The appendages of Drosophila develop from the imaginal discs. During the extensive growth of these discs cell lineages are for the most part unfixed, suggesting a strong role for cell‐cell interactions in controlling the final pattern of differentiation. However, during early and middle stages of development, discs are subdivided by strict lineage restrictions into a small number of spatially distinct compartments. These compartments appear to be maintained by stably inheriting states of gene expression; the compartmentspecific expression of two such ‘selector’ (...) ‐ like genes, engrailed and apterous, are critical for anterior‐posterior and dorso‐ventral compartmentalization, respectively. Recent work suggests that one purpose of compartmentalization is to establish regions of specialized cells near compartment boundaries via intercompartmental induction, using molecules like the hedgehog protein. Thus, compartments can act as organizing centers for patterning within compartments. Evidence for non‐compartmental patterning mechanisms will also be discussed. (shrink)

When the NCAA adopted new rules allowing athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness (NIL), few people took more interest than Reggie Bush who famously relinquished the Heisman trophy after being ruled retroactively ineligible for receiving "impermissible benefits." Bush has argued for his reinstatement and the "return" of his Heisman. In this paper, I argue that, while the NCAA never should have required players to be amateurs in the first place, Bush should not be reinstated or have the (...) Heisman "returned." Properly understood, Reggie Bush never won the Heisman Trophy in the first place, so "returning" it would be to rewrite history — almost literally, to move the goalposts. -/- Forthcoming in "College Sports and Ethics" by Lexington Books. (shrink)

Nearly as famous as his denial of the existence of matter is Berkeley's insistence that his philosophy is somehow a defense of commonsense. This is most often taken to mean that Berkeley thinks of his philosophy as supporting commonsense beliefs. However, the inadequacies of such views have persuaded some to disregard entirely Berkeley's claims about commonsense. Both readings are undesirable. Extant interpretations misunderstand the relationship between Berkeley's philosophy and commonsense. In this paper, I present a new account of how to (...) understand Berkeley's so-called defense of commonsense; it is not a defense-cum­-apology for commonsense beliefs, but a defensive attack against a skeptical threat. I then examine two rival accounts of the defense of commonsense and show how each fails to satisfy the criteria for a successful account. Finally, I briefly address the implications this view has for future scholarship. (shrink)

Mistaken judgments of fact by sporting officials – blown calls – are ubiquitous in sport and have altered the outcomes of games, championships, and even the record books. I argue that the effect these blown calls have on sports is deplorable, even unjust, and that given both the nature of sport in general and the social and economic importance of sports as they are played today, we ought to use technology to aid officials in making their judgments whenever doing so (...) would prove more effective than relying on unaided human perception. I then briefly address a number of objections to the increased use of technology in officiating. (shrink)

Despite its enduring insights, Durkheim’s theory of suicide fails to account for a significant set of cases because of its overreliance on structural forces to the detriment of other possible factors. In this paper, we develop a new theoretical framework for thinking about the role of culture in vulnerability to suicide. We argue that by focusing on the cultural dynamics of excessive regulation, particularly at the meso level, a more robust sociological model for suicide could be offered that supplements structure-heavy (...) Durkheimian theory. In essence, we argue that the relevance of cultural regulation to suicide rests on the (1) degree to which culture is coherent in sociocultural places, (2) existence of directives related to prescribing or proscribing suicide, (3) degree to which these directives translate into internalized meanings affecting social psychological processes, and (4) degree to which the social space is bounded. We then illustrate how our new theory provides useful insights into three cases of suicide largely neglected within sociology: specifically, suicide clusters in high schools, suicide in the military, and suicides of “despair” among middle-aged white men. We conclude with implications for future sociological research on suicide and suicide prevention. (shrink)

Berkeley holds that the essence of sensible objects is percipi. So, sensible objects cannot exist unperceived. Naturally, this has invited questions about the existence of sensible objects when unperceived by finite minds. This is sometimes called the Problem of Continuity. It is frequently said that Berkeley solves the problem by invoking God's ever-present perception to ensure that sensible objects maintain a continuous existence. Problems with this line of response have led some to a phenomenalist interpretation of Berkeley's claim. This paper (...) argues that neither of these are Berkeley's solution since he recognizes no such problem. The paper sketches a new interpretation of sensible objects that obviates the need for a "solution" by avoiding the "problem" in the first place. (shrink)

The past 20 years have seen dramatic rises in suicide rates in the U.S. and other countries around the world. These trends have been identified as a public health crisis in urgent need of new solutions and have spurred significant research efforts to improve our understanding of suicide and strategies to prevent it. Unfortunately, despite making significant contributions to the founding of suicidology – through Emile Durkheim’s classic Suicide (1897 [1951]) – sociology’s role has been less prominent in contemporary efforts (...) to address these tragic trends, though as we will show, sociological theories offer great promise for advancing our understanding of suicide and improving the efficacy of suicide prevention. Here, we review sociological theory and empirical research on suicide. We begin where all sociologists must: with Durkheim. However, we offer a more comprehensive understanding of Durkheim’s insights into suicide than the prior reviews provided by those in other disciplines. In so doing, we reveal the nuance and richness of Durkheim’s insights that have been largely lost in modern suicidology, despite being foundational to all sociological theories of suicide – even those that have moved beyond his model. We proceed to discuss broadly acknowledged limitations to Durkheim’s theory of suicide and review how more recent theoretical efforts have not only addressed those concerns, but have done so by bringing a larger swatch of sociology’s theoretical and empirical toolkit to bare on suicide. Specifically, we review how recent sociological theories of suicide have incorporated insights from social network theories, cultural sociology, sociology of emotions, and sociological social psychology to better theorize how the external social world matters to individual psychological pain and suffering. We conclude by making explicit bridges between sociological and psychological theories of suicide; by noting important limitations in knowledge about suicide – particularly regarding the roles of organizations, inequality, and intersectionality in suicide – that sociology is well situated to help address. (shrink)

The National Science Foundation's Second Merit Criterion, or Broader Impacts Criterion , was introduced in 1997 as the result of an earlier Congressional movement to enhance the accountability and responsibility as well as the effectiveness of federally funded projects. We demonstrate that a robust understanding and appreciation of NSF BIC argues for a broader conception of research ethics in the sciences than is currently offered in Responsible Conduct of Research training. This essay advocates augmenting RCR education with training regarding broader (...) impacts. We demonstrate that enhancing research ethics training in this way provides a more comprehensive understanding of the ethics relevant to scientific research and prepares scientists to think not only in terms of responsibly conducted science, but also of the role of science in responding to identified social needs and in adhering to principles of social justice. As universities respond to the mandate from America COMPETES to “provide training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research”, we urge institutions to embrace a more adequate conception of research ethics, what we call the Ethical Dimensions of Scientific Research, that addresses the full range of ethical issues relevant to scientific inquiry, including ethical issues related to the broader impacts of scientific research and practice. (shrink)

Debates about the role of technology in sports officiating assume that technology would, _ceteris paribus_, improve accuracy over unassisted human officiating. While this is largely true, it also presents a false dilemma: that we can have accurately officiated sports or human officials, but not both. What this alleged dilemma ignores is that the criteria by which we measure accuracy are also up for revision. We _could_ have sports that are so defined as to be easily judged by human officials. A (...) case from the recent history of science provides an instructive example. I argue that _if_ we insist on human officials, we can still aim for maximal accuracy, though there will be tradeoffs. With compelling reasons to want accuracy in officiating, however, these tradeoffs effectively serve as a _reductio_ against the use of human officials unaided by technology. (shrink)

Comparative judgments abound in sports. Fans and pundits bandy about which of two players or teams is bigger, faster, stronger, more talented, less injury prone, more reliable, safer to bet on, riskier to trade for, and so on. Arguably, of most interest are judgments of a coarser type: which of two players or teams is, all-things-considered, just plain better? Conventionally, it is accepted that such comparisons can be appropriately captured and expressed by sports rankings. Rankings play an important role in (...) sports arguably because of the conventional acceptance that rankings capture and express all-things-considered relations between the ranked teams or players. Standard ranking practices rely on a number of widely held assumptions. I discuss three of the most important and argue that at least one of them must be false. If this is right, the strong and growing commitment to using rankings to determine participation in tournaments and the awarding of championships is mistaken. At the least, given the con... (shrink)

Comparative judgments abound in sports. Fans and pundits bandy about which of two players or teams is bigger, faster, stronger, more talented, less injury prone, more reliable, safer to bet on, riskier to trade for, and so on. Arguably, of most interest are judgments of a coarser type: which of two players or teams is, all-things-considered, just plain better? Conventionally, it is accepted that such comparisons can be appropriately captured and expressed by sports rankings. Rankings play an important role in (...) sports arguably because of the conventional acceptance that rankings capture and express all-things-considered relations between the ranked teams or players. Standard ranking practices rely on a number of widely held assumptions. I discuss three of the most important and argue that at least one of them must be false. If this is right, the strong and growing commitment to using rankings to determine participation in tournaments and the awarding of championships is mistaken. At the least, given the conventional wisdom about rankings, my argument provides good reasons to be skeptical that any particular ranking ‘gets it right’. At the limit, it suggests that our most basic assumptions about all-things-considered athletic quality are wrong. (shrink)

Debate surrounds whether Berkeley’s philosophy is a defense of, or merely consistent with, common sense, as well as what Berkeley means by “common sense.” This paper defends a view that synthesizes elements of recent approaches: by “common sense” Berkeley means primarily the (de re) belief that the things immediately perceived are the real things, characteristically held by the vulgar and exemplified by vulgar ways of speech. In holding that it is a natural belief, this view is consistent with recent accounts (...) that identify common sense with the proper use of our cognitive faculties as well as those accounts that identify it with (some) commonly-held propositions. (shrink)

Plato, Allan Bloom wrote, is "the most erotic of philosophers," and his Symposium is one of the greatest works on the nature of love ever written. This new edition brings together the English translation of the renowned Plato scholar and translator, Seth Benardete, with two illuminating commentaries on it: Benardete's "On Plato's _Symposium_" and Allan Bloom's provocative essay, "The Ladder of Love." In the _Symposium,_ Plato recounts a drinking party following an evening meal, where the guests include the poet Aristophanes, (...) the drunken Alcibiades, and, of course, the wise Socrates. The revelers give their views on the timeless topics of love and desire, all the while addressing many of the major themes of Platonic philosophy: the relationship of philosophy and poetry, the good, and the beautiful. (shrink)

Public participation is well known for its practitioner insights and wealth of case reports. This knowledge is essential and has been well employed. Likewise, the theoretical literature on public participation is growing rapidly. The need for better conceptual and theoretical understandings of public participation has become clear. Public participation theories have not received great attention, and few have been proposed or tested. Yet theory offers much to practitioners of various interventions. The authors summarize work toward developing a public participation theory (...) and propose a way to conceptualize its skeletal components. The authors recognize that any theory must acknowledge that different people have different beliefs about what public participation should accomplish. Further, contextual variables affect a process’s character and outcomes. The authors begin with a discussion of theory’s importance to scholars, practitioners, and participants and provide an overview of existing approaches. The authors present findings from two empirical case studies used to further develop their theory of fair and competent public participation. They conclude with some observations about challenges and ways forward. (shrink)

As the debate between realists and empiricists in the philosophy of science drags on, one point of consensus has emerged: no one wants to be a manifestationalist. The manifestationalist is a kind of radical empiricist who argues that science provides theories that aim neither at a true picture of the entire world, nor even an empirically adequate picture that captures the world in all its observable respects. For manifestationalists, science aims only at providing theories that are true to the observed (...) aspects of reality. If the guiding idea of empiricism is that experience, and experience alone, provides us with knowledge about the world, then manifestationalism is an exceptionally strict empiricist perspective on science. Manifestationalism has primarily served within a reductio: certain empiricist views and arguments, when taken to their logical conclusion, lead to manifestationalism and so cannot be correct. The reductio works only because manifestationalism is widely agreed to be a non-starter. However, this consensus against manifestationalism is based on a single argument. We contest this assessment of manifestationalism and show that the primary argument against manifestationalism fails to hit its target. We do not intend to offer a manifesto for manifestationalism. Rather, we aim to vindicate it from a false accusation. Manifestationalism may not be the correct view of science, but the objections levied against it so far can be met. (shrink)

Sociology has largely followed Durkheim’s lead in ignoring the question: why do people die by suicide? This negation prioritizes a positivist, structuralist approach and stymies sociology’s contribution by closing off a wide range of tools sociologists might employ. An interpretivist turn in suicide studies accompanied by the growing adoption of qualitative methodology has opened up an array of opportunities to produce insights lost in a Durkheimian approach, but has yet to confront their own weaknesses. This paper shows we need not (...) abandon either tradition, advocating for a third path that integrates the strengths of both approaches. (shrink)

Compiled by scholars at the court of Liu An, king of Huainan, in the second century B.C.E, _The Huainanzi_ is a tightly organized, sophisticated articulation of Western Han philosophy and statecraft. Outlining "all that a modern monarch needs to know," the text emphasizes rigorous self-cultivation and mental discipline, brilliantly synthesizing for readers past and present the full spectrum of early Chinese thought. _The Huainanzi_ locates the key to successful rule in a balance of broad knowledge, diligent application, and the penetrating (...) wisdom of a sage. It is a unique and creative synthesis of Daoist classics, such as the _Laozi_ and the _Zhuangzi_; works associated with the Confucian tradition, such as the _Changes_, the _Odes_, and the _Documents_; and a wide range of other foundational philosophical and literary texts from the _Mozi_ to the _Hanfeizi_. The product of twelve years of scholarship, this remarkable translation preserves _The Huainanzi_'s special rhetorical features, such as parallel prose and verse, and showcases a compositional technique that conveys the work's powerful philosophical appeal. This path-breaking volume will have a transformative impact on the field of early Chinese intellectual history and will be of great interest to scholars and students alike. (shrink)

Epistemic modal operators give rise to something very like, but also very unlike, Moore's paradox. I set out the puzzling phenomena, explain why a standard relational semantics for these operators cannot handle them, and recommend an alternative semantics. A pragmatics appropriate to the semantics is developed and interactions between the semantics, the pragmatics, and the definition of consequence are investigated. The semantics is then extended to probability operators. Some problems and prospects for probabilistic representations of content and context are explored.

This volume is a tribute to the thought of Seth Benardete by contributors who had the rare good fortune of studying with him or those who discovered the treasure of his writings. Benardete was fully immersed in the world of the ancients, starting with Homer, but their works opened up for him a way to the fundamental questions-about justice and love, nature and law, human and divine. Finding "the problem of the human good grounded in the city, and the problem (...) of being in god," he was led to the conclusion that "Political philosophy is the eccentric core of philosophy." While Benardete wrote this statement reflecting on the theological-political issue in the work of his teacher, Leo Strauss, the paradoxical notion of an "eccentric core," in giving this volume its title, is meant to capture a characteristic of his own way of thinking. The essays in this collection-on the Bible and Homer, the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Roman writers-indicate the range of Benardete's studies and teaching. The centrality of Plato is evident at the same time in those pieces as well as in the reviews of Benardete's books included here, along with three of his own previously unpublished essays. Book jacket. (shrink)

When I tell you that it’s raining, I describe a way the world is—viz., rainy. I say something whose truth turns on how things are with the weather in the world. Likewise when I tell you that the weatherman thinks that it’s raining. Here the truth of what I say turns on how things are with the weatherman’s state of mind in the world. Likewise when I tell you that I think that it’s raining. Here the truth of what I (...) say turns on how things are with my state of mind in the world. (shrink)

The Laws was Plato's last work, his longest, and one of his most difficult. In contrast to the Republic, which presents an abstract ideal not intended for any actual community, the Laws seems to provide practical guidelines for the establishment and maintenance of political order in the real world. With this book, the distinguished classicist Seth Benardete offers an insightful analysis and commentary on this rich and complex dialogue. Each of the chapters corresponds to one of the twelve books of (...) the Laws, illuminating the major themes and arguments, which have to do with theology, the soul, justice, and education. The Greek word for law, "nomos," also means musical tune. Bernardete shows how music--in the broadest sense, including drama, epic poetry, and even puppetry--mediates between reason and the city in Plato's philosophy of law. Most broadly, however, Benardete here uncovers the concealed ontological dimension of the Laws, explaining why it is concealed and how it comes to light. In establishing the coherence and underlying organization of Plato's last dialogue, Benardete makes a significant contribution to Platonic studies. (shrink)

I develop a conception of expressivism according to which it is chiefly a pragmatic thesis about some fragment of discourse, one imposing certain constraints on semantics. The first half of the paper uses credal expressivism about the language of probability as a stalking-horse for this purpose. The second half turns to the question of how one might frame an analogous form of expressivism about the language of deontic modality. Here I offer a preliminary comparison of two expressivist lines. The first, (...) expectation expressivism, looks again to Bayesian modelling for inspiration: it glosses deontically modal language as characteristically serving to express decision-theoretic expectation (expected utility). The second, plan expressivism, develops the idea (due to Gibbard 2003) that this language serves to express 'plan-laden' states of belief. In the process of comparing the views, I show how to incorporate Gibbard's modelling ideas into a compositional semantics for attitudes and modals, filling a lacuna in the account. I close with the question whether and how plan expressivism might be developed with expectation-like structure. (shrink)

Cancer biology features the ascription of normal functions to parts of cancers. At least some ascriptions of function in cancer biology track local normality of parts within the global abnormality of the aberration to which those parts belong. That is, cancer biologists identify as functions activities that, in some sense, parts of cancers are supposed to perform, despite cancers themselves having no purpose. The present paper provides a theory to accommodate these normal function ascriptions—I call it the Modeling Account of (...) Normal Function (MA). MA comprises two claims. First, normal functions are activities whose performance by the function-bearing part contributes to the self-maintenance of the whole system and, thereby, results in the continued presence of that part. Second, MA holds that models of system-level activities that are (partly) constitutive of self-maintenance are improved by including a representation of the relevant function-bearing part and by making reference to the activity/activities that part performs which contribute(s) to those system-level activities. I contrast MA with two other accounts that seek to explicate the ascription of normal functions in biology, namely, the organizational account and the selected effects account. Both struggle to extend to cancer biology. However, I offer ecumenical readings which allow them to recover some ascriptions of normal function to parts of cancers. So, though I contend that MA excels in this respect, the purpose of this paper is served if it provides materials for bridging the gap between cancer biology, philosophy of cancer, and the literature on function. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that using lethal or otherwise serious force in self-defense is justified only when three conditions are satisfied: first, there are some grounds for the defender to give priority to his own interests over those of the attacker (whether because the attacker has lost the protection of his right to life, for example, or because of the defender’s prerogative to prefer himself to others); second, the harm used is proportionate to the threat thereby averted; third, the harm (...) is necessary to avert that threat. The first and second conditions have been exhaustively discussed, but the third has been oddly neglected. Meanwhile a prominent school of thought has arisen, in the ethics of war, which seeks to ground the justification of killing in war in principles of individual self-defense. They too have failed to offer any substantive analysis of necessity, while at the same time appealing to it when it suits them to do so. In this paper, I attempt a detailed analysis of the necessity constraint on defensive force, and explore the implications of that analysis for the attempt to transpose principles of individual self-defense into the context of warfare. (shrink)

_Theaetetus_, the _Sophist_, and the _Statesman_ are a trilogy of Platonic dialogues that show Socrates formulating his conception of philosophy as he prepares the defense for his trial. Originally published together as _The Being of the Beautiful_, these translations can be read separately or as a trilogy. Each includes an introduction, extensive notes, and comprehensive commentary that examines the trilogy's motifs and relationships. "Seth Benardete is one of the very few contemporary classicists who combine the highest philological competence with a (...) subtlety and taste that approximate that of the ancients. At the same time, he as set himself the entirely modern hermeneutical task of uncovering what the ancients preferred to keep veiled, of making explicit what they indicated, and hence...of showing the naked ugliness of artificial beauty."—Stanley Rose, _Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal_ Seth Benardete was professor of classics at New York University. He was the author or translator of many books, most recently _The Argument of the Action, Plato's "Laws," and Plato's "Symposium,"_ all published by the University of Chicago Press. (shrink)

Compiled in the second century B.C.E, the _Huainanzi_ clarifies a crucial period in the development of Chinese conceptions of the cosmos, human nature, and the social order. Outlining "all that a modern monarch needs to know," the text emphasizes rigorous self-cultivation and mental discipline, attributing successful rule to a balance of broad knowledge, diligent application, and penetrating wisdom. In 2010, the editors of this volume completed the first complete English-language translation of the _Huainanzi_, opening exciting new pathways in the study (...) of philosophy, Asian studies, political science, and Asian literature. This abridgement contains essential selections from each of the _Huainanzi_'s twenty-one chapters and adds a new introduction and chapter descriptions. The text represents a remarkable synthesis of Daoist classics, such as the _Laozi_ and the _Zhuangzi_; works associated with the Confucian tradition, such as the _Changes_, the _Odes_, and the _Documents_; and a range of other foundational philosophical and literary works, from the _Mozi_ to the _Hanfeizi_. The abridgement preserves the _Huainanzi_'s special rhetorical features, such as its parallel prose, verse, and unique compositional techniques. For decades, Western scholars overlooked the _Huainanzi'_s sophisticated structure, creative content, and rich historical value, yet all that changed with the translation of the full text. Designed for classroom use and general readers, _The Essential Huainanzi_ continues to increase awareness of this brilliant work and change our understanding of early Chinese history. (shrink)

In this article we explore the two emotional experiences of hypervigilance and attention. These emotions are associated with both military training and with posttraumatic stress among other disorders. We consider the way that these emotions can be experienced after exposure to combat as well as grievous bodily injury, and seek to untangle situations in which they are artifacts of military training and identity rather than symptoms. The data for this article are drawn from interviews and observations with former patients of (...) the US Armed Forces Amputee Patient Care Program at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. An experience like hypervigilance is often treated as a symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or mild traumatic brain injury. Some experts place the number of returning service members with either or both of these disorders in the hundreds of thousands. While some participants in our study have received diagnoses of either PTSD or mild traumatic brain injury, in many cases they experience emotions like hypervigilance, differently. Rather than being troubled by hypervigilance, they experience it as a valued legacy of their military training and an important characteristic that distinguishes them from civilians. (shrink)

I argue that an adequate theory of rightness should meet two distinct conditions: a “Consequences Condition” according to which the rightness or wrongness of some, but not all acts should be determined conclusively by the act’s outcomes on welfare, and a “Character Condition” according to which the rightness or wrongness of some, but not all acts should be influenced partially by aspects of the moral character of the person who committed the act. The combination of these two conditions is interesting (...) because many major normative theories capture one, but not both well. In the course of making the case for the Consequences and Character Conditions, I develop and argue for a novel version of metaethical Humean Constructivism that I call “perspectival naturalism,” which I then apply in support of the Consequences and Character Conditions. (shrink)

This book traces the intersection of dreams and power in order to analyze the complex ways representations of dreams and paradigms of dream interpretation reinforce and challenge authoritarian, hierarchical structures. The book puts forward the concept of the dreamscape as a pre-representational space that contains anarchistic attributes, including its instability or chaotic nature and the lack of a stable or core selfhood and identity in its subjects. The book situates this concept of the dreamscape through an analysis of the Daoist (...) notions of the “transformation of things” and hundun and the biblical concept of tehom. Using this conceptual framework, this book analyzes paradigmatic moments of dream interpretation along a spectrum from radical, anarchist assertions of the primal dreamscape to authoritarian dream-texts that seek to reify identity, define and establish hierarchy, and support coercive relationships between unequal subjects. The book’s key figures include William Blake, Robert Frost, Jacob and Joseph from Genesis, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Jean Rhys, Franz Kafka, and the neurobiologist J. Allan Hobson. (shrink)

This article considers the implications for film analysis of the presence or absence of a manual crank. More specifically, it looks at the 16 mm Time and Motion Study Projector as used in behavioral research in the 1960s and 1970s. The controversial concept of ‘interactional synchrony’, or the dance-like coordination of people in conversation, emerged from the use of this hand-turned projector. William S. Condon developed the concept along with the technique of microanalysis. Starting with the projector manufactured by Bell (...) & Howell, he made numerous improvements to facilitate observation—‘sweeping’ over segments of very short duration to discover the rhythmic synchrony of all filmed participants. It led him to a theory of ‘process’ in communication, and in the reception of speech in particular. People always ‘danced’ to the tune of their own voice, and their listeners ‘danced’ to the tune of the speaker—at intervals of one-sixth or one-eighth of a second. This also led Condon to an epistemology of discovery derived partly from philosophy but mostly from his machinery. The universe, he said, is a ‘continuum of order’ whose structures are preserved through translations of order: of thought into speech, speech into vibrations, vibrations into neurons, and back into behavior. The only exceptions are people with disabilities, like the autistics Condon studied from the 1970s onward. But the very distinction of normal and pathological was epiphenomenal to his scanning technique; it was rooted in material and formal qualities of film and of the projector whose crank he turned often. (shrink)

S.R.L. Clark is a prominent defender of environmental holism and an advocate of the better treatment of other species. Not coincidentally, he is also a defender of a Neoplatonic Theism which holds that the presuppositions of reason have theistic implications and the point of the world is to exemplify beauty, or all the forms of beauty. Here I examine certain aspects of his view. I do so because I’m drawn to his main holist conclusion: we should live according to those (...) rules that will allow as many creatures as possible, of as many kinds, their best chance of living a satisfactory life according to their kind. However, I express doubts about his general route to the principle. (shrink)

Killing in War presents the Moral Equality of Combatants with serious, and in my view insurmountable problems. Absent some novel defense, this thesis is now very difficult to sustain. But this success is counterbalanced by the strikingly revisionist implications of McMahan’s account of the underlying morality of killing in war, which forces us into one of two unattractive positions, contingent pacifism, or near-total war. In this article, I have argued that his efforts to mitigate these controversial implications fail. The reader (...) is left stranded: to reach plausible conclusions, Walzer deployed an implausible conception of our rights to life; McMahan’s more rigorous account of those rights generates untenable conclusions. Absent new developments, it seems that the prospects for grounding the ethics of war in individual rights are poor: any theory of our rights to life that is sufficiently indiscriminate to work in the chaos of war is not discriminating enough to be a plausible theory of our rights to life. Perhaps by rejecting the ideal of the rights-respecting war altogether we might develop an alternative theory of justified warfare, which marries theoretical soundness with conclusions that we can more confidently support. (shrink)

In his most recent collection of papers, J. Baird Callicott has continued to advance a communitarian environmental ethic inspired by the mid–century “land ethic” writings of Aldo Leopold. One subject of concern is a dilemma. Either: the position is open to a charge of “eco–fascism” because it holds that only one maximal community fundamentally matters and interests of smaller communities and individuals can be swamped by a fundamental concern with the whole. Or: it is a “paper tiger” because it says (...) that many communities fundamentally matter, but offers no advice about how we are settle prima–facie conflicts of obligations tied to our various communities. Callicott now offers two new second–order priority principles designed to steer the communitarian position through the dilemma. I outline the relevant parts of his new position. However, I argue that one of the principles ends up offering no coherent advice over the priority of the very communities that inspire interest in the position of Leopold. Callicott proposes that the more intimate and venerable of our communities should have priority, but these elements can come apart in the relevant cases. (shrink)

The metacognitive stance of Smith et al. risks ignoring sensory consciousness. Although Smith et al. rightly caution against the tendency to preserve the uniqueness of the human mind at all costs, their reasoned stance is undermined by a selective association of consciousness with high-level cognitive operations. Neurobiological evidence may offer a more general, and hence more inclusive, basis for the systematic study of animal consciousness.

_The Being of the Beautiful_ collects Plato’s three dialogues, the _Theaetetus_, _Sophist_, and _Statesmen_, in which Socrates formulates his conception of philosophy while preparing for trial. Renowned classicist Seth Benardete’s careful translations clearly illuminate the dramatic and philosophical unity of these dialogues and highlight Plato’s subtle interplay of language and structure. Extensive notes and commentaries, furthermore, underscore the trilogy’s motifs and relationships. “The translations are masterpieces of literalness.... They are honest, accurate, and give the reader a wonderful sense of the (...) Greek.”—Drew A. Hyland, _Review of Metaphysics_. (shrink)

Automated Influence is the use of Artificial Intelligence to collect, integrate, and analyse people’s data in order to deliver targeted interventions that shape their behaviour. We consider three central objections against Automated Influence, focusing on privacy, exploitation, and manipulation, showing in each case how a structural version of that objection has more purchase than its interactional counterpart. By rejecting the interactional focus of “AI Ethics” in favour of a more structural, political philosophy of AI, we show that the real problem (...) with Automated Influence is the crisis of legitimacy that it precipitates. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine a new line of response to Frankfurt’s challenge to the traditional association of moral responsibility with the ability to do otherwise. According to this response, Frankfurt’s counterexample strategy fails, not in light of the conditions for moral responsibility per se, but in view of the conditions for action. Specifically, it is claimed, a piece of behavior counts as an action only if it is within the agent’s power to avoid performing it. In so far as (...) Frankfurt’s challenge presupposes that actions can be unavoidable, this view of action seems to bring his challenge up short. Helen Steward and Maria Alvarez have independently proposed versions of this response. Here I argue that this response is unavailable to Frankfurt’s incompatibilist opponents. This becomes evident when we put this question to its proponents: “Are actions that originate deterministically ipso facto unavoidable?” If they answer “yes,” they encounter one horn of a dilemma. If they answer “no,” they encounter the other horn. Since no one has a clearer stake in meeting Frankfurt’s challenge than these theorists do, it is significant that the Steward-Alvarez response is unavailable to them. (shrink)

Wars are large-scale conflicts between organized groups of belligerents, which involve suffering, devastation, and brutality unlike almost anything else in human experience. Whatever one’s other beliefs about morality, all should agree that the horrors of war are all but unconscionable, and that warfare can be justified only if we have some compel- ling account of what is worth fighting for, which can justify contributing, as individu- als and as groups, to this calamitous endeavour. Although this question should obviously be central (...) to both philosophical and politi- cal discussion about war, it is at the forefront of neither. In recent years, philosophical discussion of warfare has bloomed, but the debate has focused on whom we may kill, on the assumption that our aims are justified.1 Political debate, meanwhile, is more concerned with matters of prudence, international law, and public justification, than with reassessing what is worth fighting for. For wars of intervention to halt or prevent massive humanitarian crises, this gap is not so troubling. When warfare is the only means to prevent the mass killing or enslavement of the innocent, the purposes of military force are clear enough (though undoubtedly many other problems remain). The problem is more pressing, how- ever, for the justification of national defence.3 Although common-sense morality and international law view national defence as the paradigm case of justified warfare, grounding this consensus is surprisingly difficult.4 We typically believe that any state is justified in using lethal force to protect its territory against any form of uninvited military incursion by any other state. And yet we lack a good argument to explain why this should be so. In this chapter, I explain why one familiar and otherwise plausible approach to the justification of killing in war cannot adequately ground common-sense views of permissible national defence.5 Reductionists believe that justified warfare reduces to an aggregation of acts that are justified under ordinary principles of interpersonal morality.6 The standard form of reductionism focuses on the principles governing killing in ordinary life, specifically those that justify intentional killing in self- and other-defence, and unintended but foreseen (for short, collateral) killing as a lesser evil. Justified warfare, on this view, is no more than the coextension of multiple acts justified under these two principles. Reductionism is the default philosophical approach to thinking through the ethics of killing in war. It makes perfect sense to ask what principles govern permissible kill- ing in general, before applying them to the particular context of war. If it cannot deliver a plausible set of conclusions about when national defence is permitted, then we must either revise our beliefs about which conclusions count as plausible, or else face the significant challenge of developing a different theoretical model for justifying war- fare—an exceptionalist model, which views war as an exception to the regular moral landscape, to which principles apply which apply to nothing else but war.7 We must show, in other words, that there is something worth fighting for in wars of national defence, which is not engaged when we use force in any other context. The chapter proceeds as follows. Section 2.2 sets out the argument against reduc- tionism.8 Section 2.3 considers and rebuts one common response to the argument, which has often been thought sufficient grounds to disregard its conclusion. Section 2.4 then asks whether a modified reductionism would survive unscathed by the argu- ment. Finally, section 2.5 sets out some desiderata on a plausible exceptionalist alterna- tive. Section 2.6 concludes. (shrink)

Through an engagement with Massimiliano Tomba’s work Insurgent Universality, this paper explores the possibilities and limitations that reside at the heart of historical thinking.

I argue that agent-centered options to favor and sacrifice one’s own interests are grounded in a particular aspect of self-ownership. Because you own your interests, you are entitled to a say over how they are used. That is, whether those interests count for or against some action is, at least in part, to be determined by your choice. This is not the only plausible argument for agent-centered options. But it has some virtues that other arguments lack.

Benardete here interprets and, for the first time, pairs two important Platonic dialogues, the Gorgias and the Phaedrus . In linking these dialogues, he places Socrates' notion of rhetoric in a new light and illuminates the way in which Plato gives morality and eros a place in the human soul.

Cancer biologists ascribe normal functions to parts of cancer. Normal functions are activities that parts of systems are in some minimal sense supposed to perform. Cancer biologists’ finding normality within the abnormality of cancer pose difficulties for two main approaches to normal function. One approach claims that normal functions are activities that parts are selected for. However, some parts of cancers that have normal functions aren’t selected to perform them. The other approach claims that normal functions are part-activities typical for (...) the system and that contribute to survival/reproduction. However, cancers are too heterogeneous to establish what’s typical across a type. (shrink)