Cet article compare deux campagnes d’annotation successives visant l’identification manuelle des occurrences de candidats termes relevant de la discipline scientifique dans laquelle s’inscrit l’article. Les deux campagnes se distinguent par leurs objectifs. La première visait l’enrichissement de terminologies existantes. La seconde avait le double objectif de comparer plusieurs environnements d’annotation et de mesurer la difficulté de la tâche d’annotation en sciences humaines et sociales par rapport aux sciences dites exactes. Les corpus produits ne permettant pas de comparer les deux campagnes (...) directement, nous les exploitons comme corpus d’apprentissage dans une tâche test qui consiste à automatiser l’annotation manuelle. L’objectif est de savoir si le corpus de la seconde campagne permet d’augmenter les performances de la tâche test par rapport à celui de la première campagne. (shrink)

Causal theories of mental content attempt to explain how thoughts can be about things. They attempt to explain how one can think about, for example, dogs. These theories begin with the idea that there are mental representations and that thoughts are meaningful in virtue of a causal connection between a mental representation and some part of the world that is represented. In other words, the point of departure for these theories is that thoughts of dogs are about dogs because dogs (...) cause the mental representations of dogs. (shrink)

A 2015 experiment by Hanson and Delft colleagues provided further confirmation that the quantum world violates the Bell inequalities, being the first Bell test to close two known experimental loopholes simultaneously. The experiment was also taken to provide new evidence of ‘spooky action at a distance’. Here we argue for caution about the latter claim. The Delft experiment relies on entanglement swapping, and our main claim is that this geometry introduces an additional loophole in the argument from violation of the (...) Bell inequalities to action at a distance: the apparent action at a distance may be an artifact of ‘collider bias’. In the absence of retrocausality, the sensitivity of such experiments to this ‘Collider Loophole’ depends on the temporal relation between the entanglement swapping measurement C and the two measurements A and B between which we seek to infer a causal connection. CL looms large if the C is in the future of A and B, but not if C is in the past. The Delft experiment itself is the intermediate case, in which the separation is spacelike. We argue that this leaves it vulnerable to CL, unable to establish conclusively that it avoids it. (shrink)

Coherentism in epistemology has long suffered from lack of formal and quantitative explication of the notion of coherence. One might hope that probabilistic accounts of coherence such as those proposed by Lewis, Shogenji, Olsson, Fitelson, and Bovens and Hartmann will finally help solve this problem. This paper shows, however, that those accounts have a serious common problem: the problem of belief individuation. The coherence degree that each of the accounts assigns to an information set (or the verdict it gives as (...) to whether the set is coherent tout court) depends on how beliefs (or propositions) that represent the set are individuated. Indeed, logically equivalent belief sets that represent the same information set can be given drastically different degrees of coherence. This feature clashes with our natural and reasonable expectation that the coherence degree of a belief set does not change unless the believer adds essentially new information to the set or drops old information from it; or, to put it simply, that the believer cannot raise or lower the degree of coherence by purely logical reasoning. None of the accounts in question can adequately deal with coherence once logical inferences get into the picture. Toward the end of the paper, another notion of coherence that takes into account not only the contents but also the origins (or sources) of the relevant beliefs is considered. It is argued that this notion of coherence is of dubious significance, and that it does not help solve the problem of belief individuation. (shrink)

We use probability-matching variations on Ellsberg’s single-urn experiment to assess three questions: (1) How sensitive are ambiguity attitudes to changes from a gain to a loss frame? (2) How sensitive are ambiguity attitudes to making ambiguity easier to recognize? (3) What is the relation between subjects’ consistency of choice and the ambiguity attitudes their choices display? Contrary to most other studies, we find that a switch from a gain to a loss frame does not lead to a switch from ambiguity (...) aversion to ambiguity neutrality and/or ambiguity seeking. We also find that making ambiguity easier to recognize has little effect. Finally, we find that while ambiguity aversion does not depend on consistency, other attitudes do: consistent choosers are much more likely to be ambiguity neutral, while ambiguity seeking is much more frequent among highly inconsistent choosers. (shrink)

A persistent argument against the transitivity assumption of rational choice theory postulates a repeatable action that generates a significant benefit at the expense of a negligible cost. No matter how many times the action has been taken, it therefore seems reasonable for a decision-maker to take the action one more time. However, matters are so fixed that the costs of taking the action some large number of times outweigh the benefits. In taking the action some large number of times on (...) the grounds that the benefits outweigh the costs every time, the decision-maker therefore reveals intransitive preferences, since once she has taken it this large number of times, she would prefer to return to the situation in which she had never taken the action at all. We defend transitivity against two versions of this argument: one in which it is assumed that taking the action one more time never has any perceptible cost, and one in which it is assumed that the cost of taking the action, though (sometimes) perceptible, is so small as to be outweighed at every step by the significant benefit. We argue that the description of the choice situation in the first version involves a contradiction. We also argue that the reasoning used in the second version is a form of similarity-based decision-making. We argue that when the consequences of using similarity-based decision-making are brought to light, rational decision-makers revise their preferences. We also discuss one method that might be used in performing this revision. (shrink)

This article uses the life stories approach to leadership and leadership development. Using exploratory, qualitative data from a Forbes Global 2000 and FTSE 100 company, we discuss the role of the turning point as an important antecedent of leadership in corporate social responsibility. We argue that TPs are causally efficacious, linking them to the development of life narratives concerned with an evolving sense of personal identity. Using both a multi-disciplinary perspective and a multi-level focus on CSR leadership, we identify four (...) narrative cases. We propose that they helped to re-define individuals’ sense of self and in some extreme cases completely transformed their self-identity as leaders of CSR. Hence, we also distinguish the momentous turning point that created a seismic shift in personality, through re-evaluation of the individuals’ personal values. We argue that whilst TPs are developmental experiences that can produce responsible leadership, the MTP changes the individuals’ personal priorities in life to produce responsible leadership that perhaps did not exist previously. Thus, we appropriate Maslow’s metaphorical phrase ‘A falling of the veils’ from his discussion of peak and desolation experiences that produce personal growth. Using a multi-disciplinary literature from social theory moral psychology Personality, identity and character: explorations in moral psychology, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2009) and social psychology Prosocial motives, emotions, and behaviour: the better angels of our nature, American Psychological Association, Washington, 2010), we present a theoretical model that illustrates the psychological process of the TP, thus contributing to the growing literature on the microfoundations of CSR. (shrink)

Recent developments in cosmology indicate that every history having a non-zero probability is realized in infinitely many distinct regions of spacetime. Thus, it appears that the universe contains infinitely many civilizations exactly like our own, as well as infinitely many civilizations that differ from our own in any way permitted by physical laws. We explore the implications of this conclusion for ethical theory and for the doomsday argument. In the infinite universe, we find that the doomsday argument applies only to (...) effects which change the average lifetime of all civilizations, and not those which affect our civilization alone. (shrink)

Tricycles are one of the most popular, most accessible, and least expensive forms of public transit in the Philippines. In addition to being common modes of transportation, motorcycles, and tricycles also contribute significantly to the livelihoods of millions of Filipinos who rely on them for a living. Hence, this study explores the lived experiences and challenges faced by female tricycle drivers. Employing the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the findings of this study were: The participants strive to assist their husbands in providing (...) for their families. Their motivation comes primarily from their families. They each make every effort to provide a better life for their children. Thus, have faced challenges related to their ability to make ends meet, find time to balance job and family obligations, and encounter discrimination and stereotypes in others, and day-to-day life. Moreover, they evade and disregard the problem and discrimination as a coping mechanism. They feel that if they ignore their problem and focus on achieving their goal of providing for their family, it would eventually disappear. (shrink)

Summary: A review of the cognitivist/extended cognition and extended mind landscape.

Formalising deontic concepts, such as obligation, prohibition and permission, is normally carried out in a modal logic with a possible world semantics, in which some worlds are better than others. The main focus in these logics is on inferring logical consequences, for example inferring that the obligation O q is a logical consequence of the obligations O p and O. In this paper we propose a non-modal approach in which obligations are preferred ways of satisfying goals expressed in first-order logic. (...) To say that p is obligatory, but may be violated, resulting in a less than ideal situation s, means that the task is to satisfy the goal p ∨ s, and that models in which p is true are preferred to models in which s is true. Whereas, in modal logic, the preference relation between possible worlds is part of the semantics of the logic, in this non-modal approach, the preference relation between first-order models is external to the logic. Although our main focus is on satisfying goals, we also formulate a notion of logical consequence, which is comparable to the notion of logical consequence in modal deontic logic. In this formalisation, an obligation O p is a logical consequence of goals G, when p is true in all best models of G. We show how this non-modal approach to the treatment of deontic concepts deals with problems of contrary-to-duty obligations and normative conflicts, and argue that the approach is useful for many other applications, including abductive explanations, defeasible reasoning, combinatorial optimisation, and reactive systems of the production system variety. (shrink)

This article is a response to McLeod and Baylis (2007) who speculate on the dangers of requesting fresh ‘spare’ embryos from IVF patients for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research, particularly when those embryos are good enough to be transferred back to the woman. They argue that these embryos should be frozen instead. We explore what is meant by ‘spare’ embryos. We then provide empirical evidence, from a study of embryo donation and of embryo donors' views, to substantiate some of (...) their speculations about the problems associated with requesting fresh embryos. However, we also question whether such problems are resolved by embryo freezing, since further empirical evidence suggests that this raises other social and ethical problems for patients. There is little evidence that the request for embryos for research, in itself, causes patients distress. We suggest, however, that no requests for fresh embryos should be made in the first cycle of IVF treatment. Deferring the request to a later cycle ensures that potential donors are better informed (by experience and reflection) about the possible destinations of their embryos and about the definition of ‘spare embryos’. Both this article, and that by McLeod and Baylis, emphasize the need to consider the views and experiences of embryo donors when evaluating the ethics of embryo donation for hESC research. (shrink)

In defense of anarchism Robert Paul Wolff contends that the moral autonomy of individuals cannot be made compatible with legitimate political authority. A state is legitimate, he maintains, if authorities in the state have a right to command where subjects correlatively have an obligation to obey. However, he also holds both that all autonomous individuals have a primary obligation to refuse to be ruled by all authorities and that all men are normally obliged to remain autonomous. It allegedly follows that (...) anarchism is the only political theory consistent with autonomy. We propose to show that his arguments concerning legitimacy contain a crucial inconsistency and that his conclusions concerning the incompatibility of authority and autonomy fail. (shrink)

What was probably the first collection of human skulls for purposes of study was established by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in Göttingen at the end of the 18th century. In subsequent years, the number of such collections increased, but their importance for scientific research remained modest. A breakthrough took place only in the 1850s when studies on the so-called cranial index by Karl Ernst von Baer and Anders Retzius gave skull collections a new lease on life, raising physical anthropology from a (...) solely descriptive science to an empirically based “biological anthropology” which used quantitative methods. As a result, Baer was among the first to distinguish between linguistic and morphologic criteria when systematising human populations. This article discusses the development of Baer's ideas concerning the aims and methods of physical anthropology during his career. It pays special attention to the role of scientific collections in moulding Baer's theories. (shrink)

In October 2015 the UK enacted legislation to permit the clinical use of two cutting edge germline-altering, IVF-based embryonic techniques: pronuclear transfer and maternal spindle transfer. The aim is to use these techniques to prevent the maternal transmission of serious mitochondrial diseases. Major claims have been made about the quality of the debates that preceded this legislation and the significance of those debates for UK decision-making on other biotechnologies, as well as for other countries considering similar legislation. In this article (...) we conduct a systematic analysis of those UK debates and suggest that claims about their quality are over-stated. We identify, and analyse in detail, ten areas where greater clarity, depth and nuance would have produced sharper understandings of the contributions, limitations and wider social impacts of these mitochondrial interventions. We explore the implications of these additional considerations for the protection of all parties involved, should the techniques transfer to clinical applications; the legitimacy of focussing on short-term gains for individuals over public health considerations, and the maintenance and improvement of public trust in medical biotechnologies. We conclude that a more measured evaluation of the content and quality of the UK debates is important and timely: such a critique provides a clearer understanding of the possible, but specific, contributions of these interventions, both in the UK and elsewhere; also, these additional insights can now inform the emerging processes of implementation, regulation and practice of mitochondrial interventions. (shrink)

This paper gives new confluence proofs for several lambda calculi with permutation-like reduction, including lambda calculi corresponding to intuitionistic and classical natural deduction with disjunction and permutative conversions, and a lambda calculus with explicit substitutions. For lambda calculi with permutative conversion, naïve parallel reduction technique does not work, and traditional notion of residuals is required as Ando pointed out. This paper shows that the difficulties can be avoided by extending the technique proposed by Dehornoy and van Oostrom, called the Z (...) theorem: existence of a mapping on terms with the Z property concludes the confluence. Since it is still hard to directly define a mapping with the Z property for the lambda calculi with permutative conversions, this paper extends the Z theorem to compositional functions, called compositional Z, and shows that we can adopt it to the calculi. (shrink)

All of us in the computing community understand the importance of recognizing and promoting ethical behavior in our profession. Instruction in ethics is rapidly becoming a part of most computing-related curricula, whether as a stand-alone course or infused into existing courses. Both Computing Curricula 2005 and the current discussions on Computing Curricula 2013 recognize the significance of ethics, generally considering it a core topic across the various computing disciplines. Additionally, in their criteria for the accreditation of computing programs, ABET specifies (...) that a student must attain by the time of graduation an understanding of ethical issues and responsibilities. What has been missing is a formal rite-of-passage ceremony to prompt student recognition and self-reflection on the transition from being a student to a computing professional. In 2009, seventeen faculty members and industry representatives from a wide range of institutions began to address this open problem by forming The Pledge of the Computing Professional [1], [2]. The Pledge exists to promote and recognize the ethical and moral behavior and responsibilities in graduates of computing-related degree programs as they transition to careers of service to society. The Pledge does not seek to define or enforce ethics --- this is the role of other organizations. Specifically, The Pledge is modeled after the Order of the Engineer [3] and provides a rite-of-passage ceremony at the time of graduation. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

Volume 19, Issue 12, December 2019, Page 3-4.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed joint post-proceedings of three international workshops organized by the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, held in Tokyo, Japan in June 2006 during the 20th Annual Conference JSAI 2006. The volume starts with eight award winning papers of the JSAI 2006 main conference that are presented along with the 21 revised full workshop papers, carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the volume.

Forgotten Truth is primarily a presentation of the traditional esoteric view that reality consists of a hierarchy of Being. Within the hierarchy there are an indefinite number of worlds, but they can be classified into four levels: the terrestrial, psychic, and celestial planes, and the Infinite. The corresponding levels within the human microcosm are body, mind, soul, and spirit. “From the multiple heavens of Judaism to the storied structure of the Hindu temple and the angelologies of innumerable traditions, the view (...) was reached convergently and independently, as if by innate tropism, by virtually all known societies…” (18). The important exception is our current society, whose fundamental flaw is its inclination to reduce all reality to the terrestrial plane alone. Modernity is “captive of an outlook presumed to be scientific but in fact scientistic” (17); it goes beyond the actual findings of science to deny that other approaches to knowledge are valid and other truths true” (16). (shrink)

Ken Elkins retired as chief photographer of the Anniston Star in 2000, and this selection of his work demonstrates his brilliant eye for finding and capturing images of rural southern lives and landscapes in all their difficulty, candor, and humor. These are unadorned images of a timeless landscape and proud resourceful people, who know well their neighbors, honor their past, and face the tests of daily life with wit and a stoic sense of endurance.

v. 1. The spectrum of consciousness ; No boundary ; Selected essays -- v. 2. The Atman Project ; Up from Eden -- v. 3. A sociable god ; Eye to eye -- v. 4. Integral psychology ; Transformations of consciousness ; Selected essays -- v. 5. Grace and grit : spirituality and healing in the life and death of Treya Killam Wilber. 2nd ed. -- v. 6. Sex, ecology, spirituality : the spirit of evolution. 2nd, rev. ed. -- v. (...) 7. A brief history of everything ; The eye of spirit -- v. 8. The marriage of sense and soul ; One taste. (shrink)

Ever since the publication of his first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, written when he was twenty-three, Ken Wilber has been identified as the most comprehensive philosophical thinker of our times. This introductory sampler, designed to acquaint newcomers with his work, contains brief passages from his most popular books, ranging over a variety of topics, including levels of consciousness, mystical experience, meditation practice, death, the perennial philosophy, and Wilber's integral approach to reality, integrating matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit. Here (...) is Wilber's writing at its most reader-friendly, discussing essential ideas of the world's great psychological, philosophical, and spiritual traditions in language that is lucid, engaging, and inspirational. (shrink)

It is widely held that Bayesian decision theory is the final word on how a rational person should make decisions. However, Leonard Savage--the inventor of Bayesian decision theory--argued that it would be ridiculous to use his theory outside the kind of small world in which it is always possible to "look before you leap." If taken seriously, this view makes Bayesian decision theory inappropriate for the large worlds of scientific discovery and macroeconomic enterprise. When is it correct to use Bayesian (...) decision theory--and when does it need to be modified? Using a minimum of mathematics, Rational Decisions clearly explains the foundations of Bayesian decision theory and shows why Savage restricted the theory's application to small worlds. The book is a wide-ranging exploration of standard theories of choice and belief under risk and uncertainty. Ken Binmore discusses the various philosophical attitudes related to the nature of probability and offers resolutions to paradoxes believed to hinder further progress. In arguing that the Bayesian approach to knowledge is inadequate in a large world, Binmore proposes an extension to Bayesian decision theory--allowing the idea of a mixed strategy in game theory to be expanded to a larger set of what Binmore refers to as "muddled" strategies. Written by one of the world's leading game theorists, Rational Decisions is the touchstone for anyone needing a concise, accessible, and expert view on Bayesian decision making. (shrink)

Ken Binmore's previous game theory textbook, Fun and Games, carved out a significant niche in the advanced undergraduate market; it was intellectually serious and more up-to-date than its competitors, but also accessibly written. Its central thesis was that game theory allows us to understand many kinds of interactions between people, a point that Binmore amply demonstrated through a rich range of examples and applications. This replacement for the now out-of-date 1991 textbook retains the entertaining examples, but changes the organization to (...) match how game theory courses are actually taught, making Playing for Real a more versatile text that almost all possible course designs will find easier to use, with less jumping about than before. In addition, the problem sections, already used as a reference by many teachers, have become even more clever and varied, without becoming too technical. Playing for Real will sell into advanced undergraduate courses in game theory, primarily those in economics, but also courses in the social sciences, and serve as a reference for economists. (shrink)

Natural Justice is a bold attempt to lay the foundations for a genuine science of morals using the theory of games. Since human morality is no less a product of evolution than any other human characteristic, the book takes the view that we need to explore its origins in the food-sharing social contracts of our prehuman ancestors. It is argued that the deep structure of our current fairness norms continues to reflect the logic of these primeval social contracts, but the (...) particular fairness norm a society operates is largely a product of cultural evolution. In pursuing this point, the book proposes a naturalistic reinterpretation of John Rawls' original position that reconciles his egalitarian theory of justice with John Harsanyi's utilitarian theory by identifying the environment appropriate to each. (shrink)

Binmore argues that game theory provides a systematic tool for investigating ethical matters.

[Ken Gemes] In some texts Nietzsche vehemently denies the possibility of free will; in others he seems to positively countenance its existence. This paper distinguishes two different notions of free will. Agency free will is intrinsically tied to the question of agency, what constitutes an action as opposed to a mere doing. Deserts free will is intrinsically tied to the question of desert, of who does and does not merit punishment and reward. It is shown that we can render Nietzsche's (...) prima facie conflicting assertions regarding free will compatible by interpreting him as rejecting deserts free will while accepting the possibility of agency free will. It is argued that Nietzsche's advances an original form of compatibilism which takes agency free will to be a rare achievement rather than a natural endowment. /// [Christopher Janaway] This paper aims to distinguish a conception of 'free will' that Nietzsche opposes (that of the pure agent unaffected by contingencies of character and circumstance) and one that he supports. In Human, All Too Human Nietzsche propounds the 'total unfreedom' of the will. But by the time of Beyond Good and Evil and the Genealogy he is more concerned (a) to trace the affective psychological states underlying beliefs in both free will and 'unfree will', (b) to suggest that the will might become free in certain individuals, a matter of having a consistent strong character, self-knowledge, and ability to create values. The paper explores the kind of autonomy required in agents who would 'revalue' existing values. (shrink)