The study of civilizations is largely motivated by a single question—what drives and defines a culture or civilization? In an effort to locate a civilization—or, in the case of this chapter, three civilizations—historically, perhaps the best way is to call this drive and defining quality the cultural “sovereign.” Historically, in almost every case, this sovereign takes on a spiritual and religious form in the earliest and most vitalized period of any civilization’s lifespan. Conceptualizing civilizations in two phases, this chapter will (...) seek to show that, as a rule, at some point this spiritual sovereign is usurped and replaced by a human and corrupted sovereign. This transition precipitates the decay of Civilization, first explored by Oswald Spengler, examined here with a focus on the point at which the original and eternal sovereign ceases to be the arbiter of moral and cultural questions, and the State takes over this sovereignty. To understand “sovereignty,” the chapter appeals to Schmitt; the sovereign is one who has the power “to decide the exception.” In this way, the ethos of a culture begins as something in which no exceptions can be made by a human being—the point at which the eternal is sovereign. As civilization declines, however, one witnesses human beings making exceptions,as morality ceases to be binding, social propriety becomes a luxury rather than a necessity, and religion becomes a fixture rather than the core of society. This state of collapse is highlighted in three separate civilizations—the Civic (i.e. Graeco-Roman), the Pharaonic (i.e. Egyptian), and the Ecclesiastic (i.e. Western). The viability of any project aimed at “revival” or “regeneration” is also examined and, the author hopes, soundly denied. (shrink)

This paper describes an operational computer simulation of visual mental imagery in humans. The structure of the simulation was motivated by results of experiments on how people represent information in, and access information from, visual images. The simulation includes a “surface representation,” which is spatial and quasi‐pictorial, and an underlying “deep representation,” which contains “perceptual” information encoding appearance plus “propositional” information describing facts about an object. The simulation embodies a theory of how surface images are generated from deep representations, and (...) how surface images are processed when one accesses information embedded in them. The simulation also offers an account of various sorts of imagery transformations. (shrink)

This long-awaited work by prominent Harvard psychologist Stephen Kosslyn integrates a twenty-year research program on the nature of high-level vision and mental ...

ABSTRACT In Debating Climate Ethics, David Weisbach and I offer contrasting views of the importance of ethics and justice for climate policy. I argue that ethics is central. Weisbach advocates for climate policy based purely on narrow forms of self-interest. For this symposium, I summarize the major themes, and extend my basic argument. I claim that ethics gets the problem right, whereas dismissing ethics risks getting the problem dangerously wrong, and perpetuating profound injustices. One consequence is that we should reject (...) the alleged “feasibility constraint” of short-term, economic self-interest. (shrink)

The concept of representation has become almost inextricably bound to the concept of symbol systems. the concepts is nowhere more prevalent than in descriptions of "internal representations." These representations are thought to occur in an internal symbol system that allows the brain to store and use information. In this paper we explore a different approach to understanding psychological processes, one that retains a commitment to representations and computations but that is not based on the idea that information must be stored (...) and manipulated in symbol systems. In particular, we suggest that the notion of a symbol system as currently understood construes psychological processes in terms of a specific type of computational system, in which a control function "reads," "interprets," and manipulates discrete entities called "symbols." We argue that other types of computational systems may provide a more appropriate characterization of psychological processes. One implication of our argument is the need to consider the constraints placed on computational theories in psychology by the nature of the computing device itself, the human brain. Perhaps surprisingly, this implication leads us to the conclusion that a "functionalist" conception of psychological processes (discussed below) does not entail that physiology is irrelevant to psychology, as has been maintained by prominent adherents of the symbol-systems approach. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns in The Wanderer in 2021. In it, he writes that the Democratic party has increasingly embraced the agenda of the left, been tolerant of violence by radical organizations, been willing to compromise the principle of the rule of law, and shown increasing intolerance of opposing perspectives and a tendency to political repression. This article is reprinted with permission.

This article is one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” online columns. It briefly addresses, in light of Catholic social teaching, the immigration question that has been a major public issue in the U.S.

Creating education systems that promote democratic sustainability has been the concern of political thinkers as diverse as J. S. Mill, Dewey, Benjamin Barber and Derek Bok. The classic dichotomisation of democratic theory between deliberative democrats and Schumpeterian democrats suggests that education in the service of democracy can be constructive—that is, provide a student with the skills necessary to elect her leaders without changing her nature—or reconstructive—that is, fundamentally and radically reshape the student to produce a citizen whose goals are transformed (...) to be congruent with society. Michael Oakeshott, who has written extensively both on political regimes and on the purpose of liberal education, offers a third way to assess the connection between government and education. Despite his own dismissal of civic or political education as fundamentally vocational and thus beyond the boundaries of the liberal arts, this paper provides a potentially surprising Oakeshottian defence of political education within the liberal arts with reference to the importance he places on experience as a pedagogic tool. Thus, Oakeshott's educational philosophy has a certain resonance with the recent calls to locate the relevance of liberal arts within the burgeoning development of experiential civic engagement programmes in American universities. (shrink)

Recently, I have been arguing for a global constitutional convention focused on protecting future generations. This deliberative body would be akin to the American constitutional convention of 1787, which gave rise to the present structure of government in the United States. It would confront the “governance gap” that currently exists surrounding concern for future generations. In particular, contemporary institutions tend to crowd out intergenerational concern, and thereby facilitate a “tyranny of the contemporary.” They not only fail to address a basic (...) standing threat to humanity and other species, but help that threat become manifest. Climate change is a prime example. In this paper, I sketch out a natural argumentative path toward the global constitutional convention and argue that is difficult to resist. I also insist that we should be evenhanded in the way we treat the proposal. Those who put their faith in alternatives must also confront standard complaints about naivety, urgency, threats to democratic values, and the like. Moreover, the global constitutional convention has the advantage of addressing the problem we face head on. (shrink)

In this paper I briefly introduce work on ancient-DNA and give some examples of the impact this work has had on responses to questions in archaeology. Next, I spell out David Reich’s reasons for his optimism about the contribution aDNA research makes to archaeology. I then use Robert Chapman and Alison Wylie’s framework to offer an alternative to Reich’s view of relations between aDNA research and archaeology. Finally, I develop Steven Mithen’s point about the different questions archaeologists and geneticists ask, (...) arguing that different disciplinary perspectives color researchers’ perceptions of “the most important questions” or the “central topics” in a field. I conclude that evidence from aDNA research cannot solve archaeological disputes without closer, mutually respectful collaboration between aDNA researchers and archaeologists. Ancient DNA data, like radiocarbon data, is not a silver bullet for problems in archaeology. (shrink)

This is an updated version of my Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Evolutionary Psychology. The 2018 version contains a new section on Human Nature as well as some new material on recent developments in Evolutionary Psychology.

Existing institutions do not seem well-designed to address paradigmatically global, intergenerational and ecological problems, such as climate change. 1 In particular, they tend to crowd out intergenerational concern, and thereby facilitate a “tyranny of the contemporary” in which successive generations exploit the future to their own advantage in morally indefensible ways (albeit perhaps unintentionally). Overcoming such a tyranny will require both accepting responsibility for the future and meeting the institutional gap. I propose that we approach the first in terms of (...) a traditional “delegated responsibility” model of the transmission of individual responsibility to collectives, and the second with a call for a global constitutional convention focused on future generations. In this paper, I develop the delegated responsibility model by suggesting how it leads us to understand both past failures and prospective responsibility. I then briefly defend the call for a global constitutional convention. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article offers a constructive critique of the Oxford Principles for the governance of geoengineering and proposes an alternative set of principles, the Tollgate Principles, based on that critique. Our main concern is that, despite their many merits, the Oxford Principles remain largely instrumental and dominated by procedural considerations; therefore, they fail to lay the groundwork sufficiently for the more substantive ethical debate that is needed. The article aims to address this gap by making explicit many of the important ethical (...) questions lurking in the background, especially around values such as justice, respect and legitimacy. (shrink)

What might a theory of mental imagery look like, and how might one begin formulating such a theory? These are the central questions addressed in the present paper. The first section outlines the general research direction taken here and provides an overview of the empirical foundations of our theory of image representation and processing. Four issues are considered in succession, and the relevant results of experiments are presented and discussed. The second section begins with a discussion of the proper form (...) for a cognitive theory, and the distinction between a theory and a model is developed. Following this, the present theory and computer simulation model are introduced. This theory specifies the nature of the internal representations (data structures) and the processes that operate on them when one generates, inspects, or transforms mental images. In the third, concluding, section we consider three very different kinds of objections to the present research program, one hinging on the possibility of experimental artifacts in the data, and the others turning on metatheoretical commitments about the form of a cognitive theory. Finally, we discuss how one ought best to evaluate theories and models of the sort developed here. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appear monthly in Crisis and The Wanderer. In it, he summarizes his conclusions about the conformity of current American conservatism with Catholic social teaching—as put forth in the papal social encyclicals—on the subject of economics and social welfare policy from his 2017 book, Catholicism and American Political Ideologies. His analysis is based on the 2012 Republican party platform, which was held to be (...) a particularly conservative document—and thus a good measure of current conservative thinking on public policy questions. He concludes that American conservative thinking about economics and social welfare policy conforms reasonably well—certainly not perfectly—with Catholic social teaching. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appear monthly in Crisis and The Wanderer. It argues that a correct reading of the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate, while stressing interreligious understanding and noting certain common beliefs, in no way precludes a reasonable critique of Islam or criticism of its background and tenets from a Catholic standpoint.

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appeared during 2015 in Crisismagazine.com and The Wanderer and at his blog site. It discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 decision on same-sex “marriage,” Obergefell v. Hodges, and its likely implications for religious liberty, true marriage, and children. He says it is the latest expression of concocted rights under the Court’s “substantive-due-process” doctrine. He suggests ways to respond to the decision politically (...) and legally—by citizens, organizations, and the use of executive power by a sound president in the near future, and by the Church. (shrink)

In this paper I review some theoretical exchanges and empiricalresults from recent work on human behavior and cognition in thehope of indicating some productive avenues for critical engagement.I focus particular attention on methodological debates between Evolutionary Psychologists and behavioral ecologists. I argue for a broader and more encompassing approach to the evolutionarily based study of human behavior and cognition than either of these two rivals present.

En los últimos tiempos he propuesto la necesidad de elaborar una convención constitucional global centrada en proteger a las generaciones futuras. Este cuerpo deliberativo se ría similar a la convención constitucional de Estados Unidos de 1787, que dio lugar a su estructura actual de gobierno. Se enfrentaría a la “brecha de gobernabilidad” actual respecto de la preocupación por las generaciones futuras. Las instituciones contemporáneas, en particular, tienden a desplazar la preocupación intergeneracional y, por lo tanto, facilitan una “tiranía de lo (...) contemporáneo”. No solo pasan por alto una amenaza básica permanente para la humanidad y otras especies, sino que contribuyen a que esa amenaza se manifieste. El cambio climático es un ejemplo conspicuo de ello. En este artículo, esbozo una vía argumentativa natural hacia la convención constitucional global y sostengo que resulta difícil no adherir a ella. También insisto en que seamos imparciales en la forma cómo tratamos la propuesta. Quienes confían en alternativas (por ejemplo, el surgimiento de un gran líder, una gran alineación de intereses, el anarquismo climático que surge de iniciativas individuales o los gobiernos nacionales entendidos como administradores inter-generacionales efectivos) también deben enfrentar las críticas estándar sobre ingenuidad, urgencia, amenazas a los valores democráticos, etc. Además, la convención constitucional global tiene la ventaja de abordar inmediatamente el problema que enfrentamos. (shrink)

A critical study of two recent books in climate ethics by Dale Jamieson (Reason in a Dark Time, Oxford 2014), and Darrel Moellendorf (The Moral and Political Challenges of Climate Change, Cambridge 2014).

In this paper I assess Gopnik and Meltzoff's developmental psychology of science as a contribution to the understanding of scientific development. I focus on two specific aspects of Gopnik and Meltzoff's approach: the relation between their views and recapitulationist views of ontogeny and phylogeny in biology, and their overall conception of cognition as a set of veridical processes. First, I discuss several issues that arise from their appeal to evolutionary biology, focusing specifically on the role of distinctions between ontogeny and (...) phylogeny when appealing to biology for theoretical support. Second, I argue that to presuppose that cognition is veridical or "truth-tropic" can compromise attempts to understand scientific cognition both throughout history and in the present. Finally, I briefly sketch an evolutionary approach to understanding scientific development that contrasts with Gopnik and Meltzoff's. (shrink)

I introduce a range of examples of different causal hypotheses about human mate selection. The hypotheses I focus on come from evolutionary psychology, fluctuating asymmetry research and chemical signaling research. I argue that a major obstacle facing an integrated biology of human behavior is the lack of a causal framework that shows how multiple proximate causal mechanisms can act together to produce components of our behavior.

The so-called Disability Paradox arises from the apparent tension between the popular view that disability leads to low well-being and the relatively high life-satisfaction reports of disabled people. Our aim in this essay is to make some progress toward dissolving this alleged paradox by exploring the relationship between disability and various “goods of life”—that is, components of a life that typically make a person’s life go better for her. We focus on four widely recognized goods of life (happiness, rewarding relationships, (...) knowledge, achievement) and four common types of disability (sensory, mobility, intellectual, and social) and systematically examine the extent to which the four disability types are in principle compatible with obtaining the four goods of life. Our findings suggest that that there is a high degree of compatibility. This undermines the widespread view that disabilities, by their very nature, substantially limit a person’s ability to access the goods of life, and it provides some guidance on how to dissolve the Disability Paradox. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement that ethical concerns are central to decision-making about, and governance of, geoengineering. This is especially true of the most prominent and paradigm example of climate engineering, the spraying of sulfate particles into the stratosphere in order to block incoming sunlight and so limit global warming ). Geoengineering ethics, like geoengineering science, is still in its early, exploratory days. This chapter offers an introductory overview of the emerging discussion and some of the challenges moving forward, taking SSI (...) as its key example. It identifies a range of values relevant to geoengineering, exposes some misleading early framings, argues that questions of justification and context are both important, and summarizes the Tollgate principles for geoengineering governance. One theme is that despite the initial agreement on the centrality of ethics, in practice there are profound risks that ethical considerations will be marginalized, both in the short-term as research is developed, and in the longer-run, in any deployment. (shrink)

Introduction "Think only what concerns thee and thy being" — so Raphael admonishes Adam shortly before the fall in Paradise Lost (8.174). ...

Climate change is a global problem that is predominantly an intergenerational conflict, and which takes place in a setting where our ethical impulses are weak. This "perfect moral storm" poses a profound challenge to humanity. This book explains how the "perfect storm" metaphor makes sense of our current malaise, and why a better ethics can help see our way out.

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns in The Wanderer in 2021. In it, he explains the need to in an organized manner oppose the left and how, in a general way, it needs to be done. This article is reprinted with permission.

We are in the early stages of a new “intergenerational turn” in political philosophy. This turn is largely motivated by the threat of global climate change, which makes vivid a serious governance gap surrounding concern for future generations. Unfortunately, there is a lack of fit between most proposed remedies and the nature of the underlying problem. Most notably, many seem to believe that only piecemeal, issue-specific, and predominantly national institutions are needed to fill the intergenerational governance gap. By contrast, I (...) argue that we should adopt a genuinely global approach that treats intergenerational questions as foundational, and advocates for new permanent institutions with ongoing responsibilities to act on intergenerational threats. In this essay, I summarize my diagnosis of the underlying problem—that we face a basic standing threat that I call the “tyranny of the contemporary”—and sketch my proposal for a global constitutional convention aiming at institutions with standing authority and a broad remit. I then develop some of these ideas further through responses to fellow advocates for reform who nevertheless consider my proposals to go too far. In particular, I reject a counterproposal made by Anja Karnein, who argues that reforms should address only threats whose negative impacts would cross a high threshold. I argue that this would leave future generations vulnerable to what I call “squandering generations”. Among other things, these intergenerational squanderers violate appropriate relationships between past, present, and future generations. Yet, in my view, a central task of defensible intergenerational institutions is to protect the future against such abuse. (shrink)

Very few moral philosophers have written on climate change.1 This is puzzling, for several reasons. First, many politicians and policy makers claim that climate change is not only the most serious environmental problem currently facing the world, but also one of the most important international problems per se.2 Second, many of those working in other disciplines describe climate change as fundamentally an ethical issue.3.

Critics of Hans-Georg Gadamer maintain that his philosophical hermeneutics is unduly conservative: supposedly, Gadamer too readily accepts tradition and too quickly assumes that a text has a unified and understandable meaning. Critics of Jacques Derrida, meanwhile, declare that deconstruction leads to nihilism: if the meaning of every text is undecidable, then a text can mean anything at all - no one meaning is better or worse than any other. And if there is no ground to stand upon, these critics add, (...) then how can we normatively evaluate others? In this essay, I respond to the critics of both Gadamer and Derrida by arguing that philosophical hermeneutics and deconstruction should be understood as complementary postmodern philosophies, as mutually supportive descriptions of the hermeneutic situation. As such, deconstruction counters the charge that philosophical hermeneutics is conservative: instead, a Derridean view uncovers the radical political potential that resides within Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. Meanwhile, philosophical hermeneutics counters the charge that deconstruction is nihilistic and cannot support ethical or political critique. A Gadamerian view explains how deconstruction assumes the possibility of understanding meaning and maintaining values that can engender critique. Key Words: deconstruction • Derrida • Gadamer • hermeneutics • justice • philosophical hermeneutics • postmodernism. (shrink)

Traditional concern for the gradual, incremental effects of climate change remains; but now greater attention is being paid to the possibility of breaching major thresholds in the climate system with catastrophic consequences. It might be thought that the potential for abrupt climate change (a) undermines the usual (economic, psychological, and intergenerational) analyses of the climate change problem, and (b) in doing so helps us to act. Against this, I argue both that much of the psychological and intergenerational analyses remains in (...) place, and that abrupt climate change may make action more difficult, perhaps even setting off an intergenerational arms race. (shrink)

Disability and enhancement are often treated as opposing concepts. To become disabled in some respect is to move away from those who are enhanced in that same respect; to become enhanced is to move away from the corresponding state of disability. This chapter examines how best to understand the concepts of disability and enhancement in this symmetrical way. After considering various candidates, two types of accounts are identified as the most promising: welfarist accounts and typical-functioning accounts. The authors ultimately defend (...) a complex typical-functioning account as the best way to achieve a symmetrical understanding of disability and enhancement. (shrink)

Geoengineering is commonly defined as ‘the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change’. Technologies which...

The target article provides a useful investigative model for studying social behaviors, but it falls short of establishing a more comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding complex social inter- actions. Social behaviors such as play involve a dynamic and complex interplay between two or more organisms. Even when feed-forward mechanisms are taken into account and the model is anchored to evolutionary theory, the utility of this model is still limited by the conspicuous absence of neurobiological theory and data.

This paper explores the influence of social categories on the perceived trade-off between a relatively bad but equal distribution of resources between two parties and a profit maximizing yet unequal one. Studies 1 and 2 showed that people prefer to maximize profits when interacting within their social category, but chose not to maximize individual and joint profits when interacting across social categories. Study 3 demonstrated that outside observers, who were not members of the focal social categories, also were less likely (...) to maximize profits when resources were distributed across social category lines. Study 4 showed that the transaction utility of maximizing profits required greater compensation when resources were distributed across, in contrast to within social categories. We discuss the ethical implications of these decision making biases in the context of organizations. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns in The Wanderer in 2021. In it, he says that in spite of the left’s irresponsible claims about “systemic racism” in America, motivated by their ideological objectives, they pay little attention to the real problems in the Black community such as illegitimacy, family breakdown, and fatherlessness. This article is reprinted with permission.