Calls to hold artificial intelligence to account are intensifying. Activists and researchers alike warn of an “accountability gap” or even a “crisis of accountability” in AI. Meanwhile, several prominent scholars maintain that accountability holds the key to governing AI. But usage of the term varies widely in discussions of AI ethics and governance. This chapter begins by disambiguating some different senses and dimensions of accountability, distinguishing it from neighboring concepts, and identifying sources of confusion. It proceeds to explore the idea (...) that AI operates within an accountability gap arising from technical features of AI as well as the social context in which it is deployed. The chapter also evaluates various proposals for closing this gap. I conclude that the role of accountability in AI ethics and governance is vital but also more limited than some suggest. Accountability’s primary job description is to verify compliance with substantive normative principles—once those principles are settled. Theories of accountability cannot ultimately tell us what substantive standards to account for, especially when norms are contested or still emerging. Nonetheless, formal mechanisms of accountability provide a way of diagnosing and discouraging egregious wrongdoing even in the absence of normative agreement. Providing accounts can also be an important first step toward the development of more comprehensive regulatory standards for AI. (shrink)

Most facts of grounding involve nonfundamental concepts, and thus must themselves be grounded. But how? The leading approaches—due to Bennett, deRosset, and Dagupta—are subject to objections. The way forward is to deny a presupposition common to the leading approaches, that there must be some simple formula governing how grounding facts are grounded. Everyone agrees that facts about cities might be grounded in some complex way about which we know little; we should say the same about the facts of grounding themselves. (...) The kinds of facts that might enter into the grounds of the facts of grounding are explored at length. (shrink)

Counterpossibles are counterfactuals that involve some metaphysical impossibility. Modal normativism is a non-descriptivist account of metaphysical necessity and possibility according to which modal claims, e.g. ‘necessarily, all bachelors are unmarried’, do not function as descriptive claims about the modal nature of reality but function as normative illustrations of constitutive rules and permissions that govern the use of ordinary non-modal vocabulary, e.g. ‘bachelor’. In this paper, I assume modal normativism and develop a novel account of counterpossibles and claims about metaphysical similarity (...) between possible and impossible worlds. I argue that considerations of metaphysical similarity between various impossible worlds and the actual world only require us to tacitly consider how the actual constitutive rules that govern the use of our terms change in order to accommodate the description of some hypothetical impossible scenario. I then argue for my account by raising worries for alternative epistemic and realist accounts of counterpossibles and showing how my account avoids those worries. (shrink)

We often speak of an object being composed of various other objects. We say that the deck is composed of the cards, that a road is the sum total of its sections, that a house is composed of its walls, ceilings, floors, doors, etc. Suppose we have some material objects. Here is a philosophical question: what conditions must obtain for those objects to compose something? In his recent book Material Beings, Peter van Inwagen addresses this question, which he calls the (...) ‘special composition question’; his answer is:1 (1) For any material objects X , the X s compose something iff the activity of the X s constitutes a life, or there is only one of the Xs. Additionally, he accepts a simpler thesis that follows from (1):2 (2) Every material object is either a mereological atom or a living thing, where a mereological atom is an object lacking proper parts. (2) may seem radical. If it is true then there are no tables, chairs, planets, protons, galaxies, gas stations, etc. But van Inwagen does not hold it lightly— there are serious difficulties with alternate views. Moreover, he claims that.. (shrink)

How does science work? _Making Truth: Metaphor in Science_ argues that most laypeople, and many scientists, do not have a clear understanding of how metaphor relates to scientific thinking. With stunning clarity, and bridging the worlds of scientists and nonscientists, Theodore L. Brown demonstrates the presence and the power of metaphorical thought. He presents a series of studies of scientific systems, ranging from the atom to current topics in chemistry and biology such as protein folding, chaperone proteins, and global (...) warming. These case studies provide the basis for far-reaching conclusions about science as an intellectual and social practice and about the nature of scientific truth. (shrink)

Many scholars of organizations see social enterprise as a promising approach to advancing social justice but neglect to scrutinize the normative foundations and limitations of this optimism. This article draws on Rawlsian political philosophy to investigate whether and how social enterprises can support social justice. We propose that this perspective assigns organizations a duty to foster institutional capacity, a concept we define and elaborate. We investigate how this duty might apply specifically to social enterprises, given their characteristic features. We theorize (...) six different mechanisms through which social enterprises might successfully discharge this duty. These results affirm the value of conversation between organizational studies and political philosophy and shed new light on debates regarding social enterprise, institutional theory, and several other topics. (shrink)

This paper presents a new solution to the problem of peer disagreement that distinguishes two principles of rational belief, here called probability and autonomy. When we discover that we disagree with peers, there is one sense in which we rationally ought to suspend belief, and another in which we rationally ought to retain our original belief. In the first sense, we aim to believe what is most probably true according to our total evidence, including testimony from peers and authorities. In (...) the second, we aim to base our beliefs only on objective evidence and argumentation, even if that lowers the probability of their being true. The first principle of rational belief tends to serve the short-term epistemic interests of individuals, while the second tends to serve the long-term epistemic interests of both individuals and groups. The best way to reconcile these principles in cases of peer disagreement is to associate them with two corresponding species of belief, here called perception and opinion. (shrink)

Personal identity is not always symmetric: even if I will not be a later person, the later person may have been me. What makes this possible is that the relations that are criterial of personal identity---such as memory and anticipation---are asymmetric and "count in favor of personal identity from one side only". Asymmetric personal identity can be accommodated by temporal counterpart theory but not by Lewisian overlapping aggregates of person stages. The question of uncertainty in cases of personal fission (and (...) in Everettian quantum mechanics) is also discussed. (shrink)

In July 2020, more than 1000 companies that advertise on social media platforms withdrew their business, citing failures of the platforms (especially Facebook) to address the proliferation of harmful content. The #StopHateForProfit movement invites reflection on an understudied topic: the ethics of boycotting by corporations. Under what conditions is corporate boycotting permissible, required, supererogatory, or forbidden? Although value-driven consumerism has generated significant recent discussion in applied ethics, that discussion has focused almost exclusively on the consumption choices of individuals. As this (...) article underscores, value-driven consumerism by business corporations complicates these issues and invites further examination. We propose principles for the ethics of boycotting by corporations, indicate how these principles relate to different CSR paradigms, and show how these insights can help assess recent instances of corporate boycotting. (shrink)

Some contemporary Russellians, defenders of the view that the semantic content of a proper name, demonstrative or indexical is simply its referent, are prepared to accept that view’s most infamous apparent consequence: that coreferential names, demonstratives, indexicals, etc. are intersubstitutable salva veritate, even in intentional contexts. Nathan Salmon and Scott Soames argue that our recalcitrant intuitions with respect to the famous apparent counterexamples are not semantic intuitions, but rather pragmatic intuitions. Strictly and literally speaking, Lois Lane believes, and even knows (...) that Clark Kent is identical to Superman, since she believes and knows that Superman is identical to Superman. Salmon and Soames attempt to soften our reaction to this shocker by allowing that it is typically misleading to utter the sentence ‘Lois Lane knows that Clark Kent is identical to Superman’, since it pragmatically implicates, without semantically entailing, that Lois Lane would accept the sentence ‘Clark Kent is identical to Superman’. Our compulsive tendency to claim that ‘Lois Lane knows that Clark Kent is Superman’ is false, rather than merely misleading, is due to a confusion between semantics and pragmatics, between truth conditions and conditions of appropriateness of utterance.1 It is probably fair to say that the common reaction to this move in defense of Russellianism is negative. Mark Richard says the following. (shrink)

Ideas for integrating AI into politics are now emerging and advancing at accelerating pace. This chapter highlights a few different varieties and show how they reflect different assumptions about the value of democracy. We cannot make informed decisions about which, if any, proposals to pursue without further reflection on what makes democracy valuable and how current conditions fail to fully realize it. Recent advances in political philosophy provide some guidance but leave important questions open. If AI advances to a state (...) where it can secure superior political outcomes, leading perspectives in political philosophy suggest that democracy may become obsolete. If we find this suggestion troubling, we need to put the case for democracy on stronger foundations. (shrink)

First published, here, in English. Reproduced (also in English) in Adorno's Gesammelte Schriften, 20.I.

Thus, says Hare, a judgment that someone is happy is an appraisal, not a statement of fact. I do not wish to deny that there are some uses of 'happy', ascribed to a person or to a life, for which this is the case; but I would like to maintain that there are other uses of 'happy', philosophically important ones, in which a judgment that a third person is happy is not an appraisal, but is rather a report about him (...) which may be true or false; and in which a first person judgment that one is happy, while it involves an appraisal, is still a report which may be true or false. (shrink)

Intergenerational transfers are a core feature of the practice of private philanthropy. A substantial portion of the resources committed to charitable causes comes from transfers (either during life or at death) that continue to pay out after death. Indeed, much of the power of the charitable foundation lies in its ability to extend the life of an enterprise beyond the mortal existence of its initiating agents. Despite their prevalence, whether and in what way the instruments of intergenerational philanthropy can be (...) justified is controversial. Many have argued that these instruments unfairly privilege the interests of the dead at the expense of the living and unborn. More recently, others have argued that intergenerational charitable transfers comport with the demands of distributive justice and are therefore legitimate. This paper contends that both of these perspectives fail to see the problem for what it is. Intergenerational charitable transfers may indeed promote justice in certain respects, but they do so at the cost of imposing the judgments of the dead onto the living. Respecting the wishes of the past conflicts with an interest in “generational sovereignty.” The paper concludes that properly accounting for this interest in generational sovereignty doesn’t require the abolition of intergenerational philanthropy. But it does tell in favor of a different regulatory orientation than most legal systems currently adopt. (shrink)

For most us, learning which quantum theory correctly describes human bodies will not affect our attitudes towards our loved ones. On the other hand, a child’s discovery of the nature of meat (or an adult’s discovery of the nature of soylent green) can have a great effect. In still other cases, it is hard to say how one would, or should, react to new information about the underlying nature of what we value—think of how mixed our reactions are to evidence (...) of cultural determinism or atheism, or of how mixed our reactions would be to learning that we all live in the Matrix. (Indeed, maybe there is no objective fact about how we should react. Derek Parfit’s (1984, section 95) fear of death diminished when he became convinced of certain theses about the metaphysics of personal identity. Perhaps there is no objective fact of the matter as to whether this was rational; perhaps it was rational for him but would not be for others.) What can metaphysics contribute to the question of the evil of death? It cannot, on its own, settle the question, since there is no simple rule telling us how to adjust value in light of new information about underlying nature. Given a clear view of the nature of death, there will remain the question of its disvalue. However, metaphysics can help us attain this clear view. Moreover, a clear conception of what metaphysical positions do and don’t say, and a clear conception of how metaphysics works in general, can remove impediments to a rational appraisal of the evil of death. (shrink)

It is only in the early decades of the twentieth century that the “Hobbesian state of nature” and the “discourse of anarchy” came to be seen as virtually synonymous. In examining Hobbes’ international state of nature, this article rejects two common views. In one, International Relations is seen as a warlike “Hobbesian” anarchy, and in the other, Hobbes is regarded as the progenitor of Realism. Far from defending anarchy of states, Hobbes in fact constructs a largely ameliorative international arena.

Critics of private charity often claim that the well-off should instead assist the disadvantaged through political reform. The present article explores this idea with reference to effective altruism, a powerful new paradigm in the ethics of philanthropy. Effective altruism presses the relatively affluent not only to give generously, but also to subject their practical deliberations to rigorous evaluations of impartiality and cost-effectiveness. The article contends that the movement’s sophisticated methods are not sufficient to overcome the worries of institutionalist critics. At (...) the same time, it shows that a transition from assistance to advocacy faces underappreciated and serious limitations. The measurement-based methods that allow effective altruists to identify promising assistance programs do not carry over well to political reform. In addition, unleashing greater private wealth into politics may exacerbate unequal opportunities for political influence. The article closes with preliminary suggestions for overcoming these concerns and connects them to broader developments in the politics of philanthropy. (shrink)

Sometimes we give truth-conditions for sentences of a discourse in other terms. According to Agustín Rayo, when doing so it is sometimes legitimate to use the terms of that very discourse, so long as the terms do not occur in the truth-conditions themselves. I argue that giving truth-conditions in this "outscoping" way prevents one from answering "discourse threat" (for example, the threat of indeterminacy).

One of the most eminent Heidegger scholars of our time, Theodore Kisiel has found worldwide critical acclaim, his particular strength being to set Heidegger's ...

Why is science so rare and faith so common in human history? Traditional cultures persist because it is subjectively rational for each maturing child to defer to the unanimous beliefs of his elders, regardless of any personal doubts. Science is possible only when individuals promote new theories (which will probably be proven false) and forgo the epistemic advantages of accepting established views (which are more likely to be true). Hence, progressive science must rely upon the epistemic altruism of experimental thinkers, (...) while traditions of faith depend on the epistemic self-interest of their followers. (shrink)

Stephanie Morain and Emily Largent’s (2023) target article “Think Pragmatically: Investigators’ Obligations to Patient-Subjects When Research is Embedded in Care” identified a number of important c...

This study presents the design and selected results of a comprehensive research on measuring the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship. We used the methodology of conjoint analysis and developed a hierarchical framework that lists all the multi-attributes that exist in the triple bottom line concept. In doing so, we collected data from 150 Greek food companies. The multi-attributes were categorized and ranked into the following four headings: internal social values, external social values, environmental values and economic values. Specifically, we found that (...) the creation of values that improve the safety and hygiene issues of products to consumers is the most important attribute for the ISV domain. Respectively, the most important attribute for the ESV domain is the creation of values that impact on the local economy. Accordingly, the creation of values for minimizing environmental impacts was found as the most important attribute for the ENV domain. And lastly, the establishment of ECV that increase long-run profitability was identified as the most important for the ECV dimension. Finally, all the categorized values offer rich feedback for entrepreneurship scholars and parishioners. And, to that extent, our findings are slightly different from those reported in previous researches to other contexts, as we have managed to build an aggregated instrument that promotes the hybrid nature of food companies towards international development. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Advocates of certain paraconsistent logics claim that classical logic provides incorrect norms for reasoning about impossible situations. Some have taken this claim as a sufficient reason to modify classical accounts of consequence. In this paper, I explain and evaluate such an argument based on Graham Priest's fictional story, "Sylvan's Box." I will explain and evaluate an objection to this argument based on a consistent reading of Priest's story offered by Daniel Nolan. However, I will argue that the argument fails for (...) different reasons. It is not the case that classical logic provides incorrect norms for reasoning about impossible situations. I will discuss logical tools, offered by Daniel Nolan, compatible with classical accounts of consequence that allow for non-vacuous reasoning about impossibilities. Finally, I will offer an explanation for seeming tensions between certain classical logic principles and reasoning about impossibilities. (shrink)

This is an exploration of how the narratives people construct during everyday living are shaped by certain limitations and regular patterns in individual memory. The book draws on themes in Walter Ong's analysis of memory and oracy. It also explores the relations between memory aids/supports and memory itself. The recognition of records as playing a role in memory adds a collective dimension and raises questions about the nature of historical truth. The ethical theme is based on the thesis that the (...) past can be redeemed or changed not just on the level of narrative, but also on the level of additional actions that can be related to prior actions in such a way as to justify a new narration of the events taken together. This means that the past can be changed, and this notion of redeeming the past is inspired by Christian thought. (shrink)

This work discusses the results of importing and then attempting to Christianize the content of secular education in its available form of discourse (public knowledge), especially with regard to the sciences. The book addresses the need for Christian educators to be conscious of the sources of the content of their curricula.