In this paper, I argue that morality might bear on belief in at least two conceptually distinct ways. The first is that morality might bear on belief by bearing on questions of justification. The claim that it does is the doctrine of moral encroachment. The second, is that morality might bear on belief given the central role belief plays in mediating and thereby constituting our relationships with one another. The claim that it does is the doctrine of doxastic wronging. Though (...) conceptually distinct, the two doctrines overlap in important ways. This paper provides clarification on the relationship between the two, providing reasons throughout that we should accept both. (shrink)

Philosophical inquiry strives to be the unencumbered exploration of ideas. That is, unlike scientific research which is subject to ethical oversight, it is commonly thought that it would either be inappropriate, or that it would undermine what philosophy fundamentally is, if philosophical research were subject to similar ethical oversight. Against this, I argue that philosophy is in need of a reckoning. Philosophical inquiry is a morally hazardous practice with its own risks. There are risks present in the methods we employ, (...) risks inherent in the content of the views under consideration, and risks to the subjects of our inquiry. Likely, there are more risks still. However, by starting with the identification of these three risks we can demonstrate not only why an ethics of practice is needed but also which avenues are the most promising for developing an ethics for philosophical practice. Although we might be in the business of asking questions, we do not absolve ourselves of responsibility for the risks that inquiry incurs. (shrink)

This chapter asks two questions about the ethics of expectations: one about the nature of expectations, and one about the wrongs of expectations. On the first question, expectations involve a rich constellation of attitudes ranging from beliefs to also include imaginings, hopes, fears, and dreams. As a result, sometimes expectations act like predictions, like your expectation of rain tomorrow, sometimes prescriptions, like the expectation that your students will do the reading, sometimes like proleptic reasons like the hope that your mentee (...) will flourish, and sometimes expectations are peremptory in that they carry the force of moral law. Turning to the second question, given the multiple roles played by expectations it shouldn’t be surprising that there are also multiple ways expectations can be wrong to hold. Sometimes they wrong as beliefs do, e.g., doxastic wronging, and sometimes they result in alienation because of who holds that expectation of us. The upshot of this chapter is that getting clear on these potential ways expectations can wrong not only delivers an ethics of expectations that mirrors familiar discussions of the ethics of belief, but an ethics of expectations further opens the door for taking seriously an ethics of mental attitudes more generally. (shrink)

Morality bears on what we should forget. Some aspects of our identity are meant to be forgotten and there is a distinctive harm that accompanies the permanence of some content about us, content that prompts a duty to forget. To make the case that forgetting is an integral part of our moral duties to others, the paper proceeds as follows. In §1, I make the case that forgetting is morally evaluable and I survey three kinds of forgetting: no-trace forgetting, archival (...) forgetting, and siloing. In §2, I turn to how we practice these forms of forgetting in our everyday lives and the goods these practices facilitate by drawing on examples ranging from the expunging of juvenile arrest records to the right to privacy. In §3, I turn to how my account can help us both recognize and address a heretofore neglected source of harm caused by technology and big data. In §4, I end by addressing the concern that we lack control over forgetting and thus can't be required to forget. I argue this challenge can be answered, but there’s a harder challenge that can’t. Forgetting is under threat. To address this challenge and preserve forgetting, we must change the world. (shrink)

The problem of fake news and the spread of misinformation has garnered a lot of attention in recent years. The incentives and norms that give rise to the problem, however, are not unique to journalism. Insofar as academics and journalists are working towards the same goal, i.e., publication, they are both under pressures that pervert. This chapter has two aims. First, to integrate conversations in philosophy of science, epistemology, and metaphilosophy to draw out the publishing incentives that promote analogous problems (...) of fake news and misinformation in academic research communities more broadly. Second, to argue for a (partial) solution. This chapter argues that research communities benefit when authors believe what they argue for in print and it warns against attempts to loosen our publication norms to permit publishing without belief. (shrink)

This chapter is a survey of the ethics of belief. It begins with the debate as it first emerges in the foundational dispute between W. K. Clifford and William James. Then it surveys how the disagreements between Clifford and James have shaped the work of contemporary theorists, touching on topics such as pragmatism, whether we should believe against the evidence, pragmatic and moral encroachment, doxastic partiality, and doxastic wronging.

In this paper I explore three challenges to the morality of belief. First, whether we have the necessary control over our beliefs to be held responsible for them, i.e., the challenge of doxastic involuntarism. Second, the question of whether belief is really the attitude that we care about in the cases used to motivate the morality of belief. Third, whether attitudes weaker than belief, such as credence, can wrong, I then end by turning to how answers to the previous challenges (...) suggest a way of extending the morality of belief to encompass a way of thinking of the moral mind more generally. (shrink)

It is no surprise that we should be careful when it comes to what we believe. Believing false things can be costly. The morality of belief, also known as doxastic wronging, takes things a step further by suggesting that certain beliefs can not only be costly, they can also wrong. This article surveys some accounts of how this could be so. That is, how beliefs wrong.

Conventions and leaders are believed to be the two pillars of justice and order in society. This paper evaluates this proposition and draws attention to two intriguing ways in which these pillars can malfunction. The argument is constructed by creating two new games, Greta’s Dilemma and the Incarceration Game. An awareness of these problems can help us use our ‘moral intention’ to reexamine our own collective behavior and to design prior conventions, which limit the power of the leader.

Increasing evidence indicates that extracellular vesicles (EVs) secreted from tumor cells play a key role in the overall progression of the disease state. EVs such as exosomes are secreted by a wide variety of cells and transport a varied population of proteins, lipids, DNA, and RNA species within the body. Gliomas constitute a significant proportion of all primary brain tumors and majority of brain malignancies. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) represents grade IV glioma and is associated with very poor prognosis despite the (...) cumulative advances in diagnostic procedures and treatment strategies. Here, the authors describe the progress in understanding the role of EVs, especially exosomes, in overall glioma progression, and how new research is unraveling the utilities of exosomes in glioma diagnostics and development of next‐generation therapeutic systems. Finally, based on an understanding of the latest scientific literature, a model for the possible working of therapeutic exosomes in glioma treatment is proposed. (shrink)

This paper is a comprehensive survey of the alarming deterioration in the morals, values and mental health of individuals and societies right across the globe. In fact this decline is really the true globalization of the day, not so much equitable distribution, meeting of minds and so on. The author explores numerous reports and writings of researchers, poets, thinkers, policy-makers, journalists and intellectuals, and uses all that to deliver a shattering knock to the complacent and smug modern citizen—Western or Eastern. (...) For remedies against the modern consumerist-materialist global epidemic, Bhattacharya falls back upon classical Eastern and Indian thought. This corpus offers timeless wisdom, the seers having accurately forecasted today's human predicament and having laid down the blueprint for sane living. (shrink)

Contributed papers presented during the national seminar held at Visva- Bharati, from August 20-21, 1993.

In the Book of Common Prayer’s Rite II version of the Eucharist, the congregation confesses, “we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed”. According to this confession we wrong God not just by what we do and what we say, but also by what we think. The idea that we can wrong someone not just by what we do, but by what think or what we believe, is a natural one. It is the kind of wrong we feel (...) when those we love believe the worst about us. And it is one of the salient wrongs of racism and sexism. Yet it is puzzling to many philosophers how we could wrong one another by virtue of what we believe about them. This paper defends the idea that we can morally wrong one another by what we believe about them from two such puzzles. The first puzzle concerns whether we have the right sort of control over our beliefs for them to be subject to moral evaluation. And the second concerns whether moral wrongs would come into conflict with the distinctively epistemic standards that govern belief. Our answer to both puzzles is that the distinctively epistemic standards governing belief are not independent of moral considerations. This account of moral encroachment explains how epistemic norms governing belief are sensitive to the moral requirements governing belief. (shrink)

We care not only about how people treat us, but also what they believe of us. If I believe that you’re a bad tipper given your race, I’ve wronged you. But, what if you are a bad tipper? It is commonly argued that the way racist beliefs wrong is that the racist believer either misrepresents reality, organizes facts in a misleading way that distorts the truth, or engages in fallacious reasoning. In this paper, I present a case that challenges this (...) orthodoxy: the case of the supposedly rational racist. We live in a world that has been, and continues to be, structured by racist attitudes and institutions. As a result, the evidence might be stacked in favour of racist beliefs. But, if there are racist beliefs that reflect reality and are rationally justified, what could be wrong with them? Moreover, how do I wrong you by believing what I epistemically ought believe given the evidence? To address this challenge, we must recognize that there are not only epistemic norms governing belief, but moral ones as well. This view, however, is at odds with the assumption that moral obligation requires a kind of voluntary control that we lack with regard to our beliefs. This background assumption motivates many philosophers to try to explain away the appearance that beliefs can wrong by locating the wrong elsewhere, e.g., in an agent’s actions. Further, even accounts that accept the thesis that racist beliefs can wrong restrict the class of beliefs that wrong to beliefs that are either false or the result of hot irrationality, e.g., the racist belief is a result of ill-will. In this paper I argue that although the these accounts will capture many of the wrongs associated with racist beliefs, they will be only partial explanations because they cannot explain the wrong committed by the supposedly rational racist. The challenge posed by the supposedly rational racist concerns our epistemic practices in a non-ideal world. The world is an unjust place, and there may be many morally objectionable beliefs it justifies. To address this challenge, we must seriously consider the thesis people wrong others in virtue of what they believe about them, and not just in virtue of what they do. (shrink)

If you’re familiar with Tolkien’s The Hobbit I don’t need to tell you that Mirkwood is a dangerous place. As bad as we might feel for Thorin and company as they try to navigate the forest and fall prey to its traps, we should feel worse for ourselves. Our world is also dangerous and difficult, but in a different way. Although it’s some comfort that the spiders of our world are smaller, it is easier to travel through Mirkwood than it (...) is to know what to believe. At least when it comes to navigating Mirkwood the directions are clear. (shrink)

We care what people think of us. The thesis that beliefs wrong, although compelling, can sound ridiculous. The norms that properly govern belief are plausibly epistemic norms such as truth, accuracy, and evidence. Moral and prudential norms seem to play no role in settling the question of whether to believe p, and they are irrelevant to answering the question of what you should believe. This leaves us with the question: can we wrong one another by virtue of what we believe (...) about each other? Can beliefs wrong? In this introduction, I present a brief summary of the articles that make up this special issue. The aim is to direct readers to open avenues for future research by highlighting questions and challenges that are far from being settled. These papers shouldn’t be taken as the last word on the subject. Rather, they mark the beginning of a serious exploration into a set of questions that concern the morality of belief, i.e., doxastic morality. (shrink)

This paper is about an overlooked aspect—the cognitive or epistemic aspect—of the moral demand we place on one another to be treated well. We care not only how people act towards us and what they say of us, but also what they believe of us. That we can feel hurt by what others believe of us suggests both that beliefs can wrong and that there is something we epistemically owe to each other. This proposal, however, surprises many theorists who claim (...) it lacks both intuitive and theoretical support. This paper argues that the proposal has intuitive support and is not at odds with much contemporary theorizing about what we owe to each other. (shrink)

Historical patterns of discrimination seem to present us with conflicts between what morality requires and what we epistemically ought to believe. I will argue that these cases lend support to the following nagging suspicion: that the epistemic standards governing belief are not independent of moral considerations. We can resolve these seeming conflicts by adopting a framework wherein standards of evidence for our beliefs to count as justified can shift according to the moral stakes. On this account, believing a paradigmatically racist (...) belief reflects a failure to not only attend to the epistemic risk of being wrong, but also a failure to attend to the distinctively moral risk of wronging others given what we believe. (shrink)

By virtue of his Essays Montaigne is rightly regarded not only as a radically modern philosopher but also as a transformative educational innovator. He confronted the extent to which pedantry and acculturation can justify cruelty by developing a conception of liberal arts education as the arts of liberation, and at the core of this education he placed the practice of essaying. This article argues that in easing us into essaying practices Montaigne qua educator makes reflexive use of three specific modes (...) of didactic humor: incongruous comparison, subversive superiority, and leveling embodiment. Humor thus emerges as a cognitive disposition and communicative mode especially appropriate to the pedagogical engagement with difference today. (shrink)

The doctrine of karma is a vexed philosophical question and karmic law has often been confused with fatal ism. This article seeks to put forward the author's understanding of this complex concept. It is a cosmic law of action with its inevitable consequence and reaction. Narration of parables—metaphors pregnant with rich meaning—supplemented with instances from real life show a path out of the labyrinth, even the much- debated issue of determinism and free will. The thesis is that karmic law can (...) provide the discerning intelli gence, cultivated through chitta-shuddhi, adequate guidance for making the choice that may help one—if one chooses to—in avoiding decisions for short-term gains that breed long-term misery. (shrink)

At times we come across traditional sayings that pose enigmas. Often, striving to resolve the puzzle turns into a quest, a search for meaning that, quite unexpectedly, throws light on problems facing us today. Such an enigmatic Sanskrit couplet exhorts invoking five females regularly to redeem us of failings, howsoever grievous. Ahalya draupadi kunti tara mandodari tatha/ Panchakanya smarenityam mahapataka nashinim// The choice of the five is itself intriguing, all being epic heroines: Ahalya, Tara and Mandodari from the Ramayana; Kunti (...) and Draupadi from the Mahabharata. Even more so is the celebration of each as kanya, not as nari or sati. If kanya connotes ‘virgin’, the matter becomes more puzzling since each had intimate relationships with more than one man. In analysing what is known about them, we are surprised, for these heroines of ancient myth turn out to be, quite unexpectedly, guides for us in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

At times we come across traditional sayings that pose enigmas. Often, striving to resolve the puzzle turns into a quest, a search for meaning that, quite unexpectedly, throws light on problems facing us today. Such an enigmatic Sanskrit couplet exhorts invoking five females regularly to redeem us of failings, howsoever grievous: Ahalya draupadi kunti tara mandodari tatha\ Panchakanya smarenityam mahapataka nashinim\\ The choice of the five is itself intriguing, all being epic heroines: Ahalya, Tara and Mandodari from the Ramayana; Kunti (...) and Draupadi from the Mahabharata. Even more so is the celeberation of each as kanya, not as nari (woman) or sati (devoted to the husband). If kanya connotes ‘virgin’ (‘daughter’ makes no sense as several of them are not womb-born), the matter becomes more puzzling since each had intimate relationships with more than one man. In analysing what is known about them, we are surprised, fore these heroines of ancient myth turn out to be, quite unexpectedly, guides for us in the twenty-first century. In the previous issue (12:1) the exploration had dealt with four of the five kanyas. This concluding part examines the persona of Draupadi, heroine of the world's longest epic, the Mahabharata.1. (shrink)

This new Bangla book discusses Michel Foucault's political and philosophical thoughts in the last decade of his career. The author argues that this decade was one of his most restless, creative, and fascinating. He discusses and analyses Foucauldian theories, such as sexuality, governmentality, bio-politics, and bio-power, as also his concern with the politics of truth, which includes his thoughts on modernity and critique.

But to infer is not to be trained in Logic. The primitive persons inferred ; the common layman infers. But they do not know any bit of what is known as ...

The powerful role that teachers can play in our development is the focus Binyamin, Jayusi, and Tamir’s chapter in this volume. They argue that teachers, in particular teachers that don’t share the same background as their students, can help counter the increasing polarization that characterizes our current era. In these critical notes I raise three challenges to their proposal. First, by exploring the mechanisms of polarization I demonstrate that polarization is not a problem unique to thick diversity or thick multiculturalism. (...) Second, the central premise of the authors’ proposal rests on the ability of greater contact to reduce prejudice. The contact hypothesis, however, has numerous backlash effects and unintended consequences that can increase prejudice rather than reduce prejudice. These backlash effects and unintended consequences raise serious doubts for the success of placing minority teachers in majority classrooms to reduce prejudice. Third, I raise concerns about how the proposal tokenizes minority teachers, the use of instrumental rationales for diversity, and the politics of deference and being-in-the-room privilege that also go unaddressed in their proposal. (shrink)

This comprehensive analysis dives deep into the intricate interplay between artificial intelligence (AI) and human agency, examining the remarkable capabilities and inherent limitations of large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3 and ChatGPT. The paper traces the complex trajectory of AI's evolution, highlighting its operation based on statistical pattern recognition, devoid of self-consciousness or innate comprehension. As AI permeates multiple spheres of human life, it raises substantial ethical, legal, and societal concerns that demand immediate attention and deliberation. The metaphorical illustration (...) of humans as “shepherds” of AI, coupled with a thought-provoking examination of “agency without intelligence,” engenders deep reflections on the future of human-AI interplay and the associated philosophical, ethical, and practical ramifications. The paper further elucidates critical challenges associated with AI, such as ethical dilemmas, “agency without intelligence,” the role of human oversight, and the environmental impact of AI technologies. In the pursuit of solutions, the paper maps prospective directions, emphasizing the need for robust AI policies, improved AI literacy, sustainable AI practices, and a continued dialogue on the multifaceted issues surrounding AI. Through a holistic exploration of AI, this paper underlines the necessity for a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach to chart an ethical, beneficial, and sustainable AI future, enabling society to harness the potential of AI responsibly while mitigating the associated risks. (shrink)

Nearly a million Indian women lack access to safe and dignified abortion services from public healthcare facilities and instead opt to induce abortions by themselves or with the help from unskilled and unauthorized practitioners. Unsafe abortions account for an estimated 9% of all maternal deaths in India despite the legalization of abortion on all grounds since 1971 via the MTP Act. However, the Act technically does not make any provision for abortion based on a woman’s request alone, subjecting her decision (...) to the approval of her healthcare provider, limiting reproductive autonomy. Moreover, the problem of female feticide through sex‐selective abortions has also contributed to a conflicting public agenda that prioritizes preventing the former over allowing women access to abortion services for other reasons. Women who are socio‐economically, culturally, and educationally vulnerable and minors may experience further abortion related stigmatization. These ethico‐legal considerations highlight the need for transition from a provider‐centered to a woman‐centered abortion service model. (shrink)

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams, Diagrams 2021, held virtually in September 2021. The 16 full papers and 25 short papers presented together with 16 posters were carefully reviewed and selected from 94 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: design of concrete diagrams; theory of diagrams; diagrams and mathematics; diagrams and logic; new representation systems; analysis of diagrams; diagrams and computation; cognitive analysis; diagrams as (...) structural tools; formal diagrams; and understanding thought processes. 10 chapters are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com. (shrink)

Papers presented at two national seminars on Language science and cognition and Epistemology and cognition held at Hyderabad.