People increasingly live online, sharing publicly what might have once seemed private, but at the same time are enraged by extremes of government surveillance and the corresponding invasion into our private lives. In this enlightening work, Adam Henschke re-examines privacy and property in the age of surveillance in order to understand not only the importance of these social conventions, but also their moral relevance. By analyzing identity and information, and presenting a case for a relation between the two, (...) he explains the moral importance of virtual identities and offers an ethically robust solution to design surveillance technologies. This book should be read by anyone interested in surveillance technology, new information technology more generally, and social concepts like privacy and property. (shrink)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is, in part, an information handling system that can remove humans from the information handling process. The particular problem explored is how we are to understand privacy when considering informational systems that handle personal information in ways that impact people’s lives when there is no human operator in direct contact with that personal information. I argue that these new technologies need to take concepts like privacy into account, but also, that we ought also to take (...) these technologies into account to reconsider and perhaps reconceptualise privacy. This paper argues that while an inhuman system like the IoT does not necessarily violate the interpersonal privacy of people, if the IoT is used as part of a state surveillance program, a political notion of privacy may be violated. (shrink)

In this paper I look at moral debates about animal disenhancement. In particular, I propose that given the particular social institutions in which such disenhancement will operate, we ought to reject animal disenhancement. I do this by introducing the issue of animal disenhancement and presenting arguments in support of it, and showing that while these arguments are strong, they are unconvincing when we look at the full picture. Viewing animal disenhancement in a context such as high intensity food production, we (...) see that the arguments in support of it fall short of other ethical considerations, leading me to conclude that the moral and pragmatic reasons weigh against animal disenhancement. (shrink)

Cyberspace relies on information technologies to mediate relations between different people, across different communication networks and is reliant on the supporting technology. These interactions typically occur without physical proximity and those working depending on cybersystems must be able to trust the overall human–technical systems that support cyberspace. As such, detailed discussion of cybersecurity policy would be improved by including trust as a key value to help guide policy discussions. Moreover, effective cybersystems must have resilience designed into them. This paper argues (...) that trustworthy cybersystems are a key element to resilient systems, and thus are core to cybersecurity policy. The paper highlights the importance of trustworthiness for resilient cybersystems. The importance of trustworthiness is shown through a discussion of three events where trustworthiness was the target or casualty of cyberattacks: Stuxnet, hacking of communications and the Edward Snowden revelations. The impact of losing trust is highlighted, to underpin the argument that a resilient cybersystem ought to design in trustworthiness. The paper closes off by presenting a general set of policy implications arising from recognition of the interplay between trust, trustworthiness and resilience for effective cybersecurity. (shrink)

Autonomous vehicles, and the larger socio-technical systems that they are a part of are likely to have a deep and lasting impact on our societies. Trust is a key value that will play a role in the development of autonomous driving systems. This paper suggests that trust of autonomous driving systems will impact the ways that these systems are taken up, the norms and laws that guide them and the design of the systems themselves. Further to this, in order to (...) have autonomous driving systems that are worthy of our trust, we need a superstructure of oversight and a process that designs trust into these systems from the outset. Rather than banning or avoiding all autonomous vehicles should a tragedy occur, despite these systems having some level of risk, we want resilient systems that can survive tragedies, and indeed, improve from them. I will argue that trust plays a role in developing these resilient systems. (shrink)

Genetic information is becoming increasingly used in modern life, extending beyond medicine to familial history, forensics and more. Following this expansion of use, the effect of genetic information on people’s identity and ultimately people’s quality of life is being explored in a host of different disciplines. While a multidisciplinary approach is commendable and necessary, there is the potential for the multidisciplinarity to produce conceptual misconnection. That is, while experts in one field may understand their use of a term like ‘gene’, (...) ‘identity’ or ‘information’ for experts in another field, the same term may link to a distinctly different concept. These conceptual misconnections not only increase inefficiency in complex organisational practices, but can also have important ethical, legal and social consequences. This paper comes at the problem of conceptual misconnection by clarifying different uses of the terms ‘gene’, ‘identity’ and ‘information’. I start by looking at three different conceptions of the gene; the Instrumental, the Nominal and the Postgenomic Molecular. Secondly, a taxonomy of four different concepts of identity is presented; Numeric, Character, Group and Essentialised, and their use is clarified. A general concept of Information is introduced, and finally three distinct kinds of information are described. I then introduce Concept Creep as an ethical problem that arises from conceptual misconnections. The primary goal of this paper is to reduce the potential for conceptual misconnection when discussing genetic identity and genetic information. This is complimented by three secondary goals—1) to clarify what a conceptual misconnection is, 2) to explain why clarity of use is particularly important to discussions of genes, identity and information and 3) to show how concept creep between different uses of genetic identity and genetic information can have important ethical outcomes. (shrink)

Modern warfare has shifted from the traditional conception of states involved in self-defensive wars to include peacekeeping missions, humanitarian intervention, regional stabilisation in the face of natural disasters, and more. A central criterion from just war traditions is the probability of success—given the magnitude of harms that large military operations are expected to cause; there must be some likelihood that the military operation will be successful. However, how likely a given military operation will be is dependent, in part at least, (...) on the capacities of those acting in the given military operation. Our paper shows that the capacities of those involved in a military action bear upon the likelihood of that operation being successful. A central goal of this paper is to argue for the recognition of the training of soldiers as a moral requirement for the just war. (shrink)

It is a long-held belief that states must retain the monopoly over political violence in order to be states, and to survive. However, there are recent criticisms of this view forcing us to consider not just the state's use of political violence but the very nature of the state. Elizabeth Frazer and Kimberly Hutchings's Can Political Violence Ever Be Justified? argues that it cannot. Ned Dobos's Ethics, Security, and the War-Machine raises a series of arguments against states having standing militaries, (...) and Alex Vitale's The End of Policing similarly raises a series of arguments against the institution of the police. In this review essay, I suggest that these arguments all force us to revisit the very nature of the state. There are concerns about simply abolishing these institutions of political violence, but we can indeed conceive of states without the monopoly on violence. (shrink)

The ethics of whistleblowing are complex and challenging. On the one hand, there are a strong set of moral reasons why someone ought to blow the whistle when he or she learns of wrongdoing. On the other hand, such actions typically come at a significant cost to the whistleblower and may not bring about any significant change. Both aspects prompt us to ask, why would I be a whistleblower? Emanuela Ceva and Michele Bocchiola's Is Whistleblowing a Duty? answers that question (...) by arguing that one has an organizational duty to blow the whistle. Kate Kenny's Whistleblowing: Toward a New Theory reframes the question, showing how hard it has been for members of the international financial industry to blow the whistle and bring about any effective change to that industry. In this review essay, I suggest that analyses of whistleblowing need to take into account evolving technologies, the importance of loyalty, and special contexts such as whistleblowing in the national security sector. (shrink)

Philosophical and ethical discussions of warfare are often tied to emerging technologies and techniques. Today we are presented with what many believe is a radical shift in the nature of war-the realization of conflict in the cyber-realm, the so-called.

This book draws from the use of modern surveillance technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic to explore a set of issues and challenges facing decision-makers and designers in times of emergency: how do we respond to emergencies in ways that are both consistent with democratic and community principles, and that are ethically justifiable?

This new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of contemporary extensions and alternatives to the just war tradition in the field of the ethics of war. -/- The modern history of just war has typically assumed the primacy of four particular elements: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, the state actor, and the solider. This book will put these four elements under close scrutiny, and will explore how they fare given the following challenges: -/- • What role do the traditional elements (...) of jus ad bellum and jus in bello—and the constituent principles that follow from this distinction—play in modern warfare? Do they adequately account for a normative theory of war? -/- • What is the role of the state in warfare? Is it or should it be the primary actor in just war theory? -/- • Can a just war be understood simply as a response to territorial aggression between state actors, or should other actions be accommodated under legitimate recourse to armed conflict? -/- • Is the idea of combatant qua state-employed soldier a valid ethical characterization of actors in modern warfare? -/- • What role does the technological backdrop of modern warfare play in understanding and realizing just war theories? -/- Over the course of three key sections, the contributors examine these challenges to the just war tradition in a way that invigorates existing discussions and generates new debate on topical and prospective issues in just war theory. -/- This book will be of great interest to students of just war theory, war and ethics, peace and conflict studies, philosophy and security studies. (shrink)

This new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of contemporary extensions and alternatives to the just war tradition in the field of the ethics of war. The modern history of just war has typically assumed the primacy of four particular elements: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, the state actor, and the solider. This book will put these four elements under close scrutiny, and will explore how they fare given the following challenges: • What role do the traditional elements of jus (...) ad bellum and jus in bello—and the constituent principles that follow from this distinction—play in modern warfare? Do they adequately account for a normative theory of war? • What is the role of the state in warfare? Is it or should it be the primary actor in just war theory? • Can a just war be understood simply as a response to territorial aggression between state actors, or should other actions be accommodated under legitimate recourse to armed conflict? • Is the idea of combatant qua state-employed soldier a valid ethical characterization of actors in modern warfare? • What role does the technological backdrop of modern warfare play in understanding and realizing just war theories? Over the course of three key sections, the contributors examine these challenges to the just war tradition in a way that invigorates existing discussions and generates new debate on topical and prospective issues in just war theory. This book will be of great interest to students of just war theory, war and ethics, peace and conflict studies, philosophy and security studies. (shrink)

This new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of contemporary extensions and alternatives to the just war tradition in the field of the ethics of war.

In "Making Sense of Animal Disenhancement" Adam Henschke provides a framework for fully understanding and evaluating animal disenhancement. His conclusion is that animal disenhancement is neither morally nor pragmatically justified. In this paper I argue that Henschke misapplies his own framework for understanding disenhancement, resulting in a stronger conclusion than is justified. In diagnosing his misstep, I argue that the resources he has provided us, combined with my refinements, result in two new avenues for inquiry: an application (...) of concepts from political theory to disenhancement, and an inquiry in to the mode of valuation that underlies industrial animal agriculture and disenhancement proposals. (shrink)

The foundation for a system of morals, this 1749 work is a landmark of moral and political thought. Its highly original theories of conscience, moral judgment, and virtue offer a reconstruction of the Enlightenment concept of social science, embracing both political economy and theories of law and government.

Though the vegetarian movement sparked by Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation has achieved some success, there is more animal suffering caused today due to factory farming than there was when the book was originally written. In this paper, I argue that there may be a technological solution to the problem of animal suffering in intensive factory farming operations. In particular, I suggest that recent research indicates that we may be very close to, if not already at, the point where we (...) can genetically engineer factory-farmed livestock with a reduced or completely eliminated capacity to suffer. In as much as animal suffering is the principal concern that motivates the animal welfare movement, this development should be of central interest to its adherents. Moreover, I will argue that all people concerned with animal welfare should agree that we ought to replace the animals currently used in factory farming with animals whose ability to suffer is diminished if we are able to do so. (shrink)

In 1949, Philipp Frank claimed that he and Rudolf Carnap built up a new center for the scientific world conception in Prague between 1931 and 1935. The aim of this paper is to provide historical evidence and further materials to approach this claim of Frank. Definite answers, however, require more space and contextualization, so I will just sketch some partial but hopefully promising narratives and rudimentary answers. I claim that though Carnap and Frank indeed tried to build a new center, (...) they were unsuccessful, and possibly there were many reasons for this. This is the general claim; regarding Carnap, I will also show his way to the German University of Prague and his philosophical, scholarly, and cultural life in Prague. (shrink)

Bringing political philosophy out of the ivory tower and within the reach of all, this book provides us with tools to cut through the complexities of modern ...

"Adam Wiegner's work belongs to Polish analytical philosophy, but it falls outside of its main current, the Lvov-Warsaw School, which was influenced by Hume's ideas. Wiegner, influenced by neo-Kantianism, developed a non-Humean conception of "holistic empiricism," which anticipates some of the ideas of K. R. Popper and W. V. O. Quine. Some of his ideas remain original to this day. His main research interests included epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science especially philosophy of psychology, analytical history of philosophy, (...) and interpretation of traditional logic in terms of mathematical logic."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

From folk tales to movies, stories possess features which naturally suit them to contribute to the growth of virtue. In this article I show that the fictional exemplars help the learner to grasp the moral importance of internal states and resolves a tension between existing kinds of exemplars discussed by virtue ethicists. Stories also increase the information conveyed by virtue terms and aid the growth of prudence. Stories can provide virtuous exemplars, inform learners as to the nature of the virtues (...) and offer practice in developing situational judgement. As such they are a significant resource for virtue ethics and moral education. (shrink)

The article presents a theory of the basis and nature of parents’ rights that appeals to the goods distinctively produced by intimate-but-authoritative relationships between adults and the children they parent. It explores the implications of that theory for questions about parents’ rights to raise their children as members of a religion, with particular attention to the issue of religious schooling. Even if not obstructing the development of their children’s capacity for autonomy, parents exceed the bounds of their legitimate authority in (...) so far as they aim deliberately to influence their children’s religious views. Healthy familial relationships involve some identification of child with parent and require a sphere of spontaneous interaction between parent and child that are in any case likely to influence those views and constitute a standing threat to autonomy. Correcting over-deferential understandings of parents’ rights enables schools better to promote not only children’s autonomy but also other legitimate civic goals. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that both defence and criticism of the claim that humans act ‘under the guise of the good’ neglects the metaphysical roots of the theory. I begin with an overview of the theory and its modern commentators, with critics noting the apparent possibility of acting against the good, and supporters claiming that such actions are instances of error. These debates reduce the ‘guise of the good’ to a claim about intention and moral action, and in so (...) doing have become divorced from the theory's roots in classical and medieval philosophy. Aristotle and Aquinas’ ‘guise of the good’ is primarily a metaphysical claim resting on the equivalence between actuality and goodness, from which conclusions about moral action are derived. I show the reasoning behind their theory and how it forms the basis for the claims about intention and action at the centre of the modern debate. Finally, I argue that the absence of its original foundation is apparent in recent attacks on the ‘guise of the good’. It is unsurprising that modern action theory and ethics have not always been able to comfortably accommodate the ‘guise of the good’; they are only telling half of the story. (shrink)

The public health measures implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a substantially increased shared reliance on private infrastructure and digital services in areas such as healthcare, education, retail, and the workplace. This development has (i) granted a number of private actors significant (informational) power, and (ii) given rise to a range of digital surveillance practices incidental to the pandemic itself. In this paper, we reflect on these secondary consequences of the pandemic and observe that, even though (...) collateral data disclosure and additional activity monitoring appears to have been generally socially accepted as inevitable consequences of the pandemic, part and parcel of a larger conglomeration of emergency compromises, these increased surveillance practices were not directly justified by appeals to solidarity and public health in the same way that the instigating public health measures were. Based on this observation, and given the increased reliance on private actors for maintaining the digital space, we argue that governments have a duty to (i) seek and ensure that there are justifications for collateral data disclosure and activity monitoring by private actors in the context of (future) public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic, and (ii) regulate and provide accountability mechanisms for and oversight over these private surveillance practices on par with governmental essential services that engage in surveillance activities. (shrink)

Are animals moral agents? In this article, a theologian and an anthropologist unite to bring the resources of each field to bear on this question. Alas, not all interdisciplinary conversations end harmoniously, and after much discussion the two authors find themselves in substantial disagreement over the answer. The article is therefore presented in two halves, one for each side of the argument. As well as presenting two different positions, our hope is that this article clarifies the different understandings of morality (...) in our respective fields and will help to offset confusion in interdisciplinary dialogue. In what follows, we each present our case. In the first section, Adam Willows argues that moral activity necessarily involves the use of reason, symbolic thought, and language and is on that basis an exclusively human affair. In the second, Marcus Baynes-Rock discusses his experience of relationality with other creatures; a relationality which, he argues, creates a shared understanding of obligations which are characteristically moral. (shrink)

What is the relationship between mental states and items of material culture, like notebooks, maps or lists? The extended mind thesis offers an influential and controversial answer to this question. According to ExM, items of material culture can form part of the material basis for our mental states. Although ExM offers a radical view of the location of mental states, it fits comfortably with a traditional, representationalist account of the nature of those states. I argue that proponents of ExM would (...) do better to adopt a fictionalist approach to mental states. In so doing, I suggest, they could retain the important insights underlying the extended mind thesis, while avoiding its more problematic consequences. (shrink)

A scholarly edition of a work by Adam Smith. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

W. Matthews Grant's "Dual Sources Account" aims at explaining how God causes all creaturely actions while leaving them free in a robust libertarian sense. It includes an account of predestination that is supposed to allow for the possibility that some created persons ultimately spend eternity in hell. I argue here that the resources Grant provides for understanding why God might permit created persons to end up in hell are, for two different reasons, insufficient. I then provide possible solutions to these (...) two problems, compatible with Grant's account overall, that help show why God might allow hell. (shrink)

How should you take into account the opinions of an advisor? When you completely defer to the advisor's judgment, then you should treat the advisor as a guru. Roughly, that means you should believe what you expect she would believe, if supplied with your extra evidence. When the advisor is your own future self, the resulting principle amounts to a version of the Reflection Principle---a version amended to handle cases of information loss. When you count an advisor as an epistemic (...) peer, you should give her conclusions the same weight as your own. Denying that view---call it the ``equal weight view''---leads to absurdity: the absurdity that you could reasonably come to believe yourself to be an epistemic superior to an advisor simply by noting cases of disagreement with her, and taking it that she made most of the mistakes. Accepting the view seems to lead to another absurdity: that one should suspend judgment about everything that one's smart and well-informed friends disagree on, which means suspending judgment about almost everything interesting. But despite appearances, the equal weight view does not have this absurd consequence. Furthermore, the view can be generalized to handle cases involving not just epistemic peers, but also epistemic superiors and inferiors. (shrink)

In addition to being uncertain about what the world is like, one can also be uncertain about one’s own spatial or temporal location in the world. My aim is to pose a problem arising from the interaction between these two sorts of uncertainty, solve the problem, and draw two lessons from the solution.

It would be good to have a Bayesian decision theory that assesses our decisions and thinking according to everyday standards of rationality — standards that do not require logical omniscience (Garber 1983, Hacking 1967). To that end we develop a “fragmented” decision theory in which a single state of mind is represented by a family of credence functions, each associated with a distinct choice condition (Lewis 1982, Stalnaker 1984). The theory imposes a local coherence assumption guaranteeing that as an agent's (...) attention shifts, successive batches of "obvious" logical information become available to her. A rule of expected utility maximization can then be applied to the decision of what to attend to next during a train of thought. On the resulting theory, rationality requires ordinary agents to be logically competent and to often engage in trains of thought that increase the unification of their states of mind. But rationality does not require ordinary agents to be logically omniscient. (shrink)

Introduction i. Adam Smith's Lectures at Glasgow University Adam Smith was elected to the Chair of Logic at Glasgow University on 9 January, and admitted to ...

In order to predict and explain behavior, one cannot specify the mental state of an agent merely by saying what information she possesses. Instead one must specify what information is available to an agent relative to various purposes. Specifying mental states in this way allows us to accommodate cases of imperfect recall, cognitive accomplishments involved in logical deduction, the mental states of confused or fragmented subjects, and the difference between propositional knowledge and know-how .

Proponents of epistocracy worry that high levels of voter ignorance can harm democracies. To combat such ignorance, they recommend allocating comparatively more political power to more politically knowledgeable citizens. In response, some recent critics of epistocracy contend that epistocratic institutions risk causing even more harm, since much evidence from political psychology indicates that more politically knowledgeable citizens are typically more biased, less open-minded, and more prone to motivated reasoning about political matters than their less knowledgeable counterparts. If so, perhaps epistocratic (...) institutions will perform worse epistemically than corresponding democratic institutions. Call this 'the problem of epistocratic irrationality'. This paper argues that the problem of epistocratic irrationality can be overcome. First, I argue that critics of epistocracy have overlooked several complications regarding the psychological data they claim shows that more knowledgeable citizens are less politically rational. Second, I argue that appropriately designed epistocratic institutions could overcome the problem of epistocratic irrationality even if such critics have interpreted the data correctly. I first explore whether refined selection mechanisms could allow epistocrats to avoid empowering less rational citizens, before assessing the prospects of implementing only those epistocratic institutions with a solid track record of reliable performance. (shrink)