Reprint of paper first published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 1984.

Due to their reliance on constitutive higher-order representing to generate the qualities of which the subject is consciously aware, I argue that the major existing higher-order representational theories of consciousness insulate us from our first-order sensory states. In fact on these views we are never properly conscious of our sensory states at all. In their place I offer a new higher-order theory of consciousness, with a view to making us suitably intimate with our sensory states in experience. This theory relies (...) on the idea of ‘quoting’ sensory qualities, so is dubbed the ‘quotational higher-order thought theory’. I argue that it can capture something of the idea that we are ‘acquainted’ with our conscious states without slipping beyond the pale for naturalists, whilst also providing satisfying treatments of traditional problems for higher-order theories concerning representational mismatch. The theory achieves this by abandoning a representational mechanism for mental intentionality, in favour of one based on ‘embedding’. (shrink)

Review comment on the first edition "Wheldall asks himself and his readers what has transpired within the field of educational psychology ... and what its relevance actually is for teaching, learning and education. As such it is a 'must read' for all educational psychologists, students of educational psychology, teachers and teacher trainers." Professor Paul Kirschner, Open Universiteit, British Journal of Educational Technology What is the relevance of educational psychology in the twenty first century? In this collection of essays, leading educational (...) psychologists reflect on the seminal developments which have been made in the field over the past twenty five years or so and assess how far we have progressed. Given a broad and personal remit to address a range of issues, the contributors review and critique a variety of topics, including: intelligence; communication; family environments; individual differences; reading; peer learning; classroom behaviour; and higher education. Providing provocative and challenging insights into the state of contemporary educational psychology, the contributors acknowledge throughout the successes and progression in the field, but with a critical edge and a challenge being thrown down to psychologists of education to make study more seriously informed and as a consequence, reformed. Now in its second edition this compelling text for students and researchers is thoroughly updated and includes four new chapters. (shrink)

This paper is a critical discussion of Manuel Vargas’ Building Better Beings, focusing on the treatment of desert therein. By means of an analogy between morality and sport, I examine some seemingly peculiar implications of Vargas’ teleological and revisionary account of desert. I also consider some general questions of philosophical methodology provoked by revisionary approaches.

Critics of social injustice argue that the agent of transformative social change will (or should) be a mass agent; namely, an agent that is large, complex, and geographically dispersed. Traditional theories of collective agency emphasize the presence of shared intentions and common knowledge, but mass agents are too large for such cohesion. To make sense of mass agency, I suggest a new approach. On the solidarity theory of mass agency, a mass agent is composed of (a) organizers who intend to (...) fight for social change and (b) supporters who are in solidarity with organizers. (shrink)

Perception involves the processing of content or information about the world. In what form is this content represented? I argue that perception is widely compositional. The perceptual system represents many stimulus features (including shape, orientation, and motion) in terms of combinations of other features (such as shape parts, slant and tilt, common and residual motion vectors). But compositionality can take a variety of forms. The ways in which perceptual representations compose are markedly different from the ways in which sentences or (...) thoughts are thought to be composed. I suggest that the thesis that perception is compositional is not itself a concrete hypothesis with specific predictions; rather it affords a productive framework for developing and evaluating specific empirical hypotheses about the form and content of perceptual representations. The question is not just whether perception is compositional, but how. Answering this latter question can provide fundamental insights into perception. (shrink)

This book offers cutting edge research on the modifications and disruptions of bodily experience in the context of anxiety, depression, trauma, chronic illness, pain, and aging. It presents original contributions in applied phenomenology, biomedical ethics, and the use of medical technologies.

Thick terms and concepts, such as honesty and cruelty, are at the heart of a variety of debates in philosophy of language and metaethics. Central to these debates is the question of how the descriptive and evaluative components of thick concepts are related and whether they can be separated from each other. So far, no empirical data on how thick terms are used in ordinary language has been collected to inform these debates. In this paper, we present the first empirical (...) study, designed to investigate whether the evaluative component of thick concepts is communicated as part of the semantic meaning or by means of conversational implicatures. While neither the semantic nor the pragmatic view can fully account for the use of thick terms in ordinary language, our results do favour the semanticist interpretation: the evaluation of a thick concept is only slightly easier to cancel than semantically entailed content. We further discovered a polarity effect, demonstrating that how easily an evaluation can be cancelled depends on whether the thick term is of positive or negative polarity. (shrink)

This essay explores the unique temporal experience in anxiety. Drawing on first-person accounts as well as examples from literature, I attempt to show how anxiety not only disrupts our physiological and cognitive timing but also disturbs the embodied rhythms of everyday social life. The primary goal, however, is to articulate the extent to which human existence itself is a temporally structured event and to identity the ways that anxiety disrupts this structure. Using Martin Heidegger’s account of human existence as a (...) point of departure, I show how the mood of anxiety has the power to alter our self-interpretations by closing down or constricting our experience of the future. I argue that a constricted future impedes our ability ‘to be’ because it closes off the range of projective meanings that we would ordinarily draw on to create or fashion our identities. (shrink)

This book brings together eleven case studies of inductive risk-the chance that scientific inference is incorrect-that range over a wide variety of scientific contexts and fields. The chapters are designed to illustrate the pervasiveness of inductive risk, assist scientists and policymakers in responding to it, and productively move theoretical discussions of the topic forward.

Both scientists and philosophers of science have recently emphasized the importance of promoting transparency in science. For scientists, transparency is a way to promote reproducibility, progress, and trust in research. For philosophers of science, transparency can help address the value-ladenness of scientific research in a responsible way. Nevertheless, the concept of transparency is a complex one. Scientists can be transparent about many different things, for many different reasons, on behalf of many different stakeholders. This paper proposes a taxonomy that clarifies (...) the major dimensions along which approaches to transparency can vary. By doing so, it provides several insights that philosophers and other science studies scholars can pursue. In particular, it helps address common objections to pursuing transparency in science, it clarifies major forms of transparency, and it suggests avenues for further research on this topic. (shrink)

Could low-level exposure to polluting chemicals be analogous to exercise -- a beneficial source of stress that strengthens the body? Some scientists studying the phenomenon of hormesis claim that that this may be the case.s A Little Pollution Good For You? critically examines the current evidence for hormesis.

Vows play a central role in Buddhist thought and practice. Monastics are obliged to know and conform to hundreds of vows. Although it is widely recognized that vows are important for guiding practitioners on the path to enlightenment, we argue that they have another overlooked but equally crucial role to play. A second function of the vows, we argue, is to facilitate group harmony and cohesion to ensure the perpetuation of the dhamma and the saṅgha. However, the prominence of vows (...) in the Buddhist tradition seems at odds with another central part of the doctrine. For vows, like other promises, seem to involve representing a persisting self as the individual who undertakes the vow. And to explicitly appeal to a persisting self conflicts with one of the most important philosophical commitments of Buddhism – the no self view. We argue though that once we articulate the details of how vows generate behavior that conforms to them, we can see that no appeal to the self is required to internalize and act on vows. (shrink)

Vows play a central role in Buddhist thought and practice. Monastics are obliged to know and conform to hundreds of vows. Although it is widely recognized that vows are important for guiding practitioners on the path to enlightenment, we argue that they have another overlooked but equally crucial role to play. A second function of the vows, we argue, is to facilitate group harmony and cohesion to ensure the perpetuation of the dhamma and the saṅgha. However, the prominence of vows (...) in the Buddhist tradition seems at odds with another central part of the doctrine. For vows, like other promises, seem to involve representing a persisting self as the individual who undertakes the vow. And to explicitly appeal to a persisting self conflicts with one of the most important philosophical commitments of Buddhism – the no self view. We argue though that once we articulate the details of how vows generate behavior that conforms to them, we can see that no appeal to the self is required to internalize and act on vows. (shrink)

In the context of strategic interactions, individuals sometimes find themselves better off when they have fewer options. This mechanism is known under the name of ‘strategic commitment’, as it is usually the individuals themselves who ‘commit’ to following a certain course of action by restricting their options; but that is not necessary. I explain how a paternalistic intervention may be conceived where it is a third party who paternalistically restricts rational individuals’ choices to improve their welfare. This kind of intervention, (...) which I call ‘strategic paternalism’, contradicts the narrative according to which welfare economics is incompatible with paternalism because it assumes individual rationality, which would make paternalism irrelevant. To prove this point, I show why and in what sense this ‘strategic paternalism’ deserves to be called that way. (shrink)

This Element introduces the philosophical literature on values in science by examining four questions: How do values influence science? Should we actively incorporate values in science? How can we manage values in science responsibly? What are some next steps for those who want to help promote responsible roles for values in science? It explores arguments for and against the “value-free ideal” for science and concludes that it should be rejected. Nonetheless, this does not mean that value influences are always acceptable. (...) The Element explores a range of strategies for distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate value influences. It concludes by proposing an approach for managing values in science that relies on justifying, prioritising, and implementing norms for scientific research practices and institutions. (shrink)

Through a series of empirical studies involving native speakers of English, German, and Chinese, this paper reveals that the predicate “true” is inherently ambiguous in the empirical domain. Truth statements such as “It is true that Tom is at the party” seem to be ambivalent between two readings. On the first reading, the statement means “Reality is such that Tom is at the party.” On the second reading, the statement means “According to what X believes, Tom is at the party.” (...) While there appear to exist some cross-cultural differences in the interpretation of the statements, the overall findings robustly indicate that “true” has multiple meanings in the realm of empirical matters. (shrink)

The rise of medically unexplained conditions like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome in the United States looks remarkably similar to the explosion of neurasthenia diagnoses in the late nineteenth century. In this paper, I argue the historical connection between neurasthenia and today’s medically unexplained conditions hinges largely on the uncritical acceptance of naturalism in medicine. I show how this cultural acceptance shapes the way in which we interpret and make sense of nervous distress while, at the same time, neglecting the (...) unique social and historical forces that continue to produce it. I draw on the methods of hermeneutic philosophy to expose the limits of naturalism and forward an account of health and illness that acknowledges the extent to which we are always embedded in contexts of meaning that determine how we experience and understand our suffering. (shrink)

In this chapter, Macnish and Asgarinia introduce current thinking and debate around issues of privacy as these relate to the media. Starting with controversies over the definition of privacy, they consider what the content of privacy should be and why it is we consider privacy to be valuable. This latter includes the social implications of privacy and the only recently-recognised concept of group privacy, contrasting it with individual privacy, as well as legal implications arising through laws such as the European (...) Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, concerning the collection of personal data and data subjects’ rights. Finally they turn to specific instances of privacy consideration in the media. These include: -/- The use of telephoto lenses to take pictures of celebrities at a distance without those celebrities’ permission (and the related question as to what is a reasonable expectation of privacy when in a public place); -/- Sharing information on social media (and the related question of whether those who share their data on social networking sites care about their privacy), as well as the availability of data online to research, even though that data has not always been posted for the purposes of research; -/- The challenges posed by anonymity online, including the trade-off between free expression and offensive expression; -/- Hacking and the meaning of fishing expeditions as a practice by the media and exploring what, if anything, is wrong with these; -/- The implications of invading the privacy of politicians, both as a defence of democracy and as a threat to democracy. (shrink)

This book explores new phenomenological research on the structural disruptions of spatiality, temporality, and understanding in the context of anxiety and depressive disorders. It offers critiques of mainstream psychopathology, taking a transdisciplinary approach to the relationship between mental illness and self-constitution.

How should thought and consciousness be understood within a view of the world as being through-and-through physical? Many philosophers have proposed non-reductive, levels-based positions, according to which the physical domain is fundamental, while thought and consciousness are higher-level processes, dependent on and determined by physical processes. In this book, Kevin Morris's careful philosophical and historical critique shows that it is very difficult to make good metaphysical sense of this idea - notions like supervenience, physical realization, and grounding all fail (...) to articulate a viable non-reductive, levels-based physicalism. Challenging assumptions about the mind-body problem and providing new perspectives on the debate over physicalism, this accessible and comprehensive book will interest scholars working in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. (shrink)

This response addresses the excellent responses to my book provided by Heather Douglas, Janet Kourany, and Matt Brown. First, I provide some comments and clarifications concerning a few of the highlights from their essays. Second, in response to the worries of my critics, I provide more detail than I was able to provide in my book regarding my three conditions for incorporating values in science. Third, I identify some of the most promising avenues for further research that flow out of (...) this interchange. (shrink)

Critical analysis of the biotechnological reproduction of biological life increasingly emphasises the role of value-producing labour in biotechnologically reproductive processes, while also arguing that Marx’s use of the terms ‘labour’ and ‘value’ is inadequate to the critical scrutiny of these processes. Focusing especially on the reformulation of the value-labour relation in recent work in this area by Melinda Cooper and Catherine Waldby, this paper both critiques this reformulation and questions the explanatory efficacy of the category ‘labour’ in this context. Emphasising (...) the contemporary global expansion of capital relative to value-producing labour – specifically, the expansion of fictitious capital and debt on the one hand, and of global surplus populations on the other – it argues that this reformulation misrepresents the mediated capacities of capital as the immediate capacities of labour. This reformulation, moreover, is indicative of broader tendencies in the contemporary theorisation of labour, tendencies exemplified by autonomist Marxism. (shrink)

Is voting a duty of democratic citizenship? This article advances a new argument for the existence of a duty to vote. It argues that every normative account of electoral representation requires universal turnout to function in line with its own internal normative logic. This generates a special obligation for citizens to vote in electoral representative contexts as a function of the role morality of democratic citizenship. Because voting uniquely authorizes office holding in representative democracies, and because universal turnout contributes powerfully (...) to representation being fair, to be a good citizen of such democracies requires one to vote. Whereas previous arguments for a duty to vote have invoked basic moral principles like fairness or a Samaritan duty of rescue, this account is based on citizens occupying a vital functional role within electoral representative institutions. This institutional duty solves the “specificity problem” of justifying a duty to vote better than competing accounts and also immunizes the duty to objections that there is no duty to vote when there are only bad choices and that there is a no duty to vote but rather duty to vote well. By emphasizing the tight connection between institutions and individual conduct, the role morality approach used here supplies a less abstract and more realistic framework than much previous research on the ethics of democratic citizenship and brings the debate closer to constitutive features of democratic politics. (shrink)

Sosa, Pritchard, and Vogel have all argued that there are cases in which one knows something inductively but does not believe it sensitively, and that sensitivity therefore cannot be necessary for knowledge. I defend sensitivity by showing that inductive knowledge is sensitive.

This paper discusses and evaluates a recent argument for the conclusion that an attractive variety of Russellian monism ought to be regarded as a form of physicalism. According to this line of thought, if the Russellian’s “inscrutable” properties are held to ground not only experience, but also the physical structure of the world—and in this sense are not “experience-specific”—they thereby have an unproblematic place in physicalist metaphysics. I argue, in contrast, that there can be a sense in which the Russellian’s (...) inscrutables are experience-specific in a way that a physicalist probably ought to find objectionable, even if they play some role other than grounding experience. This will be the case, I argue, if certain worlds are taken to be possible, as they sometimes have: worlds of “bare structure” and worlds with what might be called “swapped inscrutables”. In this way, I claim that accepting certain possibilities has consequences for how one should understand the nature of the Russellian’s inscrutables and the place they have in physicalist metaphysics. (shrink)

The instrumental classification of depression made possible by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and the widespread pharmacological approach to treatment in mainstream biopsychiatry has generated a cottage industry of criticism. This paper explores the potential shortcomings of the DSM/bio-psychiatric model and introduces the value of philosophical counseling—specifically by means of integrating the insights of Existentialism and Buddhism—as a way to overcome a number of diagnostic and methodological problems. Philosophical counseling, in this regard, is not overly concerned with the objective question (...) of “What we are?” as biophysical beingswith overt behaviors but with a more fundamental question, namely, “How we are?” that is, how do we experience our existence as finite, impermanent beings, how does this experience shape and determine depressive episodes, and how can we come to accept our own finitude and impermanence? (shrink)

One of the traditional metaphysical assumptions that Heidegger's Being and Time challenges is that the disembodied 'theoretical' standpoint has priority over the embodied 'practical' standpoint. Heidegger argues that any act of theoretical reflection is derivative of pre-reflective social practices that we are "always already" familiar with. Some contemporary critics insist they are continuing this project by exploring aspects of our concrete practices that Heidegger's analysis allegedly overlooks, particularly by focusing on the role that the body plays in everyday life. In (...) this dissertation, I address these criticisms and suggest that they contribute to Heidegger's project only on the ontic level and in no way diminish the original contribution of his philosophy. Heidegger is not overly concerned with regional investigations into the various ways that human beings meaningfully encounter things in the world. Heidegger is concerned with the being of beings , with fundamental ontology, which asks the question: "How come meaning?" Or, put in another way, "What are the conditions for the possibility of any meaning, any intelligibility whatsoever?" ;For Heidegger, human existence as Dasein is, ultimately, neither a body-subject with emotions, perceptions, instincts, or social habits nor a self-enclosed mind. Rather, Dasein is more like a 'mass' term, referring to a shared, unfolding background of cultural relations: norms, customs, institutions, historical events, and equipment. This public background is already "there," prior to the appearance of the body, and it is structured temporally, constituting a horizon, "clearing" , or "space of free play" in terms of which things can show up as meaning something to me. I argue that it is only by means of this prior clearing of intelligibility that I can make sense of my embodied practices and that bodies can initially emerge-into-presence as the kind of things that they are. (shrink)

Essential reading for students and researchers of existentialism and phenomenology, and also of interest to those studying ethics, philosophy and gender, philosophy of race, the emotions and philosophical issues in health and illness as well as related disciplines such as Literature, Sociology, and Political Theory.

In 1978, as the protests against the Shah of Iran reached their zenith, philosopher Michel Foucault was working as a special correspondent for _Corriere della Sera_ and _le Nouvel Observateur_. During his little-known stint as a journalist, Foucault traveled to Iran, met with leaders like Ayatollah Khomeini, and wrote a series of articles on the revolution. _Foucault and the Iranian Revolution _is the first book-length analysis of these essays on Iran, the majority of which have never before appeared in English. (...) Accompanying the analysis are annotated translations of the Iran writings in their entirety and the at times blistering responses from such contemporaneous critics as Middle East scholar Maxime Rodinson as well as comments on the revolution by feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. In this important and controversial account, Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson illuminate Foucault's support of the Islamist movement. They also show how Foucault's experiences in Iran contributed to a turning point in his thought, influencing his ideas on the Enlightenment, homosexuality, and his search for political spirituality. _Foucault and the Iranian Revolution_ informs current discussion on the divisions that have reemerged among Western intellectuals over the response to radical Islamism after September 11. Foucault's provocative writings are thus essential for understanding the history and the future of the West's relationship with Iran and, more generally, to political Islam. In their examination of these journalistic pieces, Afary and Anderson offer a surprising glimpse into the mind of a celebrated thinker. (shrink)

Vogel, Sosa, and Huemer have all argued that sensitivity is incompatible with knowing that you do not believe falsely, therefore the sensitivity condition must be false. I show that this objection misses its mark because it fails to take account of the basis of belief. Moreover, if the objection is modified to account for the basis of belief then it collapses into the more familiar objection that sensitivity is incompatible with closure.

This book aims to develop certain aspects of Gottlob Frege’s theory of meaning, especially those relevant to intensional logic. It offers a new interpretation of the nature of senses, and attempts to devise a logical calculus for the theory of sense and reference that captures as closely as possible the views of the historical Frege. (The approach is contrasted with the less historically-minded Logic of Sense and Denotation of Alonzo Church.) Comparisons of Frege’s theory with those of Russell and others (...) are given. It is in the end shown that developing Frege’s theory in these ways reveals serious problems hitherto largely unnoticed, including those possibly rendering a Fregean intensional logic inconsistent even if his naïve class theory is excluded. (shrink)

In recent years, industry-funded research has come under fire because of concerns that it can be biased in favor of the funders. This article suggests that efforts by philosophers of science to analyze the concept of objectivity can provide important lessons for those seeking to evaluate and improve industry-funded research. It identifies three particularly relevant criteria for objectivity: transparency, reproducibility, and effective criticism. On closer examination, the criteria of transparency and reproducibility turn out to have significant limitations in this context, (...) but the criterion of effective criticism suggests some important strategies for improving the objectivity of industry-funded science. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Melchior pursues a novel argumentative strategy against the sensitivity condition. His claim is that sensitivity suffers from a ‘heterogeneity problem:’ although some higher-order beliefs are knowable, other, very similar, higher-order beliefs are insensitive and so not knowable. Similarly, the conclusions of some bootstrapping arguments are insensitive, but others are not. In reply, I show that sensitivity does not treat different higher-order beliefs differently in the way that Melchior states and that while genuine bootstrapping arguments have insensitive (...) conclusions, the cases that Melchior describes as sensitive ‘bootstrapping’ arguments don’t deserve the name, since they are a perfectly good way of getting to know their conclusions. In sum, sensitivity doesn’t have a heterogeneity problem. (shrink)

The dominance of agency theory can reduce our collective scope to analyse private equity in all its diversity and depth. We contribute to theorisation of private equity by developing a contrasting perspective that draws on a rich tradition of virtue ethics. In doing so, we juxtapose 'private equity' with 'public good' to develop points of rhetorical and analytical contrast. We develop a typology differentiating various forms of private equity, and focus on the 'take private' form. These takeovers are where private (...) equity funds are used to buy all a firm's publicly listed shares. Take private deals reduce reporting requirements and lessen the amount of public scrutiny a firm comes under. They allow greater control of a firm's assets and resources but also have effects in terms of the wider social fabric. The 'public good' and virtue ethics offer an alternative basis for theorisation of these deals. This provides a needed contrast to accounts of private equity based on agency theory. (shrink)

The wide reflective equilibrium (WRE) is considered the most important method of ethical justification and is intensively discussed in the scientific community. However, it is unclear to what extent it is actually applied in the ethical literature. The objective of this paper is to fill this gap by providing a critical overview of its explicit applications. Explicit application refers to studies that, following Daniels’ definition, contain three levels, name their elements, and provide a connection between the levels. Philosophers Index, ProQuest, (...) PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched for studies that explicitly used the WRE method and were written in German or English. All topics, disciplines, and publication forms were considered. Nineteen studies were found in which the WRE was applied 23 times. In the 23 applications, 50 equilibria were discussed, and 19 times it was reported that an equilibrium state was reached. The authors applied the WRE in various disciplines, for different purposes, and to diverse topics. The applications themselves differed considerably regarding the application procedure and the scope. Differences can be seen in particular with regard to the presentation of the adjustment process and the WRE criteria used. The results indicate that the WRE can be successfully applied, but the number of explicit applications is still very low. Further research is needed to develop the WRE into an established method of justification. In particular, standards are needed for adjustment and for WRE criteria. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA recent line of argument insists that replacing democracy with markets would improve social decision making due to markets’ superior use of knowledge. These arguments are flawed by unrealistic assumptions, unfair comparisons, and a neglect of the epistemic limits of markets. In reality, the epistemic advantages of markets over democracy are circumscribed and often illusory. A recognition of markets’ epistemic limits can, however, provide guidance for designing institutions in ways that capture the advantages of both.

Panpsychism has often been motivated on the grounds that any attempt to account for experience and consciousness in organisms in purely physical, nonexperiential terms faces severe difficulties. The “combination problem” charges that attributing phenomenal properties to the basic constituents of organisms, as panpsychism proposes, likewise fails to provide a satisfactory basis for experience in humans and other organisms. This paper evaluates a recent attempt to understand, and solve, the combination problem. This approach, due to Sam Coleman, is premised on a (...) distinction between mere aggregates and genuine unities, and the purported inability of subjects to constitute a unity. In response, I first argue that it may not be incumbent upon the panpsychist to explain how microphenomenal properties could constitute a unity in the way that Coleman supposes. I then argue that even if such a burden does fall on the panpsychist, it is far from clear that a plurality subjects cannot constitute such a unity. Finally, I argue that if one adopts a functionalist account of macrosubjects, as Coleman does, there is little reason to think that a plurality of subjects could not constitute a macrosubject. In these ways, I argue that the force of the combination problem does not turn on whether microphenomenal properties require minds or subjects that have them. (shrink)

Many current popular views in epistemology require a belief to be the result of a reliable process (aka ‘method of belief formation’ or ‘cognitive capacity’) in order to count as knowledge. This means that the generality problem rears its head, i.e. the kind of process in question has to be spelt out, and this looks difficult to do without being either over or under-general. In response to this problem, I propose that we should adopt a more fine-grained account of the (...) epistemic basing relation, at which point the generality problem becomes easy to solve. (shrink)

Economist Frank Knight drew a distinction between decisions under risk and decisions under uncertainty. Despite the significance of this distinction for decision theory, we argue that there has been inadequate attention to the difficulties involved in classifying decision situations into these categories. Using the risk assessment of carbon nanotubes as an example, we show that it is often unclear whether there is adequate information to classify a decision situation as being under risk as opposed to uncertainty. We conclude by providing (...) two suggestions for responding to these difficulties: treating decisions as real-world experiments; and promoting broadly based deliberation about quantitative information. (shrink)

I give an account how the principle of ‘respect for autonomy’ dominates the field of bioethics, and how it came to triumph over its competitors, ‘respect for persons’ and ‘respect for free power of choice’. I argue that ‘respect for autonomy’ is unsatisfactory as a basic principle of bioethics because it is grounded in too individualistic a worldview, citing concerns of African theorists and other communitarians who claim that the principle fails to acknowledge the fundamental importance of understanding persons within (...) the nexus of their communal relationships. I defend the claim that ‘respect for persons’ is a more appropriate principle, as it is able to acknowledge both individual decision making and the essential relationality of persons. I acknowledge that my preference for ‘respect for persons’ is problematic because of the important debate around the definition of ‘personhood’ in bioethics discourse. Relying on Thaddeus Metz's conception of moral status, I propose a relational definition of personhood that distinguishes between persons with agency and persons without agency, arguing that we have different moral obligations to these distinct categories of persons. I claim that this conception of personhood is better able to accommodate our moral intuitions than conventional approaches, and that it is able to do so without being speciesist or question-begging. (shrink)

A summary of the philosophical career and intellectual contributions of Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), including his invention of first- and second-order quantified logic, his logicist understanding of arithmetic and numbers, the theory of sense (Sinn) and reference (Bedeutung) of language, the third-realm metaphysics of “thoughts”, his arguments against rival views, and other topics.

Ethicists and policy makers have spent a good deal of effort considering how to make societal decisions in response to emerging public- and environmental-health risks like those posed by nanomaterials. This paper explores how these sorts of ethical and societal value judgments about responding to nanotechnology’s environmental health and safety risks arise not only in the public-policy domain but also “upstream,” in the performance of scientific research. It focuses especially on the notion that particular forms of research can be more (...) “precautionary” than others, in the sense that they tend to facilitate the identification and prevention of environmental or public health threats to a greater extent than other approaches. This is illustrated in a specific case study of recent research in nanotoxicology, which shows how ethical and societal values could influence at least four aspects of research: the nanomaterials studied; the biological models used to investigate them; the effects examined; and the standards of evidence required for drawing conclusions. The paper concludes by proposing some mechanisms for integrating more careful ethical reflection into these “upstream,” value-laden decisions that pervade research on nanotechnology as well as other policy-relevant areas of science. (shrink)