Volume 14 in the Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers series focuses on Karl Popper, An important and controversial thinker of the 20th century.

In this article, we evaluate the capacity of liberal egalitarianism to rebut what we call the libertarian challenge of charity. This challenge states that coercive redistributive taxation is neither needed nor justified, since those who endorse redistribution can give charitably, and those who do not endorse redistribution cannot justifiably be coerced. We argue that contemporary developments in liberal political thought render liberalism more vulnerable to this libertarian challenge. Many liberals have, in recent years, sought to recast liberalism such that it (...) is more hospitable to cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity. This move has resulted in increased support for the claim that liberalism should be understood as a political rather than comprehensive doctrine, and that liberal institutions should draw their legitimacy from agreements made among members of an appropriately conceived deliberative community, rather than from controversial liberal principles like individual autonomy. We argue that, while this move may indeed make liberalism more compatible with cultural diversity, it also makes it more vulnerable to the libertarian challenge of charity. Not all versions of liberalism are troubled by the challenge, but those that are troubled by it are increasingly dominant. We also discuss G.A. Cohen's claim that liberal equality requires an ‘egalitarian ethos’ and argue that, if Cohen is right, it is difficult to see how there can be an adequate response to the libertarian challenge of charity. In general, our argument can be summarised as follows: the more that liberalism is concerned accurately to model the actual democratic wishes and motivations of the people it governs, the less it is able to justify coercively imposing redistributive principles of justice. (shrink)

The official model of explanation proposed by the logical empiricists, the covering law model, is subject to familiar objections. The goal of the present paper is to explore an unofficial view of explanation which logical empiricists have sometimes suggested, the view of explanation as unification. I try to show that this view can be developed so as to provide insight into major episodes in the history of science, and that it can overcome some of the most serious difficulties besetting the (...) covering law model. (shrink)

In this work, the prominent political philosopher Philip Pettit embarks on a massive undertaking to offers major new accounts of the foundations of the state and the nature of justice. In doing so Pettit builds a new theory of what the state is and what it ought to be, addresses the normative question of how justice serves as a measure of the success of a state, and the way it should operate in relation to its citizens and other people.

L’article décrit la pluralité des mouvements de la contestation féministe qui exigent la transformation des structures sociales en Iran. Tout en passant en revue les origines du mouvement féministe en Iran, avant et après la révolution, l’auteur – qui est l’une des fondatrices du mouvement Un million de signatures (2005-2012) – étudie la campagne qui visait à changer les lois discriminatoires en Iran. Elle analyse de manière critique la configuration organisationnelle et les méthodes utilisées par les féministes dans le contexte (...) sociopolitique de l’époque. Au cours de la dernière décennie, des mouvements aux multiples facettes et des soulèvements à plusieurs voix se sont multipliés malgré la dure répression. (shrink)

GraphicalExercise, neurotransmitters, growth factors, myokines, and potential effects on the brain.As human life expectancy increases, cognitive decline and memory impairment threaten independence and quality of life. Therefore, finding prevention and treatment strategies for memory impairment is an important health concern. Moreover, a better understanding of the mechanisms involved underlying memory preservation will enable the development of appropriate pharmaceuticals drugs for those who are activity limited. Exercise training as a non-pharmacological tool, has been known to increase the mean lifespan by maintaining (...) general body health and improving the cardiovascular and nervous systems function. Among different exercise training protocols, aerobic exercise has been reported to prevent the progression of memory decline, provided adequate exertion level, duration, and frequency. Mechanisms underlying exercise training effects on memory performance have not been understood yet. Convergent evidence suggest several direct and indirect mechanisms at molecular and supramolecular levels. The supramolecular level includes improvement in blood circulation, synaptic plasticity and neurogenesis which are under controls of complex molecular signaling of neurotransmitters, neurotrophic factors, exerkines, and epigenetics factors. Among these various factors, irisin/BDNF signaling seems to be one of the important mediators of crosstalk between contracted skeletal muscles and the brain during exercise training. This review provides an affordable and effective method to improve cognitive function in old ages, particularly those who are most vulnerable to neurodegenerative disorders. (shrink)

A person presented with adequate but not conclusive evidence for a proposition is in a position voluntarily to acquire a belief in that proposition, or to suspend judgment about it. The availability of doxastic options in such cases grounds a moderate form of doxastic voluntarism not based on practical motives, and therefore distinct from pragmatism. In such cases, belief-acquisition or suspension of judgment meets standard conditions on willing: it can express stable character traits of the agent, it can be responsive (...) to reasons, and it is compatible with a subjective awareness of the available options. (shrink)

How Galileo created the problem of consciousness -- Is there a ghost in the machine? -- Can physical science explain consciousness? -- How to solve the problem of consciousness -- Consciousness and the meaning of life.

What's the Use of Philosophy? aims to answer the question posed in its title, whether the questioner intends to dismiss philosophy, or seeks a positive answer. The first three chapters explore the grounds for dismissal. Chapter 1 expresses skepticism about the value of much professional Anglophone philosophy, while recognizing virtues in work often viewed as peripheral. Chapter 2 studies a philosophical subfield, the philosophy of science, arguing that, while its condition may be better than the norm, it is far from (...) perfect. In Chapter 3, a more systematic critique is offered, in the form of a pathology report. Its diagnosis identifies six justifiable philosophical impulses that, when pursued obsessively, generate distortions and diseases: clarity becomes a fetish, formalism becomes obfuscation, "intuition" is given burdens it cannot bear, appeals to the a priori sprinkle fairy dust on controversial claims, ideas grabbed from other fields are used in cartoon forms, and questions no longer relevant are treated as if they were "timeless." Chapter 4 attempts to identify the legitimate goals of philosophy. It sees value in attempts to respond to questions arising from the difficulties of the age, in attempts to reform methods of inquiry, and, above all, in the construction of syntheses capable of helping people as they struggle to make sense of their lives. Philosophy is renewed when these traditional goals once again become central to its discussions. The final chapter responds to a frequently voiced worry in a letter to young philosophers who wonder how they can align their aspirations with the hyper-professionalism expected of them. (shrink)

This paper argues for a Husserlian account of phenomenal intentionality. Experience is intentional insofar as it presents a mind-independent, objective world. Its doing so is a matter of the way it hangs together, its having a certain structure. But in order for the intentionality in question to be properly understood as phenomenal intentionality, this structure must inhere in experience as a phenomenal feature. Husserl’s concept of horizon designates this intentionality-bestowing experiential structure, while his concept of motivation designates the unique phenomenal (...) character of this structure as it is experientially lived through. The way experience hangs together is itself a phenomenal feature of experience. (shrink)

Engineers are traditionally regarded as trustworthy professionals who meet exacting standards. In this chapter I begin by explicating our trust relationship towards engineers, arguing that it is a linear but indirect relationship in which engineers “stand behind” the artifacts and technological systems that we rely on directly. The chapter goes on to explain how this relationship has become more complex as engineers have taken on two additional aims: the aim of social engineering to create and steer trust between people, and (...) the aim of creating automated systems that take over human tasks and are meant to invite the trust of those who rely on and interact with them. (shrink)

BackgroundOrgan donation following brain death has become an important way of supplying organs for transplantation in many countries. This practice is less common in Iran for different reasons. Therefore, this study aims to explore the obstacles to organ donation following brain death in Iran.MethodsThis qualitative research was conducted following the conventional content analysis method. The study population consisted of individuals with a history of brain death among their blood relatives who refused to donate the organs. Snowball sampling was employed to (...) select the participants. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted for data gathering. Theoretical saturation was achieved through 20 interviews. Data analysis was done following the steps proposed by Graneheim and Lundman. Lincoln and Guba’s criteria were used to ensure data rigor and transferability of the study.ResultsData analyses revealed 185 codes, 23 categories, and seven themes including, poor knowledge about brain death and organ transplantation from a dead body, cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, deficiencies of requesting process, fear and concerns, inability to make a decision, and social learning.ConclusionThere were several factors in families’ reluctance to donate organs of a brain-dead patient. Through improving knowledge and changing cultural beliefs in society, it is possible to take large steps towards promoting organ donation from brain-dead patients. (shrink)

An esteemed philosopher discusses his theory of universal freedom, describing how even those who are members of free societies may find their liberties curtailed and includes tests of freedom including the eyeball test and the tough-luck test.

Good reasoning can lead to success; bad reasoning can lead to catastrophe. Yet, it's not obvious how we reason, and why we make mistakes. This new book by one of the pioneers of the field, Philip Johnson-Laird, looks at the mental processes that underlie our reasoning. It provides the most accessible account yet of the science of reasoning.

This paper has two goals: (1) to defend a particular response to the problem of resultant moral luck and (2) to defend the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided. Cases of overdetermination threaten to undermine the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided. To deal with this issue, I will motivate a particular way of responding to the problem of resultant moral luck. I defend the view that one's degree (...) of responsibility is immune to moral luck but the scope of events for which one is responsible is subject to moral luck. I will then argue that this view allows us to explain away certain intuitions about responsibility and overdetermination (as well as similar intuitions regarding Frankfurt Cases). As a result, the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided becomes significantly more plausible. (shrink)

Cognitive neuropsychiatry (CN) is the explanation of psychiatric disorder by the methods of cognitive neuropsychology. Within CN there are, broadly speaking, two approaches to delusion. The first uses a one-stage model, in which delusions are explained as rationalizations of anomalous experiences via reasoning strategies that are not, in themselves, abnormal. Two-stage models invoke additional hypotheses about abnormalities of reasoning. In this paper, I examine what appears to be a very strong argument, developed within CN, in favor of a twostage explanation (...) of the difference in content between the Capgras and Cotard delusions. That explanation treats them as alternative rationalizations of essentially the same phenomenology. I show, however, that once we distinguish the phenomenology (and the neuroetiology), a one-stage model is adequate. In the final section I make some more general remarks on the oneand two-stage models. (shrink)

Wisdom is peculiarly abstract, ineffable, and yet perennial. It is also temporal, stretching forwards as well is backwards in time. Wisdom is often treated as the outcome of life experience, reflection, discipline, and equanimity. Capturing the Ineffable aims to establish wisdom as an area if inquiry within anthropology and an analytic account of wisdom and its role and focus in anthropology. In addition to developing theories for an anthropology (and excavation) of wisdom, this volume argues collectively that anthropology is especially (...) well suited to engage in questioning what it is that is called wisdom, and how wisdom, as a concept, and an enacted activity, functions in metaphysical and interpersonal experiences, values, and judgements. The contributors include many key US and UK thinkers. (shrink)

This is the first complete English translation of Gottlob Frege's Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, with introduction and annotation. The importance of Frege's ideas within contemporary philosophy would be hard to exaggerate. He was, to all intents and purposes, the inventor of mathematical logic, and the influence exerted on modern philosophy of language and logic, and indeed on general epistemology, by the philosophical framework.

Changing patterns of political participation observed by political scientists over the past half-century undermine traditional democratic theory and practice. The vast majority of democratic theory, and deliberative democratic theory in particular, either implicitly or explicitly assumes the need for widespread citizen participation. It requires that all citizens possess the opportunity to participate and also that they take up this opportunity. But empirical evidence gathered over the past half-century strongly suggests that many citizens do not have a meaningful opportunity to participate (...) in the ways that many democratic theorists require, and do not participate in anything like the numbers that they believe is necessary. This paper outlines some of the profound changes that have been experienced by liberal democratic states in the 20th and early 21st Centuries, changes which are still ongoing, and which have resulted in declines in citizens participation and trust, the marginalisation of citizens from democratic life, and the entrenchment of social and economic inequalities which have damaged democracy. The paper challenges the conventional wisdom in rejecting the idea that the future of democracy lies in encouraging more widespread participation. The paper takes seriously the failure of the strategies adopted by many states to increase participation, especially among the poor, and suggests that instead of requiring more of citizens, we should in fact be requiring less of them. Instead of seeking to encourage more citizen participation, we should acknowledge that citizens will probably not participate in the volume, or in the ways, many democratic theorists would like, and that therefore we need an alternative approach: a regime which can continue to produce democratic outcomes, and which satisfies the requirements of political equality, in the absence of widespread participation by citizens. (shrink)

The early nineteenth century saw the demise of the Italian-Atlantic tradition of republicanism and the rise of classical liberalism. A distinct Franco-German tradition of republicanism emerged from the time of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant, which differs from the older way of thinking associated with neo-republicanism. This chapter examines the key differences between the Italian-Atlantic and Franco-German traditions of republicanism and places them in a historical context. It first considers classical republicanism and how the ideological ideal of equal freedom as (...) nondomination differs from the twin institutional ideals of a mixed constitution and a contestatory citizenry. It then looks at the classical liberal opposition that arose in response to Italian-Atlantic republicanism. It also discusses the views of Kant and Rousseau about freedom and the role of the citizenry, as well as their theory of the constitution. The absolutist opposition in Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes to the institutional ideals of republicanism is also explored. (shrink)

Trusting someone in an intuitive, rich sense of the term involves not just relying on that person, but manifesting reliance on them in the expectation that this manifestation of reliance will increase their reason and motive to prove reliable. Can trust between people be formed on the basis of Internet contact alone? Forming the required expectation in regard to another person, and so trusting them on some matter, may be due to believing that they are trustworthy; to believing that they (...) seek es teem and will be rationally responsive to the good opinion communicated or promised by an act of trust; or to both factors at once. Neither mechanism can rationally command confidence, however, in the case where people are related only via the Internet. On the Internet everyone wears the ring of Gyges; everyone is invisible, in their personal identity, to others. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Rawls's Anti‐Cosmopolitanism Rawls's Ontology of Peoples Reconstructing Rawls's Rejection of Cosmopolitanism Acknowledgments Notes.

There has recently been a revival of interest in panpsychism as a theory of consciousness. The hope of the contemporary proponents of panpsychism is that the view enables us to integrate consciousness into our overall theory of reality in a way that avoids the deep difficulties that plague the more conventional options of physicalism on the one hand and dualism on the other. However, panpsychism comes in two forms — strong and weak emergentist — and there are arguments that seem (...) to show that weak emergentist panpsychism faces problems analogous to those of physicalism whilst strong emergentist panpsychism faces problems analogous to those of dualism. In this paper, I will develop a new hybrid of the strong and weak emergentist forms of panpsychism, a view according to which subjects of experience are strongly emergent but their phenomenal properties are weakly emergent. I will argue that this hybrid view manages to avoid the challenges facing both physicalism and dualism, and the analogues of those challenges that seem to undermine standard forms of panpsychism. (shrink)

Purpose This study aims to analyze how English-language versions of e-newspapers in the first two countries affected, China and Japan, which are non-English-speaking countries and have different socio-economic and political settings, have highlighted Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic news and informed the global community. Design/methodology/approach A text-mining approach was used to explore experts’ thoughts as published by the two leading English-language newspapers in China and Japan from January to March 2020. This study analyzes the Opinion section, which mainly comprises editorial and (...) the op-ed section. The current study groups all editorial discussions and highlights into ten major aspects, which cover health, economy, politics, culture and others. Findings Within the first three months, the media in both China and Japan shifted their focus from health and preparedness to the economy, politics and social welfare. Governance and social welfare were key concerns in China’s news media, while, in contrast, global politics received the highest level of attention from experts in Japan’s news media. Environment and technologies aspects did not receive much attention by the expert’s columns. Originality/value At the initial stage of a world crisis, how leading nations and initially affected nations deal with the problem, how media play their role and guide mass population with experts’ thoughts are highlighted here. The understanding developed in this study can provide guidance to news media in other countries in playing effective roles in the management of this health crisis and catastrophes. (shrink)

The deposition of the political -- From paradox to partage : on citizenship and teletechnologies -- The disposition of being -- Being communist -- Seattle and the space of exposure.

Abstractionism, which is a development of Frege's original Logicism, is a recent and much debated position in the philosophy of mathematics. This volume contains 16 original papers by leading scholars on the philosophical and mathematical aspects of Abstractionism. After an extensive editors' introduction to the topic of abstractionism, the volume is split into 4 sections. The contributions within these sections explore the semantics and meta-ontology of Abstractionism, abstractionist epistemology, the mathematics of Abstractionis, and finally, Frege's application constraint within an abstractionist (...) setting. (shrink)

This essay explores some of the similarities and differences between the views of several Western and Chinese thinkers on the metaphysical status of moral qualities and how we come to perceive and appreciate them. It then uses this comparative analysis to identify and address some remaining problems in regard to these two issues. The essay offers a brief sketch of and introduction to the history of the study of moral qualities and moral perception in modern Western philosophy and takes the (...) views of John McDowell, W ang Yangming, and Mencius as the primary focus of its comparative component. It seeks to understand the views of these thinkers by a careful examination of the metaphors as well as the arguments they employ. (shrink)

It is intuitive that free action depends on consciousness in some way, since behavior that is unconsciously generated is widely regarded as un-free. But there is no clear consensus as to what such dependence comes to, in part because there is no clear consensus about either the cognitive role of consciousness or about the essential components of free action. I divide the space of possible views into four: the Constitution View (on which free actions metaphysically consist, at least in part, (...) in phenomenally conscious episodes of a special sort), the Causal-Dependence View (on which free actions are necessarily caused by conscious episodes), the Counterfactaul-Dependence View (on which free actions necessarily counterfactually dependent on conscious episodes of certain types), and the Independence View (on which there are no necessary dependence-relations that hold between free action and conscious episodes). After surveying recent empirical literature that purports to show that consciousness plays a smaller role in generating action than is usually supposed, I conclude that it is plausible that free action depends on consciousness in two ways. First, free action causally depends on consciousness control. Second, free action counterfactually depends on the agent's being responsive to certain reasons. (shrink)

Doing Right: A Practical Guide to Ethics for Medical Trainees and Physicians is a concise and practical guide to ethical decision-making in medicine. The text is aimed at second- and third-year one-semester ethics courses offered in medical schools, health sciences departments, and nursing programs. By taking an applied approach rather than a theoretical approach, this text serves the needs of medical and nursing students, residents, and practicing physicians by sorting through questions of moral principles relevant to the diverse and growing (...) number of healthcare professionals. The many topics covered include truth telling, refusal of treatment, assisted suicide, managing error, and reproductive choice. (shrink)

This article describes a method of scoping for potential ethical contentions within a resource constrained research environment where actor participation and bottom–up analysis is precluded. Instead of reverting to a top–down analytical structure, a data-led process is devised. This imitates a bottom–up analytic structure in the absence of the direct participation of actors, culminating in the construction of a map of the ethical landscape; a high-resolution ethical matrix of coded interpretations of various actors’ ethical framings of the technology. Despite its (...) limitations, which are discussed, the map can subsequently support the identification of areas where ethical contentions may be raised. Here, the method is described with reference to the construction and analysis of a map of the ethical landscape of carbon capture and storage technology. Taken as a preliminary stage of a larger study, it can support the design and initiation of more sophisticated analyses which may integrate stronger bottom–up participation and facilitate a reflective, deliberative process amongst actors. (shrink)

The Music Instinct Philip Ball provides the first comprehensive, accessible survey of what is known--and what is still unknown--about how music works its magic, and why, as much as eating and sleeping, it seems indispensable to humanity. --from publisher description.

Mountaineering is a dangerous activity. For many mountaineers, part of its very attraction is the risk, the thrill of danger. Yet mountaineers are often regarded as reckless or even irresponsible for risking their lives. In this paper, we offer a defence of risk-taking in mountaineering. Our discussion is organised around the fact that mountaineers and non-mountaineers often disagree about how risky mountaineering really is. We hope to cast some light on the nature of this disagreement – and to argue that (...) mountaineering may actually be worthwhile because of the risks it involves. Section 1 introduces the disagreement and, in doing so, separates out several different notions of risk. Sections 2–4 then consider some explanations of the disagreement, showing how a variety of phenomena can skew people's risk judgements. Section 5 then surveys some recent statistics, to see whether these illuminate how risky mountaineering is. In light of these considerations, however, we suggest that the disagreement is best framed not simply in terms of how risky mountaineering is but whether the risks it does involve are justified. The remainder of the paper, sections 6–9, argues that risk-taking in mountaineering often is justified – and, moreover, that mountaineering can itself be justified (in part) by and because of the risks it involves. (shrink)

The renowned cognitive scientist Philip Lieberman demonstrates that there is no better guide to the world's living--and still evolving--things than Darwin and that the phenomena he observed are still being explored at the frontiers of science. Lieberman relates the insights that led to groundbreaking discoveries in both Darwin's time and our own.

There is broad agreement that child labor is wrong and should be eliminated. This chapter examines the three main moral objections to child labor and considers their limitations: harm-based objections, objections from failing to benefit children, and objections from exploitation. Harm-based objections struggle with baselines for comparison and difficulties with Non-Identity problems. Even if child labor is not harmful, it may be wrong because it prevents children from enjoying other benefits, such as schooling. However, is schooling necessarily more beneficial for (...) children than work? Some kinds of child labor may not be harmful, and may benefit children, but they may still be wrong because they are exploitative. I consider some ways to address exploitative child labor, inspired by campaigns led by child workers. The chapter ends with a surprising conclusion that challenges the broad consensus with which we began: we may have duties to promote child labor. (shrink)