History,knowledge, and essence in the early Marx

A careful study of the concept of essence which is found in Marx's early writings will show that his theory of knowledge does not involve, as is often claimed, the acceptance of an unknown thing-in-itself and does not imply that we can only know objects as they have been constituted for-us. We can know things as they are in-themselves. To show this will also require that we recognize and explain how the early Marx can hold that the object of knowledge is both constituted and that it reflects or copies things as they are in-themselves.     

Distraction,amnesia, and the next-in-line effect

Two studies use a free recall task to track, moment by moment, cognitive repercussions of an upcoming performance. As in earlier research, subjects display impaired recall for events which immediately precede an anticipated public performance. This “next-in-line effect” occurs even if the “performance” consists of reading a word to oneself. However, subjects show no memory deficit if their performance is not anticipated, and they have generally poor recall if they know they will be performing—but not when. Distraction and amnesia accounts of these recall deficits are discussed. Ancillary findings illuminate the organization of memory in social settings.     

Adorno,Interpretation, and the Body

Abstract

Adorno sees experience as intrinsically interpretative. As interpretation requires normative constraints, in order to guide and channel this interpretative engagement, this opens the question of how experience acquires its motivating criteria. If experience is from the first criterially structured, how are these criteria acquired? Moreover, as these criteria are acquired in isolation from experience – as they are the precondition of that experience – are these criteria sensitive to the particularity of the experiences they produce? In order to address these questions, and the problems they threaten to create for Adorno’s epistemology, I look at Adorno’s theory of impulse and cognition. I argue that Adorno grounds the criterial structure of experience and reason in self-preservation. This provides both a motivation and a determining constraint on the criterial structure of experience. It is also a determining influence which is epistemically flexible and compatible with Adorno’s project of tracing the ‘non-identical’.     

Assessing the Relationships Among Prayer Expectancies, Race, and Self-Esteem in Late Life

When people pray, they have certain beliefs or expectations about the nature of the response they hope to receive. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between two specific prayer expectancies and self-esteem with data provided by a nationwide survey of older adults. The first has to do with the timing of answers to prayers while the second involves the ways prayers are answered. The data suggest that feelings of self-worth are highest when older people believe that only God knows when it is best to answer a prayer, and only God knows the best way to answer it. In contrast, self-esteem tends to be lower among older adults who believe prayers are answered right away and believe they get exactly what they ask for. However, further analysis reveals that the benefits of prayer expectancies are more evident among older African Americans than among older whites.     

Minority religions,litigation, and the prevention of harm

Religious anti-discrimination legislation institutionalises non-violent ways of living with radical difference associated with religious diversity. The need to govern the growing number of conflicts generated by increasingly pluralistic societies is a major reason governments have introduced a range of new laws relating to religion. These laws are important not only because they protect human rights, which they do, but also because they shape social processes that generate extreme harms such as mass murder and the sexual abuse of minors. A detailed examination of three case studies of minority religions illustrates this argument. The histories of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints and The Family demonstrate that the socio-cultural processes that result in sexual abuse in minority religions are similar to the processes that result in extreme violence and that litigation plays a key role in preventing the escalation of these processes, although it is of a post hoc nature. The case of the Ordo Templi Orientis demonstrates that religious anti-discrimination legislation proactively disrupts the socio-cultural processes that lead to the escalation of tension that results in serious forms of harm.     

Testimony,simulation, and the limits of inductivism

Although theorists disagree about precisely how to characterize the link between anger and moral judgment, that they are linked is routinely taken for granted in contemporary metaethics and philosophy of emotion. One problem with this assumption is that it ignores virtues like patience, which thinkers as different as Cassian, ?āntideva, and Maimonides have argued are characteristic of mature moral agents. The patient neither experience nor plan to experience anger in response to (at least some) wrongs. Nevertheless, we argue, they remain capable of judging such actions to be wrong. This indicates that a different account of the relationship between anger and moral judgment is required. We conclude by proposing one such account, showing how a metaethicist who was more attentive to the normative ethics of anger might set about reconstructing her position.     

Narrative,Self-Realization,and the Shape of a Life

Velleman, MacIntyre, and others have argued for the compositional view that lives can be other than equally good for the person who lives them even though they contain all and only the same moments, and that this is explained by their narrative structure. I argue instead for explanation by self-realization, partly by interpreting Siegfried Sassoon’s exemplary life-narrative. I decide between the two explanations by distinguishing the various features of the radial concept of narrative, and showing, for each, either that self-realization is just as good an account, or that we should prefer the self-realization account, of the composition it is supposed to explain. I conclude that, if the shape of a life matters, it matters because some shapes are self-realizations, not because they are narratives.     

Socrates,the primary question,and the unity of virtue

For Socrates, the virtues are a kind of knowledge, and the virtues form a unity. Sometimes, Socrates suggests that the virtues are all ‘one and the same’ thing. Other times, he suggests they are ‘parts of a single whole.’ I argue that (i) the ‘what is x?’ question is sophisticated, it gives rise to two distinct kinds of investigations into virtue, a conceptual investigation into the ousia and a psychological investigation into the dunamis, (ii) Plato recognized the difference between definitional accounts of the ousia and a psychological accounts of the dunamis, and (iii) the distinction between these two investigations can effectively resolve various interpretive puzzles regarding the unity of the virtues. It is argued that the virtues are ‘one and the same’ psychologically, while they are ‘parts of a single whole’ conceptually.     

Self-esteem,anxiety, and the avoidance of self-focused attention

The present study was designed to provide converging support for the hypothesis that individuals with low self-esteem (low SEs) find self-focused attention more anxiety provoking, relative to people with high self-esteem (high SEs). Subjects were premeasured for their self-esteem and given a brief opportunity to “practice” two tasks that they believed they would be required to perform in a later part of the experiment. One task was practiced in front of a self-focusing stimulus—a large mirror (mirror task)—whereas the other was not (no-mirror task). Subjects evaluated the tasks after they had practiced each one. Consistent with the notion that self-focused attention is more anxiety provoking for individuals with lower self-esteem, it was observed that: (1) relative to high SEs, lowmedium SEs rated the mirror, but not the no-mirror, task as less enjoyable, and (b) low-medium, but not high, SEs preferred to avoid the mirror task for the alleged upcoming part of the experiment. Subjects high in dispositional private selfconsciousness also wanted to avoid the mirror task, particularly if they were also low in self-esteem. Contrary to prediction, success-failure feedback from a previous task had no effect on subjects' task preferences. Theoretical explanations and implications are discussed.     

Ontology,Set Theory,and the Paraphrase Challenge

Journal of Philosophical Logic - In many ontological debates there is a familiar challenge. Consider a debate over X s. The “small” or anti-X side tries to show that they can paraphrase...     

The good,the bad,and the trivial

Dreadful and dreaded outcomes are sometimes brought about via the accumulation of individually trivial effects. Think about inching toward terrible health or toward an environmental disaster. In some such cases, the outcome is seen as unacceptable but is still gradually realized via an extended sequence of moves each of which is trivial in terms of its impact on the health or environment of those involved. Cases of this sort are not only practically challenging, they are theoretically challenging as well. For, they raise puzzling complications concerning the assessment of conduct. In particular, given cases of this sort, we seem forced to conclude that, sometimes, each current doing in an extended sequence of moves can be correctly assessed as permissible (relative to a certain set of concerns) even though the sequence foreseeably leads to an outcome that is unacceptable (relative to that same set of concerns) and even though acceptable outcomes are available. And this seems paradoxical. I argue that this (apparent) puzzle glosses over complications associated with action individuation and units of agency. Reflection on these complications makes it clear that in cases of the sort that have given rise to the puzzle, there is an accurate way of seeing what is being done at various particular moments that clearly brings out the tight connection between a current doing and non-trivial damage that is to be expected (and is indeed bound to occur if the doing is completed without a hitch).     

Depression, SSRIs, and the supposed obligation to suffer mentally

Within both popular and academic literature, concerns have been expressed about the implications of antidepressant use on character development. In this paper, I identify specific versions of these worries and argue that they are misguided. I begin by arguing that the obligation to suffer if it will bring about a noble character is imagined. Legitimate concerns about character enhancement remain, but they do not count against most antidepressant use. Thus there is no moral prohibition against antidepressant use. Furthermore, some of the calls for caution about antidepressant use, such as those expressed by the President's Council on Bioethics, are overstated.     

Decision theory,reinforcement learning,and the brain

Decision making is a core competence for animals and humans acting and surviving in environments they only partially comprehend, gaining rewards and punishments for their troubles. Decision-theoretic concepts permeate experiments and computational models in ethology, psychology, and neuroscience. Here, we review a well-known, coherent Bayesian approach to decision making, showing how it unifies issues in Markovian decision problems, signal detection psychophysics, sequential sampling, and optimal exploration and discuss paradigmatic psychological and neural examples of each problem. We discuss computational issues concerning what subjects know about their task and how ambitious they are in seeking optimal solutions; we address algorithmic topics concerning model-based and model-free methods for making choices; and we highlight key aspects of the neural implementation of decision making.     

Freedom,self-prediction,and the possibility of time travel

Philosophical Studies - Do time travellers retain their normal freedom and abilities when they travel back in time? Lewis, Horwich and Sider argue that they do. Time-travelling Tim can kill his...     

Hand dominance, attention, and the choice between responses

Thirty pairs of matched right- and left-handed subjects carried out a serial C.RT task involving reaches between 2.4 cm square contact grids set at 2.4 cm intervals in a horizontal line. In one condition they responded with the right hand alone, in a second with the left and in a third they had to choose between hands on each trial responding to left side grids with the left hand and to right side grids with the right.

All subjects took longer to respond when they had to choose between hands than when they used either hand alone. In the one-hand conditions neither group showed any effect of hand dominance. When choices had to be made between hands both groups responded faster with their dominant than with their nondominant hands.

Analysis of the results was undertaken in terms of two hypothetical systems of instructions which might control machines designed to carry out similar tasks. It is concluded that in some tasks hand dominance can be described in terms of an attentional bias towards the field of operation of one effector rather than another. In the present task the effects of such possible attentional biases were shown not to interact with other effects, such as the facilitation of successive responses by repeated use of the same limb. These latter effects seem to depend on processes underlying execution of responses rather than choices between responding limbs.     

Reciprocity,Vulnerability, and the Moral Significance of Herd Immunity

This article proposes a novel defense of vaccine mandates: such policies are justifiable because they protect the capabilities of individuals who cannot cultivate individual immunity against infection. We begin by considering a nearby argument that has recently enjoyed popularity, which claims individuals have an enforceable obligation to get vaccinated because they have benefited from community protection (often referred to as ‘herd immunity’), and thus they ought to do their fair share in sustaining that public good by getting vaccinated. We object, however, that this kind of argument misstates the ethical basis for vaccine mandates because community protection primarily protects unvaccinated people. We contend that the duty to vaccinate is not fundamentally an obligation to make a fair contribution to a public good from which vaccinated people benefit, but a duty to protect the wellbeing of otherwise vulnerable third parties. We flesh out our view by drawing on Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach.     

Concluding Dialogue: Challenging the Past, Grasping the Future

Abstract. A dialogue between the outgoing and incoming directors of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science took place as part of the inaugural symposium. In their conversation they speak of the past and present challenges and goals of the Center, outline what is foremost in their minds, and offer glimpses into what they see as the Center's priorities for future work.     

Moral Response-dependence, Ideal Observers, and the Motive of Duty: Responding to Zangwill

Moral response-dependent metaethical theories characterize moral properties in terms of the reactions of certain classes of individuals. Nick Zangwill has argued that such theories are flawed: they are unable to accommodate the motive of duty. That is, they are unable to provide a suitable reason for anyone to perform morally right actions simply because they are morally right. I argue that Zangwill ignores significant differences between various approvals, and various individuals, and that moral response-dependent theories can accommodate the motive of duty.     

On the Conceptual, Psychological, and Moral Status of Zombies, Swamp-Beings, and Other 'Behaviourally Indistinguishable'Creatures

In this paper 1 argue that it would be unprincipled to withhold mental predicates from our behavioural duplicates however unlike us they are "on the inside." My arguments are unusual insofar as they rely neither on an implicit commitment to logical behaviourism in any of its various forms nor to a verificationist theory of meaning. Nor do they depend upon prior metaphysical commitments or to philosophical "intuitions". Rather, in assembling reminders about how the application of our consciousness and propositional attitude concepts are ordinarily defended, 1 argue on explanatory and moral grounds that they cannot be legitimately withheld from creatures who behave, and who would continue to behave, like us. I urge that we should therefore reject the invitation to revise the application of these concepts in the ways that would be required by recent proposals in the philosophy of mind.     

Liberalism,Citizenship, and the Private Interest in Schooling

Schools in liberal societies are responsible for producing liberal citizens. However, if they have too robust a view of citizenship, they may find themselves undermining the view of good lives held by many pacific and law abiding groups. Here I argue against treating citizenship as an educational good that simply trumps private values when they conflict and in favor of a view that seeks a context sensitive balance between such conflicting goods. The paper explores Rawls's distinction between two moral powers as a way of understanding the character of some of the private interests in schooling.