Climate change is a global problem that is predominantly an intergenerational conflict, and which takes place in a setting where our ethical impulses are weak. This "perfect moral storm" poses a profound challenge to humanity. This book explains how the "perfect storm" metaphor makes sense of our current malaise, and why a better ethics can help see our way out.

This long-awaited work by prominent Harvard psychologist Stephen Kosslyn integrates a twenty-year research program on the nature of high-level vision and mental ...

Disability and enhancement are often treated as opposing concepts. To become disabled in some respect is to move away from those who are enhanced in that same respect; to become enhanced is to move away from the corresponding state of disability. This chapter examines how best to understand the concepts of disability and enhancement in this symmetrical way. After considering various candidates, two types of accounts are identified as the most promising: welfarist accounts and typical-functioning accounts. The authors ultimately defend (...) a complex typical-functioning account as the best way to achieve a symmetrical understanding of disability and enhancement. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In Debating Climate Ethics, David Weisbach and I offer contrasting views of the importance of ethics and justice for climate policy. I argue that ethics is central. Weisbach advocates for climate policy based purely on narrow forms of self-interest. For this symposium, I summarize the major themes, and extend my basic argument. I claim that ethics gets the problem right, whereas dismissing ethics risks getting the problem dangerously wrong, and perpetuating profound injustices. One consequence is that we should reject (...) the alleged “feasibility constraint” of short-term, economic self-interest. (shrink)

Fisher’s 1918 paper accomplished two distinct goals: unifying discrete Mendelian genetics with continuous biometric phenotypes and quantifying the variance components of variation in complex human characteristics. The former contributed to the foundation of modern quantitative genetics; the latter was adopted by social scientists interested in the pursuit of Galtonian nature-nurture questions about the biological and social origins of human behavior, especially human intelligence. This historical divergence has produced competing notions of the estimation of variance ratios referred to as heritability. Jay (...) Lush showed that they could be applied to selective breeding on the farm, while the early twin geneticists used them as a descriptive statistic to describe the degree of genetic determination in complex human traits. Here we trace the early history of the heritability coefficient now used by social scientists. (shrink)

I critically examine the semantic view of theories to reveal the following results. First, models in science are not the same as models in mathematics, as holders of the semantic view claim. Second, when several examples of the semantic approach are examined in detail no common thread is found between them, except their close attention to the details of model building in each particular science. These results lead me to propose a deflationary semantic view, which is simply that model construction (...) is an important component of theorizing in science. This deflationary view is consistent with a naturalized approach to the philosophy of science. (shrink)

In early policy work, climate engineering is often described as a global public good. This paper argues that the paradigm example of geoengineering—stratospheric sulfate injection (hereafter ‘SSI’)—does not fit the canonical technical definition of a global public good, and that more relaxed versions are unhelpful. More importantly, it claims that, regardless of the technicalities, the public good framing is seriously misleading, in part because it arbitrarily marginalizes ethical concerns. Both points suggest that more clarity is needed about the aims of (...) geoengineering policy—and especially governance—and that this requires special attention to ethics. (shrink)

The so-called Disability Paradox arises from the apparent tension between the popular view that disability leads to low well-being and the relatively high life-satisfaction reports of disabled people. Our aim in this essay is to make some progress toward dissolving this alleged paradox by exploring the relationship between disability and various “goods of life”—that is, components of a life that typically make a person’s life go better for her. We focus on four widely recognized goods of life (happiness, rewarding relationships, (...) knowledge, achievement) and four common types of disability (sensory, mobility, intellectual, and social) and systematically examine the extent to which the four disability types are in principle compatible with obtaining the four goods of life. Our findings suggest that that there is a high degree of compatibility. This undermines the widespread view that disabilities, by their very nature, substantially limit a person’s ability to access the goods of life, and it provides some guidance on how to dissolve the Disability Paradox. (shrink)

A cutting-edge introduction to environmental ethics in a time of dramatic global environmental change, this collection contains forty-five newly commissioned articles, with contributions from well-established experts and emerging voices in the field.

On the traditional view, moral distress arises only in cases where an individual believes she knows the morally right thing to do but fails to perform that action due to various constraints. We seek to motivate a broader understanding of moral distress. We begin by presenting six types of distress that fall outside the bounds of the traditional definition and explaining why they should be recognized as forms of moral distress. We then propose and defend a new and more expansive (...) definition of moral distress and examine how it can enable the development of a taxonomy of moral distress. (shrink)

We argue that heritability estimates cannot be used to make informed judgments about the populations from which they are drawn. Furthermore, predicting changes in heritability from population changes is likely impossible, and of limited value. We add that the attempt to separate human environments into cultural and non-cultural components does not advance our understanding of the environmental multiplier effect.

This collection gathers a set of central papers from the emerging area of ethics and climate change.

It is widely assumed that disability is typically a bad thing for those who are disabled. Our purpose in this essay is to critique this view and defend a more nuanced picture of the relationship between disability and well-being. We first examine four interpretations of the above view and argue that it is false on each interpretation. We then ask whether disability is thereby a neutral trait. Our view is that most disabilities are neutral in one sense, though we cannot (...) make simple generalizations about disability's relationship to well-being in other important senses. After defending this view, we discuss its practical implications for selective abortion for disability, nondisabled people's interactions with disabled people, and the use of QALYs in health policy. (shrink)

This paper describes an operational computer simulation of visual mental imagery in humans. The structure of the simulation was motivated by results of experiments on how people represent information in, and access information from, visual images. The simulation includes a “surface representation,” which is spatial and quasi‐pictorial, and an underlying “deep representation,” which contains “perceptual” information encoding appearance plus “propositional” information describing facts about an object. The simulation embodies a theory of how surface images are generated from deep representations, and (...) how surface images are processed when one accesses information embedded in them. The simulation also offers an account of various sorts of imagery transformations. (shrink)

The peculiar features of the climate change problem pose substantial obstacles to our ability to make the hard choices necessary to address it. Climate change involves the convergence of a set of global, intergenerational and theoretical problems. This convergence justifies calling it a 'perfect moral storm'. One consequence of this storm is that, even if the other difficult ethical questions surrounding climate change could be answered, we might still find it difficult to act. For the storm makes us extremely vulnerable (...) to moral corruption. (shrink)

What might a theory of mental imagery look like, and how might one begin formulating such a theory? These are the central questions addressed in the present paper. The first section outlines the general research direction taken here and provides an overview of the empirical foundations of our theory of image representation and processing. Four issues are considered in succession, and the relevant results of experiments are presented and discussed. The second section begins with a discussion of the proper form (...) for a cognitive theory, and the distinction between a theory and a model is developed. Following this, the present theory and computer simulation model are introduced. This theory specifies the nature of the internal representations (data structures) and the processes that operate on them when one generates, inspects, or transforms mental images. In the third, concluding, section we consider three very different kinds of objections to the present research program, one hinging on the possibility of experimental artifacts in the data, and the others turning on metatheoretical commitments about the form of a cognitive theory. Finally, we discuss how one ought best to evaluate theories and models of the sort developed here. (shrink)

Very few moral philosophers have written on climate change.1 This is puzzling, for several reasons. First, many politicians and policy makers claim that climate change is not only the most serious environmental problem currently facing the world, but also one of the most important international problems per se.2 Second, many of those working in other disciplines describe climate change as fundamentally an ethical issue.3.

Recently, I argued against framing geoengineering—understood here in terms of the paradigm example of stratospheric sulfate injection ('SSI')—as a global public good. My main claim was that this framing is seriously misleading because of its neglect of central ethical concerns. I also suggested that 'global public good' is best understood as an umbrella term covering a cluster of distinct, but interrelated ideas. In an effort to be charitable, I adopted an inclusive approach, considering two general attitudes to the technical definition, (...) six interpretations of the universal benefit claim, three of nonrivalness, and two of nonexcudability. I then argued that SSI as such does not fit the canonical definition, and that the more relaxed versions are unhelpful. Noticing that I agree that SSI is a global public good in one relaxed sense, David Morrow insists that this is the only acceptable interpretation, that describing SSI in this way is useful, and that it becomes misleading only when the concept is misunderstood by "non-economists", and that it is uncharitable to attribute such confusion to those presenting SSI as a global public good. I will suggest that Morrow's markedly exclusive approach is uncharitable, that his relaxed interpretation remains unhelpful, that there are good reasons to respect other uses, and most importantly that the definitional dispute is an unfortunate distraction that leaves my central point about the framing of SSI largely untouched. This discussion reinforces my suggestion that it is time to excise the term 'global public good' from the framing of SSI, and perhaps more generally. (shrink)

This contribution provides an assessment of the epistemological role of scientific models. The prevalent view that all scientific models are representations of the world is rejected. This view points to a unified way of resolving epistemic issues for scientific models. The emerging consensus in philosophy of science that models have many different epistemic roles in science is presented and defended.

Variability of aggression: human aggressive behavior varies on a number of dimensions. We argue that this variability is best understood through an interdisciplinary evolutionary approach.

It is widely recognized that lives and activities can be meaningful or meaningless, but few have appreciated that they can also be anti-meaningful. Anti-meaning is the polar opposite of meaning. Our purpose in this essay is to examine the nature and importance of this new and unfamiliar topic. In the first part, we sketch four theories of anti-meaning that correspond to leading theories of meaning. In the second part, we argue that anti-meaning has significance not only for our attempts to (...) theorize about meaning in life, but also for our ability to lead meaningful lives in the modern world. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article offers a constructive critique of the Oxford Principles for the governance of geoengineering and proposes an alternative set of principles, the Tollgate Principles, based on that critique. Our main concern is that, despite their many merits, the Oxford Principles remain largely instrumental and dominated by procedural considerations; therefore, they fail to lay the groundwork sufficiently for the more substantive ethical debate that is needed. The article aims to address this gap by making explicit many of the important ethical (...) questions lurking in the background, especially around values such as justice, respect and legitimacy. (shrink)

“[T]he Precautionary Principle still has neither a commonly accepted definition nor a set of criteria to guide its implementation. “There is”, Freestone … cogently observes, “a certain paradox in the widespread and rapid adoption of the Precautionary Principle”: While it is applauded as a “good thing”, no one is quite sure about what it really means or how it might be..

Recently, I have been arguing for a global constitutional convention focused on protecting future generations. This deliberative body would be akin to the American constitutional convention of 1787, which gave rise to the present structure of government in the United States. It would confront the “governance gap” that currently exists surrounding concern for future generations. In particular, contemporary institutions tend to crowd out intergenerational concern, and thereby facilitate a “tyranny of the contemporary.” They not only fail to address a basic (...) standing threat to humanity and other species, but help that threat become manifest. Climate change is a prime example. In this paper, I sketch out a natural argumentative path toward the global constitutional convention and argue that is difficult to resist. I also insist that we should be evenhanded in the way we treat the proposal. Those who put their faith in alternatives must also confront standard complaints about naivety, urgency, threats to democratic values, and the like. Moreover, the global constitutional convention has the advantage of addressing the problem we face head on. (shrink)

A critical study of two recent books in climate ethics by Dale Jamieson (Reason in a Dark Time, Oxford 2014), and Darrel Moellendorf (The Moral and Political Challenges of Climate Change, Cambridge 2014).

There is widespread agreement that ethical concerns are central to decision-making about, and governance of, geoengineering. This is especially true of the most prominent and paradigm example of climate engineering, the spraying of sulfate particles into the stratosphere in order to block incoming sunlight and so limit global warming ). Geoengineering ethics, like geoengineering science, is still in its early, exploratory days. This chapter offers an introductory overview of the emerging discussion and some of the challenges moving forward, taking SSI (...) as its key example. It identifies a range of values relevant to geoengineering, exposes some misleading early framings, argues that questions of justification and context are both important, and summarizes the Tollgate principles for geoengineering governance. One theme is that despite the initial agreement on the centrality of ethics, in practice there are profound risks that ethical considerations will be marginalized, both in the short-term as research is developed, and in the longer-run, in any deployment. (shrink)

Examining what the role of the state or political order should be and how the state should treat its citizens, this text builds its analysis around the reflections of great political thinkers, including papal thought, and the reasoning and conclusions of philosophers and contemporary commentators.

Kammerer and Frankish (this issue) propose an exciting new research programme on the computational form of introspective systems. Pursuing this goal requires measures that can isolate introspective capacity from response biases and first-order processes. I suggest that metacognitive psychophysics is well placed to meet this challenge, allowing the mapping of introspective architectures in humans, animals, and artificial systems.

It seems better to have a life that begins poorly and ends well than a life that begins well and ends poorly. One possible explanation is that the very shape of a life can be good or bad for us. If so, this raises a tough question: when can the shape of our lives be good or bad for us? In this essay, I present and critique an argument that the shape of a life is a non-synchronic prudential value—that is, (...) something that can be good or bad for us in a way that is not good or bad for us at any particular time. After distinguishing two interpretations of ‘the shape of a life’, I argue that the first type of shape can be good or bad for us at particular moments while the other cannot be good or bad for us at all. This suggests that the shape of a life gives us no reason to posit non-synchronic prudential values. (shrink)

In two celebrated and widely-anthologized articles, as well as several books, the biologist Garrett Hardin claims (a) that the world population problem has a certain structure – it is a tragedy of the commons - and, (b) that, given this structure, the only tenable solutions involve either coercion or immense human suffering. In this paper, I shall argue for two claims. First, Hardin’s arguments are deeply flawed. The population problem as he conceives it does not have the structure of a (...) commons; and even if it did, this would not necessitate the extreme responses he canvasses. Second, nevertheless, much of Hardin’s pessimism is justified. Some environmental problems associated with population do have tragic structures, though these are of a different form than Hardin envisions. For example, the problem of global climate change has an intergenerational aspect that makes it importantly worse than Hardin’s commons, and for this reason (as opposed to Hardin’s) extreme responses may be needed to avert environmental catastrophe. (shrink)

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the (...) site FAQs. (shrink)