Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 25-27.

This paper discusses the inefficacy problem that arises in contexts of “collective harm.‘ These are contexts in which by acting in a certain sort of way, people collectively cause harm, or fail to prevent it, but no individual act of the relevant sort seems to itself make a difference. The inefficacy problem is that if acting in the relevant way won’t make a difference, it’s unclear why it would be wrong. Each individual can argue, “things will be just as bad (...) whether or not I act in this way, so there’s no point in doing otherwise.‘ The goal of this paper is to give an overview of some of the main responses available to the problem and to highlight central issues that arise for each type of response. In the final section, I explain what I take to be the most promising strategy and discuss the form that this strategy should take. (shrink)

There are many cases in which people collectively cause some morally significant outcome (such as a harmful or beneficial outcome) but no individual act seems to make a difference. The problem in such cases is that it seems each person can argue, ‘it makes no difference whether or not I do X, so I have no reason to do it.’ The challenge is to say where this argument goes wrong. My approach begins from the observation that underlying the problem and (...) motivating the typical responses to it is a standard, intuitive assumption. The assumption is that if an act will not make a difference with respect to an outcome, then it cannot play a sig- nificant, non-superfluous role in bringing that outcome about. In other words, helping to bring about an outcome requires making a difference. I argue that the key to solving the problem is to reject this assumption. I develop an account of what it is to help to bring about an outcome, where this does not require making a difference, and I use this explain our reasons for action in the problem cases. This account also yields an error theory that explains why the standard assumption is so tempting, even though it is mistaken. (shrink)

This book features new essays by philosophers, psychologists, and a theologian on the important topic of virtue development. The essays engage with work from multiple disciplines and thereby seek to bridge disciplinary divides. The volume is a significant contribution to the emerging interdisciplinary field of virtue development studies.

The emerging field of synthetic biology aims to engineer novel biological entities. The envisioned future bio-based economy builds largely on “cell factories”: organisms that have been metabolically engineered to sustainably produce substances for human ends. In this paper, we argue that synthetic biology’s goal of creating efficient production vessels for industrial applications implies a set of ontological assumptions according to which living organisms are machines. Traditionally, a machine is understood as a technological, isolated and controllable production unit consisting of parts. (...) But modified organisms, or hybrids, require us to think beyond the machine paradigm and its associated dichotomies between artificial and natural, organisms and artefacts. We ask: How may we conceptualise hybrids beyond limiting ontological categories? Our main claim is that the hybrids created by synthetic biology should be considered not as machines but as metabolic systems. We shall show how the philosophical account of metabolism can inform an ontology of hybrids that moves beyond what we call the “machine ontology”, considering that metabolism enables thinking beyond the dominant dichotomies and allows us to understand and design lifeforms in a bio-based economy. Thus, the aim of this paper is twofold: first, to develop the philosophical ontology of hybrids, and second, to move synthetic biology beyond the problematically limiting view of hybrids. (shrink)

Much ink has been spilled in the last years on whether voting is a duty that citizens ought to discharge in a democracy that aspires to be acceptably just. In this essay, I concentrate on whether a moral duty to participate in elections logically entails that people ought to vote simpliciter or well. I propose that voting well – i.e. with information and a sense of justice – is the electoral duty that we should value. Voting as such is not (...) – at least, not if we care about the substantive quality of democratic outcomes, not only about equality of participation. As a matter of fact, voting well seems to be a more adequate form of political participation than simply voting under varied normative conceptions of democracy, as I will show. At the same time, while we can't freely choose not to follow a moral duty to vote well just because we're not inclined to do so, we have to allow for the possibility that some individuals will not be in a good position to act on it. I conclude by discussing admissible reasons for this inability with respect to our citizenship responsibilities. (shrink)

The concept of imagination is notoriously ambiguous. Thus one must be cautious not to use ‘imagination’ as a placeholder for diverse phenomena and processes that perhaps have not much more in common than that they are difficult to assign to some other, better defined domain, such as perception, conceptual thought, or artistic production. However, this challenge also comes with great opportunities: the fecundity and openness of ‘imagination’ appeal to researchers from different disciplines with different approaches and questions, and it draws (...) together fields of enquiry that are initially considered far apart. Hence, arguably, the field of imagination is particularly poised for interdisciplinary enquiry. In the section on Imagination in Interdisciplinary Research, I will talk about some of the issues that have already entered that field of interdisciplinary inquiry. (shrink)

Special Issue, n. I, ch. 1, On the Transcendental.

Cicero is increasingly recognised as a highly intelligent contributor to the ongoing ethical debates between Epicureans, Stoics and other schools. In this work on the fundamentals of ethics his learning as a scholar, his skill as a lawyer and his own passion for the truth result in a work which dazzles us in its presentation of the debates and at the same time exhibits the detachment of the ancient sceptic. Many kinds of reader will find themselves engaged with Cicero as (...) well as with the ethical theories he presents. This collection takes the reader further into the debates, opening up new avenues for exploring this fascinating work. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers have become increasingly interested in a Hegelian approach to Aristotelian non-reductive naturalism. This paper points out a challenge faced by naturalist readings of Hegel's conception of spirit. For Hegel, spirit and nature are essentially distinct and even related in an antagonistic way. It is difficult to do full justice to this thought while at the same time reading Hegel as a naturalist. The paper also seeks to suggest a response to this challenge. Drawing on Hegel's account (...) of mechanism in his philosophy of spirit, it shows that processes which can count as natural – such as mechanical processes – constitute for Hegel an integral and indispensable part of spiritual activity. Against this background, it is possible to develop a form of Hegelian naturalism which does not lose sight of the essential distinction, even opposition of spirit and nature. (shrink)

This article documents a moment in history when poor and working-class white boys and men are struggling in their schools, communities, and workplaces against the “Other” as a means of framing identities. Drawing on two independent qualitative studies, the authors investigate distinct locations where poor and working-class boys and men invent, relate to, and distance from marginalized groups in an effort to create self. First the authors look at an ethnography of “the Freeway boys,” a community of urban white working-class (...) high school boys who must deal with the economic ravagement of their neighborhood and their insecure place in a world different than that of their fathers. Next, the authors draw from a large-scale survey of young adults to hear how a combined sample of urban poor and working-class white men narrate identities that are carved explicitly out of territory bordered by white women and African American men. Across sites, the authors theorize how high schools and workplaces both, in part, create white masculinities and interrupt them, at a time when white working-class boys and men feel under siege. (shrink)

This article examines why firms engage in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Specifically, it investigates the relationship between a firm's motivation to engage in CSR and the depth of its commitment. I propose that the enduring debate over CSR and financial performance is misaligned, and that scholars should instead focus on the underlying components of CSR engagement. This research sheds light on the motivational antecedents of a firm's engagement in CSR and their effect on CSR commitment. Despite calls for scientific investigation (...) of this linkage, it has received scant attention in the literature. Pursuing this area of research requires the construction of measures of CSR motivation and CSR commitment, as prior work generally lacks objective analysis. I present measures and a research methodology that test hypotheses about how CSR motivation relates to different levels of CSR commitment. The results of this research both validate and challenge current theory. This refined understanding of CSR engagement may enhance firm transparency and accountability to stakeholders. It may reduce the uncertainty in both internal and external assessments of firm CSR and the potential for social and financial impact. (shrink)

Sharply in focus in the United States right now is the disproportionate COVID‐19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality rates of Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, and Pacific Islanders living in the United States in contrast to White people. These COVID‐19 disparities are but one example of how systemic racism filters into health outcomes for many Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC). With these issues front and center, more attention is being given to the ways that White medical professionals contribute to these (...) disparities, including their socialization to ignore or deny inequities. As such, the present study sought to understand how educating White health‐care pre‐professionals about systemic racism might influence their understanding of and responsibility for disrupting White supremacy. Data were drawn from 49 White‐identified nursing students who participated in a mapping project that uncovered instantiations of systemic racism in the United States. Participant written reflections were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that mapping projects can develop White people's knowledge and understanding of systemic racism. We introduce the construct, transformative dissonant encounters, to describe how this project precipitated shifts in world view necessary for White people to confront systemic racism. Implications for nursing educators, psychological researchers, and antiracist activists are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper aims at exposing a strategy to organize the debate around physicalism. Our starting point is the pre-philosophical notion of physicalism, which is typically formulated in the form of slogans. Indeed, philosophers debating metaphysics have paradigmatically introduced the subject with aid of slogans such as “there is nothing over and above the physical”, “once every physical aspect of the world is settled, every other aspect will follow”, “physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical”. These ideas are very (...) intuitive but they are, of course, far from being a satisfactory metaphysical conception of Physicalism. For that end, we will begin with the definition of physicalism as the thesis that everything is physical, following Stoljar, we should be able to respond to one central question: how to interpret the physicalist claim that everything in physical. (shrink)

Informed by a provocative exhibition at the Louvre curated by the author, _The Severed Head_ unpacks artistic representations of severed heads from the Paleolithic period to the present. Surveying paintings, sculptures, and drawings, Julia Kristeva turns her famed critical eye to a study of the head as symbol and metaphor, as religious object and physical fact, further developing a critical theme in her work--_the power of horror_--and the potential for the face to provide an experience of the sacred. Kristeva (...) considers the head as icon, artifact, and locus of thought, seeking a keener understanding of the violence and desire that drives us to sever, and in some cases keep, such a potent object. Her study stretches all the way back to 6,000 B.C.E., with humans' early decoration and worship of skulls, and follows with the Medusa myth; the mandylion of Laon (a holy relic in which the face of a saint appears on a piece of cloth); the biblical story of John the Baptist and his counterpart, Salome; tales of the guillotine; modern murder mysteries; and even the rhetoric surrounding the fight for and against capital punishment. Kristeva interprets these "capital visions" through the lens of psychoanalysis, drawing infinite connections between their manifestation and sacred experience and very much affirming the possibility of the sacred, even in an era of "faceless" interaction. (shrink)

Abstract: Hegel's theory of tragedy is often considered to be primarily a theory of the objective powers involved in tragic conflicts—for Hegel, these are paradigmatically competing ethical notions—and of the rationality which underlies and drives such conflicts. Such a view follows naturally from a close reading of Hegel's discussion of classical Greek tragedy in his Lectures on Aesthetics. However, this view gives rise to the question of whether Hegel's theory of tragedy can account for the significance of tragic experience, in (...) particular the experience of tragic suffering; it has been argued repeatedly that it cannot. In contrast, I want to suggest in this paper that a theory of tragic experience can be derived from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. This Hegelian theory of tragic experience, I argue, should be understood as complementing rather than challenging Hegel's theory of objective tragic conflict. (shrink)

La danse bénéficie indirectement de l’insistance de Danto sur la dimension cognitive de l’art. Ce qu’elle gagne d’un côté risque toutefois d’être perdu de l’autre. Certes, l’art chorégraphique ne se limite pas au plaisir des yeux. Mais le rôle de l’intellect dans son appréciation et sa compréhension ne doit pas évincer celui, primordial, des sensations visuelles, kinesthésiques et auditives. Saisir la signification de la danse requiert un ancrage dans l’expérience sensible ; une attention soutenue, à la fois empirique et intellectuelle, (...) ne devant pas être conçue comme l’enquête dualiste d’un esprit allant débusquer un contenu caché sous d’anecdotiques et trompeuses surfaces visibles 1. (shrink)

Social robotics has a high disruptive potential, for it expands the field of application of intelligent technology to practical contexts of a relational nature. Due to their capacity to “intersubjectively” interact with people, social robots can take over new roles in our daily activities, multiplying the ethical implications of intelligent robotics. In this paper, we offer some preliminary considerations for the ethical reflection on social robotics, so that to clarify how to correctly orient the critical-normative thinking in this arduous task. (...) We defend the ‘being perspective’ and its linked categories of ‘teleology’ and ‘interest’ as the ones from which to articulate the reflection. We argue that attending primarily to the ‘being’, before the ‘doing’, of robots allow us to correctly approach the core phenomenon of all ethical concerns on social robotics, avoiding the reductionisms in the ethical gaze to which the latter may lead. (shrink)

There is a Turing computable embedding $\Phi $ of directed graphs $\mathcal {A}$ in undirected graphs. Moreover, there is a fixed tuple of formulas that give a uniform effective interpretation; i.e., for all directed graphs $\mathcal {A}$, these formulas interpret $\mathcal {A}$ in $\Phi $. It follows that $\mathcal {A}$ is Medvedev reducible to $\Phi $ uniformly; i.e., $\mathcal {A}\leq _s\Phi $ with a fixed Turing operator that serves for all $\mathcal {A}$. We observe that there is a graph G (...) that is not Medvedev reducible to any linear ordering. Hence, G is not effectively interpreted in any linear ordering. Similarly, there is a graph that is not interpreted in any linear ordering using computable $\Sigma _2$ formulas. Any graph can be interpreted in a linear ordering using computable $\Sigma _3$ formulas. Friedman and Stanley [4] gave a Turing computable embedding L of directed graphs in linear orderings. We show that there is no fixed tuple of $L_{\omega _1\omega }$ -formulas that, for all G, interpret the input graph G in the output linear ordering $L$. Harrison-Trainor and Montalbán [7] have also shown this, by a quite different proof. (shrink)

In his Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences, Hegel states that the essential characteristic of spirit is to exhibit the structure of manifestation. This paper argues that for Hegel the structure of manifestation is actualized in habituated bodily actions, which sheds light on Hegel’s understanding of the relation between body and soul. Furthermore, the paper shows that there is an intrinsic relation between Hegel’s theory of habit and his aesthetics. Insofar as it exemplifies the structure of manifestation, habit has an expressive dimension (...) for Hegel, and is therefore essentially complemented by its portrayal in classical works of art by virtue of the specific relation between form and content that such works exhibit. According to the interpretation presented here, Hegel’s philosophy of mind and his philosophy of aesthetics mutually complement and illuminate each other. (shrink)

Cicero is increasingly recognised as a highly intelligent contributor to the ongoing ethical debates between Epicureans, Stoics and other schools. In this work on the fundamentals of ethics his learning as a scholar, his skill as a lawyer and his own passion for the truth result in a work which dazzles us in its presentation of the debates and at the same time exhibits the detachment of the ancient sceptic. Many kinds of reader will find themselves engaged with Cicero as (...) well as with the ethical theories he presents. This collection takes the reader further into the debates, opening up new avenues for exploring this fascinating work. (shrink)