Simple 'Might's, Indicative Possibilities and the Open Future

This paper concerns sentences of the form 'It is possible that p ', where the embedded p is in the indicative mood, like 'It is possible that Michael leads the league in scoring', and simple ' might ' sentences like 'Michael might lead the league in scoring', but not ' might have ' sentences like 'Michael might have led the league in scoring'. The thesis that the target sentences invariably express epistemic possibility is developed, argued for and defended from objections. The position defended is then compared with Robert Stalnaker's different account of ' might 's, and finally is applied to some arguments concerning the open future.     

Equality,Bias, and the Right to an Equal Say

Philosophia - Thomas Christiano argues that democracies acquire a right to rule by being the unique embodiment of publicly accessible rules. Justice requires the equal advancement of the interests...     

The Virtual Universe, the Open Large Group, and Maturational Processes in the Future

The technology of the future will bring a new, world-wide, interactive but virtual social experience to our parlors and desktops in place of face-to-face relationships. Governments will stand or fall on the basis of electronically mediated communication with masses of people. Adventures in this new open large group context in the outer world, and the maturation of our inner selves may mirror as well as contribute to each other. Small group experience and group therapy, in particular, may play a vital role.     

Science, Democracy, and the Right to Research

Debates over the politicization of science have led some to claim that scientists have or should have a “right to research.” This article examines the political meaning and implications of the right to research with respect to different historical conceptions of rights. The more common “liberal” view sees rights as protections against social and political interference. The “republican” view, in contrast, conceives rights as claims to civic membership. Building on the republican view of rights, this article conceives the right to research as embedding science more firmly and explicitly within society, rather than sheltering science from society. From this perspective, all citizens should enjoy a general right to free inquiry, but this right to inquiry does not necessarily encompass all scientific research. Because rights are most reliably protected when embedded within democratic culture and institutions, claims for a right to research should be considered in light of how the research in question contributes to democracy. By putting both research and rights in a social context, this article shows that the claim for a right to research is best understood, not as a guarantee for public support of science, but as a way to initiate public deliberation and debate about which sorts of inquiry deserve public support.     

The Right to Strike and the Right to Work

ABSTRACT L. J. MacFarlane has contended that the right to strike is a keystone of democratic society. The right to strike is a right to free expression, association, assembly and power. And the right to strike is dependent upon the right to employment. MacFarlane denies that the right to employment is a universal right. I argue that unless the right to work is indeed universal MacFarlane's main contention is false. Forced unemployment is, amongst other things, the denial of full citizen status, for the range of liberties that constitutes the right to strike is essential to full participation in democracy. It is only when the traditional liberty-rights of free expression and striking are seen as being based upon such recipient rights as rights to media space and time and upon the right to work, that they can play their proper democratic role. This conception of those rights is missing from the work of Rawls and Nozick as well as from MacFarlane.     

Being Right,and Being in the Right

This paper presents a critique of a prevailing conception of the relation between moral reasoning and judgment on the one hand, and moral goodness on the other. I argue that moral reasoning is inescapably vulnerable to moral, as opposed to merely theoretical, failure. This, I argue, means that there is something deeply misleading in the way that Kant's moral theory, and some of its main rivals, have invited us to conceive of their subject matter.     

Reconstructing an Open Order from Its Closure, with Applications to Space-Time Physics and to Logic

In his logical papers, Leo Esakia studied corresponding ordered topological spaces and order-preserving mappings. Similar spaces and mappings appear in many other application areas such the analysis of causality in space-time. It is known that under reasonable conditions, both the topology and the original order relation ${\preccurlyeq}$ can be uniquely reconstructed if we know the “interior” ${\prec}$ of the order relation. It is also known that in some cases, we can uniquely reconstruct ${\prec}$ (and hence, topology) from ${\preccurlyeq}$ . In this paper, we show that, in general, under reasonable conditions, the open order ${\prec}$ (and hence, the corresponding topology) can be uniquely determined from its closure ${\preccurlyeq}$ .     

They're Right,Well ... Mostly Right: Research Evidence and an Agenda to Rescue Personality Testing From 1960s Insights

We comment on the major points made by Murphy and Dzieweczynski (this issue) and Hogan (this issue), and although we agree with much of what they say, we go on to provide solid reasons for hope in the development and use of personality tests in personnel selection settings. We review current theorizing and research in this area, which suggests that the pessimistic view-that personality tests necessarily yield low-to-no criterion-related validity-is unwarranted and untrue. The points of caution offered by Murphy, Dzieweczynski, and Hogan should therefore also be viewed as points of scientific challenge, and to that end we conclude by outlining an agenda of major topics for future research.     

儿童心理理论的模块论:假设、方法与模型

模块论是儿童心理理论研究领域中主要理论取向之一。这一观点认为,儿童的心理理论能力是一种天赋的、领域特殊的心理结构,个体出生时便以模块的形式存在于神经系统,其发展是一个内部生物机能逐渐展开的过程。该文试图对儿童心理理论模块论的基本假设(天赋性和领域特殊性)、主要实验方法、重要模型(ToMM-SP模型)等进行评述,并就心理理论的天赋性与发展性、领域特殊性与领域普遍性、实验研究的方法与结果等引发争鸣的问题进行简评。     

Right to life, right to die and assisted suicide

In 2002 Diane Pretty went to the European Court of Human Rights to gain a ruling about assisted suicide. In the course of this she argued that the right to life implied a right to die. This paper will consider, from an ethical rather than a legal point of view, how the right to life might imply (or not) a right to die, and whether this includes either a right that others shall help us die, or a right against non-interference if others are willing to help us. It does this by comparing the right to life to conceptions of property rights. This is not because I think human life is property, but because some of our ways of talking and thinking about our control over our own lives seem to be similar to our thoughts about our control over our own property. The right to life has traditionally been taken as a negative right, that is a right that others not deprive us of life. Pretty's argument, however, seems to be moving towards a positive right, not just to remain alive, but to be enabled in doing what we want to with our lives, and thus disposing of them if we so choose. The comparison with property rights suggests that the right to die only applies if our lives are ours absolutely, and may itself be modified by the suggestion that suicide harms all of us by devaluing human life in general.