Ethical problems regularly arise during daily care in nursing homes. These include violation of patients' right to autonomy and to be treated with respect. The aim of this study was to investigate how caregivers emphasize daily dialogue and mutual reflection to reach moral alternatives in daily care. The data were collected by participant observation and interviews with seven caregivers in a Norwegian nursing home. A number of ethical problems linked to 10 patients were disclosed. Moral problems were revealed as the (...) caregivers acted in ways that they knew were against patients' interest. We used a theoretical interpretation according to Habermas' discourse ethics on the importance of dialogue when deciding moral courses of action for patients. This theory has four basic requirements: communicative competence, equality, self-determination, and openness about motives. (shrink)

This article points out problems in current dynamic treatments of anaphora and provides a new account that solves these by grafting Muskens' Compositional Discourse Representation Theory onto a partial theory of types. Partiality is exploited to keep track of which discourse referents have been introduced in the text (thus avoiding the overwrite problem) and to account for cases of anaphoric failure. Another key assumption is that the set of discourse referents is well-ordered, so that we can keep track of the (...) order in which they have been introduced, allowing a semantic characterization of anaphoric accessibility across stretches of discourse. Unlike other dynamic approaches, the system defines semantic values for unresolved anaphors. This leads to a clear separation of monotonic and non-monotonic content (in this case anaphoric resolution) and arguably provides a sound basis for a non-monotonic theory of anaphoric resolution. (shrink)

Focusing on the issue of the sexual abuse of children, I discuss the question of the relationship between changes in sexual politics and how we think about drives in the context of their relation to neoliberalism. This subject is so emotionally charged that a rational ediscussion of that which goes beyond our comprehension is almost impossible. Any doubt of an easy solution moves the doubter himself or herself into the domain of abuse. The sets of complex interrelated issues associated with (...) child sexual abuse deny any simple description or critique. I therefore approach the topic from three fronts which initially may seem quite separate but which will enable a new perspective and facilitate thinking about it. The first part of this article historicizes the topic. Here I present Ian Hacking’s (1996) work on knowledge, power and truth, which elucidates the crusading nature that the fight against sexual abuse has assumed. I then invoke Foucault’s reconstruction of the production of sexuality in the family in order to replace a position of straightforward moral disgust with the issue of power in the context of sexuality and drive construction. Hacking and Foucault serve as the conceptual bases for reviewing the infamous case of the Belgian child abuser Dutroux. 1 In the third part of the article my analysis is in the first instance focused on a theoretically informed critique of the news media, in particular European and German media. This Eurocentric study has global implications. Its aim is to make a first attempt to demonstrate a relationship between sex scandals and the demands and opportunities of the global free markets. (shrink)

Huw Price has argued that naturalistic philosophy inevitably leads to a deflationary approach to ontological questions. In this paper, I rebut these arguments. A more substantive, less language-focused approach to metaphysics remains open to naturalists. However, rebutting one of Price’s main arguments requires rejecting Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment. So, even though Price’s argument is unsound, it reveals that naturalists cannot rest content with broadly Quinean, “mainstream metaphysics,” which, I suggest, naturalists also have independent reasons to reject.

ONE Victims or Culprits? Reflections on Women's Behaviour My title, 'Victims or Culprits?', with its interrogatory inflection, may appear somewhat inane. ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Triangular Landscapes: Environment, Society, and the State in the Nile Delta under Roman Rule by Katherine BlouinBrendan HaugKatherine Blouin. Triangular Landscapes: Environment, Society, and the State in the Nile Delta under Roman Rule. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. xxvi + 429 pp. 14 halftones, 28 tables, 5 maps. Cloth, $150.00.American journalist Hal Boyle is often said to have remarked, “What makes a river so restful (...) to people is that it doesn’t have any doubt—it is sure to get where it is going and it doesn’t want to go anywhere else.” Restful, perhaps. But the single-mindedness of a river’s flow can also be a source of anxiety. In contemporary America, the Lower Mississippi’s steady westward shift is a prominent example. Were its floodgates removed and the river allowed to “get where it is going,” it would soon abandon the cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans, decimating their port-dependent economies.An awareness of such fluvial hazards has percolated into the study of ancient history over the last decade and a half, and works on the ancient Mediterranean’s riverine environments have been appearing with frequency. As in ancient environmental [End Page 528] history more broadly, Francophone scholars have led the way; Philippe Leveau’s work on the Rhône and the multiple colloquia spearheaded by Ella Hermon are particularly notable (e.g., Philippe Leveau, ed. “Le Rhône romain,” Gallia 56 [1999]; Ella Hermon, ed. Riparia dans l’Empire romain [2010]). On the Anglophone side, Gregory Aldrete’s Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome 2007, Peter Thonemann’s The Maeander Valley 2011, and Brian Campbell’s Rivers and the Power of Ancient Rome 2012 are essential.Katherine Blouin’s new study of the Mendesian nome (administrative division) in Egypt’s northeastern Nile Delta unites these twin streams. The book, an updated version of a French dissertation supervised by Hermon, focuses on the changing course and eventual extinction of the Nile’s Mendesian branch, documenting the effects of a shifting fluvial landscape, environmental stressors, and Roman agro-fiscal policy on the society and economy of the Delta during the first few centuries c.e. By merging Francophone scholarship on rivers, theoretical perspectives drawn from American environmental history, and a thorough command of the papyrological evidence, Blouin has made a significant contribution to the emerging field of ancient environmental history.In her introduction, Blouin grounds herself in what Hermon dubs “l’approche écosystémique” to environmental history. Casting aside environmental determinism and lachrymose tales of pristine nature violated (“l’approche égologique”), ecosystems thinking characterizes environments as “dynamic, multidimensional entities made up of a complex amalgam of continuities and ruptures” (7). While humanity is regarded as a constituent element of the natural world, human beings nonetheless possess the ability to adapt natural phenomena in significant ways. Thus, nature’s impacts upon society are never predetermined, for they are always mediated by human decision-making at multiple levels.The rest of the book is divided into four thematic sections. Part I situates the reader within the geomorphological and hydrological contexts of the Mendesian nome and reviews the surviving evidence. Parts II and III reconstruct the landscape and investigate agricultural diversification. Part IV offers environmental perspectives on a fiscal crisis in the late second century c.e. and the famous revolt of the Boukoloi.Synthesizing previous geomorphological and archaeological scholarship, chapter 1 traces the evolution of the Nile Delta from at least seven major branches to the modern two—the Rosetta and Damietta—by the early Arab period, a process significantly abetted by large-scale canalization projects (35). (See also John P. Cooper, The Medieval Nile [2014], who carries the story forward.)In chapter 2, Blouin surveys the archaeological and papyrological evidence for the Mendesian nome. Although excavations at its two ancient metropoleis of Mendes (Tell al-Rub’a) and Thmuis (Tell al-Timai) are ongoing—the latter partly under Blouin’s own direction—their evidence is secondary to her arguments, which depend primarily upon the papyri. This corpus is comprised of some ninety texts spanning the fourth century b.c.e. to the sixth century c.e., the majority... (shrink)

What methodology should philosophers follow? Should they rely on methods that can be conducted from the armchair? Or should they leave the armchair and turn to the methods of the natural sciences, such as experiments in the laboratory? Or is this opposition itself a false one? Arguments about philosophical methodology are raging in the wake of a number of often conflicting currents, such as the growth of experimental philosophy, the resurgence of interest in metaphysical questions, and the use of formal (...) methods. This outstanding collection of specially-commissioned chapters by leading international philosophers discusses these questions and many more. It provides a comprehensive survey of philosophical methodology in the most important philosophical subjects: metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, philosophy of science, ethics, and aesthetics. A key feature of the collection is that philosophers discuss and evaluate contrasting approaches in each subject, offering a superb overview of the variety of methodological approaches - both naturalistic and non-naturalistic - in each of these areas. They examine important topics at the heart of methodological argument, including the role of intuitions and conceptual analysis, thought experiments, introspection, and the place that results from the natural sciences should have in philosophical theorizing. The collection begins with a fascinating exchange about philosophical naturalism between Timothy Williamson and Alexander Rosenberg, and also includes contributions from the following philosophers: Lynne Rudder Baker, Matt Bedke, Greg Currie, Michael Devitt, Matthew C. Haug, Jenann Ismael, Hilary Kornblith, Neil Levy, E.J. Lowe, Kirk Ludwig, Marie McGinn, David Papineau, Matthew Ratcliffe, Georges Rey, Jeffrey W. Roland, Barry C. Smith, Amie L. Thomasson, Valerie Tiberius, Jessica Wilson, and David W. Smith. (shrink)

The likely adverse effects of climate change call for political action. In this paper, we argue that the public reason framework—with its insistence on justifiability to all reasonable citizens, in spite of their profound disagreements—despite initial misgivings recommends itself as a framework for debate and decisions pertaining to climate change. We address two possible stumbling blocks: the exclusion of non-anthropocentric points of view, and the controversy over intergenerational justice. We argue that public reason can deal with these problems. Moreover, we (...) argue that both strongly idealized and moderately idealized versions are able to address these issues. Moreover, public reason, as a family of views emphasizing disagreement and justifiability to all reasonable citizens, can help secure the stability of political orders, and hence contribute to sustained and demanding efforts to combat the adverse effects of climate change. (shrink)

In this paper I return to the mid-20th-century debate between Quine and Carnap on the status of metaphysics questions with an eye toward advancing contemporary debates about whether naturalists can coherently undertake substantive metaphysical inquiry. Following Huw Price, I take the debate between Quine and Carnap to hinge, in part, on whether human inquiry is functionally unified. However, unlike Price, I suggest that this question is not best understood as a question about the function(s) of descriptive discourse. This goes along (...) with rejecting a “linguistic conception” of the starting point of metaphysical inquiry, which, although shared by Quine and Carnap, Price gives us no good reason to think is mandatory for naturalists. I sketch two reasons naturalists have to reject a particular manifestation of this linguistic conception in Quine’s work—his criterion of ontological commitment. Finally, I show how these reasons can help us identify the grains of truth in some recent critiques of “mainstream metaphysics of mind.”. (shrink)

Three artworks are discussed in detail by Heidegger in his lecture “Origin of the Work of Art.” Prioritizing one work above the others affects what is understood to be the overall project of the lecture. Because of this, we need to attend closely to the debate in the literature about the most important work of art in Heidegger’s “Origin of the Work of Art.” This article explores the debate by looking at three positions. I examine each of these positions independently. (...) In the final section I side with those scholars who take the ancient Greek temple to be the most important work in Heidegger’s lecture. I argue that the reason why the temple is the most important is its ability to disclose community. (shrink)

There are a number of competing psychological accounts of the placebo effect, and much of the recent debate centers on the relative importance of classical conditioning and conscious beliefs. In this paper, I discuss apparent problems with these accounts and with?disjunctive? accounts that deny that placebo effects can be given a unified psychological explanation. The fact that some placebo effects seem to be mediated by cognitive states with content that is consciously inaccessible and inferentially isolated from a subject's beliefs motivates (...) an account of the placebo effect in terms of subdoxastic cognitive states. I propose that aliefs, subdoxastic cognitive states that are associative, automatic, and arational, can provide a unified psychological account of the placebo effect. This account also has the potential to illuminate interesting connections to other psychological phenomena. (shrink)

Anti-reductionists hold that special science explanations of some phenomena are objectively better than physical explanations of those phenomena. Prominent defenses of this claim appeal to the multiple realizability of special science properties. I argue that special science explanations can be shown to be better, in one respect, than physical explanations in a way that does not depend on multiple realizability. Namely, I discuss a way in which a special science explanation may be more abstract than a competing physical explanation, even (...) if it is not multiply realizable, and I argue that this kind of abstraction can be used to support the idea that that special science explanation omits explanatorily irrelevant detail. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 22 Heft: 2 Seiten: 259-266.

This article views capitalism not only as a mode of production, but also as a mediation of the reproduction of life, following the concept of ‘social metabolism’ that Marx employs to analyze the interaction between the individuals composing a society and their natural environment. Insofar as the ‘value-form’ is the distinctive social relation of capitalism, it appears necessary to ask whether the metabolic process of reproduction can be fully subsumed under this form. Marx takes for granted the idea that the (...) reproduction of labor-power consists only in the consumption of commodities resulting from abstract labor, thus omitting the appropriation of unpaid domestic work, mostly performed by women. Feminist criticism clarifies how capitalism always depends on some reproductive work being appropriated for the accumulation of surplus-value without being integrated in the value-form. Following Jason W. Moore, I attempt to indicate that the same logic is at work for the reproduction... (shrink)

A number of philosophers have argued that causation is not an objective feature of the microphysical world but rather is a perspectival phenomenon that holds only between “coarse-grained” entities such as those that figure in the special sciences. This view seems to pose a problem for arguments for physicalism that rely on the alleged causal completeness of physics. In this paper, I address this problem by arguing that the completeness of physics has two components, only one of which is causal. (...) These two components of completeness can be used in an argument for physicalism that is supported by strong inductive evidence even in the absence of microphysical causation. (shrink)

Abtract: This article argues that the debate between reductive and nonreductive physicalists is best characterized as a disagreement about which properties are natural. Among other things, natural properties are those that characterize the world completely. All physicalists accept the “completeness of physics,” but this claim contains a subtle ambiguity, which results in two conceptions of natural properties. Reductive physicalists should assert, while nonreductive physicalists should deny, that a single set of low-level physical properties is natural in both of these senses. (...) This way of drawing the distinction succeeds where previous approaches have failed and illuminates why the debate about reductionism is important. (shrink)

The increased distribution of fake news on internet and social media raises concerns for democratic processes. Sometimes, argumentation in deceptive information is built on numbers, which gives reason to include mathematics when working with fake news in education. In this paper, I suggest a tool to facilitate students’ critical thinking related to numbers, or other mathematical representations, presented in the media. It may not be straight forward, or even possible, to judge the validity of presented numbers, or whether numbers are (...) used with the intention to deceive. Complex topics are associated with uncertainty, which implies that numbers may be questionable without hidden intentions, and that evaluating a number’s relevance may be quite challenging. The developed tool consists of a set of questions to help reflecting on the validity of numbers, which again is developed into categories reflecting degrees of validity and whether the mathematical representation has a deceptive role. The categories are illustrated with examples from the media and from a classroom situation in teacher education to indicate how the tool can help raise critical questions. The developed categories are based on academic literature on fake news, typographies of uncertainty and on critical mathematics education. (shrink)

Das Faustbuch von 1587 führt die Tradition der altchristlichen Teufelspaktlegenden fort und bricht sie zugleich um. Die neue Konzeption, die hinter den verwirrenden inneren Widersprüchen und Inkonsequenzen des Werkes faßbar wird, zielt auf eine bewußte Zerstörung des alten Legendenschemas. Dabei ist es sowohl verfehlt, in Faustus noch einen mittelalterlichen Magier zu sehen wie auch ihn als macht- und wissenssüchtigen Renaissancemenschen zu verstehen; vielmehr wird an dieser Figur ein neuer Umgang mit dem Bösen narrativ diskutiert. Er ist das Opfer einer Strategie (...) des Teufels, durch die das Böse sich verflüchtigt und damit die Möglichkeit der Umkehr verbaut wird. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 22 Heft: 2 Seiten: 351-371.

In public debate GMPs are oftenreferred to as being unnatural or a violationof nature. Some people have serious moralconcerns about departures from what is natural.Others are concerned about potential risks tothe environment arising from the combination ofhereditary material moving across naturalboundaries and the limits of scientificforesight of long-term consequences. To addresssome of these concerns we propose that anadditional element in risk assessment based onthe concept of familiarity should beintroduced. The objective is to facilitatetransparency about uncertainties inherent inthe risk assessment of (...) the GMP. Familiarityconventionally involves data and experiencerelating to the plant species and the ecosystemin question. We would like to extend thisconcept to the molecular level of plantbreeding and suggest that GMP characteristicsshould be compared to a reference baselinedetermined by conventional breeding techniques.Three GMPs are ranked according to familiarityat the plant and ecosystem level and themolecular level. The approach may help tointegrate discussion of the scientificarguments and moral questions raised in thedebate about GMOs by providing an operationalscheme within which moral concerns are broughtwithin the framework of science-based riskassessment. (shrink)

Several philosophers (e.g., Ehring (Nous (Detroit, Mich.) 30:461–480, 1996 ); Funkhouser (Nous (Detroit, Mich.) 40:548–569, 2006 ); Walter (Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37:217–244, 2007 ) have argued that there are metaphysical differences between the determinable-determinate relation and the realization relation between mental and physical properties. Others have challenged this claim (e.g., Wilson (Philosophical Studies, 2009 ). In this paper, I argue that there are indeed such differences and propose a “mechanistic” account of realization that elucidates why these differences hold. This (...) account of realization incorporates two distinct roles that mechanisms play in the realization of mental (and other special science) properties which are implicit, but undeveloped, in the literature—what I call “constitutive” and “integrative” mechanisms. I then use these two notions of mechanism to clarify some debates about the relations between realization, multiple realizability, and irreducibility. (shrink)

The current study analyzes trans-cultural universalities and specificities in the recognition of status roles, dominance perception and social evaluation based on nonverbal cues. Using a novel methodology, which allowed to mask clues to ethnicity and cultural background of the agents, we compared impression of Germans, Americans and Arabs observing computer-animated interactions from the three countries. Only in the German stimulus sample the status roles could be recognized above chance level. However we found significant correlations in dominance perception across all countries. (...) Significant correlations were only found for evaluation between German observers and observers from the other two countries. Perceived dominance uniformly predicted the assignment of status-roles in all cultures. Microanalysis of movement behavior further revealed predictive value of specific nonverbal cues for dominance ratings. Results support the hypothesis of universalities in the processing of dominance cues and point to cultural specificities in evaluative responses to nonverbal behavior. (shrink)

Crowdsourcing is an increasingly popular method for researchers in the social and behavioral sciences, including experimental philosophy, to recruit survey respondents. Crowdsourcing platforms, such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk), have been seen as a way to produce high quality survey data both quickly and cheaply. However, in the last few years, a number of authors have claimed that the low pay rates on MTurk are morally unacceptable. In this paper, I explore some of the methodological implications for online experimental philosophy (...) research if, in fact, typical pay practices on MTurk are morally impermissible. I argue that the most straightforward solution to this apparent moral problem—paying survey respondents more and relying only on “high reputation” respondents—will likely increase the number of subjects who have previous experience with survey materials and thus are “non-naïve” with respect to those materials. I then discuss some likely effects that this increase in experimental non-naivete will have on some aspects of the “negative” program in experimental philosophy, focusing in particular on recent debates about philosophical expertise. (shrink)

This paper draws on work in the sciences of the mind to cast doubt on some assumptions that have often been made in the study of self-control. Contra a long, Aristotelian tradition, recent evidence suggests that highly self-controlled individuals do not have a trait very similar to continence: they experience relatively few desires that conflict with their evaluative judgments and are not especially good at directly and effortfully inhibiting such desires. Similarly, several recent studies have failed to support the view (...) that self-control capacities are constituted, at least in part, by excellent inhibitory executive function ability. I propose an alternative “indirect harmony” hypothesis about trait self-control. According to this hypothesis, if there is a character trait of being highly self-controlled, it consists in motivational harmony within the mind that is brought about through the effective use of indirect resistance strategies that prevent occurrent motivational conflict from emerging in the first place. If this hypothesis is correct, high trait self-control in actual humans does not fit neatly into the traditional categories of either continence or temperance. I conclude by drawing out several implications this hypothesis has for future research on trait self-control and its relation to executive functions. (shrink)

Non-reductive physicalists have long held that the special sciences offer explanations of some phenomena that are objectively superior to physical explanations. This explanatory “autonomy” has largely been based on the multiple realizability argument. Recently, in the face of the local reduction and disjunctive property responses to multiple realizability, some defenders of non-reductive physicalism have suggested that autonomy can be grounded merely in human cognitive limitations. In this paper, I argue that this is mistaken. By distinguishing between two kinds of abstraction (...) I show that the greater explanatory relevance of some special science predicates (to certain explananda) is both non-anthropocentric and not solely based on considerations of multiple realizability. This shows that the explanatory autonomy of the special sciences is safe from the local reduction and disjunctive property strategies, even if they are successful responses to the multiple realizability argument. (shrink)

Was Løgstrup fascinated by National Socialism in Germany? Did Løgstrup become a personalist in France? Did Løgstrup become a logical positivist in Vienna? Did Løgstrup become organic in Germany in the 1930s? Questions like these are ones that Hans Hauge wants to answer in his new book about the theologian and thinker K.E. Løgstrup. In the book, Hauge describes many of the both known and unknown people Løgstrup met during his study stays around Europe, mostly in Germany in (...) the 1930s and 1940s. Hauge writes in this book not about what Løgstrup thought, but about where he did it, and who he thought with and thought about. (shrink)

I argue that the completeness of physics is composed of two distinct claims. The first is the commonly made claim that, roughly, every physical event is completely causally determined by physical events. The second has rarely, if ever, been explicitly stated in the literature and is the claim that microphysics provides a complete inventory of the fundamental categories that constitute both the causal features and intrinsic nature of all the events that causally affect the physical universe. After showing that these (...) claims are distinct, I argue that they can be used to solve a difficulty with existing responses to the exclusion problem—namely, that these existing responses also undermine the powerful causal argument for physicalism. Recognizing that there are two kinds of completeness opens up room for the nonreductive physicalist to solve the exclusion problem while also endorsing a modified, cogent causal argument for a kind of physicalism compatible with her position. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate how different views about the vertical and horizontal structure of reality affect the debate between reductive and nonreductive physicalism. This debate is commonly assumed to hinge on whether there are high-level, special-science properties that are distinct from low-level physical properties and whether the alleged multiple realizability of high-level properties establishes this. I defend a metaphysical interpretation of nonreductive physicalismin the absence of both of these assumptions. Adopting an independently motivated, discipline-relative account of natural properties and (...) appealing to a phenomenon I call “multiple determinativity,” in which a single physical property simultaneously realizes different kinds of special-science properties, is sufficient to show that some special-science properties are irreducible to physical properties and that nonreductive physicalism is not merely a terminological variant of reductive physicalism. (shrink)

In this paper I develop a novel response to the exclusion problem. I argue that the nature of the events in the causally complete physical domain raises the “problem of many causes”: there will typically be countless simultaneous low-level physical events in that domain that are causally sufficient for any given high-level physical event. This shows that even reductive physicalists must admit that the version of the exclusion principle used to pose the exclusion problem against non-reductive physicalism is too strong. (...) The burden is on proponents of the exclusion problem to provide a reason to think that any qualifications placed on the exclusion principle will solve the problem of many causes while ruling out causation by irreducible mental events. (shrink)

William Louis Poteat , a North Carolina intellectual of the Progressive Era, gained a reputation as a leading liberal in southern higher education. This book, which was recognized by a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities publication grant, is useful for historians of science because it illustrates how scientific ideas, particularly Darwinism, were diffused into a rural and isolated society.From his student years to the end of his life, Poteat was intimately connected with a Southern Baptist college, Wake Forest. He (...) matriculated at Wake Forest and became a tutor there in 1878. Although almost entirely self‐taught in the sciences, he became a popular and respected professor of biology. As his knowledge of science came from reading contemporary papers and monographs rather than from traditional study, he developed a perspective more modern than that of most of his peers. He rose through the ranks, ultimately becoming president of Wake Forest in 1905.Relatively early in his career, Poteat began the work that earned him a place in southern history by writing articles and giving lectures on the ways in which science and religion were related. By the end of his first decade as a faculty member, he had become convinced of the importance of Darwin's theory of evolution and had decided that it posed no threat to traditional Christianity. In supporting this view, Poteat followed the lead of mainstream European and Northern American churches, which had no problem reconciling evolution with the Book of Genesis and its description of creation occurring in seven days. After all, who knew what a day meant in the mind of God? Many Southern Protestants, however, rejected this position.Randal Hall sees Poteat as an advocate of a liberal social philosophy fully in accord with the social gospel of the Progressive age. As a leading proponent for change in his state, Poteat “personified North Carolina Progressivism” , and his defense of Darwin was of a piece with his philosophy. But it is unclear whether Poteat's admiration for Darwin stemmed from an understanding of science or an obsession with eugenics, an obsession that in time came to dominate his thinking.Poteat vigorously used his position as president of the Southern Baptist Education Association to promote theories of eugenics. Although Darwin did not actively promote racism, followers of his thought such as Poteat could easily educe racist ideas from it. They could argue, for example, that individuals should speed up the process of producing superior humans by helping nature along through the process of selective breeding. Concerned with the large number of Americans who were institutionalized, and the even greater number who were barely educated, Poteat maintained that the government should control the right to reproduce and sterilize the unfit, including the “self‐centered, the coarse‐fibered, and the discourteous” . He thought that civilization would crumble unless such procedures were put in place, because there would be an “overproduction of under‐men” . Indeed, following this same line of thought, he opposed war because it foolishly wasted “our best blood” . He called for federal legislation to govern marriage and divorce, requiring applicants to meet his moral requirements and to pass a rigorous medical examination. Even in conservative North Carolina, these ideas provoked astonishment. A leading Raleigh newspaper accused Poteat of wanting to be the “boss of a human stock farm” .Although Randal Hall's book is primarily a biography of William Louis Poteat—and secondarily a history of Wake Forest as it evolved from a tiny Baptist school into a major college—it is also a study of the split personalities of Southern Progressives. On the one hand, they rejected rule by educated leaders; on the other, they wanted government to control the most intimate aspects of life, such as reproduction. Poteat thought that all these things should be overseen by a “genteel Christian community led by a liberal elite” . The complexity and cognitive dissonance of Southern Progressives are well illustrated in this book. (shrink)

Traditional neo-Aristotelian accounts hold that temperance and continence are distinct character traits that are distinguished by the extent to which their bearers experience motivational conflict. In this paper, I formulate two pairs of necessary conditions—which, collectively, I call the conformity thesis—that articulate this distinction. Then, drawing on work in contemporary social and personality psychology, I argue that the conformity thesis is false. Being highly self-controlled is the best, psychologically realistic candidate for continence. However, our best evidence suggests that highly self-controlled/continent (...) people do not experience more or stronger desires that conflict with their evaluative judgments than others, and they are not particularly good at directly resisting these desires. In this way, actual continent people exhibit motivational harmony that is more similar to the traditional picture of temperance. On the other hand, they achieve this harmony because they are able to effectively employ indirect strategies for handling motivational conflict. These strategies are correctly associated with continence. Recognizing that temperance and continence are overlapping character traits puts us in a better position to understand, and design interventions to improve, the neuropsychological capacities that enable humans to intelligently manage their desires. (shrink)

A neo-Aristotelian approach to self-control has dominated both philosophy and the sciences of the mind. This approach endorses three key theses: that self-control is a form of self-regulation aimed at desires that conflict with one’s evaluative judgments, that high trait self-control is continence, which is distinguished from temperance by motivational conflict, and that self-control is broad, in that such resistance can be not only direct but also indirect. There is an obvious tension between and. I argue that the equally obvious (...) resolution of this tension—allowing that self-control does not require occurrent conflicting desires but can instead be aimed at foreseeable conflicting desires—reveals a surprisingly unnoticed tension between and. To resolve this tension, we are forced to either deny that high trait self-control is continence or deny that self-control is broad. If self-control is narrow, recent empirical evidence suggests that it may not be a good candidate for a human excellence concerning self-regulation. Thus, if we want to make room for such an excellence, we may need to deny that high trait self-control is continence. However we resolve these tensions, the Aristotelian status quo regarding self-control cannot stand. (shrink)

In this paper, I answer a fundamental question facing any view according to which natural selection is a population‐level causal process—namely, how is the causal process of natural selection related to, yet not preempted by, causal processes that occur at the level of individual organisms? Without an answer to this grounding question, the population‐level causal view appears unstable—collapsing into either an individual‐level causal interpretation or the claim that selection is a purely formal, statistical phenomenon. I argue that a causal account (...) of realization provides an answer to the grounding question. By applying this account of realization to the natural selection of melanism in rock pocket mice, I show how an alternative, formal account of realization, favored by proponents of the statistical interpretation, misses biologically important features. More generally, this paper shows how metaphysical issues about realization normally discussed in the philosophy of mind apply to debates in philosophy of biology. Thus, it is a first step toward fleshing out the oft‐noted similarities between debates in these areas. (shrink)

According to many virtue ethicists, one of Aristotle’s important achievements was drawing a clear, qualitative distinction between the character traits of temperance and self-control. In an influential series of papers, John McDowell has argued that a clear distinction between temperance and self-control can be maintained only if one claims that, for the virtuous individual, considerations in favor of actions that are contrary to virtue are “silenced.” Some virtue ethicists reject McDowell’s silencing view as offering an implausible or inappropriate picture of (...) human virtue, but they argue that virtue can still be clearly distinguished from self-control by the absence of motivational conflict alone. In this paper, I argue that this criticism of McDowell is at most half right. If the silencing view is false, so that virtue can have a cost and the virtuous person can justifiably feel negative emotions in response to that cost, there is no principled reason why the virtuous person cannot also have motivational conflict. So, if one rejects the silencing view, then one must allow that the distinction between virtue and self-control is at most a matter of degree. (shrink)