In Vices of the Mind, Cassam provides an accessible, engaging, and timely introduction to the nature of epistemic vices and what we can do about them. Cassam provides an account of epistemic vices and explores three broad types of epistemic vices: character traits, attitudes, and ways of thinking. Regarding each, Cassam draws insights about the nature of vices through examining paradigm instances of each type of vice and exploring their significance through real world historical examples. With his account of vices (...) in hand, Cassam turns to addressing three questions in the remainder of the book: how can we be responsible for our epistemic vices? how can we be aware of our epistemic vices? And how can we address our epistemic vices? -/- This book provides an excellent introduction to the debates about epistemic vices and is easy to engage regardless of one’s philosophical background. In being the first book-length treatment of epistemic vices, Vices of the Mind is sure to shape the debates surrounding epistemic vices for some time. In what follows we provide brief chapter summaries and raise several challenges to the account Cassam defends in the book. (shrink)

The present article is an elaborated and upgraded version of the Early Career Award talk that I delivered at the IAPR 2019 conference in Gdańsk, Poland. In line with the conference’s thematic focus on new trends and neglected themes in psychology of religion, I argue that psychology of religion should strive for firmer integration with evolutionary theory and its associated methodological toolkit. Employing evolutionary theory enables to systematize findings from individual psychological studies within a broader framework that could resolve lingering (...) empirical contradictions by providing an ultimate rationale for which results should be expected. The benefits of evolutionary analysis are illustrated through the study of collective rituals and, specifically, their purported function in stabilizing risky collective action. By comparing the socio-ecological pressures faced by chimpanzees, contemporary hunter-gatherers, and early Homo, I outline the selective pressures that may have led to the evolution of collective rituals in the hominin lineage, and, based on these selective pressures, I make predictions regarding the different functions and their underlying mechanisms that collective rituals should possess. While examining these functions, I echo the Early Career Award and focus mostly on my past work and the work of my collaborators, showing that collective rituals may stabilize risky collective action by increasing social bonding, affording to assort cooperative individuals, and providing a platform for reliable communication of commitment to group norms. The article closes with a discussion of the role that belief in superhuman agents plays in stabilizing and enhancing the effects of collective rituals on trust-based cooperation. (shrink)

Developmental coordination disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder that significantly impairs a child’s ability to learn motor skills and to perform everyday activities. The cause of DCD is unknown; however, evidence suggests that children with DCD have altered brain structure and function. While the cerebellum has been hypothesised to be involved in developmental coordination disorder, no studies have specifically examined cerebellar structure in this population. The purpose of our study was to examine cerebellar differences in children with DCD compared to typically-developing (...) children. Using voxel-based morphometry, we assessed cerebellar morphology in children 8–12 years of age. Forty-six children were investigated using high resolution T1-weighted images, which were then processed using the spatially unbiased atlas template of the cerebellum and brainstem toolbox for a region of interest-based examination of the cerebellum. Results revealed that children with DCD had reduced grey matter volume in several regions, namely: the brainstem, right/left crus I, right crus II, left VI, right VIIb, and right VIIIa lobules. Further, Pearson correlations revealed significant positive associations between the total motor percentile score on the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 and regions that had reduced grey matter volume in our cohort. These findings indicate that reductions in cerebellar grey matter volume are associated with poorer motor skills. Given the cerebellum’s involvement in internal models of movement, results of this study may help to explain why children with DCD struggle to learn motor skills. (shrink)

Religion can have an important influence in moral decision-making, and religious reminders may deter people from unethical behavior. Previous research indicated that religious contexts may increase prosocial behavior and reduce cheating. However, the perceptual-behavioral link between religious contexts and decision-making lacks thorough scientific understanding. This study adds to the current literature by testing the effects of purely audial religious symbols (instrumental music) on moral behavior across three different sites: Mauritius, the Czech Republic, and the USA. Participants were exposed to one (...) of three kinds of auditory stimuli (religious, secular, or white noise), and subsequently were given a chance to dishonestly report on solved mathematical equations in order to increase their monetary reward. The results showed cross-cultural differences in the effects of religious music on moral behavior, as well as a significant interaction between condition and religiosity across all sites, suggesting that religious participants were more influenced by the auditory religious stimuli than non-religious participants. We propose that religious music can function as a subtle cue associated with moral standards via cultural socialization and ritual participation. Such associative learning can charge music with specific meanings and create sacred cues that influence normative behavior. Our findings provide preliminary support for this view, which we hope further research will investigate more closely. (shrink)

Scalar utilitarianism, a form of utilitarianism advocated by Alastair Norcross, retains utilitarianism's evaluative commitments while dispensing with utilitarianism's deontic commitments, or its commitment to the existence or significance of moral duties, obligations and requirements. This article disputes the effectiveness of the arguments that have been used to defend scalar utilitarianism. It is contended that Norcross's central ‘Persuasion Argument’ does not succeed, and it is suggested, more positively, that utilitarians cannot easily distance themselves from deontic assessment, just as long as scalar (...) utilitarians admit – as they should do – that utilitarian evaluation generates normative reasons for action.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.Should Utilitarianism Be Scalar?Volume 25, Issue 1GERALD LANG DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820812000295Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. Should Utilitarianism Be Scalar?Volume 25, Issue 1GERALD LANG DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820812000295Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. Should Utilitarianism Be Scalar?Volume 25, Issue 1GERALD LANG DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820812000295Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

One Rawlsian response to G. A. Cohen’s criticisms of justice as fairness which Cohen canvasses, and then dismisses, is the 'Freedom Objection'. It comes in two versions. The 'First Version' asserts that there is an unresolved trilemma among the three principles of equality, Pareto-optimality, and freedom of occupational choice, while the 'Second Version' imputes to Rawls’s theory a concern to protect occupational freedom over equality of condition. This article is mainly concerned with advancing three claims. First, the 'ethical solution' Cohen (...) advances against the First Version of the Freedom Objection does not grant a fair hearing to the Freedom Objection. Second, the distinction Cohen presses between the legal and moral right of occupational choice in his response to the Second Version cannot save him from worries about Stalinist coercion. Third, Cohen’s response to the First Version of the Freedom Objection is actually in tension with his response to the Second Version of the Freedom Objection. (shrink)

UP. Berel Lang shows in this penetrating book how Heideggeer's own silence on the 'Jewish Question' --how (or if) the Jews were to live among the nations- ...

Jaswal & Akhtar provide several quotes ostensibly from people with autism but obtained via the discredited techniques of Facilitated Communication and the Rapid Prompting Method, and they do not acknowledge the use of these techniques. As a result, their argument is substantially less convincing than they assert, and the article lacks transparency.

This 1999 book demonstrates a method for reading the texts of Aristotle by revealing a continuous line of argument running from the Physics to De Caelo. The author analyses a group of arguments that are almost always treated in isolation from one another, and reveals their elegance and coherence. She concludes by asking why these arguments remain interesting even though we now believe they are absolutely wrong and have been replaced by better ones. The book establishes the case that we (...) must rethink our approach to Aristotle's physical science and Aristotelian texts, and as such will provoke debate and stimulate new thinking amongst philosophers, classicists, and historians of science. (shrink)

One of Han Fei’s most trenchant criticisms against the early Confucian political tradition is that, insofar as its decision-making process revolves around the ruler, rather than a codified set of laws, this process is the arbitrary rule of a single individual. Han Fei argues that there will be disastrous results due to ad hoc decision-making, relationship-based decision-making, and decision-making based on prior moral commitments. I lay out Han Fei’s arguments while demonstrating how Xunzi can successfully counter them. In doing so, (...) I argue that Xunzi lays out a political theory restricting the actions of the ruler through both the use of ritual and law, which allows him to develop a theory that legitimizes government while at the same time constraining itself. Xunzi’s political theory makes important strides in its attempt to recognize the importance of the ruler as a moral exemplar while also restricting his control in the political process. (shrink)

As given, the case presents at least two questions for the ethics consultant to explore: to what extent should Declan’s parent, Karesha, be involved in his health care decisions, and why is...

We introduce a game for Gödel logic where the players’ interaction stepwise reduces claims about the relative order of truth degrees of complex formulas to atomic truth comparison claims. Using the concept of disjunctive game states this semantic game is lifted to a provability game, where winning strategies correspond to proofs in a sequents-of-relations calculus.

Von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart. Verständlich und anschaulich geschrieben, führt der Klassiker durch die wichtigsten Stationen des philosophischen Denkens. Die 4. Auflage wurde um die philosophischen Entwicklungen seit den 1990er Jahren ergänzt. Dazu gehören u. a. Analytische Philosophie, Ethik, Virtuelle Realität, Philosophie der Gefühle und Philosophie als Lebensform. Eine Besonderheit ist das umfangreiche Kapitel über die Philosophie des Ostens: Indien, China, Japan.

The authors put forward an interesting response to detractors of black box algorithms. According to the authors, what is of ethical relevance for medical artificial intelligence is not so much their transparency, but rather their reliability as a process capable of producing accurate and trustworthy results. The implications of this view are twofold. First, it is permissible to implement a black box algorithm in clinical settings, provided the algorithm’s epistemic authority is tempered by physician expertise and consideration of patient autonomy. (...) Second, physicians are not expected to possess exhaustive knowledge or understanding of the algorithmic computation by which they verify or augment their medical opinions. The potential of these algorithms to improve diagnostic and procedural accuracy alongside the quality of patient decision-making is undoubtedly a boon to modern medicine, but blind deference to them is neither feasible nor responsible, as several logistical and ethical quagmires noted by the authors still remain inherent in algorithmic software. I concur …. (shrink)

Emerging forms of empowered participatory governance have generated considerable scholarly excitement, but critics continue to ask if such initiatives are “for real”: Are participatory governance processes sufficiently independent? Do citizen participants make good policy choices? An in-depth look at the case of the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform suggests that real citizen empowerment depends on both the institutional constraints of the participa-tory setting and how citizen interests and arguments for policy outcomes crystallize over the course of a participatory (...) process. (shrink)

The ‘Responsibility Objection’ to Judith Thomson's famous argument for the permissibility of abortion challenges the relevance of her ‘Violinist Analogy’ to certain types of voluntary unwanted pregnancy, on the grounds that those pregnancies, even though they may be unwanted, are pregnancies for which the woman can be plausibly held responsible. This article considers the force of a number of recent objections to the Responsibility Objection, advanced by Harry Silverstein, David Boonin, and Jeff McMahan, and judges them to be unpersuasive. It (...) is concluded that, in the absence of further considerations, the Responsibility Objection carries force. (shrink)

According to Saul Smilansky's ‘Paradox of Beneficial Retirement’, many serving members of professions may have decisive integrity-based reasons for retiring immediately. The Paradox of Beneficial Retirement holds that a below-par performance in one's job does not require any outright incompetence, but may take a purely relational form, in which a good performance is not good enough if it would be improved upon by someone else who would be appointed instead. It is argued, in response, that jobs in the sectors Smilansky (...) mentions are not merely positions to optimize the goals of the profession, but are professional careers in which there is the possibility of security and personal fulfilment. The article also explores connections between Smilansky's argument and G. A. Cohen's anti-incentives argument against Rawls. It is suggested that both thinkers underappreciate the relationship between personal reasons and institutional reasons. (shrink)

Grady and colleagues (2008) have provided a major contribution to the field of bioethics, and their research should lend a significant hand to the oft-neglected ethics needs of professional nurses....

Imagine a two-person distributive case in which Ernest's choices yield X and Bertie's choices yield X + Y, producing an income gap between them of Y. Neither Ernest nor Bertie is responsible for this gap of Y, since neither of them has any control over what the other agent chooses. This is what Susan Hurley calls the “Boring Problem” for luck egalitarianism. Contrary to Hurley's relatively dismissive treatment of it, it is contended that the Boring Problem poses a deep problem (...) for standard luck egalitarianism. To counter it, luck egalitarianism needs to be recast as a baseline-relative theory. This new version of luck egalitarianism is then put to work against some significant problems that have been encountered by luck egalitarianism: Saul Smilansky's “Paradox of the Baseline,” the “Partiality Worry,” and the “Pluralism Worry.” But baseline-relative luck egalitarianism is not without problems of its own. (shrink)

Although there has been a resurgence of interest in virtue ethics, there has been little work done on how this translates into the political sphere. This essay demonstrates that the Confucian thinker Xunzi offers a model of virtue politics that is both interesting in its own right and potentially useful for scholars attempting to develop virtue ethics into virtue politics more generally. I present Xunzi’s version of virtue politics and discuss challenges to this version of virtue politics that are raised (...) by the Legalist thinker H an Fei. I show that not only is Xunzi’s virtue politics capable of surviving the challenges raised by his contemporary, he offers an account that is in many ways both attractive and plausible, one that may usefully be brought into conversation with contemporary visions of virtue politics. (shrink)

This book assesses the impact of the work of Chris Brown in the field of International Political Theory. The volume engages with general issues of IPT as well as basic issues such as the use and role of practical reasoning and presents a nuanced understanding about issues regarding the legitimacy of war and violence. It explores questions that pertain to human rights, morality, and ethics, and generally an outlook for devising a ‘better’ world. The project is ideal for audiences with (...) interest in International Relations, Ethics and Morality Studies and International Political Theory. (shrink)

In this paper, I take a prominent and plausible conception of virtues from the Western tradition, apply it to some early Confucian texts, and see where it succeeds and fails. In this way, I hope to be able to show how this conception of virtues needs to be revised. The particular conception of virtues I am starting with is one of virtues as correctives that was made prominent by Philippa Foot in her paper “Virtues and Vices.” On Foot’s account, “the (...) virtues are corrective, each one standing at a point at which there is some temptation to be resisted or deficiency of motivation to be made good.” This conception captures certain aspects of the virtues. However, I demonstrate that virtues that are often thought of as correctives are not best characterized in this way, at least on the general understanding of correctives. I do this in two ways. First I show that being a corrective is only a contingent feature of these virtues. Second, I demonstrate that ‘self-love’, which carries many similarities to other so-called corrective virtues, is a plausible candidate for the status of virtue while not being a corrective, even in a contingent way. This claim about the plausibility of ‘self-love’ as a virtue is one that Foot explicitly denies. In addition, I show that there is another class of virtues that the idea of virtues as correctives completely misses. I will call this class of virtues ‘inclinational virtues.’ Finally, I explain why expecting the notion of a corrective to accommodate the idea of inclinational virtues is unwise. (shrink)

Les informaticiens, qui sont les premiers à avoir travaillé à la conception du libre accès, ne s’en sont pas nécessairement saisis pour leurs propres pratiques de publication scientifique, privilégiant longtemps les échanges interindividuels. La question de l’accès ouvert se pose pour leurs productions de manière différente selon qu’il s’agit de conception de logiciels ou de publication de texte, de recherche industrielle ou publique, de secteurs brevetables, de données ouvertes ou non.Computer scientists, who were the first to work on open access (...) design, have not necessarily been its most fervent users in their own scientific publication practice, since they have long given preference to interpersonal exchanges. Concerning their output, the question of open access arises in different terms, depending on whether the context is software design, text publishing, industrial public research, patentable sectors, or open or restricted access data. (shrink)