This paper outlines a novel solution to the Ship of Theseus puzzle. The solution relies on situations, a philosophical tool used in natural language semantics among other places. The core idea is that what is true is always relative to the situation under consideration. I begin by outlining the problem before briefly introducing situations. I then present the solution: in smaller situations the candidate is identical to Theseus’s ship. But in larger situations containing both candidates these identities are neither true (...) nor false. Finally, I discuss some worries for the view that arise from the nature of identity, and suggest responses. It is concluded that the solution, and the theory that underpins it, are worth further investigation. (shrink)

Many philosophers and psychologists argue that out everyday ability to predict and explain the actions and mental states of others is grounded in out possession of a primitive 'folk' psychological theory. Recently however, this theory has come under challenge from the simulation alternative. This alternative view says that human beings are able to predict and explain each other's actions by using the resources of their own minds to simulate the psychological aetiology of the actions of the others. This book and (...) the companion volume Folk Psychology: The Theory of Mind Debate together offer a richly woven fabric of philosophical and psychological theory, which promises to yield real insights into the nature of our mental lives. (shrink)

Butz, Achimova, Bilkey, and Knott provide a topic overview and discuss whether the special issue contributions may imply that event‐predictive abilities constitute a root for conceptual human thought, because they enable complex, mutually beneficial, but also intricately competitive, social interactions and language communication.

This paper seeks to defend, develop, and revise Edward Craig's “genealogy of knowledge”. The paper first develops the suggestion that Craig's project is naturally thought of as an important instance of “social cognitive ecology”. It then introduces the genealogy of knowledge and some of its main problems and weaknesses, suggesting that these are best taken as challenges for further work rather than as refutations. The central sections of the paper conduct a critical dialogue between Craig's theory and Wittgenstein's claim–familiar from (...) On Certainty–that common-sense certainties cannot be known. It turns out that Craig's distinction between different stages in the development of our concept of knowledge can illuminate and make plausible Wittgenstein's claim. But it can do so only if Craig's traditional commitment to a central “core” in our concept of knowledge is replaced with the idea of knowledge as a family-resemblance concept. (shrink)

Acquisition and purchase of counterfeit and pirated products are illicit and morally questionable consumer behaviors. Nonetheless, some consumers engage in such illicit behavior and seem to overcome the moral dilemma by justification strategies. The findings on morality effects on consumer responses to counterfeit and pirated products are diverse, and the underlying theories provide no clear picture of the process that explains how morality and justification lead to particular consumer responses or why consumers differ in their responses. This study presents a (...) meta-analysis of 788 effect sizes from 207 independent samples provided in 196 manuscripts that synthesizes the research on the influence of morality on attitudes, intentions, and behavior toward counterfeit and pirated products. The meta-analysis tests competing theoretical models that describe the morality-justification processes, and identifies the deontological–teleological model as the superior one. The meta-analysis further shows that the institutional and social context of consumers explains the differences in morality effects on justifications and responses to counterfeit and pirated products, and provides evidence for the context-sensitivity of the underlying theories. (shrink)

Christian Georg Martin offers an argumentative reconstruction of the whole work, reading it as a critical ontology, namely as the attempt to abstract from all presuppositions and to immanently unfold conceptual determinations characterizing ...

I consider three challenges to the traditional view according to which moral responsibility involves an epistemic condition in addition to a freedom condition. The first challenge holds that if a person performs an action A freely, then she thereby knows that she is doing A. The epistemic condition is thus built into the freedom condition. The second challenge contends that no epistemic condition is required for moral responsibility, since a person may be blameworthy for an action that she did not (...) know was wrong. The third challenge invokes the quality of will view. On this view, a person is blameworthy for a wrong action just in case the action manifests a bad quality of will. The blameworthy person need not satisfy an additional epistemic condition. I will argue that contrary to appearances, none of these challenges succeeds. Hence, moral responsibility does require a non-superfluous epistemic condition. (shrink)

This article discusses some ethical principles for distributing pandemic influenza vaccine and other indivisible goods. I argue that a number of principles for distributing pandemic influenza vaccine recently adopted by several national governments are morally unacceptable because they put too much emphasis on utilitarian considerations, such as the ability of the individual to contribute to society. Instead, it would be better to distribute vaccine by setting up a lottery. The argument for this view is based on a purely consequentialist account (...) of morality; i.e. an action is right if and only if its outcome is optimal. However, unlike utilitarians I do not believe that alternatives should be ranked strictly according to the amount of happiness or preference satisfaction they bring about. Even a mere chance to get some vaccine matters morally, even if it is never realized. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss sequent calculi for the propositional fragment of the logic of HYPE. The logic of HYPE was recently suggested by Leitgeb as a logic for hyperintensional contexts. On the one hand we introduce a simple \-system employing rules of contraposition. On the other hand we present a \-system with an admissible rule of contraposition. Both systems are equivalent as well as sound and complete proof-system of HYPE. In order to provide a cut-elimination procedure, we expand the (...) calculus by connections as introduced in Kashima and Shimura. (shrink)

Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are common practice in the Netherlands. In response to increasing requests from patients to end their lives, physicians are finding themselves placed in particularly precarious situations because of advance directives written by patients suffering from severe dementia. In April 2020, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands issued two judgments in the so-called Dormicum case: a case involving the deliberate termination of the life of a 74-year-old woman suffering from advanced dementia by a geriatrician in a nursing (...) home in The Hague. The judgment of the lower criminal court was upheld, but the sanction imposed by the appellate disciplinary court was quashed. In this paper, the author reviews the two Supreme Court rulings, argues that both are fundamentally flawed and raises questions as to what they mean for Dutch criminal law, physicians, and patients going forward. (shrink)

What should we make of someone whose beliefs prevent her from accurately understanding her medical needs and care? Should that person still make her own health care decisions? In fact, she probably lacks decision‐making capacity. But that does not mean she is not competent.

Objects often manifest themselves in incompatible ways across perspectives that are on a par. Phenomena of this kind have been responsible for crucial revisions to our conception of the world, both philosophical and scientific. The standard response to them is to deny that the way things appear from different perspectives are ways things really are out there, a response that is based on an implicit metaphysical assumption that the world is a unified whole. This dissertation explores the possibility that this (...) assumption is false, that the world is fragmented instead of unified. On the proposed understanding of such worldly fragmentation, there is a notion of co-obtainment according to which two facts may obtain without co-obtaining. Since not every fact that obtains also co-obtains with every other fact, two incompatible facts may both obtain, as long as they do not co-obtain in the introduced sense. The possibility of such fragmentation sheds new light on a range of phenomena. It allows us to explore a view of time that takes the notion of passage as its defining primitive. It bolsters a no-subject view of experience against the objection that it leads to solipsism. It allows a realist view about colours to withstand the objection from conflicting appearances. And, it makes room for a view on which things really have the properties that are attributed to objects and events across different frames of reference, such as length, mass, duration and simultaneity. Overall, fragmentalism changes the way in which the manifest image feeds into an objective conception of the world: what is manifest to us is not misleading in what sort of properties it shows the world to have, it's only misleading in making it seem more unified than it really is. (shrink)

dialectical frameworks constitute a recent and powerful generalisation of Dung's argumentation frameworks, where the relationship between the arguments can be specified via Boolean formulas. Recent results have shown that this enhancement comes with the price of higher complexity compared to AFs. In fact, acceptance problems in the world of ADFs can be hard even for the third level of the polynomial hierarchy. In order to implement reasoning problems on ADFs, systems for quantified Boolean formulas thus are suitable engines to be (...) employed. In this paper we give complexity sensitive QBF encodings of ADF problems generalising recent work on QBFs for AF labellings. Our encodings provide a uniform and modular way of translating reasoning in ADFs to QBFs, that can be used as the basis for novel systems for ADF reasoning. (shrink)

This book explores how the immediate experience of musical sound relates to processes of meaning construction and discursive mediation. A unique multi-authored work that both draws on and contributes to current debates in ethnomusicology, musicology, psychology, and cognitive science, it presents a novel and productive view of how cultural practice relates to the experience and meaning of musical performance.

We hypothesize that in modern societies the striving for high positions in the hierarchy of organizations is equivalent to the striving for status and power in historical and traditional societies. Analyzing a sample of 4,491 US men and 5,326 US women, we find that holding a supervisory position or being in charge of hiring and firing is positively associated with offspring count in men but not in women. The positive effect in men is attributable mainly to the higher proportion of (...) childlessness among men in non-supervisory positions and those without the power to hire and fire. This effect is in accordance with the positive relationship between other status indicators and reproductive success found in men from traditional, historical, and modern societies. In women, we further find a curvilinear relationship between income percentile and offspring number by analyzing US census data, indicating that women may strive for resources associated with advancement rather than for status per se. (shrink)

Sight is undoubtedly the most crucial sense, and accidents resulting in its loss are a significant tragedy for individuals. The scientific community embarked on a journey of scientific innovation i...

Scientific discoveries are often to some degree influenced by luck. Whether luck’s influence is at odds with common-sense intuitions about responsibility, is the central concern of the philosophical debate about moral luck. Do scientists acknowledge that luck plays a role in their work and – if so – do they consider it morally problematic? The present article discusses the results of four focus groups with scientists, who were asked about their views on luck in their fields and its moral implications. (...) The participants underscored circumstantial luck as a key dimension of luck in science. Nevertheless, most participants insisted that there are ways of executing ‘control’ in science: They believe that virtues and skills can increase one’s chances for success. The cultivation of these skills and virtues was considered a reasonable ground for pride. Prizes and rewards were rarely tied to personal desert, but instead to their societal function. (shrink)

For a long time, the transcendental dialectic was not at the center of Kant scholarship but was often treated simply as Kant’s reckoning with contemporary metaphysics. Accordingly, the main interest was in the transcendental analytic, especially the transcendental deduction. It is all the more gratifying that in recent times a rethinking seems to be taking place on this issue. In the following, I shall attempt to show why the transcendental dialectic is something more than an addendum to the core business (...) of the Critique of Pure Reason. Rather, it forms the culmination of the work, demanding our full attention. Indeed, it provides the key to the entire critical philosophy by exhibiting reason itself as the ultimate founding principle in the form of its Idea. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.1 (2001) 1-20 [Access article in PDF] On the Hegelian Sublime: Paul de Man's Judgment Call Martin Donougho In recent years, the sublime has become a focus of renewed interest in philosophy and literary theory, despite being (perhaps in part because it is) "the most confused and confusing notion of the time" (Honour 1977, 145). 1 Much of the interest has been directed at the (...) Kantian account and the long tradition stemming from it. By contrast, little attention has been paid to G. W. F. Hegel's version of the sublime, whether of the phenomenon itself or of its conceptualization. That is natural enough, it might be thought, given the marginal place accorded the sublime in Hegel's scheme of things--he simply was not interested. Yet, that very marginality is of interest, if we follow the lead of the subtlest of commentators, Paul de Man, in his essay "Hegel on the Sublime" (1983). As de Man reads and diagnoses it, Hegel's marginalizing of the sublime (much as with the section on symbolics or, indeed, aesthetics tout court) serves the interests of an aesthetic ideology. The gesture of putting the sublime aside in fact reveals more about the philosopher's system than is found in his express doctrine, de Man insists. The sublime, like Hegel's allegory, should then be read symptomatically, as the "defective cornerstone" of the entire system. 2 In this essay, I have two aims: besides explicating Hegel's theory of the sublime on its own terms, I try to assess de Man's reading of Hegel's rhetorical strategies.Even if de Man's charges fail--as I argue they do--his approach to Hegel remains, I think, full of insights. The sublime, it might well be thought, betokens the same penetration of an objective field by subjective theory that (for Heidegger and others) is at issue with Western metaphysics as a whole; a prime instance of this would be Hegel's own allegedly masterful project, including his attempt at an aesthetic system. So understood, "on the sublime" would translate as over the sublime, that is, in a bid to enframe and control discourse about "the most high" or "great writing" (see Longinus). 3 And then we might ask, for example, what Hegel is doing [End Page 1] when he consigns the sublime to a minor role, or when he instead gives the classical Ideal star billing. How exactly does he stage his discourse about art?Oddly enough, Hegel's sublime is not at all part of the main theoretical line stemming (if only in retrospect) from Immanuel Kant. That line might be dubbed "the Romantic sublime"--the title of an influential book by Thomas Weiskel, which appeared posthumously in 1976--or, alternatively, "the Yale sublime," in honor of an entire group (which includes Geoffrey Hartman and Harold Bloom) who wrote about the tendency of Romantics such as William Wordsworth and Ralph Waldo Emerson to invest themselves in their topic. 4 Kant himself points to a possible illusory move he labels subreption. Here--to apply a useful distinction Peter de Bolla (1989) draws--we have not just a discourse on, but also a discourse of the sublime. 5 The discourse of the sublime produces the very category it is meant to analyze, hence providing a space for "experience" of the sublime. A boot-strapping process induces a "subject-effect," calls forth a subject position. The remarkable thing is that--although he is said at sixteen to have made a translation of Longinus 6 and although he was, of course, familiar with the whole Kantian approach, which in many respects should have been congenial to him--Hegel stands apart from this "Romantic," or "hermeneutic," sublime. He does not at all give the appearance of staging readings in the manner sketched above, but instead adopts a distanced, disinterested perspective on the phenomenon.Even so, his aesthetic system might be accused of framing a discourse on the sublime, which, through seeking dialectical profit on its investment, shades into a discourse of the sublime. Thus, de... (shrink)

Agent-based models (ABMs) are one of the main sources of evidence for decisions regarding mitigation and suppression measures against the spread of SARS-CoV-2. These models have not been previously included in the hierarchy of evidence put forth by the evidence-based medicine movement, which prioritizes those research methods that deliver results less susceptible to the risk of confounding. We point out the need to assess the quality of evidence delivered by ABMs and ask the question of what is the risk that (...) assumptions entertained in ABMs do not include all the key factors and make model predictions susceptible to the problem of confounding. (shrink)

In spite of our good intentions and explicit egalitarian convictions, we habitually disfavor the underprivileged. The rapidly growing literature on implicit bias – unconscious, automatic tendencies to associate negative traits with members of particular social groups – points towards explanations of this dissonance, although rarely towards generalizable solutions. In a recent paper, Jennifer Saul draws attention to the alarming epistemological problems that implicit bias carries with it; since our judgments about each other are likely influenced by implicit bias, we have (...) good reason to doubt their veracity. In this paper we explore a novel way to come to terms with the epistemological problem as it manifests itself in ranking situations, i.e. how we can know that the way in which we have ranked a group of people for a certain position, reflects their actual competence. On our approach, rather than attempting to make people less biased, we suggest that biased behavior can sometimes be corrected after the fact. In particular, the veracity of rankings can sometimes be improved by modifying the rankings directly. We investigate three methods that modify biased rankings, and argue that the last of these solves the epistemological problem that we are concerned with. (shrink)

According to recent empirical research (Transparency International, 2013), nearly 15% of people worldwide admitted to having paid a bribe in an educational setting. Given the nature of corruption,...

Lighting upon Weber as a history student in the late 1950s led to all round engagement with his work to the present day, beginning with rationality and bureaucracy, passing through appreciation of his synoptic vision of modernity, and arguing for the continuing relevance of his rationalization thesis. This emphasis on Weber’s contribution to understanding the course of modernity led in the 1990s to pointing out that his approach to epochal shift provides the basis for understanding the global age. The ever-developing (...) nature of his thought can be further illustrated in his studies of China. (shrink)

‘Game’ means ‘play within the construction of rules’. The sub-category ‘sport’ considers play as competition where the rules are known to the audience, under the following divide: fundamental constructive rules about the game's structure and less important or flexible rules facilitating and monitoring play. These provide athletes and audience with stable knowledge. The excitement of play comes from the vagaries of the actual engagement of the rules in the action of play. The social order can use this as a metaphor (...) of its ideal of civil law in relation to the citizen. (shrink)

Boarding school is a major educational option for many students (e.g., students living in remote areas, or whose parents are working interstate or overseas, etc.). This study explored the motivation, engagement, and achievement of boarding and day students who are educated in the same classrooms and receive the same syllabus and instruction from the same teachers (thus a powerful research design to enable unique comparisons). Among 2,803 students (boardingn= 481; dayn= 2,322) from 6 Australian high schools and controlling for background (...) attributes and personality, we found predominant parity between boarding and day students in their motivation, engagement, and achievement. We also found that classroom-average motivation, engagement, and achievement was not significantly affected by the number of boarders (relative to day students) in the classroom. In addition, the effects of boarding were generally not moderated by students’ background or personality attributes. We conclude that boarders have academic opportunities and outcomes that are comparable to their day student counterparts. Implications for students, teachers, and parents are discussed. (shrink)

Laverty, Martin This article is a slightly edited version of a speech given by Martin Laverty to the 2013 Annual General Meeting of the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics. It views the movement towards consumer-directed care in Australia not as a threat to Catholic health and aged care, but as an opportunity to deepen our understanding of our mission and to develop services which are distinctive in their commitment to providing excellent care in response to the changing (...) needs of the community. It explores consumer-directed care, highlights limitations in our current understanding of mission and ethics, and challenges us to be prophetic as the founders of our institutions were in responding to community need. (shrink)

In this paper I respond to van de Poel’s claim that new technologies should be conceived as ongoing social experiments, which is an idea originally introduced by Schinzinger and Martin in the 1970s. I discuss and criticize three possible motivations for thinking of new technologies as ongoing social experiments.