Most people agree that inflicting unnecessary suffering upon animals is wrong. Many fewer people, including among ethicists, agree that painlessly killing animals is necessarily wrong. The most commonly cited reason is that death (without pain, fear, distress) is not bad for them in a way that matters morally, or not as significantly as it does for persons, who are self-conscious, make long-term plans and have preferences about their own future. Animals, at least those that are not persons, lack a morally (...) significant interest in continuing to live. At the same time, some argue that existence itself can be good, insofar as one’s life is worth living. For animals, a good life can offset a quick, if early, death. So, it seems to follow that breeding happy animals that will be (prematurely) killed can be a good thing overall. Insofar as slaughter and sale makes it economically sustainable to raise new ones, who would otherwise not exist, raising and killing animals for food who will have lives worth living is good overall. It benefits them as well as consumers, and makes the world better by adding to the sum of happiness. The process of raising and killing animals with positive welfare produces a sequence of replacement that maintains or increases overall welfare, all else being equal (assuming in particular no overall negative impact on the welfare of other parties). Call this the Replaceability Argument (RA) and the ensuing controversy the Replaceability Problem (RP). This is a problem at the crossroads of the ethics of killing, agricultural ethics, procreation ethics, and population ethics. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga has recently turned his attention to materialism. More precisely, he has turned his attention to the thesis that philosophers of mind call materialism.[i] This thesis can be variously formulated. In this essay, I will take “materialism” to be the conjunction of the following two theses.

Animal replaceability is supposed to be a feature of some consequentialist theories, like Utilitarianism. Roughly, an animal is replaceable if it is permissible to kill it because the disvalue thereby caused will be compensated by the value of a new animal’s life. This is specially troubling since the conditions for such compensation seem easily attainable by improved forms of raising and killing animals. Thus, grounding a strong moral status of animals in such theories is somewhat compromised. As is, consequently, (...) their position as an alternative to rights-based theories in animal ethics. Recognising this, some utilitarians tried to disassociate utilitarianism and replaceability. I will here add my voice to this project. However, instead of seeing the culprit in the usual suspects (hedonism, maximisation or the total view), I advance a new proposal. After identifying that the compensating value for a disvaluable action has to be its consequence, I present a restriction on consequences: consequences of sequences of actions cannot be consequences of the isolated actions in the sequences. Given this, the main argument is simple: killing an animal is permissible only if the the value of the new animal’s life is a consequence of the killing; but this value is a consequence of a sequence of actions which involves the killing plus some additional actions; therefore, since, via the restriction, such value is not a consequence of the killing, it is irrelevant to its normative status. I then present two further motivations for the restriction: firstly, it prevents the value of conditional actions from trivially influencing the value of the actions on which they are conditional; secondly, it is useful – even if not a complete solution – to reply other objections to consequentialism: the accordion effect of action and the cluelessness problem. I finally consider a couple of objections. (shrink)

A Foucauldian discourse analysis is employed to identify how our current understandings of menopause are culturally and historically determined by medical discourse. The polarity of the normal and the abnormal (pathological) became the crux of medical deliberation, where deviation from norms becomes the reason for intervention. Through manifold relations of power and the ‘struggle of knowledges’ medicine derives social authority, influencing social orthodoxies thus normalising menopausal women via discursive constructs. The course of nature in ageing women has been re‐categorised as (...) unnatural. In using the case of hormone therapy (HT) and the emergence of bio‐identical or natural hormones, while deconstructing the premises used in marketing both types of hormone therapy, the tenuousness of scientific claims about these hormones is revealed. Discourses on bio‐identical hormones (BHT) display a reliance on seemingly opposing naturalist and scientific arguments. Menopause, having been constructed as a deficiency disease, required initially chemical hormone replacement and now bio‐identical hormones replacing the mainstream medical solution. The idea of the postmenopausal state as diseased is perpetuated as the basis to suggest therapies to women. This paper suggests that although therapeutic in a few cases, hormone preparations are in fact potentially dangerous lifestyle drugs. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that lesbian couples who wish to have children who are genetically related to both of them should be allowed access to mitochondrial replacement techniques. First, we provide a brief explanation of mitochondrial diseases and MRTs. We then present the reasons why MRTs are not, by nature, therapeutic. The upshot of the view that MRTs are non-therapeutic techniques is that their therapeutic potential cannot be invoked for restricting their use only to those cases where a mitochondrial (...) DNA disease could be ‘cured’. We then argue that a positive case for MRTs is justified by an appeal to reproductive freedom, and that the criteria to access these techniques should hence be extended to include lesbian couples who wish to share genetic parenthood. Finally, we consider a potential objection to our argument: that the desire to have genetically related kin is not a morally sufficient reason to allow lesbian couples to access MRTs. (shrink)

In February 2015 the UK became the first country to legalise high-profile mitochondrial replacement techniques, which involve the creation of offspring using genetic material from three individuals. The aim of these new cell reconstruction techniques is to prevent the transmission of maternally inherited mitochondrial disorders to biological offspring. During the UK debates, MRTs were often positioned as a straightforward and unique solution for the ‘eradication’ of mitochondrial disorders, enabling hundreds of women to have a healthy, biologically-related child. However, many questions (...) regarding future applications and potential users remain. Drawing on a current qualitative study on reproductive choices in the context of mitochondrial disorders, this article illustrates how the potential limitations of MRTs have been obscured in public debates by contrasting the claims made about the future beneficiaries with insights from families affected by mitochondrial disorders and medical experts. The analysis illuminates the complex choices with which families and individuals affected by mitochondrial disorders are faced, which have thus far remained invisible. An argument is presented for improved information for the public as well as an intensification of critical empirical research around the complex and specific needs of future beneficiaries of new reproductive biotechnologies. (shrink)

In order to be eligible for refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention, an individual must have a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. A major problem with this condition for refugee status is that it leaves significant protection gaps, for it is generally agreed that individuals fleeing indiscriminate violence or generalized harm do not satisfy this requirement. In this paper, I evaluate existing arguments both defending and (...) critiquing the persecution condition, and then outline my own account of the criteria that should replace it. I argue that my view is preferable to alternatives suggested in the literature because it satisfies three key desiderata: 1) it eliminates protection gaps; 2) it is feasible to implement in a world like ours; and 3) it preserves the importantly political nature of the institution of refugeehood. (shrink)

This paper deals with an important strand of nihilistic arguments to be found in the works of two philosophers who have so far never been studied comparatively: the sophist Gorgias and the Buddhist monk Nāgārjuna. After having reconstructed Gorgias' moves in the first section of On What is Not (Sections 1-4), the paper shows how the nihilist arguments Gorgias uses mostly feature, under a new light, in the philosophy of emptiness developed by Nāgārjuna (Sections 5-8). The paper ends with a (...) hermeneutical suggestion: that is, to replace traditional ‘sceptical’ interpretations of Gorgias and Nāgārjuna with an alternative one, which takes them as possibly committed to nihilism. (shrink)

Many criminal lawyers should expect that, were they to not defend a certain client, someone no less capable would do so. It is morally wrong for such attorneys to defend defendants who should be punished. This is true even if we grant that the defendant’s right to be defended outweighs any rights that might be infringed by the defense and that the benefits of defending are greater than the harm. Nor does this argument depend on any particular view of (...) punishment. The fact that the attorney expects to be replaced by someone equally capable has an asymmetric effect on the reasons for and against defending. The reasons that justify defending become extremely attenuated by this expectation, no matter what they are, while the reasons against defending are much less affected, no matter what they are. (shrink)

It seems to be a widespread opinion that increasing the length of existing happy lives is better than creating new happy lives and that it may be better even when the total welfare is lower in the outcome with extended lives. The chapter discusses two interesting suggestions that seem to support this idea. The first is critical level utilitarianism (CLU) and the other is view comparativism. The chapter describes the pure case of life extension versus life replacement and then presents (...) some different views about the value of life extension, indicating some of the arguments in favor and against life extension fail. Then, it turns to the implications of critical level utilitarianism and comparativism in regards to life extension versus replacement, the main topic of this chapter. A case is presented to explain that there is a conflict between intuitions regarding life extension and comparativism. (shrink)

I present two generalizations of Putnam's model-theoretic argument against realism. The first replaces Putnam's model theory with some new, and substantially simpler, model theory, while the second replaces Putnam's model theory with some more accessible results from astronomy. By design, both of these new arguments fail. But the similarities between these new arguments and Putnam's original arguments illuminate the latter's overall structure, and the flaws in these new arguments highlight the corresponding flaws in Putnam's arguments.

Jürgen Habermas is regarded as a central bioconservative commentator in the debate on the ethics of human prenatal genetic manipulations. While his main work on this topic, The Future of Human Nature, has been widely examined in regard to his position on prenatal genetic enhancement, his arguments regarding prenatal genetic therapeutic interventions have for the most part been overlooked. In this work I do two things. First, I present the three necessary conditions that Habermas establishes for a prenatal genetic manipulation (...) to be regarded as morally permissible. Second, I examine if mitochondrial replacement techniques meet these necessary conditions. I investigate, specifically, the moral permissibility of employing pronuclear transfer and maternal spindle transfer. I conclude that, according to a Habermasian perspective on prenatal genetic manipulation, maternal spindle transfer and pronuclear transfer are morally impermissible. Maternal spindle transfer is, in principle, morally permissible, but only when we have beforehand preselected a sperm and an egg for our reproductive purpose. These findings are relevant for bioconservatives, both for those who hold a Habermasian stance and for those who hold something akin to a Habermasian stance, because they answer the question: what should bioconservatives do regarding mitochondrial replacement techniques? In fact, the answer to this question does not only normatively prescribe what bioconservatives should do in terms of their personal morality, but it also points towards what kind of legislation regulating mitochondrial replacement techniques they should aim at. (shrink)

Singer’s much-discussed replaceability argument states that non-self-conscious animals may be killed and replaced by new animals that will lead equally valuable lives. If sound, this argument can be used to justify the cycle of raising and killing animals for food. Thus, many have argued that Singer’s theory, and utilitarianism in general, while committed to this argument, offers inadequate protection to animals. However, some utilitarians reject the argument and Singer himself was rather tentative in preventing its (...) additional application to self-conscious beings. This tension, within utilitarianism, about how to best deal with the argument is the core of what I call ‘the problem of replaceability’. My main goal here is to provide a precise description of this problem. Firstly, I distinguish between the general question of replacement permissibility and the specific question of whether (a certain version of) utilitarianism implies the replaceability argument. Focusing on the specific question I set the problem apart from other known objections to utilitarianism, like the value receptacles objection and some replacement-like difficulties. I also compare two versions of the replaceability argument and advance a better one. Finally, I point out how different interpretations of the argument affect the way out of the problem. I hope this understanding of the problem offers helpful insight to possible solutions and to further investigate its importance to animal food production and animals’ moral status. (shrink)

In a previous article, I argued that assessment requirements for transgender hormone replacement therapy are unethical and dehumanising. A recent response published by the Journal of Medical Ethics criticises this proposal. In this reply, I advance that their response misunderstood core parts of my argument and fails to provide independent support for assessment requirements. Though transition-related care may have similarities with cosmetic surgeries, this does not suffice to establish a need for assessments, and nor do the high rates of (...) depression and anxiety justify assessments, especially given the protective role HRT plays towards mental well-being. (shrink)

The ethical theory underlying much of our treatment of animals in agriculture and research is the moral agency view. It is assumed that only moral agents, or persons, are worthy of maximal moral significance, and that farm and laboratory animals are not moral agents. However, this view also excludes human non-persons from the moral community. Utilitarianism, which bids us maximize the amount of good in the world, is an alternative ethical theory. Although it has many merits, including impartiality and the (...) extension of moral concern to all sentient beings, it also appears to have many morally unacceptable implications. In particular, it appears to sanction the killing of innocents when utility would be maximized, including cases in which we would deliberately kill and replace a being, as we typically do to animals on farms and in laboratories. I consider a number of ingenious recent attempts by utilitarians to defeat the killing and replaceability arguments, including the attempt to make a place for genuine moral rights within a utilitarian framework. I conclude that utilitarians cannot escape the killing and replaceability objections. Those who reject the restrictive moral agency view and find they cannot accept utilitarianism's unsavory implications must look to a different ethical theory to guide their treatment of humans and non-humans. (shrink)

It seems to be a widespread opinion that increasing the length of existing happy lives is better than creating new happy lives although the total welfare is the same in both cases, and that it may be better even when the total welfare is lower in the outcome with extended lives. I shall discuss two interesting suggestions that seem to support this idea. Firstly, the idea there is a positive level of well-being above which a life has to reach to (...) have positive contributive value to a population. This view is usually called critical level utilitarianism. Secondly, the viewthat it makes an outcome worse if people are worse off than they otherwise could have been. I shall call this view comparativism. Firstly, I shall describe what I call the pure case of life extension versus replacement. Then I shall very briefly describe some different views about the value of life extension and indicate why I think some of the arguments in favor and against life extension fail. I shall then turn to the implications of critical level utilitarianism and comparativism in regards to life extension versus replacement, which is the main topic of this chapter. (shrink)

This essay argues that the flaws of just war theory should lead us to develop a new approach to living with others. Danielle Poe begins her argument with a description of just war theory and its failures. In the next section, Poe discusses the philosophy of Bat-Ami Bar On and Luce Irigaray in order to construct ethical commitments between people. These ethical commitments come from concrete acts of empathy, such as relationships of compassion, kindness, and hospitality. Finally, Poe considers (...) how these concrete acts can create conditions to prevent war. (shrink)

This essay argues that the flaws of just war theory should lead us to develop a new approach to living with others. Danielle Poe begins her argument with a description of just war theory and its failures. In the next section, Poe discusses the philosophy of Bat-Ami Bar On and Luce Irigaray in order to construct ethical commitments between people. These ethical commitments come from concrete acts of empathy, such as relationships of compassion, kindness, and hospitality. Finally, Poe considers (...) how these concrete acts can create conditions to prevent war. (shrink)

According to the indispensability argument, the fact that we quantify over numbers, sets and functions in our best scientific theories gives us reason for believing that such objects exist. I examine a strategy to dispense with such quantification by simply replacing any given platonistic theory by the set of sentences in the nominalist vocabulary it logically entails. I argue that, as a strategy, this response fails: for there is no guarantee that the nominalist world that go beyond the set (...) of sentences in the nominalist language such theories entail. However, I argue that what such theories show is that mathematics can enable us to express possibilities about the concrete world that may not be expressible in nominalistically acceptable language. While I grant that this may make quantification over abstracta indispensable, I deny that such indispensability is a reason for accepting them into our ontology. I urge that the nominalist should be allowed to quantify over abstracta whilst denying their existence and I explain how this apparently contradictory practice (a practice I call 'weaseling') is in fact coherent, unproblematic and rational. Finally, I examine the view that platonistic theories are simpler or more attractive than their nominalistic reformulations, and thus that abstract ought to be accepted into our ontology for the same sorts of reasons as other theoretical objects. I argue that, at least in the case of numbers, functions and sets, such arguments misunderstand the kind of simplicity and attractiveness we seek. (shrink)

The focus of this article is a question that has been neglected in debates about digitalization: Could machines replace human scientists? To provide an intelligible answer to it, we need to answer a further question: What is it that makes (or constitutes) a scientist? I offer an answer to this question by proposing a new demarcation criterion for science which I call “the discoverability criterion”. I proceed as follows: (1) I explain why the target question of this article is important, (...) and (2) show that it leads to a variant of the demarcation problem of science. (3) By arguing that it is probably an essential feature of science that we can make scientific discoveries, I suggest a novel way of dealing with this problem by proposing a new demarcation criterion. Before introducing it, (4) I analyze an exemplary case of a real scientific discovery, and (5) argue that scientific discovery processes have a general underlying structure. (6) I introduce my discoverability criterion for science and present my master argument that helps us understand which criteria have to be fulfilled in order to decide whether machines can replace human scientists or not. (7) I conclude by answering the article’s target question and bringing forward a take-home message. (shrink)

A clinical trial on mitochondrial replacement therapy is currently being conducted and if this technique proves effective, National Health Service England will fund MRT through the highly specialised services funding stream. This paper considers whether MRT should be publicly funded by the NHS. Given the current financial pressure the NHS is experiencing, a comprehensive discussion is essential. There is yet to be a thorough discussion on MRT funding, perhaps because this is a small-scale issue and presumed to be covered by (...) the HSS budget. However, the source of funding has not been confirmed due to the trial’s incompletion. Upon its completion, reasoned decisions need to be made over the allocation of scarce NHS resources. It is therefore important to consider the following arguments in advance. Three arguments given against NHS funding of MRT will be evaluated. The first argument against NHS funding examines the HSS overspending its budget in an underfunded NHS, suggesting funding must be carefully reprioritised. Second, the ethical issue of allowing public access to a technique with insufficient evidence behind it will be explored. The final point considers the option of privately funding MRT and how this would affect the treatment’s development. After illustrating the weaknesses of such arguments, it will be concluded that MRT should be funded by the NHS. (shrink)

I propose that meat replacement is to meat, as drag is to gender. Meat replacement has the potential to shake concepts of meat, like drag does for gender. Meat replacements not only mimic meat but disclose how meat itself is performed in carnivorous culture -and show that it may be performed otherwise. My approach is inspired by the show RuPaul’s Drag Race. The argument builds on an imitation of Judith Butler’s work on gender performativity, performed by replacing ‘drag/ gender/ (...) sex/ heterosexism’ terms and relations in Butler’s text with ‘meat replacement/ meat/ species/ carnism’ ones. (shrink)

In her very interesting paper, “Peter Singer on Expendability,” L. A. Kemmerer re-examines Peter Singer’s utilitarian argument implying that some being are replaceable and the implications of this argument for the issue of treating animals. I attempt to defend Singer, and more generally utilitarianism , against these objections. I argue that, given a utilitarian outlook, some animals are indeed replaceable. But I also argue that few animals are replaceable in practice.

The most frequently discussed skeptical arguments in the history of philosophy are to be found in the tightly argued twelve paragraphs of Descartes’ Meditation One. There is considerable controversy about how to interpret the skeptical arguments that Descartes offers; the extent to which those arguments rest upon implicit epistemological and/or metaphysical presuppositions; their originality within the history of skepticism; and the role they play within Cartesian philosophy and natural science. This chapter begins by tracing the complex argumentation of Meditation One. (...) The second section explores the differences between Cartesian skeptical arguments and the skeptical arguments discussed in the ancient world, while the third section considers whether there might be medieval antecedents for the radical doubts that end Meditation One. The final section suggests that the radical nature of the doubts raised in Meditation One has its sources in two fundamental characteristics of Cartesian science: the radical error that Cartesian science posits in our everyday experience of the world, and the hypothetical and (only) morally certain nature of the scientific edifice that is proposed to replace the commonsense view of the world enshrined in Aristotelian science. (shrink)

In a recent paper – Lesbian motherhood and mitochondrial replacement techniques: reproductive freedom and genetic kinship – we argued that lesbian couples who wish to have children who are genetically related to both of them should be allowed access to mitochondrial replacement techniques. Françoise Baylis wrote a reply to our paper –‘No’ to lesbian motherhood using human nuclear genome transfer– where she challenges our arguments on the use of MRTs by lesbian couples, and on MRTs more generally. In this reply (...) we respond to her claims and further clarify our position. (shrink)

Perry Hendricks’ impairment argument for the immorality of abortion is based on two premises: first, impairing a fetus with fetal alcohol syndrome is immoral, and second, if impairing an organism to some degree is immoral, then ceteris paribus, impairing it to a higher degree is also immoral. He calls this the impairment principle. Since abortion impairs a fetus to a higher degree than FAS, it follows from these two premises that abortion is immoral. Critics have focussed on the ceteris (...) paribus clause of TIP, which requires that the relevant details surrounding each impairment be sufficiently similar. In this article, we show that the ceteris paribus clause is superfluous, and by replacing it with a more restrictive condition, the impairment argument is considerably strengthened. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

Nobody who reads this article is likely to need convincing that there are bad political arguments. But, however many of them are bad, unless there are also some good ones, we can do nothing by reason in politics, there is no possibility of settling disputes rationally or in any other way except by fighting and there could be no ground either why we fight for any one cause rather than any other or why we should fight rather than make peace (...) or vice versa. But surprisingly little has been said by philosophers about this important type of argument. However, this omission is less surprising and less harmful than it might appear at first sight because all thoroughgoing political arguments are, I think, at bottom arguments as to what ought to be done and therefore ethical arguments in a wide sense of the word, and philosophers have certainly said a good deal about ethical arguments. However, it is well worth while treating political arguments separately, especially in these very political days, and considering their particular character. By political arguments I mean, not the abstract arguments of books on political philosophy, but the everyday concrete political arguments of the platform, the press and the meal-time conversation. What is their logical nature in so far as they are not mere fallacies or unsupported assertions, and can the philosopher qua philosopher say anything that will help in such discussions and contribute towards the replacement of bad arguments by good, a most desirable consummation and one the achievement of which in all countries would certainly have prevented the present war? (shrink)

Many people are moved by the thought that if A is worse off than B, then if we can improve the condition of one or the other but not both that it is better to improve the condition of A. Egalitarians are buoyed by the prevalence of such thoughts. But something other than egalitarianism could be driving these thoughts. In particular, such thoughts could be motivated, instead, by a combination of the belief that desert should determine how people fare and (...) the belief that, for the most part, people are equally deserving. Shelly Kagan has pushed this line of argument, suggesting that desert should replace equality as a normative ideal. He argues that desert theory and egalitarianism often agree, and when they don’t intuition favors desert theory. A number of authors have offered responses to Kagan, including Serena Olsaretti, Fred Feldman, and Richard Arneson. However, I maintain that their responses are inadequate, primarily because they simply fail to capture the compelling intuitions that Kagan appeals to in making his case. There are other responses, however, and I consider three, each of which offers an egalitarian position that is compatible with Kagan’s most compelling intuitions. Thus, I maintain that Kagan has not sufficiently established that desert should replace equality as a normative ideal. There is still room for a genuinely egalitarian position, though Kagan’s reflections helpfully force egalitarians to further develop and refine their thinking. (shrink)

A common current refrain laments that multiculturalism has failed as a policy model and that it should be replaced by interculturalism. In this article, we present a critical analysis of the backgrounds and targets of multiculturalism and interculturalism. While multiculturalism concerns rights, equality and justice, interculturalism relates to social cohesion, shared participation and practices. Instead of merely juxtaposing these two paradigms, we illustrate the extent to which they are both different and complementary, as well as why they should be implemented (...) simultaneously. Intercultural and multicultural policies can be mutually reinforcing, in addition to adjusting or compensating for possible undesirable outcomes. By emphasising their complementarities, we go beyond the arguments of those who would expel multiculturalism in favour of interculturalism, as well as those who believe that multiculturalism already incorporates the merits of interculturalism. We also demonstrate the presence of both multicultural and intercultural aspects in the ‘civic integration’ policies that are being implemented with increasing rigour in several countries of immigration. (shrink)

Taking the possibility of visual argumentation seriously, this essay explores how refutation might proceed. We posit three ways in which images can refute and be refuted in a mixed-media environment: (1) dissection, in which an image is broken down discursively; (2) substitution, in which one image is replaced within a larger visual frame by a different image; and (3) transformation, in which an image is recontextualized in a new visual frame. These strategies are illustrated in an analysis of three American (...) documentary films on abortion. (shrink)

This paper is a complement to the recent wealth of literature suggesting a strong philosophical relationship between artificial life (A-Life) and artificial intelligence (AI). I seek to point out where this analogy seems to break down, or where it would lead us to draw incorrect conclusions about the philosophical situation of A-Life. First, I sketch a thought experiment (based on the work of Tom Ray) that suggests how a certain subset of A-Life experiments should be evaluated. In doing so, I (...) suggest that treating A-Life experiments as if they were just AI experiments applied to a new domain may lead us to see problems (like Searle’s “Chinese room”) which do not exist. In the second half of the paper, I examine the reasons for suggesting that there is a philosophical relationship between the two fields. I characterize the strong thesis for a translation of AI concepts, metaphors, and arguments into A-Life as the “global replacement strategy.” Such a strategy is only fruitful inasmuch as there is a strong analogy between AI and A-Life. I conclude the paper with a discussion of two areas where such a strong analogy seems to break down. These areas relate to eliminative materialism and the lack of a “subjective” element in biology. I conclude that the burden of proof lies with the person who wishes to import a concept from another discipline into A-Life, even if that other discipline is AI. (shrink)

Epithelial stem cells have been identified in integumental structures such as hairs and continuously growing teeth of various rodents, and in the gut. Here we propose the involvement of epithelial stem cells in the continuous tooth replacement that characterizes non‐mammalian vertebrates, as exemplified by the zebrafish. Arguments are based on morphological observations of tooth renewal in the zebrafish and on the similarities between molecular control of hair and tooth formation. Dissection of the molecular cascades underlying the regulation of the epithelial (...) stem cell niche might open perspectives for new regenerative treatment strategies in clinical dentistry. BioEssays 26:665–671, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The problem of temporary intrinsics is the problem of how persisting objects can have different intrinsic properties at different times. The relativizer responds to this problem by replacing ordinary intrinsic properties with relations to times. In this note, I identify and respond to three different objections to the relativizer's proposal, each of which can be traced to the work of David Lewis.

Should doctors have the possibility to save children from incurable suffering and end their lives?. At first glance, the standpoints in the debate around this question seem translucent and well known and the debate intelligible. I contend that this is not the case and I will illustrate this in analysing the debate between Peter Singer and Ulrich Bleidick. Whomever wants to answer the question whether it is acceptable to end the lives of suffering small children will have to do some (...) careful reading and thinking about the different and differing moral arguments in the debate. This demands emotional restraint and intellectual honesty. Trying to understand Singer and his opponents is a challenging way of charting what exactly is at stake in this debate. (shrink)

Inferences from scientific success to the approximate truth of successful theories remain central to the most influential arguments for scientific realism. Challenges to such inferences, however, based on radical discontinuities within the history of science, have motivated a distinctive style of revision to the original argument. Conceding the historical claim, selective realists argue that accompanying even the most revolutionary change is the retention of significant parts of replaced theories, and that a realist attitude towards the systematically retained constituents of (...) our scientific theories can still be defended. Selective realists thereby hope to secure the argument from success against apparent historical counterexamples. Independently of that objective, historical considerations have inspired a further argument for selective realism, where evidence for the retention of parts of theories is itself offered as justification for adopting a realist attitude towards them. Given the nature of these arguments from success and from retention, a reasonable expectation is that they would complement and reinforce one another, but although several theses purport to provide such a synthesis the results are often unconvincing. In this paper I reconsider the realist’s favoured type of scientific success, novel success, offer a revised interpretation of the concept, and argue that a significant consequence of reconfiguring the realist’s argument from success accordingly is a greater potential for its unification with the argument from retention.Keywords: Scientific realism; Pessimistic meta-induction; Success; Progress; Aether; Novelty. (shrink)

Few discussions of the ethics of mitochondrial ‘replacement’ techniques have drawn significant ethical distinctions between the two approaches now legal in the U.K. However, Anthony Wrigley, Stephen Wilkinson and John Appleby have together argued that under some circumstances pronuclear transfer (PNT) may be in better ethical standing than maternal spindle transfer (MST). They base their conclusion on what they allege to be different implications of the techniques with respect to non‐identity considerations, which they ground on a version of origin essentialism. (...) I raise a series of problems for their argument, which have cautionary implications for invocations of origin essentialism that go beyond specialized debates regarding MST and PNT. I argue that (i) origin essentialism is a fragile foundation for non‐identity considerations; (ii) gametic essentialism, which Wrigley et al. believe licenses their claims, is more questionable than origin essentialism; (iii) gametic essentialism does not straightforwardly justify their conclusion; and (iv) their conclusion in fact relies on an especially dubious position that we can call chromosomal origin essentialism. No good reasons have yet been supplied to distinguish PNT from MST on ethical grounds, and one should be wary of basing claims with practical impact on fragile foundations relating to origin essentialism. (shrink)

(This is for the series Elements of Decision Theory published by Cambridge University Press and edited by Martin Peterson) -/- Our beliefs come in degrees. I believe some things more strongly than I believe others. I believe very strongly that global temperatures will continue to rise during the coming century; I believe slightly less strongly that the European Union will still exist in 2029; and I believe much less strongly that Cardiff is east of Edinburgh. My credence in something is (...) a measure of the strength of my belief in it; it represents my level of confidence in it. These are the states of mind we report when we say things like ‘I’m 20% confident I switch off the gas before I left' or ‘I’m 99.9% confident that it is raining outside'. -/- There are laws that govern these credences. For instance, I shouldn't be more confident that sea levels will rise by over 2 metres in the next 100 years than I am that they'll rise by over 1 metre, since the latter is true if the former is. This book is about a particular way we might try to establish these laws of credence: the Dutch Book arguments (For briefer overviews of these arguments, see Alan Hájek’s entry in the Oxford Handbook of Rational and Social Choice and Susan Vineberg’s entry in the Stanford Encyclopaedia.) -/- We begin, in Chapter 2, with the standard formulation of the various Dutch Book arguments that we'll consider: arguments for Probabilism, Countable Additivity, Regularity, and the Principal Principle. In Chapter 3, we subject this standard formulation to rigorous stress-testing, and make some small adjustments so that it can withstand various objections. What we are left with is still recognisably the orthodox Dutch Book argument. In Chapter 4, we set out the Dutch Strategy argument for Conditionalization. In Chapters 5 and 6, we consider two objections to Dutch Book arguments that cannot be addressed by making small adjustments. Instead, we must completely redesign those arguments, replacing them with ones that share a general approach but few specific details. In Chapter 7, we consider a further objection to which I do not have a response. In Chapter 8, we'll ask what happens to the Dutch Book arguments if we change certain features of the basic framework in which we've been working: first, we ask how Dutch Book arguments fare when we consider credences in self-locating propositions, such as It is Monday; second, we lift the assumption that the background logic is classical and explore Dutch Book arguments for non-classical logics; third, we lift the assumption that an agent's credal state can be represented by a single assignment of numerical values to the propositions she considers. In Chapter 9, we present the mathematical results that underpin these arguments. (shrink)

The knowledge argument aims to refute physicalism, the view that the world is entirely physical. The argument first establishes the existence of facts about consciousness that are not a priori deducible from the complete physical truth, and then infers the falsity of physicalism from this lack of deducibility. Frank Jackson gave the argument its classic formulation. But now he rejects the argument . On his view, it relies on a false conception of sensory experience, which should (...) be replaced with representationalism , the view that phenomenal states are just representational states. And he argues that mental representation is physically explicable. (shrink)

In the first premiss, how is the word 'different' used? If we are prepared to say that, in certain areas of discourse, the word 'different,' like the word 'same,' has two uses and that there are two senses of the word, there seem to be two ways of interpreting the first premiss. On the one hand, we can take the word 'different' to be used in the way in which it would be used if someone wished to point out that (...) the table that was in this room was replaced by another very similar table and, to point this out, said that the table that is here now is different from—or is a different table from—the one that was here a week ago. If in the first premiss we take the word 'different' to be used in this way, the premiss can be read: "Everything is numerically different from everything else." On the other hand, we can take the word 'different' to be used in the way in which it would be used if someone were to say, about two tables that were in front of him, that one is different from the other, and elaborate on his remark by saying that the one is a darker brown than the other. If we take the word 'different' to be used in this way, the first premiss can be read: "Everything is qualitatively different from everything else." Which of the two interpretations is correct? It seems that both are, for, although Mr. Blanshard purports to be discussing one argument, what he says in reply to Nagel's objections supports the second interpretation; whereas his statement of the argument at the outset supports the first interpretation. When he answers Nagel's objections, he considers the case of two "patches." A is a circular patch on the earth, and B a triangular patch on Mars. Maintaining against Nagel that A and B are internally related, the relation between A and B that he contends is internal is their difference in shape. And the argument that he seems to be defending here would have as its first premiss that everything differs qualitatively from every other thing. Yet, when he presents the argument on p. 229, he seems to have a different argument in mind. To show that two seemingly unrelated things are related, he says that a farmer in Iowa and a ballet dancer in Moscow are "different individuals," and the point that I take him to be making here is that, from the proposition that the farmer in Iowa and the dancer in Moscow are two individuals, it follows that the one is different from the other and hence that the two are related. This favors the first interpretation, viz., that in the first premiss the word 'different' is to be understood as in the remark that the table that is here now is different from—is a different table from—the table that was here a week ago. (shrink)

This paper addresses two methodological paths in Artificial Intelligence: the paths of Babbage and anti-Cartesianism. While those researchers who have followed the latter have attempted to reverse the Cartesian dictum according to which machines cannot think in principle, Babbage’s path, which has been partially neglected, implies that the replacement of humans—and not the creation of minds—should provide the foundation of AI. In view of the examined paths, the claim that we support here is this: in line with Babbage, AI researchers (...) have recently concentrated upon the replacement of human labour, and thus upon the creation of Machine Learning systems. After presenting and analysing the paths, we characterise Machine Learning via its developments and an illustrative example. Then, we put forward an argument that shows that total replacement of human labour will not be feasible for practical and conceptual reasons despite the successful developments in recent AI systems. Our discussion finally leads to optimism and awareness: AI’s advances allow humans to dedicate themselves to higher level tasks, but these advances also require that we be vigilant about the responsibilities granted to ML-based systems. (shrink)

This paper contains a novel and coherent reading of Weberian ideal type construction, based on recent philosophical approaches to conceptual engineering. This reading makes transparent the dialectics of Weber's approach, resulting in a more nuanced interpretation of his methodological work. It will become apparent that Weber, when introducing his notion of an ideal type, did not merely summarize his views on methodology in the social sciences, but, rather, presented a two-step argument in favor of these views. The reconstruction will (...) directly bear on issues in the methodology of the social sciences. Weber not only presented a methodology that is, at some level of abstraction, strikingly similar to Carnapian explication (the canonical point of reference in the contemporary debate on conceptual engineering). He also diagnosed, in a systematic fashion, types of problems we face when dealing with ordinary and scientific concepts that play a key role in the description of social reality, and he foreshadowed what is today sometimes described as “debunking” projects. From a philosophy of science perspective, I propose Weber's view (on the reconstruction proposed here) as a serious candidate for an adequate theory of concept replacement in the social sciences. (shrink)

For Charles Mills, the "Racial Contract" is a set of meta-agreements between whites to categorize nonwhites as subpersons of inferior moral and legal status relative to whites. This "contract" gives whites the right to exploit non-whites and deny them opportunities provided to whites. It portrays non-whites as designated to serve whites much as non-humans were designated by God to serve the benefit of humans. Mills argument helps make clear how, for most of the modern era, whites have had as (...) little obligation to recognize the rights of non-whites as they have had to recognize the rights of non-humans. (shrink)

This brief report presents the global problem of the shortfall of donor corneal tissue for transplantation, a potential root cause (‘ick factor’ language), and a potential solution (modification of ‘ick factor’ language). Specifically, use of the term ‘eye donation’ is a potential hurdle to ocular tissue donation as it can stimulate the ‘ick factor.’ Verbiage such as ‘ocular (eye tissue)’ could be a method of providing terminology that is less emotive than ‘eye donor’ or ‘eye donation.’ The field of transplantation (...) has experienced terminology shifts over time; for example, ‘cadaver’ has been replaced with ‘deceased donor,’ ‘harvest’ has been replaced with ‘recover,’ and ‘life support’ has been replaced with ‘ventilated.’ Notably, only a small number of regions worldwide are using ‘ocular’ terminology, yet it could be an important step to enhancing the informed consent process and improving donation rates, potentially increasing transplant and optimising patient quality of life for those with treatable blindness. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments seek to infer from the evolutionary origin of human beliefs about a particular domain to the conclusion that those beliefs are unjustified. In this paper I discuss EDAs with respect to our everyday, commonsense beliefs. Those who seriously entertain EDAs for commonsense argue that natural selection does not care about truth, it only cares about fitness, and thus it will equip us with beliefs that are useful rather than true. In recent work Griffiths and Wilkins argue that (...) this is a mistake. Fitness-tracking and truth-tracking are not rival, but rather potentially complementary, hypotheses about the function of our cognitive belief-forming systems. It may be that those systems maximise fitness by tracking the truth. I argue that while they are right about the standard EDAs for commonsense, the threat of evolutionary scepticism remains, because cognitive systems whose function is to track the truth may still be highly unreliable. I propose an alternative, Moorean approach to vindicating our commonsense picture of the world and dispelling the threat of scepticism. Once this has been established, however, we may appeal to evolution to explain the good fit between our cognition and the world. I thus propose that an evolutionary explanatory project ought to replace the troubled evolutionary justificatory project. This ought to be appealing to those such as Griffiths and Wilkins who seek a naturalistic non-sceptical account of our commonsense beliefs and their origins. (shrink)

According to a common definition, the argument of truthful ones is an argument in which the existence of Necessary Being is proved with no presumption of the existence of the possible being. Avicenna proposed different versions of this style of argument and the version in the book of Nejat is one of them. This paper is intended to examine the possibility of proving the logical validity of this version in first-order predicate logic and explain the principles which (...) the argument is based on. In this way, it becomes clear to what extent Avicenna's version is in accordance with the criteria he himself introduces for the argument of truthful ones. In this respect, while providing a clear exposition of the version in the book of Nejat, bugs on some of the statements and proposals to obviate them in terms of replacement arises. Then explaining the concepts and premises which the argument in the book of Nejat is besed on, it is formulated in first-order predicate logic with its full proof. Finally, the proposed model's accordance with the presented criteria for the argument of truthful ones will be shown. (shrink)

Nobody who reads this article is likely to need convincing that there are bad political arguments. But, however many of them are bad, unless there are also some good ones, we can do nothing by reason in politics, there is no possibility of settling disputes rationally or in any other way except by fighting and there could be no ground either why we fight for any one cause rather than any other or why we should fight rather than make peace (...) or vice versa. But surprisingly little has been said by philosophers about this important type of argument. However, this omission is less surprising and less harmful than it might appear at first sight because all thoroughgoing political arguments are, I think, at bottom arguments as to what ought to be done and therefore ethical arguments in a wide sense of the word, and philosophers have certainly said a good deal about ethical arguments. However, it is well worth while treating political arguments separately, especially in these very political days, and considering their particular character. By political arguments I mean, not the abstract arguments of books on political philosophy, but the everyday concrete political arguments of the platform, the press and the meal-time conversation. What is their logical nature in so far as they are not mere fallacies or unsupported assertions, and can the philosopher qua philosopher say anything that will help in such discussions and contribute towards the replacement of bad arguments by good, a most desirable consummation and one the achievement of which in all countries would certainly have prevented the present war? (shrink)

If the words in Spinoza’s Ethics are considered as symbols, then certain words in the definitions of the Ethics can be replaced with symbols from set theory and we can reexamine Spinoza’s first definitions within a logical–mathematical frame. The authors believe that, some aspects of Spinoza’s work can be explained and illustrated through mathematics. A semantic relation between the definitions of the philosopher and set theory is presented. It is explained each chosen symbol. The ontological argument is developed through (...) modal logic. And finally, we present some conclusions drawn from this work. (shrink)