How do the fact that an agent is morally responsible for a certain morally objectionable action and the fact that she is an appropriate target of blame for it relate to each other? Many authors inspired by Peter Strawson say that they necessarily co‐occur. Standard answers to the question of why they co‐occur say that the occurrence of one of the facts explains that the other obtains. This article presents a third option: that they are one and the same fact. (...) There is no difference between the fact that a person is an appropriate target of blame for an objectionable action and the fact that she is morally responsible for it. This view has the advantage of being metaphysically more parsimonious and of answering, in an elegant and plausible way, an interesting question about which many standard theories of responsibility keep silent: what is it to be morally responsible simpliciter? (shrink)

The Bad-Difference View of disability says, roughly, that disability makes one worse off. The Mere-Difference View of disability says, roughly, that it doesn’t. In recent work, Barnes – a MDV proponent – offers a detailed exposition of the MDV. No BDV proponent has done the same. While many thinkers make it clear that they endorse a BDV, they don’t carefully articulate their view. In this paper, I clarify the nature of the BDV. I argue that (...) its best interpretation is probabilistic and comparative: it is the view that a person is likely to be, all things considered, worse off with a disability than without. As such, Barnes – who criticises the version of the BDV that disability by itself, intrinsically or automatically makes a person worse off – misses an opportunity to attack the most plausible and relevant version of the BDV, and the best version remains unchallenged. (shrink)

Research that includes non-human animal experimentation is fundamentally a dilemmatic enterprise. Humans use other animals in research to improve life for their own species. Ethical principles are established to deal with this dilemma. But despite this ethical apparatus, people who in one way or another work with animal experimentation have to interpret and understand the principles from their individual points of view. In interviews with members of Swedish animal ethics committees, different views on what the term ethics really means (...) were articulated. For one member, the difficult ethical dilemma of animal experimentation is the lack of enriched cages for mice. For another, the ethical problem lies in regulations restraining research. A third member talks about animals’ right not to be used for human interests. These different views on “ethics” intersect once a month in the animal ethics committee meetings. There is no consensus on what constitutes the ethical problem that the members should be discussing. Therefore, personal views on what ethics means, and hierarchies among committee members, characterise the meetings. But committee traditions and priorities of interpretation as well are important to the decisions. The author discusses how “ethics” becomes situated and what implications this may have for committees’ decisions. (shrink)

My title is of course drawn from William James's Pragmatism: A New Name for some Old Ways of Thinking. The five excellent critics of Cambridge Pragmatism: From Peirce and James to Ramsey and Wittgenstein have zeroed in on the profound questions at the heart of pragmatism. All of us working in the tradition should thank them, and I happily do so. In what follows, I will explore the supposed differences between their views and my own. I hope to persuade my (...) critics that sometimes there is no difference; that sometimes there is a fruitful difference; and that it does indeed make a difference to differentiate pragmatism from other positions.A running theme in the commentaries is my distinction between a more objective... (shrink)

With the increasing popularity of Facebook among adult users and the diverse social networks, especially based on age, that adults form on Facebook, it is important to examine what adult Facebook users have seen on Facebook and deem inappropriate. Previous studies only address college students and most of them involve hypothetical post-scenarios. This study addresses these gaps by examining 190 adult Facebook users from a northeastern Pennsylvania university and asking them to identify the top three types of posts they have (...) seen on Facebook and considered to be inappropriate. Findings suggest that these adults consider sex/nudity, foul language and politics to be inappropriate for Facebook. These mirror values of face-to-face interaction, but are not mentioned in research of online inappropriate behaviour. When more specific themes are combined for group comparisons, two additional themes, social issues and aggression which are also generally unexplored in the research, emerge as inappropriate as well. However, with the exception of gender and educational differences in the perceptions of sex/nudity, there are few group differences in the observed Facebook posts that these adults find to be inappropriate. Implications for online interaction and future research are discussed. (shrink)

In contrast to Pylyshyn's view, there is no such thing as “reasoning in general.” Different types of reasoning tasks are solved with different reasoning strategies. A more specific null hypothesis is that spatial inference with mental images involves the same representational formalism as that of spatial inference with mental models. There is no evidence that this hypothesis must be rejected.

A debate has emerged in the bioethics literature about the use of biotechnology to modify human nature. A failure to define humanness has produced conceptual confusion in this debate. We draw upon recent social psychological work on folk concepts of humanness and dehumanization to analyse the understandings of humanness that underpin the rival positions. We argue that advocates and opponents of human nature modification employ distinct conceptions of humanness, and that their differing evaluations of modification make sense in light of (...) these conceptions. Advocates view modification as the enhancement of a non-essentialist sense of humanness that takes us further from animal nature. Opponents view it as the loss of an essentialist sense of humanness that takes us closer to a robotic state. Recognition that humanness has multiple senses implies that there is no mutually exclusive choice between seeing the outcome of modification as a quantitative gain in humanness or a fundamental, qualitative loss of it. (shrink)

Mark Steiner criticizes some remarks Wittgenstein makes about Gödel. Steiner takes Wittgenstein to be disputing a mathematical result. The paper argues that Wittgenstein does no such thing. The contrast between the realist and the demonstrativist concerning mathematical truth is examined. Wittgenstein is held to side with neither camp. Rather, his point is that a realist argument is inconclusive.

Do people with different views of what is fair attribute different intentions to actions? In a novel experimental design, participants were significantly more likely to attribute a no-redistribution vote to selfishness if they considered redistribution as being fair. I define this—attributing actions that do not adhere to one’s own fairness view to selfishness—as suspicious attribution. I develop a theory of intention attribution to show how suspicious attribution arises from two other findings from the experiment: the participants underestimate the number (...) of people with fairness views differing from their own and overestimate the selfishness of participants with other fairness views. I discuss how the findings can help explain political polarization. (shrink)

Mark Steiner criticizes some remarks Wittgenstein makes about Gödel. Steiner takes Wittgenstein to be disputing a mathematical result. The paper argues that Wittgenstein does no such thing. The contrast between the realist and the demonstrativist concerning mathematical truth is examined. Wittgenstein is held to side with neither camp. Rather, his point is that a realist argument is inconclusive.

Mark Steiner criticizes some remarks Wittgenstein makes about Gödel. Steiner takes Wittgenstein to be disputing a mathematical result. The paper argues that Wittgenstein does no such thing. The contrast between the realist and the demonstrativist concerning mathematical truth is examined. Wittgenstein is held to side with neither camp. Rather, his point is that a realist argument is inconclusive.

Since Circular 34 from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam required the head of the national project to have project results published in ISI/Scopus journals in 2014, the field of economics has been dominating the number of nationally-funded projects in social sciences and humanities. However, there has been no scientometric study that focuses on the difference in productivity among fields in Vietnam. Thus, harnessing the power of the SSHPA database, a comprehensive dataset of 1,564 Vietnamese authors (854 (...) males, 705 females) with 2,410 publications in the 2008 – 2018 period was extracted and analyzed. Various factors were considered including age, gender, new authors, leading authors, co-authorship, and Impact Factor. The findings suggest a high level of contribution from authors at the age of 40 – 44 in economics (858 publications) in a 12-years period, which is equivalent to the social medicine total output, and two times more than the total output of the education. Moreover, the presence and reinforcement of male researchers are still dominating in Economics and other fields, with the only exception of education. Despite the rapid rise in the number of Vietnamese lead authors, gender disparity among disciplines is an issue. Contrary to the strong international collaboration-oriented tendency in social medicine, economics, and other fields, educational authors are not open to international collaborating. Finally, most of the publications in economics belong to the group with JIF from 0 to 2, in contrast with the high number of social medicine publications with JIF from 2 to 5, which suggesting the field of economics is fulfilling the quantity, but still, need more quality publications. (shrink)

Ethical views of the first-year to sixth-year medical students were studied during bioethics education via questionnaire in 2004. Questions included “would you treat a mentally ill man condemned to death to fit him for execution?”, “is a criminal law suit against a surgeon responsible for a patient's death reasonable?” and “should a surgeon responsible for a patient's death be prosecuted for manslaughter.” The number of students answered “yes, to treat a mentally ill man” tended to increase as they moved up (...) to the senior classes, although there was no statistical significance. A criminal law suit against the surgeon and the charge of manslaughter was responded with a wide variety among the classes, that is the second-year and fifth-year students showed less favorable attitudes to the law suit against the surgeon than the first-year, third-year and fourth-year students. There was no distinct relationship with age, gender or the past bioethics education. Thus, the attitudes of medical students agree on one, and differ on other ethical issues depending on their classes. Although the reason for the difference in ethical views among classes was not clear, these results suggested that ethics education was a sensitive subject for medical students hence the manner of ethics education by teachers was of critical importance. (shrink)

Mark Steiner criticizes some remarks Wittgenstein makes about Gödel. Steiner takes Wittgenstein to be disputing a mathematical result. The paper argues that Wittgenstein does no such thing. The contrast between the realist and the demonstrativist concerning mathematical truth is examined. Wittgenstein is held to side with neither camp. Rather, his point is that a realist argument is inconclusive.

(1980). Differences between the Views of Teachers and Students to Aspects of Sixth Form Organization at three Contrasting Comprehensive Schools in South Wales. Educational Studies: Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 225-239.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:No-Self, Dōgen, the Senika Doctrine, and Western Views of SoulGerhard FadenNo-Self Versus SoulFrom the very beginning of Buddhism, the concept of no-self (P. anattā, J. muga) has been at the heart of Buddhist thought. Based on this concept, Buddhist apologetics rejected the concept of Atman in the Upanishads as well as Western concepts of soul. Christian authors, on the other hand, see an unbridgeable abyss between what they call (...) "Christian personalism" and Buddhist "rejection of souls."1 However, is there really such a clear-cut distinction? Posing this question means denying it. The no-self doctrine is one of the most intricate concepts within philosophy, and words like "self" and "soul" have countless interpretations. It seems to me that the Buddhist tradition itself has not always realized the crucial point of its fundamental doctrine, just as the Western concepts of "person" and "soul" more often than not fell behind the achievements of Plato and the New Testament. Especially the Theravāda line of Buddhism has developed a very counterintuitive picture of what it is to be a human person. "There is suffering, but there is no self who suffers." The most outstanding philosopher of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Nāgārjuna (ca. 150-250), introduced a more convincing interpretation when he said that according to Buddha the self or soul does neither exist nor not exist. This interpretation too, no less than the Theravāda doctrine, can refer to the early epoch of Buddhism. In the Pāli suttas a monk named Vacchagotta asked the Buddha, "Is there a self?" The Buddha gave no response. Then Vacchagotta asked, "Is there no self?" Again the Buddha was silent.2 In any case, the teaching of no-self leaves room for many divergent interpretations. In this paper, I shall propose to understand it as an original view of what is my true being, a view that has analogues in traditional Western philosophy. The truth is one; philosophy has to demonstrate that the different doctrines are nothing but aspects of a single universe. As for the dogmatic tenets of each religion, I would propose to see them like educators of the individual's thought: they set limits, develop abilities, suggest lines of sight, and the like. [End Page 41]The Concept of No-self in Pāli BuddhismIn the limited space of this essay, I can only give some marginal remarks. For a first approach, let us look at the origins of the no-self concept in the scriptures of Pāli Buddhism. They show clearly the aim of that doctrine: it consists in the liberation from objectifying theories of the soul. In the canonical texts, we find repeatedly the formula of rejecting the five aggregates, the so-called "heaps" (Skt. skhandha, P. khandha) that form the phantom of a persistent ego: body, sensation, conceptualization, volitions, and consciousness. None of these things is really mine. The Buddha tells to his disciples as follows: "Suppose, bhikkhus, people were to carry off the grass, sticks, branches, and foliage in this Jeta's Grove, or to burn them, or to do with them as they wish. Would you think: 'People are carrying us off, or burning us, or doing with us as they wish'?" Of course, the disciples do not think so. It is neither their self nor what belongs to their self. In the same way, the Buddha instructs them to think, the ear is not yours, and the mind is not yours, and so on, and to abandon it all.3In other words, by the teaching of anattā the Buddha invites his disciples to cease identifying their true being with things like body or consciousness. Only what really is mine can be my self. The khandhas seem to be mine. To a certain degree, I can dispose of them. However, really they are not mine; on the contrary, they are my master. The teaching of no-self does not originally mean there is no self, but nothing in this world can be my self. What is my self can never be taken from me. I cannot dispose of it, and on the other... (shrink)

In this article, I argue that it makes a moral difference whether an individual is worse off than she could have been. Here, I part company with consequentialists such as Parfit and side with contractualists such as Scanlon. But, unlike some contractualists, I reject the view that all that matters is whether a principle can be justified to each particular individual, where such a justification is attentive to her interests, complaints and other claims. The anonymous goodness of a (...) distribution also matters. My attempt to reconcile contractualist and consequentialist approaches proceeds via a serious of reflections on cases. (shrink)

In defining man, pre-Qin Confucianists first starts a discussion about the differences between man and beast. This is the Differences between Beast and Man. For the Differences between Beast and Man, pre-Qin Confucianists never analyze the differences between man and other animals from an ontological viewpoint through pure factual elements. Rather, they distinguish between man and beast from a normative viewpoint. The distinction between man and beast leads to a logical conclusion that, as man is fundamentally superior to beast, 'Man (...) is a different species from beast'. Understanding man in this way is common to all pre-Qin Confucianists, although there are some differences. After examining what humane is based on the difference between man and beast, pre-Qin Confucianists discuss the issue of human perfection with a further step. That is a question of the Differences between Sage and Selfhood with respect to how a sage is different from and the same as an ordinary person. Although Confucius states that he cannot set himself up as a sage, Mencius and Xunzi suggest a viewpoint of the Homogeneity of Sage and Selfhood that a sage and an ordinary person (or selfhood) are basically equal. This point is to highlight the universal equality of Sage and Selfhood in which a sage is no different from an ordinary person and any ordinary person can reach the level of a sage through efforts. Thus, pre-Qin Confucianists view man as a being between beast and sage, and, based on that, discuss the issue. In this context, this study intents to analyze the pre-Qin Confucianists' philosophical debate on man based on the viewpoints of the Differences between Beast and Man and the Differences between Sage and Selfhood. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to draw productively on Meister Eckhart's concept of the ‘no‐thing’ in order to illuminate Hegel's ontotheological account of both human and divine kenosis. I advance the view that just as divine kenosis is understood as the outpouring of the divine which includes the death of Christ in its economic activity, human kenosis also requires an engagement with death, namely, a spiritual death to the finite. It is via this species of death which is (...) a becoming ‘no‐thing’ that the reconciliation between the human and the divine is disclosed as a unity that relies on the shared identity of the divine and the human while simultaneously respecting the integrity of both. Indeed, it is in and through their parallel activity of kenosis that finite and infinite being achieve their respective transcendence by necessarily engaging with the being of the other. Hence, Hegel's ontotheological work is not reducible to sheer immanentism as some scholars suggest, but instead upholds the genuine transcendence of the divine. (shrink)

The practice of ‘management euthanasia’, in which zoos kill otherwise healthy surplus animals, is a controversial one. The debate over the permissibility of the practice tends to divide along two different views in animal ethics—animal rights and animal welfare. Traditionally, those arguments against the practice have come from the animal rights camp, who see it as a violation of the rights of the animal involved. Arguments in favour come from the animal welfare perspective, who argue that as the animal does (...) not suffer, there is no harm in the practice and it is justified by its potential benefits. Here, I argue that an expansion of the welfare view, encompassing longevity and opportunities for positive welfare, give stronger considerations against management euthanasia, which then require greater benefits to justify its use. (shrink)

Theoretical accounts of development exhibit several internal tensions and face multiple challenges. They span from the problem of the identification of the temporal boundaries of development (beginning and end) to the characterization of the distinctive type of change involved compared to other biological processes. They include questions such as the role to ascribe to the environment or what types of biological systems can undergo development and whether they should include colonies or even ecosystems. In this chapter we discuss these conceptual (...) issues, and we argue that adopting an organizational approach may help solve or clarify them. -/- While development is usually identified with the achievement of an adult form with the capability to reproduce and therefore maintain a lineage, adopting the organizational approach may provide a different strategy, which focuses also on the maintenance of the current organization of the organism. By doing so an organizational approach favors a switch in perspective which consists in analyzing how organisms maintain their viability at each moment of development rather than considering them as going through intermediate stages of a process directed toward a specific goal state. This developmental dimension of biological organization has yet to be given a general and detailed analysis within the organizational theoretical perspective, apart from some preliminary attempts. How a biological organization is maintained through a series of radical organizational changes and what these changes are issues that still require clarification. In this chapter we offer the beginnings of such an analysis of developmental transitions, understood as changes in functionality brought forth by regulatory mechanisms in the context of the continued maintenance of organizational viability at every step. (shrink)

One of the goals of medicine is to improve well-being, in line with the principle of beneficence. Likewise, scientists claim that the goal of human embryonic stem cell research is to find treatments for diseases. In hESC research, stem cells are harvested from a 5-day-old embryo. Surplus embryos from infertility treatments or embryos created for the sole purpose of harvesting stem cells are used in the research, and in the process the embryos get destroyed. The use of human embryos for (...) research purpose raises ethical concern. In this context, the religious leaders play the role to be the moral compass and “reality check” to engage with the public. In Malaysia, the Ministry of Health has outlined the Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Therapy, reflecting on Islamic principles. Since there has not been much focus on the viewpoints of other faiths in Malaysia, this study attempts to explore the ethical guiding principles deliberated by religious leaders from the Buddhist, Hindu and Catholic traditions and identify if there is a common ground between the mainstream religious views and principles of medical ethics, in relation to hESC research. Eleven religious leaders representing the Buddhist, Hindu and Catholic traditions were interviewed. Interestingly, though reasoning of religious leaders came from different angles, their underlying concerns revolve around the values of “do no harm” and “intention to save lives”. These values are also the key principles in medical ethics. The findings are applied to answer the question as to whether religious and medical guiding principles can co-exist and complement in ethical decision-making, without compromising the values. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: It can be argued that the ethical conduct of research involves achieving a balance between the rights and needs of three parties-potential research participants, society, and researchers. Local Research Ethics Committees (LRECs) have a number of roles and functions in the research enterprise, but there have been some indications that LREC members, researchers and the public can have different views about these responsibilities. Any such differences are potential sources of disagreement and misunderstanding. OBJECTIVES: To compare the views of LREC (...) members, researchers and the public towards the roles and functions of LRECs. DESIGN: A questionnaire that contained items concerned with a variety of such roles was distributed to general practice patients (as proxies for potential research participants), researchers and LREC members. FINDINGS: While general practice patients believed that the main function of LRECs is to ensure that research participants come to no harm, LREC members were more concerned with the protection of participants' rights. There was also some disagreement between members and researchers with regard to the consideration of proposals on the grounds of scientific merit. CONCLUSIONS: Local Research Ethics Committee members need to be aware of potential differences in views, that they ought to make their priorities clear, and that membership of LRECs ought to reflect the views of both researchers and potential research participants. (shrink)

It is argued that those who defend the Everett, or ‘many-worlds’, interpretation of quantum mechanics should embrace what we call the general quantum theory of open systems (GT) as the proper framework in which to conduct foundational and philosophical investigations in quantum physics. GT is a wider dynamical framework than its alternative, standard quantum theory (ST). This is true even though GT makes no modifications to the quantum formalism. GT rather takes a different view, what we call the open (...) systems view, of the formalism; i.e., in GT, the dynamics of systems whose physical states are fundamentally represented by density operators are represented as fundamentally open as specified by an in general non-unitary dynamical map. This includes, in principle, the dynamics of the universe as a whole. We argue that the more general dynamics describable in GT can be physically motivated, that there is as much prima facie empirical support for GT as there is for ST, and that GT could be fully in the spirit of the Everett interpretation—that there might, in short, be little reason for an Everettian not to embrace the more general theoretical landscape that GT allows one to explore. (shrink)

Friedrich Schlegel’s remarks about poetry and reality are notoriously baffling. They are often regarded as outlandish, or “poetically exaggerated” statements, since they are taken to suggest that there is no difference between poetry and reality or to express the view that there is no way out of linguistic and poetic constructions (Bowie). I take all these responses to be mistaken, and argue that Schlegel’s remarks are philosophical observations about a genuine confusion in theoretical approaches to the distinction between (...) fiction and reality. The confusion at stake involves the assumption that this distinction is and must be fixed independently of the ordinary practices of using these terms to mean certain things in specific situations. And this assumption itself is grounded fundamentally in a confused picture about the way language works. I argue that this confused understanding of the distinction between fiction and reality is not an object of the past, but a picture that is still shaping a central strand in the contemporary debate in philosophical aesthetics about our emotional responses to fiction. And while I do not use Schlegel’s approach to argue against this contemporary view directly, I suggest that his philosophical method includes the resources for unraveling a central confusion in this contemporary debate. (shrink)

In the 2005 Kitzmiller v Dover Area School Board case, a federal district court ruled that Intelligent Design creationism was not science, but a disguised religious view and that teaching it in public schools is unconstitutional. But creationists contend that it is illegitimate to distinguish science and religion, citing philosophers Quinn and especially Laudan, who had criticized a similar ruling in the 1981 McLean v. Arkansas creation-science case on the grounds that no necessary and sufficient demarcation criterion was possible (...) and that demarcation was a dead pseudo-problem. This article discusses problems with those conclusions and their application to the quite different reasoning between these two cases. Laudan focused too narrowly on the problem of demarcation as Popper defined it. Distinguishing science from religion was and remains an important conceptual issue with significant practical import, and philosophers who say there is no difference have lost touch with reality in a profound and perverse way. The Kitzmiller case did not rely on a strict demarcation criterion, but appealed only to a “ballpark” demarcation that identifies methodological naturalism as a “ground rule” of science. MN is shown to be a distinguishing feature of science both in explicit statements from scientific organizations and in actual practice. There is good reason to think that MN is shared as a tacit assumption among philosophers who emphasize other demarcation criteria and even by Laudan himself. (shrink)

We find the claim that time is not real in both western and eastern philosophical traditions. In what follows I will call the view that time does not exist temporal error theory. Temporal error theory was made famous in western analytic philosophy in the early 1900s by John McTaggart (1908) and, in much the same tradition, temporal error theory was subsequently defended by Gödel (1949). The idea that time is not real, however, stretches back much further than that. It (...) is common to hear it said that according to Buddhist philosophy (as though that were a monolithic view) time is illusory. While it is not true that, in general, either contemporary or ancient Buddhist scholars have thought time to be illusory, there are certainly some schools of Buddhist thought, such as that of traditional Dzogchen practitioners, according to which there is no time. This paper is an attempt to set out a taxonomy of different views about what it takes for there to be time and, alongside that, a taxonomy of views about whether there is time or not, and if there is time what it is like. (shrink)

Humans are emotionally affected by cute or infantile appearances, typical of baby animals and humans, which in turn often leads to careful and cautious behavior. The purpose of this pre-registered study was to examine whether looking at cute images of baby pets improves performance of computerized cognitive-motor tasks. Ninety-eight participants were recruited for this online study and were randomly assigned to two experimental groups. The participants in one group performed two cognitive-motor tasks before and after viewing images of adult pets (...) and the participants in the other group performed the tasks before and after viewing images of baby pets. The participants who viewed images of baby pets rated them as significantly cuter and more infantile compared with those who viewed images of adult pets. All participants improved their performance from the pre-test to the post-test, but no differences in correct responses and reaction times were seen between the groups. However, pet ownership appeared to serve as a moderating variable with pet owners performing the Simon task faster than non-pet owners. In addition, pet owners reacted faster in the alternate task-switching task after viewing cute and infantile images but not after viewing images of adult pets. This effect was not found among non-pet owners. In conclusion, this study did not find that viewing cute images improves cognitive-motor performance, yet this may be dependent on moderators like pet ownership. (shrink)

Hardcastle argues that we make distinctions where there are no differences when we speak of (1) levels of description, (2) cognitive forces, and (3) soft laws in psychology. Concerning (1) and (2), the differences just are differences in description. The same state is referred to by three different descriptions, and talk of cognitive forces is appropriate and useful at the cognitive level of description. And concerning (3), if our view of cognition is correct, then the laws of psychology are (...) importantly different in form from those of physics. (shrink)

No-futurists ('growing block theorists') hold that that the past and the present are real, but that the future is not. The present moment is therefore privileged: it is the last moment of time. Craig Bourne (2002) and David Braddon-Mitchell (2004) have argued that this position is unmotivated, since the privilege of presentness comes apart from the indexicality of 'this moment'. I respond that no-futurists should treat 'x is real-as-of y' as a nonsymmetric relation. Then different moments are real-as-of different times. (...) This reunites privilege with indexicality, but entails that no-futurists must believe in ineliminably tensed facts. (shrink)

If we define tradition too hastily we leave to one side the question of what the relevance of tradition is for us. Here the concept of tradition is opened up by considering the different views of it taken by Hannah Arendt, Michael Oakeshott and Alasdair MacIntyre. We see that each has put tradition into a fully developed picture of what our predicament is in modernity; and that each has differed in their assessment of what our relation to tradition is or (...) should be. Arendt sees tradition as something which no longer conditions action, Oakeshott sees tradition as something which conditions all action, and MacIntyre sees tradition as something which should condition right action. In each case, the view of tradition is clearly one element in an attempt to see how the most important constituent elements of human existence – variously called the human condition, human conduct, or human virtue – should be understood in a modernity which is ours because it has put the traditional concept of tradition into question. (shrink)

Using concepts of evolutionary game theory, this paper presents a critique of ethical intuitionism, or non-naturalism, in its cognitivist and objectivist interpretation. While epistemological considerations suggest that human rational learning through experience provides no basis for objective moral knowledge, it is argued below that modern evolutionary theory explains why this is so, i.e., why biological organisms do not evolve so as to experience objective preferences and obligations. The difference between the modes of the cognition of objective and of valuative (...) environmental attributes is explained with reference to different modes of natural selection acting on the cognitive apparatus of the organism. The negative implications are pointed out which the observable diversity of intraspecific behavioural adaptations and of cultural values has for the cognitivist, objectivist foundation of ethics. Eventually a non-cognitivist alternative to ethical intuitionism is outlined in terms of empirical authority relations, with the ritualisation of dominance-submission patterns as the evolutionary origin of human charismatic authority. (shrink)

This study decodes consumers' preference levels using a convolutional neural network in neuromarketing. The classification accuracy in neuromarketing is a critical factor in evaluating the intentions of the consumers. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy is utilized as a neuroimaging modality to measure the cerebral hemodynamic responses. In this study, a specific decoding structure, called CNN-based fNIRS-data analysis, was designed to achieve a high classification accuracy. Compared to other methods, the automated characteristics, constant training of the dataset, and learning efficiency of the proposed (...) method are the main advantages. The experimental procedure required eight healthy participants to view commercial advertisement videos of different durations. The cerebral hemodynamic responses of the participants were measured. To compare the preference classification performances, CNN was utilized to extract the most common features, including the mean, peak, variance, kurtosis, and skewness. Considering three video durations, the average classification accuracies of 15, 30, and 60 s videos were 84.3, 87.9, and 86.4%, respectively. Among them, the classification accuracy of 87.9% for 30 s videos was the highest. The average classification accuracies of three preferences in females and males were 86.2 and 86.3%, respectively, showing no difference in each group. By comparing the classification performances in three different combinations between two groups, male participants were observed to have targeted preferences for commercial advertising, and the classification performance 88.4% between “like” vs. “dislike” out of three categories was the highest. Finally, pairwise classification performance are shown as follows: For female, 86.1%, 87.4%, 85.2%, and for male 85.7, 88.4, 85.1%, respectively. (shrink)

In recent years we have seen the rise of a new framework within the study of the mind, namely Predictive Processing. This framework essentially holds that the brain is a prediction machine constantly postulating perceptual models which are tested against incoming information. At the same time, the notion of the minimal or core self has become very influential as a way of explaining, or explaining away, pre-reflective self-awareness. The four most widely discussed alternatives for thinking through the metaphysical implications the (...) pre-reflective sense of self are the standard phenomenological view, the substance view, the no-self view and by now the relational view. In this paper, it is our objective to rethink the notion of the sense of self in the context of PP. Now, PP is often held to be a unifying framework that offers a new integrated account of perception, cognition, imagination, and indeed the pre-reflective sense of self. We will show, however, that PP has been taken to endorse rather too many different metaphysical accounts of self: that is, views about how we should regard the ultimate nature of self. What we need to do, if possible, is to use PP to constrain the theories on offer. Here we focus upon two central constraints that we think PP implies. These are, the mutability constraint and the multi-layereredness constraint. We argue that self-views laid out in terms of the PP framework are usually – to some degree – located within the four standard metaphysical accounts of self. However, we think that realist versions of self-accounts seem to have more trouble in respecting the PP constraints or requirements. The reason, or so we believe, is PP’s mutability constraint. This does not have to be the case and we, therefore, propose an alternative realist view – namely the pre-reflective situational self view – which is more adequate to fit the PP framework. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI believe that there is no intrinsic moral difference between killing and letting die. That is, there is no difference that depends solely on the distinction between an act and an omission. I also believe that we can reasonably establish this thesis by appeal to the Bare Difference Argument. The form of this argument involves considering two imaginary cases in which there are no morally relevant differences present, save the bare difference that one is a case (...) of killing and one a case of letting die. But in the pair of cases under consideration this bare difference makes no moral difference. Hence it cannot be that the bare difference between killing and letting die is in itself a morally important difference.Winston Nesbitt has recently argued that the Bare Difference Argument fails because “the examples produced typically possess a feature which makes their use in this context illegitimate, and that when modified to remove this feature, they provide support for the view which they were designed to undermine”. I argue that Nesbitt misunderstands the logic of the Bare Difference Argument and that accordingly his objections are mistaken. (shrink)

In a recent no-go theorem [Bong et al., Nature Physics (2020)], we proved that the predictions of unitary quantum mechanics for an extended Wigner’s friend scenario are incompatible with any theory satisfying three metaphysical assumptions, the conjunction of which we call “Local Friendliness”: Absoluteness of Observed Events, Locality and No-Superdeterminism. In this paper (based on an invited talk for the QBism jubilee at the 2019 Växjö conference) I discuss the implications of this theorem for QBism, as seen from the point (...) of view of experimental metaphysics. I argue that the key distinction between QBism and realist interpretations of quantum mechanics is best understood in terms of their adherence to different theories of truth: the pragmatist versus the correspondence theories. I argue that a productive pathway to resolve the measurement problem within a pragmatist view involves taking seriously the perspective of quantum betting agents, even those in what I call a “Wigner bubble”. The notion of reality afforded by QBism, I propose, will correspond to the invariant elements of any theory that has pragmatic value to all rational agents—that is, the elements that are invariant upon changes of agent perspectives. The classical notion of ‘event’ is not among those invariants, even when those events are observed by some agent. Neither are quantum states. Nevertheless, I argue that far from solipsism, a personalist view of quantum states is an expression of its precise opposite: Copernicanism. (shrink)

Section 1 articulates a genus-species claim: that knowledge is a kind of success from ability. Equivalently: In cases of knowledge, S’s success in believing the truth is attributable to S’s ability. That idea is then applied to questions about the nature and value of knowledge. Section 2 asks what it would take to turn the genus-species claim into a proper theory of knowledge; that is, into informative, necessary and sufficient conditions. That question is raised in the context of an important (...) line of objection against even the genus-species claim; namely, that there is no way to understand the attribution relation so that it does all the work that it is supposed to do. Section 3 reviews several extant proposals for understanding the attribution relation, and argues that none of them are adequate for answering the objection. Section 4 proposes a different way of understanding the relation, and shows how the resulting view does resolve the objection. Section 5 completes the new account by proposing a way to understand intellectual abilities. Section 6 briefly addresses Barn Façade cases and lottery propositions. Section 7 briefly addresses a question about the scope of knowledge; in particular, it shows how the new view allows a neo-Moorean response to skepticism. (shrink)

Section 1 articulates a genus‐species claim: that knowledge is a kind of success from ability. Equivalently: In cases of knowledge, S’s success in believing the truth is attributable to S’s ability. That idea is then applied to questions about the nature and value of knowledge. Section 2 asks what it would take to turn the genus‐species claim into a proper theory of knowledge; that is, into informative, necessary and sufficient conditions. That question is raised in the context of an important (...) line of objection against even the genus‐species claim; namely, that there is no way to understand the attribution relation so that it does all the work that it is supposed to do. Section 3 reviews several extant proposals for understanding the attribution relation, and argues that none of them are adequate for answering the objection. Section 4 proposes a different way of understanding the relation, and shows how the resulting view does resolve the objection. Section 5 completes the new account by proposing a way to understand intellectual abilities. Section 6 briefly addresses Barn Façade cases and lottery propositions. Section 7 briefly addresses a question about the scope of knowledge; in particular, it shows how the new view allows a neo‐Moorean response to skepticism. (shrink)

In his restriction of prioritarianism to cases in which the same people would exist in all the possible outcomes, Parfit stakes out an unstable position, both for himself and more generally. There is no plausible rationale for a prioritarianism that is so restricted, which is consistent with the key features of Parfit’s elaboration and defence of this view and his other commitments. The principles that might be appealed to, in an attempt to justify such a restriction, give rise to (...) a different view—one that is sensitive to the presence or absence of the competing claims of different individuals, where both the existence and the magnitude of these claims are determined by gains and losses to individuals in a manner that is not fully captured by Parfit’s prioritarian weighting. (shrink)

This article will probe into Kant’s viewpoints about parent-child relationship so as to demonstrate that they are inspiring on the one hand—for example on dealing with the relationship as that pertinent to the thing in itself, but on the other hand, there are many flaws. His strategy on avoiding the difficulty of creating by man a being endowed with freedom depends merely on an one-sided comprehension of time, because according to Kant himself, there is a difference as to the (...) time between sensual forms of intuition and expressive form of transcendental imagination. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant gives a profound enunciation with respect to the two and the latter is related to free causality and categorical imperative in his moral philosophy. Once it refers to the rights of a being endowed with freedom and the time it requires to maintain them, it is problematic to assert that the creation of such beings is not concerned with, in any sense whatsoever, time and the sensual, mortal body. What is more, Kant failed to take into full consideration that parents are also beings endowed with freedom whose rights to the child are not totally dependent on the latter’s inherent rights but on their own inherent basis. Granting parents too few natural rights, Kant on the other hand allocates them too much obligations in that the parent-child relation is unbalanced in his field of view. Thirdly, he gives no consideration as to whether or not the empirical process of rearing children itself can also create some rights, which nevertheless, should be taken into account when temporal elements can be found from the very original parent-child relationship. (shrink)

According to the conventional view, causal and moral responsibility have a strict hierarchical relationship. Determining causal responsibility comes first; then we sort through the factors to which we have assigned causal responsibility and determine which, if any, should be assigned moral responsibility too. Moral inquiry accordingly stands not only apart but also above causal inquiry. But I am going to argue that this way of looking at causal and moral responsibility is a mistake. Rather than being separate and independent (...) inquires with different purposes and concerns, I am going to argue that finding causal responsibility actually entails finding moral responsibility even when there is no evidence of what we would call traditional fault. Indeed, I am going to argue we cannot find someone causally responsible without finding them morally responsible too. (shrink)

One of the most active areas of research in semi-supervised learning has been to study methods for constructing good ensembles of classifiers. Ensemble systems are techniques that create multiple models and then combine them to produce improved results. These systems usually produce more accurate solutions than a single model would. Specially, multi-view ensemble systems improve the accuracy of text classification because they optimize the functions to exploit different views of the same input data. However, despite being more promising than (...) the single-view approaches, document datasets often have no natural multiple views available. This study proposes an algorithm to generate a synthetic view from a standard text dataset. The model generates a new view from the standard bag-of-words approach using an algorithm based on hidden Markov models. To show the effectiveness of the proposed HMM-based synthetic view generation method, it has been integrated in a co-training ensemble system and tested with four text corpora: Reuters, 20 Newsgroup, TREC Genomics and OHSUMED. The results obtained are promising, showing a significant increase in the efficiency of the ensemble system compared to a single-view approach. (shrink)

A key question in disability studies, philosophy, and bioethics concerns the relationship between disability and well-being. The mere difference view, endorsed by Elizabeth Barnes, claims that physical and sensory disabilities by themselves do not make a person worse off overall—any negative impacts on welfare are due to social injustice. This article argues that Barnes’s Value Neutral Model does not extend to intellectual disability. Intellectual disability is (1) intrinsically bad—by itself it makes a person worse off, apart from a (...) non-accommodating environment; (2) universally bad—it lowers quality of life for every intellectually disabled person; and (3) globally bad—it reduces a person’s overall well-being. While people with intellectual disabilities are functionally disadvantaged, this does not imply that they are morally inferior—lower quality of life does not mean lesser moral status. No clinical implications concerning disability-based selective abortion, denial of life-saving treatment, or rationing of scarce resources follow from the claim that intellectual disability is bad difference. (shrink)

According to the No Alternate Possibilities argument, if time passes then the rate at which it passes could be different but time cannot pass at different rates, and hence time cannot pass. Typically, defenders of the NAP argument have focussed on defending premise, and have taken the truth of for granted: they accept the orthodox view of rate necessitarianism. In this paper we argue that the defender of the NAP argument needs to turn her attention to. We describe a (...) series of worlds that appear to contain differential passage: worlds where time passes at different rates in different subregions. If the NAP argument is to succeed, rate necessitarians must show that each of these worlds is either metaphysically impossible, or does not contain differential passage. (shrink)

This chapter examines current views concerning the alleged editing of the rabbinic texts of late antiquity. It highlights the author's 1986 article concerning the editing of rabbinic texts and discusses the possibilities of manuscript variations and variant readings of certain texts in different manuscripts. It suggests that there is no evidence of any significant recensional variation in any of the classic works of midrash, neither those included in the corpus of midrash halakhah nor those included in the corpus of midrash (...) aggadah. (shrink)

In this essay Olivia Newman critically examines two opposing rights claims: the liberal claim that children have a right to become liberal choosers and the fundamentalist claim that children have a right to not become liberal choosers. These positions reflect differing views regarding the value of critically choosing, rather than simply accepting, a way of life. Given their assumptions regarding preference formation, both of these rights appear untenable in light of recent scholarship in psychology: we can neither select a way (...) of life independent of our social milieu, as liberals often imply, nor can we predict how different experiences will affect our preferences, as fundamentalists assume. Nevertheless, each position points to important concerns. Children have a substantive right of exit from constraining social milieus, as liberals purport, as well as a right to respect in public institutions, as fundamentalists insist. When liberals and fundamentalists assert these more modest rights claims, educators can and should strive to satisfy both. (shrink)

At least three different issues are commonly referred to by the term “the species problem”: one concerns the necessary properties of species, a second the processes responsible for the existence of species, and a third methods for inferring species limits. Solutions have recently been proposed to the first two problems, which are conceptual in nature (the third is methodological). The first equates species with metapopulation lineages and proposes that existence as a separately evolving metapopulation lineage be considered the only necessary (...) property of species. The second views the species category as a cluster concept and proposes that no single process or set of processes be considered necessary for the existence of species. Although these two solutions have been portrayed as being in conflict, they are, in fact, highly compatible. Moreover, the proposals in question clarify the problem concerning methods for inferring the limits of species, which has for a long time been confused with the problem concerning the necessary properties of species. Together these proposals provide the opportunity for biology to move beyond debates about the definition of the species category and focus on estimating the boundaries and numbers of species as well as studying the diverse processes involved in their origin and persistence. BioEssays 27:1263–1269, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

According to the consencus of Muslim world, al-Aqsā Mosque is located in the land of al-Quds (Jerusalem). In this matter, especially the old Sunnite sources are in agreement with each other. However, there are recently some different views regarding the location of al-Aqsā Mosque. It has been argued that al-Aqsā Mosque most likley was built in a location differnet from Jerusalem. One of the defenders of this opinion is Muhammad Hamīdullah, who is a prominent scholar of Islamic studies and considered (...) to be a reliable authority among contemporary Islāmic historians. He claims that al-Aqsā Mosque, which was also mentioned in the Qur’ān, cannot be the Mosque that is present in Jerusalem. Rather, it must be searched in heavens. If this claim is accepted, then numerous reports informing that the mosque is located in Jerusalem and many interpretations based on these reports, will become problematic and controversial. Therefore, it is necessary to examine those claims and the relevant evidence in detail. Following this pueporse, we aim to examine and evaluate those views with a critical approach in this study. In this regard, we will argue that the comments and approaches that have been argued so far, are not consistent. Rather, relevant claims do not rely on strong evidence but only unsatisfactory interpretations. Summary: Muhammad Hamīdullah who is a prominent researcher and well-known for his studies on History of Islām, has individual opinions on some issues, different from classical scholars of Ahlu’s-Sunnah (branch of Islām that accepts the first four caliphs as rightful successors to Muhammad). One of his distinctive views is the original place of Masjid al-Aqsā (al-Aqsā Mosque). He claims that al-Aqsā Mosque was likely located, not in al-Quds (Jerusalem), but in heavens. In this article, our purpose is to examine this matter by evaluating his arguments regarding the place of al-Aqsā Mosque. Hamīdullah’s argument is based on several reasons which are as follows:Miʻrāc (The Ascension) is a journey from the earth to beyond the heavens. According to Hamīdullah, it is illogical to say that, in relation to such a magnificient occurrence, the Holy Qur’ān only mentions the journey from Mecca to Bayt al-Maqdis/al-Quds.Hamīdullah maintains that the expression “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” in the first verse of Sūrah al-Isrā means “the remotest Mosque.” However, the Palestinian lands are described as “Adna’l-Arḍ/Nearest Country” in the third verse of Sūrah ar-Rūm. Thus, “the remotest Mosque” should not be “the nearest country”; rather it should be a Mosque in heavens.He also argues that in some Hadith texts, the mosque in question is mentioned as “Masjid al-Aqsā”, but there is a grammatical difference between the phrases of “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” and “Masjid al-Aqsā”, which means that the mosque mentioned as “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” in the Qur’ānic verse does not have a connection with al-Quds (Jerusalem). In his opinion, the expression of “Masjid al-Aqsā” which appears in some Hadith texts is in the form of a noun clause, while the quranic expression “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” is in the form of an adjective clause. Accordingly, “Masjid al-Aqsā” and “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” refer to different places. The noun clause -as in the Hadith texts- of “Masjid al-Aqsā” must be in al-Quds, whereas the Qur’ānic expression in the form of an adjective clause of “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” must be a mosque in the heavens.According to his other claim, Abu’l-Yemān, the teacher of the teacher of Bukhārī, when narrating the hadith about mosques, he mentions this mosque, not as “al-Masjid al-Aqsā”, but as Īliyā’. That is, according to him, early sources of hadith do not mention the phrase of “al-Masjid al-Aqsā”, but instead, the phrase of Īliyā’ was used. Hamīdullah also states “... while narrating this hadith, Muslim does not use the phrases “Masjid al-Aqsā” or “al-Masjid al-Aqsā.” Instead, he uses the phrase Īliyā’.”He also states that the term al-masjid (the mosque) which appears in the seventh verse of Sūrah al-Isrā, was used to refer to that Īliyā’, not to refer to “al-Masjid al-Aqsā”. Likewise, the Umayyad Caliph Abdulmelik (26-86 h.c./646-705 g.c.) built the Dome of the Rock (Masjid al-Saḥra) in al-Quds and named it “Masjid al-Aqsā”. This name became so widespread at the times of Imam al-Bukhārī (194-256 h.c./810/870 g.c.) so that the old name Īliyā’ had been totally forgotten. Because of this reason, some hadith narrators were using this more common name “Masjid al-Aqsā” to express and describe this forgotten name.When we critically evaluate the information and approaches explained above, we come to the conclusion that they are not consistent. First of all, the claim that Masjid al-Aqsā is in the heavens, is in disagreement with the Qur’ānic verses implying that “Masjid al-Aqsā” is in al-Quds, and with many authentic hadith texts that indicate its existence on those lands. Also, the sources of Qur’ānic interpretations (exegeses) and historical narrations refute this claim. On the other hand, there is no Qur’ānic verse or tradition (hadith) that state that Masjid al-Aqsā is in the heavens.We argue that Hamīdullah’s claim “...It is illogical to say that, in relation to such a magnificient occurrence, the Holy Qur’ān only mentions the journey from Mecca to al-Aqsā Mosque in al-Quds” is not very appropriate. Because, it is beyond the human judgment to decide which part of this magnificient journey is more important or which part of it should take place in the Holy Qur’ān. Only Allah has the authority to decide for this. Moreover, we should remember that-as mentioned in the conveyed knowledge- the incident mentioned in the first verse of Sūrah al-Isrā is merely the magnificient journey from Mecca to Masjid al-Aqsā, which was clearly stated in the authentic hadith sources. As for the third verse of Sūrah al-Rūm, it is not correct to claim that Masjid al-Aqsā is not in al-Quds but in the heavens, by reading the text of the verse. Because, the phrase al-arḍ (the earth) has several meanings. Moreover, the phrase al-aqsā (the remotest) in the first verse of Sūrah al-Isrā, refers to distance between the two mosques, not between two countries.In some hadith texts, Masjid al-Aqsā was mentioned as “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” in the form of a noun clause, but this does not require that the masjid in question should be in the heavens. Because, many hadith texts mention it in the form of an adjective clause. Besides, some hadith texts mention Masjid al-Harām (Great Mosque of Mecca) in the form of a noun clause (Masjid al-Harām), not in the form of an adjective clause (al-Masjid al-Harām). If we consider Hamīdullah’s claim, we should look for the Masjid al-Harām in the heavens, but not on earth. So far, neither he nor anybody else made such a claim.Hamīdullah argues that Abu’l Yemān mentioned this mosque as Īliyā’, but not as al-Masjid al-Aqsā, and claimed that early religious sources do not use the term al-Masjid al-Aqsā. However, this is not a sound argument. Because, the authorities of hadith and history, who lived both before Abu’l Yemān and also at the same era, used the term “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” in their works and narrated that this term refers to al-Quds or Bayt al-Maqdis (Masjid al-Aqsā). Moreover, Hamīdullah’s claim that Muslim (a senior hadith scholar) did not use the terms “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” or “Masjid al-Aqsā” but instead he used the name “Īliyā’” is incorrect. Because, while narrating this hadith, the hadith scholar (Muslim) used all three names. As for the term “al-Masjid (the Mosque)” mentioned in Q 17.7, it is a groundless comment to claim that it does not refer to “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” in Q 17.1. Because the context of the verses and grammatical rules of Arabic language explicitly prove that the mosque mentioned in the seventh verse refers to “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” which is also mentioned in the first verse.His claim that “the Umayyads named the temple that they built in Jerusalem as “Masjid al-Aqsā” and following the era of Umayyads, in the period of Bukhārī, this naming became widespread” is highly vulnerable and disputable. Because in those times, the temple used to be named as “al-Masjid al-Jami (the Gathering Mosque)”, not as “al-Masjid al-Aqsā”. Nearly three centuries after the Umayyads reign, the naming of the said temple was first introduced to be as “al-Masjid al-Aqsā”. As for the expression of “al-Masjid al-Aqsā” appearing in the early sources of hadith, it was not used for the mosque built by the Umayyads, but was used to mean the entire haram (sacred, respected) region taking place in the south east corner of Jerusalem. In the light of arguments and explanations critically analysed above, we are in a position to argue that Muhammad Hamīdullah’s argument that “Masjid al-Aqsā is in the heavens”, does not rely on sound evidence, but rather, they are only some unsatisfactory interpretations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 136-137 [Access article in PDF] John Watkins. Human Freedom after Darwin: A Critical Rationalist View. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1999. Pp. xi + 348. Cloth, $49.95. Paper, $24.95. John Watkins examines man's place in nature since Darwin. As a critical rationalist, using the methods of science, Watkins hopes to construct a world-view which challenges competing hypotheses and supports his (...) own. He recognizes that his view is, also, a candidate for critical rejection. All scientific views are, in principle, fallible. He divides his book into two parts: Naturalism and Freedom. [End Page 137]In evolutionary development, he accepts, as critically established, the sequence: matter before life, life before mind, and, no mind without a brain. Thus, naturalism is preferred beforesupernaturalism or divine intervention. These guides may support a continuous, steady evolutionaryprocess or discontinuity, mutations, and various stages of change. Darwin acceptedthe former and held physical changes were unaffected by consciousness. All change is, in principle,present from the beginning and unfolds over time. Darwin's view, then, is deterministic.Watkins challenges this position and argues for consciousness affecting physical change in new and unpredictable ways. It is herein that the possibility of animal and human freedom lies. Watkins gives examples of the actions of the hunter and hunted among animals, and of strategies developed by humans during crises, to support the view that there are novel and unpredictable actions by conscious beings. These actions can hardly be called predetermined in the nature of things. There is a huge difference between a general genetic structure for kinds of behavior and specific actions during crises (not that these are the only instances of freedom). At any rate, there is a reciprocal action between an individual and its environment and not merely a unilinear one.In Part II, Freedom, Watkins examines some classical, philosophical views of human freedom. He gives brief, but penetrating, analyses of Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Spinoza. Either they account for human action in strictly physical terms that are causally deterministic or they turn to non-empirical sources that are not verifiable. Since the latter make no difference in our account of behavior, they are entities multiplied beyond necessity. Those who give a completely deterministic view—Hobbes, Hume, and Schopenhauer—offer no continuum between cause and chance. Chance turns out to depend upon our ignorance of causes; further examination would show it causally determined.Watkins seems most sympathetic to Spinoza's treatment. In his hard-headed naturalism, Spinoza rejects any non-natural or supernatural accounts of human behavior. He is a strict determinist where man's confrontation with nature is concerned. Human emotions are passive and react to our environment; they do not affect it. Human reason makes no difference, but in its capacity to contemplate eternal truths it offers a way out. Instead of reacting to nature, man may transcend it. This transcendence is the key to Spinoza's view of the intellectual love of God, and human freedom. Watkins criticizes this flight from man's place in nature and the limited use of reason. In this vein, Spinoza seems to abandon the confrontation of nature for a flight to eternal truths. For Watkins, however, reasons must be used in confronting nature. As we saw, he claims that reason may have an effect upon the environment that is novel and unpredictable. Human agency is a part of the evolutionary story. Human agency is not an either/or proposition. There are degrees of effectiveness in human response to nature.In his analysis of human freedom, Watkins turns to the works of Newton, Faraday, Einstein, and others. In studying the problems posed by the consideration of natural phenomena during their time, they showed intellectual perspicacity of the highest order. Faraday's unified field theory brought electrical and magnetic phenomena, previously thought to be disparate, together. Newton's laws of motion brought celestial and terrestrial mechanics under one theory. Einstein changed the way in which space, time, mass, energy, and light were conceived. In a real sense, they were... (shrink)

In the 2005 Kitzmiller v Dover Area School Board case, a federal district court ruled that Intelligent Design creationism was not science, but a disguised religious view and that teaching it in public schools is unconstitutional. But creationists contend that it is illegitimate to distinguish science and religion, citing philosophers Quinn and especially Laudan, who had criticized a similar ruling in the 1981 McLean v. Arkansas creation-science case on the grounds that no necessary and sufficient demarcation criterion was possible (...) and that demarcation was a dead pseudo-problem. This article discusses problems with those conclusions and their application to the quite different reasoning between these two cases. Laudan focused too narrowly on the problem of demarcation as Popper defined it. Distinguishing science from religion was and remains an important conceptual issue with significant practical import, and philosophers who say there is no difference have lost touch with reality in a profound and perverse way. The Kitzmiller case did not rely on a strict demarcation criterion, but appealed only to a “ballpark” demarcation that identifies methodological naturalism (MN) as a “ground rule” of science. MN is shown to be a distinguishing feature of science both in explicit statements from scientific organizations and in actual practice. There is good reason to think that MN is shared as a tacit assumption among philosophers who emphasize other demarcation criteria and even by Laudan himself. (shrink)