One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences Robert Sapolsky's Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior, (...) but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self telling our biology what to do. Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about how consciousness works-the tight weave between reason and emotion and between stimulus and response in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky tackles all the major arguments for free will and takes them out, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos and complexity science and quantum physics, as well as touching ground on some of the wilder shores of philosophy. He shows us that the history of medicine is in no small part the history of learning that fewer and fewer things are somebody's "fault"; for example, for centuries we thought seizures were a sign of demonic possession. Yet, as he acknowledges, it's very hard, and at times impossible, to uncouple from our zeal to judge others and to judge ourselves. Sapolsky applies the new understanding of life beyond free will to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. By the end, Sapolsky argues that while living our daily lives recognizing that we have no free will is going to be monumentally difficult, doing so is not going to result in anarchy, pointlessness, and existential malaise. Instead, it will make for a much more humane world. (shrink)

Individual differences in the mere willingness to think analytically has been shown to predict religious disbelief. Recently, however, it has been argued that analytic thinkers are not actually less religious; rather, the putative association may be a result of religiosity typically being measured after analytic thinking (an order effect). In light of this possibility, we report four studies in which a negative correlation between religious belief and performance on analytic thinking measures is found when religious belief is measured in a (...) separate session. We also performed a meta-analysis on all previously published studies on the topic along with our four new studies (N = 15,078, k = 31), focusing specifically on the association between performance on the Cognitive Reflection Test (the most widely used individual difference measure of analytic thinking) and religious belief. This meta-analysis revealed an overall negative correlation (r) of -.18, 95% CI [-.21, -.16]. Although this correlation is modest, self-identified atheists (N = 133) scored 18.7% higher than religiously affiliated individuals (N = 597) on a composite measure of analytic thinking administered across our four new studies (d = .72). Our results indicate that the association between analytic thinking and religious disbelief is not caused by a simple order effect. There is good evidence that atheists and agnostics are more reflective than religious believers. (shrink)

The field of economics proves to be a matter of metaphor and storytelling - its mathematics is metaphoric and its policy-making is narrative. Economists have begun to realize this and to rethink how they speak. This volume is the result of a conference held at Wellesley College, involving both theoretical and applied economists, that explored the consequences of the rhetoric and the conversation of the field of economics.

Hard incompatibilism is a view about free will and moral responsibility that has been developed and defended by Derk Pereboom for almost three decades (Pereboom 1995, 2001, 2014). Succinctly put, hard incompatibilists argue that we do not have free will because, whether determinism is true or false, we are subject to the freedom-undermining effects of causal luck (i.e. causal factors beyond our control). In recent years, Gregg Caruso has become a vocal advocate of hard incompatibilism, and he rests his “public (...) health-quarantine model” and its non-retributive approach to criminal behavior squarely on the foundation of Pereboom’s free-will metaphysics (e.g. Caruso 2012, 2014, 2021, 2022; Pereboom and Caruso 2018, 2022; Dennett and Caruso 2021). More recently, biologist and science popularizer Robert Sapolsky has raised the public profile hard incompatibilism by claiming to endorse this position in his best-selling book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will (2023). -/- In this book, I offer a refutation of hard incompatibilism and all instances of constructive incompatibilism. In short, I argue that two central central explanatory tenets of hard incompatibilism are in tension with one another, making it impossible for someone to argue for one without undermining their defense of the other in the process. I then point out that the arguments against hard incompatibilism also undermine Neil Levy's luck-pincer impossibilism (2011). Along the way, I explain why Robert Sapolsky is not a hard incompatibilist and is actually committed to the falsity of hard incompatibilism. In closing, I propose a way for skeptics like Caruso and Sapolsky to maintain their skepticism without any type of constructive incompatibilism as the foundation. -/- [Building from the arguments in "The Problem of Free Will: An Abductive Approach", "Free Will, Self-Creation, and The Paradox of Moral Luck," and "(In)compatibilism"] -/- . (shrink)

The advanced donation program was proposed in 2014 to allow an individual to donate a kidney in order to provide a voucher for a kidney in the future for a particular loved one. In this article, we explore the logistical and ethical issues that such a program raises. We argue that such a program is ethical in principle but there are many logistical issues that need to be addressed to ensure that the actual program is fair to both those who (...) do and do not participate in this program. (shrink)

This is a fully revised edition of one of the most successful volumes in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought series. Incorporating extensive updates to the editorial apparatus, including the introduction, suggestions for further reading, and footnotes, this third edition of More's Utopia has been comprehensively re-worked to take into account scholarship published since the second edition in 2002. The vivid and engaging translation of the work itself by Robert M. Adams includes all the ancillary materials (...) by More's fellow humanists that, added to the book at his own request, collectively constitute the first and best interpretive guide to Utopia. Unlike other teaching editions of Utopia, this edition keeps interpretive commentary - whether editorial annotations or the many pungent marginal glosses that are an especially attractive part of the humanist ancillary materials - on the page they illuminate instead of relegating them to endnotes, and provides students with a uniquely full and accessible experience of More's perennially fascinating masterpiece. (shrink)

Though individual categorization or decision processes have been studied separately in many previous investigations, few studies have investigated how they interact by using a two-stage task of first categorizing and then deciding. To address this issue, we investigated a categorization-decision task in two experiments. In both, participants were shown six faces varying in width, first asked to categorize the faces, and then decide a course of action for each face. Each experiment was designed to include three groups, and for each (...) group, we manipulated the probabilistic contingencies between stimulus, category assignments, and decision consequences. For each group, each participant received three different sequences of category response, category feedback, decision response, and decision feedback. We found that participants were only partially responsive in the appropriate directions to the contingencies assigned to each group. Comparisons of results from different sequences provided evidence for empirical interference effects of categorization on decisions. The empirical interference effect is defined as the difference between the probability of taking a hostile action in decision-alone conditions and the total probability of taking a hostile action in categorization-decision conditions. To test competing accounts for multiple empirical results, including two-stage choice probabilities and empirical interference effects, we compared a quantum cognition model versus a two-stage exemplar categorization model at both aggregate and individual levels. Using a Bayesian information criterion, we found that the quantum model provided an overall better model fit than the exemplar model. Although both models predicted empirical interference effects, the exemplar model was able to generate probabilistic deviation by incorporating category information of the first stage into the feature representation of the subsequent decision stage, while the quantum model produced interference effect by superposition, measurement, and quantum entanglement. (shrink)

Cognitive neuroscience aims to map mental processes onto brain function, which begs the question of what “mental processes” exist and how they relate to the tasks that are used to manipulate and measure them. This topic has been addressed informally in prior work, but we propose that cumulative progress in cognitive neuroscience requires a more systematic approach to representing the mental entities that are being mapped to brain function and the tasks used to manipulate and measure mental processes. We describe (...) a new open collaborative project that aims to provide a knowledge base for cognitive neuroscience, called the Cognitive Atlas, and outline how this project has the potential to drive novel discoveries about both mind and brain. (shrink)

A new edition of a comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of language, substantially updated and reorganized. The philosophy of language aims to answer a broad range of questions about the nature of language, including “what is a language?” and “what is the source of meaning?” This accessible comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of language begins with the most basic properties of language and only then proceeds to the phenomenon of meaning. The second edition has been significantly expanded and reorganized, putting (...) the original content in a contemporary context and offering substantial new material, with extended discussions and entirely new chapters. After establishing the basics, the book discusses general criteria for an adequate theory of meaning, takes a first pass at describing meaning at an abstract level, and distinguishes between meaning and other related phenomena. Building on this, the book then addresses various specific theories of meaning, beginning with early foundational theories and proceeding to more contemporary ones. New to this edition are expanded discussions of Chomsky's work and compositional semantics, among other topics, and new chapters on such subjects as propositions, Montague grammar, and contemporary theories of language. Each chapter has technical terms in bold, followed by definitions, and offers a list of main points and suggested further readings. The book is suitable for use in undergraduate courses in philosophy and linguistics. Some background in philosophy is assumed, but knowledge of philosophy of language is not necessary. (shrink)

What is social justice? At this point, there is considerable disagreement. For many, the term social justice is baffling and useless, with no real meaning. Most who use it argue that social justice is the moral fairness of the system of rules and norms that govern society. Do these rules work so that all persons get what is due to them as human beings and as members of the community? Shifting from the will of individuals in rendering justice to the (...) outcome of the system of rules in achieving justice can be a dangerous leap. To some, it suggests that virtually every inequality arises because the rules of the game are unfair and that the state must intervene whenever there are unequal outcomes. The dangers of this leap are the primary focus of Is Social Justice Just?, whose twenty-one authors accepted an invitation to "explore, reassess, and critique the concept of social justice-relating it to ongoing debates in economics, history, philosophy, politics, public policy, religion, and the broader culture.". (shrink)

Almaatouq et al. propose a novel integrative approach to experiments. We provide three examples of how unaddressed measurement issues threaten the feasibility of the approach and its promise of promoting commensurability and knowledge integration.

The most striking example of Roman intervention in the affairs of mainland Greece between the Achaean and Mithridatic Wars is provided by an inscription now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. This stone bears the text of a letter to the city of Dyme in Achaea from a Roman proconsul named Q. Fabius Maximus, which describes his trial and sentencing of certain men of Dyme whom he had judged responsible for a recent disturbance in that city. One crux to be resolved (...) is chronological: A date of c. 115 b.c. has long been generally accepted, but recently evidence from another, still unpublished inscription has been thought to point to the year 144. Further, the letter of Fabius Maximus has long been held to exemplify the close supervision that most scholars, regardless of their position on the vexed question of Greece's formal status after 146, assume was exercised over Greece by Roman commanders in Macedonia from the time of the Achaean War. The document has also often been cited to bolster the claim that Rome pursued in second-century Greece a conscious policy of suppressing democracy or the political aspirations of the lower class. This is not, of course, the place for reassessment of these old, complex controversies. My purpose here is rather to show that interpretation of the letter of Fabius Maximus has not always been sufficiently mindful of the many obscurities of the text and, consequently, of the events that lie behind it; too often the great lacunae in our knowledge have been filled with assumptions that beg the questions that are under debate. (shrink)

Public health legal preparedness begins with effective legal authorities, and law provides a key foundation for public health practice in the United States. Laws not only create public health agencies and fund them, but also authorize and impose duties upon government to protect the public's health while preserving individual liberties. As a result, law is an essential tool in public health practice and is one element of public health infrastructure, as it defines the systems and relationships within which public health (...) practitioners operate.For purposes of this paper, law can be defined as a rule of conduct derived from federal or state constitutions, statutes, local laws, judicial opinions, administrative rules and regulations, international codes, or other pronouncements by entities authorized to prescribe conduct in a legally binding manner. Public health legal preparedness, a subset of public health preparedness, is defined as attainment of legal benchmarks within a public health system. (shrink)

The ability of adolescents to access safe and effective new products for HIV prevention and treatment is optimised by adolescent licensure at the same time these products are approved and marketed for adults. Many adolescent product development programmes for HIV prevention or treatment products may proceed simultaneously with adult phase III development programmes. Appropriately implemented, this strategy is not expected to delay licensure as information regarding product efficacy can often be extrapolated from adults to adolescents, and pharmacokinetic properties of drugs (...) in adolescents are expected to be similar to those in adults. Finally, adolescents enrolled in therapeutic HIV prevention and treatment research can be considered adults, based on US Food and Drug Administration regulations and the appropriate application of state law. The FDA permits local jurisdictions to apply state and local HIV/sexually transmitted infection minor treatment laws so that adolescents who are HIV-positive or at risk of contracting HIV may be enrolled in therapeutic or prevention trials without obtaining parental permission. (shrink)

We commend Redish et al. for the progress they have made in bringing a measure of theoretical order to the processes that underlie drug addiction. However, incorporating information about situations in which drug users do not exhibit faulty decision-making into the theory would greatly enhance its generality and practical value. This commentary draws attention to the relevant human substance abuse literature.

This brief text assists students in understanding Ockham's philosophy and thinking so they can more fully engage in useful, intelligent class dialogue and improve their understanding of course content. Part of the Wadsworth Notes Series, (which will eventually consist of approximately 100 titles, each focusing on a single "thinker" from ancient times to the present), ON OCKHAM is written by a philosopher deeply versed in the philosophy of this key thinker. Like other books in the series, this concise book offers (...) sufficient insight into the thinking of a notable philosopher, better enabling students to engage in reading and to discuss the material in class and on paper. (shrink)

Professionalism is demonstrated through attitudes and behaviors. Medical education is concerned with teaching and evaluating it among students. It is often bioethicists who teach professionalism to medical students. Most bioethics curricula use lectures and group discussions to introduce principles and theories, but there is variation in number of credit and contact hours, placement in the curriculum and alongside which courses bioethics is placed), the extent of individual mentoring, and the emphasis placed on any particular philosophical approach. Bioethics curricula also vary (...) in whether and how explicitly and extensively they address topics, including professionalism, cultural competence, medical humanities, spirituality, death and dying, and community service, and in the number and topics of vignettes, controversies, assignments, and course activities. (shrink)

Mohanty, J.N. Understanding Husserl's transcendental phenomenology.--Fink, E. The problem of the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. Operative concepts in Husserl's phenomenology.--Funke, G. A transcendental-phenomenological investigation concerning universal idealism, intentional analysis, and the genesis of habitus: archē, phansis, hexis, logos.--Pentzopoulou-Valalas, T. Reflections on the foundation of the relation between the a priori and the eidos in the phenomenology of Husserl.--Landgrebe, L. Regions of being and regional ontologies in Husserl's phenomenology. The problem posed by the transcendental science of the a priori of the (...) life world.--Wahl, J. Notes on the first part of Experience and judgment by Husserl.--Landgrebe, L. A letter from Ludwig Landgrebe to Jean Wahl.-- Wahl, J. A note on some empiricist aspects of the thought of Husserl.--Toulemont, R. The specific character of the social according to Husserl. (shrink)

The non-financial effects (NFE) antitakeover amendment addresses the duties of company directors and management when faced with a possible takeover bid. The NFE amendment either permits or requires managers to consider the interests of the company's stakeholders during takeover bids. Other types of antitakeover devices have been viewed as protecting either stockholder or management interests. The NFE amendment would appear to protect a broad spectrum of interests including those of company employees, creditors, and the community in which the company operates. (...) Positive market returns to the adoption of NFE amendments provide some evidence that investors approve. The percent of both management and institutional ownership are positively related to the market reaction to the NFE amendment adoption. To the extent that institutional ownership proxies for the broad spectrum of stakeholder interest, NFE devices, unlike some other amendments that have been studied, appear to be in the interests of more than a single interest group. (shrink)

The non-financial effects (NFE) antitakeover amendment addresses the duties of company directors and management when faced with a possible takeover bid. The NFE amendment either permits or requires managers to consider the interests of the company's stakeholders during takeover bids. Other types of antitakeover devices have been viewed as protecting either stockholder or management interests. The NFE amendment would appear to protect a broad spectrum of interests including those of company employees, creditors, and the community in which the company operates. (...) Positive market returns to the adoption of NFE amendments provide some evidence that investors approve. The percent of both management and institutional ownership are positively related to the market reaction to the NFE amendment adoption. To the extent that institutional ownership proxies for the broad spectrum of stakeholder interest, NFE devices, unlike some other amendments that have been studied, appear to be in the interests of more than a single interest group. (shrink)

In celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Beauchamp and Childress’s Principles of Biomedical Ethics, a review is undertaken to compare the lists of principles in various bioethical theories to determine the extent to which the various lists can be reconciled. Included are the single principle theories of utilitarianism, libertarianism, Hippocratism, and the theories of Pellegrino, Engelhardt, The Belmont Report, Beauchamp and Childress, Ross, Veatch, and Gert. We find theories all offering lists of principles numbering from one to (...) ten. Many of the differences can be reconciled, but some critical differences remain. (shrink)

No one really believes that literally all functions of the entire brain must be lost for an individual to be dead. A better definition of death involves a higher brain orientation.

When a new, brain-based definition of death was proposed fifty years ago, no one realized that the issue would remain unresolved for so long. Recently, six new controversies have added to the debate: whether there is a right to refuse apnea testing, which set of criteria should be chosen to measure the death of the brain, how the problem of erroneous testing should be handled, whether any of the current criteria sets accurately measures the death of the brain, whether standard (...) criteria include measurements of all brain functions, and how minorities who reject whole-brain-based definitions should be accommodated. These controversies leave little hope of consensus on how to define death for social and public policy purposes. Rather, there is persistent disagreement among proponents of three major groups of definitions of death: whole-brain, cardiocirculatory or somatic, and higher-brain. Given the persistence and reasonableness of each of these groups of definitions, public policy should permit individuals and their valid surrogates to choose among them. (shrink)

This anthology of major classical and contemporary views on key ethical aspects of death and dying is the only philosophically sophisticated, interdisciplinary, and up-to-date introduction to the subject available. Pairs pro and con arguments to give a balanced perspective. Covers a range of topics that reflect the latest developments at the frontier of the field. Provides clearly and carefully written section introductions that define the issues to be discussed. Introduces each selection with a brief editorial essay. Features up-to-date and solid (...) analyses of all issues. Offers an excellent introduction to ethical theory. (shrink)

This book shows that the repeated announcements of the death of Hegel's philosophical system have been premature. Hegel's Philosophy of Freedom, Reality, and God brings to light accomplishments for which Hegel is seldom given credit: unique arguments for the reality of freedom, for the reality of knowledge, for the irrationality of egoism, and for the compatibility of key insights from traditional theism and naturalistic atheism. The book responds in a systematic manner to many of the major criticisms leveled at Hegel's (...) system, from Feuerbach and Kierkegaard to Heidegger and Charles Taylor. It provides detailed interpretations of Hegel's Philosophy of Spirit, large parts of his indispensable Science of Logic, and important parts of his Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Right. Unlike many academic books on Hegel, this one treats him very much as a 'live' thinker, whom we can learn from today. (shrink)

The emergence of the “4th Industrial Revolution,” i.e. the convergence of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, advanced materials, and bioengineering technologies, could accelerate socioeconomic insecurities and anxieties or provide beneficial alternatives to the status quo. In the post-Covid-19 era, the entities that are best positioned to capitalize on these innovations are large firms, which use digital platforms and big data to orchestrate vast ecosystems of users and extract market share across industry sectors. Nonetheless, these technologies also have the potential (...) to democratize ownership, broaden political-economic participation, and reduce environmental harms. We articulate the potential sociotechnical pathways in this high-stakes crossroads by analyzing cellular agriculture, an exemplary 4th Industrial Revolution technology that synergizes computer science, biopharma, tissue engineering, and food science to grow cultured meat, dairy, and egg products from cultured cells and/or genetically modified yeast. Our exploration of this space involved multi-sited ethnographic research in both the cellular agriculture community and alternative economic organizations devoted to open source licensing, member-owned cooperatives, social financing, and platform business models. Upon discussing how these latter approaches could potentially facilitate alternative sociotechnical pathways in cellular agriculture, we reflect upon the broader implications of this work with respect to the 4th Industrial Revolution and the enduring need for public policy reform. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 114-116.

How did meat emerge to become such an important feature in Western society? In both popular and academic literatures, biophysical and political-economic factors are often cited as the reason for meat’s preeminent status. In this paper, we perform a comprehensive investigation of these claims by reviewing the available evidence on the political-economic and biophysical features of meat over the long arc of Western history. We specifically focus on nine critical epochs: the Paleolithic, early to late Neolithic, antiquity, ancient Israel and (...) early Christian societies, medieval Europe, early modern Europe, colonial America, the American frontier, and the modern industrial era. We find that except under conditions of environmental scarcity, the meaning and value of meat cannot be attributed to intrinsic biophysical value or to the political-economic actors who materially benefit from it. Rather, meat’s status reflects the myriad cultural contexts in which it is socially constructed in people’s everyday lives, particularly with respect to religious, gender, communal, racial, national, and class identity. By deconstructing the normalized/naturalized materialist assumptions circling around meat consumption, this paper clears a space for a more nuanced appreciation of the role that culture has played in the legitimation of meat, and by extension, the possibility of change. (shrink)

The Middle Way is the practical principle of avoiding both positive and negative absolutes, so as to develop provisional beliefs accessible to experience. Although inspired initially by the Buddha’s Middle Way, in Middle Way Philosophy Robert M Ellis has developed it as a critical universalism: a way of separating the helpful from the unhelpful elements of any tradition. In this book, the Middle Way is applied to the Christian tradition in order to argue for a meaningful and positive interpretation (...) of it, without the absolute beliefs that many assume to be essential to Christianity. Faith as an embodied, provisional confidence is distinguished from dogmatic belief. Recent developments in embodied meaning, brain lateralization from neuroscience, Jungian archetypes and the Jungian model of psychological integration are drawn on to support an account of how Christian faith is not only possible without ‘belief’ in God or Christ, but indeed puts us in a better position to access inspiration, moral purpose, responsibility and the basis of peace. (shrink)

Academic philosophy can be puzzling to newcomers. The conventions, terms, and expectations entrenched among philosophers aren’t always clear from the outside. Why are philosophers so preoccupied with finding “the truth”—doesn’t everyone have their own philosophy? Is philosophy so deep and difficult that its literature has to be incomprehensible? What kinds of arguments can there be for a philosophical position? Where does the evidence come from? Why is there so much jargon—wouldn’t it be better to do away with it altogether? Best-selling (...) author and retired philosophy professor Robert Martin answers these questions and many more, offering a practical guide to arguing and writing philosophically. Anecdotes, jokes, asides, digressions, oddments, and entertainments are included throughout, resulting in an informal introduction that doesn’t shy away from the nuts and bolts of philosophical argument. (shrink)