'Toward the Outside' offers a systematic exposition of the essential concepts & themes that circulate throughout the thought of Emmanuel Levinas.

McAllestar (computer science, MIT) describes ONTIC, the interactive system for verifying represents a significant change of direction in the field of mechanical deduction, a key area in computer science and artificial intelligence. Fourteen interrelated essays comprise a multifaceted dialogue about intersubjectivity, reciprocity, and the nature of self and other, especially as these themes are developed in Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the invisible. The question they explore is whether the reversible alterity of sensing and being sensed, a theme at the heart (...) of Merleau-Ponty's thought, is sufficient for understanding the alterity of other persons and of nature. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

It is often assumed that similar domain-specific behavioural impairments found in cases of adult brain damage and developmental disorders correspond to similar underlying causes, and can serve as convergent evidence for the modular structure of the normal adult cognitive system. We argue that this correspondence is contingent on an unsupported assumption that atypical development can produce selective deficits while the rest of the system develops normally (Residual Normality), and that this assumption tends to bias data collection in the field. Based (...) on a review of connectionist models of acquired and developmental disorders in the domains of reading and past tense, as well as on new simulations, we explore the computational viability of Residual Normality and the potential role of development in producing behavioural deficits. Simulations demonstrate that damage to a developmental model can produce very different effects depending on whether it occurs prior to or following the training process. Because developmental disorders typically involve damage prior to learning, we conclude that the developmental process is a key component of the explanation of endstate impairments in such disorders. Further simulations demonstrate that in simple connectionist learning systems, the assumption of Residual Normality is undermined by processes of compensation or alteration elsewhere in the system. We outline the precise computational conditions required for Residual Normality to hold in development, and suggest that in many cases it is an unlikely hypothesis. We conclude that in developmental disorders, inferences from behavioural deficits to underlying structure crucially depend on developmental conditions, and that the process of ontogenetic development cannot be ignored in constructing models of developmental disorders. Key Words: Acquired and developmental disorders; connectionist models; modularity; past tense; reading. (shrink)

Public health law has focused primarily on combatting stigma through laws targeting discrimination based on attributes, when the reach of stigma extends far beyond mere appearances. By exploring the lived experience of stigmatized individuals, policy makers might more deeply understand public health problems, more appropriately create health policies, and more effectively promote positive health behaviors. Efforts to address stigma must focus on all aspects of stigma to be effective.

In response to our target article, many of the commentators concentrated on our notion of Residual Normality. In our response, we focus on the questions raised by this idea. However, we also examine broader issues concerning the importance of incorporating a realistic theory of the process of development into explanations of developmental deficits.

The words in children's language learning environments are strongly predictive of cognitive development and school achievement. But how do we measure language environments and do so at the scale of the many words that children hear day in, day out? The quantity and quality of words in a child's input are typically measured in terms of total amount of talk and the lexical diversity in that talk. There are disagreements in the literature whether amount or diversity is the more critical (...) measure of the input. Here we analyze the properties of a large corpus of speech to children and simulate learning environments that differ in amount of talk per unit time, lexical diversity, and the contexts of talk. The central conclusion is that what researchers need to theoretically understand, measure, and change is not the total amount of words, or the diversity of words, but the function that relates total words to the diversity of words, and how that function changes across different contexts of talk. (shrink)

We agree with Carruthers that evidence for metacognition in species lacking mindreading provides dramatic evidence in favor of the metacognition-is-prior account and against the mindreading-is-prior account. We discuss this existing evidence and explain why an evolutionary perspective favors the former account and poses serious problems for the latter account.

Significant associations have been found between specific human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles and organ transplant rejection, autoimmune disease development, and the response to infection. Traditional searches for disease associations have conventionally measured risk associated with the presence of individual HLA alleles. However, given the high level of HLA polymorphism, the pattern of amino acid variability, and the fact that most of the HLA variation occurs at functionally important sites, it may be that a combination of variable amino acid sites shared (...) by several alleles (shared epitopes) are better descriptors of the actual causative genetic variants. Here we describe a novel approach to genetic association analysis in which genes/proteins are broken down into smaller sequence features and then variant types defined for each feature, allowing for independent analysis of disease association with each sequence feature variant type. We have used this approach to analyze a cohort of systemic sclerosis patients and show that a sequence feature composed of specific amino acid residues in peptide binding pockets 4 and 7 of HLA-DRB1 explains much of the molecular determinant of risk for systemic sclerosis. (shrink)

People from one cultural background often find themselves wondering how those from a different cultural background could willingly live the way they do and/or criticize others for living in the way they do. How are we to explain this kind of mutual incomprehension? Three different possible explanations will be considered. The first is that such mutual incomprehension is sourced in a moral flaw. The flaw might be in one of the cultures, as certain cultures might be premised on a moral (...) mistake. Alternatively, the flaw might be a feature of the incomprehending individuals. If only they tried harder, they would come to appreciate the other’s point of view. The second possibility is that such mutual incomprehension is the product of principled limits on the interpretation of someone from another culture. Contrary to the first possibility, there might be no way for people from different cultures to even understand each other, let alone find fault in each other, because the culturally mediated ways in which they understand the world are inaccessible to each other. The third possibility is that the mutual incomprehension is sourced in metaphysics. Contrary to the second possibility, there might be some non-metaphorical sense in which people from different cultures inhabit different worlds. The main task of the chapter is to describe and evaluate these three possibilities with a view to ruling out the third. (shrink)

Most theorists working on moral obligations to refugees conceive of western states as innocent bystanders with duties to aid refugees if they can do so at little cost to themselves. This paper challenges this dominant theoretical framing of global displacement by highlighting for the first time certain practices of western states in response to refugee flows such as border violence, detention, encampment and containment which may make us question whether states who engage in such practices are indeed innocent. This paper (...) provides the first normative analysis of these practices by seeking to classify them as either doing or allowing harm and invoking the fundamental moral imperative central to core common moral commitments - not to harm innocent people - to suggest that certain western states are not merely failing to aid refugees and allowing harm to come to them, but are instead responding to their calls for aid by harming them. (shrink)

Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories through harmful practices of border violence, detention, encampment and containment that serve to prevent and deter refugee arrivals. These practices are ostensibly justified through an appeal to a right to control borders. This paper therefore assesses whether these harmful practices can indeed be morally justified by a state’s right to control borders. It analyses whether Christopher Heath Wellman’s account of a state’s right to freedom of (...) association, which represents the most restrictive account of a state’s right to control borders available in the literature, can extend to justify current harmful practices against refugees. If not, then no available justification will be able to do so, and thus contemporary harmful practices used against refugees cannot be justified by a state’s right to control borders. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Are contemporary soldiers exploited by the state and society that they defend? More specifically, have America's professional service members disproportionately carried the moral weight of America's war-fighting decisions since the inception of an all-volunteer force? In this volume, Michael J. Robillard and Bradley J. Strawser, who have both served in the military, examine the question of whether and how American soldiers have been exploited in this way. Robillard and Strawser offer an original normative theory of 'moral exploitation'--the notion (...) that persons or groups can be wrongfully exploited by being made to shoulder an excessive amount of moral weight. They make the case that this exploitation accurately describes the relationship between the United States and the members of its military, and offer a thorough and in-depth analysis of some of the exploitative and misleading elements of present-day military recruitment, the moral burdens soldiers often bear, and the stifling effect that a 'Thank You for Your Service' and 'I support the troops' culture has had on serious public engagement about America's ongoing wars. Robillard and Strawser offer a piercing critique of the pernicious divide between military members and the civilians who direct them. They conclude by arguing for several normative and prudential prescriptions to help close this ever-widening fissure between the U.S. and its military, and within the U.S. itself. In so doing, their work gives a much needed and urgent voice to America's soldiers, the other 1%. (shrink)

This paper, while neutral on questions about the minimality of truth, argues for the non-minimality of truth-aptness.

What is the Moral Problem? NORMATIVE ETHICS VS. META-ETHICS It is a common fact of everyday life that we appraise each others' behaviour and attitudes from ...

Michael Hornsby-Smith offers an overview of Catholic social thought particularly in recent decades. While drawing on official teaching such as papal encyclicals and the pastoral letters of bishops' conferences, he takes seriously the need for dialogue with secular thought. The 2006 book is organized in four stages. Part I outlines the variety of domestic and international injustices and seeks to offer a social analysis of the causes of these injustices. Part II offers a theological reflection on the characteristics (...) of the kingdom of God which Christians are urged to seek. Part III reviews Catholic social thought in six main areas: human rights, the family and bioethical issues, economic life, social exclusion, authentic development, and war and peace. Part IV completes the cycle with a consideration of appropriate social action responses to the injustices which the author has identified and analysed. (shrink)

The Politics of the Texbook analyzes the factors that shape production, distribution and reception of school texts through original essays which emphasize the double-edged quality of textbooks. Textbooks are viewed as systems of moral regulation in the struggle of powerful groups to build political and cultural accord. They are also regarded as the site of popular resistance around discloding the interest underlying schoolknowledge and incorporating alternative traditions.

This seminal collection on the ethical issues associated with infectious disease is the first book to correct bioethics’ glaring neglect of this subject. Timely in view of public concern about SARS, AIDS, avian flu, bioterrorism and antibiotic resistance. Brings together new and classic papers by prominent figures. Tackles the ethical issues associated with issues such as quarantine, vaccination policy, pandemic planning, biodefense, wildlife disease and health care in developing countries.

This paper examines the critical role that organizational leaders play in establishing a values based climate. We discuss seven mechanisms by which leaders convey the importance of ethical values to members, and establish the expectations regarding ethical conduct that become engrained in the organizations climate. We also suggest that leaders at different organizational levels rely on different mechanisms to transmit values and expectations. These mechanisms then influence members practices and expectations, further increase the salience of ethical values and result in (...) the shared perceptions that form the organizations climate. The paper is organized in three parts. Part onebegins with a brief discussion of climates regarding ethics and the critical role of values. Part two provides discussion on the mechanisms by which leaders and members transmit values and create climates related to ethics. Part three provides a discussion of these concepts with implications for theory, research, and practice. (shrink)

Michael Smith has written a series of seminal essays about the nature of belief and desire, the status of normative judgment, and the relevance of the views we take on both these topics to the accounts we give of our nature as free and responsible agents. This long awaited collection comprises some of the most influential of Smith's essays. Among the topics covered are: the Humean theory of motivating reasons, the nature of normative reasons, Williams and Korsgaard (...) on internal and external reasons, the nature of self-control, weakness of will, compulsion, freedom, responsibility, the analysis of our rational capacities, moral realism, the dispositional theory of value, the supervenience of the normative on the non-normative, the error theory, rationalist treatments of moral judgment, the practicality requirement on moral judgment and non-cognivist. This collection will be of interest to students in philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

The sensitive dependence on initial conditions (SDIC) associated with nonlinear models imposes limitations on the models’ predictive power. We draw attention to an additional limitation than has been underappreciated, namely, structural model error (SME). A model has SME if the model dynamics differ from the dynamics in the target system. If a nonlinear model has only the slightest SME, then its ability to generate decision-relevant predictions is compromised. Given a perfect model, we can take the effects of SDIC into account (...) by substituting probabilistic predictions for point predictions. This route is foreclosed in the case of SME, which puts us in a worse epistemic situation than SDIC. (shrink)

Since the fundamental challenge that I laid at the doorstep of the pluralists was to defend, with nonderivative models, a strong notion of genic cause, it is fatal that Waters has failed to meet that challenge. Waters agrees with me that there is only a single cause operating in these models, but he argues for a notion of causal ‘parsing’ to sustain the viability of some form of pluralism. Waters and his colleagues have some very interesting and important ideas about (...) the sciences, involving pluralism and parsing or partitioning causes, but they are ideas in search of an example. He thinks he has found an example in the case of hierarchical and genic selection. I think he has not. (shrink)

Back in the bad old days, it was easy enough to spot non-cognitivists. They pressed radical doctrines with considerable bravado. Intoxicated by the apparent implications of logical positivism, early noncognitivsts would say things like, "in saying that a certain type of action is right or wrong, I am not making any factual statement..." (Ayer 1936: 107) Like most rebellious youths, non-cognitivism eventually grew up. Later non-cognitivists developed the position into a more subtle doctrine, no longer committed to the revisionary doctrines (...) associated with its forefathers. For example, Simon Blackburn has undertaken the "quasi-realist" project of showing how a non-cognitivist can "earn" the right to the seemingly realist discourse on a less metaphysically controversial and semantically implausible basis by giving a non-cognitivist analysis of realist-sounding semantics and pragmatics (Blackburn 1993). (shrink)

The main goal of Michael Tooley’s groundbreaking book is to establish a position intermediate between the tenseless theory of time and the standard tensed theory of time. Tooley argues for a novel version of the tensed theory of time, namely, that the future is unreal and the present and past real, and yet that reality consists only of tenseless facts. The question that naturally arises for the reader concerns an apparent paradox: how could the tensed theory of time be (...) true if reality consists only of tenseless facts? (shrink)

Individuals with anxiety disorders show deficits in the discrimination between a cue that predicts an aversive outcome and a safe stimulus that predicts the absence of that outcome. This impairment has been linked to increased spontaneous recovery of fear following extinction, however it is unknown if there is a link between discrimination and return of fear in a novel context. It is also unknown if impaired discrimination mediates the relationship between trait anxiety and either spontaneous recovery or context renewal. The (...) present study used a differential fear conditioning paradigm to examine the relationships between trait anxiety, discrimination learning, spontaneous recovery and context renewal in healthy volunteers. Fear learning was assessed using continuous ratings of US expectancy and subjective ratings of fear. Discrimination mediated the relationships between trait anxiety and both spontaneous recovery and context renewal such that elevated trait anxiety was associated with poorer discrimination, which in turn was associated with increased fear at test phases. Results are discussed in terms of the genesis and maintenance of anxiety disorders. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In a world filled with poverty, environmental degradation, and moral injustice, social enterprises offer a ray of hope. These organizations seek to achieve social missions through business ventures. Yet social missions and business ventures are associated with divergent goals, values, norms, and identities. Attending to them simultaneously creates tensions, competing demands, and ethical dilemmas. Effectively understanding social enterprises therefore depends on insight into the nature and management of these tensions. While existing research recognizes tensions between social missions and business ventures, (...) we lack any systematic analysis. Our paper addresses this issue. We first categorize the types of tensions that arise between social missions and business ventures, emphasizing their prevalence and variety. We then explore how four different organizational theories offer insight into these tensions, and we develop an agenda for future research. We end by arguing that a focus on social-business tensions not only expands insight into social enterprises, but also provides an opportunity for research on social enterprises to inform traditional organizational theories. Taken together, our analysis of tensions in social enterprises integrates and seeks to energize research on this expanding phenomenon. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In a world filled with poverty, environmental degradation, and moral injustice, social enterprises offer a ray of hope. These organizations seek to achieve social missions through business ventures. Yet social missions and business ventures are associated with divergent goals, values, norms, and identities. Attending to them simultaneously creates tensions, competing demands, and ethical dilemmas. Effectively understanding social enterprises therefore depends on insight into the nature and management of these tensions. While existing research recognizes tensions between social missions and business ventures, (...) we lack any systematic analysis. Our paper addresses this issue. We first categorize the types of tensions that arise between social missions and business ventures, emphasizing their prevalence and variety. We then explore how four different organizational theories offer insight into these tensions, and we develop an agenda for future research. We end by arguing that a focus on social-business tensions not only expands insight into social enterprises, but also provides an opportunity for research on social enterprises to inform traditional organizational theories. Taken together, our analysis of tensions in social enterprises integrates and seeks to energize research on this expanding phenomenon. (shrink)

Human sleeping arrangements have evolved over time and differ across cultures. The majority of adults share their bed at one time or another with a partner or child, and many also sleep with pets. In fact, around half of dog and cat owners report sharing a bed or bedroom with their pet. However, interspecies co-sleeping has been trivialized in the literature relative to interpersonal or human-human co-sleeping, receiving little attention from an interdisciplinary psychological perspective. In this paper, we provide a (...) historical outline of the “civilizing process” that has led to current sociocultural conceptions of sleep as an individual, private function crucial for the functioning of society and the health of individuals. We identify similar historical processes at work in the formation of contemporary constructions of socially normative sleeping arrangements for humans and animals. Importantly, since previous examinations of co-sleeping practices have anthropocentrically framed this topic, the result is an incomplete understanding of co-sleeping practices. By using dogs as an exemplar of human-animal co-sleeping, and comparing human-canine sleeping with adult-child co-sleeping, we determine that both forms of co-sleeping share common factors for establishment and maintenance, and often result in similar benefits and drawbacks. We propose that human-animal and adult-child co-sleeping should be approached as legitimate and socially relevant forms of co-sleeping, and we recommend that co-sleeping be approached broadly as a social practice involving relations with humans and other animals. Because our proposition is speculative and derived from canine-centric data, we recommend ongoing theoretical refinement grounded in empirical research addressing co-sleeping between humans and multiple animal species. (shrink)

Historically confined to the disadvantaged ranks of the stratification system, evangelical Christians have increasingly joined the corporate elite, eliciting concern from some and sanguinity from others. Quantitative studies of the effects of religion on executive behavior have thus far shown mixed and inconclusive effects, and those few qualitative analyses that have focused on evangelical business leaders have generally emphasized conflict between religion and business but failed adequately to explore areas of consonance. While evangelical executives do, in fact, experience conflict associated (...) with their professional contexts, this tension arises not because business and religion are inherently opposed, as some have argued, but because evangelical business leaders are made to feel like second-class citizens by members of their own faith communities. Indeed, in cases of apparent conflict between faith and business, evangelical executives insist that it is faith, not business, that must be reconceived. Equipped with an array of strategies for demonstrating that business is a sacred institution and a worthy occupation, evangelical business leaders hope to restore faith in business as they apply their faith in business. In these evangelical executives and their accounts, the "spirit of capitalism," defined by Max Weber as a positive attitude toward both work and wealth, finds ongoing embrace and new expression, with implications for understanding the so-called faith at work movement, evangelicalism, and the role of religion among elites. (shrink)

This volume is a serious attempt to open up the subject of European philosophy of science to real thought, and provide the structural basis for the interdisciplinary development of its specialist fields, but also to provoke reflection on the idea of ‘European philosophy of science’. This efforts should foster a contemporaneous reflection on what might be meant by philosophy of science in Europe and European philosophy of science, and how in fact awareness of it could assist philosophers interpret and motivate (...) their research through a stronger collective identity. The overarching aim is to set the background for a collaborative project organising, systematising, and ultimately forging an identity for, European philosophy of science by creating research structures and developing research networks across Europe to promote its development. (shrink)

This volume is a serious attempt to open up the subject of European philosophy of science to real thought, and provide the structural basis for the interdisciplinary development of its specialist fields, but also to provoke reflection on the idea of ‘European philosophy of science’. This efforts should foster a contemporaneous reflection on what might be meant by philosophy of science in Europe and European philosophy of science, and how in fact awareness of it could assist philosophers interpret and motivate (...) their research through a stronger collective identity. The overarching aim is to set the background for a collaborative project organising, systematising, and ultimately forging an identity for, European philosophy of science by creating research structures and developing research networks across Europe to promote its development. (shrink)