It is often assumed that engaging in a one‐on‐one dialogue with a tutor is more effective than listening to a lecture or reading a text. Although earlier experiments have not always supported this hypothesis, this may be due in part to allowing the tutors to cover different content than the noninteractive instruction. In 7 experiments, we tested the interaction hypothesis under the constraint that (a) all students covered the same content during instruction, (b) the task domain was qualitative physics, (c) (...) the instruction was in natural language as opposed to mathematical or other formal languages, and (d) the instruction conformed with a widely observed pattern in human tutoring: Graesser, Person, and Magliano's 5‐step frame. In the experiments, we compared 2 kinds of human tutoring (spoken and computer mediated) with 2 kinds of natural‐language‐based computer tutoring (Why2‐Atlas and Why2‐AutoTutor) and 3 control conditions that involved studying texts. The results depended on whether the students' preparation matched the content of the instruction. When novices (students who had not taken college physics) studied content that was written for intermediates (students who had taken college physics), then tutorial dialogue was reliably more beneficial than less interactive instruction, with large effect sizes. When novices studied material written for novices or intermediates studied material written for intermediates, then tutorial dialogue was not reliably more effective than the text‐based control conditions. (shrink)

High temporal resolution event-related brain potential and electroencephalographic coherence studies of the neural substrate of short-term storage in working memory indicate that the sustained coactivation of both prefrontal cortex and the posterior cortical systems that participate in the initial perception and comprehension of the retained information are involved in its storage. These studies further show that short-term storage mechanisms involve an increase in neural synchrony between prefrontal cortex and posterior cortex and the enhanced activation of long-term memory representations of material (...) held in short-term memory. This activation begins during the encoding/comprehension phase and evidently is prolonged into the retention phase by attentional drive from prefrontal cortex control systems. A parsimonious interpretation of these findings is that the long-term memory systems associated with the posterior cortical processors provide the necessary representational basis for working memory, with the property of short-term memory decay being primarily due to the posterior system. In this view, there is no reason to posit specialized neural systems whose functions are limited to those of short-term storage buffers. Prefrontal cortex provides the attentional pointer system for maintaining activation in the appropriate posterior processing systems. Short-term memory capacity and phenomena such as displacement of information in short-term memory are determined by limitations on the number of pointers that can be sustained by the prefrontal control systems. Key Words: coherence; event-related potentials; imaging; long-term memory; memory; short-term memory; working memory. (shrink)

Each year, many young professionals forego advanced education in the traditional doctoral programs of medicine, law, and philosophy in favor of pursuing a PhD or professional doctorate in bioethics or healthcare ethics that is offered by several major institutes of higher education across the United States. These graduates often leverage their degrees into careers within the broader field of bioethics. As such, they represent a growing percentage of professional bioethicists in both academia and healthcare nationwide. Given the significant role that (...) doctoral bioethics programs play in the training of future professional bioethicists, it is imperative that programs conferring bioethics degrees are attuned to the knowledge and skills students will need as they transition to professional positions, especially where this training substantially differs from more traditional doctoral degree tracks. Yet, even given this need, there is nothing in the professional literature regarding doctoral bioethics graduates’ perspectives or the overall efficacy of a bioethics doctorate as compared to more traditional doctoral degree tracks for future professional bioethicists. This paper then gives the perspective of five recent doctoral bioethics graduates on the utility of a bioethics doctorate and areas where the doctorate prepared or underprepared them in their roles as early-career professional bioethicists. (shrink)

Joint attention (JA) is hypothesized to have a close relationship with developing theory of mind (ToM) capabilities. We tested the co-occurrence of ToM and JA in social interactions between adults with no reported history of psychiatric illness or neurodevelopmental disorders. Participants engaged in an experimental task that encouraged nonverbal communication, including JA, and also ToM activity. We adapted an in-lab variant of experience sampling methods (Bryant, Coffey, Povinelli, & Pruett, 2013) to measure ToM during JA based on participants’ subjective reports (...) of their thoughts while performing the task. This experiment successfully elicited instances of JA in 17/20 dyads. We compared participants’ thought contents during episodes of JA and non-JA. Our results suggest that, in adults, JA and ToM may occur independently. (shrink)

The goal of our target article is to establish that electrophysiological data constrain models of short-term memory retention operations to schemes in which activated long-term memory is its representational basis. The temporary stores correspond to neural circuits involved in the perception and subsequent processing of the relevant information, and do not involve specialized neural circuits dedicated to the temporary holding of information outside of those embedded in long-term memory. The commentaries ranged from general agreement with the view that short-term memory (...) stores correspond to activated long-term memory (e.g., Abry, Sato, Schwartz, Loevenbruck & Cathiard [Abry etal.], Cowan, Fuster, Grote, Hickok & Buchsbaum, Keenan, Hyönä & Kaakinen [Keenan et al.], Martin, Morra), to taking a definite exception to this view (e.g., Baddeley, Düzel, Logie & Della Sala, Kroger, Majerus, Van der Linden, Colette & Salmon [Majerus et al.], Vallar). (shrink)

In The End of Progress, Amy Allen connects post- and decolonial concerns about the implications of the concept of progress to contemporary critical theory. In the work of Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth, progress—as historical development and sociocultural learning—has taken on the load-bearing role in grounding normativity. Allen seeks to decolonize critical theory “from within” by recuperating Adorno and Foucault’s more ambivalent conceptions of progress. While such a move does not itself amount to “decolonizing” critical theory, Allen helps to inaugurate (...) this important exchange via her convincing critique of some of the leading figures of critical theory today. (shrink)

While Theodor Adorno is known for his philosophical reconstruction of aesthetic modernism, he also analyzes—and is critical of—the demotion of natural beauty in the hierarchy of aesthetic concerns following Kant. Recent scholars have acknowledged that natural beauty is important in Adornian aesthetics, but many do so in a manner that repeats the subordination of natural beauty and the aesthetic experience of nature to that of art. Against this tendency, in this article I demonstrate that not only does Adorno contest the (...) inferiority of the aesthetic experience of nature but his unconventional description and theoretical articulation of natural beauty is especially pertinent for our time of climate crisis. By unpacking his endorsement of Walter Benjamin's casting both nature and history in terms of transience, I argue that Adorno proposes an experience of natural beauty that is expressive of social historical content, offers a vision of a different relationship with nature, and discloses ethical claims on us to act in this world. (shrink)

In the United States, the field of bioethics has expanded over the last two decades. Several institutions offer graduate-level training at both the masters and doctoral level. However, a lack of published literature on the outcomes of doctoral training in bioethics from the perspective of graduates exists. Researchers conducted an online survey of doctoral students who had finished all doctoral requirements but their dissertation, as well as doctoral graduates, of four US-based institutions to ascertain their perspectives on a number of (...) items regarding their doctoral training and their perception of how that training prepared them for their current role in the workforce. Responses from 34 participants were assessed. Respondents had positive overall views on the utility of a bioethics doctorate and the educational training they received in their respective programs. A number of areas for improvement were identified, including better structured clinical ethics training, greater opportunities for research and publishing, and having the ability to teach during their doctoral program, as well as formal pedagogy training. Greater exposure to clinical ethics consultation during the doctoral program was associated with feeling fully prepared as a clinical ethics consultant. This is the first study to assess the perspectives of bioethics doctoral graduates and ABD students regarding the utility of a bioethics doctorate. Per the perspectives of graduates and ABD students, bioethics doctorates are important and effective to train professional bioethicists. We recommend that a few key changes to these programs’ curricula can further bolster their effectiveness. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article connects three elements of Theodor Adorno’s critical theory and contemporary ecological feminism: the critique of a strict dualism between nature and human activity, the role of care in moral thinking, and considerations of “the animal” in ethical frameworks. First, the author unpacks Adorno’s critical concept of “natural-history,” Naturgeschichte, which gives philosophy a two-pronged task: to denaturalize history and to historicize nature. After the article demonstrates that complicating the dualism between nature and history has consequences for ontology and (...) our sense of “what things are,” the author further suggests that the concept of natural-history critically modifies ethics and the terms concerning “what we ought to do.” By examining the critiques of rationalist moral approaches in the work of Adorno, Carol Gilligan, and Deborah Slicer, the article argues for an ethics of care that resists both the false naturalization of contingent history and the denigration of the nonhuman. (shrink)

This critical note responds to Guiaşu and Tindale’s “Logical fallacies and invasion biology,” from our perspective as ecologists and philosophers of science engaged in debates about invasion biology and invasive species. We agree that “the level of charges and dismissals” surrounding these debates might be “unhealthy” and that “it will be very difficult for dialogues to move forward unless genuine attempts are made to understand the positions being held and to clarify the terms involved.” Although they raise several important scientific, (...) conceptual, and ethical issues at the foundations of invasion biology, we believe Guiaşu and Tindale’s attempts to clarify the debate were unsuccessful. Like some other critics of the field, they tend to misrepresent invasion biology by cherry-picking and constructing “straw people,” inaccurately portraying invasion biology, and thus failing to elevate the dialogue. In this critique, we clarify areas in the invasion biology literature misrepresented by Guiaşu and Tindale. We attempt to provide a more balanced view of areas of reasonable debate within invasion biology, including disputes about empirical evidence, diverse risk attitudes, and other diverse ethical commitments. (shrink)

This collection of essays is dedicated to William Rowe, with great affection, respect, and admiration. The philosophy of religion, once considered a deviation from an otherwise analytically rigorous discipline, has flourished over the past two decades. This collection of new essays by twelve distinguished philosophers of religion explores three broad themes: religious attitudes of faith, belief, acceptance, and love; human and divine freedom; and the rationality of religious belief. Contributors include: William Alston, Robert Audi, Jan Cover, Martin Curd, Peter van (...) Inwagen, Norman Kretzmann, George Nakhnikian, John Hawthorne, Philip Quinn, James Ross, Eleonore Stump, and William Wainwright. (shrink)

The present paper describes a joint action paradigm in which individuals or pairs utilized two computer keys to keep a dot stimulus moving inside a larger rectangle. Members of a pair could neither see nor hear each other. This paradigm allowed us to combine the discrete-trial type dependent variables commonly utilized by representational theorists, with the continuous, temporal dependence variables utilized by dynamical theorists. Analysis revealed that individuals kept the dot in the rectangle longer than dyads and did so by (...) moving it back and forth within the rectangle. Dyads, however, pressed their individual buttons as quickly as possible in order to keep the dot near the middle of the rectangle. These findings indicate that joint action constitutes a multi-scale phenomena that is best investigated via multiple, complementary methodologies versus single-measure, competing theories. (shrink)

Integrating large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 into medical ethics is a novel concept, and understanding the effectiveness of these models in aiding ethicists with decision-making can have significant implications for the healthcare sector. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of GPT-4 in responding to complex medical ethical vignettes and to gauge its utility and limitations for aiding medical ethicists. Using a mixed-methods, cross-sectional survey approach, a panel of six ethicists assessed LLM-generated responses to eight (...) ethical vignettes.The main outcomes measured were relevance, reasoning, depth, technical and non-technical clarity, as well as acceptability of GPT-4’s responses. The readability of the responses was also assessed. Of the six metrics evaluating the effectiveness of GPT-4’s responses, the overall mean score was 4.1/5. GPT-4 was rated highest in providing technical (4.7/5) and non-technical clarity (4.4/5), whereas the lowest rated metrics were depth (3.8/5) and acceptability (3.8/5). There was poor-to-moderate inter-rater reliability characterised by an intraclass coefficient of 0.54 (95% CI: 0.30 to 0.71). Based on panellist feedback, GPT-4 was able to identify and articulate key ethical issues but struggled to appreciate the nuanced aspects of ethical dilemmas and misapplied certain moral principles.This study reveals limitations in the ability of GPT-4 to appreciate the depth and nuanced acceptability of real-world ethical dilemmas, particularly those that require a thorough understanding of relational complexities and context-specific values. Ongoing evaluation of LLM capabilities within medical ethics remains paramount, and further refinement is needed before it can be used effectively in clinical settings. (shrink)

This research examines how two dimensions of moral intensity involved in a corporation’s external crisis response—magnitude of effectiveness and interpersonal proximity—influence observer perceptions of and behavioral intentions toward the corporation. Across three studies, effectiveness decreased negative perceptions and increased pro-organizational intentions via ethical judgment of the response. Moreover, the two dimensions interacted such that a response high in proximity but low in effectiveness led to more negative perceptions and to less pro-organizational intentions. This interaction was particularly pronounced if the corporation (...) portrayed itself as communal-oriented. The interaction was mediated by individuals’ ethical judgment, which was a function of the corporation’s perceived benevolent concern. We termed the interaction the Strategic Samaritan, for it was when the corporation tried to appear like a Good Samaritan, displaying proximity with victims but not accompanying it with effective help, that it was seen as acting with less benevolent concern. (shrink)

Responding to recent concerns about the reliability of the published literature in psychology and other disciplines, we formed the X-Phi Replicability Project to estimate the reproducibility of experimental philosophy. Drawing on a representative sample of 40 x-phi studies published between 2003 and 2015, we enlisted 20 research teams across 8 countries to conduct a high-quality replication of each study in order to compare the results to the original published findings. We found that x-phi studies – as represented in our sample (...) – successfully replicated about 70% of the time. We discuss possible reasons for this relatively high replication rate in the field of experimental philosophy and offer suggestions for best research practices going forward. (shrink)

Social norms – rules governing which behaviours are deemed appropriate or inappropriate within a given community – are typically taken to be uniquely human. Recently, this position has been challenged by a number of philosophers, cognitive scientists, and ethologists, who have suggested that social norms may also be found in certain non-human animal communities. Such claims have elicited considerable scepticism from norm cognition researchers, who doubt that any non-human animals possess the psychological capacities necessary for normative cognition. However, there is (...) little agreement among these researchers about what these psychological prerequisites are. This makes empirical study of animal social norms difficult, since it is not clear what we are looking for and thus what should count as behavioural evidence for the presence (or absence) of social norms in animals. To break this impasse, we offer an approach that moves beyond contested psychological criteria for social norms. This approach is inspired by the animal culture research program, which has made a similar shift away from heavily psychological definitions of ‘culture’ and to become organized around a cluster of more empirically tractable concepts of culture. Here, we propose an analogous set of constructs built around the core notion of a normative regularity, which we define as a socially maintained pattern of behavioural conformity within a community. We suggest methods for studying potential normative regularities in wild and captive primates. We also discuss the broader scientific and philosophical implications of this research program with respect to questions of human uniqueness, animal welfare and conservation. (shrink)

Background: Facial attractiveness influences our perceptions of others, with beautiful faces reaping societal rewards and anomalous faces encountering penalties. The purpose of this study was to determine associations of visual attention with bias and social dispositions toward people with facial anomalies. -/- Methods: Sixty subjects completed tests evaluating implicit bias, explicit bias, and social dispositions before viewing publicly available images of preoperative and postoperative patients with hemifacial microsomia. Eye-tracking was used to register visual fixations. -/- Results: Participants with higher implicit (...) bias scores fixated significantly less on the cheek and ear region preoperatively (P = 0.004). Participants with higher scores in empathic concern and perspective taking fixated more on the forehead and orbit preoperatively (P = 0.045) and nose and lips (P = 0.027) preoperativel. -/- Conclusions: Participants with higher levels of implicit bias spent less visual attention on anomalous facial anatomy, whereas participants with higher levels of empathic concern and perspective taking spent more visual attention on normal facial anatomy. Levels of bias and social dispositions such as empathy may predict layperson gaze patterns toward those with facial anomalies and provide insights to neural mechanisms underlying the "anomalous is bad" paradigm. (shrink)

Background: Facial proportionality and symmetry are positively associated with perceived levels of facial attractiveness. -/- Objective: The aims of this study were to confirm and extend the association of proportionality with perceived levels of attractiveness and character traits and determine differences in attractiveness and character ratings between "anomalous" and "typical" faces using a large dataset. -/- Methods: Ratings of 597 unique individuals from the Chicago Face Database were used. A formula was developed as a proxy of relative horizontal proportionality, where (...) a proportionality score of "0" indicated perfect proportionality and more negative scores indicated less proportionality. Faces were categorized as "anomalous" or "typical" by 2 independent reviewers based on physical features. -/- Results: Across the ratings for all faces, Spearman correlations revealed greater proportionality was associated with attractiveness ( ρ = 0.292, P < 0.001) and trustworthiness ( ρ = 0.193, P < 0.001), while lesser proportionality was associated with impressions of anger (ρ = 0.132, P = 0.001), dominance (ρ = 0.259, P < 0.001), and threateningness ( ρ = 0.234, P < 0.001). Mann-Whitney U tests revealed the typical cohort had significantly higher levels of proportionality (-13.98 versus -15.14, P = 0.030) and ratings of attractiveness (3.39 versus 2.99, P < 0.001) and trustworthiness (3.48 versus 3.35, P < 0.001). -/- Conclusions: This study demonstrated that facial proportionality is not only significantly associated with higher ratings of attractiveness, but also associated with judgements of trustworthiness. Proportionality plays a role in evoking negative attributions of personality characteristics to people with facial anomalies. (shrink)

Appendix 1 was incomplete in the initial online publication. The original article has been corrected.

We analyzed a sample of 356 forms containing information that Colorado law legally requires both licensed and unlicensed therapists to disclose to clients. The majority of forms contained the legally mandated information; fewer forms contained ethically desirable information. The average readability grade level was 15.74, corresponding to upper-level college, and 63.9% of the forms reached the highest (most difficult) readability grade of 17 +. Therapists are obeying the law, but do not appear to be taking advantage of the opportunity to (...) provide their clients useful information in an accessible way. (shrink)

Daniel Bell’s multidimensional view of modern social life as a disjunction of differing realms provides an effective example of a sociological analysis that defies typical notions of Left/Right and radical/conservative. Within this framework, Bell moves between traditional alliances, and his unwillingness to take sides makes it difficult to place him within traditional categories. Using Bell as an example, this paper will question the relevance of Right and Left in sociological discourse, and suggest that the distinction between conservative and radical is (...) more substantive. (shrink)

A BAYESIAN ARTICULATION OF HUME’S VIEWS IS OFFERED BASED ON A FORM OF THE BAYES-LAPLACE THEOREM THAT IS SUPERFICIALLY LIKE A FORMULA OF CONDORCET’S. INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITIES ARE EMPLOYED FOR MIRACLES AGAINST WHICH THERE ARE ’PROOFS’ THAT ARE NOT OPPOSED BY ’PROOFS’. OBJECTIONS MADE BY RICHARD PRICE ARE DEALT WITH, AND RECENT EXPERIMENTS CONDUCTED BY AMOS TVERSKY AND DANIEL KAHNEMAN ARE CONSIDERED IN WHICH PERSONS TEND TO DISCOUNT PRIOR IMPROBABILITIES WHEN ASSESSING REPORTS OF WITNESSES.

Because the traditional Inuit way of life was a successful adaptation to the harshest environment in which humans reside, their religion is of considerable importance in understanding the potentialities of culture and is often cited in general studies of comparative religion. Yet prior to the work of Daniel Merkur, there have been no monograph-length studies of Inuit religion, and journal articles have been few and far between. In part, this is due to the immense difficulty of the task. The considerable (...) ethnographic material is of varying, often poor quality with regard to Inuit religion, and there are virtually no recordings of relevant material in the various dialects of the Inuit language. (shrink)

In a series of important papers, Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson argue that all extant neo-sentimentalists are guilty of a conflation error that they call the moralistic fallacy. One commits the moralistic fallacy when one infers from the fact that it would be morally wrong to experience an affective attitude—e.g., it would be wrong to be amused—that the attitude does not fit its object—e.g., that it is not funny. Such inferences, they argue, conflate the appropriateness conditions of attitudinal responses with (...) the fittingness conditions of the associated evaluative properties. Further, they argue that moral considerations are irrelevant for determining if amusement fits its object. We agree that a strong moralizing of humor is wrongheaded and that jokes can be quite funny even in cases where we have a compelling moral reason to not be amused. However, we argue that pace D’Arms and Jacobson moral considerations can be relevant for property ascription. On our view, in order for a joke to be funny, a properly sensitive agent must take herself to have a contributory reason to be amused, and in some cases that she lacks such a reason is best explained by appeal to moral considerations. We use this constraint as the basis of what we call our modest proposal for a modest sentimentalism. (shrink)

In a series of papers, Stephen Kearns and Daniel Star defend the following general account of reasons: R: Necessarily, a fact F is a reason for an agent A to Φ iff F is evidence that an agent ought to Φ.In this paper, I argue that the reasons as evidence view will run afoul of a motivational constraint on moral reasons, and that this is a powerful reason to reject the reasons as evidence view. The motivational constraint is as follows: (...) M: For some consideration C to be a moral reason for an agent to Φ it must be possible for C to figure as part of the agent’s motivation for Φing without thereby undercutting (either partially or wholly) the positive moral evaluation of the agent in acting as she does.M presents a problem for Kearns and Star’s view because there will be cases where some consideration is evidence that an agent ought to Φ, but where if an agent was motivated by that consideration the agent’s action would thereby be worse from a moral perspective for that very reason. Further, I argue that this problem will likely arise on any moral theory that evaluates the motivation of an agent as a component of assessing the moral status of acts. (shrink)

THE MOST SACRED FREEDOM includes eight essays that were first presented at the 2014 A.V. Elliott Conference on Great Books and Ideas, the seventh annual conference sponsored by Mercer Universitys Thomas C. and Ramona E. McDonald Center for Americas Founding Principles. Together, these essays explore the great principle of religious liberty by charting its development in the Western tradition and reconsidering its place at Americas founding. The book begins with a comparison between the flood accounts in Genesis and the Mesopotamian (...) Atra-Has's and advances all the way to the 2014 Supreme Court case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. The intervening chapters examine the contributions of figures such as Emperor Julian, Roger Williams, Cecilius Calvert, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the American Founders. Contributors to the volume are Steven Grosby, Jeremiah H. Russell, Maura Jane Farrelly, Daniel Cullen, John Witte, Jr., Scott Yenor, David Ramsey, and Michael Novak. (shrink)

Are demands for equality motivated by envy? Nietzsche, Freud, Hayek, and Nozick all thought so. Call this the Envy Objection. For egalitarians, the Envy Objection is meant to sting. Many egalitarians have tried to evade the Envy Objection.. But should egalitarians be worried about envy? In this paper, I argue that egalitarians should stop worrying and learn to love envy. I argue that the persistent unwillingness to embrace the Envy Objection is rooted in a common misunderstanding of the nature of (...) the charge, what it reveals, and what can be said in response to it. I develop what Bernard Williams might call a vindicatory genealogy of envy, thereby allowing us to see that envy, rather than undermining egalitarian intuitions, can in fact play a distinct justificatory role (when it is fitting), which undermines the Envy Objection. (shrink)

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

I ask you to X. You now have a reason to X. My request gave you a reason. How? One unpopular theory is the epistemic account, according to which requests do not create any new reasons but instead simply reveal information. For instance, my request that you X reveals that I desire that you X, and my desire gives you a reason to X. Peter Schaber has recently attacked both the epistemic account and other theories of the reason-giving force of (...) requests. Schaber defends a new theory of the reason-giving force of requests according to which request give reasons because it is valuable for requesters and requestees that requests have this power. In this paper I argue that Schaber's attack on the epistemic account fails, and that his own theory ought to be rejected because it faces compelling objections. (shrink)

“X-Firsters” hold that there is some normative feature that is fundamental to all others (and, often, that there’s some normative feature that is the “mark of the normative”: all other normative properties have it, and are normative in virtue of having it). This view is taken as a starting point in the debate about which X is “on first.” Little has been said about whether or why we should be X-Firsters, or what we should think about normativity if we aren’t (...) X-Firsters. Hence the chapter’s two main goals. First, to provide a simple argument that one shouldn’t be an X-Firster about the normative domain, which starts with the observation that analogous views have dubious merits in analogous domains. Second, to offer an alternative view—taking normativity to be a determinable explained in terms of its determinates—that offers an interesting way to think about the structure and unity of normativity. (shrink)