William Osler's description of the ideal physician remains the dominant character-ideal for modern physicians. He believed that the personality traits that resulted from a belief in ascetic Protestantism, what has been called the Puritan temper, were essential in the practice of medicine. However, this idealism has been weakened by modern psychological theories which view idealism as an illness. In a culture oriented to health, rather than virtue, as an ultimate ideal, physicians can help develop a science of limits.

Life history theory is a fruitful source of testable hypotheses about human individual differences. However, this field of study is beset by unresolved debates about basic concepts and methods. One of these controversies concerns the usefulness of instruments that purport to tap a unidimensional life history factor based on a set of self-reported personality, social, and attitudinal variables. Here, we take a novel approach to analyzing the psychometrics of two variants of the Arizona Life History Battery: the Mini-K and the (...) K-SF-42. Psychological network analysis generates models in which psychological variables comprise the nodes of a network, while partial correlation coefficients between these variables comprise the edges of the network. Centrality indices operationalize each node’s importance based on the pattern of the connections in which that node plays a role. Because childhood environments are hypothesized to influence adult LH, we tested the hypothesis that among the Mini-K items, and the K-SF-42 scales, those that tap relationships with parents are central to the networks constructed from these instruments. In an MTurk sample and an undergraduate sample that completed the Mini-K, and an MTurk sample that completed the K-SF-42, this hypothesis was falsified. Indeed, the “relationships with parents” items were among the most peripheral in all three networks. We propose that network analysis, as an alternative to latent variable modeling, offers considerable potential to test hypotheses about the input-output mappings of specific evolved psychological mechanisms. (shrink)

Consider someone whom you know to be an expert about some issue. She knows at least as much as you do and reasons impeccably. The issue is a straightforward case of statistical inference that raises no deep problems of epistemology. You happen to know the expert’s opinion on this issue. Should you defer to her by adopting her opinion as your own? An affirmative answer may appear mandatory. But this paper argues that a crucial factor in answering this question is (...) the description under which you identify the expert. Experts may be identified under various descriptions (e.g., “the expert appearing on Channel 7 at 5 pm”). Section 2 provides cases that illustrate how deference to a known expert may be appropriate under some descriptions, but not others. Section 3 proposes that, in these cases, the differentiating factor is self-identification: deference to an expert under a given description is appropriate when the expert self-identifies under that description. Section 4 presents a formal framework that demonstrates the sufficiency of self-identification for appropriate deference within a significant class of cases. Section 5 notes a way in which this phenomenon allows for a form of “agreeing to disagree” in Robert Aumann’s sense. Section 6 illustrates the practical application of these results to the case of testimonials. (shrink)

If the global economy seems unfair, how should we understand what a fair global economy would be? What ideas of fairness, if any, apply, and what significance do they have for policy and law? Working within the social contract tradition, this book argues that fairness is best seen as a kind of equity in practice.

While there are many issues to be raised in using lethal autonomous robotic weapons (beyond those of remotely operated drones), we argue that the most important question is: should the decision to take a human life be relinquished to a machine? This question is often overlooked in favor of technical questions of sensor capability, operational questions of chain of command, or legal questions of sovereign borders. We further argue that the answer must be ?no? and offer several reasons for banning (...) autonomous robots. (1) Such a robot treats a human as an object, instead of as a person with inherent dignity. (2) A machine can only mimic moral actions, it cannot be moral. (3) A machine run by a program has no human emotions, no feelings about the seriousness of killing a human. (4) Using such a robot would be a violation of military honor. We therefore conclude that the use of an autonomous robot in lethal operations should be banned. (shrink)

This discussion responds to important questions raised about my theory of fairness in the global economy by Christian Barry, Charles Beitz, A.J. Julius and Kristi Olson. I further elaborate how moral argument can be ‘internal’ to a social practice, how my proposed principles of fairness depend on international practice, how I can admit several relevant conceptions of ‘harm’ and why my account does not depend on a problematic conception of societal ‘endowments’.

New and distinctive approaches to five central topics in musical aesthetics are provided in this outstanding book. The topics are: understanding, representation, expression, performance and profundity.

Over the past couple of decades, there has been an ongoing, often fierce, debate about the ethics of biobank participation. One central element of that debate has concerned the nature of informed consent, must specific reconsent be gained for each new use, or user, or is broad consent ethically adequate? Recently, Thomas Ploug and Søren Holm have developed an alternative to both specific and broad consent: what they call a meta-consent framework. On a meta-consent framework, participants can choose the type (...) of consent framework they require, for different kinds of use, different types of user and so on. Meta-consent involves a distinctive kind of design of the consent process. Here it is argued, first, that although a meta-consent framework does not wrong participants, Ploug and Holm understate the likely costs and burdens of such a framework, so there are good practical reasons not to offer it. Second, although Ploug and Holm allude to some ethical considerations that might seem to ground an ethical argument for providing meta-consent, they do not offer any sound argument, and it does not wrong participants in any way to fail to offer them the opportunity to design their own consent process. (shrink)

The Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) is a variant of the Design Argument for the existence of God. In this paper the evidence of fine-tuning is explained and the Fine-Tuning Design Argument for God is presented. Then two objections are covered. The first objection is that fine-tuning can be explained in terms of the existence of multiple universes (the 'multiverse') plus the operation of the anthropic principle. The second objection is the 'normalizability problem'– the objection that the Fine-Tuning Argument fails because fine-tuning (...) is not actually improbable. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Porphyry, a native of Phoenicia educated in Athens and Rome during the third century AD, was one of the most important Platonic philosophers of his age. In this book, Professor Johnson rejects the prevailing modern approach to his thought, which has posited an early stage dominated by 'Oriental' superstition and irrationality followed by a second rationalizing or Hellenizing phase consequent upon his move west and exposure to Neoplatonism. Based on a careful treatment of all the relevant remains of Porphyry's originally (...) vast corpus, he argues for a complex unity of thought in terms of philosophical translation. The book explores this philosopher's critical engagement with the processes of Hellenism in late antiquity. It provides the first comprehensive examination of all the strands of Porphyry's thought that lie at the intersection of religion, theology, ethnicity and culture. (shrink)

The discovery that the universe is fine-tuned for life ? a discovery to which the phrase ?the anthropic principle? is often applied ? has prompted much extra-cosmic speculation by philosophers, theologians, and theoretical physicists. Such speculation is referred to as extra-cosmic because an inference is made to the existence either of one unobservable entity that is distinct from the cosmos and any of its parts (God) or of many such entities (multiple universes). In this article a case is mounted for (...) the sceptical position that cosmic fine-tuning does not support an inference to anything extra-cosmic. To that end three definitions of ?fine-tuned for life? are proposed: the ?slight difference? definition, the (unconditional) probability definition, and John Leslie?s conditional probability definition. These three definitions are the only ones suggested by the relevant literature on fine-tuning and the anthropic principle. Since on none of them do claims of fine-tuning warrant an inference to something extracosmic, it is concluded that there is no definition of ?fine-tuned for life? serving this function. (shrink)

Nietzsche claims that we are fated to be as we are. He also claims, however, that we can create ourselves. To many commentators these twin commitments have seemed self-contradictory or paradoxical. The argument of this paper, by contrast, is that, despite appearances, there is no paradox here, nor even a tension between Nietzsche's two claims. Instead, when properly interpreted these claims turn out to be intimately related to one another, so that our fatedness emerges as integral to our capacity to (...) become self-creators. The paper also offers, in the course of undermining a false alternative that is deeply entrenched in the philosophical tradition, a reading of Nietzsche's doctrine of amor fati that actually – and perhaps uniquely – makes full sense of section 276 of The Gay Science, the chief source for this aspect of his thought. (shrink)

The biobank consent debate is one with deeply held convictions on both the ‘broad’ and ‘specific’ side with little sign of resolution. Recently, Thomas Ploug and Soren Holm have developed an alternative to both specific and broad consent: a meta‐consent framework. The aim here is to consider whether meta‐consent provides a ‘solution’ to the biobank consent debate. We clarify what ‘meta‐consent’ actually is (arguing that the label is a misnomer and ‘consent à la carte’ is more accurate). We identify problems (...) with Ploug and Holm's arguments, and some challenges for meta‐consent. We focus on whether there is any ethical obligation to provide consent à la carte. There may seem to be so, especially if we draw upon an unclear appeal to the ethical significance of ‘respect for autonomy’. Similarly, there might seem to be an intuitive inference from the fact that ethically legitimate research requires informed consent to the conclusion that it thereby requires consent à la carte. It is shown that this line of inference is mistaken. (shrink)

In a recent article, I argued that Ploug and Holm’s ‘meta-consent’ proposal should be rejected for biobank governance. This was because, although meta-consent is permissible, it is both burdensome and ethically omissible. There is no ethical reason why funders should undertake the additional costs. Ploug and Holm have sought to respond to these arguments. Here, it is noted that not only do they fail to adequately refuse the case against meta-consent, they fail to even engage with the arguments, either misunderstanding (...) them or ignoring them. In their response, Ploug and Holm unwittingly provide the basis of an even stronger case against meta-consent. They argue that broad consent has a built in tendency to expire, while also holding that broad consent should be one of the options available in meta-consent. Meta-consent thus ends up being more like dynamic consent, but, arguably, even more burdensome and costly. (shrink)

In many jurisdictions, adolescents acquire the right to consent to treatment; but in some cases their refusals – e.g. of life-saving treatment – may not be respected. This asymmetry of adolescent consent and refusal seems puzzling, even incoherent. The aim here is to offer an original explanation, and a justification, of this asymmetry. Rather than trying to explain the asymmetry in terms of a variable standard of competence – where the adolescent is competent to consent to, but not refuse, certain (...) interventions – the account offered here focuses more closely on the normative power to render actions permissible. Where normative powers are shared they can readily give rise to an asymmetry between consent and refusal. We then turn to why it is justifiable that normative powers be shared in adolescence. Transitional paternalism holds that the acquisition of normative powers by competent adolescents should not be an instant one, achieved in a single step, but that there should be a transitional period where paternalistic protection is rolled back, but not entirely withdrawn until a later date. Transitional paternalism could be implemented without generating the asymmetry between consent and refusal but, it is argued, the asymmetric version of transitional paternalism is to be preferred insofar as it offers a greater respect for the adolescent's decisions than the symmetrical alternative. (shrink)

This paper develops John Rawls’s famous objection to the system of natural liberty as against the contemporary system of international trade. Even as “dynamic” policies have proven successful in several recent development success stories, the current system enforces a “static,” laissez-faire system of comparative advantage that threatens to consign poorly-endowed countries to a low-productivity, low-income destiny in agriculture and raw materials. I discuss two very different fairness arguments in favor of allowing and encouraging “dynamic,” pro-development polices: an argument from “structural (...) equity” and an argument from “equity of fortune.” I suggest that the former is of more central importance, and that the difference between the two kinds of fairness argument shows why Rawls’s original objection to the system of natural liberty does not imply “luck egalitarianism.”. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 21 This paper develops John Rawls’s famous objection to the system of natural liberty as against the contemporary system of international trade. Even as “dynamic” policies have proven successful in several recent development success stories, the current system enforces a “static,” laissez-faire system of comparative advantage that threatens to consign poorly-endowed countries to a low-productivity, low-income destiny in agriculture and raw materials. I discuss two very different fairness arguments in favor of allowing and encouraging “dynamic,” pro-development (...) polices: an argument from “structural equity” and an argument from “equity of fortune.” I suggest that the former is of more central importance, and that the difference between the two kinds of fairness argument shows why Rawls’s original objection to the system of natural liberty does not imply “luck egalitarianism.”. (shrink)

It is widely held that there is an important distinction between the notion of consciousness as it is applied to creatures and, on the other hand, the notion of consciousness as it applies to mental states. McBride has recently argued in this journal that whilst there may be a grammatical distinction between state consciousness and creature consciousness, there is no parallel ontological distinction. It is argued here that whilst state consciousness and creature consciousness are indeed related, they are distinct properties. (...) Conscious creatures can have, at one time, both conscious and unconscious mental states. This raises the question of what distinguishes the conscious from unconscious mental states of a subject: a question about what state consciousness consists in. Whilst the state/creature distinction may not be of use in explaining every aspect of a subject's consciousness, it does provide a key part of the explanandum for theories of consciousness and mind. The state/creature consciousness distinction is a real one and should not be dropped from our psychological taxonomy. (shrink)

Svirsky, Howard, and Berman address the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ’s oversight of tobacco products, the newest major area of regulation Congress assigned to the FDA. They discus...

This article focuses on how aesthetic values permeate Nietzsche’s philosophy. Artistry is not confined to the creation of conventional works of art but occurs in the form-giving that is essential to all human forms of life. Since Nietzsche was committed to the view that the world is in some basic sense chaotic and meaningless, he held that only by imposing forms can we create a cognizable world. This close association between the conditions of life itself and the aesthetic activity of (...) giving form belies that Kantian conception that any appreciation of aesthetic phenomena is essentially disinterested. (shrink)

Political constructivism is associated with John Rawls more than any other contemporary philosopher. This chapter suggests that Rawls's political constructivism is better understood as a general method of justification which runs throughout his work as a whole, including his early work and A Theory of Justice. The chapter develops the general characterization of Rawls's political constructivism. Its main elements are taken in turn and developed with special attention to the two places where Rawls discusses the topic in depth – his (...) Dewey Lectures on Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory and its substantially revised version called “Political Constructivism” (PL, Lecture III). The main elements include social role, sources, interpretive basis, representation and conclusion. Rawls endorsed a Kantian metaethical constructivism in part because it offered a way of more deeply characterizing how his previous political constructivism could be a live and distinct possibility. (shrink)

This discussion responds to important questions raised about my theory of fairness in the global economy by Christian Barry, Charles Beitz, A.J. Julius and Kristi Olson. I further elaborate how moral argument can be ‘internal’ to a social practice, how my proposed principles of fairness depend on international practice, how I can admit several relevant conceptions of ‘harm’ and why my account does not depend on a problematic conception of societal ‘endowments’.

The paper suggests that the state is subject to assessment according to principles of social justice because state institutions or practices exercise forms of power over which no particular person has control. This rationale for assessment of social justice equally applies to legally optional or informal social practices. But it does not apply to individual conduct. Indeed, it follows that principles of social justice cannot provide a basis for the assessment and guidance of individual choice. The paper develops this practice-based (...) conception of the subject of justice by rejoining G. A. Cohen's influential critique of Rawls’ focus on the “basic structure” of society. (shrink)

Nietzsche is often said to have started out as a Schopenhauerian metaphysician of some kind before leaving Schopenhauer behind him, and, by the end of his sane life, metaphysics too. His first and last thoughts about tragedy, however, sit uneasily with this narrative. The late thoughts are simply too close to the early ones for the story to accommodate them—not for their Schopenhauerianism, but for the strongly metaphysical flavour that they appear to share. The argument of the present paper is (...) that the appearance is veridical, and that attempts to explain away the metaphysical flavour of the later remarks cannot succeed. The paper concludes with a brief diagnosis of why Nietzsche's final thoughts about tragedy, in Twilight of the Idols, so unignorably recall the ones expressed in his first book, The Birth of Tragedy. (shrink)

Curiosity and creativity are expressions of the trade-off between leveraging that with which we are familiar or seeking out novelty. Through the computational lens of reinforcement learning, we describe how formulating the value of information seeking and generation via their complementary effects on planning horizons formally captures a range of solutions to striking this balance.

This paper highlights how a small group of minority students worked to take advantage of the privileges available once they were admitted to an elite school. The argument proposed is that, unlike their more privileged peers, minority students who have made it through the gateways of elite schools have to work out a salvation of privilege to level up their chances and aspirations of success. A grounded theory based on ‘working out the salvation of privilege’ is derived to examine the (...) ways in which minority students in elite schools seize individual ways of self-saving their variegated disadvantages. The study tracked three students over a five-year period to explore the development of their aspirations and individual trajectories two years after they exited their schools. Despite the students’ efforts in self-saving, their ‘envisioned future’ became limited over time. All had to modify their options and expectations because their non-privileged background hindered their aspirations. (shrink)

The practice-based method of justification requires sensitivity to social practices. This raises difficult questions: Must the practices in question be established or at least realistic? How “constructive” can we be in our interpretation of their form or aims? This paper suggests that our answers to these questions can vary with our explanatory purposes. Requirements of realism and sociological accuracy are relatively thin given purely intellectual aims of moral understanding, thicker given the aim of addressing humanity, and thicker still given the (...) aim of justifying principles as normative for us , in our current world historical situation. I suggest that we have no reason to insist on one set of animating justice concerns to the exclusion of all the others, even as normative requirements rightly take center stage. (shrink)

Discussion of the relations between ethics and aesthetics has tended to focus on issues concerning judgement: for example, philosophers have often asked whether, or to what extent, ethical considerations of one sort or another should inform aesthetic verdicts. Much less discussed, however, have been the relations between these two domains in their practical aspects. In this paper, I try to defuse a cluster of reasons for believing that practical competence in the ethical domain and practical competence in the aesthetic domain (...) must be understood as importantly, or structurally, distinct from one another. (shrink)

The Purpose of this paper is to ask how far Locke can be said to have anticipated modern theories of number, particularly the intuitionist theory of Brouwer and Heyting. It has in mind Mr Edward E. Dawson's statement that Locke's account of number was not merely ‘a good effort in his own day’ but that ‘what Locke had to say really was quite fundamental, and a good deal of modern mathematics assumes his position, either explicitly or implicitly’. Mr Dawson thinks (...) that some of the central notions of the intuitionist theory are already present in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding , II, xvi, ‘Of Number’. We should like to examine the view. (shrink)

In matters of distributive justice, we assume that it is important how benefits and burdens are distributed among different people. But what, precisely, is important about this? In particular, what, from the point of view of justice, is ultimately at stake in what distributions come about? T. M. Scanlon has been coy about what his contractualist moral theory might imply for justice.[ii] Yet his conception of morality bears directly on this question of stakes. The significance of distribution then depends on (...) independently valuable relations of recognition. Distribution has no fundamental importance per se. This in turn has significant implications for how philosophical reasoning about justice in distribution must proceed. In recent years, many egalitarians have proceeded as though a distribution can be just by its very nature, in and of itself. The basic aim of the theory of distributive justice is to say what this intrinsically just distribution is.[iii] What is ultimately at stake in matters of distributive justice, it is suggested, is whether or not a certain intrinsically valuable distributional pattern comes about. Scanlon ’s theory implies that this cannot be right: a distribution, taken as such, cannot be owed, and so cannot be justice. Or at least this follows given the platitude about justice, due to Aristotle, that justice is, by nature, giving each his or her due.[iv] The platitude tells us that to distribute justly is simply to give to each individual what he or she is due or owed, as determined by an independent conception of what this is. According to Scanlon ’s independent conception of “what we owe to each other,” no individual can be owed a distribution across persons, as such. We are at most each owed our respective shares—only what we can reasonably ask for on our own behalf. (shrink)