The pejorative connotation often associated with the ordinary language meaning of “conspiracy theory” does not only stem from a conspiracy theory’s being about a conspiracy, but also from a conspiracy theory’s being regarded as a particular kind of theory. I propose to understand conspiracy theory-induced polarization in terms of disagreement about the correct epistemic evaluation of ‘theory’ in ‘conspiracy theory’. By framing the positions typical in conspiracy theory-induced polarization in this way, I aim to show that pejorative conceptions of ‘conspiracy (...) theory’ are problematic for research open to the possibility of finding depolarization strategies. That is, because they preclude constructive engagement with the epistemic norms governing (the rationales foundational of) belief in conspiracy theories. (shrink)

Napolitano (2021) argues that the Minimalist Account of conspiracy theories—i.e., which defines conspiracy theories as explanations, or theories, about conspiracies—should be rejected. Instead, she proposes to define conspiracy theories as a certain kind of belief—i.e., an evidentially self-insulated belief in a conspiracy. Napolitano argues that her account should be favored over the Minimalist Account based on two considerations: ordinary language intuitions and theoretical fruitfulness. I show how Napolitano’s account fails its own purposes with respect to these two considerations and so (...) should not be favored over the Minimalist Account. Furthermore, I propose that the Minimalist Account is the best conception of ‘conspiracy theory’ if we share Napolitano’s goal of advancing the understanding of conspiracy theories. (shrink)

Abstract The article argues that a consideration of the idea, common in ancient ethical theory, that virtue is a skill or craft, reveals that some common construals of it are mistaken. The analogy between virtue and skill is not meant to suggest that virtue is an unreflective habit of practised action. Rather what interests ancient ethical theorists is the intellectual structure of a skill, one demanding grasp of the principles defining the field and an ability to reflect on the justification (...) of particular actions. This is brought out with reference particularly to the discussion of virtue as analogous with skill in Plato's early Socratic dialogues. The demands made of the virtuous agent by philosophers who regard virtue as analogous to skill are akin to the demands made by more recent theories of morality which demand that the moral agent be able to reflect on her practices, extract the principles that these depend on, and produce justification when needed. This point about ancient ethical theories enables us to appreciate their distance from modern versions of ?virtue ethics? ? which stress the importance of the traditions and contexts within which the content of the virtues is learned, and place less importance on the need for intellectual justification. The type of virtue ethics defended by Alasdair Maclntyre provides an instructive example of this contrasting kind of theory. (shrink)

What is it like to be a good person? I examine and reject suggestions that this will involve having thoughts which have virtue or being a good person as part of their content, as well as suggestions that it might be the presence of feelings distinct from the virtuous person’s thoughts. Is there, then, anything after all to the phenomenology of virtue? I suggest that an answer is to be found in looking to Aristotle’s suggestion that virtuous activity is pleasant (...) to the virtuous person. I try to do this, using the work of the contemporary social psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi and his work on the ‘flow experience’. Crucial here is the point that I consider accounts of virtue which take it to have the structure of a practical expertise or skill. It is when we are most engaged in skilful complex activity that the activity is experienced as ‘unimpeded’, in Aristotle’s terms, or as ‘flow’. This experience does not, as might at first appear, preclude thoughtful involvement and reflection. Although we can say what in general the phenomenology of virtue is like, each of us only has some more or less dim idea of it from the extent to which we are virtuous—that is, for most of us, not very much. (shrink)

From an analysis of the role of companies in multi-stakeholder networks and a critical review of stakeholder theory, it is argued that companies practise two different types of stakeholder management: they focus on their organization’s welfare (organization- focussed stakeholder management) or on an issue that affects their relationship with other societal groups and organizations (issue-focussed stakeholder management). These two approaches supplement each other. It is demonstrated that issue-focussed stakeholder management dominates in multi-stakeholder networks, because it enables corporations to address complex (...) problems and challenges in cooperation with stakeholders. Since deliberation is the key to issue-focussed stakeholder management, it helps to cope with numerous and at times contradictory stakeholder demands and enhances the legitimacy of corporate activities. (shrink)

In Accuracy and the Laws of Credence Richard Pettigrew assumes a particular view of belief, which states that people don't have any other doxastic states besides credences. This is in tension with the popular position that people have both credences and outright beliefs. Pettigrew claims that such a dual view of belief is incompatible with the accuracy-first approach. I argue in this paper that it is not. This is good news for Pettigrew, since it broadens the appeal of his framework.

This essay explores the question of how to be good. My starting point is a thesis about moral worth that I’ve defended in the past: roughly, that an action is morally worthy if and only it is performed for the reasons why it is right. While I think that account gets at one important sense of moral goodness, I argue here that it fails to capture several ways of being worthy of admiration on moral grounds. Moral goodness is more multi-faceted. (...) My title is intended to capture that multi-facetedness: the essay examines saintliness, heroism, and sagacity. The variety of our common-sense moral ideals underscores the inadequacy of any one account of moral admirableness, and I hope to illuminate the distinct roles these ideals play in our everyday understanding of goodness. Along the way, I give an account of what makes actions heroic, of whether such actions are supererogatory, and of what, if anything, is wrong with moral deference. At the close of the essay, I begin to explore the flipside of these ideals: villainy. (shrink)

The emerging field of synthetic biology aims to engineer novel biological entities. The envisioned future bio-based economy builds largely on “cell factories”: organisms that have been metabolically engineered to sustainably produce substances for human ends. In this paper, we argue that synthetic biology’s goal of creating efficient production vessels for industrial applications implies a set of ontological assumptions according to which living organisms are machines. Traditionally, a machine is understood as a technological, isolated and controllable production unit consisting of parts. (...) But modified organisms, or hybrids, require us to think beyond the machine paradigm and its associated dichotomies between artificial and natural, organisms and artefacts. We ask: How may we conceptualise hybrids beyond limiting ontological categories? Our main claim is that the hybrids created by synthetic biology should be considered not as machines but as metabolic systems. We shall show how the philosophical account of metabolism can inform an ontology of hybrids that moves beyond what we call the “machine ontology”, considering that metabolism enables thinking beyond the dominant dichotomies and allows us to understand and design lifeforms in a bio-based economy. Thus, the aim of this paper is twofold: first, to develop the philosophical ontology of hybrids, and second, to move synthetic biology beyond the problematically limiting view of hybrids. (shrink)

This chapter concerns the nature of our obligations as individuals when it comes to our emissions-producing activities and climate change. The first half of the chapter argues that the popular ‘expected utility’ approach to this question faces a problematic dilemma: either it gives skeptical verdicts, saying that there are no such obligations, or it yields implausibly strong verdicts. The second half of the chapter diagnoses the problem. It is argued that the dilemma arises from a very general feature of the (...) view, and thus is shared by other views as well. The chapter then discusses what an account of our individual obligations needs to look like if it is to avoid the dilemma. Finally, the discussion is extended beyond climate change to other collective impact contexts. (shrink)

This reply to an ongoing debate between conspiracy theory researchers from different disciplines exposes the conceptual confusions that underlie some of the disagreements in conspiracy theory research. Reconciling these conceptual confusions is important because conspiracy theories are a multidisciplinary topic and a profound understanding of them requires integrative insights from different fields. Specifically, we distinguish research focussing on conspiracy *theories* (and theorizing) from research of conspiracy *belief* (and mindset, theorists) and explain how particularism with regards to conspiracy theories does not (...) mean we cannot define a problematic subclass of conspiracy beliefs, while avoiding the problems of generalism. We hope this reply helps conspiracy theory researchers recognize the differences between studying conspiracy theories and conspiracy beliefs and appreciate the possibilities for fruitful, integrative, and interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

Metaphysics of Science is the philosophical study of key concepts that figure prominently in science and that, prima facie, stand in need of clarification. It is also concerned with the phenomena that correspond to these concepts. Exemplary topics within Metaphysics of Science include laws of nature, causation, dispositions, natural kinds, possibility and necessity, explanation, reduction, emergence, grounding, and space and time. Metaphysics of Science is a subfield of both metaphysics and the philosophy of science—that is, it can be allocated to (...) either, but it exhausts neither. Unlike metaphysics simpliciter, Metaphysics of Science is not primarily concerned with metaphysical questions that may already arise from everyday phenomena such as what makes a thing (a chair, a desk) the very thing it is, what its identity criteria are, out of which parts is it composed, whether it remains the same if we exchange a couple of its parts, and so forth. Nor is it concerned with the concrete entities (superstrings, molecules, genes, and so forth) postulated by specific sciences; these issues are the subject matter of the special philosophies of science (for example, of physics, of chemistry, of biology). Metaphysics of Science is concerned with more abstract and general concepts that inform all of these sciences. Many of these concepts are interwoven with each other. For example, metaphysicians of science inquire whether dispositionality, lawhood, and causation can be accounted for in nonmodal terms; whether laws of nature presuppose the existence of natural kinds; and whether the properties of macrolevel objects supervene on dispositional or nondispositional properties. This article surveys the scope (section 1), historical origin (section 2), exemplary subject matters (section 4), and methodology (section 5) of Metaphysics of Science, as well as the motivation that drives it (section 3). (shrink)

Some expressions, such as ‘generous’ and ‘stingy’, are used not only to describe the world around us. They are also used to evaluate the things to which they are applied. In this paper, I suggest a novel account of how this evaluation is conveyed—the conventional triggering view. It partly agrees and partly disagrees with both the standard semantic view and its popular pragmatic contender. Like the former and unlike the latter, my view has it that the evaluation is conveyed due (...) to the conventional meaning of the sentences in question. Unlike the former and much like the latter, my view suggests that the evaluation is a secondary rather than a primary content. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch believes that unselfing is required for virtue, as it takes us out of our egoistic preoccupations, and connects us to the Good in the world. Love is a form of unselfing, illustrating how close attention to another, and the way they really are, again, takes us out of a narrow focus on the self. Though this view of love runs counter to a view that those in love often overlook flaws in their loved ones, or at least down-play (...) them, I argue that it is compatible with Murdoch's view that love can overlook some flaws, ones that do not speak to the loved one's true self. Unselfing requires that we don't engage in selfish delusion, but a softer view of our loved ones is permitted. (shrink)

Managers tasked with organizational change often face irreconcilable demands on how to enact justice—situations we call _justice conundrums_. Drawing on interviews held with managers before and after a planned large-scale change, we identify specific conundrums and illustrate how managers grapple with these through three prototypical paths. Among our participants, the paths increasingly diverged over time, culminating in distinct career decisions. Based on our findings, we develop an integrative process model that illustrates how managers grapple with justice conundrums. Our contributions are (...) threefold. First, we elucidate three types of justice conundrums that managers may encounter when enacting justice in the context of planned organizational change (the justice intention-action gap, competing justice expectations, and the justice of care vs. managerial-strategic justice) and show how managers handle them differently. Second, drawing on the motivated cognition and moral disengagement literature, we illustrate how cognitive mechanisms coalesce to allow managers to soothe their moral (self-) concerns when grappling with these conundrums. Third, we show how motivated justice intentions ensuing from specific justice motives, moral emotions, and circles of moral regard predict the types of justice conundrums managers face and the paths they take to grapple with them. (shrink)

In multi-stakeholder networks, actors from civil society, business and governmental institutions come together in order to find a common solution to a problem that affects all of them. Problems approached by such networks often affect people across national boundaries, tend to be very complex and are not sufficiently understood. In multi-stakeholder networks, information concerning a problem is gathered from different sources, learning takes place, conflicts between participants are addressed and cooperation is sought. Corporations are key actors in many networks, because (...) the problems addressed are frequently related to business activities. The aim of this article is to conceptualise multi-stakeholder networks by proposing a problem-centred stakeholder definition. From an analysis of several case studies, a life cycle model is deduced that distinguishes seven phases: initiation, acquaintance, first and second agreement, implementation, consolidation and institutionalisation. (shrink)

Although Gilbert Ryle published on a wide range of topics in philosophy (notably in the history of philosophy and in philosophy of language), including a series of lectures centred on philosophical dilemmas, a series of articles on the concept of thinking, and a book on Plato, The Concept of Mind remains his best known and most important work. Through this work, Ryle is thought to have accomplished two major tasks. First, he was seen to have put the final nail in (...) the coffin of Cartesian dualism. Second, as he himself anticipated, he is thought to have argued on behalf of, and suggested as dualism's replacement, the doctrine known as philosophical (and sometimes analytical) behaviourism. Sometimes known as an “ordinary language”, sometimes as an “analytic” philosopher, Ryle—even when mentioned in the same breath as Wittgenstein and his followers—is considered to be on a different, somewhat idiosyncratic (and difficult to characterise), philosophical track. (shrink)

ObjectivesBuilding on what is known about the non-random nature of crime problems and the explanatory capacity of opportunity theories of crime, this study explores the utility of using existing university administrative data to detect unusual patterns of performance consistent with a student having engaged in contract cheating (paying a third-party to produce unsupervised work on their behalf).MethodsResults from an Australian university were analysed (N = 3798 results, N = 1459 students). Performances on unsupervised and supervised assessment items were converted to (...) percentages and percentage point differences analysed at the academic discipline-, unit-, and student-level, looking for non-random patterns of unusually large differences.ResultsNon-random, unusual patterns, consistent with contract cheating, were found at the academic discipline-, unit-, and student-level, with approximately 2.1% of students producing multiple unusual patterns.ConclusionsThese findings suggest it may be possible to use existing administrative data to identify assessment items that provide suitable opportunities for contract cheating. This approach could be used in conjunction with targeted problem-prevention strategies (based on situational crime prevention) to reduce the vulnerability of academic assessment items to contract cheating. This approach is worthy of additional research as it has the potential to help academic institutions around the world manage contract cheating; a problem that currently threatens the validity and integrity of tertiary qualifications. (shrink)

The concept of imagination is notoriously ambiguous. Thus one must be cautious not to use ‘imagination’ as a placeholder for diverse phenomena and processes that perhaps have not much more in common than that they are difficult to assign to some other, better defined domain, such as perception, conceptual thought, or artistic production. However, this challenge also comes with great opportunities: the fecundity and openness of ‘imagination’ appeal to researchers from different disciplines with different approaches and questions, and it draws (...) together fields of enquiry that are initially considered far apart. Hence, arguably, the field of imagination is particularly poised for interdisciplinary enquiry. In the section on Imagination in Interdisciplinary Research, I will talk about some of the issues that have already entered that field of interdisciplinary inquiry. (shrink)

abstract In this paper moralism is defined as the illicit use of moral considerations. Three different varieties of moralism are then discussed — moral absolutism, excessive standards and demandingness, and presenting non‐moral considerations as moral ones. Both individuals and theories can be regarded as moralistic in some of these senses. Indeed, some critics of consequentialism have regarded that theory as moralistic. The author then describes the problems associated with each sense of ‘moralism’ and how casuistry evolved to try to deal (...) with some of these problems. The author also defends consequentialism against one charge of moralism [1]. (shrink)

The big question mark (in guise of a preface) -- This incredible need to believe : interview with Carmine Donzelli -- From Jesus to Mozart : Christianity's difference? -- Suffering : Lenten lectures, March 19, 2006 -- The genius of Vatholicism -- Don't be afraid of European culture.

I describe a suite of reinforcement learning environments in which artificial agents learn to value and respond to moral content and contexts. I illustrate the core principles of the framework by characterizing one such environment, or “gridworld,” in which an agent learns to trade-off between monetary profit and fair dealing, as applied in a standard behavioral economic paradigm. I then highlight the core technical and philosophical advantages of the learning approach for modeling moral cognition, and for addressing the so-called value (...) alignment problem in AI. (shrink)

Abstract: Hegel's theory of tragedy is often considered to be primarily a theory of the objective powers involved in tragic conflicts—for Hegel, these are paradigmatically competing ethical notions—and of the rationality which underlies and drives such conflicts. Such a view follows naturally from a close reading of Hegel's discussion of classical Greek tragedy in his Lectures on Aesthetics. However, this view gives rise to the question of whether Hegel's theory of tragedy can account for the significance of tragic experience, in (...) particular the experience of tragic suffering; it has been argued repeatedly that it cannot. In contrast, I want to suggest in this paper that a theory of tragic experience can be derived from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. This Hegelian theory of tragic experience, I argue, should be understood as complementing rather than challenging Hegel's theory of objective tragic conflict. (shrink)

By bringing together influential critics of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics and some of the strongest defenders of an Aristotelian approach, this collection provides a fresh assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of Aristotelian virtue ethics and its contemporary interpretations. Contributors critically discuss and re-assess the neo-Aristotelian paradigm which has been predominant in the philosophical discourse on virtue for the past 30 years.

The thesis of this paper is that there is an important asymmetry between a duty to love and a duty to not love: there is no duty to love as a fitting response to someone’s very good qualities, but there is a duty to not love as a fitting response to someone’s very bad qualities. The source of the asymmetry that I discuss is the two-part understanding of love: the emotional part and the evaluative commitment part. One cannot directly, or (...) “at will,” control an emotional response, but one can undermine any commitment one would normally have under the circumstances. Thus, the feeling of love is not a duty, though being disposed to act a certain way with respect to the person one has the feelings for is controllable. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer niederländische Tierpsychologe Frederik J. J. Buytendijk (1887–1974) entwickelte in seinen Forschungen der 1920er und 1930er Jahre in Abgrenzung zum Behaviorismus eine antireduktionistische Zugangsweise auf Verhaltensexperimente. So bezog er in seinen Experimentalpraktiken explizit die subjektive Erfahrung des Versuchsleiters mit ein. Damit entwarf Buytendijk eine Wissenschaftstheorie, die methodologisch auf die Phänomenologie, Hermeneutik wie auf gestalttheoretische Ganzheitskonzepte zurückgriff, quantitative Datenerhebungen aber dennoch nicht aufgab. Vielmehr untersuchte Buytendijk auf der Grundlage des Biotheoretikers Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944) in seinem physiologischen Institut in Groningen konkret (...) die These einer „Tier-Umwelt-Einheit“. Der vorliegende Beitrag ermittelt anhand der institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen und zweier Experimente (1924 und 1931), inwiefern Buytendijk seine Aussage, dass das Tier „mit und in seiner Umwelt geboren [ist]“, die zugleich sein wissenschaftsphilosophisches Konzept stützte, zu verifizieren wusste. Dass die Umwelt dem Tier ein Organ ist, ist bei Buytendijk dementsprechend nicht nur metaphorisch, sondern ganz real zu verstehen. (shrink)

The COPE Inventory is the most frequently used measure of coping; yet previous studies examining its factor structure yielded mixed results. The purpose of the current study, therefore, was to validate the factor structure of the COPE Inventory in a representative sample of over 2,000 adults in Slovakia. Our second goal was to evaluate the external validity of the COPE inventory, which has not been done before. Firstly, we performed the exploratory factor analysis with half of the sample. Subsequently, we (...) performed the confirmatory factor analysis with the second half of the sample. Both factor analyses with 15 factor solutions showed excellent fit with the data. Additionally, we performed a hierarchical factor analysis with fifteen first-order factors and three second-order factors which showed good fit with the data. Moreover, the COPE Inventory’s external validity was evaluated using consensual qualitative research analysis on data collected by in-depth interviews. Categories of coping created using CQR corresponded with all COPE first-order factors. Moreover, we identified two additional first-order factors that were not present in the COPE Inventory: self-care and care for others. Our study shows that the Slovak translation of the COPE Inventory is a reliable, externally valid, and well-structured instrument for measuring coping in the Slovak population. (shrink)

This article makes the case for including frameworks of media ecology and mobilities research in the shaping of critical robotics research for a human-centered and holistic lens onto robot technologies. The two meta-disciplines, which align in their attention to relational processes of communication and movement, provide useful tools for critically exploring emerging human–robot dimensions and dynamics. Media ecology approaches human-made technologies as media that can shape the way we think, feel, and act. Relatedly, mobilities research highlights various kinds of influential (...) movement and stillness of people, things, and ideas. The emerging field of critical robotics research can benefit from such attention to the ways of thinking, feeling, and moving robotic forms and environments encourage and discourage. Drawing on various studies into robotics, I illustrate those conceptual alignments of media ecology, mobilities, and critical robotics research and point to the value of this interdisciplinary approach to robots as media and robotics as socio-cultural environments. (shrink)