The cardiovascular system has the life‐providing task of delivering oxygen and any flaw in this system can be life‐threatening. This has encouraged extensive studies to elucidate the mechanisms behind cardiovascular development/homeostasis. The zebrafish has emerged as a formidable tool to speed up this quest, as illustrated in a recent issue of Nature Genetics.1 Baculovirus IAP repeat c2 (BIRC2), also termed cellular inhibitor of apoptosis (cIAP)‐1, was found to specifically prevent endothelial cells (ECs, lining the inside of vessels) from going into (...) suicide mode (‘apoptosis’) and so preserve vessel integrity. Here, we summarize the factors determining vascular integrity and elaborate on the suitability of the zebrafish to study this phenomenon. BioEssays 30:418–422, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

For millennia, philosophers have speculated about the origins of ethics. Recent research in evolutionary psychology and the neurosciences has shed light on that question. But this research also has normative significance. A standard way of arguing against a normative ethical theory is to show that in some circumstances the theory leads to judgments that are contrary to our common moral intuitions. If, however, these moral intuitions are the biological residue of our evolutionary history, it is not clear why we should (...) regard them as having any normative force. Research in the neurosciences should therefore lead us to reconsider the role of intuitions in normative ethics. (shrink)

How can anyone be rational in a world where knowledge is limited, time is pressing, and deep thought is often an unattainable luxury? Traditional models of unbounded rationality and optimization in cognitive science, economics, and animal behavior have tended to view decision-makers as possessing supernatural powers of reason, limitless knowledge, and endless time. But understanding decisions in the real world requires a more psychologically plausible notion of bounded rationality. In Simple heuristics that make us smart (Gigerenzer et al. 1999), we (...) explore fast and frugal heuristics – simple rules in the mind's adaptive toolbox for making decisions with realistic mental resources. These heuristics can enable both living organisms and artificial systems to make smart choices quickly and with a minimum of information by exploiting the way that information is structured in particular environments. In this précis, we show how simple building blocks that control information search, stop search, and make decisions can be put together to form classes of heuristics, including: ignorance-based and one-reason decision making for choice, elimination models for categorization, and satisficing heuristics for sequential search. These simple heuristics perform comparably to more complex algorithms, particularly when generalizing to new data – that is, simplicity leads to robustness. We present evidence regarding when people use simple heuristics and describe the challenges to be addressed by this research program. Key Words: adaptive toolbox; bounded rationality; decision making; elimination models; environment structure; heuristics; ignorance-based reasoning; limited information search; robustness; satisficing; simplicity. (shrink)

Can material Egalitarianism (requiring, for example, the significant promotion of fortune) include animals in the domain of the equality requirement? The problem can be illustrated as follows: If equality of wellbeing is what matters, and normal mice are included in this egalitarian requirement, then normal mice have a much stronger claim to resources than almost any human. This is because normal mice have a much stronger claim to resources than almost any human. This is because their wellbeing is much lower (...) than that of normal humans. Thus, equality of wellbeing requires a massive shift of resources away from most humans to mice. This view, however, seems crazy. I explore this problem and propose a solution. (shrink)

The volume focuses on a wide range of thinkers, including Iris Murdoch on truth and art, Stanley Cavell on tragedy, Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault on "the death of the author," and Kendall Walton on fearing fictions. Also included is a consideration of the fifteenth-century Japanese playwright and drama teacher Zeami Motokiyo, the founding father of Noh theather.

The thesis that, in a system of natural deduction, the meaning of a logical constant is given by some or all of its introduction and elimination rules has been developed recently in the work of Dummett, Prawitz, Tennant, and others, by the addition of harmony constraints. Introduction and elimination rules for a logical constant must be in harmony. By deploying harmony constraints, these authors have arrived at logics no stronger than intuitionist propositional logic. Classical logic, they maintain, cannot be justified (...) from this proof-theoretic perspective. This paper argues that, while classical logic can be formulated so as to satisfy a number of harmony constraints, the meanings of the standard logical constants cannot all be given by their introduction and/or elimination rules; negation, in particular, comes under close scrutiny. (shrink)

There is certainly a need for a framework to guide the study of the physiological mechanisms underlying the experience of music and the emotions that music evokes. However, this framework should be organised hierarchically, with musical anticipation as its fundamental mechanism.

From the point of view of proof-theoretic semantics, we examine the logical background invoked by Neil Tennant's abstractionist realist account of mathematical existence. To prepare the way, we must first look closely at the rule of existential elimination familiar from classical and intuitionist logics and at rules governing identity. We then examine how well free logics meet the harmony and uniqueness constraints familiar from the proof-theoretic semantics project. Tennant assigns a special role to atomic formulas containing singular terms. This, we (...) find, secures harmony and uniqueness but militates against the putative realism. (shrink)

images. But clearly, it only begs the deeper questions.

In this paper, we consider three arguments for the irrelevance of the doctrine of double effect in end-of-life decision making. The third argument is our own and, to that extent, we seek to defend it. The first argument is that end-of-life decisions do not in fact shorten lives and that therefore there is no need for the doctrine in justification of these decisions. We reject this argument; some end-of-life decisions clearly shorten lives. The second is that the doctrine of double (...) effect is not recognized in UK law ; therefore, clinicians cannot use it as the basis for justification of their decisions. Against this we suggest that while the doctrine might have dubious legal grounds, it could be of relevance in some ways, e.g. in marking the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable practice in relation to the clinician's duty to relieve pain and suffering. The third is that the doctrine is irrelevant because it requires there to be a bad effect that needs justification. This is not the case in end-of-life care for patients diagnosed as dying. Here, bringing about a satisfactory dying process for a patient is a good effect, not a bad one. What matters is that patients die without pain and suffering. This marks a crucial departure from the double-effect doctrine; if the patient's death is not a bad effect then the doctrine is clearly irrelevant. A diagnosis of dying allows clinicians to focus on good dying and not to worry about whether their intervention affects the time of death. For a patient diagnosed as dying, time of death is rarely important. In our conclusion we suggest that acceptance of our argument might be problematic for opponents of physician-assisted death. We suggest one way in which these opponents might argue for a distinction between such practice and palliative care; this relies on the double-effect doctrine's distinction between foresight and intention. (shrink)

An ethical theory is axiological just in case it makes the permissibility of actions depend solely on considerations of goodness. Act utilitarianism is the paradigm axiological theory. An ethical theory is a pure rights theory just in case it judges an action permissible if and only if it violates no one’s rights. Libertarianism is a paradigm pure rights theory. I shall formulate and defend a type of axiological theory that, unlike act utilitarianism, is sensitive in a new and interesting way (...) to whether rights are violated.Let us start by briefly considering the strengths and weakness of act utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism judges an action permissible just in case it maximizes social welfare. It has many attractive features. It is a clearly formulated theory that draws on the machinery of decision theory. It takes a tough minded approach to morality: always focusing on the outcomes of actions. And it takes human welfare very seriously. The axiological theory I shall defend will have all these features. (shrink)

Shepard promotes the important view that evolution constructs cognitive mechanisms that work with internalized aspects of the structure of their environment. But what can this internalization mean? We contrast three views: Shepard's mirrors reflecting the world, Brunswik's lens inferring the world, and Simon 's scissors exploiting the world. We argue that Simon 's scissors metaphor is more appropriate for higher-order cognitive mechanisms and ask how far it can also be applied to perceptual tasks. [Barlow; Kubovy & Epstein; Shepard].

The paper offers a qualified endorsement of Terry Eagleton’s striking claim that “a work’s moral outlook … may be secreted as much in its form as its content”. A number of points are raised in defence of the claim: an argument for the inseparability, under certain conditions, of form and content in a literary work; an idea of moral content, not as derived moral principle, but as inward-facing interpretation grounded in an ethical vocabulary; the possibility of internal and external perspectives (...) on fictional characters; and an emphasis on emotions expressed in, rather than caused by, narrative. Three literary examples are explored, to show how vocabulary, syntax, implicature, and tone, contribute to the emergence of moral salience. A consequence drawn is that the ethical stance readers take to a scene or incident is partially shaped by the narrative modes of its presentation. The overall perspective of the paper is that of aesthetic autonomism: the view that the aesthetic value of a work of literature is distinct from, and not reducible to, any instrumental moral values (positive or negative) attributed to the work. (shrink)

In this paper,[1] I shall address the much-discussed issue of how definite descriptions should be analysed: whether they should be given a quantificational analysis in the style of Russell’s theory of descriptions,[2] or whether they should be seen instead, at least in some cases, as “genuine singular terms” or “genuine referring expressions”, whose function is to pick out a particular object in order to say something about that very object.

The paper examines the way in which Salomon Maimon (1753-1800) combines Humean skepticism and Leibnizian rationalism to mount an innovative challenge to Kant. Maimon’s position can be described as an “apostate rationalism,” which holds that reason makes unavoidable demands on us that are nonetheless not satisfied in experience. An appreciation of Maimon’s arguments also sheds new and interesting light on the surprising role that this apostate rationalism plays as a component of Hume’s skeptical naturalism.

Negative characteristics are sometimes attributed to racial groups on the basis of culture. Sometimes these cultural characteristics are invoked to explain racial disparities. Many antiracist activists and intellectuals argue that such attributions are racist and, in this respect, are no different than attributions of negative characteristics to a racial group based on biology. In a recent essay, Lawrence Blum provides a typology of different kinds of views that attribute negative cultural characteristics to racial groups. One of the views that Blum (...) identifies treats the relevant cultural characteristics as malleable but does not attribute those characteristics to existing structural factors. Blum characterizes this type of thinking as a form of racist thought. I argue that Blum is mistaken in doing so and that there are good reasons for academics not to treat cultural explanations for racial disparities as too taboo to even consider. (shrink)

Glover offers an account for why some pictorial illusions influence early but not late phases of an action. His proposed corrective control process, however, functions normally in the absence of continuous visual information, suggesting that the stimulus is registered veridically prior to action onset. Here I consider an alternative account, based on differing informational constraints of behaviors (and phases of behaviors).

In this paper, I develop a novel account of musical works according which they are situated heir lines, consisting of actual and possible work-versions that are situated in specific musical-historical contexts. And I argue that this account offers a better explanation of three core phonenomena - musical multiplicity, musical flexibility, and musical audibility - than its competitors. Finally, I introduce the broader category of musical lineages - sequences of work-versions each of which has evolved in certain ways from its predecessors (...) - and argue that musical works can be viewed as lineages that are initiated by the requisite sorts of compositional intentions and whose constituent work-versions must satisfy standards of similarity from their original contexts of composition. (shrink)

Near the beginning of his huge bestseller How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi says, “Some of my most consequential steps toward being an antiracist have been the moments when I arrived at basic definitions. To be an antiracist is to set lucid definitions of racism/antiracism, racist/antiracist policies, racist/antiracist ideas, racist/antiracist people” (p. 17). Unfortunately, for those who wish to be antiracists, Kendi’s definitions are anything but lucid. In fact, they are quite murky. This is particularly the case with (...) respect to Kendi’s definitions of racist and antiracist. (shrink)

The theme of this book is the crisis of the early modern state in eighteenth-century Britain. The revolt of the North American colonies and the simultaneous demand for wider religious toleration at home challenged the principles of sovereignty and obligation that underpinned arguments about the character of the state. These were expressed in terms of the 'common good', 'necessity', and 'community' - concepts that came to the fore in early modern European political thought and which gave expression to the problem (...) of defining legitimate authority in a period of increasing consciousness of state power. The Americans and their British supporters argued that individuals ought to determine the common good of the community. A new theory of representation and freedom of thought defines the cutting edge of this revolutionary redefinition of the basic relationship between individual and community. (shrink)

A common objection to utilitarianism is that it clashes with our common moral intuitions. Understanding the role that heuristics play in moral judgments undermines this objection. It also indicates why we should not use John Rawls' model of reflective equilibrium as the basis for testing normative moral theories.

We discuss two inconsistencies between Levelt et al.'s model and existing theory about, and data from, picture-word experiments. These inconsistencies show that the empirical support for WEAVER ++ is much weaker than Levelt et al. suggest. We close with a discussion of the proposed explanation for phonological coactivation of near synonyms of a target word.

The conclusion of animal liberationists that the underlying assumptions of modern egalitarian humanism can be construed to imply an equal moral desert for the higher nonhuman animals has recently been challenged by R. G. Frey on the grounds that linguistic incompetence and lack of self-consciousness on the part of animals preclude them from having desires, beliefs, interests, and rights. AlthoughFrey’s arguments fail, they challenge us to provide alternative accounts of these descriptive and normative categories of human and animal psychology. Phenomenological (...) and behavioral analyses demonstrate both the meaningfulness and the truthfulness ofattributing desires, beliefs, and interests to many nonhuman animals. Principles ofaxiology and ethics prescribe that animal interests ought to be objects of our moral concern, but do not vindicate an egalitarian interpretation of animal liberation. A fundamental challenge of the anima1liberation debate is how to frame a nonegalitarian ethic that can nevertheless preserve the moral gains of various liberation movements inspired by principles of equality. (shrink)

The possible role of language in intermodular communication and non-domain-specific thinking is an empirical issue that is independent of the “vehicle” claim that natural language is “constitutive” of some thoughts. Despite noting objections to various forms of the thesis that we think in language, Carruthers entirely neglects a potentially fatal objection to his own preferred version of this “cognitive conception.”.

Richard Rorty has drawn a distinction between three ways philosophers in the 20th Century have conceived of the enterprise of philosophy. There are those who see it as the guardian of the sciences, those who treat it as a kina of poetry, and those who view philosophy as a political exercise. In this paper, I try to show that Wittgenstein, despite certain popular conceptions of his project, belongs more in the third group than in the other two. The paper focuses (...) on Wittgenstein's notes On Certainty in order to reveal the structure of Wittgenstein's notion of epistemological privilege and how it depends on communal agreement and behaviour. The system of conventions and commitments on which our vanouis practices are grounded is not justifiable. It is a matter of forms of life. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: No Easy Answers The Classical Background Conceptions of Poetic Truth Propositional Truth and Literature Empathetic Knowledge and Clarification An Enduring Contrast: Philosophy and Literature.

Karl Marx’s acerbic observation in the opening lines of _The Eighteenth Brumaire_ that “all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur the first time as tragedy, the second as farce” may be profitably applied to a reconsideration of literary farce sui generis, a genre represented in this article by a long-neglected work of utopian fiction, Archibald Marshall’s _Upsidonia_ (1915). Although _Upsidonia_’s current disregard is arguably undeserved, the article’s chief interest is not to reclaim the novel on aesthetic (...) grounds but to illuminate the mechanics of what Marx would call its “serious buffoonery.” In its persistent reversal of capitalist principles and relations, _Upsidonia_ naturally invites readers to revisit Marx, whose mordant gambit may serve as a key to Marshall’s own farcical plot and praxis, rooted in return and repetition, the essential maneuvers of farce itself. (shrink)

A wide range of anatomical features are shared by all vertebrates, but absent in our closest invertebrate relatives. The origin of vertebrate embryogenesis must have involved the evolution of new regulatory pathways to control the development of new features, but how did this occur? Mutations affecting regulatory genes, including those containing homeobox sequences, may have been important: for example, perhaps gene duplications allowed recruitment of genes to new roles. Here I ask whether comparative data on the genomic organization and expression (...) patterns of homeobox genes support this hypothesis. I propose a model in which duplications of particular homeobox genes, followed by the acquisition of gene‐specific secondary expression domains, allowed the evolution of the neural crest, extensive organogenesis and craniofacial morphogenesis. Specific details of the model are amenable to testing by extension of this comparative approach to molecular embryology. (shrink)

Leibniz says that descartes maintains that a human soul brings about voluntary acts by changing the direction of motion of parts of its body without changing the total quantity of motion. Most subsequent commentators have endorsed this interpretation. But descartes does not say this anywhere, And says things inconsistent with this interpretation. The present paper attributes to descartes a complementarity doctrine, According to which the cartesian laws of motion do not apply to the behaviour of animated bodies, And argues that (...) this doctrine is a natural outcome of his methodological practice of constructing theoretical models for particular classes of phenomena. (shrink)

This study explores the nature of the conflict between science and religion. It shows through a detailed examination of this conflict as it was manifested in nineteenth century Britain that it is a fallacy that religion and science can co-exist in mutual harmony, since the legacy of their conflict in the past century has been inherited by this century, greatly to the detriment of religious belief. It is the author's contention that a return to the essentials of Kant's critical philosophy (...) would lay bare the profound differences between religious and scientific approaches to the world, and the nature of the choice people can make between them. In his effort to demarcate the outlines of a genuine Biblical theology (and to articulate the proper procedures for producing one) the author casts light on important questions of Biblical interpretation, and demands a radical reassessment of the meaning of science for society. (shrink)