Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 6, June 2022.

Patients and family members (N = 671) were surveyed in five Mid-Atlantic U.S. hospitals to ascertain the number and kinds of ethical concerns they are presently experiencing or have previously experienced while being sick or receiving medical care. Seventy percent of participants had at least one (range 0–14) type of ethical concern or question. The most commonly experienced concerns pertained to being unsure how to plan ahead or complete an advance directive (29.4%), being unsure whether someone in the family was (...) able to make their own decisions (29.2%), deciding about limiting life-sustaining treatments (28.6%), wondering about disclosing personal medical information to others in the family (26.4%) and not being sure whether to undergo treatment because of cost (26.2%). Most were interested to some degree in getting help from ethics consultants in the future (76.6%). Given this prevalence, common concerns might usefully be addressed systematically, rather than exclusively on a case-by-case basis. (shrink)

In most decision-making situations, there is a plethora of information potentially available to people. Deciding what information to gather and what to ignore is no small feat. How do decision makers determine in what sequence to collect information and when to stop? In two experiments, we administered a version of the German cities task developed by Gigerenzer and Goldstein (1996), in which participants had to decide which of two cities had the larger population. Decision makers were not provided with the (...) names of the cities, but they were able to collect different kinds of cues for both response alternatives (e.g., “Does this city have a university?”) before making a decision. Our experiments differed in whether participants were free to determine the number of cues they examined. We demonstrate that a novel model, using hierarchical latent mixtures and Bayesian inference (Lee & Newell, 2011) provides a more complete description of the data from both experiments than simple conventional strategies, such as the take–the–best or the Weighted Additive heuristics. (shrink)

fusion theory challenges efforts to see theory as inhibiting by presenting an approach that is innovative, eclectic, and subtle in order to draw out competing and constellating ideas and opinions. This collected volume of essays examines fusion theory and demonstrates how the theory can be applied to the reading of various works of Indian English novelists.

In this review I argue that while Berger makes out a good argument that the language of civic engagement covers too much (and hence too little) and that education plays a vital role in developing civic-minded sensibilities, I am less sanguine that the strategies for the reform of our “attention deficit democracy” will achieve the desired effect in a political society dominated by the corrupting influence of corporations who actively seek to undermine just such sensibilities as anathema to their objectives. (...) As corporate objectives become more and more wedded to the state, so too reform becomes less and less likely to be successful. An excellent example of this is the power wielded by the current incarnation of the fossil fuel empire and it’s influence over law-making concerning hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania. While I applaud Berger’s objectives, I am no longer convinced that pragmatism and not a more revolutionary approach can fulfill Berger’s—and my own—democratic ideals. (shrink)

In this review I argue that while Berger makes out a good argument that the language of civic engagement covers too much (and hence too little) and that education plays a vital role in developing civic-minded sensibilities, I am less sanguine that the strategies for the reform of our “attention deficit democracy” will achieve the desired effect in a political society dominated by the corrupting influence of corporations who actively seek to undermine just such sensibilities as anathema to their objectives. (...) As corporate objectives become more and more wedded to the state, so too reform becomes less and less likely to be successful. An excellent example of this is the power wielded by the current incarnation of the fossil fuel empire and it’s influence over law-making concerning hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania. While I applaud Berger’s objectives, I am no longer convinced that pragmatism and not a more revolutionary approach can fulfill Berger’s—and my own—democratic ideals. (shrink)

What unites Arizona's current xenophobic, border cultural politics and the exemplary life of Benjamin Franklin, “True-blue English/First American”? What transhistorical resonances and parallels are there in those states of affairs? Casting a double look at “the inside looking out” and “the outside looking in,” Anglo Americana vis-à-vis Pax Britannica and vice versa, this piece turns to the postcolonial identity disorder endured then by our dear Ben, a ghostly transitory figure here, as a way to initiate a critical philosophical discourse on (...) transatlantic Anglocentrism and its psycho-geopolitical legacy of xeno-thinking in the cultural and historical imaginary of the United States, where a psycho-geopolitical reaction-formation of WAS self-identities has been the operative norm, a particular form and force of ethnonationalizing racial discourse in the United States, namely, “xenoracism”: the amalgamated categorical interactions of xenophobia and racism, a porous subgenre rather than sealed subset of xenophobia or racism, where the foreign is racialized and particular “aliens” become further alienized at once with catalytic, categorical reciprocity. Presented as a preamble to a fuller conceptualization of U.S. xenoracism, this exposition spotlights the post/colonial complexity, including irony, of that “special” gray/grey tie between the two bound and “divided” by shared Anglophonocentrism, “Comyn Englysshe,” this wounded attachment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Memoriam:Benjamin Lee Wren (1931–2006)Peter A. HuffAlmost a year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated his beloved New Orleans, Benjamin Wren, longtime member of the history department at Loyola University–New Orleans, died on July 20, 2006. Wren joined the Loyola faculty in 1970 and taught popular courses in Chinese history, Japanese history, and world history. He is best remembered for his unprecedented courses in Zen and the unique campus (...) zendo where he taught them. His courses integrated meditation practice, philosophical reflection, historical investigation, and a bit of group therapy into what many students have described as life-changing experiences.Wren was the son of an American Marine and a Hong Kong native who met in Tientsin, China. Growing up in the American South during the Great Depression and World War II, he encountered firsthand the racism and xenophobia that defined the Bible Belt as a distinct cultural region in the first half of the twentieth century. He entered the Society of Jesus when he was seventeen years of age and earned degrees from Spring Hill College, Saint Louis University, and the University of Arizona. Nearly fifty years later, he left the Jesuits and married Patricia Wren.Wren's professional life did not follow the path of the conventional academic career. For several years he taught in Jesuit high schools. After discovering a book on the Japanese art of flower arranging in a Texas public library, he pursued graduate studies in Asian religion and history. Like many of his generation, he was influenced by Jean Dechanet's Christian Yoga and Dom Aelred Graham's Zen Catholicism. He studied Zen with Yamada Roshi in Kamakura and ikebana with Sofu Teshigahara of the Sogetsu School in Tokyo. He initiated his Zen courses at Loyola partially in response to student unrest in the wake of the Kent State massacre.Wren published very little and did not easily negotiate the tenure process. His Zen among the Magnolias (1999) represents more personal testimony than scholarly argument. He did, however, have the extraordinary ability to stretch his students' imaginations and aspirations beyond the formal limitations of higher education and professional expectations. I saw this dimension of his [End Page 137] work very clearly when he served as the keynote speaker for Centenary College's 2004 one-day conference on "The Dharma in Dixie," a program featuring leaders and practitioners from Louisiana's Hindu and Buddhist communities. Wren's animated talk, fusing a whirlwind tour of Chinese history with a riveting critique of contemporary American culture, was by all accounts the highlight of the event.In Zen among the Magnolias, Wren wrote, "The two symbols used to write the word Zen are the symbols for God and warfare. For us who come out of a Judaic/ Christian background, we have the tradition of Jacob fighting with God and emerging from the fight with a new name, Israel (He who has fought with God)" (p. 7). By the time he spoke at my institution, Wren was already engaged in his final battle with cancer. During the chaos of Hurricane Katrina, we lost track of each other. Then I heard of the memorial service to be held in his honor at an Episcopal church in a New Orleans suburb."Zen Ben" Wren's brand of personal passion and intellectual integrity is a rare commodity in today's corporate academy. "The best teachers," he said, "never lose their student IDs, and they also bring out the master in their respective students" (p. 16). Loyola's zendo once housed an unforgettable teacher. [End Page 138]Peter A. HuffCentenary College of LouisianaCopyright © 2007 The University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

While anti-exceptionalism about logic is now a popular topic within the philosophy of logic, there’s still a lack of clarity over what the proposal amounts to. currently, it is most common to conceive of AEL as the proposal that logic is continuous with the sciences. Yet, as we show here, this conception of AEL is unhelpful due to both its lack of precision, and its distortion of the current debates. Rather, AEL is better understood as the rejection of certain traditional (...) properties of logic. The picture that results is not of one singular position, but rather a cluster of often connected positions with distinct motivations, understood in terms of their rejection of clusters of the various traditional properties. In order to show the fruitfulness of this new conception of AEL, we distinguish between two prominent versions of the position, metaphysical and epistemological AEL, and show how the two positions need not stand or fall together. (shrink)

Some philosophers think that life is worth living not merely because of the goods and the bads within it, but also because life itself is good. I explain how this idea can be formalized by associating each version of such of a view with a function from length of life to the value generated by life itself. Then I argue that every version of the view that life itself is good faces some version of the following dilemma: either (1) good (...) human lives are worse than very long lives wholly devoid of pleasure, desire-satisfaction, knowledge, or any other goods, or (2) very short lives containing nothing but suffering are worth living. Since neither result is plausible, we ought to reject the view that life itself is good. On the view I favor, any given life may be worth living because of the goods that it contains, but life itself is neutral. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept both of the following claims: (1) consciousness matters morally, and (2) species membership doesn’t matter morally. In other words, many reject speciesism but accept what we might call 'sentientism'. But do the reasons against speciesism yield analogous reasons against sentientism, just as the reasons against racism and sexism are thought to yield analogous reasons against speciesism? This paper argues that speciesism is disanalogous to sentientism (as well as racism and sexism). I make a case for the following (...) asymmetry: (a) some non-humans clearly have interests, but (b) no non-conscious entities clearly have interests. This asymmetry, I argue, renders sentientism resistant to the standard argument against speciesism. (shrink)

Considerable attention recently has been paid to anti-exceptionalism about logic, the thesis that logic is more similar to the sciences in important respects than traditionally thought. One of AEL’s prominent claims is that logic’s methodology is similar to that of the recognised sciences, with part of this proposal being that logics provide explanations in some sense. However, insufficient attention has been given to what this proposal amounts to, and the challenges that arise in providing an account of explanations in logic. (...) This paper clarifies these challenges, and shows how the practice-based approach is best placed to meet them. (shrink)

According to Fogelin’s account of deep disagreements, disputes caused by a clash in framework propositions are necessarily rationally irresolvable. Fogelin’s thesis is a claim about real-life, and not purely hypothetical, arguments: there are such disagreements, and they are incapable of rational resolution. Surprisingly then, few attempts have been made to find such disputes in order to test Fogelin’s thesis. This paper aims to rectify that failure. Firstly, it clarifies Fogelin’s concept of deep disagreement and shows there are several different breeds (...) of such disagreements. Thus, to fully assess Fogelin’s thesis, it will be necessary to seek out cases of each breed to evaluate their rational irresolvability. Secondly, it begins this task by looking at a significant debate within the logical literature over the truth of contradictions. We demonstrate that, while the debate exemplifies a breed of deep disagreement, the parties involved can supply one another with rationally compelling reasons. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

This is the first work to apply complex systems science to the psychological interplay of order and chaos. The author draws on thought from a wide range of disciplines-both conventional and unorthodox-to address such questions as the nature of consciousness, the relation between mind and reality, and the justification of belief systems. The material should provoke thought among systems scientists, theoretical psychologists, artificial intelligence researchers, and philosophers.

Behavior oftentimes allows for many possible interpretations in terms of mental states, such as goals, beliefs, desires, and intentions. Reasoning about the relation between behavior and mental states is therefore considered to be an effortful process. We argue that people use simple strategies to deal with high cognitive demands of mental state inference. To test this hypothesis, we developed a computational cognitive model, which was able to simulate previous empirical findings: In two-player games, people apply simple strategies at first. They (...) only start revising their strategies when these do not pay off. The model could simulate these findings by recursively attributing its own problem solving skills to the other player, thus increasing the complexity of its own inferences. The model was validated by means of a comparison with findings from a developmental study in which the children demonstrated similar strategic developments. (shrink)

A puzzling feature of paradigmatic cases of dehumanization is that the perpetrators often attribute uniquely human traits to their victims. This has become known as the “paradox of dehumanization.” We address the paradox by arguing that the perpetrators think of their victims as human in one sense, while denying that they are human in another sense. We do so by providing evidence that people harbor a dual character concept of humanity. Research has found that dual character concepts have two independent (...) sets of criteria for their application, one of which is descriptive and one of which is normative. Across four experiments, we found evidence that people deploy a descriptive criterion according to which being human is a matter of being a Homo sapiens; as well as a normative criterion according to which being human is a matter of possessing a deep-seated commitment to do the morally right thing. Importantly, we found that people are willing to affirm that someone is human in the descriptive sense, while denying that they are human in the normative sense, and vice versa. In addition to providing a solution to the paradox of dehumanization, these findings suggest that perceptions of moral character have a central role to play in driving dehumanization. (shrink)

Behavior oftentimes allows for many possible interpretations in terms of mental states, such as goals, beliefs, desires, and intentions. Reasoning about the relation between behavior and mental states is therefore considered to be an effortful process. We argue that people use simple strategies to deal with high cognitive demands of mental state inference. To test this hypothesis, we developed a computational cognitive model, which was able to simulate previous empirical findings: In two-player games, people apply simple strategies at first. They (...) only start revising their strategies when these do not pay off. The model could simulate these findings by recursively attributing its own problem solving skills to the other player, thus increasing the complexity of its own inferences. The model was validated by means of a comparison with findings from a developmental study in which the children demonstrated similar strategic developments. (shrink)

I build a canonical model for constant domain basic first-order logic (BQLCD), the constant domain first-order extension of Visser’s basic propositional logic, and use the canonical model to verify that BQLCD satisfies the disjunction and existence properties.

My question in the chapter is this: could (and should) the role of the physician be construed as that of a friend to the patient? I begin by briefly discussing the “friendship model” of the physician-patient relationship—according to which physicians and patients could, and perhaps should, be friends—as well as its history and limitations. Given these limitations, I focus on the more one-sided idea that the physician could, and perhaps should, be a friend to the patient (a “physician-qua-friend model” of (...) the physician-patient relationship). I show that given recent developments in our understanding of the physician-patient relationship, this idea is far from asinine. I then make the case that the most plausible conception of the physician-qua-friend model incorporates the following components: (a) a common goal, that is, one that physician and patient share; (b) certain forms of equality between physician and patient; (c) an ideal of a caring physician. Finally, I show how the model can be instantiated in a certain type of physician-patient interaction, namely, in physician-assisted dying. (shrink)

In the first chapter of his The World, Descartes compares light to words and discusses signs and ideas. This made scholars read into that passage our views of language as a representational medium and consider it Descartes’ model for representation in perception. I show, by contrast, that Descartes does not ascribe there any representational role to language; that to be a sign is for him to have a kind of causal role; and that he is concerned there only with the (...) cause’s lack of resemblance to its effect, not with the representation’s lack of resemblance to what it represents. I support this interpretation by comparisons with other places in Descartes’ corpus and with earlier authors, Descartes’ likely sources. This interpretation may shed light both on Descartes’ understanding of the functioning of language and on the development of his theory of representation in perception. (shrink)

In this article, James Gibson’s influential notion of “perceptual affordances” is applied to the romantic realm. The core idea of Gibson’s view rests on the possible, meaningful actions that the perceptual environment offers the animal. In order to sustain this idea, Gibson posits two additional major characteristics of affordances: (a) affordances are perceived in a direct cognitive manner, and (b) affordances have a unique ontological status that is neither subjective nor objective. While I accept the core idea, I have doubts (...) as to whether the two other characteristics are necessary in other types of affordances, such as social and romantic affordances. The romantic realm offers an abundance of many enticing affordances. In this regard, I discuss phenomena like the availability of a romantic alternative, romantic ambivalence, choosing a romantic partner, sexual fantasies, the road not taken, reciprocity, playing hard to get, cultivating backup mates, romantic affordances in old age and in the digital realm. In light of the abundance and complexity of romantic affordances in our current romantic environment, knowing the nature of these affordances is most useful from both pragmatic and theoretical viewpoints. (shrink)

Animals suffer harms not only in human captivity but in the wild as well. Some of these latter harms are due to humans, but many of them are not. Consider, for example, the harms of predation, i.e. of being hunted, killed, and eaten by other animals. Should we intervene in nature to prevent these harms? In this article, I consider two possible ways in which we might do so: (1) by herbivorising predators (i.e. genetically modify them so that their offspring (...) gradually evolve into herbivores) and (2) by painlessly killing predators. I argue that, among these options, painlessly killing predators would be preferable to herbivorising them. I then argue that painlessly killing predators, despite its costs to predators, might under certain circumstances be justifiable. (shrink)

John Rawls raises three challenges – to which one can add a fourth challenge – to an impartial spectator account: (a) the impartial spectator is a utility-maximizing device that does not take seriously the distinction between persons; (b) the account does not guarantee that the principles of justice will be derived from it; (c) the notion of impartiality in the account is the wrong one, since it does not define impartiality from the standpoint of the litigants themselves; (d) the account (...) would offer a comprehensive, rather than a political, form of liberalism. The narrow aim of the article is to demonstrate that Adam Smith's impartial spectator account can rise to Rawls's challenges. The broader aim is to demonstrate that the impartial spectator account offers the basis for a novel and alternative framework for developing principles of justice, and does so in the context of a political form of liberalism. (shrink)

The development of technologies for gene editing in the wild has the potential to generate tremendous benefit, but also raises important concerns. Using some form of public deliberation to inform decisions about the use of these technologies is appealing, but public deliberation about them will tend to fall back on various forms of heuristics to account for limited personal experience with these technologies. Deliberations are likely to involve narrative reasoning—or reasoning embedded within stories. These are used to help people discuss (...) risks, processes, and fears that are otherwise difficult to convey. In this article, we identify three forms of collective narrative that are particularly relevant to debates about modifying genes in the wild. Our purpose is not to privilege any particular narrative, but to encourage people involved in deliberations to make these narratives transparent. Doing so can help guard against the way some narratives—referred to here as “crafted narratives”—may be manipulated by powerful elites and concentrated economic interests for their own strategic ends. (shrink)

While it seems unlikely that any method of guaranteeing human-friendliness on the part of advanced Artificial General Intelligence systems will be possible, this doesn’t mean the only alternatives are throttling AGI development to safeguard humanity, or plunging recklessly into the complete unknown. Without denying the presence of a certain irreducible uncertainty in such matters, it is still sensible to explore ways of biasing the odds in a favorable way, such that newly created AI systems are significantly more likely than not (...) to be Friendly. Several potential methods of effecting such biasing are explored here, with a particular but non-exclusive focus on those that are relevant to open-source AGI projects, and with illustrative examples drawn from the OpenCog open-source AGI project. Issues regarding the relative safety of open versus closed approaches to AGI are discussed and then nine techniques for biasing AGIs in favor of Friendliness are presented: 1. Engineer the capability to acquire integrated ethical knowledge.2. Provide rich ethical interaction and instruction, respecting developmental stages.3. Develop stable, hierarchical goal systems.4. Ensure that the early stages of recursive self-improvement occur relatively slowly and with rich human involvement.5. Tightly link AGI with the Global Brain.6. Foster deep, consensus-building interactions between divergent viewpoints.7. Create a mutually supportive community of AGIs.8. Encourage measured co-advancement of AGI software and AGI ethics theory.9. Develop advanced AGI sooner not later. In conclusion, and related to the final point, we advise the serious co-evolution of functional AGI systems and AGI-related ethical theory as soon as possible, before we have so much technical infrastructure that parties relatively unconcerned with ethics are able to rush ahead with brute force approaches to AGI development. (shrink)

Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom; in his recent and celebrated book Superintelligence; argues that advanced AI poses a potentially major existential risk to humanity; and that advanced AI development should be heavily regulated and perhaps even restricted to a small set of government-approved researchers. Bostrom’s ideas and arguments are reviewed and explored in detail; and compared with the thinking of three other current thinkers on the nature and implications of AI: Eliezer Yudkowsky of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute ; and David (...) Weinbaum and Viktoras Veitas of the Global Brain Institute. Relevant portions of Yudkowsky’s book Rationality: From AI to Zombies are briefly reviewed; and it is found that nearly all the core ideas of Bostrom’s work appeared previously or concurrently in Yudkowsky’s thinking. However; Yudkowsky often presents these shared ideas in a more plain-spoken and extreme form; making clearer the essence of what is being claimed. For instance; the elitist strain of thinking that one sees in the background in Bostrom is plainly and openly articulated in Yudkowsky; with many of the same practical conclusions. Bostrom and Yudkowsky view intelligent systems through the lens of reinforcement learning – they view them as “reward-maximizers” and worry about what happens when a very powerful and intelligent reward-maximizer is paired with a goal system that gives rewards for achieving foolish goals like tiling the universe with paperclips. Weinbaum and Veitas’s recent paper “Open-Ended Intelligence” presents a starkly alternative perspective on intelligence; viewing it as centered not on reward maximization; but rather on complex self-organization and self-transcending development that occurs in close coupling with a complex environment that is also ongoingly self-organizing; in only partially knowable ways. It is concluded that Bostrom and Yudkowsky’s arguments for existential risk have some logical foundation; but are often presented in an exaggerated way. For instance; formal arguments whose implication is that the “worst case scenarios” for advanced AI development are extremely dire; are often informally discussed as if they demonstrated the likelihood; rather than just the possibility; of highly negative outcomes. And potential dangers of reward-maximizing AI are taken as problems with AI in general; rather than just as problems of the reward-maximization paradigm as an approach to building superintelligence. If one views past; current; and future intelligence as “open-ended;” in the vernacular of Weaver and Veitas; the potential dangers no longer appear to loom so large; and one sees a future that is wide-open; complex and uncertain; just as it has always been. (shrink)

In After Finitude, Quentin Meillassoux speculates from the principle of noncontradiction’s a priori enclosure toward a standpoint of absolute contingency. Based on his propositions, I argue that his thinking continues to reproduce a contradiction between the finitude of the subject and the infinitude of the noumenal world. Accordingly, I eschew the principle of noncontradiction in favor of a principle of contradiction derived from Hermann Levin Goldschmidt’s Contradiction Set Free. Goldschmidt formulates contradiction as an Either-And-Or whereby the two contradictory terms share (...) a space between them in which there elapses a continuous process of negotiation. If the relation between finitude and infinitude is an Either-And-Or, then there is an interpenetration between the finite and the infinite, between bounded subject and noumenal world. Goldschmidt’s method reinvigorates the contradiction with which Meillassoux is grappling and introduces a more immanent mode of infinitude that echoes certain Spinozist and pre-Spinozist strains of Jewish thought. (shrink)

Interference is paternalistic when it restricts an individual’s freedom for their own good. Anti-paternalists, such as John Stuart Mill, object to this for various reasons, including that the individual is usually a better judge of her own interests than the would-be paternalist. However, Wilkinson argues that a Parfitian reductivist approach to personal identity opens the door to what he calls ‘identity-relative paternalism’ where someone’s present action is restricted for the sake of a different future self.1 This is an interesting argument, (...) but it is not clear whether it involves permissible paternalism. At the risk of stating the obvious, permissible paternalism must be both permissible and paternalistic. Wilkinson’s identity-relative paternalism could be either, but not obviously both. If the present and future selves are different individuals, then interference is potentially permissible but no longer paternalistic. Alternatively, they are identical, in which case the interference is genuine paternalism, but cannot be justified by appeal to their distinctness. Wilkinson may escape this dilemma by invoking Parfit, who challenges the common notion that identity is all or nothing.2 According to Parfit’s revisionary view, the present and future self may share some connections but not others. However, once we have identified these similarities and differences, there is no further question whether or not they …. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt’s fierce critique of sovereignty, along with her excavation of Greek agonism, has gained much traction among critical theorists of international politics who revisit the basic assumptions of conventional international theories, such as state sovereignty and power as domination. This paper engages with an increasingly popular stream within such critical international studies that appropriates Arendt’s agonism to envision a form of a global public acting in concert. I argue that Arendt’s thoughts cannot be reduced to a radical vision of (...) agonistic cosmo-politics. Rather, her thinking suggests that political actors appreciate and care for their public worlds while remaining alert to institutional ossification. Her appreciation of the constitutional state confirms that state agency is an important element of her thoughts. By examining the vicissitudes of publicity found in Arendt’s thinking and their reflexive effect on inter-polity relations, the article elucidates the grounds of her international agonism and brings home a form of international politics where states pursuing the domestic goal of greatness coexist and cooperate. Thus, the study suggests that critical scholars of radical agonism miss the important implications of an “institutional” Arendt for international politics. (shrink)

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper proposes an analysis of statements about universals according to which such statements assert nothing more than that the evidence we’d take to confirm them obtains, where this evidence is understood to consist solely of patterns in the behavior of particulars that cannot be explained by other regularities in the way things behave. On this analysis, to say that a universal exists is simply to say that there is such a pattern in the behavior of certain particulars, and for (...) any predicate F that is presumed to correspond to a universal, to say that a particular is F is simply to say that its behavior exhibits a pattern of this sort. I argue that there is no theoretical work that we want postulations and ascriptions of universals to do that they’d be unfit for if analyzed in this way, and consequently that there is no reason to treat such statements as asserting anything more than what the proposed analysis suggests. (shrink)

The formalisation of Natural Language arguments in a formal language close to it in syntax has been a central aim of Moss’s Natural Logic. I examine how the Quantified Argument Calculus (Quarc) can handle the inferences Moss has considered. I show that they can be incorporated in existing versions of Quarc or in straightforward extensions of it, all within sound and complete systems. Moreover, Quarc is closer in some respects to Natural Language than are Moss’s systems – for instance, is (...) does not use negative nouns. The process also sheds light on formal properties and presuppositions of some inferences it formalises. Directions for future work are outlined. (shrink)

This paper focuses on an early Chinese conception of genealogical argumentation in the late Warring States text Han Feizi and a possible response it has to the problem of genealogical self-defeat as identified by Amia Srinivasan —i.e., the genealogist cannot seem to support their argument with premises their interlocutor or they themselves can accept, given their own argument. The paper offers a reading of Han Fei’s genealogical method that traces back to the meditative practice of an earlier Daoist text the (...) Zhuangzi and its communicative strategy, providing a conception of genealogy aimed at undoing fixations on political systems in order to bring about a more adaptive state—specifically, genealogy that does not require epistemological commitment to its premises. (shrink)

In many jurisdictions in the United States and elsewhere, the law governing deadly force by police and civilians contains a notable asymmetry. Often civilians but not police are bound by the imminence requirement—that is, a necessary condition for justifying deadly force is reasonable belief that oneself or another innocent person faces imminent threat of grave harm. In U.S. law enforcement, however, there has been some shift toward the imminence requirement, most evident in the use-of-force policy adopted by the Department of (...) Justice in 2022. This article defends that shift and argues that the ethical case for the imminence requirement in policing is stronger than Shannon Brandt Ford suggests in a recent article. Though the imminence requirement’s impacts on policing and public safety require ongoing study, the principle of equality before the law and the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing both provide moral grounds for this requirement, especially given the lack of evidence that the status quo helps protect life. (shrink)

This essay explores the theological and anthropological significance of birth, in order to discern what might be lost with the adoption of complete ectogestation (“artificial wombs”). Specifically, it considers both Saint Augustine and Karl Barth’s respective accounts of humanity’s whence—that is, their theological answer to the question of the nature and significance of our origins as individuals. I suggest that Augustine’s account of his origins emphasizes both his epistemic and biological dependency on his mother and nurses, while Barth’s stresses the (...) individual’s immediate derivation from God. Those disparate answers affect how they construe the relationships of parents and children and work themselves throughout their theological visions and imaginations. I conclude that careful consideration of humanity’s whence cannot answer whether we ought to pursue ectogestation; but it does help us account for how our understanding of God and ourselves might be altered if we gestate human life outside the womb. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the cause of morally self-defeating acts at the collective level is greed and, at the individual level, an unrestrained impulse for pleasure beyond Innocent Asouzu’s primordial instinct for self-preservation and ignorance. In investigating why humans act in self-defeating ways, Asouzu came up with two possible factors responsible for self-defeating acts: The primordial instinct for selfpreservation and ignorance. Besides Asouzu’s explanation, I here argue that the problem of self-defeating acts goes beyond the primordial instinct for (...) selfpreservation and ignorance to reveal a flaw characteristic of the human condition. At the collective level, the flaw responsible for self-defeating acts is greed and the unrestrained impulse for pleasure at the individual level. I employ the conversational method to interrogate the different views on self-defeating acts from Socrates to Asouzu and show why my explanation offers a better understanding of the problem. (shrink)

According to a traditional conception, romantic love is both constant - if someone loves another, they continue to love them - and exclusive - if someone loves another, they love only the other. In this paper, we argue that the essentiality of constancy and exclusivity is incompatible with the possibilities of fission - roughly speaking, of one person becoming two - and fusion - roughly speaking, of two people becoming one. Moreover, if fission or fusion are possible, then constancy and (...) exclusivity are obligatory features of love only if there are moral dilemmas. We conclude by suggesting this casts doubt on the constancy and especially the exclusivity of love. (shrink)

Two theses are proposed; regarding the future evolution of the value systems of advanced AGI systems. The Value Learning Thesis is a semi-formalized version of the idea that; if an AGI system is taught human values in an interactive and experiential way as its intelligence increases toward human level; it will likely adopt these human values in a genuine way. The Value Evolution Thesis is a semi-formalized version of the idea that if an AGI system begins with human-like values; and (...) then iteratively modifies itself; it will end up in roughly the same future states as a population of human beings engaged with progressively increasing their own intelligence. Taken together; these theses suggest a worldview in which raising young AGIs to have human-like values is a sensible thing to do; and likely to produce a future that is generally desirable in a human sense. While these two theses are far from definitively proven; I argue that they are more solid and more relevant to the actual future of AGI than Bostrom’s “Instrumental Convergence Thesis” and “Orthogonality Thesis” which are core to the basis of his argument for fearing ongoing AGI development and placing AGI R&D under strict governmental control. In the context of fleshing out this argument; previous publications and discussions by Richard Loosemore and Kaj Sotala are discussed in some detail. (shrink)

Enduring romantic love is highly significant for our wellbeing, and there is much scientific evidence for its value. There is also evidence that marital sex is important for the flourishing of wellbeing for both partners. Casual sexual relationships and experiences (CSREs) are often characterized in a non-normative way, as sexual behavior occurring outside a committed romantic relationship. However, the prevailing normative description is negative, perceived as superficial behavior that harms our wellbeing. Although sexual activities are linked to many psychological and (...) physical health benefits, these are rarely attributed to casual sex. Instead, scholars and laymen have warned against the negative consequences of non-committed sex, particularly for women. Yet, positive reactions to casual sex, such as satisfaction, confidence, self-knowledge and social engagement, are stronger and more common than negative reactions. Accordingly, the two major aims of this article are to understand the complexity of CSREs better, and to substantiate the claim that in various circumstances, CSREs contribute to our wellbeing. (shrink)

이 책자는 형식 논리의 일종인 양상논리에 입문하고 싶으신 분들을 위한 짧은 교재입니다. “양상논리 맛보기” 라는 말마따나, 이 책자는 양상논리에 관심은 있지만 아직 본격적으로 공부를 시작하진 않은 분들께서 ‘맛보기’를 하기에 적합한 안내 책자입니다. 아무쪼록 이 책자가 양상논리를 공부해나가시는데 유용한 첫 발판이 될 수 있기를 바랍니다. / This booklet is a Korean adaptation and translation of Part VIII of forall x: Calgary (Fall 2021 edition), which is intended to be introductory material for modal logic. The original text is based on Robert Trueman's (...) A Modal Logic Primer, which is revised and expanded by Richard Zach and Aaron Thomas-Bolduc in forall x: Calgary. (forall x: Calgary is based on forall x: Cambridge by Tim Button, which is in turn based on forall x by P. D. Magnus, and also includes material from forall x: Lorain County Remix by Cathal Woods and J. Robert Loftis.) This booklet is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. (shrink)

In this paper, we illustrate some serious difficulties involved in conveying information about uncertain risks and securing informed consent for risky interventions in a clinical setting. We argue that in order to secure informed consent for a medical intervention, physicians often need to do more than report a bare, numerical probability value. When probabilities are given, securing informed consent generally requires communicating how probability expressions are to be interpreted and communicating something about the quality and quantity of the evidence for (...) the probabilities reported. Patients may also require guidance on how probability claims may or may not be relevant to their decisions, and physicians should be ready to help patients understand these issues. (shrink)

I demonstrate that analogies, both explicit and implicit, between Wittgenstein’s discussion of rituals, aesthetics, and psychoanalysis (and, indeed, his own philosophical methodology) suggest that he entertained the idea that Freud’s psychoanalytic project, when understood correctly—that is, as a descriptive project rather than an explanatory-hypothetical one—provides a “surveyable representation” (übersichtliche Darstellung) of certain psychological facts (as opposed to psychological concepts). The consequences of this account are that it offers an explanation of Wittgenstein’s admiration for and self-perceived affinity to Freud, as well (...) as of his apparent “know-nothing approach” to empirical psychology. (shrink)

According to dialetheism, some contradictions are true. In a recent paper, Aaron Cotnoir has suggested that theists who are also dialetheists can resolve the paradox of the stone by accepting a contradiction, and arguing that God both can and can't make the stone. However, Zach Weber has replied that dialetheism is no help for avoiding one of the most serious problems for theism, namely the problem of evil. In this paper, I argue the situation is even worse than this for (...) dialetheist theists, since one motivation for dialetheism closes off what otherwise might be a loophole in a classic version of the problem of evil. (shrink)