Why do we share fake news? Despite a growing body of freely-available knowledge and information fake news has managed to spread more widely and deeply than before. This paper seeks to understand why this is the case. More specifically, using an experimental setting we aim to quantify the effect of veracity and perception on reaction likelihood. To examine the nature of this relationship, we set up an experiment that mimics the mechanics of Twitter, allowing us to observe the user perception, (...) their reaction in the face of shown claims and the factual veracity of those claims. We find that perceived veracity significantly predicts how likely a user is to react, with higher perceived veracity leading to higher reaction rates. Additionally, we confirm that fake news is inherently more likely to be shared than other types of news. Lastly, we identify an activist-type behavior, meaning that belief in fake news is associated with significantly disproportionate spreading. (shrink)

This collection of essays on the philosophy of Foucault assesses his various work from a variety of perspectives: his place in the history of philosophy; his style and method of philosophical expression; his notions of political power; his ethical thought; and his attitude to psychoanalysis.

Unethical employee behavior (UEB), an important organizational phenomenon, is dynamic and multi-faceted. Recent renewed interest in the role of emotion in ethical decision-making (EDM) suggests that unethical behaviors are neither always rationally derived nor deliberately undertaken. This study explores how to integrate the conscious and nonconscious dimensions of unethical decision-making. By broadening the scope of inquiry, we explore how integral affect—the emotion tied to anticipated decision outcomes for the employee engaging in misconduct—can shed light on UEB. We review related literature (...) on affect and EDM and propose a model in which we assert that at a decision point, an employee experiences multiple integral affects that are either persuasive or dissuasive toward UEB. We further posit that among these integral affects, a dominant integral affect (DIA) emerges, determining the nature and direction of unethical behavior. In addition, our model considers the role of affective residue and the influence of other factors, such as incidental affect, disposition, context, and retrospection, to derive propositions. Our DIA model can help managers gain a comprehensive understanding of how affect, characterized by its locus (self or other orientation) and valence (enhancing or harming), determines the characteristics of UEB. (shrink)

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics.

This article examines Cicero’s treatment of libertas and its constitutional underpinnings in Pro Rabirio perduellionis reo. In Pro Rabirio, Cicero offers a concentrated discussion of libertas in which he downplays its relationship with popular institutions and procedures and emphasizes instead its strong correlation with social and political consensus. Indeed, for Cicero, libertas is more closely associated with the qualitative characteristics of peaceable association than any particular constitutional order. By characterizing libertas as an experience of calm security that goods citizens enjoy (...) when they are consistently and effectively protected against by injury at the hands of moral degenerates, Cicero makes it possible to distance libertas from provocatio and auxilium, the two major legal and institutional mechanisms associated with libertas in the Roman context, and forge a much stronger connection with the self-regulating activity of the Roman ruling elite. (shrink)

Motivated by exploitation concerns, we argue for the importance of participant engagement in basic human intracranial electrophysiology research. This research takes advantage of unique neurosurgical opportunities to better understand complex systems of the human brain, but it also exposes participants to additional risks without immediate therapeutic intent. We argue that understanding participant values and incorporating their perspectives into the research process may help determine whether and to what extent research practices and the resulting distributions of risks and benefits constitute exploitation (...) and contribute to building a brain research paradigm that is genuinely responsive to participant values. More broadly, we highlight the importance of paying attention to participant interests in non-therapeutic brain research. (shrink)

I would like to suggest another way to go further toward a new economy of power relations, a way which is more empirical, more directly related to our present situation, and which implies more relations between theory and practice. It consists of taking the forms of resistance against different forms of power as a starting point. To use another metaphor, t consists of using this resistance as a chemical catalyst so as to bring to light power relations, locate their position, (...) and find out their point of application and the methods used. Rather than analyzing power from the point of view of its internal rationality, it consists of analyzing power relations through the antagonism of strategies.[…]Let us come back to the definition of the exercise of power as a way in which certain actions may structure the field of other possible actions. What, therefore, would be proper to a relationship of power is that it be a mode of action upon actions. That is to say, power relations are rooted deep in the social nexus, not reconstituted "above" society as a supplementary structure whose radical effacement one could perhaps dream of. In any case, to live in a society is to live in such a way that action upon other actions is possible-- and in fact ongoing. A society without power relations can only be an abstraction. Which, be it said in passing, makes all the more politically necessary the analysis of power relations in a given society, their historical formation, the source of their strength or fragility, the conditions which are necessary to transform some or to abolish others. For to say that there cannot be a society without power relations is not to say either that those which are established are necessary or, in any case, that power constitutes a fatality at the heart of societies, such that it cannot be undermined. Instead, I would say that the analysis, elaboration, and bringing into question of power relations and the "agonism" between power relations and the instransitivity of freedom is a permanent political task inherent in all social existence.[…]In effect, between a relationship of power and a strategy of struggle there is a reciprocal appeal, a perpetual linking and a perpetual reversal. At every moment the relationship of power may become a confrontation between two adversaries. Equally, the relationship between adversaries in society may, at every moment, give place to the putting into operation of mechanisms of power. The consequence of this instability is the ability to decipher the same events and the same transformations either from inside the history of struggle or from the standpoint of the power relationships. The interpretations which result will not consist of the same elements of meaning or the same links or the same types of intelligibility, although they refer to the same historical fabric, and each of the two analyses must have reference to the other. In fact, it is precisely the disparities between the two readings which make visible those fundamental phenomena of "domination" which are present in a large number of human societies.Michel Foucault has been teaching at the Collège de France since 1970. His works include Madness and Civilization , The Birth of the Clinic , Discipline and Punish , and History of Sexuality , the first volume of a projected five-volume study. (shrink)

Activity in the prefrontal cortex may distinguish the meta-awareness experienced during lucid dreams from its absence in normal dreams. To examine a possible relationship between dream lucidity and prefrontal task performance, we carried out a prospective study in 28 high school students. Participants performed the Wisconsin Card Sort and Iowa Gambling tasks, then for 1 week kept dream journals and reported sleep quality and lucidity-related dream characteristics. Participants who exhibited a greater degree of lucidity performed significantly better on the task (...) that engages the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, but degree of lucidity achieved did not distinguish performance on the task that engages the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, nor did it distinguish self-reported sleep quality or baseline characteristics. The association between performance on the Iowa Gambling Task and lucidity suggests a connection between lucid dreaming and ventromedial prefrontal function. (shrink)

Who is Lucrezia, the mysterious woman at the center of Machiavelli’s comic play Mandragola? And why is she deemed “fit to govern a kingdom”? This article revisits these questions with attention to Mandragola’s sophisticated, and often irreverent, allusions to Roman source materials. While scholars have long recognized that Mandragola draws on Roman history and drama, its sustained engagement with Lucretian and Ovidian poetry has gone largely unnoticed. In what follows, I trace these allusions and show how Machiavelli uses them to (...) bring into view the fertility of erotic desire. Mandragola is replete with Lucretian phrases and imagery, but a close examination of these references indicates they are made playfully, and even satirically, in the style of Ovid’s Ars amatoria, a didactic elegy on the art of seduction that develops a mixed assessment of Epicurean teachings. Like Ovid, Machiavelli embraces the hedonism that motivates Epicureanism—but without accepting that happiness requires distancing ourselves from illusion. This departure allows both Ovid and Machiavelli to reassess the status of erotic desire. For Lucretius, erotic desire must be handled with extreme caution lest it entangle the mind in ruinous false beliefs and destroy the possibility of theoretical wisdom. Machiavelli, following Ovid, recommends a different course, in which happiness is achieved through the deliberate manipulation of erotic fantasy. For Machiavelli, staging erotic fantasies is an essential part of statecraft. (shrink)

Background: Treatment of psychotic disorders in pregnancy is often ethically and clinically challenging, especially when psychotic symptoms impair decision-making capacity. There are several competing ethical obligations to consider: the ethical obligation to maternal autonomy, the maternal and fetal beneficence-based obligations to treat peripartum psychosis, and the fetal beneficence-based obligation to minimize teratogenic exposure. Objective: This article outlines an ethical framework for clinical decision-making for the management of chronic psychosis in pregnancy, with an emphasis on special considerations in the previable and (...) periviable period. Case Presentation: A 31-year-old gravida 2, para 1 with intrauterine pregnancy at 12 weeks and 4 days gestation was brought to the emergency department by her husband seven months after delivering her first child, due to sudden onset of behavioral changes that included self-isolation, not eating, and not taking care of her child. Her past medical history included hypothyroidism and inflammatory bowel disease, but no prior psychiatric illness. After being admitted to the psychiatric hospital, she continued to have poor oral intake and weight loss despite initial inpatient treatment with antipsychotics, levothyroxine, and discontinuation of corticosteroids. Her pregnancy was also complicated by the diagnosis of multiple fetal anomalies at 20 weeks gestation, when the fetus was periviable. Conclusions: For previable or periviable pregnancies, the patient and/or surrogate should decide whether to pursue prenatal genetic screening and invasive diagnostic testing, as well as whether to continue or terminate the pregnancy. When the choice is made to continue the pregnancy, initiation of long-term psychiatric treatment (including medications with potential adverse fetal effects) should be based on shared decision-making between the physician and the patient and/or surrogate. Although some pharmacologic interventions may have potential adverse effects on the developing fetus, the use of psychotropic medications can be ethically justified, even if the patient herself does not have the capacity to consent and requires a surrogate, when the goal is to restore maternal autonomy and minimize the risks of maternal and fetal harm from untreated psychiatric illness. (shrink)

This paper argues that Cicero’s critique of Epicureanism in De finibus is motivated by a concern about its degrading effect on the moral sensibility of Rome’s best men. In place of earlier objections to Epicureanism, which centered on its inability to explain or recommend the virtuous conduct of Roman maiores, De finibus focuses on its inability to do so properly and, more prospectively, to assist boni in the work of maintaining the dignity and respectability of Roman civic life. Responding to (...) optimates like Cassius who claimed that Epicureanism was compatible with Roman politics because it treats virtue as being necessary for pleasure, Cicero holds that instrumentalizing virtue in this way is actually a grave corruption of it. Not only do Epicureans debase politics by reducing it to considerations of utility alone: they also introduce deeper forms of civic confusion by distorting and abusing the very idea of honorableness. (shrink)

What do modern republics have to fear? Machiavelli's Florentine Republic reconstructs Machiavelli's answer to this question from the perspective of the Florentine Histories, his most probing meditation on the fate of republican politics in the modern age. It argues that his principle goal in narrating the defeat of Florentine republicanism is to debunk the views of leading humanists concerning the overall health of republican politics in modernity and the distinctive challenges that modern republics should expect to face. The Medici family (...) had exposed these vulnerabilities better than anyone else, and Machiavelli reconstructs their political strategy to show how conventional ideas of moral and political virtue are the most potent instruments of princely ambition in a city that wants to be free. (shrink)

The explicit topic of Fear and Trembling's third Problema (the longest single section, accounting for a third of the book's total length), the theme of Abraham's silence stands not far in the background in every other section, and its importance is flagged by the pseudonym—Johannes de silentio—under which Kierkegaard had the book published. Here I aim to defend an interpretation of the meaning of the third Problema's central claim—that Abraham cannot explain himself, 'cannot speak'—and to argue on its basis for (...) an interpretation of the work as a whole. (shrink)

Y a-t-il une seule et unique morale dont on puisse se prévaloir aujourd'hui? Les réflexions philosophiques sur la morale se sont toujours combattues, remplacées, démenties au fil du temps, tout en étant chacune valable. Le stoïcisme, la morale de la vertu, le recours à la loi morale, l'utilitarisme sont autant de courants qui irriguent encore notre façon de penser. Mais laquelle de ces "visions" choisir? Et pourquoi choisir celle-là plutôt qu'une autre? Michel Meyer opère ici un retournement de la pensée (...) traditionnelle sur l'éthique. C'est parce que l'homme est un problème pour l'homme qu'il y a des réponses qu'on appelle la morale. Michel Meyer ne part plus des sujets éthiques (Moi, l'Autre) comme référents moraux, mais de la distance, plus ou moins grande, entre les individus. C'est la variation de cette distance qui influence nos choix quant au bien et au mal, à ce que l'on recherche ou à ce que l'on veut fuir ou éviter, et qui fera qu'on sera tantôt stoïcien, tantôt utilitariste ou kantien. Le positionnement des sujets les uns par rapport aux autres conduit à agir de telle ou telle manière, donc à adopter tel ou tel type de conduite morale et à juger ce qui est bien ou mal de façon différente. Le problème moral, c'est l'Autre comme problème, auquel il convient de répondre selon la distance qui nous sépare, nous divise ou nous rapproche, et auquel on répond toujours d'ailleurs, parce qu'il constitue une menace, un appel à l'aide, ou encore la nécessité de coopérer. Sans chercher à édicter de nouvelles règles ou de nouveaux préceptes, Michel Meyer replace les grandes théories morales, comme celles d'Aristote, de Kant, de Mill ou encore de Hume, dans un espace philosophique virtuel qui est leur espace de validité. Avec le concept de distance entre les êtres, il nous offre ainsi une approche nouvelle et synthétique de la morale. (shrink)

Dès l'âge de neuf ans, après la mort de ses parents Georges et Maï Politzer, Michel Politzer a vu s'effacer la mémoire de son enfance. Qui furent ses parents? Comment György, ce lycéen révolté qui participe à 16 ans le fusil à la main à la révolution des Conseils hongrois de 1919, devient-il Georges, un brillant agrégé de philosophie propulsé au centre de la vie intellectuelle parisienne? Comment cet admirateur de Descartes rencontre-t-il ensuite sa future épouse, Maï, qui vénère Pascal, (...) dans un train du pays basque? Quelle fut la vie de ces deux militants communistes et résistants, dévorée par l'étude, l'action et la rédaction d'une oeuvre philosophique singulière? Une vie qui valut à Georges de tomber sous les balles nazies en 1942, et à Maï de ne jamais revenir du camp d'Auschwitz. Grâce à quelques photos et à de rares témoignages qui lui ont permis de retrouver une partie de sa famille restée dans l'ombre, après un voyage dans la Hongrie natale de Georges, Michel Politzer recompose le portrait de ses parents, héros d'une génération d'intellectuels engagés. Son récit des origines est le fruit d'une bouleversante enquête. (shrink)

Depuis 2001, France Culture et l'Université libre de Bruxelles, l'une des plus prestigieuses universités d'Europe, se sont associées pour organiser tous les ans un colloque international francophone sur les sujets qui font question dans le monde contemporain. Alors que l'éclatement et la spécialisation des savoirs semblent avoir totalement fragmenté notre connaissance ; alors que les rationalités philosophiques et scientifiques, la poésie et l'expérience mystique semblent s'être séparées dans des domaines irréductibles si ce n'est même opposés, il a semblé intéressant, dans (...) un effort transdisciplinaire qui réunissait, entre autres, physiciens, psychologues et philosophes, de s'interroger sur une unité globale de la connaissance. Celle-ci implique-t-elle l'unité essentielle de l'être humain, ou l'unité du monde dans lequel nous sommes plongés - ou éventuellement même ces deux unités elles-mêmes réunifiées? (shrink)

Excerpt from Le Sentiment de la Nature Ici, n'est-il pas vrai, l'usage a donné à chacun des termes accouplés, un sens particulier? La Na t'ure est ici le Monde spécialement considéré sous son aspect pittoresque et Ce que nos yeux voient parmi les choses et les ètres que l'homme n'a point créés, constitue à trés peu près la Nature dont on dit que telle personne a; ou n'a pas le sentiment. Et par là le langage veut exprimer que cette personne (...) aime ou n'aime pas la nature. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

“ S pace, K no w l edge and P o w e r ” , en tr ev i s t a r ea l i z a d a en 1982 y pub li cada en P aul R ab i no w , The Foucau l t R eade r , N ueva Y o r k, 1984. A quí se pub li ca de acue r do a l a ve r s i ón f r (...) ancesa, t r aduc i da por P ab l o Bli t s t e i n y Tadeo L im a. (shrink)

We give syntactic characterizations of1. the theories whose categories of models are closed under the formation of pullbacks, and of2. the locally ω-polypresentable categories.A somewhat typical example is the category of algebraically closed fields. Case is proved by classical model-theoretic methods; it solves a problem raised by H. Volger . The solution of case is in the spirit of the ones for the locally ω-presentable and ω-multipresentable cases found by M. Coste and P.T. Johnstone respectively. The problem was raised in (...) the context of Domain Theory by F. Lamarche. (shrink)

While previous research has established that employees who have a more conscientious leader are more likely to perceive that their leader is ethical, the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of this linkage remain unknown. In order to better understand the relationship between leader conscientiousness and ethical leadership, we examine the potential mediating role of leader moral reflectiveness, as well as the potential moderating role of decision-making autonomy. Drawing from social cognitive theory, results from two samples of workgroup leaders and their (...) immediate reports situated in Africa and Asia show that leader conscientiousness is positively related to leader moral reflectiveness, which in turn, is positively associated with employees’ assessment of ethical leadership. Furthermore, and consistent with our hypothesis, results from the two samples show that leader decision-making autonomy moderates the indirect path from leader conscientiousness to ethical leadership through moral reflectiveness, such that only morally reflective leaders who have high decision-making autonomy at work engage in ethical leadership behaviors. In our discussion, we highlight the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and suggest ways in which organizations can better foster ethical leadership. (shrink)

Le désir se présente comme une sorte de point aveugle de la phénoménologie merleau-pontienne. Mais est-ce là la trace d’une carence ou d’un déplacement de la problématique en direction d’autres domaines de cette philosophie ? Dans cet article, nous tenterons de dégager trois régions d’investigation principales, qui s’entremêlent les unes avec les autres. Tout d’abord, demandons-nous, quelle est cette signification explicitement « métaphysique » que Merleau-Ponty prête au désir, et en quels sens variés convient-il de l’entendre au beau milieu d’une (...) phénoménologie, pourtant luxuriante, de la perception ? Quelle spécificité en vient alors à posséder le désir par rapport à des notions qui lui sont apparentées comme la sexualité, l’amour, la pudeur, ou encore la volonté ? Ensuite, sous quelle forme le désir se déploie-t-il sous nos yeux, à la faveur du dialogue incessant qu’entretient Merleau-Ponty avec la psychanalyse, en particulier celle qu’il dit « existentielle » ? Le désir merleau-pontien, est-ce principalement le désir sexuel, ou encore l’Éros ? Enfin, de quelle manière singulière l’approche merleau-pontienne du désir se retrouve-t-elle entrainée dans le courant ontologique mouvementé de sa dernière philosophie, dans les entrailles naturelles de l’esthésiologie, et le jeu de miroir du visible et de l’invisible ? Ces considérations nous aiderons peut-être à mieux cerner l’étrange attraction que ce philosophe exerce sur les autres et sur nous-mêmes, nous faisant passer pour ainsi dire de Merleau-Ponty parlant du désir au désir de Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

Quel individu est capable de mesurer l’étendue de l’informatisation dans son environnement quotidien? Pourtant, celle-ci ne cesse de l’accompagner, d’agir sur son existence, de son domicile à son bureau. Quels bouleversements a-t-elle ainsi provoqués sur les plans culturels mais aussi sociologiques et économiques depuis sa création? Voici quelques pistes de réflexion pour mieux comprendre ses effets, son impact.

Philosophers writing on moral responsibility inherit from P.F. Strawson a particular problem space. On one side, it is shaped by consequentialist accounts of moral criticism on which blame is justified, if at all, by its efficacy in influencing future behavior in socially desirable ways. It is by now a common criticism of such views that they suffer a "wrong kind of reason" problem. When blame is warranted in the proper way, it is natural to suppose this is because the target (...) deserves blame – thus opposing to consequentialist views of blame desert-based views. The latter, however, raise worries that blame is a form of retributive sanction whose justificatory burdens cannot be met. I evaluate T.M. Scanlon's recent attempt to maneuver this space. In doing so, I argue that although Scanlon’s relationship-impairment model of blame has clear advantages over consequentialist and desert-based alternatives, it fails: (1) to adequately appreciate the significance of person-focused emotional attitudes in constituting persons as agents subject to a nexus of normative expectations and demands, and (2) to recognize that a victim may owe nearly nothing *to* a blameworthy agent while nonetheless retaining unconditional moral obligations to act in certain ways (and forego acting in other ways) toward him. (shrink)

The pursuit of artificial consciousness requires conceptual clarity to navigate its theoretical and empirical challenges. This paper introduces a composite, multilevel, and multidimensional model of consciousness as a heuristic framework to guide research in this field. Consciousness is treated as a complex phenomenon, with distinct constituents and dimensions that can be operationalized for study and for evaluating their replication. We argue that this model provides a balanced approach to artificial consciousness research by avoiding binary thinking (e.g., conscious vs. non-conscious) and (...) offering a structured basis for testable hypotheses. To illustrate its utility, we focus on "awareness" as a case study, demonstrating how specific dimensions of consciousness can be pragmatically analyzed and targeted for potential artificial instantiation. By breaking down the conceptual intricacies of consciousness and aligning them with practical research goals, this paper lays the groundwork for a robust strategy to advance the scientific and technical understanding of artificial consciousness. (shrink)

Chipman, Meagher, and Barwise (2024) propose a public health ethics framework to assess current medical interpretation policies and provide guidelines for healthcare providers to meet their respons...

Nobel Laureate Kazou Ishiguro’s (2010) novel “Never Let Me Go” follows individuals intentionally bred to donate their organs over multiple years, ultimately dying when the final “vital organs” are...

Abstract:In this paper, I dispute what I callpsychological internalismabout moral responsibility, which comprises most classic accounts as well as newer neurobiological ones, and I defendpsychological externalismabout moral responsibility instead. According to psychological internalism, an agent's moral responsibility is determined solely or primarily by her intentional states. I argue that psychological internalism is empirically challenged by recent findings in social psychology and cognitive science. In light of the empirical evidence, I contend that moral responsibility depends on historical and environmental factors to (...) a much greater degree than previously appreciated. Thus, moral responsibility is not just in the head: indeed, it is much less in the head than typically assumed. (shrink)

Advance care directives for health care have been promoted as a way to improve end-of-life decision making. These documents allow a patient to state, in advance of incapacity, the types of medical treatments they would like to receive, to name a surrogate to make those decisions, or to do both. Although studies have shown that both physicians and patients generally have positive attitudes about the use of these documents, relatively few individuals have actually completed one.What underlies this discrepancy between attitudes (...) and behavior with regard to advance care directives? One obvious explanation is lack of access. Emanuel et al. estimated that approximately 90 percent of the population desire an advance care directive, and they pointed to access as the major barrier. Yet interventions that increase accessibility have typically failed to yield more than a 20 percent completion rate. Thus, it appears that access is not the sole determinant of advance care directive completion. (shrink)