Law and economics scholarship has traditionally analyzed efficient breach cases monolithically. By grouping efficient breach cases together, this literature treats the subjective motives and the distributive effects of the breach as immaterial. The Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment introduced a distinction based on the intent and the effects of the breach, allowing courts to use disgorgement remedies in cases of ‘opportunistic’ breach of contract (i.e., ‘deliberate and profitable’ breaches). In this article, we evaluate this approach, focusing on the (...) effects of disgorgement remedies on allocative and productive efficiency, information-forcing and competitive effects, and restraint of breach-searching incentives. We show that, even from a purely consequentialist perspective, disgorgement remedies may be normatively warranted, especially when involving sellers’ breach. Recent experimental evidence revealed that the preferences and reactions of ordinary people are in line with our evaluation of the effects of opportunistic breach. (shrink)

In standard economic models, two basic assumptions are made: the first, that actors are rational, and the second, that actors’ preferences are a given and exogenously determined. Behavioral economics — followed by behavioral law and economics — has questioned the first assumption. This Article challenges the second one, arguing that in many instances, social welfare should be enhanced not by maximizing satisfaction of existing preferences but by changing the preferences themselves. The Article identifies seven categories of cases where the traditional (...) objections to intentional preference change by the state and the law lose force and argues that in these cases, such a change warrants serious consideration. It then proposes four different modes of intervention in people’s preferences, varying in intensity, on the one hand, and in the identity of their addressees, on the other, and explains the relative advantages and disadvantages of each form of intervention. (shrink)

Holtby, Allen and Fairchild are both recent and revolutionary decisions that address an important aspect of the indeterminate causation problem that frequently arises in tort litigation. In Holtby and Allen, the Court of Appeal departed from the traditional binary approach, under which a tort claimant either recovers compensation for his or her entire injury or is altogether denied recovery—depending on whether his or her case against the defendant is more probable than not. Holtby and Allen substituted this approach by the (...) proportionate recovery principle, under which the defendant compensates the claimant for a fraction of his or her injury that represents the defendant's statistical share in that injury. This article analyses this development within the particular domain of indeterminate causation, over which the proportionate recovery principle has been licensed to exercise control. The article claims that this development would constitute an improvement of the law from the perspectives of both optimal deterrence and corrective justice, if the courts properly formulate its scope. First, the proportionate recovery principle needs to be explicitly confined to cases that deal with recurrent wrongs. Second, determination of the defendant's share in the claimant's injury ought to be grounded on the probability of causation, rather than the risk of inflicting that injury. Third, judges must not apply unarticulated intuitions in determining the magnitude of the relevant risk or probability: their decisions in that area would be better informed by the statistical principle of ‘insufficient reason’, also known as the ‘indifference principle’. Fourth, courts are yet to relieve the doctrinal tension between the proportionate recovery principle, as recognized in Holtby and Allen, and the previous rejection of that principle by the House of Lords. Subsequently, the article analyses the House of Lords' decision in Fairchild—yet another instance of indeterminate causation in which proportionate recovery is preferable to the ‘all or nothing’ approach. In this case, the House of Lords allowed the claimants full recovery. This holding was grounded in the Law Lords' innovative approach to indeterminate causation, and the article unfolds the problematics of this approach. Finally, the article offers an adoption of yet another legal mechanism—the ‘evidential damage doctrine’—that replaces liability under uncertainty with liability for uncertainty. (shrink)

Lawmakers regularly delegate authority to agents. Such delegation is accompanied by mechanisms that attempt to ensure that the agents adhere to the will of the lawmakers. But these mechanisms are often ineffective or inefficient. Moreover, at times the very imposition of constraints distorts the agents’ incentives and impels them to adopt skewed policies. We suggest that it is possible to reduce such wasteful enforcement costs by delegating authority to certain types of agents who will pursue the lawmaker’s policies without constraints (...) imposed by the lawmaker. In this Article we focus on agents who are impartial — but not indifferent! — and skillful enough to identify the proper course of action. The Article encompasses two main arguments. The normative argument is that when skillful and impartial agents can be identified, it makes sense to delegate to them decision-making powers with only limited constraints. Moreover, in such instances it may be more cost-effective to provide agents with incentives to act impartially rather than develop enforcement mechanisms to impose impartiality. The positive argument is that the law — sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly — is compatible with our normative argument in various fields. Although our argument is general in scope and applies to many areas of law, in this Article we begin by focusing on tort law and on international law. We distinguish five categories of cases where the law relies on agents and detect in some of them impartial and skillful agents. This analysis demonstrates that, in some of these categories, the law in fact relies on agents with only minimal constraints and that, in other situations, the constraints imposed by the law are counterproductive. Our normative argument thus serves an explanatory role in understanding many legal doctrines and principles, but, at the same time, offers a critical view on other doctrines and principles, which are not compatible with that argument. (shrink)

A doctor who lapses and injures her patient, and a driver who lapses and causes an accident, are liable under negligence law for the harm done. But lapse is not necessarily negligence, since reasonable people lapse from time to time. We show that tort liability for “reasonable” lapses distorts doctors’, drivers’, and manufacturers’ incentives to take care. Furthermore, such liability provides potential injurers with incentives to substitute activities which are less prone to lapses with activities which are more prone to (...) lapses, even if such substitution is inefficient. We propose several solutions to the inefficiencies that result from liability for lapses, and argue that under certain circumstances injurers should be entitled to invoke a “lapse defense.”. (shrink)

The book provides a comprehensive and principled account of the uncertainty problem that arises in tort litigation. It presents and critically examines the existing doctrinal solutions of the problem, as evolved in England, the United States, Canada, and Israel, and also offers a number of original solutions, such as imposition of collective liability and liability for evidential damage. Among the issues dealt with by the book are rapidly developing areas of tort law, such as mass torts, liability for imposing risk (...) and the like. The book combines the traditional doctrinal depiction of the law with general theoretical insights that include economic analysis. (shrink)

Negligence law is built around the paradigmatic case of a person who unreasonably preferred his own interests to those of others and, as a result, caused damage to another person. However, this case is not representative of all instances of negligence. In some cases, the negligent injurer failed in balancing between the interests of the victim alone; in other cases, he failed in balancing between the victim’s interests and those of a third party; sometimes the injurer failed in balancing the (...) victim’s interests and the interests of the public or of society as a whole; and in yet other instances, he failed in balancing between his own interests. This article argues that the law should not treat in the same manner the different types of instances of failure in balancing between interests. Both justice and deterrence considerations mandate different treatment for the different types of instances, in accordance with the type of interests that the negligent injurer failed to balance. The article focuses on the typical types of balances of interests that the potential injurer is required to conduct before taking action, with the aim of determining the degree to which it is crucial to impose tort liability in each type of case. The article also examines whether prevailing negligence law is compatible with the thesis developed in the article and proposes tools for achieving such compatibility. (shrink)

Our knowledge about the world is often expressed by generic sentences, yet their meanings are far from clear. This book provides answers to central problems concerning generics: what do they mean? Which factors affect their interpretation? How can one reason with generics? Cohen proposes that the meanings of generics are probability judgments, and shows how this view accounts for many of their puzzling properties, including lawlikeness. Generics are evaluated with respect to alternatives. Cohen argues that alternatives are induced by the (...) kind as well as by the predicated property, and thus provides a uniform account of the varied interpretations of generics. He studies the formal properties of alternatives and provides a compositional account of their derivation by focus and presupposition. Cohen uses his semantics of generics to provide a formal characterization of adequate default reasoning, and proves some desirable results of this formalism. (shrink)

Generics are sentences such as Birds fly, which express generalizations. They are prevalent in speech, and as far as is known, no human language lacks generics. Yet, it is very far from clear what they mean. After all, not all birds fly—penguins don’t! -/- There are two general views about the meaning of generics in the literature, and each view encompasses many specific theories. According to the inductivist view, a generic states that a sufficient number of individuals satisfy a certain (...) property—in the example above, it says that sufficiently many birds fly. This view faces the complicated problem of spelling out exactly how many is “sufficiently many” in a way that correctly captures the intuitive truth conditions of generics. -/- An alternative, the rules and regulations view, despairs from this project and proposes instead that generics directly express rules in the world. Rules are taken to be abstract objects, which are not related to the properties of specific individuals. This view faces the difficult problem of explaining how people come to know of such rules when judging the truth of falsity of generics, and accounting for the strong intuition that a sentence such as Birds fly talks about birds, not abstract objects. -/- What seems to be beyond dispute is that generics, even if they do not express rules, are lawlike: they state non-accidental generalizations. Many scholars have taken this fact to indicate that generics are parametric on possible worlds: they refer to worlds other than the actual world. This, again, raises the problem of how people come to know about what happens in these other worlds. However, a rigorous application of standard tests for intensionality shows that generics are not, in fact, parametric on possible worlds, but only on time. This unusual property may explain much of the mystery surrounding generics. -/- Another mysterious property of generics is that although there is no language without them, there is no linguistic construction that is devoted to the expression of genericity. Rather, generics can be expressed in a variety of ways, each of which can also express nongenerics. Yet, each manifestation of generics differs subtly (or sometimes not so subtly) in its meaning from the others. -/- Even when these and other puzzles of genericity are solved, one mystery would remain: Why are generics, which are so easy to produce and understand in conversation, so difficult to analyze? (shrink)

Introduction Introducing Accessibility theory 0.1 On the role of context Utterances cannot be processed and interpreted on their own. ...

I offer a feminist critique of deep ecology as presented in the seminal papers of Naess and Devall. I outline the fundamental premises involved and analyze their internal coherence. Not only are there problems on logical grounds, but the tacit methodological approach of the two papers are inconsistent with the deep ecologists’ own substantive comments. I discuss these shortcomings in terms of a broader feminist critique of patriarchal culture and point out some practical and theoretical contributions which eco-feminism can make (...) to a genuinely deep ecology problematic. (shrink)

Both traditional accounts of hope and some of their recent critics analyze hope exclusively in terms of attitudes that a hoper bears towards a hoped-for prospect, such as desire and probability assignment. I argue that all of these accounts misidentify cases of despair as cases of hope, and so misconstrue the nature of hope. I show that a more satisfactory view is arrived at by noticing that in addition to the aforementioned attitudes, hope involves a characteristic attitude towards an external (...) factor, on whose operation the hoper takes the prospect's realization to depend causally. (shrink)

Addressing one of the most difficult conceptual topics in the study of classical Hinduism, Ariel Glucklich presents a rigorous phenomenology of dharma, or order. The work moves away from the usual emphasis on symbols and theoretical formulations of dharma as a religious and moral norm. Instead, it focuses on images that emerge from the basic experiential interaction of the body in its spatial and temporal contexts, such as the sensation of water on the skin during the morning purification, or (...) the physical manipulation of the bride during the marriage ritual. Images of dharma are examined in myths, rituals, art, and even the physical landscape of the Hindu world. The varied and contingent experiences of dharma infuse it with a meaning that transcends a false analytical distinction from adharma, or chaos. Glucklich shows that when dharma is experienced by means of living images, it becomes inescapably temporal, and therefore inseparable from adharma. (shrink)

Using data from 1,352 middle-school Israeli adolescents, the current study examines the interface of spirituality and character strengths and its longitudinal contribution to subjective well-being and prosociality. Participants were approached three times over a 14-months period and completed measures of character strengths, spirituality, subjective well-being (positive emotions, life satisfaction), and prosociality. Findings revealed a fourth-factor structure of character strengths that included the typical tripartite classification of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intellectual strengths together with spirituality emerging as a statistically autonomous factor. Spirituality (...) was stable over time and contributed to higher subjective well-being and prosociality both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Discussion focuses on spirituality as a fundamental character strength and an important aspect of positive development. (shrink)

This paper defends a rigorous reading of Hume’s critiques of arguments for the existence of God and of the belief in God against interpretations that endorse Humean theism, deism, and fideism. The latter include Donald Livingston’s theist reading, J. C. A. Gaskin’s “attenuated deism” reading, and Edward Kanterian’s “humble fideism” reading. I also examine whether Hume’s rejections of a positive theology commit him to agnosticism or atheism. My innovative challenge to such conclusions maintains that, while elements of both agnosticism and (...) atheism are found in Hume, these denote, respectively, a methodology and an incidental implication of his philosophy. But neither sufficiently captures his constructive vision for a society, individual psychology, and system of knowledge guided by naturalist principles and aims. For this, an alternate conception is needed that describes Hume’s philosophy of religion beyond mere atheism. (shrink)

What ends should designers pursue? To what extent should they care about the societal and environmental impact of their work? And why should they care at all? Given the key influence design has on the way people live their lives, designing is fraught with ethical issues. Yet, unlike education or nursing, it lacks widespread professional principles for addressing these issues. -/- Rooted in a communitarian view of design practice, this lively and accessible book examines design through the lens of professions, (...) offering a critical vision that enables practitioners, academics and students of design in all disciplines to reflect on the practice’s overarching purposes. Considering how these are connected to others' flourishing and moulded by community interactions, "The Goods of Design" argues for a practice-based approach to cultivate professional ethics; it provides a normative direction that can meaningfully guide professional design activity, both individually and collectively. The volume also looks into the implications work has for the designer's self-growth as a person, offering ways to discover and navigate the complex tensions between personal and professional life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Solarpunk Conference by From Imagination to ActionAriel Kroon and Kees SchullerFrom Imagination to Action, The Solarpunk Conference, June 24, 2023, VirtualThe Solarpunk Conference was born out of the desire to see an accessible space dedicated to discussions of solarpunk. With solarpunk growing in popularity in both popular and academic circles, the need for such a space seemed obvious to the organizers. The organizers also felt the need (...) to bridge academic and popular conversations in a way that was productive and opened further discussion, as the disconnect between the academic and popular spheres is often damaging to social movements. [End Page 634]This was especially important for solarpunk because of its nature as being built from below. Solarpunk is crowdsourced, having evolved over the years from social media aesthetic to literature to social movement, with few canonical critical texts. Taking into consideration the distributed democratic nature at the heart of solarpunk, the conference aimed to be accessible to the widest array of people possible: in this regard, the conference was incredibly successful. As a remote conference, the event was already more financially and practically accessible than an in-person event. Tickets were available to those across the financial spectrum, with a large percentage of our tickets being pay-what-you-can, or free to those in need; live captioning was provided on the day of, volunteers were available throughout the day to address accessibility concerns, and the ability for attendees to request live translations or other accessibility options was also provided. Further, while still retaining academic integrity and value, the majority of the presentations were legible to the largely non-expert, non-academic audience.The other key goal for the conference was to create a space for conversation and networking between otherwise disconnected members of the solarpunk community. To this end, alongside the Zoom webinars used for presentations, a Discord server was created for attendees that saw consistent engagement, networking, and project sharing, further allowing presenters to engage with attendees after their talks, enabling extended Q+A sessions that otherwise would have not been possible within schedule constraints. This hybrid model between Zoom and Discord proved incredibly effective, allowing for a wide range of interactions, and encouraging the community building and idea sharing that were key to this conference.Throughout the conference, themes of climate grief and the disaffection and despair of late-stage neoliberal capitalism returned to the fore, with speakers positioning solarpunk as a way to combat these negative affects. Mirroring these themes, most speakers emphasized the necessity of direct (solarpunk) action to escape the dystopian long-present of contemporary corpo-capitalism. Perhaps because of these same themes appearing in the movement as a whole, solarpunk is often reduced to an aesthetic of green utopia, which is an unfair stereotype given that many strands of solarpunk thought could be labeled as anti-utopian or in the vein of critical utopian theory. Solarpunk’s explicit aim to imagine sociopolitical and economic realities beyond late-stage capitalist neoliberalism requires it to divest from what Lauren Berlant calls “stupid optimism”—“the faith that adjustment to certain forms or practices [End Page 635] of living and thinking... will secure one’s happiness” (2011, 126). Solarpunk rejects classical utopian picturing of a future world that operates according to the logics of the present, which in turn have been shaped by the (often racist, sexist, and classist) logics of the past (cf. Williams 2018; Kroon 2021). It is also important to note that solarpunk does not adhere to a singular vision of the future but instead acknowledges the biodiversity of nonhuman nature and the diversity of the human experience, and so encourages multiple futures that serve the peoples and lands on which they rest.The conference began with opening remarks by one of the organizers, Lindsay Jane, followed by a land acknowledgment by Cheryle Chagnon-Greyeyes, traditional knowledge-keeper and Indigenous activist from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Treaty Six. Chagnon-Greyeyes welcomed participants in nehiyaw (Cree), acknowledging her location in Mohkinstsis (Calgary, Alberta) and the Indigenous nations there, and reminding attendees to think about their connection to the land that they were on. She shared a teaching... (shrink)

Cognitive penetration of perception, broadly understood, is the influence that the cognitive system has on a perceptual system. The paper shows a form of cognitive penetration in the visual system which I call ‘architectural’. Architectural cognitive penetration is the process whereby the behaviour or the structure of the perceptual system is influenced by the cognitive system, which consequently may have an impact on the content of the perceptual experience. I scrutinize a study in perceptual learning that provides empirical evidence that (...) cognitive influences in the visual system produce neural reorganization in the primary visual cortex. The type of cognitive penetration can be synchronic and diachronic. (shrink)

Generics and frequency statements are puzzling phenomena: they are lawlike, yet contingent. They may be true even in the absence of any supporting instances, and extending the size of their domain does not change their truth conditions. Generics and frequency statements are parametric on time, but not on possible worlds; they cannot be applied to temporary generalizations, and yet are contingent. These constructions require a regular distribution of events along the time axis. Truth judgments of generics vary considerably across speakers, (...) whereas truth judgments of frequency statements are much more uniform. A generic may be false even if the vast majority of individuals in its domain satisfy the predicated property, whereas a frequency statement using, e.g., usually would be true. This paper argues that all these seemingly unrelated puzzles have a single underlying cause: generics and frequency statements express probability judgments, and these, in turn, are interpreted as statements of hypothetical relative frequency. (shrink)

To succeed in self-regulation, people need to believe that it is possible to change behaviour and they also need to use effective means to enable such a change. We propose that this also applies to emotion regulation. In two studies, we found that people were most successful in emotion regulation, the more they believed emotions can be controlled and the more they used an effective emotion regulation strategy – namely, cognitive reappraisal. Cognitive reappraisal moderated the link between beliefs about the (...) controllability of emotion and success in emotion regulation, when reappraisal was measured as a trait or manipulated. Such moderation was found when examining the regulation of disgust elicited by emotion-inducing films, and the regulation of anger elicited by real political events. We discuss the implications of our findings for research and practice in emotion regulation. (shrink)

The Assyrian presence in Palestine from the ninth through the seventh century B.C.E. represents a case of intercultural contact against the background of an expansionist imperial process. The “Assyrianization” of Israel and Judah, as well as that of the whole Levant, has often been posited. This term, which evokes “Romanization,” would indicate enforced cultural adaptation to Assyrian values and customs within the framework of a process of assimilation. An alleged “Assyrianization” of Ancient Israel would be congruent with that interpretation of (...) Assyrian imperialism postulating programmatic measures to impose the Assyrian way of life upon the whole empire. However, a study of the cuneiform and archaeological sources leads to an alternative interpretation of Assyrian imperial policy in the West. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Character education is an increasingly discussed topic drawing upon virtue ethics as a moral theory. Scholars have predominantly understood educating character as a process that entails the formation of certain distinct character traits or functions through practice and habituation. However, these approaches present some problems. This paper explores the educational implications of various accounts focusing on the relationship between phronesis and other virtues. In particular, our focus will be on those that Miller (2023) has classified as Standard Model and Eliminativist (...) Model of practical wisdom. Starting from these accounts, we will outline three specific problems that the latter models appear to generate at a theoretical level in character education. Finally, we will address the task of demonstrating why the monist account of moral virtue recently proposed by the Aretai group—which conceives being virtuous in possessing phronesis understood as ethical expertise—might offer a refined response to these challenges. In addition, we will illustrate three educational pathways that can emerge from the same model. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that generics tolerate exceptions. It turns out, however, that exceptions are tolerated only so long as they do not violate homogeneity: when the exceptions are not concentrated in a salient “chunk” of the domain of the generic. The criterion for salience of a chunk is cognitive: it is dependent on the way in which the domain is mentally represented. Findings of psychological experiments about the ways in which different domains are represented, and the actors affecting such (...) representations, account for judgments of generic sentences, facts which cannot be explained by linguistics alone. The reason for the homogeneity requirement itself is, in turn, also dependent on cognitive considerations. Generics express default rules, and psychological findings have shown that, the more homogeneous the domain, the easier it is for subjects to infer rules about it. Thus, cognitive results form a crucial part of a comprehensive account of the meaning of a linguistic expression. (shrink)

While opinions on the semantic analysis of generics vary widely, most scholars agree that generics have a quasi-universal flavor. However, there are cases where generics receive what appears to be an existentialinterpretation. For example, B's response is true, even though only theplatypus and the echidna lay eggs: (1) A: Birds lay eggs. B: Mammals lay eggs too. In this paper I propose a uniform account of the semantics of generics,which accounts for their quasi-existential readings as well as for their more (...) familiar quasi-universal ones. Generics are focus-sensitiveoperators: their domain is restricted by a set of alternatives, which may be provided by focus. I claim that, unlike otherfocus-sensitive operators, generics may, but do not have to, associate with focus. When alternatives are introduced, either by focus or by other means, generics get their usual quasi-universal readings. But when no alternatives are introduced, quasi-existential readings result.I argue that generics, unlike adverbs of quantification, do not introduce tripartite structures directly, but are initially interpreted as cases ofdirect kind predication. Only when this interpretation fails to make sense, the phonologically null generic quantifier is derived, and tripartite structures result. This two-level interpretation has the effect that while adverbs of quantification require focus to determine which elements go to the restrictor and which to the nuclear scope, and hence must associate with focus, generics do not, and hence may fail to associate with focus, resulting in quasi-existential readings. (shrink)

No one realized that the book and the labyrinth were one and the same.道可道[也]，非常[恆]道名可名[也]，非常[恆]名无名，天地[萬物]之始有名，萬物之母 故常[恆]無欲，以觀其眇常[恆]有欲，以觀其徼[噭]此兩者同出而異名同謂之玄，玄之又玄，眾眇之門。The dao that can be spoken of is not the constant DaoThe name that can be named is not the constant name;Nameless, it is the beginning of heaven and earth [the myriad things]Named, it is the mother of the myriad things. Therefore,Constantly without desire, observe its marvels;Constantly with desire, observe its manifestationsThese two are the same, when emerged they are named differently.When merged, this is called mystery, (...) mystery upon mystery, the gateway to the numerous marvels. (Daodejing 1)1The paradoxical opening lines of the Daodejing have .. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article argues that received accounts of the concept of human dignity face more difficulties than has been appreciated, when explaining the connection between human dignity and the duty of respect that dignity is supposed to generate. It also argues that a novel, relational, account has the adequate structure to explain such connection.

In addition to the familiar cardinal and proportional readings of many and few, there is yet another interpretation, the relative proportional reading. This reading, unlike the ordinary absolute proportional reading, is not conservative. Under the relative reading, 'Many ψs are φs' is true just in case the proportion of φs among ψs is greater than the proportion of φs among members of contextually given alternatives to ψ. I provide a definition of proportional readings that reduces the differences between absolute and (...) relative interpretations to the value of a single parameter.I argue that relative readings are not restricted to many and few, but are also exhibited by the adverbs often and seldom, and by generics. Interpretations of determiners that have been treated as "focus-affected readings," interpretations of adverbs of quantification that have been treated as "pure frequency readings," and interpretations of generics which have been claimed to be cases of "reverse interpretation" or "direct kind predication" are, in fact, instances of relative readings.A: Army reserve service is especially hard on people who own a small business.Q: Do many small-business owners serve in your regiment?A: I don't know what it's like in other regiments –Q: I am not asking you about other regiments.A: I know, but relatively speaking . . .(Interview on Israel Army Radio, June 8th, 2001). (shrink)

Recent research has shown that the superlative quantifiers at least and at most do not have the same type of truth conditions as the comparative quantifiers more than and fewer than. We propose that superlative quantifiers are interpreted at the level of speech acts. We relate them to denegations of speech acts, as in I don’t promise to come, which we analyze as excluding the speech act of a promise to come. Calling such conversational acts that affect future permissible speech (...) acts “meta-speech acts,” we introduce the meta-speech act of a GRANT of a proposition as a denial to assert the negation of that proposition. Superlative quantifiers are analyzed as quantifiers over GRANTS. Thus, John petted at least three rabbits means that the minimal number n such that the speaker GRANTs the proposition that John petted n rabbits is n = 3. We formalize this interpretation in terms of commitment states and commitment spaces, and show how the truth conditions that are derived from it are partly entailed and partly conversationally implicated. We demonstrate how the theory accounts for a wide variety of distributional phenomena of superlative quantifiers, including the contexts in which they can be embedded. (shrink)

One of the leading theories of social learning today is Wenger's theory of Communities of Practice'. CoP-theory reiterates basic tenets of social learning theory yet it us set apart from other theories of social learning and education not only by centering on identity-formation but by positing four key dualities as inherent structural features of the educational process. While concurring with Wenger's 'dilemmatic' understanding of education and his open-ended, practice-based conception of identity-formation, we argue that Wenger's theory overlooks central elements that (...) are needed in order to fully articulate the ends of the educational process, as he conceives them. We claim that further supplementation is needed to support the kind of educational processes that Wenger advocates. Referring to the work of Jack Mezirow and Charles Taylor, this supplementation concerns both critical reflection and 'ethical imagination'. Rather than threatening the coherency of the theory, we claim that these supplementations are internally derived from the ends of CoP-theory and are necessary for its very possibility. To remain in line with Wenger's dilemmatic structure of education, these supplementations are presented in the form of a duality: the tension between artistic and ethical imagination. (shrink)

Doernberg and Truog (2023) present a thoughtful analysis of the ethical tensions that arise from physicians increasingly occupying “multiple roles in healthcare”1 I take no issue with the classific...

Through hypothetical scenarios, this paper analyses whether machine learning (ML) could resolve one of the main shortcomings present in Christopher Boorse’s Biostatistical Theory of health (BST). In doing so, it foregrounds the boundaries and challenges of employing ML in formulating a naturalist (i.e., prima facie value-free) definition of health. The paper argues that a sweeping dataist approach cannot fully make the BST truly naturalistic, as prior theories and values persist. It also points out that supervised learning introduces circularity, rendering it (...) incompatible with a naturalistic perspective. Additionally, it underscores the need for pre-existing auxiliary theories to assess results from unsupervised learning. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the epistemological entanglements between data and data processing methods to manage expectations about what data patterns can predict. In conclusion, the paper argues against delegating the final authority for defining complex concepts like health to AI systems, as it necessitates ethical judgment and capacities for deliberation that AI currently lacks. It also warns against granting creators and deployers of AI systems the discretionary authority to determine these definitions outside the wider social discussion, advocating for ongoing public engagement on normative notions. Failure to do so risks limiting individuals and collectives’ ability to shape a just digital future and diminishes their fundamental epistemic agency. (shrink)

This article focuses on human dignity as a moral idea and, in particular, on a single but fundamental question: what conception of human dignity, if any, can generate an egalitarian duty to respect all persons? After surveying two mainstream and two alternative conceptions, the article suggests that explaining how human dignity generates an egalitarian duty of respect may be more difficult than has been appreciated.