In this collection of essays we hear from an international array of computer and brain scientists who are actively working from both the machine and human ends...

We are engineers, and our view of consciousness is shaped by an engineering ambition: we would like to build a conscious machine. We begin by acknowledging that we may be a little disadvantaged, in that consciousness studies do not form part of the engineering curriculum, and so we may be starting from a position of considerable ignorance as regards the study of consciousness itself. In practice, however, this may not set us back very far; almost a decade ago, Crick wrote: (...) 'Everyone has a rough idea of what is meant by consciousness. It is better to avoid a precise definition of consciousness because of the dangers of premature definition. Until the problem is understood much better, any attempt at a formal definition is likely to be either misleading or overly restrictive, or both'. This seems to be as true now as it was then, although the identification of different aspects of consciousness by Block has certainly brought a degree of clarification. On the other hand, there is little doubt that consciousness does seem to be something to do with the operation of a sophisticated control system, and we can claim more familiarity with control systems than can most philosophers, so perhaps we can make up some ground there. (shrink)

We are engineers, and our view of consciousness is shaped by an engineering ambition: we would like to build a conscious machine. We begin by acknowledging that we may be a little disadvantaged, in that consciousness studies do not form part of the engineering curriculum, and so we may be starting from a position of considerable ignorance as regards the study of consciousness itself. In practice, however, this may not set us back very far; almost a decade ago, Crick wrote: (...) 'Everyone has a rough idea of what is meant by consciousness. It is better to avoid a precise definition of consciousness because of the dangers of premature definition. Until the problem is understood much better, any attempt at a formal definition is likely to be either misleading or overly restrictive, or both'. This seems to be as true now as it was then, although the identification of different aspects of consciousness by Block has certainly brought a degree of clarification. On the other hand, there is little doubt that consciousness does seem to be something to do with the operation of a sophisticated control system, and we can claim more familiarity with control systems than can most philosophers, so perhaps we can make up some ground there. (shrink)

Over sixty years ago, Kenneth Craik noted that, if an organism (or an artificial agent) carried 'a small-scale model of external reality and of its own possible actions within its head', it could use the model to behave intelligently. This paper argues that the possible actions might best be represented by interactions between a model of reality and a model of the agent, and that, in such an arrangement, the internal model of the agent might be a transparent model of (...) the sort recently discussed by Metzinger, and so might offer a useful analogue of a conscious entity. The CRONOS project has built a robot functionally similar to a human that has been provided with an internal model of itself and of the world to be used in the way suggested by Craik; when the system is completed, it will be possible to study its operation from the perspective not only of artificial intelligence, but also of machine consciousness. (shrink)

One of the predominant iterations of the metaphor of entanglement in the nineteenth century is found in the closing paragraph of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Darwin’s image of an “entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about,” serves as a synecdoche for the patterns of biological interdependence and variation that animate the evolutionary process of natural selection.1 The “entangled bank” is both the scene and the (...) symbolic illustration of creaturely increase and multiplication. We cannot escape the influence of heredity in Darwin’s schema, just as surely as the imagined bank of vegetation will wreathe and entwine.. (shrink)

The phenomenon of episodic memory has been studied for over 30 years, but it is only recently that its constructive nature has been shown to be closely linked to the processes underpinning imagination. This paper builds on recent work by the authors in developing architectures for a form of imagination suitable for use in artifacts, and considers how these architectures might be extended to provide a form of episodic memory.

Environmental ethicists have frequently criticized ancient Greek philosophy as anti-environmental for a view of philosophy that is counterproductive to environmental ethics and a view of the world that puts nature at the disposal of people. This provocative collection of original essays reexamines the views of nature and ecology found in the thought of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Plotinus. Recognizing that these thinkers were not confronted with the environmental degradation that threatens contemporary philosophers, the contributors to this book find that (...) the Greeks nevertheless provide an excellent foundation for a sound theory of environmentalism. (shrink)

Prenatal diagnosis utilizes invasive procedures such as amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling, cord blood sampling and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. These techniques can diagnose serious foetal illnesses and this therefore provides valuable information to couples, helping them to prepare for the birth of an affected child. It also affords women the freedom to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy. The selective termination of foetuses with serious disabilities does not represent disability discrimination because women and parents are actually rejecting the disability, rather than (...) the foetus itself More significantly, the choice to abort a foetus with a serious illness or disability is an intensely private and personal exercise that does not and cannot be reflective of a wider public morality. Exactly the same can be said of the choice to selectively abort foetuses based solely on their sex. The private choice of women in this respect does not amount to the social devaluation of women. Firstly, it is an erroneous assumption that women in Australia prefer male babies. Secondly, even if there is a preference for male babies, banning prenatal sex selection would be treating just one of many symptoms of sexism, rather than curing the primary causes. The moral right of all women to reproductive freedom is an embodiment of their equal value in society. (shrink)

The Human Agenda is the first Special Edition of The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art (CJLPA), an interdisciplinary journal founded at the University of Cambridge. Focused on the unique intersections of law, politics and art in the context of human rights, contributors to the Special Edition include David Baragwanath, Luis Moreno Ocampo, Nadia Murad, Nancy Hollander, Andrew Clapham, Vladimir Osechkin, Mansour al-Omari, and many others. A full table of contents is available through the publication's own page.

Kant is well known for claiming that we can never really know our true moral disposition. He is less well known for claiming that the injunction "Know Yourself" is the basis of all self-regarding duties. Taken together, these two claims seem contradictory. My aim in this paper is to show how they can be reconciled. I first address the question of whether the duty of self-knowledge is logically coherent (§1). I then examine some of the practical problems surrounding the duty, (...) notably, self-deception (§2). Finding none of Kant's solutions to the problem of self-deception satisfactory, I conclude by defending a Kantian account of self-knowledge based on his theory of conscience (§3). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Objective Reality of Ideas in Descartes, Caterus, and Su irez NORMAN j. WELLS IT HAS LONG BEEN ACKNOWLEDGEDthat Francisco Sufirez's distinction between a formal and an objective concept exercised some influence upon Descartes's teaching on 'idea'.' It would appear, however, that not enough attention has been given to that distinction of Sufirez (and especially to another to be mentioned shordy) to aid in dispelling what I take to be (...) a widespread confusion and misunderstanding with regard to 'idea' in Descartes, especially with respect to 'idea' taken 'objectively'. Much, if not all, of the confusion in question has to do with Descartes's admittedly equivocal use of the term 'idea'. For he had allowed that 'idea' could be taken 'materially' (materialiter), on the one hand, for the knowing activity of the intellect. On the other hand, it could be taken 'objectively' (objective) for the thing (res) represented by that knowing activity.' At this point, the contemporary reader can only be brought up short, See E. Gilson, Index scolastico-cart~sien (New York: Burt Franklin Reprint, 1912), 48-49; Discours de la m~thode: Texte et commentazre (Paris: J. Vrin, 1947), 321; G. Rodis-Lewisin her edition of Meditationes de Prima PhRosoph.m (Paris: J. Vrin, 1953), 41 n. 1; L'oeuure de Descartes (Paris: J. Vrin, 1971), 53~ n. 8; J. Collins, Modern European Philosophy (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1954), 165;T.J. Cronin, S.J., Objecttve Being m Descartes and SuArez (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1966); "Objective Reality of Ideas in Human Thought: Descartes and Su~rez," Wisdom in Depth: Essays in Honor of Henri Renard, SJ., eds. V. F. Daues, S.J., M. R. Holloway, S.J., L. Sweeney, S.J. (Milwaukee : Bruce, 1966), 68-79; L. Gilen, S.J., "Uber die Beziehungen Descartes zur zeitgenossischen Scholastik," Scholastik 32 (1957): 41-66; R. Dalbiez, "Les sources scolastiques de la th~orie cart6sienne de l'&re objectif," Revue d'histoire de la philosophic 3 (1929): 464-72;J. Owens, C.S.S.R., in The Cambridge HtstoU of Later Medu,val Philosophy, eds. N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny, J. Pinborg (Cambridge University Press, 1982), 459; G. Nuchelmans,Judgment and Propositwnfrom Descartesto Kant (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1983), 36-54. " Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam et P. Tannery, 11 vols. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1897-19o9; hereafter cited according to volume, page and line), Praefatio ad Lectorem, 7: 8. 19-251 "Sed respondeo hic subesse aequivocationem in voce ideae: sumi enim potest vel materialiter, pro operatione intellectus, quo sensu me perfectior dici nequit, vel objective, pro re per istam operationem repraesentata, quae res, etsi non supponatur extra intellectum existere, potest tamen me esse perfectior ratione suae essentiae." It is clear that two realities are to be causally accounted for. The [33] 34 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28"1 JANUARY 1990 conditioned as we are by an appreciation of 'objectivity' altogether extramental! It makes for a considerable wrench of perspective to do justice to Descartes's acknowledged doctrine of intramental objectivity and an intramental 'thing represented' (resrepraesentata). 'Idea', then, in traditional Cartesian fashion, designates the act of representing as well as the 'thing represented '. S Yet, for all this, and despite repeated expressions of the same doctrine, there is a persistent tendency in the history of Cartesianism and its scholarship to interpret 'idea' taken 'objectively' as in some way representative. Contrary to what I take to be Descartes's constant position, such a rendering unwittingly transfers that function which is proper to the cognitive activity, mind is the efficient cause of its cognitive activity. With respect to ideas taken 'objectively', such as the ideas of God and the triangle on the levels of metaphysical and mathematical intelligibility, an efficient cause, extrinsic to the mind, is certainly at issue. For here we are in the presence of what is independent of the mind, however intramental it may be. On the triangle, see Medit. 5; 7: 64. ]4s7 : "...est tamen profecto determinata quaedam ejus natura, sire essentia, sive forma, immutabUis et aeterna, quae a me non efficta est, nec a mente mea dependet." For the idea of God, see Medit. 5; 7: 68. l o-12: "Nam sane multis modis inteUigo illam [ideam... (shrink)

How far should we go in protecting and promoting public health? Can we force people to give up unhealthy habits and make healthier choices, or does everyone have the right to decide their own lifestyle? Should we stop treating smokers who refuse to give up smoking? Should we put a tax on fatty foods and ban vending machines in schools to address the obesity epidemic? Should parents be required to have their children vaccinated? Are some of our screening programmes unethical (...) Downs syndrome screening, for example or should we be screening people for more conditions, such as Huntington disease? Such questions are at the heart of public health ethics. Holland shows that to understand and debate these issues requires philosophy: moral philosophies, such as utilitarianism and deontology, as well as political philosophies such as liberalism and communitarianism. And philosophy informs other aspects of public health, such as epidemiology and health promotion. The aim of this book is to provide a lively, accessible and philosophically informed introduction to such issues. It is an ideal textbook for students taking courses in public health ethics. And since this book develops systematic discussions of issues in public health ethics, there is also much here to engage and challenge the more advanced reader. (shrink)

Kant’s effort to defend the co-existence of transcendental freedom and natural necessity is one of the crowning achievements of the first Critique. Yet by identifying the will with practical reason in his moral philosophy, he lent support to the view that the moral law is the causal law of a free will – the result of which, as Reinhold argued, left immoral action impossible. However, Reinhold’s attempt to separate the will from practical reason generated difficulties of its own, which Maimon (...) was quick to point out. By identifying freedom with indifferent choice, Maimon argued, Reinhold had no resources to explain why a free will acts at all. My aim in this article is to show how Fichte’s theory of freedom seeks to reconcile these two commitments: the key lies in what I call Fichte’s Genetic Model, according to which indifferent choice is the original condition of the will, but a condition we must actively overcome. (shrink)

One of us [Gilbert, M.. “Collective Belief and Scientific Change.” Sociality and Responsibility. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 37-49.] has proposed that ascriptions of beliefs to scientific communities generally involve a common notion of collective belief described by her in numerous places. A given collective belief involves a joint commitment of the parties, who thereby constitute what Gilbert refers to as a plural subject. Assuming that this interpretive hypothesis is correct, and that some of the belief ascriptions in question are (...) true, then the members of some scientific communities have obligations that may act as barriers both to the generation and, hence, the fair evaluation of new ideas and to changes in their community’s beliefs. We argue that this may help to explain Thomas Kuhn’s observations on “normal science”, and go on to develop the relationship between Gilbert's proposal and several features of a group of physicists working on a fundamental physical theory called “string theory”, as described by physicist Lee Smolin [Smolin, L.. The Trouble with Physics. Mariner Books: New York.]. We argue that the features of the string theory community that Smolin cites are well explained by the hypothesis that the community is a plural subject of belief. (shrink)

A landmark work of western philosophy, "On the Genealogy of Morality" is a dazzling and brilliantly incisive attack on European "morality". Combining philosophical acuity with psychological insight in prose of remarkable rhetorical power, Nietzsche takes up the task of offering us reasons to engage in a re-evaluation of our values. In this book, David Owen offers a reflective and insightful analysis of Nietzsche's text. He provides an account of how Nietzsche comes to the project of the re-evaluation of values; (...) he shows how the development of Nietzsche's understanding of the requirements of this project lead him to acknowledge the need for the kind of investigation of "morality" that he terms "genealogy"; he elucidates the general structure and substantive arguments of Nietzsche's text, accounting for the rhetorical form of these arguments, and he debates the character of genealogy as a form of critical enquiry. Owen argues that there is a specific development of Nietzsche's work from his earlier "Daybreak" and that in "Genealogy of Morality", Nietzsche is developing a critique of modes of agency and that this constitutes the most fundamental aspect of his demand for a revaluation of values. The book is a distinctive and significant contribution to our understanding of Nietzsche's great text. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers of science have explored categorical equivalence as a promising criterion for when two theories are equivalent. On the one hand, philosophers have presented several examples of theories whose relationships seem to be clarified using these categorical methods. On the other hand, philosophers and logicians have studied the relationships, particularly in the first order case, between categorical equivalence and other notions of equivalence of theories, including definitional equivalence and generalized definitional equivalence. In this article, I will express (...) some skepticism about categorical equivalence as a criterion of physical equivalence, both on technical grounds and conceptual ones. I will argue that “category structure” likely does not capture the structure of a theory, and discuss some recent work in light of this claim. (shrink)

This article argues that the practical difficulties and normative dilemmas at stake in the European refugee crisis as a crisis of EU integration extend beyond refugee policies into what we may call ‘the citizenship regime’ of the European Union in ways that are consequential for refugees, member states, and the European Union. It advances arguments for the relatively rapid access to citizenship of refugees, demonstrates that this norm has at least some acknowledgment in the policies of EU member states and (...) considers what further differentiation of refugees from other classes of migrant might be a part of developing a just and legitimate Common European Asylum Regime. It argues that there are some reasons to favour a CEAS in which refugees receive EU citizenship prior to national citizenship in a member state. (shrink)

Aristotle’s account of epistēmē is foundationalist. In contrast, the web of dialectical argumentation that constitutes justification for scientific principles is coherentist. Aristotle’s account of explanation is structurally parallel to the argument for a foundationalist account of justification. He accepts the first argument but his coherentist accounts of justification indicate that he would not accept the second. Where is the disanalogy? For Aristotle, the intelligibility of a demonstrative premise is the cause of the intelligibility of a demonstrated conclusion and causation is (...) asymmetric. Within the Posterior Analytics itself, Aristotle does not account for this, but elsewhere he develops the resources for doing so: the cause is what acts on a substrate to actualize a potential in that substrate, resulting in the effect. On the other hand, it may well happen that two propositions entail each other, in which case one may as well justify the one on the basis of the other as vice versa. (shrink)

There is a debate about the nature of addiction, whether it is a result of brain damage, brain dysfunction, or normal brain changes that result from habit acquisition, and about whether it is a disease. I argue that the debate about whether addiction is a disease is much ado about nothing, since all parties agree it is “unquestionably destructive.” Furthermore, the term ‘addiction’ has disappeared from recent DSM’s in favor of a spectrum of ‘abuse’ disorders. This may be a good (...) thing indicating more nuance in typing the heterogeneous phenomena we used to call ‘addiction’. (shrink)

This paper discusses the viability of a virtue-based approach to bioethics. Virtue ethics is clearly appropriate to addressing issues of professional character and conduct. But another major remit of bioethics is to evaluate the ethics of biomedical procedures in order to recommend regulatory policy. How appropriate is the virtue ethics approach to fulfilling this remit? The first part of this paper characterizes the methodology problem in bioethics in terms of diversity, and shows that virtue ethics does not simply restate this (...) problem in its own terms. However, fatal objections to the way the virtue ethics approach is typically taken in bioethics literature are presented in the second section of the paper. In the third part, a virtue-based approach to bioethics that avoids the shortcomings of the typical one is introduced and shown to be prima facie plausible. The upshot is an inviting new direction for research into bioethics' methodology. (shrink)

Hume said that reason alone cannot motivate and that passions are required to produce volitions and actions. It is argued that the widely, though not universally, held “Humean” view of motivation—that beliefs require desires to motivate actions—does not accurately reflect Hume’s own view. The author argues here that beliefs, especially beliefs about pleasure, do motivate. But beliefs are produced by probable reasoning. And this seems to imply that reason alone does motivate, i.e., produces, via beliefs, volitions and actions. It is (...) argued that the seeming inconsistency that appears to result is only apparent. An interpretation of what Hume means by “reason alone” is provided. (shrink)

ABSTRACTGraeme Wood’s The Way of the Strangers suggests that many scholars have denied or downplayed the Islamic State’s own account of its emphatically religious foundation. This tendency is heir to the Enlightenment strategy of defanging illiberal religion by claiming that only religions conforming to liberal principles are genuinely religious—raising anew questions that arose at the dawn of liberalism, in the wake of the Wars of Religion.

Boundary crossings in academia are rarely addressed by university policy despite the risk of problematic or unethical faculty - student interactions. This study contributes to an understanding of undergraduate college student perceptions of appropriateness of faculty - student nonsexual interactions by investigating the influence of gender and ethnicity on student judgments of the appropriateness of numerous hypothetical interactions. Overall, students deemed the majority of interactions as inappropriate. Female students judged a number of interactions as more inappropriate than did male students, (...) and with a few exceptions, Mexican American and Anglo American students were similar in their ratings of the appropriateness of faculty - student interactions. These findings suggest that universities need to be proactive in establishing guidelines concerning faculty-student boundary crossings. (shrink)

Arguing that Arendt and Foucault can both be seen as engaged in the practice of genealogy, this article starts by sketching the background figures of Heidegger and Nietzsche that they hold in common and situates their relations to Nietzsche as emerging from dissatisfaction with the lack of historical groundedness in Heidegger’s philosophy. To develop this case and to provide that basis for some comparison between their approaches and diagnoses of the contemporary condition, it then offers an analysis of each of (...) Arendt and Foucault against this Heidegger-Nietzsche background. Finally I draw attention to some salient similarities and differences between Arendt and Foucault that can provide a basis for critical dialogue between them. (shrink)

This paper relates firm size and opportunism by showing that, given certain behavioral dispositions of humans, the size of a profit-maximizing firm can be determined by cognitive aspects underlying firminternal cultural transmission processes. We argue that what firms do better than markets – besides economizing on transaction costs – is to establish a cooperative regime among its employees that keeps in check opportunism. A model depicts the outstanding role of the entrepreneur or business leader in firminternal socialization processes and the (...) evolution of corporate cultures. We show that high opportunismrelated costs are a reason for keeping firms’ size small. (shrink)

This article is the first in a series of four articles that engage critically with the arguments of two recent and significant additions to the literature on critical realism, namely Bhaskar’s ‘Enlightened Common Sense: The Philosophy of Critical Realism’, and Bhaskar et al.’s ‘Interdisciplinarity and Wellbeing: A Critical Realist General Theory of Interdisciplinarity’. Using the method of immanent critique and focusing mainly, but not exclusively, on the arguments of Enlightened Common Sense, I identify, and propose solutions to, a range of (...) problems pertaining to the concepts of depth, emergence and transfactuality. In identifying and resolving these problems, my aim is to clarify and develop the categories of original critical realism and thereby ensure that critical realism as a whole is as effective an underlabourer for science as it can be. (shrink)