Understanding cognitive effort expended during assessments is essential to improving efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility within these assessments. Pupil dilation is commonly used as a psychophysiological measure of cognitive effort, yet research on its relationship with effort expended specifically during language processing is limited. The present study adds to and expands on this literature by investigating the relationships among pupil dilation, trial difficulty, and accuracy during a vocabulary test. Participants (n = 63, Mage = 19.25) completed a subset of trials from (...) the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test while seated at an eye‐tracker monitor. During each trial, four colored images were presented on the monitor while a word was presented via audio recording. Participants verbally indicated which image they thought represented the target word. Words were categorized into Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty. Pupil dilation during the Medium and Hard trials was significantly greater than during the Easy trials, though the Medium and Hard trials did not significantly differ from each other. Pupil dilation in comparison to trial accuracy presented a more complex pattern, with comparisons between accurate and inaccurate trials differing depending on the timing of the stimulus presentation. These results present further evidence that pupil dilation increases with cognitive effort associated with vocabulary tests, providing insights that could help refine vocabulary assessments and other related tests of language processing. (shrink)

How should physical entities be characterized? Physicalists, who have most to do with the notion, usually characterize the physical by reference to two components: 1. The physical entities are the entities treated by fundamental physics with the proviso that 2. Physical entities are not fundamentally mental (that is, do not individually possess or bestow mentality) Here I explore the extent to which the appeals to fundamental physics and to the NFM (“no fundamental mentality”) constraint are appropriate for characterizing the physical, (...) especially for purposes of formulating physicalism. Ultimately, I motivate and defend a version of an account incorporating both components: The physics-based NFM account: An entity existing at a world w is physical iff (i) it is treated, approximately accurately, by current or future (in the limit of inquiry, ideal) versions of fundamental physics at w, and (ii) it is not fundamentally mental (that is, does not individually either possess or bestow mentality). (shrink)

Drawing on the moving story of the last year of the life of her own treasured dog, Ody, she presents an in-depth exploration of the practical, medical, and moral issues that trouble pet owners confronted with the decline and death of their ...

Self-control is integral to successful human agency. Without it we cannot extend our agency across time and secure central social, moral, and personal goods. But self-control is not a unitary capacity. In the first part of this paper we provide a taxonomy of self-control and trace its connections to agency and the self. In part two, we turn our attention to the external conditions that support successful agency and the exercise of self-control. We argue that what we call moral security (...) is a critical foundation for agency. Parts three and four explore what happens to agency when moral security is lacking, as in the case of those subject to racism, and those living in poverty. The disadvantages suffered by those who are poor, in a racial minority or other oppressed group, or suffering mental illness or addiction, are often attributed to a lack of individual self-control or personal responsibility. In particular, members of these groups are often seen as irresponsibly focused on short-term pleasures over long-term good, a view underwritten by particular psychological theories of self-control. We explore how narratives about racism and poverty undermine moral security, and limit and distort the possibility of synchronic and diachronic self-control. Where moral security is undermined, the connection between self-control and diachronic goods often fails to obtain and agency contracts accordingly. We close with some preliminary reflections on the implications for responsibility. (shrink)

Shows how John Dewey’s visit to China from 1919 to 1921 influenced his social and political thought.

The World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on 11th March 2020, recognising that the underlying SARS-CoV-2 has caused the greatest global crisis since World War II. In this chapter, we present a framework to evaluate whether and to what extent the use of digital systems that track and/or trace potentially infected individuals is not only legal but also ethical.

Contemporary Bioethics: A Reader with Cases is the most cutting-edge bioethics anthology/casebook available. Incorporating introductions, readings, and cases that span the breadth of the discipline, this exceptional volume captures the spirit of bioethics as a rich, exciting, and continuously evolving field. Addressing all of the essential topics--including abortion, reproductive ethics, end-of-life care, research ethics, and the allocation of resources--it also moves beyond the "classic" approach of other books by extending into timely and provocative issues like terrorism, cosmetic surgery, immigration, genetic (...) manipulations, links between first- and third-world health, and--unique to this book--environmental sustainability and climate change. In addition, Contemporary Bioethics is the only book of its kind that includes both philosophical and religious perspectives.The text opens with a substantial introduction that presents key ethical principles, theories, and methods and shows students how to use these tools to frame and address ethical dilemmas in medicine. Covering the brief yet captivating history of the field, the introduction also considers the role of religion in the development of bioethics and examines differences between secular and religious modes of argumentation. Each of the seven topical chapters contains an in-depth introduction, a selection of concise readings representing a diverse range of moral perspectives, discussion questions, and a collection of full-length and provocative case studies that enable students to further explore the issues.Ideal for introductory courses in bioethics and biomedical ethics, Contemporary Bioethics is supplemented by a Instructor's Manual on CD and a Companion Website containing resources for both students and professors, including chapter summaries, additional cases with discussion questions, ideas for further reading, vocabulary flashcards, self-quizzes, and more. (shrink)

As the first poem of the last book of Ovid'sAmores, 3.1 parallels the programmaticrecusatioof the first two books, which present the traditional opposition of elegy to epic. InAmores3.1, the personified Elegy and Tragedy compete for Ovid's poetic attention, and scholars have accordingly scrutinized the generic tension between elegy and tragedy in this poem. My study, by contrast, focusses on the import of the metapoeticlocusin which Ovid sets his contest between the two genres, by considering the linguistic and allusive play in (...) the opening lines. Ovid exploits the metaphor of literary tradition as an ancient and sacred forest to transform an author's choice of poetic genre into a walk in the woods. Moreover, allusions to Virgil'sAeneid6.179 and Ennius'Annales175 (Sk.) in the first line guide Ovid's audience to expect the more traditional opposition of elegy and epic. The less conventional contest between the genres of elegy and tragedy soon overturns this expectation; nevertheless, elegy's customary opposite, epic, maintains a presence in the form of a woodland context for Ovid's innovative generic opposition. (shrink)

When I see a tree through my window, that particular worldly tree is said to be ‘in’, ‘on’, or ‘before’ my mind. My ordinary visual link to it is ‘intentional’. How similar to this link are the links between me and particular worldly trees when I see them in photographs, or in paintings? Are they, in some important sense, links of the same kind? Or are they links of importantly different kinds? Or, as a third possibility, are they at once (...) links of the same important kind and also links of importantly different sub-kinds within that kind? This paper takes up these taxonomical questions. After fleshing out (a bit) the characterisation of these different subject-object links, I explain and expand upon an approach to answering the taxonomical questions originally set out by Kendall Walton. I then follow this approach a certain distance, connecting it with the question of how to mark the boundary between perception and cognition. My investigations support the conclusion that the three types of links just described are not importantly different in kind. (shrink)

In this special section, Ekman and Cordaro (2011); Izard (2011); Levenson (2011); and Panksepp and Watt (2011) have each outlined the latest instantiation of each lead author’s theoretical model of basic emotions. We identify four themes emerging from these models, and discuss areas of agreement and disagreement. We then briefly evaluate the models’ usefulness by examining how they would account for an emotion that has received considerable empirical attention but does not fit clearly within or outside of the basic emotion (...) category: pride. Finally, we compare the central themes covered by the four models with themes emerging from current emotion research, to conclude that, for the most part, the models are comprehensive; they largely converge with the current state of affective science research. (shrink)

Prison as a Torturous Institution Philosophers working on torture have largely failed to address the widespread use of torture in the U.S. prison system. Drawing on a victim-focused definition of torture, I argue that the U.S. prison system is a torturous institution in which direct torture occurs (the use of solitary confinement) and in which torture is allowed to occur through the toleration of sexual assault of inmates and the conditions of mass incarceration. The use and toleration of torture expresses (...) and reinforces the moral exclusion of those subjected to it, particularly African Americans. Importantly, this moral exclusion and the experience of torture may be created and reinforced through institutional practices independently of the intentions of individuals acting within those institutions. By prioritizing torture victims’ experiences and severing the link between torture and intention, my account forces a recognition that, far from being inconsistent with U.S. values, torture is deeply embedded within U.S. institutions. (shrink)

Imogen Dickie's book Fixing Reference promises to reframe the investigation of mental intentionality, or what makes thoughts be about particular things. Dickie focuses on beliefs, and argues that if we can show how our ordinary means of belief formation sustain a certain connection between what our beliefs are about and how they are justified, we will have explained the ability of these ordinary means of belief formation to generate beliefs that are about particular objects. A worry about Dickie's approach is (...) that the explanation it offers is circular and thus not a genuine explanation of mental aboutness. This article develops a version of that worry in detail and turns it aside. Nonetheless, I argue that the explanatory value of the account remains unclear. While it does promise a dialectical advance over traditional theorizing about aboutness, it does not reveal how our ordinary means of belief formation make beliefs be about what they are about. (shrink)

In the Critique of Judgment, Kant claims that genius is a talent for art, but not for science. Despite his restriction of genius to the domain of fine art, several recent interpreters have suggested that genius has a role to play in Kant’s account of cognition in general and scientific practice in particular. In this paper, I explore Kant’s reasons for excluding genius from science as well as the reasons that one might nevertheless be tempted to think that his account (...) allows room for the scientific genius. I then argue that Kant’s concerns are not only epistemic, but also moral, and together, they give us good reason for resisting the veneration of genius. (shrink)

Liberal democracies who perpetrate torture represent an apparent paradox: a flagrant violation of human rights by states supposedly dedicated to protecting human rights. In liberal democracies, the political, social, and legal narratives used to justify torture portray torture as an individual act motivated by important moral values. This individualized torture narrative then shapes the moral framework through which the public, policy-makers, and individual torturers view torture, and masks the institutional nature of torture perpetration. It is this interaction between an individualized (...) torture narrative and the moral framework of torture that distinguishes democratic perpetrators (Critchell et al. 2017, 9-10) from nondemocratic perpetrators of torture. Yet, the implementation of a torture program in a democratic state is remarkably similar to the implementation of a torture program in a nondemocratic state. In both cases, torture is an institutionalized practice given moral and political meaning through broad social and political narratives. This chapter uses the post-9/11 US torture program as a case study of a democratic perpetrator in order to explore the interaction between democratic narratives of torture, state implementation of torture, and the moral psychology of individual torturers. This permits a way of thinking about torture perpetration that goes beyond a myopic focus on torture as individual act to understand the interaction and mutual reinforcement of different forms of torture perpetration. This analysis also offers a starting point from which to consider how to resist and oppose torture narratives that sustain democratic tortue, a question I explore in the conclusion of this chapter. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is the question of in virtue of what first-person thoughts are about what they are about. I focus on a dilemma arising from this question. On the one hand, approaches to answering this question that promise to be satisfying seem doomed to be inconsistent with the seeming truism that first-person thought is always about the thinker of the thought. But on the other hand, ensuring consistency with that truism seems doomed to make any answer to (...) the question unsatisfying. Contrary to a careful and enticing recent effort to both sharpen and escape this dilemma by Daniel Morgan, I will argue that the dilemma remains pressing both for broadly epistemic and broadly causal-acquaintance-based accounts of the aboutness of first-person thought. (shrink)

Increased technological and pharmacological interventions in patient care when patient outcomes are uncertain have been linked to the escalation in moral and ethical dilemmas experienced by health care providers in acute care settings. Health care research has shown that facilities that are able to attract and retain nursing staff in a competitive environment and provide high quality care have the capacity for nurses to process and resolve moral and ethical dilemmas. This article reports on the findings of a systematic review (...) of the empirical literature (1980 — February 2007) on the effects of unresolved moral distress and poor ethical climate on nurse turnover. Articles were sought to answer the review question: Does unresolved moral distress and a poor organizational ethical climate increase nurse turnover? Nine articles met the criteria of the review process. Although the prevailing sentiment was that poor ethical climate and moral distress caused staff turnover, definitive answers to the review question remain elusive because there are limited data that confidently support this statement. (shrink)

What are rules? -- Why are rules important? -- Rules for the classroom -- Rules at school -- Rules in the community -- Follow the law! -- Rules and laws must be fair -- All together now -- It's good to have rules.

Arguably no concept is more fundamental to science than that of causality, for investigations into cases of existence, persistence, and change in the natural world are largely investigations into the causes of these phenomena. Yet the metaphysics and epistemology of causality remain unclear. For example, the ontological categories of the causal relata have been taken to be objects (Hume 1739), events (Davidson 1967), properties (Armstrong 1978), processes (Salmon 1984), variables (Hitchcock 1993), and facts (Mellor 1995). (For convenience, causes and effects (...) will usually be understood as events in what follows.) Complicating matters, causal relations may be singular (Socrates’s drinking hemlock caused Socrates’s death) or general (Drinking hemlock causes death); hence the relata might be tokens (e.g., instances of properties) or types (e.g., types of events) of the category in question. Other questions up for grabs are: Are singular causes metaphysically and/or epistemologically prior to general causes or vice versa (or neither)? What grounds the intuitive asymmetry of the causal relation? Are macro-causal relations reducible to micro-causal relations? And perhaps most importantly: Are causal facts (e.g., the holding of causal relations) reducible to non-causal facts (e.g., the holding of certain spatiotemporal relations)? (shrink)

Reconstructions of quantum theory are a novel research program in theoretical physics which aims to uncover the unique physical features of quantum theory via axiomatization. I focus on Hardy’s “Quantum Theory from Five Reasonable Axioms” (2001), arguing that reconstructions represent a modern usage of axiomatization with significant points of continuity to von Neumann’s axiomatizations in quantum mechanics. In particular, I show that Hardy and von Neumann share similar methodological ordering, have a common operational framing, and insist on the empirical basis (...) of axioms. In the reconstruction programme, interesting points of discontinuity with historical axiomatizations include the stipulation of a generalized space of theories represented by a framework and the stipulation of analytic machinery at two levels of generality (first by establishing a generalized mathematical framework and then by positing specific formulations of axioms). In light of the reconstruction programme, I show that we should understand axiomatization attempts as being context–dependent, context which is contingent upon the goals of inquiry and the maturity of both mathematical formalism and theoretical underpinnings within the area of inquiry. Drawing on Mitsch (2022)’s account of axiomatization, I conclude that reconstructions should best be understood as provisional, practical, representations of quantum theory that are well suited for theory development and exploration. However, I propose my context–dependent re–framing of axiomatization as a means of enriching Mitsch’s account. (shrink)

Fallibilists claim that one can know a proposition on the basis of evidence that supports it even if the evidence doesn't guarantee its truth. Jessica Brown offers a compelling defence of this view against infallibilists, who claim that it is contradictory to claim to know and yet to admit the possibility of error.

My dissertation covers a number of different topics in Kant scholarship, but is driven by one central question: how do our sense-based capacities to perceive, desire, and feel relate to our capacity to reason? I take the answer to this question to be key to understanding much about Kant’s philosophical system. For topics as diverse as the role that sensation plays in practical knowledge, the character of moral motivation, the nature of evil, or Kant’s theory that we are morally required (...) to believe in our immortality and God’s existence, I claim that the correct reading turns on a novel approach to the relation between our rational and sensitive capacities. To properly understand this relation, we must overcome the deeply entrenched thought that Kant inherits his conception of reason from the rationalists, and his conception of sense experience from the empiricists. This would be to adopt a fundamentally dualistic philosophy, on which reason and the senses are independently intelligible and sometimes even diametrically opposed. On Kant’s actual view, our capacities to perceive, feel, and desire are metaphysically interdependent with and thus not intelligible in isolation from our capacity to reason. Developing the details of this more unified position leads to satisfying philosophical accounts of a number of controversial issues in Kant scholarship that have suffered under a dualistic framework. (shrink)

The debate about the ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence dates from the 1960s :741–742, 1960; Wiener in Cybernetics: or control and communication in the animal and the machine, MIT Press, New York, 1961). However, in recent years symbolic AI has been complemented and sometimes replaced by Neural Networks and Machine Learning techniques. This has vastly increased its potential utility and impact on society, with the consequence that the ethical debate has gone mainstream. Such a debate has primarily focused on principles—the (...) ‘what’ of AI ethics —rather than on practices, the ‘how.’ Awareness of the potential issues is increasing at a fast rate, but the AI community’s ability to take action to mitigate the associated risks is still at its infancy. Our intention in presenting this research is to contribute to closing the gap between principles and practices by constructing a typology that may help practically-minded developers apply ethics at each stage of the Machine Learning development pipeline, and to signal to researchers where further work is needed. The focus is exclusively on Machine Learning, but it is hoped that the results of this research may be easily applicable to other branches of AI. The article outlines the research method for creating this typology, the initial findings, and provides a summary of future research needs. (shrink)

A core principle of modern science holds that a scientific explanation must not attribute will or agency to natural phenomena.The Restless Clock examines the origins and history of this, in particular as it applies to the science of living things. This is also the story of a tradition of radicals—dissenters who embraced the opposite view, that agency is an essential and ineradicable part of nature. Beginning with the church and courtly automata of early modern Europe, Jessica Riskin guides us (...) through our thinking about the extent to which animals might be understood as mere machines. We encounter fantastic robots and cyborgs as well as a cast of scientific and philosophical luminaries, including Descartes and Leibnitz, Lamarck and Darwin, whose ideas gain new relevance in Riskin's hands. The book ends with a riveting discussion of how the dialectic continues in genetics, epigenetics, and evolutionary biology, where work continues to naturalize different forms of agency.The Restless Clock reveals the deeply buried roots of current debates in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology. (shrink)

This volume is about the notion of 'defeat' in philosophy. The idea is that someone who has some knowledge, or a justified belief, can lose this knowledge or justified belief if they acquire a 'defeater' - evidence that undermines it. The contributors examine the role of defeat not just in epistemology but in practical reasoning and ethics.

Epistemic two-dimensional semantics, advocated by Chalmers and Jackson, among others, aims to restore the link between necessity and a priority seemingly broken by Kripke, by showing how armchair access to semantic intensions provides a basis for knowledge of necessary a posteriori truths. The most compelling objections to E2D are that, for one or other reason, the requisite intensions are not accessible from the armchair. As we substantiate here, existing versions of E2D are indeed subject to such access-based objections. But, we (...) moreover argue, the difficulty lies not with E2D but with the typically presupposed conceiving-based epistemology of intensions. Freed from that epistemology, and given the right alternative—one where inference to the best explanation provides the operative guide to intensions—E2D can meet access-based objections, and fulfill its promise of restoring the desirable link between necessity and a priority. This result serves as a central application of Biggs and Wilson, according to which abduction is an a priori mode of inference. (shrink)

Debates about terrorism and technology often focus on the potential uses of technology by non-state terrorist actors and by states as forms of counterterrorism. Yet, little has been written about how technology shapes how we think about terrorism. In this chapter I argue that technology, and the language we use to talk about technology, constrains and shapes our understanding of the nature, scope, and impact of terrorism, particularly in relation to state terrorism. After exploring the ways in which technology shapes (...) moral thinking, I use two case studies to demonstrate how technology simultaneously hides and enables terroristic forms of state violence: police control technologies and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones. In both these cases, I argue that features of these technologies, combined with a narrative of precision and efficiency, serves to mask the terroristic nature of the violence that these practices inflict and reinforces the moral exclusion of those against whom these technologies are deployed. In conclusion, I propose that identifying acts of terrorism requires a focus on the impact of technologies of violence (whether they are “high tech” or not) on those most affected, regardless of whether users of these technologies conceive of their actions as terroristic. (shrink)

The philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy that examines the profound philosophical questions that arise from scientific research and theories. A sub-discipline of philosophy that emerged in the twentieth century, the philosophy of science is largely a product of the British and Austrian schools of thought and traditions. The first in-depth reference in the field that combines scientific knowledge with philosophical inquiry, The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia is a two-volume set that brings together an international team of (...) leading scholars to provide over 130 entries on the essential concepts in the philosophy of science. The areas covered include biology, chemistry, epistemology and metaphysics, physics, psychology and mind, the social sciences, and key figures in the combined studies of science and philosophy. Essays range in length from 3,000 to 7,500 words and represent the most up-to-date philosophical thinking on timeless scientific topics such as determinism, explanation, laws of nature, perception, individuality, time, and economics as well as timely topics like adaptation, conservation biology, quantum logic, consciousness, evolutionary psychology, and game theory. Offering thorough explorations and destined to become the most authoritative presentation of the field available, this Encyclopedia is a unique and groundbreaking guide to this fascinating field. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWith over 560 citations reported on Google Scholar by April 2018, a publication by Juslin and Gabrielsson presented evidence supporting performers’ abilities to communicate, with hig...

This book argues that the major traditions in the philosophy of language have mistakenly focused on highly idealized linguistic contexts. Instead, it presents a non-ideal foundational theory of language that contends that the essential function of language is to direct attention for the purpose of achieving diverse social and political goals. Philosophers of language have focused primarily on highly idealized linguistic contexts in which cooperative agents are working toward the shared goal of gaining information about the world. This approach abstracts (...) away from important issues like power, ideology, social position, and diversity of goals which are crucial to explaining linguistic phenomena both at the semantic and pragmatic levels. This book begins by examining the work of some of the pioneers of this tradition--primarily David Lewis, Paul Grice, and Robert Stalnaker. The author shows that various problems have their source in idealizations made at the foundational level of linguistic theory and proposes to rebuild from the ground-up. She presents a non-ideal foundational theory of language which retains the major insights of traditional frameworks while rejecting the social idealizations that guide them. Then, she explores the social and political applications of her account to issues such as dog whistling, propaganda, slurs and racist speech, silencing, and manipulation. Non-Ideal Foundations of Language will appeal to researchers and advanced students in philosophy of language who are interested in the social and political applications of language, as well as traditional metasemantic theory. (shrink)

The term "fake news" ascended rapidly to prominence in 2016 and has become a fixture in academic and public discussions, as well as in political mud-slinging. In the flurry of discussion, the term has been applied so broadly as to threaten to render it meaningless. In an effort to rescue our ability to discuss—and combat—the underlying phenomenon that triggered the present use of the term, some philosophers have tried to characterize it more precisely. A common theme in this nascent philosophical (...) discussion is that contemporary fake news is not a new kind of phenomenon, but just the latest iteration of a broader kind of phenomenon that has played out in different ways across the history of human information-dissemination technologies. While we agree with this, we argue that newer sorts of fake news reveal substantial flaws in earlier understandings of this notion. In particular, we argue that no deceptive intentions are necessary for fake news to arise; rather, fake news arises when stories which were not produced via standard journalistic practice are treated as though they had been. Importantly, this revisionary understanding of fake news allows us to accommodate and understand the way that fake news is plausibly generated and spread in a contemporary setting, as much by non-human actors as by ordinary human beings. (shrink)

According to the naïve, pre-theoretic conception, lying seems to be characterized by the intent to deceive. However, certain kinds of bald-faced lies appear to be counterexamples to this view, and many philosophers have abandoned it as a result. I argue that this criticism of the naïve view is misplaced; bald-faced lies are not genuine instances of lying because they are not genuine instances of assertion. I present an additional consideration in favor of the naïve view, which is that abandoning it (...) comes at an extremely high price; alternative accounts which eschew the intent-to-deceive condition on lying have difficulty distinguishing lies from non-literal speech. (shrink)

Technologies to rapidly alert people when they have been in contact with someone carrying the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 are part of a strategy to bring the pandemic under control. Currently, at least 47 contact-tracing apps are available globally. They are already in use in Australia, South Korea and Singapore, for instance. And many other governments are testing or considering them. Here we set out 16 questions to assess whether — and to what extent — a contact-tracing app is ethically justifiable.

A number of examples of studies from the field ‘The Philosophy of Mathematical Practice’ (PMP) are given. To characterise this new field, three different strands are identified: an agent-based, a historical, and an epistemological PMP. These differ in how they understand ‘practice’ and which assumptions lie at the core of their investigations. In the last part a general framework, capturing some overall structure of the field, is proposed.

Aristotle's De Anima discusses the psychological causes of what he calls locomotion – i.e, roughly, purpose-driven behavior. One cause is desire. The other is cognition, which falls into two kinds: thought (nous) and imagination (phantasia). Aristotle’s discussion is dense and confusing, but I argue that we can extract from it an account that is coherent, compelling, and that in many ways closely anticipates modern psychological theories, in particular Dual Processing theory. Animals and humans are driven to pursue objects that attract (...) us. Objects take on that power when we cognize them as valuable. If we rely on imagistic, automatic, uncontrolled processing mechanisms – Aristotle’s phantasia, which closely anticipates the modern notion of Type 1 processing – our resulting desires and actions will be impulsive. If we rely instead on rational, critical, deliberative capacities – Aristotle’s thought, which closely anticipates the modern notion of Type 2 processing – our resulting desires and actions will be reflective. Animals are capable only of the first kind of behavior; the human psyche is constituted of an animal psyche united with an intellectual one, so we are capable of both. (shrink)

Pt. I. The apparent good. Evaluative cognition -- Perceiving the good -- Phantasia and the apparent good -- pt. II. The apparent good and non-rational motivation. Passions and the apparent good -- Akrasia and the apparent good -- pt. III. The apparent good and rational motivation. Phantasia and deliberation -- Happiness, virtue, and the apparent good -- Practical induction -- Conclusion : Aristotle's practical empiricism.

The null morpheme POS -- The null morpheme EVAL -- Implicature : a brief review -- Evaluativity as implicature -- Extensions of the evaluativity implicature.

Research groups around the world are currently busy trying to invent new life in the laboratory, looking for extraterrestrial life, or making machines increasingly more life-like. In the case of astrobiology, any newly discovered life would likely be very old, but when discovered it would be new to us. In the case of synthetic organic life or life-like machines, humans will have invented life that did not exist before. Together, these endeavors amount to what we call the emerging plurality of (...) lives because we see a future where we are surrounded by, and interact with, life of many different origins, as well as entities that we have not traditionally seen as being alive. In the future these entities will likely possess properties that we so far have only associated with living beings, thereby transcending and perhaps blurring the borders between life and non-life. (shrink)

As the range of potential uses for Artificial Intelligence, in particular machine learning, has increased, so has awareness of the associated ethical issues. This increased awareness has led to the realisation that existing legislation and regulation provides insufficient protection to individuals, groups, society, and the environment from AI harms. In response to this realisation, there has been a proliferation of principle-based ethics codes, guidelines and frameworks. However, it has become increasingly clear that a significant gap exists between the theory of (...) AI ethics principles and the practical design of AI systems. In previous work, we analysed whether it is possible to close this gap between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of AI ethics through the use of tools and methods designed to help AI developers, engineers, and designers translate principles into practice. We concluded that this method of closure is currently ineffective as almost all existing translational tools and methods are either too flexible or too strict. This raised the question: if, even with technical guidance, AI ethics is challenging to embed in the process of algorithmic design, is the entire pro-ethical design endeavour rendered futile? And, if no, then how can AI ethics be made useful for AI practitioners? This is the question we seek to address here by exploring why principles and technical translational tools are still needed even if they are limited, and how these limitations can be potentially overcome by providing theoretical grounding of a concept that has been termed ‘Ethics as a Service.’. (shrink)

Perception of temporal patterns is fundamental to normal hearing, speech, motor control, and music. Certain types of pattern understanding are unique to humans, such as musical rhythm. Although human responses to musical rhythm are universal, there is much we do not understand about how rhythm is processed in the brain. Here, I consider findings from research into basic timing mechanisms and models through to the neuroscience of rhythm and meter. A network of neural areas, including motor regions, is regularly implicated (...) in basic timing as well as processing of musical rhythm. However, fractionating the specific roles of individual areas in this network has remained a challenge. Distinctions in activity patterns appear between "automatic" and "cognitively controlled" timing processes, but the perception of musical rhythm requires features of both automatic and controlled processes. In addition, many experimental manipulations rely on participants directing their attention toward or away from certain stimulus features, and measuring corresponding differences in neural activity. Many temporal features, however, are implicitly processed whether attended to or not, making it difficult to create controlled baseline conditions for experimental comparisons. The variety of stimuli, paradigms, and definitions can further complicate comparisons across domains or methodologies. Despite these challenges, the high level of interest and multitude of methodological approaches from different cognitive domains (including music, language, and motor learning) have yielded new insights and hold promise for future progress. (shrink)