We argue that pain behaviour cannot be wholly accounted for within the operant model of Fordyce (1976). Many pain behaviours, including facial expression, are not socially reinforced but are evolutionarily predetermined. We urge researchers to take into consideration other learning accounts. Building on the idea that pain sufferers learn to suppress the expression of pain, we begin the development of a framework for a relational understanding of pain complaint.

The Surfactant, Positive Pressure, and Oxygenation Randomized Trial (SUPPORT) has been the focal point of many different criticisms regarding the ethics of the study ever since publication of the trial's findings in 2010 and 2012. In this article, we focus on a concern that the technical design and implementation details of the study were ethically flawed. While the federal Office Human Research Protections focused on the consent form, rather than on the study design and implementation, OHRP's critiques of the consent (...) form reveal views about the study design and implementation that we believe are fundamentally flawed. These criticisms about the design and implementation of SUPPORT, if generalized, become relevant concerns about these aspects of many comparative effectiveness research studies.Our analytical approach will be to use SUPPORT as a prime example of comparative effectiveness research and show why it challenges some prevailing assumptions about the riskiness of research. We will address five aspects of the study design and implementation: 1) randomization, 2) treatment by protocol, 3) choice of endpoints, 4) lack of a “standard care” control group, and 5) the use of altered oximeters. Examining these aspects will allow us to answer two specific central questions. The first is a methodological question with ethical implications: was the study designed in such a way as to answer the primary study question? The second question is whether the study design added or decreased risk to the babies enrolled in the study compared to babies who were not in the study. (shrink)

The consensus is that musical works and other ‘multiple’ artworks are abstract objects of some sort. According to the standard objections to musical materialism, multiple artworks cannot be identified with any concrete manifestation since concrete manifestations are many, and one thing cannot be identical to many. Multiple artworks are particularly good, while particular concrete manifestations are particularly bad, at surviving the destruction of particular concrete manifestations. Finally, multiple artworks cannot be identified with a particular sum of concrete manifestations since sums (...) and works differ modally. This paper aims to show that by appealing to recent work on the metaphysics of material objects, musical materialists avoid the standard objections. (shrink)

This paper aims to explain why the laws of nature are held fixed in counterfactual reasoning. I begin by highlighting three salient features of counterfactual reasoning: it is conservative, nomically guided, and it uses hindsight. I then present a rationale for our engagement in counterfactual reasoning that aims to make sense of these features. In particular, I argue that counterfactual reasoning helps us evaluate the evidential relations between unanticipated pieces of evidence and various hypotheses of interest about the history of (...) the actual world. Given this goal, it makes a great deal of sense that counterfactual reasoning would have the aforementioned features. Additionally, it turns out that this account of counterfactual reasoning is nicely congruent with Humean views of laws. Specifically, it can explain, in a Humean-friendly way, both why the laws are counterfactually resilient, and why we may be inclined to have anti-Humean intuitions in the first place, even if some form of Humeanism is correct. (shrink)

This chapter explores whether and when experience can be evidence. It argues that experiences can be evidence, and that this claim is compatible with just about any epistemological theory. It evaluates the most promising argument for the conclusion that certain experiences (e.g., seeming to see) are always evidence for believing what the experiences represent. While the argument is very promising, one premise needs further defense. The argument also depends on a certain connection between reasonable belief and the first person perspective.

In the Western philosophical tradition, the earliest recognized paradoxes are attributed to Zeno of Elea (ca. 490–430 B.C.E.) and to Eubulides of Miletus (fl. 4th century B.C.E.). In the Chinese tradition, the earliest and most well-known paradoxes are ascribed to figures associated with the “School of Names” (ming jia 名家), a diverse group of Warring States (479–221 B.C.E.) thinkers who shared an interest in language, logic, and metaphysics. Their investigations led some of these thinkers to propound puzzling, paradoxical statements such (...) as “Today go to Yue but arrive yesterday,” “White horses are not horses,” and “Mountains and gorges are level.” Such paradoxes seem to have been intended to highlight fundamental features of reality or subtleties in semantic relations between words and things. Why were thinkers who advanced paradoxes categorized as a school of “names”? In ancient China, philosophical inquiry concerning language and logic focused on the use of “names” (ming 名, also terms, labels, or reputation) and their semantic relations to “stuff” (shi 實, also objects, features, events, or situations). Hence for classificatory purposes, second-century B.C.E. Han-dynasty archivists grouped together assorted pre-Han figures whose most prominent ideas seemed to concern the relation between names and stuff—or at least strange, unorthodox uses of names—and dubbed them a school or lineage (jia 家) devoted to the study of names. Unfortunately, both the label and the grouping are misleading. Historically, the school was a retrospective, taxonomical fiction. The figures classified under the “School of Names” never formed a distinct circle, movement, tradition, or line of influence devoted to any particular doctrine, theme, method, or way of life. Their intellectual interests overlapped at most only partly, while also overlapping extensively with those of texts associated with other schools or traditions, such as the Mohist “Dialectics” 墨辯, the Zhuangzi 莊子, the Xunzi 荀子, and the Annals of Lü Buwei 呂氏春秋. What perhaps does set the School of Names apart is that some (though not all) of the figures associated with it apparently delighted in propounding paradoxical or preposterous sayings, while the other texts just mentioned generally (though not exclusively) seek to explain and debunk such utterances. (shrink)

While many are born into prosperity, hundreds of millions of people lead lives of almost unimaginable poverty. Our world remains hugely unequal, with our place of birth continuing to exert a major influence on our opportunities. -/- In this accessible book, leading political theorist Chris Armstrong engagingly examines the key moral and political questions raised by this stark global divide. Why, as a citizen of a relatively wealthy country, should you care if others have to make do with less? (...) Do we have a moral duty to try to rectify this state of affairs? What does 'global justice' mean anyway - and why does it matter? Could we make our world a more just one even if we tried? Can you as an individual make a difference? -/- This book powerfully demonstrates that global justice is something we should all be concerned about, and sketches a series of reforms that would make our divided world a fairer one. It will be essential introductory reading for students of global justice, activists and concerned citizens. (shrink)

An epistemologist tells you that knowledge is more than justified true belief. You trust them and thus come to believe this on the basis of their testimony. Did you thereby come to know that this view is correct? Intuitively, there is something intellectually wrong with forming philosophical beliefs on the basis of testimony, and yet it's hard to see why philosophy should be significantly epistemically different from other areas of inquiry in a way that would fully prohibit belief by testimony. (...) This, I argue, is the puzzle of philosophical testimony. In this paper, I explore the puzzle of philosophical testimony and its ramifications. In particular, I examine the case for pessimism about philosophical testimony—the thesis that philosophical belief on the basis of testimony is impossible or is in some way illegitimate—and I argue that it lacks adequate support. I then consider whether the source of the apparent intellectual wrongness of testimonial‐based philosophical belief is grounded in non‐epistemic norms and goals of philosophical practice itself and argue that such norms are implausible, don't conflict with testimonial‐based philosophical belief, or else are mere disciplinary norms, lacking substantial normative force that would make it wrong to form testimonial‐based philosophical belief. (shrink)

This chapter explores how Guo Xiang’s views emerge from his approach to the metaphysics of dao 道 (way) and the place of human activity and agency in dao. Once we understand his views on these points, we can see that he holds a distinctive conception of the self and agency—and, accordingly, normatively appropriate action—on which self-fulfillment and easy, aimless freedom are consistent with his doctrine of non-mindedness, which in fact presents a precondition for attaining them. As I will show, GUO (...) Xiang uses key terms such as zi 自 (self), xin (heart-mind), zhi 知 (know), and xing (inherent character) in distinctive, specialized ways that diverge both from common uses of these words in Chinese and from familiar categories in contemporary philosophical psychology yet are coherent, intelligible, and defensible. The normative conception of agency and the well-lived life that emerges from his Zhuangzi commentary can at first sight seem puzzling and counterintuitive. But I will contend that it is plausible and presents a fascinating, profound, and potentially correct view of the nature of human agency and the sources of normativity. (shrink)

The role of truth in pre-Han thought has been a focus of interest and controversy since Munro first suggested that early Chinese thinkers were concerned primarily with the consequences of a belief or proposition for action, not its truth (Munro 1969: 55). Scholars have defended a range of interpretations of the place of truth in early Chinese thought, from the view that pre-Han philosophy has no concept of semantic truth, for example, to the view that it has several concepts with (...) roles overlapping those of truth, to the view that early Chinese thinkers actually offer theories of truth.1 One reason for intense interest in the topic is signaled by Graham’s well-known remark that for pre-Han philosophers “the crucial question...is not the Western philosopher’s ‘What is the truth?’ but ‘Where is the way?, the way to order the state and conduct personal life” (Graham 1989: 3). How issues related to truth are framed may reflect central features of the theoretical orientation of early Chinese philosophical discourse. For example, if pre-Han inquiries into logic, language, knowledge, and metaphysics focused on accurate description of the structure of reality, they might accordingly devote much attention to explaining the nature of truth and evaluating which descriptions are indeed true. On the other hand, if such inquiries centered on questions concerning the proper dao 道 (way) of conduct and how it relates to the course of the natural world, they might instead be concerned primarily with questions regarding the appropriate use of language and the basis for norms of correct use— whether they are purely products of human convention, for example, or are grounded in natural patterns. A clearer grasp of how pre-Han philosophers thought about truth may help us better understand the overall framework and orientation of early Chinese philosophy. This article first reviews the long-standing debate in the scholarly literature concerning the role of truth in pre-Han philosophy. Next, it considers how we might effectively and informatively frame inquiry into the topic of truth in Chinese thought. It then offers concise interpretations of several concepts in pre-Han texts with conceptual roles overlapping that of truth. (shrink)

In two studies, we explored the frequency and phenomenology of musical imagery. Study 1 used retrospective reports of musical imagery to assess the contribution of individual differences to imagery characteristics. Study 2 used an experience sampling design to assess the phenomenology of musical imagery over the course of one week in a sample of musicians and non-musicians. Both studies found episodes of musical imagery to be common and positive: people rarely wanted such experiences to end and often heard music that (...) was personally meaningful. Several variables predicted musical imagery, including personality, musical preferences, and positive mood. Musicians tended to hear musical imagery more often, but they reported less frequent episodes of deliberately-generated imagery. Taken together, the present research provides new insights into individual differences in musical imagery, and it supports the emerging view that such experiences are common, positive, and more voluntary than previously recognized. (shrink)

An argument that science is indeed 'socially constructed' but in a way that exposes it to a Darwinian version of variability and selection which ensures its success.

While earlier work has emphasized Kant’s philosophy of religion as thinly disguised morality, this timely and original reappraisal of Kant’s philosophy of religion incorporates recent scholarship. In this volume, Chris L. Firestone, Stephen R. Palmquist, and the other contributors make a strong case for more specific focus on religious topics in the Kantian corpus. Main themes include the relationship between Kant’s philosophy of religion and his philosophy as a whole, the contemporary relevance of specific issues arising out of Kant’s (...) philosophical theology, and the relationship of Kant’s philosophy to Christian theology. As a whole, this book capitalizes on contemporary movements in Kant studies by looking at Kant not as an anti-metaphysician, but as a genuine seeker of spirituality in the human experience. (shrink)

This paper seeks to apply some of the tools of analytic philosophy to a text written by a 'continental' philosopher, in order to evaluate the quality of its arguments. In 'On Forgiveness', Jacques Derrida seems to be making two different claims about forgiveness. First, he claims that an act of forgiveness is only truly meaningful as forgiveness when one is forgiving the unforgivable. Second, he is also recommending that we change our understanding of the concept of forgiveness for ethical reasons. (...) I examine three lines of argument used in the essay to support the first claim. I find each of these lines of argument problematic. Since these arguments are unconvincing, I argue that this leaves only the second claim for Derrida to defend. (shrink)

The cortical visual mechanisms involved in processing spatial relationships remain subject to debate. According to one current view, the ''dorsal stream'' of visual areas, emanating from primary visual cortex and culminating in the posterior parietal cortex, mediates this aspect of visual processing. More recently, others have argued that while the dorsal stream provides egocentric coding of visual location for motor control, the separate ''ventral'' stream is needed for allocentric spatial coding. We have assessed the visual form agnosic patient DF, whose (...) lesion mainly affects the ventral stream, on a prehension task requiring allocentric spatial coding. She was presented with transparent circular disks. Each disk had circular holes cut in it. DF was asked to reach out and grasp the disk by placing her fingers through the holes. The disks either had three holes (for forefinger, middle finger, and thumb) or two holes (for forefinger and thumb). The distance between the forefinger and thumb holes, and the orientation of the line formed by them, were independently varied. DF was quite unable to adjust her grip aperture or her hand orientation in the three-hole task. Although she was able to orient her hand appropriately for the two-hole disks, she still remained unable to adjust her grip aperture to the distance between the holes. These findings are consistent with the idea that allocentric processing of spatial information requires a functioning ventral stream, even when the information is being used to guide a motor response. (shrink)

The Toulmin diagram layout is very familiar and widely used, particularly in the teaching of critical thinking skills. The conventional box-and-arrow diagram is equally familiar and widespread. Translation between the two throws up a number of interesting challenges. Some of these challenges (such as the relationship between Toulmin warrants and their counterparts in traditional diagrams) represent slightly different ways of looking at old and deep theoretical questions. Others (such as how to allow Toulmin diagrams to be recursive) are diagrammatic versions (...) of questions that have already been addressed in artificial intelligence models of argument. But there are further questions (such as the relationships between refutations, rebuttals and undercutters, and the roles of multiple warrants) that are posed as a specific result of examining the diagram inter-translation problem. These three classes of problems are discussed. To the first class are addressed solutions based on engineering pragmatism; to the second class, are addressed solutions drawn from the appropriate literature; and to the third class, fuller exploration is offered justifying the approaches taken in developing solutions that offer both pragmatic utility and theoretical interest. Finally, these solutions are explored briefly in the context of the Araucaria system, showing the ways in which analysts can tackle arguments either using one diagrammatic style or another, or even a combination of the two. (shrink)

This groundbreaking work challenges modernist military science and explores how a more open design epistemology is becoming an attractive alternative to a military staff culture rooted in a monistic scientific paradigm. The author offers fresh sociological avenues to become more institutionally reflexive -- to offer a variety of design frames of reference, beyond those typified by modern military doctrine. Modernist military knowledge has been institutionalized to the point that blinds militaries to alternative designs organizationally and in their interventions. This book (...) seeks to reconstruct strategy and operations in "designing ways" and develops theories of action through multifaceted contextualizations and recontextualizations of situations, showing that military design does not have to rely on set rational-analytic decision-making schemes, but on seeking alternative meanings in- and on-action. (shrink)

The fact that humans are responsible for climate change is certain. But the meaning of the fact of human responsibility is not disclosed by stating the fact: there is a distinction between the two principles, de facto and de jure, the right to state a fact and the right to assert the meaning of the fact. This distinction must be preserved in order that humans may interpret the nature of our responsibility, as a form of justice. In fact, the nature (...) of human responsibility can never be exhaustively determined. To recognise the fact of human responsibility for climate change may only lead us to acknowledge that climate change coincides with the plundering and exploitation of the earth as a natural resource, together with the industrial pollution which fouls our atmosphere. It is something else again to know precisely what must be done, how to think and write and interpret the science, or even what can be achieved before it is too late to prevent the worst effects of global warming. In this essay I analyse the central claims of proponents of the idea of the Anthropocene, arguing that they are arrogant and perhaps even naïve: in particular, the suggestion that humanity and nature have now fused to become a geological force is shown to be theological in its orientation. The essay also exposes Anthropocenology as a form of pedagogy, meaning that rather than opposing the neoliberalism that it attacks, Anthropocenology joins itself to the biopolitical institutions of education, seizing power in order to govern a totalized human population all the more effectively. (shrink)

Researchers have suggested that ethical judgments about “right” and “wrong” are the result of deep and thoughtful principles and should therefore be consistent and not influenced by factors, such as language :e94842, 2014b, p. 1). As long as an ethical scenario is understood, individuals’ resolution should not depend on whether the ethical scenario is presented in their native language or in a foreign language. Given the forces of globalization and international convergence, an increasing number of accountants and accounting students are (...) becoming proficient in more than one language, and they are required to interpret and apply complex ethical pronouncements issued by various global standard setters both in their native language and in English. There have been calls in the literature to examine whether subjects make systematically different ethical judgments in a foreign language than in their native language. We contribute to the literature by drawing on culture, linguistics, and psychology research to provide empirical evidence that Chinese subjects are more aggressive in interpreting the concept of control when providing their consolidation reporting recommendations in English than in Simplified Chinese. We applied a 2 × 2 within-subject and between-subject randomized experimental design using a sample of Chinese final year undergraduate accounting students at a leading Chinese university, where accounting courses are taught in both Simplified Chinese and English. Students in our study are proxy for entry-level accounting practitioners. Our findings have implications for the globalized business world and cross-cultural research by challenging the commonly held assumption that an individual’s ethical judgment is consistent in different languages. We suggest that systematically different ethical judgments in native and foreign languages needs to be recognized. (shrink)

Herman Dooyeweerd approached time in terms of order. By contrast, Dirk Vollenhoven saw time as continuous change and becoming. Hendrik Hart, in his article “Problems of Time: An Essay,” attempts to steer a middle course between Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven. However, Hart did not sufficiently take into account that temporality is primarily continuous succession in duration and continuous duration in succession. Nor has he been able to come to terms with the root of cosmic time.

In this paper I borrow from Maria Lugones’ work on playful “world-traveling” and W.E.B. Du Bois’ notion of “double consciousness” to make the case that humor can facilitate an openness and cooperative attitude among an otherwise closed, even adversarial audience. I focus on what I call “subversive” humor, that which is employed by or on behalf of those who have been continually marginalized. When effectively used, such humor can foster the inclination and even desire to listen to others and, if (...) only for brief moments, adopt their point of view. To be able to see oneself as others see you can also be a desirable capacity, because along with such multidimensional seeing comes an epistemic advantage lacking in those who have no need nor desire to see as others do, especially if the vision of the others happens to be from below where one perceives that the promises of our explicit ideals are constantly being implicitly broken. Such humor is aesthetic, pleasurable in and of itself, and not amenable to scientific dissection. But it is also a skill that can be honed into a powerful tool of persuasion in circumstances where straightforward arguments are less effective. It can raise consciousness about the lived experiences of those suffering under systemic oppression and foster world travelling. Subversive humor encourages audiences, especially those who contribute to what Jean Harvey calls “civilized oppression”, to playfully travel across worlds and “tarry along” with the perspectives of the marginalized. (shrink)

As the global prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease increases, the need to understand family caregiving becomes increasingly pressing. I argue that there is an under-recognized form of caregiving for people with early to mid-stage Alzheimer’s disease. This type of caregiving involves, roughly, helping people reason through their values. It arises along with the loss of the capacity for executive functioning. Moreover, it is prone to give rise to moral distress, which is an under-recognized vulnerability in family caregiving. Categories of family caregiving (...) thus need to be expanded, and moral distress needs to be recognized not only in the context of nursing. (shrink)

Most businesses are aware of the costs associated with sexual harassment and are concerned about limiting its presence in the workplace. Although the business ethics literature contains work on sexual harassment, it has very little to say on chastity or its value in the workplace, even though unchaste behavior underlies the prevalence of sexual harassment. This article begins this investigation into chastity worth having in the workplace, taking typical company policies as a guide for what kind of chastity is worth (...) having in the workplace in particular. The first question asked in this article is: for what reasons is chastity worth having in the workplace? I consider four answers—harm prevention, respect for employee consent/dissent, respect for others’ dignity, and conflict of interest avoidance—and I examine workplace policies that enforce chaste behavior in search for a unified and underlying reason for these policies. In the process of locating the primary reason for the value of being chaste in the workplace in particular, we will be given tools to develop an account of chastity worth having in the workplace, which I will argue is primarily cognitive, rather than volitional or affective. I conclude that chastity is the disposition not to construe a coworker as a satisfier of one’s sexual interest, and I argue that chastity is valuable in the workplace because it secures coworkers’ ability to have their contributions appropriately valued. The hope is that once the reason and locus of chastity is identified, the professionals who know how to train businesspeople in developing virtues will better be able to focus their attention and efforts. (shrink)

While fidelity is a crucial aspect of Jacques Derrida’s thinking as it pertains to issues of faith, ethics, and responsibility, this key position in deconstructionist discourse has hardly yet been brought to light. Less still have the biopolitical resonances of Derrida’s work, with its careful attention to the terms and stakes of life particularly in his later writing, been considered as a deconstructionist practice of fidelity and infidelity in its own right. In pursuing these threads, this essay argues that thinking (...) a deconstructionist ethics through fidelity and biopolitics makes possible the crafting of a new philosophical weave for catching our responsibilities to others – to the very otherness of life itself – that Derridean hospitality opens up. Taken together in this way, a deconstructionist fidelity to life otherwise, to a biopolitics to come, makes possible an infidelity to political order as we know it that explodes the limitations of biopolitical theory. In squinting, blinking, tearing up, and listening, the borders of life are blurred in an ambivalent ethics of a transness within which life itself is made to waver and arrive anew. (shrink)

Was there a concept of data before the so-called ‘data revolution’? This paper contributes to the history of the concept of data by investigating uses of the term ‘data’ in texts of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions for the period 1665–1886. It surveys how the notion enters the journal as a technical term in mathematics, and charts how over time it expands into various other scientific fields, including Earth sciences, physics and chemistry. The paper argues that in these texts the (...) notion of data is not used merely as a rhetorical category, and also cannot strictly be identified with the category of evidence. Instead, the notion comes with an associated epistemic structure, one that is in line with its development from an early mathematical use. (shrink)

Although a ?realist? stance is sometimes contrasted with a ?principled? one, this article argues that realism is, of itself, an important ethical principle. Acknowledging the problems that exist in defining ?reality?, and the fact that the nature of reality is contested, the article nevertheless insists on an ?out there? reality. It asserts that the existence of this external reality is, in practice, generally accepted, and indeed must be accepted if we are to make the important distinction between truth and falsehood. (...) The article proposes that discourse which is not grounded in the concrete reality of the specific situations in which social work is practised is potentially harmful because it results in a decoupling of language from what it is supposed to represent and creates a potential for language to be used to deceive. The article then discusses ?Realism about Outcomes? and ?Realism about Context? as two out of a number of different areas in which realism is important in practice and policy making. It concludes that genuinely ethical social work practice and policy making require that we attempt to engage with the world as it actually is. (shrink)

The majority of philosophers of religion, at least since Plantinga’s reply to Mackie’s logical problem of evil, agree that it is logically possible for an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God to exist who permits some of the evils we see in the actual world. This is conceivable essentially because of the possible world known as heaven. That is, heaven is an imaginable world in a similar way that logically possible scenarios in any fiction are imaginable. However, like some of the (...) imaginable stories in fiction where we are asked to envision an immoral act as a moral one, we resist. I will employ the works of Tamar Gendler on imaginative resistance and Keith Buhler’s Virtue Ethics approach to moral imaginative resistance and apply them to the conception of heaven and the problem of evil. While we can imagine God as an omnibenevolent parent permitting evil to allow for morally significant freedom and the rewards in heaven or punishments in hell (both possible worlds), we should not. This paper is not intended to be a refutation of particular theodicies; rather it provides a very general groundwork connecting issues of horrendous suffering and imaginative resistance to heaven as a possible world. (shrink)