Machine ethics and robot rights are quickly becoming hot topics in artificial intelligence and robotics communities. We will argue that attempts to attribute moral agency and assign rights to all intelligent machines are misguided, whether applied to infrahuman or superhuman AIs, as are proposals to limit the negative effects of AIs by constraining their behavior. As an alternative, we propose a new science of safety engineering for intelligent artificial agents based on maximizing for what humans value. In particular, we challenge (...) the scientific community to develop intelligent systems that have human-friendly values that they provably retain, even under recursive self-improvement. (shrink)

Grau and Pury (Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 5, 155–168, 2014) reported that people’s views about love are related to their views about reference. This surprising effect was however not replicated in Cova et al.’s (in press) replication study. In this article, we show that the replication failure is probably due to the replication’s low power and that a metaanalytic reanalysis of the result in Cova et al. suggests that the effect reported in Grau and Pury is real. (...) We then report a large, highly powered replication that successfully replicates Grau and Pury 2014. This successful replication is a case study in the challenges involved in replicating scientific work, and our article contributes to the discussion of these challenges. (shrink)

In order to explore the political and transformative potential of bodies in relation to gender and affects, I discuss how bodies, gender and politics are entangled through the figuration of ‘overflown bodies’. Departing from a material-discursive feminist conceptualisation of bodies, ‘overflown bodies’ are assemblages embedded in complex relationships of matter, discourse, emotions, affects, ideologies, protest, norms, values, relations, practices, expectations and other possibilities of (for) social and political action. Three ethnographic cases illustrate how ‘overflown bodies’ assemble matter and discourse, and (...) how matter, bodies and gender matter. They are used to explore the political possibilities of gendered bodies and show how matter is entangled, embedded and assembled with our politics of being. The three cases interrogate the limits and boundaries of bodies and the modes and modalities of (political) agency. Finally, the article argues that it is through visibility and recognition that ‘overflown bodies’ become critically and creatively transforming, which can be useful for addressing issues related to exclusion, domination, political emancipation and social transformation. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love offers a wide array of original essays on the nature and value of love. The editors, Christopher Grau and Aaron Smuts, have assembled an esteemed group of thinkers, including both established scholars and younger voices. The volume contains thirty-three essays addressing both issues about love as well as key philosophers who have contributed to the philosophy of love, such as Plato, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Murdoch. The topics range from central issues about the (...) nature and variety of love, the possibility of its rational justification, and whether it is an emotion, to the significance of love for law, economics, morality, and free will. The volume also contains an introduction to the subject as well as essays on love’s relation to jealousy, biotechnology, religion, knowledge, and several other topics. This wide-ranging handbook will be a key resource for specialists working on the philosophy of love, and a helpful guide for those looking to learn more about the area. (shrink)

A unique and interdisciplinary collection in which scholars from Philosophy join those from Film Studies, English, and Comparative Literature to explore the nature and limits of love through in-depth reflection on particular works of literature and film.

This is the first book to explore and address the philosophical aspects of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Beginning with a helpful introduction that places each essay in context, specially commissioned chapters examine the following topics: -/- * Philosophical issues surrounding love, friendship, affirmation and repetition * The role of memory (and the emotions) in personal identity and decision-making * The morality of imagination and ethical importance of memory * Philosophical questions about self-knowledge and knowing the minds of others (...) * The aesthetics of the film considered in relation to Gondry’s other works and issues in the philosophy of perception. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss whether there is a specific experience of thinking or not. I address this question by analysing if it is possible to reduce the phenomenal character of thinking to the phenomenal character of sensory experiences. My purpose is to defend that there is a specific phenomenality for at least some thinking mental states. I present Husserl's theory of intentionality in the Logical Investigations as a way to defend this claim and I consider its assumptions. Then I (...) present the case of understanding as a paradigmatic case for the phenomenal contrast argument and I defend it against two objections. (shrink)

Robert Kraut has proposed an analogy between valuing a loved one as irreplaceable and the sort of “rigid” attachment that (according to Saul Kripke’s account) occurs with the reference of proper names. We wanted to see if individuals with Kripkean intuitions were indeed more likely to value loved ones (and other persons and things) as irreplaceable. In this empirical study, 162 participants completed an online questionnaire asking them to consider how appropriate it would be to feel the same way about (...) a perfect replica of a loved one, as well as other questions about replaceability. Participants who previously had endorsed Kripkean reference (n = 96) rated loved ones as less replaceable on two different measures than participants who had previously endorsed Descriptivist reference (n = 66, t(160)> 2.27, p <.02, eta2> .03). Additional results suggest that this difference extends to other targets as well and is at least partially dependent on sentimental attachment. (shrink)

Las discusiones sobre la intencionalidad en la Filosofía de la mente contemporánea se plantean en un marco un tanto ajeno al de la Fenomenología, bajo la suposición, de modo bastante generalizado, de que hay una separación entre intencionalidad y consciencia . Mi objetivo en este artículo es, en primer lugar, exponer tal supuesto. En segundo lugar, presentar los elementos clave de la teoría de la intencionalidad en las Investigaciones Lógicas de Husserl para presentar una visión que se opone a tal (...) separación. Y, en tercer lugar, finalizar con un tema común a ambos espacios de discusión, el de una experiencia o vivencia propia del pensamiento, que surge como un problema para muchas visiones analíticascontemporáneas y que tiene una explicación que puede derivarse de la concepción de Husserl.In contemporary Philosophy of mind, discussions about intentionality areset up in a quite different framework from the phenomenological one, assuming, in general, a separation between intentionality and consciousness. My aim in this paper is, firstly, to present this assumption. Secondly, I will put forward the key elements of Husserl's theory of intentionality in the Logical Investigations in order to present a view which is opposed to this assumption. And thirdly, I will end up with a common topic for both frameworks, that is, the topic of a specific experience of thinking, which emerges as a problem for many contemporary analytic views and which has an explanation that can be derived from Husserl's conception. (shrink)

The topic of this paper concerns the relation between thinking and phenomenality as it is discussed in the Philosophy of Mind. Thus, I am addressing the following questions: does the domain of phenomenal consciousness include thinking? And if so, is the phenomenality of thinking (PT) proprietary or not? I will firstly present the debate and the main notions involved in it, by contrasting a certain mainstream picture of the mind with the one offered by Phenomenology. Second, I will consider the (...) particular question of a proprietary phenomenology of conscious thought through the examination of the reductionist and antireductionist positions, concluding with a sceptical remark towards this dialectics. (shrink)

In his essay “The Human Prejudice” Bernard Williams presented a sophisticated defense of the moral relevance of the concept “human being”. Here I offer both an analysis of his essay and a defense of his conclusions against criticisms made by Julian Savulescu and Peter Singer. After a discussion of the structure of Williams’s argument, I focus on several complaints from Savulescu: that Williams underestimates the similarities between speciesism and racism or sexism, that Williams relies on a disputable internalism about reasons (...) to make his case, that Williams ignores the arbitrariness of species membership, and (a complaint also made by Singer) that Williams attacks a straw man in considering only negative utilitarianism when criticizing the idea of an Impartial Observer. I defend Williams against these charges and end with a brief discussion of how his alien invasion example illustrates the fundamentally different philosophical sensibility of Bernard Williams in comparison to critics like Savulescu and Singer. (shrink)

Previous studies on body ownership illusions have shown that under certain multimodal conditions, healthy people can experience artificial body-parts as if they were part of their own body, with direct physiological consequences for the real limb that gets ‘substituted’. In this study we wanted to assess (a) whether healthy people can experience ‘missing’ a body-part through illusory ownership of an amputated virtual body, and (b) whether this would cause corticospinal excitability changes in muscles associated with the ‘missing’ body-part. Forty right-handed (...) participants saw a virtual body from a first person perspective but for half of them the virtual body was missing a part of its right arm. Single pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied before and after the experiment to left and right motor cortices. Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were recorded from the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) and the extensor digitorum communis (EDC) of each hand. We found that the stronger the illusion of amputation and arm ownership, the more the reduction of MEP amplitudes of the EDC muscle for the contralateral sensorimotor cortex. In contrast, no association was found for the EDC amplitudes in the ipsilateral cortex and for the FDI amplitudes in both contralateral and ipsilateral cortices. Our study provides evidence that a short-term illusory perception of missing a body-part can trigger inhibitory effects on corticospinal pathways and importantly in the absence of any limb deafferentation or disuse. (shrink)

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs are increasingly popular corporate marketing strategies. This paper argues that CSR programs can fall along a continuum between two endpoints: Institutionalized programs and Promotional programs. This classification is based on an exploratory study examining the variance of four responses from the consumer stakeholder group toward these two categories of CSR. Institutionalized CSR programs are argued to be most effective at increasing customer loyalty, enhancing attitude toward the company, and decreasing consumer skepticism. Promotional CSR programs are (...) argued to be more effective at generating purchase intent. Ethical and managerial implications of these preliminary findings are discussed. (shrink)

Pepper Culpepper’s seminal Quiet Politics and Business Power has revitalized the study of when business elites can shape policies away from public scrutiny. This article takes the concept of quiet politics to a new, and surprising, set of actors: trade union leaders. Focusing on the case of Denmark, it argues that quiet politics functions through political elite networks and that this way of doing politics favors a particular kind of corporatist coordination between the state, capital, and labor. Rather than showing (...) macrocorporatist coordination between the two classes and governments, it identifies representatives of business and labor that hold privileged positions in political elite networks. Representatives of segments are found in industries important for the Danish economy, specifically, the exporting manufacturing sector. Being at the core of the network requires not only a key position in the Danish economy but also an understanding that politics is often done best without politicians and voters. The analysis shows that trade union and business association representatives work closely on a wide number of issues through quiet politics, using their extensive network to broker and foster agreement between different stakeholders. (shrink)

American History X (hereafter AHX) has been accused by numerous critics of a morally dangerous cinematic seduction: using stylish cinematography, editing, and sound, the film manipulates the viewer through glamorizing an immoral and hate-filled neo-nazi protagonist. In addition, there’s the disturbing fact that the film seems to accomplish this manipulation through methods commonly grouped under the category of “fascist aesthetics.” More specifically, AHX promotes its neo-nazi hero through the use of several filmic techniques made famous by Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl. (...) Now most critics admit that, in the end, the film claims to denounce racism and attempts to show us the conversion of the protagonist to the path of righteousness, but they complain that nonetheless the film (perhaps unintentionally) ends up implicitly promoting the immoral worldview it rather superficially professes to reject in its final act. This charge of hypocrisy is connected to another worry: the moral conversion in the film is said to fall flat because the intellectual resources on display to support the character’s racism are not counterbalanced by equally explicit (but superior) arguments for the anti-racist position ultimately embraced by the character. In other words, just as the devil is said to get all the good lines in Milton’s Paradise Lost, in AHX the racists get all the arguments. This has been taken to be a morally problematic flaw of the film. Critics lament that Derek’s conversion seems to result not from relevant logical inferences and valid rational argumentation but from overly simplistic and arguably egoistic insights (e.g., “has anything you've done made your life better?”) combined, perhaps, with a hackneyed cliché (in prison, one of his best friends is a black person!) In this paper I’ll attempt to rebut these charges and defend the film as a powerful, and powerfully moral, work of art. I’ll be suggesting that the seductive techniques employed allow for many viewers a degree of sympathy towards the protagonist that is crucial, both for making that character’s more horrific actions especially unsettling, and also for making his eventual conversion plausible and ultimately compelling. I’ll also argue that the manner in which his conversion is presented is in fact subtler than many critics have allowed: Derek’s transformation is not artificial or implausible but is depicted as resulting from a cumulative series of emotionally powerful life events and personal engagements. It is certainly true that it is not represented in the way some would seemingly have preferred, i.e. as straightforwardly resulting from a process of gradual intellectual improvement in Derek’s reasoning on questions of race and politics. However, I’ll argue that the decidedly emotional basis of his moral evolution is both refreshingly realistic and no hindrance to accepting his conversion as rational. Finally, properly understanding the legitimacy of the emotional foundations of much moral thought will also allow us to appreciate the ways in which our initial worries about this film’s (not insignificant) ability to persuade viewers through the engagement of emotions need not, in itself, be seen as a barrier to endorsing the film as a morally praiseworthy work. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that a proper understanding of the historicity of love requires an appreciation of the irreplaceability of the beloved. I do this through a consideration of ideas that were first put forward by Robert Kraut in “Love De Re” (1986). I also evaluate Amelie Rorty's criticisms of Kraut's thesis in “The Historicity of Psychological Attitudes: Love is Not Love Which Alters Not When It Alteration Finds” (1986). I argue that Rorty fundamentally misunderstands Kraut's Kripkean analogy, and (...) I go on to criticize her claim that concern over the proper object of love should be best understood as a concern over constancy. This leads me to an elaboration of the distinct senses in which love can be seen as historical. I end with a further defense of the irreplaceability of the beloved and a discussion of the relevance of recent debates over the importance of personal identity for an adequate account of the historical dimension of love. (shrink)

Models are of central importance in many scientific contexts. The centrality of models such as inflationary models in cosmology, general-circulation models of the global climate, the double-helix model of DNA, evolutionary models in biology, agent-based models in the social sciences, and general-equilibrium models of markets in their respective domains is a case in point (the Other Internet Resources section at the end of this entry contains links to online resources that discuss these models). Scientists spend significant amounts of time building, (...) testing, comparing, and revising models, and much journal space is dedicated to interpreting and discussing the implications of models. In short, models are one of the principal instruments of modern science. (shrink)

This essay begins with a consideration of one way in which animals and persons may be valued as “irreplaceable.” Drawing on both Plato and Pascal, I consider reasons for skepticism regarding the legitimacy of this sort of attachment. While I do not offer a complete defense against such skepticism, I do show that worries here may be overblown due to the conflation of distinct metaphysical and normative concerns. I then go on to clarify what sort of value is at issue (...) in cases of irreplaceable attachment. I characterize “unique value” as the kind of value attributed to a thing when we take that thing to be (theoretically, not just practically) irreplaceable. I then consider the relationship between this sort of value and intrinsic value. After considering the positions of Gowans, Moore, Korsgaard, Frankfurt, and others, I conclude that unique value is best understood not as a variety of intrinsic value but rather as one kind of final value that is grounded in the extrinsic properties of the object. (shrink)

This study offers a comprehensive summary and critical discussion of Alice Crary’s Beyond Moral Judgment. While generally sympathetic to her goal of defending the sort of expansive vision of the moral previously championed by Cora Diamond and Iris Murdoch, concerns are raised regarding the potential for her account to provide a satisfactory treatment of both “wide” objectivity and moral disagreement. Drawing on the work of Jonathan Lear and Jonathan Dancy, I suggest possible routes by which her position could be expanded (...) and possibly strengthened. (shrink)

Alain Grau La double homoousie confessée par le concile de Chalcédoine est sans doute un des concepts parmi les plus difficiles légués par la tradition dogmatique. Que peut signifier que le Christ soit homoousion à nous, et à chacun d’entre nous? Peut-on, sans dommage pour la raison, donc univoquement, passer de la compréhension trinitaire, classique depuis Nicée, à une application anthropologique? Si tel est le cas, il faut donner à la seconde homoousie une intelligibilité située au croisement de la (...) théologie et de l’économie, dont le centre géométrique se trouve en He 5,8. La christologie ne peut donc plus être pensée à partir de deux natures soi-disant connues — ne serait-ce que métaphysiquement — dont il suffirait de comprendre le mode de conjonction dans le Christ, mais uniquement sur le plan hypostatique selon sa double définition. L’hypothèse de l’univocité de la confession chalcédonienne qui est nôtre offre une signification à la divinisation en découvrant son lieu propre, à condition de définir à nouveaux frais la notion d’hypostase, étant entendu que celle-ci est celle du Verbe dans cet homme « parfait » qui est Jésus. (shrink)

Alain Grau | : Au légiste qui l’interroge sur ce qu’il faut faire, Jésus répond : « Comment lis-tu? » À nous qui lisons, la question n’est pas sans poser le problème de savoir quel corps nous formons par cette lecture. La « personnalité corporative » pourrait constituer une réponse, pourvu toutefois qu’elle soit dépouillée de tous ses attributs classiques : psychologique, religieux, ou encore littéraire. Sans contenu objectif, elle n’en est pas moins opératoire. Mais en figure seulement, qui (...) attend d’être comblée par la chair pour devenir vraie. La Chair de Jésus, et la nôtre. L’avenir de cette vieille notion ne serait-il pas la grâce divine? | : To the expert in the law who asks Him what to do, Jesus replies: “How do you read?” For us who do read, the question is not without posing the problem of knowing what body we form by this reading. The “corporate personality” could provide an answer, but on the condition that it be stripped of all its classical attributes : psychological, religious, or literary. Even deprived of any objective content, it is none the less operational. Yet only figuratively, waiting to be fulfilled by the flesh to become true. The Flesh of Jesus, and ours. Might not the future of that old notion be divine grace? (shrink)

Schellings Fragment ‘Clara‘, das erst nach seinem Tod veröffentlicht wurde, ist bisher von der Forschung kaum berücksichtigt worden. Weshalb das so ist, wird bei der Lektüre dieser Schrift recht schnell deutlich. Tatsächlich versucht Schelling hier nichts anderes zu zeigen, als daß es ein Leben nach dem Tod gibt und wie wir uns dieses vorzustellen haben. Dabei ist die ‘Seele‘ das unhintergehbare Band, das gemäß der Identitätslehre Körper und Geist zu einem Identischen macht. Als solche ist sie zugleich der logische Grund (...) von Selbstbewußtsein und Basis existentieller Individualität. Nach dem Tod verbleibt ein emphatischer Zustand reiner Intentionalität und damit ein Reich idealer, unverfälschter Kommunikation der Seelen. Schellings Fragment steht damit in einem Spannungsfeld zwischen irrationalistischen, obskurantistischen Argumenten und auch ideengeschichtlich hochgradig fragwürdigen Ausführungen einerseits und, zumindest bei moderner Lesart, anregenden subjektphilosophischen Spekulationen andererseits. (shrink)

This paper offers several criticisms of the account of rightholding laid out in S. Matthew Liao’s recent paper “The Basis of Human Moral Status.” I argue that Liao’s account both does too much and too little: it grants rightholder status to those who may not deserve it, and it does not provide grounds for offering such status to those who arguably do deserve it. Given these troubling aspects of his approach, I encourage Liao to abandon his “physical basis of moral (...) agency” account of moral status and instead adopt a position closer to a traditional “speciesist” view. (shrink)

Alexis de Tocqueville mantuvo una muy abundante correspondencia a lo largo de su vida. Familiares y relevantes contemporáneos, no sólo franceses, figuran entre sus destinatarios. Sus cartas ofrecen una parte esencial de su pensamiento, expuesto con la libertad propia del género epistolar, y representan una componente de primera importancia dentro de su obra literaria. Las Cartas Americanas, escritas entre abril de 1831 y febrero de 1832 con ocasión de su viaje al Nuevo Mundo, son un buen ejemplo. Además, por servir (...) de referencia inmediata a su gran obra, La democracia en América, cobran un valor excepcional. Cabe pensar que este apartado de la correspondencia tocquevillana, acotado en el tiempo a la perfección, está bien estudiado al día de hoy. Sin embargo una carta, dirigida a su hermano Edouard 3 el 20 de junio de 1831 desde Nueva York e inédita hasta este momento, evidencia que no es así. A ello nos referimos en este trabajo. (shrink)

The double homoousia, confessed by the Council of Chalcedon, is certainly one of the most difficult concepts transmitted by the dogmatic tradition. What can be signified by the affirmation that Christ is homoouion to us, and to each of us? Is it possible to shift a trinitarian understanding, classical since Nicaea, into anthropological meaning in an univocal way, without reason’s injury? If it is the case, we must give the second homoousia an intelligibility right at the intersection of theology and (...) economy, which geometric center is He 5:8 so that Christology can not be understood from the two natures, purportedly known, even metaphysically (God and man), as if it should be enough to understand the mode of conjunction in Christ. This can be done uniquely in an hypostatic way, following the double definition. The hypothesis of the univocity of Chalcedonian faith offers a significance to divinization by clearing its proper location, if, and only if, we engage a new definition of (human) hypostasis, considering that this hypostasis is the one of the Word in that “perfect” man called Jesus. (shrink)

Modernity has made identity impossible because of its exigency of a per-fection that is not compatible with human finitude. This is the reason why since Romanticism it has been generalized the attempt of establishing scopes in which man is freed from this duty. There arises also many phenomena that can be understood as aesthetic instances that defend the in-dividual particularity and promote the cultural variety.

Este artículo analiza un grupo de producciones audiovisuales latinoamericanas a la luz del problema de lo “necropolítico” de Achile Mbembe. Estas películas y series de televisión se han producido desde los años noventa del siglo xx hasta la actualidad, y tienen como universo temático el mundo delincuencial de ciudades latinoamericanas, corpus que he conceptualizado anteriormente dentro de la estética audiovisual como Noir Lumpen latinoamericano. Dentro de esto, nos posibilitará pensar un problema extracinematográfico: cómo las formas “necropolíticas” son el régimen biopolítico (...) en que viven vastos sectores de las sociedades latinoamericanas y que sus espacios urbanos no toman las formas de la cárcel panóptica foucaultiana, sino las formas de los pabellones penitenciarios latinoamericanos. (shrink)