Addiction appears to be a deeply moralized concept. To understand the entwinement of addiction and morality, we briefly discuss the disease model and its alternatives in order to address the following questions: Is the disease model the only path towards a ‘de-moralized’ discourse of addiction? While it is tempting to think that medical language surrounding addiction provides liberation from the moralized language, evidence suggests that this is not necessarily the case. On the other hand non-disease models of addiction may seem (...) to resuscitate problematic forms of the moralization of addiction, including, invoking blame, shame, and the wholesale rejection of addicts as people who have deep character flaws, while ignoring the complex biological and social context of addiction. This is also not necessarily the case. We argue that a deficit in reasons responsiveness as basis for attribution of moral responsibility can be realized by multiple different causes, disease being one, but it also seems likely that alternative accounts of addiction as developed by Flanagan, Lewis, and Levy, may also involve mechanisms, psychological, social, and neurobiological that can diminish reasons responsiveness. It thus seems to us that nondisease models of addiction do not necessarily involve moralization. Hence, a non-stigmatizing approach to recovery can be realized in ways that are consistent with both the disease model and alternative models of addiction. (shrink)

The preparation of layers of amorphous Se by plasma-enhanced CVD using the hydride H2Se as precursor gas is described. Information concerning the structure of the films was obtained from Raman spectroscopy. The spectra of amorphous Se indicated that the dominant molecular structure is the eight-membered ring and/or a chain with Se8 molecular fragments. This material exhibited reversible photodarkening when illuminated at 77 K. In order to explain this phenomenon, we propose a mechanism which takes into account the role of the (...) lone-pair electron orbitals of Se in their contribution to structural ordering. Illumination can cause a distortion in the normal bonding direction between nearest-neighbour Se atoms and induce in this way intrinsic defect states located at the band edges. In the photo-darkened state, optical transition will occur between these defect states. (shrink)

This book brings together a collection of social justice scholars and activists who take Foucault’s concept of discipline and punishment to explain how prisons are constructed in society from nursing homes to zoos. This book expands the concept of prison to include any institution that dominates, oppresses, and controls. Criminologists and others, who have been concerned with reforming or dismantling the criminal justice system, have mostly avoided to look at larger carceral structures in society. In this book, for example, scholars (...) and activists question the way patriarchy has incapacitated women and imagine the deinstitutionalization of people with disabilities. In a time when popular sentiment critiques the dominant role of the elites, the state’s role in policing dissenting voices, school children, LGBTQ persons, people of color, and American Indian Nations, needs to be investigated. A prison, as defined in this book, is an institution or system that oppresses and does not allow freedom for a particular group. Within this definition, we include the imprisonment of nonhuman animals and plants, which are too often overlooked. (shrink)

Attentional control has grown in importance within theoretical and predictive models of psychopathology over past decades. The Attentional Style Questionnaire is a novel measure of internal a...

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level and even introductory courses.

Co-authored letter to the APA to take a lead role in the recognition of teaching in the classroom, based on the participation in an interdisciplinary Conference on the Role of Advocacy in the Classroom back in 1995. At the time of this writing, the late Myles Brand was the President of Indiana University and a member of the IU Department of Philosophy.

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better if we were immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Life, Death, and Meaning brings together key readings, primarily by English-speaking philosophers, on such 'big questions.'.

Intuitively, there is a difference between knowledge and mere belief. Contemporary philosophical work on the nature of this difference has focused on scenarios known as “Gettier cases.” Designed as counterexamples to the classical theory that knowledge is justified true belief, these cases feature agents who arrive at true beliefs in ways which seem reasonable or justified, while nevertheless seeming to lack knowledge. Prior empirical investigation of these cases has raised questions about whether lay people generally share philosophers’ intuitions about these (...) cases, or whether lay intuitions vary depending on individual factors (e.g. ethnicity) or factors related to specific types of Gettier cases (e.g. cases that include apparent evidence). We report an experiment on lay attributions of knowledge and justification for a wide range of Gettier Cases and for a related class of controversial cases known as Skeptical Pressure cases, which are also thought by philosophers to elicit intuitive denials of knowledge. Although participants rated true beliefs in Gettier and Skeptical Pressure cases as being justified, they were significantly less likely to attribute knowledge for these cases than for matched true belief cases. This pattern of response was consistent across different variations of Gettier cases and did not vary by ethnicity or gender, although attributions of justification were found to be positively related to measures of empathy. These findings therefore suggest that across demographic groups, laypeople share similar epistemic concepts with philosophers, recognizing a difference between knowledge and justified true belief. (shrink)

i The 2005 decision by Judge John E. Jones in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District was celebrated by all red-blooded American liberals as a victory over the forces of darkness. The result was probably inevitable, in view of the reckless expression by some members of the Dover School Board of their desire to put religion into the classroom, and the clumsiness of their prescribed statement in trying to dissimulate that aim.1 But the conflicts aired in this trial—over the status (...) of evolutionary theory, the arguments for intelligent design, and the nature of science—reveal an intellectually unhealthy situation. The political urge to defend science education against the threats of religious orthodoxy, understandable though it is, has resulted in a counterorthodoxy, supported by bad arguments, and a tendency to overstate the legitimate scientific claims of evolutionary theory. Skeptics about the theory are seen as so dangerous, and so disreputably motivated, that they must be denied any shred of.. (shrink)

Michael Bergmann’s important new book on scepticism is attractively systematic and thorough. He places familiar ideas under an exceptionally bright spotlight, e.

In this interview with Isabelle Moeller questions surrounding the responsible use and development of biometric apps are explored. The use of biometrics - originally to digitally represent and authenticate an identifiable characteristic of a product or a person - have become so wide spread that they are capable of facilitating ever greater continuous surveillance of the what, how, when and where of life. The more biometrical data of a user is collected, the more the integrity of the underlying e-identity is (...) open to fraud and being invisibly compromised. Ethical reflection is long overdue but a prerequisite of minimizing risk to the autonomy of the human person as well as to the integrity of his digital persona. (shrink)

This paper explores the role and resolution of disagreements between physicians and their diagnostic AI-based decision support systems. With an ever-growing number of applications for these independently operating diagnostic tools, it becomes less and less clear what a physician ought to do in case their diagnosis is in faultless conflict with the results of the DSS. The consequences of such uncertainty can ultimately lead to effects detrimental to the intended purpose of such machines, e.g. by shifting the burden of proof (...) towards a physician. Thus, we require normative clarity for integrating these machines without affecting established, trusted, and relied upon workflows. In reconstructing different causes of conflicts between physicians and their AI-based tools—inspired by the approach of “meaningful human control” over autonomous systems and the challenges to resolve them—we will delineate normative conditions for “meaningful disagreements”. These incorporate the potential of DSS to take on more tasks and outline how the moral responsibility of a physician can be preserved in an increasingly automated clinical work environment. (shrink)

Providing healthcare services frequently involves cognitively demanding tasks, including diagnoses and analyses as well as complex decisions about treatments and therapy. From a global perspective, ethically significant inequalities exist between regions where the expert knowledge required for these tasks is scarce or abundant. One possible strategy to diminish such inequalities and increase healthcare opportunities in expert-scarce settings is to provide healthcare solutions involving digital technologies that do not necessarily require the presence of a human expert, e.g., in the form of (...) artificial intelligent decision-support systems (AI-DSS). Such algorithmic decision-making, however, is mostly developed in resource- and expert-abundant settings to support healthcare experts in their work. As a practical consequence, the normative standards and requirements for such algorithmic decision-making in healthcare require the technology to be at least as explainable as the decisions made by the experts themselves. The goal of providing healthcare in settings where resources and expertise are scarce might come with a normative pull to lower the normative standards of using digital technologies in order to provide at least some healthcare in the first place. We scrutinize this tendency to lower standards in particular settings from a normative perspective, distinguish between different types of absolute and relative, local and global standards of explainability, and conclude by defending an ambitious and practicable standard of local relative explainability. (shrink)

Nowadays, special attention is given to the hazards associated with genetic engineering and new inventions in biotechnology, and in fear of severe consequences, researchers, institutions and governments are required to act responsibly. The term “responsibility” may be defined in numerous ways. The definition considered in this paper, is one we believe is in common use: “Generally speaking, a person has a special responsibility for a particular outcome if they knowingly brought it about and it would not exist if not for (...) what they did”. This concept of moral responsibility rests on what we term the three ‘I's’: individual, intentional and informed. Responsibility is individual in the sense that it must be directed towards someone. A second requirement of moral responsibility presupposes the ability to do otherwise, i.e. it presupposes each human being as an intentional actor, capable of acting according to his/her own free will. In order for someone to be responsible for their actions, the choice between alternatives must be informed. The article focus' on these three aspects of responsibility in order to reveal how difficult it is to apply and make sense of this definition with regard to new inventions in science. (shrink)

Many writers in various fields--philosophy, religion, literature, and psychology--believe that the question of the meaning of life is one of the most significant problems that an individual faces. In The Meaning of Life, Second Edition, E.D. Klemke collects some of the best writings on this topic, primarily works by philosophers but also selections from literary figures and religious thinkers. The twenty-seven cogent, readable essays are organized around three different perspectives on the meaning of life. In Part I, the readings assert (...) and defend the theistic view that without the existence of God--or faith in God--life has no significance or purpose. In Part II the selections deny this thesis, defending instead the humanistic alternative--that life has or can have meaning and worth without any theistic beliefs or commitment. In the final group of readings, contributors ask if the question of the meaning of life is in itself legitimate and significant. The volume also includes an introduction by the editor and a selected bibliography. This new edition adds essays by A. J. Ayer, Hazel Barnes, William Lane Craig, Owen Flanagan, Antony Flew, Thomas Nagel, Kai Nielsen, Philip L. Quinn, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Walter T. Stace. The only anthology of its kind, The Meaning of Life, Second Edition, is ideal for courses in introduction to philosophy and human nature. It also provides an accessible and stimulating introduction to the subject for general readers. (shrink)

The relations between reason, motivation and value present problems which, though ancient, remain intractable. If values are objective and rational how can they move us and if they are dependent on our contingent desires how can they be rational? E. J. Bond makes a bold attack on this dilemma. The widespread view among philosophers today is that judgements contain an irreducible element of personal commitment. To this Professor Bond proposes an account of values as objective and value judgements as true (...) or false, employing a distinction between grounding and motivating reasons to establish their connection with action. He defines and tests his position against a number of recent theories, providing in the process forceful criticism of Williams, Wiggins, Foot, Narveson and Nagel, among others. A distinctive contribution to the subject, it will stimulate interest and worthwhile debate among philosophers, while also serving as an introduction to this vital topic. (shrink)

Contemporary discussions of practical reason often refer vaguely to the Kantian conception of reasons as an alternative to various means-ends theories, but it is rarely clear what this is supposed to be, except that somehow moral concerns are supposed to fare better under the Kantian conception. The theories of Nagel, Gewirth, Darwall, and Donagan have been labeled “Kantian” because they deviate strikingly from standard preference models, but their roots in Kant have not been traced in detail and important differences may (...) go unnoticed. All this is not surprising, of course, because Kant’s conception of practical reason is inseparable from his ideas of freedom, which are notoriously difficult and controversial. It is hard enough to characterize these ideas accurately in Kantian terminology, harder still to explain them in terms of contemporary debates about reasons for action. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to show, by considering a number of sources, including Wittgenstein, Sartre, Thomas Nagel and Spinoza, but also adding something crucial of my own, that it is impossible to construe the subject of experience as an object among other objects in the world. My own added argument is the following. the subject of experience cannot move in time along with material events and processes or it could not be aware of the passage of time, hence neither (...) of change nor of motion. the subject cannot therefore be identified with any neural process, function, or location since whatever goes on in the CNS is necessarily objective and part of the temporal flux. However this does not imply any form of dualism for experiences exist only for the subject whose experiences they are and hence they have no objective reality. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to show, by considering a number of sources, including Wittgenstein, Sartre, Thomas Nagel and Spinoza, but also adding something crucial of my own, that it is impossible to construe the subject of experience as an object among other objects in the world. My own added argument is the following. The subject of experience cannot move in time along with material events and processes or it could not be aware of the passage of time, hence neither (...) of change nor of motion. The subject cannot therefore be identified with any neural process, function, or location since whatever goes on in the CNS is necessarily objective and part of the temporal flux. However this does not imply any form of dualism for experiences exist only for the subject whose experiences they are and hence they have no objective reality. (shrink)

Contemporary discussions of practical reason often refer vaguely to the Kantian conception of reasons as an alternative to various means-ends theories, but it is rarely clear what this is supposed to be, except that somehow moral concerns are supposed to fare better under the Kantian conception. The theories of Nagel, Gewirth, Darwall, and Donagan have been labeled “Kantian” because they deviate strikingly from standard preference models, but their roots in Kant have not been traced in detail and important differences may (...) go unnoticed. All this is not surprising, of course, because Kant’s conception of practical reason is inseparable from his ideas of freedom, which are notoriously difficult and controversial. It is hard enough to characterize these ideas accurately in Kantian terminology, harder still to explain them in terms of contemporary debates about reasons for action. (shrink)

In this paper we interpret a characterization of the Gödel speed-up phenomenon as providing support for the ‘Nagel-Newman thesis’ that human theorem recognizers differ from mechanical theorem recognizers in that the former do not seem to be limited by Gödel's incompleteness theorems whereas the latter do seem to be thus limited.However, we also maintain that (currently non-existent) programs which are open systems in that they continuously interact with, and are thus inseparable from, their environment, are not covered by the above (...) (or probably any other recursion-theoretic) argument. (shrink)

This article discusses various arguments for and against treating equality as a fundamental norm in law and political philosophy, combining prior arguments to the effect that equality is essentially an empty idea with arguments that treat it as a non‐empty but mistaken value that should be rejected. After concluding that most of the arguments for treating equality as a fundamental value fall victim to one or both of these arguments, it considers more closely arguments made by philosophers such as Ronald (...) Dworkin and Thomas Nagel that base a duty of promoting equality on the fact that governments impose a legal order on persons without their consent. It concludes that these arguments are mistaken: if the legal order imposed by government is justified then imposing it is not wrongful and generates no duty of equal treatment, while if that order is not justified no requirement of equality of treatment would cure the lack of justification. It concludes that equality should not be a value in law or political theory, but in some cases other considerations may justify particular rules that are sometimes mistakenly thought to be based on equality. (shrink)

Neutral monist, panpsychist, naturalist, and phenomenological interpretations of James's theory of mind are canvassed. Culling the true tenets from each, I make a case for a reconciling view on the basis of a distinction between mental and proto-mental properties. The resulting interpretation is compared to two forms of panpsychism identified by T Nagel in his essay of that name.

Composed of essays and transcripts of discussions, this is an informative survey of problems involving the concepts of part and whole. Well-known scholars in a wide range of fields, from physics to literature, are the contributors: E. Purcell, physics; S. Kuznets, economics; S. Ramo, systems engineering; the late C. Kluckhohn, anthropology; E. Nagel, philosophy; R. Jakobson, linguistics; and I. A. Richards, poetry.--A. E. F.

In this paper we interpret a characterization of the Gödel speed-up phenomenon as providing support for the ‘Nagel-Newman thesis’ that human theorem recognizers differ from mechanical theorem recognizers in that the former do not seem to be limited by Gödel's incompleteness theorems whereas the latter do seem to be thus limited. However, we also maintain that (currently non-existent) programs which are open systems in that they continuously interact with, and are thus inseparable from, their environment, are not covered by the (...) above (or probably any other recursion-theoretic) argument. (shrink)

These twenty-six essays were first presented at the Fifth Conference of the New York University Institute of Philosophy. They were presented by both philosophers and historians. The first nine essays are divided into three sections dealing with the relation of philosophy and history, relativism and the historian's task, and the problem of science and history. Two articles are of special interest: Paul Weiss's caustic aphorisms and Ernest Nagel's analytic discussion of relativism.—C. E. B.

Throughout the philosophical tradition there usually have been those philosophers who have either denied the existence of mental entities outright, or else have claimed that they were, in some sense, reducible to physical entities. And, on this score, the twentieth century has been no exception. In the last twenty or so years, the various denials of the existence of mental entities have taken three distinct forms. First, there is the sort of behaviorism advocated by Quine and Ryle. Second, there is (...) the materialism of J. J. C. Smart and D. M. Armstrong. And, third, there is the so-called Identity Theory as advocated by Donald Davidson, Thomas Nagel, and a host of others too numerous to mention. (shrink)

According to many philosophers, there is an explanatory gap between physical truths and phenomenal truths. Someone could know all the physical truths about the world, and in particular, all the physical information about the brain and the neurophysiology of vision, and still not know what it is like to see red (Jackson 1982, 1986). According to a similar example, someone could know all the physical truths about bats and still not know what it is like to be a bat (Nagel (...) 1974). We can conceive of an individual that is physically identical to me, molecule per molecule, but does not have any phenomenally conscious state whatsoever (Chalmers 1996). Some philosophers have argued that the explanatory gap shows that we cannot explain consciousness in physical terms (Levine 2001), or even that phenomenal consciousness is not physical and therefore physicalism is false (Chalmers 1996, 2002). (shrink)

Given the tremendous burst of activity in the philosophy of science during the last quarter century, the number of books by trained philosophers dealing with the logic of biology is surprisingly small. Simon’s book resembles Morton Beckner’s The Biological Way of Thought in its comprehensive ambitions: "trying to discover what, if anything, is distinctive about biological science, its concepts, and its mode of explaining." The most obvious difference of the two books is Simon’s long central chapter on "Theories, Models, and (...) the Concept of the Gene," which deals with the history of genetics from Mendel’s predecessors to the successors of Watson and Crick. Beckner paid little explicit attention to the history of biology. Another difference lies in Beckner’s dogged assessment of all problems in the logic of biology from the perspective of what he called the Humean Pattern of Explanation—a detailed and difficult variant of the approach of Hempel, Oppenheim, and Nagel. Simon’s philosophical position is more flexible than Beckner’s. He provides an acceptable review of the literature of the last decade and a half; some of his conclusions are most interesting—even when incompletely supported by his arguments; and the utility of his book is insured by the fact that it is necessary to go back over twelve years to find another with which it can be compared. The first chapter contains a very effective critique of J. J. C. Smart’s thesis that biology is no more an autonomous science than is electrical engineering, but is merely applied physics and chemistry. Smart had argued from the grounds that all biological generalizations implicitly refer to terrestrial evolution and are not truly universal, and Simon demonstrates the general lack of success of all efforts to demonstrate a difference in kind between so-called laws of nature and empirical generalizations of the sort found in biology. The second chapter continues in this same vein, drawing an interesting contrast between phylogenetic explanation in biology and the explanation of individual events in human history, and claiming that ‘explanatory’ status may be granted to accounts which do not meet the requirements of the deductive-nomological model, as in the case of Darwin’s theories of the geographical distribution of plants and animals and the persistence of rudimentary organs. The author’s negative reaction to much of the recent philosophical literature concerning the role of functional analysis in biology seems particularly well placed. Following Hempel, most philosophers writing in the past ten years have regarded the occurrence of the item whose function is in question as the event to be explained. Simon correctly points out that in the biological literature, statements indicating the presence of this item are part of the explanans, usually one component in an explanation of the normal functioning of the organism. He also insists that functional or teleological statements cannot effectively be replaced by nonteleological ones. A functional account is one that relates an entity to the role it plays in an organized system. In the first of several serene non-sequiturs which mar the latter half of this book, Simon insists that the above account shows that the notion of function is essentially an "extrinsic" one and that teleological principles generally cannot be used to account for experience. No better argument than an appeal to Kant’s authority backs up this conclusion. The third chapter deals with the recent history of genetics; its summary makes the claim that "at no time during this history was it correct to say that one model was replaced by another one; rather, the development appears to have been one involving successive correction and refining of earlier conceptions. There has been no revolution: geneticists have always succeeded in either repelling or accommodating critical attacks on the model." The evidence presented earlier in the chapter confers some plausibility on this conclusion, but no more: Simon takes no notice of the controversy surrounding Kuhn and the notion of scientific revolutions, and provides no criteria by which to distinguish "revolutions" from "accommodations." The precise nature of the methodological continuity to be found in the history of genetics is crucial for the view that "biology, or at least genetics, must be regarded as incapable of yielding a complete explanation of the phenomena that come within its purview; if the ultimate principles appealed to are not those of chemistry and physics and hence essentially nonbiological, the explanation cannot be regarded as complete." The text does not clearly indicate the extent to which the author agrees with the statement just quoted; perhaps he only attributes it to "many biologists" impressed by the successes of molecular genetics. It is clear the Simon regards something he calls the "Cartesian attitude" as pervasive in biology. "Biologists are committed to attempting to explain the phenomena of life in terms of the nonliving... The property of being alive or being associated with a living system is simply not treated as a logical primitive within biological science." But this seems to take us back full circle—to the position of Smart, that biology is no more than applied physics and chemistry. Simon disagrees with Smart. How does he stand vis-a-vis this last statement of the Cartesian spirit he finds so pervasive in biology? I think he disagrees with it, but it is very hard to tell. Perhaps the answer is that the resolution of the issue of the autonomy of biology is a pragmatic matter, relative to a complex set of needs and commitments: the sorts of things that determine life styles, political attitudes, and religious points of view, as well as the growth of scientific understanding. The question of the precise configuration of Simon’s pragmatism remains very vague indeed—a consequence of his over use of the style of impersonal attribution rather than direct assertion. Simon says generally sane and familiar things about Biology and the Idea of Progress and about Biology and Ethics. The really startling assertion of the penultimate chapter, that "consciousness" is neither a biological nor a behavioral predicate, and that its foundations are essentially moral and legal, is unfortunately supported by no argument whatsoever. Instead, the reader is urged to examine two of the author’s previous articles.—E. M. (shrink)