Animal ethicists have been debating the morality of speciesism for over forty years. Despite rather persuasive arguments against this form of discrimination, many philosophers continue to assign humans a higher moral status than nonhuman animals. The primary source of evidence for this position is our intuition that humans’ interests matter more than the similar interests of other animals. And it must be acknowledged that this intuition is both powerful and widespread. But should we trust it for all that? The present (...) paper defends a negative answer to that question, based on a debunking argument. The intuitive belief that humans matter more than other animals is unjustified because it results from an epistemically defective process. It is largely shaped by tribalism, our tendency to favor ingroup members as opposed to outgroup members. And this influence is distortive for two reasons. First, tribalism evolved for reasons unrelated to moral truths; hence, it would at best produce true moral beliefs accidentally. Second, tribalism generates a vast quantity of false moral beliefs, starting with racist beliefs. Once this intuition is discarded, little evidence remains that speciesism is morally acceptable. (shrink)

Common sense has it that animals matter considerably less than humans; the welfare and suffering of a cow, a chicken or a fish are important but not as much as the welfare and suffering of a human being. Most animal ethicists reject this “speciesist” view as mere prejudice. In their opinion, there is no difference between humans and other animals that could justify such unequal consideration. In the opposite camp, advocates of speciesism have long tried to identify a difference that (...) would fit the bill, but they have consistently seemed to fail. In light of this, some naturally began to appeal to Moorean arguments: the case against speciesism must be flawed somehow, these philosophers maintain, because speciesism is supported by a strong and widespread intuition. This chapter draws on recent findings in social psychology to criticize this defence of speciesism. It argues that the strong and widespread intuition that humans count more than animals is epistemically defective because it is causally shaped by a pair of irrelevant influences: cognitive dissonance and tribalism. Accordingly, it is no suitable basis for a Moorean argument. (shrink)

We present bibliometric evidence for increasing estrangement between the philosophy of economics and economics itself. Our analysis centers on research articles published in the Journal of Economic Methodology (JEM) between 1994 and 2021. We analyze the citations within these research articles, in particular with respect to the citations of economics. Our results are fourfold. (1) The share of economic citations in JEM articles has been decreasing. (2) The remaining economic citations in JEM articles are increasingly older relative to citation patterns (...) within economics. (3) The profile of economic citations in JEM articles is increasingly dissimilar when compared to what is cited within economics. (4) There is decreasing diversity with regards to the share of attention towards different economic subfields in the articles published in JEM when compared to economics. We discuss interpretations of this evidence for estrangement between philosophy of economics and economics. (shrink)

In 'Ethics Without Sentience: Facing Up to the Probable Insignificance of Phenomenal Consciousness' (Kammerer, 2022), I argued that phenomenal consciousness is probably normatively insignificant, and does not play a significant normative role. In 'Preserving the Normative Significance of Sentience' (Dung, 2024), Leonard Dung challenges my reasoning and defends sentientism about value and moral status against my arguments. Here I respond to Dung's criticism, pointing out three flaws in his reply. My conclusion is that the view that phenomenal consciousness is distinctively (...) significant is still very much under threat. (shrink)

Francois Recanati presents the basic features of the *indexical model* of mental files, and defends it against several interrelated objections. According to this model, mental files refer to objects in a way that is analogous to that of indexicals in language: a file refers to an object in virtue of a contextual relation between them. For instance, perception and attention provide the basis for demonstrative files. Several objections, some of them from David Papineau, concern the possibility of files to preserve (...) and add information about objects across contexts. How is it possible to think about the same object when the subject no longer is in the original context? How is it possible to think of a perceived object as already known? Can this be done without an explicit identity judgment? Recanati answers these questions by invoking mental files of non-basic kinds and by describing the cognitive dynamics in which they take part. (shrink)

Animal ethicists often distinguish between direct and indirect defenses of speciesism, where the former appeal to species membership and the latter invoke other features that are simply associated with it. The main extant charge against indirect defenses rests on the empirical claim that any feature other than membership in our species is either absent in some humans or present in some nonhumans. This paper challenges indirect defenses with a new argument, which presupposes no such empirical claim. Instead, the argument from (...) discordance resorts to the following principle: a certain feature can only justify discriminating on the basis of that feature. (shrink)

While the notion that CEOs have a general influence over their firms’ stakeholder strategies is well accepted, little attention has been given to how CEOs can actively and performatively manage social activism in and around their firms. I seek to develop an initial understanding of this phenomenon by examining some of the critical consequences of CEOs’ public responses to social activist challenges. Drawing on instrumental stakeholder theory and social movement theory, I recognize the dualistic nature of CEOs’ public responses to (...) social activist challenges; that is, a single response can influence both the direct pressure received from the focal social activists confronting the firm as well as the potential pressure the firm could face in the form of additional challenges. I argue that a CEO’s accommodative public response—seen by social activists as a sign that the CEO and firm are aligned with their beliefs, values, and motivations—will be negatively associated with the focal social activists’ willingness to punish the firm. At the same time, however, a CEO’s accommodative public response sends a broader signal—reflective of the CEO and firm’s relative openness to social activism and social issues—that will be positively associated with the perceived attractiveness of the firm’s corporate opportunity structure for social activism, increasing the potential for the firm to receive additional social activist challenges. I conduct a laboratory experiment based on a real-life case and find support for my arguments. The results yield important implications for research on strategic leadership, stakeholder strategy, and social movements. (shrink)

In this paper, we redefine the target of evolutionary explanations by proposing the “evosystem” as an alternative to populations, lineages and species. Evosystems account for changes in the distribution of heritable variation within individual Darwinian populations (evolution by natural selection, drift, or constructive neutral evolution), but also for changes in the networks of interactions within or between Darwinian populations and changes in the abiotic environment (whether these changes are caused by the organic entities or not). The evosystem can thereby become (...) a centerpiece for a redefined evolutionary science, that is, evolutionary studies, that apprehends through a single framework the variety of evolutionary processes that lie at various scales. To illustrate the importance of this broadened perspective on evolution, we use a case of antimicrobial resistance evolution: the spread of the blaNDM gene family and the related resistance to carbapenem antibiotics observed globally, and show how evolutionary studies can contribute to answering contemporary socially relevant challenges. (shrink)

François Jullien, the leading philosopher and specialist in Chinese thought, has always aimed at building on inter-cultural relations between China and the West. In this new book he focuses on the following questions: Do universal values exist? Is dialogue between cultures possible? To answer these questions, he retraces the history of the concept of the universal from its invention as an aspect of Roman citizenship, through its neutralization in the Christian idea of salvation, to its present day manifestations. This (...) raises the question of whether the search for the universal is a uniquely Western preoccupation: do other cultures, like China, even have a notion of the universal, and if so, how does it differ from ours? Having considered the meaning of the concept in the East and West, Jullien argues that, if communication between cultures is to be meaningful, facile assumptions of universal values and complacent relativism need to be examined. It follows, therefore, that dialogue between cultures should not begin with issues of identity and difference, but rather by considering divergence and profusion. By no longer simply assuming universality, we allow for greater self-reflection. This wide-ranging and engaging study will be of particular interest to students and scholars of philosophy and of Chinese culture and society. It will also appeal to a wider readership interested in contemporary thought and the challenges of communication between East and West. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is twofold. First, I present a framework called historical coherentism (Chang, 2004; Tal, 2016; Van fraassen 2008) and argue that it is the best epistemological framework available to tackle the problem of coordination, an epistemic conundrum that arises with every attempt to provide empirical content to scientific theories, models or statements. Second, I argue that the problem of coordination, which has so far been theorized only in the context of measurement practices (Reichenbach, 1927; Chang, 2001; (...) Tal, 2012; Van fraassen 2008), can be generalized beyond the philosophy of measurement. Specifically, it will be shown that the problem is embodied in classificatory practices and that, consequently, historical coherentism is well suited to analyze these practices as well as metrological ones. As a case study, I look at a contemporary debate in phylogenetics, regarding the evolutionary origin of a newly identified archaeal phylum called Methanonatronarchaeia. Exploring this debate through the lens of historical coherentism provides a detailed understanding of the dynamics of the field and a foothold for critical analyses of the standard rationale used by practitioners. (shrink)

Ce chapitre aborde trois questions au sujet du spécisme. En réponse à la question « Qu’est-ce que le spécisme ? », je définis le spécisme comme une discrimination en fonction de l'espèce. Je réponds ensuite par l'affirmative à la question « Le spécisme existe-t- il ? ». Dans les faits, beaucoup de gens discriminent les individus en fonction de leur espèce. Enfin, je traite la question « Le spécisme est-il juste ou injuste ? ». À l'instar du racisme et du (...) sexisme, le spécisme est injuste parce qu'il enfreint le principe d'égal traitement, qui nous demande de traiter les cas semblables de manière identique. (shrink)

L'internalisme motivationnel est la théorie selon laquelle il existe une connexion nécessaire entre les jugements moraux et la motivation. Dans ce chapitre, nous distinguons un certain nombre de ses variantes et écartons celles d’entre elles qui sont moins directement intéressantes pour les grands débats métaéthiques. Nous examinons ensuite trois arguments philosophiques qui échouent à établir ou à réfuter l'internalisme. Enfin, nous présentons quelques arguments empiriques, relevant respectivement de la psychologie, des neurosciences et de la philosophie expérimentale.

Ce chapitre est consacré à l'impartialité conçue comme une propriété des jugements moraux. Un jugement est impartial, au sens pertinent, si et seulement si son auteur y souscrirait même s’il n’occupait pas la position qu’il occupe actuellement. Les jugements moraux se doivent d'être impartiaux en ce sens en vertu de leur universalisabilité, c'est-à-dire en vertu du fait qu'ils impliquent des jugements identique pour tous les cas identiques quant à leurs propriétés universelles.

In this paper, we introduce a Hilbert style axiomatic calculus for intutionistic logic with strong negation. This calculus is a preservative extension of intuitionistic logic, but it can express that some falsity are constructive. We show that the introduction of strong negation allows us to define a square of opposition based on quantification on possible worlds.

The reception of rhetorical elements in the Letter to Philemon by Patristic exegetes. The aim of this study is to offer an overview of the way in which Patristic exegetes interpreted the rhetorical aspects of Paul’s Letter to Philemon. Although a rhetorical analysis of the letter was not the matter which interested them as such, one can still obtain a fairly good idea of the way in which they perceived such aspects by reading their explanations of this letter. Accordingly, the (...) contributions of all the Patristic exegetes in this regard are studied systematically in this study. The interpretations of the letters by Ambrosiaster, Jerome, John Chrysostom, Pelagius, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret of Cyrus are investigated from this angle. In each case, the most important comments on Paul’s rhetorical strategy are identified and discussed.Keywords: Pauline Letters; Letter to Philemon; Rhetorical Analaysis; Patristic Exegetes. (shrink)

Prenons par exemple une source de lumière et plaçons devant elle un filtre. Par quoi sera déterminée la lumière après le filtre, par la source ou par le filtre? Cette question triviale en soi peut conduire à des problèmes analogues d'un certain intérêt.

Le trimètre ïambique gravé sur la base du Colosse fait simplement référence au fait, en soi remarquable, que cette base très lourde a été taillée dans le même marbre naxien que la statue : les dédicants tiennent à le rappeler parce que cette opération (travail en carrière et transport) représentait un supplément de dépense considérable, témoignage de leur piété envers le dieu. Un passage parallèle de Diodore de Sicile (I 47,3) vient à l'appui de cette interprétation.

Dans cet article sont identifiés les principaux défis que la théorie darwinienne de l'évolution pose à la théologie chrétienne: défi à la théologie naturelle, l'action divine n'étant plus nécessaire pour rendre compte de l'origine des vivants; défi à la théodicée, le prix exorbitant payé par des individus et des espèces au fil de l'évolution rendant difficilement pensables la bienveillance et la toute-puissance de Dieu; défi à l'omniscience divine, puisque le processus évolutif obéit à un mécanisme aléatoire apparemment dépourvu de toute (...) finalité. Les ressources de la théologie contemporaine pour relever ces défis au coeur d'une conversation avec le récit scientifique sont ensuite explorées. (shrink)

La situación extrema de pobreza, marginalidad y todas las secuelas que derivan del actual orden histórico de la economía neoliberal globalizadora, es la principal característica que define a la sociedad moderna como injusta, a la vez que depredadora del hombre y de la naturaleza. Enfrentamos a..

Η χρονολογική έρευνα και η εξέταση του λίθου οδηγούν στην αποκατάσταση, πάνω από το απόσπασμα κειμένου αμφικτιονικής πράξης που μνημόνευα τον Αντίοχο Γ' και τη Λαοδίκη και δημοσιεύτηκε το 1954 από τον P. M. Fraser στο BCH, ενός καταλόγου ιερομνημόνων επί άρχοντος Φιλαιτώλου στους Δελφούς (201/0), καθώς και ορισμένων εχνακών διατάξεων. Με τη συμπλήρωση αυτή, ακόμη και αν το ακριβές αντικείμενο του περιεχομένου της παραμένει άγνωστο, η επιγραφή αποκαλύπτει τις επαφές που αναπτύχθηκαν μεταξύ του Σελευκίδη βασιλιά και των Αιτωλών, σε (...) μια περίοδο κρίσιμη και πρόσφορη για επανασυστάσεις συμμαχιών (μυστική συνθήκη συμμαχίας με τον Φίλιππο ΕΟ. (shrink)

SummaryIn this paper I will strive towards three main objectives. First of all, I will try to show that a very commonplace property of knowledge, that of yielding truth, can be used to characterize an ideal and radical notion of knowledge. It will be argued that this property generates a basic and autonomous concept of knowledge, i.e., a purely logical concept of knowledge that can be clearly separated from the psychological, intentional or epistemological aspects of knowledge. What results can thus (...) be regarded as a kind of reduction of the concept of knowledge to that of truth. This reduction will be expressed by means of a criterion which a relation between an agent and a sentence must satisfy in order to be interpreted as exemplifying the relation of knowing.Secondly, 1 will offer an analysis of presuppositional knowledge which shows how the very strong and ideal notion of knowledge previously developed can be useful in interpreting the ordinary use of “knowing”.My third and last objective will be to use this criterion to characterize formally the semantic interpretation associated to a rational and competent agent, i.e. the space of his knowledge. (shrink)

Nombreux sont les romans québécois qui, depuis une quinzaine d’années, construisent la figure du personnage à partir d’éléments empruntés à la vie de Jésus. Les romanciers ne cherchent pas à renouveler une quelconque vision de la vie du Christ, mais ils prennent prétexte de l’intertexte christique pour traiter de questions qui les préoccupent. Dans ce contexte, cet article fait voir plus précisément comment Pierre Samson, dans Le Messie de Belém, et Sylvain Trudel, dans Du mercure sous la langue, développent la (...) question du rapport de l’homme à l’amour. Tandis que le rapport amoureux est fondateur d’un nouvel espoir messianique chez Pierre Samson, il apparaît radicalement voué à l’inexistence chez Sylvain Trudel. There are many Quebec novels that, for 40 some years, have been constructing characters based on elements drawn from the life of Jesus. The novelists are not seeking to renew some ordinary vision of Christ, but use the Christ-like intertext in order to deal with questions that concern them. In this context, this article shows exactly how Pierre Samson, in Le Messie de Belém, and Sylvain Trudel, in Du mercure sous la langue, develop the question of the relation between the human being and love. While the love-relationship founds a new messianic home for Pierre Samson, it appears doomed to nonexistence for Sylvain Trudel. (shrink)

This research paper proceeds in three parts. After a brief presentation of Bernard Palissy, the first part examines his panpsychic ideas, the second part his ideas on art, which I connect in the third part to some of his remaining works and projects.

Understanding the link between brain evolution and the evolution of distinctive features of modern human cognition is a fundamental challenge. A still unresolved question concerns the co-evolution of tool behavior (i.e., tool use or tool making) and language. The shared neurocognitive processes hypothesis suggests that the emergence of the combinatorial component of language skills within the frontal lobe/Broca's area made possible the complexification of tool-making skills. The importance of the frontal lobe/Broca's area in tool behavior is somewhat surprising with regard (...) to the literature on neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience, which has instead stressed the critical role of the left inferior parietal lobe. Therefore, to be complete, any version of the shared neurocognitive processes hypothesis needs to integrate the potential interactions between the frontal lobe/Broca's area and the left inferior parietal lobe as well as their co-evolution at a phylogenetic level. Here, we sought to provide the first elements of answer through the use of the massive deployment framework, which posits that evolutionarily older brain areas are deployed in more cognitive functions (i.e., they are less specific). We focused on the left parietal cortex, and particularly the left areas PF, PGI, and anterior intraparietal (AIP), which are known to be involved in tool use, language, and motor control, respectively. The deployment of each brain area in different cognitive functions was measured by conducting a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. Our results confirmed the pattern of specificity for each brain area and also showed that the left area PGI was far less specific than the left areas PF and AIP. From these findings, we discuss the different evolutionary scenarios depicting the potential co-evolution of the combinatorial and generative components of language and tool behavior in our lineage. (shrink)