Once symbolized by a burning armchair, experimental philosophy has in recent years shifted away from its original hostility to traditional methods. Starting with a brief historical review of the experimentalist challenge to traditional philosophical practice, this chapter looks at research undercutting that challenge, and at ways in which experimental work has evolved to complement and strengthen traditional approaches to philosophical questions.

Action is not always guided by conscious deliberation; in many circumstances, we act intuitively rather than reflectively. Tamar Gendler (2014) contends that because intuitively guided action can lead us away from our reflective commitments, it limits the power of knowledge to guide action. While I agree that intuition can diverge from reflection, I argue that this divergence does not constitute a restriction on the power of knowledge. After explaining my view of the contrast between intuitive and reflective thinking, this paper (...) argues against the conclusions Gendler draws from empirical work on implicit bias. (shrink)

Abstract In the present article, we provide a critical overview of the emerging field of ‘neuroeducation’ also frequently referred to as ‘mind, brain and education’ or ‘educational neuroscience’. We describe the growing energy behind linking education and neuroscience in an effort to improve learning and instruction. We explore reasons behind such drives for interdisciplinary research. Reviewing some of the key advances in neuroscientific studies that have come to bear on neuroeducation, we discuss recent evidence on the brain circuits underlying reading, (...) mathematical abilities as well as the potential to use neuroscience to design training programs of neurocognitive functions, such as working memory, that are expected to have effects on overall brain function. Throughout this review we describe how such research can enrich our understanding of the acquisition of academic skills. Furthermore, we discuss the potential for modern brain imaging methods to serve as diagnostic tools as well as measures of the effects of educational interventions. Throughout this discussion, we draw attention to limitations of the available evidence and propose future avenues for research. We also discuss the challenges that face this growing discipline. Specifically, we draw attention to unrealistic expectations for the immediate impact of neuroscience on education, methodological difficulties, and lack of interdisciplinary training, which results in poor communication between educators and neuroscientists. We point out that there should be bi-directional and reciprocal interactions between both disciplines of neuroscience and education, in which research originating from each of these traditions is considered to be compelling in its own right. While there are many obstacles that lie in the way of a productive field of neuroeducation, we contend that there is much reason to be optimistic and that the groundwork has been laid to advance this field in earnest. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s12152-011-9119-3 Authors Daniel Ansari, Numerical Cognition Laboratory, Department of Psychology, The University of Western Ontario, Westminster Hall, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada Bert De Smedt, Parenting and Special Education Research Group, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Roland H. Grabner, Institute for Behavioral Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Journal Neuroethics Online ISSN 1874-5504 Print ISSN 1874-5490. (shrink)

It is important to be able to offer an account of which activities count as scientific research, given our current interest in promoting research as a means to benefit humankind and in ethically regulating it. We attempt to offer such an account, arguing that we need to consider both the procedural and functional dimensions of an activity before we can establish whether it is a genuine instance of scientific research. By placing research in a broader schema of activities, the similarities (...) and differences between research activities and other activities become visible. It is also easier to show why some activities that do not count as research can sometimes be confused with research and why some other activities can be regarded only partially as research. Although the concept of research is important to delimit a class of activities which we might be morally obliged to promote, we observe that the class of activities which are regarded as subject to ethical regulation is not exhausted by research activities. We argue that, whether they be research or not, all the activities that are likely to affect the rights and interests of the individuals involved and impact on the rights and interests of other individuals raise ethical issues and might be in need of ethical regulation. (shrink)

This study investigates how ownership concentration in European multinational firms is associated with these firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR). We employ factor analysis on responsibility data from EIRiS and use a regression analysis. Using firm-level data for almost 700 European firms, we find that shareholder concentration is significantly related to such policies. That is, more concentrated ownership goes hand in hand with poorer CSR policies. In our analysis, we control for size, leverage, profitability, industry, and country of origin. We use (...) several indicators for ownership concentration. We also find that with more concentrated ownership, CSR of the firm gets worse. We suggest that especially with large shareholders, CSR would need to be included in their performance assessment. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

With few exceptions, the literature on withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment considers the bare fact of withdrawing or withholding to lack any ethical significance. If anything, the professional guidelines on this matter are even more uniform. However, while no small degree of progress has been made toward persuading healthcare professionals to withhold treatments that are unlikely to provide significant benefit, it is clear that a certain level of ambivalence remains with regard to withdrawing treatment. Given that the absence of clinical (...) benefit means treating patients is not only ethically questionable but also taxing on resources that could meet the needs of others, this ambivalence is troubling. Equally, the enduring ambivalence of professionals might be taken to indicate that the issue warrants further attention. In this paper, we review the academic literature on the ethical equivalence of withdrawing and withholding medical treatment. While we are not in outright disagreement with the arguments presented, we suggest that asserting theoretical and decontextualized claims about the ethical equivalence of withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment does not fully illuminate the moral questions associated with the relevant clinical realities. We argue that what is required is a broader perspective, one rooted in an understanding that withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment are different practices, the meanings of which are fully comprehensible only through an appreciation of their place within the practice of healthcare more generally. Such an account suggests that if one is to engage with the inappropriate protraction of life-saving treatment resulting from healthcare professionals’ disinclination to withdraw it, then the differences between these practices should be taken seriously. (shrink)

Sovereignty and representation are the two concepts that legal theory is quick to regard as redundant in any account of legal authority. Sovereignty is alleged to be at odds with both the facts and the values of political pluralism; representation is, at most, a provisional substitute for participation in supra- and infra-national legal development. Antonio Negri, however, analyses sovereignty and representation as the two, closely linked, conceptual devices by which a legal order neutralizes constitutive political power. He argues that constitutionalism (...) and institutionalism are but the contemporary guises of these traditional notions and advocates openness for the multifarious initiatives of 'the multitude' to create new societal structures. This article argues that Negri is right in his critique of, in particular, institutionalism, but that he is wrong in thinking that Lefort's position can be reduced to its simple version. In the background of Lefort's theory we should see the political analogon of Merleau-Ponty's celebrated distinction between parole parlante and parole parlée. Negri himself appears unable to avoid the appeal to questionable referents of sovereignty and representation. (shrink)

We present a logic, \, for the discovery of deterministic causal regularities starting from empirical data. Our approach is inspired by Mackie’s theory of causes as INUS-conditions, and implements a more recent adjustment to Mackie’s theory according to which the left-hand side of causal regularities is required to be a minimal disjunction of minimal conjunctions. To derive such regularities from a given set of data, we make use of the adaptive logics framework. Our knowledge of deterministic causal regularities is, as (...) Mackie noted, most often gappy or elliptical. The adaptive logics framework is well-suited to explicate both the internal and the external dynamics of the discovery of such gappy regularities. After presenting \, we first discuss these forms of dynamics in more detail. Next, we consider some criticisms of the INUS-account and show how our approach avoids them, and we compare \ with the CNA algorithm that was recently proposed by Michael Baumgartner. (shrink)

Despite the intransigent nature of many of the problems discussed, the contributors to this volume demonstrate the possibilities for developing a viable alternative politics.

In this interview with Isabelle Moeller questions surrounding the responsible use and development of biometric apps are explored. The use of biometrics - originally to digitally represent and authenticate an identifiable characteristic of a product or a person - have become so wide spread that they are capable of facilitating ever greater continuous surveillance of the what, how, when and where of life. The more biometrical data of a user is collected, the more the integrity of the underlying e-identity is (...) open to fraud and being invisibly compromised. Ethical reflection is long overdue but a prerequisite of minimizing risk to the autonomy of the human person as well as to the integrity of his digital persona. (shrink)

When we founded Studies in Ethics, Law and Technology we wondered if we might, like Icarus, be trying to fly too close to the sun. Had we set ourselves an impossible task in seeking to create a new community of interdisciplinary scholars under the umbrella of the words ethics, law and technology? Would expert scholars in biotechnologies, nanotechnologies, neurotechnologies, information technologies, weapons and security technologies, energy and fuel technologies, space based technologies, and/or new media and communication technologies all come together (...) in one place? As we show in this editorial, the answer is yes. (shrink)

Practical implementation of notions such as patient-orientation, client-centredness, and demand-driven care is far from straightforward in care and service supply to elderly clients living independently. This paper aims to provide preliminary insights into how it is possible to bridge the gap between policy intent, which reflects an increasing client orientation, and actual practice of care and service provision. Differences in personal objectives and characteristics generate different sets of needs among elderly clients that must have an appropriate response in the daily (...) routines of care and service providers. From a study of the available literature and by conceptual reasoning, we identify several important operational implications of client-oriented care and service provision. To deal with these implications the authors turn to the field of operations management. This field has deepened the understanding of translating an organisation’s policy into daily activities and working methods. More specifically, we elaborate on the concept of modularity, which stems from the field of operations management. With respect to elderly people who live independently, this concept, among others, seems to be particularly useful in providing options and variation in individual care and service packages. Based on our line of reasoning, we propose that modularity provides possibilities to enhance the provision of demand-based care and services. Furthermore, our findings offer direction on how organisations in housing, welfare and care can be guided in translating demand-based care to their operational processes. (shrink)

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally (...) incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility. (shrink)

Today, mechanisms and mechanistic explanation are very popular in philosophy of science and are deemed a welcome alternative to laws of nature and deductive‐nomological explanation. Starting from Mitchell's pragmatic notion of laws, I cast doubt on their status as a genuine alternative. I argue that (1) all complex‐systems mechanisms ontologically must rely on stable regularities, while (2) the reverse need not hold. Analogously, (3) models of mechanisms must incorporate pragmatic laws, while (4) such laws themselves need not always refer to (...) underlying mechanisms. Finally, I show that Mitchell's account is more encompassing than the mechanistic account *Received August 2008; revised January 2010. †To contact the author, please write to: Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, B‐9000 Belgium; e‐mail: Bert[email protected]. (shrink)

Do epistemic intuitions tell us anything about knowledge? Stich has argued that we respond to cases according to our contingent cultural programming, and not in a manner that tends to reveal anything significant about knowledge itself. I’ve argued that a cross-culturally universal capacity for mindreading produces the intuitive sense that the subject of a case has or lacks knowledge. This paper responds to Stich’s charge that mindreading is cross-culturally varied in a way that will strip epistemic intuitions of their evidential (...) value. I argue that existing work on cross-cultural variation in mindreading favors my position over Stich’s. (shrink)

Ethicists differ considerably in their reasons for using empirical data. This paper presents a brief overview of four traditional approaches to the use of empirical data: “the prescriptive applied ethicists,” “the theorists,” “the critical applied ethicists,” and “the particularists.” The main aim of this paper is to introduce a fifth approach of more recent date (i.e. “integrated empirical ethics”) and to offer some methodological directives for research in integrated empirical ethics. All five approaches are presented in a table for heuristic (...) purposes. The table consists of eight columns: “view on distinction descriptive-prescriptive sciences,” “location of moral authority,” “central goal(s),” “types of normativity,” “use of empirical data,” “method,” “interaction empirical data and moral theory,” and “cooperation with descriptive sciences.” Ethicists can use the table in order to identify their own approach. Reflection on these issues prior to starting research in empirical ethics should lead to harmonization of the different scientific disciplines and effective planning of the final research design. Integrated empirical ethics (IEE) refers to studies in which ethicists and descriptive scientists cooperate together continuously and intensively. Both disciplines try to integrate moral theory and empirical data in order to reach a normative conclusion with respect to a specific social practice. IEE is not wholly prescriptive or wholly descriptive since IEE assumes an interdepence between facts and values and between the empirical and the normative. The paper ends with three suggestions for consideration on some of the future challenges of integrated empirical ethics. (shrink)

Thomas Nagel addresses the conflict between the claims of the group and those of the individual. Nagel attempts to clarify the nature of the conflict – one of the most fundamental problems in moral and political theory – and argues that its reconciliation is the essential task of any legitimate political system.