ABSTRACTNetnography was used to analyze consumer boycott pledges submitted to an online boycott petition that was designed to recruit consumer participation in the contentious Canadian Seafood Boycott. The purpose was to investigate what motivates consumers to pledge boycott participation as well as to provide a preliminary understanding of boycott pledgees' psychographic makeup. The findings show that petition signatories are generally very angry about the Canadian Seal Hunt, pledge to boycott for a variety of objectives , abhor cruelty against animals, do (...) not believe that it is acceptable to kill an animal for its fur, and worry about the environment in general. Many are very religious and quite a number believe that traditions that embrace animal cruelty need to be abolished. The findings further indicate that concern for animal welfare/rights has been moved into the mainstream. (shrink)

We generalize the Kolmogorov axioms for probability calculus to obtain conditions defining, for any given logic, a class of probability functions relative to that logic, coinciding with the standard probability functions in the special case of classical logic but allowing consideration of other classes of "essentially Kolmogorovian" probability functions relative to other logics. We take a broad view of the Bayesian approach as dictating inter alia that from the perspective of a given logic, rational degrees of belief are those representable (...) by probability functions from the class appropriate to that logic. Classical Bayesianism, which fixes the logic as classical logic, is only one version of this general approach. Another, which we call Intuitionistic Bayesianism, selects intuitionistic logic as the preferred logic and the associated class of probability functions as the right class of candidate representions of epistemic states (rational allocations of degrees of belief). Various objections to classical Bayesianism are, we argue, best met by passing to intuitionistic Bayesianism—in which the probability functions are taken relative to intuitionistic logic—rather than by adopting a radically non-Kolmogorovian, for example, nonadditive, conception of (or substitute for) probability functions, in spite of the popularity of the latter response among those who have raised these objections. The interest of intuitionistic Bayesianism is further enhanced by the availability of a Dutch Book argument justifying the selection of intuitionistic probability functions as guides to rational betting behavior when due consideration is paid to the fact that bets are settled only when/if the outcome bet on becomes known. (shrink)

A philosophical analysis of the discourses, practices, and effects of representation in political institutions, focusing on American democracy.

We investigate a simple stochastic model of social network formation by the process of reinforcement learning with discounting of the past. In the limit, for any value of the discounting parameter, small, stable cliques are formed. However, the time it takes to reach the limiting state in which cliques have formed is very sensitive to the discounting parameter. Depending on this value, the limiting result may or may not be a good predictor for realistic observation times.

This article expands upon the notion of ideology as a material phenomenon, usually in the form of institutionalized, taken-for-granted practices. It draws on Herbert Marcuse and related thinkers to conceptualize technological solutions to environmental problems as materialized ideological responses to social-ecological contradictions, which, by concealing these contradictions, reproduce existing social conditions. This article outlines a method of technology assessment as ideology critique that draws attention to: (1) the social determinants of the given technology; (2) whether the technology conceals or masks (...) social-ecological contradictions; (3) whether the technology reproduces existing social conditions; and (4) whether the technology may be used for more rational or emancipatory ends in different social conditions. The examples of solar geoengineering and agricultural biotechnology are examined and it is found that, in each case, these technological solutions conceal social-ecological contradictions and support the current economic system and those benefiting from it, while precluding other alternatives. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson has argued that our evidence is what we know. This implies that anything we come to know by inference instantly becomes part of our evidence, and that all of our evidence is true. I argue that neither of these implications is correct. I conclude by noting a rival theory of evidence, one based on a suggestion Jerry Fodor makes in The Modularity of Mind , is not vulnerable to the criticisms I make of Williamson, nor to the criticisms (...) he makes of traditional theories of evidence. (shrink)

This case is part of a series of case studies used as an exercise within a program on research ethics education. The case involves research on genetic birth defects in a culturally distinct, closed religious community in which elders speak for the community. The case raises ethical issues of informed consent in such a setting; of collaboration with the community; of conflicts between the researchers’ responsibilities to the community as a whole and to individual subjects; of the impact of the (...) researcher’s findings on the practices and values of the community and issues regarding how the researchers share findings with subjects and how the findings are stored. (shrink)

I have advocated a time-slice-centric model of rationality, according to which there are no diachronic requirements of rationality. Podgorski challenges this picture on the grounds that temporally extended mental processes are epistemically important, rationally evaluable, and governed by diachronic requirements. I argue that the particular cases that Podgorski marshals to make his case are unconvincing, but that his general challenge might motivate countenancing rational requirements on processes like reasoning. However, so long as such diachronic requirements are merely derivative of more (...) fundamental synchronic requirements, so that a pattern of reasoning counts as rational or irrational only in so far as it tends to lead one to better satisfy these fundamental synchronic requirements, we can meet Podgorski’s challenge without significantly deviating from a time-slice-centric approach to epistemology. (shrink)

In Reasons without Persons, I defend a time-slice-centric conception of rationality, on which the locus of rationality is the time-slice rather than the temporally extended agent, and there are no distinctively diachronic or intra-personal requirements of rationality. Here I reply to criticisms from Doring and Eker, Snedegar, and Lenman, who object to the motivations for and implications of time-slice rationality.

Conditional probability and selection-function approaches to chancy subjunctive conditionals are compared in a simple and transparent setting. They are seen to be alternative ways of calculating the same quantity. This unification extends from core cases to more peripheral cases.

Many requirements of rationality rely for their application on facts about identity at a time. Take the requirement not to have contradictory beliefs. It is irrational if a single agent bel...

Wittgenstein was not only an inspirational figure for Schlick but also contributed to scientific philosophy as Neurath demanded. His verificationism is one instance of this, but it is also shown in his treatment of probability (where his ideas were developed further by Waismann). Wittgenstein revived Bolzano's logical interpretation of probability, anticipating Carnap and many moderns. He construed laws of nature as hypotheses that we had to assume. It is the general form of these hypotheses (what he later called a worldview) (...) and not (pace von Wright) relative frequency that provides the basis for judgements of probability. (shrink)

Between the first and second editions of A System of Logic, John Stuart Mill underwent a startling conversion from an uncompromising frequentist philosophy of probability to a thoroughly Bayesian degree-of-belief view. The conversion was effected by correspondence with the eminent scientist Sir John Herschel, to whom Mill already owed what have become known as Mill's Methods of Experimental Inference. We present the relevant correspondence, and discuss the extent of Mill's conversion.

Few would deny that some central questions in business ethics are normative. But there has been, and remains, much skepticism about the value of traditional philosophical approaches to answering these questions. I have three central aims in this chapter. The first is to defend traditional philosophical approaches to business ethics against the criticism that they are insufficiently practical. The second is to defend the view that the appropriate methodology for pursuing work in business ethics is largely continuous with the appropriate (...) methodology in moral and political philosophy more broadly. And the third is to offer a brief characterization of how we should think about the substance of business ethics, in light of my arguments about its proper aims and methodology. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a limited defence of “fairness” or “fair play” arguments for political obligation by focussing on one important critique of such arguments, that offered by A. John Simmons. I isolate Simmons's concentration on the idea of “accepting” benefits and argue that, among other difficulties, his criteria for when we can be said to accept a benefit from our political communities are too restrictive. While the scope of the discussion is narrow, I try to sketch ways in (...) which the failings of Simmons's critique are symptomatic of deeper problems with his libertarian approach. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.23(3) 2004: 282-291. (shrink)