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)

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)

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 10 Heft: 1 Seiten: 275-280.

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)

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)

Schmitt recognized that research is needed to identify other factors associated with sex ratio and with sociosexuality that may explain cross-cultural variation in sexual behavior. One such factor may be the risk of sperm competition. Sperm competition theory may lead us to a more complete explanation of cultural variation in sexual behavior.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Soul and the Brain The Soul and Scientific Methodology Soul‐Body Causal Interaction and the Conservation of Energy.

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)

Although'Otherness' is an extremely common phenomenon in every society, related research is still at its beginnings.'Otherness' in the Middle Ages is a versatile and complex theme that covers a great number of different aspects, facets, and approaches: from non-human monsters and cultural strangers from remote places up to foreigners from another country or another town; it can refer to ethnic, cultural, political, social, sexual, or religious'Otherness', inside or outside one's own community. In any case, however,'Otherness' is a subjective phenomenon depending (...) on personal views and ascriptions, an issue of'imagination' and experience rather than'reality'. There is neither one single model of alterity nor is'Otherness' a stable phenomenon, but it changes over time and according to the cultural context. All this calls for methodological reflection and needs thorough investigation.00The methodological introduction and the 18 contributions of this volume demonstrate the great diversity of the theme and its different manifestations and perspectives. They tackle the problem from distinct angles and disciplines (history, art history, archaeology, literary history, and philology) in a wide chronological and thematic frame, using different methodological approaches, dealing with different areas (from Northern and Southern Europe to Byzantium and India), perspectives (including law, social order, the past, a sea), and diverse kinds of sources. They examine all kinds of'Otherness' mentioned above, highlight demarcation and rejection, aversion or acceptance, assimilation and integration, thus relativizing a strict dichotomy between'the Self' and'the Other' or between inside and outside. This volume is so far the most comprehensive attempt to tackle the huge problem of'Otherness' in the Middle Ages. (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.

This article attempts to clarify an “argument from reason” set forth by C. S. Lewis in his Miracles. While there are various contemporary interpretations of the argument, Lewis intended to expose the “cardinal difficulty of naturalism.” First, this article seeks to clarify both Lewis’s argument and the understanding of naturalism that it presupposes. Second, philosophers of religion—especially, William Hasker and Alvin Plantinga—have significantly contributed to the argument’s contemporary discussion, and so their views are addressed with the intent to show how (...) they differ from Lewis’s contribution. C. S. Lewis’s argument from reason was and is remains to this day philosophically timely and deserving of serious consideration. (shrink)

Current disputes over the nature and purpose of the university are rooted in a philosophical divide between theory and practice. Academics often defend the concept of a university devoted to purely theoretical activities. Politicians and wider society tend to argue that the university should take on more practical concerns. I critique two typical defenses of the theoretical concept—one historical and one based on the value of pure research—and show that neither the theoretical nor the practical concept of a university accommodates (...) all the important goals expected of university research and teaching. Using the classical pragmatist argument against a sharp division between theory and practice, I show how we can move beyond the debate between the theoretical and practical concepts of a university, while maintaining a place for pure and applied research, liberal and vocational education, and social impact through both economic applications and criticism aimed at promoting social justice. (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)

Argues against naturalism, or the idea that natural physical processes explain everything, the mind and soul do not exist, and consciousness and causality may have no basis, and suggests that it does not account for human--or any--action.

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)

"Constantin Brunner (1862-1937) was a philosopher of considerable originality and importance to whom all too little attention has been paid until quite recently." "This book presents an outline of Brunner's life and personality, then proceeds to relate his philosophy to that of Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Husserl, and Heidegger. There follows an analysis of Brunner's theory of knowledge, the framework of a complete philosophic system which, in many of Brunner's ideas, shows a similarity to that of his contemporary F. (...) H. Bradley, often regarded as one of the greatest English philosophers." "The themes in Brunner's work that Dr. Goetz pursues include: the synthesis of feeling, knowing, and willing; the question of objective knowledge; the relationship between life and thought; the proper understanding of "egoism"; and the ultimate goal of philosophy. Devotees of Husserl and existentialists of various types may be surprised to discover just how far Brunner anticipated the major thinkers in the field of phenomenology."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)