This paper addresses the libertarian’s “proportion issue,” i.e., the question of what part, or proportion, of the acts for which an agent is morally responsible are freely chosen acts. Many libertarians tacitly assume the absolutist position or the generous position on this issue according to which all or most of an agent’s morally accountable actions are freely chosen. Given that libertarian free choices are inherently unpredictable and that most human acts by contrast are predictable and often predicted, the absolutist and (...) generous positions on the proportion issue are untenable. The paper argues for a “cautious” libertarianism that maintains that only a small number of the acts for which an agent is morally responsible are freely chosen. To make this plausible, a notion of “libertarian responsibility transfer” is developed and defended against possible criticisms. The paper concludes that one step towards a reasonable libertarianism is the adoption of the cautious position on the proportion issue. (shrink)

This paper addresses the libertarian’s “proportion issue,” i.e., the question of what part, or proportion, of the acts for which an agent is morally responsible are freely chosen acts. Many libertarians tacitly assume the absolutist position or the generous position on this issue according to which all or most of an agent’s morally accountable actions are freely chosen. Given that libertarian free choices are inherently unpredictable and that most human acts by contrast are predictable and often predicted, the absolutist and (...) generous positions on the proportion issue are untenable. The paper argues for a “cautious” libertarianism that maintains that only a small number of the acts for which an agent is morally responsible are freely chosen. To make this plausible, a notion of “libertarian responsibility transfer” is developed and defended against possible criticisms. The paper concludes that one step towards a reasonable libertarianism is the adoption of the cautious position on the proportion issue. (shrink)

In this paper I question the claim that the increasingly popular position known as ‘free-will theism’ or ‘the open view of God’ supports a rich religious life. To do this I advance a notion of ‘religious adequacy’, and then argue that free-will theism fails to be religiously adequate with respect to one of the principal practices of the religious life – petitionary prayer. Drawing on current work in libertarian free-will theory, I consider what are likely the only two lines of (...) defence free-will theists might use in response to my argument. I argue that these defences either fail or have features that make them unacceptable to free-will theists. I then suggest that this failure with petitionary prayer is an instance of a larger problem for free-will theism, that the position's distinctive views often differ more dramatically from the common beliefs and practices of most believers than is usually recognized or acknowledged. I conclude that free-will theism can support a rich religious life only for those who make the requisite changes in belief and practice, including changing their expectations about petitionary prayer. (shrink)

Food is a challenging subject. There is little consensus about how and what we should produce and consume. It is not even clear what food is or whether people have similar experiences of it. On one hand, food is recognized as a basic need, if not a basic right. On the other hand, it is hard to generalize about it given the wide range of practices and cuisines, and the even wider range of tastes. This book is an introduction to (...) the philosophical dimensions of food. David M. Kaplan examines the nature and meaning of food, how we experience it, the social role it plays, its moral and political dimensions, and how we judge it to be delicious or awful. He shows how the different branches of philosophy contribute to a broader understanding of food: what food is (metaphysics), how we experience food (epistemology), what taste in food is (aesthetics), how we should make and eat food (ethics), how governments should regulate food (political philosophy), and why food matters to us (existentialism). Kaplan embarks on a series of philosophical investigations, considering topics such as culinary identity and authenticity, tasting and food criticism, appetite and disgust, meat eating and techno-foods, and consumerism and conformity. He emphasizes how different narratives help us navigate the complex world of food -- yet we all have responsibilities to ourselves, to others, and to animals. An original treatment of a timely subject, Food Philosophy is suitable for undergraduates while making a significant contribution to scholarly debates. (shrink)

The return of STS to its historical roots / Baird Callicott -- Phil-tech meets eco-phil / Don Idhe -- Is technology use insidious? / Kyle Whyte, Ryan Gunderson, Brett Clark -- Resistance to risky technologies / Paul Thompson -- Remediation technologies and respect for others / Ben Hale -- Early geoengineering governance / Clare Heyward -- Design for sustainability / Ibo van de Poel -- Industrial ecology and environmental design / Braden Allenby -- Ecodesign in the era of symbolic consumption (...) / Zhang Wei -- Do we consume too much? / Mark Sagoff -- Sustainable technologies for sustainable lifestyles / Philip Brey -- Sustainable animal agriculture and environmental virtue ethics / Raymond Anthony -- Technology, responsibility, and meat / Wyatt Galusky. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to address what appears to be a novel theoretical and practical problem concerning physician-assisted suicide (PAS). This problem arises out of a newly created set of circumstances in which persons are hospitalized in jurisdictions where PAS, though now legally available to patients, remains morally contentious. When moral disagreements over PAS come to divide physicians, patients, and family members, it is quite likely they will today find their way to the hospital’s consulting ethicist, a member of (...) an emerging group of professionals charged with the responsibility (so we are told) of resolving moral conflict in the clinic. What can or should an ethics consultant do to fulfill this mandate in such circumstances? I argue that the now predominant conception of clinical ethics consultation is importantly deficient in that it provides no final guidance to ethicists on how they should respond in such cases. The ethicist may only recommend—or assist others to reach—solutions to moral disagreements falling within the limits of established norms. Since the normative landscape of PAS appears to be changing, whether it falls within these limits is unsettled. I conclude that the accepted goals of ethics consultation require a revised and expanded conception of the ethicist's role in cases involving PAS. I close by outlining what that revised understanding would look like and the further questions it raises. (shrink)

The first book-length treatment of Paul Ricoeur's conception of philosophy as critical theory.

In this chapter I consider the narrow and wider benefits of permitting assisted dying in the specific context of organ donation and transplantation. In addition to the commonly used arguments, there are two other neglected reasons for permitting assisted suicide and/or euthanasia: assisted dying enables those who do not wish to remain alive to prolong the lives of those who do, and also allows many more people to fulfill their wish to donate organs after death. In the first part of (...) this chapter I explore the possibility of allowing those who die with assistance to donate their organs and the potential benefits of doing so in countries where some form of assisted dying is legal; in the second part I consider the added force that organ donation considerations bring to the argument in favour of legalizing assisted dying in countries where such practices remain forbidden. (shrink)

Matters of Certainty and Conviction. In the section on certainty, Shaw puts forth a proof of the external world, and considers topics such as change, difference, time, consciousness, substance and quality.

This is a book about the education America owes to its children, why its education system is in poor condition, and what might be done to give that system both energy and quality.

David Berry and Michael Dieter: Introduction -- Florian Cramer: What is post-digital? -- Malcolm Levy and Christine Paul: Genealogies of the new aesthetic -- David Berry: The post-digital constellation -- Lukacs Mirocha: Communication models, aesthetics and ontology of the computational age revealed -- Katja Kwastek: How to be theorized: a f*** academic essay on the new aesthetic -- Daniel Pinkas: A hyperbolic new aesthetic -- Stamatia Portanova: The genius and the algorithm: reflections on the new aesthetic as a (...) computer's vision -- Lev Manovich and Alise Tifentale: Selfiecity: exploring photography and self-fashioning in social media -- David Golumbia: Judging like a machine -- Caroline bassett: Not now? : feminism, technology, postdigital -- Geoff Cox: Postscript on the problem of temporality in the post-digital -- Michael Dieterdark: Patterns: interface design, augmentation and crisis -- Sean Cubitt: Data visualisation and the subject of political aesthetics -- Mercedes Bunz: School will never end: on infantilization in digital environments: amplifying empowerment or propagating stupidity? -- Jussi Parikkathe : City and the city: London 2012 visual (un)commons -- Shintaro Miyazaki: Going beyond the visible: new aesthetic as an aesthetic of blindness? -- Thomas Apperley: Glitch sorting: minecraft, curation and the postdigital -- Marc Tuters: Through glass darkly: Google's gnostic governance -- Vito Campanelli: New aesthetic in the perspective of social photography -- Søren Bro Pold and Christian Ulrik Andersen: Aesthetics of the banal: "new aesthetics" in an era of diverted digital revolutions -- Wendy Chunnet: Works now: belated too early. (shrink)

From email to smart phones, and from social media to Google searches, digital technologies have transformed the way we learn, entertain ourselves, socialize, and work. Despite their usefulness, these technologies have often led to information overload, stress, and distraction. David M. Levy, who has lived his life between the "fast world" of high tech and the "slow world" of contemplation, offers a welcome guide to being more relaxed, attentive, and emotionally balanced while online. In a series of exercises carefully (...) designed to help readers observe and reflect on their own use, Levy has readers observe themselves while emailing and while multitasking, and also to experiment with unplugging for a specified period. (shrink)

Features different perspectives on issues surrounding war, including such topics as the justification of war, resource scarcity, the war on terror, and surveillance tools.

As business and society is an inherently multi-disciplinary scholarly area, the book will draw from work in areas outside of business and management, such as psychology, sociology, philosophy, religious studies, economics and other related fields, as well as the natural sciences, education, and other professional areas of study.

Today a variety of theological approaches offer fresh and enriching insights, yet much of contemporary religious thought can be disorienting for the beginning student of theology. This accessible introduction presents aspects of the thought of Fr. Bernard Lonergan SJ, (1904–1984) in a way that makes his vital contribution to contemporary theology accessible to the beginning student. The author minimizes technical terms and explains basic ideas with user-friendly examples. Rather than a survey of diverse contemporary theological opinions, or a thematic presentation (...) of one topic, the book tries to clear away confusions by focusing on the theologian concerned with those topics. The book will thus encourage creative ways of overcoming some of the unnecessary obstacles for students who want to explore theology today. (shrink)

Democracy is not naturally plausible. Why turn such important matters over to masses of people who have no expertise? Many theories of democracy answer by appealing to the intrinsic value of democratic procedure, leaving aside whether it makes good decisions. In Democratic Authority, David Estlund offers a groundbreaking alternative based on the idea that democratic authority and legitimacy must depend partly on democracy's tendency to make good decisions.Just as with verdicts in jury trials, Estlund argues, the authority and legitimacy (...) of a political decision does not depend on the particular decision being good or correct. But the "epistemic value" of the procedure--the degree to which it can generally be accepted as tending toward a good decision--is nevertheless crucial. Yet if good decisions were all that mattered, one might wonder why those who know best shouldn't simply rule.Estlund's theory--which he calls "epistemic proceduralism"--avoids epistocracy, or the rule of those who know. He argues that while some few people probably do know best, this can be used in political justification only if their expertise is acceptable from all reasonable points of view. If we seek the best epistemic arrangement in this respect, it will be recognizably democratic--with laws and policies actually authorized by the people subject to them. (shrink)

Leveraging, according to David M. Anderson and his colleagues, is both a basic principle of human conduct and the most dominant strategy in recent years that individuals, organizations and countries use to pursue their ends. Although many scholars agree that a crisis of "over-leveraging" caused the financial crisis of 2008-2010, it has not been appreciated that an "over-leveraging" crisis has existed in American politics and the American family system as well. This book addresses the need for a "Leverage Mean" (...) (falling between the extremes of too much leverage and too little leverage) in the economy, politics, family life, and international relations. It identifies three different kinds of leveraging-bargaining, resource, and investment and provides an explanatory and normative theory which draws on the fields of economics, political science, sociology, history, psychology, international relations, law, and philosophy. Moreover, it shows how the dissolution of the Cold War, the dismantling of the modern family, and the rise of the Internet along with the deregulation of the financial services industry led to the diffusion of power which has made leveraging of the first importance for everyone. This book should be of interest to social scientists, philosophers, political theorists, public policy makers and politicians. David Anderson and his colleagues are the first to characterize and assess one of the major instruments of power of the contemporary era. This volume represents the best work on leverage since Archimedes and will be widely read and discussed. Benjamin Ginsberg, David Bernstein Professor of Political Science and Chair, Center for Advanced Governmental Studies, Johns Hopkins University Leverage might literally be the operative word of the 21st century. Anderson's volume is a wide-ranging and illuminating study of this fundamental and dynamic concept. Parag Khanna, Senior Fellow, New Amer ica Foundation, author of The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century. (shrink)

People are adept at inferring novel causal relations, even from only a few observations. Prior knowledge about the probability of encountering causal relations of various types and the nature of the mechanisms relating causes and effects plays a crucial role in these inferences. We test a formal account of how this knowledge can be used and acquired, based on analyzing causal induction as Bayesian inference. Five studies explored the predictions of this account with adults and 4-year-olds, using tasks in which (...) participants learned about the causal properties of a set of objects. The studies varied the two factors that our Bayesian approach predicted should be relevant to causal induction: the prior probability with which causal relations exist, and the assumption of a deterministic or a probabilistic relation between cause and effect. Adults’ judgments (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) were in close correspondence with the quantitative predictions of the model, and children’s judgments (Experiments 3 and 5) agreed qualitatively with this account. (shrink)

This long-awaited book sets out the implications of Habermas's theory of communicative action for moral theory. "Discourse ethics" attempts to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged. The theory of justice it develops replaces Kant's categorical imperative with a procedure of justification based on reasoned agreement among participants in practical discourse.Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal development. (...) He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

We show that the N₀-categorical structures produced by Hrushovski's predimension construction with a control function fit neatly into Shelah's $SOP_n $ hierarchy: if they are not simple, then they have SOP₃ and NSOP₄. We also show that structures produced without using a control function can be undecidable and have SOP.

Consciousness and Mind presents David Rosenthal's influential work on the nature of consciousness. Central to that work is Rosenthal's higher-order-thought theory of consciousness, according to which a sensation, thought, or other mental state is conscious if one has a higher-order thought that one is in that state. The first four essays develop various aspects of that theory. The next three essays present Rosenthal's homomorphism theory of mental qualities and qualitative consciousness, and show how that theory fits with and helps (...) sustain the HOT theory. A crucial feature of homomorphism theory is that it individuates and taxonomizes mental qualities independently of the way we're conscious of them, and indeed independently of our being conscious of them at all. So the theory accommodates the qualitative character not only of conscious sensations and perceptions, but also of those which fall outside our stream of consciousness. Rosenthal argues that, because this account of mental qualities makes no appeal to consciousness, it enables us to dispel such traditional quandaries as the alleged conceivability of undetectable quality inversion, and to disarm various apparent obstacles to explaining qualitative consciousness and understanding its nature. Six further essays build on the HOT theory to explain various important features of consciousness, among them the complex connections that hold in humans between consciousness and speech, the self-interpretative aspect of consciousness, and the compelling sense we have that consciousness is unified. Two of the essays, one an extended treatment of homomorphism theory, appear here for the first time. There is also a substantive introduction, which draws out the connections between the essays and highlights their implications. (shrink)

No mental phenomenon is more central than consciousness to an adequate understanding of the mind. Nor does any mental phenomenon seem more stubbornly to resist theoretical treatment. Consciousness is so basic to the way we think about the mind that it can be tempting to suppose that no mental states exist that are not conscious states. Indeed, it may even seem mysterious what sort of thing a mental state might be if it is not a conscious state. On this way (...) of looking at things, if any mental states do lack consciousness, they are exceptional cases that call for special explanation or qualification. Perhaps dispositional or cognitive states exist that are not conscious, but nonetheless count as mental states. (shrink)

This text addresses the profound human questions of love and work. Beginning with a historical introduction, the author progresses through adaptive problems that humans face, and concludes by showing how evolutionary psychology encompasses all branches of psychology.

Reasoned disagreement is a pervasive feature of public life, and the persistence of disagreement is sometimes troublesome, reflecting the need to make difficult decisions. Fogelin suggests that parties to a deep disagreement should abandon reason and switch to non-rational persuasion. But how are the parties to know when to make such a switch? I argue that Fogelin's analysis doesn't clearly address this question, and that disputes arising in areas like medical decision making are such that the parties to them have (...) reasons to act as if they can be rationally resolved even if they are deep. Fogelin's analysis is thus of limited value as regards the practical moral demand of addressing concrete moral dilemmas. (shrink)

Contemporary mate preferences can provide important clues to human reproductive history. Little is known about which characteristics people value in potential mates. Five predictions were made about sex differences in human mate preferences based on evolutionary conceptions of parental investment, sexual selection, human reproductive capacity, and sexual asymmetries regarding certainty of paternity versus maternity. The predictions centered on how each sex valued earning capacity, ambition— industriousness, youth, physical attractiveness, and chastity. Predictions were tested in data from 37 samples drawn from (...) 33 countries located on six continents and five islands. For 27 countries, demographic data on actual age at marriage provided a validity check on questionnaire data. Females were found to value cues toresource acquisitionin potential mates more highly than males. Characteristics signalingreproductive capacitywere valued more by males than by females. These sex differences may reflect different evolutionary selection pressures on human males and females; they provide powerful cross-cultural evidence of current sex differences in reproductive strategies. Discussion focuses on proximate mechanisms underlying mate preferences, consequences for human intrasexual competition, and the limitations of this study. (shrink)

"My work has had nothing to do with gay liberation," Michel Foucault reportedly told an admirer in 1975. And indeed there is scarcely more than a passing mention of homosexuality in Foucault's scholarly writings. So why has Foucault, who died of AIDS in 1984, become a powerful source of both personal and political inspiration to an entire generation of gay activists? And why have his political philosophy and his personal life recently come under such withering, normalizing scrutiny by commentators as (...) diverse as Camille Paglia, Richard Mohr, Bruce Bawer, Roger Kimball, and biographer James Miller? David M. Halperin's Saint Foucault is an uncompromising and impassioned defense of the late French philosopher and historian as a galvanizing thinker whose career as a theorist and activist will continue to serve as a model for other gay intellectuals, activists, and scholars. A close reading of both Foucault and the increasing attacks on his life and work, it explains why straight liberals so often find in Foucault only counsels of despair on the subject of politics, whereas gay activists look to him not only for intellectual inspiration but also for a compelling example of political resistance. Halperin rescues Foucault from the endless nature-versus-nurture debate over the origins of homosexuality ("On this question I have absolutely nothing to say," Foucault himself once remarked) and argues that Foucault's decision to treat sexuality not as a biological or psychological drive but as an effect of discourse, as the product of modern systems of knowledge and power, represents a crucial political breakthrough for lesbians and gay men. Halperin explains how Foucault's radical vision of homosexuality as a strategic opportunity for self-transformation anticipated the new anti-assimilationist, anti-essentialist brand of sexual identity politics practiced by contemporary direct-action groups such as ACT UP. Halperin also offers the first synthetic account of Foucault's thinking about gay sex and the future of the lesbian and gay movement, as well as an up-to-the-minute summary of the most recent work in queer theory. "Where there is power, there is resistance," Michel Foucault wrote in The History of Sexuality, Volume I. Erudite, biting, and surprisingly moving, Saint Foucault represents Halperin's own resistance to what he views as the blatant and systematic misrepresentation of a crucial intellectual figure, a misrepresentation he sees as dramatic evidence of the continuing personal, professional, and scholarly vulnerability of all gay activists and intellectuals in the age of AIDS. (shrink)

Abstract While agreeing that dynamical models play a major role in cognitive science, we reject Stepp, Chemero, and Turvey's contention that they constitute an alternative to mechanistic explanations. We review several problems dynamical models face as putative explanations when they are not grounded in mechanisms. Further, we argue that the opposition of dynamical models and mechanisms is a false one and that those dynamical models that characterize the operations of mechanisms overcome these problems. By briefly considering examples involving the generation (...) of action potentials and circadian rhythms, we show how decomposing a mechanism and modeling its dynamics are complementary endeavors. (shrink)

In considering the nature of properties four controversial decisions must be made. (1) Are properties universals or tropes? (2) Are properties attributes of particulars, or are particulars just bundles of properties? (3) Are properties categorical (qualitative) in nature, or are they powers? (4) If a property attaches to a particular, is this predication contingent, or is it necessary? These choices seem to be in a great degree independent of each other. The author indicates his own choices.

The model of clinical ethics consultation (CEC) defended in the ASBH Core Competencies report has gained significant traction among scholars and healthcare providers. On this model, the aim of CEC is to facilitate deliberative reflection and thereby resolve conflicts and clarify value uncertainty by invoking and pursuing a process of consensus building. It is central to the model that the facilitated consensus falls within a range of allowable options, defined by societal values: prevailing legal requirements, widely endorsed organizational policies, and (...) professional standards of practice and codes of conduct. Moreover, the model stipulates that ethics consultants must refrain from giving substantive recommendations regarding how parties to a moral disagreement in the clinic should evaluate their options. We argue that this model of CEC is incomplete, because it wrongly assumes that what counts as the proper set of allowable options among which the parties are to deliberate will itself always be clearly discernible. We illustrate this problem with a recent case on which one of us consulted—a neonate born with trisomy 18 (T18). We try to show that law, policy, and standards of practice reveal no clear answer to the question posed by the case: namely, whether forgoing gastrostomy tube feedings for a baby with T18 is allowable. We suggest there may be other kinds of cases in which it may simply be unsettled whether a given choice falls within the set of allowable options within which consensus is to be facilitated. What should an ethicist do when confronting such unsettled cases? We agree with the facilitation model that an ethicist should remain neutral among the allowable options, when it is clear what the allowable options are. But, in unsettled cases, the role of a consultant should be expanded to include a process of moral inquiry into what the allowable options should be. We end by raising the issue of whether this means an ethicist should share his or her own conclusions or views about the allowability of a given clinical option. (shrink)