The Monographs produced by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) apply rigorous procedures for the scientific review and evaluation of carcinogenic hazards by independent experts. The Preamble to the IARC Monographs, which outlines these procedures, was updated in 2019, following recommendations of a 2018 expert Advisory Group. This article presents the key features of the updated Preamble, a major milestone that will enable IARC to take advantage of recent scientific and procedural advances made during the 12 years since (...) the last Preamble amendments. The updated Preamble formalizes important developments already being pioneered in the Monographs Programme. These developments were taken forward in a clarified and strengthened process for identifying, reviewing, evaluating and integrating evidence to identify causes of human cancer. The advancements adopted include strengthening of systematic review methodologies; greater emphasis on mechanistic evidence, based on key characteristics of carcinogens; greater consideration of quality and informativeness in the critical evaluation of epidemiological studies, including their exposure assessment methods; improved harmonization of evaluation criteria for the different evidence streams; and a single-step process of integrating evidence on cancer in humans, cancer in experimental animals and mechanisms for reaching overall evaluations. In all, the updated Preamble underpins a stronger and more transparent method for the identification of carcinogenic hazards, the essential first step in cancer prevention. (shrink)

The misuse of alcohol inflicts a major toll on individual users, their families, and the wider society. This includes disruptions of family life, violence, absenteeism and problems in the workplace, child neglect and abuse, and excess morbidity and mortality. The World Health Organization estimates that alcohol ranks eighth among global risk factors for death and is the third leading global risk factor for disease and disability. In the United States, alcohol dependence affects four to five percent of the population at (...) any given time. Alcohol dependence also exacts a significant financial toll.... (shrink)

The larger philosophical world has on the whole turned from a mix of averted gaze and outright antipathy toward x‐phi, to a mix of grudging acceptance and enthusiastic embrace. This chapter explains that the experimental philosophy is relevant, and that it is dangerous, and explains some ways that people can do more to remain both. Experimental philosophy's semi‐official sigil of the burning armchair has advertised its dangerousness for the past decade and a half as well. The chapter explains that it (...) is a threat that is every bit as potently present in positive program x‐phi as it is in negative program work. To explore the idea that experimental philosophy's positive contributions will still be primarily negative in nature, the chapter interrogates the passage from Timothy Williamson. It focuses on the wheat‐from‐chaff project of separating signal from noise in the evidence produced by intuitions and the like. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction: What is Phenotypic Plasticity? Developmental Conversion and Developmental Sensitivity: Two Forms of Phenotypic Plasticity Environmental Heterogeneity, Cues, and Plasticity Phenotypic Plasticity and Developmental Buffering The Future of Phenotypic Plasticity Research Acknowledgments References Further Reading.

There has been a recent revival of interest in the doctrine of divine simplicity in systematic and philosophical theology, following decades of intense reflection on the tri-personhood of the Christian God. While recent studies have produced a greater appreciation of patristic and scholastic theologies, they have not yet engaged in dialogue with proponents of the trinitarian revival that emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century in anything other than polemical terms. This book offers a theological defense of the (...) doctrine of divine simplicity through careful reading of both exemplary historical theologians and Robert W. Jenson, an important American contributor to the trinitarian revival. After tracing continuities and discontinuities amongst select historical theologians, the book approaches Jenson with a multivalent account of divine simplicity. The result is a more nuanced interpretation of Jenson’s theology, an account of divine simplicity that responds to perceived problems, and new constructive proposals for divine simplicity in trinitarian theology. (shrink)

In this paper we propose to argue for two claims. The first is that a sizeable group of epistemological projects – a group which includes much of what has been done in epistemology in the analytic tradition – would be seriously undermined if one or more of a cluster of empirical hypotheses about epistemic intuitions turns out to be true. The basis for this claim will be set out in Section 2. The second claim is that, while the jury is (...) still out, there is now a substantial body of evidence suggesting that some of those empirical hypotheses are true. Much of this evidence derives from an ongoing series of experimental studies of epistemic intuitions that we have been conducting. A preliminary report on these studies will be presented in Section 3. In light of these studies, we think it is incumbent on those who pursue the epistemological projects in question to either explain why the truth of the hypotheses does not undermine their projects, or to say why, in light of the evidence we will present, they nonetheless assume that the hypotheses are false. In Section 4, which is devoted to Objections and Replies, we’ll consider some of the ways in which defenders of the projects we are criticizing might reply to our challenge. Our goal, in all of this, is not to offer a conclusive argument demonstrating that the epistemological projects we will be criticizing are untenable. Rather, our aim is to shift the burden of argument. (shrink)

The ABCs of Education is a philosophy of education introducing a unique learning perspective that promotes interest based learning for the purpose of fostering authentic empowerment via civic engagement. This book begins by clarifying the function of education and the need for creating safe and welcoming learning environments by modeling altruistic practices. Altruism is justified with a that a theory that explains synergy in the context of education. The book then goes on to introduce a concept referred to as Biosintegrumology. (...) This is book is the most comprehensive introduction of Biosintegumology to date. Biosintegrumology is used to demonstrate the importance of student interest in curriculum design. Finally, the book concludes with detailing the role of civics in education. (shrink)

There is more to modern health than new scientific discoveries, the development of new technologies, or emerging or re‐emerging diseases. World events and experiences, such as the AIDS epidemic and the humanitarian emergencies in Bosnia and Rwanda, have made this evident by creating new relationships among medicine, public health, ethics, and human rights. Each domain has seeped into the other, making allies of public health and human rights, pressing the need for an ethics of public health, and revealing the rights‐related (...) responsibilities of physicians and other health care workers. (shrink)

Recent experimental philosophy arguments have raised trouble for philosophers' reliance on armchair intuitions. One popular line of response has been the expertise defense: philosophers are highly-trained experts, whereas the subjects in the experimental philosophy studies have generally been ordinary undergraduates, and so there's no reason to think philosophers will make the same mistakes. But this deploys a substantive empirical claim, that philosophers' training indeed inculcates sufficient protection from such mistakes. We canvass the psychological literature on expertise, which indicates that people (...) are not generally very good at reckoning who will develop expertise under what circumstances. We consider three promising hypotheses concerning what philosophical expertise might consist in: (i) better conceptual schemata; (ii) mastery of entrenched theories; and (iii) general practical know-how with the entertaining of hypotheticals. On inspection, none seem to provide us with good reason to endorse this key empirical premise of the expertise defense. (shrink)

Using empirical evidence to attack intuitions can be epistemically dangerous, because various of the complaints that one might raise against them (e.g., that they are fallible; that we possess no non-circular defense of their reliability) can be raised just as easily against perception itself. But the opponents of intuition wish to challenge intuitions without at the same time challenging the rest of our epistemic apparatus. How might this be done? Let us use the term “hopefulness” to refer to the extent (...) to which we possess a good capacity for the detection and correction of the errors of any fallible source of evidence. I argue that we should not trust putative sources of evidence that are substantially lacking in hopefulness (even if they are basically reliable), and that we are indeed already operating under such a norm in our ordinary and scientific practices. I argue further that the philosophical practice of the appeal to intuitions is, in these terms, badly hopeless... (shrink)

Moral injury results from the violation of deeply held moral commitments leading to emotional and existential distress. The phenomenon was initially described by psychologists and psychiatrists associated with the US Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs but has since been applied more broadly. Although its application to healthcare preceded COVID-19, healthcare professionals have taken greater interest in moral injury since the pandemic’s advent. They have much to learn from combat veterans, who have substantial experience in identifying and addressing moral injury—particularly (...) its social dimensions. Veterans recognise that complex social factors lead to moral injury, and therefore a community approach is necessary for healing. We argue that similar attention must be given in healthcare, where a team-oriented and multidimensional approach is essential both for ameliorating the suffering faced by health professionals and for addressing the underlying causes that give rise to moral injury. (shrink)

Task unrelated thought (TUT) refers to thought directed away from the current situation, for example a daydream. Three experiments were conducted on healthy participants, with two broad aims. First, to contrast distributed and encapsulated views of cognition by comparing the encoding of categorical and random lists of words (Experiments One and Two). Second, to examine the consequences of experiencing TUT during study on the subsequent retrieval of information (Experiments One, Two, and Three). Experiments One and Two demonstrated lower levels of (...) TUT and higher levels of word-fragment completion whilst encoding categorical relative to random stimuli, supporting the role of a distributed resource in the maintenance of TUT. In addition the results of all three experiments suggested that experiencing TUT during study had a measurable effect on subsequent retrieval. TUT was associated with increased frequency of false alarms at retrieval (Experiment One). In the subsequent experiments TUT was associated with no advantage to retrieval based on recollection, by manipulating instructions at encoding (Experiment Two), and/or at retrieval (Experiment Three). The implications of the results of all three experiments are discussed in terms of recent accounts of memory retrieval and conscious awareness. (shrink)

We show how more general knowledge can be built in information security, by the building of knowledge of mechanism clusters, some of which are multifield. By doing this, we address in a novel way the longstanding philosophical problem of how, if at all, we come to have knowledge that is in any way general, when we seem to be confined to particular experiences. We also address the issue of building knowledge of mechanisms by studying an area that is new to (...) the mechanisms literature: the methods of what we shall call mechanism discovery in information security. This domain offers a fascinating novel constellation of challenges for building more general knowledge. Specifically, the building of stable communicable mechanistic knowledge is impeded by the inherent changeability of software, which is deployed by malicious actors constantly changing how their software attacks, and also by an ineliminable secrecy concerning the details of attacks not just by attackers, but also by information security defenders as they protect their methods from both attackers and commercial competitors. We draw out ideas from the work of the mechanists Darden, Craver, and Glennan to yield an approach to how general knowledge of mechanisms can be painstakingly built. We then use three related examples of active research problems from information security to develop philosophical thinking about building general knowledge using mechanisms, and also apply this to develop insights for information security. We show that further study would be instructive both for practitioners and for philosophers. (shrink)

We show how more general knowledge can be built in information security, by the building of knowledge of mechanism clusters, some of which are multifield. By doing this, we address in a novel way the longstanding philosophical problem of how, if at all, we come to have knowledge that is in any way general, when we seem to be confined to particular experiences. We also address the issue of building knowledge of mechanisms by studying an area that is new to (...) the mechanisms literature: the methods of what we shall call mechanism discovery in information security. This domain offers a fascinating novel constellation of challenges for building more general knowledge. Specifically, the building of stable communicable mechanistic knowledge is impeded by the inherent changeability of software, which is deployed by malicious actors constantly changing how their software attacks, and also by an ineliminable secrecy concerning the details of attacks not just by attackers, but also by information security defenders as they protect their methods from both attackers and commercial competitors. We draw out ideas from the work of the mechanists Darden, Craver, and Glennan to yield an approach to how general knowledge of mechanisms can be painstakingly built. We then use three related examples of active research problems from information security to develop philosophical thinking about building general knowledge using mechanisms, and also apply this to develop insights for information security. We show that further study would be instructive both for practitioners and for philosophers. (shrink)

It has become increasingly popular to respond to experimental philosophy by suggesting that experimental philosophers haven’t been studying the right kind of thing. One version of this kind of response, which we call the reflection defense, involves suggesting both that philosophers are interested only in intuitions that are the product of careful reflection on the details of hypothetical cases and the key concepts involved in those cases, and that these kinds of philosophical intuitions haven’t yet been adequately studied by experimental (...) philosophers. Of course, as a defensivemove, thisworks only if reflective intuitions are immune from the kinds of problematic effects that form the basis of recent experimental challenges to philosophy’s intuition-deploying practices. If they are not immune to these kinds of effects, then the fact that experimental philosophers have not had the right kind of thing in their sights would provide little comfort to folks invested in philosophy’s intuition-deploying practices. Here we provide reasons to worry that even reflective intuitions can display sensitivity to the same kinds of problematic effects, although possibly in slightly different ways. As it turns out, being reflective might sometimes just mean being wrong in a different way. (shrink)

In order for Herman Cappelen to argue in his Philosophy Without Intuitions that philosophers have been on the whole mistaken in thinking that we actually use intuitions much at all in our first-order philosophizing, he must attempt the task of characterizing what something must be, in order to be an intuition.My discussion here is focused on the latter half of the book concerning the “argument from philosophical practice. I am in wholehearted agreement with the first half’s thesis that the usage (...) of the term “intuition” is highly motley and of no methodological use. I truly sympathize with the frustration he evidently feels at wrangling with that task, because I’ve felt the same in my own project critiquing what I do take to be a fairly common practice in contemporary philosophy that we often gesture at when we speak of intuitions. For the literature on intuitions can be a total mess on even the most basic questions about what intuitions are: beliefs, or sui generis seemings? Special in .. (shrink)

The practice of appealing to esoteric intuitions, long standard in analytic philosophy, has recently fallen on hard times. Various recent empirical results have suggested that philosophers are not currently able to distinguish good intuitions from bad. This paper evaluates one possible type of approach to this problematic methodological situation: calibration. Both critiquing and building on an argument from Robert Cummins, the paper explores what possible avenues may exist for the calibration of philosophical intuitions. It is argued that no good options (...) are currently available, but leaves open the real possibility of such a calibration in the future. (shrink)

Despite legislation and public education, racism and sexism are alive and well. Though pre‐conceptive gender selection may enhance procreative liberty, this technology presents two disturbing questions. First, does sex selection represent underlying parental sexism? Second, by performing gender selection, do medical professionals perpetuate sexism? It will be maintained that pre‐conceptive sex selection is sexist as it reflects parental anticipation of stereotypical gender based behavior. Perhaps even more incriminating, sex selection forces parents to prefer one sex over another, to place a (...) value on gender. This emphasis on sex conflicts with societal goals which urge, and often legally require, individuals to ignore gender. We will assert that pre‐conceptive gender selection exemplifies sexism in its purest most blatant form as prior to conception, before parents can possibly know anything about their child, gender dominates the calculus of a child’s worth. We will also emphasize that physicians, by facilitating sex selection, legitimize the motivations of their patients and provide de facto support of sexism. In a similar vein, arguments against pre‐conceptive race selection will be made. (shrink)

Species spreading beyond their native ranges are important study objects in ecology and environmental sciences and research on biological invasions is thriving. Along with an increase in the number of publications, the research field is experiencing an increase in the diversity of methods applied and questions asked. This development has facilitated an upsurge in information on invasions, but it also creates conceptual and practical challenges. To provide more transparency on which kind of research is actually done in the field, the (...) distinction between invasion science, encompassing the full spectrum of studies on biological invasions and the sub-field of invasion biology, studying patterns and mechanisms of species invasions with a focus on biological research questions, can be useful. Although covering a smaller range of topics, invasion biology today still is the driving force in invasion science and we discuss challenges stemming from its embeddedness in the social context. Invasion biology consists of the building blocks 'theory', 'case studies' and 'application', where theory takes the form of conceptual frameworks, major hypotheses and statistical generalisations. Referencing recent work in philosophy of science, we argue that invasion biology, like other biological or ecological disciplines, does not rely on the development of an all-encompassing theory in order to be efficient. We suggest, however, that theory development is nonetheless necessary and propose improvements. Recent advances in data visualisation, machine learning and semantic modelling are providing opportunities for enhancing knowledge management and presentation and we suggest that invasion science should use these to transform its ways of publishing, archiving and visualising research. Along with a stronger focus on studies going beyond purely biological questions, this would facilitate the efficient prevention and management of biological invasions. (shrink)

Although radical forms of relativism are perhaps beyond the epistemological pale, I argue here that a more moderate form may be plausible, and articulate the conditions under which moderate epistemic relativism could well serve our epistemic goals. In particular, as a result of our limitations as human cognizers, we find ourselves needing to investigate the dappled and difficult world by means of competing communities of highly specialized researchers. We would do well, I argue, to admit of the existence of unresolvable (...) disputes between such communities, but only so long as there is a sufficient amount of fruitful exchange between them as well. I close with some speculation about when it is or is not legitimate to make an “appeal to discipline”: responding to another’s argument by saying something like, “we should do it this way, because we are philosophers (/linguists/psychologists/…), and that’s just what we do”. (shrink)

It has been standard philosophical practice in analytic philosophy to employ intuitions generated in response to thought-experiments as evidence in the evaluation of philosophical claims. In part as a response to this practice, an exciting new movement—experimental philosophy—has recently emerged. This movement is unified behind both a common methodology and a common aim: the application of methods of experimental psychology to the study of the nature of intuitions. In this paper, we will introduce two different views concerning the relationship that (...) holds between experimental philosophy and the future of standard philosophical practice (what we call, the proper foundation view and the restrictionist view), discuss some of the more interesting and important results obtained by proponents of both views, and examine the pressure these results put on analytic philosophers to reform standard philosophical practice. We will also defend experimental philosophy from some recent objections, suggest future directions for work in experimental philosophy, and suggest what future lines of epistemological response might be available to those wishing to defend analytic epistemology from the challenges posed by experimental philosophy. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been unprecedented, in every sense of the word. At the time of writing, there have been nearly 80 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and nearly 2 million deaths worldw...

How ought we to go about forming and revising our beliefs, arguing and debating our reasons, and investigating our world? If those questions constitute normative epistemology, then I am interested here in normative metaepistemology: the investigation into how we ought to go about forming and revising our beliefs about how we ought to go about forming and revising our beliefs -- how we ought to argue about how we ought to argue. Such investigations have become urgent of late, for the (...) methodology of epistemology has reached something of a crisis. For analytic epistemology of the last half-century has relied overwhelmingly on intuitions,1 and a growing set of arguments and data has begun to call this reliance on intuition seriously into question (e.g., Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich 2001; Nichols, Stich, and Weinberg 2003; Cummins 1998). Although that method has not been entirely without defenders (BonJour 1998; Bealer 1996; Jackson 1998; Sosa forthcoming; Weatherson 2003), these defenses have not generally risen to the specific challenges leveled by the anti-intuitionist critics. In particular, the critics have attacked specific ways of deploying intuitions, and the defenders have overwhelmingly responded with in-principle defenses of the cogency of appealing to intuition. An analogy here would be someone’s responding to arguments alleging systematic.. (shrink)

Must philosophers incorporate tools of experimental science into their methodological toolbox? I argue here that they must. Tallying up all the resources that are now part of standard practice in analytic philosophy, we see the problem that they do not include adequate resources for detecting and correcting for their own biases and proclivities towards error. Methodologically sufficient resources for error- detection and error-correction can only come, in part, from the deployment of specific methods from the sciences. However, we need not (...) imagine that the resulting methodological norms will be so empirically demanding as to require that all appeals to intuition must first be precertified by a thorough vetting by teams of scientists. Rather, I sketch a set of more moderate methodological norms for how we might best include these necessary tools of experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Much discussion about experimental philosophy and philosophical methodology has been framed in terms of the reliability of intuitions, and even when it has not been about reliability per se, it has been focused on whether intuitions meet whatever conditions they need to meet to be trustworthy as evidence. But really that question cannot be answered independently from the questions, evidence for what theories arrived at by what sorts of inferences? I will contend here that not just philosophy's sources of evidence, (...) but also its inferential resources, are in great need of closer examination. (shrink)

Moral injury is the trauma caused by violations of deeply held values and beliefs. This paper draws on relational philosophical anthropologies to develop the connection between moral injury and moral identity and to offer implications for moral repair, focusing particularly on healthcare professionals. We expound on the notion of moral identity as the relational and narrative constitution of the self. Moral identity is formed and forged in the context of communities and narrative and is necessary for providing a moral horizon (...) against which to act. We then explore the relationship between moral injury and damaged moral identities. We describe how moral injury ruptures one’s sense of self leading to moral disorientation. The article concludes with implications for moral repair. Since moral identity is relationally formed, moral repair is not primarily an individual task but requires the involvement of others to heal one’s identity. The repair of moral injury requires the transformation of a moral identity in community. (shrink)

Griffiths and Machery contend that the concept of innateness should be dispensed with in the sciences. We contend that, once that concept is properly understood as what we have called 'closed process invariance', it is still of significant use in the sciences, especially cognitive science.

Experimental philosophy is often regarded as a category mistake. Even those who reject that view typically see it as irrelevant to standard philosophical projects. We argue that neither of these claims can be sustained and illustrate our view with a sketch of the rich interconnections with philosophy of science.Keywords: Science; Philosophy; Experimental Philosophy.

Standard philosophical methodology which proceeds by appeal to intuitions accessible "from the armchair" has come under criticism on the basis of empirical work indicating unanticipated variability of such intuitions. Loose constitutivity---the idea that intuitions are partly, but not strictly, constitutive of the concepts that appear in them---offers an interesting line of response to this empirical challenge. On a loose constitutivist view, it is unlikely that our intuitions are incorrect across the board, since they partly fix the facts in question. But (...) we argue that this ratification of intuitions is at best rough and generic, and can only do the required methodological work if it operates in conjunction with some sort of further criteria of theory selection. We consider two that we find in the literature: naturalness (Brian Weatherson, borrowing from Lewis) and charity (Henry Jackman, borrowing from Davidson). At the end of the day, neither provides the armchair philosopher complete shelter from extra-armchair inquiry. (shrink)

This article sketches a theory of time-binding communication, which is to say communication that unifies widely separated times much as space-binding communication unifies widely separated places. Drawing from the work of Harold Innis, it first describes the function and character of time-binding communication as a means to social continuity. Then, following Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Oakshott, it explains the nature and necessary circumstances of this sort of time-binding communication, or tradition. It discusses the character, consequences, and causes of decadence - (...) radical discontinuity - as these have been described by Richard Weaver, C. E. M. Joad, and Jacques Barzun. Finally, it turns to David Lowenthal's notion of the past as a 'foreign country' in an effort to explain the relations between modernity and both tradition and decadence, as well as the geography of tradition and decadence in the modern world. (shrink)

This article attempts to articulate a grounding of animal rights based on inherent worth as the most fitting way to draw attention to the moral status of animals. The primary objective is to identify the proper grounds of those rights. To that end, two influential philosophical accounts of animal rights are first surveyed: Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach and Tom Regan’s deontological argument. These are followed by two theistic accounts of rights put forth by Andrew Linzey and Nicholas Wolterstorff. It is (...) argued that the latter two complementary accounts based on inherent worth bestowed by God develop a stronger grounding than versions grounded on intrinsic capacities. (shrink)

My students tend to rank Parfit’s Energy Policy and the Further Future1 among their favourite pieces. It is a marvellously argued, eye-opening paper. One of the most interesting passages comes right at the end, when Parfit suggests that we should act as if we had never realised that the non-identity problem exists: “When we are discussing social policies, should we ignore the point about personal identity? Should we allow ourselves to say that a choice like that of the Risky Policy (...) or of Depletion might be against the interests of people in the further future? This is not true. Should we pretend that it is? […] I would not want people to conclude that we can be less concerned about the more remote effects of our social policies. So I would be tempted to suppress the argument for this conclusion.” (2010 [1983], 119) In the paper, Parfit continuously stresses the implications of our views on personal identity. He differentiates between what he later, in his Reasons and Persons, calls a “narrow” and a “wide” person-affecting view (1984, ch. 18).2 On a narrow person-affecting view, we take seriously each person’s identity and assume that it is determined by its genome which is a product of a certain ovum and a certain sperm cell (112-113). On this view, we may then evaluate an action by considering its impact on each individual that is affected. An action is, thus, better or worse because it is better or worse for someone. Consequently, there may be alternative actions available to perform that seem better or worse, but aren’t really, as they are not better or worse for someone. One example that illustrates this point is the case of a 14 year-old who decides to have a child and, due to her age, gives the boy she conceives a bad start in life (113). In response, one may want to argue that she should have had a child later and that that child would have had a better start in life. This, however, overlooks that the boy that has been born to the young mother could not have been born later: the child she actually had could only come into existence because she decided to become a mother when she was 14. Hence, Parfit argues, we can “not claim that, in having this child, what she did was worse for him” (113, italics in the original). (shrink)

Rowan Williams has consistently given expression to Christian faith in surprising and genera-tive ways, especially through the language of ‘excess’ and through contemplating the excess in the narrative and identity of Christ. By attending to the grammar of excess, this essay draws out elements of the metaphysics of holiness in dialogue with Williams. I ask how creaturely being can be sustained by the holiness which generates all things without leaving holiness so ubiq-uitous as to be either trivial or hidden. I (...) respond to this problem by arguing that holy lives and communities make visible the ontological dependence of all things on God. Finally, this pro-vides a way of recognizing the value of the metaphysical imagination in the pursuit of holiness. (shrink)