EDITOR’S ABSTRACTThis paper argues that we cannot determine with certainty the sequence of the two parts of the Laozi text: “Way” and “Virtue”. These two parts were originally written independently by Lao Zi and in an uncertain chronological order. They originally circulated separately, and were later combined differently by various editors. Thus emerged the two Laozi versions: The one with “Way” preceding “Virtue” has dominated the transmission; the alternative order can be retrieved from recently discovered sources such as the Mawangdui (...) Silk Manuscripts and Han Bamboo Slips. (shrink)

What is chi? -- Why you can no longer feel your life energy -- Why is learning to rebuild your chi so important? -- How to feel your chi again -- Simple breathing exercises that build chi awareness -- How to keep your chi clean and pure -- How to make your chi stronger -- Flow your chi with t'ai chi meditative movements -- How to use chi to benefit yourself and others.

Prozac's introduction in the late 1980s, caused a furor and focused debate on the acceptability of a drug that could do more than merely cure illness, pharmacological mood enhancement – that is, the use of drugs to improve mood beyond a level that is merely normal or healthy. As the possibilities and demand for mood enhancement increase, existing legislation will prove inadequate, designed as it is to regulate pharmaceuticals mainly for therapeutic use. This chapter explains why mood enhancement might be (...) desirable, explores some key ethical issues associated with it, and suggests how policy makers can respond to ensure that people use mood enhancement safely and responsibly. Whether it is appropriate to enhance one's mood might also depend on the manner in which the mood is experienced. While unpleasant states like depression may be appropriate and valuable in some cases, they can be disruptive and disabling if they continue indefinitely. (shrink)

The purpose of cultural competence education for medical professionals is to ensure respectful care and reduce health disparities. Yet as Berger and Miller (2021) show, the cultural competence framework is dated, confused, and self-defeating. They argue that the framework ignores the primary driver of health disparities—systemic racism—and is apt to exacerbate rather than mitigate bias and ethnocentrism. They propose replacing cultural competence with a framework that attends to two social aspects of structural inequality: health and social policy, and institutional-system activity; (...) and two psychological aspects of structural inequality: the clinical encounter, and the epistemic. -/- We agree with the structural approach. To that end, we think it would be fruitful to include attention to physical contributors to structural inequality, namely the material artifacts used in medicine. Devices, tools, and technologies can materialize biases, perpetuate oppression, and contribute to health disparities. Granted, not everything that interests philosophers can be squeezed into medical education. Nevertheless, there are compelling reasons for including the study of material artifacts in education designed to reduce health disparities. First, devices and tools often carry forward biases from the past, and keep biases hidden from plain sight. Second, by studying these artifacts, future clinicians can begin to see themselves as part of a larger sociotechnical system. Finally, as medicine becomes increasingly tech-laden, it’s important for clinicians to see how material artifacts (including algorithms) connect individuals to structures. This will help to undermine oversimplified narratives according to which objective tools and technologies can correct for the bias and subjectivity of flawed human beings. (shrink)

Experiments have suggested that umbilical cord blood stem cells can be used to prevent diseases such as atherosclerosis. This paper discusses ethical issues surrounding such usage such as the uncertainty that individuals at risk of a disease will actually get the disease; issues related to research with children; safety issues; from where these stem cells would be obtained; and whether these usages should be considered as therapies or as physical enhancements.

We apply a familiar distinction from philosophy of language to a class of material artifacts that are sometimes said to “speak”: statues. By distinguishing how statues speak at the locutionary level versus at the illocutionary level, or what they say versus what they do, we obtain the resource for addressing two topics. First, we can explain what makes statues distinct from street art. Second, we can explain why it is mistaken to criticize—or to defend—the continuing presence of statues based only (...) on what they represent. Both explanations are driven by the same core idea: the significance of statues arises primarily from what they do, and not what they say. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy offers an alternative mode of engagement for public philosophy, in which the public can play a participatory role. We organized two public events on the aesthetics of coffee that explored this alternative mode of engagement. The first event focuses on issues surrounding the communication of taste. The second event focuses on issues concerning ethical influences on taste. -/- In this paper, we report back on these two events which explored the possibility of doing experimental philosophical aesthetics as public (...) philosophy. We set the stage by considering the significance and current state of efforts in public philosophy, and by introducing the emerging sub-discipline of experimental philosophical aesthetics. Then, we discuss the research and outreach aspects of the two events on the aesthetics of coffee. Finally, we conclude by reflecting on the prospects and potential pitfalls of experimental philosophy as public philosophy. (shrink)

It is well-known that racism is encoded into the social practices and institutions of medicine. Less well-known is that racism is encoded into the material artifacts of medicine. We argue that many medical devices are not merely biased, but materialize oppression. An oppressive device exhibits a harmful bias that reflects and perpetuates unjust power relations. Using pulse oximeters and spirometers as case studies, we show how medical devices can materialize oppression along various axes of social difference, including race, gender, class, (...) and ability. Our account uses political philosophy and cognitive science to give a theoretical basis for understanding materialized oppression, explaining how artifacts encode and carry oppressive ideas from the past to the present and future. Oppressive medical devices present a moral aggregation problem. To remedy this problem, we suggest redundantly layered solutions that are coordinated to disrupt reciprocal causal connections between the attitudes, practices, and artifacts of oppressive systems. (shrink)

Objectives The objective of this research was to develop ethics accreditation standards for hospitals. Research design Our research methods included a literature review, an expert focus group, the Delphi technique and a hospital survey. The entire process was separated into two stages: (1) the development of a draft of hospital ethics accreditation standards; and (2) conducting a nationwide hospital survey of the proposed standards. Results This study produced a tentative draft of hospital ethics accreditation standards comprised of six chapters and (...) 62 standards based on the expert focus group and Delphi technique. The six chapters are: Medical ethics policies, regulations and leadership; The establishment and operation of a medical ethics committee; The establishment and operation of research-related ethics committees; Medical ethics education; Organisational ethical climate; and Respect for patients' rights and establishment of good hospital-patient relationships. The hospital survey indicated that the concept of an organisational ethical climate was new to most hospital managers, most hospitals disliked the idea of having a separate hospital ethics accreditation system, and small hospitals were concerned about their ability to comply with all of the standards. Conclusions Regardless of whether hospital ethics accreditation can be a stand-alone accreditation or just part of existing hospital accreditation programmes, we hope this draft can serve as a good reference for future endeavours by hospital accreditation authorities. (shrink)

To imagine is to form a mental representation that does not aim at things as they actually, presently, and subjectively are. One can use imagination to represent possibilities other than the actual, to represent times other than the present, and to represent perspectives other than one’s own. Unlike perceiving and believing, imagining something does not require one to consider that something to be the case. Unlike desiring or anticipating, imagining something does not require one to wish or expect that something (...) to be the case. // -/- Imagination is involved in a wide variety of human activities, and has been explored from a wide range of philosophical perspectives. Philosophers of mind have examined imagination’s role in mindreading and in pretense. Philosophical aestheticians have examined imagination’s role in creating and in engaging with different types of artworks. Epistemologists have examined imagination’s role in theoretical thought experiments and in practical decision-making. Philosophers of language have examined imagination’s role in irony and metaphor. // -/- Because of the breadth of the topic, this entry focuses exclusively on contemporary discussions of imagination in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition. (shrink)

Our goal in this paper is to articulate a novel account of the ordinary concept ART. At the core of our account is the idea that a puzzle surrounding our thought and talk about art is best understood as just one instance of a far broader phenomenon. In particular, we claim that one can make progress on this puzzle by drawing on research from cognitive science on dual character concepts. Thus, we suggest that the very same sort of phenomenon that (...) is associated with ART can also be found in a broad class of other dual character concepts, including SCIENTIST, CHRISTIAN, GANGSTER, and many others. Instead of focusing narrowly on the case of ART, we try to offer a more general account of these concepts and the puzzles to which they give rise. Then, drawing on the general theory, we introduce a series of hypotheses about art concepts, and put those hypotheses to the test in three experimental studies. (shrink)

S. Matthew Liao argues here that children have a right to be loved. To do so he investigates questions such as whether children are rightholders; what grounds a child's right to beloved; whether love is an appropriate object of a right; and other philosophical and practical issues. His proposal is that all human beings have rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life; therefore, as human beings, children have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a (...) good life. Since being loved is one of those fundamental conditions, children thus have a right to be loved. Liao shows that this claim need not be merely empty rhetoric, and that the arguments for this right can hang together as a coherent whole. This is the first book to make a sustained philosophical case for the right of children to be loved. It makes a unique contribution to the fast-growing literature on family ethics, in particular, on children's rights and parental rights and responsibilities, and to the emerging field of the philosophy of human rights. (shrink)

What grounds human rights? How do we determine that something is a genuine human right? This chapter offers a new answer: human beings have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. The fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life are certain goods, capacities, and options that human beings qua human beings need whatever else they qua individuals might need in order to pursue a characteristically good human life. This chapter explains how this Fundamental Conditions Approach is (...) better than James Griffin’s Agency Approach as well as Martha Nussbaum’s Central Capabilities Approach. It also shows how it can be compatible with the increasingly popular Political Conceptions of human rights defended by John Rawls, Charles Beitz, and Joseph Raz. (shrink)

Narrative representations can change our moral actions and thoughts, for better or for worse. In this article, I develop a theory of fictions' capacity for moral education and moral corruption that is fully sensitive to the diversity of fictions. Specifically, I argue that the way a fiction influences our moral actions and thoughts importantly depends on its genre. This theory promises new insights into practical ethical debates over pornography and media violence.

BackgroundAthletes will increase their state anxiety under stress situations, which will lead to the decline of sports performance. The improvement of anxiety by probiotics has been reported, but there is a lack of research in the athlete population. The purpose of the current study is to explore the effectiveness of probiotics in improving athletes’ state anxiety and sports performance under stress situations.MethodsWe conducted this single-arm study in Chongqing Institute of Sports Technology. In the 8-week study, 21 Chongqing young divers were (...) given probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BB-12 daily. The state anxiety and sports performance of athletes were measured before, during, and after the intervention, and the gut microbiota of athletes was measured before and after the intervention.ResultsThe intervention results showed that cognitive state anxiety, somatic state anxiety, and anxiety emotion were improved. In terms of gut microbiota, the intervention did not change the gut microbial composition but increased the abundance of Bifidobacteriaceae. At the 8th week, the performance of athletes under stress was significantly improved.LimitationsFirst of all, due to the restriction of the number of subjects in this study, there was no control group. Secondly, although the athletes’ diet was recorded in this study, the influence of this factor on gut microbiota was not eliminated. Finally, the anxiety level of the athletes in this study was obtained through a self-report, lacking physiological data in state anxiety.ConclusionThe results show that probiotics intervention can improve the state anxiety of athletes under stress situation and improve the performance of athletes under stress situation. (shrink)

Imaginative resistance refers to a phenomenon in which people resist engaging in particular prompted imaginative activities. Philosophers have primarily theorized about this phenomenon from the armchair. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of empirical methods for investigating imaginative resistance. We present two studies that help to establish the psychological reality of imaginative resistance, and to uncover one factor that is significant for explaining this phenomenon but low in psychological salience: genre. Furthermore, our studies have the methodological upshot of showing (...) how empirical tools can complement the predominant armchair approach to philosophical aesthetics. (shrink)

Imaginative resistance refers to a phenomenon in which people resist engaging in particular prompted imaginative activities. On one influential diagnosis of imaginative resistance, the systematic difficulties are due to these particular propositions’ discordance with real-world norms. This essay argues that this influential diagnosis is too simple. While imagination is indeed by default constrained by real-world norms during narrative engagement, it can be freed with the power of genre conventions and expectations.

Radical experimentalists argue that we should give up using intuitions as evidence in philosophy. In this paper, I first argue that the studies presented by the radical experimentalists in fact suggest that some intuitions are reliable. I next consider and reject a different way of handling the radical experimentalists' challenge, what I call the Argument from Robust Intuitions. I then propose a way of understanding why some intuitions can be unreliable and how intuitions can conflict, and I argue that on (...) this understanding, both moderate experimentalism and the standard philosophical practice of using intuitions as evidence can help resolve these conflicts. (shrink)

When philosophers consider what moral status human beings have, they tend to find themselves either supporting the idea that not all human beings are rightholders or adopting what Peter Singer calls a 'speciesist' position, where speciesism is defined as morally favoring a particular species—in this case, human beings—over others without sufficient justification. In this paper, I develop what I call the 'genetic basis for moral agency' account of rightholding, and I propose that this account can allow all human beings to (...) be rightholders without being speciesist. While my aim is to set out this account clearly rather than to defend it, I explain how this account is different from a potentiality account and I argue that it is preferable to an actual moral agency account of human moral status. (shrink)

The present study intends to provide empirical evidence on the effect of Philosophy for Children integrated with English picture storybook instruction on adolescent learners of English as a foreign language. Previous studies have documented the instructional benefits of P4C in various fields; very little evidence, however, can be found in ESL or EFL contexts. The present study was therefore carried out to explore the beneficial effects of P4C applied in EFL instruction with picture storybooks as instructional materials. A total of (...) 62 students participated in the study, divided into one P4C group and one non-P4C group. Participants in the P4C group underwent 10 weeks of English storybook instruction with P4C in a school club, and the effects of instruction were measured by questionnaires and reading comprehension tests. Results of the study showed that students in the P4C group experienced a slightly higher level of English learning anxiety, retained higher English learning motivation after the instruction, and improved their English reading comprehension. Finally, pedagogical implications are presented. (shrink)

In this chapter, we identify and present predominant debates at the intersection of ethics and imagination. We begin by examining issues on whether our imagination can be constrained by ethical considerations, such as the moral evaluation of imagination, the potential for morality’s constraining our imaginative abilities, and the possibility of moral norms’ governing our imaginings. Then, we present accounts that posit imagination’s integral role in cultivating ethical lives, both through engagements with narrative artworks and in reality. Our final topic of (...) consideration focuses on the possibility of imagination constituting or constructing new ethical or political frameworks. (shrink)

Teacher education students, as an important reserve in the field of education, their growth and development are related to the future of science, economy, sustainable development of education. Through participation in the educational practice of STEAM, which integrates science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics is more beneficial for them to acquire 21st century skills like communication, collaboration, learning innovation and critical thinking. However, little has been seen about the use and effectiveness of short videos in STEAM education activities and how (...) they can be used to support and promote teacher education students STEAM learning performance and sustainable inquiry behaviors. Therefore, this study combines the framework of triadic reciprocity determinism theory and technology acceptance theory to propose six research hypotheses and develop a research model to explore the relationship between collaborative self-efficacy, perceived usefulness of short videos, perceived ease of use, STEAM learning performance and teacher education students’ sustainable inquiry behavior. To achieve the purpose of this study, this study used purposive sampling and invited teacher education students from five classes of preschool education at a university in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, to participate in this study. A total of 8 h of instructional guidance was provided over a four-week period, in which participants used short videos for collaborative group learning and independent inquiry and applied STEAM concepts to kindergarten science activities. Participants’ STEAM performance was measured and surveyed during the fourth week. The results of the study validation showed that teacher education students CS-E had a positive effect on the PU and PEOU of short videos; Teacher’s education students PEOU of short videos had a positive effect on usefulness; Teacher’s education students PU and PEOU of short videos had a positive effect on STEAM learning performance; Teacher’s education students’ STEAM learning performance had a positive effect on sustainable inquiry behavior. (shrink)

This chapter explores the interaction between the moral value and aesthetic value of food, in part by connecting it to existing discussions of the interaction between moral and aesthetic values of art. Along the way, this chapter considers food as art, the aesthetic value of food, and the role of expertise in uncovering aesthetic value. Ultimately this chapter argues against both food autonomism (the view that food's moral value is unconnected to its aesthetic value) and Carolyn Korsmeyer's food moralism (the (...) view that moral flaws can only make food aesthetically worse). Instead, it argues for the position of food immoralism: sometimes a moral flaw can make an item of food aesthetically better. This chapter concludes by drawing out broader implications of this position for discussions on the ethics of food and discussions on the interaction between the moral and aesthetic values of art. (shrink)

We refine a line of feminist criticism of pornography that focuses on pornographic works' pernicious effects. A.W. Eaton argues that inegalitarian pornography should be criticized because it is responsible for its consumers’ adoption of inegalitarian attitudes toward sex in the same way that other fictions are responsible for changes in their consumers’ attitudes. We argue that her argument can be improved with the recognition that different fictions can have different modes of persuasion. This is true of film and television: a (...) satirical movie such as Dr. Strangelove does not morally educate in the same way as a realistic series such as The Wire. We argue that this is also true of pornography: inegalitarian depictions of sex are not invariably responsible for consumers' adoption of inegalitarian attitudes toward sex in reality. Given that pornographic works of different genres may harm in different ways, different feminist criticisms are appropriate for different genres of pornography. (shrink)

The prospect of using memory modifying technologies raises interesting and important normative concerns. We first point out that those developing desirable memory modifying technologies should keep in mind certain technical and user-limitation issues. We next discuss certain normative issues that the use of these technologies can raise such as truthfulness, appropriate moral reaction, self-knowledge, agency, and moral obligations. Finally, we propose that as long as individuals using these technologies do not harm others and themselves in certain ways, and as long (...) as there is no prima facie duty to retain particular memories, it is up to individuals to determine the permissibility of particular uses of these technologies. (shrink)

Anthropogenic climate change is arguably one of the biggest problems that confront us today. There is ample evidence that climate change is likely to affect adversely many aspects of life for all people around the world, and that existing solutions such as geoengineering might be too risky and ordinary behavioural and market solutions might not be sufficient to mitigate climate change. In this paper, we consider a new kind of solution to climate change, what we call human engineering, which involves (...) biomedical modifications of humans so that they can mitigate and/or adapt to climate change. We argue that human engineering is potentially less risky than geoengineering and that it could help behavioural and market solutions succeed in mitigating climate change. We also consider some possible ethical concerns regarding human engineering such as its safety, the implications of human engineering for our children and society, and we argue that these concerns can be addressed. Our upshot is that human engineering deserves further consideration in the debate about climate change. (shrink)

A number of international organizations have claimed that children have a right to be loved, but there is a worry that this claim may just be an empty rhetoric. In this paper, I seek to show that there could be such a right by providing a justification for this right in terms of human rights, by demonstrating that love can be an appropriate object of a duty, and by proposing that biological parents should normally be made the primary bearers of (...) this duty, while all other able persons in appropriate circumstances have the associate duties to help biological parents discharge their duties. I also consider some policy implications of this right. (shrink)

abstract In this paper, we examine issues raised by the possibility of regulating emotions through pharmacological means. We argue that emotions induced through these means can be authentic phenomenologically, and that the manner of inducing them need not make them any less our own than emotions arising 'naturally'. We recognize that in taking drugs to induce emotions, one may lose opportunities for self-knowledge; act narcissistically; or treat oneself as a mere means. But we propose that there are circumstances in which (...) none of these concerns arise. Finally, we consider how the possibility of drug-regulation might affect duties to feel emotions. (shrink)

Many people believe in the intention principle, according to which an agent’s intention in performing an act can sometimes make an act that would otherwise have been permissible impermissible, other things being equal. Judith Jarvis Thomson, Frances Kamm and Thomas Scanlon have offered cases that seem to show that it can be permissible for an agent to act even when the agent has bad intentions. If valid, these cases would seem to cast doubt on the intention principle. In this paper, (...) I point out that these cases have confounding factors that have received little attention in the literature. I argue that these confounding factors undermine the putative force of these cases against the intention principle. Indeed, when cases without these confounding factors are considered, it becomes clear, so I argue, that intentions can be relevant for the permissibility of an act. (shrink)

Cyber-physical systems are characterized by integrating computation and physical processes. To cope with the challenges of the application of the CPSs in all kinds of environments, especially the cellular vehicle-to-everything which needs high quality end-to-end communication, the robustness and reliability for CPSs are very crucial. Aiming at the technical challenges of information transmission caused by the fading effect and the fast time-varying characteristics of the channel for C-V2X communication, an improved Tomlinson–Harashima precoding algorithm for multiple input multiple output systems is (...) proposed. Channel state information and correlation are exploited to compensate instantaneous CSI, which could reflect current real-time channel status exactly. Further, the iterative water filling power allocation algorithm and the multiuser scheduling algorithm based on the greedy algorithm are jointly optimized and applied to the THP, which could improve the system performance. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can be efficiently applied to high-speed mobility scenarios and improve bit error ratio performance as well as spectrum utilization. (shrink)

What are human rights? According to one longstanding account, the Naturalistic Conception of human rights, human rights are those that we have simply in virtue of being human. In recent years, however, a new and purportedly alternative conception of human rights has become increasingly popular. This is the so-called Political Conception of human rights, the proponents of which include John Rawls, Charles Beitz, and Joseph Raz. In this paper we argue for three claims. First, we demonstrate that Naturalistic Conceptions of (...) human rights can accommodate two of the most salient concerns that proponents of the Political Conception have raised about them. Second, we argue that the theoretical distance between Naturalistic and Political Conceptions is not as great as it has been made out to be. Finally, we argue that a Political Conception of human rights, on its own, lacks the resources necessary to determine the substantive content of human rights. If we are right, not only should the Naturalistic Conception not be rejected, the Political Conception is in fact incomplete without the theoretical resources that a Naturalistic Conception characteristically provides. These three claims, in tandem, provide a fresh and largely conciliatory perspective on the ongoing debate between proponents of Political and Naturalistic Conceptions of human rights. (shrink)

Recent disputes :57–79, 2013; Mizrahi in Inform Logic 36:238–252, 2016; Mizrahi in Argumentation 32:175–195, 2018; Seidel in Inform Logic 34:192–218, 2014; Seidel in Inform Logic 36:253–264, 2016; Hinton in Inform Logic 35:539–554, 2015) on the strength of arguments from expert opinion give rise to a potential legitimacy crisis of it. Mizrahi :57–79, 2013; Inform Logic 36:238–252; Argumentation 32:175–195, 2018) claims that AEO are weak arguments by presenting two independent arguments. The first argument is that AEO are weak arguments because empirical (...) studies show that expert opinions p do not make p significantly more likely to be true. The second argument is that AEO are weak arguments because empirical studies show that expert opinions are susceptible to the kinds of cognitive biases that novice opinions are susceptible to. In this paper, I intend to argue that Mizrahi’s two arguments both fail because of inconsistency, irrelevance, and insufficiency. Nevertheless, Mizrahi’s arguments help to evaluate AEO better by expanding the relevant critical questions. (shrink)

Can there be a duty to love someone? The kind of love we will consider is the kind of highly intense interaction that two human beings seek that involves not only strongly valuing another person for the person’s sake and wanting to promote the person’s well-being for the person’s sake, but also desiring to be physically and psychologically close to each other and desiring that the other person reciprocates our love. This kind of interaction features in romantic love, parental love, (...) love between friends, and the love of children for their parents. (shrink)

To what extent are factors that are extrinsic to the artwork relevant to judgments of artistic value? One might approach this question using traditional philosophical methods, but one can also approach it using empirical methods; that is, by doing experimental philosophical aesthetics. This paper provides an example of the latter approach. We report two empirical studies that examine the significance of three sorts of extrinsic factors for judgments of artistic value: the causal-historical factor of contagion, the ontological factor of uniqueness, (...) and the contextual factor of appreciative environment. We explore the context of appreciation by performing studies in a museum as well as the lab. We found that contagion made a difference to judgments of artistic value in both settings. These results are congruent with previous empirical research as well as recent philosophical work that defends the artistic significance of authenticity. However, uniqueness only made a difference in the lab setting, but not in the museum. This suggests that the context of appreciation may make a difference to judgments of artistic value. Of broader significance, these studies show the value of experimental philosophical aesthetics and the value of doing in situ empirical research on art. (shrink)

In some views, philosophy’s glory days in bioethics are over. While philosophers were especially important in the early days of the field, so the argument goes, the majority of the work in bioethics today involves the “simple” application of existing philosophical principles or concepts, as well as empirical work in bioethics. Here, we address this view head on and ask: What is the role of philosophy in bioethics today? This paper has three specific aims: (1) to respond to skeptics and (...) make the case that philosophy and philosophers still have a very important and meaningful role to play in contemporary bioethics, (2) to discuss some of the current challenges to the meaningful integration of philosophy and bioethics, and (3) to make suggestions for what needs to happen in order for the two fields to stay richly connected. We outline how bioethics center directors, funders, and philosopher bioethicists can help. (shrink)

Nostalgia and food are intertwined universals in human experience. All of us have experienced nostalgia centered on food, and all of us have experienced food infused with nostalgia. To explore the links between nostalgia and food, I start with a rough taxonomy of nostalgic foods, and illustrate it with examples. Despite their diversity, I argue that there is a psychological commonality to experiencing nostalgic foods of all kinds: imagination. On my account, imagination is the key to understanding the cognitive, conative, (...) affective, and perceptual aspects of experiencing nostalgic foods. In turn, the recognition of imagination’s centrality in experiencing nostalgic foods reveals how food can produce aesthetic experiences comparable to those produced by literature and painting. (shrink)

A major challenge to the Doctrine of Double Effect is the concern that an agent’s intention can be identified in such a fine-grained way as to eliminate an intention to harm from a putative example of an intended harm, and yet, the resulting case appears to be a case of impermissibility. This is the so-called “closeness problem.” Many people believe that one can address the closeness problem by adopting Warren Quinn’s version of the DDE, call it DDE*, which distinguishes between (...) harmful direct agency and harmful indirect agency. In this paper, I first argue that Quinn’s DDE* is just as vulnerable to the closeness problem as the DDE is. Second, some might think that what we should therefore do is give up on intentions altogether and move towards some kind of non-state-of-mind, victim-based deontology. I shall argue against this move and explain why intentions are indispensable to an adequate nonconsequentialist theory. Finally, I shall propose a new way of answering the closeness problem. (shrink)

"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)

Despite the therapeutic potential of human embryonic stem (HES) cells, many people believe that HES cell research should be banned. The reason is that the present method of extracting HES cells involves the destruction of the embryo, which for many is the beginning of a person. This paper examines a number of compromise solutions such as parthenogenesis, the use of defective embryos, genetically creating a "pseudo embryo" that can never form a placenta, and determining embryo death, and argues that none (...) of these proposals are likely to satisfy embryoists, that is, those who regard the embryo as a person. This paper then proposes a method of extracting HES cells, what might be called the Blastocyst Transfer Method, that meets the ethical requirements of embryoists, and it considers some possible concerns regarding this method. It concludes by encouraging future HES cell research to investigate this method. (shrink)

In explicating his version of the Organism View, Eric Olson argues that you begin to exist only after twinning is no longer possible and that you cannot survive a process of inorganic replacement. Assuming the correctness of the Organism View, but pace Olson, I argue in this paper that the Organism View does not require that you believe either proposition. The claim I shall make about twinning helps to advance a debate that currently divides defenders of the Organism View, while (...) the claim I shall make about inorganic replacement will help to put the Organism View on a par with its rival views by allowing it to accommodate a plausible intuition that its rivals can accommodate, namely, the intuition that you can survive a process of inorganic replacement. Both claims, I shall also argue, are important for those who are interested in the identity condition of a human organism, even if they do not hold the view that you are essentially an organism. (shrink)

In “Sideways Music”, Ned Markosian uses aesthetic intuitions about temporally-rotated music to argue that the metaphysics of time is different from the metaphysics of space. In response, I use aesthetic intuitions about spatially-rotated paintings to pose a dilemma for Markosian’s argument: either he accepts the intuitions about spatially-rotated paintings, in which case he must give up on some assumptions in his argument, or he rejects intuitions about spatially-rotated paintings, in which case an analogous response can be given regarding intuitions about (...) temporally-rotated music. That is, if Markosian wants to hold on to the assumptions that underwrite his argument, then he thereby offers his opponent the resources with which to resist his conclusion. As such, Markosian’s argument cannot offer a new independent consideration for adjudicating the metaphysical debate between the Dynamic Theorist and the Spacetime Theorist. [Unpublishable 2019]. (shrink)

Methodologically, philosophical aesthetics is undergoing an evolution that takes it closer to the sciences. Taking this methodological convergence as the starting point, I argue for a pragmatist and pluralist view of aesthetic explanations. To bring concreteness to discussion, I focus on vindicating genre explanations, which are explanations of aesthetic phenomena that centrally cite a work's genre classification. I show that theoretical resources that philosophers of science have developed with attention to actual scientific practice and the special sciences can be used (...) to make room for genre explanations in aesthetics. In turn, making room for genre explanations also demonstrates the plausibility of the pragmatist and pluralist view of aesthetic explanations. (shrink)

In recent years, many non-consequentialists such as Frances Kamm and Thomas Scanlon have been puzzling over what has come to be known as the Number Problem, which is how to show that the greater number in a rescue situation should be saved without aggregating the claims of the many, a typical kind of consequentialist move that seems to violate the separateness of persons. In this article, I argue that these non-consequentialists may be making the task more difficult than necessary, because (...) allowing aggregation does not prevent one from being a non-consequentialist. I shall explain how a non-consequentialist can still respect the separateness of persons while allowing for aggregation. (shrink)

This study aims to help enterprises enhance their innovation capabilities in the environment of knowledge economy globalization and stand out in the fierce industry competition. Firstly, data on existing higher education theories and innovation theories are analyzed. Secondly, two companies in the sample data are selected for detailed analysis. Finally, research conclusion and corresponding talent management strategies are presented. The results show that the cumulative contribution value of employees is 87.496%. The cumulative contribution value of human capital is 70.322%. The (...) contribution value of cumulative innovation performance is 61.658%. The cumulative contribution value of R&D investment is 45.306%. The coefficient for the overall sample size is 0.509. The employee quality coefficient is 0.452. The correlation coefficient for educational attainment is 0.598. The high-tech service industry has the highest correlation coefficient at 0.504. The auto industry has the highest coefficient at 0.669. The experimental research has drawn the following conclusion: Talents positively affect enterprise innovation performance; Research and Development investment has a positive correlation with enterprise innovation performance; R&D investment has a positive correlation with talents. Through experimental research, the education level of employees is measured by academic qualifications, but the essence of academic qualification measurement is the level of knowledge and skills that employees have. In summary, the study can extend the strategic analysis of the cultivation of innovative talents and play a valuable auxiliary role in cultivating innovative talents. (shrink)

It may soon be possible to develop pills that allow parents to induce in themselves more loving behaviour, attitudes and emotions towards their children. In this paper, I consider whether pharmacologically induced parental love can satisfy reasonable conditions of authenticity; why anyone would be interested in taking such parental love pills at all, and whether inducing parental love pharmacologically promotes narcissism or results in self-instrumentalization. I also examine how the availability of such pills may affect the duty to love a (...) child. (shrink)

General Technology Course in senior high school focuses on skill training and the connection and comprehensive application of interdisciplinary knowledge, and it is a compulsory course for cultivating students' creative potential. However, GTC in domestic senior high school has low teaching efficiency and fails to cultivate students' creativity well. Fortunately, after years of theoretical and practical research in China, the Maker Education, which focuses on cultivating students' innovative ability, has produced well-recognized applied research results. For this reason, this paper integrates (...) the theories of ME into GTC. Combined the characteristics of ME and GTC, and followed the process of creation and the law of the expression of personality traits, we build a model of GTC based on ME to improve students' creativity effectively. In order to improve and optimize the designed teaching model, this study carried out three rounds of Action Research, designed the practical activities of GTC in senior high school, and revised the teaching model through action, observation and reflection continuously. Finally, this paper designed an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group adopts the recommended General Technology teaching model, and the control group adopts the traditional teaching model. Students were asked tested to take pre-test and post-test, and SPSS was used for analysis of ANCOVA and T-test. After analysis, the following experimental results were obtained: the teaching model proposed in this paper can improve students' creativity significantly and effectively; the adventurous, curiosity, imagination, challenge of students also have significant positive improvement. (shrink)

In “Genetic Privacy, Disease Prevention, and the Principle of Rescue,” Madison Kilbride argues that patients have a duty to warn biological family members about clinically actionable adverse genetic findings. The duty does not stem from the special obligations that we may have to family members, she argues, but rather follows from the principle of rescue, which she understands as the idea that one ought to prevent, reduce, or mitigate the risk of harm to another person when the expected harm is (...) serious and the cost or risk to oneself is sufficiently moderate. We doubt, however, whether the principle of rescue can ground a duty to warn in the cases Kilbride envisages, and we suggest that Kilbride may have underappreciated the role that special obligations could play in generating a duty to warn family members. (shrink)

The present studies investigate morality’s influence on aesthetics and one potential moderator of that influence: genre. Study 1 finds that people’s moral evaluation positively influence their aesthetic evaluation of an artwork. Study 2 and 3 finds that this influence can be moderated by the contextual factor of genre. These results broaden our understanding of the relationship between morality and aesthetics, and suggest that models of art appreciation should take into account morality and its interaction with context. [Unpublishable 2010-2017.].

Prediction is one of the major challenges in complex systems. The prediction methods have shown to be effective predictors of the evolution of networks. These methods can help policy makers to solve practical problems successfully and make better strategy for the future. In this work, we focus on exporting countries’ data of the International Trade Network. A recommendation system is then used to identify the products that correspond to the production capacity of each individual country but are somehow overlooked by (...) the country. Then, we simulate the evolution of the country’s fitness if it would have followed the recommendations. The result of this work is the combination of these two methods to provide insights to countries on how to enhance the diversification of their exported products in a scientific way and improve national competitiveness significantly, especially for developing countries. (shrink)