P. F. Strawson famously gives pride of place to the reactive attitudes in his account of moral responsibility, though he says little about guilt or any other self-reactive attitudes. This inattention is curious, given that on his view lacking capacity for self-reactive attitudes is grounds for exemption from the moral community. Perhaps because of Strawson’s limited remarks regarding them, the self-reactive attitudes have not received much attention in commentaries on his view. In this paper, I will attempt to fill this (...) lacuna by examining the role of the self-reactive attitudes within his approach to moral responsibility. I will focus in particular on reactive guilt to show that it plays a number of roles in our interpersonal lives, from reinforcing our important personal relationships to holding ourselves accountable with respect to our own personal ideals. A better understanding of these roles, I will argue, helps to clarify Strawson’s notion of reactive attitude and to strengthen his overall argument, in addition to revealing some interesting aspects of the way various self-reactive attitudes operate within our lives. (shrink)

Many critics and defenders of P. F. Strawson’s approach to moral responsibility in ‘Freedom and Resentment’ have attributed to Strawson a claim of psychological incapacity or impossibility with respect to our (in)ability to abandon or radically change the framework of reactive attitudes that constitute (at least) an important part of our responsibility practices. In this essay I show that commentators have conflated two distinct arguments within Strawson’s discussion in a way that increases his susceptibility to a challenge of empirical implausibility. (...) I argue, further, that recognizing the difference between the two arguments has an additional important implication for Strawson’s overall argument, as it reveals that his view involves two types of objectivity. I end by discussing some consequences for both broad applications of Strawson’s moral psychology and narrow discussions within the free will literature. (shrink)

This paper explores the philosophical aspects of the "Great Introduction" of Abū Ma'šar, one of the great figures of Arabic astrology and an associate of al-Kindī, the great 9th century philosopher. I argue that the following points of philosophical interest may be found in this text: 1. Astrology is described as a "master science" along the lines proposed by Aristotle, i.e. it provides principles for lower sciences. Also he supplies arguments to ground astrology on methodological grounds, such as the use (...) of empirical evidence and testimony. 2. Abū Ma'šar broadly follows al-Kindī's explanation of how the stars influence the sublunary world, by heating the elements. This agrees with al-Kindī's work "On the Proximate Agent Cause of Generation and Corruption," and I identify some parallels between the two works. 3. Finally, Abū Ma'šarr considers whether human freedom is compatible with this causal account. He holds that human actions do fall under the class of the "possible" and not the "necessary," but only because for him the "possible" is what happens sometimes, not always. Thus he seems tacitly to hold that genuine choice is compatible with causal necessitation. (shrink)

In this view from 2007–2009, the ethical challenges facing a potential global effort to control infectious disease are explored; they provide sobering insight into the challenges of later decades. Despite the devastating pandemic of HIV/AIDS that erupted in the early 1980s, despite the failure to eradicate polio and the emergence of resistant forms of tuberculosis that came into focus in the 1990s, and despite newly emerging diseases like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and the fearsome prospect of (...) human-to-human avian flu, it is nevertheless a time of some excitement over prospects for effective control of much of infectious disease. Funded by national and international governmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), private foundations, and even popular entertainers, large-scale new efforts are under way to address global killers like AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, among others. This “marvelous momentum” can be seen as part of a continuing effort from the time of Jenner onward. Extrapolating from this, we explore the notion of a “comprehensive global effort for the eradication, elimination or control of infectious disease”, with particular attention to the ethical issues that arise. This is to “think big” about disease-control efforts that are now often done in piecemeal ways. This chapter identifies five tracks along which such efforts need to be pursued: (1) national and international organizations and the development of collective will; (2) epidemiological and health care infrastructure; (3) scientific development; (4) religious, social, and cultural considerations; (5) legal and social protections for individuals and groups. Each of these poses significant ethical issues which, we argue, should be viewed in a comprehensive way, to ensure that practice, research, and policy in each of these areas understands the person with communicable infectious disease as both victim and (potential) vector. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 125-128.

In March 2003, the world discovered, again, that I humanity's battle with infectious diseases continues. The twenty-first century began with infectious diseases, especially HIV/AIDS, being discussed as threats to human rights, economic development, and national security. Bioterrorism in the United States in October 2001 increased concerns about pathogenic microbes. The global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in the spring of 2003 kept the global infectious disease challenge at the forefront of world news for weeks. At its May 2003 annual (...) meeting, the World Health organization asserted that SARS is “the first severe infectious disease to emerge in the twenty-first century” and “poses a serious threat to global health security, the livelihood of populations, the functioning of health systems, and the stability and growth of economies.”. (shrink)

In March 2003, the world discovered, again, that I humanity's battle with infectious diseases continues. The twenty-first century began with infectious diseases, especially HIV/AIDS, being discussed as threats to human rights, economic development, and national security. Bioterrorism in the United States in October 2001 increased concerns about pathogenic microbes. The global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in the spring of 2003 kept the global infectious disease challenge at the forefront of world news for weeks. At its May 2003 annual (...) meeting, the World Health organization asserted that SARS is “the first severe infectious disease to emerge in the twenty-first century” and “poses a serious threat to global health security, the livelihood of populations, the functioning of health systems, and the stability and growth of economies.”. (shrink)

The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 and its corresponding COVID-19 is challenging national preparedness and response ability to pandemics. No one is prepared well, but governments around the world must respond as effectively and efficiently as possible to pandemics, and every occurrence of such worldwide disease must be a lesson for preparedness. While plans and programs may be in place to arrest the rapid spread of the virus, the success of any state intervention relies much on how cohesive the society (...) is, how trusting the people are, and how trustworthy the government is. Social cohesion begets trust, and trust engenders obedience and calm. The absence of social cohesion produces social unrest and social erosion, lack or absence of social trust creates risk societies, disobedience. When these conditions exist, the spread of a virus is inevitable. Furthermore, they create a pandemic of confusion and fear, of stigmatization and discrimination. The ways that nations respond to the pandemic today and how the society responds to state actions will principally determine their lots and destinies in the next decades or even in the next elections. The pandemic reveals the quality of leaders and people a nation has. Governments that are successful at controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and minimizing fatalities of COVID-19 will enjoy even more social cohesion and public trust, while those that deferred vigorous interventions to control its spread will see greater social stress and distrust, resulting in the paralyzation of the public’s faith in leaders and government institutions. (shrink)

Prestigious University is a large, private educational institution with a medical school, a university hospital, a law school, and graduate and undergraduate colleges all on a single campus. In the face of the Covid‐19 pandemic, students were told during spring break to return to campus only briefly to retrieve their belongings. Classes then went online. On March 23, 2020, the faculty, students, and staff were emailed the following by the university's director of infection control and public health: We have become (...) aware that a Prestigious University staff member has tested positive for the virus that causes Covid‐19. The individual, who was last on campus on March 16, is now in isolation at their permanent residence and is doing well clinically. The university has already identified those members of our community who may have been in close contact with this individual, and we are working to notify them. Further, this individual's local health department has a protocol for identifying people who have been in direct contact with anyone testing positive for Covid‐19 (such as this Prestigious University staff member) so that they can self‐quarantine and watch for COVID‐19 symptoms for a period of 14 days from their last contact with the infected individual.A professor in the Philosophy Department has asked the ethicists at the medical school whether such contact tracing suffices. “Don't the members of the community deserve to know who this is? Isn't there a mandate to identify this person in order to maximize public health benefits and slow the spread of this deadly virus?”. (shrink)

Throughout evolution, there has been interaction and exchange between RNA pools in the environment, and DNA and RNA pools of eukaryotic organisms. Metagenomic and metatranscriptomic sequencing of invertebrate hosts and their microbiota has revealed a rich evolutionary history of RNA virus shuttling between species. Horizontal transfer adapted the RNA pool for successful future interactions which lead to zoonotic transmission and detrimental RNA viral pandemics like SARS‐CoV2. In eukaryotes, noncoding RNA (ncRNA) is an established mechanism derived from prokaryotes to defend (...) against viral attack through innate immunity and regulation of host‐derived mRNA. Transgenerational inheritance of ncRNA is evidence for feedforward adaptive immunity and epigenetically encoded environmental change across generations, which may explain the ‘‘missing heritability’’ of common disease. Causal graph theory and the Price Equation can model epigenetic inheritance involving dynamic internal and external RNA pools. Experimental designs should include metatranscriptomic analyses to understand how ncRNA responds to rapidly changing environmental conditions, within and between organisms, and across generations. (shrink)

Plakias has recently argued that there is nothing wrong with publishing defences of philosophical claims which we don't believe and also nothing wrong with concealing our lack of belief, because an author's lack of belief is irrelevant to the merit of a published work. Fleisher has refined this account by limiting the permissibility of publishing without belief to what he calls ‘advocacy role cases’. I argue that such lack of belief is irrelevant only if it is the result of an (...) inexplicable incredulity or the result of a metaphilosophical or epistemic stance that is unrelated to the specific claim. However, in many real-life cases, including Fleisher's advocacy role cases, our doubts regarding the claims we defend arise from reasons that have something to do with the insufficiency of the philosophical evidence supporting the claim, and publishing an unconditional defence of a claim without revealing our doubts is impermissible as it involves withholding philosophically relevant reasons. Plakias has also argued that discouraging philosophers from publishing claims they don't believe would be unfair to junior philosophers with unsettled views. I propose that we should change our academic practices that pressure philosophers to publish articles that pretend to be defences of settled views. (shrink)

The orthodox reading of Peter Strawson's “Freedom and Resentment” tends to hide interesting elements of its underlying argumentative structure. Recognition of a distinction Strawson draws between two classes of reactive attitudes raises a question about how the distinct discussions are related. The orthodox reading seems to assume the only relevant difference between the two classes is one of perspective; however, this reading obscures the analogical nature of Strawson's argument and encourages a conflation of distinct elements within that argument. In this (...) paper, I show that an analogical interpretation of the relationship between the distinct classes of attitudes reveals differences between them that have interesting implications for the secondary literature that has developed around Strawson's famous essay. (shrink)

Although philosophers sympathetic to Peter Strawson's view in “Freedom and Resentment” tend to be compatibilists, they need not be. This paper develops a recent suggestion that Strawson's view can be read as consistent with libertarianism by showing that an important distinction Strawson makes between personal and moral reactive attitudes leaves room to be a Strawsonian compatibilist with respect to personal responsibility and a Strawsonian incompatibilist with respect to moral responsibility. Understanding this possibility reveals a potential gap within Strawson's argument that (...) should be of interest to both Strawsonians and their critics. (shrink)

Zaman, düşünce tarihini eskimeyen konusudur. Düşünce tarihi boyunca tekrar tekrar tartışılan bu konuda Batı felsefesinin başlangıcına bakmak bize birtakım olanaklar sağlayacaktır. Çalışmamızda zaman konusunda Eski Yunanlıların kullandıkları kelimelerden yola çıkarak bu konudaki yaklaşımları ele alınmıştır. Burada hem söz konusu sözcüklerin anlam bağlamları hem de söz konusu sözcüklerin Eski Yunan mitolojisiyle, tragedyasıyla ve felsefesiyle olan bağlantıları ortaya konmaya çalışılmıştır.

Recent philosophy has seen a resurgence of the realist view of sensible qualities such as colour. The view holds that experienced qualities are properties of the objects in the physical environment, not mentally instantiated properties like qualia or merely intentional, illusory ones. Some suggest that this move rids us of the explanatory gap between physical properties and the qualitative features of consciousness. Others say it just relocates the problem of qualities to physical objects in the environment, given that such qualities (...) cannot be derived from the non-qualitative properties of objects, and it does not resolve the problem of consciousness either. I argue that such an outcome is welcome: if the physical world is full of explanatory gaps, then the mind–body explanatory gap is not so special. Moreover, the explanatory gaps regarding qualities of objects are less puzzling than the brain-qualia gap. In order to counter the usual worries concerning realism about objective qualities, I introduce ‘imperfect realism’ as an alternative to colour pluralism and complex reductionism, which accommodates realism in the face of widespread perceptual error. I conclude with a discussion of how this ‘multiple-gaps view’ sits better with a naturalistic framework compared to the Galilean-Cartesian account of qualities. (shrink)

Pure representationalism or intentionalism for phenomenal experience is the theory that all introspectible qualitative aspects of a conscious experience can be analyzed as qualities that the experience non-conceptually represents the world to have. Some philosophers have argued that experiences such as afterimages, phosphenes and double vision are counterexamples to the representationalist theory, claiming that they are non- representational states or have non-representational aspects, and they are better explained in a qualia-theoretical framework. I argue that these states are fully representational states (...) of a certain kind, which I call “automatically non-endorsed representations”, experiential states the veridicality of which we are almost never committed to, and which do not trigger explicit belief or disbelief in the mind of the subject. By investigating descriptive accounts of afterimages by two qualia theorists, I speculate that the mistaken claims of some anti-representationalists might be rooted in confusing two senses of the term “seeming”. (shrink)

[Review] Liz P.Y. Chee. Mao’s Bestiary: Medicinal Animals and Modern China. Duke University Press, 2021. 288 pp. The COVID-19 pandemic has secured its place as a 21st century global public health disaster. It has killed more than 6.2 million and infected close to 500 million people worldwide. Acknowledging Wuhan’s wildlife market as the ground zero of the pandemic and the devastation caused by SARS 17 years earlier, China’s Communist authorities made the long overdue decision on February 24, 2020 and (...) outlawed wildlife breeding and trade for the country’s exotic food market. This decision was commendable. Yet, breeding of wildlife for the exotic food market was only one of the five-piece captive farming operation that generated a revenue of $78 billion a year. What the Chinese authorities have retained is captive breeding for Traditional Chinese Medicine, the third largest component of the country’s controversial industry. Called a ‘national treasure’, TCM, in the minds of many, brooks no questioning. Liz P.Y. Chee’s Mao’s Bestiary: Medicinal Animals and Modern China steps in this minefield with questions not about the efficacy of TCM but about the drivers of its faunal medicalization in the last seven decades. (shrink)

Now in a third edition, Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings is a highly acclaimed, topically organized collection that covers five major areas of philosophy--theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, freedom and determinism, and moral philosophy. Editor Louis P. Pojman enhances the text's topical organization by arranging the selections into a pro/con format to help students better understand opposing arguments. He also includes accessible introductions to each chapter, subsection, and individual reading, a unique feature for an (...) anthology of this depth. While the book focuses on a compelling sampling of classical material--including selections from Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant--it also incorporates some of philosophy's best twentieth-century and contemporary work, featuring articles by Bertrand Russell, Richard Taylor, John Searle, Thomas Nagel, and others. This third edition contains an expanded glossary, more extensive section introductions, and twelve new selections: Karl Popper: "Epistemology without a Knowing Subject" Richard Rorty: "Dismantling Truth: Solidarity Versus Objectivity" Daniel Dennett: "Postmodernism and Truth" Bruce Russell: "The Problem of Evil: Too Much Suffering" David Chalmers: "Against Materialism: Can Consciousness Be Reductively Explained?" Baron Paul Henri d'Holbach: "A Defense of Determinism" Michael Levin: "A Compatibilist Defense of Moral Responsibility" Plato: Socratic Morality: "Crito" Herodotus: "Custom Is King" J. L. Mackie: "The Subjectivity of Values" Louis P. Pojman: "A Critique of Mackie's Theory of Moral Subjectivism" Thomas Nagel: "Moral Luck". (shrink)

Many optimistic responses have been proposed to bridge the threat of responsibility gaps which artificial systems create. This paper identifies a question which arises if this optimistic project proves successful. On a response-dependent understanding of responsibility, our responsibility practices themselves at least partially determine who counts as a responsible agent. On this basis, if AI or robot technology advance such that AI or robot agents become fitting participants within responsibility exchanges, then responsibility itself might be engineered. If we have good (...) reason to think such technological advances are likely, then we should take steps to address the potential for engineering responsibility. (shrink)

In this study, we aimed to investigate how prospective science teachers, who participated in a series of explicit-reflective activities for NOS teaching, understood "science in a social and cultural context" in the context of a biographical documentary film. We adopted a phenomenological approach. The data were analyzed descriptively by considering the aspects of nature of science and the levels of understanding as defined in Dilthey's hermeneutic approach. In this way, we determined participants’ levels of hermeneutic understanding regarding the nature of (...) science. The findings show that the participants regarded science within the framework of aspects of the consensus view blended with somewhat authentic interpretations and at a basic level of understanding from the point of view of hermeneutics. This finding highlights the importance of integrating the hermeneutic approach into the teaching process in understanding science. (shrink)

The findings of our experiments showed that social network sites such as Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter, have the ability to acquire knowledge about their users’ movements not only within SNSs but also beyond SNS boundaries, particularly among websites that embedded SNS widgets such as Google’s Plus One button, Facebook’s Like button, and Twitter’s Tweet button. In this paper, we analysed the privacy implication of such a practice from a moral perspective by applying Helen Nissenbaum’s decision heuristic derived from her (...) contextual integrity framework in order to answer the question of whether or not an online user’s privacy is being violated by this practice. (shrink)

The findings of our experiments showed that social network sites such as Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter, have the ability to acquire knowledge about their users’ movements not only within SNSs but also beyond SNS boundaries, particularly among websites that embedded SNS widgets such as Google’s Plus One button, Facebook’s Like button, and Twitter’s Tweet button. In this paper, we analysed the privacy implication of such a practice from a moral perspective by applying Helen Nissenbaum’s decision heuristic derived from her (...) contextual integrity framework in order to answer the question of whether or not an online user’s privacy is being violated by this practice. (shrink)

T. M. Scanlon posits a universal moral relationship in response to the worry that his relational approach to blame cannot answer the question of how strangers can fittingly blame one another. However, commentators have noted that appealing to universal moral standards seems to explicitly deviate from a relational approach’s basis in actual relationship norms. This paper argues that Scanlon’s idea of a moral relationship can nevertheless provide a basis for response to the problem of strangers if we recognize that actual (...) and ideal moral relationships both play a role within the relational approach. An interesting consequence of this recognition is that it seems to undermine the moral relationship’s universality. However, a presumptive case for assuming the relationship exists even between strangers can be found in seeing our blaming practices as akin to public policy nudges, where blame operates like an opt-out choice architecture with respect to the moral relationship. On this understanding, though the moral relationship is escapable, individuals are naturally encouraged to participate through the expression of interpersonal attitudes that communicate relational norms and expectations. (shrink)

In ”Skepticism,” Peter Klein distinguishes between the “Academic Skeptic” who proposes that we cannot have knowledge of a certain set of propositions and the “Pyrrhonian Skeptic” who refrains from opining about whether we can have knowledge. Klein argues that Academic Skepticism is plausibly supported by a “Closure Principle‐style” argument based on the claim that if x entails y and S has justification for x, then S has justification for y. He turns to contextualism to see if it can contribute to (...) the discussion between one who claims that we can have knowledge about some epistemically interesting class of propositions and the Academic Skeptic. He outlines the background of Pyrrhonian Skepticism, pointing out that the Pyrrhonist withholds assent concerning our knowledge‐bearing status because reason cannot provide an adequate basis for assent. He assesses three possible patterns of reasoning, and concludes that the Pyrrhonist view, that reason cannot resolve matters concerning the nonevident, is vindicated. (shrink)

This chapter analyzes the relation between brain sciences and philosophy of mind, in order to clarify in what ways philosophy can contribute to neuroscience and neuroscience can contribute to philosophy. Especially since the 1980s and the emergence of “neurophilosophy”, more and more philosophers have been bringing home morals from neuroscience to settle philosophical issues. I mention examples from the problem of consciousness, philosophy of perception and the problem of free will, and I argue that such attempts are not successful in (...) trying to settle questions like whether psychology can be reduced to neuroscience, whether we see the external world directly in perception, or whether we have free will. The failure results from an ability of the philosophical questions to evade the data. What makes these questions persisting philosophical questions is precisely that there is no way to settle them through empirical evidence, as they are conceptual questions and their solution lies in conceptual analysis. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article I discuss Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other as a transmodern narrative that gives voice to a marginalised group of black women living in Britain. Written in a hybrid style that combines prose and poetry and eschewing punctuation and long sentences, the novel interweaves sundry stories from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century set in countries ranging from Africa, the Caribbean, and America to Britain. This networked structure exposes transtemporal and transnational patterns of diversity, connectedness and (...) relationality, as well as the distinctive genealogy of black British women and their maternal empowerment. I argue that the resilience of the characters in the face of social, racial and gender marginalisation springs from their empathic relatedness and solidarity. This emphasis on the importance of care for the other highlights the need for improving not only women’s rights and socioeconomic opportunities but of benefiting humanity on a broader scale. (shrink)

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Various well-controlled studies have suggested that practitioners in mindfulness can be prone to patient drop-out, despite researchers having identified the underlying mechanisms that link mindfulness to mental health. In this article, a framework for physical exercise augmented mindfulness is proposed, which posits that consistently practiced PE before meditation can support mindfulness. Neurocognitive research shows PE and mindfulness to impact similar pathways of stress regulation that involve cognitive control and stress regulation, thereby supporting the proposed synergistic potential of PE augmented mindfulness. (...) Research focused on the psychophysiological impact of PE, showed its practice to promote short-term neurocognitive changes that can promote both cognitive control and the attainment of mindful awareness. In order to chart dose responses required for protocol development, further research will be presented. Together these findings are discussed in light of future research on this multidisciplinary topic, protocol development, mindful walking, and further application in healthcare and beyond. (shrink)

Many philosophers think the non-identity problem undermines the ability for future generations to have been wronged by past ones. This problem has prompted a number of responses, some of which purport to vindicate the relevant claims of wrongdoing. However, I argue that a closely related issue remains even for those convinced by these responses. It is commonly thought that wrongdoing makes certain retrospective attitudes, such as resentment, fitting toward the wrongdoer. In this paper, I shift a familiar problem of future (...) generations from wrongdoing to the fittingness of retrospective attitudes, and I show that a narrative sense of identity provides one means of addressing the puzzle of how these attitudes can be fi tting in non-identity cases. (shrink)

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper advances the research on personalization of political communication by investigating whether this process of focusing on politicians instead of political issues plays a role on Twitter. Results of a content analysis of 5,530 tweets posted in the run-up to the German federal election provide evidence that Twitter communication refers more often to politicians than to issues. However, tweets containing personal characteristics about political leaders play only a marginal role. When distinguishing among different groups of actors on Twitter (journalists, (...) politicians, citizens), we find that citizens focus more on candidates than do journalists or politicians. Investigating the impact of a televised debate on Twitter communication, we observe that this person-centered event puts the focus on individual politicians instead of issues. (shrink)