We have synthesized a 582,970-base pair Mycoplasma genitalium genome. This synthetic genome, named M. genitalium JCVI-1.0, contains all the genes of wild-type M. genitalium G37 except MG408, which was disrupted by an antibiotic marker to block pathogenicity and to allow for selection. To identify the genome as synthetic, we inserted "watermarks" at intergenic sites known to tolerate transposon insertions. Overlapping "cassettes" of 5 to 7 kilobases (kb), assembled from chemically synthesized oligonucleotides, were joined by in vitro recombination to produce intermediate (...) assemblies of approximately 24 kb, 72 kb ("1/8 genome"), and 144 kb ("1/4 genome"), which were all cloned as bacterial artificial chromosomes in Escherichia coli. Most of these intermediate clones were sequenced, and clones of all four 1/4 genomes with the correct sequence were identified. The complete synthetic genome was assembled by transformation-associated recombination cloning in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, then isolated and sequenced. A clone with the correct sequence was identified. The methods described here will be generally useful for constructing large DNA molecules from chemically synthesized pieces and also from combinations of natural and synthetic DNA segments. 10.1126/science.1151721. (shrink)
Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933, From the Notes of G. E. Moore, edited by SternDavid G, RogersBrian, and CitronGabriel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. lxxiv + 420.
In this article, I argue that G. A. Cohen’s defense of the feminist slogan, “The personal is political”, his argument against Rawls’s restriction of principles of justice to the basic structure of society, depends for its intelligibility on the ability to distinguish—with reasonable but perhaps not perfect precision—between those situations in which what Nancy Rosenblum has called “the logic of congruence” is validly invoked and those in which it is not. More importantly, I suggest that the philosophical shape of Cohen’s (...) critique makes it difficult for him to supply the required criterion, and that the methodological “intuitionism” he claims to be committed to is at odds with his larger argument against Rawls concerning the subject of justice. (shrink)
David Lewis [1973] offers a possible worlds approach to a theory of counterfactuals. He attempts to specify necessary and sufficient conditions according to which a given counterfactual is true or false. This MA Thesis surveys Lewis's theory of counterfactuals in detail. Although for the most part I defend Lewis's account from several objections, in the final chapter I reason that his theory is susceptible to skepticism, which threatens any philosophical theory that relies on Lewis's theory to distinguish between non-paradigmatically (...) true and false counterfactuals. As for the more sympathetic portion of my project, while I show how Lewis's canonical account cannot handle some paradigmatically false counterfactuals--viz., those containing true components--I try to repair his analysis in the spirit of Alan Penczek [1997]. I then discuss Lewis's extension or enhancement to his original theory, which he gives in order to foil an objection advanced by Kit Fine [1975] and Jonathan Bennett [1984]. Finally, I outline and raise several worries inherent in Bennett's rival theory. As for the less then sympathetic section of this paper, I exploit arguments put forward by G. Lee Bowie [1979] as well as by Daniel Krasner and Mark Heller [1994], which are designed to undermine any systematic procedure to circumscribe Lewis's crucial three-place comparative similarity relation between possible worlds. (shrink)
In ‘Omniprescient Agency’ David P. Hunt challenges an argument against the possibility of an omniscient agent. The argument – my own in ‘Agency and Omniscience’ – assumes that an agent is a being capable of intentional action, where, minimally, an action is intentional only if it is caused, in part, by the agent's intending. The latter, I claimed, is governed by a psychological principle of ‘least effort’, namely, that no one intends without antecedently feeling that deliberate effort is needed (...) to achieve desired goals, such effort has a chance of success, and it is yet contingent whether the effort will be expended and the goals realized. The goals can be anything from immediate intentional doings, tryings or basic actions, to remote and perhaps unlikely consequences of actions, e.g. global justice. The thrust of the principle is that it would be impossible for a wholly rational self-aware agent to intend without a background presumption of an open future as concerns the desired state and the means to it. But this presumption embodies a sense of contingency which, in turn, requires an acknowledged ignorance about what the future holds, otherwise the future would appear closed relative to present knowledge with the desired state presented as either guaranteed or ruled out . Regardless whether this self-directed attitude is accurate, it follows that intentional action precludes complete knowledge of one's present and future. Consequently, no omniscient or omniprescient being can be an agent. (shrink)
In "Omniprescient Agency" (Religious Studies 28, 1992) David P. Hunt challenges an argument against the possibility of an omniscient agent. The argument—my own in "Agency and Omniscience" (Religious Studies 27, 1991)—assumes that an agent is a being capable of intentional action, where, minimally, an action is intentional only if it is caused, in part, by the agent's intending. The latter, I claimed, is governed by a psychological principle of "least effort," viz., that no one intends without antecedently feeling that (...) (i) deliberate effort is needed to achieve desired goals, (ii) such effort has a chance of success, and (iii) it is yet contingent whether the effort will be expended and the goals realized. The goals can be anything from immediate intentional doings, tryings or basic actions, to remote and perhaps unlikely consequences of actions, e.g., global justice. The thrust of the principle is that it would be impossible for a wholly rational self-aware agent to intend without a background presumption of an open future as concerns the desired state and the means to it. But this presumption embodies a sense of contingency which, in turn, requires an acknowledged ignorance about what the future holds, otherwise the future would appear closed relative to present knowledge with the desired state presented as either guaranteed (necessary) or ruled out (impossible). Regardless whether this self-directed attitude is accurate, it follows that intentional action precludes complete knowledge of one's present and future. Consequently, no omniscient or omniprescient being can be an agent. (shrink)
Abstract: Contra John Rawls, G. A. Cohen argues that the fundamental principles of justice are not constrained by the limits of our nature or the nature of society, even at its historical best. Justice is what it is, even if it will never be realized, fully or at all. Likewise, David Estlund argues that since our innate motivations can be justice-tainting, they cannot be a constraint on the right conception of justice. Cohen and Estlund agree that if the attempt (...) to implement a certain conception of justice is likely to result in widespread harm or injustice, then it should not be implemented, but that this does not entail that the conception itself is false. I argue that (i) there is no way to judge the soundness of a principle of justice independently of all psychological facts , and the effects that the principle is likely to have if it is implemented; (ii) a principle of justice that, if implemented, makes it hard or impossible for individuals committed to justice to lead happy and worthwhile lives in a good society, even if the circumstances are favorable to living justly, cannot be sound; (iii) without the constraints noted in (i) and (ii), there can be no reason to reject racist, sexist, or other wrongheaded principles of justice that have been advanced as sound over the years, principles that even Cohen and Estlund would reject. In short, justice is justice only if kept within the limits of human nature. (shrink)
In Why Not Socialism? G.A. Cohen articulates a version of socialism characterized by two values—equality and community—but, being a value pluralist, Cohen is not sanguine about the practical consistency of those values. This paper deals with the relationship between Cohen's formulations of the values of community and equality. I argue that Cohen faces a dilemma: either community and equality are not even in principle consistent, or else they are conceptually compatible. I argue, moreover, that despite the cost to Cohen's value (...) pluralism of accepting the dilemma's second horn, it carries the felicitous consequence of obviating the contingent conflicts between community and equality about which Cohen is concerned. Finally, I suggest that accepting the second horn—that is, the grounds of compatibility between community and equality—is helpful in resolving a puzzle recently raised by John Roemer about Cohen's picture of socialism. (shrink)
The question I shall attempt to address in what follows is an essentially historical one, namely: Why did analytic philosophy emerge first in Cambridge, in the hands of G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, and as a direct consequence of their revolutionary rejection of the philosophical tenets that form the basis of British Idealism? And the answer that I shall try to defend is: it didn't. That is to say, the ‘analytic’ doctrines and methods which Moore and Russell embraced in (...) the very last years of the nineteenth century were not revolutionary, did not emerge first in Cambridge, were the creation of neither Russell nor Moore and cannot be explained by appeal to facts concerning British Idealism. The adoption of the doctrines and methods which characterised the earliest manifestations of British analytic philosophy are to be explained neither by reference to anything specifically British, nor by appeal to anything unproblematically philosophical. Or so I shall argue. (shrink)
In the last few years H.G. Callaway has produced several helpful editions of some important texts by Emerson. Emerson's Conduct of Life was originally published in 1860, and it has appeared in a number of editions since then, but Callaway's edition has several noteworthy features that cause it to stand out from the crowd and make it an important contribution to Emerson studies. This is a rare volume that will serve students, academic philosophers, and causal readers alike: a critical edition (...) of a less-familiar text that is attractive to ordinary readers without sacrificing scholarly rigor. (shrink)
. In responding to David Griffin's critique of my book, Issues in Science and Religion, I suggest that most of the points which he initially presents as differences between us concerning reduction and emergence are resolved in the second half of his article. I spoke of the emergence of higher‐level “properties” and “activities,” rather than “entities,” but my analysis of whole and parts is similar to his, although it was perhaps not always clearly articulated. We agree also that Alfred (...) North Whitehead's God is involved in every event in ways which avoid the problems of the supernatu‐ralist “God of the gaps,” but we differ as to whether God's action might be taken into account in a new “post‐modern” science. (shrink)
The likely impact of applying the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to higher education are examined. GATS aims to “open up” services to competition: no preference can be shown to national or government providers. The consequences for teaching are likely to be that private companies, with degree-awarding powers, would be eligible for the same subsidies as public providers. Appealing to the inadequate recently introduced “benchmark” statements as proof of quality, they would provide a “bare bones” service at lower (...) cost. Public subsidies would go: education being reduced to that minimum which could be packaged in terms of verifiable “learning outcomes”. The loss of “higher” aspirations, such education of critically-minded citizens of a democratic and civilised society would impoverish the university’s research culture which demands honesty and openness to public scrutiny. (shrink)
This essay is an attempt to piece together the elements of G. A. Cohen's thought on the theory of socialism during his long intellectual voyage from Marxism to political philosophy. It begins from his theory of the maldistribution of freedom under capitalism, moves onto his critique of libertarian property rights, to his diagnosis of the “deep inegalitarian” structure of John Rawls' theory and concludes with his rejection of the “cheap” fraternity promulgated by liberal egalitarianism. The paper's exegetical contention is that (...) Cohen's work in political philosophy is best understood in the background of lifelong commitment to a form of democratic, non-market, socialism realizing the values of freedom, equality and community, as he conceived them. The first part of the essay is therefore an attempt to retrieve core socialism-related arguments by chronologically examining the development of Cohen's views, using his books as thematic signposts. The second part brings these arguments together with an eye to reconstructing his vision of socialism. It turns out that Cohen's political philosophy offers a rich conception of objective and subjective freedom, an original understanding of justice as satisfaction of genuine need, and a substantive ideal of fraternity as justificatory community with others. If properly united, these values can suggest a full-bloodied account of the just polity, and give us a glimpse into what it means, for Cohen, to treat people as equals. (shrink)
(2013). On Justice and Other Values: G.A. Cohen's Political Philosophy and the Problem of Trade-offs. Philosophical Papers: Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 1-24. doi: 10.1080/05568641.2013.774721.
