Scientists regularly make possibility claims. While philosophers of science are well aware of the distinction between epistemic and objective notions of possibility, we believe that they often fail to apply this distinction in their analyses of scientific practices that employ modal concepts. We argue that heeding this distinction will help further progress in current debates in the philosophy of science, as it shows that the debaters talk about different things, rather than disagree on the same issue. We first discuss how (...) the two notions differ with respect to their epistemology and show that these differences are sometimes ignored in the philosophy of science. We then revisit four current philosophy of science debates about modelling, that are framed in modal terms, to showcase how the distinction significantly clarifies these debates and thereby and helps advance them. (shrink)

Several philosophers of science claim that scientific toy models afford knowledge of possibility, but answers to the question of why toy models can be expected to competently play this role are scarce. The main line of reply is that toy models support possibility claims insofar as they are credible. I raise a challenge for this credibility-thesis, drawing on a familiar problem for imagination-based modal epistemologies, and argue that it remains unanswered in the current literature. The credibility-thesis has a long way (...) to go if it is to account for the epistemic merits of toy models. (shrink)

Empiricist modal epistemologies can be attractive, but are often limited in the range of modal knowledge they manage to secure. In this paper, I argue that one such account – similarity-based modal empiricism – can be extended to also cover justification of many scientifically interesting possibility claims. Drawing on recent work on modelling in the philosophy of science, I suggest that scientific modelling is usefully seen as the creation and investigation of relevantly similar epistemic counterparts of real target systems. On (...) the basis of experiential knowledge of what is actually the case with the models, one can draw justified conclusions about what is de re possible for the target systems. (shrink)

Separatists are grounding theorists who hold that grounding relations and metaphysical explanations are distinct, yet intimately connected in the sense that grounding relations back metaphysical explanations, just as causal relations back causal explanations. But Separatists have not elaborated on the nature of the ‘backing’ relation. In this paper, I argue that backing is a form of (partial) grounding. In particular, backing has many of the properties commonly attributed to grounding, and taking backing to be partial grounding allows Separatists to make (...) the most of their position vis‐à‐vis their Unionist opponents. (shrink)

The idea that justified modal belief can be accounted for in terms of empirically justified, non-modal belief is enjoying increasing popularity in the epistemology of modality. One alleged reason to prefer modal empiricism over more traditional, rationalist modal epistemologies is that empiricism avoids the problem with the integration challenge that arise for rationalism, assuming that we want to be realists about modal metaphysics. In this paper, I argue that given two very reasonable constraints on what it means to meet the (...) integration challenge for modality, empiricism is currently at best on a par with, but potentially worse off than, rationalist alternatives, with respect to the integration challenge. (shrink)

Philosophers have always taken an interest not only in what is actually the case, but in what is necessarily the case and what could possibly be the case. These are questions of modality. Epistemologists of modality enquire into how we can know what is necessary and what is possible. This dissertation concerns the meta-epistemology of modality. It engages with the rules that govern construction and evaluation of theories in the epistemology of modality, by using modal empiricism – a form of (...) modal epistemology – as a running example. In particular, I investigate the assumption that it is important to be able to meet the integration challenge. Meeting the integration challenge is a source of serious difficulty for many approaches, but modal empiricism is supposed to do well in this respect. But I argue that once we have a better grasp of what the integration challenge is, it is not obvious that it presents no problem for modal empiricism. Moreover, even if modal empiricism could be said to be in a relatively good position with respect to integration, it comes at the cost of a forced choice between far-reaching partial modal scepticism and non-uniformism about the epistemology of modality. Non-uniformism is the view that more than one modal epistemology will be correct. While non-uniformism might not in itself be unpalatable, it must be defined and defended in a way which squares with the modal empiricist’s other commitment. I explore two ways of doing so, both involving a revised idea of the integration challenge and its role for the epistemology of modality. One involves a bifurcation of the integration challenge, and the other a restriction of the integration challenge’s relevance. Both ways are interesting, but neither is, as it turns out, a walk in the park. (shrink)

The idea that justified modal belief can be accounted for in terms of empirically justified, non-modal belief is enjoying increasing popularity in the epistemology of modality. One alleged reason to prefer modal empiricism over more traditional, rationalist modal epistemologies is that empiricism avoids the problem with the integration challenge that arise for rationalism, assuming that we want to be realists about modal metaphysics. In this paper, I argue that given two very reasonable constraints on what it means to meet the (...) integration challenge for modality, empiricism is currently at best on a par with, but potentially worse off than, rationalist alternatives, with respect to the integration challenge. (shrink)

This paper concerns an epistemological objection against mathematical platonism, due to Hartry Field.The argument poses an explanatory challenge – the challenge to explain the reliability of our mathematical beliefs – which the platonist, it’s argued, cannot meet. Is the objection compelling? Philosophers disagree, but they also disagree on (and are sometimes very unclear about) how the objection should be understood. Here I distinguish some options, and highlight some gaps that need to be filled in on the potentially most compelling version (...) of the argument. (shrink)

Proceeding from a distinction between imagining oneself in another person’s situation and imagining oneself being someone else, this article attempts to elucidate what the latter type of imagining consists in. Previous attempts at spelling out the phenomenon fail to properly account for the role of the self, or rather every individual’s unique point of view. An alternative view is presented, where the concept of imagining oneself being someone else is explained in terms of a distinction between and a co-running of (...) the imaginer’s own perspective and that of the target individual. It is further argued that while we can imagine about an individual without imagining her having any of her actual properties, to meaningfully imagine oneself being someone else the imaginer needs to ascribe at least some qualitative property to the target individual for the imaginative project to get off the ground. Finally, the concept of empathy is used to illustrate the analysis provided, and the imagining oneself being someone else is in turn used to cast light on what is to be understood as genuine empathy. (shrink)

Uniformism about the epistemology of modality is the view that there is only one basic route to modal knowledge; non-uniformism is the view that there are several. Non-uniformism is becoming an increasingly popular stance, but how can it be defended? I prise apart two ways of understanding the uniformism/non-uniformism conflict that are mixed up in the literature. I argue that once separated, it is evident that they lead up to two different non-uniformist theses that need to be argued for in (...) very different ways. In particular, one construal allows only for a weak thesis about the actual lay of the current theoretical land in modal epistemology, while the other allows for a strong thesis that can be defended without reliance on claims about the alleged goodness or badness of individual accounts of modal justification. I argue that philosophers inclined towards non-uniformism ought to go for the strong, rather than the weak, thesis. (shrink)

Philosophers often make exotic-sounding modal claims, such as: “A timeless world is impossible”, “The laws of physics could have been different from what they are”, “There could have been an additional phenomenal colour”. Otherwise popular empiricist modal epistemologies in the contemporary literature cannot account for whatever epistemic justification we might have for making such modal claims. Those who do not, as a result of this, endorse scepticism with respect to their epistemic status typically suggest that they can be justified but (...) have yet to develop some distinct, workable theory of how. That is, they endorse a form of non-uniformism about the epistemology of modality, according to which claims about philosophically interesting modal matters need to be justified differently from e.g. everyday or scientific modal claims, but they fail to provide any more detail. This article aims to fill this gap by outlining how such a non-uniformist view could be spelled out and what story about philosophically interesting modal justification it could contain. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have recently taken care to highlight different modeling practices where scientific models primarily contribute modal information, in the form of for example possibility claims, how-possibly explanations, or counterfactual conditionals. While examples abound, comparatively little attention is being paid to the question of under what conditions, and in virtue of what, models can perform this epistemic function. In this paper, we firstly delineate modal modeling from other modeling practices, and secondly reviewattempts to spell out and explain the epistemic (...) success conditions of modal modeling. The aim is to more clearly expose the respective justificatory strategies of these accounts, and secondly, to identify lacunae where further work is needed. (shrink)

As social media becomes increasingly popular, human subjects researchers are able to use these platforms to locate, track, and communicate with study participants, thereby increasing participant retention and the generalizability and validity of research. The use of social media; however, raises novel ethical and regulatory issues that have received limited attention in the literature and federal regulations. We review research ethics and regulations and outline the implications for maintaining participant privacy, respecting participant autonomy, and promoting researcher transparency when using social (...) media to locate and track participants. We offer a rubric that can be used in future studies to determine ethical and regulation-consistent use of social media platforms and illustrate the rubric using our study team’s experience with Facebook. We also offer recommendations for both researchers and institutional review boards that emphasize the importance of well-described procedures for social media use as... (shrink)

Modern Western medical individualism has had a significant impact on health care in China. This essay demonstrates the ways in which such Western-style individualism has been explicitly endorsed in China’s 2010 directive: The Basic Norms of the Documentation of the Medical Record. The Norms require that the patient himself, rather than a member of his family, sign each informed consent form. This change in clinical practice indicates a shift toward medical individualism in Chinese healthcare legislation. Such individualism, however, is incompatible (...) with the character of Chinese familism that is deeply rooted in the Chinese ethical tradition. It also contradicts family-based patterns of health care in China. Moreover, the requirement for individual informed consent is incompatible with numerous medical regulations promulgated in the past two decades. This essay argues that while Chinese medical legislation should learn from relevant Western ideas, it should not simply copy such practices by importing medical individualism into Chinese health care. Chinese healthcare policy is properly based on Chinese medical familist resources. (shrink)

The desire-satisfaction theory of welfare says that what is basically good for a subject is the satisfaction of his desires. One challenge to this view is the existence of quirky desires, such as a desire to count blades of grass. It is hard to see why anyone would desire such things, and thus hard to believe that the satisfaction of such desires could be basically good for anyone. This suggests that only some desires are basically good when satisfied, and that (...) desire satisfactionists owe us an account of which desires these are, and why. In "Quirky Desires and Well-Being," Donald Bruckner proposes such an account: a desire is welfare-relevant (i.e., such that its satisfaction would be basically good for its subject) if and only if and because its subject could describe its object in a way that makes it comprehensible what about the object attracts him or appeals to him. We are inclined to view quirky desires as welfare-irrelevant because we assume that their objects cannot be described in such a way. But if there were a quirky desire whose object could be so described by the subject whose desire it is, then this desire would be relevant to that subject's welfare. I will argue that while Bruckner's view delivers plausible verdicts about the cases to which it is meant to apply, its account of what makes a desire welfare-relevant is unmotivated and implausible. Desire satisfactionists can retain what is plausible about his view while endorsing a better explanation of why welfare-relevant desires have that status if they accept the following account instead: a desire is welfare-relevant if and only if and because something about its object attracts, or appeals to, the subject who has the desire. (shrink)

Using Hofstede's culture theory (1980, 2001 Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviours, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nation. Sage, NewYork), the current study incorporates the moral development (e.g. Thorne, 2000; Thorne and Magnan, 2000; Thorne et al., 2003) and multidimensional ethics scale (e.g. Cohen et al., 1993; Cohen et al., 1996b; Cohen et al., 2001; Flory et al., 1992) approaches to compare the ethical reasoning and decisions of Canadian and Mainland Chinese final year undergraduate accounting students. The results indicate that Canadian accounting (...) students' formulation of an intention to act on a particular ethical dilemma (deliberative reasoning) as measured by the moral development approach (Thorne, 2000) was higher than Mainland Chinese accounting students. The current study proposes that the five factors identified by the multidimensional ethics scale (MES), as being relevant to ethical decision making can be placed into the three levels of ethical reasoning identified by Kohlberg's (1958, The Development of Modes of Moral Thinking and Choice in the Years Ten to Sixteen. University of Chicago, Doctoral dissertation) theory of cognitive moral development. Canadian accounting students used post-conventional MES factors (moral equity, contractualism, and utilitarianism) more frequently and made more ethical audit decisions than Chinese accounting students. (shrink)

The idea that the household was the fundamental building block of ancient Greek society, explicit in the ancient sources, has now become widely accepted. It is no exaggeration to say that ancient Athenians would have found it almost inconceivable that individuals of any status existed who did not belong to some household; and the few who were in this position were almost certainly regarded as anomalous. In ancient Athens, as elsewhere, households ‘are a primary arena for the expression of age (...) and sex roles, kinship, socialization and economic cooperation’. It has been suggested for modern Greece that our own cultural biases, along with the Greek ideology of male dominance, have led to the assumption that the foundations of power in Greek society lie solely in the public sphere, and that domestic power is ‘less important’. In a less simple reality the preeminent role of the household cannot be underestimated. Here I hope to question similar assumptions about ancient Greece, focusing in particular on the relationships that existed between Athenian households and the property of the individuals, particularly women, within these households. (shrink)

This book traces a most obscure and yet most intriguing theme concealed in Heidegger’s thinking and work, which has hitherto not yet been made the focus of a thorough and sustained investigation: that is, the emergence and course of Heidegger’s interest in East Asian thought and of his reflection on East-West dialogue. Lin Ma covers such complex issues as Heidegger’s thoughts on language, Being, technology, the other beginning, and the journey abroad, with a view to their implications for East-West dialogue. (...) It reveals the significance of his remarks on the early Greek’s confrontation with the Asiatic, and presents contextualized interpretations of his fleeting references to the topic of East-West dialogue and of his encounter with the Daodejing. Finally, it delves into "A dialogue on language" and exposes the strains and tensions that accompany Heidegger’s extension of dialogue and the Same, the two notions central to his thought, to the question of East-West dialogue. In the end, Lin Ma concludes that Heidegger’s fundamental concerns and philosophical orientations as articulated in terms of the history of Being and the other beginning have restricted him from engaging more seriously with the irresolvable and yet enduring issue of East-West dialogue. (shrink)

We argue that all general concepts are family resemblance concepts. These include concepts introduced by ostension, such as colour. Concepts of colour and of each of the specific colours are family resemblance concepts because similarities concerning an open-ended range of colour or of appearance features crop up and disappear. After discussing the notion of “same colour” and Wittgenstein's use of the phrase “our colours”, we suggest family resemblance concepts in one tradition can often be extended to family resemblance concepts in (...) another tradition, illustrated by Wittgenstein's use of the words Spiel and “game”. (shrink)

Citizenship, such as corporate citizenship and organizational citizenship, has been an important issue in business management for decades. This study proposes a research model from the perspectives of social identity and resource allocation, by examining the influence of corporate citizenship on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). In the model, OCBs are positively influenced by perceived legal citizenship and perceived ethical citizenship, while negatively influenced by perceived discretionary citizenship. Empirical testing using a survey of personnel from 18 large firms confirms most of (...) our hypothesized effects. Theoretical and managerial implications of our findings are discussed. (shrink)

Some philosophers hold that trust grows fragile when people become too rational. They advocate a retreat from reason and a return to local, traditional values. Others hold that truly rational people are both trusting and trustworthy. Everything hinges on what we mean by 'reason' and 'rational'. If these are understood in an egocentric, instrumental fashion, then they are indeed incompatible with trust. With the help of game theory, Martin Hollis argues against that narrow definition and in favour of a richer, (...) deeper notion of reason founded on reciprocity and the pursuit of the common good. Within that framework he reconstructs the Enlightenment idea of citizens of the world, rationally encountering, and at the same time finding their identity in, their multiple commitments to communities both local and universal. (shrink)

In the current study, late Chinese–English bilinguals performed a facial expression identification task with emotion words in the task-irrelevant dimension, in either their first language or second language. The investigation examined the automatic access of the emotional content in words appearing in more than one language. Significant congruency effects were present for both L1 and L2 emotion word processing. Furthermore, the magnitude of emotional face-word Stroop effect in the L1 task was greater as compared to the L2 task, indicating that (...) in L1 participants could access the emotional information in words in a more reliable manner. In summary, these findings provide more support for the automatic access of emotional information in words in the bilinguals’ two languages as well as attenuated emotionality of L2 processing. (shrink)

The Principle of Sufficient Reason is a powerful and controversial philosophical principle stipulating that everything must have a reason or cause. This simple demand for thoroughgoing intelligibility yields some of the boldest and most challenging theses in the history of metaphysics and epistemology. In this entry we begin with explaining the Principle, and then turn to the history of the debates around it. A section on recent discussions of the Principle will be added in the near future.

The experience machine was traditionally thought to refute hedonism about welfare. In recent years, however, the tide has turned: many philosophers have argued not merely that the experience machine doesn't rule out hedonism, but that it doesn't count against it at all. I argue for a moderate position between those two extremes: although the experience machine doesn't decisively rule out hedonism, it provides us with some reason to reject it. I also argue for a particular way of using the experience (...) machine to argue against hedonism – one that appeals directly to intuitions about the welfare values of experientially identical lives rather than to claims about what we value or claims about whether we would, or should, plug into the machine. The two issues are connected: the conviction that the experience machine leaves hedonism unscathed is partly due to neglect of the best way to use the experience machine. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.How to Use the Experience MachineVolume 28, Issue 3EDEN LIN DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820815000424Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. How to Use the Experience MachineVolume 28, Issue 3EDEN LIN DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820815000424Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. How to Use the Experience MachineVolume 28, Issue 3EDEN LIN DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820815000424Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

Decisions about withdrawing or continuing life-sustaining treatments are often not made in a reasoned manner: those who must make the decisions are often not sure what would constitute an upright decision and, therefore, doubt the correctness of the decisions they have made or are about to make. Making use especially of what Thomas Aquinas says about omissions (i.e., omitting to do something), this article attempts to establish some principles regarding when and why one might (and might not) morally withdraw life-sustaining (...) treatments, regarding the grounds on which a family might resist a doctor's decision to withdraw treatment (or a doctor the family's wishes) and regarding other related issues. (shrink)

This paper presents the principal findings from a three-year research project funded by the US National Science Foundation on ethics of human enhancement technologies. To help untangle this ongoing debate, we have organized the discussion as a list of questions and answers, starting with background issues and moving to specific concerns, including: freedom & autonomy, health & safety, fairness & equity, societal disruption, and human dignity. Each question-and-answer pair is largely self-contained, allowing the reader to skip to those issues of (...) interest without affecting continuity. (shrink)

Modern technology (Technik, la technique) has constituted the gears on which the wheels of the modern world keep turning. The later Heidegger devotes sustained reflection to this unprecedented phenomenon in human history. It is notable that, compared with other figures from twentieth-century continental philosophy, Heidegger has served as the most frequent reference point in current philosophy of technology (Technikphilosophie). This field of philosophy came into being after the so-called empirical turn of “Science and Technology Studies.” While relevant scholars focus mainly (...) on “Die Frage nach der Technik” of 1953, “Das Ge-stell” of 1949,1 and some other texts written in that period,2 the time span of Heidegger’s .. (shrink)

Driven by the cognitive-neoassociationistic model of aggression, this study examines how supervisors’ negative affect at work influences their interaction with subordinates, which further affects subordinate outcomes. Drawing upon research on power/resource interdependence and victim precipitation theory, we also test whether the positive relationship between supervisors’ negative affect and abusive supervision is moderated by leader–member exchange. Using one hundred and eighty supervisor–subordinate dyads from five hotels, we found that, supervisors’ negative affect at work was positively related to abusive supervision, LMX buffered (...) the positive association between supervisors’ negative affect and abusive supervision, and the indirect effects of supervisors’ negative affect on subordinate outcomes via abusive supervision was buffered by LMX, such that the indirect effects were only found in dyads with lower LMX, but not in dyads with higher LMX. Theoretical contributions and practical implications for managers and organizations were also discussed. (shrink)

Nanoethics seeks to examine the potential risks and rewards of applications of nanotechnology. This up-to-date anthology gives the reader an introduction to and basic foundation in nanotechnology and nanoethics, and then delves into near-, mid-, and far-term issues. Comprehensive and authoritative, it: -/- - Goes beyond the usual environmental, health, and safety (EHS) concerns to explore such topics as privacy, nanomedicine, human enhancement, global regulation, military, humanitarianism, education, artificial intelligence, space exploration, life extension, and more -/- -Features contributions from forty (...) preeminent experts from academia and industry worldwide, reflecting diverse perspectives -/- -Includes seminal works that influence nanoethics today -/- -Encourages an informed, proactive approach to nanoethics and advocates addressing new and emerging controversies before they impede progress or impact our welfare -/- This resource is designed to promote further investigations and a broad and balanced dialogue in nanoethics, dealing with critical issues that will affect the industry as well as society. While this will be a definitive reference for students, scientists in academia and industry, policymakers, and regulators, it's also a valuable resource for anyone who wants to understand the challenges, principles, and potential of nanotechnology. (shrink)

Abstract In spite of the officially secular character of public institutional life, including education, religion is a pervasive undercurrent which affects moral education, both at home and in school. In different ways Buddhism, Shinto, Confucian traditions and new religious movements (including Christian elements) are all influential. The nationalist emphasis, which became prominent in the period 1872?1945, was replaced by a deliberately secular social studies or citizenship in keeping with the spirit of the war settlement. Latterly patriotic features have been re?introduced (...) alongside a stated priority for international understanding. Significantly, however, Western thought is nominated alongside Buddhism and Confucianism in government decrees on the curriculum as now integral to Japanese tradition. (shrink)

Forgiveness education has demonstrated psychological, social and academic benefits; however, it has not been discussed as a means of promoting character development for children and adolescents. In this paper, we discuss forgiveness as a moral concept and explain how forgiveness can contribute to current discussions of character education. After reviewing relevant literature we describe how a forgiveness programme can be an effective form of character education and attempt to clarify the contributions the forgiveness literature can make to the field of (...) character education. We argue that forgiveness provides those interested in character development with a programme that can enhance educational initiatives and advance the character education research agenda. (shrink)