The received view is that Kant denies all moral luck. But I show how Kant affirms constitutive moral luck in passages concerning radical evil from Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. First, I explicate Kant’s claims about radical evil. It is a morally evil disposition that all human beings have necessarily, at least for the first part of their lives, and for which they are blameworthy. Second, since these properties about radical evil appear to contradict Kant’s even more famous (...) claims about imputation, ‘ought implies can’, and free will, I unpack Henry Allison’s proof of radical evil and show how it is consistent with interpretations of Kant’s broader views about morality. Third, I define and illustrate the category of constitutive moral luck and argue that Kant embraces the existence of constitutive moral luck given Allison-style interpretations of radical evil. This provides a reason for philosophers to reject the received view, and it creates an occasion for Kantians and Kant scholars to check their reasons if they deny moral luck. (shrink)

Studies the books of Spinoza to clarify some of his central ideas on man, society, and government.

A prospective introduction -- The received view -- Troubles with the received view -- Are propositional attitudes relations? -- Foundations of a measurement-theoretic account of the attitudes -- The basic measurement-theoretic account -- Elaboration and explication of the proposed measurement-theoretic account.

Authority, in its origin is a political concept, has largely maintained its political character in its most common and prominent usage. Etymologically “authority” is Latin: auctoritas. Perhaps the single most influential and important analysis of authority in the modern context has been provided by Max Weber who identifies Autorität with Herrschaft, domination (or, more traditionally and literally, lordship) and Herrschaft with Macht (power). Weber's account of Herrschaft provides for three kinds: traditional, legal‐rational, and charismatic. Weber's account has been taken up (...) and sometimes slightly modified in sociology, political theory, philosophy, and literature in almost every language. Gadamer's rehabilitation of authority is closely tied to his attempt to similarly rehabilitate prejudice and tradition. These three concepts are closely related. The concept of the mens auctoris (the mind of the author) as the ultimate principle of interpretation of final authority goes back at least to the Renaissance, if not long before. (shrink)

This study contributes to the burgeoning research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) at the individual level of analysis, in a hitherto largely neglected developing country context. Using survey information collected from 297 employees in public and private enterprises in Kosovo, this study examines how and to what extent employees’ perceptions of their employer's CSR activities are associated with their intention to emigrate. Applying a needs‐based framework, this research provides evidence that employees’ perceptions of CSR are positively related to the meaningfulness (...) of their work and job satisfaction and negatively related to intention to emigrate. Additionally, results confirm that the association between CSR perceptions and emigration intention is mediated by the meaningfulness of work and job satisfaction. From a practical point of view, this research should encourage private and public enterprises in developing countries to enhance and extend their CSR engagement. (shrink)

The relationship between construal and redundancy has not been previously explored empirically. Russian aspect allows speakers to construe situations as either Perfective or Imperfective, but it is not clear to what extent aspect is determined by context and therefore redundant. We investigate the relationship between redundancy and open construal by surveying 501 native Russian speakers who rated the acceptability of both Perfective and Imperfective verb forms in complete extensive authentic contexts. We find that aspect is largely redundant in 81% of (...) uses, and in 17% of contexts aspect is relatively open to construal. We contend that anchoring in redundant contexts likely facilitates the independence of construal in contexts with less redundancy. However further research is needed to discover what makes contexts redundant since known cues for aspect are absent in the majority of such contexts. Native speakers are fairly consistent in giving the original aspect high ratings, but less consistent in rating the non-original aspect, indicating potential problems in testing the reactions of speakers to non-authentic data. (shrink)

he first institutional theory of art is outlined in a 1964 essay by Arthur Danto, “The Artworld,” which ruminates on the paradox that Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes is art though any of its perceptually indistinguishable twins—any stack of Brillo boxes in a grocery store—is not. Danto’s offers this solution to the paradox: “To see something as art requires something the eye cannot descry—an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld.” Ultimately, though, it is “art (...) theory” that makes Warhol’s stack of silk screened plywood boxes into art. (shrink)

Postural instability in Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by impaired postural responses to transient perturbations, increased postural sway in stance and difficulty transitioning between tasks. In addition, some studies suggest that loss of dopamine in the basal ganglia due to PD results in difficulty using proprioceptive information for motor control. Here, we quantify the ability of subjects with PD and age-matched control subjects to use and re-weight sensory information for postural control during steady-state conditions of continuous rotations of the stance (...) surface or visual surround. We measure the postural sway of subjects in response to a pseudorandom, surface-tilt stimulus with eyes closed, and in response to a pseudorandom, visual-tilt stimulus. We use a feedback control model of the postural control system to interpret our results, focusing on sensory weighting as a function of stimulus amplitude. We find that subjects with PD can re-weight their dependence upon sensory information in response to changes in surface- or visual-stimulus amplitude. Specifically, subjects with PD behaved like age-matched control subjects by decreasing proprioceptive contribution to stance control with increasing surface-tilt amplitude, and decreasing visual contribution with increasing visual-tilt amplitude. However, subjects with PD do not decrease their reliance on proprioception as much as age-matched controls for small increases in surface-stimulus amplitudes. Levodopa medication did not affect sensory re-weighting behaviors for postural control. The impairment in PD subject’s ability to respond differently to small changes in surface rotation amplitudes is consistent with an increased threshold for perceiving proprioceptive signals, which may result from decreased signal-to-noise in the dopaminergic pathways associated with sensory processing and/or sensory integration. (shrink)

The CLASH model proposed in the target article is plausible but less than parsimonious. I suggest that statistical analysis probably would find slower life history strategy, greater focus on the future, and greater self-control to be highly correlated and perhaps unifactorial, because they are all manifestations of a single underlying variable, namely, intelligence. I suggest how intelligence as a state variable plausibly could explain the differences observed by the authors.

This book is a tour de force in showing that what we believe to be actions dictated by conscious will are not, in fact, wholly dictated by conscious will. However, Wegner has fallen into the trap of making claims that go beyond his data to make his case more compelling and newsworthy. Psychology needs to be informed by common sense.

The Phenomenon of Man, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, has been characterized as metaphysics, poetry, and mysticism-virtually everything except what its author claimed it was: a "purely scientific mémoir." Professor O'Connell here follows up on a nest of clues, uncovered first in an early unpublished essay, then in the series of essays contained principally in The Vision of the Past. Those clues all point to Teilhard's intimate familiarity with the philosophy of science propounded by the celebrated Pierre Duhem. It was (...) Duhem's central claim that science, to remain true to itself, must aim at establishing a genuine "natural classification" phenomenal reality. That insight, Professor O'Connell argues, guided Teilhard's lifelong effort to describe the "imposed reality-factors" which science in its variety of forms suggests as ingredients and operative at every phase in the evolutionary development of planet Earth. Limiting his focus to the way Teilhard unfolded his vision of the past, Professor O'Connell concludes that those who deprecate Teilhard as unscientific betray little awareness of how sophisticated his understanding of science truly was. (shrink)

In Darwinian Heresies, which was originally published in 2004, prominent historians and philosophers of science trace the history of evolutionary thought, and challenge many of the assumptions that have built up over the years. Covering a wide range of issues starting in the eighteenth century, Darwinian Heresies brings us through the time of Charles Darwin and the Origin, and then through the twentieth century to the present. It is suggested that Darwin's true roots lie in Germany, not his native England, (...) that Russian evolutionism is more significant than many are prepared to allow, and that the true influence on twentieth-century evolution biology was not Charles Darwin at all, but his often-despised contemporary, Herbert Spencer. The collection was intended to interest, to excite, to infuriate, and to stimulate further work. (shrink)

It also follows from what has been said that it is not thc poct’s business to relate actual cvcms, but such things as might or could happen in accordance with probability or necessity. A poet differs from a historian, not bccausc 0nc writes vcrsc and thc othcr prose (thc work of Hcrodotus could bc put imo vcrsc, but it would still remain a history, whcthcr in vcrsc 0r prose), but because thc historian relates what happcncd, thc poet what might happen. (...) That is why poetry is more akin to philosophy and is 21 bcttcr thing than history; poetry deals with general truths, history with specific cvcnts. The latter arc, for example, what Alcibiadcs did or suffered, whilc general truths arc thc kind of thing.. (shrink)

The prenylated proteins represent a newly discovered class of post‐translationally modified proteins. The known prenylated proteins include the oncogene product p21ras and other low molecular weight GTP‐binding proteins, the nuclear lamins, and the γ subunit of the heterotrimeric G proteins. The modification involves the covalent attachment of a 15‐carbon (farnesyl) or 20‐carbon (geranylgeranyl) isoprenoid moiety in a thioether linkage to a carboxyl terminal cysteine. The nature of the attached substituent is dependent on specific sequence information in the carboxyl terminus of (...) the protein. In addition, prenylation entrains other post‐translational modifications forming a reaction pathway. In this article, we review our current understanding of the biochemical reactions involved in prenylation and discuss the possible role of this modification in the control of cellular functions such as protein maturation and cell growth. (shrink)

The basic thesis ofMichaelWilliams'book Unnatural Doubts is that sceptical doubts, at least of a Cartesian variety, are neither natural nor intuitive, but are, instead, the product of 'contentious and possibly dispensable theoretical preconceptions'. In particular, for Williams, scepticism arises because of a commitment to what he calls 'epistemic realism'. A fundamental thesis of my book Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification is that scepticism (in its most challenging forms) is not based upon such prior theoretical commitments, but rather is the (...) natural outcome of unrestricted exploitation of a feature already present in our everyday concept of knowledge. Specifically, our everyday epistemic practices contain a useful mechanism that raises the level of evidential scrutiny in problematic settings. However, in the absence of psychological constraints (as in Hume) or pragmatic constraints (as in Peirce), this mechanism can generate an ever-widening range of undefeated possible defeaters- and with this, radical forms of scepticism emerge.Scepticism is not the result ofmounting the wronghorse (as Williams thinks),but the result of riding a serviceable horse too hard. With respect to Williams'own contextualist response, it is not clear whether, in the end, he avoids or embraces a strong version of scepticism. He claims that Cartesian doubts arise in a particular context, namely, the context of pursuing an epistemically realistic programme. In that context, according to Williams, Cartesian scepticism is unanswerable. His central claim, I take it, is that nothing compels us to do philosophy under these contextual constraints. In arguingthisway,however,Williamsseemsto have adopted a strongversion of relativism of just the sort traditionally exploited for sceptical purposes. To the claim 'It is all a matter of context', the correct response is, 'It had better not be- at least if you are trying to refute scepticism.'Perhaps Williams can produce a strongly contextualist position that does not slide into scepticism, and perhaps his appeal- rather late his book- to externalist consideration is intended to do this.But just as it is unclear whether contextualism can avoid scepticism, it is also unclear whether externalism has force against sensibly stated (even very strong) versions of scepticism. (shrink)

Through the last half of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, no scientist more vigorously defended Darwinian theory than the German Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919). More people learned of the new ideas through his voluminous publications, translated into numerous languages, than through any other source, including Darwin’s own writings. He enraged many of his contemporaries, especially among the religiously orthodox; and the enmity between evolutionary theory and religious fundamentalism that still burns brightly today may in large measure (...) be attributed to Haeckel’s unremitting attacks on the ingressions of religion into science. Though he retained a life-long friendship with and the support of Darwin, some in the scientific community who were critical of evolutionary theory—Emil Du Bois-Reymond, Rudolf Virchow, and Louis Agassiz, for instance—accused him of deception. That charge has been renewed in our time based on seemingly incontrovertible evidence. In a Science magazine article published in 1997, ‘‘Haeckel’s Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered,’’ Haeckel, was indicted of having intentionally misrepresented embryological development (Pennisi 1997). The article reported that the work of Michael Richardson and his colleagues demonstrated this malfeasance through a comparison of Haeckel’s illustrations of early-stage embryos with photographs of the same species at a comparable stage (see Fig. 1). The photos showed embryos of various species that differed among themselves and certainly from Haeckel’s images. The differences were striking and the implication obvious: fraudulent misrepresentation. Richardson, as quoted in the article, affirmed the charge: ‘‘It looks like it’s turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology’’. (shrink)

Though Darwin had formulated his theory of evolution by natural selection by early fall of 1837, he did not publish it until 1859 in the Origin ofSpecies. Darwin thus delayed publicly revealing his theory for some twenty years, Why did he wait so long'? Initially this may not seem an important or interesting question, but many historians have so regarded it, They have developed a variety of historiographically different explanations. This essay considers these several explanations, though with a larger purpose (...) in mind: to suggest what makes for interesting problems in history of science and what kinds of historiographic models will best handle them.. (shrink)

This volume contributes to the remarkable resurgence in interest for American pragmatism and its proponents by focusing on the influence of British empiricism, ...

Heyman makes a convincing case that a melioration choice strategy is sufficient to produce addictive behavior. But given a plethora of addiction theories, the question is whether melioration theory is superior to rivals more sophisticated than a simple disease model or operant conditioning account. Heyman offers little direct evidence that melioration actually causes the addictions we observe.