ABSTRACTResearchers have been interested in the perception of human emotional expressions for decades. Importantly, most empirical work in this domain has relied on controlled stimulus sets of adults posing for various emotional expressions. Recently, the Child Affective Facial Expression set was introduced to the scientific community, featuring a large validated set of photographs of preschool aged children posing for seven different emotional expressions. Although the CAFE set was extensively validated using adult participants, the set was designed for use with children. (...) It is therefore necessary to verify that adult validation applies to child performance. In the current study, we examined 3- to 4-year-olds’ identification of a subset of children’s faces in the CAFE set, and compared it to adult ratings cited in previous research. Our results demonstrate an exceptionally strong relationship between adult ratings of the CAFE photos and children’s ratings, suggesting that the adult validation of t... (shrink)

Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination analyzes theological, religious, and philosophical themes in classical Christian fantasy, contemporary “post-Christian” fantasy, and fantasy at play in table top games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: the Gathering.

John Rawls's transition from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism was driven by his rejection of Theory's account of stability. The key to his later account of stability is the idea of public reason. We see Rawls's account of stability as an attempt to solve a mutual assurance problem. We maintain that Rawls's solution fails because his primary assurance mechanism, in the form of public reason, is fragile. His conception of public reason relies on a condition of consensus that (...) we argue is unrealistic in modern, pluralistic democracies. After rejecting Rawls's conception of public reason, we offer an ‘indirect alternative’ that we believe is much more robust. We cite experimental evidence to back up this claim. (shrink)

The basis of property rights is a central problem in political philosophy. The core philosophical dispute concerns whether property rights are natural facts, independent of human conventions. In this article, we examine adult judgments on this issue. We find evidence that familiar property norms regarding external objects (e.g., fish and strawberries) are treated as conventional on standard measures of authority dependence and context relativism. Previous work on the moral/conventional distinction indicates that people treat property rights as moral rather than conventional (...) (e.g., Dahl & Waltzer, 2020; Nucci & Turiel, 1993; Tisak & Turiel, 1984). However, these studies explicitly assume that one person owns property that another steals. Study 1 explores judgments of authority dependence regarding ownership in cases that explicitly appeal to stealing and prior ownership as compared to cases that omit such explicit appeals. We find that participants tend to treat ownership as authority dependent when explicit appeals to stealing are absent, but not when the explicit appeals are present. Study 2 examines intuitions about authority dependence of ownership violations as compared to canonical conventional and harm-based moral violations. We find that ownership violations are treated as more authority dependent than harm-based moral violations. This all suggests that some central property norms are treated as conventional. However, we also find that the conventionality of property norms is restricted in several ways. In study 3, we find that people do not treat norms of self-ownership as conventional. Other people cannot take your hair or skin cells even if the teacher says it's okay. Study 4 uses a measure of context relativism to examine the conventionality of ownership norms, comparing different possible norms of ownership. We find that participants regard takings that are violations in their own culture as permissible in other cultures; however, only some foreign norms are deemed acceptable. In study 5 we find another limitation – participants think it's impermissible to take resources from someone based on a new property norm that is retrospectively imposed. Finally, in study 6 we explore whether some takings might be judged to be morally (non-conventionally) wrong as a function of scarcity. We find that when asked about another culture that allows taking, participants tend to say that taking a food item from the person who caught it is permissible when the food is plentiful, but not when the food is scarce. (shrink)

We present a theory of honor violence as a form of costly signaling. Two types of honor violence are identified: revenge and purification. Both types are amenable to a signaling analysis whereby the violent behavior is a signal that can be used by out-groups to draw inferences about the nature of the signaling group, thereby helping to solve perennial problems of social cooperation: deterrence and assurance. The analysis shows that apparently gratuitous acts of violence can be part of a system (...) of norms that are Pareto superior to alternatives without such signals. For societies that lack mechanisms of governance to deter aggression or to enforce contracts, norms of honor can be a rational means of achieving these functions. The theory also suggests that cultures can become trapped in inefficient equilibria owing to path-dependent phenomena. In other words, costly signals of honor may continue to be sent even when they are no longer providing useful information. (shrink)

Public reason theories are characterized by three conditions: constructivism, representation, and stability. Constructivism holds that justification does not rely on any antecedent moral or political values outside of the procedure of agreement. Representation holds that the reasons for the choice in the model must be rationally explicable to real agents outside the model. Stability holds that the principles chosen in the procedure should be stable upon reflection, especially in the face of diversity in a pluralistic society. Choice procedures that involve (...) at least two-stages with different information, as Rawls’s theory does, will be path-dependent and not meet the condition of representation since it will not be globally coherent. Attempts to solve this problem without eliminating the segmentation of choice in the procedure will run afoul of constructivism or stability. This problem is instructive because it highlights how public reason theories must evolve in the face of increased concerns about diversity. (shrink)

For contractarians, justice is the result of a rational bargain. The goal is to show that the rules of justice are consistent with rationality. The two most important bargaining theories of justice are David Gauthier’s and those that use the Nash’s bargaining solution. I argue that both of these approaches are fatally undermined by their reliance on a symmetry condition. Symmetry is a substantive constraint, not an implication of rationality. I argue that using symmetry to generate uniqueness undermines the goal (...) of bargaining theories of justice. (shrink)

Critical study of Brahmasiddhi of Maṇḍanamiśra, classical treatise on Advaita ontology.

:Self-ownership has fallen out of favor as a core moral and political concept. I argue that this is because the most popular conception of self-ownership, what I call the property conception, is typically linked to a libertarian political program. Seeing self-ownership and libertarianism as being necessarily linked leads those who are not inclined toward libertarianism to reject the idea of self-ownership altogether. This, I argue, is a mistake. Self-ownership is a crucial moral and political concept that can earn its keep (...) if we understand it not as type of property right in the self, but rather as a set of territorial rights one has over one’s body. This territorial conception of self-ownership, which I call the sovereignty conception of self-ownership, avoids the traditional arguments raised against the property conception of self-ownership and has other benefits besides. Accepting this conception of self-ownership, I argue, has considerable moral and political benefits without taking on the costs associated with other forms of self-ownership. (shrink)

Epicurean contractarianism is an attempt to reconcile individualistic hedonism with a robust account of justice. The pursuit of pleasure and the requirements of justice, however, have seemed to be incompatible to many commentators, both ancient and modern. It is not clear how it is possible to reconcile hedonism with the demands of justice. Furthermore, it is not clear why, even if Epicurean contractarianism is possible, it would be necessary for Epicureans to endorse a social contract. I argue here that Epicurean (...) contractarianism is both possible and necessary once we understand Epicurean practical rationality in a new way. We are left with an appealing version of teleological, individualistic contractarianism that is significantly different from Hobbesian contractarianism. (shrink)

In Rescuing Justice and Equality G.A. Cohen argues that justice requires an uncompromising commitment to equality. Cohen also argues, however, that justice must be sensitive to other values, including a robust commitment to individual freedom and to the welfare of the community. We ask whether a commitment to these other values means that, despite Cohen’s commitment to equality, his view requires that we make room for inequality in the name of justice? We argue that even on Cohen’s version of egalitarianism (...) equality, freedom, and welfare are not always compatible. Justice will require trade-offs between these values. Sometimes, equality will need to be sacrificed. This is a surprising result and to show it, we use two informal impossibility proofs drawn from examples in Rescuing Justice and Equality. (shrink)

This article argues that public health campaigns have an ethical obligation to combat fat stigma, not mobilize it in the “war on obesity.” Fat stigma is conceptualized, and a review is undertaken of how pervasive fat stigma is across the world and across the lifespan. By reviewing the negative impacts of fat stigma on physical health, mental health, and health seeking behaviors, fat stigma is clearly identified as a social determinant of health. Considering the role of fat stigma in public (...) health, and the arguments made for using stigmatisation in public health campaigns to promote population health, it is concluded that it is a violation of public health ethics to use stigma as a tool in combatting fatness. The article concludes by making recommendations of how public health in New Zealand can combat, rather than reinforce, fat stigma. (shrink)

In Rescuing Justice and Equality G.A. Cohen argues that justice requires an uncompromising commitment to equality. Cohen also argues, however, that justice must be sensitive to other values, including a robust commitment to individual freedom and to the welfare of the community. We ask whether a commitment to these other values means that, despite Cohen’s commitment to equality, his view requires that we make room for inequality in the name of justice? We argue that even on Cohen’s version of egalitarianism (...) equality, freedom, and welfare are not always compatible. Justice will require trade-offs between these values. Sometimes, equality will need to be sacrificed. This is a surprising result and to show it, we use two informal impossibility proofs drawn from examples in Rescuing Justice and Equality. (shrink)

It is a matter of dispute how far back evolutionary explanations of social order should be traced. Evolutionary ideas certainly appear in the work of the ancient Greek philosophers, but it seems reasonable to identify the origins of modern evolutionary thinking in the eighteenth-century natural histories of civil society such as Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1750: Pt III), Adam Ferguson’s An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), and Adam Smith’s Wealth of (...) Nations (1776: Bk III). In these eighteenth-century works, the explanation of current social institutions as an unplanned and generally adaptive development out of earlier and simpler arrangements gained traction. Germany too had a tradition of Naturphilosophie employing general evolutionary ideas, as well as Hegelian-influenced thinking on the development of societies. In 1863, four years after Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, August Schleicher’s Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaf, drew on these traditions as well as Darwin’s book to present an evolutionary account of the development of families of languages (Taub 1993), an endeavor that was carried on by a number of scholars in the later part of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

As the composition of university campuses becomes more diverse, campus journalists must become better at making decisions that avoid needlessly offending members of various ethnic and cultural groups. This examination explores the role of the campus media and includes incidents that illustrate campus journalists' problems with decision making when confronted with material regarding their diverse audiences. It explores the political correctness movement on campuses, notes the advantage of ethical reasoning, offers a philosophical foundation for decision making based on respect, and (...) proposes a Model of Respect. This model should enable novice journalists to better self-regulate content, precluding the need for campus administrators and judicial bodies to establish regulations and laws that "force" sensitivity into campus speech and newspapers. (shrink)

Social contract theory enjoys a long history in moral and political philosophy. Since the European Enlightenment, social contract theory has become one of the most important traditions in moral and political philosophy. This chapter provides a brief introduction to central concepts in social contract theory and their development over time. Most importantly, the chapter clarifies some of the distinct features of new approaches to social contract theory (or “new social contract theory” for short) that have evolved in the twenty-first century (...) and are most suitable for capturing the circumstances of contemporary societies, even if new social contract theory does not constitute a unified theoretical position but is best considered as a family of approaches, methods, and topics. The chapter also provides an overview of the contributions to this book and their connections both methodologically and thematically. (shrink)

In this issue of Narrative Inquiries in Bioethics, fat individuals share their healthcare experiences. Through reading the narratives, it becomes clear that access to proper healthcare is often blocked for fat patients by a variety of things, including shame and fat stigma. From physical spaces in which they do not fit, to doctors who diagnose all of their problems as ‘fat’, similar themes are echoed across the stories. And common are the refrains for better treatment, less shame, and access to (...) evidenced based care from educated providers. In this manuscript, I highlight common themes from the stories and integrate them with themes from the literature. I allow the two dissenting narratives to suggest other ways of thinking about fatness and well–being. And I conclude by suggesting ways to provide better access to quality healthcare for fat individuals. (shrink)

Ordered social life requires rules of conduct that help generate and preserve peaceful and cooperative interactions among individuals. The problem is that these social rules impose costs. They prohibit us from doing some things we might see as important and they require us to do other things that we might otherwise not do. The question for the contractarian is whether the costs of these social rules can be rationally justified. I argue that traditional contract theories have tended to underestimate the (...) importance of evaluating the cost of enforcement and compliance in the contract procedure. In addition, the social contract has been understood narrowly as a method of justifying specifically moral or political rules. I defend a broader version of contractarianism as a justificatory model that can be used to evaluate any set of social rules or institutions that impose costson agents. In so doing, I argue that contractarianism is a general method of evaluating and justifying the rules that order the structure of social life. (shrink)

Equality is at the heart of liberal, democratic political theory. Despite this, there is considerable disagreement about how we should understand equality in the context of liberal politics. Several different conceptions of equality will recommend different and often conflicting policies and institutions. Further, we can expect, in democratic societies, that citizens will disagree on the correct conception of equality. This leads to the diversity problem of equality—there is no one conception of equality that will be acceptable to all citizens. This (...) is compounded by the complexity problem of generating determinate and predictable results in the institutional application of any particular conception of equality. After identifying these problems and looking at G.A. Cohen’s defense of a thoroughly egalitarian conception of politics, I argue in favor of “democratic equality” as a political ideal. (shrink)

For more than twenty years, Peter Vanderschraaf’s work has combined rigorous game-theoretic analysis, innovative use of (social) scientific method, and normative analysis in the context of the social contract. Vanderschraaf’s work has influenced a significant interdisciplinary field of study and culminated in the publication of his book, Strategic Justice: Convention and Problems of Balancing Divergent Interests (OUP, 2019). Building upon his previous work, Vanderschraaf developed a new theory of justice (justice-as-convention) that, despite a mutual advantage approach, considers the most vulnerable (...) members of society and defends the egalitarian bargaining solution. To advance his theory, Vanderschraaf proposes an account of conventions that updates and systematizes David Lewis’s account of conventions, drawing on contemporary developments in game theory and economics. This topical collection brings together game theorists, philosophers, economists, and political scientists to discuss themes from Vanderschraaf’s work. The collection bridges a gap among disjoint but closely related literatures in game theory, bargaining theory, formal philosophy, rationality, equality, justice, and the social contract in order to advance dialogue among scholars in this rich and growing field of study. (shrink)

This book features new approaches to social contract theory. Whereas traditional social contract theories and their adaptations in the twentieth century were developed for fairly homogeneous societies, societies in the twenty-first century often are characterized by conflicting first-order directives that stem from deep moral, political, religious, and cultural diversity. To address such diversity and the complexities of contemporary societies, new approaches (including formal approaches) to social contract theory have emerged that re-envision the social contract for a fragmented and sometimes polarized, (...) yet interdependent social world. New social contract theory explores how, in a world of continuous disagreement on questions of justice, in particular the ideals of liberty and equality, society can not only progress, but also flourish and become more robust and open in its social fabric. This book brings together, for the first time, defenders and discussants of new social contract theory. It includes contributions by eminent and emerging scholars in this field. The book clarifies the distinct features of new social contract theory and provides a valuable starting point for discussion of this novel movement in social contract theory. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the notion and role of metaphors and illustrations in Maxwell's works in exact science as a pathway into a broader and richer philosophical conception of a scientist and scientific practice. While some of these notions and methods are still at work in current scientific research-from economics and biology to quantum computation and quantum field theory-, here I have chosen to attest to their entrenchment and complexity in actual science by attempting to make some conceptual sense (...) of Maxwell's own usage; this endeavour includes situating Maxwell's conceptions and applications in his own culture of Victorian science and philosophy. I trace Maxwell's notions to the formulation of the problem of understanding, or interpreting, abstract representations such as potential functions and Lagrangian equations. I articulate the solution in terms of abstract-concrete relations, where the concrete, in tune with Victorian British psychology and engineering, includes the muscular as well as the pictorial. This sets the basis for a conception of understanding in terms of unification and concrete modelling, or representation. I examine the relation of illustration to analogies and metaphors on which this account rests. Lastly, I stress and explain the importance of context-dependence, its consequences for realism-instrumentalism debates, and Maxwell's own emphasis on method. (shrink)

We provide a detailed history of the concepts of atomic number and isotopy before the discovery of protons and neutrons that draws attention to the role of evolving interplays of multiple aims and criteria in chemical and physical research. Focusing on research by Frederick Soddy and Ernest Rutherford, we show that, in the context of differentiating disciplinary projects, the adoption of a complex and shifting concept of elemental identity and the ordering role of the periodic table led to a relatively (...) coherent notion of atomic number. Subsequent attention to valency, still neglected in the secondary literature, and to nuclear charge led to a decoupling of the concepts of elemental identity and weight and allowed for a coherent concept of isotopy. This concept received motivation from empirical investigations on the decomposition series of radioelements and their unstable chemical identity. A new model of chemical order was the result of an ongoing collaboration between chemical and physical research projects with evolving aims and standards. After key concepts were considered resolved and their territories were clarified, chemistry and physics resumed autonomous projects, yet remained bound by newly accepted explanatory relations. It is an episode of scientific collaboration and partial integration without simple, wholesale gestalt switches or chemical revolutions. (shrink)

Ernst Bloch’s recourse to speculative philosophy has guaranteed him the position of a perpetual outsider in the history of Western Marxism. When Jürgen Habermas described Bloch’s philosophy in 1960 as a ‘speculative materialism’, it was to denounce him for crossing the boundaries of critical thought set down as much by Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as by Marx’s critique of political economy. This article argues that Bloch’s speculative materialism deserves to be re-assessed. Contrary to Habermas’s assertion that speculation is divorced (...) from critique, I argue with Bloch that the speculative hypotheses we unavoidably use to interpret the world around us inform our political beliefs and actions, and to stifle speculative thinking as that creative and inquisitive enterprise which questions and transgresses the given is not only a ‘crime against reason’, as Hilary Putnam once claimed, but also a crime against freedom. (shrink)

Should the norms of honor cultures be classified as a variety of morality? In this paper, we address this question by considering various empirical bases on which norms can be taxonomically organised. This question is of interest both as an exercise in philosophy of social science, and for its potential implications in meta-ethical debates. Using recent data from anthropology and evolutionary game theory, we argue that the most productive classification emphasizes the strategic role that moral norms play in generating assurance (...) and stabilizing cooperation. Because honor norms have a similar functional role, this account entails honor norms are indeed a variety of moral norm. We also propose an explanation of why honor norms occur in a relatively unified, phenotypically distinctive cluster, thereby explaining why it is tempting to regard them as taxonomically distinct. (shrink)

In Exodus 2, Moses has two mothers; his Hebrew mother, who nurses him and the daughter of Pharaoh, who financially supports his Hebrew mother, adopts him, and names him. Pharaoh’s daughter appears in scholarly discussions, yet little attention is given to her role as mother of Moses. Indeed, this motherhood is downplayed in the biblical texts, and also in biblical scholarship, wherein the daughter of Pharaoh is absent from many discussions of biblical mothers and is at times relegated beneath the (...) birthmother in commentaries. This article argues that we should remember and celebrate the daughter of Pharaoh as a mother of Moses. (shrink)

This paper examines a novel notion of causality, namely, fuzzy-set-theoretic causality. Over the last decade, a number of conceptual models of causality, in the language of fuzzy-set theory, have appeared in the scientific literature and have been applied to empirical research. They have circulated widely from one scientific discipline to another, weaving a unifying thread through them. However, they have received no philosophical attention. In this paper, I will discuss the value and limitations of this type of model and will (...) read into its application several dimensions of philosophical significance. (shrink)