One version of the Humean Theory of Motivation holds that all actions can be causally explained by reference to a belief–desire pair. Some have argued that pretense presents counter-examples to this principle, as pretense is instead causally explained by a belief-like imagining and a desire-like imagining. We argue against this claim by denying imagination the power of motivation. Still, we allow imagination a role in guiding action as a script . We generalize the script concept to show how things besides (...) imagination can occupy this same role in both pretense and non-pretense actions. The Humean Theory of Motivation should then be modified to cover this script role. (shrink)

The test of civilization is the power of drawing the most benefit out of cities." Ralph Waldo Emerson What is the role of the urban experience in the construction of American democratic ideals? By looking at the disparate visions of a just society advanced by Jefferson and Hamilton, this paper will attempt to provide an account of the historical role of the urban experience in the construction of the American vision of democracy. Then, through the works of John Dewey and (...) Lewis Mumford (and Robert Westbrook's account of their continuing disagreements), the essay will address some of the issues stemming from the role of urban experience in the processes of moral development. Then, through the work of Whitman, it will be argued that the urban experience is a necessary condition for the adequate development of democratic ideals. The essay will conclude with a brief analysis of some of the important elements of the urban experience, and their respective contributions to the construction of democratic values. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Task of Criticism: Essays on Philosophy, History, and Community, and: The Active Life: Miller's Metaphysics of DemocracyShannon KincaidJoseph P. Fell, Vincent Colapietro, and Michael J. McGandy, editors The Task of Criticism: Essays on Philosophy, History, and CommunityNew York: W. W. Norton, 2005. 366 pp.Michael J. McGandy The Active Life: Miller's Metaphysics of Democracy Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. 231 pp.I must admit that my (...) first encounter with the philosophy of John William Miller was not a pretty one. I first read of him in these pages a decade or so ago, and even though I was thinking a lot about pragmatism and democratic theory, and shared many of his interests, I didn't much like his philosophy. While I liked his style, the vocabulary seemed awkward. His finite idealism confused me. I had problems with his ontology, and his tendency towards historicism seemed odd. I even wrote an essay critical of The Midworld (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), though I never made an aggressive effort to publish it. [End Page 289]This is a good thing, because I would have regretted publishing that essay. I say this because both Michael J. McGandy's The Active Life: Miller's Metaphysics of Democracy, and the new edited collection of Miller's writings entitled The Task of Criticism, do an excellent job of revealing the contemporary significance of Miller's work. Collectively, they have convinced this skeptic that the midworld and its ontology of functioning objects are an important contribution to contemporary American philosophy.The Task of Criticism faces several challenges. First, George P. Brockway supervised the publication of five volumes of Miller's collected works, and Fell himself edited a 1990 volume on Miller's philosophy (The Philosophy of John William Miller, Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press), followed by Stephen Tyman's Decrying the Ideal (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993). Colapietro published Fateful Shapes of Human Freedom: John William Miller and the Crises of Modernity (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press) in 2003. Do we really need another volume? Second, Miller's brand of idealism is not very fashionable these days. Is there any hope that pragmatic idealism can inform contemporary social theory, and make a contribution to the very real and concrete problems faced by modern democratic institutions?I believe that the answer to both of these questions is "yes." Recognizing the importance of previous volumes devoted to Miller's philosophy, the editors present The Task of Criticism as the first comprehensive introduction to Miller's philosophy, and it attempts to cut a middle ground between a complete collection of essays and a "best of" anthology. The editors want to provide a framework for understanding Miller's philosophy, and in this attempt they succeed admirably.Why? Because the editors have provided a structure for Miller's thought that was lacking in earlier collections, and by focusing on the issues of philosophical method, historiography, and community, they have provided a framework for understanding Miller's philosophy. In so doing, they have also firmly established the continuing relevance of Miller's work. The recent revival of pragmatic idealism (as evidenced by a recent surge in publications on idealists like Royce and Hocking) is an important development in contemporary American philosophy, and I think Miller deserves a significant role in this movement.One of the things I like about this collection is its presentation as a work of three generations of Miller's students, all indebted to the work of Brockway, and all dedicated to the task of demonstrating the fundamental importance of Miller's work. The text itself not only includes a variety of Miller's writing on a wide range of topics, but also a very effective introduction to Miller's philosophy, short introductory passages for each essay, and a comprehensive index, as well as a bibliography of works by and about Miller. This is, in short, the first textbook of Miller's philosophy, and it does a fine job of capturing the breadth and depth of his philosophy.The scope of Miller's philosophical interests is made even more remarkable by the fact that Miller himself showed little interest... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Task of Criticism: Essays on Philosophy, History, and Community, and: The Active Life: Miller's Metaphysics of DemocracyShannon KincaidJoseph P. Fell, Vincent Colapietro, and Michael J. McGandy, editors The Task of Criticism: Essays on Philosophy, History, and CommunityNew York: W. W. Norton, 2005. 366 pp.Michael J. McGandy The Active Life: Miller's Metaphysics of Democracy Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. 231 pp.I must admit that my (...) first encounter with the philosophy of John William Miller was not a pretty one. I first read of him in these pages a decade or so ago, and even though I was thinking a lot about pragmatism and democratic theory, and shared many of his interests, I didn't much like his philosophy. While I liked his style, the vocabulary seemed awkward. His finite idealism confused me. I had problems with his ontology, and his tendency towards historicism seemed odd. I even wrote an essay critical of The Midworld (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), though I never made an aggressive effort to publish it. [End Page 289]This is a good thing, because I would have regretted publishing that essay. I say this because both Michael J. McGandy's The Active Life: Miller's Metaphysics of Democracy, and the new edited collection of Miller's writings entitled The Task of Criticism, do an excellent job of revealing the contemporary significance of Miller's work. Collectively, they have convinced this skeptic that the midworld and its ontology of functioning objects are an important contribution to contemporary American philosophy.The Task of Criticism faces several challenges. First, George P. Brockway supervised the publication of five volumes of Miller's collected works, and Fell himself edited a 1990 volume on Miller's philosophy (The Philosophy of John William Miller, Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press), followed by Stephen Tyman's Decrying the Ideal (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993). Colapietro published Fateful Shapes of Human Freedom: John William Miller and the Crises of Modernity (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press) in 2003. Do we really need another volume? Second, Miller's brand of idealism is not very fashionable these days. Is there any hope that pragmatic idealism can inform contemporary social theory, and make a contribution to the very real and concrete problems faced by modern democratic institutions?I believe that the answer to both of these questions is "yes." Recognizing the importance of previous volumes devoted to Miller's philosophy, the editors present The Task of Criticism as the first comprehensive introduction to Miller's philosophy, and it attempts to cut a middle ground between a complete collection of essays and a "best of" anthology. The editors want to provide a framework for understanding Miller's philosophy, and in this attempt they succeed admirably.Why? Because the editors have provided a structure for Miller's thought that was lacking in earlier collections, and by focusing on the issues of philosophical method, historiography, and community, they have provided a framework for understanding Miller's philosophy. In so doing, they have also firmly established the continuing relevance of Miller's work. The recent revival of pragmatic idealism (as evidenced by a recent surge in publications on idealists like Royce and Hocking) is an important development in contemporary American philosophy, and I think Miller deserves a significant role in this movement.One of the things I like about this collection is its presentation as a work of three generations of Miller's students, all indebted to the work of Brockway, and all dedicated to the task of demonstrating the fundamental importance of Miller's work. The text itself not only includes a variety of Miller's writing on a wide range of topics, but also a very effective introduction to Miller's philosophy, short introductory passages for each essay, and a comprehensive index, as well as a bibliography of works by and about Miller. This is, in short, the first textbook of Miller's philosophy, and it does a fine job of capturing the breadth and depth of his philosophy.The scope of Miller's philosophical interests is made even more remarkable by the fact that Miller himself showed little interest... (shrink)

The editors of the JRE solicited short essays on the COVID‐19 pandemic from a group of scholars of religious ethics that reflected on how the field might help them make sense of the complex religious, cultural, ethical, and political implications of the pandemic, and on how the pandemic might shape the future of religious ethics.

Originally published in 1996 and newly revised, _Conspicuous Criticism_ is a ringing defense of the need for religion and tradition in contemporary society. Writing with moral passion and critical verve, Christopher Shannon offers a convincing indictment of the forces that isolate the individual in modern capitalist society and counters more than a century of efforts by modern intellectuals­ to displace tradition in favor of a humanism that actually diminishes humanity in the name of freeing its potential. Featuring in-depth analyses (...) of the works of John Dewey, Thorstein Veblen, C. Wright Mills, and others, _Conspicuous Criticism_ is a call to reinstate traditional relations to God, nature, and the common good. Scholars in fields from American studies to intellectual history will be forced to grapple with Shannon’s trenchant critique, which is well on its way to becoming a classic of Christian thought. “_Conspicuous Criticism_ inspired a concern about the modern world that in the years since I’ve not been able to brush aside.”—Eric Miller, _First Things _. (shrink)

Here I consider the two most venerated arguments about the existence of God: the Ontological Argument and the Argument from Evil. The Ontological Argument purports to show that God’s nature guarantees that God exists. The Argument from Evil purports to show that God’s nature, combined with some plausible facts about the way the world is, guarantees (or is very compelling grounds for thinking) that God does not exist. Obviously, both arguments cannot be sound. But I argue here that they are (...) both unsound for the very same reason. (shrink)

There are many alleged problems with trusting another person’s moral testimony, perhaps the most prominent of which is that it fails to deliver moral understanding. Without moral understanding, one cannot do the right thing for the right reason, and so acting on trusted moral testimony lacks moral worth. This chapter, however, argues that moral advice differs from moral testimony, differs from it in a way that enables a defender of moral advice to parry this worry about moral worth. The basic (...) idea is that an advisor and an advisee can together constitute a joint agent, and that this joint agent’s action can indeed have moral worth. So while the advisee himself might not do the right thing for the right reason (this because all alone he lacks the right reason), and while the advisor herself might not do the right thing for the right reason (this because all alone she does not do the right thing), they together do the right for the right reason. (shrink)

This paper argues that the classification of propositional attitudes into the de re, de dicto, and de se is incomplete. De se attitudes are widely agreed to be closely connected to de re attitudes. But there is a species of belief that is linked to agent-centered action in the way that de se beliefs are, but is also associated with entities, places, and especially times, under a description. These mark out a fourth kind. One way to think about what makes (...) them distinctive is that, despite being ‘essentially indexical’ they can be retained across different contexts of evaluation without having diagonal content. The paper also discusses the connection between such beliefs and the kinds of utterances (like ‘Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today’) that are contested as examples of what David Kaplan called ‘monsters.’. (shrink)

No citizen should be denied the right to vote due solely to her age. We can see this by showing that all objections to it fail. It might be objected that it is not unjust to so deprive children because children as a group are unintelligent or irrational, have their interests already represented by the parents, or are justly deprived of many other rights, among other reasons. But all these objections fail because there is no evidence to support it, even (...) if true, this would not justify disenfranchisement, or, most prominently argued here, they deprive individuals of political rights based upon their membership in a group. The voting age should be abolished. (shrink)

This paper argues that under some conditions, when one person acts on the direction of another person, the two of them thereby act together, and that this explains why both the director and the directee can be responsible for what is done. In other words, a director and a directee can be a joint agent, one whose members are responsible for what they together do. This is most clearly so when the directive is a command. But it is also sometimes (...) so when the directive is a bit of advice. (shrink)

New technologies from artificial intelligence to drones, and biomedical enhancement make the future of the human family increasingly hard to predict and protect. This book explores how the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics can help us to cultivate the moral wisdom we need to live wisely and well with emerging technologies.

The 2017 codetection of electromagnetic radiation and gravitational waves was the first of its kind and marked the beginning of multimessenger astronomy. But this event has been treated within recent literature as something of an end as well. The 2017 detection is often regarded as an instance of falsification for all theories of modified gravity which postulate gravitational waves propagate along separate geodesics from electromagnetic radiation, perhaps most notably Jacob Bekenstein’s Tensor-Vector-Scalar gravity. I critically examine this explicit endorsement of falsification (...) by astronomers and astrophysicists. While the current state of multimetric modified gravity theories is dim, recent developments in multimessenger observation do not offer a deductive falsification. Rather such evidence should be regarded as a corroboration of the null hypothesis, following Deborah Mayo's error-statistical account. (shrink)

This Element introduces the philosophical literature on models, with an emphasis on normative considerations relevant to models for decision-making. Chapter 1 gives an overview of core questions in the philosophy of modeling. Chapter 2 examines the concept of model adequacy for purpose, using three examples of models from the atmospheric sciences to describe how this sort of adequacy is determined in practice. Chapter 3 explores the significance of using models that are not adequate for purpose, including the purpose of informing (...) public decisions. Chapter 4 provides a basic framework for values in modelling, using a case study to highlight the ethical challenges in building models for decision making. It concludes by establishing the need for strategies to manage value judgments in modelling, including the potential for public participation in the process. (shrink)

Autant d'études classiques qui accompagnent les grands ouvrages d'Eric Weil, Logique de la philosophie, Philosophie morale, Philosophie politique.

Socially responsible investment (SRI) has become a major intervention in global investment practices that responds to the power of institutional investors to affect corporate practice. While SRI grew out of the decisions made by churches to curtail investment in so-called “sin stocks” (companies which profited from alcohol, tobacco and gambling), little work has been done to explain why such a dramatic difference in investment strategy would occur or how it ought to impact the investment decisions of individual Christians and their (...) faith communities. This paper explores how social institutions with a religious character determine how to balance the risk of inflicting harm on those institutions with responsibility for transforming the economic order through making investment decisions. Using data collected from shareholder proposals in corporate proxy filings and interviews with investment managers, we develop a typology of theologically grounded approaches to risk and responsibility. (shrink)

In our everyday social interactions, we try to make sense of what people are thinking, why they act as they do, and what they are likely to do next. This process is called mindreading. Mindreading, Shannon Spaulding argues in this book, is central to our ability to understand and interact with others. Philosophers and cognitive scientists have converged on the idea that mindreading involves theorizing about and simulating others’ mental states. She argues that this view of mindreading is limiting (...) and outdated. Most contemporary views of mindreading vastly underrepresent the diversity and complexity of mindreading. She articulates a new theory of mindreading that takes into account cutting edge philosophical and empirical research on in-group/out-group dynamics, social biases, and how our goals and the situational context influence how we interpret others’ behavior. -/- Spaulding's resulting theory of mindreading provides a more accurate, comprehensive, and perhaps pessimistic view of our abilities to understand others, with important epistemological and ethical implications. Deciding who is trustworthy, knowledgeable, and competent are epistemically and ethically fraught judgments: her new theory of mindreading sheds light on how these judgments are made and the conditions under which they are unreliable. -/- This book will be of great interest to students of philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, applied epistemology, cognitive science and moral psychology, as well as those interested in conceptual issues in psychology. (shrink)

The expression “continental rationalism” refers to a set of views more or less shared by a number of philosophers active on the European continent during the latter two thirds of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth. Rationalism is most often characterized as an epistemological position. On this view, to be a rationalist requires at least one of the following: (1) a privileging of reason and intuition over sensation and experience, (2) regarding all or most ideas as innate (...) rather than adventitious, (3) an emphasis on certain rather than merely probable knowledge as the goal of enquiry. While all of the continental rationalists meet one or more of these criteria, this is arguably the consequence of a deeper tie that binds them together—that is, a metaphysical commitment to the reality of substance, and, in particular, to substance as an underlying principle of unity. (shrink)

In the recent methodological individualism-holism debate on explanation, there has been considerable focus on what reasons methodological holists may advance in support of their position. We believe it is useful to approach the other direction and ask what considerations methodological individualists may in fact offer in favor of their view about explanation. This is the background for the question we pursue in this paper: Why be a methodological individualist? We start out by introducing the methodological individualism-holism debate while distinguishing two (...) forms of methodological individualism: a form that says that individualist explanations are always better than holist accounts and a form that says that providing intervening individualist mechanisms always makes for better explanations than purely holist ones. Next, we consider four lines of reasoning in support of methodological individualism: arguments from causation, from explanatory depth, from agency, and from normativity. We argue that none of them offer convincing reasons in support of the two explanatory versions of individualism we consider. While there may well be occasions in which individualists’ favorite explanations are superior, we find no reason to think this always must be the case. (shrink)

This paper explores the ambiguous impact of new information and communications technologies on the cultivation of moral skills in human beings. Just as twentieth century advances in machine automation resulted in the economic devaluation of practical knowledge and skillsets historically cultivated by machinists, artisans, and other highly trained workers , while also driving the cultivation of new skills in a variety of engineering and white collar occupations, ICTs are also recognized as potential causes of a complex pattern of economic deskilling, (...) reskilling, and upskilling. In this paper, I adapt the conceptual apparatus of sociological debates over economic deskilling to illuminate a different potential for technological deskilling/upskilling, namely the ability of ICTs to contribute to the moral deskilling of human users, a potential that exists alongside rich but currently underrealized possibilities for moral reskilling and/or upskilling. I flesh out this general hypothesis by means of examples involving automated weapons technology, new media practices, and social robotics. I conclude that since moral skills are essential prerequisites for the effective development of practical wisdom and virtuous character, and since market and cultural forces are not presently aligned to bring about the more salutary of the ambiguous potentials presented here, the future shape of these developments warrants our close attention—and perhaps active intervention. (shrink)

This article assess two important recent books on Marx's political economy and argues that, despite many virtues, there are some crucial limitations in their approach to Marx's political economy. Ben Fine's and Alfredo Saad-Filho's Marx's 'Capital' and The Value of Marx by Saad-Filho place too much explanatory weight on the composition of capital, giving too little attention to Marx's analysis of money, and to the processes of circulation and realisation.

Direct Social Perception (DSP) is the idea that we can non-inferentially perceive others’ mental states. In this paper, I argue that the standard way of framing DSP leaves the debate at an impasse. I suggest two alternative interpretations of the idea that we see others’ mental states: others’ mental states are represented in the content of our perception, and we have basic perceptual beliefs about others’ mental states. I argue that the latter interpretation of DSP is more promising and examine (...) the kinds of mental states that plausibly could satisfy this version of DSP. (shrink)

We review and present a new meta‐analysis of research suggesting that ethicists in the United States appear to behave no morally better overall than do non‐ethicist professors. Measures include: returning library books, peer evaluation of overall moral behavior, voting participation, courteous and discourteous behavior at conferences, replying to student emails, paying conference registration fees and disciplinary society dues, staying in touch with one's mother, charitable giving, organ and blood donation, vegetarianism, and honesty in responding to survey questions. One multi‐measure study (...) found ethicists tending to embrace more stringent moral views, especially about meat eating and charitable donation. The same multi‐measure study found ethicists and other professors to show similarly small‐to‐medium correlations between their expressed normative attitudes and their self‐reported or directly measured behavior. (shrink)

According to the analysis of concessive conditionals suggested by Crupi and Iacona, a concessive conditional $$p{{\,\mathrm{\hookrightarrow }\,}}q$$ p ↪ q is adequately formalized as a conjunction of conditionals. This paper presents a sound and complete axiomatic system for concessive conditionals so understood. The soundness and completeness proofs that will be provided rely on a method that has been employed by Raidl, Iacona, and Crupi to prove the soundness and completeness of an analogous system for evidential conditionals.

Recently, philosophers and psychologists defending the embodied cognition research program have offered arguments against mindreading as a general model of our social understanding. The embodied cognition arguments are of two kinds: those that challenge the developmental picture of mindreading and those that challenge the alleged ubiquity of mindreading. Together, these two kinds of arguments, if successful, would present a serious challenge to the standard account of human social understanding. In this paper, I examine the strongest of these embodied cognition arguments (...) and argue that mindreading approaches can withstand the best of these arguments from embodied cognition. (shrink)

Using psychosocial acceleration theory, this multimethod, multi-reporter study examines how early adversity adaptively shapes the development of a self-regulation construct: effortful control. Investigation of links between early life harshness and unpredictability and the development of effortful control could facilitate a nuanced understanding of early environmental effects on cognitive and social development. Using the Building Strong Families national longitudinal data set, aspects of early environmental harshness and early environmental unpredictability were tested as unique predictors of effortful control at age 3 using (...) multiple regression. Early harshness variables were financial harshness, mothers’ and fathers’ observed parenting, mothers’ and fathers’ reported use of harsh discipline, and harsh neighborhood conditions. Early unpredictability was measured by number of paternal transitions. Cues of harshness, specifically observed unresponsive parenting, observed harsh parenting, and neighborhood harshness, did significantly negatively predict effortful control. Paternal transitions also significantly predicted effortful control, but in the opposite (i.e., positive) direction. The results corroborate previous research linking quality of parenting to the development of children’s effortful control and place it within an evolutionary-developmental theoretical framework. Further, the results suggest that neighborhood harshness may also direct developmental trajectories of effortful control in young children, though the mechanisms through which this occurs are still unclear. This is the first study to explicitly investigate effortful control development in early childhood within the harshness and unpredictability framework. (shrink)

This paper discusses the nature and the status of inference to the best explanation. We outline the foundational role given IBE by its defenders and the arguments of critics who deny it any place at all ; argue that, on the two main conceptions of explanation, IBE cannot be a foundational inference rule ; sketch an account of IBE that makes it contextual and dependent on substantive empirical assumptions, much as simplicity seems to be ; show how that account avoids (...) the critics ' complaints and leaves IBE an important role ; and sketch how our account can clarify debates over IBE in arguments for scientific realism. (shrink)

I defend the view that a significant ethical distinction can be made between justified killing in self-defense and police use of lethal force. I start by opposing the belief that police use of lethal force is morally justified on the basis of self-defense. Then I demonstrate that the state’s monopoly on the use of force within a given jurisdiction invests police officers with responsibilities that go beyond what morality requires of the average person. I argue that the police should primarily (...) be concerned with preserving public safety. As a consequence, police have additional moral permissions to use lethal force. But this also means that the principle of restraint is inherent to the policing function and therefore police are obliged to go to greater lengths to avoid killing. I concede that the just use of police force can be made difficult in extreme situations such as a mass riot. In such cases, police should take proportionate actions necessary to protect the lives of inhabitants by restoring order, which might include calling on military support. I conclude with a cautionary note opposing militarization of the policing role. (shrink)

In the early twenty-first century, we stand on the threshold of welcoming robots into domains of human activity that will expand their presence in our lives dramatically. One provocative new frontier in robotics, motivated by a convergence of demographic, economic, cultural, and institutional pressures, is the development of “carebots”—robots intended to assist or replace human caregivers in the practice of caring for vulnerable persons such as the elderly, young, sick, or disabled. I argue here that existing philosophical reflections on the (...) ethical implications of carebots neglect a critical dimension of the issue: namely, the potential moral value of caregiving practices for caregivers. This value, I argue, gives rise to considerations that must be weighed alongside consideration of the likely impact of carebots on care recipients. Focusing on the goods internal to caring practices, I then examine the potential impact of carebots on caregivers by means of three complementary ethical approaches: virtue ethics, care ethics, and the capabilities approach. Each of these, I argue, sheds new light on the contexts in which carebots might deprive potential caregivers of important moral goods central to caring practices, as well as those contexts in which carebots might help caregivers sustain or even enrich those practices, and their attendant goods. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of more widespread and systematic applications of a virtue-based normative framework to questions about the ethical impact of information technologies, and social networking technologies in particular. The first stage of the argument identifies several distinctive features of virtue ethics that make it uniquely suited to the domain of IT ethics, while remaining complementary to other normative approaches. I also note its potential to reconcile a number of significant methodological conflicts and debates in the existing literature, (...) including tensions between phenomenological and constructivist perspectives. Finally, I claim that a virtue-based perspective is needed to correct for a strong utilitarian bias in the research methodologies of existing empirical studies on the social and ethical impact of IT. The second part of the paper offers an abbreviated demonstration of the merits of virtue ethics by showing how it might usefully illuminate the moral dimension of emerging social networking technologies. I focus here on the potential impact of such technologies on three virtues typically honed in communicative practices: patience, honesty and empathy. (shrink)

Imagination seems to play an epistemic role in philosophical and scientific thought experiments, mindreading, and ordinary practical deliberations insofar as it generates new knowledge of contingent facts about the world. However, it also seems that imagination is limited to creative generation of ideas. Sometimes we imagine fanciful ideas that depart freely from reality. The conjunction of these claims is what I call the puzzle of knowledge through imagination. This chapter aims to resolve this puzzle. I argue that imagination has an (...) epistemic role to play, but it is limited to the context of discovery. Imagination generates ideas, but other cognitive capacities must be employed to evaluate these ideas in order for them to count as knowledge. Consideration of the Simulation Theory's so-called "threat of collapse” provides further evidence that imagination does not, on its own, yield new knowledge of contingent facts, and it suggests a way to supplement imagination in order to get such knowledge. (shrink)

The widespread and growing use of new social media, especially social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, invites sustained ethical reflection on emerging forms of online friendship. Social scientists and psychologists are gathering a wealth of empirical data on these trends, yet philosophical analysis of their ethical implications remains comparatively impoverished. In particular, there have been few attempts to explore how traditional ethical theories might be brought to bear upon these developments, or what insights they might offer, if any. (...) In attempting to address this lacuna in applied ethical research, this paper investigates the ethical significance of online friendship by means of an Aristotelian theory of the good life, which holds that human flourishing is chiefly realized through ‘complete’ friendships of virtue. Here, four key dimensions of ‘virtue friendship’ are examined in relation to online social media : reciprocity, empathy, self-knowledge and the shared life. Online social media support and strengthen friendship in ways that mirror these four dimensions, particularly when used to supplement rather than substitute for face-to-face interactions. However, deeper reflection on the meaning of the shared life for Aristotle raises important and troubling questions about the capacity of online social media to support complete friendships of virtue in the contemporary world, along with significant concerns about the enduring relevance of this Aristotelian ideal for the good life in the 21st century. (shrink)

"I found this a fascinating book: wide-ranging, readable." —Alison Jaggar Bell shows how the flesh-and-blood female body engaged in sexual interaction for payment has no inherent meaning and is signified differently in different cultures ...

Mirror neurons are widely regarded as an important key to social cognition. Despite such wide agreement, there is very little consensus on how or why they are important. The goal of this paper is to clearly explicate the exact role mirror neurons play in social cognition. I aim to answer two questions about the relationship between mirroring and social cognition: What kind of social understanding is involved with mirroring? How is mirroring related to that understanding? I argue that philosophical and (...) empirical considerations lead us to accord a fairly minimal role for mirror neurons in social cognition. (shrink)

Leading addiction researchers survey the latest findings in addiction science, countering the simplistic cultural stereotypes of the addict.