This study aimed to know the effect of creative thinking as an intervening variable in the relationship between strategic vigilance and service quality: a survey study in the Iraqi Ministry of Planning, The study was applied to formation managers with the rank of (Assistant General Manager, Head of Department, Division Head, Unit Head) who were selected as a deliberate sample consisting of (286) employees, The study used the questionnaire as the main tool used to collect data and information from the (...) study community in addition to personal interviews. The questionnaire was distributed to the entire selected sample and (235) of them were received, valid for analysis and study, If the study sought to test a number of hypotheses that were put forward regarding the hypotheses of association and influence, Through the results of the analysis of the sub-hypotheses, the study concluded that there is a correlation between each of the study variables, as well as the presence of a significant positive influence relationship between the variables, and that the creative thinking variable has a positive influence on the relationship between both variables: strategic alertness and service quality, The study recommends that the organization under study should focus on enhancing the concepts of creative thinking, strategic vigilance, and service quality among all employees by holding workshops and awareness courses on these concepts to instill them in them, in addition to establishing a research unit concerned with studying the variables surrounding the organization with the aim of the organization benefiting from external opportunities and reducing threats. (shrink)

This research aims to study and evaluate the mutual impact between digital transformation and risk management in organizations. While digital transformation offers significant benefits in terms of increased efficiency and innovation, it also presents new challenges related to risk management. The main findings of the research indicate the following: Complexity of the risk landscape: Digital transformation leads to a more complex digital environment, increasing the types and number of risks faced by organizations, such as cyberattacks and data breaches. New opportunities (...) for risk management: Conversely, digital technologies provide advanced tools such as artificial intelligence and big data analytics, enabling organizations to detect threats earlier and respond more effectively. Importance of digital culture: Building a strong digital culture within the organization, where all employees are aware of digital risks and how to address them, is crucial. Integration of technology and management: Organizations must integrate technology into their risk management strategies, considering human and organizational factors. The research recommends the following Developing a comprehensive strategy: Organizations should develop a comprehensive strategy for digital risk management that covers all aspects, from technology to organizational culture. (shrink)

This piece offers a critique of what is commonly the structure of introductory philosophy textbooks, syllabi, and courses. The basic criticism is that this structure perpetuates the systematic devaluing of the views of historically marginalized and exploited people. The form my critique takes is that of a referee report on a hypothetical manuscript for an introductory philosophy textbook, authored by “Dr. Unspecified.” I examine what the manuscript chooses to focus on and what it chooses to omit from discussion. I thereby (...) outline much of the content typically used to introduce newcomers to philosophy, while illustrating that presenting exclusively that content supports a prejudiced view of philosophy. I try to show how this representation of philosophy marginalizes the concerns and insights of many and reinforces the disproportionate extent to which those who can do philosophy for a living are white, straight, men with typical body morphology. My report also identifies various ways that the content of an introductory philosophy textbook or course could be modified or supplemented in light of the sort of critique my report makes. (shrink)

Donna Haraway’s cyberfeminism has shown considerable appeal on an interdisciplinary level. Her basic premise is that by the end of the twentieth century the boundary between humans and machines has become increasingly porous, and, whether we acknowledge it or not, we are already cyborgs. She also posits this cyborg identity as an acceptable emblem for progressive politics. I disagree, and cite such writers as Susan Bordo, Sharona Ben-Tov, and Jhan Hochman to highlight some of the weaknesses of her position. I (...) argue that we have had repeated warnings about implications of yoking the human to the machine, and that Haraway’s “promising monsters” are anything but promising. (shrink)

Jehuda ben Isaak Abrabanel, znany jako Leone Ebreo, XVI-wieczny sefardyjski intelektualista, definiuje tytułowe pojęcie w swoim dziele _Dialogi o miłości_ (_Dialoghi d’amore)_. Ten traktat filozoficzny z neoplatońskimi podtekstami, łączący wszystko, co wcześniejsi myśliciele napisali o tym szlachetnym uczuciu, był niezwykle popularny i stał się wzorem dla współczesnych mu pisarzy. Został przetłumaczony na język hiszpański m.in. przez Inkę Garcilaso de la Vega, a Miguel de Cervantes wspomina o nim w prologu do pierwszej części _Don Kichota_, sugerując, że opisana w nim miłość (...) daleka jest od rzeczywistości. Wizja wyidealizowanej miłości, którą kochanek Filon czuje do czystej Zofii, znajduje swoje odbicie w stworzonym przez Sefardyjczyka Eliasa Canettiego portrecie doktora Sonne, jednego z bohaterów _Gry oczu._ Przejawem mistycznej miłości jest miłość do boskiego intelektu, a tę osiągnąć można jedynie przez intelektualny wysiłek włożony w dialog filozoficzny. Leone Ebreo urodził się na Półwyspie Iberyjskim, wyemigrował do Włoch po 1492 r. i najprawdopodobniej (nie ma co do tego pewności) wybrał język nowej ojczyzny dla swojej ekspresji. Elias Canetti, Sefardyjczyk urodzony w Bułgarii (podówczas okupowanej przez Imperium Osmańskie), przed I wojną światową pisał po niemiecku. Postaci te, odległe od siebie w czasie i przestrzeni, łączy pochodzenie judeohiszpańskie i związany z nim bagaż hebrajskiej tradycji egzegetycznej, który prowadzi obu do bardzo podobnej pochwały intelektualnej miłości. Artykuł przedstawia pokrewieństwo myśli obu pisarzy ‒ których można uznać za Hiszpanów ze względu na ich sefardyjskie pochodzenie ‒ w odniesieniu do intelektualnego mistycyzmu wyrażonego poprzez miłość do Intelektu pisanego wielką literą. (shrink)

Jehuda ben Isaak Abrabanel, znany jako Leone Ebreo, XVI-wieczny sefardyjski intelektualista, definiuje tytułowe pojęcie w swoim dziele _Dialogi o miłości_ (_Dialoghi d’amore)_. Ten traktat filozoficzny z neoplatońskimi podtekstami, łączący wszystko, co wcześniejsi myśliciele napisali o tym szlachetnym uczuciu, był niezwykle popularny i stał się wzorem dla współczesnych mu pisarzy. Został przetłumaczony na język hiszpański m.in. przez Inkę Garcilaso de la Vega, a Miguel de Cervantes wspomina o nim w prologu do pierwszej części _Don Kichota_, sugerując, że opisana w nim miłość (...) daleka jest od rzeczywistości. Wizja wyidealizowanej miłości, którą kochanek Filon czuje do czystej Zofii, znajduje swoje odbicie w stworzonym przez Sefardyjczyka Eliasa Canettiego portrecie doktora Sonne, jednego z bohaterów _Gry oczu._ Przejawem mistycznej miłości jest miłość do boskiego intelektu, a tę osiągnąć można jedynie przez intelektualny wysiłek włożony w dialog filozoficzny. Leone Ebreo urodził się na Półwyspie Iberyjskim, wyemigrował do Włoch po 1492 r. i najprawdopodobniej (nie ma co do tego pewności) wybrał język nowej ojczyzny dla swojej ekspresji. Elias Canetti, Sefardyjczyk urodzony w Bułgarii (podówczas okupowanej przez Imperium Osmańskie), przed I wojną światową pisał po niemiecku. Postaci te, odległe od siebie w czasie i przestrzeni, łączy pochodzenie judeohiszpańskie i związany z nim bagaż hebrajskiej tradycji egzegetycznej, który prowadzi obu do bardzo podobnej pochwały intelektualnej miłości. Artykuł przedstawia pokrewieństwo myśli obu pisarzy ‒ których można uznać za Hiszpanów ze względu na ich sefardyjskie pochodzenie ‒ w odniesieniu do intelektualnego mistycyzmu wyrażonego poprzez miłość do Intelektu pisanego wielką literą. (shrink)

Epicurus seems to have thought that death is not bad for the one who dies, since its badness cannot be located in time. I show that Epicurus’ argument presupposes Presentism, and I argue that death is bad for its victim at all and only those times when the person would have been living a life worth living had she not died when she did. I argue that my account is superior to competing accounts given by Thomas Nagel, Fred Feldman and (...) Neil Feit. (shrink)

Virtue epistemology is among the dominant influences in mainstream epistemology today. An important commitment of one strand of virtue epistemology – responsibilist virtue epistemology (e.g., Montmarquet 1993; Zagzebski 1996; Battaly 2006; Baehr 2011) – is that it must provide regulative normative guidance for good thinking. Recently, a number of virtue epistemologists (most notably Baehr, 2013) have held that virtue epistemology not only can provide regulative normative guidance, but moreover that we should reconceive the primary epistemic aim of all education as (...) the inculcation of the intellectual virtues. Baehr’s picture contrasts with another well-known position – that the primary aim of education is the promotion of critical thinking (Scheffler 1989; Siegel 1988; 1997; 2017). In this paper – that we hold makes a contribution to both philosophy of education and epistemology and, a fortiori, epistemology of education – we challenge this picture. We outline three criteria that any putative aim of education must meet and hold that it is the aim of critical thinking, rather than the aim of instilling intellectual virtue, that best meets these criteria. On this basis, we propose a new challenge for intellectual virtue epistemology, next to the well-known empirically-driven ‘situationist challenge’. What we call the ‘pedagogical challenge’ maintains that the intellectual virtues approach does not have available a suitably effective pedagogy to qualify the acquisition of intellectual virtue as the primary aim of education. This is because the pedagogic model of the intellectual virtues approach (borrowed largely from exemplarist thinking) is not properly action-guiding. Instead, we hold that, without much further development in virtue-based theory, logic and critical thinking must still play the primary role in the epistemology of education. (shrink)

It’s a platitude – which only a philosopher would dream of denying – that whereas words are connected to what they represent merely by arbitrary conventions, pictures are connected to what they represent by resemblance. The most important difference between my portrait and my name, for example, is that whereas my portrait and I are connected by my portrait’s resemblance to me, my name and I are connected merely by an arbitrary convention. The first aim of this book is to (...) defend this platitude from the apparently compelling objections raised against it, by analysing depiction in a way which reveals how it is mediated by resemblance. -/- It’s natural to contrast the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance, which emphasises the differences between depictive and descriptive representation, with an extremely close analogy between depiction and description, which emphasises the similarities between depictive and descriptive representation. Whereas the platitude emphasises that the connection between my portrait and me is natural in a way the connection between my name and me is not, the analogy emphasises the contingency of the connection between my portrait and me. Nevertheless, the second aim of this book is to defend an extremely close analogy between depiction and description. -/- The strategy of the book is to argue that the apparently compelling objections raised against the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance are manifestations of more general problems, which are familiar from the philosophy of language. These problems, it argues, can be resolved by answers analogous to their counterparts in the philosophy of language, without rejecting the platitude. So the combination of the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance with a close analogy between depiction and description turns out to be a compelling theory of depiction, which combines the virtues of common sense with the insights of its detractors. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effect of female representation on the board of directors on corporate response to stakeholders’ demands for increased public reporting about climate change-related risks. We rely on the Carbon Disclosure Project as a sustainability initiative supported by institutional investors. Greenhouse gas emissions measurement and its disclosure to investors can be thought of as a first step toward addressing climate change issues and reducing the firm’s carbon footprint. Based on a sample of publicly listed Canadian firms over the (...) period 2008–2014, we find that the likelihood of voluntary climate change disclosure increases with women percentage on boards. We also find evidence that supports critical mass theory with regard to board gender diversity. These findings reinforce initiatives being undertaken around the world to promote gender diversity in corporate governance while demonstrating board effectiveness in stakeholder management. (shrink)

There are at least two traditional conceptions of numerical degree of similarity. According to the first, the degree of dissimilarity between two particulars is their distance apart in a metric space. According to the second, the degree of similarity between two particulars is a function of the number of (sparse) properties they have in common and not in common. This paper argues that these two conceptions are logically independent, but philosophically inconsonant.

This paper defends an ‘opt-out’ scheme for organ procurement, by distinguishing this system from ‘presumed consent’ (which the author regards as an erroneous justification of it). It, first, stresses the moral importance of increasing the supply of organs and argues that making donation easier need not conflict with altruism. It then goes on to explore one way that donation can be increased, namely by adopting an opt-out system, in which cadaveric organs are used unless the deceased (or their family) registered (...) an objection. Such policies are often labelled ‘presumed consent’, but it is argued that critics are right to be sceptical of this idea—consent is shown to be an action, rather than a mental attitude, and thus not something that can be presumed. Either someone has consented or they have not, whatever their attitude to the use of their organs. Thankfully, an opt-out scheme need not rest on the presumption of consent. Actual consent can be given implicitly, by one's actions, so it is argued that the failure to register an objection (given certain background conditions) should itself be taken as sign of consent. Therefore, it is permissible to use the organs of someone who did not opt out, because they have—by their silence—actually consented. (shrink)

Apocalypse, it seems, is everywhere. Preachers with vast followings proclaim the world's end and apocalyptic fears grip even the non-religious amid climate change, pandemics, and threats of nuclear war. But as these ideas pervade popular discourse, grasping their logic remains elusive. Ben Jones argues that we can gain insight into apocalyptic thought through secular thinkers. He starts with a puzzle: Why would secular thinkers draw on Christian apocalyptic beliefs--often dismissed as bizarre--to interpret politics? The apocalyptic tradition proves appealing in part (...) because it theorizes a special relation between crisis and utopia. Apocalyptic thought points to crisis as the vehicle to bring the previously impossible within reach, thus offering apparent resources for navigating challenges in ideal theory, which tries to imagine the best and most just society. By examining apocalyptic thought's appeal and risks, this study arrives at new insights on the limits of ideal theory and utopian hope. (shrink)

Democracy is commonly associated with political equality and/or majority rule. This essay shows that these three ideas are conceptually separate, so the transition from any one to another stands in need of further substantive argument, which is not always adequately given. It does this by offering an alternative decision-making mechanism, called lottery voting, in which all individuals cast votes for their preferred options but, instead of these being counted, one is randomly selected and that vote determines the outcome. This procedure (...) is democratic and egalitarian, since all have an equal chance to influence outcomes, but obviously not majoritarian. (shrink)

The literature on conscientious objection in medicine presents two key problems that remain unresolved: Which conscientious objections in medicine are justified, if it is not feasible for individual medical practitioners to conclusively demonstrate the genuineness or reasonableness of their objections? How does one respect both medical practitioners’ claims of conscience and patients’ interests, without leaving practitioners complicit in perceived or actual wrongdoing? My aim in this paper is to offer a new framework for conscientious objections in medicine, which, by bringing (...) medical professionals’ conscientious objection into the public realm, solves the justification and complicity problems. In particular, I will argue that: an “Uber Conscientious Objection in Medicine Committee” —which includes representatives from the medical community and from other professions, as well as from various religions and from the patient population—should assess various well-known conscientious objections in medicine in terms of public reason and decide which conscientious objections should be permitted, without hearing out individual conscientious objectors; medical practitioners should advertise their conscientious objections, ahead of time, in an online database that would be easily accessible to the public, without being required, in most cases, to refer patients to non-objecting practitioners. (shrink)

This book explores the role of causal constraints in science, shifting our attention from causal relations between individual events--the focus of most philosophical treatments of causation--to a broad family of concepts and principles generating constraints on possible change. Yemima Ben-Menahem looks at determinism, locality, stability, symmetry principles, conservation laws, and the principle of least action-causal constraints that serve to distinguish events and processes that our best scientific theories mandate or allow from those they rule out. Ben-Menahem's approach reveals that causation (...) is just as relevant to explaining why certain events fail to occur as it is to explaining events that do occur. She investigates the conceptual differences between, and interrelations of, members of the causal family, thereby clarifying problems at the heart of the philosophy of science. Ben-Menahem argues that the distinction between determinism and stability is pertinent to the philosophy of history and the foundations of statistical mechanics, and that the interplay of determinism and locality is crucial for understanding quantum mechanics. Providing historical perspective, she traces the causal constraints of contemporary science to traditional intuitions about causation, and demonstrates how the teleological appearance of some constraints is explained away in current scientific theories such as quantum mechanics. (shrink)

A plausible principle about the felicitous use of indicative conditionals says that there is something strange about asserting an indicative conditional when you know whether its antecedent is true. But in most contexts there is nothing strange at all about asserting indicative conditionals like ‘If Oswald didn’t shoot Kennedy, then someone else did’. This paper argues that the only compelling explanation of these facts requires the resources of contextualism about knowledge.

Ben Fine traces the origins of social capital through the work of Becker, Bourdieu and Coleman and comprehensively reviews the literature across the social sciences. The text is uniquely critical of social capital, explaining how it avoids a proper confrontation with political economy and has become chaotic. This highly topical text addresses some major themes, including the shifting relationship between economics and other social sciences, the 'publish or perish' concept currently burdening scholarly integrity, and how a social science interdisciplinarity requires (...) a place for political economy together with cultural and social theory. (shrink)

This book concerns the foundations and implications of a particular form of liberal political theory. Colburn argues that one should see liberalism as a political theory committed to the value of autonomy, understood as consisting in an agent deciding for oneself what is valuable and living life in accordance with that decision. Understanding liberalism this way offers solutions to various problems that beset liberal political theory, on various levels. On the theoretical level, Colburn claims that this position is the only (...) defensible theory of liberalism in current circulation, arguing that other more dominant theories are either self-contradictory or unattractive on closer inspection. And on the practical level, Colburn draws out the substantive commitments of this position in educational, economic, and social policy. Hence, the study provides a blueprint for a radical liberal political agenda which will be of interest to philosophers and to politicians alike. (shrink)

It's often hypothesized that the structure of mental representation is map-like rather than language-like. The possibility arises as a counterexample to the argument from the best explanation of productivity and systematicity to the language of thought hypothesis—the hypothesis that mental structure is compositional and recursive. In this paper, I argue that the analogy with maps does not undermine the argument, because maps and language have the same kind of compositional and recursive structure.

A recent critique of hierarchical Bayesian models of delusion argues that, contrary to a key assumption of these models, belief formation in the healthy (i.e., neurotypical) mind is manifestly non-Bayesian. Here we provide a deeper examination of the empirical evidence underlying this critique. We argue that this evidence does not convincingly refute the assumption that belief formation in the neurotypical mind approximates Bayesian inference. Our argument rests on two key points. First, evidence that purports to reveal the most damning violation (...) of Bayesian updating in human belief formation is counterweighted by substantial evidence that indicates such violations are the rare exception—not a common occurrence. Second, the remaining evidence does not demonstrate convincing violations of Bayesian inference in human belief updating; primarily because this evidence derives from study designs that produce results that are not obviously inconsistent with Bayesian principles. (shrink)

This paper considers whether an analogy between distance and dissimilarlity supports the thesis that degree of dissimilarity is distance in a metric space. A straightforward way to justify the thesis would be to define degree of dissimilarity as a function of number of properties in common and not in common. But, infamously, this approach has problems with infinity. An alternative approach would be to prove representation and uniqueness theorems, according to which if comparative dissimilarity meets certain qualitative conditions, then it (...) is representable by distance in a metric space. I will argue that this approach faces equally severe problems with infinity. (shrink)

Strategies to increase influenza vaccination rates have typically targeted healthcare professionals and individuals in various high-risk groups such as the elderly. We argue that they should focus on increasing vaccination rates in children. Because children suffer higher influenza incidence rates than any other demographic group, and are major drivers of seasonal influenza epidemics, we argue that influenza vaccination strategies that serve to increase uptake rates in children are likely to be more effective in reducing influenza-related morbidity and mortality than those (...) targeting HCPs or the elderly. This is true even though influenza-related morbidity and mortality amongst children are low, except in the very young. Further, we argue that there are no decisive reasons to suppose that children-focused strategies are less ethically acceptable than elderly or HCP-focused strategies. (shrink)

In medical ethics, a large body of work exists on the virtues that enable good medical practice. Medical virtue ethics singles out a number of virtues of the good doctor for attention; among others, these include empathy, care, truthfulness, and justice. According to medical ethicists like Pellegrino and Thomasma, however, phronesis, or “practical wisdom,” occupies a special place among these virtues. For Pellegrino and Thomasma, phronesis is “indispensable” to good medical practice, because it coordinates all the different moral virtues that (...) the doctor must bring to ethical decisions as part of wise moral action.... (shrink)

I argue that in addressing worries about the validity and reliability of implicit measures of social cognition, theorists should draw on research concerning “entitativity perception.” In brief, an aggregate of people is perceived as highly “entitative” when its members exhibit a certain sort of unity. For example, think of the difference between the aggregate of people waiting in line at a bank versus a tight-knit group of friends: The latter seems more “groupy” than the former. I start by arguing that (...) entitativity perception modulates the activation of implicit biases and stereotypes. I then argue that recognizing this modulatory role will help researchers to address concerns surrounding the validity and reliability of implicit measures. (shrink)

Background Voluntary assisted dying became lawful in Victoria, the first Australian state to permit this practice, in 2019 via the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic). While conscientious objection by individual health professionals is protected by the Victorian legislation, objections by institutions are governed by policy. No research has been conducted in Victoria, and very little research conducted internationally, on how institutional objection is experienced by patients seeking assisted dying. Methods 28 semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 family caregivers and (...) one patient about the experience of 28 patients who sought assisted dying. Participants were interviewed during August-November 2021. Data from the 17 interviews (all with family caregivers) which reported institutional objection were analysed thematically. Results Participants reported institutional objection affecting eligibility assessments, medication access, and taking the medication or having it administered. Institutional objection occurred across health settings and was sometimes communicated obliquely. These objections resulted in delays, transfers, and choices between progressing an assisted dying application and receiving palliative or other care. Participants also reported objections causing adverse emotional experiences and distrust of objecting institutions. Six mediating influences on institutional objections were identified: staff views within objecting institutions; support of external medical practitioners and pharmacists providing assisted dying services; nature of a patient’s illness; progression or state of a patient’s illness; patient’s geographical location; and the capability and assertiveness of a patient and/or caregiver. Conclusions Institutional objection to assisted dying is much-debated yet empirically understudied. This research found that in Victoria, objections were regularly reported by participants and adversely affected access to assisted dying and the wider end-of-life experience for patients and caregivers. This barrier arises in an assisted dying system that is already procedurally challenging, particularly given the limited window patients have to apply. Better regulation may be needed as Victoria’s existing policy approach appears to preference institutional positions over patient’s choice given existing power dynamics. (shrink)

This article offers a normative analysis of some of the most controversial incidents involving police—what I call police-generated killings. In these cases, bad police tactics create a situation where deadly force becomes necessary, becomes perceived as necessary, or occurs unintentionally. Police deserve blame for such killings because they choose tactics that unnecessarily raise the risk of deadly force, thus violating their obligation to prioritize the protection of life. Since current law in the United States fails to ban many bad tactics, (...) police- generated killings often are treated as “lawful but awful.” To address these killings, some call on changes to departmental policies or voluntary reparations by local governments, yet such measures leave in place a troubling gap between ethics and law. I argue that police-generated killings merit legal sanctions by appealing to a relevant analogy: self-generated self-defense, where the person who engages in self-defense started the trouble. The persistent lack of accountability for police-generated killings threatens life, police legitimacy, and trust in democratic institutions. The article closes by identifying tools in law and policy to address this challenge. (shrink)

The devastating impact of the COVID‐19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic is prompting renewed scrutiny of practices that heighten the risk of infectious disease. One such practice is refusing available vaccines known to be effective at preventing dangerous communicable diseases. For reasons of preventing individual harm, avoiding complicity in collective harm, and fairness, there is a growing consensus among ethicists that individuals have a duty to get vaccinated. I argue that these same grounds establish an analogous duty to avoid buying and (...) eating most meat sold today, based solely on a concern for human welfare. Meat consumption is a leading driver of infectious disease. Wildlife sales at wet markets, bushmeat hunting, and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are all exceptionally risky activities that facilitate disease spread and impose immense harms on human populations. If there is a moral duty to vaccinate, we also should recognize a moral duty to avoid most meat. The paper concludes by considering the implications of this duty for policy. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the analysis of natural properties as convex subsets of a metric space in which the distances are degrees of dissimilarity is incompatible with both the definition of degree of dissimilarity as number of natural properties not in common and the definition of degree of dissimilarity as proportion of natural properties not in common, since in combination with either of these definitions it entails that every property is a natural property, which is absurd. I suggest (...) it follows that we should think of the convex class analysis of natural properties as a variety of resemblance nominalism. (shrink)

It is natural to think that there is a tight connection between whether someone is responsible for some outcome and whether it is appropriate to hold her accountable for that outcome. And this natural thought naturally extends to health: if someone is responsible for her health, then, all else being equal, she is accountable for it. Given this, some have thought that responsibility for health has an important role to play in distributing the benefits and burdens of healthcare. But there (...) is a reason for caution. That health is influenced by social, economic, and environmental factors is a matter of consensus. And some have argued that in light of these social determinants of health, individuals are not typically responsible for their health, rendering inappropriate policies that employ a responsibility‐for‐health criterion. This debate implicates a number of overlapping concepts and questions that are often difficult to pull apart. And I worry that those who maintain that social determinants undermine responsibility for health have latched on to the wrong target. The social determinants of health are relevant to such policies, but, I argue, not by globally undermining responsibility. Rather, social determinants are sometimes responsibility‐undermining, sometimes responsibility‐preserving, and often relevant to whether we should hold individuals accountable for their health regardless of their responsibility. This calls for a more nuanced appraisal of the ways in which the social determinants of health are relevant to such policies. And here I attempt to provide one. (shrink)

Counterfactuals are context-sensitive. However, we argue that various debates and doctrines in metaphysics and the philosophy of science are premised on ignoring the full extent of counterfactual context-sensitivity. Our focus is on the prominent "miracle" versus "no-miracle" debate about counterfactuals under the assumption that our laws of nature are deterministic. But we also discuss doctrines that employ counterfactuals in theories of rational decision, as well as doctrines that explain what it is to be a law of nature in terms of (...) counterfactuals. We conclude by drawing some morals about the use of counterfactuals in philosophical theorizing more generally. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We argue that Roberts’s argument for the thesis that absolute velocity is not measurable in a Newtonian world is unsound, because it depends on an analysis of measurement that is not extensionally adequate. We propose an alternative analysis of measurement, one that is extensionally adequate and entails that absolute velocity is measured in at least one Newtonian world. If our analysis is correct, then this Newtonian world is a counterexample to the widely endorsed thesis that if a property varies (...) under the symmetries of a theory then, according to that theory, the property could not be measured. Thus, our paper shows that the debate over the measurability of symmetry-variant properties is more unsettled than previously supposed. (shrink)

We characterize pairs of monotone generalized quantifiers Q1 and Q2 over finite domains that give rise to an entailment relation between their two relative scope construals. This relation between quantifiers, which is referred to as scope dominance, is used for identifying entailment relations between the two scopal interpretations of simple sentences of the form NP1–V–NP2. Simple numerical or set-theoretical considerations that follow from our main result are used for characterizing such relations. The variety of examples in which they hold are (...) shown to go far beyond the familiar existential-universal type. (shrink)

Current debates regarding justice in university admissions most often approach the question of access to university from a technical, policy-focussed perspective. Despite the attention that access to university receives in the press and policy literature, ethical discussion tends to focus on technical matters such as who should pay for university or which schemes of selection are allowable, not the question of who should go to university in the first place. We address the question of university admissions—the question of who should (...) go to university—from an ethical perspective. We find that most discussions draw on a generic conception of what the university is good for that is too thin to provide deliberative guidance and hold that a full account of the ethics of admissions needs to take into account the distinctive good that the university provides—knowledge and understanding. This view, we hold, does not imply that measures should not be taken to widen access to university; however, the basis for such measures should be grounded in that distinctive good in the first instance. (shrink)

Recently, I presented evidence that there are two broad kinds of dehumanization: descriptive dehumanization and normative dehumanization. An individual is descriptively dehumanized when they are perceived as less than fully human in the biological-species sense; whereas an individual is normatively dehumanized when they are perceived as lacking a deep-seated commitment to good moral values. Here, I develop the concept of normative dehumanization by addressing skepticism about two hypotheses that are widely held by dehumanization researchers. The first hypothesis is that dehumanization (...) is distinct from mere dislike and other non-dehumanizing attitudes. The second hypothesis is that dehumanization is an important predictor of intergroup hostility. Across four studies, I found evidence that normative dehumanization is distinct from mere dislike, and denials of ideal humanness. I also found that it is a unique predictor of intergroup hostility. These findings suggest that research into dehumanization and intergroup hostility will benefit from recognizing the distinction between descriptive and normative dehumanization. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom suggests that environmental pragmatists balk at the mere mention of intrinsic value. Indeed, the leading expositor of the pragmatic position in environmental philosophy, Bryan Norton, has delivered withering criticisms of the concept as it has been employed by nonanthropocentrists in the field. Nevertheless, I believe that Norton has left an opening for a recognition of intrinsic value in his arguments, albeit a version that bears little resemblance to most of its traditional incarnations. Drawing from John Dewey’s contextual approach (...) toward moral inquiry, I offer a reconstructed notion of intrinsic value that avoids the metaphysical pitfalls identified by Norton. I argue that this contextual understanding of noninstrumental claims has the advantage of turning our attention toward, and not away from, the critical realm of practice and policy, and that it is especially compatible with the norms of democratic deliberation. By way of example and in defense of my position, I conclude with a rejoinder to Holmes Rolston’s claims about the role of foundational intrinsic value commitments in settling the human-nature dilemma at Royal Chitwan National Park in Nepal. (shrink)

A book chapter (about 9,000 words, plus references) presenting an act-consequentialist approach to the ethics of climate change. It begins with an overview of act consequentialism, including a description of the view’s principle of rightness (an act is right if and only if it maximizes the good) and a conception of the good focusing on the well-being of sentient creatures and rejecting temporal discounting. Objections to act consequentialism, and replies, are also considered. Next, the chapter briefly suggests that act consequentialism (...) could reasonably be regarded as the default moral theory of climate change, in the sense that a broadly act-consequentialist framework often seems implicit in both scholarly and casual discussions of the ethics of climate change. The remainder of the chapter explores three possible responses to the threat of climate change: having fewer children to reduce the number of people emitting greenhouse gases; taxing greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions (commonly called a “carbon tax”) to discourage GHG-emitting behavior; and reducing poverty to lessen personal, familial, and community vulnerability to the harms of climate change. (shrink)

Lotteries have long been used to resolve competing claims, yet their recent implementation to allocate school places in Brighton and Hove, England led to considerable public outcry. This article argues that, given appropriate selection is impossible when parties have equal claims, a lottery is preferable to an auction because it excludes unjust influences. Three forms of contractualism are discussed and the fairness of lotteries is traced to the fact that they give each person an equal chance, as a surrogate for (...) their equal claim to the good. It is argued that this can be a reason to favour an artificially-constructed lottery to a 'natural' lottery where there is suspicion that the latter may be biased. (shrink)

Interference is paternalistic when it restricts an individual’s freedom for their own good. Anti-paternalists, such as John Stuart Mill, object to this for various reasons, including that the individual is usually a better judge of her own interests than the would-be paternalist. However, Wilkinson argues that a Parfitian reductivist approach to personal identity opens the door to what he calls ‘identity-relative paternalism’ where someone’s present action is restricted for the sake of a different future self.1 This is an interesting argument, (...) but it is not clear whether it involves permissible paternalism. At the risk of stating the obvious, permissible paternalism must be both permissible and paternalistic. Wilkinson’s identity-relative paternalism could be either, but not obviously both. If the present and future selves are different individuals, then interference is potentially permissible but no longer paternalistic. Alternatively, they are identical, in which case the interference is genuine paternalism, but cannot be justified by appeal to their distinctness. Wilkinson may escape this dilemma by invoking Parfit, who challenges the common notion that identity is all or nothing.2 According to Parfit’s revisionary view, the present and future self may share some connections but not others. However, once we have identified these similarities and differences, there is no further question whether or not they …. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Emch, G.G., Liu, C.: The Logic of Thermostatistical Physics. Springer, Berlin/ Heidelberg (2002) 11. Frigg, R., Werndl, C.: Entropy – a guide for the perplexed. Forthcoming in: Beisbart, C., Hartmann, S. (eds.) Probabilities in Physics. Oxford  ...

This article provides a conceptual map of the affective terrain while focusing on enduring positive affective attitudes, such as love and happiness. The first section of the article examines the basic characteristics of affective attitudes, i.e., intentionality, feeling, and dispositionality, and classifies the various affective attitudes accordingly. An important distinction in this regard is between acute, extended, and enduring affective attitudes. Then a discussion on the temporality of affective attitudes is presented. The second section discusses major mechanisms that enable long-lasting (...) affective attitudes to endure. These mechanisms include, Hedonic adaptation, which reduces affective intensity, thereby enabling adaptation to a stable, average level of affective intensity; Positive mood offset, which maintains a moderate level of positive mood in the absence of adverse stimuli; The enduring mood of being dissatisfied, thereby keeping the agent’s interest high, and Meaningful development, which underlies the continuation and enhancement of the affective attitude. Each of these mechanisms sustains, in its own unique way, the balance required for enduring affective attitudes. The third section applies the above considerations to two major enduring positive affective attitudes: the mood of lasting happiness and the enduring emotion of profound romantic love. Time is typically a necessary condition for the creation and enhancement of such love. However, it is not a sufficient condition. So only in some cases, but not in all, does loving longer mean loving more. (shrink)

There is this view propounded by some theorists which claims that some conceptions of the nature of time are incompatible with the Christian position on the defeat of evil. The aim of this article is twofold. First, to clarify exactly which thesis about time’s nature is taken to be problematic for the defeat of evil. And second, to show that scriptural support for understanding the defeat of evil as requiring that evil not be in the range of the existential quantifier, (...) something implicitly contended by those who put forward this problem, is weak and that these passages can be read in plausible ways which are affirmable by those who endorse the ‘problematic’ thesis. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Hud Hudson's compatibilistic interpretation of Kant's theory of free will, which is based on Davidson's anomalous monism. I sketch an alternative interpretation of my own, an incompatibilistic interpretation according to which agents qua noumena are responsible for the particular causal laws which determine the actions of agents qua phenomena. Hudson's interpretation should be attractive to philosophers who value Kant's epistemology and ethics, but insist on a deflationary reading of things in themselves. It is in an (...) incompatibilist interpretation of Kant's theory of free will that a "positive" conception of noumena is at its most important. If a compatibilistic interpretation is acceptable, one might suppose that we can do without a "positive" conception of noumena throughout Kant's philosophy. I demonstrate, however, that there are central elements of Kant's theory of free will that cannot be accommodated within Hudson's interpretation. (shrink)

The interactive theorem prover Isabelle/HOL is used to verify elementary theorems of classical extensional mereology.

This paper argues for a possible worlds theory of the content of pictures, with three complications: depictive content is centred, two-dimensional and structured. The paper argues that this theory supports a strong analogy between depictive and other kinds of representation and the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance.

When it comes to eggs, two aspects are central—taste and nutritional value. And it is when eggs are fresh that these are at their peak. Hate “tastes” worst, that is, its negative intensity is highest, when it is fresh. Yet, when hate is not merely a temporary eruption but a constant feature, it distorts the agent’s behavior and attitudes. As such, its moral value worsens with maturity.