In our response, we review and address the comments on our target article made in the 25 commentaries. First, we review and discuss the commentaries that recognized the value of our approach, accepted the main premises and conclusions of our target article, and suggested further avenues for research on attractiveness-related biases. We then respond to commentators who either misinterpreted some parts of our target article or made statements with which we disagree. These commentaries provided us with an opportunity to clarify (...) some aspects of our target article, for example, the fact that we address both the functional significance of attractiveness-related biases and their underlying mechanisms. We provide a rebuttal to two commentaries, in which we are accused of poor scholarship. We conclude our response by addressing two commentaries that discussed the societal implications of the occurrence of attractiveness-related biases in the labor market by briefly discussing the relationship between scientific research and social policy. (shrink)

Financial and prosocial biases in favor of attractive adults have been documented in the labor market, in social transactions in everyday life, and in studies involving experimental economic games. According to the taste-based discrimination model developed by economists, attractiveness-related financial and prosocial biases are the result of preferences or prejudices similar to those displayed toward members of a particular sex, racial, ethnic, or religious group. Other explanations proposed by economists and social psychologists maintain that attractiveness is a marker of personality, (...) intelligence, trustworthiness, professional competence, or productivity. Evolutionary psychologists have argued that attractive adults are favored because they are preferred sexual partners. Evidence that stereotypes about attractive people are causally related to financial or prosocial biases toward them is weak or nonexistent. Consistent with evolutionary explanations, biases in favor of attractive women appear to be more consistent or stronger than those in favor of attractive men, and biases are more consistently reported in interactions between opposite-sex than same-sex individuals. Evolutionary explanations also account for increased prosocial behavior in situations in which attractive individuals are simply bystanders. Finally, evolutionary explanations are consistent with the psychological, physiological, and behavioral changes that occur when individuals are exposed to potential mates, which facilitate the expression of courtship behavior and increase the probability of occurrence of mating. Therefore, multiple lines of evidence suggest that mating motives play a more important role in driving financial and prosocial biases toward attractive adults than previously recognized. (shrink)

Four detailed cases of delusions of misidentification (DM) are presented: two cases of misidentification of the reflected self, one of reverse intermetamorphosis, and one of reduplicative paramnesia. The cases are discussed in the context of three levels of interpretation: neurological, cognitive and phenomenological. The findings are compared to previous work with DM patients, particularly the work of Ellis and Young (1990; Young, 1998) who found that loss of the normal affective response to familiar faces was a contributing factor in the (...) Capgras delusion. The four cases presented suggest that this particular deficit is not a critical factor in the development of other forms of DM. (shrink)

Bernhard Nickel presents a theory of generic sentences and the kind-directed modes of thought they express. The theory closely integrates compositional semantics with metaphysics to solve the problem that generics pose: what do generics mean? Generic sentences are extremely simple, yet if there are patterns to be discerned in terms of which are true and which are false, these patterns are subtle and complex. Ravens are black, and lions have manes: statistical measures cannot do justice to the facts, but what (...) else is there that has a hope of giving us insight into what we are capturing across so many domains? Nickel argues that generics are the top of a fundamentally explanatory iceberg, and that this explanatory framework is deeply intertwined with the semantics of the language we use to express them. In providing an integrated semantic and metaphysical theory of generics, he aims to solve old puzzles and draw attention to new phenomena. (shrink)

To integrate social robots in real-life contexts, it is crucial that they are accepted by the users. Acceptance is not only related to the functionality of the robot but also strongly depends on how the user experiences the interaction. Established design principles from usability and user experience research can be applied to the realm of human–robot interaction, to design robot behavior for the comfort and well-being of the user. Focusing the design on these aspects alone, however, comes with certain ethical (...) challenges, especially regarding the user’s privacy and autonomy. Based on an example scenario of human–robot interaction in elder care, this paper discusses how established design principles can be used in social robotic design. It then juxtaposes these with ethical considerations such as privacy and user autonomy. Combining user experience and ethical perspectives, we propose adjustments to the original design principles and canvass our own design recommendations for a positive and ethically acceptable social human–robot interaction design. In doing so, we show that positive user experience and ethical design may be sometimes at odds, but can be reconciled in many cases, if designers are willing to adjust and amend time-tested design principles. (shrink)

Intentionalism is the claim that the phenomenological properties of a perceptual experience supervene on its intentional properties. The paper presents a counter-example to this claim, one that concerns visual grouping phenomenology. I argue that this example is superior to superficially similar examples involving grouping phenomenology offered by Peacocke (Sense and Content, Oxford: Oxford University Press), because the standard intentionalist responses to Peacocke’s examples cannot be extended to mine. If Intentionalism fails, it is impossible to reduce the phenomenology of an experience (...) to its content. (shrink)

El presente artículo postula que la Metodología de los Programas de Investigación esclarece la racionalidad del conocimiento científico-social dando cuenta adecuada del carácter plural de las teorías. Cada programa de investigación progresa si desarrolla más contenido teórico y empírico que sus comp..

Based on brain imaging findings, we present a model according to which addiction emerges as an imbalance in the information processing and integration among various brain circuits and functions. The dysfunctions reflect (a) decreased sensitivity of reward circuits, (b) enhanced sensitivity of memory circuits to conditioned expectations to drugs and drug cues, stress reactivity, and (c) negative mood, and a weakened control circuit. Although initial experimentation with a drug of abuse is largely a voluntary behavior, continued drug use can eventually (...) impair neuronal circuits in the brain that are involved in free will, turning drug use into an automatic compulsive behavior. The ability of addictive drugs to co‐opt neurotransmitter signals between neurons (including dopamine, glutamate, and GABA) modifies the function of different neuronal circuits, which begin to falter at different stages of an addiction trajectory. Upon exposure to the drug, drug cues or stress this results in unrestrained hyperactivation of the motivation/drive circuit that results in the compulsive drug intake that characterizes addiction. (shrink)

In this landmark work of economic sociology, Lucien Karpik introduces the theory and practical tools needed to analyze markets for singularities. Singularities are goods and services that cannot be studied by standard methods because they are multidimensional, incommensurable, and of uncertain quality. Examples include movies, novels, music, artwork, fine wine, lawyers, and doctors. Valuing the Unique provides a theoretical framework to explain this important class of products and markets that for so long have eluded neoclassical economics. With this innovative theory--called (...) the economics of singularities--Karpik shows that, because of the uncertainty and the highly subjective valuation of singularities, these markets are necessarily equipped with what he calls "judgment devices"--such as labels, brands, guides, critics, and rankings--which provide consumers with the credible knowledge needed to make reasonable choices. He explains why these markets are characterized by the primacy of competition by qualities over competition by prices, and he identifies the conditions under which singularities are constructed or are in danger of losing their uniqueness. After demonstrating how combinations of the numerous and multiform judgment devices can be used to identify different market models, Karpik applies his analytical tools to the functioning of a large number of actual markets, including fine wines, movies, luxury goods, pop music, and legal services. (shrink)

This book critically reflects upon how images are mobilised within certain knowledge traditions, beyond the established categories of art, scientific visualisations and religious images. Thinking through and with images across ages, the authors seek to expand our understanding of the relationship between the visual and the epistemic.

Artikkelen undersøker hvordan NIPT ble vedtatt implementert i det norske fosterdiagnostiske systemet gjennom en fagligpolitisk prosess mellom 2012 og 2017. Prosessen innebar at Nasjonalt kunnskapssenter for helsetjenesten, Helsedirektoratet, Bioteknologirådet og Helse- og Omsorgsdepartementet ga sine vurderinger av testen og sine råd omkring en eventuell innføring. Artikkelen viser at det i denne prosessen foregikk en forsiktig tilnærming eller sammensmelting mellom de tradisjonelt helt ulike måtene å forstå og å ramme inn fosterdiagnostikk på i Norge, dvs. i en ‘autonomi/ behandlingsramme’ og en (...) ‘sorteringsramme’. Artikkelen argumenterer videre for at denne tilnærmingen eller konvergensen var mulig fordi prosessen ble holdt innenfor de fagligpolitiske byråkratiene, og de ulike etatene var innstilt på å ‘samarbeide’ om å inkludere både kunnskap og verdier fra begge rammene i sine tilrådninger. Politikk for fosterdiagnostikk er imidlertid et svært politisk betent område i Norge, og denne konvergensen var et skjørt byggverk. Den sprakk da også opp i løpet av tre uker i mai 2020, da Fremskrittspartiet plutselig inngikk et ‘bioteknologiforlik’ med Arbeiderpartiet og SV etter at de hadde gått ut av Solbergregjeringen. Dermed endte spørsmålet om implementeringen av NIPT i Stortinget, hvor konvergensen i den fagpolitiske prosessen ble erstattet av de tradisjonelle frontene, og de gamle innrammingene igjen ble ‘satt i arbeid’. Artikkelen diskuterer avslutningsvis kort de bortimot uløselige dilemmaene disse innrammingene både representerer og produserer. Nøkkelord: NIPT, fosterdiagnostikk, humanmedisinsk bioteknologi, regulering English Title: Fetal diagnostics between medicine and ethics: Implementation of Prenatal Invasive Testing in a turbulent policy area: The article examines how the decision to implement Prenatal Invasive Testing in the Norwegian Fetal Diagnostic System was reached through a professional policy process between 2012 and 2017. The process involved the Norwegian Research Centre for Health Services, the Norwegian Directorate of Health, the Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board and the Ministry of Health and Care Services, which provided their individual assessments and advice regarding the potential implementation of the test. The article finds that a careful convergence took place between traditionally opposing ways to understand and frame fetal diagnostics in Norway – either as a ‘treatment frame’ or a ‘sorting frame’. The article further argues that this convergence was possible because the process was kept within these bureaucracies, and that the different agencies were willing to collaborate to include knowledge and values from both frames in their recommendations. However, policy for fetal diagnostics is a very turbulent political area in Norway, and this convergence was a fragile construction. During three weeks in May 2020, the convergence collapsed when the Norwegian Progress Party suddenly entered a “biotechnology settlement” with the Labour Party and the Socialist Left Party after exiting the conservative Government coalition. Hence, the question of implementing NIPT ended up in the Norwegian Parliament, where the convergence from the professional policy process was replaced by the traditional fronts, and the old framings were again set in motion. Lastly, the article briefly discusses the almost unsolvable dilemmas these framings both produce and represent. Keywords: NIPT, non-invasive prenatal testing, fetal diagnostics, medical biotechnology, regulation. (shrink)

Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalized persons to educate them about the nature of their oppression. I argue that epistemic exploitation is marked by unrecognized, uncompensated, emotionally taxing, coerced epistemic labor. The coercive and exploitative aspects of the phenomenon are exemplified by the unpaid nature of the educational labor and its associated opportunity costs, the double bind that marginalized persons must navigate when faced with the demand to educate, and the need for additional labor created by the default (...) skepticism of the privileged. I explore the connections between epistemic exploitation and the two varieties of epistemic injustice that Fricker (2007) identifies, testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. I situate epistemic exploitation within Dotson’s (2012; 2014) framework of epistemic oppression, and I address the role that epistemic exploitation plays in maintaining active ignorance and upholding dominant epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

While the pursuitworthiness of philosophical ideas has changed over time, philosophical practice and methodology have not kept pace. The worthiness of a philosophical pursuit includes not only the ideas and objectives one pursues but also the methods with which one pursues them. In this paper, we articulate how empirical approaches benefit philosophy of science, particularly advocating for the use of qualitative methods for understanding the social and normative aspects of scientific inquiry. After situating qualitative methods within empirical philosophy of science, (...) we discuss how to adapt these traditionally sociological methods to empirically inform philosophical questions. Our aim is to normalize and legitimize qualitative methods for philosophical purposes and discuss how they can elucidate descriptive and normative components of scientific practice in a more generalizable non-idealized manner. We contend that qualitative methods are particularly well suited to philosophical interest in the social norms of science, their achievability, and their mutability. Furthermore, unlike more historical case studies in philosophy, qualitative methods enable more confidence in generalizability, albeit limited, from a concrete sample to a larger class. We conclude by addressing anxieties about the distinctness of empirical philosophy of science from social epistemology and from sociology of science. (shrink)

The business case constitutes an important instrumental motive for corporate social responsibility (CSR), but its relationship with other moral and relational motives remains controversial. In this article, we examine the articulation of motives for CSR among different stakeholders in Germany historically. On the basis of reports of German business associations, state agencies, unions, and nongovernmental organizations from 1970 to 2014, we show how the business case came to be a dominant motive for CSR by acting as a coalition magnet: the (...) vocabulary was used strategically by key policy entrepreneurs, while being ambiguous for flexible interpretations by different stakeholders, and thereby growing in attractiveness. As a resulting discourse coalition emerged among business, state, and civil society actors, the moral and relational motives for CSR became increasingly marginalized. The article offers a new approach to studying motives and contributes to understanding the complementary or competing nature of different motives for CSR. (shrink)

Traditionally, empiricism has relied on the specialness of human observation, yet science is rife with sophisticated instrumentation and techniques. The present article advances a conception of empirical evidence applicable to actual scientific practice. I argue that this conception elucidates how the results of scientific research can be repurposed across diverse epistemic contexts: it helps to make sense of how evidence accumulates across theory change, how different evidence can be amalgamated and used jointly, and how the same evidence can be used (...) to constrain competing theories in the service of breaking local underdetermination. (shrink)

In Setting Limits, Daniel Callahan advances the provocative thesis that age be a limiting factor in decisions to allocate certain kinds of health services to the elderly. However, when one looks at available data, one discovers that there are many more elderly women than there are elderly men, and these older women are poorer, more apt to live alone, and less likely to have informal social and personal supports than their male counterparts. Older women, therefore, will make the heaviest demand (...) on health care resources. If age were to become a limiting factor, as Dr. Callahan sug-gests it should, the limits that will be set are limits that will affect women more dras” tically than they affect men. This review essay examines the implications of Callahan's thesis for elderly women. (shrink)

This book is an investigation into the descriptive task of moral philosophy. Nora Hämäläinen explores the challenge of providing rich and accurate pictures of the moral conditions, values, virtues, and norms under which people live and have lived, along with relevant knowledge about the human animal and human nature. While modern moral philosophy has focused its energies on normative and metaethical theory, the task of describing, uncovering, and inquiring into moral frameworks and moral practices has mainly been left to (...) social scientists and historians. Nora Hämäläinen argues that this division of labour has detrimental consequences for moral philosophy and that a reorientation toward descriptive work is needed in moral philosophy. She traces resources for a descriptive philosophical ethics in the work of four prominent philosophers of the twentieth century: John Dewey, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault, and Charles Taylor, while also calling on thinkers inspired by them. (shrink)

Progress in neurotechnology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides unprecedented insights into the human brain. There are increasing possibilities to influence and measure brain activity. These developments raise multifaceted ethical and legal questions. The proponents of neurorights argue in favour of introducing new human rights to protect mental processes and brain data. This article discusses the necessity and advantages of introducing new human rights focusing on the proposed new human right to mental self-determination and the right to freedom of thought as (...) enshrined in Art.18 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Art. 9 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). I argue that the right to freedom of thought can be coherently interpreted as providing comprehensive protection of mental processes and brain data, thus offering a normative basis regarding the use of neurotechnologies. Besides, I claim that an evolving interpretation of the right to freedom of thought is more convincing than introducing a new human right to mental self-determination. (shrink)

Within biology and in society, living creatures have long been described using metaphors of machinery and computation: ‘bioengineering’, ‘genes as code’ or ‘biological chassis’. This paper builds on Lakoff and Johnson’s argument that such language mechanisms shape how we understand the world. I argue that the living machines metaphor builds upon a certain perception of life entailing an idea of radical human control of the living world, looking back at the historical preconditions for this metaphor. I discuss how design is (...) perceived to enable us to shape natural beings to our will, and consider ethical, epistemological and ontological implications of the prevalence of this metaphor, focusing on its use within synthetic biology. I argue that we urgently need counter-images to the dominant metaphor of living machines and its implied control and propose that artworks can provide such counter-images through upsetting the perception of life as controllable. This is argued through discussion of artworks by Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, by Tarsh Bates and by Ai Hasegawa, which in different ways challenge mechanistic assumptions through open-ended engagement with the strangeness and messiness of life. (shrink)

Structural gaslighting arises when conceptual work functions to obscure the non-accidental connections between structures of oppression and the patterns of harm they produce and license. This paper examines the role that structural gaslighting plays in white feminist methodology and epistemology using Fricker’s (2007) discussion of hermeneutical injustice as an illustration. Fricker’s work produces structural gaslighting through several methods: i) the outright denial of the role that structural oppression plays in producing interpretive harm, ii) the use of single-axis conceptual resources to (...) understand intersectional oppression, and iii) the failure to recognize the legacy of women of color’s epistemic resistance work surrounding the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. I argue that Fricker’s whitewashed discussion of epistemic resistance to sexual harassment in the United States is a form of structural gaslighting that fails to treat women of color as knowers and exemplifies the strategic forgetting that is a central methodological tactic of white feminism. (shrink)

The underrepresentation of women, people of color, and especially women of color—and the corresponding overrepresentation of white men—is more pronounced in philosophy than in many of the sciences. I suggest that part of the explanation for this lies in the role played by the idealized rational self, a concept that is relatively influential in philosophy but rarely employed in the sciences. The idealized rational self models the mind as consistent, unified, rationally transcendent, and introspectively transparent. I hypothesize that acceptance of (...) the idealized rational self leads philosophers to underestimate the influence of implicit bias on their own judgments and prevents them from enacting the reforms necessary to minimize the effects of implicit bias on institutional decision-making procedures. I consider recent experiments in social psychology that suggest that an increased sense of one’s own objectivity leads to greater reliance on bias in hiring scenarios, and I hypothesize how these results might be applied to philosophers’ evaluative judgments. I discuss ways that the idealized rational self is susceptible to broader critiques of ideal theory, and I consider some of the ways that the picture functions as a tool of active ignorance and color-evasive racism. (shrink)

Many approaches to the semantics of generic sentences posit an unpronounced quantifier gen. However, while overt quantifiers are conservative, gen does not seem to be. A quantifier Q is conservative iff instances of the following schemas are equivalent: Q As are F and Q As are As that are F. All ravens are black is obviously equivalent to All ravens are ravens that are black, yet ravens are black is not equivalent to ravens are ravens that are black. This may (...) cast doubt on theviability of quantificational analyses of generics. This paper proposes a theory of why such “conservativity” generics are problematic that is compatible with the conservativity of gen and also accounts for perennially troublesome examples such as books are paperbacks and bees are workers. (shrink)

The degradation of non-market relationships has rendered individuals unnecessarily vulnerable in disasters, including the global pandemic. While local networks of community-based aid that emerge in response to disasters improve the efficacy of response, they tend to be short-lived. This is unfortunate, since the existence and strength of such local networks prior to the onset of disasters not only boosts the efficacy of response but also contributes to the well-being of individuals and communities in non-disaster times. Therefore, individuals ought to establish (...) and strengthen fair-weather local networks of non-market relationships—that is, cultivate neighbor relationships. (shrink)

Psychiatric disorders share an excess of seasonal birth in winter and spring, suggesting an increase of neurodevelopmental risks. Evidence suggests season of birth can serve as a proxy of harmful environmental factors. Given that prenatal exposure of these factors may trigger pathologic processes in the neurodevelopment, they may consequently lead to brain volume alterations. Here we tested the effects of season of birth on gray matter volume in a transdiagnostic sample of patients with schizophrenia and depression compared to healthy controls. (...) We found a significant effect of season of birth on gray matter volume with reduced right hippocampal volume in summer-born compared to winter-born patients with depression. In addition, the volume of the right hippocampus was reduced independent from season of birth in schizophrenia. Our results support the potential impact of season of birth on hippocampal volume in depression. (shrink)

El artículo analiza el proyecto de una fenomenología de la sociedad y lo coteja con el marco lógico epistemológico de la metodología de los programas de investigación científica (Lakatos). En lo atinente examina el aporte fundacional de Edmund Husserl y explicita el giro neo-praxeológico que Alfred ..

This Element introduces major issues in the epistemology of experimental physics through discussion of canonical physics experiments and some that have not yet received much philosophical attention. The primary challenge is to make sense of how physicists justify crucial decisions made in the course of empirical research. Judging a result as epistemically significant or as calling for further technical scrutiny of the equipment is one important context of such decisions. Judging whether the instrument has been calibrated, and which data should (...) be included in the analysis are others. To what extent is it possible to offer philosophical analysis, systematization, and prescriptions regarding such decisions? To what extent can there be explicit epistemic justification for them? The primary aim of this Element is to show how a nuanced understanding of science in practice informs an epistemology of experimental physics that avoids strong social constructivism. (shrink)

Identity politics and citizenship are often envisaged in dichotomous terms, but cosmopolitan theorists believe commitments to “thin” universal values can be generated from divergent “thick” positions. Yet, they often gloss over the ways in which the nexus of thick and thin is negotiated in practice—a weak link in the cosmopolitan argument. To understand this nexus better, we turn to women’s rights organizations (WROs) in polarized Turkey to show that women affiliated with rival camps (e.g., pro-religious/pro-secular, Turkish/Kurdish, liberal/leftist) can mobilize over (...) issues like empowerment, violence against women, and education. However, thick readings of these issues inflect upon collaboration. This has spurred pro-religious and Kurdish women to develop strategies that flag their specific concerns. As such, mutual recognition along cosmopolitan lines appears possible—and is reinforced through iterative encounters—but is not necessarily negotiated between equally empowered agents and entails complex processes of contestation and concession-making. (shrink)

Epistemologies have power. They have the power not only to transform worlds, but to create them. And the worlds that they create can be better or worse. For many people, the worlds they create are predictably and reliably deadly. Epistemologies can turn sacred land into ‘resources’ to be bought, sold, exploited, and exhausted. They can turn people into ‘labor’ in much the same way. They can not only disappear acts of violence but render them unnamable and unrecognizable within their conceptual (...) architectures. Settler systems of epistemic and conceptual resources and the relations among them are constructed to preclude certain forms of knowledge. This is not an accident; it is a central goal of colonial violence. Colonization and land dispossession would not be possible without the violent disruption of Indigenous knowledge systems and ongoing organized attempts to disrupt their survival. Violently disrupting the relationships of people to land is as much an epistemic project as it is a material one, and these two projects are inherently linked. The task of theorizing epistemic oppression is not only about epistemic oppression. Epistemic oppression is a story that gives language to a phenomenon in order to get past it, to carry on with the maintaining and reviving the forms of Indigenous and diasporic knowledge that colonialism has worked tirelessly to corrupt and silence. (shrink)

In a recent editorial published in Nature, the journal's editors comment on a new automated software that has been used to check findings in psychology publications. The editors express concern with the way in which the anonymous fact-checkers have proceeded, but at the same time, they underscore the crucial role of peer criticism for scientific progress and insist: "self-correction is at the heart of science." Brief as it is, the editorial showcases that peer criticism and the application of norms of (...) good research practice are very thorny issues indeed.It is essential for the functioning of science that empirical findings, arguments, as well as methodological approaches are scrutinized... (shrink)

This paper explores the role of moral uncertainty in explaining the morally disruptive character of new technologies. We argue that existing accounts of technomoral change do not fully explain its disruptiveness. This explanatory gap can be bridged by examining the epistemic dimensions of technomoral change, focusing on moral uncertainty and inquiry. To develop this account, we examine three historical cases: the introduction of the early pregnancy test, the contraception pill, and brain death. The resulting account highlights what we call “differential (...) disruption” and provides a resource for fields such as technology assessment, ethics of technology, and responsible innovation. (shrink)