Charles Taylor is one of the leading living philosophers. In this book Arto Laitinen studies and develops further Taylor's philosophical views on human agency, personhood, selfhood and identity. He defends Taylor's view that our ethical understandings of values play a central role. The book also develops and defends Taylor's form of value realism as a view on the nature of ethical values, or values in general. The book criticizes Taylor's view that God, Nature or Human Reason are possible constitutive sources (...) of value – Laitinen argues that we should drop the whole notion of a constitutive source. (shrink)

This essay pursues the development of Charles Taylor’s concept of “strong evaluation” from his first publications on this topic until his most recent uses of the concept. Because Taylor employs strong evaluation in discussions of philosophical anthropology, ethics, phenomenology, and ontology all in one, it has been understood in a variety of ways. To clarify his strategy, the analysis gradually progresses beyond strong evaluation to the more fundamental question of the relation between philosophical anthropology, (...) ethics, phenomenology, and ontology in Taylor’s writings. It concludes that Taylor’s reasoning especially deserves further investigation with regard to the ontological implications of strong evaluation. (shrink)

In this chapter I discuss Taylor’s claim that strong evaluation is inevitable for human agency: without a framework of strong evaluations human agents would be in a crisis which Taylor calls, perhaps misleadingly, “an identity crisis”. With a broad brush I introduce some of the essential background in first three sections, and scrutinize the inevitability of strong evaluation more closely in the last three sections. I introduce first the distinction between the engaged perspective, which in (...) Taylor’s view provides the correct approach to humans and values, and two kinds of disengaged perspectives (objectivist and subjectivist ones) (2.1). Taylor’s ideal typical distinction (engaged and disengaged) resembles Sellars’s (1963) distinction between manifest and scientific image, but Taylor takes the scientific worldview to be only one objectivist variant of disengaged views: the Cartesian view of mind is detached from the lifeworldly reality, and is a variant of a subjectivist disengaged view. There are many aspects to Taylor’s philosophical anthropology, based on such an engaged perspective. He defends many “human constants” related to humans as social, self-interpreting, embodied language animals. Although here the focus is merely on one of the human constants, namely on the claim that humans are essentially strong evaluators, I give a sketchy account of the essentials of the broader picture in section 2.2. Taylor uses transcendental argumentation in trying to show the inescapability of strong evaluation in human life. I will, following Nicholas Smith’s reconstruction, discuss Taylor’s reasons for adopting such argumentative strategy in relation to this issue, as opposed to socalled ordinary language philosophy, phenomenological description, hermeneutical interpretation, or strict Hegelian dialectics (2.3). The central point is that although we may want to stress the hermeneutical or interpretive nature of being-in-the-world, and the constitutive nature of human self-interpretations, the few human constants are true whether explicitly taken to be true or not: humans are self-interpreting animals, or strong evaluators, even though they may hold opposing theories in their self-interpretations (cf. Abbey 2000, 4). In a sense, Taylor’s label for his claim, which he terms a “transcendental argument”, may seem to make heavy weather of a simple point: without strong evaluation those aspects of life and experience which presuppose strong evaluation would not be possible. These aspects of life include more or less everything that is peculiarly human. The arguments try to bring into focus these dependencies: strong evaluations are inescapable for our lives as humans or as persons, as opposed to “mere” animals. To be fully outside the scope of strong evaluation is to be in a pathological state. Various disengaged theories of humans neglect this. These are theories of human agency, subjectivity, personhood or identity which have ignored this dimension of human life, or have not taken it to be essential. Taylor’s arguments are directed against such views. In this chapter I will clarify the nature of Taylor’s argument by distinguishing different concepts (human agency, personhood, subjectivity, selfhood, and identity) and asking what it is exactly that strong evaluation is necessary for (2.4). The notions of personhood and identity will be discussed in more detail in the next two chapters. The crucial point in Taylor’s argumentation is made by the claim that for someone capable of strong evaluation, the lack of a framework of strong evaluations involves them in a terrible, frightening crisis, an identity-crisis. I will distinguish several meanings of this claim and discuss their validity in 2.5. I suggest that some “identity-crises” are not at all what Taylor has in mind. But the point itself is valid: without a framework of strong evaluations, human agents would be in a state of crisis. In the last section, I defend Taylor’s view against possible counterexamples, posed by Owen Flanagan and Paul Johnston. (shrink)

This paper aims to come to grips with the rich philosophy of Charles Taylor by focusing on his concept of ‘strong evaluation’. I argue that a close examination of this term brings out more clearly the continuing tensions in his writings as a whole. I trace back the origin of strong evaluation in Taylor’s earliest writings, and continue by laying out the different philosophical themes that revolve around it. Next, the focus is on the separate arguments (...) in which strong evaluation is central, uncovering several methodological conflicts in Taylor’s strategies. Arguing against most of his commentators, I suggest that a distinction should be drawn between the philosophical anthropological, moral, and ontological implications of strong evaluation. As a result, the contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it clarifies the issue of strong evaluation by distinguishing the different arguments in which Taylor employs the concept. Second, it makes the case for multiple tensions within Taylor’s methods. Third, as a consequence, this analysis not only enables us to evaluate the potential and limits of his subject-centered philosophy but also separates his objectivist claims from his theories of human subjectivity, opening up the question of the metaphysical status of his ontological view. (shrink)

This is the introductory chapter to a book. This study has two parts. The first part concerns some central concepts in philosophical anthropology and the second part some of the central questions in ethics. One of today’s leading philosophers, Charles Taylor (b. 1931), suggests with his notion of “strong evaluation” that these two areas should be studied in tandem: the self and the good are interrelated, and the nature of persons is intertwined with the nature of values.1 (...) class='Hi'>Strong evaluations, i. e. value-judgements and convictions, or “evaluations based on qualitative distinctions concerning worth”, are in Taylor’s view internally related to identity and human agency. The questions I ask in this study are, first, what exactly is strong evaluation and what is its role in relation to human agency, personhood, identity, selfhood and subjectivity? Secondly, can a moral theory be developed, which is realist concerning strong evaluations and yet rejects Taylor’s idea of constitutive “sources” of morality? The goal is first of all to defend the general relevance of strong evaluation in philosophical anthropology and to make contributions to more specific ongoing debates (concerning personhood and identity). Secondly, the goal is to argue that a realist moral theory need not rely on anything that Taylor calls moral sources or constitutive goods, and to outline such a “source-less” theory (which I call “engaged value realism”) and in so doing to contribute to various specific questions of practical philosophy (for example concerning cultural diversity, universality and validity; subject-dependence, subject-independence and reality of values; the nature of individual orientations, commitments and general goods). (shrink)

This paper examines Charles Taylor’s claim that personal identity is a matter of strong evaluations. Strong evaluations are in this paper analyzed as stable preferences, which are strongly identified with and which are based on qualitative distinctions concerning the non-instrumental value of options. In discussing the role of strong evaluations in personal identity, the focus is on "self-identity", not on the criteria of personhood or on the logical relation of identity. Two senses of self-identity can be distinguished: (...) identity as practical orientation and identity as self-definition in a more encompassing sense. The former consists of one’s strong evaluations only, the latter is a more comprehensive notion, in which strong evaluations have a double role. Strong evaluations are first of all directly a constituent of self-definitions, and secondly, self-definition with respect to other features proceeds in the light of the strong evaluations. (shrink)

What is the relationship of “strong evaluation” and self-identity? What exactly is personal identity? Does identity consist of interpretations or facts? Do strong evaluations have a constitutive role in identity-formation? If there is no given individual essence or true self waiting to be found, but identity is dialogically construed in self-interpretation, then can identities be criticized at all, when there is no pre-given true self, which would serve as the basis of criticism? I follow Charles Taylor in (...) defending an interpretational and evaluational conception of self-identity, but I hope to be more precise in distinguishing several meanings of “identity” and correspondingly several different roles that strong evaluation has for identity in different senses. Further, I try to show that identities are criticizable despite the lack of pre-given essences. I will first differentiate between various meanings of identity: idem-identity, ipse-identity, collective identity and species identity (4.1). Then I take a closer look at ipse-identity in four different meanings: practical identity, biographical identity, qualitative identity and “singularity” (4.2). This survey tries to capture the most important meanings of the concept, but the concept of identity is used in philosophy, social psychology and human sciences in so many different ways that a comprehensive survey is probably impossible. However, this survey may help to sort out what sense of identity is relevant for strong evaluation, or for what “identities” strong evaluations are crucial. Having distinguished these several meanings, I turn to the formation of identity in self-interpretations. Charles Taylor has been (wrongly) accused of presupposing a pre-political identity that persons or groups are supposed to have, and for which they want recognition. That would overlook the way in which identities are constituted dialogically, and in interpretations. I will defend the view that personal identity is a matter of self-interpretation, and collective identity is a matter of collective selfinterpretations. While dialogues and recognition by others plays a crucial role in the formation of one’s identity, the views of others are not directly constitutive of a person’s identity, unless the contents are known or accepted by the person herself. Being a person or a self is an active business. Having a self in a fullfledged sense means having a conception of oneself, and having conceptions is an active business. People don’t have beliefs like things have properties. As Sellars (1963) has stressed, the relation of two mental episodes has to be normative if it is to count as knowledge; it cannot be merely causal. And as the “transcendental tradition” from Kant onwards has stressed, being a subject is not merely a matter of having mental contents (which could possibly be caused by the world) but being aware of the reality, taking the mental contents to be about the world.144 In addition to normativity and intentionality, the activity of self-defining is one aspect of the spontaneous activity of the subject. One’s self-identity does not rest simply on having features, but on one’s activity, on identification with some actual or possible features. In this sense, everyone’s identity is self-made. The point in saying this is not to overlook the cultural and social mediations that are intertwined in this self-definition, but to stress the fact that one’s identity is not a matter of natural features. Self-identity is a tentative result of an ongoing process of self-interpretation. Depending on the precise meaning of self-identity, strong evaluation has a more or less central role (4.3). In the last section I ask whether identities can be criticized, or whether (in the absence of pre-given true selves) self-interpretations are the ultimate “court of appeal” not only in the sense of what constitutes identity, but also in questions about their ethical and existential worth, or coherence, or authenticity or epistemic adequacy. I hope to show that self-interpretations stand open for criticism in these respects, even though self-interpretations are directly constitutive of one’s identity (4.4). (shrink)

The problem of public consultation over the allocation of health care resources is addressed by considering the role that quality of life measures, such as QALYs and the Nottingham Health Profile, could play. Such measures are typically grounded in social surveys, and as such may reflect public preferences for health care priorities. Using Charles Taylor's concepts of “weak” and “strong” evaluation, it is suggested that current quality of life measures are inadequate, insofar as they typically presuppose that survey (...) respondents are mere “weak evaluators”, who express only inarticulate preferences. Respondents may, conversely, be understood as strong evaluators, with deeper visions of human nature and the good life informing their health preferences. Space is then created for such respondents to be asked to defend their preferences, and so be encouraged to reflect critically and publicly on the beliefs and prejudices that ground their view of health care priorities. (shrink)

One of the central concepts in Charles Taylor’s philosophy is that of strong evaluation. What is strong evaluation? The crucial idea is that human relations to the world, to self and to others are value-laden. In the first subsection the central features of the concept of strong evaluation are discussed, namely qualitative distinctions concerning worth and the role of strong evaluation for identity. The nature of strong evaluations both as background understandings (...) and explicit judgements is clarified. It is also claimed that strong evaluation is not precisely a matter of second-order desires, but of evaluative beliefs. In subsection 1.2, some additional and less central characterizations are scrutinized: contingent conflicts, articulacy, discriminacy, reflectivity, depth. The claim is that most of these are not criterial for the distinction between strong and weak evaluations. In the third subsection various criticisms are taken up (from Ernst Tugendhat, Jurgen Habermas, Owen Flanagan, Joel Anderson), which are relevant for defining strong evaluations and assessing the role strong evaluation has in ethics. The terminological solutions are here connected to substantive issues in moral theory. I will defend Taylor against three aspects of a Kantian critique that the notion of strong evaluation is too broad, and overlooks crucial distinctions. Should one distinguish between moral and other values more clearly? Should one distinguish between categorical and optional goods more sharply? Should one distinguish between the whole “moral map” and one’s own orientation more clearly? I think these are indeed essential questions, but they are to be answered within the realm of qualitative distinctions concerning worth. The Kantian attempts to segregate one type of issue as involving strong evaluation and another type of issue as not involving it are misguided. In the fourth subsection I put forward three critical claims in an attempt to show that the notion of strong evaluation as Taylor defines it is too narrow (or at least ambivalent about how narrow it is). These critiques are inspired by more comprehensives approaches to ethics (e. g. by Joseph Raz or Paul Ricoeur). First, is strong evaluation restricted strictly to second-order self-evaluation (as some formulations by Taylor seem to suggest), or does it cover value-judgement in general (as some other formulations by Taylor seem to suggest)? In the broad sense, strong evaluations also include first-order judgements made in various different situations, and background commitments to goods. I suggest that the broad sense be adopted. Second, how does the distinction between strong and weak evaluations relate to “small” values? Third, can self-evaluation succeed without the deontic layer of reasons and norms and if not, does the concept of strong evaluation cover that as well? I defend a different line from Taylor on the issues of small values and the deontic realm. This will lead to a suggestion of “strong evaluation in an extended sense”. (shrink)

In this chapter I pursue the connection between humans as strong evaluators and humans as strongly valued. The connection is, quite simply, that strong evaluators are valued because they are strong evaluators. Yet, this valuing is of two kinds: someone’s achievements as a strong evaluator can be esteemed, or he can be respected as a person. Personhood is a specific kind of moral status, but it is based on personhood in the descriptive sense. Taylor’s views on (...) persons can be seen as trying to incorporate the Kantian view of the dignity or worth of persons to the more Aristotelian- Hegelian ontology. The distinction between moral and descriptive personhood, and between two senses in which personhood is an “end” serves as an introduction to this theme (3.1). In 3.2 I will ask what the nature of persons is in the descriptive sense. I try to outline and clarify Taylor’s position in relation to some central positions in the contemporary discussions about personhood. I do not argue in detail against rival views about descriptive personhood, I merely hope to map some issues in rough outline. My goal in defending Taylor’s position is modest, I hope that merely stating the position clearly shows some of its appeals. The main point is that persons are certain kind of agents, machines could become persons only through becoming living beings first. The most fundamental idea in Taylor’s view of personhood is that of living responsively and dialogically in a world, which is a “moral space” or a “space of concerns”. Machines do not have a world, and the world of other animals is not a moral space. Taylor’s persons are strong evaluators and respondents, being moved by the world and the other people, and being responsible for their own action. So in this sense one can agree with Jeff Sugarman’s (2005, 809) way of summing it up: “not only are persons at the center of moral inquiry, but also, as Taylor’s work reveals, moral inquiry is at the center of personhood”. In 3.3 I discuss different ways of seeing the basis of the moral status of persons, and defend the direct view: moral personhood is directly grounded in descriptive personhood. (Thus various other options I discuss are “mute formalism”, arbitrary historicism, status-view, instrumentalism and desert-view). In sections 3.4 and 3.5 I ask whether such a suggestion works for those humans, who (at the moment) are not actual persons in the full sense. I further strengthen Taylor’s view and defend it against Feinberg’s criticism. (shrink)

The paper examines the connection between identity crisis and Charles Taylor’s concept of strong evaluation. The latter is construed as one of the fundamental characteristics of human identity. It is argued that in the absence the ability of strong evaluation a specific form of identity crisis occurs. The main objective of the paper is to show the necessity of strong evaluation for “healthy identity” and for human capability “to cure” the identity already in crisis.

Background: Why nurses remain in the profession is a complex question. However, strong values can be grounds for their remaining, meaning nurses evaluate the qualitative worth of different desires and distinguish between senses of what is a good life. Research question: The overall aim is to explore and argue the relevance of strong evaluations for remaining in the nursing profession. Research design: This theoretical article based on a hermeneutical approach introduces the concept strong evaluations as described by (...) the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and provides examples of nurses’ experiences in everyday nursing care drawn from a Norwegian empirical study. Participants and research context: Data collected in the original study consisted of qualitative interviews and qualitative follow-up interviews with 13 nurses. The research context was the primary and secondary somatic and psychiatric health service, inside as well as outside institutions. Ethical consideration: The article uses data from an original empirical study approved by the Norwegian Social Science Data Services. Information was given and consent obtained from the participants. Findings: Remaining in the nursing profession can be understood as revolving around being a strong evaluator. This has been concretized in issues of being aware of different incidents in life and having capacities as a nurse. Discussion: Why nurses remain is discussed in relation to how nurses have shaped themselves by reflecting on what is of significance in their life. However, being a strong evaluator cannot be seen as the casual condition for remaining. Conclusion: Remaining in the nursing profession is obviously not a contingent matter, rather it is a matter concerned with the qualitative worth of different desires and values. Nurses’ awareness of a life choice impacts on whether they remain or not. Consequently, nurses may need to articulate and reflect on their priorities for remaining. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive critical account of Taylor’s writings, and argues that a close examination of his central concept of “strong evaluation” reveals both the potential of and the tensions in his entire thinking.

In “Missing the Forest for the Trees: Aduhelm, Accelerated Approvals & the Agency,” Dr. Matthew Herder argues that agency capture and politicized discretion drive delays in confirmatory trials of accelerated approval drugs amongst other concerns at US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In highlighting this important problem and offering nuanced insight into agency workings based in part on interviews with twenty-three unnamed FDA officials and a three-drug case study, Dr. Herder suggests two innovative solutions. However, amidst broader debates balancing agency (...) expertise, data, and delegation, these proposed policy solutions would benefit from more corroborative evidence and consideration of institutional advantages within constitutional limits. (shrink)

Evaluative Semantics proposes a strongly postmodernist theory of cognition, ideology and discourse in which the structure and internal consistency of ideology resemble those of evaluative knowledge of the mind. The strength of this book is that it goes beyond purely theoretical claims to propose an original connectionist model of evaluative interpretation. Malrieu's new semantics makes a unique contribution to the literature of cognitive science, linguistics, and discourse analysis.

The Strong Content View is re-evaluated in this chapter in light of earlier conclusions. It is found that the previous conclusions defended in the book do not warrant endorsing it.

ABSTRACT Recently, the hypothesis that purely evaluative disputes are metalinguistic negotiations has gained traction. I resist a strong version of that hypothesis, and argue that some of those disputes are not metalinguistic negotiations. To defend that claim, I argue that metalinguistic negotiations have three linguistic properties that some purely evaluative disputes lack. First, in a metalinguistic negotiation it is felicitous to embed the dispute-initial statement under the subjective attitude verb consider; second, a speaker can reply to that initial statement (...) by using a metalinguistic comparative; and, third, such negotiations address metalinguistic questions under discussion. Some purely evaluative disputes lack these properties, which suggests that they are not metalinguistic negotiations. (shrink)

Large-scale land acquisition (LaSLA) in developing countries is discussed controversially in both the media as well as academia: Opponents point to negative social and environmental consequences. By contrast, proponents conceive of LaSLA as much needed investment into the formerly neglected agricultural sector. This contribution aims at analyzing LaSLA’s environmental dimension against the background of strong sustainability. To this end, I will first introduce sustainable development as a normative concept based on claims for intra- and intergenerational justice. Subsequently, I will (...) argue in favor of a conception of strong sustainability and employ this conception in developing guidelines for the sustainable handling of natural capital. By outlining the main drivers and consequences of LaSLA, the contribution hopes to demonstrate that proponents conceive of LaSLA as a potential solution to several sustainability problems, notably answering growing worldwide demand for agricultural commodities by increasing agricultural yields, substituting agrofuels for fossil fuels and providing acreage for offsetting carbon emissions. Against this background I argue that if LaSLA causes environmental externalities, it actually increases the problems it is supposed to resolve. Thereby, I develop sustainability criteria in regard to LaSLA’s environmental consequences. (shrink)

In previous research, studies on motivated correction in the evaluation of branded products are rare. This experimental study with 246 participants examined how the motivation to correct the impact of brand knowledge influences the product evaluation of actual strong and weak brands in low and high involvement situations. As predicted, asymmetry between the strong and weak brands was observed. After the induction of the motivation to correction, the smaller brand effect occurred only in the cases of (...) low involvement and the weak brand. The effect of motivated correction was smaller than the effect of high involvement; therefore, the overall results suggest that conscious explicit motivation to correction evokes correction only in cases of weak brands under certain circumstances. However, this impact is not as strong as the influence of high motivation or a strong brand, even though explicit instructions are given to avoid the negative influence of the brand. (shrink)

This paper responds to Dan Hutto’s paper, ‘Narrative Self-Shaping: a Modest Proposal’. Hutto there attacks the “strong” narrativism defended in my recent book, ‘Self, Value and Narrative’ and in recent work by Marya Schechtman. I rebut Hutto’s argument that non-narrative forms of evaluative self-shaping can plausibly be conceived, and defend the notion of implicit narrative against his criticisms. I conclude by briefly indicating some difficulties that arise for the “modest” form of narrativism that Hutto defends.

Most phyto-remediation studies have been conducted merely on a single type of contaminant element without consideration of the influence of other co-existent contaminants. In this study, Vetiveria zizanioides (Linn.) Nash was evaluated in both single and mixed heavy metal (Cd, Pb, Cu and Zn) spiked contaminated soil. The plant growth, metal accumulation and overall efficiency of metal uptake by different plant parts (lower root, upper root, lower tiller and upper tiller) were investigated in detail. The relative growth performance, metal tolerance (...) and phyto-assessment of heavy metal in roots and tillers of Vetiver grass were assessed. Metals in plants were measured using the flame atomic absorption spectrometry (F-AAS) after acid digestion. The root-tiller (R/T) ratio, tolerance index (TI), translocation factor (TF), biological concentration factor (BCF), biological accumulation coefficient (BAC) and metal uptake efficacy were estimated to examine the ability of metal accumulation and translocation in Vetiver grass. No significant difference (p > 0.05) of plant height was observed among all single and mixed heavy metal spiked soils compared with the control. However, significantly higher (p < 0.05) heavy metal (Cd, Pb, Cu and Zn) accumulations were found in roots, tillers and overall total accumulation of the individual spiked metal as compared with other treatments. Vetiver grass grown in the mixed Cd + Pb + Cu + Zn spiked soils accumulated the highest Zn (3322 ± 21.6 mg/kg) followed by Cu (430 ± 11.4 mg/kg), Pb (197 ± 13.5 mg/kg) and Cd (100 ± 0.7 mg/kg). Vetiver grass grown in mixed Cd + Pb, Cu + Zn and Cd + Pb + Cu + Zn spiked soils accumulated higher heavy metal concentrations than from the single spiked soil with the following order of metals: Zn > > Cu > Pb > Cd. Moreover, lower roots and lower tillers of Vetiver grass revealed a strong tendency for greater uptake and accumulation of all four heavy metals in both single and/or mixed spiked contaminated soils. -/- . (shrink)

This article examines the evaluative nature of the folk concepts of weakness and strength of will and hypothesizes that their evaluative nature is strongly connected to the folk concepts of blame and credit. We probed how people apply the concepts of weakness and strength of will to prototypical and non-prototypical scenarios. While regarding prototypical scenarios the great majority applied these concepts according to the predictions following from traditional philosophical analyses. When presented with non-prototypical scenarios, people were divided. Some, against traditional (...) analyses, did not apply these concepts, which we explain in terms of a clash of evaluations involving different sorts of blame and credit. Others applied them according to traditional analyses, which we explain in terms of a disposition to be reflective and clearly set apart the different sorts of blame and credit involved. Still others applied them in an inverse way, seemingly bypassing the traditional components resolution and be.. (shrink)

This article examines the Basotho’s views on sexuality within a theological context as wellas the conflict between Christianity and cultural beliefs. Most Basotho have strong opinions on the subject of sexuality and those views undoubtedly emanate from the Basotho culture,which makes it necessary to evaluate them. The issue of sexuality is always a topic of discussion amongst people and did not go unnoticed by church fathers, like Augustine. Thomas Aquinas also expressed an interest in the topic in the Middle-Ages. (...) Likewise, reformers of the calibre of Martin Luther and John Calvin espoused views on sexuality. Itis clear that the aforementioned theologians made a marked contribution toward shapingthe current views on sexuality, especially amongst theologians of this age and this is thereason for revisiting their views in this article examining the Basotho view on sexuality.In examining Basotho views on sexuality, the writer of this article will then discuss andevaluate the views of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin with special reference tosexual intercourse, sexual intercourse within matrimony, extramarital sexual intercourseand also the unmarried state. (shrink)

The psychedelic psilocybin has shown promise both as treatment for psychiatric conditions and as a means of improving well-being in healthy individuals. In some jurisdictions (e.g., Oregon, USA), psilocybin use for both purposes is or will soon be allowed and yet, public attitudes toward this shift are understudied. We asked a nationally representative sample of 795 US Americans to evaluate the moral status of psilocybin use in an appropriately licensed setting for either treatment of a psychiatric condition or well-being enhancement. (...) Showing strong bipartisan support, participants rated the individual’s decision as morally positive in both contexts. These results can inform effective policy-making decisions around supervised psilocybin use, given robust public attitudes as elicited in the context of an innovative regulatory model. We did not explore attitudes to psilocybin use in unsupervised or non-licensed community or social settings. (shrink)

This note evaluates the claim of Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature that the advent of strong states led to a decline in violence. I test this claim in the modern context, measuring the effect of the strength of government in lower-income countries on reductions in homicide rates. The strength of government is measured using Polity IV, Worldwide Governance Indicators, and government consumption as a percentage of GDP. The data do not support Pinker’s hypothesis.

It is widely believed that a conservative moral outlook is opposed to biomedical forms of human enhancement. In this paper, I argue that this widespread belief is incorrect. Using Cohen’s evaluative conservatism as my starting point, I argue that there are strong conservative reasons to prioritise the development of biomedical enhancements. In particular, I suggest that biomedical enhancement may be essential if we are to maintain our current evaluative equilibrium (i.e. the set of values that undergird and permeate our (...) current political, economic, and personal lives) against the threats to that equilibrium posed by external, non-biomedical forms of enhancement. I defend this view against modest conservatives who insist that biomedical enhancements pose a greater risk to our current evaluative equilibrium, and against those who see no principled distinction between the forms of human enhancement. (shrink)

This paper explores and rehabilitates the value of decisional privacy as a conceptual tool, complementary to informational privacy, for critiquing personalized choice architectures employed by self-tracking technologies. Self-tracking technologies are promoted and used as a means to self-improvement. Based on large aggregates of personal data and the data of other users, self-tracking technologies offer personalized feedback that nudges the user into behavioral change. The real-time personalization of choice architectures requires continuous surveillance and is a very powerful technology, recently coined as (...) “hypernudging.” While users celebrate the increased personalization of their coaching devices, “hypernudging” technologies raise concerns about manipulation. This paper addresses that intuition by claiming that decisional privacy is at stake. It thus counters the trend to solely focus on informational privacy when evaluating information and communication technologies. It proposes that decisional privacy and informational privacy are often part of a mutually reinforcing dynamic. Hypernudging is used as a key example to illustrate that the two dimensions should not be treated separately. Hypernudging self-tracking technologies compromise autonomy because they violate informational and decisional privacy. In order to effectively judge whether technologies that use hypernudges empower users, we need both privacy dimensions as conceptual tools. (shrink)

The health theories of Nordenfelt and Boorse are compared. Critical attention is focused on Nordenfelt's description of his theory as one of holistic welfare, contrasting with Boorse's analytical and statistical approach. Neither theory is found to give an entirely satisfactory account of ‘health’ in scientific medicine or common usage. Because Nordenfelt attenuates the ontological significance of organs and organ parts and simplifies the role of statistics, his theory is regarded as weakly holistic. Boorse underrates the importance of non-statistical evaluation. (...) A mediating position, termed ‘strong holism’ is suggested as a way of integrating normative and statistical elements in a more adequate health concept. (shrink)

The reappearance of the question of moral judgments by historians makes a reappraisal of the issues timely. Almost all that has been written on the subject addresses only the propriety of moral judgments in the written texts historians produce. However, historians have to make moral choices when selecting a subject upon which to write; and they make a tacit moral commitment to write and teach honestly. Historians usually dislike making explicit moral evaluations, and have little or no training in how (...) to do so. They can argue it’s not their job; they are only finders of fact. Historians holding a determinist view of actions do not think it appropriate to blame people for doing what they couldn’t help doing; for those believing there is an overall pattern to history, individual morality is beside the point. Finally, since earlier cultures had values different from ours, it seems unjust to hold them to contemporary standards. This essay modifies or rejects these arguments. Some historians have manifested ambivalence, acknowledging it is difficult or impossible to avoid making moral evaluations . Ordinary-language philosophers, noting that historiography has no specialized vocabulary, see it as saturated by the values inherent in everyday speech and thought. I argue that the historicist argument about the inevitably time-bound limitation of all values is exaggerated. Historians who believe in the religious grounding of values obviously disagree with it; but even on a secular level, morals are often confused with mores. If historians inevitably make moral evaluations, they should examine what philosophical ethicists—virtue ethicists, deontologists, and consequentialists—have said about how to make them; and even if they find no satisfactory grounding for their own moral attitudes, it is a brute fact that they have them. I end with an argument for “strong evaluations”—neither treating them as a troublesome residue in historiography nor, having despaired of finding a solid philosophical ground for moral evaluations, concluding that they are merely matters of taste. I believe historians should embrace the role of moral commentators, but that they should be aware that their evaluations are, like all historical judgments, subject to the criticisms of their colleagues and readers. Historians run little risk of being censorious and self-righteous; the far greater danger is acquiescing in or contributing to moral confusion and timidity. (shrink)

dialectical frameworks have been introduced as a formalism for modeling argumentation allowing general logical satisfaction conditions and the relevant argument evaluation. Different criteria used to settle the acceptance of arguments are called semantics. Semantics of ADFs have so far mainly been defined based on the concept of admissibility. However, the notion of strongly admissible semantics studied for abstract argumentation frameworks has not yet been introduced for ADFs. In the current work we present the concept of strong admissibility of (...) interpretations for ADFs. Further, we show that strongly admissible interpretations of ADFs form a lattice with the grounded interpretation as the maximal element. We also present algorithms to answer the following decision problems: whether a given interpretation is a strongly admissible interpretation of a given ADF, and whether a given argument is strongly acceptable/deniable in a given interpretation of a given ADF. In addition, we show that the strongly admissible semantics of ADFs forms a proper generalization of the strongly admissible semantics of AFs. (shrink)

According to a prominent suggestion in the ethics of transcranial neurostimulation the effects of such devices can be treated as ethically on par with established, pre-neurotechnological alterations of the mind. This parity allegedly is supported by situated cognition theories showing how external devices can be part of a cognitive system. This article will evaluate this suggestion. It will reject the claim, that situated cognition theories support ethical parity. It will however point out another reason, why external carriers or modifications of (...) the mental might come to be considered ethically on par with internal carriers. Section “Why Could There Be Ethical Parity between Neural Tissue and External Tools?” presents the ethical parity theses between external and internal carriers of the mind as well as neurotechnological alterations and established alterations. Section “Extended, Embodied, Embedded: Situated Cognition as a Relational Thesis” will elaborate the different situated cognition approaches and their relevance for ethics. It will evaluate, whether transcranial stimulation technologies are plausible candidates for situated cognition theses. Section “On the Ethical Relevance of Situated Cognition Theses” will discuss criteria for evaluating whether a cognitive tool is deeply embedded with a cognitive system and apply these criteria to transcranial brain stimulation technologies. Finally it will discuss the role diverse versions of situated cognition theory can play in the ethics of altering mental states, especially the ethics of transcranial brain stimulation technologies. (shrink)

It is common in recent epistemology to distinguish different senses, or conceptions, of epistemic justification. The proposed oppositions include the objective/subjective, internalist/externalist, regulative/nonregulative, resource-relative/resource-independent, personal/verific, and deontological/evaluative conceptions of justification. In some of these cases, writers regard both members of the contrasting pair as legitimate; in other cases only one member. In this paper I want to propose another contrasting pair of conceptions of justification, and hold that both are defensible and legitimate. The contrast will then be used to construct (...) a modified version of reliabilism, one which handles certain problem cases more naturally than my previous versions of reliabilism. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of the meaning of `ought', and the distinction between weak necessity modals (`ought', `should') and strong necessity modals (`must', `have to'). I argue that there is nothing specially ``strong'' about strong necessity modals per se: uses of `Must p' predicate the (deontic/epistemic/etc.) necessity of the prejacent p of the actual world (evaluation world). The apparent ``weakness'' of weak necessity modals derives from their bracketing whether the necessity of the prejacent is verified (...) in the actual world. `Ought p' can be accepted without needing to settle that the relevant considerations (norms, expectations, etc.) that actually apply verify the necessity of p. I call the basic account a modal-past approach to the weak/strong necessity modal distinction (for reasons that become evident). Several ways of implementing the approach in the formal semantics/pragmatics are critically examined. The account systematizes a wide range of linguistic phenomena: it generalizes across flavors of modality; it elucidates a special role that weak necessity modals play in discourse and planning; it captures contrasting logical, expressive, and illocutionary properties of weak and strong necessity modals; and it sheds light on how a notion of `ought' is often expressed in other languages. These phenomena have resisted systematic explanation. In closing I briefly consider how linguistic inquiry into differences among necessity modals may improve theorizing on broader philosophical issues. (shrink)

The view that complexity increases in evolution is uncontroversial, yet little is known about the possible causes of such a trend. One hypothesis, the Zero Force Evolutionary Law (ZFEL), predicts a strong drive toward complexity, although such a tendency can be overwhelmed by selection and constraints. In the absence of strong opposition, heritable variation accumulates and complexity increases. In order to investigate this claim, we evaluate the gross morphological complexity of laboratory mutants in Drosophila melanogaster, which represent organisms (...) that arise in a context where selective forces are greatly reduced. Complexity was measured with respect to part types, shape, and color over two independent focal levels. Compared to the wild type, we find that D. melanogaster mutants are significantly more complex. When the parts of mutants are categorized by degree of constraint, we find that weakly constrained parts are significantly more complex than more constrained parts. These results support the ZFEL hypothesis. They also represent a first step in establishing the domain of application of the ZFEL and show one way in which a larger empirical investigation of the principle might proceed. (shrink)

Epistemic deontology maintains that our beliefs and degrees of belief are open to deontic evaluations—evaluations of what we ought to believe or may not believe. Some philosophers endorse strong internalist versions of epistemic deontology on which agents can always access what determines the deontic status of their beliefs and degrees of belief. This paper articulates a new challenge for strong internalist versions of epistemic deontology. Any version of epistemic deontology must face William Alston’s argument. Alston combined a broadly (...) voluntarist conception of responsibility, on which ought implies can, with doxastic involuntarism, the position that our beliefs are not under our control. Together, those views imply that epistemic deontology is false. A promising response to Alston’s argument is to embrace a compatibilist account of control—specifically a reason-responsive version of compatibilism—and use it to criticism his doxastic involuntarism. I argue that while reason-responsive compatibilism about control does undermine Alston’s argument, it comes at a cost. Specifically, it is inconsistent with strong internalist versions of epistemic deontology. The surprising upshot is that so long as we retain a voluntarist conception of responsibility, we have reason for rejecting strong internalist versions of epistemic deontology. (shrink)

In 2009, the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee conducted an ‘evidence check’ on homeopathy to evaluate evidence for its effectiveness. In common with the wider literature critical of homeopathy, the STC report seems to endorse many of the strong claims that are made about its implausibility. In contrast with the critical literature, however, the STC report explicitly does not place any weight on implausibility in its evaluation. I use the contrasting positions of the STC and (...) the wider critical literature to examine the ‘implausibility arguments’ against homeopathy and the place of such arguments within evidence-based medicine. I argue that the STC report undervalues its strong claims about the mechanistic plausibility of homeopathy because it relies on a misunderstanding about the role of mechanistic evidence within EBM. This is not a conclusion for a revision of the role mechanistic evidence plays within EBM, however. It is a conclusion about the inconsistency of the STC report’s position towards implausibility arguments, given the evidential claims they endorse and the atypical situation that homeopathy presents. It provides a further example of the general point that mechanistic reasoning should not be seen as providing categorically lower quality evidence. (shrink)