Activating relevant responses is a key function of automatic processes in De Neys's model; however, what determines the order or magnitude of such activation is ambiguous. Focusing on recently developed sequential sampling models of choice, we argue that proactive control shapes response generation but does not cleanly fit into De Neys's automatic-deliberative distinction, highlighting the need for further model development.

Consider an agent who faces choice problems and learns information about an objective state of the world through a technology of sequential experiments. We consider two cases of learning costs. In the first, the agent discounts future payoffs geometrically. In the second, she incurs a constant flow cost of time. If the observable data consist only of the joint distributions over chosen actions and decision times, an analyst can uniquely identify the discount factor in the first case and the (...) flow cost of time in the second case. Moreover, we show how an analyst can recover the agent’s ex ante welfare in both cases, besides identifying her prior belief. Our approach does not rely on any knowledge about the underlying sequential experiment. (shrink)

In contexts of exposure to atypical stress or adversity, individual and collective resilience refers to the process of sustaining wellbeing by leveraging biological, psychological, social and environmental protective and promotive factors and processes. This multisystemic understanding of resilience is generating significant interest but has been difficult to operationalize in psychological research where studies tend to address only one or two systems at a time, often with a primary focus on individual coping strategies. We show how multiple systems implicated in human (...) resilience can be researched in the same study using a longitudinal, six-phase transformative sequential mixed methods study of 14- to 24-year-olds and their elders in two communities dependent on oil and gas industries. Data collection occurred over a 5-year period, and included: community engagement and the identification of youth health and well-being priorities; participatory youth-centric qualitative research using one-on-one semi-structured interviews and arts-based methods; survey of 500 youth at three time points to assess psychosocial health indicators and outcomes; collection of hair samples to assess stress biomarkers over time; youth-led ecological data collection and assessment of historical socio-economic development data; and community resource mapping with community elders. Analyzing data from these multiple systems will allow us to understand the interrelationship and impact of PPFPs within and across systems. To date, we have undertaken thematic and narrative qualitative analyses, and descriptive analyses of the preliminary ecological and survey data. As we proceed, we will combine these and grounded theory approaches with innovative techniques such as latent transition analysis and network analysis, as well as modeling of economic conditions and spatial analysis of human geographies to understand patterns of PPFPs and their inter-relationships. By analyzing the complexity of data collected across systems we are demonstrating the possibility of conducting multisystemic resilience research which expands the way psychological research accounts for positive development under stress in different contexts. This comprehensive examination of resilience may offer an example of how the study of resilience can inform socially and contextually relevant interventions and policies. (shrink)

Evidence accumulation has been the core component in recent development of perceptual and value-based decision-making theories. Most studies have focused on the evaluation of evidence between alternative options. What remains largely unknown is the process that prepares evidence: how may the decision-maker sample different sources of information sequentially, if they can only sample one source at a time? Here we propose a normative framework in prescribing how different sources of information should be sampled proactively to facilitate the decision process: beliefs (...) for different noisy sources are updated in a Bayesian manner and participants can proactively allocate resource for sampling (i.e. saccades) among different sources to maximize the information gain in such process. We show that our framework can account for human participants’ actual choice and saccade behaviors in a two-alternative value-based decision-making task. Moreover, our framework makes novel predictions about the empirical eye movement patterns. (shrink)

The present study explores the influence of challenge stressors on identity orientation directly and via thriving at work and employee investment. Drawing on the broaden–and–build theory of positive emotions, this study proposes challenge stressors as a critical predictor of identity orientation. The purpose of this article is to explore if a particular identity is salient in different contextual factors, and this study suggests that challenge stressors stimulate personal, relational, and collective identities to respond to a situation. The relationships hypothesized in (...) this study were tested using a sample of 225 employees from the banking sector of Pakistan. A time-lagged research design consisting of two waves of data collection was employed. A structural equation modeling technique was used to test the hypotheses regarding the relationship between challenge stressors and identity orientation, including the role of thriving at work and employee investment as intervening mechanisms of this relationship. Results showed that challenge stressors had a significant positive relationship with identity orientation. The results also confirmed the sequential mediation of thriving at work and employee investment in the relationship between challenge stressors and identity orientation. The findings suggest that the positive side of stress as a strength motivates employees for continued self-development. Importantly, challenge stressors enhance employees’ ability to thrive at work and, in turn, they invest in the work more and identify themselves strongly with their organization and work. (shrink)

The ability to learn sequential contingencies of actions for predicting future outcomes is indispensable for flexible behavior in many daily decision-making contexts. It remains open whether such ability may be enhanced by transcranial direct current stimulation. The present study combined tDCS with functional near-infrared spectroscopy to investigate potential tDCS-induced effects on sequential decision-making and the neural mechanisms underlying such modulations. Offline tDCS and sham stimulation were applied over the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in young male adults (...) in a double-blind between-subject design using a three-state Markov decision task. The results showed an enhanced dlPFC hemodynamic response during the acquisition of sequential state transitions that is consistent with the findings from a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging study; a tDCS-induced increase of the hemodynamic response in the dlPFC, but without accompanying performance-enhancing effects at the behavioral level; and a greater tDCS-induced upregulation of hemodynamic responses in the delayed reward condition that seems to be associated with faster decision speed. Taken together, these findings provide empirical evidence for fNIRS as a suitable method for investigating hemodynamic correlates of sequential decision-making as well as functional brain correlates underlying tDCS-induced modulation. Future research with larger sample sizes for carrying out subgroup analysis is necessary in order to decipher interindividual differences in tDCS-induced effects on sequential decision-making process at the behavioral and brain levels. (shrink)

Conversation analysis is now what Kuhn once called a normal science. It has a discernible body of concepts, methods, and recognizable objects of analysis. More importantly, its considerable archive of accumulated findings has a very high degree of redundancy-in the positive sense that researchers have continually replicated the findings of their colleagues. It ought, then, in every respect, to be the envy of the social sciences generally and not easily dismissed as an abstruse and recondite branch of language studies or (...) "discourse analysis" concerned with merely trivial fragments of recorded talk as such. To help CA be respecified in this way, the present paper unearths a relatively unknown part of its history in the partial book manuscript of Harvey Sacks's "Aspects of the Sequential Organization of Conversation," circulated in mimeo to colleagues in 1970. There we find innumerable appeals to the now well-recognized fact that the practical actions of everyday talk have significant, culturewide, formal structures that are the proper objects of the discipline. Or, in Sacks's own terms, seemingly insignificant mundane events are generated by a powerful social "machinery." The purpose of this paper is, then, to extract a sample of these aspects of Sacks's "Aspects" in order to illustrate, sketch, or give a preliminary sense of just that point. (shrink)

Though largely ignored by educators and researchers, boredom, an aversive emotion, is the hurdle for many translation learners to be professional. It is all the more important to unpack the boredom factors of Chinese foreign language major students in translation classes, which will serve in promoting students’ engagement in L2 classes and translator cultivation. By using a sequential mixed approach, this study conducted a thematic analysis and built a structural equation model. Quantitative data were gleaned from 483 foreign major (...) college students in China and qualitative data were selected from students of 7 universities through snowball sampling. Initially, the first-order confirmatory factor analysis verified the adapted questionnaire and the second-order CFA finds each factor’s contribution. Then, the thematic analysis gives support to the empirical findings. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that task-based boredom is the most routinely experienced boredom. Moreover, two major sources of boredom in translation classes are found, including task-based boredom and teacher-related boredom. It is suggested that teachers should improve their classes and use more interesting and engaging materials and tasks with the proper level of difficulty. The finding can help educators to identify the major boredom in the translation class and help potential professional translators to grow. Future studies will also be facilitated by the present study to find approaches to tackle these boredom sources. (shrink)

With today’s increasingly dynamic and competitive business environment, creativity is critical for enterprises to enhance their competitiveness. Companies today invest and seek new ways to enhance creativity of employees within the organization. Our study describes the effects of servant leadership, psychological safety, and employee well-being on creativity under the conservation of resources theory. We used a sample of 252 full-time employees in the United Kingdom who had been recruited online and collected their data for analysis. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses (...) to test the validity of the measurement model and regression to evaluate the direct effects. Subsequently, we used bootstrapping to confirm mediation and serial mediation effects. The results showed that servant leadership was positively related to creativity and that psychological safety and employee well-being were serial mediators between them. (shrink)

Past studies have reported emotional intelligence as a relevant factor in development and maintenance of eating disorders, as well as in increasing self-esteem and reducing anxiety. Similarly, research has showed that anxiety and self-esteem are positively and negatively associated to ED criteria, respectively. However, no prior studies have yet tested the multiple intervening roles of both self-esteem and anxiety as potential mediators of the association between EI and ED symptomatology. The present study aims to bridge these gaps by testing a (...) sequential path model. Specifically, we examine the potential sequential mediation effects of self-esteem-anxiety on the link between EI and ED. A sample composed of 516 Spanish undergraduate students and community adults completed measures of EI, self-esteem, anxiety, and ED symptomatology. The results show that high levels of EI were positively associated with self-esteem and negatively associated with anxiety and ED symptoms. Anxiety was positively associated to ED symptoms, while self-esteem levels were negatively linked to ED symptoms. Moreover, path analyses showed that self-esteem and anxiety fully mediated the relationship between EI and ED symptoms in sequence. These findings suggest that EI plays a key role in reducing symptomatology of ED through increased self-esteem and reduced anxiety symptoms, providing novel evidence regarding psychological mechanisms through which EI contributes to a reduction of ED symptomatology. Implications for assessing and improving these psychological resources in ED preventive programs are discussed. (shrink)

ObjectiveCaring for patients with Alzheimer’s disease is a stressful situation and an overwhelming task for family caregivers. Therefore, these caregivers need to have their hardiness empowered to provide proper and appropriate care to these older adults. From the introduction of the concept of hardiness, few studies have been conducted to assess the hardiness of caregivers of patients with AD. Presumably, one reason for this knowledge gap is the lack of a proper scale to evaluate hardiness in this group. This study (...) was conducted to develop a reliable and valid Family Caregivers’ Hardiness Scale to measure this concept accurately among Iranian family caregivers sample.MethodsThis study is a cross-sectional study with a sequential-exploratory mixed-method approach. The concept of family caregivers’ hardiness was clarified using deductive content analysis, and item pools were generated. In the psychometric step, the samples were 435 family caregivers with a mean age of 50.26, and the data were gathered via an online form questionnaire. In this step, the items of the FCHS were evaluated using face and content validity. Then, the factor structure was determined and confirmed using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis followed by convergent and divergent validity, respectively. Finally, scale reliability, including stability, and internal consistency were evaluated.ResultsThe finding revealed that FCHS consists of five factors, namely, “Religious Coping”, “Self-Management”, “Empathic Communication”, “Family Affective Commitment”, and “Purposeful Interaction” that explained 58.72% of the total variance. The results of CFA showed a good model fit. Reliability showed acceptable internal consistency and stability.ConclusionBased on the results of the psychometric evaluation of the FCHS, turned out that the concept of hardiness in Iranian family caregivers is a multidimensional concept that is most focused on individual-cultural values, emotional family relationships, and social relationships. The designed scale also has acceptable validity and reliability features that can be used in future studies to measure this concept in family caregivers. (shrink)

Conversation analysis (CA) is now what Kuhn once called a normal science. It has a discernible body of concepts, methods, and recognizable objects of analysis. More importantly, its considerable archive of accumulated findings has a very high degree of redundancy–in the positive sense that researchers have continually replicated the findings of their colleagues. It ought, then, in every respect, to be the envy of the social sciences generally and not easily dismissed as an abstruse and recondite branch of language studies (...) or “discourse analysis” concerned with merely trivial fragments of recorded talk as such. To help CA be respecified in this way, the present paper unearths a relatively unknown part of its history in the partial book manuscript of Harvey Sacks’s Aspects of the Sequential Organization of Conversation, circulated in mimeo to colleagues in 1970. There we find innumerable appeals to the now well-recognized fact that the practical actions of everyday talk have significant, culture-wide, formal structures that are the proper objects of the discipline. Or, in Sacks’s own terms, seemingly insignificant mundane events are generated by a powerful (if not always intuitively accessible) social “machinery.” The purpose of this paper is, then, to extract a sample of these aspects of Sacks’s Aspects in order to illustrate, sketch, or give a preliminary sense of just that point. (shrink)

For enhancing the stability of the microgrid operation, this paper proposes an optimization model considering the small-signal stability constraint. Due to the nonsmooth property of the spectral abscissa function, the droop controller parameters’ optimization is a nonsmooth optimization problem. The Sequential Quadratic Programming with Gradient Sampling is implemented to optimize the droop controller parameters for solving the nonsmooth problem. The SQP-GS method can guarantee the solution of the optimization problem globally and efficiently converges to stationary points with probability (...) of one. In the current iteration, the gradient of the nonsmooth function can be evaluated on a set of randomly generated nearby points by computing closed-form sensitivities. A test on the microgrid system shows that the optimality and the efficiency of the SQP-GS are better than those of the heuristic algorithms. (shrink)

Exploitation locates what it is we recognize as bad when we judge a situation to be exploitative. Ideal for courses in social and political philosophy, public policy, or political science.

This paper aims to resolve an unremarked-upon tension between Anne Conway’s commitment to the moral responsibility of created beings, or creatures, and her commitment to emanative, constant creation. Emanation causation has an atemporal aspect according to which God’s act of will coexists with its effect. There is no before or after, or past or future in God’s causal contribution. Additionally, Conway’s constant creation picture has it that all times are determined via divine emanation. Creaturely agency, by contrast, is fundamentally temporal, (...) occurring successively over time. It is unclear how creatures can count as emanative causes, which coexists with its effect, given that their agency is limited by time, proceeding from before to after, or past to future. Conway’s account of divine justice in the progress of time, however, requires that creatures are causally responsible. That is, moral responsibility requires causal responsibility. I propose that Conway’s distinction between vital motion and local motion enables a resolution of the tension. Vital motion contributes an atemporal aspect to creaturely agency so that creatures can count as secondary emanative causes. (shrink)

Promising new solutions or risking unprecedented harms, science and its technological affordances are increasingly portrayed as matters of global concern, requiring in-kind responses. In a wide range of recent discourses and global initiatives, from the International Summits on Human Gene Editing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, experts and policymakers routinely invoke cosmopolitan aims. The common rhetoric of a shared human future or of one humanity, however, does not always correspond to practice. Global inequality and a lack of accountability (...) within most institutional contexts of international governance render these cosmopolitan proclamations of ‘one human community’ incoherent and even harmful. More generally, there exists no shared normative standard for the cosmopolitan governance of science, with which such global initiatives could be evaluated. Taking a broadly philosophical perspective, the present paper aims to better understand this problem situation, identifying three high-level challenges global governance of technoscience: problematic ideals of technology and science, the unjust formation of “global” concerns, and the limitations of cosmopolitan theory. By holistically engaging these jointly empirical and normative sites of inquiry, scholars can better support humanity’s re-imagination of technoscientific practices within and beyond the nation-state. (shrink)

What are philosophers doing when they prescribe a particular epistemology for science? According to science and technology studies, the answer to this question implicates both knowledge and politics, even when the latter is hidden. Exploring this dynamic via a specific case, I argue that Longino’s “critical contextual empiricism” ultimately relies on a form of political liberalism. Her choice to nevertheless foreground epistemological concerns can be clarified by considering historical relationships between science and society, as well as the culture of academic (...) philosophy. This example, I conclude, challenges philosophers of science to consider the political ideals and accountability entailed by their prescribed knowledge practices. (shrink)

Scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals are currently developing a variety of new devices under the category of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Current and future applications are both medical/assistive (e.g., for communication) and non-medical (e.g., for gaming). This array of possibilities comes with ethical challenges for all stakeholders. As a result, BCIs have been an object of both hope and concern in various media. We argue that these conflicting sentiments can be productively understood in terms of personhood, specifically the impact of BCIs (...) on what it means to be a person and to be recognized as such by others. To understand the dynamics of personhood in the context of BCI use and investigate whether ethical guidance is required, a meeting entitled "BCIs and Personhood: A Deliberative Workshop" was held in May 2018. In this article, we describe how BCIs raise important questions about personhood and propose recommendations for BCI development and governance. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Simon Baron-Cohen has argued that autism and related developmental disorders (sometimes called “autism spectrum conditions” or “autism spectrum disorders”) can be usefully thought of as the condition of possessing an “extreme male brain.” The impetus for regarding autism spectrum disorders (ASD) this way has been the accepted science regarding the etiology of autism, as developed over that past several decades. Three important features of this etiology ground the Extreme Male Brain theory. First, ASD is disproportionately male (approximately 10:1 in (...) the case of Asperger’s Syndrome or high-functioning autism (HFA) and approximately 4:1 in the case of autistic disorder). Second, ASD is not psychogenic but biological in origin, and hence is not the product of sexist conditioning or childrearing practices, although these may affect the development of the disorder. Third, ASD is regarded as a spectrum developmental disorder, unlike other disorders such as Down Syndrome that are diagnosed by a (nearly) binary criterion. Down Syndrome, for example, is diagnosed by the presence in all or most cells within a given individual of an extra copy of Chromosome 21. Autism, on the other hand, is diagnosed by the presence of a set of symptoms that vary in their intensity and in their milder forms seem to conform to purported sex differences in cognitive, emotional, and social functioning. -/- In this paper, I do not challenge accepted science regarding the etiology of autism, and I do not challenge the idea of ASD as a disorder. Nor do I wish to offer an alternative account of what autism is. Instead, I focus on the usefulness of thinking of a disorder as an extreme version of ordinary sex differences. Does it follow from the fact that a disorder is more often found in men that we should think of it as an extreme form of maleness? If not, what other conditions must be met in order to warrant this way of thinking about ASD? What does it mean to say that ASD is a form of “extreme male brain”? Feminists are rightly skeptical of theories that make claims about male and female brains, so how should we respond to the clear evidence that the differences between typical and ASD individuals are not caused by childrearing practices? I explain what I take to be Baron-Cohen’s central argument that autism should be seen as the extreme male brain, and critique that argument. I conclude that there is no good argument that autistic symptoms should be regarded as an extreme form of male mental traits, and that Baron-Cohen’s claim does not help us to understand autism, women, or men. His claim is a speculative thesis that is readily mobilized for sexist practices. As such it requires a higher threshold for evidentiary support and rigorous argumentation—support and argumentation that does not exist. -/- KEYWORDS: autism, brain, gender, neuroscience, feminism, male . (shrink)

Declaring a cosmopolitan right to scientific progress risks perpetuating many of the inequities it aims to overcome. This calls for a re-imagination of science that directly responds to science’s links to violent nationalist projects and the harms of capitalism.

Conway characterizes freedom in apparently contradictory ways. She describes God as the most free, yet he is necessitated to act perfectly due to his wisdom and goodness. Created beings, by contrast, sin. They are not necessitated to do so. This suggests that Conway has a binary account of freedom: divine freedom is a matter of being necessitated by wisdom and goodness, whereas creaturely freedom consists in indifference, understood as a power to act, or not act. Despite the apparently conflicting remarks, (...) I argue that Conway has a single account of freedom as spontaneity. Conway defines spontaneity in terms of causing one’s own action independent of external causes. I suggest that spontaneity is more precisely understood as an intrinsic power aimed at the good in Conway’s metaphysics, and that this account of freedom can combine necessity and contingency. Rather than a binary, Conway offers an account of freedom in creation that has it on a continuum with divine freedom. (shrink)

When interpreters orient Kant in relation to contemporary philosophy of time, they claim that the B series is dependent on the A series. However, I claim that the opposite direction of dependence is also supported, due to Kant’s position that change is both intelligible and involves incompatibility. This paper extends the contemporary description of Kant’s philosophy of time to show that Kant endorses the interdependence of A series and B series views on time.

Kant’s ethics provides surprising resources for addressing duties with respect to climate change. First, I show how Kant’s moral metaphysics, according to which the self is a phenomenon, provides a distinctive ground to mitigate the harm of climate change for future generations. In short, the physical appearances of our actions are grounded in an atemporal existence from which our intrinsic moral value derives. As such, the a priori basis for addressing climate duties to the present is no different from that (...) of duties to address climate duties to the future, though we must consider present circumstances in order to act effectively. Second, I show that recent helpful contributions towards understanding the resources of Kantian ethics for addressing climate face the following prima facie dilemma: perfect duties to reduce emissions are overly demanding because it requires reduction below subsistence levels, while imperfect duties to reduce emissions are not demanding enough to address the climate crisis. Without ruling out the existence of perfect duties to address climate, I analyze the latter horn of the dilemma and show how imperfect duties can be more demanding than one might have thought, given that we are in a climate emergency. Recent work on the role of emergency in Kant’s ethics has shown that there are resources for making sense of the prioritization of some concerns as more pressing. Overall, the aim of this contribution is to highlight some of the prospects and problems that face Kantian approaches to climate ethics. (shrink)

If we cannot define science using only analysis or description, then we must rely on imagination to provide us with suitable objects of philosophical inquiry. This process ties our intellectual findings to the particular ways in which we philosophers think about scientific practice and carve out a cognitive space between real world practice and conceptual abstraction. As an example, I consider Heather Douglas’s work on the responsibilities of scientists and document her implicit ideal of science, defined primarily as an epistemic (...) practice. I then contrast her idealization of science with an alternative: “technoscience,” a heuristic concept used to describe nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and similar “Mode 2” forms of research. This comparison reveals that one’s preferred imaginary of science, even when inspired by real practices, has significant implications for the distribution of responsibility. Douglas’s account attributes moral obligations to scientists, while the imaginaries associated with “technoscience” and “Mode 2 science” spread responsibility across the network of practice. This dynamic between mind and social order, I argue, demands an ethics of imagination in which philosophers of science hold themselves accountable for their imaginaries. Extending analogous challenges from feminist philosophy and Mills’s. “Ideal Theory’ as Ideology,” I conclude that we ought to reflect on the idiosyncrasy of the philosophical imagination and consider how our idealizations of science, if widely held, would affect our communities and broader society. (shrink)

Since the 1960s, scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals have developed brain–computer interface (BCI) technologies, connecting the user’s brain activity to communication or motor devices. This new technology has also captured the imagination of publics, industry, and ethicists. Academic ethics has highlighted the ethical challenges of BCIs, although these conclusions often rely on speculative or conceptual methods rather than empirical evidence or public engagement. From a social science or empirical ethics perspective, this tendency could be considered problematic and even technocratic because (...) of its disconnect from publics. In response, our trinational survey (Germany, Canada, and Spain) reports public attitudes toward BCIs (N = 1,403) on ethical issues that were carefully derived from academic ethics literature. The results show moderately high levels of concern toward agent-related issues (e.g., changing the user’s self) and consequence-related issues (e.g., new forms of hacking). Both facets of concern were higher among respondents who reported as female or as religious, while education, age, own and peer disability, and country of residence were associated with either agent-related or consequence-related concerns. These findings provide a first look at BCI attitudes across three national contexts, suggesting that the language and content of academic BCI ethics may resonate with some publics and their values. (shrink)

Headlines in 2019 are inundated with claims about the “digital society,” making sweeping assertions of societal benefits and dangers caused by a range of technologies. This situation would seem an ideal motivation for ethics research, and indeed much research on this topic is published, with more every day. However, ethics researchers may feel a sense of déjà vu, as they recall decades of other heavily promoted technological platforms, from genomics and nanotechnology to machine learning. How should ethics researchers respond to (...) the waves of rhetoric and accompanying academic and policy-oriented research? What makes the digital society significant for ethics research? In this paper, we consider two examples of digital technologies (artificial intelligence and neural technologies), showing the pattern of societal and academic resources dedicated to them. This pattern, we argue, reveals the jointly sociological and ethical character of significance attributed to emerging technologies. By attending to insights from pragmatism and science and technology studies, ethics researchers can better understand how these features of significance affect their work and adjust their methods accordingly. In short, we argue that the significance driving ethics research should be grounded in public engagement, critical analysis of technology’s “vanguard visions,” and in a personal attitude of reflexivity. (shrink)

Ranging from miniaturized biological robots to organoids, multi-cellular engineered living systems (M-CELS) pose complex ethical and societal challenges. Some of these challenges, such as how to best distribute risks and benefits, are likely to arise in the development of any new technology. Other challenges arise specifically because of the particular characteristics of M-CELS. For example, as an engineered living system becomes increasingly complex, it may provoke societal debate about its moral considerability, perhaps necessitating protection from harm or recognition of positive (...) moral and legal rights, particularly if derived from cells of human origin. The use of emergence-based principles in M-CELS development may also create unique challenges, making the technology difficult to fully control or predict in the laboratory as well as in applied medical or environmental settings. In response to these challenges, we argue that the M-CELS community has an obligation to systematically address the ethical and societal aspects of research and to seek input from and accountability to a broad range of stakeholders and publics. As a newly developing field, M-CELS has a significant opportunity to integrate ethically responsible norms and standards into its research and development practices from the start. With the aim of seizing this opportunity, we identify two general kinds of salient ethical issues arising from M-CELS research, and then present a set of commitments to and strategies for addressing these issues. If adopted, these commitments and strategies would help define M-CELS as not only an innovative field, but also as a model for responsible research and engineering. (shrink)

Kyle Stanford’s reformulation of the problem of underdetermination has the potential to highlight the epistemic obligations of scientists. Stanford, however, presents the phenomenon of unconceived alternatives as a problem for realists, despite critics’ insistence that we have contextual explanations for scientists’ failure to conceive of their successors’ theories. I propose that responsibilist epistemology and the concept of “role oughts,” as discussed by Lorraine Code and Richard Feldman, can pacify Stanford’s critics and reveal broader relevance of the “new induction.” The possibility (...) of unconceived alternatives pushes us to question our contemporary expectation for scientists to reason outside of their historical moment. (shrink)

Title: Political Theology Publisher: The MIT Press ISBN: 0262192446 Author: Carl Schmitt Title: The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy Publisher: The MIT Press ISBN: 0262691264 Author: Carl Schmitt.

If we cannot define science using only analysis or description, then we must rely on imagination to provide us with suitable objects of philosophical inquiry. This process links our findings to the particular ways in which we philosophers idealize scientific practice and carve out an experimental space between real world practice and thought experiments. As an example, I examine Heather Douglas’ recent work on the responsibilities of scientists and contrast her account of science with that of “technoscience,” as mobilized in (...) nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and similar control-oriented fields. The difference between the two idealizations of science reveals that one’s preferred imaginary of science, even when inspired by real practices, has real implications for the distribution of responsibility. Douglas’ account attributes moral obligations to scientists, while a framework of “technoscience” spreads responsibility across the network of practice. I use this case to call for an ethics of imagination, in which philosophers of science hold themselves accountable for their imaginaries. We ought reflect on the idiosyncrasy of the philosophical imagination and consider how our idealizations, if widely held, would affect our fellow citizens. (shrink)

The ultimate aim of this dissertation is to determine whether libertarian theories of property can be adequately grounded in Locke's theory of natural rights. I defend the thesis that Locke's theory has no room for a fundamental commitment to natural rights, including property rights. ;In the first three chapters, I challenge each component of the dominant interpretation of Locke's theory of property in this century, viz., that of C. B. Macpherson. In Chapter One, I criticize Macpherson's claim that Locke's view (...) allows unlimited appropriation. In Chapter Two, I agree with Macpherson that Locke defended a state in which the franchise was restricted to those who held significant property, viz., land. However, this can be reconciled with an initial contract into civil society that meets certain standards of rationality and fairness. Thus, while political power is not equally distributed in the state Locke describes, that is not necessarily inconsistent with a rational, free, and voluntary social contract. This shows that we need not see Locke as committed to the interests of the wealthiest members of society. In Chapter Three, I agree with Macpherson that Locke's view is that the purpose of contracting out of the state of nature is the protection of one's property. But I briefly argue that Macpherson does not take seriously Locke's concept of property right and the wide range of objects that count as property. If we pay careful attention to Locke's terminology, we can see that although the purpose of the state is the protection of property, that does not guarantee greater protection for the wealthy than it ensures the poor. ;In Chapter Four, I challenge a quite different thesis. James Tully has argued that Locke did not defend private property at all, but attacked it. I criticize this interpretation on the grounds that Locke explicitly allows certain practices that Tully takes to be violations of the law of nature as Locke construes it. I also criticize the claim that certain developments in a commercial economy, such as the consumption of valuable land, necessarily violate the law of nature. In addition, I argue that the idea of conventionally established property rights is inconsistent with Locke's account of how and why government comes to be established. ;In Chapter Five, I provide an account of the principles underlying Locke's account of rights, both within and without civil society. I argue that Locke's view is improperly construed as a view which gives pride of place to rights. Rather, rights are almost always derivative from duties, and in those cases where they are not derivative, they are subordinate to certain primary duties that oblige us in virtue of our status as God's creations. (shrink)

Philosophy: The Big Questions occupies a unique position among introductory texts in philosophy. Designed for a single-semester introductory course in philosophy, it includes both classic readings in philosophy and newer articles. Presents, in one volume, canonical and contemporary works in ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and epistemology. Topics discussed include knowledge, religion, freedom, morality, and the meaning of life. Serves as a comprehensive and compelling introduction to philosophy. Together with traditional readings it also presents non-traditional, feminist eadings from a continental (...) perspectives. (shrink)

This article discusses how sequential sampling models can be integrated in a cognitive architecture. The new theory Retrieval by Accumulating Evidence in an Architecture (RACE/A) combines the level of detail typically provided by sequential sampling models with the level of task complexity typically provided by cognitive architectures. We will use RACE/A to model data from two variants of a picture–word interference task in a psychological refractory period design. These models will demonstrate how RACE/A enables interactions between (...) sequential sampling and long-term declarative learning, and between sequential sampling and task control. In a traditional sequential sampling model, the onset of the process within the task is unclear, as is the number of sampling processes. RACE/A provides a theoretical basis for estimating the onset of sequential sampling processes during task execution and allows for easy modeling of multiple sequential sampling processes within a task. (shrink)