Editors provide a substantive introduction to the history and theories of perfectionism and neutrality, expertly contextualizing the essays and making the collection accessible.

What is the role of the imagination in scientific practice? Here I focus on the nature and role of invitations to imagine in certain scientific texts as represented by the example of Einstein’s Special Relativity paper from 1905. Drawing on related discussions in aesthetics, I argue, on the one hand, that this role cannot be simply subsumed under ‘supposition’ but that, on the other, concerns about the impact of genre and symbolism can be dealt with, and hence present no obstacle (...) to regarding imagination as appropriately belief-like. By applying the framework of ‘semi- propositional representations’ and ‘quasi-truth’ to this case I thereby offer a new unitary framework for understanding the epistemology of scientific imagination. (shrink)

New and Emerging Science and Technology (NEST) based innovations, e.g. in the field of Life Sciences or Nanotechnology, frequently raise societal and political concerns. To address these concerns NEST researchers are expected to deploy socially responsible R&D practices. This requires researchers to integrate social and ethical aspects (SEAs) in their daily work. Many methods can facilitate such integration. Still, why and how researchers should and could use SEAs remains largely unclear. In this paper we aim to relate motivations for NEST (...) researchers to include SEAs in their work, and the requirements to establish such integration from their perspectives, to existing approaches that can be used to establish integration of SEAs in the daily work of these NEST researchers. Based on our analyses, we argue that for the successful integration of SEAs in R&D practice, collaborative approaches between researchers and scholars from the social sciences and humanities seem the most successful. The only way to explore whether that is in fact the case, is by embarking on collaborative research endeavours. (shrink)

The young women had survived the car crash, after a fashion. In the five months since parts of her brain had been crushed, she could open her eyes but didn't respond to sights, sounds or jabs. In the jargon of neurology, she was judged to be in a persistent vegetative state. In crueler everyday language, she was a vegetable.

The aim of this essay is to introduce philosophers of science to some recent philosophical discussions of the nature and origin of the direction of time. The essay is organized around books by Hans Reichenbach, Paul Horwich, and Huw Price. I outline their major arguments and treat certain critical points in detail. I speculate at the end about the ways in which the subject may continue to develop and in which it may connect with other areas of philosophy.

We report the results of a study that examines the association between gender and individuals’ intentions to report fraudulent financial reporting using non-anonymous and anonymous reporting channels. In our experimental study, we examine whether reporting intentions in response to discovering a fraudulent financial reporting act are associated with the participants’ gender, the perpetrator’s gender, and/or the interaction between the participants’ and perpetrator’s gender. We find that female participants’ reporting intentions for an anonymous channel are higher than for male participants; the (...) fraud perpetrator’s gender and the interaction with participants’ gender were not significantly associated with anonymous channel reporting intentions. Neither of the two factors nor the interaction between the two factors was associated with reporting intentions to a non- anonymous reporting channel. Results from an additional analysis indicate that male and female participants differ in the extent to which they judge the reduction in personal costs of an anonymous reporting channel compared to a non-anonymous reporting channel and that the reduction in personal costs mediates the relationship between participant gender and anonymous reporting intentions. (shrink)

‘Sovereignty’, Arendt says, ‘is contradictory to’ the human condition. It is not, in any event, the kind of thing that can be shared across generations. Subsequent generations lack sovereignty to the precise degree that they are bound by the decisions of their predecessors. It is no answer to say that contemporary citizens participate in the sovereignty of a whole, transgenerational people. To paraphrase de Tocqueville, later generations are not free because they are not entirely equal, and they are not equal (...) because they are not entirely free. Where ‘sovereignty’ is a metaphysical concept that transcends time, recognition is an act of the imagination that extends empathy diachronically in both directions. An earlier generation treats its successors with recognition and respect by bequeathing the best system it can manage and entrusting later generations to exercise the same freedom that it enjoyed. Democratic law can exist across generations only through negation. Later citizens may accept as valid the law made by their predecessors. But, in doing so, they implicitly affirm their right to alter, amend, or abolish what came before. Only by freely affirming the choices of their predecessors can current citizens participate in something approaching freedom. (shrink)

Though the literature on care ethics has mushroomed in recent years, much remains to be said about several important topics therein. One of these is action. In this article, I draw on Anscombean philosophy of action to develop a kind of meta- or proto-ethical theory of caring actions. I begin by showing how the fragmentary philosophy of action offered by care ethicists meshes with Elizabeth Anscombe's broader philosophy of action, and argue that Anscombe's philosophy of action offers a useful scaffold (...) for a theory of caring actions. Following this, I defend an account of caring actions as those that aim to meet needs. I argue that care aims at satisfying eudaimonistic needs, those things without which one cannot flourish. I then consider the place of caring actions in care ethics. I suggest that if caring actions are to be a starting point for an ethical theory, we ought to reject the notion that a caring action must bring about its intended consequences, and I show how the concept of practice better equips us to evaluate caring actions. (shrink)

"This engaging collection of recent essays reveals how a professorial career involves not only pursuit of a scholarly discipline but also such unwelcome features as the trials of graduate school, the tribulations that may arise in teaching, and the tensions that may develop from membership in a department. The author, who enjoyed a distinguished career as a professor of philosophy and senior university administrator, draws on his extensive experience to offer candid advice about handling the frustrations of academic life. Combining (...) philosophical principles, practical concerns, and personal observations, this book serves as a reliable guide for both new and veteran academics as well as for anyone seeking to understand the inner workings of colleges and universities"--. (shrink)

Drawing from Nietzsche, I explore the topic of aesthetic education. Even though Nietzsche never formally uses the term “aesthetic education” in his works, this is a novel initiative of my own doing based on what I think he would have to say on the topic. Just as Nietzsche adopted his own experimental approach or style, in a sense, my intention is to experiment with a narrative, which takes the form of a fictional dialogue between Nietzsche and a student. To make (...) sense of what Nietzsche has to say on the topic, I examine certain aspects of his thought as they relate to art, aesthetics, creative activity, creativity, the important role of Bildung (self-cultivation), and other associated areas of interest. This essay critically discusses and analyzes the narrative in relation to Nietzsche's appropriation of the mythical figure of Dionysus, as well as the tragic wisdom it is supposed to incarnate. As such, I argue that Dionysian wisdom is an exposition of the paradoxical characteristics of the creative life that has significant ramifications for aesthetic education. (shrink)

Social scientists have long examined the changing role of the individual, and the influence of individualism in social and economic arrangements as well as behavioral decisions. With respect to co-operative behavior among farmers, however, the ideology of individualism has been little theorized in terms of its relationship to the longstanding virtue of independence. This paper explores this relationship by combining analysis of historical literature on the agricultural cooperative movement with the accounts of contemporary English farmers. I show that the virtue (...) of independence is deployed to justify a variety of cooperative (formal and informal) and non-cooperative practices and that, despite apparently alternative interpretations, independence is most often conflated with individualistic premises. That conflation, I argue, leads farmers to see their neighbors as natural competitors: as those from whom which independence must be sought. This has the effect of masking the structural dependencies which farmers face (such as lenders and large purchasers) and limits the alternatives available to them to realize a view of independence that is maintained, rather than opposed, by interdependent collective action. Thus perceived, individualism is an ideological doctrine that succeeds by appealing to the virtue of independence, while simultaneously denying its actual realization. (shrink)

Recent research on the role of ethics in the organizational culture literature found practically the whole literature reduced to a debate between ethical rationalism and ethical relativism. The role of the past in the form of tradition to maintain and improve moral reflection is completely missing. To address this gap in the literature on the level of practice, the concepts of moral memory and moral tradition are applied to data on 22 companies that have long-standing moral practices. In this way, (...) the practice of moral traditions can be explored with recent conceptual advances and a list of best practices delineated. Moral memory is the recollection of and attachment to the succession of past events and experiences that maintains moral tradition. Moral tradition is the continuing transmission and reception of related moral themes through multiple generations of employees. It is found that companies that maintain moral traditions tend to develop “family” cultures with considerable compassion for workers as persons who have non-economic needs and rights. These companies also temper the role of leadership, insisting that leaders are responsible for and are evaluated by the company’s moral traditions. Finally, moral traditions are essential mechanisms through which companies paradoxically both stimulate and limit competitive behavior. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has two central aims in his celebrated paper ‘Mental Events.’ First, he argues for the impossibility of ‘strict … laws on the basis of which mental events can be predicted and explained’. I shall call the resulting view ‘mental anomalism.’ Second, he argues, based partially on this impossibility, for a version of monism which holds that every mental event is token-identical with some physical event. This second aim puts constraints on how the argument for mental anomalism can plausibly (...) proceed. That argument cannot assume anything that presupposes monism or adversely affects the argument for it. When elaborated, this constraint by itself rules out otherwise attractive conceptions of how the argument for mental anomalism works. More generally, in order to be compelling, the overall argument for anomalous monism ought not to incorporate excessively controversial presuppositions even if they do not themselves beg any questions about monism. The argument needs to be built upon relatively intuitive premises. (shrink)

This paper presents and defends a Rawlsian argument for perfectionist state policies. The argument draws on Rawls’s discussion of the “Aristotelian Principle,” highlighting the complex relationship between this principle and the social bases of self-respect. The paper explains how Rawls’s discussion and endorsement of this principle has significant and unappreciated implications for his account of the human good and the state’s role in promoting it in a well-ordered society. Although Rawls explicitly rejected state perfectionism, the paper shows how his conception (...) of justice has the resources to respond to the important criticism that it is insufficiently responsive to the claims of human excellence. Rawlsian perfectionism, in this way, strengthens Rawlsian justice by removing an important reason for rejecting it. (shrink)

Kaci Hickox was a nurse who worked with persons who were infected with Ebola in West Africa. When she returned to the United States, the governors of New Jersey and Maine intervened to confine her to inpatient quarantine despite the fact that she was asymptomatic and had no serological evidence of infection. She defied the quarantine which resulted in enormous public attention and discussion of quarantine and public fear. This article summarizes the case discussing the history of the case, the (...) government actions, and the final legal rulings. (shrink)

Research Articles Steven Wall, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

In this essay I argue that in order to secure some of his system’s key commitments, Fichte employs argumentation essentially patterned after the technique of practical postulation in Kant. This is a mode of reasoning that mobilizes a distinctly Kantian notion of nonepistemic justification, which itself is premised upon a broadly Kantian conception of the nature of reason. Succinctly stated, such argumentation proceeds essentially as follows. (1) By the basic nature and operations of rationality, every rational being is, as such, (...) committed to E as an ultimate end (final purpose, highest goal). (2) E can be understood as actually attainable only if descriptive proposition P is assented to. (3) We cannot, in principle, possess genuine evidence for or against P; therefore, (4) while we do not have (and never could have) good epistemic grounds for assenting to P, we do have (and always will have) perfectly sufficient rational grounds for doing so. While this assent has no basis in pertinent evidence, it nonetheless has an unshakeable foundation in the basic operations and requirements of rationality. This is so because this assent (a) sustains a commitment integral to rationality as such, and (b) affirms a proposition that no evidence could ever discredit. I proceed to discuss what I take to be two instances of this sort of argumentation in Fichte: first, The Vocation of Man's unusual argument for belief in the real existence of a world transcendent to human representations, and second, the same work's subsequent depiction of that world as strictly mentalistic (immaterial, intellectual, teleological) in its true constitution. VM portrays both positions as decisive determinants of the overall upshot of the Wissenschaftslehre (WL), and explicitly casts them as articles of “faith” or “belief” (Glaube), grounded in unshakeable ethical conviction, by contrast with items of “knowledge” (Wissen). (shrink)

The late 20th century saw great movement in the philosophy of language, often critical of the fathers of the subject-Gottlieb Frege and Bertrand Russell-but sometimes supportive of (or even defensive about) the work of the fathers. Howard Wettstein's sympathies lie with the critics. But he says that they have often misconceived their critical project, treating it in ways that are technically focused and that miss the deeper implications of their revolutionary challenge. Wettstein argues that Wittgenstein-a figure with whom the critics (...) of Frege and Russell are typically unsympathetic-laid the foundation for much of what is really revolutionary in this late 20th century movement. The subject itself should be of great interest, since philosophy of language has functioned as a kind of foundation for much of 20th century philosophy. But in fact it remains a subject for specialists, since the ideas are difficult and the mode of presentation is often fairly technical. In this book, Wettstein brings the non-specialist into the conversation (especially in early chapters); he also reconceives the debate in a way that avoids technical formulation. The Magic Prism is intended for professional philosophers, graduate students, and upper division undergraduates. (shrink)

"--Larry Silver, University of Pennsylvania ""The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter" is an excellent introduction for general readers to Descartes and his thought. Nadler brings the story and ideas to life.

No particular dagger was the object of Macbeth’s hallucination of a dagger. In contrast, when he hallucinated his former comrade Banquo, Banquo himself was the object of the hallucination. Although philosophers have had much to say about the nature and philosophical import of hallucinations (e.g. Macpherson and Platchias, Hallucination, 2013) and object-involving attitudes (e.g. Jeshion, New essays on singular thought, 2010), their intersection has largely been neglected. Yet, object-involving hallucinations raise interesting questions about memory, perception, and the ways in which (...) we have knowledge of the world around us. In this paper, I offer an account of object-involving hallucinations. Specifically, I argue that they are an unusual species of perceptual remembering. (shrink)

An eliminativist view of objects in physics has recently been defended in the context of “ ‘ontic structural realism.” This chapter explores the extent to which a similar eliminativism can be articulated and defended in the philosophy of biology. Obviously the motivations are very different, but a range of issues can be identified that pull us away from an object-oriented stance. Various metaphysical resources can then be deployed to help assuage concerns regarding such a move, and the chapter considers two (...) in particular: a version of truthmaker theory and a form of monism. The development of such resources in the biological context offers a number of interesting avenues of exploration, particularly if we take biological lineages to provide the appropriate grounding in each case. (shrink)