred D. Laubichler and Jane Maienschein -- Evolution and religion / David N. Livingstone -- American antievolutionism : retrospect and prospect / Eugenie C. Scott. (shrink)

Publications in Science, Technology, & Human Values need to have an author. For this reason, I have put my name at the head of this text. I have also provided the title.1 But I must emphasize that the words below are not mine. I have done nothing more, in this case, than transcribe an audio-tape recording2 that has recently come into my possession and submit it to the journal's editor. This latter step seemed to me to be appropriate in view (...) of the tape's unique character. If you choose to read on, it will soon become clear why I came to believe that wider distribution was essential. It is no exaggeration, I believe, to suggest that the publication of this transcript may mark a turning-point in human history. As a result, there are likely to be many enquiries about its authenticity. Let me, therefore, state that I have been given conclusive proof that the tape is genuine. I cannot reveal more in this public forum. However, toward the end of the tape, the speaker throws some light on these matters. The tape seems to have been recorded at some kind of academic confer ence. On the original version, there is background noise and evidence of a live audience. This transcription presents only the words of the main speaker. The speaker is female. (shrink)

Throughout the 1980s, there was considerable public discussion in Britain about the legitimacy of scientific research upon human embryos and about the advisability of seeking to develop new science-based techniques that would further extend medical control over human reproduction. In 1990, legislation was passed permitting such research, but at the same time restricting its scope and specifying how the technologies of assisted reproduction were to be implemented. The present study examines how women contributed to, and were represented in, the final (...) phase of parliamentary debate over the proposed legislation. (shrink)

Discussion of the ethics of memory modification technologies has often focused on questions about the limits of their permissibility. In the current paper, I focus primarily on a different issue: when is it rational to prefer MMTs to alternative interventions? My conclusion is that these conditions are rare. The reason stems from considerations of autonomy. When compared with other interventions, MMTs do a particularly poor job at promoting the autonomy of their users. If this conclusion is true, moreover, it provides (...) a fresh perspective on debates about the permissibility of MMTs. On the one hand, for those who would limit the use of MMTs to a narrow range of circumstances, the conclusion that MMTs are rarely preferable gives them further reason to eye MMTs with suspicion. On the other hand, for those who view MMTs as permissible in a wide range of circumstances, the conclusion may deflate their endorsement. (shrink)

Abstract:In this essay, I explore the recent cultural and epistemological turns in sociological music education research. Changes in the economy—and most specifically in the modes of production aided by changes in technology—provide a frame for understanding the cultural and epistemological turns within music education research in sociology. The economy has gone through a process of “dematerialization,” privileging non-material aspects—like mental conceptions of the world, symbols, culture, and social processes—over material considerations. Similarly, sociological research in music education, in its epistemological and (...) cultural turns, has gone through a process of dematerialization where symbols, culture, and mental conceptions have become the frames and emphases within music education. This is influenced by “the postmodern condition” where ideas and “culture” have become seats of power. After a brief introduction, I review dialectics, moving to the subcategory dialectical materialism which has come to signify Marx’s contribution to dialectics. Next, I apply dialectical materialism to the cultural and epistemological turns in sociological music education research, tracing changes in the economy and their influence over emphases in sociological research in music education. Finally, I pose some questions that may inform future philosophical and sociological research and practice in music education. (shrink)

Social exclusion influences how expressions are perceived and the tendency of the perceiver to mimic them. However, less is known about social exclusion’s effect on one’s own facial expressions. The aim of the present study was to identify the effects of social exclusion on Duchenne smiling behaviour, defined as activity of both zygomaticus major and the orbicularis oculi muscles. Utilising a within-subject’s design, participants took part in the Cyberball Task in which they were both included and excluded while facial electromyography (...) was measured. We found that during the active experience of social exclusion, participants showed greater orbicularis oculi activation when compared to the social inclusion condition. Further, we found that across both conditions, participants showed greater zygomaticus major muscle activation the longer they engaged in the Cyberball Task. Order of condition also mattered, with those who experienced social exclusion before social inclusion showing the greatest overall muscle activation. These results are consistent with an affiliative function of smiling, particularly as social exclusion engaged activation of muscles associated with a Duchenne smile. (shrink)

The ethics of betel nut use in Taiwan are examined in this article. It first presents scientific facts about the betel quid, its consumption and negative health consequences and then analyses the cultural background and economic factors contributing to its popularity in Asia. Governmental and institutional attempts to curb betel nut cultivation, distribution and sales are also described. Finally, the bioethical implications of this often ignored subject are considered.

The idea that payment for research participation can be coercive appears widespread among research ethics committee members, researchers, and regulatory bodies. Yet analysis of the concept of coercion by philosophers and bioethicists has mostly concluded that payment does not coerce, because coercion necessarily involves threats, not offers. In this article we aim to resolve this disagreement by distinguishing between two distinct but overlapping concepts of coercion. Consent-undermining coercion marks out certain actions as impermissible and certain agreements as unenforceable. By contrast, (...) coercion as subjection indicates a way in which someone’s interests can be partially set back in virtue of being subject to another’s foreign will. While offers of payment do not normally constitute consent-undermining coercion, they do sometimes constitute coercion as subjection. We offer an analysis of coercion as subjection and propose three possible practical responses to worries about the coerciveness of payment. (shrink)

Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This research, however, cannot determine whether the uniformity results from universal patterns of human behavior or from the limited cultural variation available among the university students used in virtually all prior experimental work. To address this, we undertook a cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games in a range of (...) small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. We found, first, that the canonical model – based on self-interest – fails in all of the societies studied. Second, our data reveal substantially more behavioral variability across social groups than has been found in previous research. Third, group-level differences in economic organization and the structure of social interactions explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies: the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation in everyday life, the greater the level of prosociality expressed in experimental games. Fourth, the available individual-level economic and demographic variables do not consistently explain game behavior, either within or across groups. Fifth, in many cases experimental play appears to reflect the common interactional patterns of everyday life. Key Words: altruism; cooperation; cross-cultural research; experimental economics; game theory; ultimatum game; public goods game; self-interest. (shrink)

In 1903 the Cody Road opened, leading travelers from Cody, Wyoming, to Yellowstone National Park. Cheyenne photographer J. E. Stimson traveled the route during its first week in existence, documenting the road for the state of Wyoming's contribution to the 1904 World's Fair. His images of now-famous landmarks like Cedar Mountain, the Shoshone River, the Holy City, Chimney Rock, Sylvan Pass, and Sylvan Lake are some of the earliest existing photographs of the route. In 2008, 105 years later, Michael (...) Amundson traveled the same road, carefully duplicating Stimson's iconic original photographs. In Passage to Wonderland, these images are paired side by side and accompanied by a detailed explanation of the land and history depicted. Amundson examines the physical changes along "the most scenic fifty miles in America" and explores the cultural and natural history behind them. This careful analysis of the paired images make Passage to Wonderland more than a "then and now" photography book--it is a unique exploration of the interconnectedness between the Old West and the New West. It will be a wonderful companion for those touring the Cody Road as well as those armchair tourists who can follow the road on Google Earth using the provided GPS coordinates. The University Press of Colorado gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University toward the publication of this book. (shrink)

According to Macklin & Natanson (2019), one reason unusual practices can be misidentified as usual care is that “instead of using pertinent, accurate information describing usual care, investigators may rely on the opinion of ‘experts’ in the field, whose information may be out of date or otherwise inaccurate." We find Macklin & Natanson’s insights about misattributed expertise crucial, and suggest their discussion can be elucidated further by characterizing it in the context of Ballantyne (2018)’s recent exploration of what he calls (...) epistemic trespassing. What insights can be drawn from this characterization? In this commentary, we highlight two. First, the characterization elucidates the serious consequences that can result from epistemic trespassing. Second, the characterization of Macklin & Natanson’s cases as instances of epistemic trespassing offers us a potential roadmap for overcoming some of the problems the authors identify. (shrink)