This paper motivates and develops a novel semantics for several epistemic expressions, including possibility modals and indicative conditionals. The semantics I defend constitutes an alternative to standard truth conditional theories, as it assigns sets of probability spaces as sentential semantic values. I argue that what my theory lacks in conservatism is made up for by its strength. In particular, my semantics accounts for the distinctive behavior of nested epistemic modals, indicative conditionals embedded under probability operators, and instances of constructive dilemma (...) containing epistemic vocabulary. (shrink)

Some omissions seem to be causes. For example, suppose Barry promises to water Alice’s plant, doesn’t water it, and that the plant then dries up and dies. Barry’s not watering the plant – his omitting to water the plant – caused its death. But there is reason to believe that if omissions are ever causes, then there is far more causation by omission than we ordinarily think. In other words, there is reason to think the following thesis true.

Plato's Timaeus is one of the most influential and challenging works of ancient philosophy to have come down to us. Sarah Broadie's rich and compelling study proposes new interpretations of major elements of the Timaeus, including the separate Demiurge, the cosmic 'beginning', the 'second mixing', the Receptacle and the Atlantis story. Broadie shows how Plato deploys the mythic themes of the Timaeus to convey fundamental philosophical insights and examines the profoundly differing methods of interpretation which have been brought to (...) bear on the work. Her book is for everyone interested in Ancient Greek philosophy, cosmology and mythology, whether classicists, philosophers, historians of ideas or historians of science. It offers new findings to scholars familiar with the material, but it is also a clear and reliable resource for anyone coming to it for the first time. (shrink)

The prospect of using genome technologies to modify the human germline has raised profound moral disagreement but also emphasizes the need for wide-ranging discussion and a well-informed policy response. The Hinxton Group brought together scientists, ethicists, policymakers, and journal editors for an international, interdisciplinary meeting on this subject. This consensus statement formulated by the group calls for support of genome editing research and the development of a scientific roadmap for safety and efficacy; recognizes the ethical challenges involved in clinical reproductive (...) applications of genome editing but, importantly, rejects the idea that human reproductive germline modification is necessarily morally unacceptable; and highlights the importance of meaningful engagement in discussions of genome editing and the development of regulation and oversight mechanisms to govern future uses of such technologies. (shrink)

Moral enhancement is a topic that has sparked much current interest in the world of bioethics. The possibility of making people ‘better,’ not just in the conventional enhancement sense of improving health and other desirable qualities and capacities, but by making them somehow more moral, more decent, altogether better people, has attracted attention from both advocates 1 2 and sceptics 3 alike. The concept of moral enhancement, however, is fraught with difficult questions, theoretical and practical. What does it actually mean (...) to be ‘more moral’? How would moral enhancement be defined and would it necessarily, as some have claimed, make the world a better or safer place? How would or could such enhancement be achieved safely and without undue constraint on personal liberty and autonomy? On this subject, a recent paper by Crockett et al 4 investigating the effects of the neurotransmitter serotonin on moral decision-making provides an intriguing scientific basis for examining what might or might not constitute moral enhancement. The study involved treatment with citalopram, a drug that increases the action of serotonin in the brain, and subsequent analysis of participants' decision-making behaviour in two different situations involving moral dilemmas: the well-known ‘Trolley Problem’ 5 and the ‘Ultimatum Game’. 6 The researchers found that citalopram promoted what they call ‘prosocial behaviour’, increasing the participants' aversion to causing direct harm to others: in the first scenario, they were less likely to select the option that required killing one in order to save five, and in the second, less likely to reject unfair offers at the expense of others. The Crockett study is fascinating both for its insight into human behaviour and because it appears to demonstrate that, at least on some accounts of moral behaviour, serotonin may in fact be a …. (shrink)

Feminist philosophy of science has led to improvements in the practices and products of scientific knowledge-making, and in this way it exemplifies socially relevant philosophy of science. It has also yielded important insights and original research questions for philosophy. Feminist scholarship on science thus presents a worthy thought-model for considering how we might build a more socially relevant philosophy of science—the question posed by the editors of this special issue. In this analysis of the history, contributions, and challenges faced by (...) feminist philosophy of science, I argue that engaged case study work and interdisciplinarity have been central to the success of feminist philosophy of science in producing socially relevant scholarship, and that its future lies in the continued development of robust and dynamic philosophical frameworks for modeling social values in science. Feminist philosophers of science, however, have often encountered marginalization and persistent misunderstandings, challenges that must be addressed within the institutional and intellectual culture of American philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, Sarah Stitzlein considers the consequences of honesty on our democracy, especially for citizens' ability to engage in civic inquiry together as they face shared problems. Honesty is a key component of a well-functioning democracy; it develops trust and fosters the sorts of relationships among citizens that enable civic dialogue and reasoning. Post-truth attitudes and truth decay pose serious obstacles to good civic reasoning as citizens struggle to draw clear distinctions between fact and opinion, weigh personal beliefs (...) and emotions over facts, and increasingly distrust traditionally respected sources of information. Stitzlein employs a Deweyan pragmatist account of truth and a distinctly social account of democracy to build a case for foregrounding honesty in the development of citizens. She describes how schools can employ communities of inquiry to cultivate habits of honesty within citizenship education. She explains how a better democracy — one grounded in a wider understanding of social life and relationships — might head off the temptation to be dishonest for self-serving reasons, focusing on how dishonesty jeopardizes our relationships to each other as citizens and our ability to engage in civic reasoning together to fulfill shared goals. (shrink)

In this paper, we theorize that the anticipation of guilt plays an important role in ethically questionable consumer situations. We propose an ethical decision-making framework incorporating anticipated guilt as partial mediator between consumers’ ethical beliefs (anteceded by ethical ideology) and intentions. In the first study, we compared several models using structural equation modeling and found empirical support for our research model. A second experiment was set up to illustrate how these new insights may be applied to prevent consumers from taking (...) advantage of the seller. Results showed that enhancing the anticipation of guilt (by making the interpersonal consequences of the unethical act more salient) increased consumers’ ethical intentions, controlling for ethical beliefs. Together these two studies might have important theoretical and managerial contributions. (shrink)

While the great medieval philosopher, theologian, and physician Maimonides is acknowledged as a leading Jewish thinker, his intellectual contacts with his surrounding world are often described as related primarily to Islamic philosophy. Maimonides in His World challenges this view by revealing him to have wholeheartedly lived, breathed, and espoused the rich Mediterranean culture of his time.Sarah Stroumsa argues that Maimonides is most accurately viewed as a Mediterranean thinker who consistently interpreted his own Jewish tradition in contemporary multicultural terms. Maimonides (...) spent his entire life in the Mediterranean region, and the religious and philosophical traditions that fed his thought were those of the wider world in which he lived. Stroumsa demonstrates that he was deeply influenced not only by Islamic philosophy but by Islamic culture as a whole, evidence of which she finds in his philosophy as well as his correspondence and legal and scientific writings. She begins with a concise biography of Maimonides, then carefully examines key aspects of his thought, including his approach to religion and the complex world of theology and religious ideas he encountered among Jews, Christians, Muslims, and even heretics; his views about science; the immense and unacknowledged impact of the Almohads on his thought; and his vision of human perfection.This insightful cultural biography restores Maimonides to his rightful place among medieval philosophers and affirms his central relevance to the study of medieval Islam. (shrink)

An investigation into Aristotle's metaphysics of nature as expounded in the Physics. It focuses in particular his conception of change, a concept which is shown to possess a unique metaphysical structure, with implications that should engage the attention of contemporary analysis. First published in hardback in 1982, the book is now available for the first time in paperback. 'A powerful and appealing explanatory scheme which succeeds on the whole in drawing together a great many seemingly disparate elements in the Physics (...) into a neat unitary stucture.' Canadian Philosophical Review. (shrink)

This article reports the findings of a qualitative study that explored the organizational influences on moral distress for health professionals working in pediatric intensive care units across Canada. Participants were recruited to the study from PICUs across Canada. The PICU is a high-tech, fast-paced, high-pressure environment where caregivers frequently face conflict and ethical tension in the care of critically ill children. A number of themes including relationships with management, organizational structure and processes, workload and resources, and team dynamics were identified. (...) This study provides a rare and important multi-disciplinary perspective on this topic and the findings have implications for administrators and leaders who seek to improve the moral climate of healthcare delivery. (shrink)

I wish more books of philosophy were like this one. It is elegantly written. It is filled with provocative claims and ingenious arguments. It is a really good read, even while it forces us to rethink many of our assumptions about practical reason and practical reasoning, morality and agency.

The multiplicity of deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs) encoded by vertebrate genomes is partly attributable to whole genome duplication events that occurred early in chordate evolution. By surveying the literature for the largest family of DUBs (the ubiquitin-specific proteases), extensive functional redundancy for duplicated genes has been confirmed as opposed to singletons. Dramatically conflicting results have been reported for loss of function studies conducted through RNA interference as opposed to inactivating mutations, but the contradictory findings can be reconciled by a recently proposed (...) compensatory mechanism involving nonsense-mediated RNA degradation. Duplicated genes are often inactivated to become pseudogenes, and it is proposed that such is the fate of the USP15 gene of zebrafish, a commonly used model system. As it is reviewed here, these observations have implications not only for the interpretation of model system phenotypes but also for therapeutic interventions designed to target DUBs. (shrink)

The study of reciprocal altruism, or the exchange of goods and services between individuals, requires attention to both evolutionary explanations and proximate mechanisms. Evolutionary explanations have been debated at length, but far less is known about the proximate mechanisms of reciprocity. Our own research has focused on the immediate causes and contingencies underlying services such as food sharing, grooming, and cooperation in brown capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees. Employing both observational and experimental techniques, we have come to distinguish three types of (...) reciprocity. Symmetry-based reciprocity is cognitively the least complex form, based on symmetries inherent in dyadic relationships (e.g., mutual association, kinship). Attitudinal reciprocity, which is more cognitively complex, is based on the mirroring of social attitudes between partners and is exhibited by both capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees. Finally, calculated reciprocity, the most cognitively advanced form, is based on mental scorekeeping and is found only in humans and possibly chimpanzees. (shrink)

All humans experience needs. At times needs cut deep, inhibiting persons’ abilities to act as agents in the world, to live in distinctly human ways, or to achieve life goals of significance to them. In considering such potentialities, several questions arise: Are any needs morally important, meaning that they operate as morally relevant details of a situation? What is the correct moral stance to take with regard to situations of need? Are moral agents ever required to tend to others’ well-being (...) by meeting their needs? What justification or foundation, if any, can be given for requiring moral agents to respond to others’ needs? (shrink)

In the mid-1990s, fairtrade-organic registration data showed that only 9 % of Oaxaca, Mexico’s organic coffee ‘farm operators’ were women; by 2013 the female farmer rate had increased to 42 %. Our research investigates the impact of this significant increase in women’s coffee association participation among 210 members of two coffee producer associations in Oaxaca, Mexico. We find that female coffee organization members report high levels of household decision-making power and they are more likely than their male counterparts to report (...) control over their coffee income. These significant advances in women’s agency within the household are offset by the fact that the women experience significant time poverty as they engage in coffee production while bearing a disproportionate share of domestic labor obligations. The women coffee producers view organizational labor as a third burden on their time, after their reproductive and productive labor. The time poverty they experience limits their ability to fully participate in coffee organizational governance and consequently there are few women leaders at all levels of the coffee producer businesses. This is problematic because it limits women’s ability to fully benefit from organizational membership: when women fully participate in governance they gain valuable business and leadership skills and producer associations with active female members may also be more likely to develop and maintain programs and policies that enhance gender equity. Our findings indicate that targeted agricultural development programs to improve gender equity among agricultural smallholders should involve creative ways to ease women’s labor burdens and reduce their time poverty in order to facilitate full organizational participation. The research findings fill a gap in existing studies of agricultural global value chains (GVCs) by demonstrating how the certified coffee GVC depends on women’s under and un-paid labor not only within the household but also within producer organizations. (shrink)

Dance as a complex human activity is a rich test case for exploring perception in action. In this article, we explore a 4E approach to perception/action in dance, focussing on the intersubjective and ecological aspects of kinaesthetic attunement and their capacity to expand empathic and perceptive experience. We examine the question: what are the ways in which the performance ecology co-created in different dance practices influences empathic and perceptive experience? We adopt an enactive ethnographic and phenomenological approach to explore two (...) distinct dance forms: Contact Improvisation [CI], a duet-system based practice aimed at fostering interkinaesthetic awareness and challenging habits of movement; and Body Weather [BW], an anti-hierarchical movement practice sensitive to the surrounding environment. We argue that through intersubjective kinaesthetic attunement, CI scaffolds the development of perceptive awareness of subtle shifts within ourselves and others, allowing the cultivation of a capacity for flexibly traversing between conscious initiation of action, attuned responding, and the intersection between them. Similarly, we investigate the expansion of perceptive experience through kinaesthetic attunement in BW. We suggest that the capacity for empathy is enhanced in BW through drawing attention to, and perception of, the fullness of a place in a way that we do not typically experience. By focussing on the variations in which embodied perceptual skills are enacted in specific dance forms and the expansion of perceptive experience through kinaesthetic attunement, we stress the potential of the performing arts to cultivate and create new ways of empathic engagement with the world in which we find ourselves. (shrink)

This chapter demonstrates how early modern male and female thinkers alike were concerned not only with ethical, religious, and political liberty, but also with the liberty to philosophize, or libertas philosophandi. It is argued that while men’s interests in this latter kind of liberty tended to lie with the liberty to philosophize differently from their predecessors, women were more concerned with the liberty to philosophize at all. For them, the idea that women should be free to think was foundational. This (...) chapter shows how some women thinkers of the period, such as Damaris Cudworth Masham (1658–1708) and Mary Astell (1666–1731), followed through on the general trend of thinking about liberty in terms of freedom of the mind, to thinking about liberty for women in wider ethical and political terms. To support this point, the chapter explores their views on education, female rationality, and moral philosophy. (shrink)

Prior to the productive encounters that can be staged between Emmanuel Levinas’sthought and cinema at the level of reception, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne introducehis philosophy to their filmmaking at its moment of inception.1Luc Dardenne’s diary Audos de nos images documents their filmmaking from 1991 to 2005, and isinterspersed with brief but erudite references to Levinas’s work. While Levinasianthinking is one among many cited influences in this text, which also features quotationsfrom the writings of novelists, poets, and other philosophers, along with (...) detailedreferences to other filmmakers, his work is a signal point of inspiration and ethicalaspiration for their filmmaking. The Dardenne brothers seek permanently to unsettlereceived ideas of what cinema is. In this, their approach is bound up explicitly, but notexclusively, with the ethical underpinnings of Levinas’s thought. Levinas’s reformulationof ethics as first philosophy creates a fissure at the root of the philosophy of being. TheDardennes’ films, in turn, perform a Levinasian-inspired challenge to the being ofcinema. At its most extreme moments, to kill or not to kill is the key question that theircinema raises. This tacit rewriting of the interrogative opening to Hamlet’s infamous soliloquy, shifts attention away from a self-centered concern with being or non-being,and towards the survival of the other. The passage from being to non-being, whichwould involve the death of the subject, is displaced here by a preoccupation with killing,or failing to kill, someone else. This particular move from dying to killing lies at the heartof the Dardennes’ mortal ethics. (shrink)

Throw: Harry throws a stone at Dick, hitting him. Intuitively, there is a moral difference between the first and the second case of each of these pairs.1 In the second case, the agent’s behavior is morally worse than his behavior in the first case. But in each pair, the agent’s behavior has the same outcome: in No Check and Shoot, the outcome is that a child dies, and Jim saves $40; in No Catch and Throw, the outcome is that Dick (...) is hit by a stone. Let us call these pairs of cases “the paradigm pairs.” The paradigm pairs, and others like them, provide evidence that common sense morality is not consequentialist: common sense morality does not judge the moral worth of actions just in terms of their consequences. But it has proved extremely difficult to provide an account of a morally relevant difference between the members of pairs like the ones above. One hypothesis about the difference that has received a lot of attention in the literature is that in the first kind of case the agent allows the outcome to occur, while in the second the agent makes the.. (shrink)

This collection examines the question of nonhuman animal agency by shifting emphasis from the human perspective toward that of other animals, exploring modes of ...

This article examines Kamel Daoud’s treatment of solidarity and the absurd in Meursault, contre-enquête and posits that the question of how to live in solidarity with others is central to the novel, although the word ‘solidarity’ never appears in it. After recalling Camus’s discussion of the absurd in Le Mythe de Sisyphe and of solidarity in L’Homme révolté, the article examines the manner in which Haroun, Daoud’s narrator and the brother of the Arab Meursault killed in L’Étranger, reveals his own (...) failures of solidarity. He justly criticizes Meursault for privileging his confrontation with the absurd over the death of the Arab he did not even name, but Haroun too has killed. Haroun has, however, a greater understanding of solidarity than his fellows: he at least recognizes that murder is significant. He thus joins Meursault as an unworthy prophet who proclaims the absurd while surrounded by people who flee from it—and proclaiming the absurd can be a gesture of solidarity when one speaks for others, as Haroun speaks for his brother Moussa. Daoud’s novel reminds us that there are no final answers telling us how to live in solidarity with others and that we must do so all the same. (shrink)

The authors conducted a baseline survey of baccalaureate and graduate degree health humanities programs in the United States and Canada. The object of the survey was to formally assess the current state of the field, to gauge what kind of resources individual programs are receiving, and to assess their self-identified needs to become or remain programmatically sustainable, including their views on the potential benefits of program accreditation. A 56-question baseline survey was sent to 111 institutions with baccalaureate programs and 20 (...) institutions with graduate programs. Respondents were asked about three areas: (1) program administration (managing unit, paid director, faculty lines, paid staff, funding sources); (2) educational program (curricular structure, CIP code usage, completion rates); and (3) views on accreditation for the field. A clear majority of respondents agreed that some form of accreditation or consultation service could address resource and sustainability issues. Overall, the survey responses to staffing, curricular structure, and support suggest the need for developing a sustainable infrastructure for health humanities. (shrink)

This paper suggests that autistic people relate to themselves via a third-person perspective, an objective and explicit mode of access, while neurotypical people tend to access the different dimensions of their self through a first-person perspective. This approach sheds light on autistic traits involving interactions with others, usage of narratives, sensitivity and interoception, and emotional consciousness. Autistic people seem to access these dimensions through comparatively indirect and effortful processes, while neurotypical development enables a more intuitive sense of self.

Traditional notions of civic education often introduce privilege and reproduce Eurocentric notions of citizenship. Proponents of cultural citizenship champion Black cultural knowledge, and critical race pedagogies to help marginalized individuals, including students of color, actualize their agentic selves. This manuscript presents three vignettes to demonstrate how teachers implemented the Black Lives Matter at School’s 13 Guiding Principles to develop Black cultural citizenship with students. Three salient aspects emerged: (1) the need for students to be active contributors in the current movement (...) for Black liberation; (2) a call to support students unlearning and relearning Black history; and (3) instruction that provides opportunities for students to recognize and challenge systems of oppression. (shrink)