This book, formed as a series of essays in honour of Professor Carl Baudenbacher, addresses the very art of judicial reasoning, and features contributions from many of the foremost current or former national, supranational, or international judges. This unique volume is intended first and foremost for legal scholars, but its approachable style makes it readily accessible for students and for those with a general interest in the application of the law and justice in today's multi-layered world. The collection of essays (...) is rather more philosophical and reflective as opposed to doctrinal. Each contribution focuses on the nature and operation of justice, the independence of the judiciary, and on judicial style primarily from the perspective of the judges themselves. The book provides perspectives on what it means to be accountable and independent as a judge, the role of language and languages in the quest for justice, while other contributions acquaint readers with the some of the structures of courts themselves, or indeed question for whom judgments are written. Each chapter has been written by a presiding judge, or head of an institution and the book is divided into three parts: - Part I Art and Method - Part II Justice and the Judiciary - Part III Reasoning and Language(s). (shrink)

Reflexiona sobre cómo las ideologías lingüísticas en el mundo hispano surgen y se transmiten a las prácticas sociales Estudia las ideas de intelectuales en Perú y analiza los discursos en el ámbito escolar.

The goal of this paper is to present and defend an empiricist, neo-Hempelian account of scientific explanation as ampliative, specialized embedding. The proposal aims to preserve what I take to be the core of Hempel’s empiricist account, by weakening it in some respects and strengthening it in others, introducing two new conditions that solve most of Hempel’s problems without abandoning his empiricist strictures. According to this proposal, to explain a phenomenon is to make it expectable by introducing new conceptual/ontological machinery (...) and using special, and non-ad hoc, non-accidental regularities. The new conditions are elaborated making essential use of two central structuralist ideas, namely T-theoreticity and specialization. I first introduce and qualify the project, then present the new account in detail and assess it vis-à-vis its rivals, and finally discuss some possible objections, concluding that the account fares better than its monistic rivals and well enough to qualify as a promising neo-Hempelian account. Even for those unpersuaded by its monistic goals, it has the merit of calling attention to two new necessary conditions not explicitly emphasized thus far and showing how they serve to answer many of the criticisms addressed against Hempel’s account. (shrink)

We consider the evolutionary scheme of morality proposed by Tomasello to defend the idea that the ability to orient the learning of offspring using signs of approval/disapproval could be a decisive and necessary step in the evolution of human morality. Those basic forms of intentional evaluative feedback, something we have called assessor teaching, allow parents to transmit their accumulated experience to their children, both about the behaviors that should be learned as well as how they should be copied. The rationale (...) underlying this process is as follows: if a behavior is approved, then it is good; if it is disapproved, then it is bad. The evaluative guidance on how to behave most probably spread among peers in situations of mutual benefit, such as cooperative child rearing. We argue that our hominin ancestors provided with this capacity for assessor teaching were ideally positioned to develop the two specifically human levels of morality proposed by Tomasello: the morality of fairness and the morality of justice. Assessor teaching could have facilitated the genesis of rudimentary codes of behavior tied with the need to agree about how to behave to succeed in joint cooperative activities. Moreover, learning through assessor teaching provides a plausible explanation for the origin of the objectivist and prescriptive dimensions of human morality. First, we emphasize that individuals feel that they evaluate the behavior of others objectively to guide their learning, and, second, we underline the imperative intention that any moral manifestation possesses. (shrink)

"Estos dos modos de ver la explicación no son incompatibles entre sí; cada uno ofrece un modo razonable de analizar la explicación. De hecho, pueden ser tomados como representando dos aspectos diferentes pero compatibles de la explicación científica" (1989, p. 183). "[estos dos enfoques] se han desarrollado hasta el punto en que pueden coexistir pacíficamente como dos aspectos distintos de la explicación científica" (1992, p. 39). "No rechazo la posibilidad de una teoría [unificacionista] de este tipo; creo que ella no (...) entraría en conflicto con la explicación causal sino que la complementaría " (2001a, p. 10). (shrink)

This paper presents the hypothesis that linguistic capacity evolved through the action of natural selection as an instrument which increased the efficiency of the cultural transmission system of early hominids. We suggest that during the early stages of hominization, hominid social learning, based on indirect social learning mechanisms and true imitation, came to constitute cumulative cultural transmission based on true imitation and the approval or disapproval of the learned behaviour of offspring. A key factor for this transformation was the development (...) of a conceptual capacity for categorizing learned behaviour in value terms - positive or negative, good or bad. We believe that some hominids developed this capacity for categorizing behaviour, and such an ability allowed them to approve or disapprove of their offsprings- learned behaviour. With such an ability, hominids were favoured, as they could transmit to their offspring all their behavioural experience about what can and cannot be done. This capacity triggered a cultural transmission system similar to the human one, though pre-linguistic. We suggest that the adaptive advantage provided by this new system of social learning generated a selection pressure in favour of the development of a linguistic capacity allowing children to better understand the new kind of evaluative information received from parents. (shrink)

The structure of Yablo’s paradox is analysed and generalised in order to show that beginningless step-by-step determination processes can be used to provoke antinomies, more concretely, to make our logical and our on-tological intuitions clash. The flow of time and the flow of causality are usually conceived of as intimately intertwined, so that temporal causation is the very paradigm of a step-by-step determination process. As a conse-quence, the paradoxical nature of beginningless step-by-step determina-tion processes concerns time and causality as usually (...) conceived. (shrink)

¿Podría estar amenazado el futuro de nuestra civilización por un abuso secular de la razón? Cabe argumentar que la Modernidad se construyó sobre la ambición cartesiana de conocer y regular el mundo mediante el discurso racional, postergando el conocimiento sensible y descartando cualquier posibilidad de un conocimiento intelectual diferente de la razón científico-matemática. Según el autor, esta ambición ha moldeado el quehacer científico, filosófico y matemático de la Modernidad y persiste todavía en el discurso ético-político del capitalismo global. Laureano (...) Luna explora las limitaciones del proyecto racionalista moderno rastreando sus límites desde la lógica matemática hasta la racionalidad social, política y económica de la sociedad contemporánea, argumentando la tesis de que los límites del discurso racional que las paradojas o en el teorema de Gödel revelan en la lógica se reproducen en los ámbitos de la ciencia, la ética y la política, porque esos límites dependen todos de un rasgo esencial de la fenomenología del pensamiento. En la elaboración de esta síntesis la obra emprende un análisis de la racionalidad vigente que desemboca en la consideración de sus limitaciones para encarar el futuro. (shrink)

The strong law of large numbers and considerations concerning additional information strongly suggest that Beauty upon awakening has probability 1/3 to be in a heads-awakening but should still believe the probability that the coin landed heads in the Sunday toss to be 1/2. The problem is that she is in a heads-awakening if and only if the coin landed heads. So, how can she rationally assign different probabilities or credences to propositions she knows imply each other? This is the problem (...) I address in this article. I suggest that ‘p whenever q and vice versa’ may be consistent with p and q having different probabilities if one of them refers to a sample space containing ordinary possible worlds and the other to a sample space containing centred possible worlds, because such spaces may fail to combine into one composite probability space and, as a consequence, ‘whenever’ may not be well defined; such is the main contribution of this article. 1The Sleeping Beauty Game2Groisman’s and Peter Lewis’s Approaches3Discussing Beauty’s Credences4The Principle of Equivalence's Failure5Making Sense of the Principle of Equivalence's Failure6Elga’s and Lewis’s Approaches7ConclusionAppendix. (shrink)

A common argument in support of a beginning of the universe used by advocates of the kalām cosmological argument (KCA) is the argument against the possibility of an actual infinite, or the “Infinity Argument”. However, it turns out that the Infinity Argument loses some of its force when compared with the achievements of set theory and it brings into question the view that God predetermined an endless future. We therefore defend a new formal argument, based on the nature of time (...) (just as geometrical reasoning is based on the nature of space), which addresses more directly the question of beginningless time. (shrink)

Humans have developed the capacity to approve or disapprove of the behavior of their children and of unrelated individuals. The ability to approve or disapprove transformed social learning into a system of cumulative cultural inheritance, because it increased the reliability of cultural transmission. Moreover, people can transmit their behavioral experiences (regarding what can and cannot be done) to their offspring, thereby avoiding the costs of a laborious, and sometimes dangerous, evaluation of different cultural alternatives. Our thesis is that, during ontogeny, (...) the evaluative communication (approval/disapproval) between parents and offspring is substituted by other evaluative communications among peers, like individuals of the same generation. Each person belongs to a reference social group with individuals that interact more intensively. Humans have developed psychological mechanisms that enable cultural transmission by being receptive to parental advice as well as their reference social group. The selective pressure that promoted these new evaluative interactions arose to facilitate the establishment of efficient cooperative relationships. In short, the social control of behavior is essential to understand human cultural transmission. (shrink)

Norms play a crucial role in governing human societies. From an early age, humans possess an innate understanding of norms, recognizing certain behaviours, contexts, and roles as being governed by them. The evolution of normativity has been linked to its contribution to the promotion of cooperation in large groups and is intertwined with the development of joint intentionality. However, there is no evolutionary consensus on what normatively differentiated our hominin ancestors from the phylogenetic lineage leading to chimpanzees and bonobos. Here (...) we propose that the development of teaching through a process of evaluative feedback between parent and offspring functioned as a prerequisite for the later development of normativity. Parents approve or disapprove of offspring’s behaviours based on their own learned knowledge of what is appropriate or inappropriate. We argue our proposition using a simple model of cultural transmission, which shows the adaptive advantage offered by these elementary forms of teaching. We show that an important part of this adaptive advantage can arise from the benefits derived from guidance about which behaviours to adopt or reject. We propose that this type of guidance has fundamental elements that characterise the normative world. We complete our argument by reviewing several studies that examine the emergence of normativity in young children without prior exposure to a normative framework with respect to the behaviours under analysis. We suggest that this normativity is best interpreted as manifestations of teaching among young children rather than as norm recognition among early normative children. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to defend, contra Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini (F&PP), that the theory of natural selection (NS) is a perfectly bona fide empirical unified explanatory theory. F&PP claim there is nothing non-truistic, counterfactual-supporting, of an “adaptive” character and common to different explanations of trait evolution. In his debate with Fodor, and in other works, Sober defends NS but claims that, compared with classical mechanics (CM) and other standard theories, NS is peculiar in that its explanatory models are (...) a priori (a trait shared with few other theories). We argue that NS provides perfectly bona fide adaptive explanations of phenotype evolution, unified by a common natural-selection guiding principle. First, we introduce the debate and reply to F&PP’s main argument against NS. Then, by reviewing different examples and analyzing Fisher’s model in detail, we show that NS explanations of phenotypic evolution share a General Natural Selection Principle. Third, by elaborating an analogy with CM, we argue against F&PP’s claim that such a principle would be a mere truism and thus explanatorily useless, and against Sober’s thesis that NS models/explanations have a priori components that are not present in CM and other common empirical theories. Irrespective of differences in other respects, the NS guiding principle has the same epistemic status as other guiding principles in other highly unified theories such as CM. We argue that only by pointing to the guiding principle-driven nature that it shares with CM and other highly unified theories, something no-one has done yet in this debate, one can definitively show that NS is not defective in F&PP’s sense: in the respects relevant to the debate, Natural Selection is as defective and as epistemically peculiar as Classical Mechanics and other never questioned theories. (shrink)

En la actividad científica se pueden distinguir tres tipos principales de representación científica: proyectiva, subsuntiva y reductiva. Tras unas breves considcraciones introductorias, se presentan las características más destacadas de cada uno de estos tres tipos principales de representación científica y se abstrae a partir de ellas el esquema al que toda Teoría General de la Representación Científica (TGRC) se debe adecuar. A continuación se exponen las lineas generales de la principal propuesta presente en la literatura para desarrollar TGRC y se (...) hacen algunas consideraciones criticas. La conclusión provisional es que esta propuesta tiene, al menos por el momento, el problema de ser, o bien demasiado liberal, o bien demasiado conservadora. Por último, se propone un enfoque alternativo a explorar que pretende estar libre de los problemas deI anterior.We can distinguish three main types of representation in scientific practice: projective, subsuntive and reductive. After some brief introductory remarks, we present the more salient characteristics of these three main types of scientific representation and we abstract from them a scheme that any General Theory for Scientific Representation (GTSR) must fit. Then we offer the general traits of the main existing proposal for a GTSR and we make some criticisms. The provisional conclusion is that this proposal is, as it stands, either too liberal or too conservative. Finally, we propose to explore an alternative approach which intends to solve these difficulties. (shrink)

El presente ensayo se propone examinar cómo los individuos en contextos de confinamiento carcelario - quienes han contribuido activamente en el desarrollo de esta investigación - pueden no solo experimentar la libertad de manera gradual, sino también producir libertad creadora a través de un proceso dialéctico en relación con su pasado, presente y futuro; y cómo este último –al que le daremos una mayor preponderancia– tiene como elemento inherente el potencial de transformar ontológicamente su existencia. Para ello, nos basamos en (...) tres tesis fundamentales: la idea de "libertad" en Jean-Paul Sartre, el "hombre histórico" en Friedrich Nietzsche y el concepto de "ser de lejanías" de Vicente Fatone. La imbricación de estas perspectivas permite comprender cómo una persona en un entorno de confinamiento puede desarrollar una libertad ontológica que trasciende las limitaciones ónticas y deterministas de su situación, modificando su ser y proyectándose hacia un futuro distinto. (shrink)

Computationalism is the claim that all possible thoughts are computations, i.e. executions of algorithms. The aim of the paper is to show that if intentionality is semantically clear, in a way defined in the paper, then computationalism must be false. Using a convenient version of the phenomenological relation of intentionality and a diagonalization device inspired by Thomson's theorem of 1962, we show there exists a thought that canno be a computation.

Poincaré in a 1909 lecture in Göttingen proposed a solution to the apparent incompatibility of two results as viewed from a definitionist perspective: on the one hand, Richard’s proof that the definitions of real numbers form a countable set and, on the other, Cantor’s proof that the real numbers make up an uncountable class. Poincaré argues that, Richard’s result notwithstanding, there is no enumeration of all definable real numbers. We apply previous research by Luna and Taylor on Richard’s paradox, indefinite (...) extensibility and unrestricted quantification to evaluate Poincaré’s proposal. We emphasize that Poincaré’s solution involves an early recourse to indefinite extensibility and argue that his proposal, if it is to completely avoid Richard’s paradox, requires rejecting absolutely unrestricted quantification: Richard’s paradox provides a context in which paradox seems inescapable if unrestricted quantification is possible. In proposing his solution to the apparent conflict between Richard’s and Cantor’s results, Poincaré employs temporal expressions whose exact meaning he does not clarify. We suggest an interpretation of these expressions in terms of order of availability and briefly discuss its explanatory power in topics like paradoxes, limitation theorems and indefinite extensibility. (shrink)

According to the dual inheritance theory, cultural learning in our species is a biased and highly efficient process of transmitting cultural traits. Here we define a model of cultural learning where social learning is integrated as a complementary element that facilitates the discovery of a specific behavior by an apprentice, and not as a mechanism that works in opposition to individual learning. In that context, we propose that the emergence of the ability to approve or disapprove of offspring behavior, orienting (...) their learning, transformed primate social learning into a cultural transmission system, like that which characterizes our species. Assessor teaching facilitates the replication and/or reconstruction of behaviors that are difficult to imitate and helps to determine which behaviors should be imitated. We also explore the form in which assessor teaching has conditioned the evolution of our abilities to develop cultures in the hominin line, converting us into individuals equipped with what we call a suadens psychology. Our main point is to defend the hypothesis that suadens psychology determines the stability and dynamics that affect the trajectories of many cultural characters. We compare our proposal with other theories about cultural evolution, specifically with dual inheritance theory and cultural attraction theory. (shrink)

We develop an argument sketched by Luna (2011) based on the Pinocchio paradox, which was proposed by Eldridge-Smith and Eldridge- Smith (2010). We show that, upon plausible assumptions, the claim that mental states supervene on bodily states leads to the conclusion that some proposition is both paradoxical and not paradoxical. In order to show how the presence of paradoxes can be harnessed for philosophical argumentation, we present as well a couple of related arguments.

O presente ensaio resulta de uma indagação introdutória e parcimoniosa acerca da transformação da mundividência científica e epistemológica no século XX. Em primeira instância, são analisados os conceitos fundacionais da Relatividade Restrita e da Relatividade Geral, visando elencar as principais dissonâncias entre a proposta científica de Albert Einstein e a cosmovisão estabelecida pela física clássica. De seguida, é invocada a célebre experiência de Edwin Hubble, responsável pela origem da Teoria do Big-Bang. Como não poderia deixar de ser, esta é também (...) alvo de uma examinação cuidadosa. Por fim, a reflexão estende-se ao domínio indeterminista da mecânica quântica, com o propósito de perscrutar os seus princípios fundamentais. Por forma a assegurar o cumprimento deste desígnio, o trabalho não se furta à exigência de aflorar certos traços elementares das doutrinas de Niels Bohr e Werner Heisenberg. Em suma, o breve estudo que aqui se presentifica procura, sobretudo, trazer à coação os elementos teóricos que ancoram o entendimento da física e da cosmologia nos nossos dias, problematizando, quando necessário, algumas das suas inferências. (shrink)

We show how second order logic incompleteness follows from incompleteness of arithmetic, as proved by Gödel.

I address the claim by Valor and Martínez that Goldstein's cassationist approach to Liar-like paradoxes generates paradoxes it cannot solve. I argue that these authors miss an essential point in Goldstein's cassationist approach, namely the thesis that paradoxical sentences are not able to make the statement they seem to make.

Assuming the indefinite extensibility of any domain of quantification leads to reasoning with extensible domain semantics. It is showed that some theorems (e.g. Thomson's) in conventional semantics logic are not theorems in a logic provided with this new semantics.

We rely on a recent puzzle by Alex Blum to offer a new argument for the old Fitch’s thesis that what we learn a posteriori in Kripkean identity statements like ‘Tully is Cicero’ is contingent and what is not contingent in such statements is analytical, hence hardly a posteriori.

Under the name of ‘Basic Blindspot Theorem’, Paul Saka has proposed in the special issue on mind and paradox of this journal a Gödelian argument to the effect that no cognitive system can be complete and correct. We show that while the argument is successful as regards mechanical and formal systems, it may fail with respect to minds, so contributing to draw a boundary between the former and the latter. The existence of such a boundary may lend support to Saka’s (...) general thesis that paradoxes are mind-dependent. (shrink)

In response to Bhupinder Singh Anand''s article CAN WE REALLY FALSIFY TRUTH BY DICTAT? in THE REASONER II, 1, January 2008,that denies the existence of nonstandard models of Peano Arithmetic, we prove from Compactness the existence of such models.

Computationalism is the claim that all possible thoughts are computations, i.e. executions of algorithms. The aim of the paper is to show that if intentionality is semantically clear, in a way defined in the paper, then computationalism must be false. Using a convenient version of the phenomenological relation of intentionality and a diagonalization device inspired by Thomson's theorem of 1962, we show there exists a thought that cannot be a computation.

“Matrixes and Frames: Two Figures of Norm Functioning in the Work of Judith Butler”. The concepts of “intelligibility matrix” and “frame”, each corresponding to different periods in the thought of the feminist philosopher Judith Butler, seem to converge in so many aspects that one is tempted to hold that they may be used indistinctly. Nevertheless, the problem this paper deals with is the possible uniqueness the usage of the latter concept involves, thus pointing to the differences between both concepts. I (...) aim to solve the problem by studying the main sources that Butler herself uses in order to formulate the concept of frame, and by putting in evidence that which is gained by the use of that notion. I also aim to show more clearly the difference between the two concepts by appealing to their functions in the critique of speciffical cultural phenomenon: pornography as a frame and element of the heterosexual matrix. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo ofrece una lectura de la pintura renacentista según los principios establecidos por Leon Battista Alberti, uno de los primeros teóricos de la perspectiva en cuyo Tratado de pintura se refiere al cuadro como “una ventana abierta a la historia”. El concepto de historia empleado por Alberti, que se presta a numerosas interpretaciones, es abordado a partir de las reflexiones de Erwin Panofsky en torno a la perspectiva como “forma simbólica”, avanzando hacia una hipótesis en torno al carácter (...) simbólico de la configuración y representación del tiempo en el cuadro-ventana albertiano.This paper offers a reading of the renaissance painting according to the principles established by Leon Battista Alberti, one of the first theorists of perspective in painting which Trattato della pittura define the frame of the painting as “an open window into history”. The concept of history employed by Alberti, which lends itself to many interpretations, is approached from the reflections of Erwin Panofsky about the prospect as “symbolic form”, moving towards a hypothesis about the symbolic nature of the configuration and representation of time in the alberti’s window. (shrink)

El siguiente trabajo tiene como objetivo central el análisis de comportamientos y experiencias individuales y/o colectivas que permitan avalar la existencia de una moral de la resistencia contraria a los distintos mecanismos de violencia que operan al interior de los campos de tortura. Dicho análisis se llevará cabo a partir de la segunda formulación del imperativo categórico kantiano, incorporando las nociones de dignidad y humanidad manejadas por el filósofo alemán. La concordancia entre los distintos testimonios de los prisioneros políticos con (...) la segunda formulación del imperativo permitirá sostener una resistencia con contenido moral, desde una óptica individual y colectiva. (shrink)

I address the claim by Valor and Martínez that Goldstein's cassationist approach to Liar-like paradoxes generates paradoxes it cannot solve. I argue that these authors miss an essential point in Goldstein's cassationist approach, namely the thesis that paradoxical sentences are not able to make the statement they seem to make.

Resumo: Este artigo parte da análise da influência de Hegel na construção do conceito de capital e de ideologia, na obra de Marx. Para tal, buscou-se analisar a passagem dos primeiros escritos humanistas de Marx à sua teoria tardia. Da ruptura realizada por Marx em relação a suas obras de juventude, surge o problema de como determinar o sujeito, uma vez que a perspectiva humanista inicial é abandonada. A ideia é a de que, paradoxalmente, quando critica a dialética hegeliana, Marx (...) termina por encontrar problemas que poderiam ser resolvidos através de conceitos hegelianos, como a questão do sujeito de classe. É o que procuraremos argumentar por meio de uma análise sobre o papel da negatividade em Hegel.: This article starts with an analysis of the influence of Hegel on the construction of the concepts of capital and ideology in Marx's work. To this end, we analyze the transition from Marx's first humanist writings to his later theory. Due to the break achieved by Marx in relation to his early works, a problem arises: the determination of the revolutionary subject once the initial humanist perspective has been abandoned. Our thesis is that when Marx leaves Hegel, he paradoxically ends up encountering problems that can only be resolved by Hegelian dialectics,. We argue this by means of an analysis of the role of negativity in Hegel. (shrink)

Godel's and Tarski's theorems were inspired by paradoxes: the Richard paradox, the Liar. Godel, in the 1951 Gibbs lecture argued from his metatheoretical results for a metaphysical claim: the impossibility of reducing, both, mathematics to the knowable by the human mind and the human mind to a finite machine (e.g. the brain). So Godel reasoned indirectly from paradoxes for metaphysical theses. I present four metaphysical theses concerning mechanism, reductive physicalism and time for the only purpose of suggesting how it could (...) be argued for them directly from paradoxical sentences. (shrink)

Cantor’s proof that the powerset of the set of all natural numbers is uncountable yields a version of Richard’s paradox when restricted to the full definable universe, that is, to the universe containing all objects that can be defined not just in one formal language but by means of the full expressive power of natural language: this universe seems to be countable on one account and uncountable on another. We argue that the claim that definitional contexts impose restrictions on the (...) scope of quantifiers reveals a natural way out. (shrink)

We use two logical resources, namely, the notion of recursively defined function and the Benardete-Yablo paradox, together with some inherent features of causality and time, as usually conceived, to derive two results: that no ungrounded causal chain exists and that time has a beginning.

Part II: Suppes and the mature theory. Representation and uniqueness.

Many controversies within philosophy of science have been attempted to be explained in terms of the metaphilosophical prescription/description distinction over the goal of philosophy of science. The aim of this paper is to show that the controversy between Popper and Kuhn about the ir/rationality of Normal Science cannot be fully explained in these terms, not even if we also take the truth/problem-solving distinction over the goal of science into account. It is argued that, to gain full understanding of this controversy, (...) it is necessary to take into account their differences regarding a topic apparently not involved in it, namely the structure of scientific theories. The conclusion is that both Popper and Kuhn were descriptive/prescriptive at the same time in their attempt to make the rules of scientific practice explicit, yet Kuhn did it better because he had a richer and more accurate idea of what scientific theories are. Although this work is mainly a piece of history of philosophy of science, it also aims at shedding some light on epistemological issues. If the conclusion is sound, it also shows how structural aspects of scientific theories may be relevant to the epistemology of science.Keywords: Falsificationism; Normal science; Rationality; Theories; Thomas Kuhn; Karl Popper. (shrink)

The central idea defended here is that ethical judgements are the product of the adaptive advantage provided by the conceptual capacity to categorise learned behaviour. In the same way that evolution of learning required the presence of value-laden brain structures that guide behaviour in the organism, we propose that the evolution of social learning and the development of human culture required the emergence of a new value system — the 'conceptual capacity to categorise'. This capacity is defined as the ability (...) to categorise one's own behaviour through a conceptual value code — 'favourable/unfavourable' or 'good/bad'. The conceptual capacity to categorise learned behaviour as good or bad was evolutionary successful because it transformed a system of rudimentary cultural transmission based on imitation into a system of efficient and biased cultural heredity based on teaching. Conceptual categorisation allowed the acquisition, through social learning, of adaptive information about behaviour, originating in/from the value-laden brain systems which control learning, without resorting to individual experience. We also suggest that the conceptual capacity to categorise conditioned the evolution of the human intelligence and that the ethical capacity arose as a by-product of both high intelligence and the ability to make evaluations of learned behaviour. (shrink)