Flick Grey discusses three main processes of benevolent othering: Claims to ownership of territory, claims to superiority, and claims to authorship. The claim to ownership of territory is explored partly through the concept of ‘domestication’ within co-production and a benevolence contingent upon the harmlessness and usefulness of the other. This claim supports the claim to superiority, the ‘giving being’ who is in a position to ‘give’ opportunities for ‘rehabilitative identities’ within a stigmaphobic, normative world view claiming others as external and (...) inferior. Grey explores the ventriloquism, essentialism and decontextualization of people who are labeled as mentally ill as part... (shrink)

Some modern cosmological models predict the appearance of Boltzmann Brains: observers who randomly fluctuate out of a thermal bath rather than naturally evolving from a low-entropy Big Bang. A theory in which most observers are of the Boltzmann Brain type is generally thought to be unacceptable, although opinions differ. I argue that such theories are indeed unacceptable: the real problem is with fluctuations into observers who are locally identical to ordinary observers, and their existence cannot be swept under the rug (...) by a choice of probability distributions over observers. The issue is not that the existence of such observers is ruled out by data, but that the theories that predict them are cognitively unstable: they cannot simultaneously be true and justifiably believed. (shrink)

It is commonplace in discussions of modern cosmology to assert that the early universe began in a special state. Conventionally, cosmologists characterize this fine-tuning in terms of the horizon and flatness problems. I argue that the fine-tuning is real, but these problems aren't the best way to think about it: causal disconnection of separated regions isn't the real problem, and flatness isn't a problem at all. Fine-tuning is better understood in terms of a measure on the space of trajectories: given (...) reasonable conditions in the late universe, the fraction of cosmological histories that were smooth at early times is incredibly tiny. This discussion helps clarify what is required by a complete theory of cosmological initial conditions. (shrink)

We argued in a recent issue of this journal that if abortion is restricted,1 then there are parallel obligations for parents to donate body parts to their children. The strength of this obligation to donate is proportional to the strength of the abortion restrictions. If abortion is never permissible, then a parent must always donate any organ if they are a match. If abortion is sometimes permissible and sometimes not, then organ donation is sometimes obligatory and sometimes not. Our argument (...) was based on the following ideas: (a) that a fetus has full moral status, (b) that parents have special obligations to their offspring, fetus or not, and (c) that this special obligation is to protect them. The result is the conclusion that abortion restrictivists cannot also consistently deny that organ donation should be compulsory. (shrink)

This article reports the findings, analysis, and commentary on survey results of academicians in the Social Issues in Management (SIM) field. The three major themes guiding the study were (a) current and future research in the SIM field, (b) strengths and weaknesses of research in the SIM field, and (c) research versus management practice in the SIM field. A number of specific questions were posed: What are the current topics on which you are conducting research? What topics do you see (...) as most important for the SIM field for the balance of the 1990s? What recent articles will most impact SIM research in the 1990s? What are the strengths and weaknesses of current SIM research? What topics will be most relevant to practicing managers? What recommendations do you propose for bridging the gap between SIM research and management practice? The experts' responses were categorized and discussed so that current and future scholars might have a basepoint for evaluating future research. The analysis and commentary concludes with a SIM research framework for the 1990s. (shrink)

Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever (C&D) have recently argued that the ideal/non-ideal distinction is ‘useless’ in philosophy of language. This paper responds to C&D’s argument, develops an account of the distinction, and applies it to philosophy of language. Section 1 summarizes C&D’s argument against Charles Mills’s version of the distinction. Section 2 develops an account of the distinction that’s inspired by Mills’s work but that differs from what C&D take Mills’s view to be. Section 3 shows that, pace C&D, this (...) distinction picks out interesting subsets of work in philosophy of language. We say that ideal theories adopt models of the social world that fail to recognize systemic oppression and are therefore systematically inaccurate. Nonideal theories correct these inaccuracies. (shrink)

We provide a derivation of the Born Rule in the context of the Everett (Many-Worlds) approach to quantum mechanics. Our argument is based on the idea of self-locating uncertainty: in the period between the wave function branching via decoherence and an observer registering the outcome of the measurement, that observer can know the state of the universe precisely without knowing which branch they are on. We show that there is a uniquely rational way to apportion credence in such cases, which (...) leads directly to the Born Rule. Our analysis generalizes straightforwardly to cases of combined classical and quantum self-locating uncertainty, as in the cosmological multiverse. (shrink)

This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic literature for those who have not yet experienced these literary masterworks. For those who have known and loved these works in the past, this is an invitation to reunite with old friends in a fresh new format. From Shakespeare's finesse to Oscar Wilde's wit, this unique collection brings together works as diverse and influential as The Pilgrim's Progress and Othello. As an anthology that invites readers to immerse themselves in the masterpieces of (...) the literary giants, it is must-have addition to any library. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 4, April 2022.

I ask whether what we know about the universe from modern physics and cosmology, including fine-tuning, provides compelling evidence for the existence of God, and answer largely in the negative.

The modern social world is unjust. It is also complex. What does this latter fact imply about the kind of approach that should be used in ameliorating the injustice expressed in the former fact? One answer, recently put forth by Jacob Barrett, is that _ideal theory_, which he understands as being fundamentally defined by the identification and subsequent pursuit of an aspirational macro-level institutional goal, lacks a place in social reform. The reason he thinks ideal theory lacks a place has (...) to do with its inability to deal with complexity. _Pace_ Barrett, I argue that ideal theory, suitably understood, can play a valuable role in social reform in a complex world. While some ideal theorists have underappreciated the extent to which complexity considerations complicate social reform, this does not mean that there is no place for it. This paper surveys the resources ideal theory has available to cope with what I call _the challenge of complexity_. Although the coping techniques will be successful to varying degrees, I believe, in aggregate, a compelling case can be made that ideal theory can combat the challenge of complexity. Still, one may worry that even if ideal theory can adequately deal with complexity, it cannot adequately deal with ever-changing social circumstances. Call this _the dancing landscape objection_. A static ideal theory cannot overcome it, but a _dynamic ideal theory_ could. In sum, dynamic ideal theory can contribute to social reform in a complex and mutable social world. (shrink)

Some scientists try to discover and report laws of nature. And, they do so with success. There are many principles that were for a long time thought to be laws that turned out to be useful approximations, like Newton’s gravitational principle. There are others that were thought to be laws and still are considered laws, like Einstein’s principle that no signals travel faster than light. Laws of nature are not just important to scientists. They are also of great interest to (...) us philosophers, though primarily in an ancillary way. Qua philosophers, we do not try to discover what the laws are. We care about what it is to be a law, about lawhood, the essential difference between something’s being a law and something’s not being a law. It is one of our jobs to understand lawhood and convey our understanding to others. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPhilosophers and psychologists have come to recognize contempt as a crucial concept for understanding moral and social life. Yet its conceptual history remains understudied. I argue that contempt underwent an important conceptual shift at the end of the 1640s with the publication of René Descartes’ Passions de l’âme. Prior to Descartes, early modern philosophers excluded contempt from their taxonomies of the passions, treating it instead as a form of indifference. To have contempt for something was to be free of passion (...) in the face of it. Following Descartes’ intervention, however, philosophers increasingly included contempt among the passions, those unruly perturbations of the mind that could have benign or dangerous effects depending on how they were moderated. This was a change that harboured practical as well as philosophical implications. For what had once been an emblem of self-mastery was now itself a passion in need of regulation. The contempt displayed by aristocrats, in particular, now signified a dangerous lack of self-control rather than a cool display of superiority. I conclude by drawing out the affinities between this mid-seventeenth-century reconceptualization of contempt as a passion and the current attempt by philosophers to redeem contempt as a morally justifiable attitude. (shrink)

The possibility of continuous backwards time travel—time travel for which the traveler follows a continuous path through space between departure and arrival—gives rise to the double-occupancy problem. The trouble is that the time traveler seems bound to have to travel through his or her younger self as the trip begins. Dowe and Le Poidevin agree that this problem is solved by putting the traveler in motion for a gradual trip to the past. Le Poidevin goes on to argue, however, that (...) the gradual trip gives rise to the Cheshire cat problem, a concern about whether the traveler survives the gradual trip. We address the Cheshire cat problem by proposing and considering new continuity constraints on identity over time. Along the way, we come upon an endurantist conception of temporal parts. (shrink)

Evolutionary changes in traits that affect both ecological divergence and mating signals could lead to reproductive isolation and the formation of new species. Insect cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are potential examples of such dual traits. They form a waxy layer on the cuticle of the insect to maintain water balance and prevent desiccation, while also acting as signaling molecules in mate recognition and chemical communication. Because the synthesis of these hydrocarbons in insect oenocytes occurs through a common biochemical pathway, natural or (...) sexual selection on one role may affect the other. In this review, we explore how ecological divergence in insect CHCs can lead to divergence in mating signals and reproductive isolation. We suggest that the evolution of insect CHCs may be ripe models for understanding ecological speciation. (shrink)

For caregivers of minimally communicative individuals, providing support in the absence of clearly meaningful responses is ethically fraught. We conducted a secondary analysis of qualitative data from caregivers of individuals who are minimally communicative, including persons with advanced dementia and individuals in disorders of consciousness. Our analysis led to two central claims: (1) Personhood is a threshold concept that is situated, relational, and dynamic and (2) in circumstances in which personhood is difficult to judge, caregivers can “fill the gap” to (...) reach the threshold through a repertoire of strategies. Because personhood is in part an attribution from others, a situational loss of personhood does not preclude restoration, nor does it eliminate moral status. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Narrative Advantage Recognizing Virtue Deliberating Actions, Constructing Lives Conclusion.

Derek Matravers’s latest book—Fiction and Narrative1—is a bracing review of many of the leading topics in the philosophical discussion of the intersection of—as his title indicates—fiction and narrative. A major aim of the book is to dethrone the prevailing view that the notion of the imagination plays a central role in the definition of fiction versus nonfiction. In addition, Matravers argues that the distinction we should care about in this vicinity is between representation and confrontation. Matravers takes up many other (...) issues in this book, which is alive with argument. But these are the two matters upon which I focus in this review because they appear to be the most important.Matravers dialectically paves the... (shrink)

This case study examines the ethical dimensions of isolation for patients diagnosed with tuberculosis in Australia. It seeks to explore the issues of resource allocation, liberty, and public safety for wider consideration and discussion.

This chapter contains sections titled: Schopenhauer's Metaphysics Schopenhauer's Pessimism Schopenhauer's Aesthetics Asceticism Concluding Observations.

This is a basically expository article, with some new observations, tracing connections of the quantum potential to Fisher information, to Kähler geometry of the projective Hilbert space of a quantum system, and to the Weyl-Ricci scalar curvature of a Riemannian flat spacetime with quantum matter.

Punitive policy responses to substance use and to abortion care constitute direct attacks on personal liberty and bodily autonomy. In this article, we leverage the concept of “syndemics” to anticipate how the already synergistic stigmas against people who use drugs and people who seek abortion services will be further compounded the Dobbs decision.

This essay aims to explore the ways in which a philosophical account of humor can contribute to the explanation of the application of humor in the course of everyday day life. After providing a conceptual analysis of comic amusement ‐‐ the psychological state that takes humor as it's object ‐‐ and defending the thesis that it is an emotion, I will go on to show how this emotion functions productively in various situations in terms of the non‐exhaustive and non‐exclusive categories (...) of bonding, coping, and perspectival modification (or frame changing). I will not, however, discuss the frequent claims that humor contributes to health because the evidence for this claim is highly contested. (shrink)