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4530.313231
In the world of literary non-fiction, John McPhee is a god. Through his New Yorker essays, and prize-winning books McPhee has mastered the art of narrative non-fiction. In fact, he pretty much invented the genre. …
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5662.313477
This paper explores the connection between the feelings that arise in grief and two kinds of “grief tech” that we use to regulate these feelings: music and AI-driven chatbots. “Grief tech” covers a broad range of practices, rituals, and artefacts that shape how we experience and express our grief. Music and AI might seem to have little in common with one another. However, I argue that both afford something not all forms of grief tech do – collaborative possibilities for world-making – and therefore can help the bereaved reconstruct “habits of intimacy” lost when a loved one dies. This (re)constructive impact is part of their world-making potency. And it is a crucial part of grief work. In this way, both music and AI potentially have a deep effect on our emotions, agency, and self-regulative capacities. This is why both are particularly powerful forms of grief tech.
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20145.313496
A normative power is supposed to be a power to directly change normative reality. We can, of course, indirectly change normative reality by affecting the antecedents of conditional norms: By unfairly insulting you, I get myself to have a duty to apologize, but that is simply due to a pre-existing duty to apologize for all unfair insults. …
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43598.313504
What does it mean to theorize about bounded rationality? Today’s post situates theories of bounded rationality against a competing Standard Picture that came to prominence during the middle of the twentieth century. …
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51474.313515
The fields of social neuroscience and neuroeconomics have experienced rapid growth over the past decade, yet little research has focused on issues related to midlife or older age. In light of the profound demographic changes occurring in our society, this is an important research gap. The past century witnessed a near doubling of life expectancy, and it is projected that in <50 years, there will be close to 90 million Americans aged 65 years (Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics, 2010). We are on the brink of profound demographic changes both in the USA and the world at large (see: http://www.prb.org/Articles/2011/agingpopulationclocks.aspx).
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237124.313522
Being low status is unpleasant. Sometimes it’s only that, and barely so: when it comes to sports, my athletic abilities mark me as inferior, and won’t get me attention from professional recruiters, but I don’t care. …
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288162.313528
One of my recurring themes is that people underrate epistemic discipline: doing the most basic legwork of good thinking. Both critical thinking books and rationalist writings often focus on fallacies involving subtleties like the Monty Hall problem and Bayes’ Theorem. …
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415975.313534
If morality and self-interest don’t always coincide—if
sometimes doing what’s right isn’t also best for
you—morality can sometimes require you to do what will be worse
for you or to forgo an act that would benefit you. But some
philosophers think a reasonable morality can’t be too demanding
in this sense and have proposed moral views that are less so.
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466511.313559
from our empathy for the dead. Much needs to be done to give a satisfying defense of this proposal — beginning with a defense of the suggestion that empathy can extend, beyond the living, to those who experience nothing. But the very suggestion that empathy plays even some role in grief may itself come as a surprise. In fact, the suggestion goes against the grain of much recent theorizing in philosophical discussions of grief. One of the major divides in this literature is between “agent-centered” views of grief, which claim that the loss to be grieved is a loss from the perspective of the bereaved person’s life, and “object-centered” views, which claim that the loss to be grieved is an objective loss of life, not, primarily, a loss to the griever. Empathy disappears from view in this setting because it straddles the divide between self (the grieving agent) and other (the objective loss); in empathizing, it is said that one feels for another.
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466564.313566
Thoughts are like Pancakes, and the Brain is the Pan wherein they are tossed and turned by the several Objects, as several Hands.
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528601.313572
The field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) safety evaluations aims to test AI behavior for problematic capabilities like deception. However, some scientists have cautioned against the use of behavior to infer general cognitive abilities because of the human tendency to overattribute cognition to everything. They recommend the adoption of a heuristic to avoid these errors that states behavior provides no evidence for cognitive capabilities unless there is some theoretical feature present to justify that inference.
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536807.313578
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” Accusing your opponents of hypocrisy is one of the most effective rhetorical tactics known to man. But does the fact that your opponents are hypocrites provide substantive evidence against the correctness of their views? …
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649394.313584
On the occasion of the 7th International Conference on Economic Philosophy that we organized last month in Reims, we had two book sessions on recently published books dealing with the main topic of the conference, “market(s) and democracy.” One of the sessions was about Petr Špecián’s (Charles University) Behavioral Political Economy and Democratic Theory (Routledge, 2022) and the other discussed Lisa Herzog’s (University of Groningen) Citizen Knowledge. …
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655817.31359
Episodic memory gives us the ability to mentally travel back in time to revisit and relive past experiences. In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the function of episodic memory. According to the orthodox view, episodic memory should be considered a part of a constructive system that simulates the future for sophisticated foresight and flexible planning. In this paper, I offer a novel alternative view. I argue that episodic memory provides invaluable information about the past behavior of others, allowing us to identify reliable and trustworthy partners while avoiding dealing with cheaters. Theoretical models demonstrate that cooperation in groups can be maintained if potential partners use information about an individual’s past behavior to guide their behavior toward that individual. In these reputation-based models of human cooperation, individuals with a history of cheating are ostracized, whereas those with a history of cooperative behavior flourish. Against this theoretical background, it is possible to see a function of episodic memory in facilitating information exchange about others, helping group members make effective partner choices, and avoiding the risk of interacting with cheaters. If correct, episodic memory may have played a significant role in the evolution of human cooperation.
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679994.313597
Vices are often attributed to corporations. We hear that casinos are ‘greedy,’ mining companies are ‘ruthless,’ or tobacco companies are ‘dishonest.’ This chapter addresses two questions. First, are such corporate vices reducible to the vices of individual role-bearers? Second, which traits of corporations are properly labelled ‘vices’? The chapter argues that corporate vice is sometimes irreducible to the vices of role-bearers: corporations can be vicious ‘over and above’ the traits of role-bearers. It further argues that different corporations should be held to different standards: what it means for a casino to be ‘vicious’ is different from what it means for a mining company to be ‘vicious,’ for example.
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708412.313603
A common assumption in discussions of abilities is that phobias restrict an agent's abilities. Arachnophobics, for example, can't pick up spiders. I wonder if this is true, if we're talking about the pure 'can' of ability. …
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831758.313609
What should morally conscientious agents do if they must choose among options that are somewhat right and somewhat wrong? Should you select an option that is right to the highest degree, or would it perhaps be more rational to choose randomly among all somewhat right options? And how should lawmakers and courts address behavior that is neither entirely right nor entirely wrong? In this first book-length discussion of the “gray area” in ethics, Martin Peterson challenges the assumption that rightness and wrongness are binary properties. He argues that some acts are neither entirely right nor entirely wrong, but rather a bit of both. Including discussions of white lies and the permissibility of abortion, Peterson’s book presents a gradualist theory of right and wrong designed to answer pressing practical questions about the gray area in ethics.
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931705.313619
Ordinal, interval, and ratio scales are discussed and arguments for the thesis that “better than” comparisons reside on interval or ratio scales are laid out. It is argued that linguistic arguments are not conclusive since alternative rank-based definitions can be given, and that in general “better than” comparisons do not have a common scale type. Some comparison dimensions reside on ratio scales, whereas others do not show any evidence of lying on a scale stronger than an ordinal scale.
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932770.313625
Recent advances in stem cell-derived human brain organoids and microelectrode array (MEA) technology raise profound questions about the potential for these systems to give rise to sentience. Brain organoids are 3D tissue constructs that recapitulate key aspects of brain development and function, while MEAs enable bidirectional communication with neuronal cultures. As brain organoids become more sophisticated and integrated with MEAs, the question arises: Could such a system support not only intelligent computation, but subjective experience? This paper explores the philosophical implications of this thought experiment, considering scenarios in which brain organoids exhibit signs of sensory awareness, distress, preference, and other hallmarks of sentience. It examines the ethical quandaries that would arise if compelling evidence of sentience were found in brain organoids, such as the moral status of these entities and the permissibility of different types of research. The paper also explores how the phenomenon of organoid sentience might shed light on the nature of consciousness and the plausibility of artificial sentience. While acknowledging the speculative nature of these reflections, the paper argues that the possibility of sentient brain organoids deserves serious consideration given the rapid pace of advances in this field. Grappling with these questions proactively could help set important ethical boundaries for future research and highlight critical avenues of scientific and philosophical inquiry. The thought experiment of sentient brain organoids thus serves as a valuable lens for examining deep issues at the intersection of neuroscience, ethics, and the philosophy of mind.
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990503.313631
Scientists have the epistemic responsibility of producing knowledge. They also have the social responsibility of aligning their research with the needs and values of various societal stakeholders. Individual scientists may be left with no guidance on how to prioritise and carry these different responsibilities. As I will argue, however, the responsibilities of science can be harmonised at the collective level. Drawing from debates in moral philosophy, I will propose a theory of the collective responsibilities of science that accounts for the internal diversity of research groups and for their different responsibilities.
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1095316.313639
Australia II became the first foreign yacht to win the America’s Cup in 1983. The boat had a revolutionary wing keel and a better underwater hull form. In official documents, Ben Lexcen is credited with the design. He is also listed as the sole inventor of the wing keel in a patent application submitted on February 5, 1982.
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1143863.313645
There’s a straightforward sense in which we ought to do whatever we have (all things considered) most reason to do. But permissibility is a laxer notion than this. Conceptually, it may be permissible to do less than what we have most reason to do. …
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1152492.313651
As I’m writing the final words of my manuscript and – hopefully – would-be book tentatively titled “Social Choice and Public Reason,” I’ve been rereading some classics of social choice theory to find some material relevant for the general introduction. …
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1205517.313664
It’s a cliché about philosophers that they ponder the meaning of life. But, by and large, they don’t. Philosophers rarely consider the question and when they do, they often dismiss it as nonsense. Among those who take life’s meaning seriously, many do so only to proclaim that it has none: life is meaningless or absurd.
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1515471.31367
The name “capitalism” derives from Marx’s false analogy between medieval land ownership and the “ownership of the means of production.” However, unlike medieval land, capital goods can be rented out, e.g., by Frank Knight’s entrepreneur, and then the capital owner does not hold those management or product rights. What then is the characteristic institution in our civilization? It is the voluntary renting of workers. What then is the relationship between Classical Liberalism, the dominant philosophy behind Economics, and a lifetime labour contract? Frank Knight had plenty to say about the doctrine of inalienable rights which disallows such contracts.
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1523052.313677
Philosophers are fond of wild hypotheticals: psychophysicists confined to black-and-white rooms, trolleys targeting victims with unnerving precision, magic rings that turn those who wear them invisible (and perhaps unjust). …
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1546621.313683
One of the most urgent challenges facing the left is the need to come to terms with the meanings of “imperialism” and “anti-imperialism” in our time. When the workers of the world are facing increasingly dire conditions of labor and survival, and the possibility of direct military confrontation between and among the globe’s major economic powers seems less remote every day, it is crucially important for Marxists to assess the nature of the international class struggle in the current
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1567920.313689
Some debates about the role of non-epistemic values in science discuss the so-called Value-Free Ideal together with the autonomy thesis, to the point that they may be assumed to be intertwined. As I will argue in this article, the two are independent from one another, are supported by different arguments, and ought to be disentangled. I will also show that the arguments against value-freedom and supporting a value-laden conception of science, are different from the arguments against autonomy and supporting democratized science. Moreover, while some of the arguments against autonomy and for democratized science may actually be consistent with value-freedom, they conflict with some philosophical views about the internal diversity of well-designed epistemic communities. This article distinguishes the Value-Free Ideal and the autonomy thesis, as well as their antitheses, and investigates their relations to some of the socio-epistemological models of the social organization of scientific research. Its aim is to make explicit some incompatibilities between different normative frameworks developed in philosophy of science.
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1695981.313696
As predicted, the nationalist parties have slightly improved their scores in the European parliamentary elections. Put together, the parties belonging to the European Conservatives & Reformists and Identity & Democracy groups have won 131 seats over the 720 of the European Parliaments, to which we should also add part of the 100 seats earned by non-aligned parties. …
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1924374.313702
In the middle chapters of Morality by Degrees, Alastair Norcross argues that there is no principled way to determine the absolute value of an action (incl. whether it is ‘good’ or ‘bad’), only whether it is better or worse than specific alternatives.1
It’s natural to assume that we should judge an action good (bad) just to the extent that it makes things go better (worse) than if the act hadn’t been performed. …