Scientists have long counseled against interpreting animal behavior in terms of human emotions, warning that such anthropomorphizing limits our ability to understand animals as they really are. Yet what are we to make of a female gorilla in a German zoo who spent days mourning the death of her baby? Or a wild female elephant who cared for a younger one after she was injured by a rambunctious teenage male? Or a rat who refused to push a lever for food (...) when he saw that doing so caused another rat to be shocked? Aren’t these clear signs that animals have recognizable emotions and moral intelligence? With _Wild Justice_ Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce unequivocally answer yes. Marrying years of behavioral and cognitive research with compelling and moving anecdotes, Bekoff and Pierce reveal that animals exhibit a broad repertoire of moral behaviors, including fairness, empathy, trust, and reciprocity. Underlying these behaviors is a complex and nuanced range of emotions, backed by a high degree of intelligence and surprising behavioral flexibility. Animals, in short, are incredibly adept social beings, relying on rules of conduct to navigate intricate social networks that are essential to their survival. Ultimately, Bekoff and Pierce draw the astonishing conclusion that there is no moral gap between humans and other species: morality is an evolved trait that we unquestionably share with other social mammals. Sure to be controversial, _Wild Justice_ offers not just cutting-edge science, but a provocative call to rethink our relationship with—and our responsibilities toward—our fellow animals. (shrink)

This paper proposes a model of human uniqueness based on an unusual distinction between two contrasted kinds of political competition and political status: (1) antagonistic competition, in quest of dominance (antagonistic status), a zero-sum, self-limiting game whose stake—who takes what, when, how—summarizes a classical definition of politics (Lasswell 1936), and (2) synergistic competition, in quest of merit (synergistic status), a positive-sum, self-reinforcing game whose stake becomes “who brings what to a team’s common good.” In this view, Rawls’s (1971) famous virtual (...) “veil of ignorance” mainly conceals politics’ antagonistic stakes so as to devise the principles of a just, egalitarian society, yet without providing any means to enforce these ideals (Sen 2009). Instead, this paper proposes that human uniqueness flourished under a real “adapted veil of ignorance” concealing the steady inflation of synergistic politics which resulted from early humans’ sturdy egalitarianism. This proposition divides into four parts: (1) early humans first stumbled on a purely cultural means to enforce a unique kind of within-team antagonistic equality—dyadic balanced deterrence thanks to handheld weapons (Chapais 2008); (2) this cultural innovation is thus closely tied to humans’ darkest side, but it also launched the cumulative evolution of humans’ brightest qualities—egalitarian team synergy and solidarity, together with the associated synergistic intelligence, culture, and communications; (3) runaway synergistic competition for differential merit among antagonistically equal obligate teammates is the single politically selective mechanism behind the cumulative evolution of all these brighter qualities, but numerous factors to be clarified here conceal this mighty evolutionary driver; (4) this veil of ignorance persists today, which explains why humans’ unique prosocial capacities are still not clearly understood by science. The purpose of this paper is to start lifting this now-ill-adapted veil of ignorance, thus uncovering the tight functional relations between egalitarian team solidarity and the evolution of human uniqueness. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to show that agency-based accounts of moral status are more plausible than many have previously thought. I do this by developing a novel account of moral status that takes agency, understood as the capacity for intentional action, to be the necessary and sufficient condition for the possession of moral status. This account also suggests that the capacities required for sentience entail the possession of agency, and the capacities required for agency, entail the possession of sentience. (...) Thus on this account sentient beings possess agency and agents possess sentience. If this is correct, it will show that an Agency Account of moral status can offer a plausible defence of the moral status of all sentient beings, something that previous Agency Accounts have not succeeded in doing. What is more, this account could establish that all sentient animals are not just moral status holders per se, but that they are owed pro tanto obligations regarding continued existence and liberty, similar in kind, though not always in strength, to those owed to humans. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the problem of selfidentification in the domain of action. We claim that this problem can arise not just for the self as object, but also for the self as subject in the ascription of agency. We discuss and evaluate some proposals concerning the mechanisms involved in selfidentification and in agencyascription, and their possible impairments in pathological cases. We argue in favor of a simulation hypothesis that claims that actions, whether overt or covert, are centrally (...) simulated by the neural network, and that this simulation provides the basis for action recognition and attribution. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the problem of self‐identification in the domain of action. We claim that this problem can arise not just for the self as object, but also for the self as subject in the ascription of agency. We discuss and evaluate some proposals concerning the mechanisms involved in self‐identification and in agency‐ascription, and their possible impairments in pathological cases. We argue in favor of a simulation hypothesis that claims that actions, whether overt or covert, are centrally (...) simulated by the neural network, and that this simulation provides the basis for action recognition and attribution. (shrink)

The prevalent views of animal liberty among animal advocates suggest that liberty is merely instrumentally valuable and invasive paternalism is justified. In contrast to this popular view, I argue that liberty is intrinsically good for animals. I suggest that animal well-being is best accommodated by an Objective List Theory and that liberty is an irreducible component of animal well-being. As such, I argue that it is good for animals to possess liberty even if possessing liberty does not contribute towards their (...) subjective well-being, and even in some cases where it has a negative effect upon their subjective well-being. To establish this view I argue that if animals are agents, as I assume they are, then like humans they must be able to determine the course of their own lives (to some extent). Further, having the opportunity to self-determine one’s life just is the very same thing as liberty, and having the opportunity to determine the course of one’s life is intrinsically good. Thus liberty has intrinsic value for humans and animals. So, in addition to the instrumental harms of having one’s liberty restricted, I claim that restricting animals’ liberty in principle harms them because it undermines their capacity for self-determination and fails to acknowledge their authority as agents to make their own choices. (shrink)

In response to the claim that our sense of will is illusory, some philosophers have called for a better understanding of the phenomenology of agency. Although I am broadly sympathetic with the tenor of this response, I question whether the positive-theoretic blueprint it promotes truly heralds a tenable undertaking. Marshaling a Schopenhauerian insight, I examine the possibility that agency might not be amenable to phenomenological description. Framing this thesis in terms of Charles S. Peirce’s semiotic framework, I suggest a way (...) to integrate the idea of streaming experiences with that of bodily strivings, which, owing to their primitive structure, can never be represented. (shrink)

Sam Harris (2010) argues that, given our neurology, we can experience well-being, and that seeking to maximize this state lets us distinguish the good from the bad. He takes our ability to compare degrees of well-being as his starting point, but I think that the analysis can be pushed further, since there is a (non-religious) reason why well-being is desirable, namely the finite life of an individual organism. It is because death is a constant possibility that things can be assessed (...) as “for” or “against” one (Champagne 2011a; Smith 2000). Such an account lets us objectively adjudicate moral questions, as Harris desires. However, by anchoring itself in the mortal body as a whole and not just the brain, such an account dampens the claim that neuroscience would have all the answers. Moreover, it pivots on an affirmation of one’s life that can seem mysterious by regular scientific standards. This chapter thus explains why the trade-off is worthwhile. (shrink)

Scientific essentialism aims to account for the natural laws' special capacity to support counterfactuals. I argue that scientific essentialism can do so only by resorting to devices that are just as ad hoc as those that essentialists accuse Humean regularity theories of employing. I conclude by offering an account of the laws' distinctive relation to counterfactuals that portrays laws as contingent but nevertheless distinct from accidents by virtue of possessing a genuine variety of necessity.

The debate on the notion of function has been historically dominated by dispositional and etiological accounts, but recently a third contender has gained prominence: the organizational account. This original theory of function is intended to offer an alternative account based on the notion of self-maintaining system. However, there is a set of cases where organizational accounts seem to generate counterintuitive results. These cases involve cross-generational traits, that is, traits that do not contribute in any relevant way to the self-maintenance of (...) the organism carrying them, but instead have very important effects on organisms that belong to the next generation. We argue that any plausible solution to the problem of cross-generational traits shows that the organizational account just is a version of the etiological theory and, furthermore, that it does not provide any substantive advantage over standard etiological theories of function. (shrink)

Prompted by the thesis that an organism’s umwelt possesses not just a descriptive dimension, but a normative one as well, some have sought to annex semiotics with ethics. Yet the pronouncements made in this vein have consisted mainly in rehearsing accepted moral intuitions, and have failed to concretely further our knowledge of why or how a creature comes to order objects in its environment in accordance with axiological charges of value or disvalue. For want of a more explicit account, (...) theorists writing on the topic have relied almost exclusively on semiotic insights about perception originally designed as part of a sophisticated refutation of idealism. The end result, which has been a form of direct givenness, has thus been far from convincing. In an effort to bring substance to the right-headed suggestion that values are rooted in the biological and conform to species-specific requirements, we present a novel conception that strives to make explicit the elemental structure underlying umwelt normativity. Building and expanding on the seminal work of Ayn Rand in metaethics, we describe values as an intertwined lattice which takes a creature’s own embodied life as its ultimate standard; and endeavour to show how, from this, all subsequent valuations can in principle be determined. (shrink)

Symmetry principles are commonly said to explain conservation laws—and were so employed even by Lagrange and Hamilton, long before Noether's theorem. But within a Hamiltonian framework, the conservation laws likewise entail the symmetries. Why, then, are symmetries explanatorily prior to conservation laws? I explain how the relation between ordinary (i.e., first-order) laws and the facts they govern (a relation involving counterfactuals) may be reproduced one level higher: as a relation between symmetries and the ordinary laws they govern. In that event, (...) symmetries are meta-laws; they are not mere byproducts of the dynamical and force laws. Symmetries then explain conservation laws whereas conservation laws lack the modal status to explain symmetries. I elaborate the variety of natural necessity that meta-laws would possess. Proposed metaphysical accounts of natural law should aim to accommodate the distinction between meta-laws and mere byproducts of the laws just as they must accommodate the distinction between laws and accidents. (shrink)

This article is an examination of killing in war in its moral and normative dimension – with attention given to how killing affects the acting agent. The author argues against the commonplace belief – often tacitly held if not consciously asserted – among academics, the general public, and even – if surprisingly – military professionals, that killing, including in a justified war, is always morally wrong – even when legally sanctioned and necessary to avert a greater moral wrong. This critique (...) of the “killing is wrong but in war it is necessary” trope is motivated in part by the large numbers of psychiatric battle casualties (specifically moral injury) suffered during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which have attended military activity throughout history. The article approaches the issue through the field of Christian ethical reflection on just war. In building a moral framework for killing in combat, the article explores a typology of homicide, intention, double effect, love, and whether the attitudinal expectations of just warriors in the Christian tradition is realistic in combat. With this moral framework for killing in hand, this article concludes by drawing a critical distinction between moral injury and moral bruising. (shrink)

This paper uses the evolutionary frame provided by the Victorian jurist Henry Sumner Maine to describe the process by which trust can be seen as the product of a gradual development that starts with small-scale communities and later allows market exchanges to develop themselves. I also argue, using the work of Elinor Ostrom (1990), that trust emerges first within small-scale communities, where first- and second-degree collective action problems need to be resolved. The development of a social disposition to trust is (...) closely linked with an institutional context that encourages individuals to take the externalities of their actions into account. This is made possible by customary mechanisms, as the development of social trust at this stage cannot rely on a mighty “Leviathan”. Therefore, this paper questions the claim that social trust is the product of market exchanges. Market exchanges might favor the further growth of social trust, hands in hands with the right institutional frame. However, this growth is not just the transposition of a previously acquired disposition to trust. The work of Henry Sumner Maine interestingly underlines the importance of the co-development of institutions and trust, from its origin in small communities to its expansion to market exchanges. Both Ostrom’s and Maine’s perspectives underline the fact that trust and trustworthiness are complementary and question a-rational perspectives on trust. This paper also elaborates on the claim, coming from the literature on contract law, that focusing on sanctioning mechanisms can be highly counterproductive. (shrink)

This paper proposes an account of why proof is the only way to acquire knowledge of some mathematical proposition’s truth. Admittedly, non-deductive arguments for mathematical propositions can be strong and play important roles in mathematics. But this paper proposes a necessary condition for knowledge that can be satisfied by putative proofs (and proof sketches), as well as by non-deductive arguments in science, but not by non-deductive arguments from mathematical evidence. The necessary condition concerns whether we can justly expect that if (...) the mathematical proposition is actually false, despite the evidence for its truth, then this fact has an explanation. (shrink)

As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated and robots approach autonomous decision-making, debates about how to assign moral responsibility have gained importance, urgency, and sophistication. Answering Stenseke’s (2022a) call for scaffolds that can help us classify views and commitments, we think the current debate space can be represented hierarchically, as answers to key questions. We use the resulting taxonomy of five stances to differentiate—and defend—what is known as the “blank check” proposal. According to this proposal, a person activating a robot could (...) willingly make themselves answerable for whatever events ensue, even if those events stem from the robot’s autonomous decision(s). This blank check solution was originally proposed in the context of automated warfare (Champagne & Tonkens, 2015), but we extend it to cover all robots. We argue that, because moral answerability in the blank check is accepted voluntarily and before bad outcomes are known, it proves superior to alternative ways of assigning blame. We end by highlighting how, in addition to being just, this self-initiated and prospective moral answerability for robot harm provides deterrence that the four other stances cannot match. (shrink)

Among the niftiest arguments for scientific anti-realism is the ‘pessimistic induction’ (also sometimes called ‘the disastrous historical meta-induction’). Although various versions of this argument differ in their details (see, for example, Poincare 1952: 160, Putnam 1978: 25, and Laudan 1981), the argument generally begins by recalling the many scientific theories that posit unobservable entities and that at one time or another were widely accepted. The anti-realist then argues that when these old theories were accepted, the evidence for them was quite (...) persuasive – roughly as compelling as our current evidence is for our best scientific theories positing various unobservable entities. Nevertheless, the anti-realist argues, most of these old theories turned out to be incorrect in the unobservables they posited. Therefore, the anti-realist concludes that with regard to the theories we currently accept, we should believe that probably, most of them are likewise incorrect in the unobservable entities they posit. (This argument appeals to what our best current theories say about unobservables in order to show that the entities posited by some earlier theory are not real. So the argument takes the form of a reductio of the view that the apparent success of some scientific theory justifies our believing in its accuracy regarding unobservables.) Of course, this argument has been criticized on many grounds. Some have argued, for instance, that the scientific theories we currently accept are much better supported than were earlier scientific theories at the time they were accepted. In addition, some have argued that many scientific theories accepted justly in the past were in fact accurate.. (shrink)

One underappreciated aspect of the practice of nonviolence and just peace is the imperative for the Church to welcome those on the margins, including children and adults with physical and/or intellectual impairments who are vulnerable to dehumanization. Too many children and adults with impairments and their families have not been fully welcomed as sisters and brothers in their local parish. Catholics can draw on a rich theology of peacebuilding in Scripture, Tradition, and Church teaching to respond to these vulnerabilities. (...) Such ongoing transformation is a sign that the Church is being built up in peace and offers a model of communion among a diversity of people. (shrink)

There has recently been an explosion of formal models of signalling, which have been developed to learn about different aspects of meaning. This paper discusses whether that success can also be used to provide an original naturalistic theory of meaning in terms of information or some related notion. In particular, it argues that, although these models can teach us a lot about different aspects of content, at the moment they fail to support the idea that meaning just is some (...) kind of information. As an alternative, I suggest a more modest approach to the relationship between informational notions used in models and semantic properties in the natural world. (shrink)

In this book of brilliantly erudite and precise discussions, Pierre Hadot explains that for the Ancients philosophy was not reducible to the building of a theoretical system: it was above all a choice about how to live one's life. One of the most influential historians of ancient philosophy in the world today, Hadot is adept at using ancient philosophers to illuminate the relevance of their ideas to contemporary life. In this book, which is an ideal introduction to Hadot's more scholarly (...) _What is Ancient Philosophy?_, we learn that to be an Epicurean is not merely to think like one; it is to adopt a way of living where limiting desires is the condition for happiness. Being an Aristotelian, similarly, is to choose a life that involves contemplation, and being a Cynic is to follow Diogenes in his refusal of quotidian convention and the mentality of ordinary people. If so many Ancient philosophers founded schools, Hadot explains, it was precisely because they were proposing how to live life on a daily basis. We learn here that the history of philosophy has been something more than just that of a discourse. The founding texts of Greek philosophy, after all, were notes taken from oral exercises undertaken in concrete circumstances and contexts, most often a dialogue between students and specific interlocutors who meant to shed light on their students' real existence. The immense contribution of this book, which also traces Hadot's own personal itinerary in a touching manner, is to remind us, through direct language and numerous examples, what the theoretical aspect of philosophy often masks: its vital and existential dimensions. (shrink)

Deliberation is often seen as the site of human freedom, but the binding power of rationality seems to imply that deliberation is, in its own way, a deterministic process. If one knows the starting preferences and circumstances of an agent, then, assuming that the agent is rational and that those preferences and circumstances don’t change, one should be in a position to predict what the agent will decide. However, given that an agent could conceivably confront equally attractive alternatives, it is (...) an open question whether rational choice theory can ever eliminate indeterminacy. The clearest support for such a limitation comes from the “Buridan’s ass” scenario, where an agent is confronted with two (or more) equally attractive/unattractive options. Does rationality by itself have the resources needed to prevent such paralysis of action? Those who cannot accept the idea of decisional impotence devise various ways to avoid it: postulating a neutral valence, tipping the utilities, positing sub-personal influences, and bunching the options. I argue that each of these responses is either unwarranted or flawed. All parties to the debate agree that, factually, paralysis of action is not a pervasive phenomenon. This is either because (i) the utilities one assigns to two or more options can never be balanced or because (ii) thanks to some non-rational faculty (say, the will), we would not be stuck even if those utilities were perfectly counterpoised. By looking critically at four untenable responses, I aim to show that (i) is often just a dogma and (ii) is by no means a silly position. (shrink)

S'appuyant sur l'étude des spécificités du monde numérique et des mécanismes cognitifs, l'auteur propose une méthode originale de formation à l'esprit critique, basée sur la métacognition. Il présente des exemples concrets de pédagogie directement applicables en milieu scolaire.

The Good Kill examines killing in war in its moral and normative dimension. It argues against the commonplace belief, often tacitly held if not consciously asserted, among academics, the general public, and even military professionals, that killing, including in a justified war, is always morally wrong even when necessary. In light of an increasingly sophisticated understanding of combat trauma, this belief is a crisis. Moral injury, a proposed subset of PTSD, occurs when one does something that goes against deeply held (...) normative convictions. In a military context, the primary predictor of moral injury is having killed in combat. In turn, the primary predictor for suicide among combat veterans is moral injury. In this way, the assertion that killing is wrong but in war it is necessary becomes deadly, rendering the very business of the profession of arms morally injurious. It does not need to be this way. Beginning with the simple observation-recognized by both common sense and law-that killing comes in different kinds, this book equips warfighters-and those charged with their care and formation-with confidence in the rectitude of certain kinds of killing. Engaging with Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Ramsey, Nigel Biggar, and other leading Christian realists, crucial normative principles within the just war tradition are brought to bear on questions regarding just conduct in war, moral and non-moral evil, and enemy love. The Good Kill helps equip the just warrior to navigate the morally bruising field of battle without becoming irreparably morally injured. (shrink)

Several philosophers have argued that ‘constraints’ constrain (and thereby explain) by virtue of being modally stronger than ordinary laws of nature. In this way, a constraint applies to all possible systems, for a variety of possibility that is broader (that is, more inclusive) than the variety we employ when we say that the ordinary laws of nature apply to all physically possible systems. Explanations by constraint are thus more broadly unifying than ordinary causal explanations. Philosophical examples of good candidates for (...) constraints have heretofore been drawn almost exclusively from fundamental physics. This paper argues for the existence of such constraints (even multiple levels of them) in at least one human science (linguistics), not just in physics. (shrink)

Ayn Rand and Immanuel Kant had profound disagreements, not just about the possible scope of knowledge, but (more importantly) about the possible scope of philosophy, especially metaphysics. This paper explores those disagreements, steel-manning both sides. My conclusion is that 1) both thinkers have worthwhile points to make, yet 2) Rand is guilty of poor scholarship while 3) Kant is guilty of appeal to ignorance. Despite the fallacious nature of (3), I stress that ignorance is not by itself something that (...) philosophers committed to objectivity should panic about. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ Le principal objectif de ce texte est d'apporter certaines clarifications par rapport à des problèmes et difficultés entourant l'usage actuel des notions de culture, d'appartenance et de dialogue. L'auteur montre que l'idée selon laquelle on pourrait être prisonnier de sa propre culture découle d'une transformation récente de la signification du concept de culture. Cette idée est critiquée comme étant un mythe, le mythe de la monade culturelle, reposant sur une mécompréhension des rapports entre culture, appartenance et dialogue. L'auteur s'efforce (...) de proposer une meilleure compréhension de ces trois concepts, de façon à éviter toute forme de relativisme radical. ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to shed light on some difficulties and problems related to the current use of the concepts of culture, belonging and dialogue. The author shows that the idea that we could be prisoners of our own culture stems from a recent transformation of the meaning of the concept of culture. This idea is criticized as a myth, the myth of the cultural monad, based on a misunderstanding of the relationship among culture, belonging and dialogue. The author tries to offer a better understanding of these three concepts, in order to avoid any form of radical relativism. (shrink)

It has become accepted that social choice is impossible in the absence of interpersonal comparisons of well-being. This view is challenged here. Arrow obtained an impossibility theorem only by making unreasonable demands on social choice functions. With reasonable requirements, one can get very attractive possibilities and derive social preferences on the basis of non-comparable individual preferences. This new approach makes it possible to design optimal second-best institutions inspired by principles of fairness, while traditionally the analysis of optimal second-best institutions was (...) thought to require interpersonal comparisons of well-being. In particular, this approach turns out to be especially suitable for the application of recent philosophical theories of justice formulated in terms of fairness, such as equality of resources. (shrink)

Paul Thompson, John Beatty, and Elisabeth Lloyd argue that attempts to resolve certain conceptual issues within evolutionary biology have failed because of a general adherence to the received view of scientific theories. They maintain that such issues can be clarified and resolved when one adopts a semantic approach to theories. In this paper, I argue that such conceptual issues are just as problematic on a semantic approach. Such issues arise from the complexity involved in providing formal accounts of theoretical (...) laws and scientific explanations. That complexity is due to empirical and pragmatic considerations, not one's adherence to a particular formal approach to theories. This analysis raises a broader question. How can any formal account properly represent the complex nature of empirical phenomena? (shrink)

ABSTRACT Scholars have understood Aristotle’s theory of equity in two different ways. On the one hand, some claim that equity is an extra-normative criterion, that is, it goes beyond the law and reaches a supra-legal level identified with a metaphysical order of natural justice. On the other hand, some hold that equity is intra-normative, that is, the judge rectifes legal justice without going beyond its limits. Considering this second point of view and by using a methodology that combines legal philosophy (...) and some of the main theories about emotions in ancient Greece, this paper aims to demonstrate that equitable judges should not have broad discretion according to Aristotle’s thought. To hold that claim, I will mainly address the role of emotions in the formation of judgment and the power they have to endanger the possibility of giving just and rational judicial decisions. (shrink)

What philosophers have in mind when they think about vagueness are sorites cases. Unlike vague scientific or artificial expressions, however, vague natural language expressions do not display the kind of vagueness that we associate with the sorites; they rather display what I call cluster vagueness. A non-trivial consequence of this is that those legal definitions that state precisifications of natural language concepts not only add aspects of meaning to existing expressions but also effectively change the meanings of these expressions. From (...) this, in turn, it follows that we should avoid precisifying ordinary expressions with the help of legal definitions to the extent that we wish legal language to be in line with natural language. And being in line with natural language may help us to deal with gaps in our laws at the very moment we become aware of them, and not just afterwards. (shrink)

Is contemporary media society still interested in truth? This paper will try to unravel the vaguely suspicious epistemic relationship between information marketers and information consumers in today's society. There seems to have been forged a feeling of quasi-omniscience within the private and public spheres wherein people, due to the sheer volume of inforntation readily accessible for viewing at any time, become predisposed to exhibit an intriguingly relaxed relationship with knowledge. If the current systems of information seem to trivialize the question (...) of truth or falsehood, and since the public is apparently just interested in spectacles, then how must we view epistemologically the status of contemporary media discourse? Does it still reveal truth or is it simply empry talk? To address this question, the paper explores a possible parallelism between Plato's critique of rhetoric in his dialogue, Gorgias, and Jean Baudrillard's critique of contemporary media society. (shrink)

Husserl's analysis of perception and Heidegger's theory of time are both fixated on the objectivity of objects - or the objectrelation of experience and its essential constitution. This reflects - and in the case of Heidegger quite explicitly - Kantian heritage. This phenomenological, transcendental relevance of the object essentially refers to intentionality - and thus an object-related figure of self-transcending subjectivity. Quite differently, Latour determines the status of things in the collective, ascribing to them an agency that brackets the traditional (...) opposition between acting subjects and passive objects. The contribution encircles precisely that critical point which leads to the separation of phenomenological and ANTistical approaches. While phenomenology grounds itself by reconstructing the experience of objects, ANT focuses on the description of the structures of action, which are composed of actants of all kinds. Finally, the question arises whether Latour's collectivist sociology can learn from phenomenology's methodological solipsism that there is a constructive dimension and plenitude of power in the work of description that is not just left to actors in general, but above all to the analyst herself? German Husserls Analyse der Wahrnehmung und Heideggers Zeittheorie sind beide in ihrem Theorieaufbau auf die Gegenständlichkeit der Gegenstände - oder auf den Gegenstandsbezug der Erfahrung und seine wesensmäßige Konstitution - fixiert. Hierin spiegelt sich, bei Heidegger explizit, Kantisches Erbe. Diese phänomenologische, transzendentalphilosophische Relevanz des Gegenstands verweist im Kern auf Intentionalität - und damit auf eine objektbezogene Selbstüberschreitungsfigur der Subjektivität. Ganz anders bestimmt Latour den Stellenwert der Dinge im Kollektiv, wenn er ihnen eine Handlungsmacht zuschreibt, die den traditionellen Gegensatz zwischen Handlungssubjekten und Objektbehandlung einklammert. Der folgende Beitrag kreist den kritischen Punkt ein, der in der Theoriebildung zur Verzweigung phänomenologischer und ANTistischer Ansätze führt. Während sich die Phänomenologie im Zuge einer begrifflichen Rekonstruktion der Erfahrung von Gegenständen konsolidiert, ist die ANT auf die Beschreibung von Handlungsstrukturen ausgerichtet, die sich aus Aktanten aller Art zusammensetzen. Abschließend stellt sich die Frage, ob nicht die kollektivistische Soziologie Latours von dem methodischen Solipsismus der Phänomenologie lernen kann, dass es eine konstruktive Dimension und Machtfülle der deskriptiven Arbeit gibt, die nicht einfach den Akteuren überhaupt, sondern vor allem der Analytikerin überlassen ist? (shrink)

Regularity theories of causation are guided by the idea that causes are collectively sufficient for their effects. Following Mackie [1974], that idea is typically refined to distinguish collections that include redundant members from those that do not. Causes must be collectively sufficient for their effects without redundancy. While Mackie was surely right that the regularity theory must distinguish collections that are in some sense minimally sufficient for an effect from those that include unnecessary hangers-on, I believe that redundancy is the (...) wrong mark of that distinction. I propose a way to develop the regularity theory without it. Instead of distinguishing minimal from mere sufficiency in terms of redundancy, we should look to the influence that events have in the world. Causes, so construed, must have just enough collective influence to ensure that an effect occurs. I argue that such an account provides a uniform solution to the problem of epiphenomena and to a pair of related problems that aris.. (shrink)

John Dewey talks about child as an «agency of doing» which, by its action, strives to create meaning. From this view, Dewey offers new teaching principles focusing on learning in a context of free activity rather than in a context of restrictive discipline. The child is no longer just invited to represent the phenomenon to understand, it is somehow invited to meet it, to experience it, experience being defined as a transaction between the human being and physical and social (...) environment. Dewey also said that the lack of continuity in the experience marks the beginning of the learning process, he called inquiry, no longer described as essentially individualistic, which bases his epistemic perception of democracy. After briefly describing our meeting with Dewey’s educational thought, we will try to establish, from his conception of action, inquiry and democracy, how his thought can be considered as a foundation for a major innovation educational innovation symbolizing education reform in Quebec of the 2000s: the project approach. (shrink)

I offer an argument regarding chances that appears to yield a dilemma: either the chances at time t must be determined by the natural laws and the history through t of instantiations of categorical properties, or the function ch(•) assigning chances need not satisfy the axioms of probability. The dilemma's first horn might seem like a remnant of determinism. On the other hand, this horn might be inspired by our best scientific theories. In addition, it is entailed by the familiar (...) view that facts about chances at t are ontologically reducible to facts about the laws and the categorical history through t. However, that laws are ontologically prior to chances stands in some tension with the view that chances are governed by laws just as categorical-property instantiations are. The dilemma's second horn entails that if chances are in fact probabilities, then this is a matter of natural law rather than logical or conceptual necessity. I conclude with a suggestion for going between the horns of the dilemma. This suggestion involves a generalization of the notion that chances evolve by conditionalization. Introduction "Chances evolve by conditionalization" How might the lawful magnitude principle be defended? A historical interlude What if chances failed to be determined by the laws and categorical facts? (shrink)

Sober and Huemer have independently argued that simplicity has no place in evaluating philosophical views. In particular, they have argued that the best rationales for scientists to appeal to simplicity in judging between rival theories fail to carry over to philosophers judging between rival philosophical accounts. This paper disagrees with Sober and Huemer. It argues that two rationales for scientific appeals to simplicity equally well underwrite appeals to simplicity when philosophers evaluate rival rational reconstructions of some social normative practice. These (...) two rationales are shown to apply to two philosophical appeals to simplicity: in Quine’s argument against analyticity and in an argument against pluralism in accounts of scientific explanation. Some factors are identified that influence how much weight simplicity should carry in these and other philosophical cases. Simplicity’s legitimate role in evaluating rival rational reconstructions suggests that simplicity will also turn out to be justly relevant to ontological investigations. (shrink)

Leibniz defends concurrentism, the view that both God and created substances are causally responsible for changes in the states of created substances. Interpretive problems, however, arise in determining just what causal role each plays. Some recent work has been revisionist, greatly downplaying the causal role played by created substances—arguing instead that according to Leibniz only God has productive causal power. Though bearing some causal responsibility for changes in their perceptual states, created substances are not efficient causes of such changes. (...) This paper argues against such revisionism; not only was Leibniz a consistent advocate of concurrentism (at least in his “mature” years), but also his account of concurrentism involves both God and created substances asefficient causes of the changes in the states of created substances. (shrink)

One claim reiterated with increasing boldness by the “analytic” tradition in philosophy is that what sets it apart from long-time rivals is a shared adherence to proper norms of argumentation. Gradated deviancy from this canon by English-speaking practitioners has therefore raised important questions about who can repair under the banner “professional philosopher.” We will portray as deeply worrisome the idea that argumentation should secure not just conclusions, but disciplinary membership as well.

In this interview, Cynthia Hammond sits down with Marc Lafrance in order to discuss the 30-year sketching practice that led to her exhibition, Drawings for a Thicker Skin, in 2012. In this practice, Hammond made small, quick drawings of the clothes she would need for trips or key professional events. As she explains, the drawings were not just essential to knowing what to pack; they were essential to being able to pack. While she never conceived of the practice (...) as art, when invited to exhibit the drawings she found a way to relate this idiosyncratic and private practice to a larger set of ontological concerns. Clothing as a second skin is the key idea here, as Hammond and Lafrance explore what it means to navigate identity, idealized self-image, professional ‘passing’ and the skin ego. (shrink)

Alethic functionalism, as propounded by Michael Lynch, is the view that there are different ways to be true, but that these differences nevertheless contain enough unity to forestall outright pluralism. This view has many virtues. Yet, since one could conceivably apply Lynch’s “one and many” strategy to other debates, I try to show how his argumentative steps can be used to solve — not just the controversy pertaining to truth — but any controversy that surrounds a “What is X?” (...) question. (shrink)

The recent wave of data on exoplanets lends support to METI ventures (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), insofar as the more exoplanets we find, the more likely it is that “exominds” await our messages. Yet, despite these astronomical advances, there are presently no well-confirmed tests against which to check the design of interstellar messages. In the meantime, the best we can do is distance ourselves from terracentric assumptions. There is no reason, for example, to assume that all inferential abilities are language-like. (...) With that in mind, I argue that logical reasoning does not have to be couched in symbolic notation. In diagrammatic reasoning, inferences are underwritten, not by rules, but by transformations of self-same qualitative signs. I use the Existential Graphs of C. S. Peirce to show this. Since diagrams are less dependent on convention and might even be generalized to cover non-visual senses, I argue that METI researchers should add some form of diagrammatic representations to their repertoire. Doing so can shed light, not just on alien minds, but on the deepest structures of reasoning itself. (shrink)

This article is an examination of killing in war in its moral and normative dimension – with attention given to how killing affects the acting agent. The author argues against the commonplace belief – often tacitly held if not consciously asserted – among academics, the general public, and even – if surprisingly – military professionals, that killing, including in a justified war, is always morally wrong – even when legally sanctioned and necessary to avert a greater moral wrong. This critique (...) of the “killing is wrong but in war it is necessary” trope is motivated in part by the large numbers of psychiatric battle casualties (specifically moral injury) suffered during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which have attended military activity throughout history. The article approaches the issue through the field of Christian ethical reflection on just war. In building a moral framework for killing in combat, the article explores a typology of homicide, intention, double effect, love, and whether the attitudinal expectations of just warriors in the Christian tradition is realistic in combat. With this moral framework for killing in hand, this article concludes by drawing a critical distinction between moral injury and moral bruising. (shrink)

Causation is extrinsic. What an event causes depends not just on its own nature and the laws, but on the environment in which it occurs. Had an event occurred under different conditions, it may have had different effects. Yet we often want to say that causation, in at least some respect, is not extrinsic. Events exert an influence on the world themselves, independently of what other events do or do not occur in their surroundings. This paper develops an account (...) of such influence and argues that it provides a solution to the causal exclusion problem. By locating that solution largely within the metaphysics of causation, we can solve the exclusion problem without taking on a commitment to a theory of mind. (shrink)

L’objectif de cet article est de recenser quelques problématiques de philosophie morale susceptibles d’éclairer la nature des interactions sur les sites de rencontres. L’abondance du possible pose la question du rôle de l’imagination. Mais le virtuel n’est pas réductible au fictif et au fantasme, car les échanges à distance sont bien réels. Les témoignages et les enquêtes sociologiques révèlent qu’ils instaurent une sorte d’état de nature où domine la défiance suscitée par la mauvaise foi généralisée. La communication s’oriente donc vers (...) des échanges standardisés, conformes aux valeurs du « marketing de la séduction », et, paradoxalement, vers une dépersonnalisation des protagonistes. Mais le jeu avec l’identité se heurte au problème de la responsabilité morale et aux nouveaux puzzles moraux que suscitent les univers virtuels. À titre d’exemple, il semble très difficile de répondre à la question de savoir si un adultère virtuel constitue ou non une faute morale.This article looks into a series of moral philosophy issues that may shed light on the nature of the interactions taking place on web dating sites. Their wealth of possibilities raises the question of the role of imagination, but the virtual world is more than just fiction and fantasy, since the cyber-exchanges taking place are real. Personal stories and sociological surveys show that these exchanges establish a kind of natural state in which suspicion, arising from a sense of systematic bad faith, prevails. Communication therefore generally follows a standard pattern that obeys the rules of “seduction marketing” and, paradoxically, tends to depersonalise the protagonists. But the identity game then comes up against the question of moral responsibility and the new moral quandaries raised by the virtual world: it seems very difficult to decide, for example, whether virtual adultery is morally wrong, or not. (shrink)

The singular expertise of family physicians is the ability to manage complexity with pragmatism, both clinically and ethically. Telemedicine raises multiple questions about the nature of the patient‐physician relationship as manifested in clinical encounters. Some of these questions are concerning, underscoring the need to assess whether medical care is better with this new technology—or if it is just different or maybe even worse. It seems clear, however, that, regardless of its limitations, telemedicine is here to stay. The pragmatic complex (...) ethical question, then, is how all of us together—both medical professionals and society at large—will manage it. (shrink)

In wildlife conservation work, rewilding - to make wild once again - refers to the creation of corridors between preserved lands that allow declining populations to rebound. Marc Bekoff, one of our most engaging animal experts and activists, here applies the concept to human attitudes. He argues that unless we rewild ourselves, becoming profoundly reconnected to nature and fundamentally shifting our consciousness, our conservation efforts will have but limited impact. Bekoff shows that when we make the effort to not (...) just see, but to empathetically become "the seen," our perspective on animals and their habitats changes in profound ways. As we shift to acting from the inside out, our efforts move beyond simply reacting to current crises and become powerfully proactive. Ultimately, Rewilding Our Hearts invites readers to become re-enchanted with our world, and by dissolving false boundaries, to truly connect with both nature and ourselves. (shrink)

The complex notion of rasa, as understood by Javanese musicians, refers to a combination of various qualities, including: taste, feeling, affect, mood, sense, inner meaning, a faculty of knowing intuitively, and deep understanding. This leaves us with a number of questions: how is rasa expressed musically? Who or what has rasa, and what sorts of musical, psychological, perceptual, and sociological distinctions enter into this determination? How is the vocabulary of rasa structured, and what does this tell us about traditional Javanese (...) music and aesthetics? In this first book on the subject, Rasa provides an entry into Javanese music as it is conceived by the people who know the tradition best: the musicians themselves. In one of the most thorough explorations of local aesthetics to date, author Marc Benamou argues that musical meaning is above all connotative - hence, not only learned, but learnable. Following several years performing and researching Javanese music in the regional and national cultural center of Solo, Indonesia, Benamou untangles the many meanings of rasa as an aesthetic criterion in Javanese music, particularly in court and court-derived gamelan traditions. While acknowledging that certain universal psychological tendencies may inspire parallel interpretations of musical meaning, Rasa demonstrates just how culturally specific such accrued, shared meanings can be. (shrink)