A provocateur does not pose a threat of harm. Hence, a forceful response to provocation is generally considered wrongful. And yet, a provocateur is often denied recourse to a self-defence justification if she defends herself against such a violent response. In recent work, Kimberly Ferzan argues that a provocateur forfeits defensive rights but this forfeiture cannot be explained in the same way as an aggressor’s rights forfeiture. Ordinarily, one forfeits the right not to be harmed and to self-defend against harm (...) by threatening to violate another person’s rights. But provocateurs forfeit their defensive rights because they bring about the situation in which defence becomes necessary. As I argue here, positing these two types of forfeiture justifications is neither desirable nor necessary. I suggest a unified rights forfeiture account that grounds rights forfeiture in moral responsibility for an unjust threat. My account offers clearer distinctions than alternative unified accounts, which I briefly discuss. Furthermore, the account can provide better explanations of intuitively plausible judgements. A provocateur will have less extensive defensive rights than an innocent victim, but will not lose all her defensive rights simply because ‘she started it.’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 285-304 [Access article in PDF] Vacher de Lapouge and the Rise of Nazi Science Jennifer Michael Hecht * In the literature on the history of the Shoah the existence of a tradition of explicit anti-morality has been generally ignored. 1 This article argues that the materialist anthropology of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries waged a direct attack on (...) morality, which was described as inherently linked to religion. Strict materialism also denied any human access to the eternal except through biological lineage, linking the past, present, and future. This concern with procreation, which culminated in a desire to change the racial content of the world, led anthropology to aim its attack on morality on restrictive sexual mores and the injunction not to kill. Still, anti-morality was not conjured up in order to further eugenics; it was an independent idea and an explicit response to the loss of God. The anthropologist who best illustrates this scientific anti-morality is Georges Vacher de Lapouge, the French inventor of "anthroposociology." The present article explicates Lapouge's anti-morality and establishes a connection between his racial theories and those of a coterie of German colleagues. Most notable among these German colleagues was Hans Günther, whose vision had a role in shaping Nazi racial policy, in particular the Nazi interest in head measurements. Scholars investigating the origins of German racism have discovered French influence but have focused on Gobineau and his almost anti-scientific literary racism. This article argues that Lapouge and his scientific racism were also important.The relative significance of ideology in the "Final Solution" is the subject of some debate. This article seeks not to enter that debate but rather to reevaluate the nature of the ideology. It seems clear that whatever may have been the relative importance of ideas to, for instance, mundane careerism and conformity, the [End Page 285] ideas did play a role. 2 Within that context it will be demonstrated that Lapouge's anthroposociology helped to legitimate racialist utopianism. The scientific status of anthroposociology was deliberately engaged as propaganda for the regime, even after the specifics of its injunctions were no longer of much interest to the programmers of genocide.Whatever made people enact and accept genocide as daily routine, the idea of it came from somewhere, and somehow "the moral sensitivities" of the people were dulled. 3 Increasingly, historians stress that along with older forms of anti-Semitism, new scientific doctrines had a direct effect on events. There are a number of studies on the role of science in National Socialist doctrine, but they tend to be more about the role of doctors and the medical model of society than they are about anthropology. 4 Those that do deal with anthropology tend to mention Lapouge as an interesting forerunner but consistently fail to recognize his direct influence on Nazi doctrine. 5Lapouge's contribution to racism was a quantitative, well-written race theory that was replete with the language and tools of science. It was particularly appealing because it described a collection of human groups which sounded too scientific and clinical to be political. The value-laden descriptions of these clinical types (based on head shape) were easily transferred to known "racial" or social groups--with the simple claim that this or that group tended to have this or that head shape. Lapougian race theory was convincing because it was alien and yet confirmed familiar suspicions. It was thus highly instrumental in vitalizing dormant or mild prejudice. These ideas (and the endless columns of measurements and descriptions of head shapes) have grown so foreign to present day beliefs that they have become somewhat invisible to our eyes. Because of this, historians have not fully appreciated one of the important factors contributing to the "respectability" and credibility of a genocidal doctrine.In studying people who were guilty of unparalleled cruelty, historians expected to find moral agony and found instead a bureaucratic, mechanistic, banality. [End Page 286] In considering scientific racism, on the other hand, historians... (shrink)

When a person finds herself in peril her right to be rescued is activated and a rescue duty is imposed on those who are in a position to help. In this article, I argue that the activation of the right to be rescued needs to be suitably constrained so that the rescuee is prevented from arbitrarily controlling the normative situation between herself and potential rescuers. Such control would be in conflict with the moral equality of persons. I argue that the (...) activation of the right to be rescued should be conditional on the person having a justification for the action that caused her peril. One implication of my view is that the right to be rescued cannot fulfill the function that Jonathan Quong ascribes to it. The right to be rescued turns out to be an unsuitable ground for the necessity condition which constrains the permissible use of defensive force. (shrink)

There has been a recent surge of interest in ancient accounts of free will. It is surprising, then, that there have been virtually no attempts to discuss whether Plato had such an account. Those who have made an attempt quickly deny that such an account is present in the dialogues. I shall argue that if we draw a distinction between two notions of free will, it is plausible that some account of free will is, in fact, present in the dialogues, (...) the Republic in particular. This is the first in depth search into the question and I demonstrate that the defender of a Platonic free will thesis has more resources than she first appears to. It also has the benefit of giving us an obvious source material for Augustine's discussion. (shrink)

Many researchers consider language to be definitionally unique to humans. However, increasing evidence suggests that language emerged via a series of adaptations to neural systems supporting earlier capacities for visuomotor integration and manual action. This paper reviews comparative neuroscience evidence for the evolutionary progression of these adaptations. An outstanding question is how to mechanistically explain the emergence of new capacities from pre-existing circuitry. One possibility is that human brains may have undergone selection for greater plasticity, reducing the extent to which (...) brain organization is hard-wired and increasing the extent to which it is shaped by socially transmitted, learned behaviors. Mutations that made these new abilities easier or faster to learn would have undergone positive selection, and over time, the neural changes once associated with individual neural plasticity would tend to become heritable, innate, and fixed. Clearly, though, language is not entirely “innate;” it does not emerge without the requisite environmental input and experience. Thus, a mechanistic explanation for the evolution of language must address the inherent trade-off between the evolutionary pressure for underlying neural systems to be flexible and sensitive to environmental input vs. the tendency over time for continually adaptive behaviors to become reliably expressed in an early-emerging, canalized, less flexible manner. (shrink)

In contrast to Clarke and Beck's claim that that the approximate number system represents rational numbers, we argue for a more modest alternative: The ANS represents natural numbers, and there are separate, non-numeric processes that can be used to represent ratios across a wide range of domains, including natural numbers.

A magisterial exploration of poetry’s place in the fine arts by one of the twentieth century's leading poets In this book, eminent poet Anthony Hecht explores the art of poetry and its relationship to the other fine arts. While the problems he treats entail both philosophic and theoretical discussion, he never allows abstract speculation to overshadow his delight in the written texts that he introduces, or in the specific examples of painting and music to which he refers. After discussing (...) literature’s links with painting and music, Hecht investigates the theme of paradise and wilderness, especially in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He then turns to the question of public and private art, exploring the ways in which all the arts participate in balances between private and public modes of discourse, and between an exclusive or elitist role and the openly political. Beginning with a discussion of architecture as an illustration of a more general theme of discord and balance, the penultimate lecture probes the inner contradictions of works of art and our reactions to them, while the final piece concerns art and morality. (shrink)

Most interpretations of the Crito, such as the absolute obligation view and the civil disobedience view, are thought to be grounded largely in an obligation of gratitude. I present arguments for why these interpretations are not viable, and then propose an alternative solution; this alternative is the obligation of fair play. While the obligation of fair play has been discussed before in relation to the Crito, this is the first full account of the position. The fair play interpretation both precludes (...) absolute obligation and does not require civil disobedience to resolve supposed inconsistencies with the Apology. (shrink)

What things make a state “nuclear,” what makes things “nuclear,” and how do we know? The degree to which—and purpose for which—a nation, a program, a technology, or a material counts as “nuclear” is not always a matter of consensus. Nuclearity depends on history and geography, science and technology, bodies and politics, radiation and race, states and capitalism. It is not so much an essential property of things, as it is distributed in things. Settlements about degrees of nuclearity structure global (...) control over the flow of radioactive materials; they constitute the conceptual bedrock of antinuclear movements and nuclear power industries; they affect regulatory frameworks for occupational health and compensation for work‐related illnesses. This essay explores these themes by contemplating the Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty, the implementation of safeguards, and a few other nuclear things. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary explorations of the implications of recent developments in vision theory for our understanding of the nature of pictorial representation and ...

Jewish law has a history stretching from the early period to the modern State of Israel, encompassing the Talmud, Geonic and later codifications, the Spanish Golden Age, medieval and modern responsa, the Holocaust and modern reforms. Fifteen distinct periods are separately studied in this volume, each one by a leading specialist, and the emphasis throughout is on the development of the institutions and sources of the law.

In this paper one aspect of Leibniz' optical ideas, the law of refraction, is the main topic. This law had been formulated before him by Snellius, Descartes and Fermat. Their mathematical equations are analogous in the relations between the geometrical parameters and the optical resistances, but they differ concerning the velocities of light. From the Leibnitian point of view this situation has its reasons in uncompletely developed principles. Leibniz had shown that the solution of this problem requires a new metaphysics (...) as well as other mathematical, namely infinitesimal methods, which are connected in Leibniz by his dynamics. As one of the influences of his dynamical statement, the beginning of a new type of physical explanation will be demonstrated, which replaced the construction of mechanical models in the 18th century. (shrink)

Narrative form is crucial to the understanding of science in popular culture. This is particularly true with subjects such as radiation, in which the technical details at hand are often remote from everyday experience—as well as contested or uncertain among experts. This article examines the narrative choices made by three popular texts that publicized radiation risks to the public during the Cold War: John Hersey's Hiroshima, David Bradley's No Place to Hide, and Ralph Lapp's The Voyage of the Lucky Dragon. (...) It contends that each author borrowed from well-established literary genres and that this borrowing was crucial to coherence and effective messaging of the argument. At the same time, placing the arguments in such a familiar form served to blunt some of the radical potential in those same messages. (shrink)

Future work is needed to establish that pure short-term memory is a coherent individual difference attribute that is separable from traditional compound short-term memory measures. Psychometric support for latent pure short-term memory capacity will provide an important starting point for future fine-grained analyses of the intrinsic factors that influence individual differences in math skills.

The notion of internalization put forth by Roger Shepard continues to be appealing and challenging. He suggests that we have internalized, during our evolutionary development, environmental regularities, or constraints. Internalization solves one of the hardest problems of perceptual psychology: the underspecification problem. That is the problem of how well-defined perceptual experience is generated from the often ambiguous and incomplete sensory stimulation. Yet, the notion of internalization creates new problems that may outweigh the solution of the underspecification problem. To support this (...) claim, I first examine the concept of internalization, breaking it down into several distinct interpretations. These range from well-resolved dynamic regularities to ill-resolved statistical regularities. As a function of the interpretation the researcher selects, an empirical test of the internalization hypothesis may be straightforward or it may become virtually impossible. I then attempt to cover the range of interpretations by drawing on examples from different domains of visual event perception. Unfortunately, the experimental tests regarding most candidate regularities, such as gravitational acceleration, fail to support the concept of internalization. This suggests that narrow interpretations of the concept should be given up in favor of more abstract interpretations. However, the latter are not easily amenable to empirical testing. There is nonetheless a way to test these abstract interpretations by contrasting internalization with the opposite concept: externalization of body dynamics. I summarize evidence for such a projection of body constraints onto external objects. Based on the combined evidence of well-resolved and ill- resolved regularities, the value of the notion of internalization has to be reassessed. Key Words: event perception; evolution; internalization. (shrink)

Empirical research on the perception of physical events is rarely designed to test a particular theory. The research often fails to be embedded in a larger theoretical context or it is carried out with the implicit goal to support a particular theoretical approach. I argue that this is not very productive. While three theories are relevant for our understanding of events, their limits have rarely been addressed. I expose these limits. The three theories or approaches are direct or ecological perception, (...) inference theory, and the concept of internalization. I demonstrate that all three fail empirically and/or theoretically with respect to explaining the perception of events. They fail because they adhere to simplistic stationary views or because they remain too vague. An adequate theory of event perception has to include three factors at the level of the explanans, namely the stimulus, the purpose of the action to which the percept belongs, and the appraisal of this action's success. Examples from the domains of arrival-time judgment and perception of events involving classical mechanics are used to support the claims. I suggest that a new pragmatic theory of event perception ought to modify and to incorporate the three concepts of affordances, thought-like processes, and evolutionary principles. (shrink)

The debate over the relative importance of natural selection as compared to other forces affecting the evolution of organisms is a long-standing and central controversy in evolutionary biology. The theory of adaptationism argues that natural selection contains sufficient explanatory power in itself to account for all evolution. However, there are differing views about the efficiency of the adaptation model of explanation. If the adaptationism theory is applied, are energy and resources being used to their optimum? This book presents an up-to-date (...) view of this controversy and reflects the dramatic changes in our understanding of evolution that have occurred in the last twenty years. The volume combines contributions from biologists and philosophers, and offers a systematic treatment of foundational, conceptual, and methodological issues surrounding the theory of adaptationism. The essays examine recent developments in topics such as phylogenetic analysis, the theory of optimality and ess models, and methods of testing models. (shrink)

We explore the evidential relationships that connect two standard claims of modern evolutionary biology. The hypothesis of common ancestry (which says that all organisms now on earth trace back to a single progenitor) and the hypothesis of natural selection (which says that natural selection has been an important influence on the traits exhibited by organisms) are logically independent; however, this leaves open whether testing one requires assumptions about the status of the other. Darwin noted that an extreme version of adaptationism (...) would undercut the possibility of making inferences about common ancestry. Here we develop a converse claim—hypotheses that assert that natural selection has been an important influence on trait values are untestable unless supplemented by suitable background assumptions. The fact of common ancestry and a claim about quantitative genetics together suffice to render such hypotheses testable. Furthermore, we see no plausible alternative to these assumptions; we hypothesize that they are necessary as well as sufficient for adaptive hypotheses to be tested. This point has important implications for biological practice, since biologists standardly assume that adaptive hypotheses predict trait associations among tip species. Another consequence is that adaptive hypotheses cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed by a trait value that is universal within a single species, if that trait value deviates even slightly from the optimum. 1 Two Darwinian hypotheses 2 Logical independence 3 How adaptive hypotheses bear on the tree of life hypothesis 4 How the tree of life hypothesis bears on adaptive hypotheses 5 What do adaptive hypotheses predict? 6 Common ancestry and quantitative genetics to the rescue 7 Conclusion. (shrink)