In this paper I discuss two fundamental challenges concerning Crispin Wright's notion of entitlement of cognitive project: firstly, whether entitlement is an epistemic kind of warrant since, seemingly, it is not underwritten by epistemic reasons, and, secondly, whether, in the absence of such reasons, the kind of rationality associated with entitlement is epistemic in nature. The paper investigates three possible lines of response to these challenges. According to the first line of response, entitlement of cognitive project is underwritten by (...) epistemic reasons – and thus supports epistemic rationality – because, when P is an entitlement, trust in P is a dominant strategy with respect to promotion of epistemic value. The second line of response replaces dominance with maximization of expected utility. I argue that both of these proposals are flawed and develop an alternative line of response. (shrink)

This paper outIines an account of rational action. It distinguishes three species of reasons: motivating reasons, evidential reasons, and normative reasons. It also contends that there is a univocal notion of reason common to the notions of motivating reasons, evidential reasons, and normative reasons. Given this thesis, the paper explains how we can have a unified theory of reasons for action. It also explains the role of values in rational action. It sketches an affective approach to value that contrasts (...) with prominent desire-satisfaction approaches. (shrink)

This paper gives a new interpretation of the central section of Plato's Symposium (199d-212a). According to this interpretation, the term "καλóν", as used by Plato here, stands for what many contemporary philosophers call "intrinsic value"; and "love" (ἔρως) is in effect rational motivation , which for Plato consists in the desire to "possess" intrinsically valuable things - that is, according to Plato, to be happy - for as long as possible. An explanation is given of why Plato believes that (...) "possessing" intrinsically valuable things, at least for mortals like us, consists in actively creating instantiations of the intrinsic values, both in oneself and in the external world, and in knowing and loving these intrinsic values and their instantiations. Finally, it is argued that this interpretation reveals that Plato's "eudaemonism" is a different and more defensible doctrine than many commentators believe. (shrink)

In 2008, the European Community adopted a Proposal to revise the EC Directive on nonhuman animal experiments, with the aim of improving the welfare of the nonhuman animals used in experiments. An Impact Assessment, which gauges the likely economic and scientific effects of future changes, as well as the effects on nonhuman animal welfare, informs the Proposal. By using a discourse analytical approach, this paper examines the Directive, the Impact Assessment and the Proposal to reflect critically upon assumptions about the (...) morality of nonhuman animal experiments. Because nonhuman animal welfare is so prominent in the Proposal, it appears that the EC position advances beyond human self-interest as the sole motivator for such experiments, to ethical questions about the welfare of nonhuman animals . In examining this contention, this paper concludes that, even given concerns about nonhuman animal welfare, nonhuman animal experimentation in the EC is firmly grounded in a morality that focuses on human benefit goals rather than on the wider moral issues associated with the means of achieving such goals. (shrink)

This book brings together in one volume some of the very latest developments in moral psychology that were presented at a major American conference in 2004. Moral psychology is a broad area at the intersection of moral philosophy and philosophy of mind and action. Essays in this collection deal with most of the central issues in moral psychology that are of interest to a large number of philosophers today, including important questions in normative ethical theory, meta-ethics, and applied ethics.

Many economists and philosophers assume that status quo bias is necessarily irrational. I argue that, in some cases, status quo bias is fully rational. I discuss the rationality of status quo bias on both subjective and objective theories of the rationality of preferences. I argue that subjective theories cannot plausibly condemn this bias as irrational. I then discuss one kind of objective theory, which holds that a conservative bias toward existing things of value is rational. This account (...) can fruitfully explain some compelling aspects of common sense morality, and it may justify status quo bias. (shrink)

This article evaluates alternative models for explaining human behavior. In particular, it compares the resourceful, evaluative, maximizing model (REMM) with the economic (or money maximizing) model of human behavior. The theoretical framework is developed to enhance our understanding of "individual value creation" and to seek an economically rational explanation to: Why Warren Buffett is giving his money away to charity? The article develops a framework of biological, material, and immaterial sources of value. The article additionally extends the existing (...) REMM and finds several economically rational reasons for him to give away his money including the present value of help and goodwill, gained control, and lowered transaction costs. (shrink)

Sometimes we make decisions which affect our lives at times when we will hold values that are different from our values at the time the decision is made. What is the reasonable way to make such a choice? Some think we should accept a requirement of temporal neutrality and take both sets of values into account, others think we should decide on the strength of our present values, yet others think that in evaluating what will happen at that other time (...) we should use the values that we will endorse at that time instead of our present values. These views see the problem as one about finding some attitude towards time itself that is distinctively rational. This article argues that these views are subject to serious objections. It suggests that instead we should think in terms of well-being. If a person approves of, or positively responds to, the way their life is going they will experience more well-being than if there is no positive response. The article explores the implications of a positive response condition on well-being for deciding what it is rational to do in cases involving changing goals. (shrink)

Van Fraassen has argued that many philosophical positions should be understood as stances rather than factual beliefs. In this paper I discuss the vexed question of whether and how such stances can be rationally justified. Until this question has been satisfactorily answered, the otherwise promising stance approach cannot be considered a viable metaphilosophical option. One can find hints, and the beginnings of an answer to this question, in van Fraassen’s (and others’) writings, but no general, fully clear and convincing account (...) has been offered. I aim to provide such an account. In the first section I introduce the concept of a stance. In the second section I argue that stances may be justified pragmatically, in terms of both their epistemic fruits, and their coherence with values. In the third section I further consider the relationship between stances and values, arguing that the value-ladenness of a stance does not render it immune to rational scrutiny. In the final section I look at van Fraassen’s version of epistemological voluntarism, which plays a central role in his conception of the basis on which a stance may be rationally adopted. I show that voluntarism provides a theoretical framework, and approach to epistemology, within which the forms of justification appropriate to stance choice I outline in sections 2 and 3 find a natural home. (shrink)

How to understand the "entrepreneurial university"? Three hundred years of popularised economic/philosophical thought, in which conflict/competition has been presented as progressive; lacking a normative context, this becomes warlike. Society presented as a "macro-market", linking people with money and media and frowning on political justice, leads to economism (economic totalitarianism). This instrumentalises universities and motivates bookkeeping rationality and goal rationality; the maximisation thesis guides managerial aims. Scholarship becomes industrialised and leadership managerialised. Empty concepts of "quality" and "competitiveness" become audit (...) measures of "excellence"; this is standardised scholarship, serving hedonistic leisure class values and neglecting perspectivised creative, critical involvement with the suffering world. (shrink)

We define rational Hermite interpolants to vector-valued functions and show that, in the context of Clifford algebras, the numerator and denominator polynomials belong to a complex extension of the Lipschitz group. We also discuss the problem of constructing an algebraic representation for the generalized inverse of a vector, which is at the heart of the usual development of vector rational approximation.

In present day philosophy there are two competing views regarding practical rationality: (1) Decision and game theory and economic theory have developed a theory of rational decision which has proven to be fruitful in many areas of social science. Practical philosophy should work with that paradigm (2) Economic theory and decision theory do not have an adequate account of practical rationality. The homo oeconomicus model is – at best – one perspective which competes inter alia with philosophical accounts (...) of practical reason.In this article I try to show that these two seemingly opposing views are in fact compatible. I argue that consequentialism is an inadequate account of rationality because rational action is deontological in character. Nevertheless the decision theoretic conceptual frame should not be given up. Deontology and decision theory can be made compatible via comprehensive description of action. The conceptual frame of decision theory should be interpreted as coherentist, not consequentialist. With this intertretation deontological action, if rational, maximizes subjective value. (shrink)

This paper considers ethical decision making by blending three streams of related research: cognitive moral development of the decision maker, rational choice theory and a subjective expected utility model. Ethical dilemmas can be defined as situations where moral certainty is compromised by rational cognition. In this paper, the authors assume that some people use a morality-first perspective and others a rationality-first perspective. Ethical scenarios were written and used to test hypotheses derived from this perspective. The instrument developed was shown (...) to be in need of further refinement. Results are discussed in terms of relationships between participant-characteristics variables overall and subscale responses to the ethical scenarios. (shrink)

Human life has special importance. Human decisions must be granted special respect. It is natural to see these claims as connected. It seems likely that human life has value because human beings possess a unique capacity for self-determination. David Velleman’s argument that the nature of autonomy provides us with a prima facie case against the morally permissibility of suicide, at least in most cases, rests on highly questionable premises. Nonetheless, it does point to the importance of a proper understanding (...) of seemingly arcane notions like the self and autonomy in giving principled and systematic answers to practical moral dilemmas. I will argue here that his case against suicide relies on a Kantian understanding of the nature of the self, and consequently of the nature of autonomy and how it should be respected. (shrink)

In Rationalities in history, the distinguished historian David d'Avray writes a new comparative history in the spirit of Max Weber. In a strikingly original reassessment of seminal Weberian ideas, d'Avray applies value rationality to the comparative history of religion and the philosophy of law. Integrating theories of rational choice, anthropological reflections on relativism, and the recent philosophy of rationality with Weber's conceptual framework, d'Avray seeks to disengage 'rationalisation' from its enduring association with Western 'modernity.' This mode of (...) analysis is contextualised through the examples of Buddhism, Imperial China, and sixteenth-century Catholicism--in the latter case building upon unpublished archival research. This ambitious synthesis of social theory and comparative history will engage social scientists and historians from advanced undergraduate level upwards, stimulating interdisciplinary discourse, and making a significant contribution to the methodology of history. D'Avray explores the potential of this new Weberian analysis further in his companion volume, Medieval religious rationalities"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Although “rationing” continues to be a dirty word for the public in health policy discourse, Nir Eyal and colleagues handle the concept exactly right in their article in this issue of the Hastings Center Report. They correctly characterize rationing as an ethical requirement, not a moral abomination. They identify the key health policy question as how rationing can best be done, not whether it should be done at all. They make a cogent defense of what they call “rationing through inconvenience” (...) as a justifiable allocational technique. And they wisely call for research on the effectiveness and fairness of this approach and other methods of rationing. I fully agree with their approach to rationing and with their argument that the process they provocatively label “rationing through inconvenience” should not be rejected out of hand. But I believe they have underestimated two ways in which the practical impacts of rationing through inconvenience limit its potential usefulness: the asymmetry of its effect on patients and physicians and the way in which it reduces the capacity of health systems to learn from experience. (shrink)

Gauthier's magnificent book erects a conception of morality, “morals by agreement,” on the foundation of his own theory of practical rationality. This is as it should be if, as he claims, following Hobbes and others, there is an initial “presumption against morality” and no theory of morals “can ever serve any useful purpose, unless it can show that all the duties it recommends are also truly endorsed in each individual's reason”, indeed, that it is a requirement of rationality (...) that one always satisfy the requirements of morality. This means, however, that the initial assumption against morality is inherited by his theory of practical rationality. His theory of morals therefore can serve a useful purpose only if his theory of rationality is sound. In this paper, I want to explore some of the more dubious aspects of that theory to see whether it can bear the heavy load of justification that “morals by agreement” places on it. (shrink)

According to the principle of patient autonomy, patients have the right to be self-determining in decisions about their own medical care, which includes the right to refuse treatment. However, a treatment refusal may legitimately be overridden in cases where the decision is judged to be incompetent. It has recently been proposed that in assessments of competence, attention should be paid to the evaluative judgments that guide patients' treatment decisions.In this paper I examine this claim in light of theories of practical (...) rationality, focusing on the difficult case of an anorexic person who is judged to be competent and refuses treatment, thereby putting themselves at risk of serious harm. I argue that the standard criteria for competence assess whether a treatment decision satisfies the goals of practical decision-making, and that this same criterion can be applied to a patient's decision-guiding commitments. As a consequence I propose that a particular understanding of practical rationality offers a theoretical framework for justifying involuntary treatment in the anorexia case. (shrink)

Following corporate accounting scandals there has been an increasing concern with understanding the factors that undermine the occupational values of accounting professionals, which emphasize self-transcendence in the pursuit of public good and openness to change in the pursuit of autonomy and creativity. Prior studies have demonstrated that these values are undermined in economically rationalized organizational environments. Our study advances this research by examining how accounting professionals’ occupational values are influenced by the economic rationalization of countries where they are employed. While (...) economic rationalization of countries is recognized as a key macrostructural, social-level influence on individual values, the theory is divided regarding its normative effects. While economic rationalization may decrease the priority of occupational values by transforming professional action in accordance with the calculative logic of economic rationality, it can also increase the priority of these values by providing resources necessary for freeing professionals from the material constraints of survival. We test these divergent insights using the European Social Survey data for 28 countries. Our results indicate that economic rationalization decrease accountants’ occupational values beyond the effects of cultural values and work-related characteristics. (shrink)

Suggests that particularist conceptions of rationality, in general, can be applied to the philosophy of language. Semantic competence does not require that each distinct semantic unit makes the same contribution in all contexts. Distinguishes weak and strong forms of compositionalism, arguing for the former.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 2, Page 20-22, February 2012.

This work brings under the centrally unifying theme of 'rationality' some of the issues on values and personal responsibility he has addressed during his long ...

Recent contributions to the philosophy of manipulation have challenged assumptions explicitly understood as “Kantian”; especially the assumption that the concept and the negative value of manipulation could be explained by regarding it as a subversion of rational agency. This paper examines Robert Noggle’s concerns about Kantian accounts of manipulation and confronts them with Kant’s considerations about the “moral illusion”. It argues that, while the original framework of transcendental idealism makes it hard to understand the value and vulnerability of (...) rational agency, an appropriately revised Kantian perspective on rational agency and manipulation may still be promising. It would also overcome the limitations of Noggle’s own account of manipulation that result from a kind of methodological subjectivism. The considerations suggest that a multidimensional model is needed to fully account for the normative status and value(s) of (the different facets of) autonomy. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 7, Page 28-29, July 2011.

ABSTRACTIsaiah Berlin’s idea of value pluralism has been extensively discussed in recent decades. However, there is still much controversy about the actual meaning and implication of the terms “incompatibility” and “incommensurability” when applied to values. This article analyses the Berlinian concept of value pluralism from a theoretical point of view and argues that, following Berlin’s work, incompatibility should be defined as the impossibility of two ends being combined at a maximum level―though it is possible to find compromises between (...) them when not pursued to their maximum―whereas incommensurability refers to the existence of more than one valid, rational solution to a conflict of ends. After commenting on the arguments advanced by other scholars, the presence of a certain idea of rationality in Berlin’s notion of value pluralism is advanced. Finally, it is demonstrated that incompatibility and incommensurability provide Berlin’s pluralism with its characteristic tragic feature which differentiates it from monism. (shrink)

My dissertation is about the scope and limits of practical rationality. Specifically, it is intended as a critical essay on instrumental rationality; it will also include some suggestions on how to go beyond instrumental rationality. ;The instrumental conception of rationality expresses a recurrent theme in modern contemporary philosophy. This theme made its first formidable appearance in the work of Hobbes, and since then it has dominated most of the debates about the objectivity of moral values, personal (...) values, and ideals. Depending on their aspirations, the participants of these debates have either accepted the instrumental theme or wanted to expose its shortcomings. ;The instrumental theme is identified with two complementary theses. According to the first thesis, humans are identified as desire-maximizers who are motivated to act only by their actual desires, inclinations, and dispositions. Under this conception, even morality is perceived as being a set of prudential precepts reducible to the agent's concern with the satisfaction of his desires . ;According to the second thesis, rational deliberation has only the limited function of selecting effective means to satisfying one's desires. That is, rational deliberation does not involve the furnishing of the practical agent with new desires and goals, nor are his desires and goals susceptible to rational appraisal. The rationality of a person is a direct function of his capacity to select proper means for satisfying his desires: the more efficient the means, the more rational the person's conduct. The skeptical thrust of the second thesis amounts to the denial of intrinsic value to any desire or goal. ;My critical discussion of the instrumental conception is intended to show two things. First, the ultimate goal of humans cannot be identified solely with the satisfaction of desires; and second, reason is capable of doing more than just selecting efficient means for satisfying one's desires. The idea guiding my critical discussion of the instrumental conception is that personal values and ideals are susceptible to rational appraisal--an appraisal that contributes essentially to the conception of what it means to be rational. Indeed, this kind of appraisal is what carries us beyond instrumentalism. (shrink)

In this book it is argued that this picture of Feyerabend is false.

We consider first-order infinite-valued Łukasiewicz logic and its expansion, first-order rational Pavelka logic RPL∀. From the viewpoint of provability, we compare several Gentzen-type hypersequent calculi for these logics with each other and with Hájek’s Hilbert-type calculi for the same logics. To facilitate comparing previously known calculi for the logics, we define two new analytic calculi for RPL∀ and include them in our comparison. The key part of the comparison is a density elimination proof that introduces no cuts for one of (...) the hypersequent calculi considered. (shrink)

The logics RŁ, RP, and RG have been obtained by expanding Łukasiewicz logic Ł, product logic P, and Gödel–Dummett logic G with rational constants. We study the lattices of extensions and structural completeness of these three expansions, obtaining results that stand in contrast to the known situation in Ł, P, and G. Namely, RŁ is hereditarily structurally complete. RP is algebraized by the variety of rational product algebras that we show to be Q-universal. We provide a base of admissible rules (...) in RP, show their decidability, and characterize passive structural completeness for extensions of RP. Furthermore, structural completeness, hereditary structural completeness, and active structural completeness coincide for extensions of RP, and this is also the case for extensions of RG, where in turn passive structural completeness is characterized by the equivalent algebraic semantics having the joint embedding property. For nontrivial axiomatic extensions of RG, we provide a base of admissible rules. We leave the problem open whether the variety of rational Gödel algebras is Q-universal. (shrink)

Aesthetic testimony is not a source of knowledge; it is not even a source of rational belief. If, for example, Holly tells Harry that Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas is good, Harry cannot come to know or rationally believe that the film is good on the basis of Holly’s testimony alone. This chapter outlines a novel argument for this view, one which serves also to explain it. That argument appeals to four principles connecting rationality and reasons, reasons and values, belief (...) and affects, and beliefs about reasons and beliefs about value. The chapter motivates and defends each principle in turn, though the main aim is to show how together they cast doubt on the possibility of second-hand aesthetic knowledge. (shrink)

What can a moral realist say about why we should take morality seriously and about the relation between morality and rationality? I take off from Christine Korsgaard's criticism of moral realism on this score. The aim is to achieve an understanding of the relation between moral and rational properties and of the role of practical deliberation on a realist view. I argue that the justification for being concerned with rational and moral normative properties may not be an aspect of (...) our minds to which we have access. I argue against a view that gives automatic pride of place to the rational properties of our mind by drawing attention to valuable non-rational modes of thought such as creative, imaginative and instinctive thought. Thus the value of taking account of rationality is contingent on its benefits. But this is not why we should be taking account of morality. (shrink)

It’s plausible that we only fully appreciate the value of something, say a painting or a blameworthy action, when we have a fitting emotional response to it, such as admiration or guilt. But exactly how and why do we grasp value through emotion? I propose, first, that a subject S phenomenally grasps property P only if what it is to be P is manifest in the phenomenal character of S’s experience. Second, following clues from the Stoics, I argue (...) that the phenomenal character of emotional experience is constitutively linked with its having directive content. More precisely, emotional experience directs us both to adopt a maxim for action – take certain characteristic kinds of action for an emotion-specific end – and to treat something about the object as a presumptively decisive reason to take such action for such end. If we assent to what the experience proposes (or rational control gets bypassed), we are motivated to take the relevant action and have a corresponding evaluative belief. This picture of emotional cognition yields a natural conception of the evaluative fittingness conditions of emotions without the problematic assumption that they have a presentational phenomenology. Instead, it is precisely in virtue of the directive and valenced phenomenology of emotion that values are only fully manifest in emotional experience, since values are essentially action- and attitude-guiding properties. (shrink)

Balancing implies a comparison among goods, values, principles and rights that cannot be ranked on a single scale of measurement, ie there is no unequivocal measuring unit applicable to all of them. In such situations, it is common to state that one has to compare incommensurable things. Indeed, this issue has been mentioned by several authors as a strong reason in favour of abandoning balancing (and proportionality) as a rational form of judicial argumentation and decision-making. My article aims at arguing (...) that this objection is based on fallacious assumptions concerning the relations among three concepts: incommensurability, incomparability and balancing. Initially, what is at stake is the analysis of the connection between comparing values (or principles) and commensurability. The results of this initial analysis were then used to provide greater analytical strength to the specific debate on balancing and comparing rights in order to show that incommensurability does not imply incomparability and that rational decisions are possible even when incommensurable values are at stake. Since balancing (and proportionality) implies comparisons, and since constitutional principles are doubtlessly incommensurable (for there is no common metric to measure them), arguing for the comparability of incommensurable principles is an unavoidable step if one aims at demonstrating that balancing may be a rational procedure after all. (shrink)

Suppose that it is rational to choose or intend a course of action if and only if the course of action maximizes some sort of expectation of some sort of value. What sort of value should this definition appeal to? According to an influential neo-Humean view, the answer is “Utility”, where utility is defined as a measure of subjective preference. According to a rival neo-Aristotelian view, the answer is “Choiceworthiness”, where choiceworthiness is an irreducibly normative notion of a (...) course of action that is good in a certain way. The neo-Humean view requires preferences to be measurable by means of a utility function. Various interpretations of what exactly a “preference” is are explored, to see if there is any interpretation that supports the claim that a rational agent’s “preferences” must satisfy the “axioms” that are necessary for them to be measurable in this way. It is argued that the only interpretation that supports the idea that the rational agent’s preferences must meet these axioms interprets “preferences” as a kind of value-judgment. But this turns out to be version of the neo-Aristotelian view, rather than the neo-Humean view. Rational intentions maximize expected choiceworthiness, not expected utility. (shrink)

Personal autonomy is often lauded as a key value in contemporary Western bioethics. Though the claim that there is an important relationship between autonomy and rationality is often treated as uncontroversial in this sphere, there is also considerable disagreement about how we should cash out the relationship. In particular, it is unclear whether a rationalist view of autonomy can be compatible with legal judgments that enshrine a patient's right to refuse medical treatment, regardless of whether the reasons underpinning (...) the choice are known and rational, or indeed whether they even exist. Jonathan Pugh brings recent philosophical work on the nature of rationality to bear on the question of how we should understand personal autonomy in contemporary bioethics. In doing so, he develops a new framework for thinking about the concept of autonomy, one that is grounded in an understanding of the different roles that rational beliefs and rational desires have to play in it. Pugh's account allows for a deeper understanding of d the relationship between our freedom to act and our capacity to decide autonomously. His rationalist perspective is contrasted with other prominent accounts of autonomy in bioethics, and the revisionary implications it has for practical questions in biomedicine are also outlined. (shrink)

The reticulated model of scientific rationality includes the goal of the investigation, the method by which the goal is achieved, and the epistemic values needed to assess whether the goal was achieved by the applied method. I expand this model of rationality to include metaphysical assumptions and commitments that inform the origins of epistemic claims. I then explore the rational boundaries between the natural sciences and Christian theology in terms of goals, methods, and metaphysics. Finally, I discuss the (...) advantages and problems of exploring the rational boundaries between science and theology. (shrink)

There is a tension between normative and descriptive elements in the theory of rational belief. This tension has been reflected in work in psychology and decision theory as well as in philosophy. Canons of rationality should be tailored to what is humanly feasible. But rationality has normative content as well as descriptive content.A number of issues related to both deductive and inductive logic can be raised. Are there full beliefs – statements that are categorically accepted? Should statements be (...) accepted when they become overwhelmingly probable? What is the structure imposed on these beliefs by rationality? Are they consistent? Are they deductively closed? What parameters, if any, does rational acceptance depend on? How can accepted statements come to be rejected on new evidenceShould degrees of belief satisfy the probability calculus? Does conformity to the probability calculus exhaust the rational constraints that can be imposed on partial beliefs? With the acquisition of new evidence, should beliefs change in accord with Bayes' theorem? Are decisions made in accord with the principle of maximizing expected utility? Should they be?A systematic set of answers to these questions is developed on the basis of a probabilistic rule of acceptance and a conception of interval-valued logical probability according to which probabilities are based onknownfrequencies. This leads to limited deductive closure, a demand for only limited consistency, and the rejection of Bayes' theorem as universally applicable to changes of belief. It also becomes possible, given new evidence, to reject previously accepted statements. (shrink)

Technoscientific research, a kind of scientific research conducted within the decontextualized approach (DA), uses advanced technology to produce instruments, experimental objects, and new objects and structures, that enable us to gain knowledge of states of affairs of novel domains, especially knowledge about new possibilities of what we can do and make, with the horizons of practical, industrial, medical or military innovation, and economic growth and competition, never far removed from view. The legitimacy of technoscientific innovations can be appraised only in (...) the course of considering fully what sorts of objects technoscientific objects are: objects that embody scientific knowledge confirmed within DA; physical/chemical/biological objects, realizations of possibilities discovered in research conducted within DA, brought to realization by means of technical/experimental/instrumental interventions; and components of social/ecological systems, objects that embody the values of technological progress and (most of them) values of capital and the market. What technoscientific objects are - their powers, tendencies, sources of their being, effects on human beings and social/economic systems, how they differ from non technoscientific objects - cannot be grasped from technoscientific inquiry alone; scientific inquiry that is not reducible to that conducted within DA is also needed. The knowledge that underlies and explains the efficacy of technoscientific objects is never sufficient to grasp what sorts of object they are and could become. Science cannot be reduced to technoscience. (shrink)