BackgroundInnovations in technology have contributed to rapid changes in the way that modern biomedical research is carried out. Researchers are increasingly required to endorse adaptive and flexible approaches to accommodate these innovations and comply with ethical, legal and regulatory requirements. This paper explores how Dynamic Consent may provide solutions to address challenges encountered when researchers invite individuals to participate in research and follow them up over time in a continuously changing environment.MethodsAn interdisciplinary workshop jointly organised by the University of Oxford (...) and the COST Action CHIP ME gathered clinicians, researchers, ethicists, lawyers, research participants and patient representatives to discuss experiences of using Dynamic Consent, and how such use may facilitate the conduct of specific research tasks. The data collected during the workshop were analysed using a content analysis approach.ResultsDynamic Consent can provide practical, sustainable and future-proof solutions to challenges related to participant recruitment, the attainment of informed consent, participant retention and consent management, and may bring economic efficiencies.ConclusionsDynamic Consent offers opportunities for ongoing communication between researchers and research participants that can positively impact research. Dynamic Consent supports inter-sector, cross-border approaches and large scale data-sharing. Whilst it is relatively easy to set up and maintain, its implementation will require that researchers re-consider their relationship with research participants and adopt new procedures. (shrink)

Population-level biomedical research offers new opportunities to improve population health, but also raises new challenges to traditional systems of research governance and ethical oversight. Partly in response to these challenges, various models of public involvement in research are being introduced. Yet, the ways in which public involvement should meet governance challenges are not well understood. We conducted a qualitative study with 36 experts and stakeholders using the World Café method to identify key governance challenges and explore how public involvement can (...) meet these challenges. This brief report discusses four cross-cutting themes from the study: the need to move beyond individual consent; issues in benefit and data sharing; the challenge of delineating and understanding publics; and the goal of clarifying justifications for public involvement. The report aims to provide a starting point for making sense of the relationship between public involvement and the governance of population-level biomedical research, showing connections, potential solutions and issues arising at their intersection. We suggest that, in population-level biomedical research, there is a pressing need for a shift away from conventional governance frameworks focused on the individual and towards a focus on collectives, as well as to foreground ethical issues around social justice and develop ways to address cultural diversity, value pluralism and competing stakeholder interests. There are many unresolved questions around how this shift could be realised, but these unresolved questions should form the basis for developing justificatory accounts and frameworks for suitable collective models of public involvement in population-level biomedical research governance. (shrink)

Over the past 25 years, there has been growing recognition of the importance of studying the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of genetic and genomic research. A large investment into ELSI research from the National Institutes of Health Human Genomic Project budget in 1990 stimulated the growth of this emerging field; ELSI research has continued to develop and is starting to emerge as a field in its own right. The evolving subject matter of ELSI research continues to raise new research (...) questions as well as prompt re-evaluation of earlier work and a growing number of scholars working in this area now identify themselves as ELSI scholars rather than with a particular discipline. Due to the international and interdisciplinary nature of ELSI research, scholars can often find themselves isolated from disciplinary or regionally situated support structures. We conducted a workshop with Early Career Researchers in Oxford, UK, and this paper discusses some of the particular challenges that were highlighted. While ELSI ECRs may face many of the universal challenges faced by ECRs, we argue that a number of challenges are either unique or exacerbated in the case of ELSI ECRs and discuss some of the reasons as to why this may be the case. We identify some of the most pressing issues for ELSI ECRs as: interdisciplinary angst and expertise, isolation from traditional support structures, limited resources and funding opportunities, and uncertainty regarding how research contributions will be measured. We discuss the potential opportunity to use web 2.0 technologies to transform academic support structures and address some of the challenges faced by ELSI ECRs, by helping to facilitate mentoring and support, access to resources and new accreditation metrics. As our field develops it is crucial for the ELSI community to continue looking forward to identify how emerging digital solutions can be used to facilitate the international and interdisciplinary research we perform, and to offer support for those embarking on, progressing through, and transitioning into an ELSI research career. (shrink)

Are extreme beliefs constitutive of echo chambers, or only typically caused by them? Or are many echo chambers unproblematic, amplifying relatively benign beliefs? This paper details the conceptual relations between echo chambers and extreme beliefs, showing how different conceptual choice-points in how we understand both echo chambers and extreme beliefs affects how we should evaluate, study, and engage with echo chambering groups. We also explore how our theories of extreme beliefs and echo chambers shape social scientific research and contribute in (...) a practical way when treating these phenomena, focusing on examples of climate change scepticism. (shrink)

Faith occupies an important place in human lives in both religious and secular contexts: faith may be directed towards God, friends, governments, political systems and football teams. It is said to help people through crises and motivate people to achieve life goals. But what is faith? Philosophers and theologians have for centuries been concerned with questions about the rationality of faith, but more recently, have focussed on what kind of psychological attitude faith is. We bring together, for the first time, (...) the different elements of this recent debate, staking out the different positions and arguments, and defend a novel 'true grit' theory of faith, from which we assess questions about the rationality of faith from a fresh perspective. The book engages with a range of questions about the nature of faith, including: Does faith require belief? How is faith expressed in language? Is faith motivational? What is the relationship between faith and cognate attitudes, such as trust and hope? What is the role of faith in our long-term plans? And, in what sense is faith steadfast, resilient or constant, as is commonly supposed? This last issue leads us to additional literature from the social sciences, and we defend a distinctive conception of faith as resistance to practical, psychological and epistemic challenges, that forms the basis of the true grit theory defended in the book. (shrink)

Most contemporary accounts of the nature of faith explicitly defend what we call ‘the positivity theory of faith’ – the theory that faith must be accompanied by a favourable evaluative belief, or a desire towards the object of faith. This paper examines the different varieties of the positivity theory and the arguments used to support it. Whilst initially plausible, we find that the theory faces numerous problematic counterexamples, and show that weaker versions of the positivity theory are ultimately implausible. We (...) discuss a distinct property of faith that we call ‘true grit’, such that faith requires one to be resilient toward the evidential, practical, and psychological challenges that it faces. We show how true grit is necessary for faith, and provides a simpler and less problematic explanation of the evidence used to support the positivity theory. (shrink)

Some of the opponents of desire-based views of normativity seek to undermine them by arguing that even the existence of instrumental normativity (reasons to pursue the means to your ends) entails the existence of a desire-independent rational norm, the instrumental norm. Once we grant the existence of one such norm, there seems to be no principled reason for not allowing others. I clarify this alleged norm, identifying two criteria that any satisfactory candidate must meet: reasonable expectation and possible violation. Some (...) interpretations meet the first criterion and others meet the second, but there are no interpretations that meet both. After surveying the interpretations of Sidgwick, Hampton, and Korsgaard, I suggest that there is no instrumental norm of reason. The final section offers an alternative, desire-based account of instrumental normativity, on which individual normative requirements to pursue means derives from each individual desire for an end. (shrink)

Often, when there is a reason for you to do something, it is the kind of thing to motivate you to do it. For example, if Max and Caroline are deciding whether to go to the Alcove for dinner, Caroline might mention as a reason in favor, the fact that the Alcove serves onion rings the size of doughnuts, and Max might mention as a reason against, the fact that it is so difficult to get parking there this time of (...) day. It is some sign—perhaps not a perfect sign, but some sign—that each of these really is a reason, that Max and Caroline feel the tug in each direction. Mention of the Alcove's onion rings makes them feel to at least some degree inclined to go, and mention of the parking arrangements makes them feel to at least some degree inclined not to. According to some philosophers, reasons for action always bear some relation like this to motivation. This idea is variously known as ‘ reasons internalism’, ‘internalism about reasons ’, or ‘the internal reasons theory’. According to other philosophers, not all reasons are related to motivation in any of the ways internalists say. This idea is known as ‘ reasons externalism’ or ‘externalism about reasons ’. (shrink)

Words change meaning, usually in unpredictable ways. But some words’ meanings are revised intentionally. Revisionary projects are normally put forward in the service of some purpose – some serve specific goals of inquiry, and others serve ethical, political or social aims. Revisionist projects can ameliorate meanings, but they can also pervert. In this paper, I want to draw attention to the dangers of meaning perversions, and argue that the self-declared goodness of a revisionist project doesn’t suffice to avoid meaning perversions. (...) The road to Hell, or to horrors on Earth, is paved with good intentions. Finally and more importantly, I want to demarcate what meaning perversions are. This, I hope, can help us assess the moral and political legitimacy of revisionary projects. (shrink)

This paper addresses the nature and relationship of morality and self-interest, arguing that what we morally ought to do almost always conflicts with what we self-interestedly ought to do. The concept of morality is analyzed as being essentially and radically other-regarding, and the category of the supererogatory is explained as consisting in what we morally ought to do but are not socially expected to do. I express skepticism about whether there is a coherent question, ‘Which ought I all things considered (...) to obey?’ and suggest that the best substitute is a question about which is more important for me. Importance for a person, in turn, is explained as dependent upon what a person is disposed to care about. I suggest that morality and self-interest are both relatively unimportant for us when compared with our other ends. (shrink)

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology, yet only recently have the two disciplines developed greater interaction. Recent experiments in psychology that test the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning have found a great deal of variation, across individuals and (...) cultures, in categorization behaviour. Meanwhile, philosophers of language and mind have investigated the semantic properties of concepts, and how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. A key motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared across individuals and cultures. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. -/- This volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, the relationship between concepts and linguistic meaning and communication, the challenges conceptual variation poses to communication, and the social and political effects of conceptual change. (shrink)

The theory of biological evolution has often provoked disagreement, which has frequently been divisive and counterproductive. At other times this scientific paradigm has been discussed with an apologetic intent, to explain why the science of biology and the theology of creation cannot be seen to be mutually exclusive. This paper urges Christians to move decisively to a third type of discourse. The new field of comparative genetics has provided conclusive evidence that biological evolution has given rise to the diversity of (...) living forms, including human beings. Consequently, Christians should, with confidence, gladly accept the evolutionary paradigm and look upon evolution as a divinely ordained historical process that develops through random (stochastic, free) process, but that leads to a divinely purposed consummation. As a result, biological history in its freedom but directedness to God’s final purposes should elicit wonder. People who have come to faith in the God revealed redemptively in Jesus should uninhibitedly offer adoration and praise for evolutionary fruitfulness. Worship should characterise the human response to biological history.[1] [1] In appreciation of Professor Tom McLeish FRS, scientist, teacher, theologian. (shrink)

Relational theories of normative language allegedly face special problems in accounting for the extent of disagreement, but this is everybody’s problem because normative sentences are relativized to different information in contexts of deliberation and advice. This paper argues that a relational theory provides a pragmatic solution that accounts for some disagreements as involving inconsistent preferences rather than beliefs. This is shown to be superior to the semantic solution offered by expressivists like Allan Gibbard, as it accounts for a wider range (...) of disagreements, explains a puzzling asymmetry, and avoids the expressivist’s problem with negation. This pragmatic account extends to fundamental disagreements involving preferences for different ends. Three different kinds of normative disagreement are distinguished: instrumental, rational, and outright. (shrink)

Background: The Declaration of Helsinki prohibits the publication of articles that do not meet defined ethical standards for reporting of research ethics board approval and informed consent. Despite this prohibition and a call to highlight the deficiency for the reader, articles with potential ethical shortcomings continue to be published.Objective: To determine what proportion of articles in major medical journals lack statements confirming REB approval and informed consent, and whether accompanying commentary alerts readers to this deficiency.Design: Retrospective, observational study.Setting: Online review (...) of five major medical journals.Population: All clinical research articles published online between 1 January 2005 and 31 December 2006 in the BMJ, Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine.Measurements: Statement of REB approval and informed consent.Results: Of 1780 articles reviewed, 1133 met inclusion criteria , 36 articles lacked a statement of REB approval, 62 lacked disclosure of informed consent and 15 articles lacked both. Articles that did not state REB approval were associated with not stating informed consent . There were no editorial comments to alert readers to the lack of either REB approval or informed consent statements associated with any of the deficient articles.Conclusions: Articles that lack explicit statements of REB approval and informed consent are infrequent but continue to be published in major medical journals without editorial statements to alert the reader to this deficiency. (shrink)

Is propositional religious faith constituted by belief? Recent debate has focussed on whether faith may be constituted by a positive non-doxastic cognitive state, which can stand in place of belief. This paper sets out and defends the doxastic theory. We consider and reject three arguments commonly used in favour of non-doxastic theories of faith: (1) the argument from religious doubt; (2) the use of ‘faith’ in linguistic utterances; and (3) the possibility of pragmatic faith. We argue that belief is required (...) to maintain a distinction between genuine faith, pretend faith, and fictionalist faith. (shrink)

In this timely book the author describes the correct use of the scientific method and how to apply it to current events and scientific topics to obtain honest assessments. The book is approachable enough for the general public and recommended for university and advanced high school science educators and their students.

The book exposes many of the misunderstandings about the scientific method and its application to critical thinking. It argues for a better understanding of the scientific method and for nurturing critical thinking in the community. This knowledge helps the reader to analyze issues more objectively, and warns about the dangers of bias and propaganda. The principles are illustrated by considering several issues that are currently being debated. These include anthropogenic global warming (often loosely referred to as climate change), dangers to (...) preservation of the Great Barrier Reef, and the expansion of the gluten-free food market and genetic engineering. (shrink)

Kaplan (1999) argued that a different dimension of expressive meaning (“use-conditional”, as opposed to truth-conditional) is required to characterize the meaning of pejoratives, including slurs and racial epithets. Elaborating on this, writers have argued that the expressive meaning of pejoratives and slurs is either a conventional implicature (Potts 2007) or a presupposition (Macià 2002 and 2014, Schlenker 2007, Cepollaro and Stojanovic 2016). We argue that an expressive presuppositional theory accounts well for the data, but that expressive presuppositions are not just (...) propositions to be added to a common ground. We hold that expressives, including pejoratives and slurs, make requirements on a contextual record governed by sui generis norms specific to affective attitudes and their expressions. (shrink)

What makes someone the same person over time? There are (at least) two ways of understanding this question: A person can be the same in the sense of being very similar to how they used to be (similarity), or they can be the same in the sense of being the same individual (numerical identity). In recent years, several papers have claimed to explore the commonsense notion of numerical identity. However, we suggest here that these researchers have instead been studying similarity. (...) We develop a novel method that uses simple intuitions about objects to illustrate these two notions of “same person”, and then asks which concept applies to instances of personal change. Across 4 studies (N = 2446), we find that these previously documented intuitions are best understood as reflecting judgments about similarity, not identity (Experiments 1 and 2). We then use this method to explore the situations in which participants do perceive a change in numerical identity. We find that when a person's entire brain (Experiments 3 and 4) or soul (Experiment 4) has been replaced with that of another person, the majority of participants judge that numerical identity has changed. However, we also note that a substantial minority of participants denied that identity had changed, opening new questions about the role of the body in intuitive judgments of personal identity. (shrink)

An implicit ambiguity in the field of prediction-based decision-making concerns the relation between the concepts of prediction and decision. Much of the literature in the field tends to blur the boundaries between the two concepts and often simply refers to ‘fair prediction’. In this paper, we point out that a differentiation of these concepts is helpful when trying to implement algorithmic fairness. Even if fairness properties are related to the features of the used prediction model, what is more properly called (...) ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’ is a decision system, not a prediction model. This is because fairness is about the consequences on human lives, created by a decision, not by a prediction. In this paper, we clarify the distinction between the concepts of prediction and decision and show the different ways in which these two elements influence the final fairness properties of a prediction-based decision system. As well as discussing this relationship both from a conceptual and a practical point of view, we propose a framework that enables a better understanding and reasoning of the conceptual logic of creating fairness in prediction-based decision-making. In our framework, we specify different roles, namely the ‘prediction-modeler’ and the ‘decision-maker,’ and the information required from each of them for being able to implement fairness of the system. Our framework allows for deriving distinct responsibilities for both roles and discussing some insights related to ethical and legal requirements. Our contribution is twofold. First, we offer a new perspective shifting the focus from an abstract concept of algorithmic fairness to the concrete context-dependent nature of algorithmic decision-making, where different actors exist, can have different goals, and may act independently. In addition, we provide a conceptual framework that can help structure prediction-based decision problems with respect to fairness issues, identify responsibilities, and implement fairness governance mechanisms in real-world scenarios. (shrink)

Abstract David Sobel (2001) objects to Bernard Williams's internalism, the view that an agent has a reason to perform an action only if she has some motive that will be served by performing that action. Sobel is an unusual challenger in that he endorses neo-Humean subjectivism, ?the view that it is the agent's subjective motivational set that makes it the case that an agent does or does not have a reason to φ? (219). Sobel's objection in fact arises from this (...) very commitment. Internalism, he says, is incompatible with the best subjectivist accounts of reasons for action?accounts that suggest that there are what he calls fragile reasons and perhaps also superfragile ones, both of which allegedly provide for counterexamples to internalism. I argue that such reasons do not in fact threaten internalism. I then briefly explore whether internalism is vulnerable to a related charge?that it commits the conditional fallacy. (shrink)

Religious fictionalism is the theory that it is morally and intellectually legitimate to affirm religious sentences and to engage in public and private religious practices, without believing the content of religious claims. This article discusses the main features of fictionalism, contrasts hermeneutic, and revolutionary kinds of fictionalism and explores possible historical and recent examples of religious fictionalism. Such examples are found in recent theories of faith, pragmatic approaches to religion, and mystical traditions in religious theology.

Epistocratic systems of government have received renewed attention, and considerable opposition, in recent political philosophy. Although they vary significantly in form, epistocracies generally reject universal suffrage. But can they maintain the advantages of universal suffrage despite rejecting it? This paper develops an argument for a significant instrumental advantage of universal suffrage: that governments must take into account the interests of all of those enfranchised in their policy decisions or else risk losing power. This is called ‘the Interests Argument’. One problem (...) for the Interests Argument is that governments are not entirely responsive to voter interests, partly because voters do not always know what is in their interests. I will show how this epistemic claim can be used to support certain forms of epistocracy, but deny that it undermines the Interests Argument. I then consider whether we can identify forms of epistocracy that preserve the benefits of the Interests Argument whilst overcoming the epistemic limitations of democracy. I propose six forms of epistocracy, and argue that two are able to maintain these benefits, hence providing an evaluation of the relative strengths of these epistocracies with respect to one of the most valuable instrumental benefits of universal suffrage. Whilst epistocracy lacks many of the advantages of democracy, this paper shows that some forms fare better than others. (shrink)

The standard theory of electoral accountability treats the electorate as an appraiser of government performance on a range of complex issues, which re-elects or de-elects depending on its evaluation of that performance. This paper draws from studies on voter knowledge and behaviour to present a dilemma for the standard theory: either voters do not know how well their rulers have performed, or if they do, they do not base their votes on that knowledge. It is shown that, on either horn (...) of the dilemma, the standard account of electoral accountability fails, and that attempts to deflate the dilemma through heuristic and aggregative approaches to voter knowledge, or proposals for alternative systems of government, are also inadequate. The paper then sets out and defends an alternative conception of electoral accountability, which holds that electoral accountability is not about micro-assessing a government’s actions. Rather, it is about preventing political rulers from committing or allowing substantial harms to come upon those they govern. This alternative conception is compatible with a realistic view of voter knowledge and behaviour, but nonetheless makes electoral accountability an essential component of a well-functioning democratic system. (shrink)

What is the relationship between faith and evidence? It is often claimed that faith requires going beyond evidence. In this paper, I reject this claim by showing how the moral demands to have faith warrant a person in maintaining faith in the face of counter-evidence, and by showing how the moral demands to have faith, and the moral constraints of evidentialism, are in clear tension with going beyond evidence. In arguing for these views, I develop a taxonomy of different ways (...) of irrationally going beyond evidence and contrast this with rational ways of going against evidence. I then defend instances of having a moral demand to have faith, explore how this stands in tension with going beyond and against evidence, and develop an argument for the claim that faith involves a disposition to go against, but not beyond evidence. (shrink)

Religious fundamentalism remains a significant force in global politics and religion. Despite a range of problems arising from fundamentalism, the beliefs fundamentalists hold can seem quite reasonable. This paper considers whether, in fact, fundamentalist beliefs are rational by drawing on recent ideas in contemporary epistemology. The paper presents a general theory of fundamentalist beliefs in terms of their propositional content and the high credence levels attributed to them. It then explores the way these beliefs are both acquired and retained by (...) applying ideas from the social epistemology of echo chambers and group belief. The paper then considers three accounts of the rationality of belief: evidentialist, reliabilist, and virtue-theoretic. It is argued that fundamentalist beliefs can be reasonable on evidentialist standards, but are nevertheless still problematic on reliabilist and virtue standards, since they are formed in environments that are not truth-conducive and which cultivate intellectual vice. (shrink)

A critical survey of various positions on the nature, use, possession, and analysis of normative concepts. We frame our treatment around G.E. Moore’s Open Question Argument, and the ways metaethicists have responded by departing from a Classical Theory of concepts. In addition to the Classical Theory, we discuss synthetic naturalism, noncognitivism (expressivist and inferentialist), prototype theory, network theory, and empirical linguistic approaches. Although written for a general philosophical audience, we attempt to provide a new perspective and highlight some underappreciated problems (...) about normative concepts. (shrink)

Is propositional religious faith constituted by belief? Recent debate has focussed on whether faith may be constituted by a positive non‐doxastic cognitive state, which can stand in place of belief. This article sets out and defends the doxastic theory. We consider and reject three arguments commonly used in favour of non‐doxastic theories of faith: (1) the argument from religious doubt; (2) the use of ‘faith’ in linguistic utterances; and (3) the possibility of pragmatic faith. We argue that belief is required (...) to maintain a distinction between genuine faith, pretend faith, and fictionalist faith. (shrink)

Echo chambers have received widespread attention in recent years, but there is no agreement over whether they are always epistemically bad for us. Some argue they’re inherently epistemically bad, whilst others claim they can be epistemically good. This paper has three aims. First, to bring together recent studies in this debate, taxonomizing different ways of thinking about the epistemic status of echo chambers. Second, to consider and reject several accounts of what makes echo chambers epistemically harmful or not, and then (...) offer an alternative account which builds on some features of existing accounts. In our view, echo chambers – even those that are truth-conducive – are always epistemically harmful because of their reasons-undermining features, e.g. the way that they impede the development of epistemic reasons which can answer and withstand challenges. This account captures important ideas behind several theories in the epistemology of echo chambers, but offers a richer explanation that does not suffer from their limitations. (shrink)

Do we insult, offend or slight a speaker when we refuse her testimony? Do we compliment, commend or extol a speaker when we accept her testimony? I argue that the answer to both of these questions is “yes”, but only in some instances, since these respective insults and compliments track the reasons a hearer has for rejecting or accepting testimony. When disbelieving a speaker, a hearer may insult her because she judges the speaker to be either incompetent as a knower (...) or insincere as a teller. However, there are many instances where we reject testimony without making this negative evaluation of the speaker, and as such, without paying her an insult. Testimonial compliments are fewer in number, and are not constitutive of “everyday” testimonial exchanges, since, speakers who are competent as knowers and sincere as tellers are merely behaving correctly in accordance with the norms of testifying. Nevertheless, deferring to an authority on belief can be complimentary to that speaker if by doing so we judge her to have some mastery in a particular domain. Testimonial insults and compliments have important moral implications, particularly with regard to epistemic injustice and therapeutic trust. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that faith is a virtue. To what extent faith is a virtue depends on what faith is. One construal of faith, which has been popular in both recent and historical work on faith, is that faith is a matter of taking oneself to have been spoken to by God and of trusting this purported divine testimony. In this paper, I argue that when faith is understood in this way, for faith to be virtuous then it must (...) be accompanied by intellectual humility. I defend this view by showing how someone ought to respond to purported divine testimony if her faith is to be intellectually humble, and how, if it fails in this respect, it will instead be accompanied by the vices of either servility or arrogance. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill has not been considered, for the most part, a useful contributor to debates about either the of individuals in social groups or to the resolution of conflicts between diverse social groups. But Mill's attempt to combine the role of the with the theory of social science requires him to situate the social scientific inquirer in a contingent, historical, and cultural social group and to consider both the prospects and difficulties the diversity of cultural groups presents. By examining (...) the role of and in Mill's thought, Mill's position on the just treatment of diverse groups emerges. Because of the threat posed to liberty and critical rationality by any dominant group, Mill attempts to develop institutional arrangements that prevent any group becoming dominant and that embody critical rationality. A concrete example of such an institutional arrangement is found, somewhat surprisingly, in Mill's India policy. (shrink)

Children’s future-oriented cognition has become a well-established area of research over the last decade. Future-oriented cognition encompasses a range of processes, including those involved in conceiving the future, imagining and preparing for future events, and making decisions that will affect how the future unfolds. We consider recent empirical advances in the study of such processes by outlining key findings that have yielded a clearer picture of how future thinking emerges and changes over childhood. Our interest in future thinking stems from (...) a broader interest in temporal cognition, and we argue that a consideration of developmental changes in how children understand and represent time itself provides a valuable framework in which to study future-oriented cognition. (shrink)

Collective Action, Philosophy and Law brings together two important strands of philosophical analysis. It combines general philosophical inquiry into collective agency with analyses of specific questions about plural entities and activities in the legal domain. These are issues of growing interest in areas of philosophy like action theory and social ontology, as well as in philosophy of law. The book contains thirteen original chapters written by an international team of leading philosophers and legal theorists, and is divided into four clear (...) parts: The nature of law and of legislative intention Practical reasoning and duties Causality, blameworthiness, and responsibility Citizens, states, and institutions. These sections cut across, and build on, different accounts to advance the debate on classical and new issues in collective agency. Each part also features legal-philosophical analyses that draw on general accounts of collective agency to cast new light on the law, descriptive as well as normatively. Collective Action, Philosophy and Law is the first major interdisciplinary and multi-authored work bridging legal and philosophical approaches to collective agency. As such, it is essential reading for students and researchers of philosophy of law, ethics, political philosophy, jurisprudence, and legal theory. (shrink)

What is extremism, and how can it be countered? According to a recent account by (Cassam, 2021), there are three kinds of extremism: ideological, methodological, and psychological. The psychological kind – what Cassam calls ‘mindset extremism’ – is used by Cassam to explain what leads individuals to resort to extreme methods. From there we can say that methods extremism can be countered by preventing people from becoming mindset extremists. This paper outlines Cassam’s overall theory, and challenges it in two respects. (...) First, it is argued that whilst mindset extremism does account for some individuals, it applies more readily to groups in a way analogous to the contrast between individual and group belief. This creates space for an account of group mindset extremism. Second, I propose that Cassam’s account of the role mindset extremism occupies in predicting an individual’s turn to extreme methods underplays the social aspects that lead the individual to form the mindset. By acknowledging these social and group properties, we can begin to develop a social epistemology of extremism. (shrink)

Our understanding of what it means to be a parent is shaped by our biological, social, legal, and moral concepts of parenthood. This book combines traditional philosophical methods with research in the broader social sciences and humanities to explore the dilemmas which challenge our understanding of parenthood today.

Civility is often treated as an essential virtue in liberal democracies that promise to protect diversity as well as active disagreement in the public sphere. Yet the fear that our tolerant society faces a crisis of incivility is gaining ground. Politicians and public intellectuals call for "more civility" as the solution--but is civility really a virtue? Or is it something more sinister--a covert demand for conformity that silences dissent? Mere Civility sheds light on this tension in contemporary political theory and (...) practice by examining similar appeals to civility in early modern debates about religious toleration. In seventeenth-century England, figures as different as Roger Williams, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke could agree that some restraint on the wars of words and "persecution of the tongue" between sectarians would be required; and yet, they recognized that the prosecution of incivility was often difficult to distinguish from persecution.--. (shrink)

An account of the development of temporal understanding is proposed which links such understanding with the development of episodic memory. We distinguish between different ways of representing time in terms of the kinds of temporal frameworks they involve. Distinctions are made between frameworks that are perspectival or nonperspectival and those that represent recurrent sequences or particular times. Even primitive temporal understanding integrates both perspectival and nonperspectival components. However, since early frameworks are event-based and localized, they are not yet sufficient for (...) episodic memory in that they do not enable the child to think of events as having occurred at particular points in time. We describe the emergence of new kinds of frameworks in terms of the development of temporal decentering. Two levels of temporal decentering are distinguished, with the higher level involving an appreciation of how event representations depend on one's temporal perspective. (shrink)