This article addresses the need to problematize “cases” in science and technology studies work, as a middle-range theory issue. The focus is not on any one case study per se, but on why case studies exist and endure in STS. Case studies are part of a specific problematization in the field. We therefore explore relations between motivation for the use of cases, their constitution, and ways they can be invoked to make particular kinds of arguments in STS. We set out (...) to examine the case as an object that links together research practices, intellectual debates, and programmatic concerns in our own work. Based on our experiences and on this reflection on the links between cases and questions in STS, we propose a number of casemaking strategies that shift and enrich the deployment of ethnographic cases as an epistemic tool in STS. (shrink)

This article deals with a type of functional explanation, viability explanation, that has been overlooked in recent philosophy of science. Viability explanations relate traits of organisms and their environments in terms of what an individual needs to survive and reproduce. I show that viability explanations are neither causal nor historical and that, therefore, they should be accounted for as a distinct type of explanation.

This essay discusses the impact of the situationist challenge to Aristotelian virtue ethics for media ethics instruction. Since virtue ethics is a theory that is centered around character building,...

Following Mayr (1961) evolutionary biologists often maintain that the hallmark of biology is its evolutionary perspective. In this view, biologists distinguish themselves from other natural scientists by their emphasis on why-questions. Why-questions are legitimate in biology but not in other natural sciences because of the selective character of the process by means of which living objects acquire their characteristics. For that reason, why-questions should be answered in terms of natural selection. Functional biology is seen as a reductionist science that applies (...) physics and chemistry to answer how-questions but lacks a biological point of view of its own. In this paper I dispute this image of functional biology. A close look at the kinds of issues studied in biology and at the way in which these issues are studied shows that functional biology employs a distinctive biological perspective that is not rooted in selection. This functional perspective is characterized by its concern with the requirements of the life-state and the way in which these are met. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the potential contribution of care ethics to the field of media ethics. In the first part of this article, we discuss the theoretical and philosophical background of the ethics of care. In the second part, we suggest some specific avenues for theoretical, critical, and practical applications of care ethics to the field of journalism and media ethics.

Volume 34, Issue 3, July-September 2019, Page 131-131.

\noindent\textbf{Introduction} Online interventions hold great potential for Therapeutic Change Process Research (TCPR), a field that aims to relate in-therapeutic change processes to the outcomes of interventions. Online a client is treated essentially through the language their counsellor uses, therefore the verbal interaction contains many important ingredients that bring about change. TCPR faces two challenges: how to derive meaningful change processes from texts, and secondly, how to assess these complex, varied and multi-layered processes? We advocate the use text mining and multi-level (...) models (MLMs): the former offers tools and methods to discovers patterns in texts; the latter can analyse these change processes as outcomes that vary at multiple levels. \noindent\textbf{Method} We (re-)used the data from \cite{Lamers2015} because it includes outcomes and the complete online intervention for clients with mild depressive symptoms. We used text mining to obtain basic text-variables from e-mails, that we analysed through MLMs. \noindent\textbf{Results} We found that we could relate outcomes of interventions to variables containing text-information. We conclude that we can indeed bridge text mining and MLMs for TCPR as it was possible to relate text-information (obtained through text mining) to multi-levelled TCPR outcomes (using a MLM). \noindent\textbf{Discussion} Text mining can be helpful to obtain change processes, which is also the main challenge for TCPR. We showed how MLMs and text mining can be combined, but our proposition leaves open how to obtain the most relevant textual operationalization of TCPR concepts. That requires interdisciplinary collaboration and discussion. The future does look bright: based on our proof-of-concept study we conclude that MLMs and text mining can indeed advance TCPR. (shrink)

Despite the Aristotelian renaissance in the philosophy of education, the development of virtue has not received much attention. This is unfortunate, because an attempt to draft an Aristotelian model of moral development can help philosophers to evaluate the contribution Aristotelian virtue ethics can make to our understanding of moral development, provide psychologists with a potentially richer account of morality and its development, and help educators to understand the developmental phase people are in. In the article, it is argued that the (...) Aristotelian categories of the ‘morally indifferent’, ‘un-self-controlled’, ‘self-controlled’ and ‘properly virtuous’ can be interpreted as the successive stages or levels of a comprehensive developmental model. For each stage, it will be made clear whether people are committed to virtue, whether they act virtuously or not, whether they act with pleasure or pain, and which desires and reasons they have for acting. The article closes with suggestions about what needs to be done if the proposed Aristotelian account of moral development is to become psychologically more realistic and educationally useful. (shrink)

Full virtue and practical wisdom comprise the end of neo-Aristotelian moral development, but wisdom cannot be cultivated straight away through arguments and teaching. Wisdom is integrated with, and builds upon, habituation: the acquisition of virtuous character traits through the repeated practice of corresponding virtuous actions. Habit formation equips people with a taste for, and commitment to, the good life; furthermore it provides one with discriminatory and reflective capacities to know how to act in particular circumstances. Unfortunately, habituation is often understood (...) primarily as a method suitable only for children. This article examines whether Aristotle limited habituation to children and, if not, what the relationship between habituation and wisdom beyond childhood might look like. This article concludes that wisdom-guided habituation is also possible for adults who continue and confirm their already established virtuous habits. The implications of this for professional moral education are subsequently discussed. (shrink)

In this paper I consider whether there is a measure of coherence that could be rightly claimed to generalize the notion of logical equivalence. I show that Fitelson’s (2003) proposal to that effect encounters some serious difficulties. Furthermore, there is reason to believe that no mutual-support measure could ever be suitable for the formalization of coherence as generalized logical equivalence. Instead, it appears that the only plausible candidate for such a measure is one of relative overlap. The measure I propose (...) in this paper is quite similar to Olsson’s (2002) proposal but differs from it by not being susceptible to the type of counterexample that Bovens and Hartmann (2003) have devised against it. (shrink)

I argue that there are at least four different ways in which the term ‘function’ is used in connection with the study of living organisms, namely: function as activity, function as biological role, function as biological advantage, and function as selected effect. Notion refers to what an item does by itself; refers to the contribution of an item or activity to a complex activity or capacity of an organism; refers to the value for the organism of an item having a (...) certain character rather than another; refers to the way in which a trait acquired and has maintained its current share in the population. The recognition of a separate notion of function as biological advantage solves the problem of the indeterminate reference situation that has been raised against a counterfactual analysis of function, and emphasizes the importance of counterfactual comparison in the explanatory practice of organismal biology. This reveals a neglected problem in the philosophy of biology, namely that of accounting for the insights provided by counterfactual comparison. (shrink)

The articles in this issue represent a selection of the research presented at the Ninth International Symposium on Digital Ethics organized by the Center for Digital Ethics and Policy at Loyola Uni...

This paper makes a small point concerning the contraposition of relativism and absolutism. Relativism need not be vulnerable to the self‐refutation argument; as for internal consistency both positions can be equally right. They are asymmetric, however, in that according to the absolutist only one of the two positions can be right, whereas from the relativist's viewpoint they can both be right.

In this article, I examine the relation between philosophy and madness. It is often assumed that madness has to be suppressed, excluded, or conquered before a philosophically sensible text, logical argument, or world of meaning can appear. I argue, instead, that a certain concept of madness, when grafted on phenomenological psychiatry and philosophical mysticism, is intrinsically related to the project of philosophy. With the help of experiences of madness as presented in psychiatry and articulated in mad autobiographical reports, including my (...) own, I will show that philosophy and madness are in closer connection than is commonly assumed. In the introduction, I refer to some superficial... (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper aims to offer a new perspective on role modelling by examining adolescents’ own efforts to lead a morally virtuous life. While traditional approaches to moral education emphasize the importance of teachers as role models, this study proposes a shift in focus towards adolescents’ own role models. Drawing on the philosophical concept of moral self-cultivation and psychological insights on identity development and social cognitive learning, it is argued that adolescents have the ability to cultivate their moral character by (...) emulating others. However, empirical evidence suggests that adolescents often do not perceive teachers as their role models. Consequently, moral educational theories are advised to demand less of teachers as role models. Teachers could invest more time in understanding students’ personal role models and encourage them to compare these role models with their own behavior. By acknowledging and addressing students’ role models, teachers can facilitate the moral self-cultivation of adolescents. (shrink)

Although climate change jeopardizes the fundamental human rights of current as well as future people, current actions and ambitions to tackle it are inadequate. There are two prominent explanations for this motivational gap in the climate ethics literature. The first maintains that our conventional moral judgement system is not well equipped to identify a complex problem such as climate change as an important moral problem. The second explanation refers to people’s reluctance to change their behaviour and the temptation to shirk (...) responsibility. We argue that both factors are at play in the motivational gap and that they are complemented by crucial moral psychological insights regarding moral disengagement, which enables emitters to dissociate self-condemnation from harmful conduct. In this way, emitters are able to maintain their profligate, consumptive lifestyle, even though this conflicts with their moral standards with respect to climate change. We provide some illustrations of how strategies of moral disengagement are deployed in climate change and discuss the relationship between the explanations for the motivational gap and moral disengagement. On the basis of this explanatory framework, we submit that there are three pathways to tackle the motivational gap and moral disengagement in climate change: making climate change more salient to emitters and affirming their self-efficacy; reconsidering the self-interested motives that necessitate moral disengagement; and tackling moral disengagement directly. (shrink)

This book provides a novel formulation and defence of moral error theory. It also provides a novel solution to the so-called now what question; viz., the question what we should do with our moral thought and talk after moral error theory. The novel formulation of moral error theory uses pragmatic presupposition rather than conceptual entailment to argue that moral judgments carry a non-negotiable commitment to categorical moral reasons. The new answer to the now what question is pragmatic presupposition substitutionism: we (...) should substitute our current moral judgments, which pragmatically presuppose the existence of categorical moral reasons with ‘schmoral’ judgments that pragmatically presuppose the existence of a specific class of prudential reasons. These are prudential reasons that, when we act on them, contribute to the satisfaction of what the author calls ‘the fundamental desire’; namely, the desire to live in a world with mutually beneficial cooperation. (shrink)

If coherence is to have justificatory status, as some analytical philosophers think it has, it must be truth-conducive, if perhaps only under certain specific conditions. This paper is a critical discussion of some recent arguments that seek to show that under no reasonable conditions can coherence be truth-conducive. More specifically, it considers Bovens and Hartmann’s and Olsson’s “impossibility results,” which attempt to show that coherence cannot possibly be a truth-conducive property. We point to various ways in which the advocates of (...) a coherence theory of justification may attempt to divert the threat of these results. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with reasonings that purport to explain why certain organisms have certain traits by showing that their actual design is better than contrasting designs. Biologists call such reasonings 'functional explanations'. To avoid confusion with other uses of that phrase, I call them 'design explanations'. This paper discusses the structure of design explanations and how they contribute to scientific understanding. Design explanations are contrastive and often compare real organisms to hypothetical organisms that cannot possibly exist. They are not (...) causal but appeal to functional dependencies between an organism's different traits. These explanations point out that because an organism has certain traits, it cannot be alive if the trait to be explained were replaced by a specified alternative. They can be understood from a mechanistic point of view as revealing the constraints on what mechanisms can be alive. (shrink)

Deductivism is not merely a logical technique, but also a theory of normativity: it provides an objective and universal standard of evaluation. Contemporary dialectical logic rejects deductive normativity, replacing its universal standard by an intersubjective standard. It is argued in this paper that dialectical normativity does not improve upon deductive normativity. A dialogico-rhetorical alternative is proposed.

Purpose This paper aims to propose an ethical approach best suited to dealing with the issues of digital ethics in general and internet research ethics in particular. Design/methodology/approach This article engages with the existing literature on virtue ethics, situationism and digital ethics. Findings A virtue-based casuistic method could be well-suited to deal with issues relating to digital ethics in general and internet research ethics in particular as long as it can take place in communities with shared practices and traditions. Originality/value (...) These insights could add and further deepen the rich debate about research ethics that is already ongoing within the internet research community. (shrink)

If climate change represents a severe threat to humankind, why then is response to it characterized by inaction at all levels? The authors argue there are two complementary explanations for the lack of motivation. First, our moral judgment system appears to be unable to identify climate change as an important moral problem and there are pervasive doubts about the agency of individuals. This explanation, however, is incomplete: Individual emitters can effectively be held morally responsible for their luxury emissions. Second, doubts (...) about individual agency have become overly emphasized and fail to convincingly exonerate individuals from responsibility. This book extends the second explanation for the motivational gap, namely that the arguments for the lack of individual agency do in fact correspond to mechanisms of moral disengagement. The use of these mechanisms enables consumption elites to maintain their consumptive lifestyles without having to accept moral responsibility for their luxury emissions. (shrink)

Fictional realists maintain that fictional characters are part of the world’s ontology. In an influential article, Anthony Everett argues that the fictional realist is thereby committing herself to problematic entities. Among these are entities that are indeterminately identical. Recently, Ross Cameron and Richard Woodward have answered Everett’s worry using the same strategy. They argue that the fictional realist can bypass the problematic identities by contending that they are merely semantically indeterminate. This paper concisely surveys Everett’s original argument, Cameron’s and Woodward’s (...) responses, and then argues that the strategy employed by Cameron and Woodward fails to satisfactorily answer Everett’s worries. (shrink)

This paper reviews the debate on the notion of biological function and on functional explanation as this takes place in philosophy. It describes the different perspectives, issues, intuitions, theories and arguments that have emerged. The author shows that the debate has been too heavily influenced by the concerns of a naturalistic philosophy of mind and argues that in order to improve our understanding of biology the attention should be shifted from the study of intuitions to the study of the actual (...) practice of biological inquiry. (shrink)

This study attempts a reconstruction of the philosophy of the unfinished _Opus tripartitum_ of Meister Eckhart. One new feature is the 'hermeneutic approach' to the question of Eckhart's philosophy, another is the recognition that the concept of Unity plays a decisive role in the organisation of his metaphysics, to the extent, indeed, that one can speak of a metaphysics of the One. Eckhart's metaphysics is determined to a contemplation of the divine, which in this thinking of Unity is understood as (...) the principle and end of all things. Yet, at the same time Eckhart's thinking of Unity marks the boundaries of the _ratio naturalis_. In this way his thought combines a supreme trust in the effectivity of reason with a negative theology of the purest sort. By a systematic reading of linked texts of Meister Eckhart the trail of his philosophy of the One is followed down into the German sermons. (shrink)

The authors of this article examine how Giordano Bruno rewrites the classical myth of Diane and Actaeon in the Eroici furori . The starting point for this study is the Argomento del Nolano where the philosopher explains his ideas regarding the importance of love poetry and allegory for the illustration of philosophical concepts. In the next section the authors concentrate on the sonnet «Alle selve i mastini e i veltri slaccia» . This is the first passage in the Furori where (...) Bruno connects Actaeon’s hunt and his encounter with the goddess Diana to the philosophical hunt of knowledge. The authors explain the meaning of the mythological imagery evoked in this sonnet by relating the poem to other parts of the Furori . An analysis of the notion of furor , which is the subject of dialogue three , allows the authors to identify Actaeon as a model for the eroico furioso . The prose comment following the sonnet «Alle selve i mastini e i veltri slaccia» offers essential information on the reinterpretation of the literary motifs which have been linked to the myth of Actaeon since Antiquity. Bruno presents these motifs as components of the philosophical hunt, which the frenzied hero needs to undertake in order to contemplate the truth . In the last section the authors take a closer look at the second and the third allusion to the hunting myth , which illustrate the further stages of Actaeon’s epistemological journey. (shrink)

As trust in the news media continues to decline, news organizations must find ways to bolster that trust, often in the face of diminishing budgets and dwindling bottom lines. Can trust support and even bolster economic success in news organizations? We offer a multidimensional model of trust that takes into account, among other elements, considerations of risk and scope, and suggest that journalistic excellence and economic success can support each other and result in increased public trust in news media.

There is a strong intuition that we can listen to works of music, yet musical ontologies on which works of music are abstract objects, perhaps most notably, type theories of music, seem to imply that this is impossible. This problem has received relatively little attention in the literature. I here explore and develop a solution suggested by Julian Dodd and argue that it has at least two problematic consequences, namely (i) that some works of music cannot be listened to unless (...) one has already studied the relevant score or through a similar process learned roughly what the work requires of its performances and (ii) that it is possible for two people to listen to different musical works while listening to the same performance. (shrink)

I argue that there are at least four different ways in which the term ‘function’ is used in connection with the study of living organisms, namely: function as activity, function as biological role, function as biological advantage, and function as selected effect. Notion refers to what an item does by itself; refers to the contribution of an item or activity to a complex activity or capacity of an organism; refers to the value for the organism of an item having a (...) certain character rather than another; refers to the way in which a trait acquired and has maintained its current share in the population. The recognition of a separate notion of function as biological advantage solves the problem of the indeterminate reference situation that has been raised against a counterfactual analysis of function, and emphasizes the importance of counterfactual comparison in the explanatory practice of organismal biology. This reveals a neglected problem in the philosophy of biology, namely that of accounting for the insights provided by counterfactual comparison. (shrink)

In this meticulous study, Wouter Hanegraaff examines the structure, themes, and development of Emanuel Swedenborg's massive work _Secrets of Heaven_, published between 1749 and 1756. Written as a work of biblical exegesis, Swedenborg also interpolated material on his visionary experiences, which have long fascinated readers. In the second part of the study, Dr. Hanegraaff examines the contemporary reception of the multi-volume work, particularly the critical reactions of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Christoph Oetinger. He finds that Swedenborg's biblical exegesis, so (...) important in his divine calling, was largely ignored in favor of the mystical experiences. (shrink)

The task of media ethicists is not only to shine a light on the dilemmas facing our field, but also to point out what the moral issues of the day are. Why is it that some cases and issues appear on our radar, in our textbooks, web sites and journals? Using the example of how the problematic nature of the Apu character in The Simpsons escaped the attention of this author and other media ethicists, this essay explores how media ethicists (...) can be better aware of their own blind spots. Given our limited cognitive abilities and unconscious biases, I will argue that media ethicists could potentially benefit from the help of a theoretical media ethics moral machine (MeMorMach), especially in instances where they are unaware of the potential violation of an established norm. But when normative change occurs, such a device would be less useful in tracking this change and alerting them, especially to those adhering to a constructivist meta-ethical framework. The essay concludes with a call for media ethicists to pay attention to and assist so-called moral enquirers, advocates who, through personal engagement, enact normative change. (shrink)

Bovens and Hartmann propose to analyze coherence as a confidence-boosting property. On the basis of this idea, they construct a new probabilistic theory of coherence. In this paper, I will attempt to show that the resulting measure of coherence clashes with some of the intuitions that motivate it. Also, I will try to show that this clash is not due to the view on coherence as a confidence-boosting property or to the general features of the model that Bovens and Hartmann (...) use to analyze coherence. It will turn out that there is at least one other measure that is similarly based on the concept of a confidence-boosting property, but does not have the same counterintuitive results. (shrink)

Bovens and Hartmann (Bayesian Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) propose to analyze coherence as a confidence-boosting property. On the basis of this idea, they construct a new probabilistic theory of coherence. In this paper, I will attempt to show that the resulting measure of coherence clashes with some of the intuitions that motivate it. Also, I will try to show that this clash is not due to the view on coherence as a confidence-boosting property or to the general features (...) of the model that Bovens and Hartmann use to analyze coherence. It will turn out that there is at least one other measure that is similarly based on the concept of a confidence-boosting property, but does not have the same counterintuitive results. (shrink)

The Random Number Generation task has a long history in neuropsychology as an assessment procedure for executive functioning. In recent years, understanding of human behavior has gradually changed from reflecting a static to a dynamic process and this shift in thinking about behavior gives a new angle to interpret test results. However, this shift also asks for different methods to process random number sequences. The RNG task is suited for applying non-linear methods needed to uncover the underlying dynamics of random (...) number generation. In the current article we present RandseqR: an R-package that combines the calculation of classic randomization measures and Recurrence Quantification Analysis. RandseqR is an easy to use, flexible and fast way to process random number sequences and readies the RNG task for current scientific and clinical use. (shrink)