Aworkshop was held August 26–28, 2015, by the Earth- Life Science Institute (ELSI) Origins Network (EON, see Appendix I) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This meeting gathered a diverse group of around 40 scholars researching the origins of life (OoL) from various perspectives with the intent to find common ground, identify key questions and investigations for progress, and guide EON by suggesting a roadmap of activities. Specific challenges that the attendees were encouraged to address included the following: What key (...) questions, ideas, and investigations should the OoL research community address in the near and long term? How can this community better organize itself and prioritize its efforts? What roles can particular subfields play, and what can ELSI and EON do to facilitate research progress? (See also Appendix II.) The present document is a product of that workshop; a white paper that serves as a record of the discussion that took place and a guide and stimulus to the solution of the most urgent and important issues in the study of the OoL. This paper is not intended to be comprehensive or a balanced representation of the opinions of the entire OoL research community. It is intended to present a number of important position statements that contain many aspirational goals and suggestions as to how progress can be made in understanding the OoL. The key role played in the field by current societies and recurring meetings over the past many decades is fully acknowledged, including the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL) and its official journal Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, as well as the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL). (shrink)

This article examines Adam Smith’s views on animals, centering on the singularity of his economic perspective in the context of the general early ethical debate about animals. Particular emphasis is placed on his discussions of animals as property. The article highlights the tension between Smith’s moral sensitivity to animal suffering on the one hand, and his emphasis on the constitutive role that the utilization of animals played in the progress of civilization on the other. This tension is depicted (...) as a precursor of problematic aspects of the modern environmental crisis. (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 4, June 2020, Page 494-496.

Philip Pettit has argued that all semantically basic terms are learned in response to ostended examples and all non-basic terms are defined via them. Michael Smith and Daniel Stoljar maintain that this “global response-dependence” entails noumenalism, the thesis that reality possesses an unknowable, intrinsic nature. Surprisingly Pettit acknowledges this, contending instead that his noumenalism, like Kant’s, can be construed ontologically or epistemically. Moreover, Pettit insists, construing his noumenalism epistemically renders it unproblematic. The article shows that construing noumenalism epistemically prevents (...) Pettit from knowing whether members of different communities respond to different properties in the world or the same properties differently. Pettit then faces a trilemma. He can construe noumenalism ontologically and confront Smith and Stoljar’s charge. He can construe noumenalism epistemically and confront the author’s charge. Or he can reject global response-dependence. After explaining why Pettit should choose the middle horn, the article closes with lessons about global response-dependence generally. (shrink)

"The maestry of nature was viewed by eighteenth-century historians as an important measure of the progress of civilization. Modern scholarship has hitherto taken insufficient notice of this important idea. This book discusses the topic in connection with the mainstream religious, political, and philosophical elements of the Enlightenment culture. It considers workd by Edward Gibbon, Voltaire, Herder, Vico, Raynal, Hume, Adam Smith, William Robertson, and a wide range of lesse- and better-know figures. It also discusses many classical, medieval, and early (...) modern sources which influenced Enlightenment historiography, as well as eighteen-century attitudes toward nature in general". (shrink)

""This volume contains the substance of the lectures which were delivered on the Nathaniel William Taylor foundation at the Spring conference of alumni of Yale Divinity School and ministers of Connecticut at New Haven in April, 1912. After they had been delivered, it seemed best to profit by the comments of those who heard them, and to gain the advantage of criticisms on the part of two or three friends who were good enough to read the manuscript. As a (...) result, some minor changes have been made so as to avoid misinterpretation in one or two points; but the substance of the discussion remains practically unchanged. The final lecture of the course, which was too long to be read in its entirety, has been divided and slightly expanded in order to give space for a more detailed exposition."" -- From the Preface. (shrink)

A new reading of a crucial chapter in the history of social and political thought – the transition from the late Enlightenment to early liberalism.

The mesostriatal dopamine system is prominently implicated in model-free reinforcement learning, with fMRI BOLD signals in ventral striatum notably covarying with model-free prediction errors. However, latent learning and devaluation studies show that behavior also shows hallmarks of model-based planning, and the interaction between model-based and model-free values, prediction errors, and preferences is underexplored. We designed a multistep decision task in which model-based and model-free influences on human choice behavior could be distinguished. By showing that choices reflected both influences we could (...) then test the purity of the ventral striatal BOLD signal as a model-free report. Contrary to expectations, the signal reflected both model-free and model-based predictions in proportions matching those that best explained choice behavior. These results challenge the notion of a separate model-free learner and suggest a more integrated computational architecture for high-level human decision-making. (shrink)

This paper traces the development of enactive concepts of value and normativity from their roots in the canonical work of Varela et al. through more recent works of Ezequiel Di Paolo and others. It aims to show the central importance of these concepts for enactive theory while exposing a potentially troublesome ambiguity in their definition. Most definitions of enactive normativity are purely proscriptive, but it seems that enactive theories of cognitive agency and experience demand something more. On the other hand, (...) it is not clear that anything other than proscriptive normativity can be made compatible with the enactive tenet of autonomy and the rejection of representations. (shrink)

In several articles, Mumma has presented a formal diagrammatic system Eu meant to give an account of one way in which Euclid's use of diagrams in the Elements could be formalized. However, largely because of the way in which it tries to limit case analysis, this system ends up being inconsistent, as shown here. Eu also suffers from several other problems: it is unable to prove several wide classes of correct geometric claims and contains a construction rule that is probably (...) computationally intractable and that may not even be decidable. (shrink)

Epistemic feelings like tip-of-the-tongue experiences, feelings of knowing, and feelings of confidence tell us when a memory can be recalled and when a judgment was correct. Thus, they appear to be a form of metacognition, but a curious one: they tell us about content we cannot access, and the information is supplied by a feeling. Evaluativism is the claim that epistemic feelings are components of a distinct, primitive metacognitive mechanism that operates on its own set of inputs. These inputs are (...) heuristics that correlate with the presence of mental content that can’t be accessed directly. I will argue that evaluativism is unmotivated, unsupported, and ill-conceived. I will critique the philosophical and empirical arguments for evaluativism and conclude that there is no reason to posit a distinct mechanism to explain epistemic feelings. I will conclude, however, that epistemic feelings may constitute a nonconceptual form of metacognition, which if true is a significant claim. (shrink)

Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1485-1546) is well-known for his philosophical contributions to natural rights and international law. However, his extensive work on the conflict between civil authority and the authority of the Catholic Church has been largely neglected by political theorists and intellectual historians. While scholars have recently recognized the significant role played by natural law in the history of political secularism, they have focused almost exclusively on the “modern” natural law theories of Hobbes, Pufendorf, and Thomasius, as opposed to (...) the “scholastic” natural law of early modern Thomists like Vitoria. This essay undertakes an analysis of Vitoria’s use of natural law theory in his approach to civil-ecclesiastical conflict. Contrary to critiques from the “modern” natural lawyers, it argues that Vitoria’s idea of natural law spearheads a forceful defence of the autonomy of civil power from ecclesiastical power. Based on his sharp distinction between the natural and the supernatural spheres of human life, Vitoria argues for a “dualist” position in which civil and ecclesiastical powers are independent and equally binding on human consciences. The essay acknowledges that Vitoria’s dualism ultimately gives way to his endorsement of papal supremacy over all Christian princes. However, this papalist conclusion does not follow from Vitoria’s natural law theory but rather from an opposing political principle: the notion of the universal Christian commonwealth. (shrink)

The final volume (XXVI) of Princeton's Kierkegaard's Writings series, the Cumulative Index provides wide-ranging navigation to the preceding twenty-five volumes in the series. Composed of over 90,000 entries, the Cumulative Index offers access to Kierkegaard's complex authorship and the extraordinary range of subjects he addressed in his writing. Covering the series' historical introductions, primary works, supplementary material (journal entries), and footnotes, the Cumulative Index provides a comprehensive entryway to the series' more than 11,000 pages of text. Readers are able to (...) survey via extended entries Kierkegaard's dual authorship(pseudonymous and signed), his frequent biblical references and allusions, his references to Christianity, God, and love, and his frequent use of analogies. A cumulative collation of the extensive supplementary material (over 4,000 journal entries) is also included, giving researchers and avid readers the opportunity to correlate and examine items from the current series, Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers , and the original Danish Søren Kierkegaards Papirer. (shrink)

Abstract This article examines the consideration of animals by various eighteenth-century Scottish philosophers, with special attention given to the physician and philosopher John Gregory, who utilized the comparison of human beings with animals as a starting point for a discussion about human moral and social improvement. In so doing Gregory, like most of his contemporary fellow Scottish philosophers, exemplified the basic anthropocentrism of the common early modern consideration of animals.

Twentieth-century developments in logic and mathematics have led many people to view Euclid’s proofs as inherently informal, especially due to the use of diagrams in proofs. In _Euclid and His Twentieth-Century Rivals_, Nathaniel Miller discusses the history of diagrams in Euclidean Geometry, develops a formal system for working with them, and concludes that they can indeed be used rigorously. Miller also introduces a diagrammatic computer proof system, based on this formal system. This volume will be of interest to mathematicians, (...) computer scientists, and anyone interested in the use of diagrams in geometry. (shrink)

Warne's original study provides an insightful analysis of the role of contemplation and creation in the thought of Josef Pieper, illustrating the importance of this practice to earthly happiness and human flourishing. What is the relationship between creation, contemplation, human flourishing, and moral development? Nathaniel Warne's Josef Pieper on the Spiritual Life offers a sophisticated answer to this question through a systematic analysis of philosopher Josef Pieper's (1904-1997) thought. Warne's examination centers on the role of contemplation and creation in (...) Pieper's thinking, arguing that contemplation of the created order is a key feature of earthly happiness. By emphasizing the importance of contemplation, Pieper illustrates the deep interconnections between ethics, creation, and spirituality. For Warne, to posit a binary between the contemplative life and active life creates a false dichotomy. Following Pieper, Warne claims that theology and spirituality cannot be bracketed from ethics and social action--indeed, our lived experience in the world blurs the lines between these practices. Contemplation and action are closer together than are typically assumed, and both have important implications for both our spiritual development and our engagement with the world around us. Ultimately, Warne's emphasis on creation and contemplation represents an attempt to resist a view of ethics and the spiritual life that is divorced from our environment. In response to this view, Warne argues that we need a renewed sense that creation and place are important for self-understanding. Contemplation of creation is, at bottom, a form of communion with God--we thus need a more robust sense of how ethics and politics are rooted in God's creative action. Taking Pieper as a guide, Warne's study helps to deepen our thinking about these connections. (shrink)

By the start of the 1860s, architecture and the materials, processes, and cultures of emerging modernity were combining in Paris, above all other cities, with unprecedented consequences. Georges-Éugene Haussmann, Emperor Napoléon III’s Prefect of the Seine, had in 1853 been tasked with modernizing the city. His principle strategy was to demolish entire quarters of ramshackle medieval fabric for the creation of pristine, arrow-straight boulevards and sparkling squares, all of which were lined by luxurious standardized buildings, serviced by underground sewers, and (...) brilliantly lit by gas lamps.1 As the city heaved in every quarter, a group of Parisian authors stepped forward to respond to the literal. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Like any major religion, Daoism has a complex history and multiple branches, but among its most persistent elements are secluded mountain paradises populated both by divinities and by human beings. Ideas regarding the means of access to these transcendent abodes have been less consistent: Should Daoist adepts strive to be virtuous, or should they labor to “restore” themselves through esoteric, elite magic? A provocative answer to this question was given by the poet Tao Qian, who sided with Daoism's most (...) ancient authority by suggesting that Daoist harmony could not be achieved through mere individual study but, rather, could be found only in an uncorrupted social fabric, in his case defined as a humble lost village. This utopian vision, brought to life in the poem Peach Blossom Spring, not only rejected the esoteric values of the Daoist elite but also called into question imperial hegemonic structures in general. The fact that the poem's rustic utopian enclave was understood in these terms by generations of Chinese scholars and artists is revealed by the contrasting architectural forms used to represent these alternative concepts of the Daoist ideal: the palace and the village, the garden of leisure and the working farm. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Like any major religion, Daoism has a complex history and multiple branches, but among its most persistent elements are secluded mountain paradises populated both by divinities and by human beings. Ideas regarding the means of access to these transcendent abodes have been less consistent: Should Daoist adepts strive to be virtuous, or should they labor to “restore” themselves through esoteric, elite magic? A provocative answer to this question was given by the poet Tao Qian, who sided with Daoism's most (...) ancient authority by suggesting that Daoist harmony could not be achieved through mere individual study but, rather, could be found only in an uncorrupted social fabric, in his case defined as a humble lost village. This utopian vision, brought to life in the poem Peach Blossom Spring, not only rejected the esoteric values of the Daoist elite but also called into question imperial hegemonic structures in general. The fact that the poem's rustic utopian enclave was understood in these terms by generations of Chinese scholars and artists is revealed by the contrasting architectural forms used to represent these alternative concepts of the Daoist ideal: the palace and the village, the garden of leisure and the working farm. (shrink)

In this article, I compare recent literature on theology of institutions with the ethics of philosopher Avishai Margalit. This article has two tasks. First, it shows that Margalit's understanding of a decent society provides helpful categories for moral and political theology. The second task, by putting theology and Margalit in dialogue, and focusing on the topic of labor and economic institutions, highlights where moral and political theology exposes potential weaknesses within Margalit's thought. Though his account of humiliation and the ‘decent (...) society’ draws upon a rich theological and philosophical tradition, his rejection of a doctrine of creation weakens his claims. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEvidence suggests that older adults experience greater emotional well-being compared to younger adults. Appraisal theories of emotion posit that differences in emotional experience are the...

The Morality of Spin explores the ethics of political rhetoric crafted to persuade and possibly manipulate potential voters. Based on extensive insider interviews with leaders of Focus on the Family, one of the most powerful Christian right organizations in America, Nathaniel Klemp asks whether the tactic of tailoring a message to a particular audience is politically legitimate or amounts to democratic malpractice. Klemp’s nuanced assessment, highlighting both democratic vices and virtues of the political rhetoric, provides a welcome contribution to (...) recent scholarship on deliberative democracy, rhetoric, and the growing empirical literature on the American Christian right. (shrink)

This article conducts a mixed-method content analysis of Chinese and American news media coverage of Google DeepMind’s Go playing computer program, AlphaGo. Drawing on humanistic approaches to artificial intelligence, combined with an empirically rigorous content analysis, it examines the differences and overlap in coverage by the Chinese and American press in their accounts of AlphaGo, and its historic match with Korea’s Lee Sedol in March, 2016. The event was not only followed intensely in China, but also made the front page (...) of The New York Times. This article finds that the Chinese press was more likely than the American press to frame AlphaGo as non-threatening, which the authors attribute to cultural differences and the two countries' different understandings of Go. In addition to quantitatively identifying similarities and differences in the framing of AlphaGo, this paper also investigates the underlying and evolving contestations over what constitutes the “human” and the “machine.” It concludes by discussing the implications of the study’s findings as well as outlining avenues for further research. (shrink)

The free-energy principle (FEP) builds on an assumption that sensor–motor loops exhibit Markov blankets in stationary state. We argue that there is rarely reason to assume a system's internal and external states are conditionally independent given the sensorimotor states, and often reason to assume otherwise. However, under mild assumptions internal and external states are conditionally independent given the sensorimotor history.

Neuroeconomics illustrates our deepening descent into the details of individual cognition. This descent is guided by the implicit assumption that “individual human” is the important “agent” of neoclassical economics. I argue here that this assumption is neither obviously correct, nor of primary importance to human economies. In particular I suggest that the main genius of the human species lies with its ability to distribute cognition across individuals, and to incrementally accumulate physical and social cognitive artifacts that largely obviate the innate (...) biological limitations of individuals. If this is largely why our economies grow, then we should be much more interested in distributed cognition in human groups, and correspondingly less interested in individual cognition. We should also be much more interested in the cultural accumulation of cognitive artefacts: computational devices and media, social structures and economic institutions. (shrink)

BackgroundThe terminal illness of late-stage Alzheimer’s and related dementias is progressively cruel, burdensome, and can last years if caregivers assist oral feeding and hydrating. Options to avoid prolonged dying are limited since advanced dementia patients cannot qualify for Medical Aid in Dying. Physicians and judges can insist on clear and convincing evidence that the patient wants to die—which many advance directives cannot provide. Proxies/agents’ substituted judgment may not be concordant with patients’ requests. While advance directives can be patients’ last resort (...) to attain a peaceful and timely dying consistent with their lifelong values, success depends on their being effective and acceptable. A single flaw can provide opponents justification to refuse the directive’s requests to cease assisted feeding.AimThis article considers 24 common advance directive flaws in four categories. Process flaws focus on how patients express their end-of-life wishes. Content flaws reflect drafters’ selection of conditions and interventions, and how they are described. Inherent flaws can make advance directives unacceptable to authorities concerned about premature dying. Strategies are needed to compel physicians to write needed orders and to prevent third parties from sabotaging these orders after they are implemented. The article includes excerpts from “dementia-specific” directives or supplements that exemplify each flaw—mostly from the US and Europe. No directive critiqued here included an effective strategy to resolve this long-debated bioethical conflict: the past directive requests “Cease assisted feeding” but the incapacitated patient apparently expresses the desire to “Continue assisted feeding.” Some opponents to the controversial request, cease assisted feeding, use this conflict as a conceptual wedge to practice hard paternalism. This article proposes a protocol to prevent this conflict from emerging. These strategies may prevent authorities from requiring patients to fulfill authorities’ additional clinical criteria as a prerequisite to honor the requests in patients directives.ConclusionThis critique of flaws may serve as a guide to drafting and to selecting effective and acceptable advance directives for dementia. It also poses several bioethical and clinical questions to those in authority: Does your paternalistic refusal to honor patients’ wishes respect their self-determination? Protect vulnerable patients from harm? Force patients to endure prolonged suffering? Violate the principles of bioethics? Violate the very foundation of patient-centered care? (shrink)

In a military-sponsored research project begun during the Second World War, inmates of the Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois were infected with malaria and treated with experimental drugs that sometimes had vicious side effects. They were made into reservoirs for the disease and they provided a food supply for the mosquito cultures. They acted as secretaries and technicians, recording data on one another, administering malarious mosquito bites and experimental drugs to one another, and helping decide who was admitted to the project (...) and who became eligible for early parole as a result of his participation. Thus, the prisoners were not simply research subjects; they were deeply constitutive of the research project. Because a prisoner’s time on the project was counted as part of his sentence, and because serving on the project could shorten one’s sentence, the project must be seen as simultaneously serving the functions of research and punishment. Michel Foucault wrote about such ‘mixed mechanisms’ in his Discipline and punish. His shining example of such a ‘transparent’ and subtle style of punishment was the panopticon, Jeremy Bentham’s architectural invention of prison cellblocks arrayed around a central guard tower. Stateville prison was designed on Bentham’s model; Foucault featured it in his own discussion. This paper, then, explores the power relations in this highly idiosyncratic experimental system, in which the various roles of model organism, reagent, and technician are all occupied by sentient beings who move among them fluidly. This, I argue, created an environment in the Stateville hospital wing more panoptic than that in the cellblocks. Research and punishment were completely interpenetrating, and mutually reinforcing. (shrink)