The enjoyment of beauty has a peculiar, mildly intoxicating quality of feeling The science of aesthetics investigates the conditions under which things are felt as beautiful, but it has been unable to give any explanation of the nature and origin of beauty Psychoanalysis, unfortunately, has scarcely anything to say about beauty either.1 Freud.

Savulescu argues that it may be ethically acceptable for governments to require citizens be vaccinated against COVID-19. He also recommends that governments consider providing monetary or in-kind incentives to citizens to increase vaccination rates. In this response, we argue against mandatory vaccination and vaccine incentivisation, and instead suggest that targeted public health messaging and a greater responsiveness to the concerns of vaccine-hesitant individuals would be the best strategy to address low vaccination rates.

Perhaps the most troublesome medical decisionmaking cases facing state courts concern serious healthcare decisions involving patients with severe or profound retardation. The courts who face this issue encounter a difficult dilemma. A decision to terminate a medical treatment of a dependent, vulnerable person requires considerable solicitude. Allowing a helpless person to die sooner than is medically possible directly conflicts with that person's most basic right – the right to live. However, continuing treatment in the face of terminal illness may not (...) only prolong but also increase intense mental and physical suffering. Perpetuating near torture in the name of protecting a person's life may be equally worrisome. (shrink)

This paper is the companion to “Assessment of Information on Public Health Law Best Practices for Obesity Prevention and Control,” and the fourth of four action papers produced as part of the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control, convened June 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Society for Law, Medicine Ethics. The four action papers present options to address gaps in the four core elements (...) of public health legal preparedness as outlined in the relevant companion papers. The four core elements are: laws and legal authorities; legal competencies for public health professionals to apply those laws and authorities; coordination of law-based efforts across jurisdictions and sectors, and information on public health law best practices. (shrink)

This paper is the companion to “Assessment of Information on Public Health Law Best Practices for Obesity Prevention and Control,” and the fourth of four action papers produced as part of the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control, convened June 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Society for Law, Medicine Ethics. The four action papers present options to address gaps in the four core elements (...) of public health legal preparedness as outlined in the relevant companion papers. The four core elements are: laws and legal authorities; legal competencies for public health professionals to apply those laws and authorities; coordination of law-based efforts across jurisdictions and sectors, and information on public health law best practices. (shrink)

The best interests principle is commonly utilized in acute care settings to assist with decision making about life-saving and life-sustaining treatment. This ethical principle demands that the decision maker refers to some conception of quality of life that is relevant to the individual patient. The aim of this article is to describe the factors that are required to be incorporated into an account of quality of life that will provide a morally justifiable basis for making a judgement about the (...) future quality of life, and therefore the best interests, of critically ill patients who are mentally incompetent. This account consists of three major components - pain and suffering, body functioning, and autonomy - and is applicable in situations where very limited information is available to guide decision making. This framework helps to make decisions about the provision of life-saving treatment that are as consistent as possible in all patient situations. (shrink)

In 2008, Representative John Read of Mississippi recently co-sponsored state legislation that would ban restaurants from serving obese customers. He later admitted that the bill was a publicity stunt,meant to “shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi.” Although controversial, Read’s bill exemplifies both the current perception of obesity as a national public health problem and the general sentiment underlying the types of interventions that are being considered to address this issue. The proposed legislation also demonstrates how (...) policymakers can use or, in this case misuse, information about obesity to generate significant discussion on an issue along with ill-conceived legal interventions.Information sharing and the methods used to share best practices are components of the fourth core element of public health legal preparedness. (shrink)

In 2008, Representative John Read of Mississippi recently co-sponsored state legislation that would ban restaurants from serving obese customers. He later admitted that the bill was a publicity stunt,meant to “shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi.” Although controversial, Read’s bill exemplifies both the current perception of obesity as a national public health problem and the general sentiment underlying the types of interventions that are being considered to address this issue. The proposed legislation also demonstrates how (...) policymakers can use or, in this case misuse, information about obesity to generate significant discussion on an issue along with ill-conceived legal interventions.Information sharing and the methods used to share best practices are components of the fourth core element of public health legal preparedness. (shrink)

BackgroundInaccurate, false or incomplete research publications may mislead readers including researchers and decision-makers. It is therefore important that such problems are identified and rectified promptly. This usually involves collaboration between the research institutions and academic journals involved, but these interactions can be problematic.MethodsThese recommendations were developed following discussions at World Conferences on Research Integrity in 2013 and 2017, and at a specially convened 3-day workshop in 2016 involving participants from 7 countries with expertise in publication ethics and research integrity. The (...) recommendations aim to address issues surrounding cooperation and liaison between institutions and journals about possible and actual problems with the integrity of reported research arising before and after publication.ResultsThe main recommendations are that research institutions should: develop mechanisms for assessing the integrity of reported research that are distinct from processes to determine whether individual researchers have committed misconduct;release relevant sections of reports of research integrity or misconduct investigations to all journals that have published research that was investigated;take responsibility for research performed under their auspices regardless of whether the researcher still works at that institution or how long ago the work was done;work with funders to ensure essential research data is retained for at least 10 years.Journals should: respond to institutions about research integrity cases in a timely manner;have criteria for determining whether, and what type of, information and evidence relating to the integrity of research reports should be passed on to institutions;pass on research integrity concerns to institutions, regardless of whether they intend to accept the work for publication;retain peer review records for at least 10 years to enable the investigation of peer review manipulation or other inappropriate behaviour by authors or reviewers.ConclusionsVarious difficulties can prevent effective cooperation between academic journals and research institutions about research integrity concerns and hinder the correction of the research record if problems are discovered. While the issues and their solutions may vary across different settings, we encourage research institutions, journals and funders to consider how they might improve future collaboration and cooperation on research integrity cases. (shrink)

Johnson and Stricker published an opinion piece in the Journal of Medical Ethics presenting their perspective on the 2008 agreement between the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the Connecticut Attorney General with regard to the 2006 IDSA treatment guideline for Lyme disease. Their writings indicate that these authors hold unconventional views of a relatively common tick-transmitted bacterial infection caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that their opinions would clash with the IDSA's (...) evidence-based guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease. Their allegations of conflict of interest against the IDSA resemble those made against the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2000, which were found to be baseless. It is the responsibility of all physicians and medical scientists to stand up to antiscientific, baseless and unethical attacks on those who support an evidence-based approach to caring for patients. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom and commonsense morality tend to take the integrity of persons for granted. But for people in systematically unjust societies, self-respect and human dignity may prove to be impossible dreams.Susan Babbitt explores the implications of this insight, arguing that in the face of systemic injustice, individual and social rationality may require the transformation rather than the realization of deep-seated aims, interests, and values. In particular, under such conditions, she argues, the cultivation and ongoing exercise of moral imagination is (...) necessary to discover and defend a more humane social vision. Impossible Dreams is one of those rare books that fruitfully combines discourses that were previously largely separate: feminist and antiracist political theory, analytic ethics and philosophy of mind, and a wide range of non-philosophical literature on the lives of oppressed peoples around the world. It is both an object lesson in reaching across academic barriers and a demonstration of how the best of feminist philosophy can be in conversation with the best of “mainstream” philosophy—as well as affect the lives of real people. (shrink)

Sweeping in scope, penetrating in analysis, and generously illustrated with examples from the history of science, this new and original approach to familiar questions about scientific evidence and method tackles vital questions about science and its place in society. Avoiding the twin pitfalls of scientism and cynicism, noted philosopher Susan Haack argues that, fallible and flawed as they are, the natural sciences have been among the most successful of human enterprises-valuable not only for the vast, interlocking body of knowledge (...) they have discovered, and not only for the technological advances that have improved our lives, but as a manifestation of the human talent for inquiry at its imperfect but sometimes remarkable best. This wide-ranging, trenchant, and illuminating book explores the complexities of scientific evidence, and the multifarious ways in which the sciences have refined and amplified the methods of everyday empirical inquiry; articulates the ways in which the social sciences are like the natural sciences, and the ways in which they are different; disentangles the confusions of radical rhetoricians and cynical sociologists of science; exposes the evasions of apologists for religious resistance to scientific advances; weighs the benefits and the dangers of technology; tracks the efforts of the legal system to make the best use of scientific testimony; and tackles predictions of the eventual culmination, or annihilation, of the scientific enterprise. Writing with verve and wry humor, in a witty, direct, and accessible style, Haack takes readers beyond the "Science Wars" to a balanced understanding of the value, and the limitations, of the scientific enterprise. (shrink)

Background and objectivesIn Bahrain, maintaining life support at all costs is a cultural value considered to be embedded in the Islamic religion. We explore end-of-life decision making for brain dead patients in an Arab country where medical cultures are dominated by Western ideas and the lay culture is Eastern.MethodsIn-depth interviews were conducted from February to April 2018 with 12 Western-educated Bahraini doctors whose medical practice often included end-of-life decision making. Discussions were about who should make withdrawal of life support decisions, (...) how decisions are made and the context for decision making. To develop results, we used the inductive method of thematic analysis.ResultsInformants considered it difficult to engage non-medical people in end-of-life decisions because of people’s reluctance to talk about death and no legal clarity about medical responsibilities. There was disagreement about doctors’ roles with some saying that end-of-life decisions were purely medical or purely religious but most maintaining that such decisions need to be collectively owned by medicine, patients, families, religious advisors and society. Informants practised in a legal vacuum that made their ethics interpretations and clinical decision making idiosyncratic regarding end-of-life care for brain dead patients. Participants referred to contrasts between their current practice and previous work in other countries, recognising the influences of religious and cultural dimensions on their practice in Bahrain.ConclusionsEnd-of-life decisions challenge Western-trained doctors in Bahrain as they grapple with aligning respect for local culture with their training in the ethical practice of Western medicine. (shrink)

Cecilia, a fifteenth-century Christian martyr, has long been considered the patron saint of music. In this pathbreaking volume, ten of the best known scholars in the newly emerging field of feminist musicology explore both how gender has helped shape genres and works of music and how music has contributed to prevailing notions of gender. The musical subjects include concert music, both instrumental and vocal, and the vernacular genres of ballads, salon music, and contemporary African American rap. The essays raise (...) issues not only of gender but also of race and class, moving among musical practices of the courtly ruling class and the elite discourse of the twentieth-century modernist movement to practices surrounding marginal girls in Renaissance Venice and the largely white middle-class experiences of magazine and balladry. (shrink)

A nativist moral psychology, modeled on the successes of theoretical linguistics, provides the best framework for explaining the acquisition of moral capacities and the diversity of moral judgment across the species. After a brief presentation of a poverty of the moral stimulus argument, this chapter sketches a view according to which a so-called Universal Moral Grammar provides a set of parameterizable principles whose specific values are set by the child's environment, resulting in the acquisition of a moral idiolect. The (...) principles and parameters approach predicts moral diversity, but does not entail moral relativism. (shrink)

We argue that a turn toward virtue ethics as a way of understanding medical professionalism represents both a valuable corrective and a missed opportunity. We look at three ways in which a closer appeal to virtue ethics could help address current problems or issues in professionalism education—first, balancing professionalism training with demands for professional virtues as a prerequisite; second, preventing demands for the demonstrable achievement of competencies from working against ideal professionalism education as lifelong learning; and third, avoiding temptations to (...) dismiss moral distress as a mere “hidden curriculum” problem. As a further demonstration of how best to approach a lifelong practice of medical virtue, we will examine altruism as a mean between the extremes of self-sacrifice and selfishness. (shrink)

Is truth in the law just plain truth - or something sui generis? Is a trial a search for truth? Do adversarial procedures and exclusionary rules of evidence enable, or impede, the accurate determination of factual issues? Can degrees of proof be identified with mathematical probabilities? What role can statistical evidence properly play? How can courts best handle the scientific testimony on which cases sometimes turn? How are they to distinguish reliable scientific testimony from unreliable hokum? These interdisciplinary essays (...) explore such questions about science, proof, and truth in the law. With her characteristic clarity and verve, Haack brings her original and distinctive work in theory of knowledge and philosophy of science to bear on real-life legal issues. She includes detailed analyses of a wide variety of cases and lucid summaries of relevant scientific work, of the many roles of the scientific peer-review system, and of relevant legal developments. (shrink)

These interviews with Hélène Cixous offer invaluable insight into her philosophy and criticism. Culled from newspapers, journals, and books, _White Ink_ collects the best of these conversations, which address the major concerns of Cixous's critical work and features two dialogues with twentieth-century intellectuals Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. The interviews in _White Ink_ span more than three decades and include a new conversation with Susan Sellers, the book's editor and a leading Cixous scholar and translator. Cixous discusses her (...) work and writing process. She shares her views on literature, feminism, theater, autobiography, philosophy, politics, aesthetics, religion, ethics, and human relations, and she reflects on her roles as poet, playwright, professor, woman, Jew, and, her most famous, "French feminist theorist." Sellers organizes _White Ink_ in such a way that readers can grasp the development of Cixous's commentary on a series of vital questions. Taken together, the revealing performances in _White Ink_ provide an excellent introduction this thinker's brave and vital work—each one an event in language and thought that epitomizes Cixous's intellectual and poetic force. (shrink)

We examined the effects of three different training conditions, all of which involve the motor system, on kindergarteners’ mental transformation skill. We focused on three main questions. First, we asked whether training that involves making a motor movement that is relevant to the mental transformation—either concretely through action or more abstractly through gestural movements that represent the action —resulted in greater gains than training using motor movements irrelevant to the mental transformation. We tested children prior to training, immediately after training, (...) and 1 week after training, and we found greater improvement in mental transformation skill in both the action and move-gesture training conditions than in the point-gesture condition, at both posttest and retest. Second, we asked whether the total gain made by retest differed depending on the abstractness of the movement-relevant training, and we found that it did not. Finally, we asked whether the time course of improvement differed for the two movement-relevant conditions, and we found that it did—gains in the action condition were realized immediately at posttest, with no further gains at retest; gains in the move-gesture condition were realized throughout, with comparable gains from pretest-to-posttest and from posttest-to-retest. Training that involves movement, whether concrete or abstract, can thus benefit children's mental transformation skill. However, the benefits unfold differently over time—the benefits of concrete training unfold immediately after training ; the benefits of more abstract training unfold in equal steps immediately after training and during the intervening week with no additional training. These findings have implications for the kinds of instruction that can best support spatial learning. (shrink)

Life saving or life sustaining treatment may not be instigated in the clinical setting when such treatment is deemed to be futile and therefore not in the patient’s best interests. The concept of futility, however, is related to many assumptions about quality and quantity of life, and may be relied upon in a manner that is ethically unjustifiable. It is argued that the concept of futility will remain of limited practical use in making decisions based on the best (...) interests principle because it places such high demands on the individual responsible for decision making. This article provides a critical analysis of futility (in the context of the best interests decision-making principle), and proposes an ethically defensible notion of futility. (shrink)

To reassure those concerned about wholesale discontinuity between human existence and posthumanity, transhumanists assert shared ground with antiquity on vital challenges and aspirations. Because their claims reflect key misconceptions, there is no shared vision for transhumanists to invoke. Having exposed their misuses of Prometheus, Plato, and Aristotle, I show that not only do transhumanists and antiquity crucially diverge on our relation to ideals, contrast-dependent aspiration, and worthy endeavors but that illumining this divide exposes central weaknesses in transhumanist argumentation. What is (...) more, antiquity’s handling of these topics suggests a way through the impasse in current enhancement debates about human “nature” and helps to resolve a tension within transhumanists’ accounts of what our best moments signify about the ontological requirements for real flourishing. (shrink)

This volume documents the 17th Münster Lectures in Philosophy with Susan Haack, the prominent contemporary philosopher. It contains an original, programmatic article by Haack on her overall philosophical approach, entitled ‘The Fragmentation of Philosophy, the Road to Reintegration’. In addition, the volume includes seven papers on various aspects of Haack’s philosophical work as well as her replies to the papers. Susan Haack has deeply influenced many of the debates in contemporary philosophy. In her vivid and accessible way, she (...) has made ground-breaking contributions covering a wide range of topics, from logic, metaphysics and epistemology, to pragmatism and the philosophy of science and law. In her work, Haack has always been very sensitive in detecting subtle differences. The distinctions she has introduced reveal what lies at the core of philosophical controversies, and show the problems that exist with established views. In order to resolve these problems, Haack has developed some ‘middle-course approaches’. One example of this is her famous ‘Foundherentism’, a theory of justification that includes elements from both the rival theories of Foundationalism and Coherentism. Haack herself has offered the best description of her work calling herself a ‘passionate moderate’. (shrink)

The key organizing theme of Rorty and Beyond, edited by Randall Auxier, Eli Kramer, and Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński, is—as the title suggests—to consider what pragmatism and philosophy are and could be in a post-Rorty world. As Auxier puts it in his preface to the volume of 19 papers, "no one can deny that the world we now write in is one in which Rorty defined what pragmatism would be, and what it has become. To write beyond Rorty is to address (...) a world whose idea of pragmatism was formed by his work". And, in his introduction to the volume, Eli Kramer suggests that Rorty is best seen as a "transitional philosophical figure," one who "heralded and inspired a shift in philosophy from... (shrink)

There is a clear distinction between genuine and fraudulent reasoning. Being seduced by the latter can result in horrific consequences. This paper explores how we can arm ourselves, and others with the ability to recognize the difference between genuine and pseudo-reasoning, with the motivation to maintain an unbending commitment to follow the “impersonal” “norm-driven” rules of reason even in situations in which “non-reasonable” strategies appear to support short-term bests interests, and with the confidence that genuine reasoning is the best (...) defense against the pseudo-reasoning. It also provides a simple table of “markers” whereby genuine reasoning can be distinguished from the “fake stuff.”. (shrink)

Though we cherish freedom and equality, there are human relations we commonly take to be morally permissible despite the fact that they essentially involve an inequality specifically of freedom, i.e., parental and fiduciary relations. In this article, I argue that the morality of these relations is best understood through a very old and dangerous concept, the concept of status. Despite their historic and continuing abuses, status relations are alive and well today, I argue, because some of them are necessary. (...) We must therefore carefully specify the conditions in which such status relations may morally obtain, as well as the duties of virtue and duties of right to which all parties are subject when it does (including a duty of care) to clearly articulate the ways in which these putatively moral status relations that essentially involve an asymmetry of autonomy (status relations) can go well or badly even within the context of the Kantian tradition from which our current legal and social practices arose. To this end, I offer Kant's own concept of status as a promising one because in Kant's theory, status is a nexus of virtue and right that is reducible to neither property nor contract but akin to each in familiar ways. Once status is admitted as an alternative to property and contract, status may be extended beyond Kant's domestic paradigm, most perspicuously to institutional ethics. In this article, I sketch a status-based theory of stakeholding that locates environmental impact, institutional oppression, and other significant features of our moral landscape within a Kantian framework of duties rich enough to more accurately characterize the complexities of stakeholding than current tradition has allowed. (shrink)

The Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger is best known for his existential analysis (Daseinsanalyse) presented in a series of case studies in the 1940s, but his existential anthropology of mania of the early 1930s has received less attention. He introduced this new existential science as a disciplinary hybrid of existential philosophy and clinical psychiatry, and, in doing so, transformed the genre of narrow medical case study into a broader discourse of philosophical anthropology. The very ambitiousness of his method, however, tended (...) to eclipse the individuality of his manic patient; its delineation of the conditioning structures of manic experience rendered the patient’s life-history and her functional state as secondary to these structures. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s theory of imagination is a surprisingly fruitful nexus of explanation for the prima facie disparate characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially the sub-spectrum best characterized by the Sensory Integration (SI) and Intense World (IW) theories of ASD. According to the psychological theories that underpin these approaches to autism, upstream effects of sensory processing atypicalities explain a cascade of downstream effects that have been characterized in the diagnostic triad, e.g., poor sensory integration contributes to weak central coherence, (...) which in turn contributes to difficulty participating in a back and forth conversation. To see why Kant’s theory of imagination might be useful, consider that ASD is neither a sensory disorder nor an intellectual disorder per se. Cognitive dysfunction is a common comorbidity of ASD, not a characteristic of it. If we exclude sense and intellect, what’s left? According to Kant, imagination is a synthesizing faculty that mediates between sense and understanding. It does so by transforming intuition from the canonic and vital senses. The uses of imagination include our spatially formative, temporally associative, and communicatively affinitive production, where affinitive production includes sympathy and fantasy. Imagination is thus the faculty of sensory integration, embodied subjectivity, empathy, mindreading, and social cooperation. The wide range of how autism presents and how it is experienced can thus be understood in terms of the atypical development of specific functions of imagination. Kant’s theory of imagination provides a new perspective on how to organize our understanding of autism at the psychological level, one that makes sense of how some of the disparate characteristic phenomena of autism are systematically related and which might lead to novel predictions, research targets, or intervention recommendations. (shrink)

This essay looks at the way in which the end of the world syndrome manifests itself regularly as a form of human consciousness. It makes us alert to the possibility of our own instant expiry, causing us both to introspect, as well as to imagine the future of the species. Digitalization and digitization of trauma permits us to see the normality of death as an every present occurrence. Within this context, words have tremendous power, showing us that at each moment (...) we are being ushered into a space not necessarily of our own making. While it frightens us, yet the choices we have are limited to the class and ethnic locations of our everyday survival. While we live, we dream. Negation does not end ambition, it only proves the ephemerality of individual existence and makes us seek to use time as best as our imagination and survival capabilities allow. Our sadness about corporeality is mitigated by the dream we have of species continuity. (shrink)

Though Jana Mohr Lone refers to children’s striving to wonder, to question, to figure out how the world works and where they fit as the “philosophical self,” like its parent discipline, it could be argued that the philosophical self is actually the “parent self,”—the wellspring of all the other aspects of personhood that we traditionally parse out, e.g., the intellectual, moral, social, and emotional selves. If that is the case, then to be blind to “The Philosophical Child,” the latter being (...) the title of Jana Mohr Lone’s book, is, in a sense then, to be blind to the child. Thus, though Mohr Lone says that the subject of her book is to assist parents in supporting the development of children’s philosophical selves, that claim may mask the gift that this lovely book can bring to the parent-child relationship if it is interpreted as helping children to become “smarty pants” in the sense of acquiring esoteric skills to excel in the ivory-tower discipline of academic philosophy. This is not the focus of this book. This is not an invitation to learn about the history of philosophy— about what some wise, usually white, usually men said about the fundamental questions that intrigue all humans. This is not an invitation to memorize and thus to sit in awe of what others think —as is too often the case in university classrooms. This book, rather, is a guide to how to actually philosophize—how to use questions to energetically and courageously make progress toward finding answers that one, through reflection, comes to believe are the best, given the reasons and evidence available. And to the degree that we and our children are successful, we give ourselves and our children the gift of continuously learning to become ever wiser. (shrink)

The world perceived by a person undergoing vision without inversion of the retinal image has traditionally been described as inverted. Drawing on the philosophical work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the empirical research of Hubert Dolezal, I argue that this description is more reflective of a representationist conception of vision than of actual visual experience. The world initially perceived in vision without inversion of the retinal image is better described as lacking in lived significance rather than inverted; vision without inversion of (...) the retinal image affects the very content of the perceived world, including, importantly, its expressions and conducts, and not merely the orientation of this content. Moreover, I argue that the enactive approach, rather than a representationist approach, is best able to account for the perception of the world, after prolonged vision without inversion of the retinal image, as both normal and upright, yet still different from the world seen previously. Finally, in their attention to the perception of other people’s facial expressions, I argue that Merleau-Ponty and Dolezal draw out the existential significance of the enactive approach. In encountering another person, the most pressing task is generally not to observe this person’s features but, instead, to engage with this person’s expressions. (shrink)

In "Disabilities and First-Person Testimony: A Case of Defeat?" Hilary Yancey argues that in at least some cases we have “no significant reason to distrust” the evidential value of first-person testimony concerning the impact of a physical disability on that individual’s well-being. Her argument is premised on a defeasible principle of trust: One should trust the testimony of others regarding p whenever one recognizes that the testifier is in a position to know p. Since the subjective component of wellbeing is (...) fist-person privileged, that is, ordinarily the subject herself is in the best position to know, an audience to such testimony must be aware of a defeater in order to shift the burden of proof and block the testimony from counting as evidence. In the body of the paper Yancey argues that 1) conflicting first-person testimony does not constitute an inescapable content defeater and 2) neither irrational adaptive preferences nor low life expectations inescapably undercuts the reliability of these testifiers regarding matters of their own subjective well-being. The burden of proof is not globally shifted by either kind of defeater, Yancey argues, so at least some first-person testimony about disability must inform our beliefs about the nature of disabilities. In my comment I ask and attempt to answer three questions on Yancy’s behalf, then invite her to set me straight if I have it wrong. I go Kantian along the way. 1. Whence arises the worry, and why focus on these defeaters? 2. How common is PNT, anyway, and why does it matter? 3. On what grounds should we distrust PNT in particular cases? (shrink)

Liberal political theorists commend a comparatively orderly form of life. It is one in which individuals and groups who care about different things, and live in different ways, nevertheless share an overriding commitment to liberty and toleration, together with an ability to resolve conflicts and disagreements in ways that do not violate these values. Both citizens and states are taken to be capable of negotiating points of contention without resorting to forms of coercion such as abuse, blackmail, brainwashing, intimidation, torture (...) or other types of violence. In explaining what makes such a state of affairs possible, such theorists have tended to present the citizens of liberal polities as more or less rational individuals who are aware of the advantages of a pluralist, yet co-operative way of life, and understand what it takes to maintain them. Liberalism works best, they have suggested, when, and because, individuals understand its benefits, and therefore act broadly in accordance with the norms it prescribes. (shrink)

In chapter one I consider two arguments for the claim that we ought to attribute linguistic knowledge to speakers of a natural language. The a priori argument has it that a theory of understanding reveals what it is that speakers of a language know about their language. The second argument takes the form of an inference to the best explanation, emphasising the idea that speaking and understanding a language is a rational activity carried on by agents with intention and (...) purpose. Linguistic knowledge is attributed to speakers as a way of making such a practice intelligible. ;In chapter two, I examine the several sceptical worries and substantive objections that have been raised to the idea of linguistic knowledge. None of these objections is fatal; rather they direct our attention to the need to specify what kind of knowledge linguistic knowledge is. ;In chapter three I argue that we do best to think of the notion of implicit linguistic knowledge as a "place-holder". ;In chapter four, I turn to a discussion of implicit belief, drawing a distinction between the way in which the content of a belief might be represented in an agent's brain and the kind of access she has to that content. I argue against an account of implicit belief that is motivated by concerns about representation, and for one that focuses on the kind of access an agent has to her implicit beliefs. ;In chapter five I attempt to sketch an account of implicit linguistic knowledge that fulfills its explanatory agenda while avoiding the objections discussed in earlier chapters. A speaker's implicit linguistic knowledge, understood as a set of articulated psychological states, grounds her full-blooded linguistic dispositions. This analysis of implicit linguistic knowledge is not subject to standard objections to that notion. Furthermore, it provides a "non-reductive" explanation of a speaker's language mastery, since it holds a middle ground between strictly biological, or neurophysiological accounts and purely behavioristic accounts of what makes an agent a speaker of a language. ;Finally, I take up the question of whether Dummett can accept my account of implicit linguistic knowledge. (shrink)

David Bostock has produced a translation that admirably fulfills the Clarendon Aristotle Series’ goal of making Aristotle’s texts accessible to the Greekless philosophical reader. It is accurate without being overly literal and is probably the best available in English. Despite Bostock’s inelegant rendering of to ti en einai as "a what-being-is", and to ti esti as "a what-it-is", the translation is, on the whole, highly readable and brings out perspicuously the structure of Aristotle’s arguments.

In the face of disobedience, and in the name of the short-term goal of a smooth-functioning and/or happy household, parents often feel caught between two diametrically opposed parenting strategies; make it happen or let it go. However, either strategy of dictator or friend can seriously jeopardize a child’s long-term best interests. If children, adolescents, young adults, full adults or oldsters are even to hear, let alone reasonably answer, the prudential and ethical “whys” that their intended actions scream, they will (...) need to attend to health of their unique human capacity to reason. They will need to understand deeply that reason is not a capacity to be used solely in academic endeavors and/or for making a living, but rather that reason’s prime function is to assist in making the best of all possible lives. If parents want their children to understand this, then they need to walk the talk and invite reason into their homes. The result will be that authoritarian parents will need to let go, while “parents as friends” will need to belly up to the bar, in order to entrench the first rule of a reasonable household and that is that the best reason always wins. (shrink)

In informal terms, abductive reasoning involves inferring the best or most plausible explanation from a given set of facts or data. It is a common occurrence in everyday life and crops up in such diverse places as medical diagnosis, scientific theory formation, accident investigation, language understanding, and jury deliberation. In recent years, it has become a popular and fruitful topic in artificial intelligence research. This volume breaks new ground in the scientific, philosophical, and technological study of abduction. It presents (...) new ideas about inferential and information-processing foundations for knowledge and certainty. The authors argue that knowledge arises from experience by processes of abductive inference, in contrast to the view that it arises non-inferentially, or that deduction and inductive generalization are enough to account for knowledge. Much AI research is hypothetical, so the importance of this book is that it reports key discoveries about abduction that have been made as a result of designing, building, testing, and analyzing actual working knowledge-based systems for medical diagnosis and other abductive tasks. The book tells the story of six generations of increasingly sophisticated generic abduction machines, RED-1, RED-2, PEIRCE, MDX2, TIPS, QUAWDS, and the discovery of reasoning strategies that make it computationally feasible to form well-justified composite explanatory hypotheses, despite the threat of combinatorial explosion. The final chapter argues that perception is logically abductive and presents a layered-abduction computational model of perceptual information processing. This book will be of great interest to researchers in AI, cognitive science, and philosophy of science. (shrink)

The problem of the subject in global communication is that of persisting as a subject and maintaining identity. A biosemiotic perspective as developed by T. A. Sebeok can contribute to correctly thematizing the subject in a globalized world. Globalizationtoday evidences the status of the subject as an embodied subject, a body structured in the intercorporeal relation with other bodies, interconnected with other bodies. We believe that ‘global semiotics’ developed in the direction of what we have called ‘semioethics’ isthe discipline that (...) can best provide us with the instruments necessary for an adequate understanding of global communication today and of the subject that inhabits it. Semioethics points to the need of recovering the relation between signs and values and ultimately the human dimension of semiosis if life, human and nonhuman, is to flourish over the entire planet. (shrink)

Recently the view that Plato moves from optimism to pessimism concerning the best sociopolitical condition has come under attack. The present article concurs that this disjunction is too simplistic and finds emphasis on the regulative status of the Republic’s ideal of unity to be salutary. It diverges, however, on how to interpret it thus construed and the implications of its status as regulative for the Republic’s tie to the Laws where human governance is concerned. While unity through aretē remains (...) the guiding telos of Magnesia, the route through which it is sought diverges substantially from that of Kallipolis. This article demonstrates that it stretches the notion beyond all reasonable limits to call the Laws’ unity an approximation of the Republic’s and its infrastructure for communal maintenance, above all, the nocturnal council, the approximation of philosopher-rulers for which the earlier dialogue calls. (shrink)

Nobody seriously doubts the possibility, or the usefulness, of finding things out; that is something we all take for granted when we inquire about our plane schedule, the state of our bank account, the best treatment for our child's illness, and so forth – a presupposition of the most ordinary, everyday looking into things as well as of the most sophisticated scientific research, not to mention of the legal system. Of course, nobody seriously doubts, either, that sometimes, instead of (...) really looking into things, people fake, fudge, and obfuscate to avoid discovering unpalatable truths or having to give up comfortable tenets; that is something we all take for granted when we ask who paid for a reassuring (or a damning) study, who stands to gain from an Official Inquiry, which party an expert witness works for, and so on. -/- Of late, however, radical feminists, multiculturalists, sociologists and rhetoricians of science, and (I am embarrassed to say) a good many philosophers as well – though they look into questions about their plane schedules, bank accounts, medical treatments, etc., just like everyone else – profess to have seen through what the rest of us take for granted. (shrink)

Recently the view that Plato moves from optimism to pessimism concerning the best sociopolitical condition has come under attack. The present article concurs that this disjunction is too simplistic and finds emphasis on the regulative status of the Republic’s ideal of unity to be salutary. It diverges, however, on how to interpret it thus construed and the implications of its status as regulative for the Republic’s tie to the Laws where human governance is concerned. While unity through aretē remains (...) the guiding telos of Magnesia, the route through which it is sought diverges substantially from that of Kallipolis. This article demonstrates that it stretches the notion beyond all reasonable limits to call the Laws’ unity an approximation of the Republic’s and its infrastructure for communal maintenance, above all, the nocturnal council, the approximation of philosopher-rulers for which the earlier dialogue calls. (shrink)

Book synopsis: The influential philosopher Richard Rorty is the focus of volume 32 in the world-renowned Library of Living Philosophers series. The book includes Rorty's intellectual autobiography, 29 previously unpublished critical and descriptive essays by famous scholars, Rorty's replies to most of the essays, and a complete bibliography of Rorty's published works. Since Rorty passed away in 2007, his contributions to this volume are among the last things he wrote. Rorty is tremendously important. He transformed the discipline of philosophy during (...) the last quarter of the 20th century, while setting it on a new path for the 21st. In epistemology, the philosophy of language, culture, value, and politics, the impact of his thought is impossible to measure. Having achieved early prominence as a theorist and practitioner of analytic philosophy, Rorty pointed criticism at these accepted pursuits and methods of philosophy, particularly attacking widespread preoccupation with questions of truth, representation, and the foundations of knowledge. For better or worse, Rorty became the center of tremendous controversy, within and beyond the academy. Yet, his critique found its mark, providing a touchstone for numberless others to step into a more open marketplace of ideas. For nearly thirty years, Rorty promoted a new type of philosophical pragmatism with great persuasive power, and many have credited him with creating the renewed interest in the thought of classical American philosophy, especially in his hero John Dewey, with whom Rorty increasingly identified his own aims as his thought matured. Always controversial, Rorty's books and essays were read as carefully by his critics as by his admirers, and it seems that almost everyone holds a strong opinion about his writings, whether positive or negative, with very few thinkers to be found between these extremes. This volume brings together many of Rorty's best critics and supporters for a comprehensive assessment of his achievement and a final defense of the views for which he became so widely known. Rorty devoted some of his final energies to this volume. It stands as his final response to the intellectual world. (shrink)

Christian ethics are usually based on a theology of love. In the case of Christian relationships to nature, Christian environmental writers have either suggested eros as a primary source for Christian love, without dealing with traditional Christian arguments against eros, or have assumed agape (spiritual love or sacrificial love) is the appropriate mode, without defining how agape should function in human relationships with the nonhuman portion of the universe. I demonstrate that God’s love for nature has the same form and (...) characteristics as God’s love for human beings, and that because agape is self-giving, it is preferable to eros in relationships with the environment. Agape concerning nature (I) is spontaneous and unmotivated, (2) is indifferent to value, (3) creates value, (4) initiates relationships with the divine, (5) recognizes individuality, (6) provides freedom, and (7) produces action and suffering. Agape might best be defined, not as Platonic ascent above the world, but as completely self-giving engagement with the world. Human love for nature is often limited by a human inability to accept love, including divine love, from nature. Flowing from God, agape cannot require reciprocity; yet agape understands what “the other has to give and can offer it complete valuation. Agape is the ideal form of human interaction with nature, because agape does not require equal status or ability, or common goals or needs. Love between humans and members of the land (or sea) community can be sacrificial, and should be distinguished by a loss of self-regard and a willingness to suffer. Further philosophical and theological discussion of the role of reciprocity and sacrifice in love for nature is highly desirable. (shrink)

David Bostock has produced a translation that admirably fulfills the Clarendon Aristotle Series’ goal of making Aristotle’s texts accessible to the Greekless philosophical reader. It is accurate without being overly literal and is probably the best available in English. Despite Bostock’s inelegant rendering of to ti en einai as "a what-being-is", and to ti esti as "a what-it-is", the translation is, on the whole, highly readable and brings out perspicuously the structure of Aristotle’s arguments.

The crucial point of Brill’s study is that of fit: which critical methods prove most useful towards opening up which texts? Close investigations into the parameters of the language games of texts, critics, and methods enable us to determine which paths to take towards more complete descriptive analyses and critique. Such an emphasis on the philosophical method of Ludwig Wittgenstein reorients literary criticism to involve a conjoint responsibility to both reader and text as the literary critic assumes the humbler role (...) of a guide who assists a reader in/to diverse literary texts. Wittgenstein’s philosophical approach provides us with a strong means of developing such a method for literary criticism—a method that points the way forward beyond postmodern criticisms and to a categorically new approach to literary texts. Brill’s work discusses at length the implications of Wittgenstein for literary criticism and theory. The volume specifically investigates the implications of Wittgenstein’s work for a number of contemporary critical orientations. In addition, the research includes actual applications of Wittgenstein for literary criticism: diverse literary texts are approached via a Wittgensteinian method as a means of discerning which critical approaches might be more or less efficacious. Not only does the book provide a solid introduction to Wittgensteinian philosophy for the critical scholars, but it also provides a clear methodology useful to critics seeking a means to navigate through the entanglement of contemporary criticism and theory. Brill argues that a reliance upon the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein can enable literary critics to escape the seemingly endless dialectic between modern and postmodern theory. Instead of debating which theory is theoretically best, we need to describe when theories work—and when they do not. (shrink)