This paper examines the integration and unification of the philosophy and psychology of well-being. For the most part, these disciplines investigate well-being without reference to each other. In recent years, however, with the maturing of each discipline, there have been a growing number of calls to integrate the two. While such calls are welcome, what it means to integrate well-being philosophy and psychology can vary greatly depending on one’s theoretical and practical ends. The aim of this paper is to provide (...) a novel conceptual framework for thinking about integrating well-being philosophy and psychology that systematically categorizes different kinds of integration projects. We divide existing attempts in the literature into three broad categories according to the perspective from which the integration takes place: (1) top-down meta-theoretical unification; (2) psychological integration within philosophy; and (3) philosophical integration within psychology. These categories are then broken down into various further subcategories. Our aim in providing this framework is both to facilitate the assessment and comparison of existing integration attempts and to provide a roadmap for future integration attempts. For each category, we discuss one or two representative examples of the approaches. By doing so, we hope to generate interest in the wide variety of existing integration projects, as well as to generate discussion concerning the benefits and pitfalls of different approaches. (shrink)

This paper argues for a feminist genealogy of anti-nuclear protest art, around the nucleus of the women’s camp at Greenham Common, 1981–87, a coherent account of whose significance is missing from both feminist film history and left protest history. Drawing on Adrienne Rich’s poetics as a thread connecting the larger anti-nuclear and non-violent/anti-military feminist movement specifically to aesthetic and political formations that informed films made at and about Greenham, the paper constellates a number of experimental works in relation to the (...) well-known observational documentary Carry Greenham Home. Their legacy, and the concept of a Greenham genealogy, is apparent in Sally Potter’s anti-nuclear Cuban Missile Crisis-set drama Ginger & Rosa, whose imbrication of poetry, politics, and experimental film techniques argues for a Greenham poetics. In particular, this paper considers a feminist poetics of attending to the nuclear, re-visioning the atomic, molecular and core as both an ecopoetics and a refusal of heteropatriarchal structures, both necessary to a viable alternative political formation. In their granular detailing of both world and work, these feminist texts offer a rich and continuous history, practice and analysis of anti-nuclear protest art that demands the same attention as they enact. (shrink)

Many views rely on the idea that it can never be rational to have high confidence in something like, “P, but my evidence doesn’t support P.” Call this idea the “Non-Akrasia Constraint”. Just as an akratic agent acts in a way she believes she ought not act, an epistemically akratic agent believes something that she believes is unsupported by her evidence. The Non-Akrasia Constraint says that ideally rational agents will never be epistemically akratic. In a number of recent papers, the (...) Non-Akrasia Constraint has been called into question. The goal of this paper is to defend it... for the most part. (shrink)

Believing rationally is epistemically valuable, or so we tend to think. It’s something we strive for in our own beliefs, and we criticize others for falling short of it. We theorize about rationality, in part, because we want to be rational. But why? I argue that how we answer this question depends on how permissive our theory of rationality is. Impermissive and extremely permissive views can give good answers; moderately permissive views cannot.

Epistemologists often assume that rationality bears an important connection to the truth. In this paper I examine the implications of this commitment for permissivism: if rationality is a guide to the truth, can it also allow some leeway in how we should respond to our evidence? I first discuss a particular strategy for connecting permissive rationality and the truth, developed in a recent paper by Miriam Schoenfield. I argue that this limited truth-connection is unsatisfying, and the version of permissivism that (...) supports it faces serious challenges; so, for mainstream permissivism, the truth problem is still unsolved. I then discuss a strategy available to impermissivists, according to which rationality bears a quite strong connection to truth. I argue that this second strategy is successful. (shrink)

The philosophical difficulties presented by self-deception are vexed and multifaceted. One such difficulty is what I call the ‘doxastic problem’ of self-deception. Solving the doxastic problem involves determining whether someone in a state of self-deception that ∼p both believes that p and believes that ∼p, simply holds one or the other belief, or, as I will argue, holds neither. This final option, which has been almost entirely overlooked to-date, is what I call ‘ nondoxasticism ’ about self-deception. In this article, (...) I present a negative case for nondoxasticism according to which, in the paradigm case of self-deception, there is no explanatory need to attribute the self-deceived person either their undesired belief that p, or their desired belief that ∼p. Folk psychology is replete with concepts other than belief, and if we bear this in mind, it becomes clear that the explanatory roles for which the self-deceived person's purported beliefs have traditionally been enlisted can be comfortably filled without recourse to belief. (shrink)

Credences, unlike full beliefs, can’t be true or false. So what makes credences more or less accurate? This chapter offers a new answer to this question: credences are accurate insofar as they license true educated guesses, and less accurate insofar as they license false educated guesses. This account is compatible with immodesty; : a rational agent will regard her own credences to be best for the purposes of making true educated guesses. The guessing account can also be used to justify (...) certain coherence constraints on rational credence, such as probabilism. The chapter concludes by discussing some advantages of the guessing account over rival accounts of accuracy. (shrink)

William James famously tells us that there are two main goals for rational believers: believing truth and avoiding error. I argues that epistemic consequentialism—in particular its embodiment in epistemic utility theory—seems to be well positioned to explain how epistemic agents might permissibly weight these goals differently and adopt different credences as a result. After all, practical versions of consequentialism render it permissible for agents with different goals to act differently in the same situation. -/- Nevertheless, I argue that epistemic consequentialism (...) doesn’t allow for this kind of permissivism and goes on to argue that this reveals a deep disanalogy between decision theory and the formally similar epistemic utility theory. This raises the question whether epistemic utility theory is a genuinely consequentialist theory at all. (shrink)

Preterm birth is defined as delivery occurring before 37 weeks gestation.1 Infants born prematurely have increased risks of morbidity and mortality throughout life, especially during the first year. These risks increase as the gestational age at birth decreases.2 Additionally, there are significant racial and ethnic differences in preterm birth rates. In 2022, the rate of preterm birth among non-Hispanic black women was approximately 50% higher than that observed in non-Hispanic white women.1 The outcomes for these infants are also disparate–preterm birth (...) and low birth weight are the second-leading causes of infant mortality (deaths before 1 year of age). Notably, among preterm neonates, infants born to non-Hispanic black women have a mortality rate more than double that of infants born to non-Hispanic white mothers.3 Importantly, there is a small but significant group of neonates that can be classified as severely premature (those born <28 weeks). Infants born before 28 weeks have varied and uncertain outcomes. While this group accounts for only 0.4% of preterm births, it also accounts for 40% of deaths among preterm neonates.4 As noted by Romanis and Adkins, the advent of artificial amnion and placenta technology (AAPT) holds promise for its potential to address the physiologic complications and mortality risks of extreme prematurity by introducing amniotic substitutes that mimic in vivo placental oxygenation and substrate delivery. In contrast …. (shrink)

Objective To explore attitudes towards conscientious objections among medical students in the UK. Methods Medical students at St George's University of London, Cardiff University, King's College London and Leeds University were emailed a link to an anonymous online questionnaire, hosted by an online survey company. The questionnaire contained nine questions. A total of 733 medical students responded. Results Nearly half of the students in this survey stated that they believed in the right of doctors to conscientiously object to any procedure. (...) Demand for the right to conscientiously object is greater in Muslim medical students when compared with other groups of religious medical students. Discussion Abortion continues to be a contentious issue among medical students and this may contribute to the looming crisis in abortion services over the coming years. This project sheds some light on how future doctors view some of their ethical rights and obligations. Using empirical evidence, it reveals that conscientious objection is an issue in the UK medical student body today. These data could help anticipate problems that may arise when these medical students qualify and practise medicine in the community. Conclusion Clearer guidance is needed for medical students about the issue of conscientious objection at medical school. (shrink)

In the wake of the Supreme Court Decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Minkoff, Vullikanti, and Marshall (2024) argue that the unraveling of the constitutional right to abortion t...

Epiphanies is a philosophical exploration of epiphanies, peak experiences, 'wow moments', or ecstasies as they are sometimes called. What are epiphanies, and why do so many people so frequently experience them? Are they just transient phenomena in our brains, or are they the revelations of objective value that they very often seem to be? What do they tell us about the world, and about ourselves? How, if at all, do epiphanies fit in with our moral systems and our theories of (...) how to live? And how do epiphanic experiences fit in with the rest of our lives? These are Sophie Grace Chappell's questions in this ground-breaking new study of an area of inquiry that has always been right under our noses, but remains surprisingly under-explored in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

This book develops a unique phenomenology of plurality by introducing Hannah Arendt’s work into current debates taking place in the phenomenological tradition. Loidolt offers a systematic treatment of plurality that unites the fields of phenomenology, political theory, social ontology, and Arendt studies to offer new perspectives on key concepts such as intersubjectivity, selfhood, personhood, sociality, community, and conceptions of the "we." _Phenomenology of Plurality_ is an in-depth, phenomenological analysis of Arendt that represents a viable third way between the "modernist" and (...) "postmodernist" camps in Arendt scholarship. It also introduces a number of political and ethical insights that can be drawn from a phenomenology of plurality. This book will appeal to scholars interested in the topics of plurality and intersubjectivity within phenomenology, existentialism, political philosophy, ethics, and feminist philosophy. (shrink)

This paper raises questions about who counts as a knower with regard to his or her own memories, what gets counted as a genuine memory, and who will affirm those memories within an epistemic community. I argue for a democratic epistemology informed by an understanding of relations of power. I investigate implications of the claim that knowledge is both social and political and suggest ways it is related to trust. Given the tendency of epistemology to draw lines that discriminate unfairly (...) against some, it is vital that efforts to create democratic epistemologies be sensitive to the potential for exploitation. Standards of credibility often favor members of dominant groups, and our ontological commitments may intersect with patterns of domination. While acknowledging difficulties in evaluating what counts as credible claims to memories, I argue that one’s engagement with clients must be mapped onto the larger moral and political domain. (shrink)

The study examines a model proposing relationships between personal values, positive (i.e., benefits) and negative (i.e., threats) appraisal of immigrants, and social contact. Based on a values-attitudes-behavior paradigm, the study extends previous work on personal values and attitudes to immigrants by examining not only negative but also positive appraisal and their connection with social contact with immigrants. Using a representative sample of 1,600 adults in the majority population in Israel, results showed that higher preference for anxiety-avoidance values (self-enhancement and conservation) (...) was related to higher levels of perceived threat and lower levels of benefit, while higher preference for anxiety-free values (self-transcendence and openness to change) was related to higher levels of perceived benefits and lower levels of threat. Greater opportunities for contact and perceived benefits and lower levels of threats were related to more social contact. The model showed good fit across the total sample, and across four diverse immigrant groups in Israel (diaspora immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, Ethiopia and Western countries, and asylum seekers). In line with a Stereotype Content Model, which suggests that group-specific stereotypes are related to social structural characteristics of the group, associations between variables differed by group. Results strengthen a theoretical conceptualization that posits an indirect relationship between personal value preferences and behavior through group appraisal. They highlight the importance of comprehensive conceptualizations including both positive and negative appraisal of immigrants, which take into account the way different groups may be appraised by the majority population. (shrink)

By 1989, fascism had long been defeated in Europe, and reforms in the Soviet Union appeared to signify the collapse of communist ideology, prompting Francis Fukuyama to famously declare the ‘end of...

Does motor behavior early in development have the same signatures of habituation, dishabituation, and Spencer-Thompson dishabituation known from infant perception and cognition? And do these signatures explain the choice preferences in A not B motor decision tasks? We provide new empirical evidence that gives an affirmative answer to the first question together with a unified neural dynamic model that gives an affirmative answer to the second question.In the perceptual and cognitive domains, habituation is the weakening of an orientation response to (...) a stimulus over perceptual experience. Switching to a novel stimulus leads to dishabituation, the re-establishment of the orientation response. In Spencer-Thompson dishabituation, the renewed orientation response transfers to the original stimulus. The change in orientation responses over perceptual experience explains infants' behavior in preferential looking tasks: Familiarity preference early during exposure and novelty preference late during exposure. In the motor domain, perseveration in the A not B task could be interpreted as a form of familiarity preference. There are hints that this preference reverses after enough experience with the familiar movement. We provide a unified account for habituation and patterns of preferential selection in which neural dynamic fields generate perceptual or motor representations. The build-up of activation in excitatory fields leads to familiarity preference, the build-up of activation in inhibitory fields leads to novelty preference. We show that the model accounts for the new experimental evidence for motor habituation, but is also compatible with earlier accounts for perceptual habituation and motor perseveration. We discuss how excitatory and inhibitory memory traces may regulate exploration and exploitation for both orientation to objects and motor behaviors. (shrink)

Diverse agricultural technologies are promoted to increase yields and incomes, save time, improve food and nutritional security, and even empower women. Yet a gender gap in technology adoption remains for many agricultural technologies, even for those that are promoted for women. This paper complements the literature on gender and technology adoption, which largely focuses on reasons for low rates of female technology adoption, by shifting attention to what happens within a household after it adopts a technology. Understanding the expected benefits (...) and costs of adoption, from the perspective of women users in households with adult males, can help explain observed technology adoption rates and why technology adoption is often not sustained in the longer term. Drawing on qualitative data from Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania, this paper develops a framework for examining the intrahousehold distribution of benefits from technology adoption, focusing on small-scale irrigation technologies. The framework contributes to the conceptual and empirical exploration of joint control over technology by men and women in the same household. Efforts to promote technology adoption for agricultural development and women’s empowerment would benefit from an understanding of intrahousehold control over technology to avoid interpreting technology adoption as an end in and of itself. (shrink)

In this article we explore an argumentative pattern that provides a normative justification for expected utility functions grounded on empirical evidence, showing how it worked in three different episodes of their development. The argument claims that we should prudentially maximize our expected utility since this is the criterion effectively applied by those who are considered wisest in making risky choices (be it gamblers or businessmen). Yet, to justify the adoption of this rule, it should be proven that this is empirically (...) true: i.e. that a given function allows us to predict the choices of that particular class of agents. We show how expected utility functions were introduced and contested in accordance with this pattern in the 18th century and how it recurred in the 1950s when Allais made his case against the neo-Bernoullians. (shrink)

The actions of able agents are often reliably successful. I argue that their success may be modally robust along two dimensions. The first dimension helps distinguish the exercise of abilities, which requires local control, from lucky success. The second concerns the global availability of acts: agents with the ability to φ can φ across a variety of circumstances. I introduce a framework that captures the two dimensions and their interaction, and show how it bears on a disagreement about the modal (...) force the robustness of ability requires: while local control involves a kind of local necessity, global availability does not. (shrink)

This paper elucidates the philosophical origins of the conception of plants as machines and analyses the contemporary technical and ethical consequences of that thinking. First, we explain the historical relationship between the explicit animal machine thesis of Descartes and the implicit plant machine thesis of today. Our hypothesis is that, although it is rarely discussed, the plant machine thesis remains influential. We define the philosophical criteria for both a moderate and radical interpretation of the thesis. Then, assessing the compatibility of (...) current botanical knowledge with both interpretations, we find that neither withstands scrutiny. We trace how biological and agricultural sciences have historically relied upon thinking of plants as machines and how they continue to do so today through rhetoric centred on breeding, biotechnology, and production. We discuss some of the most important legal and ethical consequences of obscuring the vitality of plants. Finally, we explore less reductive and destructive ways of thinking about, and using, plants. (shrink)

Drawing on metaphors of travel and tourism, I distinguish between epistemological stances that clinicians can adopt when attempting to understand how patients experience their world and their illness. I argue for a particular stance, called world traveling, that involves a shift in clinicians' own commitments, perceptions, and values. I identify barriers to this model but also suggest ways a version of world traveling may be implemented.

The conservation laws do not establish the central premise within the argument from causal overdetermination – the causal completeness of the physical domain. Contrary to David Papineau, this is true even if there is no non-physical energy. The combination of the conservation laws with the claim that there is no non-physical energy would establish the causal completeness principle only if, at the very least, two further causal claims were accepted. First, the claim that the only way that something non-physical could (...) affect a physical system is by affecting the amount of energy or momentum within it, or redistributing the energy and momentum within it. Second, the claim that redistribution of energy and momentum cannot be brought about without supplying energy or momentum. Both of these claims, however, are exceedingly difficult to defend in the context of the argument. (shrink)

We correct a misunderstanding by Hale and Wright of an objection we raised earlier to their abstractionist programme for rehabilitating logicism in the foundations of mathematics.

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that confabulation is motivated by the desire to have fulfilled a rational obligation to knowledgeably explain our attitudes by reference to motivating reasons. This account better explains confabulation than alternatives. My conclusion impacts two discussions. Primarily, it tells us something about confabulation – how it is brought about, which engenders lively debate in and of itself. A further upshot concerns self-knowledge. Contrary to popular assumption, confabulation cases give us reason to think we have distinctive access to why (...) we have our attitudes. (shrink)

A rich literature has discussed what it is to respond to a reason, e.g., to believe or act on the basis of some consideration or another. In comparison, what it would be to respond to a second-order reason has been underexplored. Yet formulating an account of this is vital for maintaining the existence of second-order reasons in both the practical and epistemic domains. And indeed, there are reasons to doubt this is possible. For example, responding to second-order reasons is meant (...) to be different from simply coming to believe or act for a more richly described first-order reason but it's not clear what this would look like. This paper introduces an account of the second-order basing relation which meets these concerns. It therefore both develops our picture of second-order reasons and helps to defend their existence. (shrink)

This paper introduces the reconstitutor as a comprehensive unit of heredity within the context of evolutionary research. A reconstitutor is the structure resulting from a set of relationships between different elements or processes that are actively involved in the recreation of a specific phenotypic variant in each generation regardless of the biomolecular basis of the elements or whether they stand in a continuous line of ancestry. Firstly, we justify the necessity of introducing the reconstitutor by showing the limitations of other (...) evolutionary conceptions of the unit of heredity, such as the replicator, the reproducer, and the Darwinian individual. We argue that these conceptions are based on the requirement of lineage formation, which we argue to be unnecessary for the existence of evolutionary heredity. In the second part, we introduce the reconstitutor, which we base on the concept of Stability of Traits, and illustrate how it covers cases of hereditary phenomena not covered by the previous accounts. Secondly, we illustrate how the reconstitutor could serve as a platform to rethink ecological inheritance and other forms of inheritance that have been recently introduced under the song/singer model of evolution. (shrink)

This paper concerns a specific epistemic feature of believing for a reason (e.g., believing that it will rain on the basis of the grey clouds outside). It has commonly been assumed that our access to such facts about ourselves is akin in all relevant respects to our access to why other people hold their beliefs. Further, discussion of self-intimation - that we are necessarily in a position to know when we are in certain conditions - has centred largely around mental (...) states. In contrast to both assumptions, this paper argues that believing for a reason is (at least) very nearly self-intimating: necessarily, if a subject believes that q for the reason that p, then, provided relevant conceptual and rational capacities, she is in a position to form a justified true belief that she believes that q for the reason that p. We should think this on the basis of the role that believing for a reason plays from the subjects’ perspective, and in particular, the way in which it intellegises one’s belief. (shrink)

The paper investigates phenomenology’s possibilities to describe, reflect and critically analyse political and legal orders. It presents a “toolbox” of methodological reflections, tools and topics, by relating to the classics of the tradition and to the emerging movement of “critical phenomenology,” as well as by touching upon current issues such as experiences of rightlessness, experiences in the digital lifeworld, and experiences of the public sphere. It is argued that phenomenology provides us with a dynamic methodological framework that emphasizes correlational, co-constitutional, (...) and interrelational structures, and thus pays attention to modes of givenness, the making and unmaking of “world,” and, thereby, the inter/subjective, affective, and bodily constitution of meaning. In the case of political and legal orders, questions of power, exclusion, and normativity are central issues. By looking at “best practice” models such as Hannah Arendt’s analyses, the paper points out an analytical tool and flexible framework of “spaces of meaning” that phenomenologists can use and modify as they go along. In the current debates on political and legal issues, the author sees the main task of phenomenology to reclaim experience as world-building and world-opening, also in a normative sense, and to demonstrate how structures and orders are lived while they condition and form spaces of meaning. If we want to understand, criticize, act, or change something, this subjective and intersubjective perspective will remain indispensable. (shrink)

The conventional view of Hobbes’s commonwealth is that it was inspired by contemporary theories of tyranny. This article explores the idea that a paradigm for Hobbes’s state could in fact be found in early modern readings of Aristotle on democracy, as found in Book Three of the Politics. It argues that by the late sixteenth century, these meditations on the democratic body politic had developed claims about unity, mythology, and personation that would become central to Hobbes’s own theory of the (...) commonwealth. Tracing the history of commentary on the relevant passages in Aristotle reveals new perspectives not only on the political theories of both Aristotle and Hobbes but also introduces modern readers to the richness of early modern commentaries on classical political texts. The article ends with some thoughts on why attention to traditions of commentary might be valuable for political theorists today. (shrink)

Mental causation has been a hotly disputed topic in recent years, with reductive and non-reductive physicalists vying with each other and with dualists over how to accommodate, or else to challenge, two widely accepted metaphysical principles—the principle of the causal closure of the physical domain and the principle of causal non-overdetermination—which together appear to support reductive physicalism, despite the latter’s lack of intuitive appeal. Current debate about these matters appears to have reached something of an impasse, prompting the question of (...) why this should be so. One possibility well worth exploring is that, while this debate makes extensive use of ontological vocabulary—by talking, for instance, of substances, events, states, properties, powers, and relations—relatively little attempt has been made within the debate itself to achieve either clarity or agreement about what, precisely, such terms should be taken to mean. Hence, the debate has become somewhat detached from broader developments in metaphysics and ontology, which have lately been proceeding apace, providing us with an increasingly rich and refined set of ontological categories upon which to draw, as well as a much deeper understanding of how they are related to one another. In preparing this volume, the editors invited leading metaphysicians and philosophers of mind to reflect afresh upon the problem of mental causation in the light of some of these recent developments, with a view to making new headway with one of the most challenging and seemingly intractable issues in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Sophie Grace Chappell develops a picture of what philosophical ethics can be like, once set aside from the idealising and reductive pressures of conventional moral theory. Her question is 'How are we to know what to do?', and the answer she defends is 'By developing our moral imaginations'.