"Proof" has been and remains one of the concepts which characterises mathematics. Covering basic propositional and predicate logic as well as discussing axiom systems and formal proofs, the book seeks to explain what mathematicians understand by proofs and how they are communicated. The authors explore the principle techniques of direct and indirect proof including induction, existence and uniqueness proofs, proof by contradiction, constructive and non-constructive proofs, etc. Many examples from analysis and modern algebra are included. The exceptionally clear style and (...) presentation ensures that the book will be useful and enjoyable to those studying and interested in the notion of mathematical "proof.". (shrink)

We argue for three main claims. First, the sentence ‘A and B ought to φ and ψ’ can express what we a call a joint-ought claim: the claim that the plurality A and B ought to φ and ψ respectively. Second, the truth-value of this joint-ought claim can differ from the truth-value of the pair of claims ‘A ought to φ’ and ‘B ought to ψ.’ This is because what A and B jointly ought to do can diverge from what (...) they individually ought to do: it may be true that A and B jointly ought to φ and ψ respectively, yet false that A ought to φ and false that B ought to ψ; and vice-versa. Third, either of two prominent semantic analyses of ‘ought’ – Mark Schroeder’s relational semantics, and Angelika Kratzer’s modal semantics – can model joint-ought claims and this difference in truth-value. (shrink)

Is it defensible to use the concept of a right? Can we justify this concept's central place in modern moral and legal thinking, or does it unjustifiably side-line those who do not qualify as right-holders? Rowan Cruft brings together a new account of the concept of a right. Moving beyond the traditional 'interest theory' and 'will theory', he defends a distinctive role for the concept: it is appropriate to our thinking about fundamental moral duties springing from the good of (...) the right-holder. This has important implications for the idea of 'natural' moral rights-that is, rights that exist independently of anyone's recognising that they do. Cruft argues that only rights that exist primarily for the sake of the right-holder can qualify as natural in this sense.In its relation to property, however, matters are far more complicated because much property is groundable only by common or collective goods beyond the right-holder's own good. For such property, Cruft argues that a non-rights property system-that resembles modern markets but is not conceived in terms of rights-would be preferable. The result of this study is a partial vindication of the rights concept that is more supportive of human rights than many of their critics might expect, and is surprisingly doubtful about property as an individual right. (shrink)

Trans and gender-nonconforming people sometimes say that certain gender norms are authentic for them. For example, a trans man might say that abiding by norms of masculinity tracks who he really is. Authenticity is sometimes taken to appeal to an essential, pre-social “inner self.” It is also sometimes understood as a moral notion. Authenticity claims about gender norms therefore appear inimical to two key commitments in feminist philosophy: that all gender norms are socially constructed, and that many domains of gender (...) norms are both morally and prudentially bad. I argue that that this apparent tension is illusory. Concordant with existing trans narratives of authenticity, I articulate an existentialist view that understands authenticity as a socially embedded, constructive project undertaken in a non-ideal social world, rather than a reflective uncovering of a pre-given, essential self. I then show that authenticity and morality can come apart; what is authentic for someone need not be either morally good or good for them. I conclude that the authenticity of gender norms does not cut against the feminist commitments that I identify. This conclusion enables a theoretical space that is both respectful of trans experience and critical of dominant gender norms, an important liberatory goal. (shrink)

This short but thought-provoking volume asks the question 'What is it that tragedy makes us know?'. The focus is on tragedy as a mode of representing the experience of radical suffering, pain, or loss, a mode of narrative through which we come to know certain things about ourselves and our world--about its fragility and ours. Through a mixture of historical discussion and close reading of a number of dramatic texts--from Sophocles to Sarah Kane--the book addresses a wide range of debates: (...) how tragedy is defined, whether there is such a thing as 'absolute tragedy', various modern attempts to rework the classical heritage and the relation of comedy to tragedy. There is also a fresh discussion of whether religious--particularly Christian--discourse is inimical to the tragic, and of the necessary tension between tragic narrative and certain kinds of political as well as religious rhetoric. Rowan Williams argues that tragic drama both articulates failure and frailty and, in affirming the possibility of narrating the story of traumatic loss, refuses to settle for passivity, resignation, or despair. In this sense, it still shows the trace of its ritual and religious roots. And in challenging two-dimensional models of society, power, humanity and human knowing, it remains an intrinsic part of any fully humanist culture. (shrink)

Oppressive ideology regularly misrepresents features of structural injustice as normal or appropriate. Resisting such injustice therefore requires critical examination of the evaluative judgments encoded in shared concepts. In this paper, I diagnose a mechanism of ideological misevaluation, which I call "hermeneutical misfit." Hermeneutical misfit occurs when thick concepts, or concepts which both describe and evaluate, mobilize ideologically warped evaluative judgments which do not fit the facts (e.g. "slutty"). These ill-fitted thick concepts in turn are regularly deployed as if they merely (...) describe--a phenomenon I call "descriptive masquerade." I argue that, via descriptive masquerade, ill-fitted thick concepts smuggle in warped evaluative judgments alongside apparently value-neutral ‘mere facts’, a process which both reinforces those judgments and increases the difficulty of critique. I investigate the concept "obesity" as an example: scientists and medical practitioners will deploy this concept as if it "merely" describes, enabling the smuggling of a host of warped evaluative judgments. I suggest that, to resist this process, we should develop collective consciousness and articulate "meta-hermeneutical resources," or thick concepts which encode critique of other, ill-fitted concepts (e.g. "slut-shaming" or "fat-shaming"). (shrink)

InWorld Poverty and Human Rights, Thomas Pogge presents a range of attractive policy proposals—limiting the international resource and borrowing privileges, decentralizing sovereignty, and introducing a “global resources dividend”—aimed at remedying the poverty and suffering generated by the global economic order. These proposals could be motivated as a response topositive dutiesto assist the global poor, or they could be justified onconsequentialistgrounds as likely to promote collective welfare. Perhaps they could even be justified onvirtue-theoreticgrounds as proposals that a just or benevolent person (...) would endorse. But Pogge presents them as a response to the violation ofnegative duties; this makes the need for such remedial policies especially morally urgent—on a par with the obligations of killers to take measures to stop killing.In this essay, I focus on the claim that responsibility for world poverty should be conceived in terms of a violation of negative duties. I follow Pogge in distinguishing two questions (p. 134): What kind of duties (positive or purely negative?) would we be subject to in a just global society where everyone fulfilled their duty and there was no significant risk of injustice? And what kind of duties (positive or purely negative?) do we face given that our global society falls short of the just society?I tackle these questions in reverse order below. I argue, in contrast to Pogge, that positive duties are relevant to our answers to both questions. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether responsibility could be borne vicariously. I distinguish between three different senses of responsibility: attributional responsibility, practices of holding people responsible, and substantive responsibility. I argue that it is doubtful both whether attributional responsibility could be borne vicariously, and whether it could be appropriate to hold someone vicariously responsible. However, I suggest that substantive responsibility can genuinely be borne vicariously. Getting clear on these conceptual issues has important implications for how we approach more concrete legal and political (...) questions. More specifically, I argue these abstract arguments can be used to inform views on the common-law doctrine of joint enterprise, and on reparations for historic injustice. (shrink)

In Why We Build Rowan Moore shows how buildings are driven by human emotions and desires – such as hope, power, money, sex, and the idea of home – and how buildings then shape our experiences.

D. C. Stove's analysis of Popper's theory of scientific statements is vitiated by at least three errors, all of which stem from a crucial omission: that whilst Popper's theory of scientific statements is a theory of statements in science, Stove's restrictive analysis ignores the context of the statements and proceeds as though they were related to each other by nothing more than the logic of propositions, i.e. they appear in Stove's analysis as atomistic, as distinct from scientific statements.

Suppose that it would be best if some set of people all did A, significantly worse if they all did B, and worst of all if some did A while some did B. Now suppose that they’re all going to do B, regardless of what the others do. It seems as though each of these people ought to pick B, given what the others are going to do. Yet it also seems as though something has gone wrong. This leads to (...) a puzzle: how can it be wrong for everyone to act as they ought? In this paper, I resolve this puzzle by arguing that there are joint ‘oughts’ which apply irreducibly to pluralities of agents, and which can pull in different directions to ‘oughts’ holding of given individuals; even if everyone individually ought to pick B, what they jointly ought to do is all pick A. (shrink)

ABSTRACTViolating a person's rights is disrespectful to that person. This is because it is disrespectful to someone to violate duties owed to that person. I call these ‘directed duties’; they are the flipside of rights. The aim of this paper is to consider why directed duties and respect are linked, and to highlight a puzzle about this linkage, a puzzle arising from the fact that many directed duties are justified independently of whether they do anything for those to whom they (...) are owed. (shrink)

The introduction introduces the history of the concept of human rights and its philosophical genealogy. It raises questions of the nature of human rights, the grounds of human rights, difference between proposed and actual human rights, and scepticism surrounding the very idea of human rights. In the course of this discussion, it concludes that the diversity of positions on human rights is a sign of the intellectual, cultural, and political fertility of the notion of human rights. The chapter concludes with (...) an overview of the chapters present in the volume. (shrink)

Trans people often prioritize self-identification and self-determination when it comes to gender. We think people have a right to tell us who they are, rather than to be told who they are. But what does this really mean? And what should we do when someone self-identifies in bad faith--such as when the Club Q mass shooter (briefly) identified as nonbinary? I discuss these questions in a short blog post.

This review critically engages with Radhika Desai’s concept of geopolitical economy as a framework for understanding the evolution of the capitalist state system. While presenting a useful challenge to many of the most deeply-held beliefs in International Relations theory, Desai’s over-reliance on a geopolitical lens produces a relatively one-sided account of the ways in which capitalism forges distinct international regimes and ideological formations under a given set of historical conditions of possibility. Thus, Desai’s somewhat opaque reading of the international relations (...) of capitalism clouds our understanding of what the current conjuncture might entail for any possible future beyond the social discipline of capital. (shrink)

Despite a growing need for mental health services for adolescents, treatment access among adolescents remains poor. Psychologists practicing in the United States are subject to highly variable legal standards for consent and confidentiality of minor clients, which can further suppress treatment accessibility. States permit independent consent for minors according to a wide range of criteria, but whether these criteria are empirically derived remains unknown. Inconsistencies between the law and ethical obligations for psychologists can expose minor clients to harm and force (...) psychologists to make disclosures that violate patients’ rights and ethical standards. These harms may be particularly severe for clients from vulnerable populations such as sexuality and gender diverse youth (SGDY). To prevent ethical dilemmas, psychologists and professional organizations should work toward an empirical understanding of the adolescent capacity to consent to mental health care and use that understanding to promote uniform consent and confidentiality standards. (shrink)

Basic rights are often of great instrumental value in securing protection for important human needs and interests. The first two sections of this paper defend the thesis that basic rights are also valuable independently of their instrumental role. Taking my cue from Frances Kamm's suggestion that basic rights reflect or express human worth, in the third, fourth and fifth sections I develop the proposal that the non-instrumental value of basic rights derives from their constitutive role in a universal form of (...) community or fellowship. The importance of basic rights' instrumental role is reaffi rmed in the final section of the paper, which builds on the earlier sections to offer a 'mixed' theory according to which basic rights have both instrumental and non-instrumental value. (shrink)

In this article I argue that, despite the views of such theorists as Locke, Hart and Raz, most of a person's property rights cannot be individualistically justified. Instead most property rights, if justified at all, must be justified on non-individualistic (e.g. consequentialist) grounds. This, I suggest, implies that most property rights cannot be morally fundamental ‘human rights’.

This essay makes three suggestions: first, that it is attractive to conceive individualistic justification as one of the hallmarks - maybe even the one hallmark - of human rights; secondly, that combining this conception of human rights with standard worries about socioeconomic rights can tempt one to take the phrase "human rights" to refer to any individualistically justified weighty normative consideration (including considerations that are not rights); and thirdly, that reflections on the individuation of rights and rights' dynamic quality give (...) us some reason to resist this temptation - though this reason is interestingly inconclusive. (shrink)

The Edge of Words is Rowan Williams' first book since standing down as Archbishop of Canterbury. Invited to give the prestigious 2014 Gifford Lectures, Dr Williams has produced a scholarly but eminently accessible account of the possibilities of speaking about God -- taking as his point of departure the project of natural theology. Dr Williams enters into dialogue with thinkers as diverse as Augustine and Simone Weil and authors such as Joyce, Hardy, Burgess and Hoban in what is a (...) compelling essay about the possibility of language about God. (shrink)

Le patriarcat au singulier est une construction mythique permise aujourd’hui par la concision et la répétition du message numérique. L’heure est plus que jamais à l’opposition binaire des catégories et à la concurrence entre mouvements. Le mouvement #MeToo a été lancé en 2007 par une femme noire devenue vice-présidente de la fondation Girls for Gender Equity. Il s’agit de construire une communauté de plaignantes, un groupe d’assujetties au binarisme genré, au modelé médiatique des visages de stars, et d’entonner une véritable (...) ode aux méfaits du patriarcat, ce à quoi contribue également le témoignage de Vanessa Springora. Le hashtag rappelle la grille du vieux confessionnal. (shrink)

The ethical and social implications of data mining, algorithmic curation and automation in the context of social media have been of heightened concern for a range of researchers with interests in digital media in recent years, with particular concerns about privacy arising in the context of mobile and locative media. Despite their wide adoption and economic importance, mobile dating apps have received little scholarly attention from this perspective – but they are intense sites of data generation, algorithmic processing, and cross-platform (...) data-sharing; bound up with competing cultures of production, exploitation and use. In this paper, we describe the ways various forms of data are incorporated into, and emerge from, hook-up apps’ business logics, socio-technical arrangements, and cultures of use to produce multiple and intersecting data cultures. We propose a multi-layered research agenda for critical and empirical inquiry into this field, and suggest appropriate conceptual and methodological frameworks for exploring the social and political challenges of data cultures. (shrink)

This is a response to Tom McLeish's Boyle Lecture 2021 on the rediscovery of contemplation through science. Several implications are sketched: no single mind can encompass fully what there is to be known; we are likely to be unaware of the full range of what it is that is acting upon us or informing us at any given moment; and the universe that we encounter is a system of interaction and implication in which nothing is simply passive or lifeless.

In this article I argue that, despite the views of such theorists as Locke, Hart and Raz, most of a person's property rights cannot be individualistically justified. Instead most property rights, if justified at all, must be justified on non-individualistic grounds. This, I suggest, implies that most property rights cannot be morally fundamental ‘human rights’.

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

Public and private -- Ownership and liberalism -- Applied ethics -- NASSP Book Award: Gerald Cohen.

What makes something a human right? What is the relationship between the moral foundations of human rights and human rights law? What are the difficulties of appealing to human rights? This book offers the first comprehensive survey of current thinking on the philosophical foundations of human rights. Divided into four parts, this book focuses firstly on the moral grounds of human rights, for example in our dignity, agency, interests or needs. Secondly, it looks at the implications that different moral perspectives (...) on human rights bear for human rights law and politics. Thirdly, it discusses specific and topical human rights including freedom of expression and religion, security, health and more controversial rights such as a human right to subsistence. The final part discusses nuanced critical and reformative views on human rights from feminist, Kantian and relativist perspectives among others. The essays represent new and canonical research by leading scholars in the field. Each section is structured as a set of essays and replies, offering a comprehensive analysis of different positions within the debate in question. The introduction from the editors will guide researchers and students navigating the diversity of views on the philosophical foundations of human rights. (shrink)

Research from cognitive science and geoscience education has shown that sketching can improve spatial thinking skills and facilitate solving spatially complex problems. Yet sketching is rarely implemented in introductory geosciences courses, due to time needed to grade sketches and lack of materials that incorporate cognitive science research. Here, we report a design-centered, collaborative effort, between geoscientists, cognitive scientists, and artificial intelligence researchers, to characterize spatial learning challenges in geoscience and to design sketch activities that use a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. We (...) developed 26 CogSketch worksheets that use cognitive science–based principles to scaffold problem solving of spatially complex geoscience problems and report observations of an implementation in an introductory geoscience course where students used CogSketch or human-graded paper worksheets. Overall, this research highlights the principles of interdisciplinary design between cognitive scientists, geoscientists, and AI researchers that can inform the collaborative design process for others aiming to develop effective educational materials. (shrink)

I do not answer my title’s question in this paper. Instead, my aims are first to show that the question is worth asking, secondly to show that its answer will not be trivial, and thirdly to show that it is unclear what the answer is. From these three conclusions it follows that many contemporary Hohfeldian approaches to the conceptual analysis of rights (including those of Sumner, Jones, Kramer, Wenar and myself)1, while potentially capable of extensional accuracy, overlook an essential but (...) unidentified feature of rights: the feature which explains why duties are not rights. The paper challenges theorists to investigate what this feature is. (shrink)

Our think tank tasked by the Dutch Health Council, consisting of Radboud University Nijmegen Honours Academy students with various backgrounds, investigated the implications of Deep Brain Stimulation for psychiatric patients. During this investigation, a number of methodological, ethical and societal difficulties were identified. We consider these difficulties to be a reflection of a still fragmented field of research that can be overcome with improved organization and communication. To this effect, we suggest that it would be useful to found a centralized (...) DBS organization. Such an organization makes it possible to 1) set up and maintain a repository, 2) facilitate DBS studies with a larger sample size, 3) improve communication amongst researchers, clinicians and ethical committees, and 4) improve communication between DBS experts and the public at large. (shrink)

Attention has often been seen as a selective process in which the mind chooses which already‐formed objects to focus on. However, as Merleau‐Ponty and others have pointed out, this ignores the complexity and ambiguity of sensory information and imposes on it a set of already‐formed objects in the world. Rather, attention is a process by which objects in the world are constituted by the perceiving subject. Attention thus involves a process of mutual negotiation with the environment. There are connections between (...) this and the process of attente described by Simone Weil, in which the perceiving subject suspends the dominant preoccupations of the ego in order to become more aware of an independent reality. This, in turn, expresses in a more modern idiom what early Christian teachers had to say about the role of attentive looking in the contemplative life. (shrink)

This essay explores “sculptural plasticity” through neuronal matterings of the brainbody in philosophy, literature, and art. It focuses on Socrates’s cataleptic condition as evidenced in Plato’s Symposium, the plasticities at work in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea, and morphogenetic acts of cell formation in the sculptural installation of Pierre Huyghe’s After ALife Ahead.