This book examines influential conceptions of sport and then analyses the interplay of challenging borderline cases with the standard definitions of sport. It is meant to inspire more thought and debate on just what sport is, how it relates to other activities and human endeavors, and what we can learn about ourselves by studying sport.

A principal aim of the branch of ethics called ‘population theory’ or ‘population ethics’ is to find a plausible welfarist axiology, capable of comparing total outcomes with respect to value. This has proved an exceedingly difficult task. In this paper I shall state and discuss two ‘trilemmas’, or choices between three unappealing alternatives, which the population ethicist must face. The first trilemma is not new. It originates with Derek Parfit's well-known ‘Mere Addition Paradox’, and was first explicitly stated by Yew-Kwang (...) Ng. I shall argue that one horn of this trilemma is less unattractive than Parfit and others have claimed. The second trilemma, which is a kind of mirror image of the first, appears hitherto to have gone unnoticed. Apart from attempting to resolve the two trilemmas, I shall suggest certain features which I believe a plausible welfarist axiology should possess. The details of this projected axiology will, however, be left open. (shrink)

The counterfactual comparative account of harm faces problems in cases that involve overdetermination and preemption. An influential strategy for dealing with these problems, drawing on a suggestion made by Derek Parfit, is to appeal to _plural harm_—several events _together_ harming someone. We argue that the most well-known version of this strategy, due to Neil Feit, as well as Magnus Jedenheim Edling’s more recent version, is fatally flawed. We also present some general reasons for doubting that the overdetermination and preemption problems (...) for the counterfactual comparative account can be satisfactorily solved by appealing to plural harm. (shrink)

An important question for proponents of non-contractive approaches to paradox is why contraction fails. Zardini offers an answer, namely that paradoxical sentences exhibit a kind of instability. I elaborate this idea using revision theory, and I argue that while instability does motivate failures of contraction, it equally motivates failure of many principles that non-contractive theorists want to maintain.

We present an extension of the basic revision theory of circular definitions with a unary operator, □. We present a Fitch-style proof system that is sound and complete with respect to the extended semantics. The logic of the box gives rise to a simple modal logic, and we relate provability in the extended proof system to this modal logic via a completeness theorem, using interpretations over circular definitions, analogous to Solovay’s completeness theorem forGLusing arithmetical interpretations. We adapt our proof to (...) a special class of circular definitions as well as to the first-order case. (shrink)

Aesthetics and the Environment presents fresh and fascinating insights into our interpretation of the environment. Traditional aesthetics is often associated with the appreciation of art, but Allen Carlson shows how much of our aesthetic experience does not encompass art but nature--in our response to sunsets, mountains or horizons or more mundane surroundings, like gardens or the view from our window. Carlson argues that knowledge of what it is we are appreciating is essential to having an appropriate aesthetic experience (...) and that a scientific understanding of nature can enhance our appreciation of it, rather than denigrate it. (shrink)

The operational semantics of Urquhart is a deep and important part of the development of relevant logics. In this paper, I present an overview of work on Urquhart’s operational semantics. I then present the basics of collection frames. Finally, I show how one kind of collection frame, namely, functional set frames, is equivalent to Urquhart’s semilattice semantics.

This paper addresses the question of how local can be defined in practice. It contributes to the growing literature on local food systems and particularly our understanding of what counts as local and the elements that influence those contours. While most of our conceptions of local food tend to rely on an articulation of either proximity traveled or relationship between entities, I argue that a more nuanced and complete understanding must take account of both of these aspects. I draw on (...) a dataset of locally oriented farm and food-related establishments in southern New England to identify how far local food travels in this region and how interconnected local food establishments are with one another and use these and other measures to tease out the tension between proximity and relationship as measures of local. I find that these two aspects not only are connected to each other in a complex dynamic, but also are bound up with other structural factors as well. (shrink)

Growth in CSR-washing claims in recent decades has been dramatic in numerous academic and activist contexts. The discourse, however, has been fragmented, and still lacks an integrated framework of the conditions necessary for successful CSR-washing. Theorizing successful CSR-washing as the joint occurrence of five conditions, this paper undertakes a literature review of the empirical evidence for and against each condition. The literature review finds that many of the conditions are either highly contingent, rendering CSR-washing as a complex and fragile outcome. (...) This finding runs counter to the dominant perception in the general public, among activists, and among a vocal contingent of academics that successful CSR-washing is rampant. (shrink)

Mares and Goldblatt, 163–187, 2006) provided an alternative frame semantics for two quantified extensions of the relevant logic R. In this paper, I show how to extend the Mares-Goldblatt frames to accommodate identity. Simpler frames are provided for two zero-order logics en route to the full logic in order to clarify what is needed for identity and substitution, as opposed to quantification. I close with a comparison of this work with the Fine-Mares models for relevant logics with identity and a (...) discussion of constant and variable domains. (shrink)

We have argued that the counterfactual comparative account of harm and benefit (CCA) violates the plausible adequacy condition that an act that would harm an agent cannot leave her much better off than an alternative act that would benefit her. In a recent paper in this journal, however, Neil Feit objects that our argument presupposes questionable counterfactual backtracking. He also argues that CCA proponents can justifiably reject the condition by invoking so-called plural harm and benefit. In this reply, we argue (...) that Feit’s lines of criticism are both unsuccessful. (shrink)

This paper will develop ideas from [44]. We will generalize their work in two directions. First, we provide axioms for justification logics over the base logic B and show that the logic permits a proof of the internalization theorem. Second, we provide alternative frames that more closely resemble the standard versions of the ternary relational frames, as well as a more general approach to the completeness proof. We prove that soundness and completeness hold for justification logics over a wide variety (...) of base logics. Finally, we will strengthen Belnap’s variable sharing for the justification logic context, demonstrating that the justifications are properly relevant justifications. (shrink)

In this paper, we give a new argument for the existence of moral luck. The argument is based on a manipulation case in which two agents both lack second-order control over their actions, but one of them has first-order control. Our argument is, we argue, in several respects stronger than standard arguments for moral luck. Five possible objections to the argument are considered, and its general significance for the debate on moral luck is briefly discussed.

One of the many claims about the value of local food is that local food exchanges generate trust between producers and consumers. To what degree is this actually the case and how does such trust develop? Drawing on interview and fieldwork data in one local food system in the Northeastern U.S., I show how local food participants build trust and reciprocity with one another in order to mitigate the challenges imposed by the conventional system. This trust and reciprocity builds primarily (...) through three mechanisms: reliable, positive relationships; demonstrations of good will toward one another; and a shared understanding of the value of locally-oriented food. Through these mechanisms, local food operators are able to build a healthy, stable local food system, able to better resist the pressures of the conventional system in which it must continually operate. (shrink)

This article examines how facial recognition technology reshapes the philosophical debate over the ethics of video surveillance. When video surveillance is augmented with facial recognition, the data collected is no longer anonymous, and the data can be aggregated to produce detailed psychological profiles. I argue that – as this non-anonymous data of people’s mundane activities is collected – unjust risks of harm are imposed upon individuals. In addition, this technology can be used to catalogue all who publicly participate in political, (...) religious, and socially stigmatised activities, and I argue that this would undermine central interests of liberal democracies. I examine the degree to which the interests of individuals and the societal interests of liberal democracies to maintain people’s obscurity while in public coincide with privacy interests, as popularly understood, and conclude that there is a practical need to articulate a novel right to obscurity to protect the interests of liberal democratic societies. (shrink)

As local food activities expand and grow, an important question to answer is how various participants contribute to a local food system’s overall vitality and strength. This paper does so by focusing on the relationships between locally-oriented farm and retail actors and assessing what the configuration of these relationships tells us about the workings of the broader local food system. Such an analysis reveals two things. Empirically, it shows the important role food retailers play in the overall vibrancy of local (...) food exchanges: food retailers form crucial links holding the broader system together and significantly expanding consumer access to local foods. Further, different retailer types have distinct impacts on network configurations, each serving particular roles in the development and maintenance of local food systems. Methodologically, this paper shows the value of applying social network analysis techniques to the study of local food systems: such an approach yields insights that may not be as readily assessable from other strategies. In this paper, I overview common network analysis techniques and apply them to a case study of local food activities in New England, suggesting how such an approach might be applied to local food systems in other places. (shrink)

Anti-exceptionalism about logic is the thesis that logic is not special. In this paper, I consider, and reject, a challenge to this thesis. According to this challenge, there are basic logical principles, and part of what makes such principles basic is that they are epistemically exceptional. Thus, according to this challenge, the existence of basic logical principles provides reason to reject anti-exceptionalism about logic. I argue that this challenge fails, and that the exceptionalist positions motivated by it are thus unfounded. (...) I make this case by disambiguating two senses of ‘basic’ and showing that, once this disambiguation is taken into account, the best reason we have for thinking that there are basic principles actually implies that those principles do not require a special epistemology. Consequently, the existence of basic logical principles provides reason to accept, rather than reject, anti-exceptionalism concerning the epistemology of logic. I conclude by explaining how an abductivist, anti-exceptionalist approach to the epistemology of logic can accommodate the notion of basic logical principles. (shrink)

This article examines selected texts in which Martin Heidegger thematizes the ontology of images, in order to adduce a view of how he under­stands their merits and limitations. I am primarily interested in the images seen in art works, especially those in film and photography, given Heidegger’s strong criticism of the latter alongside other 20th-century communicative media. The goal of the article is not to determine what is Heidegger’s central or overall position regarding images, as it is not clear that (...) he has such a position. Rather, the goal is to analyze how his various statements on images, as well as imagination, fit together. I contrast Heidegger’s critical views in “The Age of the World Picture” with other texts in which he describes images more favorably. I also devote some space to texts in which Heidegger treats imagination and the origin of images more broadly. (shrink)

In classically based modal logic, there are three common conceptions of necessity, the universal conception, the equivalence relation conception, and the axiomatic conception. They provide distinct presentations of the modal logic S5, all of which coincide in the basic modal language. We explore these different conceptions in the context of the relevant logic R, demonstrating where they come apart. This reveals that there are many options for being an S5-ish extension of R. It further reveals a divide between the universal (...) conception of necessity on the one hand, and the axiomatic conception on the other: The latter is consistent with motivations for relevant logics while the former is not. For the committed relevant logician, necessity cannot be the truth in all possible worlds. (shrink)

This article responds to critical views of John Rhym, Martin Rossouw, Ludo de Roo, and Annie Sandrussi on my 2017 book Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience. The article also takes up positive footholds from the analyses of Chiara Quaranta and Jason Wirth. The main topics addressed include Martin Heidegger’s ontic-ontological distinction; the notion of film-as-philosophy; being-in-the-world read as being-in-the-film-world; and questions surrounding the facticity and identity of the film viewer.

How different were the claims of Assyrian royal inscriptions from actual Neo-Assyrian practice? This essay explores this question by examining two unusual claims made by Sargon II in relation to his rule of Samaria. The first claim, which appears both in the Khorsabad annals and in a Nimrud prism, should be translated “I again settled Samaria, more than previously.” Based on the historical reconstruction derived from archaeological data, I argue that this phrase refers to the movement of exiles into areas (...) in the western part of the province of Samaria. These areas in the western part of the province, around the sites of Aphek, Hadid, and Gezer, experienced significant population increases in the Assyrian period. The second passage, in Sargon’s Great Display Inscription from Khorsabad, refers to Sargon’s treatment of non-deported Samaritans. It should be translated “I trained the remnant in their crafts.” The historical reality behind this claim is the shift in agricultural techniques and activities in Samaria as a result of the Assyrian conquest. The Assyrian domination of Samaria required the production of grain surpluses, which needed to be made available in the Aphek-Gezer region in the western part of the province of Samaria. In each of the claims from the royal inscriptions examined in this essay, we see that the royal inscriptions credit the king with activities performed by the provincial governor. They change the description of the activity to make it “fit for royalty.”. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary analysis presents an innovative examination of the nature of pride and humility, including all their slippery nuances and points of connection. By combining insights from visual art, literature, philosophy, religious studies, and psychology, this volume adapts a complementary rather than an oppositional approach to examine how pride and humility reinforce and inform one another. This method produces a robust, substantial, and meaningful description of these important concepts. The analysis takes into account key elements of pride and humility, including (...) self-esteem and self-confidence, human interconnectedness, power's function and limitations, and the role of fear. Shawn R. Tucker explores the many inflections of these terms, inflections that cast them by turns as positive or negative, emboldening or discouraging, and salubrious or vicious depending upon the context and manner in which they are used. (shrink)

According to the response-dependence view of moral responsibility, a person is morally responsible just in case, and in virtue of the fact that, she is an appropriate target for reactive attitudes. This paper raises a new puzzle regarding response-dependence: there is a mismatch between the granularity of the reactive attitudes and of responsibility facts. Whereas the reactive attitudes are comparatively coarse-grained, responsibility facts can be quite fine-grained. This poses a challenge for response-dependence, which seeks to ground facts about responsibility in (...) facts about the reactive attitudes. Specifically, reactive attitudes are not enough for grounding facts about degrees of moral responsibility. The responsedependence view thus requires significant revisions or supplementations. (shrink)

In relevant logics, necessary truths need not imply each other. In justification logic, necessary truths need not all be justified by the same reason. There is an affinity to these two approaches that suggests their pairing will provide good logics for tracking reasons in a fine-grained way. In this paper, I will show how to extend relevant logics with some of the basic operators of justification logic in order to track justifications or reasons. I will define and study three kinds (...) of frames for these logics. For the first kind of frame, I show soundness and highlight a difficulty in proving completeness. This motivates two alternative kinds of frames, with respect to which completeness results are obtained. Axioms to strengthen the justification logic portions of these logics are considered. I close by developing an analogy between the dot operator of justification logic and theory fusion in relevant logics. (shrink)

There appears to be few, if any, limits on what sorts of logical connectives can be added to a given logic. One source of potential limitations is the motivating ideology associated with a logic. While extraneous to the logic, the motivating ideology is often important for the development of formal and philosophical work on that logic, as is the case with intuitionistic logic. One family of logics for which the philosophical ideology is important is the family of relevant logics. In (...) this paper, I explore the limits of what a relevant connective is, showing how some basic criteria motivated by the ideology of relevant logicians provide robust limits on potential connectives. These criteria provide some plausible necessary conditions on being a relevant connective. (shrink)

The counterfactual comparative account of harm and benefit has several virtues, but it also faces serious problems. I argue that CCA is incompatible with the prudential and moral relevance of harm and benefit. Some possible ways to revise or restrict CCA, in order to avoid this conclusion, are discussed and found wanting. Finally, I try to show that appealing to the context-sensitivity of counterfactuals, or to the alleged contrastive nature of harm and benefit, does not provide a solution.

In Consequentialism Reconsidered, Carlson strives to find a plausible formulation of the structural part of consequentialism. Key notions are analyzed, such as outcomes, alternatives and performability. Carlson argues that consequentialism should be understood as a maximizing rather than a satisficing theory, and as temporally neutral rather than future oriented. He also shows that certain moral theories cannot be reformulated as consequentialist theories. The relevant alternatives for an agent in a situation are taken to comprise all actions that they (...) can perform in the situation. The defense of this idea necessitates certain modifications to the standard consequentialist criteria of obligatoriness, rightness and wrongness. The problem of whether agents should adapt their actions to their own future actions is also addressed. Further, a conditional analysis of performability is suggested, and it is argued that particular actions should in this connection be regarded as `abstract' rather than `concrete'. The final chapter sketches a consequentialist theory for collective agents. (shrink)

Environmental aesthetics is a relatively new sub-field ofphilosophical aesthetics. It arose within analytic aesthetics in thelast third of the twentieth century. Prior to its emergence,aesthetics within the analytic tradition was largely concerned withphilosophy of art. Environmental aesthetics originated as a reactionto this emphasis, pursuing instead the investigation of the aestheticappreciation of natural environments. Since its early stages, thescope of environmental aesthetics has broadened to include not simplynatural environments but also human and human-influenced ones. At thesame time, the discipline has also (...) come to include the examination ofthat which falls within such environments, giving rise to what iscalled the aesthetics of everyday life. This area involves theaesthetics of not only more common objects and environments, but alsoa range of everyday activities. Thus, early in the twenty-firstcentury, environmental aesthetics embraced the study of the aestheticsignificance of almost everything other than art. Together with thisbroader scope of environmental aesthetics, the twenty-first centuryhas also given rise to renewed and more intense investigations of therelationship between environmental aesthetics and environmentalism aswell as to several new interests and directions. (shrink)

In Section 1, I rehearse some arguments for the claim that morality should be ``action-guiding'', and try to state the conditions under which a moral theory is in fact action-guiding. I conclude that only agents who are cognitively and conatively ``ideal'' are in general able to use a moral theory as a guide to action. In Sections 2 and 3, I discuss whether moral ``actualism'' implies that morality cannot be action-guiding even for ideal agents. If actualism is true, an ideal (...) agent will know about her own future actions. Since such foreknowledge is often thought to be incompatible with deliberation, and since action-guidance presupposes the possibility of deliberation, there is an apparent difficulty in combining actualism with the requirement of action-guidance. In opposition to an argument by Jan Österberg, I try to show that actualism and action-guidance are in fact compatible. (shrink)

Relevant logics are a family of non-classical logics characterized by the behavior of their implication connectives. Unlike some other non-classical logics, such as intuitionistic logic, there are multiple philosophical views motivating relevant logics. Further, different views seem to motivate different logics. In this article, we survey five major views motivating the adoption of relevant logics: Use Criterion, sufficiency, meaning containment, theory construction, and truthmaking. We highlight the philosophical differences as well as the different logics they support. We end with some (...) questions for future research. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, I claimed that the widely held counterfactual comparative account of harm violates two very plausible principles about harm and prudential reasons. Justin Klocksiem argues, in a reply, that CCA is in fact compatible with these principles. In this rejoinder, I shall try to show that Klocksiem’s defense of CCA fails.

Deepfakes are audio, video, or still-image digital artifacts created by the use of artificial intelligence technology, as opposed to traditional means of recording. Because deepfakes can look and sound much like genuine digital recordings, they have entered the popular imagination as sources of serious epistemic problems for us, as we attempt to navigate the increasingly treacherous digital information environment of the internet. In this paper, I attempt to clarify what epistemic problems deepfakes pose and why they pose these problems, by (...) drawing parallels between recordings and our own senses as sources of evidence. I show that deepfakes threaten to undermine the status of digital recordings as evidence. The existence of deepfakes thus encourages a kind of skepticism about digital recordings that bears important similarities to classic philosophical skepticism concerning the senses. However, the skepticism concerning digital recordings that deepfakes motivate is also importantly different from classical skepticism concerning the senses, and I argue that these differences illuminate some possible strategies for solving the epistemic problems posed by deepfakes. (shrink)

An “insightful” and in-depth look at anti-science politics and its deadly results (Maria Konnikova, New York Times–bestselling author of The Biggest Bluff). Thomas Jefferson said, “Wherever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” But what happens when they aren’t? From climate change to vaccinations, transportation to technology, health care to defense, we are in the midst of an unprecedented expansion of scientific progress—and a simultaneous expansion of danger. At the very time we need them (...) most, scientists and the very idea of objective knowledge are being bombarded by a vast, well-funded war on science, and the results are deadly. Whether it’s driven by identity politics, ideology, or industry, the result is an unprecedented erosion of thought in Western democracies as voters, policymakers, and justices actively ignore scientific evidence, leaving major policy decisions to be based more on the demands of the most strident voices. This compelling book investigates the historical, social, philosophical, political, and emotional reasons why evidence-based politics are in decline and authoritarian politics are once again on the rise on both left and right—and provides some compelling solutions to bring us to our collective senses, before it's too late. “If you care about attacks on climate science and the rise of authoritarianism, if you care about biased media coverage and shake-your-head political tomfoolery, this book is for you.”—The Guardian. (shrink)

The equivocal contours of arielismo-one of the most influential anti-imperialist ideologies, spiritual movements, cultural models, and utopian pedagogies for Latin American youth in an epoch of rampant US interventionism.