In recent years, the psychological causes and consequences of poverty have received renewed attention from scientists and policymakers. In this essay, we summarize new developments in this literature. First, we discuss advances in our understanding of the relationship between income and psychological well-being. There is a robust positive relationship between the two, both within and across countries, and in correlational and causal analyses. Second, we summarize recent work on the impact of “scarcity” and stress on economic preferences and decision-making. Our (...) view of this literature is that the evidence is relatively weak. Third, we summarize evidence on the impact of psychological interventions on economic outcomes. Light-touch psychological interventions, such as videos that aim to raise aspirations, have shown some promise in encouraging investment and improving economic well-being. Similarly, psychotherapy and pharmacological mental health treatments have positive effects on economic outcomes. Relative to the effects of cash transfers, these impacts are small in absolute terms and large in per-dollar terms. We conclude by discussing whether a psychological poverty trap is plausible. (shrink)

Using a parallel with stage magic, it is argued that far from being seen as an extreme alternative, illusionism as articulated by Frankish should be considered the front runner, a conservative theory to be developed in detail, and abandoned only if it demonstrably fails to account for phenomena, not prematurely dismissed as 'counterintuitive'. We should explore the mundane possibilities thoroughly before investing in any magical hypotheses.

For several years, scholars have (for good reason) been largely preoccupied with worries about the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) tools to make decisions about us. Only recently has significant attention turned to a potentially more alarming problem: the use of AI/ML to influence our decision-making. The contexts in which we make decisions—what behavioral economists call our choice architectures—are increasingly technologically-laden. Which is to say: algorithms increasingly determine, in a wide variety of contexts, both the sets of (...) options we choose from and the way those options are framed. Moreover, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) makes it possible for those options and their framings—the choice architectures—to be tailored to the individual chooser. They are constructed based on information collected about our individual preferences, interests, aspirations, and vulnerabilities, with the goal of influencing our decisions. At the same time, because we are habituated to these technologies we pay them little notice. They are, as philosophers of technology put it, transparent to us—effectively invisible. I argue that this invisible layer of technological mediation, which structures and influences our decision-making, renders us deeply susceptible to manipulation. Absent a guarantee that these technologies are not being used to manipulate and exploit, individuals will have little reason to trust them. (shrink)

Vulnerability has emerged as a fruitful concept in recent political discourse. Although care theorists have sometimes framed care ethics in terms of vulnerability, they have most often oriented it around dependency. This article discusses the differences between dependency and vulnerability and argues for a reconceptualization of care ethics in terms of vulnerability. By reframing care ethics around vulnerability, care theorists can not only broaden the scope of issues that care ethics can address and clarify ambiguities in the theory but also (...) strengthen the justification for a responsibility to care. (shrink)

Barristers in England are obliged to follow the ‘cab rank rule’, according to which they must take any case offered to them, as long as they have time in their.

This book offers a broad reconstruction of the modern notion of sovereignty, a comprehensive critique of state-inflicted violence, and a concept of non-coercive law for our contemporary world society.

Artificial intelligence and robotic technologies have become nearly ubiquitous. In some ways, the developments have likely helped us, but in other ways sophisticated technologies set back our interests. Among the latter sort is what has been dubbed the ‘severance problem’—the idea that technologies sever our connection to the world, a connection which is necessary for us to flourish and live meaningful lives. I grant that the severance problem is a threat we should mitigate and I ask: how can we stave (...) it off? In particular, the fact that some technologies exhibit behavior that is unclear to us seems to constitute a kind of severance. Building upon contemporary work on moral responsibility, I argue for a mechanism I refer to as ‘technological answerability’, namely the capacity to recognize human demands for answers and to respond accordingly. By designing select devices—such as robotic assistants and personal AI programs—for increased answerability, we see at least one way of satisfying our demands for answers and thereby retaining our connection to a world increasingly occupied by technology. (shrink)

This essay criticizes the proposal recently defended by a number of prominent economists that welfare economics be redirected away from the satisfaction of people's preferences and toward making people happy instead. Although information about happiness may sometimes be of use, the notion of happiness is sufficiently ambiguous and the objections to identifying welfare with happiness are sufficiently serious that welfare economists are better off using preference satisfaction as a measure of welfare. The essay also examines and criticizes the position associated (...) with Daniel Kahneman and a number of co-authors that takes welfare to be ‘objective happiness’ – that is, the sum of momentary pleasures. (shrink)

In this paper, I will develop a set of boulesic-doxastic tableau systems and prove that they are sound and complete. Boulesic-doxastic logic consists of two main parts: a boulesic part and a doxastic part. By ‘boulesic logic’ I mean ‘the logic of the will’, and by ‘doxastic logic’ I mean ‘the logic of belief’. The first part deals with ‘boulesic’ concepts, expressions, sentences, arguments and theorems. I will concentrate on two types of boulesic expression: ‘individual x wants it to be (...) the case that’ and ‘individual x accepts that it is the case that’. The second part deals with ‘doxastic’ concepts, expressions, sentences, arguments and theorems. I will concentrate on two types of doxastic expression: ‘individual x believes that’ and ‘it is imaginable to individual x that’. Boulesic-doxastic logic investigates how these concepts are related to each other. Boulesic logic is a new kind of logic. Doxastic logic has been around for a while, but the approach to this branch of logic in this paper is new. Each system is combined with modal logic with two kinds of modal operators for historical and absolute necessity and predicate logic with necessary identity and ‘possibilist’ quantifiers. I use a kind of possible world semantics to describe the systems semantically. I also sketch out how our basic language can be extended with propositional quantifiers. All the systems developed in this paper are new. (shrink)

According to evidentialism, a belief is propositionally justified just in case it fits one’s evidence. A fully developed evidentialist theory of justification will require an account of the evidential fit relation. Some evidentialists have embraced an explanationist account of this relation. Some of these accounts, such as Kevin McCain’s, place an awareness requirement on evidential fit. That is, they claim that a proposition, p, fits a subject’s evidence, e, only if the subject is aware of the explanatory connection between p (...) and e. I argue by way of example that this version of explanationism fails. As a result, I suggest a friendly revision of explanationism that excludes an awareness condition. Finally, I field some objections to my version of explanationism. (shrink)

The harvesting of data about people, organizations, and things and their transformation into a form of capital is often described as a process of “accumulation by dispossession,” a pervasive loss of rights buttressed by predatory practices and legal violence. Yet this argument does not square well with the fact that enrollment into digital systems is often experienced as a much more benign process: signing up for a “free” service, responding to a “friend’s” invitation, or being encouraged to “share” content. In (...) this paper, we focus on the centrality of gifting and reciprocity to the business model and cultural imagination of digital capitalism. Relying on historical narratives and in-depth interviews with the designers and critics of digital systems, we explain the cultural genesis of these “give-to-get” relationships and analyze the socio-technical channels that structure them in practice. We suggest that the economic relation that develops as a result of a digital gift offering not only masks the structural asymmetry between giver and gifted but also permits the creation of the new commodity of personal data, obfuscates its true value, and naturalizes its private appropriation. We call this unique regime “accumulation by gift.”. (shrink)

The origins of the Transitional Programme in Trotsky’s writings have been traced in the secondary literature. Much less attention has been paid to the earlier origins of the Transitional Programme in the debates of the Communist International between its Third and Fourth Congress, and in particular to the contribution of its largest national section outside Russia, the German Communist Party, which had been the origin of the turn to the united-front tactic in 1921. This article attempts to uncover the roots (...) of the Transitional Programme in the debates of the Communist International. This task is important because it shows that the Transitional Programme’s slogans are not sectarian shibboleths, but the result of the collective revolutionary experience of the working class during the period under consideration, from the Bolshevik Revolution to the founding conference of the Fourth International. (shrink)

There is a broad consensus in the literature that in the section on ‘The Genus’ in theScience of Logic, Hegel argues that any living being must exist among other instances of its kind, with which it reproduces to create future generations, and out of which it was itself produced. This view is not only hard to motivate philosophically, it also seems to contradict many things Hegel says elsewhere in his system about the details of living nature, especially concerning the reality (...) of spontaneous generation. After an examination of the secondary literature on ‘The Genus’, I offer an alternative view of this section, which I call ‘the Modal Reading’. The Modal Reading sees the language of pluralities in ‘The Genus’ as really Hegel's peculiar way of articulating certain modal features of thoughts about the living: to grasp a living individual as living, we need to distinguish not only between this individual and its environment, but also between the things this individual actually does and other possibilities which it does not actualize. The Modal Reading has a logical motivation insofar as it articulates what is needed to think of a living being as living, but it also avoids saddling Hegel with the problematic entailments he is usually read as taking on in this section. A further upshot of the Modal Reading is that approaching Hegel in this way provides us with a way to see Hegel as defending a non-nominalistic alternative to essentialist accounts of living kinds. Finding a way to read ‘The Genus’ which coheres with Hegel's views elsewhere in his system thus shows Hegel to have been an especially subtle and penetrating thinker, with continuing relevance for the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

This book examines the divine nature in terms of maximal greatness. It investigates each attribute associated with maximal greatness - omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, eternity, and beauty, arguing that maximal greatness is necessary and sufficient for divinity.

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 4, Page 731-745, December 2021.

A downward-entailing context has the property that the replacement of the predicate in the context by a stronger predicate preserves truth. So, for instance, presuppositions aside, the context after “every” in (1) where the NPI “ever” appears is downward entailing.

Western representation of countries from the Global South implies a dichotomist view of business ethics: on the one hand, universal ethics largely reproduces commonsensical views of the South as ‘less ethical’, and on the other hand, voices from the South are often conditioned to present themselves as substantially indigenous and unambiguous to be accepted as legitimate ethical subjects. We join the growing interest in bridging this gap by drawing on studies from human geography, and ask to what extent the materiality (...) of moral dilemmas bespeaks the disputed underpinning ethical values of a given space. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s perspective of the production of social space, we outline and apply the idea of ‘spatial ethics’ to organizations, in order to approach the entanglement between center and periphery. We analyze organizations in favelas, which are, for many authors, territories where experiences are extreme, and poverty and violence mix with vibrant culture and ingenuity. We critically approach the field of business ethics and suggest that one way of moving beyond the North–South debate is to consider that ethics cannot be transmitted or represented in empty milieus. (shrink)

Talk of harm reduction has expanded horizontally, to apply to an ever-widening range of policy domains, and vertically, becoming part of official legal and political discourse. This expansion calls for philosophical theorization. What is the best way in which to characterize harm reduction? Does it represent a distinctive ethical position? How is it best morally justified, and what are its moral limits? I distinguish two varieties of harm reduction. One of them, technocratic harm reduction, is premised on the fact of (...) non-enforceability of prohibitionist policies. The second, deliberative harm reduction, is premised on the fact of reasonable disagreement, grounded in the fact that reasonable persons disagree about a range of controversial behaviours. I argue that deliberative harm reduction better accounts for some of harm reduction’s most attractive features, and provides a plausible way of accounting for harm reductions’s justificatory grounds and limits. (shrink)

Cognitive science has much to contribute to the general scientific body of knowledge, but it is also a field rife with possibilities for providing background research that can be leveraged by artificial intelligence (AI) developers. In this introduction, we briefly explore the history of AI. We particularly focus on the relationship between AI and cognitive science and introduce this special issue that promotes the method of inspiring AI development with the results of cognitive science research.

RésuméEn raison de la méfiance épistémique généralisée que ressentent les membres des chambres d’écho envers les étrangers, il est peu probable que de répondre à ce phénomène par un débat civil conduise à un accord ou à un compromis. De plus, une réponse civile peut contribuer au sentiment exagéré, dans la chambre d’écho, de jouir d'un haut statut épistémique, qui est précisément ce qui doit être démantelé ou diminué si un accord ou un compromis doit être rendu possible. En réponse (...) à des chambres d’écho particulièrement dangereuses et résistantes, une réponse modérément incivile peut être justifiée. (shrink)

The Anthropocene debate is one of the most ambitious scientific programmes of the past 15 or 20 years. Its main argument is that, from a geological point of view, humans are considered a major force of nature, thus implying that our current geological epoch is dominated by human activity. The Anthropocene has slowly become a contemporary meta-narrative that seeks to make sense of the ‘earth-system’ as a whole, and one whose vision of the future is dystopian rather than progressive: as (...) the exploitation of the planet’s natural resources reaches tipping point, the very prospects of the continuity of human life are being questioned. This article aims to explore the implicit notions of the human – indeed of the anthropos – that are being mobilized in the Anthropocene debate. It will proceed in two stages: first, the article will spell out the main arguments of the Anthropocene debate with a particular focus on trying to unpack its implicit ideas of the human. Second, it will use my approach to philosophical sociology to highlight some of the limitations and contradictions of the ideas of agency, reflexivity and responsibility that underpin the Anthropocene debate. (shrink)

The ending of the Phaedo is one of the most powerful and memorable moments in the entire Platonic corpus. It is not simply the end of a single dialogue, but a depiction of the end of the life of the man (Socrates) who is a looming presence in nearly everything that Plato wrote. In this article I offer an in-depth analysis of the final scene of the Phaedo. I argue that Plato very carefully constructs the scene for the sake of (...) specific philosophical, dramatic, and political ends. Plato uses it to unify the Phaedo as a singular text, while also provoking us to reflect on the nature of our lives, our deaths, and the possibilities and limits of philosophy itself. (shrink)

Our use of artefacts has at different moments been characterised as either replacing or impoverishing our natural human capacities, or a key part of our humanity. This article critically evaluates the conception of the natural invoked by both accounts, and highlights the degree to which engagement with material features of the environment is fundamental to all living things, the closeness of this engagement making any account that seeks to draw a clear boundary between body and artefact problematic. By doing this (...) I seek to clarify the nature of our embodied relationship with various kinds of artefacts; moving from tools to machines to digital interfaces, I consider their differing potentials to be gathered into the body schema, and thus change our embodied horizons of perception and action. While much research currently seeks to facilitate a more ‘natural’ mode of interacting with technology, I argue that such a mode of interaction does not exist outside the particularity of our relationships with specific objects. As a result, rather than trying to cater to supposedly more natural modes of action and perception, future technologies should aim to enrich our experience with new modes, inviting novel relationships that produce new kinds of sensory and other experience. (shrink)

Medical quarantines often threaten the civil rights of the persons whom they confine. This might happen in two ways. First, quarantines might inflict harsh conditions on their occupants; and, second, quarantines might be imposed in an arbitrary or indeed discriminatory manner. These concerns, moreover, are anything but fantastic. Infectious diseases, particularly in epidemic forms, commonly trigger retributive and discriminatory instincts, so that actual quarantines often impose inhumane, stigmatizing, or even penal treatment upon persons who are confined based on caprice or (...) even prejudice.But quarantines that impose no gratuitous hardships and that are applied pursuant to orderly and non-discriminatory procedures are theoretically possible and also practically available. And such well-run quarantines, especially when they are employed to combat epidemic diseases, cannot plausibly be said to violate the civil rights of the quarantined. Even the staunchest civil libertarian must accept that one person's liberty may be restricted when this is necessary for preventing harm to another. (shrink)

Within a variety of contemplative traditions, non-dual-oriented practices were developed to evoke an experiential shift into a mode of experiencing in which the cognitive structures of self-other and subject–object subside. These practices serve to de-reify the enactment of an observing witness which is usually experienced as separate from the objects of awareness. While several contemplative traditions, such as Zen, Mahāmudrā, Dzogchen, and Advaita Vedanta emphasize the importance of such a non-dual insight for the cultivation of genuine wellbeing, only very few (...) attempts in contemplative science have turned toward the study of non-dual-oriented practices. This article starts from a recently developed theoretical cognitive science framework that models the requirements of a temporary experiential shift into a mode of experiencing free from cognitive subject–object structure. This model inspired by the enactive approach contributes theoretically grounded hypotheses for the much-needed rigorous study of non-dual practices and non-dual experiences. To do so, three steps are taken: first, common elements of non-dual-oriented practices are outlined. Second, the main ideas of enactive cognitive science are presented including a principled theoretical model of what is required for a shift to a pure non-dual experience, that is, an experiential mode that is unbound by subject–object duality. Third, this synthesized theoretical model of the requirements for the recognition of the non-dual is then compared with a specific non-dual style of meditation practice, namely,Mahāmudrāpractice from Tibetan Buddhism. This third step represents a heuristic for evaluating the external coherence of the presented model. With this, the aim is to point toward a principled enactive view of non-dual meditative practice. In drawing the implications of the presented model, this article ends with an outlook toward next steps for further developing a research agenda that may fully address the concrete elements of non-dual practices. (shrink)

Actor-network theory has contributed greatly to the development of science and technology studies. However, recent critiques appear to have left ANT in a gloomy theoretical black box. What is the likelihood of ANT exiting its current theoretical discontent? Is ANT worthy of salvation and on what grounds? Law argues that recent critiques stem from ANT’s development into a particular theoretical strategy. However, this article will argue that by focusing on strategy as messy and impure, ANT can be afforded the opportunity (...) to shift from a fixed approach to an ambiguous and contingent strategy, well placed to carry on. The article achieves such an argument by first highlighting how ANT has contributed to a recent study of strategy in action; second, by outlining the strategic aspects of ANT; and third, by using the study of strategy in action as a means of engaging with ANT’s current theoretical discontent. (shrink)

Asha Bhandary’s Freedom to Care represents an important challenge to the idea that care ethics and liberalism necessarily stand in tension, arguing instead that most of the commitments of care ethics can be integrated within a recognizably mainstream liberal contract theory. Although I am sympathetic to Bhandary’s project, I identify three ways in which it falls short: Bhandary’s thin moral premises fail to support decent care for all; her survival baseline principle of care does not support some important forms of (...) care; and her proceduralist approach offers little alternative other than coercion for assuring sufficient care for all. I argue a thicker set of moral assumptions based on the importance of decent care for all are necessary for reconciling liberalism and care ethics on more equal terms. (shrink)

The publication of Moshe Idel’s book, Kabbalah: New Perspectives marks a turning point in the field of Jewish mysticism. In this volume, Moshe Idel offered phenomenology as an alternative key to appreciating the history and ideas of Jewish mystical traditions. This study returns to this book in order to assess and critique the meaning and function of phenomenology in his early scholarship, as a prelude to the developing and possibly changing methodologies that he has employed in numerous studies published since (...) the appearance of his now classic study. The study considers the connection between phenomenology and experience and its role within the multiple perspectives suggested in the volume. Moshe Idel’s methodology is thus appreciated within the larger context of his work, positioned within the history of scholarship in the field and serves as a measure of the turn to new perspectives. (shrink)

While 3/11 has altered energy policies around the world, insufficient attention has focused on reactions from local nuclear power plant host communities and their neighbors throughout Japan. Using site visits to such towns, interviews with relevant actors, and secondary and tertiary literature, this article investigates the community crisis management strategies of two types of cities, towns, and villages: those which have nuclear plants directly in their backyards and neighboring cities further away (within a 30 mile radius). Responses to the disaster (...) have varied with distance to nuclear facilities but in a way contrary to the standard theories based on the concept of the . Officials in communities directly proximal to nuclear power plants by and large remain supportive of Japan's nuclear power program, while those in cities and towns at a distance (along with much of the general public) have displayed strong opposition to the pre 3/11 status quo. Using qualitative data, this article underscores how national energy and crisis response policies rest strongly on the political economy, experiences of, and decisions made at the subnational level. (shrink)

Trifft Jacobis unphilosophische Systemkritik auch Hegels Metaphysik absoluter Negativität? Dessen System gilt als Höhepunkt systematisch-systemischen Philosophierens. Als solches führt es ein Denken zur Vollendung, dessen Kern darin besteht, Inbegriff von Begründung zu sein. Somit aber besetzt es den gesamten Raum des Denkbaren, in dem schon alle Kritik im und am Denken durchgeführt ist. Sinnvolle Kritik am System scheint unmöglich, ohne dieses zugleich zu affirmieren oder aber selbst der Sinnlosigkeit anheim zu fallen. Jacobi unternimmt den Versuch, einen Modus der Kritik zu (...) finden, der einerseits aus der Systemlogik selbst erwächst, zugleich aber darin nicht verhaftet bleibt. Ihm gelingt dieses Kunststück, indem er akkurate Rekonstruktion mit lebensweltlicher Erfahrung verschränkt und sich der Systemlogik mit einem Sprung entzieht. Das Sprunggeschehen der sogenannten Unphilosophie zu rekonstruieren und nun auch mit dem System des reifen Hegel zu konfrontieren, unternimmt diese Untersuchung. Die Leitfrage lautet dabei, ob Jacobi auch aus Hegels elaboriertem System gesprungen wäre oder aber der erweiterte Systembegriff seine Kritik obsolet gemacht hat. (shrink)

Rights of nature is an idea that has come of age. In recent years, a diverse range of countries and jurisdictions have adopted these norms, which involve granting legal rights to nature or natural objects, such as rivers, forests, or ecosystems. This book critically examines the idea of natural objects as right-holders, and analyses legal cases, policies, and philosophical issues relating to this development. -/- Drawing on contributions from a range of experts in the field, Rights of Nature: A Re-examination (...) investigates the potential for this innovative idea to revolutionize the concepts of rights, standing, and recognition as traditionally understood in many legal systems. Taking as its starting point Stone’s influential 1972 article ‘Should Trees Have Standing?’, the book examines the progress rights of nature have made since that time, by identifying central themes, unifying principles, and key distinctions in how rights of nature discourse has been operationalized in the disciplines of law, philosophy, and the social sciences. These themes and principles are illustrated through a wide variety of examples, including ecosystem services, indigenous thinking, and ecological restoration, demonstrating how the relationship between humanity and the natural world may be transforming. -/- Taking a philosophical, political, and legal perspective, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental law and policy, environmental ethics, and philosophy. (shrink)

Developments in genetics, cyber-technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and other areas hold the promise – and the peril – of redefining what it means to be human. In addition to hedonism or a desire for self-improvement, the possibilities of these technologies plus the rational concern of falling behind a potential adversary produce a classic security dilemma. These competitive pressures among states, firms, and emerging “super-empowered individuals” encourage the development and dissemination of these technologies, and already the possibilities are being explored (...) by actors in conflict. This security dilemma, plus the nature of the technologies themselves, makes it virtually certain that attempts at regulation will fail. Instead, we should expect “arms races” of quantity and quality of improvements, complicated by differing conceptions of what improvement means. This paper explores these pressures and outcomes, as well as general consequences of the potential modification of “human nature” for global and human security. It finds that whatever forms or enhancements we possess, in a transhuman or posthuman future politics will not be transcended. Critical problems of security will continue to challenge ourselves and our descendants. (shrink)

This article examines two interrelated aspects of Mexican regional music response to the coronavirus crisis in the música huasteca community: the growth of interactive huapango livestreams as a preexisting but newly significant space for informal community gathering and cultural participation at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and the composition of original verses by son huasteco performers addressing the pandemic. Both the livestreams and the newly created coronavirus disease verses reflect critical improvisatory approaches to the pandemic in música huasteca. The (...) interactive livestreams signaled an ad hoc community infrastructure facilitated by social media and an emerging community space fostered by Do-It-Yourself activists. Improvised COVID-related verses presented resonant local and regional themes as a community response to a global crisis. Digital ethnography conducted since March 2020 revealed a regional burst of musical creativity coupled with DIY intentionality, a leveling of access to virtual community spaces, and enhanced digital intimacies established across a wide cultural diaspora in Mexico and the USA. These responses were musically, poetically, and organizationally improvisational, as was the overall outpouring of the son huasteco music inspired by the coronavirus outbreak. Son huasteco is a folk music tradition from the Huasteca, a geo-cultural region spanning the intersection of six states in central Mexico. This study examines a selection of musical responses by discussing improvisational examples in both Spanish and the indigenous language Nahuatl, and in the virtual musical communities of the Huasteca migrant diaspora in digital events such as “Encuentro Virtual de Tríos Huastecos,” the “Huapangos Sin Fronteras” festival and competition, and in the nightly gatherings on social media platforms developed during the pandemic to sustain the Huastecan cultural expression. These phenomena have served as vibrant points of transnational connection and identity in a time where physical gatherings were untenable. (shrink)