This paper is concerned with the paradox of decrease. Its aim is to defend the answer to this puzzle that was propounded by its originator, namely, the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus. The main trouble with this answer to the paradox is that it has the seemingly problematic implication that a material thing could perish due merely to extrinsic change. It follows that in order to defend Chrysippus’ answer to the paradox, one has to explain how it could be that Theon (...) is destroyed by the amputation without changing intrinsically. In this paper, I shall answer this challenge by appealing to the broadly Aristotelian idea that at least some of the proper parts of a material substance are ontologically dependent on that substance. I will also appeal to this idea in order to offer a new solution to the structurally similar paradox of increase. In this way, we will end up with a unified solution to two structurally similar paradoxes. (shrink)

The paradox of material implication has remained unresolved since antiquity because it was believed that the nature of implication was entailment. The article shows that this nature is opposition and therefore the name "implication" should be replaced with the name "competition". A solution to the paradox is provided along with appropriate changes in nomenclature, the addition of connectives and the postulate that the biconditional take over the role of the previous implication. In addition, changes to the (...) nomenclature of logic gates reflecting the competition in electronics are proposed. (shrink)

Here I present a new objection to the material or "hook" analysis of indicative conditionals - the thesis that an indicative conditional 'If A then C' has the truth-conditions of the so-called material conditional - based on Liar-like reasoning. This objection seems invulnerable to any Grice-Lewis-Jackson-inspired pragmatic rejoinder.

This paper resolves a paradox concerning colour constancy. On the one hand, our intuitive, pre-theoretical concept holds that colour constancy involves invariance in the perceived colours of surfaces under changes in illumination. On the other, there is a robust scientific consensus that colour constancy can persist in cerebral achromatopsia, a profound impairment in the ability to perceive colours. The first stage of the solution advocates pluralism about our colour constancy capacities. The second details the close relationship between colour constancy and (...) contrast. The third argues that achromatopsics retain a basic type of colour constancy associated with invariants in contrast processing. The fourth suggests that one person-level, conscious upshot of such processing is the visual awareness of chromatic contrasts ‘at’ the edges of surfaces, implicating the ‘colour for form’ perceptual function. This primitive type of constancy sheds new light on our most basic perceptual capacities, which mark the lower borders of representational mind. (shrink)

As the title of this paper indicates, I’m going to discuss what we ought to do in situations where our actions affect future generations. More specifically, I shall focus on the moral problems raised by cases where our actions affect who’s going to live, their number and their well being. I’ll start, however, with population axiology. Most discussion in population ethics has concentrated on how to evaluate populations in regard to their goodness, that is, how to order populations by the (...) relations “is better than” and “is as good as”. This field has been riddled with “paradoxes” which purport to show that our considered beliefs are inconsistent in cases where the number of people and their welfare varies. Derek Parfit’s Mere Addition Paradox is a case in point. The main question of my paper concerns the implication of such axiological paradoxes for normative theories. Do the axiological paradoxes translate into paradoxes for normative theories or will they, as some believe, disappear if we switch to a normative framework? (shrink)

The paradox of the Aged Care Act 1997: the marginalisation of nursing discourse This paper examines the marginalisation of nursing discourse, which followed the enactment of the Aged Care Act 1997. This neo‐reform period in aged care, dominated by theories of economic rationalism, enshrined legislation based upon market principles and by implication, the provision of care at the cheapest possible price. This paper exposes some of the gaps in the neo‐reform period and challenges the assertion that the amalgamation of (...) nursing homes and hostels in such an environment can provide better quality of care and life for residents. It argues that this amalgamation entails a transformation towards a social model of care and fails to address the professional healthcare needs of the acutely sick and complex extreme old person and makes evident new gaps in the provision of aged care services. The paper proceeds to present strategies where the future for nursing practice in aged care necessarily involves a judicious balancing of individual cases alongside economic prescriptions of care and ever‐changing public policy initiatives. It concludes that this can be achieved through a more interactive public, professional and advocacy discourse. The methodology involves extensive analysis of public documents including media, academic journals, government reports and interviews with recognised leaders in the field of aged care. The study utilises a critical interpretative framework consistent with the logic of Michel Foucault. (shrink)

The resolution of the Langevin paradox for an out-and-return journey gives rise to a result which appears to violate the underlying basis of special relativity. The resolution of this second paradox, due to G. Builder, leads to a physically-intelligible interpretation of Einstein's theory and reconciles it with the cosmologically-based fundamental reference frame revealed by modern astronomy.

Ryan Wasserman explores a range of fascinating puzzles raised by the possibility of time travel, with entertaining examples from physics, science fiction, and popular culture, and he draws out their implications for our understanding of time, tense, freedom, fatalism, causation, counterfactuals, laws of nature, persistence, change, and mereology.

In this paper, I identify and provide an explanation for a heretofore unrecognized puzzle in feminist aesthetics and the philosophy of horror. Many horror movie fans have an aversion to rape scenes. This is puzzling because genre fans are not equally bothered by the depiction of other types of violence and cruelty. I argue that we can make sense of this selective aversion by appeal to the notion of ‘distance’, which philosophers of horror use to explain why people are attracted (...) to horror movies in the first place. When we consume horror, we ‘distance’ ourselves from the scary things depicted, which allows other mechanisms to kick in that lead to overall enjoyment. I argue that ‘distance’ often collapses when viewers are confronted with depictions of rape because rape is common in real life and a gendered form of violence that is implicated in social injustice. (shrink)

It can be shown by means of a paradox that, given the Principle of Sufficient Reason, there is no conjunction of all contingent truths. The question is, or ought to be, how to interpret that result: _Quid sibi velit?_ A celebrated argument against PSR due to Peter van Inwagen and Jonathan Bennett in effect interprets the result to mean that PSR entails that there are no contingent truths. But reflection on parallels in philosophy of mathematics shows it can equally be (...) interpreted either as a proof that there are "too many" contingent truths to combine in a single conjunction or as a proof that the concept _contingent truth_ is indefinitely extensible and there is no such thing as "all contingent truths." Either interpretation would reconcile PSR with contingent truth, but the natural rationales of those interpretations are at odds. This essay argues that the second interpretation is a more satisfactory explanation of why, if PSR is true, there should be no conjunction of all contingent truths. This sheds new light on the nature of the explanatory demand embedded in PSR and uncovers a number of surprising implications for the commitments of rationalism. (shrink)

When may someone complain, morally? And what, if any, is the relationship between legitimate moral complaint and one's own behaviour? I point out a perplexity about a certain class of moral complaints. Two very different conceptions of moral complaint seem to be operating, and they often have contrary implications. Moreover, both seem intuitively compelling. This is theoretically and practically troubling, but has not been sufficiently noticed. The Paradox of Moral Complaint seems to point to an inherent difficulty in our reflective (...) moral intuitions. Given the legislative nature of moral agency, the plausible limitations upon reasonable moral complaint seem to contradict the inviolability of central moral constraints and the complaints they allow. In the sort of cases under discussion, morality seems at once both to insist upon the possibility of moral complaint, and to deny it. (Published Online August 21 2006). (shrink)

Many of the psychological studies carried out within virtual environments are motivated by the idea that virtual research findings are generalizable to the non-virtual world. This idea is vulnerable to the paradox of fiction, which questions whether it is possible to express genuine emotion toward a character (or event) known to be fictitious. As many of these virtual studies are designed to elicit, broadly speaking, emotional responses through interactions with fictional characters (avatars) or objects/places, the issue raised by the paradox (...) seems particularly apt. This paper assesses the extent to which the paradox of fiction constitutes a legitimate challenge to psychological research within virtual environments, and argues that any alleged conflict is in fact a product of an overly simplistic view of emotions which a more complete understanding resolves. Moreover, through a more detailed analysis of why the paradox cannot be sustained, one finds justification for the claim that emotions elicited through interactions with virtual (fictitious) objects/events are valid. However, their generalizability to the non-virtual world must still be treated with caution. (shrink)

Two critical questions spun the web of the Turing test debate. First, can an appropriately programmed machine pass the Turing test? Second, is passing the test by such a machine, ipso facto, considered proof that it is intelligent and hence “minded”? While the first question is technological, the second is purely philosophical. Focusing on the second question, this article interrogates the implication of John Searle’s Chinese room denial of machine intelligence. The thrust of Searle’s argument is that a machine (...) lacks intentionality, so it can only simulate intelligence, not duplicate it. In his thinking, whatever a machine inputs to generate an intelligent output has no bearing on humanlike intelligence. Incidentally, Searle did not classify such a machine’s output as simulated and non-intelligent, nor did he explain how this output is actualised with mere simulation. The connection between “unintelligent machine’s input” and “intelligent machine’s output” is at this point shrouded in mystery. Consequently, the more Searle attempts a denial of machine intelligence in the Chinese room, the more he mystifies it. Using the method of critical analysis, this article advances three fundamental arguments to prove a machines’ obscurity in the Chinese room thought experiment. On the ground of Searle’s conviction, the first argument queries the absurdity in bypassing intentionality to produce intelligence; the second points out the obfuscation in generating intelligence with mere computation, and the third draws attention to the dilemma of classifying a machine’s output either as real-life intelligent behaviour or simulated intelligent behaviour. (shrink)

It is shown that the paradoxes of confirmation are closely linked to the paradoxes of material implication and that they can be avoided by formulating natural laws in terms of a genuine if-Connective rather than the material conditional. However, Natural laws so expressed are not confirmed by simple conjunctions. The question then is whether the common assumption that simple conjunctions do confirm universal generalizations is correct. The answer given is that it is not. In particular, A confirming (...) proposition of the form 'this is a black raven' is not equivalent to 'this is a raven and this is black'. (shrink)

An argument against Parfit's view (in his chapter of Reasons and Persons on five mistakes in moral mathematics) that, rather than maximizing the difference one makes as an individual, one should join that group whose members together make the most positive difference in cases involving imperceptible benefits. It is shown how Parfit's defence of this view has the problematic implication either (1) that each outcome is less beneficial than itself or (2) that "less beneficial than" is not transitive.

I discuss paradoxes of implication in the setting of a proof-conditional theory of meaning for logical constants. I argue that a proper logic of implication should be not only relevant, but also constructive and nonmonotonic. This leads me to select as a plausible candidate LL, a fragment of linear logic that differs from R in that it rejects both contraction and distribution.

Women are underrepresented in the upper echelons of management in most countries. Despite the effectiveness of identity conscious initiatives for increasing the proportion of women, many organizations have been reluctant to implement such initiatives because potential employees may perceive them negatively. Given the increasing competition for labor, attracting talent is relevant for the long-term success of organizations. In this study, we used an experimental design to examine the effects of identity blind and identity conscious gender diversity initiatives on people’s pursuit (...) intentions toward organizations using them. We used counterfactual thinking, derived from fairness theory, as a guiding framework for our hypothesis development and investigated the moderating influence of a forthcoming government-mandated gender quota as well as individual characteristics. Participants reviewed statements regarding workplace diversity initiatives and rated either the initiatives’ effectiveness or indicated their intentions to pursue employment with organizations using them. Of those rating pursuit intentions, half were informed that the country in which they were conducting their job search was about to implement gender quotas. Results indicated a diversity management paradox such that initiatives perceived as more effective made organizations using them less attractive as employers. However, these negative perceptions were mitigated by a government-mandated quota, and also lower among women. Implications for the study and practice of diversity are discussed. (shrink)

Most arguments against the possibility of time travel use the same old, familiar objection: If I could travel back in time, then I could kill my earlier (i.e. younger) self. Since I do exist such an action would result in a contradiction. Therefore time travel is impossible. This is a statement of the Principal Paradox of Time Travel. Some philosophers have argued that such actions as attempting to kill one’s earlier self would always fail and that there is nothing especially (...) strange about such failures. Despite these arguments, the problem generally is not viewed as being solved in favour of time travel. The above objection to time travel is also used to dismiss a particular class of cosmological models as being unphysical. This paper provides a solution to the Principal Paradox by exploring both the logical and causal implications of time travel. (shrink)

Any religion has an ethical component. Thus, the examination of ethical problems is very important for religious studies. Consequentialism is an ethical doctrine according to which a fact is good only if it has good consequences. In order to avoid infinite regression, there is the need for a moral foundation in conformity with the criterion of goodness. The consequentialists proposed various criteria for goodness, such as pleasure, happiness or utility. Any fact will be judged as good only if its consequences (...) belong to the moral basis. The correctness of ethical judgments depends on the analysis of consequence relations. This study takes into account material and strict implication as representations of consequence. Both of them generate ethical paradoxes. If consequence is represented by material implication, according to the Manichean ethics, a fact is either good or bad; there are no neutral ethical facts. If consequence is analyzed by strict implication, the necessary facts will not have a moral value. The present study is to suggest an original solution to these paradoxes. (shrink)

I present a puzzle which seems simple, but is found to have interesting implications for confirmation. Its dissolution also helps us to throw light on the relationship between first- and second-order probabilities construed as rational degrees of belief.

Moore's paradox is a paradox in which certain kinds of belief or assertion, such as a belief that ?it is raining and I do not believe that it is raining?, are irrational despite involving no obvious contradiction in what is believed. But is there a parallel paradox involving other kinds of attitude, in particular desire? I argue that certain kinds of desire would be irrational to have for similar, distinctive reasons that having Moorean beliefs would be irrational to have. Hence, (...) I argue that such desires, a desire that ?one have a particular desire that was frustrated? or a desire that ?some state of affairs obtain about which one was indifferent?, are a parallel Moorean paradox of desire. I further argue that this analogous paradox has implications for practical reasoning, in particular by presenting a problem for instrumentalism about the objects of desire. (shrink)

Two aspects of mothering—using drugs during pregnancy and giving up the rearing of one's children—are the focus of this analysis of 58 addicted Chicana mothers who spent their adolescent years in barrio gangs. From a traditional stance, such women were doubly deviant, since they violated gender-role prescriptions by joining a barrio gang and by becoming involved in heroin and street life. Half of these women added to this deviance by using heroin during pregnancy, and 40 percent relinquished at least one (...) of their children. This article explores what distinguishes these classically “bad mothers” from addicts who maintain some degree of conventionality in their mothering. We found that Mexican gender-role traditionalism is not the only influence on these women. Many came from cholo or underclass families with a tradition of street involvement. In addition, their involvement in gang and heroin worlds may influence their behavior as mothers. We found that women who used drugs during pregnancy were more likely than abstainers to be cholas and to reject traditional gender-role values. However, those who gave up their children were more likely than those who kept their children to be from traditional families. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on deviance and the underclass among Hispanic women. (shrink)

There is a paradox, or self-defeating supposition in the core of constructionism, for it would appear that any attempt to resolve a dispute in historical interpretation within a convention of self-contained criteria of confirmation by appealing to justificatory criteria outside the convention -to wit, the theory of constructionism -is self-defeating. Through the theoretical consideration of historians isolated in a vat, following Hilary Putnam's metaphor, it becomes clear that the vat language of the historians does not have the possibility of referring, (...) intrinsically or extrinsically, to anything external. The implications of the vat metaphor for an understanding of historical inquiry are: 1) we need to recognize and insist upon different levels of abstraction both in historical writing and in the justification of its claims; 2) applied to history, the set paradox reveals the need to recognize that at the most abstract level of consideration we encounter inescapable incoherence; and 3) we need to recognize that in some important sense reference must be completed in the world, regardless of the problems in characterizing this sense philosophically. (shrink)

ABSTRACT At first glance, a military life and practising Buddhism may seem like two pursuits at odds. Buddhism sets the moral bar very high and nowhere in its teachings can one find any evidence in support of violence, whether in word, thought or deed. One could therefore argue that Buddhism and the military are two strange bedfellows, and some may find it difficult to conceive of serving in the military whilst adhering to the ethos, values and standards of Buddhism. This (...) article challenges this popular myth and resolves this apparent paradox between Buddhism and the military. By drawing on canonical Buddhist teachings as well as voices from the Sangha and Buddhist military practitioners, we demystify the ‘Buddhist soldier’ and clear common misconceptions regarding: the fundamental teachings of ahiṃsā, karma and skilful (kusala) action; Buddhist teachings being equated to pacifism; the duty of soldiers and the State to protect; soldiering as a ‘right livelihood’; and the karmic implications of military professions. Using international humanitarian law, the body of law regulating the conduct of war, as a natural reference point, we explore what guidance Buddhist teachings provide to soldiers and how they potentially can contribute towards reducing suffering in war, including through application in military training. Buddhism endorses the concept of maintaining disciplined, virtuous and skilled military forces to protect what is good. At all times one needs to aim at not causing suffering to others, but never at the expense of preventing even worse suffering. (shrink)

What fourth dimension of a four-dimensional space-time continuum. I propose to develop some of the commonly held implications of this view, and to show that they involve a contradiction. Hence whatever time is, it cannot be the thing corresponding to this particular theory.

This dissertation opens, or perhaps re-opens, a dialogue between the work of Emmanuel Levinas and that of Gabriel Marcel. These two thinkers, each in his own way a philosopher of "the other," both provide us with descriptions of the intersubjective relationship. However, the remarkable similarity of these descriptions is matched by a frustrating incompatibility. The remarkable similarity manifests itself in the emphasis both philosophies place on the unique and in some sense inviolable position of the other person with respect to (...) the self and, further, in advocating the service of the other by the self. The incompatibility is the result of two entirely different, seemingly contradictory, accounts of the nature of the other person: Levinas insists the other person is absolutely other, while Marcel maintains this otherness in only relative. ;Following a short introduction, chapters two and three provide a foundation for the later chapters by offering a summary of the work of Levinas and Marcel respectively. Chapters four and five look critically at Marcel and Levinas in turn, identifying problems or ambiguities in their thought, and investigate the extent to which the points of opposition between them are insurmountable obstacles to a reconciliation. These chapters examine both the concrete and pragmatic implications of each thinker's philosophy and the transcendental positions that condition these implications. Chapter six, based on the preceding four chapters, attempts to ascertain why what appear to be responses to similar callings have resulted in dissimilar philosophies. The obstacle that ultimately prevents the harmonization of these two philosophies is a different understanding of "otherness," which is itself in no small part the result of different understandings of how one relates to God. Finally, the concluding chapter offers some brief thoughts on how this dialogue might proceed from here, given the similar inspiration, the parallel exposition and, yet, the fundamental incompatibility of these two thinkers. (shrink)

How are individuals affected by their own self-interested unethical behavior? Although self-interested unethical behavior commonly occurs as people attempt to advantage themselves, we argue that this unethical behavior can have deleterious implications for individuals and their social relationships. We propose that engaging in self-interested unethical behavior is positively related to state paranoia—an aversive psychological state. In turn, the social cognitive biases underlying state paranoia can prompt people to misjudge the potential for social threat. This may motivate them to curtail coworker-directed (...) affiliative behavior, thereby inadvertently undermining their social relationships. Our predictions were supported across four studies, including a behavioral study in a controlled environment, a recall study, a field survey in a single organization, and a two-wave survey. Theoretical and practical implications include highlighting the importance of understanding the personal and social consequences of self-interested unethical behavior as well as the impact of state paranoia in the workplace. (shrink)

Discussions of the implications of sexual reproduction have appeared throughout the history of evolutionary biology, from Darwin to Weismann, Fisher, Muller, Maynard Smith, and Williams. The latest of these appearances highlighted an evolutionary paradox that had previously been overlooked. In many animal and plant species reproduction is obligately sexual and also half the offspring are male, yet the males contribute nothing but genes to reproduction. If asexual mutants of such a species were to produce as many asexual offspring on average (...) as sexual females in that species produce daughters and sons, the growth rate of their population would be twice as large. Whereas half the offspring of sexual females are noncontributory males, all the offspring of such an asexual mutant would contribute to growth rate. Nevertheless, sexual reproduction prevails in most species and is not lost evolutionarily. (shrink)

The paper argues that metaphysical thought, or thought in whose context our general framework of sense is under scrutiny, involves, legitimates, and requires a variety of informal analogues of the ‘true contradictions’ supported in some paraconsistent formal logics. These are what we can call informal ‘legitimate logical inadequacies’. These paradoxical logical structures also occur in deeply pluralist contexts, where more than one, conflicting general framework for sense is relevant. The paper argues further that these legitimate logical inadequacies are real or (...) inherent in sense itself rather than conventional, shows how they can feature in argumentative practice in these metaphysical and pluralist contexts, and discusses some of their implications for metaphysical truth and for philosophical inquiry and disagreement. (shrink)

In this dissertation I examine the sceptical problem of rule following presented by Saul Kripke in his interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein's later works: Do any facts determine what rule we were following in our apparently rule-following activities such as the use of language? I distinguish three ways of understanding this question--modest scepticism, radical scepticism, and metascepticism--and address them in Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the dissertation, respectively. ;Part 1 discusses modest scepticism, which asserts that no finite facts about humans (...) can determine rules which have infinitely many possible applications. I resolve this apparent conflict between the finite and the infinite by incorporating the recursiveness of rule applications into the theory of rules. ;Part 2 discusses radical scepticism, which asserts that no facts determine what normative rules we were following. I show first that this challenge has a wider scope than the Humean Thesis of the underivability of ought from is, and that as a result, the radical sceptic can refute attitudinal theories of norms, which have been considered a possible response to the Humean challenge. I then propose a solution to radical scepticism which explains our practice and beliefs about normative rules without assuming the existence of rule-determining facts. Unlike the solution Kripke ascribes to Wittgenstein, it offers no justification of our practice and beliefs about normative rules. Some methodological implications of the solution are also explored. ;Part 3 discusses metascepticism about rule following, whose challenge extends to the rules used for the very discussion of rule following. I examine first whether such a challenge is self-undermining in that it makes the sceptical argument itself impossible. I propose an extended form of reductio ad absurdum argument by which the metasceptic can challenge rules in general, including those used in the sceptical argument. Then I argue that the solution to radical scepticism given in Part 2 survives metascepticism as well. (shrink)

본 연구는 논리학 및 수리논리학의 토대 개념인 동일성 원리에 대한 역사적인 논쟁들의 교육학적 함의를 도출하는 것이다. 이때 필자가 사용할 중심 방법은 구조-구성주의 인식론이다. 따라서 필자는 구조-구성주의 인식론의 관점에서 동일성 원리에 대한 핵심 논쟁들을 역사-비판적으로 재구성함으로써, 필자가 지속적으로 논변해 온 구조-구성주의 교수학습이론의 확고한 토대를 제공하고자 한다. 이를 위해 본고는 동일성 원리에 대한 역사발생학적 탐구와 정신발생학적 탐구를 종합한다. 구체적인 내용은 피아제의 발생학적 인식론의 관점에서 논리적 개념들 및 공리화에 대한 프레게-러셀의 선험주의적 논리주의와 비트겐슈타인의 회의론적 유명론을 동시에 비판하면서, 구조-구성주의 인식론 및 이것의 교육학적 함의를 (...) 도출하는 것이다. 본고의 최종 결론은 이것이다. 논리적 법칙 또는 공리들은 초인적인 논리학자의 선험적인 직관에 의해서 구성된 것도 아니고, 유명론적 입장의 순수 기호게임으로 환원되는 것도 아니라, 정신 발달과 함께 발달되는 주체와 대상의 상호작용의 결과물, 즉 조작적 구조들의 형식화에 근거한다. 따라서 논리학적 개념들뿐만 아니라, 모든 일반적인 개념을 교육할 때, 교사는 실체와 술어, 개념과 판단, 판단과 추론 사이에 성립되는 미시적 상호의존성과 순환성뿐만 아니라, 이들 전체들 사이에 성립하는 거시적 상호의 존성과 순환성을 동시에 고려해야 한다. (shrink)

Abstract Pavel Florensky solves Lewis Carroll’s ‘Barbershop’ paradox to support his reasoning in a previous chapter. Our discussion includes a) the problem (which we also refer to as the p paradox), b) Carroll’s solution, c) Bertrand Russell’s solution, d) Florensky’s solution and then e) a material example proffered by Florensky. Both Russell and Florensky disagree with Carroll’s solution, yet, (ostensibly) unbeknownst to themselves they offer the same solution, which is ‘p implies not-q’. Given Florensky’s material example, the solution seems to (...) tell us something about the logic of belief. We ask whether Florensky’s example has reverse implications for Russell’s solution. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-10 DOI 10.1007/s11406-011-9333-6 Authors Michael Rhodes, Philosophy and Religious Studies (NPD), Chicago, IL, USA Journal Philosophia Online ISSN 1574-9274 Print ISSN 0048-3893. (shrink)

The logic B+ is Routley and Meyer’s basic positive logic. We define the logics BK+ and BK'+ by adding to B+ the K rule and to BK+ the characteristic S4 axiom, respectively. These logics are endowed with a relatively strong non-constructive negation. We prove that all the logics defined lack the K axiom and the standard paradoxes of consistency.

ABSTRACT:We analyze corporate ethics programs as control systems, arguing that how control is exercised may have pernicious consequences and be morally problematic. In particular, the control cultivated by ethics programs may weaken employees’ ability and motivation to exercise their own moral judgment, especially in novel situations. We develop this argument first by examining how organization theorists analyze control as an instrument of management coordination, and by addressing the political implications of control. We discuss coercive and enabling control as variations that (...) help account for the distinction between compliance-based ethics programs and values-based ethics programs. We then explore three potential drawbacks of ethics programs: the specter of indoctrination, a politicization of ethics, and an atrophy of competence. Ethics programs that rely on coercive control may undermine their own effectiveness at stemming misbehavior. (shrink)

Given that natural selection is so powerful at optimizing complex adaptations, why does it seem unable to eliminate genes (susceptibility alleles) that predispose to common, harmful, heritable mental disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder? We assess three leading explanations for this apparent paradox from evolutionary genetic theory: (1) ancestral neutrality (susceptibility alleles were not harmful among ancestors), (2) balancing selection (susceptibility alleles sometimes increased fitness), and (3) polygenic mutation-selection balance (mental disorders reflect the inevitable mutational load on the thousands (...) of genes underlying human behavior). The first two explanations are commonly assumed in psychiatric genetics and Darwinian psychiatry, while mutation-selection has often been discounted. All three models can explain persistent genetic variance in some traits under some conditions, but the first two have serious problems in explaining human mental disorders. Ancestral neutrality fails to explain low mental disorder frequencies and requires implausibly small selection coefficients against mental disorders given the data on the reproductive costs and impairment of mental disorders. Balancing selection (including spatio-temporal variation in selection, heterozygote advantage, antagonistic pleiotropy, and frequency-dependent selection) tends to favor environmentally contingent adaptations (which would show no heritability) or high-frequency alleles (which psychiatric genetics would have already found). Only polygenic mutation-selection balance seems consistent with the data on mental disorder prevalence rates, fitness costs, the likely rarity of susceptibility alleles, and the increased risks of mental disorders with brain trauma, inbreeding, and paternal age. This evolutionary genetic framework for mental disorders has wide-ranging implications for psychology, psychiatry, behavior genetics, molecular genetics, and evolutionary approaches to studying human behavior. (Published Online November 9 2006) Key Words: adaptation; behavior genetics; Darwinian psychiatry; evolution; evolutionary genetics; evolutionary psychology; mental disorders; mutation-selection balance; psychiatric genetics; quantitative trait loci (QTL). (shrink)

Ideology criticism, like scepticism, calls into question the objective or justified status of beliefs. However, where scepticism only refutes, and never puts forward, a substantive claim about anything, the ideology critic must maintain some criterion for distinguishing ideas which support relations of domination from those that do not, in virtue of her criticism of a particular set of ideas as “ideological”. The trouble for the ideology critic is that the sceptical methods she deploys undermine any critical thesis, including her own. (...) Thus, the theory of ideology tends to undercut ideology criticism with a fundamental problem of self-implication. This paper draws on the epistemological problem of the criterion to explain and define a basic problem of justification for the theory of ideology. A problem of self-implication is introduced in part one. I argue that the basis for ideology criticism inevitably succumbs to the very doubt it puts forward. I draw on various criticisms of ideology criticism to formulate a specific account of the basic, fundamental problem for the theory of ideology. I show how norms for ideology criticism are vulnerable to an Ancient sceptical problem for epistemic criteria, which brings the ideology critic to a dilemma: either (i) find independent grounds for criticism, immune to ideology, or (ii) show how ideology is self-undermining. Each horn of the dilemma is ideological. (shrink)

This paper deals with the simple paradoxes of validity and with the possibility of solving them in terms of Bradwardinian-Buridanian semantics. The paradoxes of validity as conceived here are cases of semantic pathology, which result due to the use of terms signifying the validity of inference. Semantic paradoxes are a semantico-epistemological phenomenon which is a symptom of the need to revise several apparently acceptable semantic assumptions. The analysis of possible solutions to the paradoxes focuses on Bradwardinian-Buridanian (...) semantics and as a result on the closed, token-based semantic theories that assume the existence of an implicit meaning of propositions. The key theses, as far as the solution to the paradoxes is concerned, are the principle of truth-implication which claims that every proposition expresses or implies its own truth and the closure principle which claims that every proposition asserts or expresses everything that follows from it logically. The present paper advances on recent research in claiming that (with certain reservations) the application of these principles can effectively solve inconsistency-paradoxes but not indeterminacy-paradoxes of validity. (shrink)

The Paradox of the Ravens (a.k.a,, The Paradox of Confirmation) is indeed an old chestnut. A great many things have been written and said about this paradox and its implications for the logic of evidential support. The first part of this paper will provide a brief survey of the early history of the paradox. This will include the original formulation of the paradox and the early responses of Hempel, Goodman, and Quine. The second part of the paper will describe attempts (...) to resolve the paradox within a Bayesian framework, and show how to improve upon them. This part begins with a discussion of how probabilistic methods can help to clarify the statement of the paradox itself. And it describes some of the early responses to probabilistic explications. We then inspect the assumptions employed by traditional (canonical) Bayesian approaches to the paradox. These assumptions may appear to be overly strong. So, drawing on weaker assumptions, we formulate a new-and-improved Bayesian confirmation-theoretic resolution of the Paradox of the Ravens. (shrink)