Algorithmic vision, the computational process of making meaning from digital images or visual information, has changed the relationship between the image and the human subject. In this paper, I explicate on the role of algorithmic vision as a technique of algorithmic governance, the organization of a population by algorithmic means. With its roots in the United States post-war cybernetic sciences, the ontological status of the computational image undergoes a shift, giving way to the hegemonic use of automated facial recognition technologies (...) towards predatory policing and profiling practices. By way of example, I argue that algorithmic vision reconfigures the philosophical links between vision, image, and truth, paradigmatically changing the way a human subject is represented through imagistic data. With algorithmic vision, the relationship between subject and representation challenges the humanistic discourse around images, calling for a critical displacement of the human subject from the center of an analysis of how computational images make meaning. I will explore the relationship between the operative image, the image that acts but is not seen by human eyes, and what Louise Amoore calls an “emergent subject,” a subject that is made visible through algorithmic techniques. Algorithmic vision reveals subjects to power in a mode that requires a new approach towards analyzing the entanglement and invisiblization of the human in automated decision-making systems. (shrink)

Scientific explanations are widely recognized to have instrumental value by helping scientists make predictions and control their environment. In this paper I raise, and provide a first analysis of, the question whether explanatory proofs in mathematics have analogous instrumental value. I first identify an important goal in mathematical practice: reusing resources from existing proofs to solve new problems. I then consider the more specific question: do explanatory proofs have instrumental value by promoting reuse of the resources they contain? In general, (...) I argue that the answer to this question is “no” and demonstrate this in detail for the theory of mathematical explanation developed by Marc Lange. (shrink)

What accounts for the continued lack of clarity over the legal procedures for the patenting of DNA sequences? The patenting system was built for a "bricks-and-mortar" world rather than an information economy. The fact that genes are both material molecules and informational systems helps explain the difficulty that the patent system is going to continue to have.

Combatting chronic, lifestyle-related disease has become a healthcare priority in the developed world. The role personal responsibility should play in healthcare provision has growing pertinence given the growing significance of individual lifestyle choices for health. Media reporting focussing on the ‘bad behaviour’ of individuals suffering lifestyle-related disease, and policies aimed at encouraging ‘responsibilisation’ in healthcare highlight the importance of understanding the scope of responsibility ascriptions in this context. Research into the social determinants of health and psychological mechanisms of health behaviour (...) could undermine some commonly held and tacit assumptions about the moral responsibility of agents for the sorts of lifestyles they adopt. I use Philip Petit's conception of freedom as ‘fitness to be held responsible’ to consider the significance of some of this evidence for assessing the moral responsibility of agents. I propose that, in some cases, factors outside the agent's control may influence behaviour in such a way as to undermine her freedom along the three dimensions described by Pettit: freedom of action; a sense of identification with one's actions; and whether one's social position renders one vulnerable to pressure from more powerful others. (shrink)

There has been a recent push to offer more food assistance programs at farmers markets. Yet, as more programs are developed for farmers markets, little input has been sought from those who are ultimately responsible for their implementation. This ethnographic study explores the experiences of farmers markets that have been early adopters of federal food assistance programs. Participant observation and in-depth interviews were used in six early-adopting markets to understand staff perspectives on the challenges and benefits of administering food assistance (...) programs. The results show that even markets with strong organizational capacity experienced significant burdens while operating food assistance programs. In addition, most worried about the sustainability of these programs due to the level of resources needed for their support. The findings suggest that calls to expand food assistance programs to all farmers markets will continue to be met with challenges as many markets will not have the capacity to operate them. Targeting farmers markets with strong organizational capacity may increase the probability of successful implementation, but building the organizational capacity of farmers markets may be necessary for widespread adoption. The study has implications for other sectors of civil society that are increasingly taking on the work of providing government programs. (shrink)

Recent findings suggest impaired motor skill development during infancy in children later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, it remains unclear whether infants at high familial risk for ASD would benefit from early interventions targeting the motor domain. The current study investigated this issue by providing 3-month-old infants at high familial risk for ASD with training experiences aimed at facilitating independent reaching. A group of 17 high-risk (HR) infants received 2 weeks of scaffolded reaching experiences using “sticky mittens,” and (...) was compared to 72 low-risk (LR) infants experiencing the same or alternative training procedures. Results indicate that HR infants – just like LR infants – show an increase in grasping activity following “sticky mittens” training. In contrast to LR infants, evidence that motor training encouraged a preference for faces in HR infants was inconclusive. (shrink)

Recent theoretical models suggest that the difference between human and nonhuman primate life-history patterns may be due to a reliance on complex foraging strategies requiring extensive learning. These models predict that children should reach adult levels of efficiency faster when foraging is cognitively simple. We test this prediction with data on Meriam fishing, spearfishing, and shellfishing efficiency. For fishing and spearfishing, which are cognitively difficult, we can find no significant amount of variability in return rates because of experiential factors correlated (...) with age. However, for shellfish collecting, which is relatively easy to learn, there are strong age-related effects on efficiency. Children reach adult efficiency more quickly in fishing as compared to shellfish collecting, probably owing to the size and strength constraints of the latter. (shrink)

Legal battles continue in the UK over the Government’s plans to transport asylum seekers arriving on British shores to Rwanda in East Africa. Originally announced as a system for ‘processing’ asylum seekers, the Government has subsequently made it clear that there would not be an option for asylum seekers to return to the UK. The arrangement forms part of a deal between the UK and Rwanda, with the UK promising to invest £120 m in economic growth and development in Rwanda, (...) along with financing the cost of the ‘offshored’ asylum operation.1 The Government states that the policy is designed to break the business model of people traffickers involved in facilitating hazardous trips across the Channel in small, overcrowded and unseaworthy craft, leading to multiple drownings. Critics argue that the policy will do nothing to stop desperate people from seeking refuge in the UK, that transferring already traumatised people to Rwanda – which has been criticised for its human rights record – is inhumane and potentially outwith international law. Medical bodies, including the BMA, along with refugee organisations have expressed serious concerns about the health impact of such a system of ‘offshoring’. An equivalent system in Australia has been notorious for the devastating health impacts on those ‘offshored’ to the Pacific islands of Manus and Naura. Unusually in the UK the offshoring proposals have been greeted by unanimous condemnation by the Church of England. The lawfulness of the process is also subject to question. On the 14 July, a plane carrying a small number of asylum seekers to Rwanda was halted shortly before take-off following an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights. The ECtHR, part of the Council of Europe, of which the UK is still a member, said an Iraqi man known as KN faced ‘a real …. (shrink)

The twenty‐six‐year‐old patient requested a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction because of an extensive family history of cancer. She reported that she had developed melanoma at twenty‐five; that her mother, sister, aunts, and a cousin all had breast cancer; that a cousin had ovarian cancer at nineteen; and that a brother was treated for esophageal cancer at fifteen. The treating team was skeptical about this history, and they could find no documentation of the patient's reported melanoma. The surgeon wrote the (...) patient's primary care physician, explaining that he had seen the patient and planned to proceed with the bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction. The primary care physician responded that he was unable to substantiate several of the patient's claims; some of his colleagues believed the family history to be fabricated. Trying to make sense of the discrepancies, the genetic counselor called a counselor colleague who had met with this patient. The colleague suggested that the in‐house genetic counselor “google” the patient. The search revealed two Facebook pages linked to the patient. In one, apparently a personal profile, the patient stated that in addition to battling stage four melanoma, she had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. She provided a link to a site where she solicited donations to attend a summit for young cancer patients. The other Facebook page featured numerous pictures of her with a bald head, as though she has been through chemotherapy. The genetic counselor showed the Facebook pages to the surgeon, who then decided not to operate. Should health care professionals “google” their patients? (shrink)

As virtues of intellectual character are commonly discussed, they aim at _propositional _intellectual goods. But some creative works—especially those in music and the visual arts—are not primarily intended to gain, keep, or share propositional goods such as truth, knowledge, and understanding. They aim at something else. Thus, to conceive of intellectual creativity in a way that accords with standard discussions of intellectual virtue is to exclude paradigmatic works of the creative intellect. There is a kind of puzzle here: it appears (...) that we cannot maintain both the commonly-discussed notion of intellectual virtue and the claim that, say, Beethoven’s Ninth, or Monet’s Water Lilies, are central cases of intellectually virtuous creativity. We provide a two-part solution to the puzzle. First, we suggest that some works of music and visual art can convey propositional goods. Second, we appeal to the notion of _acquaintance _as an epistemic good that is conveyed through creative artistic and musical to an extent not conveyed in standard prose works. In this respect, intellectual creativity is the virtue that breaks the propositional mold of much contemporary virtue epistemology. (shrink)

Some research is too risky to be conducted on anyone whose life expectancy is more than a few hours. Yet sometimes, the research can still be carried out using subjects who are brain dead or are soon to undergo a terminal wean, and who have articulated values that inclusion in the study can honor. So argues a team of ethicists and researchers at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where such research was recently undertaken.

Proofs are central, and unique, to mathematics. They establish the truth of theorems and provide us with the most secure knowledge we can possess. It is thus perhaps unsurprising that philosophers once thought that the only value proofs have lies in establishing the truth of theorems. However, such a view is inconsistent with mathematical practice. If a proof’s only value is to show a theorem is true, then mathematicians would have no reason to reprove the same theorem in different ways, (...) yet this is a practice they frequently engage in. This suggests that proofs can have a wide variety of values. My purpose in this chapter is to provide a survey of some of them. I will discuss how proofs can have practical value, for example, by helping mathematicians to make new discoveries or learn new mathematical tools, and how they can have abstract value, for example, by being beautiful or explanatory. I will also explore the relationships between different proof values. (shrink)

This multi-methodological study applied functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate neural activation in a group of adolescent students ( N = 88) during a probabilistic reinforcement learning task. We related patterns of emerging brain activity and individual learning rates to socio-motivational (in-)dependence manifested in four different motivation types (MTs): (1) peer-dependent MT, (2) teacher-dependent MT, (3) peer-and-teacher-dependent MT, (4) peer-and-teacher-independent MT. A multinomial regression analysis revealed that the individual learning rate predicts students’ membership to the independent MT, or the peer-and-teacher-dependent (...) MT. Additionally, the striatum, a brain region associated with behavioral adaptation and flexibility, showed increased learning-related activation in students with motivational independence. Moreover, the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in behavioral control, was more active in students of the peer-and-teacher-dependent MT. Overall, this study offers new insights into the interplay of motivation and learning with (1) a focus on inter-individual differences in the role of peers and teachers as source of students’ individual motivation and (2) its potential neurobiological basis. (shrink)

Most academics in philosophy departments accept that the discipline needs to change for the better. In this piece, Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting offer several proposals for how to make philosophy a more inclusive place for everyone.

This paper will examine intertextual references between the Dialogus of Tacitus and the letters of Pliny, in particular those regarding boar hunting. It will argue that there are clues in the letters of Pliny which can help us to understand the relationship between these two writers as well as the tone and purpose of the Dialogus. By studying Pliny's letters to Tacitus on hunting , one can see the specific reference to boars as an allusion to Marcus Aper, the chief (...) spokesperson for contemporary eloquence in the dialogue, indicating a degree of humor and irony in the Dialogus that is further displayed by the similarity of Pliny's opening exhortation in Epistle 1.6, ridebis et licet rideas, to the final words of the Dialogus, cum adrisissent, discessimus. Moreover, the dialogue between Pliny and Tacitus in Pliny's letters can be seen as an indication that the Dialogus itself may have been revised throughout the years, thus problematizing the debate about the “publication date” of the Dialogus. (shrink)

Who is it that can tell me who I am?The often-complex interplay between self and others characterizes educational undertakings. Considerations of how we gain knowledge involve, at least implicitly, an understanding of the relationship between self, others, and the material environment in which learning occurs. The Academy-Award-winning 1987 film Babette’s Feast, based on the 1950 short story by Isak Dine-sen, while not formally a story of education, presents through its protagonist a pedagogy that highlights learning through encounter as complementary and (...) integral to enhanced and mature knowledge. In this article, I engage closely with the film version of Babette’s Feast to elucidate its educational... (shrink)

Working Virtue is the first substantial collective study of virtue theory and contemporary moral problems. Leading figures in ethical theory and applied ethics discuss topics in bioethics, professional ethics, ethics of the family, law, interpersonal ethics, and the emotions.Virtue ethics is centrally concerned with character traits or virtues and vices such as courage, kindness, and generosity. These character traits must be looked to in any attempt to understand which particular actions are right or wrong and how we ought to live (...) our lives. As a theoretical approach, virtue ethics has made an impressive comeback in relatively recent history, both posing an alternative to, and, in some ways, complementing well-known theoretical stances such as utilitarianism and deontology. Yet there is still very little material available that presents virtue-ethical approaches to practical contemporary moral problems, such as what we owe distant strangers, our parents, or even non-human animals. This book fills the gap by dealing with these and other pressing moral problems in a clear and theoretically nuanced manner. The contributors offer a variety of perspectives, including pluralistic, eudaimonistic, care-theoretical, Chinese, comparative, and stoic. This variety allows the reader to appreciate not only the wide range of topics for which a virtue-ethical approach may be fitting, but also the distinctive ways in which such an approach may be manifested. (shrink)

Working Virtue is the first substantial collective study of virtue theory and contemporary moral problems. Leading figures in ethical theory and applied ethics discuss topics in bioethics, professional ethics, ethics of the family, law, interpersonal ethics, and the emotions.

Based on fieldwork in Newmarket, England, and Kentucky, this paper examines the acts of looking that take place at international thoroughbred horse auctions. Racehorse caretakers employ bloodstock agents to select the yearling thoroughbred who will make the best racehorse as a 2-year-old and, hopefully, successful stallion or broodmare after retiring from the track as a 4- or 5-year old. The paper assesses the criteria used to assess yearlings: pedigree, conformation, and "that something extra."The paper concludes that the ambiguous status of (...) the bloodstock agent derives from the liminal task the agent performs, communicating with a young, nonhuman animal to discover the animal's essential properties. Selecting yearlings depends upon a process of divination that mitigates against the characterization of western thought as "rational" and opposed to decision-making processes conventionally thought of as "non-normal" or irrational. (shrink)

This paper suggests that the stories that thoroughbred breeders tell about racehorse reproduction can contribute to an understanding of their ideas about relatedness between humans. It examines the thoroughbred pedigree as it is presented in the English sales catalogue as a locus of complex ideas about heredity, fertility, and procreation. It argues that resistance within the industry to new reproductive technologies, including artificial insemination, can be understood in terms of ideas about relatedness between horses and, by implication, between people.This paper (...) is based upon extensive participant observation conducted within the horseracing industry based in the town of Newmarket, England. (shrink)

The recent decision of the House of Lords in Stack v. Dowden appears, at first sight, to endorse a new approach to the jointly owned family home. However, upon closer inspection, this proves to be something of an illusion: the new approach is remarkably similar to the traditional resulting trust in that it attaches more weight to financial payments than to other contributions. A further problem is that the disjunction between the reasoning of the judges and the actual result makes (...) it a difficult decision to apply to future cases. This case-note will consider the legal and social issues raised by the case and will argue that it has the potential to disadvantage women who do not make an equal financial contribution to the purchase of the home. (shrink)

(2012). “All this Boundless Multitude:” Rereading Mikahail Bakunin for EcoJustice Education. Educational Studies: Vol. 48, “Anarchism … is a living force within our life …” Anarchism, Education and Alternative Possibilities, pp. 1-4.

_Endless Night: Cinema and Psychoanalysis, Parallel Histories_ Edited by Janet Bergstrom Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999 ISBN 0-520-20747-5 (hbk); 0-520-20748-3 (pbk) 307 pp.

This article provides an assessment of Jeremy Waldron's arguments (in God, Locke and Equality and his subsequent 'Response to Critics') that Locke provides us with a compelling version of liberal equality. A close examination of the case of the criminally convicted in The Second Treatise shows how Locke's commitment to the principle of equality is compromised. This is revealed in part through recourse to contextualist considerations. This leads to the suggestion that Waldron's principled rejection of contextualist approaches to the history (...) of political ideas can lead to a distorted understanding. It also suggests a need for a more thorough consideration of how a substantive principle of moral equality should apply in the field of criminal justice and in liberal democracy more generally. (shrink)

(2013). Affirming and Rethinking our Visions and Responsibilities as Social Foundations Scholars and Educators. Educational Studies: Vol. 49, Critical, Interpretive, and Normative Perspectives of Educational Foundations: Contributions for the 21st Century, pp. 101-103.

(2013). Eros, Education, and Eco-Ethical Consciousness: Re-Membering the “Room of Love” in Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter. Educational Studies: Vol. 49, Eco-Democratic Reforms in Education, pp. 443-450.

Depuis une décennie, le terme genre se banalise dans les travaux historiques en français et son utilisation ne génère plus de longues justifications. Tel est le constat qu’on peut tirer de ce volume collectif réunissant chercheur-e-s et doctorant-e-s lors de l’université européenne d’été « Semaine de Haute formation du Doctorat international en Histoire des femmes et des identités de genre à l’époque moderne et contemporaine » en septembre 2008. La réunion, à l’Université Paris Ouest Nanterre...

La revue Clio a largement œuvré (voir le n° 15 Chrétiennes) pour contrer l’ignorance réciproque entre l’histoire des femmes et du genre et l’histoire religieuse en France, voie ouverte pour la période contemporaine avec la publication de la thèse de Claude Langlois sur les congrégations de vie active au XIXe siècle. Pourtant la bonne sœur reste une figure mal connue des historiennes des femmes en France. Carmen Mangion commence son livre sur le même constat outre-Manche, qu’elle généralise à...

Sans prétention de faire œuvre d’historienne, Françoise Lapeyre ouvre ici une large fenêtre sur les écrits et les pratiques des voyageuses françaises qui quittent l’Europe au xixe siècle pour découvrir d’autres sociétés. Soixante-dix femmes, dont les écrits figurent en bibliographie, font l’objet de son enquête qui fait découvrir l’existence de véritables aventurières, comme Mme Lenglet-Dufresnois partie avec son mari faire fortune au Brésil en 1837, à côté de figures plus attendues : femmes...

This paper discusses the diverse forms of contemporary Islam practised by the Kists, inhabitants of Georgia's Pankisi Gorge related to the Chechens. The newest wave of Salafi-inspired Islam among the young generation of Chechens, mostly men who have fought in the Chechen-Russian war, is aesthetically marked by a distinctive style of minaret and by a more public adhān than Pankisi has hitherto known. The reactions of local Kists to the aesthetics and morality of the new Islam, and the distinctions between (...) Salafi, Wahhabi, and Pankisi Islam are explored. It is argued that the new Islam is not as foreign to the Caucasus as scholarship tends to suggest. Ethnographies of minarets and headstones are followed by an exploration of reactions to Soviet secularism in the historiography of Chechen Islam. Positioning itself within recent scholarship aiming to overcome the constraints imposed by secular forms of knowledge in the study of Islamic societies, the paper seeks to locate the unique modes of Kist belief within the framework of a comparative, post-secular anthropology of Islam. (shrink)

When We Collide is a landmark reassessment of the significance of sex in contemporary Jewish ethics. Rebecca Epstein-Levi offers a fresh and vital exploration of sexual ethics and virtue ethics in conversation with rabbinic texts and feminist and queer theory. Epstein-Levi explores how sex is not a special or particular form of social interaction but one that is entangled with all other forms of social interaction. The activities of sex-doing it, talking about it, thinking about it, regulating it-are sites (...) of ongoing moral formation on individual, interpersonal, and communal levels. When We Collide explores the development of Jewish sexual ethics, and represents an opportunity to move beyond the usual heteronormative accounts that are presented as though they were neutral representations of what "Judaism teaches about sex.". (shrink)

: Offering an introduction to both John Dewey's philosophy of education and the 4-H Youth Development Program, this paper draws clear connections between these two topics. Concepts explored include Dewey's principles of continuity and interaction, and contagion with respect to learning. Roles of educational leaders (including teachers) are investigated in the context of a discussion about the structuring of opportunities for students to develop habits of meaningful and life-long learning. Specific examples are described in depth to demonstrate, from a Deweyan (...) perspective, the educational process and value of 4-H participation. Brief comments are made about the place of 4-H in the U.S. system of public education. (shrink)

What circumstances create the need for an institution that conforms to civil recourse theory? I consider polities that vary in the extent to which they instantiate justice and argue that only a moderately non-ideal polity has a need for such an institution. When a polity gets close to the ideal, the polity needs institutions of corrective justice. When the polity gets very far from the ideal, tort law is at best instrumentally justified. Somewhere in between those two extremes, a civil (...) recourse conception has significant justificatory advantages over both corrective justice and instrumental accounts. Even under these conditions, however, it remains difficult to explain within the confines of civil recourse theory why enforcement of tort law’s primary norms should remain in the hands of the victim. I suggest a possible explanation, but it requires us to jettison the claim that the wrongs of tort law are genuine wrongs. (shrink)