The threshold problem is the task of adequately answering the question: “Where does the threshold lie between knowledge and lack thereof?” I start this paper by articulating two conditions for solving it. The first is that the threshold be neither too high nor too low; the second is that the threshold accommodate the significance of knowledge. In addition to explaining these conditions, I also argue that it is plausible that they can be met. Next, I (...) argue that many popular accounts of knowledge cannot meet them. In particular, I lay out a number of problems that standard accounts of knowledge face in trying to meet these conditions. Finally, near the end of this paper, I argue that there is one sort of account that seems to evade these problems. This sort of account, which is called a cluster account of knowledge, says that knowledge is to be accounted for in terms of truth, belief and a cluster of epistemic properties and also that knowledge doesn’t require having all members of the cluster, but merely some subset. (shrink)

The paper introduces a new problem for fallibilist and infallibilist epistemologies – the diachronic threshold problem. As the name suggests, this is a problem similar to the well–known threshold problem for fallibilism. The new problem affects both fallibilism and infallibilism, however. The paper argues that anyone who worries about the well known problem for fallibilism should also worry about this new, diachronic version of the problem.

It is common practice in intergenerational justice to set fixed thresholds determining what qualifies as justice. Static definitions of how much and what to save for future generations, however, overestimate human epistemological limits and predictive capacity in regard to uncertainty in social- and ecosystems. Long-term predictions cannot account for the inherent range of contingent variables at play, especially according to contemporary theories of punctuated equilibrium. It is argued that policies deliberately testing ecological limits as currently conceived must be excluded from (...) political calculations to minimize current actions from foreclosing future life quality and options. To better reduce harms to present and future generations and support the stability of just institutions (and the stable environments they depend on) as Rawls and others demand, polities can overcompensate resource allocation to environmental sustainability. Focus on reducing environmental harms benefits both current and future generations, reconciling distributive versus intergenerational justice trade-offs. (shrink)

The threshold problem for knowledge is the problem of saying where the threshold for knowledge lies in various cases and explaining why it lies there rather than elsewhere. Pragmatic encroachment is the idea that the knowledge-threshold is sensitive to practical factors. The latter idea seems to help us make progress on the former problem. However, Jessica Brown has argued that appearances are deceiving in this case: the threshold problem is still a thorny (...) one even for those who accept pragmatic encroachment. This paper takes a look at Brown’s arguments and at Michael Hannon’s recent attempt to respond to them. Hannon’s response is shown to face serious difficulties and a novel alternative response to Brown is provided. The paper also takes up an issue Brown raises very briefly concerning cases in which a proposition is relevant to multiple stakes which a subject faces at a given time. It turns out that there is a good deal more to be said about how defenders of pragmatic encroachment should try to handle such cases than Brown permits. (shrink)

Climate models calibrated exclusively with observations from the 19th through 21st centuries are unsuitable for assessing many important hypotheses about the future. Many systems in the modern climate are expected to cross dynamic thresholds in the near future, requiring more than the instrumental record for adequate calibration. In this paper I argue that paleoclimate analogues from earth’s past can mitigate this threshold problem, even if the modern climate exhibits features that make it historically unique. While this requires that (...) paleoclimatologists be increasingly discriminate in the past systems they target for modern analogues, the upshot is a practice of climate model construction that improves the reliability of future projections. All of this is achieved by integrating features of past climate systems discovered by the study of earth deep in the past. My analysis synthesizes important empirical work done by climate modelers and paleoclimatologists with relevant philosophical work on analogical reasoning in science. (shrink)

In this paper I articulate and defend a new anti-theodicy challenge to Skeptical Theism. More specifically, I defend the Threshold Problem according to which there is a threshold to the kinds of evils that are in principle justifiable for God to permit, and certain instances of evil are beyond that threshold. I further argue that Skeptical Theism does not have the resources to adequately rebut the Threshold Problem. I argue for this claim by drawing (...) a distinction between a weak and strong version of Skeptical Theism, such that the strong version must be defended in order to rebut the Threshold Problem. However, the skeptical theist’s appeal to our limited cognitive faculties only supports the weak version. (shrink)

I consider but reject one broad strategy for answering the threshold problem for fallibilist accounts of knowledge, namely what fixes the degree of probability required for one to know? According to the impurist strategy to be considered, the required degree of probability is fixed by one's practical reasoning situation. I distinguish two different ways to implement the suggested impurist strategy. According to the Relevance Approach, the threshold for a subject to know a proposition at a time is (...) determined by the practical reasoning situations she is then in to which that particular proposition is relevant. According to the Unity Approach, the threshold for a subject to know any proposition whatsoever at a time is determined by a privileged practical reasoning situation she then faces, most plausibly the highest stakes practical reasoning situation she is then in. I argue that neither way of implementing the impurist strategy succeeds and so impurism does not offer a satisfactory response to the threshold problem. (shrink)

I consider but reject one broad strategy for answering the threshold problem for fallibilist accounts of knowledge, namely what fixes the degree of probability required for one to know? According to the impurist strategy to be considered, the required degree of probability is fixed by one's practical reasoning situation. I distinguish two different ways to implement the suggested impurist strategy. According to the Relevance Approach, the threshold for a subject to know a proposition at a time is (...) determined by the practical reasoning situations she is then in to which that particular proposition is relevant. According to the Unity Approach, the threshold for a subject to know any proposition whatsoever at a time is determined by a privileged practical reasoning situation she then faces, most plausibly the highest stakes practical reasoning situation she is then in. I argue that neither way of implementing the impurist strategy succeeds and so impurism does not offer a satisfactory response to the threshold problem. (shrink)

This paper is about the ‘threshold problem’ for knowledge, namely, how do we determine what fixes the level of justification required for knowledge in a non-arbitrary way? One popular strategy for solving this problem is impurism, which is the view that the required level of justification is partly fixed by one’s practical reasoning situation. However, this strategy has been the target of several recent objections. My goal is to propose a new version of impurism that solves the (...) threshold problem without succumbing to these criticisms. (shrink)

In this paper I articulate and defend a new anti-theodicy challenge to Skeptical Theism. More specifically, I defend the Threshold Problem according to which there is a threshold to the kinds of evils that are in principle justifiable for God to permit, and certain instances of evil are beyond that threshold. I further argue that Skeptical Theism does not have the resources to adequately rebut the Threshold Problem. I argue for this claim by drawing (...) a distinction between a weak and strong version of Skeptical Theism, such that the strong version must be defended in order to rebut the Threshold Problem. However, the skeptical theist’s appeal to our limited cognitive faculties only supports the weak version. (shrink)

Any theory of health justice requires an account of what areas of social life are important enough to be of public concern. What are the goods that ought to be provided as a matter of justice? This is what I will call the metric problem. The capabilities approach puts forward a particular solution to this problem. In this article I will discuss some issues of such an approach in relation to Sridhar Venkatapuram's well-known theory. Another problem I (...) examine is how to determine a threshold of provision within a theory of justice. What is enough in terms of health justice? I argue that we need such a threshold to avoid healthism, the expansion of the pursuit of health over and above the treatment and prevention of disease. This is an especially pertinent problem in public health, which is also the context of Venkatapuram's theory. (shrink)

_Threshold Concepts in Problem-based Learning_ provides a critical discussion and guidance for educational researchers, teachers, innovators and policy makers wanting to explore the interrelationship of PBL and threshold concepts.

One of the primary views on our supposed obligation towards our descendants in the context of environmental problems invokes the idea of the rights of future generations. A growing number of authors also hold that the descendants of those victimized by historical injustices, including colonialism and slavery, have the right to demand financial reparations for the sufferings of their distant ancestors. However, these claims of intergenerational rights face theoretical difficulties, notably the non-identity problem. To circumvent this problem in (...) a relationship between present and future generations, some rights theorists replace future individual rights with such collective rights. Others advance the threshold conception of harm in discussing intergenerational relationships in general. Despite the significant implications these revisionist views might have, few efforts have been made to scrutinize their solidity. To plug such a gap in the literature, this paper examines to what extent the collective understanding of intergenerational rights is pertinent. I also explore the virtues and drawbacks of the threshold interpretation of harm. The paper concludes by suggesting that the motivation behind these and other versions of the rights theory suffers from the ambiguity of a traditional dichotomy between perfect and imperfect duties. (shrink)

Mental-threshold egalitarianism, well-known examples of which include Jeff McMahan’s two-tiered account of the wrongness of killing and Tom Regan’s theory of animal rights, divides morally considerable beings into equals and unequals on the basis of their individual mental capacities. In this paper, I argue that the line that separates equals from unequals is unavoidably arbitrary and implausibly associates an insignificant difference in empirical reality with a momentous difference in moral status. In response to these objections, McMahan has proposed the (...) introduction of an intermediate moral status. I argue that this move ultimately fails to address the problem. I conclude that, if we are not prepared to give up moral equality, our full and equal moral status must be grounded in a binary property that is not a threshold property. I tentatively suggest that the capacity for phenomenal consciousness is such a property, and a plausible candidate. (shrink)

How, and how well, do people switch between exploration and exploitation to search for and accumulate resources? We study the decision processes underlying such exploration/exploitation trade‐offs using a novel card selection task that captures the common situation of searching among multiple resources (e.g., jobs) that can be exploited without depleting. With experience, participants learn to switch appropriately between exploration and exploitation and approach optimal performance. We model participants' behavior on this task with random, threshold, and sampling strategies, and find (...) that a linear decreasing threshold rule best fits participants' results. Further evidence that participants use decreasing threshold‐based strategies comes from reaction time differences between exploration and exploitation; however, participants themselves report non‐decreasing thresholds. Decreasing threshold strategies that “front‐load” exploration and switch quickly to exploitation are particularly effective in resource accumulation tasks, in contrast to optimal stopping problems like the Secretary Problem requiring longer exploration. (shrink)

To provide a theoretical basis for the common view that moral status comes in degrees, many philosophers endorse ‘two-factor’ accounts of the foundations of moral status. These accounts postulate one or more properties which endow individuals with moral status, and one or more other properties which increase the moral status of those who possess them. Critical assessment of two-factor accounts has focused on their implications, especially for humans who lack the properties thought to increase individuals’ moral status. Unfortunately, this approach (...) has led to an impasse. To try to break it, the present manuscript instead assesses the assumption on which two-factor accounts are based, namely, possession of one or more properties, what I call ‘moral status enhancing’ properties, increases their possessors’ moral status. I argue that two challenges, the problem of relevance and the need for a threshold, reveal that there are no moral status enhancing properties, hence, no degrees of moral status among those who matter morally. (shrink)

Binarizing belief aggregation tackles the problem of aggregating individuals’ probabilistic beliefs on logically connected propositions into the group’s binary beliefs. One common approach to associating probabilistic beliefs with binary beliefs would be applying thresholds to probabilities. This paper aims to introduce and classify a range of threshold-based binarizing belief aggregation rules while characterizing them based on different forms of monotonicity and other properties.

This essay is a historical–geographical account of how scientists and public health officials conceptualized and assessed northern radioactive exposures in the late 1950s and 1960s. The detection of radionuclides in caribou bodies in northern Canada both demonstrated the global reach of nuclear fallout and revealed the unevenness of toxic relations and radioactive exposures. Following the documentation of the lichen–caribou–human pathway of exposure, Canadian public health officials became increasingly concerned about the possibility of heightened radioactive exposures among Indigenous northerners. Between 1963 (...) and 1969, scientists and officials with Canada’s Radiation Protection Division coordinated an interdepartmental monitoring program through which they sought to determine whether the consumption of contaminated caribou meat had caused radioactive exposure levels in northern communities to exceed the officially recognized “safe limits.” In 1969, the northern monitoring program was suspended after officials determined that radionuclide body burdens had not exceeded the threshold for radioactive exposures. While the RPD emphasized its development of a technoscientific approach to measuring radioactive body burdens, the legitimacy of the monitoring program was linked directly to interdepartmental relations within Canada’s colonial northern administration. I situate the northern monitoring program within broader shifts in public health approaches to radiation protection and use Gabrielle Hecht’s concept of nuclearity to demonstrate how RPD officials employed the logic of the threshold in their assessment of radioactive exposures. (shrink)

Phenomena like meat sharing in hunter-gatherers, altruistic self-sacrifice in intergroup conflicts, and contribution to the production of public goods in laboratory experiments have led to the development of numerous theories trying to explain human prosocial preferences and behavior. Many of these focus on direct and indirect reciprocity, assortment, or (cultural) group selection. Here, I investigate analytically how genetic relatedness changes the incentive structure of that paradigmatic game which is conventionally used to model and experimentally investigate collective action problems: the public (...) goods game. Using data on contemporary hunter-gatherer societies I then estimate a threshold value determining when biological altruism turns into maximizing inclusive fitness in this game. I find that, on average, contributing no less than about 40% of individual fitness to public goods production still is an optimal strategy from an inclusive fitness perspective under plausible socio-ecological conditions. (shrink)

This paper shows that so-called ‘threshold concepts’ have been defined in a way that makes it impossible, even in principle, to empirically isolate them. It continues by proposing an alternative theoretical framework, and argues: (1) that concepts are not reducible to abilities; (2) that acquisition of a given concept can be necessary, but not sufficient, for the possession of an ability; and (3) that being ‘threshold’ is an extrinsic property, such that what is threshold for one person (...) is not for another. It closes by outlining two resultant problems for related empirical research. First, how is it possible to test for concepts, rather than abilities? Second, how can we tell if there is more than one possible conceptual route to the same ability? (shrink)

According to an increasingly popular view in epistemology and philosophy of mind, beliefs are sensitive to contextual factors such as practical factors and salient error possibilities. A prominent version of this view, called credal sensitivism, holds that the context-sensitivity of belief is due to the context-sensitivity of degrees of belief or credence. Credal sensitivism comes in two variants: while credence-one sensitivism (COS) holds that maximal confidence (credence one) is necessary for belief, threshold credal sensitivism (TCS) holds that belief consists (...) in having credence above some threshold, where this threshold doesn’t require maximal confidence. In this paper, I argue that COS has difficulties in accounting for three important features about belief: i) the compatibility between believing p and assigning non-zero credence to certain error possibilities that one takes to entail not-p, ii) the fact that outright beliefs can occur in different strengths, and iii) beliefs held by unconscious subjects. I also argue that TCS can easily avoid these problems. Finally, I consider an alleged advantage of COS over TCS in terms of explaining beliefs about lotteries. I argue that lottery cases are rather more problematic for COS than TCS. In conclusion, TCS is the most plausible version of credal sensitivitism. (shrink)

The threshold view says that a person forms an outright belief P if and only if her credence for P reaches a certain threshold. Using computer simulations, I compare different versions of the threshold view to understand how they perform under time pressure in decision problems. The results illuminate the strengths and weaknesses of the various cognitive strategies in different decision contexts. A threshold view that performs well across diverse contexts is likely to be a cognitively (...) flexible and context-dependent fusion of several of the existing theories. The results of the simulations also cast doubts on the possibility of a threshold view that is both simple enough to streamline our reasoning while also allowing us to form good action-guiding beliefs. (shrink)

Originating from work in operations research the cutting plane refutation systemCP is an extension of resolution, where unsatisfiable propositional logic formulas in conjunctive normal form are recognized by showing the non-existence of boolean solutions to associated families of linear inequalities. Polynomial sizeCP proofs are given for the undirecteds-t connectivity principle. The subsystemsCP q ofCP, forq≥2, are shown to be polynomially equivalent toCP, thus answering problem 19 from the list of open problems of [8]. We present a normal form theorem (...) forCP 2-proofs and thereby for arbitraryCP-proofs. As a corollary, we show that the coefficients and constant terms in arbitrary cutting plane proofs may be exponentially bounded by the number of steps in the proof, at the cost of an at most polynomial increase in the number of steps in the proof. The extensionCPLE +, introduced in [9] and there shown top-simulate Frege systems, is proved to be polynomially equivalent to Frege systems. Lastly, since linear inequalities are related to threshold gates, we introduce a new threshold logic and prove a completeness theorem. (shrink)

Douglas Diekema influentially argues that interference with parental decisions is not in fact guided by the child’s best interests, but rather by a more permissive standard, which he calls the harm principle. This article first seeks to clarify this alternative position and defend it against certain existing criticisms, before offering a new criticism and alternative. This ‘harm principle’ has been criticized for (i) lack of adequate moral grounding, and (ii) being as indeterminate as the best interest standard that it seeks (...) to replace. I argue that these are not serious problems. I take Diekema’s negative point to be right—our actual standard for intervention is not literally the best interests of the child—but I disagree with his proposed replacement. First, Diekema’s proposed harm threshold should be more carefully distinguished from Mill’s harm principle. Second, there is no reason to assume that the standard for permissible intervention coincides with the threshold for harm (or serious harm). Thus, I propose that the best alternative to the best interests standard is not a harm principle, but rather a sufficiency threshold between adequate (or ‘good enough’) and inadequate (or ‘substandard’) parenting. (shrink)

Has the time come to put to bed the concept of a harm threshold when discussing the ethics of reproductive decision making and the legal limits that should be placed upon it? In this commentary, we defend the claim that there exist good moral reasons, despite the conclusions of the non-identity problem, based on the interests of those we might create, to refrain from bringing to birth individuals whose lives are often described in the philosophical literature as ‘less (...) than worth living’. (shrink)

I resolve a previously unnoticed anomaly in the analysis of collective action problems. Some political theorists apply game theory to analyze the paradox of anarchy: War is apparently inevitable in anarchy even though all warring parties prefer peace over war. Others apply tipping threshold analysis to resolve the paradox of revolution: Joining a revolution is apparently always irrational even when an overwhelming majority of the population wish to replace their regime. The usual game theoretic analysis of anarchy yields the (...) conclusion that the suboptimal equilibrium of war is inevitable. The usual tipping threshold analysis of revolution yields the conclusion that the optimal equilibrium of successful revolution is possible. Yet structurally the collective action problems of anarchy and potential revolution are much the same. This suggests that tipping threshold analysis and game theory are incompatible methodologies, despite their widespread use in the social sciences. I argue that there is no real tension between game theory and tipping threshold analysis, even though these methodologies have developed largely independently of each other. I propose a Variable Belief Threshold model of collective action that combines elements of game theory and tipping threshold analysis. I show by example that one can use this kind of hybrid model to give compatible explanations of conflict in anarchy and successful revolution.1. Introduction2. Two Classic Problems, and Two Popular Analyses2.1. The paradox of anarchy2.2. The paradox of revolution3. Restating the Puzzle4. Evaluating the Prisoners’ Dilemma and S-Curve Models5. The Variable Belief Threshold ModelExample 5.1. A population of moderates with independent deviationsExample 5.2 A heterogeneous population with independent deviationsExample 5.3 A heterogeneous population with coordinated deviations6. ConclusionAppendix: Computer Simulations. (shrink)

The nature of motion -- Causes, forces, and resistance -- The concept of the function in fourteenth-century physics -- The significance of the theory of impetus for Scholastic natural philosophy -- Galileo and the Scholastic theory of impetus -- The theory of the elements and the problem of their participation in compounds -- The achievements of late Scholastic natural philosophy.

Strongly grounded in scientific knowledge, the instrument known as occupational exposure limits or threshold limit values has changed government modalities of exposure to hazardous chemicals in workplaces, transforming both the substance of the problem at hand and the power dynamics between the actors involved. Some of the characteristics of this instrument favor the interests of industries at the expense of employees, their representatives, and the authorities in charge of regulating these risks. First, this instrument can be analyzed as (...) a boundary object that has very different uses in space and time. In particular, it is increasingly masking its industrial origins to appear as an instrument that is almost exclusively based on scientific rationale. In the case of asbestos and its substitutes, the use of an instrument relying on scientific expertise generates a specific temporality of implementation that allows manufacturers to take advantage of periods during which regulations are either nonexistent or very loose. Finally, the choice of a technoscientific definition of the issues contributes to shifting the negotiations to a field where companies are in a position of strength and their opponents are weakened. (shrink)

The de minimis principle states that some risks are so trivial that they can be ignored or treated categorically differently from non-trivial risks. Lundgren and Stefánsson criticize the de minimis principle, arguing that it either has to be applied locally or globally and that problems arise whichever application is chosen. Aven and Seif respond to Lundgren and Stefánsson’s argument and defend the de minimis principle as a “meaningful and useful perspective for handling risk in practice.” The response highlights some aspects (...) of the argument in Lundgren and Stefánsson that needs clarification, which is what we do in this note. (shrink)

We propose a qualitatively new kind of governance for the emerging need to efficiently guide the densely interconnected, ever more complex world development, which is based on explicit and openly presented problem solutions and their interactive implementation practice within the versatile, but unified professional analysis of complex real-world dynamics, involving both the powerful central units and the attached creative worldwide network of professional representatives. We provide fundamental and rigorous scientific arguments in favour of introduction of just that kind of (...) governance at the modern development stage, after the complexity threshold in the real world dynamics evolution (sometimes intuitively designated as "globalisation"), where the traditional spontaneous-empirical kind of development and related administrative governance lose dramatically and inevitably their efficiency and the necessity of explicit consistent understanding and guidance of complex real-world dynamics becomes evident. (shrink)

As a moral foundation for vegetarianism and other consumer choices, act consequentialism can be appealing. When we justify our consumer and dietary choices this way, however, we face the problem that our individual actions rarely actually precipitate more just agricultural and economic practices. This threshold or individual impotence problem engaged by consequentialist vegetarians and their critics extends to morally motivated consumer decision-making more generally, anywhere a lag persists between individual moral actions taken and systemic moral progress made. (...) Regan and others press just this point against Singer's utilitarian basis for vegetarianism; recently Chartier criticizes act-consequentialist vegetarianism by identifying many factors weakening the connection between individual meat purchases and changes in animal production. While such factors are relevant to act-consequentialist moral reasoning, I argue, they need not defeat the act-consequentialist case for vegetarianism and consumer ethics. This is shown by offering a probabilistic account of the threshold issue and discussing the positive and negative role-modelling effects of our morally motivated dietary and consumer choices. (shrink)

Birchley9s critique of the harm threshold for overriding parental decisions is successful in demonstrating that the harm threshold, like the best interests standard, suffers from the problem of indeterminacy. However, his focus on critiquing empirical rather than normative arguments for the harm threshold means that his broad conclusion that it is ‘ill-judged’ is not justified. Advocates of the harm threshold can accept that the concept of harm to a child is indeterminate, yet still invoke strong (...) normative arguments for this way of responding to parental decisions that conflict with medical recommendations. I suggest that Birchley9s discussion, rather than showing that the harm threshold is mistaken, instead highlights the importance of developing a comprehensive account of children9s interests, for proponents of a best interests approach and for advocates of the harm threshold. (shrink)

A central puzzle of contemporary moral and political philosophy is that while most of us believe that all or almost all human beings enjoy the same moral status, human beings possess the capacities that supposedly ground moral status to very unequal levels. This paper aims to develop a novel strategy to vindicate the idea of moral equality against this challenge. Its central argument is that the puzzle emerges only if one accepts a usually unstated theoretical premise about value and the (...) proper response to value. The premise holds that if the presence of a valuable property warrants a certain kind of response towards its bearers, then every variation in the degree to which the property is present necessarily constitutes a reason for a corresponding variation in the response that is warranted towards its bearers. It argues that despite its intuitive appeal, the premise is not plausible as a general view about the proper way of responding to value, and as a view about responding to the value of rational beings in particular. It proposes an account of the proper manner of valuing rational beings that supports a distinctive version of the so-called threshold approach to justifying equal moral status. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to direct attention to a challenge—referred to as the threshold challenge —facing a non-absolutist retributivist view on international criminal justice. It is argued, on the one hand, that this challenge constitutes a practically pertinent problem for the retributivist approach to the punishment of mass crimes and, on the other, that it is very hard to imagine any principled way of meeting this challenge.

A key working hypothesis in neuroscience is ‘materialistic reductionism’, i.e., the assumption whereby all physiological, behavioral or cognitive phenomena is produced by localized neurochemical brain activation (but not vice versa). However, analysis of sub-threshold Weber’s psychophysical stimulation indicates its computational irreducibility to the direct interaction between psychophysical stimulation and any neuron/s. This is because the materialistic-reductionistic working hypothesis assumes that the determination of the existence or non-existence of any psychophysical stimulation [s] may only be determined through its direct interaction (...) [di1] with a given neuron/s [N] that together forms the ‘neural registry’ computational level [NR/di1]. But, this implies that in cases of (initial) sub-threshold (sensory-specific) psychophysical stimulation which is increased above the sensory-specific threshold but below Weber’s psychophysical ‘dv’—the psychophysical computational processing [PCP] produces an apparently ‘computationally indeterminate’ output. This is because materialistic reductionism asserts the contingency of PCP upon the existence of a direct interaction between ‘s’ and ‘N’ within the NR/di1 level, but in the special case of Weber’s sub-threshold psychophysical stimulation the same PCP/di1 also asserts the non-existence of ‘s’ (as demanded by Weber’s psychophysical law). However, given robust empirical evidence indicating the capability of PCP to determine whether (or not) ‘s’ exists, we must conclude that PCP may not be carried out from within NR’s direct interaction between a particular psychophysical stimulation and any set of neuron/s in the brain. Hence, the Duality Principle asserts the conceptual irreducibility of sub-threshold psychophysical stimulation to any direct NR/di1: s-N interaction, thereby challenging the current materialistic-reductionistic assumption. (shrink)

Feminists have argued that oppressive socialization undermines the liberal model of autonomy. We contend that this argument can also be employed effectively as a challenge to the standard bioethical model of informed consent. We claim that the standard model is inadequate because it relies on presumptions of procedural autonomy and rational choice that overlook the problem of how agents are often socialized so that they adopt and internalize oppressive norms as part of their motivational structure. The argument that oppressive (...) socialization undermines liberalism’s view of autonomy is most relevant to what Beauchamp and Childress call the threshold elements of informed consent—competence and voluntariness. We show how these elements fail to account for morally relevant factors such as oppressive socialization. (shrink)

Feminists have argued that oppressive socialization undermines the liberal model of autonomy. We contend that this argument can also be employed effectively as a challenge to the standard bioethical model of informed consent. We claim that the standard model is inadequate because it relies on presumptions of procedural autonomy and rational choice that overlook the problem of how agents are often socialized so that they adopt and internalize oppressive norms as part of their motivational structure. The argument that oppressive (...) socialization undermines liberalism’s view of autonomy is most relevant to what Beauchamp and Childress call the threshold elements of informed consent—competence and voluntariness. We show how these elements fail to account for morally relevant factors such as oppressive socialization. (shrink)

The Living Wage Movement (LWM) should be evaluated on whether it enables more people, or people willing to work, to lead a decent life. But, first, to the extent that it succeeds in getting some workers up to that threshold it is likely to make it harder for other workers to do the same. Second, to the extent that it succeeds in getting some workers up to that threshold it is likely to make it harder for non-workers to (...) do the same. The LWM is likely afflicted with these problems to a greater extent than is the Minimum Wage Movement. (shrink)

Human perception responds primarily to sound character rather than sound level. Wind farms are unique sound sources and exhibit special audible and inaudible characteristics that can be described as modulating sound or as a tonal complex. Wind farm compliance measures based on a specified noise number alone will fail to address problems with noise nuisance. The character of wind farm sound, noise emissions from wind farms, noise prediction at residences, and systemic failures in assessment processes are examined. Human perception of (...) wind farm sound is compared with noise assessment measures and complaint histories. The adverse effects on health of persons susceptible to noise from wind farms are examined and a hypothesis, the concept of heightened noise zones (pressure variations), as a marker for cause and effect is advanced. A sound level of LAeq 32 dB outside a residence and above an individual’s threshold of hearing inside the home are identified as markers for serious adverse health effects affecting susceptible individuals. The article is referenced to the author’s research, measurements, and observations at different wind farms in New Zealand and Victoria, Australia. (shrink)

At present UK Law states that the unborn child only becomes a legal person invested with legal rights and full protections, like other human persons, at birth. This article critiques the present legal position of setting the threshold for legal personality at birth, showing its inconsistencies and fundamentally pragmatic basis. Against this background, it is argued that a principled approach towards unborn life is necessary, which reflects in law the reality that the unborn child is a type of human (...) person deserving protection as it develops through the continuum of human personhood – from embryonic personhood, to infant personhood and ultimately into adult personhood. Human personhood is defined as a union of a material and immaterial self, meaning that at every stage of their development they are never a “potential person,” but rather a “person with potential” even if it is not actualized through miscarriage, premature death, or disability. This moral and philosophical reasoning is what justifies protecting the sanctity of unborn life in law. The rest of the article explores and critiques the alternative static legal threshold for ascribing legal personality, at conception, implantation and viability. Having considered the practical moral, legal and philosophical problems of these alternatives; the final proposal for law reform combines all three of these thresholds in a proposal for a “dynamic” threshold for legal personality commencing at conception, which would render birth as an irrelevant threshold for moral and legal reasoning about the unborn. (shrink)

People with severe learning disability are particularly difficult to include in the research process. As a result, researchers may be tempted to focus on those with learning disability who can be included. The problem is exacerbated in this field as the political agenda of inclusion and involvement is driven by those people with learning disability who are the higher functioning. To overcome this we should first detach the notion of consent from ideas about autonomy and think instead of it (...) as a way to avoid wronging others; this fits the original historical use of consent in research. This allows us to think in terms of including participants to the best of their abilities rather than in terms of a threshold of autonomy. Researchers could then use imaginative ways to include the least able and to ensure they are not wronged in research or by exclusion from it. (shrink)

At the contemporary stage in the development of humanity, an increasing number of problems, affecting both individuals and society as a whole and having in the past had a local character, are acquiring in the 1970s and 80s—an epoch of ever-accelerating scientific and technical progress and further socio-economic development—a global character, touching to one degree or another the interests of all countries and peoples. Such problems cause anxiety for wide circles of the public and are attracting the increasing attention of (...) scientists, government figures, and political activists. The prospects for humanity and society on the threshold of the third millenium depend upon how fruitful the scientific analysis of global problems and the efficiency of practical measures will be. (shrink)

Enough is known about pattern formation in development to encourage investigations at the molecular level. A pressing need is to understand the molecular basis of positional value, which is similar to determination. It is suggested here that there is a molecular entity which varies in such a way that it corresponds with cell position. Other problems in pattern formation include thresholds, identification of morphogens, and the origin of handedness.

On the surface, it seems plausible that the goodness or badness of an agent’s actions should be completely irrelevant to the question of whether she performed them intentionally, but there is growing evidence that ascriptions of intentional actions are affected by moral considerations. Joshua Knobe, for instance, has recently published a series of groundbreaking papers (2003a, 2003b, 2004) in which he suggests that people’s judgments concerning the intentionality of an action may sometimes depend on what they think about the action (...) – morally speaking. One of the more interesting results of Knobe’s psychological experiments is the discovery that people may have a lower threshold for judging that lucky (or unskilled) actions are intentional when these actions are praiseworthy or blameworthy than they do for judging that equally lucky (or unskilled) morally neutral actions are intentional. In this paper I show that this discovery – when supplemented with some additional empirical data – gives us a way of shedding new light on a controversy that was sparked by Ronald Butler in 1977 when he posed the following problem to the readers of Analysis. (shrink)

According to Martha Nussbaum, treating animals justly is a matter of guaranteeing each individual those capabilities up to a minimum threshold that are essential for flourishing as a member of a particular species. Nussbaum’s basic theoretical framework is acceptable; however, a capability which Nussbaum thinks is not essential for the flourishing, the oppor­tunity to kill as a part of exercising predatory instinct, may in fact be essential for predator flourishing. Nussbaum ought to be concerned with the possibility that this (...) capability is essential, since if it is, it is likely that in doing less harm than good we will also be treating some predators unjustly by denying them the opportunity to flourish. (shrink)