The recent upsurge in “brain-training and perceptual-cognitive-training", proposing to improve isolated processes such as brain function, visual perception and decision-making, has created significant interest in elite sports practitioners, seeking to create an ‘edge’ for athletes. The claims of these related 'performance-enhancing industries' can be considered together as part of a process training approach proposing enhanced cognitive and perceptual skills and brain capacity, to support performance in everyday life activities, including sport. For example, the 'process-training industry' promotes the idea that playing (...) games not only makes you a better player, but also smarter, more alert, and a faster learner. In this position paper we critically evaluate the effectiveness of both types of process-training programmes in generalizing transfer to sport performance. These issues are addressed in three stages. First, we evaluate empirical evidence in support of perceptual-cognitive process training, and its application to enhancing sport performance. Second, we critically review putative modularised mechanisms underpinning this kind of training, addressing limitations and subsequent problems. Specifically, we consider merits of this highly specific form of training, which focuses on training of isolated processes such as cognitive processes (attention, memory, thinking) and visual perception processes, separately from performance behaviors and actions. We conclude that these approaches may, at best, may provide some 'general transfer' of underlying processes to specific sport environments, but lack 'specificity of transfer' to contextualize actual performance behaviors. A major weakness of process training methods is their focus on enhancing performance in body “modules” (e.g., eye, brain, memory, anticipatory sub-systems). What is lacking is evidence on how these isolated components are modified and subsequently interact with other process “modules”, which are considered to underlie sport performance. Finally, we propose how an ecological dynamics approach, aligned with an embodied framework of cognition undermines the rationale that modularised processes can enhance performance in competitive sport. An ecological dynamics perspective proposes that the body is a complex adaptive system, interacting with performance environments in a functionally integrated manner, emphasising that the inter-relation between motor processes, cognitive and perceptual functions and the constraints of a sport task is best understood at the performer-environment scale of analysis. (shrink)

Epistemic consequentialists think that epistemic norms are about believing the truth and avoiding error. Recently, a number of authors have rejected epistemic consequentialism on the basis that it incorrectly sanctions tradeoffs of epistemic goodness. Here, I argue that epistemic consequentialists should borrow two lessons from ethical consequentialists to respond to these worries. Epistemic consequentialists should construe their view as an account of right belief, which they distinguish from other notions like rational and justified belief. Epistemic consequentialists should also make their (...) view ‘sophisticated,’ in the sense of Railton. Epistemic consequentialism, I conclude, is best construed as sharing much of its structure with prominent act-consequentialist views in ethics. Epistemic consequentialism has an advantage over its ethical counterpart though: the key claim of the view is practically universally accepted, which gives us an additional reason to think it’s true. (shrink)

The neurophysiological evidence from the Miyashita group's experiments on monkeys as well as cognitive experience common to us all suggests that local neuronal spike rate distributions might persist in the absence of their eliciting stimulus. In Hebb's cell-assembly theory, learning dynamics stabilize such self-maintaining reverberations. Quasi-quantitive modeling of the experimental data on internal representations in association-cortex modules identifies the reverberations (delay spike activity) as the internal code (representation). This leads to cognitive and neurophysiological predictions, many following directly from the language (...) used to describe the activity in the experimental delay period, others from the details of how the model captures the properties of the internal representations. (shrink)

The question of whether chimpanzees, like humans, reason about unobservable mental states remains highly controversial. On one account, chimpanzees are seen as possessing a psychological system for social cognition that represents and reasons about behaviors alone. A competing account allows that the chimpanzee's social cognition system additionally construes the behaviors it represents in terms of mental states. Because the range of behaviors that each of the two systems can generate is not currently known, and because the latter system depends upon (...) the former, determining the presence of this latter system in chimpanzees is a far more difficult task than has been assumed. We call for recognition of this problem, and a shift from experimental paradigms that cannot resolve this question, to ones that might allow researchers to intelligently determine when it is necessary to postulate the presence of a system which reasons about both behavior and mental states. (shrink)

A number of formal models, including a highly influential model from Hong and Page, purport to show that functionally diverse groups often beat groups of individually high-performing agents in solving problems. Thompson argues that in Hong and Page’s model, that the diverse groups are created by a random process explains their success, not the diversity. Here, I defend the diversity interpretation of the Hong and Page result. The failure of Thompson’s argument shows that to understand the value of functional diversity, (...) we should be clearer about how we conceive of and measure that diversity. (shrink)

People often fail to detect large changes to scenes, provided that the changes occur during a visual disruption. This phenomenon, known as ''change blindness,'' occurs both in the laboratory and in real-world situations in which changes occur unexpectedly. The pervasiveness of the inability to detect changes is consistent with the theoretical notion that we internally represent relatively little information from our visual world from one glance at a scene to the next. However, evidence for change blindness does not necessarily imply (...) the absence of such a representation-people could also miss changes if they fail to compare an existing representation of the pre-change scene to the post-change scene. In three experiments, we show that people often do have a representation of some aspects of the pre-change scene even when they fail to report the change. And, in fact, they appear to ''discover'' this memory and can explicitly report details of a changed object in response to probing questions. The results of these real-world change detection studies are discussed in the context of broader claims about change blindness. (shrink)

Philosophers are approaching a consensus that biological individuality, including evolutionary individuality, comes in degrees. Graded evolutionary individuality presents a puzzle when juxtaposed with another widely embraced view: that evolutionary individuality follows from being a selectable member of a Darwinian population. Population membership is, on the orthodox view, a bivalent condition, so how can members of Darwinian populations vary in their degree of individuality? This article offers a solution to the puzzle, by locating difference in degree of evolutionary individuality at the (...) level of population lineages, some of which are more Darwinian than others. In doing so, it sheds light on graded individuality in overlapping and nested population lineages, such as those that arise in multilevel selection and symbiotic collectives. (shrink)

Despite continued attention, finding adequate criteria for distinguishing “good” from “bad” scholarly journals remains an elusive goal. In this essay, I propose a solution informed by the work of Imre Lakatos and his methodology of scientific research programmes (MSRP). I begin by reviewing several notable attempts at appraising journal quality – focusing primarily on the impact factor and development of journal blacklists and whitelists. In doing so, I note their limitations and link their overarching goals to those found within the (...) philosophy of science. I argue that Lakatos’s MSRP and specifically his classifications of “progressive” and “degenerative” research programmes can be analogized and repurposed for the evaluation of scholarly journals. I argue that this alternative framework resolves some of the limitations discussed above and offers a more considered evaluation of journal quality – one that helps account for the historical evolution of journal-level publication practices and attendant contributions to the growth (or stunting) of scholarly knowledge. By doing so, the seeming problem of journal demarcation is diminished. In the process I utilize two novel tools (the mistake index and scite index) to further illustrate and operationalize aspects of the MSRP. (shrink)

The ultimate goal of the pioneering project outlined in this book is to map our genome--the key to what makes us human--in detail. The Code of Codes is a collective exploration of the substance and possible consequences of th is project in relation to ethics, law, and society.

In public health, the issue of pharmaceutical pricing is a perennial problem. Recent high-profile examples, such as the September 2015 debacle involving Martin Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals, are indicative of larger, systemic difficulties that plague the pharmaceutical industry in regards to drug pricing and the impact it yields on their reputation in the eyes of the public. For public health ethics, the issue of pharmaceutical pricing is rather crucial. Simply, individuals within a population require pharmaceuticals for disease prevention and management. (...) In order to be effective, these pharmaceuticals must be accessibly priced. This analysis will explore the notion of corporate social responsibility in regards to pharmaceutical pricing with an aim of restoring a positive reputation upon the pharmaceutical industry in the public eye. The analysis will utilize the 2005 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights to establish implications regarding the societal responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies in a global context. To accomplish this, Article 14 of the UDBHR—social responsibility and health—will be articulated in order to advocate a viewpoint of socially responsible capitalism in which pharmaceutical companies continue as profit-making ventures, yet establish moral concern for the welfare of all their stakeholders, including the healthcare consumer. (shrink)

While the contemporary philosophical literature is replete with discussion of the control or freedom required for moral responsibility, only more recently has substantial attention been devoted to the knowledge or awareness required, otherwise called the epistemic condition. This area of inquiry is rapidly expanding, as are the various positions within it. This chapter introduces two major positions: the reasonable expectation view and the quality of will view. The chapter then explores two dimensions of the epistemic condition that serve as fault (...) lines along which these two views diverge. The first dimension concerns different kinds of ignorance. The second concerns what agents can be directly blameworthy for. The chapter closes by sketching a novel approach that incorporates advantages of opposing positions on this topic. (shrink)

Sex differences in mortality rates stem from genetic, physiological, behavioral, and social causes that are best understood when integrated in an evolutionary life history framework. This paper investigates the Male-to-Female Mortality Ratio (M:F MR) from external and internal causes and across contexts to illustrate how sex differences shaped by sexual selection interact with the environment to yield a pattern with some consistency, but also with expected variations due to socioeconomic and other factors.

Hasdai Crescas fue un importante pensador, autor y líder comunitario judío de finales del siglo XIV y principios del XV, cuyas obras son estudiadas con detalle en el mundo académico. No obstante, su impacto sobre la comunidad judía tradicional ha sido casi inexistente. Nunca terminó su obra legal, la que podría haber tenido impacto en los judíos tradicionales. Sus escritos filosóficos conservados son difíciles de seguir; solo sobrevive una de las dos polémicas anticristianas vernáculas, en una traducción/paráfrasis hebrea. Aunque Crescas (...) fue bien recordado en el siglo posterior a su muerte, ya en este período se pueden detectar las razones de su posterior olvido. Un examen de la historia de la recepción de la obra de Crescas en el siglo XV demuestra hasta qué punto sus posiciones polémicas, dogmáticas y filosóficas fueron mayoritariamente rechazadas, más allá de que tuvo partidarios, fundamentalmente entre sus alumnos más cercanos. No es de extrañar, entonces, que en los siglos posteriores, la memoria de Crescas fuera casi borrada de la conciencia comunitaria judía. (shrink)

Tomasello et al. argue that the “small difference that made a big difference” in the evolution of the human mind was the disposition to share intentions. Chimpanzees are said to understand certain mental states (like intentions), but not share them. We argue that an alternative model is better supported by the data: the capacity to represent mental states (and other unobservable phenomena) is a human specialization that co-evolved with natural language.

One recent trend in Western philosophical ethics has been a push toward ethical naturalism, and with it, psychological realism.1 One part of such psychological realism involves the attempt to recast the ethical project in light of our recent acceptance that the sources of human behavior are complex and multifarious, that we are not, as it were, autonomous rational agents who can comply with our moral norms simply by choosing to do so. This keener empirical understanding of the sources of human (...) behavior leads ethicists of a psychologically realist bent to see the project of developing empirically sound methods of ethical cultivation as an important part of the ethical project.2This trend in Western ethics has... (shrink)

Clinical trials of xenotransplantation (XTx) may begin early in the next decade, with kidneys from genetically modified pigs transplanted into adult humans. If successful, transplanting pig hearts into children with advanced heart failure may be the next step. Typically, clinical trials have a specified end date, and participants are aware of the amount of time they will be in the study. This is not so with XTx. The current ethical consensus is that XTx recipients must consent to lifelong monitoring. While (...) this presents challenges to the right to withdraw in the adult population, additional and unanswered questions also linger in the paediatric population. In paediatric XTx, parents or guardians consent not only to the initial treatment of the child but also to lifelong monitoring, thus making a decision whose consequences will remain present as the child develops the capacity for assent, and finally the capacity for informed consent or refusal. This article presents and evaluates unanswered paediatric ethical questions in regard to the right to withdraw from XTx follow-up in the paediatric population. (shrink)

Standard approaches to defining and evaluating environmental risk tend to reflect technocratic rather than democratic values. One consequence is that institutional mechanisms for achieving citizen participation in risk decisions rarely are studied or evaluated. This article presents a survey of five institutional mechanisms for allowing the lay public to influence environmental risk decisions: public hearings, initiatives, public surveys, negotiated rule making, and citizens review panels. It also defines democratic process criteria for assessing these and other participatory mechanisms.

One of the lingering questions for development economists is that of economic transition and whether development can be promoted by a strong political leader. Earlier writings on leadership and economic development tend to fall into one of two camps: leaders matter and can contribute positively to economic growth, or leaders seldom have positive effects and, at best, can avoid doing a great deal of harm. This article establishes a third option—a middle-ground position—between these two views. Good leadership can, indeed, have (...) a positive effect on economic growth but only during the initial moment when economic reform is up for grabs. Once the opportunity to implement sweeping reform has passed, interests become entrenched, and the opportunity for growth-enhancing reform passes. Bad leaders, on the other hand, can hamper economic growth in periods well beyond the ideal reform moment. (shrink)

“Practice” has become a ubiquitous term in the history of science, and yet historians have not always reflected on its philosophical import and especially on its potential connections with ethics. In this essay, we draw on the work of the virtue ethicist Alasdair MacIntyre to develop a theory of “communal practices” and explore how such an approach can inform the history of science, including allegations about the corruption of science by wealth or power; consideration of scientific ethics or “moral economies”; (...) the role of values in science; the ethical distinctiveness of scientific vocations; and the relationship between history of science and the practice of science itself. (shrink)

We hypothesize that aspects of animal multicellularity originated before the divergence of metazoans from fungi and social amoebae. Polarized epithelial tissues are a defining feature of metazoans and contribute to the diversity of animal body plans. The recent finding of a polarized epithelium in the non‐metazoan social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum demonstrates that epithelial tissue is not a unique feature of metazoans, and challenges the traditional paradigm that multicellularity evolved independently in social amoebae and metazoans. An alternative view, presented here, is (...) that the common ancestor of social amoebae, fungi, and animals spent a portion of its life cycle in a multicellular state and possessed molecular machinery necessary for forming an epithelial tissue. Some descendants of this ancestor retained multicellularity, while others reverted to unicellularity. This hypothesis makes testable predictions regarding tissue organization in close relatives of metazoans and provides a novel conceptual framework for studies of early animal evolution.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays Searching for Eve: Basal metazoans and the evolution of multicellular complexity Abstract. (shrink)

This collection of essays explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been assumed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organised as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilised and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are actually better understood as processes. Unlike previous attempts to articulate processual views of biology, which (...) have tended to use Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychist metaphysics as a foundation, this book takes a naturalistic approach to metaphysics. It submits that the main motivations for replacing an ontology of substances with one of processes are to be found in the empirical findings of science. Biology provides compelling reasons for thinking that the living realm is fundamentally dynamic, and that the existence of things is always conditional on the existence of processes. The phenomenon of life cries out for theories that prioritise processes over things, and it suggests that the central explanandum of biology is not change but rather stability, or more precisely, stability attained through constant change. This edited volume brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians interested in exploring the consequences of a processual philosophy of biology. The contributors draw on an extremely wide range of biological case studies, and employ a process perspective to cast new light on a number of traditional philosophical problems, such as identity, persistence, and individuality. (shrink)

Faith plays a valuable role in sustaining relationships through various kinds of challenges, including through evidentially unfavorable circumstances and periods of significant doubt. But if, as is widely assumed, both faith in God and faith that God exists require belief that God exists, and if one’s beliefs are properly responsive to one’s evidence, the capacity for faith to persevere amidst significant and well-grounded doubt will be fairly limited. Taking Mother Teresa as an exemplar of Christian faith and exploring the close (...) connection between faith and faithfulness in the context of committed covenantal relationships, I set out a view of Relational Faith that does not assume that faith requires belief and allows wide room for honestly wrestling with doubt from within the Judeo-Christian tradition. (shrink)

There is a puzzle about Hume's is-ought gap involving an epistemic `ought'. From the premise `Snow is white,' we can infer `Sophia's belief that snow is white is correct.' `Snow is white' is paradigmatically non-normative, and that Sophia's belief is correct, a claim about what belief she ought to have, seems to be normative. The argument seems valid, so the is-ought gap is supposed to block this kind of inference. The puzzle is over whether we should give up on the (...) is-ought game or find another way to resolve the conflict. In the first chapter, I provide a formulation of the is-ought gap in a general semantic framework that avoids some other known problems. I turn in chapter 2 to discussing the puzzle about correct belief. I cast doubt on a solution proposed by Allan Gibbard by showing that it can admit of no epistemology of the normative. In chapter 3, I defend a solution to the puzzle while more directly tackling the question of the nature of oughts for belief. I offer a new explanation of why we ought to believe the truth. At the heart of the account is the idea that it's a conceptual truth beliefs ought to be true, which I provide a new argument for. I then claim that being an agent requires being subject to this norm of belief. This results in a non-moral, distinctly doxastic, account of why we ought to believe the truth. My conclusion is that asking why we ought to believe the truth is like asking why a bachelor must be unmarried: the answer is contained in the ideas that make up the question. In the final chapter, I respond to Gibbard's claim that an analogous story cannot work for `ought' claims for degreed belief. I pose a worry for Gibbard's proposed alternative explanation, and I undermine Gibbard's motivation for pursuing such an account in the first place. By taking belief to have an aim in a normative sense, I sketch how we can make sense of epistemic rationality in terms of that aim. (shrink)

My first book, The Physicists, was conceived when I. I. Rabi visited Princeton in 1961–1962 as a Shreve Fellow in the History Department. Some two years earlier C. P. Snow had published his influential provocation, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, and the academic world was abuzz with initiatives aimed at achieving better literacy in science among liberal arts majors. Rabi was a Nobel laureate in physics at Columbia University and his visit was one of Princeton's efforts to this (...) end. It had been arranged by my mentor, Eric F. Goldman, a historian of modern America who had gotten to know Rabi through their mutual engagement with current issues in American democracy. (shrink)

In a 2007 interview, then senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama, called Reinhold Niebuhr, “one of my favorite philosophers.” When his interviewer, David Brooks, followed by asking, “What do you take away from him?” Obama answered, “I take away the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I (...) take away . . . the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.”1 One part of Niebuhr’s political theology that Obama has clearly embraced is Niebuhr’s justification .. (shrink)