This article considers Theodor W. Adorno’s thesis of the ‘liquidation of the individual’ as a contribution to the critique of political economy insofar as it links structural economic imperatives o...

The problem of algorithmic fairness is typically framed as the problem of finding a unique formal criterion that guarantees that a given algorithmic decision-making procedure is morally permissible. In this paper, I argue that this is conceptually misguided and that we should replace the problem with two sub-problems. If we examine how most state-of-the-art machine learning systems work, we notice that there are two distinct stages in the decision-making process. First, a prediction of a relevant property is made. Secondly, a (...) decision is taken based (at least partly) on this prediction. These two stages have different aims: the prediction is aimed at accuracy, while the decision is aimed at allocating a given good in a way that maximizes some context-relative utility measure. Correspondingly, two different fairness issues can arise. First, predictions could be biased in discriminatory ways. This means that the predictions contain systematic errors for a specific group of individuals. Secondly, the system’s decisions could result in an allocation of goods that is in tension with the principles of distributive justice. These two fairness issues are distinct problems that require different types of solutions. I here provide a formal framework to address both issues and argue that this way of conceptualizing them resolves some of the paradoxes present in the discussion of algorithmic fairness. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 51, Issue 2, Page 166-190, Spring 2023.

Hospital ethics committees are common, but not universal, in small hospitals. A needs assessment was completed at a 155-bed community hospital in order to adapt an academic tertiary center model for a clinical ethics committee to fit the needs of the small hospital community. Of 678 questionnaires distributed, 209 were completed. Data suggested that clinical staff frequently experienced ethical dilemmas. Significantly more nonphysicians indicated that they would utilize a consultation service, if available, compared to physicians (p = 0.0067). The data (...) also indicated that the majority of staff (>80 percent) desired more education in clinical ethics. Physicians preferred annual or bi-annual hospital-wide grand rounds, compared to nonphysicians, who preferred more frequent department-based teaching (p < 0.001). The data presented in this article were used to subsequently develop a clinical ethics support committee, the process of which is also described. (shrink)

La interpretación de la metodología científica de Aristóteles, desarrollada en las últimas décadas, introdujo algunas modificaciones importantes en la imagen fundacionista-axiomática que tradicionalmente se le había adjudicado a la epistemología del estagirita. Sin embargo, tales modificaciones cond..

This book offers an original account of a distinctly republican theory of social and global justice. The book starts by exploring the nature and value of Hegelian recognition theory. It shows the importance of that theory for grounding a normative account of free and autonomous agency. It is this normative account of free agency which provides the groundwork for a republican conception of social and global justice, based on the core-ideas of freedom as non-domination and autonomy as non-alienation. As the (...) author argues, republicans should endorse a sufficientarian account of social justice, which focuses on the nature of social relationships and their effects on people's ability to act freely and realize their fundamental interests. On the global level, the book argues for the cosmopolitan extension of the republican principles of non-domination and non-alienation within a multi-level democratic system. In so doing, the book addresses a major gap in the existing literature, presenting an original theory of justice, which combines Hegelian recognition theory and republican ideas of freedom, and applying this hybrid theory to the global domain. Fabian Schuppert creates a grand synthesis uniting neo-republican insights on freedom with Hegelian recognition theory. The result is an account of agency that arises from the idea of non-domination whose aim it is to safeguard individual freedom. When combined with Hegelian recognition theory a social focus also emerges. This amalgam comments on many of the major disputes concerning global justice from a cosmopolitan perspective. Because of the broad scope and the many contemporary discussions engaged this book will be of keen interest to scholars as well as a welcome addition to the classroom. (shrink)

Martin Heideggers Abendgespräch in einem russischen Kriegsgefangenenlager zwischen einem Jüngeren und einem Älteren ist datiert auf den 8. Mai 1945, den Tag, an dem der Nationalsozialismus besiegt wurde. Der Schlüssel zum Verständnis des Textes ist ein Zitat aus dem klassischen daoistischen Buch Zhuangzi. Warum wendet sich Heidegger an diesem Tag der chinesischen Philosophie zu? Für den Philosophen und Sinologen Fabian Heubel birgt das Abendgespräch die einzigartige Gelegenheit, Heideggers Öffnung für östliches Denken kritisch zu erörtern. Zugleich zeigt sich die Kommunikationsverweigerung (...) zwischen Heidegger und Adorno in neuem Licht, indem das Buch beide mit Hilfe daoistischen paradoxen Denkens ins Gespräch kommen lässt. Im Kommunizieren dieser drei Momente tritt eine transkulturelle Kritik hervor, die durch geschichtliches Bewusstsein von Nöten gezeichnet ist. Heideggers Kehre nach Osten ist gescheitert. Andererseits gibt es keinen philosophischen Weg nach China, der an seinem Denken vorbeiführt."-- Back cover. (shrink)

Virtue Reliabilism holds that knowledge is a cognitive achievement—an epistemic success that is creditable to the cognitive abilities of the knowing subject. Beyond this consensus, there is much disagreement amongst proponents of virtue reliabilism about the conditions under which the credit-relation between an epistemic success and a person’s cognitive abilities holds. This paper aims to establish a new and attractive view of this crucial relation in terms of difference-making. We will argue that the resulting theory, Difference-Making Virtue Epistemology, can deal (...) with cases of epistemic luck and testimonial knowledge while revealing the common core of knowledge and other achievements. (shrink)

Cutting across boundaries of art and science, evolution is a fundamental process that has beguiled thinkers through the ages. This collection draws together world renowned thinkers and communicators with their own intriguing insights. In these essays they offer a feast of dazzling thoughts and ideas to challenge and enthrall the reader. Why and how do civilisations and societies change over time? Why do our cells develop the way they do? Why are some villages still villages while others have grown into (...) vast cities? Can we learn from our evolutionary past to plan a better future for our health and society? Tracing a line from the history of biological evolution, through the evolution of cultures, society, science and the universe, Evolution brings together intriguing parallels from all levels of life. From the evolution of the developing embryo to the evolution of a developing star, common threads develop into a fascinating story. (shrink)

Begründet und entfaltet wird ein Begriff des Spiels, der sich um Lockungen und Drohungen des Unerwarteten dreht. Das Autorenduo ordnet seine Theorie der ludischen Aktion in klassische Konzepte des Spiels ein sowie in den aktuellen Diskurs der Game Studies. Die phänomenale Mannigfaltigkeit des Spiels wird in historischer Perspektive skizziert und in systematischer Weise gegliedert. Die Autoren erläutern medientechnische und kommunikative Voraussetzungen des Booms der Computerspiele und reflektieren die Diskussion über Eskalationen ludischer Gewalt. Kritisch ausgeleuchtet werden Instrumentalisierungen des Spiels, die sich (...) unter dem Stichwort Gamification wachsender Beliebtheit erfreuen. Die auffällige Inflation der Spielmetapher wird in Zusammenhang gebracht mit ludischen Anmutungen in den sozialen Strukturen der modernen und digitalen Gesellschaft. Fabian Arlt, M. A., hat Medienmanagement studiert und promoviert im Studiengang Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftskommunikation der Universität der Künste (UdK) in Berlin. Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Arlt ist Sozialwissenschaftler und Publizist, er lehrt am Institut für Theorie und Praxis der Kommunikation der Universität der Künste (UdK) in Berlin. (shrink)

Empirical research shows the significant negative effects inequality has on aspects such as public health, vulnerability to violence, and social trust. While the majority of researchers agree that there exist specific social determinants of health as well as a distinct social gradient in health , there is wide disagreement both over what the exact causal relationship between social inequalities and health is, and what the adequate policy responses especially to the SGH are. For policy-oriented theorists, the question arises which normative (...) implications these empirical findings offer for philosophers working on equality.This paper argues that the first lesson philosophers should take away from the empirical literature is that the issue that needs to be addressed is harmful social inequality, rather than unequal material distributions, or unequal opportunities and starting gates as such. That is to say, inequality with respect to a specific feature X is not—in itself—the problem, but the problem are the negative effects of certain harmful forms of complex social inequalities. For our normative analysis this entails that we should focus on the conceptualization of the ideal of social equality, and the kinds of relationships and institutional arrangements compatible with it. (shrink)

A libertarian theory of justice holds that persons are self-owners and have the Hohfeldian moral power to justly acquire property rights in initially unowned external resources. Different variants of libertarianism can be distinguished according to their stance on the famous Lockean proviso. The proviso requires, in Locke’s words, to leave ‘enough and as good’ for others, and thus specifies limits on the acquisition of property. Left-libertarians accept an egalitarian interpretation of the proviso, ‘right-libertarians’ either reject any kind of proviso or (...) accept rather weak versions of it. In be-tween there is room for moderate interpretations of the proviso, and in particular for a sufficientarian interpretation: a ‘sufficiency proviso.’ The resulting theory of justice can be called ‘moderate libertarianism.’ In this article I make a case for moderate libertarianism, so understood. I argue that moderate libertarianism has advantages over both left- and right-libertarianism because it better coheres with the most plausible rationale for endorsing a libertarian theory of justice in the first place. (shrink)

This book explores the morality of compromising. The author argues that peace and public justification are values that provide moral reasons to make compromises in politics, including compromises that establish unjust laws or institutions. He explains how it is possible to have moral reasons to agree to moral compromises and he debates our moral duties and obligations in making such compromises. The book also contains discussions of the sources of the value of public justification, the relation between peace and justice, (...) the nature of modus vivendi arrangements and the connections between compromise, liberal institutions and legitimacy. In exploring the morality of compromising, the book thus provides some outlines for a map of political morality beyond justice. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Was there a linguistic turn in Frankfurt School Critical Theory before Habermas's communications-theoretic one? Might later Wittgenstein and the early Frankfurt School have adopted similar pictures of language? I propose that both questions should be answered affirmatively, focusing on Horkheimer's Eclipse of Reason. I argue that, thanks to the picture of language that Horkheimer and Adorno share with (later) Wittgenstein, we can reconstruct their theory in a way that renders it more defensible. Insofar as the human life form and language (...) are inseparable, language can be an inextinguishable reservoir of what Horkheimer called "objective reason." Recognizing this allows us to answer Habermas's critique of Horkheimer and Adorno. Moreover, paying attention to this inseparableness can enable us to engage in disclosing social critique (for example, regarding current debates about sustainability). (shrink)

We report two experiments which tested whether cognitive capacities are limited to those functions that are computationally tractable (PTIME-Cognition Hypothesis). In particular, we investigated the semantic processing of reciprocal sentences with generalized quantifiers, i.e., sentences of the form Q dots are directly connected to each other, where Q stands for a generalized quantifier, e.g. all or most. Sentences of this type are notoriously ambiguous and it has been claimed in the semantic literature that the logically strongest reading is preferred (Strongest (...) Meaning Hypothesis). Depending on the quantifier, the verification of their strongest interpretations is computationally intractable whereas the verification of the weaker readings is tractable. We conducted a picture completion experiment and a picture verification experiment to investigate whether comprehenders shift from an intractable reading to a tractable reading which should be dispreferred according to the Strongest Meaning Hypothesis. The results from the picture completion experiment suggest that intractable readings occur in language comprehension. Their verification, however, rapidly exceeds cognitive capacities in case the verification problem cannot be solved using simple heuristics. In particular, we argue that during verification, guessing strategies are used to reduce computational complexity. (shrink)

The article defends the claim that if some laws are (or would be) widely accepted, this provides pro tanto moral reasons to support these laws and not to support otherwise better laws that are not widely accepted. In that sense the value of having widely accepted laws provides moral reasons to make compromises in politics, and it justifies a modest and qualified status quo bias. Widely accepted laws are valuable because they reduce enforcement costs, have symbolic value, help to maintain (...) peace, and realize the value of non-subjugation. (shrink)

Public reason liberals from John Rawls to Gerald Gaus uphold a principle of public justification as a core commitment of their theories. Critics of public reason liberalism have sometimes conceded that there is something compelling about the idea of public justification. But so far there have not been many attempts to elaborate and defend a ‘comprehensive’ liberalism that incorporates a principle of public justification. This article spells out how public justifiability could be integrated into a comprehensive liberalism and defends the (...) claim that what is worthwhile about public justification can be extracted from public reason liberalism. (shrink)

It seems natural to think that compromises ought to be fair. But it is false. In this paper, I argue that it is never a moral desideratum to reach fair compromises and that we are sometimes even morally obligated to try to establish unfair compromises. The most plausible conception of the fairness of compromises is David Gauthier’s principle of minimax relative concession. According to that principle, a compromise is fair when all parties make equal concessions relative to how much they (...) can gain from an agreement and relative to how much they would lose without an agreement. To find out whether reaching a fair compromise sometimes is a moral desideratum, I discuss several paradigmatic cases in friendships, economics and politics, and I try to show that even when the parties have moral reasons to refrain from trying to maximize utility in the negotiations, they do not have moral reasons to aim at a fair compromise. My second claim is that we are sometimes morally obligated to try to establish unfair compromises, in particular when we are dealing with parties that try to establish morally very bad political arrangements. In such cases, we should try to concede as little as possible to achieve an outcome that is morally acceptable. Fair compromises, in other words, are morally much more dubious than is usually appreciated. (shrink)

En el presente artículo me ocupo de la discusión acerca de cuán exigentes son nuestras obligaciones de contribuir con dinero y tiempo a las agencias humanitarias que asisten a personas en situación de pobreza extrema en el mundo. Defiendo una posición intermedia, moderada, frente a la posición extrema formulada por Peter Singer y frente a la posición según la cual nuestras obligaciones son mínimas. La objeción principal contra esas dos posiciones es que, cuando analizan la situación en que los potenciales (...) donantes se encuentran frente a las personas en situación de pobreza extrema, omiten el carácter iterativo que es propio de esa situación. La posición moderada, en cambio, tiene en cuenta ese carácter, gracias a que entiende a nuestras obligaciones hacia los pobres globales como obligaciones imperfectas. In this article I engage in the debate about the demandingness of our duties to contribute with money and time to humanitarian agencies that assist people who live in extreme poverty around the world. I defend an intermediate, moderate, view against Peter Singer's extreme view, and also against the view according to which our duties are minimal. The main objection regarding those two views is that, when they analyze the situation in which potential donors are vis-à-vis people who live in extreme poverty, they miss its distinctive iterative character. The moderate view, on the contrary, pays heed to that character, thanks to its account of our duties towards the global poor as imperfect duties. (shrink)

After the parliamentary elections in Germany in September 2017, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU), The Greens (Bündnis90/Die Grünen) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) started to negotiate about forming a coalition government. But, surprising to many, the FDP decided to let these coalition talks collapse, and many commentators in Germany found it highly problematic for a political party to refuse to take responsibility in government. Interestingly, the question whether (or: when) democratic parties may legitimately refuse (...) to govern has so far been neglected in political theory and political philosophy. The article develops a general answer by discussing several possible reasons for thinking that it is sometimes wrong to refuse to govern and thereby engages both democratic theory and the recent literature on compromise. The resulting view is that parties have an ‘integrity prerogative’ that allows them to refuse to govern, except when there is no reasonable and stable alternative government coalition available. (shrink)

Within the debate on the epistemology of aesthetic appreciation, it has a long tradition, and is still very common, to endorse the sentimentalist view that our aesthetic evaluations are rationally grounded on, or even constituted by, certain of our emotional responses to the objects concerned. Such a view faces, however, the serious challenge to satisfactorily deal with the seeming possibility of faultless disagreement among emotionally based and epistemically appropriate verdicts. I will argue that the sentimentalist approach to aesthetic epistemology cannot (...) accept and accommodate this possibility without thereby undermining the assumed capacity of emotions to justify corresponding aesthetic evaluations – that is, without undermining the very sentimentalist idea at the core of its account. And I will also try to show that sentimentalists can hope to deny the possibility of faultless disagreement only by giving up the further view that aesthetic assessments are intersubjective – a view which is almost as traditional and widely held in aesthetics as sentimentalism, and which is indeed often enough combined with the latter. My ultimate conclusion is therefore that this popular combination of views should better be avoided: either sentimentalism or intersubjectivism has to make way. (shrink)

© Editorial matter and selection, 2008 Deborah Cook. Introduction Moral philosophy used to be full of promises. In ancient times, it aimed at providing a guide to the good life that integrated moral matters with other concerns. In modern times, it set out to present a supreme principle of morality from which a full-blown system of obligations and permissions was meant to be derived, guiding or constraining our conduct. However, if Adorno is to be believed, the promises of moral philosophy (...) have not been fulfilled: neither the good life, nor even the moral life, is currently available. In this sense, his position can be characterized as a negative moral philosophy. What makes this position interesting is why Adorno thinks that both the good life and the moral life are blocked and what implications he draws from this in terms of criticizing the dominant strands of modern moral philosophy and suggesting how we should live our distorted and deformed lives. In this chapter we shall look at each of these aspects and ask the following questions: 1. Why can no one live the right life in our current social world? 2. Why does the task of moral philosophy today consist essentially in the critique of moral philosophy? 3. Does Adorno say anything about how we should live, or is his negative moral philosophy devoid of any practical guidance? The impossibility of right living today Adorno is not alone in thinking that something is problematic about ethical practice and theory in the modern social world. For example, contemporary Aristotelians often lament the breakdown of traditional social practices which underwrote the exercise of the virtues. (shrink)

Considering his status as the best fighter on the Trojan side, Hector’s flight in “Iliad” 22.131-7 is unexpected and surprising, even though Hector is never overtly reproached for his reaction. This article proposes a psychological explanation for Hector’s behaviour, drawing on recent insights concerning combat stress reaction (CSR) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Hector does not flee from fear of death, but from the “Wind of Hate”, i. e. the terror felt when confronted with direct and personal aggression. An examination (...) of the actions of Achilles in the “Iliad” supports this conclusion, for Achilles exhibits behaviour which would qualify for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. The intense personal hatred of Achilles is sufficient to shock Hector into flight, even if he ultimately recovers and heroically faces Achilles in battle. Thus, the scene bears testimony to the “Iliad”’s understanding of the universal human experiences of warfare and aggression. (shrink)

Teamwork has been argued to play an increasingly important role in numerous jobs, and several studies focused on the effects of team composition for work-related outcomes. Recent research has also identified individuals’ character strengths and positive team roles as conducive to work-related outcomes. However, there is a scarcity of research on the role of character strengths or positive team roles on the level of teams. In the present study, we extend theoretical assumptions of team role theories to the study of (...) character strengths and positive team roles: We examined the associations between character strengths and team roles with work-related outcomes on the individual and the team level. Further, we examined how the team composition relates to the outcomes, that is, whether balanced teams go along with desired outcomes and whether an overrepresentation of team roles or character strengths in a team goes along with undesired outcomes. We studied a sample of 42 teams who completed measures of team roles, character strengths, teamwork quality, job satisfaction, and self-rated individual and team performance. Further, supervisor ratings of individual and team performance were collected. Results corroborated the relationships of team roles and character strengths with individual outcomes such as that specific roles and character strengths go along with individual performance and work satisfaction. Further, the results suggested that teams in which more team roles are represented report higher performance and teamwork quality. Also, teams with higher average levels of the character strengths of teamwork and fairness, and teams with more members scoring high in fairness and prudence report higher teamwork quality. Further, there is no evidence that having too many members with a particular character strength has detrimental effects on teamwork quality, work satisfaction, or performance. We conclude that extending the study of character to the level of teams offers an important advancement. (shrink)

Please send me an email (fabian[email protected]) if you wish to receive a copy of the book. — 'In this highly ambitious, wide ranging, immensely impressive and ground-breaking work Fabian Dorsch surveys just about every account of the imagination that has ever been proposed. He identifies five central types of imagining that any unifying theory must accommodate and sets himself the task of determining whether any theory of what imagining consists in covers these five paradigms. Focussing on what he (...) takes to be the three main theories, and giving them each equal consideration, he faults the first two and embraces the third, which argues that imagining is a special form of mental agency. The scholarship is immaculate, the writing crystal clear and the argumentation always powerful.' (Malcolm Budd). (shrink)

While John Rawls made the notion of a “modus vivendi” prominent in political philosophy, he treats modus vivendi arrangements rather short and dismissively. On the other hand, some political theorists like John Gray praise modus vivendi as the only available and legitimate goal of politics. In the article I sketch the outlines of a different, more nuanced approach to modus vivendi arrangements. I argue that the moral standing of modus vivendi arrangements varies, and I try to spell out the factors (...) that determine the relative moral standing of modus vivendi arrangements. (shrink)

It is often assumed that in order to avoid the most severe consequences of global anthropogenic climate change we have to preserve our existing carbon sinks, such as for instance tropical forests. Global carbon sink conservation raises a host of normative issues, though, since it is debatable who should pay the costs of carbon sink conservation, who has the duty to protect which sinks, and how far the duty to conserve one’s carbon sinks actually extends, especially if it conflicts with (...) other duties one might have. According to some, forested states like Ecuador have a duty to preserve their tropical forests while the rich states of the global North have a duty of fairness to compensate states like Ecuador for the costs they incur. My aim in this paper is to critically analyse this standard line of argument and to criticise its validity both internally and externally. As I will argue, the duty to conserve one’s forests is only a particular instantiation of a wider, more general duty to contribute towards global climate justice for which the context in which one operates matters significantly. (shrink)

According to the Budget Approach proposed by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), allocating CO2 emission rights to countries on an equal per-capita basis would provide an ethically justified response to global climate change. In this paper, we will highlight four normative issues which beset the WBGU’s Budget Approach: (1) the approach’s core principle of distributive justice, the principle of equality, and its associated policy of emissions egalitarianism are much more complex than it initially appears; (2) the “official” (...) rationale for determining the size of the budget should be modified in order to avoid implausible normative assumptions about the imposition of permissible intergenerational risks; (3) the approach heavily relies on trade-offs between justice and feasibility which should be stated more explicitly; and (4) part of the approach’s ethical appeal depends on policy instruments which are “detachable” from the approach’s core principle of distributive justice. (shrink)

The hitherto neglected Pandechion epistemonicon, Ulisse Aldrovandi’s extant manuscript encyclopaedia, indicates that Renaissance naturalists did not necessarily apply the humanist jack-of-all-trades, the commonplace book, in their own field without considerably altering its form. Over many years the Italian natural historian tested and recombined different techniques to arrive at the form of paper technology that he considered to be the most fit for his purposes. Not all of these techniques were taught at school or university. Rather, Aldrovandi drew on administrative practices (...) as well as on the bookkeeping practices of early modern merchants that he knew first-hand. Reconstructing the formation and use of the Pandechion this article contributes to the historiography of learned reading and information management in Renaissance Europe. (shrink)

From a left-libertarian perspective, it seems almost impossible for states to acquire political authority. For that reason, left-libertarians like Peter Vallentyne understandably hope that states without political authority could nonetheless implement left-libertarian justice. Vallentyne has argued that one can indeed assess a state’s justness without assessing its political authority. Against Vallentyne, I try to show that states without political authority have to be judged unjust even if they successfully promote justice. The reason is that institutions can be unjust independently from (...) what they achieve or do: they can be ‘intrinsically unjust’. Institutions, I argue, are intrinsically unjust when they have legal liberties and powers without having the corresponding moral liberties and powers. States without political authority are intrinsically unjust in that sense. Hence the issues of a state’s justness and a state’s political authority cannot be dealt with separately. This is a problem not only for left-libertarians but for ‘philosophical anarchism’ more generally. (shrink)

Adorno notoriously asserted that there is no 'right' life in our current social world. This assertion has contributed to the widespread perception that his philosophy has no practical import or coherent ethics, and he is often accused of being too negative. Fabian Freyenhagen reconstructs and defends Adorno's practical philosophy in response to these charges. He argues that Adorno's deep pessimism about the contemporary social world is coupled with a strong optimism about human potential, and that this optimism explains his (...) negative views about the social world, and his demand that we resist and change it. He shows that Adorno holds a substantive ethics, albeit one that is minimalist and based on a pluralist conception of the bad - a guide for living less wrongly. His incisive study does much to advance our understanding of Adorno, and is also an important intervention into current debates in moral philosophy. (shrink)

The imagination poses fascinating philosophical questions across a range of subjects including philosophy of mind, aesthetics and epistemology. However, until now it has been a relatively neglected topic. How do acts of imagining differ from other mental episodes, such as perceptions or judgements? What kind of awareness is involved in imagining? Can imagining ground knowledge and if so, how reliable is it? Is there some unity to the various forms of imagining? In this book Fabian Dorsch considers these questions, (...) introducing and assessing all the main issues and arguments concerning imagination, including: episodic imagining imagining objects propositional imagining imagination and epistemology imagination and aesthetics imagination and cognitive science the unity of imagining. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary, _Imagination_ is an ideal starting point for anyone studying the philosophy of imagination for the first time as well as more advanced students and researchers in philosophy, psychology and related disciplines. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that dominant conceptions of intelligence used in artificial intelligence (AI) are biased by normative assumptions that originate from the Global North, making it questionable if AI can be uncritically applied elsewhere without risking serious harm to vulnerable people. After the introduction in Sect. 1 we shortly present the history of IQ testing in Sect. 2, focusing on its multiple discriminatory biases. To determine how these biases came into existence, we define intelligence ontologically and underline its (...) constructed and culturally variable character. Turning to AI, specifically the Turing Test (TT), in Sect. 3, we critically examine its underlying intelligence conceptions. The test has been of central influence in AI research and remains an important point of orientation. We argue that both the test itself and how it is used in practice risk promoting a limited conception of intelligence which solely originated in the Global North. Hence, this conception should be critically assessed in relation to the different global contexts in which AI technologies are and will be used. In Sect. 4, we highlight how unequal power relations in AI research are a real threat, rather than just philosophical sophistry while considering the history of IQ testing and the TT’s practical biases. In the last section, we examine the limits of our account and identify fields for further investigation. Tracing colonial continuities in AI intelligence research, this paper points to a more diverse and historically aware approach to the design, development, and use of AI. (shrink)

The later Rawls attempts to offer a non-comprehensive, but nonetheless moral justification in political philosophy. Many critics of political liberalism doubt that this is successful, but Rawlsians often complain that such criticisms rely on the unwarranted assumption that one cannot offer a moral justification other than by taking a philosophically comprehensive route. In this article, I internally criticize the justification strategy employed by the later Rawls. I show that he cannot offer us good grounds for the rational hope that citizens (...) will assign political values priority over non-political values in cases of conflict about political matters. I also suggest an alternative approach to justification in political philosophy (that is, a weak realist, Williams-inspired account) that better respects the later Rawls’s concern with non-comprehensiveness and pluralism than either his own view or more comprehensive approaches. Thus, if we take reasonable pluralism seriously, then we should adopt what Shklar aptly called ‘liberalism of fear’. (shrink)

In a short passage towards the end of her book ›Intention‹ Elizabeth Anscombe briefly discusses the topic of »practical knowledge« in the sense of knowledge-how. I interpret this passage within the context of the general argument of Intention. I argue that although this passage seems to be only loosely connected to the main topic of the book and to Anscombe’s own understanding of the term »practical knowledge«, it contains a central insight: the thought that practical knowledge in Anscombe’s understanding of (...) the term and what Ryle calls »knowledge-how« are not independently conceivable. Or, to put it more generally: Anscombe thinks that, at least when it comes to intentional action, the metaphysical concepts of form and capacity are mutually dependent and neither of the two can form the basis of a satisfactory discussion of the topic of rational action on its own. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung In der Forschung zum politischen System des spätrepublikanischen Roms werden besonders Comitien, Contiones und Spiele als Gelegenheiten untersucht, bei denen das römische Volk seine politische Meinung äußern konnte. Die drei Gelegenheiten waren allerdings elitendominiert, was eine unabhängige politische Meinungsäußerung seitens der Nicht-Elite zwar nicht unmöglich machte, doch aber erschwerte. Im folgenden Aufsatz sollen dagegen mit circuli, Statuensetzungen und funera popularia Plattformen untersucht werden, die von der Elite nicht einfach kontrolliert werden konnten. Eine elitenunabhängige Meinung, so die These, konnte insbesondere (...) in diesen Foren ausgebildet und gezeigt werden. Zum besseren Verständnis wird der Gegenstand anhand des politologischen Konzepts der ‚unverfassten‘ Partizipationsformen untersucht. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es presentar una objeción a uno de los principios centrales de la Teoría Representacional de la Mente (TRM): la idea de que la noción de representación interna tiene una función primordial en la explicación de la actividad cognitiva. De acuerdo con la TRM, la vida cognitiva de un organismo consiste esencialmente en la formación, procesamiento y almacenamiento de representaciones internas. Tales representaciones son vistas como objetos o eventos concretos capaces de influir causalmente en los procesos (...) cognitivos de los organismos. Expuesta en forma de dilema, la objeción pretende mostrar las dificultades inherentes a la postulación de representaciones internas, dada la manera en que estas representaciones y su operación han sido concebidas en el marco mismo de la TRM. La cuestión que introduce al dilema es: ¿en virtud de qué propiedades una representación interna influye en la actividad cognitiva de un organismo? Dos respuestas son posibles: en virtud de sus propiedades representacionales o en virtud de sus propiedades no representacionales. En la sección 1 se mostrarán las consecuencias problemáticas de cada una de estas respuestas y en la sección 2 se discutirán dos ejemplos que ilustran estas dificultades. El resultado del dilema es que la noción de representación interna es incapaz de satisfacer la función explicativa que le ha sido asignada por la propia TRM. (shrink)