Many theorists have defended the claim that collective entities can attain genuine agential status. If collectives can be agents, this opens up a further question: can they be conscious? That is, is there something that it is like to be them? Eric Schwitzgebel argues that yes, collective entities, may well be significantly conscious. Others, including Kammerer, Tononi and Koch, and List reject the claim. List does so on the basis of Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory of consciousness. I argue here that (...) List’s rejection is too quick, and that groups can, at least in principle, display the kind of informational integration we might think is necessary for consciousness. However, group consciousness will likely differ substantially from the individual experiences that give rise to it. This requires the defender of group consciousness to face up to a similar combination problem as the panpsychist. (shrink)

In two very influential papers from 2008, Tamar Gendler introduced the concept of “alief” to describe the mental state one is in when acting in ways contrary to their consciously professed beliefs. For example, if asked to eat what they know is fudge, but shaped into the form of dog feces, they will hesitate, and behave in a manner that would be consistent with the belief that the fudge is really poop. They alieve that it is disgusting, while they believe (...) it is not. This paper investigates laughter from self-proclaimed egalitarian, tolerant folk, in response to oppressive jokes that might fit the alief-model. If I merely alieve the content of a joke at which I laugh, will that constitute morally exculpating reasons for such laughter? And what else might it imply? This paper will provide insights at the intersections of humor studies, ethics, epistemology, phenomenology, and the philosophy of mind, all while being moderately and appropriately amusing. (shrink)

William James and the Reinstatement of the Vague. By William Joseph Gavin. Anti‐foundationalism Old and New. Edited by Tom Rockmore and Beth Singer.

This chapter contains section titled: The Obligation‐to‐Obey‐the‐Law What the Law Claims Matters of Form References Further Reading.

In Legality Scott Shapiro seeks to provide the motivation for the development of his own elaborate account of law by undertaking a critique of H.L.A. Hart's jurisprudential theory. Hart maintained that every legal system is underlain by a rule of recognition through which officials of the system identify the norms that belong to the system as laws. Shapiro argues that Hart's remarks on the rule of recognition are confused and that his model of lawis consequently untenable. Shapiro contends that a (...) new approach is vital for progress in the philosophy of law and, with his lengthy presentation of his own Planning Theory of Law, he aspires to pioneer just such an approach. Except for a very terse observation in the final main section, this article does not directly assess the strengths and shortcomings of Shapiro's piquant planning theory. Instead, I defend Hart against Shapiro's charges and thereby undermine the motivation for the development of the planning theory. (shrink)

The present paper focuses on the commentaries attributed to the Indian Yog?c?ra scholar Sthiramati. So far Sthiramati’s work has received far less attention from modern scholars than the texts of other Yog?c?ra authors like Asa?ga or Vasubandhu, possibly because of the erroneous view that as a commentator he has not been an original author in his own right. However, commentators like Sthiramati have shaped the doctrinal development of Yog?c?ra thought by introducing new concepts and reorganizing previous teachings to a similar (...) extent as ‘independent’ authors. In total seventeen works are ascribed to the author Sthiramati in Indian, Tibetan, Chinese and modern Western sources. The main concern of this study is to show some aspects of the relations between three of these works, namely the Madhy?ntavibh?ga??k?, the *S?tr?la?k?rav?ttibh??ya and the Tri??ik?vijñaptibh??ya, and to question the common authorship of these texts. (shrink)

The evolution of cooperative breeding is complex, and particularly so in humans because many other life history traits likely evolved at the same time. While cooperative childrearing is often presumed ancient, the transition from maternal self-reliance to dependence on allocare leaves no known empirical record. In this paper, an exploratory model is developed that incorporates probable evolutionary changes in birth intervals, juvenile dependence, and dispersal age to predict under what life history conditions mothers are unable to raise children without adult (...) cooperation. The model’s outcome variable (net balance) integrates dependent children’s production and consumption as a function of varying life history parameters to estimate the investment mothers or others have to spend subsidizing children. Results suggest that maternal-juvenile cooperation can support the early transition toward a reduction in birth intervals, a longer period of juvenile dependence, and having overlapping young. The need for adult cooperation is most evident when birth intervals are short and age at net production is late. Findings suggest that the needs of juveniles would not have been an early selective force for adult cooperation. Rather, an age-graded division of labor and the mutual benefits of maternal-juvenile cooperation could be an important, but overlooked step in the evolution of cooperative breeding. (shrink)

Attention has been given to cross-cultural differences in adolescent growth, but far less is known about developmental variability during juvenility (ages 3–10). Previous research among the Pumé, a group of South American foragers, found that girls achieve a greater proportion of their adult stature during juvenility compared with normative growth expectations. To explain rapid juvenile growth, in this paper we consider girls’ activity levels and energy expended in subsistence effort. Results show that Pumé girls spend far less time in subsistence (...) tasks in proportion to their body size compared with adults, and they have lower physical activity levels compared with many juveniles cross-culturally. Low activity levels help to explain where the extra energy comes from to support rapid growth in a challenging environment. We suggest that activity levels are important to account for the variation of resource and labor transfers in mediating energy availability. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Judith Butler’s “New Humanism”A Thing or Not a Thing, and So What?Sina KramerA few thinkers in the last few years, such as Stefan Dolgert and Miriam Leonard, but especially political theorist Bonnie Honig, have argued that Judith Butler’s most recent work (Antigone’s Claim, 2000; Undoing Gender, 2004; Precarious Life, 2005; Frames of War, 2009) institutes a new form of humanism, based on the universality of grief, mourning, vulnerability, and (...) precariousness that Butler describes in these texts. These critiques call into question an incipient foundationalism in the feminist political theory Butler produces in these texts, one seemingly at odds with her previous antifoundationalist commitments. In this article I will argue that, while these critiques oversimplify the relationship between politics and ethics or politics and ontology in their critique of Butler’s new mortalist humanism, the problem of the relation of politics to ethics or ontology—or, more exactly, the problem of the relation of politics to its outside, or to its conditions—remains nevertheless a real problem in Butler’s work. This is because, without a clear account of a method of rendering foundations contingent, or of rendering ontologies provisional, we tend to repeat the political move to establish an apolitical ground on which we can found a politic. This foundationalist move thus shields that ground from political critique and transformation—a move that Butler herself has done so much work to expose and displace.In this article, I ask whether feminist theory must repeat a recourse to foundations by examining the charge that Butler does so her in most recent work. The article will proceed as follows: in the first section, I examine the [End Page 25] charge that Butler is instituting a new humanism. In the second section, I look at some of Butler’s discussion of humanism, and look more closely at the relation between ethics and politics the question of humanism opens up in her work. In the third, I explore whether or not the charge that Butler is instituting a new humanism is correct. And in the fourth, I question what is at stake in this charge. Essentially, the article asks of this new humanist charge: Is this a thing or not a thing, and so what? I argue that, while the charge is somewhat overdetermined, it does point to a larger problem in Butler’s work, and that is the recourse to foundations, or to gesturing to an outside of or beyond of politics as the condition for altering political conditions. I will conclude by arguing that a greater attention to method can help to avoid the reification of the distinction between politics and its conditions that leads to the recourse of foundations.Butler’s New Mortalist HumanismIn her 2010 article “Antigone’s Two Laws: Tragedy and the Politics of Humanism”—as well as in her 2013 book Antigone, Interrupted—Bonnie Honig argues that Butler’s ethical turn institutes a new mortalist humanism, predicated on the “ontological fact of mortality, not the capacity to reason but the vulnerability to suffering” (Honig 2010, 1). She differentiates this new mortalist humanism, which she also diagnoses in the work of Nicole Loraux and Stephen White, from earlier rationalist forms of humanism that are based on the universal principle of human rationality, and from forms of antihumanism based on the “signs of a monstrous, dehumanizing animality” (Honig 2010, 3). Either form is problematic, Honig argues, insofar as they both seek to settle essentially political questions by recourse to a position beyond politics: through a stable and recognizably human figure who either secures its belonging to the polity by means of its rationality, or an exclusion rendered through the dehumanization of otherwise ostensibly human figures.This new mortalist humanism Honig diagnoses in Butler’s recent work falls into the same problem: in this version, Butler settles political questions by recourse to a principle of mortality, or the universal experience of mourning. This would seem to be contrary to Butler’s earlier commitments to a radical critique of foundationalism, especially in her famous critique of the naturalization of sex as the grounds for a political understanding of gender. This is... (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin has long criticized legal positivists for their efforts to distinguish between legal and non-legal standards of conduct that are incumbent on people. Recently, Dworkin has broached this criticism in his hostile account of the debates between Incorporationist Legal Positivists and Exclusive Legal Positivists. Specifically, he has maintained that Incorporationists cannot avoid the unpalatable conclusion that the axioms and theorems of arithmetic are legal norms. This article shows why such a conclusion is indeed avoidable and why Dworkin's criticism is (...) therefore wide of the mark. (shrink)

This article delineates some of the main issues that are debated by philosophers of law. It explores the connections between legal philosophy and other areas of philosophy, while also seeking to specify the distinctiveness of many of the concerns that have preoccupied philosophers of law. It illustrates its abstract points with examples focused on the separability of law and morality, the nature of the rule of law, the nature of rights, justifications for the imposition of punishment, and the identification of (...) basic legal entitlements. (shrink)

“ A man orders a whole pizza pie for himself and is asked whether he would like it cut into eight or four slices. He responds, ‘Four, I’m on a diet ”’ (Noël Carroll) -/- While not hilarious --so funny that it induces chortling punctuated with outrageous vomiting--this little gem is amusing. We recognize that something has gone wrong. On a first reading it might not compute, something doesn’t quite make sense. Then, aha! , we understand the hapless dieter has (...) misapplied general rules of thumb, mental short-cuts, or heuristics, that we were also initially committed to and that would usually be good enough to rely upon— fewer slices equals fewer calories; diets require fewer calories, etc—but in this particular case they fail, and the feeling of mirth is our reward for making this discovery. We don’t say all of that after a punchline, of course, but that’s what is happening according to the Humor as Error-Detection Theory : our sense of humor can sense our errors. This chapter will focus on the overlap and benefits of a humorous and philosophical attitude toward the world and our place in it. The historian of philosophy Will Durant tells us that genuine philosophy begins when one learns to doubt; we can say something similar with humor--trust me. (shrink)

The first “R” from animal research ethics prescribes the replacement of animal experiments with animal-free alternatives. However, the question of when an animal-free method qualifies as an alternative to animal experiments remains unresolved.Drawing lessons from another debate in which the word “alternative” is central, the ethical debate on alternatives to germline genome editing, this paper develops a general account of when something qualifies as an alternative to something. It proposes three ethically significant conditions that technique, method, or approach X must (...) meet to qualify as an alternative to Y: (1) X must address the same problem as Y, under an appropriate description of that problem; (2) X must have a reasonable chance of success, compared to Y, in solving the problem; and (3) X must not be ethically unacceptable as a solution. If X meets all these conditions, its relative advantages and disadvantages determine whether it is preferable, indifferent, or dispreferable as an alternative to Y.This account is then applied to the question of whether animal-free research methods qualify as alternatives to animal research. Doing so breaks down the debate around this question into more focused (ethical and other) issues and illustrates the potential of the account. (shrink)

Lon Fuller is best known among legal philosophers for his efforts to highlight the intrinsically moral nature of law. To show that his efforts come to nought, the present essay ponders not only the ideas advanced by Fuller himself, but also some of the defences of him that have been mounted in recent years. Those defences centre on his notion of reciprocity, according to which the officials in a genuine legal system have effectively undertaken to respect die confines of the (...) mandates which they ask citizens (including themselves) to obey. Building on that notion, the supporters of Fuller have affirmed that the basic characteristics of law are intrinsically promotive of values such as autonomy and due process. As the present essay seeks to demonstrate, their sophisticated lines of argument turn out to be unavailing. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Theoretical‐Explanatory Enquiries Moral Enquiries Brief Concluding Remarks Acknowledgments References.

Many high-risk medical devices earn US marketing approval based on limited premarket clinical evaluation that leaves important questions unanswered. Rigorous postmarket surveillance includes registries that actively collect and maintain information defined by individual patient exposures to particular devices. Several prominent registries for cardiovascular devices require enrolment as a condition of reimbursement for the implant procedure, without informed consent. In this article, we focus on whether these registries, separate from their legal requirements, have an ethical obligation to obtain informed consent from (...) enrolees, what is lost in not doing so, and the ways in which seeking and obtaining consent might strengthen postmarket surveillance in the USA. (shrink)

Human beings are among the species with the best color perception of all mammals. Yet, transparency can be perceived in scenes in which color cues point to opacity. Why do we ignore such color cues? Here we argue that colors, rather than being passively registered, must be actively recreated and then bound to other stimulus attributes. In this process, the visual system faces fundamental problems, some of which are logically impossible to solve. The resulting unreliability of color perception may go (...) some way toward explaining why color cues cannot usually veto transparency percepts. Other stimulus attributes, however, affect transparency perception strongly even though they are not processed in foolproof ways either. How come? We argue that our trichromatic color perception is likely to have been a late, and for that reason less than fully integrated, addition to an already existing visual system that was colorblind to red and green. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Ingredients of Impartiality Why Does Impartiality Matter? Challenges to Epistemic Reliability Conclusion.

This chapter contains sections titled: Two Preliminary Clarifications Two Senses of “Ethics” or “Morality” A Brief Conspectus.

Legal positivism’s multi-faceted insistence on the separability of law and morality includes an insistence on the thoroughly conventional status of legal norms as legal norms. Yet the positivist affirmation of the conventionality of law may initially seem at odds with the mind-independence of the existence and contents and implications of legal norms. Mind-independence, a central aspect of legal objectivity, has been seen by some theorists as incompatible with the mind-dependence of conventions. Such a perception of incompatibility has led some anti-positivist (...) theorists to reject the notion of law’s conventionality, and has led some positivist theorists to query law’s mind-independence. What will be contended here is that both camps are mistaken. (shrink)

Mathematics is a struggle for many. To make it more accessible, behavioral and educational scientists are redesigning how it is taught. To a similar end, a few rogue mathematicians and computer scientists are doing something more radical: they are redesigning mathematics itself, improving its ergonomic features. Charles Peirce, an important contributor to ordinary symbolic logic, also introduced a rigorous but non-symbolic, graphical alternative to it that is easier to picture. In the spirit of this iconic logic, George Spencer-Brown founded iconic (...) mathematics. Performing iconic arithmetic, algebra, and even trigonometry, resembles doing calculations on an abacus, which is still popular in education today, has aided humanity for millennia, helps even when it is merely imagined, and ameliorates severe disability in basic computation. Interestingly, whereas some intellectually disabled individuals excel in very complex numerical tasks, others of normal intelligence fail even in very simple ones. A comparison of their wider psychological profiles suggests that iconic mathematics ought to suit the very people traditional mathematics leaves behind. (shrink)

Until rather recently, philosophy, when practiced as a way of life, was, for most, a communal enterprise of mutually reinforced personal cultivation. It is time, yet again, to revitalize this lost, but vital, intercultural mode of philosophy.

Until rather recently, philosophy, when practiced as a way of life, was, for most, a communal enterprise of mutually reinforced personal cultivation. In these times of social isolation, including in academic philosophy itself, it is time, yet again, to revitalize this lost, but vital, intercultural mode of philosophy. This volume characterizes a neglected communal mode of philosophy - the philosophical community - by describing the constellation of metaethical principles (general, axiological, cultural, and dialectical) that cultivates its values. The book draws (...) on examples from across the globe and history, including interviews of adherents of living philosophical communities. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Invariance qua Uniform Applicability Invariance qua Transindividual Concurrence Invariance qua Timelessness and Ubiquity Limits on Invariance Concluding Remarks.

The question of why helpers help is debated in the cooperative breeding literature. Recent reevaluations of inclusive fitness theory have important implications for traditional populations in which the provisioning of young occurs in the context of intergenerational transfers. These transfers link older and younger generations in an economic relationship that both minimizes the demand for help and the cost of helping.

Citizen event reporting (CER) attempts to leverage the eyes and ears of a large population of citizen sensors to increase the amount of information available to decision makers. When deployed in an environment that includes hostile elements, foes can exploit the system to exert indirect control over the response infrastructure. We use an agent-based model to relate the utility of responses to population composition, citizen behavior, and decision strategy, and measure the result in terms of a force multiplier. We show (...) that CER can lead to positive force multipliers even with a majority of hostile elements in the population. When reporter identity is known, a reputation system that keeps track of trustworthy reporters can further increase the force multipliers. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Skeptical Doubts Perfect Determinacy? A Terse Coda: Skepticism Contrasted with Relativism.

Kierkegaard has no comprehensive or systematic aesthetics of his own. Despite this, his work contains numerous and abundant references to the aesthetics of his time; namely, the Hegelian inspired aesthetics of Johan Ludvig Heiberg. As a one‐time adherent of Heiberg, Kierkegaard was thoroughly steeped in Heiberg's philosophy of art, and often merely applies such aesthetics to his selected objects of interest, echoing the philosophy of art of his day. There are, however, other instances where Kierkegaard carries out a sometimes overt (...) and sometimes covert critique of Heibergian aesthetics, especially after Either/Or, challenging his predecessor's views and the dominant aesthetics of the day. (shrink)