This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

Sagoff critiqued the exclusion of cultivated plants and animals from much of the body of work in ecology. However, there is a history of attempting to incorporate cultivated landscapes in ecology that goes back at least two decades, particularly in urban ecology. The subdiscipline of urban ecology has received relatively little attention in philosophy, although some of its methodologies, such as coupled human-natural systems research, have been critiqued. Here I will attempt to explicitly address the conceptual limitations in ecology for (...) studying cultivated ecosystems and evaluate these limitations in the context of coupled human-natural systems and socioecological research, urban ecosystem services frameworks, and actor-network theory. I argue that the history of cultivated organisms is highly germane to their ecology, necessitating the incorporation of human agency into ecological theory. However, human agency and nonhuman nature exist along a continuum of nature vs. culture. As a result, dualistic approaches to studying the role of human agency in ecosystem processes, such as socioecology and ecosystem services assessments—which explicitly separate humans from nature—have had limited success in cultivated landscapes. More fully integrated frameworks such as actor-network theory may better address ecological research questions in cultivated landscapes. (shrink)

How can one build AI systems such that they pursue the goals their designers want them to pursue? This is the alignment problem. Numerous authors have raised concerns that, as research advances and systems become more powerful over time, misalignment might lead to catastrophic outcomes, perhaps even to the extinction or permanent disempowerment of humanity. In this paper, I analyze the severity of this risk based on current instances of misalignment. More specifically, I argue that contemporary large language models and (...) game-playing agents are sometimes misaligned. These cases suggest that misalignment tends to have a variety of features: misalignment can be hard to detect, predict and remedy, it does not depend on a specific architecture or training paradigm, it tends to diminish a system’s usefulness and it is the default outcome of creating AI via machine learning. Subsequently, based on these features, I show that the risk of AI alignment magnifies with respect to more capable systems. Not only might more capable systems cause more harm when misaligned, aligning them should be expected to be more difficult than aligning current AI. (shrink)

Two types of conception of a Way of Life are important for a consideration of the question of the forming and testing of ideals of conduct, and consequently for a consideration of our questions regarding the relation of ideals to practice. The one type is more, the other type less general. The one has reference to man as man, the other to particular classes of man, with relation to their specific function in society. The former issues in the idea of (...) a universal ethic, the latter in the idea of a professional code. Thus the former has a wider generality, the latter has a greater concreteness. Ethical progress seems to me to require that both types should be kept in view, and used to guide man's efforts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Chiao-Wei Liu, "Response to Leonard Tan and Mengchen Lu, 'I Wish to be Wordless': Philosophizing through the Chinese Guqin," Philosophy of Music Education Review 26, no. 2 (Fall, 2018): 199–202Leonard Tan and Mengchen LuChiao-Wei Liu's response to our paper raised important issues regarding the translation and interpretation of Chinese philosophical texts, our construals of Truth and ethical awakening, differences between the various Chinese philosophical traditions, and (...) the importance of recognizing students' selves as music educators work with them through diverse musical traditions. In this paper, we respond to each of these issues in turn.Liu rightly pointed out that the translation and interpretation of classical Chinese texts is complex. To support her argument, she cited a phrase from the [End Page 210] Zhuangzi that was quoted in our paper ("The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you've gotten the fish, you can forget the trap") and noted that it has often been used "to attribute to one's ungrateful attitude after receiving help from others."1 Taken on its own as a standalone, this reading appears plausible. Our interpretation, however, takes into account the quote in its original context:荃者所以在魚，得魚而忘荃；The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap.蹄者所以在兔，得兔而忘蹄；The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare.言者所以在意，得意而忘言。Words exist because of meaning; once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.吾安得忘言之人而與之言哉？Where can I find someone who has forgotten words so I can talk with the person?"2In each of the first three phrases, there are six characters followed by five. This pattern indicates that the first three phrases should be read as a whole rather than independently, which then lead to the final phrase–the playful climax which reveals that Zhuangzi's purpose here is to discuss language. The fish trap and rabbit snares are metaphors for words, while the fish and the rabbit are metaphors for meaning. Each of the first three phrases convey the same idea that if we get overly hung up on the means (that is, the fish trap, the rabbit snare, and words), we will never get to the Dao. Taken as a whole, the passage conveys the idea of words being mere means to the Dao, rather than the Dao itself, which supports the central theme of our paper: Philosophizing without words. Indeed, as Liu noted, the translation and interpretation of Chinese philosophical texts is a complex one, to which we add the importance of context.In our paper, we drew on the Buddhist notion of mingxin jianxing (明心見性) to explain how a guqin player quietly and meditatively clears her heart-mind before playing the instrument so that she can search for Truth within and discover her innermost self. Extending and adapting our ideas for contemporary music education, we proposed that music education is not just an outward journey to learn about composers, but also an inward one to learn about the self. Liu's construal of our work as claiming that "Truth does not reside within the [End Page 211] performer or the music, but is located in the space where the two are in sync" and also that "qualities aligned with the music are ethically good, whereas those that differ are not"3 extend our writing in ways we did not intend. Quite on the contrary, we agree with Liu that different students have different needs, hence our proposition for students to search inwards and discover themselves.In like vein, we agree with Liu that "when music learning becomes a means of assimilating toward one prescribed/predetermined standard, regardless of students' lived realities or how they make sense of the world, teaching then ceases to be moral."4 As noted in our paper, we are not in favor of a standards-based approach to music education that is rigid; similarly, we do not advocate the prescription of moral standards. The moral stories associated with the guqin tradition are heuristic; they aim to inspire ethical awakening, not to impose moral standards, and are therefore neither mechanistic nor to be... (shrink)

Abstract:In classical Greek philosophy, the pursuit of Truth was done primarily through logical argumentation using language as “Truth tool.” The major thinkers in classical China, on the other hand, were famously suspicious of language, with Confucius declaring, “I wish to be wordless.” They turned instead to music to express the philosophically ineffable. In this paper, we use the example of the Chinese guqin to show how music serves as “Truth tool” in the Chinese philosophical tradition; in fact, music may be (...) Truth itself. Through a quartet of interrelated themes–namely, the “Search for Truth,” the “Search for Harmony,” the “Search for Ethical Awakening,” and the “Search for Sagehood”–we show how playing the guqin constitutes the doing of philosophy in this musical tradition. Through the guqin, performers and listeners experience Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist philosophical insights; no words are needed. We conclude by proffering implications for contemporary music education. (shrink)

According to a common view, sentience is necessary and sufficient for moral status. In other words, whether a being has intrinsic moral relevance is determined by its capacity for conscious experience. The _epistemic objection_ derives from our profound uncertainty about sentience. According to this objection, we cannot use sentience as a _criterion_ to ascribe moral status in practice because we won’t know in the foreseeable future which animals and AI systems are sentient while ethical questions regarding the possession of moral (...) status are urgent. Therefore, we need to formulate an alternative criterion. I argue that the epistemic objection is dissolved once one clearly distinguishes between the question what determines moral status and what criterion should be employed in practice to ascribe moral status. Epistemic concerns are irrelevant to the former question and—I will argue—criteria of moral status have inescapably to be based on sentience, if one concedes that sentience determines moral status. It follows that doubts about our epistemic access to sentience cannot be used to motivate an alternative criterion of moral status. If sentience turns out to be unknowable, then moral status is unknowable. However, I briefly advocate against such strong pessimism. (shrink)

Like a number of other writers, [Gunther S.] Stent contends that in essential ways science and art are comparable. As he puts it: "Both the arts and the sciences are activities that endeavor to discover and communicate truths about the world" . Although one cannot but sympathize with the desire to bring the so-called Two Cultures together, a viable and enduring union will not be achieved by ignoring or glossing over important differences. Using the behavior of scientists, artists, and laymen (...) as empirical evidence, the first part of this essay will argue that Stent's union is a shotgun marriage, not one made in heaven, and that his attempt to wed different disciplinary species results not in fecund insight but barren misconception. In the second part, I will suggest that this misunderstanding arises because, like many scientists Stent fails even to recognize the existence of the humanist - that is, the theorist and critic of the arts. Yet the humanities must be included, and areas of inquiry within them differentiated, if diverse disciplines are to be related to one another in a coherent and consistent way. Leonard B. Meyer's most recent book is Explaining Music: Essays and Explanations. He is also the author of Emotion and Meaning in Music, The Rhythmic Structure of Music , and Music, The Arts, and Ideas, awarded the Laing Prize in 1969. See also: "Against Literary Darwinism" by Jonathan Kramnick in Vol. 38, No. 2. (shrink)

Illusionism about consciousness entails that phenomenal consciousness doesn’t exist. The distribution question concerns the distribution of consciousness in the animal kingdom. Skepticism of animal consciousness is the view that few or no kinds of animals possess consciousness. Thus, illusionism seems to imply a skeptical view on the distribution question. However, I argue that illusionism and skepticism of animal consciousness are actually orthogonal to each other. If illusionism is true, then phenomenal consciousness does not ground intrinsic value so that the non-existence (...) of phenomenal consciousness would not have ethical implications. In this case, the adequate reaction is to reformulate the distribution question in terms of the quasi-phenomenal functional features associated with the illusion of phenomenal consciousness which do ground intrinsic value. Hence, either illusionism is false or the distribution question does not concern phenomenal consciousness. In any case, illusionism does not directly tell us anything about the distribution question. However, since illusionism forces us to revise our traditional conception of consciousness, it indirectly affects research on animal consciousness by questioning that consciousness is a unified and an all-or-nothing property. (shrink)

The core doctrine of supersubstantivalism is that material objects are identical to their spacetime locations. One powerful consideration for the view is the argument from harmony—supersubstantivalism, it is claimed, is in a position to offer an elegant explanation of a number of platitudes concerning objects and their locations. However, I will argue that identifying material objects with their locations does not provide a satisfying explanation of harmony. What the supersubstantivalist needs is not a theory about the identity of objects, but (...) another theory about the identity of some relations. This paper proposes such a theory and shows that with it in place, the argument from harmony can be repaired. (shrink)

The science of animal consciousness investigates (i) which animal species are conscious (the distribution question) and (ii) how conscious experience differs in detail between species (the quality question). We propose a framework which clearly distinguishes both questions and tackles both of them. This two-tier account distinguishes consciousness along ten dimensions and suggests cognitive capacities which serve as distinct operationalizations for each dimension. The two-tier account achieves three valuable aims: First, it separates strong and weak indicators of the presence of consciousness. (...) Second, these indicators include not only different specific contents but also differences in the way particular contents are processed (by processes of learning, reasoning or abstraction). Third, evidence of consciousness from each dimension can be combined to derive the distinctive multi-dimensional consciousness profile of various species. Thus, the two-tier account shows how the kind of conscious experience of different species can be systematically compared. (shrink)

I agree with Jecker et al that “the headline-grabbing nature of existential risk (X-risk) diverts attention away from immediate artificial intelligence (AI) threats…”1 Focusing on very long-term speculative risks associated with AI is both ethically distracting and ethically dangerous, especially in a healthcare context. More specifically, AI in healthcare is generating healthcare justice challenges that are real, imminent and pervasive. These are challenges generated by AI that deserve immediate ethical attention, more than any X-risk issues in the distant future. Almost (...) 50 years ago, John Knowles edited a volume titled Doing Better and Feeling Worse: Health in the United States. We are ‘doing better’ because numerous advances in medical technologies are saving more lives and improving the quality of our lives. But we are ‘feeling worse’ because the additional costs are unsustainable, are threatening funding for other social goods and are increasing injustices regarding the allocation of those resources. This is precisely the situation we are faced with regarding AI in medicine today. Exploding healthcare costs have generated increasing pressure to control those costs, often with unjust consequences. AI is touted as a critical mechanism for controlling healthcare costs, often with little thought given to justice-relevant consequences. Consider, for example, …. (shrink)

Which artificial intelligence (AI) systems are agents? To answer this question, I propose a multidimensional account of agency. According to this account, a system's agency profile is jointly determined by its level of goal-directedness and autonomy as well as is abilities for directly impacting the surrounding world, long-term planning and acting for reasons. Rooted in extant theories of agency, this account enables fine-grained, nuanced comparative characterizations of artificial agency. I show that this account has multiple important virtues and is more (...) informative than alternatives. More speculatively, it may help to illuminate two important emerging questions in AI ethics: 1. Can agency contribute to the moral status of non-human beings, and how? 2. When and why might AI systems exhibit power-seeking behaviour and does this pose an existential risk to humanity? (shrink)

Abstract:In this paper, I offer my reading of John Dewey's Art as Experience and propose implications for music education based on Dewey's ideas. Three principal questions guide my task: What are some key ideas in Dewey's theory of art? How does Dewey's theory of art fit within his larger theory of experience? What are the implications of Dewey's ideas for music education? As I shall show, art for Dewey is rooted in nature, civilizes humans, serves as social glue, and has (...) an important role in society throughout most of human history. Modern life, however, separates art and life; there is a need to restore the continuity between art and the ordinary processes of living, a task that Dewey undertakes by positing the notion of art as experience. Dewey's ideas support an expanded curriculum in music education, one in which popular music may be included alongside Western classical music and music from diverse cultures. However, artistic and educational discernment are needed, which necessitates the need for music educators to be sufficiently steeped in varied musical traditions and styles. (shrink)

I was surprised to note the critical tone of the discussion which my friend Leonard B. Meyer recently devoted in these pages to an article on the relation of art and science that I wrote for a popular scientific magazine. For I had believed all the while that in my article I was merely presenting to a general scientific audience a watered-down version of what I thought were Meyer's own views. Evidently I was mistaken in that belief, though I (...) have been unable to fathom just where I went wrong in interpreting Meyer's earlier writings, which, more than any other source, are the provenance of my ideas about the nature of art. Gunther S. Stent, professor of molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Molecular Biology of Bacterial Viruses, Phage and the Origin of Molecular Biology, Molecular Genetics: An Introductory Narrative, The Coming of the Golden Age: A View of the End of Progress, and many important scientific papers. In Concerning the Sciences, the Arts—AND the Humanities" , Leonard B. Meyer took issue with views expressed by Professor Stent in "Prematurity and Uniqueness in Scientific Discovery," published in Scientific American. (shrink)

According to an orthodox view, the capacity for conscious experience (sentience) is relevant to the distribution of moral status and value. However, physicalism about consciousness might threaten the normative relevance of sentience. According to the indeterminacy argument, sentience is metaphysically indeterminate while indeterminacy of sentience is incompatible with its normative relevance. According to the introspective argument (by François Kammerer), the unreliability of our conscious introspection undercuts the justification for belief in the normative relevance of consciousness. I defend the normative relevance (...) of sentience against these objections. First, I demonstrate that physicalists only have to concede a limited amount of indeterminacy of sentience. This moderate indeterminacy is in harmony with the role of sentience in determining moral status. Second, I argue that physicalism gives us no reason to expect that introspection is unreliable with respect to the normative relevance of consciousness. (shrink)

This paper compares the views of Hegel and Schelling regarding the problem of individuation, i.e. the question of what makes an individual (a) numerically distinct from others and (b) the very individual it is. My focus is on how Hegel approaches this problem in his metaphysics and how that relates to Schelling’s views as articulated in his ‘negative philosophy’. While Hegelians like Robert Stern and Karen Ng are optimistic that Hegel can solve the problem of individuation, I argue that Schelling (...) puts forward an objection that both challenges Hegel’s account and provides a rationale for taking seriously Schelling’s own insistence on a pre-logical dimension of being. (shrink)

John Rawls has held up as a model of public reason the U.S. Supreme Court. I argue that the Dobbs Court is justifiably criticized for failing to respect public reason. First, the entire opinion is governed by an originalist ideological logic almost entirely incongruent with public reason in a liberal, pluralistic, democratic society. Second, Alito’s emphasis on “ordered liberty” seems completely at odds with the “disordered liberty” regarding abortion already evident among the states. Third, describing the embryo/fetus from conception until (...) birth as an “unborn human being” begs the question of the legal status of the embryo/fetus, as if an obiter dictum settled the matter. Fourth, Alito accuses the Roe court of failing to exercise judicial restraint, although Alito argued to overturn Roe in its entirety. In brief, the Dobbs opinion is an illiberal, disingenuous, ideological swamp that swallows up public reason and the reproductive rights of women. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy by Andreas VrahimisLeonard LawlorAndreas Vrahimis. Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy. History of Analytic Philosophy. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. Pp. xix + 395. Hardback, $139.99.Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy is a great achievement in the history of ideas in general. The wealth of historical details that Andreas Vrahimis musters indicates that he has a profound understanding of twentieth-century (...) philosophy. More importantly, this book overflows with philosophical insights. The wealth of insights indicates that Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy is also a great achievement in philosophy as such. Andreas Vrahimis has written a remarkable book.Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy presents the origins of the division between analytic philosophy and continental philosophy. This story is familiar, with analytic philosophy siding with science and continental with poetry; with analytic philosophy being a kind of rationalism and continental a kind of irrationalism; with analytic philosophy using a writing style of dry, logical argumentation and continental using a writing style of images and emotions; and finally, with analytic philosophy writing only of what can be expressed and continental writing of the ineffable. Yet, Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy tells a story that is unfamiliar and even novel. The genealogy Vrahimis lays out is not of the rift between analytic philosophy and phenomenology (although this rift appears in the book's final chapters) but between analytic philosophy and Bergson. As Vrahimis clearly shows, the popularity of Bergson's thought at the beginning of the twentieth century caused the split, and even the hostility, between analytic and continental [End Page 332] philosophy. Therefore, Vrahimis does not title his book Bergson and the History of Analytic Philosophy, but Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy (2). Bergsonism is the popular view of Bergson's thought. It turned Bergson's thought into a "fad" (263). But Bergsonism contained many misunderstandings of Bergson. In the early twentieth century, Bergson was, in short, "a misunderstood celebrity." Unfortunately for Bergson's legacy, Bergson himself allowed Bergsonism to flourish as a cultural movement. Until The Creative Mind (published in 1934 in France as La pensée et le mouvant, after "the demise of Bergsonism"), Bergson never attempted to correct the misinterpretations of his thought that Bergsonism presented. Chapter by chapter, Vrahimis shows how the analytic philosophy criticisms leveled against Bergson are based in Bergsonism's distortions of Bergson's thought. The founding members of analytic philosophy aimed their attacks at a strawman Bergson.Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy's first three chapters set the stage for the analytic philosophers' attacks on Bergson. In fact, chapter 3 contains one of the clearest summaries of Bergson's thought I have ever read. Then, the book is arranged chronologically, starting with William James's 1905 "The Experience of Activity" in chapter 4 and ending with Ryle's 1958 "Phenomenology versus The Concept of Mind" in chapter 12. William James is not one of Bergson's critics. Chapter 4 shows how James praised Bergson's thought because of its similarity with pragmatism. This praise popularized Bergson's thought and thus led to Bergsonism. Chapters 4 through 12 (there is also a chapter 13 that serves as the book's conclusion) concern specific philosophers' criticisms of Bergson and then, in the final chapters, specific philosophers' criticisms of Lebensphilosophie and continental philosophy. There are chapters on Russell, Karin Costelloe-Stephen, L. Susan Stebbing, Neurath and the Vienna Circle (against Lebensphilosophie), Schlick (against Bergson as the originator of Lebensphilosophie), Carnap and Ayer (against Heidegger and Sartre), and Ryle (against Husserl). Most of the chapters concern the criticisms that resulted from Bergson's valorization of intuition as a source of knowledge. Bergson's definitions of intuition contribute to the belief that he is antiscience and an anti-intellectualist. Because intuition is introspection, it even suggests that Bergson's own philosophy is a kind of individualism. Because intuition is inexpressible, it also raises the problem that Bergson's own intuition of time as duration cannot be verified; rather, it can be challenged only by someone else's own intuition. Chapter 11 then shows how Heideggerian Angst challenges... (shrink)

This essay argues that our national efforts at health reform ought to be informed by eleven key lessons from Oregon. Specifically, we must learn that the need for health care rationing is inescapable, that any rationing process must be public and visible, and that fair rationing protocols must be self-imposed through a process of rational democratic deliberation. Part I of this essay notes that rationing is a ubiquitous feature of our health care system at present, but it is mostly hidden (...) rationing, which is presumptively unjust. Part II argues that the need for health care rationing is inescapable. Although Oregon is flawed as a model of health rationing, it gives us worthy moral lessons for health reform at the national level, which I analyze and defend in Part III. The most significant of these lessons is the importance of rational democratic deliberation in articulating fair rationing protocols for a community. In Part IV I sketch the philosophic justification for this approach and respond to some important criticisms from Daniels. Keywords: cost containment, democratic deliberation, fairness, justice, rationing CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

After reviewing the original motivation for the formulation of string theory and what we learned from it, I discuss some of the implications of the holographic principle and of string dualities for the question of the building blocks of nature.

My task is to provide some critical commentary on the preceding essays. My unfortunate conclusion will be that the issues that are their primary focus are more likely to become more ethically intractable over the next several years as medicine progresses. I do not see any easy or obvious way to avoid this conclusion.

Introduction In this introduction I will comment on some of the central issues of the papers included in this volume and point out some of the relations ...