Traditional theories of mindreading tend to focus exclusively on attributing beliefs and desires to other agents. The literature emphasizes belief attribution in particular, with numerous debates over when children develop the concept of belief, how neurotypical adult humans attribute beliefs to others, whether non-human animals have the concept of belief, etc. I describe a growing school of thought that the heavy focus on belief leaves traditional theories of mindreading unable to account for the complexity, diversity, and messiness of ordinary social (...) interactions. I present a few broader, more comprehensive conceptions of mindreading that take into account how stereotypes, character trait inferences, social biases, and more influence how we understand and interact with others. These broader conceptions of mindreading promise to be more empirically adequate and have fruitful application to various debates in philosophy and cognitive science. (shrink)

The covert administration of medication occurs with incapacitated patients without their knowledge, involving some form of deliberate deception in disguising or hiding the medication. Covert medication in food is a relatively common practice globally, including in institutional and homecare contexts. Until recently, it has received little attention in the bioethics literature, and there are few laws or rules governing the practice. In this paper, we discuss significant, but often overlooked, ethical issues related to covert medication in food. We emphasise the (...) variety of ways in which eating has ethical importance, highlighting what is at risk if covert administration of medication in food is discovered. For example, losing trust in feeders and food due to covert medication may risk important opportunities for identity maintenance in contexts where identity is already unstable. Since therapeutic relationships may be jeopardised by a patient’s discovery that caregivers had secretly put medications in their food, this practice can result in an ongoing deception loop. While there may be circumstances in which covert medication is ethically justified, given a lack of suitable alternatives, we argue that in any particular case this practice should be continually re-evaluated in light of the building moral costs to the relational agent over time. (shrink)

Baby A1 was born prematurely with severe encephalopathy, injured brainstem, and a potentially injured spinal cord. He had no response to pain or other external stimuli. The neonatal team unanimousl...

Recently, philosophers and psychologists defending the embodied cognition research program have offered arguments against mindreading as a general model of our social understanding. The embodied cognition arguments are of two kinds: those that challenge the developmental picture of mindreading and those that challenge the alleged ubiquity of mindreading. Together, these two kinds of arguments, if successful, would present a serious challenge to the standard account of human social understanding. In this paper, I examine the strongest of these embodied cognition arguments (...) and argue that mindreading approaches can withstand the best of these arguments from embodied cognition. (shrink)

In this essay, we suggest practical ways to shift the framing of crisis standards of care toward disability justice. We elaborate on the vision statement provided in the 2010 Institute of Medicine (National Academy of Medicine) “Summary of Guidance for Establishing Crisis Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations,” which emphasizes fairness; equitable processes; community and provider engagement, education, and communication; and the rule of law. We argue that interpreting these elements through disability justice entails a commitment to both (...) distributive and recognitive justice. The disability rights movement's demand “Nothing about us, without us” requires substantive inclusion of disabled people in decision‐making related to their interests, including in crisis planning before, during, and after a pandemic like Covid‐19. (shrink)

In this chapter, the impact of “functional blindness” during saccades—rapid point-to-point eye movements—on the current theories of perception is explored. These saccades cause gaps in the visual stream that reaches our mental representation of the environment. A detailed explanation of the phenomenon is provided, from its physical and anatomical causes to its functional effect on perception. Several experiments and studies pertaining to the study are discussed to support the conclusions drawn at the end of the chapter. The chapter posits that (...) this phenomenon supports the assumption that there is an area of the brain responsible for maintaining representations of the visual world, which allows inferences to be made during those visual gaps. These representations are assumed to be based primarily on the general information provided by the stimuli rather than specific details, which allows greater focus on areas of importance to the viewer. (shrink)

In our everyday social interactions, we try to make sense of what people are thinking, why they act as they do, and what they are likely to do next. This process is called mindreading. Mindreading, Shannon Spaulding argues in this book, is central to our ability to understand and interact with others. Philosophers and cognitive scientists have converged on the idea that mindreading involves theorizing about and simulating others’ mental states. She argues that this view of mindreading is limiting (...) and outdated. Most contemporary views of mindreading vastly underrepresent the diversity and complexity of mindreading. She articulates a new theory of mindreading that takes into account cutting edge philosophical and empirical research on in-group/out-group dynamics, social biases, and how our goals and the situational context influence how we interpret others’ behavior. -/- Spaulding's resulting theory of mindreading provides a more accurate, comprehensive, and perhaps pessimistic view of our abilities to understand others, with important epistemological and ethical implications. Deciding who is trustworthy, knowledgeable, and competent are epistemically and ethically fraught judgments: her new theory of mindreading sheds light on how these judgments are made and the conditions under which they are unreliable. -/- This book will be of great interest to students of philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, applied epistemology, cognitive science and moral psychology, as well as those interested in conceptual issues in psychology. (shrink)

The authors analyze the impact of human rights conditions on foreign direct investment (FDI). Extant literature in this area raises conflicting expectations. Although the “conventional wisdom” posits that repression creates a stable, compliant, and relatively inexpensive host for FDI, there are contending arguments that the protection of human rights reduces risk and contributes toward economic efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, the burgeoning “spotlight” regime may also punish firms who locate in repressive regimes. Conceptualizing FDI as a two-part process—the initial decision to (...) invest and the subsequent decision of investment amount—the authors assess human rights as a determinant of FDI. Using a two-stage model, they test their hypotheses across developing countries for the years 1980 to 2003. They find that human rights are a significant determinant of the amount of FDI inflows. (shrink)

The widespread and growing use of new social media, especially social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, invites sustained ethical reflection on emerging forms of online friendship. Social scientists and psychologists are gathering a wealth of empirical data on these trends, yet philosophical analysis of their ethical implications remains comparatively impoverished. In particular, there have been few attempts to explore how traditional ethical theories might be brought to bear upon these developments, or what insights they might offer, if any. (...) In attempting to address this lacuna in applied ethical research, this paper investigates the ethical significance of online friendship by means of an Aristotelian theory of the good life, which holds that human flourishing is chiefly realized through ‘complete’ friendships of virtue. Here, four key dimensions of ‘virtue friendship’ are examined in relation to online social media : reciprocity, empathy, self-knowledge and the shared life. Online social media support and strengthen friendship in ways that mirror these four dimensions, particularly when used to supplement rather than substitute for face-to-face interactions. However, deeper reflection on the meaning of the shared life for Aristotle raises important and troubling questions about the capacity of online social media to support complete friendships of virtue in the contemporary world, along with significant concerns about the enduring relevance of this Aristotelian ideal for the good life in the 21st century. (shrink)

New technologies from artificial intelligence to drones, and biomedical enhancement make the future of the human family increasingly hard to predict and protect. This book explores how the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics can help us to cultivate the moral wisdom we need to live wisely and well with emerging technologies.

Scientists, clinicians, and bioethicists are worried about how so‐called personhood measures would limit access to certain types of contraception, research involving stem cells, and access to fertility treatments. While these measures have been struck down in Colorado, South Dakota, California, and Mississippi, the bill signed into law in Oklahoma in February deserves critical scrutiny, particularly into the ways these legal measures influence eligibility for clinical research. Oklahoma's bill states that the laws of the state “shall be interpreted and construed to (...) acknowledge on behalf of the unborn child at every stage of development all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state.”. (shrink)

Habits and habitudes are peculiar in that they are both a condition of human agency, as well as one of its most significant hurdles. They open up the world by providing us with ways of being within it (e.g., how we perceive, move about, and generally orient ourselves in space). However, they also confine our worldly behavior given their repetitive and often predictable nature. This tension between spontaneity and repetition arises out of the two-fold temporal structure of habits – i.e., (...) the habitual body simultaneously directs us toward the future and the past. An understanding of this tension is generally important for thinking about how individuals can do things differently. More urgently, this work has applications in the treatment of addictions and other compulsive behaviors where the difficulties of disrupting habitual repetition are much more pronounced. (shrink)

On the life and philosophy of Ramana Maharshi and his views on Advaita and epistemology.

Clinical and ethical reasoning often follows the grooves, the forks, the paths of decision trees. Health-care professionals and clinical ethicists can come to rely on them, especially in intricate cases with complex problems that need to be broken down into analyzable steps. Despite their usefulness, decision trees can lead everyone astray if they are rooted in outdated medicine. In his 2015 book, Rights Come to Mind: Brain Injury, Ethics, and the Struggle for Consciousness, Joseph Fins illuminates the errors of common (...) medical and ethical understandings of disorders of consciousness, especially vegetative states and minimally conscious states.1 Fins weaves together over 50 in-depth interviews with patients... (shrink)

According to Shannon Sullivan, thinking about the body as being in transaction with its social, political, cultural, and physical surroundings is not a new idea.

The question of whether a patient has insight is among the first to be considered in psychiatric contexts. There are several competing conceptions of clinical insight, which broadly refers to a patient’s awareness of their mental illness. When a patient is described as lacking insight, there are significant implications for patient care and to what extent the patient is trusted as a knower. Insight is currently viewed as a multidimensional and continuous construct, but competing conceptions of insight still lack consensus (...) on the specifics. Studies also give contradictory evidence regarding the frequency and consequences of poor insight. A number of crucial questions remain unanswered. After outlining some of the key theoretical disagreements about what insight means, I highlight ethical issues that have not received much attention in the literature. Given the conceptual ambiguities and the absence of standardised bedside tools, there are significant ethical concerns about insight assessments. I highlight two main ethical concerns, specifically that these assessments risk: (1) marginalising patients by setting unattainable ideals for self-knowledge and (2) minimising the patient’s own perspective on their mental health. I close with recommendations for documenting and responding to concerns about poor insight, so patients who are vulnerable to losing epistemic trust are better supported in their therapeutic relationships. (shrink)

Why flawed logic puts us all at risk, and how critical thinking can save the world. It may seem a big claim, but knowing how to think clearly and critically has literally helped save the world. In September 1983, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's early warning system showed five US missiles heading towards the country. Stanislaw Petrov knew his duty: he was to inform Moscow that nuclear war had begun, so that they could launch an (...) immediate and devastating response. Instead, he made a call to say the system was faulty. He'd assessed the situation and reasoned that an error was more likely than such a limited attack. We may not have to save the planet from nuclear annihilation, of course, but our ability to think critically has never been more important. In a world where fake news, mistrust of experts, prejudice and ignorance all too often hold sway, we can all too easily be misled. We live in an era where access to all the knowledge in the world is at our fingertips, yet that also means misinformation and falsehoods can spread further and faster than ever before. In The Irrational Ape, David Robert Grimes shows how we can be lured into making critical mistakes or drawing false conclusions, and how to avoid such errors. Given the power of modern science and the way that movements can unite to protest a cause via social media, we are in dangerous times. But fortunately, we can learn from our mistakes, and by critical thinking and scientific method we can discover how to apply these techniques to everything from deciding what insurance to buy to averting global disaster. This book, packed with fascinating case studies and examples, helps ensure we are ready for the modern world. (shrink)

"Radically reorienting, challenging, provocative, this book moves progressive philosophy, feminist and queer theory, critical discussions of race and racism forward. Prophetically, it calls for an interrogation of all our oppositional theory and politics, offering new and alternative visions." —bell hooks In Queering Freedom, Shannon Winnubst examines contemporary categories of difference—sexuality, race, gender, class, and nationality—and how they operate within the politics of domination. Drawing on the work of Georges Bataille, Michel Foucault, and others, Winnubst engages feminist theory, race theory, (...) and queer theory as she sheds light on blind spots that have characterized thinking about freedom. Winnubst turns away from the language of rights, identity politics, and liberation toward bodies and experiences to calibrate normative ideas of time and space. Her views operate at the very limits of freedom, which contain individuals within strict boundaries that they are forbidden to cross. Winnubst develops strategies of "queering freedom" to undo the more subtle spatial and temporal norms and shatter structures of domination. This thoughtful and provocative work challenges the cornerstones of contemporary philosophies about the body and its politics. (shrink)

Much maligned for deeply problematic language describing female physiology and its peculiar use of "data," Simone de Beauvoir's chapter on biology from The Second Sex appears to be an unusual entry point into the question of woman as Other. In "Biological Data," Beauvoir traces a relationship between the female animal and the species that becomes more alarming as she moves from unicellular organisms to complex mammalian life. By the time she reaches human beings, we are bombarded with passages emphasizing woman's (...) "enslavement" to the species, the tyranny of her hormonal and reproductive life, and the impeding effects of physical limitations. Such claims lead commentators to accuse Beauvoir, for example, of adopting... (shrink)

The Vivekacudamani is one of the most important texts in the Advaita tradition and the most popular philosophical work ascribed to the great Indian philosopher, Sankara. This book presents an accessible translation of the entire text and also includes Upanisadic cross-referencing to most of its 580 verses, extensive notes, a lengthy Introduction, list of variant readings, an extensive bibliography, and an index to the verses.

How can social institutions complicate and worsen vulnerabilities of particular individuals or groups? We begin by explicating how certain diagnoses within mental health and medicine operate as interactive kinds of labels and how such labels can create institutional barriers that hinder one's capacity to achieve wellbeing. Interactive-kind modeling is a conceptual tool that elucidates the ways in which labeling can signal to others how the labeled person ought to be treated, how such labeling comes about and is perceived, and how (...) it compounds vulnerabilities. We argue that this shift in standpoint helps us recognize and mitigate compounded vulnerabilities. (shrink)

Since Jonathan Shay's work with Vietnam veterans, moral injury has largely focused on the harm done to soldiers' moral character through their participation in warfare. This essay argues for the inclusion of noncombatants in the scope of inquiry involving moral injury. Specifically, it argues for the necessity of ordinary citizens assuming responsibility for the moral injury done to soldiers and civilians alike in the post‐9/11 wars.

In this issue of the Hastings Center Report, Jason Wasserman and Mark Navin argue that patients without decisional capacity can still have relatively stable wishes or inclinations toward one treatment option over another and that these preferences are “not devoid of moral weight and might therefore guide or at least influence treatment decisions when they cannot be defeated by other considerations.” This position is not controversial among most bioethicists. The hard work comes in sussing out the details of this position. (...) How much moral weight do these preferences have? When should preferences be defeated by other considerations? How should we identify actual preferences, and how should preferences be differentiated and weighed against one another? (shrink)

Shannon Fyfe ABSTRACT: In this article, I consider the possibilities and limitations for testimonial justice in an international criminal courtroom. I begin by exploring the relationship between epistemology and criminal law, and consider how testimony contributes to the goals of truth and justice. I then assess the susceptibility of international criminal courts to the two...

This new and revised edition provides a comprehensive dictionary of Indian philosophical terms. Terms are provided in both devanagari and roman transliteration along with their English translations.

The orthodox view of social cognition maintains that mentalizing is an important and pervasive element of our ordinary social interactions. The orthodoxy has come under scrutiny from various sources recently. Critics from the phenomenological tradition argue that phenomenological reflection on our social interactions tells against the orthodox view. Proponents of pluralistic folk psychology argue that our ordinary social interactions extend far beyond mentalizing. Both sorts of critics argue that emphasis in social cognition research ought to be on other elements of (...) our social practices. In this paper, I consider social explanations specifically and argue that social explanations are implicated in many of the social practices highlighted by critics of the orthodox view. (shrink)

Robert Veatch’s The Foundations of Justice: Why the Retarded and the Rest of Us Have Claims to Equality delves into deep questions of justice through the case of a child with disabilities. I describe what is basically right about this vision, as well as what is problematic from the standpoint of contemporary disability bioethics. From there, I dive into the notion of vulnerability that is at play in his work. He describes disability as necessarily a condition of weakness, lesser-than existence, (...) and neediness. When disability is viewed in this way as an inherently vulnerable state of being, the essential sociopolitical dimensions of disability receive inadequate attention, which, in turn, makes it impossible to identify injustices correctly. I connect these points to concrete challenges faced by disability communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, which have raised profound questions about the just use of scarce critical care resources. Any case drawn from the pandemic is a very different kind of case than that of the child in Veatch’s book, but a commonality is the question of who should get what limited resources when needs and urgency vary. (shrink)

The deeply imaginative structure of Dungeons Dragons (DD) can allow for players to explore the intricacies of gender and sexuality in creative and potentially radical ways. One would be hard pressed to argue that cartoonishly large breasts and skin‐tight leather skirts really allow for dexterous swordplay or quick getaways. DD liberates us from the limitations of our sex by making male and female characters equal in terms of abilities. The shyest of men can be the most outspoken of wizards, the (...) most honest girl can play the most unscrupulous rogue, and the pacifist woman can don full armor and fly into a berserker rage on a group of bugbears ambushing her adventuring party because, after all, bugbears are her species enemy and she just can't help herself when they are around. (shrink)

Disagreeing with others about how to interpret a social interaction is a common occurrence. We often find ourselves offering divergent interpretations of others’ motives, intentions, beliefs, and emotions. Remarkably, philosophical accounts of how we understand others do not explain, or even attempt to explain such disagreements. I argue these disparities in social interpretation stem, in large part, from the effect of social categorization and our goals in social interactions, phenomena long studied by social psychologists. I argue we ought to expand (...) our accounts of how we understand others in order to accommodate these data and explain how such profound disagreements arise amongst informed, rational, well-meaning individuals. (shrink)

After presenting the major objections raised against standard formulations of the H-D method of theory testing, I identify what seems to be an important element of truth underlying the method. I then draw upon this element in an effort to develop a plausible formulation of the H-D method which avoids the various objections.

This article examines how people of color can biologically inherit the deleterious effects of white racism. Drawing primarily on the field of epigenetics, I demonstrate how transgenerational racial disparities are in fact racist disparities that can be manifest physiologically, helping constitute the chemicals, hormones, cells, and fibers of the human body. Epigenetics can be used to demonstrate how white racism can have durable effects on the biological constitution of human beings that are not limited to the specific person who is (...) the target of white racism, but instead extend to that person's offspring. In this way, the field of epigenetics can help philosophers and others understand the transgenerational biological impact of social forces such as white racism. It reveals that the damage done by white racism is more extensive than critical philosophers of race might have realized, and also that interventions against white racism must address not just the economic, geographical, social, and psychological, but also the biological aspects of human existence. In particular, the article examines racist disparities in preterm birth rates and argues that the scope and significance of prenatal care for African American women must be expanded intergenerationally and include wide-scale forms of racial justice. (shrink)