Now characterised by high-throughput sequencing methods that enable the study of microbes without lab culture, the human “microbiome” (the microbial flora of the body) is said to have revolutionary implications for biology and medicine. According to many experts, we must now understand ourselves as “holobionts” like lichen or coral, multispecies superorganisms that consist of animal and symbiotic microbes in combination, because normal physiological function depends on them. Here I explore the 1960s research of biologist René Dubos, a forerunner figure mentioned (...) in some historical accounts of the microbiome, and argue that he arrived at the superorganism concept 40 years before the Human Microbiome Project. This raises the question of why his contribution was not hailed as revolutionary at the time and why Dubos is not remembered for it. (shrink)

One of the foundation-stones of modern philosophy Descartes was prepared to go to any lengths in his search for certainty—even to deny those things that seemed most self-evident. In his Meditations of 1641, and in the Objections and Replies that were included with the original publication, he set out to dismantle and then reconstruct the idea of the individual self and its existence. In doing so, Descartes developed a language of subjectivity that has lasted to this day, and he also (...) took his first steps towards the view that would eventually be expressed in the epigram Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"), one of modern philosophy's most famous—and most fiercely contested—claims. The first part of a two-volume edition of Descartes' works in Penguin Classics, the second of which is Discourse on Method & Related Writings. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. (shrink)

The ‘buck-passing’ account equates the value of an object with the existence of reasons to favour it. As we argued in an earlier paper, this analysis faces the ‘wrong kind of reasons’ problem: there may be reasons for pro-attitudes towards worthless objects, in particular if it is the pro-attitudes, rather than their objects, that are valuable. Jonas Olson has recently suggested how to resolve this difficulty: a reason to favour an object is of the right kind only if its formulation (...) does not involve any reference to the attitudes for which it provides a reason. We argue that despite its merits, Olson's solution is unsatisfactory. We go on to suggest that the buck-passing account might be acceptable even if the problem in question turns out to be insoluble. (shrink)

It is commonly believed that blamees can dismiss hypocritical blame on the ground that the hypocrite has no standing to blame their target. Many believe that the feature of hypocritical blame that undermines standing to blame is that it involves an implicit denial of the moral equality of persons. After all, the hypocrite treats herself better than her blamee for no good reason. In the light of the complement to hypocrites and a comparison of hypocritical and non-hypocritical blamers subscribing to (...) hierarchical moral norms, I show why we must reject the moral equality account of the hypocrite’s lack of standing to blame. (shrink)

The all-affected principle is a widely accepted solution to the problem of constituting the demos. Despite its popularity, a basic question in relation to the principle has not received much attention: why does the fact that an individual is affected by a certain decision ground a right to inclusion in democratic decision-making about that matter? An answer to this question must include a reason that explains why an affected individual should be included because she is affected. We identify three such (...) reasons in the literature – to wit, interest protection, self-government and welfare – and show why they all fail. We then propose two alternative reasons, equal relations and fairness, and show why they are also deficient. Surprisingly, the all-affected principle then appears groundless, which supports withholding belief in the all-affected principle or(/and) investing future research in identifying the thus-far unidentified reason why being affected grounds a claim to inclusion. (shrink)

When collective decisions should be made democratically, which people form the relevant demos? Many theorists think this question is an embarrassment to democratic theory: because any decision about who forms the demos must be made democratically by the right demos, which itself must be democratically constituted and so on ad infinitum; and because neither the concept of democracy, nor our reasons for caring about democracy, determine who should form the demos. Having distinguished between these three versions of the demos problem, (...) we argue that each of them can be solved. (shrink)

In this paper we distinguish two versions of the non-identity problem: one involving positive well-being and one involving negative well-being. Intuitively, there seems to be a difference between the two versions of the problem. In the negative case it is clear that one ought to cause the better off person to exist. However, it has recently been suggested that this is not so in the positive case. We argue that such an asymmetrical treatment of the two versions should be rejected (...) and that this is evidence against views according to which it is permissible to cause the less well off person to exist in the positive non-identity case. (shrink)

This paper presents a dynamic perspective in which the psychological contract is treated as a structured set of beliefs that are held by individual employees about the mutual obligations of the organization as employer and themselves as employees. This set of beliefs is assumed to produce a state of commitment to the organization in which the employee is willing to accept work roles and tasks offered by the organization, and to carry them out in accordance with certain standards. The dynamic (...) model that is presented can help to explain why the commitment of employees remains relatively stable over time, and why it may suddenly decrease or increase under circumstances that are perceived as critical by the employee. The model assumes that the employee's evaluation of the organization's behavior changes over time, but that the structure of the psychological contract and the associated commitment change only when certain limits are overstepped. This perspective on changes in the psychological contract transforms the concept into a powerful construct that may lead to fruitful research on the dynamics of organization-employee relationships. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

A notable feature of our practice of blaming is that blamees can dismiss blame for their own blameworthy actions when the blamer is censuring them hypocritically and, as it is often put, lacks standing to blame them as a result. This feature has received a good deal of philosophical attention in recent years. By contrast, no attention has been given the possibility that, likewise, refraining from blaming can be hypocritical and dismissed as standingless. I argue that hypocritical refrainers have a (...) duty to blame, if asked to do so, and possibly even if they are not asked to do so. Acknowledging this fact about hypocritical silence is crucial to an adequate understanding of our practice of blaming. Specifically, it bears on a worry that naturally arises when we consider cases where the blamee is blameworthy yet the blaming is problematic, because standingless. The worry is that, absurdly, the idea of standing justifies our being more interested in silencing preachers of virtue than making wrongdoers overcome vice. However, if one can lack standing not to blame, this concern is unwarranted. If there is such a thing as standing to blame, then sometimes one must, for reasons of standing, speak up in the face of wrongdoing, meaning, in effect, that one lacks the right not to challenge wrongdoers to improve. (shrink)

1. L'origine de l'univers. L'origine de la vie. L'origine des espèces infrahumaines.--2. L'origine de l'homme. Corps et âme. Le destin de l'homme et de l'univers.--3. Les postulats philosophiques du transformisme.

His final set of lectures at the College de France, described here by Thomas Flynn, focused on the concept of truth-telling as a moral virtue in the ancient ...

In a recent JME article, Joona Räsänen makes the case for allowing legal age change. We identify three problems with his argument and, on that basis, propose an improved version thereof. Unfortunately, even the improved argument is vulnerable to the objection that chronological age is a better proxy for justice in health than both legal and what we shall call official age.

In this chapter, the author presents some Cartesian thought experiments by reproducing an excerpt from The Meditations on First Philosophy. The author asks us to imagine that the physical world around us is an elaborate illusion. He imagines that the world was merely a dream or, worse yet, a hoax orchestrated by an evil demon bent on deceiving us. The author asks us to suppose that we are dreaming, and that some particulars ‐ namely, the opening of the eyes, the (...) motion of the head, the forth‐putting of the hands ‐ are merely illusions; and even that we really possess neither an entire body nor hands such as we see. Nevertheless, he says that, it must be admitted at least that the objects which appear to us in sleep are, as it were, painted representations which could not have been formed unless in the likeness of realities. (shrink)

Ce livre fait suite à Exclamations philosophiques, suivi de Thèmes, publié en 2003, par les soins de l'Université de Paris-1. Fondée sur de nombreux récits, l'exclamation propose ici l'éthique d'un Amour-Refus dont la devise est : "Tu souffres donc je t'aime et je ne tolère pas que tu souffres, donc je prends les moyens de te libérer de ta souffrance". Attitude qui implique une liberté d'esprit, appelée par les problèmes de notre temps. C'est dire qu'allant du conflit entre la Cruauté (...) originelle et l'Aimance fondamentale, pour accéder enfin à la Raison ardente, ce livre développe l'expérience vécue d'un cheminement, - vers la "civilisation du corps", qu'un "érotisme du bien" assure dans le Droit, et magnifie dans l'éthique du respect. La leçon du Surréalisme, poursuivie dans le Surrationalisme de Gaston Bachelard, débouche sur "un parler-vrai" qui peut surprendre le lecteur, mais le respecte absolument. Pour preuve, l'abondance des notes, et le glossaire, situés en fin de volume. (shrink)

Heloise Robinson argues that pregnant women have a higher moral status than non-pregnant persons and that, for this reason, pregnant women ought to be treated ‘noticeably’ better than non-pregnant persons.1 In this commentary, we present two challenges to Robinson’s argument. First, the compounding disadvantage objection: treating involuntarily, non-pregnant women worse than voluntarily pregnant women unjustly compounds their disadvantage. Second, the identity objection: treating non-pregnant people worse than pregnant people amounts to pro tanto wrongful discrimination based on a fundamental aspect of (...) people’s identity. We conclude that either pregnant persons do not have a higher moral status than non-pregnant persons, or they do, but higher moral status so grounded does not justify better treatment. According to the standard view of moral status: (1) most human beings are persons; (2) persons have a higher moral status than non-persons; and (3) persons have an equal moral status. Many believe: (1) is true because most human beings have a sufficiently high level of personhood-generating psychological capacities; (2) is true because moral status is tied to personhood; and (3) is true because variations in the level of personhood-generating psychological capacities do not matter to an individual’s moral status once that individual’s level surpasses the threshold required for personhood.2 (3) is significant …. (shrink)

According to many theorists, discrimination either requires a better treated comparator or can occur only if the discriminator belongs to a socially salient group different from that of the discriminatee. Both claims are philosophically important since they have important implications for which account of the moral wrongness of discrimination is correct, e.g., if no comparator is required, the wrongness of discrimination cannot result from treating different people as unequals since the unequal treatment of persons is not an essential feature of (...) discrimination. Most theorists who have written on the topic see their account as articulating the folk concept of discrimination. However, none have subjected their putative articulations thereof to experimental testing. This is what the present study does. Its results are mixed, interesting, and call for further studies. Regarding comparativity, surprisingly, respondents are more disposed to classify a situation as discriminatory when there is no comparator than when there is one. Regarding reflexivity, respondents are more likely to classify our vignettes as involving discrimination when the discriminator is from another socially salient group than the discriminatee as to ethnicity but not when it comes to gender. Hence, non-reflexivity does not appear to be a conceptual requirement on discrimination. Remarkably, our study also shows that the mere reference to a majority, outgroup person in our vignettes makes respondents more likely to classify the vignette as involving discrimination against a minority person, even when the majority group person does not play the role of a comparator. (shrink)

This paper takes a fresh look at Elizabeth Anderson’s democratic egalitarianism and its relation to luck egalitarianism in the light of recent trends toward greater socioeconomic inequality. Anderson’s critique of luck egalitarianism and her alternative ideal of democratic equality are set out. It is then argued that the former is not very powerful, and that the latter is vulnerable to many of Anderson’s criticisms of luck egalitarianism. The paper also seeks to show that, on many of the issues over which (...) Anderson disagrees with luck egalitarians, the latter can adopt the view she canvasses without abandoning their luck egalitarianism. At most, her critique shows that we have reason to prefer some views within the luck egalitarian family over others—not that we have reason to reject luck egalitarianismas such. (shrink)

Many viewers presented with a round plate tilted to their line of sight will report that they see a round plate that looks elliptical from their perspective. Alva Noë thinks that we should take reports of this kind as adequate descriptions of the phenomenology of spatial experiences. He argues that his so‐called enactive or sensorimotor account of spatial perceptual content explains why both the plate's circularity and its elliptical appearance are phenomenal aspects of experience. In this paper, I critique the (...) phenomenal adequacy of Noë's sensorimotor account of spatial perceptual content. I begin by showing that some of its central claims are in conflict with the phenomenology of perceptual experience. I then argue that shape appearances have no phenomenal reality, thus undermining this central motivation for his account. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)