Causation and the laws of nature are nothing over and above the pattern of events, just like a movie is nothing over and above the sequence of frames. Or so I will argue. The position I will argue for is broadly inspired by Hume and Lewis, and may be expressed in the slogan: what must be, must be grounded in what is.

Normative theory, in various idioms, has grown wary of questions of ontology-social and otherwise. Thus modern debates in ethics have tended to take place at some distance from (for example) debates in social theory. One arguable casualty of this has been due consideration of relational factors (between agents and the social structures they inhabit) in the interrogation of ethical values. Part 1 of this paper addresses some examples of this tendency, and some of the philosophical assumptions which might underlie it. (...) Parts 2 and 3 discuss two issues of growing prominence-disability, and environmental concern-due attention to which, I argue, highlights strong reasons why severing ethics from social ontology is neither possible nor desirable. I conclude by recommending a qualified ethical naturalism as a promising candidate through which, non-reductively, to reunite these two areas of theoretical focus. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAwe is described as an a “epistemic emotion” because it is hypothesised to make gaps in one’s knowledge salient. However, no empirical evidence for this yet exists. Awe is also hypothesised...

Is liberalism adaptable enough to the ecological agenda to deal satisfactorily with the challenges of anthropogenic climate change while leaving its normative foundations intact? Compatibilists answer yes; incompatibilists say no. Comparing such answers, this article argues that it is not discrete liberal principles which impede adapatability, so much as the constructivist model (exemplified in Rawls) of what counts as a valid normative principle. Constructivism has both normative and ontological variants, each with a realist counterpart. I argue that normative constructivism in (...) the Rawlsian mode, whatever its strengths elsewhere, is markedly ill‐equipped to deal with the particular normative challenges posed by climate change – and that that these doubts holds regardless of which stance is adopted as its ontological corollary. (shrink)

Relationalism is the view that perception is partly constituted by external objects (McDowell 1994; Campbell 2002; Martin 2004). Faced with the hallucination argument, and unsatisfied with the standard disjunctivist reply, some ‘new wave’ relationalists explain away the possibility of hallucinations as mere illusions (Alston 1999; Watzl 2010; Ali 2018; Masrour 2020). In this paper, I argue that some of these illusions (as in Chalmers 2005; Ali 2018) are perceptions of internal objects which appear as external ones. Then, in response to (...) the obvious screening-off objection, I argue for a novel reply called ‘intrameralism’: roughly, external objects are ordinarily perceived because they gain internal parts—they ‘grow into the head’. The preceding hallucinations are thus ultimately explained away as a kind of perceptual synecdoche, in which internal parts appear as their (ordinarily perceived) external wholes. The paper concludes by addressing some objections. (shrink)

Socrates (469-399 BC) is one of history's most enigmatic figures. Our knowledge of him comes to us second-hand, primarily from the philosopher Plato, who was Socrates' most gifted student, and from the historian and sometime-philosopher Xenophon, who counted himself as a member of Socrates' inner circle of friends. We also hear of Socrates in one comic play produced during his lifetime (Aristophanes' Clouds) and in passing from the philosopher Aristotle, a student of Plato. Socrates is a figure of enduring interest. (...) He is often considered the father of Western Philosophy, yet the four most famous accounts we have of him present a contradictory, confusing picture. Just who was Socrates? A brilliant philosopher, at times confounding and infuriating, morally serious and yet ironic; the ever-worldly man, sometime mystic, and uncommon martyr depicted by Plato? Or did Plato conflate Socrates' views with his own startling genius, as Aristotle suggests? Was So rates instead the less impressive, more mundane man whose commonsense impressed the laconic Xenophon? Or was Socrates the charlatan, the long-winded phony of Aristophanes' play? The Socratic works of Diogenes Laertius (3rd century AD), Libanius (AD 314 -- c. 393), Maximus of 'Tyre (2nd century AD), and Apuleius (born c. AD 125) add important dimensions to the portrait of Socrates: Diogenes Laertius' Life of Socrates emphasizes Socrates' deep ethical nature and his extraordinary personality; Libanius' Apology of Socrates is based on sources now lost to us; Maximus of Tyre's Whether Socrates Did the Right Thing When He Did Not Defend Himself makes the star ling claim (against testimony of Plato and Xenophon) that Socrates never spoke athis own trial; from Apuleius' On the God of Socrates we hear at length of Socrates' infamous daimonion: the "divine sign" only mentioned elsewhere, the sign that warned Socrates against certain courses of action. In short, from these four texts we are reintroduced to Socrates, and new wrinkles are added to an already intriguing historical figure. (shrink)

There is a strong appetite in ‘the wild’ (i.e., beyond the academy) for public philosophy. There are myriad forums available, from magazines and online publications to podcasts and YouTube videos, for those who wish to engage in philosophy in a non-academic context. For academic philosophers, this has raised methodological and metaphilosophical questions like: ‘what is the best way to engage in public philosophy?’ and ‘what are our aims when we engage in public philosophy?’ But what do ‘the public’ want? If (...) public philosophy is philosophy written for a public audience, what is it, exactly, that it can or might do for them? Several answers have been proposed by philosophers, but less attention has been paid to how the public themselves might answer that question. The aim of this essay is to try and put together at least the beginning of an answer. In June 2022 we put out a survey in the hope of eliciting views from ‘the public’ on issues relating to the nature and aims of both philosophy (more generally) and public philosophy. In doing so, our aim was to take a ‘democratic’ approach to answering the question: What is public philosophy? (shrink)

In light of the myriad accounting and corporate ethics scandals of the early 21st century, many corporate leaders and management scholars believe that ethics education is an essential component in business school education. Despite a voluminous body of ethics education literature, few studies have found support for the effectiveness of changing an individuals ethical standards through programmatic ethics training. To address this gap in the ethics education literature the present study examines the influence of an underlying social cognitive error, called (...) pluralistic ignorance. We believe that if pluralistic ignorance is reduced, the result will be more effective business ethics education programs. Eighty undergraduate management students participated in this longitudinal study, and a mixed-model ANOVA revealed that the reduction of pluralistic ignorance (due to an ethics education program designed to reduce pluralistic ignorance) resulted in higher personal ethical standards over the course of a semester, when compared to a class that did not receive a formal ethics education program as part of their course. We discuss the implications of pluralistic ignorance in training business ethics and ethics education. (shrink)

In light of the myriad accounting and corporate ethics scandals of the early 21st century, many corporate leaders and management scholars believe that ethics education is an essential component in business school education. Despite a voluminous body of ethics education literature, few studies have found support for the effectiveness of changing an individual's ethical standards through programmatic ethics training. To address this gap in the ethics education literature the present study examines the influence of an underlying social cognitive error, called (...) pluralistic ignorance. We believe that if pluralistic ignorance is reduced, the result will be more effective business ethics education programs. Eighty undergraduate management students participated in this longitudinal study, and a mixed-model ANOVA revealed that the reduction of pluralistic ignorance resulted in higher personal ethical standards over the course of a semester, when compared to a class that did not receive a formal ethics education program as part of their course. We discuss the implications of pluralistic ignorance in training business ethics and ethics education. (shrink)

Using his two-dimensional semantics, I demonstrate that David Chalmers’s 2010 ‘two-dimensional argument against materialism’ is sound only if a wide swath of reductive physicalist theses – crucially, those involving identity and other intrinsic reductive relations – are inconceivable. 2DA therefore begs the question against its opponents and undermines its argumentative relevance. Comparisons are drawn to similar arguments in Marton and Sturgeon; the present account differs in its formal and philosophical simplicity, as well as its specific application to reductivist doctrines beyond (...) the ineffective and merely supervenient. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

Is liberalism adaptable enough to the ecological agenda to deal satisfactorily with the challenges of anthropogenic climate change while leaving its normative foundations intact? Compatibilists answer yes; incompatibilists say no. Comparing such answers, this article argues that it is not discrete liberal principles which impede adapatability, so much as the constructivist model (exemplified in Rawls) of what counts as a valid normative principle. Constructivism has both normative and ontological variants, each with a realist counterpart. I argue that normative constructivism in (...) the Rawlsian mode, whatever its strengths elsewhere, is markedly ill‐equipped to deal with the particular normative challenges posed by climate change – and that that these doubts holds regardless of which stance is adopted as its ontological corollary. (shrink)

Using Fredric Jameson’s theory of the ideologeme to trace representations of working- and white working-class characters through a selection of contemporary literary texts, this article shows how t...

Conceivability arguments constitute a serious threat against reductive physicalism. Recently, a number of authors have proven and characterized a devastating logical truth, centered on these arguments: namely, that their soundness entails the inconceivability of reductive physicalism. In this paper, I demonstrate that is only a logical truth when reductive physicalism is interpreted in its stronger, intrinsic sense, as opposed to its weaker—yet considerably more popular—extrinsic sense. The basic idea generalizes: perhaps surprisingly, stronger forms of reduction are uniquely resistant to the (...) conceivability arguments opposing them. So far as the modal epistemology of reduction is concerned, therefore, it pays to go intrinsic. (shrink)

While policy makers, international organizations and academics are increasingly aware of the economic effects of emigration, the potential political effects remain understudied. This book maps the nature of the relationship that links emigration and political development. Jonathon W. Moses explores the nature of political development, arguing that emigration influences political development. In particular, he introduces a new cross-national database of annual emigration rates and analyzes specific cases of international emigration under varying political and economic contexts.

Childhood looms large in our understanding of human life as it is a phase through which all adults have passed. Childhood is foundational to the development of selfhood, the formation of interests, values and skills and to the lifespan as a whole. Understanding what it is like to be a child, and what differences childhood makes, are essential for any broader understanding of the human condition. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is an outstanding reference source (...) to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into five parts: ¿ Being a child ¿ Childhood and moral status ¿ Parents and children ¿ Children in society ¿ Children and the state. Questions covered include: What is a child? Is childhood a uniquely valuable state, and if so why? Can we generalize about the goods of childhood? What rights do children have, and are they different from adults¿ rights? What gives people a right to parent? What role, if any, ought biology to play in determining who has the right to parent a particular child? What kind of rights can parents legitimately exercise over their children? What roles do relationships with siblings and friends play in the shaping of childhoods? How should we think about sexuality and disabilility in childhood, and about racialised children? How should society manage the education of children, and what values should inform such practices? What is a good school? How are children¿s lives affected by being taken into social care? The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of childhood, political philosophy and ethics as well as those in related disciplines such as education, psychology, sociology, social policy, law, social work, youth work, neuroscience and anthropology. (shrink)

This piece argues that free migration was a central if implicit part of the liberal social contract and that America’s founders were both aware of this and exploited it to legitimate their new state. The piece begins by describing this uniquely American contribution to liberal political thought. It then juxtaposes this contribution against the nature of our own international order, to show just how foreign the American Century has become. The piece closes with a short depiction of what an American (...) Century would look like today—were it true to this early ideal—and comments on its feasibility. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate the role of pluralistic ignorance in perceptions of unethical behavior. Buckley, Harvey, and Beu (2000) suggested that pluralistic ignorance plays a role such that individuals mistakenly believe that others are more unethical than they actually are. In two studies, we confirmed that pluralistic ignorance influences perceptions of ethics in a manner consistent with what Buckley et al. suggested. The implications of pluralistic ignorance in perceptions of ethics are discussed with suggestions for (...) how pluralistic ignorance might be reduced and how research in this area may be extended. (shrink)

This paper develops an approach to the scientific realism debate that has three main features. First, our approach admits multiple criteria of reality, i.e., criteria that, if satisfied, warrant belief in the reality of hypothetical entities. Second, our approach is experiment-based in the sense that it focuses on criteria that are satisfied by experiments as opposed to theories. Third, our approach is local in the sense that it focuses on the reality of particular kinds of entities. We apply this approach (...) to a case that many philosophers have debated, namely, Jean Perrin’s work on atoms and molecules. We provide a novel account by arguing that Perrin’s work warranted a minimal belief in the reality of atoms and molecules as unobservable, discrete particles by satisfying a criterion of reality that we call experimental determination of number per unit. By doing so, he confirmed Avogadro’s hypothesis, but he did not confirm other key constituents of the atomic theories involved. We argue that our account of Perrin’s work is preferable to several other accounts, and we use this as a reason in support of our approach to the realism debate more generally. (shrink)

This chapter examines the work in chemistry that led to the discovery of boron and explores the implications of this episode for the scientific realism debate. This episode begins with Lavoisier’s oxygen theory of acidity and his prediction that boracic acid contains oxygen and a hypothetical, combustible substance that he called the boracic radical. And it culminates in the work of Davy, Gay-Lussac, and Thénard, who used potassium to extract oxygen from boracic acid and thereby discovered boron. This episode constitutes (...) a novel predictive success of Lavoisier’s theory of acidity, which was not even approximately true. Selective realists attempt to accommodate such false-but-successful theories by showing that their success is due to the fact that they have approximately true parts. This episode poses a strong challenge to selective realism because the parts of Lavoisier’s theory that are responsible for its success are not even approximately true. (shrink)

This anthology draws bold comparisons between secularist strategies to contain, privatize, and discipline religion and the treatment of racialized subjects by the American state. Specializing in history, literature, anthropology, theology, religious studies, and political theory, contributors expose secularism's prohibitive practices in all facets of American society and suggest opportunities for change.

edited by Doris Schroeder, welcomes contributions on all health topics related to human rights and relevant generic contributions from the human rights debate. To submit a paper or to discuss suitable topics, please e-mail Doris Schroeder at [email protected]. a.

Recent critiques of normative universalism have helped entrench a dichotomy between formalist universal egalitarian claims (typical of the liberal tradition) and particularist attention to cultural difference (in contemporary communitarianism, and in more or less postmodernist approaches). Focusing on the work of Richard Rorty and Iris Marion Young, this article explores whether, and how, we might find space for a universalism which avoids problems encountered by the formalist model. I argue that, while both Rorty and Young reject ‘Enlightenment’ universalism, the approaches (...) of both contain covert universalist assumptions. They thus represent different forms of ‘soft’ universalism: approaches which are fallibilist about current moral knowledge but which hold out the possibility of genuinely inclusive pan‐human normative frameworks. The trouble with both is that neither, in the end, provides a persuasive basis for their own position – one which avoids an ultimate arbitrariness about the winning out of one normative conception (be it humanitarian or not) over another. I suggest that recourse to ontology, and the kinds of metaphysical claim deemed outmoded in the mainstream of social and moral philosophy, provide such a basis. I argue too that a conception of human being as relational, and of the flourishing of the individual as requiring relations with others, is the best‐placed candidate to do the work required. (shrink)

The structural representation (S-representation) account provides an increasingly popular way of understanding the role and value of representation in cognitive science. Yet critics remain unconvinced that the account has the resources to rescue representationalism. This paper reviews problems faced by the S-representation account. In doing so, it offers a novel taxonomy that divides objections into two broad camps that ought to be disambiguated: ‘conceptual’ and ‘empirical’. It further shows how these objections can be met, bolstering existing responses in the literature (...) with novel solutions, thus strengthening the S-representation account. Finally, this paper suggests that the types of objections identified provide a generalisable taxonomy for a better understanding of any version of anti-representationalism. Thus, this review is of value to the representation debate more broadly. (shrink)

Most people hold overly (though not excessively) positive self-views of themselves, their ability to shape environmental events, and their future. These positive illusions are generally (though not always) beneficial, promoting achievement, psychological adjustment, and physical well-being. Social processes conspire to produce these illusions, suggesting that affiliation patterns may have evolved to nurture and sustain them.