"Outer space" is a curious dialectical zone—on the one hand, it consists of a number of elements defined as being distinct from the Earth; on the other hand, it has a repeated, daily impact on the Earth. The apparent emptiness of much of outer space—the space of space—suggests a literalization of the ou-topia, the no place, an inky black blank in which technology would be required for human survival. But that void can be converted into a tool—especially in the location (...) of the geostationary orbit for satellites. Equally, the rest of space offers resources that may facilitate the creation of a new society with a... (shrink)

Aristotle famously held that objects are comprised of matter and form. That is the central doctrine of hylomorphism (sometimes rendered “hylemorphism”—hyle, matter; morphe, form), and the view has become a live topic of inquiry today. Contemporary proponents of the doctrine include Jeffrey Brower, Kit Fine, David Hershenov, Mark Johnston, Kathrin Koslicki, Anna Marmodoro, Michael Rea, and Patrick Toner, among others. In the wake of these contemporary hylomorphic theories the doctrine has seen application to various topics within mainstream analytic metaphysics. Here, (...) appeals to form and matter are used to shed light on problems about ontology, personal identity, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion. The current entry documents this resurgence of interest in hylomorphism, the ways it has been applied, and its reception. (shrink)

Materialists about human persons think that we are material through and through—wholly material beings. Those who endorse materialism more widely think that everything is material through and through. But what is it to be wholly material? In this article, I answer that question. I identify and defend a definition or analysis of ‘wholly material’.

Warrant is what fills the gap between mere true belief and knowledge. But a problem arises. Is there just one condition that satisfies this description? Suppose there isn’t: can anything interesting be said about warrant after all? Call this the uniqueness problem. In this paper, I solve the problem. I examine one plausible argument that there is no one condition filling the gap between mere true belief and knowledge. I then motivate and formulate revisions of the standard analysis of warrant. (...) Given these revisions, I argue that there is, after all, exactly one warrant condition. (shrink)

The animalist says we are animals. This thesis is commonly understood as the universal generalization that all human persons are human animals. This article proposes an alternative: the thesis is a generic that admits of exceptions. We defend the resulting view, which we call ‘generic animalism’, and show its aptitude for diagnosing the limits of eight case-based objections to animalism.

The development of ethical guidelines and regulations regarding human subjects research has focused upon protection of vulnerable populations by relying on a limited typology of vulnerabilities. This results in several challenges: First, Institutional Review Boards struggle to interpret and apply the regulations because they are often vague and inconsistent. Second, applying the regulations to subjects who fit within multiple categories of vulnerability can lead to contradictions and the rejection of research that would be permissible if only one category were applicable. (...) Finally, some potential subjects have social and other context-based vulnerabilities that are not described in the federal regulations... (shrink)

Rustin Cohle, or Rust, is identifiable as being one character by looking at the script of True Detective and seeing the lines of text that only Rust will say. It would appear that the brute physicalist account is not sufficient for understanding how there are three different Rusts while each possesses many of the same physical characteristics as the others. In fact, one identifies at least three distinct non‐identical Rusts namely: Taxman, Belligerent, and Patient. Since they are mental instantiations and (...) not physical bodies, it is possible to have all three Rusts existing in the same body and, oddly, at the same time. By appealing to the psychological account, there is no restriction on how many Rusts there can be in a single body at any moment. Rust continues to be Rust so long as he has the same body, which can be identified as the body with the bird tattoo on the right arm. (shrink)

Materialists about human persons say that we are, and must be, wholly material beings. Substance dualists say that we are, and must be, wholly immaterial. In this paper, I take issue with the “and must be” bits. Both materialists and substance dualists would do well to reject modal extensions of their views and instead opt for contingent doctrines, or doctrines that are silent about those modal extensions. Or so I argue.

We develop a new puzzle concerning a material being's relationship to the smallest parts of the material world. In particular, we investigate how a being could be responsible for anything if its be...

Psychologists are ethically obligated to obtain informed consent to psychotherapy "as early as is feasible" (American Psychological Association, 2002, p. 1072). However, the range of topics to be addressed includes both information that may be immediately and uniformly applicable to most clients via policy or rule, as well as information that is not immediately presentable because it varies widely across clients or emerges over time. In this study, licensed psychologists were surveyed regarding the earliest feasible point at which they could (...) provide information regarding specific aspects of psychotherapy. Results indicate that, although psychologists believe that they are capable of presenting some information, such as payment and confidentiality policies, at the outset, they believe that a discussion of more substantive issues, such as psychotherapy duration, goals, orientation, and activities, can take place only after some therapy has transpired. Implications are discussed regarding the process and event models of informed consent. (shrink)

Grossmann's argument for the “fearful ape hypothesis” rests on an incomplete review of infant responses to emotional faces. An alternate interpretation of the literature argues the opposite, that an early preference for happy faces predicts cooperative learning. Questions remain as to whether infants can interpret affect from faces, limiting the conclusion that any “fear bias” means the infant is fearful.

Animalism is the view that we are animals: living, breathing, wholly material beings. Despite its considerable appeal, animalism has come under fire. Other philosophers have had much to say about objections to animalism that stem from reflection on personal identity over time. But one promising objection (the `Elimination Argument') has been overlooked. In this paper, I remedy this situation and examine the Elimination Argument in some detail. I contend that the Elimination Argument is both unsound and unmotivated.

The Industrial Enlightenment is widely thought to have been a period when “science” and “technology” became intimately intertwined. In his 1791 book on the building of the Eddystone lighthouse (completed in 1759), the English engineer John Smeaton praised the Royal Society for being more than a group of abstract theoreticians. This article looks at the fellows of Smeaton's Royal Society network who contributed knowledge, reports, specimens, and inventions solicited by Smeaton when he was working on this lighthouse project. I show, (...) in line with other recent research on this topic, that the “artisans” of the 18th century did not confine themselves to practical know-how, and that “scholars” were not merely interested in abstract philosophising; instead, the figures I look at in this paper were hybrid knowers who possessed useful knowledge and book learning. I argue that the advice solicited by Smeaton during the building of the lighthouse was characterised not by exchanges between theory and practice, but by a combining of different types of knowledge from separate fields. A second feature of this intellectual co-operation is that it was not centred on a group of practical industrialists or engineers, but rather it was the Royal Society that served as the common denominator, bringing all of the characters in our story into contact with each other. This is reflected in the subject matter involved, which was characteristic of the research focus of the virtuoso tradition in the 18th-century Royal Society. Smeaton's contact with this tradition was influenced by his friendships, his social activities, and, indirectly, by the way that the dissensions that occupied the Royal Society during the early 1780s impacted his retrospective account of the project. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the most common state policy responses to the opioid crisis, dividing them into six broad categories. Within each category we highlight the rationale behind the group of policies within it, discuss the details and support for individual policies, and explore the research base behind them. The objective is to better understand the most prevalent state responses to the opioid crisis.

The interpretation of the dead donor rule (DDR) has been central to recent debates regarding normothermic regional perfusion with controlled donation after circulatory death (NRP-cDCD). Proponents...

Alienation, as a theme, deeply pervaded both the work and life of Max Weber, one of the pillars of modern sociology. In this excellent new book, Andrew M. Koch analyzes the genesis of the conecpt of alienation and then, in a brilliant and imaginative turn, works to recreate the context in which Weber understood alienation in both the intellectual and lived sense.

There is a new objection to the Consequence Argument for incompatibilism. I argue that the objection is more wide-ranging than originally thought. In particular: if it tells against the Consequence Argument, it tells against other arguments for incompatibilism too. I survey a few ways of dealing with this objection and show the costs of each. I then present an argument for incompatibilism that is immune to the objection and that enjoys other advantages.

Despite increased calls for hospital ethics committees to serve as default decision-makers about life-sustaining treatment for unrepresented patients who lack decision-making capacity or a surrogate decision-maker and whose wishes regarding medical care are not known, little is known about how committees currently function in these cases. This was a retrospective cohort study of all ethics committee consultations involving decision-making about LST for unrepresented patients at a large academic hospital from 2007 to 2013. There were 310 ethics committee consultations, twenty-five of (...) which involved unrepresented patients. In thirteen cases, the ethics consultants evaluated a possible substitute decision-maker identified by social workers and/or case managers. In the remaining cases, the ethics consultants worked with the medical team to contact previous healthcare professionals to provide substituted judgement, found prior advance care planning documents, or identified the patient’s best interest as the decision-making standard. In the majority of cases, the final decision was to limit or withdraw LST or to change code status to Do Not Resuscitate/Do Not Intubate. Substitute decision-makers who had been evaluated through the ethics consultation process and who made the final decision alone were more likely to continue LST than cases in which physicians made the final decision. In our centre, the primary role of ethics consultants in decision-making for unrepresented patients is to identify appropriate decision-making standards. In the absence of other data suggesting that ethics committees, as currently constituted, are ready to serve as substitute decision-makers for unrepresented patients, caution is necessary before designating these committees as default decision-makers. (shrink)

Andrew Steane reconfigures the public understanding of science, by drawing on a deep knowledge of physics and by bringing in mainstream philosophy of science. Science is a beautiful, multi-lingual network of ideas; it is not a ladder in which ideas at one level make those at another level redundant. In view of this, we can judge that the natural world is not so much a machine as a meeting-place. In particular, people can only be correctly understood by meeting with (...) them at the level of their entire personhood, in a reciprocal, respectful engagement as one person to another. Steane shows that Darwinian evolution does not overturn this but rather is the process whereby such truths came to be discovered and expressed in the world. From here the argument moves towards other aspects of human life. Our sense of value requires from us a response which is not altogether the same as following logical argument. This points us towards what religion in its good forms can express. A reply to a major argument of David Hume, and a related one of Richard Dawkins, is given. The book finishes with some brief chapters setting religion in the context of all human capacities, and showing, in fresh language, what theistic religious response is, or can be, in the modern world. (shrink)

In this commentary on Denis Noble’s “The Illusions of the Modern Synthesis,” I discuss three illusions he argues exist within the Modern Synthesis. These illusions have the common theme of attempting to identify the correct way of understanding and describing biological systems. I agree with much of Noble’s claims, but offer the language of developmental systems theory as a friendly tool for moving the project forward.

According to the doctrine of animalism, we are animals in the primary and non-derivative sense. In this article, I introduce and defend a novel argument for the view.

Decision-making competence reflects individual differences in the susceptibility to decision-making errors, measured using tasks common from behavioral decision research (e.g., framing effects, under/overconfidence, following decision rules). Prior research demonstrates that those with higher decision-making competence report lower incidence of health-risking and antisocial behaviors, but there has been less focus on intermediate mechanisms that may impact real-world decisions, and, in particular, those implicated by normative models. Here we test the associations between measures of youth decision-making competence (Y-DMC) and one such mechanism, (...) the degree to which individuals make choices consistent with maximizing expected value (EV). Using a task involving hypothetical gambles, we find that greater EV sensitivity is associated with greater Y-DMC. Higher Y-DMC scores are associated with (a) choosing risky options when expected value favors those options and (b) avoiding risky options when expected value favors a certain option. This relationship is stronger for gambles that involved potential losses. The results suggest that Y-DMC captures decision processes consistent with standard normative evaluations of risky decisions. (shrink)

In this article, I focus on internal dimensions of moral responsibility. I argue that if such dimensions are real -- and it seems they are -- then moral responsibility is compatible with determinism.

Decision making capacity (DMC) is a fundamental concept grounding the principle of respect for autonomy and the practice of obtaining informed consent. DMC must be determined and documented every time a patient undergoes a hospital procedure and for routine care when there is reason to believe decision making ability is compromised. In this paper we explore a path toward ethically informed development and implementation of a hospital policy related to DMC assessment. We begin with a review of the context of (...) DMC assessment before discussing some considerations relevant to policy creation by healthcare ethics committees. The discussion concludes in a presentation of a typology of capacity assessment policies, which draws upon a sampling of currently used hospital policies to illustrate relevant ethical considerations. (shrink)

The continental tradition in philosophy has gotten more "materialistic" over the last two hundred years. This has resulted from a combination of some very specific moves with regard to the epistemological parameters of understanding and the assertion that ideas may have material force in history. Therefore, the materialism within the continental tradition is not a materiality of being, but a materiality of understanding and action. Such an inquiry opens up space between the activities of sensation and the mental faculty of (...) cognition. 'I think, therefore I am,' is not an empirical statement, but a statement of cognition. It is assumed that this distinction is at the core of continental philosophy. Cognition is always interpretive. Experience is the start of cognition, but not its final product. Our cognitions cannot be separated from our experience of the physical, social, and cultural environment around us. The symbolic nature of language reinforces the interpretive nature of our thoughts and ideas. Our language is, therefore, always projecting an implicit image of the world. Language is, therefore, always political. The materiality of these cognitive world-views is manifested in two ways. First, in their formation. They are the products of sensual contact with the world. Second, in their effects. They move people. It is a picture of the world which serves to shape the content and character of human behavior. Whether we want to call these phantoms of the mind, world-view, ideas, thoughts, cognitions, or any other term, the dual character of their materiality is secure. This work examines the threads of materialist ideas running through the efforts of some major authors in the continental tradition in philosophy. A model of materialism is constructed in Chapter One and used to assess the materialist elements in works from Kant, Marx, Weber, Nietzsche, and contemporary poststructuralism. The work demonstrates the evolution of materialist thinking within the tradition and asserts an evolving and developing articulation of materialism in relation to the thoughts and activities of human beings." -- Publisher's description. (shrink)

Making room for agency in a physical world is no easy task. Can it be done at all? In this article, I consider and reject an argument in the negative.

Payoff dominance, a criterion for choosing between equilibrium points in games, is intuitively compelling, especially in matching games and other games of common interests, but it has not been justified from standard game-theoretic rationality assumptions. A psychological explanation of it is offered in terms of a form of reasoning that we call the Stackelberg heuristic in which players assume that their strategic thinking will be anticipated by their co-player(s). Two-person games are called Stackelberg-soluble if the players' strategies that maximize against (...) their co-players' best replies intersect in a Nash equilibrium. Proofs are given that every game of common interests is Stackelberg-soluble, that a Stackelberg solution is always a payoff-dominant outcome, and that in every game with multiple Nash equilibria a Stackelberg solution is a payoff-dominant equilibrium point. It is argued that the Stackelberg heuristic may be justified by evidentialist reasoning. (shrink)

In Knowledge and Social Construction Andrew Koch asks: how can we know the absolute best path through politics toward a better society? We can't. However, if our claims to social knowledge are more hypothetical in nature than absolute the resultant society will be more open.

Some have it that wholes are, somehow, identical to their parts. This doctrine is as alluring as it is puzzling. But in this paper, I show that the doctrine is inconsistent with two widely accepted theses. Something has to go.

Among your closest associates is a certain human animal – a living, breathing, organism. You see it when you look in the mirror. When it is sick, you don't feel too well. Where it goes, you go. And, one thinks, where you go, it must follow. Indeed, you can make it move through sheer force of will. You bear, in short, an important and intimate relation to this, your animal. So too rest of us with our animals. Animalism says that (...) this relation is nothing short of identity. According to animalists, we do not only coincide with or constitute or inhabit or otherwise hang out with these close associates, our animals: we are them. In this article, I offer an opinionated take on what animalism might be and situate it against contemporary rivals. Then, I outline a simple case for animalism. Finally, I sketch non-standard routes for animalists to take in light of standard challenges. My goal in all of this is to open up some new avenues of animalist thinking. (shrink)

Sexual reproduction is the dominant reproductive mode in eukaryotes but, in many taxa, it has never been observed. Molecular methods that detect evidence of sex are largely based on the genetic consequences of sexual reproduction. Here we describe a powerful new approach to directly search genomes for genes that function in meiosis. We describe a “meiosis detection toolkit”, a set of meiotic genes that represent the best markers for the presence of meiosis. These genes are widely present in eukaryotes, function (...) only in meiosis and can be isolated by degenerate PCR. The presence of most, or all, of these genes in a genome would suggest they have been maintained for meiosis and, implicitly, sexual reproduction. In contrast, their absence would be consistent with the loss of meiosis and asexuality. This approach will help to understand both meiotic gene evolution and the capacity for meiosis and sex in putative obligate asexuals. BioEssays 30:579–589, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Are psychotherapy clients who pay via health insurance more likely to receive Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV], American Psychiatric Association, 1994) diagnoses than identical clients who pay out of pocket? Previous research (Kielbasa, Pomerantz, Krohn, & Sullivan, 2004) indicates that when psychologists consider a mildly depressed or anxious client, payment method significantly influences diagnostic decisions. This study extends the scope of the previous study to include clients whose symptoms are even less severe. Independent practitioners responded (...) to vignettes of clients whose profiles deliberately included subclinical impairment and a high level of functioning. Half of the participants were told that the clients would pay via managed care; the other half were told that the clients would pay out of pocket. As in the earlier study, payment method had a highly significant impact on diagnosis such that relative to out-of-pocket clients, managed care clients were much more likely to be assigned DSM-IV diagnoses. In addition, a noteworthy percentage of participants assigned diagnoses regardless of payment method. Ethical implications are discussed. (shrink)

ExcerptTimothy Stacey, Saving Liberalism from Itself: The Spirit of Political Participation. Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2022. Pp. vii + 196. Timothy Stacey, an interdisciplinary scholar with a penchant for the transformative possibilities of activism, presents a compelling story about how liberalism’s much-critiqued modernist malady of disenchantment might be ameliorated through “myths, rituals, magic and traditions that can help … people … rediscover the spirit of political participation” (7). Stacey does so by showcasing the admittedly small canvas of the Metro Vancouver (...) Alliance, “a grassroots coalition of community, faith, labour, and non-profit organizations” working toward “a world where communities of all kinds come together united by common goals.”1. (shrink)

Psychological game theory encompasses formal theories designed to remedy game-theoretic indeterminacy and to predict strategic interaction more accurately. Its theoretical plurality entails second-order indeterminacy, but this seems unavoidable. Orthodox game theory cannot solve payoff-dominance problems, and remedies based on interval-valued beliefs or payoff transformations are inadequate. Evolutionary game theory applies only to repeated interactions, and behavioral ecology is powerless to explain cooperation between genetically unrelated strangers in isolated interactions. Punishment of defectors elucidates cooperation in social dilemmas but leaves punishing behavior (...) unexplained. Team reasoning solves problems of coordination and cooperation, but aggregation of individual preferences is problematic. (shrink)

A significant increase in the probability of an action resulting from observing that action performed by another agent cannot, on its own, provide persuasive evidence of imitation. Simple models of social influence based on two-person sequential games suggest that both imitation and pseudo-imitation can be explained by a process more fundamental than priming, namely, subjective utility maximization.