Recent defences of abortion on demand have located the morally relevant difference between normal adult human beings and non-viable fetuses in the possession of personhood by the former but not by the latter. It is, so the story goes, morally wrong to kill innocent human beings because they are persons, but non-viable fetuses, though they be biologically human, are nevertheless not persons and may therefore be killed without doing anything morally wrong.

We argue in this essay that any society that organizes itself to punish criminals should in justice consider itself strictly liable to punish only those who are guilty in fact of the crimes for which they are punished. We argue that justice, not utility, is the basis of the obligation society has not to punish the innocent and that any society that is just would bind itself by statute to compensate the innocents it punishes by mistake. We hope to have (...) made it evident that when the justice of criminal punishment is the issue justice and strict liability are not incompatible; rather, we hope to have shown that one does not understand the nature of justice unless one recognizes that society is strictly liable and therefore owes compensation when, through no fault of its own, it punishes the innocent. (shrink)

Schools may be one important context where adolescents learn and shape the behaviors necessary for promoting global inclusivity in adulthood. Given the importance of bystanders in halting bullying and peer aggression, the focus of this study is on both moral judgments regarding one type of bullying, social exclusion, and factors that are associated with bystander intervention. The study includes 896 adolescents, who were 6th, and 9th graders, approximately evenly divided by gender. Participants were primarily European–American. Results revealed that girls and (...) participants who perceived better relationships between students and teachers were more likely to judge exclusion to be wrong. Further, ethnic minority participants, those who were more anxious about being rejected by their teachers and reported more teacher discrimination were less likely to judge exclusion as wrong. Participants who reported more positive student–teacher relationships, perceptions of a more positive school social environment and more prior experiences of teacher discrimination were more likely to report that they would seek help for the victim. On the other hand, participants who reported being more angry about teacher rejection, experiencing either peer or teacher discrimination, and perceiving they are excluded from opportunities at school were less likely to intervene to come to the aid of a peer who is being excluded. The results document the complex interplay of school and teacher factors in shaping adolescents’ bystander responses to social exclusion. Our findings suggest that positive school climate can promote intentions to intervene. However, findings indicate that adolescents who are marginalized in their school environments, and who report experiences of rejection, exclusion or discrimination are not willing or likely to intervene to prevent others from experiencing exclusion. (shrink)

Interest in science and math plays an important role in encouraging STEM motivation and career aspirations. This interest decreases for girls between late childhood and adolescence. Relatedly, positive mentoring experiences with female teachers can protect girls against losing interest. The present study examines whether visitors to informal science learning sites differ in their expressed science and math interest, as well as their science and math stereotypes following an interaction with either a male or female educator. Participants were visitors to one (...) of four ISLS in the United States and United Kingdom. Following an interaction with a male or female educator, they reported their math and science interest and responded to math and science gender stereotype measures. Female participants reported greater interest in math following an interaction with a female educator, compared to when they interacted with a male educator. In turn, female participants who interacted with a female educator were less likely to report male-biased math gender stereotypes. Self-reported science interest did not differ as a function of educator gender. Together these findings suggest that, when aiming to encourage STEM interest and challenge gender stereotypes in informal settings, we must consider the importance of the gender of educators and learners. (shrink)

Meat is a multi-billion-dollar industry that relies on people performing risky physical work inside meat-processing facilities over long shifts in close proximity. These workers are socially disempowered, and many are members of groups beset by historic and ongoing structural discrimination. The combination of working conditions and worker characteristics facilitate the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Workers have been expected to put their health and lives at risk during the pandemic because of government and industry pressures to keep (...) this “essential industry” producing. Numerous interventions can significantly reduce the risks to workers and their communities; however, the industry’s implementation has been sporadic and inconsistent. With a focus on the U.S. context, this paper offers an ethical framework for infection prevention and control recommendations grounded in public health values of health and safety, interdependence and solidarity, and health equity and justice, with particular attention to considerations of reciprocity, equitable burden sharing, harm reduction, and health promotion. Meat-processing workers are owed an approach that protects their health relative to the risks of harms to them, their families, and their communities. Sacrifices from businesses benefitting financially from essential industry status are ethically warranted and should acknowledge the risks assumed by workers in the context of existing structural inequities. (shrink)

Previous research has demonstrated that reversing the contrast of the eye region, which includes the eyebrows, affects the N170 ERP. To selectively assess the impact of just the eyes, the present study evaluated the N170 in response to reversing contrast polarity of just the iris and sclera in upright and inverted face stimuli. Contrast reversal of the eyes increased the amplitude of the N170 for upright faces, but not for inverted faces, suggesting that the contrast of eyes is an important (...) contributor to the N170 ERP. (shrink)

We estimate that 208,000 deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices have been implanted to address neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide. DBS Think Tank presenters pooled data and determined that DBS expanded in its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 providing a space where clinicians, engineers, researchers from industry and academia discuss current and emerging DBS technologies and logistical and ethical issues facing the field. (...) The emphasis is on cutting edge research and collaboration aimed to advance the DBS field. The Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank was held virtually on September 1 and 2, 2020 (Zoom Video Communications) due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting focused on advances in: (1) optogenetics as a tool for comprehending neurobiology of diseases and on optogenetically-inspired DBS, (2) cutting edge of emerging DBS technologies, (3) ethical issues affecting DBS research and access to care, (4) neuromodulatory approaches for depression, (5) advancing novel hardware, software and imaging methodologies, (6) use of neurophysiological signals in adaptive neurostimulation, and (7) use of more advanced technologies to improve DBS clinical outcomes. There were 178 attendees who participated in a DBS Think Tank survey, which revealed the expansion of DBS into several indications such as obesity, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. This proceedings summarizes the advances discussed at the Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank. (shrink)

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

Ageing causes progressive decline in metabolic, behavioural, and physiological functions, leading to a reduced health span. The extracellular matrix (ECM) is the three‐dimensional network of macromolecules that provides our tissues with structure and biomechanical resilience. Imbalance between damage and repair/regeneration causes the ECM to undergo structural deterioration with age, contributing to age‐associated pathology. The ECM ‘Ageing Across the Life Course’ interdisciplinary research network (ECMage) was established to bring together researchers in the United Kingdom, and internationally, working on the emerging field (...) of ECM ageing. Here we report on a consultation at a joint meeting of ECMage and the Medical Research Council / Versus Arthritis Centre for Integrated Research into Musculoskeletal Ageing, held in January 2023, in which delegates analysed the key questions and research opportunities in the field of ECM ageing. We examine fundamental biological questions, enabling technologies, systems of study and emerging in vitro and in silico models, alongside consideration of the broader challenges facing the field. (shrink)

We uncover a largely unnoticed and unaddressed problem in conservation research: arguments built within studies are sometimes defective in more fundamental and specific ways than appreciated, because they misrelate values and empirical matters. We call this the unraveled rope problem because just as strands of rope must be properly and intricately wound with each other so the rope supports its load, empirical aspects and value aspects of an argument must be related intricately and properly if the argument is to objectively (...) support its conclusion. By characterizing this problem with precision, our study differs from but complements existing studies of value issues in conservation science, in two ways. First, it focuses on key relationships between empirical issues and value issues, relations that have sometimes been obscured by focusing on these issues more independently of each other. Second, it focuses on these relationships within arguments and deploys a method of argument analysis and evaluation honed in other fields but under-utilized in conservation science. By combining our study's novel features, we detail six families of argument defect that exemplify the unraveled rope problem within existing literature. These defects sometimes manifest within basic research stages, rather than just in more applied downstream stages where roles for values are already obvious to many. As scientific reasoning and communication become increasingly important for addressing society's greatest environmental challenges, overcoming the unraveled rope problem will be essential to the success and integrity of conservation research. Therefore, we also outline potential solutions, preventative measures, and useful further work for conservation researchers. (shrink)

The idea that science is or should be value-free, and that values are or should be formed independently of science, has been under fire by philosophers of science for decades. Science and Moral Imagination directly challenges the idea that science and values cannot and should not influence each other. Matthew J. Brown argues that science and values mutually influence and implicate one another, that the influence of values on science is pervasive and must be responsibly managed, and that science (...) can and should have an influence on our values. This interplay, he explains, must be guided by accounts of scientific inquiry and value judgment that are sensitive to the complexities of their interactions. Brown presents scientific inquiry and value judgment as types of problem-solving practices and provides a new framework for thinking about how we might ethically evaluate episodes and decisions in science, while offering guidance for scientific practitioners and institutions about how they can incorporate value judgments into their work. His framework, dubbed "the ideal of moral imagination," emphasizes the role of imagination in value judgment and the positive role that value judgment plays in science. (shrink)

There have now been a few attempts in trans theory to give an account of trans epistemology (see Radi 2019; Meadow 2016; and Dickson 2021). I will suggest that despite an admirable goal—that of giving an epistemology that provides a methodologically radical and distinctively trans break from other contemporary epistemological theory—thus far no account has been successful. Instead, I suggest that, in the absence of a more satisfactory radical account of trans epistemology, we can think of trans epistemology as a (...) methodologically moderate (though politically radical) extension of mainstream epistemology. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses a particular social phenomenon whereby a speaker purports ignorance of the meaning of another speaker’s speech in order to undermine that other speaker: dismissive incom...

A far-reaching and influential view in evolutionary biology claims that species are cohesive units held together by gene flow. Biologists have recognized empirical problems facing this view; after sharpening the expression of the view, we present novel conceptual problems for it. At the heart of these problems is a distinction between two importantly different concepts of cohesion, what we call integrative and response cohesion. Acknowledging the distinction problematizes both the explanandum of species cohesion and the explanans of gene flow that (...) are central to the view we discuss. We conclude by tracing four broader implications for the study and conceptualization of species. (shrink)

I critically analyze Kevin Elliott’s A Tapestry of Values in order to tease out his views on the nature and status of values or value judgments in the text. I show there is a tension in Elliott’s view that is closely connected to a major lacuna in the philosophical literature on values in science: the need for a better theory of values.

The COVID-19 pandemic has catalysed what may soon become a permanent digital transition in the domains of work, education, medicine, and leisure. This transition has also precipitated a spike in concern regarding our digital well-being. Prominent lobbying groups, such as the Center for Humane Technology, have responded to this concern. In April 2020, the CHT has offered a set of ‘Digital Well-Being Guidelines during the COVID-19 Pandemic.’ These guidelines offer a rule-based approach to digital well-being, one which aims to mitigate (...) the effects of moving much of our lives online. The CHT’s guidelines follow much recent interest in digital well-being in the last decade. Ethicists of technology have recently argued that character-based strategies and redesigning of online architecture have the potential to promote the digital well-being of online technology users. In this article, I evaluate the CHT’s rule-based approach, comparing it with character-based strategies and approaches to redesigning online architecture. I argue that all these approaches have some merit, but that each needs to contribute to an integrated approach to digital well-being in order to surmount the challenges of a post-COVID world in which we may well spend much of our lives online. (shrink)

Putative examples of true contradictions in the social world have been given by dialetheists such as Graham Priest, Richard Routley, and Val Plumwood. However, we feel that it has not been decisively argued that these examples are in fact true contradictions rather than merely apparent. In this paper we adopt a new strategy to show that there are some true contradictions in the social world, and hence that dialetheism is correct. The strategy involves showing that a group of sincere dialetheists (...) can, given an appropriately formed institution, bootstrap contradictions into existence. We discuss objections and consider the implications of this finding for debates over logic. (shrink)

This paper brings needed clarity to the influential view that species are cohesive entities held together by gene flow, and then develops an empirical argument against that view: Neglected data suggest gene flow is neither necessary nor sufficient for species cohesion. Implications are discussed. ‡I'm grateful to Rob Wilson, Alex Rueger and Lindley Darden for important comments on earlier drafts, and to Joseph Nagel, Heather Proctor, Ken Bond, members of the DC History and Philosophy of Biology reading group, and audience (...) members at the November 2006 meeting of the PSA, for helpful comments or discussion. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada fellowship 752-2005-1208 supported research. †To contact the author, please write to: Philosophy Department, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

One of the liveliest debates about cognition concerns whether our cognition sometimes extends beyond our brains and bodies. One party says Yes, another No. This paper shows that debate between these parties has been epistemologically confused and requires reorienting. Both parties frequently appeal to empirical considerations and to extra-empirical theoretical virtues to support claims about where cognition is. These things should constrain their claims, but cannot do all the work hoped. This is because of the overlooked fact, uncovered in this (...) paper, that we could never distinguish the rival views empirically or by typical theoretical virtues. I show this by drawing on recent work on testing, predictive accuracy, and theoretical virtues. The recommendation to emerge is that we step back from debate about where cognition is, to the epistemology of what cognition is. (shrink)

In this article applied and theoretical epistemologies benefit each other in a study of the British legal case of R. vs. Clark. Clark's first infant died at 11 weeks of age, in December 1996. About a year later, Clark had a second child. After that child died at eight weeks of age, Clark was tried for murdering both infants. Statisticians and philosophers have disputed how to apply Bayesian analyses to this case, and thereby arrived at different judgments about it. By (...) dwelling on this applied case, I make theoretical gains: clarifying and defending pragmatic principles of inference that are important for estimating key probabilities in a range of cases. Then, partly by drawing on such principles, and uncovering overlooked data on post-partum psychosis, I make applied gains: improving the rationality of judgments about the Sally Clark case in particular, judgments important to future similar cases. (shrink)

Pluralisms of various sorts are popular in philosophy of science, including those that imply some scientific concept x should be eliminated from science in favour of a plurality of concepts x1, x2, … xn. This article focuses on influential and representative arguments for such eliminative pluralism about the concept species. The main conclusions are that these arguments fail, that all other extant arguments also fail, and that this reveals a quite general dilemma, one that poses a defeasible presumption against many (...) eliminative pluralisms about various scientific concepts. The article ends by outlining a novel integrative alternative in defence of species. 1) Introduction 2) The species Concept, the Category ‘Species’, and the ‘Species’ Category Problem 3) What Are Eliminative Pluralism about species, and the Arguments for It? 4) Evaluation of Arguments 4.1 Splitting? 4.2 Lumping? 4.3 The eliminative pluralist’s dilemma 5) More General Lessons6Species Cohesion: An Integrative Alternative7Conclusion. (shrink)

We argue for a new conventionalism about many kinds of evolutionary groups, including clades, cohesive units, and populations. This rejects a consensus, which says that given any one of the many legitimate grouping concepts, only objective biological facts determine whether a collection is such a group. Surprisingly, being any one kind of evolutionary group typically depends on which of many incompatible values are taken by suppressed variables. This is a novel pluralism underlying most any one group concept, rather than a (...) familiar pluralism claiming many concepts are legitimate. Consequently, we must help biological facts determine grouphood, even when given a single grouping concept. (shrink)

Over the last 2,300 years or so, many philosophers have believed that species are individuated by essences that are at least in part intrinsic. Psychologists tell us most folks also believe this view. But most philosophers of biology have abandoned the view, in light of evolutionary conceptions of species. In defiance, Michael Devitt has attempted in this journal to resurrect a version of the view, which he calls Intrinsic Biological Essentialism. I show that his arguments for the resurrection fail, and (...) I identify challenges that face anyone wishing to defend Intrinsic Biological Essentialism. (shrink)

Proponents of the value ladenness of science rely primarily on arguments from underdetermination or inductive risk, which share the premise that we should only consider values where the evidence runs out or leaves uncertainty; they adopt a criterion of lexical priority of evidence over values. The motivation behind lexical priority is to avoid reaching conclusions on the basis of wishful thinking rather than good evidence. This is a real concern, however, that giving lexical priority to evidential considerations over values is (...) a mistake and unnecessary for avoiding the wishful thinking. Values have a deeper role to play in science. (shrink)

This paper is about both an application of virtue ethics, and about virtue ethics itself. A popular application of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics to environmental issues is called interpersonal extensionism. It argues that we should view the normative range of traditional interpersonal virtues, such as compassion and humility, as extending beyond our interactions with people to also include our interactions with non-human environments. This paper uncovers an unaddressed problem for this view, then proposes a solution by revising how we understand neo-Aristotelian (...) virtue ethics itself. The tenet in question, defended by virtue ethicists such as Hursthouse and Foot, claims that a character trait counts as a virtue only if it is strictly necessary for human flourishing. This tenet threatens interpersonal extensionism because, as I show, the extended or environment-regarding aspects of virtues such as compassion and humility are not strictly speaking necessary for human flourishing: people can in principle flourish without those. But I then argue that diversities across both people and environments give us good, seldom acknowledged, reasons to revise neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics so that it no longer imposes the tenet that led to this problem. Neither a trait nor an aspect of it need be necessary for human flourishing in order to count as a neo-Aristotelian virtue. Indeed, marked variation between people and between environments can be complementary with respect to flourishing. Sometimes, for instance, part of the reason an environment-regarding aspect of compassion is virtuous is because of its distinct role in creating conditions that increase the chance that others will flourish. To show these things, I draw from work in philosophy of science on cluster approaches to categories and constitution, and from experiences working with diverse people in Canada's diverse national and provincial parks. (shrink)

The disconnect problem arises wherever there is ongoing and severe discordance between the scientific assessment of a politically relevant issue, and the politics and legislation of said issue. Here, we focus on the disconnect problem as it arises in the case of climate change, diagnosing a failure to respect the necessary tradeoff between authority and autonomy within a public institution like science. After assessing the problematic deployment of scientific authority in this arena, we offer suggestions for how to mitigate climate (...) change’s particular disconnect problem, as well as more general proposals for reforming science advising. (shrink)

This ~4000 word essay introduces topics of essentialism, as they arise in social sciences. It distinguishes empirical (e.g., psychological) from philosophical studies of essentialisms, and both metaphysical and scientific essentialisms within philosophy. Essentialism issues in social science are shown to be more subtle and complex than often presumed.

In this paper I give a definition of assertion that develops William P. Alston’s account. Alston’s account of assertion combines a responsibility condition R, which captures the appropriate socio-normative status that one undertakes in asserting something, with an explicit presentation condition, such that the speech act in some way presents the content of what is being asserted. I develop Alston’s account of explicit presentation and add a Brandomian responsibility condition. I then argue that this produces an attractive position on the (...) nature of assertion. (shrink)

Analytic metaphysics of gender has taken an ameliorative turn towards ethical and political questions regarding what our concept of gender ought to be, and how gendered society should be structured. Abolitionism about gender, which claims that we ought to mandate gender out of existence, has therefore seen renewed interest. I consider three arguments for abolitionism from radically different perspectives: Haslanger’s simple argument, Escalante’s Gender Nihilism, and Okin’s argument from ideal theory. I argue that none of the above manage to establish (...) the desirability of abolitionism and that we should be wary of the abolitionist position, as it imperils trans lives. (shrink)

In 2005, Charles Mills published “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology” in Hypatia: a withering critique of much of contemporary political philosophy and ethics. For Mills such work in philosophy failed to attend to the realities of social life and politics, and in remaining silent on actual issues of domination and oppression served an ideological role in supporting the interests of white bourgeois men. Around the time that Charles Mills launched his broadside against ideal theory, trans theorists had been fighting their own (...) battle against the abstraction of theory from the realities of trans lives and oppression. Vivian Namaste (2000) and Jay Prosser (1998) argued that contemporary gender theory failed to justice to the actuality of trans life, retreating instead to understanding trans life through literary archetypes and idealized radical figures. In this chapter I’ll compare Mills’ critique of ideal theory with the transfeminist critique of 1990s gender theory, arguing that they share much in common. Centrally, both critiques share an underlying commitment to theory needing to be grounded in the actuality of oppression and power relations. This common thread, I suggest, must continue to guide transfeminist thought and action: contra Marquis Bey (2022) transfeminist thought and praxis must continue to be about trans lives, about the oppression of trans women, and about ways of actually achieving liberation from our current dire position. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new and testable view about the nature of species and other evolving lineages, according to which they are feedback systems. On this view, it is a mistake to think gene flow, niche sharing, and trait frequency similarities between populations are among variables that interact to cause some further downstream variable that distinguishes evolving lineages from each other, some sort of “species cohesion” for example. Instead, gene flow, niche sharing, similarities between populations, and other causal variables feed (...) into each other—instances of these at earlier times help cause instances of these same variables at later times. And any lineage-identifying cohesion just is the recurrence or cycling of these feedback relations within metapopulations over generations. Such cohesion can then be represented as variable M within multi-dimensional variable spaces, where values of M vary dynamically with the frequency and magnitude of feedback relations. Related conditions for being a species or other evolving lineage are then clarified. To argue for the development and testing of this view, the paper shows how it improves upon others. (shrink)

This paper addresses the political constraints on science through a pragmatist critique of Philip Kitcher’s account of “well-ordered science.” A central part of Kitcher’s account is his analysis of the significance of items of scientific research: contextual and purpose-relative scientific significance replaces mere truth as the aim of inquiry. I raise problems for Kitcher’s account and argue for an alternative, drawing on Peirce’s and Dewey’s theories of problem-solving inquiry. I conclude by suggesting some consequences for understanding the proper conduct of (...) science in a democracy. (shrink)

Global lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic have offered many people first-hand experience of how their daily online activities threaten their digital well-being. This article begins by critically evaluating the current approaches to digital well-being offered by ethicists of technology, NGOs, and social media corporations. My aim is to explain why digital well-being needs to be reimagined within a new conceptual paradigm. After this, I lay the foundations for such an alternative approach, one that shows how current digital well-being initiatives can (...) be designed in more insightful ways. This new conceptual framework aims to transform how philosophers of technology think about this topic, as well as offering social media corporations practical ways to design their technologies in ways that will improve the digital well-being of users. (shrink)

Spinoza was one of the most influential figures of the Enlightenment, but his often obscure metaphysics makes it difficult to understand the ultimate message of his philosophy. Although he regarded freedom as the fundamental goal of his ethics and politics, his theory of freedom has not received sustained, comprehensive treatment. Spinoza holds that we attain freedom by governing ourselves according to practical principles, which express many of our deepest moral commitments. Matthew J. Kisner focuses on this theory and presents (...) an alternative picture of the ethical project driving Spinoza's philosophical system. His study of the neglected practical philosophy provides an accessible and concrete picture of what it means to live as Spinoza's ethics envisioned. (shrink)