We investigated the effect of culture, moral discourse, and motivation to engage in prosocial behavior on benefactors’ positive affect. Participants from three cultures responded to scenarios in which they could perform small acts of kindness for different targets. A stronger relationship between agentic and obligated motivation to perform acts of kindness, as well as between obligated motivation and positive affect, was observed for participants from Japan, and for individuals with higher endorsement of the Community Ethic. Agentic motivation to engage in (...) prosocial behavior was related to benefactors’ positive affect, regardless of relationship type. (shrink)

Traditionally, theories of concepts in psychology assume that concepts are a single, uniform kind of mental representation. But no single kind of representation can explain all of the empirical data for which concepts are responsible. I argue that the assumption that concepts are uniformly the same kind of mental structure is responsible for these theories’ shortcomings, and outline a pluralist theory of concepts that rejects this assumption. On pluralism, concepts should be thought of as being constituted by multiple representational kinds, (...) with the particular kind of concept used on an occasion being determined by the context. I argue that endorsing pluralism does not lead to eliminativism about concepts as an object of scientific interest. (shrink)

In contrast to film, theater, and literature, audiences typically sing along with popular songs. This can encourage a first-person mode of engagement with the narrative content. Unlike mere spectators, listeners sometimes imagine acting out the content when it is recited in the first-person. This is a common mode of engaging with popular music. And it can be uniquely morally problematic. It is problematic when it involves the enjoyment of imaginatively doing evil. I defend a Moorean view on the issue: It (...) is wrong to enjoy evil whether real or merely fiction. I develop my position through an examination of the controversially song "Mind of a Lunatic" (1990) by the Houston based rap group Geto Boys. (shrink)

One of the most profound interactions that can occur between people, apologies have the power to heal humiliations, free the mind from deep-seated guilt, remove the desire for vengeance, and ultimately restore broken relationships. With On Apology, Aaron Lazare offers an eye-opening analysis of this vital interaction, illuminating an often hidden corner of the human heart. He discusses the importance of shame, guilt, and humiliation, the initial reluctance to apologize, the simplicity of the act of apologizing, the spontaneous generosity (...) and forgiveness on the part of the offended, the transfer of power and respect between two parties, and much more. Readers will not only find a wealth of insight that they can apply to their own lives, but also a deeper understanding of national and international conflicts and how we might resolve them. The act of apologizing is quite simply immensely fulfilling. On Apology opens a window onto this common occurrence to reveal the feelings and actions at the heart of this profound interaction. (shrink)

Patent landscaping is the process of finding patents related to a particular topic. It is important for companies, investors, governments, and academics seeking to gauge innovation and assess risk. However, there is no broadly recognized best approach to landscaping. Frequently, patent landscaping is a bespoke human-driven process that relies heavily on complex queries over bibliographic patent databases. In this paper, we present Automated Patent Landscaping, an approach that jointly leverages human domain expertise, heuristics based on patent metadata, and machine learning (...) to generate high-quality patent landscapes with minimal effort. In particular, this paper describes a flexible automated methodology to construct a patent landscape for a topic based on an initial seed set of patents. This approach takes human-selected seed patents that are representative of a topic, such as operating systems, and uses structure inherent in patent data such as references and class codes to “expand” the seed set to a set of “probably-related” patents and anti-seed “probably-unrelated” patents. The expanded set of patents is then pruned with a semi-supervised machine learning model trained on seed and anti-seed patents. This removes patents from the expanded set that are unrelated to the topic and ensures a comprehensive and accurate landscape. (shrink)

Proponents of political liberalism standardly assume that the citizens of an ideal liberal society would be overwhelmingly reasonable. I argue that this assumption violates political liberalism's own constraints of realism—constraints that are necessary to frame the central problem that political liberalism aims to solve, that is, the problem of reasonable pluralism. To be consistent with these constraints, political liberalism must recognize that, as with reasonable pluralism, widespread support for unreasonable moral and political views is an inevitable feature of any liberal (...) society. I call this the fact of unreasonable pluralism. This fact threatens Rawlsian political liberalism's account of stability because an overlapping consensus cannot stably order a society pervaded by unreasonable views. My argument also raises questions about the coherence of Rawls's conception of ideal theory. (shrink)

Recent developments in science and technology point to the need to unify, and extend, the definition of memory. On the one hand, molecular neurobiology has shown that memory is largely a chemical process, which includes conditioning and any form of stored experience. On the other hand, information technology has led many to claim that cognition is also extended, that is, memory may be stored outside of the brain. In this paper, we review these advances and describe the increasingly accepted extended (...) definition of memory. This definition is largely accepted in neuroscience but not explicitly stated. In the extended definition, memory is the capacity to store and/or retrieve information. Does this new definition of memory mean that everything is now a form of memory? We stress that memory still requires incorporation, that is, a corpore. It is a relationship -- where one biological or chemical process is incorporated into another, and changes both in a permanent way. Looking at natural and biological processes of incorporation can help us think of how incorporation of internal and external memory occurs in cognition. We further argue that, if we accept that there is such a thing as the storage of information outside the brain -- and that this organic, dynamic process can also be called “memory” -- then we open the door to a very different world. The mind is not static. The brain, and the memory it uses, is a work in progress; we are not now who we were then. (shrink)

Directed duties are those duties whose violation would wrong someone in particular. Under what conditions, and in virtue of what, is a duty directed to someone? This is the Question of Direction. In this article, I explore the possibility of providing a Contractualist answer to the Question of Direction—one where the directedness of a directed duty is explained by the way in which that duty is derived in Contractualist moral reasoning. After presenting and rejecting three attempts at such an answer, (...) I arrive at a satisfactory one: An agent has a duty to an individual to perform some action just in case and because, were the agent not to perform that action, the agent would make the individual occupy the standpoint relative to which any principle that permits the agent not to perform that action is unacceptable. (shrink)

In the third volume of the History of England, David Hume considers the political ramifications of the Protestant reformation with a “Digression concerning the ecclesiastical state.” He advocates the establishment of a state church, believing it will dampen religious “enthusiasm” in the polity. Unlike later secularization theorists, Hume assumes an intractable basis for religion in the human passions. Tensions in Hume’s “cooptation” strategy are evident from Adam Smith’s famous attack upon it in section five of The Wealth of Nations, and (...) in Hume’s own treatment of seventeenth century independency in the fifth volume of the History. Smith argues that public competition among sects facilitates political moderation. In History V Hume stresses the positive role of enthusiasm in fostering civil liberty. This article traces Hume’s indecision to his “external” mode of moral and historical analysis, arguing that a secular policy on religion cannot proceed fruitfully without engaging the theological particulars of the religions at issue. (shrink)

The left ventricular assist device was originally designed to be surgically implanted as a bridge to transplantation for patients with chronic end-stage heart failure. On the basis of the REMATCH trial, the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services approved permanent implantation of the left ventricular assist device as a destination therapy in Medicare beneficiaries who are not candidates for heart transplantation. The use of the left ventricular assist device as a destination therapy (...) raises certain ethical challenges. Left ventricular assist devices can prolong the survival of average recipients compared with optimal medical management of chronic end-stage heart failure. However, the overall quality of life can be adversely affected in some recipients because of serious infections, neurologic complications, and device malfunction. Left ventricular assist devices alter end-of-life trajectories. The caregivers of recipients may experience significant burden (e.g., poor physical health, depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder) from destination therapy with left ventricular assist devices. There are also social and financial ramifications for recipients and their families. We advocate early utilization of a palliative care approach and outline prerequisite conditions so that consenting for the use of a left ventricular assist device as a destination therapy is a well informed process. These conditions include: (1) direct participation of a multidisciplinary care team, including palliative care specialists, (2) a concise plan of care for anticipated device-related complications, (3) careful surveillance and counseling for caregiver burden, (4) advance-care planning for anticipated end-of-life trajectories and timing of device deactivation, and (5) a plan to address the long-term financial burden on patients, families, and caregivers. Short-term mechanical circulatory devices (e.g. percutaneous cardiopulmonary bypass, percutaneous ventricular assist devices, etc.) can be initiated in emergency situations as a bridge to permanent implantation of ventricular assist devices in chronic end-stage heart failure. In the absence of first-person (patient) consent, presumed consent or surrogate consent should be used cautiously for the initiation of short-term mechanical circulatory devices in emergency situations as a bridge to permanent implantation of left ventricular assist devices. Future clinical studies of destination therapy with left ventricular assist devices should include measures of recipients' quality of end-of-life care and caregivers' burden. (shrink)

I distinguish three ways in which early modern rationalists seek to apply the principle of sufficient reason to empirical science, and critically assess some of their attempts to do so. I focus especially on how these thinkers assume substantive theories of explanation and intelligibility--which are indebted to the mechanist and experimentalist traditions--in many of their deployments of this rationalist principle. A recurring problem is that these philosophers deploy their standards of intelligibility inconsistently: some of their own favored explanations do not (...) always live up to their standards. I argue that the problem is especially acute for Leibniz and Euler, given their enthusiasm for final-causal explanations. (shrink)

El presente trabajo busca analizar la relación de la propuesta de hermenéutica analógica de Mauricio Beuchot con sus estudios previos publicados para documentar la historia de la filosofía novohispana, encontrando en estos la raíz de la famosa propuesta Beuchot. Palabras clave: Beuchot, hermenéutica analógica, filosofía novohispana.

The links between utopian and dystopian imaginaries, computer mediated communication technologies and the “digital divide,” in its numerous forms, as well as the links between these things and science fiction, are relatively under-researched. It will be argued here that the tendency to view the internet in terms of utopian or dystopian imaginaries is problematic on a number of levels; it will also be argued that science fiction films which are framed in terms of informatics and computer mediated communication technologies, such (...) as 2001 and The Matrix trilogy, actually problematise such imaginaries. (shrink)

The question of the ethical life is arguably one of the most compelling, and urgent, questions of our time. As Peter Singer, among others, has pointed out, almost 10 million children die each year due to poverty, some of whom would not die if the amount of aid that we now offer increases significantly. As Singer has also pointed out, the exploitation of human beings and other animals is a major ethical and practical concern. There can be little reasonable doubt (...) that pain and suffering abound, in the world today, due to many causes such as poverty, disease, environmental degradation and destruction and anthropocentrism among others, just as there can be little reasonable doubt that some of the pain and suffering is preventable. So, what does it mean to live ethically today? Does it mean taking the point of view of the universe, as Sidgwick put it, memorably, rather than a narrow anthropocentric or speciesist view? Does it mean living in accordance with duties or obligations, or in light of recognised virtues, or with the minimisation of pain and suffering primarily in mind? Does it entail a consideration of the interests of other species and a rejection of the principle of the sanctity of human life? Does it mean not eating animals when other healthy alternatives are available, especially when those animals have been treated in ways that are inconsistent with their interests, whatever they may be? Does it mean taking active steps to reduce poverty on our part on a day to day basis? Is ethics exhausted in some sense today? And if we could reach some consensus on these questions, what difference would the ethical life make? Some argue that speciesism and the exploitation of human beings and other animals might diminish; that pain and suffering, especially gratuitous pain and suffering, would decrease, or at the very least, not increase; or that we will become more aware of the limitations of things such as "the traditional ethic of the sanctity of life", as Singer calls it. Some argue that the ethical life is closely related to a life of relationships, reflection and deliberation, all of which deepen our understanding and enrich us personally. Others argue that the ethical life is closely related to our search for a meaningful life - that the ethical life can help us to find meaning in a world in which "meaning", defined broadly, can seem elusive, enigmatic or unsubstantial. These and related issues and questions are explored in this collection, which illustrates the relevance, vitality and dynamism of ethics today. (shrink)

Like Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, we now have both an A- and a substantially revised B-edition of Henry Allison's commentary to and defence of that work: Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense . Unlike Kant's Critique, however, Allison's first edition is unlikely to persist as an occasional rival to the second, since reviewers rightly consider the second to have superseded the landmark scholarship of the first. Nevertheless, before Allison's first edition is entirely supplanted, I would like to save (...) a neglected insight from its treatment of the B-deduction that is not retained in the second edition. (shrink)

Humean Supervenience is the view that (a) there are a plurality of fundamental beings, (b) there are no inexplicable constraints on modal space, and hence the fundamental nature of each such being is independent of those of all the rest and of the fundamental relations in which it stands to the rest, (c) the fundamental beings stand in no fundamental causal or nomic relations, and hence (d) the distribution of any causal or nomic relations in which they do stand globally (...) supervenes on their fundamental natures and the non‐nomic, non‐causal fundamental relations in which they stand. If Humean Supervenience is true, then as A.J. Ayer put it, it's just one damn thing after another. Radical Pluralism is the view that Humean Supervenience is true, and, moreover, that none of the fundamental beings stands in any fundamental relations at all. If Radical Pluralism is true, then, as William James puts it, the world's pieces are held together by nothing more than conjunction: it's just one damn thing and another. I argue that Radical Pluralism is very likely true, conditional upon Humean Supervenience. Any philosopher pluralist enough to be Humean ought to be radically pluralistic. (shrink)

People tend to be biased and irrational about politics. Should this constrain what our normative theories of democracy can require? David Estlund argues that the answer is ‘no’. He contends that even if such facts show that the requirements of a normative theory are very unlikely to be met, this need not imply that the theory is unduly unrealistic. I argue that the application of Estlund’s argument to political irrationality depends on a false presupposition: mainly, that being rational about politics (...) is something people could easily do if they tried. Since the empirical evidence shows that being rational about politics is actually quite difficult, Estlund’s argument comes up short. Moreover, I argue that the argument cannot plausibly be extended to insulate normative theories of democracy from facts about political irrationality because of the need for constraints of realism to explain the crucial role that appeals to (reasonable) disagreement play within such theories. (shrink)

We use Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality as a touchstone for comprehending Trump’s appeal and victory. Following Nietzsche’s concerns, the most noteworthy puzzle is that of Trump’s peculiar popularity, especially given his impolitic statements and policy proposals that often appear in tension with the interests of his voter base. While Nietzsche’s discussions of power and resentment would seem obvious starting points to examine the success of Trump and Trumpism, we contend that these provide largely superficial and, at best, incomplete (...) explanations. Instead, informed by Nietzsche’s moral psychology, we analyze Trump’s strategy in the context of the instinctual need for self-preservation. Trump’s amplification of this need through his rhetoric and cultivation of negative emotions, including resentment, has led to a revaluation that diminishes humanity. We conclude by drawing out the implications of Nietzsche’s view, revealing a forceful Nietzschean critique of Trump’s methods and values. (shrink)

The aim of the thesis is to show that there are some synthetic necessary truths, or that synthetic apriori knowledge is possible. This is really a pretext for an investigation into the general connection between meaning and truth, or between understanding and knowing, which, as pointed out in the preface, is really the first stage in a more general enquiry concerning meaning. (Not all kinds of meaning are concerned with truth.) After the preliminaries (chapter one), in which the problem is (...) stated and some methodological remarks made, the investigation proceeds in two stages. First there is a detailed inquiry into the manner in which the meanings or functions of words occurring in a statement help to determine the conditions in which that statement would be true (or false). This prepares the way for the second stage, which is an inquiry concerning the connection between meaning and necessary truth (between understanding and knowing apriori). The first stage occupies Part Two of the thesis, the second stage Part Three. In all this, only a restricted class of statements is discussed, namely those which contain nothing but logical words and descriptive words, such as "Not all round tables are scarlet" and "Every three-sided figure is three-angled". (The reasons for not discussing proper names and other singular definite referring expressions are given in Appendix I.). (shrink)

Surprisingly often Kant asserts that it is possible to behave in such a degrading way that one ‘throws oneself away’ and turns oneself ‘into a thing’, as a result of which others may treat one ‘as they please’. Rather than dismiss these claims out of hand, I argue that they force us to reconsider what is meant and required by ‘respect for humanity’. I argue that to ‘throw away’ humanity is not to lose or extinguish it, but rather to refuse (...) or otherwise fail to claim the respect that it authorizes one to claim. If I refuse or fail to make this claim, there is a sense in which I become a thing, and I leave others no choice but to treat me as such. This is compatible with their respect for humanity in my person. (shrink)

If one of Gentzen’s consistency proofs for pure number theory could be shown to be finitistically acceptable, an important part of Hilbert’s program would be vindicated. This paper focuses on whether the transfinite induction on ordinal notations needed for Gentzen’s second proof can be finitistically justified. In particular, the focus is on Takeuti’s purportedly finitistically acceptable proof of the well ordering of ordinal notations in Cantor normal form.The paper begins with a historically informed discussion of finitism and its limits, before (...) introducing Gentzen and Takeuti’s respective proofs. The rest of the paper is dedicated to investigating the finitistic acceptability of Takeuti’s proof, including a small but important fix to that proof. That discussion strongly suggests that there is a philosophically interesting finitist standpoint that Takeuti’s proof, and therefore Gentzen’s proof, conforms to. (shrink)

When studying science contexts, scholars typically position charismatic authority as an adjunct or something that provides a meaning-laden boost to rational authority. In this paper, we re-theorize these relationships. We re-center charismatic authority as an interpretive resource that allows scientists and onlookers to recast a professional conflict in terms of a public drama. In this mode, both professionals and lay enthusiasts portray involvement in the scientific process as a story of suppression and persecution, in which only a few remarkable figures (...) can withstand scrutiny and take on challengers with dignity. Description and elaboration of these figures and the folklore surrounding them sets in motion the interpretive processes by which some actors become charismatic leaders and others charismatic followers within science, ultimately providing alternative symbolic resources for an embattled research agenda to accrue legitimacy. To illustrate, we use the case of Arthur Jensen – a deceased intelligence researcher and the intellectual father to contemporary texts like The Bell Curve – and the circles of hero worship that admirers inside and outside academia have created to praise him. Using this perspective to study Jensen and his admirers demonstrates how the perennial race and intelligence debates gain a kind of symbolic power, unrelated to their scientific merit or racist appeal, which enables such debates to thrive and persist in the public sphere. More generally, our approach identifies contemporary processes by which scientific ideas can gain public authority even when their intellectual merit has been deemed dubious. (shrink)

A critical account of forgiveness and the "unforgivable", with particular reference to Bonaventure and Derrida, among others.

Conventionalism about property is the view that all moral duties correlative to property rights depend essentially either on the existence of a convention that assigns conventional ownership of objects, or on the existence of a body of positive law that confers legal property rights. It has been objected that, if Conventionalism about property is true, then it is impossible for someone to have her property right violated by someone who is not a member of the community in which her conventional (...) property right is assigned. But it is possible. When Christopher Columbus sailed up to the island of Hispaniola in 1492, he and his sailors wronged the inhabitants by forcing them off their land. So, Conventionalism is false. This is the Outsider Challenge for Conventionalism. The Outsider Challenge (and its first premise, in particular) receives support from the Benefit Condition, according to which one can be morally obligated to comply with a conventional rule only if one benefits or has one’s interests protected by the convention of which it is a part. Despite its provenance and plausibility, however, I think that the Benefit Condition should be rejected. Doing so in a principled way allows us to square Conventionalism with our moral intuitions and, thus, address the Outsider Challenge. My main aim in this essay is to reject the Benefit Condition in one such principled way by providing a Contractualist answer to the question of when, and why, someone is morally required to respect another’s conventional property right. One is morally required to respect the conventional property rights of another when and because failing to do so would run afoul of the Principle of Established Practices (pep) – a principle for which I give a Contractualist justification. Roughly, the pep requires us to comply with sufficiently just social practices in the absence of special justification, and the fact that one’s interests are not protected by a property convention is not always a sufficiently strong reason for one to violate the duties assigned by that convention. Since the fact that one’s interests are not protected by a property convention is not necessarily a special justification for violating the pep, the pep gives us reason to reject the Benefit Condition and, thus, the Outsider Challenge, too. (shrink)

An argument has been made for identifying Mill as an individualistic thinker. Certainly, A System of Logic develops views, such as methodological individualism and a conception of the ‘art of life’, which portray persons as having unique essences that, when supported by autonomous choices with respect to life experiments, reveal their individuality. These views are at least loosely applied in later works. Principles of Political Economy treats economic aspects of social life frequently in terms consistent with those of classical economists (...) for whom the self-interested actions of individuals achieve economic growth. On Liberty, the flagship volume in this view, and, less centrally, The Subjection of Women provide impressive testimony for an individualistic way of life in terms of its contributions to social progress. Considerations on Representative Government examines means for institutionalizing an individualistic way of life. And Utilitarianism provides a basis for justifying an individualistic view of this social programme: more satisfaction of individual desires. But such an account, Mill's own assessment notwithstanding, would be unsatisfactory. (shrink)

In their recent article, Glannon and Ross remind us that family members have obligations to help each other that strangers do not have. They argue, I believe correctly, that what creates moral obligations within families is not genetic relationship but rather a sharing of intimacy. For no one are these obligations stronger than they are for parents of young children. This observation leads the authors to the logical conclusion that organ donation by a parent to her child is not optional (...) but rather a prima facie duty. However, Glannon and Ross go a step further by suggesting that because parent-to-child organ donation is a duty, it cannot be altruistic. They assert that “altruistic acts are optional, nonobligatory…supererogatory…. Given that altruism consists in purely optional actions presupposing no duty to aid others, any parental act that counts as meeting a child's needs cannot be altruistic.” Here I think the authors go too far. (shrink)

In many circumstances compromises seem to be of great value to our well-being; compromises can help us avoid disputes and fights and enable us to live peacefully with each other. However, compromises can also require us to surrender some of our values. These two opposing aspects implicit in compromise express the need to be sensitive to external circumstances and in particular to the wishes of other people, and at the same time to be willing to relinquish something of value. So (...) are compromises, and in particular romantic compromises, good or bad for our well-being? McIntyre’s view in general and Aristotle’s distinction between extrinsically and intrinsically valuable activities in particular, are very useful in this regard. Compromises can be characterized as involving dissatisfied acceptance of a gap between a perceived feasible desire and our actual situation. The acceptance of the gap is merely behavioral stemming from unfavorable external circumstances. It is not psychologically accepted, as deep down we are not happy with the compromise, and still yearning for a better solution. Romantic compromises are particularly hard to accept in light of the prominent place of the Romantic Ideology, in which ideal love can overcome all obstacles and hence there is no place for compromises. (shrink)

Humans have now amassed a sizable knowledge of widespread, nonconscious cognitive biases which affect our behavior, especially in social and economic contexts. I contend that a democratic government is uniquely justified in using knowledge of cognitive biases to promote pro-democratic behavior, conditionally justified in using it to accomplish ends traditionally within the scope of government authority, and unjustified in using it for any other purpose. I also contend that the government ought to redesign institutional infrastructure to avoid triggering cognitive biases (...) where it is not permitted intentionally to manipulate such biases and to optimize the effects of such biases where permissible. I shall use the United States of America as an example throughout, but my conclusions apply equally to any democracy which values the political autonomy of its populace. (shrink)

Embryonic development combines paradoxical properties: it has great precision, it is usually conducted at breakneck speed and it is flexible on relatively short evolutionary time scales, particularly at early stages. While these features appear mutually exclusive, we consider how they may be reconciled by the properties of key early regulatory networks. We illustrate these ideas with the network that controls development of endoderm progenitors. We argue that this network enables precision because of its intrinsic stability, self propagation and dependence on (...) signalling. The network enables high developmental speed because it is rapidly established by maternal inputs at multiple points. In turn these properties confer flexibility on an evolutionary time scale because they can be initiated in many ways, while buffering essential progenitor cell populations against changes in their embryonic environment on both evolutionary and developmental time scales. Although stable, these networks must be capable of rapid dissolution as cell differentiation progresses. While we focus on the core early endodermal network of vertebrates, we argue that these properties are likely to be general in early embryonic stem cell populations, such as mammalian ES cells. BioEssays 30:757–765, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)