Despite increasing scientific interest in self-generated thought-mental content largely independent of the immediate environment-there has yet to be any comprehensive synthesis of the subjective experience and neural correlates of affect in these forms of thinking. Here, we aim to develop an integrated affective neuroscience encompassing many forms of self-generated thought-normal and pathological, moderate and excessive, in waking and in sleep. In synthesizing existing literature on this topic, we reveal consistent findings pertaining to the prevalence, valence, and variability of emotion in (...) self-generated thought, and highlight how these factors might interact with self-generated thought to influence general well-being. We integrate these psychological findings with recent neuroimaging research, bringing attention to the neural correlates of affect in self-generated thought. We show that affect in self-generated thought is prevalent, positively biased, highly variable (both within and across individuals), and consistently recruits many brain areas implicated in emotional processing, including the orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and medial prefrontal cortex. Many factors modulate these typical psychological and neural patterns, however; the emerging affective neuroscience of self-generated thought must endeavor to link brain function and subjective experience in both everyday self-generated thought as well as its dysfunctions in mental illness. (shrink)

Although task-unrelated thinking has been increasingly investigated in recent years, the content and correlates of everyday off-task thought in clinical d...

An often-overlooked characteristic of the human mind is its propensity to wander. Despite growing interest in the science of mind-wandering, most studies operationalize mind-wandering by its task-unrelated contents. But these contents may be orthogonal to the processes that determine how thoughts unfold over time, remaining stable or wandering from one topic to another. In this chapter, we emphasize the importance of incorporating such processes into current definitions of mind-wandering, and propose that mind-wandering and other forms of spontaneous thought (such as (...) dreaming and creativity) are mental states that arise and transition relatively freely due to an absence of constraints on cognition. We review existing psychological, philosophical and neuroscientific research on spontaneous thought through the lens of this framework, and call for additional research into the dynamic properties of the mind and brain. (shrink)

Most research on mind-wandering has characterized it as a mental state with contents that are task unrelated or stimulus independent. However, the dynamics of mind-wandering—how mental states change over time—have remained largely neglected. Here, we introduce a dynamic framework for understanding mind-wandering and its relationship to the recruitment of large-scale brain networks. We propose that mind-wandering is best understood as a member of a family of spontaneous-thought phenomena that also includes creative thought and dreaming. This dynamic framework can shed new (...) light on mental disorders that are marked by alterations in spontaneous thought, including depression, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. (shrink)

A reply to contemporary skepticism about intuitions and a priori knowledge, and a defense of neo-rationalism from a contemporary Kantian standpoint, focusing on the theory of rational intuitions and on solving the two core problems of justifying and explaining them.

The construct of wellbeing has been criticised as a neoliberal construction of western individualism that ignores wider systemic issues such as inequality and anthropogenic climate change. Accordingly, there have been increasing calls for a broader conceptualisation of wellbeing. Here we impose an interpretative framework on previously published literature and theory, and present a theoretical framework that brings into focus the multifaceted determinants of wellbeing and their interactions across multiple domains and levels of scale. We define wellbeing as positive psychological experience, (...) promoted by connections to self, community and environment, supported by healthy vagal function, all of which are impacted by socio-contextual factors that lie beyond the control of the individual. By emphasising the factors within and beyond the control of the individual and highlighting how vagal function both affects and are impacted by key domains, the biopsychosocial underpinnings of wellbeing are explicitly linked to a broader context that is consistent with, yet complementary to, multi-levelled ecological systems theory. Reflecting on the reciprocal relationships between multiple domains, levels of scale and related social contextual factors known to impact on wellbeing, our GENIAL framework may provide a foundation for a transdisciplinary science of wellbeing that has the potential to promote the wellbeing of individuals while also playing a key role in tackling major societal challenges. (shrink)

In the early months of 2020, the deadly Covid-19 disease spread rapidly around the world. In response, national and regional governments implemented a range of emergency lockdown measures, curtailing citizens’ movements and greatly limiting economic activity. More recently, as restrictions begin to be loosened or lifted entirely, the use of so-called contact tracing apps has figured prominently in many jurisdictions’ plans to reopen society. Critics have questioned the utility of such technologies on a number of fronts, both practical and ethical. (...) However, little has been said about the ways in which the normative design choices of app developers, and the products that result therefrom, might contribute to ethical reflection and wider political debate. Drawing from scholarship in critical design and human–computer interaction, this paper examines the development of a QR code-based tracking app called Zwaai (‘Wave’ in Dutch), where its designers explicitly positioned the app as an alternative to the predominant Bluetooth and GPS-based approaches. Through analyzing these designers’ choices, this paper argues that QR code infrastructures can work to surface a set ofethical–political seams, two of which are discussed here—responsibilizationandnetworked (im)permanence—that more ‘seamless’ protocols like Bluetooth actively aim to bypass, and which may go otherwise unnoticed by existing ethical frameworks. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a global threat to physical and mental health worldwide. Research has highlighted adverse impacts of COVID-19 on wellbeing but has yet to offer insights as to how wellbeing may be protected. Inspired by developments in wellbeing science and guided by our own theoretical framework, we examined the role of various potentially protective factors in a sample of 138 participants from the United Kingdom. Protective factors included physical activity, tragic optimism, gratitude, social support, and nature connectedness. (...) Initial analysis involved the application of one-sample t-tests, which confirmed that wellbeing in the current sample was significantly lower compared to previous samples. Protective factors were observed to account for up to 50% of variance in wellbeing in a hierarchical linear regression that controlled for a range of sociostructural factors including age, gender, and subjective social status, which impact on wellbeing but lie beyond individual control. Gratitude and tragic optimism emerged as significant contributors to the model. Our results identify key psychological attributes that may be harnessed through various positive psychology strategies to mitigate the adverse impacts of hardship and suffering, consistent with an existential positive psychology of suffering. (shrink)

Ethics review processes are frequently perceived as extending from codes and protocols rooted in biomedical disciplines. As a result, many researchers in the humanities and social sciences (HASS) find these processes to be misaligned, if not outrightly obstructive to their research. This leads some scholars to advocate against HASS participation in institutional review processes as they currently stand, or in their entirety. While ethics review processes can present a challenge to HASS researchers, these are not insurmountable and, in fact, present (...) opportunities for ethics review boards (ERBs) to mediate their practices to better attend to the concerns of the HASS disciplines. By highlighting the potential value of the ethics review process in recognising the nuances and specificity across different forms of research, this article explores the generative possibilities of greater collaboration between HASS researchers and ERBs. Remaining cognisant of the epistemic and methodological differences that mark different disciplinary formations in turn will benefit the ethical conduct of all researchers. (shrink)

This article examines the Dobsonian Telescope as an object of material culture, showing how starting with the materiality of a scientific instrument opens up new perspectives that are lost by focusing purely on its instrumentality. It argues that the simple design and homely materials of the Dobsonian telescope, as well as the gestures that it requires from its users, are at the core of its significance to the popularization of amateur astronomy and amateur telescope making.

In response to growing concerns of bias, discrimination, and unfairness perpetuated by algorithmic systems, the datasets used to train and evaluate machine learning models have come under increased scrutiny. Many of these examinations have focused on the contents of machine learning datasets, finding glaring underrepresentation of minoritized groups. In contrast, relatively little work has been done to examine the norms, values, and assumptions embedded in these datasets. In this work, we conceptualize machine learning datasets as a type of informational infrastructure, (...) and motivate a genealogy as method in examining the histories and modes of constitution at play in their creation. We present a critical history of ImageNet as an exemplar, utilizing critical discourse analysis of major texts around ImageNet’s creation and impact. We find that assumptions around ImageNet and other large computer vision datasets more generally rely on three themes: the aggregation and accumulation of more data, the computational construction of meaning, and making certain types of data labor invisible. By tracing the discourses that surround this influential benchmark, we contribute to the ongoing development of the standards and norms around data development in machine learning and artificial intelligence research. (shrink)

Statistics education at all levels includes data collected on human subjects. Thus, statistics educators have a responsibility to educate their students about the ethical aspects related to the collection of those data. The changing statistics education landscape has seen instruction moving from being formula-based to being focused on statistical reasoning. The widely implemented Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) Report has paved the way for instructors to present introductory statistics to students in a way that is both (...) approachable and engaging. However, with technological advancement and the increase in availability of real-world datasets, it is necessary that instruction also integrate the ethical aspects around data sources, such as privacy, how the data were obtained and whether participants consent to the use of their data. In this article, we propose incorporating ethics into established curricula and integrating ethics into undergraduate-level introductory statistics courses based on recommendations in the GAISE Report. We provide a few examples of how to prompt students to constructively think about their ethical responsibilities when working with data. (shrink)

Asking people to discover the identity of a recognition test probe immediately before making a recognition judgment increases the probability of an old judgment. To inform theories of this “revelation effect,” event-related potentials were recorded for revealed and intact test items across two experiments. In Experiment 1, we used a revelation effect paradigm where half of the test probes were presented as anagrams and the other items were presented intact. The pattern of ERP results from this experiment suggested that revealing (...) an item decreases initial familiarity levels and caused the revealed items to elicit similar levels of activity. In Experiment 2, half of the probes were preceded by an addition task . The pattern of ERP effects in this study were distinct from those observed in Experiment 1. More specifically, revealed item ERPs were more negative than intact ERPs at frontal electrodes and more positive at parietal electrodes early in the interval. Later in the epoch, revealed item ERPs were more negative than intact items. These data suggest that related tasks decrease familiarity and alter the signal-to-noise ratio of old and new items, whereas unrelated tasks affect processing in a different way that also results in the revelation effect. The implications for current theories of the revelation effect are discussed. (shrink)

Population-level biomedical research offers new opportunities to improve population health, but also raises new challenges to traditional systems of research governance and ethical oversight. Partly in response to these challenges, various models of public involvement in research are being introduced. Yet, the ways in which public involvement should meet governance challenges are not well understood. We conducted a qualitative study with 36 experts and stakeholders using the World Café method to identify key governance challenges and explore how public involvement can (...) meet these challenges. This brief report discusses four cross-cutting themes from the study: the need to move beyond individual consent; issues in benefit and data sharing; the challenge of delineating and understanding publics; and the goal of clarifying justifications for public involvement. The report aims to provide a starting point for making sense of the relationship between public involvement and the governance of population-level biomedical research, showing connections, potential solutions and issues arising at their intersection. We suggest that, in population-level biomedical research, there is a pressing need for a shift away from conventional governance frameworks focused on the individual and towards a focus on collectives, as well as to foreground ethical issues around social justice and develop ways to address cultural diversity, value pluralism and competing stakeholder interests. There are many unresolved questions around how this shift could be realised, but these unresolved questions should form the basis for developing justificatory accounts and frameworks for suitable collective models of public involvement in population-level biomedical research governance. (shrink)

Warming temperatures in the circumpolar north have led to new discussions around climate-driven frontiers for agriculture. In this paper, we situate northern food systems in Canada within the corporate food regime and settler colonialism, and contend that an expansion of the conventional, industrial agriculture paradigm into the Canadian North would have significant socio-cultural and ecological consequences. We propose agroecology as an alternative framework uniquely accordant with northern contexts. In particular, we suggest that there are elements of agroecology that are already (...) being practiced in northern Indigenous communities as part of traditional hunter-gatherer food systems. We present a framework for agroecology in the North and discuss its components of environmental stewardship, economies, knowledge, social dimensions and governance using examples from the Dehcho region, Northwest Territories, Canada. Finally, we discuss several challenges and cautions in creating policy around agroecology in the North and encourage community-based research in developing and testing this framework moving forward. (shrink)

Large‐scale characterization of the human microbiota has largely focused on Western adults, yet these populations may be uncharacteristic because of their diets and lifestyles. In particular, the rise of “Western diseases” may in part stem from reduced exposure to, or even loss of, microbes with which humans have coevolved. Here, we review beneficial microbes associated with pathogen resistance, highlighting the emerging role of complex microbial communities in protecting against disease. We discuss ways in which modern lifestyles and practices may deplete (...) physiologically important microbiota, and explore prospects for reintroducing or encouraging the growth of beneficial microbes to promote the restoration of healthy microbial ecosystems. (shrink)

Previous research suggests that free will beliefs and moral responsibility beliefs are strongly linked, yet ultimately distinct. Unfortunately, the most common measure of free will beliefs, the free will subscale (FWS) of the Free Will and Determinism Plus, seems to confound free will beliefs and moral responsibility beliefs. Thus, the present research (1,700 participants across two studies) details the development of a 2-factor FWS – the FWS-II – that divides the FWS into a free will subscale and a moral responsibility (...) subscale. The FWS-II showed good fit compared to standard fit thresholds and superior fit compared to the original FWS. The moral responsibility subscale was moderately correlated with general punitive attitudes and specific punitive assignments, even when controlling for the free will subscale. Conversely, the free will subscale was moderately correlated with conservativism and religiosity, even when controlling for the moral responsibility subscale. These results provide evidence that the FWS is better suited – psychometrically, theoretically, and practically – as a 2-factor measure of free will beliefs and moral responsibility beliefs than as a 1-factor measure of free will beliefs. (shrink)

AimsThe aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the revised self-rated version of the Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX-R) within a non-clinical sample.MethodsThe study was hosted online, with 140 participants completing the DEX-R, GAD-2 and PHQ-2. Sixty participants also completed the FrSBe, with 99 additionally completing the DEX-R again 3 weeks later. Correlations with demographic factors and symptoms of anxiety and depression were conducted. Rasch and factor analysis were also used to explore underlying subconstructs.ResultsThe DEX-R correlated highly with (...) the FrSBe, indicating sound concurrent validity. Internal consistency, split-half reliability and test-retest reliability were excellent. Age and symptoms of depression and anxiety correlated with DEX-R scores, with older age associated with less dysexecutive problems. The Rasch analysis confirmed the multidimensionality of the rating scale, and a three-factor structure was found relating to activation-self-regulatory, cognitive and social-emotional processes. Frequencies of responses on DEX-R items varied, many were not fully endorsed indicating specific relevance of most but not all items to patients.ConclusionInterpretations of DEX-R ratings of dysexecutive problems should consider mood and individual variation. Systematic comparison of DEX-R responses between healthy and clinical groups could help identify a suitable cut off for dysexecutive symptoms. (shrink)

PurposeIn Western society, the measurement of weight is prioritized over a person’s bodily experience. Hermeneutic philosopher Gadamer warned against the emphasis on measurement, rather than experience, in the medical sciences. An examination of the complexity of the experience of weight provides the opportunity to shift focus from quantifying the connection between health and weight to the experience of the person being weighed.MethodsThis qualitative hermeneutic study aims to understand people’s experiences of weight from the interviews of professionals and lay experts. Interviews (...) were analyzed using an interpretive hermeneutic method.ResultsThe interviews revealed that weight was experienced as a number imbued with meaning and bias, as a number that could be manipulated, and as a constant and anticipated bodily change. Weight change was expected and often unwelcomed, despite weight being a quality of the body that is always in flux. External measures of weight meant to monitor wellness and health inadvertently became an unhealthy fixation that prevented some participants from fully participating in life events and appreciating the stages their bodies were in.ConclusionWeight change is a necessary condition of being human, and bodies are and will be constantly changing. To achieve health and harmony, one must fit together the acceptance of change and their bodily experience of weight. It is often the preoccupation with weight, not weight itself, that gets in the way of living. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Medusa Complex:Matricide and the Fantasy of CastrationJessica Elbert MayockThe theoretical structures of psychoanalysis have excluded the female subject by placing her outside of the Symbolic, and feminist theorists' responses to this problem have been divided. Some theorists (such as Kristeva) accept the notion of an unalterable Lacanian Symbolic, while others (such as Irigaray) maintain that the current Symbolic is a manifestation of male fantasy, and suggest that feminist (...) thinkers explore the possibility of reorganizing the Symbolic. Amber Jacobs, in her recent work On Matricide (2007), takes up this challenge by analyzing matricide in myth in order to reveal matricide as latent content untheorized within psychoanalysis. Jacobs claims that the structure of the Lacanian Symbolic illegitimately asserts the "law of the father" as the only possible law, excluding any possibility of a "law of the mother" by erasing the maternal role in theory and symbolization. Her project, following Irigaray, is to make visible those unconscious contents excluded by the patriarchal imaginary in order to "be able to intervene into psychoanalysis for the purpose of working toward theorization of unconscious structures that are not reducible to the structure of Oedipus alone" (Jacobs 2007, x). If Jacobs's suggestion is correct, then analysis of Freud's evidence for the Oedipus Complex (and its accompanying concepts) will reveal repressed contents and traces of these untheorized unconscious structures—particularly those associated with the maternal body.With these considerations in mind, I take up the Freudian case of Little Hans, where Freud finds his most seminal evidence for castration anxiety [End Page 158] and the Oedipus Complex. I will demonstrate Freud's systematic occlusion of the maternal body through his overvaluation of the male body/the phallus in order to expose the elements of male fantasy that construct the Oedipus Complex. I organize these psychical elements in a configuration called "The Medusa Complex," since Freud uses the image of Medusa to explain his theory of castration. In rereading the details of this case, a powerful male fantasy begins to emerge: the desire to appropriate the female generative power. This is achieved through the theory of castration, which the decapitation of Medusa symbolizes, and the unconscious wish for male parthenogenesis—one product of this wish is the Lacanian Symbolic structure, where only the male principle of the phallus is generative. The Medusa Complex is comprised of the two intertwined male fantasies of female castration and male parthenogenesis, as well as the associated resistances that result from initiation into this paradigm. The theory of castration and the Oedipus Complex are attempts to conceal the powerful maternal body and assert male superiority and dominance.In the case of Little Hans, "Analysis of a Phobia in a Five Year Old Boy" (1909), Little Hans develops a fear of horses (especially biting horses) and is afraid to go out into the street. Hans's treatment is undertaken by his father, a medical doctor, who keeps careful notes and acts under Freud's supervision (mostly via letters). The boy's phobia begins around the time his little sister Hanna is born, as Freud and the father eventually admit, though her role in their narrative is nonexistent.1 They interpret Hans's phobia as a classic Oedipal triangle in which he desires his mother and fears the hostility of his father; his fear is translated into fear of the castrating father. Throughout the case, Freud and the father emphasize the boy's alleged awe of the adult male genital organ. In this paper, I will revisit the case (preserved in careful detail by the boy's father) and systematically return the maternal body to its rightful place within the narrative, shifting both the structure and the meaning of the phobia.I am here reading the case as an example of manifest content—like the surface content of a dream—in order to expose the male desires that create it. The current Symbolic is essentially a dream of the male imaginary, and my method is to reveal the latent content of the dream, especially the fantasies that inform it. Desire is the generating force behind this dream, and until we encounter and understand this desire, it will continue to compulsively... (shrink)

In Our Best Interest: A Defense of Paternalism By HannaJasonOxford University Press, 2018. 271 pp. £47.99.

The essays in this volume explore those aspects of Kant’s writings which concern issues in the philosophy of mind. These issues are central to any understanding of Kant’s critical philosophy and they bear upon contemporary discussions in the philosophy of mind. Fourteen specially written essays address such questions as: What role does mental processing play in Kant’s account of intuition? What kinds of empirical models can be given of these operations? In what sense, and in what ways, are intuitions object-dependent? (...) How should we understand the nature of the imagination? What is inner sense, and what does it mean to say that time is the form of inner sense? Can we cognize ourselves through inner sense? How do we self-ascribe our beliefs and what role does self-consciousness play in our judgments? Is the will involved in judging? What kind of knowledge can we have of the self ? And what kind of knowledge of the self does Kant proscribe? These essays showcase the depth of Kant’s writings in the philosophy of mind, and the centrality of those writings to his wider philosophical project. Moreover, they show the continued relevance of Kant’s writings to contemporary debates about the nature of mind and self. Contents: 0. Introduction Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson 1. Kant, The Philosophy Of Mind, And Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy Anil Gomes 2. Synthesis And Binding Lucy Allais 3. Understanding Non-Conceptual Representation Of Objects: Empirical Models Of Sensibility’s Operation Katherine Dunlop 4. Are Kantian Intuitions Object-Dependent? Stefanie Grüne 5. Intuition And Presence Colin McLear 6. Imagination And Inner Intuition Andrew Stephenson 7. Inner Sense And Time Ralf M. Bader 8. Can’t Kant Cognize Himself? Or, A Problem For (Almost) Every Interpretation Of The Refutation Of Idealism Andrew Chignell 9. A Kantian Critique Of Transparency Patricia Kitcher 10. Judging For Reasons: On Kant And The Modalities Of Judgment Jessica Leech 11. Kant On Judging And The Will Jill Vance Buroker 12. Self and Selves Ralph C. S. Walker 13. Subjects Of Kant’s First Paralogism Tobias Rosefeldt 14. The Lessons Of Kant’s Paralogisms Paul Snowdon. (shrink)

The article by Jessica Pierce and Christina Kerby, raises some important but seldom asked questions about the use of natural resources in healthcare. They take for their example latex gloves, which are in wide everyday use, especially since the establishment of principles of universal precautions in infection control as a reaction to the spread of HIV. They trace the production of latex gloves back through rubber processing to their origins in Malaysian rubber plantations and elsewhere. They then ask, but (...) do not answer, some hard questions about the ethics of our relationship as patients to the impact of the materials we use on communities and the environment. To draw out their theme more starkly, consider the rumor widespread in South America that some babies purportedly adopted by Northerners are sold and cut up for their organs. Suppose this story were true; suppose your donated organ were obtained in this way. You would probably be so revolted by the immorality of its acquisition that you would refuse to accept it. But now take a morally more ambiguous case, as Pierce and Kerby intend. Suppose that the process of obtaining latex gloves is part of the gradual erosion of the Malaysian environment, and that workers in latex factories are poorly paid. Now, should or would you refuse to use latex gloves? Should or would you even be more selective in their use? The practice of universal precautions presumes a virtually unlimited supply of gloves; yet to react to resource scarcity with selective precautions hazards discrimination. Is there any way philosophically to balance the local justice issue of discrimination in comparison to injustice on a global scale and to future generations? (shrink)

Every ten years United States congressional districts are drawn, physically constructing political representation based on domicile. Why do we do it this way? Is territorial representation consistent with the broader normative ends of political representation). ;In section one I argue that territorial constituencies were never intended to represent local "communities of interest." Instead, physical proximity between voters was necessary to achieve the normative aims of representative government in a large nation. I begin in 13 th century England, and proceed through (...) the political theory of Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Burke, the Federalists and their critics. I also provide a novel interpretation of Federalist 10. ;In sum, territory was a habit of mind for the founders of the United States, and thus there were no explicit reasons given for using territory. The silence of territory as a definer of electoral constituencies has continued to the present day. I argue that the continued silence about territorial constituencies constitutes a substantial breech of legitimacy. ;In the second section , I argue that "constituency definition" is a normatively rich institution and how constituencies are defined ought not to be determined by interested third parties. I argue that Hanna Pitkin incorrectly conflated "political representation" and "legitimacy." I argue that citizen consent to constituency definition is a central part of legitimating any representative government. Finally, I argue that there are no persuasive normative arguments for territorial constituencies today. Justifying territorial constituencies on the normative claim that "communities of interest" ought to define constituencies for political representation is simply unpersuasive. If one believes such particularity ought to be represented in one branch of the national legislature, then other kinds of particularity---race, ideology, class, et al---simply dominate. ;In section three I argue against "particularity" for electoral constituencies. I conclude with a thought experiment: randomly assign voters into 435 national, electoral constituencies for life. Having established that the concept of "constituency" is itself normatively robust and separable from "electoral systems," I argue that important considerations of "voice," can be introduced through novel means of reform. (shrink)

Resenha do livro The Ethics of Environmentally Responsible Health Care.

Quão próxima está a ética do cuidado com a saúde da ética da responsabilidade ambiental? Enxergamos os problemas ambientais e também os problemas de saúde das pessoas, mas conseguimos ver realmente uma ligação entre eles?

"Featuring seventeen original essays on the ethics of Artificial Intelligence by some of the most prominent AI scientists and academic philosophers today, this volume represents the state-of-the-art thinking in this fast-growing field and highlights some of the central themes in AI and morality such as how to build ethics into AI, how to address mass unemployment as a result of automation, how to avoiding designing AI systems that perpetuate existing biases, and how to determine whether an AI is conscious. As (...) AI technologies progress, questions about the ethics of AI, in both the near-future and the long-term, become more pressing than ever. Should a self-driving car prioritize the lives of the passengers over the lives of pedestrians? Should we as a society develop autonomous weapon systems that are capable of identifying and attacking a target without human intervention? What happens when AIs become smarter and more capable than us? Could they have greater than human moral status? Can we prevent superintelligent AIs from harming us or causing our extinction? At a critical time in this fast-moving debate, thirty leading academics and researchers at the forefront of AI technology development come together to explore these existential questions, including Aaron James, Allan Dafoe, Andrea Loreggia, Andrew Critch, Azim Shariff, Carrick Flynn, Cathy O'Neil, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Eric Schwitzgebel, Frances Kamm, Francesca Rossi, Hanna Gunn, Iyad Rahwan, Jessica Taylor, JF Bonnefon, K. Brent Venable, Kate Devlin, Mara Garza, Nicholas Mattei, Nick Bostrom, Patrick LaVictoire, Peter Asaro, Peter Railton, S. Matthew Liao, Shannon Vallor, Stephen Wolfram, Steve Petersen, Stuart Russell, Susan Schneider, Wendell Wallach "--. (shrink)

RésuméL'ouvrage de Sophia Moreau, Faces of Inequality, adopte une méthodologie philosophique provocatrice. Moreau puise dans les expériences des victimes de discrimination et à même les contours fondamentaux du droit à la non-discrimination afin d’élaborer sa théorie de la discrimination répréhensible. Cependant, si nous prenons au sérieux les enseignements des études féministes et critiques de la « race », une tension émerge au sein de la dyade méthodologique de Moreau : si les lois contre la discrimination sont souvent elles-mêmes source d'hostilité (...) et d'invalidation pour les victimes de discrimination, comment ces expériences et ces lois peuvent-elles toutes deux faire autorité pour déterminer la nature de la discrimination répréhensible? Cet article explore cette tension à l’œuvre dans Faces of Inequality à la lumière de la théorie de la « conscience multiple » de Mari Matsuda. (shrink)

We all face death, but how many of us are actually ready for it? Whether our own death or that of a loved one comes first, how prepared are we, spiritually or practically? In Preparing to Die, Andrew Holecek presents a wide array of resources to help the reader address this unfinished business. Part One shows how to prepare one's mind and how to help others, before, during, and after death. The author explains how spiritual preparation for death can completely (...) transform our relationship to the end of life, dissolving our fear and helping us to feel open and receptive to letting go in the dying process. Daily meditation practices, the stages of dying and how to work with them, and after-death experiences are all detailed in ways that will be particularly helpful for those with an interest in Tibetan Buddhism and in Tibetan approaches to conscious dying. Part Two addresses the practical issues that surround death. Experts in grief, hospice, the funeral business, and the medical and legal issues of death contribute chapters to prepare the reader for every practical concern, including advance directives, green funerals, the signs of death, warnings about the funeral industry, the stages of grief, and practical care for the dying. Part Three contains heart-advice from twenty of the best-known Tibetan Buddhist masters now teaching in the West. These brief interviews provide words of solace and wisdom to guide the dying and their caregivers during this challenging time. Preparing to Die is for anyone interested in learning how to prepare for death from a Buddhist perspective, both spiritually and practically. It is also for those who want to learn how to help someone else who is dying, both during the time of illness and death as well as after death. (shrink)

I argue that legal punishment is morally wrong because it’s too morally risky. I first briefly explain how my argument differs from similar ones in the philosophical literature on legal punishment. Then I explain why legal punishment is morally risky, argue that it’s too morally risky, and discuss objections. In a nutshell, my argument goes as follows. Legal punishment is wrong because we can never sufficiently reduce the risk of doing wrong when we legally punish people. We can never sufficiently (...) reduce this risk because wrongful punishment is much worse than wrongful non-punishment and because punishment’s permissibility depends on the answers to a variety of difficult philosophical questions about which we’re fallible. (shrink)

Introduction : reading Nietzsche skeptically -- Nietzsche and the Pyrrhonian tradition -- Skepticism in Nietzsche's early work : the case of "on truth and lie" -- The question of Nietzsche's "naturalism" -- Perspectivism and Ephexis in interpretation -- Skepticism and health -- Skepticism as immoralism.

This paper argues that the dominance of linear models has led many sociologists to construe the social world in terms of a "general linear reality." This reality assumes (1) that the social world consists of fixed entities with variable attributes, (2) that cause cannot flow from "small" to "large" attributes/events, (3) that causal attributes have only one causal pattern at once, (4) that the sequence of events does not influence their outcome, (5) that the "careers" of entities are largely independent, (...) and (6) that causal attributes are generally independent of each other. The paper discusses examples of these assumptions in empirical work, consider standard and new methods addressing them, and briefly explores alternative models for reality that employ demographic, sequential, and network perspectives. (shrink)

Assertion is a fundamental feature of language. This volume will be the place to look for anyone interested in current work on the topic.

The financial sector has seen a transformation towards ‘sustainable’ finance particularly in Europe, driven also by unprecedented regulatory reforms. At the same time, many are sceptical about the real impact of these reforms, fearing that they are triggering a paradoxical financialisation of sustainability. Building on recent research on institutional logics and institutional fields formation, we examine changes in the EU regulatory dynamics as characterised by shifts in framing the relationship between sustainability and finance. Deploying a longitudinal approach, consisting of archival (...) data and semi-structured interviews, we explore the development of EU sustainable finance regulation as an extended, interactive and contested process. Specifically, we suggest that regulatory dynamics depend on the hybrid configuration of the social constituencies supporting sustainable finance reforms and on shifts in the overall prevalence of the financial logic in society. Our paper sheds light on the inherent contradictions and limitations of sustainable finance as a means for transformative sustainability reforms. (shrink)

A persuasive monograph that answers the keyepistemological arguments against anti-individualism in thephilosophy of mind.