According to Miranda Fricker, a hermeneutical injustice occurs when there is a deficit in our shared tools of social interpretation, such that marginalized social groups are at a disadvantage in making sense of their distinctive and important experiences. Critics have claimed that Fricker's account ignores or precludes a phenomenon I call hermeneutical dissent, where marginalized groups have produced their own interpretive tools for making sense of those experiences. I clarify the nature of hermeneutical injustice to make room for hermeneutical dissent, (...) clearing up the structure of the collective hermeneutical resource and the fundamental harm of hermeneutical injustice. I then provide a more nuanced account of the hermeneutical resources in play in instances of hermeneutical injustice, enabling six species of the injustice to be distinguished. Finally, I reflect on the corrective virtue of hermeneutical justice in light of hermeneutical dissent. (shrink)

Bernard Stiegler highlights many of the problems faced by education with respect to the ‘bringing forth’ of knowledge on an individual, collective, and technical level in the Anthropocene. These problems include the short-circuiting of dreams, automatization of thought, and toxic digital networks. Stiegler’s φάρμακον seeks to treat the toxicity of the Anthropocene with a care-ful hermeneutic approach that is directed towards the disautomatized, inventive, co-individuating knowledge act. This paper first explores Stiegler’s Anthropocene and his development of Heideggerian ποίησις in terms (...) of the challenge of the ‘bringing forth’ of knowledge acts, which are illustrated by free software. It then explores, through the additional example of free radio, of Félix Guattari’s work in free radio, the problem and possibility of creative co-individuating ex-pression in the Anthropocene by expanding on Stiegler’s emphasis on the importance of hermeneutics. This raises the question of how to read Stiegler’s own ex-pression of the future of knowledge. Next, the paper reviews Stiegler’s educational project involving a dis-automatizable hermeneutic web. Finally, the paper gives an autoethnographic account of an attempt to ‘bring forth’ learning through the implementation of free software in local, online classrooms. The free software example does not solve the problem of the Anthropocene but does raise the question of our responsibility to choose our digital tools care-fully and the importance of maintaining the possibility of co-individuating ex-pression like the kind that is remembered in song and which online education should remind us of. (shrink)

Since the launch of applications such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, generative artificial intelligence has been controversial as a tool for creating artwork. While some have presented longtermist worries about these technologies as harbingers of fully automated futures to come, more pressing is the impact of generative AI on creative labour in the present. Already, business leaders have begun replacing human artistic labour with AI-generated images. In response, the artistic community has launched a protest movement, which argues that AI (...) image generation is a kind of theft. This paper analyzes, substantiates, and critiques these arguments, concluding that AI image generators involve an unethical kind of labour theft. If correct, many other AI applications also rely upon theft. (shrink)

Whilst Rahimzadeh et al. (2023) apply a critical lens to the pedagogical use of LLM bioethics assistants, we outline here further reason for skepticism. Two features of LLM chatbots are of signific...

When a computer system causes harm, who is responsible? This question has renewed significance given the proliferation of autonomous systems enabled by modern artificial intelligence techniques. At the root of this problem is a philosophical difficulty known in the literature as the responsibility gap. That is to say, because of the causal distance between the designers of autonomous systems and the eventual outcomes of those systems, the dilution of agency within the large and complex teams that design autonomous systems, and (...) the impossibility of fully predicting how autonomous systems will behave once deployed, determining who is morally responsible for harms caused by autonomous systems is unclear at a conceptual level. I review past work on this topic, criticizing prior works for suggesting workarounds rather than philosophical answers to the conceptual problem presented by the responsibility gap. The view I develop, drawing on my earlier work on vicarious moral responsibility, explains why computing professionals are ethically required to take responsibility for the systems they design, despite not being blameworthy for the harms these systems may cause. (shrink)

Packed with ideas designed to help children learn to sing, this booklet offers criteria for selecting songs, strategies to bring out the best in children's voices, and suggestions for games, ideas, and resources.

Conceptual engineering is concerned with the improvement of our concepts. The motivating thought behind many such projects is that some of our concepts are defective. But, if to use a defective concept is to do something wrong, and if to do something wrong one must be in control of what one is doing, there might be no defective concepts, since we typically are not in control of our concept use. To address this problem, this paper turns from appraising the concepts (...) we use to appraising the people who use them. First, I outline several ways in which the use of a concept can violate moral standards. Second, I discuss three accounts of moral responsibility, which I call voluntarism, rationalism, and psychologism, arguing that each allows us to find at least some cases where we are responsible for using defective concepts. Third, I answer an objection that because most of our concepts are acquired through processes for which we are not responsible, our use of defective concepts is a matter of bad luck, and not something for which we are responsible after all. Finally, I conclude by discussing some of the ways we may hold people accountable for using defective concepts. (shrink)

If we have libertarian free will, then it is plausible to believe that the occurrences of certain physical events have irreducible and ineliminable mental explanations. According to a strong version of naturalism, everything in the physical world is in principle explicable in nonmental terms. Therefore, the truth of naturalism implies that libertarian choices cannot explain the occurrences of any physical events. In this paper, I example a methodological argument for the truth of naturalism and conclude that the argument fails. I (...) then consider additional concerns raised against the reality of libertarian freedom. First, I examine the claim that if a physical event E is not causally determined to occur by another physical event, then there is no way to account for the difference between E’s occurring randomly and E’s being causally determined to occur by a mental event. Second, I consider the assertion that the affirmation of libertarianism is a mind-of-the-gaps version of the God-of-the-gaps objection to a divine explanation of a physical event. Third, I take up the question of whether the inability of libertarians to pinpoint precisely where the initial physical effects of libertarian choices occur is a good reason for rejecting libertarianism. Fourth, I examine the claim that belief in the existence of the soul or immaterial mind is the result of an explanatory hypothesis to account for how libertarian free choices can causally produce physical effects. Fifth, I look at the traditional objection to substance dualism from the impossibility of causal interaction between a soul and its body. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Descartes Malebranche and Leibniz.

When we encounter extremist rhetoric, we often find it dumbfounding, incredible, or straightforwardly unintelligible. For this reason, it can be tempting to dismiss or ignore it, at least where it is safe to do so. The problem discussed in this paper is that such dismissals may be, at least in certain circumstances, epistemically unjust. Specifically, it appears that recent work on the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice compels us to accept two unpalatable conclusions: first, that this failure of intelligibility when we (...) encounter extremist rhetoric may be a manifestation of a hermeneutical injustice; and second, that remedying this injustice requires that we ought to become more engaged with and receptive of extremist worldviews. Whilst some theorists might interpret this as a reductio of this framework of epistemic in/justice, we push back against this conclusion. First, we argue that with a suitably amended conception of hermeneutical justice—one that is sensitive to the contextual nature of our hermeneutical responsibilities, and to the difference between understanding a worldview and accepting it—we can bite the bullet and accept that certain extremists are subject to hermeneutical injustice, but without committing ourselves to any unpalatable conclusions about how we ought to remedy these injustices. Second, we argue that bringing the framework of hermeneutical in/justice to bear upon the experience of certain extremists actually provides a new and useful perspective on one of the causes of extremism, and how it might be undermined. (shrink)

My dissertation consists of two main parts. In the first part, I begin by assuming the plausibility of the libertarian thesis that agents sometimes could have done otherwise than they did given the very same history of the world. In light of this assumption, I undertake to develop a model of agency which does not employ the concept of agent-causation. My agency theory is developed in three main stages: I suggest that any agency theory must satisfy four desiderata: It must (...) adequately account for the freedom and responsibility of human agents. It must provide an adequate answer to the question of what distinguishes human actions from mere happenings. It must adequately account for the epistemological fact that human agents have an immediate and nonobservational awareness of their actions. It should have the support of a respectable philosophical tradition. I argue that agent-causation provides a theory of agency which fails adequately to satisfy these four desiderata. I claim both that human actions are uncaused exercisings by agents of their powers and that human agents typically act for reasons. I maintain that the central issue dividing agency theorists and nonagency theorists is whether reasons for performing actions cause the latter. I maintain that the sense of 'because' in 'I did x because...' is not causal in nature, but teleological. ;Having developed my model of agency, in the second part of my dissertation I investigate what are some of the paradigmatic actions human agents perform. I claim that bodily actions, such as moving an arm, are psychological in nature. Essential to my argument is the concept of a body-image. A normal agent 'feels' as if she is present in her physical arm. The way a normal agent feels is revealed in the case of a phantom limb. The subject of a phantom arm feels as if her amputated physical arm is still there and she can move while feeling armishly. I maintain that the bodily action of moving an arm is the agent's movement as a psychological arm-image of her physical arm, whether the physical arm is present or not. (shrink)

When you expect something bad to happen, you take action to avoid it. That is the principle of action that underlies J. Y. Lee’s recent paper (2021), which presents a new form of epistemic injustice that arises from anticipating negative consequences for testifying. In this brief reply article occasioned by Lee’s essay, I make two main contributions to the discussion of this idea. The first (§§2–3) is an intervention in the discussion between Lee and Eric Bayruns García regarding the relationship (...) between anticipatory epistemic injustice and Kristie Dotson’s concept of testimonial smothering. The second (§§4–5) is to expand the concept of anticipatory epistemic injustice into the educational context, and to illuminate yet another form of anticipatory epistemic injustice, which I call anticipatory zetetic injustice (§6). (shrink)

Vicarious responsibility is sometimes analysed by considering the different kinds of agents involved—who is vicariously responsible for the actions of whom? In this paper, I discuss vicarious responsibility from a different angle: in what sense is the vicarious agent responsible? I do this by considering the ways in which one may take responsibility for events caused by another agent or process. I discuss three senses of taking responsibility—accepting fault, assuming obligations, and fulfilling obligations—and the forms of vicarious responsibility that correspond (...) to these. I end by explaining how to judge which sense applies in a given case, based on the degree of (what I call) moral entanglement between the agent and what they should take responsibility for. (shrink)

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts discussed in this book. The book aims to provide the reader with a detailed account of the philosophical thought of Clive Staples Lewis. That thought remains relevant to contemporary philosophical discussions more than fifty years after his death. To illustrate how, the book deals with the recent contributions to a page of The Wall Street Journal under the title “Terms of Enlightenment”. The authors Frank Wilczek, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and (...) Steven Pinker, a psychologist at Harvard University, were asked to give their views about which scientific term or concept should be more widely known in 2017. Wilczek selected the concept of complementarity. Pinker believes the concept that deserves wider recognition is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The book discusses Lewis' responses according to the taken concepts of these authors. (shrink)

This chapter talks about Clive Staples Lewis's thoughts regarding naturalism and morality. Lewis's view of morality and its relationship to happiness, along with his views about the intrinsic goodness of pleasure and the intrinsic evilness of pain, raises the specter of what is known in philosophy as Euthyphro's Dilemma. To illustrate what Lewis had in mind, it is helpful to consider briefly the modern evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson's explanation of how there can be meaning in life in a naturalistic (...) universe. Wilson is proposing that the meaning of life (human existence) is a matter of making sense of things. Lewis would have made clear that the fact that Wilson attempts to explain how there is meaning in life in a naturalistic universe confirms that he and we are beings who are committed to making sense of things. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Naturalism versus Theism The Physical World Cross‐Cultured Inquiry Value Inquiry.

Cette courte note tente de comprendre l’étrange proximité de Nietzsche et de Bataille en la situant au niveau d’une expérience identique, celle d’un saut : éternel retour et non-savoir.

This book is a clear and concise history of the soul in western philosophy, from Plato to cutting-edge contemporary work in philosophy of mind. Packed with arguments for and against a range of different, historically significant philosophies of the soul Addresses the essential issues, including mind-body interaction, the causal closure of the physical world, and the philosophical implications of the brain sciences for the soul's existence Includes coverage of theories from key figures, such as Plato, Aquinas, Locke, Hume, and Descartes (...) Unique in combining the history of ideas and the development of a powerful case for a non-reductionist, non-materialist account of the soul. (shrink)

Rape of women by men might be generated either by a specialized rape adaptation or as a by-product of other psychological adaptations. Although increasing number of sexual partners is a proposed benefit of rape according to the “rape as an adaptation” and the “rape as a by-product” hypotheses, neither hypothesis addresses directly why some men rape their long-term partners, to whom they already have sexual access. In two studies we tested specific hypotheses derived from the general hypothesis that sexual coercion (...) in the context of an intimate relationship may function as a sperm competition tactic. We hypothesized that men’s sexual coercion in the context of an intimate relationship is related positively to his partner’s perceived infidelities and that men’s sexual coercion is related positively to their mate retention behaviors (behaviors designed to prevent a partner’s infidelity). The results from Study 1 (self-reports from 246 men) and Study 2 (partner-reports from 276 women) supported the hypotheses. The Discussion section addresses limitations of this research and highlights future directions for research on sexual coercion in intimate relationships. (shrink)

David Widerker has forcefully argued that a libertarian is on firm ground in believing that the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) is true. Eleonore Stump has argued that not all libertarians need accept PAP, and that its acceptance is not required for a rejection of compatibilism.This paper is a defense of Widerker against Stump. I argue that it is not at all clear that Stump’s view of freedom is libertarian in nature, and that she has not provided a good reason (...) for thinking that a libertarian can abandon PAP. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a noncausal view of agency. I defend the thesis that choices are uncaused mental actions and maintain, contrary to causal theorists of action, that choices differ intrinsically or inherently from nonactions. I explain how they do by placing them in an ontology favored by causal agency theorists (agent-causationists). This ontology is one of powers and liabilities.After explicating how a choice is an uncaused event, I explain how an adequate account of freedom involves the concept of (...) choosing for a reason. Choosing for a reason is a teleological notion, and I set forth what is involved in making a choice for a purpose. (shrink)

This thesis concerns our moral and epistemic responsibilities regarding our concepts. I argue that certain concepts can be morally, epistemically, or socially problematic. This is particularly concerning with regard to our concepts of social kinds, which may have both descriptive and evaluative aspects. Being ignorant of certain concepts, or possessing mistaken conceptions, can be problematic for similar reasons, and contributes to various forms of epistemic injustice. I defend an expanded view of a type of epistemic injustice known as ‘hermeneutical injustice’, (...) where widespread conceptual ignorance puts members of marginalized groups at risk of their distinctive and important experiences lacking intelligible interpretations. Together, I call the use of problematic concepts or the ignorance of appropriate concepts ‘conceptual incapacities’. I discuss the conditions under which we may be responsible for our conceptual incapacities on several major theories of responsibility, developing my own account of responsibility in the process, according to which we are responsible for something just in case it was caused by one of our reasons-responsive constitutive psychological traits. However, I argue that regardless of whether we are responsible for something, we may still be required to take responsibility for it. Whether or not we are responsible for our conceptual incapacities, we are required to reflect critically upon them in a variety of scenarios that throw our use of those concepts into question. I consider the method of conceptual engineering — the philosophical critique and revision of concepts — as one way we might take responsibility for our concepts, or at least, defer that duty to experts. But, this top-down model of conceptual revision is insufficient. Using a pragmatist model of the social epistemology of morality, I argue that conceptual inquiry is a social endeavour in which we are all required to participate, to some degree. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Simple View The Teleological View The Qualitative View Objections Concluding Remarks Works cited.

While William Hasker and I for the most part broadly agree in our opposition to much of the contemporary philosophical community concerning issues in the philosophy of mind that he discusses in his book, there are nevertheless seemingly some domestic disputes between him and me about certain matters concerning the nature of events involving the self. In this paper, I will focus on two of these disagreements. The first disagreement concerns Hasker’s treatment of what is widely known today as the (...) argument from reason and whether the events involved in our reasoning are essentially causal or teleological in nature. The second disagreement is about Hasker’s account of libertarian freedom, and whether agent causation is required to explain our free choices. (shrink)

This chapter points out how ordinary people for ages have believed in the soul and explains why the author think this is the case. It then discusses the nature of the soul with a focus on those properties that will be important for the consideration of animalism. Next, it briefly considers the nature of the dialectic between persons like Eric Olson and the author. While Olson is right to point out that the contemporary academic establishment (he mentions philosophers) is firmly (...) opposed to the existence of the soul, it is nevertheless the case that belief in the soul is daily bread and butter for ordinary people. There is a kind of dualism that locates the soul in space. Indeed, this was the orthodox species of dualism up until the time of Rene Descartes. The chapter closes with some brief thoughts about a belief in the soul's existence as opposed to a belief in animalism. (shrink)

How do we prepare engineering students to make ethical and responsible decisions in their professional work? This paper presents an approach that enhances engineering students’ engagement with ethical reasoning by simulating decision-making in a complex scenario. The approach has two principal inspirations. The first is Anthony Weston’s scenario-based teaching. Weston’s concept of a scenario is a situation that changes in response to choices made by participants, according to an inner logic. Scenarios can dynamically explore open-ended complex problems without imposing predetermined (...) results, allowing students to apply their ethical reasoning in a more realistic fashion. The second inspiration is Thi Nguyen’s theory of games. According to Nguyen, games are the “art of agency,” meaning that they provide a structure under which some result is agreed to be valuable, along with prescribed ways of achieving that result, in a relatively low-stakes and temporary social arrangement. By playing many games, Nguyen argues, we can develop a “library of agency,” that is to say, a set of values and means to achieving them that can inform how we make high-stakes decisions in real life. Engaging with carefully designed game scenarios, then, can enable students to practice making ethical decisions within a structured framework, which unfolds in response to their choices, while their decisions are driven by some defined goal. This roleplaying game–based approach thus allows students to build their own ethical libraries of agency, in preparation for professional decision-making. The approach is illustrated using a specific example recently deployed in a seminar on engineered living materials (building materials that incorporate living tissues). The scenario uses techniques from tabletop roleplaying games (e.g. Dungeons & Dragons) for outcome resolution, adventure design, and character creation. Through the game, students practice making difficult decisions in a humanitarian context. (shrink)

We propose that middle childhood female ambivalent attachment, given the adaptive problem of uncertainty of future investment, is designed to evoke immediate investment from current caregivers, rather than new investment sources. We suggest greater specificity of strategic attachment solutions to adaptive problems that differ by sex, time, and relationship type.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Ghost in the Machine Objection The Private Language Argument Ockham's Razor and Identity Argument from Neural Dependence Arguments from Personal Identity Argument from Evolution.