One of the reasons often cited for the renewed interest in Aristotelian virtue theory is its alleged sensitivity to the particular case. In addition to rules and procedures is attention to the variety of individual cases, and a reminder of the shortfalls of misplaced rigour. Often quoted are the passages from the Nicomachean Ethics in which Aristotle warns that we must seek only so much precision as is appropriate for the subject matter. Repeated, too, is the well-known phrase of the (...) Ethics, that “judgment rests in perception”. The spirit of these remarks, in essence, that “practical wisdom is not scientific understanding”, is contrasted with modern views which stress the sufficiency of algorithms for fully determining right action and deliberation based on deduction from rules. (shrink)

Choices can be wise or foolish, and feelings can be apt or off the mark. So we judge, and it would be good to know what content these normative judgements carry. Gibbard offers an answer, and elaborates it. His theory explores what is at issue in narrowly moral questions, and in questions of rational thought and conduct in general.

This book examines some of the deepest questions in philosophy: What is involved in judging a belief, action, or feeling to be rational?

Certainty : a contemporary question -- Beginnings: questions and debates in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries -- Abba Father: the certainty of salvation -- The spiritual man judges all things: the certainty of exegetical authority -- Are you alone wise?: the Catholic response -- Experientia: the great age of the Spirit -- Unmasking the angel of light: the discernment of the spirits -- Men should be what they seem: appearances and reality.

In this paper I compare two models of expert judgment: the art critic in Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste” and the “wise man” in “Of Miracles.” The art critic is a true judge of beauty because he has made himself into a person who is optimally receptive to beauty. He possesses the virtues of taste: “Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice” (“Of the Standard of Taste,” 241). But (...) the virtues of the art critic, I argue, are also those of the “wise man,” the person who consistently “proportions his belief to the evidence” (EHU 10.4; SBN 110). Comparison of these two characters reveals that for Hume the virtues fundamental to the art critic’s critical competence are also epistemic virtues. Hume’s exposition of aesthetic excellences should thus be of interest for virtue epistemology. Because contemporary virtue epistemologists have tended to focus almost exclusively on the relationships between intellectual and moral virtues, Hume offers something new: an account of epistemic virtues based on aesthetic virtues. (shrink)

The confirmation process and the virtues of duplicity -- How to be aggressive and passive ... and great -- Recusal and the vices of impartiality -- The use and misuse of the politics of personality -- Fortuna : the role of chance in choosing cases -- When and why to avoid a case -- Carpe diem : when to embrace a case -- Tactical tools : using procedure to one's advantage -- Oral arguments : what to say and how -- (...) When to lose a case and win a cause -- In defense of unprincipled decision making -- How to manipulate the rule of law -- When precedents are to be honored (if only formally) -- When to take command and make demands -- The boldest moves : when and how to make them -- On writing : when style should trump substance -- When it is wise to write a separate opinion -- Law clerks : when and how to use them -- How to play to the media -- Cameras in the courtroom : seizing the future -- On television : the medium is not the message -- On publishing books : when and of what kind -- The threat of impeachment and how best to avoid it -- When it is best to retire -- Directing history : a justice's working papers and what to do with them -- How to best secure an enduring legacy. (shrink)

Following the argument wherever it leads is a piece of well-known and time-honored advice we give to students in philosophy. Using three instances drawn from the history of philosophy, we look at reasons for both adhering to this principle and for sometimes putting it aside in favor of other considerations. We find that the requirement of following the argument where it leads is not a simple demand of logic, but rather a complex norm that is sensitive to various considerations. Some (...) of these have to do with the fact that consistency may be restored to one’s system of beliefs only at a price that one may judge, on cognitive or moral grounds, as too high. Following the argument wherever it leads is thus a norm about the place of reason in our intellectual and practical lives and is therefore a norm that must be evaluated in the context of various extra-logical considerations. (shrink)

Almost every facet of the experience of musical listening—from pitch, to rhythm, to the experience of emotion—is thought to be shaped by the meeting and thwarting of expectations. But it is unclear what kind of mental states these expectations are, what their format is, and whether they are conscious or unconscious. Here, we distinguish between different modes of musical listening, arguing that expectations play different roles in each, and we point to the need for increased collaboration between music psychologists and (...) philosophers in order to arrive at a more detailed characterisation of conscious musical experience and the role of expectations therein. (shrink)

Deconstructing Azawad -- The plundering of Mali, past and present -- The African trace -- The Sahelian specter -- The duty of violence -- Nyama, fratricide, and reconciliation -- What is to be done? -- Zongo, Sankara, and the Burkinabe revolution.

This book is meant for sincere students, and especially for those who have some glimmering of what Krishna meant, when in Bhagavad-Gita, he said that after a while spiritual knowledge grows up within and illuminates with its rays all subjects and objects.

We report here on an ongoing study of a self-defining community of physicists whose work spans an interestingly diverse set of subjects, typically in the borderland between macroscopic and microscopic description and between quantum and classical domains. Its methods are typically semi-classical. It is this borderland—of people, subject, and methods—in which we are primarily interested and which we will attempt to characterise. For concreteness, we will focus on the subset of ‘quantum chaos’ and more particularly on the work that the (...) physicists Eric Heller and Steven Tomsovic have called ‘postmodern quantum mechanics’, using their characterisation to ground a somewhat more expansive interpretation. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe societal context within which science is pursued generally acts as a productive force in the generation of knowledge. To analyze this action it is helpful to consider particular modes of mediation through which societal concerns are projected into the very local and esoteric concerns of a particular domain of research. One such mode of mediation occurs through material systems. Here I treat two such systems – the steam engine and the electric telegraph – in the natural philosophy of (...) William Thomson (Lord Kelvin).The steam engine illustratesconceptualmediation. It simultaneously instantiates “labor value” in political economy and “work” in engineering mechanics, thereby identifying the two concepts in the region of their common reference. The partial identification carries with it a structural analogy between a network of concepts from political economy and a similar network in natural philosophy, providing a potent heuristic for the reformulation and further development of dynamics.The electric telegraph illustratesmethodologicalmediation. It projects the interests of engineering and industry into the interests of electromagnetic theory and vice versa, thereby establishing, in Thomson's view, a Baconian unity of truth and utility. As the common reference of theory and practice, the telegraph locates the truth of theoretical knowledge in its utility and the utility of practical knowledge in its truth.These particular cases of conceptual and methodological mediation indicate how the local practices, concepts, and interests of a research specialty, or subculture, draw on and are adapted to those of the larger culture within which they develop. Thus the analysis of mediation leads to an ecological model of the social construction of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

ABSTRACT An overview of some of the main modes of making images of natural objects and processes, as they have appeared in the history of science, leads to two main conclusions. First, the dichotomies that have traditionally distinguished, for example, art from science, museums from laboratories, and geometrical from algebraic methods have produced a poverty of understanding of visualization. It is at the intersections of these dichotomies where much of the creative work of science occurs, and it is into those (...) intersections that this Focus section leads us. Second, the section suggests that we need to understand images as arguments. Generalizing, we need to develop a “materialized epistemology” that reunites sensual with ideational knowing. Recent work in the history of science is already pointing the way and producing a dramatically new historiography. (shrink)

Tant qu'il y aura des cages est la traduction de Rattling the Cage de Steven Wise, contribution majeure au droit animalier. L'auteur, qui enseigne notamment à la Harvard Law School, est connu pour plaider comme avocat en faveur des droits fondamentaux des grands singes devant la Cour suprême aux États-Unis. Dans un style clair, accessible et...

Approximately a quarter of a billion people around the world suffer from malaria each year. Most cases are located in sub-Saharan Africa where Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes are the principal vectors of this public health problem. With the use of CRISPR-based gene drives, the population of mosquitoes can be modified, eventually causing their extinction. First, we discuss the moral status of the organism and argue that using genetically modified mosquitoes to combat malaria should not be abandoned based on some moral value (...) of A. gambiae. Secondly, we argue that environmental impact studies should be performed to obtain an accurate account of the possible effects of a potential eradication of the organism. However, the risks from the purposeful extinction of A. gambiae should not overtake the benefits of eradicating malaria and risk assessments should be used to determine acceptable risks. Thirdly, we argue that the eventual release of the genetically modified mosquitoes will depend on transparency, community involvement, and cooperation between different nations. (shrink)

The traditional mode of explanation in physics via deduction from partial differential equations is contrasted here with explanation via simulations. I argue that the different technologies employed constitute different languages, which support different sorts of narratives. The narratives that accompany simulations and articulate their meaning are typically historical or natural historical in kind. They explain complex phenomena by growing them rather than by referring them to general laws. Examples of such growth simulations and growth narratives come from the evolution of (...) wave functions in quantum chaos, snowflake formation, and Etruscan genetics. The examples suggest a few concluding remarks on historical explanation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT An overview of some of the main modes of making images of natural objects and processes, as they have appeared in the history of science, leads to two main conclusions. First, the dichotomies that have traditionally distinguished, for example, art from science, museums from laboratories, and geometrical from algebraic methods have produced a poverty of understanding of visualization. It is at the intersections of these dichotomies where much of the creative work of science occurs, and it is into those (...) intersections that this Focus section leads us. Second, the section suggests that we need to understand images as arguments. Generalizing, we need to develop a “materialized epistemology” that reunites sensual with ideational knowing. Recent work in the history of science is already pointing the way and producing a dramatically new historiography. (shrink)

Science and Ethics inextricably intertwinedDawson and Yentis argue that research ethics committees have an obligation to consider the science of applications because this is inextricably entwined with ethics. They lament the fact that the recent English ministerial review of RECs suggests that science should be assessed by others for RECs and not by the committee members themselves. In fact, these views are not as incompatible as they might first appear.The plain truth of the matter is that in a maximum membership (...) of 18, at least a third of whom must be lay members, the capacity of each of the 186 RECs currently in the UK to review …. (shrink)

This book explores an innovative set of critical narratives, accounts and engagements by different authors about their professional mobility and how that relates to the discipline and their life experiences. Human Geography and Professional Mobility seeks to encourage, influence, and help students understand geographic concepts based on critical reflections, international experiences, and practical insight laid out in stories of real people, real geographers, real college faculty, that students can relate to. This volume is less theoretical and more personal insight-based, wherein (...) first-hand and personal accounts of practical experiences are explored, which renders the text supplementary reading for human geography, population geography, world geography, and migration/mobility classes. With critical navigation of spaces in response to several geographical questions, this book offers a novel perspective on professional mobility of geographers which will be of interest to students and academics in the fields of geography, tourism, sociology and anthropology. (shrink)

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...