A long tradition of research in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) countries has investigated how people weigh individual welfare versus group welfare in their moral judgments. Relatively less research has investigated the generalizability of results across non-WEIRD populations. In the current study, we ask participants across nine diverse cultures (Bali, Costa Rica, France, Guatemala, Japan, Madagascar, Mongolia, Serbia, and the USA) to make a series of moral judgments regarding both third-party sacrifice for group welfare and first-person sacrifice for group (...) welfare. In addition to finding some amount of cross-cultural variation on most of our questions, we also find two cross-culturally consistent judgments: (1) when indi- viduals are in equivalent situations, overall welfare should be maximized, and (2) harm to individuals should be taken into account, and some types of individual harm can trump overall group welfare. We end by discussing the specific pattern of variable and consistent features in the context of evolutionary theories of the evolution of morality. (shrink)

A common view about the phenomenology of episodic remembering has it that when we remember a perceptual experience, we can relive or re-experience many of its features, but not its characteristic presence. In this paper, we challenge this common view. We first say that presence in perception divides into temporal and locative presence, with locative having two sides, an objective and a subjective one. While we agree with the common view that temporal and objective locative presence cannot be relived in (...) remembering, we argue that subjective locative presence – the feeling of being immersed in a certain scene – can be so. Our argument for this claim starts by determining independently the underpinning mechanisms of subjective locative presence in quasi-perceptual imagination. These mechanisms are self-projection, imaginative pretence, and attentional focus. We then proceed to establish that they have been found to underpin conscious states of episodic remembering too. We conclude that episodic remembering can bring us to relive the subjective locative presence characteristic of a perceptual experience, and that the common view is mistaken. Our view – ‘mnemonic immersivism’ – has important consequences regarding the relationships between memory and imagination and the phenomenology of episodic remembering. (shrink)

What is Life? To answer this question, Denis Noble argues that we must look beyond the gene's eye view. For modern 'systems biology' considers life on a variety of levels, as an intricate web of feedback between gene, cell, organ, body, and environment. He shows how it is both a biologically rigorous and richly rewarding way of understanding life.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest among philosophers of memory in the questions of how to characterize and to account for the temporal phenomenology of episodic memory. One prominent suggestion has been that episodic memory involves a feeling of pastness, the elaboration of which has given rise to two main approaches. On the intentionalist approach, the feeling of pastness is explained in terms of what episodic memory represents. In particular, Fernández has argued that it can be explained (...) in terms of memory representing itself as being caused by a past perceptual experience. On the metacognitive approach, which we have recently developed in, the feeling of pastness results from the monitoring and interpretation of the processing features of episodic remembering. In this paper, we show that the metacognitive approach should be preferred over the intentionalist approach. We argue that intentionalism, and Fernández’ causal self-referential view in particular, ultimately fail as accounts of the feeling of pastness. The difficulties faced by intentionalism allows us to single out three constraints that any satisfactory account of the temporal phenomenology of episodic remembering needs to meet. We conclude by arguing that the metacognitive view satisfies those constraints in a neat way, and as such, that it should be preferred over intentionalism. (shrink)

There are two general approaches to characterising biological functions. One originates with Cummins. According to this approach, the function of a part of a system is just its causal contribution to some specified activity of the system. Call this the ‘C-function’ concept. The other approach ties the function of a trait to some aspect of its evolutionary significance. Call this the ‘E-function’ concept. According to the latter view, a trait's function is determined by the forces of natural selection. The C-function (...) and E-function concepts are clearly quite different, but there is an important relation between them which heretofore has gone unnoticed. The purpose of this paper is to outline that relation.This is not the first paper to discuss the relation of C-function and E-function. Previous attempts all follow either one of two strategies. The first proposes that the two concepts are ‘unified.’ The other proposes that they are radically distinct and apply to wholly different fields within biology. (shrink)

April 15, 2024: This article published in Early View in error. The article will republish shortly.

We review recent developments in ethical pluralism, ethical particularism, Kantian intuitionism, rights theory, and climate change ethics, and show the relevance of these developments in ethical theory to contemporary business ethics. This paper explains why pluralists think that ethical decisions should be guided by multiple standards and why particularists emphasize the crucial role of context in determining sound moral judgments. We explain why Kantian intuitionism emphasizes the discerning power of intuitive reason and seek to integrate that with the comprehensiveness of (...) Kant’s moral framework. And we show how human rights can be grounded in human agency, and explain the connections between human rights and climate change. (shrink)

The central goal of this paper is to investigate the injustices that can occur with the use of new technologies, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI), focusing on the issues concerning respect to human rights and the protection of victims and the most vulnerable. We aim to study the impacts of AI in daily life and the possible threats to human dignity imposed by it, such as discrimination based on prejudices, identity-oriented stereotypes, and unequal access to health services. We characterize such cases (...) as algorithmic injustices. In the final part of the text, we propose some strategies to confront this specific type of injustice. (shrink)

Around sixty years ago, Martin and Deutscher (1966) published a paper about the conditions under which an occurring mental state qualifies as episodically remembering. Recent philosophy of memory has developed this ontological interrogation in depth. But while it has significantly contributed to the ontological characterisation of episodic memory, it has also left aside an important part of it. Our memories not only occur, they also reoccur: we re-remember. This raises the ontological issue of their identity over time, along with the (...) related issue of their individuation. In the present paper, I explore this as yet uncharted territory of the ontology of episodic memories. I show first that the notion of re-remembering refers to a genuine mnemic phenomenon, and as such requires a theoretical account. I then proceed to design candidate accounts of said phenomenon, two of which, I claim, are particularly promising. (shrink)

Modern societies are increasingly culturally pluralistic and more and more people are coming into contact with other cultures. These encounters with different cultures do not always lead to mutual understanding and acceptance. In this context, the importance of promoting and developing intercultural sensitivity is recognized as one of the fundamental tasks of (future) teachers in modern schools, which presupposes that they themselves are interculturally sensitive and express this sensitivity. With this in mind, the aim of this study was to investigate (...) the extent to which multicultural experiences and certain socio-demographic characteristics of prospective teachers contribute to explaining their intercultural sensitivity. 630 students from all teacher education programs in the Republic of Croatia participated in the study. The survey consisted of a questionnaire on socio-demographic data, an Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (Chen & Starosta, 2000) and a modified Multicultural Experience Questionnaire (Narvaez et al., 2017). The research findings suggest that certain socio-demographic characteristics and multicultural experiences contribute significantly to the level of intercultural sensitivity of prospective teachers. In addition to considering the role of intercultural sensitivity and multicultural experiences in the affirmation of intercultural education in schools, implications for initial teacher education and recommendations for future research are provided based on the research findings obtained. (shrink)

L’œuvre de Judith Butler occupe une place centrale dans les études genre, à partir de son livre désormais classique sur le trouble dans le genre. Dans cette étude, nous aimerions montrer que sa contribution philosophique est plus large (tenant compte de sa lecture critique de Hegel) et mérite une discussion fondamentale quant à sa finalité éthique et sa notion de vie bonne.

This paper comprises a case study illustrating ethical and practical challenges for a Ugandan hospital-based social worker early in the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by a commentary. The hospital was under-resourced, with staff and patients experiencing lack of information and panic. The social worker, Denis Adia, recounts his responses to new and ethically challenging situations, including persuading Muslim patients to stop fasting for the good of their health; deciding to keep a baby in hospital with parents although this was against (...) the rules; and supporting a stigmatised former patient in the face of intimidation by colleagues. He reflects on the importance of recognising each person’s unique needs and circumstances, seeing this as a vital role for social workers. The case is followed by a commentary from a UK academic (Sarah Banks), who notes the cognitive and emotional effort (‘ethics work’) undertaken by the social worker to: see the ethical aspects of particular situations; take account of patients’ specific needs; ensure they are treated with respect; promote their well-being; and perform as a good social worker. Banks draws attention to the key role of the virtue of courage in pandemic conditions, which involves working with new risks and facing fears with confidence. (shrink)

Comment penser la métaphysique en protestant? Le parent pauvre de la Réforme et de la modernité méritait qu'on s'y attarde. Pour la première fois, et de manière originale et profonde, Denis Müller, expert reconnu de l'éthique, vient lui donner ses lettres de noblesse. Cette pensée exhumée par le biographe intellectuel de Calvin et de Barth se découvre alors terrestre, proche de la création et de la vie pratique ; elle anime d'un feu nouveau les notions d'existence, de raison et (...) de transcendance. Ce sont elles qui, dans cette nouvelle approche, s'en trouvent explorées, questionnées et revisitées. Avec pour paradoxale pierre angulaire, la tristesse. Quel trésor cache en effet la mélancolie? Convoquant tour à tour les figures de Vincent Van Gogh, d'Arthur Rimbaud, de James Joyce, puisant dans les productions artistiques le ressort de cette métaphysique subversive, cet ouvrage est une invitation à l'introspection pour penser l'expérience universelle de l'existence. Et s'ouvrir à son secret. Un immense traité de vie."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Jeffrey conditioning tells an agent how to update her priors so as to grant a given probability to a particular event. Weighted averaging tells an agent how to update her priors on the basis of testimonial evidence, by changing to a weighted arithmetic mean of her priors and another agent’s priors. We show that, in their respective settings, these two seemingly so different updating rules are axiomatized by essentially the same invariance condition. As a by-product, this sheds new light on (...) the question how weighted averaging should be extended to deal with cases when the other agent reveals only parts of her probability distribution. The combination of weighted averaging and Jeffrey conditioning is a comprehensive updating rule to deal with such cases, which is again axiomatized by invariance under embedding. We conclude that, even though one may dislike Jeffrey conditioning or weighted averaging, the two make a natural pair when a policy for partial testimonial evidence is needed. (shrink)

Michael Psellos ist ein Philosoph, der wie kein anderer für die byzantinische Epoche steht. Das Denken dieses Großintellektuellen – der in subtilen Auseinandersetzungen mit antiken und spätantiken Positionen in Theologie, Ontologie und Ethik eine selbständige christliche Philosophie formuliert – findet in diesem Band erstmalig eine monographische Gesamtdarstellung. Die Arbeit liefert durch ihren systematischen Charakter, durch die Einbeziehung bisher nicht interpretierter Texte, durch die Darlegung der bisherigen Forschungsergebnisse und durch die Aufdeckung von Traditioinslinien eine wichtige Grundlage für die weitere Erforschung der (...) byzantinischen Philosophie. (shrink)

This book brings together contributions from leading researchers in the field of agent-based modelling and simulation. This approach has grown out of some recent and innovative ideas in the social sciences, computer sciences, life sciences, physics and game theory. It is proving helpful in understanding complexity in many domains. The opportunities it offers to explore the experimental approach to social and human behaviour is proving of theoretical and empirical value across a wide range of fields. With contributions from researchers whose (...) work has served to define this new field such as Nigel Gilbert, Robert Axtell (in economics and social science) and Jacques Ferber (in multi-agent systems), as well as practitioners who are working at the cutting edge of the new domain, this collection of essays has been assembled by two of its leading exponents: Frédéric Amblard and Denis Phan. The research, case studies and theoretical approaches discussed in this book are designed to introduce beginners and experts alike to the current state of play in this new and exciting field of social science. (shrink)

My working hypothesis is based on the project of a theory of science (Wissenschaftslehre) at the very beginning of the Prolegomena and it consists in conceiving this theory of science as the program which insures their cohesion to the whole of the Investigations in this work. In order to test this hypothesis, I will first examine the different steps which led to the project of a theory of science in the pre-phenomenological period. I will secondly expound the guidelines of the (...) theory of science, insisting in particular on its relation to pure logic. In the third section, I will attempt to define the function of the theory of knowledge and of phenomenology in such a programme. I will conclude with some remarks on the fate of this theory of science after the Logical Investigations. Most of Husserl’s allusions to the theory of science, be it in his lecture notes, the manuscripts that were written after 1901 or other works published during Husserl’s lifetime, seem to suggest that the theory of science kept on assuming the very role it was playing in Husserl’s seminal work: the theory of science provides its basis to Husserl’s philosophical agenda. (shrink)

How can we argue, from neural facts, that representational states exhibit some specific representational structure? This paper approaches the question through a case study on the priority map-mechanism that underlies our capacity to orient visual attention. Computational models from cognitive neuroscience describe this mechanism as operating over neural topographic structures. These neural structures exhibit the functional profile of topographic representational structure. I argue that this fact warrants attributing topographic structure to the priority map mechanism’s representational states.

There is a common misconception that our genomes - all unique, except for those in identical twins - have the upper hand in controlling our destiny. The latest genetic discoveries, however, do not support that view. Although genetic variation does influence differences in various human behaviours to a greater or lesser degree, most of the time this does not undermine our genuine free will. Genetic determinism comes into play only in various medical conditions, notably some psychiatric syndromes. Denis Alexander (...) here demonstrates that we are not slaves to our genes. He shows how a predisposition to behave in certain ways is influenced at a molecular level by particular genes. Yet a far greater influence on our behaviours is our world-views that lie beyond science - and that have an impact on how we think the latest genetic discoveries should, or should not, be applied. Written in an engaging style, Alexander's book offers tools for understanding and assessing the latest genetic discoveries critically. (shrink)

Given a class $$\mathcal {C}$$ of models, a binary relation $$\mathcal {R}$$ between models, and a model-theoretic language L, we consider the modal logic and the modal algebra of the theory of $$\mathcal {C}$$ in L where the modal operator is interpreted via $$\mathcal {R}$$. We discuss how modal theories of $$\mathcal {C}$$ and $$\mathcal {R}$$ depend on the model-theoretic language, their Kripke completeness, and expressibility of the modality inside L. We calculate such theories for the submodel and the quotient (...) relations. We prove a downward Löwenheim–Skolem theorem for first-order language expanded with the modal operator for the extension relation between models. (shrink)

Une question très discutée chez les interprètes de Wittgenstein est celle de savoir comment comprendre le paradoxe au sujet des règles dont il parle dans le paragraphe 201 des Recherches philosophiques. Ilécrit: ‘Notre paradoxe était le suivant: une règle ne pourrait déterminer aucune conduite parce que n'importe quelle conduite pourrait être mise en accord avec la règle’. Un peu plus haut, il faisait dire à son interlocuteur: ‘“Mais comment une règle peut-elle m'apprendre ce que je dois faire en ce point? (...) Peu importe ce que je fais, cela pourra s’ accorder suivant une interprétation ou une autre avec la règle “’. (shrink)

Sont ici publiés trois décrets de la cité de Kyténion, ainsi qu'une série d'épitaphes de la Doride de Grèce Centrale. Les uns, inscrits sur une exèdre d'un type courant, peuvent, malgré leur forme abrégée, être datés de ca 150 av. J.-C, grâce à des recoupements prosographiques en Locride Ozole et en Doride. L'intérêt principal des autres est de livrer les premiers témoignages d'écriture de cette région. L'ensemble de ces textes donne de nouvelles attestations de noms rares et celles de quelques (...) noms nouveaux. La prosopographie des Doriens de la Métropole compte 243 numéros. (shrink)

Publication de 25 inscriptions nouvelles de Kallipolis d'Étolie, provenant presque toutes des fouilles françaises et grecques de 1977-1979. Sur une exèdre semi-circulaire probablement surmontée d'une statue équestre, étaient gravés 18 décrets honorifiques abrégés datant du IIe siècle av. J.-C., les premiers décrets émanant d'une cité étolienne trouvés en Étolie. L'étude de ces décrets conduit à examiner la façon dont la datation éponyme était indiquée chez les Kallipolitains, tantôt par un ou plusieurs archontes, tantôt par le seul secrétaire des archontes. Ces (...) textes permettent d'autre part d'ébaucher le cercle géographique des relations d'une petite cité de Grèce centrale. Ils amènent enfin à examiner le rapport entre Kallipolitas et Kallieus, deux ethniques qui coexistent pendant près de 80 ans, et ne doivent pas correspondre à une seule et même communauté politique : Kallipolitas désigne les citoyens de la cité, tandis que Kallieus serait un ethnique régional, désignant tout ou partie des communautés environnantes, et peut-être lié à l'un des districts de la confédération étolienne. Parmi les autres textes ici publiés, remarquable est un ex-voto dédié à la Nuit divinisée et à Artémis. L'étude se clôt par la liste récapitulative des 18 inscriptions de Kallion-Kallipolis antérieurement connues, et par la prosopographie des Kalliéens et Kallipolitains, qui compte 194 entrées. (shrink)

The holistic view of the Universe is a very promising approach. The necessity of such a view is shown by the teaching of Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, a German physicist and philosopher. If we accept Panpsychism as the best alternative to Materialism and Dualism, we should take the holistic view seriously. Panpsychism and Holism combined lead to the Idea of Cosmopsychism. If we consider the Universe as a holistic Quantum System, we should ask, what causes the collapse of its wavefunction? (...) I offer four possible answers and I tend to divine consciousness, which brings the collapse of the wavefunction of our Universe. (shrink)

For many economists, including those who have made the most marked contribution to the development of the discipline, their work has to be understood in the context of the rhetorical strategy they were pursuing – what they wanted to persuade us of and how they wanted to do it. The paper identifies two fundamental rhetorical strategies of laissez-faire resting on entirely distinct ontological foundations. What distinguishes these two strategies is the way they articulate the individual with the general interest, how (...) they relate the micro to the macro. The two strategies discussed in the paper are characterised by the stance they take on a fundamental ontological issue, the way in which the things which appear to us in the world are related to the things or matters which compose them. A reductionist approach suggests that we can understand an entity at one level as a congeries. An entity in this view is just an aggregate of entities at a lower, substrate level – a purely external unity. The properties and behaviour of an entity can then be understood in terms of the properties and behaviour of the constituent lower-level components, taken in isolation. In this approach, phenomena at some level are regarded as having just the qualities enjoyed by its lower-level, substrate elements, writ large. The contrary, holistic, stance is to view the qualities of phenomena at one level as emergent at that level, and to assert that an entity can be understood as a product of the inter-relations between its component parts. We have, then, a pair of contrasted approaches: a polarity which is productive in the study of schools of thought, of competing methodologies, and of rhetorical strategies in economics. The paper applies this approach to the work of Smith, Keynes, Hayek, Lucas and Friedman. (shrink)

Une relation causale appropriée à une scène vécue dans le passé est-elle nécessaire pour qu’une représentation de cette scène en soit le souvenir épisodique? Le présent article expose les réponses qui sont actuellement apportées à ce débat central en philosophie de la mémoire. Il introduit d’abord les conditions définitionnelles avancées par la théorie causale standard, avant d’examiner les critiques qui ont été formulées à leur encontre. L’article présente et discute alors deux familles de théories qui ont été proposées en réaction (...) à ces critiques : les théories causales réformatrices, d’une part, et la théorie anti-causale simulationniste, d’autre part. (shrink)