This ground-breaking text offers a fresh perspective on the governance of science from the standpoint of social and political theory. Science has often been seen as the only institution that embodies the elusive democratic ideal of the 'open society'. Yet, science remains an elite activity that commands much more public trust than understanding, even though science has become increasingly entangled with larger political and economic issues.

The greatest threat faced by wild animals often comes from the destruction of their habitats by humans. Traditional environmental-conservation paradigms often fail to prevent this destruction. This paper claims that, where access to habitat is a necessary condition of their continued existence or wellbeing, wild animals have sufficiently strong interests in their habitat to generate rights to it. The paper argues that these rights should be instantiated in the form of collective usufructuary property rights, and, in cases of serious and (...) systematic violation of these rights, wild animals gain a remedial right of secession for their habitat. (shrink)

This paper presents a new way of thinking about the relationship between humans and the nonhuman animals in their care. Most ethical analysis of the treatment of nonhuman animals has focussed on questions of moral status, justice, and the wrongness of harming them. This paper does something different, it examines the role played by trust in interspecies relationships. In both agriculture and laboratory settings, humans deliberately foster trusting relationships with nonhuman animals. An intrinsic feature of the trusting relationship in these (...) settings is that it is created in order to be exploited and betrayed. However, little consideration has been given to asking what a deliberate betrayal of another species says about the character of those who carry out the betrayals. This paper argues that regardless of the moral status of nonhuman animals, a willingness to foster trust in order to exploit the vulnerability of a nonhuman suggests a serious character flaw. Our failure thus far to apprehend systematic forms of betrayal indicates a moral blind-spot when it comes to other species. (shrink)

There is a growing perception among economists that their field is becoming increasingly irrelevant due to its disregard for reality. Critical realism addresses the failure of mainstream economics to explain economic reality and proposes an alternative approach. This book debates the relative strengths and weaknesses of critical realism, in the hopes of developing a more fruitful and relevant socio-economic ontology and methodology. With contributions from some of the leading authorities in economic philosophy, it includes the work of theorists critical of (...) this approach. In the first part, contributors develop and deepen economics as a realist social theory by considering the work of individuals, various schools of thought, socio- economic phenomena and methodology. In the second part, contributors weigh the strengths and weaknesses of critical realism. (shrink)

Vaccine refusal occurs for a variety of reasons. In this article we examine vaccine refusals that are made on conscientious grounds; that is, for religious, moral, or philosophical reasons. We focus on two questions: first, whether people should be entitled to conscientiously object to vaccination against contagious diseases ; second, if so, to what constraints or requirements should conscientious objection to vaccination be subject. To address these questions, we consider an analogy between CO to vaccination and CO to military service. (...) We argue that conscientious objectors to vaccination should make an appropriate contribution to society in lieu of being vaccinated. The contribution to be made will depend on the severity of the relevant disease, its morbidity, and also the likelihood that vaccine refusal will lead to harm. In particular, the contribution required will depend on whether the rate of CO in a given population threatens herd immunity to the disease in question: for severe or highly contagious diseases, if the population rate of CO becomes high enough to threaten herd immunity, the requirements for CO could become so onerous that CO, though in principle permissible, would be de facto impermissible. (shrink)

Animal agriculture predominantly involves farming social animals. At the same time, the nature of agriculture requires severely disrupting, eliminating, and controlling the relationships that matter to those animals, resulting in harm and unhappiness for them. These disruptions harm animals, both physically and psychologically. Stressed animals are also bad for farmers because stressed animals are less safe to handle, produce less, get sick more, and produce poorer quality meat. As a result, considerable efforts have gone into developing stress-reduction methods. Many of (...) these attempt to replicate behaviours or physiological responses that develop or constitute bonding between animals. In other words, humans try to mitigate or ameliorate the damage done by preventing and undermining intraspecies relationships. In doing so, the wrong of relational harms is compounded by an instrumentalisation of trust and care. The techniques used are emblematic of the welfarist approach to animal ethics. Using the example of gentle touching in the farming of cows for beef and dairy, the paper highlights two types of wrong. First, a wrong done in the form of relational harms, and second, a wrong done by instrumentalising relationships of care and trust. Relational harms are done to nonhuman animals, whilst instrumentalisation of care and trust indicates an insensitivity to morally salient features of the situation and a potential character flaw in the agents that carry it out. (shrink)

Quillen [17] introduced model categories as an abstract framework for homotopy theory which would apply to a wide range of mathematical settings. By all accounts this program has been a success and—as, e.g., the work of Voevodsky on the homotopy theory of schemes [15] or the work of Joyal [11, 12] and Lurie [13] on quasicategories seem to indicate—it will likely continue to facilitate mathematical advances. In this paper we present a novel connection between model categories and mathematical logic, inspired (...) by the groupoid model of (intensional) Martin–Löf type theory [14] due to Hofmann and Streicher [9]. In particular, we show that a form of Martin–Löf type theory can be soundly modelled in any model category. This result indicates moreover that any model category has an associated “internal language” which is itself a form of Martin-Löf type theory. This suggests applications both to type theory and to homotopy theory. Because Martin–Löf type theory is, in one form or another, the theoretical basis for many of the computer proof assistants currently in use, such as Coq and Agda (cf. [3] and [5]), this promise of applications is of a practical, as well as theoretical, nature. This paper provides a precise indication of this connection between homotopy theory and logic; a more detailed discussion of these and further results will be given in [20]. (shrink)

This paper outlines the moral contours of human relationships with companion animals. The paper details three sources of duties to and regarding companion animals: (1) from the animal’s status as property, (2) from the animal’s position in relationships of care, love, and dependency, and (3) from the animal’s status as a sentient being with a good of its own. These three sources of duties supplement one another and not only differentiate relationships with companion animals from wild animals and other categories (...) of domestic animals such as livestock, but they also overlap to provide moral agents with additional reasons for preventing and avoiding harm to companion animals. The paper concludes that not only do owners and bystanders have direct and indirect duties to protect companion animals from harm, but also that these duties have the potential, in some circumstances, to clash with duties owed to the state and fellow citizens. (shrink)

In the face of argument to the contrary, it is shown that there is defensible middle ground available for entity realism, between the extremes of scientific realism and empiricist antirealism. Cartwright's ([1983]) earlier argument for defensible middle ground between these extremes, which depended crucially on the viability of an underdeveloped distinction between inference to the best explanation (IBE) and inference to the most probable cause (IPC), is examined and its defects are identified. The relationship between IBE and IPC is clarified (...) and a revised version of Cartwright's argument for defensible middle ground, which is free of the identified defects, is presented. (shrink)

The authors of a much discussed recent book A Lot of People are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy, Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum argue that ‘a new conspiracism’ has emerged recently. Their examples include Donald Trump’s allegations that elections have been rigged, ‘Birther’ accusations about Barack Obama, ‘QAnon’ and ‘Pizzagate’. They characterize these as ‘conspiracism without the theory’. They argue that the new conspiracism is validated by repetition, disregards experts, and is satisfied with the conclusion (...) that allegations are ‘true enough’. Here I argue that there is no new conspiracism. Muirhead and Rosenblum have misconstrued their chief examples of new conspiracism and mischaracterized classic conspiracism. The non-existence of a new conspiracism matters. If those studying contemporary conspiracism suppose that many of the objects of their study are theory-free then they are liable to fail to examine the theories that actually are driving contemporary conspiracism. Also, if they suppose that they are confronting an entirely new phenomenon then they are in danger of failing to learn lessons from the rich history of conspiracy theorizing. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 52, Issue 2, Page 221-250, Spring 2024.

An international team of ethicists refresh the debate about human enhancement by examining whether resistance to the use of technology to enhance our mental and physical capabilities can be supported by articulated philosophical reasoning, or explained away, e.g. in terms of psychological influences on moral reasoning.

of type theory has been used successfully to formalize large parts of constructive mathematics, such as the theory of generalized recursive definitions [NPS90, ML79]. Moreover, it is also employed extensively as a framework for the development of high-level programming languages, in virtue of its combination of expressive strength and desirable proof-theoretic properties [NPS90, Str91]. In addition to simple types A, B, . . . and their terms x : A b(x) : B, the theory also has dependent types x : (...) A B(x), which are regarded as indexed families of types. There are simple type forming operations A × B and A → B, as well as operations on dependent types, including in particular the sum x:A B(x) and product x:A B(x) types (see the appendix for details). The Curry-Howard interpretation of the operations A × B and A → B is as propositional conjunction and.. (shrink)

An analogy is sometimes drawn between the proper treatment of conscientious objectors in healthcare and in military contexts. In this paper, I consider an aspect of this analogy that has not, to my knowledge, been considered in debates about conscientious objection in healthcare. In the USA and elsewhere, tribunals have been tasked with the responsibility of recommending particular forms of alternative service for conscientious objectors. Military conscripts who have a conscientious objection to active military service, and whose objections are deemed (...) acceptable, are required either to serve the military in a non-combat role, or assigned some form of community service that does not contribute to the effectiveness of the military. I argue that consideration of the role that military tribunals have played in determining the appropriate form of alternative service for conscripts who are conscientious objectors can help us to understand how conscientious objectors in healthcare ought to be treated. Additionally, I show that it helps us to address the vexed issue of whether or not conscientious objectors who refuse to provide a service requested by a patient should be required to refer that patient to another healthcare professional. (shrink)

Appeals to intuitions as evidence in philosophy are challenged by experimental philosophers and other critics. A common response to experimental philosophical criticisms is to hold that only professional philosophers? intuitions count as evidence in philosophy. This ?expert intuitions defence? is inadequate for two reasons. First, recent studies indicate significant variability in professional philosophers? intuitions. Second, the academic literature on professional intuitions gives us reasons to doubt that professional philosophers develop truth-apt intuitions. The onus falls on those who mount the expert (...) intuitions defence to meet these objections because it is implicitly being claimed that training and practice caused professional philosophers to acquire reliably accurate intuitions and we are owed an account of how this transformation takes place. A possible response to this situation is to attempt to reform philosophical practice to improve the quality of intuitions. Another possible response, advocated here, is to avoid appeals to intuitions as evidence. (shrink)

Jonathan Haidt ( 2001 ) advances the 'Social Intuitionist' account of moral judgment , which he presents as an alternative to rationalist accounts of moral judgment , hitherto dominant in psychology. Here I consider Haidt's anti-rationalism and the debate that it has provoked in moral psychology , as well as some anti-rationalist philosophical claims that Haidt and others have grounded in the empirical work of Haidt and his collaborators. I will argue that although the case for anti-rationalism in moral psychology (...) based on the work of Haidt and his collaborators is plausible , a decisive case has yet to be made. It will require further experimental evidence before a decisive case could be made. My assessment of anti-rationalist philosophical arguments that are grounded in the empirical work of Haidt and his collaborators is much more negative than this. I will argue that this body of empirical work is a very unpromising basis for such arguments. (shrink)

This brief article is intended to introduce the reader to the field of algebraic set theory, in which models of set theory of a new and fascinating kind are determined algebraically. The method is quite robust, applying to various classical, intuitionistic, and constructive set theories. Under this scheme some familiar set theoretic properties are related to algebraic ones, while others result from logical constraints. Conventional elementary set theories are complete with respect to algebraic models, which arise in a variety of (...) ways, including topologically, type-theoretically, and through variation. Many previous results from topos theory involving realizability, permutation, and sheaf models of set theory are subsumed, and the prospects for further such unification seem bright. (shrink)

An anthology of new translations of essential readings from the classical texts of early Chinese philosophy. It includes the Analects of Confucius, Meng Zi (Mencius), Xun Zi, Mo Zi, Lao Zi (Dao De Jing), Zhuang Zi, and Han Fei Zi, as well as short chapters on the Da Xue and the Zhong Yong. Pedagogically organized, it offers philosophically sophisticated annotations and commentaries as well as an extensive glossary explaining key philosophical concepts in detail.

Increasingly, protests occur across borders and are carried out by non-nationals. Many of these protests include elements that break the laws of their host country and are aimed at issues of global concern. Despite the increasing frequency of transnational protest, little ethical consideration has been given to it. This article provides a cosmopolitan justification for transnational disobedience on behalf of self and others. The article argues that individuals may be justified in illegally protesting in other states, and that in some (...) circumstances they may do so even when laws have been legitimately constituted by the domestic constituencies of those states. Using a cosmopolitan reading of the notion of civility and of the civil realm, the article argues that transnational protests are capable of conforming to the normative and conceptual standards necessary for them to be labelled civil disobedience. As a result, they ought to carry a privileged moral status compared with other forms of protest. The article applies the All Affected Principle to argue that a democratic deficit can provide transnational protesters and resident migrants with a right to civil disobedience even where that right is not held by members of the demos they protest within. (shrink)

We show how to interpret the language of first-order set theory in an elementary topos endowed with, as extra structure, a directed structural system of inclusions (dssi). As our main result, we obtain a complete axiomatization of the intuitionistic set theory validated by all such interpretations. Since every elementary topos is equivalent to one carrying a dssi, we thus obtain a first-order set theory whose associated categories of sets are exactly the elementary toposes. In addition, we show that the full (...) axiom of Separation is validated whenever the dssi is superdirected. This gives a uniform explanation for the known facts that cocomplete and realizability toposes provide models for Intuitionistic Zermelo—Fraenkel set theory (IZF). (shrink)

Conscientious objection was barely mentioned in debates about the ethics of healthcare provision before the 1970s.1 The conscientious objections that attracted public and academic attention were those of conscripts who objected to participation in military forces, and of parents who objected to the vaccination of their children. All of this was changed by the 1973 US Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to abortion in the USA. Shortly after this decision, the American Medical Association's (AMA) (...) House of Delegates, the peak policy-making body within the AMA, adopted a resolution that sought to protect hospital employees from having to contribute to the provision of abortion if they felt that doing so was immoral. The resolution was adopted in response to a specific controversial court decision, but the language employed in it was broad in scope. House of Delegates Health Policy 5.995 contained a conscience clause stating that ‘Neither physician, hospital, …. (shrink)

How do exercises of authority different from requests, threats and advice? It is common to answer this question by emphasising the role of obligation, or the role of justified coercion, to the exclusion of the other. Using a distinction between an office of authority and an exercise of authority, I develop a taxonomy of such views of authority and present arguments against each of them. In place of these views, I argue for a symmetrical view of obligation and coercion within (...) legal authority. On my view, authority is a conformance of one’s will to another’s will that the subject could recognise as consistent with the law’s respect for her, and this implies that obligation and coercion can equally be exercises of authority. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement about a combination of attributes that someone needs to possess if they are to be counted as a conservative. They need to lack definite political ideals, goals or ends, to prefer the political status quo to its alternatives, and to be risk averse. Why should these three highly distinct attributes, which are widely believed to be characteristic of adherents to a significant political position, cluster together? Here I draw on prospect theory to develop an explanation for (...) the clustering of attributes that is characteristic of conservatives. I argue that a lack of political ideals is the underlying driver of conservatism. I will provide reason to believe that people who lack political ideals are disposed to prefer the political status quo to its alternatives; and reason to believe that people who prefer the political status quo to its alternatives are disposed to be risk averse, at least with respect to significantly many of the risks that arise in the social and political domain. I also consider and reject some other potential explanations for the clustering of attributes that is characteristic of conservatives and sketch some policy implications that follow from the explanation I develop. (shrink)

Animal activists sometimes engage in vigils and acts of witnessing as forms of political protest. For example, the Animal Save Movement, a global activist network, regards witnessing the suffering of non-human animals as a moral duty of veganism. The act of witnessing is intended to non-violently communicate both attitudes and principles. These forms of activism are unlike other forms of protest, relying for much of their force upon passive, non-confrontational actions. This article explores the ethical character of vigils and witnessing (...) in order to evaluate their role in animal rights activism. It argues that the love-based ethic behind the Animal Save Movement's form of witnessing is overly demanding, overly expansive and overly deferential towards wrongdoers. In its place, this article offers a narrower account of witnessing, detached from controversial spiritual elements. Vigils and conscious acts of witnessing, it is claimed, are political acts aimed at fulfilling duties to seek justice for non-human animals. (shrink)

Defining privacy is problematic because the condition of privacy appears simultaneously to require separation from others, and the possibility of choosing not to be separate. This latter feature expresses the inherent normative dimension of privacy: the capacity to control the perceptual and informational spaces surrounding one’s person. Clearly the features of separation and control as just described are in tension because one may easily enough choose to give up all barriers between oneself and the public space. How could the capacity (...) for privacy give rise to its absence? Yet both the separation and control features of privacy do seem indispensable to any sensible understanding of it. In this paper I set out an approach to defining privacy that keeps these features and avoids the tension between them. (shrink)

: The role of vagueness in the Laozi is explored by investigating its connection with "process." First, a hermeneutic methodology is developed and adopted, derived from Peirce's notion of "abduction." Second, this notion is analyzed, and several distinctive characteristics, or "traces," of vagueness are identified. Third, evidence of these traces in the text of the Laozi is collected, with comments on their significance in the Daoist context.

Huck Finn’s struggles with his conscience, as depicted in Mark Twain’s famous novelThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(AHF) (1884), have been much discussed by philosophers; and various philosophical lessons have been extracted from Twain’s depiction of those struggles. Two of these philosophers stand out, in terms of influence: Jonathan Bennett and Nomy Arpaly. Here I argue that the lessons that Bennett and Arpaly draw are not supported by a careful reading of AHF. This becomes particularly apparent when we consider the final (...) part of the book, commonly referred to, by literary scholars, as ‘the evasion’. During the evasion Huck behaves in ways that are extremely difficult to reconcile with the interpretations of AHF offered by Bennett and Arpaly. I extract a different philosophical lesson from AHF than either Bennett or Arpaly, which makes sense of the presence of the evasion in AHF. This lesson concerns the importance of conscious moral deliberation for moral guidance and for overcoming wrongful moral assumptions. I rely on an interpretation of AHF that is influential in literary scholarship. On it the evasion is understood as an allegory about US race relations during the 20-year period from the end of the US Civil War to the publication of AHF. (shrink)

From Antiphilosophy to Worlds and from Beckett to Wittgenstein, the 110 entries in this dictionary provide detailed explanations and engagements with Badious's key concepts and major interlocutors.

This timely book analyses and evaluates ethical and social implications of recent developments in reporting surgeon performance. It contains chapters by leading international specialists in philosophy, bioethics, epidemiology, medical administration, surgery, and law, demonstrating the diversity and complexity of debates about this topic, raising considerations of patient autonomy, accountability, justice, and the quality and safety of medical services. Performance information on individual cardiac surgeons has been publicly available in parts of the US for over a decade. Survival rates for individual (...) cardiac surgeons in the UK have recently been released to the public. This trend is being driven by various factors, including concerns about accountability, patients' rights, quality and safety of medical care, and the need to avoid scandals in medical care. This trend is likely to extend to other countries, to other clinicians, and to professions beyond health care, making this text an essential addition to the literature available. (shrink)

Some contemporary Just War theorists, like Jeff McMahan, have recently built upon an individual right of self-defense to articulate moral rules of war that are at odds with commonly accepted views. For instance, they argue that in principle combatants who fight on the unjust side ought to be liable to punishment on that basis alone. Also, they reject the conclusion that combatants fighting on both sides are morally equal. In this paper, I argue that these theorists overextend their self-defense analysis (...) when it comes to the punishment of unjust combatants, and I show how in an important sense just and unjust combatants are morally equal. I contend that the individualistic and quid pro quo perspective of the self-defense analysis fails to consider properly how the international community, morally speaking, ought to treat combatants, and I set forth four elements of justice applicable to war, which, together, support the conclusion that in principle the international community should not take on the activity of punishing combatants solely for fighting on the unjust side. (shrink)

Stephen Mumford concludes a recent paper in Religious Studies, in which he advances a new causation-based analysis of miracles, by stating that the onus is ‘on rival accounts of miracles to produce something that matches it’. I take up Mumford 's challenge, defending an intention-based definition of miracles, which I developed earlier, that he criticizes. I argue that this definition of miracles is more consistent with ordinary intuitions about miracles than Mumford 's causation-based alternative. I further argue that Mumford has (...) failed to demonstrate any advantages that his approach to miracles has over an intention-based approach. (shrink)

Inspired by Smith, Ben-Moshe suggests that we should only accommodate conscientious objections in medicine based on moral beliefs that are true, or which closely approximate to the truth. He suggests that we can identify moral truths by consulting our consciences when our consciences adopt the standpoint of an impartial spectator. He also suggests some changes to our current practices in regard to the management of CO in medicine that would be needed were his proposal to be adopted. Here, I argue (...) that both Smith and Ben-Moshe underestimate the difficulties involved in adopting the standpoint of an impartial spectator. In particular, both authors fail to recognise the extent to which cognitive bias and ideological commitments prevent many of us from identifying the standpoint of an impartial spectator and also prevent us from realising that we are failing to be impartial. I also consider some different changes to current practices that would be needed if we were to take on Ben-Moshe’s approach to CO in medicine while also recognising the difficulties involved in adopting the standpoint of an impartial spectator. (shrink)

Many paradigmatic forms of animal rights and environmental activism have been classed as terrorism both in popular discourse and in law. This paper argues that the labelling of many violent forms of direct action carried out in the name of animal rights or environmentalism as ‘terrorism’ is incorrect. Furthermore, the claim is also made that even those acts which are correctly termed as terrorism are not necessarily wrongful acts. The result of this analysis is to call into question the terms (...) of public debate and the legitimacy of anti-terrorism laws targeting and punishing radical activism. (shrink)

This book introduces the history of third way ideology, surveys its various contrasting forms and locates it within the context of a recurrent crisis of modern European ideologies.

In this paper I develop an objection to the version of expressivism found in Allan Gibbard’s book Thinking How to Live, and I suggest that the difficulty faced by Gibbard’s analysis is symptomatic of a problem for expressivism more generally. The central claim is that Gibbard’s expressivism is unable to account for certain normative judgments that arise in the process of evaluating cases of innocent mistakes. I begin by considering a type of innocent mistake that Gibbard’s view is able to (...) capture, one that can occur in situations in which our judgments of what it makes sense to do come apart from our judgments of what it makes sense to plan to do. Whether or not such mistakes are possible is a normative question, and I argue against Gibbard that we should adopt a normative stance that rules out such mistakes. This leads me to consider a second type of innocent mistake, one that can arise when an agent is constituted in such a way as to be incapable of recognizing the appropriate course of action. I argue here that our full normative assessment of the situation incorporates judgments that cannot be captured by Gibbard’s expressivism. I conclude by suggesting that any form of expressivism that shares Gibbard’s commitment to account for an intimate tie between normative judgments and action will face a similar problem. (shrink)

In this article I argue that insanity defences such as M’Nagten should be abolished in favour of a defence of failed agency. It is not insanity per se, or any other empirical condition, which constitutes the moral reason for exculpation. Rather, we should first recognize the conditions for being a responsible moral agent. These include some capacity to direct and control one’s behavior, a non-delusional component, and the capacity to recognize that one’s behavior is expressive of what they have reason (...) to be doing. When either of these fail in a case involving alleged criminal behavior the defence of failed agency may be appealed to. There may be many causes, including and besides insanity, that give rise to use of the defence of failed agency. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between skin, ego and second skins. It does so conceptually by re-examining Freud’s suggestion, in The Ego and the Id, that the ego is first and foremost a bodily entity, while also being a projection of a surface (i.e. skin). Drawing upon Anzieu, a dynamic model of inter-weaving surfaces can be seen to underpin an understanding of the ego — and skin ego. This model is fundamentally spatialized. Even so, an appreciation of the spatialities of (...) skin and ego can be developed further. To illuminate these spatialities, this article examines two key experiences of T.E. Lawrence during his military service in Arabia (c. 1917), as he describes them in his autobiographical account Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In a meeting with British military police, and in the notorious Deraa rape incident, what is at stake is Lawrence of Arabia’s skins. Reading these experiences using Freud and Anzieu, the article argues that these events re-present an ongoing chafing of Lawrence’s skin, ego and second skins, which can be called his ‘skin of suffering’. (shrink)