Alternative food movements work to create more environmentally and economically sustainable food systems, but vary widely in their advocacy for social, racial and environmental justice. However, even those food justice activists explicitly dedicated to equity must respond to the unintended consequences of their work. This paper analyzes the work of activists in Oakland, CA, who have increasingly realized that their gardens, health food stores and farm-to-table restaurants play a role in what scholars have called green gentrification, the upscaling of neighborhoods (...) through the creation of environmental amenities. Gentrification has had grave consequences for the low-income communities of color that food justice activists seek to serve. Activists are reflexive about this dynamic, and have developed strategies to push back against displacement. Most commonly, non-profit organizations and individual social entrepreneurs found businesses that seek to raise the profile of people of color in the trendy Oakland food scene while employing long-term residents in well-paying, green jobs. However, while these efforts are an essential component of a broader agenda to create both food justice and development without displacement, even these relatively high paying “good food jobs” cannot keep up with escalating rents. For this reason, we also highlight the direct action and policy-oriented strategies engaged by a smaller number of food justice activists, and argue that these are necessary compliments to a market-based approach. (shrink)

A critical edition of "Tahdhīb Al-Akhlāq", a treatise ascribed to the Jacobite theologian, logician, and translator in Abbasid period, Yahya ibn Adi.

David Rosenthal and Josh Weisberg have recently provided a counter argument to Ned Block’s argument that a Higher Order Thought (HOT) theory of consciousness cannot accommodate the existence of hallucinatory conscious states (i.e. a conscious episode consisting of a HOT without the presence of a relevant lower order thought). Their counter argument invokes the idea of mental appearances: a non-existent intentional object which is to aid in an account of subjective conscious awareness. I argue that if mental appearances are (...) to do the work they are supposed to, we cannot draw a mental appearance/reality distinction. I provide an alternative story that a HOT theorist can invoke to account for cases of conscious misrepresentation. Such a story will require denying the existence of hallucinatory conscious states while still accounting for conscious misrepresentation. This is a cost I believe the HOT theorist should be willing to pay. (shrink)

An important objection to the "higher-order" theory of consciousness turns on the possibility of higher-order misrepresentation. I argue that the objection fails because it illicitly assumes a characterization of consciousness explicitly rejected by HO theory. This in turn raises the question of what justifies an initial characterization of the data a theory of consciousness must explain. I distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic characterizations of consciousness, and I propose several desiderata a successful characterization of consciousness must meet. I then defend the (...) particular extrinsic characterization of the HO theory, the "transitivity principle," against its intrinsic rivals, thereby showing that the misrepresentation objection conclusively falls short. (shrink)

The empirical success of particle physics rests largely on an approximation method: perturbation theory. Yet even within perturbative quantum field theory, there are a variety of different formulations. This variety teaches us that reformulating approximation methods can provide a tremendous source of progress in science. Along with enabling the solution of otherwise intractable problems, reformulations clarify what we need to know to obtain solutions, which can in turn make previously hidden properties manifest. To develop these lessons, I compare and contrast (...) three compatible formulations of perturbative QFT: (i) elementary perturbation theory, (ii) the method of Feynman diagrams, and (iii) a recent reformulation known as on-shell recursion. I propose and defend a novel account of what it means to ‘make a property manifest,’ based on the inferences that a formulation warrants. (shrink)

I want to join Dummett in saying that the reality of the past (and, by analogy, the reality of the future) is an issue of realism versus anti-realism: (Dummett 1969) If you affirm the reality of the past, you are a realist about the past. If you deny the reality of the past, you are an anti-realist about the past. (And likewise, in each case, for the future). It makes sense to think of these issues by analogy with realism about (...) the external world, unobservable objects, mathematical objects, universals, and so on. These are all properly described as ontological issues. (shrink)

Animal lovers who feed meat to other animals are faced with a paradox: perhaps fewer animals would be harmed if they stopped feeding the ones they love. Animal diets do not raise problems merely for individuals. To address environmental crises, health threats, and harm to animals, we must change our food systems and practices. And in these systems, animals, too, are eaters. -/- Looking beyond what humans should eat and whether to count animals as food, Just Fodder answers ethical and (...) political questions arising from thinking about animals as eaters. Josh Milburn begins with practical dilemmas about feeding the animals closest to us, our pets or animal companions. The questions grow more complicated as he considers relationships with more distance - questions about whether and how to feed garden birds, farmland animals who would eat our crops, and wild animals. Milburn evaluates the nature and circumstances of our relationships with animals to generate a novel theory of animal rights. -/- Looking past arguments about what we can and cannot do to other beings, Just Fodder asks what we can, should, and must do for them, laying out a fuller range of our ethical obligations to other animals. (shrink)

Cognitivism about imperatives is the thesis that sentences in the imperative mood are truth-apt: have truth values and truth conditions. This allows cognitivists to give a simple and powerful account of consequence relations between imperatives. I argue that this account of imperative consequence has counterexamples that cast doubt on cognitivism itself.

In this article, we analyse the role that artificial intelligence (AI) could play, and is playing, to combat global climate change. We identify two crucial opportunities that AI offers in this domain: it can help improve and expand current understanding of climate change, and it can contribute to combatting the climate crisis effectively. However, the development of AI also raises two sets of problems when considering climate change: the possible exacerbation of social and ethical challenges already associated with AI, and (...) the contribution to climate change of the greenhouse gases emitted by training data and computation-intensive AI systems. We assess the carbon footprint of AI research, and the factors that influence AI’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in this domain. We find that the carbon footprint of AI research may be significant and highlight the need for more evidence concerning the trade-off between the GHG emissions generated by AI research and the energy and resource efficiency gains that AI can offer. In light of our analysis, we argue that leveraging the opportunities offered by AI for global climate change whilst limiting its risks is a gambit which requires responsive, evidence-based, and effective governance to become a winning strategy. We conclude by identifying the European Union as being especially well-placed to play a leading role in this policy response and provide 13 recommendations that are designed to identify and harness the opportunities of AI for combatting climate change, while reducing its impact on the environment. (shrink)

Contributors to the literature on gamesmanship typically assume that gamesmanship can be clearly distinguished from other legal strategies used in sports. In this article, we argue that this is a m...

Josh Wilburn examines the relationship between Plato's views on psychology and his political philosophy. Focusing on his reflections on the spirited part of the tripartite soul, or thumos, and spirited motivation, he explores the social and political challenges that occupy Plato throughout his works.

Nevertheless, any competent speaker will know what it means. What explains our ability to understand sentences we have never before encountered? One natural hypothesis is that those novel sentences are built up out of familiar parts, put together in familiar ways. This hypothesis requires the backing hypothesis that English has a compositional semantic theory.

The buyer–supplier relationship is the nexus of the economic partnership of many commercial transactions and is founded upon the reciprocal trust of the two parties that participate in this economic exchange. In this article, we identify how six ethical elements play a key role in framing the buyer–supplier relationship, incorporating a model articulated by Hosmer (The ethics of management, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2008 ). We explain how trust is a behavior, the relinquishing of personal control in the expectant hope that (...) the other party will honor the duties of a psychological contract. Presenting information about six factors of organizational trustworthiness, we offer insights about the relationship between ethics and trust in the buyer–supplier relationship. (shrink)

Vague predicates are subject to forced-march sorites reasoning. Given a vague predicate Π, it is thus at least possible that there be a sequence of objects each of which is potentially predicable with Π meeting the following two conditions.

An argument is usually said to be valid iff it is truth-preserving—iff it cannot be that all its premises are true and its conclusion false. But imperatives (it is normally thought) are not truth-apt. They are not in the business of saying how the world is, and therefore cannot either succeed or fail in doing so. To solve this problem, we need to find a new criterion of validity, and I aim to propose such a criterion.

In his Paris Reportatio John Duns Scotus challenges ordinary views of identity and distinction. I argue that Scotus affirms that there is more than one type of identity: some forms of identity are...

The idea of ‘Western Philosophy’ is the product of a legitimation project for European colonialism, through to post-second world war Pan-European identity formation and white supremacist projects. Thus argues Ben Kies (1917-1979), a South African public intellectual, schoolteacher, trade unionist, and activist-theorist. In his 1953 address to the Teachers’ League of South Africa, The Contribution of the Non-European Peoples to World Civilisation, Kies became one of the first people to argue explicitly that there is no such thing as ‘Western philosophy’. (...) In this paper, I introduce Kies as a new figure in the historiography of philosophy with important insights, relevant today. I outline his three key arguments: that ‘Western Philosophy’ is the product of political mythmaking, that it is a recent, largely mid-twentieth century fabrication, and that there is an alternative to ‘Histories of Western Philosophy’, namely ‘mixed’ or entangled histories. I show that Kies’ claims are supported both by contemporary scholarship and bibliometric analysis. I thus argue that Kies is right to claim that the idea of a distinctive, hermetically sealed ‘Western Philosophy’ is a recent, political fabrication and should be abandoned. We should instead develop global, entangled historiography to make sense of philosophy and its history today. (shrink)

Through real-life scenarios and practical illustrations, the authors address complex ethical dilemmas to everyday moral decisions. Learn to make moral choices based on God's love and His absolute truth.

When you have ruled everything else out, then what you are left with, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. This adage from Doyle describes the path taken by Leopold Stubenberg in his book, Consciousness and Qualia. He spends most of the work critically examining and then discarding potential explications of consciousness before finally, in the last chapter, offering his own theory, carefully selected to avoid the pitfalls that did in rival accounts. He delivers a bold and simple slogan (...) that distills the essence of his view: “To be conscious is to have qualia” (262). (shrink)

This paper offers a critique of the “democratic state of education” proposed by Amy Gutmann in her influential book Democratic Education. In the democratic state of education, educational authority is shared among the state, parents and educational professionals; and educational objectives are geared toward equipping future citizens to participate in what Gutmann calls “conscious social reproduction”—the collective shaping of the future of society through democratic deliberation. Although I agree with some of Gutmann’s broad recommendations for civic education, I have misgivings (...) about the centrality that she gives to conscious social reproduction in her theory of education. I argue that in focusing so intently on the facilitation of conscious social reproduction, Gutmann’s theory makes insufficient room for the basic interests of individual children, and in particular, their prospective interest in autonomy. Gutmann’s considered position on sex education policy—specifically, her willingness to allow local communities to deny their children access to sex education—exemplifies the shortcomings of her theory. Ultimately, her democratic state of education fails to acknowledge the fundamental moral importance of individual flourishing, and the contribution that education can and should make to it. (shrink)

Arguments from fission cases, most notably made by Parfit, have historically been utilized in discussions of Everettian quantum mechanics (EQM) in an attempt to illuminate details of familiar accounts in which an agent ‘splits’. Whilst such imagery is often seen as an innocuous depiction of Everett's theory, it is in fact a poisoned chalice. I argue firstly that the fission case analogy is responsible for the conceptual foundations of probability arguments in EQM and secondly, following a number of disanalogies between (...) fission cases and Everettian branching, I argue that the analogy is unfounded. I conclude that much of the discussion of the probability problem over the past 20 years has been predicated on a problematic analogy and its effects are still apparent today. (shrink)

Explanatory Optimism about the Hard Problem of Consciousness argues that despite the worries of explanatory pessimists, consciousness can be fully explained in “easy” scientific terms. The widespread intuition that consciousness poses a hard problem is plausibly based on how consciousness appears to us in first-person access. The book offers a debunking argument to undercut the justificatory link between the first-person appearances and our hard problem intuitions. -/- The key step in the debunking argument involves the development and defense of an (...) empirical model of first-person access: Automated Compression Theory (ACT). ACT holds that first-person access to consciousness is accomplished by automated accessing of compressed sensory information. Because of the distorting nature of this compressed access, it seems to subjects that consciousness possesses “exceptional” properties—properties leading to the hard problem—even though no such properties are present. If there are no exceptional properties to explain, then an explanation in easy terms can fully account for conscious experience. The book presents a range of empirical evidence for ACT and concludes that the burden of proof is now on the pessimists to show why we shouldn’t be optimistic about explaining consciousness. (shrink)

Modern payment cards encompass a bewildering array of consumer technologies, from credit and debit cards to stored-value and loyalty cards. But what unites all of these financial media is their connection to recordkeeping systems. Each swipe sends data hurtling through invisible infrastructures to verify accounts, record purchase details, exchange funds, and update balances. With payment cards, banks and merchants have been able to amass vast archives of transactional data. This information is a valuable asset in itself. It can be used (...) for in-house data analytics programs or sold as marketing intelligence to third parties. This research examines the development of payment cards in the United States from the late 19th century to present, drawing attention to their fundamental relationship to identification, recordkeeping, and data mining. The history of payment cards, I argue, is not just a history of financial innovation and computing; it is also a history of Big Data and consumer surveillance. This history, moreover, provides insight into the growth of transactional data and the datafication of money in the digital economy. (shrink)

In a series of papers, Donald Davidson :3–17, 1984, The philosophical grounds of rationality, 1986, Midwest Stud Philos 16:1–12, 1991) developed a powerful argument against the claim that linguistic conventions provide any explanatory purchase on an account of linguistic meaning and communication. This argument, as I shall develop it, turns on cases of what I call lexical innovation: cases in which a speaker uses a sentence containing a novel expression-meaning pair, but nevertheless successfully communicates her intended meaning to her audience. (...) I will argue that cases of lexical innovation motivate a dynamic conception of linguistic conventions according to which background linguistic conventions may be rapidly expanded to incorporate new word meanings or shifted to revise the meanings of words already in circulation. I argue that this dynamic account of conventions both resolves the problem raised by cases of lexical innovation and that it does so in a way that is preferable to those who—like Davidson—deny important explanatory roles for linguistic conventions. (shrink)

Science frequently gives us multiple, compatible ways of solving the same problem or formulating the same theory. These compatible formulations change our understanding of the world, despite providing the same explanations. According to what I call "conceptualism," reformulations change our understanding by clarifying the epistemic structure of theories. I illustrate conceptualism by analyzing a typical example of symmetry-based reformulation in chemical physics. This case study poses a problem for "explanationism," the rival thesis that differences in understanding require ontic explanatory differences. (...) To defend conceptualism, I consider how prominent accounts of explanation might accommodate this case study. I argue that either they do not succeed, or they generate a skeptical challenge. (shrink)

At the outset of the Republic, Polemarchus advances the bold thesis that “justice is the art which gives benefit to friends and injury to enemies”. He quickly rejects the hypothesis, and what follows is a long tradition of neglecting the ethics of enmity. The parallel issue of how friendship affects the moral sphere has, by contrast, been greatly illuminated by discussions both ancient and contemporary. This article connects this existing work to the less explored topic of the normative significance of (...) our negative relationships. I explain how negative partiality should be conceptualized through reference to the positive analogue, and argue that at least some forms of negative partiality are justified. I further explore the connection between positive and negative relationships by showing how both are justified by ongoing histories of encounter. However, I also argue that these relationships are in some important ways asymmetrical. (shrink)

In my (2004), I argued that it is possible to drink any finite amount of alcohol without ever suffering a hangover by completing a certain kind of supertask. Assume that a drink causes drunkenness to ensue immediately and to last for a period proportional to the quantity of alcohol consumed; that a hangover begins immediately at the time the drunkenness ends and lasts for the same length of time as the drunkenness; and that at any time during which you are (...) drunk you do not suffer any hangover you might have at that time. Starting at a time at which you are not drunk and not hung over, drink a half pint of beer. Wait until you are just about to get a hangover (30 minutes, say), and then drink a quarter pint. Wait until you are just about to get a hangover again, and then drink an eighth, and so on.... After an hour you have drunk a pint, and you do not have a hangover. Every hangover you incurred happened within the hour you spent drinking; but you were drunk that whole time, so you didn’t suffer the hangovers. It seems that the old drunkard’s method of a “hair of the dog” can be effective in completely avoiding a hangover. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a novel answer to the Special Composition Question. In some respects it agrees with brutalism about composition; in others with universalism. The main novel feature of this answer is the insight I think it gives into what the debate over the Special Composition Question is about.

I discuss a problem for modal realism raised by John Divers and others. I argue that the problem is real enough but that Divers’ “advanced modalising” solution is inadquate. The problem can only be solved by 1) holding that modal realism is only contingently true, 2) embracing a kind of Meinongianism about ontological commitment, or 3) abandoning the project of “analysing modality”.

• The Static Conception of Semantics (Preliminary Version): A semantic theory should assign a proposition, conceived of as some carrier of meaning that can play the role of truth condition determination, to each (or at least each declarative) sentence.

Interpreters of Robert Nozick’s political philosophy fall into two broad groups concerning his application of the ‘Lockean proviso’. Some read his argument in an undemanding way: individual instances of ownership which make people worse off than they would have been in a world without any ownership are unjust. Others read the argument in a demanding way: individual instances of ownership which make people worse off than they would have been in a world without that particular ownership are unjust. While I (...) argue that the former reading is correct as an interpretive matter, I suggest that this reading is nonetheless highly demanding. In particular, I argue that it is demanding when it is expanded to include the protection of nonhuman animals; if such beings are right bearers, as more and more academics are beginning to suggest, then there is no nonarbitrary reason to exclude them from the protection of the proviso. (shrink)

Reformulating a scientific theory often leads to a significantly different way of understanding the world. Nevertheless, accounts of both theoretical equivalence and scientific understanding have neglected this important aspect of scientific theorizing. This essay provides a positive account of how reformulation changes our understanding. My account simultaneously addresses a serious challenge facing existing accounts of scientific understanding. These accounts have failed to characterize understanding in a way that goes beyond the epistemology of scientific explanation. By focusing on cases in which (...) we have differences in understanding without differences in explanation, I show that understanding does not reduce to explanation. (shrink)

This paper examines the success of corporate communication in voluntary sustainability reporting. Existing studies have focused on the perspective of the communicators but lack an understanding of the perspective of information recipients to clearly evaluate this interactive communication process. This paper looks at the issue of a credibility gap perceived by external stakeholders when they doubt the authenticity of communicated information due to the reporting company’s governance structure. The paper uses family businesses to exemplify the emergence of such a gap (...) when outsiders become concerned about the potential agency problem of the integrated ownership and management controlled by a few members of the same family. Following source credibility theory, these concerns raise a credibility gap associated with a family firm’s trustworthiness and goodwill, even if the family has the expertise to carry out sustainability reporting. The findings of two experimental studies indicate that family businesses suffer a greater credibility gap than non-family businesses. An external and independent assurance service can mitigate such gaps, especially when the service is comprehensive and targets family businesses. The paper provides a complete view evaluating corporate communication by looking at the interaction between the communicating company and the information recipients. (shrink)

Günümüzde hızla yayılan, insanların hayat kalitesini ve mutluluğunu olumsuz olarak etkileyen yalnızlık, özellikle Amerika ve Avrupa’da en önemli toplumsal sorunlardan birine dönüşmüştür. İngiltere’de yalnızlıktan sorumlu bakanlık kurulmasına kadar varan bu olgunun, Türkiye’de özellikle genç nesli temsil eden üniversite öğrencilerinde ne düzeyde olduğu, bu araştırmanın temel araştırma konularından birini oluşturmaktadır. Bu araştırma, Ordu üniversitesinin değişik fakültelerinde öğrenim gören 416 öğrenci örneklemi üzerinde yürütülmüştür. Anket formunda; UCLA yalnızlık ölçeği, dini başa çıkma ve hayat memnuniyeti ölçekleri kullanılmıştır. Ayrıca katılımcıların bireysel dindarlık algıları ve (...) sosyal medya kullanım düzeylerini belirlemeye yönelik sorular oluşturulmuştur. SPSS istatistik programıyla yapılan analizler sonucunda; dindarlık algısı ile yalnızlık, olumsuz dini başa çıkma, sosyal medyada görünürlük düzeyi ve kullanılan sosyal medya sayısı arasında negatif yönde; dindarlıkla olumlu dini başa çıkma arasında ise pozitif yönde bir ilişki tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca öznel dindarlık algısı cinsiyet üzerinde farklılığa açmazken, hayat memnuniyeti üzerinde farklılığa yol açtığı anlaşılmıştır. Yalnızlık ile olumlu dini başa çıkma, hayat memnuniyeti ve mesajlaşma arasında negatif yönde ilişki ve etkileşim tespit edilirken, hayat memnuniyeti ile olumlu dini başa çıkma arasında pozitif, olumsuz dini başa çıkma arasında negatif yönde ilişki ve etkileşimin varlığı bulgulanmıştır. Bu çalışma birçok değişkenin birbiri ile ilişki ve etkileşimini ele alması bakımından önemlidir. (shrink)

The possibility of “clean milk”—dairy produced without the need for cows—has been championed by several charities, companies, and individuals. One can ask how those critical of the contemporary dairy industry, including especially vegans and others sympathetic to animal rights, should respond to this prospect. In this paper, I explore three kinds of challenges that such people may have to clean milk: first, that producing clean milk fails to respect animals; second, that humans should not consume dairy products; and third, that (...) the creation of clean milk would affirm human superiority over cows. None of these challenges, I argue, gives us reason to reject clean milk. I thus conclude that the prospect is one that animal activists should both welcome and embrace. (shrink)

The following quotation, from Frank Jackson, is the beginning of a typical exposition of the debate between those metaphysicians who believe in temporal parts, and those who do not: The dispute between three-dimensionalism and four-dimensionalism, or more precisely, that part of the dispute we will be concerned with, concerns what persistence, and correllatively, what change, comes to. Three-dimensionalism holds that an object exists at a time by being wholly present at that time, and, accordingly, that it persists if it is (...) wholly present at more than one time. For short, it persists by enduring. Four-dimensionalism holds that an object exists at a time by having a temporal part at that time, and it persists if it has distinct temporal parts at more than one time. For short, it persists by perduring. In the light of these comments, some readers will perhaps find the question that forms the title of this paper a little puzzling. They may have learned to use the terms ‘fourdimensionalism’ ‘perdurantism’ and ‘belief in temporal parts’ interchangeably; or perhaps even to define one in terms of the other. Such a usage, however, is inapposite. We might imagine a Flatland-like world of two spatial dimensions and one temporal, whose philosophers are divided between a theory of persistence on which they persist by having temporal parts, and a theory on which they persist by being wholly located in each of several times. This is just the same issue we face, but at least the label ‘four-dimensionalism’ seems inapposite: the four-dimensionalist Flatlanders believe in only three dimensions! (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that certain injustices faced by mentally disabled persons are epistemic injustices by drawing upon epistemic injustice literature, especially as it is developed by Miranda Fricker. First, I explain the terminology and arguments developed by Fricker, Gaile Pohlhaus, Jr., and Kristie Dotson that are useful in theorizing epistemic injustices against mentally disabled people. Second, I consider some specific cases of epistemic injustice to which mentally disabled persons are subject. Third, I turn to a discussion of severely (...) mentally disabled persons who, because they are unable to share information or develop interpretations of shared social experiences, may fall outside Fricker’s discussion of epistemic injustice. Fourth and finally, following arguments given by Kristie Dotson and Christopher Hookway, I define and explain a type of epistemic injustice: intimate hermeneutical injustice that I believe supplements other discussions of epistemic injustice. (shrink)