It is widely supposed that evolutionary debunking arguments against morality constitute a type of epistemological objection to our moral beliefs. In particular, the debunking force of such arguments is not supposed to depend on the metaphysical claim that moral facts do not exist. In this paper I argue that this standard epistemological construal of EDAs is highly misleading, if not mistaken. Specifically, I argue that the most widely discussed EDAs all make key and controversial metaphysical claims about the nature of (...) morality or the possibility of moral truth that belie their apparently epistemological character. I show that the debunking force of these EDAs derives largely from metaphysical claims about morality and their implications for the possibility of moral reduction, rather than from epistemological worries associated with the existence of an causal/non-moral explanation of our moral judgments. The paper briefly concludes with a dilemma that I believe confronts all EDAs such as those discussed in this paper: either such arguments are unsound, or else they prove too much, debunking our knowledge of science and the external world, as well as morality. (shrink)

A ‘companions in guilt’ strategy against moral error theory aims to show that the latter proves too much: if sound, it supports an implausible error-theoretic conclusion in other areas such as epistemic or practical reasoning. Christopher Cowie [2016 Cowie, C. 2016. Good News for Moral Error Theorists: A Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94/1: 115–30.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]] has recently produced what he claims is a ‘master argument’ against (...) all such strategies. The essence of his argument is that CG arguments cannot work because they are afflicted by internal incoherence or inconsistency. I argue, first, that Cowie's master argument does not succeed. Beyond this, I argue that there is no good reason to think that any such argument—one that purports to identify an internal incoherence in CG arguments—can succeed. Second, I argue that the main substantive area of disagreement between error theorists and CG theorists essentially concerns the conceptual profile of epistemic reasons—specifically, whether they are strongly categorical—not the ontological question of whether such reasons exist. I then develop an argument in favour of the CG theorist's position by considering the moral error theorist's arguments in support of the conceptual claim that moral reasons are strongly categorical. These include, notably, criticisms made by Joyce [2011] and Olson [2014] of Finlay's [2008] ‘end relational’ view of morality, according to which moral reasons are relative to some end or standard, hence not strongly categorical. Examining these criticisms, I argue that, based on what moral error theorists have said regarding the conceptual profile of moral reasons, there is a strong case to be made that moral reasons are strongly categorical if and only if epistemic reasons are. (shrink)

In this paper I evaluate some recent virtue-ethical accounts of right action [Hursthouse 1999; Slote 2001; Swanton 2001]. I argue that all are vulnerable to what I call the insularity objection : evaluating action requires attention to worldly consequences external to the agent, whereas virtue ethics is primarily concerned with evaluating an agent's inner states. More specifically, I argue that insofar as these accounts are successful in meeting the insularity objection they invite the circularity objection : they end up relying (...) upon putatively virtue-ethical considerations that themselves depend on unexplained judgments of rightness. Such accounts thus face a dilemma that is characteristic of virtue-ethical accounts of right action. They avoid the insularity objection only at the cost of inviting the circularity objection: they become intuitively plausible roughly to the extent that they lose their distinctively virtue-ethical character. (shrink)

Within the climate justice debate, the ‘beneficiary pays’ principle holds that those who benefit from greenhouse emissions associated with industrialization ought to pay for the costs of mitigating and adapting to their adverse effects. This principle constitutes a claim of inter-generational justice, and it is widely believed that the non-identity problem raises serious difficulties for any such claim. After briefly sketching the rationale behind ‘beneficiary pays,’ this paper offers a new way of understanding the claim that persons in developed societies (...) have benefited from industrialization. It argues that when we think of the claim in this new way, it evades the non-identity problem entirely. Some objections to this approach are then considered and rebutted. The paper concludes by comparing the present, relatively modest solution to the nonidentity problem with a much more ambitious attempt from the recent literature. (shrink)

Women and children have often been affected by conflicts taking place in India’s Northeast. Although human rights abuse by armed forces and militias has been addressed in academia time and again, the weaponisation of ‘rape’ has not declined in the region as evinced by the recent incident in Manipur. As such this essay argues that solidarity among women can not only prevent such heinous crimes but can also dismantle the patriarchal structures that breed rape cultures. Further, literature can work as (...) an agency through which such consciousness of protest and solidarity can be generated. By taking into account the political and cultural discourses of this region and its manifestation in literary works with reference to Arupa Patangia Kalita’s novel The Story of Felanee the essay argues that ethnic assertions diminish the rights of women due to the patriarchal nature of these societies. Since the inter-ethnic conflicts are engineered by the patriarchs of a community in which the women are hapless sufferers, Felanee’s resilience, like the grannies of Shaheen Bagh, exemplifies resistance against oppressive structures. The essay explores the literary representation of patriarchal conditioning of ethnic resurgence, its contestation with cultural hybridisation, and the subsequent dehumanisation of women. (shrink)

When we reason about strategic games, implicitly we need to reason about arbitrary strategy profiles and how players can improve from each profile. This structure is exponential in the number of players. Hence it is natural to look for subclasses of succinct games for which we can reason directly by interpreting formulas on the (succinct) game description rather than on the associated improvement structure. Priority separable games are one of such subclasses: payoffs are specified for pairwise interactions, and from these, (...) payoffs are computed for strategy profiles. We show that equilibria in such games can be described in Monadic Least Fixed Point Logic (MLFP). We then extend the description to games over arbitrarily many players, but using the monadic least fixed point extension of existential second order logic. (shrink)

Reasoning about equilibria in normal form games involves the study of players’ incentives to deviate unilaterally from any profile. In the case of large anonymous games, the pattern of reasoning is different. Payoffs are determined by strategy distributions rather than strategy profiles. In such a game each player would strategise based on expectations of what fraction of the population makes some choice, rather than respond to individual choices by other players. A player may not even know how many players there (...) are in the game. Logicising such strategisation involves many challenges as the set of players is potentially unbounded. This suggests a logic of quantification over player variables and modalities for player deviation, but such a logic is easily seen to be undecidable. Instead, we propose a propositional modal logic using player types as names and implicit quantification over players. With modalities for player deviation and transitive closure, the logic can be used to specify game equilibrium and interesting patterns of reasoning in large games. We show that the logic is decidable and present a complete axiomatisation of the valid formulas. (shrink)

In this chapter we first discuss the main principles of justice and note the standard objections to them, which we believe necessitate a hybrid approach. The hybrid account we defend is primarily based on the distributive principle of sufficientarianism, which we interpret as the idea that each country should have the means to provide a minimally decent quality of life for each of its citizens. We argue that sufficientarian considerations give good reason to think that what we call the ‘ability (...) to pay objection’ should be taken much more seriously in this debate. Following this, our account emphasises what we believe are the two most important moral desiderata in any attempt to distribute responsibility for dealing with climate change: the ability to mitigate the problem and the making of culpable contributions to the problem. After noting that our proposal includes enough detail to be a useful start for policy makers, we defend our account against some potential objections. (shrink)

Playing with LEGO is naturally educational—it supports free play, imagination, and creativity. LEGO is forward‐thinking—it was one of the first toys to promote gender equality. LEGO advertises itself as a lifestyle choice whose values include being part of a team that educates people, that does the right thing, and that prides itself on its wholesomeness. This image is rather different from the reality of LEGO as a for‐profit company. The Greenpeace video undermines the entire ideology behind the LEGO brand and (...) everything it stands for. This chapter examines the relation between one's ideology and politics, on the one hand, and one's status as a consumer of LEGO toys, on the other. It also considers LEGO's long‐standing and problematic partnership with Shell. Shell, of course, is one of the world's largest and most profitable oil companies. The Greenpeace video hints at many possible criticisms of LEGO's relationship with Shell. (shrink)

Conversion is a critical part of Evangelical theology and missiology. It has been defined as a crisis experience or a decision at a specific point in time. However, there is always an aspect of development, a process, involved. Increasingly, the phenomenon of conversion of those from non-Christian backgrounds, for example from other world religions, indicates that how they become followers of Christ is often characterised by a gradual journey, sometimes accompanied by visions and dreams. This paper looks at the phenomenon (...) of conversion through a historical and missiological lens to explain and understand the dynamics of the conversion. (shrink)

This book examines the social and political character of love. Like everything else, love must be seen at multiple levels: human society (in its relation to nature and in relation to the materiality of human life itself); specific forms of class society such as capitalism.

Der aktuelle Eurozentrismus führt dazu, dass Europa und hier insbesondere die Europäische Union verschiedene Entwicklungen und Ereignisse in den internationalen Beziehungen falsch auffassen und interpretieren. Der Autor setzt sich thesenhaft mit diesem Phänomen auseinander und zeigt auf, wie es durch eine eurozentristische Sichtweise, die er als Überbewertung europäischer Interessen, Bedürfnisse, Strukturen und Ereignisse versteht, zu einer verzerrten Wahrnehmung der internationalen Politik durch die Europäer kommt.

N‐type inactivation of potassium channels is controlled by cytosolic loops that are intrinsically disordered. Recent experiments have shown that the mechanism of N‐type inactivation through disordered regions can be stereospecific and vary depending on the channel type. Variations in mechanism occur despite shared coarse grain features such as the length and amino acid compositions of the cytosolic disordered regions. We have adapted a phenomenological model designed to explain how specificity in molecular recognition is achieved through disordered regions. We propose that (...) the channel‐specific observations for N‐type inactivation represent distinct mechanistic choices for achieving function through conformational selection versus induced fit. It follows that the dominant mechanism for binding and specificity can be modulated through subtle changes in the amino acid sequences of disordered regions, which is interesting given that specificity in function is realized in the absence of autonomous folding. (shrink)

This article tries to seek a solution to the problem of NPA in the small scale industries under the present circumstances of banking and insurance working together under the same roof. What is stressed in this article is the pressing need of the small-scale entrepreneur for becoming aware and educated in modern business management holding a professional attitude toward rational decision-making and banks have to facilitate that process as a part of the credit policy sold by them.

This article examines the relationship between gender, nations and nationalisms vis-a-vis the Indian state's nationalist identity and perceptions of security. It explores how the postcolonial Indian state's project of nation-building — reflective of a western secular-modern identity and a Hindutva-dominated identity — incorporates gender, with continuities and discontinuities, to articulate divergent forms of nationalist/communalist identities, `cartographic anxieties' and nuclear securities. The article contends that with the recent rise of the Hindu-Right BJP, guided by Hindutva ideology, the nature of representing the (...) Indian nation, its women and securities has changed from a geopolitical to a cultural perception — thereby necessitating a rereading of the Indian nation, nationalism, gender and its perceptions of security. (shrink)

Rajan Gurukkal is a leading social scientist and is currently the Sundararajan Visiting Professor at Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Science. He has been the former Vice Chancellor, M. G. University, Kottayam, Kerala. An avid reader, critical theorist and a prolific writer, he has authored several monographs, research articles and has been actively engaged with several projects in association with UGC, the Ford Foundation to name a few. His research interests explore the historiographic dimensions and dialectical processes involving (...) the state and society. He can be reached at [email protected]. (shrink)

In large anonymous games, payoffs are determined by strategy distributions rather than strategy profiles. If half the players choose a strategy a, all of them get a certain payoff, whereas if only one-third of the players choose that strategy, the players choosing may get a different payoff. Strategizing in such a game by a player involves reasoning about not who does what but what fraction of the population makes the same choice as that player.We present a simple modal logic to (...) reason about such strategization in large games. Since actual numbers are irrelevant, a player need not even know how many others are in the game, thus leading to the consideration of games with unboundedly many players. The logic we consider is the propositional modal fragment of a first order modal logic. We show that it has a bounded agent property, giving us a decision procedure for satisfiability. We also present a complete axiomatization of the valid formulas. The logic admits a natural model checking algorithm and bisimulation characterization. The logic with quantification over players is more appropriate, but is undecidable. (shrink)

Pragmatic Critical Realism has been acclaimed by several scholars as one of the most versatile, application friendly and philosophically consistent paradigms for the social sciences, especially management research (Fleetwood and Ackroyd 2004). One of the more visible methodological offshoots of this epistemological school, being the case study, which has been extensively deployed as a dominant method in strategic management, organizational studies and marketing literatures. Until recently, there was some consternation in the academic world about the insufficiency of recourses available to (...) aggregate individual case studies and extract more generalizable learnings within delimited boundaries. However, the development of the QCA (Qualitative Comparative Analysis) by Ragin (2000; 2014) has changed that perception. In this paper, we argue that all of these case study-based methods, especially as they relate to Norbert Elias’ conception of figurations, and all of which fall under the broader heading of the Abduction methodology; are especially suited to gaining marketing insights in emerging market economies for a host of reasons. This is the issue that we seek to explore through theoretical argumentation and to establish with a review of the methods literature. (shrink)

Sundar Sarukkai is a philosopher and is currently associated with the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore as a Professor of Philosophy. His research interests range from philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, postmodernism, phenomenology to philosophy of art. A critical philosopher whocan, with élan, and a certain sense of analytical rigour, transverse the philosophical terrains between the Western and Indian traditions. He has authored several books, such as Translating the World: Science and Language, Philosophy of Symmetry and Indian Philosophy (...) and Philosophy of Science. Hehas earned his doctoral degree from Purdue University, USA following which he has been associated with several institutes such as Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Manipal University and National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. He has been the Founder-Director, Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities, Manipal University, Manipal. He can be reached at [email protected]. (shrink)